Jesus, Gospel Tradition and Paul in the Context of Jewish and Greco-Roman Antiquity: Collected Essays II 3161523156, 9783161523151, 9783161523533

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Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Herausgeber / Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich) Mitherausgeber / Associate Editors Friedrich Avemarie † (Marburg) Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala) Hans-Josef Klauck (Chicago, IL) Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg)

303

David E. Aune

Jesus, Gospel Tradition and Paul in the Context of Jewish and Greco-Roman Antiquity Collected Essays II

Mohr Siebeck

To Hans Dieter Betz Scholar, Mentor, Friend

David E. Aune, born 1939; 1970 PhD; 2008–2012 Walter Professor of New Testament & Christian Origins at the University of Notre Dame; since 2012 Emeritus; since 2001 Fellow of The Norwegian Royal Society of Sciences and Letters, Trondheim, Norway; since 2009 Fellow of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Oslo, Norway.

e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-152353-3 ISBN 978-3-16-152315-1 ISSN 0512-1604 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament) Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http: / /dnb.dnb.de. © 2013  by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany.  www.mohr.de 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, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset by Martin Fischer in Tübingen, printed by Gulde-Druck in Tübingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany.

Preface Twenty-one of the following twenty-two essays collected in this volume were originally published between 1991 and 2012 and reprinted here with the permission of the respective publishers (the original publication information and the permission information are included on the first page of each essay). The essay entitled “The Forgiveness Petition in the Lord’s Prayer: First century Literary, Liturgical and Cultural Contexts,” the only one not previously published, was originally presented at the Conference on Forgiveness sponsored by the University of Notre Dame at the Tantur Ecumenical Center in Jerusalem in May, 2005. Ten of these essays originated as papers delivered at conferences or seminars and have gone through various stages of revision, while eleven are Festschrift articles honoring friends in the field of New Testament (one of the benefits of ageing). While the earlier collection of twenty essays focused on apocalypticism, prophecy and magic in early Christianity,1 published between 1981 and 2006, the present volume focuses on a variety of issues in the interpretation of the Gospels, Gospel traditions, Paul and the Pauline letters. Nine of the following essays center on the interpretation of passages in the Gospels, Acts and the Pauline letters that I saw as particularly challenging or problematic. These include two essays on the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9–13 and Luke 11:2–4, “The Forgiveness Petition in the Lord’s Prayer” (pp. 57–74) and “Apocalyptic and the Lord’s Prayer” (pp. 75–93), the latter originally published with a different title as a contribution to the Festschrift honouring Harold W. Attridge. The history and function of a problematic antithetical saying of Jesus is discussed in “The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak (Mark 14:38b and Matthew 26:41b),” (pp. 94–106), which appeared in the Festschrift honouring my esteemed Doktorvater at the University of Chicago, Robert M. Grant, on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday. A long-time interest in the preface of Luke found expression in “Luke 1:1–4: Historical or Scientific Prooimion,” (pp. 107–115), an essay I contributed to the Festschrift honouring Alexander J. M. Wedderburn, centered on a critique of a stimulating monograph by Loveday Alexander. “Luke 20:34–35: A ‘Gnosticized’ Logion of Jesus?” (pp. 116–129) was originally contributed to the multi-volume Festschrift honouring Martin Hengel. During 1 David E. Aune, Apocalypticism, Prophecy and Magic in Early Christianity: Collected Essays (WUNT 199; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006).

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a year as Annual Professor at the Albright Archaeological Institute in Jerusalem in 2002–2003, I became interested in the archaeological and ritual purity issues surrounding the interpretation of a complex passage in Acts explored in “Paul, Ritual Purity and the Ritual Baths South of the Temple Mount (Acts 21:15–27),” (pp. 414–441), originally a PowerPoint presentation at a conference at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem in the spring of 2003 that was later expanded into an essay for the Festschrift honouring Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, O. P. and Joseph Fitzmyer, S. J. Another problematic passage in the Pauline letters that shows striking Hellenistic influence is discussed in “Anthropological Duality in the Eschatology of 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10,” (pp. 353–380), originally presented at a conference organized by Troels Engberg-Petersen entitled “Paul between Judaism and Hellenism” held at Rolighed in Denmark in 1997. I revisited part of that passage in “The Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10,” (pp. 398–413), an essay that originally appearing in the Festschrift for Calvin J. Roetzel. Finally I contributed an essay to a volume on Christianity and Human rights on “Galatians 3:28 and the Problem of Equality in the Church and Society” (pp. 524–549), a longer version of which appeared in the Festschrift for Thomas H. Tobin, S. J.). Three essays discuss problematic aspects of Paul’s conception of the human person, one of which has been mentioned above in connection with the interpretation of problematic passages. In “Two Pauline Models of the Person” (pp. 331–352), I explored Paul’s use of what I called the “irrational behaviour model” and the “macrocosm-microcosm model.” In “Anthropological Duality in the Eschatology of 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10,” (pp. 353–380), I focused on the implications of Paul’s adaptation of Hellenistic views of the human person. Finally, in “Human Nature and Ethics in Hellenistic Philosophical Traditions and Paul: Some Issues and Problems” (pp. 381–397), I again discuss some fascinating aspects of Paul’s view of human nature, including his use of the philosophical tradition of commentatio mortis, (“the practice of death”). In three essays, I explored important aspects of the problem of oral tradition in the ancient world, the first two were initially presented at meetings that grew out of the International Symposium on Interrelations among the Gospels held in Jerusalem in 1984. The first, presented at a conference at All Hallows Pastoral Centre in Dublin in 1989, is entitled “Prolegomena to the Study of Oral Tradition in the Hellenistic World” (pp. 220–255). The second, “Oral Tradition in the Aphorisms of Jesus” (pp. 256–302), containing a complete catalog of the aphorisms of Jesus, was presented at a meeting of the same group at the Villa Cagnola in Gazzada, Italy a year later. Among the fifteen or so participants in these two meetings, chaired by Henry Wansbrough, were Philip Alexander, Øivind Andersen, James D. G. Dunn, William Farmer, Birger Gerhardsson, Traugott Holtz, Ben F. Meyer, Rainer Riesner, Semaryahu Talmon and Willy Rordorf. In the third essay, published in a Festschrift honoring Birger Gerhardsson, I dealt with a subject that linked Gospel tradition with the Paul letters: “Jesus Tradition

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in the Pauline Letters” (pp. 303–327). In this essay I discussed the significant contribution of Gerhardsson to the subject, then critiqued other approaches to detecting the presence oral of Jesus traditions in the Pauline letters (Werner Kelber, Traugott Holtz and Paul D. Harvey), and finally I proposed an approach to reading Paul’s letters as “aides-mémoire” (i.e., as mnemonic devices that aid to communal memory and as “lieux de mémoire” (i.e., “sites” or “artifacts of memory,” texts that later served both to generate and transform communal memory), models for understanding the function of oral tradition proposed by the French historian Pierre Nora. In two essays I treated the knotty problem of the genre of some New Testament texts, a longstanding interest of mine, particularly reflected in a monograph on The problem of gospel genre was discussed in “Genre Theory and the Genre-Function of Mark and Matthew” (pp. 25–56), initially presented at a conference at Aarhus University on Matthew and Mark in 2008 organized by Eve-Marie Becker and Anders Runesson. The second, “Romans as a Logos Protreptikos in the Context of Ancient Religious and Philosophical Propaganda” (pp. 442–471), was first presented at a meeting at the Eberhard Karls Universität in Tübingen on 26–28 September 1988 as part of the Durham-Tübingen Symposium honouring the memory of Adolf Schlatter on the fiftieth anniversary of his death. The remaining essays deal with a variety of issues and problems that had attracted my attention. The longest essay in the volume reviews recent scholarship on justification by faith in Paul, such as the New Perspective on Paul and the role of Pauline texts in recent ecumenical dialogue on the doctrine of justification entitled “Recent Readings of Paul Relating to Justification by Faith,” (pp. 472–523), part of a collection of essays that I edited which developed out of a conference on Protestant and Catholic Perspectives on Justification by Faith held at the University of Notre Dame on February 1–2, 2002. An essay that appeared in the Festschrift honoring James C. VanderKam, my colleague at the University of Notre Dame, gave me the opportunity to investigate the meaning of euaggelion in the inscriptiones and subscriptiones of the four Gospels, important paratextual features of those texts, entitled “The Meaning of Εὐαγγέλιον in the Inscriptiones of the Canonical Gospels” (pp. 3–24). An essay I wrote at the invitation of Jens Schröter gave me the opportunity to critically compare the methodologies of two prominent historical Jesus scholars, my Notre Dame colleague John P. Meier and a friend I met long ago in Chicago, John Dominic Cross entitled “Assessing the Historical Vallue of the Apocryphal Jesus Traditions: A Critique of Conflicting Methdologies” (pp. 182–206). As a result of a longstanding interest in understanding the Fourth Gospel in its Jewish context found expression in an essay contributed to the Peder Borgen Festschrift entitled “Dualism in the Fourth Gospel and the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reassessment of the Problem” (pp. 130–148). Unlike most of the essays in this volume, the one I contributed to the Festschrift of my Notre Dame colleague Jerome Neyrey, S. J. made use of social science

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methods in the investigation Christian origins, entitled “Christian Beginnings and Cognitive Dissonance Theory” (pp. 149–181), an issue I had worked on some twenty years earliest. At the invitation of James H. Charlesworth, I presented a paper on “Jesus and Cynics in First-Century Palestine: Some Critical Considerations” (pp. 207–219) at a conference on Hillel and Jesus held in Jerusalem in 1992. Finally I would like to thank both Jörg Frey, Professor of New Testament at the University of Zürich and editor of the series Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, published by Mohr Siebeck and Dr. Henning Ziebritski, the editor of theology at Mohr Siebeck, for their help and encouragement during the last several years when this collection was in the making. I also owe a debt of gratitude to two graduate assistants who helped me in scanning and reformatting many of the earlier essays in this collection as well as catching many errors, Matthew Bates, now Assistant Professor of Theology at Quincy University in Quincy, Illinois and Brian Lee, currently working on his PhD dissertation at the University of Notre Dame. This book is dedicated to Hans Dieter Betz, who invited me, a new Ph. D. from the University of Chicago in 1970, to participate in three extensive Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti projects from 1970 on, supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Beginning in 1970, under the auspices of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity in Claremont, Betz assembled a working group of scholars which convened annually, first in Claremont and beginning in 1978 at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago under the aegis of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion. Three substantial volumes resulted from these consultations, two volumes on Plutarch and the New Testament and early Christian literature,2 and a volume containing English translations of the Greek and Coptic magical papyri.3 Participating in the colloquia every spring was something like an intensive and extended post-doctoral fellowship for me. I learned an immense amount from Hans Dieter Betz himself, as well as from many of the other regular participants, including, William Beardslee, Jan Bergman, John Dillon, Jackson P. Hershbell, Hubert Martin, Jr., Edward N. O’Neil, John Scarborough and Morton Smith. Working on these projects determined, to a large extent, the trajectory of my subsequent scholarly career and I remain immensely grateful that Hans Dieter Betz made it possible for me to participate in this venture.

Dieter Betz (ed.), Plutarch’s Theological Writings and Early Christian Literature (SCHNT 3; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975; Hans Dieter Betz (ed.), Plutarch’s Ethical Writings and Early Christian Literature (SCHNT 4; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978). 3 Hans Dieter Betz (ed.), The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation including the Demotic Spells, Volume 1: Texts (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986; second edition, 1992). Several additional volumes were planned but never published. 2 Hans

Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V

I. Jesus of Nazareth and Gospel Traditions   1. The Meaning of Εὐαγγέλιον in the Inscriptiones of the Canonical Gospels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3   2. Genre Theory and the Genre-Function of Mark and Matthew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25   3. The Forgiveness Petition in the Lord’s Prayer: First Century Literary, Liturgical and Cultural Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57   4. Apocalyptic and the Lord’s Prayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75   5. “The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak” (Mark 14:38b and Matthew 26:41b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94   6. Luke 1:1–4: Historical or Scientific Prooimion? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107   7. Luke 20:34–36: A “Gnosticized” Logion of Jesus? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116   8. Dualism in the Fourth Gospel and the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reassessment of the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130   9. Christian Beginnings and Cognitive Dissonance Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 10. Assessing the Historical Value of the Apocryphal Jesus Traditions: A Critique of Conflicting Methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 11. Jesus and Cynics in First-Century Palestine: Some Critical Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

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12. Prolegomena to the Study of Oral Tradition in the Hellenistic World . . 220 13. Oral Tradition and the Aphorisms of Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 14. Jesus Tradition and the Pauline Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

II. Pauline Studies 15. Two Pauline Models of the Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 16. Anthropological Duality in the Eschatology of 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353 17. Human Nature and Ethics in Hellenistic Philosophical Traditions and Paul: Some Issues and Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 18. The Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398 19. Paul, Ritual Purity and the Ritual Baths South of the Temple Mount (Acts 21:15–27) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414 20. Romans as a Logos Protreptikos in the Context of Ancient Religious and Philosophical Propaganda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442 21. Recent Readings of Paul Relating to Justification by Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . 472 22. Galatians 3:28 and the Problem of Equality in the Church and Society . 524 Indices Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551 Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591 Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 604

I. Jesus of Nazareth and Gospel Traditions

1. The Meaning of Εὐαγγέλιον in the Inscriptiones of the Canonical Gospels* Introduction The most common inscriptiones of the canonical Gospels in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts is εὐαγγέλιον κατά (+ personal name in the accusative), though in a very few uncial manuscripts containing all four Gospels, the shorter form κατά (+ personal name in the accusative) occurs. In trying to determine the meaning of εὐαγγέλιον in these inscriptiones, an important consideration is determining the approximate date when they were added to the text of the Gospels. Some maintain that the inscriptiones were added to the Gospels as early as the end of the first century or beginning of the second, while others argue that this paratextual addition occurred late in the second century.

Εὐαγγέλιον in Early Christian Literature A Lexical Overview In general, New Testament lexicographers have distinguished three meanings of εὐαγγέλιον that developed in antiquity by means of early Christian usage of the term (beginning with Paul), through the late second century. The pre-Christian meanings have been grouped in two categories by Liddell, Scott and Jones: (1) reward of good tidings [given to the messenger],” (2) “good tidings” or “good news” itself and (3) later the more specific Christian sense of “the gospel.”1 Greek lexicography in the English language has been historically dependent on Henri Estienne (in Latinized form Robertus Stephanus), Thesaurus Graecae Linguae, first published in 1532 and revised and expanded nearly three centuries later, from 1816 to 1825.2 In this later edition, the meanings of εὐαγγέλιον are placed * Original publication: “The Meaning of Εὐαγγέλιον in the Inscriptiones of the Canonical Gospels,” A Teacher for All Generations: Essays in Honor of James CD. VanderKam, ed. E. F. Mason, K. Coblentz Bautch, A. Kim Harkins and D. A. Machiela (2 vols.; JSJSup 153; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2012), 2.857–882. Reprinted by permission. 1 Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott and Henry Stuart Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (9th edition; Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1940), 705. 2 H. Estienne, Thesaurus Graecae Linguae (8 vols.; London: In Aedibus Valpianis, 1816–25).

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in two categories. The first consists of pre-Christian meanings of the term, such as “laetum nuntium” or “faustum vel felix nuntium,” or “bonum nuntiam” (followed by many examples of this usage). The second focuses on the Christian meaning of the term, which is formulated in a highly theological manner (col. 367: “εὐαγγέλιον autem κατ᾿ ἐξωχὴν dicitur peculiaritur a Christianis annuntiatio insignis illius beneficii a Christo in humanum genus collate, quum sua ipse morte illud a morte aeterna liberavit”), similarly followed by many examples.In this later edition, one of the basic meanings of εὐαγγέλιον is listed as “bonum nuntiam,” while the specific Christian meaning is defined as (col. 367): “illius beneficii a Christo in humanum genus collate, quum sua ipse morte illud a morte aeterna liberavit.”3 In defining εὐαγγέλιον almost exclusively in terms of later Christological developments, the meaning of this important early Christian lexeme was skewed. G. W. H. Lampe, beginning with early second century Christian literature, proposes three categories of meaning: (1) probably without actual reference to a written gospel, (2) perhaps referring to written gospels, (3) referring to written gospels.4 These categories are quite remarkable in their own way, since Lampe avoids actually proposing definitions of εὐαγγέλιον. There is widespread agreement among New Testament scholars that the noun τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, first used in a Christian context by Paul with the meaning “the [content of the] good news [about Jesus],” takes on a more explicitly literary meaning by the mid-second century CE. 5 Hans von Campenhausen, followed by Helmut Koester, argued that τὸ εὐαγγέλιον was not used of a book until Marcion (died ca. 154 CE), who called his revision of what was later called the Gospel according to Luke, simply “Gospel.”6 The use of εὐαγγέλιον as a designation for a written text becomes particularly clear when the plural form εὐαγγέλια occurs. J. K. Elliott understands this use of εὐαγγέλιον as a “distinct genre of literature recounting Jesus’ ministry.”7 But this understanding of εὐαγγέλιον as a genre designation is anachronistic. The first time that the plural form εὐαγγελία occurs in early Christian texts is in Justin 1 Apol. 66.3, where the phrase ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστολῶν (a term for the gospels that emphasizes their historical value) is accompanied by the appositional phrase ἃ καλεῖται εὐαγγέλια.8 Justin generally

Thesaurus Graecae Linguae, 1.366–68. Lampe (ed.), A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1961), 555. 5 J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (2 vols.; New York: United Bible Societies, 1988), 1.§ 33.217. 6 H. von Campenhausen, The Formation of the Christian Bible, trans. J. A. Baker (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 147–63, esp. p. 159; Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990), 35–36; A. von Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott (2nd ed.; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1924), 184*. 7 “Mark 1.1–3 – a Later Addition to the Gospel?” NTS 46 (2000), 585. 8 O. Piper, “The Gospel according to Justin Martyr,” JR 41 (1961), 159. 3 Estienne, 4 G. W. H.

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appears to avoid using the term εὐαγγέλιον of written texts.9 Marcion was one of the first to use the singular form εὐαγγέλιον to refer to a written gospel, in this case the Gospel of Luke, based on his view that the Pauline phrase “my gospel” (Rom 2:16; 16:25) referred specifically to Luke.10

Ευαγγέλιον in Paul The term εὐαγγέλιον first appears in a Christian context in the writings of Paul, where it occurs 48 times in the genuine letters (12 times in the pseudo-Pauline letters).11 According to Koester, the absolute use of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in Paul is a theological abbreviation for “the good news [of the saving significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus];” when Mark used εὐαγγέλιον in the incipit to his narrative about Jesus, he employed “already well-established technical terms for the Christian message and its proclamation,” as known from Paul.12 Paul’s most extensive explication of the content of the gospel is found in Rom 1:1–3, and elsewhere he frequently uses the theological abbreviation “gospel of Christ” with “of Christ” as an objective genitive, i.e., “the gospel about Christ” (cf. Rom 15:19; 1 Cor 9:12; 2 Cor 2:12; 4:4; Gal 1:7; Phil 1:27; 1 Thess 3:2). When Paul uses the term τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in an absolute sense, i.e., without genitival qualification, he “presupposes that the content is understood and requires no further definition or explication” and that content is “the complex of traditions about the words and deeds of Jesus.”13 In defining what Paul means by τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in Galatians, J. Louis Martyn includes such features as the salvific death of the Son (Gal 3:1), the call for Gentiles to turn from idols to the living God and his Son (4:8), the coming of the Spirit (3:2; 4:6) and the assurance of future deliverance (5:5, 21), which he later expresses succinctly as “the salvific event of the Son’s death and resurrection.”14

Εὐαγγέλιον in Mark There is general agreement that the term εὐαγγέλιον in the inscriptiones of Matthew, Luke and John was ultimately derived from the incipit of the Gospel  9 Piper, “The Nature of the Gospel,”155, 162–3; A. Y. Reed, “Orality, Textuality and Christian

Truth in Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses,” Vigiliae Christianae 56 (2002), 11–46. 10 Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 36 11 This figure is the result of adding up the statistics for individual Pauline letters found in R. Morgenthaler, Statistik des neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes (Zurich and Frankfurt am Main: Gotthelf Verlag, 1958), 101. Those Pauline letters considered genuine include Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon. 12 Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 4. 13 Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 5. 14 Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33A; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 129–30.

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of Mark (1:1):  Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.15 While there are many issues surrounding this short clause and its syntactical relationship to vv. 2–3, our focus is necessarily restricted to the meaning of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον. Mark used this lexeme seven times (1:1; 1:14, 15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9; with the exceptions of 1:1 and 1:14, all in the sayings of Jesus),16 all in Markan redactional material.17 The term occurs in unmodified form five times (1:15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9), but is twice more closely defined by accompanying genitives: ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ” (1:1) and κηρύσσων τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ, “proclaiming the good news about God” (1:14). The articular use of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in Mark (and the rest of the New Testament) is a theological abbreviation meaning “good news relating to God’s action in Jesus Christ” or “the message about Christ.”18 The unmodified uses of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον are reminiscent of Paul’s use of the term, with the exception of the phrase πιστεύειν ἐν τῷ εὐαγγέλίῳ, which is clearly non-Pauline.19 The use of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in Mark 14:9 is particularly instructive, where it occurs in a saying of Jesus at the end of the story of Jesus’ anointing in Bethany: “Amen, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed [κηρυχθῇ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] to the whole world, 15  The two major modern critical editions of the Greek New Testament (UBSGNT4 and Nestle-Aland27) bracket the concluding phrase υἱοῦ θεοῦ in Mark 1:1 to indicate the uncertainty of its originality. However, arguments for the later addition of the phrase are more convincing than arguments for its originality; see P. M. Head, “A Text-Critical Study of Mark 1.1: ‘The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ’,” New Testament Studies 37 (1991), 621–29; see also B. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 72–75 and Adela Yarbro Collins, “Establishing the Text: Mark 1:1,” Texts and Contexts: The Function of Biblical Texts in Their Textual and Situational Contexts, eds. T. Fornberg and D. Hellholm (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995), 111–127. This view is also held by some recent commentators, including J. Marcus, Mark 1–8, (AB 27; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 141 and A. Yarbro Collins, Mark, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 130. The best set of arguments for the originality of the phrase υἱοῦ θεοῦ is presented by A. Globe, “The Caesarean Omission of the Phrase ‘Son of God’ in Mark 1:1,” Harvard Theological Review 75 (1982), 209–218. While the evaluation of the textual evidence by B. M. Metzger in A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2nd edition; Stuttgart: German Bible Society; New York: American Bible Society, 1994), 62, is balanced and accurate (he reflects the committee’s decision to bracket the phrase), the discussion of R. L. Omanson, A Textual Guide to the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006), 56, is both inaccurate and misleading. 16 An additional occurrence is found in 16:15 in the longer ending added by the mid-second century. According to J. A. Kelhoffer, the longer ending (Mark 16:9–20) was added ca. 120–150 CE; see his Mission and Message: The Authentication of Missionaries and Their Message in the Longer Ending of Mark (WUNT II 112; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000). 17 W. Marxsen, Der Evangelist Markus: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Evangeliums (FRLANT, neue Folge, 49; 2nd Aufl.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959), 77–101. 18 On the former definition, see Bauer-Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon, 402. On the latter, see G. Strecker, Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (ed. Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider; 3 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 2.70. 19 P. Stuhlmacher, Das paulinische Evangelium, I. Vorgeschichte (FRLANT 95; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968), 234.

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what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Here τὸ εὐαγγέλιον clearly refers to the oral proclamation about Jesus, which takes account of stories such as the one told in Mark 14:3–8 as well as the other stories about Jesus and sayings of Jesus found in Mark, including the passion narrative.20 The incipit in Mark 1:1, ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, is syntactically independent, since it is neither a sentence nor a main clause (it lacks both a verb and a predicate) and probably functions as the title of the entire ensuing narrative (this view is reflected in the punctuation of UBSGNT4 and Nestle-Aland27).21 The genitive phrase “of Jesus Christ,” as ambiguous in Greek as it is in English, is a plenary genitive,22 i.e., a double entendre which the reader can construe as either a subjective genitive (Jesus Christ as the proclaimer of good news) or as an objective genitive (Jesus Christ as the one proclaimed in the good news).23 Boring appropriately defines τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in Mark 1:1 as “… the contents and subject matter of Mark’s narrative as a whole, the story of Jesus, the saving act of God in his Son Jesus the Christ, his words, deeds, death and resurrection, as these are expressed in the following document and as they continue to be preached in Mark’s own time.”24 Since the term εὐαγγέλιον in the incipit of Mark was the source of the later subscriptiones and inscriptiones of all four canonical Gospels, it is striking that both Matthew and Luke did not themselves appropriate εὐαγγέλιον as a way of describing the contents of their own narratives, assuming that Mark 1:1–3 was part of the Markan text available to them.25 20 E. Lohmeyer, Das Evangelium des Markus (KEKNT; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959), 295. 21 N. C. Croy, “Where the Gospel Text Begins: A Non-Theological Interpretation of Mark 1:1,” NovT 43 (2001), 105–27, here 114. 22  D. B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 119–21. 23 M. Feneberg, Der Markusprolog: Studium zum Formbestimmung des Evangeliums (SANT 36; Munich: Kösel Verlag, 1974), 118; J. Marcus, Mark 1:1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 27; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 146–47; R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (NIGTC; Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2002), 53; Collins, Mark, 135; U. Schnelle, Theology of the New Testament, trans. M. E. Boring (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 400. 24 Boring, “Mark 1:1–15,” 51. 25 Some scholars have argued that Mark 1:1–3 (in whole or in part) is a later interpolation; see C. F. D. Moule, The Birth of the New Testament (2nd ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1982), 131–32, n. 1. W. Schmithals maintains that Mark originally began with ἐγένετο, “it happened,” and that neither Matthew nor Luke read Mark 1:1, which must have been missing from the texts of Mark they read; Mark 1:1 (as well as vv. 2–3) is therefore an interpolation (Das Evangelium nach Markus: 1,1–9,1 [2. Aufl.; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1986], 73–75). This case for Mark 1:1–3 as an interpolation has been argued in detail more recently by J. K. Elliott, “Mark 1.1–3 – A Later Addition to the Gospel?” NTS 46 (2000), 584–88 and Croy, “Where the Gospel Text Begins,” 119–20, nn. 37–38. Croy provides a fuller list of scholars who have entertained the possibility of an interpolation at the beginning of Mark; idem, The Mutilation

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Matthew uses the phrase βίβλος γενέσεως in his opening sentence (1:1): Βίβλος γενέσεως  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ Δαυὶδ υἱοῦ  Ἀβραάμ, (“The book of the origin of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham”). Since this incipit, like one in Mark, lacks both a verb and a predicate, it also has a titular character and again like Mark, it can be construed as a title of the entire text (construing γενέσεως as “story”) or an initial segment of the text (construing γενέσεως as “birth”), e.g., Matt 1:2–17 or 1:2–25.26 The nouns ἀρχή (Mark 1:1) and γένεσις (Matt 1:1) in fact share a semantic overlap; in appropriate contexts both can mean “beginning, origin.”27 The word τὸ εὐαγγέλιον itself is used just four times in Matthew (4:23; 9:35; 24:14; 26:13), always with active or passive forms of the verb κηρύσσω and three times qualified by an objective genitive in the phrase τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς βασιλείας (4:23; 9:35; 24:14), referring to Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven. The word τὸ εὐαγγέλιον does not occur in the Gospel of Luke; the author describes the work as a διήγησις (1:1) which Bauer-Danker define as “an orderly description of facts, events, actions or words,” hence “narrative, account.”28 In Acts 1:1, the author refers to his first volume as a λόγος, a term used for the separate books of a work.29 Despite the absence of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, there may be a reminiscence of Mark 1:1 in Acts 1:1, where the author describes his first book as dealing with everything ὧν ἤρξατο ὁ  Ἰησοῦς ποιεῖν τε καὶ διδασκεῖν (“which Jesus began to do and to teach”).

of Mark’s Gospel (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), 113–36, 165–66. This monograph deals primarily with the problematic ending of Mark, while the section dealing with the beginning of Mark is a simplified version of the author’s earlier essay. 26 Those who argue that Matt 1:1 functions as a title for the entire text include the following: W. Grundmann, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (THNT 1; Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1968), 61; F. W. Beare, The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1981), 64; W. D. Davies and D. Allison, An Exegetical and Critical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Matthew (Vol. I, Chapters 1–7), (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), 1.149–55; J. D. Kingsbury, Matthew: Structure, Christology, Kingdom (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 10 n. 54; Moises Mayordomo-Marin, Den Anfang Hören (FRLANT 180; Göttingen: Van­ denhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 208–13; U. Luz, “Das Matthäusevangelium – eine neue oder eine neu redigierte Jesusgeschichte?” Biblischer Text und theologische Theoriebildung (ed. Stephen Chapman, Christine Helmer and Christof Landmesser; BThSt 44; Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2001), 54. Those who regard Matt 1:1 as introducing an initial section of text include W. C. Allen, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to S. Matthew (ICC; 3rd ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1912), 1–2; E. Lohmeyer and W. Schmauch, Das Evangelium des Matthäus (KEK; 2nd ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958), 1; U. Luz, Matthew 1–7 (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989), 103–4; D. Hagner, Matthew 1–13 (WBC 33A; Dallas: Word Books, 1993), 5. 27 Bauer-Danker, Greek-English Lexicon, 111–12, 154. 28 Bauer-Danker, Greek-English Lexicon, 245. 29 Bauer-Danker, Greek-English Lexicon, 600.

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Εὐαγγέλιον in Second Century Christianity The term τὸ εὐαγγέλιον (always with the definite article, because early Christians are referring to a known entity), occurs several times in the Apostolic Fathers, all written within the first quarter of the second century, when all four Gospels were in circulation.30 The focal lexicographical issue has often been whether or not the occurrences of εὐαγγέλιον in these early Christian writings refer to an oral message or a written text. Here is a list of the relevant texts with brief translations and followed by a discussion of the possible meanings of εὐαγγέλιον: 1. Didache 8:2: “But as the Lord commanded in his gospel [ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ], pray in this way: ‘Our Father in heaven …’ [a version of the Lord’s Prayer very close to that found in Matt 6:11–13].” 2. Didache 11:3: “With respect to apostles and prophets, treat them in accordance with the command of the gospel [δόγμα τοῦ εὐαγγελίου].” 3. Didache 15:3: “Do not reprove in anger, but in peace as you find in the gospel [ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ].” 4. Didache 15:4: “But say your prayers, give alms and engage in all your activities as you have found in the gospel of our Lord [ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν].” 5. Ignatius Philad. 5:1: “When I flee to the gospel [τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ] as to the flesh of Jesus and to the apostles as to the presbytery of the church.” 6. Ignatius Philad. 5:2: “And we should also love the prophets, because their proclamation anticipated the gospel [τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] and they hoped in him and awaited him.” 7. Ignatius Philad. 8:2: “For I heard some saying: ‘If I do not find it in the ancient records, I do not believe in the gospel [ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ].’ And when I said to them, ‘It is written,’ the replied to me, ‘That is just the question.’ But for me, Jesus Christ is the ancient records; the sacred ancient records are his cross and death, and his resurrection, and the faith that comes through him – by which things I long to be made righteous by your prayer.” 8. Ignatius Philad. 9:2: “But there is something distinct about the gospel [τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] – that is, the coming of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, his suffering, and resurrection. For the beloved prophets made their proclamation looking ahead to him; but the gospel [τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] is the finished work that brings immortality.” 9. Ignatius Smyrn. 5:1: “They have been convinced neither by the words of the prophets nor the Law of Moses, nor, until now, by the gospel [τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] nor by the suffering each of us has experienced.” 30 Εὐαγγέλιον occurs 76 times in the New Testament, just twice in an anarthrous form (Gal 1:6; Rev 14:6). In Gal 1:6, εὐαγγέλιον is anarthrous because Paul is referring to ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον, “another gospel,” which actually οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο (“is not another,” v. 7), and certainly not τὸ εὐαγγέλιον proclaimed by Paul.

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10. Ignatius Smyrn. 7:2: “But instead pay attention to the prophets, and especially to the gospel [τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ], in which the passion is clearly shown to us and the resurrection is perfected.” 11. Martyrdom of Polycarp 4:1 [3]: “Because of this, brothers, we do not praise those who hand themselves over, since this is not what the gospel [τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] teaches.” 12. 2 Clement 8:5: “For the Lord says in the gospel [λέγω γὰρ ὁ κύριος ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ], ‘If you do not keep what is small, who will give you what is great? For I say to you that the one who is faithful in very little is faithful also in much [cf. Luke 16:10].” Bauer-Aland categorizes all these early occurrences of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον as in a state of transition to the later Christian understanding of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον as a book whose content deals with the life and teaching of Jesus.31 For Bauer-Danker (based in part on Bauer-Aland, but with considerable changes and additions made by Danker), the occurrences of εὐαγγέλιον in the Didache, Ignatius Philad. 8:2, Smyrn. 7:2, Mart. Polyc. 4:1 [3] and 2 Clem. 8:5 all mean “the good news of Jesus,” that is, “details relating to the life and ministry of Jesus” with the suggestion that τὸ εὐαγγέλιον perhaps has this meaning in Mark 1:1.32 The entry concludes with the phrase “This usage marks a transition to” with the next subentry beginning “a book dealing with the life and teaching of Jesus.” There are three passages in the Didache in which τὸ εὐαγγέλιον is linked to quotations or allusions that are arguably derived from the Gospel of Matthew: Did. 8:2; 15:4; 11:3. In Did. 8:2, the author introduces the Lord’s Prayer in a version very similar to that found in Matt 6:9–13, with the phrase ὡς ἐκέλευσεν ὁ κύριος ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ (“as the Lord commanded in the gospel”). Similarly, in Did. 15:3–4, the phrases ὡς ἔχετε (“as you have in the gospel”) and ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν (“in the gospel of our Lord”), with surrounding allusions to the kind of material found in Matthew (cf. Matt 18:15–16). For Helmut Koester, Did. 8:2 is best understood as a reference to the (oral) preaching of the Lord, but he concedes that the reference can be construed as referring to the written gospel.33 He also maintains that Did. 11:3 is based on oral tradition, while with regard to Did. 15:3–4 he considers 15:3 to refer to instruction drawn from a written source, though not the Gospel of Matthew,34 while in evaluating 15:4 he follows W. Michaelis in arguing that a specific written gospel is not in view, even though such books existed at the time.35 Similarly, Kurt Niederwimmer 31 W. Bauer, Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur, ed. Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland (6th ed.; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1988), col. 644. 32 Bauer-Danker, Greek-English Lexicon, 403. 33 H. Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung bei den apostolischen Väter (Texte und Untersuchungen 65. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1957), 10, 203. 34 Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung, 10–11. 35 Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung, 210–11.

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hesitates between whether the Didachist means the viva vox evangelii or a written gospel for Did. 8:2; 11:3,36 while he thinks that Did. 15:3 and 15:4 may refer to a written gospel book, though it is not clear which particular one.37 Robert H. Gundry argues persuasively, in my view, that in using the phrase ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ in Did. 8:2; 15:3–4 and 11:3, indicating that the Didachist has drawn material from a written copy of the Gospel of Matthew, he is not referring to Matthew as a written gospel, but rather to material orally preached and taught by Jesus and now by those who use Matthew as a source for the sayings of Jesus.38 Irenaeus too continues this practice using the phrase ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ to refer to quotations or allusions to the Gospels; Adv. haer. 1.20.2 (Luke 2:49); 2.26.2 (Matt 10:24); 3.23.3 (Matt 25:41); 5.22.1 (Matt 4:7).39 I would add that the phrase ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ can be used to refer to the teaching of Jesus, whether drawn from a written or oral source. It is prima facie likely that written Jesus traditions exerted an influence over oral Jesus traditions, much like the German folktales collected by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm in Deutsche Sagen (1816–18) exerted an unexpected influence on oral folktales as German parents bought copies of the book and read the literary versions to their children rather than rely on memory as did their forbears. Ignatius uses the articular noun τὸ εὐαγγέλιον eight times, six times in Philadelphians and twice in Smyrnaeans. For Schoedel, followed by Brown, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in Ignatius regularly refers to the good news about Jesus rather than a written document.40 Particularly with regard to Smyrn. 5:1 and 7:2, Schoedel indicates that there is no reason to think that Ignatius is referring to a written gospel; for Ignatius τὸ εὐαγγέλιον probably consisted of a collection of traditions such as those found in Smyrn. 1:1–2 and 3:2–3 that represented the fulfillment of prophecy as well as confirm the reality of the birth, death and resurrection of Christ.41 According to Buschmann, in Mart. Polyc. 4:3, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον refers, not to a written gospel, but to the report about the suffering of Jesus in so far as it provides teaching and instruction for the imitation of the Lord.42 Though τὸ εὐαγγέλιον occurs just once in 2 Clement (written ca. 150 CE) in the phrase ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ in 8:5, the author frequently cites sayings of Jesus elsewhere in his work, several of which are not found in the canonical Gospels.43 Niederwimmer, The Didache (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 135, 173. The Didache, 203–5. 38 R. H. Gundry, “ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ: How Soon a Book?” JBL 115 (1996), 322–23. 39 Reed, ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ, 32, n. 59. 40 W. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 201; C. T. Brown, The Gospel and Ignatius of Antioch (Studies in Biblical Literature 12; New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 15–21. 41 Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, 234, 242. 42 G. Buschmann, Das Martyrium des Polykark (KAV; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 127. 43 See the following passages: 2 Clem. 3:2 (cf. Q 12:8); 4:2 (cf. Matt 7:21), 5 (non-canonical saying); 5:2–4 (non-canonical dialog between Jesus and Peter); 6:1 (Q 16:13a), 2 (Mark 8:36; Matt 16:26; Luke 9:25); 9:11 (cf, Mark 3:35; Matt 12:50; Luke 8:21); 12:2 (cf. Gos. Thomas 22). 36 K.

37 Niederwimmer,

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Koester argues that in 2 Clem 8:5, the author quotes a saying of Jesus from a written work, probably a sayings collection that was in turn based on the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.44 In an earlier study, Koester entertained the possibility that the composite saying of Jesus in 2 Clem 8:5 was drawn from an apocryphal gospel, but in the final analysis it is impossible to determine the origin of the two sayings. 45 Both Lindemann and Pratscher argue that in 2 Clem 8:5b (which has verbal similarities with Luke 16:10), the phrase ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ probably refers to an apocryphal gospel,46 while Donfried argues that εὐαγγέλιον here means “the oral message of salvation, rather than as a designation for a written book.”47 While here I am primarily concerned with the meaning of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in the Apostolic Fathers, the opinions of various scholars just surveyed generally agree with the detailed examination of possible traces of synoptic tradition in the Apostolic Fathers in the well-known study of Helmut Koester in which he concludes that in most cases allusions to words of Jesus in the Apostolic Fathers are not based on written gospels. The use of the term τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in the selection of texts from the Apostolic Fathers briefly surveyed above, all dating to the first half of the second century, suggests that is it a false alternative to presuppose that τὸ εὐαγγέλιον must refer either to oral traditions about Jesus or a written text about Jesus. Τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in these texts refers to an authoritative complex of traditional teachings and activities of Jesus with an implicit indifference toward the issue of whether this complex was transmitted in oral or written form. In the case of Irenaeus, Reed argues that his use of the term τὸ εὐαγγέλιον exhibits polysemy, i.e., an “interplay between oral and written connotations,” i.e., “the two specialized Christian meanings that had been established” by the time of Irenaeus, the oral meaning found in Paul and the written meaning established by Marcion.48 In its Pauline sense, Irenaeus could regard τὸ εὐαγγέλιον as the truth proclaimed (κηρύσσειν) by the apostles and transmitted (παραδιδόναι) to the Church (Adv. haer. 3.1.1; 3.12.12; 3.14.1).49 For Irenaeus, the notions of εὐαγγέλιον / evangelium and παράδοσις / tradition were closely related (3.5.1): Since, therefore, the tradition [traditione] from the apostles does thus exist in the Church, and is permanent among us, let us revert to the Scriptural proof furnished by those apostles who did also write the Gospel [evangelium] in which they recorded the doctrine regarding God, pointing out that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth, and that no lie is in Him. Ancient Christian Gospels, 18. Synoptische Überlieferung, 99–102, 46 A. Lindemann, Die Clemensbriefe (HNT 17; AV 1; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 224; W. Pratscher, Der zweite Clemensbrief (KAV; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 131–32. 47  K. P. Donfried, The Setting of Second Clement in Early Christianity (NovTSuppl 38; Leiden: Brill, 1974), 72. 48 A. Y. Reed, “ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ: Orality, Textuality, and the Christian Truth in Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses,” Vigiliae Christianae 56 (2002), 18, 19, 47. 49 Reed, “ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ,” 42. 44 Koester, 45 Koester,

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In Adversus haereses, Irenaeus uses εὐαγγέλιον (Latin evangelium) 101 times, 94 times in the singular, but just seven times in the plural (2.22.3; 3.11.7; 11.8 [2x]; 11.9 [3x]).50 He can use the singular εὐαγγέλιον / evangelium to refer to four written texts (e.g., 3.5.1; 3.11.9; 4.34.1).51 In the judgment of von Campenhausen,52 The ‘Gospel’ to which appeal is normally made (in the first two-thirds of the second century) remains an elastic concept, designating the preaching of Jesus as a whole in the form in which it lives on in church tradition. The normative significance of the Lord’s words, which is the most important point, is thus directly dependent upon the person of the Lord, and is not transferred to the documents which record them.

The texts cited from the Didache, the Martyrdom of Polycarp and 2 Clement all refer to the teachings of Jesus found in τὸ εὐαγγέλιον; most of the texts from Ignatius consider τὸ εὐαγγέλιον as a comprehensive entity that embodies the Christian message; Ignatius Philad. 9:2 and Smyrn. 7:2 emphasize the coming, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus narrated in τὸ εὐαγγέλιον. Bauer-Aland defines τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in the texts reviewed above as “Auf dem Übergang zu dem späteren christlichen Sprachgebrauch, für den εὐαγγέλιον Beziehung eines Buches ist, dessen Inhalt Leben und Lehre Jesu bilden.”53 While this is apparently intended to reflect the ambiguity of whether εὐαγγέλιον refers to an oral message or a written text, semantically this definition is not very useful and for that reason I have tried to define the connotations of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in a more appropriate manner. Bauer-Danker tries to solve this problem by defining τὸ εὐαγγέλιον as “details relating to the life and ministry of Jesus, good news of Jesus,” and only at the end of this category, as a concession to Bauer-Aland is the phrase “This marks a transition to” inserted.54 The twelve texts from the Apostolic Fathers quoted and briefly discussed above all come from the first half of the second century (with the possible exception of 2 Clem 8:5), the period when it is likely that the longer form of the subscriptiones and inscriptiones of the Gospels were affixed to them when they began to be aggregated. The meaning of εὐαγγέλιον in the subscriptiones and inscriptiones is exactly the same as the meaning of εὐαγγέλιον in the twelve texts discussed above, namely “an authoritative complex of traditional teachings and activities of Jesus with an implicit indifference toward the issue of whether this complex was transmitted in oral or written form.” This means that the use of εὐαγγέλιον in the subscriptiones and inscriptiones does not have a generic meaning. It also 50 Reed,

“ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ,” 19. “ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ,” 27. 52 H. von Campenhausen, Formation of the Christian Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 129. 53 Bauer-Aland, Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, col. 644. 54 Bauer-Danker, Greek-English Lexicon, 403. 51 Reed,

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1. The Meaning of Εὐαγγέλιον in the Inscriptiones of the Canonical Gospels

means that the subscriptio “The Gospel according to Thomas” is an appropriate designation for a collection of sayings of Jesus even though it has no narrative framework.

The Gospel Subscriptiones and Inscriptiones Between the composition of the canonical Gospels (ca. 65–110 CE) and ca. 170, two paratextual features came to characterize the four Gospels:55 the Gospels were subject to gradual aggregation and subscriptiones or inscriptiones were affixed to them, though when these two related developments occurred and in what order they occurred remains uncertain. Discounting later expansions (subscriptiones and inscriptiones were often expanded by scribes), the forms of the subscriptiones and inscriptions at issue exhibit two basic patterns: a short form (sometimes considered earlier than the longer form), e.g., κατὰ Μαθθαῖον, κατὰ Μᾶρκον, κατὰ Λοῦκαν and κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην, and the longer and more familiar form, e.g., εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μαθθαῖον, εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μᾶρκον, εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λοῦκαν and εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]η.56 The stereotypical shorter and longer forms of both the subscriptiones and inscriptiones are unusual in that they use the preposition κατά as a periphrasis for a genitivus auctoris.57 The stereotypical form of the subscriptiones and inscriptiones suggests that they were added at one point in time to all four Gospels to distinguish them from one another, probably when they first began to circulate as a collection.58 The aggregation of gospels could have begun gradually with a collection of two or more papyrus rolls (much as Herodotus must have circulated as a collection 55 The term “paratextual” is derived from G. Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, trans. J. E. Lewin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 56 Nestle-Aland27 and the UBSGNT3 put the short form of each of the gospel superscriptions in the text. While the short form was included in earlier editions of Nestle-Aland, a brief list of variants was included in Nestle-Aland26. The laconic UBSGNT mentions no variants for the superscriptions. B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek with Notes on Selected Readings (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882), 321: “In length and elaboration they [i.e., titles] vary much in different documents, we have adopted the concise and extremely ancient form preserved in ‫ א‬B and some other documents, which is apparently the foundation of the fuller titles.” 57 An example of this idiom is found in 2 Macc 2:13: ἐν τοῖς ὑπομνηματισμοῖς τοῖς κατὰ τὸν Νεεμιαν, “in the memoirs of Nehemiah.” A different meaning of κατά is found in the subscriptio of Genesis in Codex Vaticanus: ΓΕΝΕCIC KATA TOΥC ΕΒΔΟΜΗΚΟΝΤΑ, “Genesis according to the Septuagint.” For discussions of the use of κατά as a periphrasis for the possessive genitive, see Bauer-Danker, Greek-English Lexicon, 513; W. Köhler, “κατά,” Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. H. Balz and G. Schneider (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2.254; for papyrological examples of the use of κατά as a periphrasis for a possessive pronoun, see J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980; originally published in 1930), 322. 58 Heckel, Vom Evangelium des Markus zum viergestaltigen Evangelium, 208–9.

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15

of nine papyrus rolls) or as a group of two or more single-quire codices (P52 , a fragment of John dating to the first half of the second century, is the earliest physical evidence for a codex presumably containing a single gospel).59 Eventually the εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον was placed within a single codex, of which there are as many as three early examples, two from the end of the second century (P4–P64– P67 and P75) and one from the mid-third century (P45).60 The textual evidence for both forms at the beginning and end of each of the canonical gospels is tabulated in Tables A and B below. The subscriptiones are arguably earlier than the inscriptiones since, when literary works were written on papyrus rolls, the titles (typically a noun followed by the author’s name in the genitive) were placed at the end of the work (as a subscriptio), but when copied in a codex, they were located at the beginning of a work (as a superscriptio or inscriptio).61 Both subscriptiones and inscriptiones were typically added later to literary works when they were copied for distribution; the incipit or first sentence of the work itself normally functioned as the author’s title (e.g., Mark 1:1). When a work written in a papyrus roll was transferred to a codex, the subscriptio could be omitted (which for conservative reasons rarely happened) or replicated in the superscriptio, resulting in a work with the same (or a similar) title at the beginning and end.62 The 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament regards the short forms of the Gospel superscriptions, κατὰ Μαθθαῖον, κατὰ Μᾶρκον, κατὰ Λοῦκαν and κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην as more original, presumably on the basis of the text-critical principle lectio brevior potior est, despite the paucity of evidence (they cite only the two fourth century codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus). Additional evidence 59  D. E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), 117–18. 60 Stanton, Jesus and Gospel, 71–75. 61 R. P. Oliver, “The First Medicean MS of Tacitus and the Titulature of Ancient Books,” TAPA 82 (1951), 232–61; here 243, 245, 248; E. M. Thompson, A Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography (Chicago: Ares, 1966), 58; C. Wendel, Die griechisch-römische Buchbeschreibung verglichen mit der des vorderen Orients (Halle-Saale: Niemeyer, 1949), 24–29. 62 The manuscripts of the Gospel of Thomas provide a partial example. Of the three extant Greek fragments of Thomas, POxy 1 is a single leaf from a papyrus codex (shortly after 200 CE), while POxy 654 and POxy 655 are papyrus fragments of two different papyrus rolls (both early 3rd century CE). The complete Coptic manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas (middle of the 4th cent. CE) discovered at Nag Hammadi has a subscriptio that reads ΠΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΠΚΑΤΑ ΘΩΜΑC, “the Gospel according to Thomas,” with no superscriptio, but rather the author-editor’s incipit, i.e., opening words functioning as a title: “These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down. And he said, ‘Whoever finds the meaning of these words will not taste death’.” The reference to Thomas in the incipit was replicated in the author’s name in the subscriptio, while the term “gospel” was probably derived from the inscriptiones (and / or subscriptiones) of the four canonical gospels, which must already have existed as a fourfold collection. Even though the Gospel of Thomas was part of a papyrus codex (preceded by the Apocryphon of John and followed by the Gospel of Philip), the practice of putting a subscriptio at the end and not replicating it with a superscriptio at the beginning is based on the conventions associated with the papyrus roll.

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1. The Meaning of Εὐαγγέλιον in the Inscriptiones of the Canonical Gospels

for the short forms is also available in the inscriptiones of the 9th century codices F (010) and H (013), as well as the running titles that occur before 500 CE in three codices: ‫ א‬B D.63 Table A: Gospel Subscriptiones Subscriptio

Textual Evidence

κατὰ Μαθθαῖον

B

κατὰ Μᾶρκον

B

κατὰ Λοῦκαν

B

κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην

B

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μαθθαῖον

A D U 2 33 565 700 788

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μᾶρκον

‫ א‬A C E L U Γ Δ Ψ 2 33 700

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λοῦκαν

P75 ‫ א‬A (02) C L U W Δ Π Ψ 2 33 1582

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην

‫ א‬A E Δ Ψ 2 33 565 1582

Table B: Gospel Inscriptiones Inscriptio

Textual Evidence

κατὰ Μαθθαῖον

‫א‬B

κατὰ Μᾶρκον

‫א‬BF

κατὰ Λοῦκαν

‫א‬B

κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην

‫א‬BFH

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μαθθαῖον

P4–P64–P67 C E K M S U Δ Π Ω 2 33 565 700 788 1346 1424

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μᾶρκον

A E H K L M S U W Γ Δ Θ Π Ω 1 2 13 28 33 124 565 700 1364 1424

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λοῦκαν

A C E K L M S P U W Δ Θ Π Ψ Ω f 13 1 2 28 33 565 700 1346 1424

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην

P66 P75 A C E G K L M S U W Δ Θ Ψ Ω f 13 2 28 33 124 565 1424

Recently, a number of scholars have convincingly argued for the priority of the longer forms.64 There are two major arguments for this: (1) The shorter forms, 63  D. C. Parker, Codex Bezae: An Early Christian Manuscript and Its Text (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 10–22, contains a discussion of the superscriptions, subscriptions and running titles of all Greek and Latin New Testament manuscripts dating before 500 CE; see particularly Table 2: “Running Titles in Greek New Testament Manuscripts Written before 500” (17–19). 64 M. Hengel argues that the shorter titles are abbreviations of the originally longer titles in Die vier Evangelien, 87–95. See his earlier work on this subject: Die Evangelienüberschriften

1. The Meaning of Εὐαγγέλιον in the Inscriptiones of the Canonical Gospels

17

such as ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΘΘΑΙΑΝ, make sense only if they are considered abbreviations implying the antecedent ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ in a codex containing all four Gospels.65 In fact, the short forms occur only in codices which contain all four Gospels: ‫ א‬B F H (‫ א‬and B date to the fourth century, while F [010] and H [013] date to the ninth century). There is a close analogy in Westcott and Hort’s critical edition of the New Testament, in which they printed ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ on a flyleaf, followed by each of the Gospels.66 These were headed by what they considered the most original form of the superscriptions: ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΘΘΑΙΑΝ, ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΡΚΟΝ, ΚΑΤΑ ΛΟΥΚΑΝ and ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΗΝ, also used as running titles accompanying the texts of the four Gospels, with this comment: “In prefixing the name ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ in the singular to the quaternion of ‘Gospels,’ we have wished to supply the antecedent which alone gives an adequate sense to the preposition KATA in the several titles.”67 Westcott and Hort were presumably following the precedent of Codex Vaticanus by using such short forms as ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΘΘΑΙΑΝ as running titles (in the case of Vaticanus, with ΚΑΤΑ on the verso and ΜΑΘΘΑΙΑΝ on the recto). In the case of those few manuscripts which have the short form for some or all of the inscriptiones (‫ א‬B F H; B alone has the short form in subscriptiones), all have a collection of all four Gospels, suggesting that the longer forms preceded the shorter forms and that the shorter forms are intentional abbreviations of the longer forms.68 (2) Prior to the aggregation of the four Gospels, the oldest form of the titles of the Gospels was probably the longer forms written as subscriptiones, though such subscriptiones would only have been necessary when two or more Gospels written on papyrus rolls were in proximity. Only when the text of the Gospels began to be written on codices (the first extant example of which is P52 a codex fragment of the Gospel of John, which can be dated to the first half of the second century CE)69 would the subscriptiones have been replicated at the beginning in the form of inscriptiones. The priority of the long forms and their connection to the εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον constitute two linked paratextual features that have important implications for the generic understanding of the Gospels in the ancient church. (SHAW, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, 4; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1984), 11–12, translated into English as “The Titles of the Gospels and the Gospel of Mark,” Studies in the Gospel of Mark (trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 64–84, with notes on 162–83. P. W. Comfort and D. P. Barrett, The Complete Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1999), 44; S. Petersen, “Die Evangelienüberschriften und die Entstehung des neutestamentlichen Kanons,” ZNW 97 (2006), 268. 65 Hengel, Die vier Evangelien, 87, n. 258. 66 B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek (2 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1881). 67 Westcott and Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek, 321. 68 Petersen, “Die Evangelienüberschriften,” 254. 69 B. Nongbri, “The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel,” HTR 98 (2000), 23–48.

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1. The Meaning of Εὐαγγέλιον in the Inscriptiones of the Canonical Gospels

Several problems present themselves: (1) When were the longer subscriptiones and inscriptiones first affixed to the canonical gospels? (2) What does εὐαγγέλιον in the longer subscriptiones and inscriptiones mean and where did it come from? (3)  How early is the collection of the four gospels into the εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον? In approaching the knotty problem of assigning a relative date to the introduction of the subscriptiones and inscriptiones, it is appropriate to begin with the manuscript evidence. P75, the oldest extant manuscript of the Gospel of Luke, dated by the editors between 175 and 225 CE, contains the earliest occurrence of the subscriptiones εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λοῦκαν and εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ  Ἰωάννη, both on a single page containing the end of Luke and the beginning of John:70 ευαγ’γελιον κατα λουκαν ευαγγελιον κατα ιωαννην

The fact that the subscription of Luke is identical to the superscription of John suggests that the lost beginning of Luke also had an inscriptio identical with that of the subscriptio and that the lost ending of John had a subscriptio identical with that of the inscriptio. P66 is a fragmentary papyrus codex that contains the Gospel of John and has been dated to ca. 200 CE, approximately contemporaneous with P75, but contains no evidence of subscriptiones or inscriptiones. The earliest manuscript evidence for the title of the Gospel of Matthew is found on a fragment associated with P67, a fragmentary papyrus that has been identified by T. C. Skeat as one of three papyri, P4–P64–P67, that were originally part of a single codex containing at least the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.71 One fragment, that Skeat thinks is part of a flyleaf that comes from the beginning of P67, contains the following title: ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑΜΑΘ ’ΘΙΟΝ

Skeat maintains that this fragment was written in a different hand than the rest of the codex and the inclusion of the hooked mark between the two thetas does not become common until ca. 200 CE, while he dates the codex itself to the late second century.72 Literary evidence for the longer inscriptiones, first occurs in Irenaeus, ca. 180 CE, suggesting that these forms were in common usage in the West before 70 V. Martin and R. Kasser, eds., Évangiles de Luc et Jean, Papyrus Bodmer XIV (Cologny-Genève: Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, 1961), pl. 61. 71 T. C. Skeat, “The Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels?” NTS 43 (1997), 1–34; here 18. 72 Skeat, “The Oldest Manuscript,” 26–31.

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that date.73 Adversus haereses contains references to the titles of all four gospels in different contexts: 1.26.1: secundum Matthaeum Evangelio; 3.11.7: Evangelio quod secundum Matthaeum; 3.11.7: secundum Markum est praeferentes Evangelium  … quod secundum Iohannem; 3.12.12: secundum Lukam autem Evangelium; 3.11.9. These are striking because Irenaeus refers to the titles using a bracketed structure, e.g., τὸ  … κατὰ Λοῦκαν εὐαγγέλιον (3.12.12) or τῷ κατὰ Μαθθαῖον εὐαγγελίῳ (3.11.7).74 Irenaeus can also refer to individual gospels with the form τὸ κατὰ  Ἰωάννην / quod secundum Iohannem (3.12.12) and τὸ κατὰ Λοῦκαν / quod secundum Lukam (3.11.7). This suggests that Irenaeus regarded τὸ εὐαγγέλιον as the tradition of the Christian message found in various written versions. When Irenaeus refers to non-canonical gospels, he typically uses the genitive form rather than the preposition κατά / secundum, e.g., 3.11.9: veritatis Evangelium titulent “entitled the Gospel of Truth”); 1.31.1: Judae Evangelium (“the Gospel of Judas”).75

The Development of the Fourfold Gospel The second paratextual feature that contextually transformed individual Gospels was the fact that they were subject to gradual aggregation, that is, two, three and then four gospels were combined, culminating in the traditional τετράμορφον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον or “fourfold Gospel” (Irenaeus, Haer. 3.11.8). With the gradual aggregation of the Gospels, a process that occurred in different ways in different places at different times, it became necessary to add subscriptiones to distinguish them from another at a glance and to assert their basic similarity.76 The eventual formation of the fourfold Gospel was in part dependent on the relatively early adoption of the codex for copying and transmitting early Christian literature. P75 (end of the second century) provides evidence for the existence of a collection of the four Gospels in codex form, yet it is unclear whether it originally consisted of a single codex containing all four Gospels, i.e., two single-quire codices sewn together, one containing Matthew and Mark and the other containing Luke and

73 H. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 153–54. 74 Reed, “ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ,” 20 n. 32. 75 This genitival construction conforms to the subscriptio of the recently-discovered Coptic Gospel of Judas; R. Kasser, M. Meyer and G. Wurst, The Gospel of Judas from Codex Tchacos (Washington, D. C.: National Geographic, 2006); J. Brankaer and H.-G. Bethge, eds., Codex Tchacos: Texte und Analysen (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007). 76 On the gradual aggregation of the Gospels, see Petersen, “Die Evangelienüberschriften,” 268. On the addition of subscriptiones, see T. K. Heckel, Vom Evangelium des Markus zum viergestaltigen Evangelium (WUNT 120; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 207–16.

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John.77 The single-quire codex consisted of a series of sheets or leaves of papyrus gathered together and folded in half, with each sheet providing four pages (thus the term quire). Skeat estimates that a single-quire codex could accommodate ca. 100 sheets.78 Single-quire codices belonged to the earlier stages of the development of the codex because they had disadvantages. They did not fold flat and were prone to break at the spine. The outside edges were uneven and in larger single-quire codices the inside sheets had to be trimmed resulting in pages of lesser width; this made it difficult for a scribe to determine whether his text would fit within a single-quire codex. Even in the fourth quarter of the second century, when there is clear evidence for the existence of a fourfold Gospel, it is clear that this collection did not predominate everywhere in the Mediterranean world. The most obvious exception is Tatian’s Diatessaron (διὰ τεσσάρων, “out of four [gospels],”) a single harmonized narrative combining the four gospels into a single narrative compiled ca. 160– 175 CE).79 Tatian was probably motivated by the conception of a unitary gospel of Jesus Christ even if drawn from four different written versions of that gospel. The fact that the Diatessaron was used in some Syriac churches until the fifth century underscores the longevity of this mid-second century conception of gospel. Papias of Hierapolis (fl. 110–135 CE),80 as quoted by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 3.39.15–16) preserves the tradition that Mark’s gospel was based on the preaching of Peter and that Matthew’s gospel was originally written in a Semitic language (Hebrew or Aramaic). He makes no explicit mention of Luke or John: This also the presbyter said: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely. These things are related by Papias concerning Mark. But concerning [μὲν οὖν] Matthew he writes as follows: “So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able.” 81 77 T. C. Skeat, “The Origin of the Christian Codex,” ZPE 102 (1994), 263–68; here 264. Hengel, Die vier Evangelium, 76, n. 225 appears to misunderstand Skeat, for he claims that a codex with all four Gospels would have been unmanageable. What Skeat actually says is that P75 was a codex of the four Gospels consisting of two single-quire sections (one containing Matthew and Mark, the other containing Luke and John) sewn together to form a single codex. 78 Skeat, “The Origin of the Christian Codex,” 264. 79 The only major omissions were the genealogies of Matthew and Luke and the pericopae adulterae. 80 C. E. Hill, “Papias of Hierapolis,” ExpTim 117 (2006), 309–15, here 309. 81 The fragments of Papias have been subject to intense scrutiny by scholars for the last two centuries with the result that there is an enormous and complex bibliography on all aspects of the subject.

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Several observations are in order: (1) The first part of this statement indicates that Mark was considered the author of a narrative dealing with “the things said or done by Christ” (Papias does not use the term “gospel”). The name “Mark” was somehow attached to the work, though exactly how is unclear. (2) The italicized part of the quotation indicates that Papias’s comments about Matthew did not immediately follow his discussion of Mark, but were taken from elsewhere in his work. (3) The concluding statement about Matthew defies explanation, since canonical Matthew shows no signs of translation from Hebrew or Aramaic. It is perhaps best to conclude that the Matthew mentioned by Papias has nothing to do with our canonical Matthew.82 It has been argued that in the title of the lost work of Papias, Λογίων κυριακῶν ἐξηγήσεως (Eusebius Hist. eccl. 3.39.1), the phrase κυριακὰ λογία, refers to one or more Gospels.83 Based both on what Papias reportedly said, some scholars have argued that the collection of four Gospels was already known by the turn of the second century.84 This is wishful thinking, since Papias says nothing about a fourfold Gospel, nor does he anywhere actually refer to Luke or John as authors of Gospels (possible allusions to the latter only indicate that they were known, not that they were part of an exclusive fourfold collection). Though there is no explicit mention of an εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον before Irenaeus, ca. 180 CE (Haer. 3.11.8), Justin Martyr (died ca. 165 CE) may imply such a collection in Dialogue 103.8, where he says: ἐν γὰρ τοῖς ἀπομνημονεύμασιν, ἅ φημι ύπὸ τῶν ἀποστόλων αὐτοῦ καὶ τῶν ἐκείνοις παρακοϋουθησάντων συντετάχθαι, γέγραπται (“it is written in the memoires composed by his [Jesus’] apostles and those who followed them”) i.e., at least two “memoirs” in each of two categories, “apostles” (Matthew and John?) and “those who followed them” (Mark and Luke?), i.e., at least four gospels.85 This picture is complicated, however, by the fact that Justin mentions several apocryphal traditions (which he assumes to be true) in the Dialog with Trypho, that he did not find in the four Gospels.86 It is also striking that Justin never mentions the names of the traditional authors of the four Gospels. The four Gospels are also referred to in the Canon Muratorianus, a seventh or eighth century manuscript originally translated from Greek into a deponent 82 Hengel,

Die vier Evangelien, 72, n. 207 and 134–38.

83 A. D. Baum, “Papias als Kommentator evangelischer Aussprüche Jesu: Erwägungen zur Art

seines Werkes,” NovT 38 (1996), 257–76; here 258–59. 84 C. E. Hill, “Papias of Hierapolis,” ExpTim 117 (2006), 309–15; here 311–12. 85 G. N. Stanton, “The Fourfold Gospel,” Jesus and the Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 76 (this is a lightly revised version of Stanton’s article “The Four Gospels,” NTS 43 [1997], 317–46). 86 These include a cave as the place of Jesus’ birth (Dial. 78.5–6); the light at Jesus’ baptism (88.2); the divine voice at Jesus’ baptism is reported as saying “Today I have engendered you” (103.6); the fact that as a carpenter Jesus made plows and yokes (88.8).

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form of Latin and widely regarded as having been produced ca. 170 CE.87 Though the beginning of this canonical list is fragmentary (though obviously referring to Mark), the first two clear references to New Testament books are to Luke and John (lines 2, 9): tertio euangelii librum secando Lucan … quarti evangeliorum Iohannis ex decipolis.88 (“The third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke … The fourth of the Gospels is that of John, [one] of the disciples”).89 This order of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), is the so-called Eastern order that came to predominate and is reflected in Irenaeus (Haer. 3.1.1) as well as in P75 and the great fourth and fifth centuries codices (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Ephraemi Rescriptus) and most of the later manuscripts that include the four Gospels. While 19th and 20th century scholarship generally agreed that he Greek original of the Muratorian Canon originated ca. 170 CE in the Western empire, a minority view is represented by several scholars, particularly Sundberg and Hahneman, who relocate the document to the Eastern Mediterranean in the fourth century.90 According to the Muratorian Canon, the fourfold Gospel has a fixed canonical status and exhibits no defensiveness like that expressed by Irenaeus. The enumeration of the Gospels implies that Matthew was first and Mark second, and the statement found following the discussion about John indicates that four and only four Gospels were considered part of the canon.91 One of the clearest references to the existence of the fourfold Gospel as an exclusive collection is found in Irenaeus, Haer. 3.11.8 (ca. 180 CE:92 87  B. F. Westcott, A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980 [reprint of the sixth edition of 1889]), 211–12. 88 The Latin text is based on Westcott, A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament, 523. 89 B. M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 305–6. 90 A. C. Sundberg, Jr. “Canon Muratori: A Fourth Century List,” HTR 66 (1973), 1–41. Sundberg also wrote a number of other related articles. G. M. Hahneman, The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). See the recent summary of the issues in L. M. MacDonald, The Biblical Canon: Its Origen, Transmission, and Authority (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), 369–78, who is critical of the late second century date of the fragment. The most detailed discussion of scholarship on the Muratorian Canon is found in J. Verheyden, “The Canon Muratori: A Matter of Dispute,” The Biblical Canons, ed. J.-M. Auwers & H. J. de Jonge (BETL 163; Leuven: University Press and Peeters, 2003), 487–556, who maintains the traditional late second century date of the fragment. 91 Muratorian Canon, lines 15–25 (trans. Metzger, 306): “(16) And so, though various (17) elements may be taught in the individual books of the Gospels, (18) nevertheless this makes no difference to the faith (19) of believers, since by the one sovereign Spirit all things (20) have been declared in all [the Gospels]; concerning the (21) nativity, concerning the passion, concerning the resurrection, (22) concerning life with his disciples, (23) and concerning his twofold coming; (24) the first in lowliness when he was despised, which has taken place, (25) the second glorious in royal power, (26) which is still in the future.” Note that the insertion of line (19) is missing from Metzger’s text. 92 This passage in Irenaeus may have been derived from a source (see T. C. Skeat, “Irenaeus and the Four-Gospel Canon,” NovT 34 [1992], 194–99), which can be dated some years earlier than ca. 180 CE, when Irenaeus wrote Haer., perhaps ca. 170 CE.

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It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the “pillar and ground” of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh.

This paragraph has an apologetic ring to it, suggesting that the fourfold Gospel required defense (i.e., was not accepted everywhere) and certainly the argument based on the number four could easily be paralleled with equally arbitrary arguments for other numbers, such as three, five or seven (elsewhere Irenaeus expresses skepticism about such numerological interpretations in 2.24–25).93 Stanton is convinced that by ca. 180 CE the fourfold Gospel was very well established.94 In Haer. 3.1.1, Irenaeus repeats what he reportedly learned from Papias; unlike Papias, he refers, however, explicitly to Luke and John and puts each of the gospels in the traditional Eastern order: Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

It is important to note that this passage follows a brief description of the juxtaposition of oral proclamation followed by the written gospels: We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.

These apostles, “do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God” (Haer. 3.1.1).

Conclusions From its first appearance in the Pauline letters in the mid-first century through its use in the Apostolic Fathers during the first half of the second century, the lexeme τὸ εὐαγγέλιον was a theological abbreviation for the good news of God’s saving action in Jesus Christ. The evidence provided by the Didache, Ignatius, the Martyrdom of Polycarp and 2 Clement indicates that τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in these texts means an authoritative complex of traditional teachings and activities of Jesus with an implicit indifference toward the issue of whether this complex was Muratorian Fragment, 100–105. Stanton, Jesus and the Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 67.

93 Hahneman, 94 G. N.

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transmitted in oral or written form. For the late second century CE, Irenaeus provides important evidence indicating that this meaning of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον was current along with the more recent understanding of the term as a written text. The occurrence of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in the incipit of Mark’s Gospel, more closely defined by the genitive phrase  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ is probably a intentional double entendre that can be correctly construed to mean both “the gospel about Jesus Christ” (an objective genitive) and “the gospel proclaimed by Jesus Christ” (a subjective genitive). The meaning of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in Mark 1:1 is important because this was the source for the Gospel subscriptiones and superscriptiones. Important is not, however, what modern scholars think that τὸ εὐαγγέλιον means in that context, but what second century Christians construed it to mean. In the Table A: Gospel Subscriptiones and Table B: Gospel Superscriptiones, presented above, it is evident that the shorter inscriptiones (ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΘΘΑΙΑΝ, etc.) occur only in manuscripts of the four Gospels: ‫( א‬fourth century), B (fourth century), F (ninth century), H (ninth century). These shorter forms make sense only if they are understood as abbreviations implying the antecedent ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ in a codex containing all four Gospels. Whether the earliest manuscripts in which these shorter inscriptiones occur were based on exemplars with similar readings is not known. What is known is that the meaning of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον as the oral proclamation of the Church as transmitted in four different written versions was alive and well in the fourth century.95 The question of when the Gospels were collected together to form an εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον and when the inscriptiones were first attached to them can only be answered in general terms. Clear evidence for a fourfold Gospel appears only during the third quarter of the second century as reflected in Tatian’s Diatessaron (ca. 160–175 CE), Irenaeus (ca. 180 CE), and the problematic Muratorian Canon. It is likely that the εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον existed ca. 150 CE, though no firm evidence confirms this early date.

95 Stuhlmacher,

Das paulinische Evangelium, 18.

2. Genre Theory and the Genre-Function of Mark and Matthew* Introduction During the last thirty years, the problem of the genre of the Gospels has become a critically important issue for some NT scholars, yet for others it has been an issue of marginal or negligible significance.1 Before the 1970s, commentators on the Gospels rarely mentioned the issue of genre. That situation has changed somewhat, though interest in the genre question varies widely. Particularly since the 1980s, many commentaries on Mark have included a discussion of genre,2 while curiously, commentaries on Matthew published during the same period rarely treat the issue.3 Those who think that the genre issue is worth pursuing are often primarily concerned with the hermeneutical implications of an appropriate generic identification of the Gospels. Yet if a knowledge of the genre of the Gospels is necessary for proper interpretation, how can New Testament scholars produce extensive commentaries without carefully paying attention to the hermeneutical implications of the genre of the text? And even if one decides that Mark shares the generic profile of “biography” or “history” or “mythic narrative” or “Jewish * Original publication: “Genre Theory and the Genre-Function of Mark and Matthew,” Mark and Matthew, Texts and Contexts I: Understanding the First Gospels in Their First Century Settings, ed. E.-M. Becker and A. Runesson (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 145–176. 1  In B. J. Incigneri’s lengthy study of Mark, The Gospel to the Romans: The Setting and Rhetoric of Mark’s Gospel (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 19, the author does not mention the issue of genre and maintains that Mark should not be considered a literary work of art (in this he has a point). Rather, he follows Robert Alter in arguing that we cannot apply literary critical categories to the Bible, since biblical literature is different, because the texts are “theologically motivated [and] historically oriented” and “have their own dynamics, their own distinctive conventions and characteristic techniques” (quoting R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative [New York: Basic Books, 1981], 15, 23). For Incigneri, narrative criticism “has dehumanized the text” and therefore must be rejected (20–22). Thus Incigneri is at odds with both literary and rhetorical genre theorists. 2 The most extensive discussion of the genre of Mark in a commentary is that found in A. Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 15–43. This discussion is longer than her earlier monograph on the subject, Is Mark’s Gospel a Life of Jesus? The Question of Genre (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1990). 3 Examples of commentaries on Matthew lacking a discussion of genre: R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel of Matthew (Würzburg, Echter Verlag, 1987; P. Fiedler, Das Matthäusevangelium (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2006).

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novel,” what are the hermeneutical entailments of that decision?4 Or, is this another example of a hermeneutical circle, i. e., scholars prefer to categorize Mark in that genre that fits their understanding of the text and then use the hermeneutical implications of the genre to interpret the text? There are, of course, a number of genre theorists who maintain that it is precisely the critic who determines or creates the genre of the text. For New Testament scholars, the central issue has been to identify the ancient genre to which Mark and the other canonical Gospels belong (whether to the same or different genres), working under the general assumption that all literary texts, and perhaps even all nonliterary texts, from all times and places have a generic identity. New Testament scholars puzzling over the genre of Mark are no different from literary scholars baffled over the genre of Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Hamlet – Prince of Denmark,” or the problem of classifying the supposedly “unclassifiable” works of the modern German-cum-English writer W. G. Sebald.5 One of the widespread (but not universal) presuppositions of the academy is that the four canonical Gospels share a single “literary” genre,6 which for some is sui generis (the default view of much of German scholarship), but for others is “unclassifiable” or “generically ambivalent,”7 and for yet others is a “new genre” or even a “revolutionary new genre,” while perhaps a majority are convinced that the Gospels must share a generic profile with one or more ancient Jewish and / or Graeco-Roman literary genres (biography, history, novel, and myth are the usual suspects). The view that Mark must be based on a single generic model reflects the Aristotelian view of taxonomy, which envisages an exhaustive classification system in which every member of a particular population can be placed in

4  H. N. Roskam, The Purpose of Mark in Its Historical and Social Context (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 236, thinks that while Mark is correctly categorized as “ancient biography,” this generic identification reveals nothing about the purpose of Mark. She therefore prefers the designation “an apologetic writing in biographical form,” essentially inventing a new biographical subgenre to fit her interpretation. 5 S. Cooke, “ ‘Always Somewhere Else’: Generic ‘Unclassifiability’ in the Work of W. G. Sebald,” Gattungstheorie und Gattungsgeschichte, ed. M. Gymnich, B. Neumann, and A. Nünning (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2007), 235–52. 6 There are exceptions, such as M. Vines, The Problem of Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish Novel (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 24–5. Vines argues that just because the Synoptic Gospels exhibit mutual dependence does not mean that they arranged their material under the influence of the same genre and that redactional differences suggest that each was dissatisfied with the presentation of the other. Since Matthew and Luke include birth narratives and resurrection appearances, they conform more closely than Mark to ancient biography, suggesting that Mark was either not a biography or it was a deficient one. Vines is using a discrimen here, of the type he elsewhere pejoratively labels “formalistic and reductive comparisons” (122). He also exhibits a rigid view of genre out of keeping with the general orientation of modern genre theory. 7 I insert the options “unclassifiable” and “generically ambivalent,” not because they are actually used by NT scholars, but because they imply research in progress rather than a final decision.

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one, and only one, class.8 Neoclassical literary criticism (eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries), under the ubiquitous influence of Aristotle, imagined a total literary system of all literary works that consisted of normative rules with universal validity that rigidly separated literary kinds. Following Todorov,9 and in keeping with the more recent emphasis on the dynamic rather than static nature and function of genres, I will argue that the Gospel of Mark (followed by the Gospel of Matthew), represents both an imitative and transformative reaction to existing literary genres, i. e., Mark in particular is a type of Graeco-Roman biography in the special sense that it is a parody of that genre.10

The Beginnings of Genre Criticism in Biblical Studies Beginning with the late nineteenth century, the biblical scholars who founded and developed the form critical method tried to isolate, identify, and describe constituent literary forms in biblical narrative texts that were presumed to have originated in oral discourse (in part influenced by the Danish folklorist Axel Olrik).11 Two of the founders of New Testament form criticism, Rudolf Bultmann and Martin Dibelius, independently developed taxonomies of oral forms preserved in the Gospels based on analogous forms attested in both Jewish and Graeco-Roman literature. On the literary form of the Gospels, Bultmann argued that “while we need analogies for understanding the individual components of  8 G. C. Bowker and S. Leigh Star, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 62.  9 T. Todorov, “The Origin of Genres,” in Modern Genre Theory, ed. D. Duff (Harlow: Peterson Education Limited, 2000), 193–209. 10 The view that Mark is a parody of Graeco-Roman biography will be discussed briefly below, but in this context it is not possible to develop this proposal adequately. 11 R. Bultmann, for example, was familiar with some of the ideas of the Danish folklore scholar A. Olrik, who in 1909 published an article in German, “Epische Gesetze der Volksdichtung,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 52 (1909), 1–12, translated into English in 1965 as “Epic Laws of Folk Narrative,” in The Study of Folklore (ed. A. Dundes; Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965). Olrik (1864–1917) was a philologist and medievalist who worked primarily in the field of Scandinavian folklore and who proposed a set of diagnostic principles or “laws” to distinguish segments of originally oral performances preserved in written texts, precisely the task of form criticism as envisioned by Dibelius and Bultmann. H. Gunkel (1862–1932), the founder of Old Testament form criticism, read a copy of the lecture that Olrik had given on the epic laws in Berlin in 1908. Gunkel corresponded with Olrik on the subject and refers to Olrik’s epic laws in The Legends of Genesis: The Biblical Saga and History, trans. W. H. Carruth (New York: Schocken, 1964); a translation of “Die Sagen der Genesis,” the introduction to his commentary Genesis: Übersetzt und Erklärt (7th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), first published in 1901. A posthumous work of Olrik, Nogen Grundsætninger for Sagnforskning (ed. H. Ellekilde; Copenhagen: Det Schønberske Forlag, 1921), was translated into English as Principles for Oral Narrative Research (trans. K. Wolf and J. Jensen; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992).

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the Synoptic Tradition we do not need them for the Gospel as a whole.”12 He continues:13 The [literary] analogies that are to hand serve only to throw the uniqueness of the Gospel into still stronger relief. It has grown out of the imminent urge to development which lay in the tradition fashioned for various motives, and out of the Christ-myth and the Christ-cult of Hellenistic Christianity. It is thus an original creation of Christianity.

When form criticism began to come under increasing criticism during the 1950s and 1960s, some members of the academy, particularly in the United States, began to shift their focus to the holistic literary analysis of biblical books. This holistic approach began in earnest in the 1970s and took two forms, literary criticism, soon rebaptized as narrative criticism, and genre criticism. One of the earliest applications of narrative criticism to the Gospels was the slim but influential book on Mark by D. Rhoads and D. Michie,14 influenced by two types of formalistic analysis, the New Criticism (which flourished from the 1920s through the early 1960s, primarily in the United States) and narratology (which began with the Russian formalists in the 1920s and was developed by more recent scholars such as Gérard Genette). Throughout most of the twentieth century, but with new vigor in the 1970s, genre criticism began to flourish in literary scholarship as a critical tool for interpreting literary texts, and began to exert an influence on biblical studies during the early 1970s. In 1972, William G. Doty was one of the first New Testament scholars to argue for the importance of genre criticism, based on his exposure to genre theory promulgated by literary scholars,15 and the view that Mark belonged to the genre of Hellenistic biography was revived after years of dormancy by several scholars including Siegfried Schultz (1964), Philip L. Shuler in a 1975 Oxford dissertation written under E. P. Sanders, published in1982, and Charles H. Talbert in the United States (1977), all largely innocent of developments in modern genre theory.16 While the development of narrative criticism appropriate for understanding the literary qualities of the Gospels was essentially a new undertaking for biblical scholars, the genre criticism of the Gospels had antecedents in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that had been largely muffled by the claim of form 12 R. Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (trans. J. Marsh; New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 373. 13 Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, 373–374 14 D. Rhoads and D. Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982). 15 W. G. Doty, “The Concept of Genre in Literary Analysis,” The Society of Biblical Literature One-Hundred-Eighth Annual Meeting Book of Seminar Papers: Friday–Tuesday, 1–5 September 1972, ed. L. C. McGaughy (2 vols.; Society of Biblical Literature, 1972), 413–48. 16 S. Schulz, “Die Bedeutung des Mk für die Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums,” in TU 87 (1964), 135–45; P. L. Shuler, A Genre for the Gospels: The Biographical Character of Matthew (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982); C. H. Talbert, What Is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977).

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critics that the Gospels were a unique non-literary product of early Christianity and that the Evangelists were not “authors” in the proper sense of the term so much as editors. The initial interest in the genre of the Gospels by New Testament scholars tended to mirror earlier attempts to classify the literary form of the Gospels by comparing their form, content, style, and structure with other forms of ancient literature, particularly biographies and apocalypses.

Relevant Aspects of Modern Genre Theory for the Toolkits of New Testament Scholars Literary scholars and genre theorists are not one big happy family, nor should we expect that they would be. Some literary critics argue that genre is a useless abstraction.17 For others, genres have been regarded as an arbitrary and artificial system of classification. For the New Criticism (ca. 1920s to the early 1960s), the concept of genre was a threat to the central notion of an autonomous text. For Jacques Derrida, individual texts resist classification because they are interpretively indeterminate and no generic trait confines a text to a genre because such a belonging would falsify the constituents of a text.18 Essentially, Derrida’s approach leads to a study of individual texts apart from the historical consideration of genre.19 Before the 1980s, genre criticism was largely the province of literary studies and the view of genre that dominated was that of a genre as container or package for discourse. Since then, the notion of genre has been reconceptualized by scholars working outside the field of literary studies, such as applied linguistics, sociology, communication studies, education, and rhetoric. Genre criticism has been transformed from a descriptive to an explanatory activity with a shift in focus from an exclusive emphasis on types of texts, systems of classification, and an a posteriori interpretive tool to an emphasis on the socio-rhetorical function of genres.20 “Rhetorical genre studies” is a designation for the study of nonliterary genres which arose in the 1980s. Proponents of “rhetorical genre studies” often consider themselves opposed to literary genre studies. Bakhtin, however, argues persuasively that all genres mediate communicative activity, from novels to military

17 B. Croce, “Criticism of the Theory of Artistic and Literary Kinds,” Modern Genre Theory, ed. D. Duff (Harlow: Longman, 2000), 25–8. 18 J. Derrida, “The Law of Genre,” in Duff, Modern Genre, 219–31. 19 R. Cohen, “History and Genre,” New Literary History 17 (1986), 203–218 (here: 205–6).J. Derrida, “The Law of Genre,” in Duff, Modern Genre, 219–31. 20 A. Bawarshi, Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention in Composition (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2003), 7–9.

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commands, and that all discourse is generic in form.21 Both literary genres and nonliterary genres (Gattungen and Textsorten),22 reminiscent of the dichotomy between Hochliteratur and Kleinliteratur made by early twentieth century New Testament scholars,23 function to regulate the social positions, relations, and identities of authors. In the following short paragraphs, I will summarize several features of genre theory that tend to cut across various modern approaches to genre that can serve as critical tools in dealing with the problem of the genre of Mark and Matthew. 1. “Genre” means type or category and refers to groups of literary works which, according to Neumann and Nünning, share significant material or content, formal and functional features that serve as criteria for relating individual texts to groups of texts and provide an orientation for both authors and readers.24 Frow also defines genres as complex structures that must always be defined in terms of three main structural dimensions: (1) the formal, (2) the rhetorical (= Neumann and Nünning’s “functional”), and (3) the thematic (= Neumann and Nünning’s “material or content”).25 These are precisely the same generic features that David Hellholm used in the 1980s to analyze the form of apocalypses.26 These categories overlap, however, and must be given different weight and proportions depending 21 M. M. Bakhtin, “The Problem of Speech Genres,” in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (ed. C. Emerson and M. Holquist; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986), 60–102. 22 This distinction is found in B. Neumann and A. Nünning, “Einleitung: Probleme, Aufgaben und Perspektiven der Gattungstheorie und Gattungsgeschichte,” Gattungstheorie und Gattungsgeschichte (ed. M. Gymnich, B. Neumann, and A. Nünning; Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2007), 3. 23 The founders of form criticism, K. L. Schmidt, M. Dibelius, and R. Bultmann, categorized the oral traditions that were incorporated into the written Gospels as well as the Gospels themselves, as folk literature, or to use the dichotomy made famous by K. L. Schmidt, Kleinliteratur rather than Hochliteratur. Since the Gospels, as well as the oral traditions of which they were constituted, were considered “unliterary,” the written Gospels could not be expected to conform to ancient literary genres such as biography or history. According to Schmidt, “Das Evangelium is von Haus aus nicht Hochliteratur, sondern Kleinliteratur, nicht individuelle Schriftstellerleistung, sondern volksbuch, nicht Biographie, sondern Kultlegende” (K. L. Schmidt, “Die Stellung der Evangelien in der allgemeinen Literaturgeschichte,” Neues Testament, Judentum, Kirche: Kleine Schriften [ed. G. Sauter; München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1981], 66–67 [emphasis in the original]). During the last quarter of the twentieth century, it became clear to many scholars that the form critical assumption of a dichotomy between Kleinliteratur and Hochliteratur was an artificial distinction that owed more to romantic notions of primitivity than to insights into comparative literature. 24 Neumann and Nünning, “Einleitung,” 3. 25 J. Frow, Genre (London: Routledge, 2006), 74–6. 26 Two of Hellholm’s seminal works in this area are Das Visionenbuch des Hermas als Apocalypse: Formgeschichtliche und texttheoretische Studien zu einer literarischen Gattung, vol. 1 of Methodologische Vorüberlegungen und makrostructurelle Textanalyse (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1980) and “The Problem of Apocalyptic Genre and the Apocalypse of John,” Early Christian Apocalypticism: Genre and Social Setting, ed. A. Yarbro Collins (Semeia 36; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 65–96.

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on which genre is analyzed. Generic differences are also based on the “use-value” of discourse rather than just its content and formal features.27 2. Literary genres are structured categories with a “hard core” of prototypical members exhibiting a high degree of “family resemblance” to one another (an assumption of cognitive psychology); they also consist of other, less typical marginal members.28 This means that genres are fuzzy categories, evident in the fact that no single genre has been completely defined,29 since (as Alastair Fowler has observed), “genres at all levels are positively resistant to definition.”30 Many, perhaps most, genres share at least one fundamental trait, which may provide essential information about their scope and possibilities (for biography, for example, this would be a focus on the life of a single significant individual).31 In order to evaluate a writer’s work, critics should take account of the generic tradition within which the author is working (i. e., the “family tree” of the genre). The high mortality rate of ancient literature, however, has meant that modern scholars have had access to only a fraction of the “ancestors” on the generic “family tree,” making the task of genre criticism very difficult. 3. Genres are dynamic rather than static entities that have no essence and which evolve or are transformed over time (see no. 5 below), so that the increasing number of texts associated with a particular genre incrementally transform the entire genre.32 Ralph Cohen articulates this view, which is widely held among modern genre theorists:33 I wish to argue that genre concepts in theory and practice arise, change, and decline for historical reasons. And since each genre is composed of texts that accrue, the grouping is a process, not a determinate category. Genres are open categories. Each member alters the genre by adding, contradicting, or changing constituents, especially those of members most closely related to it.

Unrealistically rigid and restrictive conceptions of genre may face problems in trying to accommodate new works (a common problem for many who seek to generically classify the Gospels).34 27  T. O. Beebee, The Ideology of Genre: A Comparative Study of Generic Instability (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 7. 28 D. Fishelov, “Genre Theory and Family Resemblance  – Revisited,” Poetics 20 (1991), 123–38. This emphasis on one fundamental shared trait is a rejection of the particular application of Wittgenstein’s family resemblance theory that emphasizes the negative: “Representatives of a genre may then be regarded as making up a family whose septs and individual members are related in various ways, without necessarily having any single feature shared in common by all” (A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982], 41). 29 A. Dundes, “Texture, Text, and Context,” Southern Folklore Quarterly 28 (1964), 264. 30 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 40. 31 Fishelov, “Genre Theory and Family Resemblance,” 135. 32 Y. Tynyanov, “The Literary Fact,” in Duff, Modern Genre, 32. 33 Cohen, “History and Genre,” 204. 34 Fishelov, “Genre Theory and Family Resemblance,” 128.

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4. The transformation of genres occurs in many ways. Todorov suggests just three (namely, inversion, displacement and combination).35 From where do genres come? Why, quite simply, from other genres. A new genre is always the transformation of an earlier one, or of several by inversion,by displacement, by combination. Gérard Genette, a prominent French literary theorist, has distinguished between a hypertext and its hypotext, i. e., any text derived from a previous text, by way of simple transformation or indirect transformation or imitation, each of which can take a great variety of forms.36 Alastair Fowler has provided detailed discussions of ten types of generic transformation: (1) topical invention (topics added to the repertoire of a genre), (2) combination, (3) aggregation (short works are grouped in an ordered collection), (4) change of scale (expansion or contraction), 5) change of function, (6) counterstatement (i. e., counter-genres or “anti-genres,” as antitheses to existing genres), (7) inclusion (embedding one genre in another), (8) generic mixture, (9) hybrids (two or more repertoires present in such proportion that none dominates),37 and (10) satire.38 Mark transformed the existing sources incorporated into his text, just as Matthew transformed Mark using a number of strategies including the deconstruction of Q, the Sayings Source. 5. All human discourse is genre-bound, i. e., genre is a universal dimension of textuality,39 and genres are by definition social conventions, the social context of which can be called a “discourse community” or an “activity system.”40 A modern university constitutes such a discourse community and the system of genres characteristic of such a community includes grant applications, study guides, term papers, dissertation proposals, lectures, and so forth. The early Christian church similarly functioned as a discourse community, using a system of many oral and written genres (the latter including letters, gospels, histories, apocalypses, and novels). Within discourse communities, the forms of oral and written discourse largely reflect typified, recurrent situations that are understood and used intuitively by speakers and hearers, writers, and readers. Each person in 35 Todorov,

“The Origin of Genres,” 197.

36 G. Genette, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, trans. C. Newman and C. Doubin-

sky (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 5–10. 37 K. Seibel, “Mixing Genres: Levels of Contamination and the Formation of Generic Hybrids,” in Gattungstheorie und Gattungsgeschichte, ed. M. Gymnich, B. Neumann, and A. Nünning (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2007), 137–50. 38 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 170–83. In the field of biblical studies, see D. Damrosch, The Narrative Covenant: Transformations of Genre in the Growth of Biblical Literature (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987). When he wrote this book, Damrosch was a member of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He uses the phrase “narrative covenant” to refer to the pact between author and reader that provides the framework of norms and expectations that shape both the composition and the reception of a text. 39 Frow, Genre, 2. 40 C. Bazerman, “Discursively Structured Activities,” Mind, Culture and Activity 4 (1997), 296–308.

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33

the discourse community acquires knowledge about genres through the process of literary socialization, a process in which the canonical generic prototypes play a significant role. 6. Individual texts signal their generic affiliation by means of textual clues that reflexively move the reader to apply a certain schema to their interpretation (e. g., paratextual generic labels, like “The Gospel according to Mark”).41

Paratextual Features of the Gospels Introduction Since genres exist within literary systems and literary systems are part of historical and social contexts, if the system changes or literary texts are transposed into another literary system or are read in a different historical and social situation, both the understanding of the genre and the meaning of the text change, i. e., static definitions of genre, covering all its manifestations, are impossible.42 After Mark and Matthew were written, the texts themselves, as well as their physical characteristics and their literary, social, and ideological contexts were subject to a variety of changes inevitably entailing altered perceptions of their generic significance. The most obvious example is the fact that longer and shorter endings were appended to Mark, transforming Mark by supplying a continuation modeled on the endings of Matthew, Luke, and John as well as by providing a narrative closure in line with the broad conventions of appropriate narrative conventions. James Kelhoffer has argued convincingly that Mark 16:9–20 was added to the text of Mark ca. 120–150 CE and that this addition was based on texts of the four Gospels, constituting relatively early evidence for the existence as well as the respect accorded the fourfold Gospel collection by the mid-second century.43

Subscriptiones and Superscriptiones Between the composition of the canonical Gospels (ca. 70–100 CE) and the middle of the second century, two paratextual features were added to the Gospels: (1) they were subject to gradual aggregation, culminating in the traditional εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον known to Irenaeus ca. 180 CE (Adv. haer. 3.11.8),44 41 G. Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, trans. J. E. Lewin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 42 Tynyanov, “The Literary Fact,” 32. 43  J. A. Kelhoffer, Mission and Message: The Authentication of Missionaries and Their Message in the Longer Ending of Mark (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000). 44 This passage in Irenaeus was probably based on a source (see T. C. Skeat, “Irenaeus and the Four-Gospel Canon,” NovT 37 [1992], 194–9), which can be dated some years earlier than ca. 180 CE, when Irenaeus wrote Adv. haer., perhaps ca. 170 CE.

34

2. Genre Theory and the Genre-Function of Mark and Matthew

and (2)  they were given identical subscriptiones or superscriptiones.45 Though there is no explicit mention of a εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον before 180 CE, Justin implies such a collection in Dialogue 103.8 (ca. 160 CE), where he refers to “the memoires composed by his [Jesus’] apostles and those who followed them” (i. e., at least two “memoires” in each of two categories).46 This way of categorizing the Gospels in terms of their authorship by two apostles and two followers of apostles is reflected in the Western order of the Gospels found in P45 (ca. 200 CE), several old Latin manuscripts (e a b ff2 g), the Apostolic Constitutions and codices D (5th–6th cents.), W (4th–5th cents.), and X (9th–10th cents.).47 The most likely scenario is that with the gradual aggregation of from two to four Gospels,48 it became necessary to add subscriptiones or superscriptiones to each Gospel in order both to distinguish one from another and to assert their basic similarity.49 These two paratextual developments are generically salient in that they reveal how some Christians in the late first and early second centuries CE understood the texts of the Gospels. Discounting later expansions (subscriptiones and superscriptiones were often expanded by scribes), the forms of the subscriptiones and superscriptiones at issue exhibit two basic patterns: a short form (often presumed to be earlier),50 e. g., κατὰ Μαθθαῖον, κατὰ Μᾶρκον, κατὰ Λοῦκαν, and κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην, and the longer and more familiar form (which a number of scholars in recent years have argued is more original),51 e. g., εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μαθθαῖον, εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μᾶρκον, εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λοῦκαν, and εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην. The stere45 A. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius, Teil II: Die Chronologie, Band 1: Die Chronologie der Literatur bis Irenäus nebst einleitenden Untersuchungen (2. Erweiterte Auflage; Leipzig: H. C. Hinrichs Verlag, 1958), 682. G. N. Stanton, “The Fourfold Gospel,” in Jesus and Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2004), 67. Here Stanton maintains that Irenaeus does not refer to the fourfold Gospel as a recent innovation. 46 Stanton, “The Fourfold Gospel,” 76. 47 M. Hengel, Die vier Evangelien und das eine Evangelium von Jesus Christus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 75–7. 48 Petersen, “Die Evangelienüberschriften,” 268. 49  T. K. Heckel, Vom Evangelium des Markus zum viergestaltigen Evangelium (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 207–16. 50 Nestle-Aland27 and the UBSGNT3 put the short form of each of the Gospel superscriptions in the text. While the short form was included in earlier editions of Nestle-Aland, a brief list of variants was included in Nestle-Aland26; the laconic UBSGNT mentions no variants for the superscriptions. B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek with Notes on Selected Readings (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882), 321: “In length and elaboration they [i. e., titles] vary much in different documents, we have adopted the concise and extremely ancient form preserved in a B and some other documents, which is apparently the foundation of the fuller titles.” 51 Hengel, Die vier Evangelien, 87–95. See also his earlier work on this subject: Die Evangelienüberschriften (Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophis-historische Klasse, 4; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1984), translated into English as “The Titles of the Gospels and the Gospel of Mark,” in Studies in the Gospel of Mark, trans. J. Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 64–84, with notes on pp. 162–183. The originality of the

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35

otypical shorter and longer forms of both the subscriptiones and superscriptiones are unusual in that they use the preposition κατά as a periphrasis for a genitivus auctoris.52 The stereotypical form of the subscriptiones and superscriptiones suggests that they were added at one point in time to all four Gospels to distinguish them from one another when they first began to circulate as a collection.53 This aggregation of Gospels could have begun with a collection of two or more papyrus rolls (much as Herodotus must have circulated as a collection of nine papyrus rolls)54 or as a group of codices (P52, a fragment of John dating to the first half of the second century, is the earliest physical evidence for a codex that presumably contained a single Gospel). Eventually the εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον was found within a single codex, of which there are as many as three early examples, two from the end of the second century (P4–P64–P67 and P75) and one from the midthird century (P45).55 The textual evidence for both forms at the beginning and end of each of the canonical Gospels is tabulated in Tables A and B below. The subscriptiones are arguably earlier than the superscriptiones due to the different conventions associated with writing literary works on papyrus rolls compared with writing them in codices. When a literary work was copied on a papyrus roll, the title (i. e., typically a one-word title together with the author’s name in the genitive) was placed at the end of the work (as a subscriptio), but when copied in a codex, it was placed at the beginning of a work (as a superscriptio).56 Both subscriptiones and superscriptiones were typically added later to literary works when they were copied for distribution; the incipit or first sentence of the work itself normally functioned as the author’s title (e. g., Mark 1:1).When a work written in a papyrus roll was transferred to a codex, the subscriptio could be omitted (which for conservative reasons rarely happened) or replicated in long form is also maintained by S. Petersen, “Die Evangelienüberschriften und die Entstehung des neutestamentlichen Kanons,” ZNW 97 (2006), 254. 52 An example of this idiom is found in 2 Macc 2:13: ἐν τοῖς ὑπομνηματισμοῖς τοῖς κατὰ τὸν Νεεμιαν, “in the memoirs of Nehemiah.” A different meaning of κατά is found in the subscription of Genesis in Codex Vaticanus: ΓΕΝΕΣΙΣ ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΥΣ ΕΒΔΟΜΗΚΟΝΤΑ, “Genesis according to the Septuagint.” For discussions of the use of κατά as a periphrasis for the possessive genitive, see W. Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature (3rd ed.; revised and edited by F. William Danker; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 513; W. Köhler, “κατά,” EDNT 2.254; for papyrological examples for the use of κατά as a periphrasis for a possessive pronoun, see J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980; originally published in 1930), 322. 53 Heckel, Vom Evangelium des Markus zum viergestaltigen Evangelium, 208–9. 54  D. E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), 117–8. 55 Stanton, Jesus and Gospel, 71–5. 56 R. P. Oliver, “The First Medicean MS of Tacitus and the Titulature of Ancient Books,” TAPA 82 (1951), 243, 245, 248; E. M. Thompson, A Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography (Chicago: Ares, 1966), 58; C. Wendel, Die griechisch-römische Buchbeschreibung verglichen mit der des Vorderen Orients (Halle-Saale: Niemeyer, 1949), 24–9.

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2. Genre Theory and the Genre-Function of Mark and Matthew

the superscriptio, resulting in a work with the same (or a similar) title at the beginning and end.57 The 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament regards the short forms of the Gospel superscriptions, κατὰ Μαθθαῖον, κατὰ Μᾶρκον, κατὰ Λοῦκαν, and κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην as more original, presumably on the basis of the textcritical principle lectio brevior potior est (i. e., the shorter reading is preferable), despite the paucity of the evidence (they cite only the two fourth century codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus). Additional evidence for the short forms is also available in the superscriptiones of the ninth century codices F (010) and H (013), as well as the running titles that occur before 500 CE only in three codices: a B D.58 Table A: Gospel Subscriptiones Subscription

Textual Evidence

κατὰ Μαθθαῖον

B

κατὰ Μᾶρκον

B

κατὰ Λοῦκαν

B

κατὰ Ιωάν[ν]ην

B

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μαθθαῖον

A D U 2 33 565 700 788

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μᾶρκον

‫ א‬A C E L U Γ Δ Ψ 2 33 700

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λοῦκαν

P75 ‫ א‬A (02) C L U W Δ Π Ψ 2 33 1582

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην

‫ א‬A E Δ Ψ 2 33 565 1582

57 The manuscripts of the Gospel of Thomas provide a partial example. Of the three extant Greek fragments of Thomas, POxy 1 is a single leaf from a papyrus codex (shortly after 200 CE), while POxy 654 and POxy 655 are papyrus fragments of two different papyrus rolls (both early third century CE). The complete Coptic manuscript of Thomas (middle of the fourth century CE) discovered at Nag Hammadi has a subscriptio that reads ΠΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΠΚΑΤΑ ΘΩΜΑΣ, “the Gospel according to Thomas,” with no superscriptio, but rather the author-editor’s incipit, i. e., opening words functioning as a title: “These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down. And he said, ‘Whoever finds the meaning of these words will not taste death’.” The reference to Thomas in the incipit was replicated in the author’s name in the subscriptio, while the term “gospel” was probably derived from the superscriptiones (and / or subscriptiones) of the four canonical Gospels, which must already have existed as a fourfold collection. Even though the Gospel of Thomas was part of a papyrus codex (preceded by the Apocryphon of John and followed by the Gospel of Philip), the practice of putting a subscriptio at the end and not replicating it with a superscriptio atthe beginning is based the conventions associated with the papyrus roll. 58  D. C. Parker, Codex Bezae: An Early Christian Manuscript and Its Text (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 10–22, contains a discussion of the superscriptions, subscriptions and running titles of all Greek and Latin New Testament manuscripts dating before 500 CE; see particularly Table 2: “Running Titles in Greek New Testament Manuscripts Written before 500” (17–9).

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Table B: Gospel Superscriptiones59 Superscription

Textual Evidence

κατὰ Μαθθαῖον

‫א‬B

κατὰ Μᾶρκον

‫א‬BF

κατὰ Λοῦκαν

‫א‬B

κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην

‫א‬BFH

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μαθθαῖιον

P4–P64–P67 C E K M S U Δ Π Ω 2 33 565 700 788 1346 1424

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μᾶρκον

A E H K L M SUWΓ Δ Θ Π Ω 1 2 13 28 33 124 565 700 1364 1424

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λοῦκαν

A C E K L M S P U W Δ Θ Π Ψ Ω f 13 1 2 28 33 565 700 1346 1424

εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ  Ἰωάν[ν]ην

P66 P75 A C E G K L M S UWΔ Θ Ψ Ω f 132 28 33 124 565 1424

Recently, a number of scholars have rightly argued for the priority of the longer forms.60 There are two major arguments for this: (1)  The shorter forms, such as ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΘΘΑΙΑΝ, make sense only if they are considered abbreviations implying the antecedent ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ in a codex containing all four Gospels.61 In fact, the short forms occur only in codices which contain all four Gospels: ‫א‬ B F H (‫ א‬and B date to the fourth century, while F [010] and H [013] date to the ninth century). There is a close analogy in Westcott and Hort’s critical edition of the New Testament,62 in which they printed ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ on a flyleaf, followed by each of the Gospels, headed by what they considered the most original form of the superscriptiones: ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΘΘΑΙΑΝ, ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΡΚΟΝ, ΚΑΤΑ ΛΟΥΚΑΝ and ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΗΝ, also used as running titles accompanying the texts of the four Gospels, with this comment: “In prefixing the name ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ in the singular to the quaternion of ‘Gospels,’ we have wished to supply the antecedent which alone gives an adequate sense to the preposition ΚΑΤΑ in the several titles.”63 Westcott and Hort were presumably following the precedent of Codex 59 One fragment of P4–P64–P67 (parts of a single codex originally containing at least Luke and Matthew) reads ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ MAΘΘAIAN, which T. C. Skeat thinks is part of a flyleaf that comes from the beginning of the manuscript: “The Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels?” NTS 43 (1997), 18. Skeat maintains that this fragment was written in a different hand than the rest of the codex and the inclusion of the hooked mark between the two thetas does not become common until ca. 200 CE, while he dates the codex itself to late second century (26–31) 60 P. W. Comfort and D. P. Barrett, The Complete Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1999), 44; Petersen, “Evangelienüberschriften,” 254. 61 Hengel, Die vier Evangelien, 87, n. 258. 62 B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek (2 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1881). 63 Westcott and Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek, 321.

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2. Genre Theory and the Genre-Function of Mark and Matthew

Vaticanus by using such short forms as ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΘΘΑΙΑΝ as running titles (in the case of Vaticanus, with ΚΑΤΑ on the verso and ΜΑΘΘΑΙΑΝ on the recto). In the case of those few manuscripts which have the short form for some or all of the supercriptiones (B F H; B alone has the short form in subscriptiones), all have a collection of all four Gospels, suggesting that the longer forms preceded the shorter forms and that the shorter forms are intentional abbreviations of the longer forms.64 (2) Prior to the aggregation of the four Gospels,the oldest form of the titles of the Gospels was very probably the longer forms written as subscriptiones, but such subscriptiones would only have been necessary when two or more Gospels written on papyrus rolls were in proximity. Only when the text of the Gospels began to be written on codices (the first extant example of which is the early second century CE codex fragment of the Gospel of John, P52)65 would the subscriptiones have been replicated at the beginning inthe form of superscriptiones. The priority of the long forms and their connection to the εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον constitute two linked paratextual features that have important implications for the generic understanding of the Gospels in the ancient church. Several problems present themselves: (1) What does εὐαγγέλιον in the longer subscriptiones and superscriptiones mean and where did it come from? (2) When were they first affixed to the εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον? There is widespread agreement that the term εὐαγγέλιον in the first sentence of Mark (1:1) is the source for its use in the longer form of the subscriptiones and superscriptiones: ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγέλιου  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Just how εὐαγγέλιον came to be used in this way is not easy to trace, since both Matthew and Luke chose not to use εὐαγγέλιον as a description of their narratives (Matthew substituted the term βίβλος in Matt 1:1, while Luke described his work as a δίηγησις in Luke 1:1). Further, since Matthew and Luke were more comprehensive narratives that contained most of Mark together with many other Jesus traditions, both Gospels soon eclipsed Mark in popularity. The term εὐαγγέλιον first appears in a Christian context in the writings of Paul, where it is a theological abbreviation for “the proclamation of the saving significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus.” When Mark used εὐαγγέλιον in the incipit to his narrative about Jesus, he used it in the sense of “the complex of traditions about the words and deeds of Jesus.” This expanded meaning is evident in Mark 14:9 at the end of the story of Jesus’ anointing in Bethany by an unknown woman: “Amen, I say to you, wherever the gospel [τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”66 Here τὸ εὐαγγέλιον is clearly about Jesus and in this context means the oral or written proclamation of the entire story of Jesus 64 Petersen,

“Die Evangelienüberschriften,” 254. Nongbri, “The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel,” HTR 98 (2000), 23–48. 66 Whether Mark 14:8–9 was part of the original text or a later insertion is disputed. 65 B.

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39

including his teachings and stories about him including the passion narrative.67 Mark is certainly referring to his own narrative as τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, though not in the sense of a specific literary genre.68 The term τὸ εὐαγγέλιον (always with the definite article, because early Christians are referring to a known entity),69 occurs several times in the Didache and the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, all written within the first quarter of the second century, at about the time that the four Gospels were all in circulation and on the point of becoming a collection of closely similar texts. Scholars have tried to determine whether or not the relatively few occurrences of εὐαγγέλιον in these early Christian writings refer to an oral message or a written text. Yet we must ask whether this either / or approach to the meaning of εὐαγγέλιον is not an anachronistic approach to understanding this important early Christian lexeme. Here is a list of the relevant texts with brief translations: Didache 8:2: “But as the Lord commanded in his gospel [ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ], pray in this way: ‘Our Father in heaven.’” Didache 11:3: “With respect to apostles and prophets, treat them in accordance with the command of the gospel [δόγμα τοῦ εὐαγγελίου].” Didache 15:3: “Do not reprove in anger, but in peace as you find in the gospel [ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ].” Didache 15:4: “But say your prayers, give alms an engage in all your activities as you have found in the gospel of our Lord [ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν].” Ignatius, Phld. 5:1: “When I flee to the gospel [τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ] as to the flesh of Jesus and to the apostles as to the presbytery of the church.” Ignatius, Phld. 5:2: “And we should also love the prophets, because their proclamation anticipated the gospel [τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] and they hoped in him and awaited him.” Ignatius, Phld. 8:2: “For I heard some saying: ‘If I do not find it in the ancient records, I do not believe in the gospel [ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ].’ And when I said to them, ‘It is written,’ they replied to me, ‘That is just the question.’ But for me, Jesus Christ is the ancient records; the sacred ancient records are his cross and death, and his resurrection, and the faith that comes through him – by which things I long to be made righteous by your prayer.” Ignatius, Phld. 9:2: “But there is something distinct about the gospel [τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] – that is, the coming of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, his suffering, and resurrection. For the beloved prophets made their proclamation looking ahead to him; but the gospel [τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] is the finished work that brings immortality.” Ignatius, Smyrn. 5:1: “They have been convinced neither by the words of the prophets nor the Law of Moses, nor, until now, by the gospel [τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] nor by the suffering each of us has experienced.” Ignatius, Smyrn. 7:2: “But instead pay attention to the prophets, and especially to the gospel [τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ], in which the passion is clearly shown to us and the resurrection is perfected.” 67 E. Lohmeyer, Das Evangelium des Markus (KEK; 15th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959), 295. 68 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 643–4. 69 εὐαγγέλιον occurs 76 times in the New Testament, but just twice in an anarthrous form.

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Martyrdom of Polycarp 4:1 [3]: “Because of this, brothers, we do not praise those who hand themselves over, since this is not what the gospel [τὸ εὐαγγέλιον] teaches.” 2 Clement 8:5: “For the Lord says in the gospel [ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ], ‘If you do not keep what is small, who will give you what is great? For I say to you that the one who is faithful in very little is faithful also in much.”

For Bauer-Aland, all these passages are categorized as in transition to the later Christian understanding of εὐαγγέλιον as a book whose content deals with the life and teaching of Jesus.70 For Bauer-Danker (based in part on Bauer-Aland, but with considerable liberties taken), the occurrences of εὐαγγέλιον in the Didache, Ignatius, Phld. 8:2, Smyrn. 7:2, Mart. Pol. 4:1 [3] and 2 Clem. 8:5 all mean “the good news of Jesus,” that is, “details relating to the life and ministry of Jesus” with the suggestion that εὐαγγέλιον perhaps has this meaning in Mark 1:1.71 The entry concludes with the phrase “this usage marks a transition to” with the next subentry beginning, “a book dealing with the life and teaching of Jesus.” K. Niederwimmer hesitates between whether the Didachist means the viva vox evangelii or a written gospel for Did. 8:2; 11:3,72 while he thinks that Did. 15:3 and 15:4 may refer to a written gospel book, though it is not clear which one.73 For W. Schoedel, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in Ignatius regularly refers to the good news about Jesus rather than a written document.74 Particularly with regard to Ign. Smyrn. 5:1 and 7:2, Schoedel indicates that there is no reason to think that Ignatius is referring to a written gospel; for Ignatius τὸ εὐαγγέλιον probably consisted of a collection of traditions such as those found in Ign. Smyrn. 1:1–2 and 3:2–3 that represent the fulfillment of prophecy as well as confirm the reality of the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ.75 According to Buschmann, in Mart. Pol. 4:3, εὐαγγέλιον refers to the report about the suffering of Jesus in so far as it provides teaching and instruction for the imitation of the Lord.76 Both Lindemann and Pratscher argue that in 2 Clem. 8:5 (which has verbal similarities with Luke 16:10), the phrase ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελιῳ probably refers to an apocryphal gospel,77 while Donfried argues that εὐαγγέλιον here means “the oral message of salvation, rather than as a designation for a written book.”78 While here I am primarily concerned with the meaning of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in the Apostolic Fathers, the opinions of various scholars just surveyed generally agrees with the detailed 70 W. Bauer, Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur, ed. K. Aland and B. Aland (6th ed.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988), col. 644. 71 BDAG 403. 72 K. Niederwimmer, The Didache (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 135, 173. 73 Niederwimmer, The Didache, 203–5. 74 W. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 201. 75 Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, 234, 242. 76 G. Buschmann, Das Martyrium des Polykarp (KAV; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 127. 77 A. Lindemann, Die Clemensbriefe (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 224; W. Pratscher, Der zweite Clemensbrief (KAV; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 131–2. 78  K. P. Donfried, The Setting of Second Clement in Early Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 72.

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examination of possible traces of synoptic tradition in the Apostolic Fathers in the well-known study of Helmut Koester in which he concludes with the view that in most cases allusions to words of Jesus in the Apostolic Fathers are not based on written gospels.79 The use of the term τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in the selection of texts from the Apostolic Fathers briefly surveyed above, all dating to the first half of the second century, suggests that it is a false alternative to presuppose that τὸ εὐαγγέλιον must refer either to oral traditions about Jesus or a written text about Jesus. Τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in these texts refers to an authoritative complex of traditional teachings and activities of Jesus with an implicit indifference toward the issue of whether this complex was transmitted in oral or written form. The texts cited from the Didache, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, and 2 Clement all refer to the teachings of Jesus found in τὸ εὐαγγέλιον; most of the texts from Ignatius consider τὸ εὐαγγέλιον as a comprehensive entity that embodies the Christian message; Ignatius, Phld. 9:2 and Smyrn. 7:2 emphasize the coming, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus narrated in τὸ εὐαγγέλιον. Bauer-Aland are not very helpful when they define τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in the texts reviewed above as “Auf dem Übergang zu dem späteren christlichen Sprachgebrauch, für den εὐαγγέλιον Beziehung eines Buches ist, dessen Inhalt Leben und Lehre Jesu bilden.”80 While this is apparently intended to reflect the ambiguity of whether εὐαγγέλιον refers to an oral message or a written text, semantically it is not useful and for that reason I have tried to define the connotations of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in a more appropriate manner. Bauer-Danker tries to solve this problem by defining εὐαγγέλιον as “details relating to the life and ministry of Jesus, good news of Jesus,” and only at the end of this category, as a concession to Bauer-Aland is the phrase “This marks a transition to” inserted.81 The problem is the use of the term “Leben” or “life,” which can be understood either as (1) a chronological narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus or simply as (2) a collection of traditions containing the words and deeds of Jesus. The first understanding of “life” is moving in the direction of a genre of the sort exemplified by the Synoptic Gospels, while the second is the Christian designation for an authoritative reservoir of Jesus traditions that can take any one of a number of forms. The twelve texts from the Apostolic Fathers quoted and briefly discussed above all come from the first half of the second century, the period when it is likely that the longer form of the subscriptiones and superscriptiones of the Gospels were affixed to them when they began to be aggregated. The meaning of εὐαγγέλιον in the subscriptiones and superscriptiones is exactly the same as the meaning of εὐαγγέλιον in the twelve texts discussed above, namely “an authoritative complex 79 H. Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung bei den apostolischen Vätern (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1957). 80 Bauer-Aland, Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, col. 644. 81 BDAG 403.

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of traditional teachings and activities of Jesus [with an implicit indifference toward the issue of whether this complex was transmitted in oral or written form].” This means that the use of εὐαγγέλιον in the subscriptiones and superscriptiones does not have a generic meaning. It also means that the subscriptio “The Gospel according to Thomas” is an appropriate designation for a collection of sayings of Jesus even though it has no narrative framework.

The Title of Mark The text of Mark is introduced by a metatextual statement, the predicate of an implied “this is,” providing important clues to the question of genre: “[This is] the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ [the Son of God].”82 There are at least five problems in this statement requiring discussion: (1) What does the term ἀρχή mean in relation to τοῦ εὐαγγελίου  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ? (2) Does the entire phrase ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ apply to the entire text of Mark or is it limited to a relatively short introductory section, such as the so-called “prologue” in 1:1–15?83 (3) Why does the term “good news” (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου) have a definite article, even though nouns in ancient Greek book titles are typically anarthrous? (4) Is the phrase “of Jesus Christ,” which is part of the longer genitival phrase “the good news of Jesus Christ” (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) an objective or subjective genitive? As an objective genitive it could be translated: “the good news about Jesus Christ”; while a translation of the subjective genitive could be: “the good news proclaimed by Jesus Christ.” (5) Does the phrase “Son of God” belong to the original text? Though there is an enormous literature on these problems that cannot be put into play here, the following solutions seem to me to be the best options: (1) Grammatically, ἀρχή is a nominative absolute used in introductory material such as titles.84 Semantically, ἀρχή has eight distinct meanings in the NT,85 of which the most appropriate meaning for its occurrence in Mark 1:1 is “beginning,” defined as “a point of time at the beginning or a duration.”86 Some recent suggestions for translating ἀρχή, as “foundation,”87 or “norm” or “canon,”88 have 82 The possible options in text, syntax, and punctuation are discussed in detail by M. E. Boring, “Mark 1:1–15 and the Beginning of the Gospel,” Semeia 52 (1990), 47–50. 83 Boring, “Mark 1:1–15,” 53–9. 84  D. B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 49–51. 85 J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (2 vols.; New York: United Bible Societies, 1988), 2.35. See the still valuable discussion in A. Wikgren, “ΑΡΧΗ ΤΟΥ ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΥ,” JBL 61 (1942), 11–20. 86 BDAG 137–8. 87 L. Keck, “Introduction to Mark’s Gospel,” NTS 12 (1965–66), 352–70. 88 Boring, “Mark 1:1–15,” 53. For Boring, ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ means “The rule, normative statement, for preaching the good news of Jesus Christ is the following narrative of the beginning and foundation for the church’s contemporary preaching of this message.”

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no semantic basis, but are rather speculative pragmatic meanings with a negligible contextual basis. (2) The phrase ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ functions as the title of the entire text.89 (3) The phrase τοῦ εὐαγγελίου is articular because the author is aware of the fact that the audience is familiar with the “good news” to which he refers. (4) The genitive phrase “of Jesus Christ,” as unclear in Greek as it is in English, is a plenary genitive,90 intentionally ambiguous, so that the reader can construe it as referring either to Jesus Christ as the proclaimer or Jesus Christ as the proclaimed.91 (5) The phrase “Son of God” is probably not original, despite its relatively strong attestation, because it is far more likely that it was added by a pious scribe than that it was accidentally omitted by copyists.92

The Genre-Function of Mark Genre-Salient Features When Mark was first written, the author provided it with a paratextual “frame” within which its generic potentialities could be realized by its readers,93 most prominently the “title” (or opening sentence) with which the text is introduced. Mark was written and read within a discourse community constituted by a cluster of what would later be called “Christian” churches, a minority group within a dominant Graeco-Roman culture. Unlike Matthew, Mark was not modeled after a single identifiable generic prototype94 (theories of an Urmarkus or proto-Mark have not been widely accepted).95 Mark did use a variety of sources to construct 89 Those holding this opinion before 1942 are mentioned by Wikgren, “ΑΡΧΗ ΤΟΥ ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΥ,” 11–12, a view which he claims has general agreement (15); Boring, “Mark 1:1–15,” 50–1. 90 Wallace, Greek Grammar, 119–121. 91 R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 53. 92 The pros and cons are discussed briefly in B. M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York: United Bible Societies, 1971), 73. 93 G. MacLachlan and I. Reid, Framing and Interpretation (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1994). 94 Though I am not using the term in that sense, the notion of a prototypical generic text or a schema that functions to define the features of a particular genre is a supposition of genre theorists influenced by cognitive psychology; see W. Hallet, “Gattungen als cognitive Schemata: Die multigenerische Interpretation literarischer Texte,” in Gattungstheorie und Gattungsgeschichte, ed. M. Gymnich, B. Neumann, and A. Nünning (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2007), 53–71 (specifically, p. 57). See also A. Garnham, Mental Models as Representations of Discourse and Text (Chichester: Ellis Horwood, 1987) and E. Rosch and C. B. Mervis, “Family Resemblance: Studies in the Internal Structure of Categories,” Cognitive Psychology 7 (1975), 573–605. 95 As a way of solving the Synoptic problem, several scholars have proposed the existence of a primitive form of Mark or Urmarkus, a hypothesis that has not proved generally convincing to the academy. One of the more recent forms of this hypothesis is that proposed by D. Burkett, Rethinking the Gospel Sources: From Proto-Mark to Mark (New York: T & T Clark, 2004). Burkett argues that Proto-Mark was subject to two revisions, Proto-Mark A (ca. 70 CE) and Proto-Mark

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his text and they have been the subject of vigorous research. While the longest single source was probably the Passion Narrative (parallels with the Johannine Passion Narrative indicate that this source was pre-Markan rather than a Markan creation, though this remains a moot issue), he also incorporated collections of miracle stories, conflict stories, and parables, a relatively long eschatological discourse (Mark 13),96 as well as individual miracle stories, conflict stories, parables, and the like. Mark transformed the sources he used (both oral and written) by enlarging the scale of even the largest of the constituent sources (Mark contains ca. 11,229 words, written on a papyrus scroll perhaps ca. 20 feet long) by providing both a comprehensive spatial and temporal framework for his story of Jesus and by linking units of tradition using a variety of sequencing techniques. Mark’s narrative is written in a strikingly paratactic style. Of a total of 589 sentences in Mark (though the punctuation in Nestle-Aland is not unproblematic), 369 sentences (62.64 %) begin with καί. J. A. L. Lee (in a neglected article) has argued that the speeches of Jesus in Mark are sites where certain lexemes are located that in other contexts in first century CE Greek texts function as prestige features indicating formality and correctness in usage.97 According to Lee, Jesus in Mark speaks better, more formal Greek than is spoken by those around him and used by Mark in the narrative.98 None of the examples cited by Lee B (ca. 75–85 CE); Proto-Mark A incorporated Q, M and other material and served as a source for Matthew, while Proto-Mark B, incorporating Q and L, served as a source for Luke. Canonical Mark was based on both Proto-Mark A and Proto-Mark B. Final forms of Matthew, Mark and Luke appeared from ca. 80–100 CE. 96 The literature is extensive, so I can only refer to a few representative works such as P. Achtemeier, “Toward the Isolation of Pre-Markan Miracle Catenae,” JBL 89 (1970), 265–91; idem, “The Origin and Function of the Pre-Markan Miracle Catenae,” JBL 91 (1972), 198–221; H.-W. Kuhn, Ältere Sammlungen im Markusevangelium (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), and the survey article by W. R. Telford, “The Pre-Markan Tradition in Recent Research (1980–1990),” in The Four Gospels: 1992. Festschrift Frans Neirynck, ed. F. Van Segbroeck et al. (3 vols.; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992), 2.693–723. 97 J. A. L. Lee, “Some Features of the Speech of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel,” NovT 27 (1985), 1–26 (here 26). Examples of an elevated linguistic register found only in the speeches of Jesus in Mark: (1) μέν (… δέ): five occurrences (4:4; 9:12; 12:5; 14:21, 38); in three of these occurrences μέν is correlated with δέ in the best manner (12:5; 14:21, 38); (2) εὖ (obsolete by the first century CE; superseded by καλῶς): one occurrence (14:7); (3) ὦ (used in literary authors as a conscious prestige feature): one occurrence (9:19); (4) ἄν + indicative in the apodosis of an “unreal condition”: once in 13:20; with the indicative alone: once (Mark 9:42); (5) ἔξωθεν (in the original sense of “from outside” with the force of ἔξωθεν felt): twice (7:15, 18); (6) ἔσωθεν (in the original sense of “from inside” with the force of ‑θεν felt): twice (7:21, 23); (7) ὁράω (the present and imperfect are obsolete in the NT; typically replaced by βλέπω and θεωρέω): twice (1:44; 8:15); (8) θύραι (used of one door; equivalents using the singular are frequent, suggesting that the phrase ἐπὶ θύρα in 13:29 was obsolete and formal-sounding; the optative was slightly archaic in the first century CE and elevated in tone; Jesus uses φάγοι in 11:14; οὐ μή (though common in the LXX [it occurs 800 times] was rare in other contexts and would have had a formal and dignified tone): nine times (9:1, 41; 10:15; 13:2, 19, 30, 31; 14:25, 31). There are several other lexemes more briefly discussed by Lee. 98 Lee, “Some Features of the Speech of Jesus,” 6.

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can plausibly be traced back to Aramaic or Hebrew and Lee suggests that these linguistic features were probably not added by Mark, since they do not occur in narrative sections of the text.99 The narrative is highly episodic and the constituent episodes exhibit a variety of literary forms characteristic of a secondary literary genre.100 Form critics understood many of the literary forms found in Mark as written forms of an originally oral tradition. While that may be true, the presence of such stereotypical forms in Mark should be construed from a literary perspective as type-scenes. The many type-scenes that Mark includes in his text constitute the evidence for his presentation of Jesus. The primary problem he has to deal with is that of linking the singular historical episodes (his primary sources) together to form a coherent argument. Mark was produced by a member of a particular discourse community and was intended for intramural consumption, though the community segment to which Mark addressed his text must be distinguished from that addressed by Matthew (as we have argued above). The social context of Mark, that of the Christian church, provided the original readers and auditors with a framework within which Mark was interpreted. Despite numerous attempts to profile the community addressed by Mark the great diversity among scholars on this issue invalidates the entire enterprise. While Mark, Matthew, and the other two canonical Gospels were eventually read as part of early Christian services of worship (the earliest reference to the liturgical reading of the Gospels is Justin 1 Apology 67, written ca. 165 CE), there is no clear evidence for determining more specifically when, how, and by whom it was read. It is probably appropriate, however, to refer to the reading of Mark within the community as a performance. The author refers to the reader in just one enigmatic parenthetical remark in Mark 13:14, “Let the reader understand,” referring to the cryptic phrase “the abomination of desolation” (repeated verbatim in Matt 24:16), that was doubtless a crux interpretum for the original recipients. Mark is a secondary or complex genre (i.e., it functions as a host genre recursively constructed from a number of primary or simple genres)101 written in the narrative mode enabling readers and hearers to enter a textual world intended to be experienced as real.102 Further, Mark has an ideological or didactic function, a feature it shares with most ancient historical and biographical genres, though this function is not ethical so much as religious or philosophical. Mark writes in the third-person, conveying the comprehensive perspective of a detached observer.  99 Lee,

“Some Features of the Speech of Jesus,” 26. Breytenbach, “Das Markusevangelium als episodische Erzählung. Mit Überlegungen zum ‘Aufbau’ des zweiten Evangeliums,”Der Erzähler des Evangeliums: Methodische Neuansätze in der Markusforschung; ed. F. Hahn (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1985), 137–69. 101 The distinction between primary and secondary genres was made by Bakhtin, “The Problem of Speech Genres,” in Duff, Modern Genre, 84–5. 102 On narrative as a mode, see J. Genette, The Architext: An Introduction, trans. J. E. Lewin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 71. 100 C.

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Within the framework of this third-person narrative, the author includes many primary nonliterary forms in which Jesus speaks in the first person. While most “identifications” of the genre of Mark are based on the assumption that specific genre-traits link Mark to a particular genre such as biography, history, myth, and the novel (to name four common proposals), we must be prepared to forego simplistic answers and entertain the possibility that Mark has been recycled from elements of several genres. Mark’s narrative is mimetic and the sequences of events and the interactions among the characters are largely plausible or realistic, though the narrative is punctuated with miraculous and supernatural features that give meaning to the whole story and in particular serve to validate the ultimate religious significance of its central character, Jesus Christ (this compound form of the name, common in the Pauline letters, occurs only in Mark 1:1). Mark’s narrative is designed to convey truth and meaning as well as authority, plausibility, and realism. While there is a fuzzy distinction between fiction and nonfiction in the literature of the ancient world, the distinction is still valid.103 Fiction is characterized both by its lack of relatedness to the real world and by the fact that its speech acts are non-illocutionary.104 Mark’s story narrates events that are presumed to have happened in the real world.

The Macro-Genre of Mark The real problem is that of understanding the macro-genre that Mark used in shaping his story of Jesus from the many sources available to him. R. Burridge has presented one of the more carefully argued cases for identifying the macro-genre of Mark with Graeco-Roman biography. Burridge maintains that Graeco-Roman biography was a flexible genre and that the Gospels would have been broadly identified with that genre. Though differences exist between Graeco-Roman biography and the Gospels, the similarities outweigh the differences. Both genres sustain a focus on the protagonist by naming him at the outset and by the frequency with which the protagonist is the subject of verbs. Graeco-Roman biography concentrates on one individual, and shares a similar appearance, length, structure, mode of representation and units of composition.105 With regard to length, mode and scale of presentation, the Gospels and Graeco-Roman biography are similar and are generically connected. 103  G. W. Bowersock, Fiction as History: Nero to Julian (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). See also M. Hayward, “Genre Recognition of History and Fiction,” Poetics 22 (1994), 409–21. Hayward reports an experiment using 5–15 randomly selected sequential words from a history or fiction text (with no para-textual indicators) with 79.2 % accuracy at five words (this means that generically identifiable signals extend down to the micro-level of texts). 104 Beebee, Ideology of Genre, 263, an idea based on R. Ohmann, “Speech-Acts and the Definition of Literature,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 4 (1971), 1–19. 105 R. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 189.

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Burridge’s arguments have not satisfied everyone. M. Vines, for example, has two major objections to Burridge’s identification of Mark with biography: (1) Jesus’ activity is significant primarily as an earthly manifestation of divine presence and action (e. g., he received a divine commission from God to act as his agent [1:11; 9:7]; demons recognize in Jesus the power and authority of God [1:24; 3:11; 5:7]; the centurion at the foot of the cross recognizes Jesus’ special relationship to God).106 (2)  Identifying Mark as Graeco-Roman biography, according to Vines, is unable to account for the predictions concerning the eschatological Son of Man made by Jesus (8:38; 13:26; 14:62).107 Vines concludes: “Therefore, the content of Mark, with its themes of Jesus’ divine commission and his role as the eschatological Son of Man, exceeds the generic limitations of Graeco-Roman biography.”108 He concedes, however, that Burridge might be right in saying that Matthew and Luke are linked to the genre of Graeco-Roman biography.109 The problem with Vines’ critique of Burridge, however, depends on whether these distinctive features of Mark must be considered generically salient. As we have noted above, one feature of generic transformation includes “topical invention,” i. e., the addition of topics to the repertoires of a genre.110 Vines, however, assumes that Graeco-Roman biography is a rigidly defined genre with no room for transformation. Vines is just one of a number of competent scholars who are not satisfied with understanding the genre of Mark as a type of Graeco-Roman biography (e. g., R. Guelich, A. Dihle, M. E. Boring, and others). In his recent commentary on Mark, Boring lists five elements that set Mark apart from Hellenistic biographies:111 (1) The narrative juxtaposes pictures of Jesus as truly human and truly divine through the rhetorical device of the messianic secret. (2) The story of Jesus is the definitive segment of universal history, extending from creation to the eschaton; Jesus, the Christ and the Son of Man, has appeared in history and will appear again at the end of history as its goal and judge. (3) The main character is both a figure of the past as well as the present Lord of the community who still speaks; thus the drama has two levels. (4) The narrative is episodic not anecdotal, composed of units of tradition that had been used in the preaching and teaching of the gospel, placing Mark apart from other Hellenistic authors and making his narrative distinctive. (5) As Jesus had communicated the inexpressible reality of the kingdom of God in parables calling for decision by the hearer, so Mark wrote his Gospel pointing beyond itself and calling for participation and decision by The Problem of Markan Genre, 12. The Problem of Markan Genre, 12. 108 Vines, The Problem of Markan Genre, 13. 109 Vines, The Problem of Markan Genre, 10–11. 110 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 170–83. 111  M. E. Boring, Mark: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 7–8. 106 Vines, 107 Vines,

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the reader; Mark speaks of Jesus in the new narrative form of the extended parable. Boring’s articulation of the distinctive features of Mark are highly theological and are not all beyond criticism (his view of Mark as an “extended parable” violates an appropriate sense of scale; no parables are 11,229 words long). Like Vines, Boring’s criticism of the Graeco-Roman biography proposal is based on an overly rigid conception of genre.

Mark as a Parody of Biography In response to the criticisms of categorizing Mark as biography by Vines and Boring, let me first make the point that Graeco-Roman biography was written largely by and for members of the educated upper classes of Greek and Roman society, reflecting the humanistic values of those social strata. The central figures of such biographies were typically prominent representatives of ancient society, such as politicians, generals, philosophers, and poets, who were ideal embodiments of Graeco-Roman social ethics and virtues. Mark, on the other hand, was obviously written in a much lower register of Koine Greek than most extant Graeco-Roman biographies (compared, for example, with any of the biographies of Plutarch) and it also reflects the counter-cultural social and religious values of first century Christians, often marked by a subversive rejection of the values of the dominant culture. In fact, the Gospel of Mark appears to have been written in reaction to Graeco-Roman biography rather than as a simple emulation of it. That is, Mark can be understood as an intentional parody of the hierarchy of values that typically characterized Graeco-Roman biography. The “use-value” of the Gospel of Mark (i. e., the ideological features that appealed to those for whom it was written), then, is such that it would have served as a foundation text for the discourse community within which it was written, validating and justifying the kind of Christian values that early believers readily understood as exemplified primarily in Jesus himself. Understanding the Gospel of Mark as a parody of Graeco-Roman biography provides a reading strategy that makes sense of the major ways in which the author presents the story of Jesus. The features that Vines and Boring find in Mark but claim are absent from Graeco-Roman biography, with the intention of disputing the view that Mark is a type of ancient biography, have an appropriate place in Mark if Mark is construed as parody of Graeco-Roman biography. One rhetorical feature of the Gospel of Mark that has been increasingly studied in recent years is the author’s use of irony,112 and it is specifically irony that is one of the privileged rhetorical strategies of parody.113 Parody imitates earlier 112 J. Camery-Hoggatt, Irony in Mark’s Gospel: Text and Subtext (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); R. M. Fowler, Let the Reader Understand: Reader-Response Criticism and the Gospel of Mark (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991). 113 L. Hutcheon, A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms (New York: Methuen, 1985), 52.

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authors, specific texts, or types of text for the purpose of marking a difference or contrast at the macrocosmic textual level and is dependent for its effect on the reader’s ability to recognize the parodied original. Irony operates on a microcosmic semantic level by marking a difference or contrast between what is said and what is meant. Parody therefore imitates the generic features of the original text or type of text upon which the parody is based, and is best considered a mode rather than a genre.114 Although this proposal needs to be supported with the kind of detailed argumentation that is not possible in the present context, let me suggest a few features of Mark that support this view. If we regard Mark as a parody of Graeco-Roman biography, the absence of a genealogy of Jesus and the fact that the story begins just as Jesus is entering into the short-lived public phase of his life make good sense. In Graeco-Roman biography, a genealogy functioned to highlight the worthy pedigree of the subject of the biography. Jesus is presented without such a pedigree (at least by Mark), but is identified as extraordinary by John the Baptist (1:2–8) and by God through the divine voice, the words of the bat qol at the baptism of Jesus declaring that Jesus is his beloved Son (1:9–11). Vines emphasizes a contrast between Mark and Graeco-Roman biography when he claims that “Whereas Graeco-Roman biography focuses on a social space that emphasizes connections with family, clan and polis, these elements are missing in Mark.”115 This critique misses the point: Jesus is repeatedly identified as “Jesus of Nazareth” (Mark 1:9, 24; 10:27; 16:6) and is called “the Nazarene” (Mark 14:67). When the mother and siblings of Jesus are mentioned (Mark 3:31–35), these common familial relationships were transformed by Jesus into metaphors for those who do the will of God, but in ways violating both Jewish and Graeco-Roman conceptions of the moral responsibilities of grown males for their parents (traditional Jewish familial mores are reflected in Mark 7:10–13; 10:18–19). The followers of Jesus become a surrogate family and God is understood as the true father of Jesus (Mark 1:11; 9:7; 11:25; 14:36, 61), while Jesus’ disciples abandoned their own families to follow him (Mark 10:28–31). The central parody of all is of course the fact that the hero of the story is a crucified criminal, carried through in part with the parodic mention of the crown of thorns and the purple garment with which his captors clothe Jesus. The focus on the death of Jesus has its counterpart in the demand that disciples take up their cross and follow Jesus. One immediate objection to regarding Mark as a parody (a form of satire) is that it seems at variance with modern definitions of parody like that proposed by Wayne Booth: “the mocking imitation by one author of another author’s style.”116 114 S. Dentith, Parody (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 37; R. L. Mack, The Genius of Parody: Imitation and Originality in Seventeenth‑ and Eighteenth-Century English Literature (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 8. 115 Vines, The Problem of Markan Genre, 123. 116 W. Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974), 71–72.

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The tone of the Gospel of Mark is serious, while parody can be irreverent, mocking, inconsequential and even silly. The term “parody” is a transliteration of the Greek literary term παρῳδία (first appearing in Aristotle’s Poetica), which referred to a narrative poem of moderate length, using the meter and vocabulary of epic, but with a light, satirical or mock-heroic subject.117 In modern times “parody” is typically used of an artistic composition in which the characteristic themes and style of a particular work or author are exaggerated or used of an inappropriate subject, especially for the purpose of ridicule.118 A basic and broad definition of parody has been proposed by S. Dentith that allows for the possibility that a parody might be serious: “Parody includes any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice.”119

The Genre-Function of Matthew Matthew’s Transformation of Mark Many who discuss the genre of Matthew ignore the literary and social significance of the shared generic features of the two texts.120 Since genres are dynamic rather than static, the genre of Mark was transformed by the composition of Matthew (just as the genre of Mark and Matthew were changed by the composition of Luke and John). One striking feature of Matthew’s performance of his precursor text is that it did not result in the disappearance of Mark. The survival of Mark has one obvious implication: the segment of the Christian discourse community within which Mark arose was different than the specific discourse community for whom Matthew wrote. The survival of Mark, which is largely reproduced in Matthew in condensed form, is itself an argument for Streeter’s theory of local gospels, as well as an argument against R. Bauckham’s view that each Gospel was written for the entire church,121 though attempts to construct profiles of the communities within which the Gospels arose have proven problematic.122 Parody, 10. Brown, ed., The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 2.2105, s. v. “parody.” 119 Dentith, Parody, 9. 120  G. N. Stanton, A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1992), 66, is one of the few to comment on this issue. 121  B. H. Streeter, The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (London: Macmillan, 1924); R. Bauckham, “For Whom Were the Gospels Written?” in The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences, ed. R. Bauckham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 9–48. For a rebuttal of Bauckham’s theory, see Roskam, The Purpose of Mark, 17–22. Martin Hengel also argues that none of the canonical Gospels were written for a single community in The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of the Canonical Gospels (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2000), 106. 122  D. N. Peterson, The Origins of Mark: The Markan Community in Current Debate (Leiden: Brill, 2000). 117 Dentith, 118 L.

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The literary dependence of Matthew on Mark is a datum of central significance for understanding the genre of Matthew. However it is that Matthew came to have access to a copy of Mark, it seems clear that the social context within which he reworked Mark was markedly different from the social context within which Mark itself was written. It is likely that the biographical parody constructed by Mark in dialog with and in reaction to existing biographical forms was not understood by Matthew, who apparently understood Mark as a biography of Jesus that transcended both Jewish and Graeco-Roman worlds. The reason is simply that by creating a parody of Graeco-Roman biography, Mark had expanded the repertoire of what was thought appropriate for biography. The models for his transformation of Mark consisted not only of the Gospel of Mark itself (which he apparently considered a βίος), but also the general patterns of Graeco-Roman biography, which included such conventional features as genealogies and birth narratives. Further, Matthew was obviously concerned with the conclusion of Mark, which seems almost modern in its striking avoidance of a conventional closure. Matthew therefore concluded his transformation of Mark by including two appearances of the risen Jesus, one to the women who visited the tomb and one two the eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee. Even though Matthew is so closely modeled on Mark, one does not have to know Mark to understand Matthew, as Mark’s long neglect in the lectionary of the Western church attests. The relationship of Matthew to Mark can be discussed under the rubric of intertextuality, particularly since Matthew also incorporated other texts, specifically the saying source Q into his own textual project. Matthew’s text can also be regarded as a textual performance of Mark. One characteristic of new performances of existing genres is that each individual text to some extent modifies and changes the entire group of generically affiliated texts.123 Mark, Matthew’s intertext or precursor text, belongs to one or more genres so that its meanings do not belong to it alone. Matthew’s transformation of Mark does not closely conform to the typical strategies of generic transformation sometimes discussed by genre theorists (see above). Matthew makes little use of Mark in Matt 1–11 (only in 3:1–4:22 does he follow the order of Mark). Matthew 8–9 is particularly complicated, where Matthew combines Mark 1:40–2:22 and 4:35–5:43 with material from Q to create a new unit that is temporally and spatially united.124 It is not until Matt 12:1 that the First Evangelist takes over the sequence of material in Mark, beginning with Mark 2:23, without changing the narrative order and omitting very little, so that Matt 12:1–28:8 (with a long insertion of Matt 24:37–25:46 that included Q 123 D. Fishelov, Metaphors of Genre: The Role of Analogies in Genre Theory (University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 21. 124 U. Luz, “The Miracle Stories of Matthew 8–9,” Studies in Matthew, trans. R. Selle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 221–40.

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material in 24:37–41) consists of a rewriting of most of Mark supplemented with material from Q and Special M.

The Title of Matthew Like Mark, Matthew opens with a superscription lacking a verb and predicate: βίβλος γενέσεως  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ Δαυὶδ υἱοῦ ’Αβραάμ, “Book of the origin of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” Though Matthew is dependent on Mark, he has introduced significant modifications. Matthew 1:1, like Mark 1:1, can be construed as the title of the entire text or for an initial segment (i. e., either 1:2–17 or 1:2–25).125 The two nouns ἀρχή (in Mark 1:1) and γένεσις (in Matt 1:1) share a semantic overlap; in appropriate contexts both can mean “beginning, origin.”126 Just as ἀρχή in Mark 1:1 is a double entendre that refers to an introductory section of the text or the entire text, so γένεσις in Matt 1:1 is also a double entendre that refers both to an introductory section and to the entire text. The phrase βίβλος γενέσεως is found in Gen 2:4 and 5:1; in the first passage it means “history of the origin,” while in the second it means “genealogy.”127 Perhaps the most striking feature of Matthew’s title is the fact that he ignored Mark’s use of εὐαγγέλιον and omitted it entirely from the incipit to his narrative. This suggests that, when Matthew recycled Mark, εὐαγγέλιον had not yet become a designation for the reservoir of authoritative Jesus traditions that it shortly became in the Apostolic Fathers during the first half of the second century. Matthew uses the term εὐαγγέλιον just four times, three times in the stereotypical expression τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς βασιλείας (Matt 4:23; 9:35; 24:14), by which he specifies that the content refers not to the message about Jesus, but the message of Jesus (Matt 4:23; 9:35),128 which he regards as the message that should be proclaimed by the church (Matt 24:14). Apparently τὸ εὐαγγέλιον was a relatively unimportant term for the third evangelist also, since it is entirely absent from the Gospel of Luke and occurs just twice in Acts (15:7; 20:14).

125 Those who argue that Matt 1:1 functions as a title for the entire text include the following: W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew (ICC; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988), 1.149–55; J. D. Kingsbury, Matthew: Structure, Christology, Kingdom (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 10, n. 54; M. Mayordomo-Marin, Den Anfang Hören (FRLANT 180; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 208–13; U. Luz, “Das Matthäusevangelium – eine neue oder eine neu redigierte Jesusgeschichte?” Biblischer Text und theologische Theoriebildung, ed. S. Chapman, C. Helmer, and C. Landmesser (BThSt 44; Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2001), 54. 126 BDAG 111–2, 154. 127 BDAG 154. 128 U. Luz, Matthew 1–7: A Commentary, trans. W. Linss (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989), 207.

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Matthew’s Deconstruction of Q129 Matthew, like Luke, chose to incorporate many segments of the Q source into his rewritten version of Mark’s story of Jesus. While Matthew could have incorporated the Sayings Source into his narrative in a variety of ways, he chose to subordinate Q to the Markan narrative. Further, even though the Q documents used by Matthew and Luke were probably not identical, it is generally accepted that Luke preserves the original order of pericopes in Q. There are eight blocks of Q material in Matthew that are out of sequence with the sequence of Q material in Luke.130 Matthew has two techniques for incorporating Q into the framework of his rewritten narrative of Mark:131 (1)  using a “block” technique, Matthew takes over blocks of Q material, often changing the order that they had in Q; (2) using an “excerpt” technique, he uses individual sayings of Jesus found in blocks of Q material, which he locates in various places in his Gospel, treating Q as a quarry for sayings of Jesus. While Matthew treated Mark with integrity, he used the Q document as a collection of material for expanding and embellishing his reading of Mark.

Concluding Summary Since the 1970s genre criticism has become an increasingly attractive approach to the holistic understanding of the literature of the New Testament, particularly the Gospels. Form criticism, which opened new perspectives for understanding the pre-literary history of the transmission and development of gospel traditions, focused on describing and identifying the constituent units of Jesus tradition, but regarded the Gospels themselves as unique and unparalleled literary forms created by the early church. Redaction criticism, which became influential in the 1950s, tended to focus on the theology of the evangelists and began to regard them more as authors than editors by distinguishing tradition from redaction. When some of the weaknesses of form criticism and redaction criticism became increasingly evident beginning with the 1970s, New Testament scholars in the United States began to focus on holistic approaches to the Gospels, developing both narrative criticism and genre criticism based on theoretical directions and developments in contemporary secular literary criticism. 129 The term “deconstruction” was coined by Jacques Derrida in the 1960s as a technical philosophical term, but is here used in its more popular sense in English as “the selective dismantlement of building components,” rather than “to tear down, destroy.” 130 (1) Matt 9:37–10:15 (= Q 10:1–12:1), (2) Matt 6:9–13 (= Q 11:1–4), (3) Matt 7:7–11 (= Q 11:9–13), (4) Matt 5:15; 6:22–23 (= Q 11:33–35), (5) Matt 10:26–33 (= Q 12:2–10), (6) Matt 6:25– 33, 6:19–21 (= Q 12:22–34), (7) 24:23–51 (= Q 12:39–46), (8) Matt 13:31–33 (= Q 13:18–19). 131 See U. Luz, “Matthew and Q,” Studies in Matthew, 45–50.

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Genre criticism and genre theory, which had begun to develop in significant ways during most of the twentieth century as a concern of literary criticism and literary theory, was expanded into “rhetorical genre studies” beginning with the 1980s as theorists began to regard all human communication as genre-bound, breaking down the artificial distinction between literary and nonliterary genres. Unlike proponents of narrative criticism, New Testament scholars with an interest in genre criticism have often tended to ignore developments in secular genre theory by relying on common-sense understandings of genre, which frequently tend to be Aristotelian in origin with the assumption of a relatively inflexible understanding of individual genres. Though genre theorists exhibit wide variety, developing genre theory has tended to accept a number of fundamental assumptions about the nature of genre criticism: (1) Genres are complex structures that must be defined in terms of three structural dimensions which often overlap and are given different emphases: the formal, the rhetorical (or functional), and the thematic (material or content). (2) Genres are structured categories with a hard core of prototypical members (but see point 3), but, when all examples of the genre are considered, have fuzzy boundaries making them resistant to definition. (3) Genres are dynamic rather than static entities that have no essence and which evolve or are transformed over time. The increasing number of texts that are associated with a particular genre incrementally serve to transform the entire genre. (4) Genres that continue in use are always in process of transformation, a process that has many different dimensions including combination, change of scale, change of function, parody, hybridization, combination and so on. (5)  Writing and speaking are socially determined modes of communication that occur in a social context that can be designated a “discourse community.” (6)  Individual texts signal their generic affinities by paratextual features such as titles, how they are presented in written form, the way in which they are written or printed, the material used in transmission, other written or oral texts with which they are closely associated, and so on. Paratextual features of written communications, such as are found the canonical Gospels, provide important clues for how the author and the earlier generations of readers understood the text. These paratextual features can include the ways in which the author labels a text, including the incipit that is used to introduce a text to its readership, the changing social contexts within which a text is read, and ways in which the text is interpolated, titled, expanded, or contracted. One of the more important textual features which were added to the Gospels are the subscriptiones or superscriptiones that were added to the end and the beginning of the texts of the Gospels sometime during the early second century CE. in order to distinguish them from one another during the process of aggregation, i. e., when the Gospels were collected and eventually formed a fourfold Gospel. Texts written on papyrus rolls often received a secondary title at the end of the

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text (the subscriptio) in addition to the incipit or opening sentence. When the codex was increasingly used as the format for early Christian literature during the second century, subscriptiones were typically moved or repeated at the beginning of texts in accordance with the conventions associated with the codex. The longer forms of the subscriptiones or superscriptiones have a strong claim to being older than the short forms, i. e., εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μᾶρκον (“the Gospel according to Mark”) is more original than κατὰ Μᾶρκον (“According to Mark”). This textual decision makes it important to understand what εὐαγγέλιον meant to those who first affixed the longer form to the Gospels as well as to the next generation or two of Christian readers. The term τὸ εὐαγγέλιον occurs about a dozen times in the Apostolic Fathers and generally means “the authoritative complex of traditional teachings and activities of Jesus” (with an implicit indifference toward the issue of whether this complex was transmitted in oral or written form). Thus τὸ εὐαγγέλιον is not a generic term, either when it occurs in the Apostolic Fathers (during the first half of the second century CE, contemporaneous with the affixing of the subscriptiones and superscriptiones to the fourfold collection of Gospel texts) or in the incipit of Mark. Unlike Matthew, Mark was not modeled after a single identifiable textual prototype. Mark is an episodic text based on linking earlier oral and written gospel tradition into a relatively large-scale narrative that functions as a complex genre with an ideological function. While the genre of Mark is often identified by specific genre-traits that are linked to a particular genre (e. g., biography, history, myth, and the novel), it is possible that it has been recycled from features of several genres. Nevertheless the most convincing generic identification of Mark has been its association with Graeco-Roman biography, a view carefully argued by Richard Burridge. The problems with identifying Mark as a development of Graeco-Roman biography raised by several critics suggests that Mark is in fact a parody of ancient biography in which some of the stereotypical features of that genre are intentionally transgressed primarily by subverting the social values enshrined in typical performances of Graeco-Roman biography. In so doing, Mark expanded the repertoire of what was thought appropriate for ancient biography. Parody is a macrotextual complement to the microtextual use of irony, which typically functions as a major rhetorical strategy of irony, and irony pervades the text of Mark as J. Camery-Hoggatt, building on the work of earlier Markan scholars, has amply demonstrated. The genre of Mark was transformed by Matthew (unaware of its parodic character) by the addition of features more typical of Graeco-Roman biography that had been avoided by Mark. The discourse community within which Matthew transformed Mark differed markedly from the discourse community of the latter. Like the incipit found in Mark 1:1, the incipit of Matthew functions as the title of the entire work, though Matthew (like Luke) self-consciously rejects the label εὐαγγέλιον used by Mark to characterize his work. One of most striking features

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of Matthew’s transformation of Mark is his deconstruction of Q. For Matthew, the Q source became primarily a collection of material he would use to expand and embellish the Markan narrative.

3. The Forgiveness Petition in the Lord’s Prayer: First Century Literary, Liturgical and Cultural Contexts Introduction For this conference on the theme of forgiveness,1 I will focus on the one New Testament statement on forgiveness more familiar to Christians throughout the world than any other, the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “and forgive us our debts [or sins], as we have forgiven our debtors [or, those who have sinned against us]” (Matt 6:12). There is such an enormous amount of scholarly and devotional literature on the Lord’s Prayer that it seems virtually impossible to come up with any interpretation that has not already been proposed many times before by competent and insightful scholars. Nevertheless, I want to focus on the forgiveness petitions in the Lord’s Prayer (there are actually three similar yet different forgiveness petitions in the three earliest extant versions of the Lord’s Prayer), and propose readings or understandings of each of them in contexts that are rarely considered. The forgiveness petition is such an important part of early Christian thought and behavior that it is surely worth while to consider some of its many implications even if all I accomplish is to remind us yet again of that which God both demands and deserves from us.

The Forgiveness Petition in the Context of the Lord’s Prayer The Lord’s Prayer, in one form or other, almost certainly originated with Jesus.2 Many scholars, accepting its essential authenticity, have proposed reconstruc1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on Forgiveness, held at the

Tantur Ecumenical Center in Jerusalem in May, 2005. 2 N. Perrin, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1963), 191–201; idem, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1967), 47; E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin Press, 1993), 195; J. P. Meier, Mentor, Message and Miracles, Vol. 2 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 291–302. There are, of course, dissenting opinions, including the Jesus Seminar (see the brief report in M. Borg, Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1994), 167 (fragments of the prayer go back to Jesus but not the entire prayer in either of its three forms), and J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 293–95.

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tions of the original wording and meaning that the Lord’s Prayer had in the setting of the life and mission of Jesus. There is widespread agreement that a more original form of the Lord’s Prayer can in fact be reconstructed from the texts of Matt 6:9–13 (a seven-petition prayer that includes some expansions [compared with the version in Luke], but preserves some original wording) and Luke 11:2–4 (a shorter five-petition prayer that reflects the basic length and structure but reflects some changes in wording).3 Since Jesus is widely thought to have lived the myth of Jewish eschatological expectation, the Lord’s Prayer has been frequently construed to have had an originally eschatological meaning.4 In the case of the forgiveness petition, some suggest that Jesus makes the forgiveness of others in the present the condition for God’s forgiveness of the disciples in the final judgment (combining the present and future aspects of the Kingdom of God),5 while others argue more specifically that Jesus used the “debt” and “debtor” language quite literally, since a high level of indebtedness and loss of land was one of the economic causes of the first Jewish revolt.6 Some push this even further and argue that Jesus was in effect proclaiming an eschatological Jubilee, when all Israelites would be freed from their debts and allowed to repossess their land.7 Scholars who deny that Jesus was an apocalyptist, on the other hand, either understand the Lord’s Prayer to be inauthentic (i.e., largely the product of the early church) or give it primarily an ethical meaning (or both),8 i.e., just as those who pray have already forgiven their debtors, they hope that their sins will be forgiven by God. While the determination of the authenticity and the quest for the original form and meaning of the Lord’s Prayer in the teaching of Jesus is perhaps a valid and important enterprise, such a task is essentially irrelevant for the purposes of this paper. Whether or not modern scholars regard the Lord’s Prayer as authentic, partly authentic or wholly inauthentic would have been immaterial for those 3 B. Chilton, for example, has reconstructed what he considers the original Aramaic epitome of the Lord’s Prayer, sans the liturgical embellishments of the early church that he presents in English translation: “My father, your name will be sanctified, your Kingdom will come: / Give me today the bread that is coming, / And release me my debts – not bring me to the test” (Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography [New York: Doubleday, 2000], 59, n. 4). 4 R. E. Brown, “The Pater Noster as an Eschatological Prayer,” in New Testament Essays (Garden City: Image Books, 1968), 275–320; J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 193–203. 5 Meier, Mentor, Message and Miracles, 301; G. Theissen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 263. 6 J. S. Kloppenborg, “Alms, Debt and Divorce: Jesus’ Ethics in their Mediterranean Context,” The Toronto Journal of Theology 6 (1990), 192–93. 7  S. H. Ringe, Jesus, Liberation, and the Biblical Jubilee: Images for Ethics and Christology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 77–80, 83 (asserted, though not argued); N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (vol. 2 of Christian Origins and the Question of God; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 294–95. 8 Crossan (The Historical Jesus, 293–95) argues both that the Lord’s Prayer as a whole is inauthentic (i.e., it is summary of themes and emphases from the authentic teachings of Jesus) and that there is nothing apocalyptic about it.

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who recited it privately or in the context of public worship late in the first century and early in the second century, who unquestionably assumed that the prayer originated with Jesus. Further, reconstructing a hypothetical original version of the Lord’s Prayer is unnecessary for my purposes since each of the three extant versions was sanctified by use in Christian liturgical contexts, whether private or public. The reconstruction of the original meaning of the Lord’s Prayer, while an interesting enterprise, should not take attention away from the polyvalent possibilities of interpreting it and the inevitably ethical construal that it would have had when recited in Greek-speaking contexts. At this point, I want to propose five hypotheses about the Lord’s Prayer and the forgiveness petition it contains that will govern the discussion in the rest of this paper. I will assume the viability of some of these theses and argue in some detail for others. First, each of the three extant versions of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4; Did. 8:2) emerged from the practice of private prayer in particular Christian circles where they were shaped over a number of years.9 There are several reasons for suggesting this: (1) Many of the formal features of the Lord’s Prayer reflect the characteristic features of Jewish private prayer.10 (2)  The literary context of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew, Luke and the Didache links it to the practice of early Christian private prayer.11 Nevertheless, there are features that made the Lord’s Prayer easily adaptable to Christian public prayer: (1) The poetic parallelism of the Matthaean version of the Lord’s Prayer suggests the influence of public liturgical reshaping. (2) The formulation of the prayer using first-personal plural pronouns and verb forms indicates that it could as easily function as a communal as an individual prayer. (3) The early addition of the doxology to the version of the Lord’s Prayer found in the Didache (as well as its addition to later manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew) clearly points to an origin in a public liturgical setting. It is of course possible to argue that, since Matthew and Luke are frequently dependent on the Q document, that there was a Q version of the Lord’s

 9 There are, of course, many who argue for the public liturgical use of the Lord’s Prayer in the Matthaean community. There are also many scholars who also claim the same for the Lukan version, e.g., K. H. Reinsdorf, Das Evangelium nach Lukas (NTD 3; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968), 144. 10 J. Heinemann, “The Background of Jesus’ Prayer in the Jewish Liturgical Tradition,” in The Lord’s Prayer and Jewish Liturgy, ed. J. J. Petuchowski and M. Brocke (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), 88. 11 Matt 6:5–6 emphasizes the fact that when the followers of Jesus pray, they should go into their room, shut the door and prayer to their Father in secret. In Luke 11:1, the disciples are depicted as asking Jesus to teach them to pray as John taught his disciples; this is clearly a request for a prayer to be uttered privately. Finally, in Did. 8:3, the author enjoins his readers to prayer the Lord’s Prayer three times daily, obviously referring to private prayer intentionally scheduled as an alternative to Jewish private prayer.

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Prayer which each evangelist redacted in his own particular way.12 This would mean, of course, that the Matthean and Lukan versions of the Lord’s Prayer are not liturgical formulations at all, but rather the product of the redactional modifications of each evangelist based on his (and his community’s) particular theological perspective. It is also possible, but in my view unlikely, that the version of the Lord’s Prayer in Did. 8:2 is literarily dependent on the Lord’s Prayer in the Gospel of Matthew.13 These are problematic issues, but the early setting of each of the three versions of the Lord’s Prayer in private prayer is nevertheless in my view a viable hypothesis which I shall presuppose in the following discussion. Second, the fact that the Lord’s Prayer was recited in Christian private prayer and eventually in public prayer means that the propositions expressed or implied in the Lord’s Prayer were regarded as absolutely and unassailably true by the Christian community. The Lord’s Prayer is absolutely true, not only because it was attributed to Jesus,14 the Lord of the Church, but also and perhaps even more importantly, through the fact that it was privately, and then publicly acknowledged as true by those who repeatedly affirmed it through reciting in the context of private prayer then the context of Christian worship. Theological statements contained in the liturgy are more essential for the faith of that Christian community than are theological reflections articulated in other contexts. What then are the unassailable theological truths expressed in the forgiveness petition? Five are expressed or implied: (1) God is the ultimate and necessary source of forgiveness. (2) Forgiveness from God is available upon petition in prayer. (3) The forgiveness of others is the necessary pre-condition for divine forgiveness. (4) Revenge and retaliation are implicitly ruled out as an appropriate response to insult and injury. (5) The importance of praying for forgiveness underscores human propensity to rebel against God by insulting and injuring others. Third, the absolute truth of the forgiveness petition sanctifies the forgiveness maxim. The forgiveness maxim, which will be discussed in more detail below, has its origin in Judaism, and is first attested in Sirach 28:2: “Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.” This 12 The Q version of the Lord’s Prayer (with five petitions) is reconstructed in J. M. Robinson, P. Hoffmann and J. S. Kloppenborg, eds., The Critical Edition of Q (Minneapolis: Fortress Press; Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 206–11. This reconstruction differs little from those who maintain that the Matthaean and Lukan versions of the Lord’s Prayer were liturgical formulations which each evangelist inserted into his Gospel at what he thought was the appropriate place, ignoring the form of the Lord’s Prayer found in Q. Three such reconstructions are those of Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 196, J. A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke (2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1981–85), 2.901; Meier, Mentor, Message and Miracles, 292. 13 Arguments for the dependence of Did. 8:2 on Matt 6:9–13 are presented in W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (IGG; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), 1,597–98. 14 It is striking that the Lord’s Prayer itself contains no indication that it was originally formulated by Jesus (or was thought to have been formulated by Jesus), even though it is introduced as the teaching of Jesus in the context of all three of the ancient versions.

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maxim occurs in Mark 11:25, again with an emphasis on prayer: “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” This maxim (which has its setting in private prayer) makes it clear that a person’s relationship to God is dependent on his or her relationships to other people. While the forgiveness maxim is quite general, it is precisely that generality which makes it unassailable. When specific sins are detailed in vice lists, which occur frequently in Paul, for example, one can always argue that this or that item is not really a “sin,” or that it is of lesser or greater importance than other vices on the list, etc. Fourth, as a liturgical verbal symbol, the Lord’s Prayer could not have stood alone as a private Christian prayer nor could it have been a central feature of early Christian worship. It is implicitly dependent on other more abstract Christian verbal and ritual symbols that explicitly or implicitly make ultimate Christian religious claims. In the three ancient versions in which it has been preserved, of course, the Lord’s Prayer exhibits no distinctively Christian features (with the single possible exception of the forgiveness petition).15 It is precisely the thoroughly Jewish character of the Lord’s Prayer that has been used as an argument for its origin in the authentic teachings of Jesus. The hypothesis that the Lord’s Prayer as a verbal symbol used in Christian liturgy is part of a hierarchy of liturgical symbols, is a proposal that I think is very likely historical but yet one that is very difficult to prove. When the Lord’s Prayer became part of Christian public worship it was obviously used in juxtaposition to the Eucharist (the ritual appropriation of the salvation event achieved by the death of Jesus), and perhaps baptism as well, and from the perspective that I am developing here, would have been functionally subordinate to both. Even further up the ritual hierarchy, I would propose, would be a variation on the ultimate postulate of early Christian worship, i.e., one of the following creed-like statements anticipating the central function which the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed would one day occupy in Roman Catholic Christianity and the Shema in Judaism: 1 Cor 8:6: “There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” Phil 2:11: “Every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” 1 Cor 12:3b: “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” Rom 10:9: “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

15 Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke, 2.900. Using the criterion of double dissimilarity, Norman Perrin observed that the forgiveness petition “has absolutely no parallel in Jewish prayers of the period” (Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, 195). By this he means that while prayers to God for forgiveness are common in Judaism (Ps 25:18), conditional forgiveness is not found in Jewish prayers.

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These creed-like statements make ultimate claims for Jesus, and there are others besides 1 Cor 8:6 which provide an essential link between Jesus and God the Father. In fact, addressing God as Father in the Lord’s Prayer coheres with the developing conception of Jesus as the unique Son of God the Father. Fifth, the forgiveness petition, the only petition with a qualification, has a very specific character and function in the Lord’s Prayer which none of the other petitions have: while some of the petitions are intended to produce changes in the experience of Christians in the real world, the forgiveness petition puts those who pray either privately or publicly under an obligation to pursue a certain course of action in the real world. Social relationships in the real world, whether among members of the community of faith or within the wider context of human society, are explicitly understood as radically affecting the world of worship, i.e., there is an inextricable link between how we treat each other and the way God treats us.

Meanings and Functions of the Forgiveness Petition Since the forgiveness petition is preserved in three different forms in the three ancient versions of the Lord’s Prayer found in Matt 6:12, Luke 11:4a, and Did. 8:2, I am intentionally concerned to understand each form of the forgiveness petition in its historical particularity (there are even more forms reflected in variant readings that I will not consider), rather than to blend them into a single “more authentic” or “more ecumenical” text.16 While this diversity could be wholly or partly literary, as well as liturgically modified and theologically motivated, there are compelling reasons to suppose that these divergences are primarily the product of various streams of oral transmission reflecting different liturgical contexts. The forgiveness petition involves what I propose to call “triangular reciprocity,” that is, three principals are intimately linked, God (to whom the petition for forgiveness is addressed), the Christian who prays (addressing a petition for forgiveness to God), and others, perhaps Christians themselves (who are somehow indebted to, or have sinned against, the Christian who prays). The forgiveness petition is formally related to what I will designate as the “forgiveness maxim,” which similarly involves the principle of “triangular reciprocity,” i.e., it relates to the recognition on the part of those who pray that God will not remit their debts or forgive their sins unless they have already forgiven the sins of those who have offended them or have remitted the debts of those who 16 The ecumenical formulation of the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer reads: “Forgive us our

sins as we forgive those who sin against us” (R. Jasper and H. Winstone, eds., Prayers We Have in Common [2nd ed.; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975], 1). The German version of the fifth petition reads: “Und vergib uns unsere Schuld, wie auch wir vergeben unseren Schuldigern” (T. Maas-Ewerd, “Das Vaterunser in der Liturgie,”Und dennoch ist von Gott zu reden, ed. M. Lutz-Bachmann (Freiburg, Basel und Wien: Herder, 1994], 262).

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are indebted to them. We have already mentioned the fact that the forgiveness maxim is found in its earliest form in Sirach 28:2: “Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.” In short, God’s forgiveness of the person who prays is conditional upon that person’s forgiveness of others. The dynamic reflected in the forgiveness petition is also reflected in the forgiveness maxim, though the latter is found in typically paraenetic contexts, while the primary setting of former is in the context of private and then public prayer.

The Meaning of the Forgiveness Petition in Matthew The immediate literary context of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew is found in Matt 6:1–18, a section dealing with three religious practices, almsgiving (vv. 1–4), prayer (vv. 5–15), and fasting (vv. 16–18). This section is introduced with a warning indicating that what follows distinguishes between the correct and incorrect practices of almsgiving, prayer and fasting (v. 1): “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” The Lord’s Prayer itself is introduced with the phrase, “Pray then like this [οὕτως οὖν προσεύχεσθε ὑμεῖς],” in a polemical context in which Jesus exhorts his disciples not to pray like the hypocrites or the Gentiles. That the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew is understood as a private prayer is clear from Matt 6:5–6: “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” The forgiveness petition in Matt 6:12 reads: “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors [καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφήκαμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν].” Perhaps the most striking feature of this petition is the use of the metaphorical term “debt” (ὀφείλημα) and “debtor” (ὀφειλέτης), representing a very wide range of personal and collective offenses and insults experienced by those who are praying. To explain this peculiar usage, it is commonly pointed out that ὀφείλημα is probably a translation of the Aramaic noun ‫חובא‬, meaning both “debt” and “sin,” while ὀφειλέτης is similarly a translation of the related noun ‫ חיבא‬means “debtor” or “sinner.”17 Aside from the hazards inherent in speculating about a non-existent Aramaic text, those who heard and recited the Lord’s Prayer in Greek-speaking Christian circles would not have had access to this insight of historical linguistics, and it remains a fact that ὀφείλημα (“debt”) does not have the semantic meaning “sin” in Greek, nor does ὀφειλέτης (“debtor”) mean “sinner.” However, both terms can be understood metaphorically of the variety of ways in which we injure or offend our fellow human beings, and in so doing offend God. Since the terms “debt” and 17 M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (3rd ed.; Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1967), 140.

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“debtor” function as metaphors, they have the potential for greater polyvalence than the more restricted terms ἁμαρτία (“sin”) and ἁμαρτωλός (“sinner”).18 It seems clear in Greek that the term “debt” (ὀφείλημα), is used in a pejorative sense (as that which we need to have canceled or forgiven), even though it could be construed positively (e.g., as creatures, we owe obedience to the one God who has created us, and if we benefit our friends they are obligated to return the benefaction). If we insult, offend, or harm a fellow human being, we are in “debt” to them until there is satisfaction, either through retaliation (the lex talionis) or forgiveness. Injuring another person, either physically or morally is at the same time an offense against God. This “triangular reciprocity” is well illustrated in Matt 5:21–24: 21 You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.

Unlike the triangular reciprocity in the forgiveness petition, however, the injured party is not the one who is preparing to offer a sacrifice at the altar, but rather another person with whom he must first be reconciled. The verb ἀφίημι, meaning “to cancel a debt” or “to forgive,” is used twice in the aorist in the Matthaean forgiveness petition. The first occurrence is the aorist imperative “forgive” (ἄφες), while the second is the conative perfect “we have forgiven” (ἀφήκαμεν). Why is the aorist imperative used in this petition?19 First of all, the aorist imperative is almost always used in prayers in the Septuagint and the New Testament; there are just five examples of the present imperative in the Septuagint prayers and two in the New Testament (one of which is the present imperative δίδου, “give” in Luke 11:3, the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer in Luke, while the corresponding fourth petition in the Matthean version has δός, “give,” an aorist imperative).20 It has been argued that the distinction between the present imperative and the aorist imperative is that the present imperative sees a connection between the action commanded and the present situation, while the 18 In Luke 11:4, ἁμαρτίαι (“sins”) is found where Matthew has ὀφειλήματα (“debts”), with the result that the meaning of ὀφείλημα is considerably narrowed. The Latin translations of the Lord’s Prayer from the fourth century on translated Matthew’s Greek literally as debita and debitoribus. 19 There are, in fact, six aorist imperatives used in the Matthean version of the Lord’s Prayer. The one petition, which deviates from this pattern, is the sixth petition, which uses a parallel construction, the aorist subjunctive of prohibition μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς, “do not lead us.” 20 F. W. Mozley, “Notes on the Biblical Use of the Present and Aorist Imperative,” JTS 4 (1903), 279–82.

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aorist imperative does not.21 The present imperative, then is more insistent and urgent when used with specific commands, while the aorist imperative, on the other hand, conveys a greater urgency in general commands.22 The use of the perfect tense ἀφήκαμεν (“we have forgiven”) has been interpreted as a “performative utterance” or “illocutionary action,” i.e., the forgiveness of others is actually accomplished when this phrase is spoken.23 As attractive as this view is, particularly from the standpoint of the central role of performative utterances in ritual, ἀφήκαμεν is more likely a conative aorist that may be translated as “we have forgiven.” Understood in this way, ἀφήκαμεν means that those who are praying are fully aware that canceling the debts or forgiving the sins of others is a necessary condition for asking God for forgiveness.24 This leads to an extremely important conclusion: the triangular reciprocity of the forgiveness petition is an integral part of the believer’s and the believing community’s awareness of the vital link between social relationships within the community and the relationship of individual members of the community to God. However, is it realistic to suppose that all members of the community, who recite the Lord’s Prayer, whether privately or publicly, have already forgiven those who have offended them in some way? Human nature being what it is, that is doubtful. What then is the function of the forgiveness petition in the Lord’s Prayer? In the case of the Matthaean version, the individual’s recitation of the prayer, whether privately or publicly, functions as an acknowledgment of the absolute truth of the entire prayer as well as of the forgiveness petition in particular, sanctifies or lends derivative authority to Christian personal and social ethics. This emphasis on seeking forgiveness from those we have injured and only then seeking forgiveness from God implicitly eliminates the natural human response to insult and injury: retaliation in kind. Matthew is fully aware of the fact that what I have called the forgiveness maxim is closely related to the forgiveness petition. Despite all of the important theological issues which the Lord’s Prayer raises, it is striking that the only petition 21 W. F. Bakker, The Greek Imperative: An Investigation into the Aspectual Differences between the Present and Aorist Imperatives in Greek Prayer from Homer up to the Present Day (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1966), 65–66, 98. 22  B. M. Fanning, Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 380–82. 23 P. Joüon, L’Évangile de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ: Traduction et commentaire (2nd ed.; Paris: G. Beauchesne, 1930), 35 (Joüon, of course, wrote a generation before the linguistic theories of Austen and Searle (see below). The understanding of the clause containing ἀφήκαμεν as a “performative utterance” (a term proposed by J. L. Austen, How to Do Things with Words [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962], 6) or an “illocutionary action” (J. R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay on the Philosophy of Language [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969], 24, 30, has been recently proposed by A. J. Hultgren, “Forgive Us, As We Forgive (Matthew 6:12),” WW 16 (1996), 284–90, though with no reference to Joüon. 24 Here it should be noted that, according to some scholars, the verb ἀφήκαμεν, if it represents an Aramaic perfect verb (i.e., a perfectum coincidentiae or perfectum praesens), which ought therefore to be translated as a present, since it indicates action which takes place in the present: “as we herewith forgive our debtors” (Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 203; Perrin, The Kingdom of God, 195–96).

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that Matthew singles out for special comment is the forgiveness petition that he explains in the saying of Jesus that immediately follows. In this commentary, it is clear that Matthew understands the terms “debt” and “debtor” of the forgiveness petition particularly in terms of transgressions or sins (NAB): For if you forgive others their transgressions [τὰ παραπτώματα], your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions [τὰ παραπτώματα].

This forgiveness maxim clarifies at least two features of the forgiveness petition: (1)  It is clear that Matthew understands human forgiveness is a condition for divine forgiveness, and (2)  It is equally clear that Matthew understands τὰ ὀφειλήματα (“debts”) to mean παραπτώματα (“transgressions”). The second point suggests in addition that Matthew has retained the wording of the prayer as he received it and clarified its meaning not by changing its wording but by appending a commentary. Matthew uses the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matt 18:23–35) as an illustration for how he understands God’s forgiveness of our debts and our forgiveness of the debts of others. In the redactional conclusion to the parable, Matthew inserts a version of the forgiveness maxim reminiscent of the forgiveness petition of the Lord’s Prayer (18:35): “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” This redactional conclusion makes it clear that Matthew understands the parable as an allegory, with the king representing the heavenly Father, and the cancellation of debt representing forgiveness. Matt 18:35, however, is an interpretation of the point of the parable expressed in Matt 18:32–33 (the king addresses the unforgiving servant): “Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave [ἀφῆκα] you all that debt [ὀφειλήν] because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’” What this text conveys that is not mentioned in Matt 6:9–15, is that divine forgiveness precedes human forgiveness. A stray saying on forgiveness from late in the first century contains this same emphasis (Eph 4:32): “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.” There is yet one important remaining issue in interpreting the forgiveness petition in Matthew that needs to be addressed. Since the petitioners request forgiveness from God, can we assume that those who are their debtors similarly petition them for forgiveness? Alternatively, does the text assume that the petitioners unilaterally forgive the debts of those who are their debtors? The problem with this second possibility is that if true, it would destroy the parallel character of the two parts of the forgiveness petition; the first part, “forgive us our debts,” is a request we make to God, while the second part, “as also [ὡς καί] you have forgiven your debtors,” is not based on their asking us, but on our unilateral

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granting of forgiveness. Nevertheless, there are compelling reasons for assuming that this is what the text means, as we shall see below.

The Meaning of the Forgiveness Petition in Luke While the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew is set in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, an extensive didactic section, in Luke it is a didactic saying that introduces a short section on prayer (11:1–15). A brief narrative describing Jesus at prayer introduces the section. When he had finished praying, “one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples’” (Luke 11:1). We then read, “And he said to them, ‘When you pray, say …’” (11:2a), thereby introducing the Lukan version of the Lord’s Prayer (11:2–4). The Lord’s Prayer in Luke contains five petitions, unlike the seven of Matthew and the Didache, and is thought by many to be closer to the original length and structure of the Lord’s Prayer as taught by Jesus than the version found in Matthew. Again our concern is not with the problem of reconstructing an original version, but rather with understanding the version that lies before us in its original liturgical context, whether private or public. The forgiveness petition in Luke 11:4 (the fourth petition in his version of the Lord’s Prayer) reads: “and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves hereby forgive everyone who is indebted to us [καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν, καὶ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ἀφίομεν παντὶ ὀφείλοντι ἡμῖν].” While Matthew understood “debts” as “transgressions,” according to his interpretative commentary in Matt 6:14–15, the Lukan version of the Lord’s Prayer includes the term “sins” (a synonym for “transgressions”) rather than the term “debts” found in Matthew. The use of the term τὰς ἁμαρτίας (“sins”), is awkward as a parallel to ὀφείλοντι (“one indebted”). As in the case of the Matthaean version, the forgiveness petition here is composed of two clauses, the second introduced by καὶ γάρ (“for also”), correlating this clause with the first, though not in a causal sense as the Matthaean phrase ὡς καί (“just as also”). A Greek term for “forgive” is found in two forms in this petition. As in Matthew and the Didache, the aorist imperative ἄφες (“forgive”) is found in the first clause of this petition, and the remarks made about this term in Matthew apply equally well to Luke. The second form of the verb, however, is the present tense ἀφίομεν, “we forgive.” The present tense in this context can be construed in at least three ways: (1) as a futuristic present (i.e., “we will forgive”), (2) as a durative or iterative present (i.e., “we [regularly] forgive”), and (3) as an aoristic (also call instantaneous or punctiliar) present (“we hereby forgive”). The fact that this form occurs in the context of a liturgical prayer strongly suggests that ἀφίομεν is in fact an aoristic present, so that the entire phrase should be translated: “for we ourselves hereby forgive [or, here and now forgive] every one who is indebted to us.” This constitutes, I believe, a “performative utterance” or

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“illocutionary action,” in which the forgiveness of debts or sins is believed by the speakers to be accomplished with the utterance of the phrase, analogous to the performative function of a statement attributed several times to Jesus, “Your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5 = Matt 9:3 = Luke 5:20; Mark 2:9; Luke 7:48), or Peter’s statement in Acts 9:34: “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you.” While performative utterances are obviously not limited to liturgical settings, they are certainly very much at home there.25 While I found it necessary in my discussion of the forgiveness petition in Matthew to deny that the corresponding phrase in Matthew had illocutionary force, it seems abundantly clear that it does have illocutionary force here. It is striking that a performative function is apparently attributed to Matthew in the ecumenical English version of the Lord’s Prayer, in which the forgiveness petitions reads “as we forgive those who sin against us,”26 as well as in many ancient and modern versions including the Old Latin, most manuscripts of the Vulgate, most other ancient versions, the Authorized or King James Version (dependent on an inferior reading of the Textus Receptus), the Douay-Rheims New Testament, and the New American Bible. At the conclusion of our discussion of the forgiveness petition in Matthew, I raised the question about whether or not Christians who prayed the Lord’s Prayer in the late first century CE, forgave their debtors unilaterally or whether they forgave them only when they were asked to do so by the debtors. Since it is relatively clear that such unilateral forgiveness is assumed in the Lukan version of the Lord’s Prayer, it appears to me highly likely that this actually reflects the intentionality of the forgiveness petition in Matthew as well, though transformed into a liturgical performative utterance.

The Meaning of the Forgiveness Petition in the Didache The formulation and literary context of the Lord’s Prayer in the Didache has such close similarities to the formulation and literary setting of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew that many have argued for the literary dependence of the Didache on Matthew.27 This dependency is supported by two arguments: (1) The version of the Lord’s Prayer in Did. 8:2 is very similar to that found in Matt 6:9–13, and (2) In the Didache the context in which the Lord’s Prayer is quoted contains a polemic against the way that the hypocrites fast and pray (though no specific defects of their praying are mentioned), just as the context of the Lord’s Prayer in Matt 6 contains a polemic against the way that the hypocrites and the Gentiles pray. Despite these arguments, the fact that the version of the Lord’s Prayer preserved 25  R. A. Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 112–15. 26 Jasper and Winstone, Prayers We Have in Common, 1. 27 Davies and Allison, 1.597–98.

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in the Didache differs somewhat in wording from the version in Matthew,28 together with the fact that it concludes with a doxology,29 suggests that it reflects a version of the Lord’s Prayer in a region in Syria-Palestine not very distant from the community which used the Matthaean version. A specific indication of how the Lord’s Prayer was used in the community represented by the Didache is found in the short instructional comment after the prayer is quoted: “Pray like this three times a day.” This probably refers to private prayer (corresponding to the Jewish custom of praying thrice daily; cf. DanLXX 6:9–12), though there are those who argue that this was part of public liturgy.30 It is likely, in my view, that it was part of public liturgy and then drawn into private prayer as a way of distinguishing Jewish Christianity from Judaism. The author then introduces the Lord’s Prayer with these words: “But as the Lord commanded in his gospel, you should pray as follows [ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐκέλευσεν ὁ κύριος ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ αὐτοῦ, οὕτω προσεύχεσθε],” and the text of the Lord’s Prayer follows. The forgiveness petition in Did. 8:2 varies only slightly from that found in Matthew: “and forgive us our debt, as we also forgive our debtors [καὶ ἄφες ὑμῖν τῆν ὀφελήν ἡμῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν].” Since I have already discussed in some detail the forgiveness petition of Matthew, only a few comments are necessary. First of all, the connective phrase ὡς καί (“as also”), corresponding to an identical phrase in Matthew, introduces, as it did in Matthew, the necessary condition for God forgiving the debt of those who pray. Second, the present tense verb ἀφίεμεν (“we forgive”) is a morphological variation of the present tense verb ἀφίομεν (“we forgive”) found in the fourth petition in the Lukan Lord’s Prayer. This verb should be construed as an aoristic present, and then the entire clause in which it is found should be understood as a performative utterance, i.e., upon making this declaration, those who are praying unilaterally forgive those who have offended or injured them in any way.

The Forgiveness Maxim In our discussion of the forgiveness petition in the Matthaean version of the Lord’s Prayer, we argued that the First Evangelist had inserted a saying of Jesus

28 The Didache has ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ (“in heaven”) for Matthew’s ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς (“in the heavens”), τὴν ὀφελήν (“debt”) for Matthew’s τὰ ὀφειλήματα (“debts”), and ἀφίεμεν (“we forgive”) for Matthew’s ἀφήκαμεν (“we have forgiven”). 29 A doxology in various forms is found in most of the Greek manuscripts containing Matthew, though not the earlier and more important ones. 30 K. Niederwimmer, The Didache: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 138, n. 26.

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immediately following the prayer that provided a commentary on what he regarded as the most important feature of that prayer (Matt 6:14–15): For if you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.

The language of Matt 6:14–15 is Matthaean, suggesting that the evangelist thoroughly redacted and expanded a saying of Jesus found in Mark 11:25 (NAB):31 When you stand to pray, forgive [ἀφίετε] anyone against whom you have a grievance [εἴ τι ἔχετε κατά τινος], so that [ἵνα] your heavenly Father may in turn forgive [ἀφῇ] you your transgressions [τὰ παραπτώματα].

Matthew has edited the forgiveness maxim he found in Mark 11:25, transforming it into a conditional clause, and then expanded it by adding a negative formulation of the same saying. The second clause in Mark 11:25 is clearly a purpose clause indicating that the reason for forgiving someone you have something against is so that God will forgive you. It is striking that this forgiveness maxim is closely related to prayer, just as it is by juxtaposition in Matt 6:14–15, and not only that but it appears that the act of forgiving others is verbalized in prayer and precedes the petition asking for one’s own forgiveness. Mark 11:25 is closely related to the forgiveness maxim found in Sir 28:2, and it is striking that there too the forgiveness maxim is set in the context of prayer: “Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray,” though here it seems that forgiving others the wrongs they have done to you is a condition for successfully petitioning God for forgiveness. The link between prayer and the forgiveness maxim occurs again in Polycarp Philippians 6:2a: “If then we pray the Lord to forgive us, we also ought to forgive.” A series of six reciprocity sayings is found in Luke 6:36–38 which includes the most succinct form of the forgiveness maxim: Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven [ἀπολύετε, καὶ ἀπολυθήσεσθε]; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

It is striking that the more common Greek verb for forgiveness, ἀφίημι is not used here.

31 Davies

and Allison, 1.616.

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There are a number of non-canonical sayings of Jesus preserved in early Christian literature in which the forgiveness maxim is found in a more succinct form. 1 Clem. 13:1–2, has the following collection (emphasis mine): Be merciful, that you may obtain mercy [this is a beatitude in Matt 5:7] Forgive, that you may be forgiven [ἀφίετε, ἵνα ἀφεθῇ ὑμῖν] [Luke 6:37c; cf. Matt 6:14–15; Mark 11:25] As you do, so it will be done to you. As you give, so it will be given to you [Luke 6:37a]. As you judge, so you will be judged [Luke 6:37a; Matt 7:1] As you are kind, so kindness will be shown to you. With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you [Luke 6:38c; Matt 7:2b; Mark 4:24b].

While some of these sayings have relatively close parallels to sayings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain (the parallels are listed above; there are no parallels in the Gospels, however, for “as you do, so it will be done to you,” and “as you are kind, so kindness will be shown to you”), a specific source for this small collection cannot be identified. That this was in fact an existing collection of sayings of Jesus, however, is clear because each of the seven sayings exhibits a similar reciprocal form. A similar collection is found in Polycarp Philippians 2:3 (though this is arguably dependent on 1 Clem.)32: But remembering what the Lord said when he taught: Do not judge, lest you be judged; forgive and you will be forgiven [ἀφίετε, καὶ ἀφεθήσεται ὑμῖν] be merciful that you may obtain mercy; with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you; and blessed are the poor and those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

A third collection is found at the end of the second century in Clement of Alexandria Strom. 2.18.91 (also dependent on 1 Clem. 13:1–2)33: Be merciful, says the Lord, that you may obtain mercy.. Forgive that it may be forgiven you [ἀφίετε, καὶ ἀφεθήσεται ὑμῖν]. As you do, so it will be done to you. As you give, so it will be given to you. As you judge, so you will be judged. As you are kind, so kindness will be shown to you. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

The context of most of these maxims consists in a series of statements of reciprocity in which a particular type of human action in the present is matched in the future by the same kind of action meted out by God. 32 A. Lindemann, Die Clemensbriefe (HNT 17; Die Apostolischen Väter 1; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 54. 33 Lindemann, Die Clemensbriefe, 54.

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Reading the Forgiveness Petition in a Greek Cultural Context The Lord’s Prayer, at least in its three earliest renditions, was written in Greek for those who could understand the dominant language of the Mediterranean world. In imagining how native speakers of Greek might have understood the forgiveness petition of the Lord’s Prayer, awareness of relevant Greek cultural values is crucial. Ancient Greek popular morality was pervaded by the assumption that one should help one’s friends and harm one’s enemies.34 According to Aristotle (Rhet. 1367a), revenge or retaliation is just, noble and courageous: “It is noble to avenge oneself on one’s enemies and not to come to terms with them: for retaliation is just, and the just is noble, and not to put up with defeat is courage.” Xenophon’s Socrates observes that people generally think that benefiting friends and harming enemies brings the greatest pleasure (Xenophon Mem. 4.5.10). The importance of retaliation in Greek culture is linked to such cultural values as reciprocity (the talio) and honor / shame. There are two forms of reciprocity operative in the Greek world, amicable reciprocity is the obligation imposed by the receiving of gifts, while hostile reciprocity entails the obligation to avenge violence; both involve a preoccupation with honor and a tendency toward ritualization.35 Greek discussions of revenge and friendship are, in fact, pervaded by the commercial and legal imagery of debt and repayment,36 so that the “debt” and “debtor” language in relationships between a person and a god and between one person and another found in the Lord’s Prayer, would find a ready cultural frame of reference. The phrase “forgive us our debts as we have forgiven [or, hereby forgive] the debts of others” would probably strike a Greek hearer as odd, since reciprocity is a two-way street, not a triangle. The triangular reciprocity of the forgiveness maxim is based on a view of God endemic to Judaism and inherited by Christianity. If a god forgives us our debts, it would be only natural to reciprocate with an appropriate gift, sacrifice or vow to that god. The notion that divine forgiveness depends on our forgiveness of others would appear to be a kind of reciprocity that was out of kilter. The very idea of forgiving the debts of another would probably hit a Greek hearer quite hard, since it would challenge her or him to forego the justice, nobility, courageousness and pleasure involved in the 34 G. Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 180: “Harming one’s enemy to the full extent permitted by public law is not only tolerated, but glorified, in Greek moralizing.” 35 R. Seaford, Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 7. 36 Common terms used include terms for “paying” (τίνειν, ἀποτίνειν, ἀνατίνειν), “payment” (ποινή), “paying back” (ἀντιτίνειν ἀποδιδόναι), “exchange” (ἀμοιβή), “honor (as social worth).” and “payment” or “compensation” (τιμή). See Vlastos, Socrates, 181; M. W. Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 29, n. 17).

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act of retaliation. For the Greeks, χάρις or “gratitude,” is a term used for an initial favor as well for the way in which the favor is reciprocated.37 Not to reciprocate something good was regarded a form of evil, so once a Greek was socialized into the conception of triangular reciprocity, not to forgive the debts of others could be construed as an expression of ingratitude toward God who has forgiven our debts. If Greeks provide the gods with some desirable benefits, such as honors and sacrifices, the gods are obligated to reciprocate if the benefits are acceptable. In the Greek view, a god who has received a benefit from a human being owes a debt to that person, just as a person for whom a god performs a specific favor owes a debt to that god. In early Christianity, however, God is never understood as indebted to human beings for any reason. Therefore the forgiveness maxim, “forgive that you might be forgiven,” only makes cultural sense if one is a Christian or a Jew. According to Plato, Socrates clearly and forcefully rejected the Greek conception of retaliation, effectively making a break with conventional morality.38 To justify the decision to remain in jail and await execution, Socrates is reported to have set forth five principles (Plato Crito 49b–c):39 (1) “We should never do an injustice.” (2) “Therefore, we should never return an injustice.” (3) “We should never do evil [to anyone].” (4) “Therefore, we should never return evil for evil [to anyone].” (5) “To do evil to a human being is no different from acting unjustly to him.” In the second and fourth principles, Socrates rejects the heart of the reciprocal character of Greek moral thought which accepts the basic justice (as well as nobility, courage and pleasure) of retaliation. In the second principle, he argues that “we should never return an injustice” and in the fourth principle, he argues that “we should never return evil for evil [to anyone].” He combines these two principles with the statement (Plato Crito 49c): “Therefore, we should never return a wrong or do evil to a single human being no matter what we may have suffered at his hands.” This emphasis on the fact that true moral goodness is virtually incapable of doing intentional harm or injury to others, is grounded in Socrates’ intuitive new conception of god as a being who can only cause good, not evil (a view also expressed by Plato in Resp. 379a–c).40

Concluding Summary In this paper, I have focused on the various meanings and contexts of the three forms of the forgiveness petition of the Lord’s Prayer that played an important theological, liturgical and ethical role in early Christianity. Assuming that all Helping Friends and Harming Enemies, 33. Socrates, 179–99. 39 Vlastos, Socrates, 194–99. 40 Vlastos, Socrates, 197. 37 Blundell, 38 Vlastos,

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three ancient versions of the Lord’s Prayer were part of the private prayer practices and eventually the public liturgies of Christian communities in three regions during the late first century, I proposed that the ritual context of the Lord’s Prayer carried the implication that both the implicit and explicit propositions of the prayer were understood by worshipers as absolutely and incontrovertibly true. Focusing specifically on the forgiveness petition, I argued that the absolute truth of that petition not only implicitly excludes retaliation as an appropriate response to those who have injured or offended us, but it also implicitly sanctifies the forgiveness maxim (in its simplest form: “Forgive, that you might be forgiven”), making it clear that unilateral forgiveness of those who have offended or injured us is the non-negotiable condition for asking God to forgive us our own offenses against him. The forgiveness petitions in Luke and in the Didache, while differing slightly from each other, nevertheless agree in understanding our forgiveness of those who have offended us as a performative utterance which can be translated “Forgive us our debts [Didache: debt] as we here and now forgive the one indebted to us [Didache: our debtors].” This means that this liturgical declaration of forgiveness is clearly a unilateral action on our part that radically transforms our relationships to those who have offended us in the real world. Since the Lord’s Prayer was recited in private prayer and then in public worship by an increasing number of native speakers of Greek who had become Christians, but brought with them the cultural values of the dominant Greek culture, I tried to imagine how such a person would understand the triangular reciprocity involved in the appeal to God to “forgive us our debts as we here and now forgive the debts of others.” The high moral value that Greek culture placed on maintaining personal honor through reciprocal retaliation would have made it very difficult for Greeks to understand how forgiving those who had offended or injured us could in any way be understood as a reciprocal response to God’s forgiveness. Assuming the frequency with which the Lord’s Prayer was recited in Christian worship, it appears to me that reiterating this principle of triangular reciprocity, which would have been understood as absolutely true, would have exerted a powerful influence in transforming the cultural values of Christians worshiping together. At the end, I mentioned Socrates, one of the only Greek moralists ever to argue that “we should never return a wrong or do evil to a single human being no matter what we may have suffered at his hands” (Plato Crito 49c). Socrates’ rejection of retaliation in any form would, of course, have been very difficult for Greeks to swallow. In the end, all three versions of the forgiveness petition of the Lord’s Prayer make this same assumption but go one important step further. Rather than simply not retaliate, the forgiveness petition goes on the offensive by proposing preemptive forgiveness, no matter what the offense.

4. Apocalyptic and the Lord’s Prayer* Introduction The term “apocalyptic,” and its synonym “apocalypticism,” are modern terms for a spectrum of early Jewish and early Christian eschatology characterized by the expectation that God, or his accredited representative, will soon intervene decisively in human affairs, inaugurating a series of final events presaged by a time of great tribulation and culminating in the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of the wicked, through the resurrection and final judgment, bringing an end to history and the transformation of the cosmos. All apocalyptic is a form of eschatology, but not all eschatology can be called apocalyptic. For this reason, apocalyptic is often designated “apocalyptic eschatology,” in contrast to “prophetic eschatology,” i.e., the type of eschatology found in the prophetic books of the Old Testament, which is concerned, not with the end of time or history but with the salvific activity of God in the future in ways analogous to past divine interventions (e.g., Hosea’s new entry into the promised land; Jeremiah’s new covenant; Isaiah’s David redivivus; Deutero-Isaiah’s new Exodus).1 It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that biblical scholars began to come to the increasing realization that Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus, together with most of those who belonged to the first generation of the Jesus’ followers and many segments of contemporary early Judaism, understood God, the world and their place in that world from the perspective of a world view informed by apocalyptic eschatology. This “rediscovery of apocalyptic,” the apt English title of a monograph by the Old Testament scholar Klaus Koch,2 had profound hermeneutical implications for biblical interpretation, since many New Testament scholars had finally found an appropriate tool to enable them to * Original publication: “Apocalyptic and New Testament Interpretation,” Method & Meaning: Essays on New Testament Interpretation in Honor of Harold W. Attridge, ed. A. B. McGowan and K. H. Richards (SBLSBS 67; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 237–258. 1 N. Perrin, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963), 161. 2 K. Koch, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic: A Polemical Work on a Neglected Area of Biblical Studies and Its Damaging Effects on Theology and Philosophy, trans. Margaret Kohl (SBT, Second Series 22; Naperville: Alec R. Allenson, 1970). The original German title of this monograph is Ratlos vor der Apokalyptik, or “Helpless before Apocalyptic,” conveying more negative connotations than the English title.

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understand the historically-conditioned implications of texts that had previously been misconstrued because they were read under the presuppositions of modern values and norms. The rediscovery of apocalyptic actually represents a further refinement of the historical critical method, introducing a greater willingness on the part of the interpreter of ancient texts to become conscious of the modern presuppositions that tend to govern the way in which ancient texts are understood. While an etic or outsider approach to ancient texts is to a certain extent unavoidable, since we are captives of our own time and culture, nevertheless it is possible to become aware of our modern norms and values, opening up the possibility for a more self-consciously controlled emic approach to ancient texts. In this essay, in honor of my esteemed friend and colleague Harry Attridge, I will focus on two primary issues. The first main part of this essay will center on the rise of the eschatological approach to the NT from the late 19th and into the 20th cent. and on the construction of a profile of apocalyptic within Judaism of the 3rd cent. BCE through the early 2nd cent. CE as an indispensable ideological context within which early Christian texts must be understood using the historical-critical method. The second part will focus on an apocalyptic interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer (henceforth LP), a centrally important liturgical text in ancient, medieval and modern Christianity.

Constructing a Profile of Apocalyptic The beliefs and conceptions characteristic of apocalyptic are found, but not limited to, a particular ancient type of Jewish and Christian literature generically identified as “apocalypses.” From the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, early Jewish and early Christian apocalypses and texts with a strong component of apocalyptic eschatology were regarded by many, if not most, biblical scholars as a bizarre deviation from the path that had led to ethical monotheism, the crowning religious development of late Israelite thought. The term “apocalypse” itself, as a modern generic label, derives from the Greek noun apokalypsis (“revelation, disclosure, unveiling”) which occurs in the incipit of the New Testament book of Revelation: “The revelation [apokalypsis] of Jesus Christ which God gave to him to show his servants what must soon come to pass” (Rev 1:1). Based on Rev 1:1, the Greek term apokalypsis (in transliterated English form as “apocalypse”) has been used since the mid-19th century to designate Jewish and Christian works that were similar in form and content to the Revelation of John. The late Greek adjective apokalyptikos, transliterated into ecclesiastical Latin as apocalypticus, was in turn transliterated into French as the adjective “apocalyptique,” into German as the noun “Apokalyptik,” and into English as the noun “apocalyptic,” synonymous with the noun “apocalypticism” for the eschatological ideology characteristic of apocalyptic literature. The first modern scholar to use the term

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apokalypsis in Rev 1:1 in a generic sense for Jewish and Christian texts that were similar in form and content to the Revelation of John was Friedrich Lücke (1791–1855).3 The term “apocalyptic” is now understood to refer to the constellation of eschatological beliefs and concepts found in some strands of early Judaism and in most early forms of Christianity that flourished from the third century BCE through the second century CE, particularly in various texts identified as apocalypses, many of which were first published in critical editions during the 19th cent. The earliest surviving apocalypses are 1 Enoch 1–36, the Book of the Watchers (ca. 250 BCE) and the OT book of Daniel (ca. 166 BCE). The later apocalypses include two Christian works, the Revelation of John (ca. 95 CE) and the composite Shepherd of Hermas, compiled in the area of Rome by the mid-second century. The later Jewish apocalypses include the Apocalypse of Abraham (70–150 CE), 4 Ezra (ca. 90–100 CE), 2 Enoch (late first cent. CE), and 2 Baruch (ca. 100–125 CE), 3 Baruch (after 130 CE). Somewhere in between the earliest and latest apocalypses are the other apocalypses collected in 1 Enoch (the “Similitudes of Enoch,” 37–71, the “Book of Heavenly Luminaries,” 72–82, the “Animal Apocalypse,” 83–90 and the “Epistle of Enoch,” 92–105). After ca. 150 CE, Judaism tended to reject apocalyptic in the wake of the second Jewish revolt in Judea under Bar Kosiba (132–35 CE). In early Christianity, apocalyptic-like visionary literature began to focus on visionary trips to the underworld where the dead who had lived immoral lives were punished and served as warnings against moral laxity for the living (e.g., the Apocalypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of Paul).4 The first introductory studies of apocalypses and apocalypticism were produced by Friedrich Lücke (1832), Eduard Reuss (1843)  and Adolf Hilgenfeld (1857), with little agreement on what constituted apocalyptic eschatology or which features characterized the genre apocalypse (a problem that has dogged the study of apocalyptic eschatology ever since). In 1903, both Wilhelm Bousset (1865–1920) and Paul Volz (1871–1941) published books that became classics on early Jewish apocalypses and apocalyptic traditions. Bousset, a NT scholar, published two related works in 1903: a pamphlet containing a lecture entitled Die jüdische Apokalyptik: ihre religionsgeschichtliche Herkunft und ihre Bedeutung für 3 F. Lücke, Versuch einer vollständigen Einleitung in die Offenbarung Johannis und in die gesammte apokalyptische Literatur (Bonn: Eduard Weber, 1832). Lücke published a second edition with the expanded title Versuch einer vollständigen Einleitung in die Offenbarung Johannis und in die gesammte apokalyptische Literatur oder, Allgemeine Untersuchungen über die apokalyptische Litteratur überhaupt und die Apokalypse des Johannes insbesondere (2. Aufl.; Bonn: Eduard Weber, 1852). For an evaluation of Lücke’s contribution, see J. M. Schmidt, Die jüdische Apokalyptik: Die Geschichte ihrer Erforschung von den Anfängen bis zu den Textfunden von Qumran (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1963), 98–119. 4 M. Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983).

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das neue Testament, and the much larger and more comprehensive handbook, Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamenltichen Zeitalter (1903), in which he used both Jewish apocalyptic literature as well as rabbinic literature to produce a synthetic portrait of the religion of early Judaism (a 3rd edition, edited by Hugo Gressmann appeared in 1926 with the title Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter). Bousset’s reliance on apocalyptic literature as a supplement to rabbinic literature was somewhat controversial. George Foote Moore, the liberal Presbyterian scholar of Judaism at Harvard, maintained that while early Jewish apocalypses were important for understanding early Christianity, they were irrelevant for his reconstruction of “normal Judaism,” since these apocalypses had never been accepted in Judaism but were transmitted only by Christians.5 Volz, an Old Testament scholar, synthesized Jewish eschatology emphasizing Jewish apocalyptic literature in his 1903 book Jüdische Eschatologie von Daniel bis Akiba (the 2nd edition of 1934 was entitled Die Eschatologie der jüdischen Gemeinde im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter nach den Quellen der rabbinischen, apokalyptischen und apokryphen Literatur). Despite all of this intensive research on Jewish apocalyptic, the problem of defining apocalyptic has continued to be a debated issue.6 While some scholars have used the term “eschatology” in a broader sense to include what others mean by “apocalyptic” (e.g., Paul Volz, Albert Schweitzer), others either reject it as a hopelessly confusing label (T. F. Glasson)7 or as a phenomenon that consisted primarily of divine disclosures and should be confined to early Jewish and early Christian apocalypses that purport to offer revelations of divine mysteries (Christopher Rowland).8 Following the lead of Lücke’s work in the early 19th cent., a few scholars regarded apocalypticism more positively as a legitimate development out of classical prophecy. Others, including the influential Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918), argued for a sharp break between classical prophecy and apocalypticism, arguing that the authors of apocalypses were slavish imitators who mechanically borrowed material from both classical prophecy and Iranian religion. Using a popular evolutionary model tinged with romanticism, Wellhausen reconstructed the development of Israelite religious thought which for him reached the pinnacle of human religious consciousness with the development of ethical monotheism. That stunning achievement was followed, in Wellhausen’s view, by the deterioration exemplified by the hardened legalism that emerged in the Judaism of the postexilic period. Thus the rise of apocalyptic literature was a clear indication 5  G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim (3 vols.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927), 1.127 (in the context of 126–132). 6 R. E. Sturm, “Defining the Word ‘Apocalyptic’: A Problem in Biblical Criticism,” Apocalyptic and the New Testament: Essays in Honor of J. Louis Martyn, ed. Joel Marcus and Marion L. Soards (JSNTS 24; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), 17–48. 7 T. F. Glasson, “What is Apocalyptic?” NTS, 27 (1980), 98–105. 8 C. Rowland, Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 9–72.

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of the decline of Judaism into a legalistic religion. This negative attitude toward apocalyptic was widely shared by biblical scholars until after the mid-twentieth century. Thus for many Protestant scholars of the 19th cent., the apocalyptic eschatology that we now know plays an important role in the Synoptic Gospels and the Pauline letters, was either ignored or interpreted away. For much of the nineteenth century, liberal Protestant theology had assumed that religious experience was the center of the Christian religion and Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God was understood to refer to this experience, of which he was the primary exponent and teacher. Liberal theologians had understood the Kingdom of God as the rule of God in the heart of believers, the highest religious good, an ethical relationship of love for God and man. Theologian Albrecht Ritschl (1822–1889), the father-in-law of NT scholar Johannes Weiss, understood the Kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus to refer to the moral transformation of the individual believer and of society. In 1892, Johannes Weiss (1863–1914) published a monograph on Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, in which he argued for a purely eschatological understanding of Kingdom of God, rather than as an ethical ideal:9 The Kingdom of God as Jesus thought of it is never something subjective, inward or spiritual, but is always the objective messianic Kingdom, which is usually pictured as a territory in which one has a share, or a treasure which comes down from heaven.

Weiss had understood Jesus’ conception of the Kingdom of God in the light of the apocalyptic eschatology of early Judaism, insisting that this was the only appropriate historical context in which this concept could be adequately understood. In the world of apocalyptic eschatology there is a sharp dualism of two worlds, the world above and the world below and an equally sharp dualism between the rule of Satan (which is present) and the rule of God (which is future). Weiss’ apocalyptic interpretation of Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of God tended to emphasis the historical and cultural distance between the first century and the modern period. In 1906, fourteen years after Weiss’ monograph appeared, Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) published Vom Reimarus zu Wrede: eine Geschichte der Leben-JesuForschung,10 translated into English as The Quest of the Historical Jesus in 1910. In 2001 an English translation of the ninth German edition of 1984 appeared.11 In this work Schweitzer critically reviewed the lives of Jesus produced by scholars beginning with H. S. Reimarus (1694–1768) and concluding with William Wrede (1859–1906), clearly demonstrating that the portraits of Jesus produced were Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, trans. R. H. Hiers and D. L. Holland (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 133. 10 A. Schweitzer, Vom Reimarus zu Wrede: eine Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1906). 11 A. Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, first complete edition, ed. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001).  9 J.

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largely the product of the theological presuppositions of the authors.12 Schweitzer criticized Weiss for applying eschatology only to aspects of Jesus’ teachings, while he himself argued that every aspect of what Jesus said and did was entirely dominated by eschatology, an approach Schweitzer labeled “konsequente Eschatologie” (“thoroughgoing eschatology”).13 The framework within which Schweitzer interpreted the life and teaching of Jesus was that of the apocalyptic eschatology that permeated early Jewish apocalyptic literature. In addition to arguing for the thoroughgoing eschatological interpretation of Jesus, Schweitzer was also the prime mover behind the view that Jewish apocalyptic eschatology was the matrix within which Christian apocalyptic eschatology, including that of Paul, developed.14 One obvious feature of apocalyptic eschatology in Paul is his use of scenarios narrating the coming or parousia of Christ (1 Cor 15:23–26, 51–52; 1 Thess 4:13–18; cf. 2 Thess 2:1–12 as well as his relatively frequent reference to apocalyptic dualism in the phrase “this age” (Rom 12:2; 1 Cor 1:20; 3:18; 2 Cor 4:4) and once in the phrase “the present evil age” (Gal 1:4). One distinctive modification that Paul made in Jewish apocalyptic eschatology is that the end had already occurred when God raised Jesus from the dead.15 Schweitzer’s apocalyptic approach to Paul found greater response among NT scholars than his apocalyptic interpretation of the ministry of Jesus, which was widely rejected by German and English scholarship, though it was adopted by Rudolf Bultmann, the most prominent NT scholar in the 20th cent.16 The recognition of the importance of apocalyptic for the development of Christian thought was articulated by Ernst Käsemann in two essays, “The Beginnings of Christian Theology” and “On the Topic of Primitive Christian Apocalyptic.”17 In the first essay, Käsemann makes his famous claim that “Apocalyptic was the mother of Christian theology  – since we cannot really class the teachings of 12 A review of lives of Jesus that appeared between 1907 and 1912 was added by Schweitzer to the second and following editions of his work; see Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (2001), 437–477. 13 Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (2001), 315–354. 14 Schweitzer, Mysticism of Paul, 11; M. C. de Boer, “Paul and Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology,”Apocalyptic and the New Testament: Essays in Honor of J. Louis Martyn, ed. Joel Marcus and Marion L. Soards (JSNTS 24; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), 169–90; idem, “Paul and Apocalyptic Eschatology,” The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, vol. 1: The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity, ed. J. J. Collins (New York: Continuum, 1998), 345–83. 15 Schweitzer, Mysticism of Paul, 99; de Boer, “Paul and Apocalyptic Eschatology,” 354–57. 16 R. Bultmann, The Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel (2 vols.; New York: Scribner’s, 1951–55), 1.4. 17 E. Käsemann, “The Beginnings of Christian Theology” and “On the Subject of Primitive Christian Apocalyptic,” New Testament Questions of Today, trans. W. J. Montague (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), 82–107, 108–137; translated from E. Käsemann, “Die Anfänge christlicher Theologie” and “Zum Thema der urchristlichen Apokalyptik,” Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen (2nd ed.; two vols.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965), 82–104, 105–131.

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Jesus as theology,”18 arguing that apocalyptic eschatology lay behind the earliest developments of Christian thought from Easter through the early 2nd cent. CE, including Pauline thought. Despite this largely positive assessment, Käsemann maintained that apocalyptic presuppositions are absent from the teaching of Jesus, if the pre-Easter Jesus traditions (non-apocalyptic) are properly separated from post-Easter additions and changes (apocalyptic). Many of those who were attracted to Käsemann’s new quest for the historical Jesus soundly rejected the notion that Jesus lived the myth of apocalyptic eschatology. Beginning with the 1970’s, as part of the renaissance of apocalyptic, it became increasingly evident that apocalyptic was a complex religious and cultural phenomenon that consisted of several separable aspects. Paul D. Hanson provided a three-part definition of apocalypticism:19 (1)  Apocalypse as a literary genre was used by apocalyptic writers to communicate revelatory visions to their anticipated audiences. The task of describing the genre of apocalypses in terms of their form, content and function became an urgent desideratum in the 1970’s when the value of identifying the genre of biblical texts generally became evident. John J. Collins, chair of the Apocalypse Group of the Society of Biblical Literature Genres Projects, edited a volume presenting some of the work of members of that Group including an introductory article by Collins himself entitled “Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre,” in which he provided a succinct definition of the apocalypse genre, the summary of a more extensive master paradigm:20 “Apocalypse” is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.

Many of the literary features of apocalypses have no counterpart in apocalyptic eschatology, including pseudepigraphic authorship, the narration and interpretation of revelatory visions, the division universal history into segments (e.g., four, seven, twelve) reflecting a predetermined divine plan, the presence of an angelus interpres (“interpreting angel”) and so on. (2) Apocalyptic eschatology is a religious perspective or ideology, that developed out of several antecedent influences including OT prophecy, wisdom traditions and various other sources from the eastern and westerns part of the ancient world that individuals and groups can embrace to different degrees in various times and which in part provides the distinctive type of world view or symbolic universe reflected in apocalyptic lit18 Käsemann,

“The Beginnings of Christian Theology,” 102; “Die Anfänge christlicher Theologie,” 100; he repeats the statement in “On the Subject of Primitive Christian Apocalyptic,” 137; “Zum Thema der urchristlichen Apokalyptik,”130–31. 19 P. D. Hanson, “Apocalypticism,” IDBSup, 28–31. 20 J. J. Collins (ed.), Apocalypse: the Morphology of a Genre (Semeia 14; Missoula: Society of Biblical Literature, 1979), 1–20.

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erature. (3) Apocalypticism or millenarianism is a religious and social movement in which an apocalyptic community (such as the Qumran community) is formed around a symbolic universe informed by apocalyptic eschatology, typically understanding itself as a minority protest movement developed against what they consider the objectionable norms and values of the dominant society. To these I would add: (4) Apocalyptic imagery is a general term for the continued use of constituent themes and motifs found in apocalypses and in apocalyptic eschatology, but used in a variety of ways and contexts in both early Jewish and early Christian literature, often with a modification or diminution of their original significance. The distinctive features of apocalyptic eschatology consist of ideological features as well as the constituent features of apocalyptic scenarios, i.e., recitals of apocalyptic events that are expected to occur in the future. The following features of apocalyptic eschatology constitute a synthesis of many apocalyptic sources, which exhibit great variety and little mutual consistency:21 (1) A defining characteristic of apocalyptic eschatology is the belief in a dualism of two ages with both temporal and spatial aspects. This dualism is temporal in that involves a radical discontinuity between this present age and the age to come and the imminent replacement of this age by the age to come (expressed in the polarity of “this age / world” [‘wlm hzzh] and “the coming age / world” [‘wlm hbb’], and it is spatial in that while the locus of this present age is the earth, the locus of the age to come is heaven. (2) One expression of this dualism is that the world is the scene of conflict between two antithetical forces, God and Satan, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error, with human beings aligned with one side or the other, so that human conflicts take on a cosmic significance. (3) During the present evil age the people of God constitute an oppressed minority who fervently await vindication for the evils they have suffered through the intervention of God or a redeemer figure sent by God. (4) Prior to the imminent intervention of God to bring the present evil age to an end and to introduce the age to come, there will be a final period of intense suffering and tribulation, unlike anything that has every occurred previously. This period of distress, variously labeled the Messianic woes or the great tribulation, will severely test the people of God. This eschatological period may witness the rise of an Antichrist or a godless tyrant who regards himself as divine and opposes the people of God, or an assembly of world forces opposed to the people of God who march against the people of God in Jerusalem, such as Gog and Magog, but are decisively defeated by divine intervention. (5) The period of eschatological tribulation will be brought to an end by the climactic intervention of God on “the Day of the Lord” with the appearance of a redeemer figure, a messenger of God such as a Messiah with royal or priestly functions or an eschatological prophet. (6) Between the present evil age and the dawn of the age to come, the day of judgment will be held, with God 21 Volz,

Die Eschatologie der jüdischen Gemeinde, 135–419.

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or his enthroned representative presiding over the final resurrection (either of the righteous only or of both the righteous and the wicked), concluding with the full realization of eschatological salvation for the righteous, including the restoration of all the exiled tribes of Israel to the Land and the punishment and destruction of the wicked. (7) The world will either be restored or destroyed and renewed along with the cosmos, with the restoration of Edenic conditions on earth where the righteous, freed from all the limitations brought about by the primal acts of rebellion against God and transformed by the resurrection, will worship him in blessedness forever.

Reading the Matthaean Lord’s Prayer in the Context of Apocalyptic Eschatology The LP exists in three early versions, Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4 and Didache 8:2. The first two are found in very different literary contexts in the Synoptic Gospels, while the third, very similar to the Matthaean version, and probably directly or indirectly dependent on it, is found in an early Christian handbook on ethics and liturgy from very early in the second century. These three versions probably represent variations of the LP that existed in oral tradition before they were fixed in written form, if “fixed” is an appropriate term for the fluid textual tradition of the written versions, which continued to be subject to changes in oral tradition. The LP almost certainly originated with Jesus,22 one indication of which is its thoroughly Jewish character.23 Jewish parallels to the first three petitions are particularly striking in the opening lines of the Aramaic mourners’ Qaddiš (an eschatological prayer), still recited in modern synagogues:24 Exalted and hallowed be His great Name In the world which He created according to his will. May He establish His kingdom In your lifetime and in your days, 22  J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 2: Mentor, Message and Miracles (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 294; E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), 195; N. Perrin, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 191–201; idem, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1967), 47. There are, of course, dissenting opinions, including the Jesus Seminar (see the brief report in Marcus Borg, Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1994), 167 (fragments of the prayer go back to Jesus but not the entire prayer in either of its three forms), and J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 293–95. 23 J. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times and Teaching, trans. H. Danby (Boston: Beacon, 1964 [originally published in 1925]), 387–88. 24 J. J. Petuchowski and M. Brocke, The Lord’s Prayer and Jewish Liturgy (New York: Seabury, 1978), 37.

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And in the lifetime of the whole household of Israel, Speedily and at a near time. And say, Amen.

It was originally formulated in Aramaic (less probably, Hebrew), and was translated into Greek on a single occasion (suggested by the presence in all three versions of the rare Greek word epiousion).25 Whether or not the longer version of the LP in Matthew and the shorter version in Luke were derived from the Q document or from Special M and Special L, is a debated issue.26 Certain features of the versions of the LP in Matthew and Luke appear to reflect their respective styles, such as “our Father in heaven” in Matthew and “each day” in Luke.27 Attempts to determine which of the three versions is most original or to reconstruct a single original version based on a critical comparison of the three written versions has proven to be a difficult task, though many regard the shorter Lukan version as more original.28 For those influenced by the rediscovery of apocalyptic and who hold that Jesus himself lived in the myth of early Jewish apocalyptic eschatology,29 the LP has frequently been understood as having had an originally eschatological or apocalyptic meaning, an approach often described as “eschatological interpretation.”30 One indication of the pervasive significance of apocalyptic eschatology for the Matthaean LP is said to be the presence of six aorist imperatives in the six (or seven) petitions.31 The argument is that the aorist tense, with its punctiliar, once-and-for-all aspect, provides support for the eschatological interpretation. However, this use of the aorist does not necessarily support an eschatological

25 The fact that the Greek work epiousion (conventionally translated “daily”) occurs only in the three earliest versions of the LP (Matt 6:11; Luke 11:3; Did. 8:2), and nowhere else in all of Greek literature, points toward a single translation of the LP from Aramaic into Greek. 26 A summary of scholarly opinion on both sides of this issue is found in S. Carruth and A. Garsky, Q 11:2b–4, ed. Stanley D. Anderson, Documenta Q: Reconstructions of Q through Two Centuries of Gospel Research: Excerpted, Sorted and Evaluated, eds. James. M. Robinson, Paul Hoffmann, and John S. Kloppenborg (Leuven: Peeters, 1996), 19–33. 27 H. J. Cadbury, The Making of Luke-Acts (New York: Macmillan, 1927), 103, 217. 28 In the view of F. W. Beare, “Such variations as these [between Matt 6:9–13 and Luke 11:2–4] tell strongly against any theory that the words of Jesus were committed to memory and that there was any great concern to preserve them exactly” (The Gospel according to Matthew [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981], 171). 29 There are many scholars who maintain (unconvincingly) that Jesus rejected the mythical thought of apocalyptic eschatology, e.g., James Breech, The Silence of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 62–3. 30 R. E. Brown, “The Pater Noster as an Eschatological Prayer,” New Testament Essays (Garden City: Image Books, 1968), 275–320; J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus (New York: Scribner’s, 1971), 193–203. 31 This is maintained by Brown, “Pater Noster,” 289, 294, 302, 308, 314 and D. Hagner, Matthew 1–13, (WBC 33A; Dallas: Word, 1993), 1.148, 150, 151,

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interpretation, since the aorist is frequently used in ancient Greek prayer,32 where it is used to convey a sense of urgency.33 Scholars who deny that Jesus himself was an apocalyptist, but who often maintain that apocalyptic became a central ideology of the early church, either understand the LP to be inauthentic (i.e., primarily the product of the early church) or give it primarily an ethical meaning (or both).34 Since none of these three versions of the LP were composed entirely by the author-editors of the three texts in which they have been embedded,35 they also preserve traditional material deriving from earlier oral and liturgical contexts. Due to space limitations, the following line-by-line interpretation of the LP will focus on Matt 6:9–13, (using lemmata from the NRSV translation) and will discuss only those features that relate to an eschatological interpretation of the text.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. The invocation “our Father in heaven” captures both the nearness as well as the transcendence of God36 (Luke 11:2 has simply “Father”). Joachim Jeremias, expanding on the work of several earlier scholars,37 argued that the term “Father” (Greek patēr) in the invocation of the LP, was a translation of  ’abbā’, an Aramaic term of endearment for “father,” reflecting a unique relationship to God, originating in the way that a child in the first century CE referred to his or her father (’ab) as ’abbā’ or “daddy.”38 On the basis of Mark 14:36 (“He [Jesus] said, ‘Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want’”) and the survival of the Aramaic prayer formula “Abba, Father” in Rom 8:15 and Gal 4:6, Jeremias argued that ’abbā’ was the characteristic designation Jesus used when addressing God in prayer, a feature found in all five strata of the Gospel tradition (Mark, Q, Special M, Special L, Zerwick, Biblical Greek (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963), § 255; W. F. Bakker, The Greek Imperative: An Investigation into the Aspectual Differences between the Present and Aorist Imperatives in Greek Prayer from Homer up to the Present Day (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1966). 33  B. M. Fanning, Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 380–82. 34 Crossan (The Historical Jesus, 293–95) argues both that the LP as a whole is inauthentic (i.e., it is summary of themes and emphases from the authentic teachings of Jesus) and that there is nothing apocalyptic about it. 35 The view that the LP was formulated during the post-Easter period is argued by M. D. Goulder, “The Composition of the Lord’s Prayer,” JTS 14 (1963), 32–45, idem, Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974), 296–301, and S. Van Tilborg, “A Form-Criticism of the Lord’s Prayer, NovT 14 (1972), 94–105. 36 W. Grundmann, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (THNT 1; Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1968), 199. 37 Gerhard Kittel, “abba,” TDNT, 1.5–6. 38 Joachim Jeremias, “Abba,” The Prayers of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 11–65. 32 M.

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John) and which Jeremias regards as an instance of the ipsissima vox Jesu (“the very voice of Jesus”).39 While most New Testament scholars have accepted his basic assumption that the Aramaic ’abbā’ lies behind the Greek patēr,40 some remain skeptical.41 Others have proposed qualifications for Jeremias’ proposal. One such qualification maintains that the use of ’abbā’ did not necessarily connote a unique sense of divine sonship, though the use of the term by Jesus did not reflect common practice and many Jews would have found it awkward if not impious to address God with such a term.42 While the implication that those addressing God as “our Father” regarded themselves as sons of God is certainly valid, to regard that sonship as an eschatological reality and thus part of the eschatological interpretation of the LP, seems forced.43 The first petition, “hallowed be your name,” alludes to Ezek 36:16–36, where the Lord tells Ezekiel how the scattered tribes of Israel had profaned his name by their wicked ways when they were in the Land. By bringing them back from exile (an event associated with the establishment of God’s eschatological kingdom), says the Lord (vv. 23–24): I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations … and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land.

The restoration of the exiled tribes of Israel to the Land is one important event in the scenarios of apocalyptic eschatology.44 The sanctification of God’s name and establishing his kingdom are linked in an eschatological context in the Qaddiš (cited above): “Exalted and hallowed be His great Name … May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and in your days.”45

Your kingdom come This reference to “your Kingdom,” i.e., the kingdom of God, is the first clear eschatological reference in the LP. The kingdom of God was the focus of the teaching of Jesus and in this petition it is clearly a future (not a present) reality.46 39 Jeremias,

“Abba,” 54–65, esp. 57. Grundmann, Matthäus, 199; Hagner, Matthew 1–13, 147–48. 41 M. R. D’Angelo, “Abba and ‘Father’: Imperial Theology and the Jesus Traditions,” JBL 111 (1992), 611–630; H. D. Betz, The Sermon on the Mount (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 374–75, 388. 42 W. D. Davies and D. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew (ICC; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988–97), 1.601–2. 43 Brown, “Pater Noster,” 286–87. 44  E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 61–119 (“Part One: The Restoration of Israel”). 45 Meier, A Marginal Jew, 295–98; Pitre, Jesus, 140–43. 46 Weiss, Kingdom of God, 73. 40 E.g.,

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The fact that the prayer begins with the invocation “our Father” and that “kingdom” is used with a verb meaning “come,” are indications of distinctive emphases in the teaching of Jesus, since the combination of “kingdom (of God)” and a verb meaning “come” occurs nowhere in the OT or post-biblical Jewish literature.47 In the Synoptic Gospels, however, the occurrence of the phrase kingdom of God as the subject of verbs meaning “come” occurs several times.48 Further, “your kingdom come” appears to be an abstract way of referring to the coming of God to restore and save his people.49

Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. The first part of the third petition, “your will be done” is in synonymous parallelism with the second petition, “your kingdom come,” in that the will of God will be fully and completely realized only when the kingdom of God is fully and completely present in the world. The second part of this petition, “on earth as it is in heaven,” reflects both the temporal and spatial dualism of apocalyptic eschatology, since the prevailing conditions “on earth” are spatially contrasted with those “in heaven,” but this contrast will only be abolished the (near) future, when the Kingdom of God arrives in its fullness.

Give us this day our daily [epiousion] bread. The central interpretive problem in this petition is the meaning of the adjective epiousion, which occurs in the three earliest versions of the LP, but nowhere else in Greek literature.50 While some scholars have construed epiousion to mean “necessary” (epi + ousia), i.e., “necessary bread,” referring to daily nourishment (the view of Origen, Chrysostom and Jerome), it is linguistically improbable, because of normal elision of the iota to avoid hiatus when epi is combined with

Burrows, “Thy Kingdom Come,” JBL 74 (1955), 1–8. verb erchesthai (“to come”) is used with Kingdom of God several times (Mark 9:1; 11:10 [attributed to the crowd]; Luke 17:20 [twice, the first time attributed to the Pharisees]; 22:18; cf. 19:11), as are two other verbs in adjacent semantic fields, phthanein (“to arrive, reach”) in Matt 12:28 (par. Luke 11:20) and eggidzein (“come near, approach”) in Mark 1:15 (par. Matt 4:17); Matt 10:7; Luke 10:11; cf. Luke 21:31 (“The Kingdom of God is near [eggus]”). All three verbs belong to the semantic domain of Linear Movement; see J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon (2 vols.;New York: United Bible Societies, 1988), 1.§§ 15.7, 15.81, 15.75, 15.84. For a list of the verbs used with Kingdom of God, see J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, trans. John Bowden (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 32–34. 49 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1.604–5; Meier, The Marginal Jew, 299. 50 See the review of possible options in W. Foerster, “epiousios,” TDNT, 2.591–99 and the more up-to-date review in BDAG, 376–77. 47 M.

48 The

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forms of einai.51 The most likely possibility is that epiousios is an adjectival formation derived from from epeimi (infinitive epienai) meaning “next,” “coming,” i.e., “the following [day],” “the next [day],” as in the participial form hē epiousa [hēmera].52 This view was argued by Albert Schweitzer, who cites the phrase which introduces Acts 7:26: tēi te epiousēi hēmerai, “on the next day.”53 This translation is also supported by the Gospel of the Nazaraeans, referred to by Jerome:54 In the so-called Gospel of the Hebrews [i.e., Nazaraeans] instead of “essential for existence” I found “mahar”, which means “of tomorrow”, so that the sense is: Our bread of tomorrow – that is, of the future – give us this day.

Assuming then that the fourth petition should be translated “Give us today the bread of tomorrow,” what does “the bread of tomorrow” or “the bread of the future” mean? The Hebrew phrase “to eat bread” is used in a generic sense of eating a meal,55 and the phrase “to break bread with” means “to eat with,” since in Jewish practice blessing and breaking a loaf of bread was how all meals began.56 In line with his eschatological interpretation of the ministry of Jesus, Schweitzer construed the fourth petition in terms of the faithful entreating God to allow them to partake immediately of the future bread of the eschatological messianic banquet.57 A close parallel to this notion is found in Luke 14:15, where “bread” represents the eschatological banquet: “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.” The apocalyptic conception of the messianic banquet, or eschatological banquet (the presence of the messiah is not de rigueur) to which Schweitzer refers, is a modern designation for a cluster of eschatological motifs that are metaphors for the presence on earth of the kingdom of God which occur 51 H. Schürmann, Praying with Christ: The “Our Father” for Today (New York: Herder & Herder, 1964), 55–56; R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel of Matthew, trans. Robert R. Barr (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 67–8. 52 Foerster, “epiousios,” 595; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1.607–610; U. Luz, Matthew 1–7, trans. W. Linss (Minneapolis: Augsburg,1989), 380–83. 53 A. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (New York: Seabury, 1968 [English translation originally published in 1931]), 239–40. 54 W. Schneemelcher (ed.), New Testament Apocrypha, trans. and ed. R. McL. Wilson (2 vols.; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991–92), 1.160. From Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 6:11 and Tract. on Ps. cxxxv; the Latin text reads: “In Evangelio quod appellatur ‘secundum Hebraeos’ pro ‘supersubstantiali pane’ reperi Mahar, quod dicitur crastinum – ut sit sensus ‘Panem nostrum crastinum’, id est, futurum, ‘da nobis hodie’.” 55 See Gen 37:25; 2 Sam 9:7, 10; 12:20; 2 Kgs 4:8. 56 See Matt 14:19; 15:36; Mark 6:41; 8:19; Luke 9:16; 24:30. 57 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, 239–41; idem, The Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity, ed. U. Neuenschwander, trans. L. A. Garrard (New York: Seabury, 1968), 124, 146. For Schweitzer (The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, 239–40), this interpretation is supported in part by the fact that if the conventional translation “daily bread” is taken to refer to daily sustenance it would contradict the Matthaean context in which Jesus instructs his followers not to be concerned with food or clothing, like Gentiles, for God will supply all the needs of those who put the Kingdom of God first (Matt 6:25–34); God knows what the faithful need before they ask (Matt 6:8).

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both in early Jewish and early Christian literature and that includes a variety of sub-motifs involving eschatological feasting as a way of expressing the joy and fulfillment of the righteous who have attained eschatological salvation.58 The conception of an eschatological banquet has its origins in the Hebrew Bible (Isa 25:6–8), and was developed in intertestamental literature into a central expectation of apocalyptic eschatology (e.g., 1 Enoch 62.13–14):59 The righteous and elect ones shall be saved on that day; and from thenceforth they shall never see the faces of the sinners and the oppressors. The Lord of Spirits will abide over them; they shall eat and rest and rise with that Son of Man forever and ever.

One sub-motif of the messianic banquet motif is the early Jewish expectation of eschatological manna, variously referred to as the “bread from heaven”60 or “the bread of angels”61, or “spiritual food” (= food from heaven),62 with which God miraculously fed the Israelites during their wilderness wandering (Ex 16:1–36). Strands of early Judaism expected a corresponding eschatological miracle of manna (2 Bar. 29:8):63 And it will happen at that time that the treasury of manna will come down again from on high, and they will eat of it in those years because these are they who will have arrived as the consummation of time.

The context of this reference to eschatological manna (2 Bar. 29:1–8) describes two other sub-motifs of the messianic banquet motif: the miraculous abundance of the produce that the earth will produce during the eschaton and how the two great primal monsters Behemoth and Leviathan will serve as eschatological food for the righteous. Moving from the historical to the mythical level, the daily communal meals of the Qumran Community (Josephus War 2.129–31 and 1QS vi.2–8 describe the protocol for actual communal meals at Qumran),64 were consciously regarded by the participants as liturgical anticipations of the messianic banquet, with places of honor reserved for the messiah of Israel (1Q28a ii.11–22 describes the 58 On the messianic banquet (in chronological order), see Volz, Eschatologie, 388–89, “Die Speise der Seligen”; D. E. Smith, “The Messianic Banquet Reconsidered,” The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester, ed. B. Pearson (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1991), 64–73; idem, “Messianic Banquet,” ABD, 4.788–791; J. Priest, “A Note on the Messianic Banquet,” The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 222–38. 59 E. Isaac (trans.), “1 Enoch,” OTP, 1.44. 60 Ex 16:4; Neh 9:15; Psa 78:24; 105:40; Wis 16:20; John 6:25–59. 61 Psa 78:25; Wis 16:20; 5 Ezra 1:19; b. Yoma 75b. 62 1 Cor 10:3; see B. J. Malina, The Palestinian Manna Tradition (AGSU 7; Leiden: Brill, 1978), 94–96. 63 A. F. J. Klijn (trans.), “2 (Syriac Apocalypse of) Baruch,” OTP, 1.631. 64 See H.-W. Kuhn, “The Lord’s Supper and the Communal Meal at Qumran,” The Scrolls and the New Testament, ed. K. Stendahl (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), 67–70, where the author compares the two accounts.

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mythicized protocol prescribed for the communal meal when the Messiah of Israel is present).65 The mythical conception of the messianic banquet is also referred by Jesus in Q [Luke] 13:28–29):66 And many will come from sunrise and sunset and recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God, but you will be thrown out into the outer darkness, and there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

In this mythical messianic banquet, those Jews who have rejected the message of Jesus are contrasted with the Gentiles who will have access to the eschatological banquet. This conception of the eschatological banquet is analogous to Jesus’ own inclusive practice of table fellowship, in which he ate and drank with “tax collectors and sinners,” ignoring purity laws promulgated by the Jewish religious leaders and parties. Jesus’ practice of table fellowship is mentioned in Matt 11:19: “the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” Here “a glutton and a drunkard” refers to Jesus’ practice of holding table fellowship and “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” refers to those with whom he was accustomed to share his table.67 The fourth petition, “give us today the bread of tomorrow,” then, very likely reflects Jesus’ understanding of table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners (i.e., breaking bread with them) as an anticipation of the eschatological banquet, i.e., that those who ate and drank with Jesus would be included in the kingdom of God.68 The Last Supper (as the culmination of meals that Jesus ate with his followers) was perhaps understood by Jesus (and certainly by the earliest church) to function in a proleptic way, according to Mark 14:25 (cf. Luke 22:18): “Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”69

65 F. M. Cross, Jr., The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies, rev. ed. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1961), 85–91; D. E. Smith, “Meals,” Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. L. H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam (2 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University, 2000), 1.530–32. 66 This is a simplified translation of the reconstructed Q text behind Matt 8:11–12 and Luke 13:28–29 (i.e., with the sigla removed) in J. M. Robinson, P. Hoffmann and J. S. Kloppenborg (eds.), The Critical Edition of Q (Minneapolis: Fortress; Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2000), 414–16. 67 Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, 105–6. 68 On the significance of Jesus’ practice of table fellowship, see Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 200; Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, 102–8; Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 174–211; D. E. Smith, “Table Fellowship and the Historical Jesus,” Religious Propaganda and Missionary Competition in the New Testament World: Essays Honoring Dieter Georgi, ed. L. Bormann, K. del Tredici and A. Standhartinger (NovTSup 74; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 135–62. 69 The authenticity of this saying is argued by Meier, A Marginal Jew, 302–9.

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And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors The forgiveness maxim in the fifth petition (where “debts” has a wider meaning than just “sins”) has a close parallel in Wis 28:2: “Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.”70 There is therefore nothing particularly eschatological about this petition, though it has been argued that it should be so interpreted given the aorist tenses and the eschatological orientation of the rest of the LP,71 yet the fact that Jesus proclaimed God’s forgiveness in the present (Mark 2:5; Luke 7:48) mitigates against that view.

And do not bring us to the time of trial [peirasmon], but rescue us from the evil one. The Greek noun peirasmos has two basic meanings, reflected in two possible glosses: (1) “testing,” i.e., “to try to learn the nature or character of someone or something by submitting such to thorough and extensive testing … ‘examination, testing’,”72 and (2) “temptation,” i.e., “to endeavor or attempt to cause someone to sin … ‘temptation’.”73 The traditional ethical interpretation of the sixth petition understands peirasmos in the second sense, reflected in several English Bible translations (KJV, RSV, NASB, NIV), while the eschatological interpretation prefers the first meaning, reflected in many of the more recent English Bible translations (NAB, NEB, NRSV, REB). Schweitzer understood peirasmos to refer to the testing that the faithful must undergo during the messianic woes, i.e., the eschatological time of tribulation, so that in the sixth petition the faithful entreat God to spare them from undergoing the severe testing of the eschatological tribulation.74 The eschatological tribulation, which functions as a time of testing, is a general designation for a time of unprecedented social and political turmoil, accompanied by exceptional natural disasters, that was expected to occur immediately preceding God’s climactic intervention in history to save his people, to destroy the forces of evil and to establish the kingdom of God,75 referred to as “the woes of the 70 There are many similar parallels including Mark 11:25 and Matt 6:14–15, where parap­tō­ ma­ta, “transgressions,” occurs as a synonym for opheilēmata, “debts” in v. 12. 71 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1.612. 72 Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon, 1.§ 27.46 (semantic domain of Learn). 73 Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon, 1.§ 88.308 (semantic domain of Moral and Ethical Qualities and Related Behavior). This translation is supported by Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 405–411 and Luz, Matthew, 1.384–5. 74 Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (2001), 331; idem, The Mystery of the Kingdom of God: The Secret of Jesus’ Messiahship and Passion, trans. W. Lowrie (New York: Macmillan, 1950), 143; idem, Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity, 118–19, 124. 75 Dan 12:1; T. Moses 8:1; Jub. 23:11–21; 2 Bar. 27:1–15; cf. Volz, Eschatologie, 147–63. The same expectation characterized early Christian apocalyptic eschatology (Matt 24:21 ; Mark 13:7–22; Rev 7:14: “the great tribulation”).

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Messiah” in rabbinic literature (b. Sanh. 98b).76 There is little consistency in either the labeling or conceptualization of this mythical expectation in apocalyptic scenarios, either in the ancient sources or in modern scholarly discussion,77 largely because the eschatological tribulation is a multivalent mythical conception capable of being understood and used in a great variety of ways. The best discussion of the eschatological tribulation and many of its constituent motifs is that of Brant Pitre,78 who focuses on the eschatological tribulation in relation to the end of the Jewish exile. Judaism had experienced some horrific wars, including the brutal repression of Jewish religious practices by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (168–64 BCE) and the first Jewish revolt (66–73 CE), ruthlessly repressed by Rome involving the destruction of the temple and the slaughter of thousands of Jews. Some apocalyptically-oriented Jews believed that the beginning of the eschatological tribulation had begun during the initial phases of both conflicts and features of both events were woven into the evolving mythic imagery of the eschatological tribulation. While it has been argued that the missing definite article before peirasmos is problematic for interpreting it apocalyptically,79 the variety of nouns used for the eschatological tribulation in the New Testament are inconsistently arthrous or anarthrous (two examples follow), particularly in prepositional phrases, and it is also probably that individual instances of peirasmos were regarded as part of the peirasmos.80 While peirasmos is articular in Rev 3:10 (which reads like a divine response to the sixth petition): “I will preserve you from the time of affliction [tou peirasmou] which will come upon the whole earth,” the definite article is missing from peirasmos in Mark 14:38 (Matt 26:41; Luke 22:40): “Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial [peirasmon] … ,” which also clearly refers to the final eschatological trial that has already begun.81 Again, while Rev 7:14 refers to “the great tribulation” (hē thlipsis hē megalē) with definite articles, Matt 24:21 refers to the same eschatological event, “the great tribulation” (thlipsis megalē) with an anarthrous phrase. 76 Str-B,

1.950; the Greek term “woe” (ōdin) is associated with the pains associated with childbirth and is used in the New Testament for the eschatological tribulation (Mark 13:8 = Matt 24:7; 1 Thess 5:3). 77 This terminological and conceptual confusion is emphasized by B. Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (WUNT II 204; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 4–8. 78 Pitre, Jesus, 4–23, 41–130. 79 A. Vögtle, “Der ‘eschatologische’ Bezug der Wir-Bitten des Vaterunser,” Jesus und Paulus: Festschrift für Werner Georg Kümmel zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. E. E. Ellis and E. Grässer (Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 344–62, esp. 355. 80 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1.613–14; R. E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah (2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1994), 1.160. 81 Meier, A Marginal Jew, 365, n. 50; Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1.157–62; D. E. Nineham, Saint Mark (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 392; V. Taylor, The Gospel according to St. Mark (2nd ed.; London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1966), 555; E. Lohmeyer, Das Evangelium des Markus (14th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959), 317; Pitre, Jesus, 150–51, 488–91..

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Since the verb in the final clause in the sixth petition is an aorist imperative, the line is often understood as a seventh petition: “but rescue [rusai] us from the evil one [tou ponērou].” Apart from the issue of whether or not this clause was added by Matthew (it is absent from Luke), the central interpretive problem is whether the genitive singular tou ponērou is a neuter substantive meaning “evil” (as in Luke 6:45; Rom 12:9; Did. 5:2),82 which fits as a parallel to peirasmos when understood as “temptation,” or a masculine substantive meaning “the evil one,” i.e., Satan (as in Matt 13:19, 38; John 17:15; 1 John 2:13, 14; 3:12; 5:18–19; Eph 6:16; Barn. 2:10; Mart. Polyc. 17:1), which fits peirasmos understood as “eschatological trial,” brought on by the power and influence of Satan.83 Even though ho poneros is not a Jewish designation for Satan, its widespread use in the NT in this sense suggests that it is an appropriate construal of tou ponērou, though that may suggest that the entire clause originated with the early church.

82 The

view of Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 411–12 and Luz, Matthew, 1.385. “Pater Noster,” 317–19; Hagner, Matthew 1–13, 151–52.

83 Brown,

5. “The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak” (Mark 14:38b and Matthew 26:41b)* Introduction The phrase τὸ μὲν πνεῦμα πρόθυμον, ἡ δὲ σὰρξ ἀσθενής (“the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”), found in verbally identical forms in Mark 14:38b and Matt 26:41b, is a simple but carefully crafted proverb formulated antithetically (hereinafter referred to as the “dominical proverb”). This dominical proverb is preceded, in both Mark 14:38a and Matt 26:41a, by a hortatory saying: γρηγορεῖτε καὶ προσεύχεσθε, ἵνα μὴ ἔλθητε [Matt: εἰσέλθητε] εἰς πειρασμόν, “Keep awake and pray, that you do not enter into temptation” (hereinafter referred to as the “hortatory saying”). Again, the Matthaean and Markan versions are nearly identical. The sole verbal variation consists in Matthew’s preference for the compound verb εἰσέρχομαι in contrast to Mark’s use of the simple form ἔρχομαι. The preceding and particularly the following verses in both Matthew and Mark, however, exhibit considerable verbal variation.1 Luke reproduces only the hortatory saying, which, for some reason, he does twice, once in Luke 22:40 and again in Luke 22:46. The first instance, uttered before Jesus goes off to pray alone, serves as a warning: προσεύχεσθε μὴ εἰσελθεῖν εἰς πειρασμόν (“Pray that you do not enter into temptation”). Luke inserts this hortatory saying in place of the Markan phrase “Sit here while I pray” (Mark 14:32), slightly expanded by Matthew to “Sit here while I go over there and pray” (Matt 26:36). The second use of the hortatory saying, as in Mark and Matthew, is uttered when Jesus returns and finds the disciples sleeping: τί καθεύδετε; ἀναστάντες προσεύχεσθε, ἵνα μὴ εἰσέλθητε εἰς πειρασμόν (“Why are you sleeping? After rising, pray that you do not enter into temptation”). Luke has thus used the hortatory saying as an inclusio for the short episode narrating the prayer of Jesus in vv. 41–42. * Original publication: “The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak” (Mark 14:38b and Matt. 26:41b),” 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: Brill, 2007), 125–139. Reprinted by permission. 1 Matt 26:40 has fourteen words compared with the slightly shorter parallel in Mark 14:37 with twelve words. But Matt 26:42, with twenty-one words, is considerably longer than the parallel in Mark 14:39, which has just eight words.

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In this essay in honor of my esteemed teacher and dissertation adviser, Robert M. Grant on his 90th birthday, I propose to explore several issues involving this dominical proverb in relation to the hortatory saying, though they will not be taken up seriatim: (1) What is the form of this dominical proverb and how does it function in its Markan (and Matthaean) context and does it have any close literary parallels? (2) Is there any evidence to suggest that either the dominical proverb or the hortatory saying were in circulation before their incorporation into Mark and their subsequent recycling by Matthew and Luke? (3) To what extent were the hortatory saying and dominical proverb recycled in early postcanonical Christian literature? (4) Since this particular anthropological idiom (the contrast between πνεῦμα and σάρξ) is largely absent from the Synoptic Gospels, was it perhaps more at home in other phases of early Christianity independent of their canonical attestation? (5) What is the appropriate religio-cultural context for an anthropological duality which conceives of the human person as consisting of two constituent elements labeled πνεῦμα and σάρξ? Is this anthropological duality consistent with those found in the Hebrew Bible or is it more characteristic of the world of Greek thought, or is it perhaps a syncretistic combination of both? (6) Finally, can the dominical proverb be regarded as reflecting the ipsissima vox Jesu?

The Form and Function of the Dominical Proverb The grammatical formulation of this dominical proverb is unusual in the New Testament and early Christian literature. The occurrence of the paired contrasting correlative particles μέν and δέ, in which the inclusion of μὲν throws the emphasis on the segment headed with δέ, is comparatively rare in the Gospels, but is characteristic of classical style.2 The μέν … δέ contrast occurs elsewhere in Mark just once and in the same context (Mark 14:21):3 “For the Son of Man [ὅτι ὁ μὲν υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου] goes as it is written of him, but woe [οὐαὶ δέ] to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!” Since μέν, used in contrasts with δέ, is a specifically Greek idiom, the possibility of an Aramaic substratum in both passages seems somewhat diminished. Oddly, this grammatical idiom is more at home in Matthew, where it occurs eleven times, (excluding the relative forms, e.g., ὅ μέν … ὅ δέ, “the one … the other”),4 though in all passages it is, interestingly enough, associated with Matthew’s Q source (3:11; 9:37; 10:13; 16:3; 17:11–12; 20:23; 21:35; 22:8; 25:33; 26:24, 41). An example: Q 10:2 (Matt 9:37 = Luke 10:2): ὁ μὲν θερισμὸς πολύς, οἱ δὲ ἐργάται ὀλίγοι (“the harvest is great, but the workers 2 F. Blass and A. Debrunner, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, ed. F. Rehkopf (16th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), § 447. See also J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles (2nd ed; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), 369–74. 3 Excluding the relative form of the idiom in Mark 12:5. 4 Matt 13:4, 8, 23, 32; 16:14; 22:5; 23:27, 28; 25:15.

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are few”), an antithetical proverb using the contrastive μέν … δέ construction with the omission of the linking verb. The same form is found in Matt 22:8: ὁ μὲν γάμος ἕτοιμός ἐστιν, οἱ δὲ κεκλημένοι οὐκ ἦσαν ἄξιοι, “The wedding is ready, but those invited are unworthy.” The idiom occurs seven times in Luke, again excluding relative forms:5 Luke 3:16, 18–19; 10:2; 11:48; 13:9; 23:41; 23:56–24:1. The same form occurs in the agraphon inserted into Codex Beza at Luke 6:5: τῇ αὐτῃ ἡμέρᾳ θεασάμενός τινα ἐργαζόμενεον τῷ σαββάτῳ εἶπεν αὐτῳ· ἄνθρωπε εἰ μὲν οἶδας τί ποιεῖς, μακάριος εἶ, εἰ δὲ μὴ οἶδας ἐπικατάρατος καὶ παραβάτης εἶ τοῦ νόμου (“On the same day, when he [Jesus] saw someone working on the Sabbath, he said to him: ‘Man, if you know what you are doing, you are blessed; but if you do not know, you are cursed and a transgressor of the law’”). The dominical proverb preserved in Mark 14:38b and Matt 26:41b reflects a dimeristic anthropological perspective in which the two basic constituents of the human person are conceptualized in terms of πνεῦμα (“spirit”) and σάρξ (“flesh”). It is apparent that these two conceptions are oppositional, reflecting a perception of a tension if not a conflict within human experience expressed by the “willingness” of the spirit which is frustrated by the “weakness” of the flesh. The formulation of this dominical proverb suggests that the flesh is a hindrance to the desires of the spirit, but there is no suggestion that the flesh is in any sense sinful or evil or is itself the seat of negative desires or impulses. Further, it also seems evident that in this dominical proverb πνεῦμα represents a “higher” or “superior” aspect of the person (the seat of thinking and willing), while σάρξ represents a “lower” or “inferior” aspect of the person. Finally, particularly in view of the fact that the terms “spirit” and “flesh,” either singly or as a contrasted pair, are conspicuous by their absence in the rest of the Synoptic tradition,6 it cannot be assumed that the dimeristic anthropology expressed in the contrast between πνεῦμα and σάρξ is typical or even representative of the ideological context in which it occurs. The context of the dominical proverb in both Mark 14:38b and Matt 26:41b is that of the passion narrative, which Matthew (Matt 26:1–27:66) has largely reproduced from his Markan exemplar (Mark 14:1–15:47). Whether or not Mark inherited an existing passion narrative that he edited conservatively or created 5 Luke

23:33. the Synoptics, πνεῦμα usually refers to the Holy Spirit or unclean spirits, and is rarely used in an anthropological sense. To the latter category belong the references in Matthew to the “poor in spirit” (5:3), and the reference that Jesus “gave up his spirit” when he died (27:50; cf. Luke 23:46). In Mark, Jesus reportedly knew “in his spirit” what people were saying about him (2:8), and is said to have “groaned in his spirit” (8:12). In the context of the Magnificat in Luke 1:47, Mary says “my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” With the exception of Matt 26:41b and Mark 14:38b, πνεῦμα and σάρξ occur in the same immediate context in the Synoptic Gospels only in Luke 24:39: “a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” In John, πνεῦμα and σάρξ occur antithetically in two passages: (1) In John 3:6,” That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.” (2) In John 6:63,” The spirit is that which enlivens, the flesh profits nothing.” 6 In

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the passion narrative out of disparate traditions remains a disputed issue in New Testament scholarship,7 though in my view the first option is the more likely. The hortatory saying and the dominical proverb are part of the Gethsemane scene in the passion narrative (Mark 14:32–42; Matt 26:36–46). Both the hortatory saying and the dominical proverb play a paraenetic role within the Gethsemane scene, and are just two of several passages that serve a paraenetic function within the remainder of the passion narrative and its expansions by Matthew and Luke.8 It is likely, given the distinctive content of the dominical proverb that both it and the hortatory saying were added to the Gethsemane scene of the passion narrative at a late stage of its development before it was taken up by Mark.9

Spirit and Flesh in the Hebrew Bible and Judaism In searching for parallels to the contrast between πνεῦμα and σάρξ, it is logical to begin with a consideration of the Old Testament and Judaism. The anthropology of the Hebrew Bible generally regards the human person as a composite entity,10 reflected in a variety of meristic phrases dominated by ‫( לב‬Gen 6:17; 7:15; Deut 28:65; Job 34:15; Ps 16:9; 73:26; Prov 14:30; Qoh 2:3; Isa 66:14).11 The human person as a composite of πνεῦμα and σάρξ is found in the LXX (Gen 6:17; 7:15; MT: Isa 31:3), but never in contexts implying conflict within the human person.12 “Spirit” designates God and his world, “flesh” designates human beings with their intellectual or spiritual possibilities and their world. The Greeks distinguished between the “soul” and the “body” but almost never used the terms “spirit” and “flesh” for that dichotomy. Sand argues (against Schweizer) that one cannot speak of an “anthropological dualism” in Mark 14:38b and proposes instead that “the weakness of the σάρξ and the willing spirit correspond rather to the OT understanding of the conflict between good and evil in human beings (cf. Ps  7 Werner Kelber is one who has argued against the existence of a pre-Markan passion narrative: “Thematically it is difficult to identify a major non-Markan thrust or theme in Mk 14–16, let alone extrapolate a coherent pre-Markan source” (“Conclusion: From Passion Narrative to Gospel,” in The Passion in Mark: Studies on Mark 14–16, ed. W. H. Kelber [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976], 157).  8 R. Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (8th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 307, refers to the paraenetic purpose of several sayings in the passion narrative, including Mark 14:38. D. Dormeyer, Die Passion Jesu als Verhaltensmodell (NTAbh 11; Münster: Aschendorff, 1974), has examined the paraenetic function of the entire passion narrative.  9 U. Sommer, Die Passionsgeschichte des Markusevangeliums (WUNT II 58; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), 104. 10 There is no implicit claim here that OT anthropology is “unified” in any meaningful way. To appreciate the complexity of the issues, see R. A. Di Vito, “Old Testament Anthropology and the Construction of Personal Identity,” CBQ 61 (1999), 217–38. 11 H.-J. Fabry, TDOT 7.412–3. 12 E. Schweizer, Das Evangelium nach Markus (NTD 1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967), 181.

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50:14 LXX).”13 This is a very strange suggestion, for nowhere in the OT is there any discussion of a conflict between good and evil within the person. According to Schweizer, on the other hand, “Jewish and Greek ways of thinking have in this case been blended into one.”14 In essential agreement with Schweizer, Till Arend Mohr, proposed that while the dichotomistic anthropology in Mark 14:38b appears to reflect Greek thought, the distinction between a willing spirit and the weak flesh is not characteristically Greek.15 Further, Mohr suggests that the discontinuities between this saying and both Hellenism and Judaism suggests its authenticity,16 and he goes on to suggest that Mark 14:37–38 as well as 14:33–34 belong to the oldest stratum of the passion narrative which Mark took over from tradition.17 Linnemann, however, argues that 14:38 presupposes vv. 33–34a, and therefore belongs to a later revision of the Markan Passion Narrative, Mark’s third version of the pericope.18 This basic disagreement concerning the relative age of Mark 14:38, while understandable given the subjective bases for critical judgment, makes it difficult to argue for either the authenticity or secondary character of Mark 14:38 using traditional critical criteria. There are several passages in the LXX where σῶμα is used to refer to the physical body, while καρδία indicates the thinking and willing capacity of the individual (2 Macc 3:17; 4 Macc 13:13; Prov 5:11–12; Wis 8:17–20; Sir 30:16; 47:8–19). In the OT and early Judaism, the heart is the seat of all vices as well as all virtues.19 The former view is reflected in Rom 1:24: “Therefore God gave them up to the desires of their hearts [ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῶν καρδιῶν] to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies [σώματα] among themselves.” In the anthropology of the Dead Sea Scrolls, human frailty and weakness is concentrated in the heart.20 The Hebrew term ‫ בשׂר‬has eight distinct meanings,21 three of which are relevant for our investigation: (1) “flesh [as substance of the body]” (Gen 2:21, 23, 24; 17:11; Lev 12:3; Ezek 37:6, 8), (2) “body [of (a) person]” (Exod 30:32; Lev 6:10; 13:2, 3, 4; 14:9; 15:19), and (3) “human being [in contrast to God]” (Gen Sand, “σάρξ,” EDNT 3.232. However, Sand’s reference to LXX Ps 50:14 is pointless since the phrase πνεύματι ἡγεμονικῷ in the phrase “strengthen me with a guiding spirit” does not reflect the underlying Hebrew of Ps 51:14. 14 Schweizer, Markus, 181. 15  T. A. Mohr, Markus‑ und Johannespassion: Redaktions‑ und traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung der Markinischen und Johanneischen Passionstradition (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1982), 231. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., 232, 404 18 E. Linnemann, Studien zur Passionsgeschichte (FRLANT 102; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 29, 32, 179. 19 K.-A. Bauer, Leiblichkeit, das Ende aller Werke Gottes: Die Bedeutung der Leiblichkeit des Menschen bei Paulus (SNT 4; Güterloh: Verlagshaus G. Mohn, 1971), 142, n. 14; H.-J. Fabry, TDOT 7.426–34. 20 Fabry, TDOT 7.436. 21 DCH 2.276–7. 13 A.

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6:3; Num 16:22; 27:16; Jer 17:5; Ps 56:4).22 When used with the second meaning, “body [of a person],” it is sometimes contrasted to the spirit or soul (Isa 10:18; 31:3; Ps 16:9 [LXX 15:10]; 63:1 [LXX 62:2]).23 It should be noted that none of the three distinct semantic meanings of ‫ בשׂר‬mentioned above (based on major Hebrew lexicons), include the connotation of weakness, which is therefore a pragmatic rather than semantic meaning of the term, that is it may be suggested by the context but not by the basic meanings of the word itself. The view that ‫“ בשׂר‬embraces the typically Hebraic thought of weakness,”24 is unfounded. In the LXX, ‫( בשׂר‬which occurs 266 times in the Hebrew Bible) is frequently translated σάρξ (129 times) and less frequently rendered σῶμα (21 times), the latter largely in Leviticus and Numbers. When ‫ בשׂר‬in the OT means “body [of a person],” it is usually translated in the LXX with σῶμα (Lev 6:10; 13:2, 3, 4; 14:9; 15:19), though in one passage it is rendered σάρξ (Exod 30:32).

Analogous Hellenistic Anthropological Dualities It must be frankly admitted at the outset that the terms πνεῦμα and σάρξ are rarely if ever used together in Hellenistic sources to contrast the thinking and willing capacity of the human person on the one hand, with the weak physical body on the other. In Nicomachean Ethics 7, Aristotle has an extended discussion of ἐγκράτεια (“self-control, strength of will”) and ἀκράτεια (“lack of self-control, weakness of will”), the primary qualities of the ἐγκρατής (the “strong-willed person”) and ἀκρατής (the “weak-willed person”). Aristotle is particularly concerned to explain how a person can act against his or her own understanding of what is best to do. The ἐγκρατής sees what must be done and does it, though it is divided and also has contrary impulses to which he may occasionally give in. The ἀκρατής sees what must be done but does not do it, for he is also divided but gives in to his impulses. One of the closest parallels to Mark 14:38b and Matt 26:41b in pagan literature is found in Lucian Tragopodagra 66–68, where two Greek terms for designating the “soul” and “body,” ψυχή and δέμας, are used in an antithetical sense. Here, in a contrastive μέν  … δέ construction which is part of a brief soliloquy, the “soul” of a man with gout is eager (ψυχὴ μὲν οὖν μοι καὶ προθυμία) to go to the door of his house, but his feeble body cannot serve his will (δέμας δὲ νωθρὸν οὐχ ὑπηρετεῖ πόθοις). Here (probably because of the iambic meter) δέμας is the term used for “physical body,” while ψυχή, usually translated “soul,” designates the thinking and willing faculty of the inner person. 22 DCH

2.276. 2.277 (Lev 17:11 and Deut 12:23 are also suggested under the rubric “body of a person,” but both refer to animals). 24  J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 64. 23 DCH

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Πνεῦμα and Σάρξ in Pauline Anthropology Since Paul frequently contrasts πνεῦμα and σάρξ, it is important to determine whether the πνεῦμα / σάρξ dichotomy in Mark 14:38b and Matt 26:41b has any relation to this anthropological aspect of Pauline thought, particularly in light of the fact that all of Paul’s letters were written before the Gospel of Mark and might therefore indicate the extent to which πνεῦμα and σάρξ, were current in early Christian thought as the two basic components of the human person. Indeed, some scholars have characterized the spirit / flesh contrast in our dominical proverb as “Pauline,” while others have taken the opposite position and argued that the spirit / flesh contrast is not at all similar to that found in the Pauline letters.25 In fact (as we shall see), there is room in Paul’s conception of πνεῦμα and σάρξ for the meanings found in the dominical proverb, though they are by no means distinctively Pauline. Paul contrasts πνεῦμα and σάρξ in eleven different contexts with several variations in meaning. πνεῦμα is used in three different ways by Paul in contrast to σάρξ: (1) the immaterial part of the human person, which is the seat of the emotions and the will, (2) the Spirit of God which takes over the functions of the human spirit, (3) as a metaphor for the inner, true allegorical meaning of the Torah. On the other hand, σάρξ is also used in at least three different ways in contrast to πνεῦμα:26 (1) the physical body, (2) human nature as the primary locus of the passions, (3) as a metaphor for the outer, now invalid meaning of the Torah. There are three groups of passages in the genuine Pauline letters in which σάρξ and πνεῦμα are juxtaposed.27 (1) In the first group, consisting of two passages (and one anomalous passage), πνεῦμα is used of the human spirit and σάρξ is 25 M.-J. Lagrange, Évangile selon Saint Marc (4th ed.; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1929), 390; E. Lohmeyer, Das Evangelium des Markus (14th ed.; KEK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957), 317–18; H. Braun, Späjüdisch-häretischer und frühchristlicher Radikalismus (2 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1957), 2.116, n. 4; E. Haenchen, Der Weg Jesu: Eine Erklärung des Markus-Evangeliums und der kanonischen Parallelen (2nd ed.; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1968), 492. The most comprehensive discussion of the non-Pauline character of Mark 14:38b and Matthew 26:41b is in K. G. Kuhn, “Jesus in Gethsemane,” Redaktion und Theologie des Passionsberichtes nach den Synoptikern, ed. Meinrad Limbeck (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981), 96–98. 26 I have omitted the view that the term σάρξ, in addition to the material flesh, could also represent a cosmic or demonic power, the opinion of H. Lüdemann, Die Anthropologie des Apostels Paulus und ihre Stellung innerhalb seiner Heilslehre: Nach den vier Haupbriefen (Kiel: Universitäts-Buchhandlung [Paul Toeche], 1872), 54, which is now widely held; see R. Jewett, Paul’s Anthropological Terms: A Study of Their Use in Conflict Settings (AGJU 10; Leiden: Brill, 1971), 453–54. 27 A passage which lies outside the three categories is Rom 1:3–4, which refers to Jesus Christ who was descended from David “according to the flesh [κατὰ σάρκα] and designated Son of God in power “according to the Spirit [κατὰ πνεῦμα] of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.” Here κατὰ σὰρκα and κατὰ πνεῦμα are clearly parallel, but unlike other Pauline passages in which σάρξ and πνεῦμα are contrasted, this text has a christological focus.

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used neutrally of the physical body.28 A clear example of this type of contrast is found in 2 Cor 7:1: “let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit [σαρκὸς καὶ πνεύματος].” (2) In a second group of four passages, σάρξ is referred to negatively, but more specifically as a metaphor for those aspects of the Torah which are rendered invalid by the coming of Christ, while πνεῦμα is used as a metaphor for the true meaning of the Torah.29 Rom 2:28–29 exemplifies this category: For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical [ἐν τῷ φανερῷ ἐν σαρκὶ]. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual [ἐν πνεύματι] and not literal.

(3) Finally, in a third group of four passages,30 Paul uses πνεῦμα of the Spirit of God indwelling the human spirit, and σάρξ as human nature serving as the instrument of sinful desires; conflict between these two antithetical forces is emphasized. A clear example of this group is Gal 5:16–17 (part of a longer contrast between σάρξ and πνεῦμα in Gal 5:16–26): But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would.

According to Paul, the desires of the Spirit are frustrated by the apparently contrary desires of the flesh, impeding Christians from doing what they should be doing. While there are some similarities between this Pauline anthropological conception and our dominical proverb, nevertheless the clear conflict between spirit and flesh in Gal 5:16–17 is more heightened than the weak flesh impeding the willing spirit in Mark 14:38b and Matt 26:41b. The most important difference, however, is indicated by the capitalized word “Spirit,” reflecting Paul’s conviction that the Spirit of God indwells believers.31 Though some commentators have

28 The other passage in the authentic Pauline letters in which σάρξ and πνεῦμα are contrasted neutrally, with σάρξ referring to the physical body and πνεῦμα to the human spirit is 1 Cor 6:16–17. The neutral meaning of σάρξ is also found in two pseudo-Pauline letters, including Col 2:5 (“though I am absent in body I am present in spirit”) and 1 Tim 3:16 (“He was manifest in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit”). 29 In addition to Rom 2:28–29, other passages in this category include Gal 3:2–3; 4:29; Phil 3:3. 30 In addition to Gal 5:16–26, the other passages which belong to this group include Rom 7:5–6; 8:1–17; Gal 6:8 31 Paul clearly expresses this view in Rom 8:9a: “But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.” However, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether Paul understands πνεῦμα as the Spirit of God or the spirit of the human person. In Rom 8:10, the verse immediately following that quoted above, πνεῦμα refers to the human spirit: “But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness.”

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argued that πνεῦμα in Mark 14:38b and Matt 26:41b refers to the Spirit of God,32 it seems quite clear that the human spirit, i.e., the conditio humana is referred to here.33 The conflict between Spirit and flesh is also clearly articulated in Rom 8:5–6 (a selection from the longer discussion in Rom 8:1–17): For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

While this text seems to divide people into two categories, “those who live according to the flesh” and “those who life according to the Spirit,” it appears rather that the possibility of living according to the flesh is an option always present for Christians. This conflict between the spirit and the flesh described by Paul paralyzes the person in whom these forces struggle for supremacy. Paul’s view of the σάρξ as a negative influence has a parallel in 4 Macc 7:18: Only those who with all their heart make piety their first concern are able to conquer the passions of the flesh [κρατεῖν τῶν τῆς σαρκὸς παθῶν], believing that to God they do not die, as our patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob died not, but live to God. Accordingly, the validity of our argument is not impaired by the fact that some men seem to be ruled by their passions because of the weakness of their reason [διὰ τὸν ἀσθενῆ λογισμόν].

Paul nowhere uses πνεῦμα and σάρξ as contrasting aspects of the human person in a way precisely parallel to Mark 14:38b and Matt 26:41b, where σάρξ is a hindrance to the willing πνεῦμα only because of its weakness. Paul does use σάρξ with several distinct meanings or denotations along with a number of connotations, one of which emphasizes the weakness of the flesh.34 In Rom 6:19, for example, Paul says, “I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh [διὰ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τῆς σαρκὸς ὑμῶν].” While it is possible to understand σάρξ as a synecdoche for the entire person, construing the Greek phrase to mean “because of your weakness” (cf. Rom 5:6), it is more natural to understand σάρξ as referring to the physical body which has the quality of weakness. Here Paul makes explicit one aspect of his complex understanding of σάρξ, namely, its physical and moral frailty. A close verbal parallel is found in Gal 4:13 where Paul refers to his own physical condition when he first preached the Gospel to the Galatians with the phrase δι’ ἀσθένειαν τῆς σαρκὸς, “because of a weakness of the flesh,” i.e. (more idiomatically), “because of a physical ailment.” According to Dunn, “weakness of the flesh” characterizes Paul’s understanding of the human

32 J. Ernst, Das Evangelium nach Markus (RNT; Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1981), 431. This

understanding of πνεῦμα occurs frequently in Paul. 33 Haenchen, Der Weg Jesu, 492. 34 Dunn, Theology of Paul, 64–66, reviews eight different meanings of σάρξ in the authentic Pauline letters. While Dunn’s discussion is not without problems, it does serve to illustrate the complexity of Paul’s use of σάρξ.

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condition.35 A similar emphasis is found in Rom 8:3, where Paul observes that because of the weakness of the flesh, the Law is unable to counteract the power of sin. In Rom 5:6, Paul observes that “It was while we were weak [ὄντων ἡμῶν ἀσθενῶν] that Christ, at the appointed time, died for the ungodly.” Both Paul and Ignatius used πνεῦμα and σάρξ in tandem to refer to the inner and outer aspects of the human person as a totality (2 Cor 7:1; Col 2:5; Ign. Magn. 13:1; Trall. inscr.; 12:1; Rom. inscr.; Smyrn. 1:1; Pol. 1:1; 5:1; cf. Eph. 8:2).36 In sum up, Paul uses the contrastive anthropological terms πνεῦμα and σάρξ in ways that are closely (if not exactly) similar to the dominical proverb in Mark 14:38 and Matt 26:41, making it clear that such language was potentially extant in Christian circles before the composition of the Gospel of Mark.

Early Christian Appropriations of Mark 14:38 and Matt 26:41 Since there are no explicit grammatical features connecting the hortatory saying to the dominical proverb which follows, coupled with the fact that both make sense independently of the other, it is not surprising that they were in fact often separated in subsequent Christian tradition. In addition to Matt 26:41, one of the earliest appropriations of Mark 14:38 is found in the Lukan version of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane in Luke 22:40 and 46, in which the hortatory saying is reproduced twice, in a form in which εἰσέλθητε is shared with Matthew and circumstantial participle ἀναστάντες is substituted for the Markan imperative γρηγορεῖτε: ἀναστάντες προσεύχεσθε, ἵνα μὴ εἰσέλθητε εἰς πειρασμόν (“Rise and pray that you might not enter into temptation”), but omits the dominical proverb entirely. A phrase closely parallel to the hortatory saying is μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν (“do not lead us into temptation”), which occurs in identical form in the three earliest versions of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:13; Luke 11:4; Did. 8:2). This parallel is even more striking once it is recognized that the present imperative προσεύχεσθε introduces the Lord’s Prayer in Matt 6:9 and Did. 8:2 (Luke 11:2 substitutes the present subjunctive προσεύχησθε in a ὅταν clause).37 The two sayings in Matt 26:41 and Mark 14:38 are occasionally quoted or alluded to by later Christian writers, but always in forms suggesting dependence on the canonical Gospel tradition. Polycarp, in Phil. 7:2, substitutes an allusion to Dunn, Romans 1–8 (WBC 38A; Dallas: Word, 1988), 345. flesh and spirit in Ignatius, see W. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 23–24. 37 There is a tendency to regard the Lukan formulation of the introduction to the Lord’s Prayer as representing the form found in Q; see S. Carruth and A. Garsky, Q 11:2b–4, ed. S. D. Anderson (Documenta Q; Leuven: Peeters, 1996), 70–74. 35  J. D. G. 36 On

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the temptation phrase from the Lord’s Prayer for the hortatory saying,38 and then quotes the dominical proverb in the same form found in Matthew and Mark, attributing it to the Lord (Phil. 7:2): δεήσεσιν αἰτούμενοι τὸν παντεπόπτην θεὸν μὴ εἰσενεγκεῖν ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, καθὼς εἶπεν ὁ κύριος· τὸ μὲν πνεῦμα πρόθυμον, ἡ δὲ σάρξ ἀσθενής (“Asking the all-seeing God in our prayers not to lead us into temptation, just as the Lord said: ‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak’”). Polycarp’s allusion to the dominical proverb, the earliest application of this saying outside the New Testament, is striking because he regards the hortatory saying and the temptation phrase from the Lord’s Prayer as closely related and he freely exchanges them. While the Oxford Society argued that the dominical proverb was derived from oral tradition or a document similar to the canonical Gospels,39 rather than from the Gospels themselves, this appears to be one of the few passages in the Apostolic Fathers in which there is a clear allusion to either Matthew or Mark.40 Since Matt 26:41b and Mark 14:38b are identically worded, it is not possible to specify which Gospel Polycarp is dependent on, though his use of the temptation phrase from the Lord’s Prayer suggests Matthew, for only Matthew contains both parts of Polycarp’s allusion. In early Christian literature subsequent to Polycarp, the dominical proverb is frequently used in martyrological contexts where no particular interest in its anthropological features is in evidence. Irenaeus (Adv. haer. 5.9.2) cites the dominical proverb reversing the two clauses: “Sicut enim caro infirma, sic spiritus promptus a Domino testimonium accepit” (“For as the Lord has testified that ‘the flesh is weak,’ so also that ‘the spirit is willing’”). Irenaeus applies the saying to martyrs who sacrifice their lives, not hesitatingly because of the infirmity of the flesh, but unhesitatingly because of the readiness of the spirit. Clement of Alexandria quotes the dominical proverb in the same form as Polycarp (Strom. 4.7): “And the Savior has said to us, ‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak’.” Similarly, Tertullian also quotes the two clauses of the dominical proverb in reverse order in Ux. 5.4. He begins with the reverse order in Mart. 4, but quickly observes that the Lord first declared the spirit willing, showing which of the two ought to be subject to the other. Elsewhere he alludes to it in canonical order 38 É. Massaux, The Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew on Christian Literature before Saint Irenaeus, Book 2: The Later Christian Writings, trans. L. J. Belval and S. Hechi (Macon: Mercer University, 1986), 31–32. 39 Oxford Society of Historical Theology, The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905), 103. 40 H. Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung bei den apostolischen Vätern (TU 65; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1957), 114–15; idem, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990), 20; D. Dehandschutter, “Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians: An Early Example of ‘Reception’,” The New Testament in Early Christianity, ed. Jean-Marie Sevrin (BETL 86; Louvain: Leuven University Press, 1989), 288; W.-D. Köhler, Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums in der Zeit vor Irenäus (WUNT II 24; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987), 103.

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(Fug. 8). He cites the second clause, “the flesh is weak,” to explain the fact that Jesus trembled at the prospect of death (Carn. Chr. 9). Tertullian also quotes the hortatory saying alone in Bapt. 20: “ ‘Watch and pray,’ he says, ‘lest you fall into temptation’.” In his essay On Patience (13), he argues that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh [without patience] is weak.” Hippolytus, in his discussion of the two natures of Christ, uses the dominical proverb in Matt 26:41b and Mark 14:38b to argue that the flesh of Christ did not become divine in his incarnation (Against Beron and Helix frag. 2). Origen, interpreting the Parable of the Tares, observes that “while men are asleep they do not act according to the command of Jesus, ‘Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation,’ the devil on the watch sows what are called tares, that is, evil opinions” (Comm. Matt. 10.2). Cyprian argues that the Lord was teaching humility in the sayings preserved in Matt 26:41 and Mark 14:38 (Treatises 4.26). In Const. ap. 5.1.6, believers are exhorted not to court dangers rashly, “for the Lord says, ‘Pray that you fall not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak’.” In a later section, believers are exhorted to receive those fleeing persecution since they know that “the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak,” and prefer to lose their property while preserving their allegiance to Christ (Const. ap. 8.4.45). The saying is also alluded to in three Coptic-Gnostic documents, all of which appear dependent on the Synoptic tradition. The Strasbourg Coptic Papyrus rearranges three allusions to the Passion narrative:41 “The hour is nigh, when I shall be taken from you [Mark 14:41 = Matt 26:45]. The Spirit willing, but the flesh weak [Mark 14:38 = Matt 26:41]. now and watch [Mark 14:34 = Matt 26:38],” quoting the dominical proverb of Mark 14:38 and Matt 26:41, but omitting the hortatory saying. A Gnostic interpretation of both sayings is found in Thom. Cont. 145.8–9:42 “Watch and pray that you not come to be in the flesh, but rather that you come forth from the bondage of the bitterness of this life.” Here the term “temptation” in Mark 14:38a and Matt 26:41a is construed to mean “being in the flesh,” i.e., remaining physically alive or living an ascetic lifestyle. Finally, 1 Apoc. Jas. 32.19–20 alludes to the second part of the proverbial component: “The Lord said to him: ‘James, thus you will undergo these sufferings. But do not be sad. For [γάρ] the flesh is weak’.” Here, sadness or fear in the expectation of suffering is equated with the weakness of the flesh, which refers to the possibility of physical pain and suffering. The aphoristic character of both the hortatory saying and the dominical proverb, together with the fact that they have no logical or grammatical connection in Mark 14:38 and Matt 26:41, led to their frequent use in a variety of contexts in early Christian literature. For Polycarp, the hortatory saying cohered well with 41 W. Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, trans. R. McL. Wilson (2 vols.; Cambridge: James Clarke; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991), 1.104. 42 B. Layton (ed.), Nag Hammadi Codex II,2–7 (NHS 21; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1989), 2.205.

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the temptation phrase from the Lord’s Prayer, and that is the context in which he quoted the dominical proverb. For Irenaeus and Tertullian, the dominical proverb is interpreted in a martyrological context, which is a natural development of its use in the passion narrative of Mark and Matthew. For Origen and Cyprian, the dominical proverb functions as paraenesis directed toward the avoidance of temptations to fall into sin. Some Gnostic texts construe the dominical proverb as an encouragement for maintaining an ascetic lifestyle.

Concluding Summary It is likely that the paraenetic character of the dominical proverb in Mark 14:38 and Matt 26:41 did not belong to the earliest stratum of the pre-Markan passion narrative, but was added when the passion narrative was formulated for use in a liturgical context in the early church. The Greek style of the dominical proverb argues against an Aramaic origin. Further the fact that the terms “spirit” and “flesh,” understood as the two basic and contrastive elements that constitute the human person, has relatively close analogies in Judaism and the early church suggests that the dominical saying cannot be regarded as an authentic saying of Jesus. The aphoristic character and lack of close connection between the hortatory saying and the dominical proverb frequently led to their separation as both sayings were recycled a number of ways in various contexts in early Christian literature. There is no compelling evidence that either saying could have been derived from Hellenistic anthropology or aphoristic discourse.

6. Luke 1:1–4: Historical or Scientific Prooimion?* 1. One of the more significant contributions to the study of Luke-Acts in the last decade has been Loveday Alexander’s 1993 revision of her 1978 Oxford dissertation, written under Dennis Nineham, on the preface to the Gospel of Luke.1 Alexander’s comparative analysis of the prefaces of Luke and Acts has challenged the critical consensus that the third Evangelist signaled his intention to write history or literature by choosing to open his work with a formal preface evocative of the style, construction and vocabulary of the prefaces used by ancient historians. Alexander claims that, despite Cadbury’s twenty-page exegesis of Luke 1:1–4,2 “there has never been a concerted attempt to find the right context for Luke’s preface within the whole range of Greek literature.”3 It was her intention to confirm or disconfirm whether Luke’s preface (which explains who the author is, what he is doing, why, and for whom) follows Greek literary convention and, more specifically, Greek historiographical tradition.4 Alexander has carefully staked out a new position with far-reaching implications for the study of Luke-Acts. While Alexander’s monograph has been widely reviewed in a generally positive and appreciative manner, it has not yet been subjected to the kind of detailed critique that one might have expected. Among reviewers of the monograph, there was not so much as a hint of criticism in the reviews of Frederick W. Danker, James L. Houlden, Walter Radl and B. E. Spensley.5 While Douglas Huffman * Original Publication: “Luke 1:1–4: Historical or Scientific Prooimion?” Paul, Luke and the Greco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Alexander J. M. Wedderburn, ed. A. Christophersen, C. Claussen, J. Frey and B. Longenecker (JSNTSup 217; Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 2002), 138–48. Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Pic. 1 The Preface to Luke’s Gospel: Literary Convention and Social Context in Luke 1.1–4 and Acts 1.1 (SNTSMS 78; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1993). An earlier summary anticipating some of the main points of her later monograph was published as “Luke’s Preface in the Context of Greek Preface-Writing,” NovT 28 (1986), 48–74. 2 H. J. Cadbury, “Appendix C: Commentary on the Preface of Luke,” Prolegomena II, vol. 2 of The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I: The Acts of the Apostles, ed. F. J. Foakes Jackson and K. Lake (London: Macmillan, 1922), 2.489–510. 3 Alexander, Preface, 9. 4 Ibid., 10. 5 F. W. Danker, Review of L. Alexander, The Preface of Luke, CBQ 57 (1995), 166–67; J. L. Houlden, Review of L. Alexander, The Preface of Luke, Times Literary Supplement no. 4,742

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agrees that Alexander has successfully argued that Luke’s preface is more like the Greek scientific tradition than the Greek historical tradition, he is not convinced that Luke-Acts belongs to the scientific genre.6 Eric Franklin found Alexander’s case compelling but not convincing, doubting that the socio-cultural background of Luke can be teased out of the preface.7 Somewhat along the same line, Philip Esler, though convinced that Alexander’s work makes it “impossible to use the preface of Luke as a support for reading Luke-Acts as an exercise in the historical genre,” thinks that her discussion of the social location of Luke is too incomplete and problematic to carry conviction.8 Howard Marshall concluded that the “general thesis that the prefaces to the Gospel and Acts show parallels to the scientific literature is one that cannot easily be shaken.”9 Yet for Marshall, this strengthens the historical reliability of Luke since readers of “scientific” writings would expect the kind of accuracy appropriate for the subject matter, in this case a person’s life and teaching, and he thinks Alexander’s findings consistent with identifying Luke as a medical doctor who would more than likely have been familiar with scientific treatises.10 Still, Marshall concludes that there is much to be said for categorizing Luke-Acts as a “historical monograph” since the category “scientific tradition” does not provide a satisfying answer to a number of problems (e.g., the content of Luke-Acts). While I make no claim that the present essay will constitute a complete and balanced critique of Alexander’s monograph, I will probe what I believe to be a possible weakness in her central thesis.

2. Alexander begins by formulating an objective description of the form, syntactical structure, topics and style of Luke’s preface for comparative purposes.11 She then turns to a consideration of Greek historical prefaces in terms of their general features, formal characteristics (author’s name, dedication, subject-matter, length of preface and transition), recurrent topics (magnitude of the subject, aims and value of history, and sources of information), concluding with a discussion of the convention of autopsia.12 Though she lists twenty-one authors of scientific treatises in an appendix (with bibliographies),13 she nowhere provides an equally (February 18, 1994), 24; W. Radl, Review of L. Alexander, The Preface of Luke, BZ 38 (1994), 283–85; B. E. Spensley, Review of L. Alexander, The Preface of Luke, NovT 37 (1995), 400.  6 D. S. Huffman, Review of L. Alexander, The Preface to Luke’s Gospel, JETS 40 (1997), 140–41.  7 E. Franklin, Review of L. Alexander, The Preface to Luke’s Gospel, Theology 97 (1994), 204–5.  8 P. F. Esler, Review of L. Alexander, The Preface to Luke’s Gospel, JTS 45 (1994), 225–28.  9 I. H. Marshall, Review of L. Alexander, The Preface to Luke’s Gospel, EQ 66 (1994), 373–76. 10 Marshall, Review of Alexander, 375. 11 Alexander, Preface, 13. 12 Ibid., 23–41. 13 Ibid., 217–29.

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convenient list of the Greek historical works which contain the prefaces she compares with Luke 1:1–4 and Acts 1:1–2. One problem, of course, is the fact that few Greek historical works actually survive, and fragmentary references to them in later authors tended to omit prefaces. In fact, a list of surviving Greek historical works is relatively short and covers a millennium of Greek historical writing: Herodotus and Thucydides (fifth century), Xenophon (b. ca. 430 BCE), Theopompus (fourth cent. BCE), Diodorus Siculus (early first cent. BCE), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (late first cent. BCE), Polybius (ca. 200–118 BCE), Josephus (first cent. CE), Arrian (86–160 CE), Appian (early second cent. CE), Cassius Dio (164–229 CE), Herodian (ca. 180–238 CE), Procopius (sixth cent. CE), and Agathias Scholasticus (ca. 532–580 CE). Though the bulk of Greek historical works have not survived, there are also, of course, fragments of lost works,14 as well as rhetorical treatises that deal with the subject of prooimia. Alexander is very much at home in classical languages and literature and there is little that has escaped her attention. In examining Greek historical prefaces, Alexander finds a number of contrasts with Luke’s preface.15 (1) Luke’s single-sentence prooimion is far shorter than the shortest Greek historical preface and is scarcely comparative in content (he does not clearly reveal what it is that he is writing about). (2) Luke does not give his own name, though Greek historians typically do. (3) Luke’s dedication to Theophilus is unlike the practice of Greek historians who avoided such dedications. (4) Luke’s style does not begin to compare with the elevated style characteristic of the prefaces of the Greek historians. (5) Luke’s use of the first-person contrasts with the Greek historians’ use of the more impersonal third-person style. Alexander argues that the closest parallels to the preface of Luke are actually found in the prefaces of the scientific tradition, that is, the “tradition of technical or professional prose (Fachprosa) which began to proliferate in the fourth century [BCE],” including treatises on medicine, philosophy, mathematics, engineering, rhetoric and a variety of other subjects.16 It is the chief merit of her study to bring these somewhat obscure works (as least so far as most New Testament scholars are concerned), into the discussion. However, since Luke does not appear to be a scientific or technical treatise, this thesis poses an apparent problem. At this point the detailed analysis of texts ceases and speculation begins. Alexander must suppose that Luke was at the very least a reader of scientific treatises,17 which were characterized by “a sober, non-rhetorical presentation of

14 Fragmentary historians are collected in F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker

(3 vols.; Berlin: Weidmann, 1923–58). Jacoby’s work has been continued by G. Schepens, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, vol. 4 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), which is appearing in fascicles. 15 Alexander, Preface, 102. 16 Ibid., 21. 17 Alexander, “Luke’s Preface,” 66.

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fact, unembellished by literary allusion or rhetorical decoration.”18 Luke’s preface provides a “firm link to the world of the crafts and professions of the Greek East in general, and makes all the more urgent a thorough investigation of the social dynamics of that world.”19 Yet she admits that such an investigation would be hampered by the fact that little is known about the social standing of the scientific writers, their patrons and readers. A preface is a slim link for establishing the social setting of a literary work, as several reviewers of Alexander’s monograph have pointed out. Further, since none of the scientific treatises Alexander has examined in her study are biographies, the biographical context presents another set of problems. She is attracted to Charles Talbert’s view that Luke-Acts is a “biographical succession narrative,” 20 a view that many scholars have found attractive, but finds it ultimately inadequate. She then suggests that the problem of the biographical character of Luke’s work can be explained, not by looking to the scientific tradition for parallels (conspicuous by their absence) but to parallels in function.21 She concludes that the scientific treatises and the Gospel of Luke have in common the fact that they are school texts. She concludes: “In sum, then, I would argue that the biographical content of the Gospel and Acts is by no means an insuperable obstacle to viewing Luke as a writer set firmly within the context of the scientific tradition.”22 Perhaps not insuperable, but an obstacle none the less. There are several features of Alexander’s study that invite criticism. First, since Luke is a single composition (in two books), one cannot expect it to conform only to the statistically common features of ancient prefaces rather than to statistically rare features. Since only a fraction of Greek historical works have survived, any statistical study could hardly claim to be representative. For example, in saying as she does that “dedication was not normal practice among the classical historians,”23 and that they are “exceptional,” the phrases “not normal practice” and “exceptional” do not mean that dedications never occurred in historical prefaces. In fact, she refers to Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews as the first extant example of a dedicated historical work.24 The lengthy prooimion in Josephus Ant. 1.1–26 contains a eulogy of “Epaphroditus,” the person addressed as κράτιστε ἀνδρών  Ἐπαφρόδιτε (“most excellent of men, Epaphroditus,” making it clear that the Antiquities of the Jews was dedicated to him. There are several other indirect 18 Ibid.,

64. 66. 20 C. Talbert, Literary Patterns, Theological Themes and the Genre of Luke-Acts (SBLMS 20; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1974), 125–36. For a brief critique of Talbert’s proposal, see D. E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), 78–79. 21 Alexander, “Luke’s Preface,” 69. 22 Ibid., 70. 23 Alexander, Preface, 27. 24 Ibid. 19 Ibid.,

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references to such dedications as well that Alexander mentions (Diogenes Laertius 2.93; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. Rom. 1.4.3).25 Second, an examination of historical prefaces is certainly hampered by the fact that very few of them have survived and of those that have survived, most are written by authors with a social status to which Luke could never have aspired and in an elevated style that he could never have emulated. There must have been literally hundreds of histories written in Zwischenprosa that the educated would have considered mediocre and that have been lost (Lucian Hist. conscr. 2). One example, which specifically critiques a historical prooimion, is found in an acerbic account of Lucian (Hist. conscr. 16; LCL trans.): Another of them [i.e., a contemporary historian] has compiled a bare record of the events and set it down on paper, completely prosaic and ordinary, such as a soldier or artisan or peddler following the army might have put together as a diary of daily events. However, this amateur was not bad – it was quite obvious at the beginning what he was, and his work has cleared the ground for some future historian of taste and ability. The only fault I found was this: his headings were too pompous for the place his books can hold – “Callimorphus, surgeon of the Sixth Lancers, History of the Parthian War, Book so-and-so” – there followed the number of each book. Another thing, his preface was very frigid: he put it like this: it was proper for a surgeon to write history, since Asclepius was the son of Apollo and Apollo was the leader of the Muses and lord of all culture; also because, after beginning in Ionic, for some reason I can’t fathom he suddenly changed to the vernacular [κοινή], using indeed the Ionic forms of “medicine,” “attempt,” “how many,” “diseases,” but taking the rest from the language of everyday, most of it street-corner talk.

While we will never know very much about the prefaces used in such works, even such fragmentary data such as cited above suggest the existence of pedestrian historical prefaces in an artificially elevated language contrasting sharply with the body of the work itself.26 Third, while Alexander thinks to have demonstrated what Luke 1:1–4 is not, namely a historical preface, it is not apparent that she has demonstrated what it is, beyond saying that it has many parallels in scientific or technical literature. That is, she fails to address directly the function of prefaces in scientific literature. Fourth, although the Gospel of Luke has a scientific preface, according to Alexander, the work itself (surely part of the two-volume work Luke-Acts) is obviously not a scientific or technical treatise, and the scientific literature she examined appears to have no proximate parallels in form or content with the Gospel of Luke. Apart from the preface, Luke consists primarily of narrative discourse; apart from their prefaces, the scientific or technical treatises consist primarily of 25 Ibid.,

27–28.

26 Lucian’s Verae historiae is introduced with a satirical preface that concludes in this way: “Be

it understood, then, that I am writing about things which I have neither seen nor had to do with nor learned from others – which, in fact, do not exist at all and, in the nature of things, cannot exist. Therefore my readers should on no account believe in them” (1.4).

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expository and descriptive discourse.27 “The appearance of these prefaces in the scientific tradition, we could argue” says Alexander (who should have argued precisely that, but does not), “shows only that their use reveals nothing about the genre or provenance of the texts to which they are attached.”28 She proposes that the biographical character of Luke links it to the scientific tradition, and taking a clue from Charles Talbert, she suggests that “The role of such biographical material within the school traditions should certainly be explored in any future investigation of the literary genre of Luke-Acts.”29 She finally concludes that “the difficulties involved in treating the Gospel as a ‘philosophical biography’ suggest that we should be looking in a different direction.”30

3. While Alexander’s careful and detailed comparison of the prooimion of the Gospel of Luke with those of twenty-one scientific or technical writers is a model of scholarly analysis, it may be that other surviving texts should be included in the comparative enterprise. It appears, for example, that some light can be shed on the problem of whether Luke 1:1–4 is a historical or scientific prooimion by considering one of Plutarch’s moral essays, Septem sapientium convivium, which is neither a technical nor scientific work but rather an example of belles lettres by a skilled and versatile author.31 This work begins with an explanatory prooimion that introduces a narrative framed as a symposium.32 This prooimion exhibits a striking number of features in common with the prooimion in Luke 1:1–4. While there is little doubt that Plutarch is the actual author, the essay is in fact a literary tour de force, in the form of a pseudonymous composition attributed to one Diokles, a mantis in the court of the sixth century BCE Corinthian tyrant Periander, though the reader is only able to attach a name to the first-person 27 This reiterates a criticism of Pervo, who observes that, while the author of the preface of Luke belongs to “a tradition of investigators,” the author of the rest of the work is an “omniscient artificer of a dramatically plotted work.” Alexander provides no evidence for such sequences in the literature she examines. See R. I. Pervo, Review of L. Alexander, The Preface to Luke’s Gospel, JBL 114 (1995), 524. 28 Alexander, Preface, 202. 29 Ibid., 202–3. 30 Ibid., 204. 31 For Pervo, the critical edge of Alexander’s book “points less toward those invested in defending Luke’s historical accuracy than to scholars who align Luke closely to ancient belles lettres” (Pervo, Review of Alexander, 522). This “critical edge” is somewhat blunted by the significance of the prooimion to Septem sapientium convivium. 32 D. E. Aune “Septem Sapientium Convivium (Moralia 146B  – 164D),” Plutarch’s Ethical Writings and Early Christian Literature, ed. H. D. Betz (SCHNT 4; Leiden: Brill, 1978), 51–105. Another of Pervo’s criticisms of Alexander’s book is that there are other types of preface, such as the one introducing Plutarch’s Septem Sapientium Convivium (Moralia 146B-164D); see Pervo, Review of L. Alexander, 524.

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narrator well into the narrative (Moralia 149D). The short prooimion consists of 105 words in three periodic sentences, the gist of which is that the author (whose name is not mentioned) was both present and a participant at the symposium of the Seven Sages,33 and desires to provide Nikarchos (the dedicatee) with a true account of what transpired on that famous occasion. The author thinks that this is an important task in view of the many false accounts of the symposium that are in circulation, and he wishes to relate his version of the event before old age impairs his memory. Here is a translation of this prooimion: Certainly the passing of time will contribute a great deal of obscurity and uncertainty to events, Nikarchos [ὦ Νίκαρχε], since already patently false fabricated accounts about new and recent events have gained credibility. For the symposium did not include, as you [ὑμεῖς] have heard, the Seven alone, but more than twice as many (among whom I myself was one, since I was a close friend of Periander because of my trade and I was also Thales’ host, for he stayed with me by Periander’s arrangement). Whoever relayed the details [ὁ διηγούμενος] to you [ὑμῖν] did not remember the conversations correctly, for it appears that he was not among those who were actually present. Since I now have a lot of free time, and old age is not trustworthy enough to delay telling my story [τοῦ λόγου], I will recount everything to you [ὑμῖν] from the beginning [ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς ἅπαντα διηγήσομαι], since you are eager to listen.

This prooimion exhibits the following noteworthy characteristics: (1) The author does not name himself, just as the author of the Gospel of Luke does not name himself in Luke 1:1–4. (2) Nikarchos is named as the dedicatee using the classical vocative expression ὦ Νίκαρχε. (3) The prooimion is written in the first-person, just as Luke uses the first-person pronoun κἀμοί (“and to me”), as a self-reference. (4) The term πολύ in the first sentence reflects the Greek rhetorical penchant for using πολύς and derivatives in the prooimia of compositions; the second word in Luke 1:1 is πολλοί (cf. Demosthenes Or. 9.1; Dionysius of Halicarnasus Ant. or. 1.1; Sir 1:1; Heb 1:1). (5) The author claims to have been present at the famous symposium where the Seven Sages gathered at the invitation of the tyrant Periander (627–587 BCE), and thus writes an account based on personal experience (no counterpart in Luke 1:1–4). (6)  The author uses the verb διηγέομαι (“to narrate,” “to describe in detail”) for his own decision to write an account of what happened, which he reserves for the last word of the last clause in the prooimion: ὑμῖν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς ἅπαντα διηγήσομαι. He uses the same verb in participial form for an inaccurate oral “informant” (ὁ διηγούμενος) he mentions. Luke chose to use the cognate διήγησις of accounts compiled by others in Luke 1:1, without labeling 33 This is a traditional group of seven wise men who flourished during the early sixth cent. BCE, which became canonical in the early fifth century. They include four from Ionia (Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Cleobulus from Lindos on Rhodes, Pittacus of Mitylene) and three from mainland Greece (Solon of Athens, Chilon of Sparta and Periander the Corinthian tyrant). See B. Snell, Leben und Meinungen der Sieben Weisen (München: E. Heimeran, 1938); D. Fehling, Der sieben Weisen und die frühgriechische Chronologie: Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Studie (Bern and New York: Peter Lang, 1985).

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his own composition apart from referring to it later as a λόγος in Acts 1:1 (just as the author of the prooimion quoted above calls his account or story a λόγος).34 (7)  The author mentions the existence of erroneous accounts (λόγοι ψευδεῖς) written by those who could not have been present at the symposium. Luke mentions other writers, but unlike the common practice of ancient historians, does not impugn the accuracy of their accounts. (8) The author refers to the subject of the following narrative in an oblique case (the dative) as τοῖς πράγμασι, “the matters,” in a way comparable to Luke’s use of the phrase περὶ τῶν πραγμάτων. (9) The author promises to narrate ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς ἅπαντα, “everything from the beginning,” a common cliché among ancient writers, though in Luke 1:2 the phrase is used to refer to those who were “eyewitnesses and ministers of the word from the beginning [ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς].” (10) The author twice uses the plural pronoun ὑμῖν as an indirect object for those to whom an erroneous version of the symposium was recounted (e.g., ὑμῖν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς ἅπαντα διηγήσομαι), indicating that Nikarchos is not intended to be the sole reader of the ensuing narrative. He also uses the plural pronoun in the phrase ὑμεῖς ἀκηκόατε, “you have heard.” (11) The first sentence of the prooimion is alliterative, with seven words beginning with π-; Luke uses four π-words in the first two clauses in Luke 1:1–2. (12) The first sentence in the prooimion is vague and general, and the actual subject of the following narrative is not mentioned until the second sentence. Luke is even more vague, since he never really tells us what his account is about in his prooimion. (13) While Plutarch’s prooimion is short (105 words), Luke’s is even shorter (42 words). Plutarch chose to introduce Septem sapientium convivium with an explanatory prooimion as part of a pseudepigraphic strategy to lend credence to the (transparently) fictional account which followed, just as Luke chose to introduce his first book with an explanatory prooimion to assure Theophilus that the ensuing narrative would confirm the truth of what he had been taught.35 Plutarch’s prooimion is essentially a cliché, that is, a pastiche of elements which the ancient reader would reflexively recognize as an explanatory prooimion whose primary function would be to bolster the claim that the following account is the truth and nothing but the truth. The many parallels between Plutarch’s prooimion and the scientific prefaces analyzed by Alexander on the one hand, and Luke 1:1–4 on the other, suggest that the foregoing summary should make it abundantly clear that the prooimion of the Septem sapientium convivium has numerous parallels to both. 34 To argue, as Alexander does (Preface, 115), that the phrase ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν does not necessarily mean “to compile a (written) account” seems to me to be somewhat perverse. 35 This appears to be Alexander’s assessment as well according to Preface, 124–25: “The writer [i.e., Luke] with access to such sources may also be claiming implicitly to be following sound ‘scientific’ methods. But there is little evidence of ‘investigation’ in the modern sense, and no sign of the searching out and sifting of eyewitness testimony.” The two claims made in the last sentence are based on arguments from silence, and the use of the phrase “ ‘investigation’ in the modern sense” seems inappropriate (what does the “modern sense” have to do with Luke’s approach to composing his account?). See also Preface, 134.

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Both the author (who we later learn is named Diokles) and Nikarchos (the one to whom he dedicates his narrative) are fictitious. The explanatory prooimion is part of Plutarch’s strategy to lend credence and verisimilitude to a fictional account.36 The fictive author is made to present himself as an eyewitness and participant in the events and conversations that are part of the narrative, which is based on an imaginative dramatization of legendary sayings and stories that clustered about the figures of the Seven Sages.

4. Just as it is true that “one swallow does not a summer make” (Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics 1098a18) so a single prooimion from a pseudepigraphic historical account of a symposium that did not in fact occur is hardly enough to overturn the major thesis of Alexander’s detailed study of the preface of the Gospel of Luke compared with the prefaces of twenty-one scientific or technical writers. But it is extremely suggestive, particularly in view of the fact that Plutarch’s use of the preface to Septem sapientium convivium is clearly a cliché or topos with which he readily expected his readers to be familiar. When the foregoing comparison of the prooimia of Plutarch’s Septem sapientium convivium and the Gospel of Luke is considered in light of Alexander’s careful comparison of the prooimia of scientific or technical treatises and the Gospel of Luke, it begins to appear increasingly plausible that the distinction between historical and scientific prooimia is in reality a false dichotomy. It may be that Howard Marshall hit the nail squarely on the head with the question he asked in his review of Alexander’s monograph:37 May it not be claimed that readers of a “scientific” writing would look for the kind of accuracy appropriate to the particularly kind of writing within that tradition, and in the case of an account of a person’s life and teaching, they would expect a historically accurate account of it?

While there is little or no likelihood that the form and content of the prooimia of the hundreds of lost mediocre histories will ever be known, there are a number of other surviving prooimia which support the thrust of the present argument.

literary techniques characteristic of pseudonymous works occur in this prooimion: (1) the use of the first-person, (2) the emphasis on an eyewitness report, and (3) warnings against literary falsifications; see W. Speyer, Die literarische Fälschung im heidnischen und christlichen Altertum (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, 1.2; Munich: Beck, 1971), 44–84. One pseudonymous device that is missing is attribution to a famous person in antiquity. 37 Marshall, Review of Alexander, 375. 36 Three

7. Luke 20:34–36: A “Gnosticized” Logion of Jesus?* 1. Luke 20:34–38, part of the pericope on the Question Concerning the Resurrection in Luke 20:27–40, consists of a problematic saying attributed to Jesus that has not received adequate attention by scholarship on the Gospel of Luke.1 When Luke 20:27–40 is compared with its synoptic parallels (Mark 12:18–27 and Matt 22:23–33), it is clear that vv. 27–34a and vv. 37–38a closely parallel Mark, and exhibit several “improvements” in both vocabulary and style. Luke 20:34b–36, however, diverges from Mark in several striking ways involving both content and style (see the table on p. 119).2 First, vv. 34 f., in contrast to Mark, exhibits antithetical parallelism. Second, of the three impersonal plural verbs in Mark 12:25 (arguably a Semitism),3 one verb is entirely eliminated (ἀναστῶσιν), while the other two (γαμοῦσιν and γαμίζονται) are taken over by Luke but provided with a nominative plural subject (“the Sons of this world”). From the standpoint of the hypothetical priority of Mark, there are only two probable explanations. Luke has either thoroughly rewritten his Markan source at this point,4 or else he has introduced material from another source. * Original publication: “Luke 20:34–36: A ‘Gnosticized’ Logion of Jesus?” Geschichte-Tradi­ tion-Reflexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. H. Cancik, H. Lichtenberger and P. Schäfer. (3 vols.; (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 3.187–203. 1 The problems in this passage are frequently glossed over in commentaries, and even articles devoted to the pericope in its various synoptic forms fail to deal with major questions posed by the text: see J. J. Kilgallen, “The Sadducees and Resurrection from the Dead: Luke 20:27–40,” Biblica 67 (1986), 478–95. 2 Cf. T. Schramm, Der Markus-Stoff bei Lukas: Eine literarkritische und redaktionsgeschicht­ liche Untersuchung (SNTSMS 14; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 170–71, where he points out this phenomenon in Luke 20:27–40 and notes that close dependence on Mark by Luke is frequently accompanied by blocks of text which exhibit wide divergences from Mark. These divergences, according to Schramm, are most probably to be accounted by Luke’s utilization of sources other than Mark. 3 M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (3rd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 126–28. Black does not mention the third person plural verbs in Mark 12:25 as examples of the Semitic impersonal plural. However, since the woman and her seven successive husbands mentioned in vv. 20–23 cannot be the subjects of these verbs, the verse must be translated in this way: “When people are raised from the dead, they neither marry or are married but are like the angels in heaven.” 4 This is the view of F. Neirynck, “La matière marcienne dans l’Évangile de Luc,” in L’Évangile

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The hypothesis that Luke 20:34b–36 is derived from another source is preferable to that of an extensive redaction of Mark for several reasons: (1) In its present form, Luke 20:34b–36 contains three Septuagintisms or Semitic idioms: “sons of this age” (v. 34b), “sons of God,” and “sons of the resurrection” (v. 36b).5 There is greater probability that Luke derived these Septuagintisms or Semitic idioms from a source than that he inserted them himself.6 (2) The substantival passive participle οἱ καταξιωθέντες may be considered a Semitism because it is an example of the so-called passivum divinum, i.e., the passive as a circumlocution for a more direct mention of God as the actor.7 (3) Since Luke tends to avoid repetition and parallelism in his utilization of sources,8 the presence of antithetic parallelism in vv. 34 f., absent from both Mark and Matthew, suggests that Luke has retained this parallelism from a source other than Mark rather than create it de Luc: Problèmes littéraires et théologiques, ed. F. Neirynck (Gembloux: Duculot, 1973), 176–77; I. H. Marshall, Commentary on Luke (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 738; J. Jeremias, Die Sprache des Lukasevangeliums: Redaktion und Tradition im Nicht-Markusstoff des dritten Evangeliums (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), 282 (Luke 19:45–21:33 as a block of material taken over from Mark); J. L. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke (AB 28, 28A; 2 vols.; Garden City: Doubleday, 1981–85), 2.1299. 5 Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, 1.115 f. Using the term υἱός with a noun in the genitive to express a certain quality is usually a Semitism; cf. N. Turner, Syntax, vol. 3 of A Grammar of New Testament Greek; ed. J. H. Moulton (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1963), 3.207 f. Schramm (Der Markus-Stoff bei Lukas, 170), speaks of the “semitisierende Sprachgepräge” of the passage, and several commentators also recognize the presence of these two Semitic idioms: E. Klostermann, Das Lukasevangelium (HNT 2/1; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1919), 560; B. S. Easton, The Gospel According to St. Luke (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926), 301–2. 6 In this instance it is probable that the Semitic locutions do not reflect a tradition which goes back to the historical Jesus (contra Easton, The Gospel According to St. Luke, 303), but rather the reworking of a logion of Jesus similar to that now found in Mark 12:25 in a Semitic linguistic environment. On the difficulties inherent in using Semitisms as a criterion for early Jesus traditions, cf. E. P. Sanders, The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition (SNTSMS 9; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969),190–209. 7 Neither Hebrew nor Aramaic make frequent use of the passive voice: the impersonal plural is often preferred. The so-called passivum divinum, or “passive of divine activity” occurs only rarely in rabbinic literature (J. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966], 202), though it does occur frequently in all strata of the Gospel tradition. For a more extensive discussion of this use of the passive voice, cf. J. Jeremias, Neutestamentliche Theologie, vol. 1 of Die Verkündigung Jesu; (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1971), 20–24. Marcion understood this idiom for he apparently rewrote οἱ καταξιωθέντες in Luke 20:35 as οὓς δὲ κατηξίωσεν ὁ θεός (the Greek text was reconstructed by Harnack based on Tertullian Marc. 4.38.5, in Neue Studien zu Marcion [TU 44; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1923], 229). In the later targums the passive voice is sometimes used to replace the active voice when God is the subject of verbs; cf. Tg. Jer. 3:8; 8:4; 11:20; 16: 17 (R. Hayward, The Targum of Jeremiah [The Aramaic Bible 12; Wilmington: Glazier, 1987], 22). 8 E. Norden, Agnostos Theos (2nd ed.; Stuttgart: Teubner, 1923), 355–64; H. J. Cadbury, The Style and Literary Method of Luke (HTS 7; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920), 83–89. With regard to Luke 20:34 f., however, Jeremias observes “Lukas hat zwar 20,34 f. einen antithetischen Parallelismus zur Verdeutlichung von Mk 12,25 neu gebildet … aber 8,21 (diff. Mk 3.33 f.), 18,27 (diff, Mk 10,27) den antithetischen Parallelismus zerstört” (Neutestamentliche Theologie, 27, n. 18).

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himself through the extensive redaction of his Markan exemplar. (4) The absence of any of the distinctive features of Lukan style in vv. 34–36 similarly points in the direction of an extra-Markan source.9 (5)  The absence of any contextual links between vv. 34b–36 and the rest of the pericope in Luke, together with the fact that these verses constitute a saying of Jesus which could conceivably have circulated independently, suggest that this logion was derived from a source in which the brief narrative framework of the chreia was absent.10 On the basis of these arguments, and others which will follow below, I propose the following summary reconstruction of the history of the tradition that lies behind Luke 20:34b–36: (1) At some point in the history of the controversy story now found in its earliest written form in Mark 12:18–27, the pronouncement of Jesus found in v. 25 (“when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in the heavens”) was separated from its narrative context during oral transmission. (2) The logion was then thoroughly reformulated on the basis of a radically different meaning attributed to it in consequence of its use within a baptismal context in Syrian Christianity during the latter part of the first century CE. The new meaning of the logion in consequence of its use within such a baptismal setting was that the celibate life was considered an identifying characteristic of those who believed that they could experience a resurrection mode of existence in this world through baptism. (3) The final stage in the history of this now “gnosticized” logion of Jesus consists of its insertion by Luke in an amplified form back into the controversy story context from which it had originally been developed. The motivation for this insertion can be understood in light of the Lukan interest in asceticism generally and celibacy in particular.11 Let us now turn to a more detailed discussion of each of these hypothetical stages in the history of the tradition now found in Luke 20:34b–36.  9 The introductory phrase καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ  Ἰησοῦς is found nowhere else in Luke, though a similar pattern is found in Luke 2:10 (καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ ἄγγελος), and Luke 9:58 (καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ  Ἰησοῦς); cf. 10:37 and 12:20. While this introductory formula does not exhibit the characteristic Lukan εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς, it nevertheless lies within his stylistic parameters. 10 In both Mark 12:25 and Matt 22:30, the third person plural verbs ἀναστῶσιν (Mark), γαμοῦσιν and γαμίζονται (Mark and Matt), clearly refer to the example raised by the Sadducees in the first part of the pericope. In addition, the reference to the ignorance of the Sadducees regarding the Scriptures and the power of God in Mark 12:24 is not found in Luke’s source, not only because it ties the logion to its context, but also because of the antipathy toward the OT on the part of those who (in my view) reformulated the passage, i.e., a group with beliefs and practices similar to Syrian Christian gnosticism. 11 In Mark 10:29, seven types of renunciation (home, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, fields), all repeated in Matt 19:29, are reduced to five in Luke 18:29 with the addition of “wife” (house, wife, brothers, parents, children). In the Q passage in Luke 14:26–27 (= Matt 10:37–38), wives are also included in a list of that which followers of Jesus must “hate” (in the parallel in Gos. Thom. 53, only father, mother, brothers and sisters are mentioned). According to G. Vermes (Jesus the Jew [New York: Macmillan, 1973], 246, n. 79), however, the term “house” in Mark 10:29 and Matt 19:29 is synonymous with “wife,” since in the vernacular Aramaic, “one belonging to his house” is the wife of the owner. In the parable of the Great Supper (Luke

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2. At this point in our discussion a short exegesis of the more relevant features of Mark 12:24–25 and Luke 20:34b–36 is appropriate in order to deal with some of the ambiguities and problems presented by the peculiar wording of the Lukan text. Luke 20:34–36

Mark 12:24–25

34 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ  Ἰησοῦς

24 ἔφη αὐτοῖς ὁ  Ἰησοῦς οὐ διὰ τοῦτο πλανᾶσθε μὴ εἰδότες τὰς γραφὰς μηδὲ τὴν δύναμιν τοῦ θεοῦ;

οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου γαμοῦσιν καὶ γαμίσκονται,12 35 οἱ δὲ καταξιωθέντες τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐκείνου τυχεῖν καὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῆς ἐκ νεκρῶν οὔτε γαμοῦσιν, οὔτε γαμίζονται, 36 οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀποθανεῖν ἔτι δύνανται, ἰσάγγελοι γάρ εἰσιν καὶ υἱοί εἰσιν θεοῦ τῆς ἀναστάσεως υἱοὶ ὄντες.

25 ὅταν γὰρ ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῶσιν οὔτε γαμοῦσιν οὔτε γαμίζονται, ἀλλ᾽ εἰσὶν ὡς ἄγγελοι ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς.

Whether or not the controversy story now found in its earliest form in Mark 12:18–27 is derived from authentic Jesus tradition (for the purposes of the present discussion this question is irrelevant), there are no features of the pericope which necessarily betray the distinctive or characteristic concerns of the later church.13 The conception of the resurrection and concurrent transformation of 14:15–24; Matt 22:1–14), only Luke includes recent marriage as an excuse not to attend the banquet (v. 20; marriage is not mentioned in the parallel in Gos. Thom. 64). Cf. H. J. Cadbury, The Making of Luke-Acts (London: SPCK, 1958), 264 f., 272. 12 At this point Codex Beza inserts γεννῶνται καὶ γεννῶσι, “they are begotten and they beget,” a Western interpolation, which is supported with some variation by the Old Syriac, Cyprian and several Old Latin MS. Black (Aramaic Approach, 226 f.), suggests that this reading is original in part because it produces a synonymous couplet. The children of this world beget and bear children. Marry and are given in marriage. In addition, Black argues, the phrase in Beza probably arose as an attempt to translate the Aramaic phrase ‫“( ילידיו ומלדיו‬bear and beget children”) into Greek. 13 E. Lohmeyer, Das Evangelium des Markus (KEK; 15th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959), 257. Lohmeyer’s view that nothing in Mark 12:18–27 contradicts a Jewish setting is in contrast to that of Bultmann who traces the origins of the debate in Mark 12:18–27 to the theological concerns of early Palestinian Christianity, evident because of the rabbinic character of the argument (Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition [8th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &

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7. Luke 20:34–36: A “Gnosticized” Logion of Jesus

the righteous dead14 to an asexual, angelic mode of existence was at home in both Jewish apocalyptic expectation as well as early Christian eschatology.15 The meaning of Mark 12:25 seems clear: after the future resurrection (of the righteous), the institution of marriage will no longer exist since all of the righteous will be transformed into a sexless mode of existence analogous to that of the angels. The resurrection is therefore an essential prerequisite for the angelic life. Matthew 22:30, in spite of slight variations of phraseology and word order, retains both the form and the meaning of the Markan exemplar and therefore need not enter into the discussion. The saying in Mark 12:25 (which is found in a considerably expanded form in Luke 20:34–35), follows a rhetorical question posed by Jesus in v. 24, and appears to fit well in the dialogical setting of Mark 12:18–28. There are no telltale signs that Mark 12:24–25 (or v. 25 alone) might have circulated as an independent logion of Jesus. When Mark 12:24 is compared with Luke 20:34b–36, there are no obvious reasons (apart from the hypothesis of Lukan dependence upon Mark) for supposing that either version is older or more original than the other. The longer saying in Luke 20:34–36, on the other hand, is not as closely linked to the Lukan pericope within which it stands as Mark 12:24–25 is to its literary setting. In fact, Luke 20:34–36 in its present form is well-suited for independent circulation as a logion of Jesus (requiring no specific narrative setting) prior to its inclusion in Luke. The independent character of the logion is suggested by the fact that it is framed by the Semitic idioms “sons of this age” (v. 34) and “sons of God, sons of the resurrection” (v. 36). Luke includes nothing in his pericope which corresponds to Mark 12:24, a saying which plays an integral role in placing v. 25 in the dialogical setting of the entire pericope. The major ambiguity in Luke 20:34–36 centers on the aorist passive substantival participle οἱ καταξιωθέντες (“those who are counted worthy”), together with the complimentary infinitive τυχεῖν (“to gain, attain”). This infinitive has two objects, the noun clusters τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐκείνου (“that age”), and τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῆς ἐκ νεκρῶν (“the resurrection from the dead”). These two objects form a hendiadys in which the second phrase modifies or explains the first.16 The interpretive problem centers on determining the temporal point at which one is “accounted Ruprecht, 1970], 25). Bultmann finds confirmation of the rabbinic character of this debate in b. Sanhedrin 90b (cited in Str-B 1.893). 14 That the righteous dead are the implied subject of the discussion is evident not only in the context of Mark 12:25, but also in the use of ἐκ with the partitive genitive, ἐκ νεκρῶν, “from [among] the dead” (cf. A. Plummer, The Gospel According to S. Luke [ICC; 5th ed.; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1922], 469). 15 For this conception in Jewish apocalyptic and rabbinic thought, see Str-B 1.891; for early Christian eschatology see D. E. Aune, The Cultic Setting of Realized Eschatology in Early Christianity (NovTSup 28; Leiden: Brill, 1972), 210 f. 16  C. F. Evans, Saint Luke (London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990), 715.

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121

worthy” to attain “that age” and “the resurrection from the dead.” Though the “tense” of aorist participles can be determined only from their context, they often describe action antecedent to that of the main verb.17 Here οἱ καταξιωθέντες is the subject of four verbs which are parallel (the first three of which are negated): γαμοῦσιν, γαμίζονται, δύνανται, and εἰσίν. It is obvious that the action of the aorist passive participle καταξιωθέντες must be antecedent to the two paired and negated verbs οὔτε γαμοῦσιν οὔτε γαμίζονται, since the act of “being accounted worthy” (which is unspecified) necessarily precedes “neither marrying nor being married.” The participle is also antecedent to the parallel verb δύνανται in the phrase “for they are no longer able to die,” as it is to the fourth parallel verb εἰσίν in the phrase “for they are like angels.” Beyond this we must also consider the relationship of the aorist participle καταξιωθέντες to the complimentary aorist infinitive τυχεῖν. Since the act of “being accounted worthy” cannot be considered as simultaneous or subsequent to “attaining that age,” it must also be antecedent. The phrase “those who are accounted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead” can be construed two ways, both dependent on how καταξιωθέντες is understood. On the one hand, καταξιωθέντες can be considered as a decision on the part of God in considering the righteous dead worthy of resurrection. This is perhaps how the Third Evangelist himself understood the logion, though there are no close parallels elsewhere in Luke-Acts to this particular eschatological conception. On the other hand, καταξιωθέντες can be considered as the act of being counted worthy (a passivum divinum) to attain “that age” and “the resurrection from the dead” at some point in this present life.18 One reason for construing the sentence in this way is its striking ambiguity in comparison with the parallel in Mark 12:25, which is a model of clarity: ὅταν γὰρ ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῶσιν, “for when they are raised from the dead.” The correctness of this interpretation is assured by the fact that it is difficult to conceive of an act of “being counted worthy” as occurring at any time subsequent to physical death. This logion, then, reflects the view that humanity is currently divided into two classes, the “sons of this age,” who marry, and “those who are counted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead,” i.e., “sons of God” or “sons of the resurrection,” who do not marry. That is, celibacy is regarded as a prerequisite for resurrection. There is clear evidence in Luke suggesting that the author was particularly concerned with the present dimensions of the kingdom of God (see Luke 11:20; 17:21).19 17  E. D. Burton, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek (3rd ed.; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1898), 63–64. 18 S. P. Brock, “Early Syrian Asceticism,” Numen 20 (1973), 1–19, here, p. 6 (on Luke 20:35 f.; italics in original): “In other words, the worthy already anticipate the marriageless life of angels in this world.” 19  E. P. Meadors, Jesus the Messianic Herald of Salvation (WUNT II 72; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 191–94.

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7. Luke 20:34–36: A “Gnosticized” Logion of Jesus

The connection between sexual purity and resurrection is found in a saying attributed to the second-century CE sage Pinhas ben Jair (m. Sotah 9.15; trans. Danby), using the figure of speech called climax:20 Heedfulness leads to cleanliness, and cleanliness leads to purity, and purity leads to abstinence (‫)פרישׁות‬, and abstinence leads to holiness, and holiness leads to humility, and humility leads to the shunning of sin, and the shunning of sin leads to [the gift of] the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit leads to the resurrection of the dead.

Here ‫פרישׁות‬, “separation, abstinence,” very probably refers to sexual abstinence,21 which leads through this chain of virtues to the resurrection. The phrases ὡς ἄγγελοι or ἰσάγγελοι, “like angels,” is less problematic. Fitzmyer claims that the phrase εἰσὶν ὡς ἄγγελοι in Mark 12:25 is “more Semitic” than ἰσάγγελοι εἰσιν in Luke 20:36,22 though this is doubtful. The claim that in the future the righteous will be “like the angels” and “equal to stars” occurs in 2 Bar. 51:10, and is a view thoroughly at home in Jewish eschatology. The connection between the angelic mode of existence and marriage is made explicit in 1 Enoch 15:6, where it is said to the Watchers:23 But you formerly were spiritual, living an eternal, immortal life for all the generations of the world. For this reason I did not arrange wives for you because the dwelling of the spiritual ones (is) in heaven.

The same tradition is also reflected in Philo, who observed that upon death Abraham “inherited immortality becoming equal to angels [ἴσος ἀγγέλοις γεγονώς]” (Sacr. 1.5). Some light is shed on several distinctive features of this passage from elsewhere in Luke. (1) The phrase “sons of this age” is found elsewhere in the NT only in Luke 16:8. There, in the Parable of the Unjust Steward, the expression is contrasted with the phrase “the sons of light.”24 The expression “the Sons of light,” which occurs a few times in the NT (John 12:36; Eph 5:8; 1 Thess 5:5), though not used in rabbinic Judaism, is thoroughly at home in second temple Judaism as its occurrence in Qumran literature indicates.25 Through the use of these two Semitic idioms within the context of a parable drawn from a special source of 20 This saying, apparently a later addition to the Mishnah (cf. E. E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987], 992), is found in many variants including b. Sotah 49b (cf. A. Büchler, Types of Jewish-Palestinian Piety [New York: KTAV, 1968], 42, n.1). 21 Büchler, Types of Jewish-Palestinian Piety, 48–55; Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 102. 22 Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, 2.1305. 23 M. A. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 2.101. 24 D. Flusser maintains that this designation refers to the Essenes, in “The Sons of Light in Jesus’ Teaching and in the New Testament,” Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress of Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, April 1984 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1985), 427 f. 25 1QS 1.9; 2.16; 3.13, 24–25; 1QM 1.3, 9, 11, 13.

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Luke,26 it is clear that “the sons of light” and “the sons of this world” constitute a division of humanity which, though it has clear eschatological implications, is in existence in the present time. (2) The phrase “marrying [of men] and marrying oneself off [of women]” occurs twice in Luke 20:34–36, once in the form γαμοῦσιν καὶ γαμίσκονται (v. 34; the latter verb should be construed as a middle voice), and once in the form γαμοῦσιν καὶ γαμίζονται (v. 35; the latter should again be construed as a middle voice; cf. Mark 12:25; Matt 22:30). The phrase “marrying and marrying oneself off ” occurs in Q (Luke 17:27 = Matt 24:38), where it has the proverbial force of “life as usual.” Luke 17:27 begins with four asyndetic verbs: ἤσθιον, ἔπινον, ἐγάμουν, ἐγαμίζοντο27 (“they ate, they drank, they married, they married themselves off ”), a style uncharacteristic of Luke and therefore in all probability derived from a pre-Lukan source.28 Those who live in the way described in this passage could be identified as “the sons of this world” using the language of Luke 16:8 and 20:34. In the latter verse it specifically states that “the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage.”

3. At some unknown point in time, though whether before or after the composition of Mark cannot be decided with any degree of certainty, Mark 12:25 or its equivalent appears to have been lifted from the kind of narrative setting which it now has in Mark, and reformulated in a manner reflecting a meaning entirely different from that found in Mark. There are several strong indications that a saying very similar to that now found in Luke 20:34–36 was widely circulated in the second century CE.29 The problem, of course, is whether this independent saying was similar to the source which Luke included in Luke 20:34–36 or whether the saying was itself lifted out of the pericope in Luke 20:17–40. While there are many examples of sayings of Jesus which have been lifted from their canonical setting and transformed in the light of a variety of special motivations and tendencies,30 The Gospel According to Luke, 1.83 f. verb should be construed as a middle voice. 28 Jeremias, Die Sprache des Lukasevangeliums, 268 f. 29 Since sayings of Jesus were transmitted orally (very probably with the “interference” of written texts), they must be categorized as folklore. “Folksay,” i.e., non-narrative verbal lore such as (on our hypothesis) Luke 20:34–36, tends to become stereotyped in both style and structure and exists in many different variant versions; cf. J. H. Brunvand, Folklore: A Study and Research Guide (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976), 2 f. Further, this very existence in many divergent forms makes the reconstruction of a supposedly “original” version problematic; cf. W. H. Kelber, The Oral and Written Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 30. 30 This phenomenon is reflected several times in the Gospel of Thomas. I provide a single example only. Gos. Thom. 79 reads (trans. Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library, 135): “A woman from the crowd said to him, ‘Blessed are the womb which bore you and the breasts which nourished you [Luke 11:27].’ He said to [her]: ‘Blessed are those who have heard the word of the Father 26 Fitzmyer, 27 This

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7. Luke 20:34–36: A “Gnosticized” Logion of Jesus

no extracanonical sayings closely parallel to Mark 12:24–25 and Luke 20:34–36 have been identified.31 There are, however, a few clear allusions to these passages which suggest aspects of a Wirkungsgeschichte which has been largely lost. In the Acts of Paul 11, Demas and Hermogenes are made to say, referring to Paul:32 Demas and Hermogenes said to him, “Who this person is, we do not know. But he deprives young men of wives and young women of husbands, saying: ‘Otherwise there is no resurrection for you, unless you remain pure and do not defile the flesh, but keep it pure.’”

This saying resembles Luke 20:34–36 in two respects: (1) The phrase “deprives young men of wives and young women of husbands” [στερεῖ δὲ νέους γυναικῶν καὶ παρθένους ἀνδρῶν], can be considered a paraphrastic variation on “marrying and marrying oneself off ” [γαμοῦσιν καὶ γαμίσκονται], with an emphasis on the dissolution of existing marriages and betrothals. (2) Celibacy is considered to be a necessary prerequisite for participation in the final resurrection. The Gospel of the Egyptians was an Enkratite work which survives only in fragmentary quotations found in Clement of Alexandria Strom. 3. In one fragment of this work found in Strom. 3.48.1, we read: “They [Enkratites] have received the resurrection, as they say, and for that reason they reject marriage.” It is possible that this text alludes to Luke 20:34–36 construed as a reason for maintaining a celibate life, for the logic of the ascetic position of the Enkratites has a clear parallel with Luke 20:34–36. In the late and textually difficult Pseudo-Titus Epistle, which focuses on the virtues of the life of chastity, those who have not polluted their flesh are called angelic:33 “As the Lord says, ‘Such are to be called angels’ [an apparent allusion to Mark 12:25 = Matt 22:30 = Luke 20:36]. Those then who are not defiled with women he calls an angelic host.” This reference to a logion of Jesus can only be identified as a loose allusion to Mark 12:24–25 and parallels. A more explicit quotation occurs later in this text:34 “ ‘In the coming age,’ says the Lord, ‘they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be [erunt] like the angels

and have truly kept it [Luke 11:28]. For there will be days when you [pl.] will say: “Blessed are the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not given milk [Luke 23:29].”’” These two passages from Luke have apparently been joined together because of the catchwords “womb,” “breast” and “nourished.” The original setting of Luke 23:29 is the anticipation of an eschatological disaster when people will be thankful that they are childless. Yet in the context of Gos. Thom., this apocalyptic text has been reinterpreted in terms of a non-eschatological dualistic asceticism. 31 See the indices of W. D. Stroker, Extracanonical Sayings of Jesus (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989). 32 R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet (eds.), Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1959), 1.244. 33 Translation from W. Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha, trans. R. McL. Wilson (2 vols.; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992), 2.55. 34 Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, 2.63.

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in heaven.’”35 This citation is not based on either the text of Mark or Luke, but combines them in such a way that the reference to “that age” in the first part is drawn from Luke 20:35a, while the remainder is based on Mark 12:25 with the characteristic alteration of the Markan εἰσὶν ὡς ἄγγελοι, “they are like angels” to erunt sicut angeli, “they will be like angels.” Yet when these two passages in Pseudo-Titus are compared, they appear to exhibit some tension, for the chaste are considered angelic in this life in the first allusion, but in the second the angelic life belongs to the future age. Three features of this pronouncement of Jesus, shorn of its narrative context, seem to have encouraged and even facilitated this process of reinterpretation and reformulation: (1) The reference to resurrection could be understood from a Gnostic perspective in terms of the present realization of resurrection life through baptism, a notion which may be traced back as far as the late first century among Syrian Gnostics. Though the chronological problem is difficult, it is likely that the Samaritan Gnostic Menander taught baptismal resurrection in Antioch late in the first century CE.36 (2) The reference to the cessation of marriage was similarly capable of easy assimilation to the emphases on celibacy, a characteristic feature of later Syrian Christian asceticism,37 perhaps found in its earliest form in the teachings of Cerdo, the supposed mentor of Marcion. (3) The reference to the angelic mode of existence would also have been easily capable of being utilized to conceptualize the present experience of resurrection life in terms of asexuality, immortality, without need of sustenance, etc.38 Each of these emphases in this fortuitous grouping of apocalyptic imagery in Mark 12:18–27, was susceptible to adaption to Gnostic belief and myth systems, and it was apparently for this reason that the pronouncement story in Mark 12:25 (or a reasonably similar parallel tradition) was removed from its narrative context and reformulated.

35 The Latin text reads “in futuro seculo, inquit dominus, neque nubunt neque uxores ducunt, sed erunt sicut angeli caelestes” (J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Latinae, Supplementum [Paris: Éditions Garnier Frères, 1960], 2.1532). 36 Justin 1 Apol. 26.4; Irenaeus Adv. haer. 1.23.5; Tertullian An. 50.1; Ps.-Tertullian Adv. omn. haer. 1; Eusebius Hist. eccl. 3.26.3; cf. R. M. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (2nd ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 93 f. 37 A. Vööbus, Celibacy, A Requirement for Admission to Baptism in the Early Syrian Church (Stockholm: Estonian Theological Society in Exile, 1951), passim. 38 For conceptions of the Christian life as an angelic life, cf. J. Michl, “Engel IV (christlich),” RAC 5.109–200, here 156–58, and particularly S. Frank, Angelikos Bios (Münster: Aschendorf, 1964). See also the observation of H. Chadwick with reference to Luke 20:35: “Eine Nachwirkung der ntl. Eschatologie tritt in der Ansicht hervor, daß enthaltsames Leben eine Vorwegnahme des engelgleichen Lebens im Himmel sei (vgl. Lc 20,35); der Unverheiratete nimmt schon Teil an der kommenden Welt” (RAC 5.362).

126

7. Luke 20:34–36: A “Gnosticized” Logion of Jesus

4. The most appropriate setting in early Christianity for the transformation of this logion of Jesus into the form in which it appears in Luke 20:34b–36, appears to be early Syrian Christianity. In that context, the act of “being counted worthy” could be construed as coincident with the rite of baptism, the one strict requirement for which was the maintenance of a celibate life.39 While our knowledge of early Syrian Christianity is exceedingly fragmentary for the century preceding the late second-century activity of Tatian, there are reasons to suppose that encratism was virtually endemic to Christianity in that region. Three such reasons can be suggested: 1. The widespread “misquotation” of Luke 20:36 and its Synoptic parallels, i.e., εἰσὶν ὡς ἄγγελοι of Mark 12:25 [ὡς ἄγγελοι … εἰσὶν in Matt 22:30] and ἰσάγγελοι of Luke 20:36 is frequently quoted as ἔσονται ὡς ἄγγελοι, or ἔσονται ἰσάγγελοι, “they shall be like angels.” This tendency to alter the tense of the verb may be based on an anti-heretical polemic. While there is no manuscript or lectionary evidence known to me that replaces the present tense verb εἰσὶν found in Luke 20:36 and its Synoptic parallels (Mark 12:25; Matt 22:30) in the phrase “they are like angels” with the future verb ἔσονται, “they shall be like ange1s,”40 the future tense does frequently occur in patristic quotations and allusions to this pronouncement of Jesus.41 This widespread and apparently intentional “misquotation” of these Synoptic texts seems to imply the existence of a polemic against those who affirm that the angelic life (i.e., resurrection life) is a present possibility. The widespread polemical alteration of these passages has two implications: (1) The requirement of celibacy, a central emphasis of late second-century Syrian Christianity which persisted throughout the third century, was probably widespread earlier in the second century, perhaps even reaching back to the late first century. (2) The independent circulation or use of the Lukan logion was made possible only through its “gnosticized” reinterpretation, since the context of both Luke 20:34b–36 and Mark 12:25 would have been completely irrelevant for the early Syrian Christian or Syrian Christian Gnostic understanding of the passage.

39  F. C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity (London: John Murray, 1904), 118–54; J. De Zwaan,

“The Edessene Origin of the Odes of Solomon,” Quantulcumque (London: Christophers, 1937), 299–302; G. Quispel, “Gnosticism and the New Testament,” The Bible in Modern Scholarship, ed. J. P. Hyatt (New York: Abingdon Press, 1965), 252–57; Vööbus, Celibacy, passim; Brock, “Early Syrian Asceticism,” 5–8; Chadwick, “Enkrateia,” RAC 5.353. 40 For Luke, a relatively complete survey of the variants is now available in The American and British Committees of the International Greek New Testament Project, eds.,The Gospel According to St. Luke, Part 2; Chapters 13–24 (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1987), 146 f. 41 Ibid., 146 f., where the patristic evidence is summarized. See particularly Justin Dial. 81.4; Ps.-Justin De resurrectione 3; Tertullian Marc. 3.9.4; 4.39.11; 5.10.4; Res. 36.5; Hippolytus Fragmenta (Bonwetsch-Achelis, 1.254).

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Members of the Great Church not infrequently based their polemical remarks against the heretical understanding of the logion on such contextual arguments.42 2. Menander, a Samaritan Gnostic and fellow countryman of Justin, is reported to have traveled to Antioch and there disseminated his views,43 probably well within the first-century CE.44 From Justin we learn that Menander deceived many in Antioch through his magic and also that he persuaded his followers that they would never die. We further learn from Irenaeus, here apparently dependent on Justin’s lost Syntagma, that Menander made the claim that his disciples, by being baptized into him, obtained the resurrection and could no longer die but continued in possession of immortal youth (Adv. haer. 1.23.5). Some of the features of this part of Justin’s lost Syntagma can be reconstructed through the agreements found in Irenaeus Adv. haer. 1.23.5 and Eusebius Hist. eccl. 3.26.45 When these texts are compared, the content of Menander’s teaching appears to closely resemble that found in Luke 20:34b–36: Menander’s Views in Eusebius Hist. eccl. 3.26:

Menander’s Views in Irenaeus Adv. haer. 1.23.5:

διὰ τοῦ μεταδιδομένου πρὸς αὐτοῦ βαπτίσματος οὗ τοὺς καταξιουμένους ἀθανασίαν ἀΐδιον ἐν αὐτῷ τούτῳ μεθέξειν τῷ βίῳ μηκέτι θνῄσκοντας.

resurrectionem enim per it quod est in eum baptisma (accipere eius discipulos) et ultra non posse mori sed perseverare non senescentes et immortales.

Although the motifs of celibacy and likeness to angels is absent from this fragment, the following points of similarity between Menander’s teaching and Luke 20:34b–36 are apparent: (1)  The present passive substantival participle τοὺς καταξιουμένους (“those counted worthy”) in Eusebius is a striking parallel to the aorist passive substantive participle οἱ καταξιωθέντες in Luke 20:35. The context makes it clear that it is precisely baptism which is identified as the act of “being accounted worthy.” (2) In Eusebius the substantival participle functions as an accusative of subject with the future infinitive μεθέξειν, which, while it does not share a semantic domain with τυγχάνειν,46 is nevertheless a verb which Marc. 3.9.4; Clement of Alexandria Strom. 3.12; Justin Dial. 80. 1 Apol. 26.4. See W. Foerster, “Die ‘ersten Gnostiker’ Simon und Menander,” Le origini dello Gnosticismo, ed. U. Bianchi (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 190–96. 44 A. von Harnack, Chronologie, vol. 2 of Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1893–1904), 533. 45 According to A. Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristentums (Leipzig: Fues, 1884), 187, Irenaeus is dependent on Justin‘s Syntagma for his brief discussion of Menander. However, Hilgenfeld thinks that Eusebius Hist. eccl. 3.26.3 is dependent on Justin’s 1 Apol. rather than the Syntagma, a view which is almost certainly incorrect. 46 Louw and Nida, 1.§ 57.6 (μετέχω with the meaning “to share in the possession of something”), § 90.61 (τυγχάνω with the meaning “to experience something happening”). 42 Tertullian 43 Justin

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conveys the attainment of certain benefits or an advantageous state of existence. (3) Again, like Luke 20:35, two phrases, ἀθανασίαν ἀΐδιον (“eternal immortality”) and μηκέτι θνῄσκοντας (“no longer dying”), are noun clusters which are the objects of the infinitive. 3. Regardless how the Third Evangelist may have understood Luke 20:34–36, it is clear that Marcion of Sinope construed the passage in a very literal manner. He regarded the act of “being accounted worthy” as an event which occurs in this life. The result was a fundamental distinction between two classes of people, “the sons of this world” (who marry), and “the sons of that world” (who do not marry). The act which makes people worthy of that world and of the resurrection in Marcionite theology was baptism, a sacrament which, in conjunction with faith, enables the believer to appropriate the benefits of eschatological salvation.47 Luke 20:34–36 in Marcion’s rewritten version of Luke represents the central rationale for Marcionite ascetic baptismal requirements. This, at least, seems to be supported by Tertullian (Marc. 4.38.8; trans. Evans, Adversus Marcionem, 2:479–81):48 “The children of this world marry and are given in marriage [Luke 20:34],” refers to the Creator’s men whom he allows to marry, whereas they themselves [Marcionites], whom the god of that world, that other god, has counted worthy of the resurrection, even here and now do not marry, because they are not the children of this world.

The distinction which Luke 20:34–36 makes between “the sons of this world” on the one hand, and “the sons of God,” or “the sons of the resurrection” on the other hand, was carried over into the soteriology of Marcion. He maintained, with Paul, that those whom Christ had not redeemed continued under the dominion of the law and of the God of creation.49 Since Marcion regarded Luke 20:34–36 as applicable to Marcionite Christians living in this world, we are faced with an interpretive problem. What does Marcion mean by the term “resurrection” found twice in Luke 20:34–36? Since our sources are unanimous in charging that Marcion denied the physical resurrection, we might assume that he understood the term “resurrection” to refer to that aspect of a person’s nature which survived physical death. Marcion thought that the creator god had breathed a dead soul into the first man.50 When Tertullian argues in Marc. 5.9.1–6 that the phrase mortuorum resurrectio must refer to the physical body (he uses carnis and corpus interchangeably), it is evident that Marcion understood the phrase differently. Unlike Tertullian, Marcion 47 Tertullian similarly considered baptism to constitute the divine act of approbation which bestowed salvation upon the believing initiate (Bapt. 18.2–3). 48 See also Tertullian Marc. 1.29.1. 49 Harnack, Marcion, 106. 50 Tertullian Marc. 2.4.4; cf. Ps.-Tertullian Adv. omn. haer. 6.1 (though this statement is made of Cerdo, the author assumes that Marcion’s teaching was identical with that of his teacher Cerdo: see Tertulian Adv. omn. haer. 6.6).

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distinguished between carnis and corpus,51 and maintained a belief in the final resurrection of a spiritual body, i.e., a body similar to that of angels.52 Marcion, in line with an interpretation of Paul found in Ephesians and Colossians, held that rising with Christ was an event which occurred at baptism, when the Spirit of God revived the immaterial part of a person infusing new life. Christ was therefore called the “inner person” by Marcionites,53 who emphasized the fact that the life of Christ should be revealed in and through their physical bodies both ethically and ascetically.54 Followers of Marcion understood themselves to be “sons of the resurrection” in that they believed that they had experienced an ontological transformation through the sacrament of baptism which enabled them to assume some of the characteristics of future resurrection life within the framework of life in this present world.

5. In this article, I have underlined the distinctive character of the logion of Jesus in Luke 20:34–36 within the larger context of the pericope on the Question Concerning the Resurrection in Luke 20:27–40. Since Luke 20:34–36 differs radically from the Synoptic parallels in Mark 12:24–25 and Matt 22:29–30, it seems clear that the Third Evangelist is dependent on a source which differs strikingly at this point from his Markan exemplar. An exegesis of Luke 20:34–36 suggests that there are two types of people in the world, “the sons of this world” who marry and are given in marriage, and “the son of God” or “sons of the resurrection,” who do not marry. The “sons of the resurrection” are distinguished by the fact that they have “been accounted worthy” to attain “that world,” i.e., “the resurrection from the dead,” and for that reason maintain a celibate mode of life. This celibate lifestyle is described as similar to that of angels. We have further suggested that the radical reformulation of this logion of Jesus in all probability took place in a context similar to what we now know of early Syrian Christianity, i.e., in a setting in which celibacy was required of those baptized who were thought to have experienced a new mode of existence in which present conformity to the angelic mode of life was both possible and desirable. While the precise ways in which the logion of Jesus in Mark 12:24–25 = Matt 22:29–30 was transformed are no longer clear, it seems likely that the theological setting for the transformation of the saying that is now found in Luke 20:34–36 was that of Christian baptism within a quasi-gnostic setting. Marc. 5.15.7–8. Marc. 3.8.7; 3.9.4. 53 Hippolytus Haer. 10.19. 54 Tertullian Marc. 5.11. 51 Tertullian 52 Tertullian

8. Dualism in the Fourth Gospel and the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reassessment of the Problem* Introduction Evaluating the light that the Dead Sea Scrolls have shed on the interpretation of the Gospel and Letters of John is just one aspect of the complex historical and cultural background of these very complex New Testament texts. That is to say that the discovery and publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls during the last fifty years supplements, but does not replace, the value of other Jewish and Hellenistic texts for understanding the Corpus Johanneum in its historical context. In the first decade after the discovery and availability of some of the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, many scholars thought that these new manuscript discoveries provided the crucial key for unlocking important aspects of the meaning of Johannine literature. In 1955, Millar Burrows observed:1 “The whole manner of thinking and the literary style of the fourth Evangelist are strikingly like what we find in the Qumran texts.” This judgment was amplified by Frank Moore Cross:2 “Linguistic and conceptual contacts between the scrolls and the New Testament are nowhere more in evidence than in the Gospel of John.” Commentators from the 1950’s until today have continued to give a generally positive assessment of the value of the Dead Sea Scrolls for understanding the conceptual world and background of the Fourth Gospel.3 Rudolf Schnackenburg in particular refers to hundreds of passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls throughout his commentary.4 By the last quarter of the 20th century even some of the initial excitement and optimism shared by the majority began to fade. In the second * Original publication: “Dualism in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reassessment of the Problem,” Neotestamentica et Philonica: Studies in Honor of Peder Borgen on the Occasion of his 75th Birthday, January 26, 2003, ed. D. E. Aune, T. Seland and J. H. Ulrichsen (NovTSup 106; Leiden: Brill, 2002). Reprinted by permission. 1 M. Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Viking, 1955), 338. 2 F. M. Cross, Jr., The Ancient Library of Qumran (rev. ed.; Garden City: Doubleday, 1961), 206. 3 See R. E. Brown, The Gospel according to John (AB 29–29A; 2 vols.; Garden City: Doubleday, 1966–70), l:lxii–lxiv; R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St John (3 vols.; New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), 1.128–35; G. R. Beasley-Murray, John (WBC 36; Waco: Word Books, 1987), lxi–lxiii; D. Moody Smith, John (ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 34–35. 4 Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St John.

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edition of his commentary on the Gospel of John (1978), C. K. Barrett observed with typical British understatement:5 “Now that the excitement of the first discoveries is past it is possible to see that Qumran has not revolutionized the study of John.” Ernst Haenchen cites just fourteen texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls in his 1980 commentary on John, ten of which are used to explain part of the background of John 4:23 in connection with the Qumran community’s conceptions of the Holy Spirit.6 Of course, this optimism was not universally shared. As early as 1960, Howard Teeple had carefully detailed the numerous dissimilarities between the Fourth Gospel and the Dead Sea Scrolls, disputing the exaggerated claims for a close contextual relationship.7More recently, Richard Bauckham has argued convincingly that the parallels between the Fourth Gospel and Qumran do not justify the hypotheses of influence or historical connection which have been put forward.8

Methodological Considerations In view of the fact that the comparative method is the basis for establishing the Qumran literature as a valid background against which to understand certain theological emphases in the Fourth Gospel, some preliminary methodological observations are in order. First, the establishment of general parallels at the phenomenological level is relatively simple, while the establishment of actual borrowing is much more difficult. Richard Frye has therefore proposed three categories of possible influence:9 (1) general beliefs, (2) motif similarity (not only are general beliefs similar, but the details of those beliefs are also similar), and (3) the similarity of specific terminology. Only influences established at the third level are considered legitimate basis for proving that borrowing has actually taken place. Second, the comparison of two complex socio-cultural phenomena is artificial to the extent that many other related phenomena are omitted, thereby skewing comparisons. In line with this observation, I will broaden the comparative basis

Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text (2nd ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 34. 6 E. Haenchen, John: A Commentary on the Gospel of John (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 1.223. 7 H. M. Teeple, “Qumran and the Origin of the Fourth Gospel,” NovT 4 (1960–61), 6–25. 8 R. Bauckham, “Qumran and the Fourth Gospel: Is There a Connection?” The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After, ed. S. E. Porter and C. A. Evans (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 267–79. 9 R. N. Frye, “Qumran and Iran: The State of Studies,” Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults: Studies for Morton Smith at Sixty, ed. J. Neusner (4 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1975), 3.167–73. 5  C. K.

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by bringing into the discussion texts from other bodies of early Jewish and early Christian literature, including the Johannine letters.10 Third, since the links between the Essenes, Khirbet Qumrân and the Dead Sea Scrolls remain a debated issue,11 the arguments presented in this paper are not dependent on the assumption that the Essenes are the authors of the Qumran literature, even though I think that the arguments connecting the Essenes, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls are quite compelling. In line with this observation, I will refrain from entering into the game of speculating whether or not the Fourth Evangelist was an Essene. Fourth, since it is clear that not all of the literature found in the Qumran caves was produced by a single sectarian group, it is invalid to assume that the Qumran literature constitutes a homogenous collection. Nevertheless there is a core group of documents which are widely regarded as both sectarian and related (1QS, lQSa, lQSb, 1QH, 1QM, CD and the pesharim). Further, the fact that many of the sectarian documents are compilations means that they reflect the development of the community over its approximately 200-year existence. In line with this observation, naive thematic syntheses need to be avoided.12 Fifth, it is not my intention to attempt to reconstruct the theological views of the Qumran community in order to compare them with the theology of the Fourth Gospel, but I will rather focus on comparing specific texts, rather than comparing hypothetical constructs. Sixth, the quest for ultimate origins, such as determining whether the cosmic dualism of 1QS 3.13–4.26 was influenced by Iranian dualism or was derived from the Old Testament, is a fascinating but essentially irrelevant issue for the limited purpose of this paper.13 10 A variety of texts which reflect a dualistic theology similar to 1QS 3.13–4.26 and the Fourth Gospel are considered by J. H. Charlesworth, “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in 1QS 3.13–4.26 and the ‘Dualism’ Contained in the Gospel of John,” John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (New York: Crossroad, 1990), 96–97. 11 In a recent book by L. Cansdale, Qumran and the Essenes: A Re-evaluation of the Evidence (TSAJ 60; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), the author argues that the Essenes could not be the people for whom the Dead Sea Scrolls were written, nor was Qumran the principal dwelling place of the Essenes. On the other hand, G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), proposes that what ancient historians called Essenism includes not only the Qumran community but what modern scholars call Enochic Judaism. In a recent review of the evidence, J. C. VanderKam concludes that the Essene identification of the Qumran community is the dominant view, though there remain some formidable opponents to this position; see his “Identity and History of the Community,” The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, ed. P. W. Flint and J. C. VanderKam (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1998–1999), 2.487–533. 12 The work of A. E. Sekki, The Meaning of Ruach at Qumran (SBLDS 110; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), represents just such a naive thematic study which treats the Qumran literature homogenously and ignores all problems relating to genre and source criticism. 13 See D. Winston, “The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha and Qumran: A Review

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The Problem of Dualism One of the more striking features of the Gospel of John, particularly when compared to the Synoptic Gospels, is the pervasive presence of a cosmological dualism frequently understood in ethical categories.14 Since this type of dualism has no clear antecedents in Judaism, the argument goes, scholars have searched elsewhere for the sources of such a view, chiefly Platonic thought and Gnosticism.15 Since the term “dualism” can be understood in many ways, it is important to clarify the understanding of dualism which informs this paper. As a religio-historical phenomenon, dualism involves the existence of two antithetical causal principles underlying the existence of the world.16 Pairs of opposites, such as light and darkness, good and evil, spirit and matter, right and left, male and female, are only dualistic insofar as they involve the duality or polarity of such cosmic principles. Bianchi proposes a typology of dualism which consists of radical dualism versus moderate dualism (two coequal and coeternal principles versus one eternal principle from which a second is somehow derived), dialectical versus eschatological dualism (two irreducible principles function eternally versus the ultimate elimination of the evil principle at the end of history), and cosmic versus anti-cosmic dualism (creation is fundamentally good and evil comes from the of the Evidence,” HR 5 (1966), 183–216; J. Neusner, “Jews and Judaism under Iranian Rule: Bibliographical Reflections,” HR 8 (1968), 159–77. 14 There is an extensive bibliography on this subject: L. Mowry, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Background for the Gospel of John,” BA 17 (1954), 78–97; R. E. Brown, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,” CBQ 17 (1955), 403–19, 559–74, reprinted in K. Stendahl, ed., The Scrolls and the New Testament (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), 183–207; H. W. Huppenbauer, Der Mensch zwischen zwei Welten: Der Dualismus der Texte von Qumran (Höhle I) und der Damaskusfragmente. Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte des Evangeliums (ATANT 34; Zürich: Zwingli, 1959); W. F. Albright, “Recent Discoveries in Palestine and the Gospel of St. John,” The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology, ed. W. D. Davies and D. Daube (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1964), 153–71; O. Böcher, Der johanneische Dualismus im Zusammenhang des nachbiblischen Judentums (Gütersloh: Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1965); J. Becker, “Beobachtungen zum Dualismus im Johannesevangelium,”ZNW 65 (1974), 71–87; J. H. Charlesworth, “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in 1QS 3:13–4.26 and the ‘Dualism’ Contained in the Gospel of John,” NTS 15 (1969), 389–418; reprinted in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 76–106; J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 205–37. 15 After a detailed consideration of the various possible backgrounds to the Fourth Gospel, C. H. Dodd emphasizes the many similarities between Johannine and Hellenistic thought (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1953], 133), “He [the Fourth Evangelist] is well aware of the teaching of Rabbinic Judaism, but only partly sympathetic to it. He is more sympathetically in touch with Hellenistic Judaism as represented by Philo. Like Philo himself, he is in contact with the higher pagan thought of the time, as represented to us by the Hermetic literature.” R. Bultmann, on the other hand, thought that the Johannine discourses revealed the influence of Gnosticism as well as a reaction against Gnosticism in The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971). 16 U. Bianchi, “Dualism,” ER 4.506.

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outside versus the view that evil in intrinsic to the world and present as a negative principle or substance).

Johannine Dualism The basic structure of Johannine dualism involves the existence of two worlds, or two planes of being, which are designated in simple spatial terms in John 8:23 as “above” (τὰ ἄνω) and “below” (τὰ κάτω), correlated with the explanatory phrases “not of this world” and “of this world”: “He said to them, ‘You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.’”17 The verbs ἀναβαίνειν and καταβαίνειν are correlated with τὰ ἄνω and τὰ κάτω and describe the movement from the upper world to the lower world by the revealer who has descended from the heavenly world and will ultimately return (3:13; 6:62; 20:17). ἄνωθεν (“from above”),18 a synonym of τὰ ἄνω, occurs in John 3:31, where it is parallel to the phrase “from heaven,” both of which mean “from God”:19 “He who comes from above [ἄνωθεν] is above all; he who is of the earth belongs to the earth, and of the earth he speaks; he who comes from heaven is above all.” These two dualities, τὰ ἄνω and τὰ κάτω (8:23) and ἄνωθεν and ἐκ τῆς γῆς (3:31), correspond to the characteristically Jewish duality of σάρξ and πνεῦμα (3:6; cf. 1:13), a duality wherein πνεῦμα replaces νοῦς, the more characteristic term for Hellenism.20 The phrase ὁ κόσμος οὗτος, “this world” is more common, occurring some eight times (8:23; 9:39; 11:9; 12:25, 31; 13:1; 16:11; 18:36), and even though the Hebrew word ‫( עולם‬Aramaic ‫ )עלם‬can be translated “age” as well as “world,” the phrase ὁ κόσμος οὗτος in the Fourth Gospel is clearly appropriate in the context of Johannine theology, since it reflects a spatial rather than an eschatological dualism presupposed by the phrase ὁ αἰὼν οὗτος (as in Matt 12:32; Luke 16:8; Gal 1:4; Rom 12:2). While the two realms are antithetical, yet the world which rejects Jesus is also the world to which he came as savior.21 Even though God created everything through the Logos (1:3), so that the basic form of dualism in the Fourth Gospel is a modified or softened dualism, the world is now 17 C. K. Barrett suggests that this contrast between an upper and a lower world complements the more typically Jewish contrast between the present world and the world to come, and is an essentially Platonic distinction (The Gospel According to St. John, 35). 18 ἄνωθεν can have either a temporal meaning, such as “again” or “from the beginning,” or a local meaning “from above,” but here must mean “from above” as the parallelism with “from heaven” indicates. 19 B. Lindars, The Gospel of John (London: Michael, Morgan & Scott, 1972), 169. 20  C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 258. For a discussion of the pervasive character of the σάρξ / πνεῦμα dichotomy in Judaism and its profound influence on Pauline anthropology, see D. Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California, 1994), 57–85. 21  R. T. Fortna, The Fourth Gospel and Its Predecessor: From Narrative Source to Present Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 263.

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alienated from God and under the domination of the “ruler of this world” whose domination was apparently broken with the crucifixion of Jesus (12:31; 14:30; 16:11).22 John 17:15 refers to Satan as ὁ πονηρός, “the Evil One,” and according to 1 John 5:19, “the whole world lies in the power of the Evil One” (cf. 1 John 2:13, 14; 3:12; 5:18).23 This evil counterpart to God is also called “Satan,” who is able to “enter into” Judas (13:27), and also called the “Devil,” who was earlier able to sow the idea of betraying Jesus “into the heart” of Judas (13:2), who for this reason is called a “devil” by Jesus much earlier in the narrative (6:70). Perhaps the most significant use of the term “Devil” is Jesus’ claim that his opponents are “of your father the Devil” (8:44). Since the various aliases “ruler of this world,” “Satan,” and “Devil” are designations for a personal being, there is no compelling reason to follow Charlesworth’s conclusion that “the devil in John is not fundamentally a hypostatic creature,” or that he has been demythologized.24 Rather, John’s program of realized eschatology has moved the defeat of Satan from the end of the present age to the event of the exaltation of Jesus. It is therefore correct to say that the modified dualism of the Fourth Gospel is also an eschatological dualism in the sense that the primary opponent of God is ultimately defeated (12:31; 16:11). One of the more striking dualities of the Fourth Gospel is the fundamental contrast between light and darkness, which is first introduced through a midrashic interpretation of the brief narrative of God’s creation of light and its separation from darkness in Gen 1:2–5 in John 1:5: “The light shines in darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” This refers to the light of revelation which is brought to a world of darkness by Jesus. The followers of Jesus do not walk in darkness, but in the light (8:12; 12:46; 1 John 4:7), while those who refuse to accept Jesus belong to the realm of darkness (3:19–21; 12:35). The expressions “to walk in the light” (1 John 1:7) and “to walk in darkness” (12:35) are complex metaphors which refer on the one hand to belief in Jesus and a life characterized by obedience to the will of God, and on the other hand, to the rejection of belief in Jesus and a life characterized by unbelief and immoral behavior. Light and darkness are also used as metaphors for the realms of good and evil, reflected, for example, in John 8:12: 22 The title ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου is also used as designation for Satan or Belial elsewhere in early Jewish and early Christian literature (T. Sol. 2:9; 3:5–6; 6:1; Ascen. Isa. 1:3; 2:4; 10:29). In Barn. 18:2, Satan is called “the ruler of the present time of iniquity.” Ignatius uses several aliases for the evil one, including “Satan” (Eph. 13:1) and “Devil” (Eph. 10:3; Trall. 8:1; Rom. 5:3; Smyrn. 9:1), but he clearly prefers the title ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου, “the prince of this age” (Eph. 17:1; 19:1; Magn. 1:2; Trall. 4:2; Rom. 7:1; Philad. 6:2), which may reflect the same tradition found in the Fourth Gospel, since the Hebrew word ‫( עולם‬Aramaic ‫ )עלם‬can be translated either “world” or “age.” See D. E. Aune, “ARCHON,” Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible; ed. K. van der Toorn, B. Becking and P. W. van der Horst (2nd ed.; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 82–85. 23 In Matt 13:19, “the evil one” is a designation for Satan (in the Synoptic parallels, Mark 4:15 has “Satan,” while Luke 8:12 has “the devil”), who snatches away the seed of the word of the kingdom sown in the heart of one who does not understand it. 24 Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison,” 93.

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I am the light of the world. He who follows after me, will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

There are similar parallels in texts associated with early Christian Gnosticism, such as Gospel of Thomas logion 24: There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, he is darkness.

We must now ask how humanity is affected by the modified dualistic theology of the Fourth Gospel,25 and to answer this question we must consider recent discussions of the self-understanding and self-definition of the Johannine community. The Fourth Evangelist maintains that the human world lies in darkness (1:5; 3:19; 12:46), though the author does not explain how this situation came about, nor does he disclose how Satan became the “ruler of this world” (12:31; 14:30; 16:11) or (in the words of another Johannine writer), how it is that “the whole world is in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). Those who believe in the light (i.e., believe in Jesus) are called “sons of light” (though only in 12:36),26 a self-designation used by members of the Qumran community of themselves (1QS 1.9; 2.16; 3.13, 14, 25; 1QM 1.1, 3, 9, 11, 13). The Paraclete, or Spirit of Truth, is said to be both “with” and “in” the disciples (14:16–17). “The world” hated Jesus and it will also hate the followers of Jesus (15:18–19). The contrast between this ethical dualism of light and darkness has a parallel in the dualistic language of conversion,27 found in both early Christian and early Jewish texts, language which explicitly or implicitly alludes to the cosmological language of Gen 1:2–5. In Christian contexts this motif was probably used in baptismal homilies. One example is Acts 26:18, where the heavenly Jesus commissions Saul to go to the Gentiles, “to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” Here “from darkness to light” is parallel to “from the power of Satan to God.” Since 25 This question is dealt with directly in Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison,” 91–92. The recent monograph by C. Urban, despite its promising title, sheds little light on this question: Das Menschenbild nach dem Johannesevangelium: Grundlagen johanneischer Anthropologie (WUNT II 137; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001). Urban invokes passages from 1QS 3.13–4.26 only for the light they shed on early Jewish “satanology” (pp. 383–7). 26 Luke 16:8 juxtaposes “the sons of this age” with “the sons of light,” thus using these two Semitic idioms to refer to a clear division of humanity into two opposing factions in the present time. Paul addresses the Thessalonian Christians as “sons of light and sons of the day,” and goes on to say that “we [the sons of light] are not of the night nor of darkness” (1 Thess 5:5), indicating the prevalence of this type of dualistic language among followers of Jesus by the first half of the first century. 27 H. Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 211; idem, TDNT 9.325, 332, 356.

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the last phrase reflects the basic form of moderate cosmic dualism frequently occurring in early Christian literature, the first phrase represents the impact which this cosmic dualism has at the level of the salvation of the individual, who is a microcosm of the cosmic struggle between God and Satan when he or she is converted. Very similar conversion language occurs in Col 1:12–13, where the cosmic force of evil is conquered by believers who are transferred to the sphere of light: Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The allusion to Gen 1:2–5 is explicit in 2 Cor 4:6: For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Similarly, 1 Clem. 59:2 speaks of God’s beloved child Jesus Christ, “through whom he called us from darkness to light, from ignorance to the full knowledge of the glory of his name.” Here “darkness to light” symbolizes the move from “ignorance to full knowledge.” In Eph 5:8 we read: “For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light,” and according to 1 Pet 2:9, the Christians addressed in this letter are God’s own people “that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” An early Jewish text which uses the same dualistic conversion metaphor is Joseph and Aseneth 8:9, where we find the opening lines of prayer said on the occasion of Aseneth’s conversion to Judaism: Lord God of my father Israel, the Most High, the Powerful One of Jacob, who gave life to all (things) and called them from the darkness to the light, and from error to truth, and from death to life; you, Lord, bless this virgin …

Again, in T. Gad 5:7 (trans. Hollander and de Jonge), we find the darkness = ignorance and the light = knowledge equations:28 For godly and true repentance destroys ignorance and drives away darkness, and it enlightens the eyes and gives knowledge to the soul, and it leads the disposition to salvation.

A different use of the dualistic language of light and darkness occurs in 1 Enoch 41:8, though here also the allusion to the cosmological language of Gen 1:2–5 is still explicit: For the shining sun makes many revolutions, for a blessing and for a curse, and the path of the journey of the moon (is) for the righteous light, for the sinner darkness, in the name of the Lord who has created (a division) between light and darkness, and has divided the spirits of men, and has established the spirits of the righteous in the name of his righteousness. 28 See

also Joseph and Aseneth 15.12; Philo De Abr. 70.

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The duality of darkness-light is also used metaphorically to describe the present existence of Christians in the world, often in the context of paraenesis. Such eschatological oriented paraenetical material is found in Rom 13:12–14: 12The night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Here “night” and “day” are metaphors for this age, to be succeeded shortly by the age to come.29 The “works of darkness” represent sinful behavior, while “the armor of light” refers to the divine resources available to Christians to withstand evil. A similar use of the darkness-light duality in the context of eschatological paraenesis is found in 1 Thess 5:4–5, 8: But you are not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness … 8But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 4

In T. Levi 19:1, in a parenetic context lacking any eschatological features, the darkness-light duality is correlated with a cosmological dualism (trans. Hollander and de Jonge): “Choose, therefore, for yourselves either darkness or light, either the law of the Lord or the works of Beliar.”

Dualism in Qumran Literature One of the most intensively investigated passages in Qumran literature is the so-called “Treatise on the Two Spirits” in 1QS 3.13–4.26, where there is a relatively full delineation of the origin and function of the two spirits.30 In addition to 1QS, twelve other copies of the Rule have been identified.31 Frag. 3 of 4QSa = 4Q255 has terms which refer to the doctrine of the two spirits in 1QS 3.13–4.26, but the wording of this text has no direct parallel in 1QS 3.13–4.26 and very likely represents a divergent tradition of that section.32 4QSd and 4QSe, apparently representing an earlier form of the Rule, do not have 1QS 1–4. The twelve fragments of 4QSb = 4Q256 preserve parallel texts to all the main parts 29  C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (ICC; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1979), 2.682. 30 For a survey of the interpretation of 1QS 3.13–4.26, see A. E. Sekki, The Meaning of Ruach at Qumran (SBLDS 110; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 7–69. 31 4QSa = 4Q255, 4QSb = 4Q256, 4QSc = 4Q257, 4QSd = 4Q258, 4QSe = 4Q259, 4QSf = 4Q260, 4QSg = 4Q261, 4QSh = 4Q262, 4QSi = 4Q263, 4QSj = 4Q264, 5Q11, 5Q13. 32 The most complete discussion of all the fragments relating to 1QS is S. Metso, The Textual Development of the Qumran Community Rule (STDJ 21; Leiden: Brill, 1997).

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of 1QS except 3.13–4.26,33 and one piece of fragment 2 of 4QSC = 4Q257 has a parallel to 1QS 4.4–10.34 Philip Alexander has proposed that the Rule existed in three recensions,35 attesting to the crucial importance which this text had for the community during its history. Sarianna Metso, unaware of Alexander’s study (which probably appeared too late for her to consult), produced an analysis which differs in significant ways from that of Alexander. Metso identifies three recensions, A (4QSe = 4Q259), B (4QSb = 4Q256; 4QSd = 4Q258), which were combined to form C (1QS), which was expanded to form D (in 1QS 7–8).36 She concludes that “there never existed a single, legitimate and up-to-date version of the Community Rule. The community continued copying the older and shorter form of the text even when a more extensive version was already available.”37 This manuscript evidence suggests that 1QS 3.13–4.26 is a relatively independent textual unit which had an origin independent of its placement in 1QS. There are indeed, spaces (vacats) between 1QS 3.9 and 3.10 and between 4.26 and 5.1 (as well as between 4.2 and 4.3 and 4.15 and 4.16). The origins of 1QS 3.13–4.10 thus antedate the compilation of 1QS, which occurred at from 100 to 75 CE.38 The pneumatology and anthropology of 1QS 3.13–4.26 has often been used exclusively as the basis for interpreting references to the spirit in other Qumran texts, particularly the Hodayoth (1QH).39 The chief significance of Huppenbauer’s 1959 study of 1QS 3.13–4.26 is that he recognized that the type of dualism present in that text is not representative of the type of dualism found in the rest of the Qumran literature, with the exception of CD and 1QM.40 In a more detailed fashion, Otto Betz distinguished between two conflicting conceptions of ruach in Qumran literature, the Geisterlehre of 1QS 3.13–4.26 which is not found elsewhere in Qumran literature, and the Geistlehre which deals with the Spirit of God which pervades the sectarian documents.41 More recently, Lange has traced the influence of the two-spirits teaching in 1QS 3.13–4.26 in other Qumran texts, particularly 4Q181.42 Finally, Lichtenberger has argued convincingly that Textual Development, 22. Textual Development, 32. 35 P. S. Alexander, “The Redaction-History of Serekh ha-Yahad: A Proposal,” RevQ 17 (1996), 437–56. The three recensions proposed by Alexander are as follows: (1)  1QS and 4Q257, (2) 4Q259, (3) 4Q256 and 4Q258. 36 Metso, Textual Development, 147. 37 Metso, Textual Development, 154. 38 J. H. Charlesworth, et al., eds., Rule of the Community and Related Documents, Vol. 1 of The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 2. 39 Sekki, Meaning of Ruach at Qumran, 26–31. 40 Huppenbauer, Der Mensch zwischen zwei Welten, 103–14. 41 O. Betz, Offenbarung und Schriftforschung in der Qumransekte (WUNT 6; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1960), 140–46. 42 A. Lange, Weisheit und Prädestination: Weisheitliche Urordnung und Prädestination in den Textfunden von Qumran (STDJ 18; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 121–70. 33 Metso, 34 Metso,

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1QS 3.13–4.26 is a theodicy, that is, a systematic attempt to deal with problems arising from a belief in a good God in the face of the recognition of the existence of evil in the world.43 According to the categories of Bianchi, the dualism reflected in 1QS 3.13–4.26 is both moderate and eschatological, for it is clearly stated that the God of knowledge created everything (3.15), even the spirits of light and darkness (3.25). The microcosmic and macrocosmic dimensions of this dualism are clearly stated in 1QS 3.17–22 (trans. García Martínez): He created man to rule the world and placed within him two spirits so that he would walk with them until the moment of his visitation: they are the spirits of truth and of deceit. In the hand of the Prince of Lights is dominion over all the sons of justice; they walk on paths of light. And in the hand of the Angel of Darkness is total dominion over the sons of deceit; they walk on paths of darkness.

Thus from a macrocosmic perspective, the two opposed forces created by God are angelic beings, called the Prince of the Lights and the Angel of Darkness, while from a microcosmic perspective, they correspond to the spirit of truth and the spirit of error which constitute spiritual forces or dispositions within each person. The doctrine of the two spirits in conflict within each individual is the focus of 1QS 4.15–26. The beginning of the section is marked with a vacat, which suggests the beginning of a new section. Here the microcosmic or psychological conflict within individuals is clearly stated in 1QS 4.23–24: “Until now the spirits of truth and of injustice feud in the heart of man and they walk in wisdom or in folly.” This anthropological conception of internal conflict has a parallel in 4Q186, an astrological text in which we find this statement: “His spirit has six [parts] in the house of light and three in the pit of darkness” (1 ii 7–8). The tension between the two psychological forces and the two cosmological angelic figures in 1QS 3.13–4.26 has been resolved in two ways. For some scholars, the two angels, i.e., the Prince of Lights and the Angel of Darkness, are personifications of the two spirits which have only anthropological significance,44 while for others the two spirits in people are microcosmic manifestations of a supernatural macrocosmic conflict.45 The dualistic theology of the Damascus Document and the Manual of Discipline both have a microcosmic dualism, or ethical-psychological dualism, 43 H. Lichtenberger, Studien zum Menschenbild in Texten der Qumrangemeinde (SUNT 15; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980). 44 P. Wernberg-Møller, “A Reconsideration of the Two Spirits in the Rule of the Community (1QSerek III, 3-IV, 26),” RevQ 11 (1961), 413–41. On p. 423, n. 30, he claims that the two angels of 1QS 3.20 are not cosmic beings but personifications of the two opposing dispositions in each person. 45 H. May, “Cosmological Reference in the Qumran Doctrine of the Two Spirits and in Old Testament Imagery,” JBL 82 (1963), 1–14.

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but only 1QS exhibits a macrocosmic dualism involving good and evil. 1QS 3.13–4.26 contains a long section on the divisions of humanity and the spirits by which they walk. The balanced dualism of the 1QS, in which the Prince of Light opposes the Prince of Darkness, is expressed only once in CD 5.18, where it is said that Moses and Aaron arose with the help of the Prince of Light, while Belial raised up Jannes and his brother. The authenticity of this passage is challenged by several scholars.46 1QS 3.13–4.26 is also connected to the Two Ways tradition which is also preserved in a common source found in different versions in Barn. 18–20 and Did. 1–6.47 The beginning of the Two Ways tradition in Barn. 18:1–2 has a close similarity to 1QS 3.13–4.26: There are two ways of teaching and power, one of light and one of darkness. And there is a great difference between the two ways. For over the one are set light-bringing angels of God, but over the other angels of Satan. And the one is the Lord from eternity and the other is the ruler of the present time of iniquity.

The same dualism is evident in T. Judah 20:1–5 (trans. Hollander and de Jonge): Recognize, therefore, my children, that two spirits devote themselves to man, the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit, 2and in the midst is the spirit of understanding of the mind (to which it belongs) to turn wheresoever it wishes. 3And the works of truth and the works of deceit are written upon the breast of man, and the Lord knows each of them; 4 and there is no time at which the works of men can be hidden, because on his own breast they have been written down before the Lord. 5And the spirit of truth testifies all things and accuses all; and the sinner is burnt up from out of his own heart and cannot raise his face to the judge. 1

There is a basic phenomenological similarity between the dualistic schema in these passages and that found in Gal 5:16–17: But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the evil desires of the flesh. For the flesh has evil desires contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit contrary to the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would.

Finally, the historical experience of persecution, rejection and social dislocation apparently experienced by both the Qumran sectarians (i.e., separation from the Jerusalem priesthood) and the Johannine community (i.e., expulsion from the synagogue) needs to be drawn into the picture since it provides a striking sociological correlation with the dualistic ideology clearly expressed in 1QS and 1QM, 46 J.-L. Duhaime, “L’Instruction sur les deux esprits et les interpolations dualistes à Qumrân (1QS III,3-IV,26),” RB 84 (1977), 584–87; idem, “Dualistic Reworking in the Scrolls from Qumran,” CBQ 49 (1987), 32–56; J. Murphy-O’Connor, “An Essene Missionary Document? CD II,14-VI,1,” RB 77 (1970), 224. 47 One of the major differences between the two versions is that the two ways in Barnabas are called “Light” and “Darkness,” while in the Didache they are labeled “Life” and “Death.” See K. Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), Barnabasbrief, Zweiter Klemensbrief, Schrift an Diognet (München: Kösel, 1984), 20–22.

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and therefore a plausible social Sitz im Leben for a dualistic theology. One of the suggested points of departure for reconstructing the history of the Johannine community is the experience of expulsion from the synagogue, reflected in John 9:22; 12:42 and 16:2, correlated with the Birkath ha-Minim (Benediction against the Heretics), perhaps accompanied by lynchings.48 There is a current general consensus among Johannine scholars that the Fourth Gospel includes earlier sources, though understandably there are differences on the extent of the sources used and the number of redactions to which they have been subject.49 There are, however, several scholars who have attempted a detailed reconstruction of a signs source which was revised or amplified in one (Fortna; Nicol) or two (von Wahlde) subsequent literary stages.50 For several scholars the underlying narrative source was extensive enough that it is probably more appropriate to designate it as a Grundschrift.51 One striking common feature of these analyses is the absence of the two theological features upon which we have focused in this paper, dualistic language52 and the Spirit-Paraclete, in the reconstructed earlier source or first edition of the Fourth Gospel.53 Recognizing the fact that dualistic language occurs only within certain parts of the Johannine discourse material, Jürgen Becker proposes a scheme of the graduate growth of Johannine dualism in four phases: (1) a pre-dualistic phase in contact with other Hellenistic Jewish Christian traditions, (2) contact with dualism similar to that found at Qumran with a predestinarian ethical emphasis, (3) a modification of this dualism in terms of above and below, structurally similar to Gnostic dualism, and (4) a post-Gospel phase in which the Evangelist’s influence continues in the community.54

48 J. L. Martyn, “Glimpses into the History of the Johannine Community,” The Gospel of John in Christian History: Essays for Interpreters (New York: Paulist, 1978), 92, 103–4. 49 The diversity is emphasized by D. A. Carson, “Current Source Criticism of the Fourth Gospel: Some Methodological Questions,” JBL 97 (1978), 419. 50 J. Becker, “Wunder Christologie: zum literarkritischen und christologischen Problem der Wunder im Johannesevangelium,” NTS 16 (1969–70), 130–48; R. Τ. Fortna, The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source underlying the Fourth Gospel (SNTSMS 11; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1970); idem, “Source and Redaction in the Fourth Gospel’s Portrayal of Jesus’ Signs,” JBL 89 (1970), 156–65; idem, The Fourth Gospel; W. Nicol, The Semeia in the Fourth Gospel: Tradition and Redaction (NovTSup 32; Leiden: Brill, 1972); H. M. Teeple, The Literary Origin of the Gospel of John (Evanston: Religion and Ethics Institute, 1974); U. C. von Wahlde, The Earliest Version of John’s Gospel (Wilmington: Glazier, 1989). 51 E. Haenchen, “Aus der Literatur zum Johannesevangelium 1929–1956,” TRu 23 (1955), 303. 52 Martyn, “Glimpses,” 101, 106; W. L. Meeks, “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism,” JBL 91 (1972), 44–72. 53 Fortna suggests that “a rudimentary form of some of the dualism” is already present in the Signs Gospel (The Fourth Gospel, 259–60). 54 J. Becker, “Beobachtungen zum Dualismus im Johannesevangelium,” ZNW 65 (1974), 71–87.

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The Spirit-Paraclete and the Spirit of Truth The origin and background of the figure of the Paraclete in Johannine literature remains a matter of debate.55 The term παράκλητος, which occurs five times in Johannine literature (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7; 1 John 2:1),56 does not occur elsewhere in early Christian or early Jewish literature. The term appears to have been coined by the Johannine community. In 1 John 2:1, Jesus Christ is said to function as a heavenly παράκλητος with the Father (the term is anarthrous), while the four occurrences of παράκλητος in the Fourth Gospel are all titular, designating a particular individual. The figure of the Paraclete has been traditionally identified with the Holy Spirit, an identification made explicit in John 14:26, in the phrase τὸ παράκλητος, τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, “the Paraclete, that is, the Holy Spirit.” Further, the terms “Paraclete” and “the Spirit of Truth” are used as synonyms in the Fourth Gospel (14:16; 15:26; 16:7, cf. 16:13).57 Methodologically, however, the functions of the Paraclete must be derived only from the five passages in the Fourth Gospel where the terms “Paraclete” and “Spirit of Truth” occur (John 14:15–17, 26; 15:26–27; 16:7–11, 13–14). The articular phrase τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας is used as a concept the author supposed was known to his audience; παράκλητος is therefore secondary to τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας.58 The phrase τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, however, is relatively rare in early Christian literature, for it occurs just four times in Johannine literature (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1 John 4:6), and once in Herm. Mand. 3.4. In 1 John 4:6, the spirit of truth is contrasted with the spirit of error, just as in T. Judah 20:1–5, the only possibly pre-Christian text outside of the Qumran literature which uses the title “Spirit of Truth.”59 The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs have often been thought to have some connection with the Essene community at Qumran (there are striking theological parallels in the areas of

55 See the extensive review in R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 3.138–54, esp. 144–50. 56 The first occurrence is anarthrous (John 14:6), as expected in an unknown designation, while the remaining occurrences are articular. 57 The first occurrence of παράκλητος is anarthrous in the phrase ἄλλον παράκλητον (John 14:16), implying both that Jesus is indirectly describing himself as the Paraclete (cf. 1 John 2:1), and indicating the author’s assumption that this designation was unknown to his audience. This is confirmed by his use of the explanatory phrase πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, a nominative of apposition (14:17). 58 G. Johnson, The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John (SNTSMS 12; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 84. 59 M. de Jonge, certainly the most influential modern interpreter of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, has argued that they are Christian compositions written by a single author ca. 190–225 CE, in The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Study of Their Text, Composition and Origin (Assen: van Gorcum, 1953), 121–25.

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ethics, dualism, demonology, angelology, and messiology).60 T. Judah 20.1–5 in particular bears a striking resemblance to the microcosmic dualism of 1QS 3.13–4.26 (trans. Hollander and de Jonge): 1Recognize, therefore, my children, that two spirits devote themselves to man, the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit [τὸ τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ τὸ τῆς πλάνης], 2and in the midst is the spirit of understanding of the mind (to which it belongs) to turn wheresoever it wishes. 3And the works of truth and the works of deceit are written upon the breast of man, and the Lord knows each of them; 4and there is no time at which the works of men can be hidden, because on his own breast they have been written down before the Lord. 5And the spirit of truth [τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας] testifies all things and accuses all; and the sinner is burnt up from out of his own heart and cannot raise his face to the judge.

Many scholars have maintained the view that the traditional concept of the Holy Spirit has been combined and reinterpreted by the concept of the “Paraclete” by the Fourth Evangelist.61 Frank Cross was one of the first to suggest that the figure of the Paraclete in Johannine literature was derived from the complex of ideas in Qumran involving the “Prince of Light” or the “Spirit of Truth,” who is a helper of the children of light, pointing to texts as 1QS 3.24, 1QM 13.10, and 17.6–8.62 According to 1QS 3.24 (trans. García Martínez): And all the spirits of their lot cause the sons of light to fall. However, the God of Israel and the angel of his truth assist all the sons of light.

A similar view is expressed in 1QM 17.6–8 (trans. Duhaime): He has sent an everlasting help to the lot whom he has [re] deemed through the might of majestic angel. (He will set) the authority of Michael in everlasting light. He will cause the covenant of Israel to shine in joy! Peace and blessing to the lot of God! He will exalt over the divine being the authority of Michael and the dominion of Israel over all flesh. Righteousness shall rejoice in the heights and all his Sons of Truth shall be glad in everlasting knowledge.

In a major contribution toward the solution of this problem, though one which admittedly has failed to convince most scholars, Otto Betz examined the major options for the origin of the Greek term ὁ παράκλητος by focusing on the literature of “heretical late Judaism,” i.e., the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Coptic Gnostic Nag Hammadi literature.63 Betz criticizes Mowinckel and Johansson, both of whom proposed that the Johannine Paraclete had its origin in the Jewish 60 These four areas are emphasized in B. Otzen, “Die neugefundenen hebräischen Sektenschriften und die Testamente der Zwölf Patriarchen,” ST 7 (1954), 125–57. For a review of research on this subject to 1975, see H. D. Slingerland, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Critical History of Research (SBLMS 21; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977), 44–90. 61 R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 566; idem, TDNT 1.24. 62 Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran, 210–16. 63 O. Betz, Der Paraklet: Fürsprecher im häretischen Spätjudentum, im Johannes-Evangelium und in neu gefundenen gnostischen Schriften (Leiden: Brill, 1963).

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notion of an angelic intercessor,64 while he himself argues that the Johannine Paraclete originated with the Qumran community. Betz maintains that the designation “the spirit of truth” in the Qumran literature is essentially equivalent to ὁ παράκλητος in the Johannine letters.65 It was the Fourth Evangelist, however, who combined several ideas which are attested individually in the Qumran documents:66 (1) The figure of Michael the archangel who is understood as the great helper and spokesman for Israel and prince in the kingdom of light in Qumran as well as in other early Jewish literature. (2) The “Spirit of Truth,” the enlightening and strengthening force in the hearts of the pious, attested in the Qumran literature and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. (3) The title παράκλητος, which had gained currency in Judaism outside the Qumran community. The genealogical reconstruction of the history of theological ideas is not as popular as it was when Betz wrote his dissertation. While his proposal is ingenious and puts as many of the pieces of the puzzle together as one could reasonably expect, there is still a lingering doubt over the validity and significance of the whole enterprise. Comparison and derivation are two quite different things, for comparison is the conceptual creation of the scholar who is making the comparisons, while derivation is the projection of that creation into the historical process.

Comparing Dualisms in John and Qumran In the three preceding sections, dualistic phenomena in the Johannine literature and the literature from Qumran were discussed in some detail, and the figure of the Spirit-Paraclete of the Johannine literature and the Spirit of Truth of Qumran were compared. An attempt was made in discussing Johannine dualism to situate the phenomenon in the context of other early Christian literature where similarities to the Johannine materials were evident. At this point it is appropriate to compare and contrast the results of this review. 1. As we have seen above, the ethical dualism of light and darkness, found in both the Johannine literature and some Qumran texts, has close parallels in the dualistic language of conversion found in both early Christianity and early Judaism, and may in fact derive from such usage. 2. The general doctrine of the two spirits in 1QS 3.13–4.26, which is a central feature of the dualism in that document, has no close equivalent in Johannine literature.67 3. The microcosmic anthropological or psychological function of the two spirits contending in the heart of each person according to 1QS 3–4, similarly Der Paraklet, 14–22. Der Paraklet, 3. 66 Betz, Der Paraklet, 158. 67 H. Conzelmann, TDNT, 9.349. 64 Betz, 65 Betz,

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has left little trace in the Fourth Gospel,68 which (unlike the Synoptic Gospels) never speaks of demonic possession (apart from the accusation that Jesus is demon possessed in John 7:20; 8:48, 49, 52; 10:20), nor does it cast Jesus in the role of an exorcist. 4. Passages in which the Spirit of Truth is mentioned have only a tenuous connection with the dualistic theology of the Fourth Gospel, though in John 16:7–11, the Paraclete is implicitly juxtaposed to “the ruler of this world,” while in John 14:16–17, the Paraclete, or Spirit of Truth, is set over against “the world.” Further, while the “Spirit of Truth” is mentioned in the Fourth Gospel, the “Spirit of Perversity” is absent. However, when Charlesworth claims that in the Fourth Gospel “there are not two warring Spirits,” but only a dualism of two worlds, he is incorrect.69 These are surely completely different cosmic conceptions. 5. On the positive side, we read in 1 John 4:4, “Little children, you are of God and have overcome them; for he who is in you in greater than he who is in the world.” This antithesis between “he who is in you” and “he who is in the world” is understood in terms of conflict. This is very close to the to the dualistic schema in 1QS 3.17–20 (trans. García Martínez):70 He [God] created man to rule the world and placed within him two spirits so that he would walk with them until the moment of his visitation: they are the spirits of truth and of deceit. In the hand of the Prince of Lights is dominion over all the sons of justice; they walk on paths of light. And in the hand of the Angel of Darkness is total dominion over the sons of deceit; they walk on paths of darkness.

6. It has been argued that at Qumran “the Angel of darkness is not the prince of the world; the world is divided ‘equally’ between the two spirits, the Prince of light and the Angel of Darkness.”71 Against this view, however, 1QS 1.18 refers to the present time as ‫בממשׁלת בליעל‬, “during the reign of Belial,” and 1QS 2.19 uses the phrase ‫כול יומי ממשׁלת בליעל‬, “all the days of the reign of Belial.” The phrase ‫ בממשׁלת בליעל‬is part of the distinctive religious vocabulary of the Qumran Community which also occurs in 1QS 1.23–24; 1QM 14.9; 18.1; 4Q177a 1 8; 4QM1 = 4Q491 8–10 i 6–7; 4Q390 2 i 4.72 The fact that this conception is found explicitly expressed several times in five different sectarian documents suggests that it can be considered representative of their apocalyptic perspective.

68 Charlesworth,

“Critical Comparison,” 95. “Critical Comparison,” 98. 70 R. E. Brown, The Epistles of John (AB 30; Garden City: Doubleday, 1982), 305. 71 S. Pétrement, A Separate God: The Christian Origins of Gnosticism, trans. C. Harrison (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990), 176. 72 D. Dimant, “New Light on the Jewish Pseudepigrapha  – 4Q390,” The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid 18–21 March 1991, ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner (STDJ 11/2; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 2.427. 69 Charlesworth,

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7. If “Johannine dualism” is not found in pre-Christian Judaism, it is found in pre-Johannine Christianity, that is, in the Pauline letters, as we have argued above.73 8. Charlesworth argues that “John shares with 1QS a type of dualism which is unique.”74 Though the arguments which follow emphasize the differences between the dualism in John and the dualism in 1QS more than the similarities (i.e., they differ with respect to angelology, eschatology, view of predestination and their solution to the problem of evil),75 he nevertheless concludes that John was literarily dependent on the Community Rule.76 Charlesworth focuses on four sets of terms which are shared by John and 1QS:77 (1) “the Spirit of Truth” (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1QS 3.18–19; 4.21, 23), (2) “the holy Spirit” (John 14:26; 20:22; 1QS 4.21 [“the spirit of holiness”]; (3) “sons of light” (John 12:36; 1QS 3.13, 24, 25); (4) “eternal life” (John 3:15, 16 et passim; 1QS 4.7). Of these shared conceptions, the first is obviously important, and the third is interesting. Nevertheless the case Charlesworth makes for mutual dependence is astonishingly weak. Responding to this evaluation of Charlesworth, Pétrement observes: “It seems to me that this means that if John’s dualism owes something to that of Qumran, it is only in a very minor way and that nothing very clear can be said on the subject.” 78

Concluding Reflections Scholars who have examined the phenomenological similarities between the Fourth Gospel and the literature of Qumran have often puzzled over the possible historical links between the two. Few have been able to leave the similarities at the phenomenological level and resist speculating about the historical or genetic links between the similarities.79 One solution has been to argue that there was direct literary dependence between those who produced the Fourth Gospel and the Community Rule (the view of Charlesworth),80 while another has been to suppose that the author of the Fourth Gospel began as an Essene, but had a A Separated God, 176. “Critical Comparison,” 97. 75 Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison,” 99. 76 Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison,” 101. 77 Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison,” 101–2. 78 Pétrement, A Separated God, 176. 79 The perilous task of comparison has been discussed at some length by J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1990). See also the more recent discussion of L. H. Martin, “Comparison,” Guide to the Study of Religion, ed. W. Braun and R. T. McCutcheon (London and New York: Cassell, 2000), 45–56. 80 Charlesworth, John and Qumran, 104: “John probably borrowed some of his dualistic terminology and mythology from 1QS 3:13–4:26.” 73 Pétrement,

74 Charlesworth,

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relatively late career change (the view of John Ashton).81 Neither position can withstand critical scrutiny. Most scholars have remained content with the possibility of an “indirect” dependence (e.g., Raymond E. Brown and Rudolf Schnackenburg). The notion of “indirect” dependence, however, is a foggy conception which implies only that a diversity of experiences, beliefs, and communities in similar historical and cultural circumstances exhibit similarities of language and thought. The viability of explaining such similarities in genetic terms continues to prove elusive.

81 Ashton,

Fourth Gospel, 205, 237.

9. Christian Beginnings and Cognitive Dissonance Theory* Introduction Cognitive dissonance theory is one of many social science theories that have been used as heuristic tools for understanding human values and behaviors in the ancient world. Since the 1970s, biblical scholars have used a wide variety of models from the social sciences to illuminate early Christianity.1 Few have contributed more to this important expansion of the historical critical enterprise than my colleague and friend Jerry H. Neyrey, S. J. to whom this essay is respectfully dedicated. In this essay, after sketching the main theoretical and experimental characteristics of and developments in cognitive dissonance from 1956 through 2000, I will provide an overview of the ways in which cognitive dissonance theory has been both used and abused by biblical scholars. Finally, I will propose ways in which cognitive dissonance theory can function as a criterion of historicity for sorting out the cluster of historical, legendary and mythical events associated with the presentations of Christian beginnings in the New Testament.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory Cognitive dissonance theory, one of many cognitive consistency theories formulated in the two decades following World War II,2 was proposed by Leon Festinger.3 Theories of cognitive consistency formulated during this period were typically based on the conception of humans as beings who were primarily ra-

* Original publication: “Christian Beginnings and Cognitive Dissonance Theory,” In Other Words: Essays on the Social Science Methods and the New Testament in Honor of Jerome H. Neyrey, ed. A. C. Hagedorn, Z. A. Crook, and E. Stewart (SWBA, Second Series 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007). Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Pic. 1 J. H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism? (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993). 2 N. E. Shaw and P. R. Constanzo, Theories of Social Psychology (New York: McGraw Hill, 1970), 188–218. 3 A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957).

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tional in their choices, behaviors and theories.4 This new emphasis on rationality was affirmed in the beginnings of game theory in the 1940s,5 and reaffirmed in the influential theory of organizational behavior proposed by March and Simon in 1958.6 All cognitive consistency theories are based on the assumption (borrowed from logic) that the preferred state of an individual’s cognitive universe is that of consistency or non-contradiction between cognitions (though by the 1960s it was recognized that the state of a person’s cognitions were too complex to be categorized as exclusively “logical”). The basic paradigm of cognitive consistency theories is that inconsistency motivates people to alter their cognitive system in the direction of consistency.7 During the last two decades, despite the fact that cognitive consistency theories are still considered viable, they have excited little interest as indicated by the comparatively rare use of such theories in journal literature. Unlike other cognitive consistency theories, aspects of dissonance theory were widely used in experimental psychology from the 1960s through the early 1980s. Cooper and Croyle cite over 1,000 articles on theoretical and experimental work on cognitive dissonance theory from its beginnings in 1957 through 1984.8 Dissonance theory was refined by Wicklund and Brehm in 1976, further reformulated by Cooper and Fazio in 1984 and then redefined and modified by Beauvois and Joule in 1996.9 Dissonance theory, as originally formulated by Festinger, attempts to understand the conditions under which discrepancies between cognitions produce “cognitive dissonance,” an experience of tension that motivates an individual to reduce or eliminate such discrepancies. Since the existence of dissonant relations among cognitions is thought to produce psychological discomfort, according to the theory, the person experiencing dissonance is motivated to reduce the dissonance in order to achieve greater consonant relations among cognitions. “When dissonance is present,” Festinger theorizes, “in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance.”10 Further, the degree  4 J.-L. Beauvois and R.-V. Joule, Radical Dissonance Theory (London: Taylor & Francis, 1996), vii–ix.  5 J. von Neumann and O. Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944).  6 J. G. March and H. A. Simon, Organizations (2nd ed.; New York: Wiley, 1958; Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993).  7 J. E. Singer, “Motivation for Consistency,” Cognitive Consistency: Motivational Antecedents and Behavioral Consequences, ed. S. Feldman (New York: Academic Press, 1966), 47–48.  8 J. Cooper and R. T. Croyle, “Attitudes and Attitude Change,” Annual Review of Psychology 35 (1984), 395–426.  9 R. A. Wicklund and J. W. Brehm, Perspectives on Cognitive Dissonance (New York: Wiley, 1976); J. Cooper and R. H. Fazio, “A New Look at Dissonance Theory,” Advances in Experimental and Social Psychology (ed. L. Berkowitz; New York: Academic Press, 1984); Beauvois and Joule, Radical Dissonance Theory. 10 Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 2–3.

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of force or motivation generated to reduce dissonance was thought to be proportional to the magnitude of the dissonance experienced. The aspect of Festinger’s dissonance theory that has produced some of the more interesting theoretical work is forced compliance.11 Dissonance can be introduced in experimental situations by forced compliance: i.e., when a person is forced to do or say something contrary to his or her private opinion. Under certain conditions “the private opinion changes so as to bring it into closer correspondence with the overt behavior the person was forced to perform.”12 The counter-intuitive result is that the greater the pressure used to elicit the overt behavior that contradicts private opinion (beyond the minimum force needed to elicit it), the weaker will be the tendency for the person to change his or her opinion to bring it into correspondence with what he or she has been forced to do or say. Dissonance reduction may be achieved in several ways. When a discrepancy is perceived between an environmental cognition (i.e., an aspect of physical or social reality) and a behavioral cognition, the dissonance may be reduced by changing the behavior to accord with the environmental cognition. The smoker who learns that smoking is a health risk may experience a degree of dissonance between a behavioral cognitive element (his smoking habit) and an environmental cognitive element (the authoritative opinion that smoking is hazardous to health). Dissonance reduction may be achieved by either changing the behavioral element (give up smoking), or by attempting to change or manipulate the environmental cognition, that is, a smoker might challenge the validity of the Surgeon General’s opinion, or seek new information which would render the opinion either false or ambiguous, or she might surround herself with fellow smokers thereby reducing the experience of dissonance through the acquisition of social support. Dissonance may also be reduced by making the decision to continue smoking and to accept the consequences. This latter strategy suggests that rationalization rather than logical reasoning is involved a factor that would distance cognitive dissonance theory from cognitive consistency theories. The role of social support is a very important feature of dissonance theory.13 Generally, the greater the number of persons who share a cognition or set of cognitions dissonant with the cognition of an individual in their social environment, the greater the magnitude of dissonance experienced by that individual,14 though very little experimental testing or empirical verification of this aspect of dissonance theory has taken place. When several people share a common experience of dissonance due to the fact that a cognition which they share is Festinger and J. Carlsmith, “Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 58 (1959), 203–10. 12 Ibid., 203. 13 D. C. Matz and W. Wood, “Cognitive Dissonance in Groups: The Consequences of Disagreement,” Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 88 (2005), 22–38. 14 Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 177–259. 11 L.

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contradicted by perceived physical or social realities, the most immediate reaction is to seek mutual support and reinforcement among those experiencing the common dissonance. If the shared cognition is sufficiently strong that it would be difficult to discard, they may attempt to change the cognitive elements which correspond to the new discrepant information (i.e., they may deny its reality), or they may attempt to acquire additional cognitions which are consonant with the threatened belief or belief system.15 This view has been subject to qualification by Snow and Machalek.16 New cognitions consonant with the threatened belief tend to become widely accepted by persons sharing the same dissonance. Some of these new cognitions may be characterized as “rumor,”17 that is, unverified information that flourishes in ambiguous situations.18 Phenomena closely related to rumor are “legend” and “meme” (the latter refers to any piece of information transferable from one mind to another, and sometimes to contagious ideas). A further mode of dissonance reduction may occur when a number of persons in close association hold a belief or set of beliefs in common that is very important to them and thus highly resistant to change. Should an event occur which produces cognitions clearly contradictory to this belief system, thereby rendering it empirically invalid, a high degree of dissonance is created in those who share the same belief. The particular conditions of this disconfirmation are clearly defined by Festinger: By the term “invalid” I do not mean here a belief which is possibly wrong, but rather one which has been and continues to be, directly and unequivocally disconfirmed by good evidence such as actual events which impinge on the persons who hold the belief.19

This may result in a counter-intuitive behavioral phenomenon, namely “that after being exposed to evidence of one’s own senses which unequivocally demonstrates a belief system to be wrong, people proceed to proselyte more vigorously for the belief system.”20 While the phenomenon of vigorous attempts to proselytize following the empirical contradiction of a primary belief cognition may have other theoretical explanations, one of the strengths of dissonance theory is that it provides an explanation for phenomena which are counter-intuitive and leave the realm of common sense explanation, unlike other cognitive consistency theories.21 15 Ibid.,

197. Snow and R. Machalek, “On the Presumed Fragility of Unconventional Beliefs,” Journal for the Social Scientific Study of Religion 21 (1982), 15–26. 17 Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 197–98. 18 T. Shibutani, Improvised News: A Sociology of Rumor (Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1966), 23; R. Rosnow and G. A. Fine, Rumor and Gossip: The Social Psychology of Rumor and Gossip (New York: Elsevier, 1976). 19 A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 243. 20 Ibid., 247. 21 J. W. Brehm and A. R. Cohen, Explorations in Cognitive Dissonance (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1962), 9. 16 D. A.

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The type of social group discussed in the preceding paragraph is that which is frequently referred to in anthropological literature as a millennial or messianic movement, or more specifically, a movement that experiences the failure of prophecy. Together with several colleagues, Festinger studied a group that he called the “Lake City Group,” now widely regarded as a classical study of the role of social support in cognitive dissonance theory.22 Festinger, Riecken and Schachter enumerate several characteristics of such groups which must apply if the non-intuitive result of mass proselytism is to occur: (1) a belief or set of beliefs is held with conviction by a number of people; (2) the belief has sufficient implication for the affairs of daily life that believers take a particular course of action or adopt a mode of behavior in accordance with the belief; (3) the action is sufficiently important and sufficiently difficult to undo, so that believers are in a very real sense committed to the belief; (4) at least part of the belief is sufficiently specific and concerned with the real world so that unequivocal disproof or disconfirmation is possible; (5) possible disconfirmation occurs, usually in the form of the non-occurrence of a predicted event within the time limits set for its occurrence; and (6) the dissonance thus introduced between the belief and the information concerning the non-occurrence of the predicted event exists in the cognitions of all believers, and hence social support in attempting to reduce the dissonance is easily obtained.23

Testing the “Failed Prophecy” Aspect of Cognitive Dissonance Theory A critique of Festinger’s theory was published in 1962 by Hardyck and Braden.24 In their investigation of a group, which they call the “Church of True Word,” the authors determined that all the characteristics articulated by Festinger characterized this group.25 However, following the empirical disconfirmation of the event expected by the group (a nuclear disaster), members of the group failed to engage in mass proselytism as dissonance theory predicts. Yet despite this failure of replication, the authors did not reject the basic soundness of dissonance theory: However, since dissonance theory has received considerable support in laboratory situations, it seems unlikely that it is completely wrong. Thus, we have assumed that the 22 L. Festinger, H. W. Riecken and S. Schachter, When Prophecy Fails (Minneapolis: University

of Minnesota Press, 1956). 23 Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 247–48. 24 J. A. Hardyck and M. Braden, “Prophecy Fails Again: A Report of a Failure to Replicate,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 65 (1962), 136–41. 25 Hardyck and Braden, “Prophecy Fails Again,” 141. The “Church of True Word” is a pseudonym for a Pentecostal-type sect, consisting of about 135 persons, who migrated from the Middle West to the West in response to prophecies made by members of the group who had predicted an imminent nuclear disaster. After constructing homes and fallout shelters, they responded to a final prophecy uttered by the female leader of the group by secreting themselves in fallout shelters for a period of 42 days.

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specification of the conditions that must obtain in the disconfirmation situation [i.e., those enumerated by Festinger], in order that the predicted proselyting might occur, was insufficient.26

They therefore add two further conditions to Festinger’s list of six:27 (1) A certain minimum amount of support is needed so that the individual believer may maintain his beliefs against the disconfirmation. The more social support that exists above the minimum needed to maintain belief the less need the individual will have to proselyte. If few agree with the believer who has experienced disconfirmation of her belief, she might try to seek support by convincing others that she is right, but if many agree, the need to proselyte is diminished. (2) The degree of ridicule and opposition the group receives from those outside must be of a magnitude that would motivate them to convince these unbelievers that they are right. In 1982, Snow and Machalek28 challenged the assumption that unconventional religious beliefs are highly vulnerable to everyday experience and are therefore inherently fragile. They questioned the assumption that elaborate plausibility structures are required to maintain tenuous beliefs and protect their adherents from cognitive dissonance. Their study maintains that certain belief systems feature validation logics that help insure their persistence and that evidence discrepant with belief does not necessarily create cognitive dissonance. More recently, Beauvois and Jouel have formulated their own conception of dissonance theory, arguing that dissonance theory is neither a theory of rationality nor a fortiori a theory of cognitive consistency: It is not a theory of rationality, since the dissonance reduction process it describes, while clearly cognitive in nature, is also post-behavioural and consequently incapable of preparing rational action … It is not a theory of consistency, since the function of this post-behavioural dissonance reduction process is not to eliminate cognitive inconsistencies … but to rationalize behaviour.29

Yet Beauvois and Jouel agree with the fundamental assumption of Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory, namely that the state of dissonance is a drive state.30 Jouel31 and Jouel and Azdia32 have published articles detailing experimentation with double forced compliance (that is, an experiment in which two counter attitudinal behaviors are used to test dissonance reduction, rather than just one 26 Ibid.,

141. 139–141. 28 Snow and Machalek, “On the Presumed Fragility of Unconventional Beliefs.” 29 Beauvois and Joule, Radical Dissonance Theory, xii. 30 Ibid., 98. 31 R.-V. Jouel, “Double Forced Compliance: A New Paradigm in Cognitive Dissonance Theory,” Journal of Social Psychology 131 (1991), 839–45. 32 R.-V. Jouel and T. Azdia, “Cognitive Dissonance, Double Forced Compliance and Commitment,” European Journal of Social Psychology 33 (2003), 565–72. 27 Ibid.,

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as in the classic forced compliance paradigm), an issue they paired with a theory of the rationalization of behavior by Beauvois and Jouel.33 In a theoretical overview of persistence of belief in the face of failed prophecy, Zygmunt34 emphasized the important role that rationalization (as opposed to proselytization) played in the adaptation of millennial groups to the failure of prophecy. He proposes three aspects of the rationalistic adaptation to failed prophecy: adaptation (e.g., acknowledging an error in dating), reaffirmation (shifting the blame to some force inside or outside the group that interferes with the cosmic plan), and reappraisal (believers may claim that the event actually occurred, but in the spiritual and not the material plane and so was not observable by believers). In the most recent theoretical overview of the issue, Dawson35 argues that Festinger was right to predict that many groups will survive the failure of prophecy, but maintains that the reasons are more complex than those suggested by Festinger, Riecken and Schachter.36 Indeed it appears that active proselytization is a relatively uncommon occurrence in studies of failed prophecy.37 Dawson maintains that the denial of failure, that is, successful rationalization, is the most important factor facilitating the maintenance of threatened beliefs and group survival, though proselytism frequently plays a role.38 He lists four types of rationalization: spiritualization, a test of faith, human error and blaming others.

Failed prophecy in the Lubavitcher Chabad Finally, the recent phenomenon of failed prophecy in the Lubavitcher Chabad, a widespread messianic movement of ultraorthodox Hasidic Jews has striking relevance for the problem of Christian beginnings. A special feature of the Lubavitcher group of Hasidim is the notion of the zaddik (“righteous one”) or rebbe (“great one”), a perfectly righteous man who is the spiritual leader of the group. Another characteristic of the group is their emphasis on proselytizing, that is, they make concerted attempts to bring non-orthodox Jews back to orthodoxy. Wherever Lubavitcher communities are found (major centers include New York, London, Antwerp, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv), Lubavitchers have tight-knit communities that are isolated from the outside world for the purpose of remaining true to the Torah. For Lubavitchers, waiting for the messiah is a religious obligation like obeying other commandments of Torah. There is a Dissonance Theory, 73–122. Zygmunt, “When Prophecies Fail: A Theoretical Perspective on the Comparative Evidence,” American Behavioral Scientist 16 (1972), 245–68. 35 L. L. Dawson, “When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists: A Theoretical Overview,” Nova Religio 3 (1999), 60–82. 36 When Prophecy Fails. 37  J. R. Stone, Expecting Armageddon: Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy (New York: Routledge, 2000). 38 Dawson, “When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists,” 64–65. 33 Radical

34 J. F.

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potential messiah in each generation, and the messiah can be revealed by God at any time and that revelation will be part of the redemption. Further, to maintain that a zaddik is a potential messiah is normative Lubavitcher belief, though only God knows whether he is the actual messiah or not.39 Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), became the seventh (and last) rebbe (spiritual leader) of the Lubavitcher Chabad in 1951. On April 11, 1991, Rebbe Schneerson published the following statement: What more can I do to motivate the entire Jewish people to actually bring about the coming of Moshiach? All that I can possibly do is to give the matter over to you now, immediately. I have done whatever I can: from now on you must do whatever you can.40

Later that month the Rebbe stated: “Moshiach’s coming is no longer a dream of a distant future, but an imminent reality which will very shortly become manifest.”41 Anecdotes about the Rebbe’s ability to perform miracles and to prophecy circulated widely among Lubavitchers. While the Rebbe was alive, a yellow banner with a red sunrise was hung on the apartments facing the Western Wall in the old city of Jerusalem with the Hebrew inscription: ‫היכונו לביאת המשיח‬ (“Prepare for the Coming of the Messiah”), expressing the harbored hope that the Rebbe would shortly be revealed as the Messiah. In March of 1992, the Rebbe had a stroke that left him speechless and partially paralyzed. Nevertheless there was great excitement throughout the Lubavitcher community and many held that Menachem Schneerson was the messiah, though some were reluctant to admit it publicly. Another stroke followed in March of 1994 and the Rebbe was in a coma until his death on June 12, 1994. The official Lubavitch position on the illness was that it signified the imminent arrival of the messianic period of redemption.42 In response to the Rebbe’s death, some expected that he could yet arise and inaugurate the period of redemption and that without the hindrance of the physical body his spiritual presence could be even greater, while others thought that they had been wrong. Soon the dominant view among Lubavitchers was that the Rebbe would rise from the dead and the redemption would arrive, and, five years after his death, many continued to believe that he was the messiah.43 After his death, advertisements were placed in various Hebrew periodicals with Schneerson’s picture under the phrase ‫“( יחי המלך‬the King lives!”). Similarly in Schneerson’s synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway in New York City, banners carried this message: “Long live the Rebbe, King Moshiach. Forever and ever.”

Dein, “What Really Happens When Prophecy Fails: The Case of Lubavitch,” Sociology of Religion 62 (2001), 383–401, here 389–90. 40 Ibid., 391. 41 Ibid., 391. 42 Ibid., 395. 43 Ibid., 397–98. 39 S.

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Shaffir44 lists the major ways in which the Lubavitchers use rationalizations to deal with the dissonance that they experience when the Rebbe died: (1) The hand of Divine Providence must be seen in all that occurs and God’s intentions are difficult to grasp. (2) Disappointment about hopes for redemption had occurred precisely because the present generation had failed to deserve the Divine Redemption. (3) Renewed motivation to study sections of the Torah that discuss the Redemption and the coming of Moshiach and to do more acts of goodness and kindness. (4) The Rebbe’s presence must dominate all aspects of their lives. (5) Sources investigated suggested that the Jewish messiah would in fact die – the Rebbe’s death was not a proof that he was only a false messiah. Even after his death, his followers declared “The Rebbe remains the Rebbe,” and claimed that the Rebbe now has a spiritual body and still guides and protects them.45 In the Jewish Chronicle for 6790, 11 June, Paul wrote in an article entitled “Still Waiting for the Messiah”: From evidence of the incredible building works for Lubavitch, synagogues, study centres, seminaries and social services across the globe, it is business even better than usual. And that is an impression underpinned by the fact that, in the five years since the Rebbe’s death, hundreds of new emissaries [shlichim] have been dispatched to bolster colleagues already serving in communities as far apart as Alaska and Nepal.46

An article in the Washington Post by Liz Leyden on June 20, 1999, reported a division in the New York Chabad-Lubavitch over the issue of the Rebbe’s messiahship. On one side are Lubavitcher officials who maintain that the promotion of Judaism throughout the world is the heart of continuing Schneerson’s work. On the other are the messianists, who emphasize preparing the world for the coming of Schneerson himself as messiah.

Christian Beginnings in the Light of Dissonance Theory and Rumor Theory The focus of this essay is to use the theory of cognitive dissonance, supplemented by rumor theory, as a criterion of historicity to reconstruct the sequence of events associated with the beginnings of Christianity. Because of the non-intuitive connections that this theory establishes between different strategies for dissonance reduction, it has the potential for serving as a criterion of historicity in the sense that improbable sequences of events may be eliminated from the reconstruction as later common sense rationalizations or dramatizations or psychologizing, 44 W. Shaffir, “When Prophecy is Not Validated: Explaining the Unexpected in Messianic Campaign,” The Jewish Journal of Sociology 37 (1995), 119–36, here 126–32. 45 Ibid., 133. 46 Dein, “What Really Happens When Prophecy Fails,” 399.

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introduced by authors who were themselves neither witnesses nor participants in the historical events depicted in their narrative re-creations. The thesis of this study is that (1) the belief system of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth was so closely tied to his person and significance that his unanticipated arrest and summary execution served as unequivocal empirical proof of the failure of their expectations; (2) this experience of a high magnitude of shared belief among the followers of Jesus made it natural for them to gain social support for their threatened beliefs within the group, a support which was bolstered by the widely circulated, but unsubstantiated, rumor of the empty tomb, understood as evidence for the heavenly assumption of Jesus; (3) the resultant belief that Jesus was in fact alive was the basis for accepting the validity of appearances of Jesus from heaven; (4) the conviction that Jesus was alive motivated his followers to seek further dissonance reduction through an aggressive and vigorous attempt at proselytism; and (5) the resurrection appearances, therefore, did not provide the basis for belief that Jesus was alive, but rather form a presupposition for that belief. Festinger, Riechen and Schachter, in discussing several examples of “unfulfilled prophecies and disappointed messiahs,” suggested that early Christianity was an example of a millennial or messianic movement where there is a controversial point that makes the application of cognitive dissonance theory uncertain.47 The followers of Jesus were convinced and committed and provided support for one another as they went out to proselytize after the crucifixion of Jesus. There are two related problems: Was there something in the belief system amenable to clear and unequivocal disconfirmation and did such disconfirmation actually occur? In 1975, when biblical scholars were just beginning to capitalize on the exegetical potential of social science criticism, John Gager of Princeton University applied cognitive dissonance theory to the phenomenon of early Christian evangelization, which he related causally to two critical events: the death of Jesus and the expectation of the arrival of the kingdom of God.48 Following the five conditions that Festinger, Riechen and Schachter proposed must be present before disconfirmation of a belief system can result in increased proselytism,49 Gager argued that in the context of the intense commitment of the disciples to Jesus, his death would have produced cognitive dissonance for them since it would disconfirm their belief that he was the messiah. Further, the delay in the appearance of the kingdom of God, which the followers of Jesus expected imminently, produced an initial disappointment that would have resulted in the production of consolatory sayings (such as in Mark 9:1). The subsequent disappointment among those who expected the end within the first generation Prophecy Fails, 23–25. Gager, Kingdom and Community: The Social World of Early Christianity (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1975), 37–49. 49 When Prophecy Fails, 4. 47 When 48  J. G.

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produced further consolatory sayings (such as in Mark 13:10). Missionary activity, associated with the same disconfirmed beliefs, according to Gager, must be interpreted as a further attempt to reduce dissonance. Also in 1975, Wernick argued that a number of key beliefs that developed among early Christians reflected such dissonance-reducing strategies as denial, bolstering, differentiation and transcendence: (1) Jesus was the messiah predicted by the prophets; (2) Jesus’ birth and childhood were extraordinary (bolstering); (3) Jesus was endorsed as a savior by God by holy men like John the Baptist; (4) Jesus’ death was transitory and had a purpose (denial); and (5) Jesus himself was aware of his own impending death and even predicted it (transcendence).50

The Jesus Movement as a Millenarian Movement One useful model for understanding the socio-cultural movement centering on Jesus of Nazareth is that of the millenarian (or chiliastic) movement,51 defined by anthropologists and sociologists as a dissident collective movement, often sparked by a charismatic leader and strongly motivated by the imminent eschatological vision of the transformation of the social and / or the cosmic order by supernatural agency. A core conviction shared by all millenarian groups is that “a drastic transformation of the existing social order will occur in the proximate future through the intervention of some supernatural agency.”52 More narrowly conceived (and as maintained by such modern religious groups as the Seventh Day Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses), millenarianism is an apocalyptic belief found in Rev 20:1–10 in which a thousand year kingdom is established by Christ at the end of history, framed by the imprisonment of Satan (Rev 20:1–3), followed by the millennium, and concluded with the release of Satan, the final conquest of evil and divine judgment (Rev 20:7–10). There are several important features of the millenarian model that characterize the Jesus movement. First, Jesus understood his mission and message within the framework of eschatological or apocalyptic myth, in which the end of the world is a sequence of events entailing God’s defeat of Satan and demons in order to transform the present world from a flawed state to one of salvation.53 The eschatological significance of Jesus’ proclamation was introduced to New Testament scholarship by Johannes Weiss,54 followed by Albert Schweitzer,55 50 U. Wernick, “Frustrated Beliefs and Early Christianity: A Psychological Enquiry in the Gospels of the New Testament,” Numen 22 (1975), 96–117. Based on R. P. Abelson, “Modes of Resolution of Belief Dilemmas,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 3 (1959), 343–52. 51 Gager, Kingdom and Community, 20–37. 52 Zygmunt, “When Prophecies Fail,” 245. 53 G. Theissen, A Theory of Primitive Religion (London: SCM Press, 1999), 23. 54 Die Predigt Jesu vom Reich Gottes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1892). 55 Von Reimarus zu Wrede: eine Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1906).

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who expanded Weiss’ thesis by arguing that the entire career of Jesus was shaped by his eschatological expectation. Since Weiss and Schweitzer, the eschatological understanding of Jesus has remained the dominant paradigm in Western scholarship for understanding the historical Jesus,56 while a minority opinion is held by a number of American scholars, primarily those associated with the Jesus Seminar, who maintain that the historical Jesus was a wisdom teacher for whom the phrase “kingdom of God” had a sapiential rather than apocalyptic meaning. In their view, early Christians quickly transformed this sapiential Jesus into an apocalyptic prophet.57 A second essential feature of this model understands Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God in political as well as religious and economic terms, since it is not possible to separate these aspects of culture in first century Palestine as facilely as we do in the modern West.58 It is an exaggeration to speak of “the” millenarian model, since the Christian millenarian typology drawn from Rev 20:1–10 has been applied to a wide variety of dissident religious movements that do not expect a thousand-year apocalyptic kingdom. Nevertheless, the central features of the millenarian model, outlined above, continue to be useful for identifying and comparing religious movements that have been motivated by the ideal of a perfect age or a perfect land.59 Cohn has defined “millenarian” in a way useful for understanding the Jesus movement: I propose to regard as “millenarian” any religious movement inspired by the phantasm of salvation which is to be (a) collective, in the sense that it is to be enjoyed by the faithful as a group; (b) terrestrial, in the sense that it is to be realized on this earth and not in some otherworldly heaven; (c) imminent, in the sense that it is to come both soon and suddenly; (d) total, in the sense that it is utterly to transform life on earth, so that the new dispensation will be no mere improvement on the present but perfection itself; and (e) accomplished by agencies which are consciously regarded as supernatural.60

Sociologist B. R. Wilson has compared a wide variety of new religious movements that share “a pattern of sustained social action stimulated by new supernaturalist

56  J. P. Meier, Mentor, Message, and Miracles, vol. 2 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 237–397; D. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998); B. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 57  J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 265–302; M. Borg, Jesus: A New Vision (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), 47–68. 58 Borg, Jesus: A New Vision, 97–126; B. J. Malina, The Social Gospel of Jesus: The Kingdom of God in Mediterranean Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001); R. A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003). 59  S. L. Thrupp, Millennial Dreams in Action: Studies in Revolutionary Religious Movements (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), 11–15. 60 N. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (revised and expanded edition; New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 31.

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interpretations of contemporary processes of social change,”61 focusing on a typology of seven supernaturalist responses to the problems people face in asking how they might be saved:62 (1) The conversionist response to the world thinks that the world is corrupt because people are corrupt; if peoples’ hearts can be changed, the world can be changed. (2) The revolutionist response to the world thinks that people can be saved only if the existing social order is destroyed and replaced. (3) The introversionist response to the world regards the world as irredeemably evil and salvation can only be achieved by withdrawing from it. (4) The manipulationist response to the world regards salvation as possible only if people learn the right means and improved techniques of dealing with their problems. (5) The thaumaturgical response to the world involves a particularist view of salvation in which evils are regarded as specific and individualistic and can be relieved by healing through magic, miracles and oracles. (6) The reformist response to the world recognizes evil but deals with it in accordance with supernatural insight into how social organization can be transformed. (7) The utopian response to the world thinks that the world can be reconstructed by following divinely-given principles and that a new form of social organization can be created in which evil will be eliminated. Not everyone is convinced of the validity of the millenarian model. In recent years, R. A. Horsley has expressed objections to the millenarian movement model as well as to the assumption that apocalypticism is an appropriate way to explain popular Jewish movements in the first century CE.63 Prophetic and messianic movements in first century Palestine, he argues, were distinctive and of three types: some were led by self-proclaimed “kings,” others by “prophets,” and finally, the Zealots attempted to restore a popular hierocracy in 68 CE.64 Porter, while admitting that early Christianity had apocalyptic or eschatological features (he does not discuss Jesus), considers it problematic to characterize it as a millennial movement since millenarianism is such a loose concept.65 Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus that, apart from the issue of whether Jesus was an apocalyptist or not, his movement was one of revitalization or reform.66 For reasons outlined above, and others that will be more fully articulated below, it is nevertheless appropriate to regard the group surrounding Jesus prior to his death as a “prophetic-messianic movement.” The inclusion of the adjective “prophetic” together with “messianic” is appropriate since both indicate the pos61  B. R. Wilson, Magic and the Millennium: A Sociological Study of Religious Movements of Protest among Tribal and Third-World Peoples (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 1. 62 Ibid., 18–26. 63 R. A. Horsley, Sociology and the Jesus Movement (New York, Crossroad, 1989), 90–99. 64 Ibid., 93–95. 65 S. E. Porter, “Was Early Christianity a Millenarian Movement?” Faith in the Millennium, ed. S. E. Porter, M. A. Hayes and D. Tombs (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 234–59. 66 Borg, Jesus: A New Vision, 125–49; H. Chadwick, The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 5.

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sibility of inaugurating a socio-religious program by means of divine intervention through the instrumentality of specially selected individuals and / or groups. The desultory recurrence of prophetic and messianic figures and movements (or the expectation of the same) throughout the history of Israel and post-exilic Judaism indicates that this mode of collective response to socio-cultural strains was endemic to the socio-religious structures of Judaism. Both Luke and Josephus have recorded three examples of prophetic-messianic movements in Judaism that occurred from 6 to 66 CE, all of which had both religious and political dimensions:67 (1) Acts 5:36 and Josephus Ant. 20.97–98 both report the revolt of Theudas (ca. 44–46 CE). Attempting to lead a band of 400 across a miraculously dried-up Jordan in an apparent attempt to replicate the feat of Joshua, he was slain and his followers were scattered by a Roman force. (2) Acts 5:37 and Josephus Ant. 18.4–10; 20.102; B. J. 2.117–18, report the revolt of Judas the Galilean (ca. 6 CE), who claimed divine assistance and therefore cannot be regarded as the leader of an exclusively politically motivated uprising; Morton Smith has, incidentally, refuted the view that Judas founded the Zealots.68 (3) Finally, Acts 21:38 and Josephus B. J. 2.254–57 also refer to an unnamed Egyptian, regarded as a prophet, who led a force of 30,000 men (Acts has the more reasonable figure of 4,000) from the desert to the Mount of Olives where they expected to see the walls of Jerusalem fall. The procurator Felix (52–59 CE) subdued the rebellion, though the leader escaped. R. Meyer has succinctly summarized the significance of these groups and particularly their leaders in the following way: … the orientation of the Messianic prophet is to the immediate future. He and his followers expect a miracle of accreditation whereby the legitimacy of the prophet will be demonstrated and the age of salvation will open. These men and their groups are also convinced that events already enacted in the salvation history of Israel must be enacted afresh at the end of the present aeon.69

Early Palestinian Christianity regarded Jesus as a messianic figure very shortly after his death, whether or not Jesus actually regarded himself as such during his lifetime,70 suggesting that the model of the prophetic-messianic movement was congruent with the way in which Jesus’ significance was conceptualized by his followers, many of whom had undoubtedly accompanied him in Galilee before his final and fatal trip to Jerusalem. Gospel tradition is interested in demon-

67 R.

Horsley, “Popular Prophetic Movements at the Time of Jesus: Their Principal Features and Social Origins,” JSNT 26 (1984), 3–27. 68 M. Smith, “Zealots and Sicarii, Their Origins and Relation,” HTR 64 (1971), 1–19. 69 TDNT 6.826. 70 R. Bultmann, The Theology of the New Testament, trans. K. Grobel (2 vols.; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951–55), 1.42–43.

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strating that Jesus was put to death because of his messianic claims,71 yet, on the other hand, it seems equally clear that this process of redactional explicitation of the implicitly Christological significance of Jesus’ deeds and teaching is squarely based on authentic Jesus tradition.72 The titulus on the cross is a strong historical argument indicating that Jesus was regarded by the Roman authorities and perhaps by the Jewish authorities as well, as a political revolutionary or messianic pretender.73 There are, then, compelling reasons for regarding the collectivity that formed around Jesus as a millenarian messianic movement. The arrest and execution of Jesus, as of numerous other charismatic leaders of such idealistic movements in Palestine, indicates that the political authorities assumed that the elimination of the leader and the scattering of his followers would lead to the dissolution of the movement itself. Several historical factors may be seen as contributing to those events, which culminated in Jesus’ execution as a messianic pretender. Jerusalem was ordinarily of great religious significance for many prophetic-messianic movements,74 as well as for the major rebellions of 66–70 and 132–35 CE (the so-called First and Second Jewish Revolts). The authorities must necessarily have been edgy during major religious festivals, particularly Passover, when the normal population of Jerusalem (25,000 to 30,000 persons) was augmented by the arrival of tens of thousands of pilgrims from other areas of Palestine as well as from neighboring provinces.75 The fact that Jesus and his followers were Galileans – a region of intense anti-Roman feeling and apocalyptic fanaticism – makes it probable that they would be regarded with more suspicion than would those who were natives of other regions. The fate which befell Jesus, therefore, was not incommensurate with the kind of extreme measures of social control exercised by officials of the Roman government to forestall even the hint of an uprising.

71 R. Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, trans. J. Marsh (New York and Evanston: Harper &: Row, 1963), 269–71. 72  R. H. Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1965), 102–41. 73 E. Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums (3 vols.; Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1923–25), 1.187; N. A. Dahl, “Der gekreuzigte Messias,” Der historische Jesus und der kerygmatische Christus, ed. H. Ristow and K. Matthiae (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1961), 149–69; H. Anderson, Jesus and Christian Origins (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 119; F. Hahn, The Titles of Jesus in Christology, trans. H. Knight and G. Ogg (New York and Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1969), 160–61; E. Dinkler, “Peter’s Confession and the ‘Satan’ Saying: The Problem of Jesus’ Messiahship,” The Future of Our Religious Past, ed. J. M. Robinson, trans. C. E. Carlston and R. P. Scharlemann (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971), 194–96; J. Jeremias, Neutestamentliche Theologie. I. Die Verkündigung Jesu (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1971), 219, 243. 74 Josephus Ant. 17.213–218; 20.105–122. J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, trans. F. H. and C. H. Cave (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 70, 73, 75, 277. 75 Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, 77–84.

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Jesus in the Disciples’ Belief System In order to use the theory of cognitive dissonance to link the death of Jesus (theoretically functioning as a decisive empirical disconfirmation of the belief system of his followers) to the gatherings of the disciples in Jerusalem and the circulation of the rumor of the empty tomb (immediate social support for a group sharing a similar degree of cognitive ambiguity) and to the vigorous and aggressive attempt to win new converts (the quest for wider social support by attempting to persuade new people and ultimately themselves that the belief system to which they are committed remains valid), one must begin by trying to understand the significance that the death of Jesus might have had for his followers. In what way could Jesus’ death be construed as an empirical disconfirmation of an integral structural feature of a belief system to which the disciples had irrevocably committed themselves? In studies relating to the relationship between Jesus and his disciples, New Testament scholars not infrequently contrast this relationship with the normal teacher-student relationship in Judaism.76 However, such comparative studies are invalid in view of the profound structural differences between “value-oriented” movements (e.g. prophetic-messianic movements), “norm-oriented” movements (e.g. the Qumran community) and the normal need which society has for training specialists.77 It will be sufficient for our present purpose to call attention to the kinds of demands and the nature of the commitment apparently demanded by Jesus of those who followed him. As one might expect in the case of a charismatic leader of a prophetic-messianic movement, Jesus’ disciples were intensely committed to him as a person. He demanded and received a degree of commitment, which involved the abandonment of normal family relationships (Mark 10:28–31; Luke 9:57–62, 14:26), of occupations (Mark 1:16–20; 2:14; Luke 14:28–33), and of possessions, including lands (Mark 10:17–22; Luke 14:28–33). This commitment was made even at the possible cost of life itself (Mark 8:34–38; Luke 14:26b). Though these radical demands jostle with others of a less radical nature in the Synoptic tradition, their very radicality has been used as an argument for their historicity.78 In view of the nature and extent of the behavioral commitment to Jesus made by his disciples, the question of the significance which he and his teaching had for their belief system naturally arises. Recent research on the teaching of Jesus has come to the following conclusions: Jesus proclaimed the proleptic presence of the future kingdom of God, a presence which evidenced itself in Jesus’ words 76 Rengstorf, TDNT 4.444–55; F. Hahn “Pre-Easter Discipleship,”The Beginnings of the Church

in the New Testament, trans. I. and U. Nicol (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1970), 19–39. 77 These typologies for forms of collective behavior are taken from N. J. Smelser, Theory of Collective Behavior (New York: The Free Press; London: Collier-Macmillan Ltd, 1962). 78 G. Theissen, Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978).

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(pronouncements of the forgiveness of sins, criticisms of the Law of Moses) and deeds (healings, exorcisms, association with social outcasts and disregard for Old Testament ordinances). As an authoritative eschatological messenger of God, Jesus taught that the kind of response which his hearers made to both himself and his message in the present time would ultimately determine their destiny in the future kingdom of God (Luke 12:8–9 = Matt 10:32–33; Mark 8:38).79 The person of Jesus is clearly of central significance for the belief system he shared with his close followers. Predictions that Jesus made of his own death, however, do not easily pass the tests of authenticity. It seems rather clear, for example, that the well-known series of passion predictions in Mark (8:31, 9:31, l0:33–34) are prophecies ex eventu, placed on the lips of Jesus in one of the post-Easter stages of the development of Jesuanic logia. Thus the person of Jesus was of such paramount importance in the belief system of the disciples that his death would have produced (and certainly did produce) a cognitive crisis of the highest magnitude. In the words of Rudolf Bultmann: The decision which Jesus’ disciples had once made to affirm and accept his sending by “following” him, had to be made anew and radically in consequence of his crucifixion. The cross, so to say, raised the question of decision once more. Little as it could throw into question the content of his message, all the more it could and did render questionable his legitimation, his claim to be God’s messenger bringing the last, decisive word.80

To this point in our discussion, we have seen that the collectivity that surrounded Jesus, many members of which accompanied him to Jerusalem for Passover, fills all of the conditions or characteristics of the kind of millennial or messianic movement discussed by Festinger. Since the belief system of the disciples had undoubtedly been dealt a staggering blow by the unanticipated execution of Jesus, that is, they suffered in common an experience of cognitive dissonance of extremely high magnitude, one would expect their first reaction to have been to seek immediate social support and mutual reinforcement from one another in order to reduce the magnitude of dissonance which they had experienced.

The Mutual Social Reinforcement of Jesus’ Disciples Since the empirical invalidation of the disciples’ belief system must have been as difficult to disregard as the belief system itself was to discard, cognitive dissonance theorists would expect members of the group to achieve dissonance reduction through the giving and receiving of mutual support. In examining the source material for our knowledge of Christian beginnings, however, we find a mass of conflicting data, which has enabled modern historians to advance equally 79 N. Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1967), 155–99. 80 The Theology of the New Testament, 1.44–45.

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conflicted theoretical reconstructions of those events. These theories must briefly be sorted out to facilitate the separation of the wheat from the chaff. For the sake of convenience, the two major competing hypotheses regarding those events which transpired after the execution of ’ Jesus may be called the Galilean theory and the Jerusalem theory. The Galilean theory holds that the disciples, upon the arrest of Jesus, fled immediately back to Galilee where they were regrouped by Peter, who had become convinced that Jesus was alive through the personal experience of the living Jesus.81 Eventually the disciples, together with their families, returned to Jerusalem, which served as a center for their activities until the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The Jerusalem theory, on the other hand, holds that the flight of the disciples to Galilee is a “legend of the critics,” and contends that the disciples remained in Jerusalem, the site of most if not all of the resurrection appearances of the risen Jesus.82 Since in any case the disciples wound up in Jerusalem, the Holy City became the center of the earliest Christian community, which considerably augmented its numbers through the proclamation of the gospel, first to Jews and then eventually to Gentiles as well. The flight of the disciples to Galilee, an integral feature of all versions of the Galilean theory, is a hypothesis based primarily on Mark l4:50 (“And they all forsook him and fled”), and John 16:32 (“The hour is coming when you will be scattered, every man to his own home, and will leave me alone”).83 However, in none of the references to the flight of the disciples is there any indication that Galilee might have been the goal of their flight. In fact, the evangelists could not have understood this tradition as a flight to Galilee since all of them either implicitly presuppose or explicitly state that the disciples were gathered in or near Jerusalem when they learned of the empty tomb. The gospel tradition presupposes that the “flight of the disciples” was to an undesignated hiding place in or near Jerusalem (cf. John 20:19; Gos. Pet. 26). Some scholars have interpreted the cryptic references to this flight as a flight to Galilee for two major reasons: (1) the first appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter is commonly located in Galilee, and it is necessary to find an appropriate reason why the disciples might have returned there so quickly from Jerusalem; and (2) the narratives of the discovery of the

Wernle, The Beginnings of Christianity, trans. G. A. Bienemann (2 vols.; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons; London: Williams & Norgate, 1904–14), 1.114; Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums, 1.13; Bultmann, The Theology of the New Testament, 1.145; G. H. Grass, Ostergeschehen und Osterberichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956), 113–27; R. H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 314–15. 82 J. Weiss, Earliest Christianity, trans. F. C. Grant (2 vols.; New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1959), 1.114–15; W. Marxsen, Mark the Evangelist, trans. J. Boyce, et al. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1969), 75–92; H. Conzelmann, History of Primitive Christianity, trans. J. E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1973), 39–40; H. Conzelmann, RGG 1.698–700. 83 Cf. Mark 14:27 = Matt 26:31 (incorporating a prophecy from Zech 13:7: “You will all fall away, for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered’”). 81 P.

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empty tomb are widely regarded as later legendary additions to the passion-resurrection narrative. Both of these reasons need closer examination. New Testament scholars are generally agreed that Peter was remembered as the first to experience an appearance of the risen Jesus. First Corinthians 15:5 and Luke 24:34 both contain quasi-creedal traditions referring to this event, which is only included in a gospel narrative in John 21. Neither 1 Corinthians 15:5 nor Luke 24:34 include a geographical reference, a feature also true of each of the resurrection appearances mentioned by Paul in the quasi-creedal list preserved in 1 Corinthians 15:5–7. Traditions of the Galilean appearances of the risen Jesus are preserved by Mark (inferred from Mark 14:27 and 16:7), Matt 25:10, 16–20 (based on Mark); 28:16–20 and John 21 (these two latter passages are imaginary elaborations of a Galilean appearance). None of these passages share any essential features. Jerusalem appearances of the risen Jesus are preserved in Luke (to the exclusion of any Galilean appearances) and in legendary traditions of an appearance to Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James or Mary Magdalene alone near the empty tomb, elaborated differently in Matt 28:9–10 and John 20:11–18. It is impossible to correlate the list of six separate appearances mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5–7 with those narrated in the gospels. This leads to the suspicion that the geographical settings of the various appearance traditions found in the Gospels are secondary, necessitated by the topographical-chronological exigencies of narrative structure. The tradition of the Galilean appearances of the risen Jesus is ultimately based, apart from the problematical exception of John 2l, on Mark 14:27 and 16:7. Bultmann suggests that John 21:14, the conclusion of vv. 1–13, indicates that the redactor wished to combine the Markan-Matthaean tradition of the Galilean appearance of the risen Jesus with the Johannine presentation in John 20.84 Marxsen has argued that these references, with their emphasis on Galilee, are to be attributed to the redactional activity of the second evangelist.85 Furthermore, it has recently been argued that Mark did not, in fact, have Galilean resurrection appearances in mind when he introduced these editorial modifications into the narrative, but rather the imminent Parousia of the Son of Man in Galilee.86 However, regardless of how one interprets Mark 14:27 and 16:7, the reasons for Mark’s introduction of Galilee into the tradition must be accounted for. If the tradition of the Galilean appearances of the resurrected Jesus stands or falls with Mark 84 R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John, trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray, et al. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), 70 ff. 85 Mark the Evangelist, 75–99. 86 W. Michaelis, Die Erscheinungen des Auferstandenen (Basel: Heinrich Meyer, 1914), 61–62; R. H. Lightfoot, Locality and Doctrine in the Gospels (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938), 61, 65, 73–75; N. Q. Hamilton, “Resurrection Tradition and Composition in Mark,” JBL 84 (1965), 415–21, here 420–21; N. Perrin, “Towards an Interpretation of the Gospel of Mark” Christology and a Modern Pilgrimage: A Discussion with Norman Perrin, ed. H. D. Betz (Claremont.: The New Testament Colloquium, 1971), 1–78.

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l4:27 and 16:7, as Kirsopp Lake maintained,87 the historicity of the perception of appearances in that region, together with their existence within the pre-Markan layers of tradition, is open to serious doubt. Not only are we left with a Galilean tradition of the appearances (or the expected Parousia) of Jesus, which is no earlier than Mark, but we must also recognize the fact that neither the manufactured Galilean tradition nor the Jerusalem tradition knows of a flight of the disciples from Jerusalem to Galilee, or of an eventual return to Jerusalem from the north. There is no historical reason to suppose that the disciples ever returned to Galilee, nor is there need to interpret Mark 14:50 as referring to anything other than a flight of the disciples which got no further than the environs of Jerusalem. From the viewpoint of cognitive dissonance theory, it is doubtful whether nascent Christianity would have survived had a flight and dispersion of the disciples to their homes in Galilee actually occurred, since psycho-social modes of reinforcement would not have been available unless they fled together and stayed together (cf. John 21, where the disciples are together in their former haunts by the sea of Galilee). I have attempted to demonstrate the invalidity of the flight-to-Galilee hypothesis on the basis of historical and literary arguments exclusively. At this point, assuming the basic validity of the “Jerusalem theory,” it remains to discuss the way in which Jesus’ disciples, having suffered a common experience of psychological dissonance of high magnitude, may have engaged in mutual social reinforcement of their threatened belief system. The canonical Gospels, Acts and the cryptic kerygmatic tradition preserved in 1 Corinthians 15:3b–7 mention various gatherings of Jesus’ followers during the period immediately following Jesus’ crucifixion. While most of these gatherings are occasions for depicting appearances of the risen Jesus, those gatherings which demand closer scrutiny are the ones which reportedly occurred after the crucifixion but prior to the first reported resurrection appearances. Those gatherings which occurred after the disciples had become fully convinced that Jesus was alive would have had a radically different psycho-social function than those which occurred earlier. The tradition related to us by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3b–7 is of little use at this point since the appearances of Jesus to various groups are placed chronologically later than the appearance to Peter. Such gatherings cannot therefore have been unaffected by the rumor of Peter’s experience.88 One rather striking feature of the post-crucifixion, pre-appearance gatherings of Jesus’ disciples in the Gospels is the fact that they occur only within pericopes dealing with the discovery of the empty tomb (Mark l6:1–8; Matt. 28:1–8; Luke 87 K. Lake, “Note II: The Command Not to Leave Jerusalem and the ‘Galilean Tradition,” Additional Notes to the Commentary, vol. 5 of The Beginnings of Christianity I: The Acts of the Apostles, ed. F. J. Foakes Jackson and K. Lake (London: Macmillan, 1932), 7–17. 88 W. Marxsen, The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, trans. M. Kohl (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), 83–97.

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24:1–11, 22–24; John 20:1, 11–18; 20:2–10). Bultmann has classified these stories as “historical stories and legends” on the basis of content rather than form,89 so that the form critical classification of this story does not facilitate an analysis of the history of the tradition behind the extant literary accounts of these stories. Did the story of the empty tomb exist in pre‑ or extra-Markan tradition and can theological motivations be detected in the earliest versions of this tradition? The story of the empty tomb is found in two versions in the gospels, but was unknown to Paul90 and is not presupposed in Acts 2.91 The primary version is found in Mark 16:1–8 (and par. Matt 28:1–8; Luke 24:1–11; the closely related version found in John 20: l, 11–18 is independent of Mark), narrates the discovery of the empty tomb by women who do not report their discovery. Unlike Mark, in the version of the story narrated by Matthew and Luke, the women do report their discovery to a group of gathered disciples. The secondary version of the story, found in Luke 24:22–24 and John 20:2-l0 (probably based on a common tradition), adds to the primary version an attempt by some disciples to verify the report of the women. The secondary nature of this version is evident in several ways: (1) logically, it is more probable that the longer version of the story was an elaboration of the shorter version than vice-versa; (2) the longer version, with its verification motif, is clearly apologetic, that is , the empty tomb was really empty, and the fact that disciples checked the story out could only mean that they had nothing to do with the fact that the tomb was empty;92 and (3) both Luke and John had some difficulty in including both versions of the story in their narratives; Luke placed the secondary version within the Road to Emmaus pericope (Luke 24:22–24), while John rather artificially inserted the secondary version (20:2–10) within the primary version (20:1, 11–18). Assuming the chronological priority of the primary version of the story, it is necessary that we look more closely at its two major variants, Mark 16:1–8 and John 20:1, 11–18. Since the literary dependence of John on any of the Synoptic Gospels has yet to be proven, I would theorize that both evangelists are dependent on an empty tomb tradition which antedated the composition of their respective gospels. Though there are those who maintain that Mark created the story of the empty tomb,93 the existence of two independent attestations of that tradition suggests that it was pre-Markan and that the author was working with source material.94 History of the Synoptic Tradition, 284–87. Ostergeschehen und Osterberichte, 110–73. 91 Ibid., 29–36. 92 H. von Campenhausen, “The Events of Easter and the Empty Tomb,” in Tradition and Life in the Church, trans. A. V. Littledale (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968), 69–77. 93 Hamilton, “Resurrection Tradition and Composition in Mark.” 94 L. Schenke, Auferstehungsverkündigung und leeres Grab (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1968), 43–6; I. Broer, Die Urgemeinde und das Grab Jesu: Eine Analyse der Grablegungsgeschichte im Neuen Testament (SANT 31; München: Kösel, 1972). 89 The

90 Grass,

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It is clear that Mark connects the empty tomb with the resurrection of Jesus (Mark 16:6; cf. 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34), as well as with an anticipated but unnarrated appearance to the disciples in Galilee (Mark 14:28; 16:7). However, it is unlikely that the pre-Markan empty tomb tradition was tied to the notion of the resurrection of Jesus; the only link in the empty tomb story narrated in Mark 16:1–8 is the verb ἠγέρθη (“he was raised”), which could be a redactional addition by Mark.95 Originally, then, the empty tomb story to which Mark had access was very probably an assumption story,96 which Mark transformed into a resurrection story.97 In the ancient world, both east and west, the disappearance of people from tombs and temples was used as evidence for their heavenly assumption – where else could they have gone? A Jewish example of this disappearance-assumption motif is found in the Testament of Job 39–40, where the bodies of Job’s children disappear and they are said to have experienced heavenly glorification.98 A Greek example is found in the first-century CE novel by Chariton, Chaereas and Callirhoe 3.3: Chaereas arrives at Callirhoe’s tomb and, finding it empty, looks up and supposes that one of the gods has taken Callirhoe up to the heavens, though others begin to organize a search party.99 If the empty tomb story is based on historical tradition, it would have been natural for the disciples to have interpreted the post-mortem disappearance of the body of Jesus from the tomb as evidence for his heavenly assumption and thus his vindication by God.100 The Gospel of Peter (5:19) uses assumption language, viz. the verb ἀνελήμφθη (“he was taken up”) in connection with Jesus’ death on the cross,101 probably in reference to his inner self, since his body is later placed in a tomb. Furthermore, it is striking how many quasi-creeds move directly from the crucifixion to the exaltation of Jesus without mentioning the resurrection (Phil 2:5–11; 1 Tim 3:16; Eph 4:7–10; Rom 10:5–8). One mid-second century example of this is found in Justin Dial. 38.1: You may say many blasphemous things, thinking to persuade us that this man who was crucified has been with Moses and Aaron, and has spoken to them in a pillar of a cloud, that he then became man and was crucified, and has ascended into heaven, and comes again on earth, and is to be worshipped. Bickerman, “Das leere Grab,” ZNW 23 (1924), 281–92, here 290. Pesch, Das Markusevangelium (2 vols.; Freiburg im Breisgau, Basel und Wien: Herder, 1976), 2.522.  97 D. A. Smith, “Revisiting the Empty Tomb: The Post-Mortem Vindication of Jesus in Mark and Q,” NovT 45 (2003), 123–37, here 133.  98 Pesch, Das Markusevangelium, 2.525–26.  99 S. van Tilborg and P. C. Counet, Jesus’ Appearances and Disappearances in Luke 24 (Biblical Interpretation Series 45; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 194. 100 Bickerman, “Das leere Grab,” 286–87; Smith, “Revisiting the Empty Tomb,” 124; cf. A. Yarbro Collins, “The Empty Tomb and Resurrection according to Mark,” The Beginnings of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 119–48. 101 Smith, “Revisiting the Empty Tomb,” 129.  95 E.

 96 R.

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It is important to determine whether or not the Matthaean and Lukan variants of the primary version of the empty tomb story are entirely dependent on Mark or whether they have supplemented Mark with other traditions. It seems obvious that Matthew’s empty tomb story is entirely dependent on Mark. Matthew incorporated stories of the appearance of Jesus to the women (Matt 28:9–10), the guarding of the tomb (Matt 27:62–66), and the bribing of the guards (Matt 28:11–15) into his narrative and all bear the marks of apologetic and legendary redactional elaboration. The only fixed tradition which may have been available to him was a brief reference to a report by the women to a group of gathered disciples (Matt 28:8; in contrast, Mark 16:8 leaves the women in frightened silence at the tomb site). Even this view is doubtful, since Matthew implies rather than narrates the report of the women to the disciples (28:11), since in the Matthaean narrative the report to the disciples is never made. Unlike Matthew, Luke actually narrates the report of the women to the gathering of disciples, who respond to the news with disbelief (Luke 24:9–11), an obvious apologetic addition. There is nothing here which could not have been elaborated by Luke on the basis of Mark 16:1–8. However, since the redactional hand of Mark is clearly evident in Mark 16:7–8, the possibility is opened up that the variant of the story which includes a report to the gathered disciples (Luke 24:9; John 20:18) was a feature of the tradition available to Mark. This possibility becomes more probable in view of the inclusion of the secondary version of the empty tomb story in Luke and John. If Mark were regarded as the creator of the empty tomb tradition,102 one must then suppose that this story was lifted out of its Markan context by oral tradition, elaborated through the addition of the verification motif in which form the story was drawn upon independently by both Luke and John. The cumbersome nature of this hypothesis weighs against its probability. In conclusion, it seems probable that the tradition of the discovery of the empty tomb and the report of that discovery by one or more women to a group of gathered disciples antedates the composition of Mark (the primary version). Whether or not the more embellished secondary version containing the verification motif existed at that time cannot be established. Furthermore, when the redactional contributions of each of the evangelists are removed from the tradition, there is no evidence to suggest the presence of a theological tendency within the pre-Markan version of the story. Whether or not the tradition of the discovery of the empty tomb in combination with the tradition of the report of that discovery to a group of disciples gathered somewhere in the vicinity is historical depends completely on whether or not those data are capable of coherent inclusion in a reconstruction of the sequence of events associated with the beginnings of Christianity. It is important to note that nowhere in early Christian literature, apart 102 Hamilton,

“Resurrection Tradition and Composition in Mark,” 417.

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from the four canonical gospels, is the motif of the empty tomb used as proof of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus. Apart from the four gospels, all evidence of a dispute between Jews and Christians involving the apologetic use of empty tomb traditions by Christians has perished with the exception of the late Jewish document entitled Toledot Yeshu.103 The tradition of the post-crucifixion, pre-appearance gatherings of Jesus’ disciples becomes historically probable in view of the necessary psycho-social role which such gatherings must have played in the cognitive crisis they experienced. Some rather tentative suggestions regarding the possible nature and function of such gatherings may be put forward. First of all, it should be clear that the group of Jesus’ followers which gathered shortly after his death had experienced a high magnitude of psychological dissonance or cognitive discrepancy. Their belief system, in which Jesus played a central role, had been threatened by the empirical fact of his death. In such situations, according to cognitive dissonance theory, the immediate reaction of those suffering a common dissonance would be to seek social support and cognitive reinforcement from others within the collectivity in order to reduce the intensity of the dissonance experienced by group rationalization. Both the number of those present at gatherings during the early post-crucifixion period, as well as the initial mode of social reinforcement used are simply not known. The structure of these gatherings would probably have been determined by Jesus’ regular practice of table fellowship.104 Certainly the post-appearance gatherings narrated in Luke-Acts and the Fourth Gospel, some of which occur within the context of a communal meal (Luke 24:30–32, 42–43; John 21:9–14), appear to be continuations of the pre-crucifixion practice of daily table fellowship with Jesus.105 I have already suggested that one specific way in which dissonance reduction was achieved within the setting of mutual social support sought by Jesus’ followers was through the circulation of the rumor of the empty tomb. Before examining this thesis more closely, a brief discussion of the more relevant aspects of rumor theory is necessary.

Rumor Theory and the Empty Tomb Rumor can be defined as “a report about an event or object of importance to a group which is transmitted orally without verification over a fairly extensive Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teaching, trans. H. Danby (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), 47–54. 104 Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, 102–108; J. Roloff, Das Kerygma und der irdische Jesus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 237–69. 105 J. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, trans. N. Perrin (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966), 32. 103 J.

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portion of the interested collective body.”106 According to Prasad: “As soon as any individual begins to attempt any verification he has already, to that extent, severed himself from his social group. Thus rumour, both in its rise and in its communication, is properly treated as a social phenomenon.”107 Historians have exhibited considerable interest in the phenomenon of rumor, primarily in terms of the way in which it functions in distorting historical reality.108 Until recently, the dominant attitude toward rumor on the part of historians and psychologists in general has been to regard it as a pathological phenomenon. Here, the term “rumor” does not express or imply that the content of a particular rumor is consistent with reality or not. Rather, rumor should be viewed functionally as a phenomenon of collective behavior. In the words of Shibutani, one of the foremost scholars of rumor theory, rumors “are neither the product of faulty memory nor of efforts to defraud; most of them represent honest attempts to comprehend ambiguous situations.”109 Cognitive dissonance theory is primarily interested in rumor as a social phenomenon enabling members of a collectivity to reduce the magnitude of dissonance through the perception and transmission of new cognitions.110 While rumors are a feature of everyday life, widespread rumors tend to emerge in situations that are ambiguous and deal with objects of group preoccupation.111 The prime condition for rumor circulation, the so-called “basic law of rumor” formulated by Allport and Postman, is intensive concern about an event in combination with no clear knowledge of it.112 In the words of Schachter and Burdick, “Rumors will spread when there is (a) a state of cognitive unclarity about (b) an important issue which is (c) common to all or most members of a group.”113 Bysow has suggested a typology of rumor circulation that has been widely influential.114 Of the three types of rumor circulation which he suggests – impulsive, deliberative and recurrent  – the first is particularly relevant for our purposes. Impulsive rumor circulation involves the rapid circulation of rumor 106 T.

Shibutani, “The Circulation of Rumors as a Form of Collective Behavior” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1948), 128. 107 J. Prasad, “The Psychology of Rumour: A Study Relating to the Great Indian Earthquake of 1934,” British Journal of Psychology 26 (1935), 1–15, here 12. 108 E. Bernheim, Einleitung in die Geschichtswissenschaft (2. Aufl.; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1920), 97–108; A. L. Feder, Lehrbuch der geschichtlichen Methode (3rd ed.; Regensburg: J. Kösel & F. Pustet, 1924), 99. 109 T. Shibutani, “Rumor,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. D. Sills (18 vols.; New York: Macmillan, 1968), 13.579–80. 110 Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 196–98, 233–43. 111 Shibutani, “Rumor,” 13.577. 112 G. W. Allport and L. Postman, The Psychology of Rumor (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1948), 33–35. 113 S. Schachter and I. Burdick, “A Field Experiment on Rumor Transmission and Distortion,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 50 (1955), 363–71. 114 L. A. Bysow, “Gerüchte,” Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie 7 (1928), 301–3, 416–21.

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in situations of crisis or disaster in which considerable excitement is exhibited by those who participate in circulating the rumor.115 In this situation, according to Shibutani, … as men become more and more excited, their outlook becomes constricted … standards of judgment are  … temporarily transformed. When conventional norms are no longer operating, it becomes possible to consider seriously proposals that are alien to established beliefs.116

In applying cognitive dissonance theory to the complex set of events connected with Christian beginnings, it would not be inappropriate to regard the early conviction that Jesus was alive rather than dead as the product of the widespread circulation and acceptance of two quite different rumors: the report of the empty tomb and the reports of various individual and group experiences of confrontations with the risen Jesus. Certainly, the general conditions supportive of wide and rapid circulations of impulsive rumors characterizes the situation in which the followers of Jesus found themselves shortly after his death, that is, in a state of cognitive ambiguity concerning an event of intense common concern. Furthermore, the dissonance experienced by members of Jesus’ followers appears to have been of such magnitude that the normal standards for verification would tend to be functioning at an abnormally low level. It is precisely within the context of this psychosocial state that the strong need for new information coherent with the belief system of the disciples would regard such a rumor as that of the empty tomb as absolute and positive “proof ” of the fact that Jesus was alive in the sense that he had been taken into heaven. It would also account for the rapid and widespread certitude produced by rumors that Jesus had personally appeared to members of the group, both individually and collectively. In summary, it seems probable that the tradition of the discovery of the empty tomb and the report by one or more women of that fact to a group of disciples antedate the composition of Mark’s gospel. Whether or not the more embellished version which narrates the verification of the report by some disciples existed at that time cannot be established with any certainty. Although the empty tomb tradition is probably pre-Markan, the historicity of that tradition resists confirmation.117 Indeed, the probability of the basic historicity of such a tradition can only be supported if it can be shown to be integral to a reconstruction of the entire sequence of events associated with Christian beginnings. If we may provisionally regard the discovery and report of the empty tomb as historical, then this rumor functioned in precisely the way that cognitive dissonance theory would expect such rumors to function. It provided the primary ground of rationalization for 115 Ibid.,

421.

News: A Sociology of Rumor, 178–80. Theissen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 499–503. 116 Improvised 117 G.

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followers of Jesus in terms of additional or new cognitions, which, in turn, would serve to reinforce the original belief system, which had the appearance of empirical disconfirmation by the death of Jesus. To those who had shared a common experience of cognitive dissonance in this historical situation, the rumor of the empty tomb would provide sufficient reinforcement for the belief that Jesus was alive with the consequence that his role in their belief system could be retained.

Wider Social Reinforcement through Mass Proselytism After the initial stage of dissonance reduction has been achieved within the group through the mutual reinforcement of members who have experienced a common dissonance, dissonance reduction may be attempted within a wider social context through proselytism. The implicit intention behind this effort is to increase the size of the social group which holds the threatened belief, thus proportionally reducing the magnitude of psychological dissonance experienced. Festinger has summarized this process in these words: Specifically, if the belief is very difficult to discard, and if the cognition dissonant with the belief is also very difficult to discard, obtaining social support will be one of the major means of reducing the magnitude of dissonance. Under such circumstances, the introduction of an identical dissonance into the cognitions of many people will lead to two observable manifestations of the pressure to reduce the dissonance by obtaining social support. First, there will be an increase in giving and obtaining social support among those suffering the identical dissonance. Second, there will be an increase in the attempts to persuade new people that the belief is, after all, valid.118

However, it is important to remember that the experience of cognitive dissonance triggered by failed prophecy is not always followed by attempts at proselytism. Dawson lists five patterns of response relating to proselytism in group experiences of failed prophecy: (1)  some groups survive and begin to proselytize; (2) some groups survive and continue to proselytize, (3) some groups survive but their proselytizing declines; (4) some groups survive but they do not proselytize; and (5) some groups neither survive nor proselytize.119 While some scholars have maintained that earliest Palestinian Christianity pursued a quiescent form of existence in Jerusalem,120 even the scanty evidence which we possess seems to contradict this notion. The three major sources for our knowledge of this early period are the opening chapters of Acts, the Pauline letters and the mission instructions to the Twelve (and Seventy) preserved in Q Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 246–47. Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists,” 65. 120 M. Dibelius, Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, ed. H. Greeven, trans. M. Ling (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1956), 124; E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), 188–89. 118 A

119 “When

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(Luke 10:2–16; Matt 9:37–38, 10:7–16) and in Mark 6:6b–13 (and par. Matt 10:1, 9-l4; Luke 9:1–6). Regardless of whether the mission instructions to the twelve are authentic in the setting of the life of Jesus,121 at the very least they can be taken as providing a view of the oldest Christian missionary activity in Palestine.122 The historicity of this early and vigorous attempt to proselytize other Jews coheres with what we know of Paul’s own participation in a program of persecution against the earliest church (1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13), as well as with the general picture found in Acts l-5. The only narrative of earliest Christianity in Jerusalem, one which at the same time places a strong emphasis on the aggressive evangelistic activity of the early community, is that found in Acts 2–5. Through the insertion of a series of idealizing editorial summaries, the author of Acts emphasizes the large number of conversions that took place (Acts 2:47; 5:14; 6:7). Acts 3 narrates Peter’s sermon in the Portico of Solomon, said to have resulted in the conversion of five thousand people (Acts 4:4). After the arrest and miraculous release of the apostles (Acts 5:17–19), Temple officers again found them preaching in the Temple precincts (5:21–26). The high priest then commanded them to cease proclaiming Jesus and underlined the seriousness of his order by publicly flogging them (5:27–40). Despite this opposition, “every day in the Temple and at home they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (5:42). The persecution which resulted in the death of Stephen caused many of these early Christians to be scattered and carry their mission throughout Palestine (8:1–8). Although Luke is the only early Christian author to present a connected narrative emphasizing the phenomenon of mass proselytism during the earliest days of the church, these reports cannot be accepted uncritically even though the author is a more self-conscious historian than his Christian predecessors or contemporaries. There are, in fact, significant difficulties preventing the use of Acts as a reliable historical source.123 This problem is particularly acute for the narratives in Acts 1:1–5:42, since Luke is not dependent on an extended narrative source but rather brings together a number of discrete traditions in such a way that his own literary and theological purposes are furthered. Before judging the historicity of the phenomenon of mass proselytism preserved by Luke, I must first examine the literary and theological context of that tradition. 121 For historicity: F. Hahn, Mission in the New Testament (SBT 47; Naperville: Alec R. Allenson, 1965); D. L. Dungan, The Sayings of Jesus in the Churches of Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 41–75; J. P. Meier, Companions and Competitors, vol. 3 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 154–63; against historicity: P. Hoffmann, Studien zur Theologie der Logienquelle (Münster: Aschendorff, 1972), 235–334. 122 Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums, 3.259–66. 123 E. Haenchen, “The Book of Acts as Source Material for the History of Early Christianity,” in Studies in Luke-Acts, ed. L. E. Keck and J. L. Martyn (New York and Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966), 258–78.

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The theological importance of Jerusalem for his overall narrative led Luke to suppress traditions referring to Galilean appearances of Jesus, as well as traditions which indicated the existence of Christian communities outside of Jerusalem in the very earliest period. This exclusive emphasis on Jerusalem, until the persecution mentioned in Acts 8:1b, raises difficulties with other traditions which he has preserved as well as with the independent witness of Paul.124 Mark is chiefly responsible for preserving the tradition of Galilean appearances of Jesus, a tradition that was embellished by Matthew. Within the context of his presentation of an empire-wide mission, which begins in Jerusalem and culminates in Rome, it is important for Luke to underscore the success of the earliest stages of that mission in Jerusalem. In harmony with Luke’s depiction of the ideal conditions characteristic of the early days of the church in Jerusalem, he narrates massive responses to the proclamation of the gospel at great open air meetings. On the Day of Pentecost Peter is reported to have delivered a sermon which resulted in the conversion of 3,000 (Acts 2:5–42). Barrett has no problem with this number,125 though of course it cannot be historically verified.126 Schneider wonders if such a mass baptism was even possible,127 though excavations of Benjamin Mazar (1969–75) on the south side of the temple mount have uncovered about 100 mikvaoth (ritual purification baths) used to ritually purify Jews intending to enter the temple. There can be little doubt, however, that the 3,000 of Acts 2:41 and the 5,000 of Acts 4:4 are exaggerated and must therefore be regarded as symbolical rather than statistical,128 a view which would cohere with the fact that “Luke loves the multitude of converts, the mass successes.”129 The narrative basis for the aggressive program of evangelism pursued by Jesus’ followers, as presented by Luke, is the commission of the risen Jesus to his disciples (Luke 24:44–49; Acts 1:14–18), empowered by the presence of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8; 2:1–14). Luke thus presents modern historians with a “natural” event, that is, one capable of historical analogy, but one which has a “supernatural” cause, that is, one incapable of historical analogy. Historically, the conclusion is unavoidable that the phenomenon of mass proselytism lacks appropriate historical causation in Luke’s narrative presentation. Theologically, the phenomenon of mass proselytism has been embellished to the point where the historical bases of actual events depicted in the narratives have been all but obliterated. 124 Haenchen,

The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary, 297–98.

125  C. K. Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles (ICC; 2 vols.; London: T. & T. Clark, 1994–98), 1.159. 126 H. 127 G.

Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 22. Schneider, Die Apostelgeschichte (2 vols.; Freiburg, Basel, Wien: Herder, 1980–82),

1.279. 128 Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums, 3.222; Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary, 189, 215, n. 2; J. Jervell, Die Apostelgeschichte (KEK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 176. 129 Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary, 189.

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It seems sufficiently clear that the widespread understanding of Jesus’ post-resurrection commission to evangelize the world (Luke 24:44–49; Acts 1:14–18; Matt 28:16–20; cf. Mark 16:15) was a later development within Hellenistic Christianity which was projected back into the earliest period.130 If this “commission tradition” existed in an earlier form in Palestinian Judaism, which is not in itself improbable, it must have been understood as restricted to a mission to the Jews, perhaps in continuity with the kind of mission characteristic of Jesus’ own ministry.131 Turning to Luke’s conception of the giving of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, it is probable that this event is based on no very early or fixed tradition, since a very different version of the giving of the Spirit was preserved by the Fourth Evangelist (John 20:19–23). The conception which underlies both versions is the conviction that the history of the individual recapitulates the history of the group (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny), that is, just as the individual receives the Spirit through baptism, so the church must have received the Spirit in an analogous way at its inception. It is inescapable that Luke’s “historical” cause for the phenomenon of mass proselytism dissolves into theologically motivated legendary traditions which obscure the real historical causes that motivated the public mission of Jesus’ followers. In reality, neither the resurrection appearances of Jesus together with his commission to the disciples, nor the miraculous enablement of the Holy Spirit is needed as a proximate cause for the phenomenon of mass proselytism. In line with Festinger’s articulation of the role of social support in cognitive dissonance theory, mass proselytism may be expected to occur when a limited number of individuals have suffered the identical experience of psychological dissonance. In such cases, the function of mass proselytism apparently functions to reduce the magnitude of dissonance experienced through securing a wider social base for the group holding the threatened or even disconfirmed belief. While the attempt to proselytize is therefore motivated by the experience of an identical dissonance shared by a collectivity, dissonance will only be reduced if the attempt to proselytize meets some degree of success. In theological terms, proselytism itself is not motivated by the “faith” of the collectivity, but if successful it contributes to the confirmation of the belief system of its members. Since the basic conditions under which the non-obvious result of mass proselytism might be expected to occur apparently characterized the situation, belief system and experience of the followers of Jesus, the occurrence of this phenomenon in earliest Christianity may be regarded as historically probable, despite the fact that no individual account of that phenomenon passes the tests of historicity. Thus, the Lukan view of the priority of Jerusalem in connection with 130 Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 288–89; A. von Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, trans. J. Moffatt (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908), 1.37, 141. 131 Hahn, Mission in the New Testament, 147–49.

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the beginnings of Christianity, together with his preservation of the phenomenon of mass proselytism within earliest Christianity, shorn of embellishments, has every claim to historicity. Two isolated factors which may offer further support for this contention are the tradition of an appearance of the risen Jesus to a group of five hundred (1 Cor 15:6), and the very early controversy between the “Hebraists” and the “Hellenists” narrated in Acts 6. To be sure, the view of Eduard Meyer and others that 1 Corinthians 15:6 represents a more reliable tradition of the historical event that lay behind Acts 2 than Luke’s own version is widely disputed, but it is not thereby rendered improbable.132 The early conflict between two divergent interest groups within early Christianity, the “Hebraists” and the “Hellenists,” is widely regarded as historical, precisely because this tradition contradicts the otherwise idyllic portrait of early Jerusalem Christianity depicted by Luke. Since it is improbable that such a conflict would have characterized the Galilean followers of Jesus who had come to Jerusalem (by all accounts a relatively homogenous collectivity), the inclusion of the “Hellenists” into the movement may be attributable to the proselytizing efforts of Jesus’ original followers. Sociologically, the phenomenon of dissention within a collectivity may indicate a new stage of development, in which the common goals of heterogeneous groups within the movement have been met, at least in part, thereby paving the way for the development of divergent goals.133 Hence the historicity of this conflict within the Jerusalem church at a very early period indicates the remarkable success experienced by Palestinian Christianity shortly after its inception. In summary, while Luke portrays the phenomenon of mass proselytism during the first days of Christianity in exaggerated and embellished ways, the weight of historical evidence – using cognitive dissonance theory as an indispensable criterion of historicity – tends to confirm the fact that Jerusalem Christianity “went public” in a very aggressive and ambitious way. Perhaps the most surprising fact to the historian is the amazing degree of success with which it met.

Conclusions In this essay, I have attempted to demonstrate that cognitive dissonance theory is capable of explaining the sequence of events associated with the beginnings of Christianity, particularly with regard to the fact that Christianity “went public” so soon after the crucifixion of Jesus. In the foregoing discussion, I have attempted, through the use of literary and historical criticism, to discover which events, narrated or suggested in the rather confused complex of traditions that have 132 Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums, 3.222; Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 36, 203, n. 53. 133 Smelser, Theory of Collective Behavior, 362.

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come down to us, have a stronger and more persistent claim to historicity than others. Using cognitive dissonance theory as a criterion of historicity, a pattern of events have emerged that closely conforms to the characteristics of the millennial movement described by Leon Festinger in his book, When Prophecy Fails, supplemented by an emphasis on the critical role of various forms of rationalization. The reconstructed series of conditions and events associated with the beginnings of Christianity can be briefly stated as follows. First, the followers of Jesus were behaviorally committed to the person of Jesus (who occupied the structural center of their belief system), to such an extent that it would have been exceedingly difficult to abandon their belief system. Second, the unanticipated death of Jesus was an undeniable empirical disconfirmation of the validity of this belief system; consequently, the empirical disconfirmation of their beliefs would have been as difficult to disregard as the belief system itself in view of the nature of their behavioral commitment. Third, the gatherings of Jesus’ disciples in the period shortly after the execution of Jesus had the psychosocial role of reinforcing the validity of the threatened belief system. More specifically, the spread of the unverified134 rumor of the empty tomb (a new cognition consistent with the validity of the belief system), was rapidly circulated enabling Jesus’ followers to rationalize the truth of their beliefs by accepting the rumor that the tomb was empty, thereby providing evidence that Jesus had been taken up to heaven; he was not dead but alive. Fourth, following the circulation and acceptance of the rumor of the empty tomb, indicating that Jesus had been taken up to heaven, a series of appearances of the living Jesus began to occur. These appearances would have been understood as appearances from heaven, in much the same way that Paul experienced an appearance of Jesus on the road to Damascus as an appearance from heaven that he regarded as a resurrection appearance (1 Cor 5:8). Traditions of the resurrection appearances of Jesus are inseparable from the rumor of the empty tomb, since the fact that the tomb was empty provided immediate proof of the heavenly assumption of Jesus, and it was belief in this heavenly assumption that made the resurrection appearances possible. While it is undeniable that appearance traditions played a critical role at a comparatively early date in the proclamation of the Christian gospel, the reason for this development must have been that the evidentiary value of the rumor of the empty tomb was only sufficient for those who had experienced the intense cognitive discrepancy produced by Jesus’ death. For early converts to Christianity, the rumor of the empty tomb could not have played such an evidentiary role in their belief system, the validity of which was supported by the fact that Jesus had in fact triumphed over death. It is apparently for this reason that the original significance of the empty tomb report faded behind the more positive and compelling assertions that Jesus was alive because he had appeared to various individuals and groups 134 Prasad,

“The Psychology of Rumor,” 12.

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within the early community. Fifth and finally, the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem made a concerted attempt to convert fellow Jews in Jerusalem, preserved in the exaggerated stories of the conversion of 3,000 (Acts 2:41) and 5,000 (Acts 4:4) on two different occasions.

10. Assessing the Historical Value of the Apocryphal Jesus Traditions: A Critique of Conflicting Methodologies* Introduction Two prominent American New Testament scholars, John P. Meier and John Dominic Crossan, have both produced methodologically rigorous and influential reconstructions of the life and teachings of Jesus. Yet paradoxically, they take diametrically opposed views of the historical value of Jesus traditions in the apocryphal gospels. Meier essentially denies the historical value of any apocryphal Jesus traditions, regarding them as late, fictional, and dependent on the canonical Gospels, while Crossan elevates many of them to a place of central importance and considers some of them earlier than the canonical Gospels themselves and independent of them. How is it possible that two such prominent scholars can hold such contrary views? While the relationship between the Jesus tradition in the apocryphal gospels (particularly the Gospel of Thomas) and the canonical Gospels has frequently been discussed in the past, the antithetical positions of Meier and Crossan on the subject indicate the presence of deep divisions on the subject within the academy. My purpose in this essay is to discuss the ideological, methodological and interpretive differences between the approaches of Meier and Crossan (and their intellectual allies), particularly in their treatment of the Gospel of Thomas, arguably the most important recent textual discovery both for our knowledge of the transmission of Jesus traditions during the first and second centuries CE, but also for our knowledge of some of the many images and interpretations of Jesus which were significant for second century Christianity. New Testament scholarship is a complex enterprise driven by a variety of explicit and implicit ideologies and motivations. All scholarship is pursued within ideological contexts, of course, whether or not individual scholars are fully aware of their implicit assumptions. One of the central issues in assessing the historical value of apocryphal Jesus traditions is the soundness of the criteria for assessing * Original publication: “Assessing the Historical Value of the Apocryphal Jesus Traditions: A Critique of Conflicting Methodologies,”Der historische Jesus. Tendenzen und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Forschung, ed. J. Schröter and R. Brucker (BZNW 114; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002), 243–72. Reprinted by permission.

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the historicity of Jesus traditions in the canonical Gospels which have been formulated, critiqued and refined during the past half century.1 Both Meier and Crossan have carefully articulated their historical methodology and it is for this very reason that their antithetical approach to the apocryphal Jesus traditions is so striking and methodologically challenging. The radical difference in their approaches to the potential value of apocryphal Jesus traditions suggests that deeply held convictions are at stake for both scholars. In this essay the focus will be on the explication and critique of the methodological stance of each of these influential scholars with regard to the potential historical value of apocryphal Jesus traditions.

Assessing the Methodology of John P. Meier Three volumes of John Meier’s massive and erudite reconstruction of the teachings and deeds of the historical Jesus, A Marginal Jew, have thus far been published, a total of 2,304 pages of densely argued historical reconstructions (not counting prefatory material).2 In the first volume, Meier presents a careful discussion of historical criteria for deciding what comes from Jesus on the basis of greater or lesser probability,3 and formulates five primary criteria and five secondary (i.e., dubious) criteria. The five primary criteria include the criteria of (1) embarrassment, (2) discontinuity (or dissimilarity), (3) multiple attestation, 1 M. Franzmann, Jesus in the Nag Hammadi Writings (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996), makes the following claim on p. 21 of her monograph: “The study in the next chapters will be an attempt to present a description of the Jesus / es one finds in the texts of Nag Hammadi. I see this as a valid investigation of the historical Jesus since the texts belong to one strand of the many interpretive traditions about him.” The fact that nowhere in the book does Franzmann make use of any criteria for determining historicity suggests that her interest is not in the historical Jesus, but rather in a study of the early traditions and images about him. She explicitly denies, however, that these are two different enterprises, since “both the material about the ‘real’ Jesus and the early traditions are interpretations” (p. 20). While Franzmann is aware of John Meier’s distinction between the “real Jesus” (unknown and unknowable) and the “historical Jesus” (recoverable using the modern tools of scientific historical research), she seems to regard the latter (if that indeed is what she means by the “real” Jesus) as indistinguishable from her own enterprise. This unwillingness to recognize the distinction between the history of faith-images of Jesus and the historical reconstruction of the life and teachings of Jesus does not lend itself to methodological clarity. 2  J. P. Meier, The Roots of the Problem and the Person, vol. 1 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1991); idem, Mentor, Message and Miracles, vol. 2 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1994); idem, Companions and Competitors, vol. 3 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 2001). [Since this study was completed, a fourth volume has appeared: Law and Love, vol. 4 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (ABRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009)]. For a succinct précis and critique of the first two volumes, see J. V. Hills, “The Jewish Genius: Jesus according to John Meier,” Forum n.s. 1 (1998), 327–47. 3 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.167–95.

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(4) coherence, and (5) rejection and execution (i.e., ways of explaining the death of Jesus). The five secondary criteria include: (1) traces of Aramaic language and usage, (2) awareness of the Palestinian environment, (3) vividness of narration, (4) tendencies of the Synoptic tradition, and (5) historical presumption (i.e., the judgment that it is reasonable that a certain thing happened). In the three volumes which have thus far appeared, Meier uses essentially an atomistic approach to determine the degree of probable authenticity which ought to be assigned to each constituent unit of Jesus traditions arranged in thematically coherent groups, e.g., kingdom sayings, miracles. He avoids the kind of general shorthand descriptions of Jesus and his ministry which have characterized a great deal of recent historical Jesus research, e.g., Jesus the magician, Jesus the eschatological prophet, Jesus the Galilean charismatic, and so on. The first volume of Meier’s work devotes 125 pages to the problem of sources, the last 44 pages of which focus on “The Agrapha and the Apocryphal Gospels.”4 While my main concern is with the Gospel of Thomas and particularly with the fourteen parables it contains, a few observations on Meier’s treatment of sources in the canonical New Testament as well as on his discussion of the possible historical value of the Agrapha and the Apocryphal Gospels is in order. One of the more striking features of Meier’s discussion of the canonical books of the New Testament includes his overly succinct discussion of the Gospels and their sources, whose potential historical value is assumed rather than addressed. Particularly in the case of Q, Special M and Special L, a critical review of the scholarship on these reconstructed sources together with a detailed description of Meier’s own views would have been appropriate. Readers do not know, for example, whether or not Meier regards Special M and / or Special L as coherent documents with an ascertainable style, structure and vocabulary.5 Further, somewhat surprisingly, Meier does not think it necessary to tackle the complex problems involved in using the Fourth Gospel as a historical source, and no mention is made of the Johannine Signs Source despite the fact that it has been widely discussed in recent scholarship. Also striking is the absence of any mention of the canonical agraphon preserved in Acts 20:35, a passage not mentioned in the three volumes of A Marginal Jew which have thus far appeared.6 Meier’s general underestimation of the continuing vitality of oral tradition probably accounts for his failure to deal with the not unlikely possibility that Patristic quotations 4 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.41–166, contains four chapters on sources including the canonical books of the New Testament (1.41–55), Josephus (1.56–88), “Other Pagan and Jewish Writings” (1.89–111), and finally, the largest section is devoted to “The Agrapha and the Apocryphal Gospels” (1.112–66). 5 F. Rehkopf argues this for Special L in Die lukanische Sonderquelle: Ihr Umgang und Sprachgebrauch (WUNT 5; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1959). 6 Though the index to vol. 2 lists a reference to Acts 20:35 on p. 238, this is apparently an error; Meier, Mentor, Message, and Miracles, 2.1092.

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of Jesus tradition have been influenced by oral tradition as well as written texts.7 The continuing existence of the oral transmission of Jesus traditions and the likelihood that they exerted an ongoing influence on written texts is indeed a wild card in the deck which (if admitted into play) would skew the presumption of the more linear conception of textual transmission and development which Meier generally follows. It is primarily in the chapter on the Agrapha and the Apocryphal Gospels, however, that Meier appears to have temporarily bracketed the scientific historical method to which he normally adheres with great rigor. One indication of this is the “nothing new” refrain that punctuates his discussion of certain potential sources. He suggests, for example, that even if all eighteen of the agrapha examined by Joachim Jeremias were authentic, “nothing new is added to our picture” of the historical Jesus.8 In his earlier discussion of the Testimonium Flavianum of Josephus, Meier concludes that, if it were accepted as historical, “nothing really new or different” is added to the Gospel portraits of Jesus.9 Finally, following a negative evaluation of the investigation of Jesus traditions in the Apostolic Fathers by several scholars, Meier concludes that “even if a good deal of the material investigated by Hagner and Draper does represent independent variants of the gospel tradition, nothing substantially new about the historical Jesus is added to our data base.”10 A variation on this motif is found in a footnote at the conclusion of his chapter on “The Agrapha and the Apocryphal Gospels”:11 after admitting the theoretical possibility that some individual, stray saying in the Gospel of Thomas or another apocryphal gospel might actually come from Jesus, he concludes: “But such an isolated random datum would make no difference in the overall picture we draw of Jesus.” These four quotes suggest that Meier has temporarily lost sight of the value of the criterion of multiple attestation in valuing what is “new” and “different” in Jesus traditions.12 Meier’s position on the essential unity of first and second generation Christianity on central issues (in which he rephrases the views of Raymond Brown),13 is  7 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.160–61, n. 114 is an extended critique of Koester’s work on Jesus traditions in the Apostolic Fathers.  8 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.114.  9 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.139–40. 10 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.161. 11 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.166. 12 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, treats the criterion of discontinuity in 1.171–74 and the criterion of multiple attestation in 1.174–75. 13 R. E. Brown, “The Gospel of Peter and Canonical Gospel Priority,” NTS 33 (1987), 321–43. Brown, however, does not speak of a “common gospel message” as the quote suggests; he does claim that “one may intelligently speak of lines of development leading from the early preaching through significant NT attestations to the sub-apostolic writings and ultimately to the church fathers – and that is what orthodoxy means, if, as R. H. Fuller points out, it is seen as a direction rather than as a static datum.”

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a theological argument for restricting his quest for data relating to the historical Jesus within the context of the New Testament canon:14 The radical claims usually overlook the fact that, for all the differences and even conflicts among first-generation Christian leaders, there was a common gospel message on which all of them agreed (cf. Paul’s affirmation of a common proclamation by all Christian preachers in 1 Cor 15:11). Unlike the picture painted by those who want to make some form of gnostic Christianity an equally valid manifestation of first-generation Christian experience, the mainstream picture of Christianity presented by documents and traditions that definitely do come from the first and second generations are different from some of the wilder developments among certain Christians in the 2nd century.

Another claim which bears closer examination is the following:15 There was no period when individual bits of tradition about Jesus floated about in a Church bereft of the larger grid that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus provided.

These two quotations nicely illustrate the fact that the “faith-knowledge,” which Meier claims to have bracketed in the interest of historical research,16 is still in play. The term “mainstream” in the first quotation is a value-laden term which implicitly denigrates lesser tributaries based on theological rather than historical presuppositions. Meier opposes those (e.g., Dominic Crossan in the context) who hold that “forms of gnostic Christianity [are] an equally valid manifestation of first-generation Christian experience.” However, for the historian, no form of Christianity can or should be privileged over others, since historical research is interested in historical truth (i.e., what really happened and what was really said) not in ultimate truth, which is a metaphysical issue. From a strictly historical perspective, therefore, no form of Christianity is any more “valid” than any other. The opponents reflected in the letters of Paul, in the Johannine letters, and in the Apocalypse of John (none of whom apparently count as “first-generation Christian leaders”), did not become part of “mainstream” Christianity even though from a strictly historical point of view, their existence was an essential part of the overall identity of the Jesus movement in the first century. In the second quotation above, Meier argues that in the early period, Jesus traditions were always circulated within “the larger grid that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus provided.” Surely this too is a generality based, not on historical research, but rather on “faith-knowledge,” i.e., it is what Meier believes, not what he (or anyone else) can demonstrate historically. More important for the purpose of this essay, however, is Meier’s assessment of the historical potential of the Nag Hammadi material, and specifically the Gospel of Thomas. Meier expresses relief that it is unnecessary “to agonize our way through every Christian document in the Nag Hammadi library to see whether The Roots of the Problem, 1.18. The Roots of the Problem, 1.161. 16 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.30. 14 Meier, 15 Meier,

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it contains sayings or deeds of Jesus independent of the Synoptic tradition.”17 We are spared this agony because Meier can appeal to Christopher Tuckett’s judgment that (apart from the Gospel of Thomas), “there is no evidence for the use of pre-Synoptic sources (including the Q document) in the Christian Nag Hammadi material.”18 Tuckett does leave the door open for the possible presence of para-Synoptic traditions in the Apocryphon of James and the Second Apocalypse of James,19 but Meier slams it shut before we can even get a peek inside, based on the following judgment:20 “Since both of these works present discourses of the risen Jesus that have a clearly gnostic coloration, I do not think that they have anything to contribute to a quest for the historical Jesus.” This is, of course, a non sequitur, since a “gnostic coloration” does not in and of itself mean either that these texts or the Jesus traditions they contain were composed by “gnostics,” only that they were embellished by “gnostics.” Meier’s strategy for dealing with the Gospel of Thomas is to categorize it as “gnostic” by reconstructing the gnostic myth which it supposedly implies and in light of which it was intended to be read. Labeling Thomas as “gnostic” is frosting on the cake for Meier, since his basic rejection of Thomas as a source for authentic historical Jesus traditions is really based on his conviction that Thomas is completely dependent on the canonical Gospels. He has apparently reconstructed this gnostic myth (which he describes as a mixture of mysticism, asceticism, pantheism, and polytheism), based on other gnostic Thomas literature,21 though references are made to the Gospel of Thomas alone in the notes. For Meier, the redactor of the Gospel of Thomas has a basically “gnostic” intention, and the following is his reconstruction of the gnostic myth implied in Thomas (emphasis mine: the italicized portions are not found in Thomas, the underlined portions are exaggerations of what is found in Thomas, and the bolded portion contradicts what is found in Thomas):22 In the gnostic myth implied in the Gospel of Thomas, the individual spirits originally dwelt in the kingdom of light, the kingdom of the Father, who is the first principle of ‘the All’ (= the spiritual universe of divine beings). By their very nature, these spirits were all united with and one substance with the divine. Through some sort of primeval catastrophe, some of the spirits entered into the poverty of this material world and are imprisoned in the fleshly garments of human bodies [logion 29]. This fall and imprisonment have caused The Roots of the Problem, 1.124. The Roots of the Problem, 1.124, referring to C. Tuckett, Nag Hammadi and the Gospel Tradition (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1986), 149. 19 Tuckett, Nag Hammadi and the Gospel Tradition, 149, n. 553. Tuckett does not refer to the study published two years earlier by R. Cameron, Sayings Traditions in the Apocryphon of James (HTS 34; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), which discusses Jesus traditions in some detail. 20 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.153, n. 67. 21 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.125: [The gnostic myth is] “implied in many of the sayings of the Gospel of Thomas, but a myth that can be fully understood only by looking at other gnostic writings from the ‘School of St. Thomas,’ such as the Hymn of the Pearl.” 22 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.125–26. 17 Meier, 18 Meier,

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them to fall asleep spiritually, have caused them to forget their true origin in the kingdom of light; they are like drunkards and blind men in the realm of darkness [Log 28]. The ‘living’ Jesus (basically, the timeless, eternal Son, without any true incarnation in matter, lengthy earthly ministry to the Jewish people in general, real death, or true bodily resurrection) comes into this world to wake these spirits up, to remind them of their true origin and destiny, to free them from the illusion that they belong to this material world of death. One in divine substance with those he seeks, Jesus saves them simply by revealing to them the truth of who they are, i.e., divine beings who belong to another world. This knowledge, pure and simple, saves these spiritual persons right now. As soon as they realize who they are, they are immediately free from the ‘garments’ of their material bodies, which they can trample underfoot [logion 37]. Even now they can find the treasure of true knowledge that means eternal life; even now they can enter into the “place” or “rest” of the Father. Fully integrated with the divine source form which they came, there is no salvation to be awaited in the future; the Gospel of Thomas thus represents ‘realized eschatology’ in its most radical form. Indeed, it is perhaps more accurate to speak of a return to the primordial paradise than an anticipation of a future consummation. There is no kingdom to be awaited from above or in the future; the spiritual kingdom is already within them and surrounding them, if only they open their inner eyes to see it [logia 3, 113]. The material world and physical bodies are rejected as evil, and one abstains as far as possible from things material. Sex is seen as an evil, and the female role in bearing new spirits imprisoned in bodies is especially deprecated [logion 79, 114]. By asceticism the spirits already triumph in principle over the body, which will be totally left behind at physical death. Physical death does not spell destruction for the initiated who have “found the interpretation” of Jesus’ sayings and who therefore do not experience death [logion 1]. Physical death is simply final release from the evil material world.”

This reconstructed gnostic myth is not without problems. First, the obvious error in this reconstruction is the claim that the Living Jesus of Thomas was “without any true incarnation in matter,” a statement contradicted by logion 28 (Lambdin): “Jesus said: ‘I took my place in the midst of the world and I appeared to them in flesh [Coptic: hn sarx]’,” a passage in which neither “world” nor “flesh” has a pejorative meaning.23 This passage is one of those extant in Greek, for P.Oxy. 1.13–14 reads: καὶ ἐν σαρκὶ ὤφθην αὐτοῖς, “and I appeared to them in flesh.”24 Second, the terms “imprisoned” and “imprisonment” are exaggerations, for while parts of Thomas indeed reflect the Hellenistic view of the dualism of body and soul in which the body is depreciated (e.g., life in the body is referred to as dwelling in “poverty,” logia 3, 29), the relationship between soul and body is never referred to under the metaphor of imprisonment. Similarly, Meier uses the term “evil” in an exaggerated way, for while the term [i.e., the Greek loanword κακός] occurs six times in Thomas (logia 14, 45 [five occurrences]), it is never used of the body or Valantasis, The Gospel of Thomas (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 102. Attridge, “The Greek Fragments,” Nag Hammadi Codex 11,2–7, ed. B. Layton (NHS 20; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1989), 1.118–19. Since the noun and verb in this phrase have their closest parallel in 1 Tim 3:16 (ὃς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί) it is not possible to insist on a Docetic meaning of φανερόω). 23 R.

24 H. W.

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the material world. Similarly, Meier’s use of the terms “primeval catastrophe” and “fall” are also unfortunate, since there are no corresponding expressions found in the Greek or Coptic texts of Thomas. Third, the portions of Meier’s reconstruction which I have italicized above clearly represent an importation of “gnostic” theology which finds no explicit counterpart in the text of Thomas. While many of these statements can be read into Thomas, many of the critical passages can more easily and more readily be construed in other ways. One important problem with Meier’s reconstructed “gnostic” myth remains to be mentioned. The problem of defining “gnosticism” was a major concern of scholars during the second half of the Twentieth Century.25 Emerging from this discussion was the notion that the indispensable feature of “gnosticism” was the anthropological idea of the divided self in which the essential person was constituted by an inner self thought to have originated in the divine world, correlated with the cosmological notion of a reality divided into a transcendent divine world separated from the cosmos itself which was created by an inferior ignorant demiurge.26 While the anthropological notion is arguably present in Thomas, the supportive radically dualistic cosmology is conspicuous by its absence. In fact, the cosmos can be regarded as worthy (logia 21, 27, 56, 80, 111) and also as the creation of God (logia 12, 89). The absence of this dualistic cosmology puts Thomas at a certain distance on the continuum from such other “gnostic” Nag Hammadi treatises as the Gospel of Philip and the Apocryphon of John; in many respects the view of the world reflected in much of the Gospel of Thomas is relatively close to that found in the Gospel of John.27 Labeling is a wonderfully effective means of effacing the historical particularities of persons and documents in the interest of eliminating messy facts that may not easily fit existing categories. The terms “gnostic” and “gnosticism” are fuzzy categories used to describe the religious ideologies which characterize such texts

Bianchi, ed., The Origins of Gnosticism: Colloquium of Messina 13–18 April 1966: Texts and Discussions (SHR 12; Leiden: Brill, 1967; reprinted 1970), xxvi. The problematic terms “proto-Gnosticism” and “pre-Gnosticism” are discussed briefly on pp. xxvii–xxviii. The definitions formulated at Messina, however, were subjected to harsh criticism by M. Smith, Review of U. Bianchi, ed., The Origins of Gnosticism, JBL 89 (1970), 82–84; K. Rudolph, “Randerscheinungen des Judentums und das Problem der Entstehung des Gnostizismus,” Kairos 9 (1967), 105–122; M. Smith, “The History of the Term Gnostikos,” The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: Proceedings of the Conference at Yale, New Haven, Connecticut, March 28–31, 1978, ed. B. Layton (SHR 41; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1981), 2.796–807; K. Rudolph, “ ‘Gnosis’ and ‘Gnosticism’ – The Problems of their Definition and their Relation to the Writings of the New Testament,” The New Testament and Gnosis: Essays in Honour of Robert McLachlan Wilson, ed. A. H. B. Logan and A. J. M. Wedderburn (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1983), 21–37. 26 K. Rudolph, “ ‘Gnosis’ and ‘Gnosticism’,” 29–30; B. A. Pearson, “Introduction,” Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity, ed. B. A. Pearson (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 7–8. 27 A. Marjanen, “Is Thomas a Gnostic Gospel?” Thomas at the Crossroads: Essays on the Gospel of Thomas, ed. R. Uro (Edinburgh: Τ & T Clark, 1998), 107–39. 25 U.

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as the Gospel of Thomas (or the Odes of Solomon, or the Fourth Gospel),28 since they are used in such an elastic and unhistorical way. Grenfell and Hunt, in the editio princeps of what would become known as P.Oxy. 654, commented briefly on the suggestion that logion 5 was “clearly Gnostic,” and anticipated how other scholars would label other sayings in their newly discovered papyrus fragment: “And if the other new logia are to be branded as ‘Gnostic,’ it is difficult to see what might not be included under that convenient category.”29 Recently, of course, it has become increasingly evident that even terms like “Judaism” and “Christianity” (even when their pluriform character is recognized through the plural forms “Judaisms” and “Christianities”), are anachronistic labels not fully appropriate for the first century CE realities they attempt to describe.30 Michael Williams has recently argued at length that the “gnostic” label not only needs rethinking, but also needs to be recognized for the dubious category it is.31 The abstract term “Gnosticism,” an eighteenth century neologism, is more problematic than the labels “Judaism” and “Christianity” in the first century CE. Turning to the debated question of whether sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas are dependent or independent of the Synoptic Gospels, Meier calls attention to the influential view of Helmut Koester (reflected in the work of such scholars as Ron Cameron, Stevan Davies, James Robinson and Dominic Crossan),32 that the Gospel of Thomas may have been written in the latter half of the first century CE and that it shows no dependence on the Synoptic Gospels. Meier then musters an imposing roster of scholars representing the contrary view that Thomas is in fact dependent on the Synoptics, including H. E. W. Turner, Robert M. Grant, Jean-Marie Sevrin, Bertil Gärtner, Kurt Rudolph and Wolfgang Schrage. The rhetorical purpose of orchestrating this standoff serves as a fanfare for Meier’s conclusion: “With all due hesitation, I incline to the view that the Gospel of Thomas is dependent on the Synoptic tradition.”33

28 See M. A. Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism”: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton: Princeton University, 1996). 29 B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, ΛΟΓΙΑ ΙΗΣΟΥ: Sayings of Our Lord (London: Henry Frowde, 1897), 20. 30 On “Christian,” see J. H. Elliott, 1 Peter: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 37B; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 789–94 on 1 Pet 2:16a (“if anyone suffers as a Christian”); J. Pilch, “Jews and Christians,” The Cultural Dictionary of the Bible (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1999), 98–104; idem, “Are there Jews and Christians in the Bible?”, HvTSt 53 (1997), 1–7. 31 Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism,” (see note 28). 32 H.-M. Schenke refers to “the Koester school of thought,” of which he considers himself a member, even though he differs on some basic issues, such as preferring the date of 140 CE for the composition of Thomas (On the Compositional History of the Gospel of Thomas [Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Occasional Papers, 40; Claremont: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, 1998], 5). 33 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.130.

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Meier bases this decision on five lengthy arguments,34 each of which I will paraphrase, then follow with a brief response: (1) Meier: Virtually all second-century apocryphal Jesus literature was inspired, in one way or another, by the powerful impact of the four (eventually canonical) Gospels; if the Gospel of Thomas is judged dependent on the canonical Gospels, it coheres well with the general development of second-century Christian literature; otherwise, it is anomalous. Response: Meier has in part created the pattern of regular dependence on the Synoptics and John which he finds in all apocryphal Jesus literature simply by denying the independent value of any apocryphal text, even though in particular instances he admits that such explanations are possible.35 Similarly, he uses Tuckett’s judgments on the dependence of most Nag Hammadi sayings of Jesus on canonical tradition when it supports his own position, but is unwilling to allow Tuckett’s view that para-Synoptic traditions in the Apocryphon of James and the Second Apocalypse of James might be authentic. (2)  Meier: Since the canonical Gospels both come from oral tradition and generate oral tradition, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify sayings of Jesus which might be independent of the Synoptics and John as the second century progresses. The dependence of Thomas on the Synoptics and John can be understood in more than one way, i.e., direct dependence on written texts as well as indirect dependence on institutions influenced by them such as preaching, catechesis, citation from memory, Gospel harmonies and creative reworking (all but Gospel harmonies qualify as “secondary orality”). Response: Though Meier thinks it correct that oral tradition “did not die out the day after a canonical Gospel was published,”36 recognition of this fact plays no subsequent role in his discussion. However, the fact that oral tradition continued to have vitality in the second century is demonstrated in part by its putative influence on the written Gospels, a fact demonstrated by the many additions to the hand-copied manuscripts of the Gospels.37 Meier is correct, however, in implying that oral tradition becomes an increasingly less reliable means for transmitting historically reliable data, though there are many complex factors involved (the length of the traditions, whether they are transmitted in poetry or prose, whether The Roots of the Problem, 1.130–39. is a paraphrase of Meier’s discussion of Dodd’s assessment that P. Egerton 2 is independent of the Synoptic tradition (The Roots of the Problem, 1.119), “I admit that Dodd’s explanation is also possible.” 36 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 131. 37 J. Delobel, “The Sayings of Jesus in the Textual Tradition: Variant Readings in the Greek Manuscripts of the Gospels,” Logia: Les Paroles de Jesus – The Sayings of Jesus. Mémorial Joseph Coppens, ed. J. Delobel; (EThL 59; Leuven: Leuven University, 1982), 431–57. Distinguishing a rhetorical or oral culture from a scribal culture, Walter Ong argues that “Only during the last half of the second century did a scribal culture […] begin to dominate the transmission of early Christian literature” (Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture [Ithaca: Cornell University, 1977], 214). 34 Meier, 35 This

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they are transmitted by specialists or within families, etc.).38 Oral traditions can, at any given point, be reduced to writing (a process called “transcription” rather than “composition”),39 the written versions can then affect oral versions of the same tradition, and one can never really know with any assurance the age of the exemplar of a given text (such as Thomas). Further, this argument does not touch the many sayings in Thomas (approximately half) which have no parallels in the canonical Gospels. (3) Meier: The argument that the relative brevity of many sayings in the Gospel of Thomas compared to their Synoptic counterparts means that they are earlier and independent is invalid. Further, in the interest of gnostic obfuscation, the redactor of the Gospel of Thomas removed clear and easily comprehensible elements from Synoptic sayings, thus rendering them shorter. Finally, the ahistorical, atemporal and amaterial ideology of the redactor motivated him to drop features contradicting these conceptions. Response: While it is true that the shorter version of a text is not invariably earlier than a longer version (this view was falsified by E. P. Sanders),40 it is often true that the shorter version can be shown to be an earlier version. In effect, Meier uses generalities, not exegesis, to argue that the shorter Thomas sayings are later than their longer Synoptic counterparts because of the compositional tendencies and motivations of the “gnostic” redactor. If the generality that the shorter text is the earlier text is invalid, Meier’s assertion that the “gnostic” redactor shortened canonical texts is also invalid, unless and until each saying is analyzed in its own terms to determine its relationship to parallel or partially parallel texts and not dismissed out of hand as “gnostic.” (4) Meier maintains that it is unlikely that the very early source of the sayings of Jesus upon which the Gospel of Thomas supposedly drew would have contained the broad spread of sayings from first century Jesus tradition evident in the Gospel of Thomas, including Q, Special M, Special L, Matthaean and Lucan redaction, the triple tradition and possibly the Johannine tradition; rather, it is more likely that Thomas has conflated material from Matthew and Mark and possibly from Mark and John as well.41 Meier points particularly to the special Matthean 38 R. Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1989), 123–31, suggests that three generations is the limit for the transmission of reliable information in extended family contexts in ancient Athens. 39 E. J. Barker, “How Oral is Oral Composition?” Signs of Orality: The Oral Tradition and Its Influence in the Greek and Roman World, ed. E. A. Mackay (Mnemosyne Suppl. 188; Leiden: Brill), 31. 40  E. P. Sanders, The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition (SNTSMS 9; London: Cambridge University Press, 1969). 41 The same objection to the independence of the Thomas traditions is made by K. R. Snodgrass, “The Gospel of Thomas a Secondary Gospel,” SecCent 7 (1989/90), 24–25. Both Snodgrass and Meier, incorrectly suppose, in my view, that Thomas exhibits literary dependence on the Fourth Gospel (see below).

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material (“M”), observing that “some of the M passages may be Matthew’s own redactional creations.”42 He lists several passages in Thomas which are arguably dependent on M, and then concludes: In sum, only one of the passages I have listed would have to be Matthew’s own creation or reflect Matthew’s redaction to prove beyond a doubt that Thomas knows and uses Matthew’s Gospel to compose his own.

Meier then argues along the same lines for the dependence of Thomas on special Lukan material (“L”). Response: First, the notion that Thomas used “a single very early source” which contained material, now recognized as belonging to Q, Special M, Special L, Matthean and Lucan redaction, the triple tradition and possibly the Johannine tradition, is a supposition not held by Thomas scholars, with the exception of those few who suppose that Thomas was dependent on Tatian’s Syriac Diatessaron.43 Second, Meier’s assumption (following R. E. Brown) that Thomas is dependent on the Fourth Gospel is unfounded (see below). Third, if Thomas (dated by most scholars no later than 140 CE), exhibits dependence on Q, Special M, Special L, and the triple tradition,44 then Thomas is the earliest Christian text to do so, and is remarkable in that respect. The next author to exhibit a similar pattern of dependence on the Synoptics is Justin Martyr (died ca. 165 CE) who, similarly, alludes neither to distinctive Markan passages nor the Fourth Gospel).45 However, geographical distance is a significant factor: Justin was active in Rome while Thomas very probably originated in Syria (or at least in the eastern Empire). Further, while Justin shows no dependence on any non-canonical gospel,46 51 of the 114 logia in Thomas (45 %) have no significant verbal parallels in the Synoptics or John.47 Therefore “the broad spread of sayings” in Thomas is much broader than Meier suggests, and is itself an anomaly. Fourth, Meier’s statement that “some of the M passages may be Matthew’s own redactional creations,” is striking because of the phrase “may be” which implies that each case of possible dependence must The Roots of the Problem, 1.135. Baarda, Early Transmission of the Words of Jesus: Thomas, Tatian and the Text of the New Testament (Amsterdam: VU Boekhandel / Uitgeverij, 1983), 49; H. J. W. Drijvers, “Facts and Problems in Early Syriac-Speaking Christianity,” SecCent 2 (1982), 173. This position is critiqued by W. L. Petersen, Tatian’s Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance, & History of Scholarship (VCSup 25; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 298–300. The opposite view, that the Diatessaron was dependent on Thomas, maintained by J.-É. Menard, L’évangile selon Thomas (NHS 5; Leiden: Brill, 1975), is extremely unlikely (W. L. Petersen, Diatessaron, 296–297). 44 Dependence on the triple tradition is extremely difficult to prove. I do not think that there is any clear evidence that Thomas was dependent on Mark. 45  A. J. Bellinzoni, The Sayings of Jesus in the Writings of Justin Martyr (NovTSup 17; Leiden: Brill, 1967), 139–42. 46 Bellinzoni, Justin Martyr, 131–38. 47 The logia with no verbal parallels to the canonical Gospels are the following: 2, 7, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 37, 38, 42, 43, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 58, 59, 60, 67, 71, 74, 75, 77, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 95, 97, 98, 102, 105, 106, 108, 110, 111, 112, 114. 42 Meier, 43 T.

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be carefully investigated. Further, Meier’s view that a single attested instance of the dependence of Thomas on a passage which is a Matthaean creation or exhibits Matthaean redactional features proves that Thomas knew and used the Gospel of Matthew is simply not correct. The complex origins and redactions of Thomas are such that the dependence of a single logion on the Gospel of Matthew proves only the dependence of that logion. (5)  Meier: Finally, even though Thomas “censors out” elements of Synoptic redaction, occasionally traces of the order or theological tendencies of the Synoptic Gospels survive. Response: First of all, the proposal that the general absence of redactional features is the result of a systematic elimination by the redactor of Thomas, while not impossible, is difficult to imagine. There are, admittedly, several logia in Thomas which arguably preserve redactional features of Matthew and Luke (though none from John and probably none from Mark). I will give two examples. One instance is logion 31a (87.5–6) = P.Oxy. 1.30–32: “Jesus said, ‘No prophet is acceptable in his village,’” which is closest to Luke in the triple tradition and John (Mark 6:4 = Matt 13:57 = Luke 4:24 = John 4:44); according to Luke 4:24: “And he said, ‘Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country.’” The term δεκτός (“acceptable”) is found in Luke 4:24 and Thomas only, suggesting oral or literary dependence on this saying in Luke.48 Another example is logion 47a (89.12–17): “Jesus said, ‘It is impossible for a man to mount two horses and to stretch two bows, and it is impossible for a servant [Coptic: hmhal] to serve two masters, otherwise he will honour the one and offend the other.’” While the last part of this quotation has a close parallel in the double tradition (Luke 16:13 = Matt 6:24), only Luke has οἰκέτης (“servant”), a redactional feature,49 which corresponds to hmhal (“servant”) in Thomas. Second, by “order … of the Synoptic Gospels,” Meier is referring to the microstructure of individual pericopes, not the macrostructure of the Gospels themselves. As the examples in the preceding paragraph indicate, I am not reluctant to admit that Thomas sometimes preserves redactional features of the Synoptic Gospels, whether through oral or written dependence (or some combination of the two). One of the examples which Meier adduces for demonstrating the dependence of Thomas on the order of Synoptic pericopes is Luke 10:8–9, which he thinks can be glimpsed in logion 14: “When you go into any land and walk about in the districts, if they receive you, eat what they will set before you, and heal the sick among them.” Meier is correct that this portion of a rather com48 J. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke (AB 28, 28A; 2 vols.; Garden City: Doubleday, 1981–1985), 1.527–28. 49 J. Jeremias, Die Sprache des Lukasevangeliums: Redaktion und Tradition im Nicht-Markusstoff des dritten Evangeliums (KEK Sonderband; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), 258.

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positionally complex logion reflects dependence on Luke,50 because the phrase in Luke 10:8b, “eat what is set before you,” is probably, though not certainly, a redactional addition to Q.51 There is at least one memorable line in a satirical western movie “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” (1972): “Can we hang him now, Judge, or do we need to hold a trial first?” The outcome of Meier’s discussion of the Gospel of Thomas is about as unexpected as the results of that fictional trial:52 Since I think that the Synoptic-like sayings of the Gospel of Thomas are in fact dependent on the Synoptic Gospels and that the other sayings stem from 2d-century Christian gnosticism, the Gospel of Thomas will not be used in our quest as an independent source for the historical Jesus.

Nevertheless, since Meier recognizes that all scholars do not agree with his assessment, he promises that throughout his project, he will keep an eye on the sayings in Thomas as a check and control on his own interpretation of the data in the canonical Gospels. He does follow through on this promise occasionally, as a few entries in the index under “Gospel of Thomas” indicate, though never with the rigor that one might wish. One of the consequences of Meier’s wholesale rejection of Thomas – and one of which he is fully aware – is the problem that few parables in the Jesus tradition exist in more than one independently attested version, so that the criterion of multiple attestation cannot be used.53

The Methodology of John Dominic Crossan John Dominic Crossan is a prolific and eloquent scholar who has produced twenty books, sixteen on aspects of the life and teachings of Jesus and related sources. His 1991 book, The Historical Jesus, is at once the best known, most exciting, and yet most controversial of his books.54 Unlike Meier, Crossan is concerned to present an overall conception of Jesus which makes sense of the many individual complexes of Jesus tradition. For Crossan, Jesus was a peasant Jewish Cynic, representing an inclusive form of Judaism, who announced the “brokerless kingdom of God,” i.e., there should be no mediator between people and God or even between individual people themselves. The macrocosmic and 50 J. Schröter, Erinnerung an Jesu Worte: Studien zur Rezeption der Logienüberlieferung in Markus, Q und Thomas (WMANT 76; Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1997), 232–33; R. Uro, “Thomas and the Oral Gospel Tradition,” Thomas at the Crossroads: Essays on the Gospel of Thomas, ed. R. Uro (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), 26–31. 51 J. M. Robinson, P. Hoffmann and J. S. Kloppenborg, The Critical Edition of Q (Minneapolis: Fortress; Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 170–71. 52 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.139. 53 Meier, Mentor, Message, and Miracles, 2.290. 54  J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991).

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microcosmic emphases of his work become obvious in a succinct eight-page discussion of method, really a conceptual model, which he refers to as a “triple triadic process:”55 The first triad involves the reciprocal interplay of a macrocosmic level using cross-cultural and cross-temporal social anthropology, a mesocosmic level using Hellenistic or Greco-Roman history, and a microcosmic level using the literature of specific sayings and doings, stories and anecdotes, confessions and interpretations concerning Jesus. All three levels, anthropological, historical and literary, must cooperate fully and equally for an effective synthesis.

In the first level, Crossan makes heuristic use of a spectrum of anthropological models and typologies (e.g., honor and shame; patron-client relations). In the second level, he uses historical studies which illuminate various religious and cultural practices and ideologies which provide a context for the Jesus tradition. In the third level, he argues that the Jesus tradition (which consists both of intracanonical and extracanonical Jesus traditions), has three major layers, consciously avoiding what he considers the pejorative language of “authentic” and “inauthentic”: (1)  Retention: the essential core of the words and deeds of Jesus, (2) Development: applying these data to new situations and problems, and (3) Creation: the composition of new sayings and stories and the development of larger complexes which thereby changed the contents. The second triad focuses on the problems presented by the Jesus tradition itself, and consists of three steps: (1)  Inventory: a declaration of all the major sources and texts, both intracanonical and extracanonical, which will be used (there are 522 complexes in that inventory).56 (2)  Stratification: the placement of the inventoried sources in chronological order in four major groups: (a) 30–60 CE, (b) 60–80 CE, (c) 80–120 CE, (d) 120–150 CE. (3)  Attestation: a presentation of the stratified inventory of sources in terms of multiplicity of independent attestation, the number of times a given tradition appears in sources literarily independent of each other. The third triad centers on the methodological manipulation of the inventory which has been arranged chronologically and numbered attestation: (1) Sequence of strata: the focus is on the first stratum (chronologically closest to the historical Jesus and the stratum with which Crossan is most concerned in this book), then the next strata in order, though “a unit from the fourth stratum could be more original than one from the first stratum.”57 (2) Hierarchy of attestation: the emphasis on the first stratum (where everything is considered original until argued otherwise) is qualified by an emphasis on those complexes with the highest count Historical Jesus, xxviii–xxix. Historical Jesus, 427–50: “Appendix 1: An Inventory of the Jesus Tradition by Chronological Stratification and Independent Attestation.” 57 Crossan, Historical Jesus, xxxii. 55 Crossan, 56 Crossan,

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of independent attestation, for “at least two independent sources from the primary stratum cannot have been created by either of them.”58 (3) Bracketing of singularity: the complete avoidance of units in the first stratum which are singly attested. Since Crossan’s inventory of 522 complexes of sources for Jesus tradition is only a list of passages, it presupposes arguments for chronological arrangement which the author does not make explicit in this book, though he has argued for many of these conclusions in earlier studies,59 and also cites modern scholars in support of his views. Since Crossan places most emphasis on the first stratum (30–60 CE), I will list the thirteen sources he places in this chronological category, followed by the eight sources in his second stratum (by way of contrast):60 First Stratum (30–60 CE)   1. 1 Thessalonians (50 CE)   2. Galatians (52–53 CE)   3. 1 Corinthians (53–54 CE)   4. Romans (55–56 CE)  5. Gospel of Thomas I (a second stratum, Gospel of Thomas II is assigned to 60–80 CE)   6. Egerton Gospel (P. Egerton 2; P. Köln 255)61   7. Papyrus Vindobonensis Greek 2325   8. Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1224  9. Gospel of the Hebrews, known only from seven patristic quotations (50s CE) 10. Sayings Gospel Q (50s CE) 11. Miracles Collection, now embedded in Mark and John (50s CE) 12. Apocalyptic Scenario, now embedded in Didache 16 and Matthew 24 13. Cross Gospel, now embedded in the Gospel of Peter (50s CE) Second Stratum (60–80 CE) 1. Gospel of the Egyptians, known only from six patristic citations (by the 60s CE) 2. Secret Gospel of Mark, the first version of the Gospel of Mark (early 70s CE) 3. Gospel of Mark, the second version (end of the 70s CE) 4. Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840 (formally more developed than debates in the Egerton Gospel or Mark 7, so may be dated around the 80s) 5. Gospel of Thomas II 6. Dialogue Collection, now embedded in the Dialogue of the Savior, clearly distinguishable in Dial. Sav. 124.23–127.18; 131.19–132.15; 137.3–147.22 (shows a more developed dialogue format than in the Gospel of Thomas or in the Sayings Gospel Q. Historical Jesus, xxxii–xxxiii. Crossan, Four Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contours of the Canon (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985); idem, The Cross that Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988). 60 Crossan, Historical Jesus, 427–30. 61 While these three papyrus fragments have been dated by papyrologists to ca. 150 CE (H. I. Bell and T. C. Skeat, Fragments of an Unknown Gospel [London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1935]), this date has been advanced to ca. 200 CE by E. G. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 13. It has been argued by some that this fragmentary work is earlier than both John and the Synoptics (the view of Crossan), while others regard it as dependent on them (J. Jeremias and W. Schneemelcher New Testament Apocrypha, ed. W. Schneemelcher [rev. ed.; 2 vols.; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991], 1.96–98). 58 Crossan, 59  J. D.

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7. Signs Gospel of Book of Signs, now embedded within the Gospel of John 8. Colossians

The conceptualization of Crossan’s methodology in three interlocking triads is doubtless one of the most complex and elegant proposals of any historical Jesus scholar to articulate historical methodology. At the same time it is striking how frequently Crossan’s methodology is passed over in silence in discussions of criteria used to reconstruct the words and deeds of Jesus.62 The first triad, with its emphasis first on cross-cultural and cross-temporal social anthropology, and secondly on Hellenistic and Roman history, constitutes an implicit Plausibilitätskriterium (“criterion of [historical] plausibility”), a method which has much in common with Meier’s “criterion of Palestinian environment” (one of the criteria he labels as dubious),63 and with Tom Holmen’s recent arguments for rejecting “double dissimilarity” (a Jesus tradition may be authentic which does not derive from first century Judaism or Christianity), in favor of dissimilarity with early Christianity only.64 Indeed, one of the basic features of the so-called Third Quest is the interpretation of Jesus within his Jewish context.65 The third part of the first triad is the inclusion of all relevant Jesus traditions, whether intracanonical or extracanonical. This is surely a reasonable historical approach to the evidence. The second triad consists of inventory, stratification and attestation. Crossan’s inventory of 51 major source texts listed in four chronological categories is a forthright way of presenting his conception of the general character of the evidence, as is the further elaboration of 522 complexes of Jesus tradition similarly arranged in four chronological strata, and within each stratum in terms of the number of times each independent complex of Jesus tradition occurs. Crossan 62 Two

recent books on the criteria for historical Jesus research virtually ignore the method articulated by Crossan: B. Chilton and C. A. Evans, eds., Authenticating the Words of Jesus (NTTS 28,1; Leiden: Brill, 1999), and S. E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (JSNTSup 191; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000). Porter claims that recent historical Jesus research is dominated by three scholars, E. P. Sanders, J. P. Meier and N. T. Wright. The omission of Crossan’s name is striking, and the excuse given is that Crossan is a member of the Jesus Seminar which the author does not want to discuss in this volume. This is an astonishing omission, given the independence and creativity of Crossan’s work. Note the very positive assessment of Crossan’s book in N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 44. The one book on criteria for historical Jesus research which does treat Crossan’s method is G. Theissen and D. Winter, Die Kriterienfrage in der Jesusforschung: Vom Differenzkriterium zum Plausibilitätskriterium (NTOA 34; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997). 63 Meier, The Roots of the Problem, 1.180. 64 T. Holmén, “Doubts about Double Dissimilarity: Restructuring the Main Criterion of Jesus-of-History Research,” Authenticating the Words of Jesus, ed. B. Chilton and C. A. Evans (NTTS 28,1; Leiden: Brill, 1999), and more recently in Jesus and Jewish Covenant Thinking (BIS 55; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 28–29. Holmén is dependent on B. F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus (London: SCM Press, 1979), 86. 65 B. Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (2nd ed.; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1997), 14–41.

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further places a + before complexes of tradition which in his view are originally from Jesus, a − before complexes of tradition which are not, and an equivocal + / − before those which cannot be decided. He categorizes each of the 522 complexes of tradition using this system; it is only in the fourth stratum that not a single one of the 34 complexes of tradition included in the inventory is judged not to have originated with Jesus. The third triad consists primarily of value judgments added to the second triad by emphasizing the primary evidential value of the first stratum of evidence (30–60 CE), by valuing complexes with the highest count of independent attestation, and by the bracketing out of Jesus traditions attested only once. The cornerstone of Crossan’s project is his assignment of texts and sources to the four chronological strata and his emphasis on the historical value of multiple attestations of independent sources in the first stratum. A complex of Jesus traditions belongs to the first stratum if an item occurs in just one source or text in the first stratum. These basic moves, however, are problematic for several reasons. First, given the inability of New Testament scholars to date many early Christian texts with any precision (the leeway in dating is often several decades), the overly-precise chronological time slots proposed by Crossan (30–60, 60–80, 80–120, 120–150) are overly precise because of their sharp boundaries, hence inappropriately specific. Second, the time slots are arbitrary, making the evidentiary value of texts and sources placed in the “first” stratum problematic. Why, for example, should the first stratum end ca. 60 CE, rather than 50, 55, 65 or 70? This is a critical issue, since texts and sources from the first stratum are regarded as qualitatively superior to those in the second stratum (not to mention the third and fourth strata). Moreover, why should the second stratum begin in 60 CE (rather than a decade earlier or later) and conclude with 80 CE (rather than a decade earlier or later)? Third, the notion of “independent” sources, critical for the validity of the criterion of multiple attestation, oversimplifies the complex relationship between oral and written tradition, which must allow for various types of interaction between them during the first and second centuries CE. For Crossan, multiple attestation is a black and white issue; complexes of Jesus tradition are either “independent” or “dependent,” with no allowance for the observable phenomenon of the influence of oral tradition on written texts as well as the influence of written texts on oral tradition (“secondary orality”). Perhaps the single most striking feature of Crossan’s methodology which distinguishes it from that of almost all other historical Jesus scholars is his complete disinterest in the criterion of dissimilarity.66 In an article which appeared in 1988, Crossan comments directly on the criterion of dissimilarity, after quoting Bult66 Theissen and Winter, Die Kriterienfrage in der Jesusforschung, 154: “Für unsere Kriterienfrage ist wichtig, daß Crossan dezidiert auf das Differenzkriterium in allen seinen Formen als Mittel zur Rekonstruktion authentischer Jesusüberlieferung verzichtet.”

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mann and Käsemann on the subject:67 “I do not really disagree with that principle in theory but have some doubts about it in practice.” These doubts are based on a frank recognition of the complex and variegated character as well as the plurality of the early Judaisms and early Christianities of the first and second centuries CE.68 Elsewhere he has formulated what he has designated the “criterion of adequacy” as an alternative first principle to the criterion of dissimilarity: “that is original which best explains the multiplicity engendered in the tradition.”69 Further, the extensive application of this criterion of adequacy is evident in Crossan’s earlier detailed transmission analysis of 133 aphorisms attributed to Jesus in both the intracanonical and extracanonical texts.70 While Crossan makes no mention of the criterion of adequacy in the introductory methodological discussion in The Historical Jesus, it is clearly the driving conviction behind his emphases on the multiplicity of independent attestation and the chronological stratification of the individual complexes of Jesus tradition. Conclusions based on these multiply attested complexes in the first stratum become the “bedrock” for the analysis of later strata and single attestations.71 In The Historical Jesus, the methodological process which Crossan has used to date sources and texts in the first stratum is not (with some minor exceptions) made explicit, nor is the methodological process whereby he judges that the 522 complexes of Jesus tradition (186 of which are located in the first stratum) originated with Jesus, did not originate with Jesus, or cannot be decided. Occasionally, Crossan does make such judgments explicit. The Gospel of the Egyptians, he observes, has a dialogue format more developed than that in the Gospel of Thomas.72 P. Oxy. 840, which belongs to the second stratum, is placed there because it “is formally more developed than the debates in the Egerton Gospel or Mark 7, so it may be dated tentatively around the eighties (if so, it does not belong in the second stratum, 60–80 CE, where he has assigned it, but rather in the third, 80–120).73 Such arguments, which presuppose that compositional complexity can be correlated with chronological development, have little credibility since the work of E. P. Sanders on the “tendencies” of the Synoptic tradition.74

67 J. D. Crossan, “Divine Immediacy and Human Immediacy: Towards a New First Principle in Historical Jesus Research,” Semeia 44 (1988), 123. 68 I am responsible for the pluralization of “Judaism” and “Christianity” in the above statement, but I think that Crossan would agree with the implications of those plural forms. 69 Crossan, “Divine Immediacy and Human Immediacy,” 125. 70 J. D. Crossan, In Fragments: The Aphorisms of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983). 71 Crossan, Historical Jesus, 410. 72 Crossan, Historical Jesus, 429. 73 Crossan, Historical Jesus, 430. 74  E. P. Sanders, The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition. (SNTSMS 9; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1969). Among other things, Sanders argues that the generalization that Matthew abbreviates Mark is invalid.

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Crossan’s inventory of sources and texts found in the first and second strata are of particular interest. Of the thirteen sources placed in the first stratum (30–60 CE), four are complete early Christian texts (1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, and Romans), five are reconstructed sources (Gospel of Thomas I, Sayings Gospel Q, Miracles Collection [embedded in Mark and John], Apocalyptic Scenario [embedded in Did. 16 and Matt 24], and the Cross Gospel [embedded] in the Gospel of Peter), three are papyrus fragments of otherwise unknown gospels (Egerton Gospel,75 Papyrus Vindobonensis Greek 2325, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1224), and the Gospel of Hebrews, known only from seven patristic citations. Of the eight sources assigned to the second stratum (60–80 CE), two are complete early Christian texts (Mark, Colossians), several are reconstructed sources (Gospel of Thomas II, Dialogue Collection, Signs Gospel), and three are fragments (Gospel of the Egyptians [known only from six patristic quotations], Secret Gospel of Mark, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840). In the case of the Egerton Gospel, Crossan has argued elsewhere that this fragmentary gospel is earlier than Mark.76 However, his reasoning for this view is peculiar. Rather than observe, as others have, that P. Egerton 2, frag. 2, lines 43–59 clearly reflects a knowledge of all three Synoptic Gospels: (1) Lines 43–50 reflect Mark 12:14–15 (the double question is found only here), (2) Lines 50–53 betray a knowledge of the saying found only in Luke 6:46 (“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?”), and (3) Lines 54–59 reflects Matt 15:7–8 (similar to Mark 7:6–7, though this includes the term “hypocrites” which is not found in P.Egerton), Crossan is impressed with the compositional structure of P. Egerton 2, fr. 2, lines 53–59, and for that reason gives it priority.77 However, there is no inherent reason why the author-editor of the Egerton Gospel could not have created a coherent pericope out of materials found in the Synoptics and John. Crossan’s extensive utilization of the Gospel of Thomas is a distinctive feature of his historical Jesus enterprise, fueled by the conviction that “The collection [of sayings of Jesus in Thomas] is independent of the intracanonical gospels.”78 One difficulty is that Crossan nowhere explains just what he means by Gospel 75  J. D. Crossan, Four Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contours of the Canon (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985), 65–75. 76 Crossan, Four Other Gospels, 86. 77 Crossan, Four Other Gospels, 78–86. Koester regards as implausible either that the Egerton Gospel (with specific reference to the Paying Taxes to Kings pericope) is an independent older tradition or that it is an apophthegma pieced together from sentences from three different gospels, but rather is drawn from oral tradition not from existing gospels (Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development [Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990], 213–215). The second “implausible” alternative could be based on memory, suggests Koester, but he asks whether this memory was based on written or oral gospels? He prefers the second alternative, but the first is just as viable. 78 Crossan, Historical Jesus, 427, referring there to the work of S. L. Davies, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom (New York: Seabury, 1983), to his own book Four Other Gospels,

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of Thomas I and II, except for the general observation that one layer of Thomas was composed by the 50s CE, and a second layer was added as early as the 60s or 70s under the aegis of the “Thomas authority.”79 A survey of the 186 complexes of Jesus tradition included in Crossan’s First Stratum (the most historically important), reveals that of the 114 logia found in Thomas, no less than 66 are listed (in whole or in part) as evidence for this earliest period (30–60 CE), under the categories of multiple, triple and double independent attestation. No Thomas logia are listed among the 54 complexes of Jesus tradition which have only single attestation. At this point, before getting into more detail about the qualitative and quantitative reasons why Crossan used the Thomas logia in his data base, a brief explanation of the arrangement of Thomas is necessary. The conventional division of Thomas into 114 logia is not completely satisfactory, since many individual logia contain two, three, or even four units which can reasonably be considered separable. There is, however, no standard way of referring to these units. Thus when Crossan refers to Thomas 38:2 or 79:3, it is not always clear which precise part of each logion he has in mind. If the components of each logion are listed separately, there are at least 144 separate sayings of Jesus found in Thomas (by my reckoning), the total number of saying-units that Crossan uses will exceed by thirty the 114 conventional logia-division of Thomas. Returning to the 66 logia which Crossan lists as primary evidence for the First Stratum, it so happens that all but one80 of these 66 logia have relatively close parallels in the Synoptics and John. This is striking when one realizes that all or part of 64 logia in Thomas (56.14 %), have no parallel in the Synoptics or John (using the more detailed breakdown of 144 sayings, 70 or 46.97 %, have no parallel in the Synoptics or John). Where, if at all, does Crossan use these logia which have no apparent relationship to Synoptic or Johannine tradition? The answer is that 32 of the remaining logia are assigned to the Second Stratum (60–80 CE); nearly all of these being logia which have no significant parallels in the Synoptics and John.81 This is all quite remarkable, for it means that Crossan’s early stratum of Thomas (30–60 CE) consists almost exclusively of logia with canonical parallels, while his later stratum (60–80 CE) consists almost exclusively of logia which have no and especially to the dissertation of S. Patterson, subsequently published as The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus (Sonoma: Polebridge, 1993). 79 Crossan, Historical Jesus, 427. 80 Crossan, Historical Jesus, 437, n. 37: Gos. Thom. 37, which is listed with Dial. Sav. 49–52 and 84–85 (neither of which are convincing oral or literary parallels), and Gos. Eg. 5a. 81 The vast majority of the Thomas logia assigned to the second stratum have only a single attestation (though eight of these are judged by Crossan to be authentic: 25, 42, 47a, 58, 77b, 97, 98, 110), while the four listed under double attestation have only noncanonical parallels: #206: Knowing Yourself (Gos. Thom. 3:2; Dial. Sav. 30), #208: Life and Death (Gos. Thom. 11:1–2a; 111:1; Dial. Sav. 56–57), # 209: The Bridal Chamber (Gos. Thom. 75; Dial. Sav. 50b); see Crossan, Historical Jesus, 444.

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canonical parallels. Crossan makes no mention of this approach to stratifying Thomas in his earlier discussion Four Other Gospels, nor is such a stratification scheme found in any other discussion of the composition and redaction of Thomas in Thomas scholarship (so far as I am aware).82 Such a stratification hypothesis certainly needs careful and convincing argumentational support before it can be used as a tool for historical research. A second problem, not unrelated to Crossan’s arbitrary stratification proposal, is his uniform dating of virtually all Thomas logia with Synoptic or Johannine parallels to 30–60 CE, his First Stratum. Like most other aspects of Thomas research, of course, there is widespread disagreement about the date when the work was composed, though it is unnecessary to parade the various proposals before the reader. Suffice it to say that when any scholar departs significantly from the date of composition of Thomas which is most widely held in the academy, namely ca. 140 CE, significant arguments need to be adduced in support of that position. In an earlier discussion of the logia of Thomas, Crossan concluded that “the tradition in Thomas is independent of the intracanonical gospels but, of course, this working hypothesis will have to be tested in every single case to be considered.”83 Well and good. However, by assigning nearly all of the Thomas logia which have Synoptic or Johannine parallels (arbitrarily) to the First Stratum, this aspect of his data base of complexes of Jesus tradition becomes extremely tenuous. It is essentially an unlikely hypothesis which is then linked to other hypotheses of varying degrees of probability, making the whole project methodologically fragile. A third problem with Crossan’s insistence on including most of the Thomas logia with canonical parallels in his First Stratum, is that in many instances clusters of Jesus tradition in that stratum consist primarily of material which belongs chronologically in the periods 60–80 CE and 80–120 CE (i.e., the Second and Third Strata), but which have a foot in the door of the First Stratum only because the Thomas logion, which is part of that Jesus tradition cluster, is assigned to the First Stratum. Of the 131 complexes of Jesus tradition in the First Stratum which are independently attested two or more times, 30 are only in that stratum because of the Thomas logion with which they are closely parallel (of these 30, 19 are judged to come originally from Jesus, 8 of which are parables). If the Thomas I material which Crossan assigns to the 30–60 CE slot were shifted to the 60–80 CE slot (a period earlier than most Thomas scholars would accept), 30 complexes of Jesus tradition would have to be shifted into the Second Stratum, thus (methodologically, at least) radically altering the corpus of material which could be considered as originating with Jesus. A fourth, and more general issue, has to do with the importance which reconstructed or hypothetical texts have for Crossan’s enterprise. While Q is the most 82 See,

for example, Schenke, On the Compositional History of the Gospel of Thomas. Four Other Gospels, 37.

83 Crossan,

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widely accepted of the hypothetical sources which Crossan accepts, the stratification of Q which he accepts (Q1, Q2 and Q3), is one of many recent proposals and is problematic for Crossan’s enterprise primarily because it is not defined more closely. The real problem lies, not in the viability of a different reconstruction of the composition and redaction of Q, but in the problem of dating. While Kloppenborg Verbin thinks that dating Q in the 50s or 60s is possible, he (and a number of others) thinks that the bulk of Q was redacted before the 66–70 CE revolt, but that it was given final form after 70 CE.84 Dating Q in the 60s and 70s, of course, would exclude Q from Crossan’s First Stratum (30–60 CE), pushing it into the Second (60–80 CE), thus radically changing the configuration of Jesus material which could quality as original. Further, since Crossan includes a number of other reconstructed texts, such as a miracle collection embedded in Mark and John and the apocalyptic scenario embedded in Didache 16 and Matthew 24, it is somewhat odd that he does not consider as pre-Markan the collection of Streitgespräche in Mark 2:1–3:6, or the collection of parables in Mark 4:1–34 or Special L or Special M. All of these are controversial reconstructions, however, and tend to lessen the persuasive power of the entire enterprise. Crossan is fully aware of what he is doing, of course, and essentially presents his entire data base as a complex hypothesis which readers can either accept or argue for modifications. Including any or all of the reconstructed sources which Crossan has not used to this point, however, would significantly alter the array of material qualifying for attribution to Jesus.

Methodological Reflections Both Meier and Crossan have, each in their own way, violated a rule of criticism which I will call the “criterion of unpredictability,” by which I mean that suspicion attaches to the critical methodology of those whose interpretive moves are excessively predictable. For example, while Klyne Snodgrass is convinced that Thomas is derived from canonical traditions, he also maintains that Thomas doubtless contains independent traditions not found in the canonical Gospels and perhaps parallel traditions that were not derived from the canonical Gospels.85 For this reason, I think that it is obvious that Snodgrass is using critical judgment and is not in thrall to some theological or ideological position. The same can be said for the important recent work of Jens Schröter, whose analysis of the relationship between Thomas traditions and Mark and Q is credible precisely because he sometimes judges for and other times against the dependency of Thomas on 84 J. S. Kloppenborg Verbin, Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 87. 85 K. R. Snodgrass, “The Gospel of Thomas: A Secondary Gospel,” SecCent 7 (1989/90), 19.

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Synoptic tradition. John Meier does not come off nearly so well, for I think that it would be incredible if a document like Thomas, containing nearly 150 sayings of Jesus, and compiled ca. 140 CE (while oral tradition still retained some measure of vitality) did not contain at least some happy vestiges of original historical Jesus traditions. Crossan does not comport himself very well either, for it would be incredible if a document like Thomas did not contain at least a smidgen of Jesus traditions which were dependent on the Synoptic Gospels. Both scholars evaluate the historical value of the Jesus traditions in Thomas in such a consistent way that their general approach to Thomas must be called into question. The issue of whether or not Thomas is dependent or independent of the canonical Gospels is still hotly debated and cannot be solved simply by marshaling a roster of authorities who agree with one or another position, and then by cavalierly dismissing the claims of those holding the opposite position. As Ron Cameron (an adherent of the “Koester school”) observed nearly a decade ago, “The question of the relationship of Gos. Thom., and the Gospels of the NT is still to be resolved.”86 While disagreement on this issue will probably continue into the indefinite future, it must be said that at the present time, Thomas scholars (that is, those who have made the study of the Gospel of Thomas the focus of their professional careers), tend to agree that a substantial number of sayings in Thomas are independent of the canonical Gospels. In this climate, then, it is essential that whatever side a scholar takes on this issue, each saying of Jesus preserved in Thomas be tested to determine whether it is dependent or independent of canonical Jesus tradition. There is simply no other alternative. Despite the intense study of the Gospel of Thomas since the publication of the Coptic text in 1959, the complex character and history of this work has yet to be fully explored, and this further exploration is critical for understanding the character of oral and written Jesus traditions in the first and second centuries CE. Several issues come immediately to mind which should be high on the agenda of future research:87 (1) Dating the Redactions of Thomas. While dates from the mid-first to the late second century CE have been proposed for the composition of Thomas, the probability that it came into existence in stages is a possibility that needs to be seriously considered. Crossan’s bifurcation of Thomas into two strata recognizes the compositional and redactional complexity of the work, but deals with the problem in an overly simplistic manner. (2) The Ideology or Theology of Thomas. In the past, Thomas has been labeled “gnostic” (Meier’s preferred cate-

Gospel of,” ABD 6.537. also the balanced essay by P. H. Sellew, “The Gospel of Thomas: Prospects for Future Research,” The Nag Hammadi Library after Fifty Years: Proceedings of the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature Commemoration, ed. J. D. Turner and A. McGuire (NHMS 44; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 327–46. 86 “Thomas, 87 See

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gory), “encratite,” or “ascetic” (Crossan’s choice) “wisdom,”88 and as “mystical.”89 I have already suggested above that the “gnostic” category is problematic for the Gospel of Thomas. The “encratite” or “ascetic” characterization of Thomas is also problematic because of a number of internal tensions in the text (such as different attitudes toward marriage and celibacy) which suggest the presence of several types of ascetic traditions.90 De Conick’s emphasis on mysticism in Thomas appears somewhat one-sided, but has yet to provoke a response from the academy. (3) The Interaction of Oral and Written Tradition. For New Testament scholars, whose work is largely limited to the study of written texts, one of the more critical issues concerns the relationship between oral and written transmission of Jesus traditions, and the interaction between them. Kloppenborg Verbin, referring specifically to the Synoptic Problem, comes to the heart of the problem (which is analogous to the even more complex problem of the relationship between Thomas and the Synoptic tradition):91 Few critics nowadays focus much attention on the transformations and developments that doubtless occurred in the oral tradition prior to its inscription in written documents as a means of resolving the Synoptic Problem. This is not because such knowledge would not be useful, but because it is simply beyond our reach.

Helmut Koester has laid out influential arguments for the viability of oral Jesus traditions well into the second century CE.92 Since the work of Parry and Lord on oral formulaic theory, classicists have become increasing interested in the phenomenon of orality and oral tradition in the Greek and Roman world.93 New Testament scholars have followed suit,94 and have begun to use insights from the modern study of orality and oral tradition to understand the complex relationship between oral and written tradition in the formation of the Gospel of Thomas.95 The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom. De Conick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas (VCSup 33; Leiden: Brill, 1996). 90 R. Uro, “Is Thomas an Encratite Gospel?” Thomas at the Crossroads: Essays on the Gospel of Thomas, ed. R. Uro (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), 140–62. 91 Kloppenborg Verbin, Excavating Q, 52–55. 92 H. Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung bei den apostolischen Vätern (TU 65; Berlin: Akademie, 1957), to be supplemented by his more recent work, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990). 93  E. A. Mackay, Signs of Orality: The Oral Tradition and Its Influence in the Greek and Roman World (Mnemosyne Suppl. 188; Leiden: Brill, 1999). 94  W. H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983); P. J. Achtemeier, “Omne Verbum Sonat: The New Testament and the Oral Environment of Late Western Antiquity,” JBL 109 (1990), 3–27; D. E. Aune, “Prolegomena to the Study of Oral Tradition in the Hellenistic World,” and “Oral Tradition and the Aphorisms of Jesus,” Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition, ed. H. Wansbrough (JSNTSup 64; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 59–106 and 211–265. 95 Uro, Thomas and the Oral Gospel Tradition, 8–32. 88 Davies, 89 A. D.

11. Jesus and Cynics in First-Century Palestine: Some Critical Considerations* Introduction In recent research on the life and teachings of Jesus, particularly in the United States, a number of scholars have proposed that the historical Jesus can best be understood against the background of Jewish or Hellenistic wisdom traditions in preference to the earlier (and still dominant) emphasis on the contextual relevance of Jewish apocalypticism. One manifestation of this change in perspective is the view that the earliest form of Q (the hypothetical Logienquelle or Sayings Source reconstructed primarily on the basis of non-Markan parallels between Matthew and Luke) has a primarily sapiential character which was later overlayed by the addition of sayings with a prophetic and apocalyptic character.1 There is, of course, no necessary connection between Jesus as a teacher of wisdom and Cynicism.2 Nevertheless, some who have rejected the explanatory significance of apocalypticism for reconstructing the life and teachings of the historical Jesus have emphasized the similarities between Jesus and the Cynic sage, suggesting that Jesus was influenced by such figures. Burton Mack, for example, has made the following proposal:3 Jesus’ use of parables, aphorisms, and clever rejoinders is very similar to the Cynics’ way with words. Many of his themes are familiar Cynic themes. And his style of social criticism, diffident and vague, also agrees with the typical Cynic stance. Scholars have known about some of these similarities for some time.

* Original publication: “Jesus and Cynics in First Century Palestine: Some Critical Considerations,” Hillel and Jesus: Comparatine Studies of Two Major Religious Leaders, ed. J. H. Charlesworth and L. L. Johns (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 176–92. Reprinted by permission. 1 H. Koester, Introduction to the New Testament (2 vols.; Berlin: de Gruyter; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982) 2.147–49; J. S. Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987). 2 Kloppenborg, for example, is careful not to assume that the earliest collection of wisdom speeches which he posits for Q represents authentic sayings of Jesus. He is also careful not to suggest that, despite the affinities between sayings in Q and Cynic chreiai, the Q community either imitated Cynics or borrowed or adapted their ideology (Formation of Q, 324). 3  B. L. Mack, A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 68.

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But what do these “similarities” mean? Are they the result of the historical influence on Jesus and his followers of forms of Cynicism current in first century Palestine? Or are they phenomenological similarities with no historical connection – what Dominic Crossan calls “one of the great and fundamental options of the human spirit”?4 Mack is clear on this issue, for he claims that the historical Jesus was influenced by the Cynic presence in first century Palestine: “The Cynic analogy repositions the historical Jesus away from a specifically Jewish sectarian milieu and toward the Hellenistic ethos known to have prevailed in Galilee.”5 The scholar who has focused most intensely on the hypothesis of the connections between Jesus and the Cynics is F. Gerald Downing. In many articles and two major books,6 Downing energetically argues that “the wealth of at least apparent ‘parallels’ between the Jesus tradition and popular Cynicism suggest that some kind of Cynic influence may well have been accepted by Jesus of Nazareth himself.”7 Here he suggests that Jesus consciously patterned his behavior and his teaching under the influence of Cynics. Elsewhere he shifts this argument slightly by claiming that early Christianity “looked like” popular Cynicism and that this similarity was both recognized and accepted by early Christian writers of the second century and later.8 Despite what I regard as fatal weaknesses in many of Downing supportive arguments and proposals, it is important that interested scholars read his detailed arguments and draw their own conclusions.

Relevant Aspects of Cynicism Cynicism is an abstract noun referring to the similarities scholars perceive among those ancients who claimed the designation “Cynic” (κυνικός, “like a dog,” “canine”),9 or were labeled “Cynics” by others, from the fourth century BCE to the fourth century CE. Cynicism is an extremely complex historical phenomenon, for the term Cynic was used in a variety of ways by those who lived in opposition to the norms and values of Greco-Roman culture, dramatized by unconventional appearance and behavior. 4  J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), 76. 5 Mack, Myth of Innocence, 73. 6  F. G. Downing, Christ and the Cynics: Jesus and Other Radical Preachers in First Century Tradition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988), and Cynics and Christian Origins (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1992). The many articles written by Downing are listed in the bibliography of the latter book. 7 Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 3. 8 Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 302. 9 Since dogs were generally viewed in a pejorative way by the ancients, κυνικός appears to be a retaliatory negative label affixed to early Cynics by those they criticized, perhaps in reference to the completely natural and unaffected way in which dogs behaved in public.

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During the last two decades, the phenomenon of Cynicism has been subject to intensive scholarly investigation. In actuality, scholars know less about Cynicism now than a generation ago, in the sense that ancient sources are now being read from a more critical perspective so that the complexities and discontinuities involved in using the labels Cynic and Cynicism have been more fully recognized than previously. Though it is not possible in the present context to present a fully nuanced discussion of Cynics in antiquity, I will emphasize a number of features of ancient Cynics which must be taken into consideration when comparing Jesus and Cynics. First, the core value of Cynics was freedom or liberation, a concept captured by such terms as ἐλευθερία (“freedom”) and αὐταρκεία (“independence”),10 though it is not really possible to speak of Cynic termini technici used consistently by most of those whom the ancients labeled as Cynics.11 Cynics understood freedom in a primarily negative and practical way, i.e., freedom from care about food, clothing, home, marriage, children; freedom from legal, moral, political, intellectual, cultic, and social obligations; freedom from desires, emotions (ἀπαθεία), ambitions; even freedom from life itself through suicide.12 The Cynic lifestyle was based on a tradition which recognized physical asceticism, centering in the principle of αὐταρκεία, or “self-sufficiency,” as the only means for realizing the full potential of human life. Cynic asceticism is distinct from both Stoic asceticism of the soul and Christian asceticism based on the suppression of the body and the self so that the soul is enabled to concentrate exclusively on God.13 For the most part Cynics did not theorize about their ascetic approach to freedom, while many prominent Stoics developed elaborate ethical theories to support their detachment from that which was not under their control. The aim of the Cynic was to live a life of virtue, τὸ κατ’ ἀρετὴν ζῆν (Diogenes Laertius 6.104), a lifestyle they regarded as antithetical to the life of the city with its established habits and norms. Cynics valued the simple life (Athenaeus Deipn. 4.156c–159d) and virtue (Athenaeus Deipn. 13.566e–571a), consciously enduring deprivation, pain, and suffering in order to be liberated from the constraints of ordinary living. According to Julian, the goal of Cynicism was ἀπαθεία, “freedom from emotion” (Or. 6.192A). He expresses a different aspect of this in Or. 6.193D, where he contrasts life according to nature and life according to culture:

Rich, “The Cynic Conception of Autarkeia,” Mnesonyne 9 (1956), 23–29. Cynics and Christian Origins, 45–50. 12 R. Höistad, Cynic Hero and Cynic King (Lund: Carl Blom, 1948), 15–16. 13 The most important contribution to the subject of Cynic asceticism is M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, L’ascèse cynique: un commentaire de Diogène Laërce VI 70–71 (Histoire des doctrines de l’antiquité classique 10; Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1986). 10 A. M.

11 Downing,

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Now the end and aim of the Cynic philosophy, as indeed of every philosophy, is happiness, but happiness that consists in living according to nature and not according to the opinions of the multitude.

The hero Herakles, who lived in accordance with nature rather than culture and was apotheosized through suffering, was a primary exemplar of the Cynic mode of life.14 Second, Diogenes Laertius has little to say about the distinctive features of Cynicism in the Hellenistic period. Though he regards Cynicism as a philosophical school, he is apparently unable to summarize the distinctive teachings of Cynicism, but chooses to underscore the features which the Cynics and Stoics held in common (6.103–5): (1) They emphasize ethics to the exclusion of physics and logic. (2) They are opposed to subjects generally taught (e.g., geometry and music). (3) The goal of life is to live according to virtue. (4) They eat and dress simply; some are vegetarians and some drink only cold water. (5) They despise wealth, fame, and noble birth. (6) Virtue can be taught and once learned cannot be lost. (7) The wise man is worthy of love and is a friend to his peers. (8) Nothing should be entrusted to fortune. (9) Whatever is intermediate between virtue and vice is indifferent (ἀδιάφορα). In discussing individual Cynics, Diogenes emphasizes anecdotes which reveal their view of life. According to Malherbe,15 What made a Cynic was his dress and conduct, self-sufficiency, harsh behaviour towards what appeared as excesses, and a practical ethical idealism, but not a detailed arrangement of a system resting on Socratic-Antisthenic principles.

Third, according to Diogenes Laertius (in agreement with ancient thinking in general), a philosophical αἵρεσις follows a central principle and has a coherent body of doctrines (Diogenes Laertius 1.20). Unlike the other Hellenistic philosophical schools, Cynicism had no organizational structure and no central body of doctrine.16 In the Hellenistic period, there is no common body of doctrine to which would-be Cynics had to subscribe. The term αἵρεσις, or “school” can be therefore used properly of Cynicism only in the sense of “intellectual tradition.” It is for this reason that M.-O. Goulet-Cazé prefers to speak of individual Cynics rather than “Cynicism” during the imperial period.17 According to Varro, “Cynicism” was a term applied to a variety of different philosophical positions whose only common denominator was the Cynic mode of living (Augustine De civitate dei 19.1.2–3).18 Hippobotus, in a lost work entitled Περὶ αἱρέσεων, discussed nine philosophical schools, but ignored Cynicism, 14 D. E. Aune, “Heracles and Christ: Heracles Imagery in the Christology of Early Christianity,” Greeks, Romans and Christians: Essays in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. D. L. Balch, E. Ferguson, and W. A. Meeks (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 3–19. 15 Malherbe, “Self-Definition among Epicureans and Cynics,” 49–50. 16 Goulet-Cazé, L’ascèse cynique, 28–31. 17 M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, “Le cynisme à l’époque impériale,” ANRW 36,4. 2817. 18 See Goulet-Cazé, L’ascèse cynique, 20–37.

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Elianism, and Dialecticism (Diogenes Laertius 1.19). The διάδοχαι (“successions”) genre used by Diogenes Laertius in his presentation of the founder and subsequent major figures in the history of Cynicism is particularly problematic.19 Though probably dependent on older διάδοχαι lists which postulated teacher-student relationships, the Cynic succession is filled with difficulties and is obviously fictitious.20 Diogenes terminates his discussion of the Cynics at about 200 BCE for several reasons: (1) succession lists had fallen into disuse by the early first century CE and there were gaps in his information, (2) Diogenes’ interest in Cynicism, as in all other philosophical schools, was primarily limited to the Hellenistic period (ca. 450 to 200 BCE), with the result that he entirely neglected the Roman imperial period and (3) he wanted to emphasize the Greek, not the Roman character of philosophy. Julian, on the other hand, emphasizes the fact that Cynicism is a kind of philosophy (Or. 6.182C) which had no founder but was in fact a universal philosophy practiced before the time of Heracles (Or. 6.182C–D). In fact, claims Julian, it is unnecessary for Cynics to read books, or undergo the initiations common to neophytes entering other philosophical schools; they need only heed the two Delphic maxims “know yourself ” and “falsify the common currency” (Julian Or. 6.187D-188A). Fourth, there was a widespread assumption in antiquity that Cynicism and Stoicism were closely related (Diogenes Laertius 6.104). Though there are certain links between Stoicism and various Cynics  – and mutual influences between Stoics and Cynics during the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods  – this problematic notion has been perpetuated in modern scholarship through the use of the compound adjective “Cynic-Stoic,” which serves only to obscure the considerable differences between the two traditions. Zeno, the founder of the Stoa, was reportedly a disciple of Crates the Cynic (Diogenes Laertius 7.2). At the time of Zeno (335–263 BCE), Cynicism had the following two major characteristics:21 (1) The wise person is distinguished from the fool in that the former attributes no value to anything at all except virtue. (2) The wise person will not accept what is conventional, but what is natural, κατὰ φύσιν (Diogenes Laertius 6.71). Despite the real or imagined historical connections which link Stoicism and Cynicism, the latter must be analyzed in terms of the specific ideas and lifestyles of those who identified themselves as Cynics as well as those who were identified as Cyn19 On the succession-list form, see V. Egger, Disputationis de fontibus Diogenis Laertii particula de successionibus philosophorum (Bordeaux: G. Gounouilhou, 1881), 32–63. 20 Many of the problems relating to the intention, reliability and use of sources of Diogenes Laertius are discussed in J. Mejer, Diogenes Laertius and His Hellenistic Background (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978), and idem, “Diogenes Laertius and the Transmission of Greek Philosophy,” ANRW 36,5.3556–3602. Diogenes tends to name sources when discussing biographical traditions, but omit them in doxographical sections. 21 J. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 62.

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ics by others. Just as etymology is no infallible guide to the meanings of words down through centuries of usage, so the origins of a particular philosophical tendency such as Cynicism is no sure guide for the character of Cynicism as late as the first century CE. The real issue is whether or not it is possible to speak of a Cynic view of the world which was widely shared among those who regarded themselves as Cynics. Fifth, Cynicism was not a system of thought and behavior which remained constant throughout antiquity. While no historical system of thought and behavior can remain static for long, the unity of Cynicism lies in its perennially countercultural posture, rather than its dogmatic tradition. The tendency among scholars until recently was to treat Cynicism after Diogenes synchronically because of the paucity of evidence. The evidence is so sparse that a diachronic treatment of Cynicism is extremely problematic. Thus, the views of individual Cynics, to the extent that they are known to us, are the proper focus of investigation.22 Sixth, there was an ancient debate concerning the identity of the founder of the Cynics. This debate continues among modern scholars. Some ancients regarded either Antisthenes or Diogenes as possible founders of Cynicism (Julian Or. 6.187C), though Oenomaeus of Gadara (a celebrated Cynic of the second century CE) observed that “the Cynic philosophy is neither Antisthenism or Diogenism” (Julian Or. 6.187C). Since Diogenes Laertius considered Antisthenes the founder of Cynicism, he made a concerted effort to trace the characteristic features of Cynicism back to him. Julian himself thought that Cynicism was founded neither by Antisthenes nor Diogenes, but that it was a universal philosophy predating Heracles (Or. 6.182C–D). According to Dudley, Diogenes was the real founder of Cynicism, for the relationship between Antisthenes and Diogenes was a fiction used by the Stoics to establish continuity between themselves and Socrates.23 One major distinction between Antisthenes and Diogenes and most of the Cynics following Diogenes, centers on their respective attitudes toward society. Though Antisthenes was critical of democratic politics, he remained within the framework of the ancient city (Athens). Diogenes and later Cynics, on the other hand, rejected the conventions of the city state. Yet Antisthenes and Diogenes were agreed in their rejection of the ancient heroic ideal of glory which resulted in honor among their peers, in favor of an ἀρετή which consisted in good deeds.24 Seventh, Cynics strove for unconventionality in appearance and behavior. It is widely assumed that the uniform of the Cynic remained relatively constant 22 See, for example, the study by M. Billerbeck, Der Kyniker Demetrius: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der frühkaiserlichen Popularphilosophie (Philosophia Antiqua 36; Leiden: Brill, 1979). 23  D. R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism (1937; repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1967), 1–16. That the relationship between Antisthenes and Diogenes was a fiction is also held by F. Sayre, Diogenes of Sinope: A Study of Greek Cynicism (Baltimore: J. H. Furst, 1938), who regards Crates as the founder of Cynicism. 24 H. D. Rankin, Anthisthenes Sokratikos (Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, 1986), 183–84.

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throughout antiquity: a threadbare cloak (τρίβων), a leather pouch (πήρα), a staff (βακτηρία), and disheveled hair (Julian Or. 6.201A). The pouch and the staff, however, were widely used by travelers, and the worn cloak and disheveled hair were indications of involuntary poverty. These features were not always exhibited by those who considered themselves Cynics, nor were they restricted to such. Eighth, Diogenes (404–323 BCE) was widely regarded as the paradigmatic Cynic. Anecdotes attributed to him contributed to the ancient conception of how a Cynic should behave. He emphasized that the most important things in life were freedom of speech and freedom of action (Diogenes Laertius 6.69, 71). The wise man rejects the conventions of city life, i.e., the norms and values of Greco-Roman culture (Diogenes Laertius 6.38). The wise man is completely independent of others. Diogenes’ practice of masturbating in public dramatized the view that the demands of nature should be satisfied without recourse to others. He rejected conventional marriage, but thought that men and women could, if they wished, engage in sexual intercourse by mutual consent. Many ancient authorities, however, correctly regarded Cynicism as an ἔνστασις βίου, “style of living” rather than a philosophy (Diogenes Laertius 1.19–20; 6.103; see Julian Or. 6.181D, 189B).25 Much of our knowledge of Cynicism is based on doxographical traditions consisting largely of anecdotes or chreiai about prominent Cynics of the past, such as Antisthenes (ca. 446–366 BCE),26 Diogenes (404–323 BCE), Monimus (4th century BCE), Onesicratus (late 4th century BCE), Crates (late 4th century BCE), and others, preserved primarily in Diogenes Laertius, Book 6. These anecdotes were also assembled into collections and formed one of several types of ancient biography (e.g., Lucian’s Demonax). One did not need be a Cynic to enjoy reading or hearing witty, culturally critical, anecdotes told about one or another Cynic. In fact many of the themes of the Cynic anecdotes were part of ancient Greco-Roman sapiential traditions and not the exclusive province of the various practitioners of Cynicism. Ninth, our knowledge of Cynicism during the imperial period is problematic.27 Cynics wrote few if any philosophical treatises (Julian Or. 6.186B–C). Further, Cynicism of the first three centuries BCE has been refracted through Stoic authors who tend to minimize the differences between the two schools of thought, and even to minimize the difference between individual Cynics.28 The pseudepigraphic Cynic Epistles are the major primary sources for Cynicism in 25 Suida, s. v. αἵρεσις; Suidae Lexicon (ed. A. Adler; 1928–38; repr., Stuttgart: Teubner, 1967), 2.177. 26 Diogenes Laertius (6.15, 19) claims that Antisthenes influenced both the Cynic and Stoic schools. 27 The most comprehensive recent discussion of Cynicism during this period is found in Goulet-Cazé, “Le cynisme à l’époque impériale,” 2720–2833. 28 A. J. Malherbe, “Self-Definition among Epicureans and Cynics,” Self-Definition in the Greco-Roman World, vol. 3 of Jewish and Christian Self-Definition; ed. B. F. Meyer and E. P. Sanders (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), 48–49.

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the early imperial period. Epictetus presents a highly Stoicized portrait the ideal Cynic (Arrian Diss. 3.22). Lucian presents an extremely negative portrait of the Cynic Peregrinus (De morte Peregrini). Few Cynics from the imperial period are known; one of these is Cynulcus.29

Problematic Features of the Hypothesis The task of comparing ancient phenomena is an exceedingly complex undertaking in which differences as well as similarities must be taken into account. Even more problematically, such phenomena never exist in isolation but are part of a larger system. To do justice to the systemic context of phenomena, meaningful conclusions can be reached only as constellations of phenomena from two or more different systems are compared. For example, an emphasis in the teachings of Jesus (i.e., the exemplum of the birds who do not sow or reap yet are cared for by God) is presumably part of a larger perspective on the relationship between people and God in the teachings of the Matthaean Jesus, while parallel exempla in purportedly Cynic authors are primarily expressions of their emphasis on freedom. First, central to the program of exploring the similarities between Jesus and the Cynics is the methodologically thorny problem of assessing the significance of parallels. The most extensive and systematic presentation of such parallels has been compiled by F. Gerald Downing.30 Downing lists (without comment, since he claims that the parallels speak for themselves), hundreds of parallels between the teachings of Jesus in the canonical Gospels and a wide array of literary testimonia supposedly drawn from Cynic sources. While isolated parallels are interesting from a phenomenological perspective, only parallel structures of thought and behavior can be considered to have a possible historical or genetic relationship. Masses of isolated parallels prove little, particularly when drawn indiscriminately from six centuries of real or imagined Cynic authors and supposedly historical reports about Cynics. A further problematic feature is Downing’s emphasis on the teaching of the Cynics in comparison with the teaching of Jesus. Since Cynicism was a style of living rather than a coherent body of doctrine, this emphasis on teaching tends to skew the essential character of Cynicism. One would have thought that Downing’s parallels would focus on such structurally central Cynic emphases as freedom (ἐλευθερία) and independence (αὐταρκεία), or even such concepts 29 R. F. Hock, “A Dog in the Manger: The Cynic Cynulcus among Athenaeus’s Deipnosophists,” Greeks, Romans, and Christians: Essays in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. D. L. Balch, E. Ferguson, and W. A. Meeks (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 20–37. 30 Downing, Christ and the Cynics.

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as frankness (παρρησία) or indifference (ἀδιάφορα) – but this he fails to do.31 Downing’s atomistic approach to the presentation of these parallels is inherently problematic, since many of them are simply common topoi with wide currency in the Greco-Roman world. Even though the presentation of parallels in tabular form is atomistic, one would think it essential that the parallels adduced actually be drawn from Cynic sources. But the problem of determining which authors should be considered Cynics and which not, is extremely complicated. While some scholars have a very restricted list of ancients whom they consider Cynics, Downing casts his net as widely as possible.32 Another problem is whether every utterance of an individual who claims to be a Cynic should be considered Cynic. Downing is confident about this: “the views a self-styled Cynic announces are Cynic.”33 However, Downing goes beyond this: “But we also allow as Cynic views expressed that are akin to those explicitly labelled as Cynic, even where no overt claim to Cynic commitment is made.”34 Downing therefore regards Musonius Rufus (ca. 30–100 CE) as a Cynic, a judgment which is methodologically problematic.35 The case of Dio Chrysostom, whom Downing with many others regards as having moved from Stoicism to Cynicism (or at least exhibited Cynic leanings), and then back to Stoicism again (in a late speech, Or. 34, he attacks Cynics), is more difficult and even more crucial.36 Dio’s orations provide Downing with a large number of parallels to the canonical Gospels. It has become increasingly evident, however, that Dio was never a Cynic. During Dio’s banishment by Domitian (82–96 CE), his wandering, humble garb, and moralizing speeches were not exclusive characteristics of Cynics. Furthermore, his admiration of Diogenes, like his admiration of Herakles, Odysseus, and Socrates, was not the exclusive province of Cynics, but also characterized Stoics and others. Dio, like Epictetus, was probably a Stoic who admired the Cynic ideal while rejecting the impostors who claimed the Cynic name.37 Second, to buttress his particular version of the Cynic hypothesis, Mack speaks of a “Hellenistic ethos” which “prevailed” in Galilee.38 It is this Hellenistic ethos which Mack judges the necessary cultural context for supposing the presence 31 In Cynics and Christian Origins, 45–50, Downing admits that few if any of the catchwords attributed to Cynics occur widely enough in Cynic authors to be considered unimpeachably Cynic. What Downing does not mention is that these concepts are so widely used in the Hellenistic world that they cannot be associated exclusively with any specific intellectual tradition. 32 This issue is fully and frankly discussed in Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 26–56. 33 Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 55. 34 Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 55. 35 Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 69–70. 36 This view, already espoused by Synesius in antiquity, was propounded by H. F. A. von Arnim, Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa (Berlin: Weidmann, 1898), 245, 464. 37  C. P. Jones, The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), 45–55. 38 Mack, Myth of Innocence, 68.

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of Cynic philosophers. After surveying the widespread use of Greek language, literature, and education in Palestine during the first century CE, Martin Hengel argues that the older distinction between “Palestinian” and “Hellenistic” Judaism is no longer useful. He proposes that “Palestinian” Judaism should rather be designated “Hellenistic” Judaism.39 Though there were enclaves of Hellenistic culture in the two major Hellenistic cities of Galilee – Sepphoris and Tiberias – and in the more northerly of the transjordanian cities of the Decapolis (e.g., Antiochia Hippos, Abila, Gadara, Pella, and Beth-Shean or Scythopolis),40 no clear picture has yet emerged regarding the complex relationship between Jewish and Hellenistic cultural worlds in Galilee during the first century CE. Hellenism was more in evidence in some of the cities of Palestine than in the countryside. Evidence suggests, in fact, that there was a tension between such Hellenistic cities as Tyre and the Galilean hinterland upon which it was dependent for its food supply.41 Though Hengel’s competent work on Hellenistic aspects of Judaism has often been used to argue for the syncretistic character of Judaism, Hengel himself makes it clear that the central features of Jewish faith remained distinctively within the traditional parameters of Israelite-Jewish tradition. There is, furthermore, no literary or archaeological evidence for a Cynic presence in first-century Galilee. Two famous Cynics, Menippus42 and Oenomaus,43 together with Meleager, a Hellenistic poet with Cynic sympathies,44 were natives of Gadara (one of the more important Decapolis cities located 7.5 kilometers southeast of the Sea of Galilee). Menippus was a Phoenician who was sold as a slave to a certain Baton in Pontus and later settled in Thebes. Some scholars have detected Semitic influence in the fragments of his writings which have survived.45 Meleager was born in Gadara but grew up in Tyre and retired to Cos where he probably died. However, neither figure seems to have practiced the Cynic mode of life in Ga39 M. Hengel, The “Hellenization” of Judaea in the First Century after Christ (London and Philadelphia: SCM Press, 1989). 40 On these cities, see E. Stern, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Carta; New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) 4.1324–28 (Sepphoris), 4.1464–73 (Tiberias); 2.634–36 (Hippos), 1.1–3 (Abila), 3.1174–80 (Pella), 1.223–35 (Beth-Shean); on Gadara, see U. Wagner-Lux and K. J. H. Vriezen, “Gadarenes,” ABD 2.866–68. 41 G. Theissen, The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 61–80. 42 Menippus, early third century BCE (Strabo 16.2.29), was a Phoenician or Syrian, according to Diogenes Laertius (6.99). On Menippus, see R. Helm, PW 15.888–94; Dudley, A History of Cynicism, 69–74; L. Paquet, Les Cyniques Grecs: Fragments et témoinages (Ottawa: Éditions de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1975), 122–24. 43 Oenomaus flourished in the early second century CE. On Oenomaus, see Dudley, Cynicism, 162–70; J. Hammerstaedt, “Der Kyniker Oenomaus von Gadara,” ANRW 36,4.2834–65. 44 Meleager flourished during the first century BCE (Anth. Graec. 7.417–19). 45 M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), 1.84.

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dara. There is, finally, some late evidence for the awareness of Cynics on the part of rabbinic sages.46 Third, since the Greco-Roman norms and values to which the Cynics objected were focused in the social and political institutions of the ancient city-states, they were active almost exclusively in an urban environment. Even the Cynic practice of itinerant living was primarily a means of moving from one urban environment to another. The Jesus movement, on the other hand, was primarily rural; it even appears that Jesus consciously avoided the Hellenistic cities of Galilee and the surrounding regions. Dominic Crossan, who includes a dated synthetic presentation of Cynicism as part of the historical background for his major work on the historical Jesus,47 is quite willing to entertain the possibility of Jesus as a “peasant Jewish Cynic,” though he obviously does not use the term “Cynic” in the usual sense:48 Greco-Roman Cynics, however, concentrated primarily on the marketplace rather than the farm, on the city dweller rather than the peasant. And they showed little sense of collective discipline, on the one hand, or of communal action, on the other. Jesus and his followers do not fit well against that background.

Here Crossan focuses on two major differences between Jesus and the Cynics, the primary setting of their activity (Jesus avoided cities, while Cynics were primarily urban) and the particular social context of their activity (Jesus played a central role in a socio-religious movement, while Cynics were convinced individualists). Fourth, the Gospels are complex documents which contain authentic reminiscences of the teachings and activities of Jesus overlayed by the concerns of later forms of Christianity, including Palestinian Jewish Christianity, Hellenistic Jewish Christianity, and Hellenistic Gentile Christianity. Cynic influence would have become increasingly more likely with the Hellenization of the Jesus tradition. Fifth, most New Testament scholars who discuss the relevance of the Cynics for understanding Jesus or early Christians depend upon syntheses of Cynicism formulated a generation or more ago which presuppose more unity and coherence in Cynicism and the close relationship between Stoics and Cynics than one can now safely assume.49

Luz, “A Description of the Greek Cynic in the Jerusalem Talmud,” JSJ 20 (1989), 49–60. synthetic discussion of Cynicism is also problematic in that he used Bryan Wilson’s sevenfold typology of millennarian movements to categorize Cynicism as an introversionist response to the world (The Historical Jesus, 72–73; see B. Wilson, Magic and the Millennium: A Sociological Study of Religious Movements of Protest among Tribal and Third-World Peoples [New York: Harper and Row, 1973], 16–30). Since “Cynicism” (a designation for the common features of individual Cynics) is neither a social movement nor religious, the use of Wilson’s typology is inherently problematic. 48 Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 421. 49 Major exceptions include F. G. Downing and A. Malherbe. 46 M.

47 Crossan’s

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Sixth, the formal similarities between the apophthegmata of Jesus and the Cynic chreiai require discussion.50 The relationship between the apophthegmata, or pronouncement stories, attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, and the chreiai or anecdotes attributed to Cynic philosophers, have been the subject of some discussion.51 After the aphorism, the chreia is the most frequently found literary form in the Synoptic Gospels. Klaus Berger has listed no less than 65 chreiai in the canonical Gospels.52 The influence of the Greek chreia on rabbinic literature was explored earlier by H. A. Fischel.53 While the use of chreiai was certainly not limited to Cynics, since they tend to center on conflicts in values, they proved to be appropriate vehicles for the Cynic critique of urban society generally. There are differences as well as similarities between the Cynic chreiai and the chreiai of the Synoptic Gospels. First, chreiai in general, and the Cynic chreiai in particular, tend to be witty. This humorous element is almost completely missing from the chreiai attributed to Jesus. Second, the interlocutors in Cynic chreiai are either completely anonymous or famous people, such as Alexander the Great. The dialogue partners in the Synoptic chreiai tend to be stereotypical groups, such as Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes. Even Jesus himself does not function as an individual sage so much as a representative of a group. The conflict, therefore, is not between the sage and society in general, but between two social groups. The conflict therefore functions as a means of defining social identity.54

Conclusions In discussing the problems involved in attempting to use various kinds of testimonia about the Cynics in order to shed light on the distinctive character of the life and teaching of Jesus, several issues have emerged which make such a comparison extremely difficult. First, the proposal assumes the influential presence of Cynics in Galilee during the early part of the first century CE, perhaps even an adapted form of “Jewish Cynicism.” No literary or archaeological evidence suggests any Cynic presence Hellenization, 44. relevance of chreiai for understanding the form of certain sayings of Jesus presented within a brief narrative framework was emphasized by M. Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (6th ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1971), 149–64. 52 K. Berger, Formgeschichte des Neuen Testaments (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1984), 80–82. 53 H. A. Fischel, “Studies in Cynicism and the Ancient Near East: The Transformation of a Chria,” Studies in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, ed. J. Neusner (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 372–411. 54 Theissen, Gospels in Context, 113–16. 50 Hengel, 51 The

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whatsoever in Galilee or even in the Decapolis, nor for the presence or development of a hybrid type of “Jewish Cynicism.” Second, the Cynic protest against the political and social norms and values of Greco-Roman culture was possible only in the context of Greco-Roman cities. In contrast, the Jesus movement was primarily at home in a rural peasant context. Third, Cynics did not constitute a “philosophical school” (αἵρεσις) as that concept was normally understood in the ancient world. Diogenes Laertius presents a heavily fictionalized account of teacher-student connections based on ancient attempts to conceptualize “Cynicism” on analogy with the major philosophical schools. Even the attempt to provide Cynicism with a founder, on analogy with major philosophical schools, is problematic. It was an extremely diverse tradition with both intellectual and behavioral poles. This tradition was kept alive by the paradigmatic role played by Diogenes and other culturally marginal sages and was transmitted through anecdotes and biographies. Fourth, “Cynicism” is so diverse throughout antiquity that it cannot be discussed adequately synchronically, but must be approached through the study of the thought and behavior of individuals who either considered themselves Cynics or were considered Cynics by others. Fifth, the structural core of Cynic thought is the theme of freedom. This theme is characteristically expressed by frank speech, countercultural dress (typically pouch, staff, and ragged cloak), and behavior. The striking differences between Jesus and the Cynics become evident when the systemic structures of thought and behavior are compared. These differences are obscured when the proposed parallel material compared is atomized into individual themes and motifs. Sixth, the roster of authors and testimonia assumed to be Cynic needs to be examined with extreme care. The comparative enterprise is vitiated if important authors such as Dio Chrysostom are assumed to be Cynics when in fact they probably were not. Furthermore, it cannot simply be assumed that every statement attributed to a supposed Cynic is characteristic of Cynicism. Seventh, the hyphenated compound adjective “Cynic-Stoic” is problematic because it obscures the considerable distinctions between the two traditions. Eighth, and finally, the formal similarities between the anecdotes or chreiai attributed to Jesus and the Cynics are striking and deserve detailed study.55

55 See also the following more recent discussions: K. Berger, “Hellenistische Gattungen im Neuen Testament,” ANRW 25,2.1092–1110 (with an extensive bibliography); V. K. Robbins, “The Chreia,” Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament, ed. D. E. Aune (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 1–24; B. L. Mack and V. K. Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1989).

12. Prolegomena to the Study of Oral Tradition in the Hellenistic World* Introduction Investigations into the phenomenon of oral tradition in the ancient world are ultimately stymied by the fact that all access to the subject is mediated through written texts. This means that suitably rigorous methods must be adapted and refined from various types of textual analysis and folklore studies which can then be applied to the secondary analysis of data from texts which would otherwise refuse to divulge their secrets. Modern folklorists now realize that the interaction of an oral performer and an audience is a critically important feature of oral genres, and that even a tape recorder cannot convey the gestures, facial expressions and social context which are an integral aspect of such performances. Indeed, folk tales are arguably closer to the dramatic genres (e.g. skit, one-act play, etc.) than to short stories in western culture.1 Further, no two oral performances are the same. In the study of Hellenistic oral tradition, alas, most of the critically important aspects of oral folklore are irretrievably lost. The purpose of this paper is to survey scholarship on oral tradition in the Hellenistic and Roman periods as a context for understanding the use of oral tradition in early Christianity. The term “prolegomena” in the title is not used lightly, for each major division of this paper deserves detailed discussion in its own right, and there are many areas of great importance which scholarship has scarcely touched. The intention of this paper is, furthermore, complicated by several factors: 1. Judging by the surprisingly meager bibliography on the study of oral tradition and transmission in the Hellenistic world, classical scholars have shown little direct interest in the phenomenon of oral tradition during both the Hellenistic period (ca. 330–30 BCE) and the Roman period (ca. 30 BCE-476 CE). The primary reason for this state of affairs is simply that most classical scholars are blind to the issue, although it is also true that there is a paucity of data relating to oral * Original publication: “Prolegomena to the Study of Oral Tradition in the Hellenistic World,” Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition, ed. H. Wansbrough (JSNTSup 64; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 59–106. Reprinted by permission by Bloomsbury Publishing Pic. 1 M. Jacobs, The Content and Style of an Oral Literature: Clackamas Chinook Myths and Tales (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), 211–19.

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tradition preserved in Hellenistic literature (the bulk of which is lost), and the data which is extant is often difficult to interpret. 2. The neglect of this subject, paradoxically, is due in part to the development and influence of the Oral-Formulaic School, which focused on the phenomenon of orality from Homer to the fifth century BCE, that is, on Greek literature of the archaic (ca. 750–480 BCE) and the classical (ca. 480–330 BCE) periods.2 The discussion of orality versus textuality in the works of scholars who have been influenced by this school (e.g. Eric Havelock, Bruno Gentili) as well as others who have only tangential connections with it (e.g. Walter Ong, Marshall McLuhan) is often overshadowed by the leitmotif of the romantic valorization of oral culture as somehow more vital and authentic than literate culture. Ong, for example, has characterized oral discourse as “warmly human, participatory,” while written discourse is “sparse, abstract, immobile.”3 This romantic conception of oral culture, despite denials, also permeates Werner Kelber’s attempt to formulate an “oral hermeneutic” for New Testament texts, in contrast to the dominant “print-oriented hermeneutic.”4 The incorrect implication is that when the transition was made from oral to literate culture during the fifth century BCE, the role of oral tradition became negligible thereafter, and the Hellenistic period (ca. late fourth century to late first century BCE) became a “bookish” period. That implication is patently false. By analogy, the fact that the study of American folklore is flourishing today as never before suggests that the dichotomy between oral and written culture has severe limits. 3. The mutual influence of oral tradition and written texts in a literate society is a problematic issue which must be addressed. It is important to be aware of the fact that the dichotomy between oral tradition and written tradition is itself problematic. W. J. Ong has emphasized the phenomenon of residual oralism, which he considers characteristic of literary texts which have gradually emerged from an oral-aural stage of culture.5 George Kennedy has appropriated the 2 The history of research on the oral-formulaic theory is surveyed by J. M. Foley, The Theory of

Oral Composition: History and Methodology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), and an extensive bibliography together with a briefer history of research is available in J. M. Foley, Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research: An Introduction and Annotated Bibliography (New York: Garland, 1985). A competent evaluation of the oral-formulaic theory and the Homeric question is found in M. S. Jensen, The Homeric Question and the Oral-Formulaic Theory (Opuscula Graecolatina 20; Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1980). 3 W. Ong, Orality and Literacy, The Technologizing of the Word (London: Methuen, 1982), 166. 4  W. H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul and Q (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983). On p. xvi, Kelber disavows this romantic bias: “It was my intention to avoid being prejudiced in favor of either orality or textuality. When, for example, I refer to the spoken word as being innocent of the linguistic fall into written exteriority, I do not wish to romanticize orality at the expense of writing, but I describe writing as it appears to an oral mentality.” 5 W. Ong, The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967).

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Italian noun letteraturizzazione to describe “the repeated slippage of rhetoric into literary composition.”6 Students of Greco-Roman literature are aware of the profound influence which oral techniques can have on written texts, an influence particularly obvious in the extensive use of speeches in Greek and Latin histories, and in the rhetorical structure of written texts. Following Gentili,7 oral literature has three aspects which may be differentiated, all but the first of which (in my view) must be present: (a) oral composition (whether improvisation or careful mental preparation); (b) oral publication (performance); and (c) oral transmission (preservation). The first aspect is dispensable only because written texts can give rise to oral performances and thereafter be transmitted orally. Despite the imposing methodological barriers, which will be discussed in more detail below, there appear to be three categories of data relating to oral traditions in the Hellenistic world which have been preserved in written texts. These three types of data must be identified and analyzed if the form, content and function of oral tradition in the Hellenistic world are to be understood adequately: 1. General statements about oral tradition found in authors who treat the subject, however briefly. 2. The presence of oral patterns of composition in written texts. 3. Texts which are introduced by ancient authors as derived from oral sources and which exhibit formal features consistent with existence in a pre-literary oral form. There are formidable methodological problems involved in the proper analysis and evaluation of each of these three categories of evidence for oral tradition in the Hellenistic world. 1. A major problem inherent in the first category of data, general statements about oral tradition, is the persistent dichotomy between the ideal and the real. That is, what authors say about the processes, functions and values of oral tradition may or may not correspond to actual practice or to opinions and views which are in any sense representative. In Greek literature, however, authors (uncharacteristically) rarely provide theoretical discussions about oral tradition, its character and processes, except within very narrow spheres of application, such as historiography. 2. The second category of evidence focuses on the formal continuities between oral and written literature. Some of the more important characteristics of oral literature which have been suggested include: (a) brief sentences and parataxis rather than hypotaxis;8 (b) absence of syntactic hyperbaton; (c) avoidance of Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 109. 7 B. Gentili, Poetry and Its Public in Ancient Greece: From Homer to the Fifth Century, trans. A. T. Cole (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1988), 4. 8  E. A. Havelock, The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 76. 6 G.

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idiosyncratic use of the first person; (d) use of clear, concrete language for the exposition of ideas immediately comprehensible to an audience and which would hold their attention. Among the more specific stylistic features of oral literature which have been suggested by scholars are: a. formulas; b. envelope patterns,9 or ring composition;10 c. recapitulations;11 d. interruptions and asides;12 e. stylization of introductions, epilogues and endings;13 f. number patterns; g. devices expressing distance, location or date;14 h. directional statements;15 i. tale-types;16 j. motifs.17 However, since these features may characterize both oral traditions and written texts, they are less than adequate heuristic markers for discovering oral traditions behind written texts. One of the central problems is that oral traditions were widely used as models for written texts. 3. The third category of data is very complex since there is no absolutely certain method which can validate the results of research. Occasionally texts which may have had a pre-literary existence as oral tradition are identified as such by authors who insert such material in their written texts. This is signaled by ancients who consulted informants (particularly historians such as Herodotus, encyclopedists such as Plutarch,18 essayists such as Lucian,19 and travel guides Hieatt, “On Envelope Patterns and Nonce Formulas,” Comparative Research on Oral Traditions: A Memorial for Milman Parry, ed. J. M. Foley (Columbus: Slavica, 1987), 245–58. 10  H. R. Immerwahr, Form and Thought in Herodotus (Philological Monographs 23; Cleveland: American Philological Association, 1966), 53–58; I. Beck, Die Ringkomposition bei Herodot und ihre Bedeutung für die Beweistechnik (Hildesheim: Olms, 1971). 11 T. Hägg, Narrative Technique in Ancient Greek Romances: Studies of Chariton, Xenophon Ephesius, and Achilles Tatius (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1971), 332. 12 A. Scobie, Apuleius and Folklore (London: The Folklore Society, 1983), 37. 13 Jacobs, Content and Style, 220–24. 14 Jacobs, Content and Style, 228–32. 15  M. L. Lang, Herodotean Narrative and Discourse (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 1–5. 16 A. Aarne, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, trans. and enl. by Stith Thompson (2nd ed.; Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1973). 17 S. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (6 vols.; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955–58). 18 Plutarch’s retelling of the retelling of the myth of Isis and Osiris (in De Is. et Os. 355E-358E) is probably based on information derived from existing literature (now largely lost), and on interviews with the priests of the Egyptian cult of Isis in Delphi. Plutarch clearly intends to present a credible account of the Isis myth and its true meaning. To this end he frequently uses impersonal third person verb forms such as φασι (355D, 357A, B) and λέγουσι (356C). He  9 C. B.

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such as Pausanias) and introduced the gist of their responses with such formulaic impersonal verbs as λέγουσι, φασίν, or λέγεται, or such terms as ἤκουσα. Literary texts with a possibly pre-literary oral history may be identified by clues present in the literary context of the tradition, or they may be identified by the presence of features of oral tradition known from the modern study of folklore, summarized in (2) above.

Defining Oral Tradition The phrase “oral tradition” refers to fixed, standard forms which are orally or verbally communicated to members of a particular group. Oral tradition is one of the three focal concerns of folkloristics, which is manifested in 1. oral and verbal forms (“mentifacts” or oral literature); 2. customary behavior (“sociofacts” or social folk custom); and 3. material forms (“artifacts” or material culture). These three categories are transmitted by word of mouth and by customary example.20 Oral forms of folklore, our focal concern in this paper, have five characteristics.21 They are: (1) oral content, (2) traditional form and transmission, (3) existence in different versions, (4) anonymity, or dissociation from a specific, named originator, and (5) tendency to become stereotyped or formularized in style and structure. Further, folklore in all three major categories lives only in performance or through communication. There is an important sense in which oral tradition, the major concern of the folklorist, must be distinguished from two other relatively recent developments, oral literature and oral history, neither of which has a necessarily traditional

reports alternate versions of various features of the myth with such phrases as ἔνιοι λέγουσιν (355E), and ἔνιοί φασι (356A, D, 357E), οἱ δέ φασιν (357E, 358A), and ἕ́τεροι οἴονται (356D). 19 Cf. Lucian, Syr. D., in which the following formulaic words or phrases occur: λέγονται (2); λέγεται (13); λέγουσι (4 [“they say / but I think”], 6, 16, 17, 34); ἤκουσα (4, 12, 15 [“There is another sacred account which I heard from a wise man”] 27); “one of the priests told me” (4). Majority versions can be indicated by οἱ πολλοὶ λέγουσιν (8, 12), and minority opinions by ἔνιοι … λέγουσι (7). Lucian also reports several θαύματα or wonder stories (7, 8). Sometimes the impersonal third person λέγουσι has an explicit subject, such as “a certain man of Byblos” (8). Lucian’s attitude toward such oral traditions is skeptical (11; trans. Attridge and Oden): “when I enquired about the age of the temple and whom they consider its goddess to be, I heard many accounts. Some of them were sacred, some profane, some quite fabulous. Some were barbarian, and some agree with what the Greeks tell. I will tell them all, but in no way do accept them.” 20  J. H. Brunvand, Folklore: A Study and Research Guide (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1976), 2; and The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction (3rd ed.; New York: W. W. Norton, 1986), 4–7. 21 Brunvand, Folklore, 2; idem, Study of American Folklore, 7.

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character.22 Oral literature has a primarily esthetic concern and is interested in Märchen, novellas and riddles, but particularly focuses on such poetic forms as epics, ballads, proverbs and songs. However, only if epics (for example), extemporaneously composed by bards, are transmitted by others is the label oral traditional literature valid. Oral history on the other hand is concerned with historical data and its accuracy, and focuses on such prose genres as reminiscences, recollections, anecdotes, reconstructions, testimonies, sagas, explanatory tales, genealogies, myths, legends,23 memorates24 and fabulates. While oral history is elicited by an interviewer, oral traditional history “must contain sufficient intrinsic appeal to attract new hearers and retellers, for the folk historian transmits only what pleases his elders, his peers, and his juniors.”25 The problem of genre has become a central issue in modern folklore studies.26 One central issue is whether or not the classification of oral tradition should be based on intrinsic ethnic categories (i.e. those of the informants themselves), or on extrinsic analytical categories (i.e. those of modern researchers). One relatively simple way of categorizing the major types of oral folklore is the following:27 1. folk speech (dialect, naming); 2. folk proverbs (traditional phrases and sentences); 3. folk riddles (traditional questions); 4. folk rhymes (traditional poetry); 5. folk narratives; 6. folk songs, ballads and their music. Not all information derived from oral sources automatically qualifies as oral tradition. Oral messages which are repeated, that is, preserved and transmitted

22 R. M. Dorson, “Oral Literature, Oral History, and the Folklorist,” Folklore and Fakelore: Essays Toward a Discipline of Folk Studies, ed. R. M. Dorson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), 127–44. 23 L. Dégh and A. Vászony, “Legend and Belief,” Folklore Genres, ed. D. Ben-Amos (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976), 93–123. 24 A “memorate” is a first-person recital of an apparently personal experience which is in fact a personalized form of a traditional narrative form, and therefore frequently an ad hoc formation in both form and content. The form was identified by C. W. von Sydow (“Kategorien der Prosa-Volksdichtung,” Volkskündliche Gaben John Meier [Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1934], 253–68), and sharpened by L. Dégh and A. Vászony (“The Memorate and the Proto-Memorate,” Journal of American Folklore 87 (1974), 225–39), who propose that the narrator must know (or claim to know) personally the people who had the experience. When the first-person style of a memorate switches to the third person, the memorate becomes a fabulate. 25 Dorson, “Oral Literature,” 141. 26 L. Dégh, “Folk Narrative,” Folklore and Folklife, ed. R. M. Dorson (Chicago: University of Press, 1972), 53–83; D. Ben-Amos, Folklore Genres (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976), ix–xlv. 27 Brunvand, Study of American Folklore, 6.

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beyond the generation which produced them, become oral traditions.28 There are a number of types of oral tradition.29

Memorized Speech Although the wording of memorized speech is popularly thought to remain unchanged from recitation to recitation, yet wording tends to vary over time. In pre-literate societies there is no standard against which the correctness of a recitation can be checked except others who have memorized the same composition. It is likely that memorized forms of speech, such as the Lord’s Prayer, are more stable in literate societies. Frequently, memorized speech has poetic form which facilitates verbatim memorization. This is the only type of oral tradition for which archetypes can be constructed to reconstruct an “original version.” Memorized forms of speech are not transformed over time but rather fall out of use. Forms typical of memorized speech include formulas, prayers, spells, poetry and songs. The first three use everyday language, while the last two use the special language rules which constitute poetry.

Accounts of Events There is a tendency for accounts to fuse and acquire a stabilized form. An original version cannot be reconstructed, nor can it be assumed that there ever was an “original” version. Accounts of events include: 1. historical gossip (news and hearsay generated by events); 2. personal tradition (reminiscences, anecdotes quickly lost); 3. group accounts (oral memories of groups, e.g., villages, kinship groups, expressing identity of group, substantiating rights over land, etc.); 4. traditions of origin and genesis (personal accounts, group accounts and traditions of origin, all part of a three-tiered whole); 5. cumulative accounts (lists or genealogies which need continual updating).

Epic Since epics consist of lengthy poetic narratives made up of hundreds if not thousands of verses, exact wording in epics does not matter and improvisation is encouraged. Wording is totally free as long as form is kept; generous use of stockphrases and formulas explains how bards are able to innovate within the confines of a defined form. According to Alfred Lord,30 the epic poet recalls rather than 28 J. Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 13, 27. 29 Vansina,

Oral Tradition, 13–27.

30 A. B. Lord, “The Gospels as Oral Tradition Literature,”The Relationships among the Gospels:

An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, ed. W. O. Walker, Jr. (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1973), 33–91.

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memorizes the theme of his story; the song as creation is more important than the song as repetition.

Tales, Proverbs, and Sayings No original form can be reconstructed. “Every performance is a premier and appreciated as such by the audience.”31

The Oral-formulaic Theory The famous Homeric critic F. A. Wolf32 (1759–1824) was so impressed with the truth of a view expressed by Josephus that he made it a pivotal piece of evidence for his analytical theory (C. Ap. 1.12; LCL trans.): Throughout the whole range of Greek literature no undisputed work is found more ancient than the poetry of Homer. His date, however, is clearly later than the Trojan war; and even he, they say [φασίν], did not leave his poems in writing. At first transmitted by memory [διαμνημονευομένην], the scattered songs were not united until later; to which circumstance the numerous inconsistencies of the work are attributable.

While it is not clear just whose opinion Josephus is repeating (perhaps that of the pedestrian Homeric critic Apion himself; cf. C. Ap. 2.14), it is clear that Josephus intends to contrast the reliability and antiquity of Jewish written records (C. Ap. 1.37–43) with the comparatively unreliable and recent Greek use of writing by Cadmos of Miletus and Acusilaus of Argos in the sixth century BCE (C. Ap. 1.13). Pausanias too preserves a tradition that “Peisistratus collected the poems of Homer, which were scattered [διεσπασμένα] and handed down by tradition [μνημονευόμενα], some in one place and some in another” (7.26.13; LCL trans.). These traditions are significant not only because they attest the oral composition and transmission of Homeric epic, but also (and perhaps more importantly), because they reflect the role which first and second century CE authors such as Josephus and Pausanias thought oral transmission could play in the preservation of traditional literature. Since the 1930s, and in line with Wolf ’s view of the oral composition and transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey, a major reorientation in Anglo-American Homeric scholarship has occurred which has important ramifications for our understanding of the role of oral tradition in the ancient Mediterranean world. In a number of studies from 1928 to his premature death in 1935, Milman Parry (1902–1935) proposed that “Homer” was illiterate and that the Iliad and Odyssey 31 Vansina,

Oral Tradition, 26.

32  F. A. Wolf, Prolegomena to Homer, trans. A. Grafton, G. W. Most and J. E. G. Zetzel (Prince-

ton: Princeton University Press, 1985 [German original published in 1795]), 94–95.

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were the products of a long history of oral-formulaic composition.33 The artificial language of the Homeric epics was the result of continual oral development over centuries. Wolf ’s view of the relatively late date when writing was introduced into the Greek world and, even more critical, when it became widely used,34 was confirmed by two influential articles that appeared in 1933 and 1938, in which Rhys Carpenter demonstrated that the Greek alphabet was invented not earlier than the latter half of the eighth century BCE.35 In spite of widespread initial scholarly opposition, Parry’s oral-formulaic theory now dominates Anglo-American Homeric scholarship.36 While many scholars accept what is now called the Parry-Lord theory in part, there is still a strong conviction that the Homeric epics “could not have been created at all without the aid of writing.”37 Yet Parry himself at one point argued that the traditional style Homer used was oral, not that Homer’s style was oral.38 Havelock has forcefully argued that the invention of the syllabic system “provided techniques for recall of what was already familiar, not instruments for formulating novel statements which could further the exploration of new experience.”39 According to Havelock,40 the alphabet “provided an instrument in which for the first time the full complexities of an oral tradition could be adequately revealed, for in theory any linguistic noise could not be automatically recognized in transcription.” Literacy and cultural sophistication are not corollaries.41 According to Havelock, the “saying” (“the primary form of preserved oral speech”), like poetry, is an instrument for preserving and transmitting important cultural information.42 Homeric epic constituted an enjoyable narrative in which social and cultural values and norms were taught in and through dramatized action rather than through the formulation of abstract ideas and principles.43 The syntax of memorized speech, however, is unfriendly to principles, laws, or formulas, but appropriate for contingent actions and movements, and for concrete examples of the actions and reactions of specific people.44 What is called correspondence or symmetry is really the process of continual anticipation.45 33 A. Parry, ed., The Making of Homeric Verse, The Collected Papers of Milman Parry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). 34 Wolf, Prolegomena, 71–92. 35 R. Carpenter, “The Antiquity of the Greek Alphabet,” AJA 37 (1933), 8–29; and “The Greek Alphabet Again,” AJA 42 (1938), 58–69. 36 Foley, Oral-Formulaic Theory, 3–77. 37 A. Heubeck, S. West and J. B. Hainsworth, A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey, I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 12. 38 Parry, Making of Homeric Verse, 321. 39  E. A. Havelock, Prologue to Greek Literacy (Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati, 1971), 7; Idem, The Muse, 70. 40 Prologue, 15. 41 Havelock, Prologue, 17. 42 Havelock, Prologue, 28. 43 Havelock, The Muse, 77. 44 Havelock, Prologue, 51. 45 Havelock, Prologue, 53.

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Although the concern of the oral-formulaic school centers on Greek literature of the archaic and classical periods, Parry and Lord tested their ideas on the coffee-house bards of modern Yugoslavia and modern Serbo-Croatian epic. Though little is known of oral-formulaic technique during the Hellenistic period, there is a tantalizing reference to this practice in the second century BCE (Strabo 14.5.15; LCL trans.): “Diogenes [of Tarsus, an itinerant philosopher] also composed poems, as if by inspiration, when a subject was given him – for the most part tragic poems.” This extemporaneous composition is an example of oral literature, for unless Diogenes’s poems were transmitted by others, they cannot be categorized as oral traditional literature. We know from the report of Dio Chrysostom (Or. 36.9), that the people of Borysthenes had a great interest in Homer. And although in general they no longer speak Greek distinctly, because they live in the midst of barbarians, still almost all at least know the Iliad by heart [ὅμως τήν γε  Ἰλιάδα ὀλίγου πάντες ἴσασιν ἀπὸ στόματος].

Here ἀπὸ στόματος εἰπεῖν means “to speak from memory” (Plato, Theaetetus 142D; Xenophon, Mem. 3.6.9; Plutarch. Sol. 8).

Travel Guides and Local Oral Traditions One very specific setting for the transmission of oral traditions is the explanations which informed people provide for remarkable features in the landscape, for the origin and significance of monuments, works of art, and customs of various types. These explanations include popular etymologies, and explanatory glosses of obscure passages in traditions of various sorts. In the Hellenistic world it was a rare thing indeed if natives could not assign remarkable objects, ancient buildings, exceptional works of art, archaic rituals and peculiar ceremonies to specific origins in time by particular individuals on particular occasions.46 The general term for such “explanations” is αἰτίαι. The αἰτίαι became a literary form as well. Only fragments survive of the Aetia of Callimachus, in which the focus is on events and myths which explain religious customs and rituals, features of sacred statues and place names.47 Because the explanations are so obscure and frequently without parallel in extant authors, some have thought that Callimachus used local historians as sources.48 Spurious explanations (such as the explanation of the mark in the bedrock in the Erechtheum on the Acropolis at Athens as the mark caused by Poseidon’s trident) are called iconatrophy.49 Myres, Who Were the Greeks? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1930), 298. There are some instances in which local guides cannot satisfy the curiosity of Pausanias: 1.19.2; 1.31.5; 2.9.7. 47 G. O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 40–48. 48 Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry, 41. 49 Vansina, Oral Tradition, 10. 46  J. L.

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Throughout the Hellenistic world, travelers were besieged by “tour guides” (περιηγηταί) or “interpreters” (ἐξηγηταί) ready to give tours and to provide for a price the necessary information about the origins and significance of various monuments, buildings and works of art.50 Lucian (Am. 8; LCL trans.) provides a glimpse into a business which has not changed much in two thousand years: As I walked round the porticoes in the temple of Dionysus, I examined each painting, not only delighting my eyes but also renewing my acquaintance with the tales of heroes. For immediately two or three fellows rushed up to me, offering for a small fee to explain every story [ἱστορίαν] for me, though most of what they said I had already guessed for myself.

This brief text reminds us that the subjects of ancient works of art focused on famous episodes of the mythical past, and for that reason there were important links between representational art and folklore in the Hellenistic world; the former provided a concrete setting for the preservation of the latter.

The Fountain of the Sun The legend of the fountain of the sun is an extraordinary example of the longevity of the kind of local oral tradition perpetuated by travel guides over a period of many centuries. Herodotus, in discussing the geographical features of Libya, describes a peculiar fountain (4.181; LCL trans.): They have another spring of water besides, which is warm at dawn, and colder at market-time, and very cold at noon; and it is then that they water their gardens; as the day declines the coldness abates, till at sunset the water grows warm. It becomes ever hotter and hotter till midnight, and then it boils and bubbles; after midnight it becomes ever cooler till dawn. This spring is called the spring of the sun.

Pliny the Elder mentions the fact that the Oracle of Ammon, at the Oasis of Siwah, and the Fountain of the Sun are both in the same district of Libya (Nat. 2.106; LCL trans.): The swamp of Jupiter Ammon is cold by day and hot at night. A spring in the Cave-dwellers’ territory [central Sahara] called the Fountain of the Sun is sweet and very cold at midday, but then gradually warming, towards the middle of the night it becomes spoilt owing to its heat and bitter taste.

Andreas Kronenberg, who was traveling in the Sahara in 1954, reported the following story related to him by his guide:51 West of the Teda live people who do not know fire. They are called jezei-uni-da, sun-firepeople. They live around a big guelta [Arabic, “waterhole”] into which the sun descends

Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (Toronto: Hakkert, 1974), 262–91. Kronenberg, “The Fountain of the Sun: A Tale Related by Herodotus, Pliny and the Modern Teda,” Man 55 (1955), 74. 50 L.

51 A.

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every night. Then the water gets hot and they can cook their food. Thus they only eat once a day.

Herodotus, Pliny and the modern Teda guide all refer to the same legend, though the ancient authors do not identify the reason why the spring is named Fountain of the Sun. Kronenberg, who heard other versions of the same modern version of the legend, observes that Amon Ra was the Egyptian sun god, and that the legend was not confined to the Oasis of Siwah where the ancient oracle of Zeus-Ammon was located. While the story of the fountain of the sun is a remarkable example of the tenacity of local legend, a note of caution is necessary. There have been several modem attempts to emphasize the continuity between ancient Greek mythology and modern Greek folklore.52 Such studies, often motivated by nationalistic concerns, are problematic, as Richard A. Dorson suggests in his succinct review of research on this subject in his foreword to G. A. Megas, Folktales of Greece.53

First and Second Century Travel Guides In many respects the most complete picture of the activity of the ancient travel guide is found in Plutarch’s De Pythiae oraculis. According to Pyth. orac. 395A (LCL trans.), The guides were going through their prepared lecture [τὰ συντεταγμένα], paying no heed to us who begged that they would cut short their harangues [τὰς ῥήσεις; cf. 396C} and their expounding of most of the inscriptions [τὰ πολλὰ τῶν ἐπιγραμμάτων].

When a conversation among the dialogue participants is over, the guides continued their commentary (Pyth. orac. 396C; LCL trans.): A certain oracle in verse was recited, I think it concerned the kingdom of Argon the Argive, whereupon Diogenianus said that he had often wondered at the barrenness arid cheapness of the hexameter lines in which the oracles are pronounced.

This notice suggests that travel guides were also prepared to recite oracles and oracle stories.54 The oracle story in particular is a specific genre used in both oral and written settings. but has (to my knowledge) never been subject to scholarly Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion (1910; repr., New York: University Books, 1964); S. P. Kyriakides, “The Language and Folk Culture of Modern Greece,” Two Studies on Modern Greek Folklore, trans. R. A. Georges and A. A. Katranides (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1968); G. A. Megas, Folktales of Greece, trans. H. Colaclides (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). 53 Megas, Folktales, xi–xlv. 54 In a temple of Pan in Arcadia, a place where Pan reportedly gave oracles and the nymph Erato functioned as his “prophetess” or oracular medium, Pausanias claims that “They also remember [μνημονεύουσι] verses of Erato, which I too myself have read.” In this case oracles were transmitted in both written and oral form, though the latter may well have been dependent on the former. 52  J. C.

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analysis. There are several basic patterns in oracle stories. Often the tension in the oracle story is occasioned by an oracle which has apparently been falsified or whose meaning is misunderstood; in a thoroughly unexpected way, it is fulfilled. Those familiar with Greek and Latin literature will recall how frequently unfulfilled oracles serve as the exciting force in the construction of plots.55 In certain respects, then, the oracle story is a microcosm of much larger compositions in which oracles play a critical role. The guides also recounted anecdotes concerning remarkable events (Pyth. orac. 397E; LCL trans.): By this time we have proceeded until we were opposite the statue of Hiero the despot. The foreign visitor, by reason of his genial nature, made himself listen to the various tales, but when he was told that a bronze pillar of Hiero’s standing above had fallen of itself during the day on which it happened that Hiero was coming to his end at Syracuse, he expressed astonishment [ἐθαύμασε]. Whereupon I proceeded to recall to his mind other events of a like nature.

Here the anecdote about a remarkable coincidence elicits the telling of a string of similar strange coincidences. The guide then pointed to a large rock which became the basis for an αἰτία, for the rock is identified as the very place where the first Sibyl purportedly sat and delivered oracles (Pyth. orac. 398C): On that rock it is said [λέγεται] that the first Sibyl sat after her arrival from Helicon where she had been reared by the Muses (though others say [ἔνιοι δέ φασιν] that she came from the Malians and was the daughter of Lamia whose father was Poseidon).

Here a large boulder receives mythological significance, and it appears that the guides also told alternate versions of the story. Guides also told novellas (Pyth. orac. 401 E–F),56 such as the one about the wicked stepmother who had the baker put poison in the bread intended for her stepson Croesus. The baker revealed the plot to Croesus and served the bread to the stepmother’s own children. When Croesus became king he had a golden statue of the baker erected at Delphi. Since the statue of the Breadbaker was known from the time of Herodotus (1.51.5),57 the story may have been told for six centuries before it was recorded by Plutarch.58 Temple attendants also recounted stories explaining various distinctive features of the sanctuaries, like the erotic origins of a blemish on a statue of Aphrodite (Lucian, Am. 15–16). 55 C. H.

Moore, “Prophecy in the Ancient Epic,” Harvard Studies 32 (1921), 99–175.

56 The text has a lacuna which several editors have filled with the phrase Καὶ ὁ θέων, ναί, ἔφη,

thus transferring the novella from the guide to Theon. 57 A very similar story, this one involving poisoned wine, is told in Apuleius, Metamorphoses 10.4–5; cf. Heliodorus, Ethiopica 8.7. 58  J. J. Winkler, Auctor & Actor: A Narratological Reading of Apuleius’s The Golden Ass (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 235.

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Lucian (Ver. hist. 31; LCL trans.) describes a visit to the underworld in which “the guides told the lives [βίοι] of each [of the various people they saw], and the crimes for which they were being punished.” This suggests that guides were quite prepared to provide thumbnail biographies of famous people represented in statues and paintings. Lucian mentions an allegorical painting of Apelles in which a female figure representing Slander is accompanied by two others whom the travel guide explains as being Treachery and Deceit (Cal. 5).

Pausanias, Periegetes Pausanias’s Description of Greece, written after the middle of the second century CE, is the only travel guidebook to survive from antiquity. This extensive and fascinating work is of crucial importance for the study of oral tradition in the Greco-Roman world, since it clearly attests the vitality of verbal folklore in Greece during the second century CE. Though Pausanias was once thought to be excessively dependent on his predecessors, particularly Polemo of Ilium (second century BCE), a comparison of Pausanias with the fragments of other periegetic literature, together with the evidence provided by modern archaeological excavations, has demonstrated convincingly that Pausanias wrote from personal observation as well as from research.59 While most other periegetic literature focused on a single building, city or region, the distinctive feature of Pausanias’s work is the fact that it was his intention to describe all of Greece (πάντα τὰ  Ἑλληνικά; 1.26.4). In order to write his travel guide book, Pausanias relied on what he had learned in school and what he could learn in libraries. He appears to have read widely, and frequently mentions specific authors he consulted: Thucydides (6.19.5); anecdotes about Anaximenes (6.18.2); the Attic history of Androtion (6.7.6). He also did research at many of the various sites he visited by interviewing local informants from various walks of life and by listening to and asking questions of the local travel guides. He refers some nineteen times to the ἐξηγηταί who served as local guides and provided running commentaries on various works of art, buildings and striking features of local topography;60 while Plutarch preferred the designation περιηγητής, “guide,” Pausanias preferred the term ἐξηγητής, “interpreter.”61 Upon learning that the building of the Pelasgian wall on the Acropolis at Athens was attributed to Agrolas and Hyperbius, for example, Pausanias wanted to learn more about them (1.28.3): “Inquiring who they were, all Habicht, Pausanias’ Guide to Ancient Greece (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 165–75. 60  J. G. Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece (6 vols.; New York: Biblo and Mannen, 1897 [repr. 1965]), 6:69–70. 61 Winkler, Auctor & Actor, 234; 1.13.8; 1.34.4; 1.35.8; 1.41.2; 1.42.4; 2.9.7; 2.23.6; 2.31.4; 2.33.6; 5.6.6; 5.10.7; 5.15.10; 5.18.6; 5.20.4; 5.21.8, 9; 5.23.6; 7.6.5; 9.3.3. 59 C.

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I could learn was that they were originally Sicilians who migrated to Acarnania.” Artemis was called “wolfish” in Troezen, but when he inquired the reason from the local guides, he says “I could learn nothing from the guides” (2.31.4). Again in 5.15.7 he observes: “Why they give the surname of Coccoca to Artemis I was not able to learn.” On the other hand, sometimes his inquiries met with success (8.6.1): “Such is the genealogy of the kings of Arcadia as I ascertained it by careful inquiry from the Arcadians.” Pausanias often refers anonymously to people from whom he obtained information. “A man of Mysia said” (1.35.5); “I have heard a Cyprian say” (1.42.5); “I heard from a man of Byzantium” (3.17.7); “an Egyptian assured me” (6.20.8); “if the old man whom I questioned spoke the truth” (6.24.9); “thus I have been told by a Phoenician man” (9.28.2); “I heard this from a man of Ephesus, and I give his statement for what it is worth” (5.5.9); “I have been told by a man who made a trading voyage to Temesa that the town is inhabited to this day” (6.6.10); “so my Larisaean friend told me” (9.30.9); “I have heard a like story from a Phoenician man” (10.32.8).62 Occasionally he names his oral sources (1.23.5; 2.37.6; 10.4.6). Pausanias used the works of the well-known geographer Artemidorus, to whom he refers simply as “the man from Ephesus” (5.5.9). It is possible, though not certain, that Pausanias may have derived some of his information about specific localities from local histories, all of which have perished.63 Another main group of informants were the local guides who were found at the popular sites.64 In 2.23.6, Pausanias observes: The Argive guides themselves are aware that not all the stories they tell are true: yet they stick to them, for it is not easy to persuade the vulgar to change their opinions.

Pausanias reveals the name of a few local guides, such as Iophon of Knossos, who was able to recite oracles in hexameter (1.34.4) and Aristarchus, a guide at Olympia, a man from a famous family (5.20.4). Pausanias composed his travel guide in ten books, each focusing on a particular region or on contiguous regions of mainland Greece, usually beginning with an extensive summary of the political and military history of the area, followed by a shorter discussion of topography. His chief interest lay in describing the important buildings, monuments, and works of art, in providing explanations and background information about them, and also in explaining the origin and significance of distinctive religious customs and rituals. As in the case of Herodotus, Pausanias frequently uses such impersonal plurals as λέγουσι or φασιν (“they Pausanias’ Guide, 144–45. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983) 16–28. 64 Casson, Travel in the Ancient World, 264–67. 62 Habicht, 63  C. W.

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say”),65 often varied by the passive forms λέγεται or φήμη (“it is said”),66 which normally introduce the substance of statements made by informants. Sometimes these normally impersonal verbs have a subject, such as “the Argives say” (2.18.3); “the Messenians say” (4.2.2): “the women said” (1.18.5; possibly attendants at the temple of Eileithyia): “the natives say [λέγουσιν οἱ ἐπιχώριοι]” (2.11.5; cf. 6.6.4); “the story [λόγος] of the natives [τῶν ἐπιχωρίων] about him is that” (7.23.1); “the people of Pellene say” (7.27.2); “the Arkadians say” (8.1.4); “the Mantineans say” (8.9.1). Or even more generally, “the Greeks say” that Myrtilus was the son of Hermes (8.14.10), when he reproduces a widely held view. Like Herodotus, the verb ἤκουσα, “I heard,” occurs frequently with reference to oral testimony received from guides or local informants (1.17.4; 1.35.4; 2.5.1: 2.5.4; 2.5.5; 2.16.3; 9.30.9), sometimes emphatically: “which I myself heard in Thebes” (4.32.5). The emphasis on memory is found several times, in phrases such as μνημονεύουσιν ὡς, “they remember that” (6.4.8), or οἱ ἀρχαιότατα μνημονεύοντες, “those who remember the more ancient matters” (7.18.2), or οἱ τὰ ἀρχαῖα μνημονεύοντες, “those who remember ancient things,” or παρειλήφαμεν μνήμῃ, “we receive by memory” (5.13.7). The instances of the substantival participle οἱ μνημονεύοντες are particularly interesting since they suggest that particular individuals (who could perhaps include the professional guides) specialized in the learning, preservation and transmission of ancient traditions. Pausanias recognized the fact that “Believe-it-or-not” stories were very popular and that they tended to attract embellishments in the telling (8.2.7; LCL trans.): “Those who like to listen to the miraculous [μυθολογήμασιν] are themselves apt to add to the marvel, and soon they ruin truth by mixing it with falsehood.” As in the case of Herodotus, a great deal of the material gleaned by Pausanias from oral sources clearly qualifies as oral tradition. Pausanias was, for example, aware of the fact that oral tradition existed in many variant forms, as he observed in 8.53.5 (LCL trans.): “The legends of Greece generally have different forms [λόγοι διάφοροι], and this is particularly true of genealogy.” Elsewhere he contrasts the Theban with the Megarian accounts of the death of Alcmena and observes (9.16.7; LCL trans.): “The Greek legends generally have for the most part different [διάφορα] versions.” Again, in discussing Hesiod, he observes (9.31.6; LCL trans.): “So widely different [διάφορα] are the traditions of Hesiod and his poems.” One of the characteristic features of oral tradition is stereotypical form, and a number of oral genres are preserved by Pausanias, though it is likely that while he sometimes reproduced oral traditions in a relatively extensive form, often he preserved only an abstract or the gist of the original oral version. The genres include the following:

65 λέγουσι: 66 λέγεται:

1.27.7; 1.28.5; φασιν: 1.27.10; 1.34.2; 1.37.2. 1.19.3; 1.20.3; 1.21.1; 1.23.8; 1.26.5; 1.29.4; 1.34.2; φήμη: 1.26.6.

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1. Oracles (8.37.12). 2. Oracle stories (4.9.4–10; 4.20.1–4; 4.32.5–6; 6.9.6–8; 6.11.4–8; 7.19.7–10; 7.21.1–5; 8.23.6–7; 8.24.7–10; 9.8.2; 9.30.9–12). 3. Thumbnail biographies, usually from the mid-career to the death of the subject, are occasionally elicited by statues of famous people. For example, Lysimachus (1.9.5–10.5), Pyrrhus (1.11.1–13.9), Triptolemus (1.14.1), Seleucus (1.16.1–3), Theseus (1.17.2–6), Philopoemon (8.49.1–52.6). 4. Myths are frequently circulated in variant forms, and many of these variants, which are local in nature, are known only from Pausanias. He occasionally reproduces two or more versions of a story (1.14.7; 5.2.3 [refers to two other accounts]; 6.20.16–19; 8.42.1–2); he uses the “they say” / ”but I heard” pattern to introduce two different accounts in 1.43.3. 5. Sacred tales, ἱεροὶ λόγοι, are myths which originally were part of a religious ritual (the story of Attis, 7.5.10–12). 6. False etymologies (4.31.4; 5.5.5). 7. Genealogies (8.6.1, referring to 8.1.4–5.13). 8. Miracle stories, or θαύματα, distinguished by content rather than form (8.2.6–7; 8.22.7–9; 8.38.6; 9.19.5; 9.20.4). 9. Proverbs or aphorisms (7.12.2).

Oral Tradition and Hellenistic Historiography What has recently been designated Oral History, a movement “founded” by Allan Nevins in 1948,67 focuses on a type of historical evidence frequently utilized by historians in the Greco-Roman world: interviews with those who were participants and eyewitnesses of events worthy of the historian’s interest. Oral History, however, whether ancient or modern, can only be considered a legitimate part of oral tradition if it consists of oral communications preserved and transmitted beyond the generation in which they originated.68 Herodotus, the father of Greek history and author of “the first great work of Greek prose literature,”69 appears to have derived roughly eighty per cent of his information from oral sources.70 Herodotus was primarily concerned with the collection and preservation of the oral traditions of Greeks and barbarians;

67 Dorson,

“Oral Literature,” 129–30. Oral Tradition, 13. 69 R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginning to the End of the Hellenistic Age (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 1.29. 70  K. H. Waters, Herodotus the Historian: His Problems, Methods and Originality (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985) 76; Lang, Herodotean Narrative, 5; W. W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), 1.27–29. 68 Vansina,

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criticism was a secondary issue.71 Herodotus feels obliged λέγειν τὰ λεγόμενα, “to relate what is told” (7.152.3) whether or not the substance of the report was reliable (2.123.1; 3.9.2; 4.195.2; 7.152.3). According to 7.152.3 (LCL trans.): For myself, though it be my business to set down that which is told me, to believe it is none at all of my business; let that saying hold good for the whole of my history.

In the course of his History, Herodotus frequently uses phrases such as “the Persians say,” or “the Egyptians told me,” or even less specifically, “it is said.” In just three instances does Herodotus reveal the names of his informants, Archias of Sparta (3.55.2), Tymnes at Olbia (4.76.6), and Thersander of Orchomenos (9.16.1). Herodotus uses the terminology of “speaking” (λέγειν) and “hearing” (ἀκούειν), yet he refers to his own composition as a λόγος, and various parts of it as λόγοι. Some caution must be urged in evaluating his terminology, since he occasionally uses φημί and λέγω, of information gleaned from written sources (6.137 of Hecataeus; 4.13.1 of Aristeas). Nevertheless his frequent use of λέγειν and ἀκούειν suggests that his sources were primarily oral. While he often identifies his informants,72 he also uses the λέγεται formula without naming his source.73 This formula is used to introduce myths (2.182.2), anecdotes (3.34.2), unusual customs (4.176), and wonders (6.61.4). The formulaic character of Herodotus’s citation of oral informants does not mean that he did not examine and compare oral informants.74 One of the characteristic features of folk literature mentioned above is the existence of a given oral tradition in multiple variant forms. Herodotus often gives variant versions of the λόγοι he relates to establish their relative value.75 Though Herodotus knows four different stories about Cyrus, he chooses to relate only the version he learned from “the Persians” (1.95), in 1.96–130. When Herodotus says there is a logos to such-and-such an effect, he is probably referring to an oral source.76 Often Herodotus says he “heard” such an account, and when he says “there is another account current,” he doubtless has oral traditions primarily in view. While Thucydides uses sources, unlike Herodotus, he rarely names them (1.138.6; 2.5.5–6; 2.48.2; 3.88.3; 6.2.2). In addition, the documents he preferred to use were treaties rather than inscriptions and oracles. Further, he accepted 71 A. Momigliano, “Historiography on Written Tradition and Historiography on Oral Tradition,” Studies in Historiography (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), 212. 72 A complete list of “ἐπιχώριοι-Zitate” is found in F. Jacoby, “Herodotos,” Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Supplementband 2, ed. G. Wissowa (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1913), 397–403. 73 A list of such passages is found in Jacoby, “Herodotos,” 399. 74 S. Hornblower, Thucydides (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 24–25. 75 Momigliano, “Historiography on Written Tradition,” Studies, 213. 76 Waters, Herodotus the Historian, 77.

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the view of Herodotus that history must be based primarily on oral sources.77 Though it can safely be assumed that Thucydides made extensive use of such oral sources,78 he rarely explicitly claims to be dependent on them (one exception is 6.55.1). Thucydides uses passive forms of λέγω, such as ὡς λέγεται, ὡς ἐλέγετο, λέγεται and ἐλέχθη, to introduce various kinds of information of which he is aware. When these reports deal with aspects of the Peloponnesian war, they tend to reflect his skepticism or uncertainty about their veracity (1.118.3; 2.48.1, 2; 2.57.1; 2.98.3; 5.74.3).79 When Thucydides used such terminology to refer to the past he usually means the same thing by it as Herodotus, that is, while disbelief is not indicated nevertheless he cannot vouch for the truth of the information.80 Though he is notoriously silent about his sources, it is known that he was present at the plague in Athens and when he was in command in Thrace.81 Though Thucydides rarely admits to using oral sources, early in his history he has occasion to refer to Peloponnesian oral tradition (1.9; LCL trans.): It is said [λέγουσι], furthermore, by those of the Peloponnesians who have received the clearest traditional accounts from men of former times, that it was by means of the great wealth which he brought with him from Asia into the midst of a poor people that Pelops first acquired power, and consequently, stranger though he was, gave his name to the country, and that yet greater things fell to the lot of his descendants.

Though Gomme82 assumes that Thucydides here is referring to written sources, the language used suggests otherwise. Several fourth-century historians and orators used passive forms of λέγω, either to indicate their dependence on a report by an informant (Xenophon, Hell. 2.3.56: a witty chreia spoken by the condemned Theramenes; 3.1.14: the assassination of Menia the female satrap by Meidias her son-in-law; Cyr. 1.2.1: folk songs about Cyrus) or to refer to the recent past without suggesting (as Thucydides sometimes does) that such sources are not completely reliable (Demosthenes, Or. 20.11; 20.73; 21.143–44; Aeschines, Or. 3.150 [ὡς λέγεται]; Hellenica Oxyrhynchia 6.1). Polybius is the only major Hellenistic historian whose work has partially survived (books 1–5 survive intact; books 6–39 survive only in fragments as excerpts and quotations). In discussing the best ways to gather data, Polybius emphasizes the function of the eyes and the ears, and quotes the saying of Heraclitus, “The 77 Momigliano, “Historiography on Written Tradition,” Studies, 214. Momigliano’s use of the phrase “oral tradition” is imprecise, for he really means “oral sources.” 78 Hornblower, Thucydides, 77–81. 79 H. D. Westlake, “Λέγεται in Thucydides,” Mnemosyne 30 (1977), 346 ff. 80 Westlake, “Λέγεται in Thucydides,” 356–62. 81  A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (5 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959–81), 1.28–29. 82 Gomme, Historical Commentary, 1.109.

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eyes are more accurate witnesses than the ears” (12.27.1).83 Personal observation (αὐτόπτης or αὐτοθία) or actual participation in the events narrated is superior to “hearing” (ἀκοή). The latter is of two types, the reading of books (probably because they were read aloud) and the interrogation of witnesses (12.27.3). Polybius, though he preferred personal observation, used both types of evidence (4.2.2; LCL trans.): “I have been present at some of the events and have the testimony of eyewitnesses for others.” The tendency among historians was to focus on contemporary history, since the basis for historical documentation continued to be oral in character rather than archivist or based on documents. According to Momigliano:84 The non-contemporary historian avails himself, as much as he can, of contemporary historians, not of documents. An oral tradition is definitely preferred, since contemporary historians who are the ultimate source to which one returns use for preference an oral tradition.

One of the second-century CE historians criticized by Lucian reportedly claimed that he heard a report of the strange death of Severianus from an eyewitness to the event (Lucian, Hist. conscr. 25), an example of oral history. Another armchair historian, turning the famous saying of Heraclitus on its head, claimed that ὦτα ὀφθαλμῶν ἀπιστότερα, “ears are more reliable than eyes” (Herodotus 1.8.2). Lucian also advises (Hist. conscr. 47; LCL trans.): He [the historian] should for preference be an eyewitness, but, if not, listen to those who tell the more impartial story, those whom one would suppose least likely to subtract [ἀφαιρήσειν] from the facts or add [προσθήσειν] to them out of favour or malice.

In the preface to the De vita Mosis, Philo of Alexandria was following the procedure recommended by Lucian, that is, he combined research into the written record with oral interviews (1.1.4; LCL trans.): But I will … tell the story of Moses as I have learned it, both from the sacred books, the wonderful monuments of his wisdom which he has left behind him, and from some of the elders of the nation; for I always interwove what I was told with what I read, and thus believed myself to have a closer knowledge than others of his life’s history.

The reliability of oral testimony here, however, is obviously nil and thus suggests the formal nature of this claim, which is a common topos of such historical prefaces.85 Papias of Hierapolis remains an enigmatic Christian scholar who was active during the first quarter of the second century CE. Recent research has shown that frag. 15 in C. H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 106–107. 84 “Historiography on Written Tradition,” Studies, 215. 85  D. E. Aune, The New Testament in its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), 89–90, 120–21. 83 Heraclitus

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the surviving fragments of Papias reflect a considerable degree of rhetorical sophistication,86 and suggests that he thought of himself as a historian.87 He wrote a composition in five books entitled Λογίων κυριακῶν ἐξήγησις, “Interpretation of the Logia of the Lord,” which survives only in fragments.88 Nevertheless the surviving fragments are important for our interest in oral tradition since they, together with the comments of Eusebius, reveal the author’s modus operandi in compiling a work on the sayings of Jesus. An important fragment of Papias preserved in Eusebius Hist. eccl. 3.39.4 (LCL trans.) deals with the issue of oral sources: But if ever anyone came who had followed the presbyters, I inquired into the words of the presbyters, what Andrew or Peter or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew, or any other of the Lord’s disciples, had said, and what Aristion and the presbyter John, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not suppose that information from books would help me so much as the word of a living and surviving voice.

Eusebius then reiterates the above quotation in a paraphrase and adds a comment of his own (Hist. eccl. 3.39.7; LCL trans.): The Papias whom we are now treating confesses that he had received the words of the Apostles from their followers, but says that he actually heard Aristion and the presbyter John. He often quotes them [αὐτῶν μνημονεύσας] by name and gives their traditions [παραδόσεις] in his writings.

Eusebius then summarizes two of the παράδοξα, or incredible stories which Papias received from tradition (ἐκ παραδόσεως), specifically from the daughters of Philip about the resurrection of a corpse and how Justus Barsabas drank poison but suffered no harmful effects (Hist. eccl. 3.39.8–9). Eusebius continues in Hist. eccl. 3.39.11 (LCL trans.): The same writer adduces other accounts, as though they came to him from unwritten tradition [ἐκ παραδόσεως ἀγράφου], and some strange parables [ξένας τέ τινας παραβολάς] and teachings [διδασκαλίας] of the Saviour, and some other more mythical accounts [μυθικώτερα]. Among them he says that there will be a millennium after the resurrection of the dead, when the kingdom of Christ will be set up in material form on this earth. I 86 J. Kürzinger, Papias von Hierapolis und die Evangelien des Neuen Testaments (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1983), 43–67; M. Black, “The Use of Rhetorical Terminology in Papias on Mark and Matthew,” JSNT (1989), 31–41. 87 D. E. Aune, “Septem Sapientium Convivium (Moralia 146B-164D),” Plutarch’s Ethical Writings and Early Christian Literature, ed. H. D. Betz (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 79–82; Aune, New Testament, 66–67. 88 F. X. Funk and K. Bihlmeyer, Die apostolischen Väter (2 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1956), 133–40 has thirteen fragments; U. H. J. Körtner, Papias von Hierapolis: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des frühen Christentums (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), 43–71 has twenty-two fragments, while Kürzinger, Papias von Hierapolis, 89–138 has twenty-five fragments, including three from Armenian texts published by Folker Siegert (“Unbeachtete Papiaszitate bei armenischen Schriftstellern,” NTS 27 [1981], 605–14).

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suppose that he got these notions by a perverse reading of the apostolic accounts, not realizing that they had spoken mystically and symbolically.

An account concerning the miraculous fecundity of the earth in the eschaton attributed to Papias in Irenaeus, Haer. 5.33.3,89 finds close parallels in 1 Enoch 10.19,90 2 Baruch 29.5,91 and Apoc. Paul 22 (fourth century CE),92 and thus appears to be a type of eschatological folklore widely known in early Judaism and phases of early Christianity.93 Yet in Papias this eschatological fantasy was placed within a narrative context in which Judas Iscariot expressed disbelief. Irenaeus presents this as a teaching of Jesus repeated by John, and it is finally preserved in written form by Papias (Haer. 5.33.4).

Oral Traditions and Religious Cults The use of oral traditions, including prayers, hymns and ἱεροὶ λόγοι, or sacred narratives, were integral features of Hellenistic religions. Though very little is known of the liturgies of such ancient cults, there are clear indications that certain rituals, consisting of words and / or actions, were thought inappropriate for transmission in written form. Pausanias, our primary source for many otherwise unknown religious customs and rituals, occasionally refuses to tell us all that we would like to know (5.15.11): “The traditional words spoken by them in the 89 Irenaeus, Haer. 5.33.3 (trans. Cox): “The days will come, in which vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in each one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five and twenty meters of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, “I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me.” In like manner [the Lord declared] that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear should have ten thousand grains, and every grain would yield ten pounds of clear, pure, fine flour; and that all other fruit-hearing trees, and seeds and grass, would produce in similar proportions.” 90 1 Enoch 10.19 (trans. Knibb): “And all pleasant trees they will plant on it, and they will plant on it vines, and the vine which is planted on it will produce fruit in abundance, and every seed which is sown on it, each measure will produce a thousand and each measure of olives will produce ten baths of oil.” 91 2 Baruch 29.5 (trans. Charlesworth, 1.630): “The earth will also yield fruits ten thousandfold. And on one vine will be a thousand branches, and one branch will produce a thousand clusters, and one cluster will produce a thousand grapes, and one grape will produce a cor of wine.” 92 Apoc. Paul 22 (trans. Hennecke-Schneemelcher, 2.773): “And the trees were full of fruit from root to tree-top. From the root of each tree up to its heart there were ten thousand branches with tens of thousands of clusters [and there were ten thousand clusters on each branch] and there were ten thousand dates in each cluster. And it was the same with the vines. Each vine had ten thousand branches, and each branch had on it ten thousand bunches of grapes, and each bunch had ten thousand grapes.” 93 While Apoc. Paul 22 could be dependent on book 4 of Papias’s lost “Interpretations of the Logia of the Lord” or on Irenaeus, Haer. 5.33.3–4 (Körtner, Papias von Hierapolis, 101), it is probably a specific form of a widely disseminated tradition.

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Town Hall at libations, and the hymns which they sing, it were not right for me to introduce into my narrative.” Oracles in particular were usually composed and delivered orally at Delphi by the Pythia, traditionally in hexameters (Plutarch, Pyth. orac. 397C), and in poetic form also by the male priest of Apollo at Claros (Tacitus, Ann. 2.54), and orally by a prophetess or promantis at Apollo’s Oracle at Didyma (Iamblichus, Myst. 3.11).94 The extemporaneous oral composition of some of the older poetic Delphic oracles probably has close connections with the oral formulaic composition which characterized the Homeric bards and Hesiod.95 “Mysteries,” according to Burkert,96 “were initiation rituals of a voluntary, personal, and secret character that aimed at a change of mind through experience of the sacred.” While secrecy was an essential feature of many mystery cults,97 esoteric rituals and traditions in and of themselves do not necessarily qualify as oral tradition, since the lack of evidence makes it difficult to know precisely what form these rituals and traditions took. The rituals of mystery cults were often characterized as “secret,” i.e., ἄρρητος, “not to be divulged,” or possibly “incapable of verbalization” (cf. Euripides, Bacch. 471–72; Plutarch, Pomp. 24.5; the former meaning must apply to the phrase ἄρρητα ῥήματα in 2 Cor 12.4). Yet initiates of various mystery cults only rarely appear to have formed stable communities such as θίασοι or κοινά (“associations”) which maintained esoteric traditions; devotees of Dionysus and Mithras constitute exceptions.98 For such groups the “main concern was not propagating a faith, but withholding the central revelation.”99 Mystery cults usually had a central myth, rooted in oral tradition, which was recited and enacted (τὰ δρώμενα);100 in either oral or written form it could be designated a ἱερὸς λόγος, or “sacred tale.”101 Examples of such sacred narratives include the myth of Demeter and Persephone narrated in the Hymn to Demeter (mid-sixth century BCE),102 and the myth of Isis and Osiris (Plutarch, De Is. et Os. 355D-358E).103 Though the issue is complex, the Hymn to Demeter appears to  94 J. Fontenrose, Didyma: Apollo’s Oracle, Cult, and Companions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 55–56. On p. 85 Fontenrose observes, “Lacking any evidence on how Didymaean responses were spoken or composed, we cannot know what procedure was followed: but that the promantis spontaneously composed several lines of competent dactylic hexameter for each of several consultants in one session seems to be out of the question.”  95 W. E. McLeon, “Oracle Bards at Delphi,” TAPA 92 (1961), 317–25.  96 W. Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 11.  97 W. Burkert, Greek Religion, trans. J. Raffan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 276; Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 7.  98 Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 30–53.  99 Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 45–46. 100 Cf. Pausanias 8.6.5, δρῶσι τὰ ὄργια τοῦ Διονύσου, “they enacted the ritual of Dionysus.” 101 Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 73–78. 102 Cf. N. J. Richardson, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 5–11. 103 Plutarch’s version of the Isis and Osiris myth, the most complete version found in any ancient source, is generally regarded by Egyptologists as accurate and based on reliable sources

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have been composed for oral recitation and exhibits a number of the techniques of earlier epic composition.104 In a papyrus from the first century BCE (P. Berol. 13044),105 the story of Orpheus is told in a prose version with quotations from the Hymn to Demeter (using the commentary style of the earlier Derveni papyrus), apparently quoted from memory but treated as a work of Orpheus as transmitted by Musaeus.106 Though the prose version diverges from the known Hymn to Demeter, that does not necessarily mean that the author used a different version of the Hymn than that known to us.107 This papyrus strongly suggests that the Hymn to Demeter was circulated in a memorized version. Many ancient writers who were on the brink of describing various aspects of ancient cults stop short of revealing anything very interesting. Plutarch’s hesitancy is typical (De Is. et Os. 359C; LCL trans.): “I pass over the cutting of wood, the rending of linen, and the libations that are offered, for the reason that many of their secret rites [τῶν μυστικῶν] are involved therein.” Again in De Is. et Os. 35 (364E): “Let us leave undisturbed what may not be told [τὰ ἀπόρρητα].” In the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, the reader follows Lucius, who is being led by a priest of Isis, into the innermost sanctuary of the temple. The author then breaks in (11.23; trans. Griffiths):108 You would perchance enquire quite eagerly, attentive reader, what was then said and done. I would tell you, if it were lawful; you would get to know all, were it lawful for you to hear. But both ear and tongue would incur equal guilt through such daring curiosity. Yet you are perchance racked by religious longing, so I shall not torture you with prolonged anguish. Listen then, but believe, for my account is true. I approached the boundary of death and treading on Proserpine’s threshold, I traversed through all the elements, after which I returned. At the dead of night I saw the sun flashing with bright effulgence. I approached close to the gods above and the gods below and worshiped them face to face. Behold, I have related things about which you must remain in ignorance, though you have heard them.

Similar is Ovid, Ars Amatoria 2.601–604 (LCL trans.): Who would dare to publish to the profane the rites of Ceres, or the great ceremonies devised in Samothrace? Keeping silence is but a small virtue, but to speak what should not be uttered is a heinous crime. (cf. J. Hani, La religion égyptienne dans la pensée de Plutarque [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1976], 110–17, 467–72). The striking similarities between the myths of Demeter and Persephone and Isis and Osiris have encouraged theories of interdependence. According to Burkert (Ancient Mystery Cults, 20), “If there is any connection, the influence must have come from Egypt to Greece.” The opposite opinion is expressed by Hani, La religion égyptienne, 75. 104 Richardson, The Homeric Hymn, 331–38. 105 O. Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), 119–25, frag. 49. 106 Richardson, The Homeric Hymn, 66–67, 77–78; M. L. West, The Orphic Poems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 24. 107 A. Krüger, “Die orphische ΚΑΘΟΔΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΚΟΡΗΣ ,” Hermes 73 (1938), 352–55. 108  J. G. Griffiths, Apuleius of Madauros, The Isis-Book (Metamorphoses, Book XI) (Leiden: Brill, 1975).

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Diodorus Siculus 1.27.6 observes that the Egyptian priests regard matters concerning Isis and Osiris (LCL trans.): as a secret not to be divulged, are unwilling to give out the myth to the public, on the ground that perils overhang any men who disclose to the common crowd the secret knowledge about these gods.

A term with particular religious and esoteric connotations is that of the ἱερὸς λόγος, a “holy book” whose contents cannot be disclosed to the uninitiated.109 Hecataeus of Abdera reports that Pythagoras brought a ἱερὸς λόγος with him from Egypt (Diodorus 1.98.2; FGrH 264F25).

Memory and Rhetoric Gorgias, the famous fifth-century BCE rhetorician, reportedly furnished speeches to be memorized and recited by his students (Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations 183b–184a). In general, however, students of the sophists were not taught to memorize entire speeches, but rather to use blocks of memorized material, or commonplaces, which could be variously arranged and used in a variety of situations (Isocrates, Against the Sophists 12–13).110 One of the parts of each of the major types of rhetoric (epideictic, deliberative and judicial) was memory, along with invention, arrangement, style and delivery (Cicero, Inv. rhet. 1.9). The most extensive discussion of memory, or mnemonics, in ancient literature is found in the Rhetorica ad Herennium 3.28–40 (see also Cicero, De or. 2.350–60; Quintilian Inst. 11.2.1–33, 40, 50–51).111 The mnemonic technique emphasized consists of an imaginary “background” with various “images” against that background with which students can associate the sequence of ideas and words in a speech. In rhetorical education, oral exercises which emphasized memory were used (Quintilian Inst. 2.4.15; LCL trans.): It is useful at first, when a child has just begun to speak, to make him repeat what he has heard with a view to improving his powers of speech; and for the same purpose, and with good reason, I would make him tell his story from the end back to the beginning or start in the middle, and go backwards or forwards, but only so long as he is at his teacher’s knee and while he is incapable of greater effort and is beginning to connect words and things, thereby strengthening the memory.

While dictation was one method of teaching poetry to students, the method of ἀποστοματίζειν, “to repeat orally, to repeat by heart,” eliminated the need for any writing whatsoever in the learning process; the student would repeat a selection 109 W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, trans. E. L. Minar, Jr. (Cambridge; Harvard: University Press, 1972), 219–20. 110 Cf. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, 28. 111 Cf. H. Blum, Die antike Mnemotechnik (Hildesheim: Olms, 1969).

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word-by-word and line-by-line after the teacher until it was satisfactorily committed to memory (Plato, Euthyd. 276D; Horace, Ep. 1.18.12–14;).112 If we consider the relationship of rhetorical education to oral tradition in the Hellenistic world, however, we find that oral performance and memorization do not in themselves qualify as oral tradition. Only in the case of τόποι, commonplace themes, do we approach an area which may be regarded as oral tradition.

Oral Tradition in Philosophical Schools The Hellenistic philosophical schools were relatively small, closed societies based on the ideal of friendship (Stoics and Cynics were exceptions). These schools produced esoteric writings intended for insiders only, and some exoteric literature, often written in the form of protreptic treatises intended to convert the reader to a particular philosophical way of life and thought (Diogenes Laertius 8.14). Though oral tradition began to be eclipsed by written literature during the fifth century BCE, one sect, the Pythagoreans, and perhaps different Orphic groups as well, preserved secrets and doctrines orally.113 Early Pythagoreanism and Orphism are closely, perhaps inextricably, connected,114 and the names Pythagoras and Orpheus are linked by Ion of Chios (died 422 BCE), who claimed that Pythagoras was the actual author of poems using “Orpheus” as a pseudonym.115 While Orphic poetry, consisting primarily of theogonies and cosmogonies, was not widely distributed or popular, it does not appear to have been kept secret.116 There was widespread doubt in antiquity that Pythagoras had written anything at all (Diogenes Laertius 8.6), despite the enormous number of works that were falsely attributed to him. According to Diodorus (10.8.3; LCL trans.). Many outsiders, being eager to know the cause, expended great effort on the endeavour, but no man of them was ever able to learn it. The reason why their system of instruction for this purpose was kept inviolate was that the Pythagoreans made it a fundamental tenet 112 S. F.

Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome (Berkeley: University of California, 1977), 177.

113 Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta, 140–41; J. A. Notopoulos, “Mnemosyne in Oral Literature,”

TAPA 69 (1938), 465–93, here 481. Though Notopoulos mentions the Orphics as a second sect which preserved esoteric doctrines, it is unlikely that such a single religious movement called “Orphism” ever existed (I. Linforth, The Acts of Orpheus [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1941]). While groups of Orphics apparently were active in Olbia and Tarentum, that still does not validate the generic use of the term “Orphism” (West, The Orphic Poems, 1–3). 114 W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, trans. E. L. Minar, Jr. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 125–36. 115 H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (3 vols.; Berlin: Weidmann, 1952), 1.379 (36B.1); Diogenes Laertius 8.8; Clement Alex., Strom. 1.131; cf. A. Delatte, Études sur la littérature pythagoricienne (Paris: Champion, 1915), 4–5; Burkert, Lore and Science, 129. 116 West, The Orphic Poems, 79–80. Yet the proem of the Derveni papyrus may have contained the command “Close your doors, ye profane,” i.e., what follows is for the initiated only (West, The Orphic Poems, 82–84; Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta, 140 [frag. 59]).

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to put nothing on this subject in writing, but to carry their precepts only in their memory [διὰ μνήμης].

Diogenes Laertius preserves the injunction of Pythagoras that disciples ought μνήμην ἀσκεῖν, “to train the memory” (8.23), and the Pythagorean emphasis on memory and the memory exercises they reportedly practiced are described in Diodorus 10.5.1, and in greater detail in Iamblichus, VP 164–66.117 According to Plutarch, who saw a connection between the Pythagoreans and the Roman king Numa, the latter ordered that the sacred books (αἱ ἱεραὶ βιβλιαί) he had written be buried (Num. 22.3; LCL trans.): But since, while he [Numa] 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. This is the reason, we are told [φασι], why the Pythagoreans also do not entrust their precepts to writing, but implant the memory and practice of them in living disciples worthy to receive them.

In addition to expressing a positive valorization of oral tradition over written texts, this passage also suggests that oral tradition could be based on written texts. Memory is understood as a means of ensuring that precepts and principles are put into practice, a view reflective of ancient educational theory and practice which emphasized memorization to a much greater extent than in modem times.118 The earliest extant evidence for the transmission of the teachings of Pythagoras exists in the form of ἀκούσματα or σύμβολα, sayings which were transmitted orally.119 Iamblichus (VP 82–86), in an arrangement which may derive from Aristotle,120 divides ἀκούσματα into three groups which provide answers to three types of questions: (1) τί ἐστι; (“What is …?” i.e., definitions, e.g., “What are the Isles of the Blest? Sun and moon”); (2) τί μάλιστα; (“What is the most … ?” i.e., superlatives, e.g., “The most just thing is to sacrifice, the wisest is number”); (3) τί πρακτέον (“What must one do?” i.e., duties and obligations, e.g., “One ought to beget children, for it is our duty to leave behind people to worship the gods”). In antiquity there were two different ways of interpreting the ἀκούσματα, literally and allegorically; while Aristotle consistently uses the term ἀκούσματα, later the term σύμβολα is the more popular term;121 the former suggests a literal interpretation, the later an allegorical interpretation. The popularity of the latter term caused the former to go out of currency.

Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 1.467–68 (58D.1). Education in Ancient Rome, 39–40, 167–88, 329–30. 119 Burkert, Lore and Science, 166–92. 120 Burkert, Lore and Science, 170. 121 Burkert, Lore and Science, 175. 117 Diels-Kranz, 118 Bonner,

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A concluding word on the diatribe is appropriate in this context, for scholars are generally agreed (1) that the diatribe is a product of Hellenistic philosophical schools, (2) that the diatribe is not a literary genre, and (3) that the term διατριβή reveals only that it is a written form of various types of oral instruction.122 Until quite recently, the view of Wilamowitz-Moellendorff that the diatribe was a means of presenting popular morality in public lectures by itinerant philosophical preachers was dominant. The primary setting of the diatribe was therefore public preaching to groups of people aimed at converting the hearers to the philosophical way of life. Recent research suggests that the diatribe is far more varied and complex than previously recognized. Stowers refuted the mass propaganda theory of Wilamowitz, and sought to replace it with the view that the diatribe was primarily an oral teaching style used for the educational activity of philosophical schools, and a written diatribe is a “record of a lecture or discussion in a school and not a literary tractate.”123 The diatribes of Epictetus, for example, are the stenographic records of Arrian of Nicomedia (one of his students) of lectures and discussions led by the Stoic philosopher.124 Diatribes with a more pronounced literary character, such as those of Plutarch, are examples of letteraturizzazione, the transformation of rhetoric to literature.125 Stowers understands the social setting of the diatribe as exclusively the classroom, and argues that the dialogical style of the diatribe reflects just such a scholastic setting:126 The diatribe is not the technical instruction in logic, physics, etc., but discourses and discussions in the school where the teacher employed the “Socratic” method of censure and protreptic. The goal of this part of the instruction was not simply to impart knowledge, but to transform the students, to point out error and to cure it.

Yet while Stowers’ proposal that the philosophical school was the primary social setting for the diatribe fits the writings of Musonius Rufus, Epictetus and perhaps Teles, it does not fit the activities of Maximus of Tyre, Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom and Bion, who were concerned with mass propaganda.127 Schmeller argues that there are three ideal types of diatribes:128 Purely oral and purely literary diatribes can be distinguished as well as an intermediate form. Among them there is certainly a continuity of development and even coexistence after a certain period. 122  S. K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans (SBLDS 57; Chico: Scholars Press, 1981), 48; T. Schmeller, Paulus und die ‘Diatribe’: Eine vergleichende Stilinterpretation (NA 19; Münster: Aaschendorff, 1987), 9–13. 123 Stowers, The Diatribe, 48. 124 Stowers, The Diatribe, 54. 125 Stowers, The Diatribe, 65. 126 Stowers, The Diatribe, 76 (italics omitted). 127 Schmeller, Paulus und die ‘Diatribe,’ 41–53. 128 Schmeller, Paulus und die ‘Diatribe,’ 53.

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Each of these can function in a variety of social settings. In effect, Schmeller has underscored the complexity of the oral and literary phenomena grouped under the designation “diatribe.” In sum, the diatribe has little relevance for the present paper, since oral communication in and of itself does not constitute oral tradition unless it meets the five criteria listed above.

The βίος of the Hero The Greeks fostered a continuing interest in the origins, adventures and achievements of gods, heroes and human beings, and developed the literary form βίος or biography to describe the latter.129 Folklorists have long recognized that the lives of gods and heroes exhibit many stereotypical features and are constituted of a limited number of motifs, many of which appear to be optional.130 Though some scholars claim universality for the basic structural patterns they discern in the lives of heroes, that is, the morphology of the hero, it is more prudent to extend such claims only to particular cultural arenas during particular historical periods. More than a century ago J. G. von Hahn131 analyzed a particular type of Aryan folk tale he designated the “Arische Aussetzungs‑ und Rückkehr-Formel” (“Aryan Expulsion and Return Formula”), which consisted of sixteen elements.132 More recently Lord Raglan proposed a pattern of twenty-two elements which he applied to twenty-one traditional heroes and gods (e.g. Theseus, Romulus, Herakles, Perseus, Zeus, Jason),133 and De Vries134 proposed a more sophisticated 129 Aune,

New Testament, 27–36.

130 For a review of research on this subject see Taylor, “The Biographical Pattern in Traditional

Narrative,” Journal of the Folklore Institute 1 (1964), 114–29. 131 J. G. von Hahn, Sagwissenschaftliche Studien (Jena: F. Mauke, 1876), 340–41. 132 (1) Hero born illegitimately, (2) mother is the princess of the country, (3) father is a god or a foreigner, (4) signs presage hero’s ascendance, (5) for this he is abandoned, (6) he is nourished by animals, (7) he is raised by a shepherd, (8) he becomes a spirited youth, (9) he seeks adventure in a foreign land, (10) he returns victorious. (11) he slays his original persecutors and ascends the throne, freeing his mother, (12) he founds cities, (13) the manner of his death is unusual, (14) he is reviled because of incest and dies prematurely. (15) he dies by an act of revenge at the hands of an insulted servant, (16) he murders his younger brother. 133 Lord Raglan, The Hero, A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama (New York: Vintage, 1956), 174–75: (1) hero’s mother a royal virgin, (2) father is a king, (3) often a near relative of his mother, (4) circumstances of his conception unusual, (5) reputed to be the son of a god, (6) at birth an attempt made on his life, but (7) he is spirited away and (8) reared by foster-parents in a distant land, (9) nothing told of childhood, (10) on maturation he returns or goes to future kingdom, and (11) after a victory over the king or another adversary, (12) he marries a princess, (13) becomes king, (14) reigns uneventfully for a time, (15) prescribes laws, but (16) eventually loses favor with the gods and / or his subjects, and (17) he is driven from the throne, (18) meeting with a mysterious death, (19) often at the top of a hill, (20) his children, if any, do not succeed him, (21) his body is not buried, but (22) he has one or more tombs.

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morphology, which he thought was based on the macrocosmic significance of initiation ritual.135 Though the lives of gods and heroes are by definition the product of creative communal imagination, the lives of holy men often have a historical kernel embellished by the legendary themes characteristic of the morphology of the hero. In comparing Jesus with a variety of Hellenistic saviors, all historical figures (e.g. Aristonicus, Eunus, Catiline, Agis and Cleomenes, the Gracchi, Cato Minor), Arnold Toynbee enumerates eighty-seven points of comparison.136 Discounting literary dependence, he proposes that “the Gospels contain, embedded in them, a considerable number and variety of elements which have been conveyed to them by the stream of ‘folk-memory,’” and “the Gospels contain elements which are not ‘historical’ in the conventional usage of that word.”137 Toynbee then asks whether “folk-memory” has channeled elements from pagan authors to the Gospels or whether the Gospels and pagan authors are mutually dependent on “folk-memory.”138 The possible common source which he proposed is the legend of Herakles, particularly the portrait of Hercules Philosophus. Toynbee identified twenty-four similarities between the Jesus of the Gospels and the Herakles of Greek legend.139 Since many of these features also characterize pagan historical heroes, Toynbee concludes:140 This finding suggests that the legend of Herakles may be an important common source from which the story of Jesus on the one side and the stories of the pagan historical heroes on the other side may have derived some of their common features, independently of one another, through separate channels of the stream of “folk-memory.” 134 J. De Vries, Heroic Song and Heroic Legend, trans. B. J. Timmer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), 281–301: I. Begetting of the hero: (a) mother is a virgin, (b) father is a god, (c) father is an animal (often a deity in disguise), (d) child conceived in incest. II. Birth of the hero: (a) takes place in an unnatural manner, (b) the “unborn” hero (Caesarean section). III. The youth of the hero is threatened: (a) child is exposed, (b) exposed child nourished by animals, (c) thereafter child reared by shepherds, (d) various heroes brought up by mythical figures. IV. Ways in which a hero is reared: (a) reveals strength, courage at early age, (b) often slow in his development, (c) hero often acquires invulnerability. V. Common deed, battle with a dragon or monster. VI. Hero wins a maiden after overcoming great dangers. VII. hero makes an expedition to the underworld. VIII. When hero banished in his youth, later returns and is victorious over his enemies (in such cases he must leave his realm again). IX. Death of the hero. 135 De Vries, Heroic Song, 294, suggests that the hero is the counterpart of the youth in an initiation ritual, who triumphs over opposing forces at the critical moment and therefore symbolizes his people in their death and renewal. Less complex is the proposal of J. Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 30, who argues that the basic pattern of the heroic adventure consists of separation, initiation and return. 136 A. Toynbee, A Study of History (12 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934–61), 6.376–406. 137 Toynbee, A Study of History, 6.457. 138 Toynbee, A Study of History, 6.464. 139 Toynbee, A Study of History, 6.469–75. 140 Toynbee, A Study of History, 6.475.

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Simon141 considers Toynbee’s approach challenging and expresses general agreement with “the hypothesis of spontaneous imitation through the channel of popular tradition which he [Toynbee] has developed with such penetration, method and persuasive force.” The really difficult task in analyzing the Gospels, according to Simon, is to determine with precision where historical reality ends and fiction begins.142 One major problem with Toynbee’s approach, however, is that he nowhere recognizes that those features of the Herakles legend which have analogies in the Gospels also have many parallels in the lives of other mythical heroes. While the earliest extant biographies of holy men were composed in the third and fourth centuries CE (e.g. Philostratus, Vita Apollonii; Porphyry, Vita Pythagorae; Iamblichus, De Vita Pythagorica), it is clear that the constituent legendary themes and motifs which characterize such lives originated much earlier. The Pythagoras legend, for example, goes back to the fourth century BCE,143 and it is likely that oral tradition is involved in the transmission of the constituent elements of this legend.144 It appears that the life of the hero served as a clothes line upon which could be hung almost an infinite number of episodes. The βίοι of many ancient heroes (e.g. Herakles, Asklepios, Jason, Theseus, Perseus) have not been transmitted to us in anything like complete form except in the compilations of the later mythographers such as Apollodorus (first century CE).145 While the life stories of the major heroes were probably well known, only anecdotes and episodes are preserved from this or that period of their lives. Particularly in Pausanias it is evident that local traditions about various episodes in the lives of heroes are preserved tenaciously though they conflict with other, more widespread traditions. The people of the city of Aliphera, for example, honor Athena, whom they claim was born and reared there (Pausanias 8.26.6). The Arcadians say that the Gigantomachy took place in Bathos, not Pellene (8.29.1). According to Arcadian tradition, Zeus was really reared at Cretea on Mount Lycaeus, not on the island of Crete (8.38.2). The Phigalians accept the account of the people of Thelpusa that Demeter mated with Poseidon, but say that Demeter bore Δέσποινα (“Mistress”), not a horse (8.42.1–2). All these stories, and many more examples could be adduced, appear to have arisen as local variants of relatively widespread hero cycles.

Simon, Hercule et le Christianisme (Paris: Éditions Ophrys, 1955), 63. Hercule et le Christianisme, 65. 143 Specific features are listed in Burkert, Lore and Science, 141–43. 144 Burkert, Lore and Science, 146–47. 145 Apollodorus, for example, preserves synthetic accounts of Jason (1.9.16–28), Perseus (2.1.1–4.8), Herakles (2.4.8–8.5), Theseus (3.16.1–24). 141 M.

142 Simon,

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Chreiai or Anecdotes Theon of Smyrna defined a chreia (χρεία) as “a concise statement or action which is attributed with aptness to some specified character or to something analogous to a character.”146 Chreia is a broad term which would include what New Testament scholars have called pronouncement stories, apothegms or paradigms in the Gospels.147 Recently the chreia has been the subject of intensive investigation, particularly by New Testament scholars interested in shedding light on the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels. This interest, however, has focused on the rhetoric of the chreia, while the role of the chreia in oral tradition in the Greco-Roman period has been touched only tangentially. Chreiai are often inserted into compositions as “memorates,” that is, anecdotes supposedly experienced personally by the teller (Plato, Resp. 329B–C; LCL trans.):148 I remember hearing Sophocles the poet greeted by a fellow who asked, “How about your service of Aphrodite, Sophocles – is your natural force still unabated?” And he replied, “Hush, man, most gladly have I escaped this thing you talk of, as if I had run away from a raging and savage beast of a master.”

In Xenophon, Hell. 2.3.56 (LCL trans.), an apothegm or chreia of Socrates is introduced with λέγεται: One saying [ῥῆμα] that was reported [λέγεται] was this. When Satyrus told him [Theramenes] that if he did not keep quiet, he would suffer for it, he asked, “Then if I do keep quiet, shall I not suffer?”

According to Dio Chrysostom, everyone could recite chreiai about Diogenes the Cynic (Or. 72.11). Chreiai were transmitted as both oral tradition and written texts. Diogenes Laertius gives the following report of the philosopher Arcesilaus (4.40; LCL trans.): He lived openly with Theodete and Phila, the Elean courtesans, and to those who censured him he quoted the maxims of Aristippus [τὰς  Ἀριστίππου χρείας].

Hock and O’Neil149 plausibly suggest that one of these was probably that preserved in Theodoret, Graec. aff. cur. 12:

146 R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil (trans.), The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, vol. I. The Progymnasmata (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 83. 147 V. Robbins and B. Mack, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sausalito: Polebridge Press, 1989), 1–29. 148 This chreia was cited by numerous ancient authors including Theon, Progym. 2.66 (Spengel); Ammianus Marcellinus 25.4.2; Cicero, Sen. 14; Plutarch, Cupid. divit. 5; An seni 788; Athenaeus 12.510; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 1.13. 149 Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 7.

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Aristippus the Cyrenaic, on being reproached because he was often in the company of the Corinthian courtesan Lais, said, “I keep her, not she me.”

Plutarch mentions his interest in collecting [συνάγειν] and reading [ἀναγινώσκειν] the sayings of philosophers, kings and tyrants (Cohib. ira 457D–E), and elsewhere speaks of “some who gather chreiai and stories [χρείας καὶ ἱστορίας ἀναλεγόμενοι]” (De prof. virt. 78F). Though the sources of these chreiai are not mentioned, they could obviously be gleaned from written as well as oral sources. During the first century CE it is likely that they were gathered primarily from literary sources.150 Hock and O’Neil point out that Menander Rhetor (2.392.28–31) recommends that rhetoricians consult Plutarch’s Lives:151 They are filled with stories and apothegms and proverbs and chreiai [ἱστοριῶν καὶ ἀποφθεγμάτων καὶ παροιμιῶν καὶ χρειῶν], for it is useful to include all these in talks [λαλίαις].

In Seneca (Ep. 33.7; LCL trans.) we learn that children were given chreiai to memorize and that even some adults collected and memorized chreiai, a practice of which he strongly disapproved: That is why we give to children a proverb [sententias], or that which the Greeks call chria, to be learned by heart; that sort of thing can be comprehended by the young mind, which cannot as yet hold more. For a man, however, whose progress is definite, to chase after choice extracts and to prop his weakness by the best known and the briefest sayings and to depend upon his memory, is disgraceful; it is time for him to lean on himself. He should make such maxims and not memorize them.

The fact that Seneca condemns this practice suggests that it was not uncommon, and further suggests that the memorization of chreiae was not limited to children.

Stories There are a number of Greek terms for “story,” including ἱστορία, λόγος and μῦθος, which can be used interchangeably (Lucian, Syr. D. 12), though the second came to mean “true stories,” while the last was used of “fictional stories.”152 However, the notion that either λόγος or μῦθος can be used to designate particular narrative genres153 is problematic. Stories, that is, prose narratives in which the and O’Neil, Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 8. is my translation of the text by D. S. Russell and N. G. Wilson, Menander Rhetor, Edited with Translation and Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 122; their translation on p. 123 is problematic since χρειῶν is left untranslated. 152 TDNT, 4.74–75, 767–69. 153 H. D. Betz, “The Problem of Apocalyptic Genre in Greek and Hellenistic Literature: The Case of the Oracle of Trophonius,”Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East, ed. D. Hellholm (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), 585–95. 150 Hock 151 This

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action and characters are organized in a plot which provides final resolution for dramatic tension, exhibit great variety and are difficult to describe generically. They were popular throughout the ancient Mediterranean world, as they are everywhere. Stories were told in a great variety of social settings, including the kind described by Dio Chrysostom, Or. 20.9–10 (LCL trans.): The elementary teachers sit in the streets with their pupils and nothing hinders them in this great throng from teaching and learning. And I remember once seeing, while walking through the Hippodrome, many people on one spot and each one doing something different; one playing the flute, another dancing, another doing a juggler’s trick, another reading a poem aloud, another singing, and another telling some story or myth [τὸν δὲ ἱστορίαν τινὰ μῦθον διηγούμενον].

In Juvenal, Satires 15.16, Odysseus is called a mendax aretalogus, a “lying storyteller.” The scholion on this passage defines aretalogi as “those who talk of marvelous things, that is, the miracles of the gods. In my opinion mention is being made of those aretalogi who tell common people those things which should not be uttered.”154 The term ἀρεταί means “miracles,” and an ἀρεταλόγος is then a person who tells tall stories or praises the gods;155 more broadly conceived, a professional storyteller who could function in either a religious or a secular setting. Though little in fact is known of aretalogi, there is evidence to suggest that some were adjuncts to various religious cults, particularly the Egyptian cults of Isis, Osiris and Serapis,156 and plied their trade in the vicinity of sanctuaries. According to Winkler,157 What we are describing, rather, is an activity and an ability – the possession of a repertory of stories about a sacred vicinity – rather than a formal religious office or a genre with fixed rules of style and content. The most likely examples of what an aretalogos could have narrated are the stories of cures at the healing shrines of Serapis and Asklepios, of which a fair number have survived. They test the boundaries of credulity, relating quite fantastic events, often rather amusing ones and sometimes involving the conversion of disbelievers.

Others were itinerant storytellers with no particular concern or connection with religious or cultic interests, such as the aretalogoi invited by Augustus to entertain his dinner guests (Suetonius, Aug. 74; LCL trans.): He [Augustus] served a dinner of three courses or of six when he was most lavish, without needless extravagance but with the greatest good fellowship. For he drew into the general 154 P. Wessner, Scholia in Iuuenalem Vetustiora (Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1967), 227: “Aretalogi sunt, ut quidam volunt, qui miras res, id est deorum virtutes, loquuntur. mihi autem videtur aretalogos illos dici qui ea quae dicta non sunt in vulgus proferunt.” 155 M. Smith, “Prolegomena to a Discussion of Aretalogies, Divine Men, the Gospels and Jesus,” JBL 90 (1971), 174–99. 156 R. Merkelbach, Roman und Mysterium in der Antike (Munich: Beck, 1962), 88–89; V. Longo, Aretalogie nel Mondo Greco, I, Epigrafi e Papiri (Genoa: Istituto di Filologia Classica e Medioevale, 1969), 18. 157 Winkler, Auctor & Actor, 237.

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conversation those who were silent or chatted under their breath, and introduced music and actors, or even strolling players from the circus, and especially story-tellers [aretalogoi].

These aretalogoi may be identical with the fabulatores whom Augustus summoned during periods of insomnia (Suetonius, Aug. 78.2). Scobie158 has proposed that the popularity of the Hellenistic novel was due to the activity of itinerant professional story tellers. However, the structure of the novel is very different from the wonder stories told by aretalogoi, though the narrative technique of novels suggests that they were written for recitation.159

Conclusions 1. Oral tradition is a type of folklore which was widespread in the Hellenistic and Roman periods despite the fact that literacy was not uncommon. Although methodological problems impede the satisfactory analysis of the form, content and function of such traditions, nonetheless much can be known about them. The preceding survey, however, has touched on many areas which modern scholarship has yet to investigate in any detail and the absence of such penetrating studies means that the present effort can only pretend to constitute a surface exploration of the phenomenon. 2. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods oral traditions occupy quite a different and more varied role than they did in the centuries before the invention of the Greek alphabet. First, oral tradition was regarded by some as a way of ensuring that esoteric traditions remained unknown outside the immediate social circle within which they were transmitted (Plutarch, Num. 22.3). Secondly, in some circles oral texts were considered more valuable than written texts. Thirdly, in other circles written texts were considered more valuable than oral tradition. Fourthly, oral texts are particularly important in that they often reflect the reduction of the basic values of the culture to memorable forms which can perpetuate basic social and cultural values. 3. The writings of such Hellenistic authors as Plutarch, Lucian and Pausanias suggest that various genres of oral tradition were in circulation and could be collected by anyone interested enough to do so. This interest appears to have been encouraged by the conception which is found in Herodotus, and which reappears even in a Christian scholar such as Papias, that the evidence of the eyes and the ears was of primary importance for historians and other writers concerned with mimetic descriptions of events which occurred in the real world. 158 A. Scobie, Aspects of the Ancient Romance and its Heritage (Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1969), 9–29. 159 T. Hägg, The Novel in Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 93.

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4. Again, the evidence from Herodotus, Plutarch. Lucian and Pausanias suggests that various genres of oral tradition were preserved in specific localities where it was believed that events of mythical times had taken place. The fact that such places were marked with sanctuaries and other material memorials encouraged the growth and transmission of explanations in various oral genres, and it was the perceived connection between location and story which encouraged preservation, transmission and dissemination. 5. The modern conception of the verbatim transmission of memorized traditions does not appear to apply to the vast majority of oral traditions in the Greco-Roman world, although there is no scientific way to confirm or deny such a proposal apart from analogies with modern folklore forms. Further the veracity of such traditions is a problem for which there is no easy or obvious solution. In the case of the oral traditions preserved by Papias, mythical and legendary elements appear to predominate. 6. While Hellenistic authors do not frequently identify the sources of oral information, the evidence suggests that there were a variety of specialists who were storehouses of archaic lore. Some of these specialists included the tour guides who were to be found in places where there was a tourist trade. Further, the personnel at sanctuaries appear to have been resources for visitors interested in the origin and significance of the sanctuary, various works of religious art, topographical features of religious or mythical significance, unusual epithets of the gods and goddesses, and unique rituals. Again, Pausanias refers several times to a vague group defined simply as “those who remember ancient things,” people who were probably not identical with local tour guides. 7. It is of some interest that very little can be learned about oral traditions in rhetoric, philosophy and religious cults. The data concerning Orphism and Pythagoreanism are tantalizingly meager, and there is simply not enough information about the mystery cults for us to speculate about the form, content and function of oral tradition in that setting.

13. Oral Tradition and the Aphorisms of Jesus* Introduction The aphorism is the single literary form most frequently attributed to Jesus in early Christian literature. According to Justin, Jesus’ “sayings [λόγοι] were short and concise [βραχεῖς δὲ καὶ σύντομοι], for he was not a sophist [σοφιστής],1 but his word was the power of God” (1 Apol. 14:5).2 In Gos. Thom. 13, Jesus is compared to “a wise man of understanding (nourome mphilosophos mrmnhet),” i. e., a philosopher; here the term “philosopher” is used in a positive sense. Though originating in very different types of Christianity, these texts suggest that the attribution of aphorisms to Jesus both differentiated him from other wise men and implied that his role as a sage was at least a partially accurate description of his identity. The precise number of aphorisms in the canonical Gospels is difficult to determine, however, due to their sheer number,3 their connection with other * Original publication: “Oral Tradition and the Aphorisms of Jesus,” Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition, ed. H. Wansbrough (JSNTSup 64; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 211–265. Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. 1 While Justin is probably contrasting the teaching of Jesus to that of Hellenistic rhetoricians, Josephus (B. J. 1.648; 2.433) uses the term σοφισταί to refer to Jewish ‫( חכמים‬see B. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity [Lund: Gleerup, 1961], 89). 2 The adjective σύντομος is used of both chreiai and maxims by the authors of ancient progymnasmata, e. g., Theon, Progym. 201.18; 201.22; 202.13 (R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, vol. I. The Progymnasmata [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986], 82), Hermogenes, Progym. 6.5; 6.18 (Hock and O’Neil, Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 174), Aphthonius, Progym. 3.21 (Hock and O’Neil, Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 224). 3 M. Küchler (Frühjüdische Weisheitstraditionen: Zum Fortgang weisheitlichen Denkens im Bereich des frühjüdischen Jahweglaubens [OBO 26; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979], 587–92) counts 108 aphorisms, though he includes eleven sayings of Jesus which should probably not be so categorized, nos. 24 (Luke 10:42a), 26 (Luke 12:26), 35 (Luke 21:18), 41 (Mark 3:4 and par.), 57 (Mark 10:9 and par.), 62 (Mark 12:27a and par.), 72 (Matt 6:25–26, 28–32 and par.), 91 (Matt 10:29–30 and par.), 100 (Matt 16:2–3 and par.), 101 (Matt 18:7 and par.), 105 (Matt 23:23b and par.). C. Carlston (“Proverbs, Maxims and the Historical Jesus,” JBL 99 [1980], 91) counts 102 aphorisms (Mark: 32; Q: 38; Matt: 16; Luke: 16). J. D. Crossan (In Fragments: The Aphorisms of Jesus [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983], viii) counts 133 aphorisms, but limits his consideration to Mark and Q together with independent versions and dependent versions in Matt and Luke. More recently, Crossan (Sayings Parallels: A Workbook for the Jesus Tradition [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986], 21–130) lists 291 aphorisms with parallels, 77 of which are found only in extracanonical sources, leaving 213 aphorisms found in canonical documents.

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aphorisms and sayings in clusters and collections, their setting within more comprehensive literary forms (e. g. pronouncement stories), and the fluidity which characterizes the various literary forms found in the canonical Gospels and other ancient Jesus literature.4 Further, lists of the aphorisms of Jesus compiled by various scholars, apart from a restricted core of sayings, exhibit numerous disagreements, suggesting that the problem of distinguishing aphorisms from various types of sayings of Jesus remains problematic. The study of the aphorisms of Jesus in early Christian literature, particularly in light of the role which oral tradition played in the process of transmission, involves a number of very difficult problems. First, it is relatively certain that a large number of ancient Jewish popular proverbs have been transmitted as an integral part of the tradition of the sayings of Jesus. This does not necessarily mean that such proverbs were not used by the historical Jesus, though it is always possible that an indeterminate number of them have been only secondarily attributed to Jesus at various stages in the process of oral and written transmission. Secondly, it appears that Jesus was as creative and innovative in his use of aphorisms as he was in his use of parables. He characteristically expressed moral and religious exhortation in traditional aphoristic forms. After originating with Jesus, these aphorisms quickly became part of early Christian oral and literary tradition. The more a saying of Jesus appears in various forms, contexts and versions in early Christian literature, the more certain it is that such a saying actually functioned as an aphorism in both oral and written tradition. The incorporation of aphorisms of Jesus into Christian oral tradition becomes evident in several different ways. 1. When aphorisms occur in a variety of settings which have no demonstrably dependent literary relationship (whether isolated or in association with other sayings). 2. When aphorisms which appear to have originally circulated independently are found in clusters or collections. 3. When aphorisms which appear to have originally circulated independently are used as climactic sayings in brief anecdotes (i. e. in pronouncement stories or chreiai). 4. When aphorisms which are found in association with other sayings in the Synoptic Gospels occur independently in other contexts in both canonical and extracanonical Christian literature. Thirdly, when a single aphorism of Jesus exists in two or more parallel versions it is tempting to try to determine which version is earlier or later than the others, (In Fragments, 330–41) lists 133 aphorisms found in Mark and Q (with parallels in Matt and Luke and other canonical and extracanonical sources). A more complete inventory of 291 aphorisms is collected in Crossan, Sayings Parallels, 34–130, with parallels in canonical and extracanonical sources. This corpus is problematic, however. On the one hand, it is undoubtedly too large, for all non-narrative sayings of Jesus are included. On the other hand, there are many parallels which have not been included. 4 Crossan

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and which version may have given rise to the others. This quest for the most authentic extant aphorism, however, is beset by enormous methodological problems. Since orally transmitted sayings were only occasionally reduced to writing and only a fraction of such written traditions has been preserved, not even the barest bones of a representative stemma of versions of any given aphorism has survived. All that remains is a few scattered, frozen snapshots of what the aphorism looked like during just a few moments of its long, involved oral and literary history. Therefore the attempt to reconstruct the chimerical “most original form” is extremely difficult if not impossible.

The Function of Aphorisms The Sitze im Leben of the aphorisms of Jesus may be sought in the life of Jesus, in the life of the early Church and in the social setting of the various literary contexts in which they were preserved. The analysis of the aphorisms of Jesus suggests that they had several Sitze im Leben (synchronically and diachronically), which is largely owing to the enigmatic or ambiguous quality which they have and which makes it possible to use them in different ways and in different contexts. In recent years there has been a lively debate about whether the role of Jesus in first-century Palestinian Judaism is more appropriately understood under the category of apocalyptic preacher or wisdom teacher. Martin Hengel has argued that the model of apocalyptic Zealot prophecy, not the rabbinic model, best explains the distinctive features of Jesus’ life and ministry.5 In ancient societies, aphorisms typically functioned as vehicles for articulating and preserving traditional values and norms by expressing general and typical truths refracted through particular situations and occurrences.6 The notion of a cosmic order linked to divine rule and justice is at the center of the proverbial wisdom of the Bible.7 The human problems which wisdom addresses include those of suffering and death, injustice in life, and the perils of adultery, strong drink, and the tongue.8 The large number of aphorisms among the sayings of Jesus should alert us to the special functions which these aphorisms might have had both in the ministry of Jesus himself as well as in the lives of the early Christians who transmitted them in both oral and written form. While some of the aphorisms of Jesus very probably served to validate those traditional norms and values which Jesus and early Christians shared with others in the societies Charismatic Leader and His Followers, trans. J. Greig (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 57–60 6  J. G. Williams, Those Who Ponder Proverbs: Aphoristic Thinking and Biblical Literature (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1981), 36, 40 7 Williams, Those Who Ponder Proverbs, 17. 8 J. L. Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), 18. 5 The

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in which they lived (i. e. which could be expressed in terms of popular wisdom), other aphorisms gave expression to the very particular views of reality held by Jesus and early Christians (i. e. “aphorisms” which are considered self-evidently valid only within a particular Christian community). In what might almost be considered as an addendum to the study of the parables, a number of scholars in recent years have underlined the radical features of some of the aphorisms of Jesus.9 With specific reference to the radical features of some of the parables of Jesus, Ricoeur has described this as the pattern of orientation, disorientation and reorientation.10 Given the relative status and relationship between masters and slaves in the ancient world, for instance, the aphorism in Luke 12:37 envisions a radically reversed relationship between the two:11 Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them.

Other radical sayings include the following: Luke 9:60  / / Matt 8:22, “Let the dead bury the dead”; Mark 8:35 and par., “whoever would save his life will lose it”; and Mark 10:31 and par., “But many that are first will be last and the last first.”12 Williams has described biblical wisdom in terms of the two major perspectives of order (Proverbs, Sirach, m. ’Abot.) and counter-order (Qohelet and Jesus).13 Yet it is perilous to regard the so-called radical or counter-order perspective expressed in some of the aphorisms of Jesus as the index of what was characteristic of his mission and message, that is, as a criterion of historicity. Carlston has discussed themes commonly found in ancient practical wisdom which are striking by their absence from the aphorisms of Jesus: (1) education, (2) personal character and habits, (3)  friendship, (4)  women and family relationships, (5)  ethnic issues, (6) politics, and (7) prudence.14 While these themes pervade ancient practical wisdom generally, they are largely absent from the aphorisms of Jesus. The more restricted scope of wisdom topoi in the Jesus traditions suggests that a particular view of reality characterized the perspective of Jesus and the Christian groups which transmitted his sayings.

 9 W. A. Beardslee, “Uses of the Proverb in the Synoptic Gospels,” Int 24 (1970), 61–73; N. Perrin, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom: Symbol and Metaphor in New Testament Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 48–54. 10 “Biblical Hermeneutics,” Semeia 4 (1975), 122–28. 11 The story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet in John 13:3–20 is presented as an enacted parable (cf. v. 12b), and may have been dramatized on the basis of the servant / master, emissary / sender saying in John 13:16 (and par.), as well as Luke 12:37. 12 Perrin, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom, 52. 13 Those Who Ponder Proverbs, 32–34, 47–63. 14 Carlston, “Proverbs, Maxims and the Historical Jesus,” 91–99.

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Identifying Aphorisms In order to focus our discussion properly, aphorisms need to be distinguished from other types of discourse material found in Jesus literature. “Aphorism” is one of a number of terms in English referring to popular wisdom sayings. Some common synonyms include “proverb,” “maxim,” “gnome” and “adage.” Each of these terms is used to refer to concise, autonomous sayings which give pithy expression to an insight about life (i. e. a general truth), the validity of which is generally recognized and approved (Aristotle, Rhet. 1394b; John 4:37). For the purpose of this paper, however, it is necessary to distinguish proverbs from aphorisms, though both are only part of one end of the spectrum of figurative speech subsumed under the Hebrew rubric “meshalim.” We shall define the proverb (the Greek term is γνώμη, while the Latin is sententia, both of which etymologically mean a “way of thinking”) as an unattributed saying which gives expression to collective wisdom and for that reason is accepted as true. The aphorism (Greek, χρεία; Latin, usus or the loanword chreia),15 on the other hand, is an expression of personal insight and vision, attributed to particular individuals (from whom they derive their authority and validity), and often reflecting specific situations.16 Since proverbs, like Greek γνῶμαι, are unattributed sayings, there are (strictly speaking) very few “proverbs” preserved in Jesus literature,17 for the simple reason that the focus in such literature is on what Jesus said, not on the transmission of practical wisdom for its own sake (as in the Sentences of Sextus). Bultmann distinguished five types of “Herrenworte” or “Dominical sayings”: logia (i. e. proverbs or aphorisms), prophetic and apocalyptic sayings, legal

15 The Greek category χρεία, however, is a much broader and inclusive category than the English term “aphorism.” In V. K. Robbins’ (ed., Ancient Quotes & Anecdotes [Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1989]) a collection of 1505 pronouncement stories (i. e. chreiai), from Jewish, early Christian, Greco-Roman and Islamic sources, he finds no less than 216 pronouncement stories in the canonical Gospels. In my view this number is far too large. 16 Williams, Those Who Ponder Proverbs, 78–80; Crossan, In Fragments, 18–25. Attribution to specific named individuals, however, does not guarantee that these persons actually formulated such aphorisms, for Carlston, “Proverbs, Maxims and the Historical Jesus,” 89, observes that “proverbial sayings seem positively to engender false attributions.” 17 Jesus is made to quote popular proverbs in Luke 4:23 and John 4:37. Popular aphorisms can also be found in parables which are almost certainly authentic, such as the Parable of the Pounds (Luke 19:11–27  / / Matt 25:14–30), where the third servant tells the master “You take up what you did not lay down and reap what you did not sow” (Luke 19:21b, 22b), very probably a popular aphorism. In Matt 25:24b, 26b, the third servant is made to say “You reap where you did not sow, and gather where you did not winnow.” In oral tradition the stable aphorism, “You reap where you did not sow,” is augmented by a different but yet parallel metaphor in Matthew and in Luke. The problem of whether or not practical wisdom sayings or proverbs were assimilated to the Jesus tradition and secondarily attributed to Jesus is a different question.

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sayings and church rules, ‘I’ Sayings, and similitudes and similar forms.18 These distinctions are made partially on the basis of form, but largely on the basis of content, and are inherently problematic because different kinds of criteria are mixed together in defining “form.” Crossan follows a simpler taxonomy and distinguishes only between parables and aphorisms, using the latter category somewhat indiscriminately for all non-narrative sayings of Jesus. Crossan’s two collections of aphorisms of Jesus invite comparison and analysis.19 The five categories of Herrenworte proposed by Bultmann have not been unanimously adopted by other form critics. Bultmann’s Herrenworte have been variously designated as Paradigmata or Paränese,20 “sayings of Jesus,”21 and “aphoristic meshalim.”22 Under all of their aliases, aphorisms are usually distinguished from “pronouncement stories,”23 i. e., short narrative units, often with dialogical features, which culminate in pithy sayings,24 also called “apGeschichte der synoptischen Tradition (8th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 73–113. 19 John Dominic Crossan, In Fragments: The Aphorisms of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983), and idem, Sayings Parallels: A Workbook for the Jesus Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 22–130. 20 M. Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (6th ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1971), 34–66, 234–65. Dibelius uses the term “paradigma” to include both “apophthegmata” and “Herrenworte” in Bultmann’s system of classification. Under “Paränese,” Dibelius briefly mentions six forms: maxims, metaphor, parabolic narrative, prophetic address (beatitude, woe, eschatological preaching), short commandment and extended commandment with reason provided (Die Formgeschichte, 247). He mentions the “gnome” only to distinguish it from a chreia; the former is anonymous, the latter attributed to a particular person (Die Formgeschichte, 151). 21 V. Taylor, The Formation of the Gospel Tradition (London: Macmillan, 1953), 88–100. 22 B. Gerhardsson, “The Narrative Meshalim in the Synoptic Gospels,” NTS 34 (1988), 341–42. 23 Taylor, Formation of the Gospel Tradition, 63–87; R. C. Tannehill, “Introduction: The Pronouncement Story and Its Types,” Semeia 20 (1981), 1–13. The pronouncement story has been carefully defined by Robbins (Ancient Quotes & Anecdotes, xi): “A pronouncement story is a brief narrative in which the climactic (and often final) element is a pronouncement either in speech or action or a combination of speech and action. There are two main parts of a pronouncement story, the pronouncement and its setting, i. e., the response and the situation provoking the response. The pronouncement is closely associated with the main character who is the author or recipient of the speech or action. Both the setting and the pronouncement contribute to the rhetorical goal of the story.” 24 W. D. Stroker (“Examples of Pronouncement Stories in Early Christian Apocryphal Literature,” Semeia 20 [1981], 133–41) emphasizes the relative paucity of pronouncement stories in the New Testament apocrypha. Yet there are twenty-two pronouncement stories in Gos. Thom. (P. Perkins, “Pronouncement Stories in the Gospel of Thomas,” Semeia 20 [1981], 122–23), of which only six have Synoptic parallels (Gos. Thom. 72, 79, 99, 100, 104, 113). At least three pronouncement stories are found in Gos. Phil. (34, 54, 55), and the Jewish Christian apocryphal gospels apparently also contained many pronouncement stories based on the fragmentary evidence which survives (Gos. Naz. 2, 16; Gos. Eb. 5; Gos. Heb. 7; Gos. Eg. 1, 5; cf. 2 Clem. 12:2; P. Oxy. 840.12). Bultmann provided a threefold typology of apophthegmata which consisted of Streitgespräche (“controversy dialogues”), Schulgespräche (“scholastic dialogues”), and biographische Apophthegmata (“biographical apophthegms”). The last category was thoroughly critiqued by E. Fascher (Die formgeschichtliche Methode [Giessen: Töpelmann, 1924], 203), who suggested that Anekdoten (“anecdotes”) was a more apt designation. 18 Die

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ophthegmata”25 or chreiai,26 or “aphoristic narratives.”27 Aphorisms can also be distinguished from parables, or narrative meshalim,28 which may be defined succinctly as very short stories with double meanings.29 In practice, however, few scholars agree on the exact number of parables in the Synoptic Gospels, for the boundaries are admittedly hazy between parables and similitudes. Similitudes may be defined as descriptions of typical occurrences or activities with double meanings. While Bultmann listed some eighteen similitudes found in the Synoptic Gospels,30 many of these are now regarded as parables. Similarly, similitudes (Gleichnisse) tend to blend with figurative sayings (Bildwörter), many of which have the character of popular proverbs.31 In recent years the parables of Jesus have attracted much more scholarly attention than the similitudes and Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 8–73. Die Formgeschichte, 150–64; B. L. Mack and V. K. Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1989), 1–29. 27   H. C. Kee, Jesus in History: An Approach to the Study of the Gospels (2nd ed.; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977), 304–305. 28 Gerhardsson, “Narrative Meshalim.” 29 Gerhardsson (“Narrative Meshalim,” 344 n. 1), lists 55 parables in the Synoptic Gospels (counting all Synoptic parallels separately), though the Defendant (Luke 12:58–59) should be omitted since, like its parallel in Matt 5:25–26 (which Gerhardsson does not list), it is neither a parable nor a narrative mashal. Crossan (Sayings Parallels) lists 27 parables (if the Synoptic parallels are counted separately, like Gerhardsson, he includes 38 parables) along with three from Apoc. Jas. (6.8b; 6.11b; 8.2b) and three from Gos. Thom. (21, 97, 98). Gerhardsson counts the Great Feast (Matt 22:1–10) and the Wedding Garment (Matt 22:11–14) as two separate parables, while Crossan puts them together as a single parable (Sayings Parallels, 9). On the other hand, Gerhardsson considers the parable of the Burglar (Matt 24:42–44; Luke 12:39–40) as a single parable, while Crossan (Sayings Parallels, 95–96) divides it up into two aphorisms. While Gerhardsson and Crossan consider the Watchful Servants or Returning Master (Luke 12:35–38) to be a parable (Sayings Parallels, no. 17), this uniquely Lukan material seems to be a short collection of three aphorisms (cf. Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 124–25). Crossan also categorizes several other sayings of Jesus as aphorisms, though Gerhardsson considers them narrative meshalim, i. e., parables. (1) Two Builders (Matt 7:24–27; Luke 6:47–49); (2) Playing Children (Matt 11:16–19; Luke 7:31–35); (3) The Servant in Authority (Matt 24:45–51; Luke 12:42–46); (4)  The Last Judgment (Matt 25:31–46); (5)  The Friend at Midnight (Luke 11:5–8); (6) The Defendant (Matt 5:25–26; Luke 12:57–59); (7) The Servant’s Wages (Luke 17:7–10). In addition, Crossan classifies the Two Debtors (Luke 7:40–43) and the Two Sons (Matt 21:28–32) as dialogues rather than as parables or aphorisms. 30 Bultmann (Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 184–88) discusses eighteen similitudes: (1) Master and Servant (Luke 17:7–10); (2) Tower Builder (Luke 14:28–30); (3) The King at War (Luke 14:31–33); (4) The Lost Sheep (Luke 15:4–7  / / Matt 18:12–14); (5) The Lost Coin (Luke 12:39–40); (6) The Thief (Luke 12:39–40  / / Matt 24:43–44); (7) The Faithful Slave (Luke 12:42–46  / / Matt 24:45–51); (8) Signs of the Times (Luke 12:54–56  / / Matt 16:2–3); (9) Timely Agreement (Luke 12:57–59 / / Matt 5:25–26); (10)  Children at Play (Luke 7:31–35 / / Matt 11:16–19); (11) The Mustard Seed (Mark 4:30–32  / / Matt 13:31–32  / / Luke 13:18–19); (12) The Leaven (Luke 13:20–21  / / Matt 13:33); (13) The Seed Growing of Itself (Mark 4:26–29); (14) The Treasure in the Field (Matt 13:44); (15)  The Pearl of Great Price (Matt 13:45–46); (16)  The Fishnet (Matt 13:47–50); (17) The Home Builder (Luke 6:47–49  / / Matt 7:24–27); (18) The Fig Tree (Mark 13:28–29  / / Matt 24:32–33  / / Luke 21:29–31). 31 Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 179–89. 25 Bultmann, 26 Dibelius,

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aphorisms.32 Though Bultmann’s detailed discussion of the various forms of practical wisdom on the continuum from metaphor to parable has not really been superseded so much as simply ignored, a number of important recent studies have made significant contributions to the study of the aphorisms of Jesus. Since there is a heavy concentration of practical wisdom traditions in Q, for example, studies which have focused on the non-Markan parallel traditions in Matthew and Luke have also contributed to the study of the aphorisms of Jesus.33 A number of other scholars have produced significant recent studies specifically focused on the proverbial sayings of Jesus.34 It is of course well known that the Hebrew term ‫ משׁל‬is a general term for wisdom sayings which includes a wide variety of oral and literary forms including parables (2 Sam 12:1–6, though the term ‫ משׁל‬is not used in the context), allegories (Ezek 17:2–24), enigmatic oracles (Num 23:7), taunts (Isa 24:1), proverbs (1 Sam 10.11–12; 24.13; Ezek 12.22; 18.2; Jer 31:29).35 In the LXX, the term παραβολή is regularly used to translate ‫משׁל‬. In the Synoptic Gospels, the term παραβολή is occasionally used of proverbs or aphorisms (Mark 7:17; Luke 4:23; 5:36; 6:39; 14:7). The term λόγος is also used for a proverb quoted in John 4:37 and in Matt 19:11 of an aphorism used in Matt 19:12, in the sense of “statement, saying.”36 Old Testament form criticism distinguishes between the proverb, a purely observational saying derived from experience and the wisdom saying, or Weisheitsspruch, a didactic saying based on experience, or tradition which inculcates some value or lesson.37 The term “mashal,” however, is such a broad 32 Even though B. B. Scott (Hear Then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989], 41) argues that similitudes should be treated with parables rather than with proverbs, he does not discuss any similitudes in detail. 33 D. Lührmann, Die Redaktion der Logienquelle (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969); P. Hoffmann, Studien zur Theologie der Logienquelle (Münster: Aschendorff, 1972); R. A. Edwards, A Theology of Q: Eschatology, Prophecy and Wisdom (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976); J. S. Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987); R. A. Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradition: The Aphoristic Teaching of Jesus (SNTSMS 61; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 34 W. A. Beardslee, “The Wisdom Tradition in the Synoptic Gospels,” JAAR 35 (1967), 231–40, “Uses of the Proverb: Proverbs in the Gospel of Thomas,” Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature: Essays in Honor of Allen P. Wikgren, ed. D. E. Aune (NovTSup 33; Leiden: Brill, 1972), 92–103; D. Zeller, Die weisheitlichen Mahnsprüche bei den Synoptikern (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1977); Carlston, “Proverbs, Maxims and the Historical Jesus”; Williams, Those Who Ponder Proverbs; Crossan, In Fragments, Sayings Parallels; Perdue, “Wisdom Sayings of Jesus.” Two other important studies by Klaus Berger have focused on proverbs in the New Testament (Formgeschichte des Neuen Testaments [Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1984], 62–67), and in the Hellenistic World (“Hellenistiche Gattungen im Neuen Testament,” ANRW 25,2. 1049–74). 35 Cf. O. Eissfeldt, Der Mashal im Alten Testament (BZAW 24; Giessen: Töpelmann, 1913); Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 8–19. 36 J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (2 vols.; New York: United Bible Societies, 1988), 1.§ 33.98. 37  R. E. Murphy, Wisdom Literature: Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Esther (FOTL 13; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Eerdmans, 1981), 180, 184.

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category that it is of little or no practical use in distinguishing between the various oral and literary forms of popular wisdom.38 Thus Gerhardsson’s distinction between “narrative meshalim” and “aphoristic meshalim” is a departure from Israelite-Jewish literary categories, though perhaps a necessary one given the ambiguity of the native category itself. The Greek rhetorical term χρεία,39 or “anecdote,” is a relatively comprehensive term used by the Greeks and Romans (chreia is a Greek loanword in Latin), for types of discourse which New Testament scholars variously label aphorisms, pronouncement stories and stories about Jesus.40 While chreiai are indigenous to Hellenistic culture, they are relatively rare in Near Eastern wisdom traditions.41 In most cases the chreiai which are found in the Synoptic Gospels reflect the way in which Jesus traditions were transformed in a Hellenistic environment, rather than the original form of the traditions themselves.42 A chreia can be defined as “a saying or action that is expressed concisely, attributed to a character, and regarded as useful for living.”43 The rhetorical handbooks often divide chreiai into three categories, (1) sayings chreiai, (2) action chreiai and (3) mixed chreiai.44 Maxims (γνῶμαι / sententiae), on the other hand, are always sayings, never actions, and unlike chreiai they are never attributed to a character.45 A reminiscence (ἀπομνημόνευμα), on the other hand, is an expanded chreia. 46 The chief difference appears to be the intention of the author.

38 There are at least nine major literary categories of wisdom: proverb, riddle, allegory, fable, hymn, dialogue, autobiographical narrative, noun lists and didactic narrative poetry (cf. G. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, trans. J. D. Marton (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972), 24–50; J. L. Crenshaw, “Wisdom,” in Old Testament Form Criticism, ed. J. H. Hayes (San Antonio: Trinity University, 1974), 229–62; Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom, 36–39). 39 The term χρεία means “use, advantage,” so that chreiai are considered χρειώδης τῷ βίῳ, “useful for life” (Theon, Progym. 202.17). 40 Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte, 149–64. 41 Kloppenborg, Formation of Q, 263. 42 Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte, 162–63. 43 Hock and O’Neil, Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 26; cf. V. K. Robbins, “The Chreia,” Greco-­ Roman Literature and the New Testament, ed. D. E. Aune (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 2–4. 44 Theon, Progym. 202.19–206.8 [Walz]; Hermogenes, Progym. 6.7–14 [Rabe]; Hock and O’Neil, Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 27; Robbins, “The Chreia,” 4–13. 45 Theon, Progym. 202.3–11; Hermogenes, Progym. 7.4–6. Since anonymity (dissociation from a specific named originator) is a primary characteristic of oral tradition (J. H. Brunvand, Folklore: A Study and Research Guide [New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976], 2; idem, The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction [3rd ed.; New York: W. W. Norton, 1986], 7), only maxims technically qualify as oral tradition. 46 Hock and O’Neil, Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 109–10. O’Neil’s distinction between the fictional character of the chreia in contrast with the historical character of the reminiscence is problematic. Theon does not, according to my reading of the text, make a fictional / factual distinction between the chreia and the reminiscence. However, R. Saller (“Anecdotes as Historical Evidence for the Principate,” GR 27 [1980], 74–79) is certainly correct that many chreiai or anecdotes are not historically reliable.

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Methodological Considerations A thorough investigation and analysis of the aphorisms of Jesus is an immense task unsuited to the confines of the present paper. The more limited purpose of this paper is to synthesize and critique previous research on the aphorisms of Jesus, to provide a relatively complete inventory of aphorisms, to describe the various formal features and uses of aphorisms, and to provide discussions of selected aphorisms. The most detailed study devoted exclusively to the aphorisms of Jesus is that of John Dominic Crossan (In Fragments), a book with which I frequently find myself in agreement. It is therefore important at the outset to clarify the presuppositions and methods upon which the present study is based. 1. The problem of the authenticity of the aphorisms of Jesus is an exceedingly complex issue which cannot be discussed directly in this paper. In my view, the authenticity question, while important, is not the only issue, although it (along with source-critical questions) has dominated the study of Jesus traditions in canonical as well as extra-canonical sources, and has smothered other equally legitimate historical, literary and social concerns.47 Julian Hill, for example, has produced a fine study of four aphorisms attributed to Jesus in the Epistula Apostolorum in which he is primarily concerned with the literary context of each saying and the communal setting within which the entire document was situated.48 The comparative study of oral tradition in both ancient and modern times suggests that the ipsissima structura, though not the ipsissima verba of the aphorisms of Jesus is recoverable, at least in some cases. The notion that fixed or memorized texts can be transmitted orally with little or no change is not confirmed by the comparative study of oral tradition, nor does the study of the canonical sayings of Jesus encourage the view that his sayings were memorized.49 The reconstruction of the most original form of the aphorisms of Jesus, like the problem of the recovery of the most original form of the parables, depends on a number of assumptions about the tendencies involved in the modification of oral and written texts.50 It is well known that while Jesus himself wrote nothing, 47 The character and adequacy of the criteria used for determining the historicity of the sayings of Jesus has been a hotly debated issue in recent years; see M. E. Boring, “The Historical-Critical Method’s ‘Criteria of Authenticity’: The Beatitudes in Q and Thomas as a Test Case,” Semeia 44 (1988), 9–44. 48 “Proverbs as Sayings of Jesus in the Epistula Apostolorum,” Semeia 49 (1990), 7–34. 49 Hengel, Charismatic Leader, 80–81. It is important to note that all oral tradition, from the ephemeral family traditions which rarely survive longer than three generations, to traditions preserved with great emphasis on verbal exactness by professional memorizers, belongs to the field of folklore studies (R. Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens [CSOLC 18; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989], 123–31). 50 E. P. Sanders (The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969]) has argued that certain tendencies assumed to have characterized the development of the Synoptic tradition (increasing length, increasing detail, diminishing Semitism, and the change of indirect into direct discourse) are not validated by a systematic survey of how early

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he taught orally in Aramaic. The earliest traditions of Jesus’ teachings, however, exist only in written form in Greek and sometimes even in Latin or Coptic, and are often far removed from the forms which they had when they were originally uttered. While I remain skeptical about our ability to reconstruct the teachings of Jesus from the written record, that skepticism is not because an original form did not exist.51 2. Since the aphorisms of Jesus which have been preserved in early Christian literature are not confined to the canonical Gospels, it would not be historically prudent to exclude consideration of variant traditions or parallels preserved in extracanonical Christian literature. This is particularly true since the concern in this paper is with the oral character of the aphorisms of Jesus and how that is reflected in the various versions of individual aphorisms scattered throughout early Christian literature. Particularly in the Gospel of Thomas, aphorisms are found which are arguably less developed than their parallel versions in the canonical Gospels (i. e. which do not reflect the redactional features of the Synoptic Gospels), and therefore reflect an earlier stage in the oral transmission process (e. g. Gos. Thom. 31  / / P. Oxy. 1). There are also aphorisms, such as Gos. Thom. 82 (“He who is near me is near the fire, and he who is far from me is far from the Kingdom”), which have no parallel in canonical texts and which are arguably authentic.52 3. The view that sayings of Jesus were uttered by early Christian prophets and thereafter became assimilated to the sayings tradition is an attractive hypothesis but one which is incapable of demonstration given the present state of the evidence.53 Similarly, the related belief that the exalted Jesus spoke through evangelists and those who transmitted the Gospel traditions to them, thereby rendering the issue of the authenticity of the sayings of historical Jesus theologically superfluous,54 is similarly undemonstrable and therefore untenable. Although the evidence that Christian prophets contributed significantly to the inventory of the sayings of Jesus is weak,55 that does not mean that the creation and transformation of sayings did not occur during the process of oral composition (i. e. Christian authors actually worked and that therefore general dogmatic statements about the rules of how traditions are modified are never justified. 51 Against W. H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul and Q (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983). 52  S. L. Davies, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom (New York: Seabury Press, 1983), 2. A recent review of research on the relationship of Gos. Thom. to the Synoptic Gospels is found in F. T. Fallon and R. Cameron, “The Gospel of Thomas: A Forschungsbericht and Analysis,” ANRW 25,6.4213–24. 53  D. E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 233–45. 54 E. E. Ellis, “Gospels Criticism: A Perspective on the State of the Art,” Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, ed. P. Stuhlmacher (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983); Eng. trans., The Gospel and the Gospels (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991), 29. 55 Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity, 233–45.

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improvisation), oral publication (i. e. performance), or oral transmission (i. e. preservation).56 It is primarily the reconstruction of the Sitz im Leben for this activity that is problematic.57 4. When aphorisms occur in narrative contexts, they frequently exhibit a degree of tension, even discontinuity, with their literary matrices. They leap, as it were, from the page to the eye of the reader and ipso facto suggest a connection with oral or written precursors, much like such discrete folkloristic genres as riddles, proverbs and epigrams. Yet the primary setting of many aphorisms (particularly those in the canonical Gospels) is a larger discourse unit (e. g. an apophthegm or pronouncement story) within an encompassing narrative framework. To focus on the aphorisms as discrete rhetorical units within each of the Gospels is certainly a legitimate enterprise.58 It is equally legitimate to focus on the pre-literary history of the aphorisms of Jesus.59 5. While I accept the basic validity of the two-source theory (Mark and Q were used as sources by Matthew and Luke), rather than the priority of Matthew (Luke is dependent on Matthew, while Mark combined and conflated portions of both), it has become increasingly clear that different versions of both Mark (MarkMt and MarkLk) and Q (QMt and QLk) were used by Matthew and Luke,60 and that frequently the differences between the Matthaean and Lukan versions of the double tradition may reflect the impact of oral transmission upon the written version of Q with which each evangelist was familiar. Further, the oral and written transmission of the aphorisms of Jesus cannot be separated as rigidly as some scholars have argued.61 Oral tradition continued to influence written tradition until well into the second century CE. Therefore the relationship of each B. Gentili, Poetry and its Public in Ancient Greece: From Homer to the Fifth Century, trans. A. T. Cole (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 4. 57 E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 15–16. 58 The emphasis of Tannehill, “Pronouncement Story and Its Types,” 4–5. 59 The emphasis of Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, and Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte. 60 W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (ICC; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988–1997), 1.115–27; H. Koester, “History and Development of Mark’s Gospel (From Mark to Secret Mark and ‘Canonical’ Mark),” in Colloquy on New Testament Studies, ed. B. Corley (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983), 35–57. 61 Kelber (Oral and the Written Gospel) sharply dichotomizes oral tradition from written text and argues for the development of an oral hermeneutic to deal with texts with oral origins. This exaggerated view is properly rejected, though for different reasons, by W. R. Farmer (Jesus and the Gospel [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982], 165), V. K. Robbins (“Picking up the Fragments from Crossan’s Analysis to Rhetorical Analysis,” Forum 1.2 [1985]: 51–52), B. Gerhardsson (The Gospel Tradition [Lund: Gleerup, 1986], 32–33), and P. J. Achtemeier, “Omne Verbum Sonat: The New Testament and the Oral Environment of Late Western Antiquity,” JBL 109 (1990), 3–27. The hazy boundary between oral and written in fifth‑ and fourth-century BCE Athens is emphasized by R. Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989, 15–94. 56 Cf.

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set of versions of particular aphorisms must be analyzed without allowing any single theory of literary dependence to exert undue influence on interpretation. 6. Despite the weaknesses of the form-critical method,62 reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated. One of the major objections to the notion of substantial changes in the tradition posited by form criticism has been the relatively short period of time during which those changes could have occurred between the cessation of the ministry of Jesus and the composition of the first types of Jesus literature. There is, however, documented evidence for the rapid development of legend in connection with historical individuals. Almost immediately after the murder of Thomas Becket on December 29, 1170, a healing cult arose which centered at Becket’s tomb.63 Thomas was canonized on February 21, 1173, and the legends which flourished included stories of how Thomas raised men from the dead, how he could strike the earth with his staff and bring forth water, and how he had foretold his own violent death. However, from the perspective of the present study, there are two significant problematic features of form criticism: (1)  the task of identifying the typical Sitz im Leben within which each traditional unit was transmitted (a procedure frequently based on circular argumentation), and (2) the task of categorizing and analyzing the various oral forms and genres which were vehicles for transmitting Jesus traditions. 7. While the date when a document was written does not necessarily indicate the date of its contents (relatively late documents can provide copies of relatively early sources), in general the period during which oral tradition can be transmitted accurately is relatively short. In the specific case of Jesus traditions, documents composed after the middle of the second century would not have had access to an oral tradition which accurately reflected the same traditions a century earlier. Further, after the composition of Jesus literature, it is to be expected that such literature both exerted an influence on oral tradition and was itself influenced by oral traditions in the course of written transmission. 8. Although there is a widespread assumption that Jesus only uttered each discrete version of a particular saying once, that practice seems unlikely in view of comparative oral tradition. Acknowledgment of the possibility that some of the multiple versions of particular sayings of Jesus might have originated with 62 Emphasized by E. E. Ellis, “New Directions in Form Criticism,” Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1978), 237–53; Ellis, “Gospels Criticism,” 38–43; E. Güttgemanns, Candid Questions Concerning Gospel Form Criticism, trans. W. Doty (Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1979); Kelber, Oral and the Written Gospel, 2–8; P. Stuhlmacher, “Zum Thema: Das Evangelium und die Evangelien,” Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, ed. P. Stuhlmacher (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), Eng. trans., “The Theme: The Gospel and the Gospels,” The Gospel and the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2–12; Mack and Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion, 1–29. 63 J. Fontenrose, The Ritual Theory of Myth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 15–19.

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Jesus himself makes the quest for the earliest and most authentic form of a given ­aphorism even more problematic.

Morphology of the Aphorism The aphorisms of Jesus, as defined in this paper, have a number of stable features: 1. Specific attribution to Jesus. This feature is important in part because it is a necessary characteristic of the chreia (Theon, Progym. 202.4–5), and excludes the consideration of allusions to the sayings of Jesus (as in James) which are not explicitly attributed to Jesus. In most instances aphorisms which are attributed to Jesus in earlier stages of transmission do not lose that attribution. On the other hand, sayings which are not initially attributed to Jesus can receive such an attribution. One example is the saying of unknown origin which Paul introduces in 1 Cor 2:9 with the quotation formula καθὼς γέγραπται, What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has the heart of man conceived.

This saying is explicitly attributed to Jesus in Gos. Thom. 17: Jesus said, “I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what never occurred to the human mind.”

2. The aphorism, like the chreia, is subject to expansion in a variety of ways. According to the analysis of Robbins, it might appear that those who expanded the chreiai found in the canonical Gospels had been trained to do so in Hellenistic schools. There are two problems with this assumption. a. Aphorisms of Jesus are contracted as well as expanded, and while Theon mentions the συστέλλειν of chreiai in passing, he does not provide any examples or discussion of such abridgement.64 b. The Greek mania for systematization was such that there is no conceivable way to expand a chreia which the rhetorical handbooks have not anticipated, i. e., any expansion whatsoever appears to agree with the prescriptions of the writers of the progymnasmata. 3. Contexts of the aphorism. Aphorisms occur in a variety of contexts in early Christian literature. a. As dialogical elements within the framework of a narrative composition, e. g., as the culminative saying in a pronouncement story or chreia.

64 V. K. Robbins (“Pronouncement Stories from a Rhetorical Perspective,” Forum 4.2 [1988], 10, 15) speaks of the “abridged” and “expanded” form of chreiai. Here the term “abridged” is inappropriate, for it presupposes that such a form was extracted from an expanded chreia. A more appropriate designation would be “basic” or “short” form of the chreia.

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b. As individual sayings or clusters of sayings attributed to Jesus within both canonical and extracanonical Gospels, often arranged to form an argument. c. As individual sayings or clusters of sayings as examples or proofs within early Christian expository discourse, often with a strong paraenetic emphasis (e. g. 1 Clem. 13:2–3). 4. The basic function of the aphorism is didactic, a feature which is implicit in sentences and questions, and explicit in admonitions, which can be either positive or negative. 5. There is a marked tendency to serialize aphorisms, and most such collections of maxims (gnomologia) or collections of chreiai are attributed to specific authors as a means of guaranteeing the reliability and authority of the constituent sayings.65 6. Maxims were not uncommonly provided with narrative frameworks when they were decontextualized from oral speech and resituated in a literary text with specific scenes and appropriate casts of characters. This transition from oral to written accompanied by the addition of a narrative framework is a process which folklorists have observed in the study of proverbs.66 The fact that the culminating sayings of many apophthegmata or pronouncement stories can stand alone (and many very probably circulated in that form) led Rudolf Bultmann to designate those apophthegmata in which the culminating saying is inseparable from the narrative framework as having an einheitliche Konzeption.67 This is further reflected in Arland Hultgren’s analysis of Synoptic conflict stories under the rubrics of “unitary conflict stories” and “non-unitary conflict stories.”68

Types and Forms of Aphorisms While the form and compositional tendencies of wisdom sayings in the Old Testament have been treated in some detail,69 until very recently the only detailed discussion of the form and use of the wisdom sayings of Jesus was that of Rudolf Bultmann, first published in 1921.70 According to Bultmann,71 the basic forms of the wisdom sayings of Jesus were three: 65  R. O. P. Taylor, The Groundwork of the Gospels (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946), 81; Kloppenborg, Formation of Q, 292–94. 66 R. D. Abrahams and B. A. Babcock, “The Literary Use of Proverbs,” Journal of American Folklore 90 (1977), 414–29. 67 Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 49. 68 A. Hultgren, Jesus and His Adversaries: The Form and Function of the Conflict Stories in the Synoptic Tradition (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1979), 67. 69 R. E. Murphy, “Form Criticism and Wisdom Literature,” CBQ 31 (1969), 475–83. 70 Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 73–222. 71 Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 73–113.

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1. Principles (declarative form): a. material formulations (a thing as the subject), b. personal formulations (a person as the subject), c. blessings, d. arguments a minore ad maius. 2. Exhortations (imperative form). 3. Questions.

Makarisms or Beatitudes There are fifteen aphoristic beatitudes in the canonical Gospels,72 and thirteen in Gos. Thom.73 Matt 5:3–12 contains a series of nine beatitudes, while Luke 6:20–23 contains a series of four. They share four beatitudes (Matt 5:3, 4, 6, 11–12 / / Luke 6:20–23), though Luke 6:21b is significantly different from Matt 5:4 in wording. Matthew has five beatitudes that are not found in Luke (Matt 5:5, 7, 8, 9, 10). Although scholars have generally assumed that Matthew and Luke have both modified a series of beatitudes found in Q,74 or that two different forms of Q were used by Matthew (QMt) and Luke (QLk) respectively,75 it is also possible that the Sermon on the Mount was transmitted as a coherent text, apart from Q, and redacted for inclusion into Matthew.76 Since a series of beatitudes constitutes a literary form,77 it is important to ask whether in such series individual beatitudes were collected to form a series or whether they were formulated for the express purpose of being inserted into a series.78 The first beatitude (Matt 5:3; Luke 6:20) occurs independently in Gos. Thom. 54 and in Polycarp, Phil. 2:3 (in a form combined with Matt 5:11 [Luke 6:22]). The series of three beatitudes 72 (1) Matt 5:3 (Luke 6:20b); (2) 5:4 (Luke 6:21b); (3) 5:5; (4) 5:6 (Luke 6:21a); (5) 5:7; (6) 5:8; (7)  5:9; (8)  5:10; (9)  5:11–12 (Luke 6:22–23); (10)  5:13, 15 (Luke 10:23); (11)  Luke 11:28; (12) 12:37; (13) 12:23, 29 (Gos. Thom. 79c); (14) John 13:17 (Jas 1:25b); (15) John 20:29 (Apoc. Jas 3.5; 8.3). There are several instances, however, in which beatitudes are not aphorisms because they are too specific and too closely tied to their narrative context (Matt 11:6 [Luke 7:23]; 16:17 [addressed to Peter]; 23:39 [Luke 13:35b]; 24:46 [Luke 12:43]; Luke 1:45 [addressed to Mary]; 11:27 [addressed to Jesus]; 14:15 [spoken by someone who ate with Jesus]). 73 Six are without parallel in the canonical Gospels (Gos. Thom. 1 [P. Oxy. 654.7], 18, 19, 49, 58, 103). One beatitude has a parallel in Q (Gos. Thom. 54 [Matt 5:3; Luke 6:20]), and there are also two groups of three beatitudes which have some connection with the Synoptic tradition: (1) a series of three beatitudes occur in Gos. Thom. 68–69 (Matt 5:11  / / Luke 6:23; Matt 5:10; 5:6 / / Luke 6:21), and (2)  another series of three beatitudes occur in Gos. Thom. 79 (Luke 11:27–28; 23:29; John 13:17  / / Jas 1:25). 74 Most recently K. Syreeni, The Making of the Sermon on the Mount: A Procedural Analysis of Matthew’s Redactional Activity (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tideakatemia, 1987), 132–36. 75 Davies and Allison, Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1.121, 434–36. 76  R. A. Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount (Waco: Word, 1982), 113–15; H. D. Betz, Essays on the Sermon on the Mount, trans. L. L. Welborn (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 17–36. 77 Betz, Essays on the Sermon on the Mount, 22–25. 78 In the Appendix, each beatitude or makarism is listed separately.

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in Gos. Thom. 68, 69a, 69b has parallels in (1) Matt 5:11  / / Luke 6:22, (2) Matt 5:10, and (3) Matt 5:6  / / Luke 6:21. Does the evidence from Gos. Thom. 54 and 68, 69a, and 69b indicate that an originally independent beatitude was later inserted into a series which was used, in one form or another, by Matthew and Luke, or has this beatitude been removed from an original series of beatitudes? While it can be argued that Gos. Thom. 54 reflects a combination of Luke 6:20, the omission of “in spirit,” with the phrase “kingdom of heaven” from Matt 5:3,79 it more probably reflects an independent version of that beatitude.80 The same is true for Gos. Thom. 68–69.81

“Whoever,” or “the one who” sayings These are introduced either with a relative pronoun and a finite verb or a participle.82 There are a number of aphorisms of Jesus which begin with the phrase ὃς ἄν, or ὅστις ἄν, “whoever” (in Coptic the relative substantival prefix is used, e. g., pete‑ or petna-, etc.) or a substantival participle. These introductory forms occur frequently in the protases of legal formulations in the Hebrew Bible (Exod 21:12; 35:2; Lev 15:10, 19; Num 31:19), and are used also in meshalim (Prov 9:4, 16; 12:1; 20:1). Many aphorisms in this form occur in Sirach (3:3, 4, 5, 6, 16, 26, 31; 4:12, 13, 15). This form occurs frequently in the sayings of Jesus, e. g., Mark 3:35 (and par. Matt 12:50; Luke 8:21; Gos. Thom. 99; 2 Clem. 9:11; Gos. Eb. 5): Whoever (ὃς ἄν) does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.

Another example is found in Mark 8:35 (and par. Matt 16:25d; Luke 9:24; Matt 19:39; Luke 17:33; John 12:25), For whoever (ὃς γὰρ ἐάν + subj.) would save his life will lose it; and whoever (ὃς δ’ ἄν + subj.) loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

Other examples of this form occur in Mark 8:38 par.; 9:42 par. Several of these sayings also occur in the Gospel of Thomas.83

Conditional sayings These sayings (in which the condition is assumed as real or possible) are introduced with the conditional particles εἰ or ἐάν, which can be varied with the relative and participial structures mentioned above with no change in meaning 79 R. M. Grant and D. N. Freedman, The Secret Sayings of Jesus (Garden City: Doubleday, 1960), 163. 80 Davies and Allison, Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 441–42. 81 Grant and Freedman, Secret Sayings of Jesus, 173–74. 82 Crossan, In Fragments, 67–75. 83 Gos. Thom. 1, 41, 44 (“whoever” begins two clauses), 55, 56, 67, 80, 82, 94, 101, 105, 108, 110, 111b.

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in what Crossan designates “performancial variations.”84 An example is found in Mark 3:24–25 (and par. Matt 12:25; Luke 11:17), in which the protasis is introduced with ἐάν with the subjunctive, while the apodosis has a verb in the indicative: If (ἐάν) a kingdom is divided (μερισθῇ) against itself that kingdom cannot (δύναται) stand. And if (ἐάν) a house is divided (μερισθῇ) against itself that house will not be able (δυνήσεται) to stand.

A number of aphorisms in the Gospel of Thomas have a conditional protasis in which the condition is assumed to be real. These have several forms, either introduced with the conditional particles ešje or ešope (“if ”), or the conditional conjugation, i. e., the Present II with the particle ‑šan (e. g. Gos. Thom. 3 [three conditional protases]). An example is found in Gos. Thom. 14a: Jesus said to them, If you fast (etet šan řnestêe) you will beget sin for yourselves and if you pray (etet šašlêl) you will be condemned and if you give (etet ti) alms, you will do evil to your spirits.

(see also Gos. Thom. 19b, 27, 29, 34, 48, 50, 70, 95).

Aphorisms in synonymous couplets Von Rad has argued that such synonymous or antithetical couplets are “products of an explicit literary intention,” and do not characterize the form of popular proverbs.85 Unfortunately, there is no clear and convincing evidence supporting his assertion that such parallel structures ipso facto indicate literary activity.86 Each aphorism must be analyzed independently to determine the characteristic features of its literary redaction. An example of such a literary formulation is found in Matt 10:24–25a: A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master; it is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master.

Matthew has apparently expanded a version similar to that found in Luke 6:40: A disciple is not above his teacher but every one when he is fully taught will be like his teacher.

The independent character of this saying is verified by Dial. Sav. 53, “the disciple resembles his teacher.” Matthew has done this by inserting a slave / master saying,

Fragments, 67–73. Rad, Wisdom in Israel, 28. 86 It must be borne in mind that all evidence for ancient aphorisms occurs only in the form of written texts, which necessarily suggests some degree of stylized literary activity. The pre-literary forms of such aphorisms are of course not recoverable. 84 In

85 Von

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similar to that found paired synonymously with a sender / emissary saying in John 13:16: Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.

Thus the tendency to expand single line aphorisms by pairing them with analogous sayings in synonymous parallelism suggests the literary character of the transformation. There are many other examples of aphorisms in the Jesus tradition which consist of synonymous couplets, for example, Mark 2:21a, 22a, and par.; Mark 3:24–25 and par.; Mark 4:22 and par.; Luke 6:43 / / Matt 7:17; Luke 6:44 / / Matt 7:16; Luke 11:23 / / Matt 12:30; Luke 12:23 / / Matt 10:27; Matt 10:41.

Antithetical and paradoxical aphorisms87 One characteristic type of parallelismus membrorum is the antithetical couplet, a type found frequently when two types of existence are contrasted, e. g., Prov 10:1: A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.

An example of an aphorism consisting of a synonymous couplet is found in Mark 10:31 (par. Matt 19:30; 20:16; Luke 13:30; P. Oxy. 654.4.2; Gos. Thom. 4:2):88 But many that are first will be last, and the last first.

The wisdom admonition This consists of a clause formulated with a verb in the imperative, generally followed by a clause which provides support for the first clause, that is, they focus on exhortation. Although second personal singular imperatives are usually found in admonitions in ancient proverbial literature, second person plural forms occur frequently in admonitions attributed to Jesus.89 Wisdom admonitions occur with some frequency in Q: (1) Luke 6:27–31; Matt 5:44–45; Luke 6:37–38; Matt 7:1–2; (2) Luke 11:9–10; Matt 7:7–8; (3) Luke 12:4; Matt 10:28; (4) Luke 12:22–23; 87 Beardslee, “Uses of the Proverb,” 66–68; L. G. Perdue, “The Wisdom Sayings of Jesus,” Forum 2.3 (1986), 9–10. 88 Other examples of antithetical aphorisms are (1)  Mark 2:17 / / Matt 9:12 / / Luke 5:31; (2) Mark 7:15  / / Matt 15:11; (3) Mark 14:38  / / Matt 26:41; (4) Luke 6:45  / / Matt 12:45; (5) Luke 9:58 / / Matt 8:20; (6)  Luke 14:11 / / Matt 23:12; Luke 18:14; (7)  Luke 19:26 / / Matt 25:29; (8) Matt 22:14. 89 Zeller, Die weisheitlichen Mahnsprüche, 142–85.

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Matt 6:25; (5) Luke 12:33b, 34; Matt 6:19–21; (6) Luke 12:58–59; Matt 5:25–26; (7) Luke 13:23–24; Matt 7:13–14. An interesting instance of how an aphoristic sentence could be transformed into a wisdom admonition is found in Matt 10:27  / / Luke 12:3. Matt 10:27 contains the following wisdom admonition: What I tell you in the dark, utter (εἴπατε) in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim (κηρύξατε) upon the housetops.

The parallel in Luke 12:3, however, is phrased as an aphoristic sentence: Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard (ἀκουσθήσεται) in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed (κηρυχθήσεται) upon the housetops.

Here Luke appears to have preserved the earlier form of the Q saying with the two future passive verbs, while Matthew has transformed this aphoristic sentence into a wisdom admonition.90 Further, the more specific application of the aphorism in Matt 10:27 appears to be based on the more general character of the aphorism in Luke 12:3.91 Wisdom admonitions also occur without the supporting clause,92 such as the admonitions about not retaliating (Q Luke 6:29–30; Matt 5:39–42). Supporting or motive clauses are sometimes eliminated in transmission. The admonition found in Luke 12:22–23  / / Matt 6:25 has a motive clause which is eliminated in P. Oxy. 655.1–17 and Gos. Thom. 36 (assuming the dependence of both on either Luke or Matthew).

Aphoristic sentences These are general declarative statements in the indicative mood which encapsulate general insights. They usually consist of two lines or members in synonymous or antithetical parallelism, e. g., Prov 17:27 (an example of synonymous parallelism): He who restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.

The Synoptic tradition contains many aphorisms of Jesus in synonymous parallelism (Matt 10:24; Mark 4:22 / / Matt 10:26; Matt 10:41), and antithetical parallelism (Luke 9:58 / / Matt 8:20; Luke 6:45 / / Matt 12:35). There are many types of aphoristic sentences. 90  J. A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke (AB 28–28A; 2 vols.; Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1981–85), 2.956. 91 Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 57–58. 92 Zeller, Die weisheitlichen Mahnsprüche, 21–22.

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a. Where / there aphorisms: Luke 12:34 / / Matt 16:21; Luke 17:37 / / Matt 24:28; Matt 18:20.93 b. As / so correlatives: Luke 17:26–30 / / Matt 24:37–39; Luke 11:30 / / Matt 12:40; Luke 17:24  / / Matt 24:27. c. Future reversal sayings: Mark 8:35  / / Matt 16:25  / / Luke 9:24; Mark 10:23b, 24b / / Matt 19:23 / / Luke 18:24; Herm. Sim. 9.20.2b, 3b; Mark 10:25 / / Matt 19:24  / / Luke 18:25; Mark 10:31  / / Matt 19:30; Luke 13:30; Matt 20:16; P. Oxy. 654; Gos. Thom. 4; Luke 14:11  / / Matt 23:12; Luke 18:14b. d. Better or comparison proverbs (Tobsprüche) occur frequently in the Old Testament (Prov 15:16, 17; 16:8; 17:1; 19:22; 25:24; 27:5, 10), and often in Sirach (11:3; 19:24; 20:2, 18, 25, 31; 25:16; 30:14–17; 41:15; 42:14).94 The Tobsprüch involves a comparison often using the formula ‫“( טוב… מן‬better … than”), i. e., A is better than Β (or, A with Β is better than C with D).95 Prov 16:8 is a typical example: Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.

Another example is found in Ps.-Phoc. 130:96 Better (βέλτερος) is a wise man than a strong one.

A distinctive form of the “better saying” is found in the collection of four aphorisms in Mark 9:42–48 using the formula “it is better … than” (καλόν ἐστιν … ἤ).97 Mark 9:45 (and parallels) exhibits the compositional pattern shared by each of the four aphorisms: And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off (ἀπόκοψον); it is better (καλόν ἐστιν) for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.

In this couplet, the first line is a condition consisting of a protasis and an apodosis containing an admonition with a second-person singular imperative, while the second line provides the basis for the action which is recommended. Another aphorism similar to the “better saying” is found in Mark 10:25 (and par.), Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974), 78. W. Zimmerli, “Zur Struktur der alttestamentlichen Weisheit,” ZAW 51 (1933), 192–94; von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, 29; G. S. Ogden, “The ‘Better’-Proverb (Tôb-Spruch), Rhetorical Criticism, and Qoheleth,” JBL 96 (1977), 489–505. 95 Examples cited by Carlston (“Proverbs, Maxims and the Historical Jesus,” 100, nn. 97–98) are Prov 15:16–17; 16:32; 27:10; Qoh 7:1–8; 9:4, 18; Wis 4:1; Sir 30:14; m. ’Abot. 6:6. For a Greek example see Diogenes Laertius 4.49. 96 Cf. Ps-Phoc. 142: “It is better [βέλτερον] to make a gracious friend instead of an enemy.” 97 Since Hebrew and Aramaic have no special form for the comparative, καλόν used in the sense of “better” is widely regarded as a Semitism (M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts [3rd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967], 117; F. Blass, A. Debrunner and F. Rehkopf, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch [16th ed.; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984], § 245.3). 93 M. D. 94 Cf.

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It is easier (εὐκοπώτερον) for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Statements of reciprocity The phrase “statements of reciprocity” is more neutrally descriptive than the more pretentious term Sätze heiligen Rechtes (usually translated “sentences of holy law”) coined by E. Käsemann98 to describe a type of literary form exemplified by 1 Cor 3:17: If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him.

Käsemann proposed that such pronouncements dealt with the eschatological activity of God and that their primary Sitze im Leben in the early Church was that of Christian prophecy. K. Berger described such sentences as Sätze weisheitlicher Belehrung, i. e., “sentences of wisdom instruction,” proposing that the form of such statements originated in sapiential exhortation and that no necessary connection existed between them and early Christian prophetic speech.99 These pronouncements, however, which we prefer to designate as “statements of reciprocity,” are found in both prophetic and sapiential contexts.100 These formulations are centrally concerned with justice, and are formulated in accordance with the principle of ius talionis. They implicitly reflect existence in a world divinely regulated and one in which human actions, both positive and negative, have a predictable divine response. In my view such “statements of reciprocity” render customary distinctions between wisdom and apocalyptic as questionable. They are often in the form of conditional sentences, with the same verb appearing in both the protasis and apodosis, as in 1 Cor 3:17. The verb in the protasis is usually in the present tense, while the verb in the apodosis is often a future passive, a circumlocution for using the name of God explicitly, as in 1 Cor 3:17. One difficult and frequently discussed passage from Q, Luke 12:8–9 (and par. Matt 10:32, listed as aphorism no. 81 in the Appendix), exhibits these features and was therefore judged by Käsemann to have originated with Christian prophets rather than with Jesus. Everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of man also will acknowledge before the angels of God. But he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.

 98 “Sentences of Holy Law in the New Testament,” New Testament Questions Today (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 66–81.  99 “Zu den sogenannten Sätze heiligen Rechts,” NTS 17 (1970–71), 10–40; “Die sog. ‚Sätze heiligen Rechts‘ im N. T., Ihre Funktion und Ihr Sitz im Leben,” TZ 28 (1972), 305–30. 100 Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity, 237–40.

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There are about nineteen examples of such statements of reciprocity in Ignatius,101 many of which have a more proverbial than prophetic character. Similar forms are found in the Gospels, though they do not often have all the generic features mentioned by Käsemann.102 Matt 7:1–2 contains two statements of reciprocity, Judge not, that (ἵνα) you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.

The first line is an admonition which has been expanded to include the reason, when compared to the parallel in Luke 6:37–38, which serializes no less than five statements of reciprocity: Judge not, and (καί)103 you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

Seven statements of reciprocity are serialized in 1 Clem. 13:2:104 Be merciful that you may obtain mercy [cf. Matt 5:7; 18:33]. Forgive, that you may be forgiven [cf. Luke 6:37c]. As you do, so it shall be done to you [cf. Matt 7:12]. As you give, so shall it be given to you [cf. Luke 6:38a]. As you judge, so shall you be judged [cf. Matt 7:2a]. As you are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you. With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you [Matt 7:2b].

Similarly, Polycarp, Phil. 2:3 contains a series of four statements of reciprocity introduced with the quotation formula “remembering what the Lord said when teaching” (μνημονεύοντες δὲ ὧν εἶπεν ὁ κύριος διδάσκων):105 101 Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity, 294–96; R. M. Grant, “ ‘Holy Law’ in Paul and Ignatius,” The Living Text: Essays in Honor of Ernest W. Saunders, ed. D. E. Groh and R. Jewett (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985), 65–71. 102 The five features discussed by Käsemann (“Sentences of Holy Law,” 66–68) include (1) chiastic form, (2) same verb in both parts of the pronouncement, (3) the apodosis deals with the eschatological activity of God, (4) the principle of ius talionis is a central feature, and (5) the protasis is introduced with the casuistic legal form “if anyone,” or “whoever,” while the second part has the style of apodictic divine law. 103 καί introduces a result clause, i. e., it is a substitute for a ἵνα-clause or an infinitive; cf. H. Ljungvik, Beiträge zur Syntax der spätgriechischen Volkssprache (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1932), 82–83; Μ. Zerwick, Biblical Greek (Rome: Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici, 1963), 153–54. Examples from the New Testament include Mark 4:20; 5:15; 8:24, 34; 9:39 (E. C. Maloney, Semitic Interference in Marcan Syntax [SBLDS 51; Chicago: Scholars Press, 1981], 69). 104 Perhaps derived from a written collection no longer extant or from oral tradition; cf. Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung, 12–16. 105 Polycarp was probably familiar with 1 Clem. 13:2 as well as with Matthew and Luke (Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung, 115–18).

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Judge not that (ἵνα) you be not judged [cf. Matt 7:1]. Forgive and (καί) it shall be forgiven you [cf. Luke 6:37c]. Be merciful that (ἵνα) you may obtain mercy [cf. Matt 5:7; 18:33]. With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again [Matt 7:2b].

There are at least three tendencies which appear to be at work in these passages. First, there is the tendency to serialize statements of reciprocity, a tendency already evident in Luke 6:37–38, and particularly evident in 1 Clem. 13:2 and Polycarp, Phil. 2:3. Secondly, there is a tendency to create analogous formulations such as the aphorism in 1 Clem. 13:2, “As you are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you.” Thirdly, there is a tendency to retain the essence of the aphorism while altering the verbal form, for example, the admonition “Do not judge and you will not be judged” can be rephrased in two ways, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged,” or “As you judge, so shall you be judged” (1 Clem. 13:2).

Compositional Tendencies in Aphorisms Whether in oral or written transmission (or in a combination of the two), the aphorisms of Jesus have undergone modifications of various types. Crossan has categorized these changes as performance variations and hermeneutical variations. There are, according to Crossan,106 five types of performance variations: (1) contraction, (2) expansion, (3) substitution, (4) transposition, and (5) conversion. Performance variations are primarily formal in that the basic structure and meaning of the aphorism are left essentially unchanged. 1. Contraction involves a reduction in elements in the aphorism but in such a way that the essential thrust of the aphorism is left intact. This variation is problematic, for it must be based on the assumed priority of one source to another; otherwise it could be construed as expansion. A possible example of contraction is found when Mark 1:15 is compared to Matt 4:17. Mark 1:15 reads The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the Gospel.

Matt 4:17, if dependent on Mark, has contracted this saying, Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

2. Expansion is the addition of an element which coheres well with the original unit. Compare Mark 9:40 (cf. Luke 9:50), “For he that is not against us is for us,” with the Q version of the same saying in Matt 12:30 (cf. Luke 11:23), “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.” 106 In

Fragments, 42.

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3. Substitution involves replacing one form of expression by another that either means very much the same thing or adapts the aphorism to its context. The Q saying in Matt 12:30 (and par. Luke 11:23) begins with a substantival participle, “The one who is not (ὁ μὴ ὤν) with me is against me,” while the version of the aphorism found in Mark 9:40 (cf. Luke 9:50), begins with a relative pronoun and a finite verb, “For the one who is not (ὃς γάρ οὐκ ἔστιν) against us is for us.” Participial, relatival and conditional clauses are often substituted for each other in the aphoristic tradition;107 for example, compare the relatival formulation in Mark 4:9, “He who has (ὃς ἔχει) ears to hear, let him hear,” with the participial formulation in Rev 2:7, “The one who has (ὁ ἔχων) an ear, let him hear,” with the conditional formulation in Mark 4:23, “If any man has (εἰ τις ἔχει) ears to hear, let him hear.” 4. Transposition involves the rearrangement of elements in the aphorism. While Mark 10:31 reads “But many that are first will be last, and the last first,” a variation through transposition is found in Matt 20:16 (reflecting Q; cf. Luke 13:30), “So the last will be first, and the first last.” Regardless of the literary relationship between Mark and Matthew, this aphorism has undergone transposition. 5. Conversion involves variations between negative and positive formulations of an aphorism. The golden rule in Luke 6:31 has a positive formulation: “And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” A negative formulation of the same saying occurs in Did. 1:2, “Whatever you do not want done to you, do not do to another” (cf. Gos. Thom. 6). Crossan has proposed that hermeneutical variations be distinguished from variations in performance, because there are instances in which parts of an aphorism provide interpretation as well as variations in the performance of the aphorism.108 In Gos. Thom. 4.2, the “first / last” aphorism (the “last / first” member is missing) is interpreted by the addition “and they will become one and the same”:109 For many who are first will become last and they will become one and the same.

This is certainly a very interesting development, since the “first / last” (“last / first”) aphorism can be construed to mean that everyone is equal. Some aphorisms are used to interpret other sayings. One example of such an aphorism is “The first will be last and the last first,” which was originally an indeIn Fragments, 67–73. Fragments, 54–66. 109 This saying is usually understood as referring to an eschatological reversal of stations, but perhaps refers rather to eschatological equality, as the two following texts suggest: 4 Ezra 5:42, “Just as for those who are last there is no slowness, so for those who are first there is no haste” (Latin [ed. Klijn], “sicut non novissimorum tarditas, sic nec priorum velocitas”); 2 Bar. 30:2 (trans. Charlesworth, 1:631), “And the first ones will enjoy themselves and the last ones will not be sad.” 107 Crossan, 108 In

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pendent saying.110 Matthew has taken the saying over from Mark (Mark 10:31  / / Matt 19:30), and has inserted the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard (Matt 20:1–16), which he uses as an illustration of the “last / first, first / last” aphorism, with which the parable concludes (Matt 20:16). In Luke 13:30 and P. Oxy. 654, lines 25–27  / / Gos. Thom. 4, the aphorism is used as a generalizing conclusion to a saying of Jesus. The saying also occurs as central in Mark 9:35: “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and slave of all.” Then in v. 36, Jesus makes a child an example of someone who should be received in the name of Jesus (note P. Oxy. 654.2 / / Gos. Thom. 4, which emphasizes how an old man will inquire of a seven-day-old child). Thus this saying is dependent in the sense that it never occurs in isolation, but is always used as an interpretive device with a moral or eschatological reversal of roles envisaged. Aphoristic sentences frequently occur at the conclusion of pronouncement stories (e. g. Mark 2:13–17 and par.; 2:18–22 and par.; 2:23–28 and par.; 3:22–26 and par.; 12:13–17 and par.; Luke 9:57–58 and par.; 9:59–60 and par.; 9:61–62; 16:14–15; 23:27–31). Bultmann distinguished between apophthegmata with a “unitary conception,” that is, the type in which the concluding saying was formulated as an integral part of the narrative framework in which it is found, and “secondary formations,” that is, pronouncement stories which have been generated by the aphorism with which they conclude.111 There are many sections in the Synoptic Gospels in which it is difficult to determine whether or not a textual unit has been constructed out of aphorisms which at one time circulated independently, or whether the unit was originally composed of several shorter units. If the individual, isolatable units in clusters or collections of aphorisms were in fact circulated independently at a pre-literary stage, the traditional character of such units is thereby assured. R. A. Piper has analyzed seven examples of short collections of aphorisms found in the Q (or double) tradition: 1. Matt 7:7–11; Luke 11:9–13;112 2. Matt 6:25–33; Luke 12:22–31: anxiety about material goods is useless;113 3. Matt 7:1–5 (15:14; 10:24–25); Luke 6:37–42;114 110 Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 191. Yet P. Oxy. 654, lines 25–27, diverges from Gos. Thom. 4 and reads (following J. A. Fitzmyer, “The Oxyrhynchus Logoi of Jesus and the Coptic Gospel according to Thomas,” Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament [Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1974], 379): πολλοὶ ἔσονται π[ρῶτοι ἔσχατοι καὶ] οἱ ἔσχατοι πρῶτοι καὶ [ζωὴν αἰώνιον ἕξου]σιν. “Many (who are) first will be last and the last first and they will have eternal life.” 111 Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 48–49, 61–62. 112 Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 15–24. 113 Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 24–36. 114 Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 36–44.

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4. Matt 7:16–20; 12:33–35; Luke 6:43–45;115 5. Matt 10:26–33; Luke 12:2–9;116 6. Matt 5:44–48; Luke 6:27–36;117 7. Luke 16:9–13.118 These seven aphoristic collections exhibit the following structural features: 1. Each collection begins with a wisdom admonition (Luke 6:37 and par.; 11:9 and par.; 12:22 and par.) or a general maxim in the form of a statement (Luke 6:43 and par.; 12:2 and par.). 2. This is followed by a general maxim with wide applicability giving the reason for the opening saying (Matt 7:1–2 and par.; Luke 11:10 and par.; Matt 6:25 and par.; Luke 6:44a). 3. Complete change of imagery in two sayings similar in theme but different in illustration; cf. the parallel rhetorical questions in Luke 6:39 and par.; 6:44b and par.; 11:11–12 and par. 4. Concluding unit of the collection provides the key to the meaning of the whole collection (Luke 6:41–42 and par.; 6:43–45 and par.; Matt 7:11 and par.; Matt 10:31). There are also four short collections of aphorisms in Mark. 1. 2:19–22 (four aphoristic units). 2. 4:21–25 (five aphoristic units).119 3. 8:34b–38 (five aphoristic units),120 or 8:34b–9:1 (six aphoristic units).121 4. 9:42–50 (seven aphoristic units).

Conclusions 1. Despite the often facile way in which New Testament scholars speak of the oral transmission of the sayings attributed to Jesus, this overview of one category of such sayings, the aphorism, suggests that the interplay between oral and written transmission of the Jesus tradition was an extraordinarily complex phenomenon which will probably never be satisfactorily unraveled. The reason for this pessimistic judgment is based primarily on the fact that, as in the case of the manuscript tradition of the Greek New Testament, most of the evidence for the transmission of the aphorisms no longer exists. Further, the notion that oral tradition is flexible and written tradition is fixed (or even that oral tradition Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 44–51. Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 51–61. 117 Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 78–86. 118 Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 86–99. 119 Cf. Crossan, In Fragments, 165–66. 120 Cf. Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 197–202. 121 Cf. Crossan, In Fragments, 166–67. 115 Piper, 116 Piper,

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can be fixed and written transmission even more fixed) is a thoroughly modern assumption which is not supported by the evidence. The analysis of the written evidence for the aphorisms of Jesus (both within this paper and particularly in the Appendix) suggests that it was as flexible and variable as one might suppose oral tradition to be. In early Christianity, it is probable that texts became relatively fixed and unchanging only by attributing sacred status to them, and by the increasing role which Christian scholars educated in Greco-Roman schools played in the writing and transmission of the intellectual tradition of early Christianity. 2. While it may be difficult to argue that this or that particular saying is “historical” or “authentic,” i. e., essentially represents an aphorism of the historical Jesus, the sheer number of such aphorisms together with their persistent attribution to Jesus makes it certain that Jesus regarded himself and was regarded by his followers and later Christian generations as a Jewish sage and teacher of wisdom. Certainly the tenacity with which aphorisms cling to their attribution to Jesus is an important theological and sociological feature of early Christianity, suggestive not only of the role played by the historical Jesus, but also of the role which later Christianity wished to have Jesus play. Even in the case of sayings of the historical Jesus judged to be “authentic” by critical scholarship, what is preserved accurately is the ipsissima structura of such aphorisms, not the ipsissima verba. 3. The aphorisms attributed to Jesus do not only provide self-evident validation of the traditional norms and values which characterized late Second Temple Judaism, but are also (and perhaps more importantly) an index to the very particular outlook which characterized early Christianity and very probably Jesus himself. Aphorisms have a degree of ambiguity which makes it possible to use them in various contexts with various meanings, though this character does not make it easy to determine the “original” meaning which the “earliest form” of the aphorism had. 4. When an aphorism exists in more than one version, scholarly opinion usually disagrees on how the history of that aphorism should be reconstructed. Given Sanders’ eloquent refutation of the generalized tendencies of the transformation of Jesus traditions,122 scholars must focus on a convincing analysis of each aphorism in all of its extant versions before drawing any general conclusions about the oral and literary history of the aphorisms of Jesus. Since New Testament scholars do not all agree on the proper solution to the Synoptic problem, it is hardly likely that they will agree on whether Version 1 of Aphorism A is dependent on Version 2 or whether the reverse is true. Human ingenuity being what it is, the evidence is infinitely manipulable.

122 Tendencies

of the Synoptic Tradition.

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Appendix Inventory Of Aphorisms Of Jesus The only lengthy study devoted to the general subject of the aphorisms of Jesus is John Dominic Crossan’s book, In Fragments: The Aphorisms of Jesus (1983). He restricts his study to the 133 aphorisms in Mark and Q and those dependent on them in Matthew, Luke and extracanonical Jesus literature.123 Crossan focuses on the task of reconstructing the earliest recoverable versions of the aphorisms of Jesus by identifying the various ways in which they were altered in the transmission process, and the way in which they were transformed from single items to larger clusters and collections. He discusses in detail many, though not all, of the 133 aphorisms. He largely ignores previous form-critical research on the sayings of Jesus (the issue of the typical Sitz im Leben in which aphorisms were used does not strike him as particularly useful), he is not particularly concerned with questions of authenticity, and he does not really deal with the relationship between aphorisms and other types of sayings. He does suggest that aphorisms could be expanded into pronouncement stories. Although he begins by distinguishing between proverbs and aphorisms, that distinction is not carried out consistently throughout the rest of the book. In a recent and very useful handbook, Sayings Parallels: A Workbook for the Jesus Tradition (1986), Crossan has provided a collection of no less than 291 aphorisms of Jesus printed with parallel versions found in both canonical and extracanonical Christian literature.124 Since the same aphorism can occur in different genres, that is, as an independent aphorism, as an answer in a dialogue and as a conclusion to a story, Crossan indicates the presence of aphorisms in other genres with an asterisk. Since Crossan includes all non-narrative sayings of Jesus which he does not classify as parables or dialogues under the rubric “aphorism,” he includes many sayings which should not be classified as aphorisms. Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 78 is the aphorism “Against anxieties” (Matt 6:25–33  / / Luke 12:22–31; P. Oxy. 655.36; Gos. Thom. 36), which is far too lengthy and complex to fit any definition of “aphorism.” In Crossan, In Fragments, 338, this passage from Q is divided into three aphorisms, nos. 93, 94 and 95. Further, some of the aphorisms listed in Crossan, In Fragments, are categorized as “dialogues” in Crossan, Sayings Parallels.125 Many sayings of Jesus are incorrectly categorized as aphorisms, such as Mark 1:15 and parallels: 123 Only nine of 133 aphorisms are attested only in a single source: Mark 7:15; 9:49; QMt 10:23; QLk 6:24, 25a, 25b, 26; 12:32, 48b. 124 Crossan (Sayings Parallels, xv) distinguishes 33 “narrative parables” from “aphoristic parables” (e. g. Mark 3:24–25), and “extended parables” (e. g. Matt 7:24–27). He considers aphoristic and extended parables as types of aphorisms. 125 Crossan, In Fragments, no. 20 = Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 350; Crossan, In Fragments, no. 21 = Crossan, Sayings Parallels, 352; Crossan, In Fragments, no. 22 = Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 328; Crossan, In Fragments, no. 24 = Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 359; Crossan,

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The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.

Or, in its twice repeated Matthaean form (3:2; 4:17): Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The following inventory of 167 aphorisms of Jesus is arranged in the following order: (1) triple tradition, i. e., Mark and parallels in Matthew and Luke; (2) the double tradition, i. e., Q parallels in Luke and Matthew; (3) Matthew; (4) Luke; (5) John; (6) Gospel of Thomas. Aphorisms marked with an asterisk (*) are those which Bultmann judged to be secular meshalim which later entered the Jesus tradition.126 Statistics on the number of aphorisms found in various sources show that they are divided as follows: 1. Mark and Parallels, 44. 2. Double tradition, 49. 3. Matthew, 32. 4. Luke, 22. 5. John, 8. 6. Gospel of Thomas, 4. 7. Other, 8. 1. The physician and the sick (Mark 2:17a; Matt 9:12; Luke 5:31; P. Oxy. 1224.1). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 423 (as conclusion of story). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. Metaphorical saying interpreted in Mark 2:17b; Matt 9:13b; Luke 5:32. Separately attested in P. Oxy. 1224.1. Antithetical parallelism. Aphoristic sentence. 2. Righteous and sinners (Mark 2:17b; Matt 9:13b; Luke 5:32; 2 Clem. 2:4; Barn. 5:9b; Justin, 1 Apol. 15:8; Ps.-Justin, De resurr. 7; cf. 1 Tim 1:15). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 97. “I”-saying used to interpret Physician and Sick metaphor in Mark 2:17a and par. Separately attested in 2 Clem. 2:4b; Barn. 5:9b. Aphoristic sentence. No metaphorical features; functions to interpret Mark 2:17a and par., and may therefore have circulated independently of the pronouncement story with which it is now associated,127 as it is found in 2 Clem. 2:4 and Justin, 1 Apol. 15:8 (Barn. 5:9 appears to be a retelling of Mark 2:15–17 entirely in the third person). The phrase “to repentance” (εἰς μετανοίαν) is added in Luke 5:32, Justin, 1 Apol. 15:8 and Ps.-Justin, De resurr. 7. The saying is introduced in 2 Clem. 2:4 In Fragments, no. 54 = Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 364; Crossan, In Fragments, no. 104 = Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 335. 126 Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 107–108. While Bultmann thinks it quite possible that Jesus modified popular proverbs, he also thinks that the tradition would have preserved such occasional use of popular gnomic discourse by Jesus (Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 105–106). 127 Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 16.

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with γραφὴ λέγει, which suggests dependence on a written text,128 rather than dependence on oral tradition.129 3. Presence of the bridegroom (Mark 2:19a  / / Matt 9:15a  / / Luke 5:34; Gos. Thom. 104.2) was probably missing from version of Mark used by Matthew and Luke. Aphoristic rhetorical question. 4. Absence of the bridegroom (Mark 2:20 / / Matt 9:15b / / Luke 5:35; Gos. Thom. 104.2). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 331 (part of a dialogue in Mark 2:18–20 and par.). *5. New patches on old garments (Mark 2:21; Matt 9:16; Luke 5:36; Gos. Thom. 47.4a). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 98 (with Mark 2:22 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588 (includes Mark 2:22 and par.). Two lines in present tense, supporting clause introduced by δὲ (Mark, Luke) or γάρ (Matthew). Aphoristic sentence. 6. New wine in old wineskins (Mark 2:22; Matt 9:17; Luke 5:37–38; Gos. Thom. 47.4a). Crossan, Sayings Parallels (with Mark 2:21 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588 (includes Mark 2:21 and par.). Gos. Thom., reverses order of similitudes and adds (secondary addition) “nor is old wine put into new wineskins, lest it spoil it.” Aphoristic sentence. 7. Sabbath is for people (Mark 2:27). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 135 (combined with Mark 2:28). Mark 2:27 perhaps absent from version of Mark used by Matthew and Luke. Aphoristic sentence. 8. Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28  / / Matt 12:8  / / Luke 6:5). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 135. 9. The divided kingdom (Mark 3:24  / / Matt 12:25a  / / Luke 11:17a). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 424 (part of climax of pronouncement story, not separately as an aphorism). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588 (includes Mark 3:23b–26 and par.). Mark 3:23 contains the explanation (“How can Satan cast out Satan?”) used as a preface to the metaphors of the divided kingdom and the divided house. 10. The divided house (Mark 3:25 / / Matt 12:25b / / Luke 11:17b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 424 (part of climax of pronouncement story). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 95), includes Luke 11:18a (which appears to be a hermeneutical addition), “And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?” 11. Entering a strong man’s house (Mark 3:27; Matt 12:29; Gos. Thom. 35; cf. Luke 8:21–22). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 137. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. Aphoristic sentence. 12. Doing God’s will (Mark 3:35 / / Matt 12:50 / / Luke 8:21; Gos. Thom. 99; 2 Clem. 9:11; Gos. Eb. 5). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 436 (concluding saying Synoptische Überlieferung, 71. Donfried, The Setting of Second Clement in Early Christianity (NovTSup 38; Leiden, Brill, 1974), 59–60. 128 Koester, 129  K. P.

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in story, i. e., a pronouncement story130). The problem is whether this saying originally circulated separately and perhaps was the basis for creating a pronouncement story.131 Gos. Thom. 99 adds a line which functions as a hermeneutical addition, “They are the ones who will enter the kingdom of my Father.” (Note the Matthaean addition of “Thy will be done” to the line “Thy kingdom come” in the Lord’s Prayer, Matt 6:9–13  / / Luke 11:2–4). *13. Hidden and revealed (Mark 4:22 / / Luke 8:17; Matt 10:26b; Luke 12:2; Gos. Thom. 5.2 / / P. Oxy. 654 5.2; Gos. Thom. 6.4 / / P. Oxy. 654 6.4). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 115. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 89). Synonymous couplet. Independent circulation suggested by inclusion in various contexts (Matt 10:26b; Luke 12:2; Gos. Thom. 5, 6). 14. What you give is what you get (Mark 4:24b / / Matt 7:2b / / Luke 6:38b; 1 Clem. 13:2; Polycarp, Phil. 2:3). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 82. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589 (no. 46), 590 (no. 75). Second line found in Mark 4:24, “and still more will be given to you.” Possibly missing from version of Mark used by Matthew and Luke (also missing from 1 Clem. 13:2 and Polycarp, Phil. 2:3). *15. The haves and have nots (Mark 4:25  / / Matt 13:12  / / Luke 8:18b  / / Gos. Thom. 41; Luke 19:26  / / Matt 25:29). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 144. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589. Independent circulation shown by attestation in at least two versions, Q and Mark. Antithetical couplet. Aphoristic sentence. *16. Prophet not honored (Mark 6:4; Matt 13:57; Luke 4:24; John 4:44; P. Oxy. 1; Gos. Thom. 31). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 146. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589. Part of chreia in Mark 6:1–6. 17. Defilement comes from inside (Mark 7:15  / / Matt 15:11; Gos. Thom. 14.3). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 147. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589. Antithetical couplet. Called παραβολή in Mark 7:17. Aphoristic sentence. 18. Do not give the children’s bread to dogs (Mark 7:27  / / Matt 15:26). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 440 (part of miracle story). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589. 19. Taking up the cross (Mark 8:34  / / Matt 16:24  / / Luke 9:23; Luke 14:27  / / Matt 10:38; Gos. Thom. 55). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 122. In form this is an ‘I’-saying. 20. Gaining and losing life (Mark 8:35  / / Matt 16:25  / / Luke 9:24; Matt 10:39; Luke 17:33; John 12:25). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 123. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 92), 589. The phrase “and the gospel’s” (Mark 8:35) probably not in the version of Mark used by Matthew and Luke. Specific reference to Jesus (“for my sake”) unlike general wisdom admonitions. *21. Gaining the world but losing one’s life (Mark 8:36  / / Matt 16:26a  / / Luke 9:25; 2 Clem. 6:2). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 155. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589. Rhetorical question. 130 Cf. 131 Cf.

Robbins, Ancient Quotes & Anecdotes, 82. J. Lambrecht, “The Relatives of Jesus in Mark,” NovT 16 (1974), 250–51.

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*22. The price of life (Mark 8:37 / / Matt 16:26b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 156. Rhetorical question. Possibly missing from version of Mark used by Luke. 23. Ashamed of Jesus (Version 1, Mark 8:38 / / Luke 9:26; Version 2, Luke 12:8–9  / / Matt 10:32–33; 2 Clem. 3:2; cf. 2 Tim 2:12 [not attributed to Jesus, but is linked with three other conditional sayings which together are called a πιστὸς ὁ λόγος, “the saying is reliable,” it functions as a self-evidently true aphorism]; Rev 3:5). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 119; In Fragments, no. 89. In form, this is an “I”-saying. The Oxford Committee132 thought that 1 Clem. 13:2 was dependent on an oral or written source different from the canonical Gospels, while Koester133 regards 1 Clem. 13:2 as dependent on Matthew. 24. First must be last (Mark 9:35). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 172 (listed as parallel to Mark 10:43–44 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589 (no. 53). Wisdom admonition without supporting clause, if future indicative understood as imperative.134 *25. For and against (Mark 9:40; Luke 9:50b; Luke 11:23  / / Matt 12:30). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 138. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589 (no. 42), 591 (no. 95). Aphoristic sentence. 26. Offending little ones (Mark 9:42  / / Matt 18:6  / / Luke 17:2; 1 Clem. 46:8b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 160. A Tobspruch in which the formulaic καλόν ἐστιν of Mark 9:42 is represented by συμφέρει in Matt 18:6 and λυσιτελεῖ in Luke 17:2. 27. An offending hand (Mark 9:43; Matt 18:8). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 57 (includes Mark 9:43, 45, 47 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589 (includes Mark 9:43–47 and par.). Second person singular imperative. Wisdom admonition with supporting clause. 28. An offending foot (Mark 9:45; Matt 18:8). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 57 (includes Mark 9:43, 45, 47 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589 (includes Mark 9:43–47 and par.). Second person singular imperative. Wisdom admonition with supporting clause. 29. An offending eye (Mark 9:47–48; Matt 18:9). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 57 (includes Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Matt 18:8–9). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589 (includes Mark 9:43–47 and par.). Second person singular imperative. Mark 9:48 missing from Matthew, possibly absent from version of Mark used by Matthew. Wisdom admonition with supporting clause. 30. Salted with fire (Mark 9:49). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 212. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589.

New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905), 130. Überlieferung, 72. 134 Zeller, Die weisheitlichen Mahnsprüche, 122. 132 The

133 Synoptische

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*31. Salt is good (Mark 9:50a  / / Matt 5:13  / / Luke 14:34–35). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 44. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589. Rhetorical question; aphoristic question. The Q version appears to be an expansion of the version found in Mark. Similitude or parable.135 32. Salt and peace (Mark 9:50b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 213. Second person plural imperatives in two clauses connected by καί. 33. Receiving the kingdom like a child (Mark 10:15 / / Matt 18:3 / / Luke 18:17; Gos. Thom. 22). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 446 (part of story in Mark 10:13–16 and par.). 34. Rich people and the kingdom (Mark 10:23b, 24b / / Matt 19:23 / / Luke 18:24; Herm. Sim. 9.20.2b, 3b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 350 (part of “dialogue” in Mark 10:23–27 and par.). Perhaps separated from Mark 10:24 and par., because separate in Herm. Sim. 9.20.2b, 3b. Aphoristic sentence. 35. Camel through the needle’s eye (Mark 10:25  / / Matt 19:24  / / Luke 18:25; Gos. Naz. 16). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 350 (part of dialogue in Mark 10:23–27 and par.); in Crossan, In Fragments, 332 it is isolated as Aphorism No. 20. Perhaps originally separate since it occurs separately in Gos. Naz. 16. 36. Impossible for people, possible for God (Mark 10:27  / / Matt 19:26  / / Luke 18:27). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 350 (part of “dialogue” in Mark 10:23–27 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589. 37. First and last (Mark 10:31 / / Matt 19:30; Matt 20:16; Luke 13:30; P. Oxy. 654 4.2; Gos. Thom. 4; Mark 9:35). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 170. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589 (no. 59), 591 (no. 102). 38. Leader as slave (Mark 10:43–44; par. Matt 20:26–27; Luke 22:26; Matt 23:11; Mark 9:35; Luke 9:48). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 172. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 103). Wisdom admonition without supporting clause if future indicative functions as imperative. 39. Believing prayer (Mark 11:24; Matt 21:22). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 85 (used as parallel to Ask, Seek, Knock saying despite major differences). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589. Second person plural imperatives. Wisdom admonition. 40. Forgive to be forgiven (Version 1, Mark 11:25; Matt 6:14–15; Polycarp, Phil. 6:2; Version 2, Luke 6:37c; 1 Clem. 13:2; Polycarp, Phil. 2:3). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 72. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587 (includes Luke 6:37b, c only). Version 1 deals with forgiveness sought from God in prayer, while Version 2 omits the context of prayer. Mark 11:25 is a wisdom admonition with a supporting clause introduced by ἵνα. Matt 6:14–15 consists of two conditional sentences, the first positive (“if you forgive”), the second negative (“if you do not forgive”). 41. Caesar and God (Mark 12:17 / / Matt 22:21 / / Luke 20:25; Gos. Thom. 100). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 454 (included with story in Mark 12:13–17). 135 Fitzmyer,

Gospel according to Luke, 2.1067.

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Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589. Gos. Thom. 100 adds third line, “Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, / give God what belongs to God, / and give me what is mine.” Second person plural imperative. Wisdom admonition without supporting clause. Climactic saying in pronouncement story. 42. Endurance to the end (Mark 13:13b / / Matt 10:22b / / Luke 21:19; Matt 24:13; Did. 16:5b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 111 (includes Mark 13:12–13 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589. 43. Watch and pray (Mark 14:38a / / Matt 26:41b / / Luke 22:46b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 464 (only as part of story of prayer in garden in Mark 14:32–42 and par.). Not listed in Crossan, In Fragments. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590. Two second person plural imperatives in first line. Wisdom admonition. Luke 22:45b indicates that this formulation was circulated separately. 44. Spirit is willing (Mark 14:38b  / / Matt 26:41b; Polycarp, Phil. 7:2). Polycarp, Phil. 12 (where it is explicitly attributed to ὁ κύριος) indicates that this is an independent formulation, linked only in Mark 14:38a and Matt 26:41b. Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 464 (only as part of story of prayer in garden in Mark 14:32–42 and par.). Not listed in Crossan, In Fragments. 45. Unfruitful tree (Luke 3:9b  / / Matt 3:10b; 7:19). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 35. Originally independent aphorism proven by use in Matt 7:19 Two verbs in present tense. Aphoristic sentence. 46. Blessed are the poor (Luke 6:20b  / / Matt 5:3; Gos. Thom. 54; Polycarp, Phil. 2:3). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 36; Crossan, In Fragments, no. 27. 47. Blessed are the hungry (Luke 6:21a  / / Matt 5:6; Gos. Thom. 69). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 39. 48. Blessed are those who weep (Luke 6:21b / / Matt 5:4). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 37; Crossan, In Fragments, no. 29. 49. Blessed are the persecuted (Luke 6:22–23  / / Matt 5:10–12; Gos. Thom. 68, 69; 1 Pet 4:14; Polycarp, Phil. 2:3). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 43. 50. Love your enemies (Luke 6:27–28  / / Matt 5:44; Did. 1:3c; P. Oxy. 1224.2; Polycarp, Phil. 12:3; Did. 1:3). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 62 (includes Luke 6:27b–28, 35a, c and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (includes Luke 6:27–28, 32–36 and par.). Luke 6:27–28 has four admonitions with second person plural imperatives: (1) love your enemies, (2) do good to those who hate you, (3) bless those who curse you, (4) pray for those who abuse you. Matt 5:44 includes only (1) and (4). P. Oxy. 1224.2 has only “pray for your enemies” (a combination of [1] and [4]). 51. Turn the other cheek (Luke 6:29a / / Matt 5:39b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 60 (includes Luke 6:29; Matt 5:39b–41). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (includes Luke 6:29–30 and par.). Second person singular imperative. Wisdom admonition without supporting clause.

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52. Give your shirt too (Luke 6:29b  / / Matt 5:40; Did. 1:4). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 60 (includes Luke 6:29; Matt 5:39b–41). Second person singular imperative. Wisdom admonition without supporting clause. *53. Give to those who beg (Luke 6:30  / / Matt 5:42; Gos. Thom. 95; Dial Sav. 1.5a). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 61. Saying out of place in Q.136 Second person singular imperative. Wisdom admonition without supporting clause. *54. Golden rule (Luke 6:31  / / Matt 7:12; Western text of Acts 15:20, 29a; P. Oxy. 654.6.2b; Gos. Thom. 6.2b; Did. 1:2b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 87. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (no. 78). 55. Judge not (Luke 6:37a  / / Matt 7:1–2a; 1 Clem. 13:2; Polycarp, Phil. 2:3). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 81. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587 (lists Matt 7:2a separately). Luke 6:37a is a wisdom admonition with a negative imperative (μὴ κρίνετε). Matt 7:1–2a also contains a reason for the negative command in a second member, “For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged.” This appears secondary because of its redundance. 1 Clem. 13:2 is of interest because the admonition is phrased positively, “As you judge, so you will be judged” (which could be based on Matt 7:2a). *56. Blind leading the blind (Luke 6:39 / / Matt 15:14b / / Gos. Thom. 34; Ep. Apos. 47.4). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 150. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 99). Two rhetorical questions, second gives consequences. *57. Pupil not above teacher (Luke 6:40  / / Matt 10:24–25a; Dial. Sav. 53). Luke has pupil / teacher; Matt has reduplicated form pupil / teacher, slave / master. Luke 6:40 and Dial Sav. 53 suggest that this aphorism circulated independently. Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 113. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 88). Synonymous couplet. Aphoristic sentence. See Matt 10:24–25. 58. The speck and the log (Luke 6:41–42  / / Matt 7:3–5; Gos. Thom. 26; P. Oxy. 1.26). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 83; In Fragments, no. 44.4. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (no. 76). 59. No good tree bears bad fruit (Luke 6:43 / / Matt 7:18). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 90 (part of series of sayings in Luke 6:43–45 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (no. 82). 60. Each tree is known by its fruit (Luke 6:44  / / Matt 12:33b; 7:16a, 20). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 90 (part of a series of sayings in Luke 6:43–45 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (no. 80). 61. Figs are not gathered from thorns nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush (Luke 6:44b  / / Matt 7:16b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 90 (part of series of sayings in Luke 6:43–45 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (no. 81). 62. Products of good and evil men (Luke 6:45a; Matt 13:35; Gos. Thom. 45.2). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 90 (part of longer “aphorism” in Matt 7:16–20 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 98). Metaphor followed by explanation in 136 Bultmann,

Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 107.

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Luke 6:45; explanation precedes metaphor in Matt 12:34b–35. Gos. Thom. 45.2–3 follows order of Luke 6:45, though Gos. Thom., secondary because of allegorical interpretation (storehouse = heart). Antithetical couplet. Aphoristic sentence. 63. Speaking from the heart (Luke 6:45b / / Matt 12:34b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 90 (part of a larger aphoristic cluster), yet in Crossan, In Fragments, 158–60, Luke 6:43–45 is said to consist of five aphorisms (nos. 45–49). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 97). Explanation without metaphor linked to Luke 6:45a; possibly originally linked. Aphoristic sentence. 64. Luxurious clothing in king’s courts (Luke 7:25b / / Matt 11:8b; Gos. Thom. 78). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 127 (part of longer speech in Luke 7:24b–27  / / Matt 11:7b–10). 65. Children playing (Luke 7:31–32  / / Matt 11:16–17). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 131 (part of Luke 7:31–35  / / Matt 11:16–19). Similitude. Incorporates what may have been a ditty which circulated independently (Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 [no. 93]), “We piped to you, and you did not dance; / we wailed, and you did not weep.”137 66. Wisdom is vindicated by all her children (Luke 7:35  / / Matt 11:19b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 131 (part of Luke 7:31–35  / / Matt 11:16–19). 67. Figs and thorns, grapes and brambles (Luke 8:44b  / / Matt 7:16). *68. Foxes have holes (Luke 9:58  / / Matt 8:20; Gos. Thom. 86). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 96. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 84). Robbins138 connects what appears to me to be three separate mini-pronouncement stories into one (Luke 9:57–62). Antithetical couplet. Aphoristic sentence. 69. Let the dead bury the dead (Luke 9:60 / / Matt 8:22). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 330 (part of dialogue). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 85). 70. Plentiful harvest, few laborers (Luke 10:2  / / Matt 9:37–38  / / Gos. Thom. 73; cf. John 4:35, 37). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 99. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 86). *71. The laborer deserves his wages (Luke 10:7b  / / Matt 10:10b; 1 Tim 5:18b; Dial. Sav. 53; Did. 13:2; cf. 1 Cor 9:14). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 104 (includes Luke 10:5–7 / / Matt 10:10b–13, though Luke 10:7b and par. treated separately in Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 104). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 87). Aphoristic sentence, originally separate from present context.139 The term μισθός (or its equivalent) occurs in Luke 10:7b and 1 Tim 5:18, while the term τροφή occurs in Matt 10:10b, Dial. Sav. 53 and Did. 13:2; μισθός (appropriate in an urban setting) appears to be an explanation of the meaning of τροφή 137 Cf. A. A. T. Ehrhard, “Greek Proverbs in the Gospel,” The Framework of the New Testament Stories (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1964), 44–63. 138 Ancient Quotes & Anecdotes, 41. 139 Hoffmann, Studien zur Theologie der Logienquelle, 298; Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 134–35.

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(appropriate in a rural setting). Fitzmyer regards τροφή as original in Q.140 1 Tim 5:18 introduces two aphorisms with the phrase λέγει γάρ = γραφή which may refer to the first saying, quoted from Deut 10:18, though the second is known only from Luke 10:7b and par. 72. No one knows the Son except the Father (Luke 10:22b / / Matt 11:27b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 133. Crossan, In Fragments, no. 62 (includes Luke 10:22  / / Matt 11:27). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 94). 73. Ask, seek, knock (Luke 11:9–10  / / Matt 7:7–8; Gos. Thom. 2 and 92, “Seek and you will find” only; Gos. Thom. 94, “He who seeks will find, and (he who knocks) will be let in” only; cf. Dial. Sav. 9–10d, 20c; Gos. Heb. 4). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 85. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (includes Luke 11:9–13 and par.). Wisdom admonition; 3 lines of climactic parallelism connected with 3 explanatory parallel lines connected with γάρ. 74. Giving good gifts (Luke 11:11–13 / / Matt 7:9–11). Two rhetorical questions followed by a minore ad maius argument with the application. Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 86; Crossan, In Fragments, no. 68. It is possible that three separate wisdom sayings are involved. 75. For and against (Luke 11:23a  / / Matt 12:30a; Mark 9:40  / / Luke 9:50b; P. Oxy. 1224.2). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 138. Present tense verbs. Aphoristic sentence. Independent aphorism because occurs separately in Mark 9:40  / / Luke 9:50b. 76. Gathering and scattering (Luke 11:23b  / / Matt 12:30b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 138 (includes Luke 11:23a  / / Matt 12:30a). Independent aphorism shown by fact that “for and against” occurs separately in Mark 9:40 / / Luke 9:50b; P. Oxy. 1224.2. *77. The place for a lamp (Luke 11:33 / / Matt 5:15; Mark 4:21 / / Luke 8:16; Gos. Thom. 33). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 47. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 589. Originally circulated independent of context in Luke 8:16–18, a Lukan “doublet.”141 Davies and Allison refer to this as a parable.142 Gos. Thom. 33 probably dependent on Luke 11:33 and / or 8:16.143 78. Eye is lamp of body (Luke 11:34a  / / Matt 6:22; cf. Dial. Sav. 8). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 76 (includes Luke 11:34–36 / / Matt 6:22–23, which certainly now constitutes a rhetorical unity). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590. Aphoristic sentence which may have originally circulated independently.144 79. Open proclamation (Luke 12:3  / / Matt 10:27; Gos. Thom. 33.1). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 116. More specific aphorism about how secrets will be revealed appended to Mark 4:22 and par. according to Luke, 2.848. according to Luke, 1.716. 142 Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1.476. 143 Fitzmyer, Gospel according to Luke, 1.717. 144 Betz, Essays on the Sermon on the Mount, 73. 140 Gospel 141 Gospel

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13. Oral Tradition and the Aphorisms of Jesus

80. Whom to fear (Luke 12:4–5  / / Matt 10:28; 2 Clem. 5:4b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 117. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 90). 81. Confessing Jesus before people (Luke 12:8–9 / / Matt 10:32–33; 2 Clem. 3:2; Rev 3:5). 82. Avoiding anxiety (Luke 12:22–23 / / Matt 6:25; P. Oxy. 655.1–17; Gos. Thom. 36). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 78 (part of more extensive section in Luke 12:22–31 / / Matt 6:25–33, which is far too extensive to qualify as an aphorism). Crossan (In Fragments, 338) breaks this up into three aphorisms: (1)  no. 93, Luke 12:22–24, 27–38, and par., (2)  no. 94, Luke 12:25 and par., and (3)  no. 93. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (includes Luke 12:22 ff., 27–31 and par., a far too extensive section of text to qualify as an aphorism). This is an instructional wisdom admonition with a second-personal plural imperative (μὴ μεριμνᾶτε) in the first line with a motive clause introduced by γάρ in the second line in Luke 12:23, but with a rhetorical question in the second line in Matt 6:25. Gos. Thom. 36 does not contain a motive clause, and appears to be a condensation of the older Greek text P. Oxy. 655.1–17, which in turn is a condensation of Luke 12:22–27 or Matt 6:25–28.145 *83. Anxiety won’t help you live longer (Luke 12:25 / / Matt 6:27). Crossan, In Fragments, 338 (isolated as Aphorism 94); Sayings Parallels, no. 78 (part of extensive aphorism in Matt 6:25–33 / / Luke 12:22–31). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590. Rhetorical question. Aphoristic sentence. 84. Treasure in heaven (Luke 12:33b; Matt 6:19–20; Gos. Thom. 76). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 74. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (combines Luke 12:33 and 34 and par.). Second person plural imperative μὴ θησαυρίζετε, “do not store up.” Wisdom admonition with reason when combined with Luke 12:34  / / Matt 6:21. 85. Treasure and heart (Luke 12:34  / / Matt 6:21; Just., 1 Apol. 15:16). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 75. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (combines Luke 12:33 and 34 and par.). A “where / there” aphorism (see Luke 17:37 / / Matt 24:28). Two lines with present tense verbs connected with καί. Aphoristic sentence. Possibly separate from preceding because it switches to second person singular, but in Matthew only (catchword connection in θησαυρός). Justin has the third person singular in 1 Apol. 15:16, “For where the treasure is, there is the mind of the person.” 86. Settle with your accuser (Luke 12:58–59; Matt 5:25–26; cf. Did. 1:5b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 55. Wisdom admonition (second person singular). Luke 12:59; Matt 5:26 probably later addition.146 87. Enter the narrow gate (Luke 13:24 / / Matt 7:13–14). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 88. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (no. 79). Second person plural im-

Gospel according to Luke, 2.976. Die weisheitlichen Mahnsprüche, 66–67.

145 Fitzmyer, 146 Zeller,

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perative εἰσέλθατε, “enter in” (Matt 7:13); ἀγωνίζεσθε εἰσελθεῖν, “strive to enter” (Luke 13:24). Wisdom admonition. *88. Exalted will be humbled (Luke 14:11  / / Matt 23:12; Luke 18:14; cf. Matt 18:4). Cf. Ezek 21:26b, “Exalt that which is low, and abase that which is high” (Sir 1:30; 32:1–2 [“If they make you master of the feast, do not exalt yourself ”]). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 180. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 591 (no. 104). Paradox in antithetical couplet constitutes a “future reversal” proverb used to adapt aphorisms to an eschatological setting. 89. Tasteless salt (Luke 14:34–35a  / / Matt 5:13; Mark 9:50a). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 44. 90. Serving two masters (Luke 16:13a  / / Matt 6:24a; Gos. Thom. 47.2; 2 Clem. 6:1). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 77 (includes aphoristic cluster in Luke 16:13; Matt 6:24). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590. Gos. Thom. 47.2 is expanded by prefacing it with Gos. Thom. 47.1 an aphorism on the impossibility of mounting two horses. Aphoristic sentence. 91. Corpse and vultures (Luke 17:37b / / Matt 24:28). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 198. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 592 (no. 106). A “where / there” aphorism (see no. 85, Luke 12:34  / / Matt 6:21). 92. Taking up what you did not lay down (Luke 19:21b, 22b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 15 (part of Luke 19:12b–27). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 592 (no. 107). Sounds like a proverb and has parallels in Greek writers.147 Following the tendency of parallel metaphors in two members, it appears that Luke found this aphorism in Q. 93. Reaping what you did not sow (Luke 19:21c, 22c / / Matt 25:24b, 26b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 15 (part of Luke 19:12b–27 / / Matt 25:14–30, a parable). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 592 (no. 107). 94. Gathering where you did not winnow (Matt 25:24c, 26c). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 15 (part of parable of Entrusted Money). Following the tendency of parallel metaphors in two members it appears that Matthew did not add this aphorism, but rather found it in QMt. 95. Blessed are the meek (Matt 5:5; Did. 3:7; cf. Barn. 19:4; Ps 36:11a [MT 37:11a]). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 38. While Matt 5:5 is in the form of a beatitude, Did. 3:7 is a wisdom admonition with a second person singular present imperative ἴσθι (note the second person future indicative in ἐσῃ πραῦς in Barn. 19:4); the supporting reason in line 2 introduced by ἐπεί. Audet suggests that Did. 3:7 circulated independently.148 Jefford suggests that Matt 5:5 and Did. 3:7 are dependent on Ps 36:11a, each of which reformulated the saying in a different way.149 Gospel according to Luke, 2.1237; he suggests that it was inserted by Luke. Audet, La Didachè: Instructions des apôtres (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1958), 320. 149  C. N. Jefford, The Sayings of Jesus in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 80. 147 Fitzmyer, 148 J.-P.

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96. Blessed are the merciful (Matt 5:7). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 40 (omits parallels in 1 Clem. 13:2 and Polycarp, Phil. 2:3). 97. Blessed are the pure in heart (Matt 5:8). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 41. 98. Blessed are the peacemakers (Matt 5:9). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 42. *99. A city on a hill (Matt 5:14b; P. Oxy. 1.32; Gos. Thom. 32). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 46. Possibly from Q.150 Aphorism is intrusive and reproduces a traditional wisdom saying.151 Aphoristic sentence. 100. You cannot make one hair white or black (Matt 5:36b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 59 (part of Matt 5:34b–37). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. Second person singular subjunctive of prohibition. 101. Let your word be yes, yes or no, no (Matt 5:37). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 59 (part of Matt 5:34b–37 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. Third person singular present imperative ἔστω. 102. Do not let the left hand know what the right hand does (Matt 6:3). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 66 (part of longer paraenetic section in Matt 6:2–4). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. Third person singular aorist imperative γνώτω. 103. Be not anxious for tomorrow (Matt 6:34a). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 79. Second person plural subjunctive of prohibition. Wisdom admonition with supporting clause. Some think aphorism is a secondary interpretation “in wisdom style”152 or a redactional addition based on popular wisdom tradition.153 104. Each day’s trouble (Matt 6:34b; cf. Dial. Sav. 53). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 80. Second person plural imperative; wisdom admonition. *105. Don’t give what is holy to dogs (Matt 7:6a; Did. 9:5b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 84 (includes Matt 7:6b, c). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. The separate circulation of this admonition (verbally identical in both versions) is suggested by its occurrence in Did. 9:5b, though the final redactor of the Didache could have used Matthew.154 Jefford is convinced that Did. 9:5b is based on Matthaean tradition.155 *106. Pearls before swine (Matt 7:6b; Gos. Thom. 93). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 84 (included Matt 7:6a). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. Matt 7:6 has four lines, first two and the last two in synonymous parallelism, arranged as a chiasm:156 a Do not give dogs what is holy; b Do not throw your pearls before swine 150 U. Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, vol. I. Teilband Mt 1–7 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985), 1.220. 151 Davies and Allison, Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1.475. 152 Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, 1.34. 153 Parallels in Davies and Allison, Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 662. 154 Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung,199. 155 Jefford, Sayings of Jesus, 140. 156 Davies and Allison, Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1.677.

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b’ Lest they [swine] trample them under foot a’ And [lest the dogs] turn to attack you.

Gos. Thom. 93 (probably independent of Matt157) has four lines, with negative consequences in second and fourth lines. Did. 9:5b preserves only first line of aphorism in Matt and Gos. Thom., and appears dependent on Matt or special Matthaean tradition.158 107. Grapes from thorns (Matt 7:16). Not in Crossan. 108. Every sound tree bears good fruit (Matt 7:17; cf. 12:33). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 90 (part of Matt 7:16–20 and par., which is divided up into four separate aphorisms in Crossan, In Fragments, no. 45–48). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. 109. Trees that do not bear fruit (Matt 7:19). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 90 (part of series of sayings in Matt 7:16–20 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 590 (no. 83). 110. Give without reward (Matt 10:8b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 102. *111. Wise as serpents (Matt 10:16). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 108. Second person plural imperative. Wisdom admonition without supporting clause. Possibly drawn from secular Jewish folklore.159 112. Slave not above master (Matt 10:24–25; John 13:16a; 15:20a). The use of this aphorism in John suggests that it circulated independently of the pupil / teacher aphorism in Luke 6:40 and par. Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 113 (pupil / teacher, slave / master aphorisms lumped together). John 13:16a expands slave / master aphorism with messenger / sender aphorism, which is probably simply a Johannine expansion (absent from John 15:20a). Aphoristic sentence. 113. Master and household (Matt 10:25b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 114. Rhetorical question with a minore ad maius argument. 114. Receiving a prophet (Matt 10:41). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 125. Synonymous couplet. Aphoristic sentence. 115. A cup of water (Matt 10:42 / / Mark 9:41). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 126. 116. Come to me all who labor (Matt 11:28–30; Gos. Thom. 90). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 134. Crossan, In Fragments, no. 64. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. 117. Justified or condemned by your words (Matt 12:36–37). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 140. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587 (includes 12:37 only). *118. Scribe trained for the kingdom (Matt 13:52). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 338 (part of “dialogue” in Matt 13:51–52). Simile introduced with ὅμοιός ἐστιν. Aphoristic sentence.

and Allison, Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1.677. Sayings of Jesus, 140. 159 Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 112. 157 Davies

158 Jefford,

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119. Every plant not planted by the father will be uprooted (Matt 15:13; cf. Gos. Thom. 40; Ignatius, Trall. 11:1; Phld. 3:1). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 148. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. 120. On eunuchs (Matt 19:12a). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 348 (only as dialogue in Matt 19:10–12a). Aphoristic sentence (three lines, present tense verb in each). Regarded by Perdue as a Numerical Saying (cf. Prov 30:18–19, 21–23).160 121. The one able to receive (Matt 19:12b; Ignatius, Smyrn. 6:1b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 168. Third person singular imperative. Wisdom admonition. 122. Many called, few chosen (Matt 22:14; Barn. 4:14b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 174. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. Present tense verb in first of two clauses connected with δέ. Antithetical parallelism. Aphoristic sentence. 123. Preaching but not practicing (Matt 23:3b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 176 (includes Matt 23:2–3). 124. Avoiding titles (Matt 23:8–10). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 179. Three second person plural subjunctive prohibitions. Wisdom admonitions with supporting clauses. Classified as Community Rule by Bultmann.161 125. Those who take the sword perish by the sword (Matt 26:52b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 465 (part of story of the arrest of Jesus in Matt 26:47–56 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. Expresses principle of lex talionis frequently found in aphorisms. 126. Physician heal yourself (Luke 4:23). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 214. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. *127. Old wine better (Luke 5:39; Gos. Thom. 47.2). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 216. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 587. Present tense verbs in two clauses, the second clause supports the first. Textually problematic; absent from Codex Bezae, Old Latin, Marcion, Irenaeus and Eusebius. Explanatory clause absent from Gos. Thom. 47.2; possibly added by Luke.162 Aphoristic sentence. 128. Do not condemn (Luke 6:37b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 222. 129. Forgive and be forgiven (Luke 6:37c; 1 Clem. 13:2; Polycarp, Phil. 2:3; cf. Matt 6:14–15; Mark 11:25; Polycarp, Phil. 6:2). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 72. Crossan, In Fragments, no. 65. 130. Give and it will be given to you (Luke 6:38a, b; 1 Clem. 13:2d [contains a version of Luke 6:38a only]). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 221. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588 (includes only Luke 6:38a). 131. The one forgiven little loves little (Luke 7:47b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 459 (part of story in Mark 14:3–9 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588.

160 “Wisdom

Sayings of Jesus,” 12–13. Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 154–56. 162 Fitzmyer, Gospel according to Luke, 1.602. 161 Die

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132. Looking back (Luke 9:62). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 364 (classifies Luke 9:61–62 as a dialogue). Robbins links three mini-pronouncement stories together as one, Luke 9:57–62.163 Climactic saying in brief pronouncement story. 133. Beware of covetousness (Luke 12:15). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 482 (part of story in Luke 12:13–15). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588 (includes only Luke 12:15b). Two second person plural imperatives. Wisdom admonition with supporting clause introduced by ὅτι. Lacks all metaphorical features. 134. Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning (Luke 12:35; Did. 16:1a). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 17 (part of parable of returning master in Mark 13:34–36; Luke 12:35–38). Negative formulation and reverse order of clauses in Did. 16:1a (“Let not your lamps be quenched and let not your loins be ungirded, but be ready”) suggests independence of Luke.164 Possibly circulated independently of vv. 36–38.165 Third person plural imperative ἔστωσαν. Aphoristic admonition with supporting clause. 135. Waiting slaves (Luke 12:36). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 17 (part of parable of returning master). Abbreviated parable,166 or hortatory admonition.167 136. Master as slave (Luke 12:37–38). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 17 (part of parable of returning master). Compositional unity of this saying indicated by the beatitudes which frame it. 137. Heavy and light beatings (Luke 12:47–48a). Omitted by Crossan, Sayings Parallels. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. Two antithetical lines connected with δέ. 138. Much given, much required (Luke 12:48b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 225. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. Probably originally circulated independently.168 Non-metaphorical. A couplet of synonymous parallelism. Aphoristic sentence. *139. Places at table (Luke 14:8–10). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 227. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. This illustration is to an example story what a similitude is to a parable;169 a mashal (cf. Prov 25:6–7) has been enlarged into moral picture, concluding with a general application in the form of a proverb on self-exaltation, Luke 14:11. Bultmann considers this aphorism so typical of popular wisdom that he wonders how it was included in Jesus tradition.170 Fitzmyer calls this a “hortatory counsel” with an appended wisdom saying in v. 11,171 but it Quotes & Anecdotes, 41. Synoptische Überlieferung,175–76. 165 Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 124–25. 166 C. Evans, Luke (NIBC 26; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1990), 532. 167 Fitzmyer, Gospel according to Luke, 2:985. 168 Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 87; Fitzmyer, Gospel according to Luke, 2.991–92. 169 Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 193. 170 Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 108. 171 Gospel according to Luke, 2.1044–45. 163 Ancient

164 Koester,

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contains a second person singular subjunctive of prohibition, and so is a wisdom admonition with a supportive clause.172 *140. Invite outcasts (Luke 14:12–14). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 228. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. Example illustration in the form of a “hortatory counsel”:173 Second person singular subjunctive of prohibition. Wisdom admonition with supporting clause.174 141. Children of this age wiser than the children of light (Luke 16:8b). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, omits. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. 142. Make friends of Mammon (Luke 16:9). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 230. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. Second person singular imperative ἑαυτοῖς ποιήσατε φίλους, “make yourselves friends.” Wisdom admonition. *143. Faithful in least, faithful in much (Luke 16:10; 2 Clem. 8:5; cf. Luke 19:17  / / Matt 20:21). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 231 (part of more extensive aphorism in Luke 16:10–12). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. Aphoristic statement using the a minore ad maius argument, probably circulated independently of present context in Luke 16:10–12. The expanded saying in 2 Clem. 8:5 suggests that a saying of independent oral origin was prefixed to the saying borrowed from Luke 16:10:175 If you did not guard that which is small, who shall give you that which is great? For I tell you that he who is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in that which is much.

144. Exalted before people (Luke 16:15). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 486 (conclusion of pronouncement story in Luke 16:14–15). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. 145. Remember Lot’s wife (Luke 17:32). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 195 (includes Luke 17:31–32 and par. under the rubric “Time for Flight”). 146. Who is greater, the served or the server? (Luke 22:27a). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 172 (part of discourse material in Luke 22:25–27 and par.). Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. 147. Green and dry wood (Luke 23:31). Absent from Crossan, Sayings Parallels. Küchler, Frühjüdische, 588. Rhetorical question incorporating a minore ad maius argument. Cf. Ezek 20:47, and the rabbinic saying “When fire consumes the green, what will the dry do?”176 Omitted by Crossan, Sayings Parallels.

Die weisheitlichen Mahnsprüche, 67–69. Gospel according to Luke, 2.1044–45. 174 Zeller, Die weisheitlichen Mahnsprüche, 69–71. 175 Evans, Luke, 603. 176 Strack-Billerbeck, 2.263. 172 Zeller,

173 Fitzmyer,

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148. The wind and the spirit (John 3:8; Ignatius, Phld. 7:1 [cf. John 8:14]). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 238. Similitude.177 Maurer178 regards Ignatius, Phld. 7:1 as a certain citation of a combination of John 8:14 and 3:8 though it is possible that this “quotation” simply reflects a widely-known formula known to Ignatius apart from John. 149. The bridegroom and his friend (John 3:29). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 331 (part of dialogue). Parable.179 150. One sows, another reaps (John 4:37). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 425 (part of story in John 4:35–38). Proverb in general currency quoted by Jesus. Verb in present tense in first clause linked to second clause by καί. Aphoristic sentence. 151. Son as apprentice of father (John 5:19–20a). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 430 (part of story). 152. The slave and the son (John 8:35). Not in Crossan, Sayings Parallels. Parable according to Dodd.180 153. Stumbling at night (John 11:9–10). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 45 (distant parallel to Matt 5:14a). Parable according to Dodd.181 154. Kernel of wheat (John 12:24). Absent from Crossan, Sayings Parallels. Similitude or parable.182 155. Woman in labor (John 16:21). Absent from Crossan, Sayings Parallels. Similitude or parable. 156. It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35b; 1 Clem. 2:1; cf. Did. 1:5). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, 245. 157. Love your brother (Gos. Thom. 25). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 286. Jewish proverbial expression;183 first half from Lev 19:17–18. Probably independent of Synoptic saying “love your neighbor as yourself ” in Matt 22:39.184 158. Become passers-by (Gos. Thom. 42). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 291 (no parallels). 159. The impossibility of riding two horses and stretching two bows (Gos. Thom. 47.1). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 292 (no parallels).185 160. No physician heals those who know him (Gos. Thom. 31; P. Oxy. 1.31). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 146 (only as parallel to Mark 6:4 and par., though there is no real relationship); In Fragments, no. 7. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 366–69. 178 C. Maurer, Ignatius von Antiochien und das Johannesevangelium (Zürich: Zwingli-Verlag, 1949), 29. 179 Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, 385–86. 180 Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, 379–82. 181 Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, 373–79. 182 Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, 369. 183 Grant and Freedman, Secret Sayings of Jesus, 146. 184 Davies, Thomas and Christian Wisdom, 6. 185 Cf. Hill, “Proverbs as Sayings of Jesus,” 10. 177  C. H.

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161. Guard the small, receive the great (1 Clem. 8:5). See Luke 16:10. If you did not guard that which is small, who shall give you that which is great?

162. Be merciful to obtain mercy (1 Clem. 13:2a; Polycarp, Phil. 2:3; cf. Matt 5:7). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 40 lists Matt 5:7 without parallels, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” This sentiment is expressed as an admonition in identical words in 1 Clem. 13:2a and Polycarp, Phil. 2:3, ἐλεᾶτε ἵνα ἐλεηθῆτε. 163. As you do, so it shall be done to you (1 Clem. 13:2c). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 318. Statement of reciprocity. 164. Be kind and you will be treated kindly (1 Clem. 13:2–3). Crossan, Sayings Parallels, no. 319. Statement of reciprocity. One of seven aphorisms of similar structure, probably not dependent on written Gospels but on a written collection of sayings no longer extant or on oral tradition.186 165. The foot of a ghost or demon does not join to the ground (Ep. Apos. 11).187 166. What has fallen will arise (Ep. Apos. 25).188 167. Are the fingers of the hand alike? (Ep. Apos. 32.2).189

Synoptische Überlieferung, 12–16. “Proverbs as Sayings of Jesus,” 11–16. 188 Hill, “Proverbs as Sayings of Jesus,” 17–21. 189 Hill, “Proverbs as Sayings of Jesus,” 21–24. 186 Koester, 187 Hill,

14. Jesus Tradition and the Pauline Letters* Introduction This essay is written in honor of my friend and colleague Birger Gerhardsson, a pioneer in the study of oral tradition in early Judaism and early Christianity. After reviewing the major contributions that Gerhardsson has made to New Testament scholarship, the essay will survey and critique some of the contributions to the problem of oral tradition in the Pauline letters, and then to a survey and critique of some discussions of Paul’s use of Jesus traditions apart from the problem of how they were transmitted. Finally, I will turn to a discussion of Paul’s letters as “lieux de mémoire,” i.e., as “sites” or “artifacts of memory,” as a model for understanding the function of oral tradition proposed by Pierre Nora.

The Project of Birger Gerhardsson While Gerhardsson’s Memory and Manuscript remains one of the classic works of 20th century New Testament scholarship, progress in scholarship along with the inevitable changes in perspective and methodology make it appropriate to reassess his great work forty-five years after its publication.1 Gerhardsson’s great achievement was to argue for the link between memory and tradition, and the recognition of this connection has sparked renewed interest in his work. Gerhardsson analyzed what can be known of oral and written transmission in rabbinic Judaism from Tannaitic and Amoraic sources (ca. 70–500 CE). This model is then applied to the more fragmentary evidence for the oral transmission of Jesus traditions in first century Christianity, primarily in Acts and Paul. * Original publication: “Jesus Tradition and the Pauline Letters,” Jesus in Memory: Traditions in Oral and Scribal Perspectives, ed. W. H. Kelber and S. Byrskog (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2008), 63–86, 223–28. Reprinted by permission. 1 B. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (Acta Seminarii Neotestamentici Upsaliensis 22; Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup; Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1961). A second edition of this monograph, with minor corrections, appeared in 1964 from the same two publishers. A third edition appeared in 1998, with a new introduction by J. Neusner and the addition of Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianity (a short monograph by Gerhardsson originally published in Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup and Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard in 1964 in the series Coniectanea Neotestamentica, 20), published in Grand Rapids by Eerdmans and in Livonia, Michigan by Dove Booksellers.

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Gerhardsson argued that, on analogy with the rabbinical model, the disciples of Jesus and their successors carefully memorized and even took notes about the words and deeds of Jesus (referred to by Gerhardsson as both “the Holy Word” and “the gospel tradition”), which they then accurately transmitted in relatively unchanged form.2 This deposit of tradition was preserved and transmitted by duly constituted authorities, the twelve apostles, who constituted a collegium with supreme doctrinal authority in the early church (conceptions influenced by the influx of Pharisees into the church), and “are bearers, not only of the tradition concerning Christ, but also of the correct interpretation of the Scriptures.”3 One of Gerhardsson’s primary purposes was to question the fundamental assumptions and methods of form criticism.4 Gerhardsson’s monograph was subjected to thoroughgoing criticism by scholars such as W. D. Davies, Morton Smith, Jacob Neusner, Norman Perrin and Werner Kelber,5 with a relatively positive response early on by Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J,6 and a more recent and positive critique by Richard Bauckham.7 Gerhardsson has responded to many of the criticisms leveled against Memory and Manuscript,8 often arguing that he had been misinterpreted.9 The most frequent objection to Gerhardsson’s central thesis is that it is anachronistic to read rabbinic pedagogical techniques of 200 CE (and later) into Christianity of the pre-70 CE period.10 Neusner, an early critic of Gerhardsson’s supposedly anachronistic use Memory and Manuscript, 335, 328–29. Memory and Manuscript, 221, n. 2, 230, 321.  4 Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 9–15.  5 W. D. Davies, “Reflections on a Scandinavian Approach to ‘the Gospel Tradition’,” Neotestamentica et Patristica: Freundesgabe Oscar Cullmann (NovTSup 6; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1962), 14–34. Reprinted with some alterations in W. D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 464–80. M. Smith, “Comparison of Early Christian and Early Rabbinic Tradition,” JBL 82 (1963), 169–76; J. Neusner, “The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70 A. D.: The Problem of Oral Tradition,” Kairos 14 (1972), 57–70; N. Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1967), 30–32; W. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul and Q (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), 8–14; idem, “The Works of Memory: Christian Origins as MnemoHistory – A Response,” Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity, ed. A. Kirk and T. Thatcher (Semeia Studies 52; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 231–35.  6 J. A. Fitzmyer, S. J., “Memory and Manuscript: The Origins and Transmission of the Gospel Tradition,” Theological Studies 23 (1961), 442–47.  7 R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 249–52.  8 Gerhardsson has compiled a helpful list of the early reviews of Memory and Manuscript. See Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, preface to the 1998 edition, xxiii.  9 Gerhardsson responds to the views of W. Kelber in The Gospel Tradition (Coniectanea Biblica, New Testament Series, 15; Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1986), 32–57 (passim). 10 This is a major objection of Smith, “Comparison of Early Christian and Early Rabbinic Tradition,” 169–76, Neusner, “The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70 A. D.: The Problem of Oral Tradition,” 57–70 (he later retracted this criticism), and Kelber, The Oral and the  2 Gerhardsson,  3 Gerhardsson,

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of Tannaitic and Amoraic pedagogy as a model for understanding the transmission of Jesus tradition in early Christianity, has recently recanted and even written a positive introduction to the 1998 reprint of Memory and Manuscript.11 According to Neusner, all that Gerhardsson was proposing was that … comparison and contrast need not be synchronic and may under carefully controlled and justified circumstances take the route of diachrony. He went in search of a model of how oral formulation and oral tradition can have taken place. He did not claim that his model derived from, or attested to the practice, of the period of his principle interest. He sought only knowledge of possible techniques. So he did not mean to say, the way they produced the Mishnah, in the late second and early third century, tells us how they produced the Gospels a century and a half earlier.12

Neusner thus sees the difference between Gerhardsson and his critics as the difference between “paradigmatic versus historical thinking,” and the bulk of his introduction is devoted to this theme.13 The anachronistic use of rabbinic pedagogy as a model for understanding the transmission of Jesus tradition in early Christianity has become more, rather than less, obvious since the early 1960’s. While Gerhardsson frequently uses the term “Pharisaic-rabbinic,” merging the pre-70 CE Pharisees with post200 CE rabbinic sages and uses the phrase Oral Torah of certain traditions in the pre-70 CE period, Martin Jaffee argues convincingly that there are no clear connections between the Pharisees and the later rabbinic sages and that there is an important distinction between traditions external to the written Torah and the Oral Torah. Between the written sources of textual study and the oral-literary tradition within which the texts were interpreted was a development that belongs to the mid-third century CE14 (parenthetically, Jaffee connects the Galilean sages’ ideological commitment to the idea of Oral Torah as a conception developed in the circle around Rabbi Yohanan, where it functioned as an explanation and celebration of the master-disciple relationship, the distinctive social form of rabbinic community.15 Further, though Gerhardsson uses the term halakah (i.e, “an orally transmitted tradition of laws derived from scriptural exegesis but not explicitly Written Gospel, 14. Gerhardsson essentially rejects this criticism as an incorrect understanding of his views (see Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, Preface to the 1998 edition, xiii). 11 J. Neusner, “Gerhardsson’s Memory and Manuscript Revisited: Introduction to a New Edition,” Approaches to Ancient Judaism, New Series, 12 (1997), 171–194 (the denunciation of Smith is on 172–75). 12 Neusner, “Gerhardsson’s Memory and Manuscript Revisited,” 176. 13 Neusner, “Gerhardsson’s Memory and Manuscript Revisited,” 178–90. Along the same lines, Bauckham considers the pedagogy of rabbinic Judaism as an “illuminating parallel despite being later than the New Testament period” (Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 250). 14 M. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), on the Pharisees see 39–61, and on Oral Torah see 65–83. Avery-Peck dates the first evidence for the concept of Oral Torah to the opening lines of m. Abot, which dates to the early 3rd cent. CE (Alan J. Avery-Peck, “Oral Tradition [Judaism],” ADB 5.36). 15 Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth, 146–52.

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contained in the Torah”) to refer to early Christian practices,16 the term halakah is found neither in the Qumran literature nor in the surviving literature of the Second Temple period; its earliest appearance is in the Mishnah and Tosefta, rabbinic literature of the third century CE.17 Interestingly, none of the earlier critiques of Gerhardsson’s monograph touched the issue of the adequacy of his understanding of oral transmission in Tannaitic and Amoraic Judaism. Kelber was an exception. He criticized Gerhardsson for his thesis of “mechanical memorization,” i.e., of a “passive and authoritative transmission of traditions,” implying that Gerhardsson had misread the rabbinic evidence.18 More than two decades later, Kelber repeated the same criticism:19 Gerhardsson envisioned a mechanical commitment of materials to memory and a passive transmission by way of continual repetition. Changes that did occur in the processing of traditional items remains confined to interpretive adaptations. On the whole, the work of memory as a key arbiter of tradition was, therefore, characterized by fixity, stability and continuity, and the primary purpose of transmission was the deliberate act of communicating the legacy of Jesus for its own sake.

Gerhardsson himself later raised the issue of whether or not the rules for memorized oral transmission were actually used in practice.20 That is, what the rabbis say they are doing may be quite different from what they actually did. Norman Perrin was an early critic who observed that “the most successful part of the work is the study of ‘oral tradition and written transmission’ in rabbinic Judaism, to which Gerhardsson has clearly devoted a great deal of time.”21 Neusner himself has investigated the theme of oral tradition in Judaism in great detail, focusing on the highly formal, patterned speech that characterizes the Mishnah. He argues that these are mnemonic patterns indicating that the Mishnah was constructed to be memorized. The Mishnah, then, is “not the result of a long process of oral formulation and oral transmission. It clearly is meant to inaugurate a long process of oral transmission or oral tradition.”22 The rabbis themselves claimed to have accurately passed on the traditions they received, claiming “not merely essential accuracy but exact verbal correspondence with what was originally stated by the authorities standing behind the traditions.”23 Philip Alexander has observed, however, that though Neusner is able to account for the creation of example, Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 274–75, 311 and passim. Torah in the Mouth, 43. 18 Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel, 13. 19 Kelber, “The Works of Memory,” 232. 20 Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, Preface to the 1998 edition, xi–xii; see also Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth, 162–63, n. 13. 21 Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, 30. 22 J. Neusner, Oral Tradition in Judaism: The Case of the Mishnah (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1987), 93. See also J. Neusner, The Memorized Torah: The Mnemonic System of the Mishnah (Brown Judaic Series 96; Chico: Scholars Press, 1985). 23 Neusner, Memorized Torah, 28. 16 For

17 Jaffee,

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intermediate units, or “chapters” in the Mishnah, he provides no formal rules explaining the combination of “chapters” into tractates and tractates into orders.24 He also notes that while the rabbis claim to have preserved the traditions they received verbatim, by imposing a standard formulaic structure on the words of a sage when juxtaposed to the opinions of other sages, they effectively destroyed the ipsissima verba.25 Despite the claims made in rabbinic literature for verbal accuracy in transmission, multiple attestations of the same tradition reveal substantial textual variation, indicating that the transmission was variable and dynamic rather than static.26

The Problem of Paul and Oral Tradition There is no evidence that Paul (unlike the framers of the Mishnah) wrote his letters with the intention that they be subject to oral transmission. There is evidence to suggest that Paul, like many others, dictated his letters to a secretary or amanuensis, who was actually responsible for writing the letters.27 There is striking confirmation of this widely known ancient practice at the conclusion of Romans: “I Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord” (Rom 16:22), and confirmation in a different way toward the end of Galatians, when Paul implies the use of an amanuensis when he claims “See what large letters I make when I am writing with my own hand!” (Gal 6:11). Further, Paul’s letters would have been read aloud to the congregations to which they were directed, and since he was aware of this it is likely that he would have both consciously and unconsciously designed them for oral recitation. There can be little doubt that much is lost in the written transcription of an oral discourse, such as gestures, intonation, and emphasis, all of which contribute to meaning. Yet it should by no means be assumed that Paul’s oral recital was transformed into a static written product. During the early transmission history of the various works making up the New Testament, it is widely recognized that scribes took the freedom to add to, subtract from, and modify the texts that they were copying.28 Thus each new “copy” of an exemplar was itself a performance in its own right, raising the Alexander, “Orality in Pharisaic-Rabbinic Judaism at the Turn of the Eras,” Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition, ed. H. Wansbrough (JSNTSSup 64; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 175. 25 Alexander, “Orality in Pharisaic-Rabbinic Judaism,” 175–76. 26 Alexander, “Orality in Pharisaic-Rabbinic Judaism,” 181–82. 27  E. R. Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991; idem, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition, Collection (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004). A major question, with which Richards deals, is the extent to which secretaries may have influenced the formulation of letters. 28 On the creativity of scribes, see K. Haines-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 24 P. S.

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question of the extent to which the traditional text-critical goal of reconstructing the “original” text is an achievable enterprise. In my own work on a commentary on the Testament of Solomon, it became evident early on that the “original text” of this second century document cannot be reconstructed.29 This raises the important question about the purpose of such a commentary. In the case of the Testament of Solomon, I decided to base the commentary on a single manuscript “performance” of the text, bringing in a discussion of some of the extensive variants only when such a discussion seems warranted. Two sorts of evidence for early Christian orality are arguably present in the Pauline letters. First, Paul occasionally refers to various aspects of oral tradition directly when he refers to such concepts as “tradition” and “the word of God.” Second, it is inherently likely that patterns of oral composition as well as particular units of oral tradition have been incorporated by Paul into his letters, whether consciously or unconsciously. The problem here is that of distinguishing with any confidence between genuine “oral footprints” and between patterns of composition that are used both orally and textually (as we shall see below in our discussion of Harvey). In the remainder of this section, I will summarize Gerhardsson’s discussion of Paul and oral tradition, followed by a synthesis and critique of three scholars who have treated the issue of Paul and oral tradition in some detail, Werner Kelber (1983), Traugott Holtz (1991), and John D. Harvey (1998).30

Birger Gerhardsson Toward the end of Memory and Manuscript, Gerhardsson devoted 51 pages to a discussion of “The Evidence of Paul.”31 In part one of his monograph, Gerhardsson discussed the transmission of written and oral Torah in rabbinic Judaism from the Tannaitic and Amoraic periods, ca. 70–500 CE (pp. 17–189). In part two, he turns to evidence for the transmission of the gospel tradition in early Christianity, using his construction of rabbinic pedagogical methods as a model for understanding the oral transmission of Jesus traditions beginning with the post-apostolic church (pp. 194–207), the evidence found in Acts (pp. 208–61), the evidence found in Paul (pp. 262–323), and finally, “The Origins and Transmission of the Gospel Tradition” (pp. 324–35). 29 A “critical text” of the Testament of Solomon was produced in 1922 by C. C. McCown (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs), yet the incredible number of variants listed by McCown, some extremely extensive, resulted in the fact that McCown did not really succeeded in constructing an original text of the document so much as search for the common denominators of the dozen or so extant manuscripts. 30 Kelber, Oral and Written Gospel; T. Holtz, “Paul and the Oral Gospel Tradition,” Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition (JSNTSupp 64; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 380–93; J. D. Harvey, Listening to the Text: Oral Patterning in Paul’s Letters (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998). 31 Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 262–323.

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Gerhardsson begins with an emphasis on Paul’s status as an apostle, an equal to the accepted apostolic status of Peter, since he has been commissioned by the risen Lord (Gal 1–2). According to Paul, the Christian message had been revealed in two forms, Paul’s “gospel of uncircumcision” and Peter’s “gospel of circumcision,” both variations on the one gospel. Paul maintained that the church of Christ was a unity with its center in Jerusalem, with the circle of the Twelve as the highest doctrinal authority (emphasized on pp. 274–80). Paul therefore uses traditions that originated from this doctrinal center in Jerusalem. His relationship to the collegium of the Apostles is analogous to that between an individual rabbi and his colleagues (haburim). Gerhardsson emphasizes the roles of the apostles as both eyewitnesses of what Jesus did and taught as well as of his resurrection (pp. 280–88). Since Paul claims to be an eyewitness of the resurrection only, and not the words and deeds of Jesus, he necessarily had to rely on authoritative tradition. Scripture is now understood christologically in a way principally revealed to the apostles (p. 285). Gerhardsson claims that Paul can say that he received his gospel by revelation (Gal 1), since “the message of salvation” (kerygma) does not include everything called “the word of God” (didache). In his teaching, Paul’s arguments are not drawn from personal revelations, but from Scripture and the authoritative “tradition of the Lord.” Turning to the subject of Paul and tradition, Gerhardsson first discusses the terminology for tradition used by Paul and argues for the existence of an authoritative body of “tradition” functionally equivalent to the “oral torah” of Judaism (pp. 288–89). What Paul refers to as “tradition” is the authoritative material (consisting of both words and actions) that he passed on to the congregations he founded, making conscious use of apostolic authority to transmit authoritative doctrine. Thus “the word of God” that Paul passes on to his congregations proceeds from Jerusalem (p. 296). Gerhardsson asks “What was the nature of the fundamental authoritative material which Paul passed on to his congregations before writing his epistles to them?”32 That which Paul passed on to the congregations with which he interacted centered in a corpus of sayings of and about Christ, that Gerhardsson labels “the gospel tradition.”33 Yet he maintains that At all events, this Christ-tradition seems to occupy a self-evident position as a basis, focus and point of departure for the work of the Apostle Paul. It is evident that he attempts to provide a firm basis in this centre even for what appear to be peripheral rules. But he does not pass on this focal tradition in his epistles. He presupposes it constantly since it has already been delivered.34

The single most important section in the Pauline letters indicating the content of the word of God is 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, which clearly demonstrates that Memory and Manuscript, 291 (entire quotation italicized is the original). Memory and Manuscript, 295. 34 Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 295. A similar statement is made on 301. 32 Gerhardsson, 33 Gerhardsson,

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Paul received authoritative tradition about the death and resurrection of Christ (pp. 299–300). In Gerhardsson’s brief analysis of 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, he argues that the passage consists of a series of simanim (a Hebrew transliteration of the Greek word σημεῖον, “sign”), in which each line or siman is a short designation for some passage in the gospel tradition about Christ.35 In rabbinic literature, a siman is a device designed to help a student remember a complex ruling or retain the order of the main parts of a talmudic argument; a siman could be a verse of Scripture (m. ‘Abod. Zar. 1.3) or a series of keywords based on the text (b. Ber. 57b), though the latter are found only in the Gemara of the Babylonian Talmud.36 It is not clear that the later mnemonic use of simanim is directly relevant to interpreting such passages as 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, however, since the same could be said of all the creed-like passages in the New Testament and even to the missionary speeches of Acts (e.g., Acts 10:34–43). In the case of 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, Gerhardsson claims that “we have good reason to suppose that he derived this tradition – directly or indirectly – from the college of Apostles in Jerusalem,”37 though such a supposition is speculative but not impossible. Gerhardsson then turns to the matter of the relationship of Paul to Jesus and to the college of apostles in Jerusalem. When the author of Colossians enjoins the recipients: “As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him” (Col. 2:6), Gerhardsson construes this reference to “Christ Jesus the Lord” as “the transmitted Christ,” referring not to the gospel, but to “a collection of traditions which he regarded as being a unity: some oral or written equivalent of one of our Gospels.”38 Gerhardsson compares the central role that the gospel tradition played for Paul as a sort of “Mishnah,” with Paul’s own teaching and “legislation” as a “Talmud.”39 This important move is based on his rabbinic model in which orally formulated texts in fixed forms provide the basis for more fluid textual forms, corresponding to “Mishnah” and “Gemara.”40 This means that Gerhardsson is prepared to deal with both the fixity and fluidity of the gospel tradition. Gerhardsson discusses Paul’s “Talmud” (or tradition) under three headings, doctrine, ethics and ecclesiology. Examples of doctrine includes 1 Corinthians 15 on the resurrection and several passages on circumcision (1 Cor 7:19; Gal 5:6; 6:15). Examples of ethics include 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8 on rules for Christian living and 1 Corinthians 4:17, the “ways” in which Paul taught. Examples of ecclesiology, dealing with directions about such matters as public worship, teaching, and church discipline, 35 Gerhardsson,

Memory and Manuscript, 299–300.

36 Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 153–56; Alexander, “Orality in Pharisaic-Rabbinic

Judaism,” 170–71. 37 Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 300. 38 Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 301. 39 Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 302. 40 Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 79–84, 94–98, 171–81.

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include 1 Corinthians 11:23–25 (the institution of the Last Supper), 1 Corinthians 5 (church discipline), 1 Corinthians 14 (silence of women in church). Finally, Gerhardsson discusses a series of issues in which Paul alludes to sayings of Jesus, including 1 Corinthians 7:10–12 (on divorce), the problem of clean and unclean (1 Cor 8; Rom 14:20; cf. Mark 7:14), 1 Corinthians 9:4–18 (support for apostles), and 1 Corinthians 11:23–25 (the institution of the Last Supper).41

Werner Kelber In The Oral and the Written Gospel, Kelber produced a monograph that introduced New Testament scholars to some of the implications of research in orality that the guild had ignored. Throughout the monograph, Kelber shows little direct concern for models of oral transmission or the specific evidence for oral composition and transmission found in the New Testament. His chapter on “Orality and Textuality in Paul” is no exception.42 Here, as in the rest of the monograph, the author implicitly valorizes oral over written communication, a valorization that he reads into Paul.43 Kelber associates letter-writing with oral language, making Robert Funk’s identification and functional description of the Pauline travelogue, with its emphasis on oral words and personal presence, the basis of his discussion.44 Kelber discusses four main issues: (1) “The Oral Gospel,” where he calls attention to “Paul’s partiality toward oral discourse that pervades his treatment of gospel, faith, and obedience.”45 (2) “The Written Law,” treating Paul’s aversion toward the objectified, written word, evident in his polemic against the law. (3) “The Oral Matrix of the Righteousness of God,” i.e., the antithesis of law and gospel as a conflict between verbum scriptum and viva vox. (4) “The Rupture of the Oral Synthesis,” Paul’s message as it is available in written documents. Kelber’s discussion of “The Oral Gospel,” calls attention to the fact that the term “gospel” occurs more than fifty times in the Pauline letters and, typically associated with the act of speaking, serves as the master metaphor that pervades Paul’s program. Kelber argues that, from a broad hermeneutical perspective, “spoken words are experienced personally and more directly than written words.”46 “Gospel in Pauline hermeneutics,” argues Kelber, “is not subject to formal definition” Memory and Manuscript, 311–21. The Oral and the Written Gospel, 140–83. 43 In the Preface, he claims that he does not wish to “romanticize orality at the expense of writing, but I describe writing as it appears to an oral mentality” (Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel, xvi). 44 R. W. Funk, “The Apostolic Parousia: Form and Significance,” Christian History and Interpretation: Studies Presented to John Knox, ed. W. R. Farmer, C. F. D. Moule, and R. R. Niebuhr (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 249–268. 45 Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel, 141. 46 Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel, 146. 41 Gerhardsson, 42 Kelber,

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but is an operational term; it does not equal “the transformation of plural oral traditions into narrative linearity, stretching from birth through a powerful life on earth to death and resurrection”47 (i.e., Paul’s gospel is not analogous to what is found in the missionary sermons of Acts, e.g., Acts 10:34–43, or to the amplified story found in the Gospel of Mark). Kelber is certainly correct that Paul’s oral proclamation of the gospel was his central preoccupation. But then, of course, oral interaction remains the central function of modern pastors and teachers. Kelber has prepared the reader for “The Written Law,” a section in which he argues that there are subtle linguistic cues that Paul had a fundamental anxiety toward the law. Though he does not label it as such, this section in an exercise in Sachkritik, i.e., what Paul really means is masked by much of what he says. For Kelber, “This written complexification of the Word appears to be contrary to the personalized communication fostered by the oral gospel and faith that come from hearing.”48 The Pauline antithesis of “spirit” and “letter” (2 Cor 3:1–6), is construed as an antithesis between the oral gospel and the written Law, rather than the more common understanding as an antithesis between faith and works. Though it is not possible to deal with this issue here, it is in fact more likely that “spirit” and “letter” mask Paul’s concern with the universality of the gospel over against the particularism represented by the Jewish Law.49 Kelber also finds in 2 Corinthians 3:1–6 a repudiation of “Divine Man hermeneutics,” i.e., the conviction that the written word served as carrier of the Spirit, while Paul as an oral traditionalist, disconnects “spirit” from “letter” and reconnects the Spirit of the living God with “word in its internal personalizing efficaciousness (3:2–3).”50 Rightly or wrongly, this calls to mind Luther’s description of Scripture (die Biblia) as “des Heiligen Geistes eigen, sonderlich Buch, Schrift und Wort,” i.e., as “the Holy Spirit’s own special book, writ, and word.”51 The term “word” here refers to Luther’s emphasis on the viva vox of the gospel, i.e., “a vivid sense of the living spoken word of God that is communicated both in Christian preaching and the reading of Scripture”52 (Luther spoke of “the ears alone” as “the organs of the Christian”).53 In the history of Lutheranism, the viva vox of Luther found its antithesis in Lutheran orthodoxy (which flourished from 1580 to 1675), the chief

The Oral and the Written Gospel, 148. The Oral and the Written Gospel, 153. 49 This view, which goes back at least to F. C. Baur, finds a convincing modern proponent in D. Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1994), and in the representatives of the New Perspective on Paul, E. P. Sanders, T. Wright and J. D. G. Dunn. 50 Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel, 157–8. 51 W. A. Graham, “Scripture as Spoken Word,” Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective, ed. Miriam Levering (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. 52 Graham, “Scripture as Spoken Word,” 135. 53 Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel, 163. 47 Kelber, 48 Kelber,

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enterprise of which was the formulation a doctrine of Holy Scripture that could serve as the foundation of pure doctrine. In “The Oral Matrix of the Righteousness of God,” Kelber argues that for Paul, gospel, faith and obedience function in an linguistic and auditory sphere, and that his theology of language is such that “the righteousness of God” is an act or event rather than a principle or concept.54 As such, the active character of righteousness makes it inappropriate for propositional explication. Finally, in “The Rupture of the Oral Synthesis,” Kelber suggests that by using the written medium of letters, Paul distanced himself from the act of primary speech.55 Paul was apparently aware that the eruption of enthusiasm among the Thessalonians was in part a product of his oral gospel,56 and in 1 Corinthians he polemicizes against the oral powers of wisdom.57 Consequently, “when faced with the extreme consequences of oral wisdom, Paul, preacher of the oral gospel, is here compelled to reconsider his hermeneutical priorities and to invoke the norm of Scripture.”58 Thus, following Kelber’s narrative, Paul in the end suffers from a failure of nerve. In the end however, Paul’s failure of nerve is the result of Kelber’s use of Sachkritik to impose an orality versus textuality ideology on Paul where it simply does not do justice to the texts that he considers. In the end, despite Kelber’s broad familiarity with modern oral studies, he does nothing to advance the use of models of oral transmission to explicate the role of memory in Paul’s use of tradition.

Traugott Holtz Traugott Holtz contributed an essay on “Paul and the Oral Gospel Tradition” in the second of two conferences on Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition, organized by David L. Dungan, William Farmer, Birger Gerhardsson and Henry Wansbrough.59 The first was held in Dublin in 1989 and the second in Gazzada, Italy in 1990; the papers presented at both conferences were revised, edited by Henry Wansbrough, and published 1991 by the JSOT Press under the title Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition. The present author attended both conferences and presented a paper at each of them. Holtz begins with a consideration of the Jesus tradition in the Synoptic Gospels, arguing that sayings of Jesus were transmitted side-by-side in verbal fixed forms and extremely free presentations.60 Paul had access to oral Jesus traditions The Oral and the Written Gospel, 167. The Oral and the Written Gospel, 169. 56 Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel, 172–73. 57 Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel, 174. 58 Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel, 177. 59 Holtz, “Paul and the Oral Gospel Tradition,” 380–93. 60 Gerhardsson argued for the presence of both fixed and flexible elements; Jesus delivered the first type of material with the intention that it be memorized, while the flexible material, largely in the form of exposition, he did not regard as memory texts (Memory and Manuscript, 328–29). 54 Kelber, 55 Kelber,

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exhibiting both fixed and free formulations. First Corinthians 11:23–25 (the institution of the Last Supper), introduced by the technical verbs of transmission παραλαμβάνειν, “to receive traditional instruction,” and παραδίδοναι, “to hand over to” (1 Cor 11:23a), is an example of a verbally fixed form of tradition (cf. Luke 22:19–20).61 This is the only instance in the Pauline letters or the other New Testament letters that a saying of Jesus is transmitted in a verbally fixed form. Paul alludes a few more times to Jesus traditions (clear examples include 1 Cor 7:10–11; 9:14; cf. 1 Thess 4:13–5:11), reproducing the general content though not the fixed form of sayings of Jesus known from the Synoptic Gospels. Holtz suggests that there are probably many allusions to the Jesus tradition in the Pauline letters that remain unrecognizable to us.62 He then points to several passages in the Pauline letters in which Paul consciously alludes to Jesus traditions, though certainty in identifying these is not possible:63 (1) “Nothing is in itself unclean” (Rom 14:14; cf. Mark 7:15 and par.; Luke 11:41 and par.). (2) The whole law is fulfilled in the command of love of neighbor (Gal 5:14; Rom 13:8–10; cf. Mark 12:28–34). (3) Give to all what is due to them (Rom 13:7; cf. Mark 12:17 and par.). (4) Bless those who persecute you (Rom 12:14; 1 Cor 4:12–13; cf. Matt 5:43–44; Luke 6:27–28; Did. 1:3). What accounts for the disparity between fixed and fluid Jesus traditions in the Pauline letters? Holtz only hints at a solution. In the last sentence of his essay, he observes that tradents “in the early period obviously possessed the freedom to put the sayings of Jesus known to it into its own words addressed to the present time, and in this way lend the words such forceful authority.”64 Thus Holtz seems to favor a theory of the development of Jesus traditions, which are used in looser formulation in the “early period,” but are used in a more fixed form at a “later period.”65 This binary approach to the material is apparently based on the rabbinic distinction between text and interpretation, with analogous arrangements of fixed oral texts in Oral Torah together with more fluid interpretations (Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 79–83). There are several models for conceptualizing early Christian forms of communication. He also suggests that most of the Gospel material is haggadic, and that haggadic material was transmitted in a more fluid form than sayings material (Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 335). Analogously, Dodd speaks of two distinct channels of tradition in early Christianity, the catechetical pattern and the Passion narrative; C. H. Dodd, “The ‘Primive Catechism’ and the Sayings of Jesus,” More New Testament Studies (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 21. MacDonald rejects the earlier binary model kerygma (“preaching”) and didache (“teaching’), for a more complex model of early Christian communication consisting of propheteia, paraclesis, paraenesis and paradosis; J. I. H. MacDonald, Kerygma and Didache: The Articulation and Structure of the Earliest Christian Message (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). 61 Holtz, “Paul and the Oral Gospel Tradition,” 382–83. 62 Holtz, “Paul and the Oral Gospel Tradition,” 389–90. 63 Holtz, “Paul and the Oral Gospel Tradition,” 390–92. 64 Holtz, “Paul and the Oral Gospel Tradition,” 393. 65 Holtz, “Paul and the Oral Gospel Tradition,” 393.

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John D. Harvey The most extensive discussion of oral tradition in the Pauline letters is the published dissertation of John D. Harvey. Harvey provides a succinct review of modern research on orality in the ancient world, epistolary analysis and Pauline rhetoric, though unfortunately he studiously refrains from critiquing the views he surveys even though some of them are mutually contradictory. Harvey then identifies “oral patterning” in Greco-Roman literature and the Septuagint,66 focusing on eight compositional patterns: (1)  chiasmus, (2)  inversion, (3)  alteration, (4)  inclusion, (5)  ring composition, (6)  word chain, (7)  refrain, and (8) concentric symmetry.67 The author then identifies occurrences of these compositional patterns in those Pauline letters that are widely agreed to be authentic (Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon).68 Harvey never comes to grips with the central problem bedeviling anyone who claims that oral patterns are present in written texts: all of the evidence is contained in written texts. To a certain extent the oral-formulaic theory formulated by Milman Parry and Alfred Lord escapes this hermeneutical circle due the convincing modern analogy of oral epic composition among Yugoslavian and Bulgarian bards (studied in situ by Parry and Lord in the 1930’s and by Lord in the 1950’s),69 though even this has failed to convince some eminent classicists of the validity of oral-formulaic theory. Unfortunately, the oral-formulaic theory of the Homeric epics has no relevance for analyzing the Pauline letters, since Paul did not compose his letters in a manner analogous to the anonymous oral poets and Harvey makes no claims that he did. While it is impossible to disprove that compositional techniques have a proximate oral origin, neither is it possible to prove that they actually do. The reason is simply that there is a revolving door between oral and written composition. Virtually all of the compositional techniques used originally in oral composition made a seamless transition into the stylistics of written composition. It is therefore far from clear what Harvey means by “oral” in the phrase “oral patterning.” Since, according to Harvey, Paul learned many “oral patterns” from written sources, such as the Septuagint,70 what significance does the term “oral” retain? Ring composition is one of Harvey’s “oral patterns” that appears in Paul’s letters.71 Ian Worthington has argued that, Listening to the Text, 61–96. Listening to the Text, 97–118. 68 Harvey, Listening to the Text, 119–282. 69 For a brief survey of the present state of the Parry Collection of Moslem oral epic, see J. M. Foley, “Editing and Translating Traditional Oral Epic: The South Slavic Songs and Homer,” Epea and Grammata: Oral and Written Communication in Ancient Greece, ed. I. Worthington and J. M. Foley (Supplements to Mnemosyne 230; Leiden, Boston and Köln: Brill, 2002), 3–27. 70 Harvey, Listening to the Text, 287, 289, 291. 71 Harvey, Listening to the Text, 289–90. 66 Harvey, 67 Harvey,

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in classical Greece, when orations originally delivered orally were revised and written down for posterity, the structural complexity of the speech was frequently increased including a more complex use of ring composition.72 What Harvey has accomplished is to provide an inventory of some Pauline stylistic techniques, an important contribution to the neglected study of Greek style in the New Testament.

Paul and the Jesus Tradition In the previous section I focused on studies that explicitly treat the problem of Paul and oral tradition. In this section, I turn to scholars who have focused on Paul’s use of Jesus tradition, but have not directly addressed the problem of oral transmission. One perennial issue in assessing the relationship between Paul and Jesus, and one which our brief review of the article by Traugott Holtz has thematized, is the problem of “why Paul, along with the whole early Christian epistolary literature, did not make use of the Gospel tradition.”73 When Paul died circa 64 CE, none of the canonical Gospels existed in written form (though it is likely that a written version of the Q document was in circulation),74 meaning that any quotations of or allusions to Jesus traditions would have to be derived from oral tradition. Though the literature on this subject is enormous, very few scholars have followed the approach of Holtz and directly addressed the issue of the role and character of oral tradition. The extent of the literature on the issue of Jesus traditions in Paul makes it possible only to provide a sample of the discussion and then offer a few concluding reflections. While many New Testament scholars have puzzled over the apparent neglect of Jesus traditions in the Pauline letters, the prize for having ferreted out the most allusions to the Synoptic tradition in Paul must be awarded to Alfred Resch, who claimed to have identified 792 allusions to the canonical Gospels in the seven genuine Pauline letters (Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, Philemon).75 Justly skeptical of Resch’s optimistic list of allusions Worthington, “Greek Oratory and the Oral / Literate Division,” Voice Into Text: Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece, ed. Ian Worthington (Leiden, New York and Köln: E. J. Brill, 1996), 165–77. 73 Leonhard Goppelt, Theology of the New Testament, vol. 2: The Variety and Unity of the Apostolic Witness to Christ, trans. J. E. Alsup, ed. J. Roloff (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 45. 74 Both Christopher Tuckett and Dale Allison argue that there is no evidence that Paul was acquainted with Q: C. Tuckett, “Paul and the Synoptic Mission Discourse?” ETL 60 (1984), 375, n. 19; D. Allison, “The Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels: The Pattern of the Parallels,” NTS 28 (1982), 1–32. 75 A. Resch, Der Paulinismus und die Logia Jesu in ihrem gegenseitigen Verhältnis (TU 12; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1904). 72 I.

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to the Gospels in Paul, W. D. Davies suggested that, in addition to the few clear references to sayings of Jesus (1 Cor 7:10; 9:14; 11:23–25; 1 Thess 4:15–16; 1 Cor 14:37),76 Paul has interwoven the words of Jesus almost unconsciously in his letters and suggests twenty-five clear parallels to the Synoptic Gospels in Romans, 1 Thessalonians and Colossians, indicating how steeped Paul is in the mind and words of his Lord.77 The view that Paul alludes to Jesus traditions almost unconsciously is one of the major solutions to the problem of the apparent neglect of Jesus traditions in Paul. In 1982, Dale Allison devoted an important and creative essay to the problem of allusions to the Jesus tradition in the Pauline letters, arguing that they tended to cluster in 1 Thessalonians 4–5, Colossians 3–4 and 1 Corinthians (a point made by other scholars). Allison argued that Paul must have known the sources behind Mark 9:33–50, Luke 6:27–38 and Mark 6:6b–13 and parallel passages, along with the Passion Narrative and a collection of conflict stories. Nicholas Walter addressed the issue of “Paulus und die urchristliche Jesustradition” in 1985.78 Walter argued that the Pauline letters betray no knowledge of the narrative elements of the Jesus tradition, nor did Paul allude to the sayings of Jesus in connection with his exposition of the central themes of his gospel. Like others before him, Walter observes that the most recognizable allusions to the sayings of Jesus are found in Paul’s epistolary paraenesis (an issue that is treated in detail by Allison, among others). The most detailed discussion of the evidence relating to the use of Jesus traditions in the Pauline letters is the 1986 article by Franz Neirynck, “Paul and the Sayings of Jesus.”79 In a characteristically detailed, methodologically sophisticated and incisive way, Neirynck deals almost exhaustively with the secondary literature through 1984. Neirynck’s procedure is to list some of the proposed allusions to the Jesus tradition in Romans, 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians suggested by Allison, and to discuss the viability of each.80 In the conclusion, Neirynck argues that, apart from 1 Corinthians 7:10–11 and 9:14 (which are not “quotations” in the strict sense, but Pauline “halakhic“formulations based on sayings of Jesus),81 76  W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (rev. ed.; New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1955), 140. 77 W. D. Davies, “Paul and the Law: Reflections on Pitfalls in Interpretation,” W. D. Davies, Jewish and Pauline Studies (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 112–15; idem, “The Moral Teaching of the Early Church,” Jewish and Pauline Studies, 284–87; Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 136–43. 78 N. Walter, “Paulus und die urchristliche Jesustradition,” New Testament Studies 31 (1985), 498–522. 79 F. Neirynck, “Paul and the Sayings of Jesus,” L’Apôtre Paul: personnalité, style et conception du ministère, ed. A. Vanhoye (SETL 73; Leuven: University Press; Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1986), 267–321. 80 Neirynck, “Paul and the Sayings of Jesus,” 268–81. 81 Neirynck, “Paul and the Sayings of Jesus,” 320.

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Elsewhere in the Pauline letters there is no certain trace of a conscious use of sayings of Jesus. Possible allusions to gospel sayings can be noted on the basis of similarity of form and context but a direct use of a gospel saying in the form it has been preserved in the synoptic gospels is hardly provable.

Neirynck’s use of the “no trace of the conscious use of sayings of Jesus” leaves the door open a crack for the presence of such traditional material. More recent, David Wenham has treated this issue at some length.82 Wenham observes that “one of the most embarrassing facts for those who see Paul as a follower of Jesus is his failure to refer much to Jesus’ life or teaching.”83 One obvious reason for this state of affairs, and one with which Wenham disagrees, is that Paul was not particularly interested in the ministry of Jesus before the passion. Another possible reason is that Paul takes knowledge of the knowledge of Jesus for granted; both he and his readers have been taught it and know it well. The fact that there are numerous possible or probable allusions to the teaching of Jesus in the Pauline letters is just what one would expect if the teaching of Jesus were presupposed. Later in the book, Wenham deals in more detail with this problem. He begins with what he describes as the “massive overlap” between the teaching of Jesus and Paul:84 At the heart of Jesus’ teaching and of Pauline theology is the conviction that God has intervened and is intervening to save his people and the world. This divine intervention is the fulfillment of OT promises and is associated particularly with Jesus’ own coming and sacrificial death. God’s salvation is not just for the religious or the righteous, but is for sinners and outsiders. They are gathered into the restored Israel – the community of those who receive the word and have faith in Jesus. That community is God’s new temple and is called to live in perfect love, thus fulfilling and surpassing the OT law, and in expectancy of the Lord’s return to judge and to complete his saving work.

On closer inspection, this “massive overlap” turns out to be a very general and abstract description of the default theological perspective that permeated early Christianity, with the truly distinctive features of both the teaching of Jesus and the theology of Paul omitted. James D. G. Dunn has argued that since the Jesus tradition was known intimately by both Paul and those to whom he wrote, it would have been unnecessary for him to refer explicitly to sayings of Jesus in a verbally formal way.85 In fact, he maintains, had Paul explicitly cited the authority of Jesus every time he mentioned something that Jesus said or did, he would have weakened the force

Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). 83 Wenham, Paul, 3. 84 Wenham, Paul, 377. 85  J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 189–95, 649–58. 82 D.

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of the allusion.86 This is surely a case of special pleading. Dunn concludes that “knowledge of and interest in the life and ministry of Jesus was an integral part of [Paul’s] theology, albeit referred to only sotto voce in his written theology,”87 a close parallel to Davie’s claim that Paul used the words of Jesus almost unconsciously. Dunn emphasizes the fact that echoes or allusions to the teaching of Jesus are all to be found in Paul’s paraenesis, e.g., Romans 12:14 (Luke 6:27–28; Matt 5:44), Romans 14:14 (Mark 7:15); 1 Corinthians 13:2 (Matt 17:20); 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 4 (Matt 24:43); 1 Thessalonians 5:13 (Mark 9:50).88 Among the central concerns of Detlef Häusser in his dissertation on Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus is a discussion of the relationship between Jesus and Paul is the way in which Jesus traditions have been taken up in several pre-Pauline passages: 1 Corinthans 15:3–8, Romans 1:3–4, Philippians 2:6–11 and Galatians 4:4–5.89 Häusser approaches the issue of the presence of Jesus traditions in Paul from a very different angle. Rather than focusing on quotations or allusions to the Jesus tradition in Paul, he centers his discussion on primary units of pre-Pauline tradition found in the Pauline letters and what they reveal of Paul’s knowledge of Jesus. The monograph is complex, and the following summary remarks do not do it justice. According to Häusser, Paul was certainly (mit Sicherheit) aware of the Eucharistic words of Jesus (1 Cor 11:23–25), the ransom saying of Jesus (Mark 10:45 and par.), the self-designation of Jesus as Son of Man, the crucifixion of Jesus, his burial, the discovery of the empty tomb and various appearances of Jesus; the appearance before the Twelve (connected with Luke 24) and before the apostles (connected with Acts 1) is probable but not certain.90 In connection with Häusser’s discussion of 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, it is important to mention the fact that he adopts Gerhardsson’s proposal that the passage consists of a chain of simanim so that each line is connected with a passage from the gospel tradition,91 passages that Häusser carefully explores.”92 Paul probably (wahrscheinlich) knew the Synoptic saying on humiliation and exaltation (e.g. Luke 14:11), the “I have come” and “I was sent” sayings, particularly the sending formula, the temptation of Jesus, the controversy saying on the son of God and the son of David and the trial of Jesus including Jesus confession before the Sanhedrin (Mark 14:61–62); he also knew that Jesus addressed God The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 652. The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 195. 88 Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 650–51. 89 D. Häusser, Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus (WUNT II 210; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006). 90 Häusser, Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus, 351. 91 Häusser, Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus, 72–73, 149–50; see Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 299–300. 92 Häusser, Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus, 61–158. 86 Dunn, 87 Dunn,

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as father, but it is only a possibility that this is connected with the Lord’s Prayer or the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane.93 Finally, Häusser thinks it possible (möglich) that Paul knew parts of the infancy tradition, including the announcement of the birth of Jesus (Luke 1:30–35), and the presentation of Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:21–51), as also the passion predictions, the parable of the wicked husbandmen and the appearance of Jesus in Nazareth (Luke 4:18–30).94 Häusser also suggests that Paul was familiar with the Lukan special tradition (Luke 1:32–35 has a possible connection to Rom 1; Luke 1:30–35; 2:21 ff. and 4:18–21 have points of contact with Gal 4 and Luke 24:7, 34, 36 ff. are reflected in 1 Cor 15).95 He suggests that 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 and Romans 1:3–4 originated in Jerusalem, Philippians 2:6–11 in Judea (or even Jerusalem), and Galatians 4:4–5 was transmitted in Jewish Christian circles, while the Hebraizing Lukan special tradition was probably connected with conservative Jewish Christian circles in Judaism and Judea. He also proposes that Jesus traditions were transmitted to him directly from Peter (Gal 1:18) and James (Gal 1:19) in Jerusalem and perhaps received further traditions also during later stops in Jerusalem; two other localities where he may have gotten knowledge of Jesus traditions include Damascus and Antioch.96

Paul’s Letters as “aides-mémoire” and “lieux de mémoire” In the previous sections of this paper, I have dealt with the memory of the Jesus tradition in Paul’s letters, but in this final section I argue that Paul’s letters themselves served as memorial texts, first as aides-mémoire (in the sense of mnemonic devices, that serve as an aid to communal memory) and then finally and more lastingly as lieux de mémoire, “sites of memory,” or “realms of memory,” from the time they were written until the present day. The Pauline letters initially functioned as aides-mémoire in the specific sense that they provided a summary of Paul’s (and his associates’) contacts and conversations with the local Christian communities to whom he addressed letters. With the passing of that first generation of Christians, the Pauline letters each community treasured could no longer function as aides-mémoire for communal memory, but were rather transformed into lieux de mémoire, i.e., texts that generated and transformed communal memory. Further, this process was exacerbated by the gradual collection of Pauline letters making it possible for Pauline churches to have access to letters addressed to communities other than their own. This meant that their original function as aides-mémoire specific to each community could no longer maintain that Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus, 351–52. Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus, 352. 95 Häusser, Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus, 354. 96 Häusser, Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus, 356–58. 93 Häusser, 94 Häusser,

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purpose. These two factors, then, the passing of the generation of those who had experienced the ministry of Paul and the collection and distribution of Pauline letters throughout the Christian world, combined to transform the Pauline letters into lieux de mémoire that served to generate a compound communal memory of Paul and his ministry. The phrase lieux de mémoire is borrowed from Pierre Nora’s seven-volume edited work Les Lieux de mémoire, published in 1984–92,97 where it functions as the primary analytical concept in a new historiographical approach to French national history. Nola derived the phrase lieux de mémoire from the Latin rhetorical phrase loci memoriae (“memory places”) discussed in detail by Frances Yates in her classic work The Art of Memory,98 and he is also in debt to Maurice Halbwachs influential work The Collective Memory.99 In the preface to the English-language edition of his magisterial project, Nora provides a succinct definition of lieu de mémoire:100 If the expression lieu de mémoire must have an official definition, it should be this: a lieu de mémoire is any significant entity, whether material or non-material in nature, which by dint of human will or the work of time has become a symbolic element in the memorial heritage of any community (in this case the French community).

Examples of lieux de mémoire may include places (archives, museums, cathedrals, palaces, cemeteries, memorials), concepts and practices (commemorations, mottos, rituals) and objects (inherited property, commemorative monuments, manuals, emblems, basic texts, symbols). Though Nora argues that lieux de mémoire are phenomena that belong exclusively to the modern world, in which constructed history replaces real memory,101 a case can be made, mutatis mutandis, for applying his model to the ancient world. I want to argue, then, that the Pauline letters (with a focus on the Thessalonian correspondence), both those which were actually penned by Paul as well as those which were written in his name by others, have served the ancient Christian communities that first received them and those communities that transmitted them to subsequent generations, initially as aides-mémoire, during the initial stages of communal memory, but were later transformed into lieux de  97 P. Nora (ed.), Les Lieux de mémoire (3 vols. in 7; Paris: Gallimard, 1984–92); abbreviated in the English translation: P. Nora (ed.), Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (3 vols.; New York: Columbia University Press, 1996–98).  98 F. A. Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966).  99 M. Halbwachs, The Collective Memory, trans. F. J. Ditter and V. Y. Ditter (New York: Harper & Row, 1980, a translation of La Mémoire collective (Paris: Presses universtaires de France, 1968). 100 P. Nora, “From Lieu de mémoire to Realms of Memory,” vol. 1: Conflicts and Divisions, of Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, by P. Nora and L. D. Kritzman (3 vols.; New York: Columbia University Press, 1992–94), xvii. 101 P. Nora, “General Introduction: Between Memory and History,” vol. 1: Conflicts and Divisions, of Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, ed. P. Nora (3 vols.; New York: Columbia University Press, 1992–94), 1.1–20.

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mémoire providing a basis for the creation of oral history and tradition. The Pauline letters, to use the words of Nora, function as lieux de mémoire constituting “a circle within which everything counts, everything is symbolic, everything is significant.”102 Further, just as lieux de mémoire in the view of Nora and his fellow contributors provide the basis for collective identity, it is clear that the Pauline letters, no less than the growing canon of New Testament writings from the second to the fourth centuries CE provided a narrative foundation for early Christian social identity as well as the basis for divergent construals of social identity. Paul sometimes wrote letters to churches that he and his colleagues had visited, if not founded. These letters functioned to commemorate as well as strengthen and consolidate the impact of those visits. In the autobiographical sections of his letters in which Paul comments on his reception by particular Christian communities, he puts a certain spin on these interactions appropriate for his rhetorical intentions (e.g., 1 Thess 1:2–3:13; Gal 1:11–2:21; 2 Cor 1:12–2:17; Phil 3:4–16).103 In other words, even when first written, these autobiographical sections are subjective rather than objective accounts of Paul’s relationship with local communities. Initially, then, Paul’s letters will have served to reshape and refocus the social memory of his past influence on the lives of his addressees. What is even more striking, however, is that these letters have continued to function in an even broader sense as universal artifacts shaping Christian social memory of Christian origins to the present day. In the case of the pseudepigraphical Pauline Letters (2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians and the Pastorals), the intentional reshaping of the Christian social memory of Paul is surely one of the primary intentions of the unknown authors. It is impressive to sit in one of the major Orthodox churches in modern Thessaloniki (the second largest city in Greece) and hear lections chanted from 1 and 2 Thessalonians during the fifteen weekdays of the 23rd through 25th weeks after Pentecost, nearly two millennia after they were addressed to the Christian community in this Greek city. These letters, through their iterative reading, quickly became ritual objects with an iconic significance. The rhetoric of Paul’s letters is such that “some assembly is required,” i.e., they are clearly designed to be read before congregations and so like surrogates of Paul’s oral ministry of preaching and teaching, live on to the present day. This reading and rereading of Paul’s letters in the social context of Christian worship goes back to Paul’s own intentions in writing letters to congregations from whom he was unavoidably separated (1 Thess 5:27; cf. Col 4:16). As a liturgical act, this reading constitutes a commemoration of Paul’s relationship to the communities 102 Nora,

“General Introduction: Between Memory and History,” 20.

103 Aspects of this problem are discussed by L. Bormann, “Autobiographische Fiktionalität bei

Paulus,” Biographie und Persönlichkeit des Paulus, ed. E.-M. Becker and P. Pilhofer (WUNT 187; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 106–124. See also the earlier monograph of G. Lyons, Pauline Autobiography: Toward a New Understanding (SBLDS 73; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985).

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who originally received these letters as well as an imaginative commemoration of Paul’s ministry when read in worship contexts by other communities. The language of memory pervades the Pauline letters both explicitly and implicitly. Explicitly, Paul used words translated “memory” and “to remember” with some frequency. These often occur within the Pauline epistolary autobiographical narratives mentioned above, involving shared experiences with those to whom he addressed letters. A brief survey of Paul’s use of “memory” vocabulary turns up the following results. There are first of all, eight different words in the Pauline corpus derived from the morpheme μνάομαι,104 all dealing with cognitive memory and all belonging to the semantic subdomain of memory and recall,105 including ἀναμιμνῄσκω (“to cause to remember,” 3 times: 1 Cor 4:17; 2 Cor 7:15; 2 Tim 1:6), ἀνάμνησις (“reminder,” 2 times: 1 Cor 11:24, 25), ἐπαναμιμνῄσκω (“to remind,” Rom15:15), μιμνῄσκομαι (“to remember,” 2 times: 1 Cor 11:2; 2 Tim 1:4), μνεία (“memory, remembrance,” 6 times: Rom 1:9; Phil 1:3; 1 Thess 1:2; 3:6; 2 Tim 1:3; Eph 1:16), μνημονέω (“to recall, remember,” 7 times: Gal 2:10; Eph 2:11; Col 4:18; 1 Thess 1:3; 2:9; 2 Thess 2:5; 2 Tim 2:8), ὑπομιμνῄσκω (“to remind,” 2 times: 2 Tim 2:14; Tit 3:1), ὑπόμνησις (“reminding,” 2 Tim 1:5). The emphasis that Paul (and the deuteropauline tradition) places on remembering is a commemorative process that is replicated when the letters are read and reread. 1 Thessalonians 3:6 contains evidence that Paul’s emphasis on memory has had concrete results among the Thessalonians; Timothy, upon returning from a visit to the congregation, can report to Paul, using a friendship topos, that “you always remember us kindly and long to see us – just as we long to see you.” Remembering is a two-way street, of course, and Paul assures the Thessalonians that he mentions them in prayer, “constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess 1:2–3). The realm of “behavioral memory” (i.e., learning by doing) is mentioned by Paul using several terms based on the morpheme μιμέομαι (“imitate,” 2 times: 2 Thess 3:7, 9), including μιμητής (“imitator,” 5 times: 1 Cor 4:16; 11:1; 1 Thess 1:6; 2:14; Eph 5:1) and συμμιμητής (“joint imitator,” Phil 3:17). Paul’s emphasis on behavioral memory is, of course, not limited to passages in which μιμέομαι and cognates are found. In 1 Thess 4:1, Paul enjoins the Thessalonians: “We ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you learned [παρελάβετε] from us how you ought to live and to please God (as, in fact, you are doing), you should do so more and more.” Paul’s gospel message therefore involves exemplary living, which Paul summarizes under the rubric of “sanctification” (1 Thess 4:3). 104 Based on J. H. Greenlee, A New Testament Greek Morpheme Lexicon (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983). 105 J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (2 vols.; New York: United Bible Societies, 1988), 1.§§ 29.1–18.

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Perhaps less obvious is the relevance of Paul’s ubiquitous use of the verb οἶδα, used just once with the meaning of “to remember, recall, recollect” (1 Cor 1:16), but more frequently used in the semantic subdomain “know,” often with the meaning “to know about, to have knowledge of.”106 Paul often uses the verb οἶδα in the second-person plural form οἶδατε (“you know,” often in the phrase οὐκ οἶδατε, “do you not know”) or the first person plural form οἴδαμεν (“we know”) or the plural participial form εἰδότες (“knowing”), all indicating knowledge that he shares with his recipients, i.e., knowledge that he knows they have (alluding to what he shared with them when he was present with them) a fact of which he now reminds them. Here are some examples:107 Romans 7:14: “For we know that the law is spiritual.” 1 Corinthians 6:2: “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?” 1 Corinthians 6:15: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” 1 Thessalonians 1:5: “For you know what sort of people we were among you.” 1 Thessalonians 3:4: “We predicted that we would experience suffering, just as actually happened and as you know.” 1 Thessalonians 4:2: “For you know that we gave certain commands to you through the Lord Jesus.”

The mnemonic force of these statements is clear; all these references deal with shared memories or experiences; many clearly dealing with social memory (e.g., “For we know that the law is spiritual,” and “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?”). Of course, not all of the letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament are thought to be authentic by concerned scholars. These pseudepigraphal letters,108 sometimes attributed to disciples of Paul or even to “the school of Paul,” functioned, at least initially, in slightly different ways than letters actually written by Paul. Perhaps their most obvious function, however, since they were never intended to serve as aides-mémoire, but rather as lieux de mémore for many of the images of Paul that had developed in the early post-apostolic church as well as for the images of Paul’s Jesus that was part of that overall development. Second Thessalonians in particular, a pseudepigraphal work, reflects the transformation of 1 Thessalonians into a lieu de mémoire, evident in the close verbal similarity of the two letters. One of central functions of 2 Thessalonians appears to be to underscore the importance of what Paul transmitted to this community in 1 Thessalonians as well as provide a corrective. In 1 Thessalonians, there are several references to a “tradition” or a “body of teaching” that the Thessalonians had received from Paul. One of terms that Paul and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 1.§ 28.1.  Emphasis added in the following six quotations. 108 The list of pseudo-Pauline letters typically includes 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, 1–2 Timothy and Titus. The first two letters on the list are less certainly assigned to Pauline pseudepigraphy by critical scholars. 106 Louw 107

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uses for the process of transmission is παραλαμβάνω (“to learn from someone,” or “be taught by,” 11 times: 1 Cor 11:23; 5:1, 3; Gal 1:9, 12; Phil 4:9; Col 2:6; 4:17; 1 Thess 2:13; 4:1; 2 Thess 3:6). The use of this lexeme in 1 Thessalonians 2:13 (part of an autobiographical passage) is particularly important: “We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received [παραλαβόντες] the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.” In 2 Thessalonians 3:6, Paul enjoins believers “to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition [παράδοσιν] that they received [παρελάβοσαν] from us.” The term παράδοσις, “tradition,” i.e., “the content of instruction that has been handed down,” occurs five times in Paul (1 Cor 11:2; Gal 1:14; cf. Col 2:8; 2 Thess 2:15; 3:6). In the passage just quoted, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, it is clear that the παράδοσις referred to by pseudo-Paul refers to moral teaching exemplified by those who were involved in its transmission. The term also occurs in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, where the recipients are enjoined to “stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught [ἐδιδάχθητε] by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.” Here the earlier ministry of Paul reflected in 1 Thessalonians, together with that letter itself are categorized as παράδοσις, and the verb διδάσκω (“to teach”) is used as a synonym of παραλαμβάνω (“to learn from someone,” “be taught by”). The term διδάσκω itself (“to teach”), is found 16 times in Paul (Rom 2:21; 12:7; 1 Cor 4:17; 11:14; Gal 1:12; Eph 4:21; Col 1:28; 2:7; 3:16; 2 Thess 2:15; 1 Tim 2:12; 4:11; 6:2; 2 Tim 2:2; Titus 1:11). The fact that παραλαμβάνω and διδάσκω are synonyms in the Pauline letters implies that παραλαμβάνω should not be regarded as a technical term for an institutional form of transmitting oral tradition, as it is frequently understood. At this point, emphasizing on the model of lieux de mémoire for the continuing function of the Pauline letters in the early Christian communities among which they circulated, I would like to turn to perhaps the most important crux interpretum in 1 Thessalonians for those concerned with Paul’s use of the sayings of Jesus: 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17. This passage begins with these words “For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord … ,” followed by a Parousia scenario.109 As we have noted above, various scholars have argued whether or not Paul was transmitting a saying of the historical Jesus, have speculated over the possible relationship between this passage and the canonical Gospels, or have speculated that Paul was transmitting a saying of the exalted Jesus mediated by an early Christian prophet.110 No matter how this passage is interpreted, it must 109 The wide variety and even the apparent contradictions between the various eschatological scenarios found in the Pauline letters should be noted; see D. E. Aune, “The Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10),” Pauline Conversations in Context: Essays in Honor of Calvin J. Roetzel, ed. J. C. Anderson, P. H. Sellew and C. Setzer (JSNTSup 221; Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 2002), 68–86. 110 In an earlier book, I argued that in 1 Thess 4:15–17, Paul is rehearsing a saying of Jesus

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surely constitute an example of the tradition (παράδοσις) that Paul consciously transmitted to the churches he founded. The aide-mémoire and lieux de mémoire models suggests another approach to the problem. As the earliest Pauline letter, 1 Thessalonians was probably written circa 49 CE, long before the appearance of any of the written Gospels. The Q document, if in fact it existed in an early redaction by 49 CE (which in itself is uncertain), was half a world away from the Greek peninsula. There can be little doubt, however, that sayings and stories about Jesus were circulating throughout Christian circles throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean theater. When the members of the Christian community in Thessaloniki read 1 Thessalonians, I suggest that they would have had little doubt that, when Paul used the introductory phrase “For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord … ,” he was in fact referring to a saying of the earthly Jesus, not a saying of the heavenly Lord nor a quotation from a written text. The citation itself is as follows (1 Thess 4:15–17): We who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

Despite the freedom Paul uses in transforming this saying into the third person, it was doubtless accepted at face value as a saying of Jesus. It is well-known that one of the earliest stages of the process out of which a stable canon of New Testament documents emerged by the fourth century was the inherent authority of the sayings of Jesus, whether oral or written (if written, the text in which such sayings were embedded would not have fully shared the intrinsic authority of the sayings themselves).111 While it is usually assumed that belief in the authority of the sayings of Jesus was guaranteed by apostolic witness, 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17, in the context of the entire letter, suggests the reverse: the apostolic witness was guaranteed by the inherent authority of the words of Jesus, an authority at least equal to, and probably even greater than, the authority of the Septuagint itself among early Christians. The fact that 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17 has no close parallels among the words of Jesus preserved in the canonical Gospels and the Gospel of Thomas, while a problem for modern scholars, is an anachronistic issue for the Thessalonians who were the original recipients of 1 Thessalonians. The great variations that must have existed among orally transmitted versions of the sayings of Jesus and which have been frozen by the compilation of the four canonical Gospels, is still visible in the variety found in quotations and allusions mediated by an early Christian prophet: D. E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 253–56. 111 One of the more recent discussions of this issue is found in C. Allert, A High View of Scripture? The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 109–112.

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to the oral (and sometimes written) sayings tradition in the Apostolic Fathers and in the Gospel of Thomas. Thus, 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17 must have functioned initially as an aide-mémoire for the early Christian community at Thessaloniki, who would have understood it as the high point of the letter. Already by the second generation of Thessalonian Christians, if not earlier, the communal memories preserving the experience of the Pauline ministry would have faded, only to be gradually replaced by 1 Thessalonians, no longer functioning as an aide-mémoire, but transformed into a cenotaph for living memories and gradually supplanting them as a source for generating new communal memories.112 According to Nora, “Lieux de mémoire exist because there are no longer any milieux de mémoire, settings in which memory is a real part of everyday experience.”113 The same process must have occurred in much the same way throughout the Pauline churches, as the other genuine Pauline letters became sources for a secondhand social memory. The collection of the Pauline letters, first in smaller groups and then reaching the final stages of a group of ten and then thirteen letters,114 may be construed as a search for the lieux that were thought to embody collective memories of the Pauline gospel. The availability of larger and more comprehensive collections of Pauline letters enriched the collective memory of the Christian communities in the circum-Mediterranean region by providing a basis for secondary constructions of communal memory. In many respects this tendency to reconstruct the irretrievable memories of the past are represented by the several deuteropauline letters (Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians and the Pastorals). Their very existence testifies to the fossilization of the genuine Pauline letters as lieux de mémoire. The existence of genuine Pauline letters (or letters that were taken for genuine) were particularly crucial for the production of Ephesians and 2 Thessalonians. The origin of the Pastorals is more complex, for although not largely dependent on a particular Pauline letter (as Ephesians was on Colossians and as 2 Thessalonians was on 1 Thessalonians), they reflect dependence on several Pauline letters, but were even more dependent on the appropriation of what the author took to be Pauline traditions.115

112 On the potential value of the sayings tradition in the Gospel of Thomas, see D. E. Aune, “Assessing the Historical Value of the Apocryphal Jesus Traditions: A Critique of Conflicting Methodologies,” Der historische Jesus. Tendenzen und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Forschung, ed. J. Schröter and R. Brucker (BZNW 114; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002), 243–72. For a competent (though incomplete) collection of agrapha, see W. D. Stroker, Extracanonical Sayings of Jesus (SBLRBS 18; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989). 113 Nora, “General Introduction: Between Memory and History,” 1. 114 For a convincing theory of the stages in the collection of the Pauline corpus, see D. Trobisch, Die Entstehung der Paulusbriefsammlung: Studien zu den Anfängen christlicher Publizistik (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989). 115 G. Lohfink, “Die Vermittlung des Paulinismus zu den Pastoralbriefen,” Biblische Zeitschrift 32 (1988), 169–88.

II. Pauline Studies

15. Two Pauline Models of the Person* Introduction The purpose of this study is to explore certain conceptions of the human person expressed or implied in the letters of Paul and to place those conceptions in dialogue with contemporary ways of understanding the whole and the divided self. Two factors make this task complex. First, for both Paul and us the self has both public and private dimensions, though there is no clear boundary between the two. Second, Paul’s conceptions of the human person or the self were inseparably linked to his experience of God and were attempts to understand the basis and implications of that experience. It is therefore legitimate to ask how the modern Christian’s experience of the transforming presence of God can be understood in light of modern conceptions of the whole and divided self. The task of this study is therefore essentially theological, since it attempts to describe accurately important aspects of Paul’s theological anthropology and then to reflect on the major configurations of a contemporary theological anthropology. The emphasis on “accurate description” means the rigorous application of the historical-critical method, while the attempt to formulate a viable modern theological anthropology is essentially an exercise in constructive theology. Paul uses at least two different ancient models of human nature to account for the inner tensions and conflicts Christians experience when they attempt to live in accordance with the will of God.1 The irrational behavior model is clearly reflected in Rom 7:14–25 and Gal 5:16–17, and is readily comprehensible to Christians living in the modern world who are similarly faced with the conflicts involved in making moral choices. The apocalyptic macrocosm-microcosm model is presupposed, though never explicitly articulated in a variety of texts (Rom 6:6; 2 Cor 5:17; cf. Eph 4:22–23; Col 3:5–11), and presumes a view of reality that some but not all modern Christians are able to understand or share. Before discussing these two models, it is first necessary to deal with some of the major problems involved in synthesizing Paul’s views of human nature. We will conclude with * Original publication: “Two Pauline Models of the Person,” The Whole and the Divided Self: The Bible and Theological Anthropology, ed. D. E. Aune and J. McCarthy (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 69–114. Permission requested. 1 Only the seven indisputably genuine Pauline letters will be considered as sources for Paul’s thought: Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon.

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some theological reflections on the role of the Bible in contemporary Christianity and the significance of the Pauline views of human nature for modern perspectives of the self.

The Problem of Pauline Anthropology Paul’s views of human nature, like much of his thought, cannot be understood adequately apart from the cultural and religious context in which he lived and wrote. At least that is what I, as a practitioner of the historical-critical method, have been trained to believe. After more than a century of debate, it is evident that there are still wide areas of disagreement on the complex question of whether Paul’s views of human nature are explicable on the basis of Jewish tradition alone (in both continuity and discontinuity with traditions in the Hebrew Bible), or whether he was influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by Hellenistic conceptions of human nature, perhaps refracted through Hellenistic Judaism. There seems to be increasing agreement that Paul did not simply adopt anthropological models from “Judaism,” “Hellenistic Judaism,” or “Hellenism” (clear boundaries between these cultural designations did not, of course, exist), in part because he had no apparent interest in articulating a consistent view of human nature. While he does use many Greek anthropological terms to explain aspects of human behavior in sections of his letters, he appears to do so in an ad hoc manner so that there is little overall consistency evident when these statements are compared. In this area at least, Paul was an eclectic who drew upon a variety of anthropological conceptions in the service of his more central ethical concerns.

Ancient Monistic and Dualistic Views of Human Nature One widely held assumption is that ancient views of human nature must be either monistic or dualistic, conceptions often linked respectively to Hebrew and Greek views of the person. However, the two most popular Hellenistic philosophies during the third and second centuries BCE were Stoicism and Epicureanism, both of which espoused a monistic and hence materialistic view of human nature. Different forms of early Judaism embraced a variety of cultural and religious traditions in which there was no consistent view of human nature,2 and in which 2 For a recognition of the anthropological variety in early Judaism, see G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Jr., Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (HTS 26; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), 170–80. The notion of a variety of views in early Judaism is also emphasized by H. C. C. Cavallin, Life After Death: Paul’s Argument for the Resurrection of the Dead in 1 Cor 15, Part I, An Enquiry into the Jewish Background (Lund: Gleerup, 1974), 200: “Statements on an immortality of the soul which excludes the resurrection of the body are almost as common as those which explicitly state the resurrection of the body ….”

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Hellenistic conceptions of human nature were assimilated to various degrees.3 There were, in fact, many variations and permutations of monistic and dualistic conceptions of the universe and human nature (the two are often understood homologously), though when a dualistic model is prevalent, there is without exception an expectation that plurality will be resolved into unity. Some of the later Stoics, for example (including Posidonius and Marcus Aurelius), were monistic materialists in the Stoic tradition, but had a dualistic psychology. Despite the many differences that can be registered, there were a number of views of the soul and the body shared by the major Hellenistic philosophical traditions (Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism): (a) All distinguished the soul from the body. (b) All regarded the soul as the center of intelligence within the human frame. (c) All thought that the soul was localized or at least centered in a particular part of the human body. (d) All attributed mental and moral qualities to the soul, not the body. (e) All but the early Stoics and Epictetus agreed that the soul had both rational and irrational aspects. (f) All (even Epicureans and Stoics) thought that death could be defined as the separation of the soul from the body. (g) All but the Epicureans and the Stoic Panaetius (Cicero Tusculan Disputations 1.79) believed that the soul continued to exist for at least a limited period of time after separation from the body at death. This is a significant list of common convictions, many of which coincide with popular views widely subscribed to in the Hellenistic and Roman world.

Pauline Anthropological Dualism Paul has more to say about human nature than any other early Christian author (with the exception of later Gnostic writers), yet his concern is not primarily theoretical, nor do the fragmentary expressions of his views of human nature exhibit internal consistency. Further, only in Romans 6–8 and Gal 5:13–6:10 does Paul explicitly link his views of human nature with Christian ethics. Paul did 3 For a variety of early Jewish views of death involving the separation of body from spirit, see Wis 8:19–20; 9:15 (see D. Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon [AB 43; Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1979], 25–32); Jub. 23:30–32; 1 En. 102:5; 103:2–4; 104:3; T. Ash. 6:5–6; 4 Macc 7:19; 13:17; 16:25; Ps.-Phoc. 105–8). Josephus frequently imported popular Middle Platonic body / soul dualism into his narrative when discussing the beliefs of first-century Palestinian Jews. He attributes psychosomatic dualism to himself in a speech against suicide (Β. J. 3.362–88), to the Zealot leader Eleazar at Masada (Β. J. 7.344–48), and to the Essenes (Β. J. 2.154). This view is clearly expressed by Josephus in Β. J. 3.372 (LCL trans.): “All of us, it is true, have mortal bodies, composed of perishable matter, but the soul lives forever, immortal: it is a portion of the Deity housed in our bodies.” The Pharisees, according to Josephus, believed that the soul is immortal, but only the souls of good people pass into other bodies, while the souls of the wicked are punished eternally (Β. J. 2.163). The Sadducees, on the other hand, did not believe that the soul lives on after death (Β. J. 2.164). In Tannaitic Judaism, the human person was believed to be composed of various parts (E. E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987], 218–22).

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use a number of dichotomous designations for human nature: (1) σάρξ / πνεῦμα (Rom 1:4; 8:4–6, 27; 1 Cor 5:5: the destruction of the σάρξ [i. e., death] will ensure the salvation of a person’s πνεῦμα; 2 Cor 7:1; Gal 3:2–3; 4:29; 5:16–18; Col 2:5); (2) σῶμα / πνεῦμα (Rom 8:10–11, 13; 1 Cor 5:3 [cf. Col 2:5 σῶμα = σάρξ]; 7:34; 12:13; cf. Eph 4:4); (3) νοῦς / σάρξ (Rom 7:22–25; cf. Col 2:18). Only in 1 Thess 5:23, does Paul use the trichotomous designation σῶμα / ψυχή / πνεῦμα, which when taken together function to encompass the entire person.4 The presupposition, however, is that the person is somehow constituted of these elements. Paul distinguishes between the “spirit” (πνεῦμα) and the “mind” (νοῦς) in 1 Cor 14:14–19, and advises against allowing the spirit to do what the mind cannot participate in. According to vv. 14–15: For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also.

Both are clearly aspects of the person, the irrational and rational faculties, not the whole person viewed from two different perspectives;5 both are qualitatively distinguished from each other; and both belong to the “higher” faculties within the human person. Yet using a term like “higher” is inherently problematic, for it carries with it implications. The term νοῦς occurs fourteen times in the genuine Pauline letters, though only here and in 1 Cor 2:16, Rom 7:23–25 and Rom 12:2 is its usage particularly important for our discussion. Richard Reitzenstein argued that Paul and his audience could understand πνεῦμα and νοῦς as equivalents, based on the equivalency of the phrases τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ (1 Cor 2:11, 12, 14), and νοῦς κυρίου or νοῦς χριστοῦ (1 Cor. 2:16).6 In Rom 7:23–25, Paul distinguishes between his νοῦς which is equated with his ἔσω ἄνθρωπος, and 4 The trichotomous conception of human nature is common in Gnosticism and is found also in Origen (e. g., De principiis 3.4), though he waffles between a bipartite and tripartite conception. The trichotomy σῶμα, πνεῦμα, and ψυχή occurs in Inscriptiones Graecae 14:1720 (G. R Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, vol. 4 [New South Wales: Macquarie University, 1987], 38–39), an inscription from the imperial period: “To the underworld gods. The body of […]rios is below; his spirit and soul remain.” Cf. IG 14: 2068 (Horsley, New Documents, 4:32 f.). Three Christian papyri mention “soul and body and spirit” (P.Coll.Youtie 91, an amulet [fifth or sixth cent.]; P.Harr. 107 [third cent.], and P.Oxy. 8.1161, a letter [fourth cent.]; see Horsley, New Documents, l.102 f.). 5 W. D. Stacey tries to force this passage into the Procrustean bed of the Israelite view of the person: “When dealing with nous, it is very easy to forget that Paul always adopts the synthetic, Hebrew view of man, and not the analytic Greek view. It is very easy, therefore, to speak of nous as a faculty possessed by man, but this cannot be allowed” (The Pauline View of Man in Relation to Its Judaic and Hellenistic Background [London: Macmillan, 1956], 198). In 1 Cor 14:14–19, however, such an interpretation cannot be avoided. 6 R. Reitzenstein, Die hellenistische Mysterienreligionen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966), 337 f. Reitzenstein, however, erred in describing this nous as “göttliches Fluidum” (Die hellenistische Mysterienreligionen, 338). Reitzenstein’s view is rejected (not refuted) by J. Behm, TDNT 4.959.

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his σάρξ, or μέλη, or τὸ σῶμα τοῦ θανάτου. Clearly this psychosomatic contrast reflects a split in human nature that cannot be ignored.7 Yet the νοῦς is not divine, as in Hellenistic philosophy and Hermetic thought, for it must be renewed or transformed (Rom 12:2; cf. Eph 4:23). 2 Cor 5:1–10 is an important passage for understanding Paul’s view of human nature, but it is also a passage that has been interpreted in an astonishing number of diverse ways.8 Verses 1–4 are of particular significance: For we know that if the earthly tent [οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους] we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling [τὸ οἰκητήριον ἡμῶν τὸ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ], so that by putting it on we may not be found naked.

There are several observations that can be made about this passage.9 First, the use of the image of the house (οἰκία) or tent (σκῆνος) as a metaphor for the physical aspect of human existence (i. e., σῶμα, cf. vv. 6–8) occurs frequently in Hellenistic tradition from Plato on,10 but rarely in early Judaism (Wis 9:15; 4 Bar. 6:6 f. where σκήνωμα is parallel to σαρκικὸς οἶκος). Second, Paul distinguishes the real person from the purely physical dimension of human existence, so that (despite frequent demurrers among those who have commented on this debated passage), this is essentially a dualistic appraisal of human nature, though it reflects neither common Hellenistic nor common early Jewish conceptions, but rather is (apparently) Paul’s own theological construct. Third, running throughout this passage is an undeniably negative evaluation of physical existence in comparison to the Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism in the Pauline Anthropology,” BR 3 (1958), 19. Lang, 2 Korinther 5, 1–10 in der neueren Forschung (Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese 16; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1973).  9 E. Brandenburger, Fleisch und Geist: Paulus und die dualistische Weisheit (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1968), 175–77; he discusses the close parallel between 2 Cor 5:1–4 and Philo Her. 267 (LCL trans.): “God does not grant as a gift to the lover of virtue that he should dwell in the body as in a homeland, but only permits him to sojourn there, as in a foreign country.” See also Cicero Tusculan Disputations 1.11.24 (LCL trans.): “souls, on their separation from the body, find their way to heaven as to their dwelling-place [posse animos, cum e corporibus excesserint, in caelum quasi in domicilium suum pervenire].” 10 Democritus B.37, B.187, B.223 (H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker [6 ed.; 2 vols.; Zurich and Hildesheim: Weidmann, 1951], 2.155, 183, 190); Longinus De sublimitate 32.5; Ps.-Hippocrates Cord. 7; Anat. 1; Ps.-Plato Axiochus 366A; Philo QG 1.28; PGM I.319; IV.448, 1951, 1970, 2141 (here σκῆνος means “corpse”); Timaeus Locrus On the Nature of the World and the Soul 45, 60, 62, 86; Corpus Hermeticum 13.12, 15; Sentences of Sextus 320 (σκήνωμα); PGM XIXa.49: “every limb of this corpse and the spirit of this body [τὸ πνεῦμα τούτου τοῦ σκηνώματος]”; the phrase θνητῷ σκήνει in Achilles Tatius 2.36.3 is an emendation for κάλλει in the manuscripts, and probably incorrect (E. Vilborg, Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon [Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia 1 and 15; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1955–62], 1.46; 15.62); for this usage in early Christian literature in addition to 2 Pet 1:13 f., Diogn. 6:8, and Apoc. Sedr. 9:2, s. v. σκῆνος in Lampe, PGL, 1237. This metaphor occurs frequently in Neopythagorean literature; see H. Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period (Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1965), 43.21; 49.9; 70.9; 80.2; 124.18; 143.19; 145.2. Philo (De somn. 1.122) speaks of ὁ οἶκος τῆς ψυχῆς, τὸ σῶμα.  7 S.

 8 F. G.

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positive evaluation of the type of existence possible following death (see Rom 8:23). Fourth, to be “naked” refers to that state of postmortem existence in which the self is separated from the physical body.11 Fifth, the οἰκοδομὴ ἐκ θεοῦ (v. 1) or the οἰκητήριον ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, are ways of referring to the glorified body of the Christian, that is, a form of corporeality in which the dualistic conflict between flesh and Spirit is transcended by a monistic form of existence. In 2 Cor 5:6–9 Paul continues to use the first-person plural (representing the view of Christians generally) of the desirability of being absent from the body and present with the Lord.12 Dropping the tent metaphor that he used in vv. 1–4, he says that “while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord” (v. 6b), and “we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (v. 8). Here Paul does not identify Christians with their physical frames, but with the separable “we.” Paul does not explicitly label that part of human nature which will be separated from the body upon death. If pressed, however, he might well have preferred the term πνεῦμα to ψυχή, since the former was used as commonly in Hellenistic Judaism as the latter was among pagans. In Phil 1:21–26, Paul says of the possibility of his own physical death that τὸ ἀποθανεῖν κέρδος “to die is gain” (v. 21), and that to “depart” and be with Christ would be πολλῷ μᾶλλον κρεῖσσον, “infinitely better.”13 He refers to τὸ ζῆν ἐν σαρκί, “life in the flesh” (v. 22) and τὸ ἐπιμένειν [ἐν] τῇ σαρκί, “remaining in the flesh” (v. 24), as the less preferable alternative, and in both instances σάρξ is used as the equivalent of σῶμα. Obviously it must be Paul’s true self that will “depart and be with Christ,” though again he does not give this separable element a label. In 2 Cor 12:2–3, where not death but 11 According to Plato’s myth of the Vision of Judgment, told in Plato Gorgias 523A-524A (see E. R. Dodds, Plato, Gorgias [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959], 372–79), and repeated in Plutarch Cons. Apoll. 121A–C, people were once judged just before their death, but this resulted in bad decisions, for base souls were sometimes clad with beautiful bodies. Therefore Zeus arranged that people would be judged immediately after death when “naked” (γυμνός), that is, when their souls had been divested of their bodies. In Plato Cratylus 403B, people are said to fear Pluto ὅτι ἡ ψυχὴ γυμνὴ τοῦ σώματος παρ᾽ ἐκεῖνον ἀπέρχεται (H. D. Betz, Lukian von Samosata und das Neue Testament [Berlin: Akademie, 1961], 93). Walter Schmithals’s view that “naked” means “dead,” that is, the absence of being, is simply impossible (Gnosticism in Corinth, trans. J. E. Steely [Nashville: Abingdon, 1971], 264). 12 This is a disputed passage which a few scholars interpret as Paul’s use of the language of his (perhaps Gnostic) opponents. Schmithals finds Gnostic conceptuality throughout this passage (Gnosticism in Corinth, 259–75). Similarly, R. Jewett argues that the term σῶμα reflects Paul’s use of the anthropological categories of his Gnostic opponents (R. Jewett, Paul’s Anthropological Terms: A Study of their Use in Conflict Settings [AGJU 10; Leiden: Brill, 1971], 274–77). Similarly, the view that “while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord” is a slogan of Paul’s opponents and therefore does not reflect Paul’s own views has most recently been argued by J. Murphy-O’Connor, ‘”Being at Home in the Body we are in Exile from the Lord’ (2 Cor. 5:6b),” RB 93 (1986), 214–21. 13 D. W. Palmer argues that death as a gain for those whose life is burdensome is a commonplace in Greek and Latin literature (“ ‘To Die is Gain’ [Philippians i 21],” NovT 17 [1975], 203–18).

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an altered state of consciousness is in view, Paul uses the term ἄνθρωπος for the self, the center of consciousness (whether himself or someone else), in the two contrastive states of ἐν σώματι and ἐκτὸς τοῦ σώματος or χωρὶς τοῦ σώματος. This indicates that Paul could contrast the body with the self. The discussion of these passages suggests that, while Paul did not simply take over (as did Josephus and the author of 4 Maccabees) one particular model of Hellenistic anthropology, he does speak of various pluralistic features within the human person that cannot simply be explained using Israelite models. Refutations of proposals that Hellenistic conceptions of human nature influenced Paul’s own views have often been based on caricatures of “the Greek view,” often based on an oversimplified understanding of classical sources coupled with superficial understanding of Hellenistic paradigms of human nature. Thus, W. D. Davies has argued that according to Hellenistic dualism the flesh was intrinsically evil, and that the term σάρξ had no dualistic associations in the Hellenistic world. He is wrong on both counts. It was only during the second century and later that Platonic dualism was radically interpreted to mean that matter was evil and spirit good, a position that characterized (but was not restricted to) Gnosticism. Further, while Davies is correct that ψυχή and σάρξ are not used antithetically in classical Greek literature, in the trichotomous psychology of Marcus Aurelius, the term σάρξ is used interchangeably with σῶμα (2.2; 3.16; 12.3), and σάρξ is also used as a synonym of σῶμα by Epictetus (2.1.17, 19; 3.7.4, 9), and Philo (De gig. 29–31). The notion that the body was intrinsically evil, and a temporary prison for the immortal soul (exaggerated, to be sure), generally considered an Orphic or Pythagorean view adopted by Plato, has particularly come to be associated with the Phaedo. Plato’s Timaeus, however, was even more influential and was probably one of the most important philosophical treatises in the Hellenistic and Roman period, particularly after Platonism began to dominate philosophical discussion beginning with the first century BCE. In his lengthy discussion of the fashioning of the soul and body of the human person in Timaeus 69a–92c, Plato makes this observation (Timaeus 88b; LCL trans.): From both these evils [diseases of the body and soul] the one means of salvation is this – neither to exercise the soul without the body nor the body without the soul, so that they may be evenly matched and sound of health.

Plotinus, who noted that Plato did not say the same thing about the soul everywhere in his writings, alludes to various passages in Plato’s Phaedo, Cratylus, and Republic, and then calls attention to the positive assessment of the soul / body dualism in the Timaeus (4.8.1; LCL trans.): And, though in all these passages he disapproves of the soul’s coming to the body, in the Timaeus when speaking about this All he praises the universe and calls it a blessed god, and says that the soul was given by the goodness of the Craftsman, so that this All might be intelligent, because it had to be intelligent, and this could be without the soul.

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A similarly positive assessment of the soul / body dualism is found in Aristotle’s Protrepticus (frag. B60; Düring), an early exoteric work reflecting the “Platonic” phase of his views of human nature: In the soul, there is on the one hand reason (which by nature rules and judges in matters concerning ourselves), on the other hand that which follows and whose nature is to be ruled; everything is in perfect order when each part brings its proper excellence to bear; for to attain this excellence is a good.

The materialistic monism of Epicureans and early Stoics meant that they also had an essentially positive attitude toward physical existence in this world. Posidonius, a middle Stoic, expressed a view similar to that reflected in the Timaeus, perhaps based on his reading of that dialogue (Clement of Alexandria Strom. 2.21; Edelstein-Kidd, frag. 186), when he says that τὸ τέλος is “to live contemplating the truth and order of absolutely everything [τῶν ὅλων], and contributing to the establishment of it [αὐτήν] as far as possible (in oneself), without being influenced by the irrational part of the soul [ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀλόγου μέρους τῆς ψυχῆς]" A positive assessment of the relationship between soul and body is also reflected in Ps.-Heraclitus Ep. 9 (trans. Malherbe), reflecting a more popular view: “The body, while a slave to the soul, is at the same time its fellow citizen, and it does not irritate the intellect [νοῦς] to dwell with its servants.” Though particular lexemes (σῶμα, ψυχή, σάρξ, πνεῦμα, etc.) may be used as termini technici by relatively sophisticated authors (though there is inconsistency in even the greatest thinkers,14 such as Plato and Aristotle), one must avoid the 14 The extant dialogues of Plato do not reflect a unified set of philosophical doctrines, nor can Plato’s thought be adequately understood without recourse to the ἄγραφα δόγματα or “oral tradition” of Platonic teaching reflected in the writings of Aristotle and others. Plato’s views of human nature changed during his lifetime as reflected in the nearly thirty authentic dialogues that have been preserved. The most obvious change was from his view of the ψυχή as a simple substance in the Phaedo, to the tripartite division of the ψυχή in the Republic. Plato’s views of the relationship between the body and the soul are drawn from both philosophical and popular traditions, but are not forced into a single coherent system. Plato’s view of the immortality and imperishability of the ψυχή may not in fact have been widely shared (Republic 608d; Phaedo 77b; 84b). In the Phaedo alone the term ψυχή is used with a relatively extensive variety of connotations: (1) the element within us whose good condition constitutes our true well-being, (2) the “true self ” or “real person” (115b–116a), (3) the intellect, reason, or thinking faculty (65b–c; 76c), (4) the “rational self ” in contrast to emotions and physical desires (94b–d), (5) the “life principle” or “animating agent” (64c; 72a–d; 105c–d), (6) generic “soul stuff ” in contrast to individual souls, just as matter may be contrasted to individual bodies (70c–d; 80c–d). This wide range of meanings of ψυχή is not easily amenable to consistency. How can the soul “bring life” to the body (105c–d), “rule and be master” of the body (80a; 94b–d), and yet be a “prisoner” within the body (82e–83a)? According to Plato, the soul wore bodies like clothes to be discarded (Phaedo 87b), the soul is woven through the body (Timaeus 36e), or a person is a soul using a body (Alc. 1.129c–e). One of the persistent problems with Plato’s conception of the soul-body relationship (and one that was attacked by both Stoics and Epicureans) was the assumption that the incorporeal could somehow associate with the corporeal to form a single substance, a human person.

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erroneous notion that particular concepts are wedded to particular lexemes. We must rather think in terms of the general semantic equivalence that exists between lexical items belonging to the same semantic domains or subdomains rather than restrict our investigation to particular lexical items, and also pay attention to the different meanings conveyed by the same word (i. e., a single lexical item can belong to many different semantic domains). When James 2:26 says that τὸ σῶμα χωρὶς πνεύματος νεκρόν ἐστιν, it is clear that the psychosomatic dualism of Hellenistic Judaism is in view, with πνεῦμα used as a substitute for ψυχή. νοῦς and καρδία often overlap because in Hebrew ‫“( לב‬heart”) was regarded as primarily the seat of intellectual rather than emotional life, and it is this semantic borrowing that results in the common use of καρδία for “mind” in early Christian authors, while νοῦς is the most common lexeme for “mind” among Hellenistic authors. The distance between Paul’s views of human nature and those of popular Hellenistic philosophical thought is not as great as might first appear. Certainly in Roman Hellenism and early Judaism, it is widely assumed that good behavior and bad behavior can be freely chosen by each person, and for that reason lists of virtues and vices are an integral part of moral exhortation. In Pauline thought, on the other hand, a radical distinction is made between homo ante gratiam and homo sub gratia. For Paul, the disobedience of Adam introduced an era of death (exacerbated by the giving of the Law) which largely determined human behavior (Rom 5:12–21). In spite of the theological distance, there is a striking structural and phenomenological similarity between the anthropological dualism of popular Hellenistic tradition and that of Paul. Mutatis mutandis, the ethical dualism reflected in Paul’s view of the dilemma of the Christian, expressed in Rom 7:25 (with his νοῦς he serves the law of God but with his σάρξ the law of sin) is structurally similar to the situation of Greeks to whom a philosopher would direct his λόγος προτρεπτικός, offering freedom from the material bondage of wealth and reputation. For Hellenistic philosophers, human beings possessed the potential to turn from material encumbrances to embrace the philosophic life. For Paul, on the other hand, freedom from sin and death is impossible for homo ante gratiam and is only a possibility for those who have been justified by faith (Rom 8:1–2). For Paul the central anthropological terms are σάρξ and πνεῦμα, and Christians can “set their minds” (φρονεῖν, φρόνημα) on either with negative or positive consequences (Rom 8:5–6).

The Irrational Behavior Model in Hellenistic Psychology One of the more lasting assumptions of ancient Greek psychology was the view that emotions (the irrational) could be separated from both cognition (reason)

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and motivation (will, volition),15 with the correlative view that cognition belonged to the “higher” aspects of the personality, while the emotions belonged to the “lower.” While Platonists, Epicureans, and Stoics had vastly different conceptions of reality, they did share one major point of agreement in their ethical theories (the later Aristotle and the Peripatetics are an exception), expressed in the Socratic paradox οὐδεὶς ἑκὼν ἁμαρτάνει, “no one willingly does wrong,” a notion frequently discussed by Plato (see Prot. 345d–e; Tim. 86d; Laws 731c; 860d). These three philosophical traditions linked moral behavior to human knowledge. According to a widespread ancient tradition, then, people do what is wrong even though they know what is right, and that these impulses to action originate either in ignorance (which inhibits rational planning and deliberation), or from irrational emotions such as anger, fear, and hatred.16 This theory is dramatized in a speech of Medea in Euripides Medea 1077–80: … but I am overcome by evil [νικῶμαι κακοῖς]. Now I learn what evil deeds I intended to perform; but passion [θυμός] overpowered my wishes [τῶν βουλευμάτων], which is the cause of the greatest evil for mortals.

Medea was a favorite character among mythographers as well as dramatists. In Ovid’s retelling of the story, Medea finds herself inexplicably attracted to Jason and makes the following statement as part of a longer soliloquy (Metamorphoses 7.19–20; LCL trans.): But some strange power holds me down against my will. Desire persuades me one way, reason another. I see the better and approve it, but I follow the worse.

The same popular psychology is projected onto the Egyptians in Diodorus 1.71.3 (LCL trans.): They believed that all other men, in thoughtlessly following their natural passions [φυσικοῖς πάθεσι], commit many acts which bring them injuries and perils, and that oftentimes some who realize that they are about to commit a sin [ἁμαρτάνειν] nevertheless do base acts when overpowered by love or hatred or some other passion.

This is not only true in literary conceptions of human behavior but was also taken up for serious discussion in the various Greek philosophical traditions 15 The concept of motivation or will in antiquity has been discussed in detail by A. Dihle, The Theory of the Will in Classical Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). Dihle argues that an implicit theory of will was absent from Greek philosophical thought (not even in Aristotle), though it was implicit in Hebrew and early Christian thought. Dihle’s argument is flawed by a “vague and confused” (Adkins) definition of “will” (see the penetrating review by A. W. H. Adkins, CP 80 [1985], 364–70; a much shorter but essentially similar critique is that by C. Kirwan, Classical Review 34 [1984], 335–36). 16 This widespread view of human behavior, often expressed in aphoristic forms (e. g., τὸ μὲν πνεῦμα πρόθυμον ἡ δὲ σὰρξ ἀσθενής, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” Mark 14:38 par. Matt 26:41; Polycarp Phil. 7:2) is reflected in many passages in Greek and Latin literature, several of which are listed in J. J. Wettstein,  Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη (Amsterdam: Ex Officina Domeriana, 1752), 2.57.

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(e. g., Plato Protagoras 352d–e). Epictetus, who held an exclusively intellectualist explanation of behavior, comes close to Paul’s language in Rom 7:14–25 and Gal 5:16–17, which we will consider below (Arrian Epict. Diss. 2.26.1; LCL trans.): Every error involves a contradiction. For since he who is in error does not wish to err [οὐ θέλει ἁμαρτάνειν], but to be right, it is clear that he is not doing what he wishes [ὃ θέλει οὐ ποιεῖ].

Epictetus is very probably familiar with the proverbial formulation “no one willingly does wrong,” but assumes in good Stoic fashion that a person who does what he does not want to do is ignorant of what he really wants, whereas in Paul the ἐπιθυμίαι (“lusts, desires”) of the flesh or the body frustrate the wishes of the mind. While Plato originally took only rational factors into account when determining human conduct, he later complemented this intellectualist approach to behavior (inherited from Socrates; cf. Xenophon Mem. 3.9.4), with the recognition of the presence of irrational factors which resulted in psychological conflict (στάσις).17 For most Stoics, however, who saw no split between reason and emotion, behavior was based exclusively on the rational faculties (Epictetus 1.28.6–8; citing Medea’s speech in Euripides Medea 1077–80), though Posidonius was an exception. In the general Greek view, therefore, moral progress was based on education. The traditional bipartition of human nature into that of intellect and emotion, the rational and the irrational, remained the basic frame of reference for Greek ethical theory.

The Irrational Behavior Model in Paul In Rom 7:14–25 and Gal 5:16–17, Paul attributes the conflicts and frustrations of human moral experience to the basic antithetical constituents of the human person. The constituents, however, are not the same in both passages. In Rom 7:14–25, the conflict is first of all between the Law, which is external yet πνευματικός, “spiritual,” and the human person who is σάρκινος, “fleshly” (v. 14). This has a microcosmic correspondence within the human person in a conflict between a “higher” element (described as the ἔσω ἄνθρωπος, “the inner person,” v. 22; or νοῦς, “the mind,” vv. 23, 25), and a “lower” element (variously described as σάρξ, “the flesh,” which is enslaved to sin [v. 18], or “my members” [v. 23], or τὸ σῶμα τοῦ θανάτου τούτου, “this body of death,” i. e., “this mortal body” [v. 24], all of which are enslaved to sin). These opposing forces are engaged in battle on a field of combat that consists of Paul’s self (Rom 7:23 NRSV): But I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 17 E. R. Dodds, “Plato and the Irrational,”The Ancient Concept of Progress and Other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 106–25.

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This conflict is clearly expressed in Rom 7:25b (NRSV): So then, with my mind I am slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

In Gal 5:16–17, on the other hand, the opposition is between the flesh and the Spirit.18 As in Rom 7:14–25, the self is apparently pulled in opposite directions by these two forces. Further, Rom 7:14–25 has a more decidedly theoretical character, for it does not contain virtue and vice lists (like Gal 5:13–6:10), but rather speaks in more generic terms of doing ἀγαθός or καλός and κακός, “good and evil.” The argument in Rom 7:15–21 is based on the acceptance of the widespread proverbial theme (discussed above) that a person’s behavior often contradicts his or her desires, which Paul repeats three times (NRSV): I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (v. 15). I can will what is right, but I cannot do it (v. 18b). For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do (v. 19).

This threefold variation does not advance the argument so much as underline the truth of the formulation through repetition and rhetorical variation. The reason Paul gives for the conflict between willing and doing is simply that sin – that is, “nothing good” – dwells in him (also emphasized three times [vv. 17b, 20, 18a]). It is important to emphasize at this point that in proposing that “sin” is at the basis of the conflict between willing and doing, Paul adds a distinctive Jewish and Christian feature which was foreign to Greek moral theory. An important parallel to Rom 7:14–25 is found in Gal 5:16–17, which is part of a larger paraenetic section in Gal 5:13–6:10, which exhibits internal coherence, though it does not easily fit into the rhetorical analysis of Galatians.19 Verse 16 specifies the anthropological basis for right conduct based in the priority of the Spirit coupled with the denial of the desires of the flesh, while v. 17 provides an anthropological model explaining the conflict as based on the dualism of σάρξπνεῦμα, which he uses to explain v. 16 (v. 17 is introduced with γάρ), but which serves as an explanation for the entire paraenetic section in Gal 5:16–26. Though this model raises more questions for us than it answers, the very fact that Paul felt obliged to provide this pithy explanatory model suggests his awareness of typical Hellenistic questions. 18 The term πνεῦμα is occasionally ambiguous in Paul, for it is not always clear whether the human spirit or the divine Spirit is in view, or whether the human spirit is thought of as somehow infused with the divine Spirit. 19 The isolated character of this internally coherent textual unit from the rest of the rhetorical structure of Galatians is emphasized by J. Smit, “The Letter of Paul to the Galatians: A Deliberative Speech,” NTS 35 (1989), 25, who does not try to fit Gal. 5:13–6:10 into the rhetorical structure of the rest of the letter.

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But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the evil desires of the flesh [ἐπιθυμίαν σαρκός]. For the flesh has evil desires [ἡ σὰρξ ἐπιθυμεῖ] contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit contrary to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would [ἵνα μὴ ἃ ἐὰν θέλητε ταῦτα ποιῆτε].

Here the individual is not identified with the flesh or the Spirit, but is rather subject to a tug of war between them. Though Paul does not explicitly label the self which is subject to this conflict, it appears to be his view that the human πνεῦμα has been permeated with the divine πνεῦμα (the divine πνεῦμα and the human πνεῦμα are contrasted in 1 Cor 2:11, and in 1 Cor 6:17 Paul claims that the person who has been united with the Lord is ὓν πνεῦμα with him).20 In this passage it is important to notice that the flesh is personified and has desires (in the phrase ἐπιθυμία σαρκός, “the desires of the flesh,” σαρκός is a subjective genitive, and in ἡ σὰρξ ἐπιθυμεῖ, “the flesh desires,” σάρξ is the subject of the verb).21

Human Nature and the Macrocosm-Microcosm Analogy in Antiquity Hellenistic Macrocosm-Microcosm Homologies One of the more pervasive presuppositions of ancient Mediterranean thought was that human nature could neither be understood nor explained without reference to the larger, more encompassing reality of which it was an integral part. According to the prevailing view of the Ionian philosophers after Heraclitus, for example, the human person consists of body and soul; upon death, the body returns to earth and the soul returns to the heavenly aether from whence it came. “Man is made of portions of the cosmos, and in death like returns to like.”22 The human experience of conflict, whether intra-personal (psychological) or extra-personal (social), could similarly be explained by reference to an encompassing paradigmatic reality. Historians of religion have often recognized the tendency to understand human life as homologous to the life of the cosmos; that is, either the human body was frequently considered a model of the universe, or the universe was considered a paradigm of human existence.23 In ancient Greek 20 The πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ (1 Cor 2:11), is equivalent to the νοῦς κυρίου (LXX quotation from Isa 40:13 in 1 Cor 2:16), and the νοῦς Χριστοῦ (1 Cor 2:16); that is, in conventional philosophic parlance, the νοῦς is the divine portion of the ψυχή. 21 According to Gal 5:24, the σάρξ has παθήματα and ἐπιθυμίαι, and in Rom 6:12, τὸ θνητόν. These passages, together with Gal 5:16 f., clearly indicate the equivalence of σάρξ and σῶμα in these contexts. 22 W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 362. 23 M. Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 165.

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religious and philosophical thought the human person was often understood as a microcosm of the universe.24 Throughout this discussion I use the term “microcosmos” (Greek: μικρὸς κόσμος; Latin: mundus parvus or mundus minor) for conceptions of human nature that are considered homologous to a comprehensive external reality which constitutes the “macrocosmos” (μέγας κόσμος).25 For ancient religion and philosophy, the human dilemma was frequently understood as a macrocosmic encoding in the individual, while the answer to the human dilemma (evident in such experiences as death, disease, suffering, alienation, and frustration) could be achieved through a proper understanding of the macrocosmos, which opened the possibility for the integration of the human microcosmos into some kind of encompassing macrocosm. Whether the ultimate quest was that for “salvation” in religious cults (understood in both intra-mundane and extra-mundane ways),26 or for the summum bonum of the philosophical schools, the answer to the human dilemma could be found in the macrocosmos. The view that human life is homologous to the life of the cosmos is a supposition generally acceptable to modern science. The operations of nature observable by humans at the microscopic level, for example, are assumed to be valid for regions of the universe otherwise inaccessible to close observation. However, the kinds of homologous relationships between the individual and the cosmos with which we are concerned in this paper are essentially mythological constructs that have no basis in reality and yet are fascinating precisely because of the widespread assumption of the truth of the macrocosm-microcosm analogy. In order to become aware of some of the basic patterns in this kind of thought, I propose a typology of three basic patterns, though each pattern occurred in many historical variants, and in some instances the patterns are combined in various ways: (1) Spatial macrocosm: that is, salvation involves the upward movement toward a more perfect reality. (2) Temporal macrocosm: salvation lies in the paradigmatic past or future. (3) Systemic macrocosm: salvation involves cognitive and / or behavioral conformity to a more perfect reality (this latter is often part of spatial microcosm).

24 E. Schweizer, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 7.1029–30 (for primary and secondary literature); cf. Democritus, frag. 34 (Diels-Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 2.153): “there is a miniature universe in the individual.” 25 The term mikrokosmos does not occur in classical or Hellenistic Greek, but is a later formation that first appears (in transliteration in Latin) in Isidore of Seville, De natura rerum 3.1; see W. Kranz, Kosmos (Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 2/1, 2; Bonn: H. Bouvier, 1955, 1957), 130–31. 26 The terms “intra-mundane” and “extra-mundane” have been borrowed from Ugo Bianchi, “Prolegomena: The Religio-Historical Question of the Mysteries of Mithra,” Mysteria Mithrae, ed. U. Bianchi (Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l’empire romain 24; Leiden: Brill, 1979), 4.

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The Spatial Macrocosm-Microcosm Homology Two of the more important presuppositions of spatial microcosm are that perfection lies in the highest realms of the cosmos, and that the properties of the higher world are replicated in the lower world in attenuated form. The individual is therefore composed of two or more separable constituents and the process of separation is linked with παιδεία in this life and ascension to the perfect realm upon death. For Plato the soul can be considered a “prisoner” within the body (Phaedo 82e–83a), and the soul wears the body like clothes that will eventually be discarded (Phaedo 87b). The imperfections of the cosmos are mirrored in the imperfections of the individual. In Plato’s cosmology, that which is higher is better, while that which is lower is coarser and more inferior, while Aristotle distinguished between the sublunary world (defective, perishable) and the superlunary worlds (eternal, imperishable, divine). Plato describes the creation of the cosmos in the form of a living creature (Timaeus 30b; LCL trans.): He constructed reason within soul and soul within body as He fashioned the All, that so the work He was executing might be of its nature most fair and most good. Thus, then, in accordance with the likely account, we must declare that this Cosmos has verily come into existence as a Living Creature endowed with soul and reason owing to the providence of God.

The cosmology most appropriate for spatial microcosm was the new geocentric cosmology (widely accepted during the Hellenistic period); that is, the earth occupies the lowest place in the cosmos and is surrounded by an enormous cosmos consisting of a least seven planetary spheres, topped by the eighth sphere of the fixed stars.27 Since the earth itself occupied the lowest place in the cosmos, the traditional location of the underworld in a three-story cosmos was no longer tenable. The atmosphere between the earth and the moon was chosen as the new site for this cosmic urban renewal project, and it was there that the souls of the dead were allowed to loiter until purified to the point where they could rise to the moon. Gnostic anthropology was sometimes bipartite but usually tripartite, consisting of body, soul, and the self.28 The inner person (for which such terms as πνεῦμα and νοῦς are used) corresponds on the macrocosmic level to the unknown God; that is, a kinship or affinity exists between the highest God and the inmost core of the person. But this correspondence is known only through revelation.

27 M. P.

Nilsson, Greek Piety (New York: Norton, 1969), 96–103.

28 H. Jonas, Gnosis und spatantiker Geist, 1. Teil, Die mythologische Gnosis (3rd ed.; Göttingen:

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964), “Excurs II: Anthropologische Zwei‑ und Dreistufigkeit” (pp. 212–14); K. Rudolph, Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism, trans. R. McL. Wilson (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983), 88–113.

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The Temporal Macrocosm-Microcosm Analogy Clear examples of temporal macrocosm-microcosm homologies in antiquity occur only in Judaism and early Christianity, in some of the documents from the Qumran community (primarily 1QS and 1QM), and in the letters of Paul and the Pauline circle. According to 1QS 3.13–4.26, God created two Spirits, one good and one evil, called the Prince of Lights and the Angel of Darkness who will exercise power over human beings until the eschatological visitation of God, who will destroy perversity (1QS 4.18–19). Each of these Spirits presides over a human community, the Prince of Lights over the sons of righteousness and the Angel of Darkness over the sons of perversity (1QM 13.9–12). The Spirit of Truth motivates people to live righteously, while the Spirit of Perversity motivates people to do evil (1QS 4.2–11). Yet the Spirits of Truth and Perversity do battle in the heart of each person (1QS 4.23–26). The dualism reflected in these Qumran documents is both intra-personal (psychological); that is, the struggle which goes on in the heart of each individual in varying proportions,29 and extra-personal (social and cosmic), and will conclude in a final battle between the two antithetical Spirits and their earthly human communities.30 Paul’s view of reality, like that of Hellenistic Judaism generally, is strikingly different from the prevailing Hellenistic and Roman view. Since the κόσμος came into existence at a particular point in time and will eventually go out of existence, the κόσμος itself understood spatially or systemically cannot function as a macrocosmic model for understanding the human person. The intra-personal conflict that Paul discusses occasionally in his letters suggests the internalization of extra-personal conflict between the supernatural forces of good and evil, which are struggling yet inevitably moving toward an eschatological resolution in favor of the former.

The Systemic Macrocosm-Microcosm Analogy For Stoics, human beings, like the heavenly bodies, were composed of the four elements (earth, air, fire, water). While this has the superficial appearance of being somewhat scientific, it is actually a mythological construct. Stoics went on to claim that the soul (compounded of fire and air) was the active principle, while the body (compounded of earth and water) was the passive principle, a microcosmic correspondence to the active and passive principles in the macrocosm.31

Seitz, “Two Spirits in Man: An Essay in Biblical Exegesis,” NTS 6 (1959–60): 82–95. Ringgren, The Faith of Qumran: Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963), 68–76. 31  H. F. A. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (4 vols.; Stuttgart: Teubner, 1905–1924), 1.85–87. 29 O. J. F. 30 H.

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Philo reflects Stoic views when he regards the νοῦς of the first human as that which was created in the image of the divine νοῦς (De opif. mundi 69; LCL trans.): It [νοῦς] is in a fashion a god to him who carries and enshrines it as an object of reverence; for the human mind evidently occupies a position in men precisely answering to that which the great Ruler occupies in all the world.

The theory of cosmic sympathy, developed as part of a complex philosophical system by the eclectic Stoic philosopher Posidonius, is often considered one of the basic presuppositions of ancient magic and divination in which sympathy (attraction) is understood in the context of the antithetical notion antipathy (rejection). One important aspect of this theory is the widespread acceptance of the analogy between macrocosm and microcosm as the primary mythological framework for ancient magical and divinatory practices as expressed in the ancient aphorism of alchemy: “That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above.”32 The second or third century CE astrologer Antiochus of Athens saw a bond between the microcosm of the human person (understood trichotomously) and the macrocosm of the planets: Saturn = body; moon = spirit; sun = soul. Yet he did not focus on the human person alone who is linked to the world above, for the elements of the material world (earth, water, and fire) are correlated with certain metals (lead, silver, and gold, all of which are considered living organisms), forming a complex microcosmic structure (see table 1). Table 133 Color

Element

Metal

Macrocosm

Microcosm

Black White Yellow

Earth Water Fire

Lead Silver Gold

Saturn Moon Sun

Body Spirit Soul

According to the speculations of Zosimos of Panopolis, the body of first man, whether named Thouth (according to the Egyptians) or Adam (according to the Hebrews), was composed of four elements: earth, water, air, and fire.34 This means that the human person, which Zosimos believes is constituted of soul and body or mind and flesh, is composed of the basic elements of the cosmos.

32 H. Kahane and R. Kahane, “Hellenistic and Medieval Alchemy,” The Encyclopedia of Religion 1.195. 33 Ibid., 1.193. 34 H. M. Jackson, ed., Zosimos of Panopolis on the Letter Omega (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1978), 29.

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Paul’s Apocalyptic Macrocosm-Microcosm Homology The structure of Paul’s religious thought is largely the product of his adaptation of Jewish apocalypticism as the framework for understanding the significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The basic structure of Jewish apocalyptic mythology consisted in a temporal or eschatological dualism in which the present era (‫עולם הזה‬, literally, “this world or age”) is regarded as a period of oppression by the wicked, which will be superseded by a blissful future era (‫עולם‬ ‫הבא‬, literally, “the coming world or age”). The introduction of the future era will be accomplished by the climactic intervention of God (either directly or through a human agent, that is, a messiah), and will be preceded by the destruction of the wicked and the final deliverance of the righteous. The salvation envisaged was both mundane and nationalistic and consisted of such material and temporal “blessings” as health, wealth, length of life, offspring and fertility of both flock and field, and peace, that is, victory over one’s enemies. Jewish eschatology exhibits enormous variety since it is, essentially, a folkloristic vehicle for expressing nationalistic nostalgias and fantasies using imagery drawn both from mythical protological conditions and from idealized Israelite kingship traditions. While it is incorrect to speak of “Jewish eschatology” as if it were a single unified system of thought, it is nevertheless true that the various Jewish eschatologies had a largely futuristic orientation.35 Paul’s recognition that Jesus as messiah was a figure of the past presumably led him to introduce some significant modifications into his eschatological perspectives. The death and resurrection of Christ in the past were regarded by Paul as the eschatological event that separated “this age” (Rom 12:2; 1 Cor 2:6), or “this present evil age” (Gal 1:4) from “the age to come” (Paul uses no consistent term for this future era). Paul does not explicitly use the latter term, but cf. 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15, and though the final consummation was still future, for Christians the new age was present. Paul exhibits a tendency to conceptualize human nature and existence as a microcosmic version of a christianized form of apocalyptic eschatology; that is, the apocalyptic structure of history becomes paradigmatic for understanding human nature. Just as Paul’s christianized form of apocalyptic thought is characterized by a historical or eschatological dualism consisting of the juxtaposition of the old age and the new age, so his view of human nature can similarly reflect a homologous dualistic structure. This is particularly evident in 2 Cor 5:17 (NRSV): So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation [καινὴ κτίσις]: everything old [τὰ ἀρχαῖα] has passed away; see, everything has become new!

35 The eschatology reflected in the Qumran Hodayot is an apparent exception; see H.-W. Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil: Untersuchungen zu den Gemeindeliedern von Qumran (SUNT 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966).

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Here Paul uses the basic apocalyptic expectation of the renewal of creation (i. e., the inauguration of the age to come) following the destruction of the present evil age as a paradigm for the transformation experienced by the individual Christian who has moved from unbelief to belief. Thus, the apocalyptic expectation of an impending cosmic change from the present evil age to the future age of bliss has become paradigmatic for the transformation of the individual believer. Since this apocalyptic transformation affects only those “in Christ,” the external world and its inhabitants remain under the sway of the old age. The phrase “new creation”36 refers to the renewal or recreation of a new heaven and earth following the destruction of the old cosmos.37 Is this simply an instance of the metaphorical use of apocalyptic language, or does it reflect the ontological transformation of a Christian? The passage focuses on the effects for the individual believer. The κατὰ σάρκα / κατὰ πνεῦμα dichotomy, which occurs with some frequency in Paul, makes more sense if it is regarded as microcosmic homology to the flesh / spirit dichotomy reflected in the two ages. While the antithetical character of the flesh and the spirit is evident (Rom 8:4). Life “according to the flesh” is a possible way of living which Paul juxtaposes with life “according to the spirit” (Rom 8:5–6, 12–13); that is, they are contemporaneous possibilities. Yet there is also a temporal relationship between the flesh and the spirit: “you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit” (Rom 8:9). We also find in Pauline thought the “already” / ”not yet” polarity – that is, the juxtaposition of the indicative and the imperative (e. g., Gal 5:25: “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit”). It is at this point that one of the central problems of Pauline ethics becomes evident. If the flesh has been crucified with Christ (Gal 2:20; 3:24; 6:14; Rom 6:2, 6–7, 22; 8:13), why are the desires of the flesh still a problem for Christians (Gal 5:16–18; Rom 6:12–14; 8:5–8)?38 The presence of a macrocosmic paradigm does not necessitate a detailed correspondence between microcosmic conception of human nature and Paul’s conception of the apocalyptic macrocosm. In short, Rudolf Bultmann’s existentialist understanding of Pauline anthropological terms (i. e., the human person as a free agent responsible for his or her own decisions) and Ernst Käsemann’s apocalyptic or cosmological understanding (i. e., the human person as a victim of supernatural 36 There

is some disagreement whether κτίσις should be translated “creature” or “creation.” Since Paul seems to be referring to a “new [order of] creation,” or a “new acts of creation,” the latter translation is preferable. 37 Isa 65:17; 66:22; 1 En. 91:16; 72:1; 2 Bar: 32:6; 44:12; 49:3; 57:2; Ps.-Philo L. A. B. 3:10; 2 Pet 3:11–13; Rev 21:1. 38 J. P. Sanders interprets these and other passages as instances of “participationist language,” which suggests that the significance of the death of Christ for Paul was not only the traditional one of atonement for sin, but more particularly that by sharing Christ’s death, one belongs to God (E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977], 463–68). However, Sanders does not discuss the problem of the tension between “already” and “not yet” in Pauline ethics.

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cosmic forces) are not mutually exclusive categories. In some respects this is a chicken-and-egg problem: that is, did Paul’s mythological view of eschatological dualism give rise to a homologous view of human nature in which the old and the new are juxtaposed until the eschatological consummation, or did his mythological view of the structure of human nature provide confirmation for his Christian understanding of Jewish apocalyptic eschatology? Neither of these possibilities is quite satisfactory, for the answer is probably more dialectical. It is more likely that Paul linked his christianized apocalyptic outlook with current conceptions of the human person, since the former was more unified than the latter.

Theological Reflections In this study I have used the historical-critical method to argue for a number of positions: (1)  Ancient views of human nature, were exceedingly complex and exhibited great variety. (2) The statements of Paul that reflect his views of human nature and the self generally exhibit an anthropological dualism with both ontological and psychological dimensions, though he only addresses the subject in the context of ethical issues (i. e., the problem of obeying the will of God); what he does say is not sufficient for reconstructing a consistent and unified Pauline doctrine of the human person. (3) I further argued that Paul used at least two models of human nature, the irrational behavior model, drawn from popular Hellenistic thought, and the apocalyptic macrocosm-microcosm model, which has analogies in early Judaism. Even if I assume that I have correctly marshaled and interpreted the evidence of ancient texts, and have done so in such a way that the results are argued in a convincing manner, a nagging question remains. What, if anything, do Paul’s views of human nature and the self have to do with a contemporary Christian understanding of the human person? It is clear that there is no single biblical view of human nature, for the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament exhibit such a variety of perspectives on this subject that it is not at all obvious what the constituent features of such a view might be. It is extremely doubtful, for example, whether it is even possible to speak of the concept of the self in the Hebrew Bible, certainly not the introspective self found reflected in parts of Paul’s letters.39 Conceptions of the human person in the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament exhibit great variety because such conceptions, like all modern conceptions of the person are an inextricable part of the social structures of particular societies within which such conceptions are found. Examining particular 39 There is obviously disagreement here with K. Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 78–96.

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conceptions of the human person can reveal a great deal about the religious and social assumptions and values of particular societies. Conceptions of the person (or the lack of such conceptions) in various strata of the biblical text cannot be expected to exhibit the kind of unity that one might find in the thought, for example, of a particular philosopher. The variety of biblical conceptions of the person, therefore, is not a fact to be lamented, but rather a rich variety to be celebrated. Modern conceptions of the self are not “created” but are rather “given” in the sense that they are determined by a variety of social, cultural, and religious factors. Since the transforming presence of God was a factor of utmost importance for Paul, the theological problem he faced was that of determining how the experience of the divine presence could be understood and articulated. The very fact that Paul’s anthropology exhibits variety and inconsistency suggests that his central concern is that of understanding the presence of God in his life, not that of formulating a consistent view of the human experience. Further, since Paul’s experience of the divine was expressed in a variety of metaphors, he does not even provide us with a logically consistent account of his experience of God. The extent to which Paul’s tangential and even contradictory views of human nature are useful for constructing, or even contributing to, a modern theological position on human nature or the self, therefore, remains questionable. According to the Pauline appropriation of the irrational behavior model, the human person consists of two aspects or dimensions that are in conflict with each other. In Rom 7:14–25 he designates the “higher” aspect of the individual using such symbols as the “inner person” and the “mind,” and the “lower” aspect as “the flesh,” “my members,” and “this moral body.” Here it is clear that the real self should be identified with the “higher” aspect. In Gal 5:16–17, on the other hand, the aspects of the person that are in conflict are “the flesh” and “the spirit” The self is identified with neither but is pulled now one way and now another by these aspects. This is in general agreement, as we have seen, with a widespread Hellenistic conception of human nature which conceptualized the human person as a combination of rational and irrational elements, so that proper behavior was the product of knowledge, while improper behavior was the result of incomplete knowledge or ignorance. This conception of the self, however, is comparatively simple or “thin,” for the dramatized internal dialogue or tug-of-war that Paul articulates symbolically represents just two conflicting voices representing his conception of good and evil, virtue and vice. In contrast, most modern notions of the self usually involve a more complex or “thick” description. Such description corresponds to the complexity of modern society, which often makes it necessary for each of us to play many, frequently conflicting roles. It is astonishing, is it not, how an apparently normal husband and father can be transformed into a pathological liar once he steps on the lot where he sells used cars? In the end the question still remains regarding how deeply the Pauline perspective on self can inform modern

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notions. Worlds have changed and homologies are not the same. Dualisms, even richly described ones, may not be the most adequate frameworks with which to engage the complexities of the modern self.

16. Anthropological Duality in the Eschatology of 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10* 1. Introduction Paul’s understanding of the human person and the extent to which his anthropological perspectives were influenced by Jewish or Hellenistic models continues to be debated.1 His eschatological or apocalyptic thought, on the other hand, while not free of problems, is generally accepted as firmly rooted in Judaism. There are a few places in the Pauline letters where anthropological and eschatological issues converge (1 Cor 15:50–57; 1 Thess 4:13–18; Phil 3:20–21). An additional instance is 2 Corinthians 5:17, where Paul has used the apocalyptic two-age model as a pattern for understanding the juxtaposition of the old and the new in the “eschatological existence”2 of the Christian person: “If a person is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old has come to an end, behold the new has come into being.”3 In another such passage, one which is extremely problematic and which is also the focus of this paper, 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10, Paul uses a medley of anthropological and eschatological motifs from Hellenism,4 early Judaism and early Christianity to propose an eschatological resolution to the tension between the internal and external aspects of daily Christian experience.5 In an * Original Publication: “Anthropological Duality in the Eschatology of 2 Corinthians 4:16– 5:10,” Paul Beyond the Judaism / Hellenism Divide, ed. T. Engberg-Pedersen (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 215–39, 309–16. Reprinted by permission. 1  Among the more recent studies, see J. Frey, “Die paulinische Antithese von ‘Fleisch’ und ‘Geist’ und die palästinisch-jüdische Weisheitstradition,” ZNW 90 (1999), 45–77, and H. D. Betz, “The Concept of the ‘Inner Human Being’ (ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος) in the Anthropology of Paul,” NTS 46 (2000), 315–41. 2 R. Bultmann, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther (KEK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976), 128; V. P. Furnish, II Corinthians (AB 32A; New York: Doubleday, 1984), 332. 3 D. E. Aune, “Zwei Modelle der menschlichen Natur bei Paulus,” TQ 176 (1996), 28–39, esp. 36–38. This article exists in an expanded form: “Two Pauline Models of the Person,” in The Whole and the Divided Self, ed. D. E. Aune and J. McCarthy (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 89–114. 4 In the judgment of N. Walter, this passage goes the further in the direction of “Hellenistic eschatology” than any other Pauline text (“Hellenistische Eschatologie bei Paulus? Zur 2 Kor 5,1–10,” TQ 176 [1996], 56). 5 This is the theme of J. A. du Rand, “Paulus se vernuftige vervlegting van antropologie en eskatologie in 2 Korintiërs 4:7–5:10,” Skrif en Kerk 20 (1999), 340–53, who argues that Paul’s anthropology and eschatology are mutually illuminating.

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immediately preceding section of text (4:7–11), Paul has contrasted the “treasure” (= the “life of Jesus”) that Christians carry about within fragile earthen vessels (= their physical bodies). Paradoxically, suffering and persecution is the daily means whereby the presence of Jesus is revealed alive and at work within them. Second Corinthians 4:16–5:10 uses a number of antitheses to contrast the present condition of Christians with the future realization of eschatological salvation, most of which appear to be of Hellenistic origin: (1) ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος vs. ὁ ἔσω (ἄνθρωπος), “the outer person” vs. “the inner (person)” (4:16), (2) τὰ βλεπόμενα vs. τὰ μὴ βλεπόμενα, “the visible” vs. “the invisible” (4:18a), (3) πρόσκαιρος vs. αἰώνιος, “temporal vs. eternal” (4:18b), (4) ἡ ἐπίγειος οἰκία vs. οἰκία αἰώνιος ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, “an earthly house” vs. “an eternal house in heaven” (5:1), (5) γυμνοί and ἐκδύσασθαι vs. ἐνδυσάμενοι and ἐπενδύσασθαι “naked” and “unclothed” (i. e., “disembodied”) vs. “clothed” and “put on an additional garment” (5:3–4). On the other hand, the brief reference to Christians appearing before “the judgment seat of Christ” to be rewarded or punished in accordance with their works (2 Cor 5:10), just as clearly originated in a Christian adaptation of a common eschatological theme from Jewish apocalypticism. Some features of this passage, however, rest comfortably neither with typical Hellenistic nor early Jewish conceptions, such as Paul’s emphasis on the individual believer’s postmortem dwelling in a heavenly residence (2 Cor 5:1). The diverse cultural backgrounds of the anthropological and eschatological motifs that are concentrated in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 make this a promising passage for testing the limitations of investing too heavily in understanding Pauline thought as largely explicable in terms of a conscious or unconscious debt to either early Jewish or Hellenistic influences. Hellenism and early Judaism are hardly mutually exclusive contexts for understanding Paul’s letters, nor should the creative genius of Paul as a religious thinker be underestimated. In this essay, therefore, I propose a reading of 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 that attempts to understand the intersection of the anthropological and eschatological ideas found in this passage against whatever linguistic or conceptual background seems appropriate. Exploring the meaning and significance of these ideas in this passage will have priority, though it will also be appropriate to clarify some of the ways in which this text coheres with select themes in other eschatological scenarios in the Pauline corpus.

2. Apocalyptic and Hellenistic Eschatologies In early Judaism and early Christianity, “apocalyptic eschatology” refers to the belief systems reflected in, but not limited to, early Jewish apocalypses (e. g., 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, Apocalypse of Abraham) and the earliest

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Christian apocalypse (Apocalypse of John).6 “Apocalyptic eschatology” refers to a belief in the imminent end of an evil and oppressive world system that will occur through the decisive intervention of God, often thought to involve a decisive conflict between the people of God (with God or the Messiah as their champion) and the ungodly. The transition to God’s rule in the world will be preceded by the judgment of the wicked and the reward of the righteous, following the resurrection of the righteous or of both the righteous and wicked. The ultimate defeat and judgment of evil (Satan, his demonic allies, and those humans they have led astray) will usher in a new age of righteousness in a renewed world. In apocalyptic eschatology, the primary dualism is temporal, involving a distinction between “this age” and “the age to come,” though a spatial dualism of heaven and earth forms a traditional part of the basic apocalyptic perception of reality. “Hellenistic eschatology,” which exhibits great variety, refers to the spectrum of beliefs in the Hellenistic world involving death and the afterlife on the one hand, and cosmic destruction and renewal on the other, garnered from a variety of Greek sources beginning with Homer and Hesiod (which continued to be read through late antiquity),7 and including Greek underworld mythology reflected in literary sources and epitaphs (including accounts of descents to the underworld and ascents to the realm of the planet and stars),8 as well as the philosophical speculation of Plato (particularly in the Timaeus)9 and Hellenistic philosophical traditions.10 Hellenistic eschatology includes beliefs about the fate of the individual both in this world and the next, including death (as the separation of the soul from the body), and varied conceptions of the afterlife, optionally including some form of postmortem judgment, the possibility in some traditions of metempsychosis, and the eternal state of existence of the inner person, normally designated as the ψυχή (“soul”) or νοῦς (“mind”).11 The primary form of dualism in Hellenistic  6 See the appropriate sections of J. J. Collins, ed., The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity, vol. 1 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism (3 vols.; New York: Continuum, 1998).  7 C. Sourvinou-Inwood, “Reading” Greek Death to the End of the Classical Period (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995).  8 M. Herfort-Koch, Tod, Totenfürsorge und Jenseitsvorstellungen in der griechischen Antike: eine Bibliographie (Quellen und Forschungen zur antiken Welt 9; München: Tuduv, 1992); G. Binder and B. Effe, eds., Tod und Jenseits im Altertum (Trier: Wissenschaftler, 1991); I. P. Culianu, Psychanodia: A Survey of the Evidence concerning the Ascension of the Soul and Its Relevance (EPRO 99; Leiden: Brill, 1983).  9  P. M. Steiner, Psyche bei Platon (Neue Studien zur Philosophie 3; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992). 10 W. Deuse, Untersuchungen zur mittelplatonischen und neuplatonischen Seelenlehre (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1983). 11 D. Sigel, “Eschatologie,” Der neue Pauly: Enzyklopädie der Antike (Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 1996), 4.123–28; H. Cancik, “The End of the World, of History, and of the Individual in Greek and Roman Antiquity,” The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity, vol. 1 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, ed. J. J. Collins (3 vols.; New York: Continuum, 1998), 1.84–125. Cancik defines eschatology as “a collective term for the ideas that Greeks and Romans

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eschatology is the distinction between mortality (characteristic of humans) and immortality (characteristic of the gods), though through time a happy afterlife became an increasingly common possibility for the ordinary dead.12 In these ideal formulations, it is obvious that few features are shared by both apocalyptic eschatology and Hellenistic eschatology, giving the mistaken impression that there was some sort of invisible cultural boundary separating one system from the other. In reality, apocalyptic eschatology is a relatively narrow construct with a heyday of about three centuries in some but by no means all segments of early Judaism (250 BCE to 150 CE). In early Christianity, apocalyptic eschatology is reflected in the Pauline letters, the Synoptic Gospels, and the Apocalypse of John, but had all but disappeared or been transformed by the end of the first century CE, so that it is hardly a significant factor at all in those early second-century Christian writings collectively designated as the Apostolic Fathers. The matrix for the specific content of apocalyptic eschatology was traditional Israelite-Jewish concerns about the death and the afterlife of the individual found reflected in the Old Testament (which exerted a perennial influence on Jewish beliefs) and the considerable body of the non-eschatologically focused literature of early Judaism, which provides occasional glimpses of funerary customs and beliefs.13 Quite apart from the issue of Hellenistic influence, the death and afterlife of the individual were enduring concerns of early Judaism and its offshoot, early Christianity. One of the main reasons for the dissimilarity between apocalyptic and Hellenistic eschatology is that in apocalyptic eschatology (in both its early Jewish and early Christian forms), the individual is embedded in the community, and the focal eschatological events (e. g., the great tribulation, the parousia, the resurrection, the last judgment) involve not so much the particular experience of isolated individuals as the community to which those individuals belong (whether Israel, the remnant, the righteous, the “sons of light,” or the followers of Jesus). Communal embeddedness is largely absent from Hellenistic eschatologies, however, and the focal eschatological events are those that involve the death and postmortem experiences of the individual person. Hellenistic eschatology was never culturally walled-off from either early Judaism or early Christianity, and the eschatologies of both were inexorably subject to subtly modulated syncretistic pressures that led to the increasing assimilation of Hellenistic eschatological conceptions.14 developed concerning the death and life to come of individuals, the world, people and states” (87). Since these four topics are not in fact as closely related as they are in early Judaism and early Christianity, I have focused on the first topic in the definition formulated above. 12 Sourvinou-Inwood, “Reading” Greek Death, 205–207. 13 See the still valuable synthesis of Israelite beliefs in the soul in J. Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture (4 vols.; London: Cumberlege; Copenhagen: Branner og Korch, 1926), 1.99–181. 14 Early Jewish conceptions of the soul / body dichotomy and of immortality are surveyed by H. Cavallin, Life after Death: Paul’s Argument for the Resurrection of the Dead in 1 Cor. 15 (ConBNT 7; Lund: Gleerup, 1974).

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The apocalypse genre inherited from early Judaism essentially disappeared by the early second century in early Christianity after the Revelation of John and the Shepherd of Hermas, and was superseded by a different form of apocalypse that centered on narrations of tours of Hades (such as the Apocalypse of Peter), which closely resembled pagan Greek narratives of descents to the underworld, in which visionary accounts of the postmortem sufferings of the wicked served to reinforce the importance of ethical living in this world.15

3. Approaches to 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 Second Corinthians 4:16–5:10 is one of the more problematic texts in the Pauline corpus and consequently has engendered an extensive discussion among New Testament scholars,16 often motivated by the problem of reconciling Paul’s eschatological perspective here with apparently different perspectives elsewhere in his letters (particularly 1 Cor 15:50–57; 1 Thess 4:13–18; Phil 3:20–21).17 The differences between 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 and these other Pauline texts have been explained in a number of ways: (1) For some, the differences are primarily due to a change in perspective, either a change in Paul’s own outlook (e. g., the development of his eschatological thought, between the composition of 1 and 2 Corinthians),18 or to the changed situation of the Corinthian congregation (e. g., the appearance in Corinth, between the composition of 1 Corinthians and the letter fragments comprising 2 Corinthians, of anti-Pauline Christian missionaries).19 (2) Another interpretive strategy has been to regard the passage as a dialogical section in which Paul engages his opponents in Corinth (whether 15 M. Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983); H. D. Betz, “The Problem of Apocalyptic Genre in Greek and Hellenistic Literature: The Case of the Oracle of Trophonius,” Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East, ed. D. Hellholm (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), 577–97. 16  F. G. Lang, 2. Korinther 5,1–10 in der neueren Forschung (Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese 16; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1973). 17 J. Gillman, “A Thematic Comparison: 1 Cor 15:50–57 and 2 Cor 5:1–10,” JBL 107 (1988), 439–54; A. C. Perriman, “Paul and the Parousia: 1 Corinthians 15:50–57 and 2 Corinthians 5:1–5,” NTS 35 (1989), 512–21. 18 C. H. Dodd, “The Mind of Paul: Change and Development,” BJRL 18 (1934), 69–110; W. Wiefel, “Die Hauptrichtung des Wandels im eschatologischen Denken des Paulus,” TZ 30 (1974), 65–81; U. Schnelle, Wandlungen im paulinischen Denken (SBS 137; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1989). 19 A. Lindemann, “Paulus und die korinthische Eschatologie: Zur These von einer ‚Entwicklung‘ im paulinischen Denken,” NTS 37 (1991), 204–20. While Lindemann claims that the basic apocalyptic-eschatological perspective of 2 Cor 4:7–6:2 is essentially the same as 1 Cor 15 (apart from the mention of the parousia and a definite future occurrence of the resurrection of the dead, motifs that would have no real function in 2 Cor 4:7–6:2), he provides no convincing exegesis of the many cruces in 2 Cor 4:16–5:10.

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identified as Gnostics, adherents to a form of Platonism, or Jewish Christians enamored with apocalyptic) in a conversation in which he has incorporated some of their language into the discussion (such as the Platonic antithesis ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος – ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος in 2 Cor 4:16), though introducing modifications, and using such language in his own distinctive way.20 (3) Yet another interpretive strategy, though one which has found little acceptance, has been to construe the apparently eschatological language of 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 as referring exclusively to the present experience of Paul and other Christians.21 Specific features of 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 have also been subject to a number of conflicting interpretations. For some, Paul no longer expects the parousia to occur imminently, but regards the death of the individual believer as the norm.22 For others, death results in an intermediate state of “nakedness,” which will be resolved when the dead in Christ are clothed with the resurrection body at the parousia.23 Yet others hold that those who through death are separated from their earthly body immediately receive a heavenly or resurrection body.24 Further, both positive and negative reactions to the number of ostensibly Hellenistic conceptions that are clustered together in this brief passage and its immediate context has also sparked discussion. Although terms like “parousia,” “resurrection,” and “spiritual (resurrection) body” do not actually appear in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10, it is nevertheless not uncommon for interpreters to import these conceptions from other eschatological passages in the Pauline letters, often with the understandable concern of trying to discern the consistency in Paul’s eschatological thought. In fact, however, the only motif drawn from Christian apocalyptic eschatology in this passage is the reference to the final judgment in v. 10 mentioned above: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.” 20 Gnostic opponents are proposed by the following: Bultmann, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther, 132; W. Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth: An Investigation of the Letters to the Corinthians, trans. J. E. Steely (Nashville and New York: Abingdon, 1971), 259–75; R. Jewett, Paul’s Anthropological Terms: A Study of Their Use in Conflict Settings (AGJU 10; Leiden: Brill, 1971), 274–77; J. Murphy-O’Connor, ‘”Being at Home in the Body we are in Exile from the Lord’ (2 Cor. 5:6b),” RB 93 (1986), 214–21. A religious form of Platonism is proposed by T. K. Heckel, Der Innere Mensch: Die paulinische Verarbeitung eines platonischen Motivs (WUNT II 53; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), 98–101. 21 N. Baumert, Täglich Sterben und Auferstehen: Der Literalsinn von 2 Kor 4,12–5,10 (SANT 34; München: Kösel, 1973). 22 C. H. Dodd, “The Mind of Paul: Change and Development,” BJRL 18 (1934), 69–110. 23  C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 151. 24 F. F. Bruce, “Paul on Immortality,” SJT 24 (1971), 457–72; M. J. Harris, “2 Corinthians 5:1–10: Watershed in Paul’s Eschatology,” Tyndale Bulletin 22 (1971), 32–57; “Paul’s View of Death in 2 Corinthians 5:1–10,” New Dimensions in New Testament Study, ed. R. N. Longenecker and M. C. Tenney (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 317–28.

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4. Interpreting Selected Themes in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 Though many discussions focus on 2 Corinthians 5:1–10 as a textual subunit, it is important to ignore the inappropriate chapter division and recognize the coherence of the larger textual unit in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10,25 and the even more comprehensive textual unit in 2 Corinthians 4:1–6:10. The antithetical style, which begins in 4:16 and continues through 5:10, links the core of this subunit together stylistically and rhetorically. Second Corinthians 4:1–6:10 is in turn part of the larger apologetic section consisting of 2 Corinthians 2:14–7:4 (excluding 6:14–7:1).26 Second Corinthians 4:16–5:10 itself consists of three closely related subunits, 4:16–18 (introduced with the inferential conjunction διό, pointing back to 4:7–15), 5:1–5 (introduced with γάρ, which provides a basis for the statement in 4:18, and with the καὶ γάρ of vv. 2 and 4 used to introduce further support for 4:18), and 5:6–10 (introduced by οὖν in v. 6). In what follows, I will try to provide an explanation of the meaning of some of the major problems and issues in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10.

The Outer Person and the Inner Person (4:16) The central interpretive problem in this verse is the meaning of the antithetical phrases ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος and ὁ ἔσω (ἄνθρωπος). This antithesis clearly expresses an anthropological duality (here I avoid the terms dualistic or dualism because they are often understood to connote opposition or conflict),27 widely thought to allude to a philosophical theme that first appears in Plato Republic 588a–589b.28 There Plato proposed a symbolic or mythical image of the tripartite soul (εἰκὼν II Corinthians, 288. the composition history of 2 Corinthians is very complex, there is strong support among critical scholars that it is a compilation consisting of six sources put together in the following chronological order: (1) 2 Cor 2:14–7:4 (excluding 6:14–7:1) constitutes a textual unit which functions as a “first apology” crafted by Paul in defense of his apostleship. (2) 10:1–13:10, the so-called “letter of tears,” which functions as a second apology. (3) The third unit is the “letter of reconciliation” (1:1–2:13; 7:5–16; 13:11–13). (4) and (5) 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 constitute originally separate administrative letters, and (6) 6:14–7:1 is a later interpolation. This analysis of 2 Corinthians was proposed by G. Bornkamm, Die Vorgeschichte des sogenannten zweiten Korintherbriefes (Heidelberg: Winter, 1961), followed by D. Georgi, The Opponents of Paul in Second Corinthians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 9–14. On 2 Corinthians 8–9, see Η. D. Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 3–36. On the more general history of research, see L. Aejmelaeus, Streit und Versöhnung: Das Problem der Zusammensetzung des 2. Korintherbriefes (Helsinki: Kirjapaino Raamattutalo, 1987). 27 A. Sand, EDNT 1.102, regards Paul’s use of the phrases ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος and ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος in 2 Cor 4:16 as dichotomous but not anthropologically dualistic, and H. D. Betz claims that Paul’s anthropology changed and developed “as he formulated a Christian alternative to the predominant religio-philosophical dualistic anthropology of body and soul” (“Paul’s Anthropology,” 316). 28 Heckel, Der Innere Mensch. 25 Furnish, 26 While

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τῆς ψυχῆς, 588b) that took account of the experience of inner conflict. While the external container (τὸ ἔξω ἔλυτρον) of the human person is visible to others, the soul within is tripartite, including a πολυκέφαλον θηρίον or πολυκέφαλον θρέμμα, “a many-headed beast” (= the ἐπιθυμητικόν, the desiring part of the soul), a lion (= the θυμοειδές, the courageous part of the soul) and τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὁ ἐντὸς ἄνθρωπος, “the inner person” (= the λογιστικόν, the reasoning part of the soul). In the just individual, the inner person tames the inner beast and trains the lion to serve with him. The phrase ὁ ἐντὸς ἄνθρωπος occurs nowhere else in Plato’s writings, though he does say elsewhere that ἡ ψυχή ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος, “the soul is the person,” and that the soul should rule the body rather than the reverse (Alc. 1.130c).29 The dichotomy between the inner and outer person was expressed in a variety of ways throughout Greco-Roman antiquity,30 and the phrase ὁ ἐντὸς ἄνθρωπος never became a technical term for the inner person or νοῦς (“mind”) until it was adopted by the church fathers and Neoplatonist philosophers in late antiquity.31 Both members of this “Platonic” antithesis occur in 2 Corinthians 4:16, where ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος is described as “wasting away” (διαφθείρεται), while ὁ ἔσω (ἄνθρωπος) is said to be “renewed” (ἀνακαινοῦται) day by day. The ἔξω ἄνθρωπος is identified in the context as ὀστράκινον σκεῦος, an “earthen vessel” (4:7),32 as σῶμα, “body” (4:10), as θνητὴ σάρξ, “mortal flesh” (4:11), as ἡ ἐπίγειος ἡμῶν οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους, “our earthly dwelling or body” (5:1) as τὸ σκῆνος, “this (ephemeral) body” and as τὸ θνητόν, “the mortal element” (5:4).33 Together, these designations indicate that ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος is a metaphor for the physical body, which is subject to weakness, disease, aging, and death. However, it is not 29 Essentially the same view is attributed to the Stoic Cleanthes by Epiphanius of Salamis (SVF

1.538), though the judgment of Epiphanius in this case is problematic. 30 W. Burkert, “Towards Plato and Paul: The ‘Inner’ Human Being,” Ancient and Modern Perspectives on the Bible and Culture: Essays in Honor of Hans Dieter Betz, ed. A. Yarbro Collins (Atlanta: Scholars, 1998), 59–82. 31 C. Markschiess, “Die platonische Metapher vom ‚inneren Menschen‘,” ZKG 105 (1994), 5–7; idem, “Innerer Mensch,” RAC 18 (1997), 266. 32 The metaphor of the body as the container or vessel of the soul, particularly common among Epicureans, conveyed the notion that the body contains or holds the soul together, so that when the body is destroyed upon death, the soul is dispersed, just as liquid would flow out of a smashed jar (Epicurus, Ep. Herod., 63–66; Lucretius, 3.425–444, 555). The Epicurean metaphor of the body as the container or vessel of the soul is in tension with the Epicurean view that the body and soul are mutually interdependent; see J. E. Annas, Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 147–51. Seneca, a Roman Stoic, refers to the body as a receptaculum (Ep. 92.34). Paul uses the term σκεῦος in this sense in 2 Cor 4:7 and Rom 9:21–23 (1 Thess 4:4 is a disputed usage). 33 Furnish is wrong, I think, when he claims that “In accord with his Jewish heritage, the apostle regards the body, mortal as it is, not as the receptacle of the soul but as a constituent part of the total human being” (II Corinthians, 279). The “constituent part of the total human being” language works only with descriptions of the living person, as in Romans 7, for how can the human being still be a human being when one of the constituent parts is missing?

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described either as inherently evil or as in opposition to ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος, though the outer person and the inner person are clearly in tension, for the latter is “sighing under a burden,”34 i. e., desiring release from the drawbacks of physical existence.35 It must also be made clear that while ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος is not described as the soul or mind in typical Greek conceptual categories, it is certainly described as that part of the Christian person which survives physical death and lives on in a superior and transformed state of existence in heaven. When Paul uses the phrase ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος again a few years later in Romans 7:22, he equates it with the νοῦς in vv. 23 and 25, an equation frequently made by Philo. Even though “the inner person” in Romans 7:22 refers to what the individual ought to be in contrast to what he or she actually is,36 Paul’s use of ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος in both passages is basically similar. Perhaps I can conclude that while Paul may not have regarded the body as a tomb (the famous Orphic motto appropriated by Plato), it appears that, on the whole, he would rather be elsewhere (to paraphrase Paul in 5:8 as well as W. C. Fields). What is Paul’s source for this “outer person” / ”inner person” dichotomy? While the concept of the “inner person” occurs for the first time in Plato Republic 9.588a–589b (where the antithetical expression “the outer person” is missing), discussed briefly above, it is not at all obvious how this concept was transmitted to Paul.37 He probably had not read Plato’s Republic, and even if he did, he did not follow Plato in construing the “inner person” as the dominating rational faculty in a tripartite division of the soul. The difference in meaning and function between ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος in Paul and τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὁ ἐντὸς ἄνθρωπος in Plato suggests that at best he was only indirectly dependent on Plato, perhaps through popular forms of Platonism. Philo, an earlier contemporary of Paul, had read Plato and was certainly familiar with the relevant passage in the Republic (9.588a–589b).38 He refers to the “inner person” using a variety of synonymous phrases, including τὸν ἐν ἡμῖν πρὸς ἀλήθειαν ἄνθρωπον, τουτέστι τὸν νοῦν, “the real person within us, that is, the mind” (Plant. 42), ὁ ἀληθινὸς ἄνθρωπος, “the true person” (Det. 10) and ἄνθρωπος ἐν ἀνθρώπῳ, “the person within the person,” again a metaphor for the νοῦς, which is further characterized as “the better part within the worse, the immortal within the mortal” (Congr. 97). The slim evidence for the use of the concept between Plato and Philo makes the hypothesis of Paul’s dependence on popular forms of Platonism which mediated the ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος conception precarious though not impossible. Earlier, Jewett had proposed that in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10, Paul had co-opted the language of his Gnostic opponents apt translation of Furnish, II Corinthians, 269. as a gain for those whose life is burdensome is a commonplace in Greek and Latin literature; see D. W. Palmer, “ ‘To Die is Gain’ (Philippians i 21),” NovT 17 (1975), 203–18. 36 N. Walter, EDNT 1.65. 37 This is one of the concerns of Betz, “Anthropology of Paul,” 315–41. 38 Heckel, Der Innere Mensch, 42–76; Markschiess, “Innerer Mensch,” 276–78. 34 The

35 Death

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in Corinth,39 while more recently Heckel has argued that Paul had taken up the language of his opponents, the religious Platonists in Corinth, in order to provide a radical reinterpretation of that language.40 In view of the fact that the notion of “the inner person” is not expressed in stereotypical language until late antiquity, Markschiess is probably correct in proposing that Paul himself coined the specific antithesis ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος and ὁ ἔσω (ἄνθρωπος) to express a conception of Platonic origin that had been current for a very long time.41 In summary, ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος is a metaphor for the transient physical body, which is in tension though not conflict with ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος, and could appropriately be described as the vessel or container of ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος. Indeed, another metaphor for ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος in this context is οἰκία, a house whose occupant must leave when it is destroyed (2 Cor 5:1). While in 2 Corinthians 4:16, Paul does not describe ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος as the soul or mind in typical Greek conceptual categories (though in 1 Thess 5:23, Paul is not averse to using the phrase “spirit and soul and body” to refer to the human person), when he uses the same phrase in Romans 7:22, he equates it with his νοῦς in Romans 7:23, 25. ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος is (as we will learn from 2 Cor 5:1), the enduring inner reality that survives physical death to enjoy a more preferred state of existence in heaven.

From an Earthly House to a Heavenly House (5:1) Second Corinthians 5:1 consists of a conditional sentence introduced by a phrase that seems to indicate that what follows is common knowledge: “For we know that if our earthly house, or body, is destroyed, we have a habitation from God, a house not man-made, eternal in the heavens.” In v. 1a, the verb οἴδαμεν introduces an objective ὅτι-clause, which consists of the protasis and apodosis of a conditional sentence which makes up the remainder of v. 1. While Paul’s use of the first-person plural is complex,42 it is likely that οἴδαμεν here is not simply an epistolary formula (the editorial “we” which really means “I”). Since Paul frequently used the phrase οἴδαμεν ὅτι to emphasize knowledge that he shared with his audience,43 it is likely that it is used that way here.44 If he is appealing to Anthropological Terms, 396–99, 460. Der Innere Mensch, 102–47. 41 Markschiess, “Die platonische Metapher,” 4; idem, “Innerer Mensch,” 279–80. 42 S. Byrskog, “Co-Senders, Co-Authors and Paul’s Use of the First Person Plural,” ZNW 87 (1996), 230–50. 43 Rom 2:2; 3:19; 7:14; 8:22, 28; 1 Cor 8:4; cf. 1 Tim 1:8. The functionally parallel plural participle εἰδότες + ὅτι in 5:6 similarly conveys shared knowledge and also occurs several times in the Pauline letters (Rom 5:3; 6:9; 13:11; 1 Cor 15:58; 2 Cor 1:7; 4:14; 5:11; Gal 2:16; Phil 1:16; cf. Eph 6:8, 9; Col 3:24; 4:1; cf. Polycarp, Phil. 1:3; 4:1; 5:1; 6:1). 44 J.-F. Collange, Énigmes de la Deuxième Épître de Paul aux Corinthiens: Étude exégétique de 2 Cor. 2:14–7:4 (SNTSMS 18; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 181–85, pushes this to the extent that he supposes that a specific shared tradition is involved, namely the logion of Jesus preserved in Mark 14:58. Collange is followed by A. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not 39 Jewett,

40 Heckel,

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common knowledge, he is unlikely to be in dialogue with Corinthian opponents, unless agreement with his audience is a way of opposing the contrary position of a third party. The phrase “if our earthly house, or body, is destroyed,” is the protasis of a conditional sentence consisting of ἐάν + aorist subjunctive, ἐάν + subjunctive in any tense is an ambiguous construction in Hellenistic Greek, which often conveys the semantic meaning that it is uncertain of fulfillment but still likely. But it can also indicate, depending on the context, certainty of fulfillment, probability of fulfillment, improbability of fulfillment or no indication of fulfillment. I have translated ἐάν as “when” (implying increased probability) rather than “if ” (suggesting reduced probability) because in this context the semantic meaning of ἐάν refers to a point of time (defined by the aorist subjunctive καταλυθῇ in the protasis) which is somewhat conditional and simultaneous with another point of time (defined by the verb ἔχομεν in the apodosis).45 The pattern involved is: when A occurs, then (immediately) Β occurs. The aorist passive verb καταλυθῆναι means “to be destroyed” (frequently used of the literal demolition of buildings)46 and is therefore appropriately used with οἰκία for the destruction of a house as a metaphor referring to death as the destruction of the physical body (σκῆνος).47 οἰκία is, after all, the grammatical subject of καταλυθῇ. The formulation of the protasis leaves no room for the possible occurrence of the parousia, which might interrupt the fate of physical death which awaits everyone.48 Paul refers to death in two other ways in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10. In v. 8a, he expresses the desire that “we would rather be away from the body (ἐκδημῆσαι ἐκ τοῦ σώματος) and at home with the Lord.” Here ἐκδημέω means literally “to leave home,” and is used with ἐκ τοῦ σώματος as an idiom for death. In the phrase εἴτε ἐνδημοῦντες, εἴτε ἐκδημοῦντες in v. 9, the second phrase should be construed as εἴτε ἐκδημοῦντες (ἐκ τοῦ σώματος), (“or away from the body”), parallel to the phrase ἐκδημῆσαι ἐκ τοῦ σώματος in v. 8,49 a third way of alluding to physical death. In the pleonastic phrase ἡ οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους, the genitive τοῦ σκήνους is appositional or epexegetical and the whole phrase can therefore be translated

Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension in Paul’s Thought with Special Reference to His Eschatology (SNTSMS 43; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 62. 45 J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (2 vols.; New York: United Bible Society, 1988), 1.§ 67.32. 46 Mark 13:1 and par.; Mark 14:58. 47 The verb καταλύω can be used with σκῆνος (see Polybius 6.40.2). 48 H. Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief (KEK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924), 159, argues that the parousia (which Paul refers to elsewhere as a possibility eliminating physical death in 1 Thess 4:15; 1 Cor 15:51–53; Phil 3:21) is excluded by this formulation. 49 H. Lietzmann and W. G. Kümmel, An die Korinther I / II (HNT 9; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1969), 121.

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“the house, i. e., the body.”50 The genitive of apposition is Paul’s way of explicitly interpreting the metaphor ἡ οἰκία (“house”) as really referring to the σκῆνος (“body”). Paul chooses not to use the term σῶμα here, though it occurs four times in the immediate context (4:10; 5:6, 8, 10), perhaps because σκῆνος is a more vivid Hellenistic term for the ephemeral human body (see below), a denotation not found in σῶμα. In 1 Corinthians 15:35–44, Paul uses the antithetical phrases σῶμα ἐπουράνιον / σῶμα ἐπίγειον (1 Cor 15:40) and σῶμα ψυχικόν / σῶμα πνευματικόν (1 Cor 15:44) and in Phil 3:21 he anticipates that the τὸ σῶμα τῆς ταπεινώσεως of the Christian will be transformed on analogy with τὸ σῶμα τῆς δόξης, i. e., the resurrected body of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 4:7–5:10, however, he has reserved the term σῶμα for earthly, mortal existence, and relies on various other building and clothing metaphors to depict the future state of believers. Why did Paul change his way of speaking about future resurrection existence or heavenly existence? Walter has suggested that Paul was not theologically satisfied with his earlier use of σῶμα in 1 Corinthians 15,51 while Jewett argues that the use of σῶμα in 2 Corinthians 5:6–8 is thoroughly Gnostic, and is actually a quotation by Paul of a Gnostic argument in order to integrate their views into his own eschatology.52 Neither of these suggestions is completely convincing. More likely Paul does not refer to the postmortem heavenly state of existence with the term σῶμα, because he reserves that term for the resurrection body and in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 he is not dealing with that subject. While σκῆνος (used again in v. 4) has the basic semantic meanings “tent” and “[ephemeral] body” (the latter is a figurative extension in meaning of the former), here and in v. 4 the meaning is clearly “[ephemeral] body”53 (often used in Greek literature in contrast to the soul) with the denotation of the temporary nature of physical existence.54 A close parallel is found in 2 Peter 1:13–14, where “Peter” says: I consider it right, as long as I am in this body [ἐν τούτῳ σκηνώματι], to arouse you by remembrance, knowing that the abandonment of my body [ἡ ἀπόθεσις τοῦ σκηνώματός μου; i. e., my death] will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.

Here σκήνωμα, a formation that is a cognate of σκῆνος, clearly means “[ephemeral] body” rather than “tent” and the negative connotation of ἀπόθεσις contributes a negative denotation to σκήνωμα. 50 BDR

§ 168.1. “Hellenistische Eschatologie,” 59. 52 Jewett, Anthropological Terms, 274–77. A related proposal is made by Murphy-O’Connor, “Being at Home in the Body,” 214–21, who regards only v. 6b as Paul’s quotation of a Corinthian slogan of the pneumatikoi in Corinth because it contradicts Paul’s own views. 53 W. Michaelis, TDNT 7.382, J.-A. Bühner, EDNT 3.252; Lang, 2. Korinther 5,1–10, 178. Many commentators and lexicons still try to translate σκῆνος as “tent” or “dwelling” in all contexts; cf. Bauer-Aland, 1509. 54 Lowe and Nida, 1. § 8.5. 51 Walter,

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The figurative meaning of σκῆνος for the human body, emphasizing both its temporary and insubstantial nature, was widespread throughout the Hellenistic world.55 One of the earliest uses of σκῆνος with the meaning “body” is found in Democritus (frag. Β 187), a passage in which σῶμα and σκῆνος are used as synonyms:56 ἀνθρώποις ἁρμόδιον ψυχῆς μᾶλλον ἢ σώματος λόγον ποιεῖσθαι· ψυχῆς μὲν γὰρ τελεότης σκήνεος μοχθηρίην ὀρθοῖ, σκήνεος δὲ ἰσχὺς ἄνευ λογισμοῦ ψυχῆν οὐδέν τι ἀμείνω τίθησιν. It is right that people should value the soul rather than the body; for perfection of soul corrects the inferiority of the body, but strength of body without intelligence does nothing to improve the mind.

Though this meaning of σκῆνος has no counterpart in Hebrew or Aramaic words for “tent,” it was occasionally adopted by Jews57 and early Christians58 who wrote in Greek. Wisdom 9:15 is a frequently cited parallel to 2 Corinthians 5:1: Φθαρτὸν γὰρ σῶμα βαρύνει ψυχήν, και βρίθει τὸ γεῶδες σκῆνος νοῦν πολυφρόντιδα. For a perishable body weighs down the soul, and this earthly body burdens the thoughtful mind.

The italicized words in this quotation indicate relatively close verbal parallels with 2 Corinthians 5:1–10: (1) βαρέω (v. 4), (2) γεῶδες, a synonym of ἐπίγειος (v. 1), and (3) σκῆνος (vv. 1, 4), which suggests Paul’s familiarity with this Hellenistic Jewish mediation of Platonic tradition, if not with this passage itself.59 σκῆνος is also used with the meaning “body” in Par. Jer. (or 4 Baruch) 6:6, a Greco-Jewish writing composed early in the second c. CE: 55 Plato, Phaed. 81c; Ps.-Plato, Ax. 366a; Corpus Hermeticum 13.12, 15; frag. IIa.1 (A. D. Nock and A. J. Festugière, Corpus Hermeticum [4 vols.; Paris: Société d’Édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1954–60], 3.5); frag. V.4 (Nock and Festugière 3.31); frag. XXIII.34, σκηνώματα (Nock and Festugière 4.34); PGM I.319; IV.448, 1951, 1970, 2141; XIXa.49 (here in the line “every member of this corpse and the spirit of this body” [πᾶν μέλος τοῦ νεκροῦ τούτου καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τούτου τοῦ σκηνώματος], the terms “corpse” and “tent” are synonymous; cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.16; Vita Const. 4.60). 56 H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (2 vols.; Zürich and Hildesheim: Weidmann, 1951–52), 2.183. 57 Philo, QG 1.28 (“the human tent [loanword: σκηνή] is made of bones, flesh, arteries, veins, nerves, ligaments and the vessels of breathing and of the blood,” [trans. Marcus 1953: 17] reads much like a medical text); Wis 9:15; 4 Bar. 6:6 [2x], 7. 58 2 Cor 5:2, 4; Diogn. 6:8; Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos 15.3; Clement Alex., Strom. 4.25, 26; 5.14; Methodius, Res. 1.53; G. Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1878), 422.1; see PGL 1237a (s. v. σκηνή), 1237b (s. v. σκῆνος). 59 A. Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians (ICC; Edinburgh: Clark, 1915), 142. Wis 9:15 in turn appears to be literarily dependent on Plato, Phaed. 88c, where three similar words, rare in the Septuagint, appear in the same context: βρίθει, γεῶδες, and βαρύνει, an example of Platonic influence on Paul through the medium of Hellenistic Judaism.

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ἑτοίμασον σεαυτὴν, ἡ καρδία μου, εὐφραίνου, καὶ ἀγάλλου ἐν τῷ σκηνώματί σου λέγων τῷ σαρκικῷ οἴκῳ σου τὸ πένθος σου μετεστράφη εἰς χαράν· ἔρχεται γὰρ ὁ ἱκανός, καὶ ἀρεῖ σε ἐν τῷ σκηνώματί σου, οὐ γὰρ γέγονέ σοι ἁμαρτία. Prepare yourself, my heart, and rejoice and be glad while you are in your body, saying to your fleshly house, “Your grief has been changed to joy,” for the Sufficient One is coming and will deliver you in your body – for there is no sin in you.

One of the fragments appended to Aphorisms 7, the most popular section of the Hippocratic corpus, describes the moment of death in these words: “And the soul, leaving the tent, i. e., the body (τὸ τοῦ σώματος σκῆνος), gives up the cold and mortal image to bile, blood, phlegm, and flesh.”60 Here σκῆνος is used with the literal meaning “tent,” while τοῦ σώματος is a genitive of apposition, explaining the metaphorical meaning of σκῆνος. These uses of σκῆνος confirm the fact that the word has two basic meanings, “tent” and “[ephemeral] body,” and that the latter meaning is most appropriate in 2 Corinthians 5:1a. Turning now to 2 Corinthians 5:1b, there are several exegetical problems in the apodosis: (1) Does the verb ἔχομεν refer to the present or future? (2) Does the οἰκοδομὴν ἐκ θεοῦ refer to the individual resurrection body of the believer (either reserved in heaven or attainable at the Parousia), to a corporate entity such as the Church, to the resurrected body of Christ,61 or to some other heavenly reality? (3) Is this eternal heavenly dwelling temporary (i. e., an “intermediate state”) or permanent? The subject of the first-person plural verb ἔχομεν is that inner aspect or part of the person that will not be destroyed by death, explicitly contrasted with the dwelling place, garment, or body where the inner person resides, whether earthly or heavenly, but never completely identified with either. An implicit anthropological duality is reflected here.62 ἔχομεν functions as the main verb in the apodosis of a conditional sentence and as such defines the action that will occur when the protasis is fulfilled. There is some grammatical ambiguity, since ἔχομεν (translated “we have” or “we already have”), can be construed as a present conveying certainty (i. e., the action of ἔχομεν occurs immediately upon the fulfillment of the protasis, i. e., death),63 or as a futuristic present (intrinsically unlikely), the equivalent of ἕξομεν (i. e., the fulfillment of the action of ἔχομεν occurs after an indeterminate interval of time).64 If the fulfillment is immediate, the one who 60 ἀπολείπουσα δὲ ἡ ψυχὴ τὸ τοῦ σώματος σκῆνος τὸ ψυχρὸν καὶ τὸ θνητὸν εἴδωλον ἅμα καὶ αἵματι καὶ φλέγματι καὶ σαρκὶ παρέδωκεν. 61 This is the view of Collange, Énigmes, 190–91. 62 The term “duality” is used in place of “dualism” because of the unsatisfactory denotations of that term in the present context. According to Baumert (Täglich Sterben und Auferstehen, 144), “fehlt im Text jede Spur einer Entgegensetzung von Körper und Seele.” Baumert is correct, since there is no opposition between the inner and outer aspects of the person nor is the term ψυχή found in this passage. 63 Barrett, A Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 151. 64 Lietzmann and Kümmel, An die Korinther, 118.

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dies comes into possession of the οἰκοδομὴ ἐκ θεοῦ (a heavenly alternative to the earthly outer person) instantaneously, whereas if the fulfillment occurs only after an undetermined interval of time, e. g., until the parousia, then the possession of the οἰκοδομὴ ἐκ θεοῦ is delayed. Construing ἔχομεν as a future is a possible but labored attempt to insert an intermediate state between the destruction of the earthly house and the possession of the heavenly habitation. It is a more natural reading of the text to construe ἔχομεν to mean “we [already] have,” indicating that the οἰκοδομὴ ἐκ θεοῦ is an existing heavenly reality that Christians will inhabit when they die. With regard to the phrase οἰκοδομὴ ἐκ θεοῦ (“building of God”), it is striking that although terms like “parousia,” “resurrection,” and “spiritual body” do not actually occur in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10, they are frequently imported into the discussion in the attempt to understand this passage in the context of other eschatological scenarios found in Paul. The phrase that immediately follows, οἰκίαν ἀχειροποίητον αἰώνιον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς (“a house made without hands eternal in heaven”) is used in apposition to οἰκοδομὴ ἐκ θεοῦ, indicating that οἰκοδομή and οἰκία are synonymous. The three dwelling metaphors (οἰκοδομή, οἰκία, and οἰκητήριον) are clearly ways of referring to the same basic heavenly reality.65 The use of three different but etymologically related words may be due either to the fact that Paul has no fixed nomenclature for conceptualizing the heavenly mode of existence he wishes to describe or that he is simply not interested in a systematic presentation. Whatever the reason, he does not choose to use the antithetical phrases σῶμα ψυχικόν and σῶμα πνευματικόν for the heavenly mode of existence here as he did in 1 Corinthians 15:42–44,66 perhaps because here he is focusing on the contrast between the less desirable here, but the more desirable there. As already noted, a number of scholars have proposed that οἰκοδομή, οἰκία, and οἰκητήριον should be understood, not as metaphors for the heavenly mode of existence of individual believers, but rather as corporate entities, i. e., either as metaphors for the church as the body of Christ,67 or for the heavenly temple or city which will be revealed in the eschaton.68 The main obstacle to both views is that if the phrase ἡ ἐπίγειος οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους in v. 1 is the body of the individual Christian, that with which it is replaced upon death whether called οἰκοδομή, οἰκία, or οἰκητήριον (vv. 1–2), must probably refer to the heavenly counterpart

65 M. J. Harris, “Paul’s View of Death in 2 Corinthians 5:1–10,” New Dimensions in New Testament Study, 321. 66 Walter, “Hellenistische Eschatologie,” 59. 67  J. A. T. Robinson, The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology (SBT 5; London: SCM, 1952), 75–83; E. E. Ellis, “II Corinthians v, 1–10 in Pauline Eschatology,” NTS 6 (1960), 218. Robinson (Body, 76) points out that when οἰκοδομή is not used figuratively of “edification” in Paul’s letters, it is used of the Church, the Body of Christ (1 Cor 3:9; Eph 2:21; 4:12, 16). 68 K. Hanhart, “Paul’s Hope in the Face of Death,” JBL 88 (1969), 453–54.

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of the earthly body of the individual.69 On the other hand, it is also possible that Paul is expressing himself asymmetrically, i. e., an individual dwelling here is contrasted with a corporate dwelling there. For whatever reason, most commentators fail to deal with what appears to be a central problem in 2 Corinthians 5:1, namely the postmortem presence in heaven of believers. This expectation is phrased differently in 5:8, where Paul observes that Christians “would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord,” a statement with a close parallel in Philippians 1:23, where Paul expresses the desire “to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.” From the perspective of the Old Testament, it is simply not possible for mortals to go to heaven after death.70 The tradition of the translations of Enoch and Elijah are exceptions that prove the rule, just as only exceptional Greek heroes like Menelaus spent the afterlife in Elysion or the Islands of the Blessed rather than Hades, the postmortem destination of most mortals.71 The conception of the righteous dwelling in heaven can be roughly correlated with the adoption of the so-called “new cosmology,” i. e., the geocentric view of the cosmos that emerged during the Hellenistic period which held that the earth was stationary at the lowest or innermost part of the cosmos and was surrounded by seven planetary spheres (which rotated west to east) enclosed by an eighth sphere consisting of the fixed stars (which rotated east to west); the gods were thought to dwell in the highest sphere. During the late Hellenistic period a number of Jewish apocalyptic writers adopted an analogous geocentric view of the universe in which the earth was surmounted by three or seven heavens, with God enthroned in the highest heaven.72 Despite the obvious similarities, there appears to be no demonstrable genetic relationship between the seven heavens of Judaism (probably of Babylonian origin) and the seven planetary spheres of Hellenism.73 In the world of Roman Hellenism, the new cosmology was generally presupposed by Jews as well as by Greeks and Romans.74 Under the archaic three-tiered cosmology, the dead were thought to reside in Hades under the earth. According to the new cosmology, upon death, the soul (which was considered weightless) 69 J. Osei-Bonsu, “Does 2 Cor. 5.1–10 Teach the Reception of the Resurrection Body at the Moment of Death?” JSNT 28 (1986), 83–85. 70 C. Houtman, Der Himmel im Alten Testament: Israels Weltbild und Weltanschauung (OTS 30; Leiden: Brill, 1993), 3–5. The view that Ps 49:15 refers to the righteous dead escaping Sheol and being taken to heaven (R. H. Charles, Eschatology: The Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, Judaism and Christianity [1913; repr., New York: Schocken, 1963], 75–76), is based on a misinterpretation of that passage. 71 Sourvinou-Inwood, 32–56. 72 A. Yarbro Collins, “The Seven Heavens in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses,” Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 21–54. 73 Culianu, Psychanodia, 56. 74 However, there are striking exceptions in Judaism. None of the five apocalypses that comprise 1 Enoch reflects the new cosmology, which is also absent from the Apocalypse of John.

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was separated from the body (which was thought heavy) and ascended upward. In the myth of Thespius narrated by Plutarch, postmortem punishment and reward both take place in regions above the earth (Sera 564E-566A). According to one view, the mind was produced by the sun, the soul by the moon, and the body by earth; upon death, each returned to the place of their origin (Plutarch, Fac. 943A–B; 945B–C). A preference for a heavenly mode of existence is similarly expressed by the Roman Stoic Seneca (Ep. 102.22):75 When the day comes to separate the heavenly from the earthly blend, I shall leave the body here where I found it and shall of my own volition betake myself to the gods. I am not apart from them now, but am merely detained in a heavy and earthly prison. These delays of mortal existence are a prelude to the larger and better life.

This coheres with the views of some later Stoics, when Stoicism had been combined with the Platonic view that the soul originated in heaven or the stars, and would eventually return there (Seneca Ep. 92.30–34). When Paul says that upon death “we [already] have a building from God, eternal in the heavens” (5:1b), he means that the inner person, upon the destruction of his earthly dwelling or body immediately takes up residence in an analogous heavenly dwelling. Paul’s conception is clearly similar to the late Platonic and late Stoic conceptuality of Plutarch and Seneca, though neither has a counterpart to Paul’s use of the terms οἰκοδομή, οἰκία, or οἰκητήριον for the heavenly dwelling of the inner person.

Though Unclothed, We Shall Not Be Found Naked (5:3) Both γυμνός (“naked”) and ἐκδύσασθαι (“to remove one’s clothes”) are metaphors based on activities involving clothing; both are common Greek metaphors for conceptualizing the relationship between the body and soul.76 These references have been interpreted in one of at least three ways:77 (1) Paul wishes to avoid the temporary loss of the body by believers before the parousia (when deceased believers will receive a resurrection body and living believers a transformed body). (2) Paul disagrees with the view (held by Gnostics,78 among others) that the “naked” or “unclothed” self of believers returns to the heavenly realm

also Seneca Ep. 71.16; Marc. 25.1. frag. Β 126; Diels and Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 1.362; Plato, Phaed. 83e; G. Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca, 403.5; Corpus Hermeticum 1.26; 13.6; Plotinus, Enn. 1.6.7; Asc. Isa. 9:9 (trans. Schneemelcher): “And there [in the seventh heaven] I saw Enoch and all who were with him, stripped of the garment of the flesh, and I saw them in their higher garments, and they were like the angels who stand there in great glory” (see also 9:17; 10:1–31). 77 Oepke, TDNT 1.773–75; Weigelt, NIDNTT 1.313–14. 78 Bultmann, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther, 137–40. 75 See

76 Empedocles,

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for a final state of salvation unencumbered by any sort of body.79 (3) “Nakedness” applies to the future state of unbelievers (cf. 4 Ezra 7:80).80 The conception of “nakedness” is a metaphor used with some frequency in Greek philosophical and quasi-philosophical literature for the state of the soul that has left the body at death.81 In these contexts the term is always understood in a positive sense. In contrast, it has often been emphasized that the phrase “in the hope that we, being clothed, shall not be found naked” (v. 3),82 does not contemplate the state of γυμνός as either inevitable or desirable. The same is true for the use of the verb ἐκδύσασθαι in v. 4, in the phrase “we do not wish to be unclothed (ἐκδύσασθαι).” That is, Paul appears to be implicitly arguing against the widespread view of Hellenistic eschatology that the postmortem freedom of the soul from the body is a desirable and permanent form of future existence.83 It is unnecessary to insist that Paul is rejecting a particular form of Hellenistic eschatology (such as Gnosticism) with this statement since the sentiment was so widely held. The classical Greek view of death exhibited some variety, though in general it was regarded as the event that separated body from soul. The question of the immortality of the soul was more problematic.84 “Most people,” according to Plato, thought that the soul ceased to exist when separated from the body (Phaedo 69e–70a). This view is supported by a considerable body of evidence from epitaphs indicating that many ancients denied any kind of postmortem existence whatsoever.85 For others, however, the soul (whether material or immaterial) was contained within the body, and upon death was released to travel to the underworld, a remote region, or the sky (Cicero, Tusc. disp. 1.24, 40, 42, 75), to join other similarly disembodied, strengthless images.86 For Stoics, on the 79 Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel (2 vols.; New York: Scribner’s, 1951–55), 1.202. 80 Oepke, TDNT 1.774; 2.320. 81 Plato, Crat. 403b; Gorg. 523d–e, 524d; Phaed. 67d–e; 81c; Resp. 9.577b; Corpus Hermeticum 1.26; Philo, Virt. 76; Leg. 2.57, 59; Plutarch, Sera 565A; Lucian, Hermot. 7; Dial. mort. 20 (10); Ver. hist. 2.12 (in Lucian’s Utopian city, the citizens have no bodies, but their naked souls [γυμνή τις ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτῶν] go about in the semblance of their bodies. Cicero mocks this notion in Tusc. disp. 1.36–38); Aelian, Nat. An. 11.39; Maximus of Tyre 7.5a–e. 82 This reflects a preference for the reading ἐνδυσάμενοι, which has much stronger external attestation than does ἐκδυσάμενοι, which was adopted in the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh editions of the Nestle-Aland edition of the Greek New Testament. A cogent defense of ἐνδυσάμενοι is found in M. Thrall, “ ‘Putting On’ or ‘Stripping Off ’ in 2 Cor 5.3,” New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Exegesis, ed. E. J. Epp and G. Fee (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), 223–37. 83 T. F. Glasson, “2 Corinthians v. 1–10 versus Platonism,” SJT 43 (1989), 150. 84 According to R. Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1962), 53–54: “No epitaph containing an unequivocal assertion of immortality is earlier than the fourth century B. C.” 85 Lattimore, Epitaphs, 74–86. 86 Lattimore, Epitaphs, 22.

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other hand, the soul was no less physical or material than the body, even though the soul was thought to be “finer” than the body;87 therefore, they never used the clothing metaphor to speak of the “naked” or “unclothed” soul. For those in the Orphic tradition who believed in rebirth,88 the ultimate object of the process of death and rebirth was not to be reborn at all. A number of texts of Jewish origin are concerned with the postmortem location of the righteous and wicked dead. Though there are often inconsistencies, many of these texts locate the souls of the righteous in the heavenly realm, while the souls of the wicked are located in the underworld. Some Jewish texts from the second century CE and later envision the presence of the souls of the righteous dead under the throne of God in heaven (’Abot R. Nat. 12; b. Shabb. 152b).89 According to the late Sepher ha-Razim 7.1–3 (trans. Morgan, 81): The seventh firmament, all of it is sevenfold light, and from its light all the (seven) heavens shine. Within it is the throne of glory, set on the four glorious Hayot. Also within it are the storehouses of lives, and the storehouses of souls.

This conception goes back at least to the late first c. CE, for in Rev 6:9–11, John sees the souls of the martyrs under the heavenly altar who, when they cry for vengeance against their murderers, are given white robes and told to wait a bit longer until the determined number of martyrs are killed. This use of clothing imagery to conceptualize the postmortem state should not be confused with the resurrection mode of existence, which is cryptically narrated elsewhere by the author (Rev 20:4–6, 11–15). A very close parallel to Rev 6:9–11 is found in 4 Ezra 4:35–36: Did not the souls of the righteous in their chambers (in promptuariis suis) ask about these matters, saying, “How long are we to remain here? And when will come the harvest of our reward?” And Jeremiel the archangel answered them and said, “When the number of those like yourselves is completed.”

In the Ascension of Isaiah (the earliest Christian text to reflect the Jewish cosmology of seven heavens), “Isaiah” reports that in the seventh heaven he saw all the righteous ones from the time of Adam (9:7), stripped of “the garment of the flesh” and “in their higher garments” (9:9). The seventh heaven, in fact, contains a storehouse of garments awaiting the righteous (8:14–15, 26; 9:24–26). It would be inappropriate, however, to consider these garments as metaphors for resurrection bodies (as some have done), for nothing in the text suggests this. In the Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71), probably written early in the first century CE, “Enoch” saw in heaven the dwelling of the righteous and the resting places of the holy where they are protected by the heavenly presence of God (1 Enoch Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind, 37–70. frag. Β 117; Diels and Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 1.358–59. 89 H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (3 vols.; München: C. Η. Beck, 1965), 3.803. 87 Annas,

88 Empedocles,

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39:4–7; 41:2; 61:12; 70:2–4). Similar, perhaps, is the view of Philo of Alexandria, who conceived of heaven as the paternal house (οἶκος) of the soul (Somn. 1.256), the place to which souls return like pilgrims returning to their homeland (Conf. 78; Her. 274; Mos. 2.288). Several Jewish texts from the first century CE refer to “storehouses” or “treasuries” which serve as temporary repositories of the souls of the dead between death and resurrection.90 The location of these storehouses is suitably vague, making it difficult to determine whether they are located in heaven or the underworld. Fourth Ezra 7:75–115 (a late first cent. CE composition) contains a revelatory dialogue between “Ezra” and God on the subject of the soul after death and in which the intermediate state (the interval between death and resurrection) is treated in some detail. According to 7:78, when a person dies “the soul [inspiratio] leaves the body to return again to him who gave it” (probably alluding to Qoh 12:7). The wicked are then separated from the righteous and the former undergo torment in seven phases or orders (7:79–87), while the latter enjoy rest in seven phases (7:88–99). More specifically, the souls of the righteous are said to enter storehouses (Latin promptuaria, perhaps reflecting the Greek term ταμιεῖον, “treasury”),91 located in heaven and guarded by angels, while the wicked wander about in torment (4 Ezra 4:35, 41; 7:32, 85, 95).92 Then in 7:100–101, it is said that after the souls of the righteous have been separated from their bodies they will have seven days before “they shall be gathered in their dwellings [congregabuntur in habitaculis suis].” According to 4 Ezra 7:95, “The fourth order, they understand the rest which they now enjoy, being gathered into their chambers and guarded by angels in profound quiet, and the glory which awaits them in the last days.” A relatively lengthy eschatological scenario in 4 Ezra 7:26–44 begins with the appearance of the new Jerusalem and the appearance of the hidden land (v. 26), followed by the revelation of the Messiah who will prevail for four hundred years and then die along with all other humans (vv. 28–29). The world will then return

90  G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim (3 vols.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927), 3.389–92; Ε. E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 238–42. 91 M. Stone, Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 96. 92  G. H. Box, The Ezra-Apocalypse (London: Pitman & Sons, 1912), 33–34; M. Stone, Features of the Eschatology of IV Ezra (HSS; Atlanta: Scholars, 1989) 144–45. In Ps.-Philo, L. A. B. 19.12, Moses is addressed: “You will rest in it [an unknown sepulchre] until I visit the world. I will raise up you and your fathers from the earth in which you sleep and you will come together and dwell in the immortal dwelling place [et habitabitis inhabitationem immortalem] that is not subject to time.” Nothing is said here about the location of this “immortal dwelling place,” though an earlier eschatological passage claims that after the resurrection, “There will be another earth and another heaven, an everlasting dwelling place [habitaculum sempiternum],” apparently with the righteous dwelling on the renewed earth; see H. Jacobson, A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (AGJU 21; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 1.328.

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to primeval silence for seven days (v. 30), after which the following events occur (vv. 32–33a): And the earth shall give up those who are asleep in it, and the dust those who dwell silently in it; and the chambers shall give up the souls which have been committed to them [et promptuaria reddent, quae eis commendatae sunt animae]. And the Most High shall be revealed upon the seat of judgment.

The same conception is reflected in Ps.-Philo Liber antiquitatum biblicarum 32.13, which refers to “the fathers in the chambers of their souls [in promptuariis animarum eorum],” and in 2 Baruch (21:23; 30:1–2), both Jewish works which originated in the first century CE. The brief eschatological scenario in 2 Baruch 30:1–2 places the conception of an intermediate state in a larger narrative context: And it shall come to pass after this, when the time of the presence of the Messiah on earth has run its course, that he will return in glory to the heavens: then all who have died and have set their hopes on him will rise again. And it shall come to pass at that time that the treasuries will be opened in which is preserved the number of the souls of the righteous, and they will come out, and the multitude of souls will appear together in one single assembly; and those who are first will rejoice, and those who are last will not be cast down.

In 4 Ezra and Ps.-Philo, the terms promptuaria (“residences”), habitationes (“residences”), and habitacula (“dwelling places”) are Latin designations used for the postmortem location of souls, presumably corresponding to the Hebrew and Syriac term ‫“( אוערות‬storehouses, treasuries”).93 These texts can be correlated very generally with three texts in the Pauline corpus, which indicate that Paul expected that following death he would find himself in heaven, in the divine presence. In Philippians 1:23, Paul claims that it is his desire to depart, i. e., die, and be with Christ (who is presumably in heaven), and in 2 Corinthians 5:8 he says that “we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (again referring to heaven as v. 1 indicates). Finally, in 1 Thessalonians 4:14, in a passage that describes the parousia of Christ and the resurrection, Paul says that “God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep,” presumably the dead who are with the Lord. Further, it appears likely that when Paul referred to the heavenly οἰκοδομή, οἰκία, or οἰκητήριον, he was not necessarily referring to the individual postmortem dwelling place of believers (the final resurrection had not yet taken place and there is no suggestion in early Jewish or early Christian apocalyptic texts that resurrected believers will dwell in heaven), but rather to a temporary form of heavenly existence (an intermediate state) in anticipation of the transformed bodies that believers would receive at the final resurrection.

93 Stone,

Fourth Ezra, 96.

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At Home or Away from Home (5:6–10) In 5:6, Paul introduces the conclusion to 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 with another metaphor from domestic life using the antithetical verbs ἐνδημεῖν (“at home”) and ἐκδημεῖν (“absent [from home]”): “We are therefore always full of courage knowing that while we are at home in the body (ἐνδημοῦντες ἐν τῷ σώματι) we are absent from the Lord (ἐκδημοῦμεν ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου).” The “home” implied in the verb ἐνδημεῖν is the σῶμα that is identical with the οἰκία of v. 1 and the σκῆνος of vv. 1, 4. Absence from the Lord means absence from the actual heavenly presence of Christ, for here he is not thinking of the inner spiritual presence of Christ that he emphasizes so often elsewhere in his letters (e. g., Rom 8:9–11).94 In v. 6 he has stated the facts of the present situation; in v. 8 he states his preference: “We are full of courage, but we rather prefer to be absent from the body (ἐκδημῆσαι ἐκ τοῦ σώματος) and at home with the Lord (ἐνδημῆσαι πρὸς τὸν κύριον).” In v. 9 Paul begins by expressing the importance of pleasing the Lord with the ambiguous phrases “whether at home (εἴτε ἐνδημοῦντες) or away from home (εἴτε ἐκδημοῦντες).” The ambiguity lies in the fact that εἴτε ἐνδημοῦντες can in principle be construed as εἴτε ἐνδημοῦντες [πρὸς τὸν κύριον] (“whether at home [with the Lord]”), and εἴτε ἐκδημοῦντες as εἴτε ἐκδημοῦντες [ἐκ τοῦ σώματος] (“or away [from the body]”). But this is tautological and does not present a real alternative. It is preferable, therefore, to construe εἴτε ἐνδημοῦντες as εἴτε ἐνδημοῦντες [ἐν τῷ σώματι] (“whether at home [in the body]”), essentially repeating the phrase in v. 6a and εἴτε ἐκδημοῦντες as εἴτε ἐκδημοῦντες [ἐκ τοῦ σώματος] (“or away [from the body]”), which presents a real alternative.95 The notion that the contrasting terms ἐνδημεῖν and ἐκδημεῖν are taken over from the vocabulary of Paul’s opponents and used in a polemical way, even though widely assumed by interpreters,96 is an unfounded assumption based largely on the antithetical formulation of Paul’s propositions taken together with the fact that these terms occur nowhere else in the Pauline corpus. The sanction for pleasing the Lord is a traditional formulation of the future event of the last judgment (presided over by Christ),97 introduced in v. 10 with the inferential particle γάρ followed by the reason why one ought to please the Lord. According to v. 10 (leaving the difficult clause momentarily untranslated): “For we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, ἵνα κομίσηται ἕκαστος τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν, whether good or evil.” First of all, 94  See J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 390–441. 95 Lietzmann and Kümmel, An die Korinther, 121; Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 169; Plummer, Corinthians, 154–55. 96 Furnish, II Corinthians, 302; R. P. Martin, 2 Corinthians (WBC 40; Waco: Word Books, 1986), 111. 97 C. Wolff, Der zweite Brief des Paulus an die Korinther (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1989), 114.

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the verb κομίσηται is always transitive and means “to come into possession of something,” “receive a recompense.”98 The clause τὰ [ἔπραξεν] διὰ τοῦ σώματος (with ἔπραξεν supplied) is the object of κομίσηται, while the prepositional phrase πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν is adverbial, modifying κομίσηται. The problematic clauses can then be translated “so that each might receive what [he did] while living, in proportion to what he did.” While the phrase διὰ τοῦ σώματος can either be construed instrumentally (“through the body”) or temporally (“during life in the body,” i. e., “in life”); I have chosen the latter. However, regardless of whether διὰ τοῦ σώματος is understood instrumentally or temporally, the action of the aorist verb ἔπραξεν indicates that the reception of the recompense is a postmortem event, i. e., that physical life is a thing of the past. When does this judgment before Christ occur? In Table 1 (on p. 378), I have placed the motif of judgment as the last of a series of eschatological motifs in Column 6, situating it chronologically after the event of the postmortem reception of a heavenly dwelling by the believer. We can also inquire into the relationship between this event and those of the parousia and resurrection to which Paul clearly referred in 2 Corinthians 4:14. Paul apparently assumes that the parousia and the resurrection have already occurred before Christ judges all people, but simply chooses to omit explicit mention of those events, because when he mentions the importance of pleasing the Lord no matter where one is (v. 9), the theme of accountability suggests itself to him, which is based on the threat and promise of eschatological judgment, a motif he evokes in v. 10. While Jewish and Christian apocalyptic eschatology generally, though not exclusively, understood the final judgment to be a collective event,”99 some traditions of Greek underworld mythology depicted the judgment of each individual immediately following death.100 In Judaism the notion of the postmortem  98 AG,

557. 25:31–46; Rev 20:11–15; 4 Ezra 7:30–44; 2 Baruch 49–51; Sib. Or. 4.40–48, 179–192; 1 Enoch 38:1–6; 62:2–16; 90:20–27. 100 Plato, Gorg. 526a–e; Phaedr. 249a–b; Resp. 2.364e–365a; 10.614c; Leg. 870d; Lucian, Dial. mort. 10.13; cf. Apollodorus 3.1.1; Plutarch Fac. 943; Sera 564E-565B; Diodorus Siculus 5.79.1–2; L. Ruhl, De mortuorum iudicio (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1903); T. F. Glasson, “The Last Judgment—in Rev. 20 and Related Writings,” NTS 28 (1982), 536–8; M. E. Boring, K. Berger and C. Colpe, Hellenistic Commentary to the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 454; G. Strecker and U. Schnelle, Neuer Wettstein: Texte zum Neuen Testament aus Griechentum und Hellenismus (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1996), II/1.449. The popularity of the idea of postmortem judgment is suggested by Plutarch in Superst. 166F-167A, where he ridicules popular beliefs in the terrors of the afterlife, including judgment after death on analogy with a trial in a Greek court; see M. Smith, “De Superstitione (Moralia 164E-171F),” Plutarch’s Theological Writings and Early Christian Literature, ed. H. D. Betz (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 19. Denying the validity of the popular view of judgment and punishment in the underworld was also a theme in consolation literature; see Seneca Marc. 19.4. See also F. E. Brenk, In Mist Apparelled: Religious Themes in Plutarch’s Moralia and Lives (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 21–27. Postmortem judgment, including rewards and punishments, is particularly associated with Orphism; see W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion (1935; reprinted Princeton: Princeton University, 1993), 156–87.  99 Matt

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judgment of the individual in anticipation of a final judgment are explored in 4 Ezra and the Testament of Abraham,101 while in early Christianity this motif is expressed in Hebrews 9:27 in the motto “It is appointed to a person once to die, but after this the judgment.”102 In 2 Corinthians 5:10, a collective emphasis is apparently expressed by the phrase “we all must appear,” though that can easily be understood as a pluralis sociativus and hence as referring to something that each individual must experience, confirmed by ἕκαστος (“each one”), which is used as the subject of the verb κομίσηται in the following purpose clause: “so that each might receive what [he did] while living.” Whether Paul is here entertaining the notion of a collective final scene of judgment,103 therefore, or an immediate postmortem judgment of each person (as apparently in Heb 9:27) is not clear,104 though many commentators fail to consider the possibility of the latter. The mention of appearing “before the judgment seat of Christ,” a phrase found nowhere else in Paul or the New Testament (though it does occur in Polycarp, Phil. 6:2), seems to tip the scales in favor of a collective apocalyptic event.105

5. Concluding Arguments In this study, I have focused on several anthropological and eschatological themes that converge in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10. Paul chose an antithetical style throughout this section, apparently because he found it a tool useful for contrasting two different aspects of reality, τὰ βλεπόμενα and τὰ μὴ βλεπόμενα (4:18), πρόσκαιρος vs. αἰώνιος (4:18), τὸ θνητόν vs. ζωή (5:4), contrasts that Paul elsewhere comfortably expresses through such antitheses as τὸ φθαρτόν vs. ἀφθαρσία or τὸ θνητόν vs. ἀθανασία (1 Cor 15:53–54). For Paul these two aspects of reality are both simultaneous and sequential (frequently referred to with the terms “already—not yet”), that is, eschatological salvation is experienced in a preliminary way in the present in such a way that its complete future attainment is guaranteed.106 The complementary phrases ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος and ὁ ἔσω (ἄνθρωπος), which Paul used at the beginning of 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10, enabled him to emphasize and localize the tension between the juxtaposition of the natural (ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος) and the supernatural (ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος) in the believer (= human 7:75–90; 8:38; 9:12; 14:35; Test. Abr. [Rec. A] 12–14. to 3 Baruch 4:1–7, Hades is actually located in the third heaven, implying the immediate postmortem punishment of the wicked (Yarbro Collins, “Seven Heavens,” 44–45). 103 Lietzmann and Kümmel, An die Korinther, 122–3; Wolff, Korinther, 114. 104 Glasson, “2 Corinthians v. 1–10,” 152. 105 Rom 14:10 refers to the “judgment seat of God,” while according to Acts 10:42, Christ has been designated by God as the judge of the living and the dead; cf. 2 Tim 2:9; see also Acts 17:31; Rom 2:16. 106 On Paul’s view of the process of salvation, see Dunn, The Theology of Paul, 461–98. 101 4 Ezra

102 According

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being), and to provide self-explanatory labels for the believer’s experience of salvation in popular philosophical categories ultimately traceable to Plato. Throughout the entire passage, ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος and ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος are the only explicit labels used to characterize the tension and conflict daily experienced by the believer. Throughout the rest of the passage the “core self ” (ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος, or “inner person” who survives physical death) is expressed through a series of first-person plural verbs and pronouns (“we have,” “we groan,” “we are not found,” “we desire,” “our heavenly dwelling,” etc.), which really represent a pluralis sociativus, i. e., Paul speaking on behalf of those he is addressing, and so really represents the first-person singular “I” of each person Paul is addressing.107 This “core self ” is implicitly contrasted with the various clothing and building metaphors that provide it with a covering or place of habitation. Thus it is this “we” (= “I”) who survives the destruction of the physical body and will receive an eternal dwelling in heaven (5:1). It is this “we” (= “I”) who groans, longing to put on “our” (= “my”) heavenly dwelling (5:2). It is this “we” (= “I”) who groans while still in this body, not longing to be unclothed, but to put on a garment (5:4), and so forth. There is clearly an anthropological duality involved here. While tension exists between the “core self ” and the earthly house or body where it is located (5:2, 4, 8), that tension is apparently resolved after death when the “core self ” is invested in a heavenly habitation. Paul does not speak of the “inner person” or the implied occupant of the house or body as a “soul” (like the Jewish authors of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch), though unlike many scholars I do not think the body-soul duality inimical to Paul’s thought any more than it is to his Jewish apocalyptic contemporaries. An important issue yet unresolved is how, if at all, the sequence of eschatological motifs in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 corresponds to other Pauline eschatological scenarios (e. g., 1 Cor 15:50–57; 1 Thess 4:13–18; Phil 3:20–21). Though there is no mention of the parousia or the resurrection whatsoever in the passage, it cannot have been far from Paul’s mind, for both are referred to in traditional formulations in the immediately preceding context in 2 Corinthians 4:14:108 “Knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.” In Table 1 (on p.  378), I have provided a categorization of the sequence of eschatological motifs found in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10, most (but not all) of which have been discussed in this essay. In that Table it will be seen that Column 3, “Intermediate State,” contains four phrases or terms that one or another commentator has taken to refer to the so-called “intermediate state” between physical death and physical resurrection or physical death and the Parousia (a 107 M. Carrez, “Le ‘Nous’ en 2 Corinthiens,” NTS 26 (1980), 477; see also Byrskog, “Co-Senders,” 230–50. 108 Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 149–50; Furnish, II Corinthians, 286–87.

9 ἐνδημοῦντες [ἐν τῷ σώματι]

4a ἐν τῷ σκήνει 4c τὸ θνητόν 6a ἐνδημοῦντες ἐν τῷ σώματι 6b ἐκδημοῦμεν ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου

2a ἐν τούτῳ [σκήνει]

8a ἐκδημῆσαι ἐκ τοῦ σώματος

1.Present Earthly Life 2. Death (4:18: τὰ βλεπόμενα, πρόσκαιρα) 4:16a ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος 4:16b ὁ ἔσω (ἄνθρωπος) 5:1a ἡ ἐπίγειος οἰκία 1α καταλυθῇ 1a τοῦ σκήνους

[3a ἐκδυσάμενοι] [3b γυμνοί] [4b ἐκδύσασθαι]

1b [ἔχομεν]

[3. Intermediate State]

4b ἐπενδύσασθαι 4c καταποθῇ

2b ἐπενδύσασθαι

4. Transformation

Table 1. A Categorized Sequence of Eschatological Motifs in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10

8b ἐνδημῆσαι πρὸς τὸν κύριον 9 ἐκδημοῦντες [ἐκ τοῦ σώματος]

4c ὑπὸ τῆς ζωῆς

1c οἰκίαν ἀχειροποίητον αἰώνιον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς 2b τὸ οἰκητήριον ἡμῶν τὸ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ

1b οἰκοδομὴν ἐκ θεοῦ

5. Future Heavenly Life (4:18: τὰ μὴ βλεπόμενα αἰώνια)

10 τὸ βῆμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ

6. Judgment

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state that some Pauline scholars characterize as “bodiless”).109 None of these are convincing (hence the category and its contents are bracketed). The phrase ἔχομεν οἰκοδομὴν ἐκ θεοῦ is included because some have attempted to construe ἔχομεν as a futuristic present as a strategy to allow for an intermediate state to intervene before the reception of an eternal heavenly dwelling from God (5:1), often understood as the resurrection body. Yet this understanding of ἔχομεν is strained, and the text certainly is silent about a resurrection body. The references to being ἐκδυσάμενοι or ἐκδύσασθαι, “unclothed” (5:3a, 4b), or γυμνοί, “naked” (5:3b), do not indicate what Paul anticipates will happen, but what he anticipates will not happen. I conclude that Paul makes no reference to an intermediate state between death (Column 2) and the transformation to a form of existence appropriate to heaven (Column 4). Nevertheless, the text does accommodate an intermediate state. In Column 5, Paul uses three dwelling metaphors (οἰκοδομή, οἰκία, and οἰκητήριον) to refer to the same basic heavenly reality, a structure that serves as a postmortem repository for the “core self ” of believers, analogous to the early Jewish conception of a heavenly “treasury of souls” referred to by several first-century CE Jewish texts including 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and Ps.-Philo. In 4 Ezra, these postmortem structures (promptuaria, habitationes, habitacula), which the author (who wrote in Hebrew) may have designated with the term ‫“( אוערות‬storehouses, treasuries”), were imagined as a corporate dwelling place for the “core selves” or souls of the righteous until the day of resurrection. Since in these early Jewish sources, the “storehouses,” are usually referred to in the plural, it is not certain whether the conception involved a “storehouse” for each soul or a plurality of “storehouses,” each of which could accommodate a plurality of souls. Similarly in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10, Paul uses the three dwelling metaphors (οἰκοδομή, οἰκία, and οἰκητήριον) only in the singular. This could mean that each person has their own dwelling place or that a single dwelling place accommodates a plurality of persons. Afterlife mythology can hardly be expected to exhibit consistency in details. Further while the location of these “storehouses” is vague in 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and Ps.-Philo, they appear to be set in the underworld, so that the separation of body from soul at death relegates the former to the grave and the latter to the underworld; body and soul are expected to be reunited at the resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10, however, Paul emphatically locates the postmortem dwelling in heaven, the place that pagan Greeks and Romans thought was the destination of the soul when separated from the body. Finally, a few remarks on the central problematic of the volume of which this essay is a part, namely the importance of going beyond the traditional divide between Judaism and Hellenism in Paul’s thought. It has become increasingly evident in recent years that the conventional dichotomy between Judaism and Hel109 Martin,

2 Corinthians, 106.

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lenism is an artificial construction buttressed by theological utility rather than historical viability. The tacitly monolithic character of “early Judaism,” belied by the increasing use of the term “Judaisms” in historical descriptions of this period, is matched by the obviously pluralistic character of “Hellenism.” In this study, no attempt has been made to minimize the “Jewish” features of Paul’s thought in the interest of subordinating them to a “Hellenistic” understanding, nor have “Hellenistic” features been manipulated to make them compatible with a “Jewish” construal. Further, no evidence has been found to support the notion that Paul developed a new conception of what constitutes a human being in response to a perception of the supposed incompatibility of the conventional Greek anthropological dualism of body and soul with the Christian gospel.110 The emphasis on the psychosomatic unity of the human person in the teaching of Paul, which is such a widespread theological presupposition among Pauline scholars who are the heirs of Bultmann’s influential work on Pauline anthropology, functions fairly well for understanding Romans 7 (for example), but founders when Paul turns to the subject of death. In 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10, Paul has articulated an anthropological duality in response to the tension experienced in daily life between the reality of external suffering and physical mortality on the one hand, over against his faith in the indwelling presence of God on the other. Working out from this anthropology, he understood death as the beginning of life as well as the resolution of the tension between experience and faith, a conception that has both Hellenistic and Jewish features, but which is ultimately at home in neither. But this anthropological duality is also the common ground between Hellenistic and Jewish conceptions of death, since throughout the ancient world the physical aspect of the human being was considered temporary and corruptible, while the permanent aspect of the person was thought to live on in another dimension of reality. In death, the “inner person” is separated from the “outer person,” and whether these two aspects of the person are labeled “body” and “soul” (as the author of 4 Ezra chose to do) or something else, the conception is basically one of anthropological duality.

110 Most

recently, see Betz, “Anthropology of Paul,” 316.

17. Human Nature and Ethics in Hellenistic Philosophical Traditions and Paul: Some Issues and Problems* Introduction After more than a century of debate, there are still wide areas of disagreement on the complex question of whether Paul’s views of human nature are explicable on the basis of Jewish tradition alone, or whether he was influenced by Hellenistic conceptions of human nature, perhaps refracted through Hellenistic Judaism. It is obvious that Paul did not simply adopt an existing anthropological model from “Judaism,” “Hellenistic Judaism,” or “Hellenism” (precise boundaries between these ideal cultural categories did not in fact exist). In part this is because he evinces no concern to develop a consistent view of human nature. Even though he uses a variety of Greek anthropological terms to explain aspects of human behavior in sections of his letters, he often does so on an ad hoc basis with the result that there is little overall consistency evident when these passages are compared. Paul was an eclectic who drew upon a variety of anthropological conceptions in a manner subsidiary or tangential to the more immediate concerns he addresses in his extant letters. In this paper I shall touch a number of problematic issues relating to the theme of human nature and ethics in Paul and his Hellenistic intellectual environment. Since Hellenistic views of human nature were extremely varied and complex and have too often been caricatured by New Testament scholarship, I will focus on aspects of this issue. I will then discuss the perspectives on human nature that can be teased out of the Pauline letters  – an area that is often oversimplified. Finally, I will discuss the specific issue of the use of death as a metaphor for the transformed life in both the Hellenistic world and Paul.

* Original publication: “Human Nature and Ethics in Hellenistic Philosophical Traditions and Paul,” Paul in His Hellenistic Context, ed. T. Engberg-Pedersen (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 291–312. Reprinted by permission.

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Complexities in Hellenistic Views of Human Nature One widely held assumption is that ancient views of human nature must be either monistic or dualistic, conceptions often linked to the Hebrew or the Greek view of the person. The two most popular Hellenistic philosophies during the third and second centuries BCE, however, were Stoicism and Epicureanism, both of which espoused a monistic and hence materialistic view of human nature. Various strands of early Judaism reflected a variety of cultural and religious traditions in which there was no consistent view of human nature,1 and in which Hellenistic conceptions of human nature were assimilated to various degrees.2 There were, in fact, many monistic and dualistic conceptions of the universe and human nature (the two are often understood homologously). Dualistic models consistently anticipate that plurality will ultimately be resolved into unity. While it is no longer possible to speak of the Pauline view of human nature, neither is it possible to speak of the Platonic, the Aristotelian, or the Stoic conceptions of human nature. Plato’s view of human nature, elements of which were drawn from both philosophical and popular traditions, changed radically during his lifetime and were never forced into a single coherent system. The most obvious change was from his view of the ψυχή as a simple substance in the Phaedo, to the tripartite division of the ψυχή in the Republic. In the Phaedo alone the term ψυχή is used with a relatively extensive variety of connotations:3 (1) the element within us whose good condition constitutes our true well-being; (2) the “true self ” or “real person” (115b–1l6a); (3) the intellect, reason or thinking faculty (65b–c; 76c); (4) the “rational self ” in contrast to emotions and physical desires (94b–d); (5)  the “life principle” or “animating agent” (64c; 72a–d; 105c–d); (6)  generic “soul-stuff ” in contrast to individual souls, just as matter may be contrasted to individual bodies (70c–d; 80c–d). These various meanings of ψυχή cannot be understood within a single consistent framework. How can the soul “bring life” to the body (105c–d), “rule and be master” of the body (80a; 94b–d), and yet be a “prisoner” within the body (82e–83a)? According to Plato, the soul wore the body like clothes to be discarded (87b), the soul is woven through the body (Tim. 36e), or a person is a soul using a body (Alc. 129c–e). One of the persistent problems with Plato’s conception of the soul-body relationship (and one which was attacked by both Stoics and Epicureans) was the assumption that 1  G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Jr., Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (HTS 26; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 170–80. 2 For a variety of early Jewish views of death involving the separation of body from spirit, see Wis 8:19–20; 9:15; Jub. 23:30–32; 1 En. 102:5; 103:2–4; 104:3; T. Ash. 6:5–6; 4 Macc 7:19; 13:17; 16:25; Ps.-Phoc. 105–8. Josephus frequently imported popular Middle Platonic body-soul dualism into his narrative when discussing the beliefs of first-century Palestinian Jews (B. J. 2.154; 3.362–88; 7.344–48), including the Zealots (B. J. 7.344–48), the Essenes (B. J. 2.154), and the Pharisees (B. J. 2.163). 3 D. Gallop, Plato, Phaedo (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), 88–91.

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the incorporeal could somehow associate with the corporeal to form a single substance – a human person. Aristotle’s views on the relationship between body, soul, and mind are complex and exhibit at least two phases – a “Platonic” phase (in which he regarded the soul as a separate substance, as in Plato’s Phaedo), and a final “hylomorphic” stage in which he regarded the soul as the form or the realization of a natural body (reflected in the De Anima).4 The Eudemus (belonging to the genre of consolation literature) and the Protrepticus (an exhortation to pursue the philosophic life) are both products of the 350s, and though extant only in fragments, represent the earliest stage of Aristotle’s views on ethics and psychology.5 According to the Eudemus, the soul is a separate substance that existed before entering the body and survives separation from the body. This conflicts with Aristotle’s later view in the De Anima that only the νοῦς is immortal. The same body-soul dualism is also evident in the Protrepticus (Düring, Protrepticus, frag. B23: “man is by nature composed of soul and body”; cf. frags. B59, Β107), and the life of the soul is superior to that of the body (Düring, frags. B23, B34, B61). The soul has both a rational and an irrational part and νοῦς belongs to the rational part (Düring, frags. B23, B60). In the latest stage of Aristotle’s psychological theory, he believed that mind or the “active intellect” (De An. 3.5; 430a) was present in the human person, but separate from the soul-body complex (De An. 408b), and it alone is divine.6 There is no soul-body dualism for Stoics, for the same force directs both physical and mental processes; a person has no irrational faculty. The soul is essentially distinct from the body, but develops its full nature only in conjunction with the birth of the body, with which it is joined. Death is understood as a separation of the soul from the body.7 While the Old Stoa and Chrysippus believed in the unity of the soul, Posidonius rejected that view in favor of the Platonic tripartite distinction between reason, spirit, and passion. The fundamental distinction is actually bipartite – between the rational and irrational part of the soul.8 The irrational part was further divided into the part that seeks pleasure and one that seeks power.9 Posidonius argued that each person has two daimones within them, a good and a bad.10 The δαίμων within is the person’s true self.  4 See the developmental scheme proposed by J. M. Rist, The Mind of Aristotle: A Study in Philosophical Growth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989).  5 Rist, Mind of Aristotle, 165–70.  6 Rist, Mind of Aristotle, 177–82.  7 SVF 1.145 (Zeno); 2.792 (Chrysippus: ὁ θάνατός ἐστι ψυχῆς χωρισμὸς ἀπὸ σώματος).  8 L. Edelstein and I. G. Kidd, Posidonius, Part I: The Fragments (2nd ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), frags. 145–46; I. G. Kidd, Posidonius, Part II: Commentary (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 1.541–44.  9 Edelstein-Kidd, Fragments, frags. 31–35, 142, 148, 152, 157. 10 Edelstein-Kidd, frag. 187.

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Despite the many differences that can be registered, there were a number of views of the soul and the body shared by the major Hellenistic philosophical traditions (Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism):11 (a) All distinguished the soul from the body, (b) All regarded the soul as the center of intelligence within the human frame, (c) All thought that the soul was localized or at least centered in a particular part of the human body (typically the chest, head, or brain), (d) All attributed mental and moral qualities to the soul, not the body, (e) All agreed that the soul had both rational and irrational aspects, (f) All (even Epicureans and Stoics) thought that death could be defined as the separation of the soul from the body.12 (g) All but the Epicureans and the Stoic Panaetius (Cicero Tusc. 1.79) believed that the soul continued to exist for at least a limited period of time after separation from the body at death.13 This is a significant list of common convictions, many of which coincide with popular views widely subscribed to in the Hellenistic and Roman world. Refutations of proposals that Hellenistic conceptions of human nature influenced Paul’s own views have frequently been based on caricatures of “the Greek view,” often based on an oversimplified understanding of classical sources coupled with a superficial understanding of Hellenistic paradigms of human nature. Thus W. D. Davies has argued that according to “Hellenistic dualism” the material body was regarded as intrinsically evil, but the term σάρξ was not used in “the prevailing Hellenistic literature” (whatever that means) for the material as 11 Some of these common features are discussed by A. A. Long, “Soul and Body in Stoicism,” Phronesis 27 (1982), 35–36. 12 (1) Plato and the Old Academy (Plato Phaed. 66e, 67d; Gorg. 524b; Tim. 81d–e). (2) Popular Platonism in the second or first century BCE (Ps.-Plato Axiochus 365E). (3) Epicurus and Epicureans (Sext. Emp. Pyr. 3.229; Lucr. 3.838 f.; although the soul does not survive the separation). (4) Stoics, e. g. Zeno (SVF 1.145); Chrysippus (SVF 2.790 = K. Hülser, Die Fragmente zur Dialektik der Stoiker [3 vols.; Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1987–88], 427): ὁ θάνατός ἐστι ψυχῆς χωρισμὸς ἀπὸ σώματος; SVF 2.604, 792; Epict. Diss. 2.1.17. See M. Baltes, “Die Todesproblematik in der griechischen Philosophie,” Gymnasium 95 (1988), 97–128, esp. 97–98. 13 Epicurus was a monistic materialist who held that the soul like the body is mortal (both are made of atoms), and cannot survive the destruction of the body (Epicurus Ep. ad Men. 124–27; H. Usener, Epicurea [Leipzig: Teubner, 1887], 60–62). Some Stoics held that only the ἡγεμονικόν (one of the eight parts of the soul) survived until the ἐκπύρωσις of the world (A. Bonhöffer, Epictet und die Stoa: Untersuchungen zur stoischen Philosophie [Stüttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1890], 107–8; J. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969], 256–57), although some middle Stoics, Panaetius and Boethus of Sidon rejected the doctrine of ἐκπύρωσις (Edelstein-Kidd, Fragments, frag. 99b; cf. Kidd, Commentary 1.407–8). On the varied and complex views of the survival of the soul after death in Stoicism, see Bonhöffer, Epictet, 54–67. Those Stoics who contemplated the survival of the ἡγεμονικόν typically refused to consider any change or development of the independent ἡγεμονικόν or soul. The Stoic view that the soul ascends after death to the sky mentioned by Sext. Emp. (Math. 1.71–74) may in fact be derived from Posidonius; cf. A. D. Nock, Essays on Religion in the Ancient World (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 2.870–71. The ascent of the soul after death is also reflected in Cynic letters (cf. Ps.-Heraclitus Ep. 5).

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opposed to the ideal.14 Aside from the problematic use of the phrase “Hellenistic dualism,” which masks the variety of Hellenistic views of human nature, Davies is wrong on both counts. It was only during the second c. CE and later that Platonic idealism was radically interpreted to mean that matter was intrinsically evil and spirit intrinsically good,15 a position that characterized (but was not restricted to) most strands of Gnosticism. Further, while Davies is correct that ψυχή and σάρξ are not used antithetically in classical Greek literature,16 in the tripartite psychology of Marcus Aurelius, the term σάρξ is used interchangeably with σῶμα (2.2, 3.16; 12.3), and σάρξ is also used as a synonym of σῶμα by Epictetus (Diss. 2.1.17, 19; 3.7.4, 9), and Philo (Gig. 29–31). The notion that the body was intrinsically evil and a temporary prison for the immortal soul (exaggerated, to be sure), generally considered an Orphic or Pythagorean view adopted by Plato, is primarily associated with the Phaedo.17 Plato’s Timeaus, however, was even more influential and probably one of the most important philosophical treatises in the Hellenistic and Roman period,18 particularly after Platonism began to dominate philosophical discussion beginning with the first century BCE.19 In his lengthy discussion of the fashioning of the soul and body of the human person in Tim. 69a–92c, Plato observes: From both these evils [diseases of the body and soul] the one means of salvation is this – neither to exercise the soul without the body nor the body without the soul, so that they may be evenly matched and sound of health. (Tim. 88b; LCL trans.)

Plotinus, who noted that Plato did not say the same thing about the soul everywhere in his writings, alludes to various passages in Plato’s Phaedo, Cratylus, and Republic, and then calls attention to the positive assessment of the soul-body dualism in the Timaeus: And, though in all these passages he disapproves of the soul’s coming to the body, in the Timaeus when speaking about this All he praises the universe and calls it a blessed god, and says that the soul was given by the goodness of the Craftsman, so that this All might be intelligent, because it had to be intelligent, and this could not be without the soul. (Enn. 4.8.1; LCL trans.)

14 Paul

and Rabbinic Judaism (rev. ed.; London: SPCK, 1955), 18–19.

15 A. Dihle, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1982), 66. 16 E. D. Burton, Spirit, Soul, and Flesh (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918), 51–52. 17 This exaggerated view of the antithetical relationship between body and soul in the Phaedo has been refuted by M. A. Grosso (Death and the Myth of the True Earth in Plato’s Phaedo [Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1971]). 18 See the survey of its influence in D. T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (Leiden: Brill, 1986), 38–57. 19 H. Dörrie, “Die Erneuerung des Platonismus im ersten Jahrhundert vor Christus,” Platonica Minora (München: Wilhelm Fink, 1973), 154–65.

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A similarly positive assessment of the soul-body dualism is found in Aristotle’s Protrepticus (Düring, Protrepticus, frag. B60), an early exoteric work reflecting the “Platonic” phase of his views of human nature: In the soul, there is on the one hand reason (which by nature rules and judges in matters concerning ourselves), on the other hand that which follows and whose nature is to be ruled; everything is in perfect order when each part brings its proper excellence to bear; for to attain this excellence is a good.

The materialistic monism of Epicureans and early Stoics meant that they also had a positive attitude toward physical existence in this material world. Posidonius, the eclectic middle Stoic, expressed a view similar to that reflected in the Timaeus (perhaps based on his reading of that dialogue):20 τὸ τέλος is “to live contemplating the truth and order of absolutely everything [τῶν ὅλων], and contributing to the establishment of it [αὐτήν] as far as possible (in oneself), without being influenced by the irrational part of the soul [ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀλόγου μέρους τῆς ψυχῆς].”21 A positive assessment of the relationship between soul and body is reflected in Ps.-Heraclitus Ep. 9 (trans. Malherbe),22 reflecting a more popular view: “The body, while a slave to the soul, is at the same time its fellow citizen, and it does not irritate the intellect (νοῦς) to dwell with its servants.”

Pauline Perspectives on Human Nature The problem of the internal coherence and structure of Pauline thought, including a reconstruction of his views of human nature, has continued to challenge New Testament scholarship. This task has proven problematic, in part because theories of the development of Paul’s thought based on the reconstructed order of the Pauline letters have not met with general acceptance, and in part because Paul was neither systematic nor completely consistent in his (admittedly random) statements about human nature.23 Some of the common strategies for dealing with this problem include proposing conceptual frameworks that incorporate much of the evidence for Paul’s views of human nature, but then dismissing the

20 Clem.

Al. Strom. 2.21; Edelstein-Kidd, Fragments, frag. 186.

21 Since Posidonius rejected the notion of parts or divisions of the soul (he preferred the term

δύναμις over μέρος; cf. Edelstein-Kidd, Fragments, frag. 146), the last part of this quotation (“without being … soul”) is probably an addition by Clement; cf. Kidd, Commentary 2.674. 22  A. J. Malherbe, The Cynic Epistles: A Study Edition (SBLSBS 12; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977). 23 The problems are summarized in R. Jewett, Paul’s Anthropological Terms (AGJU 10; Leiden: Brill, 1971), 1–4 (Jewett’s own thesis is that conflict situations are the primary reason for inconsistencies in Paul’s anthropology); cf. H. D. Betz, Galatians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 280, where the right questions are raised, but no suggestions are proposed.

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intractable passages as survivals of popular conceptions,24 or to force them willy-nilly to conform to the overall perspective,25 or to claim that Paul is parroting the views of his opponents in order to refute them. There is a widespread view among New Testament scholars (due primarily to the influential scholarship of Rudolf Bultmann), that the major Pauline anthropological terms (καρδία, νοῦς, συνείδησις, σῶμα, πνεῦμα, φρήν, and ψυχή) are not ontologically distinct parts of the human person (supposedly the Hellenistic view), but rather different aspects of human personality viewed from various perspectives (supposedly the view of the Old Testament adopted by Paul).26 This issue is extremely complex, however, for when Hellenistic writers are concerned with the function of the realities represented by the various anthropological terms mentioned above, they are in effect interested in aspects of human nature. Thus in many ways the dichotomy between parts and aspects is a false one. Paul has more to say about human nature than any other early Christian author, yet he never deals with the subject directly, nor do the fragmentary expressions of his views of human nature exhibit internal consistency. Further, only in Romans 6–8 and Galatians 5:13–6:10 does Paul explicitly link his views of human nature with Christian ethics. Paul uses a number of dichotomous designations for human nature: (1) σάρξ-πνεῦμα (Rom 1:4; 8:4–6, 27; 1 Cor 5:5: the destruction of the σάρξ [that is, death] will ensure the salvation of the πνεῦμα; 2 Cor 7:1; Gal 3:2–3; 4:29; 5:16–18; Col 2:5). (2) σῶμα-πνεῦμα (Rom 8:10–11, 13; 1 Cor 5:3 [cf. Col 2:5 σῶμα = σάρξ]; 7:34; 12:13; cf. Eph 4:4). (3) νοῦς-σάρξ (Rom 7:22–25; cf. Col 2:18). Only in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, does Paul use the trichotomous designation σῶμα-ψυχή-πνεῦμα,27 where taken together these three anthropological terms function to encompass the entire person. The presupposition, however, is that the person is constituted of these elements.

24 Cf. J. A. Fitzmyer (Paul and His Theology [2nd ed.; Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989], 82), who says that the Greek terms Paul used for body, flesh, soul, spirit, mind, and heart, “do not designate parts of a human being but rather aspects of the person as seen from different perspectives.” Yet in the next sentence he observes: “A popular, common conception of the human being as made up of two elements is found at times in Paul’s writings (1 Cor 5:3; 7:34; 2 Cor 12:2–3).” 25 This is frequently the strategy adopted by W. D. Stacey (The Pauline View of Man in Relation to Its Judaic and Hellenistic Backgrounds [London: Macmillan, 1956]). On p. 201, for example, in refuting Pfleiderer’s understanding of νοῦς in Paul, he says: “The first objection to this view is that it contradicts the oft-asserted idea that Paul thought of man as a totality.” 26 E. Käsemann, “On Paul’s Anthropology,” Perspectives on Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 7: “The basic insight of Bultmann’s interpretation was that the apostle’s anthropological termini do not, as in the Greek world, characterize the component parts of the human organism; they apply to existence as a whole, while taking account of its varying orientation and capacity in any given case.” 27 A. J. Festugière, “La division corps-âme-esprit de I Thess., v. 23, et la philosophie grecque,” L’Idéal religieux des Grecs et l’Evangile (2nd ed.; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1981), 195–220.

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Paul distinguishes between the πνεῦμα and the νοῦς in 1 Corinthians 14:14– 19, and advises against allowing the spirit to do what the mind cannot participate in. According to vv. 14–15: For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit [τὸ πνεῦμα μου] prays but my mind [ὁ νοῦς μου] is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with the spirit [τῷ πνεύματι] and I will pray with the mind [τῷ νοΐ] also; I will sing with the spirit [τῷ πνεύματι] and I will sing with the mind [τῷ νοΐ] also.

According to this passage, both the πνεῦμα and the νοῦς are distinguishable faculties within the person that can perform the same activity – praying or singing aloud (comprehensible prayer is attributed to the νοῦς, while incomprehensible prayer is attributed to the πνεῦμα). These faculties may be coordinated: comprehensible praying or singing means that the νοῦς and the πνεῦμα are functioning properly with the latter somehow subordinate to the former, or uncoordinated: incomprehensible praying or singing means that the πνεῦμα is active, but the νοῦς is on hold, that is, ἄκαρπος. These faculties may be distinguished from each other and both belong to the “higher” (non-physical) faculties within the human person. Since the term νοῦς is not a major vehicle for expressing Paul’s views on aspects of human nature, it appears that he has applied a widespread ancient theory of inspiration (derived from Plato) in which the πνεῦμα temporarily displaces the νοῦς in prophetic utterance (Philo Her. 265), in order to differentiate between comprehensible prayer and praying in tongues.28 Though Reitzenstein argued that Paul and his audience would understand πνεῦμα and νοῦς as synonyms based on the equivalence of the phrases τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ (1 Cor 2:11, 12, 14), and νοῦς κυρίου or νοῦς Χριστοῦ (1 Cor 2:16),29 it is obvious that they are not synonymous in 1 Corinthians 14:14–15. In Romans 7:23–25, Paul distinguishes between his νοῦς which is equated with his ἔσω ἄνθρωπος on the one hand, and his σάρξ, or μέλη, or τὸ σῶμα τοῦ θανάτου on the other. Thus the πνεῦμα-νοῦς contrast in 1 Corinthians 14:14–15 may be construed as part of a more comprehensive contrast between the πνεῦμα-νοῦς-ἔσω ἄνθρωπος on the one hand and the σάρξ on the other. This inner-outer contrast reflects a split in human nature that cannot be ignored.30 Yet the νοῦς is not divine, as in many strands of Hellenistic philosophy and Hermetic thought, for it must be renewed or transformed (Rom 12:2; cf. Eph 4:23).

28 The term νοῦς occurs fourteen times in the genuine Pauline letters, although only here and

in 1 Cor 2:16, Rom 7:23–25, and Rom 12:2 is its usage relevant for our discussion. 29 R. Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966), 337–38. 30 S. Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism in the Pauline Anthropology,” BR 3 (1958), 15–27, esp. 19.

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Second Corinthians 5:1–10 is an important, though variously interpreted, passage for understanding Paul’s views of human nature.31 Vv. 1–4 are of particular significance: For we know that if the earthly tent [οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους] we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling [τὸ οἰκητήριον ἡμῶν τὸ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ], so that by putting it on we may not be found naked.

Several observations can be made about this passage:32 (1) the use of the image of the house (οἰκία) or tent (σκῆνος) as a metaphor for the physical aspect of human existence (the σῶμα, cf. vv. 6–8) occurs frequently in Hellenistic tradition from Plato on,33 but rarely in early Judaism.34 (2) Paul distinguishes the real person from the purely physical dimension of human existence, so that this is essentially a pluralistic or dualistic appraisal of human nature reflecting neither common Hellenistic nor common early Jewish conceptions, but rather appears to be Paul’s own theological construct. (3) Running throughout this passage is an undeniably negative evaluation of physical existence in comparison to the positive evaluation of the type of existence possible following death (cf. Rom 8:23). (4) To be “naked” refers to that state of postmortem existence in which the self is separated from the physical body.35 (5) The οἰκοδομὴ ἐκ θεοῦ (v. 1) or the οἰκητήριον ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, is a 31  F. G. Lang, 2 Korinther 5, 1–10 in der neueren Forschung (Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese 16; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1973). 32 See E. Brandenburger, Fleisch und Geist: Paulus und die dualistische Weisheit (WMANT 29; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1968), 175–77, where he discusses the close parallel between 2 Cor 5:1–4 and Philo Her. 267 (LCL trans.): “God does not grant as a gift to the lover of virtue that he should dwell in the body as in a homeland, but only permits him to sojourn there, as in a foreign country.” See also Cic. Tusc. 1.11.24 (LCL trans.): “souls, on their separation from the body, find their way to heaven as to their dwelling-place [posse animos, cum e corporibus excesserint, in caelum quasi in domicilium suum pervenire].” 33 Democr. B. 37, B. 187, B. 223 (Diels-Kranz, Vorsokr. 2.155, 183, 190); Longinus Subl. 32.5; Ps.-Hippocrates Cord. 7; Anat. 1; Ps.-Plato Axiochus 366a; Philo QG 1.28; PGM 1:319; 4:448, 1951, 1970, 2141 (here σκῆνος means corpse); Timaeus Locrus De nat. mundi, 60, 62, 86; Corpus Hermeticum 13.12, 15; Sentences of Sextus 320 (σκήνωμα); PGM XIXa.49: “every limb of this corpse and the spirit of this body [τὸ πνεῦμα τούτου τοῦ σκηνώματος]”; the phrase θνητῷ σκήνει in Achilles Tatius 2.36.3 is an emendation for κάλλει in the mss., and probably incorrect (E. Vilborg, Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia I and XV; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1955–62], I.46; XV. 62); for this usage in early Christian literature in addition to 2 Pet 1:13 f., Diogn. 6:8, and Apoc. Sedr. 9.2, s. v. σκῆνος* in LPGL 1237. This metaphor occurs frequently in Neopythagorean literature; cf. H. Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period (Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1965), 43.21; 49.9; 70.9; 80.2; 124.18; 143.19; 145.2. Philo (Somn. 1.122) speaks of ὁ οἶκος τῆς ψυχῆς, τὸ σῶμα. 34 See Wis 9:15; 4 Baruch 6:6 f. (where σκήνωμα is parallel to σαρκικὸς οἶκος). 35 According to Plato’s myth of the Vision of Judgment, told in Plato Gorg. 532a–524a (see E. R. Dodds, Plato, Gorgias [Oxford: Clarendon, 1959], 372–79), and repeated in Plutarch Cons. Apoll. 121a–c, people were once judged just before their death, but this resulted in bad decisions, for base souls were sometimes clad with beautiful bodies. Therefore Zeus arranged that people would be judged immediately after death when “naked” (γυμνός), i. e., when their

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way of referring to the glorified body of the Christian – a form of corporeality in which the dualistic conflict between flesh and spirit is transcended by a monistic form of existence. In 2 Corinthians 5:6–9 Paul continues to use the first-person plural (representing the view of Christians generally) of the desirability of being absent from the body and present with the Lord.36 Dropping the tent metaphor which he used in vv. 1–4, he says that “while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord” (v. 6b), and “we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (v. 8). Paul does not identify the Christians with their physical frames, but with the separable “we” (that is, the true person). He does not explicitly label that part of human nature that will be separated from the body upon death. If pressed, however, Paul probably would have preferred the term πνεῦμα to ψυχή, since the former was used as commonly in Hellenistic Judaism as the latter was among pagans. In Philippians 1:21–26, Paul says of the possibility of his own physical death that τὸ ἀποθανεῖν κέρδος, “to die is gain” (v. 21), and that to “depart” and be with Christ would be πολλῷ μᾶλλον κρεῖσσον, “infinitely better.”37 He refers to τὸ ζῆν ἐν σαρκί, “life in the flesh” (v. 22), and τὸ ἐπιμένειν [ἐν] τῇ σαρκί, “remaining in the flesh” (v. 24), as the less preferable alternative, and in both instances σάρξ is used as the equivalent of σῶμα. Obviously it must be Paul’s true self that will “depart and be with Christ,” although again he does not label this separable element. In 2 Corinthians 12:2–3, where not death but an altered state of consciousness is in view, Paul uses the term ἄνθρωπος for the self, the center of consciousness (whether himself or someone else). In the two contrastive states of ἐν σώματι and ἐκτὸς τοῦ σώματος or χωρὶς τοῦ σώματος, he contrasts the body with the self. The discussion of these passages indicates that Paul did not simply take over (as did such other Jewish authors as Josephus and the author of 4 Maccabees) one particular model of Hellenistic anthropology, and indeed appears to have had no real interest in doing so. Nevertheless, Paul does refer to a variety of dualistic souls had been divested of their bodies. In Plato Crat. 403b, people are said to fear Pluto ὅτι ἡ ψυχὴ γυμνὴ τοῦ σώματος παρ' ἐκεῖνον ἀπέρχεται. See H. D. Betz, Lukian von Samosata und das Neue Testament (TU 76; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1961), 93. W. Schmithals’ view that “naked” means “dead,” i. e., the absence of being, is simply impossible (Gnosticism in Corinth [Nashville: Abingdon, 1971], 264). 36 This is a disputed passage which some construe as Paul’s use of the language of his opponents. Schmithals finds gnostic language throughout this passage (Gnosticism in Corinth, 259–75), and Jewett argues that the term σώμα reflects Paul’s use of the anthropological categories of his gnostic opponents (Paul’s Anthropological Terms, 274–77). The view that “while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord” is a slogan of Paul’s opponents and therefore does not reflect Paul’s own views has most recently been argued by J. Murphy-O’Connor, “ ‘Being at Home in the Body we are in Exile from the Lord’ (2 Cor. 5:6b),” RB 93 (1986): 214–21. 37 D. W. Palmer (“ ‘To Die is Gain’ (Philippians i 21),” NovT 17 [1975], 203–218) argues that the Pauline phrase is a commonplace in Greco-Roman literature for those whose life is burdensome.

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or pluralistic features within the human person that cannot simply be explained using Israelite models. In the ancient Mediterranean world there was a tendency to understand human life as homologous to the life of the cosmos – that is, “the cosmos becomes the paradigmatic image of human existence.”38 In Platonism, Stoicism, and Gnosticism, although each conceives of human nature and the cosmos in very different ways, in all three the person is understood as a microcosm of the universe.39 Since the framework of thought is largely determined by his apocalyptic worldview (rather than a particular model of the cosmos), there is a tendency in Paul to conceptualize human nature and existence as a microcosmic version of a Christianized form of apocalyptic eschatology – that is, the apocalyptic structure of history becomes paradigmatic for understanding human nature. Just as Paul’s Christian form of apocalyptic thought is characterized by a historical or eschatological dualism consisting of the juxtaposition of the old age and the new age, so his view of human nature can similarly reflect a homologous dualistic structure. The death and resurrection of Christ in the past was regarded by Paul as the eschatological event that separated “this age” (Rom 12:2; 1 Cor 2:6; Gal 1:4) from “the age to come” (though Paul does not explicitly use the latter term, but cf. 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15), and though the final consummation was still future, for Christians the new age was present. The change in ages thus has microcosmic ramifications for individual existence (2 Cor 5:17), where the microcosmic dualism is experienced in terms of the tension between the “already” / “not yet” polarity – the juxtaposition of the indicative and the imperative (e. g. Gal 5:25: “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit”). It is at this point that one of the central problems of Pauline ethics becomes evident. If the flesh has been crucified with Christ (Gal 2:20; 3:24; 6:14; Rom 6:2, 6–7, 22; 8:13), why are the desires of the flesh still a problem for Christians (Gal 5:16–18; Rom 6:12–14; 8:5–8)? Appealing to the “already” / “not yet” model does not solve so much as preserve the contradiction. However, the presence of a macrocosmic paradigm does not necessitate a detailed correspondence between a microcosmic conception of human nature and Paul’s conception of the apocalyptic macrocosm. Bultmann not only demythologized the apocalyptic framework of Paul’s thought, but also used an existential model as a key for what is essentially an allegorical interpretation of Paul’s anthropological terminology as the choice between authentic and inauthentic modes of existence. Ernst Käsemann took Paul’s apocalyptic framework Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 165. Schweizer, TDNT 7.1028 (for primary and secondary literature); cf. Democritus, frag. 34 (SVF 2.153): ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ μικρῷ κόσμῷ ὄντι. In Gnosticism the three constituents of each person correspond both to human society as a whole (as well as to the visible and invisible cosmos), with its three classes of “spiritual,” “psychic,” and “fleshly” or “hylic,” as well as to the material and immaterial cosmos. 38 M. 39 E.

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seriously, and understood his dualistic use of “flesh” and “spirit” (along with other anthropological terms) as cosmic powers rather than as designations for aspects of human nature. Bultmann’s existentialist understanding of Pauline anthropological terms (the human person is a free agent responsible for his or her own decisions) and Käsemann’s apocalyptic or cosmological understanding (the human person is a victim of supernatural cosmic forces) are not mutually exclusive categories. In some respects this is a chicken-and-egg problem – did Paul’s mythological view of eschatological dualism give rise to a homologous view of human nature in which the old and the new are juxtaposed until the eschatological consummation, or did his mythological view of the structure of human nature provide confirmation for his Christian understanding of Jewish apocalyptic eschatology? Neither of these possibilities is quite satisfactory, for the answer is probably more dialectical. It is more likely that Paul linked his Christianized apocalyptic outlook with current conceptions of the human person, since the former is far more unified than the latter.

Paul and the Hellenistic Philosophical “Practice of Death” A Platonic view articulated only in the Phaedo is that “those who pursue philosophy aright study nothing but dying and being dead” (64a). In this passage, the cognate terms ἀποθνῄσκειν and θνῄσκειν are metaphors, since Socrates goes on to say that most people “do not know in what way the real philosophers desire death, nor in what way they deserve death, nor what kind of a death it is” (64b; LCL trans.). The most important purpose in life is for the soul to withdraw from the concerns of the body; asceticism (broadly defined as various forms of self-denial) is a proleptic anticipation in this life of the liberation which can only be fully experienced following death (Phaed. 61c–69e; 80c–84b; Theaet. 176a–b).40 Plato’s Socrates calls this μελέτη θανάτου (“the practicing of being in a state of death” or “the practice of death,” Phaed. 67e, 81a); in other words, the preparation while in the body for the true life which is possible only when the soul is separated from the body at death.41 This is reiterated in Phaed. 81a (LCL trans.): If it [the soul] departs pure, dragging with it nothing of the body, because it never willingly associated with the body in life, but avoided it and gathered itself into itself all along, since this has always been its constant study – but this means nothing else than that it pursued philosophy rightly and really practiced being in a state of death [καὶ τῷ ὄντι τεθνάναι μελετῶσα]: or is not this the practice of death [μελέτη θανάτου]? 40  J. C. B. Gosling and C. C. W. Taylor, The Greeks on Pleasure (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 84–86. 41 Plato Phaed. 6lb–c, part of a preliminary statement of Socrates in this dialogue, is also a text of central importance for ancient philosophical discussions of suicide; cf. A. J. Droge, “Mori lucrum: Paul and Ancient Theories of Suicide,” NovT 30 (1988), 263–86.

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The central theme of the Phaedo is the separation of body and soul, a separation which is complete at death, but which is in process during life. One must do everything possible in this life to keep the soul untainted from the body, and the separation of the soul from the body at death (toward which this process is directed), makes the attainment of complete knowledge possible. The term “separation” is used in the sense of the attainment of freedom – something which biological death will not automatically confer (81c).42 Death is therefore both a biological phenomenon, and more importantly, a way of living in this world in which the self is transformed. Thus human experience is one of conflict between the rational element of the soul and the body; while this conflict can be partially mitigated by the philosophic life, complete resolution of the conflict is possible only in death, when the soul will be freed from the negative influences of the body. In short, “true philosophers practice dying [οἱ ὀρθῶς φιλοσοφοῦντες ἀποθνῄσκειν μετελῶσι]” (Plato Phaed. 67e), a passage alluded to by Cicero (Tusc. 1.30.74): Tota enim philosophorum vita … commentatio mortis est (“For the whole life of the philosopher … is a preparation for death”).43 The purpose of the μελέτη θανάτου, is the unity and integration of the ψυχή, which in its natural state is dispersed throughout the body and in conflict with itself (Phaed. 83a; Resp. 443d; Gorg. 482c), and conflict is also caused by the passions, desires, and fears of the body (Phaed. 66c). The idea of commentatio mortis or μελέτη θανάτου was relatively widespread in antiquity. In Ps.-Plato Axiochus 366c (trans. Hershbell),44 Socrates is made to say (a clear allusion to the Phaedo), “my soul has longed for death [θανατᾷ μου ἡ ψυχή].” Here biological death (perhaps even suicide) is in view. Yet the therapeutic effect of Socrates’ consolatory words to Axiochus frees him from the fear of his approaching death and transforms him so that he can say γέγονα καινός, “I have become a new person” (370e). The commentatio mortis is also mentioned in several Cynic letters. In Ps.-Socrates Ep. 14.8 (trans. Malherbe), there is a clear allusion to the Phaedo: For the philosopher does nothing other than to die, since he disdains the demands of the body and is not enslaved by the pleasures of the body; and this is nothing other than the separation of the soul from the body, and death is nothing other again than the separation of the soul from the body.

See also Ps.-Diogenes Ep. 39 (trans. Malherbe): Take care, also, for your migration from here. And you will take such care, if you practice how to die [μελετήσειας ἀποθνῄσκειν], that is, how to separate the soul from the body, while you are still alive. For this, I think, is what the associates of Socrates, too, call death. 42 For Plato, a ψυχή may be biologically separated from the body and yet retain its bodily orientation and material desires (81d–e); cf. Grosso, Death, 16. 43 The context of this allusion is a discussion about suicide. 44 J. P. Hershbell, Pseudo-Plato, Axiochus (SBLTT 21; Chico: Scholars Press, 1981).

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A similar view might seem to lie behind the Epicurean motto “meditare mortem” (Seneca Ep. 26.8; Usener, Epicurea, frag. 250), which according to Seneca means that Qui mori didicit, servire dedidicit, “The one who has learned to die has unlearned slavery” (Ep. 26.10).45 The Epicurean view that the philosopher must μελετᾶν ἀποθνῄσκειν, “practice dying” (Porphyry Abst. 1.51; Usener, Epicurea, frag. 470) can be traced to Epicurus himself (Ep. ad Men. 126; Usener, Epicurea 61): The one who advises the young person to live well but the old person to die well is simpleminded, not only because life is desirable, but also because to practice living well and to practice dying well are one and the same.

While this is reminiscent of Plato (Phaed. 64a–69e; 80c–84b), Epicurus cannot have agreed with Plato that death is a positive intellectual and moral development, but rather regarded dying not as something to be feared, but as the appropriate completion of a good life. The commentatio mortis also played a role in the dualistic psychology of late Stoics (Seneca Ep. 70.17; LCL trans.): “Would you be free from the restraint of your body? Live in it as if you were about to leave it.” Similarly, Seneca says in Ep. 65.16 (LCL trans.): For this body of ours is a weight upon the soul and its penance; as the load pressed down the soul is crushed and is in bondage, unless philosophy has come to its assistance and has bid it take fresh courage by contemplating the universe, and has turned it from things earthly to things divine. There it has liberty, there it can roam abroad; meantime it escapes the custody in which it is bound, and renews its life in heaven.

The μελέτη θανάτου is also mentioned in Iamblichus Protrepticus 3 (ed. Pistelli, 13), which presents itself as Pythagorean teaching: The deliverance from evils, which few value, encourages the separation from the body and a focus on the life of the soul itself, which we call “the practice of death” [μελέτην θανάτου].

Up to this point it appears that the commentatio mortis is primarily an intellectual matter which finds concrete expression in ascetic behavior  – a turning away from the encumbrances of physical life that impede the life of the soul, or more particularly, the mind. Yet I believe there is also a positive counterpart to the commentatio mortis which consists of an intellectual focus on the definite advantages of the mode of living that characterizes postmortem existence. An example is found in Aristotle’s Protrepticus (Düring, frag. B43; Iamblichus Protrepticus 9;

45 A

recurring theme in Hellenistic moral philosophy was to regard the various stages of life as preparations for death. When a person passed from one stage of life to another (typically conceptualized as childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age), the previous stage “died,” so that the death that follows old age should not be viewed as abrupt but as part of a lifelong process (Seneca Ep. 24.20; 58.22–24; 120.17–18; Marc. 21.6; Philo Ιοs. 127–28; Plut. De E apud Delph. 392c–d; Marcus Aurelius 9.21; cf. C. Gnilka, “Neues Alter, neues Leben,” JAC 20 [1977], 9–13).

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trans. Düring, Protrepticus, 65), in which the focus is not on death itself, but on a traditional feature of Greek afterlife mythology: Best of all one would see the truth of what we are saying if someone carried us in thought [τῇ διανοίᾳ] to the Isles of the Blest. There there would be need of nothing, no profit from anything; there remain only thought and philosophical speculation [τὸ διανοεῖσθαι καὶ θεωρεῖν], which even now we describe as the free life (ἐλεύθερον βίον). If this is true, would not any of us be rightly ashamed if, when the chance was given us to settle in the Isles of the Blest, he were by his own fault unable to do so?

In this postmortem existence, the conflict between the somatic and noetic modes of existence would be resolved in favor of the latter. In effect this is a type of realized eschatology – that is, the challenge to live in this world in a way approximating postmortem conditions as far as possible. A similar conception is articulated in Plato Theaet. 176a–b (LCL trans.): Therefore one ought to try to escape from here [ἐνθένδε, that is, from this world] to there [ἐκεῖσε, that is, to be ἐν θεοῖς] as quickly as possible. Escape means likeness to God as far as possible, and this likeness means to become just and holy and wise.

Similarly in Ps.-Plato Axiochus 366A (trans. Hershbell, 33): Yet all the while the soul yearns after and is athirst for its native heavenly aither [τὸν οὐράνιον αἰθέρα], always striving for the life there and the divine choral dance. Thus the release from this life is a change from a kind of evil to a good.

This discussion of the Hellenistic philosophical commentatio mortis invites comparison with the important role the metaphorical significance of death had in Pauline ethics.46 Death is certainly the most radical of metaphors for the transformed life, and Paul frequently used the language and imagery of death and dying to describe a mode of living in which the liberating effects of the death of Jesus are actualized in the present moral experience of Christians. Death as a metaphor for the morally transformed life occurs neither in early Judaism nor in Hellenism apart from the commentatio mortis theme. It is therefore possible that Paul’s use of the metaphor of death as the basis for ethical behavior,47 is based, at least in part, on the popular philosophical commentatio mortis theme in both its cognitive and behavioral dimensions. 46 This metaphor was also used in Deutero-Pauline literature (Col 2:12–13, 20; 3:1–3; Eph 2:5–6; cf. 1 Pet 2:24) although without the so-called “eschatological reservation” characteristic of Paul, that is, when Paul speaks of being raised with Christ he uses the future tense (but cf. Rom 6:13), while post-Pauline literature sometimes uses past tenses (e. g., Col 2:12–13; 3:1; Eph 2:5–6). Traces of the metaphor occur also in Ignatius of Antioch; cf. Rom. 7.2: “My desire has been crucified [ἐσταύρωται] and there is in me no fire of love for material things.” 47 The “dying and rising god” model for understanding the ritual experience of those who participated in the ancient mystery cults is seriously flawed, and the link to Romans 6 is tenuous; see J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods,” ER 4.521–27, and W. Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 99–102.

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Paul used death as a metaphor of his daily experience in 1 Corinthians 15:31: “I die daily [καθ’ ἡμέραν ἀποθνῄσκω]” (cf. Seneca Ep. 24.19: cotidie morimur). He also argued that just as a wife is legally obligated to her husband as long as he lives, but is freed from those obligations when he dies, so Christians have been freed from the Torah through the death of Christ (Rom 7:1–6). Paul also connects the metaphor of the continual experience of death with the death of Jesus, as in 2 Corinthians 4:10–11: Always carrying in the body the death [τήν νέκρωσιν] of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

Here there is no development of the possible ethical implications of metaphorical death. Rather, “death” functions as an imitatio Christi in that the mortal dangers Paul experienced are construed as analogous to those experienced by Christ. Yet in referring to ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ  Ἰησοῦ, he doubtless means the resurrection life of Jesus. Similarly in 2 Corinthians 5:14 Paul links the death of Christ with the death of all believers: “one died for all; therefore all have died.” Paul refers not only to the death of Christ as metaphorically replicated in the “death” of the believer, but he also exploits the more shocking metaphor of crucifixion. (This barbaric form of execution, referred to as the servile supplicium, is understandably never referred to in a positive sense in connection with treatments of the commentatio mortis theme.)48 Paul, however, exploits this metaphor in a positive way in Galatians 2:19–20: I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Here the verb συνεσταύρωμαι is a perfect passive – the agent who performs the action specified by the verb is someone other than Paul. The crucifixion metaphor is important for Paul and appears again in Galatians 5:24, where he claims that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Here Christians, the subject of the verb ἐσταύρωσαν, have actively “crucified” their σάρξ which represents (and hence serves as a metaphor for) their παθήματα and ἐπιθυμίαι. In Galatians 6:14 Paul speaks of the cross of Christ, “by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Here the effects of crucifixion are again individualized (as in Gal 2:19–20) because they are explicitly applied only to Paul’s own experience. While “death” and “crucifixion” are used as metaphors in Galatians (ἀποθνῄσκειν in 2:19, 21; συσταυροῦν in 2:19; 48 Note the metaphor Plato uses in Phaed. 83d (LCL trans.): “Each pleasure or pain nails (προσηλοῖ) it (the soul) as with a nail (ἧλον) to the body and rivets it on and makes it corporeal, so that it fancies the things are true which the body says are true.” Here the metaphor of crucifixion is used negatively.

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σταυροῦν in 5:24; 6:14), the possible ethical implications of the resurrection are not developed in this context. The metaphor of death as the basis for the transformed life permeates Romans 6–8.49 In Romans 6:2, Paul affirms that “we died to sin,” and bases this view on baptism, understood as a vicarious ritual experience of the death and resurrection of Christ. Though this understanding of baptism is arguably pre-Pauline, the ethical implications of this ritual re-enactment of Christ’s death and resurrection were probably a Pauline innovation. Since the person who has died has been freed (δεδικαίωται) from sin (Rom 6:7), in baptism Christians have experienced liberation from the life of bondage by vicariously sharing the death of Christ. In both the philosophical discussions of the commentatio mortis and Paul’s discussions of the ethical implications of the death and resurrection of Christians, a certain kind of knowledge is critically important for determining behavior. There is a pervasive use of cognitive language in Paul’s discussion of how the death of Christ can be appropriated: (1) “Knowing [γινώσκοντες] that our old self [ὁ παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπος] was crucified” (Rom 6:6). (2) “If we died with Christ we believe [πιστεύομεν] that we will also live with him, knowing [εἰδότες] that Christ being raised from the dead will never again die” (Rom 6:8–9). (3) “Consider [λογίζεσθε] yourselves dead to sin but alive to God” (Rom 6:11). (4) In Romans 8, Paul speaks of those who “set their minds [φρονοῦσιν]” on concerns of the flesh or the Spirit, for “to set the mind [τὸ φρόνημα] on the flesh is death, but to set the mind [τὸ φρόνημα] on the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom 8:5–6). This use of cognitive language indicates that baptism itself does not produce an automatic transformation of the one baptized. The metaphorical character of Paul’s language is clear not only on the basis of these cognitive terms, but also from the simile in Romans 6:13: ὡσει ἐκ νεκρῶν ζῶντας, “as though alive from the dead.” There is a phenomenological similarity between the negative and positive cognitive and behavioral aspects of the commentatio mortis and Paul’s utilization of the language of death and resurrection as bases for Christian ethics. The major difference lies in the fact that for a philosopher the proleptic experience of death was always limited to the anticipation of his own death, whereas in Paul, the death and resurrection of Christ became paradigmatic for individual experience. Certainly the language of “death” as a radical metaphor for the transformed life was available to Paul in the widespread popular philosophical doctrine of the commentatio mortis.

49 There is an extremely high concentration of terms for death, many used metaphorically, in Romans 5–8: (1) ἀποθνῄσκειν (17 times; elsewhere in Romans 6 times in 14:7–15); (2) θάνατος (21 times; elsewhere in Romans only in 1:32); (3) νεκρός (9 times; elsewhere in Romans 7 times); (4) συσταυροῦν (only in Rom 6:6; cf. Gal 2:19).

18. The Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10) The Problem 2 Corinthians 5:10 is one of several passages in the Pauline letters which contains a very brief narrative of an eschatological judgment scene: For we all must appear before the tribunal of Christ, so that each might receive what [he or she did] while living, in proportion to what he or she did, whether good or bad.

This brief scenario contains two closely connected motifs. One depicts Christ as supreme arbiter at the final judgment, a motif with several parallels in the New Testament and early Christian literature,1 though the phrase τὸ βῆμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ occurs only here and in Polycarp Philippians 6:2. The other focuses on individuals receiving recompense for good or bad behavior in this life, and is part of a small group of passages which have provoked discussion, particularly among Protestant New Testament scholars,2 on how the apparent contradiction between justification by faith and judgment based on works can be resolved.3 In this essay, in honor of my esteemed colleague and friend Calvin Roetzel,4 I want * Originally publication: “The Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Cor 5:10),”Pauline Conversations in Context: Essays in honor of Calvin J. Roetzel, ed. J. C. Anderson, P. Sellew and C. Setzer (JSNTSup 221; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 68–86. Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Pic. 1 Christ is presented as the eschatological judge in Acts 10:42; 17:31; Rom 2:16 (“God judges the secrets of people by Jesus Christ”); 1 Cor 4:4–5; 2 Thess 1:7–10; 2 Tim 4:1; 1 Pet 4:5; 2 Clem. 1:1; Barn. 5:7; 7:2; 15:5; Polycarp Phil. 2:1; Diognetus 7:6; Justin, Dial. 118.1; 132.1. In the Apocalypse of John, Christ is presented as the Lamb who conquers the coalition of kings of the earth (17:14), and in a parallel eschatological scene, as the Rider on the White Horse who slaughters the kings of the earth (19:11–21), though only God is depicted as presiding over the final judgment (20:11–15). Several judgment scenes in Matthew has a close similarity to judgment scenes in the Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71), particularly Mt 16:27; 19:28–29; 25:31–46. The last passage consists of a lengthy apocalyptic scenario in which the Son of Man, seated on his glorious throne, judges all nations. See E. Lohse, “Christus als der Weltenrichter,” Jesus Christus in Historie und Theologie: Neutestamentliche Festschrift für Hans Conzelmann zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. G. Strecker (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1975), 475–86. 2 These include Rom 2:6–16; 14:10–12; 2 Cor 11:15. 3 Most recently, see K. L. Yinger, Paul, Judaism, and Judgment according to Deeds (SNTSMS 105; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 4 An earlier draft of this paper was presented in November, 1994, before one of the initial meetings in Tübingen of Der Verein für die geistlichen behinderten Neuen Testamentler (VGBNT), of which Calvin Roetzel was co-founder (with the present author) and first president.

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to explore the various problems which arise when this fragmentary apocalyptic scenario is related to other eschatological judgment sayings in the Pauline letters. This essay revisits in a very different way the theme of judgment that he took up in his Duke University doctoral dissertation. One of the central problems of this passage is that it constitutes a brief reference to a single scene of eschatological judgment which must (one would assume) have been part of a longer apocalyptic scenario, or a variation of such a scenario, assumed but never narrated in any detail by Paul. It would be natural, for example, to suppose that this judgment scene occurs immediately following the Parousia, though this is not mentioned either here or in the close parallel in Romans 14:10.5 This passage contains what I will designate as “a fragment of latent apocalyptic discourse,” part of the fabric of the implied thought world of Paul, aspects of which occasionally break the surface of his epistolary discourse.6 It is striking that nowhere in Paul’s authentic letters does he include the last judgment as part of a sequence of eschatological events in the few relatively extended scenarios of apocalyptic events which he does mention (1 Thess 4:13–18; 1 Cor 15:20–28, 50–55; Rom 8:18–23; cf. 2 Thess 2:1–12).7 The existence of these fragments of latent apocalyptic discourse have not eluded the notice of scholars and have been accounted for in various ways. Hans Conzelmann, for example, speaks of a “primitive Christian catechism” taught by Paul and his coworkers when they were present in the various communities to which he later addressed letters. This “catechism,” of which Paul affords his readers only occasional glimpses, was in Conzelmann’s view conceptually based on Jewish apocalyptic but necessarily subject to Christian modification.8 Johannes Weiss refers to the claim that the saints will judge the world (1 Cor 6:2, a passage considered below) as a reminiscence of a “Fundamentalsatz christlich-eschatologischer Lehre,”9 a conception analogous to Conzelmann’s suggestion of an underlying “primitive Christian catechism.” 2 Corinthians 5:10 is one of more than twenty passages in the Pauline letters in which fragments of a latent apocalyptic scheme of events find brief and cryptic expression.10 Clever scholars have tried to “connect the dots” by coordinating  5  H. J. Schoeps, Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History, trans. Harold Knight (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961), 98.  6 This problem is explored by J. P. Sampley, “From Text to Thought World: The Route to Paul’s Ways,” Pauline Theology, vol. 1: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon, ed. J. M. Bassler (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 3–14.  7 2 Thess 1:5–10, a brief apocalyptic scenario in a disputed letter of Paul, focuses on the judgment which will occur when the Parousia takes place.  8 H. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 104–5.  9 J. Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief (KEK; 9. Aufl.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910), 146. 10 Rom 2:6–16; 14:10–12; 1 Cor 3:8, 12–15; 4:5; 6:2–3, 9–10, 14; 13:12; 2 Cor 4:14; 5:1–8;

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these passages with the more extended scenarios mentioned above (which, despite their “length” are still relatively fragmentary), are well-intentioned if unconvincing attempts to synthesize Paul’s apocalyptic outlook. New Testament scholars have almost routinely expected more of Paul than he can reasonably be expected to deliver. He does not tell his particular epistolary audiences everything he knows (no author does or can), nor is it evident that he made any concerted effort to ensure that his letters exhibited logical consistency during the nearly ten-year period in which he wrote them.11 Paul’s views often reflect an apocalyptic perspective, and apocalyptic thought is essentially a form of narrative theology in which logic is subordinated to story.

The Immediate Context: 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 In the interpretation of particular passages such as 2 Corinthians 5:10, it is standard exegetical procedure to pay close attention to the clues provided by the immediate context. Though 2 Corinthians 5:1–10 is often regarded as a coherent textual subunit, the inappropriate chapter division between chapters 4 and 5 has obscured the coherence of the larger textual unit in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10.12 This unit is part of the more encompassing textual unit in 2 Corinthians 2:14–7:4 (excluding 6:14–7:1) where Paul sets out the characteristics of a true Apostle as part of an apologetic strategy directed toward opponents who question his credentials.13 Paul argues that his own physical experience of adversities and hardships is an expression of the suffering and death of Jesus, while his proclamation of the gospel 11:15; Phil 1:6, 10–11; 2:16; 3:10–11, 18–21; 1 Thess 1:10; 5:2–5, 9. To this list can be added a few additional references in pseudo-Pauline letters: Eph 6:8; Col 1:22; 2 Tim 4:14. 11 These figures are based on the reasonable assumptions that 1 Thessalonians, the earliest letter of Paul, was written no earlier than 49 CE, while Romans, the latest letter, was not written after 59 CE. 12  V. P. Furnish, II Corinthians: Translated with Introduction, Notes and Commentary (AB, 32A; Garden City: Doubleday, 1984), 288. 13 While the composition history of 2 Corinthians is very complex, there is some support among critical scholars for the idea that it is a compilation consisting of six elements put together in the following chronological order: (1) 2 Corinthians 2:14–7:4 (excluding 6:14–7:1) constitutes a textual unit which functions as a “first apology” crafted by Paul in defense of his apostleship. (2) 2 Corinthians 10:1–13:10, the so-called “letter of tears,” functions as a second apology. (3) The third unit is the “letter of reconciliation” (2 Cor 1:1–2:13; 7:5–16; 13:11–13). (4)  and (5)  2 Corinthians 8 and 9 constitute originally separate administrative letters, and (6) 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1 is a later interpolation. This analysis of 2 Corinthians was proposed by G. Bornkamm, Die Vorgeschichte des sogenannten zweiten Korintherbriefes (Heidelberg: Winter, 1961), followed by D. Georgi, The Opponents of Paul in Second Corinthians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 9–14. On 2 Corinthians 8–9, see H. D. Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 3–36. On the more general history of research, see L. Aejmelaeus, Streit und Versöhnung: Das Problem der Zusammensetzung des 2. Korintherbriefes (Helsinki: Kirjapaino Raamattutalo, 1987).

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reflects the life of Jesus (2 Cor 4:1–15). He then adopts an antithetical style in 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 to articulate an anthropological duality in response to the tension experienced in daily life between the reality of external suffering and physical mortality on the hand, over against his faith in the indwelling presence of God on the other. Working out from this anthropology, he understands death as the beginning of life as well as the resolution of the tension between experience and faith. The pairs of antithetical terms which Paul used to express his convictions are primarily at home in Hellenistic anthropology and eschatology: (1) “the outer person” versus “the inner (person)” (4:16); (2) “the visible” versus “the invisible” (4:18a); (3) “temporal” versus “eternal” (4:18b); (4) “an earthly house” versus “an eternal house in heaven” (5:1); (5) “naked” and “unclothed” (i.e., “disembodied”) versus “clothed” and “put on an additional garment” (5:3–4). The brief reference to the postmortem appearance of people before “the judgment seat of Christ” to be rewarded or punished in accordance with their works in 2 Corinthians 5:10, is somewhat out of step with the rest of the larger textual unit since it is the only apocalyptic motif found in the passage. This verse concludes a short section (vv. 6–10) in which Paul argues that even though it would be preferable to be away from the body and present with the Lord, no matter where one is, the major preoccupation of the follower of Christ ought to be to please the Lord. The sanction for pleasing the Lord in v. 10 is based on a traditional Jewish and Christian apocalyptic conception of the future event of the last judgment (presided over in Christian contexts by Christ).14 introduced in v. 10 with the inferential particle γάρ followed by the reason why one ought to please the Lord: “For we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” The phrase “we must all appear” apparently involves everyone, not just Christians.15 There are several difficulties in the clause in v. 10b: ἵνα κομίσηται ἕκαστος τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν. The verb κομίσηται is always transitive and means “to come into possession of something,” “receive a recompense.”16 The clause τὰ [ἔπραξεν] διὰ τοῦ σώματος (with verb supplied) is the object of ἔπραξεν, while the prepositional phrase πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν is adverbial, modifying κομίσηται. The entire clause can then be translated “so that each might receive what [he or she did] while living, in proportion to what he or she did.” While the prepositional phrase διὰ τοῦ σώματος can either be construed instrumentally (“through the body”) or temporally (“during life in the body,” i.e., “in life”), the 14 C. Wolff, Der zweite Brief des Paulus an die Korinther (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1989), 114. 15 N. Baumert, Täglich Sterben und Auferstehen: Der Literalsinn von 2 Kor. 4.12–5.10 (SANT 34; Munich: Kösel, 1973), 47. 16 BDAG, 557. Yinger (Judgment, 262–63) argues that κομίσηται should be translated “receive back [one’s deeds],” based on the notion of organic consequences rooted in the Hebrew Bible. Despite the color of his proposal, the argument is weak semantically.

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latter appears more likely. However, regardless of whether διὰ τοῦ σώματος is understood instrumentally or temporally, the action of the aorist verb ἔπραξεν indicates that the reception of the recompense is a postmortem event, that physical life is a thing of the past. Since the phrase τὰ [ἔπραξεν] διὰ τοῦ σώματος has no close parallels in other traditional judgment sayings, Ernst Synofzik has argued that it is a Pauline addition to a conventional motif.17 While Jewish and Christian apocalyptic eschatology generally, though not exclusively, understood the final judgment to be a collective event,18 some traditions of Greek underworld mythology depicted the judgment of each individual immediately following death.19 In Judaism the notions of the postmortem judgment of the individual in anticipation of a final judgment are explored in 4 Ezra and the Testament of Abraham,20 while in early Christianity this motif is expressed in Hebrews 9:27 in the motto “It is appointed to a person once to die, but after this the judgment.”21 In 2 Corinthians 5:10, a collective emphasis is apparently expressed by the phrase “we all must appear,” though that can easily be understood as a pluralis sociativus and hence referring to something that each individual must experience. This is confirmed by the pronoun ἕκαστος (“each one”) which is used as the subject of the verb κομίσηται in the following purpose clause: “so that each might receive what [he or she did] while living.” Whether Paul is here entertaining the notion of a collective final scene of judgment,22 therefore, 17 E. Synofzik, Die Gerichts‑ und Vergeltungsaussagen bei Paulus: Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (GTA, 8; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), 75–76. Synofzik is followed by Yinger, Judgment, 264. 18 Matt 25:31–46; Rev 20:11–15; 4 Ezra 7:30–44; 2 Baruch 49–51; Sib. Or. 4.40–48, 179–92; 1 Enoch 38:1–6; 62:2–16; 90:20–27. 19 Plato Gorgias 526A–E; Phaedrus 249A–B; Respublica 2.364E-365A; 10.614C; Laws 870D; Lucian Dial. mort. 10.13; cf. Apollodorus 3.1.1; Plutarch De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet 943; De sera numinis vindicta 564e–565b; Diodorus 5.79.1–2; L. Ruhl, De mortuorum iudicio (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1903); T. F. Glasson, “The last Judgment–in Rev. 20 and Related Writings,” NTS 28 (1982) 536–8; M. Eugene Boring, Klaus Berger and C. Colpe, Hellenistic Commentary to the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 454; G. Strecker and U. Schnelle, Neuer Wettstein: Texte zum Neuen Testament aus Griechentum und Hellenismus (2 vols.; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996), II/1.449. The popularity of the idea of postmortem judgment is suggested by Plutarch in De superstitione 166f–167a, where he ridicules popular beliefs in the terrors of the afterlife, including judgment after death on analogy with a trial in a Greek court, see M. Smith, “De Supersitione (Moralia 164E-171F),” Plutarch’s Theological Writings and Early Christian Literature (ed. Hans Dieter Betz; Leiden: Brill, 1975), 19. Denying the validity of the popular view of judgment and punishment in the underworld was also a theme in consolation literature; see Seneca Moral Essays, Ad Marciam 19.4. See also F. E. Brenk, In Mist Apparelled: Religious Themes in Plutarch’s Moralia and Lives (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 21–7. Postmortem judgment, including rewards and punishments, is particularly associated with Orphism; see W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion (London: Methuen, 1935; reprinted Princeton: Princeton University, 1993), 156–87. 20 4 Ezra 7:75–90; 8:38; 9:12; 14:35; Test. Abr. [Rec. A] 12–14. 21 According to 3 Baruch 4:1–7, Hades is actually located in the third heaven, implying the immediate postmortem punishment of the wicked (Yarbro Collins, “Seven Heavens,” 44–5). 22 Lietzmann and Kümmel, An die Korinther, 122–3; Wolff, Korinther, 114.

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or an immediate postmortem judgment of each person (as apparently in Heb 9:27) is not completely clear,23 though many commentators fail to consider the latter as even a possibility. The mention of an appearance “before the judgment seat of Christ,” language which is appropriate to a public occasion, seems to tip the scales in favor of a collective apocalyptic event.24 In sum, a consideration of the context actually contributes very little to our knowledge of the meaning of 2 Corinthians 5:10. The reason is fairly obvious. Paul does not refer to the postmortem appearance of everyone before Christ at the last judgment in order to provide new and vital information to them about an eschatological event of critical importance. Rather, he assumes that his readers take as self-evident the fact that everyone will received a recompense for their deeds at the eschatological tribunal of Christ,25 and therefore he uses this belief as the major argument for living a life pleasing to God. In this instance at least, this fragment of a latent apocalyptic discourse reflects basic eschatological convictions which Paul and his audience share.

The Thematic Context: Judgment in Paul In addition to searching for clues to the meaning of particular passages in the immediate literary context, another routine exegetical strategy is to examine important themes and motifs in a particular passage in terms of their meaning and significance elsewhere in other literary contexts. It is therefore important to consider the theme of judgment in Paul, though the complexity of this theme means that only those few passages will be considered that exhibit a concentration of eschatological judgment sayings. The theme of judgment in Paul can be broached in a convenient way by focusing on a very important sentence at the very beginning of the published version of Calvin Roetzel’s doctoral dissertation: ”The conception of judgment is a major theme in Paul’s theology.”26 Is this broad assessment correct? In an essay published in 1994, Wolfgang Beilner argues to the contrary that “Gericht ist bei Paulus kaum ausgeführtes Thema” (“For Paul, judgment is hardly a developed theme”),27 23 Glasson,

“2 Corinthians v. 1–10,” 152. 14:10 refers to the “judgment seat of God,” while according to Acts 10:42, Christ has been designated by God as the judge of the living and the dead; cf. 2 Tim 2:9; see also Acts 17:31; Rom 2:16. 25 D. M. Hay, “The Shaping of Theology in 2 Corinthians: Convictions, Doubts, Warrants,” D. M. Hay (ed.), Pauline Theology,vol. II: 1 and 2 Corinthians (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 135–55 (140). 26 C. J. Roetzel, Judgment in the Community: A Study of the Relationship between Eschatology and Ecclesiology in Paul (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972), 1. 27 W. Beilner, “Weltgericht und Weltvollendung bei Paulus,” Weltgericht und Weltvollendung: Zukunftsbilder im Neuen Testament, ed. H.-J. Klauck (Freiburg, Basel and Vienna: Herder, 1994), 95. 24 Rom

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indicating in a footnote his disagreement with the assessment of Roetzel quoted above. Beilner supports his view by referring to a similar opinion expressed by Matthias Rissi: “In Paul judgment never becomes an independent topic.”28 Though the judgments of Beilner and Rissi are not strictly correct (see below), in defense of Roetzel, however, it must be observed that neither in the quotation at the beginning of this paragraph nor elsewhere does he claim that Paul treats the theme of judgment in a sustained and comprehensive manner. Rissi and Beilner appear to have misunderstood Roetzel in another way as well, for it is clear that by “judgment” they mean the eschatological judgment, while Roetzel means both the eschatological judgment and the judgment exercised in the present by the community or its representatives (which he correctly understands to be closely related).29 The sheer number of references in Paul to judgment of one type or another, which Roetzel rehearses in some detail,30 makes it impossible to deny that judgment was is in fact a “major theme” in the Pauline letters. Despite the fact that Roetzel nowhere claims that Paul treats the theme of judgment in a sustained way, the fact is that Paul did precisely that in two extended discussions in Romans 2:1–3:8 and 1 Corinthians 5:1–6:11, where both human judgment in the present and the future judgment of God are juxtaposed. Both passages require brief exposition. In Rom 2:1–3:831 (where the verb κρίνω occurs ten times, and the noun κρίμα three times), itself part of the more extensive textual unit consisting of Romans 1:18–3:20, Paul refers to the last judgment no less than six times (2:2, 3, 5, 12, 16; 3:6). At the beginning of Romans 2, he argues that those who judge the behavior of others are themselves guilty of the same things, and though such critics fully expect the judgment of God (τὸ κρίμα τοῦ θεοῦ) to fall on those they condemn (2:2), that judgment will actually fall on them (2:3).32 Paul refers to this time of reckoning as “the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (2:5). He goes on to argue that Jews and Gentiles alike will be judged ultimately by the law (2:12b); Jews by the Torah, Gentiles by the law written in their hearts (2:12–15). This will be an eschatological judgment, described in Romans 2:16 as “the day when God judges [κρίνει] the secrets of humankind in accordance 28 M. Rissi, “κρίνω, κρίσις,” EDNT, ed. H. Balz and G. Schneider (3 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2.319. 29 This becomes evident in his extensive discussion on “The Church and Judgment,” which constitutes the heart of his monograph (Roetzel, Judgment in the Community, 109–76). 30 Roetzel, Judgment in the Community, 68–108. 31 This passage is not discussed in any detail by Roetzel because it falls outside of his concern with the related themes of judgment and community. 32 Both references to judgment in Romans 2:2–3 could conceivably refer to judgment in this life, though the later references to an eschatological judgment make this a less compelling possibility. Further, Rom 2:2–5 has the appearance of an expansion of the Q saying, “Judge not and you will not be judged” (Luke 6:37 = Matt 7:1), with which Paul may have been familiar; see D. C. Allison, Jr., The Jesus Tradition in Q (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1997), 86.

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with my Gospel through Jesus Christ.”33 In Romans 3:5, Paul poses the rhetorical question: “God who inflicts his wrath is not unjust, is he?” The emphatic answer follows in Romans 3:6: “Of course not! Otherwise, how then will God judge [κρινεῖ] the world?” The Jewish expectation of the final judgment of God on humanity is again mentioned, though here with no hint of a special role for Christ. The hypothetical condemnation of the behavior of others is thus seen to be a perilous undertaking in view of the eschatological judgment in which all human secrets will be revealed. Paul mentions eschatological judgment six times in Romans 2:1–3:8, not because he intends to provide information about a particular episode in the complex unfoliding events of the end time, but rather because he uses this shared expectation of future divine judgment in arguments reinforcing the main point he is trying to make, namely, the hypocrisy and folly of judging others. Two of the three places in Paul where God is the subject of the verb κρίνω occur here (Rom 2:16; 3:6; see also 1 Cor 5:13), and an equivalent nominal τὸ κρίμα τοῦ θεοῦ (“the judgment of God”) occurs twice (Rom 2:2, 3) in which τοῦ θεοῦ is a subjective genitive. Like 2 Corinthians 5:10, each of these references to the eschatological judgment constitutes a fragment of Paul’s latent apocalyptic discourse, some revealing more than others. They all reflect the widespread Jewish belief that humanity will be judged by God, modified in Romans 2:16 by the Christian conception that Jesus Christ will act as the agent of the final judgment of God. Here both God and Jesus Christ are somehow involved in the final judgment, though the implied scenario remains vague. The phrase “in accordance with my gospel” relates to the role of Jesus Christ in the final judgment.34 References to the eschatological judgment in Romans 2:1–3:8, therefore, play a rhetorical role by providing arguments supporting the view that people should not judge others. In 1 Corinthians 5:1–6:11,35 the focus is not on a general theological issue like the hypocritical judgment of others explored in Romans 2:1–3:8, but rather on the importance of the communal exercise of judgment in very specific situations. Three shorter units of text are linked in 1 Corinthians 5:1–6:11, all of which deal in one way or another with the theme of judgment.36 In the first unit, 1 Corinthians 5:1–8, Paul expresses outrage at what he regards as an instance of blatant πορνεία (“sexual immorality”). Specifically, a male member of the Corinthian community is having what Paul considers an “incestuous” relationship with his father’s wife. Jews and Romans, with their typical insistence on exogamy would 33 Here

κρίνει is to be understood as a futuristic present. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary (AB, 33; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 312. Word order favors the connection of κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν μου with διὰ Χριστοῦ  Ἰησοῦ; see C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (ICC; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T Clark, 1975–79), 1.163. 35 Roetzel, Judgment in the Community, 115–32. 36 The verb κρίνω is used three times in 1 Corinthians 5:1–13 (vv. 3, 12, 13), and three times in 1 Corinthians 6:1–11 (vv. 1, 2, 3, 6). 34  J. A.

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be offended by such behavior, while the endogamous Greeks would not have considered it objectionable.37 He has pronounced judgment on the offender and urges the Corinthian assembly to do the same (1 Cor 5:3–5). In the second unit, 1 Corinthians 5:9–13, Paul again emphasizes the holiness of the congregation by reminding the Corinthians that he had already advised them by letter how to act in situations such as the one reflected in 1 Corinthians 5:1–8, for he specifically told them to avoid πόρνοι (“sexually immoral people”), and suggests that this avoidance should take the form of the expulsion of insiders after they have been judged by the community. Finally, in the third unit, 1 Corinthians 6:1–11, Paul argues that members of the congregation should not have disputes among themselves adjudicated by civil courts, but should decide such matters internally. They ought to have the competence to do this, he maintains, because saints will judge the world and will even judge angels (vv. 2–3). In sum, there are just three references to eschatological judgment in 1 Corinthians 5:1–6:11. The first is 1 Corinthians 5:13 which uses the future κρινεῖ with God as subject: “The Lord will judge those outside” (a feature which links this passage to Rom 2:1–3:8). The second reference to eschatological judgment is found in 1 Corinthians 6:2: “Do you not know that the saints will judge [κρινοῦσιν] the world?” which appears closely linked to the third reference in 1 Corinthians 6:3: “Do you not know that we will judge [κρινοῦμεν] angels?” While the first reference refers to the common Jewish view that God will be the final judge of humankind, one could infer that the judgment of the wicked is understood as separate from other aspects of God’s eschatological judgment. The last two references are more enigmatic in referring to an aspect of eschatological judgment not found elsewhere in Paul, namely the judgment of the world and 37 Sexual intercourse with mothers, sisters and daughters was universally prohibited in the ancient world (Iamblichus Vita Pyth. 31.210), but it is doubtful that the man Paul refers to was living with his natural mother. A more likely scenario is that the man’s father had remarried, perhaps a much younger woman, and had either divorced her or died (probably the latter), so that the woman in question would be the man’s step-mother, with whom he lived as a concubine. Roman marriage law, which is exogamous, contains a clear prohibition of this degree of relationship: Socrum quoque et novercam prohibitum est uxorem ducere, quia matris loco sunt. “Marriage to a mother-in-law or step-mother is forbidden” (Justinian Inst. 1.10.7; cf. Gaius Inst. 1.63; Cicero Pro Cluentio 14–15), as does the Torah (Lev 18:7–8; amplified by Philo Spec. leg. 3.14, 20–21; Josephus Ant. 3.274; Ps.-Phocylides 179). That does not mean that step-sons and step-mothers never cohabited in Rome (Martial Epigrams 4.16). The Greeks, however, permitted endogamous marriages. In Athens and other Greek cities, a woman could be married to her half-brother by the same father (Achilles Tatius 1.3), her adopted brother, her uncle or her cousin (A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens [2nd ed.; 2 vols.; London: Duckworth, 1998] 1.21–24), all forbidden in Roman and Jewish law. In this light, a Corinthian who married the young wife of his deceased father would not have excited the interest of the neighbors, though it was prohibited in both Roman and Jewish law (there is no technical term in Greek for “incest”). Perhaps familiarity with Greek endogamy led some rabbis to recognize the possibility that a Gentile or a proselyte might marry a stepmother (Strack-Billerbeck 3.358).

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angels by the saints,38 though there are a few parallels in Judaism.39 Like the reference to the tribunal of Christ in 2 Corinthians 5:10, these too are fragments of Paul’s latent apocalyptic discourse which both he and his readers accept as a given and he is therefore able to use them as arguments for why Christians should avoid “small claims” in secular law courts: they are more than capable of judging such issues themselves.40

Τὸ βῆμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ and / or τὸ βῆμα τοῦ θεοῦ? The phrase τὸ βῆμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, “the tribunal of Christ” occurs in the Pauline letters and the New Testament only in 2 Corinthians 5:10. The closest Pauline parallel is the reference to τὸ βῆμα τοῦ θεοῦ in Romans 14:10 (which occurs only there in a Pauline letter),41 where τοῦ Χριστοῦ does occur as an obviously inferior variant reading in a number of textual witnesses.42 Romans 14:10 must be read in the context of vv. 10–13: 10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. 11For it is written, “As I live, says the 38  Thiselton seems to take 1 Corinthians 6:2 as an ad hominem argument, suggesting that some of the Corinthians may have held “a more naive, individualistic, self-congratulatory view of their role at the last judgment,” which suggests that Paul is saying that if they think themselves competent to judge the world (which they are not and will not do), why can’t they arbitrate relatively insignificant matters? See A. C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 426–27. However, eventually he suggests that saints will judge the world in the sense that Christ will act as judge and since Christians are “in Christ” they can be said to share in his acts (431); cf. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 105. The logic here leaves much to be desired. 39 Daniel 7:22 Theodotion (judgment is given to the saints of the most high, alluded to in Rev 20:4); Wisdom 3:7–8; 1QpHab 5:4 (“God will execute the judgment of the nations by the hand of his elect”); Matthew 19:28 = Luke 22:28–30 (the disciples sit on thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel, though nothing is said about judging the nations); Revelation 20:4 (judgment is committed to those seated on thrones but who they are and whom they judge are not mentioned). 1 Enoch 95:3 (“Do not be afraid of the sinners, you righteous, for the Lord will again deliver them into your hands that you may execute judgment upon them as you desire”); cf. 1 Enoch 96:1; 98:12. 40 As an exercise in “connecting the dots” it is possible to link the eschatological judgment of God referred to in 1 Corinthians 5:13 to the judgment of the world by the saints referred to in 1 Corinthians 6:2 by supposing that the saints will somehow participate in the future judgment by God. This is the view of G. D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 227. 41 In 1 Corinthians 8:8, Paul says that βρῶμα ἡμᾶς παραστήσει τῷ θεῷ, by which he apparently means that “food will not bring us before [the tribunal of] God” (J. Murphy-O’Connor, “Food and Spiritual Gifts in 1 Cor 8:8,” CBQ 41 [1979], 297; A. C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians [NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000], 645–47). 42 The phrase τὸ βῆμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ was apparently found at Rom 14:10 in Marcion’s Apostolikon; see Tertullian Contra Marcionem 5.14.14 (tribunal Christi), and A. von Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 1960), 110*.

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Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God [Isa 45:23].” 12 So each of us shall give account of himself to God. 13Then let us no more pass judgment on one another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.

Second Corinthians 5:10 and Romans 14:10–12 have several striking similarities which become obvious when the clauses within which these phrases occur are close compared. First, the clause within which τὸ βῆμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ occurs in 2 Corinthians 5:10 and the clause within which τὸ βῆμα τοῦ θεοῦ occurs in Rom 14:10 are both connected to the preceding clauses by the inferential particle γάρ, indicating that both clauses are used as arguments to support the validity of the preceding statement. Romans 14:10, 13 indicate that Paul is using the reference to future judgment as an argument for not judging other Christians, analogous to his argument in Romans 2:1–3:8 that Jews should jot judge Gentiles for their moral failings. Second, in 2 Corinthians 5:10 the longer clause reads: “For we must all appear before [τοὺς γὰρ πάντας ἡμᾶς φανερωθῆναι δεῖ ἔμπροσθεν] the tribunal of Christ;” while in Romans 14:10 the longer clause reads “For we will all approach [πάντες γὰρ παραστησόμεθα] the tribunal of God.” While the English translations are quite similar, the Greek phraseology is very different, though in both there is an emphasis on “all” or “everyone” and the two clauses mean essentially the same thing. Despite the variation in formulation it seems clear that Paul is essentially following the template of a traditional conception of eschatological judgment. Third, both 2 Corinthians 5:10 and Romans 14:12 emphasize what happens when “each person” (ἕκαστος) appears before Christ or God in judgment. In 2 Corinthians 5:10 “each person” receives a reward for what he or she has done, whether good or bad, while in Romans 14:12 “each person” must give account of him or herself. The emphasis on the necessity of “each person” standing before Christ or God again suggests that Paul is following a traditional conception of judgment. The notion of a final judgment by God or his agent and the distribution of rewards or punishments in accordance with deeds was a traditional theme of Judaism adopted by Christianity. I have argued that this tradition, which consisted of two linked motifs, was used by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:10 and Romans 14:10, but did not have a stereotyped verbal formulation. Paul himself appears to have chosen the term βῆμα, a widespread Greek term for a tribunal corresponding to Semitic terms for “throne.” One way of supporting this suggestion that Paul himself introduced the Greek term βῆμα into this traditional judgment saying is by determining whether the phrase τὸ βῆμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ in Polycarp Phil. 6.2 is based on an oral apocalyptic Christian tradition or is an allusion to 2 Corinthians 5:10 and / or Romans 14:10. Polycarp, Phil. 6:2 reads: καὶ πάντας δεῖ παραστῆναι τῷ βήματι τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ ἕκαστον ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ λόγον δοῦναι, “and it is neces-

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sary that all must appear before the tribunal of Christ and each give an account of himself or herself.” There is no doubt that this passage is not an independent witness to an apocalyptic scenario in which Christ functions as eschatological judge, but is rather an allusion to either 2 Corinthians 5:10 or Romans 14:10 (perhaps both). In the quotation of the Greek text and English translation given above, the emphasized words occur verbatim in 2 Corinthians 5:10. Andreas Lindemann argues that Paul was primarily dependent on 2 Corinthians 5:10 and was possibly influenced by Romans 14:10.43 In a later discussion, Lindemann omits any reference to Romans 14:10 and claims that Polycarp Phil.6.2 is the earliest patristic quotation from 2 Corinthians.44 Lindemann’s arguments are weak, however, and it seems more likely that Polycarp is primarily dependent here on Romans 14:10, for the concluding clause of the selection from Polycarp quoted above, καὶ ἕκαστον ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ λόγον δοῦναι, has a relatively close counterpart in Romans 14:12 but no counterpart in 2 Corinthians 5:10: ἄρα [οὖν] ἕκαστος ἡμῖν περὶ ἑαυτοῦ λόγον δώσει [τῷ θεῷ], “then each of us will give an account of ourselves [to God].” The Oxford Society of Historical Theology was therefore correct in suggesting that Polycarp’s allusion to Romans 14:10–12 was unconsciously influenced by 2 Corinthians 5:10.45 The very close parallel between the phrases “the tribunal of Christ” and “the tribunal of God” can be construed in several ways. First, those who favor the “connect the dots” approach might be tempted to suppose that Paul had in mind an eschatological judgment scenario presided over by Christ, followed after an indeterminate period by a climactic judgment scenario presided over by God himself, thereby harmonizing the two texts into a single apocalyptic narrative. Such a narrative sequence can be derived from 1 Corinthians 15:24–28, where Christ, after subjecting all enemies, turns the kingdom over to God. Second, those who regard the “tribunal of Christ” and the “tribunal of God” as variants of a single eschatological event sometimes regard the interchangeable use of “Christ” and “God” as having deep Christological significance.46 Roetzel, for example, suggests that God’s judgment and the Christ event are so closely linked in Paul’s view “that he can speak alternately and without distinction of standing before the judgment seat of God or of Christ (Rom 14:10; 2 Cor 5:10).47 43 A. Lindemann, Paulus im ältesten Christentum: Das Bild des Apostels und die Rezeption der paulinischen Theologie in der frühchristlichen Literatur bis Marcion (BHT 58; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1979), 225–6. 44 A. Lindemann, Paulus, Apostel und Lehrer der Kirche: Studien zu Paulus und zum frühen Paulusverständnis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 305. 45 Oxford Society of Historical Theology, The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905), 91. 46 P. Stuhlmacher, Gerechtigkeit Gottes bei Paulus (FRLANT 87; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 211. 47 Roetzel, Judgment, 113.

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More recently, J. D. G. Dunn referred to 2 Corinthians 5:10 and Romans 14:10 in the context of a discussion on “Christ as God?”:48 In this light it becomes a matter of little surprise that Paul can speak both of “the judgment seat of God” (Rom 14:10) and equivalently of “the judgment seat of [the] Christ” (2 Cor 5:10). Christ is envisaged as acting as God’s representative. In the final day God will judge the secrets of humankind “through Jesus Christ” (Rom 2:16).

In view of the variety of early Jewish apocalyptic scenarios of the last judgment in which God or the Messiah preside at the last judgment (which is surely the background against which 2 Cor 5:10 and Rom 14:10 must be read), it is doubtful whether such Christological moves are entirely valid.49 Third, given the inconsistent and contradictory nature of scenarios of apocalyptic judgment, even when narrated at some length in Jewish apocalyptic literature (see below), it seems judicious to avoid the temptation to “connect the dots” or to draw profound theological consequences from what in fact are accidental inconsistencies and to focus instead on how the fragments of latent apocalyptic discourse in fact function in each of the several types of context in which they occur. Synofzik, for example, examines the fragmentary Pauline eschatological judgment sayings in six specific types of literary contexts: (1)  thanksgiving, intercessions and expressions of praise, (2)  polemical texts, (3)  personal paraenesis, (4)  general paraenesis, (5)  the Pauline message of justification and (6) Christological texts, concluding (I think correctly) that the Pauline judgment sayings lack an overall unity and coherence since they are used primarily as an Argumentationsmittel, that is, they are adduced as convictions which Paul and his epistolary audiences shared and which would therefore be accepted without debate as valid arguments.50

Judgment Scenarios in Jewish Apocalyptic In contrast with the fragmentary and allusive nature of Paul’s brief references to eschatological judgment which are difficult to reconcile with each other, one might expect that the more complete judgment scenarios narrated in particular Jewish apocalypses would exhibit a modicum of consistency and coherence. However, this rarely occurs, even within particular apocalypses. Since the eschatological judgment scenes in Jewish apocalyptic literature exhibit great variety and complexity, I will limit the discussion to a selection of passages from the Testament of Abraham, the Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71), and 4 Ezra. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 254. Vos, The Pauline Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 286. 50 Synofzik, Die Gerichts‑ und Vergeltungsaussagen bei Paulus, 104–5. 48  J. D. G. 49 G.

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A particularly striking example of an attempt by an apocalyptic author to present a harmonistic narrative of several eschatological judgment traditions occurs in the Testament of Abraham (Recension A) 11–14. There a complex judgment scene is shown to Abraham by Michael in which the Greek term βῆμα (relatively rare in Greco-Jewish and early Christian apocalyptic scenarios) is used in connection with three tribunals or judgment scenes narrated in Testament of Abraham (Rec. A) 11–12, and explains to Abraham by Michael in Testament of Abraham (Rec. A) 13–14. The first judgment is presided over by Able the son of Adam, who judges those who die immediately following death. The second judgment is presided over by the Twelve Tribes of Israel, representing the traditional Jewish eschatological notion of the judgment of the Gentiles by Israel. The third judgment is the final judgment by God the master of all. The three tribunals are referred to in summary fashion in Testament of Abraham (Rec. A) 13:1–8 clearly reflect an attempt to produce a harmonized narrative of the three different eschatological judgment traditions known to the author, though he does not explain how this harmonization works. If individuals are judged immediately following death on the basis of their works, what function can the eschatological judgment of the Gentiles by Israel then have? The Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71) contain a number of discrete eschatological judgment scenes which are difficult if not impossible to reconcile with each other. Some passages link God and the Messiah in judgment scenes, while others present either God alone or the Messiah alone as eschatological judges. 1 Enoch 38:2 refers to a time “when the Righteous One appears before the chosen righteous whose works are weighed by the Lord of Spirits,” a passage that attributes final judgment to the Lord of Spirits, though the Righteous One (i.e., the Messiah) is described as present (cf. Rom 2:16).51 The conception of final judgment involving both God and the Messiah is briefly described in 1 Enoch 61:8,52 perhaps alluding to Ps 110:1: “And the Lord of Spirits set the Chosen One on the throne of his glory, and he will judge all the works of the holy ones in heaven above, and in the balance he will weigh their deeds.” A similar scene, this time largely independent of Daniel 7, is narrated in 1 Enoch 62:2 (the entire scene is found in 1 Enoch 62:2–16): And the Lord of Spirits sat on the throne of his glory, and the spirit of righteousness was poured out on him, and the word of his mouth kills all the sinners and all the lawless, and they are destroyed before him.

Various designations for the agent of God mentioned in 1 Enoch 37–71 are carefully sorted out by J. C. VanderKam, “Righteous One, Messiah, Chosen one, and Son of Man in 1 Enoch 37–71,” The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 169–91. 52 Translations of passages in 1 Enoch are based on the translation of M. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). 51 The

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This scene fades into one that features an enthroned Messiah as judge in 1 Enoch 62:5–6: And one half of them will look at the other, and they will be terrified, and will cast down their faces, and pain will take hold of them, when they see that Son of a Woman sitting on the throne of his glory.

The passage continues with an aside about how the Most High had concealed the Son of Man until this day and then narrates how the kings of the earth will subject themselves to the Son of Man but will nevertheless be led away to punishment. There are also scenes in which the Messiah, in this instance designated the “Chosen One” is depicted functioning with apparent independence as the eschatological judge (1 Enoch 45:3):53 On that day the Chosen One will sit on the throne of glory, and will choose their works, and their resting-places will be without number, and their spirits within them will grow strong when they see my Chosen One and those who appear to my holy and glorious name.

Under the designation “Son of Man,” 1 Enoch 46:4–8 describes a climactic eschatological battle in which the Son of man decisively defeats the kings of the earth in what may be described as a martial judgment scene. On the other hand, in a scene dependent on Daniel 7 (borrowed independently in Rev 20:11–15), God himself is depicted as the final judge (1 Enoch 47:3):54 And in those days I saw the Head of Days sit down on the throne of his glory, and the books of the living were opened before him, and all his host, which dwells in the heavens above, and his council were standing before him.

In rabbinic literature, God alone functions as the eschatological judge. The movement away from the earlier notion that the Messiah would function as God’s agent in the eschatological judgment is suggested by 4 Ezra 5:56–6:6.55 “Ezra” requests that God reveal to him through whom he will visit (i.e. judge) his creation (5:56). After a speech emphasizing the fact that he has created all things, God finally concludes: “I planned these things, and they were made through me and not through another, just as the end shall come through me and not through another.” The eschatological judgment scene in 4 Ezra 7:33–34 is presided over by God, but follows the death of the Messiah who has reigned for four hundred years (7:25–30). Yet even 4 Ezra includes two eschatological scenes in which the final judgment is presided over by the Messiah (12:31–34; 13:29–38). Both passages are in obvious tension with 5:56–6:1. This brief survey of eschatological judgment scenarios drawn from the Testament of Abraham, the Similitudes of Enoch and 4 Ezra, though very different in 53 A

close parallel is found in 1 Enoch 51:3–5.

54 A more extensive judgment scene presided over by the Head of Days, and therefore another

extensive allusion to Daniel 7, is narrated in 1 Enoch 60:2–8. 55 M. E. Stone, Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 158–59.

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character, suggest the extent to which such judgment scenes could differ from each other, even within the confines of a single document. Unlike 1 Enoch 37–71, the author of Testament of Abraham (Rec. A) 11–14 attempted to produce a harmonized account of several eschatological judgment scenes which were known to him.

Conclusions This essay has used the fragmentary eschatological judgment scenario found in 2 Corinthians 5:10 as a point of departure for considering how such tantalizingly brief eschatological narratives should be understood. The eschatological judgment sayings which we considered (primarily 2 Cor 5:10; Rom 14:10; 2:1–3:8; 1 Cor 6:1–11) all function in their respective contexts as Argumentationsmittel (in general agreement with Synofzik). That is, they are all expressions of eschatological convictions that Paul shared with his readers and was therefore able to use without further elaboration or discussion as arguments supporting certain types of behavior, such as living lives pleasing to the Lord or as refraining from judging others improperly. The difficulties of linking together the isolated fragments of Paul’s latent apocalyptic discourse suggest that such discourse consisted of a pastiche of eschatological convictions which probably could not have been elaborated Paul (even if he wanted to) into a consistent narrative of end time events. The contradictory eschatological scenarios found within particular Jewish apocalypses suggest that logic and consistency were not characteristic of this type of narrative theology. The interpreter of Paul will have to be satisfied with analyzing the theoretical function of the fragmentary eschatological scenarios without succumbing to the temptation to “connect the dots” and try to create a Pauline apocalyptic narrative which never existed.

19. Paul, Ritual Purity and the Ritual Baths South of the Temple Mount (Acts 21:15–27)* Introduction Though Paul visited Jerusalem many times and was probably even educated there,1 it is difficult to connect him to any specific surviving sites apart from the temple mount.2 During Paul’s last trip to Jerusalem (Acts 21:15–28),3 he reportedly visited James the Just and the elders, who advised him to make a public demonstration in order to falsify the rumor that he had been teaching Jewish Christians to abandon observance of the Torah. James tells Paul about four Jewish-Christian men who had taken a vow and proposes that Paul become their sponsor (v. 24): “Take these men and purify yourself with them [ἁγνίσθητι σὺν αὐτοῖς] and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads.” According to Acts 21:26, Paul took the advice of James (my translation): Then Paul took the men, and the next day, having purified himself with them [σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁγνισθείς] and went into the temple in order to announce the time when the days of purification would be fulfilled, at which time an offering would be presented for each one of them.

* Original publication: “Paul, Ritual Purity and the Ritual Baths South of the Temple Mount (Acts 21:15–27),” Peter Spitaler (ed.), Celebrating Paul: Festschrift in Honor of Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, O. P., and Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S. J., (CBQMS 48. Washington, D. C.: The Catholic Biblical Association, 2011), 287–320. Reprinted by permission. 1  W. C. van Unnik, Tarsus or Jerusalem, the City of Paul’s Youth? (London: Epworth Press, 1962). 2 This essay is written in honor of two friends, Joe Fitzmyer, S. J. and Jerry Murphy-O’Connor, O. P., both of whom have made many important contributions to the study of Paul in the context of service to the Church. I also want to express gratitude to Tzvi Novick, a colleague in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, for clarifying a number of issues pertaining to ritual purity during the late Second Temple period. An earlier illustrated version of this paper was presented at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem in May, 2009 and was followed by a stimulating discussion. 3 Acts 21:15–28 is not, of course, a self-contained textual unit, but is comprised of 21:15–26 (dealing with Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem and the ritual purification of Paul and four Jewish Nazirites) and then encroaches on 21:27–40, which narrates Paul’s seizure in the temple and his request to the Roman tribune who arrested him to address the crowd outside the now closed and locked temple.

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The advice James gave Paul misfired badly. Paul returned to the temple when the seven-day period of fulfillment had been completed and was recognized by a group of Jews from Asia, presumably pilgrims from Ephesus, where Paul had worked for about two years (Acts 19:1–41; esp. v. 10; but cf. 20:31). They started a ruckus in the temple by charging Paul not only with trying to turn people everywhere against the Law and the temple, but also charged him with defiling the temple by bringing Greeks into it, since Paul had been seen on the streets of Jerusalem in the company of a Gentile, Trophimus of Ephesus (Acts 21:27–29). This latter charge indicates that Paul was recognized when he was within the area reserved for Jewish men, the Court of Women, part of the temple complex that was separated from the Court of the Gentiles by a balustrade with signs warning Gentiles to keep out, and Paul was dragged out of the temple by a mob intending to lynch him; but in the nick of time he was rescued and placed under arrest by a Roman tribune and a detachment of soldiers (21:30–36). Paul was held in custody by the Romans for about two years, first in Jerusalem and then in Caesarea (24:27) before he was taken to Rome to be tried before the emperor. During this two-year period in Palestine, during a defense speech before Felix, Paul refers back to the circumstances surrounding his arrest at the temple (Acts 24:17–18): Now after some years I came to bring to my nation alms and offerings. As I was doing this, they found me purified [ἡγνισμένον] in the temple, without any crowd or tumult.

In this short summary of events, Paul calls attention to two factors. First, he had come to the temple to bring alms and offerings (a feature not mentioned in Acts 21:15–28). Second, seven days after he had first purified himself and entered the temple (Acts 21:26), Paul was found in the temple again in a state of ritual purity. Luke assumes, but does not mention, the fact that Paul had ritually purified himself on the seventh day just before entering the temple for the second time. This discussion of Acts 21:15–27 will center on two issues: the type of vow that the four Jewish Christian men had taken and what it was that Paul had agreed to sponsor and the type of ritual purification4 mentioned in 21:24, 26 and 24:18, which Paul had undergone either alone or with the four men. While scholars are generally agreed that the vow, which involved shaving the head and a presentation of an offering in the temple, can only have been a Nazirite vow, the agreement stops there. The problem of understanding this text is made more complex by the possibility that Luke was using a written source. Acts 21:1–18 is one of four “we”-passages that many have understood as indicating either the author’s presence as an eyewitness of the events narrated or perhaps a written 4 The adjective “ritual” is appropriate here in a positive sense and is not intended to reflect the traditional Protestant animus against “ritual” as an external and therefore unnecessary feature of human religiosity.

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itinerary by someone other than the author.5 If Luke had another Pauline source for the remainder of Acts 21, as Fitzmyer and others have suggested, the possibility arises that Luke misunderstood the Nazirite and Jewish ritual purity customs that are so central to Acts 21:15–27. Before discussing the major interpretive approaches to Acts 21:15–27 (including the evident flaws in each), I will first survey what is known of the Jewish traditions surrounding the Nazirite vow ranging from the regulations spelled out in Numbers 6 to some of the supplementary information that is found in late Second Temple literature and then later Jewish texts that discuss the Nazirite vow as though it were a living institution. I will then discuss the meaning of ἁγνίζεσθαι (“to purify oneself ”) in Acts 21:24, 26 and conclude with a consideration of the function of the Jewish ritual baths from the late Second Temple period (that were excavated by Benjamin Mazar in the 1970’s) just south of the temple mount in Jerusalem and their relevance to understanding Acts 21.

What Do We Know about the Nazirite Vow? One issue upon which all interpreters agree is that the oath taken by the four Jewish Christians mentioned in Acts 21:23 must have been a Nazirite vow (“Nazirite,” from the Hebrew verb ‫ נזר‬means “one separated or consecrated [by means of a vow]”). The regulations governing the Nazirite vow are discussed in the Old Testament only in Numbers 6:1–21 (see also Ezek 44:20; Judg 13:4–5, 7; Amos 2:12; 1 Sam 1:11), though Nazirite vows continued to be referred to occasionally in both Jewish and Christian sources, particularly m. Nazir.6

The Biblical Evidence The Biblical regulations governing the Nazirite vow in Numbers 6:1–21, part of the post-exilic Priestly Source, is the only place in the Hebrew Bible where the rules surrounding the Nazirite vow are discussed comprehensively. However, the reasons for taking such vows and the length of time during which such vows were in effect are not mentioned. According to Numbers 6:1–21, Nazirites were laypeople of both sexes, who became Nazirites by making a special vow, the vow 5 There is an enormous literature on this subject evident in the survey by C. J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 312–34. A more recent and more balanced survey is found in J. A. Fitzmyer, SJ, The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 18C; New York / London / Toronto / Sydney / Auckland: Doubleday, 1998), 98–103. 6 S. Chepey, Nazirites in Late Second Temple Judaism: A Survey of Ancient Jewish Writings, the New Testament, Archaeological Evidence, and Other Writings from Late Antiquity (AJEC 60; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2005).

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of a Nazirite (Num 6:2). The act of making such a vow could apparently be done anywhere and was made for an unspecified period of time during which Nazirites were prohibited from cutting their hair, drinking wine or consuming any other products of the vine, and having any contact with the dead (6:3–8). Numbers 6: 9–12, considered by many scholars to be relevant for understanding Acts 21, deals with the ritual procedure required when a Nazirite violates the vow by accidental corpse contamination (e.g., direct contact or entering a cemetery or a house where there was one). On the seventh day following corpse-contamination, the Nazirite must “shave his head on the day of his cleansing” (Num 6:9), since the hair was considered polluted.7 He or she must then bring two doves or pigeons to the priest who offers one as a sin offering and the other as burnt offering. Here “the day of his cleansing” refers to the seven-day sequence of ritual cleansing necessary for regaining purity following corpse contamination outlined in Num 19. A corpse-contaminated person shall be unclean seven days and shall cleanse himself with the “water of purification” (Num 19:9: MT: ‫מי נדה‬, “water [for the removal] of impurity,” or “water of purification;”8 LXX: ὕδωρ ῥαντισμοῦ, “water of sprinkling”), which consisted of the mixture of ashes of the red heifer and “living water” (‫מים היים‬, i.e., spring water; see Num 19:17; Lev 14:3, 6, 50, 51, 52) on the third and seventh days and so become clean (Num 19:11–13; cf. m. Nazir 6.6; 7.3).9 In Numbers 19:19, after the sprinkling on the seventh day, a corpse contaminated person is required to bathe and wash his clothes. Then, according to Numbers 6:10–12, on the eighth day the supplicant renews the vow (with the time under the previous vow discounted) and then brings either two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. He must then consecrate his head the same day and bring a yearling male lamb for a guilt offering. Instructions for terminating a Nazirite vow are detailed in Numbers 6:13–21: the Nazirite must appear before the door of the tent of meeting and present several sacrificial gifts to the Lord: (1) a male yearling lamb for a burnt offering, (2) a yearling ewe lamb for a sin offering, (3) a ram for a peace offering, (4) a basket of unleavened bread, (5) cakes of fine flour mixed with oil and (6) unleavened wafers spread with oil. The Nazirite then shaves his or her head and the hair is placed on the altar under the sacrificial ram. The priest later gives the Nazirite some edible portions of the sacrifices for his or her consumption. to a later source, the hair was then buried; see m. Tem. 7.4. Botterweck, H. Ringgren and H.-J. Fabry, eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 9.233–34. 9 The essential ingredient in the “waters of purification” was the ashes of the red heifer and detailed instructions for its sacrifice and burning “outside the camp” are found in Num 19. Since the last known red heifer was sacrificed by the high priest Ishmael ben Phiabi (ca. 59–61 CE), less than a decade before the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in 70 CE, there is now no possibility of purifying those who have been contaminated by a corpse. 7 According 8 G. J.

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Finally, it is important to note that since the Jerusalem temple played an essential role in the ritual protocol for concluding a Nazirite vow, requiring the offering of certain stipulated sacrifices, the vow became obsolete after 70 CE.10 According to m. Nazir 5.4: “Anyone who made the Nazirite vow before the temple was destroyed is a Nazirite, but if after the temple was destroyed he is not a Nazirite.”

Post-Biblical Evidence Philo (first century CE) provides evidence that the regimen for dealing with corpse impurity continued to be practiced in accordance with the procedure outlined in Num 19 (Spec. 3.205–6):11 [E]ven those who have touched the corpse of one who has met a natural death must remain unclean until they have been purified by sprinkling and washing [περιρρανάμενοι καὶ ἀπολουσάμμενοι καθαρθῶσιν]. Indeed he [Moses] did not permit even the fully cleansed to enter the temple within seven days and ordered them to purge themselves on the third and the seventh. Further too, those who enter a house in which anyone has died are ordered not to touch anything until they have bathed themselves and also washed the clothes which they were wearing.

Here the term περιρρανάμενοι apparently refers to the sprinkling with the waters of purification on the third and seventh days following contamination, while ἀπολουσάμμενοι seems to refer to the self-immersion required on the seventh day. Later evidence provides information about the Nazirite vow not mentioned in Numbers 6 (including the explicit restriction of the vow to Jews only).12 One development is the increased stringency of the ritual purification required for corpse contamination, particularly among sectarian groups, such as the Essenes. According to 11QTa 49.16b–21a, a proto-Qumran text, a person who contracts corpse contamination is required to bathe in water and wash his or her clothing the first, third and seventh days in addition to being sprinkled with the “water of purification” on the third and seventh days (i.e., the ashes of the red heifer rite combined with spring water).13 There is no evidence that this more stringent ritual for corpse contamination was ever practiced, but then there is a great deal about ritual purity practices during the last Second Temple period that remains unknown. Salmanowitsch, Das Nasiräat nach Bibel und Talmud (Giessen: F. Garber, 1931), 23. F. H. Colson with modifications), “On the Special Laws,” in Philo 7: On the Decalogue. On the Special Laws 1–3 (LCL 320; Cambridge: Harvard university Press, 1937), 98–607, here 603–5. 12 M. Nazir 9.1; b. Nedarim 60b. 13  I. C. Werrett, Ritual Purity and the Dead Sea Scrolls (STDJ 72; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 136–40. 10 H.

11 Trans.

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In rabbinical circles, a distinction was made between primary and secondary degrees of impurity from corpse contamination of Nazirites, though there is no way of determining when this distinction, which has the effect of diminishing the stringency of the regulations, began to be made. The primary degree of corpse contamination for Nazirites is discussed in m. Nazir 7.2:14 The Nazirite must poll for [defilement contracted from] the following sources of defilement: for a corpse, or an olive’s bulk of [the flesh of] a corpse, or an olive’s bulk of nezel [i.e., coagulated corpse-dregs], or a ladleful of corpse-mould [i.e., the earth of a decomposed body], or the spinal column or the skull, or any limb [severed] from a corpse or any limb [severed] from a living body that is still properly covered with flesh, or a half-kab of bones, or a half-log of blood, whether [the defilement is contracted] from contact with them, from carrying them, or from overshadowing them, for [defilement contracted from] a barley-grain’s bulk of bone, whether by contact or carrying. On account of these, a Nazirite must poll and be sprinkled on the third and seventh days, such [defilement] makes void the previous period, whilst he does not begin to count anew [his Naziriteship] until he has become clean and brought his sacrifices.

The second degree of impurity, applied to a Nazirite who finds himself outside Palestine,15 is discussed in m. Nazir 7.3:16 But for [defilement caused by] sekakoth [overhanging boughs] or pera’oth [protruding bricks] or a [field that is a] beth peras [i.e, a field in which a grave has been ploughed] or land of the gentiles or the golel [covering stone] or dofek [side stones] of a tomb, or a quarter [log] of blood, or a tend [in which is a corpse] or a quarter [kab] of bones, or utensils that have been in contact with a corpse, or [the defilement] of a leper’s tale of days or his period of declared leprosy. For all these the Nazirite is not required to poll. He must, however, be sprinkled on the third and seventh [days], whilst [the uncleanness] commences to resume counting [his Naziriteship] immediately [after purification] and there is no sacrifice.

While Numbers 6 refers vaguely to “all the days of his vow of separation” (v. 5) and “all the days that he separates himself to the Lord” (v. 6), the period of time during which a Nazirite vow is in force is specified only in later texts. According to rabbinic sources, the minimum period of time for such a vow was apparently thirty days, though longer periods are possible, up to and including a lifetime vow (like the legendary cases of Samson, Samuel and James the Just).17 Klien (trans. with notes, glossary and indices), Nazir, Hebrew-English Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, ed. I. Epstein (London: Soncino Press, 1985), m. Nazir 7.2. The use of the abbreviation “i.e.” within square brackets indicates the presence of notes inserted into the text. 15 Salmanowitsch, Das Nasiräat nach Bibel und Talmud, 68–69. 16 Klien, “Nazir,” 54a. 17 References to the thirty-day period of the vow are found in several rabbinic sources: m. Naz. 1.3–6; 3.1, 3–6; 6.3, 5; 8.1; Sifre Deut. 33.16 and 34.8 (for a discussion of these sources, see Chepey, Nazirites in Later Second Temple Judaism, 72–146). The legendary description of the life-time Nazirite vow of James the Just is found in Eusebius Hist. eccl. 2.23.4–7; cf. Chepey, Nazirites in Later Second Temple Judaism, 174–77; see also E. Zuckschwerdt, “Das Naziräat des Herrenbruders Jakobs nach Hegesipp (Euseb, H E II 23:5–6),” ZNW 68 (1977), 276–87. 14 B. D.

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While nothing is said about the motivations for taking a Nazirite vow in Numbers 6, several indications of what those motivations were are mentioned in later texts. One such motivation is found in the story of Berenike, the sister of Agrippa I, who was a temporary Nazirite, according to Josephus B. J. 2.313:18 She was visiting Jerusalem to discharge a vow to God; for it is customary for those suffering from illness or other affliction to make a vow to abstain from wine and to shave their heads during the thirty days preceding that on which they must offer sacrifices.

Berenike had apparently promised to take a Nazirite vow if she recovered from an unspecified illness. Philo, who provides a philosophical commentary on the requirements of the Nazirite vow found in Numbers 6:1–21 (which, following LXX Num 6:2, he calls μεγάλη εὐχή, “the great vow”), mentions another motivation for making such a vow: people dedicate themselves as an expression of surpassing devotion to God after they have exhausted their material means by giving first fruits of all their possessions (Spec. 1.247–54). Philo mentions this motivation again in Somn. 1.252–54, by interpreting the great vow as an act of dedicating one’s self as an offering to God, rather than only one’s possessions. In the Mishnah, a Nazirite vow can be taken in order to fulfill a conditional promise made to God, such as the successful birth of a child (m. Nazir 2.7–20).19 People could take a Nazirite vow either in Israel or in the diaspora, but it was necessary to visit Jerusalem to conclude the vow at the temple (m. Nazir 3.6). A final issue is the practice of sponsoring Nazirites. In Acts 21:24, James suggests to Paul that he sponsor four men who had taken a Nazirite vow by paying their expenses so that they might shave their heads. According to Josephus, when Agrippa returned to Jerusalem “he arranged for a very considerable number of Nazirites to be shorn [ξυρᾶσθαι]” (A. J. 19.294), apparently acting as a benefactor for poor Jews who were unable to pay for the stipulated offerings necessary to terminate their vows (the required sacrifices would have been expensive: a yearling male lamb, a yearling ewe lamb, a ram, a basket of unleavened bread and cakes of fine four mixed with oil, etc.). The Greek infinitive ξυρᾶσθαι (“to be shaved”) used in the context of a Nazirite vow, as a translation of ‫לגלח‬, connotes “to bring the offerings of a Nazirite” (cf. m. Nazir 2.5–6),20 i.e., to pay for the required sacrifices of a Nazirite who is ending his or her vow.

H. S. J. Thackeray, Josephus 2: The Jewish War I, Books 1–2 (LCL 203; Cambridge: Harvard University press, 1927), 445. 19 The conditional character of the Nazirite vow is argued by T. W. Cartledge, “Were Nazirite Vows Unconditional?” CBQ 51 (1989), 409–22. 20  L. H. Feldman, Josephus, Jewish Antiquities XVIII–XX (LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1969), 352–53, note c. 18  Trans.

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Interpretations of Acts 21:15–27 The relevant context for understanding the religious issues in Acts 21:15–27 is our knowledge of the protocols for the Nazirite vow, particularly those which dealt with the problem of Nazirite corpse contamination as well as for the various types of ritual purification as they were understood and practiced in late Second Temple Judaism. This is complicated by a lack of specific knowledge of how the various purification rituals of late Second Temple Judaism were carried out in the vicinity of the temple and within the temple itself. This is part of the reason that interpreters have had a difficult time in making sense of Acts 21:15–27 in the light of what is known of these ancient Jewish religious customs. Another set of difficulties may lie either in what Luke fails to tell us or because of his imperfect knowledge of the various ritual procedures involved.21 While there is general agreement that the vow referred to in Acts 21:23 is the Nazirite vow, there has been little agreement about other aspects of the entire passage. There have been four proposals for interpreting Acts 21:15–27.

The View of Paul Billerbeck One of the more influential and ingenious approaches to solving the interpretive problems presented by this passage is that of Paul Billerbeck (1853–1932) who assumes that Luke essentially had the facts straight.22 According to Billerbeck, the term ἁγνίζεσθαι (Acts 21:24, 26) means “to purify yourself ” or “allow yourself to be purified” (“ ‘sich reinigen’ oder ‘sich reinigen lassen’”) from levitical impurity (as in LXX Josh 3:5; 2 Chr 29:5, 34; 30:17), though the cause of impurity is not specified.23 According to Billerbeck, Paul and the four Nazirites purified themselves, in accordance with Numbers 19:9–12 (which deals with purification from corpse contamination) by being sprinkled with the water of purification on the third and seventh days of the seven-day period of levitical impurity followed by

21 C. K. Barrett, who maintains that “Luke was imperfectly informed about the regulations for vows and uncleanness” and argues that the details are less important than the proposal that Paul clear his reputation by participating in temple ritual involving vows as a partner of Jewish Christians; The Acts of the Apostles (2 vols.; ICC; London and New York: T & T Clark, 1998), 2.1011. 22 [H. L. Strack and] P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (4 vols.; Munich: C. H. Beck, 1965), 2.755–61. Billerbeck is followed by F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Book of Acts (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1956), 430–31. Billerbeck’s proposal has been adopted by many, including R. Bauckham, “James and the Jerusalem Church,” Palestinian Setting, vol. 4 of The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting, ed. R. Bauckham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: The Paternoster Press, 1995), 477–78, where he claims (n. 186): “Most problems about the procedures in Acts 21:24–27 disappear when it is recognized that the Nazirites were not discharging their vows, but being purified after contracting corpse impurity.” 23 Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 2.757.

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washing their clothes and bathing.24 The first sprinkling occurred on the day mentioned in Acts 21:26 (presumably the third day), while the second sprinkling was to have occurred on the seventh day mentioned in Acts 21:27. Following the first sprinkling (on the third day of the seven-day period of impurity), Paul went into the temple alone to inform the priest when the “[seven] days of purification” would be completed (Acts 21:26), though the uproar in the temple when Paul returned on the seventh day made the offering of sacrifices impossible (Acts 21:27).25 Billerbeck then reviews the two degrees of corpse contamination described in m. Nazir 7.2–3 (quoted above). The first degree of corpse contamination (m. Nazir 7.2), requires the Nazirite to abort his or her vow (following Num 6:9–12), signaled by shaving the hair and making the stipulated offerings before taking the vow again. According to Billerbeck, this does not appear to be the situation described in Acts 21. The second degree of corpse contamination, described in m. Nazir 7.3 is more relevant. Second degree corpse impurity does not require the Nazirite to terminate his or her vow, but rather requires the Nazirite to undergo the purification procedure for corpse impurity, namely, the Nazirite must be sprinkled with the water of purification on the third and seventh day after the day on which the impurity is incurred. No sacrifice is required and the period of the Nazirite vow continues uninterrupted. According to Billerbeck, this is the situation of the four Jewish Christian Nazirites in Acts 21.26 Billerbeck argues that Paul’s situation was different. He was in a state of ritual defilement because he had just returned from traveling in Gentile regions, where corpse contamination was assumed to have occurred because of the widespread careless and random burial practices of Gentiles (m. Nazir 7.4; m. Kelim 1.8). Pilgrims (like Paul) who came to Jerusalem from abroad were presumed to have contracted corpse contamination, but were not excluded from the Outer Court of the temple (even Gentiles had access to this part of the temple complex). However, if they wanted to participate in a sacrificial meal in the Court of the Israelites they had to undergo the seven-day period of purification (requiring sprinkling with the water of purification on the third and seventh days).27 Though Billerbeck does not explicitly say this, it follows that when Paul entered the temple after purifying himself (Acts 21:26), he only went as far as the Outer Court where he reported to some temple functionary (virtually nothing is known of this procedure) when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the requisite sacrifices offered for the four Jewish Christian Nazirites. However, it is more likely that 24 M. Boertien, Die Mischna. III. Seder Naschim. 4. Traktat: Nazir (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1959), 94. 25 Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 2.758. 26 Ibid., 2.758–59. 27 Ibid., 2.759 (followed by quotations from m. Nazir 7.2–4 on pp. 759–60).

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he would have had to enter the Court of Women, in which the chamber of the Nazirites was located. There are several problems with Billerbeck’s proposal. First, as Haenchen pointed out, the possibility that four Nazirites could be corpse contaminated at the same time and that this contamination coincided exactly with Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem seems highly unlikely,28 though by no means impossible. Since the seven-day purification for corpse contamination (i.e., sprinkling on the third and seventh days and the concluding ritual immersion) involved no great expense, had the four Nazirites been corpse contaminated in the first degree (in accordance with m. Naz. 7.3), there is no obvious reason why they would not have sought purification immediately. After being sprinkled on the third and seventh days followed by ritual immersion and washing their clothes, they would also have shaved their heads on the seven day and then offered two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest in the temple on the following day (Num 6:9–10) and continued their Nazirite vow without interruption. Billerbeck’s Nazirite corpse contamination theory is based on the phrase in Acts 21:26, “the fulfillment of the [seven] days of purification,” which proves very difficult to deal with in any interpretation of the passage. Second, though Billerbeck’s proposal that the four Nazirites had suffered corpse contamination of the first or second degree (he prefers the latter), there is no indication in Acts 21:23–27 that this is the case, except for the seven day period of purification indicated when vv. 26 and 27 are read together. Luke presents the situation straightforwardly as one in which four Jewish Christian Nazirites have come to the end of the period stipulated in their vows and cannot themselves afford the expense of shaving their heads, which is part of the concluding ritual involving the offering of three yearling sacrificial animals each. Billerbeck’s proposal that all four Nazirites had experienced corpse contamination of the second degree, which requires seven days of purification with no concluding offering, hardly requires the aid of a sponsor. Further, Billerbeck’s preference for second degree corpse contamination is contradicted by the text, since shaving the head (v. 24) is only required of first degree corpse contamination, in which the vow must be made again with the previous period under the former view discounted. Third, another problem that makes Billerbeck’s reconstruction of events in Acts 21:15–27 untenable is his notion that Paul, having just arrived from abroad, was ritually impure through the presumption of corpse contamination. The seven-day purification ritual (summarized above) involved sprinkling with the water of purification on the third and seventh days followed by bathing and washing one’s clothes. There was, however, a time gap between self-immersion 28 E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 610–12, esp. 610, n. 3.

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and regaining a state of ritual purity (during which the person was a ĕbul yom, “one who has bathed that day;” see below), which only occurred at sundown in accordance with the formulaic phrase ‫טמא עד הערב‬, “unclean until evening” (Num 19:8, 10, 19, 21–22; cf. Lev 11:39–40; 15:5, 11, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 27). Since the temple was closed and the doors locked from evening to morning (sundown to sunrise),29 it would have been impossible for Paul to be present in the temple on the seventh day when the purification process is completed as we find narrated in Acts 21:27.

The Proposal of Ernst Haenchen Also influential has been the proposal of Ernst Haenchen (1894–1975),30 followed by Conzelmann and others,31 who argued that Luke got the facts wrong and misunderstood the sources (the Itinerary Source and the Septuagint). Haenchen proposes a two-level interpretation: what the sources available to Luke meant and how Luke misunderstood them. For Haenchen, Acts 21:15–27 contains a major difficulty: neither of the two meanings of ἁγνίζεσθαι in vv. 24 and 26, “to take on the Nazirate”32 or “purify oneself from levitical impurity” fits the context. Paul could not have become a Nazirite with the others, since the minimum time required for such a vow was thirty days, not seven. However, according to Haenchen, if one reads the text the way Luke did (here he was dependent on the Itinerary Source and the Septuagint), without considering the Jewish ritual protocol of the time, Paul in association with four Nazirites, took a Nazirite vow for a period of seven days.33 Haenchen disputes Billerbeck’s 29 Ezek 46:2; m. Tamid 1.1–2; 3.7; Josephus, C. Ap. 2.105; cf. E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice & Belief 63 BCE – 66 CE (London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992), 116–18. The activities in the temple were framed by the morning and evening sacrifices. When the temple / tabernacle was closed, a lamp was lit to burn before the Lord from evening until morning (Exod 27:21; 30:8). 30 E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 610–12, esp. 610, n. 3 (the first German edition of Haenchen’s commentary appeared in 1956, the second edition in 1957, and the third edition, on which the English translation was based, appeared in 1961). J. Jervell (Die Apostelgeschichte [KEK; 17. Aufl.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998], 526–27) supports the notion that Luke mistakenly combined Num 6:4 with 19:12, for which he cites Conzelmann, though Conzelmann was dependent on Haenchen. R. I. Pervo (Acts: A Commentary [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009], 546) thinks that “the data about the discharge of the vows is evidently confused or erroneous,” but makes no attempt to explain what evidence is available and what the precise nature of the problem might be. 31 H. Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 180–81 (the first German edition of Conzelmann’s commentary was published in 1963, and the second edition, from which the English edition was translated, was published in 1972); and G. Lüdemann, Das frühe Christentum nach den Traditionen der Apostelgeschichte: Ein Kommentar (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), 240. 32 In Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, the translators render the German word, “Nasiräat” as “Nazirate.” 33 Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 611.

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interpretation of ἁγνίζεσθαι (Acts 21:24, 26) as referring to the removal of levitical impurity, arguing that when Luke read LXX Num 6:5 (“All the days of his vow of purification [ἁγνισμοῦ] … until the days are fulfilled”),34 he “could not well refer that to anything other than the Nazirate.”35 According to Haenchen, Luke understood the verb ἁγνίζεσθαι (“to purify oneself ”) to be equivalent to ἁγνισμός (“Nazirate”) and assumed that when Paul purified himself according to Acts 21:26, he was entering into a seven-day Nazirate along with the four Jewish Christian men. However, this would have been impossible historically, since it contradicts the Jewish sources. Haenchen reconstructs Luke’s source by allowing only those statements to stand that do not contradict the Jewish Nazirite and purity regulations of the time, with the following results:36 Paul agreed to pay the expenses of four poor Jewish Christian Nazirites whose “Nazirate” had already elapsed. Paul had to report to the priest and agree on a time for completing the vow with the requisite sacrifices and offerings. In Haenchen’s view, Paul himself, since he came from abroad, was considered levitically unclean and would therefore have required the seven-day purification (sprinkling with the water of atonement on the third and seventh day), after first reporting to a priest.37 Only when Paul was levitically pure could he be present at the absolution ceremony of the four Nazirites which took place in the “holy place” of the temple.38 After his own purification, Paul went to the temple to report both his own purification and τὴν ἐκπλήρσιν τῶν ἡμερῶν τοῦ ἁγνισμοῦ, “the completion of the period of purification,” understood by Luke to mean “the fulfillment of the days of the Nazirate”) and to fix the date when the appropriate sacrifices (which Paul had agreed to pay for) could be presented: the seventh day on which he himself would be “cleared from guilt.”39 Haenchen’s proposal, which has been widely influential on critical scholarship, has two major weaknesses. First, like Billerbeck, Haenchen assumes that Paul, since he recently returned from abroad, was presumed to have contracted corpse contamination because of the careless and random burial practices of the Gentiles. Paul therefore had to undergo the prescribed regimen for corpse contamination, consisting of the sprinkling with the water of purification on the third and seventh days, followed by ritual immersion and the washing of his clothes. However, since purity was not regained until sunset of the seventh day, Paul could not have entered the temple on the seventh day and entered the Court 34 The MT of Num 6:5a reads: ‫כל־ימי גדר נזרו‬, the only place where ‫ נזר‬is translated ἁγνισμός in the LXX. 35 Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 610, n. 3. 36 What follows summarizes Haenchen, Acts, 612. 37 Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 610, n. 3, 612. 38 It is not clear to me what Haenchen means by the “holy place” of the temple. He certainly cannot mean the Hêkāl (Holy Place), the chamber outside the Děbîr (Most Holy Place). 39 Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 612.

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of Israelites as reported in Acts 21:27. Second, Haenchen assumed that the verb ἁγνίζεσθαι has two meanings, “to take on the Nazirate” and “purify oneself from levitical impurity.” Despite the fact that many scholars have followed Haenchen in this regard, nowhere does ἁγνίζεσθαι have any meaning other than Num 6:5a (which reads: ‫ )כל־ימי גדר נזרו‬is the only place where ‫ נזר‬is translated ἁγνισμός in the LXX.40

The Proposals of Michael Bachmann and Friedrich Horn Another reading of Acts 21:15–27, proposed by Michael Bachmann, followed by Friedrich Horn, is a refinement of the views of both Billerbeck and Haenchen, who assume that Jews, like Paul, who have come from abroad are presumed to have contracted corpse contamination (because of the careless burial habits of Gentiles) and must therefore undergo the seven-day purification procedure for corpse contamination outlined in Numbers 19. Bachmann argues that in the phrases ἁγνίσθητι σὺν αὐτοῖς (v. 24) and σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁγνισθείς (v. 26), σὺν αὐτοῖς should be translated “ihnen bei,” so that ἁγνίσθητι (an aorist third-person singular imperative) and ἁγνισθείς (an aorist masculine singular participle) should be construed as referring to Paul alone, since the four Jewish Christian Nazirites were already in a state of ritual purity (against the view of Billerbeck).41 This means that the phrase “the days of purification” (v. 26), refers only to the seven day period of Paul’s ritual purification. Friedrich Horn, citing Bachmann, agrees that the four Jewish Christian Nazirites were already in a state of ritual purity so that ἁγνισθείς σὺν αὐτοῖς (v. 26), refers exclusively to Paul’s own purification, with the four Nazirites as bystanders rather than participants in the purification ritual.42 Horn suggests that in Bauer-Aland, where the meaning of σύν in Acts 21:24 is placed under the heading “to do, experience or suffer something with someone,” should rather be listed under another category of meaning listed by Bauer: “with the dative of the person to denote accompaniment and association.”43 There are two main flaws with the proposal of Horn and Bachmann. First, even if the phrase ἁγνισθείς σὺν αὐτοῖς refers to Paul alone (which it does not; see below), Paul could not have gone any further into the temple on the occasion mentioned in Acts 21:24 than the Court of the Gentiles, where Gentiles and corpse contaminated Jews could be present, since his seven-day purification regimen had not yet been completed. But neither could Paul have entered the 40 See

note 34. Bachmann, Jerusalem und der Tempel: Die geographisch-theologischen Elemente in der lukanischen Sicht des jüdischen Kultzentrums (BWANT 6/9; Stuttgart, Berlin, Köln and Mainz: W. Kohlhammer, 1980), 317–21. 42 F. W. Horn, “Paulus, das Nasiräat und die Nasiräer,” NovT 39 (1997), 117–37, here 131–32. 43 Horn, “Paulus, das Nasiräat und die Nasiräer,” 130–31, n. 53; see Walter Bauer, Griechischdeutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur, ed. K. and B. Aland (6th ed.; Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1988), 1559–60. 41 M.

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Court of Women on the seventh day (where the mob found him according Acts 21:27), since ritual purity was only attained after sundown on the seventh day and since the temple closed at sundown he could neither have entered it nor paid for the sacrifices to be offered on behalf of the four Nazirites. Second, it is highly unlikely that σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁγνισθείς refers to Paul alone. In the phrase “purify yourself with them [ἁγνίσθητι σὺν αὐτοῖς]” in v. 24, ἁγνίσθητι is a second person singular aorist passive imperative clearly referring to Paul alone: “purify yourself.” Yet the following prepositional phrase σὺν αὐτοῖς (“with them”), indicates an “association in an activity,” i.e., it indicates the persons who take part in the action of the verb, meaning that Paul and the four Jewish-Christian Nazirites all purified themselves,44 after which he was to pay their expenses so that they could shave their heads and make the appropriate offerings in the temple. Here are two parallel syntactical examples from Acts of σύν with a plural pronoun in the dative referring to those who take part in the action of a verb in the singular. Acts 18:8: ἐπίστευσεν τῷ κυρίῳ σὺν τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ can be translated “he believed the Lord with his household,” that is, the Philippian jailer and his entire household believed. Acts 20:36: καὶ ταῦτα εἰπὼν θεὶς τὰ γόνατα αὐτοῦ σὺν πᾶσιν αὐτοῖς προσηύξατο, “and when he finished speaking, he knelt down with them all and prayed,” that is, even though θεὶς is a masculine singular aorist participle, in the context it means that everyone present knelt while Paul prayed.

These grammatical parallels make it highly probable that the phrases ἁγνίσθητι σὺν αὐτοῖς (v. 24) and σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁγνισθείς (v. 26) are idioms used by Luke meaning “purify yourselves” and “after they purified themselves” respectively, making arguments that the second person aorist singular verb and the masculine singular participle refer to Paul alone highly unlikely.

The Proposal of Volker Stolle Another view, not so much argued as simply presented by Volker Stolle, maintains that Paul (as well as the four Jewish Christian Nazirites), had taken a Nazirite vow abroad (Acts 18:18) and had returned to Jerusalem to complete the required offerings (Acts 21:23–24, 26).45 According to Acts 18:18, Paul had apparently begun a partial conclusion to a Nazirite vow that he had taken earlier: After this Paul stayed many days longer [in Corinth], and then took leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he cut his hair, for he had a vow. 44 W. Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (3rd ed.; rev. and ed. F. W. Danker; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 962. 45 V. Stolle, Die Zeuge als Angeklagter: Untersuchungen zum Paulusbild des Lukas (BWANT 102; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1973), 76–78. Stolle is dependent in part on Boertien, who held essentially the same view (Nazir, 28).

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In order to discharge their Nazirite vows (in order to renew them again with the previous time discounted), according to Stolle, Paul and the four men had come to Jerusalem to undergo a seven-day purification ritual of sprinkling with the waters of purification on the third and seventh day to deal with the ritual pollution they had acquired during their stay in Gentile regions.46 On the seventh day, Paul again entered the temple for the conclusion of the purification ritual (Acts 21:27). At this point Paul and the four Jewish-Christian men had at least an additional thirty days before concluding their vows with the required offerings. There are several problems with Stolle’s proposal. First, not only does Luke not indicate that the four men had recently come from abroad, he has James say: “there are four men among us [ἡμῖν] who are under a vow” (v. 23), that is, they are described as being members of the Jerusalem Christian community. Second, Stolle, like Haenchen, assumes that residence in Gentile regions results in corpse contamination, making the seven day ritual purification procedure described in Num 19 necessary. Even assuming this to be the case (to repeat a criticism made of Billerbeck and Haenchen above), Paul (in the company of the four Jewish Christian Nazirites) could not have entered the appropriate area of the temple since ritual purity was only regained at sundown, at precisely the same time when the temple was closed for the day. Third, Stolle ignores the probability that Acts 18:22 refers to a visit to Jerusalem during which Paul must have completed the ritual required for concluding his Nazirite vow.47 According to Acts 18:19–21, Paul left Corinth for Ephesus and from there he traveled to Judea (Acts 18:22): “When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up [ἀναβάς] and greeted the church, and then went down [κατέβη] to Antioch.” Though the text is admittedly cryptic, the verbs “go up” and “go down” are idiomatic ways of referring to “going up” to Jerusalem (Ezra 1:3; 1 Macc 13:2; John 2:13; 11:55; Acts 11:2; 21:12, 15; 24:11; 25:1, 9) and “going down” to some place other than Jerusalem, in this case Antioch (Mark 3:22; Luke 10:30; Acts 25:7). This view is partly confirmed by the fact that a voyage to Antioch by way of Caesarea Maritima only makes sense if a visit to Jerusalem is part of the itinerary.48 This of course presumes that there is a historical core to Acts 18:18–22 and that Paul must have visited the temple with his shorn hair as part of the ritual requirements mandated for those who concluded the Nazirite vow. Even though the shorn hair of a Nazirite must be presented to a priest at the temple in Jerusalem, there is no reason why the hair could not be cut in the diaspora with an indeterminate interval of time elapsing between the shaving of the head and the offering of the shorn hair in the temple.49 The cryptic quality of this passage Die Zeuge als Angeklagter, 77. Die Zeuge als Angeklagter, 76–77. 48 F. Horn, “Paulus, das Nasiräat und die Nasiräer,” NovT 39 (1997), 120–21. 49 J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (London: Allen & Unwin, 1942), 382. 46 Stolle, 47 Stolle,

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suggests that it must have belonged to a source used by Luke rather than a Lukan creation in line with his well-known emphasis on Paul as a model Jew.50

Did Paul Contract Corpse Impurity by Traveling Abroad? Three of the interpretations of Acts 21:15–28 reviewed and critiqued above, those of Billerbeck, Haenchen and Bachman / Horn, assume (without argument) that Paul has contracted corpse impurity by virtue of the fact that he had come from abroad, having lived among Gentiles. In the view of many scholars, the reason that Paul purified himself before entering the temple on two occasions (Acts 21:26; 24:17) was because he had spent a good deal of time traveling in Gentile lands before his arrival in Jerusalem described in Acts 21:15–17. He would have contracted levitical uncleanness in the form of corpse impurity and would therefore have been required to undergo the seven-day period of purification stipulated in Numbers 19.51 The view that Paul is unclean because he has come from Gentile regions is based on the view that the random disposal of corpses in Gentile regions validates the prima facie presumption that observant Jews traveling abroad have been rendered unclean by corpse impurity.52 Purification from the ritual uncleanness contracted by corpse contamination took place over a seven day period that involved a purification regimen that consisted of being sprinkled with the “waters of purification” on the third and seventh days, followed by self-immersion in water and the washing of one’s garments. However, it is only at sundown that the person is considered clean. In the period between final ritual purification and sundown the person has the status of a tĕbûl yôm (‫טבול יום‬, “one who has bathed that day”), that is, one who has been immersed, but is only partly pure until sundown (see Lev 22:6–7); m. T. Yom). While there are a number of rabbinic texts that indicate that corpse contamination was an imminent ritual danger in Gentile regions, the oldest Jewish text to indicate this is 11QTa 49.11–14 (dating to the last quarter of the second c. BCE):

50 P. Vielhauer, “On the ‘Paulinism’ of Acts,” in Studies in Luke-Acts: Essays Presented in Honor of Paul Schubert, ed. L. E. Keck and J. L. Martyn (Nashville and New York: Abingdon Press, 1966), 33–50; on Acts 21:17–27 specifically, see J. T. Sanders, The Jews in Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 283–85. 51 Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 2.759; Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 612; Jervell, Apostelgeschichte, 526 (in agreement with Haenchen); G. Schneider, Die Apostelgeschichte (2 vols.; Freiburg, Basel, Vienna: Herder, 1982), 2.310; Horn, “Paulus, das Nasiräat und die Nasiräer,” 130; Fitzmyer, Acts of the Apostles, 694. 52 Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 2.760, quote several relevant rabbinical texts.

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And you shall not do as the nations do: everywhere they bury their dead, even within their houses they bury. For you shall set apart places within your land (in) which you shall bury your dead; between four cities you shall allot a place to bury in them.

While this passage does not address the problem of a Jew contracting corpse impurity by virtue of having traveled in Gentile regions, it does use the perception of random burial among the Gentiles as an argument for proper burial practices in Israel. In his comments on this passage, Yigael Yadin observes that with a few exceptions, rabbinic law did permit graves to be placed within city limits and in some cases even within houses.53 According to Yadin, the purpose of this stringency is based on applying to all Israel the bans of uncleanness contracted from the dead that applied to priests.54 A rabbinic text that seems to imply that Gentile impurity is based on the assumption that they did not bury their dead in well-marked places is m. Ohal. 18.6: “If a man went through the country of the gentiles in hilly or rocky country, he becomes unclean; but if by the sea or along the strand, he remains clean.”55 Though this is a complex subject, it appears that Jewish concerns about random burials in Gentile areas are never made the basis for demanding that Jews who come to Jerusalem from abroad must undergo the stipulated seven-day purification ritual for corpse contamination in any text known to me.56 Further, if traveling in Gentile regions were ipso facto widely regarded as ritually polluted because of random burial practices, it would have been impossible to take a Nazirite vow in the diaspora, but we know from texts from the late Second Temple period that Nazirite vows were in fact made in Gentile regions (e.g., Acts 18:18; m. Naz. 3.6).57 It is peculiar that none of the scholars whose views have been discussed and critiqued above (or any others known to me) have called attention to the relevance of the story of Eutychus, narrated in Acts 20:7–17. Eutychus, who was sitting on a window sill on the third story of a building listening to Paul speak, fell asleep and fell to the ground out of the window and “was taken up dead” (v. 9). Paul took the boy in his arms and said “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him” (v. 10). Commentators are agreed that the narrator intends the reader to understand that Eutychus was really dead (not just that he appeared to be dead) and 53 Y. Yadin, The Temple Scroll (3 vols.; Jerusalem: Israelite Exploration Society, The Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Shrine of the Book, 1983) 1.322–24. 54 Ibid., 324. 55 Trans. H. Danby, The Mishnah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933 [repr. 1980]) 675; see Gedalyahu Alon, “The Levitical Uncleanness of Gentiles,” Jews, Judaism and the Classical World: Studies in Jewish History in the Times of the Second Temple and Talmud, trans. I. Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977), 164–89, here 186. 56 See R. Tomes, “Why Did Paul Get His Hair Cut? (Acts 18.18; 21.23–24),” Luke’s Literary Achievement: Collected Essays, ed. C. M. Tuckett (JSNTSup 116; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic), 195: “[T]here is no evidence that those returning from abroad did have to undergo such purification.” 57 See Klausner, Jesus to Paul, 382.

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also intends the reader to understand that Paul performed a miracle by bringing the boy back to life (complete with Elijah-Elisha allusions).58 However, by holding the dead boy, Paul becomes ritually impure, a fact not mentioned by Luke and which therefore has no narrative consequences (unless the reader is expected to supply the missing information and link this event with Paul’s ritual purification narrated in Acts 21:26).59 Here the historical Paul would have contracted corpse impurity requiring ritual purification before entering the temple in Jerusalem, but because this is apparently not an issue for Luke he simply ignores its potential relevance for his subsequent narrative. While Second Temple Jewish views of Gentile impurity and the extent to which Jews who lived or traveled abroad contracted ritual impurity are complex and debated issues, there is no compelling reason to regard the two references to Paul’s ritual purification in Acts 21:26 and 24:18 as part of the seven-day purification regimen required by legislation in the Torah. Since ritual purity was not thought restored until sundown of the seventh day, Paul could not have entered the temple on that same day (as required by Acts 21:27) for the simple fact that the temple was closed (a point that I have repeatedly made). The lingering problem of Eutychus makes us wary of Luke’s combination of history and fiction, despite his awareness of Jewish tradition.

Summary Observations None of the five interpretations of Acts 21:15–27 reviewed above prove viable. All of them founder on the same basic issue: If Paul and / or the four Nazirites were purified by being sprinkled on the third and seventh days of the seven day purification process with the waters of purification made with the ashes of the red heifer as stipulated in Num 19:12–13, he (and perhaps they)60 could not have entered the temple on the seventh day (Acts 21:27) for the simple reason that the restoration of ritual purification would only have been completed at sundown on the seventh day and the temple closed at sundown. 58 Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles, 169; Schneider, Apostelgeschichte, 2.286–87; Fitzmyer, Acts of the Apostles, 669; C. K. Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles (ICC; London and New York: T & T Clark, 1998), 2.954–55; Jervell, Apostelgeschichte, 503. 59 Ritual pollution contracted by touching a corpse was a belief that permeated Greek and Roman culture and so virtually all ancient readers, whether Jews, Greeks or Romans, would have understood the ritual significance of Paul’s holding the dead Eutychus; see R. Parker, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 32–73; H. W. Attridge, “Pollution, Sin, Atonement, Salvation,” Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide (ed. S. I. Johnston; Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The Belnap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), 71–83, esp. 72–74. 60 While Acts 21:27 mentions that Paul was in the temple on the seventh day, the likely presence of the four Nazirites (given the basic historicity of Luke’s narrative) was not mentioned by Luke.

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One of the more problematic features of Acts 21:15–28 is the two related phrases “the completion of the days of purification” (v. 26) and “When the seven days were almost completed” (v. 27), that is, the period of purification is seven days, the length of time that a person with corpse contamination is considered unclean, though a seven-day period of ritual impurity is used of six other types of impurity.61 Since “the completion of the days of purification” indicates when sacrifices were to be made for each of the Nazirites (Acts 21:26), Luke apparently understands the completion of this seven-day period as the way in which a Nazirite routinely discharged his or her vow by shaving the head and offering the stipulated sacrifices. Apart from situations in which a Nazirite had contracted corpse contamination (Num 6:9–12; 19:11–13), refined into first and second degree contamination in rabbinic literature (m. Nazir 7.2–3), nothing is known of a seven-day period of purification as a routine way of concluding a Nazirite vow. It is therefore clear why so many scholars have supposed that the seven-day period of purification referred to in Acts 21:26–27, must be identical with the seven-day period required for purification from corpse contamination. As it stands, then, the allusions to Jewish ritual purification do not all fit together historically; it is as if pieces from two or three different puzzles are together in a single box. Either Luke (or his source) wrongly inserts statements about the seven-day period of purification or he wrongly depicts Paul as entering those sections of the temple off limits to both Gentiles and male Jews in a state of ritual impurity (Acts 21:27–29); both statements cannot be (simultaneously) true. In the following section, I will assume that even if Luke is wrong about some aspects of the narrative, he is probably historically correct when he refers to Paul and the four Nazirites entering the temple after ritually purifying themselves (Acts 21:26). But the question here is just what type of ritual purification does Luke have in mind?

Purification through Ritual Immersion in Miqwā ôt Beginning in the 1960’s archaeologists in Israel began to discover miqwā ôt, Jewish ritual baths used exclusively for ritual purification.62 Since then hundreds of miqwā ôt have been discovered, about sixty in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem 61 According to Elijah, the Gaon of Wilna (1720–1797), there are seven situations where men and / or women suffer seven-day uncleanness (H. Danby, The Mishnah [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933], 800): (1) a man who has a flux, (2) a woman who has a flux (Lev 15:13, 28), (3) a menstruant (Lev 15:19), (4) a woman after childbirth (Lev 12:2), (5) one who has a connection with a menstruant (Lev 15:24), (6) a leper in his days of reckoning (Lev 14:8), (7) one who has contracted uncleanness from a corpse (Num 19:11). 62 The first miqwā ôt to be excavated in Israel were discovered by Yigael Yadin at Herod’s fortified palace on Masada in the 1963–64; see Y. Yadin, Masada: Herod’s Fortress and the Zealot’s Last Stand (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966), 164–67.

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and about forty in the area to the southeast and south of the temple mount.63 The fact that these miqwā ôt were clustered around the main entrances to the temple suggests that they were used by worshippers to purify themselves just before entering the temple. In this final section, I will argue that the ritual purification that Paul underwent according to Acts 21:26 and 24:18 before entering the temple consisted of ritual self-immersion in one of the many miqwā ôt available to worshippers just outside entrances to the temple mount. First, however, it is important to revisit the problem of the meaning of the phrases ἁγνίσθητι σὺν αὐτοῖς (Acts 21:24) and σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁγνισθεῖς (Acts 21:26). Then I will provide a brief discussion about the miqwā ôt discovered near the temple mount. Finally (assuming the veracity of the Lukan narrative), I will discuss the likely reasons why Paul thought it necessary to undergo such ritual purification before entering the temple.

The Meaning of  Ἁγνίζεσθαι in Acts 21:24, 26; 24:18 To understand the meaning of the verb ἁγνίζεσθαι (“to purify oneself ”) in Acts 21:24 and 26–27a, let us revisit those passages: V. 24: Take these men and purify yourself with them [ἁγνίσθητι σὺν αὐτοῖς] and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Vv. 26–27a: Then Paul took the men, and the next day, having purified himself with them [σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁγνισθεῖς], he went into the temple, to give notice when the days of purification [τοῦ ἁγνισμοῦ] would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them. When the seven days were completed, the Jews from Asia, who had seen him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd.

The verb ἁγνίσθῆναι, an aorist passive used in the imperative mood in Acts 21:24 and as a participle in 21:26, means “to purify oneself ” or “allow oneself to be purified,”64 not “dedicate yourself ” (“weihe dich”) as proposed by Jervell,65 or “enter into a vow with them” as proposed by Conzelmann.66 Both verbs have been 63 More than 300 miqwā ôt dating from the Hasmonean period (second century BCE) to the Roman period, about half of them in Jerusalem, have been discovered by archaeologists, including about 60 in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem typically located in the homes of the wealthy and the homes of priests (the excavations of N. Avigad) and about 40 located near the monumental staircase south of the Temple Mount near the main entrance to the temple (the excavations of B. Mazar); see R. Reich, “The Great Mikveh Debate,” BARev 19 (1993), 52–53. 64 ἁγνίσθητι in Acts 21:24 is a second-person singular aorist passive imperative, while ἁγνισθείς in v. 26 is a masculine singular aorist passive participle. We have already discussed Luke’s use of this idiom above (p. 427). 65 Jervell, Apostelgeschichte, 526. 66 Conzelmann (Acts of the Apostles, 180) insisted that for Luke ἁγνίσθητι σὺν αὐτοῖς in Acts 21:24 can only mean “enter into the vow with them!” (“tritt mit ihnen in das Gelubde ein!”) in contrast to Luke’s source, which understood ἁγνίσθῆναι as a purification necessary for Paul since

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construed either as a causative or permissive passive meaning: “allow oneself to be purified,”67 or as a deponent passive, which is passive in form but middle in meaning: “to purify oneself.”68 Oddly, Bauer-Aland, followed by Bauer-Danker, misconstrues the voice of ἁγνίσθῆναι in Acts 21:24, 26 as an aorist infinitive in the middle voice. As I have already argued above, the phrase “purify yourself with them [ἁγνίσθητι σὺν αὐτοῖς]” in v. 24 means “purify yourself” (referring to Paul alone). However, the following prepositional phrase σὺν αὐτοῖς (“with them”) does not refer to the four Nazirites as mere bystanders (then the translation would have to be something like “purify yourself in their presence”), for the dative case with the preposition σύν means “association in an activity,” indicating those who take part in the action of the verb. Therefore, in Acts 21:24, 26, ἁγνίσθητι σὺν αὐτοῖς (literally “purify yourself with them”) and σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁγνισθεῖς (literally “after purifying yourself with them”) are idioms meaning “purify yourselves” (see Acts 18:8; 20:36). Paul entered the temple for the second time according to Acts 21:27–28: Now when the seven days were about to be completed, the Jews from Asia, who had spotted him [Paul] in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching men everywhere against the people and the law and this place; moreover he also brought Greeks into the temple, and he has defiled this holy place.

This time nothing is said about the four Nazirites, but since Paul had agreed to sponsor their Nazirite sacrifices, Luke probably assumes that they were also present. We learn somewhat more about this event in (Acts 24:17–18a): Now after some years I came to bring to my nation alms and offerings. As I was doing this, they found me purified [ἡγνισμένον] in the temple, without any crowd or tumult.

Here Luke, using a perfect passive participle from ἁγνίζεσθαι, tells us that Paul had purified himself before entering the temple on that day. Thus Paul could not have undergone the seven-day purification procedure for corpse contamination, since that regiment would not have been completed until sundown, precisely the time that the temple was closed for the day, but must have undergone some other type of purification. While ἁγνίζεσθαι and ἁγνισμός refer to ritual purity in Acts 21:24, 26 (both words can also used of moral purity), the mode of ritual purification in view can he had come from abroad and was therefore ritually unclean. The case against these two related meanings is set out by Str-B, 2.757. 67 See F. Blass, A. Debrunner, and F. Rehkopf, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch (16th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), § 314 n. 2; and D. B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 440–41. 68 See J. H. Moulton, W. F. Howard, and N. Turner, A Grammar of New Testament Greek 3: Syntax (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1963), 56–57.

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be determined only by the context. An important clue is provided by the fact that the purification ritual took place immediately before entering the temple. Since some purification rituals take full effect only at sundown (notably the seven-day purification procedure for corpse impurity), the ritual involved must have made it possible for the person who purified himself to enter the temple immediately. One issue in Acts 21:15–27 is determining just who entered the temple (Paul alone or Paul with the four Nazirites) and also of determining which area or areas of the temple they entered once inside the main entrance. In answer to the first question, the word order in the phrase σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁγνισθεῖς εἰσῄει εἰς τὸ ἱερόν (see v. 24, where the prepositional phrase σὺν αὐτοῖς follows the aorist participle ἁγνίσθητι) indicates that σὺν αὐτοῖς modifies both ἁγνισθεῖς and the third-person singular imperfect verb εἰσῄει and so the entire phrase should be translated something like “[Paul] purified himself and went into the temple with them.” The second question cannot be answered with any certainty for v. 26, since the area or areas of the temple Paul and his companions may have entered is not mentioned. We do know that the Outer Court or Court of the Gentiles, which surrounded the temple and its courts on all sides, was separated from the central temple complex (containing structures each regarded as more holy than the last: the Court of Women, the Court of Israelites, the Court of Priests, then the Hekāl or Holy Place and the Dĕbir, or Most Holy Place) by a barrier called the sorēg, a balustrade or low wall (1.5 meters high) surrounding the consecrated areas.69 It was on the sorēg that bilingual Greek and Latin signs were posted warning Gentiles to keep out on pain of death.70 The Outer Court, however, was accessible to Gentiles and even Jews with corpse impurity, though forbidden to people with certain lesser states of the ritual impurity: a man or woman with unusual genital discharges, women in a state of menses impurity or a woman following childbirth (m. Kel. 1.8).71 The reason why Jews with corpse impurity could be admitted to the Outer Court might have been because a repository of living water (spring water) mixed with the ashes of the red heifer was kept there for the seven-day purification ritual for corpse impurity (little is known about where this ritual was performed). Since Paul had offered to pay for the sacrifices required by the four Nazirites when they completed their vow and had their heads shaved, when he entered the temple on the seventh day (Acts 21:27–28), he must have been in the B. J. 5.193–94; A. J. 15.417; see Philo Legat. 212; m. Mid. 2.3. of these inscriptions have been recovered. One was discovered in 1871 by C. S. Clermont-Ganneau and is complete (CII 2.1400), while the other was found in 1935 by J. H. Iliffe and is fragmentary (Orientis Graeci Inscriptionis Selectae 2.598). Here is an English translation of the inscription: “No foreigner is to go beyond the balustrade and the plaza of the temple zone. Whoever is caught so doing will have himself to blame for his death.” See J. H. Iliffe, “The ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ Inscription from Herod’s Temple, Fragment of a Second Copy,” QDAP 6 (1938) 1–3 + Plate I; E. J. Bickerman, “Warning Inscription of Herod’s Temple,” JQR 37 (1946–47) 387–405; and P. Segal, “The Penalty of the Warning Inscription from the Temple of Jerusalem,” IEJ 39 (1989), 79–84. 71 Josephus Ap. 2.102–3. 69 Josephus 70 Two

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Court of Women when he was recognized and was thought to have defiled the temple. The reason is simply that there were four chambers in the four corners of the Court of Women, one of which was the Chamber in the southeast corner used by the Nazirites, who had to offer sacrifices and shave their heads upon the completion of their vows (m. Mid. 2.5). It was presumably located in the Court of Women because Nazirites could be both male and female and women were not permitted to enter the Court of the Israelites.72

The Relevance of Miqwā ôt We have already argued at some length that there are fatal problems in supposing that, according to the narrative in Acts 21:15–28, either Paul or Paul and the four Nazirites were required to undergo the prescribed seven-day ritual for corpse impurity. Another main form of ritual purification, to which we have only alluded thus far, is the late Second Temple form of bathing for the purpose of purification by self-immersion in a miqweh or Jewish ritual bath. During the late Second Temple period, ritual immersion in miqwā ôt would have constituted the concluding ritual requirement of the seven-day regimen for corpse impurity, referred to in the Torah as bathing and washing one’s clothes. From the mid-second century BCE through the end of the first century C. E., purificatory immersions were typically performed nude in a miqweh (“collection [of water]”), that is, a stepped and plastered immersion pool hewn out of rock, sometimes with a divider to prevent contact between the “clean” person ascending from and the “unclean” person descending into the bath.73 These installations contained at least 40 sĕ im (ca. 75–100 gallons) of water conveyed from a natural source (the sea, a spring, a river, rainwater) directly to the miqweh by some type of conduit (e.g., a channel or pipe), but not by human beings using containers. Some miqwā ôt are connected to an οtsār (literally “treasury”), that is, a “storage pool” connected by a plugged pipe to the miqweh.74 Miqwā ôt were used for the ritual immersion of both people and vessels (the halakhot or “religious regulations” are detailed in m. Miqwaot). Miqwā ôt have been found near of the three known pre-70 CE synagogues in Palestine (Gamala, Masada and the Herodium),75 where they were apparently 72 See A. Büchler, “The Fore-Court of Women and the Brass Gate in the Temple of Jerusalem,”

JQR 10 (1898), 678–718, here 691, 700. Büchler speculates that the Court of Women was a post-Herodian development and was established in 42 CE, at the beginning of the regency of Agrippa I. 73 See R. Reich, “Miqva’ot,” Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. L. H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam (2 vols.; Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1.560–63. 74 While miqwā ôt could be filled with rainwater during the first rainstorms of each year, they could be refreshed with “drawn water” if the amount of “living water” was 40 sĕ) im or more; see Ronny Reich, “Ritual Baths,” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, ed. E. M. Meyers (5 vols.; New York / Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 4.430–31. 75 See R. Reich, “The Synagogue and the Miqweh in Eretz-Israel in the Second-Temple,

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used for achieving ritual purity of the sort required for those visiting the temple, but when located near synagogues were probably used for specialized purposes such as by those chosen to read the Torah. During the late Second Temple period, when Paul would have been present at the temple in Jerusalem, archaeologists have discovered about 40 miqwā ôt hewn out of bedrock, some clustered near the southeast corner of the temple mount near Robinson’s Arch, a major entrance to the temple, and many more located on the south side of the temple mount between two large stairways. The larger of the two stairways (restored by the archaeological team led by Benjamin Mazar) led up to the main entrance on the south side of the temple mount, the western Huldah gate). This wide stairway was the main entrance to the temple before its destruction in 70 CE, and was probably the entrance used by both Jesus and Paul when they entered the temple. The miqwā ôt located between the two stairways76 may have been located in a structure for ritual bathing,77 where worshippers would have been able to immerse themselves, their hands and their vessels in relative privacy before entering the temple. East of this ritual bath complex was another narrower staircase leading to the eastern Huldah gate, which served as the primary exit from the temple. The water for these miqwā ôt was probably supplied by some of the approximately 37 reservoirs on the temple mount (with an estimated capacity of ca. 40,000 cubic meters) fed by rainwater.78

Why Did Paul Purify Himself? Eyal Regev has recently examined the function of the miqwā ôt discovered near the temple mount in the light of historical and halakhic sources. He argues that the proximity of so many miqwā ôt southeast and south of the temple mount suggests that they were used by worshippers just prior to entering the temple complex, since they would not have been practically located for dealing with conventional levitical impurity (since ritual purity is only gained at sundown, when the temple would have been closed).

Mishnaic, and Talmudic Periods,” Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery, ed. D. Urman and P. V. M. Flesher (StPB 47/1; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 289–97. 76 See B. Mazar, The Mountain of the Lord (New York: Doubleday, 1975), 146. 77 See J. Murphy-O’Connor, The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700 (4th ed.; Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 102. A drawing of the Temple Mount in Dan Bahat (The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem [Jerusalem: Carta, 1990], 42–43) shows two buildings between the monumental stairway leading to the east Huldah gates and the smaller stairway leading to the west Huldah gates. K. and L. Ritmeyer (“Reconstructing Herod’s Temple Mount in Jerusalem,” BARev 15 [1989], 24–25) label the small building west of the larger building as a ritual bathhouse. 78 See E. Mazar, The Complete Guide to the Temple Mount Excavations (Jerusalem: Shoham, 2002), 61.

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Regev proposes an extra purification not mentioned in rabbinic sources for lay persons who were already levitically pure before entering the sacred areas of the temple as a sort of extra measure.79 He recognizes, however, that anyone, priest or layman, who participated in the sacrificial service were required to immerse, according to m. Yoma 3.3: “A person does not enter the courtyard for the service, even if he is clean, unless he immerses.”80 In 2006, the year after Regev’s article appeared in the Israel Exploration Journal, a colleague at Bar-Ilan University, Yonatan Adler, published a critical response.81 Adler calls attention to the fact that both men and women after sexual contact and men after a nocturnal discharge could not enter the Outer Court until they immersed themselves in a miqweh, after which they are permitted immediate entrance without the necessity of waiting until sundown (m. Kel. 1.8).82 Further, those wishing to eat qōdĕs (sacred food) were required to immerse their hands in a miqweh, after which they could immediately enter the temple and partake (m. Hag. 2.5; m. Parah 11.5). A major reason why Paul might have been considered unclean from the standpoint of first-century Judaism was his association with unclean Gentiles. Gedalyahu Alon, working primarily with rabbinical literature, argues (against Adolph Büchler, who regarded the notion of Gentile uncleanness as a post–70 C. E. development in Judaism) that during the late Second Temple period observant Jews regarded Gentiles as intrinsically unclean.83 Luke is obviously aware of this view, which he attributes to Peter in Acts 10:28, when he first meets Cornelius the Roman centurion: You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation; but God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.

An important term in this passage is ἀθέμιτος (“not allowed, forbidden”), a word sometimes used to describe acts contrary to Jewish law (2 Macc 6:5; 7:1; Josephus B. J. 1.650; 2.131; 4.99, 205; Vit. 26), but which here seems to focus rather on Jewish customs and practices.84 According to Acts 21:28–29, Paul was accused by the mob of bringing Gentiles into the temple, since he had been seen in the city with Trophimus of Ephesus, who was recognized by Jews from Asia. According to m. Teh. 7.6, “if a Gentile or a woman was with them all becomes

79 See E. Regev, “The Ritual Baths near the Temple Mount and Extra-Purification before Entering the Temple Courts,” IEJ 55 (2005), 194–204. 80 J. Neusner (trans.), The Mishnah: A New Translation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 268. 81 Y. Adler, “The Ritual Baths Near the Temple Mount and Exra-Purification Before Entering the Temple Courts: A Reply to Eyal Regev,” Israel Exploration Journal 56 (2006), 209–15. 82 See Adler, “Ritual Baths,” 211. 83 See Alon, “Levitical Uncleanness of Gentiles,” 164–89. 84 See S. G. Wilson, Luke and the Law (SNTSMS 50; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 68–70.

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unclean.”85 Since Gentiles were considered unclean (the specific reasons are debated), Paul’s association with Gentiles particularly would have resulted in a lesser form of impurity which, according to rabbinic legislation, have required ritual self-immersion. Paul would then be considered ritually pure and could then have entered the Court of Women (Acts 21:26–28).86 It therefore makes sense for Luke, who was familiar with Jewish ritual law and tradition to present Paul in Acts 21:15–27 as an observant Jew who, because of his association with the Gentile Trophimus of Ephesus, purified himself through self-immersion in one of the many miqwā ôt near the temple entrance. Since this ritual was thought to restore him to a ritually pure state immediately, Paul is then depicted as entering the temple where he went to the Court of Women where he intended to sponsor the sacrificial obligations of the four Jewish Christian Nazirites. Whether history or fiction or some combination of the two, this scenario makes good sense in the context of what we know of late Second Temple Jewish purification regulations.

Reinterpreting Acts 21:15–28 When James proposes that Paul sponsor the expenses of the four Jewish Christian Nazirites (Acts 21:24), that is, to pay for the sacrifices required at the time when they complete their vow, there is no reason not to think that that is precisely what Luke intends to convey. The reference to paying the expenses for shaving the heads of the Nazirites cannot be reasonably construed to indicate that the four Nazirites had contracted corpse impurity, despite the problematic reference to “the fulfillment of the [seven] days of purification” (21:26–27), an admittedly erratic boulder in the passage. When Paul purifies himself (21:26), the four Nazirites also participate in the same purification ritual. This purification ritual cannot be the required seven-day regimen of sprinkling and bathing required of those who had contracted corpse impurity, for neither Paul nor the Nazirites would have been able to enter the temple on the seventh day (Acts 21:27), since they would each have been a ĕbul yom, that is, partly impure until sundown, and it was at sundown that the gates of the temple were closed and locked for the day. The rite of ritual purification involved in Acts 21:26 and 24:18 was therefore self-immersion in one of the many miqwā ôt located outside the southeastern corner and southern wall of the temple mount, near Robinson’s Arch and between the Western and Eastern Huldah gates. The reason for Paul’s need for ritual purity through self-immersion was not because he had just arrived from abroad Danby, The Mishnah, 726. Adler, “Ritual Baths,” 213. Texts cited by Adler dealing with the necessity of ritual immersion after physical contact with a Gentile include m. Toh. 5.8; t. Kipurim 3.20; t. Zavim 2.1; b. Shab. 127b; b. Nid. 34a. 85 Trans. 86 See

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where the Gentile practices were thought by some to have infected all observant Jews who traveled or lived in Gentile regions with corpse impurity. Were this the case, it would have been impossible for any Jew living abroad to make a Nazirite vow, and we have evidence that many did so (e.g., Paul himself, according to Acts 18:18). The reason why Paul thought it necessary to purify himself through self-immersion in a miqweh, argued by Yonatan Adler, was because he had physical contact with Gentiles, particularly Trophimus of Ephesus, and such contact was thought to result in a degree of impurity that could be rectified by self-immersion in a miqweh. There are also some lingering problems. First, the phrase “the fulfillment of the [seven] days of purification” (Acts 21:26–28) cannot be satisfactorily explained, either by supposing that it refers to the seven-day period of purification from corpse contamination (which leads to other interpretive problems) or by supposing that it is a hitherto unknown period during which a Nazirite vow was completed. Second, no reason is given in the text for the ritual purification of the four Jewish Christian Nazirites. It is possible to argue, with Eyal Regev, that this purification ritual was an extra measure taken by those who approached entering the temple of God with trepidation, or that they simply intended to partake of qōdĕs, sacred foods, in the temple precincts, for which such self-immersion was a requirement. Finally, it must be observed that there were apparently no temple police who checked the purity credentials of those entering the temple. Worshippers who wished to enter the temple and participate in its activities and benefits were “on their honor,” in the sense that their knowledge of ritual requirements and their conscience was the primary guide for knowing what to do and when to do it.

Appendix: Early Christian References to Miqwā ôt The use of miqwā ôt for Jewish ritual bathing is occasionally mentioned in early Christian literature. Justin (Dial. 14.1; cf. 46.1) argues that cisterns that the Jews have dug are useless (alluding to Jer 2:3), for what, he asks, is the use of the kind of baptism which cleanses the flesh and body alone? In Dial. 19.2, Justin contrasts the useless baptism in cisterns, which has nothing to do with the Christian “baptism of life,” and in Dial. 29.1 he claims that Christians have no need of “that other baptism,” since they have been baptized with the Holy Spirit (see also Pseudo-Cyprian Adversus Ioudaeos 10.79–82). The most striking and detailed reference of all is found in P. Oxy. 840 (third century CE), a fragment of an unknown gospel in which Jesus and a high priest named Levi (who was also a Pharisee) have a debate about ritual purity in the Jerusalem temple. The dialog begins when Levi confronts Jesus and his disciples

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in the temple because they have not ritually bathed themselves before entering “this place of purification” (P. Oxy, 840, lines 8–45; trans. Kruger):87 And he [Jesus] took them and led them into the place of purification itself and was walking in the temple. A certain Pharisee, a chief priest named Levi, came along and met them and said to the Savior, “Who allowed you to trample this place of purification and to see these holy vessels, when you have not bathed yourself nor have your disciples washed their feet? But being defiled, you trampled this temple place which is clean, where no one walks or dares to view these holy vessels except he who has bathed himself and changed his clothes.” And then the Savior stood with the disciples and answered, “Are you therefore, being here in this temple, clean?” “I am clean [καθαρεύω]. For I bathed [ἐλευσάμην] in the Pool of David, and went down by one staircase and came up by another, and put on white and clean garments, and then I came and looked upon these holy vessels.” The Savior answered him and said, “Woe to you blind men who do not see! You have bathed in only these flowing waters [χεομένοις] ὕδασιν] in which dogs and pigs lay night and day. And having washed, you have wiped the outer skin, which also prostitutes and pipe-girls anoint and wash and wipe and beautify for the lust of men, but the inside of them is full of scorpions and all wickedness. But, I and my disciples, who you say have not bathed, have been bathed in living waters [from heaven] which come down from [the Father above].

Since P. Oxy 840 was published in 1908, the historical value of the fragment has been hotly debated.88 Despite a number of features that are historically problematic (e.g., a high priest who is also a Pharisee yet represents a non-Pharisaic point of view on ritual purity; the fact that no known high priest is named Levi; the Pool of David is not mentioned elsewhere), it is clear that when “Levi” describes an immersion pool near the temple with one set of descending steps and another set of ascending steps (probably separated by a divider), he is describing one major type of miqweh found in Jerusalem in the vicinity of the temple during the late Second Temple period (m. Sheqalim 8.2).89 Since the miqwā ôt that were used for ritual immersion near the main entrance on the south side of the temple were destroyed in 70 CE, after which very few miqwā ôt were constructed anywhere by Jews, this feature is arguably an historical reminiscence. Michael Kruger argues convincingly that P. Oxy. 840 was composed ca. 120–150 CE and that it reflects a split in second century Jewish Christianity, with a Nazarene faction (represented by Jesus) claiming to be able to maintain ritual purity apart from ritual bathing, while an Ebionite faction (represented by the high priest Levi), maintained a more traditional orthodox Jewish Christian view. 87  M. J. Kruger, The Gospel of the Savior: An Analysis of P. Oxy. 840 and its Place in the Gospel Traditions of Early Christianity (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005), 67–68. 88 D. R. Schwartz has argued that the threefold mention of the requirement of ritual purity for those who looked at the sacred vessels was a matter of dispute between Pharisees and Sadducees and therefore arguably historical: “Viewing the Holy Utentils (P. Ox. V, 840),” NTS 32 (1986), 153–59. 89 R. Reich, “Miqva’ot,” Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. L. H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam (2 vols.; Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1.561–62.

20. Romans as a Logos Protreptikos in the Context of Ancient Religious and Philosophical Propaganda* Introduction The λόγος προτρεπτικός, or “speech of exhortation,” is a lecture intended to win converts and attract young people to a particular way of life. The primary Sitze im Leben of the λόγος προτρεπτικός were the philosophical schools where it was used to attract potential adherents by exposing the errors of alternative ways of living by demonstrating the truth claims of a particular philosophical tradition over its competitors. During the Hellenistic period many Jewish intellectuals conceptualized Judaism as a philosophy and presented it in philosophical categories to outsiders. Christianity inherited this conception and, in the words of Werner Jaeger:1 Thus it was the early Christian mission that forced the missionaries or apostles to use Greek forms of literature and speech in addressing the Hellenized Jews to whom they turned first and whom they met in all the great cities of the Mediterranean world. This became all the more necessary when Paul approached the gentiles and began to make converts among them. This protreptic activity itself was a characteristic feature of Greek philosophy in Hellenistic times.

In this paper I wish to propose that in its present form the central section of Romans (1:16–15:13) is a λόγος προτρεπτικός in an epistolary frame (1:1–15; 15:14–16:27). That is, Romans is a speech of exhortation in written form which Paul addressed to Roman Christians to convince them (or remind them) of the truth of his version of the gospel (Rom 2:16; cf. 16:25; Gal 1:6–9; 2:1), and to spell out the particular lifestyle and encourage the kind of commitment which Paul thought consistent with his gospel. Paul does this by moving gradually from the “outside” to the “inside”; he first argues with pagans (1:18–2:11), then with Jews * Original publication: “Romans as a Logos Protreptikos in the Context of Ancient Religious and Philosophical Propaganda,” Paulus: Missionar und Theologe und das antike Judentum, ed. M. Hengel and U. Heckel (WUNT 58; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), 91–124. An abbreviated version of this essay was published as “Romans as a Logos Protreptikos,” The Romans Debate: New and Expanded Edition, ed. K. P. Donfried (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1991), 278–96. 1 W. Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), 9–10.

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(2:12–4:25), and finally with Christians (5:1–8:39). In each of these sections he exposes error and points out truth. Thus Romans is protreptic in the sense that Paul is not only concerned to convince people of the truth of Christianity, but more particularly in the sense that he argues for his version of Christianity over other competing “schools” of Christian thought. While several scholars have identified Romans (in whole or in part) as a logos protreptikos,2 they have not supported this with a description of the essential features of the genre nor have they provided an analysis of Romans to support their contentions. If it can be demonstrated that Paul’s letter to the Romans is in fact a λόγος προτρεπτικός in an epistolary frame, there are then two important implications which invite exploration. First, it is likely that a recognition of the appropriate generic category to which Romans belongs will have significant exegetical implications for how the entire letter as well as its constituent parts should be understood. Second, if Paul has in fact adapted the generic conventions of Greco-Roman philosophical propaganda for the purpose of proclaiming the Christian gospel, a number of subsidiary questions arise: (1) Was Paul himself primarily responsible for enlisting the λόγος προτρεπτικός into service as a tool for Christian evangelization, or is there evidence for previous Jewish or Christian adaptation of this oral and literary genre? (2) If Paul’s adaptation of the λόγος προτρεπτικός is connected with his own Jewish background and education, what are the implications for our knowledge of Jewish proselytism? (3) Since Romans is the only example in the New Testament of a λόγος προτρεπτικός, what was the Sitz im Leben or (more probably) the Sitze im Leben within which Paul developed this form of argumentation? (4) Since the primary setting of the λόγος προτρεπτικός was the Hellenistic philosophical school, does this have any implications for Paul’s conception of Christianity and his role as a Christian leader? (5) Is Paul’s use of the λόγος προτρεπτικός an isolated occurrence in early Christianity or did others make use of the same literary form with similar intentions? The complexity of these questions indicates that in the present context only an initial foray into some of the more important of these issues can be undertaken.

2 This view is by no means widespread among New Testament scholars. It is held by K. Berger, Formgeschichte des Neuen Testaments (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1984), 217; cf. Berger, “Hellenistische Gattungen im Neuen Testament,” ANRW 25.2, 1140: “In den Schriften des Neuen Testamentes finden sich an folgenden Stellen protreptische Elemente, auch wenn man keine Einzelschrift im ganzen als Protreptikos bezeichnen kann.” He then lists Rom 1:17–11:36; Matt 11:25–30; 7:13–27; John 3:1–21; 1 Tim 4:7b–10; 1 Cor 13. A less qualified appraisal is found in S. K. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 114: “In both form and function, Paul’s letter to the Romans is a protreptic letter.”

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Προτρέπειν and Cognates in Rhetoric and Philosophy The verb προτρέπειν means “to urge, persuade,” and also “to encourage,” and with these meanings shares two different semantic subdomains; one with παρακαλεῖν (“to invite” and “to encourage”), and another with παραινεῖν (“to advise strongly, to urge”).3 Similarly, the various adjectival and nominal forms of these verbs (προτρεπτικός or προτροπή, παράκλησις and παραινετικός or παραίνεσις) have meanings which overlap.4 Though these words became quasi-technical terms in the jargon of rhetoricians and philosophers, yet they remain problematic in that sometimes they share the same semantic subdomains (i.e., are used synonymously), while at other times they do not. Ad Demonicum 3–5 (incorrectly attributed to Isocrates), distinguishes between two aspects of protreptic, one is the attempt to dissuade people from leading an unworthy life, while the other is exhortation to take up a particular worthy way of living (παράκλησις). Aristotle, in his discussion of the three genera of rhetoric, divided συμβουλή (deliberative rhetoric) into two types, προτροπή (“persuasion”) and ἀποτροπή (“dissuasion”) (Rhet. 1358b). According to the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum 1421b, προτροπή and ἀποτροπή are two of seven rhetorical εἴδη which can be used both for public speaking (referring to the γένος συμβουλευτικός as τὸ δημηγορικόν), and for private conversation. The unknown author of the Ad Alexandrum observes (1421b, trans. LCL): Speaking generally, exhortation [προτροπή] is an attempt to urge people to some line of speech or action, and dissuasion [ἀποτροπή] is an attempt to hinder people from some line of speech or action. These being their definitions, one delivering an exhortation must prove that the courses to which he exhorts are just, lawful, expedient, honorable, pleasant and easily practicable.

Of the twenty-one epistolary types described by Ps.-Demetrius, one is called συμβουλευτικός (Epistolary Types 11), defined as when “we exhort (προτρέπωμεν) someone to something or when we dissuade (ἀποτρέπωμεν) someone from something.” The rhetorical terms προτρεπτικός and ἀποτρεπτικός refer generally to the two different styles of deliberative speech, persuasion and dissuasion, and reveal little about the form, content or function of philosophical protreptic. 3 J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1988), 1. § 25.150, § 33.295, § 33.300. 4 P. Hartlich, De exhortationum a Graecis Romanisque scriptarum historia (Leipzig: Teubner, 1889), 222, claims that παραίνεσις means praeceptio, not exhortatio, and that it should not be confused with παράκλησις which means exhortatio and is synonymous with προτροπή. According to Hartlich (328–29), προτροπή and παράκλησις referred to persuasion concerning matters commonly agreed upon, i.e., epideictic rhetoric, while παραίνεσις referred to debatable matters, i.e., deliberative rhetoric. The problem is that while this distinction sometimes holds, at other times παραίνεσις is used as a synonym of προτροπή and παράκλησις; cf. the extensive note in T. C. Burgess, Epideictic Literature (New York and London: Garland, 1987), 229–33, n. 2.

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It may appear that the λόγος προτρεπτικός clearly belongs to deliberative or symbouleutic rhetoric (the rhetoric of the assembly), which tries to shape a future decision or action of the audience. Yet Ps.-Dionysius On Epideictic Speeches 7.283–292, contains a discussion of the προτρεπτικὸς ἀθληταῖς, “exhortation to athletes,” which has a thoroughly epideictic character. A related type of speech (a type frequently inserted in Greek historical works) is that of a general before battle urging his troops to fight with courage and valor. There are other examples of the conscious mixing of rhetorical categories. Menander Rhetor (who devoted an entire manual to epideictic rhetoric), combines epideictic and deliberative elements in his generic description of the λαλία (“talk”), a formalized type of “conversation” (ὁμιλία): “It is therefore possible to praise and to blame, to encourage and dissuade [προτρέπειν καὶ ἀποτρέπειν] through the talk” (2.393, trans. Russell and Wilson). At the beginning of his discussion of the λαλία he observes: “it seems to fall under two kinds of rhetoric, the deliberative and the epideictic, for it fulfils the needs of both” (2.388, trans. Russell and Wilson). In short, the λόγος προτρεπτικός would not be unusual if it combined features of more than one rhetorical genus, such as deliberative and epideictic.5 The difficulty of sharply differentiating between the functions of deliberative and epideictic speech was recognized by Quintilian (Institutio oratoria 3.4.12–16). Epictetus (3.23.33–35) comments on the style of philosophical protreptic (LCL trans.): But isn’t there such a thing as the right style for exhortation [ὁ προτρεπτικὸς χαρακτήρ]? Why yes, who denies that? Just as there is the style for refutation [ἐλεγκτικός], and the style for instruction [διδασκαλικός]. Who, then, has ever mentioned a fourth style along with these, the style of display [ἐπιδεικτικόν]? Why, what is the style for exhortation [ὁ προτρεπτικός]? The ability to show to the individual, as well as to the crowd, the warring inconsistency in which they are floundering about, and how they are paying attention to anything rather than what they truly want. For they want the things that conduce to happiness, but they are looking for them in the wrong place…. There is nothing more effective in the style for exhortation than when the speaker makes clear to his audience that he has need of them. Or tell me, who that ever heard you reading a lecture or conducting a discourse felt greatly disturbed about himself, or came to a realization of the state he was in, or on going out said, “The philosopher brought it home to me in fine style; I must not act like this any longer”?

This excerpt reveals both the hostility between rhetoric and philosophy in the first century CE (a conflict with a long and complex history), and Epictetus’ use of the dialectical tools of προτρεπτικός and ἐλεγκτικός, encouragement and censure. Here the terms προτρεπτικός and ἐλεγκτικός constitute different aspects of a single dialectical philosophical method involving the complementary functions of uncovering error through indictment or censure (ἐλεγκτικός), fol5 Burgess, Epideictic Literature, 112; Berger, “Hellenistische Gattungen,” 1139. This is true of a number of other rhetorical genres also.

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lowed by encouragement to forsake error and live appropriately (προτρεπτικός).6 In mentioning three kinds of philosophical discourse (and rejecting the addition of a fourth, epideictic), Epictetus is not referring to a fixed scheme, but is rather parodying the three genera of rhetoric, dicanic, symbouleutic and epideictic. Epictetus summarizes his dialectical method succinctly in 2.26.4–5 (LCL trans.): He, then, who can show to each man the contradiction which causes him to err, and can clearly bring home to him how he is not doing what he wishes, and is doing what he does not wish, is strong in argument, and at the same time effective both in encouragement [προτρεπτικός] and refutation [ἐλεγκτικός]. For as soon as anyone shows a man this, he will of his own accord abandon what he is doing.

Epictetus attributes this method to Socrates (2.26.6; 3.21.19). Recently Stanley K. Stowers has underlined the central role which προτρεπτικός and ἐλεγκτικός had in the dialogical character of the diatribe.7 In summary, the rhetorical terms προτρεπτικός and ἀποτρεπτικός refer to the two different styles of deliberative speech referred to above. In philosophical contexts, προτρεπτικός is paired with ἐλεγκτικός and refers to a single method comprised of both encouragement and rebuke intended to bring a person to the truth. The λόγος προτρεπτικός (see below), on the other hand, is an exoteric literary genre (i.e., for the consumption of outsiders) used by philosophers. It is rooted in both the rhetorical and philosophical protreptic traditions but must be distinguished from both.

Generic Features of the λόγος προτρεπτικός The central function of λόγοι προτρεπτικοί, at least within the context of their use by adherents of various philosophical schools and traditions, was that of encouraging conversion. Conversion is only possible when the belief system to which one is converted is regarded by its adherents as ultimately true to the exclusion of alternative or competitive traditions. Yet in view of its modern connotations, “conversion” is hardly the most appropriate term, since there were several levels involved in adopting the philosophical way of life which involved both cognitive and behavioral commitment: (1) the love of wisdom generally, (2) the selection of a particular philosophical school superior to the others, and (3) the discipline to persevere in advanced study.8 However, λόγοι προτρεπτικοί also characteristically included a strong element of dissuasion (ἀποτρέπειν) or censure (ἐλέγχειν) Schmidt, “Die drei Arten des Philosophierens,” Philologus 106 (1962), 14–28, esp. 16–18. 7  S. K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Chico: Scholars Press, 1981), 48–78. 8 M. D. Jordan, “Ancient Philosophic Protreptic and the Problem of Persuasive Genres,” Rhetorica 4 (1986), 309. 6 E. G.

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aimed at freeing the person from erroneous beliefs and practices. Lucian has created just such a protreptic confrontation between Nigrinus the Platonist and (presumably) himself (Nigrinus 4; trans. LCL): For he [Nigrinus] went on to praise philosophy and the freedom that it gives, and to ridicule the things that are popularly considered blessings – wealth and reputation, dominion and honor, yes and purple and gold – things accounted very desirable by most men, and till then by me also.

While religious conversion to Judaism, Christianity and Islam has always been possible (though sometimes it has been encouraged and at other times discouraged, particularly in Judaism and Islam), philosophical conversion to the exclusive cognitive and behavioral claims of particular philosophical schools was also possible in the Hellenistic world.9 In his parody of the protreptic genre, Lucian claims that adherents to particular philosophical traditions “persuade as many as they can to the same situation.”10 Few philosophers, claims Lycinus, realize the error of their ways and try (like the sceptic Lycinus himself) to dissuade others (τοὺς ἄλλους ἀποτρέπειν) from such errors (Lucian Hermotimus 75). The fact that the λόγος προτρεπτικός is not discussed in any of the extant rhetorical handbooks means that knowledge of the content and sequence of argumentation used in such speeches must be discovered inductively. The silence of rhetorical theorists very probably reflects the long-standing hostility which existed between philosophers and philosophical education on the one hand, and sophists and rhetorical educational traditions on the other. The inductive analysis of the genre, however, is impeded by the fact that very few examples have survived from the Hellenistic period, most are known by name only, and others survive only in fragmentary form (Aristotle’s Προτρεπτικός; Cicero’s Hortensius). Those which have survived come from the period of the Empire (Iamblichus’ Προτρεπτικὸς ἐπὶ φιλοσοφίαν). There are, however, several general or theoretical statements in ancient literature which give us some knowledge of what was thought appropriate for a protreptic speech. In Plato Ep. 7.340b–c, Plato outlines his “protreptic” program: To such persons one must point out what the subject is as a whole, and what its character, and how many preliminary subjects it entails and how much labor. For on hearing this, if the pupil be truly philosophic, in sympathy with the subject and worthy of it, because

 9  A. D. Nock, Conversion (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), 164–86; cf. the discussion of Nock’s somewhat anachronistic view of what constitutes “true religion” in R. MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire, A. D. 100–400 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 3–5. According to W. Jaeger, “the essence of philosophical education is ‘conversion’” (Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, trans. G. Highet [New York: Oxford University Press, 1943], 2.295); on 295–300 he discusses “Paideia as Conversion.” 10 Lucian Hermotimus 75: καὶ ὁπόσους ἂν δύνωνται προτρέπουσιν ἐπὶ τὰ αὐτά. Here τὰ αὐτά refers back to τὰ παρόντα.

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divinely gifted, he believes that he has been shown a marvelous pathway and that he must brace himself at once to follow it, and that life will not be worth living if he does otherwise.

There were λόγοι προτρεπτικοί in the form of oral discourses (with both epideictic and deliberative features) as well as written dialogues, discourses (i.e., monologues), and letters. This variety only makes it difficult to claim generic status for the λόγος προτρεπτικός if an artificially rigid view of the nature of oral and literary genres is maintained. There is an element of fluidity between these forms, since many late dialogues (particularly those of Plutarch and Lucian) are frequently dominated by lengthy speeches for which the dialogical framework is relatively superficial, and dialogical elements frequently characterize discourses and letters. Further, Plato’s Euthydemus, the earliest extant λόγος προτρεπτικός, is a dialogue, while Aristotle’s Protrepticus (dependent on the content of the Euthydemus), was written in the form of a discourse,11 probably using diatribe style.12 The “protreptic dialogue” is simply a protreptic discourse which has been dramatized within the framework of a dialogue.13 Further, while philosophical diatribes are not formally dialogues, they use many typically dialogical features. Since ancient authors often framed discourses with formal epistolary features, there is no great distance between the λόγος προτρεπτικός and the ἐπιστολὴ προτρεπτική. Letters which have a protreptic character include Seneca Ep. 90 and the Letter to Menoecius by Epicurus (Diogenes Laertius 10.122–35). According to Philo of Larissa (Stobaeus Anth. 2.7.2): “All protreptic consists of two parts, of which one is the demonstration of the value and profit of philosophy, whereas the other refutes the views of those adversaries who misrepresent or condemn this activity.” Inductive analysis suggests that the antithetical features of ἐνδεικτική (“demonstration”), and ἀπελεγκτική (“refutation”) are indeed characteristic of all known λόγοι προτρεπτικοί. For Philo of Larissa, protreptic is defined as παρορμῶν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀρετήν, “urging on to virtue.” W. Gerhäusser, who accepts the protreptic structure proposed by Philo, has outlined the negative and positive arguments used in protreptic.14 Ways of responding to adverse arguments take the form of responses to the following questions: (1) Is philosophy possible? (2) Is philosophy necessary? (3) Did not people at the dawn of civilization live without philosophy? (4) Does philosophy have value though lacking Düring, Aristotle’s Protrepticus: An Attempt at Reconstruction (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia 12; Göteborg: Institute of Classical Studies, 1961), 29–32. 12 G. Schneeweiss, Der Protreptikos des Aristoteles (Bamberg: Kurt Urlaub, 1966), 238. 13 Cf. A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982). Fowler distinguishes between kinds or genres, modes and subgenres, making it possible to understand how the generic features of various literary kinds can be combined. Mode differs from kind in that the external structure of the latter is absent from the former (106–11). A comic novel, for example, is a novel in kind but a comedy in mode. “In short,” writes Fowler on 107, “when a modal term is linked with the name of a kind it refers to a combined genre, in which the overall form is determined by the kind alone.” 14 W. Gerhäusser, Der Protreptikos des Poseidonios (München: C. Wolf & Sohn, 1912), 11 ff. 11 I.

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practical utility? (5) Is there not a contradiction between the theory and practice of philosophers? The positive arguments emphasize the fact that philosophy is the only road to happiness by (1) making a comparison (σύγκρισις) with other goods, (2) defining philosophy and the tasks included, (3) establishing its connections with other arts and sciences, (4) demonstrating that philosophy derives from the true nature of man, and (5) ultimately affirmed by the divinization of the philosopher. In a perceptive discussion of the generic characteristics of philosophical protreptic, M. D. Jordan first discusses the general statements about protreptic by Philo of Larissa, Iamblichus and Olympiodorus, and then analyzes the structure of several λόγοι προτρεπτικοί, including Plato’s Euthydemus and Aristotle’s Protrepticus.15 Jordan finds three stages in protreptic sections of Euthydemus: (1)  the desire for good is a choice based on knowledge, (2)  critique of rival sources of knowledge, (3)  exhortation to choose philosophy as the only valid source of knowledge (307c). This structure, according to Jordan, is typical of later protreptics:16 It [protreptic] is a comparison of claims to knowledge that ends with an exhortation to philosophy as the only remaining claimant with any plausibility. More exactly, it is a synkrisis of the claims of knowledge with what desire itself has shown about the knowledge it seeks; every other form of knowledge is found lacking.

The influence of Aristotle’s Protrepticus on later authors of philosophical-rhetorical discourses, dialogues and letters was such that a consideration of the philosophical arguments and rhetorical structure of the reconstructed Protrepticus is important. The problem, however, is that “quot professores tot Protreptici.”17 Ingemar Düring, in an authoritative and conservative identification and reconstruction of the fragments of the Protrepticus,18 suggests the following outline: (1) Dedication and exposition of the first main theme: happiness consists in the good condition of the soul (frags. B 1–5). (2) Second main theme: the necessity and value of philosophy for political and practical life; material possessions are only tools which must be used properly. (a) The purpose of nature is that humanity’s supreme end is wisdom (B 11–21). (b) There are different levels of thought according to the purpose of nature; the highest level is thought for its own sake (B 22–30). (c) A philosophical mode of living is not an unattainable goal (B 31). (d) There is a science of truth just as there is a science of nature, the former is derived from the latter (B 32–37). (e) Wisdom is the greatest good even though it may not be practical (B 38–44). (3) Actually, wisdom is useful 15 Jordan,

“Ancient Philosophic Protreptic,” 314–27. “Ancient Philosophic Protreptic,” 321. 17 Düring, Aristotle‘s Protrepticus, 13. 18 I. Düring, Der Protreptikos des Aristoteles: Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1969), 13–16. 16 Jordan,

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for human living (B 46–57). (4) What is the task of philosophy and why is the attainment of wisdom our highest goal? (a) The relationship between body and soul is such that within the soul lies the νοῦς, our true self (B 59–62). (b) The essential task of reason is the attainment of truth (B 63–66). (c) We seek the truth through philosophical reflection, of which the highest stage is seeking the truth for its own sake (B 66–69). (d) Insight and knowledge is the most worthy choice for people (B 70–77). (5) The intellectual life is also one of joy (B 78–92). (6) The intellectual life is therefore a prerequisite for the happy life (B 93–102). (7) A comparison between the life of reason and the life of the common people; what appears important to most people is not ultimately real (B 105–7). (8) Conclusion: a life without philosophy is worthless (B 108–110). The concluding appeal (Düring frag. B 110) is worth quoting: For reason [νοῦς] is God within us (either Hermotimus or Anaxagoras said this), and “mortal life has a certain share in the divine.” Therefore one ought to pursue philosophy or one ought to say farewell to life and depart this world, since all other pursuits appear to be completely nonsense and folly.

Konrad Gaiser, following Werner Jaeger, found evidence to suggest the threefold structure of Aristotle’s Protrepticus preserved in the way in which Iamblichus arranged his excerpts (Iamblichus Protrepticus 6, 7–8, 9–12), which, according to Gaiser, may reflect the original structure of that work.19 The threefold structural analysis of the Protrepticus by Gerhart Schneeweiss confirms Gaiser’s suggestion:20 (1)  Epideictic Section, (2)  Apelenktic Section (the opponents are not actual; Aristotle has attributed objections to fictional opponents), (3) Summary Epideictic Section. Lucian of Samosata (ca. 120–180 CE) wrote four dialogues which focus on conversion, one of which is a λόγος προτρεπτικός (Nigrinus), while the other three are parodies of λόγοι προτρεπτικοί (Hermotimus, De parasito, De saltatione).21 Each concludes with a “conversion.” In the adaptation of protreptic to dialogues, the discourses of the participants first focus on dissuasion, then on persuasion. In Nigrinus, for example, the first section of the second-hand version of Nigrinus’ discourse is in praise of Athens, where philosophy and poverty are closely related, with an exemplum (12–14), while in the second part Rome is condemned as a place where wealth and all the vices flourish (15–34); Lucian then describes his own philosophical conversion (35–38). The whole is structured as a σύγκρισις comparing praiseworthy Athens with despicable Rome in light of the virtues appropriate for the philosophical life and vices inappropriate for the philGaiser, Protreptik und Paränese bei Platon: Untersuchung zur Form des Platonischen Dialogs (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1959), 219 f. 20 Schneeweiss, Der Protreptikos des Aristoteles, 231–35. For a brief sympathetic critique see Düring, Der Protreptikos des Aristoteles, 17–20. 21 C. Schäublin, “Konversionen in antiken Dialogen?” Catalepton: Festschrift für Bernhard Wyss, ed. C. Schäublin (Basel: Seminar für Klassische Philologie, 1985), 117–31. 19 K.

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osophical life.22 Further, Nigrinus’ monologue exhibits a number of conventional diatribe topoi.23 Lucian’s Hermotimus (his longest surviving composition) is an example of a λόγος ἀποτρεπτικός, i.e., a discourse intended to result in “aversion” or “deprogramming,” rather than “conversion.” Finally, in the protreptic section which provides the introduction to the Dialogue with Trypho, Justin recounts his philosophical journey (through Stoicism, Aristotelianism, Pythagoreanism and Platonism) and then recounts his discussion with an old man (a literary figure personifying wisdom, in this case Christianity). The first part of the old man’s conversation is given over to dissuading Justin of Platonism (Dial. 3.1–6.2), while in the second part he attempts to persuade Justin that Christianity is the true philosophy, concluding with an appeal for a response which eventually resulted in Justin’s conversion (Dial. 7.1–9.3). Many protreptic topoi occur in this section, including Justin’s claim that “philosophy is the greatest and most honorable possession [φιλοσοφία μέγιστον κτῆμα καὶ τιμιώτατον] before God, to whom it leads us and alone commends us” (Dial. 2.1; cf. 3.3),24 and the old man’s concluding request that Justin follow his advice (Dial. 8.1); cf. Justin’s similar invitations to Trypho at the beginning of his conversation with Trypho (Dial. 8.2) as well as at its conclusion (Dial. 142.1). This survey of the basic structure of a number of προτρεπτικοί indicates that they characteristically consist of three features, (1) ἐλεγκτικός or ἀπελεγκτικός, a negative section centering on the critique of rival sources of knowledge, ways of living, or schools of thought which reject philosophy, (2)  προτρεπτικός, ἐνδεικτικός or ἐπιδεικτικός, a positive section in which the truth claims of philosophical knowledge, schools of thought and ways of living are presented, praised and defended, followed by (3) an optional section, προτρεπτικός or παράκλησις consisting of a personal appeal to the hearer inviting the immediate acceptance of the exhortation. In view of the basic epideictic character of the λόγος προτρεπτικός it is natural that the rhetorical strategy of σύγκρισις is frequently employed. Further, the essentially propaedeutic character of the genre meant that the diatribe style (the terms genre or Gattung are no longer appropriate) was eminently suited for use in λόγοι προτρεπτικοί. Stowers has recently argued that the older conception of the “Cynic-Stoic” diatribe as a form of popular philosophical preaching is inadequate and that the term diatribe should be reserved for “teaching activity in the schools, literary imitations of that activity, or for writings which employ the rhetorical and pedagogical type typical of diatribes 22 Cf. L. Müller, “De Luciani dialogorum rhetoricorum compositione,” Eos 32 (1929), 574–78; J. Bompaire, Lucien écrivain: imitation et création (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1958), 277. 23 G. Anderson, “Lucian’s Nigrinus: The Problem of Form,” GRBS 19 (1978), 369. 24  J. C. M. van Winden, An Early Christian Philosopher: Justin Martyr‘s Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters One to Nine (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971), 45; N. Hyldahl, Philosophie und Christentum: Eine Interpretation der Einleitung zum Dialog Justins (AThD 9; Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1966), 184.

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in the schools.”25 Yet while Stowers’ proposal that the philosophical school was the primary social setting for the diatribe works for Musonius Rufus, Epictetus and perhaps Teles, it does not fit the activities of Maximus of Tyre, Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom and Bion who were concerned with mass propaganda.26

The History of the λόγος προτρεπτικός The Pseudo-Isocratean Ad Demonicum, perhaps a response by a student of Isocrates to the threat posed by Aristotle’s Protrepticus, indicates that the λόγος προτρεπτικός was a widely used genre. By the first century CE, the exclusive and aristocratic character of the older philosophical schools had given way to democratization and popularization. Competition between the schools for attracting and retaining adherents meant that the oral and written dissemination of λόγοι προτρεπτικοί became a growth industry. Marcus Aurelius expresses gratitude toward his teacher Rusticus for advice not to deliver προτρεπτικὰ λογάρια (1.7). Further, the popularity of λόγοι προτρεπτικοί is suggested by the fact that Lucian parodied the genre in four dialogues (Hermot., Par., Salt., Vit. auct.), though in the Nigrinus produced a largely serious account. The successes of philosophical propaganda were celebrated in stories of philosophical conversions (Diogenes Laertius 2.113–14, 125; 4.16). According to his late biographers, Pythagoras gained more than two thousand followers through a single speech at Croton (Porphyry Vit. Pyth. 19–20; cf. Iamblichus VP 30). The first author to compose a work entitled Προτρεπτικός (D. L. 2.85), was Aristippus of Cyrene, an older contemporary of Plato. Perhaps the earliest extant example of a λόγος προτρεπτικός, a form developed by the sophists, is Plato’s Euthydemus (two protreptic discourses, or one interrupted discourse, are embedded in 278e–282d, and 288b–307c).27 The first discourse is explicitly described as a λόγος προτρεπτικός in 282d. In addition to the Euthydemus, two other Platonic dialogues have frequently been considered λόγοι προτρεπτικοί, Phaedo and Epinomis.28 Aristotle’s lost Protrepticus has been the subject of a great deal of scholarly discussion during the last three decades.29 Though WerStowers, “The Diatribe,” Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament, ed. D. E. Aune (SBS 21; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 73; Stowers, The Diatribe, 76. 26 T. Schmeller, Paulus und die “Diatribe” (NA n. F. 19; Münster: Aschendorff, 1987), 41–53. 27  W. K. C. Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: The University Press, 1975), 4.266–83; Jordan, “Ancient Philosophic Protreptic,” 319–21. 28  A. J. Festugière, Les protreptiques de Platon: Euthydème, Phédon, Epinomis (Paris: J. Vrin, 1973). 29 The work is mentioned in Diogenes Laertius 5.22 and Stobaeus 4.32.21. In general, see W. Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development, trans. R. Robinson (2nd ed.; London: Oxford University Press, 1948), 54–101. The 1960s witnessed a surge in interest in Aristotle’s Protrepticus: Düring, Aristotle’s Protrepticus; A.-H. Chroust, Aristotle: Protrepticus: 25 S. K.

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ner Jaeger claimed that the λόγος προτρεπτικός was not a development of the Socratic method,30 that judgment does not hold true for the later developments of the genre. In composing his lost Protrepticus, Aristotle was dependent on Plato for much of its content (particularly the Euthydemus), but on Socrates for its form. Aristotle’s Protrepticus found many imitators including Cicero, whose Hortensius (in which the ideas found in Aristotle’s Protrepticus are synthesized in dialogue form) was instrumental in Augustine’s first conversion (Augustine Conf. 3.4.7–5.9). Antisthenes the Socratic is credited with composing a work entitled Περὶ δικαιοσύνης καὶ ἀνδρείας προτρεπτικός in three books (Diogenes Laertius 6.16). The only Cynic to whom a work entitled Προτρεπτικός is attributed is Monimus, reportedly a student of Diogenes (D. L. 7.83).31 Epicurus is credited with a lost work entitled Προτρεπτικός (D. L. 10.28). Among the Peripatetics προτρεπτικοί are attributed to Theophrastus (D. L. 5.49), Demetrius of Phaleron (D. L. 5.81), and Ariston of Ceos (D. L. 7.163). Stoic authors of προτρεπτικοί include Persaeus (D. L. 7.36), Cleanthes (D. L. 7.175), Chrysippus, whose work was entitled Προτρεπτικά (Plutarch Stoic. Rep. 17 [1041E]; SVF 3:203), and Poseidonios of Apamea who was the author of a lost work entitled Προτρεπτικοί (D. L. 7.91, 129), which was probably not in dialogue form but could well have been written in diatribe style.32 Though a Protrepticus is not ascribed to Epictetus, the whole of his Dissertationes (arranged by Arrian) belongs to the genus protrepticus.33 The Neoplatonic philosopher Iamblichus of Chalcis (ca. 250–325 CE) wrote Προτρεπτικὸς ἐπὶ φιλοσοφίαν, “Exhortation to Philosophy,” as the second book of a comprehensive ten book work entitled Συναγωγὴ τῶν Πυθαγορείων δογμάτων, “Encyclopedia of Pythagorean Doctrine”; the first book was Περὶ τοῦ Πυθαγορικοῦ βίου, “On the Pythagorean Life.”34 The Vita Pythagorica is placed first because in late antiquity it became conventional to preface a philosopher’s A Reconstruction (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964); Schneeweiss, Der Protreptikos des Aristoteles; G. E. Nix, Aristotle’s Protrepticus and Isocrates (Ph.D. Diss.; University of Chicago, 1969). Düring, Der Protreptikos des Aristoteles. 30 Jaeger, Aristotle, 55. 31 According to Dudley, followed by Sayre, Antisthenes was not the founder of Cynicism; cf. D. R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967 [originally published in 1937), 1–16 (on Antisthenes), 40–41 (on Monimus); F. Sayre, Diogenes of Sinope: A Study of Greek Cynicism (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1938). However, the asceticism of Diogenes (whom Dudley regards as the founder of Cynicism) has links with pre-Cynic “Socratic” asceticism; cf. R. Höistad, Cynic Hero and Cynic King (Lund: Carl Blom, 1948), 5–21. The literary productions of the Cynics apparently contained few works with the title Protrepticus; cf. 110–16 (Cynic influence on Hellenistic literature). 32 Gerhäusser, Der Protreptikos des Poseidonios, 71. 33 Hartlich, De exhortationum, 310. 34 For what follows, see B. D. Larsen, Jamblique de Chalcis, Exégète et Philosophe (2 vols.; Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget i Aarhus, 1972), and the introduction to J. Dillon, Iamblichi Chalcidensis In Platonis Dialogos Commentariorum Fragmenta (PhAnt 23; Leiden: Brill, 1973), in revised form in “Iamblichus of Chalcis (c. 240–325 A. D.),” ANRW 36.2. 862–909.

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works with a biography. The Protrepticus itself is a catena of material drawn from Plato’s Euthydemus and Aristotle’s lost Protrepticus. Iamblichus’ Protrepticus appears to have been intended to introduce Neoplatonic philosophy generally, rather than Neopythagoreanism. Because of the largely technical nature of the Συναγωγή within which the Protrepticus was buried, it does not seem to have been directed to outsiders, but rather to confirm insiders of the choice of Neoplatonism which they had already made. Further, in the Protrepticus, Iamblichus does not appear to have intentionally attacked competing philosophical traditions. A collection of Pythagorean maxims (which Iamblichus calls προτρεπτικά, Protrepticus 21; ed. Pistelli, 108), is found in the final two chapters. In sum, Iamblichus’ Protrepticus is an example of a late scholastic development of protreptic which departs in significant ways from the earlier use of the genre. Did the λόγος προτρεπτικός as a literary genre exert any influence on Hellenistic Judaism? Though there is no evidence that Philo of Alexandria himself wrote a λόγος προτρεπτικός, he was certainly acquainted with the genre. A. J. Festugière lists four topoi characteristic of protreptic in Philo, i.e., topoi found either in Aristotle’s Protrepticus or in literature in that tradition:35 (1) the vanity of human life, (2) lack of certitude in human life and the inconstancy of fortune, (3) the theme of voyage, (4) the theme of solitude (necessary for the βίος θεωρητικός). Yet great care must be exercised here since such topoi can be used in various literary genres. One important Jewish work, the Wisdom of Solomon (written before the middle of the first c. BCE), is arguably an example of a λόγος προτρεπτικός. This view was first suggested, almost in passing, by F. Focke, who was much more concerned to argue for the presence of a συγκρίσις in Wisdom 11–19.36 More recently, J. M. Reese has argued convincingly that Wisdom is a λόγος προτρεπτικός containing shorter literary units of various types, including diatribes (1:1–6:11; 6:16–20; 11:15–15:19), aporiai (6:12–16; 6:21–10:21), sorites (6:17–20), and synkriseis (11:1–14; 16:1–19:22).37 This view has since been accepted by a number

35  A. J. Festugière, La Révélation d’Hermes Trismégiste (Paris: Société d’Édition “ Les Belles Lettres, ” 1983 [1949]), 2.522–28. 36 F. Focke, Die Entstehung der Weisheit Salomos (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913), 86, applied the term to the first five chapters; his discussion of the seven συγκρίσεις in Wisdom is found on 12–15; see also I. Heinemann, “Synkrisis oder äußere Analogie in der Weisheit Salomos,” TZ 4 (1948), 242–51. Focke has an extensive discussion of this rhetorical strategy in a later article, “Synkrisis,” Hermes 58 (1923), 327–68. A. Dupont-Sommer, “De l’immortalité astrale dans la `Sagesse de Salomon’ (3:7),” REG 62 (1949), 80, designated the first nine chapters of Wisdom as a λόγος προτρεπτικός. 37  J. M. Reese, Hellenistic Influence on the Book of Wisdom and Its Consequences (Rome: Biblical Institute, 1970), 117–21. Most commentators have accepted the seven συγκρίσεις identified by Focke (Die Entstehung der Weisheit Salomos, 13): (1) 11:1–14; (2) 16:1–4; (3) 16:5–14; (4) 16:15–29; (5) 17:1–18:4; (6) 18:5–25; (7) 19:1–9. Focke included an eighth in 19:13–17.

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of scholars,38 though others regard Wisdom as an encomium (which has close generic connections with protreptic).39 In an extensive analysis of Wisdom, published posthumously, C. Larcher vaguely characterizes Wisdom as “an original form of Hellenistic midrash which includes several literary forms.”40 In second century Christianity, the λόγος προτρεπτικός strongly influenced the Christian adaptation of the dialogue. The oldest Christian literary dialogue was probably that between Jason, a Jewish Christian and Papiscus the Alexandrian Jew written by the apologist Ariston of Pella (Origen Cels. 4.52),41 though nothing substantive is known about it. The first extant literary dialogue is that of Justin Martyr. Though no Jewish dialogues from the late Hellenistic period have survived, it is likely that they existed (cf. Arist. 181–294, where a dialogue is set in a symposium framework), and several dialogues of Philo with dogmatic presuppositions are known, including the fragments of De providentia (cf. Eusebius Praep. ev. 7.21.336b–337a; 8.14.386a–400a). In Justin’s Dialogus cum Tryphone, chapters 1–9 form an introductory protreptic unit which concludes with Justin’s conversion to Christianity, the “true philosophy” (Dial. 8.1). It is possible that Justin’s views on the origin and history of philosophy were derived, perhaps indirectly, from the Protrepticus of Posidonius of Apamea.42 Justin’s emphasis on conversion fits in with the widely held notion in post-Socratic Greek thought that once a philosopher perceives error he ought to change his views immediately. A later and more sophisticated adaptation of the dialogue form is found in the early third c. Octavius by Minucius Felix. This dialogue too is a λόγος προτρεπτικός which begins with a set speech by the pagan Caecilius (5–13), which is followed 38 D. Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon (AB 43; Garden City: Doubleday, 1979), 18–20; J. J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000), 182; B. L. Mack and R. E. Murphy, “Wisdom Literature,” in Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters, ed. R. A. Kraft and G. W. E. Nickelsburg (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 380 f. This view is hesitantly subscribed to in the new E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, rev. G. Vermes, F. Millar and M. Goodman (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1986), III/1.570, though the encomium genre is suggested as another possibility (see the next note). 39 In a discussion of the literary genre of Wisdom in “Wisdom Literature,”Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. M. E. Stone (CRINT; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), Sect. II, 2.306, M. Gilbert objects to classifying Wisdom as a logos protreptikos because little is known of Aristotle’s Protrepticus, and because the third section of Wisdom (10–19) does not correspond to this literary type. See also his more extensive discussion in “Sagesse de Salomon,” DBS 60 (1986), 58–119, esp. 72–87. Gilbert follows P. Beauchamp, “Epouser la Sagesse – ou n’epouser qu’elle? Une énigme du Livre de la Sagesse,” in La Sagesse de l’Ancient Testament, ed. M. Gilbert (Leuven-Gembloux: The University Press, 1979), 347–69. 40 C. Larcher, Le Livre de la Sagesse ou la Sagesse de Salomon (3 vols.; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1983–85), 1.113 f. (his discussion of the genre of Wisdom on 109–114 is disappointing for he is not really interested in the question of genre and he shows no awareness of the work of Reese). 41  B. R. Voss, Der Dialog in der frühchristlichen Literatur (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1970), 23–25. 42 Hyldahl, Philosophie and Christentum, 112–40.

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by a lengthy speech by the Christian Octavius 16–38; the dialogue concludes with the abrupt conversion of Caecilius.43 The use of the λόγος προτρεπτικός in discourse form continued to be adapted by Christian writers. Clement of Alexandria’s Protrepticus (Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς  Ἕλληνας), was written to convince pagans of the inferiority of their beliefs and to encourage them to accept Christianity, the only true religion. The Epistle to Diognetus, often labeled an apology, is actually a protreptic letter, though the author and date of composition are matters of debate. Augustine’s Contra academicos is a λόγος προτρεπτικός, explicitly dependent on Cicero’s Hortensius (Augustine Acad. 1.4).44

Judaism and Christianity as “Philosophies” Paul’s missionary activity took place in a world filled with the competing claims of a multitude of religious sects and popular philosophical traditions.45 Though the surviving evidence is meager (with the partial exception of Judaism and Christianity), it is nevertheless clear that many of these groups had developed a variety of communication strategies for defending themselves against the hostile criticism of outsiders, for attracting new members into their ranks, and for encouraging the continued loyalty of insiders by reiterating traditional values and norms and (in cases of religious groups with an ethnic membership base) by raising national consciousness. In the written expression of these literary categories, defense took the form of apologetic writings, attempts to win adherents took the form of missionary literature (i.e., propaganda designed to accompany a program of proselytism), and efforts to maintain values took the form of novellas, novels, didactic and apocalyptic literature. Historiography often functioned in all three ways. While these literary categories certainly did not function in mutually exclusive ways,46 they did tend to have a primary function. 43 F. Wotke, “Der ‘Octavius’ des Minucius Felix ein christlicher λόγος προτρεπτικός,” Commentationes Vindobonenses 1 (1935), 110–28; Schäublin, “Konversionen in antiken Dialogen?” 119–22; G. W. Clarke, “The Literary Setting of the Octavius of Minucius Felix,” JRH 3 (1964–65), 195–211; 4 (1966–67), 267–86. 44 Hartlich, De exhortationum, 296; Voss, Der Dialog, 199–208. 45 On religious propaganda see R. MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 18–34, 94–112; on philosophical propaganda see the still valuable discussion of P. Wendland, Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zum Judentum und Christentum (4. Aufl.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1972), 75–96. 46 V. Tcherikover has argued that the so-called apologetic literature of Diaspora Judaism was primarily for Jewish rather than pagan consumption (“Jewish Apologetic Literature Reconsidered,” Eos, 43 [1956], 169–93). According to Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem, 9, “… it is almost inevitable that the ‘apologetic’ would be directed simultaneously to those within and to those outside.”

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In many respects Judaism both presented itself and appeared to outsiders as a philosophy.47 Several Greek intellectuals of the late fourth and early third century BC apparently understood Judaism in this way. Theophrastus, the student and successor of Aristotle, reportedly described Judaism as “a race of philosophers” (FGH 737 F6), as did Megasthenes (FGH 737 F8). Clearchus of Soli claimed that the Jews were descendants of Indian philosophers (Josephus Contra Apionem 1.176–82). Aristobulus of Alexandria, a Jewish thinker and intellectual predecessor of Philo, proposed that Greek philosophers learned from Moses, an argument used frequently by later Jewish and Christian apologists.48 Philo described the central activity of Jewish synagogues as the study of philosophy (De Vita Mosis 2.215–16). Josephus presented the various Jewish sects as philosophical schools (Josephus B. J. 2.119; Antiquities 18.11), and ancient Israelite worthies as philosophers.49 Josephus described his eventual selection of Pharisaism (which he regarded as very similar to Stoicism) as the result of enlightened choice after sampling the three Jewish sects, the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes (Vita 9–12). This quest is presented in a conventional literary form modeled after the stylized Hellenistic accounts of philosophical pilgrimages and of philosophical conversions (parodied by Lucian Icaromenippus 4–5 and Necyomantia 4–6).50 The understanding and presentation of Judaism in the categories of Hellenistic philosophy were strategies which served both apologetic and propagandistic functions in a variety of literary genres. First-century Christianity presented its contemporaries with a classification problem. In a world which understood religion in terms of ritual and experience, and philosophy in terms of ultimate truth claims complemented by a suitable lifestyle, ancient perceptions of Christianity, when they were not overtly hostile, wavered between these two not entirely satisfactory alternatives. Was Christi47  G. F. Moore, Judaism (3 vols., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927), 1.324; Nock, Conversion, 78; Morton Smith, “Palestinian Judaism in the First Century,” Essays in Greco-Roman and Related Talmudic Literature, ed. H. A. Fischel (New York: KTAV, 1977), 195 f.; M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 1.255–61; Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem, 8; Collins discusses “Philosophical Judaism” on 175–94. 48 Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 1.163–69; P. Borgen, “Philo and His Predecessor Aristobulus,” Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, Section II, Vol. 2, ed. M. E. Stone (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 274–79. For the Christian adaptation of this argument see A. Droge, Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture (HUTh 26; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988). 49 L. H. Feldman, “Abraham the Greek Philosopher in Josephus,” TPAPA, 99 (1968), 143–66. 50 In discussing Justin’s stylized account of his philosophical quest in which he studied with a Stoic, a Peripatetic, a Pythagorean and then a Platonist; eventually he was converted to Christianity, the “true philosophy” (Dialogue 2–8), several scholars have pointed out the parallels in pagan “conversion to philosophy” stories; cf. E. R. Goodenough, The Theology of Justin Martyr (Jena: Frommann, 1923), 57–77; Hyldahl, Philosophie und Christentum, 140–59. Similar stylized accounts are found in such Christian authors as Tatian Or. 29.1–2 and Minucius Felix Oct. 40.1–2. On these texts see A. Droge, “Justin Martyr and the Restoration of Philosophy,” ChH, 56 (1987), 303–319.

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anity a diasporic religious cult with its spiritual and national center in Palestine (like Judaism, with which it was closely identified and on analogy with the many other nativistic cults with diasporic populations and a center in the ancestral homeland), and centering in the celebration of distinctive ritual? Using this perception, outsiders characterized Christianity as a superstitio, a Roman term for a foreign cult (Pliny Ep. 10.96. 10), or more neutrally as a θίασος (cf. Lucian Peregrinus 11), or (in view of its proximity to Judaism), a συναγωγή (cf. Lucian Peregrinus 11); neither Greek nor Latin, of course, had a term corresponding to the modern English word “religion.” Or was Christianity a philosophical school with a system of esoteric doctrines defining what is ultimately real and true, and an emphasis on exclusivity?51 By the second quarter of the first century CE, some educated Christians (particularly the Christian apologists) used the intellectual framework of the major Greek philosophical traditions both to fashion their understanding of Christianity itself and to shape the ways in which they communicated with Jews and Greeks.52 Some of them, such as Justin and Tatian, turned from philosophy to Christianity which they regarded as the true philosophy; Justin continued to dress like a philosopher (Justin Dial. 1; Eusebius Hist. eccl. 4.11.8). In the 160s Miltiades wrote an apology in which he apparently referred to Christianity as a philosophy (Eusebius Hist. eccl. 5.17.5), and in 172 CE Melito of Sardis addressed an apology to Marcus Aurelius in which he referred to Christianity as a philosophy of barbarian origin (Eusebius Hist. eccl. 4.26.7). The infamous Peregrinus (ca. 100–165 CE), lampooned by Lucian, moved from Cynicism to Christianity, but then returned to Cynicism. During his Christian period, Peregrinus was called the “new Socrates,” because some Christians saw parallels between the innocent suffering of Socrates and Jesus.53 Lucian also observes that Peregrinus was an exegete and even wrote many books himself (Peregr. 11 f.), perhaps apologetic works which perished in the wake of his apostasy.54 The physician and medical writer Galen, writing in the mid-second c. CE categorized both Judaism and Christianity as “the philosophical school [i.e., “way of life”] of Moses and of Christ [Μωσοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ 51 E. A. Judge, “The Early Christians as a Scholastic Community,” JRH 1 (1960–61), 4–15, 125–37; W. A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University, 1983), 81–84; R. L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven: Yale University, 1984), 72–83. 52 A. H. Armstrong, “The Self-Definition of Christianity in Relation to Later Platonism,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, ed. E. P. Sanders (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 1.74–99. The most important recent work on the Christian apologists is R. M. Grant, Greek Apologists of the Second Century (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988). 53 K. Döring, Exemplum Socratis: Studien zur Sokratesnachwirkung in der kynisch-stoischen Popularphilosophie der frühen Kaiserzeit und im frühen Christentum (Hermes-Einzelschriften 42; Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1979), 143–61. 54  C. P. Jones, Culture and Society in Lucian (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1986), 121 f.; cf. H. D. Betz, “Lukian von Samosata und das Christentum,” NovT 3 (1959), 226–37.

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διατριβήν]” (De puls. diff. 2.4), and attacked them, like adherents to the Greek philosophical schools, for the dogmatic basis of their views and their discussion of undemonstrated laws (ἀναποδείκτων νόμων).55 There is a sense in which the rivalry among the Hellenistic schools of philosophy has a parallel in the rivalry between Christians and Jews and the rivalry between different Christian sects (a comparison made by Origen Cels. 5.61 f.).

The Problem of the Genre of Romans In spite of the extensive bibliography of scholarly research on Romans, and the recent emphasis on analyzing NT letters in accordance with the categories of Greco-Roman rhetoric and epistolography,56 the problem of the literary genre of Romans has attracted surprisingly little attention. Various scholars have proposed that Romans is (1) a “testament” (Bornkamm), though he does not mean this in a literary or generic sense, (2) an εὐαγγέλιον (Roosen), (3) a “letter-essay” (Stirewalt), (4) an epideictic speech (Wuellner, Kennedy), (5) an ambassadorial letter (Jewett), (6) a letter of self-recommendation (Koester), or (7) a letter of friendship (Lührmann).57 Though the presence in Rom 1–3 of many motifs recurring also in the apologetic and missionary literature of Hellenistic Judaism has been recognized for 55 R. Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians (London: Oxford University Press, 1949), 10–16 (texts) and 37–48 (discussion). On p. 43 Walzer observes that “Galen is, as far as I can see, the first pagan author who implicitly places Greek philosophy and the Christian religion on the same footing.” 56 This current trend in research is exemplified by G. A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1983). 57 Testament: G. Bornkamm, “Der Römerbrief als Testament des Paulus,”Geschichte und Glaube (München: Kaiser Verlag, 1971), 2.120–39; “The Letter to the Romans as Paul’s Last Will and Testament,” The Romans Debate, ed. K. Donfried (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1977), 17–31; εὐαγγέλιον: A. Roosen, “Le genre littéraire de l’Epître aux Romains,” Studia evangelica (TU 87; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1964), 2.465–71; Letter-essay: L. Stirewalt, “The Form and Function of the Greek Letter-Essay,” The Romans Debate, 175–206; Epideictic speech: W. Wuellner, “Paul’s Rhetoric of Argumentation in Romans: An Alternative to the Donfried-Karris Debate over Romans,” CBQ 38 (1976), 330–51 (= Donfried, The Romans Debate, 152–74); Kennedy, Rhetorical Criticism, 152–56; Ambassadorial letter: R. Jewett, “Romans as an Ambassadorial Letter,” Int 36 (1982), 5–20. While evidence for this proposal lies primarily in Rom 1:1–17 and 15:14–16:23, Jewett regards Romans as a fusion of various epistolary types, including the parenetic letter, the hortatory letter and the philosophical diatribe. See also his article “Following the Argument of Romans,” WW 6 (1986): 382–89; Letter of self-recommendation: H. Koester, Einführung in das Neue Testament (Berlin und New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1980), 575; Friendship letter: D. Lührmann, “Freundschaftsbrief trotz Spannungen: zu Gattung und Aufbau des Ersten Korintherbriefes,” Studien zum Text und zur Ethik des Neuen Testaments: Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag von Heinrich Greeven, ed. W. Schrage (BZNW 17; Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1986), 298–315, esp. 304.

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many years,58 the question of just how those motifs should be evaluated remains problematic. There have been several attempts to understand Romans, in part or in whole, as a Pauline adaptation of Hellenistic Jewish apologetic literature. In 1953 Günther Bornkamm proposed that even though Rom 1:18–3:20 reflects such adaptations, they are used in a radically different way.59 Bornkamm’s central concern, however, was not simply the identification of Rom 1:18–3:20 as a “missionary-apologetic” sermon with a Hellenistic Jewish character (as Eduard Norden attempted to do for Acts 17),60 but rather Paul’s theological transformation of themes from Hellenistic Jewish apologetics in line with his distinctive Christian view of the knowledge of God. Though Helmut Koester has suggested that Romans is a letter of recommendation, that epistolary category not only is so general that it is not helpful, but it also plays no role in his analysis of the letter. The general outline of the letter (especially 1:18–3:31), he claims, follows the traditional schema of Jewish apologetics: while the Gentiles have a partial knowledge of God and the law, acquaintance with Biblical revelation would provide them with complete knowledge of God and the law.61 Had Paul followed the “protreptic interests of traditional apologetics,” he would have elaborated on the proper conduct consistent with his message, but since he has put all human achievement in question, he must shift to explain how freedom from sin and death (i.e., justification), is a gift of God through faith. The conclusion of the letter (Rom 12:1–15:13), according to Koester, is “not ethical instruction in the sense of an apologetic protreptic admonition, but is written from the perspective of the giving up of one’s own interests.” More recently Anthony J. Guerra has amplified the arguments of Bornkamm (who limited his analysis to what many regard as a digression in 1:18–3:20), by proposing that the apology for the gospel preached by Paul extends from 1:18 to 4:25.62 Though Guerra claims that he is raising the question of the “literary genre”

58 The

close connection between Rom 1 and Wis 12–14, thought by some due to Paul’s dependence on Wis, is thought by others to be the result of mutual dependence on a common Hellenistic Jewish tradition. The same topoi are found several times in Philo (Decal. 52–81; Spec. 1.13–35; Contempl. 3 ff.; Congr. 133). Cf. F. Ricken, “Gab es eine hellenistische Vorlage für Weisheit 13–15?” Bib 49 (1968): 54–86. For a brief survey of Hellenistic critiques of idolatry, see H. W. Attridge, First-Century Cynicism in the Epistles of Heraclitus (HTS 29; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1976), 16–23. 59 G. Bornkamm, “Die Offenbarung des Zornes Gottes (Röm 1–3),“ Das Ende des Gesetzes (München: Kaiser Verlag, 1953). 60 E. Norden, Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede (4th ed.; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1956), 125–40. 61 This paragraph summarizes the arguments in H. Koester, Introduction to the New Testament (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 2.140 f. 62  A. J. Guerra, Romans 3:29–30 and the Apologetic Tradition (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1986); part of Guerra’s dissertation has been published in the form of an article: “Romans 4 as Apologetic Theology,” HTR 81 (1988), 251–70.

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of Romans,63 that is precisely what he does not do, since he does not use the term “apology” or “apologetic writing” in a specifically generic sense, but rather as a broad designation for Hellenistic Jewish literature written for Jewish insiders as well as Gentile outsiders (p. 42, n. 16): Further, apologetic writings are not primarily defensive but offensive, positive missionary / pedagogical works which seek the conversion of the other or the strengthening of the member rather than merely averting persecution.

Here the term “apologetics” is used so comprehensively that it is effectively drained of any generic significance. “Apologetic literature” must be distinguished from “missionary propaganda,” even though these terms only describe general types of literature, not literary genres.64 A potential strength of Guerra’s approach is that he isolates several “apologetic” motifs in Rom 1:18–4:25,65 which he identifies through parallels in Hellenistic Jewish compositions as Pauline adaptations of Jewish apologetics. He claims that a comparison of the apologetic motifs of Rom 1:18–3:31 with Arist. 121–71, indicates a common schema and demonstrates Paul’s dependence on Jewish apologetics, though the results are mixed.66 However, this sequence of motifs, even if valid, is insufficient to demonstrate the presence of a generic structure. As a rhetorical genre, the term “apology” is normally limited to that aspect of dicanic or forensic rhetoric concerned with defense rather than prosecution. It is somewhat peculiar that in support of his

63 Guerra, Apologetic Tradition, 2–3: “The need for the specification of the genre which informs Paul’s letter to the Romans is imperative. In the case of Romans 1–4, the import for the interpretation of several passages therein is decisive.” 64 An appropriately balanced approach to “Jewish apologetics” is found in Schürer, History of the Jewish People, III/1.606–616. In his book Die Theologie der hellenistischjüdischen MissionsLiteratur (Hamburg and Volksdorf: Herbert Reich, 1954), 7, P. Dalbert correctly, in my view, refers to the distinction between apologetic and missionary literature as fluid, but incorrectly refers to each of these broad types of literature as a “Literaturgattung.” 65 These include: (1) natural revelation (Rom 1:19–21), (2) critique of idolatry (1:23), (3) immorality as the disordering of nature (1:25–26); (4) Gentiles possess partial knowledge of the Law (2:12–15); (5) stereotyping critique of other religions or nations (2:17–24); (6) spiritualizing interpretation of circumcision (2:25–29); (7) the one God topos (3:30). In addition Guerra claims that Rom 3:1–20 exhibits three apologetic modes of argumentation: (1) answering of specific objections (3:1–8); (2) the use of Scripture to prove a theological point (3:21, 31); (3) the use of a Hellenistic Jewish martyrological tradition (3:24–26). 66 Guerra, Apologetic Tradition, 51 (with my critique in square brackets): (1) Power of God manifest in everything (Arist. 128–33; Rom 1:18–20 [19 f. only]), (2) Polemic against idolatry (Arist. 134–38; Rom 1:18–32 [23–26 only]); (3) Jews superior in worship and law (Arist. 139–52; Rom 2:1–11 [not parallel; 2:17–20 closer]); (4) Rationalizing of the Law (Arist. 153–71 [allegorical interpretation of law begins in § 144 and continues through § 171]; Rom 2:12–29 [25–29 only]); (5) Privileged status according those of the Law (Arist. 172–86 [not parallel; discourse ends with § 171, and § 172–86 narrates the return to Alexandria]; Rom 3:1–20 [not parallel]); (6)  Theocentric solution to human predicament (Arist. 187–294 [not parallel; narrative not discourse]; Rom 3:21–31 [not parallel]).

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conception of apologetic writings, Guerra refers to Helmut Koester’s description of the task of the second-century Christian apologists.67

The Protreptic Character of Romans Romans is the most distinctive of the letters of Paul. It is the only genuine letter of Paul addressed to Christian groups (i.e., several house churches) in an urban area which he himself had neither visited nor founded. Though Melanchthon’s opinion that Romans is a compendium of Christian doctrine is now widely rejected, it does contain an important element of truth. The main section of the letter (1:16–11:36) consists of a chain of interconnected theological arguments and positions for which little if any connection can be found with the specific situation of the Christian communities in Rome. This fact demands an explanation. One of the central issues in current Romans research is therefore whether Paul wrote the letter in response to an actual situation in Rome, or whether his primary purpose was to present his views on important issues without any direct connection with local issues and problems.68 While there is some validity in both positions, the significance of the main part of the letter should not be subordinated to any supposedly concrete situation teased out of the concluding parenetic section (esp. 14:1–15:13).69 Though the social setting of Paul’s mission remains imperfectly understood,70 there have been a number of proposals regarding the specific social context within 67 Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, 2.338–40: “The [second century Christian] apologists were not primarily interested in the defense of Christianity against accusations that had been raised by the pagan world and by the Roman state  – although this motive plays a considerable role. The primary model of apologetic works was instead the Greek protrepticus, that is, a literary genre designed as an invitation to a philosophical way of life, directed to all those who were willing to engage in the search for the true philosophy and make it the rule for their life and conduct.” Though Koester is correct in recognizing that the λόγος προτρεπτικός served as a model for certain “apologetic works,” he uses the term “apologetic” in a sense so broad that it is not helpful. 68 These issues are discussed in Donfried, The Romans Debate. A recent comprehensive discussion of the complex purpose of Romans is found in A. J. M. Wedderburn, The Reasons for Romans (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988). Attempts to reconstruct the epistolary situation of Romans usually appeal to the section dealing with the “weak” and the “strong” (14:1–15:13). For arguments that Rom 14:1–15:13 does not reflect a specific occasion, see R. J. Karris, “Rom 14:1–15:13 and the Occasion of Romans,” CBQ 34 (1973), 155–78. 69 U. Luz, “Zum Aufbau von Röm 1–8,” ThZ 25 (1969), 162 f. An unsuccessful attempt to connect the whole of Romans with the specific circumstances of the Roman Christians is elaborated in Wedderburn, Reasons for Romans, 66–139. Typical of Wedderburn’s procedure is his attempt to understand Paul’s statement, “I am not ashamed of the gospel” (Rom 1:16) to refer to the fact that “some in Rome had in fact claimed that he indeed ought to be ashamed of his gospel and his proclamation, for that gospel was in some way discredited and disgraceful.” 70 E. A. Judge, “St Paul and Classical Society,” JAC 15 (1972), 32: “… there must have been some form of intellectual intercourse behind the closed doors of educated people. When Paul

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which Paul developed this material: (1)  synagogues (Acts 9:20; 13:5, 14–43; 14:1–2; 17:1–3; 18:4; 19:8), (2) private homes (Acts 18:7 f.; 20:7–11; 28:30–31; cf. Lucian Hermot. 11 where a sophist reportedly hung this sign on his gate: Τήμερον οὐ συμφιλοσοφεῖν),71 (3) rented lecture halls (like the σχολή of Tyrannus, Acts 19:9 f., where Paul reportedly taught for two years; here Luke depicts Paul as an itinerant philosopher, cf. Epictetus 3.23.30),72 (4) Paul’s own “school,” i.e., the way he taught the Christian faith to actual or potential students,73 (5) the workshops in which he plied his trade and engaged in discussion,74 (6) in public places (Acts 17:16–34; cf. Dio Chrysostom Or. 13.12–13) and perhaps even (7) in prison (cf. 2 Cor 11:23–33).75 There is no reason, however, why any of these settings should be considered inappropriate for Paul’s teaching ministry. In many respects the description of Paul’s activity in several passages in Acts coheres well with the protreptic character of Romans. According to Acts 18:4, διελέγετο δὲ ἐν τῇ συναγωγῇ κατὰ πᾶν σάββατον ἔπειθέν τε  Ἰουδαίους καὶ  Ἕλληνας. Here διαλέγεσθαι can mean either “to argue (about differences of opinion),” or “to speak in a somewhat formal setting (probably implying a more formal use of language).”76 Both definitions cohere well with the dialogical and rhetorical features of Romans. Acts 28:23b constitutes Luke’s concluding vignette of Paul’s missionary activity: “And he expounded the matter to them from morning till evening, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince [πείθων] them about Jesus both from the law of Moses and from the prophets.” Here πείθειν means “to convince someone to believe something and to act on the basis of what is recommended,” and belongs to the same semantic subdomain as προτρέπειν, “to urge a particular course of action.”77 Finally διαλέγεσθαι withdrew from the synagogue in one city after another he must have carried on his activities under the umbrella of some accepted social convention or institution which made such meetings easy.” 71 S. K. Stowers, “Social Status, Public Speaking and Private Teaching: the Circumstances of Paul’s Preaching Activity,” NovT 26 (1984), 59–82. Stowers emphasizes the private home as the center of Paul’s preaching activity, since the widespread view of Paul as a public orator, sophist and street-corner preacher is incorrect. 72 H. Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 163. 73 According to Stowers (Diatribe, 183), the central activities of Paul’s “school” would have been the exegesis of Scripture and ethical-religious instruction in the use of indictment and protreptic. Paul’s reworking of Hellenistic Jewish wisdom theology led H. Conzelmann to posit the existence of a Pauline “wisdom school,” probably located at Ephesus, cf. Acts 19:9 (“Paulus und die Weisheit,” NTS 12 [1965], 231–44). Conzelmann’s proposal is criticized, I think unsuccessfully, by B. A. Pearson, “Hellenistic-Jewish Wisdom Speculation and Paul,” Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. R. L. Wilken (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 43–66. 74 R. F. Hock, “The Workshop as a Social Setting for Paul’s Missionary Preaching,” CBQ 41 (1979), 438–50; idem, The Social Context for Paul’s Ministry (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980). 75 Cf. Guerra, Apologetic Traditions, 90 f., where his criticisms of Stowers’ school hypothesis are flimsy. 76 Louw and Nida 1.§ 33.446, § 33.26. 77 Louw and Nida 1.§ 33.301, § 33.300.

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and πείθειν are both used of Paul’s three-month ministry in the synagogue at Ephesus according to Acts 19:9: “And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly lecturing [διαλεγόμενος] and pleading [πείθων] about the kingdom of God.” After being forced to shift the venue of his missionary activity, Acts reports that Paul “lectured [διαλεγόμενος] in the hall of Tyrannus” for two years (v. 9), with the result that “all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (v. 10). Acts often depicts Paul as attempting to persuade both Jews and Greeks together, a feature which characterizes much of the argument in Romans 1:18–11:36. At the very least these passages suggest that Luke is trying to present Paul as one who used persuasive speech in attempting to convince both Jews and Greeks to accept the truth of the gospel. The central section of Romans (1:16–15:13), is set within an epistolary framework (1:1–15 and 15:14–16:27). The theological complexity of the central section suggests that Paul had worked and reworked this material over a period of several years. Though the sophistication of Paul’s discussion is recognized, the length of time it must have taken to develop his arguments is seldom appreciated. The following analysis of Romans focuses on aspects which cohere with its character as a λόγος προτρεπτικός. Romans 1:16–4:25 constitutes a major text unit which functions as a protreptic ἐλεγκτικός, consisting of three constitutive units, 1:16–2:11, 2:12–3:20, and 3:21–4:25. In the first section Paul begins with a condemnation of humanity due to the impartiality of God. Using the diatribe style, Paul debates with a fictional Jewish interlocutor in the next two sections and by the process of indictment and protreptic brings him to the conclusion that justification is possible only through faith. The fact that Paul is arguing with an unconverted Jew indicates the propaedeutic character of 1:16–4:25. This section with its use of indictment, censure and correction is appropriate for a λόγος προτρεπτικός. Each of the three shorter units must now be examined. (1)  Romans 1:16–2:11: Universal sinfulness and divine impartiality.78 This section is delimited by a formal inclusio consisting of references to “the Jew first and also the Greek” in 1:16 and 2:10, and is distinctive in Paul in that it exhibits no Jewish or Christian features and therefore provides a rare glimpse of how Paul argued with pagans (see the Appendix on “Seneca Ep. 90 and Rom 1:18–2:16”). It consists of three shorter units: (a) Rom 1:16–32, a narrative describing how primitive people knew God but did not properly honor him and became idolaters (vv. 18–23), and therefore God gave them over to all the vices they lusted after (vv. 24–32). This section has a distinctive style identifying it as a text-unit delimited from what precedes and follows. It is cast as a third-person narrative, all dialogical elements are lacking, it exhibits no specifically Christian features, and 78 Schmeller, Paulus, 232–35; J. M. Bassler, Divine Impartiality: Paul and a Theological Axiom (Chico: Scholars Press, 1982).

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it has well-known parallels to the Hellenistic Jewish tradition found in Wisdom 12–14 and several passages in Philo (Decal. 52–81; Spec. 1.13–35; Contempl. 3 ff.; Congr. 133). (b) 2:1–5, is in diatribe style, with a characteristic sudden shift addressing the interlocutor (in the vocative and the second-person singular) as an arrogant and pretentious man, which functions to focus and sharpen the indictment in 1:18–32.79 (c) 2:6–11, switches back to a discourse in the third-person where, for the first time, the author uses a σύγκρισις to contrast the reward of the good and the punishment of the wicked. The rhetorical technique of σύγκρισις, “comparison,” is often found in λόγοι προτρεπτικοί.80 A σύγκρισις is a comparison of good and bad people or things to demonstrate the superiority of the one and the inferiority of the other. Usually the inferior is presented before the superior, often in the form of antitheses. This form is particularly suited to protreptic, in which the superiority of one way of life is argued by emphasizing the inferiority of the alternate ways. (2) Romans 2:12–3:20: God impartially condemns those who do not obey the law / Torah. This section introduces and focuses on the term νόμος (used 23 times in this section with several meanings), and consists of five shorter constitutive units: (a) 2:12–16, a third-person discourse which includes a σύγκρισις comparing those who have lived without law to those with who have lived with law. (b) 2:17–24, a section in diatribe style in the form of an apostrophe addressed to an imaginary Jewish interlocutor (in the second-person singular) who is indicted as a pretentious religious teacher.81 (c) 2:18–29 again reverts to third-person discourse style with a σύγκρισις on the deeper meaning of circumcision and uncircumcision. (d) 3:1–18 is a diatribal dialogue in which the fictitious Jewish interlocutor addressed by Paul in 2:17–24 introduces an objection; Paul censures his opponent by repeatedly correcting him.82 OT texts from Pss 14:1–2, 53:1–2 and 5:9 conclude the section. (e) 3:19–20 is again in discourse style and draws the conclusion that justification cannot be achieved through obeying the law for the law is the means for revealing sin. (3)  Romans 3:21–4:25: Justification by faith, not the works of the Law. The term πίστις is introduced in this section, where it is found 18 times. This section consists of three shorter units. (a) 3:21–26 is in third-person discourse form and emphasizes the fact that true righteousness is not available through the law but through faith in Jesus Christ alone. This section sets up the σύγκρισις between Diatribe, 93–96, 110–12. Rhet. 1.9 (1368a); Isocrates Panath. 39–40; Theon Progym. 2.112; Hermogenes Progym. 8; cf. Focke, “Synkrisis,” 335–39. On the use of σύγκρισεις in λόγοι προτρεπτικοί, see Gerhäusser, Der Protreptikos des Poseidonios, 34–42, with references to ancient sources on 34, and M. Ruch, L’Hortensius de Cicéron: Histoire et Reconstitution (Paris: Société d’Édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1958), 18. 81 Stowers, Diatribe, 96–99, 112–13. 82 S. K. Stowers, “Paul’s Dialogue with a Fellow Jew in Romans 3:1–9,” CBQ 46 (1984), 707–722. 79 Stowers,

80 Aristotle

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law and faith which dominates 3:21–4:25. (b) 3:27–4:2, is in the form of a diatribal dialogue, framed by the boasting motif in 3:27 and 4:2, and which functions to indict and censure the views of Paul’s fictional Jewish interlocutor, who appeared in 2:17–24, and vanishes after 4:25 (Jewish issues are taken up again in Rom 9–11).83 (c) 4:3–25 uses the παράδειγμα or exemplum of Abraham, who was justified by faith not works, concluding with an admonition in 4:23–25.84 Romans 5:1–8:39 is a unified textual unit which takes a new turn by focusing on the life of the insider (the Christian who has been justified by faith), and the problem of sin. The features of diatribe style in this section are limited to a series of objections and false conclusions raised from the standpoint of a Christian with erroneous views (6:1, 15; 7:7, 13). The concentration of diatribe style in Romans 1:16–4:25 where the erroneous views of outsiders are corrected, in contrast with the meager traces of diatribe style in Romans 5:1–8:39 suggests that it was a style Paul used in winning converts to Christianity.85 In light of comparable λόγοι προτρεπτικοί, the section functions in largely a positive manner as an ἐνδεικτικός. The level of discussion is more abstract than that found in typical Pauline parenesis (e.g., Rom 12:3–15:13), but is similar to that found in protreptic discourses. This section consists of several constituent units of text: (1)  Romans 5:1–21, which consists of two subsections, (a) 5:1–11, a brief introductory discourse on the Christian’s undeserved justification and reconciliation achieved by Christ, and (b) 5:12–21 constitutes a σύγκρισις in which the disobedience which produces death that came through Adam is contrasted with the obedience which produces life that came through Christ. (2) Romans 6:1–7:25: The conflict between sin and obedience to God, consists of several subsections, each marked by the fact that they are introduced with various objections and false conclusions: (a) 6:1–14: we cannot live in sin because we have died to it through identification with Christ in baptism. (b) 6:15–23: we who are under grace and not the law are not free to sin because we have been liberated from bondage to sin. (c) 7:1–6: Christians have died to the law through Christ, and are now free. (d) 7:7–12: the law is not sinful but rather reveals sin. (e) 7:13–25: Christians who desire to be obedient to God in their inner selves find this desire in conflict with the flesh. (3) Romans 8:1–39, Life in the Spirit and its rewards, consists of two shorter sections: (a) 8:1–17 is a σύγκρισις contrasting the obligation of Christians to live according to the Spirit because they have been liberated from bondage to the flesh. (b) 8:18–39 is a first-person plural discourse focusing on the eschatological hope which cannot be denied to Christians.

Diatribe, 155–67. Diatribe, 168–73. 85 This runs counter to Stowers’ conclusions in Diatribe, 175–84. 83 Stowers, 84 Stowers,

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The distinctive subject matter of Rom 5:1–8:39, the problem of sin and the struggle between the flesh and the spirit, requires a brief excursus at this point to discuss analogous problems treated in Greek philosophical protreptic. In spite of the theological distance, there is a striking structural and phenomenological similarity between the anthropological dualism of popular Greek tradition and that of Paul.86 According to ancient Greek popular psychology, (Stoic and Epicurean materialism are partial exceptions), human beings are understood in terms of a σῶμα-ψυχή dichotomy, i.e., a body-soul, material-immaterial, irrational-rational, dualism (Aristotle Protr. frag. B34, Düring). The ψυχή was considered immortal (hence divine) and regarded as the seat of the intellectual and spiritual faculties, and was temporarily united with the material body. Aristotle and later the Middle Platonists understood the ψυχή in terms of higher and lower elements, rational and irrational parts, i.e., the νοῦς and the ψυχή. The νοῦς, “mind” or “reason” is the divine part of the ψυχή, and is in irreconcilable conflict with the irrational part of the ψυχή which is closely linked to the irrationality and materiality of the σῶμα. The philosophical pursuit of φρόνησις, an activity of the νοῦς, is the highest good (Aristotle Protr. frag. B38, Düring). If we could be carried in thought (τῇ διανοίᾳ) to the Islands of the Blessed, suggests Aristotle, there we would need nothing except the life of the mind, a condition called the truly free life in this world (Aristotle Protr. frag. B43, Düring), for the conflict between the somatic and noetic modes of existence would be resolved in favor of the latter. Would we not be ashamed, he continues in the same fragment, if we were given the opportunity to live in the Islands of the Blessed and failed to do so? (In effect this is a type of realized eschatology, i.e., the challenge to live in this world in a way approximating postmortem conditions as far as possible.) Mutatis mutandis, the ethical dualism reflected in Paul’s view of the dilemma of the Christian, expressed in Romans 7:25 (with his νοῦς he serves the law of God but with his σάρξ the law of sin) is structurally similar to the situation of Greeks to whom a philosopher would direct his λόγος προτρεπτικός, offering freedom from the material bondage of wealth and reputation (e.g., Lucian Nigr. 4). For the Greek philosophers, human beings possessed the potential to turn from material encumbrances to embrace the philosophic life. For Paul, on the other hand freedom from sin and death is impossible for natural man and is only a possibility for those who have been justified by faith (Rom 8:1–2). For Paul the central anthropological terms are σάρξ (which occurs 16 times in Romans 7:5–8:13; 26 times in all of Romans) and πνεῦμα, and Christians can “set their minds” (φρονεῖν, φρόνημα) on either with negative or positive consequences 86 The emphasis on Paul’s psychological monism among New Testament scholars has received a needed corrective in R. H. Gundry, Soma in Biblical Theology with Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology (SNTSMS 29; Cambridge: The University Press, 1976). The position Gundry is qualifying is articulated in R. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (2 vols.; New York: Scribners, 1951–55), 1.191–227.

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(Rom 8:5–6). Christians are exhorted to live according to the spirit rather than the flesh with the goal of eschatological triumph (Rom 8:12–17). Romans 9–11 is a unit of text in which Paul deals with the problem of Jewish unbelief and Gentile belief, arguing that the former is simply a temporary measure which is part of God’s overall plan. The focal theological issue is the trustworthiness of God. If the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16), how then can the failure of the Jews to be converted be explained? While the structural relationship of Romans 9–11 to the rest of the letter continues to be debated, there is general recognition that Romans 9–11 constitutes a formally delimited textual unit, though the consistency of Paul’s argument presents a problem.87 The section is introduced by a solemn oath (9:1) attesting Paul’s anguish over the fact that Jews have not responded to the gospel (9:1–3), followed by a list of Jewish privileges (9:4–5a), and concluded by a doxology (9:5b). Romans 9–11 is just as obviously concluded with 11:33–36, which begins with a hymn and concludes with a doxology. Romans 9–11 is distinguished from other sections of Romans by virtue of the fact that it consists of the exegesis of about thirty OT passages. C. H. Dodd proposed that the unity which Romans 9–11 exhibits suggests that it was a sermon previously delivered by Paul.88 Although this proposal cannot be proven, it is likely that the main arguments and the exegetical supports for those arguments had been carefully worked out by Paul in earlier and perhaps very different contexts. The very coherence of this section, combined with the fact that it is difficult to account for its placement after Romans 5:1–8:39, suggests that it is a kind of excursus or digression. The fact that Paul turns again to the use of the diatribe style in 9:14–33, 10:18–21 and 11:1–2489 (within which is set an exegetical discourse in 10:1–17), suggests that Paul is again picking up the threads of an earlier argument which now requires further elaboration (cf. 3:1–18), i.e., Romans 9–11 constitutes a delayed answer to an earlier objection to Paul’s gospel. Romans 12:1–15:13 is an extensive parenetic section, delimited by an introductory statement in 12:1–2 (which also functions as a conclusion to 1:16–11:36), and a meta-textual statement in 15:14–16 (i.e., a statement by the author commenting on the text he has just written) closing the entire central section of the letter. When he says τολμηρότερον δὲ ἔγραψα ὑμῖν ἀπὸ μέρους ὡς ἐπαναμιμνῄσκων (15:15), he probably means “I have written to you boldly in part [of this letter] to 87 H. Räisänen, “Paul, God and Israel: Romans 9–11 in Recent Research,” The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism, ed. J. Neusner, P. Borgen, E. S. Frerichs and R. A. Horsley (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 178–206. 88  C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans (New York: Long & Smith, 1932), 148 f. Dodd suggests three bases for this proposal: (1) the unity of Rom 9–11, (2) the fact that the section could be removed without disturbing the unity or continuity of Romans, and (3) the section contains an elaborate exposition of scripture unlike other sections of Romans. 89 On 9:19–21, see Stowers, Diatribe, 98 f., 113 f.; on 11:17–24, see Stowers, Diatribe, 99 f., 114 f.; on 11:1–24, see Schmeller, Paulus, 286–332.

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remind you,” i.e., he is referring to the parenetic section (12:1–15:13) which he has just concluded.90 The term “remind” (ἐπαναμιμνῄσκων) is a term typically used in parenesis, emphasizing the traditional character of the moral exhortation and admonition in view.91 In addition 12:1–15:13 is distinctive in that it contains none of the features of the diatribe style used so frequently in many sections within 1:16–11:36. The section is introduced with the verb παρακαλεῖν, which in this instance is not simply an epistolary formula, but is used with the meaning “exhort” (synonymous with προτρέπειν). This protreptic appeal to the Romans that they dedicate themselves completely to God (12:1–2) provides a fitting conclusion to the presentation of his gospel in 1:16–8:39, only slightly interrupted by the digression in Romans 9–11. Paul has brought the reader through the problems confronted by outsiders in the Christian gospel, whether Gentiles or Jews (Rom 1:18–4:25), and he has further presented with great clarity his view of the nature of the Christian life as a life lived from the perspective of the Spirit rather than the flesh (Rom 5:1–8:39). He now appeals to the readers (12:1–2), no matter what their status, to devote themselves fully to God. The parenesis which follows in 12:3–15:13 describes in very particular terms just how Paul understands the abstract implications of Romans 5:1–8:39 in terms of the duties and obligations of Christians living in community.

Conclusions The proposal that Romans is a λόγος προτρεπτικός provides a reasonable explanation for the distinctive form and content of Romans 1:16–15:13. Although the main section of Romans is not precisely similar to other surviving examples of the λόγος προτρεπτικός, that is not only because of the inherent flexibility of the genre, but also because Paul has Christianized it by adapting it as a means for persuading people of the truth of the gospel. Further, in Romans as in his other letters, Paul used and combined genres and forms in distinctive ways. Romans is protreptic on two levels. First, sizable sections of text (1:16–2:11; 2:12–4:25; 5:1–8:39; 9:1–11:36) show signs of having been developed orally during many years of Paul’s preaching and teaching. In their original setting three of 90  C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (ICC; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975–79), 1.11, 2.753; J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16 (WBC 38B; Waco: Word Books, 1988), 858 f., though he suggests that “it may be better” to take ἀπὸ μέρους as a reference to the entire letter. The view that ἔγραψα ἀπὸ μέρους refers to the entire letter is supported by W. Sanday and A. C. Headlam, The Epistle to the Romans (ICC; 5th ed.; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1902), 404, referring to texts scattered throughout Rom: 6:12 ff., 19; 8:9; 11:17 ff.; 12:3; 13:3 ff., 13 ff.; 14; and 15:1 as instances). 91  A. J. Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, a Greco-Roman Sourcebook (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 125; S. K. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 128.

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the four sections (all but 9:1–11:36) appear to have had a protreptic character and function. Second, these originally protreptic sections have been linked together to form a relatively coherent λόγος προτρεπτικός in their present context in Romans. Paul’s purpose is to present to the Roman Christians concrete examples of the way in which he presents the gospel in a variety of settings to a variety of people. In so doing he is also presenting his gospel to them, i.e., he is imparting to them a spiritual gift (Rom 1:11). Romans 9–11, though it has some links with what precedes, functions as a digression which focuses on the problem of Jewish unbelief and makes an uncharacteristically concentrated use of OT exegesis. Since the exegesis of authoritative texts was an important feature of Hellenistic school activity, this section exhibits another aspect of the Pauline curriculum. The complex parenetic sections in 12:1–15:13 form an appropriate conclusion to the main protreptic section (cf. Iamblichus Protrepticus 21–22), for they provide examples of the kind of concrete moral behavior expected of Christians.

Appendix: Seneca Ep. 90 and Rom 1:18–2:16 The structure and motifs of 1:18–32 and 2:12–16 have some striking parallels in Seneca Ep. 90, a letter which is a λόγος προτρεπτικός and contains much of the lost Protreptica of Posidonius,92 and in which the author corrects many of the views of Posidonius. This protreptic letter is particularly important for the present study since the sequence of arguments find parallels in Romans 1:18–31 and 2:12–16, providing a schematic frame for 1:18–2:16. In this letter Seneca begins with an extensive narratio (Rom 1:18–32 is also in the form of a narratio) in which he describes the perfections of the kingdoms of the golden age (4–5), which were soon infected by vice and tyranny so that laws were required (cf. the contrast between those without law and those with law in Rom 2). Seneca disagrees with Posidonius that wise men or philosophy is responsible for introducing all the arts to humanity (such arguments against false views are characteristic of protreptic). Rather he thinks that luxury has turned people from nature and made them lust after things which were contrary to nature enslaving the soul to the desire of the body (90.19; cf. the παρὰ φύσιν motif in Rom 1:26). (In this Seneca follows Ovid’s account of historical deterioration found in Metamorphoses 1.89–162, ultimately derived from Hesiod through Aratus’ Phaenomena, in which technological advance in turn became the cause of further wickedness [the reason for the Stoic and Cynic doctrine of αὐταρκεία], and emphasis on τὸ κατὰ 92 Gerhäusser, Der Protreptikos des Poseidonios, 59 f. The most recent collection of the fragments of Posidonius follows an extremely conservative procedure and therefore includes just three short fragments under the title Προτρεπτικοί λόγοι (F 1–3): L. Edelstein and I. G. Kidd, Posidonius, I: The Fragments (Cambridge: The University Press, 1972), 39.

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φύσιν ζῆν, “living in accordance with nature” [cf. Dio Chrysostom Or. 6.21–34].) Luxury (that which is superfluous to nature or contrary to nature) promotes all the other vices (cf. Rom 1:28–31 where the sin of failing to acknowledge God produces a catalog of twenty-one vices). For Seneca it was reason, though a flawed reason, which after introducing the arts and crafts led humanity to abandon the natural simplicities of life (90.24; cf. Rom 1:21–22). Further, wisdom reveals to us what the gods are and of what sort they are (90.28; cf. Rom 1:19–20). What has the wise man discovered (90.34)? First of all there is truth [cf. Rom 1:19], and nature; and nature he has not followed as the other animals do, with eyes too dull to perceive the divine in it [cf. Rom 1:19–20]. In the second place, there is the law of life, and life he has made to conform to universal principles; and he has taught us, not merely to know the gods, but to follow them, and to welcome the gifts of chance precisely as if they were divine commands [cf. Rom 2:14–15].

The advent of avarice (avaritia; cf. Rom 1:29, πλεονεξία) in the second age further corrupted human life by causing poverty (90.38). Few of the vices which exist today were found among primitive man (90.39–45; cf. Rom 1:29–31). In conclusion he compares the primitive state of the human race with that which later developed through the introduction of laws (90.46; LCL trans.): What, then, is the conclusion of the matter? It was by reason of their ignorance of things that the men of those days were innocent; and it makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin [Multum autem interest, utrum peccare aliquis nolit an nesciat]. Justice was unknown to them, unknown prudence, unknown also self-control and bravery; but their rude life possessed certain qualities akin to all these virtues [cf. Rom 2:12–15].

21. Recent Readings of Paul Relating to Justification by Faith* A first reading is something special, like first love. I wish I could come on Saint Paul now by accident and read him for the first time. Graham Green, Monsignor Quixote

Introduction During the course of the twentieth century, New Testament scholars produced a mountain of monographs, articles, and reviews dealing with virtually every aspect of the study of Paul and his letters. In the context of the ongoing debate between Protestants and Catholics on the doctrine of justification, the purpose of this article is not to review the major issues in the study of Paul during the last century, certainly an impossible task. Rather, I intend to survey some, but by no means all, of the more important contributions to the recent study of Paul that have implications for understanding his teaching on justification. There is one important feature of this review article that is not based on any trend in the recent history of Pauline research: the author rejects the assumption that “legalism” (or any of its sanitized synonyms, such as “nomism”)1 should be regarded negatively as it typically has been in much of Protestant New Testament

* Original publication: “Recent Readings of Paul Relating to Justification by Faith,” Rereading Paul Together: Protestant and Catholic Perspectives on Justification, ed. D. E. Aune (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 188–245. Reprinted by permission. 1 R. N. Longenecker made a careful distinction between legalism and nomism in Paul: Apostle of Liberty (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 78–79. The common element in both terms is “the control of life in conformity to a rule or standard,” which is his definition of “nomism.” A secondary meaning is “a formal arrangement of the external aspects of life in order to gain righteousness and / or to appear righteous,” which is how he defines “legalism.” The problem with this distinction is that Longenecker implicitly regards “legalism” as pejorative (he later refers to it as an “egocentric piety,” 82), while “nomism” is a neutral or even a positive notion, and regards it as characteristic of pre-70 CE Pharisaism (84). Ernst Käsemann used the phrase “Jewish nomism” as a negative reality against which Paul fought; see “Justification and Salvation History,” E. Käsemann, Perspectives on Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 72.

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scholarship.2 By “legalism” I simply mean the religious obligation to obey the laws of God in order to win or maintain divine approbation. Whether the term “legalism” is applied to Judaism ancient or modern or to forms of Christianity ancient or modern, from the standpoint of the history of religions it is simply one among many ways of conceptualizing the formal relations thought to exist between human beings and the divine. Few citizens harbor negative attitudes toward the constitutional law governing the nations within which they live. The halakah of the Mishnah, however, is neither more nor less than a comprehensive system of law formulated by jurists over two centuries and intended to serve as the constitution of the Jewish people. The casuistic formulation of the Mishnah (i.e., using specific cases as the basis for developing general legal principles) is an appropriate form for codifying law in rabbinic jurisprudence.3 Philip Alexander observes: All seem tacitly to regard it as axiomatic that a religion of works-righteousness is inferior to a religion of grace. Weber has accused Judaism of legalistic works-righteousness. They set out to defend it against this charge, but nowhere do any of them radically question the premise that there is something wrong with a religion of works-righteousness.4

Many years earlier, George Foote Moore made an analogous observation: The prejudice of many writers on Judaism against the very idea of good works and their reward, and of merit acquired with God through them, is a Protestant inheritance from Luther’s controversy with Catholic doctrine, and further back from Paul’s contention that there is no salvation in Judaism, for “by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight.” Paul’s assertion is the corollary of his first proposition, that the one universal and indispensable condition of salvation is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.5

Historical criticism, the basic method of New Testament scholarship, is (or ought to be) inimical to the valorization of one religious system over another when fortified by the presuppositions of cultural relativism. From the perspective of this form of historical criticism, for example, Luther’s understanding of Christian soteriology is neither superior nor inferior to that of Trent − it is just different.6 2 Simon Gathercole calls attention to the problems involved in an indiscriminate use of the term “legalism” in Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1–5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 29–33. 3 P. S. Alexander, “Torah and Salvation in Tannaitic Literature,” Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, ed. D. A. Carson, P. T. O’Brien, and M. A. Seifrid (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 261–301, esp. 279–83. 4 Alexander, “Torah and Salvation,” 272. 5  G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim (3 vols.; Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1927–1930), 2.93–94. 6 As part of a critique of the New Perspective, Donald Hagner declares: “In its best theology, Judaism is a religion of grace. Often, however, its gracious foundations are tacitly assumed and often the law takes a place of overwhelming priority. It is not surprising if a religion whose heart lies in praxis rather than theory (theology), a religion dominated by nomism, where the

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At the beginning of the twentieth century, the agenda for most of the major issues in Pauline studies had been determined largely by the trends of scholarship in the late nineteenth century. The major issues in Pauline study then were primarily historical, though each issue had clear theological implications. There were six important historical questions,7 all of which have important implications for understanding Pauline thought: (1) What was Paul’s relation to Jesus, that is, is Jesus or Paul the real founder of Christianity? (2) How did Paul fit within what is known of first-century Judaism? (3) What was Paul’s relationship to Hellenistic culture, particularly Hellenistic religions? (4) What was the nature and meaning of Paul’s “conversion”? (5) What can be known about Paul’s early ministry and his place in the early church, particularly the Christian communities in Jerusalem and Antioch? (6) Which of Paul’s letters are authentic and which are not? The specifically theological questions that were topical during the early part of the twentieth century include the following: (1) To what extent was Paul influenced by eschatology or apocalyptic? (2) What constitutes the center of Pauline thought? (3) What is Paul’s view of the Law? This last issue, in part because of close connection with Paul’s teaching on justification by faith, has been the subject of intense debate since the last quarter of the twentieth century.

The Hellenistic Paul or the Jewish Paul? During the course of the last century it became increasing clear that the stark alternative posed between Paul the Diaspora or Hellenistic Jew and Paul the Palestinian or Rabbinic Jew led only to an impasse, with impassioned representatives of each position arguing themselves to a standstill on the question. A breakthrough became possible only when it was recognized that Palestinian Judaism was more influenced by Hellenism, to one extent or another, than previously thought,8 making it clear that the sharp religious and cultural dichotomy between covenant is more presupposed than articulated, inadvertently produces followers who fall into a legalistic mode of existence.” This is what Hagner further characterizes as “a natural human tendency toward legalism.” See D. A. Hagner, “Paul and Judaism: Testing the New Perspective,” Revisiting Paul’s Doctrine of Justification: A Challenge to the New Perspective, ed. P. Stuhlmacher (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001), 75–105, esp. 87–88. This is clearly a theological rather than a historical assessment in view of the valorization of grace over legalism. Similarly, T. R. Schreiner observes: “If some Jews had fallen into legalism in Paul’s day, such an error must be ascribed not to the Old Testament itself but to a misunderstanding of the Old Testament” (Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ [Downers Grove: InterVarsity; Leicester: Apollos, 2001], 118). Pushing the same view that Hagner holds even further is Bruce Chilton, who maintains that “Legalism is a travesty of Jewish religion” (The Targum of Isaiah [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999], xxvii). 7 V. P. Furnish, “Putting Paul in His Place,” JBL 113 (1994), 8. 8 The classic work on this subject is by M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974);

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Diaspora or Hellenistic Judaism and Palestinian Judaism, a model dominating scholarly discussion through the 1960s, was an ideal construction.9 For many Jewish and some Christian scholars, who have tended to compare Paul with fourth-century Rabbinic Judaism, Paul’s critique of the Torah is unintelligible.10 Some Jewish scholars have therefore proposed that Paul’s misunderstanding of the role of the Torah in Judaism was due to his origins as a Hellenistic Diaspora Jew or to the influence of apocalypticism.11 As we shall see, one of the achievements of the New Perspective on Paul is its insistence that descriptions of Judaism be based on Jewish texts and not dominated by what Paul has to say about Judaism. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, early Judaism was widely denigrated among Protestant scholars as a decadent, legalistic and external religion, antithetical to the enlightened teachings of Jesus and Paul (despite the fact that both were Jews rooted in forms of Judaism), that is, the antithesis of Christianity. The ideological basis for this view was in part provided earlier in the nineteenth century by F. C. Baur, who labeled Judaism a particularistic and legalistic religion and simply a preliminary stage on the road to the development of the universalistic features of Christianity. The scholar who has the dubious honor of providing an influential caricature of Judaism as the antithesis of Christianity was Ferdinand Wilhelm Weber (1836–1879).12 Using popular negative stereotypes of Judaism as a template for a selective examination of rabbinic literature, Weber produced a unified synthesis of basic Jewish theology that would influence biblical interpretation for generations. Some of the more prominent scholars dependent on Weber’s caricature included Emil Schürer, Wilhelm Bousset, Henry St. John idem, Jews, Greeks, and Barbarians: Aspects of the Hellenization of Judaism in the Pre-Christian Period (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980); idem, The “Hellenization” of Judaea in the First Century after Christ (London: SCM, 1990).  9 It is not my intention, however, to deny the utility of the conceptions of “Hellenistic Judaism” and “Palestinian Judaism,” but simply to argue that these should not be regarded as hermetically sealed off from one other. 10 C. G. Montefiore, “Rabbinic Judaism and the Epistles of St. Paul,” JQR 13 (1900–1901), 161–217, at 167; Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, 3.151; H. J. Schoeps, Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History (trans. H. Knight; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), 193–200, 213–18. 11 J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (London: Allen & Unwin, 1942), 450–66; Schoeps, Paul, 260–61; C. G. Montefiore, Judaism and St. Paul: Two Essays (London: Max Goschen, 1914), 92–95. 12 F. W. Weber’s first edition of one of his two infamous presentations of Judaism appeared the year following his death: System der altsynagogalen palästinischen Theologie: Aus Targum, Midrasch und Talmud, ed. F. Delitzsch and G. Schnedermann (Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1880). The second edition of this work, re-edited by Delitzsch and Schnedermann, was retitled Jüdische Theologie auf Grund des Talmud und verwandter Schriften, gemeinfasslich dargestellt (2nd ed.; Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1897). A second posthumously published work of Weber was Die Lehren des Talmud, quellenmässig, systematisch und gemeinverständlich dargestellt (Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1886), also edited by Delitzsch and Schnedermann.

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Thackeray, and R. H. Charles, to name just a few. Weber’s caricature of Judaism was castigated for its inaccuracies and exaggerations, first by Reform Jewish scholar Claude G. Montefiore (1858–1938),13 and twenty years later by the liberal Christian (Presbyterian) scholar of Judaism, George Foote Moore (1851–1931).14 Moore himself had erred by arguing for the existence of a relatively unified “normative” Judaism (i.e., Mishnaic Judaism), denigrating the Jewish apocalypses as “extraneous books” contributing nothing to a knowledge of ancient Jewish beliefs.15 Earlier in the century Montefiore had actually referred to Judaism in the plural when he observed that “several Judaisms, all more or less fluid and growing, existed in the first century.”16 Wilhelm Bousset, dependent on Weber, nevertheless insisted that Jewish apocalypses were a vitally important source for understanding first-century Judaism and relied on them to the exclusion of the later Tannaitic literature.17 During the late nineteenth century and much of the twentieth, scholars (largely Protestant) who insisted that Paul must be understood in the context of the Judaism of his day often assumed either that the teachings of Paul stood in contrast to the teachings of Judaism, or they played an enlightened Diaspora Judaism off against Palestinian Judaism, arguing that only the former was the appropriate context for understanding Pauline thought. Though William Wrede was part of the German history-of-religions school (centered at the University of Göttingen), he nevertheless insisted that Paul’s thought was incomprehensible unless understood in the context of “late Jewish theology.”18 For Wrede, despite the fact that Paul was born in Tarsus, he was insulated from Hellenism within the local Jewish community, and as a disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel, “his culture was the culture of the rabbis.”19 Wrede, rather than contrasting the thought of Paul with that of the rabbis, regarded his Jewish cultural context in a positive light, as would Albert Schweitzer and W. D. Davies in their influential discussions of Pauline thought. More recently, some have recognized the problematic character of an either / or approach to interpreting Paul against a Hellenistic or a Jewish background, and have sought to transcend these antithetical alternatives.20 13 Montefiore,

“Rabbinic Judaism and the Epistles of Paul,” 161–217. Moore, “Christian Writers on Judaism,” HTR 14 (1921), 197–254. 15 Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, 1.126–27. 16 Montefiore, Judaism and St. Paul, 5. 17 W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im hellenistischen Zeitalter, ed. H. Gressmann (3rd ed., Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1926). Without exception, the Jewish apocalypses were preserved by Christians rather than Jews, one indication of the general Jewish rejection of apocalypticism after the end of the 2nd c. CE. 18 W. Wrede, Über Aufgabe und Methode der sogennanten Neutestamentlichen Theologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1897), 76–77; idem, Paulus (2nd ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1907), 5–7. 19 Wrede, Paulus, 7. 20 A clear example is this trend is T. Engberg-Pederson, ed., Paul Beyond the Judaism / Hellenism Divide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001). 14 G. F.

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During the first quarter of the twentieth century members of the German history-of-religions school were the strongest advocates of a Hellenistic Paul.21 The important scholars in this group included Wilhelm Bousset, Albert Eichhorn, Hermann Gunkel, Wilhelm Heitmüller, Rudolf Otto, Alfred Rahlfs, Ernst Troeltsch, Johannes Weiss and William Wrede. Rudolf Bultmann, influenced by this school in his formative years, argued that Hellenistic Christianity constituted the decisive influence on Paul’s thought.22 Richard Reitzenstein, a classical philologist who focused his later interest on Gnosticism, argued that Pauline “mysticism” (more recently characterized by the less burdened term “participationism” by E. P. Sanders)23 was indebted to Hellenistic mysticism, and that the Pauline conceptions of the Lord’s Supper and of dying and rising with Christ in baptism had antecedents in the Hellenistic mystery religions.24 These views were widely influential in subsequent Pauline scholarship. Hans Windisch (1881–1935) considered it indisputable that Pauline religion was a type of mystery religion.25 Similarly, Kirsopp Lake argued that Christianity became “sacramental,” (i.e., a mystery religion) when it moved out of Judaism into a Hellenistic environment, so that baptism for Paul was understood as a “mystery” or “sacrament” that works ex opere operato.26 A conservative response was inevitable, but this was based not on a positive evaluation of the early Judaism of which Paul was part, but on the positive influence of the Septuagint. Several scholars argued that Pauline theology was entirely explicable under the influence of the Septuagint, and that the hypothesis of any pagan Hellenistic influence on Paul was both unnecessary and inappropriate.27 While H. A. A. Kennedy and Adolf Deissmann argued that Paul’s theology was 21 G. Lüdemann and M. Schröder, Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule in Göttingen: Eine Dokumentation (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987). 22 R. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. K. Grobel (2 vols.; New York: Scribner, 1951–1955), 1.63. For a similar earlier discussion see W. Heitmüller, Taufe und Abendmahl bei Paulus: Darstellung und religionsgeschichtliche Beleuchtung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1903). 23  E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 440. 24 R. Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen nach ihren Grundgedanken und Wirkungen (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1927), 417–25 (his entire chapter on Paul [pp. 333–93] is still worth reading); English trans.: Hellenistic Mystery-Religions: Their Basic Ideas and Significance, trans. J. E. Steely (Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1978), 533–543 (the chapter on Paul is found on pp. 426–500). 25 H. Windisch, Paulus und das Judentum (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1935), 38. 26 K. Lake, The Earlier Epistles of Paul: Their Motive and Origin (London: Rivingtons, 1911), 385. 27  J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1990), 62–84. This approach is alive and well, as exemplified in L. W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 79–153 where he focuses on the theme of the worship of Jesus in early Pauline Christianity. Hurtado not only refuses to countenance any Hellenistic influence on Paul (e.g., pp. 103, 124), but also implicitly rejects the category of Hellenistic Judaism.

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primarily indebted to the Septuagint,28 Arthur Darby Nock maintained more broadly that all significant features of Hellenistic Christianity can be traced back to Judaism, making the hypothetical influence of the mystery religions unnecessary.29 More recently, Günter Wagner and A. J. M. Wedderburn have produced detailed refutations of the history-of-religions proposal that the Pauline doctrine of baptism was influenced by the mystery religions.30 In current scholarship, the history-of-religions model of the “dying and rising gods” of the mystery religions, thought so influential on Paul’s view of Christian baptism, is widely thought to be “a product of modern imagination,” based on an interpretatio Christiana.31 Since the middle of the twentieth century, and chastised by the horrors of the Holocaust, Protestant New Testament scholars began to understand Paul’s Judaism in a more positive light. While relatively positive evaluations of Judaism occasionally surfaced early in the twentieth century, for example in the work of William Wrede and Albert Schweitzer, they were exceptions to the rule. In 1948 W. D. Davies published Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology.32 This was a revised version of a dissertation supervised by C. H. Dodd and David Daube at Cambridge University. This book, with its positive assessment of the Judaism of Paul, influenced a generation of Pauline scholars and signaled a renewed effort to read Paul and indeed the rest of the New Testament in the context of Judaism. This program was encouraged by the discovery and gradual publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which provided a treasure trove of Jewish texts originating in the first century BCE through the first century CE. A negative view of Judaism persisted among many New Testament scholars, however, until E. P. Sanders published Paul and Palestinian Judaism in 1977, which in its turn became a major influence on the next generation of scholars. Picking up on the earlier objections of such scholars of Judaism as Claude Montefiore and George Foote Moore, Sanders leveled a devastating critique of 28  H. A. A. Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery Religions (London and New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1913); A. Deissmann, Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History (German original 1912; 2nd ed., revised and enlarged, 1927; New York: Harper & Row, 1957), 99–105. 29  A. D. Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1964). This book contains three essays: two originally appeared in 1928 (“Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background,” and “A Note on the Resurrection”), while the third was originally published in 1952 (“Hellenistic Mysteries and Christian Sacraments”). 30 G. Wagner, Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem von Römer 6, 1–11 (Zürich: Zwingli, 1962); English translation: Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries: the Problem of the Pauline Doctrine of Baptism in Romans VI. 1–11 in Light of Its Religion-historical “Parallels” (London: Oliver & Boyd, 1967); A. J. M. Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against Its Graeco-Roman Background (WUNT II 44; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987). 31 Smith, Drudgery Divine, 100–101, quoting K. Prümm, “Mystery,” Sacramentum Verbi: An Encyclopedia of Biblical Theology, ed. J. B. Bauer (3 vols.; New York: Herder & Herder, 1970), 2.606. 32 London: SPCK, 1948; a revised edition was published by the same press in 1955.

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the negative attitudes toward Judaism that had persisted in the academy. The last quarter of the twentieth century saw a flood of publications on Paul, most of them abandoning the older stereotype of Judaism. The so-called Third Quest of the Historical Jesus made its appearance during the same period; it, too, is characterized by taking the Judaism of Jesus positively and seriously.33

Paul’s Damascus Experience and Justification by Faith Throughout the twentieth century, Paul’s Damascus experience continued to play a central role in shaping the character of his theology in the view of many scholars.34 Coherent narratives of Paul’s Damascus experience are found in three parallel, stylized accounts in Acts, though naturally their historicity has been questioned (9:1–19; 22:4–16; 26:9–19). More important than these secondary sources are Paul’s own fragmentary apparent allusions to his Damascus experience, of which the more important and most widely accepted are Galatians 1:11–17, 1 Corinthians 9:1, 15:1–9, and Philippians 3:5–14. In addition, there are a number of other fragmentary references that a minority of scholars have argued are autobiographical reflections of Paul’s Damascus experience (Rom 10:3–4; 1 Cor 9:16–17; 2 Cor 3:4–4:6; 12:1–9), together with a few pertinent secondary references in the later pseudo-Pauline letters (Col 1:25–27; Eph 3:1–13). First, it is important to summarize the major views regarding Paul’s Damascus experience, understood either as a “conversion” or a “prophetic call.” Then we will turn to a discussion of the extent to which Paul’s mission and gospel can be traced back to his Damascus Road vision. The minimalist position, that Paul understood his Damascus experience as a commission to evangelize the Gentiles, is widely accepted. This view is often amplified by suggesting that Paul recognized the Messianic status of the crucified Jesus (the christological significance of Paul’s conversion), and / or that salvation was available through Christ rather than through the law (the soteriological significance of Paul’s Damascus experience), that the law is no longer a valid means to salvation (based primarily on Phil 3:5–14), often understood to imply that justification is through faith in Christ rather than by the works of the law. Finally, several scholars have gone to the extreme of attributing most, if not all, of Paul’s theological insights and program to his conversion experience.

33 B. Withington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (2nd ed.; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1997). 34 P. Stuhlmacher, Versöhnung, Gesetz und Gerechtigkeit: Aufsätze zur biblischen Theologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981), 172–73.

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Conversion or Calling? While it is certain that Paul’s Damascus Road vision produced a great change in his life, during the last forty years there has been a debate about whether this change should be understood as a “conversion,” a “calling,” or something else. Earlier psychological studies of conversion (such as the 1902 study of William James) maintained that pre-conversion feelings of self-doubt, unworthiness, sin and guilt could be overcome by the psychological crisis of conversion.35 This accords with the traditional Lutheran conception of Paul’s conversion, reflected in this description, formulated early in the twentieth century by Johannes Weiss: Moreover, the decisive vision itself can only be understood as the final outcome of an inner crisis; it is an explosion, the result of a mighty influence which had left its impression on his troubled heart, the proof of a struggle which had previously been waged within his soul.36

Against this view, Krister Stendahl argued that Paul did not experience a conversion followed by a call to apostleship, but rather a prophetic call to work among the Gentiles.37 The term “conversion” is inappropriate, since no change in religions was involved. Judaism and Christianity were not distinguished as separate religions until late in the first century CE at the earliest.38 Moreover, Paul regarded himself throughout his life as a Jew, much like Martin Luther continued to regard himself as a Catholic. Karl Olav Sandnes agrees with Stendahl in arguing that the Pauline “conversion” texts are modeled on the literary convention of the prophetic call,39 a view shared by Thomas Tobin and J. D. G. Dunn, among others.40 While many, like Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, John Gager and Mark Seifrid, maintain that “conversion” is a perfectly accurate description of what happened to Paul,41 others like Helmut Koester, following Stendahl, James, Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Longmans, Green, 1902). Weiß, Earliest Christianity: A History of Period A. D. 30–150, trans. F. C. Grant (2 vols.; New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 2.190. 37 K. Stendahl, “Paul among Jews and Gentiles,” Paul among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 7–23, idem, “Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Paul among Jews and Gentiles, 84–85. 38 D. Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Judaism and Christianity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); idem, Borderlines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 39  K. O. Sandnes, Paul – One of the Prophets? A Contribution to the Apostle’s Self-Understanding (WUNT II 43; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), 48–73. 40  T. H. Tobin, S. J., The Spirituality of Paul (MBS 12; Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1987), 43–59; J. D. G. Dunn, “The Theology of Galatians,” Pauline Theology, vol. 1: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon, ed. J. M. Bassler (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 145; idem, Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990), 89–107. 41 J. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 71, n. 2; M. A. Seifrid, Christ, our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification (Downers Grove: InterVarsity; Leicester: Apollos, 2000) 13; J. Gager, “Some Notes on Paul’s Conversion,” NTS 27 (1981), 697–704. 35 W. 36 J.

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argue that the term “conversion” can obscure Paul’s own understanding of his vision, which he construed as a call rather than a conversion.42 Alan Segal, on the other hand, essentially combines both perspectives when he observes that “Paul’s experience can be described as a conversion, though he himself used the vocabulary of transformation and prophetic calling to describe it.”43 While Segal recognizes that the psychological term “conversion” is a modern category, after surveying the phenomenon of conversion in the social sciences, he nevertheless argues that it is appropriate.44 Beverly Gaventa, in her study of conversion in the New Testament, presents a model of three categories of personal change based on the social scientific studies: (1)  alternation (development from previous behavior), (2) conversion (rejection of past affiliations for a new commitment and identity), and (3) transformation (a cognitive shift reassessing present and past).45 Focusing on Galatians 1:11–17 and Philippians 3:2–11 (rejecting the possible use of Romans 7:13–25), Gaventa argues that Paul underwent an abrupt, radical change that she labels a “cognitive shift.” She characterizes this change as a transformation, since categorizing it as a “call” is not adequate except insofar as it is a corrective of the category “conversion.”46

Paul’s “Conversion” and his Mission to the Gentiles The basic inferences of Paul’s own autobiographical comments are that he became aware that he was divinely commissioned to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles (Gal 1:15–16), and that he had seen the risen Jesus just as had the other apostles (1 Cor 9:1; 15:8). Paul clearly links his Damascus experience to his mission to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles in Galatians 1:15–16, a retrospective account written seventeen years after the visionary experience (allowing ample time for a theological reflection on that event): “God, who had set me apart before I was born [alluding to Jeremiah’s prophetic call in Jeremiah 1:5; cf. the similar language of the servant’s call in Isaiah 49:1, 5–6] and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles.”47 Here Paul appears to claim that his experience on the Damascus road immediately resulted in an awareness of a commission to proclaim the gospel to Koester, History and Literature of Early Christianity, vol. 2 of Introduction to the New Testament (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 2.100. 43  A. F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University Press), 285. Segal is followed by L. J. Lietaert Peerbolte, Paul the Missionary (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 161–62. 44 Segal, Paul the Convert, 285–300. 45  B. R. Gaventa, From Darkness to Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 12. 46 Gaventa, From Darkness to Light, 17–46. 47 In both Jer 1:5 and Isa 49:1, 5–6, the call involves a mission to “the nations,” i.e., the Gentiles. 42 H.

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the Gentiles,48 and this is indeed how most scholars understand this text.49 J. D. G. Dunn has frequently discussed the implications of Paul’s Damascus road experience, emphasizing its function as a call to evangelize the Gentiles to the virtual exclusion of its possible christological and soteriological implications.50 On the other hand, Terrence Donaldson has maintained that a radical change in Paul’s christology (e.g. the messianic status of Jesus) and soteriology (e.g. the doctrine of justification by faith) must have preceded his conviction that he was called to the Gentiles.51 Some, such as Francis Watson, have contended that Paul’s initial mission was to the Jews rather than to the Gentiles, and that with the passage of time and the reorientation of the Pauline mission, Paul has read his mission to the Gentiles back into his conversion experience.52

Christological Implications: Recognizing Jesus as the Messiah As mentioned above, one influential view of Paul’s Damascus Road experience is that the vision had a christological impact on Paul by revealing to him that Jesus, whose followers he had been persecuting (1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13, 23; Phil 3:6; cf. Acts 8:3; 1 Tim 1:13), was in fact the Messiah.53 This is a widely held interpretation and can be exemplified by the words of Arthur Darby Nock: Paul’s conversion meant for him the recognition that the condemned criminal was in fact the Anointed One of God, living now in the glory of the Spirit world, and that through this Anointed One an imperious call to tell the good tidings had come to him, Paul.54

For Jacques Dupont, however, simply recognizing that Jesus was the Messiah is an inadequate basis on which to understand Paul’s mission to the Gentiles: 48 It is possible to construe the purpose clause, “so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles,” to mean that this implication of his “conversion” became clear to him only later; see R. Riesner, Paul’s Early Period: Chronology, Mission Strategy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 236. 49 Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law, 90–93. 50 J. D. G. Dunn, “Paul’s Conversion–A Light to Twentieth Century Disputes,” Evangelium, Schriftauslegung, Kirche, ed. J. Ådna, S. J. Hafemann and O. Hofius (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 77–93; idem, “ ‘A Light to the Gentiles’, or ‘The End of the Law’? The Significance of the Damascus Road Christophany for Paul,” Jesus, Paul and the Law, 89–107 (with an additional note). S. Kim has presented a detailed rebuttal of Dunn’s views in Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). 51  T. L. Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle’s Convictional World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 250. Donaldson holds that before his Damascus Road experience, Paul attempted to proselytize Gentiles (203–305). Donaldson’s proposal is critiqued by Kim, Paul and the New Perspective, 35–39. 52 F. Watson, Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles: A Sociological Approach (SNTSMS 56; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 28–32. 53 H. G. Wood, “The Conversion of Paul: Its Nature, Antecedents and Consequences,” NTS 1 (1954–55), 276–82; P. H. Menoud, “Revelation and Tradition: The Influence of Paul’s Conversion on his Theology,” Interpretation 7 (1953), 131–41. 54 A. D. Nock, St. Paul (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938), 74.

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The mission with which Paul knew himself charged for the sake of the Gentiles since the Damascus appearance implied a soteriology wholly suspended on Christ. It could not be adequately explained as arising from belief in the messiahship of Jesus. Its basis could only be located in the faith of the saving, universal and exclusive role of the risen Christ. As Saviour of all men, he must play a beneficent role for Gentiles as well as Jews. As a unique Saviour, he takes away all significance from the law as a principle of righteousness and salvation.55

Soteriological Implications: Recognizing the Limitations of the Law Some have argued that Paul’s mission to the Gentiles would necessarily entail his reflection on the role of the Torah in such a mission. This, too, is a widely held view, and it is the position maintained by Seyoon Kim: But in the Christophany on the road to Damascus Paul received the knowledge of Christ as the end of the law. So he surrendered all his righteousness based on the law to receive God’s righteousness which comes from faith in Christ.56

Helmut Koester infers that if Paul thought that the time of salvation had begun with the resurrection of Jesus (implied in Paul’s vision), and Paul himself was called to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles, then the period of the law had come to an end.57 However, there is little evidence supporting the existence in the first century CE of the notion that the messianic age or the age to come implied the cessation of the Torah,58 yet some have read Paul’s statement in Romans 10:4 (“Christ is the end of the law”) in support of such a view. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, a scholar with a very different orientation from that of Kim, combined the christological with the soteriological interpretation by maintaining that Paul’s experience revealed to him that Jesus was the Messiah and that Jesus’ attitude toward the law must also be correct, that is, the law was not the definitive expression of God’s will.”59 Some scholars have supposed that pre-Pauline Hellenistic Christians had already rejected the Torah as a means of salvation,60 and that Paul 55 J. Dupont, “The Conversion of Paul, and Its Influence on His Understanding of Salvation by

Faith,” Apostolic History and the Gospel: Biblical and Historical Essays Presented to F. F. Bruce on His 60th Birthday, ed. W. W. Gasque and R. P. Martin (Exeter: Paternoster, 1970), 176–94, at 193. 56 S. Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 4. 57 Koester, History and Literature of Early Christianity, 100. According to W. G. Kümmel, The Theology of the New Testament according to Its Major Witnesses: Jesus-Paul-John (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973), 131, Paul was convinced by his vision that “the end-time had broken in through God’s action in Christ.” 58  W. D. Davies, Torah in the Messianic Age and / or the Age to Come (SBMS 7; Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1952); P. Schäfer, “Die Torah der messianischen Zeit,” ZNW 65 (1974), 27–42. 59 Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life, 78–79. 60 Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 1.54, 108; H. Conzelmann, An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament, trans. J. Bowden (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 163–64; C. Dietzfelbinger, Die Berufung des Paulus als Ursprung seiner Theologie (WMANT 58; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1985), 23, 144.

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was persecuting them because they were Jews who had turned their backs on the law (Acts 21:20–21 provides a close analogy).61 Another variation on the soteriological approach to Paul’s Damascus experience, also widely held, understands justification by faith as the earliest center of Pauline theology rather than as a doctrine developed later in the heat of polemic. Rudolf Bultmann, for example, argued that Paul’s conversion involved neither repentance nor an emancipating enlightenment, but rather “obedient submission to the judgment of God, made known in the cross of Christ, upon all human accomplishment and boasting. It is as such that his conversion is reflected in his theology.”62 “Human accomplishment and boasting” is an existential understanding of the widespread notion that Judaism was a legalistic religion of works-righteousness. The theological content of Paul’s conversion experience, according to Hans Conzelmann, is Paul’s commission to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, as well as “the consequence that the law is finished as a way to salvation” (making the Gentile mission possible).63

Origin of Paul’s Theology? During the latter part of the nineteenth century, German Protestant scholars like Carl Holsten, followed by H. J. Holtzmann, frequently argued that the fundamentals of Paul’s theology arose from his conversion experience,64 a view more recently revived by Seyoon Kim and Christian Dietzfelbinger.65 Kim has argued that Paul’s Damascus revelation of the exalted Christ as the “image of God” (2 Cor 4:4) provided the basis for his Adam christology and his Wisdom christology as well as his transformation soteriology (i.e., the doctrines of justification and reconciliation).66 For Dietzfelbinger, who knows of Kim’s monograph but does not interact with it in any significant way, Jesus had been cursed because of his crucifixion (cf. Deut 21:23 quoted in Gal 3:13), motivating Paul the Pharisee not only to object to the proclamation of Jesus as Messiah, but also to persecute followers of Jesus (Gal 1:13–14; Phil 3:5).67 The Damascus event enabled Paul to recognize that Jesus was in fact the Messiah, implying that the Torah that cursed Jesus had itself thereby been rendered null and void.68 This event was the origin 61 Dupont,

“Conversion of Paul,” 185. Theology of the New Testament, 1.188. 63 Conzelmann, An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament, 162–64. 64 C. Holsten, Das Evangelium des Paulus (2 vols.; Berlin: G. Reimer, 1880–1898); H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der Neutestamentlichen Theologie (2 vols.; Freiburg and Leipzig: Mohr Siebeck, 1897), 2.53–65. 65 Kim, Origin of Paul‘s Gospel; Dietzfelbinger, Berufung des Paulus. 66 Kim, Origin of Paul’s Gospel. Dunn has provided a detailed critique of the central thesis of Kim’s monograph in Jesus, Paul and the Law, 95–98. 67 Dietzfelbinger, Berufung des Paulus, 23. 68 Ibid., 105–6, 118, 125. 62 Bultmann,

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of Paul’s theology;69 the problem of the law dominated his theology from the beginning.70 Paul’s eschatology is based on the conviction that the Torah had come to an end and was no longer valid. A basic criticism by Dunn (that applies to Kim and Dietzfelbinger equally) is that the more significance that is read into the Damascus event (i.e., in terms of a recognition of the end of the law and justification by faith), the less easy it is to understand why the confrontation narrated in Galatians 2 did not take place earlier.71

Particularism and Universalism in Pauline Thought The work of F. C. Baur (1792–1860), exerted enormous influence on nineteenth-century Pauline scholarship, and has continued to influence Pauline studies to this day. Beginning with his conversion, Baur argues, Paul broke through the barriers of Jewish particularism into the universal idea of Christianity.72 According to Baur, the important term “righteousness,” a conception applicable to both Judaism and Christianity, was for Paul the universal conception of the righteousness of God (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ), which can be realized in two forms: “justification by the works of the law” (δικαιοσύνη ἐξ ἔργον νόμου), the particularist Jewish form mediated by the law, or “justification by faith” proper (δικαιοσύνη ἐκ πίστεως), a universal notion.73 Baur thought that the central issue in Pauline theology was Paul’s opposition to Jewish exclusivism, in contrast to the traditional Lutheran view, which holds that Paul stood in opposition to Jewish attempts to earn salvation by obeying the law. For many New Testament interpreters in the Reformation tradition (including those influenced by dialectical theology such as Bultmann and Käsemann), Paul was not just attacking Judaism itself, but rather regarded first-century Judaism as a symbol of the universal human error of trying to earn salvation by one’s own efforts. During the last century, a number of scholars (in the spirit of Baur) have understood the contrast in Pauline thought between faith and works and Gentile and Jew as historical symbols for the global issue of cultural particularism versus universalism. One such was W. D. Davies, author of a landmark comparison of the teachings of Paul with those of rabbinic Judaism, significant in part because he was one of the first New Testament scholars to treat Judaism sympathetically rather than as a bête noir. Davies maintained that throughout his life Paul con69 Ibid.,

90, 67–97. 115. 71 Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law, 98–100. 72  F. C. Baur, Church History of the First Three Centuries (2 vols.; London: Williams and Norgate, 1878–1879), 1.47. 73  F. C. Baur, Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ: His Life and Works, His Epistles and Teachings (2 vols.; German original 1845; London: Williams & Norgate, 1873–1875), 2.134–37. 70 Ibid.,

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tinued to understand himself as a Pharisee, but one who regarded Jesus as the Messiah.74 Davies would have agreed with Boyarin’s formulation: “Paul lived and died convinced that he was a Jew living out Judaism.”75 For Davies, this entailed the view that Paul thought that he was living in the messianic age preceding the age to come, and shared the rabbinic belief that the Torah would be perfectly observed in the messianic age, and indeed that the Messiah would promulgate a new law that would explain the law of Moses more fully.76 Paul himself obeyed the law, but maintained that Gentile followers of Jesus were only obligated to follow the new law of Jesus, not the law of Moses, combining the universalist tradition of Judaism with the role of an observant Jew.77 The religion of the Torah was a nationalistic religion, while Christ was a revelation apart from the law that meant that Gentiles could be followers of Jesus without first becoming Jews.78 For Paul, accepting the fact that Jesus was the Messiah entailed the universalizing of religion.79 Daniel Boyarin, aware of his intellectual kinship with F. C. Baur,80 emphasizes Paul’s universal vision by reading Paul through the hermeneutical key found in Galatians 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,”81 a passage in which Paul signals the abolition of all ethnic, hierarchical and gender differences. Boyarin argues, [Paul] was motivated by a Hellenistic desire for the One, which among other things produced an ideal of universal human essence, beyond difference and hierarchy. This universal humanity, however, was predicated (and still is) on the dualism of flesh and the spirit, such that while the body is particular, marked through practice as Jew or Greek, and through anatomy as male or female, the spirit is universal.”82

Paul reinterpreted the physical requirements of Torah observance (circumcision, food laws, Sabbath observance) as symbols of universal requirements or possibilities for all humanity, for example, circumcision is a symbol for baptism in the spirit.83 This impulse toward universalism informed Paul’s allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament. “Works of the law” for Paul primarily involved membership in the historical Israel.84 Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 71. Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 2. 76 Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 72. 77 Ibid., 73–74. 78 Ibid., 66–67. 79 Ibid., 68. 80 Boyarin, A Radical Jew, 11–12. 81 Ibid., 5–6. 82 Ibid., 7. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid., 50. 74 Davies, 75 D.

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J. D. G. Dunn understands the phrase “covenantal nomism” (coined by E. P. Sanders; see below) as entailing an ethnic identity of the law as coterminous with Israel, which served to distinguish Jews (as God’s people) from Gentiles.85 Similarly, the phrase “works of the law” (e.g. Gal 2:19) refers not to the ethical demands of Torah, but rather to the carrying out of the specific behaviors required by the Law (e.g., circumcision, food laws, purity laws, Sabbath observance) by members of the covenant community.86 Paul, according to Dunn, was concerned about the ways in which covenantal nomism was affecting the Galatians, and he presents three arguments to them: (1) the expression of life within the covenant should be consistent with its beginning (i.e., the original promise given to Abraham was based on faith); (2) “God’s promise always had the Gentiles in view from the beginning”;87 and (3) the Galatians misunderstood the purpose of the law. Paul objects to the Jewish understanding of covenantal nomism, because it restricted the covenant to those within the boundaries marked by the law: Jews and proselytes. For Paul the positive function of the law was that it directed Israel until the promise could be fulfilled in Christ. For Judaism, “within the law” = “within the covenant”; for Paul, “within Christ” = “within the covenant” (and thus, “within the Law” = “outside the covenant”).

The “New Perspective” on Paul J. D. G. Dunn coined the phrase “New Perspective on Paul” to describe the interpretation of early Judaism and Paul proposed in the enormously important book by E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (1977).88 Sanders, Dunn, and N. T. Wright constitute the triumvirate chiefly responsible for formulating and marketing the New Perspective beginning with the late 1970s, though of course each has his distinctive approach to the issues. However, mention must be made of Krister Stendahl, who has been widely regarded as an important predecessor of the New Perspective.89 Stendahl argued that it is deceptive to read Paul in the light of Luther’s agonized search for relief from a troubled conscience.90 The Pauline writings themselves, he maintained, reflect a Paul equipped with a rather robust consciousness, since in passages like 85 Dunn,

“Theology of Galatians,” 125–46. critiques of this view, see n. 115 below. 87 Dunn, “Theology of Galatians,” 132. 88 J. D. G. Dunn, “The New Perspective on Paul,” BJRL 65 (1983), 95–122, reprinted with an additional eight-page note in Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law, 183–214 (further references are to this edition). 89 Several of Stendahl’s influential articles have been collectively published with the title Paul among Jews and Gentiles. 90 Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” HTR 56 (1963), 199–215; reprinted in idem, Paul among Jews and Gentiles, 78–98. 86 For

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Philippians 3:6, where Paul speaks of his previous life as a Pharisee, he states, “As to righteousness under the law, [I was] blameless.” Here and elsewhere, Stendahl maintains, there is no indication whatsoever that Paul had any difficulty in fulfilling the law or that he had feelings of guilt because of his inability to do so.91 The impossibility of keeping the whole law, in fact, is Paul’s decisive argument for a salvation open to both Jews and Gentiles (Rom 2:17–3:20; Gal 3:10–12).92 Bultmann, for whom the Pauline doctrine of justification occupies a central role, is in complete agreement, observing that this view is also foreign to Judaism:93 “And concerning the issue of being inwardly weighed down through the law, it is quite clear that Paul never speaks of it. In its Lutheran form, this problem is completely foreign to Judaism.” With the appearance of Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism, which focused more on Judaism than on Paul,94 followed by a second work on Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (1983),95 the theologically laden issues of Paul and Judaism, Paul and the law, and the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith quickly moved to the center of a vigorous debate that has continued unabated to the present. Sanders attacked the persistent view among Protestants that early Judaism was characterized by a legalistic works-righteousness, the view that salvation is never assured but is attainable only if the final balance of good deeds outweighs the bad.96 This view of Judaism, argues Sanders, was largely the malevolent invention of nineteenth-century Protestant scholarly imagination, but it achieved almost canonical status through the influential work of such scholars as Emil Schürer, Wilhelm Bousset, Paul Billerbeck and Rudolf Bultmann. Sanders’ rejection of 91 Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” 80; the same position is maintained by Kümmel, Theology of the New Testament, 150 and Dupont, “Conversion of Paul,” 183. 92 Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” 80–81. 93 R. Bultmann, “Christus des Gesetzes Ende,” Glauben und Verstehen: Gesammelte Aufsätze (4 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1961), 2.34. 94 E. P. Sanders later published a book devoted exclusively to Judaism: Judaism: Practice and Belief (63 BCE to 66 CE) (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992). 95  E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1983). A more popular synthesis of Sanders’ views on Paul is available in idem, Paul (Past Masters; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). 96 If it is appropriate to speak of soteriology at all in ancient Judaism, it was certainly something very different from soteriology in Paul (see S. Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New in Paul: The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004], 295). Judaism had no concept of original sin from which to be saved (Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 114, 397). Soteriology is what Sanders regards as a convenient category for the essence of Jewish religion or what makes Jewish religion “work” (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 98). In rabbinic literature the final receiving of eternal life is not necessarily called salvation; Moore regards the phrase “a lot in the World to Come” as the closest equivalent to the Christian concept of salvation (Judaism 2.94–95). Avemarie prefers the simple term “life” (F. Avemarie, Tora und Leben: Untersuchungen zur Heilsbedeutung der Tora in der frühen rabbinischen Literatur [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996], 2), while Gathercole uses the term “salvation” in a Jewish context for “the topic of final vindication in the eschaton” (Where is Boasting? 22).

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the notion of Jewish legalism was argued earlier by the liberal Protestant scholar George Foote Moore: It should be remarked, further, that “a lot in the World to Come,” which is the nearest approximation in rabbinic Judaism to the Pauline and Christian idea of salvation, or eternal life, is ultimately assured to every Israelite on the ground of the original election of the people by the free grace of God, prompted not by its merits, collective or individual, but solely by God’s love, a love that began with the Fathers.97

Sanders approaches the problem of comparing Judaism and Paul by insisting on understanding both in terms of a holistic focus on the overall pattern of religion reflected in the sources. He focused on three corpora of ancient Palestinian Jewish literature generally dated between 200 BCE and 200 CE: the Tannaitic literature (the Mishnah, the Tosephta and the Tannaitic midrashim), the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.98 Sanders proposed that rabbinic religion be described as “covenantal nomism,” that is, an individual Jew’s place in the plan of God is established on the basis of the covenant, the central feature of which was that God had made a special covenant with the Patriarchs involving his choice of Israel to be a special people. In the covenant, God required obedience to its provisions while providing a sacrificial means of atonement for transgressions.99 Obedience to the covenant is nowhere regarded as a burden in Tannaitic literature, which referred rather to “the joy of the law”100 (though human nature being what it is, some Jews must have regarded the demands of the Torah as onerous), nor does the notion of perfect obedience concern the rabbis.101 The rabbinic emphasis on obedience finds a correlative in the twin notions of repentance and forgiveness. The central concern of the rabbis was not how a person could earn salvation, but rather how one could best be faithful. Sanders also emphasizes that, for the rabbis, God’s grace was not contradictory to human endeavor. Grace and works were never considered alternate roads to salvation. Sanders summarizes his conception of covenantal nomism as follows: The “pattern” or “structure” of covenantal nomism is this: (1) God has chosen Israel and (2) given the law. The law implies both (3) God’s promise to maintain the election and (4)  the requirement to obey. (5)  God rewards obedience and punishes transgression. (6) The law provides for means of atonement, and atonement results in (7) maintenance Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, 2.94–95. Moore’s view on this subject was articulated several years earlier in “Christian Writers on Judaism.”  98 Since the main corpora of Tannaitic literature were codified after 200 CE, the extent to which traditions in these texts date back to the first c. CE is exceedingly problematic.  99 Sanders has two articles devoted to this subject: “Patterns of Religion in Paul and Rabbinic Judaism,” HTR 66 (1973), 455–78, and “The Covenant as a Soteriological Category and the Nature of Salvation in Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism,” Jews, Greeks, and Christians: Studies in Honor of W. D. Davies, ed. R. Hamerton-Kelly and R. Scroggs (Leiden: Brill, 1976) 11–44. 100 S. Schechter, “The Joy of the Law,” Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (London: Macmillan, 1909), 148–69. 101 Alexander, “Torah and Salvation in Tannaitic Literature,” 284.  97 Moore,

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or re-establishment of the covenantal relationship. (8) All those who are maintained in the covenant by obedience, atonement and God’s mercy belong to the group which will be saved. An important interpretation of the first and last points is that election and ultimately salvation are considered to be by God’s mercy rather than human achievement.102

One of the conundrums facing modern scholars is why Paul portrays Judaism as a religion of salvation based on works and nowhere alludes to Jewish notions of repentance and forgiveness. Sander’s answer is that Paul did not begin with the problem of man’s plight and work from there to the solution of salvation in Christ. Rather, he began with the solution (salvation is available only “in Christ”), from which he deduced man’s plight (all other ways to salvation are therefore both ineffective and wrong).103 What Paul found wrong with Judaism was that it was not Christianity.104 Paul did not misunderstand the law, nor was he disillusioned by it prior to his conversion; Romans 7 cannot be interpreted autobiographically. Rather, he gained a wholly new perspective through his conversion that led him to regard the law negatively in comparison with Christ.105 According to Sanders, Paul transformed Jewish covenantal nomism in the following ways: (1)  An individual enters the covenant through baptism; (2)  membership in the covenant provides salvation; (3)  obedience to a set of commandments–or repentance when these commandments are transgressed–allows the individual to maintain the covenant relationship.106 Unlike Judaism, however, Paul tended not to give concrete rules for living but regarded Christian behavior as flowing from the Spirit and not from commandments.107 In short, “it is through faith in Christ, not by accepting the law, that one enters the people of God.”108 Sanders concludes that the religious pattern in Paul’s thought is markedly different from anything reflected in Palestinian Jewish literature. What then is the source of Paul’s distinctive pattern of religion? Since Sanders maintains that Paul’s thought was not dependent on any one scheme of thought, he cautiously ascribes a degree of uniqueness to Paul, whose pattern of religious thought was determined by the fundamental conviction that Jesus is Lord and that in him God has provided salvation for all who believe. J. D. G. Dunn, a second important representative of the New Perspective, agreed with Sanders that the conception of Judaism as a system whereby salvation was earned through the merit of good works, a coldly legalistic religion Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 422. Gutbrod seems to agree, when he says: “Paul’s negation of the Law derives from his affirmation of what has taken place in Jesus Christ, not from rational criticism or missionary tactics” (“Νόμος, κτλ,” TDNT 4.1075). 104 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 552. 105 Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 70–72. 106 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 513–14. 107 Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 208. 108 Ibid., 207. 102 Sanders, 103 W.

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with no room for the free forgiveness and grace of God, was a gross caricature.109 Dunn argues that Sanders was impressed with the difference between Paul and contemporary Judaism but failed to explore the extent to which Paul’s theology could be explained in relation to Judaism’s “covenantal nomism.”110 Sanders argued that Paul had jumped from one system to another, that is, that he broke with the law for the simple reason that it was not Christ. According to Dunn, The Lutheran Paul has been replaced by an idiosyncratic Paul who in arbitrary and irrational manner turns his face against the glory and greatness of Judaism’s covenant theology and abandons Judaism simply because it is not Christianity.111

Dunn focused on the phrase “the works of the law” (ἔργα νόμου) in Galatians 2:16 (the phrase is used once in Romans [3:20] and repeatedly in Galatians [2:16; 3:2, 5, 10]), arguing that it referred not to the ethical commands of the law but to the social identification markers of Judaism, that is, such ritual practices as circumcision, kosher food regulations and Sabbath observance.112 Neither Paul nor his Judaizing competitors understood “works of the law” to mean works which earn God’s favor or “good works” in general. They were simply badges of membership in the Jewish people.113 For Paul, the covenant was no longer to be identified with such distinctively Jewish observances as circumcision, food laws and Sabbath observance, but with the more fundamental identity marker of faith in Christ, which corresponded to Abraham’s faith.114 Dunn has been widely criticized for restricting the meaning of “works of the law” to markers of Jewish identity.115 Some of his critics (e.g., Douglas Moo) have 109 Dunn, “The New Perspective on Paul,” 185. Dunn’s many articles on the subject are collected in J. D. G. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul: Collected Essays (WUNT 185; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). 110 Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Law, 186–87. 111 Dunn, “The New Perspective on Paul,” 187. 112 Ibid., 188–200. Dunn’s views were anticipated 1,600 years earlier by the author of the first Latin commentary on the Pauline letters (late 4th cent. CE). This anonymous commentary, attributed to Ambrose during the Middle Ages, was attributed to Ambrosiaster by Erasmus. The author of this commentary based the exposition of justification by faith in Paul on the contrast between Christianity and Judaism, interpreting justification by faith to mean freedom from Jewish ceremonial law. See H. J. Vogel, ed., Commentaria in XIII Epistulas Paulinas (CSEL 81; 3 vols.; Vienna: Geroldi, 1966–1969); A. Souter, The Earliest Latin Commentaries on the Epistles of Saint Paul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927). 113 Dunn, “The New Perspective on Paul,” 194–95. Dunn has discussed the phrase “works of the law” in several articles: “Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law (Gal 3.10–14),” NTS 31 (1985), 523–42; “Yet Once More–‘The Works of the Law’: A Response,” JSNT 46 (1992), 99–117. 114 Dunn, “The New Perspective on Paul,” 197–98. 115 M. Bachmann, Sünder oder Übertreter: Studien zur Argumentation in Gal 2.15 ff. (WUNT 59; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 91–92; T. R. Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfillment: A Pauline Theology of Law (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1993), 51–59; M. Silva, “Faith Versus Works of the Law in Galatians,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 2: The Paradoxes of Paul, ed. D. A. Carson, P. T. O’Brien, and M. A. Seifrid (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 217–48, esp. 221–26.

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proposed that “works of the law” rather means “deeds done in obedience to the law of Moses,”116 implicitly rejecting Dunn’s distinction. Dunn’s earlier restriction of “works of the law” to mean markers of Jewish identity (Sabbath observance, food laws, circumcision) was subsequently broadened by him to mean “what the law required of Israel as God’s people,”117 that is, “the ‘deeds’ that the law makes obligatory.”118 Dunn continues to insist that Paul uses “works of the law” only in connection with the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, not in terms of the justification of the individual Jew or Gentile; the phrase refers to that practice of the law that distinguishes “us” from “them,” that is, Jews from Gentiles.119 “Justification by faith,” argues Dunn, “is Paul’s fundamental objection to the idea that God has limited his saving goodness to a particular people.”120 In a later article, Dunn deals with the phrase ‫( מעשי התורה‬works of the law), which occurs in 4QMMT C26–27,121 comparing the phrase ‫ מעשי התורה‬in 4QMMT and ἔργα νόμου (“works of the law”) in Paul, concluding that “both seem to refer to ‘works of the law’ understood as defining a boundary which marks out those of faith / faithfulness from others.”122 The third influential representative of the New Perspective is N. T. Wright (Bishop of Durham, England), whose 1978 article on “The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith,” based on studies carried out in connection with his 1980 Oxford dissertation, reflects a rejection of the traditional Protestant conception of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness, in full agreement with Sanders and Dunn.123 Wright argued that real Judaism was based on a clear understanding of grace, with good works functioning primarily as an expression of gratitude 116  D. J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 90–99; idem, “ ‘Law,’ ‘Works of the Law,’ and Legalism in Paul,” WTJ 45 (1983), 73–100, esp. 90–99. 117  J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 355; italics in original. 118 Dunn, Theology of Paul the Apostle, 354–55. 119 J. D. G. Dunn and A. M. Suggate, The Justice of God: A Fresh Look at the Old Doctrine of Justification by Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 27. This same position is held by Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness, 99–105. 120 Dunn and Suggate, The Justice of God, 28. 121 J. D. G. Dunn, “4QMMT and Galatians,” NTS 43 (1997), 147–53, and more recently, idem, “Noch Einmal ‘Works of the Law’: the Dialogue Continues,” Fair Play: Diversity and Conflicts in Early Christianity: Essays in Honour of Heikki Räisänen, ed. I. Dunderberg, C. Tuckett and K. Syreeni (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002), 273–90. 122 Dunn, “4QMMT and Galatians,” 151. 123 N. T. Wright, “The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith,” TynBul 29 (1978), 61–88. Other contributions of Wright in line with the New Perspective on Paul include “Justification: The Biblical Basis and Its Relevance for Contemporary Evangelicalism,” The Great Acquittal: Justification by Faith and Current Christian Thought, ed. G. Reid (London: Collins, 1980), 13–37; The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991); “Romans and the Theology of Paul,” Pauline Theology, vol. 3: Romans, ed. D. M. Hay and E. E. Johnson (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 30–67; The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992); What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997).

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that demonstrate faithfulness to the covenant.124 Pauline interpretation, argues Wright, “has manufactured a false Paul by manufacturing a false Judaism for him to oppose.”125 The central importance of the covenant in Wright’s scheme corresponds to similar concerns on the part of both Sanders and Dunn. God entered into a covenant with Israel (intended as a divine tool to free the cosmos from the effects of sin), according to Wright, to undo the sin of Adam and bring the blessings of God to the Gentiles.126 Israel “recapitulated” the sin of Adam by disobeying the commands of Torah but nonetheless boasted of her special place in the plan of God, regarding the distinctive ritual practices of circumcision, dietary laws and Sabbath observance as badges of superiority (or boundary markers or signs of Jewish ethnic identity).127 Israel’s violation of the covenant incurred the punishment of exile (cf. Deut 27–28), and in the view of ancient Jews, Israel remained in exile into the first century (the continuing state of exile represents a critical part of the “story” of Israel that Wright sees as the basic narrative for his projected six-volume theology of the New Testament, Christian Origins and the Question of God).128 However, the covenant curse that resulted in the exile of Israel reached its culmination in the representative death of Jesus the Messiah, the means by which the punishment of Israel was final satisfied.129 With the resurrection of Jesus, Israel’s exile came to an end and her covenant was fulfilled. This fulfillment entailed the redefinition of Israel as the people God determined by grace, not race, or faith and not works (i.e., the “badges of superiority” mentioned above). The Israel destined for salvation is the single family of humankind drawn from all nations and marked by faith.130 Wright, like Dunn, defines the “righteousness of God” as his “covenant faithfulness” toward Israel.131 For Wright, Paul’s conception of justification does not 124 Wright,

“The Paul of History,” 79–80. 78. 126 Wright, “Romans and the Theology of Paul,” 33; idem, The New Testament and the People of God, 265–67. 127 Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 197, 243. 128 For a critique and reformulation of Wright’s conception of the “Exile narrative,” see B. Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile: Restoration Eschatology and the Origin of the Atonement (WUNT II 204; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). 129 Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 141. 130 Ibid., 249–50; idem, What Saint Paul Really Said, 103, 118. 131 Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 118–33; Dunn holds the same view: “God’s righteousness is precisely God’s covenant faithfulness, his saving power and love for his people Israel. God’s justification is God’s recognition of Israel as his people, his verdict in favour of Israel on the grounds of his covenant with Israel” (“The New Perspective on Paul,” 190). Westerholm (Perspectives Old and New on Paul, 292) argues that while there is no antecedent reason why “God’s righteousness should not mean his ‘covenant faithfulness,’ the fact is that in Paul ‘righteousness’ does not mean ‘covenant faithfulness,”’ a view also held by Schreiner, Paul, 197–99. Seifrid also argues against this equation, since “all ‘covenant-keeping’ is righteous behavior, but not all righteous behavior is ‘covenant-keeping.’ It is misleading, therefore, to speak of ‘God’s righteousness’ as his ‘covenant faithfulness.’” See M. A. Seifrid, “Righteous Language in the Hebrew Scriptures 125 Ibid.,

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represent individual or personal salvation.132 Rather, justification is the means whereby one is identified as a member of the true people of God. More specifically, “justification” in Paul refers to the final vindication of God’s people, not individuals, when God pronounces in their favor, declaring that they belong to the covenant.133 For Wright, the “righteousness of God” is his covenant faithfulness.134 The New Perspective on Paul has had an enormous impact on Pauline studies, a fact made abundantly clear in Stephen Westerholm’s silver anniversary review of the publication of Sanders’ book in 2004.135 Predictably, reactions to Sanders work have ranged from blanket rejection to general acceptance to attempts to outdo Sanders with the accusation that the New Perspective has not gone far enough in liberating New Testament scholarship from the vestiges of anti-Semitism and smug supersessionism.136 A. Andrew Das calls for a “new starting point” or a “newer perspective” on Paul, by which he means that “Paul’s critique of the Law as based on works is a consequence of the transition in his thinking from one conception of grace to another.”137 Das bases this perspective on Paul’s Damascus road experience, when it dawned on Paul that Judaism did not offer a viable path to salvation, since the gracious elements in Judaism were never efficacious for salvation apart from the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus.138 He argues this because he thinks that the law did produce salvation according to second temple Judaism and did enjoin perfect obedience.139 Brendan Byrne, SJ, has judged that the New Perspective is essentially negative in terms of theological interpretation, arguing for a post-New Perspective perspective.140 Given the work of Dunn and Wright under the aegis of the New Perspective, this critique strikes me as wrong-headed. and Early Judaism,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 1.415–42, at 424. However, Seifrid later appears to give the game away by admitting that “the Qumran writings frequently associate bryt with righteousness terminology” (ibid., 434). Part of the problem is that being “in the covenant” can be construed in a number of ways because it is inherently a generative concept. 132 Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 60, 116. 133 Wright, “Romans and the Theology of Paul,” 32–33. 134 Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 103. 135 S. Westerholm, “The ‘New Perspective’ at Twenty-Five,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 2.1–38. 136 N. Elliott, Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1994). 137 A. Andrew Das, Paul and the Jews (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2003), 13; see also his Paul the Law and the Covenant (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2001), 268–71. 138 Das, Paul and the Jews, 12. 139 Das, Paul, the Law and the Covenant, 7; idem, Paul and the Jews, 189. See also Das, “Paul, Judaism and Perfect Obedience,” Concordia Journal 27 (2001), 234–52. 140 B. Byrne, SJ, “Interpreting Romans Theologically in a Post-’New Perspective’ Perspective,” HTR 94 (2001), 227–41.

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One incisive critique has been leveled by Philip Alexander, who associates Sanders with a line of interpreters of Tannaitic Judaism who have tended to stress its more “liberal” side, including liberal Protestants and liberal Jews influenced by them, such as George Foote Moore, Claude Montefiore, and Solomon Schechter.141 Alexander suggests that just as Weber distorted classic Judaism by overemphasizing law, Sanders and his liberal predecessors have overemphasized grace.142 One important issue is Sander’s contention that “covenantal nomism” characterized most Palestinian Jewish literature from the second century BCE to the second century CE. Sanders considers 4 Ezra, written in the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem, a striking exception.143 Sanders also allows that Hellenistic Jewish texts, like the Testament of Abraham, envision a final judgment on the basis of weighing good and evil works.144 This, of course, indicates that Sanders does not relentlessly press his “covenantal nomism” model on texts resistant to it. A number of scholars have essentially accepted Sanders’ model of covenantal nomism as a useful way of understanding the basic religious features of both Judaism and Paul. Morna Hooker, though recognizing that covenantal nomism does not apply to Paul himself because of his quarrel with the law, observes that there are significant parallels between the covenantal nomism of Judaism and Paulinism.145 “Just as Palestinian Judaism understood obedience to the Law to be the proper response of Israel to the covenant on Sinai,” argues Hooker, “so Paul assumes that there is an appropriate response for Christians who have experienced God’s saving activity in Christ,” that is, the “law of Christ,” which Paul spells out in series of imperatives.146 141 Alexander,

“Torah and Salvation in Tannaitic Judaism,” 1.261–301, esp. 271–72. 272. 143 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 418, describes 4 Ezra as “the closest approach to a legalistic works-righteousness which can be found in the Jewish literature of the period.” Richard Bauckham extends this judgment to claim that 2 Enoch is also characterized by a legalistic works-righteousness, in “Apocalypses,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 1.135–87, at p. 156. Bauckham (174)  is rather more positive about covenantal nomism in 4 Ezra than is Sanders: “But 4 Ezra does rather importantly illustrate how the basic and very flexible pattern of covenantal nomism could take forms in which the emphasis is overwhelmingly on meriting salvation by works of obedience to the Law, with the result that human achievement takes center-stage and God’s grace, while presupposed [my emphasis], is effectively marginalized.” Comparing 2 Baruch to 4 Ezra, Bauckham observes (182), “As we have seen in discussion of 4 Ezra, the idea of salvation as reward for righteousness need not be alternative to the idea of salvation as God’s covenantal grace. It is in his grace that God makes the covenantal promises and lays down the requirement of obedience to the Law as the condition for receiving them.” 144 E. P. Sanders, “The Testament of Abraham,” The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (2 vols.; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987), 1.877. 145 M. D. Hooker, “Paul and ‘Covenantal Nomism’,” Paul and Paulinism: Essays in Honour of C. K. Barrett, ed. M. D. Hooker and S. G. Wilson (London: SPCK, 1982), 47–56, esp. 52. 146 Hooker, “Paul and ‘Covenantal Nomism’,” 48–49. 142 Ibid.,

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In an early review (1979), the late Tony Saldarini thought that covenantal nomism was not an accurate way of categorizing all pre-70 CE Jewish literature.147 C. K. Barrett disputes Sander’s conception of covenantal nomism, maintaining that Paul argued against works-righteousness in Galatians and elsewhere.148 Hans Hübner criticized Sanders for failing to recognize that Paul’s attack on legalistic works-righteousness was central to Pauline thought.149 Jacob Neusner suggested that Sanders’ soteriological conception of early Judaism, in terms of “getting in” and “staying in” the covenant was based on largely Christian and Protestant theological presuppositions.150 Notwithstanding Neusner’s criticisms of Sanders’ methodology, Neusner has accepted Sanders’ understanding of Judaism in terms of “covenantal nomism” as valid.151 More recently a comprehensive examination led by a team of scholars dominated by Evangelicals (who, as a whole, have been highly critical of Sanders) investigated the problem of whether or not covenantal nomism should be regarded as an appropriate label for the overarching pattern of religion in Second Temple Judaism. The results were published in two substantial volumes with the title Justification and Variegated Nomism.152 In the conclusion to the first volume, D. A. Carson, one of the editors, determines that covenantal nomism “is too doctrinaire, too unsupported by the sources themselves, too reductionistic, too monopolistic.”153 Dunn has correctly criticized this judgment as “unjustifiably harsh and unduly dismissive.”154 In another, shorter summary of the first volume of Justification and Variegated Nomism, dependent on the summary of Carson, Peter O’Brien, another project editor, maintains that (1) covenantal nomism was found in some but not all of the texts from Second Temple Judaism examined 147 A. J. Saldarini, review of E. P. Sanders, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, JBL 98 (1979), 299–303.

Barrett, Paul: An Introduction to His Thought (London: Chapman, 1994). Hübner, “Pauli Theologiae Proprium,” NTS 26 (1979–80), 445–73. 150 J. Neusner, “The Use of Later Rabbinic Evidence for the Study of Paul,” Approaches to Ancient Judaism, ed. W. S. Green (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1980), 2.43–63. 151 J. Neusner, “Comparing Judaisms,” HR 18 (1978–79), 177–91. 152 D. A. Carson, P. T. O’Brien, and M. A. Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), and D. A. Carson, P. T. O’Brien, and M. A. Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 2: The Paradoxes of Paul (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004). In fact several contributors to the first volume show no particular interest in whether covenantal nomism is an appropriate model for the segments of Second Temple Judaism that they discuss (e.g., C. Evans, P. R. Davies, R. Deines, M. A. Seifrid). D. M. Hay (“Philo of Alexandria,” 1.357–79) does not mention the issue of covenantal nomism in his conclusion, but slips in a summary paragraph in the middle of his study that has no obvious organic connection with its context, but in which he observes that it is not very useful to regard Philo as representative of covenantal nomism (370). 153 D. A. Carson, “Summaries and Conclusions,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 1.548. 154 J. D. G. Dunn, “The New Perspective: Whence, What and Whither?” The New Perspective on Paul (WUNT 185; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 57 148 C. K. 149 H.

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(and even where it does fit, he maintains, it doesn’t fit very well); (2) the covenantal nomism model is reductionistic as well as misleading; (3) the categories of covenantal nomism are mistaken; and (4) there are difficulties in identifying God’s righteousness with his covenantal faithfulness as well as defining human righteousness in terms of being in the covenant.155 O’Brien has basically put his stamp of approval on the largely negative conclusions of Carson, and somewhat later in his essay criticizes Sanders’ analysis of covenant nomism in the literature from Qumran.156 A number of contributors to the volumes do not see covenantal nomism in as negative a light as do Carson and O’Brien.157 According to Seifrid, another project editor, “a number of essays in the previous volume on ‘variegated nomism’ found the various corpora of Jewish writings fit nicely into the scheme of ‘covenantal nomism.’”158 Seifrid refers specifically to the essays by Falk, Evans, Enns, Bauckham and Bockmuehl. Bockmuehl’s generally positive conclusions following his examination of the question of salvation of 1QS in the first volume of Justification and Variegated Nomism were obviously ignored in the summary assessment by both Carson and O’Brien: Overall, our findings are not fundamentally incompatible with those reached in E. P. Sanders’s famous study of 1977. Qumran manifests an eschatological faith in which salvation and atonement for sins are not humanly earned but divinely granted by predestined election and membership in the life of the observant covenant community.159

Daniel Falk too, in an examination of Jewish psalms and prayers, including some from Qumran, comes to a relatively positive conclusion: If the aim [of Sanders’ covenantal nomism model] was to define a sort of “lowest common denominator” soteriology that would be recognized by most of the divergent expressions of Judaisms, Sanders’s covenantal nomism would serve fairly well, given his generous allowances of flexibility.160

To be sure, he is not fully satisfied with the model, for he continues: To do so would be akin to grouping apples, oranges and bananas together as “fruit.” For comparative purposes, such a harmonizing approach is of limited value. It masks very different conceptions of the problem of sin, the balance of focus on nationalism and individualism, and most significantly the boundaries of the covenant. 155 P. T. O’Brien, “Was Paul a Covenantal Nomist?” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 2.249–96, esp. 252–55. 156 Ibid., 2.256. 157 See the comments of Das, Paul and the Jews, 11–12, n. 22. 158 M. A. Seifrid, “Unrighteousness by Faith: Apostolic Proclamation in Romans 1.18–3:20,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 2.144. 159 M. Bockmuehl, “1QS and Salvation at Qumran,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 2.381–414, at 412. 160 D. Falk, “Psalms and Prayers,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 1.7–56, at 56.

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Falk is objecting to the high level of abstraction of the covenantal nomism model and in my view clearly expects more than one can rightfully expect any such general model to accomplish. Further, he (and the editors of the project) show little positive appreciation for the utility of the phrase “covenantal nomism,” placing two poles of Jewish thought in tension‒divine grace or election and observance of the Torah‒without rigidly defining either term or their interrelationship.161 Martin McNamara, the eminent Targum scholar, doubts whether covenantal nomism is an appropriate description of any form of the Jewish religion because “nomism” is static (“conformity to a set of rules”) while “covenantal” reflects the dynamism of the living God.162 Unfortunately, this criticism has little organic relation to the rest of an otherwise excellent essay, and by construing the term “nomism” pejoratively does not appear to take seriously the central role of the Torah in Judaism, particularly in contexts where works-righteousness seem to predominate. Despite the fact that the first volume of Justification and Variegated Nomism is intended to be the Evangelical equivalent of Gustav Krupp’s die dicke Bertha (Big Bertha)163 it misses some possible weaknesses in Sanders’ covenant nomism model. Simon Gathercole has drawn attention to the absence of an eschatological dimension in Sanders’ model. Since eschatology plays an obviously important role in the literature of Second Temple Judaism, Gathercole suggests that, in addition to the categories of “getting in” (past) and “staying in” (present), there should be the eschatological category of “getting into the world to come,” or “getting into the life of the future age,” or “getting there.”164 The additional category is necessary because “There is very good reason to distinguish in the Jewish literature between entry into the covenant, which of course is based on God’s election, and final justification, salvation in the end.” Rabbinic literature is an enormous body of literature. It lacks consistency, resists harmonization, and represents just one of several major strands of early Judaism. Friedrich Avemarie concludes that the classical Jewish texts can be read as supporting the notion that salvation can be achieved either through law or through grace.165 One or another of these means of salvation was emphasized 161 Dunn,

“The New Perspective: Whence, What and Whither?” 62. McNamara, “Some Targum Themes,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 1.303–356, at 355. 163 In 1914, the Alfred Krupp armament company in Essen, Germany, produced a mobile howitzer called “Big Bertha” (named after Gustav Krupp’s wife). This 43-ton howitzer could fire a 2,200-pound shell over 9 miles. Transported by Daimler-Benz tractors, it took a 200-man crew over six hours to reassemble it on site. 164 Gathercole, Where is Boasting? 24, 110–11. 165 Avemarie, Tora und Leben, 575–84; idem, “Bund als Gabe und Recht. Zum Gebrauch von berît in rabbinischen Literatur,” Bund und Tora: Zur theologischen Begriffsgeschichte in alttestamenlicher, frühjüdischer und urchristlicher Tradition, ed. F. Avemarie and H. Lichtenberger (WUNT 92; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 176–224; idem, “Erwählung und Vergeltung: Zur optionalen Struktur rabbinischer Soteriologie,” NTS 45 (1999), 108–26. 162 M.

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depending on the particular situation they happened to address at the moment. Avemarie has argued convincingly that Sanders’ model of rabbinic soteriology is inadequate because it excludes the paradigm of judgment according to the majority of deeds.166 Sanders’ procedure in Tannaitic literature is to under-interpret texts that are problematic for his thesis, while texts which might support it are over-interpreted. Why the inconsistent juxtaposition of law and grace in rabbinic literature? Alexander makes the following proposal: I suspect what lies behind it [i.e., varied emphasis upon one or another contradictory means of salvation] is simply fidelity to Scripture, which is just as inconsistent as the rabbis are on this point. The rabbis were perfectly capable of accepting two contradictory statements as equally “words of the living God,” if both were derived by correct method from Scripture.167

The tension between divine judgment and divine mercy, for example, is already found in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Ps 89:14). Thomas Schreiner (1993) rejects the New Perspective, maintaining that Paul was arguing against a Judaism that maintained works-righteousness, and he is unwilling to accept the possibility that Paul, a former Pharisee, was not correct in his understanding.168 Frank Thielman (1994) stakes out a position somewhere between the traditional understanding of the Reformation view of the law and the New Perspective.169 While Sanders was concerned with the role of the law in rabbinic literature, Thielman rather reads Paul against the background of God’s grace and God’s demand in the Old Testament, arguing that “in those Scriptures obedience is not the means of earning God’s favor, but the proper response to God’s redemptive work.”170 While he does not think that Judaism was legalistic by nature171‒though from my point of view there would be nothing inherently wrong with that‒he does maintain that some but not all Jews in Paul’s day tried to combine God’s grace with keeping the law. Thielman maintains that Paul himself believed this and that it was the position of the Judaizers whom Paul opposed as well.172 Paul regarded the Mosaic Law as obsolete with the coming of Christ. Where Paul seems to be arguing for a legalistic Judaism, Paul is really rejecting the possibility of achieving righteousness through works, something never sanctioned by Judaism.

Tora und Leben, 39. “Torah and Salvation,” 273. 168 Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfilment. 169 F. Thielman, Paul and the Law: A Contextual Approach (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1994). 170 Ibid., 240. 171 Ibid., 239. 172 Ibid., 238. 166 Avemarie,

167 Alexander,

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One of the common features of the New Perspective is the attack on the Lutheran interpretation of Paul.173 The New Perspective asserts that the Lutheran interpretation of Paul constitutes a caricature of Judaism as a legalistic and external religion in which good works automatically earn salvation. Luther in particular had a negative attitude toward his Jewish contemporaries, convinced that for ancient and medieval Judaism, like Roman Catholicism, salvation was based on works-righteousness. Another widespread feature of the New Perspective on Paul is the rejection of the attempt to profile the Judaism contemporaneous with Paul based exclusively on inferences from the Pauline letters.174 The popularity of the New Perspective on Paul is in part the consequence of a social and political setting in the post-Holocaust period during which dialogue between Christians and Jews has, for many Christians, become increasingly urgent.

The “New View” of Paul Two years after E. P. Sanders published his influential book Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1979), Lloyd Gaston published an article on “Paul and Torah,” in which he argued against the traditional reading of Paul in quite a different way.175 Gaston’s article and several other related essays published in 1987176 influenced the work of such scholars as Stanley Stowers,177 John G. Lodge178 and John G. Gag173 S. Westerholm has argued in detail that Luther basically got much of his interpretation of Paul “right.” Westerholm has contextualized the New Perspective on Paul through an insightful review of the portraits of Paul by Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley, followed by a review and critique of 20th century “responses to the ‘Lutheran’ Paul,” and concludes with an investigation of several key themes in the Pauline letters (righteousness, law, and justification by faith), in Perspectives Old and New on Paul. This is a revision and expansion of an earlier book, Israel’s Law and the Church’s Faith: Paul and His Recent Interpreters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). 174 Analogously, Luther cannot be regarded as a reliable guide to the spectrum of soteriological positions maintained in the late medieval church; see A. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986; 2nd ed., 1998), 197. I hasten to add, however, that since Paul is a Pharisaic Jew of the first century CE, the only Pharisee from the pre-70 CE period whose writings have survived, his writings cannot be ignored as evidence for the history of early Judaism. In one problematic passage (Vita 12), Josephus seems to claim to be a Pharisee; see S. Mason, Life of Josephus: Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 21. While that remains the majority view, there are weighty reasons for not accepting it; see S. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 342–56. 175 L. Gaston “Paul and the Torah,” Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity, ed. A. T. Davies (New York: Paulist, 1979), 48–71. 176 L. Gaston, Paul and the Torah (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1987), a collection of essays published earlier, the most relevant of which for our purposes are “Paul and the Torah” (15–34), “Israel’s Enemies in Pauline Theology” (80–99), and “Israel’s Misstep in the Eyes of Paul” (135–50). 177  S. K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994). 178 J. G. Lodge, Romans 9–11: A Reader-Response Analysis (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996).

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er.179 The independent work of Mark D. Nanos, a Jewish New Testament scholar, on both Romans and Galatians can also be associated with this “new view,” since he, too, advocates a similar perspective in Pauline thought.180 Gager has referred to this more radical reading of Paul as “the new view” and traces its origins back to Krister Stendahl’s articles published in the 1960s.181 In a nutshell, the “new view,” particularly in the form presented by Gager, resurrects the “two-covenant” model of salvation, that is, that Paul held that there were two separate paths to “salvation”: the law for Judaism and faith in Christ for Gentiles. Thus faith in Christ was not necessary for Jews,182 and “justification by faith” was intended for Gentiles only. Building on the work of Gaston, Stowers, and Lodge, Gager argues that the New Perspective on Paul promoted by Sanders and Dunn is really still mired in the traditional reading of Paul, that is, the view that Paul is critical of Judaism.183 According to Gager, Sanders “comes so close to a radical break with the traditional view, yet misses it by a mile,” and Dunn’s work “represents a step backward from Sanders.”184 It is both remarkable and lamentable that few scholars have engaged in dialogue with this “new view,” particularly in view of the fact that Gager claims that the “new view” introduced by Gaston is a “paradigm shift.” In Dunn’s recent collection of essays, introduced by an eighty-eight page review of the New Perspective, Stowers’ A Rereading of Romans and Gager’s, The Origins of Antisemitism and Reinventing Paul are not listed in the bibliography, while he makes only desultory comments on Gaston’s 1979 article, “Paul and Torah.” On the other hand, Frank Thielman offers as an appendix, “Paul’s View of the Law according to Lloyd Gaston and John G. Gager.”185 In the following few paragraphs I will survey this “new view” by summarizing the views of Gaston, Stowers, Lodge, and Gager on the subject, prescinding from any criticism of this position. 179  J. G. Gager, The Origins of Antisemitism: Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); idem, Reinventing Paul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 180  M. D. Nanos, The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul’s Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996); idem, The Irony of Galatians: Paul’s Letter in First-Century Context (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002). 181 Gager, Reinventing Paul, 50. Stendahl has denied that he advocated a two-covenant model in his earlier reading of Paul (Final Account, or, Paul’s Letter to the Romans [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995], x, 7). 182 Recognition of the continuing validity of the first covenant is an important issue for Jewish-Christian relations and is discussed by J. T. Pawlikowski, “Judentum und Christentum,” Theologische Realenzyklopädie 17 (1988), 390–402; idem, “Ein oder zwei Bünde?” Theologische Quartalschrift 176 (1996), 325–40. The two-covenant model for understanding Judaism and Christianity was proposed by the Jewish thinker Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, trans. B. E. Galli (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005). 183 Gager, Reinventing Paul, 47–49. 184 Ibid., 49. 185 F. Thielman, From Plight to Solution: A Jewish Framework for Understanding Paul’s View of the Law in Galatians and Romans (NovTSup 61; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989), 123–32.

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Gaston argued that Paul was concerned with Gentiles, not Jews, and while the resurrection of Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promises for Gentiles, that did not nullify God’s promise to the Jews.186 In other words, the Gentiles, not the Jews, need Jesus. Modern interpreters should assume that Paul stands in continuity with Jewish traditions, not in opposition to them, and that Paul obviously knew enough about the Judaism of his day to know that it was not a religion of works-righteousness. Since Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, one must assume that he is addressing Gentile problems, not Jewish problems. Gaston’s view is salutary in that it pulls the rug out from under Christian supersessionism, at least with regard to Judaism, grounding Jewish and Christian coexistence as equals in his new way of reading Paul. In A Rereading of Romans, Stowers rejects what he calls the “traditional reading” of Paul: “Romans has come to be read in ways that differ fundamentally from ways that readers in Paul’s own time could have read it.”187 Arguing that 1,500 years of Augustinian interpretation have obscured Paul’s original meaning, Stowers intends to read Romans as a first-century reader who would have been familiar with the rhetorical and generic conventions used by Paul. He assumes that the implied audience (which Stowers calls the “encoded explicit readers”) of Romans consisted of Gentiles centrally concerned with the ethical concern of self-mastery of the passions.188 The Gentile addressees of Romans had come to think that such self-mastery was possible through observing certain select precepts of the law. The phrase “works of the Law” in Romans 2:20 was not a Jewish term used of Judaism, but rather means “the adoption of selected Jewish practices on the part of gentiles.”189 Like the Judaism of his day, Paul was not concerned with such issues as human sinfulness and salvation, a way of understanding Paul imposed by Augustine and Luther. Romans 2:17–29 begins a “speech in character” (prosōpopoiia) of a Jewish teacher who argues that Gentiles can be made right, that is, can master the passions, by observing certain select precepts of the law. Paul does not assume that all Jews are sinners or that God’s covenant with them has been nullified. In passages that seem to support these views, Stowers offers interpretations strikingly different from the traditional understanding. When Paul says that both Jews and Greeks alike are under the domination of sin (Rom 3:9), he may be using “rhetorical hyperbole” or he may mean “Jews and Greeks as a whole.”190 When Paul says that no one (πᾶσα σὰρξ, “all flesh”) is made right by the works of the law (Rom 3:20), he refers to Gentiles who are outside of a positive relationship with God.191 In Romans 7, where the rhetorical technique Paul and the Torah, 66. A Rereading of Romans, 1. 188 Ibid., 42–82. 189 Ibid., 187 (quoting Gaston, “Paul and Torah”). 190 Stowers, A Rereading of Romans, 181. 191 Ibid., 189–91. 186 Gaston,

187 Stowers,

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of prosōpopoiia or “speech in character” is used, Paul depicts the plight of the Gentile trying to overcome desire through the law. Jews and Gentiles, for Paul, have separate but related ways within the plan of God; Paul assumes that Israel continues to live by the law.192 In his book Romans 9–11, John G. Lodge uses reader-response criticism to interpret Romans 9–11 in such a way as to discard the view that God has rejected the Jews; he also absolves Paul of the supersessionism and anti-Semitism with which he is sometimes charged. Paul, choosing the strategy of the unreliable implied author, has used a “strategy of indirection” to challenge the readers’ views about the present and future status of Israel in the divine plan. Paul misleads both pro-Israel and anti-Israel implied readers into thinking that he supports their views in Romans 9–10. Beginning with Romans 11:11–12, however, when the reliable implied reader begins to emerge, he challenges the beliefs of both types of implied reader in an attempt to change their understanding of Israel. Paul argues that God is at work behind the responses of both Jews and Gentiles to the gospel; both responses serve the purpose of God. In The Origins of Antisemitism, Gager demonstrates the falsity of the view that Gentile Christians were anti-Jewish because non-Christian Gentiles already were. He demonstrates that Jews were not universally despised in the ancient world, as many have thought. In the fourth part of The Origins of Antisemitism, Gager argues Christian anti-Semitism arose, not because Jews were generally despised in the ancient world but because Christians misinterpreted Paul. Modern scholars have wrongly understood Paul as maintaining that the Torah was invalid, whereas in fact he regarded the Torah as valid for Jews but invalid for Gentiles. Gager follows Gaston’s interpretation of Paul and the law, which he regards as a “paradigm shift” in New Testament studies.193 The canonization of the Pauline letters carried with it an anti-Jewish way of reading them.194 In Reinventing Paul, Gager argues for the view proposed by Gaston (now fortified by Stowers) in much greater detail, arguing that Christians have misread Paul’s statements about the law for two thousand years by subordinating the pro-Israel passages in Paul to the anti-Israel passages. While Stowers focused on Romans, Gager engages much of the entire undisputed Pauline corpus. The anti-Israel passages have generally been interpreted in rejection / replacement categories, that is, God has rejected both the Jews and the Torah, replacing them with a new people of God for whom faith in Christ rather than obedience to the Torah is the path leading to salvation. Gager proposed to focus rather on the pro-Israel passages in Paul, absolving him of the charges made against him his critics:195 (1) Paul is not the father of Christian anti-Judaism. (2) Paul did not 192 Ibid.,

205. Antisemitism, 198–99. 194 Ibid., 191. 195 Gager, Reinventing Paul, 9–10. 193 Gager,

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invent the rejection / replacement theory. (3) Paul did not repudiate the Law of Moses. (4) Paul did not argue that God had rejected Israel. (5) Paul’s enemies were not Jews outside “Christianity” but apostolic competitors within. (6) Paul did not expect Jews to find their salvation through Jesus Christ. When Paul speaks of the law, he speaks only of the relationship of Gentiles to the law and never discusses the law in Jewish life. Paul’s negative statements about the law were forged in the context of opposition to Paul’s law-free gospel for the Gentiles. For Paul, there were two paths to salvation, through the Torah for Israel and through Christ for Gentiles.

Justification by Faith During the last forty years, various understandings of the doctrine of justification by faith have been debated within world Lutheranism,196 as well as in ongoing ecumenical dialogue between Lutherans and Roman Catholics. The same time frame saw the rise of the New Perspective on Paul that challenged the ways in which justification by faith had previously been understood (or misunderstood), fueled in part by the growing perception of the urgency of Jewish-Christian dialogue in a post-Holocaust world. Then too, Evangelicals, particularly in the United States, have had their own intramural debate about aspects of the doctrine of justification,197 and have also responded forcefully to aspects of the New Perspective that they think are harmful to the theological health of conservative Christianity. The backdrop for many aspects of these debates has been the continued work throughout the last century by numbers of Pauline scholars, both Protestant and Catholic, seeking to make sense of Pauline soteriology within the overall context of his thought as well as within the framework of their own theological presuppositions. In 1986 the ongoing discussion of justification by faith was set in detailed historical perspective for both theological and biblical scholars by historical theologian Alister McGrath, author of a magisterial study of the history of the doctrine of justification in the western church from Augus196  M. C. Mattes, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 3–20. The title would be more accurate if the adjective “Lutheran” were inserted before “Theology” since the author is Lutheran, as are the five theologians he critiques (E. Jüngel, W. Pannenberg, J. Moltmann, R. Jenson, and O. Bayer); R. Kolb, “Contemporary Lutheran Understandings of the Doctrine of Justification,” Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates? ed. M. Husbands and D. J. Treier (Downers Grove: InterVarsity; Leicester: Apollos, 2004), 153–76. 197 See particularly Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism; this work is presented as a “competent evaluation” of the new perspective on Paul. See also T. C. Oden, The Justification Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), and Husbands and Treier, eds., Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates? The contributors are largely Evangelicals but include one Roman Catholic: Paul D. Molnar.

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tine to the Lutheran-Roman Catholic and Anglican-Roman Catholic discussions of justification during the last quarter of the twentieth century.198 One important feature of the inner-Lutheran debate on justification by faith is the Finnish Lutheran approach to Luther’s soteriology in which justification is understood in an ontological sense as deification (thus opening ecumenical dialogue with Orthodoxy, for whom justification by faith has never been a theological issue).199 This view, which is now being attributed to Luther, has a broader Reformation pedigree. After Luther’s death, the Augsburg Confession was translated into Greek by Melanchthon in 1559 (called the Augustana Graeca), for the patriarch of Constantinople. Melanchthon transformed Luther’s teaching on justification by faith into the Orthodox concept of the deification of man through sacramental union with Christ.200

Aspects of the Lutheran-Catholic Debate While the inner-Lutheran debates over the doctrine of justification by faith are primarily theological discussions often involving a close reading of the works of Luther and the Lutheran creeds collected in the Book of Concord (1580),201 behind the joint Lutheran-Roman Catholic publications on justification by faith lies a great deal of biblical, particularly Pauline exegesis, though strikingly, little influence of the New Perspective on Paul is in evidence. This ongoing ecumenical discussion has recently culminated in the Joint Declaration of the Doctrine of Justification agreed to by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church at Augsburg, Germany on October 31, 1999.202 Earlier (1983), the United States Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue group produced a joint document entitled Justification by Faith. This document reflects a great deal of exegetical work by both Lutheran and Roman Catholic biblical scholars. Several 198 McGrath, Iustitia Dei. A shorter discussion of the topic is available in idem, Justification by Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988). 199 T. Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith: Luther’s View of Justification (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005); C. E. Braaten and R. W. Jenson, eds., Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998); R. W. Jenson, “Theiosis,” Dialog 32 (1993), 108–12; idem, Systematic Theology, vol. 2: The Works of God (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 293–98, 340–46. 200 E. Benz, Wittenberg und Byzanz: Zur Begegnung und Auseinandersetrzung der Reformation und der östlich-orthodoxen Kirche (Marburg: Elwert-Gräfe und Unzer, 1949), 108–22. 201 Some Lutheran groups accept only the Augsburg Confession and Luther’s Small Catechism as confessionally binding. 202 The Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church, Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). Some but not all Lutheran objections to this document were satisfied by the formulation of the Annex to the Official Common Statement appended to the document. This document is the culmination of a great deal of earlier discussion, resulting in several important publications, such as the “Malta Report,” i.e., “The Gospel and the Church,” published in Lutheran World 19 (1972), 259–73, and Worship 46 (1972), 326–51.

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publications have appeared in response, typically containing both Lutheran and Roman Catholic contributions.203 In this section, I would like to discuss one work by this group of scholars: Righteousness in the New Testament: “Justification” in Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue, edited by John Reumann (1982).204 The main essay by Reumann, virtually a monograph, is 192 pages long and entitled “ ‘Justification by Grace through Faith’ as Expression of the Gospel: The Biblical Witness to the Reformation Emphasis.” The rest of the volume consists of two responses by Roman Catholic scholars Joseph A. Fitzmyer, SJ and Monsignor Jerome D. Quinn. Fitzmyer responds to Reumann’s essay point-by-point and more often than not finds himself in agreement with Reumann or else makes slight qualifications of his positions. Quinn provides a short discussion of righteousness in the Pastoral Epistles, which also tends to support and extend Reumann’s comments on these texts.205 Reumann first presents the perspectives on justification by grace through faith expressed in the major Lutheran confessions formulated by 1580. He then surveys the biblical material relevant for a word study on the Hebrew and Greek words translated “righteousness” and “justification,” (and cognates). Beginning with the Old Testament he proceeds to consider Jesus, earliest Christianity, Paul and the Pauline school, and various other relevant New Testament documents, particularly Matthew and Luke-Acts, Johannine literature, and James. In the New Testament, Reumann comments on each significant passage in which dikaioterms occur. Reumann argues that justification is a pre-Pauline theologoumenon (and so, with Käsemann, not a Pauline invention), and is a more widespread theme in the non-Pauline portion of the New Testament than might otherwise be evident. Like other Lutheran biblical scholars, Reumann is not satisfied with maintaining the centrality of justification in Pauline thought alone. The major area of disagreement between Reumann and Fitzmyer is whether justification by faith can be regarded as the center of Pauline thought. For both scholars, the gospel itself is the center of Paul’s theology and justification is one among many ways of expressing or applying it. There the similarity ends, because for Fitzmyer, justification is one among many ways of expressing or applying the gospel, no one of which has Söding, ed., Worum geht es in der Rechtfertigungslehre? Das biblische Fundament der „Gemeinsamen Erklärung“ von katholischer Kirche und Lutherischem Weltbund (Freiburg, Basel and Vienna: Herder, 1999); P. Holc, ed., Un ampio consenso sulla dottrina della giustificazione: Studio sul dialogo teologico cattolico-luterano (Tesi Gregoriana, Serie Teologia 53; Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University, 1999); T. Schneider and G. Wenz, eds., Gerecht und Sünder zugleich? Ökumenische Klärungen (Freiburg im Breisgau; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001). 204 J. Reumann, ed., Righteousness in the New Testament: “Justification” in the United States Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982). 205 Quinn’s commentary on 1 and 2 Timothy was published posthumously (he died in 1988) by William Wacker, as J. D. Quinn and W. C. Wacker, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). 203 T.

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any theological superiority over another, while for Reumann justification is the prime expression of the gospel in Paul and, in view of the breadth of its usage, a central theme in Scripture. This volume demonstrates that historical-critical exegesis has come a long way, for there are really very few points of disagreement between Reumann and Fitzmyer on the interpretation of specific texts. The point at issue is not the understanding of individual texts, but the understanding of the theological structures of which the texts are part and into which they must somehow be integrated. A problem for the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue generally is the fact that the biblical evidence is theologically contextualized in very different ways by Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Justification and the New Perspective In the sketches of the views of several scholars who have contributed the most to launching the New Perspective (Stendahl, Sanders, Dunn, and Wright) made above, aspects of their understanding of the Pauline notion of justification by faith were placed in the context of each of their projects. None of the major proponents of the New Perspective regards the doctrine of justification as the center of Pauline thought, though each has a distinctive understanding of how it relates to other Pauline soteriological concepts. As already noted, some aspects of the New Perspective were anticipated in the work of Krister Stendahl. According to him, Paul’s doctrine of justification did not emerge from his supposed introspective struggles with the Jewish interpretation of the law but was specifically hammered out in defense of the rights of Gentile converts to be considered legitimate heirs of the promises of God to Israel.206 When Paul uses the argument of justification by faith in Galatians, he does so to protect Gentile converts against the practice of Judaizing, that is, of Gentiles submitting to circumcision and food laws.207 For Stendahl, Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith should not be understood as an explanation of the individual’s relationship to God, but of how Jews and Gentiles relate to each other within the covenant purpose of God now achieved in Jesus Christ. Stendahl is concerned with the social implications of the Pauline doctrine of justification, a concern that characterizes Stendahl’s seminal article “Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” first published in Swedish in 1960,208 then in a revised English translation in 1963.209

Paul among Jews and Gentiles, 2; idem, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” 84. 207 Stendahl, “Sources and Critiques,” Paul among Jews and Gentiles, 130. 208 K. Stendahl, “Paulus och Samvetet,” [“Paul and the Conscience”] Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 25 (1960), 62–77. 209 Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” 199–215. 206 Stendahl,

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E. P. Sanders identifies two main soteriological categories in Paul as the “juridical” and the “participationist,” with the former clearly subordinate to the latter. With regard to the terms “righteousness” or “justification” (the dikaio-terminology), Sanders claims that these are “transfer” terms for Paul, though not for Judaism.210 By this he means that this language is used to describe the transfer of those who are not God’s people (i.e., Gentiles), but who become members of the people of God, (i.e., members of the covenant). Paul’s term “righteousness” or “justification” is used for the “extraordinary acquittal of sinners,”211 but applies only to Gentiles, since Judaism has no concept of original sin or lostness. For Wright, on the other hand, justification is not used as a transfer term signaling “how someone enters the community of the true people of God, but of how you tell who belongs to that community.”212 For J. D. G. Dunn, when Paul speaks of “being justified” in a Jewish context (Gal 2:15–16), he does not have a distinctively initiatory act of God in view (in inaugurating his covenant with Israel), but rather refers to God’s acknowledgment that a person is in the covenant, either as an initial acknowledgment or a repeated action of God (i.e., his saving acts), or God’s final vindication of his people.213 This Jewish conception of justification finds a close correspondence to Paul’s conception of Gentile justification: As the whole conception of God’s righteousness has indicated, justification is not a oncefor-all act of God. It is rather the initial acceptance by God into restored relationship. But thereafter the relationship could not be sustained without God continuing to exercise his justifying righteousness with a view to the final act of judgment and acquittal.214

Furthermore, “Paul is ready to insist that a doing of the law is necessary for final acquittal before God; but that doing is neither synonymous with nor dependent upon maintaining a loyal membership of the covenant people.”215 For Dunn, Paul’s language of justification is an acknowledgment that a person is already in the community of the saved. Criticizing both the dichotomous formulations of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation conceptions of justification, Dunn maintains that justification means neither “make righteous” (the traditional 210 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 544–45; idem, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People,

45.

Perspectives Old and New on Paul, 294. What Saint Paul Really Said, 119 (author’s emphasis). 213 Dunn, “The New Perspective in Paul,” 190. 214 Dunn, The Theology of Paul, 386. Though Evangelicals would disagree with this interpretation (see Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness, 147–50), even conservative Roman Catholics find this interpretation satisfactory: see R. A. Sungenis, Not by Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification (Santa Barbara: Queenship, 1997) 221–98 (the chapter is entitled, “Is Justification a One-Time Event or an Ongoing Process?”). The author is one of a group of Catholic biblical scholars who have converted from Reformed churches. Their intense theological focus on Scripture is more typical of Protestant than Catholic presuppositions. 215  J. D. G. Dunn, Romans (WBC; 2 vols.; Waco: Word, 1988), 1.97–98. 211 Westerholm, 212 Wright,

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Catholic view) or reckon as righteous (the traditional Lutheran view), but rather means both.216 N. T. Wright provides a clear description of his conception of what Paul means by justification: The verdict of the last day has been brought forward into the present in Jesus the Messiah; in raising him from the dead, God declared that in him had been constituted the true, forgiven worldwide family. Justification in Paul is not the process or event whereby someone becomes, or grows, as a Christian; it is the declaration that someone is, in the present, a member of the people of God.217

“Faith,” according to Wright, (following the general Reformation view), “is not an achievement which earns salvation, but the evidence of saving grace already at work.”218 Wright has been criticized for interpreting justification in Paul in terms of ecclesiology rather than soteriology.219 This critique represents a thoroughly Protestant perspective, however, since Wright is an Anglican, and for Anglicans (as for Roman Catholics and Lutherans), “justification involves being incorporated into the community of the church, rather than a solitary life of faith.”220 In a less ecumenical age, Cyprian observed: extra ecclesiam nulla salus (“apart from the Church there is no salvation”). Dunn essentially agrees with Wright, and maintains that for Paul justification is the declaration that a person belongs to the people of God.221 An important issue in interpreting both Galatians and Romans is whether Paul is referring to the justification of individual Jews and Gentiles (what is understood, perhaps incorrectly, to be the traditional Reformation view), or dealing with the relationship between Jews and Gentiles as two groups (the view of Stendahl, Dunn and Wright), which we have just discussed. In an article originally published in German in 1969, responding to Krister Stendahl’s influ216 J. D. G. Dunn, “Paul and Justification by Faith,” The Road from Damascus: The Impact of Paul’s Conversion on His Life, Thought, and Ministry, ed. R. N. Longenecker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 85–101, at 88; the parenthetical phrases are my comments. It is striking that in the Apology (4.72) to the Augsburg Confession, Philip Melanchthon observed “And ‘to be justified’ means to make unrighteous men righteous or to regenerate them, as well as to be pronounced or accounted righteous. For Scripture speaks both ways.” 217 N. T. Wright, “Romans,” New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 10: Acts-First Corinthians, ed. L. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 468. 218 Wright, “Justification: The Biblical Basis,” 16. 219 O’Brien, “Was Paul a Covenantal Nomist?” 288–89; G. P. Waters, Justification and the New Perspective (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Pub., 2004), 129: R. S. Smith, Justification and Eschatology: A Dialogue with the New Perspective on Paul (Doncaster: Reformed Theological Review, 2001), 92. 220 McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 394. See Salvation and the Church: An Agreed Statement by the Second Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC II; London: Published by the Anglican Consultative Council and the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity by Church House Publishing, 1987). 221 Dunn, “Paul and Justification by Faith,” 85–101.

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ential article “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Ernst Käsemann argued that justification was directed by Paul against Judaism, reflecting a common pre-New Perspective view no longer considered “politically correct.”222 He maintains, however, that justification is Paul’s interpretation of his christology and cannot be understood in terms of the individual.223 “The Pauline doctrine of justification,” he maintains, “never took its bearings from the individual, although hardly anyone now realizes this.”224 Here Käsemann is reacting to Rudolf Bultmann who conceptualized justification in Paul in a radically individualistic and existential way.225 A few years before the New Perspective took shape, Markus Barth emphasized the social implications of Pauline soteriology, decrying the crass individualism that he thought had obscured the social and ethical character of justification within the Reformation traditions.226 Thomas Tobin, whose recent book is not particularly concerned with the pros and cons of the New Perspective, has argued that in Romans, Paul and his audience are primarily concerned with the relationship between two groups, Jews and Gentiles, and not with individual Jews and Gentiles: This is crucial to keep in mind lest we fall back into the trap of thinking that Romans is primarily about the sin, guilt, justification, and salvation of the individual. To do so inevitably leads once again to the misinterpretation of Romans in the categories of the Reformation debates.227

Wright takes a similar line with regard to Galatians, maintaining that Paul is not concerned there with how an individual becomes a Christian or attains a relationship with God, but rather the issue is how one defines the people of God‒by the ritual markers of Judaism or some other way.228 Justification is in effect a two-stage process: primary for Paul is the future justification of the believer, in view of which act the believer experiences present justification. Obedience is a necessary part of the eschatological vindication, and “justification, at the last, will be on the basis of performance, not possession.”229 Justification, rooted in the cross and anticipating the verdict of the last day, gives people a new status prior to the performance of appropriate deeds.

222 Käsemann,

“Justification and Salvation History,” 70–72. 73–75. 224 Ibid., 74. 225 Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 1.270–84. Bultmann regards justification as both forensic and eschatological, i.e., as a present reality but also belonging to the future. 226 M. Barth, “Jews and Gentiles: The Social Character of Justification in Paul,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 5 (1968), 241–67. 227  T. H. Tobin, Paul’s Rhetoric in Its Contexts: The Argument of Romans (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2004), 8. 228 Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 120. 229 Wright, “Romans and the Theology of Paul,” 440. 223 Ibid.,

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The Evangelical Debate on Imputation In recent years there has been a lively debate among American Evangelicals centering on the late magisterial Reformation doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer,230 which some regard as the crucial touchstone for the orthodox Protestant doctrine of justification.231 This debate has been characterized by close readings of the Pauline letters. N. T. Wright, an Evangelical Anglican, has argued that since Paul’s term “righteousness” is the forensic language of the law court: If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed out in the courtroom…. To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is simply a category mistake. That is not how language works.232

Wright clearly rejects the late Reformation notion of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. Robert Gundry has provocatively argued that the imputation of Christ’s righteous is absent from the Pauline letters, playing no part in the Pauline doctrine of justification.233 In Paul, he argues, faith is counted in an unqualified way as righteousness (Gal 3:6; Rom 4:3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 22–24); no Pauline texts say explicitly that faith was counted as Christ’s righteousness.234 He concludes: In summary, where can sinners find righteousness? In Christ. Whose righteousness can they find there? God’s. What does it consist in? God’s counting faith as righteousness. How does he do so without contravening his wrath against our unrighteousness? By setting forth Christ as a propitiatory sacrifice.235

230 Melanchthon was primarily responsible for developing the forensic conception of justification that became normative in Protestantism, and was similarly responsible for developing the concept of imputation (in the sense that the believer is reckoned as righteous on account of the merit of Christ) in the Apologia (21:19) to the Augsburg Confession (see McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 210–12). Melanchthon’s position was endorsed in the Formula of Concord (3.17; 1577 CE), indicating general agreement among Lutherans, and later was fully accepted by the Reformed Churches. It should be noted that Luther, followed by Calvin, held the personal union of Christ and the believer in justification (i.e., the unio mystica), a position forsaken by Melanchthon (McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 224). The imputation of Christ’s righteousness is mentioned in the Lutheran paragraphs of the Joint Declaration (§§ 22, 29). 231 One of the recent Evangelical defenders of this position is J. Piper, Righteousness in Christ: Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness? (Wheaton: Crossway, 2002), who presents his case through the detailed exegesis of the relevant Pauline texts. 232 Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 98. 233 R. H. Gundry, “The Nonimputation of Christ’s Righteousness,” Husbands and Treier, eds., Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates? 17–45. 234 Ibid., 18. 235 Ibid., 43.

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D. A. Carson, in his response to Gundry, agrees that “Strictly speaking, there is no passage in the New Testament that says that our sins are imputed to Christ,”236 yet nonetheless he maintains that the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believing sinner is a legitimate reading of Paul, arguing that the phrase “his faith was imputed to him as righteousness” is “necessarily a kind of shorthand for the larger exposition,” that is, that “righteousness” here means “the righteousness of Christ.”237 In the same volume, Mark Seifrid argues that Luther himself does not refer to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer (presumably because Luther believes that Christ himself is present in faith),238 and he essentially agrees with Gundry that the notion of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer is not found in Paul.239 Seifrid draws the following conclusion: The Protestant definition of justification in terms of imputation is no mere description of biblical teaching for which terminology is lacking in Scripture [the position of D. A. Carson], as is the case, for example, with the doctrine of the Trinity. Here we are dealing in some measure with the replacement of the biblical categories with other ways of speaking.240

One approach to the problem of the doctrine of justification in Paul in recent New Testament scholarship is that of Karl Donfried.241 Retaining the distinctively Reformation differentiation between justification and sanctification,242 Donfried proposes that the Pauline notions of justification, sanctification, and salvation should be arranged in a history of salvation schema, with justification regarded as a past event with present implications, sanctification as a present event dependent on the past event of justification and with future implications (salvation), and salvation as a future event, partially experienced in the past event of justification and the present event of sanctification. This arrangement is somewhat artificial, since in Paul justification has a future as well as a past reference (Rom 2:13; 8:30–34; Gal 5:4–5) and sanctification can refer to a past event (1 Cor 6:11) or a future event (1 Thess 5:23), and salvation is too complex a conception in Paul to be restricted to the future. 236 D. A. Carson, “The Vindication of Imputation: On Fields of Discourse and Semantic Fields,” Husbands and Treier, eds., Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates? 46–78, at 78. 237 Carson, “The Vindication of Imputation,” 67. Henri Blocher agrees with Carson’s position; see H. Blocher, “Justification of the Ungodly (Sola Fide): Theological Reflections,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 2.465–500, at 498. 238 M. A. Seifrid, “Luther, Melanchthon and Paul in the Question of Imputation: Recommendations on a Current Debate,” Husbands and Treier, eds., Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates? 137–52, at 144. 239 Seifrid, “Luther, Melanchthon and Paul,” 146; idem, “Paul’s Use of Righteousness Language against Its Hellenistic Background,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 2:39–74, at 71; idem, Christ, Our Righteousness, 173–75. 240 Seifrid, “Luther, Melanchthon and Paul,” 151. 241 K. Donfried, “Justification and Last Judgment in Paul,” ZNW 67 (1976), 90–110. 242 McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 182.

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The apparent contradiction or inconsistency in Pauline thought between judgment according to deeds and justification by faith (see 1 Cor 4:4–5 and 6:9–14) was taken up by Kent Yinger.243 With Sanders, Yinger accepts covenantal nomism and rejects legalism in Judaism. He also shares with Dunn an understanding of “works of the law” to mean Jewish ritual markers (circumcision, kashrut, Sabbath observance). He reports an impressive pre-Pauline Jewish tradition in which a salvation deriving from the grace of God is found side-by-side with the view that the righteous will be judged for what they do or do not do. The author demonstrates a strong continuity between Paul and Judaism in holding both judgment according to works and salvation by God’s gracious election (buttressing the conclusions of E. P. Sanders). Paul, according to Yinger, adopts the covenantal nomism of Judaism, yet differs from Judaism in that Christ rather than the Torah is the means whereby a person becomes a member of the people of God.

Justification and the Center of Pauline Thought For Lutherans, the doctrine of justification was the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae (“the article by which the church stands or falls,”), that is, the heart of all Christian theology and spirituality.244 This view is argued in detail by John Reumann, as we have seen above. N. T. Wright, on the other hand, explicitly warns against the temptation “to make the Pauline doctrine of justification the article by which the church stands or falls.”245 The issue of the theological center of Pauline thought has become an important issue in Pauline scholarship, particularly since World War II.246 At the beginning of the twentieth century, William Wrede was one of the first Protestant New Testament scholars to argue that justification by faith was not only not at the center of Pauline thought but that it originated as a polemical 243  K. L. Yinger, Paul, Judaism, and Judgment according to Deeds (SNTSMS 105; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). M. A. Seifrid, review of Yinger, Paul, Judaism and Judgment according to Deeds, JBL 120 (2001), 174–75, criticizes Yinger for treating only part of the material available from Second Temple Judaism. T. R. Schreiner, review of Yinger, Paul, Judaism and Judgment according to Deeds, JETS 43 (2000), 552–53, chides Yinger for generally ignoring the role of faith in Paul. O’Brien has a lengthy critique of Yinger’s book but many of his points are wide of the mark, like his theological criticism that, by rejecting legalism in Judaism, Yinger “has taken a positive view of human beings and failed to account for the radical nature of evil” (“Was Paul a Covenantal Nomist?” 2.268). 244 Actually, it was not Luther but Valentin Löscher (1673–1749), an orthodox Lutheran theologian, who first used this phrase, though it was based on a statement in Luther’s Smalcald Articles of 1537; see F. Loofs, “Der articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae,” Theologische Studien und Kritiken 90 (1917), 323–40. 245 N. T. Wright, “Gospel and Theology in Galatians,” Gospel in Paul: Studies on Corinthians, Galatians and Romans for Richard N. Longenecker, ed. L. A. Jervis and P. Richardson (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 222–39, at 232. 246 H. Hübner, “Paulusforschung seit 1945: Ein kritischer Literaturbericht,” ANRW 25/​ 4.2721–29 (“Rechtfertigung als Mitte paulinischer Theologie”).

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doctrine [Kampfeslehre] intended to counteract the theological threat posed by Judaism.247 For Wrede, Paul’s thought centered rather in the idea of redemption through Christ. Werner Georg Kümmel asserted that if Paul hammered out the doctrine of justification in a polemical context, then justification was a “mere polemical doctrine” and could not be the center of Paul’s theological thought, since the Pauline proclamation of salvation in Christ runs counter to the “Jewish doctrine of salvation.”248 Albert Schweitzer, Paul Wernle, and other German New Testament scholars at the turn of the last century agreed that the Pauline doctrine of justification was the product of polemic and not the heart of Pauline theology. In a now famous phrase, Schweitzer called the Pauline doctrine of justification “a subsidiary crater, which has formed within the rim of the main crater – the mystical doctrine of redemption through the being-in-Christ.”249 Thus Pauline mysticism was linked to sacramental union with Christ and with apocalyptic presuppositions. Following Schweitzer, some modern New Testament scholars, including J. Christiaan Beker and Louis Martyn, have identified apocalypticism as the center of Paul’s thought, but they express this insight in distinctive ways. Beker’s emphasis on the dialectic between contingency and coherence understands the Pauline letters as responses to contingent situations that are expressions of a theological coherence. This coherence is grounded in Paul’s apocalyptic worldview, understood in positive terms as the coming triumph of God.250 In theological circles, justification (with its assumption of the sinfulness of human kind) was similarly marginalized in the dialectical theology of Karl Barth, who centered his theology rather in the revelation of God.251 More recently, major representatives of the New Perspective have argued that justification by faith is not the center of Pauline thought. This is certainly true for Stendahl, for whom that role is played by salvation history.252 Ernst Käsemann responded to Stendahl’s article “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” with a robust rebuttal.253 While Käsemann agrees that salvation history forms the horizon of Pauline theology, for him justification is the center of Paul theology (just as it was for his teacher, Rudolf Bultmann) and is “the key to salvation history, just as, conversely, salvation history forms Paulus. Theology of the New Testament, 195. 249 A. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (New York: Macmillan, 1953), 225. 250  J. C. Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980); idem, Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel: The Coming Triumph of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982). 251 McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 357–71. 252 Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” 84, n. 10, and 95. 253 Käsemann, “Justification and Salvation History,” 60–78. 247 Wrede,

248 Kümmel,

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the historical depth and cosmic breadth of justification.”254 More specifically for Käsemann, “justification remains the centre, the beginning and the end of salvation history.”255 On the theological role of justification in Paul, Sanders observed that “the catch-word ‘righteousness by faith’ must be given up as the clue to Paul’s thought.”256 For Sanders, the real problem of Pauline interpretation is determining the relation among various soteriological terms in Paul, which fall under the two major categories of the “forensic” or “juridical” (e.g., justification) and the “participatory” (e.g., “in Christ”). Sanders, as we have already observed, regards Paul’s juristic soteriological category as subordinate to the participatory category.257 According to Sanders, Paul’s “participationist transfer terms” are completely different from the covenantal nomism conception characteristic of Judaism: The heart of Paul’s thought is not that one ratifies and agrees to a covenant relation with God and remains in it on the condition of proper behaviour; but that one dies with Christ, obtaining new life and the initial transformation which leads to the resurrection and ultimate transformation, that one is a member of the body of Christ and one Spirit with him, and that one remains so unless one breaks the participatory union by forming another.258

If I understand Sanders correctly, the phrase “participationist transfer terms” links two types of language. On the one hand, he discusses Paul’s participatory union language, consisting of: (1) members of Christ’s body, the body of Christ; (2) one Spirit; (3) in Christ; and (4) Christ’s, servants of the Lord.259 Sanders puts all these participatory terms together in a concluding paragraph: God has appointed Christ as Lord and saviour of the world. All who believe in him have the Spirit as the guarantee of future full salvation and are at present considered to participate in Christ’s body, to be one Spirit with him. As such, they are to act in accordance with the Spirit, which is also to serve Christ as the Lord to whom they belong.260

Sanders then discusses the various metaphors of Paul’s “juristic” or “transfer terminology”:261 (1) participation in the death of Christ; (2) freedom; (3) transformation, new creation; (4) reconciliation; and (5) justification and righteousness. Sanders insists that Paul himself did not distinguish between “mystical” or 254 Ibid.,

75. 76. 256 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 438. 257 Ibid., 503 (on this whole issue, see also 453–72 and 502–8). T. Laato argues that, contrary to Sanders, Paul makes no distinction between the juridical and participatory categories of his soteriology, since both are complimentary and not in competition; see his “Paul’s Anthropological Considerations,” Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 2.343–59, esp. 345–50. 258 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 514. 259 Ibid., 453–63. 260 Ibid., 463. 261 Ibid., 463–72. 255 Ibid.,

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“participatory” conceptions and “juristic” conceptions.262 Sanders later argued that he never maintained that participationist rather than juridical categories form the center of Pauline theology, since he is interested only in the terminology that is most revealing for “understanding Paul’s conception of how one enters the body of Christ.”263 In due course Sanders admits that “righteousness by faith and participation in Christ ultimately amount to the same thing.”264 Though Sanders does not refer to the work of Gerd Theissen, who analyzes Paul’s soteriological statements in terms of two symbolic groups that generally parallel Sanders’ taxonomy:265 (1) the symbolism of social interaction (freedom from an enslaving power through elevation and redemption, acquittal of quilt through the accursed death of the redeemer, and reconciliation from enmity through the loving gift of the redeemer); and (2) the symbolism of transformation of nature (salvation overcomes human finitude through dying and rising with the redeemer and overcoming the enclosed self through unity in the body of Christ). Wright admits that justification cannot be put at the center of Paul’s thought, since that center is already occupied by “the person of Jesus himself, and the gospel announcement of his sovereign kingship.” Nevertheless, he insists that justification is not a secondary or nonessential matter.266 Wright essentially agrees with Wrede, Schweitzer, Wernle, and Kümmel, however, that “we must see justification by faith as a polemical doctrine, whose target is not the usual Lutheran one of ‘nomism’ or ‘Menschenwerke,’ but the Pauline one of Jewish national pride.”267 Most recently, Douglas A. Campbell has argued in some detail for the overly complex view that the “pneumatologically participatory martyrological eschatology” model (often referred to as the “participatory,” “apocalyptic,” or “eschatological” model) constitutes the heart of Paul’s gospel (which dominates Rom 5–8), and that the justification by faith and salvation historical models (which dominate Rom 1–4 and 9–11 respectively) ought to be subordinated to the first model.268 A different way of looking at the structure of Paul’s soteriology is exemplified by Adolf Deissmann, who argued that there were five important metaphorical expressions for salvation in Christ found in Pauline thought: (1)  justification, (2)  reconciliation, (3)  forgiveness, (4)  redemption, and (5)  adoption (or sonship).269 These metaphors, he argues, correspond to the fact that the human 262 Ibid.,

472. Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 5–6, 12–13, n. 15. 264 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 506. 265 G. Theißen, “Soteriologische Symbolik in den paulinischen Schriften. Einer strukturalistischer Beitrag,” Kerygma und Dogma 20 (1974), 282–304. 266 Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 114. 267 Wright, “The Paul of History,” 78. 268  D. A. Campbell, The Quest for Paul’s Gospel: A Suggested Strategy (JSNTSup 274; London & New York: T&T Clark, 2005); see esp. 17–28 and 29–55. 269 Deissmann, Paul, 167. 263 Sanders,

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person stands before God as an accused person, an enemy, a debtor, and (in the fourth and fifth metaphors), as a slave.270 Further, for Deissmann, justified persons are not completely righteous, but still have the goal of righteousness before them.271 Yet Deissmann agreed with Schweitzer that the center of Paul’s thought is to be found in the phrase “in Christ” (or one of its variants), which permeates the Pauline corpus and which is synonymous with phrases like “the faith of Jesus Christ,” which is an example of the “mystical genitive” or the “genitive of fellowship.”272 This experience of Christ is for Deissmann the center of Paul’s thought with the five metaphors mentioned above as ways of conceptualizing that experience.273 In line with Deissmann, Joseph Fitzmyer calls attention to the ten different images Paul used to summarize the effects of the Christ-event: justification, salvation, reconciliation, expiation, redemption, freedom, sanctification, transformation, new creation, and glorification. He regards these ten images as simply different ways of understanding the basic mystery of Christ and his role. The Christ-event, he suggests, is conceived of as a decahedron, a ten-sided figure, each panel of which expresses only one aspect of the whole.274 More recently, J. D. G. Dunn, one of the three foremost proponents of the New Perspective, has sided with Deissmann and Fitzmyer in insisting that justification is a legal metaphor and that Paul uses other metaphors for the experience of the “new beginning,” such as redemption, liberation, freedom, reconciliation, citizenship, kingdom-transfer, salvation, and inheritance.275 No single one of these metaphors should be emphasized over the others, for many of Paul’s readers undoubtedly “experienced the gospel as acceptance, liberation, or rescue, as cleansing and new dedication, as a dying to an old life and beginning of a new.”276 Though some strands of Protestant theology have taken the metaphor of justification and given it primary or normative status, Dunn considers this inappropriate.277 The three metaphors that Dunn believes captures the central features of the new beginning are: justification by faith, participation in Christ, and the gift of the Spirit.278 However, Dunn can speak of “the centrality … for

270 Ibid.,

168. 170. This is, of course, the Lutheran doctrine of simul iustus et peccator. 272 Ibid., 161–66. 273 Deissmann suggests a number of diagrams to capture this relationship in an appendix (293–99). 274 J. A. Fitzmyer, S. J., “The Biblical Basis of Justification by Faith: Comments on the Essay of Professor Reumann,” Reumann, ed., Righteousness in the New Testament, 216; idem, Paul and His Theology (2d ed.; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989), 59. 275 Dunn, The Theology of Paul, 328–29. 276 Ibid., 332. 277 Ibid. 278 Ibid., 333. 271 Ibid.,

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Paul” of righteousness / justification language,279 though by “centrality” he clearly does not mean “center.”

The πίστις [ Ἰησοῦ] Χριστοῦ Debate The Pauline phrase πίστις [ Ἰησοῦ] Χριστοῦ (“faith of Christ”), is as ambiguous in English as it is in Greek, for [ Ἰησοῦ] Χριστοῦ can be construed as either an objective genitive or a subjective genitive. The phrase occurs six times in the authentic letters (Gal 2:16 [bis]; 3:22; Rom 3:22, 26; Phil 3:9).280 The traditional way of translating the phrase construes Χριστοῦ as an objective genitive meaning “faith in Christ,” faith in the atoning death of Jesus which makes the believer righteous. More recently, a number of scholars (predominantly American) have insisted that Χριστοῦ is a subjective genitive and should be understood to mean “the faith [or faithfulness] of Christ,” that is, the personal faith or faithfulness of Christ, his obedience that led to his death on the cross.281 The relevance of this issue for the modern discussion of justification by faith in Paul is clearly expressed by J. D. G. Dunn (who argues for the objective genitive) against Richard Hays (who argues for the subjective genitive): More to the point, on Hays’ thesis we have no clear reference to the “faith” of believers. There are two such references using the equivalent verb (2:16 and 3:22). But Hays leaves us with no noun counterpart, no noun to denote the Galatians’ act of believing. Hays’s thesis vacuums up every relevant reference to “faith” in Galatians in order to defend the subjective genitive reading of 2:16, 20 and 3:22. This is nothing short of astonishing. It now appears that a text (Galatians), which has provided such a powerful charter of “justifying faith” for Christian self-understanding, nowhere clearly speaks of that “faith.”282 279 Ibid.,

341. Kertelge catalogs five different ways in which the genitive of [ Ἰησοῦ] Χριστοῦ can be construed, of which the first two are the objective and subjective genitive (the latter is itself understood in several ways); see “Rechtfertigung” bei Paulus: Studien zur Struktur und zum Bedeutungsgehalt des paulinischen Rechtfertigungsbegriffs (NA n. F. 3; Münster: Aschendorff, 1967), 162–66. A brief history of these competing views is found in R. B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983; 2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Dearborn: Dove, 2002), 142–48. In a later article, Hays provides a partial bibliographical survey of the πίστις [ Ἰησοῦ] Χριστοῦ debate in R. B. Hays, “πίστις Χριστοῦ and Pauline Christology: What is at Stake?” Pauline Theology, vol. 4: Looking Back, Pressing On, ed. E. E. Johnson and D. M. Hay (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 35–60, at 35–37, nn. 2–4. The linguistic and exegetical arguments for interpreting the phrase as either an objective or subjective genitive are reviewed by R. B. Matlock (who favors the objective genitive), “ ‘Even the Demons Believe’: Paul and πίστις Χριστοῦ,” CBQ 64 (2002), 300–318, and in an earlier article, “Detheologizing the πίστις Χριστοῦ Debate: Cautionary Remarks from a Lexical Semantic Perspective,” NovT 42 (2000), 1–23. 281 R. N. Longenecker, “The Obedience of Christ in the Theology of the Early Church,” in Reconciliation and Hope, ed. R. Banks (Exeter: Paternoster, 1974), 142–52. 282 J. D. G. Dunn, “Once More, πίστις Χριστοῦ,” Johnson and Hay, eds., Pauline Theology, 4.61–81, at 69. 280 K.

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Since the grammar of the phrase is ambiguous,283 scholars have had to provide various types of contextual arguments. Kertelge interprets the phrase as an objective genitive meaning “the believing confession of Jesus Christ as the new Lord,”284 based on what he regards as the parallel use of the verb πιστεύω in Romans 10:14, Galatians 2:16 and Philippians 1:29. The verbs in Romans 10:14 make it clear that Christ is the object of belief: And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed?

In Galatians 2:16, the phrase πίστις  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ is juxtaposed with the verb πιστεύω, which serves to interpret the noun phrase: Yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ [the NRSV construes πίστις  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ as an objective genitive]. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ [πίστις Χριστοῦ is also construed as an objective genitive]”.

The verb πιστεύω similarly occurs in Philippians 1:29: “For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well.” In two important articles, Douglas A. Campbell has argued in part that reading πίστις  Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ and analogous uses of πίστις as a subjective genitive fits a participationist rather than a justification by faith model of the theological center of Paul’s theology.285 One of the striking features of the πίστις Χριστοῦ debate is how a new way of reading a Pauline text can have important ramifications for understanding Pauline theology. While the πίστις Χριστοῦ debate continues, proponents of the subjective genitive interpretation remain in a vocal minority, while proponents of the objective genitive construal have weighty arguments on their side.

Conclusions Despite the length of this review on recent readings of Paul relating to justification, I have only been able to scratch the surface of the enormous, complex and diverse range of twentieth‑ (and some twenty-first‑) century scholarship on these issues. In the context of Protestant-Catholic dialogue on the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, a few concluding observations or reflections are in order. First, when it comes to the exegesis of individual passages in the Pauline letters, there is remarkably little disagreement among Protestant and Catholic biblical scholars. This view is expressed in one of the Roman Catholic curial documents 283 P. J. Achtemeier, “Apropos the Faith of / in Christ: A Response to Hays and Dunn,” Johnson and Hay, eds., Pauline Theology, 4.82–92, at 82–84. 284 Kertelge, “Rechtfertigung” bei Paulus, 176. 285 D. A. Campbell, “The Meaning of ‘Faith’ in Paul’s Gospel,” and “The Coming of Faith in Paul’s Gospel: Galatians 3,” in idem, The Quest for Paul’s Gospel, 178–207 and 208–32.

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produced by the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1993, “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church”: Although it cannot claim to resolve all these issues [eschatology, the structure of the Church, primacy and collegiality, marriage and divorce, etc.] by itself, biblical exegesis is called upon to make an important contribution in the ecumenical area. A remarkable degree of progress has already been achieved. Through the adoption of the same methods and analogous hermeneutical points of view, exegetes of various Christian confessions have arrived at a remarkable level of agreement in the interpretation of Scripture, as is shown by the text and notes of a number of ecumenical translations of the Bible, as well as by other publications.286

A few years earlier, R. E. Brown emphasized how historical biblical criticism had made important contributions to ecumenical dialogue.287 Two sterling examples of this kind of exegetical scholarship based on a historical-critical approach to Scripture can be found in the work of the Lutheran New Testament scholar John Reumann and Roman Catholic New Testament scholar Joseph Fitzmyer, S. J., showcased in the book edited by Reumann discussed above, Righteousness in the New Testament: “Justification” in Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue (1982). The main area of disagreement between Reumann and Fitzmyer is not the interpretation of particular texts, but rather whether or not justification by faith can in any sense be regarded as the center of Pauline thought‒although just what “center” means remains vague. The point at issue is both the theological structure of which the texts are part (disputed attempts to synthesize Pauline theology) as well as the modern theological systems into which they must somehow be integrated. A general problem for the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue generally is the structural differentia in the theologies of these two major forms of Christianity, which makes it inevitable that the New Testament perspectives on various theological issues will be both understood and utilized in different ways. This is made clear by Fitzmyer’s concluding call for a consideration of the theological conceptions of reward and merit and their relationship to justification. While the center of Pauline thought is itself a moot point‒in part because of the unsystematic character of Pauline thought and in part because the evidence is seen through the prism of differing confessional perspectives‒it is even more difficult to determine the place of justification in the thought of New Testament authors 286 D. P. Béchard, ed. and trans., The Scripture Documents: An Anthology of Official Catholic Teachings (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 312–13; a helpful discussion, “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” is found in J. Fitzmyer, S. J., The Biblical Commission’s Document “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church”: Text and Commentary (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1995), and P. S. Williamson, Catholic Principles for Interpreting Scripture: A Study of the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico,, 2001), 322–23. 287 R. E. Brown, “The Contribution of Historical Biblical Criticism to Ecumenical Church Discussion,” Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: The Ratzinger Conference on Bible and Church, ed. R. J. Neuhaus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 24–49.

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other than Paul, not to mention pre-Pauline evidence. Thus if justification is more or less a central concern of one author (e.g., Paul, for the sake of argument) and more marginal to another (e.g., Matthew), how can they be meaningfully compared? The New Testament itself offers a paradigm for theological diversity under the overarching unity provided by the gospel. We are left with the problem that exegetical agreement does not mean theological agreement. Second, the New Perspective on Paul with its distinctive approach to understanding the role of justification in Pauline thought has had little impact on the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. There are several reasons for this. First, the New Perspective originated and has continued to remain a largely Anglo-American approach to Paul. This is due at least in part to the perception that the New Perspective is critical of the traditional Lutheran interpretation of Paul.288 Westerholm, in response, has argued that Luther generally “got it right,” and that the insights of Luther can be maintained as a valid interpretation of Paul while avoiding a negative caricature of Judaism.289 Second, the fields of systematic theology and biblical scholarship are separated by a rather wide gulf; systematic theologians are rarely acquainted with recent trends in biblical scholarship, and many biblical scholars are functionally illiterate when it comes to systematic theology. Third, the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue predates the advent of the New Perspective by more than a decade and it is still being debated and tested in edumenical discussions. Of course, both Reumann and Fitzmyer have discussed the work of E. P. Sanders in the context of Lutheran-Catholic dialogue, though they apparently have not been overly impressed. Reumann is troubled by Sanders’ assertion that “righteousness / justification by faith” is not an adequate term to indicate the center of Pauline theology. He questions Sanders’ distinction between juridical and participationist categories and is not satisfied with his focal emphasis on eschatological participation.290 While Fitzmyer agrees with this last criticism of Reumann, he goes further and takes Sanders to task for using Tannaitic rabbinic literature to represent the Palestinian Judaism that was known to Paul.291 The publication of the Reumann book on Righteousness in the New Testament (1984), of course, predates much of the development of the New Perspective. Third, one aspect of the New Perspective that might prove fruitful in future discussions on the doctrine of justification is the renewed importance of the social or ecclesial significance of the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith 288 Dunn bends over backwards to deny this and has argued that for him the New Perspective is not opposed to the classic Reformation doctrine of justification; see “The New Perspective: Whence and Whither?” 17–22, 33. Dunn even agrees that it is articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae (ibid., 21). 289 Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul. 290 Reumann, “Righteousness” in the New Testament, 120–23. 291 Fitzmyer, “The Basis of Justification by Faith,” 217.

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that, though not new, was proposed by Krister Stendahl in the 1960s.292 A few years later, Nils Alstrup Dahl published “The Doctrine of Justification: Its Social Function and Implications,” originally in Norwegian (1964),293 then in an English translation (1977).294 The title of the essay indicates that Dahl shares Stendahl’s emphasis on the sociological significance of the doctrine of justification. In this essay, Dahl argues that “this doctrine not only concerns the individual and his relation to God but is also of importance for the common life of Christians.”295 Dahl suggests that the social implications of the doctrine of justification that were assumed by both Paul and (in a different context) by Luther were subject to a narrowing during the period of Lutheran orthodoxy in the seventeenth century, when the focus of justification by faith became the individual’s relationship to God, an important step in the ordo salutis, and so lost its comprehensive character.296 The connection between justification and its social implications was also discussed by Joachim Heubach,297 and the same emphasis was reported by Gottfried Martens in his exhaustive study of justification in Martin Luther and modern ecumenical discussion.298 This link between justification and ecclesiology, again outside the New Perspective, has been emphasized by Walter Klaiber, a German Methodist bishop and student of Ernst Käsemann, in a 1982 book titled Rechtfertigung und Gemeinde.299 In Klaiber’s view, the basic principle of Paul’s ecclesiology was his christology. While he shared with the early church the view that Christ was the foundation of the community and through him one shares in eschatological salvation, Paul took another step by emphasizing the link between the righteousness of God and the church. Through the justification of sinners, God creates a new people, the church. Since it is through Christ that this justification occurs, the connection between Christ and community becomes clear. Thus in its corporate life, the church is God’s righteousness incarnate. This social emphasis on justification was incorporated into the New Perspective on Paul by Wright and Dunn. According to Wright, Paul’s conception of Stendahl, “Rechtfertigung und Endgericht,” Lutherische Rundschau 11 (1961), 3–10. Dahl, “Rettferdiggjorelseslaerens sosiologiske funksjon og konsekvenser,” Nordisk Theologisk Tidsskrift 65 (1965), 284–310. 294 N. A. Dahl, “The Doctrine of Justification: Its Social Function and Implication,” in idem, Studies in Paul (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1977), 95–120. 295 Ibid., 95. 296 Ibid., 118. 297 J. Heubach, “Rechtfertigung und Kirche,” De fundamentis ecclesiae: Gedenkschrift für Pastor Dr. theol. Hellmut Lieberg, ed. E. Wagner (Braunschweig: Herausgegeben im Namen des ev. Luth. Konvents um Brüdern-St. Ulrici in Braunschweig, 1963), 132–35. 298 G. Martens, Die Rechtfertigung des Sünders  – Rettungshandeln Gottes oder historisches Interpretament? (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 164–65. 299 W. Klaiber, Rechtfertigung und Gemeinde: Eine Untersuchung zum paulinischen Kirchenverständnis (FRLANT 127; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982). The same emphasis occurs in a later and more popular book by Klaiber on justification: Gerecht vor Gott: Rechfertigung in der Bibel und Heute (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 146–54. 292 K.

293 N. A.

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justification does not represent individual or personal salvation,300 but is the means whereby the one who believes and is baptized is identified as a member of God’s people. Justification therefore is oriented toward the future, to the final vindication of God’s people, not individuals, when God pronounces in their favor, declaring that they belong to the covenant.301 Dunn is careful to maintain that justification by faith includes both individual and social dimensions: This I say once again is what the “new perspective” is all about for me. It does not set this understanding of justification by faith in antithesis to the justification of the individual by faith. It is not opposed to the classic Reformed doctrine of justification. It simply observes that a social and ethnic dimension was part of the doctrine from its first formulation, was indeed integral to the first recorded exposition and defense of the doctrine – “Jew first but also Greek.”302

He reiterates this point in the conclusion to “The New Perspective: Whence and Whither?”: “Justification by faith was never simply about individuals as such. Paul’s theology of justification had a social and corporate dimension that was integral to it.”303 What are the future prospects of Pauline interpretation for ecumenical discussion given the fact that Protestants and Catholics are now able not only to reread Paul together, but also to come to general agreement on how specific passages in the Pauline corpus ought to be understood? That this important achievement is possible at all is due primarily to the widespread acceptance and use of the historical-critical method by progressive scholars from major Christian denominations as a shared perspective from which to interpret and understand the Pauline letters as well as the New Testament as a whole. Critical biblical scholarship is essentially an ecumenical enterprise. The two largest biblical societies in the United States, the Society of Biblical Literature (founded in 1880) and the Catholic Biblical Association of America (founded in 1936), today have Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and Jewish members. Furthermore, major biblical reference works published in the United States, such as Bible dictionaries (e.g. the six-volume Anchor Bible Dictionary, published in 1992, and the forthcoming five-volume New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible) and commentary series (e.g. the Anchor Bible) all have Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish contributors as part of stated editorial policies. These ecumenical projects emphasize the shared heritage of Scripture and bode well for the future of biblical studies and Pauline studies in particular.

What Saint Paul Really Said, 60, 116. “Romans and the Theology of Paul,” 32–33. 302 Dunn, “The New Perspective: Whence and Whither?” 33. 303 Ibid., 87. 300 Wright, 301 Wright,

22. Galatians 3:28 and the Problem of Equality in the Church and Society* Introduction The ancient Mediterranean world was redolent with economic, national, racial, social and gender hierarchies, divisions and inequalities, like many societies in the modern world. While the kinds of human rights that have developed in the West during the past two centuries, influenced by the Enlightenment, have roots in the ancient world, those rights were based not on secular conceptions of the human person such as those that have flourished in modern liberal democratic regimes, but rather on the religious ideologies of various ancient ethnolinguistic groups.1 This essay, dedicated to my friend and former colleague Tom Tobin, S. J., will focus on the evidence for the theoretical and practical conceptions of equality in early Christianity, with emphasis on equality in the three areas of nationality, social status and gender, under the assumption that equality is a basic constituent of human rights everywhere. Since ancient societies had an essentially religious orientation, conceptions of equality that have modern analogues were based on religious rather than secular or rational presuppositions. Monotheism (the belief that one God exists and no others), for example, appears to have functioned as a necessary though insufficient cause for the development of the conception of equality between major ethnolinguistic groups. In the post-exilic period (i.e., following the midsixth c. BCE), Judaism developed an ethnocentric form of ethical monotheism in which the God of Israel was identified with the one God of the cosmos with * Original publication: “Galatians 3:28 and the Problem of Equality in the Church and Society,” From Judaism to Christianity: Tradition and Transition: A Festschrift for Thomas H. Tobin, S. J., on the Occasion of His Sixty-fifth Birthday, ed. P. Walters (NovTSup 136; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2010), 153–83. Reprinted by permission. A shorter version of this essay appeared as “Human Rights and Early Christianity,” Christianity and Human Rights, ed. John Witte, Jr. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 81–98. 1 The phrase “ethnolinguistic group” indicates a society that typically shares a common language and a common ethnicity (i.e., according to Weber a social construct and so distinct from race) and consequently share a common self-designation, sense of common identity, a common history (real or imagined) and kinship ties. The traditional conception of “race” has not proven to be helpful in recent years and has been replaced by more accurate descriptions of people that share many physical and cultural features such as “bio-geographical ancestry.”

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the implication that the gods worshiped by Gentiles were idols with no reality. While some Jews maintained that all people would eventually share the blessings attendant on recognizing the God of Israel as the one and only God (particularly in the latter days), other Jews were negative about the access that the Gentiles could have to God and expected that they would finally be excluded from his presence and annihilated.2 Another form of monotheism was developed in Stoicism, founded in the late fourth century BCE by Zeno of Citium (334–262 BCE). Stoics formulated a strikingly non-ethnocentric form of materialistic monism in which God and the material world were considered identical.3 God was also regarded as identical with Reason or Mind, which pervades the cosmos and is also present in gods and human beings. One social implication of this form of monotheism that helped to break down national and social barriers is that individual human natures are parts of universal nature.4 Stoics were famously cosmopolitans who held that all people are equal and should live in mutual love and understanding.5 In addition to having an essentially religious orientation, ancient societies had conceptions of the human person that differed from notions of the autonomous self that developed in the west beginning with Augustine’s Confessions through the Enlightenment to modern western liberal democracies. The differences between ancient and modern western conceptions of the person are often understood in terms of the dichotomous models of “individualism-collectivism” (describing cultures) or “idiocentrism-allocentrism” (describing individuals who are part of those cultures).6 Individualistic cultures and idiocentric persons emphasize values that serve the interests of the self (by making the self feel good, distinguished, independent), while collectivist cultures emphasize values that subordinate personal goals to the values of the group. Types of individualism (ancient or modern) and types of collectivism (ancient or modern) may be contrasted with modern conceptions of self as group-oriented.7 The notion 2 The variegated view that Jews had of Gentiles from the Hebrew Bible to the early rabbinic period is discussed by E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 212–18. 3 Zeno and Chrysippus according to Diogenes Laertius 7.148–9 (SVF 2.1022, 1132); Seneca Ep. 92.30. 4 Chrysippus according to Diogenes Laertius 7.87–89 (SVF 3.178). 5 Epictetus Diss. 2.5.26. 6 H. C. Triandis, R. Bontempo, M. J. Villareal, M. Asai and N. Lucca, “Individualism and Collectivism: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Self-Ingroup Relationships,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54 (1988), 323–38; S. H. Schwartz, “Individualism-Collectivism: Critique and Proposed Refinements,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 21 (1990), 139–57. 7 B. J. Malina and J. H. Neyrey, Portraits of Paul: An Archeology of Ancient Personality. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 1–18, 153–201; B. J. Malina, “Understanding New Testament Persons,” The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation, ed. R. Rohrbaugh (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996), 41–61; B. J. Malina and J. H. Neyrey, “First-Century Personality: Dyadic Not Individual,” The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation, ed. J. H. Neyrey (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991), 67–96.

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of individual rights, however, is a modern Western conception centered on a post-Christian society made up of people who are largely of northern European ancestry living in modern liberal democracies. Early “Christianity”  – the terms “Christian” and “Christianity” are actually anachronistic when used of the followers of Jesus before ca. 120 CE8  – began as a sectarian movement within Palestinian Judaism originally limited to Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jews. Within ten to fifteen years after the death of Jesus (ca. 29 CE), the Jesus movement had begun expanding outside Palestine to Jewish communities in the Levantine diaspora, in cities such as Samaria, cities on the island of Cyprus and Antioch on the Orontes in Syria (the third largest city of the Roman Empire). Paul was the central figure in the mission to the Gentiles, and some time before he began writing letters to communities he had founded, the followers of Jesus somehow adopted the innovative designation “church” (ἐκκλησία) for individual local assemblies of believers.9 This conception, which included people of various nationalities, social statuses as well as both men and women, had no close analogy in the ancient world. The earliest work in the New Testament, 1 Thessalonians (written ca. 49 CE), is addressed “To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (1:1), and later Paul has occasion to refer to “the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea” (2:14) in the plural (see also 1 Cor 11:16; 2 Thess 1:4). Both uses of the term “church” suggest that it is already traditional and widespread usage. Even more striking is the fact that “church” is used in the singular to refer to the worldwide community of believers.10 In the ancient world, religious identity and ethnicity were virtually inseparable. After struggling for years with the particularity of its original Jewish identity, Christianity was somehow able to conceptualize itself on analogy to the ancient philosophical schools, as primarily a system of belief and practice unconnected in any essential way with ethnicity and nationality.  8 The term “Christian” (a Latinism formed with the adjectival ending  –anus [“belonging to”] and therefore in all likelihood coined by Roman authorities) occurs three times in the New Testament: Acts 11:26 (the passage claims that the disciples were first called “Christians” in Antioch); 26:28; 1 Pet 4:16; both documents were written ca. 90 CE. According to 1 Peter 4:16, followers of Jesus had suffered persecution for “the name of Christ,” suggesting that the label “Christian” was a term of abuse. The terms “Christian” and “Christianity” appear frequently in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (died ca. 115 CE). The plural form Christiani occurs in three Roman authors in works that appeared in the early second century: Tacitus Ann. 15.44 (written ca. 116 CE); Pliny, Ep. 10.96.1 (written between 98 and 110 CE); Suetonius Nero 16.2 (written early in the second century). By ca. 120 CE, the term Christianos is found from Antioch in Syria (Acts 11:26; Ignatius of Antioch), to Caesarea (Acts 26:28), to Anatolia (1 Pet 4:16; Pliny the Younger; Martyrdom of Polycarp 12.2), to Rome (Tacitus, Suetonius).  9  W. C. Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 24. The term ἐκκλησία is used in the Septuagint to refer to the people of God (e.g., Deut 23:2–3; 1 Chr 28:8; Neh 13:1), and it is likely that the term was adopted for groups of the followers of Jesus understood as the new people of God. 10 1 Cor 10:32; 12:28; 15:9; Gal 1:13; Phil 3:6; Acts 20:28.

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Jesus of Nazareth and Human Rights Raising the question of what Jesus said and did during his brief ministry in the early first century (ca. 26–29 CE) is an historical problem with which generations of scholars have wrestled. Yet there are two very different ways of examining the influence that Jesus had on the socio-religious movement that he inspired. First, it is possible to emphasize the importance of reconstructing the teachings and activities of the historical Jesus using the historical critical method.11 While this is certainly a legitimate enterprise, one complication of this approach is the fact that there are major disagreements among critical scholars when it comes to deciding what the historical Jesus actually said and did. Currently there are two competing models of the historical Jesus. According to the older model, Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet, who proclaimed the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God and taught an ethic (based in part on conventional Jewish moral teaching) appropriate for living under the reign of God (following in the tradition of Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer).12 Viewing Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet tends to emphasize the distance between Jesus and the modern world. The other model is that of Jesus as a prophet and teacher of subversive wisdom, a view that argues that apocalyptic features of the teaching of Jesus were a product of the early church (in the tradition of liberal Protestantism).13 The view that understands Jesus primarily as a prophetic teacher of a this-worldly wisdom tends to lessen the historical distance between Jesus and the modern world. Those who have understood Jesus using this model have frequently exhibited a strong interest in the social relevance of Jesus’ mission for the modern world. John Dominic Crossan, for example, presents Jesus as a revolutionary who preached social equality. Crossan regards the Jesus movement that emerged after the death of Jesus as a social movement that emerged from the subjugated peoples of the Roman Empire, immersed in poverty and misery, which sought to 11 For a masterful use of the historical method to reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus, see J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (ABRL; 4 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1991–2009). A fifth volume is in preparation. 12 This view is well-represented by the works of three scholars: E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985; idem, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin Books, 1993); D. C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998) and B. D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 13 This approach is represented by M. J. Borg, Jesus, A New Vision: Spirit, Culture and The Life of Discipleship (New York: HarperCollins, 1987), idem, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith (New York: HarperCollins, 1994); J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), idem, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), in many ways a summary of his 1991 book and idem, The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images (New York: HarperCollins, 1994).

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transform a violent and predatory empire into an egalitarian society.14 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza describes the movement in which Jesus and his companions participated as an egalitarian movement that formed an inclusive community of the downtrodden and powerless.15 Second, it is important to recognize the fact that the four Gospels in their present written form (admittedly combining history with legend and myth) have continued to exert influence on Christian belief and practice from the time of their origin and initial circulation (ca. 70–100 CE) to the present. In other words, what the historical Jesus actually said and did (to the extent that can be reconstructed using various criteria of historicity) is not as important as what his followers thought that he said and did. In other words, the Wirkungsgeschichte (“history of influence”) of the canonical Gospels has been more important and influential for the thinking of the church than the relatively recent attempts to reconstruct the historical Jesus or the “real” Jesus. The learned liberal Protestant historian of early Christianity, Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), proposed that the core teaching of the historical Jesus had three emphases: (1) the fatherhood of God (i.e., God as the father of all people), which implies (2) the brotherhood of man and (3) the worth of the individual.16 These are all basic principles of nineteenth century religious liberalism that provided a Christian theological basis for human rights. Since it was important for Harnack that the teaching of Jesus be preserved in Christianity, the faith he founded, Harnack regarded these three core beliefs as the permanent heart of Christian faith and life from the beginning through to the modern period, even though these essentials were often lost sight of during the Middle Ages. More than a century after Harnack’s book What is Christianity? appeared, few if any scholars concerned with reconstructing the teachings of the historical Jesus accept any of Harnack’s postulates as primary emphases of the teaching of Jesus. What Harnack did, like many others before and after him, was to read his own conception of Christianity (which he considered the most enlightened conception of religion that had yet appeared in the world) back into the teaching of Jesus. Had Jesus actually held these views, it would certainly be appropriate to regard Jesus as the founder of a human rights tradition that would reach fruition in the modern period. Unfortunately, neither the historical Jesus (as reconstructed by modern scholars) nor the Jesus presented by an uncritical reading of the Gospels held the views ascribed to him by Harnack.

Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1994). Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation (London and New York: Continuum, 1997). 16 A. von Harnack, What is Christianity? Lectures Delivered in the University of Berlin during the Winter-Term 1899–1900, trans. T. B. Saunders (2nd ed.; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons; London: Williams and Norgate, 1908). 14 J. D. 15 E.

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Let us now turn to a more sophisticated reading of the Jesus of the Gospels and yet one that takes seriously the basic thrust of the narratives. As the founder of a revitalization movement, Jesus was primarily interested in the restoration of all Israel in the end time (this program is symbolized by the fact that the twelve disciples were intentionally chosen by Jesus to represent the restoration of the Twelve Tribes of Israel).17 To that extent his proclamation of the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God was an ethnocentric message, for Jesus did not regard either himself or his disciples as having a mission to the Gentiles. At the same time, his proclamation emphasized an eschatological social reversal, in which (for example) God accepted the poor and rejected the rich (Mark 10:23): “Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’” This eschatological reversal had an important rhetorical function, for it signaled a subversion of the typical religious values and conceptions that characterized the Jewish religious establishment. The conception of an eschatological social reversal is central to the Beatitudes, the first of which focuses on the plight of the poor (Luke 6:20; Matt 5:3): “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” Another significant aspect of the eschatological reversal is God’s rejection of Israel (doubtless because of Israel’s rejection of the message of Jesus) and acceptance of the Gentiles, a theme found in Luke 13:28–29, a passage with a strong claim to historicity:18 [Those Jews addressed will be thrown out of the kingdom and] There you will weep and gnash your teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves thrust out. And men will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God.

This kind of eschatological reversal, in which Israel, the traditional people of God, is rejected and replaced by Gentiles is found in other sayings of Jesus including the allegorical Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mark 12:1–11 and parallels), in which the tenants (Israel) will be destroyed by the owner (God), who will turn the vineyard over to others (Gentiles).19 While Jesus did not pursue a mission to the Gentiles, neither did he accept the ritual separation of Jews from Gentiles that was characteristic of Jewish religious practice. Another striking characteristic of the ministry of Jesus is the fact that he rejected the “caste system” of official Judaism during the first century CE as well

17 E. P.

Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 61–119.

18  J. P. Meier, Mentor, Message and Miracles, vol. 2 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical

Jesus (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1994), 309–317. 19  A. J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 351–82.

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as the purity system on which it was based; he both accepted and associated with those whom official Judaism excluded. As Udo Schnelle has recently observed:20 Jesus draws no boundaries within Israel: he sets the marginalized in the center – the poor, the women who have suffered discrimination, children, tax collectors, prostitutes; he integrates the sick, the ritually unclean, the lepers, those possessed by demons, and even Samaritans into the holy people of God.

The following statement is particularly provocative (Matt 21:31): “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” Jesus consciously dramatized God’s acceptance of social outcasts by having table fellowship with them, ignoring Jewish food and ritual purity laws and thereby implicitly rejecting an unjust social structure. (Parenthetically, it should be mentioned that the Gospels contributed powerfully to Mahatma Gandhi’s practice of nonviolence, which was then picked up by Martin Luther King, Jr.).21 The kind of company Jesus kept is reflected in Matt 11:18–19: For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.

Finally, a story found in Mark 2:15–17 dramatizes Jesus counter-cultural practice: And as he sat at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were sitting with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

We have already mentioned the fact that the Four Gospels agree that Jesus undertook no programmatic ministry directed toward the Gentiles as a group.22 When universalizing features are found in the Gospels, they are typically late and legendary additions reflecting developments in the Jesus movement from the late first century CE, though only critical scholars have been aware of this fact. The absence of a Gentile mission is epitomized by the statement attributed to Jesus before sending his disciples out on a mission to the people of Israel (Matt 10:5): “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Yet at the end of Matthew, the risen Lord tells the disciples (28:19–20): Schnelle, Theology of the New Testament, trans. M. E. Boring (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 108. 21  T. J. Rynne, Gandhi and Jesus: The Saving Power of Nonvolence (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2008); M. J. Nojeim, Gandhi and King: The Power of Nonviolent Resistence (Westport: Praeger, 2004). 22 Meier, Mentor, Message and Miracles, 660. 20 U.

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Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them too observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.

This passage in fact reflects the fact that following the death of Jesus, his followers did inaugurate a mission to the Gentiles, which the author of Matthew wanted to trace back to Jesus. Rather than reaching out to Gentiles as a group, there are three stories involving Jesus’ outreach to various distressed non-Jews: the Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5:1–20), the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24–30; Matt 15:21–28), and the Centurion’s Servant (Matt 8:5–13; Luke 7:1–10). The story of the Syrophoenician woman, while probably not authentic, contains an emphasis on universality, but does not reflect very well on Jesus.23 Mark 7:24–30 contains the story of the healing of the demon-possessed daughter of a Gentile. Like many others, she had heard that a famous and effective healer was in the area, so she appealed directly to Jesus (v. 26): “Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.” This gives way to a thrustand-parry bit of dialogue (vv. 27–30): And he said to her, “Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And he said to her, “For this saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” And she went home, and found the child lying in bed, and the demon gone.

This story is striking for the harsh and insulting language used by Jesus, including characterizing Gentiles as “dogs” (using the so-called “criterion of embarrassment” one might argue for the authenticity of this story). The story also portrays Jesus’ focus on Israel to the virtual exclusion of Gentiles, even those with pressing physical and emotional needs. Jesus had a central concern for the equality of all Jewish people before God in his vision of the restoration of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, regardless of their social station, gender, or occupations and whether or not they maintained the requisite state of ritual purity demanded by traditional Judaism. Though Jesus did not pursue a mission to the Gentiles, neither did he argue that Jews keep separate from Gentiles because of the danger of ritual pollution. Jesus pursued an ethnocentric mission to Israel, but in so doing he disregarded the social rules that separated Jews from one another as well as from God. While the later mission to the Gentiles, pursued by the followers of Jesus after his death, was not part of a program envisaged by Jesus, it can be argued that such a universal mission is based on the inherent logic of the message of Jesus.

23 Meier,

Mentor, Message and Miracles, 59–61.

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Pauline Conceptions of Equality and Their Influence The earliest surviving Christian writings are the seven genuine letters of Paul, written from ca. 49–58 CE.24 One of Paul’s central emphases, particularly in Romans and Galatians, is that the traditional God of Israel is no respecter of persons and has therefore prepared a way of salvation not only for Jews, but also for Gentiles.25 Taking a page from the ministry of Jesus, Paul ignored ethnic particularities, especially Jewish ritual regulations that made the close association of Jews with Gentiles virtually impossible. Paul understood faith in Jesus Christ to be the only requirement for salvation. Perhaps the most radical statement of this idea is found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians (3:26–28): For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, There is neither slave nor free, There is neither male nor female; For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

This is a quite astonishing conception that seems to abolish in principle all inequities based on nationality, social status and gender.26 Since ca. 1970, scholarly discussions of the meaning and implications of Galatians 3:28 (and the close parallels mentioned below) have proliferated, in large part because of the importance of these passages for burgeoning Christian feminism.27 Here Paul does not use the conventional language of equality, but calls for the erasing of the distinguishing marks between people.28 While Galatians 3:28 is the most comprehensive Pauline statement on universalism, it is not an isolated statement. 1 Corinthians 12:13, for example, mentions the abolition of both nationality and social status in two parallel lines formulated antithetically as in Galatians 3:28: For it is by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Whether Jews or Greeks, Whether slaves or free, And all were made to drink of one Spirit. 24 Romans, 25  J. M.

1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon. Bassler, Divine Impartiality: Paul and a Theological Axiom (Chico: Scholars Press,

1981). 26 E. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 205–41. 27 R. M. Groothuis, for example, regards Galatians 3:28 as probably the most important biblical text supporting gender equality (Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997], 25). 28 P. M. Eisenbaum, “Is Paul the Father of Misogyny and Antisemitism?” Cross Currents 50 (2000–2001), 512.

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The same two areas of equality are mentioned in Colossians 3:9–11 (a Deutero-Pauline letter written under the influence of Pauline thought): Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature [a metaphor for baptism], which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.

Here the antithesis focusing on nationality, “Greek and Jew” is replicated with another common antithesis found in Pauline rhetoric: “circumcised [Jew] and uncircumcised [i.e., Greek],” expanded with “barbarian, Scythian [found nowhere else].” “Slave, free person” are also included, as in Galatians 3:28. It is widely but not universally agreed that Galatians 3:28 is a traditional baptismal formula (baptism is explicitly mentioned in v. 27), but whether or not that is so actually makes little difference in how the passage is interpreted.29 In the parallel in 1 Corinthians 12:13, baptism is again explicitly mentioned and it is referred to obliquely through use of the baptismal “put off ” / “put on” metaphor in Colossians 3:9–11.30 Yet since ethnicity, social status and gender were obviously not somehow eliminated in the real world for those who believed and were baptized, the question is, what did Galatians 3:28 mean to Paul, regardless of whether or not it had a liturgical origin? Some understand Galatians 3:28 (and parallels) as a theological rather than a social statement that refers, not to ethnicity, social status and gender relationships within the church between members, but only to the fact that baptism into the body of Christ is available to all regardless of ethnicity, social status and gender.31 That is, according to Paul’s understanding of the new covenant, salvation is available to people of all nationalities, social statuses and genders, who are all equal coram deo (“in the sight of God”).32 A similar position is articulated by Troy Martin:33 When Gal 3:28 proclaims that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, and that in Christ there is no male and female, the proclamation only pertains to the absence of these distinctions as requirements for baptism in contrast to the requirements in the 29 Those who think that Galatians 3:28 does not entirely fit its present context typically argue that it is a liturgical tradition cited by Paul, though he is really only interested in the abolition of the distinction between Jew and Greek (e.g., J. L. Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 33A; New York: Doubleday, 1997], 376). On the other hand, others argue that Galatians 3:28 is entirely suited to its context and there it is probably not a traditional liturgical formulation (e.g. T. Martin, “The Covenant of Circumcision (Genesis 17:9–14) and the Situational Antithesis in Galatians 3:28,” JBL 122 [2003], 111–125). These either / or positions are problematic. Here I follow B. Kahl (“No Longer Male: Masculinity Struggles behind Galatians 3.28?” JSNT 79 [2000], 38): “Pre-Pauline in origin, the baptismal formula nevertheless is genuinely Pauline in its present rhetorical embedding and literary shape.” 30 Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 208. 31 R. Y. K. Fung, “Ministry in the New Testament,” The Church and the Bible and the World, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 183–84. 32 Eisenbaum, “Is Paul the Father of Misogyny and Antisemitism?,” 511. 33 Martin, “The Covenant of circumcision,” 122.

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covenant of circumcision. This verse does not proclaim the absolute abolition of these distinctions but only their irrelevance for participation in Christian baptism and full membership in the Christian community.

But this reading of Galatians 3:28, at least in my view, does not go far enough. Paul is not only concerned with the irrelevance of nationality, social status and gender for entry into the church through baptism, he is equally concerned to emphasize that after entry, believers continue to be “one in Christ Jesus,” i.e., brothers and sisters in the new family of God. According to Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “the Christian movement was based not on racial and national inheritance and kinship lines, but on a new kinship in Jesus Christ.”34 Further, in declaring the end of ethnic, social and gender polarities in the new creation (Gal 6:15), Paul does not contemplate the abolition of ethnic, social and gender differences in the real world, but rather the end of all social hierarchies; in Galatians 3:28, Paul rejects hierarchy but not difference as such.35 For Paul, nationality, social status and gender continued to be of no consequence in the church. Richard W. Hove argues at length that “you are all one” does not mean “you are all equal,” since he is convinced that the phrase “there is no longer male or female” is a theological statement that has nothing to do with the elimination of social gender roles.36 In my view, however, the phrase has everything to do with gender roles. Spiritually, all who have been baptized are “one in Christ Jesus” and are brothers and sisters in the family of God, which is a new spiritual reality, even though physically they remain what they were before baptism. There is an inevitable tension between physical reality and spiritual reality that Paul has not fully worked out as we shall see as we discuss each of the antithetical phrases in Galatians 3:28 (and parallels), particularly in our discussion of 1 Corinthians 7:21–24 and Philemon.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek” Paul often used the ethnic terms “Jew” and “Greek” in tandem (as collective singulars), with the latter term meaning “Gentiles.”37 “Jew and Greek” was used as an ethnocentric designation of everyone in the world, analogous to the equally ethnocentric Greek phrase “Hellenes and barbaroi,” i.e., Greeks and non-Greeks. When Paul uses the phrase “neither Jew nor Greek,” however, he is not simply referring to the eradication of ethnic differences generally, but rather to the abolition of Jewish ritual law as a primary means of eliminating the differences Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 210. “No Longer Male,” 44–45. 36  R. W. Hove, Equality in Christ? Galatians 3:28 and the Gender Dispute (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1999), 107–116. 37 Rom 1:16; 2:9, 10; 3:9; 10:12; 1 Cor 1:22–24; 10:32; 12:13; Gal 3:28; cf. Col 3:11. 34 Schüssler 35 Kahl,

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between Jew and Greek.38 In Romans 10:12–13, Paul expresses his view about ethnic divisions in very specific terms: “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. For, ‘everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.’” When Paul uses the phrase “Jew and Greek,” and particularly in the form “the Jew first and also the Greek” he is referring to Jewish chronological priority in the history of salvation.39 The phrases “circumcised and uncircumcised” (Col 3:11) and “circumcision and uncircumcision” (always in that order) are examples of synecdoche parallel to “Jew and Greek” that occur several times in the genuine Pauline letters.40 A close parallel to Romans 10:12–13, cited above, is found in Galatians 6:15: “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” In the OT and early Judaism, circumcision was occasionally given a religious interpretation, i.e., “circumcision of the heart,”41 a view picked up by Paul and later Christian authors (Rom 2:28–29), or baptism referred to as a “circumcision made without hands” (Col 2:11–12).42 In Galatians 3:28, then, when Paul says that there is neither Jew nor Greek, does he refer only to the fact that the initiatory rite of baptism is open to those of all ethnic groups, or does he mean, in addition, that equality among ethnic groups continues to characterize the behavior of all of those who are “one in Christ Jesus”? A clear answer to this question can be found earlier in Galatians, where Paul recounts his confrontation with Peter (Gal 2:11–14). Paul tells us that Peter, along with other Jewish followers of Jesus, ate with Gentiles in Antioch. When a group of the “circumcision party” (meaning Jewish followers of Jesus that require circumcision, a sign of ethnic identity signaling conversion to Judaism of all Gentile converts to the Jesus movement) arrived from Jerusalem, sent by James the Just, Peter along with Barnabas and other Jewish believers separated themselves from Gentiles believers in conformity with the requirements of Jewish ritual regulations. Paul, at least according to his own autobiographical account, opposed Peter for living like a Gentile while trying to compel the Gentiles to live like Jews. What this brief narrative reveals is that for Paul, the principle of “there is no Jew or Gentile” not only applies to those who enter the church through baptism, but also ought to be the attitude of those Jews and Gentiles who are members of the community of faith. Paul expresses this conviction differently in 1 Corinthians 10:17: “Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” The traditional Jewish attitude toward eating

38 Eisenbaum,

“Is Paul the Father of Misogyny and Antisemitism?” 514. “Is Paul the Father of Misogyny and Antisemitism?” 514. 40 Circumcised and uncircumcised: Rom 3:30; 4:9; 1 Cor 7:18; circumcision and uncircumcision: Rom 2:25, 26; 1 Cor 7:19; Gal 5:6; 6:15; cf. Eph 2:11. 41 Deut 10:16; 30:6; Jer 4:4; 9:26; Ezek 44:7, 9; 1QpHab 11.13; cf. 1QS 5.5. 42 Barn. 6:4–5; Justin Dial. 14.4. 39 Eisenbaum,

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with Gentiles is expressed in part of a blessing given by Abraham to Jacob (Jub. 22:16; trans. Wintermute):43 And you also, my son, Jacob, remember my words, and keep the commandments of Abraham your father. Separate yourself from the gentiles, and do not eat with them,44 and do not perform deeds like theirs, And do not become associates of theirs. Because their deeds are defiled, And all of their ways are contaminated, and despicable, and abominable.

The expansion of the Jesus movement from a sect within Judaism to a social-religious movement composed of both Jews and Gentiles was the cause of lasting conflict between these two ethno-linguistic entities. The central issue was the role played by Jewish ritual law (circumcision, food regulations, purity laws, Sabbath observance), i.e., symbolic markers of Jewish national identity. The Pauline affirmation that “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal 3:28) and the parallel expression “where there is no Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised” (Col 3:11) represent a concept of national or ethnic parity with which not all first century Jewish followers of Jesus would have agreed. By the end of the first century the Jewish Christian groups in the eastern Mediterranean that insisted on combining ritually observant Judaism with belief in Jesus as the Messiah had effectively marginalized themselves and are now remembered only as isolated heretical sects that soon disappeared from the pages of history.45 Also by the end of the first century, Christianity had spread throughout the Mediterranean world as an unparalleled socio-religious movement that accepted people from all ethnic groups, the rich and the poor, men and women, slaves and free. The issue of whether or not Gentile followers of Jesus should be circumcised was the centrally divisive issue, with “circumcision” understood as an abbreviation for conversion to Judaism. The Book of Acts narrates the growing tension between observant Jews who were followers of Jesus and an increasing number of Gentile converts (Acts 15:3). At least initially, these Gentile converts were probably largely drawn from those whom the author of Acts designates “God-fearers,” i.e., non-Jews who were attracted to the ethical monotheism of Judaism and who participated in local synagogue services, but who did not observe the ritual Wintermute, “Jubilees,” OTP, 2.98. supposition here is that food prepared by Gentiles is not prepared in accordance with Jewish purity laws. 45 H.-J. Schoeps, Jewish Christianity: Factional Disputes in the Early Church, trans. D. R. A. Hare (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969); S. C. Mimouni, Le Judéo-Christianisme Ancien: Essais Historiques (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1998); O. Skarsaune and R. Hvalvik, eds., Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007); M. Jackson-McCabe, ed., Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007). 43 O.

44 The

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regulations based on the Torah with any consistency, nor did they submit to circumcision (Acts 11:19–21; 15:1).46 A major emphasis of the Book of Acts is the conflict between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus and the apparent compromise reached by the two groups in the Apostolic Council of Acts 15 (Acts 15:6–29), a passage described by C. K. Barrett as “the centre of Acts.”47 In Acts 15:1–6, the author of Acts provides an introduction to the narrative of the council and the decision reached with v. 1, framing the issue in this way: Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

Here salvation is explicitly made dependent on circumcision, i.e., conversion to Judaism. This issue is repeated with variations in Acts 15:5: But some of the believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary for them [i.e., gentiles who had been converted to the Jesus movement] to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.”

These converted Pharisees required Gentile followers of Jesus to be circumcised, i.e., to become converted to Judaism, with the result that they are then obligated to observe the ritual requirements of Judaism (i.e., Sabbath observance and kashrut, or purity regulations). At this Apostolic Council, an apparent compromise was reached between the two groups, represented by “the apostles and elders” led by James the Just on the one hand, and on the other the Jewish leaders of the Gentile mission, Paul and Barnabas. The resultant “Apostolic Decree” formulated by the apostles and elders was based on the assumption that Jewish followers of Jesus would continue to observe the Mosaic Law, while Gentile believers were only obligated to observe certain rules, i.e., commands given to Noah by God that applied to all humankind, negatively formulated as four ritual requirements (Acts 15:29; 21:25): the prohibition of eating the meat of animals that had been sacrificed to idols, blood (i.e., eating animals that had not been ritually slaughtered), strangled animals (i.e., those ensnared and killed) and fornication.48 These rules are patterned after the Mosaic requirements for Gentiles living among Jews found in Leviticus 17–18 as well as in the Jewish Christian version of the Noachide minimum obligation of the law.49 46 A bibliography on “God-fearers” to 1997 may be found in J. A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation and Commentary (AB 18C; New York: Doubleday, 1998), 450. 47  C. K. Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles in Two Volumes (ICC; London: T & T Clark, 1998), 2.709. 48 H.-J. Schoeps, Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1959), 66–67. 49 The Noachide laws represent a legendary development of the demands stipulated by God in the covenant with Noah briefly mentioned in Genesis 9.

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David Catchpole has argued that there are three theological presuppositions of the Apostolic Decree: (1) Christian theology is fundamentally Mosaic, (2) the theology reflected in the Decree does nothing about the distinction between Jew and Gentile, and (3) since Leviticus 17–18 is concerned with the cleanness of the land, the cleanness / uncleanness distinction still remains in effect and in proscribing what Jewish followers of Jesus required of Gentile followers of Jesus, the Decree demands what non-believing Jews already required of Gentiles.50 Paul would have disagreed vehemently with all of these theological presuppositions, which suggests that historically he could not have been a participant in the Jerusalem council. Paul’s absence from the Council is hinted at by the awkward insertion of Acts 21:25 (where Paul is informed about the substance of the Apostolic Decree by James as if he were ignorant of it), and to that extent the narrative of Acts 15 is inaccurate.51 The Decree, then, cannot be traced back to the apostolic conference referred to in Galatians 2:1–10, but must have been promulgated later. Further, the absence of any mention of the possible circumcision of Gentiles in Acts 15:6–29, though specifically presented as the central issue needing resolution in Acts 15:1–5 (partly quoted above), assumes that this critical issue has already been dealt with, though nothing about this has been mentioned earlier in Acts.

“There is neither slave nor free” Paul’s declaration in various versions that “there is neither slave nor free” (Gal 3:28; 1 Cor 12:13; cf. Col 3:11) is expressed more forcefully than related sentiments current during the second half of the fourth century BCE. Aristotle, after reviewing various contemporary views of the master / slave relationship, mentions one view, probably that of the Sophists, who used natural law to oppose custom, i.e., the physis / nomos antithesis (Aristotle Pol. 1253b [1.2.3]; LCL trans.):52 Others, however, maintain that for one man to be another man’s master is contrary to nature [παρὰ φύσιν], because it is only convention [νόμῳ] that makes the one a slave and the other a free man and there is no difference between them by nature, and that therefore it is unjust, for it is based on force.

Aristotle himself maintains that slavery is “natural” (he repeatedly speaks of a person who is φύσει δοῦλος, “a slave by nature”) rather than conventional and that slavery was both just and good for both the slave and the master (Pol. Catchpole, “Paul, James and the Apostolic Decree,” NTS 23 (1977), 429–30. “Paul, James and the Apostolic Decree,” 431. 52 Slavery was theoretically defended by some Greeks on the basis that non-Greeks (barbarians) were naturally inferior. For a brief treatment of the critique of slavery during the fourth century BCE in the Greek world, see W. K. C. Guthrie, The Sophists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 155–60. 50 D.

51 Catchpole,

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1252a–1255b [1.1.1–2.23]).53 According to the Roman law of persons, which is primarily concerned with legal status rather than theoretical arguments, “all men are either free or slaves,”54 so that under Roman jurisdiction, slavery and freedom are antithetical legal statuses. Paul discusses slavery at greater length in 1 Corinthians 7:21–24 and Philemon and the relation of slaves to masters is mentioned in several of the Deutero-Pauline household codes (Col 3:22–24; 4:1; Eph 6:5–9; 1 Tim 6:1–2; Titus 2:9–10). In 1 Corinthians 7:21–24 (in the same chapter marriage as well as circumcision and uncircumcision are discussed), Paul argues that members of the church should remain in the same social station they had when they became part of the people of God (italics added): Were you a slave when called? Never mind. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. So, brethren, in whatever state each was called, there let him remain with God.

Here the phrase “he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman in the Lord” is clearly an example of freedom coram Christo; external circumstances are relatively unimportant compared with the new spiritual reality of being in Christ.55 As de Ste. Croix observes: “the equality exists ‘in the sight of God’ and has no relation whatever to temporal affairs.”56 In antiquity there was a widespread view, expressed by Epicureans, Stoics and Christians, that slavery (like poverty and war, wealth and peace) is a matter of indifference affecting externals only (Lucretius De rerum natura 1.455–58). The good and wise man is never really a slave even though he may actually be one; it is the bad man who is really a slave, since he lives in bondage to his own desires.57 This ancient paradoxical

53 On the Greek theory of “natural slavery,” see G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World from the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquest (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 416–18. 54 Gaius Institutes 1.9; Justinian Institutes 1.3 (identical statements): “omnes homini aut liberi sunt aut servi.” 55 De Ste. Croix, Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, 419. 56 De Ste. Croix, Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, 419. 57 See A. J. Malherbe, The Cynic Epistles: A Study Edition (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977), 87, for Bion in Stobaeus, Anthologium 3.187.5: “Slaves who are morally good are free; masters who are morally evil are slaves of their desires.” Cf. Epictetus Diss. 1.19.8–9. Ps.-Crates Ep. 34: “And he [Diogenes] said that he was skilled at ruling men. ‘So if any of you needs a master, let him come forward and strike a bargain with the sellers.’ But they laughed at him and said, ‘And who is there who, since he is free, needs a master?’ ‘All,’ he said, ‘who are base and who honor pleasure and despise toil, the greatest incitements to evils.’” A later formulation of this principle is found in Augustine Civ. 4.3 (LCL trans.): “Hence even if a good man be a slave, he is free; whereas is a wicked man rule, he is a slave – and a slave not to one man but, what is worse, to as many masters as he has vices.”

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commonplace is applied by Paul to followers of Jesus: those who are free are really slaves of Christ, while those who are slaves are really free in the Lord. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul also discusses the social situations of the married and the single (vv. 1–16, 25–28, 32–40) and the circumcised and uncircumcised (vv. 17–20), covering all three of the antitheses in Galatians 3:28. Paul’s advice on all three issues is based on his expectation of the imminent end of the world, discussed in an explanatory digression in 1 Corinthians 7:29–31 (italics added), which applies directly to marriage and indirectly to slavery and circumcision: I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short; from now only, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away.

Therefore, Paul expects slaves as well as the married and single, the circumcised and the uncircumcised to consider their present situation in life within an eschatological framework, i.e., time is short and the form of this world is passing away. Slavery, like marriage or celibacy, circumcision or uncircumcision, belongs to “the present scheme of things that is already on its way out.”58 This eschatological motivation for not attempting to change one’s status overlays the primary reason Paul gives for slaves remaining slaves, i.e., the one sold as slave is master and free, while the masters are really slaves. Though there are several ways of reconstructing the situation behind Paul’s Letter to Philemon, the basic facts are that Onesimus was a slave owned by Philemon (or Archippus), but who had for some unstated reason left or been sent from home in Colossae and had made contact with Paul who was in prison (perhaps in Ephesus) and was apparently converted by him. While Onesimus has traditionally been regarded as a runaway slave, there is actually little support in this short letter for such a reading, though that view still finds widespread support.59 More probably, Onesimus had somehow wronged or injured Philemon (v. 18). Onesimus, who knew about Philemon’s relationship with Paul, had come to Paul in prison, hoping that he would act as an amicus domini (“friend of the master”) by interceding for him with Philemon to heal whatever breach had arisen between master and slave.60 Onesimus had clearly become one of Paul’s valued coworkers, as v. 12 indicates:

58 G.

Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 342.

59 There is still widespread support for this reading: cf. J. G. Nordling, “Onesimus Fugitivus: A

Defense of the Runaway Slave Hypothesis in Philemon,” JSNT 41 (1991), 97–119. 60 J. R. Levison, “Paul’s Letter to Philemon,” The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament, ed. D. E. Aune (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 526–31; J. A. Fitzmyer, The Letter to Philemon (AB 34C; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 17–18, 20–23.

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I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel.

Paul’s Letter to Philemon provides a tantalizing snapshot of a master-slave relationship within the early church that has important implications for understanding the meaning of the baptismal formula in Galatians 3:28. Though the entire letter revolves about the issue of slavery, the term “slave” occurs just twice, both instances in v. 16. In vv. 15–16, Paul tells Philemon (italics added): Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

The italicized portion indicates that though Paul is sending Onesimus back to Philemon “as a slave,” since he has been converted to the faith after departing from his owner, he is now at the same time also a “beloved brother,” i.e., using the language of Galatians 3:28, they are now “one in Christ Jesus.”61 While this passage has been construed in a variety of ways,62 this reading coheres well with Paul’s intentions in Galatians 3:28. For Philemon to have regarded Onesimus as both a slave “in the flesh” (i.e., physically) and yet as also a beloved brother “in the Lord” (i.e., spiritually) – the latter phrase understood as an equivalent to “in Christ Jesus” in Galatians 3:28 – would inevitably have involved a degree of tension and conflict between the two roles, a tension that Paul neither acknowledges nor explores.63 Regarding a slave as a brother has a precedent in the Old Testament (Lev 25:39–46; Deut 15:12–18; Jer 34:8–17); all these passages, however, express the incongruity of Israelites owning fellow Israelites as slaves and the notion of “brotherhood” is ethnic.64 In Greek thought on slavery there was similarly a widespread discomfort with enslaving fellow Greeks, which was similarly an ethnic sentiment.65 In both cultures, most slaves were gotten through war or raids on non-Israelites and non-Greeks, implicitly connecting slavery with assumptions of racial inferiority.66 In contrast to traditional Greek thought, there were Roman Stoics who regarded slaves as brothers. According to Epictetus (Diss. 1.13.3–4), The Letter to Philemon, 114. ways of construing the passage are reviewed by J. M. G. Barclay, “Paul, Philemon and the Dilemma of Christian Slave-Ownership,” NTS 37 (1991), 170–75. 63 The tensions between the two roles are explored by Barclay, “Paul, Philemon and the Dilemma of Christian Slave-Ownership,” 177–82. 64 Philo discusses Deut 15:12–18 in Spec. 2.18.79–85, where among other things he construes the word “slaves” to really mean “laborers.” 65 Guthrie, The Sophists, 156. Note the widespread view placed in the mouth of Iphigeneia addressing her mother Clytemnestra in Euripides, IA 1400: “It is right for Greeks to rule over barbarians, but not barbarians over Greeks, mother, for they are slaves, but we are free.” 66  M. I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (New York: The Viking Press, 1980), 119. 61 Fitzmyer, 62 Various

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for example, all people are family, brothers and sisters by nature [ἀδελφῶν φύσει] and offspring of Zeus.67 Philo also attributes the Stoic conception of universal brotherhood to the Essenes, whom he presents as a utopian community (Prob. 79; LCL trans. with modifications): No single slave is to be found among them, but all are free, exchanging services with each other, and they denounce the owners of slaves, not merely for their injustice in outraging the law of equality [ἰσότητα], but also for their impiety in annulling the law of nature [θεσμὸν φύσεως], who like a mother has born and reared all men alike, and created them genuine brothers [ἀδελφοὺς γνησίους], not in mere name, but in very reality [ὄντως] …

The suggestion has been made that in his Letter to Philemon, Paul is hinting, very obliquely, that Philemon manumit Onesimus.68 Modern Christian readers often express disappointment that Paul does not forthrightly condemn slavery, advocate manumission or propose a social program for abolishing slavery.69 On the other hand, Paul does not justify slavery or suggest that it is an institution ordained by God or sanctioned by nature. 70 In the ancient world, slavery was concentrated primarily in Roman Italy, mainland Greece and Greek settlements overseas; in these areas the idea of life without slavery would have been unthinkable. While a few fragments of debates on the subject among Greek thinkers have survived, no one, pagan or Christian, advocated the abolition of slavery.71 Both the Roman Stoics and Church Fathers argued for the humane treatment of slaves, but at the same time “preached obedience to the slaves.”72 In view of the fact that both Philemon and Onesimus, master and slave, are “one in Christ Jesus” (to use the phrase from Gal 3:28), the institution of slavery is transcended by the special relationship that Philemon and Onesimus share as “beloved brothers.” As in the case of 1 Corinthians 7:21–24, members of the church who happen to be slaves are free “in Christ.” From an exterior perspective, some who are members of the church are slaves and masters. However, as Troels Engberg-Pedersen has argued:73 [Jews and Greeks, slave and free, male and female] … will no longer let these properties play any normative role whatever in their own self-definition. Instead, they will see themselves as all one – in Christ Jesus. That is, for their normative self-identification they will also the letter of Seneca on master / slave relations: Ep. 40.1, 10). Pol. 1330a [7.9], maintained that all slaves should be offered the ultimate goal of emancipation. 69 A strikingly large number of slaves were freed in Roman Italy, where slaves constituted nearly half the population; see K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 115–18. 70 W. Schrage, The Ethics of the New Testament, trans. D. E. Green (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 233. 71 Finley, Ancient Slavery, 120. 72 Finley, Ancient Slavery, 121. 73 T. Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000), 150. 67 See

68 Aristotle,

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focus on no other self-defining characteristic than the one which they all equally share, that of being ‘in Christ Jesus’.

According to Engberg-Pedersen,74 Paul’s construction of the self is not individualistic in any modern sense, but rather a communitarian one so that being “in Christ” is not only some kind of spiritual reality, but is also how one sees oneself as identical with Christ. Apart from 1 Corinthians 7 and Paul’s Letter to Philemon, there are brief mentions of the respective duties of slaves to masters and master to slaves in the Deutero-Pauline household codes (Col 3:22–24; 4:1; Eph 6:5–9; 1 Tim 6:1–2; Titus 2:9–10), primarily emphasizing the duties of slaves, but is also concerned to prevent the mistreatment of slaves. Yet these texts are arguably not written by Paul himself and deal primarily with the coexistence of slave and free in the church. Later Christian texts on the subject of slavery are relatively disappointing. One relatively early example is Ignatius of Antioch (died ca. 115 CE) who recommends to Polycarp that he not free male or female slaves at the expense of the church (Pol. 4.3). Yet, on the positive side, this text suggests that the manumission of slaves owned by members of the church was not an unusual practice.

“There is neither male nor female” The phrase “there is neither male nor female” in Galatians 3:28 (missing from 1 Cor 12:13 and Col 3:9–11), has attracted a great deal of interpretive interest since the rise of feminism and its influence on Biblical interpretation. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has referred to it aptly as “a focal point of feminist debate.”75 Feminist criticism is used by New Testament scholars in the modern church as a reading strategy that focuses on, among other things, the roles of women, their lives and voices as well as the ideological views of sexuality in the New Testament, early church and the ancient world in the interest of contributing to the liberation of women in the church as well as in society.76 While the ancient Mediterranean world was a male-dominated hierarchical society,77 there is evidence that during the first century some members of the Jesus movement took counter-cultural stances on the public roles of women in the church. This was facilitated in part by the sectarian nature of the new movement, which needed to establish its own identity, norms and values over against those of pagan culture and society generally. The ideological stance of Paul’s statement “there is neither Paul and the Stoics, 6–8, 149–51. Schüssler Fiorenza, Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 159; see also the discussion of Gal 3:28 on pp. 159–73. 76 For a recent discussion of feminist criticism used in the study of the New Testament, see A.-J. Levine, “Feminist Criticism,” The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament, 156–65. 77  D. B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 3–135. 74 Engberg-Pedersen, 75 E.

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male nor female,” unlike the companion antitheses of “neither Jew nor Greek” and “neither slave nor free,” has few parallels in the rest of Paul’s letters, though 1 Corinthians 11:11–12 is an exception, for it is a parenthetical remark in which Paul relativizes the relationship between men and women, an insight expressed more fully in Galatians 3:28:78 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are of God.

It is important to observe that in this passage the hierarchical relationship between men and women is relativized only in the Lord, a parallel to the concluding phrase all things are of God. It is not only that men and women are equal coram deo, but that the preceding injunction in 1 Corinthians 11:9–10, should not be read in a subordinationist way.79 If we examine what can be known about the realia of gender roles in the early church, it becomes immediately obvious that there was ambivalence over the issue. There is fragmentary evidence that women held significant leadership positions in the churches, including the roles of apostle (see below on Junia in Rom 16:7), deacon (see below on Phoebe in Rom 16:1–2),80 leaders of house churches (Mary the mother of John Mark in Acts 12:12; Lydia in Acts 16:14–15, 40; Nympha in Col 4:15) as well as teachers and prophets (1 Cor 11:4–16).81 Yet there is also evidence to indicate that there were frequent attempts to emphasize or reinstate traditional gender values by silencing women in public (1 Cor 14:33–35)82 and by exhorting them to play a more conventional subordinate role in the family (Eph 5:22–6:4; Col 3:18–4:1; 1 Tim 2:11–15; Titus 2:1–10). However, since Ephesians, Colossians and the Pastoral Letters (1–2 Timothy and Titus) are widely regarded as Deutero-Pauline,83 the subordinate role for women recommended by the unknown authors of these letters probably reflects Stendahl, The Bible and the Role of Women (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966), 35. The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 522–24. 80 See A. N. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 708. In a letter written by Pliny the Younger, the Roman governor of Bithynia at the beginning of the second century, to the emperor Trajan, we learn that two women slaves (ancillis) were “deacons” (ministrae) in the church of Bithynia (Pliny Ep. 10.96.8), indicating that in this region and time, being a slave and being a woman were not obstacles to enjoying status in the Christian communities (Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 209). 81 S. Heine, ”Diakoninnen – Frauen und Ämter in den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten,” IKZ 78 (1988), 213–27. 82 This passage is widely, and I think correctly, understood as a reactionary interpolation into 1 Corinthians; a view held even by a conservative Evangelical scholar: Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 699–708. 83 For recent treatments of the pseudepigraphal character of these Pauline letters see J. Frey, J. Herzer, M. Janssen and C. K. Rothschild, eds., Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion in frühchristlichen Briefen (WUNT 246; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), which contains essays on all the Pauline letters considered by critical scholars to be pseudepigraphal. 78 K.

79 Fee,

22. Galatians 3:28 and the Problem of Equality in the Church and Society

545

post-Pauline developments during the late first and early second century. For whatever reason, the role of women in the church became increasingly assimilated toward the hierarchical gender conception of the broader Greco-Roman world during the early second century. Let us look for a moment at two interesting important texts on the roles of women in the early church found in Romans 16. First, in Romans 16:1–2, Paul mentions Phoebe the deaconess (NRSV): I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon [διάκονον] of the church at Cenchreae [the seaport of Corinth], so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor [προστάτις] of many and of myself as well.

As with several other New Testament texts relating to women in ministry, the plain meaning of this passage has frequently been subverted,84 most easily by translating διάκονος as “servant.”85 But although many earlier commentaries have tried to downplay Phoebe’s role in the church in Cenchreae, “it now seems more likely that she functioned as a leader of the congregation.”86 In addition, her role of “benefactor” or “patron” (commentators frequently fail to give προστάτης its most natural and obvious sense of “patron”), suggests that she was a woman of wealth and a person of prominence in the ancient world,87 one who personally sponsored projects of vital significance to Paul.88 In Romans 16:7, two people are mentioned that Paul considers “prominent among the apostles.” One of them is Andronicus (a masculine name) and, for the name of the other, there are two different readings in the Greek manuscripts, either Junia (a feminine name) or Junias (a masculine name). In a recent monograph by New Testament textual critic Eldon Jay Epp, the author argues convincingly that the name originally written by Paul was “Junia.”89 He makes the following points: (1) While “Junia” was a common name that occurs to K. Romaniuk, “Was Phoebe in Rom 16,1 a Deaconness?” ZNW 81 (1990), 132–34, Paul courteously exaggerates the position of Phoebe in the community by likening her role to that of an official deacon. 85 For arguments against translating διάκονος as “servant,” see J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16 (WBC 38b; Dallas: Word Books, 1988), 886–87. 86 R. Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 944; see the analysis of διάκονος (a word of common gender) by B. Holmberg, Paul and Power: The Structure of Authority in the Primitive Church as Reflected in the Pauline Epistles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 99–100 and esp. n. 30. 87  J. A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation and Commentary (AB 33; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 731. For a more detailed discussion of the social and cultural significance of a prostates, see R. A. Kearsley, “Women in Public Life in the Roman East: Iunia Theodora, Claudia Metrodora and Phoebe, Benefactress of Paul,” TynBul 50 (1999), 189–211. 88 Jewett, Romans, 945–48. 89  E. J. Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005). See also the comments of Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 47–48, 172. 84 According

546

22. Galatians 3:28 and the Problem of Equality in the Church and Society

hundreds of times in ancient sources, the masculine form “Junias” (possibly an abbreviation of “Junianus”) is not attested in any Greco-Roman sources. (2) Contextually, several women are commended warmly by Paul in Romans 16, including Prisca. (3) The name “Junia” was the unanimous choice of interpreters during the first 1300 years in the history of interpretation of Rom 16:7 (often as the wife of Andronicus). (4) The name “Junia” was chosen as the correct reading in all editions of the Greek New Testament until the early 20th century, when from 1927 through 1998, critical editions of the Greek New Testament by Nestle, Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Society chose the masculine form “Junias.” English translations of the New Testament produced during the 19th and 20th centuries, on the other hand, favored the masculine form “Junias.” The choice of the masculine name in these instances appears to be the result of prejudice rather than reason. While Paul’s declaration that “there is neither male nor female” (Gal 3:28), an allusion to Genesis 1:27,90 has no parallel in the other two New Testament passages that are variant forms of the baptismal formula in Galatians 3:28 (1 Cor 12:13 and Col 3:11), a “no male nor female” antithesis is found in an interesting text that represents a conflation of Galatians 3:28, 1 Corinthians 12:13 and Colossians 3:9–11 in the relatively late Valentinian Tripartite Tractate (I, 5) 132.23–28 (composed ca. early third to the mid-fourth c. CE):91 For the end will receive a unitary existence just as the beginning is unitary, where there is no male nor female, nor slave and free, nor circumcision and uncircumcision, neither angel nor man, but Christ is all in all.

In this eschatological vision, the human divisions reflected in gender, legal and social status and nationality will be transcended when the original unitary mode of existence is restored at the end. In this construal of the tradition found in Galatians 3:28, no contemporary social application of “there is no male nor female” in terms of gender equality is contemplated; the restoration of primal unity is understood as entirely an eschatological occurrence. While Galatians 3:28 has also been interpreted eschatologically by modern scholars, that does not seem to reflect the original intention of Paul.92 90 M. R.

D’Angelo, “Gender Refusers in the Early Christian Mission: Gal 2:28 as an Interpretation of Gen 1:27b,” Reading in Christian Communities, ed. C. A. Bobertz and D. Brakke (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 149–73. On p. 161, D’Angelo adds that the phrase “male and female” is also found in Gen 5:1–5 (perhaps an alternate version or restatement of Gen 1:27); 6:19–20; 7:2–3, 15–16. 91 H. W. Attridge and E. H. Pagels, “The Tripartite Tractate (I, 5),” The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. J. M. Robinson (3rd ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 58, 101. A brief commentary on this passage is found in H. W. Attridge and E. H. Pagels, “The Tripartite Tractate (I, 5),” Nag Hammadi Codex I (The Jung Codex): Notes, ed. H. W. Attridge (NHS 23; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), 487. 92 Martin, “The Covenant of Circumcision,” 123–24.

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One striking text dealing with the male / female dichotomy is found in the early second century in a text that concludes the Gospel of Thomas, logion 114: Simon Peter said to them, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of Life!” Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male so that she may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

This strange dialog, which shows no signs of having been influenced by the Pauline letters, occurs in the same text in which Salome calls herself to discipleship (Gos. Thom. 61). Despite the clearly misogynistic opening remark of Simon Peter, demanding the exclusion of Mary (probably Mary Magdalene) from the circle of disciples, (which should probably be interpreted as an attack on the leadership roles of women in the early church), the emphasis is on the defense that Jesus provides against the exclusion of women.93 Yet the price is high. Salvation is dependent on females (by definition excluded from salvation) being transformed into males. Gospel of Thomas 114, then, reflects a “backward” creation, reversing the creation of a living spirit from the dust by God (Gen 2:7), after which the rib of the male Adam was transformed into the first woman.94 Scholars have read this text as a reference to the restoration of primal androgeny.95 According to Elaine Pagels, this saying assumes “that men form the legitimate body of the community, while women are allowed to participate only when they assimilate themselves to men.”96 Yet it is likely that the conception of “maleness” here reflects a widespread symbolic understanding in which it is actually detached from sexuality. A parallel text from the Jewish interpreter Philo of Alexandria is found in Quaestiones in Exodum 1.8 (LCL trans.), where he tries to explain why a male sheep is chosen for sacrifice in Exod 12:5b: For progress is indeed nothing else than the giving up of the female gender by changing into the male, since the female gender is material, passive, corporeal and sense-perceptible, while the male is active, rational, incorporeal and more akin to mind and thought.

Of course, this symbolic understanding of maleness and femaleness is only possible because of the hierarchical and subordinationist view sanctioned by the social and cultural mores of the Greco-Roman world (e.g. Aristotle Pol. 1254b [1.2.12]: “Also, as between the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject”).

93 U.-K. Plisch, The Gospel of Thomas: Original Text with Commentary (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2008), 243–47. 94  J. J. Buckley, Female Fault and Fulfillment in Gnosticism (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 85. 95 Various interpretations of Gos. Thom. 14 are reviewed by Buckley, Female Fault and Fulfillment in Gnosticism, 85–87. 96 E. Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1979), 49.

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Summary While historians like Adolf von Harnack confidently reconstructed the teaching of Jesus in a way that was friendly to modern human rights, emphasizing the universal fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man and the infinite worth of the individual, that reconstruction was an anachronistic illusion. By the mid-twentieth century, New Testament scholars were making serious efforts to acknowledge and correct the problems of subjectivism inherent in reconstructing the life and teaching of Jesus. While it is legitimate to inquire whether particular sayings or deed of Jesus are historical or not, the Gospels have been read as realistic narratives throughout the history of the church and it is primarily this commonsense reading that has influenced the church down through the centuries. Jesus is presented in the Gospels as one who proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God and the coincident restoration of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. While Jesus is not presented as engaging in a mission to Gentiles, he did emphasize a great eschatological social reversal in which the poor would not only be accepted by God and the rich rejected, but Israel as the people of God would be rejected, while the Gentiles would be accepted. Within Judaism itself, Jesus rejected the “caste system” that separated the nonobservant from the observant Jews, those considered ritually unclean from those that considered themselves ritually pure. His proclamation of the kingdom of God was in effect a democratizing of salvation in that he did not discriminate against the poor, the outcasts, Samaritans, Roman soldiers, prostitutes and tax collectors. He dramatized the new conception of equality before God that he was proclaiming by sharing table fellowship with whoever accepted his message of the imminent Kingdom of God and its moral implications for daily living. In doing this, he ignored the rigid system of purity laws that often functioned to exclude ordinary Jews from the Temple, where God was present and where salvation could be obtained through the sacrificial system. In our discussion of the ideology and practice of equality advocated by Paul, we used the three consecutive phrases found in Galatians 3:28 as a springboard for examining various types of equality in the Pauline letters and other early Christian literature. While Paul’s conception of aspects of human equality is not ethnocentric, neither is it universal in the sense advocated by the Roman Stoics. For Paul human equality is limited to the church of God, though anyone who believes and is baptized can be a member. The phrase “there is neither Jew nor Greek” indicates that Paul thought that entry into the people of God by baptism was equally accessible to people of all nationalities, but particularly that Jews had no advantage over Gentiles. Yet it is clear that Paul did not consider equality as a reality only coram deo (“before God”), since he was convinced that Jewish believers and Gentile believers were obligated to share table fellowship (strongly reminiscent of the practice of Jesus) as part of their shared life “in Christ Jesus.”

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The very fact that Paul thought that national differences were irrelevant for those who belonged to the new people of God suggests that the two other areas of equality, “neither slave nor free” and “neither male nor female,” not only reflect equal status before God, they also signal changed attitudes toward others that ought to prevail in the life of the church. The statement “there is neither slave nor free” is somewhat more ambivalent. In Paul’s relatively brief discussion of slavery in 1 Corinthians 7, he gives his version of the paradoxical saying widely found in antiquity (v. 22): “For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ.” Here equality exists coram deo (“before God”) and has no relationship to actual social status.97 Elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul advises slaves, like the unmarried, to keep the social status that they had when they became believers (based on the argument that the present world is about to pass away), but if they have the chance to become free they should take advantage of it (v. 21). In Paul’s letter to Philemon, he tells his friend to consider Onesimus as both a slave “in the flesh” (i.e., physically) and yet as also a beloved brother “in the Lord” (i.e., spiritually). While Paul does not resolve the tension that would have existed between those two quite different roles, a transformation of social relationships is certainly in view. When Paul maintains that “there is neither male nor female” in Galatians 3:28, he is not speaking of society in general, but only of the transformed relationship between men and women that characterized life “in Christ Jesus.” Obviously, Paul is not claiming that the physical characteristics of females and males will be eliminated or that the biological character of human beings will be nullified, but he is claiming that gender equality in the church is part of the new life in Christ. While Paul still shows the influence of the gender hierarchy that dominated Greco-Roman society, it is nevertheless true, as Martin has observed, that “Paul assigns women a larger role and more respect in his churches and in his theology than they would have enjoyed in many other areas of Greco-Roman Society.”98 In the long history of Pauline interpretation in the church, it is remarkable how frequently in the last century and a half that the ideology of gender hierarchy has obscured and downplayed the role of Phoebe the deacon and patron of Paul (Rom 16:1–2), or turned Junia, the apostle, into a male figure (Rom 16:7). Now, perhaps more than ever before, it is possible to let Paul’s views of the roles of men and women in the church be treated honestly and objectively.

97 De

Ste. Croix, Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, 419. The Corinthian Body, 199.

98 Martin,

Index of Sources Old Testament Genesis 1:2–5 135, 136, 137 1:27 546, 546n 2:4 52 2:7 547 2:21 98 2:23 98 2:24 98 5:1 52 5:1–5 546 6:3 98–99 6:17 97 6:19–20 546n 7:2–3 546n 7:15 97 7:15–16 546 9 537n 17:12 98 37:25 88n Exodus 12:5 547 16:1–36 89 16:4 89n 21:12 272 27:21 424 30:8 424n 30:32 98 35:2 272 Leviticus 6:10 98, 99 11:39–40 424 12:2 432n 12:3 98 13:2 98, 99 13:3 98, 99 13:4 98, 99 14:3 417

14:6 417 14:8 432n 14:9 98, 99 14:50 417 14:51 417 14:52 417 15:5 424 15:10 272 15:11 424 15:13 432n 15:16 424 15:18 424 15:19 98, 99, 272, 432n 15:20 424 15:22 424 15:23 424 15:24 432n 15:27 424 15:28 432n 17–18 537, 538 17:11 99n 18:7–8 406n 19:17–18 301 22:6–7 429 25:39–46 541 Numbers 6 416, 418, 419, 420 6:1–21 416, 420 6:2 417, 420 6:3–8 417 6:4 424n 6:5 419, 425, 425n, 426 6:6 419 6:9 417 6:9–10 423 6:9–12 417, 422, 432 6:10–12 417 6;13–21 417 16:22 99

552

Index of Sources

417, 417n, 418, 426, 428, 429 19:8 424 19:9 417 19:9–12 421 19:10 424 19:11 432n 19:11–13 417, 432 19:12 424n 19:12–13 431 19:17 417 19:19 424 19:21–22 424 23:7 263 27:16 99 31:19 272

2 Chronicles

Deuteronomy

Psalms

10:6 535n 10:18 293 12:23 99 15:12–18 541, 541n 21:23 484 23:2–3 526n 27–28 493 28:65 97 30:6 535n

1 Samuel

5:9 465 14:1–2 465 15:10 99 16:9 97, 99 25:18 61n 36:11 (LXX) 295 3711 (MT) 295 50:14 97–98, 98n 51:14 98n 53:1–2 465 56:4 99 62:2 99 63:1 99 73:26 97 78:24 89n 78:25 89n 89:14 499 105:40 89n 110:1 411

1:11 416 10:11–12 263

Proverbs

19

Joshua 3:5 421 Judges 13:4–5 416 13:7 416

2 Samuel 9:7 88n 9:10 88n 12:1–6 263 12:20 88n 2 Kings 4:8 88n 1 Chronicles 28:8 526n

29:5 421 29:34 421 30:17 421 Ezra 1:3 428 Nehemiah 9:15 89n 13:1 526 Job 34:15 97

5:11–12 98 7:27 275 9:4 272 9:16 272 10:1 274 12:1 272 14:30 97 15:16 276 15:16–17 276n 15:17 276 16:8 276 16:32 276 17:1 276

Index of Sources 19:22 276 20:1 272 25:6–7 299 25:24 276 27:5 276 27:10 276 30:18–19 298 30:21–23 298 Ecclesiastes / Qohelet 2:3 97 7:1–8 276n 9:14 276n 9:18 276n 12:7 372 Isaiah 10:18 99 24:1 263 31:3 97, 99 40:13 343 49:1 481, 481n 49:5–6 481, 481n 65:17 349n 66:14 97 66:22 349n Jeremiah 1:5 481, 481n 2:3 440 4:4 535n

553

9:26 535n 17:5 99 21:29 263 34:8–17 541 Ezekiel 7:2–24 263 12:22 263 18:2 263 20:47 300 21:26 295 36:2 424n 36:23–24 86 36:16–36 86 37:6 98 37:8 98 44:7 535n 44:9 535n 44:20 416 Daniel 6:9–12 69 7 411 7:22 (Theod.) 407n 12:1 91n Amos 2:12 416 Zechariah 13:7 166n

New Testament Matthew 1–11 51 1:1 8, 38, 52 1:2–17 8, 52 1:2–25 8, 52 3:1–4:22 51 3:2 285 3:10 290 3:11 95 4:7 11 4:17 87n, 279, 285 4:23 8, 52 5:1–24 64 5:3 96n, 271, 271n, 290 5:3–12 271

5:4 5:5 5:6 5:7

271, 271n, 290 271, 271n, 295 271, 271n, 272, 290 71, 271, 271n, 278, 279, 296, 302 5:8 271, 271n, 296 5:9 271, 271n, 296 5:10 271, 271n, 272 5:10–12 290 5:11 271, 271n, 272 5:11–12 271, 271n 5:13 271n, 289, 295, 529 5:14 290, 296, 301 5:15 53n, 271n, 293 5:25–26 262n, 275, 294

554

Index of Sources

5:34–37 296 5:36 296 5:37 296 5:39 290 5:39–41 290, 291 5:39–42 275 5:40 291 5:42 291 5:43–44 314 5:44 290, 319 5:44–45 274 5:44–48 282 6:1 63 6:1–4 63 6:1–18 63 6:2–4 296 6:3 296 6:5–6 59n, 63 6:5–15 63 6:8 88n 6:9–13 10, 53n, 57–74, 287 6:9–15 66 6:12 57, 62, 63, 91n 6:13 103 6:14–15 67, 70, 71, 91n, 289, 298 6:16–18 63 6:19–20 294 6:19–21 53n, 275 6:21 294, 295 6:22 293 6:22–23 53n, 293 6:24 194, 295 6:25 275, 282, 294 6:25–26 256n 6:25–28 294 6:25–33 53n, 281, 284, 294 6:25–34 88n 6:27 294 6:28–32 256n 6:34 296 7:1 71, 404n 7:1–2 274, 278, 282, 291 7:1–5 281 7:2 71, 278, 279, 287, 291 7:3–5 291 7:6 296 7:7–8 274, 293 7:7–11 53n, 281 7:9–11 293 7:11 279, 282 7:12 278, 291 7:13 295 7:13–14 294

7:13–27 443n 7:16 274, 291, 292, 297 7:16–20 281, 291, 297 7:17 274, 297 7:18 291 7:19 290, 297 7:20 291 7:21 11n, 278 7:24–27 262n, 284n 8:5–13 531 8–9 51 8:11–12 90n 8:15–16 10 8:20 274, 275, 292 8:22 259, 292 9:3 68 9:12 274n, 285 9:13 285 9:15 286 9:16 286 9:17 286 9:35 8, 52 9:37 95 9:37–38 176, 292 9:37–10:15 53n 10:1 176 10:2 292 10:5 530 10:7 87n 10:7–16 176 10:8 297 10:9–14 176 10:10 292 10:10–13 292 10:13 95 10:16 297 10:22 290 10:23 284 10:24 11, 273, 275 10:24–25 281, 291, 297 10:25 297 10:26 275, 287 10:26–33 53n, 282 10:27 274, 275, 293 10:28 274 10:29–30 256n 10:31 282 10:32 277 10:32–33 165, 288, 294 10:37–38 118n 10:38 287, 294 10:39 287 10:41 274, 275n, 297

Index of Sources 10:42 297 11:6 271n 11:7–10 292 11:8 292 11:16–17 292 11:16–19 262n, 292 11:18–19 530 11:19 90, 292 11:25–30 443n 11:27 293 11:28–30 297 12:1 51 12:1–28:8 51 12:8 286 12:25 273, 286 12:28 87n 12:29 286 12:30 274, 279, 280, 288, 293 12:32 134 12:33 291, 297 12:34–35 292 12:36–37 297 12:40 276 12:45 274n 12:50 11n, 272, 286 13 44 13:4 95n 13:8 95n 13:12 287 13:19 93, 135n 13:23 95n 13:31–33 53n 13:32 95n 13:33 262n 13:35 291 13:38 93 13:44 262n 13:45–46 262n 13:47–50 262n 13:51–52 297 13:57 194, 287 14:19 88n 15:7–8 201 15:11 274n, 287 15:13 298 15:14 281, 291 15:21–28 531 15:26 287 15:36 88n 13:51–52 297 13:52 297 16:2–3 256n 16:2–3 262

16:3 95 16:7 271n 16:14 95n 16:21 276 16:24 287 16:25 272, 276, 287 16:26 11n, 287, 288 16:27 398n 17:11–12 95 17:20 319 18:3 289 18:4 295 18:6 288 18:7 256n 18:8 288 18:8–9 288 18:9 288 18:20 276 18:23–35 66 18:32–33 66 18:33 278, 279 18:35 66 19:10–12 298 19:11 263 19:12 263, 298 19:23 276, 289 19:24 276, 289 19:26 289 19:28 407n 19:28–29 398n 19:29 118n 19:30 274, 276, 281, 289 19:39 272 20:1–16 281 20:16 274, 276, 280, 281, 289 20:21 300 20:23 95 20:26–27 289 21:22 289 21:28–32 262n 21:31 530 21:35 95 22:1–10 262n 22:5 95n 22:8 95, 96 22:11 289 22:11–14 262n 22:14 274n, 298 22:23–33 116 22:29–30 129 22:30 118n, 120, 123, 124, 126 22:39 301 23:2–3 298

555

556

Index of Sources

23:3 298 23:8–10 298 23:11 289 23:12 274n, 276, 295 23:23 256n 23:27 95n 23:28 95n 23:39 271n 24 201, 204 24:7 92n 24:13 290 24:14 8, 52 24:16 45 24:21 91n, 92 24:22–24 262n 24:23–51 53n 24:27 276 24:28 276, 294, 295 24:32–33 262n 24:37–39 276 24:37–41 52 24:37–25:46 45 24:38 123 24:43 319 24:45–51 262n 24:46 271n 25:10 167 25:14–30 260n, 295 25:15 95n 25:16–20 167 25:24 260n, 295 25:26 260n, 295 25:29 274n, 287 25:31–46 262, 275n, 398n, 402n 25:33 95 25:41 11 26:1–27:66 96 26:13 8 26:24 95 26:31 166n 26:36 94 26:36–46 97 26:38 105 26:40 94n 26:41 92, 94–106, 95, 274n, 290, 340n 26;45 105 26:47–56 298 26:52 298 27:50 96n 27:62–66 171 28:1–8 168, 169 28:8 171

28:8–9 530 28:9–10 167, 171 28:11 171 28:11–15 171 28:16–20 167, 178 Mark 1:1

6, 7, 7n, 8, 10, 15, 24, 35, 38, 40, 42–43, 46, 52, 52n, 55 1:1–3 7, 7n 1:1–15 42 1:2–3 6, 7n 1:2–8 49 1:9 49 1:9–11 49 1:11 47, 49 1:14 6 1:15 6, 87n, 279, 284 1:16–20 164 1:24 47, 49 1:40–2:22 51 1:44 44n 2:1–3:6 204 2:5 68, 91 2:8 96n 2:9 68 2:15–17 285, 530 2:17 274n, 285 2:18–20 286 2:18–22 281 2:19 286 2:19–22 282 2:20 286 2:21 274, 286 2:22 274, 286 2:23 51 2:23–28 281 2:27 286 2:28 286 3:4 256n 3:11 47 3:22 428 3:22–26 281 3:23 286 3:23–26 286 3:24 286 3:24–25 273, 274, 284n 3:25 286 3:27 286 3:31–35 49 11n, 272, 286 3:35 4:1–34 204

Index of Sources 4:4 44n 4:9 280 7:14 311 7:15 314 4:15 135n 4:20 278n 4:21 293 4:21–25 282 4:22 274, 287, 293 4:23 280 4:24 71, 287 4:25 287 4:26–29 262n 4:35–5:43 51 5:1–20 531 5:7 47 5:15 278n 6:4 194, 287 6:6–13 176, 317 6:36 11n 6:41 88n 7:6–7 201 7:10–13 49 7:14 311 7:15 44n, 274n, 284n, 287, 319 7:17 263 7:18 44n 7:21 44n 7:23 44n 7:24–30 531 7:26 531 7:27 287 7:27–30 531 8:12 96n 8:15 44n 8:19 88n 8:24 278n 8:31 165, 170 8:34 278n, 287 8:34–38 164, 282 8:34–9:1 282 8:35 6, 259, 272, 276, 287 8:37 288 8:38 47, 165, 272, 287 9:1 44n, 87n 9:7 47, 49 9:12 44n 9:19 44n 9:31 165, 170 9:33–50 317 9:35 281, 288, 289 9:36 281 9:39 278n

557

9:40 279, 280, 288, 293 9:41 44n, 297 9:42 44n, 272, 288 9:42–48 276 9:42–50 282 9:43 288 9:43–47 288 9:45 276, 288 9:47 288 9:47–48 288 9:48 288 9:49 284n, 288 9:50 289, 295, 319 10:9 256n 10:15 44n, 289 10:17–22 164 10:18–19 49 10:23 276, 289, 529 10:23–27 289 10:24 289 10:25 276, 289 10:27 49, 289 10:28–31 49, 164 10:29 6, 118n 10:31 259, 274, 280, 281, 289 10:33–34 165, 170 10:43–44 288, 289 10:45 319 11:10 87n 11:14 44n 11:24 289 11:25 49, 61, 70, 71, 91n, 289, 298 12:1–11 529 12:5 44n, 95n 12:13–17 281, 289 12:14–15 201 12:17 289, 314 12:18–27 116, 118, 119, 125 12:18–28 120 12:20–23 116n 12:24 118n, 120 12:24–25 120, 124, 129 12:25 116, 116n, 117n, 118n, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126 12:27 256n 12:28–34 314 13:1 363n 13:2 44n 13:7–22 91n 13:8 92n 13:10 6, 158 13:12–13 290 13:13 290

558

Index of Sources

13:14 45 13:19 44n 13:20 44n 13:26 47 13:28–29 262n 13:29 44n 13:30 44n 13:31 44n 13:34–36 299 14:1–15:47 96 14–16 97n 14:3–8 7 14:3–9 298 14:7 44n 14:8–9 38n 14:9 6, 38n 14:21 44n, 95 14:25 44n, 90 14:27 166n, 167, 168 14:28 170 14:31 44n 14:32 94 14:32–42 97, 290 14:33–34 98 14:34 105 14:36 49, 85 14:37–38 98 14:38 44n, 92, 94–106, 274n, 290, 340n 14:39 94n 14:41 105 14:50 166, 168 14:58 363n 14:61 49 14:61–62 319 14:62 47 14:67 49 16:1–8 168, 169, 170, 171 16:6 170 16:7 167, 168, 170 16:7–8 171 16:8 171 16:9–20 33 16:15 178 16:16 49 Luke 1:1 8, 38 1:1–4 107–115 1:30–35 320 1:34–35 320 1:45 271n

1:47 96n 2:21–51 320 2:49 11 3:9 290 3:16 96 3:18–19 96 4:18–21 320 4:18–30 320 4:23 260n, 263, 298 4:24 194, 287 5:20 68 5:31 274n, 285 5:32 285 5:34 286 5:35 286 5:36 263, 286 5:37–38 286 5:39 298 6:5 96, 286 6:18 278 6:20 271, 271n, 290, 529 6:20–23 271 6:21 271, 271n, 272, 290 6:22 271, 272 6:22–23 271n, 290 6:23 271n 6:24 284n 6:25 284n 6:26 284n 6:27–28 290, 314, 319 6:27–31 274 6:27–36 282 6:29 290, 291 6:29–30 275, 290 6:30 291 6:31 280, 290 6:32–36 290 6:35 290 6:36–38 70 6:37 71, 282, 289, 290, 298, 404n 6:37–38 274, 278 6:37–42 281 6:38 71, 287, 298 6:39 263, 282, 291 6:40 273, 291, 297 6:41–42 282, 291 6:43 274, 282, 291 6:43–45 282, 291, 292 6:44 274, 282, 291 6:45 93, 274n, 275, 291, 292 6:46 201 6:47–49 262n 7:1–10 531

Index of Sources 7:13–14 275 7:23 271n 7:24–27 292 7:25 292 7:31–32 292 7:31–35 262n, 292 7:35 292 7:40–43 262n 7:47 298 7:48 68, 91 8:12 135n 8:16 293 8:16–18 293 8:17 287 8:18 287 8:21 11n, 272, 286 8:44 292 9:1–6 176 9:16 88n 9:23 287 9:24 272, 276, 287 9:25 11n, 287 9:26 288 9:48 289 9:50 279, 280, 288, 293 9:57–58 281 9:57–62 164, 292, 299 9:58 118n, 274n, 275, 292 9:59–60 281 9:60 259, 292 9:61–62 281, 299 9:62 299 10:1–12:1 53n 10:2 95, 96, 292 10:2–16 176 10:5–7 292 10:7 292, 293 10:8 195 10:8–9 194 10:11 87n 10:22 293 10:23 271n 10:30 428 10:37 118n 10:42 256n 11:1 59n, 67 11:1–4 53n 11:1–15 67 11:2 67, 85 11:2–4 57–74, 287 11:3 64 11:4 62, 64n, 67, 103 11:9 282

11:9–10 274, 293 11:9–13 53n, 281, 293 11:10 282 11:11–12 282 11:11–13 293 11:17 272, 286 11:18 286 11:20 87n 11:23 274, 279, 280, 288, 293 11:27 123n, 271n 11:27–28 271n 11:28 124n, 271n 11:30 276 11:33 293 11:33–35 53n 11:34 293 11:34–36 293 11:48 96 12:2 282, 287 12:2–4 294 12:2–9 282 12:2–10 53n 12:3 275, 293 12:4 274 12:8 11n 12:8–9 165, 277, 288, 294 12:13–15 299 12:15 299 12:20 118n 12:22 282 12:22–23 274, 275, 294 12:22–24 294 12:22–27 294 12:22–31 281, 284, 294 12:22–34 53n 12:23 271n, 274, 294 12:25 294 12:26 256n 12:27–28 294 12:27–31 294 12:28–30 262n 12:29 271n 12:32 284n 12:33 275, 294 12:34 276, 294, 295 12:35 299 12:35–38 262n, 299 12:36 299 12:36–38 299 12:37 259, 259n, 271n 12:37–38 299 12:39–40 262n 12:39–46 53n

559

560

Index of Sources

12:42–46 262n 12:43 271n 12:47–48 299 12:48 284, 299 12:54–56 262n 12:57–59 262n 12:58–59 262n, 275, 294 12:59 294 13:9 96 13:18–19 53n, 262n 13:20–21 262n 13:23–24 275 13:24 294 13:28–29 90, 90n, 529 13:30 274, 276, 280, 281, 289 13:35 271n 14:7 263 14:8–10 299 14:11 274n, 276, 295, 299 14:12–14 300 14:15 88, 271n 14:26 164 14:26–27 118n 14:27 287 14:28–33 164 14:34–35 289, 295 14:41–43 262n 15:4–7 262n 16:8 122, 123, 134, 136, 300 16:9 300 16:9–13 282 16:10 12, 40, 300, 302 16:10–12 300 16:13 11n, 194, 295 16:14–15 281, 300 16:15 300 17:2 288 17:7–10 262n 17:20 87n 17:24 276 17:26–30 276 17:27 123 17:31–32 300 17:32 300 17:33 287 17:37 276, 294, 295 18:14 274n, 276, 295 18:17 289 18:24 276, 289 18:25 276, 289 18:27 289 18:29 118n 19:11 87n

19:11–17 260n 19:12–27 295 19:17 300 19:21 260n, 295 19:22 260n, 295 19:26 274n, 287 19:45–21:33 117n 20:10 118n 20:17–40 123 20:18–27 118n–119n 20:25 289 20:27–40 116, 116n, 129 20:27–34 116 20:34 117, 123 20:34–35 116 20:34–36 116–129 20:35 117n, 125, 127, 128 20:36 122, 126 20:37–38 116 21:18 256n 21:19 290 21:29–31 262n 21:31 87n 22:1–14 119n 22:18 87n, 90 22:19–20 314 22:25–27 300 22:26 289 22:27 300 22:28–30 407m 22:40 92, 94, 103 22:41–42 94 22:45 290 22:46 94, 103, 290 23:27–31 281 23:29 124n, 271n 23:31 300 23:33 96n 23:41 96 23:46 96n 23:56–24:1 96 24 319 24:1–11 168, 169 24:7 320 24:9 171 24:9–11 171 24:22–24 168, 169 24:30 88n 24:30–32 172 24:34 167, 320 24:36–38 320 24:39 96n 24:42–43 172

Index of Sources 24:44–49 177 24:49 177 John 1:3 134 1:5 135, 136 1:13 134 2:13 428 3:1–21 443n 3:6 96n, 134 3:8 301 3:13 134 3:16 259n 3:19 136 3:19–21 135 3:29 301 3:31 134 4:23 131 4:35 292 4:35–38 301 4:37 260, 260n, 263, 292, 301 4:44 194, 287 5:19–20 301 6:25–59 89 6:62 134 6:63 96n 6:70 135 7:20 146 8:12 135 8:14 301 8:23 134 8:35 301 8:44 135 8:48 146 8:49 146 8:52 146 9:22 142 9:39 134 10:20 146 11:9 134 11:9–10 301 11:55 428 12:5 287 12:24 301 12:25 134, 272 12:31 134, 135, 136 12:35 135 12:36 122, 136 12:42 142 12:46 135, 136 13:2 135 13:3–20 259n 13:12 259

13:16 274, 297 13:17 271n 13:27 135 14:6 143n 14:15–17 143 14:16 143, 143n 14:16–17 136, 146 14:17 143, 143n, 147 14:26 143, 147 14:30 135, 136 15:18–19 136 15:20 297 15:26 143, 147 15:26–27 143 16:2 142 16:7 143 16:7–11 143, 146 16:11 134, 135, 136 16:13 143, 147 16:13–14 143 16:21 301 16:32 166 17:15 93, 135 18:36 134 20:1 169 20:2–10 169 20:11–18 167, 169 20:17 134 20:18 171 20:19 166 20:19–23 178 20.22 147 20:29 271n 21 167, 168 21:9–14 172 Acts 1 319 1–5 176 1:1 8, 114 1:1–2 109 1:8 177 1:14–18 177, 178 2 169 2:1–14 177 2–5 176 2:5–42 177 2:41 177, 181 2:47 176 3 176 176, 177, 181 4:4 5:14 176 5:17–19 176

561

562 5:21–26 176 5:27–40 176 5:36 162 5:37 162 5:42 176 6 179 6:7 176 7:26 88 7:31 376n, 403n 8:1 177 8:1–8 176 8:3 482 9:1–19 479 9:20 463 9:34 68 10:28 438 10:34–43 310, 312 10:42 398n, 403n 10:43 376n 11:2 428 11:19–21 537 11:26 526n 12:12 544 13:5 463 13:14–43 463 14:1–2 463 15 537, 538 15:1 537 15:1–5 538 15:1–6 537 15:5 537 15:6–29 537, 538 15:7 52 15:20 291 15:29 291, 537 16:14–15 544 17:1–3 463 17:16–34 463 17:31 398n 18:4 463 18:8 427, 434 18:18 427, 430, 440 18:18–22 428 18:19–21 428 18:22 428 19:1–41 415 19:8 463 19:9 463n, 464 19:9–10 463 19:10 415, 464 20 460 20:7–17 430 20:9 430

Index of Sources 20:10 430 20:14 57 20:28 526 20:31 415 20:35 184, 301 20:36 427, 434 21 416, 417, 422 21:1–13 167 21:1–18 415 21:5 538 21:12 428 21:14 167 21:15 428 21:15–17 429 21:15–26 414n 21:15–25 416 21:15–27 414–441 21:15–28 414, 414n, 415, 416, 439 21:17–27 429n 21:20–21 484 21:23 416, 421, 428 21:23–24 427 21:23–27 423, 424, 426 21:23–28 421 21:24 414, 415, 416, 420, 421, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 433, 434, 435, 439 21:24–27 421n 21:25 537 21:26 414, 415, 416, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 429, 431, 432, 433, 434, 435, 439 21:26–27 432, 433, 439 21:26–29 440 21:27 422, 423, 424, 426, 428, 431, 431n, 432, 439 21:27–28 435 21:27–29 415, 432 21:27–40 414n 21:28–29 438 21:30–36 415 21:38 162 22:4–16 479 24:11 428 24:17 429 24:17–18 415, 434 24:18 415, 431, 433, 439 24:27 415 25:1 428 25:9 428 25:27 428 26:9–19 479 26:18 136

Index of Sources 26:28 526n 28:23 463 Romans 1 460n 1–3 459 1–4 516 1:1–3 5 1:1–15 442, 464 1:1–17 459n 1:3–4 100n, 319, 320 1:4 334, 387 1:8–2:11 442 1:8–2:16 470 1:8–3:20 404 1:9 323 1:11 470 1:13–11:36 462 1:16 462n, 464, 468, 534n 1:16–32 464 1:16–2:11 464, 469 1:16–4:25 464, 466 1:16–8:39 469 1:16–11:36 468 1:16–15:13 442, 464, 469 1:17–11:36 443n 1:18–20 461n 1:18–23 464 1:18–31 470, 471 1:18–32 461n, 465, 470 1:18–2:16 464, 470 1:18–3:20 460 1:18–3:31 460n, 461 1:18–4:25 460, 461, 469 1:18–11:36 464 1:19 471 1:19–20 461n, 471 1:19–21 461n 1:23 461n 1:23–26 461n 1:24 98 1:24–32 464 1:25–26 461n 1:26 470 1:29 471 1:29–31 471 1:32 397n 2 470 2:1–5 465 2:1–11 461n 2:1–3:8 403, 405, 406, 408, 413 2:2 362n, 404

563

2:2–3 404, 405 2:2–5 404n 2:3 404 2:5 404 2:6–11 465 2:6–16 399n 2:9 534n 2:10 464, 534n 2:12 404 2:12–15 404, 461n, 471 2:12–16 465, 470 2:12–29 461n 2:12–3:20 464, 465 2:12–4:25 443, 469 2:13 512 2:14–15 471 2:16 5, 376n, 398n, 403n, 404, 405, 411, 442 2:17–19 502 2:17–20 461n 2:17–24 465, 466 2:17–3:20 488 2:18–29 465 2:20 502 2:21 325 2:25 535n 2:25–29 461n 5:26 535n 2:28–29 101, 101n, 535 3:1–8 461n 3:1–18 465, 468 3:1–20 461n 3:5 405 3:6 404, 405 3:8–10 314 3:9 502, 534n 3:19 362n 3:20 491, 502 3:21 461n 3:21–26 465 3:21–31 461n 3:21–4:25 464, 465, 466 3:22 518 3:24–26 461n 3:26 518 3:27 466 3:27–4:2 466 3:30 461n, 535n 3:31 461n 4:2 466 4:3 511 4:3–25 466 4:5 511

564

Index of Sources

4:6 511 4:9 511, 535n 4:22–24 511 4:25 466 5–8 397n, 516 5:1–11 466 5:1–21 466 5:1–8:39 443, 466, 467, 468, 469 5:3 362n 5:6 103, 362 5:8 361 5:12–21 339, 466 6–8 333, 387, 397 6:1 466 6:1–2 549 6:1–14 466 6:1–7:25 466 6:2 349, 391, 397 6:6 331, 397, 397n 6:6–7 349, 391 6:7 397 6:8–9 397 6:9 362n 6:11 397 6:12 343 6:12–13 349 6:12–14 391 6:13 397 6:15 466 6:15–23 466 6:19 102 6:22 349 7 360n, 380, 490, 502 7:1–6 396, 466 7:5–6 101n 7:5–8:13 467 7:7 466 7:7–12 466 7:13 466 7:13–25 466, 481 7:14 324, 341, 362n 7:14–25 331, 341, 342, 351 7:15 342 7:15–21 342 7:17 342 7:18 341, 342 7:19 342 7:20 342 7:22 341, 361, 362 7:22–23 334 7:22–25 387 7:23 341, 361, 362 7:23–25 334, 388, 388n

7:24 341 7:25 339, 341, 342, 362, 362, 467 8 397 8:1–2 339, 467 8:1–17 101n, 102, 466 8:1–39 466 8:3 103 8:4 349 8:4–6 334, 387 8:5–6 102, 339, 349, 397, 468 8:5–8 349, 391 8:9 101n 8:9–10 374 8:10 101n 8:10–11 334, 387 8:12–13 349 8:12–17 468 8:13 349, 387, 391 8:15 85 8:18–23 399 8:18–39 466 8:22 362n 8:23 336, 389 8:27 334, 387 8:28 363n 8:30–34 512 9–10 503 9–11 466, 468, 469, 470, 516 9:1 468 9:1–3 468 9:1–11:36 469, 470 9:4–5 468 9:5 468 9:14–33 468 9:19–21 468n 9:23–24 360n 10:1–17 468 10:3–4 479 10:4 483 10:5–8 170 10:9 61 10:12 534n 10:12–13 535 10:14 519 10:18–21 468 11:1–24 468, 468n 11:11–12 503 11:17–24 468n 11:33–36 468 12:1–15:13 460, 468, 469, 470 12:1–2 468, 469 12:2 80, 134, 334, 335, 348, 388, 388n, 391

Index of Sources 12:3–15:13 466, 469 12:4 314 12:7 325 12:9 93 12:14 319 13:7 314 13:11 362n 13:12–14 138 14:1–15:3 462 14:1–15:13 462n 14:7–15 397n 14:10 376n, 399, 403n, 407, 409, 410, 413 14:10–12 399n, 408, 409 14:10–13 407n 14:12 408, 409 14:13 408 14:14 314, 319 14:20 311 15:14–16 468 15:14–16:23 459n 15:14–16:27 442, 464 15:15 323, 468 15:19 5 16 545, 546 16:1–2 544, 545 16:7 544, 545, 546 16:22 307 16:25 5, 442 1 Corinthians 1:16 324 1:20 80 1:22–24 534n 2:6 348, 391 2:9 269 2:11 334, 343, 343n, 388 2:12 334, 388 2:14 334, 388 2:16 334, 343, 388, 388n 3:2 61, 399n 3:12–15 399n 3:17 277 3:18 80 4:4–5 398n, 513 4:5 399n 4:7 310 4:12–13 314 4:16 323 4:17 323, 325 5 311 5:1 325

565

5:1–8 405, 406 5:1–13 405n 5:1–6:11 404, 405, 406 5:3 325, 334, 387, 387n, 405, 405n 5:3–5 406 5:5 334, 387 5:6 179 5:9–13 406 5:12 405n 5:13 405n, 407n 6:1–11 406, 413 6:2 324, 399, 406, 407n 6:2–3 399n 6:3 406 6:9–10 399n 6:9–14 513 6:11 512 6:14 399n 6:15 324 6:16–17 101n 6:17 343 7 540, 543, 549 7–12 311 7:1–16 540 7:9 310 7:10 317 7:10–11 314 7:10–12 311 7:17–20 540 7:18 535n 7:21 549 7:21–24 534, 539, 542 7:22 549 7:25–28 540 7:29–31 540 7:32–40 540 7:34 334, 387, 387n 8 311 8:4 362n 8:6 61, 62 8:8 407n 9:1 479, 481 9:4–18 311 9:14 292, 314, 317 9:16–17 479 10:3 89n 10:17 535 10:32 526n, 534n 11:1 323 11:2 323, 325 11:4–16 544 11:9–10 544

566

Index of Sources

11:11–12 544 11:14 325 11:16 526 11:23 314, 325 11:23–25 311, 314, 317, 319 11:24 232 11:25 323 12:13 387, 532, 533, 534n, 538, 543, 546 12:28 526n 13 443n 13:2 319 13:12 399n 14 311 14:14–15 334, 388 14:14–19 334, 334n, 388 14:32–35 544 14:37 317 15 310, 320, 357n 15:1–9 479 15:3–7 168 15:3–8 309, 310, 319, 320 15:5 167 15:5–7 167 15:8 481 15:9 176, 482, 526n 15:11 186 15:20–28 399 15:23–26 80 15:24–28 409 15:31 396 15:35–44 364 15:40 364 15:42–44 366n 15:44 364 15:50–55 399 15:50–57 353, 357, 377 15:51–52 80 15:51–53 363n 15:53–54 376 15:58 362n 2 Corinthians 1:1–2:13 359n, 400n 1:7 362n 1:12–2:17 322 2:12 5 2:14–7:4 359, 359n, 400, 400n 3:1–6 312 3:2–3 312 3:4–4:6 479 4 400

4:1–15 400 4:1–6:10 359 4:4 5, 80, 484 4:6 137 4:7 360, 360n 4:7–11 354 4:7–15 359 4:7–8:2 357n 4:10 360, 364 4:10–11 396 4:11 360 4:14 362n, 375, 377, 399n 4:16 354, 358, 359, 360, 362, 378, 401 4:16–18 359 4:16–5:10 353–380 4:18 354, 359, 378, 401 5 400 5:1 354, 360, 362–369, 374, 377, 378, 379, 401 5:1–4 335, 335n, 336, 389, 389n, 390 5:1–5 359 5:1–8 399n, 5:1–10 335, 365, 389 5:2 359, 365n, 367, 377, 378 5:3 369–373, 378, 379 5:3–4 354, 401 5:4 359, 360, 364, 365, 377, 379 5:6 336, 359, 364, 374, 378, 390 5:6–8 335, 364, 389 5:6–9 336, 390 5:6–10 359, 374–376, 401 5:8 336, 364, 368, 373, 377, 378, 390 5:9 374, 378 5:10 354, 358, 359, 364, 376, 378, 398–413 5:11 362n 5:14 396 5:17 331, 348, 353, 391 6:1 405n 6:1–11 405n 6:2 405n 6:3 405n 6:6 405n 6:14–7:1 359, 359n, 400, 400n 7:1 101, 103, 334, 387 7:5–16 359n, 400n 7:15 323 8 359n, 400n 9 359n, 400n 10:1–13:10 359n, 400n

Index of Sources 11:15 399n 11:23–33 463 12:1–9 479 12:2–3 336, 387n, 390 12:4 242 13:11–13 359n, 400n Galatians 1–2 309 1:4 80, 134, 348, 391 1:6 9n 1:6–9 442 1:7 5, 9n 1:9 325 1:11–17 479, 481 1:11–2:21 322 1:12 325 1:13 176, 482, 526n 1:13–14 484 1:14 325 1:15–16 481 1:18 320 1:19 320 1:23 482 2 485 2:1 442 2:1–10 538 2:6 518 2:10 323 2:16 362n, 491, 519 2:19 396, 397n, 487 2:19–20 396 2:20 349, 391 3:21 396 3:2 5, 491 3:2–3 101n, 334, 387 3:5 491 3:6 511 3:10 491 3:10–12 488 3:13 484 3:20 491 3:22 518 3:24 349, 391 3:26–28 532 3:27 533 3:28 486, 524–549 4 320 4:4–5 319, 320 4:6 5, 85 4:8 5 4:13 102

4:29 334, 387 5:4–5 512 5:5 5 5:6 310, 535n 5:13–6:10 333, 342, 387 5:16 341, 342, 348, 349, 391 5:16–17 101, 141, 331, 341, 342, 343n, 351 5:16–18 334, 387, 391 5:16–26 101, 101n, 342 5:17 342 5:21 5 5:24 343n, 396, 397 5:25 391 6:8 101n 6:11 307 6:14 349, 391, 396, 397 6:15 310, 534, 535, 535n Ephesians 1:16 323 2:5–6 395n 2:11 323, 535n 3:1–13 479 3:2 66 4:4 334, 387 4:7–10 170 4:8 323 4:21 325 4:22–23 331 4:23 335, 388 5:1 323 5:8 122, 137 5:22–6:4 544 6:5–9 539, 543 6:8 362n, 399n 6:9 362n 6:16 93 Philippians 1:3 323 1:6 362n, 399n 1:10–11 399n 1:21 336, 390 1:21–26 336, 390 1:22 336, 390 1:23 368, 373 1:24 336, 390 1:27 5 1:29 519 2:5–11 170 2:6–11 319, 320

567

568 2:11 61 2:16 399n 3:2–11 481 3:3 101n 3:4–16 322 3:5 484 3:5–14 479 3:6 482, 488, 526n 3:9 518 3:10–11 399n 3:17 323 3:18–21 399n 3:20–21 353, 357 3:21 363n, 377 3:24 362n 4:1 362n 4:9 325 Colossians 1:12–13 137 1:22 399n 1:25–27 479 1:28 325 2:5 101n, 103, 334, 387 2:6 310, 325 2:7 325 2:8 325 2:11–12 535 2:11–14 535 2:12–13 395n 2:18 334, 387 2:20 395n 3:1–3 395n 3:11 534n, 536, 546 3:16 325 3–4 317 3:5–11 331 3:9–11 533, 543, 546 3:11 538 3:18–4:1 544 3:22–24 539, 543 4:1 543 4:15 544 4:16 322 4:17 325 1 Thessalonians 1:1 526 1:2 323 1:2–3:13 322 1:3 323 1:4 324

Index of Sources 1:6 323 1:10 399n 2:9 323 2:13 325 2:14 323, 526 3:2 5 3:4 324 3:6 323 4:1 323, 325 4:2 324 4:3 323 4:4 360n 4–5 317 4:1–8 310 4:3–5:11 314 4:13–18 80, 353, 357, 377, 399 4:14 373 4:15 363n 4:15–16 317 4:15–17 325–327 5:2 319 5:2–5 399n 5:3 92n 5:4 319 5:4–5 138 5:5 122, 136n 5:8 138 5:9 399n 5:13 319 5:23 334, 362, 387, 512 5:27 322 2 Thessalonians 1:4 526 1:5–10 399n 1:7–10 398n 2:1–12 80, 399 2:5 323, 325 2:15 325 3:6 325 3:7 323 3:9 323 1 Timothy 1:13 482 1:15 285 2:11–15 544 2:12 325 3:16 101n, 170, 188n 4:7–10 443n 4:11 325 5:18 292, 293

Index of Sources 6:1–2 539 6:2 325, 543 2 Timothy 1:3 323 1:4 323 1:5 323 1:6 323 1:8 362 2:2 325 2:8 323 2:9 376n, 403n 2:12 288 2:14 323 4:1 398n 4:14 399nh Titus 1:11 325 2:1–10 544 2:9–10 539, 543 3:1 323 Philemon 12 540 15 541 15–16 541 Hebrews 1:1 113 9:27 376, 402, 403 James 1:25 271n 2:26 339 1 Peter 1:13–14 364 2:9 137

2:24 395n 4:5 398n 4:14 290 4:16 526n 2 Peter 1:13–14 335n, 389n 3:11–12 349n 1 John 1:7 135 2:1 143, 143n 2:13 93, 135 2:14 93, 135 3:12 93 4:4 146 4:6 143 4:7 135 5:18 135 5:18–19 93 5:19 135, 136 Revelation 1:1 76–77 2:7 280 3:5 294 3:10 92 6:9–11 371 7:14 91n, 92 13:5 288 14:6 9n 17:14 398n 19:11–21 398n 20:1–3 159 20:1–10 159, 160 20:4 407n 20:4–6 371 20:7–10 159 20:11–15 371, 375, 398n, 402n 20:11–17 412 21:11 349n

Early Christian Literature Acts of Paul

Apostolic Constitutions

11 124

5.1.6 105

Apocalypse of Paul 22

241, 241n

569

570

Index of Sources

Augustine

Clement of Alexandria

Contra academicos 1.4 456

Stromata 1.131 245n 2.18.91 71 2.21 338, 386n 3 124 3.12 127n 3.48.1 124 4.25 365n 4:26 365n 4.7 104 5.14 365n

De civitate dei 4.3 539n 19.1–2–3 210 Confessions 3.4.7–5.9 453 Barnabas, Letter of 2:5 285 2:10 93 4:14 298 5:7 398n 5:9 285 6:4–5 535n 7:2 398n 15:5 398n 18–20 141 18:1–2 141 18:2 135n 19:4 295 1 Clement 2:1 301 8:5 302 13:1–2 71 13:2 278, 278n, 279, 287, 288, 289, 291, 296, 298, 302 13:2–3 270, 302 46:8 288 59:2 137 2 Clement 1:1 398n 2:4 285 3:2 11n, 288, 294 4:2 11n 4:5 11n 5:2–4 11n 5:4 294 6:1 11n, 295 6:2 11n, 287 8:5 10, 11, 12, 13, 40, 300 9:11 11n, 272, 286 12:2 11n, 261n

Cyprian Adversus Ioudaeos (Pseudo-Cyprian) 10.79–82 440 Treatises 4.26 105 Didache 1–6 141 1:2 280, 291 1:3 290, 314 1:4 291 1:5 294, 301 3:7 295 5:2 93 8:2 9, 10, 11, 39, 40, 59, 60, 60n, 62, 68, 69, 83, 103 8:3 59n 9:5 296, 297 11:3 9, 10, 11, 39, 40 13:2 292 15:3 9, 10, 11, 39, 40 15:3–4 10, 11 15:4 9, 10, 11, 39, 40 16 201, 204 16:1 299 16:5 290 Diognesus, Epistle to 6:8 335n, 365n, 389n 7:6 398n Ebionites, Gospel of the 5

272, 286

Egyptians, Gospel of the 7 261n

Index of Sources Epistula apostolorum

Ignatius of Antioch

11 302 25 302 32.2 302 47.4 291

Ephesians 8:2 103 10:3 135n 13:1 135n

Eusebius

Magnesians 1:2 135n 13:1 103

Historia ecclesiastica 2.23.4–5 419n 3.26 127 3.26.3 125n, 127n 3.39.1 21 3.39.4 240 3.39.7 240 3.39.8–9 240 3.39.11 240 3.39.15–16 20 4.11.8 458 4.26.7 458 5.17.5 458 7.16 365n Praeparatio evangelica 7.21.336b–337a 455 8.14.386a–400a 455 Vita Constantini 4.60 365n Hebrews, Gospel of the 4 293 7 261

Hermas (Shepherd of) Similitudes 9.20.2 289 9.20.3 289 Mandates 3.4 143

Hippolytus Against Beron and Helix Frag. 2 105 Fragmenta 126n Refutatio omnium haeresium 10.19 129n

Philadelphians 3:1 298 5:1 9, 39 5:2 9, 39 6:2 135n 7:1 301 8:2 9, 10, 39, 40 9:2 9, 13, 39, 41 Polycarp 1:1 103 4:3 543 5:1 103 Romans Inscr. 103 5:3 135n 7:1 135n 7:2 395n Smyrnaeans 1:1 103 1:1–2 11, 40 3:2–3 11, 40 5:1 9, 11, 39, 40 6:1 298 7:2 10, 11, 13, 39, 40, 41 9:1 135n Trallians Inscr. 103 4:2 135n 8:1 135n 11:1 298 12:1 103

Irenaeus Adversus haereses 1.20.2 11 1.23.5 125n, 127n 1.26.19 19 1.31.1 19 2.22.3 13 2.24–25 23

571

572 2.26.2 11 3.1.1 12, 22, 23 3.5.1 12 3.11.7 13, 19 3.11.8 13, 19, 21, 22 3.11.9 13, 19 3.12.12 12, 19 3.14.1 12 3.23.3 11 4.34.1 13 5.9.2 194 5.22.1 11 5.33.3 241, 241n 5.33.3–4 241n 5.33.4 241

Jerome Tract. on Ps. cxxxv 88n

Justin Martyr 1 Apology 14.5 256 15.8 285 15.16 294 26.4 125n, 126n 66.3 4 67 45 Dialogus cum Tryphone 1 458 1–9 455 2–8 457n 2.1 451 3.1–6.2 451 3.3 451 7.1–9.3 451 8.1 455 8.2 451 14.1 440 14:4 535n 19.2 440 29>1 440 38.1 170 46.1 440 78.5–6 21n 80 127n 81.4 126n 88.2 21n 88.8 21n 103.6 21n 103.8 21, 34

Index of Sources 118.1 398n 132.1 398n 142.1 451

Ps.-Justin De resurrection 3 126n 7 285 Martyrdom of Polycarp 4:1 10, 40 4:3 11, 40 12:2 526n

Methodius De resurrectione 1.53

Minucius Felix Octavius 5–13 455 40.1–2 457n Nazarenes, Gospel of the 2 261n 16 261n, 289

Origen Contra Celsum 4.52 455 5.61–62 459 Commentarium in evangelium Matthaei 10.2 105 De principiis 3.4 334 Peter, Gospel of 5:19 170 26 166

Polycarp Philippians 1:3 362n 2:1 398n 2:3 71, 271, 278, 279, 287, 289, 290, 291, 296, 298, 302 4:1 362n

Index of Sources 5:1 362n 6:1 362n 6:2 70, 289, 298, 376, 398, 408, 409 7:2 103, 104, 290, 340n 12 290 12:3 290 17:1 93 Sibylline Oracles 4.40–48 375n, 402n 4.179–192 375n, 402n

Tatian Oratio ad Graecos 15.3 365n 29.1–2 457n

Tertullian Ad martyras 4 104 Ad uxorem 5.4 104 Adversus Marcionem 1.29.1 128n 2.4.4 128n 3.8.7 129n 3.9.4 126n, 127n, 129n 4.38.5 117n 4.38.8 128 4.39.11 126n 5.9.1–6 128 5.10.4 126n 5.11 129n 5.15.7–8 129n Adversus omnes haereses 1 125n 6.1 128n 6.6 128n De anima 50.1 125n Contra Marcionem 5.14.14 407n De baptismo 18.2–3 128n 20 105 De carne Christi 9 105

573

De fuga in persecutione 8 104 De patientia 13 105 Thomas, Gospel of 1 271n, 272n 2 193n, 293 3 188, 272 3 202n 4 274, 276, 280, 281, 281n, 289 5 190, 287 6 280, 287, 291 7 193n 11 193n 11:1–2a 202n 12 189 13 193n, 256 14 188, 194, 273, 287, 547n 15 193n 17 193n, 269 18 193n, 271n 19 271n, 273 21 189, 262n 22 11n, 193n, 289 23 193n 24 136, 193n 25 202n, 301 26 291 27 189, 193n, 273 28 193n 29 188, 193n, 273 31 194, 266, 287, 301 32 296 33 293 34 273, 291 35 286 36 275, 284, 294 37 193n, 202n 38 193n 38:2 202 40 298 41 272n, 287 42 193n, 202n, 301 43 193n 44 272n 45 188, 291, 292 47 194, 202n, 286, 295, 298, 301 48 273 49 193n, 271n

574

Index of Sources

50 193n, 273 51 193n 52 193n 53 118n, 193n 54 271n, 272 55 272n, 287 56 189, 193n, 272n 58 193n, 202n, 271n 59 193n 60 193n 61 547 64 119n, 271 67 193n, 272n 68 272, 290 68–69 271n, 272 69 272, 290 70 273 71 193n 72 261n 73 292 74 193n 75 193n 76 294 77 193n 77b 202n 78 292 79 123n, 261n, 271n 79:3 202 80 189, 193n, 272n 81 193n 82 193n, 266, 272n

84 193n 85 193n 86 292 87 193n, 194 88 193n 89 189 90 297 91 291 92 293 93 296, 297 94 272n, 293 95 193n, 273 97 193n, 202n, 262n 98 193n, 202n, 262n 99 261n, 272, 286, 287 100 261n, 289, 290 101 272n 102 193n 103 271n 104 261n, 286 105 193n, 272n 106 193n 108 193n, 272n 110 193n, 202n, 272n 111 189, 193n, 272n 111 202n 112 193n 112 193n 113 261n 114 547

Nag Hammadi Library The Book of Thomas the Contender

Dialogue of the Savior

145.8–9 105

1.5 291 8 293 9–10 293 20 293 30 202n 49–52 202n 53 273, 291, 292, 296 56–57 202n

The (First) Apocalypse of James 3.5 271n 6.8 262n 6.11 262n 8.2 262n 8:3 271n 32.19–20 105

Tripartite Tractate 132.23–28 54

Index of Sources

575

Early Jewish Literature ‘Abot de‑Rabbi Natan

4 Baruch (or, Paralipomena Ieremiae)

12 371

6:6 365, 365n 6:6–7 335, 389n 6:7 365n

Apocalypse of Sedrach 9:2

335n, 389n

Aristeas, Letter of 121–171 461 128–133 461n 134–138 461n 139–152 461n 144 461n 153–171 461n 171 461n 181–294 455 187–294 461n Ascension of Isaiah 1:3 135n 2:4 135n 8:14–15 371 8:26 371 9:7 371 9:9 369n, 371 9:17 369n 9:24–26 371 10:1–31 369n 10:29 135n 2 Baruch 21:23 373 27:1–15 91n 29.5 241, 241n 29:1–8 89 29:8 89 30:1–2 373 30:2 280n 32:6 349n 44:12 349n 49–51 375n, 402n 49:3 349n 51:10 122 57:2 349n 3 Baruch 4:1–7

376n, 402n

1 Enoch 1–36 77 10.19 241, 241n 15:6 122 37–71 77, 371, 398n, 411, 411n, 413 38:1–6 375n, 402n 38:2 411 39:4–7 272 41:2 272 41:8 137 45:3 412 46:4–8 412 47:3 412 51:3–5 412n 60:2–8 412n 61:8 411 61:12 272 62:2 411 62:2–16 375n, 402n, 411 62:3–14 89 62:5–6 412 70:2–4 372 72–82 77 72:1 349n 83–90 77 90:20–27 375n, 402n 91:16 349n 92–105 77 95:3 407n 96:1 407n 98:12 407n 102:5 333, 382n 103:2–4 333, 382n 104:3 333, 382n 4 Ezra 4:35 372 4:35–36 371 4:41 372 5:42 280 5:56 412 5:56–6:1 412 5:56–6:6 412

576 7:25–30 412 7:26–44 372 7:28–29 372 7:30 373 7:30–44 375n, 402n 7:32 372 7:32–33 373 7:33–34 412 7:75–90 376n, 402n 7:75–115 372 7:78 372 7:79–87 372 7:80 370 7:85 372 7:88–89 372 7:95 372 7:100–101 372 8:38 376n, 402n 9:12 376n, 402n 12:31–34 412 13:29–38 412 14:35 376n, 402n 5 Ezra 1:19 89n Joseph and Aseneth 8:9 137 15:12 137n Jubilees 22:16 536 23:11–21 91n 23:30–32 333n, 382n

1 Maccabees

Index of Sources

Mishnah ‘Abodah Zarah 1.3 310 Abot 6.6 276n Hagigah 2.5 438 Kelim 1.8

422, 435, 438

Middot 2.3 435n Nazir 1.3–6 419n 2.5–6 420 2.7–20 420 3.1 419n 3.3–6 419n 3.6 420, 430 5.4 418 6.3 419n 6.5 419n 6.6 417 7.2 419, 419n, 422 7.2–3 432 7.2–4 422n 7.3 417, 419, 422, 423 7.4 422 8.1 419n 9.1 418n Ohalot 18.6 430 Parah 11.5 438

13:2 428

Sheqalim 8.2 441

2 Maccabees

Sotah 9.15 122

2:13 14n, 35n 3:17 98 6:5 438 7:1 438

4 Maccabees 7:18 102 7:19 333n, 382n 13:13 98 13:17 333n, 382n 16:25 333n, 382n

Tamid 1.1–2 424n 3.7 424n Tehorot 5.8 439n 7.6 438 Temurah 7.4 417n Tevel Yom 429

Index of Sources Yoma 3.3 438 Paralipomena Ieremiae (see 4 Baruch) Sepher ha-Razim 7.1–3 371

Testament of Gad 5:7 137 Testament of Job 39–40 170 Testament of Judah

Siphre Deuteronomy

20:1–5 141

33.16 419n 34.8 419n

Testament of Levi

Sirach 1:1 113 1:30 295 3:3 272 3:4 272 3:5 272 3:6 272 3:16 272 3:26 272 3:31 272 4:12 272 4:13 272 4:15 272 11:3 276 19:24 276 20:2 276 20:18 276 20:25 276 20:31 276 25:16 276 28:2 60n, 63, 70 30:14 276 30:14–17 276 30:16 98 32:1–2 295 41:15 276 42:14 276 47:8–19 98 Testament of Abraham (Recension A) 11–12 411 12–14 376n, 402n, 411 13:1–8 411 13–14 411 Testament of Asher 6:5–6

333, 382n

19:1 138 Testament of Solomon 2:9 135n 3:5–6 135n 6:1 135n

Talmud Bavli Nedarim 34a 439n 60b 418n Sanhedrin 98b 92 Shabbat 127b 439n 152b 371 Sotah 49b 122n Yoma 75b 89n

Targum on Jeremia 3:8 117n 8:4 117n 11:20 117n 16:17 117n

Testament of Moses 8:1 91n

Tosephta Kipurim 3.20 439n Zavim 2.1 439n

577

578

Index of Sources

Wisdom of Solomon 1:1–6:11 454 3:7–8 407n 4:1 276n 6:12–16 454 6:16–20 454 6:17–20 454 6:21–10:21 454 8:17–20 98 8:19–20 333n, 382n 9:15 333n, 335, 365, 365n, 389n 10–19 455n 11–19 454

11:1–14 454, 454n 11:15–15:19 454 12–14 460n, 464 12–15 454n 16:1–4 454n 16:1–19:22 454 16:5–14 454n 16:15–29 454n 16:20 89n 17:1–18:4 454n 18:5–25 454n 19:1–9 454n 19:13–17 454n

Dead Sea Scrolls 1Q28a ii.11–22 89 1QM 1.1 136 1.3 122n, 136 1.9 122n, 136 1.11 122n, 136 1.13 122n, 136 9:15 382n 13.9–12 346 13.10 144 14.9 146 17.6–8 144 18.1 146 4QM1 = 4Q491 8–10 I 6–7 146 4QMMT C26–27 492 1Q177a 1 8

146

1QpHabakkuk 5.4 407n 11.13 535n 1QS 1–4 138 1.9 122n, 136 1.18 146 1.23–24 146

2.16 122n, 136 2.19 146 3–4 145 3.9 139 3.10 139 3.13 122n, 136, 147 3.13–4.10 139 3.13–4.26 132, 132n, 136n, 138, 139, 140, 141, 145, 346 3.14 136 3.15 140, 147 3:16 147 3.17–20 146 3.17–22 140 3.18–19 147 3.20 140n 3.24 144, 147 3.24–25 122n 3.25 136, 140, 147 4.2 139 4.2–11 346 4.3 139 4.4–10 139 4.7 147 4.15 139 4.15–26 140 4.16 139 4.18–19 346 4.21 147 4.23 147 4.23–24 140 4.23–26 346 4.26 139, 147 5.1 139

579

Index of Sources 5.5 535n 6.2–8 89 7–8 139 4Q181 139 4Q186 1 ii 7–8

140

4QSa = 4Q255 1QSb = 4Q256 4QSc = 4Q257 4QSd = 4Q258 4QSe = 4Q259 4QSf = 4Q260 4QSg = 4Q261 4QSh = 4Q262

138, 138n 138, 138n, 139 138n, 139 138, 138n, 139 138, 138n, 139 138n 138n 138n

4QSi = 4Q263 138n 4QSj = 4Q264 138n 4Q390 2 I 4

146

5Q11 138n 5Q13 138n 11QTemplea 49.11–14 429 49.16b–21a 418 Damascus Document (CD) 5.18 141

Josephus Antiquitates Judaicae 1.1–26 110 3.274 406n 15.417 435n 17.213–218 163n 18.4–10 162 18.11 457 19.294 420 20.105–112 163n 20.97–98 162 Contra Apionem 1.12 227 1.13 227 1.37–43 227 1.176–182 457 2.14 227 2.102–103 435n 2.105 424

De bello Judaico 1.648 256n 1.650 438 2.117–118 162 2.119 457 2.129–31 89 2.131 438 2.154 333n, 382n 2.163 333, 382n 2.164 333 2.313 420 2.433 256n 3.362–388 333, 382n 3.372 333 4.99 438 4.205 438 5.193–194 435 7.344–348 333, 382n Vita 26 428

Philo of Alexandria De Abrahamo 70 137n De confusion linguarum 78 372

De congresso 97 361 133 460n, 465

580

Index of Sources

De decalogo 52–81

460n, 465

Quod deterius potiori insidiari solestet 10 361

De giganticus 29–31

337, 385

Quod omnis probus liber sit 79 542 De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 1.5 122

Heres 265 388 267 335n, 389n 274 372

De somniis 1.122 335n, 389n 1.252–254 420 1.256 372

De Ioseph 127–128 394n Legatio ad Gaium 2.57 370n 2.59 370n Liber antiquitatum biblicarum (Ps.-Philo) 3.10 349n 19.12 372n 32.13 373 De opificio mundi 69 347

De specialibus legibus 1.13–35 460n, 465 1.247–254 420 2.18.79–85 541n 3.14 406n 3.20–21 406n 3.205–206 418 De virtutibus 76 370n De vita contemplativa 3 ff. 460n, 465

De plantation 42 361 Quaestiones in Exodum 1.8 547 Quaestiones in Genesim 1.28 335n, 365n, 389n

De vita Mosis 1.1.4 239 2.215–216 457 2.288 372

Greek and Latin Sources Achilles Tatius

Ammianus Marcellinus

1.3 406n 1.46 335n 2.36.3 335n, 389n 15.62 335n

25.4.2 251n

Aelian De natura animalium 11.39 370nj

Aeschines Orationes 3.150 238

Aphthonius Progymnasmata 3.21 256n

Apollodorus 1.9.16–28 250n 2.1.1–4.8 250n 2.4.8–8.5 250n 3.1.1 375n, 402n 3.16.1–24 250n

Index of Sources

Apuleius

Arrian

Metamorphoses 10.4–5 232 11.23 243

Dissertationum Epictetearum 1.13.3–4 541 1.19.8–9 1.28.6–8 341 2.1.17 337, 384n, 385 2.1.19 337, 385 2.26.1 341 2.26.4–5 446 2.26.6 446 3.7.4 337, 385 3.7.9 337, 384 3.21.19 446 3.22 214 3:23.30 463 3.23.33–35 445

Aristotle De anima 408b 383 430a 383 Nicomachean Ethics 7 99 18 115 Politica 1245b (1.2.12) 1252a–1255b (1.1.1–2.23) 1253b (1.2.3) 1330a (7.9) Protrepticus (ed. I. Düring) B 1–5 449 B 11–21 449 B 22–30 449 B 23 383 B 31 449 B 32–37 449 B 34 383, 467 B38 467 B 38–44 449 B 43 394, 467 B 46–57 450 B 59 383 B 59–62 450 B 60 338, 386 B 61 383 B 63–66 450 B 66–69 450 B 70–77 450 B 78–92 450 B 93–102 450 B 105–107 450 B 107 383 B 108–110 450 B 110 450 Rhetorica 1358b 444 1367a 72 1368a 465n 1394b 260 Sophistical Refutations 183b–184a 244

547 539 538 542n

Athenaeus Deipnsophistae 4.156c–159d 209 12.510 251n 13.566a–571n 209

Chariton Chaereas and Callirhoe 3.3 170

Cicero De inventione 1.9 244 Orator 2.350–360 244 Pro Cluentio 14–15 406n De senectute 14 251n Tusculan disputations 1.11–24 335n, 389n 1.24 370 1.30.74 393 1.36–38 370n 1.40 370 1.42 370 1.75 370 1.79 333, 384 Corpus Hermeticum 1.26 369n, 370n 13.6 369n

581

582 13.12 13.15

Index of Sources 335, 365n, 389n 335, 365n, 389n

Fragmenta (ed. Nock and Festugière) IIa 1 365n V.4 365n XXIII.34 365n

Cynic Epistles Ps.-Crates Ep. 34

539n

Ps.-Diogenes Ep. 39

393

Ps.-Heraclitus Ep. 5 Ep. 9

384n 338, 386

Ps.-Socrates Ep. 14.8

393

Ps.-Demetrius, Epistolary Types 11 444

Democritus (Diels and Kranz) B.34 391n B.37 335n, 389n B.187 335n, 365, 389n B223 335n, 389n

Demosthenes Orationes 9.1 113 20.11 238 20.73 238 21.143–144 238

Dio Chrysostom Orationes 6.21–34 471 13.12–13 463 20.9–10 253 34 215 36.9 229 72.11 251

Diodorus Siculus 1.27.6 244 1.71.3 340 1.98.2 244

5.79.1–2 375n, 402n 10.5.1 246 10.8.3 245

Diogenes Laertius 1.19 211 1.19–20 213 1.20 210 2.14 245 2.85 452 2.93 111 2.113–114 452 2.125 452 4.16 452 4.40 251 4:49 276n 5.22 452n 5.49 453 5.81 453 6.1–3 213 6.15 213n 6.16 453 6.19 213n 6.38 213 6.69 213 6.71 211, 213 6.99 216n 6.103–105 210 6.104 209, 211 7.2 211 7.83 453 7.87–89 525n 7.91 453 7.129 453 7.14–149 525n 7.163 453 7.175 453 8.6 245 8.8 245n 8.23 246 10.28 453 10.122–125 448

Pseudo-Dionysius On Epideictic Speeches 7.283–292 445

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Antiquitates Romanae 1.4.3 111

583

Index of Sources

Empedocles (Diels and Kranz) B 117 B 126

371n 369n

Epictetus (see Arrian, Dissertationum Epictetearum)

Epicurus Letter to Herodotus 63–66 360n Letter to Menoecius 124–127 384n 126 394

Euripides Bacchae 471–472 Iphigenia Aulidensis 1400 541n Medea 1077–80

340, 341

Aphorisms 7 366 De corde 7

335n, 389n

Herodotus 1.8.2 239 1.51.5 232 1.95 237 1.96–130 237 2.123.1 237 2.182.2 237 3.9.2 237 3.34.2 237 3.55.2 237 4.13.1 237 4.76.6 237 4.176 237 4.181 230 4.195.2 237 6.61.4 237 6.137 237 7.152.3 237 9.16.1 237

Gaius

Horace

Institutiones 1.9 539n 1.63 406n

Epistulae 1.18.12–14 245

Galen De pulsibus 2.4 459

Heliodorus Ethiopica 8.7 232 Hellenica Oxyrhynchia 6.1 238

Heraclitus Frag. 15 (Kahn) 239n

Hippocratic Corpus (Ps.-Hippocrates) De anatome 1

335, 389n

Iamblichus De mysteriis 3.11 242 Protrepticus (ed. Pistelli) 1 394 6 450 7–8 450 9 394–395 9–12 450 21 454 21–22 470 De vita Pythagorica 30 452 164–166 246 31.210 406n

Isadore of Seville De natura rerum 3.1 344n

584 Isocrates Ad Demonicum (Pseudo-Isocrates) 3–5 444 Panathenaicus 39–40 465n Against the Sophists 12–13 244

Julian Orationes 6.181d 213 6.182c 211 6.182c–d 211 6.186b–c 213 6.187c 212 6.187d–188a 211 6.189b 213 6.192a 209 6.193d 209 6.201a 213

Justinian Institutiones 1.3 539n 1.10.7 406n

Juvenal Satires 15.16 253

Longinus De sublimitate 32.5 335n, 389n

Lucian Amores 8 230 15–16 232 Calumniae 5 233 Dialogues of the dead 10.13 375n, 402n 20 (10) 370n Hermotimus 7 370n 75 447, 447n

Index of Sources Icaromenippus 4–5 457 Necyomantia 4–6 457 Nigrinus 4 447, 467 14–15 450 15–34 450 35–38 450

Peregrinus 11 458 11–12 458 Quomodo historia conscribenda sit 2 111 16 111 25 239 47 239 De Syria dea 1 224b 2 224b 4 224n 6 224n 7 224n 8 224n 11 224n 12 224n, 252 13 224n 15 224n 16 224n 17 224n 27 224n 34 224n Tragopodagra 66–68 99 Verae historiae 1.4 111n 2.12 370n 31 233

Lucretius De rerum natura 1.455–458 539 3.425–444 360n 3.555 360n 3.838–839 384n

Index of Sources

Marcus Aurelius Meditations 1.7 452 2.2 337, 385 3.16 337, 385 9.21 394n 12.3 337, 385

Maximus of Tyre 7.5a–e 370n

Menander Rhetor 2.392.28–31 252 2.393 445

Pausanias 1.9.5–10.5 236 1.11.1–13.9 236 1.13.8 233n 1.14.1 236 1.14.7 236 1.16.1–3 236 1.17.2–6 236 1.17.4 235 1.18.5 235 1.19.2 229n 1.19.3 235n 1.20.3 235n 1.21.1 235n 1.23.5 234 1.23.8 235n 1.26.4 233 1.26.5 235n 1.26.6 235n 1.27.7 235n 1.27.10 235n 1.28.3 233 1.28.5 235n 1.29.4 235n 1.31.5 229n 1.34.2 235n 1.34.4 233n, 234 1.35.4 235 1.35.5 234 1.35.8 233n 1.37.2 235n 1.41.2 233n 1.41.4 233n 1.42.5 234 1.43.3 236

2.5.1 235 2.5.4 235 2.5.5 235 2.9.7 229n, 233n 2.11.5 235 2.16.3 235 2.18.3 235 2.23.6 233n, 234 2.31.4 233n, 234 2.33.6 233n 2.37.6 234 3.17.7 234 4.2.2 235 4.9.4–10 236 4.20.1–4 236 4.31.4 236 4.32.5 235 4.32.5–6 236 5.2.3 236 5.5.5 236 5.5.9 234 5.6.6 233n 5.10.7 233n 5.13.7 235 5.15.7 234 5.15.10 233n 5.15.11 241 5.18.6 233n 5.20.4 233n, 234 5.21.8 233n 5.21.9 233n 5.23.6 233n 6.4.8 235 6.6.4 235 6.7.6 233 6.9.6–8 236 6.11.4–8 236 6.18.2 233 6.19.5 233 6.20.8 234 6.20.16–19 235 7.5.10–12 236 7.6.5 233n 7.18.2 235 7.19.7–12 236 7.21.1–5 236 7.23.1 235 7.26.13 227 8.1.4–5.13 236 8.2.6–7 236 8.2.7 235 8.4.10 235 8.6.1 236

585

586

Index of Sources

8.6.5 242 8.9.1 235 8.22.7–9 236 8.23.6–7 236 8.24.7–10 236 8.26.6 250 8.29.1 250 8.36.6 236 8.37.12 236 8.42.1–2 236, 250 8.49.1–52.6 236 8.53.5 235 9.3.3 233n 9.8.2 236 9.16.7 235 9.19.5 236 9.20.4 236 9.28.2 234 9.30.9 234, 235 9.30.9–12 236 9.31.6 235 10.4.6 234 10.32.8 234

Philostratus Vita Apollonii 1.13 251n

Ps.-Phocylides 105–108 333n, 382n 142 276n 179 406n

Plato Alcibiades 1.129c–e 338n, 382 1.330c 360 Axiochus (Ps.-Plato) 365e 384n 366a 335n, 365n, 389n, 395 366c 393 370e 393 Cratylus 403b

336n, 370n, 390n

Crito 49b–c 73 49c 73, 74

Epistulae 7.340b–c 447 Euthydemus 276d 245 278e–282d 452 282d 452 288b–307c 452 307c 449 Gorgias 482c 393 523a–524a 336n, 389n 523d–e 370n 524b 384n 524d 370n 526a–e 375n, 402n Leges 731c 340 860d 340 870d 375n, 402n Phaedo 61b–c 392 61c–69c 392 64a 392 64a–69e 394 64b 392 64c 338n, 382 65b–c 338n, 382 66c 393 66e 384n 67d 384n 67d–e 370n 67e 392, 393 69e–70a 370 70c–d 338n, 382 72a–d 338n, 382 76c 338n 77b 338n 76c 382 80c–d 338n, 382 80c–84b 392, 394 81a 392 81c 393 81d–e 393 82e–83a 338n, 345 83a 393 83c 369n 83d 396 84b 338n 87b 338, 345, 382 88c 365n 94b–d 338n, 382

Index of Sources 105c–d 115b–116a

338n, 382 338n, 382

Phaedrus 81c 365n 249a–b 375n, 402n Protagoras 352d–e 341 Respublica 329b–c 251 364e–365a 375n, 402n 379a–c 73 444d 393 577b 370n 588a–589b 359, 361 588b 360 608d 338n 614c 375n, 402n Theatetus 142d 229 176a–b 392, 395 Timaeus 4.8.1 337 30b 345 36e 338n, 382 69a–92c 337, 385 81d–e 384n 86d 340 88b 337, 385

Pliny the Elder Historia naturalis 2.106 230

Pliny the Younger Epistulae 10.96

458, 526n, 544n

Plotinus Enneads 1.6.7 369n 4.8.1 385

Plutarch An seni respublica gerenda sit 788 251n De cohibenda ira 457d–e 252

Consolatio ad Apollonium 121a–c 336n, 389n De cupiditatae divitiarum 5 251n De E apud Delphos 392c–d 394n De facie in orbe lunae 943a–b 369, 375n, 402n 945b–c 369 De Iside et Osiride 355d 223n 355e 224n 355e–358e 223n, 242 356a 224n 356c 223n 356a 224n 356d 224n 357a–b 223n 357e 224n 358a 224n 359c 243 364e 243 Moralia 149D 113 Numa 22.3 246, 254 82–86 246 Pompeius 24.5 242 De profectibus in virtute 78f 252 De Pythiae oraculis 395a 231 396c 231 397c 234 397e 232 398c 232 401e–f 232 De sera numinis vindicta 564e 375n 564e–566a 369, 402n 565a 370 Solon 8 229 De Stoicorum repugnantes 17 (1041e) 453

587

588 De superstitione 164e–171f 375n 166f–167a 402n

Ovid Ars amatoria 2.601–604 243 Metamorphoses 1.89–162 470 7.19–20 340

Polybius 4.2.2 239 6.40.2 363n 12.27.1 239 12.27.3 239

Porphyry De abstinentia 1.51 394

Index of Sources 26.10 394 33.7 252 40.1 542 40.10 542 58.22–24 394n 65.16 394 70.17 394 71.16 369n 90 448, 464, 470–471 90.4–5 470 90.19 470 90.24 471 90.28 471 90.38 471 90.39–45 471 90.46 471 92.30 525n 92.30–34 369 92.34 360n, 471 102.22 369 120.17–18 394n

Vita Pythagorica 19–20 452

Ad Marciam 19.4 375n 21.6 394n 25.1 369n

Progymnasmata

Sententiae Sexti 320 335n, 389n

6.5 256n 6.7–14 264n 6.18 256n 7.4–6 264n

Quintilian Instituio oratoria 2.4.15 244 3.4.12–16 445 11.2.1–33 244 11.2.40 244 11.2.50–51 244 Rhetorica ad Alexandrum 1421b 444 Rhetorica ad Herennium 3,28–40 244

Seneca Epistulae 24.19 396 24.20 394n 26.8 394

Sextus Empiricus Adversus mathematicos 1.71–74 384n Outlines of Pyrrhonism 3.229 384n

Stobaeus Anthologium 2.7.2 448 3.187.5 539n 4.32.21 452n

Strabo 14.5.15 229 16.2.29 216n

Suida 2.177 213n

589

Index of Sources

Suetonius Divus Augustus 74 253 78.2 254 Nero 16.2 526n

Tacitus Annales 15.44 526

Theon Progymnasmata 2.66 251, 251n 2.112 465n 201.18 256n 201.22 256n 202.3–11 264n 202.4–5 269 202.13 256n 202.19–206.8 264n

Thucydides 1.9 238 1.118.3 238 1.138.6 237

2.5.5–6 237 2.48.1–2 238 2.48.2 237 2.57.1 238 2.98.3 238 3.88.3 237 5.74.3 238 6.2.2 237 6.55.1 238

Timaeus Locrus On the Nature of the World and the Soul 45 335n 60 335n 62 335n 86 335n

Xenophon Cyropaedia 1.2.1 238 Hellenica 2.3.56 238, 251 3.1.14 238 Memorabilia 3.6.9 229 3.9.4 341 4.5.10 72

Papyri P4 15, 18, 35, 37, 37n P45 15, 34, 35 P52 15, 35, 36, 38 P64 15, 18, 35, 37, 37n P66 18 P67 15, 18, 35, 37, 37n P75 15, 18, 19, 22, 36

2, frag. 2, lines 43–59 2, frag. 2, lines 44–50 2, frag. 2, lines 50–53 2, frag. 2, lines 53–59 2, frag. 2, lines 54–59

201 201 201 201 201

Papyrus Harris

Paypyrus Berolinensis

91 334n

13044 243

Papyri Graecae Magicae

P. Coll. Youtie

I.319 IV.448 IV.1951 IV.1970 IV.2141 XIXa.49

98 334

Papyrus Egerton 2 191n

335n, 365n, 389n 335n, 365n, 389n 335n, 365n 335n, 365n 335n, 365n 335n, 365n, 389n

590

Index of Sources

Papyrus Oxyrhyncus

25–27

POxy 1 266, 287 1.13–14 188 1.26 291 1.30–32 194 1.31 301 1.32 296

POxy 655 15n, 36 1–17 275, 294 36 284

POxy 654 15n, 36, 190, 276 2 281 4.2 274, 289 5.2 287 6.2 291 6.4 287 7 271n

POxy 1161

POxy 840 200, 201, 440 8–45 441 12 261n

14:1720 334n 14:2068 334n

334

POxy 1224 1 285 2 290, 293 Papyrus Vindobonensis   Greek 2325 201

Inscriptions Inscriptiones Graecae

281, 281n

Index of Authors Aarne, A.  223n Abelson, R. P.  159n Abrahams, I.  430n Abrahams, R. D.  270n Achelis, J.  126n Achtemeier, P.  44n, 206n, 267n, 519n Adkins, A. W. H.  340n Adler, Y.  438, 438n, 439n Ådna, J.  482n Aejmelaeus, L.  359n, 400n Aland, B.  10, 10n, 13, 13n, 40n, 41, 41n, 426n Aland, K.  10, 10n, 13, 13n, 40n, 41, 41n, 364n, 370n, 426n, 434 Albright, W. F.  133n Alexander, L.  107–115 Alexander, P. S.  139, 139n, 306, 307n, 473, 473n, 489n, 495, 495n, 499, 499n Allen, W. C.  8n Allert, C.  326n Allison, D.  8n, 52n, 60n, 68n, 70n, 86n, 87n, 91n, 92n, 160, 267n, 271n, 272n, 296n, 297n, 316n, 317, 317n, 404n, 527n Alon, G.  430n, 438, 438n Alsup, J. E.  316n Alter, R.  25n Anderson, H.  163n Anderson, J. C.  325n, 398n Anderson, S. D.  84n, 103n Annas, J. E.  360n, 371n Armstrong, A. H.  458 Arndt, W. F.  42n, 52n, 401n Arnim, H. F. A. von  215n, 346n Asai, M.  525n Ashton, J.  133n, 148, 148n Attridge, H. W.  188n, 224n, 431n, 460n, 546n Audet, J.-P.  295n Aune, D. E.  15n, 35n, 94n, 112n, 120n, 130n, 135n, 206n, 210n, 219n, 239n, 263n, 264n, 266n, 277n, 278n, 325n, 326n, 327n, 331n, 452n, 472n, 540n Austin, J. L.  65n

Auwers, J. M.  22n Avemarie, F.  488n, 498, 498n Avery-Peck, A. J.  305n Avigad, N.  433n Azdia, T.  154, 154n Babcock, B. A.  270n Bachmann, M.  426–427, 429, 491n Bahat, D.  437n Bakhtin, M. M.  29, 30, 30n, 45n Bakker, F. W.  65n, 85n Balch, D. L.  210n, 214n Baltes, M.  384n Balz, H.  6n, 14n, 404n Banks, R.  518n Barclay, J. M. G.  541n Barker, E. J.  192n Barr, R. R.  88n Barrett, C. K.  131, 131n, 134n, 177n, 358n, 366n, 421n, 431n, 496, 496n, 537, 537n Barrett, D. P.  17n, 37n Barth, K.  514 Barth, M.  510, 510n Bassler, J. M.  399n, 464, 480n, 532n Bauckham, R.  50, 50n, 131, 131n, 304, 304n, 305n, 421n, 495n, 497 Bauer, K.-A.  98n Bauer, W.  6n, 8, 8n, 10, 10n, 13, 13n, 14n, 35n, 40, 40n, 41, 41n, 42n, 52n, 364n, 401n, 426n, 427n, 434 Baum, A. D.  21n Baumert, N.  358n, 366n, 401n Baur, F. C.  312n, 475, 485, 485n Bawarshi, A.  29n Bayer, O.  504n Bazerman, C.  32n Beardslee, W. A.  259n, 263n, 274n Beare, F. W.  8n, 84n Beasley-Murray, G. R.  130n, 167n Beauchamp, P.  455n Beauvois, J.-L.  150, 150n, 154, 154n, 155 Béchard, D. P.  520n Beck, J.  223n

592

Index of Authors

Becker, E. M.  24n, 322n Becker, J. C.  133n, 142, 142n, 514, 514n Becking, B.  135n Beebee, T. O.  31n, 46n Behm, J.  334 Beilner, W.  403, 403n, 404 Bell, H. I.  197n Bellinzoni, A. J.  193n Belval, L. J.  104n Ben-Amos, D.  225n Benz, E.  505n Berger, K.  218, 218n, 219n, 263n, 277n, 375n, 402n, 443n, 445n Bernheim, E.  173n Bethge, H.-G.  19n Betz, H. D.  86n, 91n, 93n, 112n, 167n, 271n, 293n, 336n, 353n, 357n, 359n, 361n, 375n, 386n, 390n, 400n, 402n, 458n Betz, O.  139n, 144, 144n, 145, 145n, 240n, 252n Bianchi, U.  127n, 133, 133n, 189n, 344n Bickerman, E. J.  170n, 435n Bienemann, G. A.  166n Bihlmeyer, K.  240n Billerbeck, M.  212n Billerbeck, P.  92n, 120n, 300n, 371n, 406n, 421–424, 425, 426, 428, 429, 429n, 434n, 488 Binder, G.  355n Black, M.  63n, 116n, 119n, 240n, 276n Blass, F.  95n, 276n, 364, 434n Blocher, H.  512n Blum, H.  244n Blundell, M. W.  72 Bobertz, C. A.  546 Boccaccini, G.  132n Böcher, O.  133n Bockmuehl, M.  497, 497n Boertien, M.  422n, 427n Bompaire, J.  451n Bonhöffer, A.  384n Bonner, S. F.  245n, 246n Bonnet, M.  124n Bontempo, R.  525n Bonwetsch, G.  126n Booth, W.  49, 49n Borg, M.  57n, 83n, 160n, 161n, 527n Borgen, P.  457n, 468n Boring, M. E.  7n, 42n, 47, 47n, 48, 265n, 375n, 402n Bormann, L.  90n, 322n Bornkamm, G.  359n, 400n, 459, 459n, 460, 460n

Bousset, W.  77, 475, 476, 476n, 477, 488 Botterweck, G. J.  417n Bowden, J.  17n, 34n, 87n, 483n Bowersock, G.  46n Bowker, G. C.  27n Box, G. H.  372n Boyarin, D.  134n, 312n, 480n, 486, 486n Boyce, J.  166n Braaten, C. E.  505n Brakke, D.  546n Brandenburger, E.  335n, 389n Brankaer, J.  19n Braun, H.  100n, 147n Breech, J.  84n Brehm, J. W.  150, 150n, 152n Brenk, F. E.  375n, 402n Breytenbach, C.  45n Brock, S. P.   121n, 126n Brocke, M.  59n, 83n Broer, I.  169n Brown, C. T.  11 Brown, L.  50n Brown, R. E.  58n, 84n, 86n, 92n, 93n, 130n, 133n, 146n, 148, 185, 185n, 193, 520, 520n Bruce, F. F.  358n, 421n Brucker, R.  182n, 327n Brunvand, J. H.  123n, 224n, 225n Büchler, A.  122n, 436n, 438 Buckley, J. J.  547n Bühner, A.  364n Bultmann, R.  27, 27n, 28n, 30n, 80, 80n, 97n, 119n, 133n, 144n, 162n, 163n, 165, 166n, 167n, 169, 178n, 199–200, 258, 260, 261n, 262, 262n, 267n, 270n, 281, 281n, 285n, 291n, 297n, 298, 298n, 299n, 349, 353n, 358n, 369n, 370n, 380, 387, 391, 392, 467n, 477, 477n, 483n,k 484, 484n, 485, 488, 488n, 510, 510n, 514n Burdick, I.  173, 173n Burgess, T. C.  444n, 445n Burkert, W.  242, 242n, 243n, 244n, 245n, 246n, 250n, 343n, 360n, 395n Burkett, D.  43n Burkitt, F. C.  126n Burridge, R.  46, 46n, 47, 55 Burrows, M.  87n, 130, 130n Burton, E. D.  121n, 385n Buschmann, G.  11, 11n, 40, 40n Byrne, B.  494, 494n Byrskog, S.  303n, 362n, 377n Bysow, L. A.  173, 173n

Index of Authors Cadbury, H. J.  84n, 107, 107n, 117n, 119n Cameron, R.  187n, 190, 204, 266n Camery-Hoggatt  48n, 55 Campbell, D. A.  516, 516n, 519, 519n Campenhausen, H. von  4, 4n, 13, 13n, 169n Cancik, H.  113n, 355n Cansdale, L.  132n Carlsmith, J.  151n Carlston, C. E.  163n, 256n, 259n, 263n, 276n Carpenter, R.  228, 228n Carrez, M.  377n Carruth, S.  85n, 103n Carruth, W. H.  27n Carson, D. A.  142n, 473n, 491n, 494n, 495n, 496, 496n, 497, 497n, 504n, 512, 512n, 515n, 533n Cartledge, T. jW.  420n Casson, L.  230n, 234n Catchpole, D.  538, 538n Cavallin, H. C. C.  332n, 356n Cave, C. H.  163n Cave, F. H.  163n Chadwick, H.  125n, 126n, 161n Chapman, S.  8n, 52n Charles, R. H.  368n, 476 Charlesworth, J. H.  89n, 132n, 133n, 135, 135n, 136n, 139n, 146, 146n, 147, 147n, 207n, 241n, 280n, 411n, 495n Chepey, S.  416n, 419n Chilton, B.  198n, 474n Christofersen, A.  107n Chroust, A.-H.  452n Clarke, G. W.  456n Claussen, C.  107n Clermont-Ganneau, C. S.  435n Cohen, A. R.  152n Cohen, R.  29n, 31, 31n Cohn, N.  160n Cole, A. T.  222, 267n Colenz Bautch, K.  3n Collange, J.-E.  362n, 366n Collins, J. J.  80, 81, 81n, 355n, 455n, 456n, 457n Colpe, C.  375n, 402n Colson, F. H.  418n Comfort, P. C.  17n, 37n Constanzo, P. R.  149n Conzelmann, H.  136n, 145n, 166n, 177n, 399n, 407n, 424, 424n, 431n, 433, 433n, 463n, 483n, 484, 484n Cooke, S.  26n Cooper, J.  150n Corley, B.  267n

593

Counet, P. C.  170n Cranfield, C. E. B  138n, 405n, 469n Crenshaw, J. L.  258n Croce, B.  29n Crook, Z. A.  149n Cross, F. M.  90n, 130, 130n, 144, 144n Crossan, J. D.  57n, 58n, 83n, 85n, 160n, 182, 182, 186, 190, 195–204, 208n, 217, 217n, 256n, 257n, 260n, 261n, 262n, 263n, 265n, 272n, 273, 279, 280, 280n, 282n, 284, 284n, 285n, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 527, 527n, 528n Croy, N. C.  7n–8n Croyle, R. T.  150n Culianu, I. P.  355n, 368n Dahl, N. A.  163n, 522, 522n Dalbert, P.  461n Damrosch, D.  32n Danby, H.  83n, 172n, 430n, 432n, 438n D’Angelo, M. R.  86n, 546n Danker, F. W.  6n, 8, 8n, 10, 13, 13n, 14n, 35n, 40, 40n, 41, 41n, 42n, 52n, 107, 107n, 401n, 427n, 434 Das, A. a.  494, 494n, 497n Daube, D.  133n Davies, A. T.  500n Davies, P. R.  496n Davies, S.  190, 201n, 266n Davies, W. D.  8n, 52n, 60n, 68n, 70n, 86n, 87n, 91n, 92n, 133n, 206n, 267n, 271n, 272n, 296n, 297n, 304, 304n, 317, 317n, 337, 384, , 385, 385n, 476, 478, 483n, 485, 486, 486n Dawson, L. L.  155, 155n, 175 De Boer, M. C.  80n Debrunner, A.  95n, 276n, 364n, 434n De Connick, A.  206, 206n Dégh, L.  225n Dehandschutter, D.  104n Daube, D.  478 Dein, S.  156n, 157n Deines, Deissmann, A.  477, 478n, 516, 516n, 517, 517n De Jonge, H. J.  22n De Jonge, M.  143n, 144 Delatte, A.  245n Delitzsch, F.  475n Delobel, J.  191n Denniston, J. D.  95n Dentith, S.  49n, 50, 50n

594

Index of Authors

Derrida, J.  29, 29n, 53 Deuse, W.  355n De Vries, J.  249n Dibelius, M.  27, 27n, 30n, 175, 218n, 261n, 262n, 264n Diels, H.  245n, 246n, 335n, 344n, 365n, 371n, 383n, 389n Dietzfelbinger, C.  483n, 484, 484n Dihle, A.  47, 340n, 385n Dillon, J.  453n Dimant, D.  146n Dinkler, E.  163n Ditter, F. J.  321n Ditter, V. Y.  321n Di Vito, R. A.  97n Draper, J.  185 Dodd, C. H.  133n, 134n, 191n, 301n, 314n, 357n, 358n, 468, 468n, 478 Dodds, E. R.  336n, 341n, 389n Donaldson, T.  482, 482n Donfried, K.  12, 12n, 40, 40n, 286n, 442n, 459n, 462n, 512, 512n Dormeyer, D.  97n Döring, K.  458n Dörrie, H.  385n Dorson, R. M.  225n, 231, 236n Doty, W. G.  28, 28n, 268n Downing, F. G.  208n, 209n, 214, 214n, 215, 215n, 217n Droge, A. J.  392n, 457n Dudley, D. R.  212, 216n Duff, D.  29n, 45n Duhaime, J.-L.  141n, 144 Dudes, A.  27n, 31n Dudley, D. R.  453n Dunderberg, I.  492n Dungan, D.  176n, 313 Dunn, J. D. G.  99n, 102n, 103n, 312n, 318, 318n, 319, 319n, 374n, 376n, 410, 410n, 469n, 480, 480n, 482, 482n, 485, 485n, 486n, 487, 487n, 491n, 492, 492n, 493, 493n, 494, 496, 496n, 498n, 501, 507, 508, 508n, 509, 509n, 513, 517, 517n, 518, 518n, 521n, 522, 523, 523n, 545n Dupont, J.  482, 483n, 484n, 487, 487n, 488n, 490, 490n, 491, 491n Dupont-Sommer, A.  454n Düring, I.  338, 383, 395, 448n, 449, 449n, 452n, 453n Easton, B. S.  117n Edelstein, L.  338, 383n, 384n, 386n, 470n Edwards, R. A.  263n

Egger, V.  211n Ehrman, B.  160n, 527n Eichhorn 477 Eisenbaum, P. M.  532, 533n, 535n Eissfeldt, O.  263n Eliade, M.  343n, 391n Ellikilde, H.  27n Elliott, J. H.  149n, 190n Elliott, J. K.  4, 7n Elliott, N.  494n Ellis, E. E.  92n, 266n, 268n, 367n Engberg-Pedersen, T.  353n, 381n, 476n, 542, 542n, 543, 543n Enns, P.  497 Epp, E. J.  370n, 545, 545n Epstein, I.  419n Erhardt, A. A. T.  292n Ernst, J.  102n Esler, P.  108, 108n Estienne, H.  3, 3n, 4n Evans, C. A.  198n, 496n, 497 Evans, C. F.  120n, 299n, 300n Evans, E.  128 Exile 92 Fabry, H.-J.  97n, 98n, 417n Falk, D.  497, 497n, 498 Fallon, F. T.  266n Fanning, B. M.  65n, 85n Farmer, W.  267n, 311n Fascher, E.  261n Fazio, R. H.  150, 150n Feder, F. L.  173n Fee, G.  370n, 407n, 540n, 544n Fehling, D.  113n Feldman, L.  420n, 457n Feneberg, M.  7n Ferguson, E.  210n, 214n Festinger, L.  149, 150, 150n, 151n, 152n, 153, 153n, 154, 155, 158, 165, 173n, 180 Festugière, A. J.  365n, 387n, 452n, 454, 454n Fiedler, P.  25n Fine, G. A.  152n Finley, M. I.  541n, 542n Fischel, H. A.  218, 218n, 457n Fishelov, D  31n, 51n Fitzmyer, J.  60n, 61n, 117n, 122n, 123n, 194n, 275n, 281n, 289n, 293n, 294n, 295n, 298n, 299n, 300n, 304, 304n, 387n, 405n, 414n, 416, 416n, 429n, 431n, 506, 507, 517, 517n, 520, 520n, 521, 521n, 537n, 540n, 541n, 545n Flescher, P. V. M.  437n

Index of Authors Flint, P.  132n Flusser, D.  122n Foakes Jackson, F. J.  107n, 168n Focke, F.  454, 454n Foerster, W.  87n, 88n, 127n Foley, J. M.  221n, 223n, 228n, 315n Fontenrose, J.  242n, 268n Fornberg, T.  6n Fornara, C. W.  234n Fortna, R. T.  134n, 142, 142n Fowler, A.  31n, 32, 32n, 448n Fowler, R. M.  48n France, R. T.  7n, 43n Frank, S.  125n Franklin, E.  108, 108n Franzmann, M.  183n Frazer, J. G.  233n Freedman, D. N.  272n, 301n Frerichs, E. S.  468n Frey, J.  107n, 353n, 544n Frow, J.  30n, 32n Frye, R.  131, 131n Fuller, R.  163n, 166n, 179n, 185n Fung, R. Y. K.  533n Funk, F. X.  240n Funk, R. W.  311n Furnish, V. P.  353n, 359n, 360n, 361n, 374n, 400n, 474n Gager, J. G.  158, 158n, 480, 480n, 500, 501, 501n, 503, 503n Gaiser, K.  450, 450n Galli, B. E.  501n Gallop, D.  382n Gamble, H.  19n García Martínez, F.  140, 144, 146 Garnham, A.  43n Gärtner, B.  190 Garrard, L. A.  88n Garsky, A.  84n, 103n Gasque, W.  483n Gaston, L.  500, 500n, 501, 502, 502n, 503 Gathercole, S.  473n, 488n, 498, 498n Gaventa, B.  481, 481n Genette, G.  14n, 28, 32, 32n, 33n, 45n Gentili, B.  221, 222, 222n, 267n Georges, R. A.  231n Georgi, D.  359n, 400n Gerhardsson, B.  256n, 261n, 262n, 264, 267n, 303–307, 308–311, 313n, 314n Gerhäusser, W.  448, 448n, 453n, 465n, 470n Gilbert, M.  455 Gillman, J.  357n

595

Gingrich, F. W.  42n, 52n, 401n Glasson, T. F.  78, 78n, 370n, 376n, 402n, 403n Globe, A.  6n Gnilka, J.  394n Gomme, A. W.  238, 238n Goodenough, E. R.  457n Goodman, M.  455n Goppelt, L.  316n Gosling, J. C. B.  392n Goulder, M. D.  85n, 276n Goulet-Cazé, M.-O.  209n, 210, 210n, 213n Green, D. E.  542n Green, W. S.  496n Greeven, H.  175 Grenfell, B. P.  190n Gressmann, H.  78 Grimm, J.  11 Grimm, W.  11 Grant, F. C.  166n Grant, R. M.  94, 125n, 190, 272n, 278n, 301n, 458n Grass, G. H.  166n, 169n Grässer, E.  92n Greenlee, J. H.  323n Greig, J.  256n Griffiths, J. G.  243n Grobel, K.  80n, 162n Groh, D. E.  278n Groothuis, R. M.  532n Grosso, M. A.  385n, 393n Grundmann, W.  8n, 85n, 86n Guelich, R. A.  47, 271n Guerra, A. J.  460, 460n, 461, 461n, 462, 463n Gundry, R. H.  11, 11n, 467n, 511, 511n, 512 Gunkel, H.  27n, 477 Gutbrod, W.  490n Guthrie, W. K. C.  375n, 402n, 452n, 538n, 541n Gymnich, M.  26n, 30n, 32n, 43n Habicht, C.  233n, 234n Haenchen, E.  100n, 102n, 131, 131n, 142n, 175n, 176n, 177n, 423, 423n, 424–426, 428, 429, 429n Hafemann, S. J.  482n Hagedorn, A. C.  149n Hägg, T.  223n, 254n Hagner, D.  8n, 84n, 86n, 93n, 185, 473n, 474n Hahn, F.  45n, 163n, 164n, 176n, 178n Hahn, J. G. von  248, 248n Hahnemann, G. M.  22, 22n, 23n

596

Index of Authors

Haines-Eitzen, K.  307n Hainsworth, J. B.  228n Halbwachs, M.  321, 321n Hallet, W.  43n Hamerton-Kelly, R.  489n Hamilton, N. Q.  167n, 169n, 171n Hammerstaedt, J.  216n Hanhart, K.  367n Hani, J.  242n Hanson, P. D.  81, 81n Hardyck, J. A.  153, 153n Hare, D. R. A.  536n Harnack, A. von  4n, 34n, 117n, 127n, 128n, 178n, 407n, 528, 528n, 548 Harrison, A. R. W.  406n Hartlich, P.  444n, 453n, 456n Harvey, J. D.  308, 315–316 Harrs, M. J.  358n, 367n Harrison, C.  146n Häuser, D.  319, 319n, 320, 320n Havelock, E.  221, 222n, 228, 228n Hay, D. M.  403n, 492n, 496n, 518, 518n Hayes, J. H.  264n Hayes, M. A.  161n Hays, R. B.  518n Hayward, M.  46n Hayward, R.  117n Head, P. M.  6n Headlam, A.  469n Hechi, S.  104n Heckel, T. K.  14n, 19n, 34n, 358n, 359n, 361n, 362, 362n, 442n Heine, S.  544n Heinemann, I.  454n Heinemann, J.  59n Heitmüller, W.  477, 477n Hellholm, D.  6n, 30, 30n, 252n, 357n Helm, R.  216 Helmer, C.  8n, 52n Hemer, C.  416n Hengel, M.   16n–17n, 20n, 21n, 34n, 37n, 50n, 216, 216n, 218n, 256, 258n, 265n, 442n, 457n, 474n Hennicke, E.  241n Herford-Koch, M,  355 Hershbell, J.  393n, 395 Herzer, J.  544n Heubach, J.  520, 520n Heubeck, A.  228n Hiett, C. B.  223n Highet, G.  447n Hilgenfeld, A.  77, 127n Hill, C. E.  20n, 21n

Hills, J. V.  183n, 265n Himmelfarb, M.  77n, 357n Hock, R. F.  214n, 251, 251n, 252, 252n, 256n, 264n, 463n Hoffmann, P.  60n, 84n, 90n, 176n, 195n, 263n, 292n Hofius, O.  482n Höistad, R.  209n, 453n Holc, P.  506n Hollander, H. W.  144 Holmberg, B.  545n Holmen, T.  198n Holsten, C.  484, 484n Holtz, T.  308, 313–314, 316 Holtzmann, H. J.  484, 484n Hopkins, K.  542 Horn, F.  426–427, 428n, 429, 429n Hornblower, S.  237n, 238n Horsley, G. R.  334n Horsley, R. A.  160n, 161, 161n, 162n, 468n Horst, P. van der  135n Hort, F. J. A.  14n, 17, 17n, 34n, 37n Houlden, J. L.  107, 107n Houtman, C.  368n Hove, R. W.  534, 534n How, W. W.  236n Howard, W. F.  434n Hübner, H.  496, 496n, 513n Huffman, D.  107, 108n Hülser, K.  384n Hultgren, A. J.  65n, 270n, 529n Hunt, A. S.  190n Huppenbauer, H. W.  133n, 139, 139n Hurtado, L.  477n Husbands, M.  504n, 512n Hutchenson, G. O.  229n Hutcheon, I.  48n Hvalvik, R.  536n Hyldahl, N.  451, 455n, 457n Iliffe, J. H.  435n Immerwahr, H. R.  223n Incigneri, B. J.  25n Isaac, E.  89n Jackson, H. M.  347n Jackson-McCabe, M.  536n Jacobs, M.  220n, 223n Jacobson, H.  372n Jacoby, F.  109n, 237n Jaeger, W.  442n, 447n, 452n, 453, 453n Jaffee, M.  305, 305n James, W.  480, 480n

Index of Authors Janssen, M.  544n Jasper, R.  62n, 68n Jefford, C. N.  295n, 296n, 297n Jensen, J.  27n Jensen, M. S.  221n Jenson, R. W.  504n, 505n Jeremias, Joachim  3, 84n, 85n, 86n, 87n, 90n, 117n, 123n, 163n, 172n, 185, 194n, 197n Jervell, J.  177n, 424, 429n, 431n, 433n Jervis, L. A.  513n Jewett, R.  100n, 278n, 336n, 358n, 362n, 364n, 386n, 390n, 459, 459n, 545n Johansson, N.  144 Johns, L. L.  207n Johnson, E. E.  492n, 518n Johnson, G.  143n Johnson, S. I.  431n Jonas, H.  345n Jones, C. P.  215n, 458n Jordan, M. D.  446n, 449, 449n, 452n Jouel, R.-V.  150, 150n, 154, 154n, 155 Joüon, P.  65n Judge, E. A.  458n, 462n Jüngel, E.  504n Kahane, H.  347n Kahane, R.  347n Kahl, B.  533n, 534n Kahn, C. H.  239n Kaibel, G.  365n, 369n Karris, R. J.  462n Käsemann, E.  80, 80n, 81, 81n, 200, 277, 277n, 278, 278n, 349, 387n, 391, 392, 472n, 484, 510, 510n, 514, 514n, 515, 522 Kasser, R.  18n, 19n Katranides, A. A.  231n Kearsley, R. A.  545n Keck, L. E.  42n, 176n, 429n Kelber, W.  97n, 123n, 206n, 221, 221n, 266n, 267n, 268n, 303n, 304, 304n, 306, 306n, 308, 308n, 311–313 Kelhoffer, J. A.  6n, 33, 33n Kennedy, G. A.   222n, 244n, 459, 459n, 477, 478n Kern, O.  245n Kertelge, K.  518n, 519, 519n Kidd, I. G.  338, 383n, 384n, 386n, 470n Kilgallen, J. J.  116n Kim, S.  482n, 483, 483n, 484, 484n Kim Harkins, A.  3n Kingsbury, J. D.  8n, 52n Kirk, A.  304n

597

Kirwan, C.  340n Kittel, G.  85n Klaiber, W.  522, 522n Klauck, H.-J.  403n Klausner, J.  83n, 172n, 428n, 430n, 475n Klien, B. D.  419n Klijn, A. F. J.  89n, 280n Kloppenborg, J. S.  58n, 60n, 84n, 90n, 195n, 203, 203n, 204n, 206, 206n, 207n, 263n, 264n Klostermann, E.  117n Knibb, M. A.  122n, 241n, 411n Kraft, R. A.  455n Kritzman, L. D.  321n Knight, H.  163n, 475n Koch, K.  75, 75n Koester, H.  4, 4n, 5, 5n, 10, 12, 40, 40n, 41n, 104n, 190, 190n, 201n, 206, 206n, 207n, 267n, 278n, 286n, 296n, 299n, 459, 459n, 460, 460n, 462, 462n, 480, 481n, 483, 483n Kohl, M.  75n, 168n Köhler, W.-D.  14n, 35n, 104n Körtner, U. H. J.  240n, 241n Kranz, W.  245n, 246n, 335n, 344n, 365n, 371n, 383n, 389n Kronenberg, A.  230, 230n, 231 Krüger, A.  243n Kruger, M. J.  441, 441n Kuhn, H.-W.  44n, 89n, 348n Küchler, M.  256n, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300 Kümmel, W. G.  363n, 366n, 374n, 376n, 402n, 514, 514n, 516 Kürzinger, J.  240n Kuhn, K. G.  100n Kyriakides, S. P.  231n Laato, T.  515n Laeuchli, S.  335n, 388n Lagrange, Mm.-J.  100n Lake, K.  107n, 168, 168n, 477n Lambrecht, J.  287n Lampe, G. W. H.  4, 4n, 335n, 365n Landmesser, C.  8n, 52n Lang, F. G.  335n, 357n, 364n, 389n Lang, M. L.  223n Lange, A.  139n Larcher, B.  455, 455n Larsen, B. D.  453n Lattimore, R.  370n Lawson, J. C.  231n Layton, B.  105n, 188n, 189n

598

Index of Authors

Lee, J. A. L.  44, 44n, 45, 45n Levine, A-J.  543n Levison, J. R.  540n Lewin, J. E.  14n, 33n, 45n Leyden, L.  157 Lichtenberger, H.  116n, 140n, 498n Liddell, H. G.  3n Lietzmann, H.  363n, 366n, 374n, 376n, 402n Lightfoot, R. H.  167n Limbeck, M.  100n Lincoln, A.  362n–363n Lindars, B.  134n Lindemann, A.  88n, 357n, 409n Linforth, I.  245n Ling, M.  175n Linnemann, E.  98, 98n Lipsius, R. A.  124n Littledale, A. V.  169 Ljungvik, H.  278n Lodge, J. G.  500, 500n, 501, 503, Logan, A. H. B.  189n Lohfink, G.  327n Lohmeyer, E.  7n, 8n, 92n, 100n, 119n Lohse, E.  398n Long, A. A.  384n Longenecker, R. N.  358n, 472n, 509n, 518n Longo, V.  253n Loofs, F.  513n Lord, A. B.  206, 226n, 229, 315 Löscher, V.  513n Louw, J. P.  4n, 40n, 87n, 91n, 127n, 263n, 323n, 324n, 363n, 364n, 444n, 463n Lowrie, W.  91n Lucca, N.  525n Lücke, F.  77, 77n, 78 Lüdemann, G.  424n, 477n Lüdemann, H.  100n Lührmann, D.  263n, 459, 459n Lutz-Bachmann, M.  62n Luz, U.  8n, 51n, 52n, 88n, 93n, 217n, 296n, 462n Lyons, G.  322n Maas-Ewerd, T.  62n MacDonald, J. H.  314n MacDonald, L. M.  22n Machalek, R.  152, 152n, 154, 154n Machiela, D. A.  3n Mack, B. L.  49n, 207, 207n, 208n, 215, 215n, 219n, 251n, 262n, 267n, 455n Mackay, E. A.  192n, 206n MacLaughlan, G.  43n MacMullen, R.  447n, 456n

Malherbe, A. J.  210, 210n, 213n, 217n, 338, 386n, 393, 469n, 539n Malina, B. J.  89n, 160n, 525n Maloney, E. C.  278n Mannermaa, T.  505n March, J. B.  150, 150n Marcus, J.  6n, 7n, 78n, 80n Marcus, R.  365n Marjanen, A.  189n Markschiess, C.  360n, 361n, 362n Marsh, J.  163n Marshall, H.  108, 108n, 115n, 117n Martens, G.  522n Martin D. B.  543n, 549n Martin, L. H.  147n Martin, R. P.  374n, 483n Martin, T.  533n, 546n Martin, V.  18n Marton, J. D.  264n Martyn, J. L.  5, 142n, 176n, 429n, 533n Marxsen, W.  6n, 166n, 168n Massaux, É.  104n Matlock, R. B.  518n Mattes, M. C.  504n Matthiae, K.  163n Matz, D. C.  151n Maurer, C.  301n May, H.  140n Mayordomo-Marin, M.  8n, 52n Mazar, B.  177, 416, 433n, 437, 437n McCarthy, J.  331n, 353n McCown, C. C.  308n McCutcheon, R. T.  147n McGaughy, L. C.  28n McGrath, A.  500n, 504, 505n, 509n, 511n, 512n, 514n McGuire, A.  205n McLeon, W. E.  242n McLuhan, M.  221 McNamara, M.  498, 498n Meadors, E. P.  121n Meeks, W. L.  142n, 210n, 214n, 458n Megas, G. A.  231, 231n Meier, J. P.  57n, 58n, 83n, 86n, 87n, 90n, 92n, 160n, 176n, 182, 183–195, 198, 198n, 204, 205, 527n, 529n, 530n, 531n Mejer, J.  211n Menard, J.-É.  193n Menoud, P. H.  482n Merkelbach, R.  253n Mervis, C. R.  43n Merz, A.  58n, 174 Metso, S.  138n, 139, 139n

Index of Authors Metzger, B. M.  6n, 22n, 43n Meyer, B. F.  198n, 213n Meyer, E.  163n, 166n, 176n, 177n, 179 Meyer, M.  19n Meyer, R.  162 Meyers, E.  436n Michaelis, W.  167n, 364n Michl, J.  125n Migne, J.-P.  125n Millar, F.  455n Milligan, G.  14n, 35n Mimouni, S. C.  535n Minar, E. L. Jr.  244n, 245n Mitchie, D.  28, 28n Moffatt, J.  178n Mohr, T. A.  98, 98n Molnar, P. D.  504n Moltmann, J.  504n Momigliano, A.  237n, 238n Montague, W. J.  80n Montefiore, C. G.  475n, 476, 476n, 495 Moo, D.  491, 492n Moore, C. H.  232n Moore, G. F.  78, 78n, 372n, 457n, 473, 473n, 475n, 476, 476n, 478, 488n, 489n, 495 Morgenstern, O.  150n Morgenthaler, R.  5n Moule, C. F. D.  7n, 311n Moulton, J. H.  14n, 35n, 434n Mowinckel, S.  144 Mowry, L.  133n Mozley, F. W.  64n Müller, L.  451n Murphy, R.  263n, 270n, 455n Murphy-O’Connor, J.  141n, 336n, 358n, 364n, 390n, 407n, 414n, 437n, 480, 480n, 483n Myres, J. L.  229n Nanos, M. D.  501, 501n Neirynck, F.  116n, 117n, 317, 317n, 318 Nestle, E.  370n, 546 Neuenschwander, U.  88n Neuhaus, R. J.  520n Neumann, B.  26n, 30, 30n, 32n, 43n Neumann, J. von  150n Neusner, J.  133n, 218n, 304, 304n, 305, 305n, 438n, 468n, 496, 496n Nevins, A.  236 Neyrey, J. H.  149, 525n Nickelsburg, G. W. E.  332n, 382n, 455n Nicol, I.  164n Nicol, U.  164n

599

Nicole, W.  142, 142n Nida, E. A.  4n, 42n, 87n, 91n, 127n, 263n, 323n, 324n, 363n, 364n, 444n, 463n Niebuhr, R. R.  311n Niederwimmer, K.  11n, 40, 40n, 69n Nilsson, M. P.  345n Nineham, D. E.  92n, 107 Nix, G. E.  453n Nock, A. D.  365n, 384n, 447n, 457n, 478, 478n, 482, 482n Nojeim, M. J.  530n Nongbri, B.  17n, 37n Nora, P.  303, 321, 321n, 322n, 327, 327n Norden, E.  117n, 460, 460n Nordling, J. G.  540n Notopoulos, J. A.  245n Novick, T.  414n Nünning, A.  26n, 30, 30n, 32n, 43n O’Brien, P. T.  473n, 491n, 494n, 495n, 496, 496n, 497, 497n, 504n, 509n, 512n, 513n, 515n Oden, T. C.  224n, 504n Oepke, A.  369n, 370n Ogden, G. S.  276n Ogg, G.  163 Ohmann, R.  46n Oliver, R. P.  15n, 35n Olrik, A.  27, 27n Omanson, R.  6n O’Neil, E. N.  251n, 252, 252n, 256n, 264n Ong, W.  191n, 220, 220n, 221, 221n Osei-Bonsu, J.  368n Otzen, B.  144n Pagels, E. H.  546n, 547, 547n Palmer, D. W.  336n, 361n, 390n Pannenberg, W.  504n Paquet, L.  216n Parker, D. C.   16n, 36n Parker, R.  431n Parry, M.  206, 227, 228, 228n, 229, 315 Pawlikowski, J. T.  501n Pearson, B. A.  89n, 189n, 463n Perdue, L.  263n, 274n Perkins, P.  261n Pedersen, J.  356n Perrin, N.  57n, 61n, 65n, 75n, 83n, 90n, 165n, 167n, 172n, 259n, 304, 304n Perriman, A. C.  357n Pervo, R. I.  112n, 424n Pesch, R.  170n Petersen, S.  17n, 19n, 34n, 35n, 37n

600

Index of Authors

Petersen, W. L.  193n Peterson, D. N.  50n Pétrement, S.  146n, 147n Petuchowski, J. J.  59n, 83n Pfeiffer, R.  236n Pfleiderer, O.   387n Pilch, J.  190n Pilhofer 322n Piper, J.  511n Piper, O.  4n, 5n Piper, R.  263n, 275n, 281n, 282n Pitre, B.  92, 92n, 493n Plisch, U.-K.  547n Plummer, A.  120n, 365n Porter, S. E.  161n, 198n Postman, L.  173, 173n Pratscher, W.  12, 12n, 40, 40n Prasad, J.  173, 173n, 180n Priest, J.  89n Prümm, K.  478n Quinn, J. D.  506, 506n Quispel, G.  126n Rad, G. von  264n, 273, 273n, 276n Radl, W.  107, 108n Raglan, F. R. S.  248n Rahlfs, A.  477 Räisänen, H.  468n Rand, J. A. du  353n Rankin, H. D.  212 Rappaport, R. A.  68n Reed, A. Y.  5n, 11n, 12, 12n, 13n, 19n Reese, J. M.  454, 454n Regev, E.  437, 437n, 438, 438n, 440 Rehkopf, F.  95n, 184n, 276n, 364n, 434n Reich, R.  433n, 436n, 441n Reid, G.  492n Reid, I.  43n Reimarus, H. S.  79 Reinsdorf, K. H.  59n Reitzenstein, R.  334n, 388n, 477, 477n Rengsdorf, K. H.  164n Resch, A.  316, 316n Reumann, J.  506, 506n, 507, 517n, 520, 521, 521n Reuss, E.  77 Rhoads, D.  28, 28n Rich, A. M.  209n Richards, E. R.  307n Richardson, N. J.  242n, 243n Richardson, P.  513n Ricken, F.  460n

Ricoeur, P.  259 Riecken, H. W.  153, 153n, 158 Riesner, R.  482n Ringe, S. H.  58n Ringgren, H.  346n, 417n Rissi, M.  404, 404n Rist, J. M.  211n, 383n, 384n Ristow, H.  163n Ritmeyer, K.  437n Ritmeyer, L.  437n Ritschl, A.  79 Robbins, V. K.  219n, 251n, 260n, 261n, 262n, 264n, 267n, 269n, 287n, 299, 299n Robinson, J. A. T.  367n Robinson, J. M.  60n, 84n, 90n, 123n, 163n, 190, 195n, 546n Robinson, R.  452n Roetzel, C.  398, 398n, 403, 403n, 404, 403n, 404, 404n, 405n, 409, 409n Rohrbaugh, R.  525n Roloff, J.  172n, 316n Romaniuk, K.  545n Roosen, A.  459, 459n Rosch, E.  43n Roskam, H. N.  26n, 50n Rosnow, R.  152n Rothschild, C.  544n Rowland, C.  78, 78n Ruch, M.  465n Rudolph, K.  189n, 190, 345n Ruhl, L.  375n, 402n Runeson, A.  25n Runia, D. T.  385n Russell, D. A.  445 Russell, D. S.  252n Rynne, T. J.  530n Saldarini, A.  496, 496n Saller, R.  264n Salmanovitsch, H.  418n, 419n Sampley, J. P.  399n Sand, A.  97n, 98, 98n, 359n Sanday, W.  469n Sanders, E. P.  28, 57n, 83n, 86n, 117n, 192, 192n, 198n, 200n, 213n, 265n, 267n, 283, 349n, 424n, 458n, 477n, 478, 487, 488, 488n, 489, 489n, 490, 490n, 493, 493, 494, 494n, 495, 495n, 496, 497, 498, 499, 500, 501, 507, 508, 508n, 513, 515, 515n, 516, 516n, 521, 525n, 527n, 529n Sanders, J. T.  429n Sandnes, K. O.  480, 480n Saunders, T. B.  528n

Index of Authors Sauter, G.  30n Sayre, F.  212n, 453n Schäfer, P.  113n, 483n Scharlemann, R. P.  163n Schäublin, C.  450n, 456n Schechter, S.  153,153n, 158, 173, 173n, 489n, 495 Schenke, L.  169n Schenke, H.-M.  190n, 203n Scheppens, G.  109n Schiffman, L. H.  90n, 436n, 441n Schmauch, W.  8n Schmeller, T.  247n, 452n, 464n, 468n Schmidt, E. G.  446n Schmidt, K. L.  30n Schmithals, W.  7n, 336n, 358n, 390n Schnackenburg, R.  25n, 89n, 130n, 143n, 147 Schnedermann, G.  475n Schneemelcher, W.  88n, 105n, 124n, 197n, 241n, 369n Schneeweiss, G.  448n, 450, 450n, 453n Schneider, G.  6n, 14n, 177, 177n, 404n, 429n, 431n Schneider, T.  506n Schnelle, U.  7n, 357n, 375n, 402n, 530, 530n Schoedel, W.  11, 11n, 40, 40n, 103n Schoeps, H. J.  399n, 475n, 536n, 537n Schrage, W.  190, 542n Schram, T.  116n, 117n Schreiner, T. R.  474n, 491n, 493n, 499, 499n, 513n Schröder, M.  477n Schröter, J.  182n, 195n, 327n Schuler, P. L.  28, 28n Schultz, S.  28, 28n Schürer, E.  455n, 461n, 475, 488 Schürmann, H.  78, 79, 79n, 80, 80n, 88, 88n Schüssler Fiorenza, E.  528n, 532n, 533n, 534, 534n, 543, 543n Schwartz, D. R.  441n Schwartz, S. H.  525n Schweitzer, A.  78, 79, 79n, 80, 80n, 88, 88n, 91, 91n, 97, 98, 159, 160, 476, 478, 514, 514n, 516, 517, 528 Schweizer, E.  97n, 98n, 344n, 391n Scobie, A.  223n, 254n Scott, B. B.  263n Scott, R.  3n Scroggs, R.  489n Seaford, R.  72n Searle, J. R.  65n Sebald, W. E.  26, 26n

601

Segal, A. F.  481, 481n Segal, P.  435n Segbroeck, F. van  44n Seibel, K.  32n Seifrid, M. A.  473n, 480, 480n, 491n, 492n, 493n, 494n, 495n, 496n, 497, 497n, 504n, 512, 512n, 513n, 515n Seitz, O. J. F.  346n Sekki, A. E.  132n, 138n Seland, T.  130n Sellew, P. H.  205n, 325n, 398n Setzer, C.  325n, 398n Sevrin, J.-M.  104n, 190 Shaffir, W.  157, 157n Shaw, N. E.  149n Sherwin-White, A. N.  544n Shibutani, T.  152n, 173n, 174 Sigel, D.  355n Siegert, F.  240n Sills, D.  173n Silva, M.  491n Simon, H. A.  150, 150n Simon, M.  250n Singer, J. E.  150n Skarsaune, .  536n Skeat, T. C.  18, 18n, 20, 20n, 22n, 33n, 37n, 197n Slingerland, H. D.  144n Smelser, N. J.  164, 179n Smit, J.  342n Smith, D. A.  170n Smith, D. F.  89n, 90n Smith, D. M.  130 Smith, J. Z.  147n, 395n, 477n, 478n Smith, M.  162, 162n, 189n, 253n, 304, 304n, 375n, 402n, 457n Smith, R. S.  509n Smith, W. C.  526n Snell, B.  113n Snodgrass, K. R.  192n, 204, 204n Snow, D. A.  152, 152n, 154, 154n Soards, M.  78n, 80n Söding, T.  506n Sommer, U.  97n Sourvinou-Inwood, C.  355n, 356n, 368n Spensley, B. E.  107, 108n Speyer, W.  115 Spitaler, P.  414n Stacey, W. D.  334n, 387n Standhartinger, A.  90n Stanton, G.  15n, 21n, 23, 23n, 34n, 35n, 50n Star, S. L.  27n De Ste. Croix, G. E. M.  539, 539n, 549n

602

Index of Authors

Steely, J. E.  166n, 336n, 358n, 477n Steiner, P. M.  355n Stendahl, K.  89n, 133n, 480, 480n, 487, 487n, 488n, 501, 507, 507n, 509, 514, 514n, 522, 522n, 544n Stephanus, Roberus  (see also Estienne, H.) Stern, E.  216n Stewart, E.  149n Stirewalt, L.  459n Stolle, V.  427–429 Stone, J. R.  155n Stone, M. E.  372n, 373n, 412n, 455n, 457n Stowers, S. K.  247, 247n, 443n, 446n, 452, 452n, 463n, 465n, 466n, 468n, 469n, 500, 500n, 501, 502, 502n Strack, H. L.  92n, 120n, 300n, 371n, 406n, 421n, 434n Strecker, G.  6n, 375n, 398n, 402n Streeter, B. H.  50n Stroker, W. D.  124n, 261n, 327n Stuhlmacher, P.  6n, 266n, 268n, 409n, 474n, 479n Sturm, R. E.  78n Suggate, A. M.  492n Sundberg, A. C.  22, 22n Sungenis, R. A.  508n Sydow, C. W. von  225n Synofzik, E.  402, 410n, 413 Syreeni, K.  271n, 492n Talbert, C. H.  44n, 110, 110n, 112 Tannehill, R. C.  261n, 267n Taylor, C. C. W.  392 Taylor, R. O. P.  270n Taylor, V.  92n, 261n Tcherikover, V.  456n Teeple, H.  131, 131n, 142n Tenny, M. C.  358n Thackeray, H. St. J.  420n, 475–476 Thatcher, T.  304n Theissen, G.  58n, 159n, 164n, 174, 198n, 199n, 216n, 218n, 516, 516n Thesleff, H.  335n, 389n Thielman, F.  499, 499n, 501, 501n Thistleton, A. C.  407n Thomas, R.  192n, 265n, 267n Thompson, E. M.  15n, 35n Thompson, S.  223n Thrall, M.  370n Thrupp, S.  160n Tilborg, S. van  85n, 170n Timmer, B. J.  249n Tobin, T. H.  480, 480n, 510, 510n, 524

Todorov, T.  27, 27n, 32n Tomes, R.  430n Toombs, D.  161n Toorn, K. van der  135n Toynbee, A.  249, 249n, 250 Trebolle Barrera, J.  146n Tredici, K. del  90n Treier, D. J.  504n, 512n Triandis, H. C.  525n Trobisch, D.  327n Troeltsch, E.  477 Tuckett, C.  187, 187n, 191, 316n, 430n, 492n Turner, E. G.  197n Turner, H. E. W.  190 Turner, J. L.  205n Turner, N.  117n, 434n Tynyanov, Y.  31n, 33n Ulrichsen, J.  130n Unnik, W. C. van  414n Urbach, E. E.  122n, 333n, 372n Urban, C.  136 Urman, D.  437n Uro, R.  189n, 195n, 206n Usener, H.  384n, 394 Valantasis, R.  188n VanderKam, J.  90n, 132n, 411n, 436n, 441n Vanhoye, A.  317n Vansina, J.  226n, 229n, 236 Vászony, A.  225n Vegas Montaner, L.  146n Verheyden, J.  22n Vermes, G.  118n, 455n Vielhauer, P.  429n Vilborg, E.  335n, 389n Villareal, M. J.  525n Vines, M.  26n, 47, 47n, 48, 49, 49n Vlastos, G.  72n Vögtle, A.  92n Volz, P.  77, 78, 82n, 89n, 91n Vööbus, A.  125n, 126n Vos, G.  410nsyn Voss, B. R.  455n Wacker, W. C.  506n Wagner, E.  522 Wagner, G.  478, 478n Wahlde, U. C. von  142, 142n Walker, W. O. jr.  226n Wallace, D. B.  7n, 42n, 43n, 434n Walter, N.  317, 317n, 353n, 361n, 364n, 367n

Index of Authors Walters, P.  524n Walzer, R.  459n Wansbrough, H.  206n, 220n, 256n, 307n Waters, G. P.  509n Waters, K. H.  236n Watson, F.  482, 482n Weber, M.  524n Weber, W.  475, 475n, 476 Wedderburn, A. J. M.  189n, 462n, 478, 478n Weigelt 369n Weiss, J.  79, 79n, 80, 87n, 159, 160, 166n, 399n, 477, 480, 480n Wellhausen, J.  78 Wells, J.  236n Wendel, C.  15n, 35n Wendland, P.  456n Wengst, K.  141n Wenham, D.  318, 318n Wenz, G.  506n Wernberg-Møller, P.  140n Wernick, U.  159, 159n Wernle, P.  166n, 516 Werrett, I. C.  418n Wessner, P.  253n West, M. L.  243n, 245n West, S.  228n Westerholm, S.  488n, 493n, 494, 494n, 500n, 508n, 521n Westlake, H. D.  238n Westscott, B. F.  14n, 17, 17n, 22n, 34n, 37n Wettstein, J. J.  340n Wicklund, R. A.  150, 150n Wiefel, W.  357n Wikgren, A. P.  42n, 43n Wilken, R. L.  458n, 463n Willamowitz-Moellendorf, U.  247 Williams, J. G.  256n, 258n, 260n, 263n Williams, M.  190, 190n Williamson, P. S.  520n Wilson, B. R.  160, 161n, 217n Wilson, N. G.  252n, 445 Wilson, R. McL.  88n, 105n, 124n, 345n

603

Wilson, S. G.  438n, 495n Winden, J. C. M. van  451n Windisch, H.  363n, 377n, 477, 477n Winkler, J. J.  232n, 233n, 253n Winston, D.  132n, 455n Winstone, H.  62n, 68n Winter, D.  198n, 199n Wintermute, O.  536, 536n Wissowa, G.  237n Witherington, B.  198n, 479n Witte, J.  524n Wolf, F. A.  227, 227n, 228, 228n Wolf, K.  27n Wolff, C.  374n, 376n, 401n, 402n Wood, H. G.  482n Wood, W.  151n Worthington, I.  315n, 316n Wotke, F.  456n Wrede, W.  79, 476, 476n, 477, 478, 513, 514, 514n, 516n, 528 Wright, N. T.  58n, 198n, 312n, 487, 492, 492n, 493, 493n, 494, 494n, 507, 508n, 509, 509n, 510, 510n, 511, 511n, 513, 513n, 516, 516n, 522, 523n Wuellner, W.  459, 459n Wurst, G.  19n Yadin, Y.  430, 430n, 432n Yarbro Collins, A.  6n, 7n, 25n, 30n, 39n, 170n, 360n, 376n, 402n Yates, F. A.  321n Yinger, K. L.  398n, 401n, 402, 513, 513n Young, R. D.  94n Zeller, D.  263n, 274n, 275n, 288n, 294n, 300n Zerwick, M.  85n, 278n Zimmerli, W.  276n Zuckschwerdt, E.  419n Zwaan, J. de  126n Zygmunt, J. F.  155, 155n, 159n

Index of Subjects Abba 85–86 Accounts of events  226 Acts – reliability of  176 Adam 347 Adam Christology  484 Afterlife  356, 371, 379, 395, 402n Agathius Scholasticus  109 Age to come  82, 349, 355, 483 Agraphon, agrapha  184, 185 Agrippa I  420, 436n Aides-mémoire 320–327 – definition of  320–321 Alchemy 347 Alphabet, invention of  228, 254 Already / not yet  349, 349n, 376, 391 Amanuensis 307 Ambassadorial letter  459 Ambrose 491n Ambrosiaster 491n Amicus domini 540 Amoraic sources  303 Andronicus  545, 546 Anecdotes (see also Chreia, chreiai)  232, 264 Angel of Darkness  140, 146 Angelology 144 Angelus interpres 81 Anthropological duality  359, 366, 377 Anthropological models  196, 381 Antichrist 82 Antioch 428 Antiochus of Athens  347 Antisthenes  212, 213, 453 Antithetical style  359, 401 Aphorisms – as didactic  270 – collections of  257, 281–282 – function of  258–259 – identifying 260–264 – morphology of  269–279 – poetic form of  273–274 – serialization of  270 – types of  270–279

Aphorisms of Jesus  256–302 – authenticity of  265, 283 – catalog of  284–302 – contraction of  269, 279 – expansion of  269, 279 – oral character of  266 – original form of  265–266 Aphoristic meshalim  261, 262, 264 Aphoristic sentences  275–277, 281 Apologetic writings  456 – Jewish 460 Apocalypse of Abraham 77 Apocalypse genre  357 Apocalypse of John  368n Apocalypse of Peter  357 Apocalyptic 75–93 – definition of  77, 81–82 – myth 159 – rediscovery of  75–76 Apocalyptic dualism  80, 350 Apocalyptic eschatology  75, 77, 79, 81, 86, 87, 89, 348, 354–357, 516 Apocalyptic imagery  82 Apocalyptic scenarios  92 Apocalypticism  75, 207, 475 Apocalyptic literature  78–79 Apocrypha 489 Apocryphal Jesus traditions  182–206 Apologetics 461 Apophthegmata  218, 251, 261–262 Aporiai 454 Apostles (see also Twelve Apostles)   309 Apostolic council  537 Apostolic decree  537, 538 Apostolic Fathers  23, 40, 41, 52, 55, 185, 327, 356 Appian 109 Aratus 470 Archippus 540 Aretologi 253–254 Aristobulus of Alexandria  457 Ariston of Pella  455 Aristotelianism 333

Index of Subjects Aristotle   467 on genre  26–27, 50 on slavery  538 Arrian 109 Asceticism  125, 206, 209, 392–397 Ashes of the red heifer  431 Assumption language  170 Augsburg Confession  505, 511n Autopsia 108 Baptism  533, 534, 548 Baptismal formula  541 Baptist  478, 486 2 Baruch  77, 495n 3 Baruch 77 Beatitudes 271–272 Behavioral memory  323 Behemoth 89 Belial 141 Benefactor 545 Berenike 420 Bias of Priene  113n Biography  25, 26, 31, 45, 46, 47, 48–50, 51, 55, 110, 248–250 Bios, bioi 248–250 Body   362–364, 374, 385 as metaphor for a container  360n resurrection 364 house as metaphor for  364 Book of Concord  505 Book of the Watchers  77 Break bread  88 Brotherhood 541 Caesarea Maritima  428 Calvin, J.  511n Cassius Dio  109 Celibacy  118, 121, 126, 129, 540 Cerdo 128n Chiasmus 315 Chilon of Sparta  113n Chreia, chreiai  218, 251–252, 264, 269 Christian apocalyptic eschatology  375, 391, 392, 401, 402 Christian apologists  458 Christian, Christianity  526, 526n, 528 – as a philosophy  456–459 – as a superstitio  458 – as a term of abuse  526n Christian prophets  266–267, 277 Chrysippus  383, 383n, 384n, 525n Church  367, 526 – as innovative term  526

605

Circumcised and uncircumcised  535, 540 Circumcision  487, 491, 493, 513, 535, 536, 537 – of the heart  535 Circumcision party  535 Cleanthes 360n Cleobulus of Lindos  113n Climax 122 Clothing metaphors  354, 369–373, 377 Clytemnestra 541n Codex  15, 19–20, 35 – single quire  20 Codex Beza  96, 119n Cognitive ambiguity  164 Cognitive dissonance theory  149–181 – recent research  149–153 – testing cognitive dissonance theory  153– 155 Cognitive shift (see also Conversion)  481 Collectivist cultures  525 College of Apostles  309–310 Colossae 540 Commentatio mortis 392–397 Communal memory  320 Community Rule  147 Comparison 214 Conditional sayings  272–273 Conversion  135, 176, 446–447, 450, 455, 457n, 458, 479–481, 494, 540 – definition of  480 – to Judaism  536 Coram Christo 539 Coram deo  533, 548, 549 Corinth – Paul’s opponents in  363, 364 Corinthians, Second  357, 359n, 400n Corpse contamination or impurity  419, 421, 422, 423, 426, 429, 430, 432, 436, 440 – degrees of  422, 423 Cosmic sympathy  347 Cosmology 345 Cosmos  344, 349, 391 Court of Gentiles  415, 426, 435 Court of the Israelites  422, 435 Court of women  415, 423, 427, 435, 436, 436n, 439 Covenant  491, 493, 494, 497, 508, 523 Covenantal nomism  487, 489, 490, 491, 495, 496, 497, 498 Criteria of historicity  183–184, 192, 196–204 Criterion of dissimilarity  183–184, 198–200 Criterion of unpredictability  204–205 Crates 213

606

Index of Subjects

Cynics, Cynicism  207–219, 458 – as a philosophy  210–211, 219 – asceticism of  209–210 – characteristics of  208–214 – conversion to  458 – emphasis on freedom  209, 219 – founder of  212 Cynic epistles  213–214 Cynic-Stoic  211, 219 Cyprian 509 David redivivus 75 Day of the Lord  82 Dead Sea Scrolls  130–48, 478, 489 Death  356, 358, 363, 368, 372, 383, 394n, 401 – in Pauline ethics  395–397 – the philosophical practice of  392–397 Decapolis 216 Deconstruction  53, 53n Deliberative rhetoric (see also Symbouleutic rhetoric)  445, 446, 448 – two styles of  446 Demonology 144 Demonstration 448 Deutero-Pauline letters  323, 544 Devil 135 Dialogues  448, 455 Diaspora  428, 458, 526 Diaspora Judaism  474–475, 526 Diatribe  246–248, 446, 451, 454, 466, 469 Dichotomistic anthropology  98, 366 Didache (text) 10–11 Didache (“teaching”) 314n Dietary laws (see also Kosher food laws)  493, 536 Dio Chrysostom  215, 219 Diodorus Siculus  109 Diogenes the Cynic  212, 213, 251 Dionysius of Halicarnassus  109 Discourse community  32, 45 Disappearance-assumption motif  170 Disciples of Jesus  172, 174 Dissonance reducing strategies  159, 175 Dissonance theory  157–179 Divination 347 Divine intervention  162 Dominical proverb  94–95, 95–97 Dominical sayings – Bultmann’s five type of  260–261 Doxology  69, 69n Dualism  80, 82, 130–148, 188, 332–333, 380 – body-soul  188, 369, 380, 384, 386, 467

– definitions of  133–34 – eschatological  348, 350, 391 – flesh and spirit  334, 349 Hellenistic 384–385 – historical 348 – Johannine  134–135, 147 – in Qumran  138–145 – temporal  348, 355 Dying and rising gods  395n, 478 Education 341 Egalitarianism 528 Egerton Gospel 200–201 Egyptians, Gospel of the 198 Elijah 368 Elijan, the Gaon of Wilna  432n Elijah-Elisha allusions  431 Empty tomb  164, 166–172, 174, 180 Encratism 206 Enoch 368 1 Enoch  77, 368n 2 Enoch  77, 495n Enthusiasm 313 Epic  226–227, 228, 315 Epicurus, Epicureanism  332, 333, 384n, 386, 539 Epideictic rhetoric  445, 446, 448, 459 Epiphanius of Salamis  360 Epistula apostolorum 265 Equality  524, 532–549 Erasmus 491n Eschatological banquet  88, 89, 90 Eschatological feasting  89 Eschatological judgment  398, 399, 404, 405, 406, 409, 410 Eschatological myth  159 Eschatological salvation  89, 128 Eschatological tribulation  91 Eschatology  80, 159, 498 Essenes  132, 457, 542 Ethical dualism  145 Ethical theory  340 Ethnolinguistic groups  524, 524n Eutychus  430, 431 Exile (of Israel)  493 Existentialism 392 Extra-mundane 344n Extra-personal 346 Ezra 372 4 Ezra  77, 495, 495n Fachprosa 109 Failed prophecy  175

Index of Subjects Faith 465 Faith-in-Christ debate  518–519 Faith-knowledge 186 Father (God as)  85–86 Felix 415 Feminism  532, 543 Feminist criticism  543 Fields, W. C.  361 First Jewish revolt  163 Flesh  96, 334, 349, 351 Flesh and Spirit (see Spirit and flesh) Flight of the disciples  166 Folklore genres  267 Folklore studies  220, 224, 237, 248, 254, 255 Folk memory  249 Folksay 123n Food laws  487 Forgiveness maxim  62–63, 66, 69–71 Forgiveness  91, 165 Forgiveness petition  57–74 Form criticism  28, 45, 53, 268 – criticisms of  268 Formula of Concord  511n Fountain of the sun  230–231 Fourfold Gospel  19–24, 54 Fourth Gospel  130–148, 184 Frankness 214–215 Free (person)  533, 538–543, 549 Friendship  72, 245 Freedom  209, 219, 339 Galen 458 Galilee  208, 215, 216, 217, 218 Galilean appearances  167 Galilean theory  166, 168 Gamaliel, Rabbi  476 Gamara 310 Gattungen 30 Genealogy 52 Gender hierarchy  543, 549 Gentiles  482, 483, 486, 487, 488, 502, 508, 525, 529, 530, 532, 538 – conversion of  507, 535, 536 – as dogs  531 impurity of  431 Gentile mission  530, 531, 548 Genitivus auctoris 35 Genre criticism  27–29, 54 Genre theory  25–56 Genres 448n – complex  22, 32, 45 – transformation of  32 – simple 45

607

Gnostic anthropology  345 Gnostic Christianity  186 Gnostic coloration  187 Gnostics, gnosticism  125, 334n, 358, 369, 385, 391, 477 – as fuzzy category  190 – as opponents of Paul  336n Gnostic myth  187–190 Gnostic theology  189 Gnostic Thomas literature  187 God as eschatological judge  412 as Reason  525 God-fearers  536, 537n Gog and Magog  82 Gospel, gospels  528 – definition of  3–5, 189 – historicity of  249 – in Galatians  5 – in Mark  5–8 – in Paul  5 – in the second century  9–14 Gospel of the Egyptians 124 Gospel of the Nazaraeans 88 Gospels  3–24, 530 – Aggregation of  34, 38 – eastern order  22, 23 – order of  22 – western order   34 Gratitude 73 Great Tribulation  356 Greek and Jew  533 Greek historical prefaces  108 Greek historiography  107, 108 Habitationes  373, 379 Haburim 309 Hades, tours of  357 Haggadah 314n Halakah  305–306, 317, 473 Hasidim 155 Heavenly temple  367 Hebraists 179 Hellenes and barbaroi (see also Jew and Greek) 534 Hellenism 332 Hellenistic anthropology  99, 401 Hellenistic Christianity  478 Hellenistic eschatology  354–357, 370, 401 Hellenistic historiography  236–241 Hellenistic Judaism  133n, 216, 332, 474–475, 477n Hellenistic Jewish Christianity  217

608

Index of Subjects

Hellenistic philosophical schools  443 Hellenists 179 Hellenistic wisdom traditions  207 Herakles  210, 249–250 Hero, morphology of the  248–250 Herodian 109 Herodotus  35, 109, 223, 235, 236–238, 255 Herrenworte (see Dominical sayings) Hesiod 355 Historical Jesus  160, 187, 208, 527, 528, 548 – core teachings of  528 Historical criticism  332, 473, 527 Historical prefaces  107–115 Historiography 456 History  25, 26, 45 History-of-religions school  476, 478 History of salvation (see also Salvation history) 535 Hochliteratur  30, 30n Holocaust  478, 500, 504 Holy Spirit  96, 143, 147 Homeric bards  242 Homeric epic  227, 228, 355 Honor and shame  72, 196 Hooker, M.  495, 495n Household codes  539, 543 House imagery  335, 379 Huldah gates  437, 439 Human nature (ancient views of)  331–352, 381–397 – Aristotle’s views  383, 467 – diversity of ancient views  382 – diversity in Plato’s views – dualistic views of  382 – monistic views of  382 – Paul’s view of  387 – Stoic view of  383 Human rights  524–549 Iamblichus of Chalchis  453 Iconotrophy 229 Ignatius of Antioch  11, 543 Illocutionary actions  65, 68 Incipit, – of Matthew  8 Idiocentrism-allocentrism 525 Indifference 214–215 Imitatio Christi 396 Immersion 425 Immortality  356, 370 – of the soul  370 Individualism-collectivism  525, 543 Individualistic cultures  525

Inner person (see also Outer person)  359– 362, 377, 380, 401 Inscriptiones (of the Gospels)  3—24 Interpretatio Christiana  478 Ipsissima structura  265, 283 Ipsissima verba  265, 283, 307 Intermediate state  358, 366, 367, 372, 373, 376, 379 Intra-mundane 344n Intra-personal 346 Irenaeus of Lyons  24 Irrational behavior model  331–343, 350 – in Paul  341–343, 350 Ishmael ben Phiabi  417n Itinerant lifestyle  217 Itinerant story tellers  253 Itinerary source  424 Ius talionis 277 James, Apocryphon of  187, 191 James, Second Apocalypse of  187, 191 James the Just  414, 419n, 537 Jehovah’s Witnesses  159 Jerusalem  177, 310 – as center of the Church  309 – temple in  418, 431, 433, 435 Jerusalem theory  166 Jesus movement  536 Jesus of Nazareth – as a Cynic sage  206–219 – as founder of a revitalization movement 529 – and human rights  527–531 – as a messenger of God  165 – as an apocalyptist  58, 527 – burial of  319 – death of  158, 163, 164, 174, 175, 319, 397, 400, 515, 526 – Galilean appearances of  167–168, 177 – in the disciples’ belief system  164, 180 – as messiah  348, 479, 482–483, 484, 493 – resurrection of  167, 168, 170, 172, 178, 180, 366, 397, 493 – as teacher of subversive wisdom  527 teachings and activities of  42 Jesus traditions  196 Jew and Greek (see also Greek and Jew)  533n, 534, 535, 536, 544 Jewish apocalyptic eschatology  80, 85, 348, 350, 354, 375, 392, 401, 402, 516 Jewish apologeticds  460 Jewish Cynicism  219 Jewish novel  25–26

Index of Subjects Jewish popular proverbs  257 Jewish private prayer  59, 59n Johannine community  134–138, 141, 142 Johannine dualism  147 John, Gospel of  21, 22 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification 521 Josephus  109, 110 Judaism 216 as legalistic religion  79, 473, 475–476, 484, 488, 489, 490, 495, 496, 498, 499, 500 – as a philosophy  456–459 – as a religion of grace  473n, 494, 495, 498, 499 – repentance and forgiveness in  490 Judas 135 Judas the Galilean  162 Judas, Gospel of   19, 19n Judgement, final  398, 399, 404, 405, 408 – in Paul  403–407 Judgment scenarios  410–413 Judgment seat of Christ  358, 375, 401, 403 Junia(feminine)  544, 545, 546, 549 Junias (masculine)  545, 546 Justification by faith  472–523 Justin Martyr  127, 455, 457n, 458 Kashrut (see Kosher food laws)  513, 536 Kerygma 314n King, M. L.  530 Kingdom of God  79, 86–87, 158, 160 Kingdom of heaven  8 King James Version  68 Kleinliteratur  30, 30n Koester school  205 Konsequente Eschatologie  80 Kosher food laws (see also Dietary laws)  491, 493 , 513, 536 Krupp, G.  498 Last judgment  356, 374, 376, 410 Law, Mosaic (see also Torah)  465, 486, 499, 504, 537 Lecio brevior potior est 36 Legalism (see also Nomism)  472, 472n, 473, 489, 516 Letteraturizazione  222, 247 Leviathan 89 Levitical impurity  424 Lex talionis 64 Liberal Protestantsim  79, 527, 528 Lieux de mémoire  303, 320–327 – definition of  320–321

609

Life according to culture  209 Life according to nature  209 Loci memoriae 321 Logos protreptikos  442–471 – generic features of  446–452 – history of  446–456 Lord’s Prayer  10, 57–74, 75–93, 320 – authenticity of  58–59 – Q version of  60 Lord’s Supper  477 Lubavitcher chabad  155 Lubavitcher communities  155–157 Lubavitchers 156–157 Lucian  223, 239 Luke, Gospel of  20 Luke-Acts 107–115 Luther, M.  312, 473, 480, 500, 500n, 505, 511n, 521, 522 Lutheranism  504, 505, 513 Lutheran orthodoxy  312–313, 522 Lutheran-Catholic dialog  505–507, 520, 521 Lutheran World Federation  505n Macrocosm  343, 344, 347, 349 Macrocosm-microcosm homology  343, 344, 346, 347 – Paul’s version of  348 Magic 347 Makarisms (see Beatitudes) Male and female  543, 544, 546, 549 Manumission  542, 543 Marcion of Sinope  4–5, 12, 117n, 128, 129 Marcus Aurelius  333, 385, 458 Mark, Gospel of  20–22, 33 – Biographical parody  48–50 – Didactic function of  45 – discourse community of  45, 50 – genre of   25–56 – macrogenre of  46–48 paratactic style of  44 Proto‑ 43n–44n style of  44n title of  42–43 Marriage 540 Martyrs 371 Mary Magdalene  167, 547 Mary, mother of James  167 Mashal, meshalim  260, 263–264 Matthew, Gospel of  20–21, 23 – genre of  25–56 – deconstruction of Q  53 – dependence on Mark  51

610

Index of Subjects

– discourse community of  50 – redaction of  194 title of  52 – transformation of Mark  50 Maxims 264 Mechanical memorization  306 Medea 340 Meditare mortem 394 Melanchthon  462, 505, 509n, 511n Meleager 216 Melito of Sardis  458 Memoires 34 Memorates  225, 225n, 251 Memorized speech  226, 255, 306 Memory  244–246, 323 – language of  323 – Paul’s “memory” vocabulary  323–325 Menander  125, 127 Menippus 216 Meristic anthropology  96 Messiah  82, 90, 156, 157, 158, 348, 372, 411, 486 Messianic age (see also Age to come)   483, 486 Messianic banquet  88, 89, 90 Messianic movements  165 Messianic prophet  162 Messianic woes  82 Messiology 144 Metaphor 263 Michael  144, 145 Microcosm  343, 344, 391 Middle Platonism  467 Mikveh, mikva’ot  177, 432–433, 436–437, 439, 440 Millenarianism  82, 159–162, 165 – Cohn’s definition of  160 Miltiades 458 Mind (nous)  355, 467 Miracles  184, 253 Mishnah  306, 307, 310, 473, 489 Misogenism 547 Mnemonics 244 Modes 448n Monimus  213, 453 Monism  332, 338, 386 Monotheism 525 Moral progress  341 Mortality / immortality  356, 370 Mourner’s Qaddiš  83–84, 86 Muratorian canon  22, 22n Mystery cults  242, 477, 478 Mysticism 206

Myth 26 Mythic narrative  25 Nag Hammadi texts  189 Nakedness, as metaphor  370, 389 Narrative covenant  32n Narrative criticism  25n Narrative meshalim  262, 264 Nationality 546 Nativistic cults  458 Nazirite, Nazirites  416, 417, 419, 424, 425, 427, 428, 431, 432, 434, 435, 436, 439, 440–441 Nazirite corpse contamination  421 Nazirite vow  415–441 Neoclassical literary criticism  26 Neoplatonism 454 Neopythagoreanism 454 Nevins, Allen  236 New age  248, 355 New cosmology  368 New covenant  75 New creation  349 New Criticism  28, 29 New Perspective on Paul  473n, 487–500, 505, 507–513, 514, 521, 522 New View of Paul  500–504 Noachic commands  537, 537n Nomism (see also Legalism)  472, 472n, 498, 516 Normative Judaism  476 Norm-oriented movements  164 Novels 26 Novella 232 Nympha 544 Old Latin  68 Onesicratus 213 Oenomaus 216 Onesimus  540, 541, 542 Oracles 242 Oracle story  231–232 Oral composition  222, 307 Oral discourse  448 Oral epic  315 Oral-Formulaic theory  221, 221n, 227–229, 315 Oral genres  220, 236 – preserved by Pausanias  236 Oral Gospel  311 Oral history  236, 322 Orality vs. textuality  221, 254, 306, 307, 311 Oral Jesus traditions  206

Index of Subjects Oral literature – stylistic features of  223 – types of  225 Oral patterning  315 Oral performances  220, 222 Oral Torah  305, 308 Oral tradition  45, 123n, 185, 191–192, 220–255, 306, 309 – accuracy of  268 – definition of  224–227, 256–302 Oral transmission  220 Ordo salutis 522 Original text  308 Orpheus, Orphism  243, 255, 337, 371 Outer court  422, 435 Outer person (see also Inner person)  359– 362, 377, 380, 401 Palestinian Judaism  216, 475, 476, 495, 526 Palestinian Jewish Christianity  217 Panaetius  333, 384 Papius of Hierapolis  20–21, 23, 239–241 Papyrus roll(s)  15, 35, 44 Parables  259, 262–263 Paraclete  142, 143–145 Paraenesis 342 Paratactic style  44 Paratextuality  14, 14n, 19, 33–43, 54–55 Parody  48–50, 447, 450, 452 Parousia  80, 167, 168, 325, 356, 358, 363n, 366, 367, 373, 379, 399 Participationist transfer terms  515, 516, 517 Passion narrative  44, 97, 98, 106 Passion predictions  165 Passivum divinum  117, 121 Passover 163 Patron-clients relationships  196, 545 Paul 307–316 – as an apostle  309 – Augustinian interpretation of  502 – conceptions of equality  532 – conversion of  479–485, 494 – Damascus road experience of  479, 494 – eschatology 353 – eschatological dualism of  350, 392 – Lutheran interpretation of  500, 500n, 521 – prophetic call of  479–481 – school of  324 – use of latent apocalyptic discourse  407, 413 – views of human nature  331–352, 386–392 Pauline anthropology  100–103, 331–352 – ancient models for  331–352 – problem of  332–339

611

Pauline letters  306–316, 321, 322, 327 – authenticity of  315, 316, 331n, 532n – autobiography in  322 – collection of  320, 327 – paraenesis in  319 – pseudepigraphal letters  322, 324, 324n, 327 Pauline mysticism  477 Pauline stylistic techniques  315–316 Pauline travelogue  311 Pausanias  224, 227, 233–236, 241, 255 Pentacost  177, 178 Peregrinus 458 Performance variations  279 Performative utterances  65 Periander of Corinth  113n Persecution 354 Peter  166, 167, 168, 177 Pharisaism, Pharisees  305, 457,484, 486, 499 – relationship to rabbis  305 – Josephus as a Pharisee  457 – Paul as a Pharisee  488, 500n Philemon  540, 541 Philo of Alexandria  454 Philo of Larissa  448 Philosopher 356 Philosophical biography  112 Philosophical schools  245–248 Phoebe  544, 545, 545n, 549 Pittacus of Mitylene  113n Platonic dualism  337 Plato, Platonism  333, 338n, 358, 362, 385 – views of human nature  338n Plausibilitätskriterium 198 Plutarch  48, 112, 114–115, 223, 255 Polybius  109, 238–239 Pontifical Biblical Commission  520 Population of Jerusalem  163 Posidonius of Apamea  333, 347, 383, 386n, 455, 470 Postmortem existence  389, 395 Postmortem judgment  402n Present (evil) age  82, 349 Private prayer  59 Prince of Darkness  141 Prince of Light  140, 141, 144 Print-oriented hermeneutic  221 Procopius 109 Promptuaria  372, 373, 379 Pronouncement stories  251, 261, 264 Prophetic-messianic movements  161, 162, 163 Prooimion 1–7–115

612

Index of Subjects

Prophetic eschatology  75 Proselytism  158, 175–179, 456 Prosopopoiia  502–503 Protestant-Catholic dialog  519 Proto-Mark 43n–44n Protreptic  245, 445 Proverbs  227, 260–261, 263 – Relation to aphorisms  260–261 Pseudo-Titus Epistle  124, 125 Purity laws  487, 530, 536, 548 Pythagorean maxims  454 Pythagorus, Pythagoreans  245–255, 337, 385 Qaddiš  83–84, 86 Q (Sayings Source)  51, 60, 85, 95, 184, 192, 193, 203, 204, 263, 267, 271, 275, 279, 316 – dating of  204 – QLk   267, 271 – QMt   267, 271 Qumran community  82, 89, 132, 141, 145, 164 Qumran literature  122, 132, 147, 306 Rabbi Yohanan  305 Rabbinic Judaism  122, 133n, 304, 306, 475 Rabbinic literature  475, 488n, 498 Rabbinic pedagogical techniques  304–306 Rabbinic soteriology  499 Random burial  430 Rapture 356 Realized eschatology  135 Reciprocity  72–73, 277–279 Redaction criticism  53 Redemption 156 Refutation 448 Religion (no ancient terms for)  458 Residual oralism  221 Resurrection  83, 120–121, 127–129, 156, 356, 358, 366, 372, 373, 493 Retaliation 74 Revitalization movements  529 Rhetoric, rhetoricisns  246–247, 444 Rhetorical genre studies  29, 54 Rhetorical handbooks  447 Righteousness of God  313, 485, 494 Ring composition  315–316 Ritual immersion or bathing  425, 437, 440 Ritual pollution  431n, 531 Ritual purification  431, 432, 433, 4343–435, 436, 439 Ritual purity  414–441 Robinson’s Arch  437, 439 Roman law of persons  539

Romans, Paul’s Letter to the  442–471 – genre of  443, 459–462 Rumor – definition of  172 Rumor theory  172–179 Sabbath observance  486, 487, 491, 493, 513, 536, 537 Sachkritik 313 Sadducees 457 Salvation  83, 344, 348, 490, 494, 504, 512, 515, 523 – metaphors for  516–517 Salvation history  514, 515, 535 Sancrification 512 Satan  93, 135, 135n, 355 Sayings (see also Aphorisms, Apophthegmata) 227 Schneerson, Menahem M., Rabbi  156–157 Scientific prefaces  107–115 Second Jewish revolt  163 Secretary 307 Self   331 – as whole or divided  331 Semitisms  116–117, 117n, 120 Sentences of holy law  277–279 Septuagint  477, 478 Septuagintisms 117 Sermon on the Mount  71 Sermon on the Plain  71 Seven sages  113 Seven planetary spheres  345, 368 Seventh Day Adventists  159 Sexuality, NT view of  543 Shepherd of Hermas 77 Sibyl 232 Signs source  184 Simanim 310 Similitudes 262 Slave, slavery  533, 538–543, 549 abolition of  542 – ancient critiques of  538n – Aristotle on  538 Social hierarchies  534 Social memory (see also Communal ­memory)  322 Social support  158, 165–172 Socrates 73 Solon of Athens  113n Sons of light  147, 356 Sorites 454 Soteriology  482, 499 Soul, ancient theories of the  333, 355, 371, 467

Index of Subjects ■■tripartite division of the  338n, 385 Soul / body dichotomy  384 – common ancient views  384 – modern caricatures of the Greek view  384 – separation of  393 Souter, A.  491n Spatial microcosm  344, 345 Special L  85, 184, 192, 193 Special M  85, 184, 192, 193 Speech in character (see also Pro­sopopoiia) 502–503 Spirit  96, 334, 342n, 343 Spirit and flesh  97–99, 392 Spirit of error  143 Spirit of God  102 Spirit of holiness  147 Spirit of Truth  142–145, 146 Spirit-Paraclete  142, 143–145 Statements of reciprocity  277–279 Stoics, Stoicism  332, 333, 525, 539 – conception of universal brotherhood  542 – materialistic monism of  525 Storehouses of souls  372, 379 Stories 252–254 Stories about Jesus  264 Subscriptiones (of the Gospels)  7, 14–19, 33–42 Suffering  354, 401 Suicide  209, 392n Sui generis (Gospels as)  26 Summum bonum 344 Synkrisis, synkriseis  454, 465, 466 Superscriptiones (of the Gospels)  33–42 Symbouleutic rhetoric (see also Deliberative rhetoric) 445 Symposion 112 Synagogue 437 Syncretism 356 Synoptic Gospels  83, 87, 133 Synoptic problem  43n Synoptic tradition  28, 41 Syrian Christianity  118, 126 Systemic microcosm  344, 346–347 Table fellowship  527–531, 548 Tales 227 Talmud 310 Tannaitic literature  303, 489, 489n, 495, 499 Tatian 458 Tatian’s Diatessaron  20, 24, 193 Tebel yom  424, 429 Temporal microcosm  344, 346

613

Tent as metaphor for body  335–336, 365–366, 389 Testament, literary genre of  459 Testament of Abraham 495 Testament of Solomon 308 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs  143, 145 Testimonium Flavianum 185 Textsorten 29 Thales of Miletus  113n Theopompus 109 Thespius 369 Thessalonians, First  326, 526 Theudas 162 Third quest of the historical Jesus  479 Thomas, Gospel of  15n, 36n, 182, 184, 185, 187, 266, 326, 327 – date of composition  203 – Gnostic redactor of  187, 192 – redactions of  205 – stratification of  201–202, 205 – subscriptio of   36n – superscriptio of 36n – theology of  205–206 Thomas authority  202 Thouth 347 Thucydides  109, 237–238 Titulus on the cross  163 Toledot Yeshu 172 Topos, topoi 454 Torah (see also Law)  465, 475, 483, 485, 486, 487, 498, 503, 537 Tosephta 489 Tradition  12, 325 Travel guides (ancient)  229–236 Treasuries of souls  372, 379 Triangular reciprocity  62–64, 72–73 Tribulation 82 Tribunal of Christ  409 Tribunal of God  409 Trichotomous anthropology  337, 347 Triple tradition  192 Trophimus of Ephesus  415, 438, 439 Truth, Gospel of 19 Type-scenes 45 Twelve apostles  304 – as collegium  304, 309 Twelve tribes of Israel  411, 529, 531 – restoration of  529, 531, 548 Two ages  353, 355 Two-covenant model of salvation  501 Underworld  371, 375, 402 visit to the  233

614

Index of Subjects

Unfulfilled prophecies  158 Universalism 485–487 Use-value (of discourse)  31, 48 Utopian communities  542 Value-oriented movements  164 Verbum scriptum 311 Verbum vox  311 Viva vox evangelii  11, 312 Vogel, H. J.  491n Vulgate 68 Water of purification  417, 417n, 418, 429 We-passages 415 “Whoever” sayings  272 Will 340n Wisdom of Solomon  454

Wisdom saying or admonition  263, 274–275 Wittgenstein’s family resemblance theory 31n Woes of the Messiah  92 Women  543, 545, 547 – positions of  544 Works of the law  485, 491, 492 Xenophon 109 Zaddik  155, 156 Zealots  161, 162 Zeno of Citium  211, 383n, 384n, 525, 525n Zeus  336, 542 – all people as offspring of  542 Zosimus of Panopolis  347