Mark and Matthew II. Comparative Readings: Reception History, Cultural Hermeneutics, and Theology 3161525450, 9783161525452

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

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Mark and Matthew II Comparative Readings: Reception History, Cultural ­Hermeneutics, and Theology Edited by

Eve-Marie Becker and

Anders Runesson

Mohr Siebeck

Eve-Marie Becker, born 1972, Studies of Theology in Marburg and Erlangen; 2001 Dr. theol.; 2004 Habilitation; since 2006 Professor of New Testament Exegesis at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Anders Runesson, born 1968; Ph. D. (2001); Docent (2002), Lund University; since 2003 Professor of Early Christianity and Early Judaism, McMaster University, Canada.

e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-152-546-9 ISBN 978-3-16-152545-2 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 using Minion typeface, printed by Gulde-Druck in Tübingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany.

Preface This book presents the outcome of the second of two international collaborative efforts to develop a new comparative approach to the study of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. The project began with a conference at Aarhus University, Denmark, in 2008 (published in 2011; WUNT 271), and continued with a second conference at McMaster University, Canada, in 2009. Together, the two volumes represent the teamwork of thirty-one scholars active in thirteen countries on four continents. The first volume focused on comparative analysis of the earliest Gospels in their first-century settings. In the present volume, contributors have worked on the reception of Mark and Matthew in numerous settings, from the first to the twenty-first century (Part One), as well as on specific issues raised by the diverse, culturally embedded hermeneutics involved in the production of meaning in different social, religious, political, and economic contexts (Part Two). We would like to express our gratitude to all contributors for their interest in the overall project, their collegiality, and their willingness to work on the specific topics suggested to them. The success of the project as a whole is dependent first and foremost on the contributors’ efforts and inspiration. The McMaster conference was made possible through a generous grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), as well as from contributions by the Office of the Vice-President of Research, McMaster University, and Mohr Siebeck; we are very grateful for and encouraged by this strong support for what we believe is an important step forward in the study of the earliest Gospels. We also want to acknowledge our deep gratitude to doctoral student Ralph Korner, McMaster University, who provided invaluable assistance with the many details involved in the organizational procedures related to the conference. His exceptional administrative skills, as well as his unwaveringly cheerful attitude throughout the event were highly praised by the attendees and contributed greatly to the convivial and collegial atmosphere of the conference. The event took place at the McMaster University Club; we are especially grateful to Jennifer Brewer, Assistant Club Manager, for the excellent service and leadership that she provided. As everyone who has edited a book knows, a lot of painstaking work at several stages goes in to the production of a volume. For much appreciated assistance with the editorial procedure, we would like to extend our sincere thanks to Dr. Jeremy Penner (Catholic University, Leuven) and doctoral student Nick Meyer (McMaster University). Their careful eye for detail, including their language editing, has greatly enhanced the quality of the volume. We are likewise grateful to doctoral student Jacob Mortensen (Aarhus University) who has prepared the indices for this volume with great precision. Finally, we would like to thank Prof. Dr. Jörg

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Frey, the editor of WUNT, for accepting the volume in this series, and – last but not least – Dr. Henning Ziebritzki and Tanja Idler at Mohr Siebeck for their support and encouragement as this project was brought to completion. December, 2012 

Anders Runesson, Hamilton, and Eve-Marie Becker, Aarhus

Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V Anders Runesson and Eve-Marie Becker Introduction: Reading Mark and Matthew Within and Beyond the First Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Part I Reception and Cultural Hermeneutics: Reading Mark and Matthew From the 1st to the 21st Century Eve-Marie Becker The Reception of “Mark” in the 1st and 2nd Centuries C. E. and its Significance for Genre Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Petri Luomanen From Mark and Q to Matthew: An Experiment in Evolutionary Analysis . . . 37 Benedict Thomas Viviano, O. P. Who Wrote Q? The Sayings Document (Q) as the Apostle Matthew’s Private Notebook as a Bilingual Village Scribe (Mark 2:13–17; Matt 9:9–13) 75 René Falkenberg Matthew 28:16–20 and the Nag Hammadi Library: Reception of the Great Commission in the Sophia of Jesus Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Peter Widdicombe The Patristic Reception of the Gospel of Matthew: The Commentary of Jerome and the Sermons of John Chrysostom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Joseph Verheyden Reading Matthew and Mark in the Middle Ages: The Glossa Ordinaria . . . . . 121 Martin Meiser Protestant Reading of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew in the 20th Century 151

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Detlev Dormeyer A Catholic Reading of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew in the 20th Century . 169 Anders Runesson Judging the Theological Tree by its Fruit: The Use of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew in Official Church Documents on Jewish-Christian Relations 189

Part II History, Meaning, and the Dynamics of Interpretation Adela Yarbro Collins Mark and the Hermeneutics of History Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Stephen Westerholm Hearing the Gospels of Matthew and Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Mogens Müller The Place of Mark and Matthew in Canonical Theology: A Historical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Janice Capel Anderson Mark and Matthew in Feminist Perspective: Reading Matthew’s Genealogy 271 Hans Leander Mark and Matthew after Edward Said . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele Re-Assembling Jesus: Rethinking the Ethics of Gospel Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 Michael P. Knowles The Interpretation of Mark and Matthew in Historical Perspective: The Transfiguration as a Test Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357 List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 Index of References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399 Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Introduction Reading Mark and Matthew Within and Beyond the First Century Anders Runesson and Eve-Marie Becker 1. Comparative Readings: Between Reader, Text, and Context Sustained comparative Synoptic studies do not stand alone methodologically in the humanities. Such approaches, which elaborate on an individual author or text by means of comparison, belong to a more general trend within cultural studies as well as in the humanities more broadly, such as in, e.g., literary studies and philosophy.1 Engaging in textual interpretation involves approaching specific texts composed more often than not by individual authors. In these texts, however, are embedded a myriad of conscious and unconscious relationships to historical and contemporary events, people, and other texts likewise connected historically and contemporaneously. In-depth understanding of a text evolves, therefore, almost by necessity from multi-perspectival comparative approaches rather than from readings taking a more isolated focus as point of departure. Indeed, all understanding, even in its most basic forms, is, arguably, in its very nature based on comparison; what we perceive is always the result of instant mental processes aimed at making sense of the space and time in which we move, and / or which we imagine, in relation to already acquired experience and knowledge. The Mark and Matthew project, of which the present study is the second volume, aims at taking seriously such more general insights and applying them to the earliest Gospels in order to stimulate new research and a deeper understanding of these two texts individually and as parts of a common discursive setting. In the first volume, published in 2011, we outlined aspects involved in and insights to be won from a comparative approach to the earliest Gospels in their first-century settings.2 An international group of scholars engaged the Gospels from the perspectives of history of research, text criticism, linguistics, date, genre, socio-religious location, conflict, violence, and community building. A final con1 For example, it is hardly accidental that a philosopher like Ernst Cassirer tried to make best sense of Rousseau, whose birth 300 years ago is celebrated in 2012, by approaching him on the basis of comparative readings (Rousseau – Kant – Goethe): Ernst Cassirer, Über Rousseau (Hg. und mit einem Nachwort von G. Kreis; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2012). 2 Eve-Marie Becker and Anders Runesson, “Introduction: Studying Mark and Matthew in Comparative Perspective” in Mark and Matthew I, Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in their First Century Settings (ed. E.-M. Becker and A. Runesson; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011) 1–10.

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tribution provided notes from the conference aimed at encouraging further discussions. We are pleased to see that reviewers of volume I so far have appreciated its innovative impact.3 In the present volume, maintaining the comparative perspective, our goal is to expand our approaches to Mark and Matthew through taking on questions relating to reception, cultural hermeneutics, and theology, covering a time-span from the first to the twenty-first century. Doing so, one aspect of the interpretive endeavor that we wish to highlight is the fact that the texts are silent until we, their readers, give them voice; that meaning and use happen in the interplay between history and the present, residing never in one place alone, but rather in the dynamic space embracing both text and reader. In order to address such questions, we have brought together seventeen scholars, teaching at universities in nine countries, who approach the texts from a variety of viewpoints utilizing different methodologies and applying them to specific periods in time, from the very beginnings of the history of the texts up to our own day. This in-depth and focused collaboration between scholars has produced, we believe, a fascinating combination of detailed studies of particular themes and time periods on the one hand, and, on the other, an intriguing overall impression, emerging from the volume when read in its entirety, of the elastic and vigorous nature of the interpretive enterprise. As we planned the two conferences and the volumes that have followed from them, we have been keenly aware of the fact that current developments in Gospel research tend to challenge many central and long-held consensuses within the study of each of the Gospels. Addressing this situation in a creative way needs to involve, in our view, several parameters. The field is currently in a position in which we must address a very wide variety of concerns as they relate to the study of the earliest Gospels. It is essential, therefore, to be as comprehensive as possible in our selection of topics and themes to be dealt with, both within and beyond the more traditional approaches that we apply to our texts. Radical diversity of opinion with regard to almost each and every one of these approaches in turn leads to a desire for an overview of exegetical developments over time, to put things in perspective; a ‘time-line’ of sorts, providing us with case studies which, when connected, generate a sense of our own relative place in a two-thousand year old chain of interpreters. Involved in such an endeavor, if it is to be launched effectively, are several aspects relating to us – and by “us” we mean both contemporary and historical individuals – as interpreters, as political, social, and religious beings in different parts of the world, not least the simple fact that we relate to history from our respective vantage points. We need, in other words, to address issues like history, meaning, and the dynamics of understanding. 3 See, e.g. Helen K. Bond, review of E.-M. Becker and A. Runesson (eds), Mark and Matthew I, Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in their First Century Settings, JSNT 45.5 (2012) 38–39; Jeff Jay, review of E.-M. Becker and A. Runesson (eds), Mark and Matthew I, Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in their First Century Settings, Early Christianity 3 (2012) 259–64.

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In order to implement such a strategy with the aim of creating an expanded platform for the study of the earliest narrative witnesses to Jesus of Nazareth, a platform which has the potential of opening up new ways of thinking about these texts – and of ourselves and others as readers – scholars from different interpretive ‘guilds’ and academic cultures need to work together in a concerted effort to move beyond that which happens to be familiar in one particular place. In the past, researchers within various such interpretive ‘guilds’ have, unfortunately, tended to work in isolation from each other, and interaction has often been limited, to the detriment of the wider field of Gospel studies. The two Mark and Matthew volumes thus far produced aim at taking some initial steps towards overcoming such isolation and opening up a shared space in which different perspectives can meet and inspire rather than clash and lead to estrangement. In a constantly shrinking world, such efforts seem more important now than ever before, as we realize the relativity of our own interpretive efforts in the larger context of both culture and history. The present volume has a distinct focus on the reception of Mark and Matthew in comparative perspective, from the earliest period onwards. With ‘the earliest period’ we include the first century, since ‘reception’ is a rather elusive concept involving also the production of the texts themselves. Accepting Markan priority, the creation of the text is evidence of a specific form of reception of parts of the oral Jesus traditions transmitted and circulated in the first century, as well as, possibly, some earlier written forms of these traditions, the latter also being part of the reception of previous oral traditions. These oral traditions, out of which Mark’s Gospel was carved, continued to exist as such alongside Mark, as Mark’s own textual reception history took form in Matthew’s Gospel and elsewhere. Matthew, while utilizing Mark’s Gospel, also textualised other versions of the same traditions as Mark had used, as well as traditions transmitted beyond the reach, or liking, of Mark. For scholars accepting the theory of a written Q source, this source was also, along with oral tradition, merged together with the other sources in the highly structured matrix that has come down to us as the Gospel of Matthew.4 Then, later, Matthew’s Gospel exercised influence on the reception of Mark’s Gospel, as the ending of that Gospel was augmented by traditions partly gleaned from Matthew.5 The constant presence of oral tradition alongside the written documents complicates any theory aiming at exact descriptions of the intricate web of interconnections between Mark and Matthew. In these processes of overlapping receptions that led to the genesis of the earliest gospels that have been preserved 4 Q, according to some scholars, was also part of the material known to Mark, who used it sparingly. Thus, the analysis of the production of Mark, in such theories, needs to take into account a specific form of Q reception. For a recent overview of the origin and structure of the Gospel of Matthew, see Anders Runesson, “Matthew, Gospel According to,” in vol. 2 of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible (ed. M. D. Coogan; 2 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 59–78. 5 See James A.  Kelhoffer, Miracle and Mission: The Authentication of Missionaries and their Message in the Longer Ending of Mark (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000).

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through the centuries, we also see the birth of the reception of the genre of the gospels themselves, which develops significantly in the second century and onwards.

2. Reception and the Production of Meaning Diverse types of concepts and theories can illuminate the literary shape of the gospel genre. On the basis of genre-studies, Eve-Marie Becker investigates Mark’s primary impact on the further history of the gospel-genre “in its inventive power of creating a literary concept of a gospel-writing.”6 In its first successful decades, ‘Mark’ was considered to be a literary source rather than a ‘stable text.’ Although the Gospel’s reception-history was not coherent as such early on,7 the text must soon have been understood as a literary concept that opened up the floor for literary improvement, re-arrangement, and competition. Consequently, when considering the gospel-concept in relation to Mark, Matthew, and the Gospel of Peter, it should be noted that it was not only imitated but also developed extensively. It is clear that Mark opened up the doors for the development of early Christian literary activities since it functioned as an impetus for organizing Jesus-narratives in literary terms. More specifically, Mark initiated and stimulated the early Christian history of narrative literature to a large extent. Borrowing ideas from evolutionary theory, the cognitive science of religion, and network analysis, Petri Luomanen proposes an evolutionary analysis of Mark, Matthew, and Q which explains why Mark and Matthew – and not Q – survived as literary documents. Moreover, in an evolutionary perspective, Mark, and particularly Matthew, seem to have a most “successful evolutionary profile,” regarding formal, i.e. literary characteristics, network discourse, identity discourse, and ritual discourse. As Luomanen notes, “Q was the most likely to disappear as an independent document and Matthew the most likely to be the most successful.”8 Luomanen’s study reinforces the fact that a comparative analysis of Mark and Matthew cannot escape the quest for and the analysis of ‘Q.’ Keeping Q in the equation, Benedict Thomas Viviano offers an, in his own words, “positivistic” historical approach defined over and against postmodern convictions, as he presents a historical reconstruction of Q’s origin and provenance. For Viviano, Q is “for the most part a collection of the aphoristic teachings and apocalyptic preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus, preserved in the private notebooks of a direct auditor of these two preachers”; the auditor is identified as Matthew Levi.9 From here, Viviano moves on to a fresh comparative reading of Mark 2:13–17 and Matt 9:9–13, which underlines the continuous need for ‘exploratory exegesis.’ In 6 P.

33. limited papyri-transmission; the variety of Markan endings; “Secret Gospel of Mark”; hypotheses on Deutero‑ and Proto-Mark. 8 P. 71 and 73. 9 P. 75. 7 Cf.

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this way, light is shed on the dynamic impact of historical hypotheses on textual interpretation. As is well known, while Mark’s Gospel enjoyed initial success and great influence on the production of gospels, Matthew soon achieved a standing unrivalled among the Gospels in church history, mirroring its position as the first text of the New Testament canon. Matthew’s influence, however, reached beyond the circles that later came to dominate developments in the majority church as Christianity rose to political prominence in the late fourth century. It seems clear, e.g., that Matthew was favored and used by Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and who practiced a form of Christ-centered Judaism that became increasingly marginalized as non-Jewish forms of Christianity became politically empowered and anti-Jewish legislation was introduced in the Christian Empire.10 But Matthew was also used by other, non-Jewish Christ-believing groups, which were part of the diverse scene involving beliefs and practices centered on Jesus as a Christ-figure, and which, in the end, were marginalized. Evidence of such reception is found in second-century texts from Nag Hammadi in Egypt. In order to shed light on some of these developments, the volume proceeds from the earliest period when Mark and Matthew were formed to analyses of the Sophia of Jesus Christ (SJC), which re-writes the so-called Great Commission (Matt 28:16–20), as well as of Jerome’s commentary and Chrysostom’s sermons. René Falkenberg demonstrates how SJC, through incorporating Matthean motifs like the Great Commission, may have attempted to appear “as a continuation of the narrative in the Matthean epilogue. It has been suggested that the revelation dialogue was … a continuation of that Gospel on a higher level.”11 Here, the idea of emulating Matthew’s authoritative status seems to be predominant. Directing attention to interpreters who worked within what has remained since then the mainstream church, Peter Widdicombe’s analysis of Jerome and Chrysostom not only indicates how these patristic exegetes have given more “theological weight” to Matthew than to Mark,12 but also points to how both theologians differ in their reading of Matthew in literary (commentary and sermons) as well as in theological terms. The history of interpretation thus appears early on also as a history of individual interpreters.13 10 Recent studies, from various perspectives, on these Jews and their beliefs and practices include Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik, Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2007); Matt Jackson McCabe, ed., Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007); Edwin Broadhead, Jewish Ways of Following Jesus: Redrawing the Religious Map of Antiquity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010); Petri Luomanen, Recovering Jewish-Christian Sects and Gospels (Leiden: Brill, 2012). 11 P. 104. 12 P. 105. 13 Cf. e.g. reflections on this in Eve-Marie Becker, “Was ein Text sein kann: Zur Beschreibung eines Text-Inventars,” in Was ist ein Text? (ed. O. Wischmeyer and E.-M. Becker; Tübingen / Basel: Francke Verlag, 2001), 159–69; eadem, ed., Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft: Autobiographische Essays aus der Evangelischen Theologie, (Tübingen/Basel: Francke Verlag, 2003).

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Once Christian culture, as shaped by the Catholic Church, was firmly established in European societies in the Middle Ages, the reading of Mark and Matthew developed in new ways. Although Mark remained in the shadow of Matthew for most of the time, there are some interesting cases when Mark and Matthew were commented upon in relation to one another. Few New Testament scholars work on biblical interpretation in the Middle Ages, and none, as far as we are aware, have produced a comparative study of the treatment of Mark and Matthew in the immensely influential 12th century scholarly masterpiece, produced with a layout quite similar to the Talmud, the Glossa Ordinaria.14 Analysis of this learned work, which brings together quotes from commentaries by the Church Fathers and later writings, serves well the purpose of illustrating the significance of continuity and change as history moved from Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages. Despite some uncertainties regarding its composition history, Joseph Verheyden chooses the Gloss in order to show how “Medieval authors went about putting together a ‘commentary,’ not only on Matthew but also on that much neglected Gospel of Mark,” and how “Medieval commentators handled tensions between the gospels.”15 Verheyden’s study thus builds a bridge between Synoptic exegesis in antiquity and exegesis in the modern period. Among key moments in the development of the interpretation of Mark and Matthew, the Reformation period16 and its later developments present us with a major interpretive shift, which is still dominant in the Western world today. Since Enlightenment ideals and insights developed and morphed into what we regard today as modern scholarship on the Bible, both Protestant and later on Catholic scholars have joined a common academic milieu in which discussions are nurtured through the application of agreed upon historical and other methodologies. Still, certain patterns of thought developed within as well as between Protestant and Catholic interpreters. In two contributions focusing on Mark and Matthew such patterns are analyzed as they apply to the quantitatively most productive century of Biblical as well as Synoptic studies so far, a period when the study of what was – and is – considered to be ‘holy texts’ by the church was taken on also by scholars of non-conformist religious leanings as well as researchers from other religious backgrounds or no religious affiliation at all: the twentieth century. Martin Meiser presents an overview of the history of Synoptic studies that, until the 1970s, was predominantly based in Germany. On the one hand, Synoptic studies were still under the methodological influence of 19th century academic exegesis (source criticism and historical criticism). On the other hand, exegetes were affected by various streams of thought in different cultural as well as ecclesial milieus, as these developed before and after the Nazi period. Within such inter14 For a general discussion of this work, see Lesley Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria: The Making of a Medieval Bible Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 15 P. 144. 16 Contributions to Synoptic exegesis during the reformation period will receive further attention in connection with the preparations for the reformation jubilee in 2017.

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pretive contexts, Markan and Matthean passages that were adaptable especially to political readings became increasingly important. Thus, up to the end of the 20th century the academic relevance of either Mark or Matthew has a certain tendency to lie in their openness to socio-political application. Catholic exegesis of that period was more clearly determined by the official church statements from 1893, 1943, and 1993, as well as by a concern for meeting ecclesial needs,17 as Detlev Dormeyer points out. In a ‘Literaturbericht,’ Dormeyer discusses the results of exegetical studies of Mark and Matthew produced by Catholic scholars. He notes paradigm shifts within and beyond Synoptic exegesis, like the acceptance of Form‑ and Redaction-Criticism and the so-called Linguistic Turn, especially with regard to their impact on Markan and Matthean studies. Dormeyer also shows how certain types of contextual readings (e.g., liberation theology and feminist approaches) derive from Catholic exegesis more specifically. Reading Meiser and Dormeyer comparatively may lead the reader to consider further certain, partly interrelated, historical, political, geographical, and academic developments with which Synoptic studies were confronted in the 20th century: the cultural crisis of a Western civilization marked by World War I and II; the loss of German-speaking academic dominance in the field of theology; the increase of politically oriented readings, primarily rooted in the so-called global south and frequently initiated by Catholic theology; the challenges to New Testament studies emerging from various fields within the humanities – the Linguistic Turn being only the starting point for an ongoing quest with regard to the problem of how to relate the New Testament writings to diverse hermeneutical shifts. Such developments prepared for the complex and intricate interpretive scene which we currently experience in the 21st century. As noted above, among the many historical processes of the 20th century one stands out more than others, also with regard to its deep effects on the church, Christian theology, and New Testament studies: the Second World War. More precisely, the Christian-Jewish relationship could not remain the same after the horrors of the Holocaust, as these events, atrocious beyond comprehension, were demonstrably related to specific forms of New Testament interpretation in the church. Struggling to understand its role not only in the Holocaust, but also in relation to international developments beyond this context involving the proliferation of interfaith encounters, the Second Vatican Council, convened from October 11, 1962 to December 8, 1965, produced documents that initiated profound reassessments of the church’s theology of religions. With regard to Jewish-Christian relations, the Nostra Aetate (1965) of the Council was followed by two documents widely regarded as the most authoritative texts on the subject today: Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate (n. 4)

17 Cf., e.g., John L. Curran, “St. Irenaeus and the Dates of the Synoptics,” CBQ 5 (1943): 34–46; 301–310; 445–457, esp. 37–38, where Curran discusses “modern Catholic Views.”

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(1975), and Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church (1985). In these documents, Biblical interpretation is at the center, as theology is (re‑) formed and anti-Semitism combated. But in which ways are the Biblical texts used? What hermeneutics are involved, and which role, if any, does modern academic historical research play in these processes? Focusing on the reception of Mark and Matthew in these official church documents, Anders Runesson notes certain developments in interpretive approach that occurred between 1965 and 1985, highlighting how inter-subjective academic endeavors have come to contribute – ecumenically – to church theology in essential ways. He concludes that, while historical discourses have contributed significantly to the process of breaking down anti-Jewish stereotypes and theologies, some methodological inconsistencies surface as the documents use Mark and Matthew to make specific theological points. Ultimately, the potential of academic historical research to influence the dynamics of the production of church theology centers to a significant degree on its ability to generate historical voices religio-culturally divergent from contemporary politics. In this way academia is enabling the ancient texts to interact in new ways in the theological dialogue that also involves contemporary voices of people from all parts of the world.

3. The Dynamics of Interpretation Bringing together analyses of Mark and Matthew from divergent time periods and cultural contexts in a conference setting – as well as between the covers of a book  – raises profound questions relating to the problem of the interpretive engagement as such. While similar questions were addressed to a certain degree in the contributions to the first part of the present volume, in part two we want to bring attention to such issues in a more focused way. As with the first part of the volume, the strategy chosen has been to work from a wide-ranging perspective, but to have the wider spectrum concretized in the form of specific key topics, with the hope that others will expand such investigations in various directions in the future. Thus proceeding, it is of importance, as we see it, not to leave out certain hermeneutical paradigms that contribute to defining our theological and / or historical approach to Mark and Matthew, such as the quest for the ‘earliest voices’ and ‘potential intentions’ of the authors and their audiences. What did they want to achieve, and how did they go about working towards those goals? What hermeneutics were involved in the first-century settings in which the texts were shaped, and how was meaning produced and re-produced in ongoing debate and dialogue? Such discussions shed important light on other types of approaches to the texts, in diverse and later settings. In this context, Adela Yarbro Collins addresses recent discussions of Mark and history writing. She begins with an audience-oriented analysis of the term ἀρχή (Mark 1:1) and concludes that it “seems likely that those

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readers familiar with Greek and Latin historical writings took the use of this word as a cue, a signal, that they should understand Mark as a historical work.” Yarbro Collins’ overall interpretation of Mark’s narrative concept leads to a fundamental insight with regard to what the gospel genre as a literary model implies: “Mark … created a narrative that allows its readers to relive the past – the teaching and activities of Jesus.”18 While Yarbro Collins offers a literary understanding of Mark’s Gospel, Stephen Westerholm reflects upon the origin and nature of Mark and Matthew much more in theological terms. As reconstructed from the hearers’ perspective, Westerholm addresses the textual propositions and kerygmatic impact by which the aim of the gospel writings is generated: “On the whole, the story of Jesus in the Gospels seems intended to inspire faith, allegiance, obedience, and worship more than imitation.”19 Certainly, Yarbro Collins would agree with the claim that “Mark intended his readers to hear a foundational story from the past.”20 However, while Westerholm moves on to a kerygmatic reading that may point to a canonical perspective, Yarbro Collins limits her textual analysis to the aims and purposes of literary interpretation.21 Here we encounter two different modes of approaching Mark’s and Matthew’s narrative concept, models which may inspire further discussion. Throughout most of the reception history of Mark and Matthew – contrary to modern historical-critical approaches – the New Testament as canon has played a vital role and its various parts have been allowed to interpret each other. This phenomenon generates further questions relating to canonical theologies and the role of Mark and Matthew in such theologies. None of the Gospels were intended as one contribution among others to a collection of sacred writings. What happens to meaning and function as such texts are incorporated into a larger inter-textual interpretive matrix, the canon, meant to be authoritative for large groups of people?22 This is the topic of Mogens Müller’s study. Müller proposes a “canonical theology,” within which the fourfold Gospel may find a place and where matters of narrative inconsistency and needs for harmonization lose their importance. At the same time, Müller notes how Matthew, as a “new edition of Mark,”23 as well as Mark itself, ultimately serves ecclesial needs and purposes in worship settings. Through such processes, the Gospels’ pluriformity may function as a factor stimulating diversity rather than unity, if unity is understood as uniformity (cf. Ernst Käsemann). As the present collection of essays indicates repeatedly, when Mark 18 P.

244 and 238. 252 f. 20 Westerholm, p. 257. 21 Westerholm, p. 257: Mark “also wrote his Gospel, as early Christians proclaimed the gospel, in the confidence that God would address his hearers through his words, so that, in receptive hearts, those words would bear fruit.” 22 Regarding recent discussion of canonization and de-canonization, cf. Kanon in Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion: Kanonisierungsprozesse religiöser Texte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart – Ein Handbuch (ed. E.-M. Becker and S. Scholz; Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2012). 23 P. 264. 19 P.

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and Matthew are studied comparatively the focus continuously shifts back and forth between considering the literary history of each Gospel narrative on the one hand, and the canonical setting in which more than two Gospels generate a spectrum of meaning that affects the individual texts on the other. In the end, the canonical perspective is an important part of that larger interpretive frame which urges scholars to engage in continuously renewed attempts to apply a comparative perspective in their analysis of the Gospels. No exegesis or interpretation is neutral, especially when conceptualized programmatically as a ‘reading.’ A multitude of factors are activated,24 consciously or unconsciously, as human beings of flesh and blood encounter and engage a text. There is a constant reciprocal dynamic between readers and the text on the one hand, and readers of the text and the society in which the reader lives on the other hand, a continuous interaction that involves and effects change, including the type of change that is entangled in processes attempting to uphold an interpretive status quo.25 In this regard, feminist scholarship has contributed greatly to the study of the New Testament and our Gospels, and has done so from a variety of perspectives. As Janice Capel Anderson notes, there is not one feminism, but several feminisms, which makes definition difficult.26 Referring to bell hooks and Linda Martín Alcoff, Anderson suggests a wide approach to defining feminism as “a common resistance to all the different forms of male domination,” and “our right and our ability to construct, and take responsibility for, our gendered identity, our politics, and our choices.” Exploring several readings of Matthew’s genealogy along historical and cultural spectra with a special focus on the women mentioned therein, Anderson notes the importance of frames and the social location of interpreters, as well as the text’s ambivalence in that it may support both oppression and liberation. The unexpected presence of five women in a patrilineal genealogy, she concludes, challenges the readers “to read both with and against the grain.”27 As discussed by Anderson, certain strands of feminism are closely related to, and intertwined with, postcolonial analysis. For postcolonial studies, political 24 Cf. Lexikon der Bibelhermeneutik: Begriffe – Methoden – Theorien – Konzepte (ed. O. Wisch­ meyer, et al.; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009). 25 The idea of something or someone supporting a ‘status quo’ should be treated with some caution. Nothing is immovable and that which is ostensibly made to ‘stand still’ in fact, as a result of this very act, moves, since its location in relation to its surroundings, and thus in relation to its interpreters, is constantly changing. Form should not be confused with content. In other words, any attempt to preserve is, in reality, an attempt to change, just as much as change may aim at preservation; any ‘preservation’ is inevitably done within a complex web of constantly moving parameters, in relation to which a perceived ‘preservation’ ceaselessly changes in as much as it relates to social, political, economic, and cultural realities at any given historical moment. Change is all-pervasive and unending; the real question is, fundamentally, about direction, which is a subjective and political issue. 26 Anderson, p. 272, mentions, e.g., Western liberal feminism, cultural feminism, womanist feminism (which, as she notes, developed from African American feminism), and postcolonial feminism. 27 P. 272 and 287.

Introduction

11

issues related to colonialism, hegemony, and power relations stand at the center of investigations, which in turn may take different forms: historical, contemporary, methodological, and theoretical.28 Recent postcolonial scholarship has called attention to various problems in traditional Western exegesis, unveiling how hegemonic aspects of the academic world are part of a wider postcolonial reality, and, further, how this has affected and still affects interpretations and methods used. Revealing the racializing tendencies of 19th century biblical scholarship and how such scholarship related to the colonial mindset prevalent in Europe at the time, Hans Leander warns against the risk of such colonial heritage becoming reproduced in contemporary research. Leander rejects the distinction in New Testament textbooks – and in many scholars’ minds – between ‘ordinary exegesis’ and ‘exegesis with a special focus,’ the latter meant to categorize approaches like feminism, postcolonialism, African American, and queer perspectives. Such distinctions prioritize Western forms of exegesis as ‘normal,’ and therefore also as more relevant in terms of the scientific and purportedly non-biased status of the historical and linguistic results produced. Reading Mark and Matthew with 19th century commentators reveals that far from being ‘neutral’ these exegetical discourses were intertwined with and dependent on racialized discourses of modernity, related specifically to the field of orientalism. In addition, Leander shows how scholarship on Mark and Matthew was linked to discourses of Protestant mission and its relationship to European colonialism. Ultimately all exegesis, Leander concludes, is best described as ‘exegesis with a special focus.’ Leander’s study sheds light on the fact that New Testament exegesis is in the process of becoming truly global. Not only are voices from other parts of the world now beginning to be heard in their own right by mainstream Western scholarship; that very scholarship is challenged at its methodological and theoretical core. Such intellectual encounters between sometimes radically different points of view, followed by reciprocal interaction and engagement in discussions of not least methodological and theoretical questions, may contribute significantly to new ways of understanding both ‘the other’ and ourselves as culturally embedded readers, as we begin to decolonize universalizing definitions of exegesis. As Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele note, in such processes we have to recognize that the comparative approach itself may be relativized when understood from a different theoretical perspective. Synoptic comparison, they argue, has tended to proceed with a set of assumptions and embedded values that are fundamentally modern. While comparing Matthew and Mark may seem like a value-neutral and methodologically objective enterprise, a different orientation to Gospel Studies challenges us to rethink our own assumptions and values and how those are shaped by and also shape the comparative process. The reader is invited by Penner and Vander

28 For a presentation and analysis of postcolonial approaches, see Anna Runesson, Exegesis in the Making: Postcolonialism and New Testament Studies (Leiden: Brill, 2010).

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Stichele to consider the proposition that we encounter ourselves in our own methods long before we encounter something other in the text. From a different angle, Michael Knowles investigates modern scholarship on Mark and Matthew in relation to earlier forms of exegesis, with special emphasis on Late Antiquity on the one hand and the modern and post-modern periods on the other. In this way, light is shed on the wider perspective in which we may understand the current interpretive moment. Focusing on the transfiguration (Mark 9:2–10; Matt 17:1–8), which is portrayed in similar fashion in both Gospels, Knowles explores various forms of reception of this tradition in apologetics, homiletics, liturgy and lectionary, hymnody, iconography, and theology, including the theological interpretation of Scripture. Finding connection-points between the pre-modern and the post-modern periods in the diverse reception of the transfiguration, the modern approach to reading biblical texts is relativized as a rather limited strategy for understanding texts; such interpretive boundaries stand in contrast to the universalizing claims it produces. Knowles’ contribution, which completes the volume, emphasizes the role of the many and diverse voices in the church for the interpretive outcome, so that the “different voices and perspectives (those of the academy providing only a small part) contribute to an ongoing, richly multi-layered symphony of scriptural exposition, explanation, and appropriation.”29 It is our hope that the present volume, read together with the first volume of the Mark and Matthew project (WUNT 271, 2011), will provide a stimulus for increased interaction within and between the various scholarly paradigms, or ‘guilds,’ in which we tend to work, as we strive towards greater understanding of the earliest narrative portraits of Jesus and, by implication, ourselves as interpreters and partners in the production of meaning in various cultural and hermeneutical settings. What began as two texts with an intertwined history entangled in the realities of the first-century Mediterranean world has come to generate innumerable responses within and outside the churches and the academic world throughout history and around the globe. Understanding Mark and Matthew comparatively in these countless contexts is a fascinating – and unending – task, which requires cooperation and encourages interdisciplinarity within the larger fields of the humanities, the social sciences, and theology. If the Mark and Matthew volumes show that such cooperation between sometimes radically different, even opposing, perspectives and approaches is not only desirable but also possible, stimulating, and fruitful, our efforts have not been in vain.

29 P.

355.

Part I

Reception and Cultural Hermeneutics: Reading Mark and Matthew From the 1st to the 21st Century

The Reception of “Mark” in the 1st and 2nd Centuries C. E. and its Significance for Genre Studies Eve-Marie Becker The Markan Gospel was at its literary height early on. As far as we can see “Mark”1 was immediately spread, read, and used, eventually by John, in any case by Matthew and Luke, who are its earliest readers and transmitters. Thus, we can guess that the Markan Gospel was successfully circulated already between 70–90 C. E. And according to Eusebius,2 Mark’s Gospel also received an early attribution of apostolic authorization: it was Papias of Hierapolis who called Mark the interpreter of Peter (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.15)3 and thus, in the first half of the second century, associated Mark with apostolic traditions.4 Nevertheless, we also get the impression that Mark’s reception-history did not continue – at least, not consistently – during the second century. Such an impression is based on various facts and observations which we will look at now. It will become evident here that in the second century C. E. we basically have to deal with phenomena like textual inconsistency and literary diversity of Mark. These observations will force us to re-define what we actually mean when investigating Mark’s early reception-history (s. 1.). In order to understand these phenomena more comprehensively and to discuss Mark’s literary ‘success’ we will then have to enter the field of genre studies and literary history (s. 2.).

1. Defining and Re-defining “Mark” We start with the recognition that there is no strong material evidence for the early reception of Mark on the level of manuscript-transmission.5 While the first 1 When we talk about the “Markan Gospel” we basically mean here and later on the canonical gospel-writing as we find it in Nestle-Aland27/28 (pp. 88–147/102–76). 2 For further patristic references to Mark, the Evangelist, cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.8.3; 2.15; 3.24.7; 5.14.6; 6.25.4 f. 3 Cf. W. C. van Unnik, “Zur Papias-Notiz über Markus,” ZNW 54 (1963): 276–7. 4 The reception of the Markan Gospel is partly affiliated with the reception of the figure of John Mark also (cf. 1 Pet 5:14) who, especially in relation to Barnabas (Acts 12:25; 15:36 ff.), plays an important role up to the end of the fifth century – e.g. as the author of the Acts of Barnabas (2.2.292–302). Cf. F. R. Prostmeier, “Barnabas-Literatur,” in LACL (ed. S. Döpp and W. Geerlings; 3rd ed.; Freiburg etc.: Herder, 2002), 107–8. 5 For the (early) reception history of the Markan Gospel, cf., recently, B. D. Schildgen, Power and Prejudice: The Reception of the Gospel of Mark (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999), esp. 35–62.

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and only papyrus-manuscript documenting Mark is P45 (third century),6 we do have much more and even older papyri for Matthew. These document the rich material evidence for the Matthean Gospel during the 2nd and 3rd centuries.7 It is only in the important codices of the fourth and fifth century, like Sinaiticus (‫ א‬01), Vaticanus (B 03), Alexandrinus (A 02) and Bezae Cantabrigiensis (D 05), that the broad material evidence for the Markan Gospel is available to us. Interestingly, here Mark indeed is delivered in its entirety, i.e. in its full length. It seems hardly accidental8 that the Gospel of Matthew is much better witnessed than Mark in the second and third centuries. This might rather tell us something about the specific character and the early reception-history of the Markan Gospel also. Consequently, Dieter Lührmann started his commentary on Mark by problematizing the slim textual basis which we have for Mark and its consequences for Markan exegesis.9 And Harry Gamble has pointed to the fact that there is indeed a relationship between material evidence, reception-history, and the gain of textual consistency: “In the absence of controlled transmission, an ancient text acquired stability not in proportion to the extent of authority lodged in it, but by the broad circulation of enough copies to establish and sustain a consistent, self-reinforcing textual tradition.”10 But this means, in other words, that if we can prove in Mark’s case that there is textual inconsistency in the second century, then the weak material evidence can have significance for Mark’s early reception-history also. And, in fact, there are different types of indications for questioning Mark’s early textual consistency. By considering these indications we will, however, get beyond Gamble in that we will detect how textual inconsistency and literary diversity are interrelated. (a) The Markan ending in 16:8 is still under dispute. Even if we follow Kurt Aland and others in assuming that the original ending of Mark is in place in 16:811 – as documented, e.g., in Sinaiticus and Vaticanus – and that this ending  6 Some parts of Mark 1 and 16:9 are documented in Irenaeus (Haer. 3.10.6); cf. also E.M. Becker, “Dating Mark and Matthew as Ancient Literature,” in Mark and Matthew I, Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in their First Century Settings (ed. E.-M. Becker and A. Runesson; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 123–43, 127 f., esp. n. 24.  7 These papyri date from ca. 200, the second/third century (P 64, 77), or the third century (P 1, 37, 45, 53, 70).  8  Of course, we cannot be sure whether the history of the textual transmission of Mark is to a large degree contingent: it could be that the number of early papyri-manuscripts containing Matthew is simply higher because of chance. On the other hand, even if we can neither exclude factors like coincidence nor be certain about whether all early remaining manuscripts of Mark have as yet been found, we are also working with comparative indicators like probabilities, and parameters like average.  9 Cf. D. Lührmann, Das Markusevangelium (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987), 1–3. In this context, he also points to the various concrete implications for exegesis: he reflects, for instance, on the consequences for textual criticism of Markan texts: “Die Textkritik hat grundsätzlich derjenigen Lesart den Vorzug zu geben, die als nicht von Parallelversionen der anderen Evangelien beeinflußt zu erweisen ist” (2). 10 H. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven / London: Yale University Press, 1995), 126. 11 Cf. the resumé in E.-M. Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 238–9.

The Reception of “Mark” in the 1st and 2nd Centuries C. E.

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is intentional, we cannot, however, avoid admitting that several additions to the text, such as the Freer-Logion in Codex W (fourth / fifth century C. E.), the shorter ending, and the longer ending, are obviously meant as later attempts to complete the Markan Gospel literarily.12 Such supplementations13 had possibly been put into the manuscripts already during the second century.14 In other words, in comparison to Matt 28:9–20, Luke 24:13–53, and John 20:11–21:25, the original ending of 12 For an overview, cf., e.g., J. Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus: 2. Teilband Mk 8,27–16,20 (5th ed.; Zürich / Düsseldorf: Benziger Verlag, 1999), 350–8, or A. Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 802–18. 13 Dibelius called them disconcertingly ‘wilde Überlieferungen,’ what presupposes a firm and distinct type of transmission: M. Dibelius, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur: Herausgegeben v. F. Hahn (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1975), 47 ff. He meant Jesus-traditions that were probably orally delivered, either before being affiliated to already existing texts (cf., e.g., John 7:53–8:11) or before being transformed into a written text individually (cf., e.g., Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840). I refer here and later to Dibelius because already in 1926 he approached the apocryphal gospels programmatically by means of a literary history. Concerning the remains of Papyri of Apocryphal materials in general, cf. D. G. Martinez, “The Papyri and Early Christianity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology (ed. R. S. Bagnall; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 590–622, 598 f. Concerning the ‘Oxyrhynchus Scholars’ in particular: W. A.  Johnson, “The Ancient Book,” in The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, 256–81, 270–7. Parts of the secondary ending of the Markan Gospel, e.g. the Freer Logion, might also fit to that category of ‘wilde Überlieferungen.’ More carefully, J. Frey, “Zu Text und Sinn des Freer-Logion,” ZNW 93 (2002): 13–34: “Das Freer-Logion ist ein … singulärer, vielleicht von einem einzelnen Schreiber in die Textüberlieferung eingetragener Einschub in den langen Markus-Schluß” (34). For the theological tendencies of the so-called Freer-Logion, cf. J. Dochhorn, Schriftgelehrte Prophetie: Der eschatologische Teufelsfall in Apc Joh 12 und seine Bedeutung für das Verständnis der Johannesoffenbarung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 284–93. For textual criticism and Codex W, cf. T. R.  Shepherd, “Narrative Analysis as a Text Critical Tool: Mark 16 in Codex W as a Test Case,” JSNT 32 (2009): 77–98. Today, we might thus better speak of Einzelüberlieferungen (individual traditions), where we subsume the so-called agrapha as well as separately preserved Jesus-traditions. 14 The following datings are suggested: the general terminus ad quem for the Freer-Logion is Jerome (Dialogus adversus Pelagianos 2.15); nevertheless, scholars tend to think that it had already been formed during the second century: J. Jeremias, “Freer-Logion,” in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung (6th ed.; ed. W.  Schneemelcher; Tübingen: J. C. B.  Mohr, 1990), 204–5, says: “das Stück erweist sich “als altertümlich” (204). Differently, P.  Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur: Einleitung in das Neue Testament, die Apokryphen und die Apostolischen Väter (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1975), 681 f., who discusses the role of the Freer-Logion within the group of texts which are called ‘Dialogues of the risen Christ with his disciples,’ and does not think that it represents the oldest version of that kind of literature. In accordance to Kurt Aland (“Der Schluß des Markusevangeliums,” in idem, Neutestamentliche Entwürfe [München: Kaiser, 1979], 246–83) some scholars have tended to date the shorter as well as the longer ending to the second century C. E. (cf. Lührmann, Markusevangelium, 268). In the case of the longer ending the terminus ad quem is Irenaeus (Haer. 3.10.5 f.) and even Justin (1 Apol. 45); cf. J. Marcus, Mark 8–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New Haven/ London: Yale University Press, 2009), 1088, and Gnilka, Evangelium, 354. J. Kelhoffer, Miracle and Mission: The Authentication of Missionaries and Their Message in the Longer Ending of Mark (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 157 ff. and 473 ff. even tries to show that the longer ending was composed by an individual author between the first half and the midst of the second century C. E.  The terminus ad quem for the shorter ending would be the longer ending itself, because otherwise the shorter ending would have been suppressed and would not have been transmitted further on; cf. Gnilka, Evangelium, 351.

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Mark in 16:8, which does not refer to any epiphany of the risen Jesus, must have been understood as insufficient and incomplete. And yet some manuscripts like Sinaiticus and Vaticanus do prove that Mark 16:8 had in some cases been understood as a reasonable ending. Thus, additional endings were optionally appended to it. Interestingly, textual inconsistency and a multiplication of literary versions go hand in hand: as a consequence of defining Mark’s ending, there was thus not only an increase of textual inconsistency but there was also multiplication of various literary versions of “Mark.” There is additional evidence for assuming that literary diversity and textual fluidity are interconnected. (b) If we should hold that Clement of Alexandria’s reference to a “Secret Gospel of Mark” is authentic,15 we do not only get insight into a specific literary adaption of Mark in the second half of the second century in Alexandria,16 but rather also into continuing ‘heretical’ attempts of the so-called Carpocratians (cf. Irenaeus, Haer. 1.25.1–6) to utilize the Markan Gospel by yet further enlarging and extending it.17 In this letter, Clement even tells the story of at least three different versions of the Markan Gospel that were known to him comprehensively: he mentions first “an account of the Lord’s doings” (ἀνέγραψε τὰς πράξεις τοῦ κυρίου), that was composed by Mark in Rome; secondly, he speaks of “a more spiritual Gospel” (συνέταξε πνευματικώτερον εὐαγγέλιον), i.e. the “secret Gospel” (τὸ μυστικὸς εὐαγγέλιον) that was composed by Mark after his coming to Alexandria; and thirdly, he refers to a “polluted” (καὶ ἐμίανε) version of this gospel-account, arranged by a certain Carpocrates.18 Finally, Clement tries to defend the “secret Gospel”-version against the Carpocratian interpretation. We will not discuss here Clement’s intentions with authorizing the “Secret Gospel” of Mark.19 It is rather more interesting to see how natural it obviously was up to the end of the second century to think of diverse literary versions of one gospel-writing such as Mark while its textual character was not yet fully consistent. 15 Cf. M.  Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), esp. 448–52. 16 For the beginnings of Christian theology and literature in Alexandria, cf., in general, A. Fürst, Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion: Die Anfänge des Christentums in Alexandria (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2007); M. Clauss, Alexandria: Eine antike Weltstadt (2nd ed.; Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2004), esp. 202–12. 17 E. Rau, “Zwischen Gemeindechristentum und christlicher Gnosis: Das geheime Markusevangelium und das Geheimnis des Reiches Gottes,” NTS 51 (2005): 482–504; idem, “Das Geheimnis des Reiches Gottes: Die esoterische Rezeption der Lehre Jesu im geheimen Markusevangelium,” in Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen: Beiträge zu außerkanonischen Jesusüberlieferungen aus verschiedenen Sprach‑ und Kulturtraditionen (ed. J. Frey and J. Schröter; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 187–222. 18 Folio 1, recto, line 16 until folio 1, verso, line 10. Text and translation in Smith, Clement, 446 f. and 448–50. 19 For the whole spectrum of discussion, cf., e.g., P. Jeffery, The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery (New Haven / Londond: Yale University Press, 2007); S. G. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith’s Controversial Discovery (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007).

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19

What we see so far is that there obviously was an interdependency of a limited amount of copies available and textual inconsistency as well as the development of diverse literary outlines. The processes of transmitting differing literary versions of the Markan gospel-account during the second century C. E. obviously were dynamic for various reasons: these could be either matters of literary completion and creativeness or matters of specific, viz. ‘heretical,’ teaching which finally led to the production of a variety of Markan gospel-versions, in fact possibly without producing a bulk of manuscript-copies. As I will argue in this contribution, the reason for these processes could point back already to the last third of the first century C. E.: the Matthean Gospel, in fact, as an inclusion or ‘incorporation’ of Mark, was an early literary re-shaping of Mark’s gospel-outline. Literary diversity was initiated here. The argument might then support the insight that already at that time literary variety and textual inconsistency go hand in hand. (c) Here, we can take into account that there were probably various textual versions of Mark existent around, and possibly before, Matthew’s time. Such an assumption is based on the observation of the so-called minor and major agreements that exist between Matthew and Luke against “Mark” while using him: accordingly, some scholars have made a proposal on grounds of Literarkritik that there was either a ‘Deutero-Mark’ or a ‘Proto-Mark’ that was used by Matthew and Luke and that differs significantly from the Markan version that is known to us.20 We cannot discuss those hypotheses in detail here. More importantly, we need to start from various observations on the fact that the “Markan Gospel” as a textual entity is neither unchanging nor stable. It is obvious that the nature of the gospel-writing as a literary concept is such that it provokes and shapes further literary plurality and diversity from the very beginning. We are thus dealing here with generic questions. By saying this we are close to Werner H. Kelber’s insights regarding the differences between the “Oral and the Written Gospel” (1983).21 This means that Mark’s reception history can best be approached from the point of view of literary-history. (d) When considering the literary dynamics that are implied in the written gospel-concept, we should go back to Papias22 and read more carefully what his witness on the Markan Gospel actually means: Papias’ valuation of Mark as a literary 20 Cf.

again the resumé in Becker, Markus-Evangelium, 29 f.

21  Cf. 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). Here Kelber has emphasized the shift to an alternative mode of conceptualizing gospel-traditions as it was initiated by the shape of a ‘written gospel.’ The concept of a ‘written gospel’ was soon imitated, modified, and multiplied: “Nowhere in early Christianity is it more obvious than in the gospel of Mark that preservation of oral tradition is not a primary function of writing … Both in form and content the written gospel constitutes a radical alternative to the oral gospel … Mark’s massively reflexive reconstruction of Jesus’ past is his form of demythologizing the orally perceived presence of Jesus” (207 and 210). 22 However, we should keep in mind also that Papias as a patristic author was controversial (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.11–13; Irenaeus, Haer 5.33.4): Cf. E.  Schulz-Flügel, “Papias von Hierapolis,” in LACL, 545–6.

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concept needs to be seen against the background that he prioritizes oral traditions over written texts (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.4). From here, we can more particularly understand what he had in mind when stating that there is a lack of τάξις in Mark which results from the deficit of not being affiliated directly to the group of Jesus-disciples (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.15). It seems that Papias himself rather maintains a critical attitude towards Mark’s gospel-concept than a strong support for it. In any case, he documents certain difficulties and insufficiencies regarding the early reception of Mark in the first half of the second century C. E. His note on a literary deficiency might indeed to some degree be seen parallel to the receding of Mark in the textual tradition.23 For obvious reasons of textual stability, Papias has privileged processes of oral transmission. It is not accidental then that Justin Martyr around the middle of the second century C. E. was referring to the gospel’s literacy (= ‘Literarizität’)24 as well as to its plural and manifold appearances (1 Apol. 66; cf. Dial. 10.2; 100.1).25 Literacy and literary plurality again seem to be two sides of the same coin. This is why literacy generates canonization, i.e. the formal definition of textual entities as well as collections of texts.26 So, how should we envisage best this interrelation of literacy, literary multiplicity, textual inconsistency, and reception-history? I will suggest this to be a literary and / or generic phenomenon first of all. Accordingly, we should approach these potential relationships on the basis of literary-history. In this contribution I will thus raise the question: how can we best reconstruct the early reception of Mark up to the pre-canonical collection of the ‘Four Gospels’ (Vierevangelienkanon), including Mark, is shaped between ca. 170 and 180 C. E.,27 as Irenaeus documents (Haer. 3.1.1.) – a process which possibly developed in controversy with Marcionite ‘heresy’28? So far, I have referred to the variety of textual versions of Mark that had been shaped during the second century and that are out of proportion to the number of manuscript-copies. Such a variety of texts points to the fact that during this period of time “Christian scriptural texts were still relatively fluid and subject 23 In difference to this, Eusebius, ca. 200 years later than Papias, is mostly interested in depicting a strong apostolic authority for the four gospel-writings, including Mark, and hereby reflects how the gospel-writings are received in the early fourth century. 24  ‘Literature’ and ‘literacy’ can to a certain degree be understood synonymously; cf. S. Greenblatt, Was ist Literaturgeschichte? Mit einem Kommentar von C. Belsey. Aus dem Englischen von R. Kaiser / B. Neumann (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2000), 19 with reference to R. Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 151. 25 Cf. also Marcion, who names his redaction of Luke as ‘gospel’; e.g., Tertullian, Marc 4.2. 26 Cf. E.-M.  Becker, “Antike Textsammlungen in Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion: Eine Darstellung aus neutestamentlicher Sicht,” in Kanon in Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion: Kanonisierungsprozesse religiöser Texte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart – Ein Handbuch (ed. E.M. Becker / S. Scholz; Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2012), 3–31. 27  Cf. T. K.  Heckel, Vom Evangelium des Markus zum viergestaltigen Evangelium (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 30. Heckel distinguishes between a “Vierevangeliensammlung,” that was shaped first, and a “Vierevangelienkanon” – only regarding the latter can a positive and a negative concept of canon be used. 28 Cf., e.g., H. Freiherr von Campenhausen, Die Entstehung der christlichen Bibel (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1968/Nachdr. 2003), 201–2.

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to revision,”29 and that textual inconsistency and literary diversity are interrelated. By being aware of the multiplicity of textual versions, we thus get in touch with the literary dynamics by which the Markan Gospel as a narrative concept was received and transmitted: from early on “Mark” was obviously less important as a stabile text meeting certain social needs than as a literary “source” (cf. Luke) or Vorlage (cf. Matthew)30 – in any case, as a literary concept that could be continued as well as improved. From here we can better understand how various textual as well as literary versions or re-writings of “Mark” came into being.31 Considering the number of different literary versions of Mark and the simultaneous rise of apocryphal gospel-writings in the second century C. E. we should then conclude that literacy during this period of time widely stimulated creativity and multiplicity in the field of narrative prose.32 In what follows, I will try to explain by means of genre studies (s. 2.) how the first ca. 100 years of Mark’s reception history might have looked and what we can deduce from this for the early history of Christian literature: it will become evident then that it was the Matthean attempt of incorporating Mark, rather than suppressing Mark (s. 2.1.), that initiated further literary creativeness by which other gospel writings  – the so-called “apocryphal gospels”  – appeared on the scene (s. 2.2.). In the end, we can understand the gospel-writing best as a literary concept that implies the shape of literary plurality in early Christian narrative literature (s. 3.). Accordingly, the Markan Gospel could also hereby assert its position in the long run.

2. Genre Studies (Gattungsgeschichte) Let us begin with some remarks on definition. It is genre studies (Gattungsgeschichte)33 that – as a field of literary history (Literaturgeschichte)34 – can give us relevant Books and Readers, 125 f. need to take into account here and later that Matthew and Luke vary technically, i.e. heuristically in their usage of Mark: while Luke considers Mark to be a historical source in that it is a preliminary narrative attempt of which he can make use, Matthew obviously understands Mark as a Vorlage in that he incorporates most of Mark in a material sense. 31 In this regard we have to discuss critically Martin Dibelius’ idea concerning early Christian literary history: he thought that “literaricity leads to deadness” (“Buchwerdung bedeutet hier … Erstarrung des Lebendigen”); Dibelius, Geschichte, 48. 32 Orality rather tends to oblige memorization; cf., e.g., A. Kirk and T. Thatcher, eds., Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005). Cf. E.-M. Becker, “Literarisierung und Kanonisierung im frühen Christentum: Einführende Überlegungen zur Entstehung und Bedeutung des neutestamentlichen Kanons,” in Kanon in Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion, 389–97. 33 Terminology and methodology can rarely be translated into other languages and transferred to corresponding academic spheres with satisfaction: there hardly exists an equivalent term to Gattungsgeschichte in the Anglo-American exegesis (for Gattungsgeschichte, cf., e.g., K. Berger, “Hellenistische Gattungen im Neuen Testament,” in ANRW II.25.2 [1984]: 1031–1432 and 1831–85; A. Wagner et al., “Gattung[en],” in Lexikon der Bibelhermeneutik: Begriffe – Metho29 Gamble, 30 We

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insights into how the gospel-genre as a specific literary concept (genre)35 has been established and how it was received: it might help us to explain how the gospel-genre has been imitated and modified in early times and how different gospel-writings hereby promote literary creativeness and serve various literary strategies or concepts of authorization.36 Genre studies are thus focused on a descriptive valuation of how the gospel-genre functions as a literary concept.37 By “gospel”-writing we understand a certain literary form that is primarily coined by its content: it designates the literary form in which we find the narration of Jesus’ life, mission, and death.

den – Theorien – Konzepte [ed. O. Wischmeyer, et al.; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009], 189–91; S. Trappen, M. Rösel, and D. Dormeyer, “Formen / Gattungen,” in RGG [ed. H. D. Betz et al.; 8 vols.; 4th ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998–2007] 3:185–96). Therefore, we have to deal with genre studies – and not genre criticism – here: while genre criticism primarily is concentrated on a comparative survey of literary characteristics (cf., e.g., D. E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment [Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1988], 22–3), genre studies focus on the investigation of how literary forms and genres developed within a historical frame. This is what Gattungsgeschichte implies: “Gattungen haben Geschichte … Im Rahmen einer Gattungsgeschichte gibt es Vorstufen, Entstehen, Vergehen und Neu-Lokalisieren von Gattungen”, K. Berger, Einführung in die Formgeschichte (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 1987), 38. At the same time such a shift in terminology (Gattungsgeschichte and “genre studies”) enables us to develop the approach of “literary history” even further. Today, genre studies play an important role again in cultural studies also, where they are frequently related to discourses on emotions and emotionality; cf., e.g., B. Meyer-Sickendiek, Affektpoetik: Eine Kulturgeschichte literarischer Emotionen (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2005): “Eine Affektpoetik geht davon aus, daß sich spezielle literarische Gattungen als von den menschlichen Affekten geprägte und von den Affekten erzählende Formen begreifen lassen” (9). 34 This is a field of studies in literature that already dates back to antiquity itself: e.g., Quintilian, inst or 10; Suetonius, De grammaticis et rhetoribus. For modern New Testament studies, cf., already, R. G. Moulton, The Literary Study of the Bible: An Account of the Leading Forms of Literature Represented in the Sacred Writings (Boston/London: Heath / Isbister, 1896); R. Bultmann, “Literaturgeschichte. II. Urchristentum,” in RGG (ed. H. Gunkel and L. Zscharnack; 6 vols.; 2nd ed.; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1927–32) 3:1675–7 and 1680–2. 35  For the recent discourse on genre in literary sciences, cf. P. Wenzel, “Gattungstheorie und Gattungspoetik,” in Grundbegriffe der Literaturtheorie (ed. A.  Nünning; Stuttgart / Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 2004), 73–8. 36 Cf. J. Hartenstein, “Autoritätskonstellationen in apokryphen und kanonischen Evangelien,” in Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen, 423–44. By raising these questions, the quest for the Sitz im Leben could also be relevant – especially when approached on the basis of indications given by papyriology and codicology (cf. C. Markschies, “Was wissen wir über den Sitz im Leben der apokryphen Evangelien?” in Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen, 61–90) rather than by means of Formgeschichte where the social and religious setting of the audience(s) was considered to be an important ‘agent’ (wirkende Kraft) as, for instance, Walter Bauer once thought: W. Bauer, Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1909), 520–41. 37 For this discussion from the point of view of apocryphal gospels, cf., e.g., J. Hartenstein, “Das Petrusevangelium als Evangelium,” in Das Evangelium nach Petrus: Text, Kontexte, Intertexte (ed. T. J. Kraus and T. Nicklas; Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 159–81, 160: “Als Evangelien bezeichne ich diejenige frühchristliche Literatur, die vom irdischen Wirken Jesu berichtet und damit den Lesenden heilsrelevante Informationen geben will.” Cf. also J. A. Kelhoffer, “‘Gospel’ as a Literary Title in Early Christianity and the Question of What Is (and Is Not) a ‘Gospel’ in Canons of Scholarly Literature,” in Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen, 399–422.

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In terms of chronology and genealogy the Markan Gospel – as far as we know – represents the proto-type of this kind of a literary concept.38 Against this background, comparative studies in Mark and Matthew are the initial basis for reconstructing descriptively how the history of early Christian gospel-literature came into being and how it developed rapidly thereafter. Matthew’s use of Mark is illuminating much beyond questions of literary dependency: it can reveal to us how and why the earliest gospel-writing (“Mark”) was not simply copied and preserved, i.e. considered as a concise textual outline. To the contrary, it was rather more imitated, enlarged, modified, and – tentatively – substituted. Matthew basically is a re-shape of Mark. From here, we can also get a better impression of how the apocryphal gospels as legitimate successors of the written gospel-concept came into being in the second century C. E. Or to put it the other way round: we can hardly grasp the dynamics that are implied in various literary concepts of the apocryphal gospel-writings, such as the Gospel of Peter, without considering how it was already Matthew who had to relate to Mark. In this context we will, of course, also discuss whether there is a qualitative difference between how Matthew follows Mark and how the Gospel of Peter succeeds Mark and Matthew. Hereby, we are primarily not raising questions of literary dependency, as, for instance, the extent to which the Gospel of Peter depends on earlier gospel-writings, such as Mark and Matthew. Those questions are still very much under dispute.39 In contrast to this, we will only presuppose the fact that later authors were familiar with gospel-writings as a certain type of Christian literature40 – as later letter-writers were familiar with predecessors (cf. Ignatius and Paul). By employing genre studies, we will thus figure out how different gospel-authors choose a common literary model or type, and how and for what literary purpose they fill it with substance and strategy. I will start by summarizing our state of knowledge concerning the literary concept behind the earliest gospel-writing: Mark. 2.1 From Mark to Matthew In terms of chronology and genealogy the “Markan Gospel”41 is a proto-type, or a ‘literary model’ for what gospel-literature implies in early Christian times. What do we know about Mark’s literary intentions and ambitions? The author of the Markan Gospel composes a prose-narrative shortly after 70 C. E. that has – as far 38 Cf. E.-M.  Becker, “Evangelium, Evangelienliteratur I.  Neutestamentlich,” in Lexikon der Bibelhermeneutik, 164–5. 39 Cf., e.g., J. D. Crossan, “The Gospel of Peter and the Canonical Gospels,” in Das Evangelium nach Petrus, 117–34, 118 ff.; T. Nicklas, “Das Petrusevangelium im Rahmen antiker Jesustraditionen,” in Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen, 223–52. 40 Here, I would agree to similar ideas mentioned by T. Nicklas, “Petrusevangelium,” 251: “das Petrusevangelium setzt bereits vorliegende Jesuserzählungen voraus.” 41 In what follows I indeed choose as an initial point for the “Markan Gospel” the version that is presented to us in Nestle-Aland.

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as we can see – no forerunners and no contemporaries.42 This type of literature is named after the incipit/initium in Mark 1:1/1:1–3 as a gospel-writing (εὐαγγέλιον). Mark shapes a proto-type of a writing, which does have immediate (Matthew and Luke) and later (apocryphal gospels) successors. Because the Markan Gospel deals with a sequence of a ‘history of events’ that is related to the activity of a specific person (Jesus of Nazareth) and his mission, it might in terms of its macro-genre best be placed in the broader frame of ancient historiographical writings in which it appears more precisely as a ‘person-centered pre-historiographical account.’43 The conceptual and literary performance of what the author is doing here becomes evident on different levels, mainly on a technical, on a structural, and on an interpretative level: on a technical level, Mark has combined different types and strands of traditions like ‘sayings’ and narrative traditions (miracle-stories, passion narrative)44. We might assume that those traditions can partly be contextualized in Jerusalem (esp. passion narrative), partly in Galilee (popular miracle traditions),45 perhaps partly in Judaea.46 By composing his narrative, Mark, however, does not only stick to the topographical defaults; he rather shapes his own topographical as well as a chronological frame where he subsumes these traditions. The topographical frame is based on Jesus’ move from Galilee to Jerusalem – a conceptual idea that is worked out extensively in the Lukan Gospel (Luke 9:51 ff.). The chronological frame consists of a short period of time, perhaps even only one month, in Jesus’ life (Mark 2:23; 14:1),47 where Jesus’ ministry is situated in a hasty sequence of events (εὐθύς). On a narrative and on an interpretative level Mark thus does not only serve processes of transmission; he rather more creates a comprehensive literary concept, i.e., a gospel-writing in which the diverse sequences of Jesus’ ministry are connected topographically and chronologically (= story) as well as logically (= plot).48 On that level Mark also gives his theological clue to interpreting the gospel-narration (cf., e.g., Mark 3:6; 8:31–33; 15:39). By creating the ‘written gospel’ Mark thus does not only appear as a conservative collector of traditional material 42 Q could at the most only be understood as a fragment of a gospel: Cf. C. Heil, “Einleitung,” in Die Spruchquelle Q: Griechisch und Deutsch (ed. C. Heil and P. Hoffmann; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002), 7–28, 17–9. 43  The Markan gospel-concept thus stands for a genre sui generis, i.e. a micro-genre of a narrative that can be best related to the huge field of ancient pre‑ or sub-historiographical types of prose-literature; Cf. Becker, Markus-Evangelium. 44 Cf. Dormeyer, “Formen/Gattungen,” 192–4; G. Bornkamm, “Formen und Gattungen II. im NT,” in RGG (ed. K. Galling et al.; 6 vols.; 3rd ed.; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1957–62), 2:999–1005. Cf., in general, R. Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition: Mit einem Nachwort von G. Theißen (10th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995); M. Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (6th ed.; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1971). 45 Cf. G. Theißen, Lokalkolorit und Zeitgeschichte in den Evangelien: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (2nd ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992). 46 Cf., e.g., Becker, Markus-Evangelium, 383–96. 47 Mark 2:23 refers to a month in spring, probably March or April, when the grain is ripe. 48 Concerning the distinction between ‘story’ and ‘plot,’ cf. M.  Martinez and M.  Scheffel, Einführung in die Erzähltheorie (4th ed.; München: C. H.  Beck, 2003), 109 f., with reference to E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (repr.; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966).

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and does not only act as a redactor or interpreter of those traditions either. Rather more, he acts also as a literary author who comments on the story several times by interpreting (Mark 7:19b) or illustrating it (Mark 9:2, 3b).49 Therefore the Markan Gospel is much more than a contingent collection of traditions:50 its author is the inventor of the written gospel-concept, which finally serves the gospel-proclamation in a peculiar sense.51 The Gospel of Matthew is ca. 20 years later than Mark, basically confirming Mark’s approach: Matthew again focuses on telling Jesus’ Galilean ministry and the passion events in Jerusalem within a narrative account. By joining Mark’s gospel-outline, Matthew in fact does two overarching things. On the one hand, he continues the Markan gospel-concept quite steadily.52 In contrast to Luke for whom earlier reports (διήγησις) on the gospel-story serve as preceding concepts which he can either use as a historical “source” or which he can consider as literary works he will compete with (Luke 1:1–4), Matthew uses Mark as a literary Vorlage in that he restricts himself to the Markan outline:53 as far as we know, Matthew – in contrast to Luke and John – takes over most of the Markan material and keeps the topographical as well as the chronological order behind the basic parts of the gospel-story (Galilee-Jerusalem; one-year-ministry). We could speak here of an ‘enlargement’54 or better a literary inclusion or incorporation of the Markan Gospel. Possibly, the so-called Gospel of the Nazareans (Gos. Naz.),55 which is generally counted among the so-called Jewish-Christian Gospels (JE),56 for its part relates 49 Cf. Yarbro Collins, Mark, 421. Cf. also Becker, “Dating Mark and Matthew as Ancient Literature,” 138–40. 50 A substantial critique towards such a literary undervaluation of Mark can already be found in, e.g., E. Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums: In drei Bänden. Erster Band. Die Evangelien (Stuttgart / Berlin: J. G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger, 1924), 121. 51 Cf. W. H.  Kelber, “Narrative and Disclosure: Mechanisms of Concealing, Revealing, and Reveiling,” Semeia 43 (1988): 1–20, who argues that the narrativization finally serves the unveiling of the gospel-proclamation. I would like to thank Erin J. Wright (Aarhus) for this reference. 52 In Matthew’s case questions of literary dependency can thus nearly be solved. 53 Further distinctive work on terminology (“source,” Vorlage) is needed here beyond E.M. Becker, “Art. Quelle(n) II. Neutestamentlich,” in Lexikon der Bibelhermeneutik, 472–3. 54  Cf., e.g., U. Luz, “Intertexts in the Gospel of Matthew,” HTR 97 (2004): 119–37, 125. 55 Concerning the problems of reconstructing Gos. Pet. and relating it to Gos. Heb. or to another, no longer known gospel, cf. H.-J. Klauck, Apocryphal Gospels: An Introduction (London / New York: T & T Clark, 2003), 43. 56 The identification of the so-called Jewish-Christian Gospels (JE) is complicated since the so-called church-fathers – beginning with Irenaeus until Cyril of Jerusalem (cf. P. Vielhauer and G. Strecker, “Judenchristliche Evangelien,” in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen I, 114–47, 116–27) – do not provide clear or uniform references to what they mean by JE. By mentioning the JE they do not refer to specific gospel-writings either (cf. Vielhauer and Strecker, “Judenchristliche Evangelien,” 115: “Unsicher ist … die Zahl der JE …, unsicher ist ferner die Identifizierung der einzelnen Fragmente, unsicher schließlich der Charakter und das gegenseitige Verhältnis der einzelnen JE”). On these problems of interpretation, cf. already Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums, 251–63 (in discussion with Adolf von Harnack and Theodor Zahn); cf., recently, J. Frey, “Zur Vielgestaltigkeit judenchristlicher Evangelienüberlieferungen,” in Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen, 93–137. Thus, Vielhauer and Strecker and lately Hans-Josef Klauck tend to speak

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to Matthew in the similar way of incorporating him.57 Compared to Matthew, Gos. Naz. has at least a secondary literary character,58 regardless of whether individual traditions in Gos. Naz. pre-date Matthew.59 On the other hand Matthew yet feels himself free to re-arrange his Markan Vorlage and to move significantly beyond it. By doing so he demonstrates that the written gospel-concept – even though read and used as a Vorlage – does not function as any kind of normative text but rather more as a literary concept that can be re-defined in its narrative outline so that it is re-arranged and tentatively even substituted. Accordingly, Matthew completes, varies, and / or modifies the Markan gospel-story. Those modifications can, again, mainly be observed on a technical, on a structural (topographical / chronological), as well as on a narrative or interpretative level.60 On a technical level, Matthew completes the Markan outline by including more strands of tradition known to him, namely Q and M. The inclusion of these materials, however, is not only due to reasons of conservation but rather meets Matthew’s narrative interests of broadening the view on Jesus’ life and, especially, on Jesus’ teaching. On a structural level, Matthew varies the Markan narration topographically and chronologically: by presenting the birth-story (Matt 2) and reporting the resurrected Jesus’ return to Galilee (Matt 28:16–20) the topographical outline changes now to Judaea-Galilee-Jerusalem-Galilee. Parallel to this the Gospel’s chronological frame is modified: the Matthean gospel-story starts ca. 30 years earlier (cf. Matt 1:18 and Mark 1:4) and also runs at least some hours or days longer (Matt 28:16 and Mark 16:8) than the Markan narration does. On a narrative and on an interpreof three types of JE-literature: the Gospel of the Hebrews (Gos. Heb.), the Gospel of the Nazareans (Gos. Naz.), and the Gospel of the Ebionites (Gos. Eb.) (cf. Vielhauer and Strecker, “Judenchristliche Evangelien,” 128; Klauck, Gospels, 36–54). Even if the contextualization of the JEs in the history of early Christian theology is still problematic, we find in some of these texts – Gos. Heb. might be an exception – a tendency of continuing and supplementing the Matthean Gospel (esp. Gos. Naz.; Gos. Eb.). This is specifically true in the case of Gos. Naz. 57 There are, for instance, several indications for assuming that the Gospel of the Nazareans (Gos. Naz.) is an attempt at incorporating, perhaps preserving or even substituting Matthew. I will name some examples here: The Gos. Naz. presents variant readings to Matthew (e.g. Matt 6:11 and Gos. Naz. frg. 5) or references to scriptural quotations (e.g. Matt 23:35 and Gos. Naz. Frg. 17). It offers additional information to the gospel-story (e.g. Matt 12:13 and Gos. Naz. frg. 10). Those textual variants or additions to the Matthean text can also be found in sections of M-material (see above; e.g. Matt 27:65 and Gos. Naz. frg. 22), so that Gos. Naz. de facto seems to presuppose the comprehensive reading and perception of Matthew. Similar to how Matthew doubles narrative sequences from the Markan Vorlage (cf. Matt 20:29 ff. and Mark 10:46 ff.), Gos. Naz. doubles the Matthean narrative again (cf. Matt 19:16–24 and Gos. Naz. frg. 16). So Gos. Naz. is sometimes considered to be a Semitic Nebenform or a Weiterbildung of the Greek Gospel of Matthew (Vielhauer and Strecker, “Judenchristliche Evangelien,” 129 and 133) that basically follows the narrative outline of the Matthean Gospel. 58 Cf. J. Frey, “Die Scholien nach dem ‘jüdischen Evangelium’ und das sogenannte Nazoräerevangelium,” ZNW 94 (2003): 122–37; Frey, “Vielgestaltigkeit,” 128. 59 Questions of Traditionsgeschichte hardly lead us further here. 60 The following observations presuppose the Two-Source-Theory which is still the most probable hypothesis for explaining the origins and the rise of the Synoptic Gospels.

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tative level it becomes evident that Matthew goes much beyond the Markan outline and prefigures here what can be found in later gospel-writings much more extensively: (1) Matthew does pick up a Markan impetus (Mark 4; 13) when he presents Jesus as a teacher. According to Matthew, however, Jesus appears frequently and continuously as such, as a comprehensive speaker and teacher (Matt 5–7 etc. until chs. 23–25) whose teaching retains ongoing significance beyond Jesus’ life and mission (Matt 28:20). In other writings, the ‘speaking Jesus’ is even chosen as the basic paradigm of literary conceptualization.61 (2) Matthew has the resurrected Christ appear and speak to the women at the empty tomb on the Easter morning (Matt 28:9–10). According to Matthew, Jesus even reveals himself to his disciples by teaching them and giving them missionary instructions (Matt 28:16–20). These passages, based on the traditions of post-Easter-epiphanies (cf. 1 Cor 15:5–8), will pre-figure later epiphany-narratives62 as well as revelatory dialogues.63 (3) Matthew includes unique narrative sequences especially in the pre-history of his gospel (Matt 1–2) as well as within the passion narrative (Matt 27–28).64 Those sequences in general derive from M and tend to give a ‘legendary’ coinage to the gospel-story.65 The inclusion of these traditions pre-figure what is either worked out in later so-called infancy-gospels (e.g. Prot. Jas.) or what can be found in those gospel-writings that focus on the narration of passion-events.66 (4) By including the so-called rock-logion (Matt 16:18–19), Matthew not only emphasizes Peter’s role and position, but also attaches legitimating personal traditions to the gospel-story that go much beyond the Markan Vorlage (cf. Mark 8:29–33). Thereby he prepares for later attempts of shaping a literary focalization on certain apostolic figures.67 (5) Finally, by including single sayings or parables (cf., e.g., Matt 13:24–30, 36–52; 25:1–13, 31–46) Matthew multiplies the amount of sayings-material significantly. At the same time he arranges and conceptualizes these materials in an innovative way (speech-concept, s. above). These examples show how Matthew moves clearly beyond his Vorlage. This fact might lead us to some conclusions: Matthew does not limit himself to the reproduction of Mark but rather develops literary creativity by enlarging the literary Vorlage delivered to him and giving a revised concept to his account. Here, it becomes evident that Matthew has certain literary intentions himself when writing his gospel-narrative: his technique of incorporating Mark can only partly be understood as a preservation-strategy. He indeed sticks to what he gets from Thom. (NHC II:2); Gos. Eg. [Gr] (?). Apos. 10:21–12:23; cf. also e.g. John 21. 63 Ep. Jas. (NHC I:2); Ep. Apos. 13:24 ff.; Gospel of Bartholomew; Letter of Peter to Philip (NHC VIII:2); cf. also Mark 16:15–16. 64 Matt 27:3–10; 27:19, 24–25; 27:51–53; 27:62–66; 28:2–3, 9–10; 28:11–15. 65 Cf., e.g., Matt 27:3–10; 27:19, 24–25; 27:51–53; 27:62–66; 28:2–3, 9–10; 28:11–15. 66 Cf., e.g., Gos. Pet. 4:10–8:33; Gos. Nic./ Acts Pil. To infancy-gospels s. latest: Infancy Gospels: Stories and Identities (ed. C. Clivaz et al.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). 67 Peter: e.g. Gos. Pet. 14; James: e.g. Gos. Heb. Frg. 7 (= Jerome, de vir inl 2). 61 Gos. 62 Ep.

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Mark but he is not limited to the materials found there. In that Matthew does not only incorporate Mark, but rather enlarges, broadens, and re-defines the Markan gospel-narration he obviously intends to replace the Markan Gospel, while at the same time to uphold the tradition of this literary concept.68 Thus, Matthew’s technique of a literary incorporation finally seems to serve a replacement-strategy. Hereby, Matthew might be seen to differ significantly from what Luke as well as what John probably intended to do.69 From here, we can also draw some conclusions regarding Mark’s early reception-history. Before Irenaeus’ time – i.e. before Mark’s entry into a proto-canonical collection of gospel-writings, by which its textual entity was secured for the future – the overall ‘literary success’ of Mark’s literary invention could only become evident sub contrario: in that the Markan Gospel is gradually upheld or even suppressed by others and in that textual inconsistency and literary multiplicity correspond, Mark’s impetus for shaping a gospel-account as a current narrative conceptualization and interpretation of Jesus-traditions finally gains an objective. Thus, the Markan gospel-outline moves into a history of success precisely because Mark’s successors will indicate how that narrative concept works, how far it is useful, and where it possibly needs to be improved or focalized. 2.2 From Mark and Matthew to the Gospel of Peter The literary creativity behind gospel-writing becomes even more evident when we move into the second century and analyze such types of ‘Jesus-literature’70 that consist of narratives and / or sayings-material and, thus, basically follow up Mark’s literary concept:71

D. Sim, “Matthew: The Current State of Research,” in Mark and Matthew I, 33–51.  Matthew does not seem to be willing to compete with his forerunner’s work in the sense of ancient aemulatio. Luke, however, chooses such a methodological approach to the ‘written gospel-concept’ that he indicates his literary distance to his sources as well as to his own narrative (Luke 1:1–4) and, thus, relates his story more evidently to the macro-genre of ancient historiography. So Luke’s strategy might be a competition-strategy. The Gospel of John, however, is obviously neither interested in a preservation-strategy, nor in a replacement‑ or competition-strategy: we do not know whether John presupposes Mark and possibly Luke. But we might assume that he was in any case familiar with the gospel-genre as a literary type of writing. His narrative concept mainly serves a specific theological idea that is based on a pre-existence-Christology (see John 1:1) and that intends to stress the revelatory aspects of Jesus’ mission (John 1:1–14; chs. 14–17). So John might have a focalization‑ or interpretation-strategy that aims at conceptualizing the gospel-story genuinely – on the basis of a theological, viz. Christological, idea (John 1:14). He does not seem, however, to be willing to substitute his forerunner’s works. 70 Cf. Aune, The New Testament, 68 ff. 71 Nevertheless, the so-called ‘gospels’ in the Nag Hammadi-library (e.g. Gospel of Philip; Evangelium veritatis) cannot be excluded from our investigation because they do continue certain ideas of gospel-writing also. Differently: Vielhauer, Geschichte, 614: “In den Zusammenhang der apokryphen Evangelien gehören nur Texte, die aus Jesus-Traditionen, sei es Wort‑ oder Erzählstoff bestehen, gleichviel ob sie expressis verbis den Titel Evangelium aufweisen oder nicht.” 68 Cf. 69

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Jewish Christian Gospels: 72 Gospel of the Nazareans Gospel of the Ebionites Gospel of the Hebrews Gospel of the Egyptians 73 Gospel of Peter 74 So-called Infancy Gospels,75 e.g.: Protevangelium of James 76 Gospel of Bartholomew77 Gospel of Gamaliel 78

In all of these non-canonical gospel-writings it is obvious that some authors tend to re-shape the gospel-concept. This is partly done by focalizing in their gospel-account, for instance, on birth stories.79 Partly they leave or re-define the gospel-concept in a generic sense nearly completely when they stick to sayings material exclusively or when they conceptualize revelatory dialogues of the resurrected Christ. Accordingly, we find gospel-material that only consists of a sayings-sequence (Gos. Thom.), or that is brought into a letter-form (e.g. Jas.; Ep. Apos.). Other materials are put instead into the frame of acta-literature with strong novelistic elements (Gos. Nic.; Acts Pil.).80 How should we evaluate these processes of transforming or re-defining the gospel-genre? We will best understand them as processes of an ongoing literary creativeness in which the varying and merging of various traditions led to a variety of narrative accounts also. This happened in a period of time where the phenomenon of literacy already was regarded as a stimulating factor in shaping various forms of prose-literature.81 72 Cf. Vielhauer and Strecker, “Judenchristliche Evangelien,” 114–47; C.  Moreschini and E. Norelli, From Paul to the Age of Constantine (trans. M. J. O’Connell; vol. 1. of Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature: A Literary History Translated; Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005), 56–63. 73 Cf. W.  Schneemelcher, “Ägypterevangelium,” in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen I, 174–9; Moreschini and Norelli, Literature, 63–64. 74 Cf. C. Maurer and W. Schneemelcher, “Petrusevangelium,” in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen I, 180–8; Moreschini and Norelli, Literature, 71–74. 75 Cf. O. Cullmann, “Kindheitsevangelien,” in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen I, 330–72; Moreschini and Norelli, Literature, 148–153. 76 Cf. Cullmann, “Kindheitsevangelien,” esp. 334–8. 77 Cf. F. Scheidweiler and W. Schneemelcher, “Bartholomäusevangelium,” in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen I, 424–40. 78 Cf. M.-A. van den Oudenrijn, “Das Evangelium des Gamaliel,” in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen I, 441–2. 79 According to Vielhauer, Geschichte, 651 f. the “‘Vorgeschichten’ waren überhaupt ein fruchtbarer Boden für Wachstum und Wucherung der Legenden.” Something similar can also be demonstrated in regard to Luke’s impact on later gospel-stories; e.g. Luke 2:41–52 and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas = Inf. Gos. Thom. 80 Cf. F. Scheidweiler, “Nikodemusevangelium: Pilatusakten und Höllenfahrt Christi,” in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen I, 395–424. Cf. O. Ehlen, Leitbilder und romanhafte Züge in apokryphen Evangelientexten: Untersuchungen zur Motivik und Erzählstruktur (anhand des Protevangelium Jacobi und der Acta Pilati Graec. B) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004). 81 By assuming the latter we recall one of Franz Overbeck’s (1882) ideas about the meaning of

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In this context, the so-called Gospel of Peter (Gos. Pet.) is of specific interest. The most important version of the text82 is documented by PCair 10759, a parchment codex found in Akhmîm in 1886/1887,83 which saw its editio princeps in 1892 (U. Bouriant).84 This codex also contains the Apocalypse of Peter85 and, thus, already functions as a small pre-collection of Petrine writings. This fact is interesting because in patristic times the Petrine writings, as a particular group of texts, had been subject to extensive discussion concerning their literary and theological validity, as for example Eusebius indicates (Hist. eccl. 3.3.2; 3.25.6). It is generally stated that Gos. Pet. had been written in the second half of the second century C. E.86 According to Dibelius, the work belongs to a group of traditions or testimonies (Reste der apokryphen Evangelien) which give evidence of the existence of diverse written gospels as comprehensive literary texts (e.g. also Gospel of the Nazareans).87 But what are the literary characteristics of Gos. Pet., and how do we meet literary creativeness here that goes beyond the Markan as well as the Matthean narrative outline? (1) What we find in Gos. Pet. programmatically is a literary shape of Peter as author, viz. narrator, of the gospel-account (esp. 14:58, 60). To make Peter act as a literary author who is even legitimated to write in the first person singular, however, presupposes him being already established as an apostolic authority in a literary sense. There are two factors in the early history of apostolic traditions that might have prepared for such a literary authority. First, Peter is not only named the apocryphal gospels, which are certainly true: “An ihrem Teile also dient die apokryphe Literatur nur der Behauptung zur Bestätigung, daß Evangelien, Apostelgeschichte und Apokalypse Formen sind, die schon zu einer Zeit, wo, was sich als christliche Literatur am Leben erhalten hat, zu existieren eben nur begonnen hatte, aufgehört haben, darin noch möglich zu sein”; F. Overbeck, Über die Anfänge der patristischen Literatur (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1983), 24. 82 Cf., according to D. Lührmann, “Die Überlieferung des apokryph gewordenen Petrusevangeliums,” in Das Evangelium nach Petrus, 31–51; eventually also: POxy 2949; POxy 4009; PVindob G2325. Cf. also, in general, Klauck, Gospels, 82 f. For a critical view on Lührmann, cf. P. Foster, “Are there any Early Fragments of the So-called Gospel of Peter,” NTS 52 (2006): 1–28. More carefully: T. J.  Kraus, “‘Die Sprache des Petrusevangeliums?’ Methodische Anmerkungen und Vorüberlegungen für eine Analyse von Sprache und Stil,” in Das Evangelium nach Petrus, 61–76, 63 f.; T. J. Kraus and T. Nicklas, in Das Petrusevangelium und die Petrusapokalypse: Die griechischen Fragmente mit deutscher und englischer Übersetzung (ed. T. J. Kraus and T. Nicklas; Berlin / New York: Walter de Gruyter: 2004), 5–7 and 55–68. 83 For a description of the codex, cf. P. van Minnen, “The Akhmîm Gospel of Peter,” in Das Evangelium nach Petrus, 53–60. 84 For a recent edition of the Akhmîm-Codex (P Cair 10759): Das Petrusevangelium und die Petrusapokalypse, 32–49. 85 Cf. O. von Gebhardt, Das Evangelium und die Apokalypse des Petrus: Die neuentdeckten Bruchstücke: Nach einer Photographie der Handschrift zu Gizeh in Lichtdruck herausgegeben (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1893). For a recent critical edition: A. E. Bernhard, Other Early Christian Gospels: A Critical Edition of the Surviving Greek Manuscripts (London / New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 49–83. 86 Concerning the terminus ad quem, cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.12.3–6 (Serapion); Origen, Comm in Mt 10.17. Cf. recently, Das Evangelium nach Petrus. 87 Dibelius, Geschichte, 51 ff.

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as an apostolic authority in the history of early Christianity (cf. 1 Cor 15:5; Gal 2; Acts) but also literarily styled as such an authority. In texts like Mark 8:29 par.; Matt 16:18–20; Luke 24:12; John 21 we furthermore see that this tendency has been increased already from Mark to Matthew. Secondly, the first person singular concept (Gos. Pet. 7:26 f.; 14:60) that is significant for Gos. Pet., in fact, already derives from 1 Peter as a literary concept of apostolic authority and specifically from a text like 2 Pet 1:16–18, where we find an important reference to the transfiguration scene (cf. Mark 9:2–8 par.) displayed as a kind of ‘authentic’ Petrine report. Such a significant overlap between Gos. Pet. and the Petrine letters is also visible in regard to the motif of Jesus’ preaching in the Hades (cf. Gos. Pet. 10:41 and 1 Pet 3:19 f.).88 The Gospel of Peter was therefore written in a period of time where the concurrent reading of gospel‑ as well as letter-literature needs to be presupposed. (2) As far as we can see on the basis of the textual fragments, Gos. Pet. is focused on the passion narrative and the Easter events.89 This focus, again, is not accidental, but rather due to Gos. Pet.’s affiliation to the ‘Peter’-figure: Peter’s specific involvement in the passion (Gos. Pet. 7:26 f.) and Easter events (Gos. Pet. 14:60) already derives from earlier traditions, which are mainly documented by Paul (cf. 1 Cor 15:5) as well as the canonical gospels (cf. Mark 14:66–72 par.; Mark 16:7 par. Luke 24:12) and the later ending of John (John 21). How can we thus contextualize Gos. Pet. in the literary-history of the gospel-writings? I think Gos. Pet. is a good example for demonstrating how an apocryphal gospel does stand in line with the earlier gospel-narratives but at the same time re-defines the gospel-concept significantly: it shortens the gospel-story’s focus to the passion and Easter events and includes much additional, viz. legendary, material to this specific outline. This, again, I would primarily call a focalization-strategy, even if aspects of preservation can also be found: there are, for instance, traditions used that equal the synoptic material nearly verbally (Gos. Pet. 11:45; cf. Mark 15:39).90 These observations lead us to the question how Gos. Pet. possibly upholds the gospel-outline according to Mark and Matthew in a textual, viz. material, sense. (3) The Gospel of Peter presents certain motifs which have literary parallels in the canonical gospels. We can at least distinguish between four types of material. (3.1) this motif, cf. also the descent of Christ in Gos. Nic./ Acts Pil. 17–27; Gos. Bar. I:9 ff. POxy 4009 which “recounts the sending of the disciples by Jesus … derives from the Gospel of Peter (and this is not clear), this would suggest that this gospel originally included pre-passion material”; J. B. Green, “Gospel of Peter,” in Encylopedia of Religious and Philosophical Writings in late Antiquity: Pagan, Judaic, Christian (ed. J. Neusner and A. J. Avery-Peck, et al.; Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2007), 145–6, 145. 90 Gos. Pet.: ἀληθῶς υἱὸς ἦν ϑεοῦ; Mark: ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος υἱὸς θεοῦ ἦν. I do not think, however, that the relation of Gos. Pet. to the canonical gospels can be analyzed by means of Literarkritik, as, for instance, Theodor Zahn (1893) once suggested; cf. T. von Zahn, Das Evangelium des Petrus: Das kürzlich gefundene Fragment seines Textes (Erlangen: Deichert, 1893). For a literary-historical approach to passion narratives, cf. also, F. Herrmann, Strategien der Todesdarstellung in der Markuspassion: Ein literaturgeschichtlicher Vergleich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010). 88 For 89 If

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There are certain motifs which are already known from the Markan passion narrative (cf. Gos. Pet. 5:15 and 5:20 and Mark 15:33 par. and 15:38 par.). (3.2) We know a relatively large group of motifs that occur in Gos. Pet. only from M otherwise (cf. Matt 27:62–66 and Gos. Pet. 8:28–33; Matt 27:52 f. and Gos. Pet. 6:21). Thus, we could assume that the Matthean Gospel functions as a basic literary frame for Gos. Pet.91 (3.3) We also find parallels to the Lukan passion narrative that derive from L (cf. Luke 23:6–12 and Gos. Pet. 1:1–2; 2:3–5; Luke 23:39–43 and Gos. Pet. 4:13). (3.4) Additionally, we could discuss whether Gos. Pet. even evidences knowledge and use of John 21 (cf. Gos. Pet. 14:60). Today, it is still under dispute whether these motifs and parallels point to an author who really made use of the so-called canonical gospels in a comprehensive sense.92 (4) At the same time, Gos. Pet. presents material that is de facto not known from the field of canonical gospels at all. The valuation of this material, however, remains ambiguous. On the one hand, Gos. Pet. offers scriptural interpretations of Jesus’ passion that avoid explicit quotation-formulas (cf. Gos. Pet. 3:7; 5:18) and, thus, seem to be older than scriptural interpretations found in the canonical gospels. Therefore, Dibelius has called these elements ‘archaic material.’93 On the other hand, Gos. Pet. contains many legendary motifs (e.g. 8:31; 9:35–49) that point to a late stage of passion narratives. Can we explain this ambiguity by assuming that Gos. Pet. has used the canonical gospels via memory and concurrently was influenced by oral-kerygmatical, possibly old and valid traditions, as Dibelius and Philipp Vielhauer once thought?94 We can hardly reconstruct satisfyingly enough the process of composing Gos. Pet. according to matters of Traditionsgeschichte or Literarkritik. Therefore I would rather understand Gos. Pet. as an individual member of gospel-literature that continues the basic concept of a written gospel-genre by making use of a focalization-strategy95 in particular.

3. Conclusions and Prospects What can we finally gain from these observations for the quest for Mark’s early reception-history as well as for the study of literary history and the study of the gospel-genre in particular? I will formulate some concluding remarks and after91 Cf.

Vielhauer, Geschichte, 645: “Als Basis der erhaltenen Erzählung dient der Mt-Bericht.”

92 Bauer, Das Leben Jesu, 497 f., e.g., argued clearly in favor of such a literary dependency. Much

more careful is Nicklas, “Petrusevangelium,” and see above. 93 Cf. also Vielhauer, Geschichte, 646. 94 In recent days the concept of “cultural memory” is being used in a similar way in order to explain Gos. Pet.’s relation to the canonical gospels; cf. A. Kirk, “Tradition and Memory in the Gospel of Peter,” in Das Evangelium nach Petrus, 135–58. 95 “Focalization” is here and earlier (s. above) understood rather in the general sense of a narrative concentration than in a sense of narrative theory as is suggested by M. Bal (Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative [2nd ed.; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997]) and applied to the interpretation of Mark by Herrmann, Strategien, or to Gos. Pet. by Hartenstein, “Petrusevangelium,” 165–7.

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wards give a short prospect on how studies in the apocryphal gospels can profit also from a comparative approach to Mark and Matthew. So far, the comparative approach could help us to illuminate Mark’s early reception-history in a literary dimension: by comparing Mark’s and Matthew’s gospel-outline, we could see that Mark’s primary impact on the further history of the gospel-genre obviously lies in its inventive power of creating a literary concept of a gospel-writing that is soon imitated and modified. It is the Markan Gospel that opens up the floor for a creative conceptualizing of the gospel-story on the literary level rather than for a reception of the text that would have provided textual consistency and literary conservatism. Matthew approves and confirms that idea by using and continuing, but also by broadening Mark’s outline – in any case by not limiting himself to his Vorlage. The result of this was quite successful: on the basis of textual evidence it seems that Matthew would quickly overshadow the Markan outline in the second century. This happened because of the incorporative character of his writing as well as the comprehensiveness of the material included. The Matthean gospel-narrative could thus appear as a much more thorough gospel-version so that it obviously also functioned much better than Mark as a material point of departure for later gospel-writings, following either perception‑ or focalization-strategies. In other words, Matthew could have been understood as a legitimate climax of Mark. Nevertheless, the Markan Gospel could also make its own way. In the middle and up to the end of the second century C. E. there must have taken place a literary as well as a theological reversion to “Mark” that was probably due to its affiliation with apostolic authority (cf. Papias): Justin, Tatian, and Irenaeus reflect the increasing meaning of a ‘Four Gospel-collection,’ and also Clement Alexandrinus – from his point of view – indicates that there was a tremendous need for defining and securing the “Markan” text. As a consequence of this, a search for textual consistency must have been started, by which nevertheless the plurality of literary versions could not be blanked out entirely, as the codices W and k (Bobiensis) document. And yet we might assume that it is in fact a ‘canonizing interest’ that finally put an end to textual inconsistency96 and literary creativity by which various literary versions and re-shapings of Mark – including Matthew – had been produced still during the second century. So it is precisely between ca. 70 and 170 C. E. that there hardly existed a well-defined book named the “Gospel of Mark” but rather only a tested literary concept. In other words, the gospel-genre was still ‘in the making’ during this period of time. And the reception-history of the Markan Gospel reflects this process paradigmatically. Partly by chance, partly because of quality and authority or textual variety that has raised questions of definition also, but certainly because of its strong conceptual impact, this literary concept, which we call “Mark,” could achieve a firm place in the formation of the early Christian library, the New Testament canon. 96 Cf.

Gamble, Books and Readers, e.g. 125–7.

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From here we might finally get fresh ideas for further studies in the gospel-literature of the second century. Hereby, it seems as if we need to reconsider our methodological approach to the apocryphal gospel-writings when taking into consideration the literary dynamics by which gospel-literature was shaped and re-shaped already in earliest times. So the literary-historical approach to Mark’s reception-history even provides crucial insights into the rise and the further development of the apocryphal gospels. We thus should adjust our academic interest in the apocryphal gospels correspondingly – an interest that is not at all new, but rather dates back to 16th century protestant theology (Michaelis Neander Soraviensis, 1564/67)97 and that has continued since,98 up to our most recent debates.99 There can be no doubt that from the late 19th century onwards, the discussion reached a new quality and brisance since various new fragments and portions of apocryphal texts, such as Gos. Pet., were found. Thus, the so-called apocryphal gospels were now analyzed with even higher expectations and played a prominent role in Patristics, Classics, and academic arts,100 as well as in New Testament studies101 and canon history (Kanongeschichte).102 They are available to us in a  97 Cf. M. N.  Soraviensis, “Apocrypha: hoc est, narrationes de Christo, Maria, Joseph, cognatione et familia Christi, extra Biblia etc.,” in Catechesis Martini Lutheri parva, Graeco-latina (Basiliae, 3rd ed., 1567). Reference to this in R. Hofmann, Das Leben Jesu nach den Apokryphen im Zusammenhange aus den Quellen erzählt und wissenschaftlich untersucht (Leipzig: Friedrich Voigt, 1851), XIV; E. Hennecke, ed., Handbuch zu den neutestamentlichen Apokryphen (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1904), 6. Hennecke starts his overview on the history of research (5–9) by mentioning Jacobus Faber Stapulensis (1498), who edited, e.g., the letters of Polycarp and Ignatius (5).  98 Cf. R. Hofmann, Leben Jesu. He bases his reconstruction on “Protevangelium Jacobi minoris …, Evangelium de nativitate S. Mariae …, Historia de nativitate Mariae et de infantia Salvatoris …, Historia Josephi fabri lignarii …, Evangelium infantiae Servatoris …, Evangelium Thomas Israelitae …, Evangelium Matthaei …, Evangelium de pueritia secundum Thomam …, Syngramma Thomae …, Evangelium Nicodemi …” (XI-XIV). He also gives an overview on more contemporary interpretation of the apocryphal writings, up to his time, e.g., ca. 1850. Cf. programmatically, Bauer, Das Leben Jesu.  99  Cf., e.g., P.  Foster, The Apocryphal Gospels: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Klauck, Gospels; J. Frey and J. Schröter, eds., Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen. 100 Cf., e.g., J. Geffcken, Christliche Apokryphen (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1908). On these expectations and their relevance in the field of early Christian art, cf. G. Stuhlfauth, Die apokryphen Petrusgeschichten in der altchristlichen Kunst (Berlin/Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1925), 1–3. 101 For the immediate reactions on the findings of the Gospel of Peter, cf. P. Foster, “The Discovery and Initial Reactions to the So-Called Gospel of Peter,” in Das Evangelium nach Petrus: Text, Kontexte, Intertexte (ed. T. J.  Kraus and T.  Nicklas; Berlin / New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 9–30. 102 The aim then is to testify to what degree these boundaries are built ‘reasonably’ by the church fathers or if those boundaries as well as the factor of canonicity should rather be widened or even ignored; cf., e.g., H. Koester, “Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels,” HTR 73 (1980): 105–30; J. K. Elliott, “The Apocryphal Gospels,” ExpTim 103 (1991): 8–15. Cf., recently, S. Luther and J.  Röder, “Der neutestamentliche Kanon und die neutestamentliche apokryphe Literatur: Überlegungen zu einer Verhältnisbestimmung,” in Kanon in Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion, 469–501; J. Schröter, “Die apokryphen Evangelien und die Entstehung des neutestamentlichen Kanons,” in Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen, 31–60. The hermeneutical discourse on the boundaries of the New Testament canon is partly related to the controversies about how

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collection edited by Edgar Hennecke (1904) and Wilhelm Schneemelcher et al. (61999/72012).103 For contemporary scholarship the apocryphal gospels are either of interest for religious history104 or for Jesus research in a broader sense.105 But how and why should we adjust our heuristics when studying gospel-literature of the second century? In my point of view we should try out more comprehensively a literary-historical approach,106 since gospels are religious literature also. Accordingly the to approach the New Testament between theology and religious studies; cf. E.-M. Becker, “Antike Textsammlungen in Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion,”. 103  Cf. Hennecke, ed., Handbuch; W.  Schneemelcher, ed., Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, Bd. I: Evangelien (6th ed.; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1990). Cf. recently, however, not available while completing this contribution: C. Markschies and J. Schröter, eds., Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung I. Band: Evangelien und Verwandtes. 7. Auflage der von Edgar Hennecke begründeten und von Wilhelm Schneemelcher fortgeführten Sammlung der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012). 104  It seems as if one hidden agenda behind studies in apocryphal writings is still to find valid criteria for describing the rise of ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ in early Christianity beyond the attempts of Walter Bauer and his successors; cf., e.g., M. F.  Bird, “Sectarian Gospels for Sectarian Groups? The Non-canonical Gospels and Bauckham’s The Gospels for all Christians,” in The Audience of the Gospels: The Origin and the Function of the Gospels in Early Christianity (ed. E. W. Kling; London / New York: T & T Clark, 2010), 27–48. Cf., specifically, B. D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); idem, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make it into the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); idem, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 91 ff. For a critical view on this, cf. also M. Meiser, “Das Petrusevangelium und die spätere großkirchliche Literatur,” in Das Evangelium nach Petrus, 184–96, esp. 189: “Bekanntlich sind die Grenzen zwischen dem, was später als Häresie bzw. Orthodoxie gilt, im zweiten Jahrhundert noch fließend.” 105 Here scholars discuss whether reception-history up to the second century could tell us something about how far we can get back to the earliest traditions concerning Jesus’ life and mission: “Die Bedeutung der apokryphen Jesusüberlieferungen liegt zunächst … darin, dass sie die Breite und Vielfalt der Rezeption der Gestalt, des Wirkens und Geschicks Jesu im antiken Christentum vor Augen führen”; J. Frey and J. Schröter, “Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen: Zur Einführung in Thema und Konzeption des vorliegenden Bandes,” in Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen, 3–30, 11. 106 Such an approach is not undisputed: Vielhauer, for instance, explicitly rejects the idea of approaching the apocryphal gospels from a literary-historical point of view. He refers to the uncertainty in drawing lines of historical development and literary dependency between different texts (cf. Vielhauer, Geschichte, 614). He mentions the difficulty in a “literaturgeschichtlich sachgemäßen Gruppierung des Materials … Man muß auf das Nachzeichnen von literaturgeschichtlichen Entwicklungslinien in diesem Material einstweilen verzichten.” By articulating this skepticism he is right, especially when considering the fact that we do not have any certainty regarding literary dependency between diverse texts. On the other hand, Gattungsgeschichte, viz. genre studies, cannot avoid raising historical issues also. By reconstructing processes of literary evolution we do try to characterize the historical development of a certain genre, like gospel-literature. Accordingly, in more recent times, Theissen, suggests understanding the apocryphal literature as a certain kind of a continuation and a revision of earlier Christian literature. For him apocryphal literature is an “Ausdruck neuer charismatischer Anfänge,” a “Weiterführung der pseudepigraphen Literatur,” and a “Ausdruck der Tendenz zu funktionalen Gattungen”; G. Theissen, Die Entstehung des Neuen Testaments als literaturgeschichtliches Problem: Vorgetragen am 27.11.2004 (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2007), 37.

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diversification of gospel-stories in the second century C. E. basically appears as a literary-historical phenomenon. And more particularly, it is already Mark’s and Matthew’s literary creativeness which had important effects on later literature. In other words, later gospel-writers have obviously built upon Mark’s and Matthew’s literary concepts – though revising them and developing their own literary strategies even further. My argument, presented here, thus implies the idea that the authors of the apocryphal gospels basically have continued the impetus of literary creativity as it was defined by Mark and further developed by Matthew. In continuing and re-defining, broadening and shortening, incorporating, and focalizing the narrative gospel-account, the gospel-genre as a literary concept was finally approved. Consequently, the reception of Mark’s Gospel must have ended in a literary diversity as represented most evidently in the so-called apocryphal gospels. It may well be that precisely against this background the search for a textually as well as literarily stabile version of “Mark” was finally urged: it was on the basis of textual fluidity and literary diversity that Mark’s identity was founded at last.

From Mark and Q to Matthew An Experiment in Evolutionary Analysis Petri Luomanen 1. Introduction Throughout the history of critical study of biblical traditions, scholars have also presented overall interpretations of the development of Christianity, and these interpretations have even been tied to some universal ideas about the development of culture. One of the best known examples must be Ferdinand Christian Baur’s interpretation of the birth of Christianity as the result of the two opposing theses of strict Jewish Christianity and more liberal Pauline Christianity. Thus, there is no doubt that the “evolution” of Christianity has been on the agenda of critical study of biblical traditions for quite a long time. However, what have been largely missing are approaches that tie the analysis with the discussion about the significance of biological evolution for cultural studies or with the discussion about the coevolution of nature and culture. Now there is growing interest in this kind of approach, especially in the context of interdisciplinary analyses of the beginnings of Christianity. My own interest in this topic is rooted in a larger project which aims at developing an overall socio-cognitive approach to early Christianity, in which I draw on the social-scientific criticism of biblical traditions (especially the social identity approach1) and the cognitive science of religion.2 These methodological interests also characterize the evolutionary model to be developed below. In the following, I first introduce recent discussion on the relation of Matthew, Mark, and Q (Section 2) and then assess some of the key interdisciplinary evolutionary approaches to early Christianity (Section 3.). This leads to a formulation 1 Following D. Abrams and M. A. Hogg, “An Introduction to the Social Identity Theory,” in Social Identity Approach: Constructive and Critical Advances (ed. D.  Abrams and M. A.  Hogg; New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), 1–9, I am using the term social identity approach as an umbrella term that encompasses both social identity theory, originally developed by Henry Tajfel and John Turner, and the more specific self-categorization theory developed later by Turner and his colleagues. Both are closely related social-psychological theories. The main difference between them is that social identity theory is more concerned with group phenomena while self-categorization theory pays more attention to the cognition of individuals who categorize themselves and their ingroups in relation to others. 2 For an introduction on how to combine these approaches, see P. Luomanen, I. Pyysiäinen, and R. Uro, eds., Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism: Contributions from Cognitive and Social Science (Leiden: Brill, 2007).

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of a model for an evolutionary analysis and comparison of Mark, Matthew, and Q (Section 4), followed by the actual analysis (Section 5) and conclusions (Section 6).

2. Why Did Mark and Matthew Survive, But Not Q? David Sim has, in his recent article, taken up the topic of Matthew’s relation to Mark, arguing that Matthew wrote his Gospel in order to replace Mark’s Gospel which he found defective in many respects. Ulrich Luz’s intertextual analysis also shows how Mark has served as the hypotext for Matthew’s Gospel, determining its structure, plot, and basic theological themes. Luz also notes that Matthew’s implicit readers are not required to have any knowledge of Mark in order to understand Matthew’s text.3 If Matthew’s Gospel includes about 80–90 % of Mark, as scholars generally agree, and if its text does not presuppose any knowledge of its Markan hypotext, and if Sim is right that even the author of Matthew’s Gospel designed the Gospel to replace Mark, why do we still have Mark? Sim agrees with those scholars who think it was simply an “accident of history” that Mark survived. Sim reminds us that Mark almost slipped into oblivion from the second century onwards, and given Matthew’s attempt to replace Mark, Sim finds the fact that Mark sits in the present canon next to Matthew “more than a touch ironic.”4 3 U. Luz, “Intertexts in the Gospel of Matthew,” HTR 97 (2004): 119–37, esp. 125–6. In another context, Luz has assumed that Matthew’s readers must have been familiar with Mark and that Matthew probably approved of that. In this regard, he differs from Sim. See Luz, “The Gospel of Matthew: A New Story of Jesus, or a Rewritten One?” in Studies in Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 18–36, 35–6. In my view, Sim manages to show that Mark was not unproblematic for Matthew’s audience. However, the contrast Sim sees between Mark and Matthew is more pronounced because Sim assumes that Matthew’s community still observed Jewish law. See D. Sim, “Matthew’s Use of Mark: Did Matthew Intend to Supplement or to Replace His Primary Source?” NTS 57 (2011): 176–92, esp. 180–1; Sim, “Matthew: The Current State of Research,” in Mark and Matthew I, Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in their First Century Settings (ed. E.-M. Becker and A. Runesson; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 33–51, 36–40. My understanding of the actual practice of Matthew’s community is more liberal. See P. Luomanen, Entering the Kingdom of Heaven: A Study on the Structure of Matthew’s View of Salvation (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 281–4; P. Luomanen, “The ‘Sociology of Sectarianism’ in Matthew: Modeling the Genesis of Early Jewish and Christian Communities,” in Fair Play: Diversity and Conflicts in Early Christianity: Essays in Honour of Heikki Räisänen (ed. I. Dunderberg, C. Tuckett, and K. Syreeni; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 107–30. In my view, Matthew is balancing between the liberal Hellenistic / Pauline tradition, represented by Mark, and a conservative Jewish-Christian faction within his own community. Thus, I would not totally exclude the possibility of the parallel use of Mark and Matthew in the editor’s community. For a discussion of whether Matthew relies more on Mark or Q, see also L. Youngquist, “Matthew, Mark and Q,” in Mark and Matthew I, 233–61. 4 Sim, “Matthew’s Use of Mark,” 176–92, esp. 189–92. For a summary of possible “accidental” causes for Q’s disappearance, see J. Kloppenborg, Q, the Earliest Gospel: An Introduction to the Original Stories and Sayings of Jesus (Louisville: Westminster Knox, 2008), 98–101. D.  Aune, “Genre Theory and the Genre-Function of Mark and Matthew,” in Mark and Matthew I, 145–75, 170, thinks that Mark survived because the segment of the Christian discourse community that

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Sim also compares Mark’s destiny with that of Q: It is tempting to speculate that the fate of Q could have been analogous to the early demise of Mark. Given the existence of Q as a single and cohesive source or text and its subsequent disappearance from history, there is nothing to preclude the possibility that Matthew and Luke, again independently of one another and for their own individual reasons, believed that this source too needed to be revised and replaced. If that was their intention, then they were more successful in this instance than in the case of Mark. Mark’s apostolic connections with Peter prevented it from sliding completely into obscurity, but Q presumably had no such associations to protect it from that fate.5

Here Sim suggests Mark’s connection to Peter as a reason why Mark survived and Q did not. Possibly Sim is thinking of Papias’ reference to Mark as Peter’s interpreter (in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39). However, at this point we already have to presume relatively wide circulation and probably also the existence of the other Synoptic Gospels from which this one was distinguished by attributing it to Mark. Thus, the later connection between Peter and Mark cannot explain Mark’s initial expansion. It is clear that apostolic connection was one of the issues that was debated when the canon of the New Testament was taking shape but it is also clear that the name of an apostle did not guarantee the survival of texts, still less their inclusion in the New Testament canon. A case in point is Peter’s “own” gospel, the Gospel of Peter, of which we have only very fragmentary knowledge. The debates around the apostolicity of documents belong to a later stage of development where texts have already become widely distributed and serious candidates for canonical status. The initial “early” – early in relation to the discussion about the authority and canonical status – distribution is related to the general relevance of the texts in their socio-historical context. The texts of the present canonical gospels do not make any explicit claims to apostolic authority, which therefore cannot explain their distribution. This means that in order to explain the distribution and survival of early Christian texts, we need to analyze the reasons for their distribution in more detail. One possible framework for this kind of analysis is cultural evolution.

3. Evolutionary Accounts of Early Christianity 3.1 Background Incentives for applying an evolutionary approach to the study of early Christianity come at least from two directions. First, biblical scholars who have drawn on recent developments within the cognitive science of religion have become Mark addressed was different from that of Matthew. He sees this as an argument for the theory of local gospels, against Richard Bauckham’s view. Because Aune seems to understand “discourse communities” locally, his assumption differs from the approach of the present article which seeks the reasons for survival in the gospels’ capacities to attract larger audiences – irrespective of their assumed original contexts. 5 Sim, “Matthew’s Use of Mark,” 176–92, esp. 190, n. 49.

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familiar with the theories of evolutionary biology and psychology in the form that they have been applied by the pioneers of the cognitive science of religion. For instance, Pascal Boyer, who is one of these pioneers, has been strongly influenced by the research agenda of Leda Cosmides and John Tooby who direct the Center of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. According to Cosmides and Tooby, it is important for cognitive scientists to realize that the human mind has acquired its functional organization in the evolutionary process. The cognitive processes of the mind can be properly understood only when we know what their original adaptive function was for our hunter-gatherer ancestors.6 A second incentive comes from some scholars who come from other disciplines but have a strong multidisciplinary interest. For instance, David Sloan Wilson, who is an evolutionary biologist, presents in his Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (2002) an adaptationist program for the study of culture and religion, including examples from Judaism and early Christianity. Wilson argues for his program and interpretation of early Christianity in discussion with Rodney Stark, criticizing Stark’s Theory of Religion (1987; coauthored with William Sims Bainbridge) and hailing Stark’s The Rise of Christianity (1996). W. D. Runciman, an esteemed British representative of historical sociology, has also drawn on Stark in his article “The Diffusion of Christianity in the Third Century AD as a Case-Study in the Theory of Cultural Selection” (2004). Similarly, Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd refer to Stark’s analysis when discussing the role of religion in group selection in their famous Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (2006).7 Rodney Stark’s understanding of the reasons for the rise of Christianity  – if viewed from the viewpoint of evolution – seems to present a clear case of group selection. Stark seeks to show how Christianity spread through open networks and by improving the quality of life of those who joined Christian communities. Christian groups survived better in times of famine and plague, and therefore their relative percentage of the population increased.8

6  P. Boyer, The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 48–52; P. Boyer, Religion Explained: The Human Instincts that Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors (London: Vintage, 2002). For the research agenda see, for instance, L. Cosmides and J. Tooby, “Beyond Intuition and Instinct Blindness: Toward an Evolutionarily Rigorous Cognitive Science,” Cognition 50 (1994): 41–77; J. Tooby and L. Cosmides, “Evolutionizing the Cognitive Sciences: A Reply to Shapiro and Epstein,” Mind & Language 13 (1998): 195. 7 R. Stark and W. S. Bainbridge, A Theory of Religion (New York: P. Lang, 1987); R. Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); P. J. Richerson and R. Boyd, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006), 162–3, 210–1, 273 n. 29 (Richerson and Boyd also refer to David Sloan Wilson); D. Sloan Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2002); W. G.  Runciman, “The Diffusion of Christianity in the Third Century AD as a Case-Study in the Theory of Cultural Selection,” European Journal of Sociology 45 (2004): 3–21. 8 See, for instance, Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 73–94, 95–120, 147–62.

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An interesting feature in this positive reception of Stark among evolutionary theorists is that the frameworks from which the evolutionary theorists view Stark’s research data differs quite clearly from Stark’s own perspective. Stark himself is a supporter of Intelligent Design.9 He thinks it is possible to apply the evolutionary viewpoint of variation and selection of the fittest in the study of cultural “evolution” but that happens only “within the ‘species’ known as human cultures or … within the ‘species’ called religion.”10 It is clear that this kind of evolutionary analysis is quite restricted as compared with Darwinian evolutionary analysis which allows reasoning across species and across time by comparing less developed and more developed forms of life that do not fall within the same species. Nevertheless, these discrepancies notwithstanding, I agree with the aforementioned evolutionary theorists that it is possible to apply Stark’s research data in a broader Darwinian cultural analysis of the evolution of early Christianity. In this article, I approach the topic mainly from the more general level of group selection and cultural evolution (the latter of the two viewpoints listed above) but the model that is developed below also draws on the cognitive science of religion and the social-scientific approach to early Christianity. In the following, I introduce and assess two different evolutionary approaches as a background for the model of this article, one by an evolutionary biologist, David Sloan Wilson, and one by an eminent biblical scholar, Gerd Theissen. Wilson and other contemporary evolutionary theorists of religion seem to be totally unaware of Theissen’s contribution, although it was already published in 1984. The discussion of these two approaches, coming from two different branches of scholarship, sets the larger framework for the model that this article applies to Mark, Q, and Matthew.

 9 R. Stark, Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 395–99. In his most recent publications, Stark has clearly lost touch with civil academic discussion. He often ridicules his opponents energetically, instead of focusing on presenting proper arguments. One example of this is the way he treats Boyer, Dawkins, and Dennett in Stark, Discovering God, 40–2. 10  Stark, Discovering God, 8–9. In the present context, it is not possible to go into the details of Stark’s understanding of religion, nature, and science. In short, the cornerstones of his view seem to be: (1) The world was created by an Intelligent Designer (Stark, Discovering God, 395–9). Thus (2) both nature and human social life are governed by natural and social laws (Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 23, 26; Stark, Discovering God, 398–9). (3) Revelation is guided by divine accommodation which means that humans, according to their growing capacities of understanding, get more information about and from God (Stark, Discovering God, 5–8). (4) Religions are doctrinally driven (although people do not join religious movements on the basis of doctrine but through their social networks); doctrines create the forms of life, and great leaps in the development are instigated by religious geniuses who invent the new ideas (alternatively, “God reveals them”; Stark, Discovering God, 43–6). Therefore, (5) theology involves formal reasoning about God, and science is also theology (Stark, Discovering God, 5, 399). This is also (6) the reason for the rise of science and western success; it was made possible by Jewish-Christian understanding of the one and the reasonable Intelligent Designer (Stark, The Victory of Reason). Consequently, (7) rational choice / exchange theory is well suited for analyzing culture and religion.

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In another context, I have assessed Rodney Stark’s sociology of early Christianity in detail,11 showing the weak points of his approach, which relies too heavily on social laws and is therefore susceptible to anachronisms. Space does not allow a repetition of the discussion here, but I agree with Stark that open networks were necessary for the spread of Christianity and I have adopted that viewpoint as a part of the model applied in this article. W. D. Runciman’s analysis of Christianity in the framework of cultural evolution draws largely on Stark but makes some important qualifications, especially concerning strategies towards insiders and outsiders, which I take into account in the model (see below). 3.2 David Sloan Wilson’s Darwin’s Cathedral Wilson differs from evolutionary theorists and cognitive scientists like Richard Dawkins and Pascal Boyer, who take religion as a spandrel, a by-product of mental modules that originally supported the evolutionary adaptation of our ancestral hunter-gatherers to some natural surroundings.12 These mental structures created by evolution include modules like agent detector, cheater detector, and various alarm systems that in addition to (or instead of) their original functions work like “gadgets” (Boyer’s term) that produce religion.13 In contrast to this by-product theory, Wilson argues that religions survive because of their very own ability to enhance in-group morality and cohesion. This gives religious groups adaptive advantage over other groups in evolution – purely in material terms. In this regard, Wilson does not hide his Durkheimian sympathies: Along with Durkheim, I predict that most enduring religions survive on the basis of their secular utility. Their design features include belief systems that, no matter how otherwordly, have the effect of motivating adaptive behaviors in this world.14

Since Wilson pictures groups as organisms that are adapted to their surroundings, he realizes that his application of evolutionary biology to social sciences “amounts to a revival of functionalism in social sciences.”15 11 P. Luomanen “Rodney Starks ‘echte Sozialwissenschaft’ im Lichte des Ansatses Sozialer Mechanismen,” in Alte Texte in neuen Kontexten: Sozialwissenschaftliche Interpretationen zum Neuen Testament (ed. R. E. DeMaris and W. Stegemann; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, forthcoming [2012]). 12 Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral, 44; Cf. Boyer, The Naturalness of Religious Ideas; R. Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantam Press, 2006). Daniel Dennett locates his position in between Wilson and Dawkins, criticizing Wilson’s group selection model which, by definition, does not cohere with Dennett’s own “meme’s eye” perspective. On the other hand, Dennett regards his meme-theorizing more friendly towards religion than that of Richard Dawkins. See D. Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (London: Penguin Books, 2006), 181–8. For the assessment (and critique) of Dawkins and Dennett, see A. Geertz, “New Atheistic Approaches in the Cognitive Science of Religion: On Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell (2006) and Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (2006),” in Contemporary Theories of Religion (ed. M.  Strausberg; Oxon: Routledge, 2009), 242–63. 13 Boyer, Religion Explained, 150–4. 14 Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral, 156. 15 Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral, 48. Thus, Wilson has a double mission among social scientists.

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The new methodological impact that Wilson claims to offer to social sciences can be summarized in three points. First, social sciences should learn from evolutionary biology the art of making distinctions between ultimate and proximate explanations. In Wilson’s approach, ultimate explanations refer to the survival and reproduction of the species. Since, from the viewpoint of biological evolution, history is ultimately steered by survival and reproduction, these are the most profound explanations. Wilson calls this the prediction arm of the adaptationist program.16 Proximate explanations refer to the mechanisms that actually cause the behavior. Wilson calls these the production arm of the adaptationist program. Wilson emphasizes at several points that it is important to keep the ultimate and proximate explanations apart. This is because reproduction and survival are the only hard facts that can be observed and of which we can say something with relative certainty.17 Second, it is important to focus on the appropriate level of analysis. Group selection can become visible only by focusing on the right adaptive unit.18 Third, Wilson thinks that evolutionary biology can offer a more sophisticated theory of psychology for the social sciences. In this regard, Wilson follows Cosmides and Tooby’s research program.19 Do these points offer useful insights? Starting from the last claim, I agree here with Justin Barrett who finds the relation of the cognitive science of religion and evolutionary psychology more “opportunistic than necessary.” Evolutionary psychology may sometimes contribute to the depth of cognitive explanations but it is not the most essential element.20 In the sphere of cultural evolution, this means that what matters are the cognitive properties of the mind – which were the same in the first century C. E. as they are now – that effect the transmission of cultural representations. It is of secondary importance how these properties have evolved. It is easy to agree with Wilson’s demand to focus on the correct unit in order to see its adaptive functionality. However, from the perspective of biblical studies, it On the one hand, he seeks to show how his adaptationist evolutionary program would revolutionize the study of religion in social sciences. On the other hand, in order to convince his readers among social sciences he also needs to prove that the bad reputation of functionalism within the social sciences is not totally justified and that functionalism, at least in the form that he applies it, is theoretically solid and empirically verifiable. Furthermore, group selection has been the topic for which Wilson has argued among evolutionary biologists. Although he may have convinced some of his colleagues that group selection is something one has to take into account in addition to individual selection, many think that the effects of group level selection are relatively limited. Cf. P. Boyer, “Religion, Evolution, and Cognition,” Current Anthropology 45 (2004): 430–3, esp. 431–2; S. Okasha, “Could Religion Be a Group-Level Adaptation of Homo Sapiens? Essay Review of David Sloan Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 34 (2003): 699–705, esp. 700–1, 703–4; M. Ruse, “Can Selection Explain the Presbyterians?” Science 297 (2002): 1479. 16 Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral, 172–3. 17 Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral, 68, 84, 172–7, 188. 18 Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral, 177–82, 188. 19 Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral, 84–5. 20 See J. Barret, “Cognitive Science of Religion: What Is It and Why Is It?” Religion Compass 1(2007): 768–86, esp. 779.

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must be noted that the idea of focusing on smaller adaptive units is not unknown in the study of early Christianity. Towards the end of the book, it seems to be also dawning on Wilson that the adaptationist approach and functionalism may not be total strangers to religious scholars. Wilson obviously began to realize this after having read Elaine Pagels’ The Origin of Satan (1995).21 However, what strikes Wilson as “evolutionary” in Pagel’s book are observations and assumptions that are quite familiar to all scholars of early Christianity: different gospels and re-editions of gospels were produced for the needs of local communities. For Wilson, these are “adaptive responses to local pressures” that betray underlying evolutionary processes.22 For those who remember something about the history of historical-critical study of the Bible, it should come as no surprise that Wilson, who derives his inspiration from classics of sociology like Durkheim, sees something familiar here. Questions about the social setting of smaller units of gospel traditions were introduced to biblical studies through the form-critical method at the beginning of the 20th century. Form criticism, for its part, was partly inspired by the rise of the social sciences. Redaction-criticism transposed the questions about the social setting of oral traditions to the level of entire gospels. Thus, in some sense questions connected to adaptationism have been on the agenda of biblical scholars for quite a long time. As regards making a distinction between ultimate and proximate explanations, it is clear that the social-scientific study of Bible and related literature and culture would surely benefit from a more profound understanding of the character of explanations that are applied within the discipline. Another question is how far the distinction between ultimate and proximate explanations can take us. The terms used in this distinction belong to the standard vocabulary of evolutionary biologists. However, there is no generally accepted definition for their content and the use of these terms has often created confusion within evolutionary biology and discussions concerning cultural evolution. Instead of ultimate and proximate explanations, one should rather refer to evolutionary and non-evolutionary explanations.23 The Origin of Satan (London: Penguin Books, 1995).  See Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral, 213, 215, 218. As a matter of fact, Stanley Stowers (“The Concept of ‘Community’ and the History of Early Christianity,” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 23 [2011]: 238–56; for Mark, see also O.  Wischmeyer, “Forming Identity Through Literature,” in Mark and Matthew I, Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in their First Century Settings [ed. E.-M. Becker and A. Runesson; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011], 355–78) has recently challenged the largely accepted assumption about gospels as products of local communities. In contrast to Bauckham’s less convincing “Gospels for all nations” – paradigm – which also challenges the classic notion about gospels as products for local communities – Stowers calls for a more accurate and perceptive analysis of the scribal culture and the variety of social formations that contributed to the spread of Christianity. Stowers regards the idea of a local community that is unified in belief and practice as a later Christian myth of origins that is based on the uncritical adoption of the picture propagated by Paul and Eusebius. Stowers’ point is well taken and his article clearly shows the need to revise much of the discussion about how texts and authors relate to assumed communities. 23 P. Ylikoski and T. Kokkonen, Evoluutio ja ihmisluonto (Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2009), 329–38. 21 E. Pagels, 22

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Furthermore, the doctrine about the primacy of ultimate explanations may work very well in the field of evolutionary biology where the research aims at understanding the evolution of nature and where the surrounding to which organisms adapt can be treated mostly as given from the viewpoint of the organism facing the challenge to adapt. The question is only how well species are able to cope with these given parameters. When we move to the sphere of cultural evolution, the starting point is totally different. Individuals and groups do not just adapt but are also equally responsible for creating the surrounding to which they themselves and others have to adapt. This changes the situation profoundly: in the case of nonadaptive behavior, it is equally important to raise the question whether the problem is not in the proximate mechanisms of adaptation but in the more remote mechanisms of the culture that imposes parameters for adaptive behavior. Despite these critical comments, it is clear that Wilson’s book is not without merits. As a matter of fact, Wilson’s insistence on mechanisms comes close to the socalled “social mechanism approach” which emphasizes the role of middle-range theorizing and the need to explicate the causal mechanisms that are effective in social processes. However, in contrast to Wilson, this approach does take the microlevel causal processes as less important than the evolutionary “ultimate” processes.24 Wilson’s book also includes a very interesting section on altruism where he argues that restricted altruism is an evolutionary adaptation that can be found “throughout the animal kingdom, at least in a rudimentary form.”25 However, although Wilson is, as a biologist, able to provide some interesting parallel examples from the life of guppies, the main thrust of the argument is derived from game theories developed by political scientists. Wilson basis his argument on the so-called “Tit-For-Tat-rule” (TFT-rule), that was presented by Anatoly Rapaport in a computer simulation tournament where the idea was to develop rules for altruistic and selfish behavior. Rapaport’s simple rule, according to which TFT remains altruistic with altruistic partners but turns selfish toward selfish partners, won the game even when the TFTs were destroyed in the selfish mode. Despite this, altruistic pairs take over the population in the long run. There are interesting variations of the simple TFT rule, and it is clear that this sort of theorizing may help us to understand, for instance, the prevalence of both forgiveness and retaliation in biblical tradition.26 Overall, although evolutionary biologists may have more to discuss concerning the role of group selection in natural evolution at large, it seems clear to me that 24 P.  Hedström, Dissecting the Social: On the Principles of Analytical Sociology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); P. Hedström and R. Swedberg, “Social Mechanisms: An Introductory Essay,” in Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory (ed. P. Hedström and R. Swedberg; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 1–26. 25 Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral, 189–94, esp. p. 194. 26 For an introduction to game theories in the study of religion, see W. Bainbridge, God from the Machine: Artificial Intelligence Models of Religious Cognition (Lanham: Altamira, 2006).

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the idea of group selection in the area of evolution of the human species and cultural evolution is grounded well enough to provide a meaningful starting point for evolutionary accounts of culture and religion. Thus, I agree with Wilson concerning the significance of group selection in research on the evolution of the human species and culture, although I think that a more convincing and culturally sensitive case can be made on the basis of the coevolution of nature and culture than attempting to show the significance of group selection in social sciences directly from biological evolution, as Wilson attempts to do. 3.3 Gerd Theissen’s Biblical Faith Gerd Theissen’s Biblical Faith: An Evolutionary Approach was already published in 1984 but it has remained relatively unknown even among scholars of early Christianity.27 Despite its main title, Biblical Faith, which does not give the first impression of a liberal, science-oriented approach, the book is an ambitious attempt to explain and interpret biblical history and faith in the framework of Darwinian evolution. Theissen’s book has four main parts. In Part One, Theissen outlines the theory of evolution to be applied in the book, discussing the relation of scientific thought to faith as well as the relation of biological evolution to cultural evolution. The following parts deal with the three main articles of faith: Part Two analyzes faith in the one and only God, Part Three, faith in Jesus of Nazareth, and Part Four, faith in the Holy Spirit. Contradictions relativized Part One begins with stating three fundamental contradictions between science and faith: (1) Hypothetical scientific thought versus apodeictic faith. While science creates hypotheses to be tested and confuted, faith claims the value of absolute truth for its statements. (2) Scientific thought is subject to falsification; faith goes against the facts. (3) Scientific thought delights in dissention; faith is based on consensus.28 In Theissen’s view, these contradictions are only apparent and they can be relativized in the light of evolutionary theory. First, hypothetical scientific thought and faith are not contradictory since both are ways of coping with an unknown reality. This point relies on the important epistemological premise of Theissen’s approach – evolutionary epistemology: Evolutionary epistemology regards the hypothesis of human knowledge as a continuation of that comprehensive process of adaptation of life to reality which governs all organic struc27 The book develops further ideas that Theissen already presented in his Inaugural Lecture at the University of Heidelberg, October 29, 1980. Reprinted in G. Theissen, “Neutestamentliche Christologie und modernes Bewusstsein,” in Neutestamentliche Grenzgänge (ed. P.  Lampe and H. Schwier; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010), 228–47. 28 G. Theissen, Biblical Faith: An Evolutionary Approach (2nd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 3–8.

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tures. Knowledge is the adaptation of cognitive structures to reality, the accommodation of thought to experience. Conversely: life forms knowledge.29

Second, science, which is controlled with falsification, and faith, which goes against the facts, are not contradictory in the last analysis because both are ways of coping with the pressure of selection. In Theissen’s view, they “both accept the pressure of selection from reality and despite its harshness see it as a productive force.” Science subjects its hypotheses to reality in order to better comply with it. It “affirms the falsification of its hypotheses.” Faith goes against the facts in the sense that it “hopes in suffering, in crisis, in collapse, even against appearances. It is unconditional motivation to live.”30 Theissen understands “going against the facts” in a restricted sense. It does not mean nonsensical opposition to the facts revealed by science but an attitude which looks beyond the harsh facts and is motivated to live even if all the facts would speak against the chances of survival. As we will see later, the idea of struggling against the forces of natural selection becomes crucial in Theissen’s overall interpretation. Third, the apparent contradiction between science that delights in dissent and faith that depends on consensus is, in the last analysis, a matter of speed of change. Science and faith are both open to mutations but both are also conservative – like nature itself. Natural evolution allows only an infinitesimal number of mutations, many of which do not survive, in order to sustain the adaptations that have already proved their functionality. Different areas of science progress at different speeds, and religion makes progress more slowly than science. Nevertheless, religion makes progress. In Theissen’s view, “No one can rule out the possibility that there will be new revelatory figures in the future.”31 Biological and cultural evolution When discussing the relation of biological and cultural evolution, Theissen deals with the standard three main areas of evolutionary theory: variability, selection, and preservation. Theissen’s understanding of the relationship between biological and cultural evolution is largely compatible with the theory of coevolution of nature and culture as it is presented by Richerson and Boyd.32 Possibly this is because both are drawing on D. T. Campbell’s ideas about the relation of cultural and 29 Theissen, Biblical Faith, 19. Evolutionary epistemology forms the core of Theissen’s approach. One of the theses Theissen develops on the basis of this epistemology concerns the possibility of experiencing resonance: Evolution has made possible partially successful structures of adaptation which are given with life and which enable us to have experiences of resonance – experiences of harmony between subject and reality – in which we detect in reality something that corresponds to us. “Existential experience of resonance” is important in Theissen’s evolutionary thinking. It is experienced in a variety of areas of life: in nature, art, music, in interaction with other human beings. 30 Theissen, Biblical Faith, 26–30. 31 Theissen, Biblical Faith, 30–41, esp. 35. 32 Richerson and Boyd, Not by Genes Alone.

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biological evolution.33 In the present context, I will not go into the details of that discussion but I take up one point which is crucial for Theissen’s understanding of the function of religion in evolution, and consequently for his interpretation of the development of biblical religion. In Theissen’s view, Culture begins where human beings reduce the pressure of selection by intelligent behaviour, i.e. it also makes human life possible where it would have no chance of survival without its deliberate intervention. Culture is diminution of selection through change and differentiation in behaviour. At the same time it creates new forms of pressure of selection: “hard” selection is replaced by “soft” selection.34

Furthermore, The thesis of this book is that if culture generally is a process which reduces selection, religion is at the heart of human culture. It is a rebellion against the principle of selection. It makes human beings open to a greater reality before which each individual has infinite value and is absolutely equal. Experiences with this reality are gathered together in exemplary form in the Bible.35

The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit Theissen’s central idea about culture and religion being forces that work against and soften, though not totally invalidate, the pressures of hard natural selection becomes clear in his description of the birth of biblical monotheism. It is a standard view that Israel moved from the idea of worshipping only one god, namely its own god Yahweh, to the idea of there being only one god during the Babylonian exile (586 B. C. E.) and after it, when people were allowed to return to their homeland. The crucial evolutionary twist lies in the fact that while the natural conclusion after being defeated should have been that Yahweh was weaker than the gods of the Babylonians, faith claimed that this is not the case: Yahweh is the one and only God. The problem is with the nation, which has not been faithful to his covenant and commands.36 In Jesus’ case, the twist is in his radical questioning of the “second principle of election, the power of selection.” Jesus’ proclamation and life – followed by the evolution of Christian faith  – granted unconditional value to forms of life that would become extinct under the raw forces of natural selection: to the sick, the weak, the meek, strangers, and slaves. This does not just concern natural selection but also the pressure of cultural selection: Jesus breaks the usual boundaries set up by family, other people, and the state.37 The force through which people can become incorporated with this ongoing struggle against the harshness of biological and cultural selection is the Spirit: Biblical Faith, 9, 177 n. 7; Richerson and Boyd, Not by Genes Alone, 16–7. Biblical Faith, 13. 35 Theissen, Biblical Faith, 49. My emphasis. 36 Theissen, Biblical Faith, 51–81, esp. 67–72. 37 Theissen, Biblical Faith, 114–5. 33 Theissen, 34 Theissen,

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The Spirit aims at inner transformation of humanity. Those seized by it are incorporated into the history of the protest against selection from the beginnings of Israel to Jesus of Nazareth; indeed this history becomes their own history, and its struggles become their struggles.38

Theissen sees in the Pauline juxtaposition of “flesh” and “Spirit” the conflict of two phases of evolution: biological evolution and cultural evolution. In this conflict, the Spirit is on the side of cultural evolution, although the Spirit is also always ready to fight against the oppressive laws of culture. But a series of arguments suggest that the truth could be what liberal theologians love to deny, that we have a “natural” inclination to sin, in other words that we have pre-programmed tendencies of behaviour which are held in check by strong cultural control in the opposite direction and that when the cultural systems of restrains collapse they unleash a terrifying “proneness to degeneration among human beings.”39

Assessing Theissen’s evolutionary approach When compared with Wilson’s approach, it is clear that Theissen’s evolutionary exposition is much more sophisticated in terms of the knowledge of the sources and in the application of the social science approach to early Christianity. However, although interesting, theoretically well grounded, and appealing as an overall interpretation, Theissen’s work is highly abstract and it leaves open many concrete questions of how adaptation and selection happened on the grassroots level. How were different Christian communities able to gain selective advance by softening hard natural selection and in competition with other contemporary cultural and religious forms of life? How are the large scale processes and quite abstract principles of faith which, in Theissen’s approach, characterize early Christianity as a whole, related to concrete documents and their contribution to the development of early Christianity? Wilson’s question about the level of analysis and about the units that were selected in practice is crucial here. Theissen’s interpretation of Jesus’ message and role in challenging natural selection also raises the question about the so-called “free riders,” people who might take advantage of uncompromised altruism, causing net costs to Christian communities by using their resources without any return and thus making early Christians more susceptible to the hard forces of natural selection. As noted above, game theory suggests that altruism can be successful only in a restricted form because restricted altruism has better chances of survival than unconditional altruism. Theissen touches on this problem when he deals with ecclesiology and solidarity within Christian churches,40 but the discussion is not explicitly connected to evolutionary discussion about altruism and group selection.

Biblical Faith, 140. Biblical Faith, 146–7. 40 Theissen, Biblical Faith, 158–63. 38 Theissen, 39 Theissen,

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4. Modeling the Evolutionary Analysis of the Rise of Christianity The overall picture emerging from the assessment of Stark’s, Wilson’s, and Theissen’s work from the perspective of evolutionary theorizing is somewhat paradoxical. Stark’s account of the rise of Christianity would seem to go further than others in arguing for the grassroots reasons why Christian groups were so successful in the hard game of natural and cultural selection. However, Stark himself is the supporter of Intelligent Design and does not therefore explicitly link his sociological argumentation to evolutionary theorizing. Instead, he uses rational choice theory as the meta-theoretical framework of his work, focuses on individuals and their decisions, and relies heavily on social laws that allow him to apply the results of his contemporary sociological work also to ancient societies. Therefore, his argumentation is susceptible to anachronism. Wilson, for his part, argues from the perspective of biological evolution and is therefore closely tied with evolutionary theorizing in general. Group selection, for which Wilson argues, provides an interesting point of comparison for evolutionary analyses of culture but the ideas that Wilson himself endorses for the study of religion in the social sciences appear less useful from the perspective of the current use of social sciences in biblical studies. He is stuck with Stark’s rational choice theory and celebrates the link between documents and their assumed social backgrounds as a new “adaptive” approach in the study of Christian origins, although this point of view has been around in biblical studies since the birth of form criticism. Moreover, Wilson’s biology-driven program ignores some fundamental differences between biological and cultural evolution. Theissen is well informed on evolutionary theorizing and his knowledge of sources far surpasses that of Wilson and Stark. However, his discussion remains mostly on a highly abstract theological level and although he sees an elementary connection between theological ideas and their social function in everyday life, his analysis does not go into details of explaining how selection happens on the grassroots level of Christian groups and documents.41 Overall, an approach that would combine elements of Theissen’s well informed theoretical approach with Stark’s more concrete discussion of the reasons for the cultural and social success of Christianity would lead to a more thorough description of the evolution of Christianity. 41 Theissen has occasionally returned to the theme of evolution in his subsequent publications. There is a short chapter on evolution in G. Theissen, Die Religion der ersten Christen: Eine Theorie des Urchristentums (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2000), 395–400 (english translation in The Religion of the Earliest Churches: Creating a Symbolic World [trans. J. Bowden; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999]); A Theory of Primitive Christian Religion (London: SCM Press, 2003), which partly completes the picture, although the primary frame of reference of the volume is not evolution. Recently, Theissen has also analyzed early Christian Christology, taking his cue from the cognitive science of religion and (his earlier) evolutionary theory, but supplementing the cognitive approach with further analytical perspectives. See G. Theissen, “Kontraintuitive Bilder: Eine kognitive Analyse der urchristlichen Christologie,” EvT 71 (2011): 307–20.

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Network analysis One of the previously neglected topics that Stark has brought into focus is the question of the type of networks through which Christianity was able to spread. In Stark’s view, it was essential for Christianity that it remained an open network which was able to reach out to new members and integrate them.42 István Czachesz has approached the same topic from the more general viewpoint of cognitive science and network theories, thus bridging the gulf between theological ideas and the dynamics of the spread of Christianity.43 Czachesz suggests a model for the analysis of the spread of religious movements that distinguishes three factors: (1) memorability of religious representations, (2) the structure of social networks, and (3) symbolic identity markers. I find all these viewpoints important and they clearly help us to pose the kinds of questions that lead to a more detailed analysis of the dynamics of survival of religious movements. However, in my view, they are all in need of some precision in order to be helpful in the analysis of the potential evolutionary success of concrete early Christian texts. First, Czachesz refers to minimal counterintuitivity44 and emotional arousal as two key factors that contribute to the memorability of religious representations. Although this is true, it also seems clear that the ancient religious world was loaded with all kinds of myths and tales that exemplify counterintuitivity and emotional arousal. Thus, these features appear more like prerequisites for transmission of religious representations than detailed explanations why certain minimally counterintuitive representations are selected rather than others, or why certain emotionally loaded representations are selected rather than others. Therefore, instead of focusing simply on memorability, I would rather  – drawing on Dan Sperber’s work – emphasize relevance and attraction as qualities that contribute to 42 Stark,

The Rise of Christianity, 73–94, 95–128.

43 I. Czachesz, “Theologische Innovation und Sozialstruktur im Urchristentum: Eine kognitive

Analyse seiner Ausbreitungsdynamik,” EvT 71 (2011): 259–72. 44 The concept of counterintuitivity is used by cognitive scientists of religion. It is based on the assumption about a panhuman intuitive ontology which consists of intuitions concerning such ontological domains as person, animal, plant, and artifact. Counterintuitiveness means that an object is intuitively assigned to an ontological category but is also understood to contain some elements that contradict the expectations that people naturally have about the objects belonging to that intuitive category. A flying worm or a talking birch tree would count as examples of counterintuitive concepts. Several empirical experiments indicate that “minimally counterintuitive” concepts are recalled better than intuitive ones. “Minimally counterintuitive” means that the concept basically corresponds to our intuitive expectations but there is one “tweak” in the concept, either an extra quality or a missing feature that runs counter to our intuitive expectations. See Boyer, The Naturalness of Religious Ideas, 101; P. Boyer, “Cognitive Tracks of Cultural Inheritance: How Evolved Intuitive Ontology Governs Cultural Transmission,” American Anthropologist 100 (1998): 876–89, esp. 878; Boyer, Religion Explained, 69–79, 84–7; P. Boyer, “Cognitive Predispositions and Cultural Transmission,” in Memory in Mind and Culture (ed. P. Boyer and J. V. Wertsch; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 288–319, esp. 294–5; S. Atran and A. Norenzayan, “Religion’s Evolutionary Landscape: Counterintuition, Commitment, Compassion, Communion,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (2004): 713–30, esp. 722; Barrett, Why Would Anyone Believe in God, 22–4.

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the survival of religious representations. The advantage of these concepts is that they broaden the scope of analysis, because relevance is also influenced by social context. Attraction is closely connected to memorability since cognitive and / or emotional attraction are the most important factors affecting memorability.45 Second, Czachesz emphasizes weak links as the particular quality of networks through which Christianity was able to spread. I fully agree that without networks with weak links (or Stark’s open networks) Christianity would not have spread the way it did. However, I also think that W. D. Runciman has a point when he emphasizes that the success of Christianity in cultural evolution was based on the combination of unconditional benevolence towards outsiders (which Stark sees as a sign of the openness of Christian networks) and strong reciprocity within the community. Open networks are necessary for the effective spreading of a movement but they are not enough to hold local communities together. A movement that spreads through weak links would soon fall apart were it unable to form stable, more closely knit local communities. Runciman’s main point is that unconditional altruism needs to be balanced with reciprocity if the movement wishes to avoid becoming exploited by free riders. As was noted above, this is a question that Theissen’s analysis leaves open. Therefore, I think that an analysis of the evolution of religious movements also needs to pay attention to community control mechanisms through which the movement is able to defend itself against exploitation. Czachesz’s third factor addresses the question of identity maintenance but only on the level of symbols. Again, I agree that this is an important factor and absolutely necessary to take into account. Czachesz takes his cue from Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd who argue that early hunter-gatherers actually formed larger clans earlier than has been previously assumed (around 100,000 year ago, at the latest, instead of the beginning of agriculture ca. 11,500 years ago) and this happened with the help of symbols which the clans used as their identity markers.46 The crucial point in this argument is that clan members who do not interact with the group on a daily basis can nevertheless identify themselves as members of the clan with the help of symbols. In Czachesz’ view, symbols that are (a) easy to discern, (b) easy to remember, (c) easy to interpret, and (d) easy to identify with enhance a group’s potential to become widespread.47 45 D. Sperber, Explaining Culture: A Naturalistic Approach (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 106–18; D. Sperber and D. Wilson, Relevance: Communication and Cognition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986). Notably, the difference between the approach I am endorsing here and that of Czachesz is not huge since Czachesz also deals with the problem of selection among minimally counterintuitive representations and refers, for instance, to social factors that contribute to the survival of representations. Czachesz, “Theologische Innovation,” 259–72, esp. 262–3. 46 Richerson and Boyd, Not by Genes Alone, 211–6, 224–9. 47 Czachesz, “Theologische Innovation,” 259–72, esp. 271, presents this list of four qualities as a draft of features that characterize good symbolic markers. I would take this as a list of prerequisites for a symbolic marker that supports the spread of a movement. For instance, in Judaism, circumcision is an obvious symbolic marker of identity but it is not easy to identify with. In my view, it is also possible to distinguish three main types of symbolic markers: verbal (labels given to groups; Jews, Christians, etc.), visual (artifacts; signs, banners, clothing, etc.), and ritual (praying

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It is clear that these kinds of easy-to-remember symbols are important for social identity but from the perspective of the social identity approach (= SIA), categorization and labeling (which obviously is the job of symbolic identity markers) are only one part of the social and cognitive machinery which is related to the formation and maintenance of social identities. The social identity approach distinguishes different levels in people’s self-concept: 1) the superordinate level of the self as human being, 2) the intermediate level of in-group and out-group categorization, and 3) the subordinate level of personal self-categorization.48 These levels are to be understood as points on a continuum where the size of the “in-group” grows from the tiny “me-group” to the level of all of humankind. When applied to the case of Christianity, the “clan” of Christians dispersed around the Roman Empire settles somewhere between levels 1) and 2) while local groups of Christians who interact on a daily basis are closer to the core of level 2). As regards the means of identity maintenance, it is clear that symbolic identity markers as they are defined by Czachesz are more important on a “clan” level where they may provide the main means for identity recognition, while on the local level, other social-psychological factors also play a role.49 In the perspective of the social identity approach, these local factors can be analyzed with the help of such concepts as exemplars of group members, cultural and cognitive prototypes, and outgroup stereotypes.50 They provide important means for identity construction and recognition in everyday life. Thus, I see it more appropriate to reserve the habits, religious gestures, etc.). In this connection, I am using the term “ritual” in the common sense meaning of repeated religious actions. Cf. more specific theories of ritual by H. Whitehouse, Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission (Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira, 2004) as well as R. N. McCauley and E. Thomas Lawson, Bringing Ritual to Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 48 Abrams and Hogg, “An Introduction to the Social Identity Theory,” 1–9, 12–4; F. Lorenzi-Cioldi and W. Doise, “Levels of Analysis and Social Identity,” in Social Identity Theory: Constructive and Critical Advances (ed. D. Abrams and M. Hogg; New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), 71–88, 71–3. 49 Richerson and Boyd are not very clear on their own use of the term “symbolic marker” but they seem to use it in a slightly broader sense than Czachesz. In this context, they also refer to the research of Henry Tajfel, the founder of social identity theory. See Richerson and Boyd, Not by Genes Alone, 221–2. Thus, my elaboration of the analysis of symbolic markers with the concepts of the social identity approach does not contradict but supplements Richerson and Boyd’s (and Czachesz’s) analytical perspective. 50 Exemplars refer to concrete examples of group members, either historical or present. Prototypes and prototypicality are usually defined within the social identity approach as an abstract, intuitively calculated picture of the ideal group members. In order to enhance the application of the social identity approach to historical material, I have suggested a distinction between cultural prototypes and cognitive prototypes. Cultural prototypes are culturally generated and transmitted pictures of ideal members while cognitive prototypes are stored only in the minds of individual group members. For a more detailed discussion, see P. Luomanen, “Cognitive Science in Biblical Studies: An Overview,” in Collegium Biblicums Årsskrift 2011: Kognitionsforskning og eksegese (ed. K. Jeppesen and K. B. Larsen; Copenhagen, 2011), 15–32. This distinction slightly modifies my earlier suggestion in P. Luomanen, “The Sociology of Knowledge, the Social Identity Approach and the Cognitive Study of Religion,” in Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism, 199–229, 210–24.

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term “symbolic marker” for the short and simple “clan-level” symbols that are easy to recognize and easy to remember. If the symbols are also easy to identify with and easy to interpret, then they may also enhance the spread of the movement.51 A model for the analysis of Mark, Matthew, and Q From the perspective of evolutionary analysis, it is clear that selection happens on the local level where groups either survive or perish, and where, in the final analysis, it is up to individuals to make microlevel decisions that accumulate and become observable as macrolevel group phenomena. Therefore, for an evolutionary account of the rise of Christianity, it is not enough to describe the means through which Christianity was able to spread from one locale to another. That is important and one precondition for the universal success of Christianity, but in order to understand actual selection and survival, other factors also have to be taken into account. The following list of analytical questions is not intended to replace the viewpoints that Czachesz has presented in his model. They are rather to be understood as complementary analytical viewpoints mainly drawn from the social identity approach and social memory studies. They help us to analyze in more detail the small local group phenomena that contribute to the success and / or failure of religious groups. Although selection actually takes place in social reality, we have access to this reality only through the texts that have survived. Thus, in practice, an evolutionary analysis of early Christianity on the basis of source texts turns into a question of how the discourses of the text reflect and support the survival of the communities where these texts were created, used, and transmitted. Although the creating and editing of gospels can be seen – to use David Sloan Wilson’s characterization – as “adaptive responses to local pressures,” the future success of these texts in cultural evolution depends on their more general ability to become widespread by also appearing attractive and relevant to other groups.52 The following model seeks 51 I do not find it useful to widen the point of reference of symbolic markers to include more developed “theology,” as Czachesz seems to suggest. See Czachesz, “Theologische Innovation,” 259–72, esp. 270. I would rather take the development of theology as an enterprise of religious specialists with the main function of rationalizing and legitimating the new movement. It is more an exception than a rule if this discourse also serves as a symbolic identity marker. One notable later example of such a case is the question about Jesus’ virgin birth. It is rooted in deeper philosophical and theological speculations but it also serves as a simple means of making a distinction between the “orthodox” believers and “heretics.” This becomes clear in the church fathers’ discussion of the Ebionites’ Christology. See, P. Luomanen, Recovering Jewish-Christian Sects and Gospels (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 24–9. 52 Keeping in mind Stowers’ perceptive warnings not to picture authors as writing only for the needs of their local communities (see above n. 22; Stowers, “The Concept of ‘Community,’” 238–56), it should be noted that I am not claiming that the features that support identity formation unmistakably reflect the concerns of the authors’ local communities. The point is that, whatever the reason for the features being in the text, it is possible to assess their contribution to the formation and maintenance of social identities among the recipients of the gospel narratives. This approach coheres with the way in which Stowers sees Paul’s relation to his “communities”: rather than reflecting an existing reality, Paul may have acted like an entrepreneur who envisioned and

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to list some central characteristics that are required of a text in order to become widespread in an emerging religious movement that is forming its distinctive social identity.53 On the basis of the above considerations and drawing on discussions of social memory and cognitive approaches to ritual,54 I have divided the analytical perspectives to be applied in the following example of evolutionary analysis into four categories. The three discourses listed, supplemented with the formal analysis of the discourse as a whole, are partly overlapping, but that should not present any problems because I am not arguing here for any theory of independent social or cognitive modules that would contribute to evolutionary survival. The idea is only to provide a checklist for issues that are important to keep in mind if we wish to assess how certain documents may have contributed to the survival of the communities that espoused their narrative world and communal norms. For instance, it is clear that identity is affected not only by the topics that are listed under identity discourse but also through cultic activities, community control, and a narrative’s historical perspective. Furthermore, the themes listed under each discourse are only examples of the most central topics to be kept in mind. The four analytical approaches to discourses, with their central topics are as follows: 1) Formal characteristics of the discourse: attractiveness (which causes the story to be retold), with closely related memorability, relevance (relevant mysteries),55 credence, and historical perspective. 2) Network discourse and community control: norms enhancing group solidarity, free rider problem, open / closed networks, and weak / strong links. 3) Identity discourse: SIA’s perspective (exemplars, cultural and cognitive prototypes, stereotypes), identity building function of social memories and symbolic identity markers. 4) Ritual discourse: number of rituals, their symbolic function, their identity building function, attractiveness (emotional arousal, immediacy of supernatural agents), and support for transmission of religious traditions. called into being certain types of social formation, more or less successfully. Cf. Stowers, “The Concept of ‘Community,’” 238–56, esp. 242. 53 Thus, although I am focusing on the texts of Q, Mark and Matthew as a means of building communities, my approach in this article differs from that of A. Runesson, “Building Matthean Communities: The Politics of Textualization,” in Mark and Matthew I, 379–408, who focuses on the original setting of the Gospel of Matthew. 54 Luomanen, “Cognitive Science in Biblical Studies” and Luomanen, “How Religions Remember: Memory Theories in Biblical Studies and the Cognitive Study of Religion,” in Mind, Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies (ed. by R. Uro and I. Czachesz; Equinox, forthcoming). 55 Sperber, Explaining Culture, 70–4. Because Sperber’s concept of relevant mystery is more formal in character than his ideas about relevance in general, I am dealing with relevant mysteries in this formal category. Overall relevance is more closely related to social and historical setting on the basis of which people find some representation more usable than others. Therefore, I am dealing with this socially constructed relevance in connection with the identity discourse.

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5. Mark, Q, and Matthew in Evolutionary Perspective 5.1 Formal Characteristics of the Discourse As already noted, in terms of structure, plot, and central ideas, almost everything that is in Mark can also be found in Matthew. Thus, the main difference between these gospels lies in the material that Matthew has added from Q and other sources. However, before going into the analysis of these differences, let us first briefly consider how Mark’s narrative,56 as the central hypotext of Matthew, fares on its own. Mark Traditional historical-critical analysis of the Gospel of Mark takes it as a composition of smaller units that were first separately transmitted by oral tradition. More recent orality studies have correctly noted that oral transmission continued even after the composition of the Synoptic Gospels. This has also implications for evolutionary analysis: because Mark’s narrative consists of small episodes57 that are still understandable on their own and which also include attention-grabbing counterintuitive elements (miracle stories) or astonishing, witty answers (chriae), parts of the narrative become easily widespread. Although the narrative would not always be repeated as a whole, it remains relevant in its cultural context because people have often heard about it. On the other hand, the written form has a stabilizing effect on the oral transmission, which would otherwise slowly migrate from the “original” form.58 Although the secondary oral transmission was probably not too much concerned with repeating the episodes with exactly the same words, the simple fact that the stories were read aloud in services and heard in the same form must have protected the episodes from severe mutations. Thus, it is justified to conclude that the formal characteristics of Mark’s Gospel favored the effective distribution of the narrative and guarded it against mutations. It is often noted that Mark’s original narrative was defective because it did not contain stories about the appearances of the risen Jesus. The existence of Mark’s secondary endings as well as Matthew’s and Luke’s more “complete” stories seem to confirm this. However, Mark’s original, abrupt, mysterious ending as well as Mark’s motifs of the Messianic secret and the closely related incomprehension 56 In this section, I use the words “narrative” and “story” in the sense of G. Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1980), 25–31. 57 I agree here with D. E. Aune, “Genre Theory and the Genre-Function,” in Mark and Matthew I, 145–75, 175 and C. Breytenbach, “Current Research on the Gospel according to Mark: A Report on Monographs Published from 2000–2009,” in Mark and Matthew I, 13–32, 31–2. See also, M. E. Boring, Mark: A Commentary (Westminster John Knox, 2006), 7–8. 58 A.  Kirk, “Memory,” in Jesus in Memory: Traditions in Oral and Scribal Perspectives (ed. W. H. Kelber and S. Byrskog; Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2009), 155–72, 159–63; L. Alexander, “Memory and Tradition in Hellenistic Schools,” in Jesus in Memory, 113–53, 148–51; W. H. Kelber, “The Work of Birger Gerhardsson in Perspective,” Jesus in Memory, 173–206, 197– 201.

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of the disciples are good examples of what Dan Sperber calls relevant mysteries. They are cognitively attractive as such and contribute positively to the chances of survival of the story in which they are imbedded. Relevant mysteries entice memory searches and inspire solutions to half-understood or open questions.59 That some solutions to these problems appear  – Matthew wrote a longer story and made the disciples more understanding – does not in any way diminish the cognitive attraction of a relevant mystery, unless someone is able to produce a new story that provides the one and only reasonable answer which all agree on. This seldom happens and it is clear that this did not happen in the case of Mark: even within the canonical gospels we have several solutions to the problem of Mark’s abrupt ending. Mark’s historical perspective is narrower than that of Matthew and Luke who start their stories with Jesus’ genealogy. Nevertheless, it also becomes clear in Mark’s narrative that Jesus’ life and the future return of the Son of Man are related to the story of Israel’s sacred past and its future doom. Thus, even Mark’s shorter narrative, in its original short form, lays out the foundation story of the new Jesus movement. The narrative focuses on Jesus’ critical interaction with the Israel of his day but its episodes open windows to the story of the past of Israel and to the future of the new movement which the resurrected Jesus will ignite in Galilee (Mark 14:28; 16:7) and which will spread to all nations (Mark 13:9–11). Comparing Mark and Matthew Because Matthew uses so much of Mark, it is clear that Matthew’s Gospel also includes many episodes that enhance its attraction and distribution. Matthew diminished the mystery in the narrative but compensated for that with community control (see below). Matthew’s narrative also includes more of Jesus’ teaching, from Q and Matthew’s special tradition. Matthew’s five large speeches include fewer counterintuitive elements than, for instance, the miracle stories in Mark, which should make them less attractive and harder to remember than the short Markan episodes. However, there are other elements, like repetition (beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount; woes in Matt 23) that compensate for this defect. As a matter of fact, comparison of Matthew with Mark seems to support Harvey Whitehouse’s theory according to which religions that require more from semantic memory need to compensate for that by developing functions that support the transmission of cognitively costly representations.60 Matthew’s historical perspec59 Sperber, Explaining Culture, 70–4. I agree with Räisänen that, historically, Mark probably received from the tradition a cluster of related themes concerning parables as riddles, secret teaching to the disciples, silencing of demons and healed person(s), and the incomprehension of the disciples. Mark developed these themes, especially emphasizing the disciples’ misunderstanding. I also agree that with these themes Mark was probably targeting the Christology of the Q community or some likeminded groups. See H. Räisänen, The “Messianic Secret” in Mark’s Gospel (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1990), 245–58. 60 Whitehouse, Modes of Religiosity, 49–59, 164. Much of the discussion within the cognitive science of religion has operated using Tulving’s distinction between the semantic memory and

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tive is also wider: Jesus’ history starts with the genealogy and concludes with a vision of worldwide mission. Jesus’ life is also linked more clearly with Israel’s past through frequent citations of Scripture. Comparing Q with Mark and Matthew How does Q fare in comparison with Mark and Matthew? Scholars have debated whether Q should be understood primarily in terms of a prophetic or wisdom genre. Neither of these is particularly rich in counterintuitive elements  – wisdom literature, which I find to be the dominant genre of Q,61 having even less counterintuitive elements than the prophetic genre. Consequently, Q’s teaching does not include much counterintuitiveness, although there are some supernatural elements. For instance, Jesus converses with the devil (Q 4:1–13) and casts out a demon (Q 11:14–15). In some cases there is what could be called “cultural counterintuitiveness” when Jesus instructs his disciples to turn the other cheek (Q 6:29–30) or forbids burying the father of a follower candidate (Q 9:57–62).62 There is also some repetition in the beatitudes and woes (Q 6:20–23; 11:39–44; Matthew has developed these further), and the teachings and chriae are arranged in loose topical order.63 Although there is limited evidence of counterintuitiveness or relevant mysteries that would enhance the distribution of the teachings of Q, it is possible to see another kind of relevance in Q’s method or argumentation which may have had a the episodic memory (generic memory and autobiographical memory being their more neutral synonyms). Semantic memory refers to memories of facts, episodic memory to “episodes” one has experienced personally. However, the model is continuously debated among cognitive psychologists and there is a tendency towards examining memory more as a process instead of a structure. For an overview of the discussion, see, for instance, I. Neath and A. M. Surprenant, Human Memory (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003), 67–8, 151. Tulving’s distinction and the modal model in general are also problematic from the viewpoint of biblical studies because they do not seem to offer a clear slot for narrative memories like, for instance, Markan episodes. In this regard, Alan Baddeley’s theory of working memory is more developed. Baddeley’s theory sees memory as a process, where the central executive governs the processes in the slave systems. Originally the theory included only the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad. Subsequently, these were connected to other cognitive capacities and generic memory. Finally, Baddeley supplemented the model with the episodic buffer. In contrast to Tulving’s model, the episodic buffer is not only connected to autobiographical memories but also processes all episodic material in the command of the central executive and in continuous interaction with the phonological loop, visual scribe, and all the material in the long term memory. See A. Baddeley, “The Episodic Buffer: An New Component of Working Memory,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4 (2000): 417–23; Baddeley, “Working Memory,” Current Biology 20 (2010): 136–40. 61 I agree here with Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 196–213. 62 Cognitive scientists of religion originally used the concept of counterintuitiveness to denote dissonance with intuitive ontological categories. However, later research has showed that memorability of counterintuitive concepts is also affected by context. But in these cases it is no longer a question about counterintuitiveness in regard to innate cognitive modules but culturally affected counterintuitiveness. Thus, it would be useful to make a distinction between cultural counterintuitiveness and cognitive counterintuitiveness. See Luomanen, “Cognitive Science in Biblical Studies,” 22–23. 63 Cf. Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 197–8, 202.

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positive effect on the distribution of Q’s teachings in some socio-cultural settings. As John Kloppenborg has noted, Q’s rhetoric and argumentation rely on ordinary experience and nature as well as simple chriae that exemplify Jesus’ ethos.64 These may have enhanced Q’s distribution in its original rural Galilean setting, although they are not as attention grabbing as the counterintuitive and mysterious elements of Mark’s narrative, and they may not have worked as well in an urban setting. Q’s dominant historical frame of reference is the Deuteronomistic theme of rejected prophets into which both John the Baptist and Jesus are inserted. Apart from very short notes in the chriae (for instance, Q 7:1–10, 18–23, 31–35; 11:14– 16), there are practically no references to Jesus own life. Jesus’ violent death is anticipated (Q 14:27; and even perhaps the assumption of power in Q 13:35b65), and so is the influx of nations and the rejection of the addressees of the document (Q 13:28–29). However, there is no indication of the foundation of a “new” Jesus movement, the history of which would not fit the frames of the traditional Deuteronomistic history of judgment and salvation. Thus, although Q may have served as a foundational document for the Q community, it is still thoroughly Jewish.66 Although there are various features that may have had a positive effect on the memorability and relevance of Q traditions, especially in rural settings, the overall tendency is clear: many of the elements that must have had a positive effect on the memorability and attraction of Mark’s and Matthew’s narratives (or their episodes) are missing in Q. 5.2 Network Discourse and Community Control In Mark, Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2:14–16); sends his disciples out to preach repentance, cast out demons, and heal people (Mark 6:7–13); declares all foods clean (Mark 7:14–19); casts out a demon from the daughter of a Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24–30); reprimands the disciples who wish to prevent the operations of an exorcist who is an outsider (Mark 9:38–39); assures that all sins will be forgiven, except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; exhorts the disciples to forgive one another (Mark 11:25) and to live in peace with one another (Mark 9:50); and cleanses the temple because it should be a house of prayer for all nations (Mark 11:15–18). All these episodes can be taken as indicating the open character of the network of Jesus’ followers. Furthermore, although there is no sending out of the disciples at the end of the Gospel, the narrative presupposes a worldwide mission in Mark 13:9–10 and 14:9. 64 Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 196–205. Kloppenborg places the arguments based on nature and ordinary experience on the formative stratum and the chriae mainly on the stratum of the main redaction. The question about Q’s possible layers is not relevant for the present discussion which focuses on assessing the chances of survival of the final product. 65 Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 377–8. 66 Kloppenborg refers to Q’s role as a foundational document but he also emphasizes Q’s Jewish character. See Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 196, 433–6.

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There is also the opposite, closed character in Mark, related to the themes of divine blinding (or the so-called “parable theory”) and the Messianic secret.67 Mark’s Jesus speaks in parables in order to conceal his message from those who do not have ears to hear (Mark 4:1–12) and orders those who recognize his true identity not to tell others (Mark 1:40–44; 7:31–36; 8:27–30; 9:1–13).68 Finally, at the end of the original narrative, the women do not tell anyone about their experiences by the tomb because they are afraid (Mark 16:8). Mark also sets some limits on acceptable conduct. For instance, the most severe judgment awaits those who offend the “little ones” who believe in Jesus’ (Mark 9:42–50).69 To summarize, Mark’s narrative includes elements both of openness and exclusion. Thus, it has elements that could enhance the spread of Christianity without making it too susceptible to free riders. It is to be noted, however, that the narrative does not propagate openness very actively: a mission to the Gentiles can only be read between the lines and exhortations to forgive are first and foremost directed to insiders (Mark 9:50; 11:25). Comparing Mark and Matthew When we turn from Mark to Matthew, we can see an explosion of both openness and community control. As is well known, Matthew’s mission is to make disciples of all nations. The Sermon on the Mount advocates perfect love, even towards enemies (Matt 5:43–48), instructs the audience not to resist evil (Matt 5:38–42), and not to judge others (Matt 7:1–5). There are also many more exhortations to brotherly forgiveness than in Mark, both from Q and Matthew’s special tradition: a brother should be forgiven not just seven but seventy seven times (or seventy times seven; 18:21–22; also Matt 5:21–25). If one fails to do that, one can expect the same destiny as the unmerciful servant in Matt 18:23–35. Interestingly, in Matthew, unconditional forgiveness and openness is accompanied by a regulated process through which sinning brothers can be expelled from the community. If a brother sins against another brother, he should first be confronted face to face by the offended one. If he does not listen, then he should be addressed by the one offended as well as one or two brothers. If that also fails, then 67 For an overview of these themes and their treatment in the history of research, see Räisänen, The ‘Messianic Secret’, 1–75. 68 The secrecy is certainly often broken as the narrative unfolds, and even Jesus himself assumes that it is to be kept only until his resurrection (Mark 9:9). Thus, the exclusion is only temporary and it aims at making clear Mark’s main point: Jesus is the Messiah but he has to suffer. However, in the final analysis, those who miss this main point remain outsiders. 69 J. Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus (Mk 8,27–16,20) (vol. 2; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1979), 62–8, regards verses 9:42–52 as a collection of disparate sayings. However, the preceding section 9:38–41 and 9:42 introduce the theme of how an individual’s actions relate to the welfare of the community, and verse 9:50 closes the discussion. Thus, even though it may remain questionable whether the instructions of how to deal with problematic human limbs and organs could actually justify the separation of problematic community members, it is clear that the section emphasizes the need of individual members to guard their actions for the benefit of peace in the community.

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the matter should be taken up in the congregation. Finally, if he does not repent, he is to be treated as an outsider (Matt 18:15–18). Scholars who have advocated the view of Matthew’s community as a corpus mixtum have belittled the significance of this process by pointing out that Matthew has editorially framed the expulsion rule with sections that emphasize care and the need to forgive (Matt 18:10–14, 21–22, 23–35).70 As I have argued in another context,71 although it is true that Matthew has softened the expulsion rules, the rule is still there and valid. Instead of showing that the community was a corpus mixtum, Matthew’s editorial frames rather show that the rules were applied in the community but that the process had to be kept under control. Notably, in Matt 18:18 the decisions of the community are legitimized with the same words that Jesus uses in Matt 16:16 when he hands the keys of the kingdom of heaven to Peter. Thus, Matthew’s narrative is unique within the New Testament for the way that it allows the emerging movement to govern its procedures with divine authorization. The difference between Matthew’s and Mark’s strategies towards outsiders is exemplified in the way in which they treat Jesus’ followers who obviously act outside their local community (or network of likeminded communities): Matthew has omitted the Markan section where Jesus sets forth the generous principle “who is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:38–39) and edited on the basis of Q a more exclusive section about false prophets who seemingly confess Jesus’ authority (Kyrie) but do not do the will of the Heavenly Father (Matt 7:21–23; Q 6:46; 13:25–27). They will not have any share in the future kingdom. Overall, what we see in Matthew’s Gospel accords with the strategy that Runciman’s evolutionary analysis sees behind the success of Christianity: strong reciprocity within the community combined with highly visible benevolence.72 Comparing Q with Mark and Matthew Matthew’s advocations of unconditional benevolence and forgiveness come mostly from Q’s sermon (Q 27:28, 29–20, 31, 32, 34–36) and are therefore missing in Mark. Furthermore, the exhortation to forgive one’s brother repeatedly comes from Q (in Q seven times a day; Q 17:4). Q also says to rebuke a brother who sins but one must be ready to forgive seven times a day, and the process remains on a personal level in Q (Q 17:3–4). Further, it is possible to correct one’s brother provided one first removes the beam from one’s own eye (Q 6:41–42). Thus, the combination of unconditional benevolence with reciprocity within community is already found in an incipient form in Q. However, although Q’s exhortations to show unconditional benevolence towards outsiders are at least as strong and striking as in Matthew, the means for Die Jesusgeschichte des Matthäus (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1993), 119–24. “Corpus Mixtum – An Appropriate Description of Matthew’s Community?” JBL 117 (1998): 469–80, 476–7. 72 Runciman, “The Diffusion of Christianity,” 3–21, esp. 17–18. 70 U. Luz,

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community control are only a pale counterpart to Matthew’s community rule and the Matthean authorization for the ongoing teaching in the community. In Q, the exhortations to show benevolence towards outsiders are also more striking than in Matthew because – along with benevolence towards outsiders – Matthew also emphasizes benevolence towards insiders in the editorial sections and in additional sections on brotherly love from his special tradition. Q has its own version of mission instructions: the disciples are to cure the sick and proclaim the kingdom of God (Q 10:5–9). There is also a vision of the salvation of the Gentiles, but, instead of a worldwide mission, it presupposes the traditional idea of Gentiles joining the Israelites’ eschatological banquet (Q 13:28–29). As already noted in connection with the comparison with Matthew, Mark’s narrative contains elements of both openness and control but these themes are not so striking as they are in Matthew and Q. Mark is more tolerant than Matthew towards other variations of the early Jesus movement. 5.3 Identity Discourse Mark Ulrich Luz has, in my view correctly, emphasized that the narratives of both Mark and Matthew are transparent for their writer’s / editor’s present time.73 They are stories through which the communities where these documents were written and used understood their present reality and future. Mark, whose plot Matthew adopted as the basis of his own Jesus narrative, laid the foundations for this transparent function when he chose to present Jesus’ history in the form of a journey; a journey for which Jesus calls disciples to follow him and about which he instructs them – despite their repeated misunderstanding and incomprehension – to understand that he has to suffer. This journey calls upon them to deny themselves, to take up their cross, and to follow him (Mark 8:31–38). The metaphorical character of this admonition is immediately clear, both for the characters in the story as well as its readers / hearers; at this point, none of the disciples starts to look around in order to find something cross-like to carry along. The transparent character of the story makes it possible to read Mark (and Matthew) in the framework of the social identity approach. The characters of the story can be taken as cultural examples and prototypes (see above n. 50) that contribute also to the formation of the social identity of the readers / hearers who also see themselves as (at least potential) followers of Jesus.74 73 Luz,

“Intertexts in the Gospel of Matthew,” 119–37, esp. 128. I agree with Stowers’ critical comments on the tendency to tie the concerns of authors too narrowly with their local communities (Stowers, “The Concept of “Community,” 238–256; see above n. 22), I still see gospels as community literature – not as exact mirror images of the authors’ communities but reflecting both the factual social formations where the authors’ social identities are rooted as well as the ideas that they had about how things should be. Furthermore, it should be noted that the transparency of the narratives does not function only as a 74 Although

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Space does not permit here a comprehensive analysis of all the characters and features of the narrative with their possible effects on the social identity of the readers / hearers. I only take up features that I find most important, especially in view of the comparison of Mark, Matthew, and Q. Although Jesus towers above the disciples as the Son of God, it is clear that at the same time he also functions as a cultural prototype of correct discipleship. The characters of the disciples in the story also serve identity formation in various ways. Because Mark’s disciples often miss the point and do not understand, they cannot be regarded as clear cultural prototypes that would represent ideal discipleship. Instead, they are to be taken as cultural examples that even through their failure and Jesus’ accompanying teaching help readers to grasp what would have been the proper way for a disciple to act. For instance, Peter who rebukes Jesus after he has announced his suffering (Mark 8:31–38) or the Sons of Zebedee who want to secure their ranking in the future kingdom (Mark 10:35–45) are not prototypical disciples but they contribute to the formation of cognitive prototypes in the minds of the readers / hearers through their negative example. Moreover, the characters in the parables function the same way, giving both negative and positive examples of correct discipleship. The same applies to supplicants and other secondary characters whom Jesus meets along the way. Conflict stories and the passion narrative deserve special notice since they have, in the social identity perspective, an important border-marking function. The scribes and the Pharisees, who dispute with Jesus and plot against him, are stereotypical outsiders. Jesus’ discussions with them help the insiders to develop their understanding of ingroup norms and to realize with whom not to identify. If the Gospel of Mark was the first written systematic record of the main contours of Jesus’ public ministry as well as his death and resurrection, it is hard to underestimate its significance in laying the foundations for a collective understanding of the beginnings of the new Jesus movement. Of course, a collective understanding of the beginnings was already developing in the oral tradition and in the writing down of smaller oral units, but a full written narrative must have had a solidifying effect on the transmission of memories  – as already noted in connection with the analysis of the formal characteristics of the narrative. The significance of Mark’s accomplishment is nicely illustrated with Jesus’ words related to his anointing: “Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her” (Mark 14:9; trans. NRSV, modified). Irrespective of whether the editor understood the word “gospel” as a reference to his own accomplishment as a whole, it is clear that once the Gospel of Mark started to circulate, its episodes and narrative were transmitted “in remembrance” of how it all began (cf. Luke 1:1–4). window to some aspects of the authors’ historical situation but also – and more importantly for the present evolutionary analysis  – makes it possible for subsequent readers of the narratives to review their own communal situation and their relation to Jesus in dialogue with the central characters of the narratives.

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I also think that it is not unwarranted to believe that gospels as a whole begun to function as symbolic identity markers when they started to circulate around early Christian communities. We can see this, for instance, in the way in which Irenaeus argues for his understanding of the fourfold canon: Irenaeus sees an elementary connection between the identity of certain factions (“heresies,” in Irenaeus’ own view) and the gospels that they used (Haer. 3.7). Are there also signs of other symbolic identity markers within Mark’s narrative? Undoubtedly, the Christological titles Mark introduces, Kyrios, Christ / Messiah, Son of God, and Son of Man, combined with the public confession of Jesus, functioned as clear symbolic identity markers. Mark’s narrative makes an impressive case for the importance of a public confession of Jesus through the story of Peter’s denial (Mark 14:66–72) which is in stark contrast with Jesus’ own confession (Mark 14:61–62). The theme of confession also appears at significant points in the context of Jesus urging the disciples to take up their cross and follow him (8:34–38) and in the apocalyptic discourse (Mark 13:9). Comparing Mark and Matthew Matthew adopted Mark’s transparent Jesus narrative as the basis of his own presentation and cultivated further its identity building potential. It is typical of the characters in Matthew’s narrative that they have become, in terms of literary criticism, more shallow or one dimensional. In terms of the social identity approach, this means that the characterization has become more prototypical and stereotypical. In Matthew’s narrative, Jesus has retained the double role that Mark gave him, on the one hand as a prototype for correct discipleship, on the other as God’s Son and Kyrios who is above all. The increased prototypicality of characterization is observable, for instance, in the fact that Matthew has removed much of the disciples’ incomprehension. In the Gospel of Mark, the disciples have difficulties understanding the meaning of Jesus’ parables, but Jesus explains the parables in private in Matthew and makes sure that the disciples have understood their meaning (Matt 13:34–52). Matthew has also made the mother of the Sons of Zebedee responsible for asking Jesus to give her sons the best positions in the future kingdom (Matt 20:20–28). Thus, the disciples function more directly as prototypical followers of Jesus, instead of contributing to the correct understanding of discipleship through their negative example as in Mark. Matthew also regularly represents opponents under the title “scribes and the Pharisees,”75 painting thus a clearer picture of the opponents as one coalition. Furthermore, Matthew has schematized the actions of both opponents and (potential) followers: in Matthew, only opponents address Jesus as “teacher” (διδάσκαλος). The disciples and supplicants who know his true identity address him as Kyrios.

75 The

term appears in Matthew ten times, once in Mark and in Luke five times.

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Those who are asking him for help also know how to approach him by falling on their knees (προσκυνέω).76 Overall, from the very beginning, Matthew’s narrative is characterized by the controversy between Jesus and the representatives of Judaism. First, King Herod tries to execute the newborn king of the Jews, the scribes and the Pharisees plot against him, and the theme culminates at the scene of Jesus’ trial where the “whole nation” takes Jesus’ blood on them and their children (Matt 27:25). Interestingly, Matthew’s whitewashing of the disciples (which is not complete; Peter, for instance, still plays his role as a denier) is combined with the introduction of characters who more clearly play the role of false disciples. Judas and the man without a wedding garment in the Parable of the Wedding Feast (Matt 22:1–14) form a pair of “black sheep,” betrayers within the community, both of whom Jesus addresses as “friend” (ἑταῖρος appears in the New Testament only in Matt 20:13; 22:12 and 26:50). Social identity research has demonstrated that “black sheep” are treated more severely than outsiders because they endanger the positive ingroup identity.77 The above examples of increasing prototypicality and stereotyping illustrate the way in which the new Jesus history, first sketched in Mark’s narrative, started to serve the need to consolidate the social identity of the growing movement. Clearly, Matthew did not edit his version of Jesus’ story only in order to record the events as faithfully as possible. When he retold Jesus’ story, he also tuned it to better support the social identity of his own ingroup. He also extended the scope of this identity-building history of Jesus by linking it more explicitly – through the genealogy and numerous Old Testament citations – to the prehistory of Israel. Matthew’s schematization also emphasizes the significance of the symbolic identity markers that are already observable in Mark’s Gospel: the gospel narrative as the reference point for identity construction and the confession of Jesus’ authority. Matthew emphasizes both of these aspects in his own reedited version of the story of Jesus. As was noted above, Matthew’s narrative makes the importance of confessing Jesus’ position as Kyrios more obvious. At the end of the narrative, Jesus also commands the disciples to pass on his teaching to new converts. This 76 προσκυνέω NT 24, Matt 13, Mark 2, Luke 3 (Q 2; S/R 6; R 5). Good examples in verses 8:2, 14:33, and 15:25. These contrasting prototypes of the true followers and stereotypes of the opponents are among the reasons why I find it impossible to see Matthew’s community as a Pharisaic faction. Cf. A. Runesson, “Rethinking Early Jewish-Christian Relations: Matthean Community History as Pharisaic Intragroup Conflict,” JBL 127 (2008): 95–132; Runesson, “Building Matthean Communities,” in Mark and Matthew I, 379–408. For a more detailed discussion of Matthew’s relation to Judaism, see Luomanen, Entering the Kingdom of Heaven, 262–86; Luomanen, “The ‘Sociology of Sectarianism,’” in Fair Play, 107–30. 77 For the black sheep effect, see J. M. Marques, “The Black Sheep Effect: Out-Group Homogeneity in Social Comparison Settings,” in Social Identity Theory: Constructive and Critical Advances (ed. D. Abrams and M. Hogg; Herfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), 131–51; J. M. Marques, D.  Páez, and D.  Abrams, “Social Identity and Intragroup Differentiation as Subjective Social Control,” in Social Identity: International Perspectives (ed. S. Worchel et al.; London: Sage, 1998), 124–42.

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makes clear the significance of Matthew’s reedited story of Jesus, and especially its five large speeches, as the source of Jesus’ teachings and thus also as the basis of identity construction. Furthermore, although it is probable that the Gospel of Mark also presumes Christian baptism, it is clear that when baptism is institutionalized in the gospel narrative the way it is done in Matthew’s Gospel, this also emphasizes the significance of baptism “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost” as a symbolic identity marker. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount also makes an interesting counter-cultural redefinition of symbolic identity markers. For instance, Matthew denies the validity of public prayer as an identity marker and emphasizes the role of good works as the sign on the basis of which Jesus’ followers are recognized (more on this below, in the section on ritual). Comparing Q with Mark and Matthew As far as I can see, the kind of transparency of narrative that characterizes Mark and Matthew is almost totally missing in Q. The idea of following Jesus, even by taking up one’s cross, comes up in some of the sayings (Q 6:40; Q 14:27), but because the narrative material is largely missing, there are only limited means for readers / hearers to identify themselves with Jesus’ actions (the story of Jesus’ temptations being one of the few exceptions; Q 4:1–13). Thus, in Q, Jesus’ person has only a very limited prototypical function. Furthermore, Q does not mention any disciples by name. The disciples are mentioned as the target group of some of Jesus’ central teachings, such as Q’s sermon (Q 6:20) and mission instructions (Q 10:2), but even then they remain an impersonal mass, along with other addressees of the teaching: crowds, you (implying sometimes insiders, sometimes outsiders), someone, a woman, Pharisees, exegetes of the law, etc. Because of this impersonal characterization, the text of Q offers only limited possibilities for the formation of cultural exemplars and cultural prototypes that would support identity formation. Of course, characters in some of the parables (for instance, the rich fool in Q 12:13–14 and slaves in the parable about faithful and unfaithful servants in Q 12:42–46, or the centurion in Q 7:1–10) provide both positive and negative examples. Q also develops a clear stereotyped picture of the Pharisees and scribes in 11:39–52. Nevertheless, the net effect of these examples, prototypes, and stereotypes is marginal when compared with the narratives of Mark and Matthew. This is not to say that Q does not contain any material to support identity formation. Q contains such material but almost exclusively in the form of ethical maxims and norms that Jesus expounds in his teaching. From the cognitive point of view, this appears as a cognitively costly form of religious tradition.78 In 78 Harvey Whitehouse argues that religion also typically struggles against the constraints of intuitive cognition. Furthermore, it is precisely these cognitively costly parts of religion that enable the acquisition of religious revelation and expert knowledge, without which no religion can survive in the long run. Consequently, the key question in Whitehouse’s theory is how religions

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practice, Matthew’s Gospel includes the same norms and maxims but imbedded in the Jesus narrative that also includes many other less costly ways of supporting identity formation. As regards history, Q offers its readers / hearers an opportunity to identify with God’s envoys whose destiny Q describes and interprets in the traditional Deuteronomistic framework. Furthermore, the future that is envisioned for faithful followers is described in terms of Israel-centered imagery: the faithful ones will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Q 22:28, 30) and the Gentiles may join the eschatological banquet with the patriarchs (Q 13:28–29). Confessing Jesus is a clear theme in Q and obviously also a symbolic identity marker (Q 12:8–9, 11–12). In Q, Jesus insists on a decision, either for him or against him (Q 11:23) and followers have to be ready to leave their families and let the “dead bury their own dead” (Q 9:57–60, 61–62; 12:51, 53; 14:26). Because Q praises poverty and self-denial (Q 6:20–21, 29–30; 12:33–34; 14:11), denies provisions for missionary work (Q 10:4), and condemns riches (Q 6:24–26), connecting these themes with its central Deuteronomistic motif (Q 6:23, 26), it is quite probable that poverty and self-denial also functioned as symbolic identity markers for the Q people. If so, then Matthew developed this theme into a more systematic concept of inverted symbolic identity markers by contrasting self-denial and unlimited benevolence as the correct identity markers against the traditional ritual ones, which are absent in Q (see, however, Q 11:39–44). 5.4 Ritual Discourse Because aspects of ritual discourse have already been discussed above, I skip the separate treatment of Mark in this section and start with the comparison of Mark and Matthew. A detailed discussion of this theme would require much more space than is possible in this context. A broad definition of ritual (which I prefer in principle) would lead to a much larger treatment of issues related to, for instance, ritual purity, Sabbath observance, and the temple cult in Mark’s and Matthew’s narratives. Furthermore, cognitive scientists of religion have developed new theories of ritual that open some new possibilities for comparing Jewish rituals with the new emerging Christian ones. For instance, Thomas Lawson and Robert McCauley’s theory of ritual agency raises the question of the role of “culturally postulated superhuman agents” (CPS agents) in ritual,79 which may reveal some previously neglected differences between, for instance, Jewish purification rites with water and the baptism of John the Baptist as a predecessor of “Christian” baptism.80 succeed in transmitting these kinds of cognitively costly representations. See Whitehouse, Modes of Religiosity, 49–59, 169. 79 McCauley and Lawson, Bringing Ritual to Mind, 1–37. 80 R. Uro, “Kognitive Ritualtheorien: Neue Modelle für die Analyse urchristlicher Sakramente,” EvT 71 (2011): 272–88, esp. 284–5.

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In this section, my main focus is on the question of how these documents promote new rituals. However, some observations on the Jewish background are necessary in order to understand the development. This comparison should suffice for the present purpose because the aim of this article is to assess and compare the relative chances of survival of Mark, Matthew, and Q in the Graeco-Roman cultural context at large, not primarily their possible selective advantage in relation to Judaism. The latter question would be more relevant in a discussion focusing on the question of why Christianity departed from Judaism. Comparing Mark and Matthew Both Mark and Matthew record the institution of the Eucharist, and even in almost the same form (Mark 14:22–25; Matt 26:26–29). Thus, in this respect the two gospels do not differ very much. In view of the recent tendency to emphasize Mark’s relation to Pauline theology,81 it is important to keep in mind that in the Eucharistic tradition, it is Luke, not Mark, who is closer to the Pauline tradition. However, there is one detail where Matthew differs from Mark: Matthew adds the phrase “for the forgiveness of sins” in Matt 26:29. The difference is minor and it hardly affected the chances of survival of these documents because the idea of sacrificial death is also present in Mark. The main difference between Mark and Matthew is, of course, the fact that Matthew’s narrative institutionalizes baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost as a new entrance rite of the movement. There is no reason to think that baptism was not practiced in the community where Mark edited his Gospel because we know from Paul that baptism was practiced in Christian communities from very early on. Whether or not this entrance rite was also interpreted similarly in the Matthean and Markan communities is a more complicated question which is hard to answer on the basis of the material we have available. I have argued in another context – on the basis of how John’s baptism is described in these gospels – that there probably was a difference: Matthew understood baptism more in terms of repentance but Mark connected it to the forgiveness of sins.82 Be that as it may, it is clear that Matthew’s narrative, which legitimizes the mission, baptism, and transmission of Jesus’ teaching in the words of the resurrected one himself, has had an enormous, positive impact on the spread of Christianity. An analysis of the Eucharist and baptism in the light of Harvey Whitehouse’s as well as Lawson and McCauley’s theories reveals that the Eucharist coheres with the features that Whitehouse connects to religions operating in doctrinal mode: if the Eucharist was celebrated weekly in an ordinary meal setting – as Paul’s instructions suggest (1 Cor 11:17–34) – it hardly caused much emotional arousal as such (apart perhaps from quarrelling, if we are to trust Paul!). Nevertheless, the repetition of the words of the institution in the same form time after time kept reminding the 81 For

instance, Sim, “Matthew’s Use of Mark,” 176–92, esp. 178. Entering the Kingdom of Heaven, 204–9.

82 Luomanen,

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community of its beginnings and thus contributed to the consolidation of its identity.83 Baptism, for its part, was a once-in-a-lifetime rite which must have aroused more emotions and created autobiographical memories connected to the rite. In the framework of Lawson and McCauley’s theory, Matthew’s baptism appears almost as a perfect example of a ritual that has a close connection to CPS agents: the actions of the baptizer have divine authorization and there is a change in the status of the baptized person, who through baptism, receives the triple, eternal presence of the divine.84 Religious rituals often signal identity, both for outsiders as well as insiders. However, the Eucharist as well as baptism are rituals that do not leave any visually observable signs. Furthermore, ritual actions connected to them are performed within the community of the likeminded. Matthew also suppresses the signaling character of other rituals, and especially Jewish pious practice: almsgiving and praying should happen in secret. Signs of fasting should be washed away (Matt 6:1–8, 16–17). These instructions are contrasted with ritualized almsgiving with the sounding of a trumpet (Matt 6:2), noticeable praying on street corners with large phylacteries (Matt 6:5, 23:5), and letting the signs of fasting appear on one’s face (Matt 6:16).85 Kari Syreeni has suggested that this strategy of concealing outward ritual actions may be related to Matthew’s peculiar socio-religious position between a liberal and a more conservative Jewish-Christian faction, both present in his own ingroup. Syreeni suggests that Matthew’s concealing strategy aimed at diminishing the chances of conflicts over ritual practices because the issue was not clearly solved in Matthew’s community.86 If everything happened in secret, the problem was swept under the carpet. In my view, Syreeni may very well be on the right track with this interpretation. In the context of the present evolutionary analysis, Syreeni’s suggestion raises the important question about the effects of the concealing strategy. If the quite natural function of traditional rituals as symbolic markers of identity is suppressed, does that affect the chances of survival of the community? Although Matthew suppresses some traditional markers of identity he, nevertheless, also brings forth unconditional benevolence as a new marker for the community. The good works of Jesus’ followers should shine before others so that they give glory to the Heavenly Father. From the viewpoint of network analysis, Whitehouse, Modes of Religiosity, 65–70. McCauley and Lawson, Bringing Ritual to Mind, 26–37. To be sure, McCauley and Lawson focus on the role of the CPS agent in the action of the ritual, not on how the supernatural agent is connected to the status into which the person is ritually transposed. This is a good example of the limited scope of McCauley and Lawson’s model. If it is applied rigidly, it misses several important aspects of ritual processes. 85 There is no historical evidence for sounding the trumpets and the statement is to be understood ironically (see U.  Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, Mt 1–7 [vol. 1; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989], 323, 326). However, what matters in the present analysis is that on the narrative level, these actions appear as ritualized, public almsgiving. 86 Syreeni, “Separation and Identity,” 527–31. 83 Cf. 84 Cf.

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this combined strategy of concealing ritual border marking and emphasizing unrestricted benevolence as a new identity marker appears as an effective way of boosting the spread of the movement: when easily noticeable rituals that can be performed only by devoted insiders are replaced with open benevolence as the key identity marker, it is clear that the group becomes much more open towards outsiders. The role of good works as an identity marker is crystallized in Matthew’s graphic description of the last Judgment where the Son of Man separates the sheep from the goats (Matt 25:31–46). The true followers are identified on the basis of the benevolence that they have shown to those who are dispossessed. The underlying principle of these new markers is that although they must be clearly observable to outsiders, followers are not to act in order to reap glory for themselves. They are to restore and build up the honor of their Heavenly Father (Matt 5:16) and their fellow humans (Matt 25:31–46). Thus, the Matthean strategy seems to support the formation of open networks and the collective honor of the group. Comparing Q with Mark and Matthew If the above observations concerning the Eucharist and baptism in the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew appear as self-evident, their significance for the formation of emerging Christian identity becomes clear when compared with Q. In Q, we do not have any clear signs of these rituals. It is questionable whether Q had any account of Jesus’ baptism87 and even if it did, it hardly prefigured a new entrance rite for the Q community – except perhaps as a baptism of repentance.88 Furthermore, a passion narrative and the institution of the Eucharist are missing in Q. Of course, the absence of the institution of the Eucharist in Q does not necessarily mean that the Q community did not have any Eucharistic practices. It is quite possible to imagine a practice similar to what we can see in the Didache: a meal with metaphorical references to wisdom and expectation of an eschatological summation when God’s people, dispersed all around the world, are collected in the Kingdom (Did. 9).89 However, from the evolutionary perspective of the distribution of representations it is significant that these possible practices were not legitimated in the text of Q. Thus, even if the Q community had baptismal and Eucharistic rituals that supported the social identity of the community, and even some oral legitimation for them, the chances that they spread to other groups were limited because they were not institutionalized in the text of Q. Consequently, the Excavating Q, 93–5. my reconstruction of the character of baptism in Matthew’s community is on the right track, it is possible to assume a similar practice in the Q community: the Q people could very well have adopted the baptism of John the Baptist as a baptism of repentance, necessary for all who wanted to join the movement. However, this kind of practice would not have questioned or replaced traditional Jewish identity. 89 Most likely, the Gospel of the Ebionites also included a version of the institution of the Eucharist that did not have any references to Jesus’ sacrificial death. See Luomanen, Recovering Jewish-Christian Sects and Gospels, 145–64. 87 Kloppenborg, 88 If

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value of Q as an identity constituting document was much more limited among its recipients than those of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew. Q’s relation to other rituals also has to be read mostly between the lines. Q contains sections that seem to presuppose both a negative as well as a more positive attitude towards the temple,90 but there are no clear statements concerning temple rituals. The same applies to other forms of ritualized piety. For instance, Q 11:39–44 presupposes tithing and purification rites but does not actually take a stance on these rituals because the focus is on the Pharisees’ unethical conduct. It is no wonder then that the editor of the Gospel of Matthew found it necessary to include some instructions on the traditional forms of Jewish piety from his own special tradition. It is again clear that from the perspective of the distribution of the documents, Matthew’s more detailed instructions appear more relevant, especially in Gentile social settings.

6. Conclusion Thus far, scholars have not been able to find satisfactory explanations for the fact that even though Matthew and Luke prepared new and more complete editions both of Q and Mark, only Mark has survived as a separate document. Often the result has been considered largely as one of the coincidences of history. Undoubtedly, accidents play their role in history but it is also clear that if a document is widely distributed, it is less likely to totally disappear from the historical record – unless perhaps systematically hunted down and destroyed due to religio-political reasons. In the present article, I have analyzed the evolutionary profile of Mark, Matthew, and Q in order to create a picture of their relative chances of survival in cultural evolution. The results of this comparison challenge explanations that attribute Mark’s survival simply to accidental factors of history or to religious power policy. The analysis has revealed a clear correspondence among several socio-cognitive factors contributing to the survival of documents and the factual distribution of the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Matthew, and Q during the first centuries C. E. Judged on the basis of formal characteristics, Mark’s and Matthew’s narrative form  – which, nonetheless, includes short episodes  – has a selective advantage over Q’s wisdom discourse. Mark’s and Matthew’s episodes include more counterintuitive elements, which enhance memorability. Narrative episodes, with their more vivid imagery, also make better use of memory resources by creating representations that are coded by several cognitive systems. Q’s wisdom discourse is restricted more (but not solely) to semantic memory. Mark’s – and even more so Matthew’s – narrative also sketches a clearer template for a historical anchoring of social identity by linking Jesus’ history explicitly with Israel’s sacred past. Q 90 Kloppenborg

attributes the negative ones (Q 11:49–51; 13:34–35) to the first redactional layer of Q (Q2) and the positive ones (Q 4:9–12) to the second redaction (Q3). See Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 212.

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also presupposes Israel’s past and interprets the present in the light of the Deuteronomistic scheme, but that is more implicit than explicit. Although Matthew’s narrative is more complete than Mark’s, which gives it some selective advantage, Mark also has its own unique character as a narrative of relevant mysteries: the Messianic secret, the disciples’ incomprehension, and the abrupt ending all entice memory searches and call for explanations. In terms of network discourse, Matthew’s narrative is the most open of the three: the mission command reaches out programmatically and the Sermon on the Mount sets out the principles of unconditional benevolence – in a form that has showed its attractive force throughout centuries. Matthew has accentuated the benevolence that is already present in Q’s sermon. Q’s benevolence is not totally without community control that counteracts free riding, but Q’s control mechanisms are modest in comparison with Matthew’s highly developed community rule. Matthew also emphasizes brotherly love more than Q, and that supports the formation of strong links within the community. There are also signs of openness and control in Mark’s narrative but they do not constitute such a central topic in Mark as they do in Matthew and Q. Mark’s narrative focuses on unfolding the mystery of the suffering Messiah, not on transmitting his teaching of unconditional benevolence or providing instructions on how to regulate life in the post-resurrection ekklesia. The narrative form of Mark and Matthew also shows their selective advantage in identity discourse. The story about Jesus and his followers offers many more means for identity construction than Jesus’ Deuteronomistic proclamation and teaching of ethical maxims in Q. The characters in the narratives of Mark and Matthew function as cultural examples and prototypes that serve identity formation. The narratives also make it possible to bind identity with history. Matthew’s narrative includes many signs of more developed stereotyping and typification of characters and their actions. The way in which Matthew has reedited Mark’s narrative shows that there was a clear intention to make the story about Jesus and his followers transparent to the situation of its later hearers / readers. This kind of transparency is largely missing in Q. Confessing Jesus and the readiness to follow him into suffering appear as symbolic identity markers in all three documents. In Q, poverty and self-denial may also have functioned as identity markers. Matthew’s narrative, for its part, clearly emphasizes baptism as an identity marker. Thus, although all three include the means to signal identity, only Mark and Matthew provide a variety of means for identity construction, and Matthew even more than Mark. Ritual discourse is also more developed in Matthew than in Mark and Q. In addition to institutionalizing baptism, Matthew has also fine-tuned the ability of rituals to signal identity to best serve openness towards outsiders and the consolidation of identity within the ingroup. This is achieved by emphasizing good works as the number one outward signal of identity and restricting ritual behavior and its identity signaling function to private and ingroup settings. Furthermore, as far as identity is signaled, it is not for self-enhancement but for the honor of the Heav-

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enly Father. Matthew also explicitly connects the transmission of Jesus’ teachings to baptism, which must have been an event that was coded deep in autobiographical memory, enhancing memory retrieval of (at least some) of the teachings. On the other hand, the words of institution of the Eucharist – both in Mark and in Matthew – hark back to the foundational history of the new movement. Although the Eucharist, if celebrated in the context of ordinary meals, may not have caused much emotional arousal, the repetition of the words in exactly the same form kept the memory of the beginnings alive. Although the Q community may have had its own form of communal / Eucharistic meal, it significantly weakened Q’s selective appeal that the text did not include any references to it. All in all, this evolutionary analysis in terms of the four above discourses shows that of these three documents, Q was the most likely to disappear as an independent document and Matthew the most likely to be the most successful. It is important to note, however, that Matthew’s successful evolutionary profile would not have been possible without Q. It is the combination of Q’s unrestricted benevolence, the transparent potential of Mark’s narrative, and the highly developed communal control and institutionalization from Matthew’s special tradition that created the successful evolutionary profile of Matthew’s narrative. The essential difference between Mark and Q is that although Mark does not include quite as many elements as Matthew that support identity and transmission of tradition, Mark nevertheless scores decently in all discourses. These results partly confirm Harvey Whitehouse’s assumption according to which, in the long run, religions have to – if they are to maintain their distinctive character – solve the problem of how to transmit cognitively costly traditions.91 Notably, the content of this costly tradition in Q closely approximates the counter-evolutionary message of Jesus, a “mutation” which, in Theissen’s evolutionary interpretation, challenges the hard forces of natural selection.92 Obviously, Q as a document does not belong to the category of “religion is easy and natural.” It rather sets high ethical standards and requires repentance. However, when combined with the transparent story of Jesus, originally sketched by Mark, Q’s teachings received a more attractive frame which ensured the survival of its essential legacy for later generations.

91 Cf. 92 Cf.

Whitehouse, Modes of Religiosity, 49–59. Theissen, Biblical Faith, 105–28.

Who Wrote Q? The Sayings Document (Q) as the Apostle Matthew’s Private Notebook as a Bilingual Village Scribe (Mark 2:13–17; Matt 9:9–13) Benedict Thomas Viviano, O. P. “Wie schwer sind nicht die Mittel zu erwerben Durch die man zu den Quellen steigt?” Goethe, Faust, Book I, scene 3, Wagner the Manservant.

This article is of an exploratory character. Its primary interest lies in finding reliable information about the sayings or teachings of the historical Jesus. Since this quest is a familiar one and its path well-trodden, the results of previous research will be in large measure presupposed, in order to arrive more quickly at the specific contributions of this essay. These contributions, if such they be, are twofold. The first is an attempt to understand the Sayings Source Q as for the most part a collection of the aphoristic teachings and apocalyptic preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus, preserved in the private notebooks of a direct auditor of these two preachers. The second contribution is to explore the conditions of possibility for identifying the author of these private notebooks as the apostle Matthew Levi, formerly a tax-collector (Mark 2:13–17; Matt 9:9–13; Luke 5:27–32), a bilingual village scribe. The study will involve breaking through the surface of the text to see what may lie beneath. The reader will see at once that the goals of this essay are conservative, although the methods are modern and historical-critical. Perhaps the most distasteful aspect of this modest project is its underlying conviction that positivistic historical research is still possible and worthwhile, despite all the pitfalls. Such a conviction is not post-modern. It smacks of the late 19th century. To be sure, positivistic historiography is conceded to be possible when we are dealing with an abundance of minute, detailed data, as in the evolution of taxation procedures in Roman Egypt or as in the matter of Babylonian temple finances. There is such an abundance of tax papyri in the one case, and of cuneiform tablets in the other, that a high degree of historical certitude can be reached. Again, the letters of Cicero, Augustine, and Jerome have been preserved, besides their major works, so that documented biographies of these figures are possible. Here in the case of Q, however, we are dealing with a few hundred verses, preserved with variant readings. The dangers of bias or self-deception are much greater than in the cases of Cicero, Augustine,

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Jerome. Our gender, race, economic class, ideology can all mislead us. Besides, the present author has already published an essay on Q 7:24–28 where he argues that part of a saying does not go back to the historical Jesus. So his tendency to Q “fundamentalism” is held in check by a critical sense.1 Another reason some are unsympathetic to a positivist historical project is a religious one. Some religious people do not want their faith to rest upon the results of historical research, which include many hypotheses. They recognize that historical research cannot prove the rightness of religious faith. Moreover, scholars are often in disagreement on the hypotheses or the conclusions of their work in this area. There is an amazing production of lives of Jesus; these come to quite divergent results. It is better to avoid the whole approach, to take the Scriptures reverently as divine revelation designed to nourish religious faith and life. Questioning their historicity is irreverent and unbelieving. The Scriptures must then be taken flatly, their historicity being accepted without examination, their tensions and contradictions ignored. This is an option. But for the scholars engaged in this kind of work it is a counsel of despair, based on fear of the consequences, a counsel which is unnecessary because the results are not so uncertain or contradictory as often said, nor are they troubling to mature religious faith.2 Connected with this religious reserve is another. People who are used to thinking in terms of dogmatic theology tend to give dogma a priority over Scripture. In an extreme case this priority was expressed by Cardinal H. E. Manning: “Dogma determines history.” Classical dogma, in so far as it concerns Jesus Christ, is largely based on the Gospel according to John, with its very high Christology. This means that the Synoptic Gospels must either be ignored or else read with a Johannine varnish. The Synoptics must be harmonized with John at all costs. The historical value of John has been seriously challenged since the work of K. G. Bretschneider in 1820. To be sure, this challenge can be ignored. Taking the challenge seriously but in a moderate way, one might concur with the earliest statement by Clement of Alexandria that after the others had written their gospels, John decided to write a spiritual gospel. That means, however, that he knew the Synoptics, and in large measure depended on them for his historical information.3 It also means that he freely chose or was divinely guided to rewrite the Synoptic Gospels in a selective and theologically specific way. Do these Gospels have a right to be heard in their own voice, in their own way? If they do, then the Johannine varnish should not be a condition of their reception and study. The effort to understand the Gospels historically is worth the candle, if it can help us to grasp more surely an early source of the Baptist-Jesus tradition. In 1 B. T. Viviano, “The Least in the Kingdom: Matthew 11:11, its Parallel in Luke 7:28 (Q) and Daniel 4:14,” CBQ 62 (2000): 41–54; repr. in Matthew and His World (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 81–94. 2 Cf. Benedict XVI, Word of the Lord: Verbum Domini: Verbum Domini (London: CTS, 2010). 3 So D. Moody Smith, John among the Gospels (2nd ed.; Columbia, S. C.: University of South Carolina Press, 2001).

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this sort of project hypotheses are indispensible. The role of the imagination, a historical, disciplined imagination, nourished by an immersion in the sources, is included in the work. The results can at best only attain high probability, not certitude, but in ancient history high probability is the guide to life, as Blessed John Henry Newman said.

1. Private Notebooks (Pinakes) The private notebooks of auditors, disciples, and students in antiquity are known to us from rabbinic literature. These rabbinic notebooks are in principle illegitimate. That is why they are private. The students were intended to memorize the teaching of the tannaitic master, to repeat it (tanna and shana mean “to repeat, to say a second time”), to learn it by heart. During the period of the prohibition of the publication of the Mishnah as a series of written scrolls, the reason for the prohibition was primarily the desire to avoid the creation of a second Torah that could then rival or overshadow the original, biblical, Torah. When questioned, rabbinic teachers would call upon a prodigy of memory, a tanna, to recite a desired passage. Students studied in pairs so that they could hear and correct one another’s oral recitations. The accent was on oral performance, on oral traditions, until the students rebelled (we may suspect) at the sheer quantity to be learned (800 pages in Danby’s translation, 6 volumes in Albeck’s edition of the Hebrew Mishnah). The period we are speaking about ran from around 70 C. E. to 230 C. E. The system broke down around 230 C. E.; Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi lifted the ban on a written Mishnah. This was a momentous decision which then opened the way for the later written Tosephta as well as for the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds.4 Teachers and students used wax writing tablets called pinakes, which were then engraved with a sharp, metal-tipped stylus (related to the English word stiletto, a dagger). References to pinakes are found in y. Ma aś. Š. 2.4b; b. Mena . 70a; b. Šabb. 156a. Pinakes often had several pages, hinged together like a diptych. The rabbis also mention megilloth soterim, scrolls of secrets or secret scrolls, as well as sepher aggadotha, haggadah or story books. [Megilloth soterim; b. Šabb. 6b; 96b; b. B. Me i‘a. 92a; Origen, Comm. Matt.: “ex libris secretioribus qui apud Judaeos feruntur” (PG 13:1636; #28). Sepher aggadotha: b. ul. 60b; b. Šabb. 89a. Siphre zikkaron=“memory or reminder books”; Esth 6:1 sepher ha-zikkronoth dibrei hay-yamim, “the book of records, the annals”; Mal 3:16 sepher zikkaron, “a book of remembrance”; Ezra 4:15 sephar dakaranaya di abahathak, “records of 4 See B. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (trans. E. J. Sharpe; Lund: Gleerup, 1961); idem, Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianity (trans. E. J. Sharpe; Lund: Gleerup, 1964); these two works were reprinted as one volume, with a foreword by Jacob Neusner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998); see also, J. Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70 (3 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1971).

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your fathers / ancestors”; 6:2 megillah … dikroneh, “a scroll … memorandum”; CD 20:19; b. Ber. 6a.] One of the oldest ways of describing the Gospels is found in Justin Martyr (ca. 100–165). He refers to the Gospels several times as the memoranda or memory books of the apostles, and particularly of Peter and the sons of Boanerges (Mark 3:17), in Greek the hypomnemata or apomnemoneumata (1 Apol. 66.3; 67.3; Dial. 106.1–3; cf. 88.3; 100.1; 101.3; 102.5; 103.6–8; 104; 105.1, 5, 6; 107.1). The second term used by Justin, apomnemoneumata, is used as the title of a work by Xenophon on the life of Socrates, also known as the Memorabilia. Hypomneumata can refer to the memoirs of a historian or of a statesman (Plato, Politicus/Statesman 295c) or to a written note (Plato, Phaedrus 249c). All of the references just given help us to imagine how the author or collector of the Q sayings may have worked. One sees the disciple jotting down notes to assist his memory as he listens to John the Baptist, and then to Jesus. Only the most salient points are written down: preaching the Kingdom of God as near, praying for the Kingdom, preparing for the judgment, the love of enemies, the Golden Rule; but also a few parables, a healing, a reference to demon expulsion. These terse notes could be the basis for expanded performances, whether oral or written. One could think of Matthew and Luke as in part expanded performances of Q in a narrative framework (provided by Mark). One could further think of the Letter of James as a performance of Q in a hortatory essay mode (see Jas 5:12 and the synoptic parallels). The Q content remains the same. The manner of presentation or performance varies. One may further think of different directors’ or actors’ ways of presenting a Shakespearean play; or of a piece of early music where all the notes are not written out. The composer expects the singer to add pyrotechnical vibratos or trills depending upon his or her ability. These memory books began as private notes, with little or no authority. But we must not extend the early rabbinic prohibition of writing down the Mishnah to all Jews of that time. The Qumran literature shows us Jews in Roman Palestine freely composing works for their own use. Alexandrian Jews had no scruples about writting down a work like the Wisdom of Solomon or the sermons of Philo or the translations of the later books of the Septuagint. Philosophical students throughout the Empire, so far as we know, were free to take notes of their teachers’ lectures. Think of Epictetus’ Dissertations (Diatribai), for example, which were lecture notes taken down by Arrian. He calls them tous Epiktetou logous and then calls them hypomnemata, one of the terms used by Justin for the Gospels.5 There is no reason to think that early Christians had any prohibition against writting down the sayings of Jesus. The book of Revelation insists several times: “Write this!” (nine times in the first three chapters). Ezekiel 9:2, 3, and 11 mention the scribe with his ink horn in his belt (or, with his writing case at his waist).

5 Epictetus,

Diatr. 5 (cover letter to Lucius Gellius).

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Our first point is that the sayings gathered in Q could have begun in this way, as private notes of the disciples, to help their memorization. But this leads to the questions: What is Q and who wrote it?

2. The Q Document In modern studies of Q, as represented by John Kloppenborg and others,6 Q is severed from the testimony of Papias who refers to an Aramaic gospel written by the apostle Matthew as the first Gospel. For this viewpoint, Papias is thinking of our full Gospel according to Matthew, although not in Greek as we have it, but in Aramaic. In modern studies, however, both Matthew and Q are originally thought to have been written in Greek, not in Aramaic. Papias’ testimony is dismissed as valueless. Q is a short collection of sayings and a few narratives. It has no special connection with our long Gospel of Matthew. Indeed, its sayings are better preserved in Luke. (Better here means being preserved with fewer glosses.) To be sure, Q is known through its later incorporation into both Luke and Matthew. But there is no special connection with our Matthew. Q should be read for its own sake, with its own point of view, with its own theology (or layers of theologies), reflecting its own community (the Q people or church), and with its own silences or omissions: there is no passion or resurrection narrative (even though this does not mean that Q has no view on the death of Jesus). Q may be used cautiously as a source for knowledge of the teachings of Jesus and the Baptist, but not as the only source. The old 19th century construction of an understanding of Q on the testimony of Papias lies in ruins. From these conclusions, the younger critics of the idea of Q, especially Mark Goodacre, conclude that there was no Q at all.7 This essay takes its starting point from some of these conclusions, but not in regard to Papias. It does not follow those scholars who divide Q into layers (Q1, Q2, Q3) or first apocalyptic, then sapiential (so Siegfried Schulz)8 or the reverse, first sapiential, then apocalyptic (so Kloppenborg).9 Nor does this essay accord a high degree of importance to the issue of genre. Genres can be quite determined, 6 J. M. Robinson, P. Hoffmann, and J. S. Kloppenborg, eds., The Critical Edition of Q (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000); J. S. Kloppenborg, Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000) (rich bibliography); H. T. Fleddermann, Q: A Reconstruction and Commentary (Leuven: Peeters, 2005); B. Lee Mack, The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins (San Francisco: Harper, 1993); A. Dettwiller and D. Marguerat, eds., La Sources des Paroles de Jesus (Q) (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2008). 7  M. S.  Goodacre, The Case against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem (Harrisburg: Trinity, 2002); idem and N. Perrin, eds., Questioning Q: A Multidimensional Critique (London: SPCK, 2004); F. Watson, “Q as Hypothesis: A Study in Methodology,” NTS 55 (2009): 397–415. 8 S. Schulz, Q: Die Spruchquelle der Evangelisten (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1972). 9  J. S. Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987).

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as in the case of a sonnet.10 But other genres are much looser, such as collections of sayings, or novels. For example, Sirach ends with a potted history of Israel (chs. 40–50), so there is a mixture of the wisdom and the historical genres. Wisdom of Solomon contains a midrash on Exodus (chaps. 11–19). 1 Enoch and Daniel contain both wisdom and apocalyptic. The Didache contains all sorts of things: ethical wisdom, church order, liturgical instructions, and apocalyptic. Barnabas is similarly varied. The sayings genre is too loose for it to be able to determine content very specifically. The canonical gospels are even more of a fusion of several microgenres.11 Granted these presuppositions on Q in modern perspective, what connection could there possibly be between Q and the apostle Matthew? The modern preference for Luke as preserving Q in a purer, less contaminated or glossed form than Matthew raises a considerable barrier to any link between Q and the apostle Matthew, not to mention any link with the Greek Gospel of Matthew. Since Q is anonymous, it seems useless to speculate on who was its author. The Didache speaks about the teaching of the twelve apostles. This is almost a way of saying “author unknown.” But it is also a way of saying, “This material is early, important, foundational.” We would like to propose something similar for Q. Papias attributed the compilation of Sayings to Matthew as a way of saying that this document is important (see below). Few doubt that Q contains mostly early material important for a historical understanding of the Baptist and of Jesus. In recent decades, Q specialists have concentrated on the document’s evolution and literary shape or configuration. The idea of a unitary author has been held at bay. But if the arguments for literary layers are weak (as many think),12 and the view of Migaku Sato13 that Q was an expanding notebook, to which sayings could be added, has some relative, limited validity, then the idea of a single author, both adding to, but also shaping the collection, cannot be excluded. In other words, we are trying to see some truth in both Kloppenborg’s and Sato’s views of Q. To be sure, a good illustration of a sayings collection or instructional genre is the rabbinic tractate Pirqe ’Abot in the Mishnah. This tractate strongly confirms the Sato view of Q as a looseleaf binder to which sayings can be added. Indeed, once the main collection (chs. 1–4) had been made, around 200 C. E., two entire chapters (chs. 5 and 6) could be added later. Chapter 5 is based on numbered lists. Chapter 6, called Kinyan Torah (the acquisition of Torah) or ‘the chapter of R. Meir,’ may not have been added till the 11th century, for liturgical reasons. On the other hand, the sayings of ’Abot are attributed to many 10 M. Smith, “Prolegomena to a Discussion of Aretologies, Divine Men, the Gospels and Jesus,” JBL 90 (1971): 174–99. 11 H. Koester and J. M. Robinson, Trajectories through Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971; repr. 1979). 12  J. P. Meier, The Vision of Matthew: Christ, Church and Morality in the First Gospel (New York: Paulist, 1979), 24. 13 M.  Sato, Q und Prophetie: Studien zur Gattungs‑ und Traditionsgeschichte der Quelle Q (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988).

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different authors (mostly rabbis); the sayings of Q to only two (the Baptist and Jesus). Both documents could be said to have a rough thematic unity: the value of Torah study for ‘Abot, the coming of the Kingdom / judgment for Q. Yet neither document is utterly formless. Once the idea of a single “author” is admitted as possible, we may ask who in earliest Christianity was most likely to have been the collector-author. Here the claims of the apostle Matthew come forward. Of the twelve apostles mentioned in the canonical lists, Matthew has the best claim to have been both literate and bilingual, a master of elementary scribal techniques. As a tax-collector, the apostle would have known how to keep accounts, but also how to read and to write. The gospel story which puts Matthew-Levi in Capernaum places him in a town which lies on a lake. The town borders on the Decapolis, where Greek was the predominant language of culture. Galilee itself was bilingual: Aramaic and Greek.14 It would have been of great professional advantage for a tax-collector to know both languages well. Q contains sayings attributed to John the Baptist and to Jesus. Whoever redacted Q most likely heard both speaking.15 Once the tax-collector Matthew-Levi became a disciple – let us say, first of the Baptist, then, after the Baptist’s arrest, returning in sorrow to his “sinful,” ordinary employment, and then recruited by Jesus – he took his ink-horn with him. He began to make notes of his spiritual masters’ words, especially the sharp, ethical insights and the shorter pointed parables. The two preachers, Jesus and John, most probably spoke in Aramaic. But the scribe took his notes in Greek. This seems farfetched at first thought. But for people in bilingual regions, it is an everyday occurrence. Dutch speaking businessmen have known how to do business in several languages for a millennium. Swiss students who take courses in their three main national languages take notes in one language while their professor lectures in another; this is an everyday occurrence. When lectures were given in Latin, students often took their notes in the vernacular, the present author not excepted. It cannot be excluded, we are suggesting, that a disciple of the Baptist and of Jesus transcribed their messages (selectively) as private notes, perhaps on wax pinakes, in Greek. Later these notes could be transcribed onto a papyrus or parchment scroll. When Jesus was arrested, this scribal disciple fled with all the others (Mark 14:50; Matt 26:56) except the women. His notes did not include much narrative. At this point (the flight of the disciples), he stopped taking notes. The lectures were over. These notes contain no detailed passion or resurrection narratives. Later on, Mark would gather the stories of Jesus into his Gospel, perhaps learned from Peter-Cephas (stage 2 of gospel composition, oral transmission and the private notes called Q being stage 1). Then the non-apostolic evangelists Matthew 14 J. A. Fitzmyer, “The Languages of Palestine in the First Century A. D.,” in A Wandering Aramean: Collected Aramaic Essays (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1979), 29–56; see B. Olsson and M. Zetterholm, eds., The Ancient Synagogue from its Origins until 200 C. E. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2003), 235–311, on the languages of the synagogue. 15 See C. K. Rothschild, Baptist Traditions and Q (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005).

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(Matthew II, Mr. X, or the evangelist as we may designate him to distinguish him from the apostle) and Luke achieved their syntheses of Q and Mark. They incorporated all or nearly all of Q into the Markan narrative framework. (That could be designated stage 3.)16 Thereafter John wrote his reflective gospel on all three of his predecessors (stage 4).17 Q, the disciple’s private notes, taken down early, even during the lifetime of Jesus, had passed into the mainstream, what became the four canonical Gospels. Q no longer needed to be copied separately. As we said at the outset, none of these hypotheses can be proven beyond a historical doubt. But none of them can be ruled out as impossible or implausible. We remain in the realm of probabilities. The question remains: Are these high or low probabilities? Are we not simply piling up hypotheses on top of hypotheses? Our second point can be summarized thus. We are proposing that Q began as a set of notes taken down in Greek by a bilingual disciple-auditor as the Baptist, then Jesus, spoke, that is, during their respective lifetimes. The historical value of such notes would be high, if the scribe had any competence. We are further proposing to identify this scribe as the disciple called Levi in Mark and Luke, called Matthew in the Gospel according to Matthew (Mark 2:13–17; Luke 5:27–32; Matt 9:9–13).

3. The Call of Levi-Matthew To improve the chances of these proposals being in the area of high probabilities, we need to take a brief look at the pericope (Mark 2:13–17; Matt 9:9–13; Luke 5:27–32), the call of Levi-Matthew. We do not intend a full exegesis of this much-studied passage. We will concentrate on a few points. First, from the point of view of genre, this passage can be divided into a call story (2:13–14, similar to Mark 1:16–20) and an apophthegm (2:15–17), a story which culminates in a memorable saying, a punch line. In this case Mark ends the pericope with two such sayings, Matthew with three. It is easy to see that once the story was in circulation, one could add sayings almost at will. Today it is common to say that originally there was only one saying: Jesus speaks about his mission to call sinners, not the righteous (2:17c). Mark adds 2:17b from proverbial wisdom, the remark that it is not the healthy who need a physician but the sick. Matthew inserts between these 16 Some now date Luke-Acts very late. See, for example, R. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), who dates the Gospel to ca. 120 C. E. This late dating, which puts Luke’s Gospel so far from the time of Jesus, diminishes its historical value as a source of knowledge of the historical Jesus. It is also an argument used to deny the existence of Q, since a late Luke could find the Q material in Matthew. But Luke would then have to delete the Matthean glosses to Q. In the abstract, this is not impossible. The question is: Is this historically more probable than the view that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, both written around 85 C. E., independently of each other, incorporated Q into their respective narratives? This is the prevailing view among those scholars who judge Q to be a valuable early source reproduced in these two Synoptic Gospels. 17 See D. Moody Smith (n. 3 above) who refers to the works of C. K. Barrett, M. E. Boismard, and F. Neirynck.

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two sayings an Old Testament quotation: “Going, learn what this is: I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Matt 9:13).18 Luke adds his favorite theme word metanoia (repentance) to clarify that Jesus calls sinners (Luke 5:32). The next point to note is the name of the tax-collector. In Mark and Luke it is Levi, in Matthew it is Matthew. Why did Matthew change the name? To summarize a long debate: The prevailing argument to explain the change of name is that Matthew wanted to restrict the circle of disciples to twelve; he did not want to have many stray, unintegrated minor characters in his Gospel, so he picked one of the Twelve, already known as a tax-collector.19 This solution has the merit of clarity. I would like to propose another explanation, one that has been suggested before,20 and which can be accused of harmonizing, normally a flaw in exegesis. The proposal is to read Mark’s Greek thus: Jesus “saw a Levite, the son of Alpaeus” (cf. Mark 3:18). (The terms for Levite are not frequent in the NT, but the usage is stabile: Levis is a proper name, Levites is the way of referring to a member of the group of Levites, a tribe or clan with secondary roles in the Temple worship, a sort of priestly underclass. The status and function of Levites doubtless evolved over time. See below for discussion on scribes.) Our argument presupposes that Mark uses the term Levis to refer to a Levite incorrectly, and that Luke here (as elsewhere) removes the ambiguity and error by adding the word onomati so that it reads: “a tax collector by the name of Levi.” If we take Levin in Mark as referring to a Levite and interpret his tribe as implying a certain cultural level, including scribal skills, and if we take Matthew the evangelist’s identification of the nameless Levite as the apostle Matthew as historically correct, we would have a member of the Twelve who had priestly connections and scribal abilities. This exceptional tax-collector would have been strengthened in his profession had he been bilingual (see below) in both Aramaic and Greek languages. This concatenation of possibilities could remind one of the proverb, “If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers.” But there is nothing unreasonable in the series. A third point concerns another ambiguity in Mark (2:15): “he [Jesus] was sitting at table in his house.” Whose house? Three possible owners come to mind: Jesus, Levi [‑Matthew], and Peter.21 The best reason not to think of Jesus as the owner 18 See C. Landmesser, Jüngerberufung und Zuwendung zu Gott: Ein exegetischer Beitrag zum Konzept der matthäischen Soteriologie im Anschluß an Mt 9,9–13 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), on this use of Hos 6:6 in Matthew. 19 R.  Pesch, “Das Zöllnergastmahl (Mark 2,15–17),” in Mélanges bibliques en hommage au R. P. Béda Rigaux (ed. B. Rigaux, A.-L. Descamps, and A. de Halleux; Gembloux: Duculot, 1970), 63–87; R. Pesch, “Levi-Matthaeus,” ZNW 59 (1968): 40–56; B. M. F. van Iersel, “La vocation de Levi (Mc, II, 13–17, Mt, IX, 9–13, Lc, V 27–32),” in De Jesus aux evangiles (Mel. J. Coppens II) (ed. I. de La Potterie; Gembloux: Duculot, 1967), 212–32; S. Brock, “A New Testmonium to the ‘Gospel according to the Hebrews,’” NTS 18 (1972): 220–2. 20 P. Gaechter, Das Matthaeus-Evangelium: Ein Kommentar (Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1963), 290. 21 E. S. Malbon, “Mark 2.15 in Context,” NTS 31 (1985): 282–92; D. M. May, “Mark 2.15: The Home of Jesus or of Levi?” NTS 39 (1993): 147–9. Malbon uses literary-critical arguments to decide in favor of it being Jesus’ house (due to her interest in house-churches). May uses socio-anthropological (honor-shame) methods to argue that it is Levi’s house.

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of the house is his own statement (in Q: Matt 8:20; Luke 9:58): “Foxes have holes, birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” This may not be a formal statement that Jesus did not own a house, but it can easily be understood to imply this when combined with other statements about Jesus’ itinerant ministry and his requirement that disciples abandon everything to follow him. (Their wives could retain ownership and support the master and his disciples [Matt 8:14; Mark 15:40–41; Luke 8:1–3].)22 Luke eliminates the ambiguity by stating that Levi gave a great banquet in his house (Luke 5:29). There is much to be said for Jesus as the lord of the banquet, as host and nourisher, in word and deed, as in the feeding narratives and at the last supper. But perhaps this could be combined with the third option, “the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John (and Simon’s mother-in-law; Mark 1:29–30; Matt 8:14 “house of Peter”; Luke 4:38, “house of Simon”). The scribes of the Pharisees would be more likely to visit the home of an interesting teacher than to visit the home of an ill-viewed tax-collector, if we press the narrative details. But finally we should respect the plurivalent ambiguity of Mark’s text here. All three options open up valuable hermeneutical perspectives. There is no need to close the door on them. Far more important for our immediate concern is Mark’s striking phrase, “the scribes of the Pharisees” (2:16). This phrase is found only once in the Four Gospels (but cf. Acts 23:9). Its historical importance is great. It reminds us that each of the major parties in the Judaism of that time had its scribes, that is, its educated, literate leaders. So there were scribes of the Sadducees (in the Temple especially); scribes of the Essenes, scribes of the Zealots, and scribes of the party of the Pharisees (tines ton grammaton tou merous ton pharisaion, Acts 23:9), an essentially lay movement.23 It is a standard observation in redaction-critical studies that the scribes are the main opponents of Jesus in Mark.24 The point here is to suggest that not only were some scribes critical of Jesus’ conduct, but that the man whom Jesus called to be a disciple, the tax-collector, was himself a sort of scribe, a literate, bilingual clerk, a scribe in the service of the Roman administration. The Herodians and the Romans had their scribes too. Our study of Mark 2:13–17 and parallels has led us to make two risky proposals, one that the tax-collector in the story was a Levite named Matthew, and second that this Levite was a scribally trained professional who changed allegiance. One could go further and say that he changed allegiance more than once: from Temple service to the Romans, from the Baptist to Jesus, a sort of Roger Garaudy, a man who made all the conversions. The matter of scribes requires further treatment. 22 S. Bieberstein, Verschwiegene Jüngerinnen – vergessene Zeuginnen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998). 23 M. Simon, Jewish Sects at the Time of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968); M. Hengel, The Zealots (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1985); J. Sievers, “Josephus, First Maccabees, Sparta, the Three Haireseis – and Cicero,” JSJ 32 (2001): 241–51; R. Bergmeier, “Die drei judischen Schulrichtungen nach Josephus und Hippolyt von Rom,” JSJ 34 (2003): 443–70. 24  M. C. Cook, Mark’s Treatment of the Jewish Leaders (Leiden: Brill, 1978).

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4. Scribes The scribal profession or art was born with the invention of writing at the dawn of human civilization.25 Scribes in the Hebrew Bible tend to be of high social significance. They serve as royal officers; in company with priests they count money (2 Kgs 12:11). In David’s administration they serve alongside generals, recorders (mazkir), priests (2 Sam 8:17), perhaps titles of officers influenced by Egyptian court models.26 There is a certain discrepancy between the Hebrew Bible’s use of shophet for a scribe and the Septuagint use of grammateus. Shophet is never used in the Pentateuch or Joshua, but is found everywhere in the historical books and in the Major Prophets. It is never found in the wisdom books with the notable exception of the Wedding Psalm (45:2). On the other hand, grammateus is used to cover six different Hebrew words, and in the Pentateuch and Joshua especially it translates shamar, a watchman or foreman (cf. Exod 5). As Judean society evolved after the exile, one can observe a growing rivalry among the social elites. Alongside the lay nobles with their court or palace scribes were the priests, including their own Levitical scribes (some of whom broke off from the Temple governors to form the Essenes at Qumran and elsewhere). As the Maccabean zealot priestly warrior families declined into Hasmonean decadence, the Roman conquest (63 B. C. E.) further altered the social situation. Herod the Great, neither noble, priest, or scribe, was accepted as vassal king under Roman suzerainty after his military successes. He too had scribes. Disaffected lay pietists developed the Pharisaic movement whose scribes earned a reputation for religious learning. As vassal kings and high priests disappeared after 70 C. E., the Pharisaic leaders were suddenly without serious rivals among the halakhically devout. In the new situation the halakhic leaders tightened control by formalizing courses of study which were then crowned by an ordination, semicha, a laying on of hands, that made one a rabbi, still normally a layman, authorized to decide halackic cases, to act as judges in courts of Jewish law, to preach and to teach, to lead the prayers. These were all things which Jewish laymen could do. They were not reserved for the cohanim, the hereditary priests. A new religious rivalry arose due to the rise of the Christian movement, in both its Torah-observant and Torah-free forms. Matthew’s church numbers scribes among its leaders (Matt 13:52; 23:34). His Gospel is an illustration of their writing ability and Torah learning. Christians, too, would

25  See G. J. Hamilton, The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts (Washington, D. C.: CBAA, 2006): based on Wadi el-Hol texts from southern Egypt, dated ca. 1850–1700 B. C. E. Cf. the review by Scott Morschauser in CBQ 69 (2007): 546–8. Writing in the form of hieroglyphs, cuneiform tablets, and pictograms existed one or two thousand years before that. 26 R. de Vaux, “Titres et fonctionnaires egyptiens a la cour de David et de Salomon,” RB 48 (1939): 394–405; idem, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (trans. J. McHugh; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), 127–32.

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gradually develop formal forms of church leadership and ordination which often included an educational component (at least literacy).27 In later Talmudic times (200–500 C. E.), the terms “scribe,” “judge,” and “priests” are used as distinct categories which cannot be simply identified in rabbinic literature. Yet the boundaries are blurred.28 In this literature scribes are presented as writers of documents (e.g., bills of divorce), letters, books (librarius, a Latin loan word, in Hebrew liblar), and as children’s teachers. They also served as secretaries (Latin scriba) in both high and low level senses of that term. Scribes were professionals. They received some training, including Torah knowledge, and had a right to be paid. Some rabbis were scribes, some were not. Some traditions subordinate scribes to rabbis (m. So a 9.15), that is to hakimaya (sages). When scribes disagree with sages in halackic matters, they are cursed (y. B. Bat. 9.1, 16d; Gen. Rab. 79:5).29 The status of scribes varied then from high court and Temple officials (when there was a Temple) to village school teachers, with many stages in between, but all paid and all linked by literacy and some training. As society developed and became more dependent on written documents (cheap papyrus helped this process), scribes became present in most social levels, even larger villages like Capernaum. Through a study of Egyptian papyri, Dr. Giovanni Battista Bazzana is studying the phenomenon of village scribes in pagan Egypt and in Roman Palestine. He notices the careless handwriting on the rough backside (verso) of these papyri and concludes it belonged to a non-elite type of village scribe who had received only a limited education and had only a limited command of writing skills. He further thinks that the pagan apocalyptic texts called “Oracle of the Potter” and “Dream of Nectanebo,” while preserved and written in Greek, show formal signs of being dependent upon Egyptian antecedents. This hint of a bilingual culture for these villages is also of importance for the situation we are trying to envisage.30 27 Joachim Jeremias devotes a rich, bold, adventurous chapter (X) to post-Hebrew Bible scribes in his Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969; orig. 1937), 233–45, which he summarizes in TDNT 1:740–2. His treatment tends to identify scribes with the later rabbis and as components of the Sanhedrin. (According to C. Hezser, see next note, pp. 186–95, the Sanhedrin ceased to exist after 70 C. E.) He emphasizes their scriptural exegesis, including the “dangerous” passages of Gen 1 and Ezek 1 and 10. Study of these passages led to apocalyptic and other esoteric speculations (Merkabah mysticism). He refers to 4 Ezra 14:45 and to m. Meg. 4:10; b. Pesa . 119a; b. Sanh. 21b. He further argues that the prohibition of writing out the Mishnah served also to preserve scribal power by controlling esoteric knowledge. The prohibition ended once the New Testament canon emerged as a rival. He claims the rabbinical scribes are the successors to the prophets (Louis Finkelstein supports this view in his New Light from the Prophets [London: Mitchell Valentine and Co., 1969].) This is true, but they are also the successors in some ways to the kings and priests, viz., sociologically, functionally. Jeremias thinks that there is an esoteric tradition also present in the New Testament: the messianic secret; Mark 16:1–8; John 13–17; Hebrews 6–10. This is one way of looking at these texts. 28 C.  Hezser, The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 467–75. 29 Genesis Rabbah (3 vols.; ed. J. Theodor and Ch. Albeck; 2nd ed.; Jerusalem: 1965), 941–3 n. 27, grammateus. 30 I am here drawing upon an abstract of Bazzana’s paper at SBL 2010 and of a description of his course at Harvard Divinity School. He has not yet published his research in full, so far as I know.

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The terse text of Mark 2:13–17 and parallels presents us with scribes who are leaders within the Pharisaic movement. They confront Jesus over his association with tax-collectors or more exactly on account of his recruiting a tax-collector, Levi / Matthew or a Levite named Matthew. As a tax-collector this recruit had at least minimal scribal skills. It is reasonable to suppose that this man put his skills to use as a service to Jesus. The pericope thus becomes a story of two types of scribes in relation to the new master-teacher, Jesus. This disciple, if anyone in the emerging circle of itinerant preachers, was qualified to take notes of the master’s sayings. It is he, we suppose, who began the document called Q. This Matthew the Levite is the original author of Q.

5. Logia and Papias We still need to take a fresh look at the well-worn theme of logia and the testimony of Papias. Etymologically, logion derives from the verb lego, legein, to say, speak. In Greek, logion is the diminutive of logos. Logos means a speech, discourse. Logion then logically should mean a little speech, a saying, an utterance. It does, but classically it often means the answer of an oracle, e.g., at Delphi, a prediction (Herodotus, Hist. 1.64; 4.178; 8.60). According to the dictionary definition, an oracle is first a medium by which a god reveals hidden knowledge or makes known the divine purpose; also, the place where the revelation is given, or an inspired prophet. In the plural, it can refer to the Scriptures. So, although logion does mean “saying,” the connotation is of a special, religiously freighted saying, a revealed saying, a prophetic revelation. In the plural logia can mean teaching, discourse. In the New Testament it is found only in the plural: Acts 7:38, “the living oracles”; Rom 3:2, “the oracle of God”; Heb 5:12 (the same); 1 Pet 4:11, “the words of God.” But in the Septuagint, of the 40 occurrences, half are in the singular. Some examples from the Septuagint are: the oracles of God to Balaam (Num 24:4 and 16); Deut 33:9, “Levi kept your oracles”; Ps 11:6, “the oracles of the Lord are pure”; Ps 17:31, “… tried in the fire”; Ps 18:14, “may the saying of my mouth be pleasing to you”; Ps 104:19, “the word (sing.) of the Lord tried him (Joseph) as fire.” In the great praise of Torah, Ps 118 [119], logion in the singular and plural is one of the many terms for the divine instruction (24 times). In patristic Greek usage logia can refer to God’s creative words in Gen 1 and to the ten “words” of the Decalogue. Logia can refer also to oracular or inspired utterances, whether pagan, coming from the Old Testament prophets, or from Jesus (Papias, see below). The term can refer to the Old Testament in general (1 Clem 53:1) or to the gospel in general (2 Clem 13:3). In the Gnostic Acts of Thomas the term refers to the “secret sayings of ” Christ (A 39). It must not be forgotten that in Q Jesus speaks of himself as the recipient of divine revelation (Luke 10:21–22; Matt 11:25–17). Papias could have thought of the

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sayings in Q as divine revelation, as oracles of heavenly wisdom, e.g., on the love of enemies. This is significant. Some authors make an argument that Papias could not have been referring to a collection of Jesus’ sayings because logia does not mean sayings but oracles.31 This argument does not seem sound, because not only can logia mean sayings, but, given their content, Papias could be intending to say that the sayings of Jesus are divine revelation, oracles, oracular sayings. With this survey, we have a clearer idea of the range of meanings of logion. It can mean simply “saying” (Ps 18:14), but it most often has a religious, revelatory connotation. Now we can try to apply this idea to the statement of Papias, quoted by Eusebius, copied by many other church fathers when they discuss the origins of the four canonical Gospels.32 Papias says, “Matthew compiled the Logia / Sayings / Oracles in the Hebrew language, and everyone interpreted them as well as he could.”33 This brief sentence requires some comments: 1. “Compiled,” synetaxato, from syntasso, means literally, “to put together in order, arrange, organize, give an order, command” (originally military), then metaphorically, “to collect, compile.”34 2. “Hebrew language” (hebraidi dialekto). This phrase is usually thought to mean Aramaic.35 The same phrase occurs in Acts 21:40, 22:2, and 26:14, probably with the same sense, Aramaic. But the masculine hebraios can refer to Jews in contrast to Gentiles, even if the Jews in question are of predominantly Greek culture, e.g., Philo, Aristobolus, Paul (2 Cor 11:22; Phil 3:5). If the Q of modern scholarship was first written in Greek, and this phrase means that Matthew compiled the logia in Aramaic, the immediate conclusion would be that Papias is useless for an understanding of Q. If however we notice the nearly automatic modern move from what Papias says (hebraidi, Hebrew) to what he must have meant (Aramaic), we should perhaps consider another possibility. What Papias may have meant is that Matthew wrote down or collected the sayings of Jesus in Greek, but Greek of a highly Semitizing sort. Such an understanding would fit an originally Greek Q, but it does remain a bold stretch of meaning of Papias’ phrase. Further research is needed here. Once the literal sense of hebraidi is abandoned, the door is open to new hypotheses. 3. ta logia. These are usually taken to be oracles, sayings, discourses of Jesus, but some think that Papias is referring to a testimonia book of Old Testament quotations which Matthew thought applied to Jesus as the Christ.36 Others have Excavating Q, 338–9. He cites many other authors. Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1963; rev. 1967), 531–2. 33 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.16 in K. Bihlmeyer, ed., Die Apostolischen Väter (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1956), 136. 34 Two of the seven main manuscripts of Eusebius read synegrapsato (write together), namely mss. A (Paris, BN 1430) and M (Venice, Marciana 338). So E. Schwartz in the GCS edition (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1903), and Gustave Bardy (SC 31; Paris: Cerf, 1952), 157. 35 BAGD s.v. hebraios. 36  R. M. Grant, The Formation of the New Testament (London: Hutchinson, 1965), 71. 31 Kloppenborg, 32 K. Aland,

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thought it refers to our complete Gospel of Matthew, numbered since the Middle Ages into 28 chapters, only in Hebrew, not Greek. 4. “each one interpreted” (hermeneusen): The older view would be that the whole Gospel according to Matthew as we have it was translated into Greek, as just mentioned. But if Papias is referring to a compilation of sayings of Jesus perceived and received as sacred, divine oracles, then hermeneusen refers to the integration of these sayings into the longer narrative gospels based on Mark, viz., Matthew and Luke, and indirectly John. This integration occurred in different ways in Matthew and Luke. Matthew preferred to take over Q in great blocks of discourse, but with many glosses on the sayings. Luke preferred to reproduce the original wording without so many glosses, but scattered throughout his Gospel. It is clear that the short sentence of Papias quoted by Eusebius is open to many readings. One could reject it as meaningless, worthless. We prefer to receive it as a valuable fragment from Christian antiquity and then to read it in the way it has been read since Schleiermacher, Wilke, Weisse, H. J.  Holtzmann and Harnack, making adjustments so as to take account of more recent views, such as that Q was first written in Greek, even if in a simple, Semitizing Greek, such as would occur if one were taking down notes in Greek of what was being proclaimed in Aramaic.37

6. Matthew’s Rewriting of Mark We will now attempt a sharper focus on the way Matthew has handled the text he inherited from Mark on the call of the tax-collector Levi in the light of several recent studies. We will move quickly through a series of stages in the evolution of research, each of which could be rejected as unwarranted speculation, but which to us seem prudent hypotheses. First, we presuppose the classic two source hypothesis on the relations of the Synoptic Gospels to one another. Matthew depended on Mark and Q. Second, we presuppose that Mark has a historical basis in the oral tradition for his story of Jesus, but we also accept the view of Joel Marcus that Mark knew the thought of Paul and formulated his story of Jesus to reflect this Pauline theology, especially the freedom from the ceremonial precepts of the Torah.38 There is a certain concentration on the Easter kerygma, salvation through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but without eliminating the wonder-working, charismatic, wandering preacher and teacher, who announces the Kingdom of God as coming very soon and the need to prepare for it.

37  W. G. Kummel, The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of Its Problems (Nashville:

Abingdon, 1972), 84 and passim. 38 J. Marcus, “Mark – Interpreter of Paul,” NTS 46 (2000): 473–87.

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Third, we accept that Mark has a certain allegorical or mythic element in his narrative. This element further enables him to achieve his redactional purposes, but the exact limits of this history-free element are hard to determine.39 Matthew and Luke fuse the traditions in Mark with the sayings in Q. Matthew used Mark’s Gospel conservatively, yet he rejudaized it drastically. This involved partly rehistoricizing the Jesus tradition (Jesus was a practicing Jew, not a disciple of Paul, though he held humanitarian views of Sabbath practice, due to the primacy of the love command for him). It also involved legalizing or sobering up or bourgeoisifying the portrait of a somewhat free-spirited Cynic-like sage. That is, some sayings attributed to Jesus in Q can be understood as resembling those of a Cynic sage (see Epictetus, Diatr. 3.22). But Q taken as a whole shows a Jesus who is a fiery apocalyptic prophet-preacher, not just a sage. This apocalyptic judgment message is part of the historical record that Matthew retains and even intensifies in his Gospel. This brings us to a detailed comparison of Mark 2:13–17 and Matt 9:9–13, in the light of these presuppositions. 1. Levi is renamed Matthew and thereby included in the apostolic circle. There is to be no ecclesial disorder, no stray sheep, no nonsense, in Matthew’s version. 2. There is no more flood of sinners and tax-collectors who follow Jesus, as Mark says (2:15c), no unsavory mass. A few will do. 3. In 9:11, Matthew reduces the opponents of Jesus to the Pharisees. He omits the scribes, since he is a scribe himself. Matthew eliminates the detail that the opponents see or observe Jesus’ eating with sinners, itself a sin from a Pharisaic point of view. Matthew has the Pharisees refer to Jesus politely as “your master.” 4. Matthew 9:12 preserves the general proverbial logion of Mark 2:17a, about the physician and the sick, word for word as it is found in Mark. 5. Matthew adds his v. 13a (a biblical justification for Jesus’ scandalous behavior based on Hos 6:6), before we arrive at Mark 2:17b=Matt 9:13c. This addition means that, for Matthew, Jesus does not sin, since he is covered by Scripture, i.e., Jesus remains within the Law as prophetically interpreted or accented. These slight redactional modifications of Mark by Matthew nevertheless indicate a considerable shift away from a Pauline spirit of freedom to a spirit of Jewish-Christian ethical-legal sobriety.40

39 B. Lee Mack, A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988).

40 J. Svartvik, “Matthew and Mark,” in Matthew and his Christian Contemporaries (ed. D. C. Sim and B. Repschinski; London: T & T Clark, 2008), 27–49; D. C. Sim, “Matthw’s Use of Mark: Did Matthew Intend to Supplement or to Replace His Primary Source?” NTS 57 (2011): 176–92; S. von Dobbeler, “Wahre und falsche Christen oder: An der Frage der Orthopraxie scheiden sich die Geister,” BZ 50 (2006): 174–95.

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7. Conclusion It is clear to the reader by now that this is an exploratory essay that cannot attain historical certitude, just as we said at the outset. In the course of our exploration we have examined the possibility of an auditor taking down private notes of the Baptist’s and Jesus’ preaching. These private notes would have been written in Greek by a bilingual village scribe, since the preaching was in Aramaic. We have identified the author of these notes as the apostle Matthew, the tax-collector called in Mark 2:13–17 and parallels. We have hypothesized that he was a Levite, with scribal skills of composition, thereby harmonizing Mark’s Levis with Matthew’s Matthew, taking Levis as Levites. We have studied the evolution of the social role and status of scribes from biblical to Talmudic times. We have briefly considered the phenomenon of bilingualism in the ancient synagogue. Lastly, we took a fresh look at the meanings and usage of the term logion and we reread the famous sentence of Papias on Matthew and the Logia, including the new suggestion that hebraidi could in context mean Semitizing Greek. The goal of this inquiry was to imagine the concrete conditions necessary if the sayings called Q or the “double tradition” in the synopsis of the Gospels were to provide reliable reporting of the teachings of the Baptist and Jesus. To be sure, there are other pertinent issues not examined here: a detailed study of each saying attributed to Q, a reflection on how all the sayings taken together reveal the figure of a fiery apocalyptic preacher of judgment, a teacher of bold, paradoxical, ethical insights, a man who felt himself to be the absolute Son of the absolute Father, the recipient of his Revelation (about the Kingdom of God). These themes we have treated elsewhere.41 In the course of our exploration we have hit two “snags” which call into question the validity of the whole enterprise: the pushing of Levis to mean a Levite; the interpreting of hebraidi dialekto (in Papias) to mean a Semitizing form of Greek. Let the reader decide if these two hypotheses are worthy of consideration or not. Further research needs to be done here. The hypotheses needed to support Q could remind one of the epicycles that the astronomer Ptolomy needed to “save the appearances,” until these epicycles were swept away by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. Yet the modern understanding of the planetary system is not simple either. The stakes are high and the struggle is justified if it helps us to arrive at a sharper understanding of our biblical sources concerning the teaching of the Baptist and Jesus.

“The Historical Jesus in the Doubly Attested Sayings: An Experiment,” RB 103 (1996): 367–410; repr. pages 21–63 in Trinity-Kingdom-Church (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001). 41 B. T.  Viviano,

Matthew 28:16–20 and the Nag Hammadi Library Reception of the Great Commission in the Sophia of Jesus Christ René Falkenberg 1. New Testament and Nag Hammadi Texts A variety of mainly Christian apocrypha are found in the Nag Hammadi Library.1 One of these is the Sophia of Jesus Christ (SJC), a revelation dialogue which relates questions and answers given between the risen Christ and his disciples on a Galilean mountain.2 In the prologue and epilogue of SJC, Matthew’s account of the Great Commission has been rewritten to transform it into a new text (SJC) that claims biblical authority, basing itself upon an already established and canonical Gospel writing (Matthew). Many other Nag Hammadi texts evidence dependency on the New Testament. A well-known example is the Gospel of Thomas which plays a prominent role in North-American biblical scholarship, especially in the quest to recreate the synoptic sayings source (Q). The question is whether a Coptic version of the Gospel of Thomas found in a fourth, or perhaps even fifth, century manuscript can bring us back to the pre-Gospel time of the New Testament or not.3 1 Even though this Library probably never functioned as a definitive collection, the heuristic designation ‘Nag Hammadi Library’ is preferable today, since its texts display similarities in language (Coptic), content, and general themes. The Library presently consists of the thirteen Nag Hammadi Codices (= NHC), Codex Tchacos (= CT), including the Gospel of Judas, Codex Berolinensis Gnosticus (= BG), including the Gospel of Mary, and also Codex Askewianus and Codex Brucianus. 2  SJC exists in two Coptic versions, the third text in BG (77,8–127,12) and the fourth in NHC III (90,14–119,18), and also is attested in a single Greek leaf from Oxyrhynchus (Pap. 1081). The primary text here will be the Coptic version in BG, since the one in NHC III lacks four pages (109–110; 115–116) and suffers from partial destruction of text in the last three pages (117–119). All translations of SJC are mine and based on the Coptic text in D. M. Parrott, Nag Hammadi Codices III,3–4 and V,1 with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502,3 and Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1081: Eugnostos and the Sophia of Jesus Christ (Leiden: Brill, 1991). As for ‘revelation dialogue’ as a specific genre, cf. Pheme Perkins, The Gnostic Dialogue: The Early Church and the Crisis of Gnosticism (New York: Paulist Press, 1980); J. Hartenstein, Die zweite Lehre: Erscheinungen des Auferstandenden als Rahmenerzählungen frühchristlicher Dialoge (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000). 3 Usually NHC are dated to the fourth century, but actually it is only the cartonnage from the cover of NHC VII (the Gospel of Thomas is from NHC II) that provides us with a secure dating: 348 C. E. as a terminus post quem; cf. J. W. B. Barns et al., Nag Hammadi Codices: Greek and Coptic Papyri from the Cartonnage of the Covers (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 3–5. With a view to Egyptian codex production in Antiquity, a fifth century dating of NHC becomes quite probable; cf. H. Lundhaug,

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The overarching problem with the Nag Hammadi texts is that they often appear severely rewritten in various contexts for different purposes.4 Thus, the modern scholar’s pursuit for an imaginary Greek original spun out of an extant Coptic version is in danger of becoming a distant phantom, hardly possible to reconstruct.5 Such methodological problems of rewriting and retrieving a hypothetical Greek original need to be considered seriously, including the case of the Gospel of ­Thomas.6 However, in the present context we will not deal with the tradition history of the New Testament, in respect to which Nag Hammadi writings only provide meager evidence. As for the reception history of the earliest Christian literature, though, the story is another one: The Nag Hammadi Library illustrates how the New Testament was understood, but probably not how it came into being. Back to SJC. A number of earlier studies have already dealt with literary connections between Matthew’s Great Commission and the present revelation dialogue.7 However, not all relevant parallels have been examined yet, in particular SJC’s reception of the Matthean baptismal formula (28:19b). Existing studies are too concise and reluctant to interpret the shared motifs in the broader context of SJC. We actually have a unique opportunity to study how the text of SJC arose, since two thirds of the revelation dialogue originate from Eugnostos the Blessed.8 We therefore are able to detect how SJC revises its Vorlage (Eugnostos) when re-using and applying New Testament material (mainly Matthew).9 Images of Rebirth: Cognitive Poetics and Transformational Soteriology in the Gospel of Philip and the Exegesis on the Soul (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 7–9. 4 This becomes clear when comparing double or multiple witnesses of a given text in the Library, e.g., the Apocryphon of John (NHC II,1; III,1; IV,1; BG,2), the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (NHC III,2; IV,2), and the First Apocalypse of James (NHC V,3; CT,2). 5 Cf. S. Emmel, “Religious Tradition, Textual Transmission, and the Nag Hammadi Codices,” in The Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years (ed. J. D. Turner and A. McGuire; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 40–1 (this reference was kindly provided by H. Lundhaug). 6 I am well aware that the Gospel of Thomas is witnessed in three Greek fragment pages from Oxyrhynchus (Pap. 1, 654, and 655) covering some twenty logia (or so), but generally these pages are in rather poor condition. If the legible Greek text is compared with the Coptic version in NHC II, we do not find verbatim correspondence: the texts are similar but not identical. 7 M.  Tardieu, Écrits Gnostiques: Codex de Berlin (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1984), 347–8; G. P. Luttikhuizen, “The Evaluation of the Teaching of Jesus in Christian Gnostic Revelation Dialogues,” in NovT 30 (1988): 158–68, esp. 165; Pasquier, Eugnoste. Lettre sur le dieu transcendant (NH III,3 et V,1): Commentaire (Québec: Les presses de l’Université Laval, 2010), 266 and 277; Hartenstein, Lehre, 38 n. 22, 57–8; and additionally she also refers to two more studies (58 n. 104): W.-D. Köhler, Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums in der Zeit vor Irenäus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1987), 400; A. Marjanen, The Woman Jesus Loved: Mary Magdalene in the Nag Hammadi Library and Related Documents (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 61. These two will not be used here, since the former studies fully cover their parallels. 8 Eugnostos (NHC III,3; V,1) is a letter, but also a Platonic-colored treatise that describes the highest gods and their dwelling places in the cosmos. It seems to be composed by a Jewish-Christian writer, probably originating early in the second century; cf. Pasquier, Eugnoste, 220–2; R. Falkenberg, Eugnostos the Blessed: An Exegetical Analysis and Interpretation of the Coptic Version in Nag Hammadi Codex III,3 (Aarhus: Faculty of Theology, 2010), 9–10. 9 Besides the Gospel of Matthew, SJC is dependent on other New Testament literature, especially the Gospel of John; cf. J. Hartenstein, Die zweite Lehre, 58–9; A. Pasquier, Eugnoste, e.g.,

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The present contribution primarily aims to detect and comment upon the revelation dialogue’s reception of Matt 28:16–20. Almost all parallels are found in SJC’s prologue and epilogue. Special attention is paid to the revelation dialogue’s reception of Matthew’s baptismal formula, since SJC seems to transform the Eugnostos text with a view to a special interpretation of the three deities of the Matthean baptismal formula.

2. Addressees and Temporal and Geographical Setting In the very first sentence both of SJC’s prologue and Matthew’s Great Commission, five parallels display a similar situation. These shared parallels are intended to point out the addressees (the disciples) and to situate the narratives in a specific time (post-resurrection) and place (the Galilean mountain): SJC: [1] After he rose from the dead, when his [2] twelve disciples and seven women who followed him as disciples [3] went up to [4] Galilee upon [5] the mountain designated Oracle and Joy … (BG 77,9–78,2) Matt: [1] But [2] the eleven disciples [3] went to [4] Galilee to [5] the mountain where Jesus had ordered them (to go). (28:16)

[Ad 1:] The first parallel deals with the temporal setting.10 That both texts are intended to describe the time after the resurrection of Jesus is explicitly stated in SJC (“After he rose from the dead”) and mentioned earlier in Matt 28:7 (“he has risen from the dead”). In Matthew, we are shown the conclusion and climax of the Gospel, upon which SJC intentionally seems to commence a new narrative.11 [Ad 2:] The second parallel concerns the number of disciples in the two texts.12 Matthew states that there are eleven, implicitly recalling the Judas story from Matt 27:3–5, whereas SJC extends the disciple number to twelve male and seven female disciples. The last two numbers seem to serve a cosmological speculation referring to astronomical circumstances: Twelve as a masculine number representing the sphere of the fixed stars (the zodiac) and the spiritual world, and seven as a feminine number representing the planetary spheres and the sense perceptible world. Thus, at the very beginning of SJC, the readers are brought to expect the cosmological speculation that follows in the revelation dialogue. Matthew is concerned with cosmology too, since the power of Christ reaches all of existence in Matt 28:18 (“all authority in heaven and on the earth”), but in SJC this theme is supplied with speculation on gender polarity as well.

250–3. Since the purpose here is to study the relationship between Matthew and SJC, most of the Johannine parallels can be left out. 10 Pasquier, Eugnoste, 266. 11 Hartenstein, Lehre, 58. 12 Hartenstein, Lehre, 57.

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[Ad 3–5:] The next three parallels deal with the topological setting: in both texts we hear of the disciples [3] as they are on the move to [4] the area of Galilee [5] in order to ascend a mountain.13 In Matthew, the Galilean mountain is determined as the place where Jesus earlier on “had ordered them (to go).”14 In SJC, the mountain is even provided with a title (“Oracle and Joy”), probably in order to promise jubilation to people who will come to comprehend the new cosmological oracle of Christ as it is presented in the rest of the revelation dialogue.15

3. Appearance of Christ and the Disciples’ Response The text immediately following reveals two more common parallels in SJC’s prologue and the Matthean epilogue. In Matthew, the focus is on the disciples who first see Jesus, then venerate him, and finally have doubts. In SJC, this sequence is changed in order to begin with the doubt, then the appearance of the Savior, and finally the divine nature of his manifestation, implicitly presenting him as worthy of veneration: SJC: … (His disciples) [6] thus being in doubt about the reality of the universe … about everything the Savior does with them in the mystery of the holy salvation plan, and then [7] the Savior appeared to them, not in his earlier form but in the invisible Spirit, and his likeness was the likeness of a great angel of light. (BG 78,2–17) Matt: And [7] having seen him they worshiped (him), but [6] they were (also) in doubt. (28:17)

[Ad 6:] Both texts present the disciples as doubtful.16 In Matthew, it is not clear what they are in doubt about. Probably not the divine status of Christ, owing to their worship of him, but rather their own position in a world now colored by the new experience of a risen Christ.17 At least such a suggestion is supported by the text of SJC, which explicitly mentions what the doubt of the disciples concerns (“everything the Savior does with them in the mystery of the holy salvation plan”) and, in addition, a central question concerning cosmology (“the reality of the universe”).18 The two main themes of the revelation dialogue are thus presented: 13 Tardieu, Écrits, 347–8 (= [4–5]); Hartenstein, Lehre, 57 (= [3–5]); Pasquier, Eugnoste, 266 (= [4–5]). 14 We hear that the women and disciples are urged to go to Galilee in Matt 28:7, 10, but not to any specific mountain. 15 In SJC, three doxologies underline the delightful reality of the saved person (BG 92,16–93,12; 100,16–102,[1]; 116,11–117,8). 16 Hartenstein, Lehre, 58. Even though different verbs express the doubt in Matthew (distazein) and SJC (aporein), their semantic meaning is similar. 17 Strengthening this interpretation is Christ’s following command to the disciples to baptize and make new disciples of all the nations (Matt 28:18–19). 18 This is underlined shortly after in a response of the disciples to a question posed by the Savior (“What are you in doubt about?”) answering, “About the reality of the universe and the salvation plan of the Savior” (BG 79,16–80,3).

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(1)  the salvation scheme concerning the Savior and his followers, and (2) the nature of the cosmos. These two are closely connected as will be attested below. [Ad 7:] The Matthean text simply states that his followers see and worship him, probably in a fashion similar to the earlier description of the women after they encounter the resurrected Christ in Matt 28:9 (“Jesus met them … and they … worshiped him”). The reason for the disciples’ veneration in Matthew owes to the fact that Jesus was once killed and buried, and now found alive again. This is implied in the other text as well, but SJC seems more interested in the specific appearance of the Savior and therefore stresses his transfiguration from the earthly plane (“his earlier form”) to the heavenly (“invisible Spirit / great angel of light”), indirectly recounting his divine appearance as truly praiseworthy too.19

4. Discipleship by Authoritative Teaching In the epilogue of the revelation dialogue the next passage parallels Matt 28:18–19, since they both deal with Christ’s instruction to his disciples and the divine authority on which it is based: SJC: (Savior:) [8] “I will teach everyone about God who is above everything. You, therefore, trample upon their tombs! And humiliate their providence! And break their yoke! [9] And wake up the person who belongs to me! [10] For I have given you the authority – as sons of light – over everything to trample upon their power.” (BG 126,3–16) Matt: And Jesus came forward and spoke to them saying: [10] “Unto me has been given all authority in heaven and on the earth. [9] Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations … 20 [8] teaching them to observe everything as I have commanded you.” (28:18–19)

[Ad 8:] The teaching of Jesus is central in both texts. It is given to all of humankind in Matthew (“teaching them [= all the nations]”) and in SJC as well (“I will teach everyone”). In Matthew, the teaching concerns the observance of Christ’s earlier commandments, most prominently presented in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5–7). In the revelation dialogue, it primarily concerns the nature of “God who is above everything,” a teaching evidently taken over from Eugnostos.21 But SJC also underlines observance of Christ’s commandments, since the following imperatives spell out what the disciples are to do in their Christian mission: Partake in battle against the wicked powers (“trample upon their tombs! And humiliate their providence! And break their yoke!”).22 19 It is notable that Christ here is presented as an angel (perhaps inspired by “an angel of the Lord” in Matt 28:2–3). Nevertheless, a similar kind of Christology is well-attested in the second and third centuries, e.g., Justin, Dial. 56.4; Origen, Cels. 7.25. In the present passage, SJC probably also relies on the transfiguration account of Matt 17:1–9; cf. Pasquier, Eugnoste, 266–267. 20 The baptismal formula is not cited here, since it will be analyzed below. 21 Cf. SJC BG 83,5–87,8; 88,19–89,20 = Eugnostos NHC III 71,13–74,12. 22 The human soul is restrained by these cosmological demons, elsewhere called “robbers” (BG 94,18–19; 104,12; 121,3.16–17) as an indication of their hitherto dominion over humankind.

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[Ad 9:] In Matthew, the disciples are urged to universal mission (“make disciples of all the nations”) baptizing all new Christ believers and teaching them his commandments. In SJC, the mission is presented, a bit peculiarly, as an order to awaken humankind (“wake up the person who belongs to me!”).23 But perhaps the expression is not all that unusual, since the Coptic verb here equals the Greek egeirein (“raise/wake up”) which is well-attested throughout the New Testament.24 The translation chosen here (“wake up”) owes to the fact that SJC considers all human souls, since the days of Adam, as hibernating in a mortal sleep that needs to be ended.25 [Ad 10:] Universal power is described as belonging to Jesus in both texts.26 In Matthew, Christ receives from God “all authority in heaven and on the earth” and probably bestows it on his disciples in their future mission according to Matt 28:20 (“I am with you always”). In SJC, his giving of authority to the disciples is explicitly stated (“I have given you the authority … over everything”), but as the two preceding parallels attest, the purpose of the divine power in SJC is twofold: compared to Matthew, the first parallel ([8]) is new and intends to assure divine authority to the disciples in their battle against the evil cosmological powers (“trample upon their power”); in accordance with Matthew, however, the second parallel ([9]) aims to enable the disciples to missionary activity by the awakening of humankind.27

5. Eschatological Divine Presence The following two parallels deal with Matt 28:20 and a sentence retrieved neither in the prologue nor the epilogue but in the corpus of SJC: SJC: (Savior:) “… and they (= Christians) might wake up from oblivion through [11] the Interpreter who was sent and who is [12] with you until the end of the poverty of the robbers.” (BG 94,14–19) Matt: “And behold, [11] I am [12] with you always until the end of the aeon.” (28:20b)

[Ad 11:] The speaking Jesus in Matthew (“I”) is in SJC the same as “the Interpreter,” since he is the one who awakens humankind from its oblivion sleep.28 In the revelation dialogue, “the Interpreter who was sent” echoes themes found in the Lehre, 58. Matthew, e.g., 1:24 (“wake up”); 11:5 (“raise (from the dead)”). 25 R. Falkenberg, “The Salvation System in the Sophia of Jesus Christ: An Example of Textual Reuse,” in The Discursive Fight over Religious Texts in Antiquity (ed. A.-C. Jacobsen; Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2008), 119–32, esp. 124–7. 26 Hartenstein, Lehre, 58; Pasquier, Eugnoste, 266. 27 The four imperatives in SJC (“You, therefore, trample upon their tombs! And humiliate their providence! And break their yoke! And wake up the person who belongs to me!”) might be a reminiscence of Matt 10:8 (“Heal the sick! Raise the dead! Cleanse lepers! Cast out demons!”), that is if worldly sickness and death are considered the work of demons in Matthew as well. 28 Hartenstein, however, is hesitant to identify the “Interpreter” with Christ; cf. Lehre, 38 n. 22. 23 Hartenstein, 24 In

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Gospel of John, especially with regard to the Paraclete figure who will teach the disciples everything (John 14:16) and the Johannine emissary motif, also attested in Matt 10:40 (“the one who receives me receives him who sent me”). [Ad 12:] That Christ is “with” his disciples functions in both texts to emphasize that they have a share in his divine authority.29 Here, Jesus joins his disciples “until the end of ” either “the poverty of the robbers” (SJC) or “the aeon” (Matt), where both refer to the dire state of the earthly world: in Matthew, we earlier heard that worldly power is Satan’s to give (Matt 4:8–9), indicating that it is under his dominion. In SJC, the demonic powers (“the robbers”) already control the sense-perceptible world which therefore is characterized as deficient (“poverty”).30 This cosmological statement brings us further to the description of the divine hierarchies in Eugnostos and SJC.

6. Divine Pantheon in Eugnostos and SJC The mythological hierarchy of the revelation dialogue depends on the original fivefold pantheon of Eugnostos that consists of (1) the transcendent God, (2) the Father, (3) the Man, (4) the Son of Man, and (5) the Savior. The text primarily focuses on God and the Man who represents all of humanity.31 But since Eugnostos displays an absolutely transcendent God, a direct connection between God and humankind poses a serious difficulty. To solve such a problem of transcendence, the three other mythological gods function to mediate divine correlation (through the Father) and spiritual salvation to humanity (through the Son of Man and the Savior). These three mediators probably represent different aspects of the Christ figure.32 Important here is the second deity (the Father), who is presented both as creator (in order to safeguard the transcendence of God) and as the first image of God (in order to represent saved humankind). SJC takes over this hierarchy from Eugnostos, but reduces it to a triadic pantheon.33 (1) Now the highest God is supplied with the Spirit as his creative aspect (BG 87,15–88,18), making SJC far less sensitive to the philosophical problem of 29 Luttikhuizen,

“Evalution,” 165. also BG 104,3–4 (“the entire world (kosmos) in poverty”). It has been argued that the sense perceptible world in SJC compares to descriptions of Hell; cf. C. Barry, La Sagesse de Jésus-Christ (NH III,4; BG,3): Texte établi, traduit et commenté (Québec: Les presses de l’Université Laval, 1993), 269; Pasquier, Eugnoste, 249–50. The idea that the earthly world is understood as the Underworld might originate from Origen (Princ. 3.5.4; 4.3.10–11; Comm. in John 6.35.174–177); cf. M. Peel, “Introduction to VII,4: The Teachings of Silvanus,” Nag Hammadi Codex VII (ed., B. A. Pearson; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 249–76, esp. 265. 31 Falkenberg, Eugnostos, 167. 32 Falkenberg, Eugnostos, 17. Accordingly, I have voted for a Christian origin of Eugnostos, cf. Tardieu, Écrits, 65–6; Pasquier, Eugnoste, 182–6; Falkenberg, Eugnostos, 8. For a non-Christian origin of the text, cf. Parrott, Nag Hammadi, 9–16; Hartenstein, Lehre, 331. 33 This triadic structure is best witnessed in the BG version of SJC; cf. Falkenberg, “Salvation,” 119–22. 30 Cf.

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transcendence dealt with in Eugnostos. (2) Since creative activity in Eugnostos was the prime function of the Father, not of the Spirit, SJC needs to redefine the role of the Father. This is done by applying to him a twofold paradigmatic anthropology: in both texts he functions as an archetype for saved humankind, but since SJC merges the Father and the Man, he comes to serve as an archetype for fallen humanity too.34 (3) As originally was the case in Eugnostos, the Son of Man and the Savior in SJC are also presented as Christ figures, both of them explicitly designated “Christ.”35 The most important difference between the two mythological pantheons therefore concerns the Father. In Eugnostos, he serves a Christological purpose that is no longer extant in the revelation dialogue, since SJC instead amplifies his paradigmatic twofold function: he now becomes a double archetype of saved and fallen humanity, basically echoing an Adam figure that represents both the pre‑ and the post-lapsarian condition of humankind. In line with the two aforementioned main themes of SJC, knowledge of this new role of the Father in his anthropological double function constitutes the higher teaching of the text: the first main theme, “the holy salvation plan” (BG 78,10–11), concerns the annulment of the state of fallen humanity in order to reestablish the condition of saved humankind as it originally was in Paradise.36 This main theme deals with salvation determined by temporal categories, whereas the second main theme, “the reality of the universe” (BG 78,3–4), understands salvation in spatial terms. This brings us to a ritualistic passage that concerns cosmology.

7. Cosmos and Ritual in SJC Before we move on to the analysis of SJC’s ascension ritual, we need to know how the revelation dialogue maps the universe, since this ritual displays two separate levels of salvation in two different cosmological dwellings which the reader is enabled to attain. In the superior cosmological places exist the Father and saved humanity in divine light and eternal bliss standing face to face with God (BG 90,15–92,9), accordingly representing the highest level of salvation. Just underneath these superior dwellings exists a space called “Church (ekklēsia), the manifested Eighth” (BG 111,6–8) representing a lower kind of salvation.37 Even further below in the inferior world, the Father roams in his aspect as Man, who represents all of fallen humankind, being chained there and therefore in dire need of salvation by agency 34 Falkenberg,

“Salvation,” 122–4. BG 101,7–9; 106,11–12. 36 “Therefore I came here, so that they will be fertilized with that Spirit and the breath and from two become one and the same (cf. Gen 2:24) as from the beginning” (BG 122,6–12). 37 The “Eighth” is a cosmological term that refers to the eighth sphere of a concentric cosmos, where it exists above the seven spheres of the planets and below the twelve signs of the zodiac. 35 E.g.,

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of the Christ figure (BG 121,13–17).38 In a soteriological perspective, then, SJC maps a tripartite cosmos: First, the highest place of salvation; second, a space just underneath representing a lower salvation in the Church/Eighth; third, the earthly world where the inhabitants are in need of salvation. In the following ascension ritual the reader is promised these different degrees of salvation in the higher cosmos following an epistemology where four criteria of knowledge (each marked by an identical formula: “he who knows”) determine which of two cosmological levels the reader is able to reach. The first two criteria deal with knowledge concerning the Father: (Savior:) “Now, he who knows the Father in holy knowledge will go to the Father and repose in the Unborn Father (= God), but he who knows him (= the Father) deficiently will come to be deficient and repose in the Eighth.” (BG 123,2–10)

As was demonstrated above, the higher teaching is characterized by knowledge of the Father’s anthropological double function. If the reader is aware of his function (“he who knows the Father in holy knowledge”), the first epistemological criterion promises the highest kind of salvation with rest and existence in the highest heavenly region of God, who here is called “the Unborn Father” in order to differentiate him from the Father. If the reader does not know the double function of the Father (“he who knows him deficiently”), the second criterion promises a lower degree of salvation with rest and existence in the region of the Eighth (Church). So, knowledge of the Father as an archetype for saved and fallen humanity brings higher salvation in the superior places of the universe, but notice here that even if the reader “will come to be deficient” – not possessing this higher teaching, SJC still leaves the door open to lower salvation in the Church. Identical salvation levels are found in the last two of the criteria of knowledge where emphasis is put on the reader’s ability to bring forth certain symbols: (Savior:) “But he who knows the immortal Spirit … let him bring me symbols of the invisible (Spirit) and he will come to be light in the Spirit of silence. He who knows the Son of Man … let him bring me a symbol of the Son of Man and he will come to be in that place together with those in the Eighth.” (BG 123,11–124,9)

The third epistemological criterion (“he who knows the immortal Spirit”) refers to the highest salvation, since “Spirit” and “light” are associated with God and the highest regions in the cosmos (BG 119,2–7). The precise meaning of the “symbols (hensymbolon) of the invisible (Spirit)” that should be brought to the Savior is not clear.39 But the one and same spiritual principle (“immortal Spirit / 38 Falkenberg,

“Salvation,” 122.

39 In a ritualistic context, symbolon is attested from initiation ceremonies of contemporary mys-

tery cults; cf. J. D. N. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (3rd ed.; London: Longman, 1972), 55–6. A close parallel to SJC is found in Origen’s description of an Ophite ascension ritual, where the initiate is meant to pass through each “gate” (pylē) of the seven heavens by “bringing a symbol” (symbolon epipherōn) to each of the seven demonic gatekeepers (Cels. VI.31; cf. Greek text in P. Koetschau,

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invisible (Spirit) / Spirit of silence”) connects God with the resurrected Christ as “the invisible Spirit” (BG 78,14–15) and also with the Christian reader (“he will come to be light in the Spirit”). So, armed with the divine Spirit, the reader now is enabled to imitate the Savior in his fight against the evil powers of the lower cosmos (BG 121,15–122,3). Thus, the imperatives encountered above urging the reader to partake in battle against the demonic robbers (“You, therefore, trample upon their tombs! And humiliate their providence! And break their yoke!”) might refer to specific symbolic actions performed in a ritual where the reader proves participation in and allegiance to the liberating work of Christ.40 Since the fourth criterion (“He who knows the Son of Man”) only mentions one “symbol” (ousymbolon), we possibly have a reference to Christian baptism here.41 Bringing “a symbol of the Son of Man” allows the initiate access to “the Eighth” and could be a token of Church membership, since early Christianity not only attests baptism in the name of Father, Son, and Spirit, but also baptism in the single name of Christ.42 In SJC we have “symbol” and not “name,” but the immediately following sentence actually mentions a divine name as central to the Savior’s teaching.

8. Ritual and Name As a concluding remark of the ascension ritual, SJC presents a specific name, which here will be compared to Matthew’s presentation of baptism in the divine tripartite name: SJC: (Savior:) “I have taught you the name of the Perfect One … so that the male crowd might be perfected here.” (BG 124,9–16)43 Matt: (Jesus:) “… baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit …” (28:19b) Origenes Werke: Zweiter Band: Buch V-VIII Gegen Celsus. Die Schrift vom Gebet (Leipzig: Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1899). But an identical ascension is not found in SJC, since the Savior already has destroyed the heavenly “gates” (mpylē) of the evil powers (BG 121,18–122,2), thus making an unrestrained ascension possible. 40 Perhaps a ritual where the initiate destroys (“trample upon / humiliate / break”) cultic objects associated with demonic imagery (“tombs/providence/yoke”). 41 Tardieu, Écrits, 399; Barry, Sagesse, 272–3. 42 Cf. Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5. Even at the time of Eusebius we find attestation of baptism performed in the name of Christ only; cf. F. C. Conybeare, “The Eusebian form of the Text Matth. 28,19” in ZNW 2 (1901): 275–88. Following Conybeare’s article, scholars have discussed whether the threefold name of the Matthean baptismal formula was authentic or not, cf. K. M. Hartvigsen, “Matthew 28:9–20 and Mark 16:9–20: Different Ways of Relating Baptism to the Joint Mission of God, John the Baptist, Jesus, and their Adherents,” in Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity (vol. 1; ed. D. Hellholm et al.; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), 655–715, esp. 657–9. 43 An alternative word division in the Coptic text changes the translation to: “so that the male crowd might be washed here”’; cf. Parrott, Nag Hammadi, 175. Such a translation is impossible in the other SJC version; cf. NHC III 118,6.

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At first sight, SJC’s triadic pantheon (God, Father, and Son) seems foreign to the triadic name of Matt 28:19b, due to the anthropological double function of the Father, since he functions as an Adam figure and not as God the Father from the Bible.44 At second sight, dependence on the three divinities of the Matthean baptism formula nevertheless is attested, since they all play a key role in the ritual of the revelation dialogue: “Father” (Matt) = “Unborn Father” (SJC); “Son” (Matt) = “Son of Man” (SJC), elsewhere called “Son of God” (BG 99,8–9); “holy Spirit” (Matt) = “immortal Spirit / invisible (Spirit) / Spirit of silence” (SJC). In addition, a baptism ritual might be hinted at in the fourth epistemological criterion (“let him bring me a symbol of the Son of Man”), but then only in the name of Christ. So, if the identity of “the Perfect One” (teleios) proves to be the Savior in SJC, then the argument is strengthened for a baptismal context of “the name of the Perfect One” as (baptism in) the name of Christ. This is confirmed throughout the revelation dialogue.45 Knowledge of the name of the perfect Savior also brings readers potential perfection (“the male crowd might be perfected”).46 But why does the revelation dialogue display such a preference for masculinity? As was indicated in the prologue of SJC with the twelve male and seven female disciples (BG 77,11–15), gender and numbers in SJC are affiliated with cosmological speculation. The twelve male disciples come to signify the highest salvation in the superior places of the cosmos, also called the “Twelve Aeons” (BG 107,5–8), whereas the seven females imply the fallen state of humankind in the sense perceptible world, also called “Seventh” (BG 109,1–3). Since the Church is designated “Eighth” (BG 111,6–7), it comes to function as a Zwischenreich between the masculine Twelve Aeons and the feminine Seventh.47 And as such the Eighth / Church is described partly as male and female (BG 111,7–112,2). This notion of male and female is not according to physical gender, but to be understood in line with the tradition from Antiquity where heavenly, noetic, and spiritual realities were characterized by masculinity, whereas earth, sense perception, and body were characterized by femininity. So, “the male crowd” probably represents elite Church members thought to be capable of reaching the highest level of salvation in the spiritual domain of the highest cosmos. According to SJC, these Christians are able to transcend the deficient nature of the double-gendered Church in order to be part of a higher reality characterized by masculinity. Here, the revelation dialogue appears to operate with 44 Probably inspired by Pauline Adam-Christ speculation; cf. Falkenberg, “Salvation,” 130–1. Additionally it has been argued that not only is an Adam-Christ speculation at work in SJC, but also an Eve-Mary typology; cf. C.  Barry, “Anthropogonie gnostique et typologie paulinienne dans la Sagesse de Jésus-Christ (NH III,4 et Berolinensis Gnosticus,3)” in Le Muséon 107 (1994): 283–97. 45 In fact, the preferred title of Christ is “the perfect (teleios) Savior”; cf. BG 86,9; 87,12; 90,3–4; 93,16; 100,9–10; 102,14–15; 106,14–15; 107,17–18; 114,18–115,1; 117,18–118,1 (ten times). 46 Perhaps SJC here paraphrases the enigmatic saying from Matt 5:48 (“Therefore, be perfect as your Father in the heavens is perfect”). 47 Cf. n. 37.

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a realized eschatological scheme, since the elite Christians are described as active in the physical world (“the male crowd might be perfected here”), which means in the existing Church.

9. Conclusions The revelation dialogue was probably originally composed to preserve the teaching of Eugnostos. In this process recognizable Matthean motifs were incorporated to make SJC appear authoritative and attractive to educated Christians. By paraphrasing motifs from the Great Commission in the opening words of the revelation dialogue, the narrative of SJC was presented as a continuation of the narrative in the Matthean epilogue. It has been suggested that the revelation dialogue was composed with an eye to Matt 28:16–20 to present itself as a continuation of that Gospel on a higher level.48 This is confirmed by the analysis of the epistemological criteria in SJC, where two separate salvation levels were presented: the highest salvation was accessible for elite Christians with knowledge of the Father’s anthropological double function. The lower salvation was available to Christians with a wrong conception of the Father, probably thought to be those of the emerging mainstream Church who still relied on the ordinary Gospel teaching as it was found, for instance, in Matthew. So, one could say that SJC was intended to be a Gospel of Matthew version two for educated Christians. Since the pentadic pantheon of Eugnostos was conformed to a recognizable triadic system in accordance with the three divinities of the Matthean baptismal formula and was developed even further in the revelation dialogue, we are presented with an argument for a terminus post quem of the text. Trinitarian speculations emerged late in the second century and were to be widely discussed in the following centuries as the Christian regula and Creeds attest. So, the author of SJC probably rewrote Eugnostos late in the second century. However, we still need to be aware that the text transmission of the Nag Hammadi writings was rather fluid, so that later authors might have incorporated thematic content from the third century and beyond.49

Die zweite Lehre, 58 and 62. n. 30 (Origen).

48 Hartenstein, 49 Cf.

The Patristic Reception of the Gospel of Matthew The Commentary of Jerome and the Sermons of John Chrysostom Peter Widdicombe 1. Introduction There is a marked imbalance in Patristic writings on the Gospels. The two most frequently commented and preached on in a systematic and comprehensive way were Matthew and John, while there was no such work on Mark at all. Why Mark should have been neglected in this way is uncertain, but the modern notion that Matthew and Luke were dependent on Mark was unknown to the Fathers. For them, Matthew was the first of the Gospels to be written and all four Gospels were in harmony with each other, telling one and the same story. It may have been that it simply was assumed that what was said in Mark was said with greater amplitude and theological weight by the other evangelists and that there was no need to deal with it itself. As we shall see, both Chrysostom and Jerome give evidence of holding such a view. That is not to say that passages from Mark were not discussed, but these discussions most often are found woven into the commentaries and sermons on the other Gospels and other books of the Bible. The two most important sustained treatments of Matthew that survive in their entirety from the period are the commentary of Jerome (340–420) written in 3981 and the sermons of John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407) preached in 390.2 The two authors lay out their approaches to the interpretation of the Gospel in their respective introductions and it is with the introductions that this study mainly will be concerned. But to put their works into context, it would be helpful to give a brief account of the history of the interpretation of the Gospel in the period before them.3 The Didache demonstrates knowledge of the Gospel, Justin Martyr cites it, as does Irenaeus frequently. The earliest known systematic commentary on the Gospel, and not surprisingly the longest by far – it consisted of twenty-five books – was that by Origen, the great Alexandrian interpreter, written in the 240s. 1 St. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew (trans. T. P. Scheck; The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation; Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 15. 2 W.  Mayer, The Homilies of St John Chrysostom  – Provenance: Reshaping the Foundations (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2005), 176–8; 223. 3 The outline that follows is based on the survey of M. Simonetti, “Introduction to Matthew,” in Matthew 1–13 (ed. M. Simonetti; Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter Varsity Press, 2001), xxxvii–xlix.

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Only books 10 through 17 of the work, which cover Matt 13:36 to 22:33, have survived.4 Jerome tells us in the Preface to his commentary that in addition to the twenty-five books of Origen, he also has read “just as many” of Origen’s sermons on the Gospel and “a sort of verse-by-verse interpretation” of it,5 but these do not survive. Origen’s commentary, also not surprisingly, had an enormous influence on subsequent writers on Matthew, even on those whose feelings about Origen’s theology and his approach to the reading of Scripture were ambivalent. This was certainly true of Jerome and we shall have occasion to refer to Origen’s commentary as we proceed. The first commentary in the Latin tradition, written a century later than Origen’s commentary, was that of Hilary of Poitiers. It is in only one book, and while Hilary provides lengthy explanations of some passages, he only hints at an explanation for others or passes over them completely.

2. Jerome and Chrysostom In addition to the Commentary on Matthew, Jerome wrote commentaries on many of the books of the Hebrew Bible and several of the Pauline letters, and he is of course famous for his translation of the Vulgate Bible. He is the only Patristic author to have commented on all the books of the major and minor prophets. He valued both the literal sense of Scripture and the allegorical. In his respect for the literal sense, he appears to have been influenced by the Antiochenes, perhaps particularly by Apollinarius with whom he studied during his second stay in Antioch. Many of his allegorical readings Jerome took directly from Origen.6 Chrysostom was a deacon and priest in Antioch and in 398 was appointed patriarch of Constantinople. He was one of the most prolific and influential exegetes of the early church. His primary role, both in Antioch and Constantinople, was as a preacher, and most of his important treatments of Scripture, which include Genesis, the Psalms, Isaiah, Acts, and the Pauline epistles, as well as Matthew, occur in sets of sermons. His great rhetorical skills, which are patent in his sermons on Matthew, earned him the sobriquet Chrysostom, “golden mouth.” Both he and his friend Theodore, later bishop of Mopsuestia, also one of the leading interpreters of Scripture in the Patristic period, were students of Diodore of Tarsus. It was from Diodore that Chrysostom learned to attend to the textual and historical detail of the text.7 Jerome’s commentary, which consists of four books, was composed, as he explains in the Preface to the work, in a two week period to provide his friend and disciple, Eusebius of Cremona, with reading material to while away his time on a 4 There

are also over 500 fragments, which deal with verses from Matt 1:1–13:35 and Matt 28. Commentariorum in Matheum Libri IV (ed. D.  Hurst and M.  Adriaen; Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), pref. 91–3. 6 The standard biography is that of J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London: Duckworth, 1975). 7 The standard biography again is that of J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom, Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995). 5 Jerome,

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long sea journey. Shortness of time, Jerome explains, is why he has made little reference to earlier commentators on the Gospel.8 His commentary is rather shorter than the work of his Greek contemporary, running for just over 200 pages in the Migne edition (PL 26), half that of Chrysostom. It shows signs of having been written in haste. Some of the explanations of the text are barely longer than the text itself, and the interpretation as a whole could not be called systematic.9 Nevertheless, for our purposes, it sets up a nice contrast with the sermons of Chrysostom, Jerome representing, at something of a remove, the Alexandrian tradition of biblical interpretation, and Chrysostom the Antiochene. Chrysostom’s sermons on the Gospel are ninety in number, delivered while he was still a presbyter at Antioch.10 They are lengthy, the collection running for almost 400 pages in the Migne edition (PG 57, 58). They encompass in a continuous manner the whole of the Gospel and are tightly interconnected, which suggests that they were preached in a short period of time.11 Traditionally, scholars had argued for a sharp division between the two traditions, the Alexandrian having been perceived to have engaged in the allegorical approach to scriptural interpretation in order to determine the spiritual sense of the text, and the Antiochene to have engaged in a literal, historical approach. In recent scholarship, however, it has been argued that the differences are not as great as used to be thought. While on the one hand the Antiochenes engaged in theological and moral speculation, what they referred to as θεωρία, “discernment,” by which one could come to the spiritual sense of the text, the Alexandrians on the other, were not arbitrary in their allegorical readings, the structure and content of a passage acting as controls for their interpretation.12 Nevertheless, as we shall see, when we look at their actual exegesis, differences are readily apparent – at least, certainly, this is true of the two interpreters under consideration here.

3. Principles of Interpretation 3.1 The Introduction to Jerome’s Commentary The differences between Jerome’s and Chrysostom’s approaches to the interpretation of Matthew become evident in the introductions to their respective works, Matt., Pref. 84–120. a general assessment of the commentary, see Simonetti, “Introduction to Matthew,” xliv–v, who concludes that Jerome succeeded in the task set for him by Eusebius: to explain Matthew briefly and concisely (Comm. Matt. Pref. 86–87). 10 Mayer, The Homilies, 176–8; 223. 11 Simonetti, “Introduction to Matthew,” xlvii. 12 The most extensive recent treatment of approaches to the interpretation of Scripture in the Patristic period is that of F. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Transformation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); see also J. J. O’Keefe and R. R. Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2005).  8 Comm.  9 For

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in Chrysostom’s case, the first sermon in the series. The Preface to Jerome’s commentary is much briefer than Chrysostom’s introductory sermon. Nonetheless, Jerome succeeds in giving his readers a reasonably clear sense of how he intends to approach the interpretation of the Gospel. Like Chrysostom, not surprisingly, Jerome regards the text as divinely inspired, but unlike Chrysostom, he does not discuss the question. All he says is that the authors of the various apocryphal Gospels he lists at the beginning of the Preface were without the “Spirit” and the “grace of God,” and so “tried to tell a story (ordinare narrationem) rather than to compose historical truth (historiae texere veritatem).”13 As we have already noted, Jerome appears to be defensive about the quality of his Commentary, which in part he blames on his not having had time to re-read earlier works on Matthew. There are two points to observe about this apology. The first, which we touched on above, is what it tells us about his attitude to what Origen had written on the Gospel, and the other is what he says it has meant for the kind of interpretation he has produced. The two are connected. Jerome begins his list of the previous commentators on Matthew with a seemingly disingenuous statement about his use of Origen. Early in his career, he had translated several of Origen’s writings into Latin and praised Origen’s approach to the reading of Scripture. But during the Origenist controversy, which ran from 393–402, Jerome disavowed his one-time hero and in his later writings labored to distance himself from Origen. In his Commentary on Zechariah of 406, for example, he is critical of Origen and Didymus, complaining that “all the exegesis” of Didymus, and we may assume of Origen too, as he is mentioned in the passage, “was allegorical and scarcely touched upon a few things connected with history.”14 Nevertheless, Jerome continued to draw on Origen’s exegetical works in his later commentaries, albeit a little more cautiously than he had in his earlier works. The Commentary on Matthew was written about a year after the resolution of the first phase of the Origenist controversy and shortly before the outbreak of the second. In the introduction to the commentary, he coyly remarks that it was “very many years ago” that he read Origen on Matthew.15 The thing is, however, that his commentary is littered with word for word reproductions of Origen’s comments on the Gospel and it seems improbable that his reading of the Alexandrian master had been all that long ago,16 which brings us to the second observation. Jerome, unlike Chrysostom, makes an explicit statement about his interpretive approach to the interpretation of Matthew. Toward the end of the Preface, he says that he has composed an “historical interpretation” (historicam interpretationem), which, he remarks, is what Eusebius had principally wanted.17 Jerome uses the Matt., Pref. 11–3. Zech., Prol. 748, in Jerome, Commentarii in Prophetas Minores (ed. M.  Adriaen; Turnhout: Brepols, 1970). 15 Comm. Matt., Pref. 91. 16 See the comment of Scheck in St. Jerome, Commenary on Matthew, 56, n. 48. 17 Comm. Matt., Pref. 105–6. 13 Comm.

14 Comm.

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phrase “historical interpretation” frequently throughout his writings, without giving it a precise definition, to designate the literal sense of the text. It describes the biblical narratives or other narratives of past events. Here, in the Preface to the Commentary on Matthew, he contrasts “history” with “spiritual understanding.” As he explains, into “the history,” he has “intermingled the flowers of spiritual understanding (spiritalis intellegentiae).”18 Secundum intellegantiam spiritatem is Jerome’s favourite phrase for what the Alexandrians referred to as allegory. He also uses the phrase secundum mysticos intellectum for the same purpose. For instance, on Matt 5:39–40, after explaining the literal sense of the saying “if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the other one also” by reference to Ps 7:4 and Lam 3:27–30, he continues with the spiritual meaning, that is, the meaning “secundum mysticos intellectum”: which is, when a heretic attacks Christians with his arguments in order “to wound right doctrine (dextrum dogma),” they are to refute him with scriptural teachings until the heretic becomes weary.19 He also uses the term allegoria itself to indicate the spiritual sense of the text, and the word altior, “higher” or “deeper,” also appears in such contexts, as we shall see.20 Having laid out the contrast between the two kinds of interpretation, Jerome then goes on to explain that had he had time – and he hopes he will in the future – he would have given a spiritual interpretation of the Gospel to a greater extent. As it is, using an image found throughout his works, he laments that only “the foundations have been laid” and the “walls partially constructed.” What is needed still is a “very beautiful roof,” presumably, to mix Jerome’s images, a roof made up of “flowers of spiritual understanding.”21 3.2 Chrysostom’s First Sermon Chrysostom, broadly speaking, sets out two subjects in his introductory sermon – on the one hand, the need for the careful reading of Scripture and, on the other, the equally important need to bring one’s life into conformity with its teachings. Indeed, the two for him are interrelated. His approach to biblical interpretation turns, as it did for the Antiochenes generally, on two hermeneutical principles, συγκατάβασις, that is, “condescension,” or as it has been recently translated, “considerateness,” and, ἀκρίβεια, that is, “accuracy” or “precision.”22 In the biblical writings, God had “condescended” to speak to human beings through human language and to tailor the writings to the level of the human comprehension at the time. Although Chrysostom does not actually use the term συγκατάβασις in Matt., Pref. 105–7. Matt. 1.5.40. 20 On Jerome’s interpretation of Scripture and the terms that he used for both the literal and the spiritual sense of the text, see D. Brown, Vir Trilinguis: A Study in the Biblical Exegesis of Saint Jerome (Kampen, NLD: Kok Pharos, 1992), passim. 21 Comm. Matt., Pref. 108–11. 22 See the discussion in R. C. Hill, Reading the Old Testament in Antioch (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 35–9. 18 Comm. 19 Comm.

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the introductory sermon on Matthew, he does make it clear that the very writing down of God’s address to human beings is an accommodation to humankind’s sinful condition. Before Moses, God had spoken directly to the saints of the Old Testament, those whose lives were so pure that their hearts were inscribed with the Holy Spirit, and the same was true of the saints of the New Testament,23 who, as Chrysostom explains, “carried the Spirit around in their minds.”24 But the immorality of the Hebrew people, and, by implication, that of the early Christians, necessitated the committing of what the Spirit had told them to the written word.25 Matthew was one of the saints, who, “filled with the Spirit, wrote what he wrote.” His trade as a tax collector, and indeed the trades of the other writers of the Gospels, rather than being cause for shame, simply are a particular indication of the “grace of the Spirit” and the “virtue” of the authors.26 Chrysostom’s second principle, also typical of Antiochene exegesis, as we noted above, is that of ἀκρίβεια, “precision” or “accuracy.” Inasmuch as the biblical text is inspired, it can be relied on to be “precise” in all its details. Every word, every syllable was intended and conveys specific meaning. In this first sermon, Chrysostom does not use the term ἀκρίβεια of the text of Scripture itself, but he does elsewhere in the series. In Sermon 4, for instance, he remarks that Matthew set down the genealogy with “accuracy”;27 and in Sermon 66, as we shall see below, he twice observes that Zechariah had prophesied Christ’s entry into Jerusalem with great “accuracy.”28 Chysostom does use ἀκρίβεια in the first sermon, however, with reference to the reader of Scripture. He counsels that the reader is to give “precise” attention to the text, for what the evangelist had written was not his own but Christ’s,29 and he repeatedly emphasizes in the sermon how important it is that his audience stay awake and pay attention during the sermons that are to come.30 Inasmuch as God has given the church a written text, a second chance, so to speak, it is incumbent on the faithful not to treat it with neglect. For, as Chrysostom informs his listeners here, and often elsewhere in his writings, Scripture was not set forth “without purpose and at random.”31 Chrysostom himself in the subsequent sermons does just what he exhorts his audience to do. He begins each with a detailed exposition of the next passage in the sequence of the book, with comments linking the sermon to previous ones. He focuses on the flow and logic of a passage, on key terms, and on the historical meaning of central concepts at the time of the book’s writing, from time to time reflecting on their doctrinal significance. He then turns to application, moralizing, Chrysostom, Homiliae in Matthaeum, PG 57:13–4. Matt., PG 57:15. 25 Hom. Matt., PG 57:13–4. 26 Hom. Matt., PG 57:15. 27 Hom. Matt., PG 57:19. 28 Hom. Matt., PG 57:411–2. 29 Hom. Matt., PG 57:14, 20. 30 Hom. Matt., PG 57:21, 22, 23–4. 31 Hom. Matt., PG 57:14–5. 23 John

24 Hom.

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and exhortation, in which he addresses his audience directly, though sometimes these comments are interspersed with the exegetical discussions. Some of the applications arise naturally from the text and some do not; often they are extensive and take on a life of their own, bearing little relation to the passages under consideration. The last forty percent of the sermon on the Temptations, for instance, is given to application. The themes that recur in this part of the sermons are the Christian obligation to give alms, the necessity of avoiding avarice, and the need to be devoted to spiritual things, rather than to the things of the world. Such practices as attendance at the theatre and the races are among the activities that come in for particular censure.32 Unlike Jerome, Chrysostom does not make an explicit statement in the first sermon of the kind of interpretation he intends to give the text. Nevertheless, we can catch a glimpse of how he will proceed. He refers to the Gospel of Matthew as ἡ ἱστορία, “the history,” which Matthew has called “good news.”33 In his comments a little later, on the difference between the Synoptic Gospels and John, he appears to make a contrast between “the history,” which seemingly refers to the account of the three, and the Gospel of John. The three, he explains, deal with the “economy,” the time of the divine activity within the created order, specifically the time of the incarnation, whereas the Fourth Gospel deals with the “godhead.” The three start from below, the Fourth from above, and this characterizes the Fourth throughout.34 Chrysostom does not explain what he means by “history” here, though often elsewhere he uses it to describe a narrative of events and their explanation, as we shall see. Scholars customarily maintain that an emphasis on “history” is typical of the Antiochenes, as is their paired emphasis on “discernment.” “History,” the literal sense of the text, Diodore had opined, was the necessary and controlling basis for the reaching of “discernment,” the spiritual meaning of a text, a meaning which, to be legitimate, had to be shown to mirror the literal sense. Allegorical interpretations, by contrast, were, according to Diodore, the foolish imaginings of its practitioners and abusive of the literal sense of the text.35 Chrysostom does not refer to “discernment” in the context of the introduction, though he does with seeming hermeneutical intent occasionally later in the series; and it appears that Chrysostom does not make a contrast specifically between “history” and “discernment” anywhere in the series. There is, however, an example of him contrasting “history” with the term ἀναγωγή, the “anagogical sense,” of which Diodore approved,36 and which the Antiochenes tended to treat as a synonym for “discernment.” Echoing his teacher Diodore, Chrysostom himself makes it 32 See the discussion in M. Mitchell, “John Chrysostom,” in Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters (ed. D. K. McKim; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2007), 572. 33 Hom. Matt., PG 57:16. 34 Hom. Matt., PG 57:17. 35 Diodore of Tarsus, Diodori Tarsensis commentarii in Psalmos, 1: Commentarius in Psalmos I-L (ed. J.-M. Olivier; Turnhout: Brepols, 1980), Prol. 123–46. 36 loc. cit.

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clear in his Commentary on the Psalms 147 that an “anagogical” approach to the interpretation of a text may be used, provided that it does not do “violence to the historical sense.”37 In Sermon 28, on the story of the Gadarene demoniacs of Matt 8:28–34, Chrysostom contrasts his “historical” interpretation of the passage with the “anagogical sense.” By “historical” he appears to mean both the narrative of the story and the explication of it that he has just given, in which, among other things, he draws on what we know from considered reflection on human experience about the nature of the soul, death, the practices of demons, and divine providence. But he then goes on to say that there is nothing to stop the passage from being taken in an “anagogical sense” as well. He does not say what he means by the term, but he does give the passage an anagogical reading. He makes a play on the word “swine.” It is limited play, however, in which he treats the word as a metaphor. The reading appears to turn on what for Chrysostom is a commonplace observation about what we might call spiritual psychology: “swinish” people, he explains, are especially susceptible to possession by the demons and if such people succumb entirely, they become “swine altogether,” and then they too, like the swine in the story, will be cast down the precipice.38 In Sermon 4, he uses the term “discernment,” though not in an explicit contrast to history. There, after explaining why Matthew began his Gospel with a genealogy and ordered it in the way that he did, he remarks that through an etymological analysis of the names of Matthew’s genealogy of 1:1–17, “discernment” and what would be of great importance with respect to the New Testament could be derived, inasmuch as the names were given not without purpose. But he does not then engage in such an analysis, for, as he remarks, he does not want to appear wearisome by going on at too great a length and must pass on to what is urgent.39 3.3 Why Four Gospels? We can see something in the two introductions of the way in which our two authors’ respective approaches to biblical interpretation affected the way they address a particular problem, although in this instance it is not the meaning of a text that is at issue. Both take up the question of why there are four Gospels, albeit with different concerns in mind. Jerome tackles the problem of the existence of multiple Chrysostom, Expositiones in Psalmos, PG 55:483. Matt., PG 57:355. 39 Hom. Matt., PG 57:41. We might observe parenthetically that Origen, by contrast, was happy to devote an entire sermon, Homily 27 on Numbers, to an etymological interpretation of the names of all forty-two “stages” of the children of Israel’s departure from Egypt (Num 33:1–49). He in part justifies this approach to the reading of the text on the basis of Matt 1:17, which sets out the three groupings of fourteen generations from Abraham to Christ (Origen, Homilae in Numeros [ed. W. Baehrens; Leipzig, 1921], 27, 3.1, SC 461). The text of Origen’s commentary on this part of Matthew does not survive. Jerome makes no reference at all to an etymological reading of the names in the passage, but devotes his treatment of it to explaining who the figures mentioned were, and why the evangelist listed them and not others, and in the order that he did (Origen, Commentaria in Matthaeum [ed. E. Klostermann; Leipzig, 1935], 1.1.1–17). 37 John

38 Hom.

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apocryphal gospels by giving an allegorical explanation and by appealing to the traditional symbolic explanation. “Like the Paradise,” he says, “from which four rivers flow” (cf. Gen 2:10), the Church has “four corners and rings, through which, as the ark of the covenant and the guardian of the Law of the Lord, she is conveyed by inflexible wooden poles” (cf. Exod 25:10–12).40 And, in time honored fashion,41 he appeals to Ezek 1:10 (cf. Rev 4:7), and its reference to the faces of a man, a lion, a calf, and an eagle, which, he maintains, proves that the four had been predicted. According to Jerome, the face of the man signifies Matthew because he began his account as though it were about a man; the face of the lion signifies Mark because through his Gospel the voice of a lion roaring in the wilderness is heard (cf. Mark 1:3); that of the calf, signifies Luke, because he begins with Zechariah the priest, which may have suggested to Jerome the priestly sacrifice of animals;42 and the eagle signifies John, because “having taken up eagles wings” (cf. Isa 40:31) and “hastening toward higher matters (ad altiora festinans), he discusses the Word of God.”43 Jerome, as we have already noted, assumes that Matthew was written first, in Hebrew, for Jews who believed in Christ. About Mark he says that Mark wrote down what he heard Peter, his master, preaching “according to the reliability of the events rather than to their sequence.” Luke, the physician and disciple of Paul, “traced out certain matters more deeply,” presumably than Mark, from things heard rather than seen, as he himself admits in the preface to his Gospel.44 Like Chrysostom, Jerome writes at comparative length on the distinctiveness of the Fourth Gospel. In an echo of Origen’s commentary on John 13:25, he explains that while reclining on the breast of Jesus, John “drank in the purest springs of doctrine” and “wrote more deeply about the divinity of the Savior” than did the other three.45 Chrysostom, without explaining what has prompted him to deal with the issue, engages in an extensive and seemingly defensive explanation in his introductory sermon of why there should be more than one account, but no more than four. Unlike Jerome, however, he does not either employ an allegorical explanation or fall back on the traditional symbolic explanation. Rather, his argument is based, on the one hand, on the observable historical effects of the existence of the four, and on the other, on what we might call the logic of historiography. His statement of the first is a little convoluted, but it amounts to the claim that the harmony perceivable in the church, in contrast to those groups which have broken away from the church, reflects the harmony among the four Gospels, for as he observes, Matt., Pref. 24–26. as early as Ireneaus, Haer. 3.11.8. For a brief account of the variations on the image in the Patristic period, see Scheck in St. Jerome, Commenary on Matthew, 55, n. 37. 42 Ibid., 55, n. 41. 43 Comm. Matt., Pref. 55–67. 44 Comm. Matt., Pref. 26–39. 45 Comm. Matt., Pref. 39–55. See Origen, Commentaria in Ioannem (ed. E. Preuschen; Leipzig, 1903), 30.20; and P. Widdicombe, “Knowing God: Origen and the Example of the Beloved Disciple,” StPatr 32 (1997): 554–8. 40 Comm. 41 Used

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“every kingdom divided against itself cannot stand” (Matt 12:25; Mark 3:24; Luke 11:17).46 In his statement of the second, the historiographical, he contends that the differences that exist between the Gospels, while minor, attest to the verisimilitude of the accounts. Had they agreed in every detail, the reader would suspect collusion on the part of the authors. Equally, had they completely disagreed with each other, none would have credibility. As it is, we have the best of witnesses. Fundamentally, they do agree with each other – and Chrysostom here recites a brief credal formula based on the creed of Nicea in witness – but each author, he remarks, “received” something of his own as well (1.4–6).47 What those ‘somethings’ were, however, either with respect to their details, with the exception of the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, or with respect to their particular takes on Christ, with the exception of John, he does not say either here in the introductory sermon or in those that follow. All he says about the difference between Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies is that it is to be explained by the difference in their audiences. Matthew, writing for Jews, sought to show that Christ was from Abraham and David, something a Jewish audience would find more satisfying, while Luke, writing for a more general audience, begins with Adam.48 Although the second, third, and fourth sermons are devoted to the genealogy of Matthew, Chrysostom only touches on the difference between Matthew and Luke once more, in the fourth sermon, and then only to explain why Mark does not have a genealogy. In the course of his comments, we see something of a possible explanation for why Mark was given no sustained treatment in the Patristic period. Chrysostom tells his audience that as the Gospel of Matthew had been written before the Gospel of Mark, Mark had written more briefly, inasmuch as he was putting pen to paper concerning things that already had been written and spoken about. In what seems to be contradictory logic, Chrysostom then goes on to remark that Luke, in adding to the genealogy of Matthew, was attempting to teach the reader something more. Why Luke should have had such an impulse, however, and Mark not, Chrysostom does not say, although his succeeding comment may have been intended to give us some indication. Luke imitated his master Paul, who, according to Chrysostom, “flows fuller than any river,” and Mark imitated Peter, a person of few words.49 In any event, neither Mark nor Luke is to be subject to any criticism. Whatever else we may make of the two introductions, it seems clear enough that Jerome, whether he thought he was dealing with an historical account, was prepared to say explicitly that there were two ways to read a biblical text, the “historical” and the “spiritual,” that the former was incomplete without the latter, and the latter was more beautiful than the former, whereas Chrysostom thought that in giving an exposition of the Gospel, he was dealing with what he called an “historical” account. Two examples will suffice to show how this played out in practice. Matt., PG 57:17–8. Matt., PG 57:16–7. 48 Hom. Matt., PG 57:17. 49 Hom. Matt., PG 57:39–40. 46 Hom. 47 Hom.

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The first pertains to elements in their respective treatments of Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration, the second, elements in their treatments of the Gospel’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Both show a marked difference between the ways the two interpreters read the biblical text.

4. Case Studies 4.1 The Transfiguration i. Jerome For Jerome, the account of the Transfiguration is redolent with doctrinal significance, in particular the doctrine of the Trinity. In this, he may have been drawing on Origen. In his Commentary on Matthew, Origen seemingly – the passage is corrupt – had canvassed the possibility that the “bright cloud” that overshadowed Jesus and the three disciples, interpreted figuratively, refers to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for, as Origen observes, the bright cloud of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit overshadows the genuine disciples of Jesus.50 The three dwellings that Peter suggested that they make for Jesus and Moses and Elijah, Origen speculates, might have been for the three members of the Trinity.51 While Jerome explains that the reference to Moses and Elijah points to the Law and the prophets, which “by repeated utterances announced both the passion of our Lord and his resurrection,”52 he goes on to conclude as Origen had, but in conformity with Nicene orthodoxy, that Peter should make three dwellings for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so that there may be one dwelling in his heart “for those whose divinity is one.”53 The doctrine of the Trinity, it should be noted, is one of the main theological themes Jerome finds in Matthew. ii. Chrysostom Chrysostom, by contrast, gives no such doctrinal interpretation to the Transfiguration. His reading is firmly grounded on the historical narrative. In his sermon on the passage, sermon 56, Chrysostom gives what he specifies as five reasons for the appearance of Moses and Elijah, all of which have to do with the place of the incident in the history of God’s dealings with Israel, the immediate context of the narrative of Christ’s life, and moral application. Thus, for instance, because some had recently mistaken Jesus for Elijah or one of the prophets, the Transfiguration served to make the difference clear. Furthermore, the presence of Moses and Elijah would demonstrate that the one who had been accused of breaking the Law 50 On the grounds that the bright cloud of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit overshadows the genuine disciples of Jesus or possibly the Gospel, the Law, and the Prophets. 51 Comm. Matt. 12.42. 52 Comm. Matt. 3.17.3. 53 Comm. Matt. 3.17.4.

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and of making himself equal to God would not have had disrespect for the Law or arrogated glory to himself. The incident took place to reveal the glory of the Cross. And, besides, Moses and Elijah are models for the disciples of mendicancy, piety, and care for those under their authority.54 The bright cloud is explained with reference to other biblical verses that make it clear that this is the way God always appears.55 Of Peter’s impulse to make three dwellings, Chrysostom observes that God appeared in a dwelling not made with hands, but in light and in a voice; and he concludes that it shows that Peter still failed fully to grasp the identity of Jesus.56 There is no reference at all made here to the doctrine of the Trinity. 4.2 The Entry in Jerusalem i. Jerome The second example, that of the entry into Jerusalem, at first glance might not be thought to provide such a clear contrast between the approaches of the two interpreters, but while much of their interpretation is similar, they come to it for different reasons. Jerome begins his discussion of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, as Origen had before him, by giving an etymological explanation for the name of the town of Bethphage – it means “house of jaws” – and then, again as Origen had done, gives a symbolic interpretation of the Mount of Olives (Matt 21:1), which is where there is “the light of knowledge” and “rest from labors and griefs.”57 Beyond this, he does not elaborate. When he turns to Zechariah’s prophecy, however, he provides his reader with a more thorough spiritual interpretation. Origen famously had written in the De Principiis that seemingly unedifying passages and those that contained errors, what Origen called “stumbling blocks” and “hindrances and impossibilities,” had been put into the text deliberately by the Holy Spirit to prompt the reader to look beyond the literal level to seek the spiritual teaching to which it pointed.58 Here, when he takes up the prophecy from Zech 9:9 in Matt 21:4–5, Jerome, in an echo of Origen, is happy to say that interpreted literally what is said in the text – that Jesus sat on both donkey and colt – is “impossible” and that when “the historical narrative contains either an impossibility or a disgrace, we are referred to a deeper (altiora) significance.” For much of that deeper meaning, he seemingly follows the lead of Origen. As Origen had before him, he interprets the donkey to represent the synagogue, which was under the yoke of the law, and the free colt to represent the people of the Gentiles. Accordingly, one of the two disciples sent by Jesus to untie the animals and bring them to him, went to “the Matt., PG 58:550–2. Matt., PG 58:553. 56 loc. cit. 57 Comm. Matt. 3. 21.1–3; Origen, Comm. Matt. 16.17. Olives were the source of the oil used in lamps. Origen explains that the Mount of Olives is the church. 58 Origen, De Principiis (ed. P. Koetschau; Leipzig, 1913), 4.2.9. 54 Hom. 55 Hom.

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circumcision,” and the other went to “the Gentiles.”59 In the spirit of Origen, he extends the interpretation to encompass the spiritual well-being of contemporary believers. The two animals had been cold before the disciples placed their garments on them; they were more beautiful now that they had the Lord for a rider; and the soul only deserves to have Jesus as its rider to the extent that the soul has been “instructed and adorned” in what the apostolic clothing can be taken to mean, namely, “the teaching of the virtues, the explanations of the Scriptures, or the various ecclesiastical dogmas.”60 ii. Chrysostom As we might expect, in the opening part of his sermon on the entry into Jerusalem, sermon 66, Chrysostom, in contrast to Jerome, does not comment on the meaning of the names Bethphage or Mount of Olives. Instead, he devotes his comments mainly to explaining why this entry in its comparative pomp and circumstance was so different from Jesus’ earlier ones and to reading off moral lessons from the text. The former he explains by placing the entry in the context of the narrative of Christ’s life – the nature of this final entry was appropriate because Jesus’ power now was known and the cross was imminent. The latter he derives in part from the fact that the owners of the donkey and the colt did not protest when the animals were taken away – Christ’s disciples likewise should be prepared to give up whatever he asks of them.61 When Chrysostom comes to the manner of Christ’s conveyance, he says nothing to suggest that he regarded the description as impossible; and he takes care to insist that Zechariah’s prophecy was accurate, repeating the word ἀκρίβεια twice,62 perhaps a little defensively. The prophecy, he maintains, is twofold, one part being in “deeds” (ἔργον) and the other in “words” (ῥῆμα). His explanation of this is not entirely clear, but by “deeds,” he appears to mean Christ’s actually having sat on a donkey as the prophet had foretold, whereas by “words,” he appears to mean that which was yet to happen. As he remarks, Christ having sat on the donkey “gave the prophecy another beginning,” his action “prefiguring the things to come” (τὰ μέλλοντα προδιατυπῶν).63 In his treatment of the significance of the two animals, Chrysostom unyokes them from each other, so to speak, referring only to Christ’s sitting on the donkey in his discussion of 59 Comm. Matt. 3.21.5. Origen, Comm. Matt. 16.15; 17. Origen identifies the two disciples as Peter and Paul, something Jerome does not do. In his earlier work, the Commentary on John, Origen had identified the donkey as the Old Testament and the colt as the New, on both of which the Logos enters Jerusalem, which Origen identified as the soul (Comm. Io. 10.174). 60 Comm. Matt. 3.21.7. 61 Hom. Matt., PG 58:627. 62 Hom. Matt., PG 58:628, 629. We shall return to this below. 63 Hom. Matt., PG 58:627. When he makes the distinction between the two types of fulfillment again later in the sermon (PG 58:628), when he turns to his discussion of “the things to come,” he contrasts ῥῆμα with πρᾶγμα, the latter of which, together with ἱστορία, the Antiochenes typically used for the “facts” or “events” of a prophet’s ministry and which they contrasted with the ἀλήθεια of a prophecy confirmed in its ἔκβασις or τέλος. Here, of course, it is a fact of Christ’s ministry that is being described. See the discussion in Hill, Reading the Old Testament, 134–65.

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the fulfillment of the prophecy in deeds, and the colt (together with the donkey) only in his discussion of the fulfillment of the prophecy in words. What this tacit eliding of the reference to the colt in the discussion of prophecy in deeds indicates is not certain – Chrysostom does not provide an explanation – but it is possible that he felt some unease over the description or that simply he thought it self-evident that the riding could had not have happened the way it was reported in the text. Following his discussion of the fulfillment in deeds, Chrysostom does not immediately go on to discuss the fulfillment in words, but takes the occasion to engage in a lengthy discussion of how Christ rode on a donkey not only to fulfill the prophecy but also to provide us with as standard of self-denial. Perhaps surprisingly, Chrysostom’s interpretation of the fulfillment in words is very much in line with the interpretation of Jerome. Without using any particular term such as θεωρία to justify what he does, Chrysostom maintains that the colt represents the church, made up of Gentiles, who, in a detail not found in Jerome’s interpretation, though once dirty, are made clean by Christ’s sitting on them. The donkey, in this context, also has a symbolic meaning – it represents Israel. Just as Jerome has it, Chrysostom explains that the apostles called both groups. But Chrysostom includes in his symbolic reading a couple of other details not found in Jerome’s commentary. The comparative ages of the donkey and the colt, and the fact that the donkey is reported to have followed the colt, Chrysostom takes to be significant. The younger, the Gentiles, entered the church first, and it is through their example that the elder, the Jews, will enter. He gives two bases as his authority for thus rendering the meaning of the two animals. The first is (his version of) Rom 11:25–6, “a blindness has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved.” The second is that the prophet would not otherwise have taken care to “express himself with such great accuracy (ἀκρίβεια)” concerning the age of the donkey.64 As we observed earlier, Chrysostom held the view that nothing was put into the biblical text without a purpose, and thus he assumes that in his exactitude, the prophet intended every detail to convey meaning. Having ruled the reference to the colt out of the realm of “deeds,” the realm of “facts” or “events,” it could have meaning only in the realm of “words” and there, patently, Chrysostom felt free to give full rein to his interpretive imagination.

5. Conclusion For both Chrysostom and Jerome, the four Gospels tell one story, and the first three, for all intents and purposes, in the same way. Neither attributes a particular redactional take to either Matthew or the other two. Nevertheless, their respective approaches to the interpretation of Matthew demonstrate much different ways of 64 Hom.

Matt., PG 58:628.

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reading the biblical text. Jerome is quick to move to give a spiritual reading of a word or a passage; indeed, he is prepared to say that the text contains things that are impossible or unedifying and implies that they were introduced into the text deliberately in order to alert the reader to look for a “higher” meaning. Perhaps Jerome felt a greater freedom than his Greek contemporary to suggest a higher meaning for a text because for him the meaning did not so fundamentally turn on history in any case, for after all, he did think the “flowers more beautiful.” Chrysostom, by contrast, seemingly is more content to remain at the level of “historical narrative” and moral application, and is comparatively reserved in his willingness to look for meaning at the level of “discernment.” Furthermore, he appears to have been unwilling to suggest that there is anything incorrect in the text of the Bible. If the forgoing analysis of his treatment of the entry into Jerusalem is credible, the conditions under which he was prepared to move beyond the level of the historical narrative were quite specific. It is when he turns to give an analysis of the prophecy “in words” (and perhaps faced with something he feels unable to interpret on the historical level). And, for all Jerome’s contention that the flowers were more beautiful, once Chrysostom had come to the conclusion that a passage was not just to be interpreted historically, he was prepared to give it an interpretation which was at least as flowery as that of his contemporary.

Reading Matthew and Mark in the Middle Ages The Glossa Ordinaria Joseph Verheyden 1. Introduction Biblical schoalars today are as a rule unfamiliar with Medieval exegesis. Many consider it to be something fascinating but also quite foreign to our modern approaches – historical-critical and other – to the biblical text. For that reason references to this period in contemporary exegetical studies are remarkably sparse, very selective, and more often than not second-hand only. Not infrequently, one gains the impression of an era that has become lost or unknown territory to many of us; hence an era that is easily reduced to a bare minimum in surveys of the history of exegesis, or left to the specialists. But at least some of the work of these specialists has made it into our handbooks and is known to most of us, if often by title only. Thus we all know the basics and the principles, or some of us maybe somewhat more, of the hermeneutics of Medieval biblical exegesis from reading the classic work published by Henri de Lubac in 1959 and which has now also been made available in an English translation. Its subtitle, “The Four Senses of Scripture,” gets to the core of much of Ancient Christian and Medieval exegesis.1 The Dominican father Augustine of Dacia (d. 1282) gave a famous description (in the form of a distich) of this fourfold approach – ‘fourfold’ because these are not four separate approaches but together are intended to yield as complete as possible an understanding of the biblical text: “The letter teaches events, allegory what you should believe, / / morality teaches what you should do, anagogy what mark you should be aiming for.”2 The passage is quoted by Nicholas of Lyra in his Postillae on Galatians, who then goes on to paraphrase the description using a twofold division: “The outer Scripture is the literal sense, which is more obvious since it is signified immediately through the words; the inner Scripture is the mystic or spiritual sense, 1 H. de. Lubac, Exégèse médiévale: Les quatre sens de l’Ecriture (Théologie 41–2, 59; 4 vols.; Paris: Aubier, 1959–64); English translation, Medieval Exegesis (2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998–2000). 2 Translation from S. P.  Kealy, A History of the Interpretation of the Gospel of Mark (2 vols.; Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 2007), 1:163; cf. also, S. P. Kealy, Mark’s Gospel: A History of Its Interpretation from the Beginning until 1979 (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 33. Among many others, see de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, 1:225 and 228. The original runs as follows: “Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, // moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.”

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which is more hidden, since it is designated through the things signified by those words.”3 But there is of course much more than the book by de Lubac, and much also covering aspects besides the issue of hermeneutics. The standard survey of Medieval biblical manuscripts and commentaries remains F. Stegmüller’s eleven-volume repertory, which was published, partly in cooperation with Nicolao Reinhardt, over a period of thirty years.4 Pioneering work on the history of biblical studies in the Middle Ages had been published in a number of articles since the early 1930s by Beryl Smalley. This culminated in her 1952 monograph, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, which has been reprinted several times (3rd ed., 1983). The way she has divided the material has become something of a standard division. In six chapters Smalley deals with ‘the sources’ (the Fathers); the place of monastic and cathedral schools in shaping Medieval exegesis; the contribution made by ‘the Victorines,’ Hugh and Richard, and above all Andrew of St. Victor, who is dealt with in a chapter of his own; ‘the masters’ (Petrus Comestor, Peter the Chanter, Stephen Langton); and ‘the friars.’ One year after Smalley’s monograph Bernhard Bischoff published a groundbreaking article on the major turning points in Medieval exegesis, which was translated in English some twenty years later, in itself a sign of its importance.5 Smalley and Bischoff were giants in the discipline. In 1985 the former published a selection of five essays (four of them reprints of earlier work) on gospel studies and gospel commentaries in the 12th and 13th century.6 The other did not live to see the publication of one of his life-time projects, an edition with translation and commentary of a set of commentaries (on the Pentateuch and the Gospels), the product of the famous Canterbury school and composed sometime early in the eighth century.7 From the enormous wealth of literature that could be cited, and restricting myself to a mere selection of relatively recent monographs and collective works, I just mention for the Early Middle Ages the monograph by Robert E. McNally, which dates already from 1959 but was reprinted again in 1986,8 and that by G. R. Evans of 1984,9 the collection of essays edited by Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards in 2003,10 the one edited by Claudio Leonardi and Giovanni Orlandi two  3 Latin

in PL 113:29A.

 4 F. Stegmüller and N. Reinhardt, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi (Madrid: Consejo Superior

de Investigaciones Cientificas, Instituto Francisco Suarez, 1950–80).  5 B. Bischoff, “Wendepunkte in der Geschichte der lateinischen Exegese im Frühmittelalter,” SacEr 6 (1954): 189–279.  6 B. Smalley, The Gospels in the Schools c. 1100-c. 1280 (London: Hambledon Press, 1985).  7 The edition was made in cooperation with Michael Lapidge: B. Bischoff and M. Lapidge, Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian (Cambridge: CUP, 1994).  8  M. T. Gorman, The Study of the Bible in the Early Middle Ages (Firenze: Sismel, 2007).  9  G. R. Evans, The Language and Logic of the Bible: The Earlier Middle Ages (Cambridge: CUP, 1984; repr. 1996). 10 C. Chazelle and B. Van Name Edwards, eds., The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003).

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years later,11 and that edited by Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly last year.12 These collective works are of particular interest for showing the many ways in which the Bible was used and put to use in Medieval times. For the later period one should mention the collection of essays edited by Robert E.  Lerner in 199613 and the 1999 monograph on 12th to 14th century exegesis by Gilbert Dahan,14 who has just published another monograph, covering a larger perspective.15 Such a perspective is also characteristic for the essays collected by Giuseppe Cremascoli and Claudio Leonardi and published in 1996.16 In addition to the volumes of collected essays by Smalley and by Bischoff, one should also mention Michael Gorman’s two volumes of studies on various aspects of Medieval exegesis.17 Henning Graf Reventlow has published a good survey of Medieval exegesis as part of a more general treatment covering the whole history of exegesis,18 whereas the fourth and last volume of Bertrand de Margerie’s “Introduction” offers some good introductions to the exegetical work of Bede and Bernardus of Clairvaux.19 Medieval exegesis of the Gospel of Mark is dealt with more specifically by Sean P. Kealy in his 1979 monograph, of which a much more elaborate, but also somewhat unbalanced, version appeared in 2007–2008.20 It would lead us too far to give here even a very selective list of studies dealing with specific authors or problems. Let me just mention Michael Cahill’s edition and translation of a work that had already received quite some attention at the beginning of the 20th century21 and had been circulating under the name of Jerome, but that the editor baptized the “oldest commentary on Mark” 11 C. Leonardi and G. Orlandi, eds., Biblical Studies in the Early Middle Ages (Firenze: Sismel, 2005). 12 S. Boynton and D. J. Reily, eds., The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages: Production, Reception, and Performance in Western Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). 13  R. E.  Lerner, ed., Neue Richtungen in der hoch‑ und spätmittelalterlichen Bibelexegese (München: Oldenbourg, 1996). 14 G. Dahan, L’exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident médiéval XIIe-XIVe siècle (Paris: Cerf, 1999). 15  G.  Dahan, Lire la Bible au Moyen Âge: Essais d’herméneutique médiévale (Genève: Droz, 2009). 16 G. Cremascoli and C. Leonardi, eds., La Bibbia nel Medio Evo (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1996). 17  M. T. Gorman, Biblical Commentaries from the Early Middle Ages (Firenze: Sismel, 2002), and Gorman, The Study of the Bible (2007). 18 H. Graf. Reventlow, Epochen der Bibelauslegung, II: Von der Spätantike bis zum ausgehenden Mittelalter (München: Beck, 1994); English translation, History of Biblical Interpretation, II: From Late Antiquity to the End of the Middle Ages (trans. J. O. Duke; Atlanta: SBL, 2009). 19 B. de Margerie, Introduction à l’histoire de l’exégèse, IV: L’occident latin (Paris: Cerf, 1990). Much shorter are the surveys by Pierre Gibert (Petite histoire de l’exégèse biblique [Paris: Cerf, 1992], 165–78) and by Denis Farkasfalvy (Inspiration & Interpretation: A Theological Introduction to Sacred Scripture [Washington, D. C.: CUA Press, 2010], 140–52); see also the essay by Christopher Ocker on “Scholastic Interpretation of the Bible,” in The Medieval through the Reformation Periods (vol. 2 of A History of Biblical Interpretation; ed. A. J. Hauser and D. F. Watson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 254–79. 20 Kealy, Mark’s Gospel and History. 21 G. Wohlenberg (“Ein vergessener lateinischer Markuskommentar,” NKZ 18 [1907]: 427–36) dated and located it in the seventh century in England; Morin in fifth century Rome (“Un commentaire romain sur S. Marc de la première moitié du Ve siècle,” RBén 27 [1910]: 352–62).

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and regards as an early-seventh Anglo-Saxon work, a suggestion that was received quite critically by other specialists.22 This very selective list may give the reader a first impression of the amount of work that has been done and may perhaps also serve as an excuse to the present author for not adding to it yet another general survey. Since the focus of the present volume is on the Gospels of Matthew and of Mark, I have decided to offer some observations and comments on an aspect that, as far as I am aware, has as such not yet been researched in much detail. It is the question of how Medieval scholars dealt with passages that have a parallel in Matthew and in Mark when commenting on both these Gospels. I have looked into this question on a number of occasions and what I offer here are just a few results from such a comparative reading. Some might object that there is probably not much to be found on this matter and that any attempt at studying this issue is futile. Matthew’s was generally regarded as the primary gospel, the one to be commented upon; Mark’s was secondary, and could then easily be treated as such. Some authors have indeed taken that stance. The 12th century Byzantine polymath Euthymius Zigadenus’ commentary on Mark numbers about 40 columns in the edition of Migne, over against the some 325 for the one on Matthew, which certainly does not reflect the relative proportions of each of these gospels.23 All too often the commentary on a verse or section in Mark is limited to a cross-reference.24 But other scholars have given due attention also to Mark’s Gospel. Theophylact of Ohrid, that other famous Byzantine commentator, has left us a commentary on Matthew that numbers some 185 columns in Migne’s Patrologia, whereas the one on Mark has about 100, which is a much better proportion.25 The same picture is found in the West. Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on Matthew in his Catena aurea numbers 470 pages in the Marietti edition of 1938; the one on Mark some 150 pages (proportion 3/1).26 But the oldest edition of the Glossa Ordinaria shows a proportion of roughly 8/5 (85 pages for Matthew, 49 for Mark). And the commentary of Nicholas de Gorran (d. 1295) even has a proportion of 7/6 (300 pages for Matthew, almost 260 for Mark). Medieval authors may not have had a sense for “synoptic theories,” let alone the “Synoptic Problem,” beyond what Augustine had said on the chronology and relationship of the gospels. But even a brief look at some of these commentaries shows that these authors on more than one occasion display a taste for a synoptic

22 M. Cahill, The First Commentary on Mark: An Annotated Translation (Oxford: OUP, 1998). See the review of M. T. Gorman, “The Deceptive Apparatus Fontium in a Recent Edition (CChr.SL 82),” ZAC 8 (2004): 8–22. Cf. J. Verheyden, “Before Embarking on an Adventure: Some Preliminary Remarks on Writing the NTP Commentary on the Gospel of Mark,” StPatr 44 (2010): 150–1. 23 See PG 129, cols. 111–765 (Matt) and cols. 768–852 (Mark); the Greek text is here accompanied by a Latin translation, which explains the double number of pages. 24 See a typical phrase at Mark 1:28: εἴρηται περὶ τούτου ἐν τῷ τετάρτῳ κεφαλαίῳ τοῦ κατὰ Ματθαῖον. 25 PG 123, cols. 114–486 and 488–682. 26 Catena aurea.

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reading, be it from an Augustinian perspective, and for discussing matters with one eye on the other gospels. In order to be able to illustrate in some detail how this works in practice, I will focus on one major work and on a couple of specific passages from that work. Of course, any conclusions that can be drawn from it will then of necessity also be very preliminary. This being so, one should take these conclusions for what they are. But at this stage it may prove to be a better approach than trying to reach for general conclusions with hardly any basis in case studies. The work I have selected for discussion in this paper is the Glossa Ordinaria (henceforth: Gloss). I could as well have chosen Theophylact, the Catena aurea, or Nicholas de Gorran, all of them mentioned above, or another author, but among these the Gloss stands out as something unique.

2. Introducing the Glossa Ordinaria The Gloss is a masterpiece of Medieval scholarship, in itself a sufficient reason to take a closer look at this work.27 Research on the Gloss is burdened by a number of problems. I cannot go into much detail but I should at least briefly mention two of the more important ones: its origins and accessibility. a. Glossing books is a phenomenon that has a long history but that is best documented through Medieval manuscripts.28 It is a factor that has also complicated the research on the origin and composition history of the Gloss. Indeed the Gloss 27 For an introduction to the Gloss, bibliography, and some more detailed studies, see, among others, W. Affeldt, Die weltliche Gewalt in der Paulus-Exegese: Röm. 13,1–7 in den Römerbriefkommentaren der lateinischen Kirche bis zum Ende des 13. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969), 149–52, 258–60 (Bibl.) and passim (on Rom 13:1–7); Evans, Language, 37–47; B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952; 3rd ed. 1984), 46–66 and passim; cf. also “Glossa Ordinaria,” in: TRE; Kealy, History, 1:132–4; Reventlow, History, 2:138–40; K. Froehlich, “Glossa ordinaria,” in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 3 (4th ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 1012; English translation, Religion in Past & Present 5 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 445; and above all, K.  Froehlich and M.  Gibson, eds., Biblia Latina cum Glossa Ordinaria: Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps Adolph Rusch of Strassburg 1480/1 (4 vols.; Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), 1:vii–xxvi. Most recently, the Gloss was made the subject of an excellent monograph by Leslie Smith (The Glossa Ordinaria: The Making of a Medieval Bible Commentary [Leiden: Brill, 2009]), which gives a well-informed and up-to-date presentation of the evidence and the problems in dealing with the Gloss, including a very instructive chapter on the reception of the work among Medieval authors. 28 On glossed books in general and Bibles in particular, see C. F. R. de Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible and the Origins of the Paris Booktrade (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1984; repr. 1987). The practice knew a first climax in Carolingian times: see J. J. Contreni, “Glossing the Bible in the Early Middle Ages,” in The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era (ed. C. Chazelle and B. Van Name Edwards; Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 19–37; cf. also the essays on exegesis in the Carolingian period in Leonardi and Orlandi, Biblical Studies, above all, M. C. Ferrari, “Before the Glossa Ordinaria: The Ezekiel Fragment in Irish Minuscule Zürich, Staatsarchiv W3.19.XII, and Other Experiments towards a Bible Commentée in the Early Middle Ages,” in Leonardi and Orlandi, eds., Biblical Studies, 283–307.

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is a kind of living entity, but thanks to the efforts of many, not in the least of Beryl Smalley, some more or less solid results have been reached after all. For a long time regarded as the work of the ninth century author Walafridus Strabo (+849), it is now commonly accepted that the Gloss, though obviously having made use of older material, is of a more recent date. The old view has a long history going back to the late 15th century and Johannes Trithemius’ assertion that Strabo, a disciple of Rabanus Maurus, himself not an absentee in the Gloss, was indeed its author.29 The conclusion is based on a mere mistake – Trithemius most probably took the author of the very first gloss on Gen 1:1, Strabo, for the author of the whole work (!) –with which may have been mixed a pinch of patriotism, as Smith has suggested, for here is a German scholar honoring a distant compatriot for having authored one of the most popular commentaries of the Middle Ages.30 This identification had already been doubted, one year later, by the author of the Preface of the 1495 edition of the Gloss, who instead noted that the authorship of the work is uncertain and composite and that it was composed over an indeterminate period of time.31 This might well be true, but it is not really the most appealing conclusion, and so it is quite understandable that Trithemius won the day. His opinion made it into Migne’s edition of the Gloss in the Patrologia Latina, which did a lot for perpetuating it, even after scholars had begun to doubt the thesis of Strabo’s authorship.32 Doubts continued to grow when scholars became fully aware of the deficiencies of Migne’s edition and then started to suggest alternatives for the authorship.33 But it would still take quite some time and a lot of work to come up with some good results, as Smalley has noted repeatedly, once calling it “a gigantic task” and somewhat later stating, almost desperately, that “the problem of authorship becomes more complicated the more one examines it.”34 Actually, she herself somehow did much to tackle the problem and to demonstrate that the (greater part of the) Gloss originated in the last years of the 11th century, and particularly the first decades of the 12th, in the school of Laon and the circle around Anselm (d. 1117).35 Anselm himscriptoribus ecclesiasticis, fol. 44r. The Glossa Ordinaria, 17. 31 The author names a couple of scholars who would have contributed to the Gloss and continues, “et alii multi qui fuerunt diversis temporibus, quorum quilibet vel in tota biblia vel in aliqua eius parte glosas addidit. Et quamvis nesciatur precise quis quam fecerit, tamen omnes semper fuerunt et sunt apud omnes maxime auctoritatis.” 32 The one to be credited as being the first in modern scholarship to throw doubt on the thesis is S. Berger in his Histoire de la Vulgate pendant les premiers siècles du moyen âge (Paris: Hachette, 1893), 134–6. 33 See A. Wilmart, “Distiques d’Hincmar sur l’eucharistic? Un sermon oublié de. S. Augustin sur le même sujet,” RBén 40 (1928): 95 n. 6, who suggested that Anselm of Laon might have been a crucial figure. Anselm had been preceded by Peter Lombard as a possible candidate: cf. G. Robert, Les écoles de l’enseignement de la théologie pendant la première moitié du 12 e siècle (Paris: Gabalda, 1909), 114. The “Strabo thesis” was finally routed in an article by J. de Blic published in 1949 (“L’oeuvre exégétique de Walafrid Strabo et la Glossa Ordinaria,” RTAM 16 [1949]: 5–28). 34 B.  Smalley, “Gilbertus Universalis, Bishop of London (1128–34) and the Problem of the Glossa Ordinaria,” RTAM 7 (1935): 25 and 48. 35 See in particular, Smalley, “Gilbertus Universalis” and Study, 46–66. 29 De

30 Smith,

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self was responsible for glossing a good number of biblical books, including the Psalms, Paul’s letters, John, and possibly also Luke.36 His brother Ralph (Radulph) is credited with having authored the gloss on Matthew and shares claims for Luke. But the bulk of the work is now put on the name of Gilbert of Auxerre, at one time apparently a pupil or colleague of Anselm at Laon, who went on to live and work in Auxerre and eventually was appointed bishop of London.37 Actually, there is not that much to build on and some of the material remains hard to interpret, but for some of these conclusions rather trustworthy evidence can be found already in sources of a slightly later period.38 With regard to the Synoptic Gospels, Peter Comestor notes in his Commentary on Matthew, “Radulfus frater magistri Anselmi, qui hanc glosam ordinaverit.” The verb has commonly been taken to mean that Ralph composed the Gloss and not just “ordered” or supervised it.39 The same author elsewhere also notes that neither of the two brothers ever lectured on Mark.40 In a brilliant argument that remains a bit shaky after all, Smalley has concluded from this observation that one of them must then have authored the gloss on Luke, for otherwise Comestor would have included Luke. As Smith notes, “Clearly, this is not the strongest of evidence, although the brothers would certain36 It is worth noting that Smalley, with characteristic reservation, has never concluded that all of this is absolutely certain and proven. Smith correctly describes her position as, “Smalley … after extensive consideration of references to Anselm in twelfth-century texts, regards the Glosses on the Psalter, the Pauline Epistles and John as most likely to be by him” (The Glossa Ordinaria, 21). The evidence for Paul is based on a reference to Peter Lombard’s comments on the glosses of Anselm on the Psalms and the Letters in a chronicle by Robert of Auxerre (d. 1212) and sounds convincing: “Hic [Peter] etiam glosaturam super psalterium et epistolas Pauli ab Anselmo per glosulas interlineales marginalesque distinctiam … latius apertiusque explicuit” (MGH Scriptores, 26, 237). Most recently this conclusion has been challenged by M. S. Woodward who thinks that Anselm’s gloss is but an abridgement of Peter’s Collectanea in omnes divi Pauli apostoli epistolas (PL 191: 1297–1696); see M. S.  Woodward, The Glossa Ordinaria on Romans: Translated with Introduction and Notes (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2011), ix. The quest goes on? 37 His glosses on some of the books of the Old Testament have been critically edited (A. Andrée, Gilbertus Universalis: Glossa ordinaria in Lamentationes Ieremie prophete. Prothemata et liber I. A Critical Edition with Introduction and Translation [Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2005]). Acts and Revelation have been tentatively ascribed to Alberic of Reims, another of Anselm’s disciples, while others (Job, Song of Songs, and again Revelation), more generally, to “the Laon circle.” The Gloss on the Song of Songs is also available in a critical edition (M. Dove, Glossa Ordinaria, Pars 22: In Canticum Canticorum [Turnhout: Brepols, 1997]). 38 See the good summary of the evidence and of the discussion by Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, 17–38. One part of the problem is that Anselm also authored some “ordinary commentaries,” as Smith calls them (p. 21). The other part is the, to our mind, very disturbing fact that medieval authors did not seem to care too much to acknowledge the fruits of their labor, an observation that brings Smith to some interesting philosophical reflections (pp. 33–8). 39 See Smalley, “Gilbertus Universalis,” 39; H. Weisweiler, “Paschasius Radbertus als Vermittler des Gedenkengutes des karolingischen Renaissance in den Matthäuskommentaren des Kreises um Anselm von Laon,” Scholastik 35 (1960): 363–402, 503–36; Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, 26–7. 40 “nec legit eum magister Anselmus nex magister Radulfus frater eius.” Cited by B. Smalley, “Some Gospel Commentaries of the Early Twelfth Century,” RTAM 45 (1978): 151; cf. Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, 23.

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ly have worked on Luke before attempting Mark, the least popular of the Gospels among scholars.”41 So far then, the author of the gloss on Mark remains unknown. By 1175 the Gloss was almost complete. The material from which it was composed was, by its very nature, quite diffuse and of various origins. As a rule, excerpts from different ancient authors were put together to comment on a particular passage, but the gloss on Maccabees, the last one to be added, consists almost completely of a copy of Rabanus Maurus’ commentary on that book transformed into a gloss. In a number of cases the work underwent revisions;42 in the case of the gloss on Revelation it may be doubted whether there ever was a “definite” version.43 The history of the production of the various books and the transmission of the Gloss in the earliest decades has not yet completely been sorted out, but it is evident that from the late 12th century on, and all through the 13th, the Gloss became the “lingua Scripturae,”44 the standard handbook commentary of academic biblical studies and scholarship, and it continued to play an important role in instructing generations of students in biblical studies even long after.45 b. The great importance and popularity the work enjoyed for several centuries have resulted in a large number of manuscripts.46 This fact, combined with the very complex composition history of the Gloss, explains why a critical edition of the whole of the work is still lacking.47 The “editio princeps,” prepared by Adolf Rusch, appeared in Strasbourg in 1480/81 as part of an edition of the Vulgate; it was reprinted in 1992.48 Other editions followed; in total there are thirteen. Basically none of these differs much from the first edition with regard to the text. A relatively minor revision was undertaken in the third edition (Basel, 1498). Two major innovations consisted of further identifying some of the excerpts from the Fathers and, above all, of improvements in the typography and layout (so again the 41 Smith,

The Glossa Ordinaria, 23. what is now considered to be Anselm’s gloss on the Psalter is most probably a revised version of it by his student Gilbert de la Porrée; see T. Gross-Diaz, The Psalms Commentary of Gilbert of Poitiers: From lectio divina to the Lecture Room (Leiden: Brill, 1996) and Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, 21. 43 See Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, 26. 44  Smalley, “Gilbertus Universalis,” 235. 45 On the whole story and history, see P. Stirnemann, “Où ont été fabriqués les livres de la glose ordinaire dans la première moitié du XIIe siècle?” in Le XIIe siècle: Mutations et renouveau en France dans la première moitié du XIIe siècle (ed. F. Gasparri; Paris: Léopard d’Or, 1994), 257–301 and the chapters on “Production and Ownership” and on “Use” in Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, 141–92 and 193–228: the gloss was used and cited already by Gilbert de la Porrée (d. 1154) and all the way to Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) and Nicholas of Lyra (d. 1349). But of course, as always, there are exceptions, and it probably does not come as a surprise that Abelard, in his usual way, has a most ironical comment on the lectures of the venerated Anselm (see Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, 25). 46 See Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, 2 (1950), 112–7; 8 (1976), 299–307; 9 (1977), 465–556. 47 Parts of the Gloss have been edited in recent years (see above n. 37). 48 A good survey of the editions in Froehlich and Gibson, Biblia Latina cum Glossa Ordinaria; a summary list in Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, 187–91. 42 Thus,

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1498 Basel edition).49 Another major change did not affect the Gloss itself: from the second edition on (Venice, 1495), all editions were accompanied by the text of the Postilla of Nicholas of Lyra. The three Basel editions (1498, 1502 and 1508) each also contain the Additiones by Paul of Burgos and the Replica by Matthias Döring, which were reproduced in all editions of the 16th century. The later editions are (for the most part) mere reprints of earlier ones.50 In the analysis below I will quote from the Strasbourg edition.

3. Reading the Gloss on Matthew and Mark: Two Case Studies Reading or trying to read the Gloss is quite an experience, even for a postmodern mind or one familiar with avant-garde poetry. At first look it is all chaos and confusion. The layout is in shambles to one who is used to reading or consulting our modern commentaries or any scholarly monograph.51 As a matter of fact, the view is best compared with that of a page from the Talmud. In the middle of the page one will find a passage from the Bible (i.e., the Vulgate). The text is interspersed by short notes, the so-called interlinear gloss. All around the biblical text are excerpts from passages, which appear to stem from various authors, but in part are also unidentified: the so-called marginal gloss.52 One wonders why no one ever came up with the suggestion to use this most practical tool that is the footnote.53 The Gloss, with its double apparatus of glosses taken from the Fathers and from Bede (and occasionally also from some other early-Medieval authors and even a few later ones), and Gibson, Biblia Latina, xviii. 1520: a reprint of Basel 1508; Lyon 1528: a copy of the edition of 1520; Lyon 1545: a reprint of Basel 1508; Venice 1545: a copy of Lyon 1545, but with further identifications of the excerpts, though by far not as complete as the editor claims it to be; Paris 1590 (prepared by two Paris theologians and a colleague from Rouen, but printed in Lyon): a reprint of Basel 1508, with a similar claim to improvements in identifying the excerpts and in checking the text of Lyra’s Postilla, but again still incomplete and now introducing the old mistake on the authorship of the Gloss into the title of the book; Douai-Antwerp 1617: a revision of Paris 1590 for use in the Contra-Reformation, and with some improvements in identifying the excerpts; Antwerp 1634: a reprint of the edition of 1617; Paris 1852: the edition in Migne’s Patrologia Latina, a big leap backwards because, incomplete (the printer left out those parts he did not consider to be from Strabo and inserted other sections among other authors!), without the text of the Vulgate, hence destroying much of the layout and the very purpose of the Gloss, and without the interlinear Gloss which is reproduced in the volume with the works of Anselm. 51 A good introduction and survey of the problems, with several illustrations, in Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, 91–139. 52 As said above, this aspect has changed throughout the various editions, as more and more excerpts were traced back to an author. But not all of these references are equally reliable and even if the identification is correct the user most often will have to work his or her way through modern editions of these authors to find out the exact location of the excerpt, which may stem from a commentary or a (series of) sermon(s)/homily(‑ies), only to find out that the text of the excerpt differs considerably from that in our editions! 53 On the origin and use of this tool, see now A.  Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History (London: Faber & Faber, 1997). 49 Froehlich 50 Lyon

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does not look like an “innovative” project. To this, one should reply that, by its very nature, the work was not meant to be innovating; but it is also more than a mere database or an archive of the wisdom of past generations. It was meant to instruct and educate, and indeed even to promote further study. “The Glossa Ordinaria is above all a work of consolidation; distilling out the essence of the work of previous centuries it provides the student with a manageable and reliable textbook of Bible study, but a textbook for beginners, and requiring a competent master to develop its implications for the reader.”54 These limits notwithstanding, on closer look it appears that on the basis of certain of its aspects the Gloss can rightly be called a prominent representative of a kind of approach that typifies Medieval exegesis: firmly rooted in the Patristic tradition and arguing above all on the model of auctoritas.55 It further appears that this approach, combined with the typical layout, and maybe contrary to what one might think, allows for a quite dynamic and interactive way of studying the biblical text, especially also in dealing with parallel texts and with reading Matthew and Mark “side by side” (or more or less so). It is this latter aspect that I will try to illustrate somewhat further in the following. It will be obvious that what conclusions can be drawn from the analysis depends in no small way on which passages are chosen for comparison. After some consideration I have chosen to look at two passages that can be said to be representative for the way Matthew and Mark have handled their material, one in which they are relatively close to each other (the first Feeding Narrative in Matt 14:13–21 par. Mark 6:32–44) and one in which Matthew’s is a much shorter version (the story of the Gerasene Demoniac in Matt 8:28–34 par. Mark 5:1–20). 3.1 The Gerasene Demoniac With eighteen against fifteen notes the commentary on Mark 5:1–20 is only slightly longer than the one on Matt 8:28–34.56 Some of these notes have a parallel in both gospels, others partially overlap, and some are peculiar to one gospel. In the edition of 1480/1 they are divided over the text as follows:57 Language, 47. Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, 34; with references to M.-D. Chenu, “Auctor, actor, autor,” Bulletin du Cange 3 (1927): 81–86 and A. J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages (London: Scholar Press, 1984; repr., Aldershot: Wildwood House, 1988). The whole issue of authority and author (or vice-versa) in ancient and Medieval literature is the central focus of the interdisciplinary research center LECTIO that was founded in 2010 at KU Leuven. 56 The counts are based on the display of the notes in the 1480/1 edition, where the respective passages are found on p. 101 (Mark) and 34 (Matt) according to the pagination of the facsimile. The edition of 1634 has two extra lemmas at Mark, counts the last three as one, and has re-arranged the fifteen notes at Matt to eleven (see V, cc. 529–33 and 167–70). See the Table below. 57 I use the titles as found in the edition of 1480/1 (abbreviated words are written in full according to the 1634 edition) and add the identifications that can be found there (in bold). Extras 54 Evans, 55 Cf.

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Matthew Mark 1. In regionem Gerazenorum (28) 1. Et venerunt &c. Gerasenorum (1) Bede Victor of Antioch 2. Duo habentes (28) 2. Homo in spiritu (part on the sg.) (2) Isidore of Sevilla Victor 2. Saevi (28)58 3. Et neque catenis (3) Bede Euthymus (‑ius?) (~ 2b) A. In monumentis (5) Victor A. Quid mihi & tibi (7) Victor 3. Iesu fili Dei (29) (= 5:7) Hilarius 4. Ambrose59 5. Credebant 6. Ante tempus (29) (– 5:7) 7. Torquere nos (29) 4. Torqueas (7) Bede Victor Chrysostom (– 29/30) 5. Quod tibi nomen est? (9) Bede (– 29/30) 6. Legio mihi nomen est (9) Bede Victor 8. Mitte nos (31) 7. Mitte nos (12) Bede Tertullian Augustine Euthymius (~ 7b) 8. In porcos (12) Bede 9. Nisi quis60 10. Et ecce magno (impetu) (32) 9. Grex praec(ipitatus) est (13) Bede (~ 5b) 10. Ad duo milia (13) Bede 11. Liberato populo61 12. Pastores autem fugerunt (33) 11. Qui autem (14) and differences in the 1634 edition are printed in italics or mentioned in the notes. The verse to which the note refers is added in parenthesis after the title. 58 1634 counts this one as a separate lemma. 59 1634 counts this one and the next lemma together with the previous as one lemma only. 60 1634 counts it together with the previous lemma. 61 1634 counts it together with the previous lemma.

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Matthew Mark 13. Exiit obviam (34) (= 5:15) Bede (= 8:34) 12. Et vident illum (15) Bede (– 34a/b) 13. Vestitum (15) (– 34a/b) 14. Et timuerunt (15) 14. Rogabant eum (34) 15. Et rogare coeperunt eum (17) Rabanus Victor 15. Timebant (34)62 (–; but comp. 2: on sg./pl.) 16. Vade in domum tuam (19) Bede 17. Jerome63 18. Bede

Despite this perhaps slightly confusing Table, it should be noted that the text of both glosses, the interlinear as well as the marginal, is virtually identical in the editio princeps of 1480/1 and in the edition of 1634, the last to have been published (not counting the “terrible” one in PL). I will discuss three questions: a. the identification and the rationale for the choice of (some of) the excerpts; b. the way the Gloss deals with tensions and contradictions between Mark’s version and that of Matthew; and c. the interaction or dynamics that result, or seem to result, from reading the Gloss on Matthew and that on Mark “in synopsis.” a. The first question poses some problems. First of all, it should be noted that all three of the identifications in excerpts nos. 2, 15, and 17 are wrong. Actually, they are found together in the anonymous seventh century commentary on Mark that was edited by Cahill and to which I referred above, and therefore, directly or indirectly, probably stem from this work.64 But this commentary offers only a marginal contribution. Indeed, the gloss on Mark 5:1–20 basically consists of excerpts from Bede, as is indicated already by the oldest editor of the Gloss.65 This is not 62 1634

counts it together with the previous lemma. counts this and the following lemma with the previous one. 64  See above n. 22. The text is edited in CC SL 82, 29. Together the three excerpts almost copy out what this commentary has to say on Mark 5:1–20. 65 The lack of a critical edition of the Gloss prevents us from ascertaining any further which of these excerpts are already identified as such in the manuscripts. A comparison with the text of Bede reveals that he is also the source of nos. 11, 13 and 14. The additional material in the later editions comes from Victor of Antioch, a shadowy figure, whose “commentary” (or is it a catena?) was first translated into Latin by Th. Peltanus in 1580; a first rather confused edition of the Greek text by P. Possinus appeared in 1673; two more editions were published by C. F. Matthaei in 1775 and by A. Cramer in 1844; Matthaei’s is the best of the three. For some more information on “Victor” and his work, see J. W. Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to St. Mark Vindicated against Recent Critical Objecters and Established (Oxford: Clarendon, 1871), 269–87; J. Reuss, Matthäus-, Markus‑ und Johannes-Katenen nach den handschriftlichen Quellen untersucht (Münster: Aschendorff, 1941), 118–41; most recently J. Verheyden, “A Puzzling Chapter in the Reception History of the Gospels: Victor of Antioch and His So-called ‘Commentary on Mark.’” Unpublished Paper at the Oxford Patristic Conference 2011. 63 1634

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surprising. The compiler(s) had little choice when looking for a commentator on Mark, as this gospel had hardly ever been commented upon at some length and Bede’s is the only “ordinary” commentary that was known in the West at that time. It should be noted, however, that Bede’s commentary on Mark largely consists of reproductions of long sections from his commentary on Luke; in a number of instances Bede explicitly refers the reader to the parallel in Luke, and so indirectly also to his commentary on that gospel.66 It is a telling example of how Medieval commentators handled the gospels and such passages that appear there in double or triple version. In doing so, they actually only continued on a path that had been laid out already long before. We do not know for sure whether the compiler knew both these commentaries, though this is certainly not improbable. The two most often strongly agree in structure and wording. There are a few instances where the Gloss agrees on a particular word with the commentary on Mark against the one on Luke.67 In one instance (13) he clearly follows the longer version of the commentary on Mark against the one on Luke. A comparison of the text of the Gloss with that of Bede’s commentary on Mark, as it is available to us in a critical edition, shows that, as a rule, the two agree rather closely, though the wording is (almost) never completely identical, as the Gloss in a good number of instances seems to have shortened the text, changed the word order, or used a synonym. These differences are on principle not listed in the critical edition of Bede’s commentary, and for good reason, because they do not stem from a manuscript of that commentary and at best represent secondary evidence of the transmission of the text, with, moreover, a specific purpose.68 The Gloss also follows the order of the commentary in extracting the excerpts, which is not really surprising, except in two instances (nos. 8 and 10 and nos. 12/13 and 14 inverted) and no indication is given or can be derived from the text why this has happened. In a few instances the text of Bede that is cited is actually a quotation from another author. Bede himself did not signal this to the reader. The compiler apparently has not seen this, or did not mention it, and neither do the editors of the Gloss. The following Table gives an overview of the structure of Bede’s commentary on the Gerasene Demoniac (both the one on Mark and that on Luke), of the origin of some of the excerpts from Bede, and of the amount of material that is cited or taken over from Bede:69 66 Quite remarkably, not one of the excerpts in the gloss on Luke 8:26–39, the parallel to Mark 5:1–20, is identified. A quick look shows that it does certainly not follow Bede’s commentary in the same way as this is done in the gloss on Mark, although a couple of excerpts appear to be somewhat free renderings from passages from Bede (see 1480/1, p. 170 and 1634, pp. 803–4). 67 At 7 the Gloss reads “damnationem,” with the commentary on Mark, as the last word against the commentary on Luke, which has “perniciem.” 68 It would lead too far to list all the differences. Bede and the Gloss differ rather significantly on excerpt 4 and even more on 18. 69 References are to D. Hurst’s edition of Bede’s commentary on Luke and on Mark (CC SL, 120). The section on Mark 5:1–20 is found on pp. 491–5 (lines 92–260), that on the parallel in Luke 8:26–39 on pp. 182–8 (lines 662–853); for clarity’s sake, I refer to this edition by using the line numbering. As said, the two texts are as a rule very similar; the major differences occur in

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1. 92–102 (Mark 5:1) = 663–673 (Luke 8:26) 103–108 (5:2) diff. 674–678 (8:27a) 679–683 (8:27a) 108–112 (5:3a) = 684–688 (8:27b) 3. 113–120 (5:3b) = 708–713 (8:29b) = Augustine (Quaest. Ev. Lc., PL 35:1338) 121–131 (5:5) om. Luke 132–142 (5:6–7a) = 691–699 (8:28a) 143–150 (5:7b–8) = 700–707 (8:28b–29a) 4. 144–146 = 703–704 5. 151–159 (5:9) = 714–723 (8:30) 724–750 6. 160–170 (5:9) = 750–759 (8:30) 7. 171–177 (5:10) = 760–765 (8:31) cf. Ambrose (Exp. Ev. Lc., CC SL 14, 190) 178–192 (5:11–13a) = 766–779 (8:32) 10. 183–186 = 770–773 = Jerome (in Matth., CC SL 77, 53) 8. 187–192 = 774–779 193–205 (5:13b) = 780–792 (8:33) 9. 195–198 = 782–785 = Augustine (PL 35:1338) 206–210 (5:14a) = 793–797 (8:34) = Augustine (PL 35:1338) 11. 208–210 = 795–797 211–228 (5:14–15) = 798–807 (8:35) 14. 214–218 = 800–804 = Augustine (PL 35:1339) 12. 218–221 = 804–806 13. 221–228 (221–222 = 806–807) 229–237 (5:17) = 808–817 (8:37a) 818–832 (8:37b) 238–260 (5:18–19) cf. 833–854 (8:38–39) 16. 244–249 = 838–842 (241–249/835–842 = Augustine, PL 35:1339) 18. 249–260 = 843–853 (249–255/843–849 = Augustine, De consens. Ev., CSEL 13, 158; 255–260/849–854 cf. Ambrose, CC SL 14, 189)

The survey shows how much the compiler has relied on Bede. It raises the question of why he then thought it necessary also to add in a few excerpts from other authors, a very short one (15) and two somewhat longer, but for which he also could have turned to Bede (2 and 17). The compiler gives no clue about the rationale for his selection. He may have found the alternative excerpts in his model or source (if he had one), but again we have nothing to go on. The fact that Bede’s comment on Mark 5:2 differs rather significantly from that on the parallel in Luke 8:27a (in wording rather than content) hardly can have been a factor, as he could have just opted for one of the two. Was it the more outspoken allegorical interpretation of the man’s insanity that convinced him? The compiler certainly is interested in that aspect. It is the theme of the last excerpt, where he is following Bede but citing

the lemma that introduces the paragraph, but I have chosen to forego this aspect in order not to complicate things too much.

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him more freely than usual, and it is the topic of the excerpt from the Anonymous that precedes it.70 Contrary to the one on Mark, where fifteen out of the eighteen excerpts are identified in the later editions (though three of these identifications are proven to be wrong and the three that remained unidentified also stem from Bede, as we have seen), the section on Matthew is only identified on three occasions and refers to three different authors (nos. 3–4 and 13). The first of these is a very short note explaining that the demoniacs cannot really have known who Jesus was, but only guessed his identity (“magis suspicati quam nosse credendi sunt”).71 The fragment attributed to Ambrose is not found as such in his Expositio on Luke 8:26–39, which had inspired Bede a couple of times in writing his commentary on Luke/Mark, but something more or less close to it is found, quite out of context, in the comment on Luke 1:26–27!72 The excerpt attributed to Bede is an attempt at explaining Matt 8:34 from Luke 8:35, part of which is cited that has no parallel in Matthew; the text does not agree with what is found at this place in Bede’s commentary on Luke / Mark. The other excerpts remain unidentified. This is in itself interesting, especially as one would expect the gloss on Matthew to have been used more frequently and assiduously than the one on Mark. The compiler, and the editors and later users, for all their zeal in trying to identify as many excerpts as possible, apparently saw no problem in using and citing a work that at certain places remains anonymous. Of course, it is possible that the ancient users knew the origin of these excerpts, but this cannot be proven.73 70 The text of the Gloss differs from that of the Anonymous by interpreting Jesus sending the man home in v. 19 as “in spiritualem legis observantiam.” 71 It is wrongly attributed to Hilarius; I have not yet been able to identify the author. 72 CC SL 14, 30. 73 This said, at least some of the material can be identified. Excerpt 1 is a slightly abbreviated and variant version of Bede’s commentary on Mark 5:1 and Luke 8:26 that was used also by Rabanus Maurus in commenting on Matt 8:28 (CC CM 174, 249); so it may either have come to the compiler directly from Bede or through Rabanus. The fragment also harbors a line from Jerome’s Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum (ed. Lagarde, p. 6) on the status of Gerasa as a colony that is not identified as such in the editions of Bede and Rabanus. The first of the two excerpts numbered 2 contains an echo of Bede’s commentary on Mark / Luke that was reproduced as no. 18 in the gloss on Mark, and through Bede, of Augustine, but the texts are not identical. Excerpt 2b combines elements from Augustine, Bede, and maybe also Rabanus, but is closest to a passage from a commentary on Matthew that goes under Ps-Bede (PL 92:43). Excerpt 5 remains unidentified, but the phrase “nimiam infirmitatem” was used by Jerome in commenting on Matt 18:10, and taken over by Rabanus at the same place. Excerpt 6 comes from Augustine’s De consensu evangelistarum (CSEL 43, 158). No. 7 contains an element from Jerome’s comment on Matt 8:30 on the presence of the Lord being a torture for demons, which Bede had used in commenting on Mark 1:23–24 (and again on the par. in Luke); the Gloss writes “tortura” (for “tormentum”), which occurs almost never in Christian literature before the eighth century. The brief note no. 8 is found in Bede’s commentary on Mark 5:13b par. Luke 8:33 (and in Rabanus on Matt 8:32), but was not cited in the gloss on Mark. No. 9 is part of Bede’s commentary on the same two verses and was also cited, but with its context, as excerpt no. 8 in the gloss on Mark. The short no. 10 remains unidentified. No. 11 is identical with the excerpt no. 9 in the gloss on Mark (hence, from Augustine), but with an extra introductory phrase that is not in Bede or in the gloss on Mark. No. 12 looks like a free rendering of the excerpt from Bede (from Augustine) that is cited as no. 11 in the gloss

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b. In the gloss on Matthew (henceforth: Gl-Matt), four differences with Mark (Gl-Mark) are signaled: there are two demoniacs in Matthew (Gl-Matt 2), they are “fierce” (2. “saevi”), the demon refers to himself in the plural (6), and the herd of swine is said to be “at some distance,” whereas in Mark it is situated “circa montem” and counted up to 2,000 (6). The first of these differences is also dealt with in GlMark (18). None of them seems to pose a problem to the compilers of the Gloss. Mark reads “circa montem,” because of the large number of swine: “quia de tanto grege alij circa montem errant: fuerunt enim duo milia, ut Marcus ait” (Gl-Matt 6). The number of swine is commented upon in Gl-Mark, but no reference is made to the difference with Matthew and the compiler only cites a passage from Bede (and through Bede from Jerome) arguing against the Manichaeans, who seem to have had troubles accepting that so many swine should perish for the salvation of only one man: “erubescat Manichaeus …” (Gl-Mark 10). It is not the only such polemical comment in Gl-Mark (see below). The second difference is merely noted: “Saevi. Marcus dicit quod nullus iam daemoniacum poterat ligare. Lucas, ruptis catenis in deserto agi, quia Gentes nullo vinculo legum poterant cohiberi” (Gl-Matt 2). Obviously the difference was not thought to be that important, which is true, and the compiler is rather more interested in explaining the meaning of “monumentis,” which he wants to understand as “in operibus mortuis delectabantur.”74 The difference between Matthew’s plural (v. 29) and Mark’s and Luke’s singular (v. 7 and 28) in having the demon talk of himself should not be overrated, it is argued, because the content and meaning of his words are the same in both versions. Moreover, Matthew’s plural is in line with Mark’s (and Luke’s) version, because there the demon is indeed said to be “many” (“Legion”). “Verba daemonum diverse relata nihil habent scrupuli, cum ad unam sententiam redigi, vel omnia possunt dicta intelligi, Nec quod hic pluraliter: apud alios singulariter: quia & ibi dicitur quod legio nominator: quia multa sunt daemonia” (Gl-Matt 6). This may not be the most agreeable solution. The difference in the number of demoniacs is explained in the same harmonistic way: Matthew has two and Mark and Luke have only one; yet they do not disagree among each other, for the latter have just focused on the more fierce of the two. It is the explanation that can be found in Gl-Matt: “Marcus & Lucas dicunt unum, quia eorum unus fuit clarior & famosior, pro quo dolebat maxime illa regio, & quo sanato fama exijt latior” (2). It was formulated most clearly also by “Victor of Anon Mark, but with perhaps also a touch of Rabanus ad Matt 8:33 (see “non cessant” at the end). No. 14 looks like a free rendering of Bede’s commentary on Mark 5:17 / Luke 8:37, which is itself inspired by Jerome’s comment on Matt 8:34 and was taken up later on by Rabanus, but neither of these has a text that is fully identical with the Gloss. The last excerpt remains unidentified, if it ever was meant to be a quotation. 74 The phrase echoes a passage that occurs in Bede’s commentary on Mark and in that on Luke, but that is not reproduced in Gl-Mark (see Table above, ll. 108–12); actually it is a quote from Ambrose’s Expositio on Luke, which this author (followed by Gl-Mark) further explains as “hoc est, in peccatis” (also Rabanus ad Matt 8:28).

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tioch” when commenting on “the man with unclean spirit” in Mark 5:2: “Marcus & Lucas unius tantum qui a daemone vexabatur, mentionem faciunt. Matthaeus autem duorum. At haec non pugnant, pugnarent tamen si Marcus & Lucas unum dumtaxat extitisse scriberent, Matthaeus autem duos. Verisimile sit Marcum & Lucam saeviorem de duobus eligisse” (cited in the 1634 edition). One should note the echo from Matthew in the word “saeviorem” (see Matt 8:28; there is another such echo in the comment on Mark 5:7, where Victor actually quotes Matthew’s “ante tempus”). Victor also adds to it that only in Mark is it said that the demoniac bruises himself with stones: “Marcus addit lapidibus seipsum concidisse” (1634, c. 530). Bede, who is cited at Mark 5:19 to explain the use of the singular (“and said to him, ‘Go home …’”), does not speak of “pugnare” or the like in pointing out the difference: “Matthaeus duos, Marcus et Lucas unum a daemone curatum dicunt, quia unus eorum clarioris nominis, est famosioris; & ideo curatio eius est famosior” (Gl-Mark 18). To this is added an allegorical interpretation that connects the two with the two sons of Noah who fell victim to idolatry, an echo of which is also found in the note on Matt 8:28 (Gl-Matt 2). The same comment is found, with reference to Bede, in the interlinear gloss on “homo in spiritu immundo” at Mark 5:2: “Beda. Gentes quae daemoniacis illusae doctrinis idola colunt.” In general the number of such interlinear glosses is higher in the part on Mark than in that on Matthew, and several of these seem to be of a more polemical nature.75 Later on Nicholas of Lyra will repeat the same explanation on the difference in number and expand upon it, ending with a semi-philosophical note: Mark and Luke do not contradict or ignore (“negant”) Matthew’s version, “quia unitas concluditur in binario.”76 The number of demoniacs clearly was a problem that somehow had to be solved. But there are also instances in which contradictory opinions are noted, and left untouched. That is the case in the very first note, “in regionem Gerasenorum.” The first half of the note on Mark 5:1 (from Bede / Jerome?) basically agrees with the one at Matt 8:28 (which also reads Gerasa, instead of Gadara), including its identification as a region of the pagans to whom the good message was preached, but while also noting the variant Gergesa (“Unde bene Gerasa sive Gergesi colonum eiiciens”). In the edition of 1634, it is followed by a very long and much more precise note taken from Victor, who not only mentions a third variant (Gadara), but also notes that Gergesa is the only possible identification, because it is situated in the neighbourhood of the lake of Tiberias, whereas Gadara, while it has good waters (“propter salubres vicinaque thermas haud ignobilis”), actually is a city in Judaea, and Gerasa as a matter of fact is a desert city in Arabia that lacks water (“nullum neque mare neque lacum vicinum habens”). The comment was lost on 75 See the comment on “adoravit eum” in Mark 5:6: “Hoc contra Iudaeos qui dicunt. In Beelzebub eijcit daemo”; and compare the one on “Iesu fili Dei” in 5:7: “Hoc contra Arium qui negat filium Dei”; and see also the comment on the Manichaeans quoted above. 76 Cited from the apparatus of the 1634 edition, c. 167.

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Bede who made Gerasa a city “non longe a stagno Tyberiadis.” Apparently such ‘contradictions’ did not pose too much of a problem. c. In some instances it looks as if the other of Gl-Mark is inviting the reader to take a look at the parallels in either Matthew or Luke by leaving a lacuna, i.e., by not commenting on a particular passage. It is only by combining comments from the different books that the reader will get ‘the full picture.’ This is the case with the commentary on the way the demons recognize and identify Jesus in Mark 5:7 par. Matt 8:29. The verse (or part of it) is commented upon in Gl-Matt (3), but not GlMark. Is this the reason why in later editions at Mark 5:7 an excerpt from “Victor” on precisely this topic is added (by the editors themselves or from manuscripts?). Victor does not link the phrase to the second part of the demon’s question, but rather connects it to the preceding story and compares the demon’s reaction to that of the disciples and that of the sea in Mark 4:39–41 after Jesus had calmed the storm; the demon evidently was not present at that scene, yet he reacts in the same way as did the sea upon meeting with Jesus, as Victor, with a mix of naive realism and narrative reading, duly emphasizes.77 The ‘original’ Gloss also contains such an instance in which the text that is commented upon is linked to another passage from the gospels. The scene of the herdsmen asking Jesus to leave (Mark 5:17 par. Matt 8:34) is commented upon in both Gl-Matt and Gl-Mark. In both instances their request is compared to Peter asking Jesus to take leave from him because he is a sinful man (Luke 5:8); in both there is also a reference to a similar passage from the Old Testament, from 2 Sam 6:6 (Uzzah touching the arc) in Gl-Mark (15), and from 1 Kgs 17 (Elijah and the widow) in Gl-Matt (14). From the Sondergut sections in Mark, the dialogue between Jesus and the demon in Mark 5:9 is amply commented upon (both the question and the answer), but nothing is said of Jesus’ command in v. 8. The Sondergut in vv. 15–16 is treated in a similar way: there are three notes on v. 15, but none on v. 16. The comment on the Sondergut at the end (vv. 18–20) is limited to just one note on Jesus’ command to the demoniac to go home (v. 19), taken from Bede (16), with an extra excerpt from the Anonymous (“Jerome”) in 17, who both interpret the command allegorically, but in different ways, and link it to the man’s missionary work.78 The few elements in which Matthew differs from or goes beyond Mark, on the other hand, have not escaped attention (two demoniacs, the qualification “saevi” instead of Mark’s long description of their behavior, the phrase “ante tempus” in v. 29).

77 “Quandoquidem Apostoli in navi Christum hominem esse confessi fuerant, prodeunt nunc in medium daemones qui illius divinitatem aperte promulgent. Ea propter qui mare fluctuans rursumque conquiescens non audierant, illi iam daemones magna id voce clamantes audiunt, quod mare per subitam tranquillitatem iam ante clamarat” (1634, c. 530). 78 Bede: “in conscientiam bonam redeat & propter aliorum salutem evangelio serviat”; Anon.: “in spiritualem legis observantiam: & predicat in Decapoli, id est, observat decalogum.”

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3.2 The First Feeding Narrative Though Mark’s version again is longer than Matthew’s, the section on Matthew counts two excerpts more than the one on Mark. In the edition of 1480/1 these are placed as follows:79 Matthew Mark 1. Quod cum aud(isset) (13) (– 6:32) 2. Secessit (13) 1. Abierunt in deserto (32) Bede 3. Pedestres de civitatibus (13) 2. Et pedestres (33) (= 14:14) 3. Et miser(tus) (34) Bede 4. Vespere aut(em) facto (15) 4. Et cum iam hora (35) Bede80 Chrysostom Victor 5. Discipuli (15) (= 6:35) 6. Mystice81 7. Dimitte turbas (15) (= 6:36) 8. Dimittentur (15)82 9. Date illis (16) 5. Date illis (37) 6. Notandum (37)83 (– 13:16/17) Euntes emamus (37) Augustine, de cons. Ev. II.46 10. Quinque panes & duos pisces (17) 7. Quinque (38) Bede Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 7 (– 13:19) 8. Secundum con(tubernia) (39) Bede (– 13:19) 9. Ideo (40)84 11. Acceptis quinq. (19) 10. Et acc(eptis) (41) Victor of Antioch (bis) Theophylact of Ohrid85 12. Benedixit (19) (= 6:41) Lactantius Hilarius (= 13:19) Dedit discipulis (19) Hilarius

11. Fregit (41) (= 6:41)

79 I follow the same type of display as for the first case study. Mark, in 1480/1, pp. 105–106 and 1634, cc. 546–9; Matthew, in 1480/1, pp. 51–2 and 1634, cc. 254–7. 80 The excerpt is not identified, but a second and third note are in the 1634 edition. 81 5 and 6 are taken together in the 1634 edition. 82 Taken together with the previous one in the 1634 edition. 83 Taken together with the previous one in the 1634 edition. 84 The 1634 edition split nos. 8 and 9 somewhat differently. 85 The excerpt is not identified, but three extra notes are added in the 1634 edition.

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Matthew Mark 13. Reliquias (20) 12. Et sustulerunt (43) Victor of Antioch Bede 14. Quinque milia (21) 13. Quinque mi(lia) (44) Bede 15. Exceptis mulie(ribus) (21) (– 6:43: “men” only)

In this instance only five out of the thirteen excerpts in Gl-Mark are identified (all from Bede), and none in Gl-Matt. I refrain from repeating the same exercise of identifying the rest,86 and instead will focus on a comparative reading of the two sections. a. Cross references from and to the parallel in Matthew or Mark are rather exceptional. The compiler of Gl-Matt indicates, almost in passing, that Mark and Luke also mention that Jesus wants to send the crowds away (“His Marcus & Lucas consentiunt” [7]), but he is first and foremost interested in comparing Mark’s version to that of John, thereby pointing out that basically the two are in agreement: “quod Philippus apud Ioannem respondet, hoc Marcus à discipulis esse responsum commemorat, volens hoc intelligi ex ore caeterorum Philippum respondisse” (7).87 In commenting upon v. 19 (11), the compiler of Gl-Matt has smuggled in a note on the phrase “by hundreds and by fifties,” which is of course absent from Matthew but is found in Mark 6:40. The same comment is found also in the section on Mark, but is here spread over two notes (nos. 8–9), the first of which is identified as coming from Bede: the phrase “in groups” would refer to the various orders in the one Church;88 “by hundreds and by fifties” would refer to the two types of rest, in body and in mind, to which the faithful aspire (9).89 The distinction between the two phrases is lost in the section on Matthew. b. In commenting on Jesus’ withdrawal to the desert, the compiler of Gl-Matt implicitly brings out a difference between Matthew (“withdraw”) and Mark (“go away”) that may perhaps not have been intended as such by the evangelist. Jesus withdrew, not out of fear, but either because of compassion for his enemies to avoid that, after John, they should now also proceed in killing him, or alternatively, because he wished to test the faith of his followers: “Non fugit timore, sed secessit parcens inimicis ne homicidium homicidio iungerent, dans exemplum vitandae temeritatis. Vel secessit, ut probaret fidem credentium, unde: Et cum audissent turbae &c.” (2). 86 The

challenges and difficulties of it have sufficiently been illustrated in the first case. the 1634 edition, a longer version of this comment is cited in the section on Mark in commenting upon v. 37b and identified as from Augustine (see Table above). The text continues after “respondisse” with “quanquam & pluralem numerum pro singulari usitatissimè ponere potuerit” (c. 547). 88 “Beda. Diversi discubitus, distincti ordines ecclesiarum qui unam catholicam faciunt” (8). 89 “Quinquagenarius autem bis ductus centum facit, & ideo utriusq. Quietis perfectionem significant, scilicet, corporis et mentis.” 87 In

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A minor difference between Matthew and Mark is singled out in the interlinear gloss on the subject of “ascendentes” in Mark 6:32: “Non solum discipuli, sed cum domino ut Matthaeus dicit.” Another small difference is explained away, with the help of Bede, in commenting on Jesus’ compassion in 6:34 par. Matt 14:14: “Quomodo misertus sit, Matthaeus plenius exponit hoc modo: Et misertus est eis, & curavit languores eorum” (3). The latter element is lacking in Mark, but the “languores” include such diverse groups as the poor, those who are without a shepherd, those looking for the truth, the sick, and the hungry.90 The second category takes up Mark’s phrase, whereas the third category may refer to Mark’s “and he began to teach them many things” (v. 34), and the fourth one obviously paraphrases Matthew’s “curavit languores.” The specifically Markan formulation, and especially also the biblical motif of the shepherd and the sheep, has somewhat become embedded in the whole series of categories of people in need.91 c. The Table above shows that there are eight instances with a parallel note in Matthew and in Mark. As a result, some of the notes are quite repetitious, and one may wonder why the compiler of Mark took the trouble of repeating once more what could already be found in the section on Matthew (unless, of course, he did not know Gl-Matt, or on purpose wanted the two gospels to be given due attention). The (critical) comment on Jesus’ response to his disciples – “a provocation” (“provocat”) – that they should take care of feeding the crowds (Matt 14:16 par. Mark 6:37) is virtually identical (Gl-Matt 9 and Gl-Mark 5). Gl-Matt, however, seems to be more critical still of the disciples, as is shown by excerpt 5, which does not have a parallel in Gl-Mark.92 It is hard to say whether this was on purpose and was the result of a tacit correction of Gl-Matt’s harsh judgment on the disciples.93 It is important, however, to realize that the Table should not be used too rigidly. On closer look it appears that some of the notes bearing (more or less) the same title can cover different aspects, and that in other instances comments that are closely parallel occur in different sections. The fact that the people follow Jesus “on foot” is mentioned in both gospels (Matt 14:13 par. Mark 6:33) and is commented upon in both Gl-Matt and Gl-Mark. The former offers a moral and anagogical interpretation.94 The compiler of Mark, on the other hand, is rather 90 “Hoc est enim pauperum & non habentium pastorem veraciter misereri, & viam veritatis aperire, & languidos curare & ieiunos reficiendo” (3). 91 Nicholas of Lyra seems to have tried to remediate this by separating the theme of Jesus’ compassion from the motif of the sheep without shepherd, which is given a note of its own, and a quite polemical one, aiming at the way the leaders of the church behave as rapacious wolves (cited in the apparatus of the 1634 edition, c. 546). 92 “Carnales, & de futuro miraculo refectionis ignari quib. dictum erat: In viam gentium ne abieretis.” 93 Later editors of the Gloss had no problem criticizing the disciples; see the excerpt from Victor in the note on Mark 6:43: “discipuli dubij adhuc haerebant ut evangelista indicat paulo post [citing Mark 6:52]” (1634, c. 549). 94 “Proprio labore, ut ardorem mentis ostenderent. … Habent voluntatem, sed non vires perveniendi. Ideo Iesus obviam exit, & misertus curat, …” (3).

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more interested in explaining for the reader why they had to go by foot.95 Yet, the moral interpretation is not forgotten, but figures in the preceding note, on why they follow Jesus in the desert, and is formulated partially in identical wording as in the gloss on Matthew: “proprio labore pedum, iter deserti arripiunt; & salutis desiderium ostendunt” (1). In a number of instances it looks as if the compiler of Mark has given a longer version of the same comment that is found in the section on Matthew. The comment on the five loaves and the two fishes is basically identical in both sections – the first stand for the Pentateuch, the second for the Prophets and the Psalms – but in that on Mark one reads a longer version, that is now also identified as coming from Bede, in which the two citations from 1 Cor 2:13 and Luke 24:44, that are merely quoted in the section on Matthew, are now also explained (Gl-Matt 10 and Gl-Mark 7). One wonders if the compiler of Mark has consciously been revising the Matthean gloss. The same impression might be gained from reading the comments on the central verse (Matt 14:19 par. Mark 6:41) describing the ritual of Jesus praying over the bread and breaking and distributing it. As mentioned above, Gl-Matt had added a short observation on v. 19a to his comment on the five loaves and two fishes in v. 17 using phrases and motifs that actually are in Mark but not in Matthew. The compiler of Mark has put these (back) in the right order. In the gloss on Matthew there follow comments on three of the five acts Jesus is performing in v. 19b: taking the loaves (11), speaking a blessing (12), and breaking the bread (as part of the former comment).96 Jesus taking the loaves is claimed to mean that he is not inventing any new teaching, but teaches and completes what had been prophesied: “Accepit quinque panes, non novos creavit, quia veniens in carne non alia quam praedicta errant praedicavit, et opera implevit” (11). A similar comment is found also in Gl-Mark, but with a clarification that links this note to what had been said before when commenting on the meaning of the loaves and the fishes: “Non nova cibaria creat, quia incarnates, non alia quam quae scripta errant praedicat: sed legem & prophetas mysteriis gravida esse demonstrat” (10). There follows in Gl-Matt a note that is meant to explain the blessing, but as a matter of fact is a sort of comment on Luke 24:44 (12). An almost identical comment is found in Gl-Mark 7. The compiler of Mark goes beyond Gl-Matt in also specifically paying attention to the important motif of Jesus distributing the bread through his disciples: “distribuit discipulis suis, quia sacramenta sanctis doctoribus, qui haec tot orbe praedicent, patefecit” (11).97 Gl-Mark offers a comment that can be said to be rather more complete, and perhaps also more balanced, than the one in Gl-Matt. 95 “Nota

quia non in aliam maris ripam sine Iordanis navigio pervenerunt” (2). 1634 edition also mentions the distribution of the food (from Hilarius). 97 Later editors must have felt this to be a lacuna in Gl-Matt and have added in a note from Hilarius on the same topic (see Table). The importance of this verse in Matthew and of its parallel in Mark was clearly sensed by later editors, as can be seen from the many “extras” in the 1634 edition. 96 The

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In a couple of instances reference is made to passages elsewhere in the gospel or in other gospels (see above on Luke 24). In the comment on the meaning of the number five thousand, Gl-Matt compares the five loaves and the five thousand to the seven loaves and the four thousand people of the second Feeding Story. The first motif refers to the five senses and to those who make a good use of their possessions in this world; the second to those who have denied the world and are “fed” on evangelical perfection (14). A somewhat differently formulated version of the same comment (identified as from Bede) is found also in Gl-Mark at the same place: “Propter quinque sensus corporis. Hi dominum secuti, significant eos qui in seculari adhuc habitu positi, exterioribus quae possident bene uti norunt. Qui recte quinque panibus aluntur; quia necesse est ut tales legalibus adhuc praeceptis instruantur. Qui autem mundo omnino renunciant, & quatuor sunt milia & septem panibus refecti, hoc est evangelica perfectione sublimes, & spirituali gratia intus eruditi” (13). Gl-Matt concludes his comment on a chronological note. On the basis of John 6:4 he suggests to date the death of John the Baptist, which Matthew and Mark had mentioned just before the Feeding Story, shortly before the Jewish Pascha, hence about one year before Jesus’ own death: “Unde colligitur Ioannem imminente eadem festivitate fuisse decollatum; & anno sequente cum denuo Pascha rediret, mysterium dominicae passionis esse completum” (14). The compiler of Mark has moved this same comment forward and has inserted it in his note on v. 37 (5). Neither of these choices is particularly fortunate. The reference to the second Feeding Story in the note on 6:44 is, as a matter of fact, the second time Gl-Mark mentions this story. Moreover, he considers it as only one of several parallels. Indeed, in commenting upon the bread and the fish in 6:38, he had cited a passage from Bede in which the Feeding Story of Mark 6 is presented as the first in a series of four: Jesus will perform another such miracle with four thousand present, then he will feed his disciples at the Last Supper, and finally all the elect in the Kingdom of God: “Primum quinque, panibus quinque milia, secundo, septem panibus quatuor milia reficit; tertio, discipulis suae carnis & sanguinis mysteria credidit; ad ultimum vero magno munere dat electis ut edant & bibant super mensam suam in regno suo” (7).98 Nothing of this is found in the section on Matthew, which, for this passage, looks all the poorer when compared to the one on Mark. d. Sondergut material is commented upon in nos. 1 and 15 of Gl-Matt, and in nos. 8 and 9 of Mark. As indicated above, the latter had in part been mentioned also in Gl-Matt even though it is lacking in that gospel. Matthew’s note at the end of v. 21 is explained in a way that sounds rather uneasy to a modern ear: “Sexus fragilis & minor aetas sunt numero indigni. Significat infirmos in fide nondum idoneos pugnae” (15). 98 Later

editors have added in some further comments on (more or less) related topics from Victor (on the manna in the desert) and from Theophylact (on the petition for bread in the Temptation Story).

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4. Conclusion I have selected for this essay a work that had obtained legendary status already shortly after it was produced and was to keep this status for a long time after, as it soon became the textbook for doing exegesis at Paris university and remained a much consulted commentary for centuries to come. The decision to focus on the Gloss might be considered to be a rather unhappy one: the composition history of the work has not yet been clarified in all its details (and may well never be) and a critical edition is still lacking. Yet even then some good reasons can be listed that make it worthwhile to take a look at this work. The Gloss offers some interesting insights on how Medieval authors went about putting together a “commentary,” not only on Matthew but also on that much neglected Gospel of Mark. The commentary on the latter is not treated as “a supplement” or a kind of “marginal note” to that on the former. It offers information of its own and for clarifying the text of Matthew itself. The Gloss also offers some nice illustrations of how Medieval commentators handled tensions between the gospels. They do not ignore them, but rather tackle them with the (obvious) purpose of rendering them harmless. I hope the two case studies also have shown that the Gloss is not a dull list of excerpts, but that reading it creates a dynamic of its own, by its genre and its layout. Of course, there are several things that may bother the more critical biblical scholar. This commentary seems to pay very little attention to matters of vocabulary or style (why not “simply” explain Matthew’s two demoniacs as a feature of his style, as we have gotten used to doing?), but in that respect it is not much different even from the better part of Patristic exegesis (Origen, Jerome), which also neglected a systematic treatment of such questions. And, of course, there is no small amount of allegorizing and moralizing in the notes, but it would be wrong to pin down this commentary, and by extension Medieval exegesis as a whole, to solely these approaches, just as it would be a gross mistake to consider the Gloss as the sole or even the best representative of biblical studies in the Middle Ages. And finally, of course, modern scholars may be (slightly) upset by the carelessness and the lack of accuracy in identifying the many excerpts. The criticism is to the point, but actually, I am not sure it would have bothered the Medieval colleague to the same extent. The Gloss was considered a true and trustworthy treasure of all that the good Fathers and their eldest sons, Bede and some others, such as the Anonymous who goes under different names in the 1634 edition, had to offer to the student of the Bible. It is perhaps not the most scientific of attitudes, but it may well have been a source of comfort. The wealth, variety, and originality of 12th century biblical exegesis, of which the Gloss is but one, though quite important representative, has been described, most impressively, by Gilbert Dahan in the opening paragraph of an essay he published twenty-five years ago and that has been reprinted in 2009. The text is worth quoting in full:

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Pour qui s’intéresse à l’exégèse de la Bible en Occident chrétien, le XIIe siècle donne une impression de richesse, de variété et d’originalité. Richesse: le nombre de commentaires alors composés est considérable et le travail des commentateurs embrasse souvent des séries entières de livres de l’Ancien et du Nouveau Testament. Variété: toutes les possibilités sont explorées; au commentaire traditionnel, donnant une place d’honneur à l’allégorie christique, se juxtapose la recherche littérale, fondée sur une approche historique ou sur une étude de la tradition textuelle; à côté des tropologies axées sur la vie monastique voient le jour des ouvrages qui mettent en jeu des éléments philosophiques ou des interprétations juives. Originalité: après les grands commentaires du haut moyen âge, marqueteries de morceaux patristiques, ceux du XIIe siècle, quelle que soit la part des emprunts (et elle est souvent importante), procurent une sensation de fraîcheur et de nouveauté.99

99 Dahan, Lire la Bible au Moyen Âge, 321–2. Cf. also: D. Salomon, An Introduction to the Glossa Ordinaria as Medieval Hypertext (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2012).

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Matt 8,28–34. From the anastatic reprint of the 1480/81 edition.

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Mark 5,1–20. From the anastatic reprint of the 1480/81 edition.

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Matt 14,13–21. From the anastatic reprint of the 1480/81 edition.

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Mark 6,32–44. From the anastatic reprint of the 1480/81 edition.

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Protestant Reading of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew in the 20th Century Martin Meiser The development of Roman-Catholic exegesis is influenced by official Church statements that reveal a renunciation of anti-rationalism in the document of 1893 (“Deus Providentissimus”), a cautious opening for form criticism in 1943 (“Divino afflante Spiritu”), and a new openness concerning narrative and structuralistic exegesis in the document of 1993 (“The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church”), which has no encyclical rank.1 Within a Protestant context, biblical scholarship is widely independent from such documents of the Church. Nevertheless, we have to take into account developments within Protestant churches, which are split between liberal and conservative parties,2 as well as experiences, e.g., in the socalled Kirchenkampf.

1. The 19th Century: Source Criticism and Historical Reading The history of historical critical research with regard to the canonical biblical texts began in the 16th century with biblical philology in Spain, independent from inner-confessional controversy. The shift to modern cricism is characterized by the fact that no longer do questions about the so-called regula fidei dominate:3 Which sort of regula fidei should be considered valid, the Roman-Catholic, the Lutheran, the Reformed, the Socinian etc.? What criterion beyond human thought should be used to distinguish legitimate conclusions from illegitimate? With regard to the Synoptic Gospels, the well-known anti-Christian attack made by Herman Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) in his Wolfenbuetteler fragments was very important, especially in the last one, “The Aims of Jesus and His Disci1 Compare

D. Dormeyer’s contribution in this volume. to conservative regimes within the distinct Protestant congregations, it was difficult for some scholars to get tenure. Concerning W. Bousset, cf. O. Merk, “Wilhelm Bousset (1865–1920)/ Theologe,” in idem, Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Exegese: Gesammelte Aufsätze zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. R. Gebauer et al.; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), 159–74, 159–60; concerning Ernst Fuchs, cf. W. Hüffmeier, “Ernst Fuchs (1903–1983),” in Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft nach 1945: Hauptvertreter der deutschsprachigen Exegese in der Darstellung ihrer Schüler (ed. C. Breytenbach and R. Hoppe; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 2008), 217–31, 220–1. 3 Compare M. Reiser, “Einführung,” in Bibelkritik und Auslegung der Heiligen Schrift (2nd ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 1–38, 19–20. 2 Due

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ples,” published after his death by his son-in-law Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729– 1781). Reimarus distinguishes between the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of his disciples (called “another system”). Not the content but the very fact of this distinction is of primary importance for our study. “Reimarus thinks it more reasonable to believe that the apostles freely invented much of what is reported in the Gospels than to assume that in every case they faithfully reported what Jesus said and did or what happened to him.”4 It was Protestant theologians who felt obliged to discuss such theses emerging from enlightenment philosophy; they regarded the enlightenment both as a help and a challenge. The Gospel of Matthew was the first to be read from a literary-historical perspective. Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) regretted that Papias’ reports on the evangelists were highly underestimated, and he suggested that an Aramaic collection of sayings of Jesus were incorporated into the Gospel of Matthew as its main component.5 In the following era, the priority of the Gospel of Matthew was maintained by the Tübingen school, whereas the thesis of Markan priority was just in the making. But why did the history of New Testament research lead to the victory of this thesis? David Friedrich Strauß (1808–1874) interpreted the Gospels as products of myth, which unintentionally transfer Old Testament concepts of messianism to Jesus Christ. This use of myth as a hermeneutical category is a progress in comparison to Reimarus,6 but Strauß’ work was limited to a critique of the narration of Jesus without any critique of the narrating texts.7 Therefore the further development of Gospel research should be seen as an answer to Strauß’ neglect of source criticism. The result of this development was the establishing of the so-called twosource hypothesis as the leading theory. This hypothesis had certain predecessors. The priority of Mark was first stated by the English Deist Thomas Chubb (1697–1747)8 and by the German theologian Gottlob Christian Storr (1746–1805),9 but the leading theory until 1835 had been 4  C. R.  Holladay, A Critical Introduction to the New Testament: Interpreting the Message and Meaning of Jesus Christ (Nashville: Abingdon Press 2005), 79–80. 5 F. D. E. Schleiermacher, “Über die Zeugnisse des Papias von unsern ersten beiden Evangelien (1832),” in idem, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, im Auftrag der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen ed. Hermann Fischer u.a., I,8: Exegetische Schriften (ed. H. Patsch and D. Schmid; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2001), 227–54, 227, 238. 6 Cf. Holladay, Critical Introduction, 81. 7 O. Merk, “Das Problem des Mythos zwischen Neologie und ‘religionsgeschichtlicher Schule’ in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft,” in Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Exegese, 24–46, 43. According to Merk (ibid.) Strauß’ neglect of source criticism was a point of critique even by his master Ferdinand Christian Baur: “Die größte Eigenthümlichkeit des Werks ist, daß es eine Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte ohne eine Kritik der Evangelien gibt” (Merk, ibid., quoting F. C. Baur: Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien, ihr Verhältniß zueinander, ihren Charakter und Ursprung [Tübingen: L. F. Fues, 1847], 141). 8 A. Yabro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 115. 9 According to W. G. Kümmel, Das Neue Testament: Geschichte der Erforschung seiner Probleme (2nd ed.; Freiburg: Alber, 1970), 89, Gottlob Christian Storr’s main argument was as follows: why

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the Griesbach hypothesis. Well-known is the importance of Christian Gottlob Wilke (1796–1854), Christian Hermann Weisse (1801–1866), and Carl Lachmann (1793–1851) for Heinrich Julius Holtzmann’s (1832–1910) benchmark work on the Synoptic Gospels, written in 1863.10 Yet this theory had implications for the interpretation of Mark’s Gospel in another aspect as well. In his commentary, Holtzmann not only understood the Gospel of Mark as the Vorlage for Matthew and Luke but also combined this literary-critical hypothesis with a historical one. He regarded the Gospel of Mark also as a historically true description of the main phases of Jesus’ life: the appearance of John the Baptist, Jesus’ first activities around the Sea of Galilee, the rise of his movement, and also of his adversaries, Peter’s Messianic confession, Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, his last days in Jerusalem, and his death.11 In some (not all!)12 “Life of Jesus” books the historical reconstruction of Jesus’ life followed Mark and inserted the sayings of Q. Mark had been read as a historically reliable source of the life of Jesus, to which the Gospels of Matthew and Luke added preaching material.13 Also after 1863, some exegetes still upheld the theory that Matthew was the oldest,14 but this theory was no longer influential; since Holtzmann the two-source theory has been the standard presupposition for many exegetes. Since 1892 the historical usage of the Gospel of Mark as a frame for describing the life of Jesus of Nazareth has been challenged in different ways. According to Martin Kähler (1835–1912) the Gospels are to be interpreted not as historical documents but as witnesses of faith;15 historical facts are always overshadowed by the light of the Easter event, and there is no direct approach to the historical specifics concerning Jesus isolated from the interpretation of the first believers (though Kähler maintained the historical reliability of the synoptic tradition!). But in 1892 the goal of describing Jesus as a moral personality also came to an end. Johannes should Mark have rejected so much material if the Gospels Matthew and Luke had been known to him? 10   H. J. Holtzmann, Die synoptischen Evangelien: Ihr Ursprung und ihr geschichtlicher Charakter (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1863). 11  H. J. Holtzmann, Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament (Freiburg: Mohr Siebeck, 1889), 9. Holtzmann admitted that Mark arranged his material sometimes not according to history but according to issues of theology and the life of his own community (ibid.). 12 A. Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (9th ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984), 227, underlines that the success of the Two-Source Hypothesis did not totally influence research on the historical Jesus. 13 E.g. O. Holtzmann, Leben Jesu (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1901), 25. In general cf. Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, 204–21. 14 T. Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara in ihrer Verkettung mit dem Gesammtleben seines Volkes frei untersucht und ausführlich erzählt. Band. I: Der Rüsttag (Zürich: Orell, Füßli & Co., 1867), 45. 15 M.  Kähler, Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche, biblische Christus (ed. E. Wolf; 4th ed.; München: Kaiser, 1969), 21; idem, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic, Biblical Christ (ed. and trans. C. E. Baraaten; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964), 43. Cf. Hollady, Critical Introduction, 86, describing Kähler: “The gospel neither derives its power from historical certitude nor can it be adequately grasped in purely historical terms. Christianity has an inescapably historical dimension since Jesus was a historical figure of the past, but history is neither its essence nor its power.”

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Weiß (1863–1914) interpreted the Gospels in terms of the apocalyptic theology re-discovered by Adolf Hilgenfeld (1823–1907). Jesus did not proclaim the moral perfection of men but the coming of supernatural catastrophe.16 In 1901, William Wrede (1859–1906) argued that Mark’s Gospel was influenced by a pre-Markan theology that attempted to balance between the non-Messianic life of Jesus and the dogmatic faith of the first believers;17 the evangelist himself did not have a strictly historical concept of Jesus’ life.18 Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) emphasized that the so-called historical reconstructions of the life of Jesus were very often only a mirror of the mind of their inventors.19 Was there any notion of reading Mark and Matthew in the light of the history of religion approach in this period? For Albert Schweitzer’s reconstruction of Jesus’ eschatology, Matt 10:23 was a main point.20 A New Commentary series published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht intended to spread the interpretation of the so-called Religionsgeschichtliche Schule among laymen (“Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments übersetzt und erklärt”), who should be enabled to understand the beginnings of Christianity and to be sensitive to the vigorous religious life of the first Christians;21 Johannes Weiß wrote the commentaries on the Synoptic Gospels.22 Not for laymen but for students and priests the “Handbuch zum Neuen Testament,” following the insight of the deep grounding of the New Testament texts in their cultural and religious environment, both Greco-Roman and Jewish, offered parallels from the history of religions as support for the academic lesson and as material for one’s own thinking for priests and school teachers of religion.23 Erich Klostermann commented on the Synoptic Gospels for this series.24 Also important was the publication of Hermann Leberecht Strack’s (1848–1922) and Paul Billerbeck’s (1853–1932) monumental commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash:25 The Protestant priest Paul Billerbeck Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1892). Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien: Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des Markusevangeliums (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1901; 3rd ed. 1963), 145. 18 Wrede, Messiasgeheimnis, 129. 19 Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, 620. 20 Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, 416–20. 21  J. Weiß, ed., Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments neu übersetzt und für die Gegenwart erklärt, Vol. I, Die drei älteren Evangelien (3rd ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1917), v. 22 J. Weiß, Das Matthäus-Evangelium (2nd ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1907; 3rd ed. 1917), 226–392; Das Markus-Evangelium, 71–226. 23 H. Lietzmann, An die Römer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1910), vii. 24 E. Klostermann, Die Synoptiker unter Mitwirkung von Hugo Greßmann erklärt (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1919), pp. 1–148 = Mark (originally published in 1907); pp. 149–357 = Matthew (originally published in 1909). 25 H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, Bd. I: Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (München: C. H. Beck, 1922); Bd. II: Das Evangelium nach Markus, Lukas und Johannes und die Apostelgeschichte (München: C. H. Beck, 1924); Bd. III: Die Briefe des Neuen Testaments und die Offenbarung Johannis, erläutert aus Talmud und Midrasch von P. Billlerbeck (München: C. H. Beck, 1926 = 2nd ed. 1954); Bd. IV: Exkurse zu einzelnen Stellen des Neuen Testaments. Abhandlungen zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Archäologie, Erster Teil (5th ed.; München: C. H. Beck, 1969), Zweiter Teil (5th ed.; München: C. H. Beck, 1969); Bd. V / VI: 16 J. Weiß,

17 W. Wrede,

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collected parallels from Jewish literature before and (mostly) after 70 C. E. to almost every relevant passage in the New Testament; Hermann Leberecht Strack reassessed this material. On the one hand, this commentary has been criticized for methodological26 and theological27 reasons, but, on the other hand, it has enabled scholars to include Jewish texts for comparison in Religionsgeschichte.28 With regard to Religionsgeschichte, the Gospel of Matthew was of special interest also for Adolf Schlatter, who collected parallels to Matthean phraseology from Josephus’ writings.29

2. The Beginning of the 20th Century: Protestant Exegesis between Historicism and Theology, between Liberalism and Conservatism With Kähler and Wrede the purely historical reading of the Gospels had come to an end. The further development of interpretation can be classified with regard to emerging source-critical and form-critical research. The new source-criticism intended to discover the sources on which Mark based his Gospel, but the results of this research were not such to encourage scholarship to pursue this path – results diverged, criteria were obviously ambiguous. Research related to Formgeschichte has been more influential. According to Karl Ludwig Schmidt (1891–1956) the introductory remarks framing distinct pericopes were secondary additions taken over by Mark without any historical interest.30 Martin Dibelius (1883–1947) classified the Synoptic Gospels as folktales; the evangelists are not authors in the modern sense. The Gospels were shaped by the interests of Christian communities beyond individual needs. Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) combined analytical form-criticism with research on the Traditionsgeschichte of distinct sayings and pericopes. Although not one of these scholars published a single commentary on any of the Synoptic Gospels, the interpretation of these New Testament texts was inspired by their work not only in the reconstruction of their Traditionsgeschichte but also with regard to the theological message of the New Testament in general. Rabbinischer Index. Verzeichnis der Schriftgelehrten. Geographisches Register (3rd ed.; ed. J. Jeremias and K. Adolph; München: C. H. Beck, 1969). 26 This critique is twofold: 1) Is it possible to use texts even from the fourth or fifth century in order to illuminate texts from the first century C. E.? 2) The quotations are often alienated from their context. 27 This critique concerns his pejorative remarks on Judaism. 28 After 1922, Rudolf Bultmann added many Jewish references to his lesson manuscripts on the Synoptic Gospels; cf. O. Merk, “Aus (unveröffentlichten) Aufzeichnungen Rudolf Bultmanns zur Synoptikerforschung,” in Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Exegese, 130–42, 132. 29 Der Evangelist Matthäus: Seine Sprache, sein Ziel, seine Selbständigkeit (2nd ed.; Stuttgart: Calwer Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1933). 30  K. L. Schmidt, Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu: Eine literarkritische Untersuchung zur ältesten Jesusüberlieferung (Berlin: Reimer, 1919; repr., Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964).

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In the 19th century, the historical dimension of biblical texts was re-discovered, but after the breakdown of the German Kaiserreich this type of exegesis was judged to be one-sided. Karl Barth’s (1886–1968) preface in the second edition of his Römerbrief was the loudest protest against the discordance between historical scrupulosity and theological disinterest.31 Rudolf Bultmann endorsed this criticism but wished to serve the heritage of liberal research, conserned with historical and theological truth.32 He emphasized that the New Testament texts were not historically oriented but centered on proclamation. The promoters of these new concepts were conscious of their challenging character for the conservative Protestant milieu,33 where Theodor Zahn (1838–1933) and Adolf Schlatter (1852–1938) revitalized the old thesis of Matthean priority.34 Rudolf Bultmann has given the most famous statement on this topic: “Ich lasse es ruhig brennen.”35 The critique of Erich Fascher (1897–1978) had no real influence on the ongoing research.36 But there is no intrinsic necessity concerning the provocative character of these concepts. Julius Schniewind (1883–1948) is an example of a scholar integrating the form-critical approach into a conservative historical frame – with surprising effectiveness (see below). The question whether Jesus’ words and deeds recorded in the Gospels can actually be traced back to Jesus or are molded by the first believers poses no real threat to him.37 The truth of the content of the Gospels is not based on external certainty but on their inherent veracity. The Gospels are not composed by a historian whose mind is influenced by indifference, doubt, or even hostility; they are proclamation.38 John Mark (e.g., Act 12:12) was the author of the Gospel of Mark: uncontrolled legend would surely have chosen a more prominent figure in the first Christian generation if opportunity was given. Schniewind even concurs with the thesis that the Gospel of Mark is shaped by Peter’s retrospection.39 31 K. Barth, Der Römerbrief (2nd ed.; ed. C. van der Kooi and K. Tolstaja, 1922); K. Barth, Gesamtausgabe: II. Akademische Werke 1922 (im Auftrag der Karl Barth-Stiftung; ed. H.-A. Drewes; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 2010), 11–16. 32 R. Bultmann, Glauben und Verstehen (vol. 1; 2nd ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1954), 1–25, 2; repr. of “Die liberale Theologie und die jüngste theologische Bewegung.” 33  Cf. Wrede’s preface in his Messiasgeheimnis, vi: “Es ist mir in mancher Stunde schmerzlich gewesen, dass meine Untersuchung so manches antastet, woran gute und fromme Menschen mit dem Herzen hängen. Ich gedachte alter Freunde, lieber Zuhörer, bekannter und auch unbekannter Gotteskinder, denen die Schrift vor Augen kommen könnte. Indessen ich konnte hier nichts ändern. Wir können die Evangelien nicht anders machen; wir müssen sie nehmen, wie sie sind.” 34 T.  Zahn, Einleitung in das Neue Testament II (Leipzig: Deichert, 1899), 322; A.  Schlatter, Markus, Der Evangelist für die Griechen (5th ed.; Stuttgart: Calwer, 1959), passim. 35 R. Bultmann, Glauben und Verstehen, 85–113, 101; repr. of “Zur Frage der Christologie.” 36 E. Fascher, Die formgeschichtliche Methode: Eine Darstellung und Kritik, Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des synoptischen Problems (Gießen: Töpelmann, 1924). 37 J. Schniewind, Das Evangelium nach Markus (7th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956), 39. 38 J. Schniewind, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (7th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1954), 1. 39 Schniewind, Das Evangelium nach Markus, 41.

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Schniewind’s commentaries on Mark and Matthew were part of a new series inaugurated by the publisher Gustav Ruprecht, the so-called “Neues Testament Deutsch.” This series was intended to be complementary to the series “Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments übersetzt und erklärt,”40 reflecting religious interests41 and (after 1918) the theological turn, but without neglecting the enduring results of the so-called Religionsgeschichtliche Schule.

3. Pre-Nazi and Nazi-Times in Germany: Protestant Exegesis between Assimilation and Resistance During World War I the Sermon on the Mount had been interpreted as justifying Germany’s aggressive politics.42 The Nazi ideology was supported by not a few Protestant New Testament scholars; some of them were deeply involved in active support of the Nazi administration. Shamefully, we have to remember – to give just three examples – Johannes Leipoldt’s (1880–1965) Jesu Verhältnis zu Griechen und Juden,43 Emanuel Hirsch’s (1888–1972) “Bergpredigt,”44 and Gerhard Kittel’s (1888–1948) Judenfrage.45 In 1939, Walter Grundmann claimed that the original version of the Sermon on the Mount, extracted from Luke 6:20–49, did not include any Old Testament or Jewish material; it was the evangelist Matthew who included such material.46 Theological resistance was sometimes hidden in indirect allusions. Julius Schniewind, a member of the so-called Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche), characterized the Gospels in the following way: “Unsere Evangelien sind allesamt so gemeint, daß sie nicht eine erhabene menschliche Persönlichkeit schildern wollen, sondern die Taten Jesu als des allzeit gegenwärtigen Herrschers seiner

40 Cf. M. Meiser, Paul Althaus als Neutestamentler: Eine Untersuchung der Werke, Briefe, unveröffentlichten Manuskripte und Randbemerkungen (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1993), 153–4. 41 First attempts are to be traced back to 1906, but it was not until 1926 that the publisher was able to secure an editor-in-chief (Paul Althaus); cf. Meiser, Althaus, 154. 42 E. Le Seur, Die Bergpredigt und der Krieg: Vier Kriegspredigten (2nd ed.; Berlin, 1915), 18. T. Birt, “Was heißt ‘Liebet eure Feinde’?” Christliche Welt 29 (1915): 475–83, 479, distinguishes ἐχθρός, used of a personal enemy, and πολέμιος, designating a political enemy, not used in Matt 5–7. 43 J. Leipoldt, Jesu Verhältnis zu Griechen und Juden (Leipzig: Georg Wigand, 1941). Cf. pp. 183–5: Jesus has a position far away from Judaism – most other Jews rejected him – and he suppressed the Jewish thinking of his disciples; in the Gospel of Matthew he is portrayed as a Jew faithful to Torah; therefore the character of this Gospel is ambivalent. 44 E. Hirsch, “Die Bergpredigt,” Deutsches Volkstum 20 (1938): 820–6. 45 G. Kittel, Die Judenfrage (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1933). 46 W. Grundmann, Die Frage der ältesten Gestalt und des ursprünglichen Sinnes der Bergrede Jesu (Weimar: Verlag Deutsche Christen, 1939). Concerning Walter Grundmann, cf., nowadays, R. Deines, ed., Walter Grundmann: Ein Neutestamentler im Dritten Reich (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2007).

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Gemeinde.”47 This statement is both anti-liberal and anti-Nazi.48 It is anti-liberal in its rejection of any classifying of Jesus among others in a series of esteemed human personalities such as founders of religions. It is anti-Nazi in its emphasizing of Jesus Christ as ruler within his community; this is an unveiled rejection of concepts that conceded influence of church developments to deceptively Christian factors and individuals. Within Schniewind’s conservative theory on the origins of the Synoptic Gospels described above, a critical comtemporary nuance is present: “Gerade das sehr Ungünstige, das über den Führer der ersten Gemeinde berichtet wird, kann nur auf Petrus selbst zurückgehn.”49 In the years before 1933, when Schniewind worked on his commentary, many people in Germany wished the appearance of a so-called Führer who would restore the German Kaiserreich. Schniewind’s phrase is a subtle attack against such wishes. In 1933, when this commentary was published, everyone in Germany knew why the term Führer was used in this phrase, regardless of whether Schniewind himself had this actual reference in mind.

4. Post-Nazi Times in Germany: Protestant Exegesis between Returning to the Bible and Contemporary Relevance Quarrels between extremely conservative circles on the one hand and moderate conservatives and liberals on the other shaped the situation within Protestant Churches in Eastern and Western Germany.50 The extreme conservatives feared that an alteration of theology would lead inevitably to apostasy from correct proclamation. Their opponents were influenced by the impression of radically changing times with regard to technical progress as well as to the history of ideas, and they already saw the loss of relevance of the biblical word in church and society as a possible consequence of extreme conservatism. In my view, this concern is prominent in the following statements of the moderate exegetes Günther Bornkamm (1905–1990) and Eduard Schweizer (1913–2006). In his seminal study “Die Sturmstillung im Matthäus-Evangelium,” one of the founders of redaction-critical exegesis, Günther Bornkamm, at first revives Martin Das Evangelium nach Markus, 36. Schniewind was a leading member of the so-called “Confessing Church” and suffered for it; cf. O. Merk, “Die Evangelische Kriegsgeneration,” in Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft nach 1945: Hauptvertreter der deutschsprachigen Exegese in der Darstellung ihrer Schüler (ed. C. Breytenbach and R. Hoppe; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 2008), 1–58, 53–4. 49 Schniewind, Das Evangelium nach Markus, 42. 50 In 1952, the synod of the “Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Deutschland” inaugurated a promulgation to be read in worship against Rudolf Bultmann and his program of “Entmythologisierung”; cf. O. Merk, “Kriegsgeneration,” 9. In 1973, this promulgation was revoked. Within the quarrel on the right of historical-critical exegesis, the “Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament” should underline that this type of exegesis leads to a deep understanding of biblical texts and supports preaching and catechesis (W. Grundmann, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus [Berlin: Theologische Verlagsanstalt, 1968], vi). 47 Schniewind, 48 Julius

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Kähler’s groundbreaking insight that Christian faith was not a later stratum in the tradition history of the gospel but its base. This implies that early Christian tradition was both attentive to and free in detail. He proceeds: Die Evangelisten greifen eben nicht auf irgendein Gemeindearchiv zurück, wenn sie die Worte und Taten Jesu weitergeben, sondern sie schöpfen aus dem Kerygma der Gemeinde und dienen diesem Kerygma. Weil Jesus Christus nicht eine Gestalt der Vergangenheit ist und also ins Museum gehört, kann es für die urchristliche Überlieferung von ihm auch nicht ein ‚Archiv’ geben, in dem sie gehütet wird.51

Eduard Schweizer names the dangerous loss of relevance more explicitly: Weil Jesus für die Gemeinde nicht ein toter, sondern ein lebendiger Herr war, mußte sie seine Worte immer wieder in ihre Fragen hinein hören, also sie auch auf die sich ändernden Situation beziehen und sie ihnen anpassen, … soll Jesu Wort nicht zu einer zwar ehrfürchtig verehrten, aber doch veralteten, nicht mehr wirklich in die Zeit hinein redenden Antiquität werden. Es ist dann sogar unausweichlich, daß man im Hören auf dieses Wort und in der Verbundenheit mit dem lebendigen Christus in neue Lagen hinein auch neue Worte in seinem Namen auszusprechen wagt … Gewiß ist es ebenso notwendig, diese neuen Worte an den alten zu messen und sich von diesen zeigen zu lassen, wo man etwa irregehen wollte; doch hebt dies die Notwendigkeit dieses Wagnisses nicht auf. Gerade in der Neuformulierung wird oft das alte Wort Jesu erst wirklich lebendig.52

Willi Marxsen (1919–1993) regarded the approach of redaction criticism as the prime method after the Second World War, inspired by the research of Gerhard von Rad (1901–1971) on the Pentateuch.53 In his point of view, it is wrong to assume that the composition of the Gospels does not add any principally new features to the synoptic tradition, whose tendency, with regard to the so-called Sitz im Leben, is not unity but diversity.54 To be sure, the technique of combining distinct traditions in specific places in a narrative is simple, but we should not conclude from this that the process was unaffected by motives representative of the evangelist’s own thought rather than the content of the traditions.55 With regard to Gerhard von Rad’s membership in the so-called “Confessing Church,” I interpret Marxsen’s remark as evidence of an understanding of theology as necessarily bearing in mind external consequences for the life and doctrine of the church; the evangelists were models of theologians who saw themselves individually responsible in this way. It is noteworthy that the application of redaction criticism was the first step in the development of New Testament research, which was no longer only the 51 G.  Bornkamm, “Die Sturmstillung im Matthäus-Evangelium,” in Überlieferung und Auslegung im Matthäus-Evangelium (7th ed.; ed. G. Bornkamm, G. Barth, and H. J. Held; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1975), 48–53, 48. 52 E. Schweizer, Das Evangelium nach Markus (7th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), 5. 53 W. Marxsen, Der Evangelist Markus: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Evangeliums (2nd ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959), 5. 54 Marxsen, Der Evangelist Markus, 8. 55 Marxsen, Der Evangelist Markus, 10–11.

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domain of Protestant Theology. One of the pioneers of this method was Wolfgang Trilling (1925–1993) with his important study on Matthew.56 This leads us to the next point.

5. The Sixties: Ecumenical Development A new openness of Roman-Catholic theologians to engage in discussion with their Protestant colleagues led to two commentary series where both Roman-Catholic and Protestant exegetes were engaged, the “Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum NT” and the “Ökumenischer Taschenbuchkommentar.” The first publication for the EKK, entitled “Vorarbeiten, Heft 1,” underlines the importance of mutual exchange of ideas, with integration of the points of disagreement between the Confessions.57 The editors in chief of ÖTK intend to overcome by this series the misuse of the Bible as confessional boundary marker and tool of self-affirmation.58 The rediscovery of distinct traditions of exegesis in the EKK led to the integration of Wirkungsgeschichte, which, according to Ulrich Luz, was both an enrichment and challenge for historical-critical research. There is more than one possible meaning of a text  – the rediscovery of Wirkungsgeschichte converged with new literary criticism with rgerad to the inevitable plurality of the meaning of any given text. The historical-critical scholar had to learn that historical-critical exegesis was not the beginning of exegesis at all; other modes of exegesis, which are authentic in their own right, preceded it. The work of historical-critical exegesis would be irrelevant if there were no other modes of reception of a biblical text, in preaching, praying, singing, suffering, and other activities.59 There are some new commentary projects on this topic.60 The confessional identity of the scholar is at this point in the history of interpretation and exegesis beginning to fade into the background.

56 W.  Trilling, Das wahre Israel: Studien zur Theologie des Matthäus-Evangeliums (3rd ed.; München: Kösel, 1964). 57  E. Schweizer, U. Wilckens, R. Schnackenburg, and J. Blank, eds., “Vorwort der Herausgeber,” in Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament: Vorarbeiten Heft I (Zürich: Benziger Verlag, 1969), 5. 58 E. Gräßer and K. Kertelge, eds., foreword to Das Evangelium nach Markus, Kapitel 1–9,1 by W. Schmithals (Gütersloh: G. Mohn, 1979), 5. 59 U. Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, 1. Teilband, Mt 1–7 (Zürich: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985), 78–82. 60 E.g., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (editor in chief: T. C. Oden; cf. M. Simonetti, Matthew 1–13 [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001]; idem, Matthew 14–28 [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002]; T. C. Poden, C. A. Hall, [eds.], Mark [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005]); The Church’s Bible (series editor: R. L. Wilken; the volumes on Matthew and Mark are not yet published); Blackwell’s Bible (editor in chief: J. Sawyer; the volumes on Matthew and Mark are not yet published); Novum Testamentum Patristicum (editors in chief: T. Nicklas, A. Merkt and J. Verheyden; the volumes on Matthew and Mark are not yet published). But cf.: J. Metzdorf, Matthäus 19–22 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013).

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6. The Seventies and Eighties I: Exegesis Influenced by the Dialogue between Christians and Jews After the Second World War, critical reflection on German history between 1933 and 1945 was, at first, concentrated on political failure based on a flawed concept of political theology, but later, after 1959, broadened to involve the foundational problem of the relationship between Christian Churches and Israel. Following an increasing awareness of Christian responsibility for the agonizing fate of many Jews throughout history, not only since 1933, the issue of anti-Judaism began to be discussed not only with regard to church history but also with regard to the New Testament itself. In addition, a new reading of New Testament texts within their positively assessed Jewish background took place. A combination of readings of the texts and personal encounters between Christians and Jews61 were worked together to produce this new openness. Theologians and exegetes of both Roman-Catholic and Protestant confessions identified the Jewish roots of Christianity in the New Testament texts. Due to German history, this interpretive trajectory was of special concern to German-speaking countries. The Gospel of Matthew was the first to be read against the horizon of Jewish-Christian dialogue (since the seventies), but about 20 years later the interpretation of the Gospel of Mark was also influenced by this challenge for biblical theology. Part of the older phase of purely historical-critically oriented scholarship on the Gospel of Matthew, according to the thesis of Georg Strecker and Wolfgang Trilling, this Gospel was of Gentile-Christian origin.62 This thesis has no relevance any more, but not only for historical reasons. In the seventies, the Roman-Catholic exegete Hubert Frankemölle was one of the first Christian scholars to read the Gospel of Matthew in light of this problem; nowadays, however, this issue is discussed beyond any Christian confessional borders. There is a lively debate63 on the relationship between the Gospel of Matthew and the so-called “parting of the ways.” According to Ulrich Luz, Matthew wrote his book after the official break between church and synagogue,64 but this point of view is nowadays65 challenged. Hans-Jürgen Becker, J. Andrew Overman, Anthony Saldarini, and others describe 61 Cf. e.g. K. Wengst, “Das jüdische Profil des Neuen Testaments entdecken,” in Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft: Autobiographische Essays aus der Evangelischen Theologie (ed. E.-M. Becker; Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 2003), 81–9, 84–5. 62 G. Strecker, Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit: Untersuchung zur Theologie des Matthäus (2nd ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 15–35; Trilling, Das wahre Israel, 215. 63 Cf. W. Kraus, “Zur Ekklesiologie des Matthäusevangeliums,” in The Gospel of Matthew at the Crossroads of Early Christianity (ed. D. Senior; Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 195–239, 197–202. 64 Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, 70–2. 65 But, cf. already G.  Bornkamm, “Enderwartung und Kirche im Matthäusevangelium,” in Überlieferung und Auslegung, 13–47 (36): “Auf Schritt und Tritt bestätigt das Matth.-Ev., daß die von ihm repräsentierte Gemeinde sich vom Judentum noch nicht gelöst hat. Die Messianität Jesu und die Gültigkeit seiner Lehre werden … noch durchgängig im Rahmen des Judentums vertreten und verteidigt … Der Kampf gegen Israel ist noch ein Kampf intra muros.”

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Matthew’s community as a minority group within Judaism and the conflict between Matthew and the Pharisees as an inner-Jewish conflict.66 According to Martin Vahrenhorst, we have to interpret the Gospel of Matthew as embedded in the halachic discourse of post-70 C. E. Judaism.67 Matthias Konradt emphasizes that the conflict between Matthew’s community and Pharisaic groups is an actual and present conflict, not a conflict in the past.68 Matthew 21:43 and 27:25 can no longer be interpreted as a basis for replacement theology; statements like “the church is the new / true Israel” are not used by the evangelist. But also with regard to the Gospel of Mark the older thesis of the author’s Jewish origin69 has been broadened in the direction of hermeneutics.70 The topic “Mark and the Jewish Law” yields ambiguous results: Whereas Heikki Sariola maintained that Mark’s knowledge of the law was not very accurate,71 James Crossley concluded the opposite.72

66 H.-J.  Becker, Auf der Kathedra des Mose: Rabbinisch-theologisches Denken und antirabbinische Polemik in Matthäus 23,1–12 (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum 1990); J.  Andrew Overman, Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism: The Social World of the Matthean Community (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 35–8; A. J. Saldarini, Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); cf. also K. Wengst, “Das Tun der Tora als Kriterium der Zugehörigkeit zur Gemeinde im Matthäusevangelium,” in Evangelium Ecclesiasticum: Matthäus und die Gestalt der Kirche, FS C. Kähler (ed. C. Böttrich et al.; Frankfurt: Hansischer Druck, 2009), 427–43, emphasizing the importance of Matt 5:17–20 (427–34); Matt 23:2, 3a (the oral Torah of Scribes and Pharisees is seen as obligatory; 440). See also A. Runesson, “Re-Thinking Early Jewish–Christian Relations: Matthean Community History as Pharisaic Intragroup Conflict,” JBL 127:1 (2008) 95–132. 67 M.  Vahrenhorst, ‘Ihr sollt überhaupt nicht schwören’: Matthäus im halachischen Diskurs (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 2002). 68 M. Konradt, Israel, Kirche und die Völker im Matthäusevangelium (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 379–80. U. Luz, “Spaltung in Israel: Ein Gespräch mit Matthias Konradt,” in Evangelium Ecclesiasticum, 285–301, modifies his former thesis of Israel’s definitive rejection (295), but insists on his main thesis that the rejection of the Jesus-movement by the majority of Israel caused a traumatic experience for Matthew’s community (301). 69  R.  Pesch, Das Markusevangelium. Teil 1: Einleitung und Kommentar zu Kap. 1,1–8,26 (Freiburg: Herder, 1976), 11; J. Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus (2nd ed.; Zürich: Benziger, 1986), 33, Anm. 47; R. P. Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity: Tradition History and Legal History in Mark 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 220; U. Mell, Die anderen Winzer: Eine exegetische Studie zur Vollmacht Jesu Christi nach Markus 11, 27–12,34 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 386. 70 P. Dschulnigg, Das Markusevangelium (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2007), 54; P. Pokorný and U. Heckel, Einleitung in das Neue Testament: Seine Literatur und Theologie im Überblick (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 375; J. Majoros-Danowski, Elia im Markusevangelium: Ein Buch im Kontext des Judentums (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2008), passim. 71 H.  Sariola, Markus und das Gesetz: Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1990). 72  J. G. Crossley, The Date of Mark’s Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity (London: T & T Clark International, 2004), dating Mark’s Gospel between the mid to late thirties and the mid forties.

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7. The Seventies and Eighties II: Modern Literary Criticism The Seventies are characterized not only by the so-called “linguistic turn” but also by a geographic turn: German-speaking exegesis no longer dominated the field but had to concede its rank to English-speaking exegesis, especially in the USA. Furthermore, Roman-Catholic exegesis and exegesis undertaken by authors of distinct Protestant denominations, sometimes presented in joint publications, is now hard to be distinguished on the basis of the confessional identities of the authors;73 irrevocably, international scientific discourse has replaced confessional commitments as the required framework for scholarly self-understanding.74 Concerning the Gospel of Mark, this part of the history of recent interpretation is extensively documented in William R. Telford’s impressive Writing on the Gospel of Mark, including an exhaustive annotated bibliography.75 There is not only a coincidence in time between the “linguistic turn” and the growing dissatisfaction with redaction criticism; these interpretive developments are also interdependent. The results of this diachronic method, especially with regard to the Gospel of Mark, have been too divergent to prove it to be a fruitful way to interpret the texts.76 If anything, such an approach threatens the scientific character of New Testament exegesis.77 Moreover, it is not possible to distinguish between Mark and pre-Markan tradition by means of phraseology.78 On the other hand, readers of the Gospel of Matthew, likely not having the possibility of comparing his Gospel with that of Mark, had to understand it on its own. Moreover, form‑ and redaction criticism had been criticized for looking “through the text to what it

73 To give just some examples: V. K. Robbins (Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Mark [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984]) and R. M. Fowler (Let the Reader Understand: Reader-Response Criticism and the Gospel of Mark [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991]), are members of the Catholic Biblical Association, whereas M. A. Powell (What is Narrative Criticism? [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990]) is Lutheran. The well-known Mark as Story (2nd ed.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1999) is written by three authors of three divergent denominations: David Rhoads is Lutheran, Donald M. Michie is teaching at a Methodist College, Joanna Dewey is Professor Emerita at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. 74 Cf. R. Pesch, review of L. Schenke, Der gekreuzigte Christus, ThRev 22 (1976): 101 f., 102, quoted by M. Theobald, “Der Primat der Synchronie vor der Diachronie als Grundaxiom der Literarkritik: Methodische Erwägungen an Hand von Mk 2,13–17 / Mt 9,9–13,” BZ 22 (1978): 161–86, 161. 75  W. R. Telford, Writing on the Gospel of Mark (Dorset: Deo Publishing 2009). This is the first volume of the new series “Guides to Advanced Biblical Research,” published by Deo Publishing (Dorset, UK); the volume on Matthew is not yet published. 76 E. Güttgemanns, Offene Fragen zur Formgeschichte des Evangeliums: Eine methodologische Skizze der Grundlagenproblematik der Form‑ und Redaktionsgeschichte (München: Kaiser, 1970), 215. 77 Cf. R. Pesch, review of L. Schenke, Der gekreuzigte Christus, ThRev 22 (1976): 101 f., 102. 78 Cf. C. Breytenbach, “Das Markusevangelium als traditionsgebundene Erzählung? Anfragen an die Markusforschung der Achtziger Jahre,” in The Synoptic Gospels: Source Criticism and the New Literary Criticism (ed. C. Focant; Leuven: Peeters, 1993), 77–110, 87.

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refers and points to,”79 and for concentrating on the evangelist’s redactional activity instead of on the complete text as an “autosemantic unit which is in itself meaningful.”80 But there is no consensus whether the employment of linguistically oriented methods is to be seen as a continuation81 or a break with preceding scholarship.82 New approaches to the Gospels use current theories relating to the interpretation of literary documents. Structural analysis is an umbrella term for distinct methods of analyzing texts;83 these methods regard the text as an autonomous subject that produces its references by the interaction of distinct elements within the text.84 Reader-response criticism stresses the fact that it is the readers who create an interpretation of a text by a combination and non-combination of elements within it, by inferring a distinct meaning of some text elements on the basis of previously read texts, and by inferring their own experience concerning issues dealt with in the text. Authors are unable to set guidelines for understanding texts in a final and fixed way; and the text only partially controls the reader’s response. Narrative criticism analyzes narrative units with regard to the story and the discourse. The analysis of the story describes the plot and the interaction of its figures; the analysis of the discourse describes the way in which the implicit author molds the reader’s understanding; the author’s omniscience, the distribution of sayings and actions to the distinct figures of the narrative, and comments on the figures reveal the author’s point of view, which – in the author’s intention – should also be the readers’ point view. “By narratively contrasting the appropriate groups and characters, the author constructs the story’s meaning.”85 Mark 8:33b is the classic reference here, replicating its status in general in the history of research.

8. The Eighties and Nineties: Political Exegesis For various reasons in the Eighties and Nineties political readings of the Gospels were influential. Due to the results of student protests in 1968, the predominance of hermeneutic theology, including its individualism, was broken; exegetically, the cosmic dimension of the Kingdom of God and his Justice86 was rediscovered; 79  D. O. Via, in N. R. Petersen, Literary Criticism for New Testament Critics (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 5. 80 W. S. Vorster, “Mark: Collector, Redactor, Author, Narrator?” JTSA 31 (1980): 46–61, 57. 81 Theobald, “Primat,” 162. 82 Cf. D. Marguerat, “Strukturale Textlektüren des Evangeliums,” in Methoden der EvangelienExegese (ed. G. Schelbert et al.; Zürich: Benziger, 1985), 41–86, 41 f. 83 For an overview cf. Marguerat, “Strukturale Textlektüren,” 54–81. 84 Cf. Marguerat, “Strukturale Textlektüren,” 46. 85 J. Blackwell, The Passion as Story (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 91. 86 Cf. E. Käsemann, “Gottesgerechtigkeit bei Paulus,” in Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen Vol. II (3rd ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 181–93, 187. Cf. also E. Käsemann, “Bergpredigt – eine Privatsache?” (1982), in In der Nachfolge des gekreuzigten Nazareners: Aufsätze und Vorträge aus dem Nachlass (ed. R.  Landau and W.  Kraus; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 117–29. Ernst Käsemann confesses that he is influenced by experiences in the so-called

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a new acquaintance with sociological or socio-historical models87 and Marxist thought inspired new ways of interpreting the Bible. This new emerged in different contexts: the postcolonial situation in Africa; the political pressure of the masses in Latin America as well as in Korea; the student protests in the USA and in Western Europe and the following debate on military defense; and in recent times the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.88 Whereas the “Theology of Liberation” in Latin America was naturally a domain of Roman Catholic theologians, in other situations the confession of the authors does not have any relevance. Within the so-called “Theology of Liberation,” the Gospel of Mark was to be read in a political rélecture. In 1980, Fernándo Belo published his program for a materialistic reading of Mark’s Gospel; in 1988, Ched Myers combined Belo’s materialistic approach with narrative criticism. Concerning Korea, aspects of B.M. Ahn’s theology of Minjung are the main points for Volker Kuester. According to him, the Gospel of Mark is a “herrschaftskritische Tendenzschrift”;89 the so-called Messiasgeheimnistheorie is to be interpreted as protection against Jesus’ enemies; this theory was meant to conceal Jesus’own self-understanding.90 Experiences of colonialism and postcolonialism in Africa are the guiding influences for Hermann Waetjen.91 During the debate on the so-called NATO Double Track Decision, the Sermon on the Mount was particularly important within the Peace Movement; the obligatory nature of Matthew’s ethical radicalism was rediscovered. Most prominent were three studies by Protestant exegetes that intended to prevent too massive a usage of Matthew 5–7 for modern pacifism.92 But modern political interpretation of the Gospels in German-speaking countries is a concern for both Roman Catholic and Protestant exegetes.93 Kirchenkampf (idem, Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, Vol. I [6th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970], 8). 87 Influential was, e.g., J. C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990; 2nd ed. 2009), with his concept of distinguishing between public transcript and hidden transcript: Public transcript includes the statements of human beings when the emperor or king etc. is present; hidden transcript reveals the real thought of the oppressed human beings. 88 Richard Horsley wrote his Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003) in order “to help Americans figure out why many people in the Middle East have a propensity to perceive the United States as a threat.” (B. Rocha, review of R. Horsley, Jesus and Empire, http://catholicbooksreview.org/2003/horsley.htm). 89 V. Küster, Jesus und das Volk im Markusevangelium: Ein Beitrag zum interkulturellen Gespräch in der Exegese (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996), 93. 90 V. Küster, Jesus und das Volk, 79–84. 91  H. C. Waetjen, A Reordering of Power: A Socio-Political Reading of Mark’s Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), xiii–xiv. 92 G.  Strecker, Die Bergpredigt: Ein exegetischer Kommentar (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984); H. D. Betz, Studien zur Bergpredigt (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985); H. Weder, “Die Rede der Reden”: Eine Auslegung der Bergpredigt heute (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1985). 93 Roman Catholic exegetes are, e.g., Martin Ebner (Münster, Westphalia), Stefan Schreiber (Augsburg); Monika Fander (Singen); Protestant exegetes are Gerd Theißen (Heidelberg); Klaus Wengst (Bochum); Klaus Bünker (Wien); Eckart Reinmuth (Rostock); Christian Strecker (Neuendettelsau).

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There are many elements within the Gospel of Mark that may provoke a political reading: the terms εὐαγγέλιον94 and “Son of God”;95 particular passages, such as Mark 5:9;96 6:17–29;97 10:42–5;98 12:17;99 and 14:3–9;100 and, in general, anthropology101 and Christology.102 In recent times the Gospel of Matthew has also been read as a politically subversive document, especially by North American Methodist scholar Warren Carter.103

9. Conclusion This book is foregrounding a comparative perspective, and the present contribution has taken into account scholars’ confessional background. This leads to a twofold suggestion for main points of further research. Exegetically, comparative  94  G. Theißen, Lokalkolorit und Zeitgeschichte in den Evangelien: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (3rd ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 270–84; M. Ebner, “Evangelium contra Evangelium: Das Markusevangelium und der Aufstieg der Flavier,” BN 16 (2003): 28–42; W. Carter, The Roman Empire and the New Testament: An Essential Guide (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2006), 17; M. Ebner, “Das Markusevangelium und der Aufstieg der Flavier: Eine politische Lektüre des ältesten ‘Evangeliums,’” BiKi (2011): 64–9.  95 Ebner, “Evangelium,” 34–5; E.  Reinmuth, Anthropologie im Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 2006), 84–5.  96  W. Carter, Roman Empire, 17. The pig was the heraldic animal of the Legio X Fretensis, which marked the troops conquering Jerusalem. “The scene shows Jesus’ power over Rome and the latter’s destruction … declares God’s judgment on Rome’s imperial order” (17–8).  97 C. Strecker, “Macht – Tod – Leben – Körper: Koordinaten einer Verortung der frühchristlichen Rituale Taufe und Abendmahl,” in Erkennen und Erleben: Beiträge zur psychologischen Erforschung des frühen Christentums (ed. G. Theißen and P. von Gemünden; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007), 133–53.  98 E. Reinmuth, Anthropologie, 83; S. Schreiber, “Caesar oder Gott,” BZ 48 (2004): 64–85, 82–3.  99 K.  Wengst, Pax Romana: Anspruch und Wirklichkeit. Erfahrungen und Wahrnehmungen des Friedens bei Jesus und im Urchristentum (München: Kaiser, 1986), 78–80; M. Bünker, “Gebt dem Kaiser, was des Kaisers ist! – Aber: Was ist des Kaisers? Überlegungen zur Perikope von der Kaisersteuer,” Kairos 29 (1987): 85–98, 95. 100 M. Fander, “Das Evangelium nach Markus,” in Kompendium Feministische Bibelauslegung (ed. L. Schottroff and M.-T. Wacker; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1998), 499–512, 508. 101  C. Jochum-Bortfeld, Die Verachteten stehen auf: Widersprüche und Gegenentwürfe des Markusevangeliums zu den Menschbildern seiner Zeit (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2008). 102 A.  Winn, The Purpose of Mark’s Gospel: An Early Christian Response to Roman Imperial Propaganda (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008). 103 W. Carter, Matthew and Empire: Initial Explorations (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2001); idem, “Resisting and Imitating the Empire: Imperial Paradigms in two Matthean Parables,” Int 56 (2002): 260–72; idem, “Are there Imperial Texts in the Class? Intertextual Eagles and Matthean Eschatology as ‘lights out’ Time for Imperial Rome (Matthew 24:27–31),” JBL 122 (2003): 467–87; idem, “Matthew’s Gospel, Rome’s Empire, and the Parable of the Mustard Seed (Matt 13:31–32),” in Hermeneutik der Gleichnisse Jesu: Methodische Neuansätze zum Verstehen urchristlicher Parabeltexte (ed. R. Zimmermann; 2nd ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 181–201; idem, “Matthew Negotiates the Roman Empire,” in In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance (ed. R. A. Horsley; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 117–36; cf. also idem, The Roman Empire and the New Testament: An Essential Guide (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2006).

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studies can sharpen the distinct profiles of the evangelists. What is the social world in which the Gospels of Mark and Matthew (and Luke and John!) function best? What is the function of Jesus’ words and deeds for the life of believers within their communities? How are we to describe the distinct anthropology of the Four Gospels?104 Theologically, the results of this approach should be compared with the influence of biblical thought on Christian creed and life. Studies in reception history and hermeneutics should improve the connection with other disciplines of Theology, and help prevent the loss of relevance of exegesis for Theology and the Church(es). Such studies should include ancient as well as modern witnesses, and they should include cases of the misuse of biblical tradition. Investigation into the history of New Testament interpretation is, therefore, indispensable.

104 Often in modern research the interests are concentrated on the anthropology of Jesus (cf. U.  Schnelle, Anthropologie: Jesus  – Paulus  – Johannes [Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991], 13–43) or on the anthropology of the synoptic tradition in general (cf. O. Wischmeyer, “Menschsein – Neues Testament,” in Menschsein: Perspektiven des Alten und Neuen Testaments [ed. C. Frevel and O. Wischmeyer; Würzburg: Echter, 2003], 61–117: 85–8). For the anthropology of Luke, cf. the seminal study by J.-W. Taeger, Der Mensch und sein Heil: Studien zum Bild des Menschen und zur Sicht der Bekehrung bei Lukas (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1982); for Mark, cf. M. Meiser, “Anthropologie im Markusevangelium,” in Christian Body, Christian Self: Concepts of Early Christian Personhood (ed. C. K. Rothschild, T. V. Thompson, R. S. Kinney; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 125–48. E. Reinmuth, Anthropologie im Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 2006) offers distinct contributions for Matthew (47–71), Mark (71–103), Luke (103–25), and John (137–84).

A Catholic Reading of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew in the 20th Century Detlev Dormeyer 1. Introduction Catholic exegesis of the 20th century is marked programmatically by three official church statements in the beginning, middle, and end of the century. In 1893 the Bible encyclical “Deus Providentissimus” was promulgated by Leo XIII. After 50 years, in 1943, Pius XII proclaimed the Bible encyclical “Divino afflante Spiritu.” Again after 50 years, in 1993, the International Pontifical Biblical Commission prepared a document entitled “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church.” The President of this Commission, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, presented it to Pope John Paul II.1 An “Address” (not translated into English) of John Paul II and a “Preface” by Cardinal Ratzinger explained the unusual, new rank of the document. Ratzinger declares in his Preface that this document is not an encyclical by the papal Magisterium, but a statement of the position of a commission: The Pontifical Biblical Commission, in its new form after the Second Vatican Council, is not an organ of the teaching office, but rather a commission of scholars who, in their scientific and ecclesial responsibility as believing exegetes, take positions on important problems of Scriptural interpretation and know that for this task they enjoy the confidence of the teaching office.2

In the Address Pope John Paul II called the document a “help”: “With this document, the interpretation of the Bible in the Church finds a new impetus for the good of the whole world.”3 Therefore the statements of the document are not without obligation. Between the Bible encyclical of 1943 and the document of 1993, the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) promulgated the basic document on the Bible: “Dei Verbum (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation).” In that regard, “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” can rely on the previous 1 “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” presented by the Pontifical Biblical Commission to Pope John Paul II on April 23, 1993, 7 (http://catholic-resources.org/ChurchDocs/ PBC_Interp-FullText.htm); repr. Origins 23 (1994): 497, 499–524. German version (expanded) Päpstliche Bibelkommission: Die Interpretation der Bibel in der Kirche: Ansprache seiner Heiligkeit Johannes Paul II. und Dokument der Päpstlichen Bibelkommission (ed. Sekretariat der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz; 1993). 2 “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” (German) 24; repr. Origins 23 (1994): 499. 3 “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” (German) 18.

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encyclicals of 1893 and 1945, and on Dei Verbum. The magisterial statements are binding, for example, against a “fundamentalist interpretation of the Scriptures.”4 The offer of aid instead of censure marks a basic change in the understanding of the exegesis of the papal Magisterium. This change will be outlined briefly below. Then the development of Catholic exegesis of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew will be presented.

2. The Change in the Papal Documents of Catholic Exegesis in the 20th Century Chapter I of the papal Address to the document of 1993 has the title “From ‘Providentissimus Deus’ to ‘afflante Spiritu Divino.’” John Paul II acknowledges that both documents have an “argumentative, or more precisely, apologetic part.”5 However, the argumentation differs between the documents. The Encyclical of 1893 “aims especially to protect the Catholic interpretation of the Bible against the attacks of rationalistic science,”6 namely the “liberal exegesis,” and recommends the study of scientific knowledge, especially of the ancient languages of the Orient; the encyclical of 1943, however, is directed against an internal enemy and its polemic against the “scientific study of the Bible.”7 In 1902 the Pontifical Biblical Commission was founded, and in 1909 the Pontifical Biblical Institute. In 1912 the Pontifical Biblical Commission declared “the external and internal evidence for the authenticity of Mark as mandatory and the objections to the authenticity of Mark’s conclusion (16:9–20) as non-conclusive. The gospel was written before 70 and used the sermon of Peter and other sources and claims full historical credibility.”8 These affirmations contradicted the position of Protestant historical-critical research, in particular the literary-historical approach, according to which the authenticity of Peter’s interpreter Mark “as the author” and the “historical credibility” of the record were denied due to the scholarly reconstruction of post-Easter literary and theological traditions in the Gospel.9 Catholic commentators, who did not follow the affirmations of the Bible-Commission had to expect the refusal of the Church’s imprimatur and other penalties. Earlier in 1907 the commentaries on the Synoptics by Alfred Loisy were set on the Index of Forbidden Books, and he himself was excommunicated in 1908.10  4 “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” (German) 17.61–64; repr. Origins 23 (1994): 509–10.  5 “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” (German) 9.  6 “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” (German) 9.  7 “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” (German) 9.  8 J. Schmid, Das Evangelium nach Markus (Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1938, 12; repr. 1954), 13.  9 D.  Dormeyer, Evangelium als literarische und theologische Gattung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1989), 26–76. 10 A. Loisy, Les Evangiles synoptiques (2 vols.; Ceffonds: Près Montier-en-Der [Haute-Marne], 1907).

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The encyclical of 1943 brought progress by recommendation of “the study of literary genres.” “This recommendation intends to understand precisely and accurately the meaning of the text in its cultural and historical context.”11 Form criticism was to be incorporated into Catholic exegesis; this method permits historical-critical discourses and results. The theses of the Biblical Commission have not been revoked, but no longer hold any validity. After WWII Catholic exegetes took part more and more in international, exegetical discourse. They extended the historical-critical method by working out the reading of Scripture by past and present listeners. The document of 1993 emphasizes the fact that there is latitude for interpretation of the Bible: “Not a single aspect of human language can be neglected. The recent progress in linguistic, literary and hermeneutic research have led to the addition of numerous other factors (rhetorical, narrative and structural) to the study of literary genres; other human sciences such as psychology and sociology have also made contributions.”12 In fact, Catholic exegetes were working in the development of redaction criticism, structuralism, narrative criticism, rhetorical criticism, reading theory, social history, and depth psychology. The labelling of the 1993 document as a “help” signals a farewell to the superiority of historical-critical exegesis. Textual criticism, literary criticism with the two-source theory, genre criticism, tradition criticism, and redaction criticism can indeed work out objective structures but still not produce the full meaning of the text for past and present readers. Rightly, the document of 1993 claims, “The goal of the historical-critical method is to determine, particularly in a diachronic manner, the meaning expressed by the biblical authors and editors.”13 However, the diachronic method should be completed by the synchronic theory of reception, so that meaning is created in a synchronic, text-pragmatic way. The new methods of literary analysis and hermeneutics of the human sciences work out the pragmatic dimension. It is not enough that Bultmann combines the diachronic method with existential analysis.14 Social and religious life as a whole must be considered, according to the document of 1993. The Interpretation of the Bible in the life of the Church will, further, apply not only to the Catholic Church but to all churches.15 The task of exegesis is to stimulate readers to a sufficient and true reading within the context in which they live.

11 “Interpretation

of the Bible in the Church,” (German) 12. of the Bible in the Church,” (German) 12. 13 “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” (German) 36. 14 R. Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1953; repr. 1977). 15 “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” (German) 111–4. 12 “Interpretation

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3. The Change of Catholic Exegesis of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew in the 20th Century 3.1 The Acceptance of Form and Redaction Criticism The encyclical of 1893 had demanded particularly the learning and analyzing of the language of the Bible. In 1937 Maximilian Zerwick published a study of Mark’s styles, which remains fundamental today.16 Then in 1938 Josef Schmid very carefully worked form criticism into his commentary The Gospel according to Mark;17 in 1950 he published the 2nd revised edition and in 1954 the 3rd revised edition. Revised editions followed still in 1958 and 1963. Schmid cited at the end of his “Introduction” in the commentary of 1938 the “decision” of the Pontifical Biblical Commission from 1912 concerning Mark and adheres largely to it. According to early church tradition, Mark, the companion of Barnabas and of Paul, is the author of the second Gospel. After 63 C. E. he became the interpreter of the oral preaching of Peter, and he wrote the Gospel after the death of Peter (“in 64 at the earliest”) between 65–6918 and 70.19 Mark adopted the different narrative style of the tradition. The narrative texts, especially the miracle stories, go back to eye-witnesses; they are not Greek genres. Therefore the Gospel of Mark deserves “our confidence in the loyalty of its historical representation.”20 A literary and theological character is hardly discernible because Mark follows the early Christian kerygma and the early Christian missionary preaching.21 Schmid correctly recognized that Mark has a three-part structure: Introduction 1:1–13; 1st Main part 1:14–6:6; 2nd Main part 6:6b–10:52; 3rd Main part 11–15; End 16:1–8.22 Matthew and Luke took over this structure.23 Finally, Schmid clearly decided against the proposals of the Biblical Commission by the classification of the ending (16:9–20) as secondary. In 1940 the Catholic exegete Eduard Schick discussed the basic authors, works, and methods of form criticism. Finally, he formulated three “principles” of form criticism and questioned them critically. (1) “The Gospels are collections of small literary units … In the application of this important principle by the individual researchers themselves, differences arise which are due to the historical research and the researcher’s philosophical attitude. You can assign attention

16 M. Zerwick, Untersuchungen zum Markus-Stil: Ein Beitrag zur stilistischen Durcharbeitung des Neuen Testaments (Rome: E Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1937). 17 Schmid, Das Evangelium, 1938. 18 Schmid, Das Evangelium, 12. 19 Schmid, Das Evangelium, repr. 1954, 13. 20 Schmid, Das Evangelium, repr. 1954, 12 f. 21 Schmid, Das Evangelium, 1938, 10; repr. 1954, 10 f. 22 For the variants see, D. Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium: Synoptisches Problem, Methoden, Gattung, Theologie (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2005), 149–53. 23 Schmid, Das Evangelium, 1938, 8–10; repr. 1954, 7–10.

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to the redaction. This is the way of Bultmann.”24 Schick on the other hand emphasized the continuity of the Gospels with tradition and the pre-Easter Jesus. “The form-critical analysis of the isolated pieces destroys the impression of consistency throughout the whole tradition, and also the impression of the unity of a Gospel.”25 However, against Schick, the unity of a Gospel was not made by the unity of tradition, but by the work of the redactor as the literary-historical approach assumed and redaction criticism demonstrated. The tradition developed after Easter with a colorful array of Christological and literary additions, which permit a quest for the pre-Easter period. Schick’s criticisms were marked by an outdated concept of the unity of traditions. (2) The New Testament tradition is “popular literature.”26 In contrast, Schick emphasized the analogy supplied by early Judaism against the overvaluation of the early church: the apostles received a shaped tradition and handed it over.27 This criticism is developed further.28 (3) “The individual pieces can be classified according to genre.”29 But Schick saw problems for the classification of genres. “A solid genre designation is not derived from the material itself; it is not fictional literature, but shaped from a living reality and bound by historical facts.”30 However, it must be remembered that literary historiography and historical quest are two different processes. The verbalization of an historical event can by analyzed by poetological, genre-standards. The analysis of the reference in terms of genre still permits the historical reconstruction of the event. The classification of a tradition as a genre does not decide whether the text is fiction or has an external reference.

Parallel to Schick’s research, other Catholic scholars began form-critical investigations. In 1941 William Hillmann examined Aufbau und Deutung der synoptischen Leidensberichte (Structure and Interpretation of the Synoptic Passions). He accepts the “collection” thesis of K. L.  Schmidt.31 In 1941 Karl Hermann Schelkle also completed his thesis on the Passion of Jesus. He analyzed the complete New Testament tradition of the Passion of Jesus in a form-critical fashion.32 But he did not consider the ‘gospel’ genre and the origin of Mark. In 1953 Alfred Wikenhauser published his Einleitung in das Neue Testament (Introduction of the New Testament).33 He referred to the decision of the Pontifical Biblical Commission of 1912 and followed closely the position of Schmid on St. 24 E. Schick, Formgeschichte und Synoptikerexegese: Eine kritische Untersuchung über die Möglichkeit und die Genzen der formgeschichtlichen Methode (Münster: Aschendorff, 1940), 253. 25  Schick, Formgeschichte, 255 f. 26 Schick, Formgeschichte, 257. 27 Schick, Formgeschichte, 258 ff. 28 H. Schürmann, “Die vorösterlichen Anfänge der Logientradition,” in Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den synoptischen Evangelien (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1968), 51 f. 29 Schick, Formgeschichte, 267. 30 Schick, Formgeschichte, 267. 31 W. Hillmann, Aufbau und Deutung der synoptischen Leidensberichte: Ein Beitrag zur Kompositionstechnik und Sinndeutung der drei älteren Evangelien (München: Herder, 1941), 105; K. L. Schmidt, Die Stellung der Evangelien in der allgemeinen Literaturgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1923), repr. in Zur Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (ed. F. Hahn; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985), 126–229. 32  K. H. Schelkle, Die Passion Jesu in der Verkündigung des Neuen Testamentes – Ein Beitrag zur Formgeschichte und zur Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Heidelberg: Kerle, 1949). 33 A. Wikenhauser, Einleitung in das Neue Testament (Freiburg: Herder, 1953).

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Mark’s Gospel: the three-part structure, the interpreter Mark as the author, the taking over of word genres from tradition, lack of narrative genres, early Christian sermon book, Rome as place of edition, date of composition between 65–70, and 16:9–20 as the “so-called Markan conclusion.” Wikenhauser gave “language and style” special attention.34 With regard to the date of Mark, he indicated his and Schmid’s courage: “Many Catholic commentators place the origin of the gospel in the middle or second half of the fifties, because Luke’s Gospel, written prior to 63 C. E., uses Mark. The predominant majority of Protestant commentators declare that Mark was written at the end of the sixties.”35 With Schmid, he agrees with the Protestant exegetes. In 1959 Wolfgang Trilling published the dissertation Das wahre Israel. Studien zur Theologie des Matthäus-Evangeliums (The True Israel: Studies on the Theology of Matthew’s Gospel).36 He specifically adopted the methodology of redaction criticism, which had begun with the Protestant Conzelmann for the Gospel of Luke37 and Marxsen for the Gospel of Mark.38 Trilling’s first sentence is programmatic: “A treatment of the Gospel of Matthew in monograph form, which attempts to highlight the Gospel’s theological content and its interconnections, is – as far as I know – completely lacking on the Catholic side.”39 This was also missing on the “Protestant side,” in contrast to research on the Gospel of Luke and Mark.40 Trilling put the Israel-idea at the centre. With such an approach he could justify the “Catholic” preference for Matthew and still criticize it. The term ekklēsia, which occurs only twice (Matt 16:18; 18:17), is not the center; rather the center is Israel’s rejection of Jesus’ message of the kingdom of God and Jesus as the founder of the true Israel within his circle of disciples with a newly interpreted Torah. Trilling analyzed the tradition through form criticism, constructed a Sitz im Leben of a mixed community of Jewish and Gentile Christians, and determined the theology of the redaction.41 He omitted the reconstruction of the historical Jesus and his “ipsissima vox.”42 Trilling opposed clearly the decision of the Pontifical Biblical Commission of 1912 and followed consistently the “Protestant” redaction criticism. His focus on the continuity of Israel and the Church, however, was directed against the Protestant trend to reduce Matthew’s “thought patterns” and “theological solutions” to Paul’s theology.43 His purpose was not narrowly confessional, Einleitung, 113–26. Einleitung, 125. 36 W. Trilling, Das wahre Israel: Studien zur Theologie des Matthäusevangeliums (Leipzig: St. Benno, 1959; repr. 3rd ed. München, 1964). 37 H. Conzelmann, Die Mitte der Zeit: Studien zur Theologie des Lukas (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1954). 38 W. Marxsen, Der Evangelist Markus: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Evangeliums (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956; repr. 1959). 39 Trilling, Das wahre Israel, 11. 40 Trilling, Das wahre Israel, 11 f. 41 Trilling, Das wahre Israel, 222–4. 42 Trilling, Das wahre Israel, 13. 43 Trilling, Das wahre Israel, 15. 34 Wikenhauser, 35 Wikenhauser,

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but rather to highlight Matthew as the “Church’s book”, while also recovering its redaction and specific community orientation. In 1961 Joachim Gnilka published his habilitation thesis, Die Verstockung Israels. Isaias 6,9–10 in der Theologie der Synoptiker (The Obduracy of Israel: Isaiah 6:9–10 in the Theology of the Synoptics).44 He specifically utilized redaction criticism and referred to Trilling. No word is heard about confessional orientation. Redaction criticism is even to be applied to the “Lord’s words,” which form the theme of the Gospel with Mark 4:11–12 at the center. “So the question arises, what the evangelist as the last editor of the Gospel and of its individual pericopes shaped, and what pre-Synoptic collectors and narrators formed.”45 The introduction at Mark 4:10 is redaction, and the isolated logion at Mark 4:11 f. originally excluded the parables.46 Those “outside” (Mark 4:11) are, redactionally, the unbelieving Israel, or more precisely they are the Jews, who due to their rejection of Jesus gamble away their priviliged status;47 they were hardened in disbelief. The parables function finally to refer the obduracy of “those outside” to the Jews in the time of the evangelists.48 Then Gnilka attributed the Lord’s word in Mark 4:11 f. to the historical Jesus and showed a continuity of meaning. The “mystery of the kingdom of God” refers to the coming of the kingdom in Jesus’ deeds. The parables are the main expression of this mystery. “If these parables do not pronounce unmistakably the mystery of the kingdom of God (Jesus’ Messiahship and the current coming of the kingdom), the otherwise observed reluctance of Jesus will explain this caution to proclaim publicly his Messiaship.”49 Mark continues to elaborate that everything that Jesus speaks and does “becomes a riddle for the people”; God’s knowledge and rule of salvation are hidden. Mark emphasizes two thoughts through the wording and the outline of his Gospel: the human, culpable, and, therefore, punishable lack of understanding on the part of “the Jews,” and the (Messianic) secret as well as the initiation of the disciples in this mystery.50 It is critical to point out that the first thought is strongly determined by the then prevailing Protestant exegesis of Paul. Mark did not condemn the whole of Israel, (as, indeed, Rom 9–11 promised the rescue of “all Israel”), but only the former leaders of Israel (Mark 12:1–12). Gnilka described correctly the initiation of the disciples into the secrets of the kingdom. In this sense, the redaction of Mark produced continuity with the pre-Easter Jesus. For Matthew, Gnilka argued that the plural “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” conveys a broader sense of God-given knowledge.51 The secrets include more evidently than in Mark all the words and deeds of Jesus. Subsequent works of 44 J. Gnilka, Die Verstockung Israels: Isaias 6,9–10 in der Theologie der Synoptiker (München: Kösel, 1961). 45 Gnilka, Die Verstockung Israels, 18 f. 46 Gnilka, Die Verstockung Israels, 23–8. 47 Gnilka, Die Verstockung Israels, 85. 48 Gnilka, Die Verstockung Israels, 47 f. 49 Gnilka, Die Verstockung Israels, 197. 50 Gnilka, Die Verstockung Israels, 197. 51 Gnilka, Die Verstockung Israels, 198.

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Catholic exegetes on Mark and Matthew build upon the foundation of form and redaction criticism. Meanwhile in 1965, the Second Vatican Council also promulgated the dogmatic constitution “Dei Verbum,” so that Catholic exegetes no longer had to fear sanctions due to the application of historical-critical methodology. In the 1960s and early 1970s monographs authored by Catholic exegetes treated the following topics: 1968: Rudolf Pesch, Naherwartungen. Tradition und Redaktion in Mk 13 (Near Expectations: Tradition and Redaction in Mark 13); Ludger Schenke, Auferstehungsverkündigung und leeres Grab. Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung von Mk 16,1–8 (Resurrrection’s Proclamation and Empty Grave); 1969: Maria Horstmann, Studien zur markinischen Christologie. Mk 8,27–9,13 als Zugang zum Christusbild des zweiten Evangeliums (Studies of Markan Christology); Karl Georg Reploh, Markus – Lehrer der Gemeinde (Mark – Teacher of the Community); 1970: Karl Kertelge, Die Wunder Jesu im Markusevangelium. Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (The Miracles of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark); 1971: Ludger Schenke, Studien zur Passionsgeschichte des Markus. Tradition und Redaktion in Markus 14,1–42 (Studies on Mark’s Passion); Armin Kretzer, Die Herrschaft der Himmel und die Söhne des Reiches. Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum Basileiabegriff und Baisileiaverständnis im Matthäusevangelium (The Rule of the Heavens and the Sons of the Kingdom); Anton Vögtle, Das Evangelium und die Evangelien. Beiträge zur Evangelienforschung (The Gospel and the Gospels); 1972: Klaus Berger, Die Gesetzesauslegung Jesu. Ihr historischer Hintergrund im Judentum und im Alten Testament. Teil I: Markus und Parallelen (The Interpretation of the Law of Christ); Ingo Broer, Die Urgemeinde und das Grab Jesu. Eine Analyse der Grablegungsgeschichte im Neuen Testament (The Early Church and the Grave of Jesus). These works are of fundamental importance for research on Mark and Matthew.52 Between 1976–1977 Rudolf Pesch published the two-volume commentary Das Markus-Evangelium (The Gospel of Mark).53 Form and redaction criticism were fully incorporated. Pesch also emphasized the quest for the historical situation. For him the historical-critical method had come to a “dead end.” Mark was a collector dependent on earlier material. In the second part of his Gospel Mark followed essentially a written traditional Jerusalem Passion-story; in the first part he took over several written collections; the historical narrative of Mark’s Gospel grew, genetically, from historical traditions.54 52 For a discussion of the process of the interdenominational research of Mark, see Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium, 82–226; for a discussion of Matthew, see A. Sand, Das Matthäus-Evangelium (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1991). 53 R. Pesch, Das Markusevangelium (2 vols.; Freiburg: Herder, 1976–1977). 54 R. Pesch, Das Markusevangelium, 1:48–63; 2:1 ff.

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Between 1978–1979 Joachim Gnilka published the two-volume commentary Das Evangelium nach Markus (Gospel to Mark) in the new series “Evangelical Catholic Commentary on the New Testament.”55 The ecumenical editors of the series indicated that Catholic exegesis had reached the standard of Protestant exegesis. For Gnilka the Gospel of Mark was the result of a conscious collection process. The Evangelist created a chronological plot with historical and kerygmatic traditions. “Mark can be presented as a theological historian, not as a literary historian.”56 Between 1986–1988 Gnilka published Das Matthäus-Evangelium (The Gospel of Matthew)57 in “Herder’s Theological Commentary on the New Testament.” He accepted the thesis of Frankemölle:58 “Mt writes the history of Jesus Christ as the history of God’s people.” But Gnilka stressed more the similarity to Mark: on the one hand, Matthew took over the kerygmatic treatment of the Jesus material by the Gospel of Mark, and on the other hand, he told “the story of the people of God, the way from Israel to the universal Church.”59 Two trends can be identified in the development of Protestant redaction criticism: 1) the Gospel as proclamation60 and as commentary on the proclamation,61 and 2) the Gospel as the presentation of history.62 The over-emphasis on theology as a creative literary power opposed a recognition of the interaction between the literary and the theological. Catholic exegetes have related to the second trend and developed an abundance of contributions to the understanding of the genres, styles, theological priorities, and possibilities of the historical quest. While the first works of redaction criticism took the additions and the selections of the redactors as their beginning point, subsequent work began to include analysis of the inherent structures. The comparable structure of ancient literary works and the original, incomparable Christology now became more sharply visible. At the same time it became increasingly difficult to define this dual nature of the Gospel because the literary analogizing was sometimes strictly rejected due to claims regarding Christological originality. For the literary form, any name could be chosen, as long as it conformed to pre-conceived theological views. “The many names indicate difficulty, but also a certain embarrassment.”63 Yet, an unclarified relationship between the literary and theological shape allowed the arbitrary presentation of the reference to the hearers (the 3rd Sitz im Leben) as the main princiDas Evangelium nach Markus (2 vols.; Zürich: Einsiedeln, 1978–79). Das Evangelium nach Markus, 1:24. 57 J. Gnilka, Das Matthäus-Evangelium (2 vols.; Freiburg: Herder, 1986–88). 58 H. Frankemölle, Jahwebund und Kirche Christi. Studien zur Form‑ und Traditionsgeschichte des “Evangeliums” nach Matthäus (2nd ed.; Münster: Aschendorff, 1984). 59 Gnilka, Das Matthäus-Evangelium, 2:529 f. 60 Marxsen, Der Evangelist Markus; G.  Bornkamm, “Die Sturmstillung im Matthäus-Evangelium, Wort und Dienst 1948,” in Überlieferung und Auslegung im Matthäusevangelium (ed. G. Bornkamm, G. Barth, and H. J. Held; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1960), 48–54. 61 Conzelmann, Die Mitte der Zeit. 62  J. M. Robinson, Das Geschichtsverständnis des Markus-Evangeliums (Zürich: Zwingli, 1956). 63 Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus, 1:23; see Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium, 63–82. 55 J. Gnilka, 56 Gnilka,

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ple of literary and theological form.64 In the 1980 and 1990s further development of redaction criticism led to claims of Mark as an autonomous redactor, writer, and biographer, and yet assigned him to an individual historical community.65 The question was whether it was possible for the relationship of narrative text, author, and hearer to undergo a less arbitrary analysis. Historical-critical exegesis could no longer be reduced to a few clear standards with binding objective results, and the reading habits and preconceptions of past and present readers needed to be considered in exegesis.66 3.2 Linguistic Turn from 1970 In the early 70s of the last century, the so-called “linguistic turn” was established, which led to an explosion of methodological issues and new approaches.67 The methodological approaches of related disciplines caused a revision of form and redaction criticism. Form criticism was influenced by the research on popular literature (Volkspoesie in Germany), sociology of religion, and science of religion; redaction criticism was influenced by the literary sciences yet again. New approaches were stimulated by linguistics, communication theory, psychology, and social history. 3.2.1 Narrative Text Analysis and Text Theory In 1970 the Protestant exegete Erhardt Güttgemanns tried to integrate linguistics with form and redaction criticism and raised “open questions.”68 In 1974 Detlev Dormeyer published Die Passion Jesu als Verhaltensmodel. Literarische und theologische Analyse der Traditions‑ und Redaktionsgeschichte der Markuspassion (The Passion of Jesus as a Model of Behavior: Literary and Theological Analysis of the History of Traditions and Redaction of Mark’s Passion),69 and Hubert Frankemölle published Jahwe-Bund und Kirche Christ. Studien zur Form‑ und Traditionsgeschichte des “Evangeliums” nach Matthäus (The Covenant of Yahweh and the Church of Christ: Studies in the Forms‑ and Tradition-History of the “Gospel” according to  See Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium, 63–82. Glaube bei Markus: Glaube an das Evangelium, Gebetsglaube und Wunderglaube im Kontext der markinischen Basileiatheologie und Christologie (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1985); Der Evangelist als Theologe: Studien zum Markusevangelium (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1995); see Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium, 153–9. 66 “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” repr. Origins 23 (1994): 497, 499–524; see also the Protestant exegete E. V. McKnight, Post-Modern Use of the Bible: The Emergence of Reader-Oriented Criticism (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988), 115–263. 67 E.-M. Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 54–6. 68 E. Güttgemanns, Offene Fragen zur Formgeschichte des Evangeliums: Eine methodologische Skizze der Grundlagenproblematik der Form- und Redaktionsgeschichte (München: C.  Kaiser, 1970). 69 D. Dormeyer, Die Passion Jesu als Verhaltensmodell: Literarische und theologische Analyse der Traditions‑ und Redaktionsgeschichte der Markuspassion (Münster: Aschendorff, 1974). 64

65 T. Söding,

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Matthew).70 Narrative analysis was integrated into exegesis. On the one hand, Dormeyer was still working with redaction criticism and divided the text into three layers; on the other hand, he searched for a genre that could encompass the three stages of the Passion story.71 The Markan passion story shows a three-part structure that is particularly affected by the exitus literature (Mark 14:1–42 par. John 13:1–17:26), by the hellenistic martyr act (Mark 14:43–15:20 par. John 18:1–19, 16a), and by Jewish martyrdom narratives (Mark 15:20b–41 par. John 19:16–30). These genres formed three separate parts, with each also subtly influencing the others. Within the Markan tradition the parts were combined. Mark dispensed with the variable structure of the traditional “martyr acts” and favor that of the exitus genre. He constructed the narrative cycle of the Passover meal before Jesus’ capture (Mark 14:12–31), created an introduction to the isolated chreia of the anointing (Mark 14:1–11), and formed a chreia of prayer from an old isolated tradition (Mark 14:32–42; cf. Heb 2:18; 5:7). The form and structure of the martyr act remained open for setting new priorities and for incorporating further memories of the Passion of Jesus. In addition, the exitus-literature was open for autonomous literary and theological thoughts. Therefore the evangelist used it for the creation of an independent introduction (cf. Mark 6:17b–27a) and set it before the martyr acts of Jesus’ death (Mark 14:43–15:41).72 The framework of “Gospel” (Mark 1:1) determines the interpretation of the final chapter. Jesus and the disciples remain “typological models,” i.e., “behavior models” for each community and each reader. Frankemölle, like Dormeyer, did not analyze the socio-historical Sitz im Leben, but began with the Gospel of Matthew itself as the base in order to define the major theological themes and the literary genre of the Gospel. The question of the faithfulness of God in history with his people Israel is the basic problem. The evangelist goes back to the Old Testament covenant and the historical theology of the Deuteronomic books and Chronicles. The Gospel has the literary form of a “book of the history of Jesus Christ” (Matt 1:1), which continues the Old Testament; in this book “a new era of universal history begins with Jesus Christ.”73 In 1978 Hans-Josef Klauck compared the literature of the New Testament with ancient literature and developed a differentiated generic idea in terms of ancient poetry.74 Parable, allegory, and allegorese should be distinguished carefully. In 1979 Dormeyer introduced Der Sinn des Leidens Jesu. Historisch-kritische und textpragmatische Analysen zur Markuspassion (The Meaning of the Suffering of Jesus: Historical-critical and Text-pragmatic Analysis of the Markan Passion Narrative). Text pragmatics are used here to describe the identification of the reader with the Jahwebund und Kirche Christi. Die Passion Jesu als Verhaltensmodell, 50–7. 72 Dormeyer, Die Passion Jesu als Verhaltensmodell, 238–86. 73 Frankemölle, Jahwebund und Kirche Christi, 365. 74  H. J. Klauck, Allegorie und Allegorese in synoptischen Gleichnissen (Münster: Aschendorff, 1978). 70 Frankemölle, 71 Dormeyer,

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narrative roles hero, enemies, and helpers, such as they are present in Mark’s Passion Narrative.75 According to Weinrich’s analysis, the speech attitudes of telling and discussing are differentiated.76 In addition, Dormeyer introduced structural narrative sequences and role analysis. In the narrative sequence, the story is distinguished from the discussion by the fact that 1) active characters appear, 2) an event or sequence of actions occurs, and 3) the story prefers the past, while the discussion prefers the present. The smallest unit of the series of events is the sequence or the single event.77 In the sequence, the attention of the listener and reader is directed to each action-oriented verb. With the actors, a verb produces the plot. Three states form an event: 1) state in virtuality with beginning change of the state, 2) action as a counteraction or change of action, and 3) new state.78 The major categories that shape a framework for action are space and time and circumstances. They form a fictional world. Other elements are ensemble of roles (actants) and semantic fields. Functions of speech (storytelling or discussing), sequence, roles, fictional world, semantic opposition, and semantic field make the rules visible, according to which the text universe is constructed. Biblical texts can be compared to former and present texts without reducing, overlooking, or even destroying their linguistic form. The genres ensure that determined motives, actors, and sentences are connected to roles in the narrative texts, which offer the most prominent possibilities for reader self-identification.79 Roles in the arguments form only the background of the relationship between the addressee and addressant. According a model centering the sender, communication does not run directly between author and reader. The real author provides multiple opportunities for the reader to identify with characters, with implicit characterization of roles, both positive and negative. In Mark’s Passion the ensemble of roles is related to a realistic world. So far, redaction criticism had demonstrated only that the disciples were the role models in the Gospels.80 But the identification of role models can be more extensive. The appeal of the biblical narratives is that the reader fills every role – disciple, Jesus, opponents – with his experience. In 1983, Hubert Frankemölle published Biblische Handlungsanweisungen. Beispiele pragmatischer Exegese (Biblical Instructions: Examples of Pragmatic Exegesis).81 The “examples” are mainly from the Gospel of Matthew. Each text is an element of communicative action between author and addressee. The historical-critical method tries to describe the inten75 D. Dormeyer, Der Sinn des Leidens Jesu: Historisch-kritische und textpragmatische Analysen zur Markuspassion (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1979), 102–11. 76 H. Weinrich, Tempus: Besprochene und erzählte Welt (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1971), 18 ff. 77 Dormeyer, Der Sinn des Leidens Jesu, 90–102. 78 C. Bremond, “Die Erzählnachricht,” in Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 3 (ed. J. Ihwe; 3 vols.; Frankfurt: Athenäum Verlag, 1972), 201 f. 79 W. Iser, Der Akt des Lesens (München: Wilhelm Fink, 1976), 204 f. 80  K. G. Reploh, Markus – Lehrer der Gemeinde (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1969). 81 H. Frankemölle, Biblische Handlungsweisen: Beispiele pragmatischer Exegese (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1983).

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tion of the author. But pragmatic exegesis adds the analysis of the intention of the recipient with the goal to describe the whole historical process of communication. Synchronous form criticism and diachronic genre criticism play a central role.82 In 1987 the study of Wilhelm Egger appeared: Methodenlehre zum Neuen Testament. Einführung in linguistische und historisch-kritische Methoden (Methodology of the New Testament: Introduction to Linguistic and Historical Critical Methods).83 It is a foundational work that is still relevant.84 The 1980s and 1990s saw an explosion of monographs and commentaries on the Gospels of Mark and Matthew employing the new methods of exegesis in almost all denominations. The branches of the historical-critical method spread to form a wide-ranging network. From the standpoint of an objectivist approach these branches are possible “dead ends,” but from the standpoint of intersubjective reading theory they represent the fertile acceptance of variation of form, breadth of meaning and reader orientation, which the historical-critical method has not yet achieved.85 As exegetes now write independently of confessional ties within an international scientific discourse, there are limitations in identifying a specifically Catholic exegesis.86 3.2.2 Language and Style in the Gospel of Mark The valuation of the language of the Gospel of Mark is an extremely controversial topic. Literary-historical comparison and form and redaction criticism were thought to entail a negative judgment on its literary style for opposite reasons. Some thought the style popular. Others declared it clumsy, because the Evangelist was made dependent either upon traditions or upon his theological program. Dschulnigg now problematized the stylistic separation between redaction and traditional language.87 For “inquiry into the language features of Mark”88 shows that they cannot be restricted to redactional revisions and new formations89 but extend to the entire text. “The theology of the redactor cannot be separated from the popular tradition, but must be determined in and with the tradition.The author of Mark’s Gospel is a user and interpreter of traditions, which he linguistically and formally orders and integrates into the totality of his Gospel.”90 For this result Biblische Handlungsweisen, 11–50. Methodenlehre zum Neuen Testament: Einführung in linguistische und historischkritische Methoden (Freiburg: Herder, 1987; 6th ed., Freiburg: Herder, 2011). 84 Egger, Methodenlehre zum Neuen Testament (6th ed., 2011). 85  E. V. McKnight, Reading the Bible Today: A 21st-Century Appreciation of Scripture (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2003), 135–50. 86 For the international linguistic structural exegesis of Mark, see Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium, 159–62. 87 P.  Dschulnigg, Sprache, Redaktion und Intention des Markus-Evangeliums: Eigentümlichkeiten der Sprache des Markus-Evangeliums und ihre Bedeutung für die Redaktionskritik (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984), 60–73, 317–53. 88 Dschulnigg, Sprache, Redaktion und Intention, 73–258. 89 Dschulnigg, Sprache, Redaktion und Intention, 259–98. 90 Dschulnigg, Sprache, Redaktion und Intention, 297 f. 82 Frankemölle, 83 W. Egger,

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Dschulnigg worked out a statistical analysis of “linguistic features.” From the accumulation of foreign Jewish words and from the “uncultivated” Greek language, Dschulnigg concluded that the mother-language of the author was the Jewish language.91 The work of Reiser appearing in the same year made the exact opposite argument with regard to the literary style of Mark: “And it is primarily the tradition of ancient Greek and Hellenistic folk literature that the oldest evangelist displays in syntax and style.”92 The works of Dschulnigg and Reiser complement and correct each other. In the tradition of Catholic exegesis, they engage in neglected research and provide the analytical basis for overcoming the narrowness of redaction criticism and for showing the literary and theological unity of the Gospel of Mark. The evangelist created a new narrative language and new metaphors; he created a lively, vivid style, which Longinus (first century) and the rhetorical teacher Demetrios (first century) named the genus subtilis, the simple style.93 After 1984 a broad-interconfessional discussion began over the language and style of the Gospel of Mark.94 The succeeding evangelists Matthew and Luke then adjusted the language of the Gospel of Mark closer to their language of high literary Koine, and thereby weakened the fictional orality of Mark’s language. Nevertheless, they took over most of the structure in space, time, and sequences of action. Mark’s and Matthew’s Gospels, in their language, scene design, and genre of “biography Gospel” remain at the level of a subtle, simple literature. 3.2.3 Analysis of Historical Genre: The Gospels of Mark and of Matthew as Lives The 1993 document calls for a combination of diachronic historical research with synchronic methods. The genre is the interface of synchrony with diachrony. The question of the genre of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew is still under discussion. Proposals based on literary analogy include almost all the known genera of the Greco-Roman and Jewish narrative literature at the time. The influence of aretalogie, drama, and novel upon the Gospel of Mark will not be discussed here.95 As current consensus maintains that the Gospels are not pure poetic and theological fictions, but a form of ancient history,96 which was very open to new genres and Sprache, Redaktion und Intention, 274 ff. Syntax und Stil des Markusevangeliums im Licht der hellenistischen Volksliteratur (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984), 168. 93 D. Dormeyer, The New Testament among the Writings of Antiquity (trans. R. Kossov; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998); repr. and trans. of Das Neue Testament im Rahmen der antiken Literaturgeschichte: Eine Einführung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1993), 29–62; Reiser, Syntax und Stil, 62. 94 Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium, 153–85. 95 See Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium, 109–12. 96  D. S. Toit, Der abwesende Herr: Strategien im Markusevangelium zur Bewältigung der Abwesenheit des Auferstandenen (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 2006), 21 f.; Becker, Das MarkusEvangelium, 16–53. 91 Dschulnigg, 92 M. Reiser,

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mixing of styles,97 I want to report briefly the development of the hypothesis that their genre is biography. In 1983–1984 studies on the New Testament Gospels as ancient biographies were independently published by the Protestant exegete Schenk (1983), the scholar of Greek literature Cancik (1984), and the Catholic exegetes Berger (1984) and Dormeyer / Frankemölle (1984). There were different accents, but a surprising consensus. With many convincing arguments the Gospels were attributed to the ancient genre biography, while according to the prevailing consensus they formed an original, special literature. In 1989 Dormeyer issued a research report in which he represented the Gospel as a literary and theological genre from its beginnings in antique time to the present.98 Parallel Anglo-American research beginning in 1915 concerning the Gospels as biography was incorporated. But, surprisingly, the classification of the Gospels as biography found little acceptance in the German region in contrast to Anglo-American research. The Protestant exegete Frickenschmidt demonstrated that in the period from 1984–1994 the biography thesis was either completely ignored by German researchers or appeared only as an unlikely possibility.99 There are several reasons for this hesitation. For Greek literature the independence of the genre biography was controversial for a long time. Currently a consensus is forming that it is necessary to differentiate biographical narration in Homer and in ancient Near Eastern parallels, such as the Old Testament or the Egyptian literature, from the biography genre, per se. The classic work of Leo is rightly followed: the genre biography was initiated by the Peripatetic school of Aristotle.100 The peripatetic biography arose from the fact that the earlier encomium, the rhetorical praise of curriculum vitae, was connected with the dramatic structure of classical tragedy. But biography is not drama, despite the dramatic narration, but belongs rather to the prose of history. Encomiums and biographies were produced only for prominent persons, like the Spartan king Agesilaus or the Cypriot king Euagoras or other important persons of philosophy, religion, or medical science, who had historical rank.101 Unfortunately, the early Peripatetic biographies are lost or preserved only in fragments. Only from the titles and the few fragments can it be determined that these biographies were mainly about  97 K. Backhaus and G. Haefner, Historiographie und fiktionales Erzählen: Zur Konstruktivität in Geschichtstheorie und Exegese (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 2007), 1–30; T. Schmeller, Historiographie und Biographie im Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), 1–155.  98 Dormeyer, Evangelium als literarische und theologische Gattung.  99 D.  Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie: Die vier Evangelien im Rahmen antiker Erzählkunst (Tübingen: Francke, 1997), 69–76; for more details, see Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium, 112–38, 166–71. 100 F. Leo, Die griechisch-römische Biographie nach ihrer litterarischen Form (Leipzig: Teubner, 1901), 85–118. 101 H. Sonnabend, Geschichte der antiken Biographie: Von Isokrates bis zur Historia Augusta (2nd ed.; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2003).

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philosophers and poets.102 However, the triumph of Alexander the Great made it possible that a ruler could became the preferred character of a biography. The literary highlight of late Hellenistic biography was Plutarch (45–120 C. E.), whose status remains uncontested since antiquity. His comprehensive work in comparative parallel biographies has been almost completely transmitted in 22 pairs of biographies. It has been ascertained that the three-part structure of 1) Preparation for public performance, 2) Public appearance, and 3) Death, shapes biographical narration as well as the biography genre proper.103 Part 1 does not have to begin with the narration of conception, birth, and childhood. The majority of the Latin biographies written by Cornelius Nepos started with narratives about the young man, as did the Greek biographies of Plutarch and the Res Gestae of Augustus.104 Birth stories with miracles are rather the exception, and they go back to late Egyptian influences.105 These three elements exist in biographical narrations about prophets, judges, and kings in the Old Testament as well as in the Gospels of the New Testament, in the biographies of Plutarch, and in apocalyptic history.106 In addition, Protestant exegetes showed that individual motifs of these parts are shared between Hellenistic biography as well as the Gospels.107 The biographies of Plutarch have on average the same lengths as the Gospels. But the question is still unsolved whether Mark’s Gospel created a new genre, remained in the normative Greek biography, or in the normative history of the Old Testament. In 1975 the Protestant exegete Baltzer proposed the genre “ideal biography” of the Old Testament sections; this genre determined Mark’s Gospel.108 But the disparate biographical narrations of the Old Testament share only common elements, not a common genre. The Gospel as biography does not depend totally upon the Old Testament.109 But the term “ideal biography” is right. In the Old and New Testaments prophetic and royal founders do not have mixed characters, but 102 K. Berger, “Hellenistische Gattungen im Neuen Testament,” ANRW 25.2:1031–1432, esp. 1231–45. 103 Dormeyer, Evangelium als literarische und theologische Gattung, 59 f.; Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie, 160–94, 192–210. 104 A. Dawson, Freedom as Liberating Power: A Socio-political Reading of the exousia Texts in the Gospel of Mark (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 2000). 105 Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie, 253 ff.; J. Kügler, Pharao und Christus? Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zur Frage einer Verbindung zwischen alltägyptischer Königstheologie und neutestamentlicher Christologie im Lukasevangelium (Bodenheim: Philo, 1997), 133–85. 106 A. Yarbro Collins, The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). 107  R. A. Burridge, What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 168; Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie, 351–501; Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium, 253–301. 108 K. Baltzer, Die Biographie der Propheten (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1975), 19–23, 184–93. 109 D. Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium als Idealbiographie von Jesus Christus, dem Nazarener (2nd ed.; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2002), 31–9; Das Markusevangelium, 119–24.

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are rather ideal figures. They can sin against God and they can repent every time and again follow God’s will.110 In 1999 Dormeyer expanded on his earlier work with the publication of Das Markusevangelium als Idealbiographie von Jesus Christus, dem Nazarener (Mark’s Gospel as Ideal Biography of Jesus Christ of Nazareth). Mark’s Gospel is an anti-biography of philosophical ruler biography. It demands identification from every reader with the new eschatological portrait of Christ, which breaks the ruling portraits of the philosophical emperor and the political eschatological Messiah.111 The Gospel became a special branch of biography. The Gospel relates to both the Hellenistic biography and the ideal biographical narrations of the Old Testament.112 But tensions between Gospel and Hellenistic biography remain. So exegetes of all backgrounds continue to discuss whether the Gospel is a myth-story,113 a pre-history,114 or an apocalyptic history.115 3.2.4 Reading as Interaction between the Gospel and Readers: Semiotics, Liberation Theology, Feminist and Materialist Reading, and Depth Psychology Jean Delorme worked like Güttgemanns with deep structural narrative analysis. But the surface text was the base of his interpretation. Delorme studied the elements in the text that lead the reading process. Structural principles such as the Aktantenmodell were connected with surface information such as topography or various roles. But the problem of the contemporary genre “gospel” remained. The Gospel of Mark has three “organizations:” 1) selon l’espace (according to space: Galilee-Jerusalem), 2) selon le development du drame (according to the development of drama: Who is Jesus), and 3) selon les rapports entre les personnes (according to the relationship between persons): Jesus and his disciples, people, opponents.116 In the triangle Jesus, disciples, people, the disciples symbolize the view of spirituality (“vue de la catéchèses”) for the reader.117 But will every reader recognize this structure? Liberation theology and materialistic interpretation of Scripture considered the situation of the reader. In 1976 Ernesto Cardenal showed with his collection of deliberations, Das Evangelium der Bauern von Solentinname (The Gospel of the Peasants of Solentinname), how the peasants of Solentinname were engaged by discussions about biblical texts. The leader of the Eucharist read aloud sections of 110 Mark

3:35.

Das Markusevangelium als Idealbiographie. Historiographie und Biographie, 1–155. 113 P.-G. Klumbies, Der Mythos bei Markus (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001); L. Schenke, Das Markusevangelium: Literarische Eigenart  – Text und Kommentierung (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2005), 8–21; W. Fritzen, Von Gott verlassen? Das Markusevangelium als Kommunikationsangebot für bedrängte Christen (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2008), 19–46. 114 Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium, 410 f. 115 A. Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 15–53. 116 J. Delorme, Lecture de 1’evangile selon Saint Marc (Paris: du Cerf, 1972), 33. 117 Delorme, Lecture de 1’evangile, 32. 111 Dormeyer, 112 Schmeller,

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a Gospel, and the participants expressed themselves spontaneously. In 1973 Carlos Mesters published a Bible course in Portuguese: From Life to the Bible – from the Bible to Life. The purpose is the “reading of the text in the life” of the less educated and sometimes illiterate people.118 Texts from the Old Testament and the Gospels are treated. Leonardo Boff explained this action-oriented reading of the Folk Church by the sociological term “symbol production:” With its own symbolic world of the people, its own language, and its own grammar, Folk Catholicism is a different kind of formation than the official Roman hierarchy. Therefore, Folk Catholicism must not be considered a deviation from official Catholicism. Rather, it is another, separate system that translates Christianity in concrete conditions of human life. Its language is based on unconventional thinking, and its grammar follows the logical mechanisms of the unconscious. Those who want to understand Folk Catholicism need adequate tools which must be different from those appropriate for the reflected and logical clarity of doctrinal systematization with which official Catholicism deals.119

The tension between the piety of an impoverished, barely literate class and the official theology is certainly a major reason why Catholic exegetes of Latin America and other countries were the almost exclusive elaborators of Bible reading for the people.120 In 2005 Ralf Huning drew preliminary conclusions: Bibelwissenschaft im Dienste popularer Bibellektüre (Biblical scholarship in the Service of Popular Bible Reading).121 The title of Mester’s Bible courses, From Life to the Bible  – from the Bible to Life can also highlight the feminist Bible reading and its relation to liberation theologies. In the women’s movement a model of Bible reading was successful that depends upon the tradition of liberation theology and feminist movements in North America, especially the four hermeneutical steps of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza.122 In 1989 Monika Fander published Die Stellung der Frau im Markusevangelium (The Position of the Woman in Mark’s Gospel). In 1980 Fernando Belo used narrative criticism for his program of a materialistic reading of Mark’s Gospel.123 In contrast to text-immanent structural analysis, 118  C. Mesters, Vom Leben zur Bibel – von der Bibel zum Leser: Ein Bibelkurs aus Brasilien für uns (2 vols.; München: Kaiser, 1983), 1:19. 119 L. Boff, Kirche: Charisma und Macht: Studien zu einer streitbaren Ekklesiologie (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1985), 106 f. 120 D. Dormeyer, Die Bibel antwortet: Einführung in die interaktionale Bibelauslegung (München: J. Pfeiffer, 1978); J. Lehnen, Interaktionale Bibelauslegung im Religionsunterricht (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2006). 121 R. Huning, Bibelwissenschaft im Dienste popularer Bibellektüre: Bausteine einer Theorie der Bibellektüre aus dem Werk von Carlos Mesters (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2005). 122 L.  Schottroff, S.  Schroer, and M. T.  Wacker, Feministische Exegese: Forschungserträge zur Bibel aus der Perspektive von Frauen (Darmstadt: Primus, 1995), 22; E.  Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (10th ed.; New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1988); Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation (2nd ed.; Boston: Beacon, 1995). 123 F. Belo, Das Markusevangelium materialistisch gelesen (Stuttgart: Alektor, 1980), 121–30.

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the materialist analysis of the economic, political, and ideological production and reception of the text requires a historical knowledge of the original conditions and the effect of the text. Belo intended to establish an action-oriented community. In 1988 Ched Myers published A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus.124 He took over the concept of a materialistic, socio-political reading, but criticized the universalized, structural method of Belo.125 Instead he followed narrative criticism and combined it with the materialistic “social analysis” of readers of the first century C. E.126 He saw in the literary texts not a direct reflection of the situation at the time, but “windows” and “mirrors” that allow only a partial and ambiguous reconstruction.127 Maria Kassel introduced a deep-level psychological interpretation following C. G Jung.128 The characters of the narrative world are archetypal expressions of individuation and they are accepted as an aid for the finding of identity.129 Biblical stories, including Mark and Matthew, provide irreplaceable archetypes for the making of symbols.130 While Kassel accepts the historical-critical exegesis for the text surface, Drewermann questions radically the literary power of this method.131 Not preaching, but the dream is the beginning of the New Testament tradition.132 For the archetype (dream) is the center for the genres “myth, legend, sage, fairy tales.”133 Sermon, paradigm, short story, gospel are determined by these genres.134 In 1987–88 Drewermann edited meditations on the Gospel of Mark.135 In 1986 Bas van Iersel wrote a reader-oriented commentary on Mark’s Gospel. The implicit and informed reader, not the historical audience, is the addressee.136 The Gospel of Mark is a unit of episodes, an episodic chain with narrative roles.137 A historical genre analysis is not undertaken. The narrative space determines the outline, which has five obvious parts.138 In 1998, a detailed commentary by Bas van Iersel followed: Mark: A Reader-Response Commentary.139 In 1988 Ludger Schenke 124 C. Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (New York: Orbis, 1988). 125  Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 12–21, 467–9. 126 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 31–5. 127 Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 21–8. 128 M.  Kassel, Biblische Urbilder: Tiefenpsychologische Auslegung nach C. G.  Jung (München: J. Pfeiffer, 1980). 129 Kassel, Biblische Urbilder, 89–208. 130 Kassel, Biblische Urbilder, 208–80; Sei, der du werden sollst: Tiefenpsychologische Impulse aus der Bibel (München: J. Pfeiffer, 1982), 102–46. 131 E. Drewermann, Tiefenpsychologie und Exegese, Bd. 1., Die Wahrheit der Formen: Traum, Mythos, Märchen, Sage und Legende (Freiburg: Walter, 1984). 132 Drewermann, Tiefenpsychologie und Exegese, 99 f. 133 Drewermann, Tiefenpsychologie und Exegese, 151 ff. 134 Drewermann, Tiefenpsychologie und Exegese, 99 f. 135 E. Drewermann, Das Markusevangelium (2 vols.; Freiberg: Walter, 1987–88). 136 B. van Iersel, Markus: Kommentar (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1993), 57 f. 137 Iersel, Markus, 48 f., 62. 138 Iersel, Markus, 68. 139 B. Van Iersel, Mark: A Reader-Response Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

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published a narrative analysis of Mark’s Gospel. He maintained consistently the position of synchrony. The “text-elements of Mark’s Gospel” can indeed be differentiated, but can not be related to tradition.140 In 1989 Reinhold Zwick combined film aesthetics with narrative criticism.141 In 1998 Fritzleo Lentzen-Deis published Das Markus-Evangelium. Ein Kommentar für die Praxis (The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary for Practice)Each reader should be influenced by the method of pragma-linguistics, or action orientation. This new “pragma-linguistic” approach is reflected in a three-step methodology: 1) Each sequence is introduced with its “structure (syntactic),” that is, its form. 2) “The explanation of the text” follows. “Semantics” of each text is explored within the context of the Gospel and other contexts. 3) The third part contains “action impulses” (pragmatics). The text offers features and patterns of identification and of models of action. It seems to me that the “reading” of Mark and Matthew has been developed mainly by Catholic exegetes. Parallel to this development, however, similar approaches including narrative criticism, reader-response criticism, and poststructural perspectives were introduced in North America, especially by Protestant exegetes.142 The papal document of 1993 may indeed be said to reflect much of the current international discourses of Catholic and Protestant exegetes, including evangelical exegesis.

Das Markusevangelium (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1988), 52 f. Montage im Markusevangelium: Studien zur narrativen Organisation der ältesten Jesuserzählung (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1989). 142 McKnight, Post-Modern Use of the Bible, 115–273; Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium, 162– 6. Cf. also: Die Interpretation der Bibel in der Kirche: Das Dokument der Päpstlichen Bibelkommission vom 23.4.1993 mit einer kommentierenden Einführung von L. Ruppert und Würdigung durch H.-J. Klauck (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1995); I. Broer, “Gebremste Exegese: Katholische Neutestamentler in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft nach 1945: Hauptvertreter der deutschsprachigen Exegese in der Darstellung ihrer Schüler (ed. C. Breytenbach and R. Hoppe; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 2008), 59–113. Many thanks to Edgar McKnight for critically reading the manuscript. 140 L. Schenke, 141 R. Zwick,

Judging the Theological Tree by its Fruit The Use of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew in Official Church Documents on Jewish-Christian Relations* Anders Runesson Comprehension does not mean denying the outrageous, deducing the unprecedented from precedents, or explaining phenomena by such analogies and generalities that the impact of reality and the shock of experience is no longer felt. It means, rather, examining and bearing consciously the burden which our century has placed on us – neither denying its existence nor submitting meekly to its weight. Hannah Arendt1

1. Introduction: Sacred Text, Violence, and Hermeneutics “This curse taketh place to this day,” states a marginal gloss in the Geneva Bible, widely used by protestant reformers,2 commenting on Matt 27:25 and the suffering of the Jewish people (καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς πᾶς ὁ λαὸς εἶπεν· τὸ αἷμα αὐτοῦ ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ τέκνα ἡμῶν).3 Origen (185–254) was among the first to formulate the basic principle of subsequent Christian interpretation of this Matthean passage, such * I am grateful to Eileen Schuller for reading and commenting on the penultimate draft of this study. 1 Preface to the first edition of The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951. 2 On the Geneva Bible (1560) and its importance for Protestant Christianity, especially in Great Britain and, later on, in North America, see Bruce M. Metzger, who specifically emphasizes the influence of the marginal notes on theology and church history: “The Geneva Bible of 1560,” ThTo 17 (1960): 339–52. It is to be noted, in this context of polemics against ‘outsiders,’ that some annotations were also anti-papal, identifying, e.g., the pope as the ‘Antichrist’ (on Rev 17:4; Metzger, “Geneva,” 350). 3 H. Clarke, The Gospel of Matthew and Its Readers: A Historical Introduction to the First Gospel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 227–8. On this verse and its effects in history, see also, e.g., S. Sandmel, Anti-Semitism in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 66; P. von der Osten-Sacken, Christian-Jewish Dialogue: Theological Foundations (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 12–3; T. Fornberg, The Bible in a World of Many Faiths (Tro & Tanke 2000:3; Uppsala: Svenska kyrkans forskningsråd, 2000), 38–40, 58–9; U. Luz, Matthew in History: Interpretation, Influence, and Effects (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 32–3; idem, Matthew 21–28: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 506–11. Matthew 27:25 is also discussed at length in T. L. Donaldson, Jews and Anti-Judaism in the New Testament: Decision Points and Divergent Interpretations (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2010), 30–54.

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that the curse would be said to apply to all Jews, everywhere, and always, until the end of time.4 Jerome (347–420) followed the same path, adding the comment that Israel is no longer God’s people.5 Almost all medieval commentaries followed suit. Theophylactus of Ohrid (ca. 1055–1108) explains that it is because of their unbelief that the Jews are persecuted and not shown mercy “to this day,”6 and Martin of Laon expounds further: not only the destruction of the temple (as already Origen had pointed out), but also the Diaspora of the Jews, the low reputation they have ‘everywhere,’ the abuse and persecution they are suffering, all of this is a result of the curse, pronounced by themselves, as reported in Matthew’s 27th chapter.7 This interpretive tradition is continued also in the works of Martin Luther, who, with reference to the suffering of the Jews, points to Matt 27:25 and concludes that the blood of Jesus has “found them.”8 4 Origen, Comm. ser. Matt. 124; Luz, Matthew 21–28, 506. Note how Origen combines this verse with Isa 1:15 to develop his interpretation. According to W.-D. Köhler, Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums in der Zeit vor Irenäus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987), 319, it is quite likely that T. Levi 16.3 was influenced by Matt 27:25 (on the nature of this text as a Jewish Christ-believing document authored in Palestine, see D. Frankfurter, “Beyond ‘Jewish Christianity’: Continuing Religious Sub-Cultures of the Second and Third Centuries and their Documents,” in The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages [ed. A. H. Becker and A. Yoshiko Reed; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003], 131–43), and this may also have been the case for Gos. Pet. 17, although this is somewhat less certain. None of these two early examples of Matthean reception history, however, develops the interpretation of the passage in the same comprehensive way as Origen does. The type of interpretation of Matt 27:25 that Origen represents, as a self-uttered curse of the Jewish people with universal implications, was, until the 20th century, often combined by Christians with the charge of deicide, an idea for which the earliest evidence is found in the homily Peri Pascha, dated to the late second century and attributed to Melito of Sardis. For discussion of this work and its sources, see L. H. Cohick, The Peri Pascha attributed to Melito of Sardis: Setting, Purpose, and Sources (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2000). 5 Jerome, Comm. Isa. 17; Luz, Matthew 21–28, 506. 6 Theophylactus, Ennaratio in Evangelium Matthaei (PG 123:465); Luz, Matthew 21–28, 507. The theme of unbelief is thus combined with a statement that present day Jews were the children of those who “killed the Lord.” 7 Luz, Matthew 21–28, 507. 8 In his rhetorical attacks on Judaism, Luther also claimed the Jews to be the devil’s people, not God’s people: Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi, WA 53.587. (For an English translation of Vom Schem Hamphoras, see G. Falk, The Jew in Christian Theology: Martin Luther’s Anti-Jewish Vom Schem Hamphoras, Previously Unpublished in English, and Other Milestones in Church Doctrine Concerning Judaism [Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland, 1992]; the reference to Matt 27:25 is found in § 19, p. 171.) In this work, which was written after his infamous On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther states that he does not expect that he will be able to convert Jews. Still, however, he notes at the very end of the book that if some would convert they would be met by God’s grace. It seems, then, that despite his rhetoric, Luther’s extremely harsh anti-Jewish polemic aimed not only at Christians whom he considered ‘threatened’ by Jewish teachings in the sense that these Christians might convert to Judaism (which is explicitly stated as one of the motivations behind this work). It also seems that Luther never entirely gave up the aim from his early career (e.g., his 1523 work That Jesus was Born a Jew) to try to convince Jews to convert. If Luther believed, which is likely, that he lived in the end-times, this type of rhetoric should be placed within an eschatological interpretive frame, in which the conversion of the Jews to Christianity would lead to the Second Coming. (It is of some interest to note that this interpretation represents a theological reversal of some first-century Jewish beliefs, that the ‘coming of non-Jews to Zion’ would

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In addition to such reception in commentaries and theological and apologetic texts, Ulrich Luz has noted that the influence of Matt 27:25 far exceeded what we see on the pages of such books. Quoting Kampling, he brings to our attention the fact that from the time of the first crusade, Christian texts have justified “massacres and burning of Jews as the fulfillment of the curse of 27:25.”9 Most importantly, Luz notes that, “thus over the course of many centuries the suffering and persecution of the Jews came to confirm for Christians the truth of their faith in Jesus Christ.”10 In other words, over the centuries Christians – referring to this specific verse in Matthew’s Gospel – have been involved in what hardly can be described as anything but a gruesome, self-sustaining, and seemingly interminable hermeneutical circle: in societies ruled by Christians, Christians inflict structural, physical, religious, and psychological violence on Jews, and then use the ensuing, real-life suffering of the Jews to assert theologically the truth of the Christian faith, pointing to Matt 27:25. The prophetic truth of the sacred text was checked against the continuous suffering of the Jewish people, which in turn reinforced Christian identity. The suffering of Jews was needed, it seems, for the production and maintenance of a non-Jewish Christian identity, and Matt 27:25 legitimized an ideology upholding a system of abuse and oppression. Furthermore, as Luz notes, since Christians thought that Jews through the centuries were always aware of their bloodguilt in relation to the death of the Christ, by theo-logical implication the Jews were understood as constantly and consciously reaffirming their guilt – and the curse – simply by continuing to adhere to Judaism. Since such interpretations cannot find support in historically oriented readings of the late first-century text of Matthew’s Gospel11 – they are clearly conditioned by specific (non-Jewish) Christian cultures and politics – we are justified in asking what, specifically, in the various periods in the history of the church, made such a reading seem natural, and even important, for Christian self-definition. How did it come to pass that the suffering of a particular religio-ethnic minority, the

signal or follow the beginnings of eschatological events; for this Jewish pattern of thought, see T. L. Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles: Jewish Patterns of Universalism (to 135CE) [Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007], especially 499–505. While Rom 11:15 may have led Luther to his view of the end-times with regard to the Jewish people, it should be noted that Paul is not speaking of conversion in the sense Luther does.) In order to understand Luther’s polemic against the Jews it is of importance also to engage his writings on Islam and, more specifically, the Ottoman Empire, especially at the time of the siege of Vienna in 1529 and the years that followed; see A. S. Francisco, Martin Luther and Islam: A Study in Sixteenth-Century Polemics and Apologetics (Leiden: Brill, 2007); I am grateful to Rebecca Runesson for pointing this out to me. Luther’s anti-Judaism has been treated in a recent important study by E. W. Gritsch, Martin Luther’s Anti-Semitism: Against his Better Judgment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012).  9 Luz, Matthew 21–28, 507–8. 10 Luz, Matthew 21–28, 508. 11 Cf. Fornberg, World of Many Faiths, 52: “It is quite often evident that they [i.e., the biblical texts] have been read in a way that the authors and the first readers could not possibly have foreseen, and much less intended.”

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Jews, was, consistently over time and across vast geographical areas, understood as theo-historical proof of the correctness of Christian faith? A few basic observations may be suggested at this point. It is clear that the hermeneutics at play in interpretations such as those mentioned build heavily on contemporary social and political contexts. However, they also acquire a life of their own, which in turn contribute to triggering and forming certain social, religious, and political attitudes. Once a certain reading has achieved almost canonical status, there are few ways to exit this hermeneutical spiral, which is constantly reinforced in the interplay between text and socio-political realities; to do so would require a thorough re-evaluation, on the highest level of authority, of theological principles speaking to key issues of Christian identity and apologetics.12 This situation leaves the biblical passage itself with minimal interpretive input into the process in which theology is formed, at least when seen from a historical perspective, or a perspective in which the interpretive integrity of a passage is understood to be linked to its immediate and / or larger literary context. The mechanisms at work in this seemingly self-sustaining drama, which continually feeds itself the violence needed to uphold in principle its interpretive results, appears to have developed along the following lines. First, the passage in question is taken out of its literary context (a common procedure since the earliest period of biblical interpretation), and then often, but not always, it is combined with another biblical text from the New Testament or the Hebrew Bible. Such a combination may lead to an expansion of the violence inherent in the interpretation, but we also have examples that lead to a mitigation of the situation, at least from a Christian perspective: if Jews converted to Christianity, they would escape the curse.13 In either case, Judaism as a religion is presented and understood as an anomaly after the coming of the Christ, a religion ultimately meant for obliteration.14 Second, one may note that the removal of the passage from any coherent literary context is what dismantles the originally intended power of the text and opens it up to the monologic influence of contemporary concerns 12 As we shall see, the Second Vatican Council produced documents of crucial importance in this regard, initiating deep reflection on these issues, which in turn has led to a continuing transformation – building on careful readings of the biblical texts – of Christian theology worldwide. The council was announced on January 25 1959 and opened on October 11 1962; it ended on December 8 1965. 2,365 bishops from 79 countries participated, representing 500 million Catholics. Present were also 21 superiors of religious communities, 39 observers from 15 non-Catholic Christian churches, 224 expert theologians, as well as lay auditors. It is fair to say that the Second Vatican Council initiated a new era in official Christian interpretation of the New Testament in relation to Judaism and the Jewish people; what was said during the council would be further explained and substantiated in some key documents that followed in 1975 and 1985. See further below. 13 So, e.g., Chrysostom, Hom. Matt., PG 58:766; see Luz, Matthew 21–28, 507. See also n. 8 above on Luther’s use of the passage. Such a perspective was for more than a millennium and a half the standard Christian interpretation of the Jewish-Christian reality. 14 Such a perspective on Judaism is present already in Ignatius, Magn. 10.1–3, although, notably, without reference to the passage under discussion. The need for non-Jewish Christians to portray Jews and Judaism as superseded was, originally, unrelated to and not provoked by Matt 27:25.

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and politics in the interpretive act.15 However, the canonical status attributed to the passage made it useful as an extremely powerful and legitimizing proof-text, a kind of ‘footnote’ attached to an already established anti-Jewish ideology interwoven with the politics of the day, which, unhindered, controlled the interpretive activity as well as the acts of violence that evolved naturally from this process. Third, relating, then, the isolated but existentially potent passage of Matt 27:25 to the Canon as a whole, we find that the text emerges as a key component in condensed form of a web of injurious interpretations of New Testament texts relating to Jews and Judaism. As we noted above (n. 4), and as Samuel Sandmel has observed, the accusation of deicide against the Jews, most famously voiced by Melito of Sardis, often took Matt 27:25 as point of departure.16 This intertwining of Melito’s oft-repeated accusation against the Jews with a canonical passage provided the textual foundation for official church teaching on Jews and Judaism until the 1960s.17 In this web of interpreted New Testament passages that complement each other in their anti-Jewish sentiments, the ‘strength’ of Matt 27:25 lay in that it could be used as a direct theological key to contemporary society, as we have noted above. Its ‘truth’ could be checked against the background of social realities, and, vice versa, the correctness and fairness of those realities could be checked against the biblical text. Since the passage understood historically and / or in its literary context in and of itself cannot carry such an interpretive burden, the function of Matt 27:25 in official church teachings was simply to provide contemporary ideologies, politics, and societal control mechanisms with general hermeneutical access to the New Testament as a whole, using it to legitimize interpretations leading to various forms of persecution and restrictive legislation undertaken against the Jewish people and their religion. This is not the place to further explore the reception and function of Matt 27:25 in Christian societies generally. I have referred to it here as a key example of the influence of one of the Gospels on Christianity’s understanding of its relationship to the Jewish people and Judaism. The horrendous events that took place during the Second World War have significantly contributed to a break with such 15  It is true, as Luz, Matthew in History, 33, notes, that the “history of effects shows that texts have power and therefore cannot be separated from their consequences.” However, if historical criticism has taught us anything, it is that neither texts nor their interpretations are free-floating objects in time and space (cf. S. Cohen, “The Jewishness of Jesus,” in No Religion Is an Island: The Nostra Aetate Dialogues [edited by E. Bristow; New York: Fordham University Press, 1998], 50–1); it is thus hardly possible to understand either the text or its interpretations apart from the social, political, religious, and economic settings in which they were produced. While texts certainly have (latent) power, they are quiet until we give them voice. We owe it to the authors of ancient texts to attempt to re-establish, to our best ability, possible original meanings, and thereby put the spotlight on the non-textually based mechanisms and powers that control and influence the voices we hear through the centuries. 16 Sandmel, Anti-Semitism, 66. 17 Cf. also uses of 1 Thess 2:15–6, and Acts 2:36 in this regard, as noted by H. P. Fry in A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations (ed. E.  Kessler and N.  Wenborn; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 123.

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perspectives, and made impossible the construction of Christian theology and identity based on the idea that the suffering of the Jewish people is a consequence of their own actions and legitimate in God’s eyes.18 So strong has the tradition of Christian anti-Jewish theology been throughout church history that, since the War, all major churches have considered it necessary to issue statements to the effect that anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism is contrary to the very nature of the Christian faith.19 Seen from a historical perspective, such statements are truly groundbreaking, and, if sustained and implemented on all levels, provide grounds for a radically re-shaped future of Christian-Jewish relations, developments which are yet in their first embryonic stages. Now seems a good time, on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, which took the lead in these historical developments, to ask some questions regarding the use in these processes of not only Matthew’s Gospel, which has been the center of so much negative attention with regard to our topic, but also of Mark, the oldest Gospel whose earliest reception we find in Matthew. If it has been possible for the churches to refer to the earliest Gospels as they have outlined 18 While this may be true regarding the situation of most churches and official church teachings, this has not, however, meant the complete disappearance in society of such rhetoric, based on centuries-old Christian anti-Judaism. Not least the establishment of the modern state of Israel, especially after the war in 1967, which triggered the re-emergence of anti-Semitism in European public debates, has led some groups and individuals, regardless of any legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, to utilize and develop classic Christian anti-Jewish themes to support their cause. While, initially, this rhetoric was mostly limited to extreme leftwing and anti-Zionist groups, the Israeli-Lebanese war in 1982 led to such rhetoric becoming widespread in mass media and among groups belonging to the political, democratic mainstream. Concepts like chosenness, the Jews as being God’s people, were at this time referred to and modified utilizing racist ideology in accusations leveled against the state of Israel, or the Jews generally, portraying them as inherently evil and racist, even as Nazis, and labeling the war as a new Holocaust committed by the Jews themselves. Furthermore, in Sweden, the deicide accusation was at this time brought into public (secular) discourse, including absurd claims to the effect that Jews, ever since Jesus was condemned to death by the Jewish chief priests, had always “hated Christians.” In addition, some newspapers gave voice to ideas linking deicide to exile, such that, since Jews killed Jesus and were exiled, they can be exiled again. To such anti-Semitic rhetoric were, occasionally, added accusations of ritual murder of Palestinian children on the West bank, and statements that Israel “the land where Jesus lived, suffered and died” is now ruled by “the devil.” For discussion and analysis of these post-World War II developments, see the Ph. D. thesis by Henrik Bachner (Lund University), published as Återkomsten: Antisemitism i Sverige efter 1945 (Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 1999), especially 369–452. It is not hard to trace the origin of such rhetoric to the church fathers, and to note its place in Christian theology, sermons, and art through the centuries. As the churches today reject and denounce such theology and rhetoric, special attention needs to be paid to this non-Christian offspring of their historical teaching, since this time period (from the 1960s to the 1980s) provides the historical and political context for the most important official church documents on Jewish-Christian relations published to date. 19 Many of these statements are conveniently categorized (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, ecumenical, as well as Jewish and Interreligious) and presented on the website Jewish-Christian Relations: Insights and Issues in the ongoing Jewish-Christian Dialogue, sponsored by the International Council of Christians and Jews: http://www.jcrelations.net/Statements.65.0.html. See also the selected documents and papers presented in H. P. Fry, Christian–Jewish Dialogue: A Reader (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1996), especially 35–8.

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and established at the core of their identities anti-Jewish theologies, is it possible – and if so, in which ways – for Christianity to redefine interreligious relationships using the same texts? What has changed in the church’s official understanding of the biblical texts that would make such a shift possible? Has the church reinterpreted the passages that have been used earlier for opposite purposes, or has attention been redirected to new passages? How are such choices motivated? What role, if any, has modern academic historical-critical study of the first Gospels played in this process?20 This last question is of some hermeneutical importance and theological significance, since if it can be shown that historical study of the Gospels has substantially influenced official church teachings, this means that Christians of all denominations as well as Jews – but also people of no confessional background who work within academia – have decisively contributed to the development of new church doctrine; such influence may then continue in the future, based on academic methods and tools and taking the form of inter-subjective conversations that remain, ultimately, beyond ecclesiastical control.21 Although church theology has always been in dialogue with, and deeply influenced by, surrounding cultures, philosophies, and religions, such academic conversations feeding into official church teachings represent, historically, a new development originating among Protestant scholars. Over time, and this process has already begun, these developments may open up new hermeneutical dynamics and ecumenical insights. In a situation such as the present, “a detailed exegetical analysis of the use of the Bible in the Jewish-Christian dialogue stands out as a necessity,” as Tord Fornberg has argued.22 There are many different ways to assess and analyze the (theological) changes currently taking place in the churches with regard to their relationship with Judaism and the Jewish people. The present study has, necessarily, a narrow focus, aiming only at one aspect of this development as it relates explicitly to the reception history of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew against the background of previous uses of these Gospels, mostly Matthew, in church history. In order to make the task 20 That is, can we detect as one of the forces behind the changes currently taking place new, historically based understandings of the texts? Or should we understand the impetus for change as originating elsewhere, and the biblical passages only secondarily being applied whenever the need is felt? There can be little doubt, for example, that even if the Holocaust has been the primary force behind the urge felt by Christians to re-evaluate and re-think their theology in genuine respect for Judaism and the Jewish people, other factors, such as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, have, within this larger socio-religious and political frame, played active and important roles in the rise and development of Jewish-Christian dialogue. For the importance of the Scrolls in this regard, see E. Schuller, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” in Early Jewish and Christian Influences: Festschrift for Thomas H. Tobin, S. J. (ed. P. Walters;  Leiden: Brill, 2010), 48–58. 21 Regarding official Catholic understandings of academic biblical study and its methods, see especially the document The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, presented by the Pontifical Biblical Commission to Pope John Paul II on April 23, 1993 (as published in Origins, January 6, 1994); it may be found online at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ cfaith/pcb_doc_index.htm, (No. 34), and, in English translation, at http://catholic-resources.org/ ChurchDocs/PBC_Interp-FullText.htm. 22 Fornberg, Many Faiths, 50.

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feasible within the limited space of an article, I have chosen to focus on one of the churches, the Catholic Church, since this is not only the largest church in the world today, but also because, with the Second Vatican Council, it took a leading role in the reshaping of Jewish-Christian relations that we are currently experiencing.23 Even with this limitation, however, it would hardly be possible to deal with all documents that have been produced on our topic; they are simply too many, and they also express somewhat divergent opinions and emphases on the matter at hand.24 In such a situation, focusing our analysis on the most authoritative documents produced by the church seems appropriate. These are, as recently emphasized by Philip Cunningham and Michael Kogan, the following three: Nostra Aetate (1965); Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate (n. 4) (1975), and Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and 23 A brief note on other churches may be in order here. The Orthodox churches have not worked to the same degree as the Catholic Church on the place of Judaism and the Jews in Christian theology, which may be explained by the fact that the eastern churches were not directly involved in the setting that produced the Holocaust. Some documents have, however, been produced, noting not least the long history of anti-Semitism in the Russian context. For discussion, see N. de Lange, “The Orthodox Churches in Dialogue with Judaism,” and I.  Levinskaya, “Jewish–Russian Orthodox Christian Dialogue,” both published in Challenges in Jewish–Christian Relations (ed. J. K. Aitken and E. Kessler; New York: Paulist Press, 2006), 51–62, and 63–68, respectively. Contrary to the Orthodox churches, Protestant churches have worked extensively on their theology of the Jewish-Christian reality. The analysis of the reception of our Gospels in such Protestant documents would be an important task to undertake, not least in order to note ecumenical aspects of the question. Of course, Protestant churches lack the central authority structures of the Catholic Church, which makes it more difficult to identify authoritative views that would represent the diverse churches; ecumenical statements by the World Council of Churches are important, but insufficient when mapping this territory. Further, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, many Protestant documents lack direct references to biblical passages. Consequently, analysis of these documents needs to pay close attention to allusions to and echoes of biblical themes, as well as to more general hermeneutical factors at play, which affect and support the statements made. In this regard, it is of some interest to note that the Church of Sweden, the largest Lutheran church in the world today with its ca. seven million members, only quite recently produced a statement on Jewish-Christian relations: Guds vägar: Judendom och kristendom. Ett inomkyrkligt samtalsdokument (Svenska kyrkans utredningar 1999:1; Stockholm: Svenska kyrkan, 1999), 47 pages. (The document was published together with commentaries by Håkan Bengtsson, Karin Hedner Zetterholm, Anders Runesson, Åke Roxberg, and Jesper Svartvik.) The document was approved by the Synod of the Church of Sweden in 2001. The official English translation was published in STK 79 (2003): 122–9; it may also be found on the website of the International Council of Christians and Jews, Jewish-Christian Relations (http:// jcrelations.net/en/?item=1965). The aforementioned issue of Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift, in which the English translation was first published, also contains comments and reactions – in English – to the document from Jewish, Catholic, and Lutheran perspectives. 24 There has been, for example, some debate regarding the proper interpretation of Nostra Aetate, the foundational document from Vatican II that set in motion the changes that have since followed. Recently, e.g., statements by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have questioned two key axioms that have developed since Vatican II, namely, those related to the nature of religious dialogue and the validity of the covenant between God and the Jewish people. For a detailed discussion of these issues in relation to official Catholic documents, see P. A. Cunningham, “Official Ecclesial Documents to Implement Vatican II on Relations with Jews: Study Them, Become Immersed in Them, and Put Them into Practice,” Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 4 (2009): 1–36 [http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/scjr/issue/view/130/showToc].

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Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church (1985).25 Other documents often repeat and confirm the fundamental advances made in these three documents, although there are, as mentioned, some exceptions to that rule.26 Other contributions to this volume have traced the reception of Mark and Matthew in various time periods and contexts, from the first century onwards. The aim of the present study is to investigate contemporary uses of the earliest Gospels in a specific ecclesial setting (official Catholic documents) in relation to one specific aspect of this church’s teaching that is currently going through considerable development. The study will attempt to answer the questions mentioned above within the logic of the documents themselves, but also in light of recent advances in the academic study of our two Gospels. This means that some statements made in the documents that are based on scholarship current when the documents were authored will be evaluated also from the perspective of how research on our Gospels has since developed. In such cases I do not intend, of course, to critique the authors of the documents for using what in 2012 may be regarded as outdated scholarly conclusions. Rather, reflection on these issues in more recent scholarship will serve the purpose of furthering the understanding of the approach taken in the documents, what it implies methodologically and with regard to possible future developments, as these texts utilize academic historical conclusions in the formation of normative theology. To my knowledge, no such study of Markan and Matthean reception history has hitherto been published. While this investigation will allow us to draw some conclusions about the use of Mark and Matthew at the official Catholic Church level, much work remains to be done with regard to the reception of the Gospels – and 25 The two latter documents were authored by the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. (In the literature, Guidelines is sometimes dated to 1974; I will follow here the more common dating of 1975.) These documents are available online at http://www.vatican.va/roman_ curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/sub-index/index_relations-jews.htm. On the authority of the three documents, see Cunningham, “Official Ecclesial Documents,” especially 4–21. Regarding Guidelines (1975) and Notes (1985), Cunningham states that “[t]here are no other documents of comparable authority” as concerns the interpretation and implementation of Nostra Aetate (35). See also M. S. Kogan, Opening the Covenant: A Jewish Theology of Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 122; for discussion of the three documents, see especially 122–9. 26 While some of these documents seem to indicate a wish to go back to the period before Vatican II, at least with regard to certain aspects of the inclusive statements regarding the place of the Jewish people in Christian theology, other documents build on Vatican II and go further in their assessment. Kogan, Opening the Covenant, 132, mentions documents from Venice (“The Mission and Witness of the Church,” presented at the 6th meeting of the Liason Committee between the Roman Catholic Church and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, 1977), Rome (a statement by Cardinal Etchegaray of Marseilles at the plenary session of the synod of Bishops on Reconciliation, 1983), and a German document from 1979, which Kogan identifies as “the most advanced Catholic thinking on the Christian–Jewish relationship”; this is a paper produced by the Workshop on Jews and Christians, Central Committee of Roman Catholics in Germany, and entitled “Basic Theological Issues of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue.” Regarding the New Catechism of 1994, however, Kogan adds that it “has nothing of novelty to say on the question before us. It is conservative and cautious in tone. … Frequently, its approach to Jews and Judaism is confused, if not self-contradictory” (135).

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other New Testament texts – in local contexts, not least in relation to the official teachings of the church.27 The foundational importance of biblical texts for developing or engaging in Jewish-Christian dialogue, or for constructing a Christian theology of Judaism, is often noted.28 Therefore, the question of how this is done should, in my view, be regarded as being of equal, or possibly greater, significance. After all, from an emic perspective, “the study of the Bible is, as it were, the soul of theology,” as Pope Leo XIII once summarized the relationship between theology and the Bible.29 Before we deal with the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, respectively, a brief note on the nature of the documents with respect to quotations from biblical texts will serve the purpose of putting things in context.

2. A Note on the Frequency of Biblical Quotations There is a distinct difference between the three documents to be investigated with regard to how they work with biblical texts, both in terms of method and frequency. In the 1965 Nostra Aetate, we find altogether 24 explicit biblical references, of 27 One important aspect in this regard is, as also noted by H. G. Locke, “On Christian Mission to the Jews,” in The Holocaust and the Christian World: Reflections on the Past, Challenges for the Future (ed. C. Rittner et al.; London: Kuperard, 2000), 204–6, the analysis of material such as Sunday school and devotional literature, which – contrary to official church teaching after the Second Vatican Council – “continue to carry a subtle and not so subtle message that perpetuates the image of the Jewish people as those who rejected Christ and of Judaism as an inferior, if not false, belief ” (206). For discussion of this problem, see M. C. Boys, Has God Only One Blessing? Judaism as a Source for Christian Self-Understanding (Mahwah, N. J.: Paulist Press, 2000), 267–78, and the inclusion of the 1988 document “God’s Mercy Endures Forever: Guidelines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching,” in the appendix, 279–95. For a case study discussing the United States, England, and Wales specifically, see E. J. Fisher, “Implementation of Nostra Aetate, no. 4, in the United States, England and Wales: Some Preliminary Observations,” in Themes in Jewish–Christian Relations (ed. E. Kessler and M. J. Wright; Cambridge: Orchard Academic, 2005), 249–71. For a more comprehensive analysis of the implementation of the documents, see P. A. Cunningham, Education for Shalom: Religion Textbooks and the Enhancement of the Catholic and Jewish Relationship (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1995). 28  This is sometimes done from different perspectives. Osten-Sacken, Christian-Jewish Dialogue, 17–8, notes the reason for the key position of some New Testament texts in dialogue settings to be related to the fact that they were written before any ‘parting of ways between Jews and Christians’ had taken place. He thus proposes to prioritize the Pauline letters, especially Rom 9–11. P. M. van Buren, A Theology of the Jewish–Christian Reality, Vol. 2: A Christian Theology of the People of Israel (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983), suggests an historical ‘parting of the ways’ around 85 C. E. – a highly problematic assumption based on research now mostly abandoned – and allows these social dynamics to be part of the identification and explanation of what he understands to be anti-Jewish statements in Mark and Matthew, dated to around this time period, including Matt 27:25 (274–6). For a different approach to the role of the Bible in Jewish-Christian relations, see J. F. A. Sawyer, “The Bible in Future Jewish-Christian Relations,” in Challenges in Jewish–Christian Relations (ed. J. K. Aitken and E. Kessler; New York: Paulist Press, 2006), 39–50. 29 See the document The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1993), which notes that this perspective was endorsed by the Second Vatican Council, and continues to emphasize that “this study is never finished; each age must in its own way newly seek to understand the sacred books.”

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which only one is to Matthew, the most influential Gospel in church history, and none whatsoever to the Gospel of Mark. There is also an indirect allusion to Matt 27:25, as the Nostra Aetate explicitly rejects theologies that blame the death of Jesus on the Jewish people, thereby, in one sentence, overturning roughly 1,760 years of reception of this passage in Christian theology and practice. In Guidelines (1975), which in its theology goes further than Nostra Aetate, we find a total of only 5 explicit references to biblical texts. Of these only two are from the New Testament, and both of them are from Matthew’s Gospel. There is also, as in Nostra Aetate, an implicit allusion to Matthew 27:25, rejecting earlier interpretations of the curse. Again, Mark is absent. The position and importance of the Gospel of Mark changes radically in the third document, Notes (1985). The document is longer than its predecessors and it is much more focused on laying a biblical foundation for its theology. Of a total of 81 biblical references, 79 come from the New Testament. Of these, 44 are taken from the Gospels, which may be compared to only 24 from the Pauline corpus, which is otherwise very influential in Jewish-Christian dialogue.30 Among the Gospels, Mark is referred to 9 times, and Matthew is called upon only 7 times, a unique reversal of the comparative influence of Mark and Matthew in the reception history of these Gospels. We also have, as in the earlier documents, an implicit allusion to Matt 27:25, rejecting anti-Jewish interpretations of the death of Jesus. In the following, we shall ask what exactly the documents are saying when they call on Matthew and Mark, respectively, for support: what theological themes have been connected with these Gospels, and how and why is this done? Proceeding accordingly, we shall attempt to isolate certain patterns of use and suggest possible explanations for the identifiable changes of approach and methodology between the three documents. In particular, we shall be attentive to the developing role of academic historical-critical analysis in the construction of Catholic theology.

3. Matthew 3.1 Universal Fraternity The only Matthean passage referred to explicitly in Nostra Aetate is Matt 5:45 (“so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous”). This text occurs not in the section dedicated to Judaism, however, but under the heading “Universal Fraternity” (No. 5). It is still important for our topic, since 30 Cf. the use of Pauline writings in Nostra Aetate’s section on Judaism; there we have 7 references, of which 5 are to Rom 9–11. It is fair to say that the most important, and most frequently quoted biblical text in the modern history of Christian theologies of Judaism and the Jewish people is Rom 9–11, or, even more narrowly defined, Rom 11.

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Nostra Aetate should be interpreted as a unified whole in which the parts interpret each other. The immediate context of our document weaves together the Matthean passage with 1 Pet 2:12 and Rom 12:8, both of which admonish Christ-believers to behave well towards everyone, regardless of ethnic or religious belonging. With 1 John 4:8 (“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love”) functioning as an ‘umbrella-statement’ in the first paragraph under the heading “Universal Fraternity,” relating love between humans to the love of God, Matt 5:45 serves the purpose of strengthening the imitatio Dei motif, with a subtle missionizing motif coming through via 1 Pet 2:12: “Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.” The question is, of course, whether the Matthean passage can be merged with 1 Peter’s view on mission. In other words, we may ask whether Nostra Aetate’s use of Matthew in this context aligns with or contradicts the theology of Matthew, in this case the theology of the Sermon on the Mount, as it is interpreted in the context of 1 Peter. Do we find here, from a Matthean perspective, historically and / or literarily, a solid basis for the theology of a universal fraternity as it is expressed in the document? The combination of Matthew and 1 Peter in fact indicates an interesting theological reading of Matthew, especially in light of more traditional Christian understandings of mission – innovative, yet echoing a first-century Jewish theology of mission. The mission motif, which is treated at length in other Second Vatican documents, has here moved away from the previously more common adaptation of Matt 28:19–20 (“The Great Commission”) in various contexts as an active command to proselytize among the nations, most often understood to include the Jewish people.31 Instead, we find a focus on mission as a centripetal force, based on the works of the people of God and effective only when this people live according to God’s will. This is, essentially, a Jewish view on the role of the people of God in the world, a view which may be traced back to motifs in the Hebrew Bible, e.g., Isa 42:5–6, but which is also represented in rabbinic literature.32 Such an understand31  The interpretation of πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (Matt 28:19) to include the Jews is, however, historically problematic and can hardly be claimed to be a Matthean perspective. For discussion, see Anders Runesson, “Judging Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew: Between ‘Othering’ and Inclusion,” in Matthew’s Gospel and Early Christianity: Studies in Memory of Professor Graham Stanton (ed. J. Willitts and D. M. Gurtner; London: T & T Clark, 2011), 133–51. 32 On definitions of mission, see A.  Runesson, “Particularistic Judaism and Universalistic Christianity? Some Critical Remarks on Terminology and Theology,” JGRChJ 1 (2000): 120–44, especially 132–4. Matthew’s Gospel is treated on pages 137–138. See also the more comprehensive treatment of mission in the ancient world in, idem, “Was there a Christian Mission Before the Fourth Century? Problematizing Common Ideas about Early Christianity and the Beginnings of Modern Mission,” in The Making of Christianity: Conflicts, Contacts, and Constructions (ed. M. Zetterholm and S. Byrskog; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 205–47. It should be noted, however, that while Matthew’s view on anticipated results of mission is best reconstructed, in light of Matt 28:19–20, to include conversion of non-Jews to Jews as they join the people of God (for this view see, e.g., D. Sim, The Gospel of Matthew and Christian Judaism: The History and Social

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ing of mission fits well with Matthew’s perspective as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus is reported to describe those who are listening to him33 as “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” (Matt 5:13–16), explicitly stating in 5:16 the same theological principle as we see in 1 Peter: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”34 The use of Matt 5:45 in this context thus seems to indicate an attempt by the church to negotiate what is clearly one of the most significant problems in its current re-thinking of its interreligious relations, namely that, on the one hand, the claim that the church is “inherently missionary” is irrevocable,35 and, on the other hand, the felt need that, in order to create a basis for respectful relations with people of other faiths, the history of the church’s aggressive and sometimes violent Setting of the Matthean Community [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998], 247–56), in rabbinic literature we find a variety of views, some seeking proselytes, others rejecting them. The mainstream view that eventually emerged in rabbinic Judaism referred to the Noahide commandments when delineating righteousness for non-Jews; non-Jews living in accordance with these commandments were – and are – expected to join Jews in the world to come. For Matthew, while mission was seen as a method to win proselytes, this did not exclude the possibility for righteous non-Jews who did not convert to enter the kingdom: see Runesson, “Judging Gentiles,” especially 145–9. 33 There has been some debate about the identity of the audience of the Sermon on the Mount. It seems clear, however, that not only the disciples, but also the “crowds” are included as targeted listeners (Matt 5:1; 7:28–29). See, e.g., J. Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 191. This means that Jesus is said to address the Jewish people as a whole, which is also emphasized in Matt 4:23–25, which narratively prepares for chapters 5–7. The words on “salt” and “light,” thus, apply to the Jewish people, with a focus on the marginalized, not non-Jews (Jesus does not teach non-Jews in Matthew; cf. Matt 10:5–6) nor future “Christians” (an unknown term – and concept – to Matthew). Matthew’s Jesus addresses his own people and, as the chosen agent of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is upon them, tells them what they really are (or should be) in relation to the surrounding (non-Jewish) world. 34 The same view is also present in John 13:35, although this passage is not mentioned in Nostra Aetate in this context. For a discussion of Matt 5:13–16 as a redefinition of mission see, e.g., G. M. Soares-Prabhu, The Dharma of Jesus (ed. F. X. D’Sa; Mary Knoll: Orbis, 2001), 259–67. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (3 vols.; London: T & T Clark, 1988–1997), 1:556, here miss the significance of reading our pericope in the context of the Sermon on the Mount as a single unit, in which different parts should relate to and interpret each other. In their reading, the command to love enemies is related only to a disinterested will to be like God (imitatio Dei, 5:45). However, it seems clear that the programmatic statement of Matt 5:13–16 should be allowed to interpretatively encompass the command to love enemies: being the salt of the earth and light of the world must surely include the love of enemies, and thus 5:16 must be allowed to function as an interpretive key even with regard to 5:43–48, since v. 16 is inextricably connected to the saying on salt and light. On the connection between 5:16 and 5:45, see also Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 268. With its reference to the missionary principle of 2 Pet 1:12, Nostra Aetate thus indicates a reading of Matthew’s Sermon which is sensitive to the Matthean text as a literary unit: there is, in the Sermon on the Mount, a consistent theology of mission underlying its teaching on correct attitudes and behavior. (In Matthew as a whole, this theology is complemented by a proselytizing mission, as noted above n. 32, after Jesus’ death and resurrection.) 35 See, e.g., Lumen Gentium. See also Ad Gentes, especially § 2 (42): “missionary activity retains its full force and necessity.” (Importantly, this position does not mean, however, that the Catholic Church would exclude the possibility of salvation outside the church: see Lumen Gentium, § 3 [23]).

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mission, as well as its use of derogatory language in relation to the ‘other,’ must be ended so that true dialogue may begin. As indicated above, an emphasis on the Sermon on the Mount, as well as on 1 Pet 2:12 (and John 13:35),36 would lead to a view of mission closely related to Jewish concepts: by renewing and restoring the people of God, the rest of the world will have a witness strong enough to attract them to worship of the one God. We shall return to the issue of mission. Suffice it to conclude here that Matthew’s role in Nostra Aetate is limited to instruction to be like God, who shares His gifts freely with everyone, good and evil, friend and foe. This use of Matthew, in combination with the other texts quoted, aligns well with first-century Matthean theology of mission, as well as with the attitudes and praxis of the historical Jesus, as far as these can be reconstructed, and opens up for the Church new ways to relate to the Jewish people, as well as, by implication, to other religions. It should be emphasized that Matt 5:45 is, in Matthew’s narrative, connected to enemy-love and perfection (Matt 5:43–48). In the verses immediately following the imitatio Dei motif we find a statement to the effect that the behavior of tax collectors and non-Jews (οἱ ἐθνικοί), i.e., of ‘bad Jews’ and all non-Jews, when they love their friends only, is not enough for Mattheans (5:46–47). Regarding the reception of this pericope in the church, interpreters have, not surprisingly, replaced the Mattheans (i.e., Jewish followers of Jesus) with themselves (non-Jewish Christians) and understood the enemy, or any outsider (righteous or unrighteous), to refer to Gentiles outside the church, not Jews.37 While the pericope has served as part of the early church’s missionary preaching, such use has, in those cases, been directed at presenting Christianity as a religion of action, rather than outlining a platform for peaceful co-existence.38 In this perspective, the use of Matt 5:45 in Nostra Aetate must thus be considered to be pioneering, as well as, simultaneously, re-connecting it with first-century understandings of the text. 3.2 Continuity between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament In an effort to reinforce, positively, continuity between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament without disinheriting the Jews, Guidelines refers to Matthew for authoritative support. The second section of the document, “Liturgy,” discusses the Hebrew Bible with regard to “its own perpetual value” and its relationship to the New Testament. It is explicitly stated that “when commenting on Biblical texts, emphasis will be laid on the continuity of our faith with that of the earlier Covenant.” The document also insists that biblical texts should be interpreted, in 36 The same theology of mission was most likely shared by the historical Jesus. Cf., e.g., Matt 2:1–12; 8:5–13; 10:5–6; 15:24; Mark 7:27; John 12:20–24. 37 See Luz, Matthew 1–7: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989), 347–50; cf. Clarke, Matthew and its Readers, 78–82. See also S. T. Lachs, A Rabbinic Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Hoboken: Ktav, 1987), 108–11. 38 See Luz, Matthew 1–7, 340 and references there.

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sermons and otherwise, in ways that do not portray the Jewish people negatively, as if encouraging anti-Jewish prejudice among Christians. Interestingly, the problems related to the translation of οἱ Ιουδαῖοι in the Gospel of John are noted and it is suggested that this expression in John sometimes refers to the leaders of the Jews, or simply the adversaries of Jesus.39 The argument in and of itself reveals clearly the influence of recent academic historical-critical analysis of the Gospels on Church theology. In this connection, the use in the New Testament of the words “Pharisees” and “Pharisaism”40 is also mentioned as problematic, as these words have taken on a “largely pejorative meaning.” In no other New Testament text are the Pharisees more aggressively attacked than in the Gospel of Matthew; this comment on the Pharisees in Guidelines must therefore be seen as a direct response to, and rejection of, the history of influence of the first Gospel in this regard.41 It is clear that the document’s emphasis in its third section (“Teaching and Education”) on the necessity of further research into the New Testament texts themselves is meant to overcome less informed understandings of the first-century setting, which triggered and produced aggressive rhetoric such as that found in Matthew.42 This indicates a keen awareness of theology as, ultimately, inculturated and contextual in nature. In addition, by implication, we see here a realization of the fact that a historical understanding of the time period cognizant of its socio-political conflicts and their influence on the theologized attitudes that are expressed in the texts – and later, in the doctrines building on those texts – is necessary in order to distinguish the sacred from the disrespectful as contemporary theology takes form. 39 While such comments correctly convey possible meanings of the expression in the Gospel, the document does not mention that ‘the Jews’ in John are also sometimes used for a group of people who supports Jesus or believes in him (e.g., John 11:45). For discussion of the translation of οἱ Ιουδαῖοι, see S. Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” JSJ 38 (2007): 457–512, and the discussion of Mason by A. Runesson, “Inventing Christian Identity: Paul, Ignatius, and Theodotius I,” in Exploring Early Christian Identity (ed. B. Holmberg; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 59–92, here 62–70. 40 This word actually does not exist in the New Testament, although it refers to a phenomenon that is often mentioned in these texts. 41 Of a total of 98 occurrences of the word ‘Pharisee’ in the New Testament (only one from outside the Gospels and Acts: Phil 3:5), 29 are found in Matthew (Mark has 11, Luke 26, John 19, and Acts 7). Whereas the Pharisees can be portrayed neutrally and positively as supporting Christ-believers, even on occasion as being Christ-believers (Luke [17:20; 13:31], John [3:1], Acts [e.g., 5:34; 15:5; 23:9], and Paul [Phil 3:5]), Matthew’s portrayal is consistently negative, at one point explicitly excluding them from the coming Kingdom (Matt 5:20; cf. 23:35). Mark is, like Matthew, critical of Pharisees, but much less aggressively (cf., e.g., Mark 8:12 with Matthew’s version of the same saying in 12:39). Matthew’s anti-Pharisaic rhetoric has occasioned scholars to enquire about the reasons for such attacks. For a detailed discussion, arguing that the Mattheans were, in fact, a group of former Pharisees that had recently broken with the larger Pharisaic community, see A. Runesson, “Re-Thinking Early Jewish–Christian Relations: Matthean Community History as Pharisaic Intragroup Conflict,” JBL 127 (2008): 95–132. 42 Exegesis and history are mentioned as two fields of inquiry of special importance, together with theology and sociology.

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The only two explicit references to the Gospel of Matthew in Guidelines are found in section III. “Teaching and Education”: Matt 22:34–40 and 16:16, in that order. Beginning with Matt 22:34–40, which builds on and modifies Mark 12:28–34, the text unfolds as follows: When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, (35) and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. (36) “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (37) He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ (38) This is the greatest and first commandment. (39) And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (40) On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

The context in which this Matthean passage is put to use is a claim of unity between the books of both Testaments: the same God is speaking in both the “old and new covenants.” The old, and flawed, interpretive paradigm of attributing to the Hebrew Bible only the themes of “justice, fear and legalism, with no appeal to the love of God and neighbor” is to be rejected. The reader is referred to Deut 6:5, Lev 19:18, and our passage for scriptural support. The combination of these passages naturally weaves together the two collections of texts in the Christian canon, and drives home the point of this section of Guidelines, since, on the one hand, the passage from Matthew actually quotes the two texts from the Hebrew Bible (unity and continuity of the old and new covenants), and, on the other hand, the theme is love of God and neighbor (indicating a shared ethos based on love). How does such use of Matthew match earlier uses in the church, and, ultimately, how does it align to first-century understandings of Matthew? The saying itself, the so-called double love commandment, has been a key text for Christian ethical life and teaching throughout history. As the passage has been interpreted, questions have concerned issues relating the love of God to knowledge and obedience (to God’s commandments), as well as definitions of self-love and love of neighbor.43 Interestingly, when the relationship between the commandments to love God and neighbor has been interpreted by the church, 1 John 4:7–8, 20 has often been referred to, in effect turning it into a canonical, all-embracing hermeneutical key indicating that these two aspects, human and divine, cannot be separated. This was so for Augustine as well as for Luther and Grotius.44 We have already seen that Nostra Aetate referred to and combined Matt 5:45 with 1 John 4, in order to indicate the theological importance of universal fraternity. It seems as if, in Guidelines, without explicit reference to 1 John, the same hermeneutic is at play, only that here it is framed explicitly by traditions shared with Judaism through the reference to Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18. This theological use of Matthew is, again, breaking new ground, especially when seen against the background of the teachings of the church. The procedure relates extensive discussion and examples up to the modern period, see Luz, Matthew 21–28, 75–87. 44 Luz, Matthew 21–28, 79–80. 43 For

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contemporary Jews and Christians to one another at the very center of Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Much of the positive Christian use of texts from the Hebrew Bible, such as the prophets, has had an explicit or implicit aim to claim the Scriptures as Christian text, thus divorcing the Hebrew Bible from the Jewish people.45 Such a view of the Bible is closely related to replacement theology. Here, however, we find the very opposite: the Hebrew Bible is used in conjunction with a text from the New Testament in order to create a sense of unity and understanding via a recognition of the shared legitimacy of both Jewish and Christian ownership of the Hebrew Bible.46 Now, if this is a novel approach in church theology, is such a use of Matthew consistent with first-century understandings of the same passage, in the context of the Gospel as a narrative whole? Yes and no. Yes, because the Gospel of Matthew never leaves or attacks Judaism as such, but gives voice to inner-Jewish debates and discussions in which Pharisaic associations are the main targets. Thus, for Matthew, the words of Jesus fill the function of establishing a direct continuity between the Torah and Jesus’ teachings. A follower of Jesus, according to Matthew, keeps the greatest commandments in the law without sacrificing even the lightest ones, in contrast to the Pharisees, who are said to keep the lighter ones but fail to observe the heavier commandments, thereby turning even the keeping of the lighter commandments into a vain exercise of no consequence.47 “Christianity,” as we understand this religion today as a religion separate from Judaism, was not invented yet; Matthew’s story is about correct interpretation of Jewish life, law, and tradition in light of the fact that the Messiah has come. Having said this, it should be noted that Matthew is reworking a tradition found in Mark 12:28–34, a passage not referred to in Guidelines. In the redactional process, Matthew introduces an anti-Pharisaic polemical aspect, which is not present in Mark. Mark’s text presents an unambiguously friendly exchange between a scribe (not a Pharisee) and Jesus, in which the scribe first commends Jesus for his fine answer, and Jesus then praises the scribe for his wisdom saying that he is not 45 The prophets, for example, have often been seen to attack practices and behavior related to contemporary Jews and Judaism, condemning them, and thus supporting and standing in direct continuity with Jesus and the apostles, who were understood to be Christians, not Jews. 46 See also the extensive treatment of this topic in the document from the Vatican Curia, The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible. Written by Pontifical Biblical Commission, Thursday, May 24, 2001. This document is available on the Internet here: http://www. vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20020212_p​ o​polo-ebraico_en.html 47 See discussion in Clarke, Matthew and Its Readers, 183. Note Matt 5:17–20; cf. Matt 23:23 for explicit mention of the relative importance of both heavier and lighter commandments. The main problem in Matthew is not, as often suggested, that people pay too much attention to the law, but the contrary: the law is not kept strictly enough even by the Pharisees and the scribes, since they, according to Matthew, ignore justice, mercy, and trust (23:23), and love is the core element of the law (cf. also Matt 7:12). For an overview of the importance of law observance in Matthew’s narrative, see Anders Runesson, “Matthew, Gospel According to” (vol. 2 of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible; ed. M. D. Coogan; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 59–78, especially 65–73.

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far from the Kingdom. Since Matthew lets a Pharisee rather than an unidentified scribe initiate the discussion, the pericope acquires a tense atmosphere, in which Matthew cannot let a Pharisee be the one who gets it right. In fact, his motives for asking the question of the greatest commandment at all are called into question and presented as a way to snare Jesus (Matt 22:35). Indeed, Matthew constructs the narrative setting of our passage such that the conversation reported leads up to, in a crescendo-like manner, the climactic and relentless attack on the Pharisees to follow in chapter 23, which itself ends in an implicit accusation that the Pharisees are to blame for the fall of the Jerusalem temple (23:37–24:2). It is therefore surprising that Guidelines do not refer to Mark’s version of the tradition here, rather than Matthew’s. This choice by the authors can, perhaps, be explained by the fact that, traditionally, Matthew has been the Gospel of choice in the church, or, possibly, that Matthew has been known for centuries to be more oriented towards Judaism than the other Gospels, and the authors for that reason, without reflecting on the text’s redactional polemics, thought it appropriate to refer to this Gospel rather than Mark.48 Mark’s absence from documents on Jewish-Christian relations has perhaps never been more conspicuous than here. 3.3 Continuity between Jesus and Judaism (Jesus within Judaism) While the theme of continuity between what in the church is called the Old Testament and the New has been important during and since the defeat of Marcion, the theme of emphasizing Jesus as a Jew, obedient to Jewish law, is a less common element in the history of Christians’ expression of their identity in relation to Jews and Judaism.49 Nostra Aetate does not elaborate on this theme using biblical texts, 48 It may also be mentioned here that, while some of the history of interpretation of the command to love one’s neighbor has been interpreted in Christianity as love, first and foremost, of fellow-Christians, the interpretation given in Luke 10:25–37 has meant that the dominant view has been universalist (Luz, Matthew 21–28, 78). Such a transcending of the boundaries for neighborly love would have found an important parallel in the command in Lev 19:34 to love the stranger (‫)ּג ֵר‬ as yourself, a text not quoted by Guidelines. Such a quote, however, would have opened up additional dynamics in dialogue settings, for both Christians and Jews, beyond the Jewish-Christian reality. For discussion of Matt 22:34–40 with an emphasis on early Jewish hermeneutics, especially as expressed in texts related to Qumran, see S. Ruzer, Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis (Leiden: Brill), 71–99. 49 The separation of Jesus from Judaism in the early church is not to be interpreted as an attempt to claim that Jesus was not a Jew, like some German theologians tried to argue during the Nazi era. Rather, what we see in church history are systematic theological, liturgical, social, artistic, and architectural strategies, which expressed the conviction that Jesus (the Jew) had inaugurated true religion in the forms expressed by contemporary Christianity, thereby effectively replacing Judaism as a religion. Such claims made by the early (non-Jewish) Christians triggered some anti-Christian critique by Greco-Roman authors, but they also eventually, as seen in the history of research on the historical Jesus from Reimarus (1694–1768) onwards, created the uneasy feeling, expressed by many Christian scholars, that emerged when historical reconstructions of Jesus seemed to lead to a gap between Jesus and the church, a gap which could not be easily bridged, at least not utilizing historical methods. As to Late Antiquity, an attempt was recently made to (implicitly) argue on the basis of archaeological material that Byzantine Christians would have

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but both Guidelines and, especially, Notes do, and they do so referring primarily to Matthew (but also, in Notes, to Mark). Matthew continues, thus, to assert influence through the second reference from the New Testament in Guidelines: the passage in which Peter confesses Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of God (Matt 16:16). The context in Guidelines indicates the intention behind this quote, namely to connect Jesus as Messiah to Israel’s heritage and Scriptural traditions, and so establish common ground for dialogue. The Second Vatican document Dei Verbum is quoted: “God […] arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and the Old be made manifest in the New,”50 and it is stated that Jesus also used teaching methods “similar to those employed by the rabbis of his time.”51 The use of Matt 16:16 here is interesting, since this text has long been the proof text par excellence in the Catholic Church supporting the contention that the papal office was inherited directly from Peter.52 The quote thus not only ensures Jesus’ place in relation to Judaism, but also alludes to papal authority, the highest authority in the Catholic Church.53 The first-century interpretive context of this Matthean text has been much debated in scholarship. One strand of research would use the pericope to state that it indicates a parting of ways between the ‘church’ (the word usually, but erroneously, used to translate ekklēsia54) and the ‘synagogue’ (Matt 16:18), with the understood Jesus to have been thoroughly immersed in Judaism, having used architectural forms of fifth-century Judaism to express Jesus’ identity. This was done in relation to the architecture of the fifth-century limestone synagogue at Capernaum by Z. Uri Mao’z, “The Synagogue at Capernaum: A Radical Solution,” in The Roman and Byzantine Near East, II: Some Recent Archaeological Research (ed. J. H. Humphrey; Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1999), 137–48. Ma’oz argument is that this synagogue was built by Byzantine Christians as a ‘tourist attraction’ for pilgrims, showcasing the synagogue where Jesus preached. However, there is no evidence that Christians at this time would have thought of Jesus as related to Judaism in such a way, since this would validate, to a certain degree, Late Antique Jewish symbols such as the shofar, the menorah, and incense shovel, all portrayed in the building, in an ultimately Christian setting. This would be an extremely unlikely scenario, especially since Christians at this time consistently built churches, not synagogues, to commemorate events in Jesus’ life, as seen in the archaeological remains elsewhere in what was then turning into a Christian Holy Land. For discussion, see Anders Runesson, “Architecture, Conflict, and Identity Formation: Jews and Christians in Capernaum From the 1st to the 6th Century,” in The Ancient Galilee in Interaction: Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity (ed. J. Zangenberg, H. W. Attridge, and D. Martin; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 231–57. 50 Dei Verbum, 16. 51 This statement reflects advances made since the early 1960s in New Testament study of oral tradition, building to a large extent on the work of Birger Gerhardsson (see especially, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity [Uppsala: Gleerup, 1961; reprinted by Eerdmans 1998]). 52 For a discussion of controversies over the interpretation of this passage, see Clarke, Matthew and Its Readers, 138–47. 53 In response to Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ, Jesus gives him the key position in the ekklēsia: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my ekklēsia, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matt 16:17–18). 54 It is standard in most English translations of the New Testament to translate ekklēsia as ‘church.’ While such a translation certainly creates a sense of continuity between what later became known as ‘the church’ and the socio-religious realities behind the New Testament texts, it

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understanding that this means a parting of ways between ‘Christianity’ and ‘Judaism.’ This, however, is an anachronistic reading of the passage. It is not possible to use the term ekklēsia to argue for the establishment of ‘the church,’ understood as an institution separated from ‘synagogue’ and ‘Judaism,’ simply because ekklēsia was, in the first century, one of many terms used by Jews for what we today translate into English as ‘synagogue.’55 Rather, from a first-century perspective, Matthew here indicates the establishment of a new Jewish association synagogue, with a leadership of its own, which has been given authority to establish its own halakhic decisions (Matt 16:19). The use of Matt 16:16 in Guidelines is, however, historically perceptive with regard to the connection between the Messiah and the statement that Jesus used the same techniques for interpretation as did some other contemporary Jewish groups. Those interpretive techniques, as applied to the right to make halakhic decisions, were shared tradition in the first century.56 Since Matthew’s perspective is thoroughly Jewish, however, a brief statement on the development of the (mainly non-Jewish) church in the second century and onwards would have helped the dialogue to advance further. Indeed, considering that Matt 16:16 is set in the context of establishing separate identities within Judaism, and that the reception of this passage is interwoven with Papal authority and therefore also with considerable debate and strife over the centuries, perhaps it would have been hermeneutically and ecumenically more sensitive (and gender-inclusive) to refer to Martha’s confession of Jesus as Messiah in John 11:25–27, where the context is the resurrection and life eternal. In light of such an observation, the choice of Matthew here seems more guided by the (male dominated) reception of the text in the church than by a holistic reading and understanding of Matthew taking into account historical aspects and nuances of the passage. Guidelines emphasizes the necessity of further exegetical, historical, and sociological study for the development of Jewish-Christian dialogue. Such study could serve as a way and an incentive to advance the interpretation and application of biblical passages in documents on Jewish-Christian dialogue as well as more specifically in official texts outlining a Christian theology of Judaism. Continuing to explore the theme of Jesus within Judaism, but redirecting our attention to the 1985 document Notes, we find an elaborate and academically cannot be defended on historical grounds. In English, the term ‘church’ refers to an exclusively Christian religious institution; in antiquity ekklēsia simply meant assembly, and could refer to, in Jewish contexts, synagogues, and in Greco-Roman contexts, political ‘proto-democratic’ institutions. Even today, many scholars simply repeat in their historical studies the choices made by the English translators, making them susceptible to anachronistic reconstructions – beyond reflections on whether the term related to a building or not; see R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 623–4 – of first-century institutional realities and dynamics as they related to Jews and Christ-believers, whether they were Jews or non-Jews. 55 For examples of this use of ekklēsia, see A. Runesson, D. Binder, and B. Olsson, The Ancient Synagogue From its Origins to 200 C. E.: A Source Book (Leiden: Brill, 2008). See also n. 54 above. The use of ekklēsia in Greco-Roman and Jewish settings, as well as by Christ-believers, is treated comprehensively in a forthcoming Ph. D. thesis by Ralph Korner, McMaster University. 56 Cf. Ruzer, Mapping the New Testament.

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attuned treatment of several aspects of Matthew’s Gospel. The document, which is much more extensive than the previous statements, contains six sections, covering themes such as ‘Religious Teaching and Judaism,’ ‘Relations between the Old and the New Testaments,’ ‘Jewish Roots of Christianity,’ ‘The Jews in the New Testament,’ ‘The Liturgy,’ and ‘Judaism and Christianity in History.’ The explicit Matthean quotes are all found in the third section, “Jewish Roots of Christianity” (Matt 4:23; 5:17–20; 5:21–48; 6:1–18; 8:4; 9:35; 15:24), implicitly indicating the theological use of the Gospel to be based on the assessment of Matthew as the Jewish Gospel par excellence, as it is also understood by modern scholarship and many ancient authorities. We also have an implicit allusion to Matthew 27:25 in the fourth section, “The Jews in the New Testament.” The principle aim of section III of this document is to deepen the application of the insight stated in 1965 and 1975, that Christians and Jews share, fundamentally, a common history. From a historical, first-century point of view, the Gospel of Matthew seems ideally suited to support such a claim. Notes presents Jesus, with the help of Matthew, as a Jew who always remained a Jew and deliberately limited his ministry to Jews alone (“the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” Matt 15:24). As a Jew, the document continues, Jesus showed “great liberty” toward the Jewish law, as indicated by the passages in the Sermon on the Mount, which the document calls, in line with traditional Matthean scholarship, the “antitheses” (Matt 5:21–48). This “liberty” must not, however, be interpreted as if Jesus was neglecting the law; he “was trained in the law’s observance” and, quoting Matt 5:17–19, he is said to have “extolled respect for it,” and to have encouraged others to obey it (Matt 8:4; note that this reference involves a ritual commandment, ordained by Moses, not an ethical commandment). The Jesus of this official Catholic document, further, taught in synagogues (Matt 4:23; 9:35). (Note that the document does not refer to the [uniquely57] Matthean passages which have “their synagogues,” instead of only “synagogues,” a phrase often – and incorrectly – interpreted as an institutional distinction between Mattheans and ‘the synagogue.’58) The full incarnation into the Jewish people does not, however, restrict Jesus’ mission to the Jewish people alone, as shown by the Magi of Matt 2:1–12. Finally, Jesus is said to have “shared with the majority of Palestinian Jews of that time some Pharisaic doctrines: resurrection of the body, various forms of piety, like almsgiving, prayer, fasting” (Matt 6:1–18).59 The explicit rejection of 57 With the exception of Mark 1:23, 39, where “their” clearly refers to public local synagogues in Galilee, not to institutions run by specific Jewish groups, which may or may not be hostile to Jesus and his followers. 58 For discussion of the expression “their Synagogues” in Matthew, see Runesson, “Rethinking Early Jewish–Christian Relations,” 117–25. 59 It may be noted that the nearness to the Pharisaic groups is explicitly stated again in III.19, and that this closeness explains the harsh rhetoric: “It may also be stressed that, if Jesus shows himself severe toward the Pharisees, it is because he is closer to them than to any other contemporary Jewish groups.” Cf. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 89: “The Jewish-Christian Matthew doubtlessly is closer to the Pharisaic scribes than to any other Jewish groups.”

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previous Christian interpretations of Jews as a cursed people due to their alleged involvement in the death of Jesus, alluding to the reception of Matt 27:25, also adds to the picture of a thoroughly Jewish Jesus, as based on Matthew’s Gospel. Such an interpretation of the Matthean Jesus fits entirely within a modern academic historical paradigm, and, I would add, in my opinion, is very much to the point.60 Not only does the church’s use of individual passages of Matthew in this document stand in sharp contrast to Matthew’s role in Jewish-Christian relations through the centuries. The very basis of how to interpret the Gospel within the church has also changed. The traditional overarching approach has been to understand individual passages within the context of the “wholeness of the faith,” and this, of course, still remains a reality.61 In this document, however, we find a reading of passages in Matthew, which is based on an understanding of the Gospel text as a consistent, self-contained narrative. Of course, this holistic reading of Matthew is then combined with quotes from other New Testament texts, so that whatever is said about Matthew has relevance also for the understanding of other canonical texts, and vice versa. But seen from the perspective of Matthean history of interpretation, the historical and narrative approach carries with it hermeneutical consequences of some magnitude. The question remains, though, how far the church is willing to go in its historical-exegetical research and to permit the influence of such research on its theology (of Judaism). A trend today in Matthean scholarship indicates a direction in which we begin to talk about Matthew as a Jewish text, rather than a ‘Christian’ text, in the sense that the Gospel was originally produced by Jewish believers in Jesus and gives voice to an ancient Jewish worldview and theology as applied to this Messiah, a worldview which differs significantly from later non-Jewish Christian understandings of their religion.62 If Jesus was an observant Jew, keeping both the ethical and ritual commandments of the Torah, which on the basis of Matthew this document states is true, what is the significance of this for the liturgical and social life of the church itself, and not only its relation to Judaism? This (hermeneutical) question, which needs to be addressed in the context of a more comprehensive approach to theology, is not commented on in Notes, although a later statement by the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops addresses this aspect.63 There seems 60 Note, however, that the apparent discrepancy between the statements that Jesus, on the one hand, was only sent to the Jewish people, and, on the other hand, that he also had a role to play for the entire world, is not explicitly addressed or hermeneutically solved. 61 Cf. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 97–98; Fornberg, Many Faiths. 62 Of course, just as the Hebrew Bible, written by Jews and their Israelite ancestors, became part of the Christian Canon, and therefore is not only a Jewish text but also Christian with regard to its use and interpretation, the Gospel of Matthew is also a Christian text. Important, however, for hermeneutical reflection in the churches is the fact that just as Jesus was not only Jewish but remained within Judaism, even some of the texts in the New Testament are not merely Jewish but also remain faithful to the religio-ethnic identity and Jewish theological convictions of their authors. 63 Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, God’s Mercy Endures Forever: Guidelines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching (Washington: National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1988). The document is available on the Internet: http://old.usccb.org/liturgy/godsmercy.

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to be a limit to what a Jewish text can be allowed to say in a (non-Jewish) Christian context like the Catholic and most other mainstream churches. Where does history take us? Do churches want to go there? Are contemporary Christians and Jews hermeneutically prepared for the deeper layers of meaning that may surface along the way, meanings that perhaps neither Jews nor Christians are interested in exploring, even less implementing? Matthew’s Gospel, read historically in the theology of the churches, may prove to be more controversial than both church and synagogue would prefer.64 There is, for the church, more work to be done here shtml. See the section on “Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Proclamation,” § 5: “The strongly Jewish character of Jesus’ teaching and that of the primitive Church was culturally adapted by the growing Gentile majority and later blurred by controversies alienating Christianity from emerging rabbinic Judaism at the end of the first century. ‘By the third century, however, a de-Judaizing process had set in which tended to undervalue the Jewish origins of the Church, a tendency that has surfaced from time to time in devious ways throughout Christian history’ (Statement on Catholic-Jewish Relations, no. 12).” 64  An obvious aspect here is the rise and development of the Messianic-Jewish movement in the late 20th century, which continues unabated in the 21st century. Today, Messianic Jews are entering more and more the mainstream exegetical debates and are establishing their own academic institutions, indicating clearly that this diverse movement is here to stay. Often, historical and exegetical analyses of the New Testament, not least the Gospel of Matthew and the Pauline letters, are used by members of this movement to support what they argue is a legitimate contemporary religious identity that should be recognized by the churches. It seems, thus, that a theology of the relationship between Christians and Jews, in which historical perspectives on the New Testament are allowed to play a role, opens up common analytical ground on which to widen dialogue to include reflection on and interaction with representatives of this movement, whose ancient forms were banned by the church fathers as heretical along with the denunciation of other Jewish groups. Today, no official church documents exist that address Messianic Jews, and it seems that the church is hesitant to produce such texts. For example, Eugene J. Fisher, former Associate Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, has argued that it is up to the Jewish communities to relate to this movement, noting that, as far as he is aware, Messianic Judaism is rejected by all major Jewish communities today (http:// www.bc.edu/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/texts/cjrelations/resources/articles/messianicjews.htm). Fisher’s short statement argues this view by referring to the ‘parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity’: the church early on went through a “parting of the ways” process with Judaism and is no longer a Judaism; it is “its own distinct reality,” which “embodies the New Creation.” Consequently, the church should refrain (contrary to Justin Martyr’s mid-second century view, Dial. 47, one might add) from acknowledging the validity of Messianic Judaism. The fact that this movement shares with the churches belief in Jesus as the Messiah is not commented upon. While one can certainly understand Fisher’s point of view in light of some problematic aspects of the Messianic movement’s history in terms of aggressive mission directed towards Jews, such unacceptable forms of mission are far from representative of all variants of Messianic Judaism. Further, Fisher’s reference to the so-called parting of the ways process is interesting but historically very problematic; it can hardly be sustained today. On the contrary, as recent research indicates, the process usually called the ‘parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity’ in reality most likely was a parting of ways between Jewish and non-Jewish Christ-believers and had little to do with other Jews (see, e.g., M. Zetterholm, The Formation of Christianity in Antioch: A Social-Scientific Approach to the Separation Between Judaism and Christianity [London: Routledge, 2003]). It may seem reasonable, therefore, to assume that since the split was between Jewish and non-Jewish followers of Jesus, an argument can be made that dialogue between precisely these groups should in fact take place and might lead to ecumenical progress. The literature on Messianic Judaism is still limited, but see discussion and literature in, e.g., D. Cohn-Sherbok, “Modern Hebrew Christianity and Messianic Judaism,” in The Image of the Judaeo-Christians in Ancient

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in light of the implied hermeneutics already established in these documents, and it seems that, in order to maintain interpretive consistency, such work needs to be done in dialogue with both academia and representatives from different Jewish communities. The historical-exegetical methodological approach provides a dynamic opening ecumenically, as the church searches for ways to respond to and develop further the current reality of Jewish-Christian relations. The (confessionally) neutral nature of historical, exegetical, and sociological methodologies allows for shared intellectual tools to be used on the texts, providing opportunity for co-operation and mutual exchange of insights beyond denominational identity markers and institutional boundaries. Determination to engage in such ecumenical conversations as an essential part of any theological work is clearly signaled by the Catholic Church in Guidelines, where this type of approach is encouraged. If the authoritative nature of this document is any hint of its future influence, we are currently witnessing the birth of a new era in the history of the formation of Church theology, both as it relates to the Jewish people and, most likely, more generally.

4. Mark As noted above, traditionally Matthew has been given more attention than Mark in the church.65 Looking at Nostra Aetate and Guidelines, this tradition continues within the field of Catholic-Jewish relations: neither of these documents contains a single reference to Mark’s Gospel. It is only with Notes (1985) that we find extensive use of Mark’s Gospel, even to the point of reversal of influence when compared to Matthew. Not only are there more references to Mark than to Matthew, but Mark is also used thematically more widely in the document; whereas Matthew is called upon in only one section, Mark is used in three sections. Such a shift in focus likely reflects in some way the elevated status Mark has received in academic historical scholarship ever since the theory of Markan priority became the majority view. Supporting such a claim with regard to academic influence on church theology is the fact that the Catholic Church has formulated a policy, noted above, in which academic-exegetical study is a central part of its Jewish-Christian relations work (Guidelines, III), an approach which necessitates Jewish and Christian Literature (ed. P. J. Thomson and D. Lambers-Petry; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 287–98; idem, Messianic Judaism (London: Continuum, 2000). See also R. Harvey, Mapping Messianic–Jewish Theology: A Constructive Approach (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2009). A comprehensive presentation and discussion of contemporary Messianic Judaism, its history and theology, is planned for publication in 2013: Introduction to Messianic Judaism: Its Ecclesial Context and Biblical Foundations (ed. D. Rudolph and J. Willits; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, forthcoming). See also J. G. Gager, “Jews, Christians and the Dangerous Ones in Between,” in Interpretation in Religion (ed. S. Biderman and B.-A. Scharfstein; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 249–57. 65 See also the contribution by Peter Widdicombe in the present volume, “The Patristic Reception of the Gospel of Matthew: The Commentary of Jerome and the Sermons” p. 105.

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close collaboration between academia and church.66 Possibly, this may also, by implication, signal a greater interest in the earliest written sources about Jesus, and thus also the historical Jesus, even if this is never stated explicitly in the document. Since the rise of the theory of Markan priority, scholars have assumed that Mark would bring its readers closer to the historical Jesus, although these scholars have often not problematized enough the fact that questions of authenticity and historicity are not one-dimensional and need to take into account multiple factors, including the culture, bias, and politics of the text, in addition to the age of the text.67 With the entry of Mark into Jewish-Christian relations documents we find some rather unexpected uses of the earliest Gospel, which may raise questions related to methodological reflection as interwoven with theological claims. 4.1 The Independent Validity of Revelation in the Hebrew Bible In section II of Notes, ‘Relations Between the Old and the New Testament,’ we find the first reference to Mark used as a way to illustrate interpretive techniques and the inexhaustibility of the revelatory depth of the Hebrew Bible. Mark 12:29–31, the text in which Jesus in a discussion with a scribe reiterates the two key commandments from Deuteronomy and Leviticus to love God and neighbor, is called upon to claim that, often, the New Testament simply assumes as a matter of course the independent value of the Hebrew Bible as a source of divine revelation. The aim of this quote is to counter emphatically an age-old understanding of the Christian use of the Hebrew Bible as only a source for typological readings pointing to the New Testament; in such readings, passages from the Hebrew Bible receive their revelatory value only from the degree of overlap displayed between the two parts of the Christian Bible. While this use of the Markan passage is certainly to the point and makes clear what the authors want to communicate as being official Catholic theology, one may ask: Why Mark? Why not Matthew’s (22:36–39) or Luke’s (10:26–28) versions of this tradition? And why cut the reference to the Markan passage at verse 31, and so leave out the section in which, a) the scribe approvingly repeats Jesus’ answer, b) the author of Mark’s Gospel evaluates the scribe’s reaction as “wise,” and c) Jesus tells the scribe that he “is not far from the Kingdom,” without any reference to a confession of Jesus as Messiah?68 Arguably, noting the theme of this section of the 66 See also The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, presented by the Pontifical Biblical Commission to Pope John Paul II on April 23, 1993 (as published in Origins, January 6, 1994). 67 For consideration of the historicity of Matthew relative to Mark in this regard, see the discussion in A. Runesson, “Giving Birth to Jesus in the Late First Century: Matthew as Midwife in the Context of Colonisation,” in Infancy Gospels: Stories and Identities (ed. C. Clivaz et al.; WUNT; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 301–7, especially 301–8, 325–7. 68 See the discussion of this passage by A. Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 565–77; cf. J. Marcus, Mark 8–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 836–45: “The Markan Jesus, then, is being invited by his friendly interlocutor to enter into an ongoing Jewish discussion” (842). In the wider

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document, Matthew’s Gospel as a whole emphasizes more than any of the other Gospels the validity and importance of the Hebrew Bible as a source of divine revelation, through repeated direct quotes (both by Jesus and the narrator’s voice) and allusions. On the basis of such observations, it would seem more natural from a narrative point of view to refer to Matthew under this heading. Mark’s version of this story would fit better in the discussion of the same tradition in Guidelines, when that document deals with continuity between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.69 Be that as it may, the point made in Notes is still well embedded historically and within the overall literary context of Mark’s Gospel, although the theological implications of the passage as a whole for Jewish-Christian relations could have been developed more. Perhaps the choice of Mark here may simply be explained by the fact that the aforementioned scholarly consensus on Markan priority makes this the earliest text to include this tradition, and the other Gospels may be thought of as in one way or another derivative of it. There is a sense in the document as a whole that quoting Mark would mean quoting ‘the original.’70 We shall return to discuss Mark 12 below, since this passage is referred to in another context in the document in a much more problematic way.71 4.2 Jesus’ Ministry within and Ultimate Mission beyond the Jewish People In section III of Notes, entitled ‘Jewish Roots of Christianity,’ Mark is used together with Matt 5:21–48 to reinforce the claim that Jesus, although law observant, displayed “a great liberty toward” the law. While Matthew is used to illustrate this point through a reference to Jesus’ discussion of specific laws (the so-called antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount, which are followed by the command to love enemies72), Mark 3:1–6 directs the reader’s attention to Jesus’ attitude to strict Sabbath observance. In this case, Mark’s, just as Matthew’s, function is to portray Jesus as Jewish, interacting with other Jews in a Jewish setting. The document’s purpose to reinforce both Jesus’ Jewishness and to note his ‘liberty’ in relation to the law establishes Jesus’ interactions with his Jewish contemporaries within an overall frame of understanding that places Jesus’ debates about law within Judaism. Earlier Christian interpretations of these conflicts – and such interpretations can still be found within both church and academia – have tended to see in the controversies involving Jewish law Jesus’ abolishing of the law, and even his breaking away from Judaism. It seems clear, in my opinion, that the interpretive conclusions implied in Notes are more historically attuned and better informed of first-century Jewish Markan perspective, Marcus notes that “Jesus’ clashes with elements of the Jewish leadership do not make him a bad Jew” (844); cf. section 4.3 below. 69 See the discussion in section 3.2 above. 70 But cf. n. 68 above and the discussion referred to there. 71 See section 4.3. 72 For discussion of the Sermon on the Mount, including its antitheses, see D. C. Allison, The Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination (New York: Crossroads, 1999).

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culture than such traditional Christian readings, which are hermeneutically more grounded in Late Antiquity than in the first century. Mark 14:1, 12 is then referred to in order to illustrate Jesus’ intention to sacrifice himself in the context of the paschal celebration. The reference is, however, somewhat oddly cut off, in that 14:1 states that the chief priests and the scribes, that is, the Jerusalem priestly aristocracy and the temple scribes,73 made up plans to have Jesus killed, whereas the important following verse, 14:2, is not referenced. Mark 14:2 explicitly mentions that the critical attitude of the chief priests and the scribes does not reflect the sentiments of “the people,” who may riot if the leaders have Jesus arrested and killed during the festival (ἔλεγον γάρ· μὴ ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ, μήποτε ἔσται θόρυβος τοῦ λαοῦ). This disagreement over Jesus between the temple leadership on the one hand and the majority of the Jews, “the people,” on the other hand is stated in all of the Synoptic Gospels in similar ways;74 even John makes this distinction between the leadership and other Jews, but in a different way which also involves the Pharisees.75 Mark has, furthermore, already indicated earlier in his narrative why the people would have been supportive of Jesus: they were, contrary to the leaders, “amazed,” or “astonished,” by his teaching (11:18). Against this background, it is hard to understand why 14:2 was not included in this context, since traditional Christian theology – the theology the document wants to counter76 – has, in contradistinction to the Gospel evidence, conflated 73 On the relationship between the priests and the temple scribes, see Collins, Mark, 640. For more comprehensive treatments of scribes as related specifically to the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, see A. J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees in Palestinian Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 144–73. For recent in-depth treatment of the scribal office, see Christ Keith, Jesus’ Literacy: Education and the Teacher from Galilee (New York: T & T Clark, 2011), especially 71–123. 74 Matthew 26:1–5 mentions the “chief priests and the elders of the people” as those who plan Jesus’ arrest, adds that these plans were discussed in the palace of the High Priest Caiaphas, and then continues with the same comment Mark has on the leaders’ concern for riots among the people (ἔλεγον δέ· μὴ ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ, ἵνα μὴ θόρυβος γένηται ἐν τῷ λαῷ). Luke 22:1–2 maintains Mark’s identification of the scribes, not “the elders of the people,” as one of the two leadership groups, which, together with the chief priests, were involved in a conspiracy against Jesus, but is then even clearer than the other two that the leaders “feared” the people (ἐφοβοῦντο γὰρ τὸν λαόν); this fear on the part of the leaders is also mentioned by Luke in 20:19 (cf. Matt 21:46, where the attitude of the Jewish crowds, as opposed to their leaders, is stated explicitly: they believed Jesus to be a prophet). 75 In John 11:45–57, the planning of Jesus’ arrest follows immediately after Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead, and involves the chief priests and people from the Pharisaic party, who called a meeting of the council (συνέδριον). John states that “many of the Judeans” (Ἰουδαίων should not be translated “Jews” here, since the reference is clearly geographically oriented, as is seen in 11:54), believed in Jesus, but that “some” – foreshadowing the role of one of Jesus’ own disciples, Judas (13:21–30; 18:3) – went to tell the Pharisees about what Jesus had just done. The Pharisees, not being a religio-political group as the chief priests, here occupy a place between the people and the leaders, and share some interests in common with the political leaders. In John, the whole “Jesus-problem” is, in the eyes of the chief priests (and the Pharisees), first and foremost a political problem related to the Roman Empire and the possible destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, and the Jewish people (11:48–49). 76 Notes, IV.1, refers explicitly to Guidelines to reinforce this message.

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the temple leadership and the Jewish people as a whole, and blamed all Jews for the death of Jesus, ignoring the fact that Jesus is said to have been – and was – executed by the Roman authorities, who, as in any colonial situation in any time period, collaborated with chosen leaders of the conquered nation in order to keep business, especially taxation, going without interruption or unrest. A further aspect adds to the sense that the reference to Mark 14:1 was made without consideration of what either the narrative context could add to the understanding of the passage, especially in light of previous Christian theological readings of the verse, or what other synoptic parallels could have offered in a setting in which common ground and understanding is sought.77 If we look at the choice of words in the Synoptic Gospels, we may note that Luke 22:2 has toned down the accusation against the leaders as their intentions are described, stating only that they aimed at “doing away” (ἀναιρέω) with Jesus.78 This may be compared to Mark’s claim that they “were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by deceit and kill him” (πῶς αὐτὸν ἐν δόλῳ κρατήσαντες ἀποκτείνωσιν). Since the authors of the document aim at describing the paschal setting for the self-sacrificial intention of Jesus, the wording of Luke 22:1–2 would, arguably, have worked better in a dialogue setting; Luke provides, it seems, better material for a reevaluation of the relationship between Jesus and his fellow Jews. Considering, then, on the one hand the document’s odd cut-off after Mark 14:1, and on the other hand the more temperate version of this sensitive tradition offered by Luke 22:1–2, it is difficult to see a good reason for the authors to refer, in this setting and in this way, primarily to Mark. Since theological considerations seem not to lay behind the choice of Mark here, one is left with the impression that, again, the underlying (problematic) historical assumption has been that, based on Markan priority, quoting Mark brings us closer to the historical Jesus; this historically motivated concern seems to have taken precedence over the theological implications which may follow from such choices. Notes then moves in the direction of the theme of inclusivity with regard to Jews and non-Jews as being present around Jesus. In this setting, Mark 15:39 (“and parallels”) is called upon to claim that Jesus’ mission stretched beyond the Jewish people. The document refers to Matthew for the birth of Jesus, which includes reference to the Magi, and to Mark for the meaning of the cross; when Jesus dies, it is a centurion who states that he “must have been the Son of God.” Again, it cannot be deduced from the document why it does not refer instead to Matthew or Luke for this claim.79 However, the claim itself, that the meaning of the Jesus event reaches 77 This

is so despite the fact that Notes refers to Mark 14:1, 12 “and parallels.”

78 So also J. A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke: A New Translation with Introduction and

Commentary (2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1970 and 1985), 2:1370; cf. 1:112. 79 Matthew, too, has the centurion state that Jesus must have been the Son of God, but adds that he did so in fear (27:54), whereas Luke claims that the words uttered were limited to a recognition of Jesus as a righteous (innocent) man (23:47). While Mark’s description is somewhat neutral, Matthew states that the centurion was overcome by fear as a result of the events that happened when Jesus died. Luke, finally, claims that the confession was part of the centurion’s praising of

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beyond the Jewish people, fits Mark’s Gospel well, although Luke 23:47 gives the clearest evidence of all the Gospels for interpreting the tradition about the centurion at the cross as a conversion story. A reference to Mark for such a cross-ethnic message does not, for example, have to be followed by an explanation of seemingly contradictory sayings of Jesus, such as would have been the case with Matthew’s Gospel:80 Mark’s is clearly a Gospel adapted for and directed to a wider audience, including non-Jews.81 In other words, while the reference to Mark here is theologically valid, as seen from Mark’s overarching narrative and theological aims, the fact that it is not recognized in Notes that the tradition about the centurion at the cross receives different meaning in the different Gospels, especially in Matthew, but the tradition is simply referred to as “Mark 15:39 and parallels,” indicates, again, that the scholarly majority view of Markan priority has replaced the canonical order of the Gospels, which favors Matthew. If support is sought in the Gospels (as opposed to, e.g., Paul) for a theology including also non-Jews, the most natural choice would have been a reference to Mark and / or Luke alone, and not to Matthew, since for Matthew, the tradition about the centurion is not about non-Jews joining the Jesus movement, but about their ultimate defeat at the precise moment when they thought they had successfully exercised their supreme imperial power and military strength. Still within the context of describing Jesus and his Jewishness, Notes further refers to Mark 12:34 as proof of Jesus’ positive attitude to Pharisees.82 This use of Mark presents us with another type of problem. Mark 12:28–34 does not, in fact, refer to a Pharisee, but to an otherwise unidentified scribe. The tradition itself, which is about a discussion between Jesus and another Jew regarding the greatest commandment in the Torah, has been referred to earlier in the documents under discussion; it is clearly seen as a core text for a Christian theology of Judaism and the Jewish people. Earlier, however, when Matthew’s version was cited,83 Mark’s version would have suited the purpose better from a dialogue perspective, since Mark lacks the tensions that Matthew has added between Jesus and his – in Matthew’s case – Pharisaic interlocutor. Now, when the topic treated is explicitly Jesus’ God, and so clearly interprets this as a conversion story (cf. Fitzmyer, Luke, 2:1515). Although traditional interpretation of Matthew’s text has tended to understand the passage as a conversion experience too, this is hardly likely. Rather, Matthew’s centurion fears the judgment of God as he realizes what he has done. For a discussion of the meaning of the centurion’s ‘confession’ in Matthew, see David C. Sim, “The ‘Confession’ of the Soldiers in Matthew 27:54,” HeyJ 24 (1993): 401–24. It is clearly the case, however, that Notes has not taken these differences between the synoptic Gospels into account. 80 Cf., e.g., Matt 10:5–6. 81 For discussion of the place of composition and audience of Mark’s Gospel, see Collins, Mark, 96–102; cf. Sean Freyne, “Matthew and Mark: The Jewish Contexts,” in Mark and Matthew I, Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in their First Century Setting (ed. E.M. Becker and A. Runesson; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 179–203. 82 See section III.5. 83 See discussion in section 3.2 above.

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positive relationship to some Pharisees, Mark’s version, which lacks mention of a Pharisee, is used. Why? How are we to explain this inconsistency, and, narratively speaking, factual error? While it could be the case that the authors have assumed that all scribes were Pharisees, there may also have been other factors involved as this text was interpreted. On the one hand, it seems, as we have had reason to note on several occasions above, as if the authors of the document follow a principle of referring to Mark for any synoptic material when parallels exist (triple tradition), most likely since scholarship has established Mark as the earliest of the Gospels and the assumption is that both Matthew and Luke had access to the traditions reported by Mark only from Mark. Such a principle introduces a break with earlier interpretive paradigms, in which other criteria, such as apostolic status and canonical order, influenced how and in which order of prominence the Gospels were used, which, in turn, led to a favoring of Matthew (and John). On the other hand, the document still gives primacy to the unique84 Matthean information, that Jesus’ conversation partner was a Pharisee, not just any scribe.85 Historically, it is likely that Matthew added this detail, since the Tendenz in this Gospel is to accentuate the presence of the Pharisees around Jesus and present them, consistently, in negative light. In Matthew’s version, the setting of the tradition in question is a conflict between Jesus and a Pharisee, whereas such tensions are completely absent from Mark’s version. Could the interpretation in Notes be explained by a wish to find positive texts about Pharisees in the New Testament, with the result that the material is modified through a merging of two versions of a tradition that cannot be explained on the basis of historical or literary considerations? Perhaps. But it also seems as if the traditional primacy of Matthew comes through in the use of Mark here. This would indicate not only a problematic claim about the historical Jesus, but also a situation in which the church has not yet decisively chosen one interpretive approach (the historical) over another (the traditional, theological priority of Matthew). Even if a biblical reference can only be one part of a larger theological approach, it seems clear that one needs to decide, fundamentally, which hermeneutical approach to apply, and that as soon as historical claims are made – and this is only one of many such historical claims in the documents discussed  – historical, not theological, methods need to be used to support them. If not, theology may turn into an excuse for not paying close attention to history and its distinctive methodologies. Since section III.6 of Notes mentions specifically Pharisaic “doctrines” when dealing with traditions shared by Jesus and other Jews, the reference to Mark 12:28–34 here suffers from the same problems as indicated above, and raises the same questions with regard to hermeneutical approach. In this context, a reference to Matt 22:34–40 would have matched the concern of the paragraph better, since the question of tension is not the theme primarily dealt with here. If, however, 84 Luke

10:25 has “a lawyer” (νομικός) introduce the discussion. there were scribes who belonged to the association of the Pharisees (e.g., Mark 2:16; Acts 23:9), it is impossible to say how many scribes sympathized with this group. 85 Although

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the aim would have been to comment on the historical Jesus, not the Matthean or Markan text, then this should, preferably have been indicated in the discussion. If so, in this case, we would most likely have an example here of a tradition shared between Jesus and a scribe, since, as noted above, Matthew has most likely added the Pharisees to this story.86 In sum, if Notes aims at presenting positive relationships between Jesus and the Pharisees, Matthew is not the Gospel to refer to, and Mark’s version of this tradition does not include any Pharisees. On the other hand, the New Testament preserves several traditions that explicitly indicate such a positive relationship between Jesus, his followers, and the Pharisees; these could have been referred to instead.87 4.3 Jesus in Conflict with Some Jewish Groups The final three uses of Mark’s Gospel in Notes all occur in section IV.B (‘The Jews in the New Testament’), and are meant to illustrate the claim that there were “conflicts between Jesus and certain categories of Jews of his time, among them Pharisees, from the beginning of his ministry.” The texts in Mark referred to, Mark 2:1–11, 24; 3:1–6, bring forth scribes, Pharisees, and Herodians, as well as Jews not belonging to any specific association. While the historical claim seems to be unproblematic, it remains true that Matthew and Mark, as well as Luke, distinguish between various groups of Jews and often claim that “the people,” or “the crowds,” i.e., the majority of the Jews who encountered Jesus during his lifetime, were supportive of him.88 It is clear not least from Matthew’s Gospel, but also from 86 For the reference to Pharisees as a redactional insertion, see, e.g., Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:238–9. 87 In terms of the relationship between the Pharisees and Jesus and his followers, it should be noted that the Pharisees are the only group identified in the New Testament which is said to produce believers in Jesus. Not only Paul, but also Nicodemus are mentioned by name (Phil 3:5; John 3:1–2; note that Acts 23:6 presents Paul as maintaining, as a believer in Jesus, his Pharisaic identity), others remain nameless (Acts 15:5). Some Pharisees wanted to save Jesus’ life as he was threatened by Herod Antipas (Luke 13:31; so also Notes, section III.5), and another Pharisee, Gamaliel, a “teacher of the law (νομοδιδάσκαλος) respected by all the people,” protects Peter and the Apostles against the council and the high priest, in fact saving their lives (Acts 5:34–39). Even Paul is protected by Pharisaic scribes, according to Acts 23:9. In addition, Luke reports a great interest for Jesus’ teaching among the Pharisees, so that they often invite him for dinner and discussions (Luke 7:39; 11:37; 14:1; cf. Notes, section III.5). Nothing similar is said of any other group identified in the New Testament. 88 One may note here section IV.C, where Notes claims that the “majority of the Jewish people and its authorities did not believe in Jesus.” Such a claim tends to erase the difference between the people, i.e., the majority, on the one hand, and the leaders on the other hand, which is reported in all of the Gospels. (Note that Matt 27:25 refers to a crowd in Jerusalem said to be persuaded by the leaders, not to the people of Israel; the Jerusalemite crowd, as well as the leaders, play a role in Matthew’s theological explanation of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 C. E. On Matthew’s knowledge of these events, cf., J. S. Kloppenborg, The Tenants in the Vineyard: Ideology, Economics, and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006], 199; Runesson, “Matthew as Midwife,” 321, and idem, “Matthew, Gospel According to,” 72–3).

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Mark’s, that tension between Jesus and other groups increased, especially after he left Galilee and aimed to continue to spread his message about the Kingdom of God / Heaven89 in Judea and Jerusalem, the political center of what Matthew calls “the land of Israel” (Matt 2:20–21). To say that tensions existed ‘from the beginning’ may thus be potentially misleading, and may further conceal the reported differences not only between people from different social strata, but also between different periods in Jesus’ ministry and between the regions of Galilee and Judaea, all of which we find examples of in the narrative.90 Indeed, the first quote from Mark 2:1–11 cuts off precisely before the statement in verse 12, which claims that “he [the paralytic] stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’” Thus, although eventually, after Jesus’ death, it is surely historically correct to observe that the majority of the Jews in the land and in the Diaspora rejected Jesus as the Messiah, the statement in Notes mistakenly conflates groups within the Jewish people which the Gospel narratives in fact clearly distinguish. Further, the document adds that this rejection of Jesus by the Jewish people is a “sad fact” with theological implications, which Paul is trying to solve in Rom 9–11. However, while it is certainly correct that Paul in Rom 9–10 expresses sadness, or, rather, grief (Rom 9:2–5) over the fact that most of the Jews in his own time are rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, as Paul develops his theological interpretation of the situation with regard to Jesus and the Jewish people, he appeals to the will of God (Rom 11). It was, according to Paul, part of God’s plan that the majority of the Jewish people should not accept Jesus, in order for non-Jews to be incorporated among God’s people. However, this does not mean God’s rejection of the Jews, but the contrary: the Jews play a key part in the eschatological events, without which non-Jewish Christ-believers would be lost. The Jewish people thus remain God’s beloved people, regardless of their acceptance or not of Jesus (11:28–29), and in the end, at a time of divine intervention decided by and known only to God (11:33–36) “all Israel” will be saved (11:26), an event which will trigger the resurrection of the dead (11:15). Since this is Paul’s theological interpretation of the current situation, namely, that things are as they should be according to God’s plan, it seems theologically inappropriate, post Paul, to evaluate this state of affairs as a “sad fact.” For discussion of Israel in Romans, including studies on the reception of Rom 9–11 in Jewish-Christian dialogue, see the contributions by Joseph Sievers, Günter Wasserberg, William S.  Campbell, Mark D. Nanos, Daniel Patte, and Daniel Boyarin in Reading Israel in Romans: Legitimacy and Plausibility of Divergent Interpretations (ed. C. Grenholm and D. Patte; Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2000). See also the short but insightful study by K. Stendahl, Final Account: Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), especially 33–44. As Stendahl notes, “the whole epistle to the Romans, not only chapters 9–11, is of enormous importance to any discussion of how one can sing one’s song to Jesus without telling disparaging stories about others” (39). Magnus Zetterholm provides an important overview and analysis of scholarly interpretations of Paul from the 19th century onwards in Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009). 89 On the use of ‘Heaven’ in Matthew’s Gospel, including the uniquely Matthean expression ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ (except for one adaptation in 2 Tim 4:18), see J. T. Pennington, Heaven and Earth in the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009). 90 It is very likely that the growing tensions reported between Jesus and some other Jews, especially the Jerusalem temple leadership, reflect the historical development of Jesus’ short career as he leaves Galilee and heads toward the capital. It is highly unlikely that Jesus would have decided to leave Galilee for the climactic events he had planned had he not had, relatively speaking, accumulated a rather sizable following beyond his closest disciples.

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What happens, then, when this passage is said to support the claim about Jesus being in conflict with “certain categories of Jews” from the beginning of his ministry, is that, by removing verse 12, the document distorts the portrait of the imbalance, proportionally, between people belonging to different social strata as they respond to Jesus: “some scribes” (2:6) are reported to be in conflict, while the voice of “all of them” (2:1291) is silenced. This needs to be emphasized since Notes then goes on in the next paragraph (IV.C) to say that “the majority of the Jewish People and its authorities did not believe in Jesus.”92 When combined with what is said in the following section (IV.D), that “Judaism and the young church” were “irreducibly separated and divergent in faith” and that this is reflected in the New Testament texts, “particularly in the Gospels,” it certainly presents a flawed historical picture, which develops from an insufficient literary analysis of the narrative of the Gospels.93 Interestingly, looking at how the authors of Notes approach the Gospel of Mark, the conclusion reached above is reinforced: the document assumes, over against Matthew (and the other Gospels), Markan priority when dealing with historical questions concerning Jesus. But this historical primacy of Mark seems to stretch beyond the evaluation of individual Markan pericopae as better witnesses to the historical events. The claim made, i.e., that resistance to Jesus came immediately as he began his ministry, is based specifically on the early chapters of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 2–3). However, the parallel passages in Matthew occur not in the beginning of Matthew’s narrative, but in chapters 9 and 12. It seems, thus, that the authors of Notes have worked with a) an acceptance of Mark as the earliest Gospel, and b) the assumption that Mark, because it is earlier, represents even in the narrative sequence of the events the historical sequence of events as they happened in Jesus’ life. This basic hermeneutical assumption appears to control how the Gospels of Mark and Matthew are used in the document as a whole, which, at points, leads to problematic historical assertions as well as inconsistent uses of these Gospels

91 Cf. “the whole crowd” of Mark 2:13, who, as a result of the events reported in 2:1–11, wanted to be taught by Jesus. 92 See discussion above, n. 89. 93 The document thus comments on the so-called parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity, but does so following now-dated scholarship on the issue, which often simply neglected the inner-Jewish realities and identities of Jewish believers in Jesus as they are portrayed in the Gospels, and confused the situation of Late Antique non-Jewish Christians with Jesus’ early followers along the lines of how much traditional Christian theology, from the Church Fathers onwards, has tended to do when its representatives identify themselves with the friends of Jesus in the Gospels’ narratives. Much has been written on this question since 1985, when Notes was composed. See, e.g., the contributions in A. H. Becker and A. Yoshiko Reed, eds., The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003); Runesson, “Inventing Christian Identity.” This is a field in which much remains to be done, especially on the centuries following the period in which the texts included in the New Testament was written. Such studies will provide much needed material for further work on contemporary Jewish-Christian dialogue, as well as on both Christian and Jewish theologies of religion.

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for supporting specific historical claims which carry within them key theological implications.94 The overall impression from reading the reception of Mark in Notes is that, while the document is rather clear about the theological direction in which it is heading, more reflection on the relationship between historical claims and theological interpretation, as well as the respective methodological challenges which each approach carries within it, is needed in order to provide a firm foundation on which necessary future work may build. Mary Boys’ words describing the current situation apply here too: while these (and other) documents “deserve widespread dissemination and discussion,” they also “require continuing revision – they reflect the church in process of changing, not a church that has arrived at a final, satisfactory resolution.”95

5. Conclusion: On History, Academia, and Theological Reception It is beyond doubt that the interpretation of the New Testament in academia and church is of utmost importance for Jewish-Christian relations and the formation of a Christian theology of Judaism and the Jewish people.96 Historical claims arising from the dynamics of reading Holy Scripture have contributed97 to both conflict and co-existence through the centuries as Christians have sought to find ways, confrontational or in respect for ‘the other,’ to interact with and express their self-identity in relation to Jews; therefore, modern academic historical study of the New Testament and early Church history have taken on a major role in Christian-Jewish conversations.98 The intention of the present study has not been to give 94 Such assumptions become increasingly problematic when current discussion on the Gospel of John, with its very different sequencing of the Jesus narrative, is taken into consideration. It is no longer possible, as was previously common, to disregard John as a source in the study of the historical Jesus. 95 Boys, Has God Only One Blessing? 245. 96 Of course, the importance of the Hebrew Bible should not be underestimated, although the New Testament as well as its interpretation through the centuries has been at the center of much conflict, violence, and teaching of contempt. On the importance of the Bible for Christians in this setting, see, e.g., von der Osten-Sacken, Theological Foundations, especially chapter 1, which deals with “Hermeneutical Points of Reference for a Theology Developed in Christian–Jewish Dialogue.” 97 I do not mean to say that the origin of, or impulse behind Christian interaction with Jews lies simply within the reading process. Clearly, social, political, economic, cultural, and gender factors all affect interaction between people of different religious belonging, establishing a ‘real-life’ frame within which reading and interpretation of Holy Scriptures takes place. Nevertheless, Holy Scriptures not only function as a resource for confirming already established theological and political positions, but may also inspire new attitudes, which question previously held assumptions. It is in the interplay between text and context, once both factors have been made conscious to the people involved, that dynamic insight may come into being.  98 The work of Mary Boys should be mentioned in this regard for its treatment of historical aspects along with their theological implications for Jewish-Christian relations. See especially Has God Only One Blessing?

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an overall analysis of official Catholic documents on Jewish-Christian relations.99 Rather, the focus has been narrowed down to an analysis of how the three most important and authoritative documents in the Catholic Church have made use of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, the earliest and historically the most influential Gospels, respectively, as these documents present a new, at times radically new, Christian theology of Judaism and the Jewish people. Summarising the findings of the study, I would like to draw attention to a few main points, in summary of the findings of this approach. Our two Gospels are called upon to give theological and historical support for church theology in six areas, with some overlap between Mark and Matthew mainly with regard to the way Jesus is understood as a Jew who remained faithful throughout his life to his Jewish beliefs and practices. Matthew confirms Jesus as directing his mission only to Jews, and both Mark and Matthew indicate, according to the documents, that non-Jews are also on the map, although primarily after Jesus’ death. Matthew is also interpreted as giving legitimacy to the church’s aim to establish a universal fraternity among the peoples of the world, with an allusion to a missionary motif in the form of witnessing through righteous actions to others. Continuity between the two testaments is confirmed in an inclusive way, and Mark is used to support the theological claim that the Hebrew Bible contains revelation independently from the New Testament. Finally, the most recent of the three documents, Notes (1985), refers Christians to Mark’s Gospel, not Matthew’s, in order to indicate that conflict between Jesus and other Jewish groups is witnessed from the earliest period of Jesus’ ministry. While the various uses of our Gospels in these documents reveal a striking divergence from, if not a complete break with, earlier uses of the same texts in church history with regard to the relationship between Jews and Christians, there is also evidence of a development in hermeneutical strategies between 1965 and 1985. Perhaps the most significant driving force behind this development is the growing acceptance of the importance of historical analysis in the understanding of the earliest periods in Jewish-Christian relations. Traditionally, passages in Mark and Matthew have been taken out of historical and narrative context and applied in an all-encompassing faith context, which was vulnerable to a considerable degree to anti-Jewish sentiments and which exerted a one-directional, or ‘monologic’ interpretive influence on the texts. Since the Second Vatican Council documents were published, history and the literary context of the Gospels have become important tools in the church’s exploration of the meaning of the texts in the contemporary world. Such a role for historical and literary analysis in Jewish-Christian relations has been urged not least by some Jewish scholars for a long time.100 99 For discussion of both Catholic and Protestant documents that outline a Christian theological position on Judaism and the Jewish people, see Boys, Has God Only One Blessing? 245–78. On key Catholic documents, see also Cunningham, “Official Ecclesial Documents.” 100 Note especially the pioneering work of J. Isaac, Jésus et Israël (Paris: Albin Michel, 1948; English translation 1971), showing how the church, throughout history, had interpreted the New

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It is of some importance to note that the role of history in this context should not be understood as a one-dimensional historio-fundamentalist approach: we are not dealing in these documents with an attempt to argue that specific historical periods display beliefs and practices that Christians today must embrace (such as, e.g., Jewish ritual law, to mention an obvious example in light of the statements which confirm that Jesus remained faithful to his Jewish religion throughout his life). Rather, history dynamically indicates developments of ideas and practices, and common ground is sought through new readings as well as rejections of old paradigms of interpretation. What we see today in the documents (and in other documents that have been published more recently, but which I have not been able to discuss here for reasons of space) are attempts at finding a balance between historical results on the one hand and theology based on all canonical writings on the other, all brought together in an effort to challenge and defeat Christian anti-Judaism. One of the implications of the historical aspects of the approach taken in the documents is that, uniquely, it opens up dialogue between the church and secular academic institutions, in which scholars from Jewish, Christian, and other backgrounds work.101 Academia thus provides a context in which people from different Christian and Jewish denominations can interact using shared theoretical and methodological tools in their attempts at solving specific questions of relevance for contemporary interreligious relations. This situation has, together with ongoing dialogue between Jews and Christians outside academia,102 led to significant advances in the Church’s theology of Judaism and the Jewish people. Testament from a flawed anti-Jewish perspective, which could not be reconciled with the New Testament texts themselves. See also J. B. Agus, “Judaism and the New Testament,” JES 13 (1976): 596–613, especially points 1–6 on page 603, and their explication on the following pages. More recent discussions are found in Cohen, “The Jewishness of Jesus,” 50–1; cf. also Kogan, Opening the Covenant. On the origins of anti-Semitism, see J. G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). Of course, neither on the academic scene nor in dialogue contexts does this mean that there would be just one Jewish voice on the historical issues, in particular regarding the historical Jesus; cf. G. D. Schwartz, A Jewish Appraisal of Dialogue: Between Talk and Theology (Lanham: University Press of America, 1994), 75–81, where he takes as point of departure Donald Hagner’s work on Jewish reconstructions of Jesus. 101 Of special interest is Jewish scholarship related to the historical Jesus. For a brief but important discussion, see W. Klassen, “The Contribution of Jewish Scholars to the Quest for the Historical Jesus,” in Themes in Jewish–Christian Relations (ed. E. Kessler and M. J. Wright; Cambridge: Orchard Academic, 2005), 9–37. 102 Academic developments can never be understood in isolation from what goes on in the society and culture in which academic discussions take place; there is constant and mutual influence between what happens within and outside academia. Cf. A. Goshen-Gottstein, “Jewish-Christian Relations and Rabbinic Literature – Shifting Scholarly and Relational Paradigms: The Case of the Two Powers,” in Interaction Between Judaism and Christianity in History, Religion, Art and Literature (ed. M. Poorthuis et al.; Leiden: Brill, 2009), 15–43: “adopting a particular scholarly paradigm is never divorced from broader patterns governing Jewish-Christian relations, and changes in these relations constitute an invitation to re-examine some of the assumptions that have governed scholarship for over a century” (15).

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This, in turn, may lead us to consider the porous boundaries between church, society, and academia, and how this permeability, recognized or not, affects the formation of theology. When analyzing historical developments in antiquity, especially radical changes of the status quo, we often struggle to reconstruct a socio-political setting that could provide some explanatory frame within which we may understand the impetus for the change described. In our case, the context in which theological change has been occurring in the Catholic Church is made clear explicitly, but in different ways, in the documents. Nostra Aetate refers to the world as ‘shrinking,’ a phenomenon which entails people from different religious backgrounds meeting and exchanging ideas more often than was previously the case. This, according to the document, has led to a situation in which the church has had to work on its theology of other religions in order to guide Christians. The Holocaust is not mentioned. In the later documents, however, the Holocaust is given as the reason behind the rethinking of church theology under consideration, as well as for the new ways in which the biblical texts are interpreted. One could say, thus, that the key mechanism that has put an end to almost two millennia of Christian anti-Jewish biblical interpretation is reality itself, in its most horrific forms, when suddenly seen from within the spiral of causes that brought it into being. Theology, whether negative or positive, whether taking life or giving life, can never be divorced from the political and other realities in which it is formed and proclaimed. A viable theological and hermeneutical platform, then, that seems to emerge from these documents is based on the fundamental principle of choosing life over death.103 The work that has been done so far by the churches indicates clearly that such a choice not only exists and brings with it very real implications, but also that it may be the single most important choice needing to be made when the future of Jews and Christians is considered. Today, Christians try to understand how people of their own faith could have been part of the utterly evil forces that led to the Holocaust, and in this process of self-examination they search for theological solutions faithful to their Holy Scriptures, solutions that would prevent anything similar from ever happening again. Since the interpretation of the Bible was part of the problem, the exposition of Scripture is also part of the solution. As historical investigations into the texts and their earliest reception in the first century increasingly show, the problem resides not primarily in the texts themselves but more so in their later interpretation. For example, the Gospel of Matthew should certainly be identified as a Jewish text, written by Jews in a Jewish setting; the polemic it has preserved turned anti-Jewish only in the hands of non-Jewish Christians who used it as a tool in the process of their own identity formation. When such anti-Jewish interpretation of this originally Jewish text became politically empowered in Late Antiquity, and even 103 Cf.

Deut 30:19; 4 Ezra 7:59 [129]. The verse is expounded in 4 Ezra 7:49 [119] as follows: “For what good is it to us, if an immortal time has been promised to us, but we have done deeds that bring death?”

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more so during the Middle Ages, the violence expressed in the text itself could take legislative and physical form in Christian societies.104 To say, then, as Luz does, that Matthean theology would be one of many elements responsible for European anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, as well as the Holocaust, seems to me to misread the first-century hermeneutics and rhetoric displayed by this Jewish document and to downplay the political and ethnic dynamics which turned this text into a tool in the hands of those who orchestrated persecutions of Jews throughout history.105 The view that describes Matthew’s Gospel as a ‘Christian text’ and relates it antithetically to ‘Judaism’ or ‘the synagogue’ belongs rather to the reception history of Matthew; such a perspective and the terminology that comes with it are, in my opinion, not compatible with the first-century inner-Jewish dynamics of the Gospel.106 While the official Catholic documents are comfortable ascertaining that the historical Jesus remained a Jew all his life and practiced a form of Judaism, we may ask what a similar conclusion regarding the religion of the Gospel of Matthew as being Jewish would lead to, in terms of the Church’s teaching. What theological dynamics would develop, especially in light of the teaching of the Church Fathers on Jewish Christ-believers, as a result of historical academic claims that, just as the non-Jewish church appropriated the texts included in the Jewish Bible as the Old Testament, the church also adopted Jewish texts claiming that Jesus was the Messiah as part of its New Testament? Since academia is not isolated from the world, or the church, there exists a complex hermeneutical relationship between the historical events of the 1930s and 40s, and developments within academia and the church, in which historical narratives play an important role. The institutional independence of academia from the church, as it has developed in the West over roughly the same time period, also plays into this, creating a separate dialogue partner with which the church 104 On Matthew and violence, see discussion in John Kloppenborg, “The Representation of Violence in Synoptic Parables,” in Mark and Matthew I, 323–51. 105  Luz, Matthew in History, 33. 106 It has been suggested by some scholars that reading Matthew (and other New Testament texts) as being produced by Jews and expressing a variant of a Jewish worldview would be the result of post-Holocaust sensitivities rather than a product of careful historical considerations. Although the subjective element is always present in all reconstructions, it seems to me that such comments could just as well be turned around and used against reconstructions which, in line with over 1500 years of non-Jewish Christian interpretation of these documents, take Christian terminology and understanding of the New Testament as a given point of departure, implicitly reinforcing (post-Matthean and post-Markan) canonical narratives. In my view, since such (traditional) Christian understanding of Matthew also reinforces contemporary Christian and Jewish identities, respectively, mirroring modern concerns relating to distinct communities, this type of approach would be more susceptible to anachronisms than reconstructions that go beyond what has been traditional Christian teaching, not least because such traditional teaching developed before the emergence of historical-critical analysis. Rhetoric referring to possible subjective elements that would distort reconstructions is, then, in the end, not very helpful, since it will not solve the historical problems per se. Rather, what should be increasingly studied in order to advance the state of research is the diversity of Judaism, including Messianic variants, up until and including Late Antiquity, with increased attention paid to the self-identity and terminology of these individuals and groups, as well as their texts and the archaeological remains to which we have access.

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can, in various ways, interact. All this has created a situation in which significant advances in the church’s theology and use of the Bible have been able to develop in ways hardly possible in earlier decades or, for that matter, centuries. For the reception of Mark and Matthew in church theology on Jews and Judaism, this has meant a radical change on many levels. For example, we may note that the Synoptic Problem, as formulated by and studied within academia, has, with regard to the theory of Markan priority, made its way into the church and that it has, as such, both acquired and created theological meaning, contributing in different ways to Jewish-Christian dialogue. In other words, the historical approach has added to the formation of theology the important aspect of a dialogue involving multiple voices.107 Through academic work, the texts are being given historical voices, which may or may not differ from the church’s own contemporary voices. This has introduced a process of transformation in the treatment of the biblical texts, from a monologic relationship between the church and the texts, to a dialogic relationship, in which the text receives a more independent voice, as reconstructed by individuals both within and outside the church. Thus, the formation of theology in the context of Jewish-Christian relations is today in the process of becoming both synchronically dialogical, in that it takes into careful consideration contemporary realities, voices, and concerns, and diachronically dialogical with regard to the insight that any conversation with or use of biblical texts needs to listen carefully to voices from a time and culture different from our own. Ulrich Luz has directed our attention to the fact that the “history of effects shows that texts have power and therefore cannot be separated from their consequences. Interpreting a text is not simply playing with words but an act with historical consequences.”108 Perhaps we may modify the first part of this quote somewhat, since the texts themselves are silent, and therefore powerless, until human beings of flesh and blood give them voice. It is this dynamic, the interplay between silence and voice, history and the present and all that exists in-between, that may lead the interpreter to an understanding of truth that resides both within and simultaneously beyond these categories, a concept of truth that is more practical than theoretical in nature, more dynamic and mobile than static. The official Catholic documents discussed here, as recent examples of the complex reception history of the earliest Gospels, seem indeed to implicitly support such a claim, in which reality and text can never be divorced when (theological) truth is being sought. And this may, in turn, be seen as an indication of Matthean reception history, more precisely of Matt 7:15–20, especially when understood against the 107 This, I would argue, is one of the more important contributions of academia and history to church theology. As William Klassen has warned, it is, unfortunately, not uncommon for Christians to “confuse theological certainty with historical verification” (“The Contribution of Jewish Scholars,” 30). The role of history is not and cannot be to provide theology with timeless truth claims, or to dictate, as if the historical only came in one form, church theology. What it can do, however, is to challenge theology when it comes dressed in historical garb. 108 Luz, Matthew in History, 33.

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background of the situation before and during the Second World War. Replacing a single word in this passage may clarify the connection: Beware of false [theologies], who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.109

Looking back at the history of interpretation of Mark and, especially, Matthew, in the context of Jewish-Christian relations, the churches have for centuries presented us with a burden of agonizing magnitude, impacting reality in ways so violent that it challenges comprehension. With fruits of such kind, the theological reforms that began with the Second Vatican Council 50 years ago110 and have since spread to other churches are all the more astounding.111 The observably good fruits which this work has already yielded, although it is, as of yet, only in its very early stages, proves that even what seemed to be impenetrable thickets of thorns may transform and produce grapes and figs of truth, as per Matthean hermeneutics, if the tree is critically and patiently engaged, examined, and nurtured.112

109 Cf. Luz, Matthew in History, 32: “Those who consider these fruits as a possible criterion of truth for a text of a new interpretation are thinking along Matthean lines.” 110 For brief information about the council and its participants, see above, n. 12. 111  These developments within the churches have also resulted in responses from Jewish communities as well as individual contributions, which are of vital importance for the continued conversation. We have already referred to Kogan, Opening the Covenant, as one such resource. One of the crucial events in this context was the publication of the Jewish statement on Christianity Dabru Emet (“Speak Truth,” echoing Zech 8:16) in 2000. The importance of the statement lies not only in its careful and clear wording of the position of its authors, but also in the fact that it has been widely endorsed by Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist representatives. As Edward Kessler and James K. Aitken write, “Dabru Emet is the most positive affirmation of Christianity ever made by a committed Jewish group.” (“Considering a Jewish Statement on Christianity,” in Challenges in Jewish-Christian Relations [ed. E.  Kessler and J. K.  Aitken; New York: Paulist Press, 2006], 191–217, 201). The document is reproduced in the same article, pages 191–4, and may also be found on the Jewish–Christian Relations website (International Council of Christians and Jews): http://www.jcrelations.net/Dabru_Emet_-_A_Jewish_Statement_on_ Christians_and_Christianity.2395.0.html. 112 Cf. Luke 13:6–9; 2 Pet 3:14–15.

Part II

History, Meaning, and the Dynamics of Interpretation

Mark and the Hermeneutics of History Writing Adela Yarbro Collins For the purposes of this paper, I assume that the Gospel of Mark may profitably be read as a historical work. This premise will play a heuristic role, and I also recognize that Mark has affinities with other genres. I also assume that readers of Mark in the first and second centuries approached it with “a vast repertory of expectations and inference patterns” derived from their experience with other texts.1 It is likely that actual readers from various cultural contexts brought different expectations and patterns of inference to their reading of Mark. I will begin by looking at what may be called the introductory titular sentence or incipit (1:1) and the narrative introduction (1:2–15).2 The purpose of this examination is to look for indications of genre that may relate to the expectations of the readers of the work.

1. Genre and the Opening of Mark In his work on How to Write History, Lucian criticizes writers who write an elaborate preface to a short work, putting the head of the Colossus of Rhodes on the body of a dwarf. He also is unimpressed by historians who fail to write any preface at all, producing bodies without any heads. Such authors omit the introduction and begin at once with the narrative. Such writers, he opines, do not know about virtual prefaces, which are unrecognized by most people.3 The editor suggests that the opening of the Anabasis is such a “virtual preface.”4 Xenophon begins with narration, but it is a narrative that gives a summary of the events that are necessary for understanding the historical narrative proper that he is about to begin. Similarly, the opening sentence and the narrative introduction of Mark give the background 1 Booth wrote the quoted words about stories, including novels, but they apply to ancient readers as well. See his The Rhetoric of Fiction (2nd ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 432. On the role of expectations on the part of the reader in relation to genre, see C. Pelling, “Epilogue,” in The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historiographical Texts (ed. C. S. Kraus; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 325–60. 2 For justification of these terms and this division of the text of Mark, see A. Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 130–5. E.-M. Becker has concluded that in 1:4 the narration of events proper begins; see Das Markus-Evangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 110. 3 Lucian, Hist. Conscr. § 23 (Kilburn, LCL): δυνάμει προοίμια. 4 Kilburn, Lucian, 35. See Xenophon, Anabasis 1.1–6.

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necessary for understanding the narrative proper, which begins in 1:16–20 with the call of the first disciples. The introductory titular sentence may be translated, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.” As I have argued elsewhere, the phrase “son of God” is secondary.5 For those readers of Mark familiar with Greek or Latin historical writings, the term ἀρχή would suggest the historian’s decision about the proper starting point for the descriptive and explanatory narrative.6 A Greek example is Polybios: “And this is my reason for beginning where I do” (διὸ καὶ τὴν ἀρχήν τῆς αὐτῶν πραγματείας ἀπὸ τούτων πεποιήμεθα τῶν καιρῶν).7 A Latin example is Tacitus: “I begin my work with the second consulship of Servius Galba, when Titus Vinius was his colleague” (Initium mihi operis Servius Galba iterum Titus Vinius consules erunt).8 Those familiar with the letters of Paul and his use of the term εὐαγγέλιον would understand the reference to “the gospel of Jesus Christ” as the good news about Jesus Christ, that is, God’s plan of salvation begun to be realized through the death and resurrection of Jesus.9 Many early readers of Mark would associate this “good news” with the oral proclamation spread by the apostles and their associates. The term would not have been taken as a description of the kind of literary work Mark is until the mid-second century.10 Those familiar with Greek and Latin histories and with the notion of “the good news about Jesus” would have understood the opening sentence of Mark to mean that the work is an account of how the oral proclamation about Jesus originated. The narrative introduction to Mark that follows, however, seems at first glance to introduce a perspective quite foreign to Greek and Latin historiography. It is introduced with a reference to Scripture. The intelligibility of such a reference in the context of historiography can be illuminated by some of the observations and arguments of Hayden White. 1.1 Explanation by Formal Argument In his book Metahistory, Hayden White argues that the field of historical study has not yet been “reduced (or elevated) to the status of a genuine science.” For this reason, historical explanation remains “the captive of the linguistic mode in which

Collins, Mark, 130, note a. to H. I. Marrou, secondary education in Greek in the Hellenistic period included readings from Herodotus, Xenophon, Hellanicus, and Thucydides; see A History of Education in Antiquity (trans. G. Lamb; Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), 164.  7 Polybius, Hist. 1.3.5 (Paton, LCL); cited in Yarbro Collins, Mark, 42, n. 186.  8 Tacitus, Hist. 1.1 (Moore, LCL); cited in Becker, Markus-Evangelium, 110. See also Thucydides 1.1; Sallust, Cataline 4.5; Jugurtha 5.3.  9 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 15–6. 10 The earliest attestation for such a usage is Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 66; cited in Yarbro Collins, Mark, 3, 20.  5 Yarbro

 6 According

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it seeks to grasp the outline of objects inhabiting its field of perception.”11 Thus, in his view, historical works “contain a deep structural content” that is “generally poetic, and specifically linguistic, in nature.”12 White’s work focuses on the classic historians of 19th century Europe, but many of his arguments apply to ancient historians as well.13 He argues that, on a deep level of consciousness, a historian chooses conceptual strategies by which to explain or represent his data. This choice is a poetic act by which he prefigures the historical field and constitutes it as a domain for explanation. The purpose is to create a certain kind of “explanatory affect” on the part of the readers. One of these strategies is “explanation by formal argument.”14 By this he means “explanation by formal, explicit, or discursive argument.” Such an argument provides an explanation “by invoking principles of combination [that] serve as putative laws of historical explanation. On this level of conceptualization the historian” “constructs a nomological-deductive argument. This argument can be analyzed into a syllogism.”15 In verse 2, Mark introduces a quotation from “the book of Isaiah the prophet.”16 The citation in vv. 2–3 and the narrative that follows is an argument: as it is written (in Scripture), (so) John was baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Taken as a whole, the narrative introduction argues that the prophecy or promise, “See, I am sending my messenger before your face who will prepare your way; the voice of one calling out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths,’” is fulfilled in the activity of John the Baptist. The “Lord” who is coming is “Jesus of Nazareth,” introduced in v. 9. This inference is supported by John’s proclamation about one coming after him in v. 7. Scripture is cited in a similar way elsewhere in Mark, especially the first passion prediction with its language about what “must” happen and Jesus’ remark that his arrest is occurring “in order that the scriptures may be fulfilled.”17 The use of Scripture in Mark constitutes a discursive argument that may be expressed in the following syllogism: Major premise: God has a plan for all creation. Minor premise: This plan is revealed in Scripture. 11 H. White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), xi. 12 White, Metahistory, ix. 13 White, Metahistory. For updated reflections on the issues discussed in Metahistory, see H. White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). 14 White, Metahistory, x. 15 White, Metahistory, 11. Another way of looking at Mark’s argument from Scripture is as an explicitly rhetorical “telling” as opposed to narrative “showing.” See Booth, Rhetoric of Fiction, chapter one. 16 The actual citation, however, is a combination of LXX Exod 23:20, Mal 3:1, and Isa 40:3; Yarbro Collins, Mark, 135–6. 17 Mark 8:31; 14:49.

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Conclusion: The events recorded by Mark are fulfillments of Scripture and thus are determined by God’s plan.

If these reflections are on target, the citation of Scripture in the narrative introduction to Mark is appropriate for a historical work. Mark’s argument is in continuity with the arguments made in the oral proclamation of the gospel that linked the events connected with Jesus to the book of Isaiah, the psalms, and other texts. This kind of argument is continued, for example, in explicit terms and in considerable detail in the speech of Peter in Acts 2. 1.2 Chronicle and Historical Events The fulfillment of Scripture in the narrative introduction of Mark is presented in terms of events involving John the Baptist and Jesus. From a historiographical point of view, one may ask what the status of these events is and what role they play in the historical work of Mark. Although the two accounts differ with regard to some details, Josephus confirms the historical reliability of the main features of Mark’s account of the activity of John the Baptist.18 That Jesus was baptized by John is accepted as historical by most New Testament scholars.19 Lucian and Hayden White may shed some light on the role of these two events in the historical work of Mark. According to Lucian, the historian should assemble the facts through laborious and painstaking investigation. Ideally, he should be an eyewitness. If not, he should “listen to those who tell the more impartial story, those whom one would suppose least likely to subtract from the facts or add to them out of favour or malice.”20 It seems unlikely that Mark was an eyewitness, but it is not impossible. John was executed in 28 or 29 C. E., and Mark wrote around 68 or 69.21 John’s activity, however, was no doubt part of the oral tradition with which Mark was familiar.22 As Hayden White and others have pointed out, historians select from the information they have to construct a narrative shaped by the author’s particular perspective. Although it is historically unlikely that the historical John the Baptist presented himself as a forerunner of Jesus, Mark presents him as such. This portrayal may be a new construction by Mark or one already current in the tradition linking John and Jesus. In constructing his portrait, Josephus made a selection from the available information, omitting any eschatological element in the proclamation of John. Such omissions are characteristic of his works and probably A. J. 18.5.2 § 116–9. Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 10–11, 326. 20 Lucian, Hist. Conscr. § 47 (Kilburn, LCL). 21 On the date of John’s execution, see P. W. Hollenbach, “John the Baptist,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (ed. D. N. Freedman; 6 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1992), 3:887. On the date of Mark, see Yarbro Collins, Mark, 11–14. 22 If Mark was familiar with Q, as some scholars claim, he would have known traditions about John the Baptist from that source. See H. T. Fleddermann, Mark and Q: A Study of the Overlap Texts (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1995). 18 Josephus,

19  E. P. Sanders,

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have as their aim an attempt to provide the Romans with a palatable description of Jews and their traditions. According to White, “chronicle” is one of the levels of conceptuality in the historical work. “Chronicle,” along with “story,” is a “primitive element” in the historical account. Both “also represent processes of selection and arrangement of data from the unprocessed historical record in the interest of rendering that record more comprehensible to an audience of a particular kind.” The first step in the work of the historian is to organize the events to be dealt with into a chronicle by arranging them “in the temporal order of their occurrence.”23 Mark’s “chronicle” may have looked something like the following: John the Baptist begins a public activity of proclaiming and baptizing. John baptizes Jesus. Herod Antipas arrests and executes John. Jesus begins proclaiming the kingdom of God. Jesus enters Jerusalem and performs disruptive acts in the temple. Jesus is crucified and raised from the dead.

These events are likely to be both historical and to be part of the oral tradition received by Mark.24 According to the Gospel of John, the public activities of John and Jesus overlapped. In the temporal order of Mark, the activity of Jesus began only after John was arrested. It cannot be the case that both accounts are historically accurate on this point. We cannot determine, however, which account is more reliable. The temporal sequence in Mark and the temporal overlap in John each have their particular narrative and rhetorical aims. The distinct sequence in Mark is part of the construction of John as the forerunner of Jesus. The overlap in John allows the author to compare and contrast the two figures and to make the point about Jesus increasing and John decreasing. 1.3 An Affinity with the Genre “Life” or Biography Although the baptism of Jesus by John is quite likely to be a historical event, it could evoke another genre for those readers familiar with ancient “lives” or biographies, especially those of the poets. In the Life of Aesop, he is introduced as a slave who cannot speak because of a severe speech impediment. Isis grants him the power of speech, and the Muses give him the power to devise stories. These divine gifts reward him for his kindness to a priestess of Isis. In the Life of Archilochus, he meets the Muses at night as he leads a cow to market. They promise to give him a good price for the animal. They and the cow disappear, and he finds a lyre at his feet. In both cases, the encounter with divine beings foreshadows and signifies that

23 White,

Metahistory, 5.

24 On the historicity of some of these events, see Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 11, 61–76, 222–41,

294–5.

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the man in question will be a poet. In the baptism of Jesus, his encounter with the divine voice signifies that he will be the messiah.25 1.4 Moving from Chronicle to Story and Kinds of Stories In the baptism of Jesus the spirit (of God) descends upon him and apparently remains with him. This spirit leads or drives him into the wilderness, where Satan tests him. The language of this brief account evokes tradition and lore concerning demons and exorcism. This opposition of Jesus and the spirit, on the one hand, and Satan, wild animals, and (it is implied) demons, on the other, suggests that although God has appointed Jesus as the messiah, he will encounter opposition in his mission.26 Two questions arise at this point. One is how historians move from “chronicle” to “story.” The other is how the inclusion of Satan in the narrative fits with the inference that Mark is a historical work. Again Hayden White’s work provides a framework within which we may answer these questions. On the technical level, a chronicle is made into a story “by the further arrangement of the events into the components of a ‘spectacle’ or process of happening, which is thought to possess a discernible beginning, middle, and end. This transformation of chronicle into story is effected by” characterizing some events in the chronicle as inaugural motifs, others as terminating motifs, and yet others as transitional motifs.27 We have already seen the way in which the public activity of John is characterized as an inaugural motif by presenting him as the forerunner of Jesus. Similarly, the baptism of Jesus is transformed into an inaugural motif by revealing his vocation as messiah. The arrest of John by Herod Antipas is briefly characterized in 1:14 as a transitional motif: after John is “handed over,” Jesus begins his public activity of proclaiming the good news that the kingdom of God has drawn near. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are transformed into terminating motifs. These events fulfill the passion predictions earlier in the narrative and bring the story to a conclusion. The testing of Jesus in the wilderness, the explicit appearance of Satan as a character in the narrative, and the implicit introduction of demons, however, are best dealt with in terms of the kind of story Mark has created rather than in primarily technical, literary terms. According to White, the historian must anticipate and answer two kinds of question in constructing his narrative: (1) what happened next? (the story must be followable); (2) what does it all add up to? (there must be a structure for the entire set of events; some indication must be given about how this story relates to others). As we have seen, one of the ways Mark answers the Collins, Mark, 147, 150–1. Collins, Mark, 151–3. 27 White, Metahistory, 5. See also the discussion of transitional elements by E.-M. Becker, “Die markinischen Summarien – ein literarischer und theologischer Schlüssel zu Markus 1–6,” NTS 56 (2010): 452–74. 25 Yarbro 26 Yarbro

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second question is explanation by argument. An implicit argument throughout the narrative is that the events being narrated are fulfillments of Scripture and thus of the divine plan. That question can also be answered through explanation by emplotment. Emplotment involves providing the meaning of a story by identifying the kind of story that it is. White identified at least four modes of emplotment: Romance, Tragedy, Comedy, and Satire (the fictional form of the Ironic mode).28 One of the most striking things about White’s book, Metahistory, is his demonstration that classic, critical histories, written in the hey-day of historicism, can be shown to have plots like those found in ancient classical literature. The mode of emplotment called “Romance” owes a great deal to earlier, Christian narratives. Yet, if critical, 19th century histories may also be called romances, in the mode of their emplotment, one cannot argue that Mark is not historiography on the grounds of its proto-romantic emplotment alone. Although Mark has affinities with Tragedy and Comedy, its narrative is most similar to the Romance. One feature of Romance is its stress on the emergence of new forces or conditions.29 White defined the Romance fundamentally as a “drama of self-identification symbolized by the hero’s transcendence of the world of experience, his victory over it, and his final liberation from it – the sort of drama associated with the Grail legend or the story of the resurrection of Christ in Christian mythology. It is a drama of the triumph of good over evil, of virtue over vice, of light over darkness, and of the ultimate transcendence of man over the world in which he was imprisoned by the Fall.”30 Mark’s narrative is a traditional narrative of this type, much of which would be identified by White and others as myth rather than history. It is striking, however, that Romance is the mode employed by one of the 19th century historians defined by White as classic, Jules Michelet, in all his historical works. His histories of course employed a secular version of the Romantic mode and thus White can characterize his works as “realistic.”31 In White’s view the ultimate grounds for choosing a mode are aesthetic and moral, not epistemological.32 White characterized the histories of Michelet as “historiography explained as metaphor and emplotted as Romance.” He argued that Michelet “characterized [his] new ‘method’ as that of ‘concentration and reverberation.’ In his view, it provided him with ‘a flame sufficiently intense to melt down all the apparent diversities, to restore to them in history the unity they had in life.’” In White’s view, however, “this new method was nothing but a working out of the implications of the mode of Metaphor, conceived as a way of permitting the historian actually to Metahistory, 7–8. Metahistory, 11. 30 White, Metahistory, 8–9. 31 White notes that “It has been argued, of course, that history can be liberated from myth, religion, and metaphysics only by the exclusion” of two of the four modes of explanation by argument. He concludes that such an exclusion “appears to express only a bias on the part of the professional establishment” (Metahistory, 20). 32 White, Metahistory, xii. 28 White, 29 White,

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identify with, resurrect, and relive the life of the past in its totality.”33 Analogously, in Lucian’s view, the historian has succeeded in his task “when a man who has heard him thinks thereafter that he is actually seeing what is being described and then praises him – then it is that the work of our Phidias of history is perfect and has received its proper praise.”34 Mark, like Michelet, created a narrative that allows its readers to relive the past – the teaching and activities of Jesus. That Mark succeeded in allowing his readers actually to see these past events is attested by Paul-Gerhard Klumbies, who has argued that the text of Mark overcomes historical distance and makes possible a direct grasp of the narrated events.35 According to White, Michelet “denied all worth to Mechanistic (causal) reductions and to Formalist (typological) integrations of the historical field. The Metaphorical apprehension of the essential sameness of things overrides every other consideration in his writing.” He “strove for a symbolic fusion” of historical entities rather than “characterizing them as individual symbols.” He believed that everything (in history as in nature) is striving to become a unity. In Michelet’s view, “unity is a goal to be reached, rather than a condition to be described.” Everything “appearing in history must be assessed finally in terms of the contribution it makes” or the extent to which it impedes the realization of the goal. To do so, he used the emplotment of Romance: “the historical process [is] conceived as a struggle of essential virtue against a virulent, but ultimately transitory, vice.” Michelet’s system is dualist, not dialectic. The Metaphor of Metaphors may be precritically apprehended as Nature, God, History, the Individual, or Mankind in general.36 One could argue analogously that, in Mark’s view, history, guided and directed by God, is striving toward the manifestation of the kingdom of God. The final phase of history is characterized by a dualistic struggle between God, the spirit, and Jesus, on the one hand, and Satan, the unclean spirits, and demons, on the other. Those who “repent and believe in the good news” proclaimed by Jesus (1:15) and who trust in the power of Jesus align themselves on the side of “virtue,” so to speak. Those who refuse to believe and trust in Jesus and oppose him align themselves with the equivalent of “vice.” White argued that “Michelet emplotted his histories as dramas of disclosure, of the liberation of a spiritual power fighting to free itself from the forces of darkness, a redemption.” He named the aim of history writing “resurrection.”37 “Like Ranke, Michelet took struggle and conflict seriously, as ineluctable aspects of historical existence. This is another earnest of his ‘realism.’” Michelet wrote, “Right, though postponed, will have its advent.”38 Analogously, Mark’s narrative is a drama of disclosure of God’s plan, of the fact that “the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of in this paragraph from White, Metahistory, 149. Hist.Conscr. § 51 (Kilburn, LCL). 35 See the discussion of his work by Becker, Markus-Evangelium, 57, 61. 36 White, Metahistory, 150. 37 White, Metahistory, 152. 38 White, Metahistory, 154–5. 33 Quotations 34 Lucian,

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God has drawn near,” of the nature of the kingdom of God in the teaching and mighty deeds of Jesus. Though Jesus met opposition, was rejected, and crucified, the power of God was active in his resurrection from the dead, and the kingdom of God “will have its advent.” For Michelet “the Revolution was the political and moral resurrection of everything good and human ‘buried’ by the old regime.” “This salvation resulted in a dissolution of all differences among men, between men and women, young and old, rich and poor, which finally transformed the nation into a people.” “In his enthusiasm for the events he was depicting, Michelet dissolved all sense of difference among men, institutions, and values” in a “Metaphorical identification of things that appear to be different.”39 1.5 Explanation by Ideological Implication These observations about Michelet’s understanding of the French Revolution raise the question of ideology in historiography. I have discussed two of the explanatory strategies identified by White, explanation by formal argument and explanation by emplotment. The remaining strategy is explanation by ideological implication.40 He argued that there are four tactics used to explain events by ideological implication: “Anarchism, Conservatism, Radicalism, and Liberalism.” He defined “the historiographical ‘style’ of a particular historian as a specific combination of the modes of the three explanatory strategies. They may not be combined indiscriminately since each of the modes has affinities with certain others.” One combination that White identified as typical is emplotment as Romance, Formist argumentation, and Anarchist ideological implication.41 Formism as a type of argument is related to the trope of metaphor.42 White borrowed his list of four basic ideologies from Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. He defined the term “ideology” as “a set of prescriptions for taking a position in the present world of social praxis and acting upon it (either to change the world or to maintain it in its current state).”43 In the case of Mark, the aim may be rather to take sides in a struggle whose outcome is both predetermined and revealed. White stressed that the terms “Anarchist,” “Conservative,” “Radical,” and “Liberal” “are meant to serve as designators of general ideological preference rather Metahistory, 156–7. this paper I confine my discussion to a heuristic application of White’s notion of “ideological implication.” For a philosophical and anthropological approach to ideology in stories, see M. Jackson, The Politics of Storytelling: Violence, Transgression, and Intersubjectivity (Copenhagen: Museum of Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2002). See also “The Politics of Historical Interpretation,” chapter 3 in White, The Content of the Form. 41 White, Metahistory, 29. 42 White, Metahistory, 36. For a discussion of Formism as a mode of argument, see White, Metahistory, 13–5. 43 White, Metahistory, 22. 39 White, 40 In

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than as emblems of specific political parties.”44 “Conservatives tend to view social change through the analogy of plantlike gradualizations, while Liberals (at least 19th century Liberals) are inclined to view it through the analogy of adjustments, or ‘fine-tunings,’ of a mechanism.” “Radicals and Anarchists, however, believe in the necessity of reconstituting society on new bases.” The Anarchists would affirm the abolition of “society” and the substitution of “community.” Radicals typically “view the utopian condition as imminent,” whereas Anarchists are inclined to idealize a remote past of natural-human innocence” from which humanity has fallen. They typically project utopia “onto what is effectively a non-temporal plane.” The ideological implication of Mark is more similar to that of the Radicals and the Anarchists than to the Conservatives or Liberals. It shares the sense of imminence with the Radicals. The sanctions of the ethical exhortation of 9:43–48 imply places of reward (“life” and “the kingdom of God”) and punishment (“Gehenna” and “the unquenchable fire”) that are beyond the present world of praxis and beyond the temporal plane. Similarly, the climax of the prophetic-apocalyptic discourse of chapter 13 involves a salvation involving the gathering of the elect from the ends of the earth by angels. The fact that angels do the gathering suggests that the utopian state envisaged is beyond the earthly and temporal planes. Mark also implies the eventual abolition of society or at least that the elect will abandon and transcend it. In the dialogue that follows the failure of the rich young man’s quest, Peter declares to Jesus, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” The reply of Jesus suggests that already “in this time,” before the elect are granted access to their utopia (“the age that is coming”), they have abandoned ordinary society and constituted a “community” that is a metaphorical family (10:28–30). I return now briefly to the comparison of Mark and Michelet. In White’s view, “Although Michelet thought of himself as a Liberal, and wrote history in such a way as to serve the Liberal cause as he understood it, in reality the ideological implications of his conception of history are Anarchist.” He “conceived the ideal condition to be one in which all men are naturally and spontaneously united in communities of shared emotion and activities that require no formal (or artificial) direction.” The “various intermediary unities represented by states, nations, churches and the like, regarded by Herder as manifestations of essential human community and viewed by Ranke as the means to unification, were regarded by Michelet as impediments to the desired state of anarchy, which, for him, would alone signal the achievement of a true humanity.”45 If White is right, then it is plausible to argue that Michelet’s histories and the Gospel of Mark have similar historiographical styles, each based on a combination of emplotment as Romance, Formist or metaphorical argumentation, and Anarchist in ideological implication.

44 White, 45 White,

Metahistory, 24. Metahistory, 161–2.

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1.6 Miracle Stories in Mark46 According to Lucian, “Again, if a myth (μῦθος) comes along you must tell it but not believe it entirely; no, make it known for your audience to make of it what they will – you run no risk and lean to neither side.”47 Philostratus follows exactly this procedure. After describing how Apollonius “woke up the maiden from her seeming death,” he adds the following comments: Now whether he detected some spark of life in her, which those who were nursing her had not noticed, – for it is said that although it was raining at the time, a vapor went up from her face – or whether life was really extinct, and he restored it by the warmth of his touch, is a mysterious problem which neither I myself nor those who were present could decide.48

Mark’s technique in narrating the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead may be an adaptation of this typical historiographical practice. When Jesus enters the house and sees people weeping and wailing, he says, “Why are you distressed and weeping? The child has not died but is sleeping” (5:39). The announcement of people from Jairus’ household that the girl had died (5:35) implies that Jesus has restored life to one who had died. Nevertheless, Jesus’ remark that she was sleeping allows the readers to make up their own minds about the question. Wayne Booth and others have taught us to see an author’s presence and rhetorical activity in the selection and arrangement of episodes.49 Mark selected the story about the healing of the blind man of Bethsaida from a collection of miracle stories that he used as a source. He apparently moved this story from its place in the source in order to encourage his audience to interpret the blind man as a symbol of the disciples.50 As the blind man has only partial sight after the first healing acts of Jesus, so Peter has only partial understanding of what is involved in the messianic role of Jesus. As the healing of the blind in Isa 29:18 and 35:5 refers to both literal and metaphorical blindness, Mark presents this story as an actual healing that also has symbolic significance.51 Once again, however, readers have the option of emphasizing, or even choosing, one of these interpretations over the other. A similar argument may be made in relation to the healing of blind Bartimaeus in 10:46–52. In this case, Bartimaeus is presented as an ideal disciple in contrast to the Twelve.52 46 On the positive role of miracles in the work of Herodotus, see T.  Harrison, Divinity and History: The Religion of Herodotus (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000), 64–101. On the role of prodigies in Josephus’ history of the Jewish war and in Mark, see Becker, Markus-Evangelium, 304–40, and on the role of healing miracles in Tacitus and Mark, see ibid., 382–98. 47 Lucian Hist. Conscr. § 60 (Kilburn, LCL). According to J. Marincola, in this work of Lucian “μῦθοι and τὸ μυθῶδες denote both flattery and tall tales”; Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 125. This point raises the interesting possibility that Mark included the miracle stories to praise Jesus. From this perspective his narrative may be viewed as an encomiastic historical work. 48 Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 4.45 (Conybeare, LCL). 49 Booth, Rhetoric of Fiction, 19–20, for example. 50 Cf. 8:22–26 with 8:18; for further discussion, see Yarbro Collins, Mark, 390. 51 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 392. 52 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 506–8.

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2. Genre and the Ending of Mark Readers of Mark familiar with ancient “lives” or biographies may have seen the narration of Jesus’ death as a typical feature of such accounts. The micro-genre “story of the death of a famous man” is attested in antiquity both as an independent kind of story and as a typical part of ancient biographies.53 The account of the death of Jesus contrasts with ancient biographical traditions in two ways. First, he was executed by crucifixion, the most shameful of ancient methods. Roman citizens were subject to crucifixion for serious crimes, including high treason, but the penalty was seldom imposed on citizens.54 More importantly for our purposes, a Roman citizen who had been crucified would hardly be the subject of a biography.55 The other major difference is that the narrative of Jesus’ death is interpreted implicitly as the fulfillment of Scripture.56 Mark’s account of Jesus’ death by crucifixion is ironic. The irony begins with the mocking of Jesus by the soldiers (15:16–20). The soldiers, as characters in the narrative, parody the claim that Jesus is the messiah or king of the Jews. The passage, as text, is ironic in a dramatic sense: the perspective of the author is in sharp contrast to the literal meaning of the text. The author calls for the collaboration of the audiences in recognizing that Jesus was and is truly a king.57 The description of the placard or notice of the offense of which Jesus had been found guilty creates another ironic scene. According to Mark it read, “The king of the Jews.” If it was not attached to Jesus or to the cross in mocking irony, it functioned as a deterrent: crucifixion is what happens to those who challenge Roman authority by claiming to be king. If the narrative implies that the soldiers left the crown on Jesus’ head after they put his own clothes on him again, the crucifixion itself becomes highly ironic. The crowned and crucified Jesus is “a secret epiphany” of Jesus as the royal messiah. It reveals and conceals the mystery of the kingdom of God, announced to the disciples at Caesarea Philippi, that the kingship of the earthly Jesus is characterized by rejection, suffering, and death.58 The implication that the death of Jesus and its particular circumstances are fulfillments of Scripture reinforces the ironic hermeneutic of the crucified Jesus 53 Brief biographies were also included in historical works; for example, Herodotus’ History; see Yarbro Collins, Mark, 629–30, 632, 634–5, 638. On accounts of death in ancient biographies, see R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 74, 136, 142, 160–2. 54 M. Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 39–45. 55 The post-mortem crucifixion of Cleomenes, king of Sparta, by Ptolemy IV, is narrated by Plutarch Vit. Cleom. 39.1–2. The Alexandrians worshipped him after his death because of an omen: a serpent coiled itself around his neck to protect his face from the birds of prey; see Yarbro Collins, Mark, 765–6. 56 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 740–71. 57 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 728. This kind of irony is different from White’s explication of Irony as a trope (Metahistory, x, 37–38). 58 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 728.

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as the messiah. Through messianic exegesis of Isaiah and the psalms of individual lament, the case is made that Jesus is the messiah, not only in spite of, but also because of his shameful death.59 This death is revealed by such messianic exegesis, even though the “why” of it is left unspoken in Mark’s passion narrative. Readers of Mark familiar with biographical traditions about Romulus, Julius Caesar, and Augustus would interpret the empty tomb story in Mark as the apotheosis of Jesus, his ascent to heaven to become immortal.60 Unlike Romulus, who was taken from the earthly realm without dying, Jesus, like Caesar and Augustus, died and then was taken up and made immortal.61 Like Romulus, however, Jesus’ body was taken up and transformed. In contrast, it was the souls of Caesar and Augustus that were taken up, while their ashes remained in their family tombs. A difference between Mark and the works that describe the apotheosis of Romulus and some emperors is that Mark uses language of resurrection that is rooted in Jewish tradition. A number of differences have been noted between the passion narrative of Mark and the accounts of death and apotheosis in ancient biography. The historiographical approach to Mark can account for these differences. The narrative of Mark as a whole suggests that the kingship of God on earth is to be realized in his son Jesus (1:11) in an anticipatory way and later in a definitive way in his role as the heavenly Son of Man (8:38; 13:24–27; 14:62).62 In Mark’s narrative of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the divinely appointed messiah fulfills God’s plan, revealed in Scripture, by submitting to suffering and death on a cross. He is then raised from the dead, and his body is taken to heaven whence he will return and be revealed in glory as the Son of Man. This revelation in glory, from the point of view of Mark, was foretold in Dan 7:13–14.63

3. Conclusion The author of Mark used the word “beginning” (ἀρχή) in the opening sentence to accomplish several narrative and rhetorical tasks: to open the work, to give the work a virtual title, and to refer to the beginning of the narration of a series of events.64 In her book on Mark and ancient historiography, Eve-Marie Becker 59 Cf. D.  Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988); S. P. Ahearne-Kroll, The Psalms of Lament in Mark’s Passion: Jesus’ Davidic Suffering (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 60 A. Yarbro Collins, “Ancient Notions of Transferal and Apotheosis in Relation to the Empty Tomb Story in Mark,” in Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body, and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity (ed. T. Karlsen Seim and J. Øklund; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 41–57. 61 On Romulus see, e.g., Livy 1.16.1–8; on Julius Caesar, Ovid Metam. 15.745–870; on Augustus, Suetonius, Aug. 2.100; Cassius Dio 56.31.2–43.1. 62 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 42. 63 Cf. Yarbro Collins, Mark, 639. 64 Cf. Becker, Markus-Evangelium, 112.

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concluded that this use of the term is not a key to determining the genre of Mark.65 I would like to nuance her conclusion from the point of view of the audience or readers of Mark. As argued above, it seems likely that those readers familiar with Greek and Latin historical writings took the use of this word as a cue, a signal, that they should understand Mark as a historical work. The rest of the sentence implies that the work is an account about how the oral proclamation of the good news about Jesus began. I have argued here that Mark provides an explanation by formal argument in the explicit citation of Scripture being fulfilled in the narrative introduction to the work. This argument is continued by the implicit and explicit presentation of the fulfillment of Scripture at various points later in the narrative. Certain other passages may be interpreted as more typically historiographical explanations of why Jesus was crucified: the consultation of Pharisees with Herodians about how to destroy Jesus because he has healed on the Sabbath (3:6); the intention of the chief priests and scribes to destroy Jesus because the people were amazed at his teaching (11:18); and the trial before the Sanhedrin, a passage that Mark probably composed himself, implies that from a Jewish point of view Jesus was executed for blasphemy.66 Mark’s historiographical claims must, like any others, be assessed critically. If one concludes that any particular claim is unreliable, that does not make it any less historiographical. In this essay I have accepted Hayden White’s argument that the classic historians of the 19th century made largely unconscious, poetic choices about how to transform data as chronicle into an explanatory narrative. He defined the narratives of Jules Michelet as belonging to the kind of story called Romance by Northrup Frye. Michelet’s narratives are secular versions of a traditional kind of narrative. I have suggested that Mark’s is a traditional version of the same or a similar kind of narrative. Michelet saw “salvation” enter into history in the early stages of the French Revolution. In spite of the tragic moral decline of the agents of revolution and the later lapse into authoritarian monarchy, he expected history to move toward the unity of humankind. Analogously, Mark saw the kingdom of God manifested in the teaching and mighty deeds of Jesus. Rather than viewing his death as a tragic decline, however, he interpreted it as part of God’s plan and probably as part of the ongoing struggle of the forces of the kingdom of God with Satan and those who oppose aspects of the divine plan. In the present the followers of Jesus are to continue his proclamation and be ready to suffer and die as Jesus did. If they are loyal and endure, they will share his glory as well.67 65 Becker,

Markus-Evangelium, 112.

66 See also Mark 12:12; 14:1, 10–11. On Mark 3:6, see Yarbro Collins, Mark, 80; Becker, Markus-

Evangelium, 126, 168. On 11:18, see Yarbro Collins, Mark, 82; Becker, Markus-Evangelium, 168. On the trial before the Jerusalem council, see Yarbro Collins, Mark, 698–710; on the conviction of Jesus for blasphemy, see Yarbro Collins, “The Charge of Blasphemy in Mark 14.64,” JSNT 26 (2004): 379–401. 67 Mark 8:34–9:1; 13:9–13.

Hearing the Gospels of Matthew and Mark Stephen Westerholm In this paper I would like to reflect upon, or at least raise questions about, the nature and purpose of Mark’s and Matthew’s Gospels. But to keep my reflections grounded in textual reality, I take as my starting-point a familiar narrative found only in our two Gospels, commonly referred to as the “call” of Peter and Andrew, James and John. I assume Markan priority throughout and quote here the version in Mark 1:16–20. The minor variations in Matthew need not detain us here. As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.1

And so, to my question: What do our Evangelists expect, or want, their listeners to hear in this text?

1. A Story from the Past I begin with what is most obvious, but perhaps for that reason most easily overlooked. Our Evangelists tell, and want their listeners to hear, a story belonging irretrievably to the past. Apart from one verb in the historical present in Matthew’s account, the tenses of verbs in the indicative mood are all past, usually aorist. Whatever substance there may be to scholarly talk of a historical consciousness peculiar to the modern West, first century listeners to our Gospels were very aware that Jesus once “passed along the Sea of Galilee” but did so no more. Even first century listeners knew, and our Evangelists wanted them to know, that what happened in this story happened once and – as related in this story – does not happen again. The same can be said of the entire content of Mark and Matthew: our Evangelists are keenly aware of the pastness of the story they tell and of significant differences between the time of their telling, on the one hand, and their own – and their readers’ – present, on the other.2 Then the disciples of Jesus could hardly be expected 1 Biblical

quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version. J. Roloff, Das Kerygma und der irdische Jesus: Historische Motive in den Jesus-Erzählungen der Evangelien (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970); G. N. Stanton, Jesus of Nazareth in 2 Cf.

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to fast, any more than wedding guests fast in the presence of the bridegroom; now, with the bridegroom gone, there is no hindrance to fasting (Mark 2:18–20 par. Matt 9:14–15). Then the Son of Man was in their midst; now they are like servants whose master has gone on a journey, leaving each with a task to perform and a charge to keep watch (Mark 13:33–37; Matt 24:45–51). Then Jesus confined the focus of his activities to the Jewish people; now the gospel is going out to all the world (Mark 7:27 and 13:10; 14:9; Matt 15:25 and 28:19). Then his closest followers repeatedly demonstrated their lack of faith (so, typically, Mark), or little faith (so, typically, Matthew), and an almost uncanny knack for misapprehending their Master’s words (so Matthew,3 Mark, Luke, and John); now they are pillars in his church. Whatever its present significance, the story of our Gospels is told throughout as belonging to the past. Remarkably, too, our Evangelists almost never interrupt their narrative to address their readers directly with a word about its present significance. The exceptions are so few that they may be listed here. In Mark 7:19, after Jesus’ explanation (v. 18) to his disciples that “whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile,” we read, “Thus he declared all foods clean.” (As is well known, Matthew lacks a parallel to this comment.) This English rendering (that of the NRSV) is actually a good deal clearer than the Greek; but a reader attentive to the masculine gender of καθαρίζων will presumably realize that the subject must be Jesus, and that we have here not a continuation of Jesus’ speech but a comment about its importance. It is a very telling and significant comment indeed; but for our purposes what is most remarkable about it is its rarity. In Mark 13:14, Jesus’ words “When you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be” are followed by a parenthetical comment, “Let the reader understand.” The latter words are almost certainly to be taken as an interruption of the narrative coming from the narrator himself (who is writing for readers), not as spoken by Jesus within the narrative (where he addresses only hearers).4 Matthew (24:15) reads somewhat differently: “When you see the desolating sacrilege standing in the holy place, as was spoken of by the prophet Daniel (let the reader understand)….” Here it is probably the words of the prophet Daniel that readers are to understand, and Daniel’s readers include Jesus’ disciples.5 Hence in Matthew New Testament Preaching (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); E. Lemcio, The Past of Jesus in the Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); C. F. D. Moule, “The Function of the Synoptic Gospels,” in Glaube und Eschatologie: Festschrift für Werner Georg Kümmel zum 80. Geburtstag (ed. E. Grässer and O. Merk; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985), 199–208; B. Gerhardsson, The Origins of the Gospel Traditions (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 43–6. 3 It is true that a measure of understanding is attributed to the disciples in Matthew; cf. U. Luz, Studies in Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 121–3 (following Barth). Note, nonetheless, Matt 15:16; 16:9. 4 The alternative would be that Jesus refers to the reader of Daniel; so Matthew appears to have understood the text, but it is not a self-evident reading of Mark. 5 Cf. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (3 vols.; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988–97), 3:346; U. Luz, Matthew 21–28: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 195.

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the parenthetical remark can, and probably should, be understood as words spoken by Jesus to his disciples on the Mount of Olives. Matthew thus lacks Mark’s explicit address to his readers. Before leaving Mark 13, I should mention briefly v. 37, remarkable in its singularity inasmuch as Mark’s reader is directly addressed, but not by the narrator, and without any interruption to the narrative. As in Deut 29:14–15, where Moses is (uniquely) permitted to speak not only to those Israelites assembled with him beyond the Jordan in the land of Moab, but also to “those who are not here with us today,” so according to Mark 13:37, Jesus concludes his words to Peter, James, John, and Andrew with an admonition explicitly directed, not only to those present with him on the Mount of Olives, but to “all”: “And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” For once, readers are left without the “But I didn’t realize …” excuse for failing to apply to themselves what Jesus says to his disciples. Again, Matthew has no parallel. At the beginning of Mark 2 and Matt 9, Jesus provokes the consternation of certain scribes by telling a paralyzed man that his sins are forgiven. I pick up the narrative at Mark 2:9, with Jesus speaking: “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he spoke to the paralytic – “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” (2:9–11)

There are no significant differences in Matthew (9:5–6). As the NRSV construes the passage, all the words I have cited are spoken by Jesus apart from the Evangelist’s stage cue, “he spoke to the paralytic.” I think this the most likely reading of the passage, but some scholars ascribe more than a stage cue to the Evangelist. On their reading, it is the Evangelist who addresses his readers at the beginning of that particular sentence by saying, “But so that you [i.e., my readers] may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he spoke to the paralytic ….” If this reading is correct we have here another exceptional case in which the Evangelist explicitly draws out the significance of his narrative for his readers. But I think the reading unlikely.6 It has sometimes been suggested that Mark 2:28 (“So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath”), which lacks a parallel in the other synoptics, is the Evangelist’s comment on the implications of the preceding episode.7 But it is again more likely that the words are intended as a continuation of Jesus’ speech. 6 So also J. Marcus, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 218, contra, e.g., C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to Saint Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 100. 7 Cranfield, Saint Mark, 118. Cf. M. D. Hooker, The Gospel according to Saint Mark (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991), 105, who refers as well to the commentaries of E. Klostermann, Das Markus-Evangelium (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1926); A. E. J. Rawlinson, The Gospel according to St. Mark (London: Methuen, 1925); V. Taylor, The Gospel according to St. Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes (London: Macmillan & Co., 1952), D. E. Nineham, Saint

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I make no claims to exhaustiveness – my point would not be affected if there were another case or two  – but to the best of my knowledge, these are all the occasions in which either or both of our Evangelists interrupt (or may interrupt) their narrative with a direct address to their readers that is intended to indicate the present significance of their story. To be sure, they elsewhere interrupt their story for purposes of clarification (e.g., of Jewish washings in Mark 7:3–4) or identification (e.g., that Simon of Cyrene was the father of Alexander and Rufus [Mark 15:21]). And Matthew in particular is wont to interrupt his narrative of the past to point out that Scripture has found its fulfillment in what he tells. But my point remains: Mark and Matthew almost never depart from their narrative of the past to comment on its significance for the present or to exhort their readers to think or believe or behave in appropriate ways. Luke’s Gospel proceeds along similar lines, but at least Luke introduces the whole by telling his reader what to make of what follows (1:1–4). The Fourth Evangelist makes the intended point of his Gospel explicit at the end (20:30–31). Mark and Matthew never do. Now there is no doubt that both Evangelists see their narratives as having present implications. But the operative word is “implications.” Whatever pastoral or political or evangelical purposes our Evangelists may have entertained, they remain implicit; the confines of a narrative of the past are respected. Even the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:3–7:27), for all its pressing importance for every follower of Jesus, is introduced as words spoken at a particular place and time to a particular group of people, and it ends by noting their response, and where Jesus went once he finished addressing them. Clearly here, as throughout both Gospels, the Evangelists have provided – perhaps intentionally provided – raw material on which sermons could be based. The assemblies among which the Gospels were written undoubtedly featured such sermons. Indeed, given that our Evangelists can hardly have been backbenchers in their assemblies, we may well imagine that they themselves preached many of these sermons. But not here. Here they tell a story; they do not preach.8 Mark (London: Penguin Books, 1963) and H.  Anderson, The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981). 8  Cf. Gerhardsson, Origins, 67: “The mystery of Jesus is not presented here in the framework of proclamation, teaching, or admonition. We find here that a number of independent words and narratives have been brought together to form an account of a bygone period in the history of salvation. The fact that there is an edifying intention in the evangelists’ presentation in no way belies this assertion.” Martin Hengel sees in Mark’s Gospel an inseparable combination of narrative and proclamation (The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ [Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2000], 86); this is true, but only to the extent that the narrative itself is understood as proclamation, i.e., as the announcing (κηρύσσειν) of good news (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον). Mark regularly uses the verb κηρύσσειν for the dissemination of the gospel (1:14; 13:10; 14:9), and (as we shall note below) no doubt understood his Gospel as a written equivalent of its oral proclamation. The point here is that his written account of the past is not accompanied by any such exhortation as “Repent and believe the gospel” (cf. 1:15; Acts 2:38; 13:38–41; 2 Cor 5:20, etc.), though exhortation along these lines seems inevitable when the gospel is proclaimed orally. Hengel himself appears sensitive to this point: “the story told in it [i.e., in Mark’s Gospel] calls hearers to belief in the

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Much, no doubt, could be said on the matter. For the moment I offer four reflections. 1.1 In part there is, I suspect, a straightforward, almost technical explanation for this procedure. Years ago, Birger Gerhardsson challenged one of the fundamental assumptions of many form critics when he insisted that early Christian paraenesis could not have been the primary setting in which the Jesus tradition was passed on. Allusions to the tradition are frequent in such material; indeed, paraenetic material is “full of borrowed motifs, ideas, words, and phrases.” But explicit quotations are almost never found.9 In paraenesis, the Jesus’ tradition was applied; but, as was common in the ancient world, so in the early church the transmission of foundational texts was distinct from the exercise of commenting on them or drawing out their practical implications.10 That observation is confirmed both in the way Paul speaks of “delivering” to his churches Jesus traditions that he himself had “received” (1 Cor 11:23; 15:3),11 and in a number of features of the gospel tradition itself. Note, for example, that sayings of Jesus making very different points were at times assembled in a block for mnemonic purposes by a catchword principle (i.e., because they share a key word in common).12 The immediate purpose of such a collection can only be to facilitate its recollection and preservation, leaving the catechist or paraeneticist to distinguish and apply the points made by juxtaposed sayings whose commonality is verbal, not thematic. Or consider the so-called “floating” logia of the gospel tradition,13 sayings that have been detached from the context essential for their meaning and preserved (unfortunately, we may think) independently of any context merely because sayings of Jesus demand preservation:14 it was left to the Evangelists to figure out an appropriate point and context for sayings like “A disciple is not above the teacher”15 or “Nothing is covered up

person who is described in it, Jesus, the Messiah and Son of God, and thus to eternal life; in other words it seeks to be wholly and completely a message of salvation” (91). Note: it is the story itself, not the story-teller, that calls for faith.  9 Gerhardsson, Origins, 38–9; also 67–8. For the isolation of the gospel tradition’s transmission from other activities, see also Gerhardsson’s article “Der Weg der Evangelientradition,” in Das Evangelium und die Evangelien (ed. P. Stuhlmacher; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), 79–102; R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 278–9. 10 Gerhardsson, Origins, 20. 11 Gerhardsson, Origins, 33–41. 12 Cf. R.  Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (rev. ed.; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1968), 325–6, citing Mark 4:31 ff.; 9:33 ff.; Luke 11:34–36. 13 See G. Lindeskog, “Logia-Studien,” ST 4 (1950): 129–89. 14 Samuel Byrskog, noting the importance placed on Jesus as the exclusive teaching authority in Matthew’s Gospel, concludes that its community, like other groups that grew up around prophets and teachers, “cherished Jesus’ teaching, life, and person for their own sakes” (Jesus the Only Teacher [Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1994], 400). That must be right. 15 Note the different constructions put on these (or similar) words in Matt 10:24–25; Luke 6:40; John 13:13–16; 15:20.

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that will not be uncovered”16 or “To those who have, more will be given”17or “If one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”18 Or note the preservation of sayings whose obscurity hardly lends itself to any immediate paraenetic purpose, but which nonetheless were preserved because, if Jesus’ mother could treasure in her heart words she did not understand (Luke 2:50–51; cf. 2:19), then – doggonit – his followers would do the same. I am thinking of texts like the impenetrable Matt 11:12 (“The kingdom of heaven βιάζεται [whatever that means], and βιασταί [whoever they are] ἁρπάζουσιν αὐτήν [your guess is as good as mine]”),19 or (my personal favorite) Mark 9:49 (“Everyone will be salted with fire”).20 No doubt we have all tried our hand at explaining such texts; but can you imagine anyone trying to preach them with conviction? If, then, the transmission of the Jesus tradition was carried on independently of other activities in the early church, it is perhaps not surprising that, in what is in some ways the culmination of that process, the composition of written Gospels, the distinction between passing on the material and its homiletic application is maintained. To be sure, the activity of our Evangelists in shaping their narrative goes far beyond the simple collecting and recording of traditional materials. Nonetheless the preservation of tradition undoubtedly remains part of their agenda. It is, after all, not likely to be coincidental that our Gospels were written at roughly the same time as the generation that witnessed Jesus’ activities was passing away.21 1.2 Again, lest what is self-evident should be overlooked because not stated, let it be said that our Evangelists obviously thought that the story of Jesus was worth telling for its own sake. That, after all, is what they have done. Of course individual texts can be found in which indirect reference to contemporary concerns seems plausible, perhaps probable, maybe virtually certain. But even if we could be certain that such references were intended by the Evangelists, it remains the case that they chose to keep them oblique; and their occurrence, in the context of the Gospels as a whole, is sporadic at best. It seems safe to say that, had the primary purpose of our Evangelists been to address specific situations in particular communities, the results would have looked quite different than our Gospels. The Evangelists, it appears, were not to be distracted from the fundamental task of telling the story of Jesus – for the obvious reason that, in their minds, it had decisively altered the situation in which they and their readers were living.22 Whatever contemporary 16 Compare

Matt 10:26 + Mark 4:22 + Luke 8:17 + 12:2. Matt 13:12 + 25:29 + Mark 4:25 + Luke 8:19 + 19:26. 18 Compare Matt 15:14 + Luke 6:39. 19 Cf. W. Manson, Jesus the Messiah (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1943), 28. 20 For the phenomenon of transmitting texts whose meaning has been forgotten or wording damaged, see B. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (Lund: Gleerup, 1961), 129–30. 21 Cf. Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 7, 308–10. 22 Cf. A. Yarbo Collins, The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 21–3. 17 Compare

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issues within Christian communities required addressing were, for the moment, outweighed in importance by the task of retelling the unsubstitutable story on which the communities themselves were founded. 1.3 It is of course in the extended discourses of Jesus that we are least aware of the distinction between the pastness of his activities and the present of the readers.23 Such discourses are much more prominent in Matthew than in Mark. Furthermore, Matthew typically abbreviates Mark’s stories, omitting many of the latter’s circumstantial details, thus highlighting what is typical and essential (and thus of ongoing significance) rather than what is distinctive (and therefore confined to the past) about each narrative.24 As a result, it is, I think, true to say that the reader of Mark is more conscious throughout of the pastness of the narrative than is the reader of Matthew. But Matthew, too, remains exclusively a narrative of the past. 1.4 A final observation on this point merits further reflection, though here it must remain simply an observation. All that has been said so far of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew could be said of the narrative of the Pentateuch as well, or of the Deuteronomistic History. At many points the stories of Israel’s patriarchs permit reading on more than one level; but they are told as a simple narrative of the past. The Moses of Deuteronomy undoubtedly addresses later generations of his people, but – apart from 29:15 – not in the narrative itself. Few biblical writers are as inclined to preach as the Deuteronomistic Historian; but for the most part he does his preaching through the mouths of characters in his story. These narratives, too, tell a story that fundamentally shapes the world of their readers; but readers are similarly left to draw out the implications themselves.25

2. An Exemplary Narrative? So Mark and Matthew tell, and expect hearers to hear, a story of the past. But moralists of all ages have told stories of the past in the expectation that hearers will 23  Ulrich Luz (Matthew 1–7: A Commentary [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007], 12) proposes that Jesus’ discourses in Matthew are “spoken directly to the readers and are Jesus’ direct commandment to them.” This, to my mind, captures but exaggerates an important point. The exaggeration is perhaps most evident in 10:5–6, a command pertinent to Jesus’ hearers, but one that Matthew clearly sees as superseded by 28:18–20. Indeed, one can put the point more broadly (as Luz himself does, 146): “the mission discourse is remarkable for its strange lack of concern about the time to which it applies,” as it mixes without comment commands directly appropriate only in their narratival setting with others that seem directly appropriate only to the post-Easter community. Again, we must conclude that addressing the present was not Matthew’s primary concern. 24 Cf. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 17, 22. 25 Ulrich Luz is among those who speak of the Gospels as telling a “‘foundation story’ that transcends the time difference” between the past that is recorded and the readers’ present (Commentary 1–7, 11). At the same time, it must be conceded that labeling the phenomenon does not explain it, and that it is not clear that there are any formal features in “foundation stories” that would allow their identification as a distinct genre.

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be inspired to imitate the exemplary behavior of their protagonists. Such expectations were commonly entertained by writers of ancient biographies.26 Without reopening the vexed question of genre here, we may nonetheless ask: Did Mark and Matthew write with this intention in mind? In the case of the narrative with which I began, the answer is undoubtedly yes. It is, of course, with the disciples that the first readers of the Gospels would most naturally have identified. And in this story, prospective disciples respond to Jesus’ call with full and immediate obedience, rooted – it could not be otherwise – in unquestioning faith in the one who calls them. Such faith in Jesus and obedience to his word – illustrated again when Jesus calls Levi / Matthew a little later in the Gospels (Mark 2:14 par. Matt 9:9) – all readers of the Gospels ought to imitate. So our Evangelists undoubtedly believed. Problems arise, however, when we attempt to generalize on the basis of this particular story. In neither Mark nor Matthew is it easy to find other instances in which the behavior of the disciples can be deemed exemplary. Peter’s confession of Jesus as Christ comes to mind (Mark 8:29 par. Matt 16:16), though its impact for this purpose is offset when he immediately thereafter is rebuked for setting his mind on human, not divine, things (Mark 8:32–33 par. Matt 16:22–23). After the young man who will forever bear the sobriquet “the rich young ruler” sorrowfully declines Jesus’ summons to discipleship, Peter observes that he and his cohorts, for their part, have left all and followed Jesus (Mark 10:28 par. Matt 19:27). The content of the claim, if not its making, merits imitation. But generally the disciples are a dull and doubting lot whose behavior calls rather for Jesus’ exemplary patience than for imitation by others. Is the story of Jesus himself, then, told to inspire imitation? In some ways, yes; but much too much is made, in both Mark and Matthew, of Jesus’ utter uniqueness to make this a dominant motif.27 Certainly all should be compassionate as Jesus is seen to be compassionate. And hearers of the written Gospels are undoubtedly meant to be summoned, as Jesus’ hearers in the Gospels are summoned, to take up their cross and follow him (Mark 8:34 par. Matt 16:24), to be prepared to live without the comforts of home as he had nowhere to lay his head (Matt 8:20), to endure the same kind of abuse he endured (Matt 10:24–25), to live to serve others as he came, not to be served, but to serve (Mark 10:45 par. Matt 20:28). But even the latter text, as explicit a call to the imitation of Jesus as any in the Gospels, continues by noting that the Son of Man uniquely gave his life “a ransom for many.” Imitation only goes so far. Mark’s Jesus is the mysterious and powerful Son of God, whose epiphany causes demons and disciples alike to quake (1:24; 4:41; 6:49–50; 9:6). Matthew’s Gospel begins with a baby worshiped by magi and ends with the Lord of heaven and earth worshiped by disciples (2:11; 28:9, 17). On the whole, the D. E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), 36. 27 Cf. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 14. 26  Cf.

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story of Jesus in the Gospels seems intended to inspire faith, allegiance, obedience, and worship more than imitation.

3. A “Transparent” Narrative? Returning to the narrative with which we began, we may well think that hearers of the Gospels are not simply invited to imitate those who left all and followed Jesus, but – if we may assume that they belong to communities of Jesus’ followers – to recognize something of themselves and their own experience in the story of those who first followed Jesus. Jesus, we are told, “called” James and John (Mark 1:20 par. Matt 4:21). The term is a common and significant one in early Christian writings. Paul writes to those “called to be saints” (Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:2), or, simply, “the called” (1 Cor 1:24). His readers are to live in a way “worthy” of their “calling” (1 Thess 2:12; cf. Eph 4:1). They are to note the low standing in society from which they were drawn when they were “called” (1 Cor 1:26), and to be content to remain in the standing in which they found themselves when “called” (1 Cor 7:17–24). “The one who calls” them (1 Thess 5:24; cf. Gal 1:6; 5:8) is of course God, and it is to God’s “kingdom and glory” that God calls them (1 Thess 2:12; cf. 1 Cor 1:9). So far Paul. But the readers of the Letter to the Hebrews are also “partners in a heavenly calling” (3:1). Those of 1 Peter have been “called” by God “out of darkness into his marvelous light” (2:9); and they are reminded, “As he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct” (1:15). Jude, too, addresses those who are “called” (Jude 1). Nor is the language of “calling” in these texts an empty metaphor. As the Evangelists tell the story, we are surely not to imagine that Peter and Andrew, James and John, Levi or Matthew would have abandoned all they owned and all they were doing at the “call” of Jesus unless they had heard, in that call, a summons with divine force, a divine imperative – in effect, the call of God.28 But Paul makes precisely this point when he speaks both of those who proclaimed and of those who responded to the Christian gospel. Including himself in the former, he writes that “God is making his appeal through us,” so that “we” and God are co-workers (2 Cor 5:20; 6:1). According to 2 Thess 2:14, God “calls” people precisely “through our proclamation” of the gospel. The Thessalonians themselves, Paul claims, were alert to this dimension of his message: “We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received 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 28 Marcus (Mark 1–8, 181), noting that the verb “call” is used in Deutero-Isaiah in passages that speak of God’s commissioning of Israel (41:9; 42:6, etc.), proposes that in our passage too “the call of God undergirds the call of Jesus.” Cf. also M. Hengel, The Charismatic Leader and His Followers (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 71–2. In any case, the use of the verb without further definition suggests that the term carries with it something of the technical sense of a summons to faith in, or discipleship of, Jesus.

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in you believers” (1 Thess 2:13). His words reflect, of course, his own perception of the matter; but, given the response, it must have corresponded to the perception and experience of his readers as well. The communities that first heard the Gospels of Mark and Matthew were no different; inevitably, then, they would have recognized something of their own experience in the “call” of the first disciples. And not, of course, only there. Ulrich Luz speaks of “transparent” narratives in Matthew’s Gospel (and also in Mark’s), in which hearers can readily identify their own experience.29 In the many petitioners who bring their needs to Jesus and find relief, hearers are intended to see parallels in their own lives.30 As Günther Bornkamm famously demonstrated years ago, readers of Matthew’s Gospel are meant to see themselves in the disciples who follow Jesus into a boat, discover themselves in the midst of a storm, respond very humanly with a fear that overwhelms their faith, but find the power of Jesus more than adequate to bring them to safety.31 And here there is a point even to the dullness and weakness of the disciples, and their subsequent experience of Jesus’ patience and forgiveness, as readers are prompted to personal reminiscence, ruefulness, and gratitude. In short, at numerous points the narratives of the Gospel are meant to be heard on more than one level: as stories of the past in which hearers in the present can nonetheless recognize something of their own experience.32 At numerous points – but by no means all. As noted above, even when the story of the past invites present application, it remains, in its telling, exclusively a story of the past; hearers are left to make what connections they will to their own lives. And only the most resolute allegorizers, whether of the third century or the twenty-first, can find a direct application to the present in every detail of the Gospels. Much is told, purely and simply, because it had become a fixed part of the story: from John the Baptizer, clothed with camel’s hair and preparing the way of the Lord (Mark 1:2–8; Matt 3:1–12), to the woman whose costly ointment prepared Jesus for his burial, and whose story is to be included whenever the gospel is told (Mark 14:3–9; Matt 26:6–13). Present need or application did not, after all, determine the limits of what was remembered and preserved.

4. Indications of the Evangelists’ Intentions To this point I have considered aspects of the Gospels that seem to me, as they have seemed to many others, to suggest something of the way the Evangelists intended their narratives to be heard. I want to turn now to the text in each of our Matthew 1–7, 42; Studies, 236, 371–2, etc. Matthew 1–7, 17. 31 G. Bornkamm, “The Stilling of the Storm in Matthew,” in Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew (ed. G. Bornkamm, G. Barth, and H. J. Held; London: SCM Press, 1963), 52–7, on Matt 8:23–7. 32 Cf. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 11. 29 Luz, 30 Luz,

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Gospels where our Evangelists’ intentions appear to be most clearly in evidence: the opening verse of the Gospel of Mark, and the conclusion of Matthew’s Gospel. I begin with a series of observations on Mark 1:1 (“The beginning of the gospel [NRSV: “good news”] of Jesus Christ” [with or without “the Son of God”]). No claim to originality accompanies these observations: since the influential work of Willi Marxsen,33 there is widespread agreement among scholars on a number of basic points. 4.1 Though Mark 1:1 played a crucial role in the process by which the word “gospel” came to mean a written account of Jesus’ life, for our Evangelist himself, as elsewhere in early Christian writings, the term refers to the basic Christian message, hitherto the subject of oral proclamation. 4.2 To Mark, then, we may attribute the innovations of using the term for a written account of the gospel, and for seeing the term as an appropriate designation for a consecutive account of the ministry of Jesus – without suggesting that the term yet means “a written account of the ministry of Jesus.” 4.3 But Mark himself has Jesus going about Galilee, proclaiming the gospel and summoning people to believe it (1:14–15). The gospel that Jesus proclaims can hardly be a consecutive account of his life, though – since the same word is used of Mark’s text and of Jesus’ message – its essence must be the same; an essence shared, moreover, with the basic message of the early church (cf. 13:10; 14:9). Without protracting the discussion at this point to provide a precise definition, we may content ourselves to say that, broadly speaking, “the gospel” for Mark is the good news that God has, in the person of Jesus, launched a project for the inauguration of the promised new age34 and the salvation of human beings (for our purposes, further definition of the comprehensive term “salvation” is not needed). Though Mark (as I have repeatedly noted) does not pause to point out the necessary implication, it is clearly incumbent upon human beings to respond by believing in, and getting on board with, the divine initiative. 4.4 An equivalent to the word “gospel” in this sense, again in both the Gospel of Mark and in a host of other early Christian writings, is the word “word”:35 if the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel can summarily be said to have proclaimed the “gospel,” he can also be said simply to speak “the word” (Mark 2:2; 4:33; cf. 4:14–20). That no further definition is required itself signals the technical sense in which this most common of words is used, a technical sense found in abundance elsewhere as well (e.g., Acts 4:4; 8:4, 14; 11:1; 1 Thess 1:6; Jas 1:21; 1 Pet 1:23–25). Mark the Evangelist (Nashville: Abingdon, 1969). Collins, Beginning, 36–7. 35 Cf. G. N. Stanton, Jesus and Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 60–1. 33 W. Marxsen, 34 Cf.

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4.5 The early Christians understood neither “the word” nor “the gospel” as inert, material that served merely to convey information for the consideration of listeners. When the word, or the gospel, is spoken, a force is thought to be released; more specifically, God is thought to be at work, “calling” hearers (as noted above) into his kingdom. Isaiah 55 spoke famously of the “word” that “goes out of [God’s] mouth” and does not “return” to him “empty,” but accomplishes the purpose for which it was dispatched (Isa 55:11). A host of references in early Christian literature show that the proclamation of the word, or the gospel, was understood along similar lines.36 I quote only a few of the more obvious texts: Our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. (1 Thess 1:5) When you received 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. (1 Thess 2:13; cf. Rom 10:17) The message [literally, “the word”] about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Cor 1:18; cf. Rom 1:16) Just as it [the word of the truth, the gospel] is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it. (Col 1:5–6) Welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. (Jas 1:21) You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. For “all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” That word [namely, the “word” that Isaiah 40 is talking about] is the good news [i.e., the gospel] that was announced to you. (1 Pet 1:23–25)

Mark undoubtedly understood “the word” and the “gospel” spoken by Jesus as similarly dynamic; such is indeed suggested by the explanation given to the parable of the sower, in which, depending on the nature of its hearers, “the word” does or does not bear “fruit” in their lives (4:14–20). But, given that Mark understood what he wrote to be “the gospel,” and given his own equation of “the word” and “the gospel,” must Mark not also have understood his written text as “the [living and active] word of the Lord”? 4.6 There is no reason to think that Mark thought he was writing scripture as such, as though he anticipated his Gospel being added to an expanded version of holy writ. On the other hand, he cannot have believed that the word of God spoken through his text was in any way inferior to the word of God spoken in the accepted scriptures of his day.37 On the contrary: the word announcing the fulfillment of the ages and God’s decisive intervention for the salvation of human beings was the decisive divine word for his day. Luz, Studies, 278. Luz, Studies, 338. Note Mark 7:13, where “the word of God” in Scripture is contrasted with traditions handed down among the Pharisees. 36 Cf. 37 Cf.

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4.7 In short, Mark intended his readers to hear a foundational story from the past, one that at times offered accounts of behavior to be imitated, and one in which, more frequently, they could see something of their own experience. He also wrote his Gospel, as early Christians proclaimed the gospel, in the confidence that God would address his hearers through his words, so that, in receptive hearts, those words would bear fruit. And what of Matthew? Matthew has no equivalent to Mark 1:1; his rather more “bookish” beginning perhaps suggests that something more than a recorded equivalent of the church’s proclamation is intended. And it has already been noted that his heightened emphasis on the teaching of Jesus and, in the narrative portions of the Gospel, on what is typical and essential rather than what is circumstantial suggests that, though he too is telling the foundational story of the church, his awareness of the contemporary church’s needs may lie nearer to the surface than did Mark’s. To my mind, a clear indication of at least a large part of what Matthew thought he was doing, and of what he wanted hearers to hear in his Gospel, is found in Matt 28:18–20. The risen Jesus addresses his worshiping but perplexed disciples in these terms: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Wherever disciples are made, they are to be taught all the commands that Jesus gave to his first disciples. The latter task, within the story-line of the Gospel, should not prove too difficult: the disciples being commissioned are merely to pass on what they themselves have heard. Even they, however, could no doubt use a ready handbook to remind them of what precisely it was that Jesus had commanded them. And even more in need of such a tool would be the followers of these, Jesus’ first disciples, and their followers in turn. Matthew has come to their rescue. As elsewhere, here too he keeps within the constraints of a narrative of the past, so that when Jesus tells his disciples to teach their converts all that he has commanded them, Matthew does not add within parentheses, “Cf. the five extended discourses and numerous other logia recorded earlier in this book”; but he might as well have. Ulrich Luz puts it thus: Proto-canonical tendencies are apparent at the end of Matthew’s Gospel. With the mission command διδάσκοντες αὐτοὺς τηρεῖν πάντα ὅσα ἐνετειλάμην ὑμῖν (“teach them to observe all that I have commanded to you,” Matt. 28:20a), Matthew can actually be said to “canonize” his own book. It contains – especially in the discourses of Jesus spoken into the present – everything the messengers of Jesus need for their missionary proclamation.38

38 Luz,

Studies, 337.

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Matthew has provided an authoritative record of the teachings of Jesus, to be used as such in Christian communities. Whether or not it occurred to him that he was writing scripture, he certainly intended his writing to serve the role of Scripture in Christian communities, those already founded and those yet to be established among “all nations.” The teachings of Jesus form the backbone of the Gospel of Matthew. Yet even these ever-relevant instructional texts here find their place within the broader story of the Gospel.39 The Gospel of Matthew is, in the first place, a telling of the story of the teacher that includes his teachings; and in the end, the uniqueness of the Teacher takes priority over the substance of his teaching. As much as we need to know what he taught, we need to understand, at a still more basic level, why he is and must be the only Teacher.40 Matthew takes upon himself the task for his readers that, within his narrative, the transfiguration plays for the disciples: evoking or enhancing their faith in the Beloved Son as the necessary first stage to commending his commands to their obedience (Matt 17:5). Beyond, then, the practical purpose of conveying the Lord’s instructions, Matthew, like Mark, has written an authoritative account of the church’s foundational story intended to be an instrument for evoking faith in, allegiance and obedience to, and worship of the Teacher among all who hear his words. One final thought. The canonization of Matthew’s Gospel, like that of Mark, lay years in the future, the conclusion of an extended process. Perhaps from the very beginning, perhaps in line with the Evangelists’ own intentions, these Gospels were solemnly read in Christian assemblies.41 If so, the setting would only underline the message implicit in the texts themselves, that “this is the word of the Lord.” Nonetheless it would take time before the wider church would acknowledge these writings and not others as authoritative; still longer before their authority was attributed to the inspiration of their authors, and their very wording became the subject of reverent exegesis. But each new stage in the process, it seems to me, marked a change in degree, not an alteration in kind. In the minds of our authors themselves, and surely in the understanding of their first hearers, these were authoritative accounts of the grand initiative, conveying a divine imperative. If the whole story of the canonization of these texts is to be told, we must begin with the nature of the writings themselves and the intentions of their authors.42

Luz, Matthew 1–7, 5, 14. Teacher; cf. Gerhardsson, Origins, 47–9. 41 Cf. L. Hartman, “Das Markusevangelium, ‘für die lectio sollemnis im Gottesdienst abgefasst’?” in Geschichte – Tradition – Reflexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag. Band III: Frühes Christentum (ed. H.  Lichtenberger; 3 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 3:147–71. 42 Cf. also D. M. Smith, “When Did the Gospels Become Scripture?” JBL 119 (2000): 3–20; and, for the Gospel of John, F. J. Moloney, “The Gospel of John as Scripture,” CBQ 67 (2005): 454–68. 39 Cf.

40 Byrskog,

The Place of Mark and Matthew in Canonical Theology A Historical Perspective1 Mogens Müller 1. Introduction: The Fourfold Gospel as a Canonical Fact In Adversus haereses 3.11.7–8, Irenaeus argued rather extensively for the necessity of the existence of four gospels. That the number was four seems to be dictated by self-evident facts, including the obviously widespread acceptance in his time of the Four Gospels known from the New Testament. The contrasting view, which Irenaeus identifies in a series of heretics, but especially Marcion, is that only one gospel is needed. This could easily seem to be the most natural point of view, and for that reason Irenaeus has to defend the tradition of the fourfold gospel. Whether his argument is still valid is a question which I will here leave aside. For Irenaeus, as for us today, the Four Gospels are a “canonical” fact.2 The argument for the four was not only meant to deny the sufficiency of one gospel, it was also intended to exclude further gospels. And from Adversus haereses we know that Irenaeus was acquainted with several more books bearing the label “gospel” in their titles. This was, however, not how it began. As far as critical scholarship is concerned, writing a gospel in the form of a story about the earthly Jesus was initiated by the anonymous writer behind the Gospel of Mark. And if this leaves us with the impression that a “gospel” as the story of the life, acts, and death of Jesus did not exist in the first century for thirty five years of the history of the Christian Church, we would be correct to think as much.

2. The Beginning: The Gospel of Mark Thus it was a drastic and substantial innovation when the author of the Gospel of Mark claimed his story about the earthly Jesus to be “gospel” (εὐαγγέλιον) when he introduced his book as “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ). There are good reasons to think that the author has taken over the term εὐαγγέλιον from Paul as a summary of the message of salva1 For

generous help with revising my English I want to thank warmly Dr. Jim West.

2 The same is the case with his pupil Tatian, who in his Diatessaron exclusively drew his material

from the four “canonical” Gospels.

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tion (cf., for instance, Paul’s expression “my gospel” in Rom 2:16),3 signaling not only that he is writing its foundation history, but also that his book contains the gospel. It is not only this adoption of a central Pauline term which might suggest a theological connection between Paul’s letters and the Gospel of Mark. Pauline influence on the Gospel of Mark has been noted by many for a good while. The question is whether or not it is possible to take one step further and look upon this first gospel as an attempt to represent the Pauline “Christ Jesus” in his earthly life, that is, to exchange the vertical perspective for a horizontal.4 2.1 The Gospel Genre: Meant for Use in Worship This, of course, raises the question about the reason for the rise of the gospel genre. Several aspects need to be taken into consideration. Much work has been done to show that the gospels belong to the genre of antique biography.5 This view has some truth in it. The natural choice for a model for the mode of writing in the gospel genre, however, is, at least for the Synoptic Gospels, the stories such as those about the prophets Elijah and Elisha in the Books of Samuel and Kings. The Synoptics are written in continuation of the biographical stories of Jewish Holy Scripture, in the form of the Old Greek translation, the Septuagint.6 Of course the resemblance is only partial, the Gospels having only one principal figure. Thus it seems to have been a requirement of the early Christian congregations to have special Christian texts for their worship, alongside texts from the Jewish “Bible.” For some time and in certain congregations, letters of Paul could have satisfied this need. Assuming that these early congregations formed their worship more or less in accordance with what took place in the Jewish synagogues, they would have read from the Law and the Prophets, and this soon invited the creation of a book containing the story of Jesus Christ. In that case the first gospel had not only been received as Scripture, but had also been intended to be so. This seems 3 See also O.  Wischmeyer, “Zitat und Allusion als Literarische Eröffnung des Markusevangeliums,” in Im Namen des Anderen: Die Ethik des Zuhörens (ed. J. Jacobs and M. Mayer; München: Wilhelm Fink, 2010), 175–86, esp. 186, pointing out the analogy between the beginning of Mark and Rom 1:1–3. 4 The first to think along these lines seems to be G. Volkmar (1809–1893), first in Die Religion Jesu und ihre erste Entwickelung nach dem gegenwärtigen Stande der Wissenschaft (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1857), later more elaboratly in Die Evangelien oder Marcus und die Synopsis der kanonischen und ausserkanonischen Evangelien nach dem ältesten Text mit historisch-exegetischem Kommentar (Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag, 1870) (2nd ed. as Marcus und die Synopse der Evangelien nach dem urkundlichen Text und das Geschichtliche vom Leben Jesu, [Zürich: C. Schmidt, 1876]). See M. Werner, Der Einfluβ paulinischer Theologie im Markusevangelium (Gieβen: Töpelmann, 1923), 1. Further the instructive overview in W. R. Telford in his The Theology of the Gospel of Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 164–9; cf. idem, Writing on the Gospel of Mark (Dorset: Deo Publishing 2010), 22 and 467–9 (literature). 5 Cf., not least, R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 6 Cf. M.  Reiser, “Die Stellung der Evangelien in der antiken Literaturgeschichte,” ZNW 90 (1999): 1–27, esp. 20–4.

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confirmed from the oldest reference to written gospels in Justin Martyr’s Apology, where he speaks of the “the memoirs of the apostles” (τὰ ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων) being read alongside the “writings of the prophets” in Christian gatherings on the day called Sunday (1.67), the same memoirs having just been identified as “Gospels” (αὐτῶν ἀπομνημονεύμασιν, ἃ καλεῖται εὐαγγέλια, 1.66). Later, in Dialogue with Trypho, Justin even seems to know of four such “gospels” (Dial 103:8). Their very use in worship confirmed their later status as canonical. This special aspect in the genesis of the Gospel of Mark has been seen not only by Michael Goulder and others subscribing to a lectionary hypothesis,7 but also by the Swedish scholar Lars Hartman. In an article dedicated to Martin Hengel, he reaches a positive conclusion to the question whether the Gospel of Mark is written “für die lectio sollemnis im Gottesdienst.”8 In this context, Hartman introduces some important considerations, even assuming that Col 3:16 describes the sociolinguistic situation in which the gospels – when first created – found their natural place. Thus, the gospels were created primarily for reading in worship, and the very special character of the text is thereby conveyed. As is common in the world of religions, Christian worship constitutes a meeting between God and man. Here – among other things – divine deeds in the past are made present in the cult and relevant to the cult’s participants. Accordingly, the Jewish Sabbath worship consisted of scripture readings, which were followed by exposition. Thus the past also was made present and fruitful for the actual life of the believer through the reading of the Gospel and through the teaching and admonition attached to it, as well as in hymns (Col 3:16). In this way the Gospel played an essential role for the identity of the listeners; its content laid the foundation and they were strengthened and confirmed through its being made present.9

I think that Lars Hartman has seen a very important aspect in the genesis of the Gospel of Mark – and for the gospel genre as such as represented by the four Gospels which later became canonized. They were primarily meant for use in worship alongside or instead of texts from the Jewish “Bible.”10  7  See Midrash and Lection in Matthew (2nd ed.; London: SPCK, 1977) and The Evangelists’ Calendar (London: SPCK, 1978). On Mark, see especially The Evangelists’ Calendar, 241–306. M. Goodacre, Goulder and the Gospels: An Examination of a New Paradigm (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996) admits to the difficulties in substantiating the lectionary hypothesis but refers to its obvious “explanatory power” (360–2).  8 See L. Hartman, “Das Markusevangelium, ‘für die lectio sollemnis im Gottesdienst abgefasst’?” in Geschichte – Tradition – Reflexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. H. Cancik, H. Lichtenberger, and P. Schäfer; 3 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 1:147–71; quoted according to the reprint in L. Hartman, Text-Centered New Testament Studies (ed. D. Hellholm; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 25–51.  9 Hartman, “Das Markusevangelium,” 45 (my translation from the German). 10 I am well aware of the selective character of my presentation of the “genre” of the Gospel of Mark. E.-M. Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 6–36 (‘Geschichte und Probleme der jüngeren Markus-Forschung’) offers an instructive overview of other aspects of the discussion of the character and goal of Mark.

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2.2 From Paul to Mark In this way, the Gospel of Mark fulfills the same function as the Pauline gospel. That is, Paul’s gospel facilitates the new life which he expected the members of his congregations to realize. And it is, if not natural, then at least a very obvious conclusion that this new life was considered a consequence of being included in the new covenant. In an important passage in 2 Cor 3:6 Paul describes himself as “a minister of the new covenant (διάκονος καινῆς διαθήκης), not in a written code but in the Spirit.”11 Participation in this new life, which Paul also describes as a new creation (καινὴ κτίσις), is made possible through God’s reconciling mankind with himself in Jesus Christ (cf. 2 Cor 5:17–21). With this background in mind, it is to be expected that someone would write the story of how this new covenant came about. In Markan usage, “gospel” is still the sum of the series of events which he describes, not his book. The step to identify these two entities as one is but little.12 Thus it is also natural to take the genitive Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ as foremost objective and not subjective: Jesus Christ is the gospel. On the other hand, the Gospel of Mark indicates a substantial transformation of the different Jesus traditions which had until then existed separately or in small collections. It is to the abiding credit of the Formgeschichte approach to have pointed out that the different traditions about Jesus’ sayings and actions, his suffering and death, have been formed by their use in preaching and teaching prior to their inclusion in the gospel story. The internal consistency and the final form of many of the single pericopes confirm this conclusion. It also informs us of their authoritative status in preaching and teaching. 2.3 The Shift from Charismatic Authority to Tradition-Authority By the transformation of a Pauline vertical Christology concerned with the heavenly authority of Christ into a horizontal story, the author behind the Gospel of Mark seemingly wanted to “narrativize” this very authority. By this move, however, away from the more charismatic sort of authority, he opened the door for a tradition-authority insisting upon offering the true and therefore correct ‘Jesus tradition.’ This shift, described by means of the authority model of Max Weber, has been emphasized by my colleague Geert Hallbäck in a series of contributions.13 11 In M. Müller, “The Hidden Context: Some Observations to the Concept of the New Covenant in the New Testament,” in Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in Their Textual and Situational Contexts: Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman (ed. T. Fornberg and D. Hellholm; Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995), 649–58, I have tried to argue that the concept of the new covenant is basic to practically all New Testament authors. 12 Cf. the observation in M. Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1919), 81 n. 1; (3rd ed., 1959 = 2nd ed., 1933), 264 n. 1, that where Mark 13:10 and 14:9 have τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, the author behind the Gospel of Matthew changes it to τοῦτο τὸ εὐαγγέλιον. “Für Markus ist das Evangelium eine ausserhalb des Buches stehende Grösse; Matthäus kann mit Recht sagen: ‘dies Evangelium, das ich in meinem Buche darbiete.’” 13 G. Hallbäck, “The Earthly Jesus: The Gospel Genre and the Types of Authority,” in The New Testament in Its Hellenistic Context: Proceedings of a Nordic Conference of New Testament Scholars

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And another colleague of mine, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, in a brief article, has even argued for the thesis that there exists an extensive similarity between Paul in his letters and the Gospel of Mark.14 Thus Troels Engberg-Pedersen is inclined to understand the Gospel of Mark as a narrativization of concepts which in one way or the other are central in the letters of Paul as well. This demands reading the Gospel of Mark as a narrative construction. When this is done, the amount of meaning which is indisputably present in the text it is quite extraordinary, but it is only seen when one forces oneself to read it in this way. Thus Troels Engberg-Pedersen argues that the reader of Mark was very likely to see what we also see in the paraenetic sections in Paul’s letters, which leads him to speak of the “indirect paraenesis of the Gospel of Mark.”15 2.4 The Common Denominator: A New Creation The shift from the letter form of Paul to the narrative gospel form of Mark thus had its tertium comparationis in the consciousness they aimed at creating, which may be summarized under the heading “new creation” (καινὴ κτίσις). This aspect would be substantially strengthened if the thesis of my former colleague Henrik Tronier were accepted, that the Gospel of Mark was composed as an allegory. Thus Tronier claims “that Mark was written the way Philo interpreted the biblical narratives about the lives and journeys of Abraham and Moses, the founders of the Jewish people” and that “by means of allegorical composition Mark continued the aim and strategy of Paul’s allegorical interpretation of scripture, the law and the Jewish ethnic identity markers in the construction of a Christ-believing identity vis-à-vis non-Christ-believing, law-abiding Jews.”16 That, however, needs further work to be determined probable.17 Even without the support of this argument, it is possible to claim that the Gospel of Mark consists of a text practically written as canonical: it is a story meant for devotional reading in worship, which reveals (ed. G. A. Jónsson, E. Sigurbjörnsson, and P. Pétursson; Reykjavík, 1996), 135–45. Later also for instance in idem, “Den himmelske og den jordiske Jesus: Om forskellen mellem hymnernes og evangeliernes Jesus-billede,” in Frelsens biografisering (ed. T. L. Thompson and H. Tronier; Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2004), 190–213. It should be remarked that Hallbäck is not drawing the same conclusions with regard to the relation between Paul and the Gospel of Mark as I am. 14 T. Engberg-Pedersen, “Biografisering: Teologi og narration i Markusevangeliet kap. 8–10,” in Frelsens biografisering, 177–89. 15 Engberg-Pedersen, “Biografisering,” 186. 16 See H. Tronier, “Markusevangeliets Jesus som biografiseret erkendelsesfigur: ‘Ny skabelse’ fra Paulus til Markus,” in Frelsens biografisering, 237–71. This quote is found in the “rewritten” edition in “Philonic Allegory in Mark,” in Philosophy at the Roots of Christianity (ed. T. Engberg-Pedersen and H. Tronier; Copenhagen: The Faculty of Theology Biblical Studies Section, 2006), 9 and 10. For Gustav Volkmar as an early representative of similar understanding, see above n. 3. 17 Interestingly Telford, The Theology of the Gospel of Mark, 167, closes the paragraph on Mark and Paul by writing: “With the development … of the narrative-critical tools and the increasing sensitivity on the part of scholars to the nuances of narrative theology, Volkmar’s original suggestion that Mark’s Gospel is an allegorical presentation of Pauline teaching in the form of a narrative may be due … for a comeback.”

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the divine to hearers / readers, thus constituting them a “community of interpretation” through participating in the new covenant and possessing the spirit. Martin Dibelius’ definition of the Gospel of Mark “as a book of secret epiphanies” (als ein Buch der geheimen Epiphanien)18 is still valid. It is only the believing reader / hearer living after Easter who is able to decode the revelation.

3. The Gospel of Matthew: A New Edition of Mark The following discussion presupposes the hypothesis that the Gospel of Matthew – as often remarked – is a reworked and expanded edition of the Gospel of Mark. If we ignore the highly problematic hypothesis of a lost source, Q, we may assume that the author of the Gospel of Matthew, where he is not rewriting Mark, partly introduces existing traditions not employed by Mark, and partly – and in no less degree – creates new material.19 We also have to realize that although he includes nearly all of the Gospel of Mark, the author of Matthew leaves not even the slightest sign of this “fact.” This points to a trait common to Mark and Matthew, namely, that the author is invisible. Not only are the two Gospels anonymous, but in contrast not least to the Gospel of Luke, the author is totally absent. The most likely reason for this is that they want to confront the readers / hearers directly with the Christ of their story, and not leave any impression of their own role as tradents. In fact, the later headings (Kατὰ Μάρκον κτλ., if the oldest were not Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μάρκον κτλ.) introducing names of apostles or early disciples not only break the anonymity, they also add new meaning to the texts themselves by connecting the books with figures known to be either eyewitnesses or companions to either Peter or Paul.20 The author of the Gospel of Luke is the first to introduce himself and his aim, but regrettably without mentioning his name. My working hypothesis with regard to the Gospel of Matthew is that the author behind it saw in the Gospel of Mark a brilliant idea that was in desperate need of improvement. Here I neglect the argument from the lectionary hypothesis that Mark was unsatisfactory because it only covered six and half months. The main reason for the author of the Gospel of Matthew, obviously writing primarily for 18 M. Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte, 64; (3rd ed., 1959 = 2nd ed., 1933), 232. Cf. p. 279: “Also ist das Markus-Evangelium seinem letzten Gepräge nach gewiß ein mythisches Buch – aber was von der Prägung gilt, gilt nicht vom Material: die in dem Evangelium gesammelte Tradition ist nur zum kleinsten Teil, in den Epiphanie-Geschichten und in einigen Novellen, mythischen Charakters, in der Mehrzahl ihrer Stücke erscheint Jesus nicht als mythische Person.” 19 Thus I think Michael Goulder is much too radical in assuming that the author behind the Gospel of Matthew practically has “invented” all the material not from Mark: See Midrash and Lection in Matthew, 5–6, where he says that he wants “to suggest that Matthew is much more a free reworking of Mark and much less an edited compendium of traditions, than has been commonly supposed.” 20 See the informative article by S. Petersen, “Die Evangelienüberschriften und die Entstehung des neutestamentlichen Kanons,” ZNW 97 (2006): 250–74.

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Jewish / Christian congregations, to pen his own version was that he found the Gospel of Mark much too Pauline. Thus he not only dismantles the whole eventually allegorical layout of Christology by adding a birth history and by historicizing the whole story by making the earthly Jesus much more of a teacher, he also (re) establishes a higher degree of continuity with Judaism. It is probably not accidental that where the Gospel of Mark has the word εὐαγγέλιον Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ in its heading, the Gospel of Matthew begins with the words βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. 3.1 Matthew Represents another Theology The Matthean Jesus does not negate any commandment of the Law, but ‘only’ puts them in a hierarchical order with charity and love of one’s neighbour as the governing principles. He lets the Law and the Prophets be summarized in the golden rule (7:12), and in 22:39 it is claimed that the commandments of love of God and of one’s neighbor are the two commandments upon which the whole of the Law and the Prophets depend. The saying in 23:23 is programmatic also: This should be done and the others not neglected. The Gospel of Matthew is, much more than Mark, concerned with salvation history  – the establishing of the church as its culmination and the true Israel. Although this author is careful to show how the salvation brought about by Jesus was also effective for non-Jews, he does it in such a way that he reserves the earthly ministry of Jesus for the Jews. The faith of some non-Jews, however, breaks down Jesus’ resistance, showing proleptically how faith makes void the borderline between Jew and non-Jew. However, the “first (πρῶτον)” in Mark 7:27 in the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman concerning the feeding of the children before throwing the children’s bread to the small dogs is not repeated in Matthew, who leaves out this “before and after” and lets faith decide the matter. The twice-told miracle of the feeding of the multitudes, with its symbolic figures, is taken over, the second signalling a blessing that also includes the non-Jewish world. And the only salvation historical parable in Mark, the parable of the unfaithful tenants (Mark 12:1–9), is placed in the Gospel of Matthew at 21:28–22:14 between two other parables, the parable of the two sons and of the royal wedding; all three thematize salvation history and move the focus forward, the last of the three also including the time of the church and the judgment. Programmatic is the conclusion of the parable of the unfaithful tenants in 21:43, which claims that the kingdom of God will be taken from the Jews and given to a people producing its fruits (καὶ δοθήσεται ἔθνει ποιοῦντι τοὺς καρποὺς αὐτῆς). Later Christian authors would speak about a new or third race (for instance Diognet 1:1). 3.2 The Gospel of Matthew and the Phenomenon of “Rewritten Bible” This is not the place to give a fuller exposition of the Gospel of Matthew in relation to its known source, the Gospel of Mark. It is the very phenomenon of making

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a new edition of an existing story, adding and altering, that I want to consider. Ulrich Luz has raised the question of the impact of the ‘fact’ that we can see this gospel author create stories which he assumes his reader will accept as real history. Thus there is no sign in his text that he is not claiming the Referenzialisierbarkeit of what is written.21 It seems obvious that we may consider Matthew’s Gospel as an example of the genre called “rewritten Bible.” Of course this nomenclature is an anachronism in this case, but the rewriting of an existing book or story is a well-known phenomenon in early Judaism and naturally offers itself as the model of what was going on in the writing of the later gospels. An obvious analogy of the relationship between Mark and Matthew is the relationship between Genesis and the beginning of Exodus on the one hand and the Book of Jubilees on the other. The latter never reveals that it makes extensive use of an earlier story (although the author had to presume that his readers knew it, just as the two editions co-existed in the Qumran library), whereas, for example, Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum refers to the “biblical” books. Inside the Jewish Bible the same phenomenon can be seen in 1–2 Chronicles, which are a “rewritten” edition of 2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings, the history from Adam to Saul being condensed to genealogical tables, a means to shorten a prehistory which is also, interestingly, taken up by the author of the Gospel of Matthew. Another example is the first two books of the Maccabees, which represent two editions of nearly the same story. The tertium comparationis to what is going on in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew is not factual history (wie es eigentlich gewesen): Obviously, it is the gospel, if not the mystery (Mark 4:11: τὸ μυστήριον) or mysteries (Matt 13:11: τὰ μυστήρια) of the kingdom of God or of Heaven, to use what is also a Pauline concept (1 Cor 2:1, 7; 4:1; 13:2; 14:2; 15:51; Rom 11:25). Maybe we should look to Josephus and his rewriting of the biblical account in the first eleven books of his Antiquitates Judaicae.22 It has been a puzzle to scholars that in the introduction he (Ant. 1.2) breezily claims that his work “will embrace our entire ancient history and political institution, translated from the Hebrew records (ἐκ τῶν Ἑβραϊκῶν μεθηρμηνευμένην γραμμάτων).” At the end he also declares that he thinks to “have drawn up the whole story in full and accurate detail” (20.261), and in the introduction to Contra Apionem (1.1) he further claims to have written in Antiquities the history “in Greek on the basis of our sacred books” (ἐκ τὼν παρ’ ἡμῖν ἱερῶν βίβλων διὰ τὴς Ἑλληνικὴς φωνῆς συνεγραψάμεν); later in the same work he says that in Antiquities he has “given a translation of our sacred books” (ἐκ τῶν ἱερῶν γραμμάτων μεθηρμήνευκα). It seems clear that Josephus is not claiming to have 21 U. Luz, “Fiktivität und Traditionstreue im Matthäusevangelium im Lichte griechischer Literatur,” ZNW 84 (1993): 153–77, especially 154: “In keinem einzigen Fall deutet irgend ein Textmerkmal eines von Matthäus fingierten Textes an, daß diese oder jene Episode keine Referenz in der Geschichte Jesu haben will.” 22 Cf. M. Müller, “Josephus und die Septuaginta,” in Die Septuaginta – Texte, Theologien, Geschichte (ed. M. Karrer and W. Kraus; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 638–54.

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produced a word for word rendering, but that his “translation” addresses what he considers the essence of the story, a goal he achieves through rewriting, addition, and omission.

4. Reception through Harmonization That the gospel tradition persisted, even after the Gospel of Matthew had been written, in additional rewritings, which adapted the gospel message to different ethnic surroundings and eras through rendering what was believed to be its essence, is confirmed in the developing trajectory of the tradition: the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Luke (the latter itself the first of two volumes and never meant to stand alone as eventually happened in the normal order of New Testament books, as confirmed by the unanimous witness of the manuscript evidence). The genre allowed for alterations, which to our mind are sheer contradictions and leave the reader / hearer with a very different image of what happened. Thus, the evangelical truth for these authors obviously did not lie in the words but much more in the spirit behind them; this was also the presupposition for achieving an adequate understanding of what was related (cf. 2 Cor 3:6; Rom 7:6). Such an approach points to a fact that, although obvious, is only seldom realized in practice, namely, that the Church existed before any of its later ‘New Testament’ books came to be, and that these books were both created and collected by this Church. The great Danish theologian and hymn writer, Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783–1872), realized this in 1825 in his “Unparallelled Discovery,” but due to his conservatism he did not draw any radical conclusions from it.23 The tendency for a harmonizing reading, already to be seen in both Papias’ apologetic explanation of the differences between the Gospels of Mark and Matthew24 and in the radical solution to the fourfold tradition in Tatian’s Diatessaron, later dominated the interpretation when the Gospels were mainly seen to complement and not to contradict each other. A harmonizing tendency was also promoted by seeing the Gospel authors as writing independently of each other. The only known early author to accept the idea that the later Gospel writers knew and used their predecessor(s) was Augustine, in his De consensu evangelistarum from ca. 400. Augustine even thought that the Four Gospels came into existence in the order in which they appear in the New Testament, with the consequence that Mark is to be understood as abbreviating 23 Cf.

Müller, “The Hidden Context,” 649–50 (above n. 4). to the fragments transmitted in Eusebius’ Hist. eccl. 3.39.15–16. The apologetic agenda is independent of whether one, for instance with J. Munck, “Die Tradition über das Matthäusevangelium bei Papias,” in Neotestamentica et patristica: Eine Freundesgabe, Herrn Professor Dr. Oscar Cullmann zu seinem 60. Geburtstag überreicht (ed. W. C. van Unnik; Leiden: Brill, 1962), 249–60, sees it as an apologetic explanation of why the text of Matthew is different from that of Mark, or with J. Kürzinger, “Das Papiaszeugnis und die Endgestalt des Matthäusevangeliums,” BZ 4 (1960): 108–15, interprets the words of Papias according to their rhetorical meaning. 24 According

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Matthew’s Gospel. Next to be mentioned in this connection is Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), who claimed not only the need to distinguish between the Jesus of John’s Gospel and the Jesus of the Synoptics, but also warned against harmonizing the latter: “Vier Evangelisten sind, und jedem bleibe seine Zweck, seine Gesichtsfarbe, seine Zeit, sein Ort.” Herder also was ahead of his time in taking Mark as the oldest.25

5. To Supplement or to Replace The author behind the Gospel of Matthew in all probability did not want to supplement but to replace his predecessor, something which also may be assumed with regard to the author behind the Gospel of Luke26 – the latter even offering an indirectly negative evaluation of his predecessors which he mentions as being “many.” This exclusiveness, however, does not seem to pertain to the Gospel of John. Eusebius, in his Hist. eccl. 3.24.6–7, even gives witness to a regrettably anonymous tradition ascribing the editorship of the Synoptic Gospels to John.27 In any case, in a canonical context the tradition concurs with Irenaeus’ claim of the necessity of the gospel being transmitted in a fourfold shape. The first step was taken by congregations accepting the new Gospel of Matthew without taking leave of its predecessor. Seeing that the successor Gospel practically contains all of the Gospel of Mark, it is to be concluded that it was probably Mark’s peculiar theology that enabled its survival. Even if we do not accept his reasoning for the number ‘four,’ Irenaeus’ argument against those who had only one of the four as their gospel points to the significance of having the one gospel transmitted in four Gospel books. It is an instance of the irony of history that the Gospel of Matthew was placed first in manuscripts containing all four Gospels. As remarked above, it brought Augustine to regard the Gospel of Mark as a shorter edition of Matthew. This primary position could have been due both to the assignment of it to an apostle and to its beginning, the genealogical table, leading back through David to Abraham, and thereby including the whole history back to the founder of Judaism, a very apt prelude. It was only with the Markan hypothesis which developed in the 19th century that the Gospel of Mark underwent a sort of restoration to its rightful place, but then expressly as the oldest and therefore presumably the most historically reliable of the four. Rightly, however, William Wrede, in 1901, deemed it so 25  See J. G. Herder, Vom Erlöser der Menschen: Nach unsern drei ersten Evangelien (1796) and Von Gottes Sohn, der Welt Heiland: Nach Johannes Evangelium (1797), repr. in Herder’s Sämmtliche Werke 19 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1880), respectively 135–252 and 253–424. The quotation is from the note on p. 416. 26 This point of view has been strongly argued in T. K. Heckel, Vom Evangelium des Markus zum viergestaltigen Evangelium (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999). 27 Cf. the discussion in Heckel, Vom Evangelium des Markus, 192–9, esp. 198–9.

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far from being a trustworthy source for the historical Jesus that it belonged to the history of dogma.28

6. Pluriformity as a Canonical Fact The surprising fact that the later Gospels did not supersede their predecessor(s) leaves us with a canon with four stages in a process of tradition, with the Gospels of Mark and Matthew as the two earliest. Had things developed differently, we might have been left with the Gospel of Luke, which in its prologue is announced as an account (διήγησις), and in my opinion is the latest of the four (to be dated around 120–130). Thus all four Gospels stand in a line of tradition reaching back to Paul and his letters. And a canonical assessment of the circumstance that earlier stages in the development of the tradition were not seen as obsolete, but respected on equal terms with those that were drafted to succeed them, may not only be deemed an expression of churchly conservatism (which it probably was), but also an ability to embrace a variety of theologies. So, Ernst Käsemann was completely right in his claim that the answer to the question of whether the New Testament canon justifies the unity of the Church is “No!” “Der nt.liche Kanon begründet als solcher nicht die Einheit der Kirche. Er begründet als solcher, d.h. in seiner dem Historiker zugänglichen Vorfindlichkeit dagegen die Vielzahl der Konfessionen.”29

28 W. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien: Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des Markusevangeliums (3rd ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963), 131: “Deshalb bleibt es wahr: als Gesamtdarstellung bietet das Evangelium keine historische Anschauung mehr vom wirklichen Leben Jesu. Nur blasse Reste einer solchen sind in eine übergeschichtliche Glaubensauffassung übergegangen. Das Markusevangelium gehört in diesem Sinne in die Dogmengeschichte.” 29 E. Käsemann, “Begründet der neutestamentliche Kanon die Einheit der Kirche?” EvTh 11 (1951–52): 13–21; quoted according to reprint in E.  Käsemann, Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, I (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960), 214–23, 221.

Mark and Matthew in Feminist Perspective Reading Matthew’s Genealogy* Janice Capel Anderson 1. Introduction I begin with a story of reading centered on Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. In this memoir Nafisi recounts reading and interpreting Lolita, the Great Gatsby, and other Western novels with seven women students in her home in Tehran for two years beginning in the fall of 1995. Reading and interpreting canonical Western authors was a transgressive act in the Islamic Republic. These women’s lives were interrogated by the novels and the novels by their lives. Their reading was not only for pleasure, although it was that. Their reading was also a political act, questioning reigning ideology and power. Further, the act of reading these women reading remains transgressive for Iranian readers of Nafisi’s memoir, albeit not unambiguously so. Transpose, however, Nafisi’s living room to a women’s book club in Calgary or Seattle. The women know little about the history and culture of Iran. The power of Nafisi’s prose and the risk that the Iranian women took to read and interpret the novels and their own lives draws them in. They have also experienced the power of reading in their own lives. But, will they also conclude that the traditional, largely male Western canon captures what is universally and humanly important, rendering recent attempts to expand that canon as unnecessary and the result of special pleading? This is what Anne Donadey and Huma Ahmed-Ghosh wonder in “Why Americans Love Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran.” Equally important, as Donadey and Ahmed-Ghosh note, without an understanding of the history of modern Iran including secular and religious Iranian feminism and the role of class, there is the risk of Western readers constructing a stereotyped view of Islam as simply and only oppressive for women.1 Will Reading Lolita underwrite rather than challenge reigning ideology and power when read in North America, and by extension in other parts of the globe? * This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper given Nov. 17, 2009 at the Mark and Matthew Conference at McMaster University. I would like to thank Anders Runesson and Eve-Marie Becker, Conference Organizers; Ralph Korner, Conference Administrator; and my fellow participants as well as everyone at McMaster. 1 A. Donadey and H. Ahmed-Ghosh, “Why Americans Love Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 33 (2008): 623–46, esp. 624–9, 636–40.

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This contemporary story of reading points to the importance of frames in reading texts and lives. It shows how the same text may have both similar and different effects in varying contexts, among different reading communities. It also raises the vexed question of how canonical texts can simultaneously liberate and circumscribe readers even in the same context. By now I hope you, my readers, have supplied the analogy to late 20th and early 21st century feminist biblical criticisms – their contributions and their questions. The current round of academic feminist New Testament criticism is now over a quarter century old. As time has passed, such scholarship has increased in volume, sophistication, and range. The entry of women into the scholarly guild along with political, economic, and social changes spurred its growth. Feminist scholars were at first largely European and North American, but now hail from across the globe. Exciting feminist work produced in other fields such as anthropology, literary criticism, and in feminist theory itself has been adapted and applied. Today feminist criticism has a foothold in the discipline, but it is neither a method nor a school. Rather, it uses an impressive range of approaches and involves a commitment to feminism variously understood. Indeed there is no one feminism; there are many feminisms. Western liberal feminism, for example, stresses equality between men and women often based on similarity, especially on ability to reason. Cultural feminism celebrates female difference whether based in biology or culture, stressing nurture over aggression and cooperation over competition. Womanist feminism arises out of the experiences and practices of African American feminists. Postcolonial feminisms stem from various formerly colonized areas and often engage postcolonial theory. Other feminisms are similarly culturally situated. 2 Most attend to a complex of factors such as ethnicity, class, sexuality, and religion in relation to gender. Hazarding a comprehensive definition is dangerous. Perhaps we may take cues from bell hooks, who calls feminism “a common resistance to all the different forms of male domination,” and from Linda Martín Alcoff, who affirms “our right and our ability to construct, and take responsibility for, our gendered identity, our politics and our choices.”3 Despite differences in method and social location, feminist New Testament critics often share a number of typical interpretive moves involving both critique and construction. Some of the first work that we did was to uncover and describe 2 For types of feminist thought see L. Code, Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories (London: Routledge, 2003); C. R. McCann and S.-K. Kim, eds., Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives (2nd ed.; New York: Routledge, 2010); and R. Tong, Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2009). 3 Hooks is quoted in S.  Harding, “Conclusion: Epistemological Questions,” in Feminism and Methodology (ed. S. Harding; Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1987), 188 and L. M. Alcoff, “Cultural Feminism Versus Post-structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 13 (1988): 432. The quotes are also used in J. Capel Anderson, “Feminist Criticism: The Dancing Daughter,” in Mark and Method (ed. J. Capel Anderson and S. D. Moore; 2nd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 113, which gives a more extensive account of feminist biblical criticism.

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the androcentric and patriarchal nature of New Testament texts and many readings of the texts. As time passed, this critique became more nuanced as we saw that men and women in the past and present are variously positioned. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza broadened the term patriarchy, coining the term kyriarchy to capture multiple dimensions of domination.4 We also sought to recover women in the world behind the texts, neglected women characters, and women’s readings of the texts. This sometimes involved reading for the silences – where women were absent or obscured – and finding overlooked evidence. Like the women in Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers,” who could read evidence of murder that male officials could not, feminists recognized we had a different angle of vision.5 We saw the central importance of the reader / hearer in interpretation and of gender as an analytic category. In addition to the recovery of women in text, history, and reception history, we frequently created resistant readings. Early on we recognized that the very same text could be both liberating and oppressive – in the first century context and in subsequent contexts. Texts like Matthew and Mark both challenge and replicate kyriarchal perspectives, enable and limit women’s agency. As Mary Ann Tolbert put it in 1983, the same Bible could be both “enslaver and liberator.”6 Finally, feminist criticism was often engaged criticism. There was open acknowledgement of how our experiences as individuals and members of communities influenced our scholarship. Today there are many feminist critics of Matthew and Mark.7 Two who have focused on Matthew and Mark respectively are Elaine M. Wainwright and Raquel St. Clair. Wainwright interprets not only women characters, but also the Gospel of Matthew as a whole. In Shall We Look for Another, Wainwright outlines an approach she calls engendered reading. Engendered reading includes poetics, rhetorics, and politics. Poetics focuses on literary analysis of the text. Rhetorics focuses on the reader(s) “who both constructs and is constructed by the text within a particular rhetorical context.”8 The readers are both those of the first and the 21st century. A key contribution Wainwright makes is to point out that the first Matthean audiences included people who would have responded differently to the text. As she put it recently, a rhetorical approach attends to “those persons within 4 E. Schüssler Fiorenza, Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2001), 118–22, 211. 5 For Glaspell see E. A. Flynn and P. P. Schweickart, “Introduction,” in Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts and Contexts (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), xx–xxi, and J. C. Andersen, “Gender and Reading,” 5. For the importance of standpoint involving race, class, and gender see A. Wylie, “Why Standpoint Matters,” in Science and Other Cultures: Issues in Philosophies of Science and Technology (ed. R. Figueroa and S. Harding; New York: Routledge, 2003), 26–48, especially her comments on Blanche on the Lam, 26–48. 6 M. A.  Tolbert, “Defining the Problem: The Bible and Feminist Hermeneutics,” Semeia 28 (1983): 126. 7 Levine includes a selection in A.-J. Levine and M. Blickenstaff, eds., A Feminist Companion to Matthew (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). 8  E. M. Wainwright, Shall We Look for Another? A Feminist Rereading of the Matthean Jesus (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1998), 28.

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different types of first-century households constituting the Matthean community (some scribal, some more egalitarian, some identified along class and status lines) who would have influenced the meaning given to Jesus as the Gospel was heard in their communities.”9 Too often we reconstruct the first audiences as if they were a single person. Finally, Wainwright explains politics with its focus on “the context that shapes and is shaped by the text.”10 Politics takes seriously both the world behind the text and the 21st century context which shapes our interpretation. In reconstructing the world behind the text Wainwright uses historical-critical and social-scientific tools subjecting them to feminist analysis. Thus she treats experience and practice as complex rather than monolithic. She preserves space for the agency of women and others in various subordinate positions. Turning to Raquel St. Clair’s powerful analysis of Mark in Call and Consequences: A Womanist Reading of Mark, we find a similar salutary focus on the world of, the world behind, and the world in front of the text. There St. Clair offers a new angle of vision on the meaning of the cross and of Christian discipleship in Mark. Like Wainwright she is committed to construction as well as critique, to taking seriously the social and historical contexts of both the first and the twenty-first centuries. St. Clair asks, “(1) What is the relationship between the agony that the cross symbolizes and discipleship in Mark’s gospel? (2) Is the agony of the cross suffering (unmetabolized, unscrutinized agony that enables one’s continued oppression), or is it pain (named and recognized agony that comes as a temporary result of life-affirming behavior)?”11 These questions emerge from her reflections on Mark, the experiences of African-American women, and womanist theologies. St. Clair engages recent literary critical, socio-linguistic, and social-scientific interpretation. She argues that the cross in Mark is the consequence of Jesus’ ministry and that Markan discipleship may have a similar consequence for faithful disciples today. God does not will suffering, but ministry may result in pain. Her interpretation takes seriously the first century context of Mark and the modern contexts of the academy and the black church in the U. S., particularly the writing and lived experience of black women.

2. Reading the Matthean Genealogy Having described various feminist criticisms, I now offer one extended example. I will explore a number of readings of the Matthean genealogy from my own feminist rhetorical perspective. This passage interests me for several reasons. First, like Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, readings of this passage highlight well the impor 9 E. M. Wainwright, “Feminist Criticism and the Gospel of Matthew,” in Methods for Matthew (ed. M. A. Powell; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 98. 10 Wainwright, Shall We Look for Another, 30. 11  R. A. St. Clair, Call and Consequences: A Womanist Reading of Mark (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 40.

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tance of frames and the social location of readers in interpretation. Second, the text is highly ambivalent. It can liberate and oppress, revealing some of the complexity both Wainwright and St. Clair embrace. Finally, I have explored this text before and want to return to it with a greater recognition of how readings of gender might vary historically and culturally.12 I will engage a number of readings, braiding readings of the women included in the genealogy around the ribbon of the three main interpretations Raymond Brown identifies in The Birth of the Messiah. 2.1 The Genealogy – Royal and Patrilineal From a literary perspective the superscription and genealogy open the Gospel of Matthew with the narrator’s direct commentary. They shape how readers (or hearers) interpret the rest of the narrative. Along with the birth story, they establish Jesus’ identity and role in the compass of Israel’s history as son of Abraham and son of David. They also establish Jesus as son of God through Mary. A repeated pattern, male begets or generates male(s), occurs thirty-nine times. This pattern is broken only a few times. The phrase “and his brothers” is added in 1:2 and 1:11. The narrator labels David as “the king” (1:6), highlighting the beginning of the Davidic dynasty, and Jesus as “the one called Christ” (1:16), David’s messianic heir. These along with the reference to the Babylonian Exile (1:11–12) reinforce the key divisions from Abraham to David, from David to the Exile, and from the Exile to the Christ. The other breaks in the pattern involve five women named as mothers, but who do not break the patriline.13 Thus the patrilineal genealogy establishes Jesus’ claim to the titles Son of Abraham, Son of David, and Messiah as the climactic figure in a drama of salvation history, which is inseparably both political and religious. Medieval European artistic readings of the genealogy graphically represent the political and religious dimensions in the form of the Tree of Jesse, which rose to popularity beginning in the 11th century. In stained glass, sculpture, paintings, and illuminations kingly descendants emerge as branches growing upwards from the loins of a recumbent Jesse, the father of King David. This image results from an interpretation of Isa 11:1–2 where the rod (virga) of Jesse is understood to be the Virgin (virgo) Mary combined often with elements of the Matthean genealogy.14 12 J. C.  Anderson, “Matthew: Gender and Reading,” Semeia 28 (1983): 7–10; idem, “Mary’s Difference: Gender and Patriarchy in the Birth Narratives,” JR 67 (1987): 186–90; and J. Capel Anderson and S. D.  Moore, “Matthew and Masculinity,” in New Testament Masculinities (ed. S. D. Moore and J. Capel Anderson; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 72–9. 13 Anderson, “Gender and Reading,” 7–8. 14  J. F. A. Sawyer, The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 74–84; P. Sheingorn, “Appropriating the Holy Kinship,” in Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society (ed. K. Ashley and P. Sheingorn; Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990), 170–1; E. Mâle, The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century (trans., D. Nussey; New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 165–70. A. Watson’s Early Iconography of the Tree of Jesse (London: Oxford University Press, 1934) has the most extensive coverage. For easily available images see Wikipedia’s “Tree of Jesse” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

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Pamela Sheingorn notes that the Tree of Jesse with its focus on male genealogy emerges in a period where there is a shift to patrilineage from an earlier bilineal approach to ancestry.15 Early examples show Mary at or near the top of the tree, sometimes with the infant Jesus in her lap or with an image of Jesus above her. Shein­gorn argues that when the Matthean genealogy became a focus, attention shifted to the male ancestors. Mary faded to the point where she sometimes disappears from the tree altogether. Sheingorn writes, “Choices were made that deemphasized the basic truth that, in order for Christ to have a divine father, his other, human parent had to be a woman.”16 J. F. A. Sawyer in his discussion of the Tree of Jesse also comments on the importance of the relation between the Matthean genealogy and medieval concerns with lineage. He connects these to the hierarchical social and political system where kings received their authority from God just as Christ’s ancestors did. Sawyer notes, “Thus, for example when David and Solomon are represented in the tree, as the spiritual ancestors of Christ, they are understood to be at the same time the spiritual ancestors of the Kings of France.”17 Indeed, artists often portray the kingly ancestors wearing crowns. Perhaps royal blood trumps gender as Mary also sometimes wears a crown. The European medieval reading frame influenced by ecclesial and royal patronage found religious and political sanctions for royal power and patrilineage in the text and in the world in front of the text. The medieval artistic readings of the genealogy capture a focus on royalty and a male patriline which several recent social-scientific interpreters hold would have been at home in a first century Greco-Roman context. Richard Rohrbaugh, Jerome Neyrey, and Craig Keener point to the rules for the encomium, a speech of praise taught in rhetorical handbooks, as offering a lens for reading.18 Rules for encomia recommended praise of ancestors and tribe / clan when this would establish ascribed honor. The Matthean genealogy connects Jesus to the ancient patriarchal founders Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It also ties him to the tribe of Judah from which the royal lineage of David stems. Matthew thus makes a bold ascribed honor Tree_of_Jesse]. Sawyer notes that often Jesse trees had “precisely twenty-eight kings” matching Matthew’s “fourteen from David to the exile and fourteen from the exile to Christ,” 79. He writes, “Matthew 1:1–17 provides the content for the tree, while Isaiah 11:1 provides its structure and imagery,” 79. The number of descendants does vary, partly due to spatial constraints. 15 Sheingorn, “Appropriating the Holy Kinship,” 170–1. See also Sawyer, Fifth Gospel, 79 and Mâle, Gothic Image, 165. 16 Sheingorn, “Appropriating the Holy Kinship,” 171. 17 Sawyer, Fifth Gospel, 79. 18  C. S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), xxvii–xxx; J. H. Neyrey, Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1998), 90–101; R. Rohrbaugh, “The Jesus Tradition: The Gospel Writers Strategies of Persuasion,” in The Early Christian World (ed. P. F. Esler; 2 vols.; London: Routledge, 2000), 1:212–3. K.C. Hanson and D. Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts (2nd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 47–52. C. M. Conway, Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 108–9, also shows how the genealogy supports Jesus’ honorable royal masculine status, largely using Roman comparisons.

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claim for Jesus, raising him to royal status. Rohrbaugh suggests that what Matthew has done with the genealogy is to move Jesus up the “honour scale” in order to address a literate, urban audience.19 The presence of less than honorable behavior or hints at such whether of the male ancestors or the women do not challenge Jesus’ honor according to Neyrey. Jesus can live up to and even exceed the nobility of some ancestors while overcoming the shame of others through his own actions.20 K. C.  Hanson and Douglas Oakman agree that the genealogy is about ascribed honor and royal lineage. But they interpret the five women as adding acquired honor to Jesus’ lineage. Biblical stories show they acquired honor through their initiative in forwarding the messianic line.21 In contrast to readings that stress ascribed honor, Michael Joseph Brown acknowledges that the genealogy shows Jesus coming from a “distinguished bloodline.” He argues, however, that “Matthew challenges our [and what may have been his audience’s] idea of ‘the survival of the fittest,’ the idea that we are who we are because we come from the right kind of people, with the idea that even the Messiah descended from a flawed family line.”22 There are women and men in the genealogy who may represent outsiders and those of less than honorable character. Brown reads consciously from the modern context of slavery and U. S. Jim Crow where the notion that blood implied superiority was at home.23 This context serves as a backdrop to understanding similar views in the first century. The two contexts read one another. Perhaps the “iffy” women and men function both to underline and challenge royal and patriarchal genealogy then and now. The reading of Jesus as the climax of a male royal line found both in the medieval European context and in recent reconstructions of the first century finds support in the rest of the gospel. However, as Brown’s interpretation suggests, there are some twists. The birth story presents Jesus as the true king in contrast to the Roman client Herod.24 Unlike Herod, as Deidre Good has shown, Jesus is a “meek” king who does not exercise his rule through anger or violence, but through disciplined compassion.25 He enters Jerusalem and dies as a different sort of king. What many in the first century would have seen as Jesus’ masculine self-mastery leads to the cross. 19 Rohrbaugh,

“The Jesus Tradition,” 212–3. Honor and Shame, 98–9. See also Keener, Gospel of Matthew, xxviii. 21 Hanson and Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus, 50–2. They essentially add honor/shame analysis to R. E. Brown’s third reading of the women discussed below. Cf. R. Bauckham, Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 27. 22 M. J. Brown, “The Gospel of Matthew,” in True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary (ed. B. K. Blount; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 87. 23 M. J. Brown, “The Gospel of Matthew,” 87. 24 C. Blomberg, “The Liberation of Illegitimacy: Women and Rulers in Matthew 1–2,” BTB 21 (1991): 147–9, emphasizes the contrast between Herod and Jesus. 25  D. J. Good, Jesus the Meek King (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1999), especially Chapter 4. M. W. Dube, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible (St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice Press, 2000), 140–1 holds that this fails to challenge Rome. 20 Neyrey,

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In the first century Mediterranean classicists and anthropologists argue that a dominant perspective was that gender operated on a sliding scale with “real” men, typically elite, adult males who mastered themselves and others including women, children, slaves, and subject peoples at one end and various less than fully men at the other. Jesus’ self-mastery both supports and challenges this dominant masculinity. Without literal heirs himself, he is the culmination of a male line. Although mastery of sexual desire was an important component of masculinity, an active role in sex and procreation also was stressed, with the one seed theory common. In this view men plant seed in passive female fields. From this perspective descent and inheritance are rightfully patrilineal. Women, like literal fields, are an important although often unacknowledged commodity in production and reproduction.26 2.2 The Women in the Genealogy If Jesus is a new sort of king and this depends in part on the women in his genealogy, what role do they play? Unlike the graphic genealogy of the Jesse Tree, the Matthean male pattern is broken not only by Mary, but also by the striking inclusion of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the one of Uriah (Bathsheba). These five women have evoked a variety of reader responses. R. E. Brown’s Birth of the Messiah, a widely accepted historical-critical account, spells out three common readings: the women are sinners, the women are Gentiles, the women exercise initiative in carrying forth the messianic line even though their unions are irregular and scandalize outsiders. Brown’s touchstones for evaluating these readings are whether the reading is one the first century audience might have constructed and whether the reading finds something common to all five women.27 These criteria are more difficult to apply than it might first appear, however. Readings of the women draw upon the attitudes and cultural repertoires of readers. These vary even in the first century. Are readers reading the women with the Jewish Bible or Septuagint as an intertext? Are they relying on extrabiblical traditions? Is Tamar, for example, a Canaanite, from Aram, or primarily a righteous proselyte who is a key figure in the lineage of Judah? Is Rahab a traitor to her people, a heroine, someone with a hybrid identity, or all three? What would or do readers assume? Are they reading with or resisting the text? Further, should readers seek something in common between all five because they are the only women 26 See Anderson and Moore, “Matthew and Masculinity,” for a more detailed exposition and bibliography. 27  R. E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (2nd ed.; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 71–4, 590–6. He asks what the first four women share in common, but uses similarity to Mary as his ultimate criterion. In the first edition he read all five as having something “extraordinary or irregular” in their sexual unions and showing “initiative,” 73. In the second he notes Mary does not exercise initiative, but perhaps the Holy Spirit plays this role (591–2).

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in the genealogy? Or, with the first four because the phrase with which they are included is the same? Or, should readers respond to each woman individually?28 2.3 The Holy and Unholy Women Despite the choices readers face, the three readings Brown explores are typical of many readings of the women. The first reading is that the women are sinners, underlining that Jesus came to save sinners. Brown cites Jerome as an early advocate of this view.29 Jerome writes, commenting on Tamar: “In the Savior’s genealogy it is remarkable that there is no mention of holy women, but only those whom Scripture reprehends, so that [we can understand that] he who had come for the sake of sinners, since he was born from sinful women, blots out the sins of everyone. This is also why in what follows Ruth the Moabite and Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, are recorded.”30 Jerome’s fourth century reading separates women into holy and sinful, a view not surprising in Western Christian culture, which often divides women dichotomously into Mary and Eve, virgin or whore. Readings of the women as sinners also associate sin and sexuality, with women standing in for both.31 Some pre-modern readers such as Nicholas of Lyra and most modern academics including Brown, however, reject reading the women as sinners.32 Many seek a reading that a first century audience might construct and that reads all five together. The verdict is that the authorial audience would be unlikely to consider all of the women to be sinners, particularly Mary. Further, there are several men in the genealogy the audience would likely recognize as sinful, something Jerome does not note. Other readings supply the holy women Jerome misses. Next to patrilineal Jesse Trees in the medieval Queen Mary and Imola Psalters, for example, are matrilineal images tracing Jesus’ ancestry through Mary back to her mother St. Anne.33 Mat28  R.  Bauckham challenges reading all five together in Gospel Women, 21. J. P.  Heil, “The Narrative Roles of the Women in Matthew’s Genealogy,” Bib 72 (1991): 544–5, finds similarities and differences between the five. J. Nolland, “The Four (Five) Women and Other Annotations in Matthew’s Genealogy,” NTS 43 (1997): 527–39 proposes that features of previous readings work for some, but not all of the women. P.-B. Smit, “Something about Mary? Remarks about the Five Women in the Genealogy,” NTS 56 (2010): 191–207, argues that gender is a key, but not all are “the same kind of woman or fulfilling the exact same function” (207). 29 Brown, Birth of the Messiah, 71. 30 St. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew (trans. T. P. Scheck; Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 59–60. Brackets in original. According to Scheck (p. 15) Jerome composed this commentary in 398 C. E. 31 Anderson, “Gender and Reading,” 9; idem, “Mary’s Difference,” 188. 32 As D. Copeland Klepper notes in The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in the Later Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), Nicholas disagrees with Jerome. Mary is clearly holy and the other women are present due to virtuous actions (45–46, 120; for the English translation of the passage, see 45–6). 33 Sheingorn, “Appropriating the Holy Kinship,” 171–2. Cf. T. Brandenbarg, “Saint Anne: A Holy Grandmother and her Children,” in Sanctity and Motherhood: Essays on Mothers in the Middle Ages (ed. A. Mulder-Bakker; New York: Garland, 1995), 41.

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thew details only Mary. But interest in Mary’s ancestry led to the “Holy Kinship,” which includes the matriarch Anne, her three daughters – Mary, Mary Salome, and Mary Cleophas – by three different husbands, and her grandchildren including Jesus. This Holy Kinship flourished in art, literature, and cult. Although protecting Mary’s virginity (and for some promoting the Immaculate Conception) by explaining Jesus’ brothers as cousins, the children of her sisters, the Holy Kinship also celebrated marriage as holy through Anne’s three marriages and her role as mother and grandmother.34 St. Anne gave rise to many forms of devotion with liberative and oppressive aspects. In medieval Europe she was attractive to the nobility as ancestress of a royal line, to the emerging middle class as both devoted mother and circumspect widow, to peasants as wise grandmother, and to monastic communities where fictive kinship reigned as the matriarch of an extended family.35 In colonial Mexico, as Charlene Villeseňor Black explains, the popularity of Anne and her female kin may have stemmed both from the honorable place of women in family structures and a conflation of Anne and Toci, the matriarch and grandmother of the Aztec pantheon.36 Images of Anne, Mary, and Jesus called Anna Selbdritt or St. Anne Triplex in Europe and Mexico, portrayed them as a sort of matriarchal trinity. Images of Anne teaching Mary to read were also common. The Holy Kinship underlined the importance of Jesus’ grandmother in his extended family along with his humanity, a humanity tied to Mary even in Matthew’s patrilineal genealogy.37 It is not surprising that attempts were made to play down the Holy Kinship in favor of a nuclear family headed by Joseph.38 The centrality of grandmothers seen in the Holy Kinship also appears in Irene Nowell’s 2007 Catholic Biblical Association presidential address. Nowell reads Matthew’s genealogy intertextually with the stories of great-grandmothers both named and unnamed by Matthew. She reflects on the stories of Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah, women Jerome might have thought holy. But she includes others Jerome might find unholy such as Athaliah, Jezebel, and the daughters of Lot. She also looks for Jesus’ great-grandmothers today in undocumented immigrant women, women who are trafficked across borders, who die in pregnancy or childbirth, and who suffer the threat of execution for adultery. Finally, Nowell looks to Kenyan Nobel prize winner and environmentalist Wangari Maathai, as a fourteenth woman. She proposes that the four named women in Matthew’s genealogy represent 34 C. Armon, “Holy Kinship,” in Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (ed. M. Schaus; New York: Routledge, 2006), 374 and D. Chidester, Christianity: A Global History (New York: Harper Collins, 2000), 278–83, provide summaries focused on Europe. 35 Brandenbarg, “Saint Anne,” 39. 36 C. V. Black, “St. Anne Imagery and Maternal Archetypes in Spain and Mexico,” in Colonial Saints: Discovering the Holy in the Americas, 1500–1800 (ed. A. Greer and J. Bilinkoff; New York: Routledge, 2003), 21–4. Black indicates grandmothers continue to have a special role in Mexico today. 37 Black, “St. Anne Imagery,” 5–8, 11–12, 16–17, 20; Sheingorn, “Appropriating the Holy Kinship,” 175–8, 187. 38 Black, “St. Anne Imagery,” 8–13; Sheingorn, “Appropriating the Holy Kinship,” 187–94.

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all of Jesus’ “great-grandmothers” who have struggled, used “devious means,” and courageously “risked life and reputation to ensure our future.”39 In the case of both the Holy Kinship and Nowell’s address, Matthew provokes readers to read between and beyond the lines in ways that may both inspire and constrain women. 2.4 The Women of the Genealogy as Gentiles The second reading of the women in Matthew’s genealogy that Brown explores is that the women were Gentiles. Their inclusion shows that “Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, was related by ancestry to the Gentiles.”40 Brown notes that in the Bible “Rahab and (probably) Tamar were Canaanites while Ruth was a Moabite.”41 Further, Matthew identifies Bathsheba, likely an Israelite, as the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Brown, however, finds reading the women as Gentiles unlikely as the only reason for their inclusion, given that Mary is not a Gentile and post-biblical literature treats Rahab and Tamar as proselytes.42 Other scholars demure. Richard Bauckham argues that Mary’s relation to the genealogy is different from the other four women who are Gentiles. The text does not introduce her with the phrase, “by whom,” used for the others. Jesus as the Messiah who blesses the Gentiles is an important theme they illustrate. Including Gentile women is the only way to work in Gentile heritage as the males all descend from Abraham.43 Ruth is a Moabite and Rahab a Canaanite. But what of Tamar and Bathsheba? In support of his reading as that of “competent first century readers,”44 Bauckham holds that Bathsheba may have been a Hittite and at any rate is referred to as the wife of Uriah, a Hittite. Evidence from tradition is mixed, but Philo considered Tamar to be a Canaanite.45 Despite the somewhat shaky evidence of the women’s origins, Bauckham is drawn to the reading of the four as Gentiles because it marks inclusiveness in opposition to what he terms “Jewish exclusivism.”46 He also reads Tamar, Ruth, and especially Rahab as Gentiles alongside the Canaanite woman of Matthew 15. “Like Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth,” he writes, “she acts with initiative and resolution, and in difficult circumstances, attains her end.”47 Given her connection with the Gentile areas of Tyre and Sidon, the explicit use of the term Canaanite, and her use of the title Son of David, there is a connection with “messianic nationalism.” She is a new Rahab to Jesus’ new Joshua. Like Rahab her faith makes her “a first exception to a rule about Canaanites.”48 Bauckham goes “Jesus’ Great-Grandmothers: Matthew’s Four and More,” CBQ 70 (2008): 15. Birth of the Messiah, 72. 41 Brown, Birth of the Messiah, 72. 42 Brown, Birth of the Messiah, 72–3. 43 Bauckham, Gospel Women, 22. 44 Bauckham, Gospel Women, 24. 45 Bauckham, Gospel Women, 22–3, 33. 46 Bauckham, Gospel Women, 42. 47 Bauckham, Gospel Women, 41–6; quotation on p. 43. 48 Bauckham, Gospel Women, 44. 39 I. Nowell, 40 Brown,

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on to detail other Matthean passages that foreshadow a mission to the Gentiles and lead to the Great Commission in 28:18–20. He holds that neither the Roman centurion in 7:5–13 representing the occupiers nor the Canaanite women representing indigenous people should be in the promised land from the point of view of a first century messianic nationalism, a nationalism Matthew challenges. Thus, the women read as Gentiles show the relationship between Jesus as son of David and as son of Abraham who will bless the nations.49 Bauckham’s focus on the ethnicity of the women in the genealogy might offer liberatory possibilities in contexts where religion and / or ethnicity limit openness to the Other. Reading the women alongside the Canaanite woman is intriguing. However, Bauckham’s interpretation carries with it the notion of a “messianic nationalism” that paints Judaism as exclusivist with a broad brush so that he can contrast it with an inclusive Matthean Christianity. The very examples he cites, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba challenge this idea. They may be read positively precisely because many Jewish traditions viewed them positively. Bauckham constructs a rather singular Jewish “nationalist” and anti-Gentile viewpoint when we know that there were quite a variety of Jewish perspectives in the first century. Many were neither messianically nationalist or exclusivist.50 Competent first century readers might have differing views. Further, Bauckham does not ask why a text might employ foreign women in particular to cross boundaries. Although not arguing that all of the women are Gentiles, Musa W. Dube, like Bauckham, highlights Rahab and makes a connection to land. However, what Bauckham finds inclusive Dube questions, writing as a postcolonial feminist and drawing upon her experience as a sub-Saharan Botswana woman. She also sees the Rahab of Joshua, the intertextual Rahab of Matt 1:5, and the Canaanite woman of Matthew 15 as foreshadowing the mission to the nations. Dube argues, however, that the texts reveal an imperial and patriarchal ideology. She reads the inclusion of these Gentile women as assertion of dominance. Indeed, Rahab becomes a “reading prism.” Rahab represents the projection of colonizers who want to believe the colonized seek colonization. Women like Rahab are often a trope for desired lands and people and portrayed as heroic in their betrayal of their people by texts and interpreters alike. Yet, at the same time, there are “Rahabs,” postcolonial fem-

Gospel Women, 43–6. A.-J.  Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (New York: Harper One, 2007), 127–31, 157–9, 166. Cf. S. J. D.  Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), and C. E. Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), for discussion of Gentiles associating with and becoming Jews. Currently, the extent of Jewish missionary activity is a matter of dispute. Cf. L. H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996) and M.  Goodman, Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). 49 Bauckham, 50 See

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inists from both the two-thirds and one-third worlds, who resist patriarchy and colonization.51 Dube is willing to subscribe partially to Amy-Jill Levine’s 1992 Women’s Bible Commentary reading of the women in the genealogy as representing “higher righteousness” in the face of more powerful men.52 However, Dube sees the theme of higher righteousness as setting the Matthean community members in competition for power with rival interest groups like the Pharisees while not challenging Roman imperial power. “Furthermore,” she writes, “to hold [with Levine] that ‘Rahab recognizes the power of the Hebrew God and protects the scouts’ is to overlook that Rahab’s story is not her own – it is written by her oppressors to project their own agendas as well as to validate the conquest.”53 Seeing females as powerless and males as powerful ignores how the King of Jericho and Rahab are both victims of Israel as a colonizing power despite their gender and class differences. Nonetheless, the Matthean “intertextual recall” of a foreign woman is significant.54 Those to be colonized in the mission to the Gentiles are presented as “womenlike people who require and beseech domination.”55 The recall “also comes to serve, reinforce, and naturalize the subjugation of women in societies in which these narratives are used.”56 Dube reads Matthew as ultimately failing to challenge imperialism. The evocation of Abraham, Moses, and David “sanctions the traveling to and entering foreign nations by divinely authorized travelers.”57 At the same time, Jesus as an apolitical Son of David and meek king does not threaten Rome. In the Great Commission the resurrected Jesus claims ultimate dominion. However, for Dube what ensues is not a wholesale challenge to empire but a partnership with Rome, which has a cultural and economic role to play in the mission.58 Dube’s reading of Rahab resonates with other recent postcolonial readings of “foreign women” like Rahab and Ruth in the Jewish Bible / Old Testament. Triply “Other” because they are women, foreign, and assumed to be “loose” sexually, these textual women end up embracing and even voicing Israelite ideology.59 In the first century, however, the actual imperial power is, of course, Rome as Dube recognizes. Neither Israelites nor Canaanites are in the position of dominance that the Romans occupy, as A.-J. Levine points out in a recent reading of the Canaanite

Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation, 118–24, 140–55. Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation, 142; Levine, “Matthew,” 253–4. 53 Dube, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation, 143. 54 Dube, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation, 143–4. 55 Dube, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation, 144. 56 Dube, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation, 144. 57 Dube, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation, 140. 58 Dube, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation, 141. 59 E.g., J. E. McKinlay, Reframing Her: Biblical Women in Postcolonial Focus (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2004), chapter 3 and S. Gillmayr-Bucher, “She Came to Test Him with Hard Questions: Foreign Women and their View on Israel,” BibInt 15 (2007): 135–50. 51 Dube, 52 Dube,

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woman that also draws upon the genealogy.60 Further, the preservation of multiple points of view in the Tanak belies the notion of a single Israelite ideology. Complexity and historical situatedness mark not only first century views, but also reading positions in different geographic, economic, and cultural locations today. The incorporation of Gentile women in the messianic line along with the story of the Canaanite women and the extension of the mission beyond Israel to the Gentiles may be experienced as liberating, as co-opting, or both. The hybridity of cultures characterizes our lives. This hybridity characterizes the lives of Christian feminists from the two-thirds world, in particularly challenging ways.61 Some may claim these women adopt Western views and betray their own cultures. Others will find their hybridity productive as they create their own new feminisms and new Christianities, taking seriously lives lived at the cross-roads where denying sameness is as problematic as denying difference.62 Indeed, one way to read Ruth and Rahab is as similar border crossers whose border crossing challenges colonizer and colonized alike. Their presence in Jesus’ genealogy highlights that the outsider – both foreign and female – is always also an insider. We must acknowledge, however, that Matthew can be read as a support for domination where the “foreign women” authorize a dualism of inside and outside, where the only way for “outsiders” to flourish is through assimilation and submission. 2.5 Initiative and Scandal Returning to Brown, the third common reading of the women in the genealogy reads all five as showing initiative in carrying forward God’s plans even though the unions involved were irregular and “scandalous” to outsiders. Jane Schaberg interprets the inclusion of the first four women as justification for Jesus’ scandalous literal illegitimacy.63 Perhaps, more unsettling, however, is the traditional reading of virgin birth. The difference between Mary and the other women is embodied in the switch from male begat male out of female to “Mary, of whom was born 60 A.-J. Levine, “Matthew’s Advice to a Divided Readership,” in The Gospel of Matthew in Current Study: Studies in Memory of William G. Thompson, S. J. (ed. D. E. Aune and R. S. Ascough; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 35–7, 39–40. 61 P.-L. Kwok, Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology (Louisville: Westminster / John Knox, 2005), especially 170–1 and the chapter, “Finding Ruth a Home,”  have influenced my thinking, as has B. Honig, Democracy and the Foreigner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 41–72. 62 U. Narayan, “Essence of Culture and A Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of Cultural Essentialism,” Hypatia 13 (1998): 86–106, raises the importance of both asserting sameness and difference. She uses conversion to Christianity as an example of a cultural change that may not raise qualms about cultural preservation where abandoning female genital excision might (95). Cf. L. Abu-Lughod, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others,” American Anthropologist 104 (2002): 783–90, who notes women may “refuse the divide” between Islam and the West, fundamentalism and feminism (788). 63 See J.  Schaberg, “Feminist Interpretations of the Infancy Narrative of Matthew,” JFSR 13 (1997): 35–62, who discusses various feminist interpretations including her own.

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Jesus.” There is no active male generation, no planting of a male seed into a female womb. There is no human father. Nor is there a divine male sexual partner. Jesus is a product of God and a woman. As Sojourner Truth put it in 1851: “And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman who bore him. Man, where is your part?”64 Truth’s comment raises the issue of female agency. A feminist resistant reading may ask why some readers read the role of the women as scandalous and irregular. It may be their ability to wield what Gale Yee, following social scientist James C. Scott, has called the “weapons of the weak” against male power.65 In a patriarchal / kyriarchal culture women’s agency is not absent, but may take the form of strategic informal resistance including manipulation, deception, or shaming of powerful males. In part, women have this agency because it is they, not men, who have the power to give birth even in a system designed to ensure a father’s heirs are his own.66 If we read the women with the Jewish Bible as intertext, we see them wielding the weapons of the weak. Consider Tamar. After several of his sons fail to fulfill their levirate obligations, Judah sends her back to her father’s house where she may have been perceived as a burden. Tamar then deceives Judah employing his own masculine sexual desire in order to force him to fulfill his obligations to her and to her dead husband. In a society where sons end up with economic responsibility for their mothers, she protects herself as well as honors her husband. In the end, she shames Judah who declares her in the right. Similarly, Ruth and Naomi ensure not only the male line but their own security with a strategic appeal to their male kinsman on the threshing floor.67 Rahab gains the safety of her family by hiding the spies and eliciting a promise of protection. She may be betraying her city, but she is protecting kith and kin. David commits adultery with the one of Uriah, violating his obligations as commander, but exhibiting both his powerful sexuality and his “feminine” lack of self-control. Bathsheba, however, is not simply a victim. Along with Nathan she is able to persuade (or perhaps remind) the aged David that he promised to place her son on the throne. Honorable men keep their promises. In each case women get male benefactors to care for those society views as weaker, which is what an ideology of male honor requires. In the 64 Quotation from M.  Robinson’s 1851 report of Truth’s remarks included in N. I.  Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 126. F. D. Gage’s 1863 account renders the passage: “Den dat little man in black dar, he say women can’t have as much rights as man, cause Christ want a woman. Whar did your Christ come from? … Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him” (S. Truth with O. Gilbert and F. Titus, Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time, with a History of her Labors and Correspondence Drawn from her Book of Life; Also, A Memorial Chapter (ed. N. Irvin Painter; New York: Penguin, 1998), 92 and 254 n. 80. 65  G. A. Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve: Women as Evil in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 49. Cf. Hansen and Oakman, Palestine, 50–2, who treat the women in terms of acquired honor. 66 Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve, 36–58. Yee uses the work of feminist anthropologists such as Abu-Lughod and biblical scholars such as Steinberg in building her analysis. 67 Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve, 54, notes the cooperation of Naomi and Ruth.

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case of Mary, there appears to be no need of manipulation or deception because of Joseph’s righteousness. Even before the angel appears, Joseph intends to divorce Mary quietly. After the angel’s instructions, Joseph, son of David, takes Mary as his wife and names Jesus, making Jesus his legal heir. This explains how Jesus can be son of Abraham and son of David through a genealogy traced through Joseph, an issue pre-critical interpreters struggled with, sometimes positing that Mary was also of Davidic lineage.68 With the birth story’s focus on Joseph, female power is domesticated, placed back into the realm of the male household and male inheritance patterns. Yet, perhaps, the genie is not completely back in the kyriarchal bottle. Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, as Stephen D. Moore and I note in “Matthew and Masculinity,” offers a reading of the genealogy that emphasizes spiritual kinship: [T]he point of Matthew’s genealogy was to contest the Jewish conception of paternity which until that time had been figured through the male line. Jesus is said to be the son of David in exactly the way that gentiles are said to be Jews. Just as gentiles are the spiritual heirs of Abraham, Jesus is incorporated into a lineage that is not his by birth. Jesus is thus the spiritual descendent of both God and David. His human father is completely irrelevant to his status both as Son of God and as Messiah.69

In addition to challenging the centrality of male procreative power and patrilineage, spiritual kinship is a link with readings of the first four women as Gentiles who foreshadow the inclusion of Gentiles as part of the family of God. The claim of John the Baptist in Matt 3:7–10 that God can raise children of Abraham from stones underlines this reading. Literal Abrahamic descent is no guarantee. Repeatedly Matthew challenges literal family ties including the claims of Jesus’ own literal family in Matt 12:50. The family ties that matter are spiritual, creating a new sort of masculinity for disciples. As spiritual sons of the heavenly Father and brothers of Jesus, the disciples never grow out of that subordinate status. They are urged metaphorically to become children or slaves as well.70 In Matt 23:8–10 there is a quintessential expression of their subordination to both God and Jesus: “But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called teachers, for you have only one teacher, the Christ.” This masculinity of sons and brothers, slaves and little ones is not the hegemonic masculinity of fathers and masters in the first century Mediterranean. It also differs from that of the Roman emperors who bore the title pater patriae and whom God’s 68 U.  Luz, Matthew 1–7: A Commentary (ed. H.  Koester; trans. J. E.  Crouch; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 111. 69 H. Eilberg-Schwartz, God’s Phallus: And Other Problems for Men and Monotheism (Boston: Beacon, 1994), 233. He also holds that production of the father’s line became less important and “procreation and sexuality began to move to the women’s domain. This is another reason for the importance of women’s names in Matthew’s genealogy” (235). This section of the paper depends on Anderson and Moore, “Matthew and Masculinity,” where there is further detail, see esp 72–9. 70 Anderson and Moore, “Matthew and Masculinity,” 75–6, 86–7.

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ultimate fatherhood trumps.71 Spiritual brotherhood transcends literal family ties, and perhaps can extend across ethnic and political borders. But can and should it extend across gender? What does fictive kinship and an alternative masculinity do for various communities of women in the first century and today, particularly when Matthew portrays God as a patriarchal father writ large and both God and Jesus as male oikodespotes, masters of the house? In 1983 Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza wrote: “The new kinship of the discipleship of equals does not admit of ‘fathers,’ thereby rejecting the patriarchal power and esteem invested in them.”72 Mary Rose D’Angelo, in contrast, notes that patriarchal organization of the community is rejected, but not the patriarchal rule of God, a rule that has affinities with Roman imperial theology.73 If we take a cue from Wainwright’s observation that different households in the first century audience might have responded in different ways, it may be that some women did indeed find in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men an opening for women and their leadership, including the leadership of women in differing social and ethnic positions.74 Similarly, some may have found in an alternative masculinity both new possibilities and reinforcement of kyriarchal norms in a new guise. The same seems true today.

3. Conclusion I return to where I began, stories of reading Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. Reading over the shoulders of others reading – whether Nafisi or Matthew’s genealogy – shows us that our readings are inevitably shaped by social location. Just as the Western literary canon, the Gospels offer liberating and oppressive possibilities, shaped by how and where we read. Feminist critical lenses illuminate those possibilities. The royal and patrilineal Matthean genealogy unexpectedly contains five women. These five women challenge their readers to read both with and against 71 M. R. D’Angelo, “Abba and ‘Father:’ Roman Imperial Theology and the Jesus Traditions,” JBL 111 (1992): 623–4. 72 E. Schüssler-Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origin (New York: Crossroads, 1992), 150, quoted in Anderson and Moore, “Matthew and Masculinity,” 78. 73 D’Angelo, “Abba and ‘Father’”, esp. 624–5, 629; Anderson and Moore, “Matthew and Masculinity,” 75–9. Cf. Wainwright, “Feminist Criticism,” 104–5 and W. Carter, “The Gospel of Matthew,” in A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings (ed. F. F. Segovia and R. S. Sugirtharajah; London: T & T Clark, 2009), 99: “While ‘power over’ is forbidden to disciples, God and Jesus exercise it as ‘Father’ (6:9; 23:9), as teacher (10:24–25) and as ‘instructor / master’ (23:10). Further, while violence is forbidden to disciples in their interaction with Rome’s world (5.38–48; Jesus forgoes it, 26.52–53), Jesus and God retain its use for the final violent and forcible establishment of God’s empire (24.27–31).” 74 Wainwright, Shall we look for Another, suggests that some may have read Son of God and Father language as legitimizing male power and some “in terms of intimacy, love and fidelity,” 107. Cf. Wainwright, “Feminist Criticism,” 104–5.

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the grain. If we respond to such a challenge, we should remember with St. Clair’s interpretation of Mark that suffering may be a consequence of discipleship, but it is not a requirement.

Mark and Matthew after Edward Said Hans Leander We have on the one hand an isolated cultural sphere, believed to be freely and unconditionally available to weightless theoretical speculation and investigation, and, on the other, a debased political sphere, where the real struggle between interests is supposed to occur. To the professional student of culture – the humanist, the critic, the scholar – only one sphere is relevant, and, more to the point, it is accepted that the two spheres are separated, whereas the two are not only connected but ultimately the same.1

In a standard textbook on biblical exegesis, seven pages are devoted to “exegesis with a special focus” in which is included liberationist, feminist, postcolonial, African, African American, and queer perspectives.2 The practitioners of these new perspectives, Hayes and Holladay state, were the “underprivileged, the exploited, the downtrodden, the powerless, the oppressed, and the misunderstood.” For scholars who are not concerned with such special focuses, the textbook asserts, it suffices to keep these issues in mind when conducting the ordinary task of biblical exegesis. The division made in the textbook between ordinary biblical exegesis and interpretations with special focuses can of course be challenged on a theoretical basis. The increasing attention given to the role played by the reader in the field of hermeneutics makes it difficult to defend an understanding of exegesis as unaffected by the scholar’s location and interest. The argument made here, however, has more of an empirical basis. Since it is often easier to catch sight of how exegetical works are affected by particular cultural notions in hindsight, I will study scholarly 19th century commentaries on Matthew and Mark and investigate how they were related to the colonial mindset that permeated European culture at this time. The point will be to make visible what appears to be a colonial heritage of biblical scholarship that, unless monitored, risks becoming reproduced in contemporary scholarship. Also, I will argue that what is seen as ordinary biblical exegesis is in fact an expression of a particular culture with its dominating regimes of knowledge. The argument will unfold in three parts. I will begin by analyzing how biblical scholarship on Mark and Matthew was related to the racialized discourses of modernity, more specifically to the field of orientalism. Secondly, biblical scholarship will be studied in light of the discourse of Protestant mission with its de1 E. Said,

Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 57.

2  J. H. Hayes and C. R. Holladay, Biblical Exegesis: A Beginner’s Handbook (Louisville: Westmin-

ster John Knox, 2001), 167–73.

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bated relation to European colonialism. Third, I will draw some final conclusions regarding contemporary interpretations of Mark and Matthew.

1. Biblical Scholarship and Orientalism The fact that modern biblical scholarship developed in close affiliation with the field of philology is generally accepted.3 From the renaissance humanists as well as the reformers, the principle of ad fontes had fuelled a growing interest in sources and original languages. Besides being theologians, thus, many of the scholars that founded modern biblical scholarship were also orientalists and philologists.4 A more seldom explored trajectory among biblical scholars is how this interest in language and pure origins was connected to the forming of an elevated European self-understanding at a time when European colonialism was moving into its second capitalist and Protestant phase.5 A significant companion when approaching this issue is Edward Said and his work Orientalism, which is generally seen as inaugurating the field of postcolonial criticism. Considering the impact of Said on the humanities and social sciences, the limited extent to which biblical scholars have engaged in the discussions raised by his work is quite bewildering.6 Not only does Said’s open neglect of German biblical scholarship invite scrutiny; the issues that his work raises concern the very birth of our discipline.7 There are thus good reasons for contemporary biblical scholars to engage ourselves in what is sometimes called the trajectory of Beforeand-After-Said.8 Said points out how the new philology’s breakthrough in comparative grammar during the late 18th century brought forth the definite rejection of the divine ori3 W. Baird, History of New Testament Research: From Deism to Tübingen (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 1:29. 4  To mention only three scholars with such interdisciplinary approaches: Johann David Michaelis, Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, and Ernest Renan. 5 Two exceptions are S. Kelley, Racializing Jesus: Race, Ideology, and the Formation of Modern Scholarship (Biblical Limits; London: Routledge, 2002), and H. Leander, Discourses of Empire: The Gospel of Mark from a Postcolonial Perspective (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, forthcoming 2013). 6 There are a few biblical scholars who have engaged with Said; e.g., A. Jones Nelson, “Justice and Biblical Interpretation beyond Subjectivity and Determination: A Contrapuntal Reading on the Theme of Suffering in the Book of Job,” Political Theology 11 (2010): 431–52; R. S. Sugirtharaja, “Orientalism, Ethnonationalism and Transnationalism: Shifting Identities and Biblical Interpretation,” in Ethnicity and the Bible (ed. M. G. Brett; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 419–30; and S. Holloway, Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible (Hebrew Bible Monogrpahs 10; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoneix, 2007). 7 For Said’s motivation as to his neglect of German scholarship, cf. Said, Orientalism, 16–20. See also Leander, Discourses of Empire, 71–7. 8 M. Jasanoff, “Before and After Said,” review of robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists & Their Enemies, London Review of Books 6 (2006): 14–5. See also S. L. Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race, and Scholarship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), xx.

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gins of language as well as a reclassification of languages into families.9 One of the most significant results of this scholarly endeavor was the distinction between the Indo-European and Oriental linguistic families. Considering that this was a time when racial difference was a prominent scientific subject matter in Europe as a whole, it is not surprising to find that philological investigations of the differences between these linguistic families had rather overt racializing tendencies. A quote from a 19th century philologist, who was also a biblical scholar, illustrates the point: In all things one sees it, the Semitic race, by its very simplicity, appears to us as an incomplete race. This race, if I may venture to say so, is to the Indo-European family what a pencil sketch is to a drawing, what a plainsong is to modern music; it lacks that variety, that scope, that overabundance of life which is the condition of perfectibility. Like those individuals who posses so little fecundity that, after a gracious childhood, they attain only the most mediocre virility, the Semitic nations experienced their fullest flowering in their first age and have never been able to achieve true maturity.10

This racializing argument by Ernest Renan keenly represents what Said thought was a general tendency among 19th century philologists and orientalists to create the Oriental or the Semite as the European’s other.11 Their research thus became affiliated with a broader West-European production of knowledge that in an age of empire helped form an elevated European self-understanding by establishing an identification with the Greek over against the Semitic. True enough, Said has rightly been criticized for being a partisan, for not taking sufficient account of the heterogeneous character of European cultures and identities, as well as for neglecting that some orientalists were at times opposing some aspects of European colonialism. Said thus ought to be taken with a grain of salt. Indeed, engaging in Orientalism more than thirty years after its first publication has the advantage of enabling a more reflective attitude towards the issue that the work raises. For as Suzanne Marchand states in the introduction to her illuminating work on German orientalism, it would not be desirable to return to a pre-Saidian way of neglecting the political aspects of orientalist scholarship.12 Due to his combined interest in theology, orientalism, and comparative philology, Renan serves as an entrance into the first part of the study undertaken here. Renan regarded Greeks as superior to Semites and in that sense he represents a mentality that was common in Europe during this time. It is important to notice, Orientalism, 135. Œuvres complètes (10 vols.; Paris: Calman‑ Lévy, 1947–1961), 8:156. 11 Because of Renan’s influence and his dual focus on biblical research and philology, he is here taken as a representative of 19th century orientalism. Obviously, this choice can be questioned. For instance, Friedrich Max Müller would provide a somewhat different picture. As G. W. Trompf, Friedrich Max Müller: As a Theorist of Comparative Religion (Bombay: Shakuntala Publishing House, 1978), 73, points out in his study of Müller, whereas Renan found it problematic that Jesus was a Jew, “it was not displeasing to Müller to think of Jesus as a Semite.” Nevertheless, Müller shared Renan’s identification with the Greek (or Indo-European) over and against the Semite, as did orientalists in general. 12 Marchand, German Orientalism, xx.  9 Said,

10 E. Renan,

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however, that his racism did not rest on biological arguments. Unlike the natural scientists of the day, he refrained from categorizing people from anatomy, skin color, or the like. Although his use of race surely alludes to those discourses, it is rather based on a deterministic understanding of the connection between language and human capacity. This is seen in another of his works, De l’origine du langage, first published in 1848. “The religious and sensitive race of the Semitic people,” Renan rhetorically asks, “doesn’t it depict itself trait for trait in these entirely physical languages, by which abstractions are unknown and the metaphysical impossible?”13 In other words, the inferior nature of the Semitic race was directly related to the language itself, and its alleged inability to formulate metaphysical notions. On a philological basis, Renan thereby maintained, Jews and Greeks were two distinct and stable racial categories, with the Greeks representing the pinnacle of human development and progress. As we now continue by approaching Mark and Matthew, the way in which Renan connects the Greek with the metaphysical is important to keep in mind.

2. A Greek or Semitic Son of God In order to investigate how critical commentaries on Mark and Matthew dealt with the Greek / Semitic binary division that was common among orientalists and philologians, I will now approach some scholarly 19th century commentaries written in Germany, England, and the USA. One would expect this binary to be used when the differences between Matthew and Mark were discussed. Mark was typically regarded as being written for non-Jewish Christians. Matthew, on the other hand, was seen as primarily addressing Jewish Christians. Since this is a complicated issue I will return to it below and begin instead by focusing on how the commentaries interpret the meaning of the phrase Son of God, used in Mark as well as in Matthew. To briefly anticipate the argument, the commentaries generally held that the phrase could be understood in a Jewish or a Greek way: for Jews, the phrase merely indicated the name of an office; for Greeks, on the other hand, the phrase signified a metaphysical divine essence. Let us begin with the commentaries written by Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, who is chiefly noted for his Kritischexegetischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament (16 vols.), which began to appear in 1832 and was completed in 1859.14 Commenting on Mark’s incipit, Meyer states that the title Son of God “is used in the believing consciousness (Glaubensbewusstsein) of the metaphysical sonship of God …, and that in the Pauline and Petrine sense.”15 What Meyer here calls metaDe l’origine du langage (3d. ed.; Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1859), 190–1. work was translated into English in Clark’s series (20 vols., 1873–82). There is also an American edition (11 vols., 1884–88). 15  H. A. W. Meyer, Kritisch-exegetisches Handbuch über die Evangelien des Markus und Lukas (5th ed; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1867), 17, italics in original. 13 Renan, 14 The

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physical sonship is connected to a “believing consciousness” and therefore denotes a Christian belief. This belief, in turn, is for Meyer connected to the Gentile-Christian readers that he argues Mark is addressing. In order to verify this reading of Meyer, I looked at how he interpreted the baptism of Jesus (Mark 1:11). Interestingly enough, he here refers to his commentary on Matt 3:13–17, where he states: The divine voice solemnly proclaims Jesus to be the Messiah, ὁ υἱός μου; which designation, derived from Ps. ii. 7, is in the divine and also in the Christian consciousness not merely the name of an office (Amtsname), but has at the same time a metaphysical (metaphysischen) meaning, designating the divine origin of Jesus in accordance with his spiritual essence (pneumatischen Wesen).16

The Greek / Jew division is here construed rather clearly. With reference to the birth narratives (Matt 1:20; Luke 1:35), Meyer argues that the Markan and Matthean designations Son of God are to be understood in a Christian metaphysical way, designating spiritual essence. As for the Jewish understanding, Meyer argues, Son of God is merely an official term. Even if Meyer regards Matthew to be directed towards a Jewish audience, he still regards its use of Son of God as qualifying for the Greek side of the Jew / Greek division.17 The division is construed in a similar way in one of the first commentaries in the ICC series, written by Ezra P. Gould in Philadelphia, USA. In extra-canonical Jewish literature, Gould argues, “Son of God” is applied to the Messianic king in a way that “is purely theocratic and official, corresponding to the O. T. use to denote any whose office especially represents God among men, such as kings and judges.”18 Gould departs from his colleagues, however, when he states that “its application to Jesus’ metaphysical relation to God is not found in the Synoptics” (italics added). As we have seen, “the metaphysical” is often a synonym for the Greek understanding. As Gould sees it, the reason that this Greek notion is not found in the Synoptics is that “the term is applied by Jesus to himself in his discourse without any explanation, whereas it would require explanation if it was intended to convey any other meaning than the historical sense with which the people were familiar.”19 Even if it is unclear who “the people” refers to – the Synoptics’ audiences or people listening to the historical Jesus – it is clear that Gould presupposes that Jews in general had a certain understanding of “Son of God” that was different from the Greek understanding. Since Jesus was a Jew and since the Synoptics depict him in a Jewish milieu, Gould argues, the Synoptics present him as a Son of God in the Jewish sense – i.e., in a theocratic and official sense. But even if Gould expresses a divergent position on the meaning of Son of God in Mark and Matthew, he nevertheless construes the Jew / Greek binary in the same way as his colleagues. 16 Meyer, Das Neue Testament Griechisch, das Evangelium des Matthäus (4th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1858), 104. 17 For the fact that Meyer regards Matthew as written for a Jewish audience, see ibid., 19. 18  E. P. Gould, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Mark (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896), 3–4. 19 Gould, St. Mark, 4.

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In order to trace how this Jew / Greek binary was connected to philological scholarship, a somewhat less known commentary on Mark could serve as a guide. Located in St Andrews, Scotland, Allan Menzies makes a similar distinction between a Jewish and a Greek understanding of the phrase: since Mark writes “for Gentiles,” Menzies argues, “only the … metaphysical sense of the phrase can be thought of.”20 Menzies then continues with a remarkable statement: “The doctrine of the Son of God could not arise on Jewish soil, but to Greek speaking people it presented little difficulty.” The connection made between “Jewish soil” and an inability to develop a metaphysical concept is supported by a reference to Die Worte Jesu, a work by the influential scholar Gustaf Dalman. Die Worte Jesu is based on Dalman’s previous study of Aramaic grammar and aims at investigating the words of Jesus in Aramaic. Although Dalman includes several Jewish phrases in his study, Menzies refers particularly to Dalman’s investigation of the title Son of God.21 Dalman’s study shows how the Jew / Greek division, pervasive among biblical scholars, was connected to philological scholarship, which strengthens the argument made here. Dalman’s argument reflects well his time’s scholarly understanding of the phrase Son of God. Jewish usage of the title often referred to King David or to the Jewish people, but, as Dalman argues, “there will never be inferred a divine essence (gottheitliches Wesen) of the Son in such expressions.” Divine essence, for Dalman, implies a notion of giving birth, and even if the phrase for Jews expresses a singular (eigenartige) relation to God, it is “far from any procreation (Zeugung) in the actual sense of the word.”22 The Jewish understanding is, according to Dalman, figurative and connected to royal power rather than divine essence. Procreation, as is well known, figures prominently in Matthew and Luke. Hence, Dalman regards these as representing the Greek rather than the Semitic understanding of Son of God.23 Dalman’s construal of the Greek/Semitic division, however, is not made without noticeable strain. He mentions in passing that the Egyptians believed their kings to be of divine origin in a “procreational” sense.24 But a more conspicuous obstacle to his clear-cut division is seen in his discussion about the Roman worship of their emperors as θεοῦ υἱός. Here Dalman has to contradict the suggestion by Adolf Deissmann, who had questioned whether the Christian metaphysical and essential understanding of Son of God was the way in which ordinary Greek-speaking people during the first century would have heard and understood the phrase. Based on newly discovered papyri, Deissmann had argued that from the time of Augustus, θεοῦ υἱός was used as a title of emperors. This was the meaning, Deissmann argued, that would have been primarily stamped on the minds of Greek-speaking 20 A. Menzies, The Earliest Gospel: A Historical Study of the Gospel according to Mark (London: MacMillan, 1901), 57. 21 G. Dalman, Die Worte Jesu mit Berücksichtigung des nachkanonischen jüdischen Schrifttums und der aramäischen Sprache (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche, 1898), 219–37. 22 Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 223. 23 Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 236. 24 Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 223–4.

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people when used as a title for Christ.25 Since Menzies explicitly builds his interpretation on Dalman, over and against Deissmann, it is interesting to see how Dalman writes off Deissmann: True, August called himself ‘Divi Filius, θεοῦ υἱός; but this has actually not to do with a divine sonship. It was an expression of his modesty [Bescheidenheit], so that he only would be called ‘son of one who have been located among the gods,’ his adoptive father being Caesar, who had been declared as Divus. Therefore, from this designation one cannot deduce the Greek conception of the expression ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ used of Jesus.26

One part of Dalman’s argument here seems to rest on the use of a definite article. Whereas the Roman emperor was called (a) son of (a) god, Jesus was called the Son of the God. But more than mere grammar, his argument is first and foremost a defense of Greek as a master signifier, and its connection to what was seen as the essence of Christian faith. Whereas for Dalman, the phrase ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (used of Jesus) represents the Greek conception, the phrase θεοῦ υἱός (used of the emperor) was not Greek. Dalman seems to mean that when the emperor was worshipped by Greek-speaking people as θεοῦ υἱός, this did not represent the “Greek understanding” of divine sonship. Dalman’s position thus seems to rest on an axiomatic notion that defines the Greek conception as Christian, metaphysical, and essential. Dalman concludes his investigation by discussing how the phrase is used in the Synoptics. Ending by ascertaining that “their [the Synoptics] mode of thought is Greek; that of Jesus Semitic,” the Jew / Greek division comes forth as his main point.27 Indeed, as Dalman’s study of the Aramaic sayings of Jesus gives such prominent weight to the Greek understanding, one gets the impression that, for him, the Aramaic or Jewish is largely constituted by that which is not Greek. Hence, Dalman argues that “the Greek, unlike the Hebrew, does not use the term ‘son’ to denote a manifoldness of relationships. He will always be inclined (geneigt) to understand ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ in real literal sense whereas the Israelite would only understand it as stemming from a particular reason.”28 The Jew / Greek division – assumed by previously mentioned scholars – is here endowed with mental dispositions whereby “the Greek” and “the Hebrew” signifies different types of people that are “inclined” to understand in different ways. Such racialized notions connect in a problematical way to the European colonial discourse and resonates closely with Renan who regarded the Semitic language as an inverted version of the Indo-European.29 25 A. Deissmann, Bibelstudien: Beiträge, zumeist aus den Papyri und Inschriften, zur Geschichte der Sprache, des Schrifttums und der Religion des hellenistischen Judentums und des Urchristentums (Marburg: N. G. Elwer’sche, 1895), 166–7. 26 Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 224. 27 Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 237. 28 Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 236. 29 As G. Genette, Mimologics (trans. Thaïs E. Morgan; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 189–99, argues, Renan claimed to do on Semitic languages what Bopp had done on the Indo-European languages. But unlike Bopp, Renan did not develop a chart based on the Semitic languages. Rather, his studies of the Semitic languages were based on the chart that Bopp had developed from the Indo-European languages and made “a sort of inverse of the latter” (ibid., 194).

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Let us now approach the issue of how the Jewish character of Matthew’s Gospel was described. An interesting illustration is found in one of the most influential biblical commentaries during the 19th century  – Johann Peter Lange’s Theologisch-homiletisches Bibelwerk (36 vols) which he began editing in 1857 and which was translated in an edited and augmented version by Philip Schaff, under the title A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical (25 vols.) during 1865–1880. As indicated by the title, the commentary was divided into three sections: critical, doctrinal, and homiletical. While other scholars contributed by writing most of the series’ commentaries, Lange himself wrote seven of them, two of which were the ones on Mark and Matthew. Interestingly for my purposes, Lange makes prominent use of the Jew / Greek divide and unlike other commentators he engages rather extensively in discussing the character of Matthew’s Gospel. In the exegetical and critical section, Lange makes one highly dense comment in relation to Mark’s use of the title Son of God: “Matthew: the Son of David. In Mark, the theocratic relation of Jesus recedes, as he wrote especially for Gentile Christians.”30 In his commentary on Matthew’s Gospel, Lange further says that “most Jews at that time, understood that title (Son of God) as only referring to the Messianic kingship of Jesus, without connecting with it the idea of eternal (ewigen) and essential (wesentlischen) Sonship.”31 Besides reproducing the Jew / Greek binary, these comments by Lange also raise the issue of how scholars understood the differences between Mark and Matthew at this time. An interesting question, then, is how Lange describes Matthew. As has become evident, the categories “Jews” and “Greeks” were not only imbued with essential meaning, but also construed hierarchically. Representing a stagnate theocratic mindset that in 19th century discourse signified anti-progress and anti-Enlightenment, the Semite was not only opposite, but also inferior to the Greek. What about Matthew, the most Jewish of the Gospels, in such a setting? As indicated by the headline at the beginning of his commentary, Lange appears to be addressing this issue head-on. The headline reads: “The Gospel of Matthew; or, the Gospel of Prevailing Theocratic History [das vorwaltend theokratisch-geschichtliche Evangelium].”32 As the term theocracy was closely connected to the backward Semites, one could ask if Lange’s phrasing of the headline for his work on Matthew constitutes a raising of the Semites’ status.33 In Lange’s description of Matthew, however, this is the Gospel where the Semitic is in effect terminated. In Matthew, Lange says, Jesus is presented as “the Das Evangelium nach Markus (Bielefeld: Velhagen und Klasing, 1858), 13. Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (Bielefeld: Velhagen und Klasing, 1857), 400. 32 Lange, Matthäus, 1. The English version omits “prevailing” (vorwaltend) (Lange, The Gospel according to Matthew [ed. and trans., P. Shaff; 1st ed. from the 3rd German ed.; A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures; New York: Charles Scribner, 1865], 39). 33 That theocracy was connected to the Hebrews is amply illustrated by dictionary entries from this period. See, e.g., Chambers’s Encyclopaedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Allgemeine deutsche Real-Encyklopädie, s.v. 30  J. P. Lange, 31 Lange,

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goal and endpoint of all theocratic development” (Das Ziel und der Endpunkt aller theokratischen Entwicklungen).34 Since Christ is the central core and the crown of the whole Hebrew Bible, indeed its spiritual truth (Geisteswahrheit), Lange argues that the Matthean Jesus stands “in a pronounced contrast to the external and externalized false and fleshly appearance of Judaism (der äußerlichen und veräußerlichten falschen und fleischlichen Erscheinung des Judenthums).”35 This contrast, Lange argues, represents “a conflict between the true and the false King of Israel … between the true High Priest and the spiritually estranged priestly power (geistentfremdeten Priestermacht).”36 In this sense, the conflict “accounts for the extensive historical suffering of the Christ of God,” and “resulted in his death upon the cross.”37 As the most Jewish of the Gospels, Matthew constituted a potential threat to an elevated European subjectivity that identified itself with the Greek over against the Semitic. In what appears to be an averting of this threat, a radical antagonism is depicted between Matthew’s progressive and truly spiritual Jesus on the one hand, and the carnal, external Jewish (so called) religion on the other. Matthew is thus seen as establishing a radical discontinuity with Judaism. This discontinuity, in turn, is given a fundamental character and described in victorious terms as constituting the basis of the other Gospels.38 Let us summarize the study so far. Interpreting the designation of Jesus as the Son of God in Mark and Matthew, critical-oriented commentaries tend to base their interpretations on a binary division between what they regard as a Greek (or Gentile or Hellenistic) and a Semitic (or Hebrew or Jewish) understanding of the title. Although not in complete agreement on whether the title as used in the Gospels is to be understood in a Jewish or Greek sense, the basic division is never questioned.39 The division seems to be based on essentialist and stable categories, which can be graphically displayed in the disposition displayed in Table 1. Greek Metaphysical Eternal Christian doctrine Paul, Peter, John

Semitic Theocratic Official Messianic kingship Ordinary Jews

Table 1. The Greek/Jew dichotomy inw biblical commentaries. Matthäus, 1. Matthäus, 1. 36 Lange, Matthäus, 1. 37 Lange, Matthäus, 1. 38 Lange, Matthäus, 2. For a similar description of Matthew as an anti-Jewish Christian text, see Meyer, Matthäus, 19–20. 39 The exception was Gould. His position regarding the Synoptics shows affinity with the currents of scholars known as the Religious-Historical School that Marchand, German Orientalism, 252–70, describes as part of a “second oriental renaissance.” Exemplified by scholars such as Wilhelm Bousset and Adolf Deissmann, these scholars had a much less dismissive attitude towards the Orient than their philhellenic predecessors. 34 Lange, 35 Lange,

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The Greek understanding is seen as metaphysical or eternal and is connected to Pauline, Johannine, and Petrine thought. The Greek notion is tantamount to Christian doctrine and “could not arise on Jewish soil.” Unlike the theocratic mindset of the Jews, Greeks were able to formulate metaphysical thoughts. During the 19th century, these categories played an important role in the forming of a modern and colonial European self-understanding. These biblical commentaries therefore gave voice to a common mind-set – i.e., modern, Christian, and superior-minded Europeans of the 19th century naturally identified themselves with the metaphysical Greek over against the theocratic Semite.

3. Teach all Nations Until this point I have only dealt with the categories Greek and Semitic and their importance for a European colonial identity. But what about the more popular categories Christian and heathen? Here another, albeit more negative, connection to Said can be made. As a matter of fact, Said makes the rather unpersuasive argument that Christian discourse was in effect superseded during the 19th century by the development of secular religion, in which the orientalists played a crucial part. In these currents, Said argues, the longstanding Christians / heathen distinction was “overwhelmed” by systematically multiplied classifications of mankind based on “race, color, origin, temperament, character, and types.”40 Said here neglects that the 19th century saw the rise of a Protestant phase of European colonialism, indicated not least by a work by William Carey on the “obligations for Christians to convert the heathen” and the subsequent forming of a large number of Protestant missionary societies in England, Scotland, North America, Germany, Holland, France, Scandinavia, and Finland.41 Judging from the increasingly wide circulation of missionary magazines in European countries during the 19th century, Said’s description is far too categorical and seems to be caught in a Hegelian scheme of development.42 Even if multiple classifications did develop in secular scientific discourse during the 19th century, it is hardly accurate to consider them as having replaced or overwhelmed the division between Christian and heathen (or, for that matter, between the Occident and the Orient); on the contrary, these various categorizations continued to exist side by side in European colonial discourse. 40 Said,

Orientalism, 113–23.

41 W. Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the

Heathens (rep. 1891 in facsimile from the 1792 ed.; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1792) and G. Warneck, Abriß einer Geschichte der protestantischen Missionen von der Reformation bis auf die Gegenwart (Berlin: Martin Warneck, 1898). 42 See also the study by C. Hall, “Missionary Stories: Gender and Ethnicity in England in the 1830s and 1840s,” in Cultural Studies (ed. L. Grossberg, C. Nelson, and P. A. Treichler; New York: Routledge, 1992), 240–76, concerning how missionary stories were part of forming English identity during the 1830s and 1840s.

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Fig. 1: The cover of a Swedish missionary magazine with the Great Commission in a prominent place.

The so-called Great Commission constitutes a primary passage to consult in order to verify how the Christian / heathen division was used in the commentaries. The prominence of this Matthean passage is seen in the heading of a Swedish missionary magazine from the late 19th century (see fig. 1). In the more popularly oriented New Testament Commentary for English Readers, E. H.  Plumptre offers the following comment on μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (Matt 28:19): “Teach all nations.  – Better, make disciples of all the heathen.”43 Plumptre’s reading of τὰ ἔθνη as “the heathen” is affiliated with the missionary discourse with its strong emphasis on the obligations of Christian Europeans to convert the heathen. A more disputed issue, however, is what role was actually played by the Protestant mission in the colonial enterprises of the imperial era. There seems to be three primary perspectives according to which missionaries of this period have been viewed: 1) as agents of colonialism;44 2) as independent of colonialism;45 and, 3) as revitalizing indigenous cultures often in opposition to colonialism.46 Christopher Hodgkins offers a mediating position: 43  E. H.  Plumptre, The Gospel according to St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke (New York: Dutton, 1897), 183. 44 N. Majeke, The Role of Missionaries in Conquest (Johannesburg: Society of Young Africa, 1952). 45 T. Christensen and W. R. Hutchison, Missionary Ideologies in the Imperialist Era, 1880–1920: Papers from the Durham Consultation, 1981 (Århus: Aros, 1982), 5–9. 46  L. O. Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (American Society of Missiology Series 13; Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1989).

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Protestant Christianity gave the British Empire “its main paradigms for dominion and possession but also, ironically, its chief languages of anti-imperial dissent.”47 To clarify, I am here not discussing the complex effects of mission in the colonies. My focus is rather on how biblical interpretation interacted with European colonial discourse “at home.” Therefore, the disputed issue of the role of the missionaries in the colonies can be left somewhat aside. The way in which Protestant mission regarded its own activities in relation to the colonial expansion is important for the present analysis. A quote from the German missionary historian Gustav Warneck illustrates the point: “Of course, English colonial politics is not driven by a will to serve God’s kingdom,” Warneck says, “yet it achieves – without knowing or wanting it – good condition for the expansion of God’s kingdom.”48 A similar viewpoint is found in a Swedish missionary magazine: “Without doubt, the English are, with all their mistakes, of all nations on earth, the one nation that has the power and means that are required to prepare the way for Christianity and … protect its tender sprout among the heathens.”49 In this magazine, published under the supervision of the Church of Sweden’s Board of Mission, the colonial expansion was seen as preparing the way  – i.e., building railways and upholding law and order, thereby opening up the non-European lands for Christian mission. But while welcoming the colonial expansion, Protestant mission also at times distanced itself from it. Whereas the worldly imperial expansion was seen as involving politics, coercion, greed, and violence, the Protestant mission was considered to be based upon an essentially spiritual power (Geistesmacht) and free from coercion.50 A similar distance in relation to the imperial expansion is represented in The Greek New Testament, where Henry Alford comments on the verb μαθητεύσατε in Matt 28:19: “All power is given Me – go therefore and … subdue? Not so: the purpose of the Lord is to bring men to the knowledge of the truth – to work on and in their hearts, and lift them up to be partakers of the Divine Nature. And therefore it is not ‘subdue,’ but ‘make disciples of.’”51 For Protestant missionaries, it was important to uphold the distinction between coercive imperial domination and voluntary evangelism. Even if such a distinction can be questioned from the perspective of the colonized, it was still important for the self-understanding of Protestant missionaries.52 To them, subduing the non-European peoples was not the same as converting them or making disciples of them. 47 C. Hodgkins, Reforming Empire: Colonialism and Conscience in British Literature (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002), 2. 48 G. Warneck, Hvarför är det nittonde århundradet ett missionsårhundrade? (trans. C. Strömberg; Stockholm, 1881), 28. 49 H. W. Tottie, “Något om missionssaken i London,” Missions-Tidning, under inseende af Svenska Kyrkans Missions-Styrelse 9 (1884): 118. 50 Warneck, Geschichte der protestantischen Missionen, 1–7. 51 H. Alford, The Greek Testament: With a Critically Revised Text (2 vols.; London: Rivington, 1849), 1:223. 52 For a questioning of this division from an African perspective, see Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (London: Penguin in association with Heinemann African Writers Series, 2001).

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A similar distinction is found in A Popular Commentary on the New Testament where Philip Schaff and Matthew Riddle comment on 28:19: “Because Christ rules (ver. 18), go, not to conquer men by force, but to work on their hearts – make them disciples, docile pupils in the school of Christ.”53 If the colonizers used force, the missionaries were only to use spiritual means. But for colonizers and missionaries alike, it seems, the heathens were expected to be docile and thankful to the Europeans. As such, the interpretation by Schaff and Riddle corresponds to the composition of the standard collection boxes in Swedish churches at the time, adorned as they were with the submissive figure of a converted African heathen. Having pointed out this connection, it is also important to acknowledge that the social practice of converting “the heathens” into “docile pupils in the school of Christ” was a highly ambiguous enterprise. Shown not least by Homi Bhabha’s essay “Sign taken for Wonders,” the missionary discourse tended to be open for different kinds of indigenous appropriation and mimicry, and hence carried a potential for resistance to colonial domination.54

4. The First Missionary to the Heathen It hardly comes as a surprise that the interpretation of the Great Commission in Matthew was connected to Protestant mission and thereby also to the second phase of European colonialism. But there is also a more unexpected passage in Mark as well as Matthew where the Christian / heathen dichotomy comes to the fore in the scholarly commentaries: the episode about the Gerasene Demoniac (Mark 5:1–20; Matt 8:28–34). Interestingly enough, this is also a passage that contemporary postcolonial scholars have found exciting, not least due its way of using the Latin loan word λεγιών.55 In the popular Expositor’s Bible, George Alexander Chadwick comments upon the episode. In part, Chadwick’s commentary seems to belong to an evangelical or even non-conformist tradition (pietism) that, at the time, combined a focus on Christian mission among non-European peoples with a critical attitude towards the rationalism of modernity.56 In order to make visible Chadwick’s vivid style, the initial paragraph of his commentary on the pericope is here rendered in full: FRESH from asserting His mastery over winds and waves, the Lord was met by a more terrible enemy, the rage of human nature enslaved and impelled by the cruelty of hell. The place where He landed was a theatre not unfit for the tragedy which it revealed. A mixed 53 M. B. Riddle and P. Schaff, The Gospel of Matthew (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1879),

244.

The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 2004), 145–74. 5:1–20, with its satirical allusions to the Roman army, has become a locus classicus for empire-critical readings of Mark. See Leander, Discourses of Empire. 56 True, Chadwick was an Anglican Bishop. But the style of his writing appears more pietist than orthodox. 54  H. K. Bhabha, 55 Mark

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race was there, indifferent to religion, rearing great herds of swine, upon which the law looked askance, but the profits of which they held so dear that they would choose to banish a Divine ambassador, and one who had released them from an incessant peril, rather than be deprived of these. Now it has already been shown that the wretches possessed by devils were not of necessity stained with special guilt. Even children fell into this misery. But yet we should expect to find it most rampant in places where God was dishonoured, in Gerasa and in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And it is so. All misery is the consequence of sin, although individual misery does not measure individual guilt. And the places where the shadow of sin has fallen heaviest are always the haunts of direst wretchedness.57

The extent to which this interpretation interplayed with colonial discourse is debatable. Even if Chadwick’s vivid depiction of Jesus’ landing after a dramatic journey evokes the image of European travelers and missionaries arriving at godforsaken heathen shores, it also needs to be recognized that his description is based on Mark’s depiction of Jesus as a traveler. But when Chadwick describes the area to which Jesus travels as a place populated by a “mixed race” that was greedy and “indifferent to religion,” and one on which “the shadow of sin has fallen heaviest,” making it a “[haunt] of direst wretchedness,” he adds significantly to Mark’s account in a way that interplays rather closely with Protestant mission. The fact that these images not only designate ancient Gerasa, but also “wretched” places in his contemporary world is signaled by his transition to the present tense. Chadwick here uses terms and phrases that are similar to those of Protestant evangelism and pietism, according to which the misery in the non-European world was seen as a product of sin that could be alleviated by evangelism and Christian conversion.58 This similarity can be seen by a comparison to a text from The Missionary Magazine and Chronicle, an organ of the London Missionary Society, where “the Kaffir, the Hottentot, or the Bushman” in their “degradation” represent “the guilt and wretchedness in the world” against which the preaching of the Gospel offers “the only antidote.”59 Although the relation between Protestant mission and European colonialism was complex, the representation of non-Europeans as wretched and in need of Christian civilization was surely an important motive for European colonialism. Let us continue with the commentary mentioned previously, the one by Schaff and Riddle. Although it has a more ordinary style, it offers a similar interpretation as Chadwick’s. Unlike Chadwick, however, the local population is here depicted as “heathen”: The people were heathen, and as such were more affected by the loss of property and the fear of further damage than by the blessing wrought on the possessed man. Our Lord never 57  G. A. Chadwick,

142.

The Gospel according to St Mark (New York; Hodder & Stoughton, 1887),

58 D. Stuart, “Convert or Convicts? The Gospel of Liberation & Subordination in Early Nineteenth-Century South Africa,” in Christian Missionaries and the State in the Third World (ed., H. Bernt and M. Twaddle Hansen; London: James Curry, 2002), 70–3. 59 G. Smith, [no title], in The Missionary Magazine and Chronicle (London: London Missionary Society, 1863), 192–3.

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came back – but the healed men60 remained. The one spoken of by Mark and Luke wished to follow Jesus, but was bidden to publish the story of his cure among his friends. With what result we do not know, but doubtless he thus prepared the way for the gospel, which was afterwards preached everywhere. The possessed received Him more readily than the Gadarenes. Christ healed madmen where calculating selfishness drove Him away.61

It is important to note that neither Mark nor Matthew spells out whether the population was Jewish or non-Jewish. Riddle and Schaff make an assumption, probably based upon the existence of the swine.62 They then point at this “heathen” identity as an explanation for the Gadarenes’ “calculating selfishness.” Since the possessed man welcomes Jesus, the commentary seems to imply, the “heathen” Gadarenes are even more wretched (to use a term that was common at the time) than him. When Riddle states that, afterwards, the gospel was “preached everywhere,” his interpretation points from the ancient context to his present time, with its strong emphasis on preaching the gospel to the heathen.63 Due to their popular character, the commentaries by Chadwick and Riddle and Schaff share a tendency of being somewhat confessional. The fact that such commentaries were affiliated with the discourse of Protestant mission is not so surprising. To begin the analysis of the more critical ones, the commentary by Alexander B. Bruce in The Expositors Greek Testament serves as a good start. Commenting on the last portion of the Markan pericope, in which Jesus instructs the healed man to go home and tell his people “what great things the Lord has done” (5:19), Bruce states: The [cured] man desired to become a regular disciple. … Jesus refuses, and, contrary to His usual practice, bids the healed one go and spread the news, as a kind of missionary to Decapolis, as the Twelve were to Galilee. The first apostle of the heathen (Holtz. (H. C.) after Volkmar). Jesus determined that those who would not have Himself should have his representative.64

Bruce’s designation of the cured man a “missionary to Decapolis” and as “the first apostle to the heathen” connects just as clearly to Christian mission as the less critical commentaries above. What indicates the critical character of the commentary is the somewhat cryptic reference to two German works: Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament by Holtzmann and Volkmar. Holtzmann’s work, however, only makes a brief point about how the pericope represents “the heathen swinishness” 60 Regarding the use of the plural (“men”), Riddle comments on Matthew’s account, in which two demoniacs are cured (Matt 8:28–34). Mark and Luke describe only one. 61 M. B. Riddle and P. Schaff, The Gospel of Mark (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1879), 85. Due to different variants in the manuscripts, Riddle uses “Gadarenes,” whereas Chadwick uses “Gerasenes” instead. This, however, does not affect their interpretation. 62 Plumptre, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, 51, in a similar reading, designates the local population as “wild, half-heathen.” 63 Cf. Carey, Obligations of Christians. 64 A. Balmain Bruce, The Synoptic Gospels (The Expositor’s Greek Testament 1; Lodnon: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897), 373–4.

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(die Schweinerei des Heidenthums), with reference to Volkmar.65 Since the interpretations of Bruce and Holtzmann are both rather brief, let us turn to Gustav Volkmar instead,and look into the scholarly discussion that was taking place around this pericope. Volkmar seems to have influenced several of the critical commentaries in their readings of this particular pericope.66 As the title of his work shows, Volkmar was also a critical scholar.67 Compared to Bruce and Holtzmann, however, he gives a much more metaphorically rich interpretation of the pericope: Even more threatening and terrible [than the great windstorm] is the kingdom of idols, this legion of evil spirits that possess the wretched people (den armen Menschen) over there in the heathen land (drüben im Heidenland). Take it as an image – on the other side of the sea in the Gadara land. A whole legion of idols or spirits of idols had made the people miserable and driven them out of their senses (Sinn) and minds (Verstand). … Only the words of Christ are capable of overthrowing all the unreason (Unvernunft) of the heathen world, possessed as it is by a legion of demons. Hereby the narrator (Darsteller) develops the most sensitive and beautiful poetry that until now has given rise to the greatest offence … For the Jew and the Judaeo-Christian, the heathen land is something constantly awful. It is associated with the unclean and swinish (Säuisches) and may not be entered. But as the poetical narrator shows in a beautiful way, when the legion of demons plunges, the idolatry and the swinishness or swine herd of heathendom (Sauerei oder Sauheerde des Heidenthums) similarly plunges down into the abyss. The saved heathen, previously so shameless and senseless, is now sitting sensible and dressed “by the feet of Jesus” and the heathen land is hereby cleaned from the greatly offending uncleanness that was adhered to it.68

The difference between Volkmar’s vivid account and the brief comments by Holtzmann and Bruce can be largely explained by the commentary genre (but see Chadwick’s account above). Volkmar presents his interpretation as a new way of understanding the Gospels’ account of Jesus’ exorcism in Gadara. Until now, Volkmar states, this pericope “has given rise to the greatest offence.” Searching for this offence – unexplained by Volkmar – I approached the scholar who is generally regarded as having been the most offensive of his time: David Friedrich Strauss. Judging from Strauss’ assessment of the Markan pericope and its parallels, there seems to have been rather intense discussions stemming from the rationalists’ questioning of the historicity of this story.69 Volkmar’s solution, it seems, was to read the story in a poetic way. The author of Mark who interpreted the event in Gadara, the Darsteller as Volkmar calls him, was not so much a historian as a poet who used images that Volkmar found sensitive and beautiful. 65 H. Holtzmann, Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament (2d rev. ed.; 4 vols.; Freiburg: Mohr, 1892–93), 1:153. 66 Menzies, The Earliest Gospel, 125, makes a similar reference to Volkmar. 67 The title of Volkmar’s work is Die Religion Jesu und ihre erste Entwickelung nach dem gegenwärtigen Stande der Wissenschaft (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1857). 68 Volkmar, Die Religion Jesu, 229–30. 69  D. F. Strauss, Life of Jesus Critically Examined (trans., Marian Evans from the 4th German ed.; 2 vols.; New York: Calvin Blanchard, 1860), 2:465–73.

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More apparently than the previous interpretations, it seems, Volkmar’s reading connects to the 19th century discourse of Protestant mission. When he interprets “on the other side of the sea in the Gadara land” as an image of “over there in the heathen land,” there is an allusion to his contemporary heathen land – i.e., the non-European territories of the 19th century. Furthermore, his playing on the words swine (Sau), swinish (Säuisches) and swinishness (Sauerei) with reference to the heathen, duplicates the Christian/heathen divide and amplifies it even more than the less critical commentaries. Nevertheless, being a critical scholar, Volkmar construes the division in a slightly different way. Instead of connecting heathen with sin and guilt, as did the previous commentaries, he associates heathen with unreason (Unvernunft) and being out of one’s senses (Sinn) and mind (Verstand).70 In this sense, Volkmar’s interpretation belongs to Enlightenment discourse. The scholarly interpretations of Mark 5:1–20 and Matt 8:28–34, therefore, seem to be caught in the middle of overlapping Protestant missionary discourses that construed the Christian / heathen opposition in somewhat different ways. The similarity between the scholarly interpretations and Protestant mission is rather evident. What Volkmar found beautiful in the story’s poetics – and that was also noticed in the commentaries – was how the cured demoniac who in his possessed state symbolized the miserable, irrational, and swinish state of heathen people, ends up sitting sensibly and dressed by the feet of Jesus.71 Such a metaphor of a transition from fallen to saved, of course, would represent the civilizing aspects of Christian mission which was a common trope in missionary discourses. Even if Germany was not a colonial nation at the time, the country had seen a recent increase in Protestant mission. As described by Gustav Warneck, the 1830s were characterized by a revitalization of Protestant mission and the forming of new missionary societies, such as Gesellschaft zur Beförderung der evangelischen Missionen unter den Heiden (formed 1824 in Berlin), Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft (formed in 1828), Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft (formed in 1836), and Evangelisch-lutherische Missionsgesellschaft (formed in 1836 in Dresden).72 Volkmar’s romantic imagery seems to fit well with this development. Interestingly from my location, the affinity to Protestant mission can also be seen in a more graphic way by comparison with Swedish missionary magazines in which the civilizing aspect was a prominent motif as well. In the latter part of the 19th century, when photographs and lithographs were beginning to be used in magazines, images became a powerful way of representing the identification of 70 A similar reading is conducted by F. C. Baur, Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien, ihr Verhältnis zu einander, ihren Charakter und Ursprung (Tübingen: L. F. Fues, 1847), 429–30, one of the most famous German biblical scholars. By interpreting the possessed man as liberated from the “demons’ violence” to a “natural state” of “powerful self consciousness” that represents “a converted heathen world,” Baur’s interpretation is affiliated with Protestant mission as well as with the modern discourse of liberation and progress. 71 The part where he sits at the feet of Jesus is only rendered in Luke’s account. 72 Warneck, De protestantiska missionernas historia från reformationen till nuvarande tid (Stockholm: Fosterlands-stiftelsen, 1884), 89–99.

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Fig. 2. From Missions-tidning (published under the supervision of The Church of Sweden Board of Mission) 1896/21, p. 120. A text below the image reads: “Zulu hut with natives.”

heathen nakedness with degradation and barbarism. As seen in fig. 2 and 3, converted Africans were often depicted with western styled clothes, which represented their being saved and civilized. The commentaries’ interpretation of the Gerasene Demoniac, epitomized by Volkmar’s work, have a noticeable counterpoint73 in such images of “converted heathens.” With a few exceptions, there is a strong tendency among orthodox, pietist, and critical commentaries alike to take the demon-possessed man as an image of the wretched heathen who needs to be rescued by Christian mission. The fact that these interpretations interplayed with colonial discourse is rather evident. It is important that we not speak lightly or condescendingly about these connections between biblical scholarship and Protestant mission. A number of European Christians devoted their lives and made large sacrifices for what they regarded as their divine obligation. On the other hand, it is equally important that we shine a critical light on the prejudiced and patronizing character of Protestant mission at this time, as well as on its ambiguous potential for indigenous appropriation.

73 “Counterpoint” stems from what Said, Culture and Imperialism, 51, has called contrapuntal reading.

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Fig. 3. The text below the image reads: “Rev. Fristedt with his two evangelists Salomon (to the left) and Matthew (to the right).” From Missions-tidning 1894/19, p. 265 (a Swedish missionary magazine).

5. Conclusion Informed by the work of Said, as well as by the critical discussions that it evoked, this essay has scrutinized how 19th century exegesis of Mark and Matthew was affected by a colonial mindset that was prevalent during an age of empire. Questioning an often made division between ordinary biblical exegesis and exegesis with special focuses, the point has been to make visible a more general contextual nature of biblical scholarship. What biblical scholars take for granted as neutral and scientifically based historical or philological knowledge, this essay has argued, tends to be caught up in the scholars’ present and its discursive truth effects. The argument does not deny the relevance of discussing historical or philological issues, but rather questions the epistemological premises on which such discussions

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are based. If postcolonial criticism implies a focus on how a biblical text is related to issues of imperial domination, does this mean that exegesis that neglects such issues is neutral and disinterested? Would it not be more fair to say that all exegesis has what Hayes and Holladay call “a special focus”? The investigation began by analyzing how the categories of Greek and Semitic were used in commentaries. The manner in which these categories were construed in a binary way indicates that orientalist scholarship, with its racializing tendencies, influenced and found a voice in the biblical commentaries. Nineteenth century orientalism typically upheld the possibility of dividing humankind into different races based upon philological differences. The categories “Jews” and “Greeks” were thus not only imbued with essential meaning, but also construed hierarchically. In a time of rather intense modernization and transition to a second phase of European colonialism, European self-understandings was formed via identification with the progressive Greeks over against the stagnant Semites. This identity construction, illustrated in figure 4, was put in play in commentaries on Mark and Matthew in their discussion of the meaning of the phrase Son of God. In opposition to what seems to be Said’s secularism, the investigation then continued by analyzing the Christan / heathen dichotomy that most famously was associated with the Great Commission (Matt 28:16–20). To little surprise, the commentaries were here connected to the discourse of Protestant mission with its ambiguous relation to imperial domination. Somewhat more surprising was the finding that the missionary discourse was also highly visible when the commentaries interpreted what in present scholarship has become a locus classicus of empire-critical gospel readings  – the episode about the Gerasene Demoniac (Mark 5:1–20; Matt 8:28–34). As the commentators tended to regard the cured demoniac as the first missionary to the heathen, he came to represent what was seen as the bringing of light to the “wretched heathen lands.” As illustrated in figure 5, the missionary discourse helped to form another kind of elevated European self-understanding. As an overall conclusion, then, represented in figures 4 and 5, there are two main ways in which the commentaries were engaged in constructions of European colonial identities. Whereas the Greek / Semitic division belonged to the modern orientalist discourse with its philhellenism, the Christian / heathen division was part of the discourse of Protestant mission. Even if these sub-divisions were in some ways competing with each other, they coexisted in biblical studies. What made this coexistence possible, it seems, was the master term “Christian,” which was interchangeably manifested over against “Semitic” and “heathen,” both of which were important representations of the other. Since these two different ways of forming European colonial identities are somewhat in conflict, they are usually not acknowledged as being at work simultaneously. As seen, Said argued that the modern scientific discourse with its more complex racial categorizations more or less superseded the Christian / heathen opposition. As this investigation has shown, however, such a description is inaccurate and

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Figures 4 and 5. Two interrelated dichotomies (Greek/Semitic and Jew/heathen), present in the Markan commentaries, that helped construe Christian Identity in colonial Europe.

could be seen as an expression of a Hegelian secularism, which regards religion as an obsolete phase to be left behind in the name of liberal progress. Since Protestant mission as well as science were both important to European self-understandings, they are best understood in relation to each other. After all, they were both fuelled by a strong sense of bringing light to the world. The postcolonial investigation conducted here on 19th century interpretations of Mark and Matthew also leads to critical questions concerning how to interpret these texts today. Since the phrase πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (Matt 28:19) during the 19th century was generally taken as referring to the “heathen” non-Europeans who were targets of Protestant mission and imperial domination, it represented a universalism that was emanating from an imperial center towards its inferior periphery. It now needs to be asked if there is an alternative to what appears to be a Christian imperial appropriation of the Jew / Gentile dichotomy. One way forward could be to take πάντα τὰ ἔθνη as not referring to any version of the non-Jew (heathen, pagan, gentile) but to people (including Jews) living under imperial domination subdued by Rome, and in that sense as emblematizing a post-Constantinian universalism from below. Similarly, 19th century commentaries generally took the desolate state of the Gerasene demoniac as symbolizing the wretched state of the “heathens” who needed to be rescued by a Christian European empire. Today, when scholars have begun to recognize the empire-critical sentiments of the episode, a pertinent question that this small investigation raises concerns whether the possessed man – whose problem stems from being possessed by λεγιών – is to be regarded as needing to be saved from or by empire.

Re-Assembling Jesus Rethinking the Ethics of Gospel Studies* Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall: Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again.  – Traditional English Nursery Rhyme –

As Alice strolls through the woods in chapter six of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, she stumbles upon a rather prickly character by the name of Humpty Dumpty. Their encounter abruptly moves into a conversation about language itself. Right from the start, Alice is questioning the meaning of words and how we use them. Words and names become the subject of intense analysis as Alice, the inquisitive girl that she is, continues to poke and prod Humpty Dumpty with questions about the meanings he employs. “My name is Alice, but –” “It’s a stupid name enough!” Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. “What does it mean?” “Must a name mean something?” Alice asked doubtfully. “Of course it must,” Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: “my name means the shape I am – and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.”1

Throughout this conversation we observe a movement between Humpty Dumpty’s reconfigurations of word-meanings and Alice’s attempts to make sense of the baffling obscurities that are thrown her way. This chapter is quite clever, and one cannot help but wonder if Charles Dodgson, in his initial penned version of the * The authors would like to thank Eve-Marie Becker and Anders Runesson for their kind invitation to participate in the “Mark and Matthew: Texts and Contexts” conference at McMaster University in the fall of 2009. We were and still are grateful for the incredible hospitality that was shown to us on that occasion. Special thanks goes to Ralph Korner, the local coordinator of the conference at McMaster, for his always cheery presence and his skillful handling of the event. Additionally, the authors are most appreciative of Anders Runesson’s editorial patience and encouragement. Finally, this essay would not have seen the light of day without the feedback and engagement by Davina C. Lopez, who generously offered up numerous insights of substance on methodological matters that helped shape its final form. 1 L.  Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Chicago: The Goldsmith Publishing Co., 1945), 177.

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first volume, Alice in Wonderland (1865), written at Alice Liddell’s behest, did not also have in the back of his mind here, in the second volume (1871), her father, Henry Liddell, co-author of The Greek-English Lexicon (or “Liddell-Scott”), the seminal reference work on the Greek language. Perhaps we can see in this encounter between Humpty Dumpty and Alice something of the struggle over meaning, philological and otherwise, that arises at the intersection of two quite different worlds – a world of fixed ranges of meaning and a world of semantic multivalence.2 As the conversation continues, we see this interaction play out more fully: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”3

As illustrative of the larger pattern of interaction between the duo, words mean what we choose them to mean, and we set the system within which they have that meaning that we have assigned to them. The one who constructs the “master” words is the one who rules the worlds that words cause us to inhabit. It should come as no surprise that, in the field of Gospel Studies, such reflections are particularly relevant. As the traditional children’s nursery rhyme cited at the outset of this essay indicates, when Humpty Dumpty falls no one can put him back in place – not the common people, who are not mentioned as making an effort, but also not those endowed with the power of the “King,” that is to say, the power of institutional authority. Importantly, Humpty Dumpty also cannot put himself back together, which is not explicitly stated in the rhyme. Indeed, although the appearance of this character is never described in the text, the long history of visual representation of this rhyme – this parable, shall we say – depicts Humpty Dumpty as a large, anthropomorphized egg. In some way, it makes sense to do so, because such a characterization somehow affirms the impossibility of reassemblage: of course Humpty Dumpty cannot be reassembled – he is, after all, a fragile egg-man. How else could it be that a person could fall off a wall, break completely into pieces, and in his post-breaking state render everyone completely powerless in their quest 2  For further discussion of the underpinnings to this interaction, see D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 10–32. See in particular the following comment by Harvey: “modernism … had to recognize the impossibility of representing the world in a single language. Understanding had to be constructed through the exploration of multiple perspectives. Modernism, in short, took on multiple perspectivism and relativism as its epistemology for revealing what it still took to be the true nature of a unified, though complex, underlying reality” (30). In light of the themes of this essay, it is also useful to look at the “friendly discussion” between William Sanday and N. P. Williams, Form and Content in the Christian Tradition (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1916). In this conversation, Sanday accepts a definition of modernism closer to what Harvey lays out, whereas Williams seeks a more traditional and conservative notion of truth. In seeking the “highest truth” and “highest sincerity,” Sanday notes, one may have to “recognize degrees short of this, and acquiesce in them provisionally; but he always feels that his acquiescence is provisional; he has not yet attained to the vérité vraie, which is the crowning stage of all” (95; cf. 14). 3 Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, 182.

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for “the way it was” before the fall? Could it be that only the obvious tragedy of a giant broken egg can adequately illustrate just how difficult, even futile, it is to “put Humpty in his place again?” Practically speaking, what would be the point of even trying to put a large broken egg back together? Do such efforts reveal the critical importance of Humpty Dumpty to “the order of things,” the delusional nature of the King (not to mention his horses and men), the basic clumsiness and cluelessness of all parties (why would a giant fragile egg, supposedly a smart guy, put himself on a wall, in danger of shattering to bits in the first place? – even Alice notes, “Don’t you think you’d be safer down on the ground?”), the desire to return to a time before the broken mess on the sidewalk, or all of the above? And even if it were possible to reassemble the egg, it would never be the same as before the fall. One might ask, then, what would be gained in putting Humpty Dumpty back together – and yet, perhaps more importantly, we might wonder what would be lost. When we read the parable of Humpty Dumpty’s demise together with the narrative about his interaction with the young girl Alice, we remember that the shattered egg-man was/is a bit of a problem for constructions of knowledge and power. Despite our best efforts to believe otherwise, the basic fragility of the “masters” is revealed as soon as Humpty Dumpty succumbs to gravity – even as it has been apparent all along. For scholars of the New Testament and early Christian literature, such simple lines may well be resonant of much grander enterprises, such as the quest for the historical Jesus, the search for the earliest sources of the Gospels, and, finally, of the established intercalations for understanding the relationships among the “big three”: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Have we fooled ourselves into thinking that these age-old quests have been – or at least can be – resolved, that we have firm answers? Has Humpty Dumpty fallen, and are we like the King’s men, following the orders to try to put him together again? If so, then a pressing ethical question for biblical scholarship is why the fall is a problematic notion to begin with. Along these lines, we might also ask what might be revealed by reassembling his pieces, as well as why the fragility of the framework was not noticed before it shattered. No one familiar with the history of biblical scholarship in the 18th and 19th centuries can deny that, much like Humpty Dumpty, there was a “fall” of sorts as far as the use of the Gospel materials as a solidly transparent resource for constructing the life of Jesus was concerned. David Friedrich Strauss threw down the gauntlet in his Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet, published in 1835/36, and in many ways the world of Gospel studies has not been the same since. Instead of asking what might have occasioned such a fall, however, scholars have long rushed to reassemble the Gospels, which have been taken to signify the figure of Jesus himself, from the fragments of the forms scattered all over the ancient “Hellenistic” and “Palestinian” landscapes. Although many scholars would now claim that they stand in the legacy of a Straussian approach to the Gospels, most in fact are seeking to put the Gospels – and therefore Jesus – back “in place again,” whereas Strauss was quite willing to leave them in a broken heap. Indeed, it may well have been Strauss him-

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self who pushed Humpty Dumpty off of that wall – the story never says whether or not the fall was an accident! Even if one takes a cursory glance at ensuing reconstructive efforts, it is clear that scholars have worked incessantly to establish particular systems of meaning in which such efforts would fit and make sense. In other words, in the modern re-assembly line, where Jesus and the Gopsels are continually being remade out of a pile of shards, the question must be raised: what are we doing, and why? And are the meanings of the words we are using to define this task truly the best ones to choose? In this way, the ethics embedded in, and constructed by, New Testament scholarship hits to the heart of the issue. It is precisely when such ethics are hidden, particularly in the service of what some might call “value-free” or “agendaless” configurations of knowledge and power, that concerns should be raised – and herein is where the present essay is to be situated. Regardless of efforts to reify statements to the contrary, no engagement of the Gospels occurs on neutral ground. In fact, we contend that it is when the objectivity of the “masters” is asserted – particularly after brutal falls and shattering events that may or may not be accidents – that it becomes all the more important to expose the (fragile) ethical frameworks therein. For, as a figure so venerable a “king” as Rudolf Bultmann would note, the whole point of doing scholarship amidst the rubble of the fall is to come face-to-face not with the little artifacts of the distant past, but with big presuppositions in the looming present.

1. Thinking about Context In the introduction to his field-defining work, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, Bultmann notes that, … it is essential to realize that form-criticism is fundamentally indistinguishable from all historical work in this, that it has to move in a circle. The forms of the literary tradition must be used to establish the influences operating in the life of the community, and the life of the community must be used to render the forms themselves intelligible … I am also convinced that form-criticism … must also lead to judgments about facts (the genuineness of a saying, the historicity of a report and the like). Hence an essential part of my inquiry concerns the chief problem of primitive Christianity, the relationship of the primitive Palestinian and Hellenistic Christianity.4

Even if form criticism is “fundamentally indistinguishable” from all other historical work due to its circular hermeneutical process, such a procedure also has a distinct advantage in that it can be deployed to challenge the modern paradigm whereby history develops in a linear fashion. For Bultmann, the special aims of form-critical analysis included the identification and distillation of “original” 4 R. Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (trans. J. Marsh; rev. ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1963), 5.

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forms, so that secondary forms, along with levels of redaction and other kinds of editorial management, might also be distinguished. Borrowing from his teacher Hermann Gunkel, Bultmann proposed that delineation of different forms would provide an indication of different influences upon the nascent Christian communities represented in the Gospel narratives, and not the other way around, as was the case for his contemporary Martin Dibelius in his influential Die Formsgeschichte des Evangeliums. Bultmann arranged the forms according to literary genre, but also took the classification effort one step further in a direction that has persisted to this day: following a trajectory inaugurated by the German “History of Religions” school, he asserted that the basic distinction in religious orientation that could be identified when one applied form criticism to the “sayings” in the Gospels was between Palestinian Christianity, in which the figure of Jesus represented the fulfillment of Judaism, and Hellenistic Christianity, in which Jesus functioned as a deity in an innovative, mystical cult.5 The delineation of original forms reveals something of the futility of certainty in historical reconstructive efforts. In its fullest and most trenchant application, form criticism should theoretically lead scholars of the New Testament to be reticent to reconstruct a life of Jesus from the Gospel narratives. In fact, by Bultmann’s own logic, form-critical analysis suggests that the fundamental characteristic of the synoptic tradition is to be located in its apparent randomness, and not in a teleological orientation as one might otherwise assume. Bultmann forges ahead in his massive treatment of the Traditionsgeschichte of the Synoptic Gospels to demarcate carefully and cautiously earliest forms of expression as well as indicating the additions, accretions, and secondary expansions. His work represents the culmination of decades of earlier study. It also represents one of the fundamental building-blocks of synoptic studies in its array of interests: tradition criticism, historical Jesus studies, and even literary analysis. Bultmann’s positioning and “sayings” in the Traditionsgeschichte of New Testament studies also reflects the influences of his own historical, political, and social context. Proponents of ideological criticism have long pointed out the contextual nature of scholarship: there is no persuppositionless position scholars might inhabit. Hermeneutically, this principle has for some time been recognized by European and American interpreters, and is a basic starting point for postcolonially-inclined scholars. That said, a hermeneutical commitment to relativity does not itself indicate that one will trace out the nature of that commitment to a broader socio-historical context. In other words, it is one thing to say that we have 5 On the latter, see especially W. Bousset, Die Religions des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (Berlin: Verlag von Reuther and Reichard, 1903). For a critical example of Bultmann’s adoption of this approach, see his Das Urchristentum im Rahmen der Antiken Religionen (Zürich: Artemis-Verlag, 1949). Bousset applies a linear developmental model to religious traditions whereby Christianity emerged as the most evolved. Along the way, it arose from Judaism, which is divided into Palestinian and Diasporic forms. For Bousset, understanding Judaism as the “background” of Christianity is important only so that one might see what is preserved, and what left behind, when the “new” religious system replaces the “old.”

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presuppositions in our interpretation, and it is quite another to map the contextual nature of those interpretative frameworks in which the presuppositions are to be situated. So, for instance, when Bultmann first wrote his book in 1921, and then published the second edition in 1931, National Socialism, itself an outcome of the political, social, and cultural turns that took place across Europe in the late 19th century, was on the rise. Anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism are key components that we tend to associate with the rise of National Socialism, particularly with the ascension of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. However, these components were also part of a broader ethos that stemmed out of the development of the modern-nation state and the ensuing nationalistic, political, and social dynamics that arose as a result. The modern European research university itself became a central locus for mediating and regulating the ideological bases of the nation-state. It also provided the means for negotiating difference within systems of liberal democracy that were fundamentally about “toleration,” “acceptance,” and “enlightenment.”6 The intellectual history of Bultmann’s German context, though, is not as linear as some critics might have it. The emergence and perseverance of the theological disciplines in Germany has been described by Suzanne Marchand as a product of complex interactions that go well beyond Edward Said’s conception of “orientalism” wherein western Europeans construct themselves through articulating their anxieties about the so-called “East.” As Marchand demonstrates, the period following the First World War represented a death of sorts of the scientific-positivist projects so popular in the late 19th century.7 After the collapse of the German empire following World War I, the “East” was reconfigured in academic discourses as that which represented not an “other,” but a form of mysticism that signified a wholeness of thought and spirit that, though “primitive,” western Europe ignored at its peril.8 Furthermore, intellectuals like Bultmann came of age in a period when the authority of the state was once again constricting academic inquiry, and academics were primarily of use for state-sponsored ideals, practices, and ends. Bultmann did not stand above these broader social, political, national, and cultural changes taking place at an accelerated rate, let alone the major shifts in the political economy of the West that took shape after World War I. To the contrary, his work reflects the concerns, both scholarly and political, that were governing his day.

6 For a more detailed discussion, see C. Vander Stichele and T. Penner, Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse: Thinking beyond Thecla (London: T & T Clark International / Continuum, 2009), 146–53; and T. Penner, “Die Judenfrage and the Construction of Ancient Judaism: Toward a Foregrounding of the Backgrounds Approach to Early Christianity,” in Scripture and Traditions: Essays on Early Judaism and Christianity [in Honour of Carl Holladay] (ed. P. Gray and G. O’Day; NovTSup 129; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 429–55. 7 S. Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race, and Scholarship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), especially 474–98. 8 Marchand, German Orientalism, 482 ff.

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The period between the World Wars in Germany can be described, broadly speaking, as an age of anxiety about cultural, racial, and national identities,9 and it is in this context that we must endeavor to understand the presuppositions of academics and the products of their scholarly labors, whether or not such presuppositions are explicitly acknowledged or explored. As is well known, Bultmann made extensive use of his colleague Martin Heidegger’s existentialist philosophical framework for his reconstruction of Christian origins. And, as Shawn Kelley has shown, in so doing he imported a racialized narrative of inauthenticity, authenticity, and decline in his interpretation of the New Testament – irrespective of his own intentions.10 Bultmann was especially attracted to Heidegger’s earlier work, notably Being and Time, because it offered him the tools and terms for his analysis of the New Testament. Central to Bultmann’s articulation are the Heideggerian notions of authentic (human) existence and temporality, in that authentic existence has to be realized in history. As a result, in Bultmann’s reconstruction of early Christianity, inauthenticity becomes identified with late Jewish legalism, authenticity with the freedom of the Hellenistic gospel as proclaimed by Paul, and decline with early Catholicism as represented especially by Luke-Acts. This reconstruction, however, reproduces the link already established by Heidegger between Volk, history, and race. In Heidegger’s own reconstruction inauthenticity was more specifically represented by the Jewified city and authenticity by the rural community of the German people (Volk), whom he identified as the “true heirs” of the Greeks. Bultmann adopted this racialized opposition, which renders his analysis highly problematic in that it reflects and reproduces the underlying nationalist and anti-Semitic agenda of Heidegger’s work, insofar as “authentic” Christianity is linked with Hellenism and “inauthentic” Christianity with Palestinian Judaism.11 It stands to reason that subsequent scholarship has taken up these same agendas, even if unwittingly. As a result of analyses such as these, scholars of early Christianity such as Maurice Casey have offered harsh criticisms of Bultmann’s work: because of racialized and racializing ideological configurations, the “social function” of the “radical criticism” that Bultmann was engaged in ensured that “out from under the Synoptic Gospels there could never crawl a Jewish man.”12 Casey, unlike most scholars, at the very least recognizes that the methods of synoptic studies cannot  9 Marchand, German Orientalism, 476. See also the treatment by Benjamin Lazier, God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination between the World Wars (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 2008). 10 S. Kelley, Racializing Jesus: Race, Ideology and the Formation of Modern Biblical Scholarship (New York: Routledge, 2002), 154–60. 11 Kelley, Racializing Jesus, 161. 12 M. Casey, “Who’s Afraid of Jesus Christ? Some Comments on Attempts to Write a Life of Jesus,” in Writing History, Constructing Religion (ed. J. Crossley and C. Karner; London: Ashgate, 2005), 133. For a series of contemporary hermeneutical challenges to traditionally-configured trajectories in New Testament studies that tend to position Jesus studies as “objective,” see W. Blanton, J. Crossley, and H. Moxnes, eds., Jesus Beyond Nationalism: Constructing the Historical Jesus in a Period of Cultural Complexity (London: Equinox, 2008).

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and should not be divorced from the contexts in which such methods took shape. Of course, he focuses largely on the application of Bultmann’s method, rather than the potentially problematic nature of the method itself irrespective, at least at this initial juncture, of its application for “good” or “evil.” What we have outlined above is but a brief sketch of a key aspect of a complex history of scholarship in order to make the point that all academic labor is ultimately a product of its time. Along these lines, it will suffice to raise a critical point about Bultmann’s comments on form criticism. If we accept Bultmann’s premise that forms of speaking and forms of thought are intertwined with the lived life of and history developing in early Christian communities, one might also then apply that same logic to examine form criticism itself as intimately connected to the lived life and unfolding history in the time leading up to Bultmann’s formulation in 1921. In other words, it is rather striking that someone like Bultmann could make the claim that out of early Christian historical-social interactions evolved forms that mediated the thought connected with the original historical-social context, while at the same time failing to realize that his own articulation of form criticism might well fit into the very same rubric: that it was produced under historical and lived realities and that it also mediated something of that context. Indeed, Bultmann himself already recognized the “circular” nature of the analysis employed: the forms, method, and assumptions of synoptic inquiry help us understand something of the realities of and influences on the contexts in which such take shape and, in turn, that context also helps make sense of the forms, method, and assumptions of synoptic analysis. Obviously, there is much to delineate with respect to this broader context in which studies of the synoptic tradition were inaugurated and cultivated toward the methods with which we are now familiar. And, to be sure, we would not want to be read as suggesting that Bultmann is somehow the “villain” in all of this. He is not. He does, however, represent a useful prism through which to glimpse something of the fuller picture. In our view, that fuller picture is that synoptic studies, regardless of where one begins – dissecting the tradition into its random parts or using the completed frame of the three Synoptic Gospels as a means of comparing the redactional interests or as a means to construct Ur-sources – needs to be assessed not first and foremost as a principle of “scientific” inquiry, but as a socio-cultural and contemporary phenomenon and practice.

2. Methods Are Not Neutral A variety of questions flow out of applying Bultmann’s observations on the shape of early Christian discursive forms to the work undertaken in synoptic studies, and there are numerous ways to enter into that larger discussion. Ward Blanton has attempted to do so in his Displacing Christian Origins, wherein he traces the rise of modern media forms and technology and the ways in which Christian origins

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could thereby be reimagined by modern scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries. Blanton discusses how Strauss, in the second part of his Leben Jesu, reconstructs the coming into being of the Synoptic Gospels as a process of assemblage, the result of cultural memory, in a manner similar to the modern process of text production epitomized by the newspaper. Strauss, however, seems largely unaware of the parallelism operating in the background, as he tends to construct an opposition between both. Ancient text production, in his view, is the unconscious result of a largely mythical culture, rather than the conscious invention of an autonomous author as is the case in modernity. The Gospels, then, are not the result of authorial intent but are compilations of fragments of texts circulating within a cultural reservoir. Blanton suggests that the similarity between this presentation of the past production of texts and modern forms of mass production is far from accidental, but rather illustrates “the degree to which New Testament studies has functioned as an other scene on which modernity’s own cultural undecidabilities are played out.”13 Blanton’s work is best situated as a historicizing reading of “historical-critical” methods in biblical scholarship, wherein we might observe steps towards examining the ways in which thinking is historically and culturally conditioned. The way in which the past is imagined and studied is fundamentally linked to the modes of conceptualization made possible in any given time period, which in turn influences the categories for interpretation and analysis. We would extend this principle one step further. It is not just that conditions are intricately linked to the technologies that are produced in historical and local contexts, but embedded ideologies of the same contexts are reified and reproduced through the conceptual categories of interpretation that are formulated under historical conditions. This observation forms a critical component of our argument in this essay: methods are not neutral. Although we all have differing ways of configuring the extent and nature of individual bias as it plays out in interpretation, there is much less attention given to the forms of thinking that influence the development of methods, and how ideologies are in many respects then embedded in and perpetuated by the subsequent intellectual results. We might add that such ideologies are produced under political, social, and historical conditions that are in turn reified and mediated through a second-order abstraction that erases the very conditions that produced these ideologies in the first place. It is precisely this process that also makes second order abstractions, like methods used in studies of the Synoptic Gospels, so dangerous and potentially insidious. That is to say, methods can be insidious when they appear to be neutral modes of analysis that nonetheless mediate social relations and constructions of the human self that is contingent in a particular time period. This is also how it is entirely possible for someone like Bultmann to inhabit and perpetuate a regime of Displacing Christian Origins: Philosophy, Secularity, and the New Testament (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 102. See also the discussion in Marchand, German Orientalism, 256–78. 13 W.  Blanton,

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racism and ethnocentrism, for instance, without necessarily having a consciously racist and/or ethnocentric agenda. Method is not only shaped by historical conditions, but it also, perhaps ironically, continues to shape future historical conditions in which it is redeployed, even as it also mutates in the process of its uses. Thus, the trans-Atlantic reception of Bultmann and his students by the likes of Robert Funk and John Dominic Crossan served to effectively perpetuate the racialized conception of early Christian history with a twist: on the one hand, by focusing on the parables as a focal point for existentialist-inspired linguistic analysis, and on the other, by relocating authenticity in Jesus (rather than Paul, who largely remains a neutral “bringer of the message” in this framework) and inauthenticity in Jesus’ opponents, especially the Pharisees.14 Following Bultmann, Robert Funk’s work uses Heideggerian concepts such as “authenticity” to evaluate the language of the forms, rather than the worldviews shaping those forms. Indeed, Funk actively promoted a Bultmannian program in the United States, particularly during the time following the Second World War when, in the American scholarly imagination, at least, the future of Germany as the stronghold for innovations in biblical scholarship was uncertain.15 His volume on the parables, Language, Hermeneutic, and Word of God (1966), serves as a landmark work that translates for American theologians the principles of “New Hermeneutic” ascribed to Ernst Fuchs, Gerhard Ebeling, and, by the mid-20th century, Bultmann and his students.16 Therein Funk deploys the Heideggerian concept of Sprachereignis, or “speech-event,” to develop a program whereby language is seen as a narrative metaphor that is used by speakers / authors in productive ways to encourage the imagination of events and worlds in recipients/readers.17 Language, then, is not neutral, but inspires action. According to Funk’s framework, though, not all speech-events are equal, and here is where the ideological underpinnings of Heidegger’s and Bultmann’s contextual influences are most clearly observed. As far as the language of the New Testament is concerned, “authentic” language (the language of inspiration and imagination and action) is diametrically opposed to “inauthentic” language (the language of legalism and conventionality and inaction). For Funk, the parables of Jesus exemplify “authentic” language, while the 14 For a summary of some key points of Funk and Crossan’s work in the context of post-war American biblical scholarship, see Kelley, Racializing Jesus, 190–206. 15 For an overview of the history of the discipline and guild during this period, see E. W. Saunders, Searching the Scriptures: A History of the Society of Biblical Literature, 1880–1980 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1982), especially 41–72. Funk also touches upon the legacy of American biblical scholarship following the Second World War in the preliminary remarks of his 1975 Presidential Address to the Society of Biblical Literature, published as “The Watershed of the American Biblical Tradition: The Chicago School, First Phase, 1892–1920,” JBL 95 (1976): 4–22. 16 See E. Fuchs, Hermeneutik (2 vols.; Bad Cannstatt: R. Mullerschön Verlag, 1958); and Gerhard Ebeling, Einführung in theologische Sprachlehre (Tübingen: Mohr, 1971). For a discussion of the Bultmannian contributions to the New Hermeneutic, see J. M. Robinson and J. B. Cobb, Jr., The New Hermeneutic (New York: Harper and Row, 1964). See also Kelley, Racializing Jesus, 167. 17  R. W. Funk, Language, Hermeneutic, and Word of God: The Problem of Language in the New Testament and Contemporary Theology (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 19 ff.

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interpretive strategies of the Pharisees are identified as “inauthentic.”18 As a result of these (re‑)assemblages, Funk reinscribes a dichotomy between convention / law (Pharisees) and innovation / grace (Jesus) – between the conventionality of Judaism and the innovation of Christianity – which then becomes paradigmatic for subsequent American parable criticism.19 In Funk’s schema, as for what follows in studies of parables as critical Jesus-focused acts of speech in Gospel narratives, the turn to language as that which structures and manages reality is articulated in oppositional terms, where competing realities happen to fall along well-entrenched, unsurprising ideological territory. John Dominic Crossan further built upon Funk’s work in his In Parables (1973) by importing the idea that the parables are to be understood as poetic metaphors, and as such are expressions of Jesus’ experience of God. In order to understand this experience, Crossan turns to Heidegger’s notion of temporality, which allows him to group the parables in three categories reflecting the timing of the Kingdom of God.20 As is discernible in Funk’s structure of organizing parables, the concept of grace occupies a central place in the speech and activity of Jesus, as opposed to the non-grace-ful, banal legalism ascribed to the Pharisees. Although Crossan consciously resists explicitly portraying Jesus as superior to the Pharisees as Funk might, he still does not escape performing an evaluation of them in light of an underlying racialized ideology that reflects a structure of oppositions between Judaism and Christianity belonging less to the ancient communities (whatever those might be) and more to the modern world, specifically the modern world of Heidegger’s and Bultmann’s complex German context. That is to say, even when methods such as those developed by Bultmann have been extracted and abstracted from their Sitz im Leben and made to seem natural as analytical procedures for assembling innocent contributions to knowledge about and understanding of biblical literature, the contextual presuppositions shaping the development of methods such as those about religion, race, class, gender, and national identity also “travel” to different contexts (and, in this case, continents) where they might be used by different interpreters.21 Language, Hermeneutic, and Word of God, 237. an overview of Funk’s influence on subsequent parable scholarship in the United States, see Funk on Parables: Collected Essays (ed. B. Brandon Scott; Santa Rosa: Polebridge, 2006). In his introduction, Scott makes the case that Funk’s innovation for the study of parables in the middle of the 20th century is as least as great as Adolf Jülicher’s had been in the preceding century. Jülicher, of course, shook parable criticism free from what he perceived to be the firm grasp of allegorical interpretation – an approach that was unpopular at the time but was later adopted by the likes of C. H. Dodd and Joachim Jeremias. Through his attention to language as that which shapes conceptions of selves and worlds, Funk was effectively an, if not the, early proponent of what has come to be known as the “linguistic turn” in biblical scholarship in the American context. 20  J. D. Crossan, In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 3–36. 21 Thus, insofar as they adopt Bultmann’s existentialist anthropology to interpret the parables of Jesus, “neither Funk nor Crossan escape the influence of Heidegger’s Greco-Germanic, racialized 18 Funk, 19 For

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Indeed, as methods and tools are developed, tested, and used by initial observers, as they travel to places beyond their home-context and used and manipulated by others, and as they become familiar enough so as to become characteristic of “the discipline,” what is in effect happening is a naturalization process whereby the human aspects of all methodological programming slowly fade from view. In other words, as Bruno Latour would have it, in order for a method to become a method we must make it pass from provisional, worldly construction to stable, otherworldly fact.22 Indeed, as matter of “fact,” the method first seems “ordinary” and “correct” as a way to do things, and then becomes a fixed, external (and eternal) standard of sorts against which individuals and innovations are evaluated. Moreover, as an abstraction from the world, method has a way of rendering its goals and results normal and natural – even when the method is declared to be something “new” that supersedes the “old.” In this light, the contributions of figures like Funk and Crossan might be represented as “new” – and in the case of their assemblages, they may very well be. However, insofar as the structures of such methods reinscribe, rather than challenge, such trenchant dichotomic oppositions as Judaism / Christianity, we ought to ask ourselves whether their designation as “new” applies. In some way, the basic methodological question about how we might account for the emergence of early Christian communities, which we happen to be sure occurred via a disagreement with departure from Jewish institutional control, haunts Gospel Studies. The lenses may have become more pluralistic, more identitarian, and / or more egalitarian, but in the end, the question of how ancient Christianity emerged as a religion in relation to ancient Judaism persists as a “matter of fact,” as the question we must always implicitly ask by virtue of disciplinary location and training, as the question all biblical scholars naturally have asked and must ask, even though the question itself is a construction located in time and space. In doing so, however, it somehow does not occur to us to ask whether we may have manufactured ancient Jewish communities so that we could devise and hone a methodological framework whereby early Christianity emerges from Judaism. That these communities have always “been there” and are anything but manufactured is a feature of recent developments in the study of the Gospels such as the use of “social memory” to understand the ways in which early Christians negotiated their identities and histories.23 Even as proponents of such a development aestethic, an aesthetic which leaves limited traces on the way that the parables are read” (Kelley, Racializing Jesus, 209). 22 For a delineation of this process of dehumanizing the human construction in the service of making “objectivity,” which Latour links to fetishism and idolatry, see On The Modern Cult of the Factish Gods (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010). 23 For a range of approaches and questions that seek to deploy social memory theories as a means of understanding the emergence of early Christian identities and communities, see A. Kirk and T. Thatcher, eds., Memory, Tradition and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005). According to Kirk, one of the obstacles to fully realizing the potential of social memory theories for the study of the New Testament is “the continuing influence of classical form criticism” (Kirk, “Social and Cultural Memory,” 1), which minimizes the role of memory by reinscribing a cleavage between memory and tradition (also see Kirk and

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maintain that social memory theories offer a “new” means of understanding how early Christianity might have happened, particularly in light of traumatic events that might mobilize interested parties to narrate their experience in certain ways,24 that early Christianity is best characterized as a configuration in some kind of contradistinction to Judaism is never questioned.25 Further, the tool might look different, but the questions remain the same: how might we use the forms before us to best assemble the history of the tradition? What might such an assemblage tell us about the figure of Jesus behind the (traumatic) memories represented in the Gospels? What was the “breaking point” between emergent Christianity and Judaism remembered in the Gospel narratives? These few examples will suffice to at least raise the specter of a major interpretive problem that lays before us in Gospel Studies. To call these scholars “anti-Semitic” or “anti-Jewish” or “apologists for Christianity” simply because they make use of methods that were developed in such an original context would be a mistake. It is too easy to simply blame individual interpreters, or groups of interpreters, for their application of particular methodologies when, in principle, those same methodologies are time-bound themselves. Methods not only shape what and how we see observable data, but they have deep roots within the social-historical and cultural contexts in which they take place and are shaped.26 On the one hand, it has been helpful – but perhaps an ideal ideological distraction from the real issue – to focus on specific interpreters rather than paying attention to how methodologies themselves come into being, for in so doing, we in effect perpetuate the illusion that methods are somehow stable and exist outside of the people who create and use them. On the other hand, criticizing the social location or proclivities of an individual scholar, or saying that s / he has an agenda, also perpetuates an illusory Thatcher, “Jesus Tradition as Social Memory,” 25–42 [esp. 25–7]). Kirk develops this question in relation to Gospel Studies in “Memory, Scribal Media, and the Synoptic Problem,” in New Studies in the Synoptic Problem: Oxford Conference, 2008: Essays in Honour of Christopher M. Tuckett (ed. P. Foster et al.; Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 459–82. We would simply point out here that the contention is a methodologically problematic one, since the basic assumption that Christianity emerged in relation to its religious background remains unchanged. See also J. Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Greco-Roman World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 62–97. 24  The intersection of trauma and social memory is explored by Richard Horsley, who proposes a tradition of popular memory behind the Gospels. See Horsley, “A Prophet Like Moses and Elijah: Popular Memory and Cultural Patterns in Mark,” in Performing the Gospel: Orality, Memory, and Mark – Essays Dedicated to Werner Kelber (ed. R. A. Horsley, J. A. Draper, and J. M. Foley; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 166–90. 25 See S. Byrskog, “A New Quest for the Sitz im Leben: Social Memory, the Jesus Tradition and The Gospel of Matthew,” NTS 52 (2006): 319–36. In his summary of the potential of social memory theory for the study of the Gospels, Byrskog notes that, in this area of inquiry, “early Christian groups can be seen as emerging mnemonic communities that negotiated their sense of belonging in relation to the larger mnemonic environment of the Jewish people” (323). It is important to note that Byrskog calls this area of inquiry “a new framework” for understanding the Gospels. The quest for origins and Traditionsgeschichte, however, is intact. 26 See further, T. Penner and D. C. Lopez, “‘Homelessness as a Way Home’: A Methodological Reflection and Proposal,” in Holy Land as Homeland? Models for Constructing the Historic Landscapes of Jesus (ed. K. Whitelam; Sheffield: Sheffield-Phoenix Press, 2011), 151–76.

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notion that methods, if used properly, mitigate against the messiness of human biases and presuppositions.

3. Theorizing Modern Methods in Synoptic Studies As we have mentioned, by blaming certain scholarly figures for what we consider to be faulty perspectives instead of asking how such perspectives came to be, we also leave the question of method as such to the side – which fosters illusions about objectivity, about something being narrated as that which is outside of human control, about elevation to “fact” status from construal or construction. Illusions about method seem to be a rather healthy component of modernist rules of engagement, in which we come to accept as natural and inevitable the notion that our reality is characterized by consistency and stability. Our disciplinary machinery suggests that putting Gospel documents together in the same reading space, and asking which one has “priority” and which one uses the other, is part of a process that is somehow outside of human creation and agency – doing it this way is just the way things ought to be done. Maintaining that method is natural, or that it needs no defense, prevents us from perceiving our own efforts to construct facts and worlds to accommodate them, full of prejudice as they are. As such, we then perpetuate a facile and illusive distinction between what we make with our hands and what exists outside of our hands.27 Illusions about method are not difficult to locate in the various re-assemblages of tradition and the figure of Jesus characteristic of modern Gospel Studies. For example, as noted above, we take it as normal that the Gospels should be read next to each other and compared to one another. In fact, it is actually quite difficult to read synoptic gospel passages in relation to each other without assistance from the various reference tools that biblical scholars have manufactured and disseminated. Reading gospel passages alongside one another without such containment and management efforts is like comparing apples and oranges, even as the discourse of “agreement” suggests the opposite. Because we accept as “objective” that the task of Synoptic Gospel analysis is about “agreement,” we implicitly assent to a project requiring that we be convinced that we are comparing apples with apples when we compare Gospel texts. But when we read narratives within the respective Gospels, there is not as much stability of meaning as we are wont to assume. There are so many filiations that can be traced out into a broader cultural and social world (which we have identified as Jewish, Greek, and Roman) that, first of all, these threads are essentially beyond our grasp in terms of doing history, at least according to current models. Second, it is difficult to locate stable meanings within a singular specific Gospel text, even just in terms of authorship and readership instability. Forms and words are not a constant in comparison. Indeed, they are 27 Latour,

On the Modern Cult, 29.

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also not stable even in the moment of comparison. “Agreement” hereby becomes a category of analysis  – allowing us to “see with”  – that becomes an apparatus constructed and maintained for the purposes of comparing the Synoptics. Thus, we have installed “agreement” and elevated it to a methodological presupposition as a matter of “the order of things” in the discipline of New Testament studies. In his History and Class Consciousness (like Bultmann’s study, also written between the World Wars), Georg Lukács provides one of the better models for our particular take on synoptic methodology in the present essay. Lukács observes that it is important “to recognize clearly that all human relations (viewed as the objects of social activity) assume increasingly the objective forms of the abstract elements of the conceptual systems of natural science and of the abstract substrata of the laws of nature. And also, the subject of this ‘action’ likewise assumes increasingly the attitude of the pure observe(r) of these – artificially abstract – processes, the attitude of the experimenter.”28 Lukács touches here on a critically important aspect of the process of reification, wherein social relations are abstracted and become objectified to the self. It is precisely in this process that the bases of social, cultural, and political power are erased, so that the objectified entity looks completely separate from the observer. Moreover, that entity appears to be neutral, scientific, and natural, while its contingent relationship to a historical-social context vanishes. Such is part of the power of any given system of knowing-making – it appears to have no social-historical context and therefore evidences itself as natural and universal. If we take this materialist reading of abstract and presumably objective methodologies seriously, then the synoptic relations approaches used in most modern studies need renewed scrutiny. Following this framework, the interrelation of the Synoptics ultimately reflects the social realities of the modern world, which provides a particular manner in which to conceptualize, arrange, categorize, and analyze relationships of discrete data. In essential respects, then, we argue that to make sense of a comparison of Matthew and Mark, or any investigation into the traditions of early Christianity in isolation and comparison, one has to carefully assess the nature of the conceptual models that are employed for such analysis. Synoptic analysis proceeds along a set series of propositions and assumptions regarding not so much the nature of early Christian traditions but, more explicitly, the nature of reality itself. The methods employed embed a conceptual worldview based on human social relations that reify a scientific, naturalistic view of the world, with a universal subject that is ordered, static, stable, and readily identifiable and quantifiable. These are not postulates that scholars feel they need to prove vis-à-vis synoptic relations. These are fundamental assumptions about the nature of reality that the synoptic traditions are presumed to reflect. It becomes then a matter of determining how these “laws” are worked out in varying ways amidst the interaction of the traditions. Where 28 G. Lukács, History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics (trans. R. Livingstone; Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1971 [1923]), 131.

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there is difference of interpretation – and to be sure there is – it comes down to being a matter of application and alternate selection and explanation of the data, rather than a reflection of any fundamental crack in the methodological assumptions themselves. Thus, differences are derivative and secondary, all the while affirming (even in multiplicity) the essentially objective and unassailable position of the primary locus of meaning, which is signified by the conceptual method from which the inferences are generated in the first place. We are particularly interested in highlighting some of the underlying assumptions that are embedded in the enterprise of synoptic relations study. Indeed, few of us ever stop to query why it is that this should be an interesting question at all. When Bultmann states that, even as the vast majority of the history of the synoptic tradition is “obscure … we may still discern a certain regularity in the way Matthew and Luke use Mark,”29 it does not immediately come to mind to challenge the very basis of this notion. Why should we at all be invested in Matthew using Mark? Or why should this be an object of study? Why should we be interested in regularity in terms of how that plays out in Matthew’s use of Mark? While one might well state that such questions constitute the very basis of modern scholarship on early Christian texts – that is, we study these questions because they are essential for our understanding of the formation of early Christian history, theology, and literature, in the process we inevitably raise the discipline to the level of the natural and the universal. Along these lines, it might be useful to remember that Tatian, in his harmonizing of the gospel traditions, showed no interest in the individual genius of the various gospel writers. He was not invested in difference and distinction, and there is no significant indication that he was obsessed with the tradition. We might never quite know the reason why he put together a Gospel Harmony, but it is clear that his way of ordering knowledge is not our own. It is worth examining, then, what it is that our methods say about modern interests. Tatian’s approach to the Synoptic Gospels is dramatically different from that of, for instance, the path chosen by William Sanday in his 1911 essay on the Synoptic Problem and the conditions under which the Gospels were written. Therein Sanday ponders the problem of the combination of both remarkable similarities and differences between the Synoptics and suggests the following solution. Rather than imagining the evangelists as mere copyists, who simply transcribed what they were reading on the copy in front of them, we have to envision them as historians, who reproduced the material with a certain freedom, telling the story in their own words, rather than simply repeating it. However, apart from these more “psychological conditions,” as Sanday designates it, external factors also played a role. Sanday thus evokes the picture he seeks to correct:

29 Bultmann,

History of the Synoptic Tradition, 6.

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When we think of composing a book, and still more when we think of compiling a book in the way in which the later Gospels at least were compiled, it is natural to us to picture to ourselves the author as sitting at a table with the materials of which he is going to make use spread out before him, his own book in which he is writing directly in front of him, and the other writings a little further away in a semicircle, each kept open at the place where it is likely to be wanted; so that the author only has to lift his eyes from his manuscript as he writes to his copy, and to transfer the contents from its pages to his own.30

Sanday is quick to point out that this picture is misguided, because the gospel writers were not using books (i.e. codices), but scrolls. As a result, Sanday notes, the author would only consult his copy once in a while, because of the difficulty to keep a roll open at a particular place. He would memorize a whole paragraph of the text and transfer the substance of it in his own copy. According to Sanday, this procedure explains the variations we find between Mark and the other Gospels. They “do not require for their explanation any prolonged extension of time or diffused circulation in space; they might be described in homely phrase as just so many ‘slips between the cup and the lip.’”31 Striking in this particular example is that Sanday questions the way we envision the transmission of the text, as far as the material is concerned, but does not question that the process of transmission itself took place. In his view, Matthew did indeed use written copies of Mark and Q and presumably had them in front of him while writing his Gospel, even if not in the form of a book. But this particular formulation of the so-called “problem” of relation and interrelation between Matthew and Mark is largely based on ideological reifications of modern-media practices and a post-printing press culture, insofar as book culture assumes accessibility, relative stable text forms, and mechanisms for reproduction on a large scale. In other words, Sanday is attempting to account for a certain degree of a lack of exactness in copying by postulating differing conditions under which an author like Matthew wrote – his scrolls kept rolling up! And while we may be tempted to view this interpretation as an acceptable mode of authorship that allows for numerous departures from the target text, we are still conceptualizing the entire enterprise through the lens of stable texts, the genius of authors, and the regulation of transmission.32 A substantive emphasis on redaction criticism would rather suggest that changes were not the result of the nature of the “roll” but the consequence of theological differences on the part of Matthew over against Mark. Still, the underlying presupposition remains the same. We require the invention of “the Author” as the creator, editor, redactor of a text in order to function as a singular, stable agent with respect 30 W. Sanday, “The Conditions under which the Gospels Were Written, in their Bearing on Some Difficulties of the Synoptic Problem,” in Studies in the Synoptic Problem (ed. W. Sanday; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), 1–26 (16). 31 Sanday, “Conditions under which the Gospels Were Written,” 19. 32 For a fuller discussion of text-criticism within this same framework, see T. Penner, “‘In the Beginning’: Post-Critical Reflections on Early Christian Textual Transmission and Modern Textual Transgression,” PRSt 33 (2006): 415–34.

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to bringing a singular, stable text into being. But it is precisely how we ourselves conceptualize such a practice – in this case of unintentional deviation due to the medium of the text – within a book-print culture that helps us make complete sense of Sanday’s argument.

4. Method and Ethics: Toward Contingent Reassemblages The question should therefore be asked what it is that viewing the relationship between the Gospels in this way accomplishes for us. Michel Foucault’s comment on tradition may be helpful on this point. He states that tradition is, intended to give a special temporal status to a group of phenomena that are both successive and identical (or at least similar); it makes it possible to rethink the dispersion of history in the form of the same; it allows a reduction of the difference proper to every beginning, in order to pursue without discontinuity the endless search for the origin; tradition enables us to isolate the new against a background of permanence, and to transfer its merit to originality, to genius, to the decisions proper to individuals.33

Foucault’s insight reveals something fundamental about the discussion of synoptic relations. In particular, his idea that multiplicity is reduced to a unity through constructing a narrative about origins illuminates the various threads that play out in modern constructions of synoptic relations. Our very term “synoptic” already assumes similarity, and it is precisely in the use of this terminology that we glimpse the creation of stability in our perception of the tradition. Should Matthew have used Mark, or Mark have used Matthew, it makes little difference. Scholarship frequently is caught up in the issue of priority and direction of use, as well as questioning to what degree these formulations may be traced to some kind of historical community or even figure, such as Jesus. But in all of these discussions, under the umbrella of multiple perspectives, there exists the notion that relations do proceed in a (relatively) ordered and linear fashion, that there is a beginning point of some kind, and that there is a relation and interrelationship between the various Gospels we term “synoptic.” Moreover, we presume that, aside from what Bultmann terms the “obscurity” behind or prior to the Gospels, there are particular individual authors who have contributed – primarily theologically – to the linear development of the tradition. It seems to us that this larger originating narrative, this “story” that frames the story of the origin of the Synoptics, also bolsters the idea of the genius of their authors, the latter of which represents a stable, unified, and disciplined subject of historical inquiry. As Michel de Certeau notes, “normative discourse ‘operates’ only if it has already become a ‘story.’ Its being made into a story is the presuppo-

33 M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse of Language (trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith; New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 21.

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sition of its producing further stories and thereby making itself believed.”34 The method to which we referred earlier, beyond being just the reification of modern constructions of the self and its social relations, also implicitly embodies such a story – a story of origins, transmission, and, finally, of telos. It is the naturalness by which the past is presented to us in the present – by which it magically mirrors to us the essential concerns of our own historical-social relations – that makes the synoptic equation so powerful. As Jonathan Z. Smith adeptly notes, “for any given group at a given time to choose this or that mode of interpreting their tradition is to opt for a particular way of relating themselves to their historical past and social present.”35 There are many ways in which we can examine questions related to synoptic relations as precisely a plotting of modern coordinates of identity onto the past. Without a doubt, for 19th and early 20th century Western (implicitly Christian) identity, as it was reconfigured in light of the development of the modern nation state in Europe, it became critically important to stabilize that identity through its constructed pastness. The stability of texts is intricately and intimately linked here to the need for stable identities. Stability both shores up the identity of the insider, but it also plays a pivotal role in differentiating oneself from the outsider. The regulation of these Christian Gospels has much to do with plotting coordinates of modern (Christian) identity – or, at the very least, of establishing a point of origin of distinction and differentiation from Judaism. In the rise of the liberal democratic state, it is precisely difference that is to be tolerated, and thus difference must also be managed and controlled, regulated and monitored.36 It is no accident, then, that philology should also take shape precisely in this context, as the method of language-study and classification helped stabilize group, ethnic, and racial identities, where the language of people embodied the essence of their history, culture, social relations, and aesthetics. It is important, in this respect, to remind ourselves that the ancient texts we study and analyze when we compare Mathew and Mark, or when we discuss their interrelatedness, do not actually exist. The texts we are dependent on for our assessment are essentially a mass of unregulated and unmanaged corpora that we have configured and ordered in such a way so as to allow our theories of synoptic relations to hold. In other words, even the most basic presuppositions of synoptic studies – that is to say, that there are manuscripts available for authors to reference in their writings of other manuscripts – are effectively a priori in nature. Scholars such as David Parker have significantly complicated the picture of New Testament textual transmission, arguing, in effect, that we really are in the dark (in a relative

34 M. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (trans. S. Rendall; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 149. 35  J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 107. 36 See, for instance, the discussion in W. Brown, Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).

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sense) when we envision the nature of early Christian manuscripts.37 We do not have any “original” texts, only multiple copies. Even when comparing something like Matthew’s use of Mark, we have to admit that it is quite possible that Matthew used a copy of Mark both different from the copy of Mark we have reconstructed and different from the one that Mark wrote. Still, all of these potentially alternate coordinates that can be plotted end up reifying a stable textual form – with contributions from scholars such as Parker it simply has become a more complex ordering. However, if one proceeds with the argument we are developing here, we could go one step further. Textual criticism, as its objective, aims at restoring an “original” text that no longer exists. To do so, modern scholars have utilized a system of “family relationships” in order to stabilize, trace, and order the ways in which manuscripts are related. The image of patrilineal descent is critical in this framework, as is the notion of biological strands that delineate the essence of how we configure textual relationships, not only in terms of discourses of purity and stability of textual lines, but also with respect to the very notion of origins itself. Clearly, for many scholars at least, the biological language of text relations seems innocuous, even as it also seems to be a natural and accurate description of how texts actually “work.” And yet, we suggest, the very same principles are operative in our theories of synoptic relations: these textual lines have an origin point, the tradition begins somewhere. Yet, why must there be any origin point for any of this tradition? Even Bultmann’s form-critical logic suggests that there is an infinite dispersion into ambient historical-social world of those facets that we seek to consolidate in an originating moment or structure. Indeed, there is no Jewish and Christian identity to speak of in the first century, not in the way that Bultmann would configure those. Indeed, while we are all now much more versed in the problematic nature of “Palestinian” and “Hellenistic” Judaism and Christianity on which Bultmann’s framework relies, few of us give much careful consideration to the ways in which the very categories of identity of any people group retrojected onto the past function to stabilize and reify identity in the present. Historical inquiry provides a series of methods that provides for this illusion of stability and consistency to be maintained as a function of pastness, but it is a configuration that allows us to establish (and to regulate) social relations in the present. This regulation and retrojection of modern constructs of identity are intricately related to our notions of textuality in early Christianity as well. In other words, while both textuality and identity are modern reifications projected onto the past, there is also a correlative facet to these two as we see them operative in synoptic studies discourse. Synoptic theories are interwoven with our constructions of ancient identities – Christian and Jewish (and like modern conceptions, most often using Judaism as a series of coordinates to plot Christian identity) – so 37 See, e.g., D. C.  Parker, The Living Text of the Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

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that texts exist to help us plot these identities, as well as to stabilize and regulate them, just as, in turn, these identities serve to stabilize the very texts that are supportive of the logic of stability, coherence, consistency, and linear development. Thus, methodologically speaking, we would say that Bultmann was fundamentally correct in his opening assessment, of the circle between form and community – the two are mutually interdependent. Bultmann, of course, like most scholars of early Christianity, was unattuned to the larger ideological facets of his argument. His belief that he could stand at an “objective” distance from his present – entangled as it was in burgeoning social, political, cultural, and racial upheaval – presents us with a serious challenge. The process of reifying historical-social relations in the concepts, forms, and methods used to constructively mediate our world and also delineate the past bear in them not only critical components of the interrelation of the self to the world, they also embody all the power inequities and hierarchies and, often also, the more repugnant aspects of human historical-social interactions. Ultimately, when looking at the legacies of Bultmann’s methodology for studying the synoptic traditions, what we have learned to expect and observe in the present is a closed circle of interpretation and meaning that he may never have intended to manufacture. And here is where Bultmann’s contributions shift from being historically-located proposals to being the historical location and background for subsequent proposals. As “starting point” for Gospel Studies, Bultmann becomes a map that we superimpose onto the material, without acknowledging that Bultmann himself had his own map as well, forcing a foreign and strange terrain to look like this newly discovered facsimile. In many respects, mapping is still the main way of proceeding in the field of early Christian studies. The attempt, as in Bultmann, is to overcome strangeness – to see ourselves reflected in otherness. While we often tell ourselves that we undertake such study in order to learn about the strange world that is early Christianity – in this case its texts and traditions – what we demonstrate in practice is that we are mapping ourselves onto that past, creating it in our image, all the while telling ourselves what a marvelous strange and foreign country we have discovered. With maps upon maps, the otherness of the stranger is most certainly not protected. It is smothered and eradicated. Of course, this brings us to the task of ethics itself – not just the ethics in the motivations of biblical scholarship, but, even more importantly, the ethical structures of our own methods and the orientations towards the world embedded therein. In light of this observation, we suggest that scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity would do well to replot modern identity by reconceptualizing the whole matter of stability and comparison and of the social relations that are therein reflected and constructed. In that way, then, we turn to a model of instability and fragmentation as a provisional, yet productive, way to think about these texts, since this is, in our estimations, a more potentially open model for thinking about our own selves and our social relations. Moving away from comparison, texts will be seen as that

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which is in process, which would afford a focus on becoming and otherness – both of which are, in our current methods, overcome so that the correlation of modern historical-social relations is reflected back to us from the past, like a mirror. In such a turn, one of our ethical impulses would be to appreciate more fully contingent foundations and communities of accountability whilst understanding how nationalism/nation-statehood/global capitalism continue to hold significant sway on our ways of “seeing.”38 So what kind of ethics comes from fragmentation? For one, there is a greater respect for and protection of the otherness of the “stranger,” the one who is not simply the representation of ourselves.39 It is difference, not sameness or “synopticness,” that needs to be engendered and valued. The individual, in this framework, is not simply the solidification of all social relations in a universal and natural way, but is, in effect, her / himself an embodiment of contingency that is accountable to communities in her / his midst, including those that form undesirable social relationships and power configurations. Such conceptions of being provide us with models that might well help us navigate more effectively the complex social relations we see emerging in the world as we currently “know” it. In our view, the presupposition that ethics must come from stability, coherence, and universals should be the critical problem we address by using our constructions of the relations between Matthew and Mark to think with and about these serious ethical matters of and for our time.

5. Facing Enstrangement And so the conversation between Alice and Humpty Dumpty comes to an abrupt end. After a lengthy discussion about words and meanings, Humpty Dumpty has lost patience: There was a long pause. “Is that all?” Alice timidly asked. “That’s all,” said Humpty Dumpty. “Good-bye.” This was rather sudden, Alice thought: but, after such a very strong hint that she ought to be going, she felt that it would hardly be civil to stay. So she got up, and held out her hand. “Good-bye, till we meet again!” she said as cheerfully as she could. “I shouldn’t know you again if we did meet,” Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake: “you’re so exactly like other people.” “The face is what one goes by, generally,” Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone. 38 On “contingent foundations” see Judith Butler’s contributions (with S. Benhabib, D. Cornell, and N.  Fraser) to Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange (New York: Routledge, 1993). On “communities of accountability” embedded in all ethical frameworks, see B. Wildung Harrison, “The Role of Social Theory in Religious Social Ethics: Rethinking the Case for Marxian Political Economy,” in Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics (Boston: Beacon, 1985), 54–80. 39 In this particular articulation of strangeness and otherness, we are especially indebted to the work of T. Dean, Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009).

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“That’s just what I complain of,” said Humpty Dumpty. “Your face is the same as everybody has – the two eyes, so  –” (marking their places in the air with his thumb) “nose in the middle, mouth under. It’s always the same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance – or the mouth at the top – that would be some help.” “It wouldn’t look nice,” Alice objected. But Humpty Dumpty only shut his eyes, and said “Wait till you’ve tried.”40

The disgruntled Humpty Dumpty ends the conversation as he began it. Just as Alice’s name means nothing and so is a “stupid” name, so also now her face is unrecognizable to him. Indeed, it is precisely that she is like everyone else that she becomes unrecognizable. There is nothing distinct, from Humpty Dumpty’s standpoint. It is interesting, at the very least, that the proposal that Humpty Dumpty lays out for recognition is one we might call defamiliarization, or enstrangement – which is to take that which is most familiar and describe it in such a way as to make it strange and other, which means that, in the end, we do not know the familiar things as well as we thought. In all the discussion of protecting otherness and strangeness above, we would be remiss not to point out that, at some level, as Jonathan Z. Smith has noted, “a ‘theory of the other’ is but another way of phrasing a ‘theory of the self.’”41 Drawing on literary critic Viktor Shklovsky’s notion, we would note that the process of “enstrangement” or defamiliarization is not moving from “familiar” to “unfamiliar.” It is taking the familiar, what we think we “know” as “fact,” and looking closer at it  – as if we had never known it. Such a movement produces a more complicated, expansive knowledge and perception of the familiar thing – and the world. For Shklovsky, this world of enstrangement is a world of rich metaphors and other descriptive forms of speech – it is a world beyond empiricism.42 This defamiliarization process is not dependent upon the object of analysis itself. It is, rather, wholly dependent on what we do with objects, on what, and really how, we are willing to see. In some sense, Bultmann also sought to promote something akin to this notion. His ethical program consisted of stripping away the surface material in order to come face-to-face with one’s own presuppositions. For him, this was the whole point of historical-critical biblical scholarship in the first place, making historical inquiry a fundamentally ethical enterprise if applied correctly. The irony of Bultmann’s legacy is that his program has been used to rather naively reconstruct that which he may have thought was impossible (and perhaps dangerous) to do. As Bultmann notes, “it never was nor can be the purpose of historical critical theology to establish piety, but rather the objective … is to lead to self-understanding.”43 In Alice in Wonderland, 188. “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” in Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), 275. 42 V.  Shklovsky, “Art as Device (1925),” in Theory of Prose (trans. B.  Sher; Champaign, Ill.: Dalkey Archive Press, 1990), 1–14. 43 R.  Bultmann, “Ethische und mystische Religion im Urchristentum,” in Anfänge der dialektischen Theologie (ed. J. Moltmann; München: Kaiser, 1963), 2:41. 40 Carroll,

41 J. Z. Smith,

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this respect, taking the Synoptic Problem as it is currently configured and making it unfamiliar, making it strange, not only helps us to see the thing we took for granted as the familiar in a new light, but also to come to understand ourselves differently in relationship to that which has been enstranged. As Smith aptly states, “Otherness” is not a descriptive category, an artifact of the perception of difference or commonality. Nor is it the result of the determination of biological descent or affinity. It is a political and linguistic project, a matter of rhetoric and judgment. It is for this that in thinking about the “other,” real progress has been made only when the “other” ceases to be an ontological category. That is to say, “otherness” is not some absolute state of being. Something is “other” only with respect to something “else.” Whether understood politically or linguistically, “otherness” is a situational category. Despite its apparent taxonomic exclusivity, “otherness” is a transactional matter, an affair of the “in-between.”44

Hence, it is not just that we desire to articulate and inhabit an ethical project of historical distancing and defamiliarization for the sake of protecting that which is other, but, even more so, it is through and in this process that we come face to face with ourselves – in the course coming to see our seeming familiar faces now misshapen and perhaps even deformed. “Two eyes on the same side of the nose,” says Humpty Dumpty. Indeed, “wait till you’ve tried!” Perhaps here we should consider heeding his advice, particularly after his tragic fall. In so doing, we could imagine looking at our reassemblage efforts as if we had never seen them before, only to notice, perhaps for the first time, that we are not putting Humpty together again – we are, in the end, walking on eggshells.

44 Smith,

“What a Difference a Difference Makes,” 275.

The Interpretation of Mark and Matthew in Historical Perspective The Transfiguration as a Test Case Michael P. Knowles 1. Introduction Particularly during the modern period, in the context of academic discourse and across a wide range of methodological approaches, “biblical interpretation” has been taken to mean, almost exclusively, textual exegesis in written form. But a broader historical perspective reveals that biblical interpretation has at various times taken the form of prayer, preaching, liturgical celebration, social reform, missionary initiative, musical composition, and pictorial representation – to name only a few of the more prominent possibilities. With regard to Mark and Matthew in particular, endeavoring to extend our investigation beyond the current methodological context quickly encounters a serious obstacle. Redaction criticism was adopted into the scholarly arsenal little more than a half a century ago. Any attempt to compare the respective emphases of the evangelists outside this narrow time frame quickly founders on shoals of synoptic harmonization. Moreover, in contrast to the more recent approach to texts as literary, social, cultural, and political artifacts, previous interpreters have understood the gospel narratives more as means of access to sacred history, and thus as instruments of immediate theological and devotional engagement – ends frequently considered tangential to the scholarly enterprise in the modern era. Nor can a single brief study accommodate either the full content of the gospel narratives or the full scope of the history of their interpretation. Because these passages illustrate many of the hermeneutical and especially theological issues that have characterized interpretation of the first two gospels in the pre-Modern period, the accounts from Mark 9:2–10 and Matt 17:1–9 of Jesus’ Transfiguration, traditionally located on Mount Tabor,1 have been selected. Indeed, the Transfiguration offers an appropriate focus for comparison both because the Markan and Matthean accounts differ little from one another, thus limiting the applicability of source and redaction criticism, and also because this episode is relatively neglected in liturgical traditions of the Western church, especially so within Protestantism. 1 Origen is (apparently) the first to suggest this identification, in his fragmentary commentary on Ps 88:13 [ET 89:12] (PG 12:1548).

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Moreover, this episode poses helpfully unfamiliar challenges to scholarly assumptions typical of the post-Reformation and post-Enlightenment church. That having been said, our investigation must content itself with observations regarding the exegetical practices of only a sample few interpreters, chiefly from the Patristic period. In assessing various appropriations of Mark and Matthew, the commonly noted distinction between worlds of reference located behind, through, or in front of the biblical text proves instructive.2 Generally speaking, we will find that pre-Modern interpreters are more interested in delineating correlations between the worlds behind and in front of the text (in the life of Jesus and the life of the church, respectively) than tends to be the case in the academic guild today. Given, once again, the wide range of possibilities, our study will be limited to representative illustrations from the related domains of liturgy, hymnody, iconography, homiletics, apologetics, and theology (including the theological interpretation of Scripture).

2. Patristic Exegesis 2.1 Apologetics, the Nature of Christ, and the Nature of the Biblical Text Patristic interpretations of the Transfiguration make implicit, yet nonetheless important claims about the purpose of biblical interpretation, and even about the nature of Scripture itself. Here three initial observations will suffice. First, far from any attempt at dispassionate inquiry, the tone and intent of commentators is didactic, hortatory, apologetic, and evangelistic. They consistently exemplify what we would call an engaged or ideologically committed reading of the text. Second, even when dealing with a particular gospel, discussion rarely focuses solely on the passage at hand: Ancient Christian exegetes characteristically weaved many sacred texts together. They seldom limited themselves to comment on a single text, as some modern exegetes insist, but constantly related one text to another by analogy, using typological reasoning, as was so characteristic of rabbinic midrashim of the same period.3

This is because the value of Scripture lies less in the characteristics of individual texts than in the ability of all biblical texts to offer concerted testimony to a spiritual reality that lies beyond them. Accordingly, third, the biblical text mediates between the world of the reader and the world of sacred history. The content of

2 This tripartite division is based ultimately on the work of Paul Ricoeur; see e.g., P. Ricoeur, “Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation,” in Essays on Biblical Interpretation (ed. L. S. Mudge; trans. D. Stewart and P. Reagan; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 100–1; cf. L. S. Mudge, “Paul Ricoeur on Biblical Interpretation,” in Essays on Biblical Interpretation (ed. L. S.  Mudge; trans. D. Stewart and P. Reagan; Philadelphia; Fortress, 1980), 25–6. 3 T. C. Oden and C. A. Hall, eds., Mark (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1998), XXX.

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the sacred text therefore determines the manner in which one must read it, as Scripture sets the terms of its own interpretation. A simple illustration comes to hand in the way that Tertullian of Carthage (ca. 160–225), refutes Marcion’s exegesis of the Transfiguration, which apparently played a key role in the latter’s supersessionist theological program.4 “Marcion,” he charges, “You should be ashamed of yourself for allowing Christ to appear on the lonely mountain in the company of Moses and Elijah whom he had (supposedly) come to destroy.” The meeting of these three, according to Tertullian, implies the essential continuity of Old and New Testaments (Marc. 4.22; similarly Ambrose, Fid. 1.13.82; Augustine, Serm. 78.2).5 Thus the faithful reader may, by studying the text of the gospel, glimpse therein an episode from the life of Jesus that inculcates a specific reading strategy for the canon as a whole. Another illustration of the manner in which Scripture conveys spiritual truth for Patristic exegetes emerges from the way in which Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–215) accounts for the details of Matthew’s Transfiguration account. “Why was it that they saw the radiant face but were not struck with terror,” he asks, “Yet when they heard the voice they fell to the ground?” (Matt 17:6; Exc. 4–5). His succinct explanation offers a helpful insight not only into Patristic hermeneutics, but also into the direction that Eastern spirituality will subsequently take: “Doubtless,” he says, “because ears are less believing than eyes.” Here in a single sentence lies the key to understanding the priority of visual over verbal testimony in Orthodox biblical interpretation, as well as the prominence of iconography as an interpretative strategy in its own right. The same prioritizing of event over text accounts, says Clement, for Jesus’ insistence in Matt 17:9, “Tell no one what you have seen.” Although Clement quotes this command only in abbreviated form, he seems also to have the remainder of the phrase in view – “until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” The implication of his argument is that only after Christ’s resurrection, and the wider manifestation of his glory, will human eyes be able to confirm what their ears had previously heard.6 Origen (ca. 185–254) takes this line of reasoning one step further. Christ, he argues, is the Λόγος who took on flesh for the sake of those who are in the flesh: He did this in the first place to effect their transformation according to the Word that was made flesh, and secondly, to lead them on high so that they can see him as he was before he became flesh … And after tabernacling and dwelling [among] us he did not continue in 4 See further H. J. W. Drijvers, “Christ as Warrior and Merchant: Aspects of Marcion’s Christology,” StPatr 21 (1989): 73–85. 5  Cf. A. M. Ramsey, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ (London: Longmans, Green, 1949), 130–1; P. A. Chamberas, “The Transfiguration of Christ: A Study in the Patristic Exegesis of Scripture,” SVTQ 14 (1970): 49; A. Louth, “St. Augustine’s Interpretation of the Transfiguration of Christ,” SEAug 68 (2000): 380–1. Unless otherwise indicated, patristic texts relevant to the Transfiguration are cited from J. A. McGuckin, The Transfiguration of Christ in Scripture and Tradition (Lewiston, N. Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1986), 145–322. McGuckin summarizes his findings in “The Patristic Exegesis of the Transfiguration,” StPatr 18 (1985): 335–41. 6 A similar explanation is offered by Origen, Comm. Matt. 43.

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that form in which he first presented himself, but made us ascend the lofty mountain of his word [ἀναβιβάσας ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ τὸ λογικὸν ὑψιλὸν ὄρος], and there showed us his own glorious form and the splendour of his garments.7

Origen buttresses his point by means of figurative exegesis, taking the garments of Jesus, “white as light” (Matt 17:2), to represent the biblical text itself: the garments of Jesus are the sayings and letters of the Gospel with which he clothed himself [ἱματία δὲ τοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ αἱ λέξεις καὶ ἅ ἐνεδύσατο τῶν Εὐαγγελίων γράμματα]. And I think that even the sayings in the Apostles which indicated truths about him are also the garments of Jesus which become white to those who go up the high mountain with him … So when you see a man who has a thorough understanding of the theology concerning Jesus and can clearly interpret the Gospel sayings, you should not hesitate to say that for him the garments of Jesus have become white as light. (Comm. Matt. 12.38 [PG 13:1069])

As Maximus the Confessor (ca. 580–662) will explain some four centuries later, “When the Logos of God becomes manifest and radiant in us, and His face shines like the sun, His clothes will also look white. That is to say, the words of the Gospels will then be clear and distinct, with nothing concealed.”8 In this way, Origen appeals to the Transfiguration to explain the nature of mediated revelation. As he understands it, the text of the Gospels is sufficient to communicate spiritual truth even to those not present at the original events, precisely by virtue of its testimony to the spiritual significance of the events themselves: If you wish to see the transfiguration of Jesus as seen by those who went up with him into the lofty mountain apart from the others, view with me … Jesus in the Gospels. Remember that Jesus was more literally apprehended by those below “according to the flesh” – by those who did not go up to the lofty mountain of wisdom by means of words and deeds that are uplifting. But there were others by whom he became known no longer after the flesh, but in his divinity. To this all the Gospels attest. He was beheld in the form of God according to their spiritual knowledge.9

Implicit here is a threefold comparison, first, between the two natures of Christ; second, between different levels or degrees of spiritual insight; and therefore, third, between different ways in which the reader may appropriate the truths of Scripture. Origen proposes that one read the gospels not only “according to the flesh” – evidently his metaphor for the letter and literal sense – but also in search of a deeper meaning, glimpsed through and by means of the text, that constitutes its full spiritual significance “no longer after the flesh” (cf. 2 Cor 5:16). This explains his observation, after a separate and detailed exposition of Mark’s account, “We Contra Celsum 6.68 (PG 11:1401). Hundred Texts on Theology, Second Century § 14; cited in S. Nes, Uncreated Light: An Iconographical Study of the Transfiguration in the Eastern Church (trans. A. Moi; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 154. 9 Comm. Matt. 12.37 (PG 13:1068–69) in the translation of Oden and Hall, Mark, 117; cf. McGuckin, Transfiguration of Christ, 157; F. W. Norris, “The Transfiguration of Christ: The Transformation of the Church,” in Reading in Christian Communities (ed. C. A. Bobertz and D. Brakke; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 194. Origen considers details from all three Synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration in ibid. 12.36–43. 7 Origen, 8 Two

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have said all this merely by way of scrutinizing the letter. We have hardly exhausted our energy in interpreting the figurative meaning of these things” (Comm. Matt. 6.41).10 In Origen’s theology, then, the biblical text points the way toward its own interpretation, directing attention beyond itself to the spiritual reality from which the text derives its meaning. Indeed, Jesus’ Transfiguration models the process and purpose of Scriptural interpretation as a whole. Just as Peter, James, and John ascend the mountain in order to behold the glory of Christ, so likewise the act of reading draws the mind and soul of the interpreter towards inward contemplation of divine truth and glory – a theme that will be echoed by virtually all subsequent interpreters of the Eastern church.11 Still, Origen offers two essential qualifications to this general principle. First, he notes that such revelation is not automatic, but – as implied by the specific wording of Mark 9:2 and Matt 17:2 – conveyed according to the ability, understanding, and intentions of the beholder: But hear these things, if you can, and pay attention spiritually for it is not said simply: “He was transfigured,” because Mark and Matthew have also recorded a certain necessary addition, for they both say: “He was transfigured before them.” And so, according to this … it is possible for Jesus to be transfigured before some people … but even at the same time not to be transfigured before others.12

This distinction between corporeal and spiritual perception will later prove significant for Ambrose of Milan (ca. 339–397), as well as for his disciple Augustine of Hippo (354–430).13 Ambrose models his own exhortations to the faithful on those of Origen, again making the ascent of Mount Tabor into a prototype for the illumination of mind and soul. Hence his repeated invitations to the reader: “Let us therefore transcend the works of the world so that we might be able to see God face to face … Let us ascend the mountain. Let us beseech the Word of God to appear to us in his own splendour and beauty” (Exp. Luc. 7.8, 12). At the beginning of this pilgrimage, he explains, the words of Christ will appear as mere human testimony: “His word will appear to you like the word of man, veiled in ambiguous sayings, not shining in the power of the Spirit.” But as faith emerges through this examination of Christ, “it is then that you will begin to ascend the mountain” and the glory of the Λόγος on Mount Tabor will be revealed: 10 For a brief introduction to Origen’s distinction between the literal, moral, and spiritual modes of interpretation, and his corresponding classification of readers into the categories of simpliciores/incipientes, progredientes, and perfecti, see J. M. Court, “Not (Just) the Plain Meaning: Origen and Allegorical Interpretation,” in Biblical Interpretation: The Meanings of Scripture  – Past and Present (ed. J. M. Court; London: T & T Clark, 2003), 10–20. Cf. especially Princ. 4.2.4 (K. Froehlich, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984], 57–8). 11 McGuckin, “Patristic Exegesis,” 337–8, and, more fully, McGuckin, Transfiguration of Christ, 103–9. 12 Comm. Matt. 12.37; McGuckin, Transfiguration of Christ, 156–7. 13 As traced by J. Pintard, “Remarques sur la Transfiguration dans l’oeuvre de Saint Augustin: une influence de l’Orient?” StPatr 11 (1972): 335–40.

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Some of his garments are of below, and others are of above. Perhaps the garments of the Word are the words of scripture, a certain vesture of the divine intellect. And just as he appeared in a different form to Peter, John, and James with his vesture shining white, then so has the meaning of the divine scriptures become illuminated for the eyes of your mind. Thus the divine words are made like snow, a garment for the Word so white as no fuller on earth could ever make it. (Exp. Luc. 7.12–13)

Although this gloss appears in a commentary on Luke, Ambrose refers to the γναφεύς, cloth-fuller, of Mark 9:3, as well as to the Western text of Matt 17:2, which likens Jesus’ garments to “snow” rather than “light” (a harmonization with Matt 28:3). Here, then, is an apt illustration of his method, whereby the words of the sacred text, suitably harmonized, direct the reader toward the meaning of the event itself, which in turn sheds light – so to speak – on the process of reading, Scriptural interpretation, and spiritual illumination alike. Those who remain below see but the bodily form of Christ; only those who join the apostles in ascending the mountain perceive his glory: Non enim corporalibus sed spiritualibus oculis Jesus videtur (“for it is not eyes of flesh but those of the spirit that behold Jesus”).14 Returning to Origen we note his second qualification, that apprehension of spiritual truths is more than intellectual or conceptual, for those who truly behold the transfigured Christ reflect His glory only as they themselves “put off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light, and are no longer the children of darkness, but have become the sons of day.”15 On such a view, the point of the Transfiguration is not only the self-revelation of Jesus, not only intellectual and spiritual enlightenment, but equally the moral transformation of those who behold him on the mountain, above all those who have access to this event by means of the written text alone. “Let us transcend the works of the world,” says Ambrose, “so that we might be able to see God face to face” (Exp. Luc. 7.8). Augustine is likewise explicit on this point. Granted, as Pintard observes, the bishop of Hippo discusses the event of Christ’s Transfiguration only as an example of corporeal vision.16 Yet Augustine nonetheless pointedly employs the verb transfiguro to describe the process of human salvation: just as Christ is transfigured on the mountain, revealing the divine character that lies beneath the garment of his humanity, so Christ, he says, “transfigured us in himself [transfiguravit in se],” representatively “transfiguring his own in himself [transfigurans in se suos].”17 More specifically, continues Augustine, the good works to which the transfiguration of the faithful gives rise include the ministry of preaching and teaching. Thus he addresses the foremost apostle: Luc. 1.5 (PL 15:1615); cf. Pintard, “Remarques sur la Transfiguration,” 338. Matt. 12.37; Norris, “Transfiguration of Christ,” 194. 16 Pintard, “Remarques sur la Transfiguration,” 336–7; cf. Louth, “St. Augustine’s Interpretation of the Transfiguration,” 379–80. 17 M. Cameron, “Transfiguration: Christology and the Roots of Figurative Exegesis in St Augustine,” StPatr 33 (1997): 41–2, citing Augustine’s Enarrations on the Psalms (Ps 32; Sermo 1.2 [PL 36:278]). 14 Exp.

15 Comm.

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Come down then Peter. You wanted to stay on the mountain but come down to preach the word [descenda, praedica verbum]. ‘Be constant in season and out; reprove, rebuke and exhort them with all patience as you teach’ [2 Tim 4:2]. Endure your share of pain and hard toil so that you may come to possess the meaning of the white garment of the Lord through the brightness and beauty of the noble labours of love. (Homily 78.6 [PL 38:492])

In short, since the consequences of proper reading include faith, discipleship, and faithful ministry, biblical interpretation for Patristic interpreters of both Eastern and Western churches is not simply an operation performed upon the text by the exegete, but evidently also a process by which the exegete submits to and is transformed by the text. In contrast to Origen, John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407) makes Matthew’s description of the transfiguration his point of departure for discussing the nature of metaphorical language: The evangelist, wishing to show us this radiance of his tells us how radiant he was. And how radiant was he? … Like the sun … Why was this? Because I do not have any other star so splendid and so brilliant. He was as white as snow for I do not have any other material that is whiter. For he did not really become radiant in this way … If he was as radiant as the sun the disciples would not have fallen down, for they saw the sun every day and did not keep falling down. But since he was radiant far beyond sun or snow, this was why they could not bear the radiance and fell down. (Hom. 21 [PG 63:700])

With a touch of humor, Chrysostom demonstrates the limitations even of biblical language, almost seeming to mock the kind of literal reading for which he and the Antiochene interpreters are known. The admission of such limitations implies, once again, that spiritual truth is to be glimpsed less within the text itself than by means of and beyond it. Notwithstanding significant methodological differences between the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools and the controversy to which these gave rise, Chrysostom concurs with Origen in reading the Transfiguration as an imperative to moral transformation. Just as the face of Jesus shone like the sun, he says, so likewise will the righteous “shine like the sun” (Matt 13:43) – and more brightly still – when Christ is revealed in the fullness of his glory on the day of judgment. That being so, he urges, “Let us lay aside our filthy garments, let us put on the armour of light, and the glory of God will enfold us” – at which point Chrysostom launches into an extended diatribe against usury, social injustice, and economic oppression in particular.18 As the work of exegetes known more for their contribution to the intellectual legacy of the church, such an emphasis on the practical dimensions of biblical interpretation strikes a decidedly contemporary note. To be sure, strictly methodological considerations form only a small part of the role that the Transfiguration plays in the theology of these early interpreters. Much more attention is given to discussing the two natures of Christ, the character of divine glory, its revelation to the apostles, the differences between created and 18 Hom.

Matt. 56 (PG 58:554–55); cf. Norris, “Transfiguration of Christ,” 194–5.

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uncreated light, the ability of mortals to apprehend the glorious things of God, and the relation between Christ’s earthly manifestation and the eschatological transformation that awaits the faithful.19 Even so, such discussions entail a constant dialogue with the canonical text that reveals a characteristic hermeneutical approach: It is … important to note that in spite of their basic respect for the text as it is, the Fathers are not tied down in a fundamentalist way to its letter, but are freely moved and guided by its spirit to find and interpret the essential meanings and the message, again, not so much of the letter as of the event. Their concern is primarily with the acts of God and His self-revelation in Christ. Thus, they are able to distinguish between the description of the Transfiguration in the Gospels and the actual historical event itself, which they obviously believe to have taken place in the earthly life of Jesus Christ and to have been the basis for the Gospel narratives. Moreover, their particular emphasis, for example on the divine realities behind the literary symbolism of light, cloud, voice, etc., would indicate that the Fathers consider the oral or written transmission of an original revelation as a necessary human means of expression and communication, however inspired the writer might have been.20

On these grounds, the realities and conditions described by and glimpsed through the text reach beyond the text to encompass the reader. Exegesis of the Transfiguration is particularly relevant to this wider principle, for here in particular Patristic interpreters encourage us not only to read the biblical text, but also to discover therein the revelation of divine light that enables human understanding. Thus “when the Fathers speak of the transfiguration of the human senses through the Holy Spirit and the divine Light itself, they are not only theologizing, but are also setting down a very definite hermeneutic principle fundamental to all their exegetical work.”21 2.2 Homiletics The typically hortatory tone of such exegesis blurs the distinction between commentary and preaching, insofar as both modes of exposition serve a common purpose in the edification and transformation of God’s people. As is evident already from the contributions of Chrysostom and Augustine, Patristic homilies and sermons emphasize the relevance of biblical exegesis for the life of the Christian community. Although Jerome (ca. 345–420) is best known today as a translator and biblical scholar, he was also an able and frequent preacher at the monastery in Bethlehem where he spent the last three and a half decades of his life. Many of his sermons on Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Psalms, and the Gospel of Luke have survived, along with a series of ten homilies on Mark. Among the latter is one concerning the Transfigu19 Cf. the summaries by Chamberas, “Transfiguration of Christ,” 50–60; McGuckin, “Patristic Exegesis,” passim, or the fuller treatment by A. Andreopoulos, Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography (Crestwood, N. Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 2005), passim. 20 Chamberas, “Transfiguration of Christ,” 61. 21 Chamberas, “Transfiguration of Christ,” 63.

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ration, likely preached about the year 402.22 Particularly striking in this sermon is Jerome’s clear distinction, derived most immediately from Origen, between “letter” and “spirit”; between the literal, historical meaning of the text and its deeper, “spiritual” sense. Non historiam denegamus, he declares, sed spiritalem intellegentiam praeferimus (“We are not denying the historical event, but prefer a spiritual explanation” [75–76]). For this reason, proper interpretation requires prayer for inspiration by God’s Spirit: “Pray the Lord,” he bids his audience, “that these words may be expounded in the same Spirit in which they were uttered” (88–89). Perhaps, as Jean-Louis Gourdain suggests, Jerome is staking his position in the controversy then raging over the proper limits of Origen’s figurative exegesis. All the more so given his eventual repudiation of much else in Origen’s thought, it is remarkable that for Jerome (as for Origen, Ambrose, and Augustine) the Transfiguration provides both the theoretical model and a fitting example of spiritualizing exegesis for the monks of his community to emulate.23 Where Origen distinguished between two levels of perception (carnal and spiritual, which for Ambrose were symbolized, respectively, by Christ’s garments in their ordinary colors and as transfused with light), Jerome more strongly emphasizes the difference between the crowds who remain below (representing those who read only the plain sense of the text) and the faithful few who ascend the mountain with their Lord, there to glimpse the fullness of his glory. Jerome pursues this distinction at considerable length: To this very day, Jesus is down below for some and up above for others. They who are below, the crowd who cannot climb the mountain, have Jesus down below – only the disciples climb the mountain, the crowd remains below – if anyone, I say, is of the crowd, he cannot see Jesus in shining garments, only in soiled. If anyone follows the letter and is completely of the earth and looks at the ground in the manner of brute beasts, he is unable to see Jesus in a shining vestment, but for him who follows the word of God [sermonem Dei] and ascends the mountain, climbs to the top, for him, Jesus is instantly transfigured and His garments shine exceedingly. Now, if we read and take all this literally, what is the value of “shining,” of “white,” of “on high”? If we ponder it spiritually, Holy Writ, that is, the clothing of the word, is transformed immediately and becomes white as snow, “as no fuller on earth can whiten.” (113–28)

Indeed, according to Jerome, even Moses and Elijah are vested in white (a detail not hinted at by any of the Synoptic accounts), meaning that the Law and the Prophets, which these two figures symbolize, are also to be read by the light of

22 Jerome, Homily 80 (6), in St. Jerome, The Homilies of St. Jerome, Volume 2 (Homilies 60–96) (trans. M. L. Ewald; Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1965), 159–68; line numbers refer to the Latin text of G. Morin, ed., S. Hieronymi Presbyteri: Tractatus Sive Homiliae in Psalmos, In Marci Evangelium, aliaque Varia Argumenta (Turnhout: Brepols, 1958), 477–84. Cf. K. Stevenson, “From Hilary of Poitiers to Peter of Blois: A Transfiguration Journey of Biblical Interpretation,” SJT 61 (2008): 291–3. 23 J.–L.  Gourdain, “Jérôme exégète de la Transfiguration,” REAug 40 (1994): 370–1, whose treatment is followed here.

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Christ.24 No less remarkable is the further contrast Jerome develops between the garments of Jesus and those of the pagan philosophers: Plato deliberately set out, and Aristotle too, and Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, and Epicurus, the advocate of pleasure, to whiten their sordid doctrine with dazzling white words. They could not, however, make garments as white as those of Jesus on the mountain; because they were of the earth. (148–53)

As their own appropriation of the Markan text, Jerome encourages the monks of Bethlehem to pursue not only a higher level of intellectual understanding and spiritual vision, but also a material asceticism that disdains earthly goods and worldly wisdom alike. The three foremost disciples provide a model of such detachment, even exaltation, from the things of this world: You see how Peter, James, and John recognize that they are on the mountain  – in the discernment of the spirit – and despise, therefore, the lowly and the human, and long for the lofty and divine. They do not want to descend to earth, but to remain wholly with the spiritual. (194–8)

Then, finally, in a manner that seems exceptional for commentators of this era, Jerome puts himself forward as an example of the kind of participatory, personally engaged exegesis he seeks to inculcate. Speaking in the first person, he likens himself to Peter in Mark 9:5, whose comment, “Rabbi, it is well that we are here,” implies that the apostle was reluctant to descend from the mountain, from the heights of spiritual vision and understanding he had attained: When I read Holy Writ [Scripturas] and appreciate something more sublimely in its spiritual sense, neither do I want to descend, to come down to the lowly; I want only to build in my heart [in pectoro meo] a tabernacle for Christ, the Law, and the prophets. (200–3)

In a somewhat different sense, a famous sermon on the Transfiguration by Pope Leo the Great (in office 440–461), preached from the Gospel of Matthew during Lent of 445, also demonstrates a significant degree of personal engagement. Not unlike the structure of a Pauline epistle, Leo’s sermon consists of doctrinal exposition followed by application and exhortation. The first part, not surprisingly, sets forth the two natures of Christ. More immediately compelling, perhaps, is the pastoral emphasis of Leo’s interpretation, for he understands the purpose of the Transfiguration to have been one of consolation and reassurance: The transfiguration chiefly occurred for this end, that the scandal of the cross should be taken away from the hearts of the disciples, and so that, since they had been given the revelation of his secret majesty, the abasement of the Passion might not confound their faith.25 24 Gourdain,

“Jérôme exégète de la Transfiguration,” 372. observation may not, however, be original to Leo: a Greek sermon on the Transfiguration, perhaps also from the fifth century but attributed to Ephraem the Syrian (ca. 306–373) sounds a similar note (Greek text in Ephraem Syrus, “Sermo in transfigurationem domini et dei salvatoris nostri Iesu,” in Ὁσίου Ἐφραίμ τοῦ Σύρου ἔργα (ed. K. G.  Phrantzoles; Thessalonica: Το Περιβόλι της Παναγίας, 1998), 7.13–30; English translation by Ephrem Lash at http://www. anastasis.org.uk/on_the_transfiguration.htm). 25 The

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Likewise he reminds his congregation that just as Christ’s face took on the brilliance of the sun, so also – borrowing from Matt 13:43 – “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Hom. 51.3).26 In admonishing his hearers, Leo can hardly do better than to echo the words of Matt 17:5, even to the point of adopting and choosing to speak with the voice of God: This, then, is why I am well-pleased with him in all things, and why I am revealed in all his preaching [praedicatione]… So, without hesitation, listen to him, for he is in himself both Truth and Life. He himself is my power and wisdom … Listen to him who opens the way to heaven … Let it be done, for my will is as that of Christ.

In one sense, Leo’s homiletical strategy is not new. From the previous century, Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 315–368), in the earliest known Latin commentary on Matthew, takes the voice of God as being directed to all the faithful: “The voice from the cloud made known that this was the Son; this the beloved; this the favoured one; this the one to be heard” (Comm. Matt. 17:3). The faithful, of course, listen to Christ initially in the words of the canonical text as read aloud in the context of worship. But the authority of such words, says Leo, and thus the authority of Christ, devolve especially upon the authoritative preaching of Scripture: These things, my dear brethren, are not spoken only for the benefit of those who heard them with their own ears. For in these three apostles the whole Church learns from what they saw with their eyes and took by hearing. And in this way the faith of all is confirmed according to the preaching of the most holy Gospel [secundum praedicationem sacratissimi Evangelii]. (Homily 51.7–8 [PL 54:312–13])

In the case of this particular sermon, one cannot overlook the office and identity of the preacher in question, or his role in consolidating the power of the See of Rome. Leo himself is clearly conscious of such matters, for he is careful to connect the events of Mount Tabor with Peter’s previous confession, and Christ’s declaration of him as the rock on which the church will be established.27 Thus his own exposition of Matt 17 serves a distinctly political end, for it allows the titular head of the Western church not simply to affirm the words of the sacred text, but to speak with the voice of God. 2.3 Liturgy and Lectionary In Leo’s Western tradition, the Transfiguration of Christ was celebrated prior to Easter on the second Sunday in Lent, and marked by the reading of Matt 17. A fifth century date coincides, incidentally, with the erection of the first Christian church on Mount Tabor. In the centuries that follow, however, the Transfiguration remains at best a minor festival, with the timing of its observance subject to local varia26 E. Cavalcanti,

“The Sermon of Leo the First on the Transfiguration (Serm. LI Chavasse),” StPatr 38 (2001): 371–3. 27 Stevenson, “From Hilary of Poitiers to Peter of Blois,” 294.

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tion.28 One tradition assigned the Transfiguration to August 6, on which date it is celebrated to this day in the Eastern Orthodox calendar as a festival second only to Easter in importance. The earliest record of an August celebration is from the Georgian lectionary, which reflects the practice of the Jerusalem church between the fifth and eighth centuries. This lectionary likewise assigns Matt 17:1–9 as the Gospel reading, together with Amos 4:12–13, Zech 14:16–21, 2 Pet 1:12–19, and Heb 12:18–28.29 The text from Zechariah refers to the eschatological pilgrimage of all nations to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, thus associating Peter’s proposal to build three “booths,” σκηνάς, with this feast. The August date coincides, moreover, with the summer solstice, when grapes begin to ripen for harvest. Both associations plausibly suggest that the earliest liturgical observance of the Transfiguration appropriates and reconfigures a pre-Christian agricultural festival of first-fruits.30 Perhaps it is not too much to suggest, therefore, that this particular tradition views the glory of Transfiguration as an anticipation of the resurrection, and more specifically of the fact that Christ will be “raised from the dead,” as Paul observes in 1 Cor 15:20, “the first fruits of those who have died.” Here, then, interpretation of a text from Matthew is situated not only in relation to Hebrew Scripture but also in service of the church’s mission and, on an even broader scale, in relation to the sanctification of time. Coordinating this liturgical observance within both the solar cycle and the agricultural calendar would have seemed only fitting given the cosmic dimensions of Christ’s glorification on Mount Tabor. In Orthodox tradition, the initial observance of this feast is the service of Vespers, which incorporates the canonical accounts of how Moses and Elijah also witnessed the glory of God (Exod 24:12–18; 33:11–23; 34:4–6, 8; 1  Kg 19:3–9, 11–13, 15–16).31 Luke’s version of the Transfiguration is read at Matins, but Matthew and Second Peter again take precedence at the Eucharistic liturgy (as is also the case in Western tradition). More broadly, the festal psalms and hymns reiterate the themes of divine light and glory, as revealed in Christ for the transformation of those who behold him: “Christ comes and is transfigured ‘in the flesh’ in order to transfigure Adam, the whole of humanity, and all of creation with God’s divine light and glory.”32 28 Ramsey, Glory of God, 128–9; cf. Pintard, “Remarques sur la Transfiguration,” 335, who assigns a date in the sixth or seventh centuries at the earliest. 29 M. Tarchnischvili, ed., Le grand lectionnaire de l’Église de Jérusalem (Ve–VIIIe siècle) (Louvain: Secrétariat général du CorpusSCO, 1960), II.2.25. 30 K. Rozemond, “Les origines de la fête de la Transfiguration,” StPatr 17 (1982): 591–3: “Les fêtes de Pâque et de Pentecôte ont une relation avec la moisson et avec le pain, la Transfiguration serait ainsi liée au fruit de la vigne” (593). Ephraem’s sermon on the Transfiguration [see n. 25] – itself an extended exposition of Matthew’s text – opens by reflecting on the grape harvest as a metaphor for spiritual abundance. 31 See further Ramsey, Glory of God, 137–8; McGuckin, Transfiguration of Christ, 129–34; T.  Hopko, “The Transfiguration Liturgy in the Orthodox Church,” in Orthodox and Wesleyan Scriptural Understanding and Practice (ed. S. T. Kimbrough; Crestwood, N. Y.: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary, 2005), 309. 32 Hopko, “Transfiguration Liturgy,” 313.

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By means of public recitation and corporate participation, liturgy thus invites the congregation to enter into the religious and spiritual truths of which it speaks. Or rather, congregants thereby invoke upon themselves the realities to which they give voice, affirming both specific biblical or theological premises and a broader theological world view and orientation. In this sense, liturgical participation amounts to corporate exposition of Scripture, the general contours and particular details of which can be traced in both hymnody and iconography, which are also integral elements of liturgical celebration. To these we now turn, noting that these modes of interpretation again focus less on texts and exegetical details than on the events that the texts describe, and on the implications for Christ’s followers of entering into the theological reality the events themselves bespeak. 2.4 Hymnody A classic instance of multi-modal Patristic exegesis is the work of Ephraem the Syrian, a voluminously prolific exegete and apologist whose extensive biblical commentary – all in the form of hymns and verse homilies – sought to defend orthodoxy and catechize the faithful. In a liturgical poem for the feast of Epiphany, Ephraem (or perhaps a later imitator)33 brings together the motifs of baptism, Transfiguration, and the sanctification of the faithful: Our Lord when he was baptized by John sent forth twelve fountains; and they issued forth and cleansed by their streams the defilement of the peoples. His worshippers are made white like His garments, the garments in Tabor and the body in the water. Instead of the garments the peoples are made white, and have become for Him a clothing of glory.34

Where for Origen, Ambrose, and Jerome the robes of Christ represent the Scriptures, and for Chrysostom their purity implies a call to holiness, Ephraem sees in Christ’s Transfiguration an assurance of salvation for the very worshipers who join in the antiphonal singing of this hymn. They do not thus interpret Scripture; rather, they themselves are interpreted by Scripture. Just as Augustine in the next century will also identify Christ’s gleaming garments with the church,35 so here the Transfiguration reveals both the glory and the grace of Christ in the transformation of his followers. Two kanons  (or multi-part hymns) are assigned for the Orthodox Feast of Transfiguration, both of which remain in use today. One is attributed to John of 33 See further E. Beck, trans., Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Nativitate (Epiphania) (2 vols.; Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1959), 2.x. 34 “Hymns for the Feast of the Epiphany” 9.12; NPNF2 13.280. 35 Serm. 78.2; McGuckin, Transfiguration of Christ, 275; NPNF1 6.347 (PL 38:490–91); further, Louth, “St. Augustine’s Interpretation of the Transfiguration,” 380.

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Damascus (ca. 655–750), the other to his foster-brother, Kosmas of Maïuma (ca. 675–751).36 Both, incidentally, are acrostic compositions, the first spelling out Μωσῆς θεοῦ πρόσωπον ἐν Θάβωρ ἴδε, “Moses saw the face of God on Tabor,” and the second Χριστὸς ἐνὶ σκοπιῇ σέλας ἄπλετον εἴδεος ἧκε, “On the hilltop Christ came, the boundless brilliance of the image [of God].” Both hymns emphasize the nature of Christ’s Transfiguration as theophany, reiterating the continuity between the glory revealed on Tabor and the glory previously revealed at Creation, as well as to Moses, to Elijah, and to Daniel and his companions in the furnace. Focusing on the revelation of the godhead, John takes the detail that Jesus’ face “shone like the sun” (Matt 17:2) to mean that Christ in fact outshines mere created light; Kosmas observes that unlike Moses, whose face reflects divine illumination, Christ is the very source and “Author of light.” As poets, John and Kosmas draw on the theological preoccupations and concerns of preceding centuries as a resource for congregational worship; their hymns depict the Transfiguration as an unveiling that reveals the mystery of incarnation and the two natures of Christ. Because, then, Christ is fully human as well as fully divine, the Transfiguration reveals what humanity was created to be, and will be again: Thou who in the beginning with invisible hands hast fashioned man in Thine image has now displayed thine archetypal beauty in this same human body formed by Thee, revealing it, not as in an image, but as Thou art in Thine own essence, being both God and man.

So John of Damascus (Canticle 5.2), while Kosmas speaks more explicitly of deification: Having put on Adam entire, O Christ, and changing the nature grown dark in past times, Thou has filled it with glory and deified it by the alteration of Thy form.37

Again, for a congregation to witness, indeed to join in chanting such affirmations – however theologically complex  – extends beyond intellectual or even fiduciary appropriation: liturgical celebration constitutes soteriological participation. Elizabeth Theokritoff ’s summary of this mode of scriptural interpretation deserves to be quoted at length: 1. Most obviously … interpretation of scripture is a function – a “liturgy” – of the life of the Church … 2. Because most … hymnody comes out of the liturgical celebration of incidents in scripture, it leads us to think in terms of interpreting events rather than texts …

36 For texts, see PG 96:847–52; W. Christ and M. Paranikas, eds., Anthologia Graeca Carminum Christianorum (Leipzig: Teubner, 1871), 176–80. 37 E. Theokritoff, “The Poet as Expositor in the Golden Age of Byzantine Hymnography and in the Experience of the Church,” in Orthodox and Wesleyan Scriptural Understanding and Practice (ed. S. T. Kimbrough; Crestwood, N. Y.: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary, 2005), 267–71. For an alternative translation of John of Damascus, see H. L. Weatherby, trans., “Homily on the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Saint John of Damascus,” GOTR 32 (1987): 26–9.

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3. The hymns are focused on an event, but in order to discern the full dimensions of the event, they pay minute attention to the details of the way in which it is depicted … [in relation to] other events in God’s work of salvation. 4. Liturgical poetry directs us to the objective meaning of scripture, the story of the Word active in human history … 5. The liturgical texts are always urging us to join in the event celebrated …38

Expressed in popular form, the church’s interpretation of biblical texts is here multi-voiced and antiphonal, both in the sense that preachers, cantors, and liturgists re-echo the themes of the canonical text and of previous interpreters alike, and in the sense that congregations add their own voices by way of response and affirmation. Scriptural exegesis thus comes to expression not as the domain of academics and scholars alone, but as the common heritage of all the faithful. 2.5 Iconography In Orthodox tradition the creation of icons, as yet another distinct mode of biblical interpretation, is directly linked to the theological implications of transfiguration itself, as Kallistos Ware explains: At the Transfiguration the glory of God was manifested as a physical glory: the divine and uncreated Light of the deity is not simply a symbolic or invisible reality, to be grasped by the intellect, but it is something which shines from material objects and which is seen by men through their bodily eyes.

“Icon-painting,” he continues, “is a notable instance of the way in which man acts as a creator after the image of God the Creator … Through the act of artistic creation the icon-painter participates in the work of transfiguring the material creation.”39 That the incarnate Christ embodies divine light in human flesh opens the possibility of an artist likewise conveying spiritual reality in material form. To quote John of Damascus on this point, When he who is bodiless and without form … empties himself and takes the form of a servant in substance and in stature and is found in a body of flesh, then you may draw his image and show it to anyone willing to gaze upon it.40

38 Theokritoff,

“The Poet as Expositor,” 272–3.

39 K. T. Ware, “The Value of the Material Creation,” Sobernost 6 (1971): 161, 163. Nes, Uncreated

Light, 46–50, delineates the genesis of this perspective in the iconoclastic controversies of the late seventh and early eighth centuries. 40 Divine Images 1.8, cited in R. L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 244; cf. 245–61. In an earlier era, Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–340) had taken the opposite position, again on the basis of the Transfiguration, “in which [Christ’s] appearance was so transformed that the apostles could not look upon him, because of the splendour that, in its ineffability, surpasses the measure of any eye or ear, and consequently cannot be depicted by lifeless colours and shades” (Louth, “St. Augustine’s Interpretation of the Transfiguration,” 377 n. 3).

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By extension, and as a revelatory event in its own right, the Transfiguration also inaugurates its own iconographic interpretation, inviting imitation – in the form of representative art – on the part of the graphic artist. Accordingly, iconographic representations of the Transfiguration offer a theological commentary on such pivotal issues as the two natures of Christ, the revelation of divine glory, and, above all, theosis, the spiritual transformation or “divinization” that the Transfiguration at once represents, reveals, and inaugurates for the benefit of the beholder. Perhaps the clearest example of the mystical interplay between text and image, matter and spirit, artistic expression and divinely-authored transformation is also one of the earliest surviving representations of the Transfiguration, from the basilica of the Monastery of the Transfiguration (also known as St. Catherine’s Monastery) at the foot of Mount Sinai. An impressive mosaic dating from ca. 565 adorns the apse over the basilica’s high altar. Its specific location in a place of pilgrimage allows us to glimpse, in a single instance, the intersection of Scriptural interpretation, sacralization of space, and iconographic representation that, in Eastern Orthodox spirituality, expresses and sustains a vision of the life of faith as an encounter with and imitation of Christ. By way of background, the erection and decoration of commemorative churches or memoria throughout the Holy Land in the centuries following the conversion of Constantine invited pilgrims to experience first-hand the physical settings of which the sacred text spoke. “Unlike liturgical rites, sermons, or theological treatises, the holy places concentrated attention on the event for its own sake … An official image of the event soon followed in the memoria itself.” The intended effect, as William Loerke explains, was “to transform the viewer of a work of art into a witness of an event in progress.”41 In this particular case, the theological features of the vision are as we would expect from our previous discussion. Foremost is the use of gold and white: as Loerke observes, “Every viewer of this work, including countless generations of monks, must be immediately struck by the central visual fact: the power of the transfiguring light.”42 The luminous figure of Christ is set within a mandorla of deep blue from which eight rays of light extend, two to the prophets and three more to the awestruck apostles, illuminating and transforming the garments of each into mirror images of his own. These transformative rays are a consistent feature of Byzantine iconography, for they summarize the essential meaning of the Transfiguration, which is the metamorphosis not only of Christ, not only of Peter, James, and John, but also (by implication) of the Christian monastic and pilgrim as well. They are the glory of Christ that reaches out to touch and transfigure humanity. The point is made explicit in the Transfiguration liturgy, as the congregants sing from the kanon of John of Damascus, “From thy flesh rays of divinity flowed to the prophets and apostles” (Canticle 4.1). 41 W. Loerke, “‘Real Presence’ in Early Christian Art,” in Monasticism and the Arts (ed. T. G. Verdon and J. Dally; Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1984), 34–7. 42 Loerke, “Real Presence,” 42. For a fuller description and analysis, see Nes, Uncreated Light, 1–12, with plates 1–2.

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Again, the location and function of the mosaic most fully indicate its significance, for the icon is always contemplated in the context of the liturgy and worship that anchor the monastic life: Each time the feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated, the event takes place in the liturgical room of the monks … Through the intermingling of liturgy and iconography, time and space can be experienced as being suspended … The Transfiguration at Tabor becomes the Transfiguration in the monastic church at Sinai.43

In this sense the Transfiguration of Christ, the transformation of the disciples, the spiritual discipline of pilgrimage, the celebration of the liturgy, the contemplation of religious art, and the reading and preaching of sacred texts serve in concert both to announce and to effect the glorification of humanity. They function together as complementary aspects of the divine economy of salvation. Accordingly, says Loerke, In concentrating directly on the vision of the Transfiguration, the designer of the mosaic at Sinai was serving a fundamental aim of Greek monasticism [which] was to help the monk pass through a series of stages of spiritual growth leading to a vision of the Godhead … What seems central to it is the act of passage … from the words of Scripture to the deeds described … The resulting composition does not “quote” classical sources for Biblical purposes, nor is it content to be a visual reminder of a Biblical text. The mosaic at St. Catherine’s monastery goes beyond description to project and stimulate an experience.44

No less remarkable a commentary on the theme of Transfiguration as “transformation” emerges in the form of a magnificent 14th century Byzantine sakkos (a festal robe for a patriarch or archbishop). The front of this liturgical garment depicts the Last Judgment, the back a scene of Transfiguration, with Christ serving bread and wine to the apostles on the right and left sleeves, respectively.45 In the judgment scene, incidentally, Christ holds open the text of Matt 25:34, “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.” On a vestment for one who presides at the festal Eucharist, its reversal of indigo and gold is striking. In most icons, the figure of Christ is set against indigo or blue, surrounded by a gold backdrop. Here, however, Christ is in gold against a field of indigo. The visual impact of this reversal would appear only against the golden splendor of an Orthodox high altar, for robing the patriarch in ultramarine against a backdrop of gold casts him in the role of Christ, the very embodiment of spiritual transformation, theosis, and imitatio Christi – precisely as he presides in earthly glory at the Eucharist. Having briefly noted liturgical and devotional contexts for homiletical interpretation within Eastern Christendom and reviewed fourth and fifth century examples of preaching by Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, and Leo, we are now in a better position to appreciate the full implications of a homily for the Feast of Uncreated Light, 72–3. “Real Presence,” 46–8. 45 Cf. the fuller description and images in H. C. Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261– 1557) (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 300–1. 43 Nes,

44 Loerke,

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Transfiguration by St. Andrew of Crete (ca. 660–740). This particular sermon was likely preached to the congregation of the basilica of St. Titus in Gortyna, Crete, where Andrew presided as archbishop from the last decade of the seventh century onward. Here liturgical celebration and sacramental symbolism; the visual power of episcopal robes, ecclesiastical architecture, and rich decoration; theological tradition and sermonic exhortation would have all converged to illuminate the biblical text and invite the worshipers to enter into the meaning of the biblical text: Let us go up the high mountain of the Transfiguration in the presence of the Logos and lay aside the garments of this material and darkened life, and put on the garment woven on high, garments that radiate with rational virtues. For we are already dressed in white in our lives, and in our thoughts, and in the pure inspirations of the Spirit who lifts us up on wings. Christ himself wishes us to make this ascent with him, he who is all-pure … And so, today we celebrate this feast, the deification of our nature [τὴν τῆς φύσεως θέωσιν], its transformation to a better condition, its rapture and ascent from natural realities to those which are above nature.46

For Patristic interpreters of both East and West, the purpose of Scripture and the events it records, and therefore also the principal purpose of biblical interpretation, is the transformation of the reader. Andrew makes this point both personal and explicit: Let us partake sumptuously of the mystical visions that took place during the Transfiguration of the Lord. For I believe this is the purpose of the Transfiguration … [which] demands that we, understanding the depth of the acts and the sayings of the mystery through knowledge, may receive more actively the grace to imitate the Transfigured One and effect in us this marvelous and strange mystery.47

For Andrew, the text is a source and means of grace, accessed via reading, explained via preaching, and enacted by means of conscious and careful imitation of Christ himself. Yet neither his theological appeal to the two natures of Christ nor his boldly figurative exegesis, nor even his emphasis on theosis should obscure the fact that here and throughout his sermon Andrew is engaged in a systematic exposition of the details of the gospel narratives, that of Matthew in particular, for the benefit of his congregation. Similar observations (minus the episcopal splendor) could be made of lengthy sermons for the Feast of Transfiguration by Andrew’s contemporaries John of Damascus,48 and, in the West, Ambrose Autpert (ob. 784),49 both of which expand even further on the intertextual, theological, and moral dimensions of this episode, all the while expounding specific details of the Synoptic accounts.

3, In Transfigurationem (PG 97:932–33, 949). 97:936, quoted from Chamberas, “Transfiguration of Christ,” 56 n. 41. 48 McGuckin, Transfiguration of Christ, 205–25 (PG 96:545–76); for an alternative translation, see Weatherby, “Homily on the Transfiguration,” 1–25. 49 McGuckin, Transfiguration of Christ, 293–316 (PL 89:1305–20). 46 Oratio 7.1, 47 PG

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3. Exegesis of the Transfiguration in the Modern and Post-Modern Periods For the most part, Patristic exegetes endeavor to trace lines of continuity between the worlds of meaning behind, within, and in front of the text – between a generative event in the life of Christ and his apostles, its reflection in the language of the text itself, and its ongoing consequences, according to the divine economy, for the life of the church. Christ’s Transfiguration in particular, frequently viewed via the Gospel of Matthew, provides a model for the interpretation of such texts, as well as for the interpretation – and potential transformation – of the interpreter. The scope of post-enlightenment critical exegesis has been, by definition, more circumscribed. Uncertainty or skepticism with regard to historical referentiality, concern to avoid theological or ideological constraints, and the assumption of scholarly neutrality (to name only three more prominent issues) have encouraged examination of Mark and Matthew primarily as literary, cultural, and historical artifacts in their own right. The contours of such debate are familiar, with questions of literary form or genre and theological motivation to the fore: Explanations for the particular character of the narrative cover a variety of bases; scholars categorize it as an enthronement story, theophany, epiphany, story originating in the world of magic, proleptic vision of the exaltation of Jesus and misplaced resurrection account.50

Closely related is the discussion of literary antecedents (e.g. Exod 24, 34; 1 Kgs 19; Greek mythology) and progeny (2 Peter; the Apocalypse of Peter, Pistis Sophia), as is, of course, debate concerning relationships between the three Synoptic accounts, or between this pericope and the theological programs of the respective evangelists. Implied here also are questions of intended audience, and of cultural context and consonance. Comparison with Patristic exegesis gives rise to two general observations. The first is that many of the literary and theological concerns of the modern period are first broached by early interpreters, even if the responses of the latter are distinct. The relationship between Transfiguration and Resurrection, for instance, is a pervasive concern: “There is hardly a father,” notes McGuckin, “who has something to say on the matter, who does not connect the narrative with the mystery of Christ’s resurrection.”51 Discussions of divine δόξα, “glory,” are central to ancient and modern treatments alike, as is debate over whether Jesus himself was transformed, or only his garments. By way of more specific example, Tolbert’s distinction between verbal and visual elements in the Markan account is already raised by Clement 50 C. R. Moss, “The Transfiguration: An Exercise in Markan Accommodation,” BibInt 12 (2004): 70–1. A. P. Wilson, Transfigured: A Derridean Rereading of the Markan Transfiguration (London: T & T Clark, 2007), 53–60, offers a brief history of recent interpretation (with further discussion 60–85). 51 McGuckin, “The Patristic Exegesis of the Transfiguration,” 336.

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of Alexandria in the late second century (Exc. 5); the identification of Moses and Elijah with Torah and Prophets, respectively, goes back at least to the early third century (Tertullian, Marc. 4.22); while the interpretation offered by C. S. Mann, that the purpose of the Transfiguration is to forestall misapprehension of suffering yet to come, is an exact (if unwitting) echo of Pope Leo I in the mid-fifth century.52 Nor are Synoptic differences a solely modern preoccupation: many Patristic commentators undertake to explain, for example, why Mark and Matthew refer to a period of six days prior to the Transfiguration, whereas Luke specifies eight. A second general observation concerns the nature of scholarly observation, and the interpretation of interpreters. Postmodern exegetes are increasingly sensitive to the intellectual presuppositions of the academic enterprise and, as a corollary of such sensitivity, more aware of the limitations of the post-Enlightenment intellectual outlook. Three brief examples will suffice to illustrate this point with reference to the Transfiguration in Mark and Matthew. The challenge to a more circumscribed concept of scriptural interpretation is aptly put by Ulrich Luz in the published version of a lecture series first offered at Union Theological Seminary in 1990. Describing the preparation of his commentary on Matthew, Luz explains: Greek Orthodox traditions were important for my reading of the story of the transfiguration (Matt. 17:1–13). Only there did I find the basic idea of the participation of the disciples (and readers) in the vision of Jesus’ glory on the mountain. Only there was the mystical experience of the listeners and readers taken seriously as the basis of understanding … This interpretation … which is linked with an experience in worship, could be a real challenge for people living in a tradition of interpretation dominated by the Enlightenment, where the question of what “really” happened on the mount of transfiguration became dominant … With this question, interpreters are unable to grasp the reality toward which our story wants to guide its readers.53

This leads Luz to observe, in his commentary on Matthew’s Transfiguration, that “only when the readers of this text let Jesus lead them to the mountain and again back down from the mountain does an understanding become possible which is appropriate to the text itself.”54 Of similar import is Norris’s comment that the Wir52  M. A. Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 206–7, is cited by Wilson, Transfigured: A Derridean Rereading, 80; and compare Leo, Hom. 51.3, with C. S. Mann, Mark: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1986), 357 (cf. Wilson, Transfigured: A Derridean Rereading, 56). 53 U. Luz, Matthew in History: Interpretation, Influence, and Effects (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1994), 32 (emphasis original). Compare D.  Evans’ interrogation, on philosophical grounds, of the a priori rejection of mystical experience in post-Enlightenment interpretations of the Transfiguration: “The main issue for me is whether a transfiguration can occur, as an objective spiritual event which also involves surrender to the divine Spirit, not only for Jesus but also for us” (“Academic Scepticism, Spiritual Reality, and Transfiguration,” in The Glory of Christ in the New Testament: Studies in Christology in Memory of George Bradford Caird [ed. L. D. Hurst and N. T. Wright; Oxford: Clarendon, 1987], 183). 54 U.  Luz, Matthew 8–20: A Commentary (ed. H.  Koester; trans. J. E.  Crouch; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 401.

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kungsgeschichte of a given text (the term Luz translates as “history of effects”), and more especially the hermeneutically engaged stance of Patristic exegesis, are both well suited to the more self-aware epistemology of postmodern interpretation.55 Again focusing on the Transfiguration, Andrew Wilson further illustrates the way in which conceptual presuppositions effectively pre-determine the outcome of exegesis. In conversation with Derrida, Wilson views the effulgent robes of Jesus as a palimpsest, a field onto which each subsequent interpreter projects and inscribes a limitless series of meanings: In their moment of glorious revelation, the transfigured robes reveal their own resistance to fixed foundations alongside a radical openness to the creativity of future meaning … The transformed robes of Jesus … become the infinite possibility of yet-to-be-determined meaning. Innumerable points of reference and connections to previous meanings have been blanched and wrung from a fabric that now shines as though new and unmarked, its possibilities for subsequent meaning untainted.56

Wilson’s initial concern is less for the possible intractability of historical reference than for the inescapable subjectivity of all biblical interpretation. His comment on the Markan disciples applies perforce to subsequent observers also: “Gazing into the shining robes, it is not Jesus’ face that they see; it is their own, and they are unable to see beyond this.”57 Wilson’s ultimate insight is that the details of the gospel narrative, including the confusion of the disciples and the awkwardness of Peter’s response, all evade our best efforts at rationalization. They are best explained, he says, as responses to an encounter with Rudolf Otto’s mysterium tremendum, a terrifying “otherness” that by definition evades precise definition. Indeed, he proposes, Peter’s attempt to build three tabernacles is both an example and a metaphor for the somewhat misguided human attempt (sometimes also the case within the academic guild) to circumscribe, concretize, and conventionalize a glory that in fact “exceeds the conceptions of conventional scholarship.”58 Finally, scholars in particular do well to recall a key premise acknowledged (if sometimes only implicitly) by Patristic exegetes, namely that biblical interpretation is the domain of the church as a whole – not only in the sense that interpretation takes many forms, and has direct consequences for the life of the congregation, but also in the sense that many different voices and perspectives (those of the academy providing only a small part) contribute to an ongoing, richly multi-layered symphony of scriptural exposition, explanation, and appropriation. In just such a vein, Wilson concludes his study with an exploration – well outside the normal range of academic biblical exegesis – of transfigurative reading strategies in the work of literary theorists Maurice Blanchot, Kevin Hart, Richard Kearney, and George Aichele, as well as of transfiguration motifs in the poetry of Rainer Maria 55 Norris,

“Transfiguration of Christ,” 196. Transfigured: A Derridean Rereading, 98. 57 Wilson, Transfigured: A Derridean Rereading, 104. 58 Wilson, Transfigured: A Derridean Rereading, 86, 108–15. 56 Wilson,

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Rilke, E. D. Blodgett, and Jacques Brault.59 In a similar spirit, our own treatment of Mark and Matthew concludes with a similar example, in this case the lyrics of “The Transfiguration,” by independent American recording artist, Sufjan Stevens.60 When he took the three disciples to the mountainside to pray, His countenance was modified, his clothing was aflame. Two men appeared: Moses and Elijah came; they were at his side. The prophecy, the legislation spoke of whenever he would die. Then there came a word of what he should accomplish on the day. Then Peter spoke, to make of them a tabernacle place. A cloud appeared in glory as an accolade. They fell on the ground. A voice arrived, the voice of God, the face of God, covered in a cloud. What he said to them, the voice of God: the most beloved son. Consider what he says to you, consider what’s to come. The prophecy was put to death, was put to death, and so will the Son. And keep your word, disguise the vision till the time has come. Lost in the cloud, a voice: Have no fear! We draw near! Lost in the cloud, a sign: Son of man! Turn your ear! Lost in the cloud, a voice: Lamb of God! We draw near! Lost in the cloud, a sign: Son of man! Son of God!

Transfigured: A Derridean Rereading, 126–57. Stevens © 2004 New Jerusalem Music (http://www.newjerusalemmusic.com). From the album Seven Swans © 2004 Sounds Familyre Records. 59 Wilson, 60 Sufjan

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List of Contributors Janice Capel Anderson, Ph. D. (Chicago), Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Idaho State University, USA. Eve-Marie Becker, Ph. D., Dr. habil. (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), Professor of New Testament Exegesis, Aarhus University, Denmark. Adela Yarbro Collins, Ph. D. (Harvard University), Dr. h.c. (University of Oslo), Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, Yale University, USA. Detlev Dormeyer, Dr. theol. (University of Muenster), Professor emeritus of New Testament, University of Dortmund, Germany. René Falkenberg, Ph. D. (Aarhus University), Lecturer in New Testament, Aarhus University, Denmark. Michael Knowles, Ph. D. (University of Toronto), George Franklin Hurlburt Professor of Preaching, McMaster Divinity College, Canada. Hans Leander, Ph. D. (University of Gothenburg), Lecturer, Uppsala University, Sweden. Petri Luomanen, Dr. theol. Docent (University of Helsinki), Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Culture and Literature, University of Helsinki, Finland. Martin Meiser, Ph. D., Dr. habil. (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), Professor of New Testament, University of the Saarland (Saarbruecken) and University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Mogens Müller, Ph. D., Professor of New Testament, Copenhagen University, Denmark. Todd Penner, Ph. D. (Emory University), The Gould H. and Marie Cloud Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Austin College, USA. Anders Runesson, Ph. D., Docent (Lund University), Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism, McMaster University, Canada. Caroline Vander Stichele, Ph. D. (University of Leuven), Universitair Docent in Religious Studies, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Joseph Verheyden, Dr. theol. (K. U. Leuven), Professor of New Testament Studies, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Benedict Viviano, Ph. D. (Duke University), Professor of New Testament, University of Fribourg, Switzerland.

398

List of Contributors

Stephen Westerholm, Ph. D., Docent (Lund University), Professor of New Testament, ­McMaster University, Canada. Peter Widdicombe, D. Phil. (Oxford), Associate Professor of Patristics and Historical Theology, McMaster University, Canada.

Index of References* Mark 1 16 1:1 8, 179, 231, 255, 257 1:1–13 172 1:1/1:1–3 24 1:2–15 231 1:2–8 254 1:2–3 233 1:2 233 1:3 113 1:4 26, 231 n2 1:7 233 1:9 233 1:11 243, 293 1:14 236, 248 n8 1:14–6:6 172 1:14–15 255 1:15 248 n8 1:16–20 82, 232, 245 1:20 253 1:23–24 135 n73 1:23 209 n57 1:24 252 1:28 124 n24 1:29–30 84 1:39 209 n57 1:40–44 60 2–3 221 2 247 2:1–11 219, 220, 221 n91 2:2 255 2:6 221 2:9 247 2:12 220, 221 2:13–17 75, 82, 84, 87, 90, 91 2:13–14 82 2:13 221 n91 2:14–16 59 2:14 252

2:15–17 82 2:15 83 2:15c 90 2:16 84 2:17a 90 2:17b 82, 90 2:17c 82 2:18–20 246 2:23 24 n47, 24 2:24 219 2:28 247 3:1–6 214, 219 3:6 24, 244 3:17 78 3:18 83 3:24 114 4:1–12 60 4:10 175 4:11–12 175 4:11 175, 266 4:13 27 4:14–20 255, 256 4:22 250 n16 4:25 250 n17 4:33 255 4:39–41 138 4:41 252 5:1–20 130 ff., 301, 305, 308 5:1 135 n73, 137 5:2 137 5:7 137, 138 5:9 138, 166 5:13b 135 n73 5:17 138 5:19 137 5:39 241 6 143 6:6b–10:52 172

* Compiled by Ph.D.-student, cand. theol. Jacob Mortensen (Aarhus).

400 6:7–13 59 6:17–29 166 6:17b–27a 179 6:32–44 130, 139 ff. 6:32 141 6:33 141 6:34 141 6:37 141 6:38 143 6:41 142 6:43 141 n93 6:44 143 6:49–50 252 6:52 141 n93 7:3–4 247 7:13 256 n37 7:14–19 59 7:19 246 7:19b 25 7:24–30 59 7:27 202 n36, 246, 265 7:31–36 60 8:12 203 n41 8:18 241 n50 8:22–26 241 n50 8:27–30 60 8:29–33 27 8:29 31, 252 8:31–38 62, 63 8:31–33 24 8:31 233 n17 8:32–33 252 8:33b 164 8:34 252 8:34–9:1 244 n67 8:34–38 64 8:38 243 9:1–13 60 9:2–18 31 9:2–10 12, 335 9:2 25, 339 9:3 340 9:3b 25 9:5 344 9:6 252 9:9 60 n68 9:38–41 60 n69 9:38–39 59, 61 9:42–52 60 n69

Index of References

9:42–50 60 9:42 60 n69 9:43–48 240 9:49 250 9:50 59, 60, 60 n69 10:28–30 240 10:28 252 10:35–45 63 10:42–45 166 10:45 252 10:46–52 241 10:49 ff. 26 n57 11–15 172 11:15–18 59 11:18 215, 244 11:25 59, 60 12 214 12:1–12 175 12:1–9 265 12:12 244 n66 12:17 166 12:28–34 204, 205, 217, 218 12:29–31 213 13 240, 247 13:9–13 244 n67 13:9–11 57 13:9–10 59 13:9 64 13:10 246, 248 n8, 255, 262 n12 13:14 246 13:24–27 243 13:33–37 246 13:37 247 14:1–42 179 14:1–11 179 14:1 24, 215, 216, 244 n66 14:2 216 14:3–9 166, 254 14:9 59, 63, 248 n8, 255, 262 n12 14:10–11 244 n66 14:12–31 179 14:12 215 14:22–25 68 14:28 57 14:32–42 179 14:43–15:41 179 14:43–15:20 179 14:49 233 n17

Index of References

14:50 81 14:61–62 64 14:62 243 14:66–72 31, 64 15:16–20 242 15:20b–41 179 15:21 247 15:33 32 15:38 32

401

15:39 24, 31, 216, 217 15:40–41 84 16:1–8 86 n27, 172 16:7 31, 57 16:8 16, 17, 26, 60 16:9–20 170, 172, 174 16:9 16 16:15–16 27 n63

Matthew 1:1–13:35 106 n4 1–2 27 1:1–17 112 1:1 179 1:2 275 1:5 282 1:6 275 1:11–12 275 1:11 275 1:17 112 n39 1:18 26 1:20 293 1:24 98 n24 2 26 2:1–12 202 n36, 209 2:11 252 2:20–21 220 3:1–12 254 3:7–10 286 3:13–17 293 4:8–9 99 4:21 253 4:23–25 201 n33 4:23 209 4:24 209 5–7 27, 97, 165 5:1 201 n33 5:3–7:27 248 5:13–16 201, 201 n34 5:16 70, 201, 201 n34 5:17–20 205 n47, 209 5:17–19 209 5:20 203 n41 5:21–48 209, 214 5:21–25 60

5:38–42 60 5:39–40 109 5:43–48 60, 201 n34, 202 5:45 199, 200, 201, 202, 204 5:46–47 202 5:48 103 n46 6:1–18 209 6:1–8 69 6:2 69 6:5 69 6:11 26 n57 6:16–17 69 6:16 69 7:1–5 60 7:5–13 282 7:12 205 n47, 265 7:15–20 227 7:28–29 201 n33 8:4 209 8:5–13 202 n36 8:14 84 8:20 84, 252 8:28–34 130 ff., 301, 305, 308 8:28 135 n73, 137 8:29 138 8:30 135 n73 8:32 135 n73 8:34 135, 138 9 221, 247 9:5–6 247 9:9–13 75, 82, 90 9:9 252 9:11 90 9:12 90 9:13 83

402

Index of References

9:13c 90 9:14–15 246 9:35 209 10:5–6 201 n33, 202 n36, 217 n80 10:8 98 n27 10:23 154 10:24–25 249 n15, 252 10:26 250 n16 10:40 99 11:5 98 n24 11:12 250 12 221 12:13 26 n57 12:25 114 12:39 203 n41 12:50 286 13:11 266 13:12 250 n17 13:24–30 27 13:34–52 64 13:36–52 27 13:36 106 13:43 341, 345 13:52 85 14:13–21 130, 139 ff. 14:13 141 14:14 141 14:16 141 14:19 142 15 282 15:14 250 n18 15:16 246 n3 15:24 202 n36, 209 15:25 246 16:9 246 n3 16:16 61, 204, 207, 208, 252 16:17–18 207 n53 16:18–20 31 16:18–19 27 16:18 174, 207 16:19 208 16:22–23 252 16:24 252 17 345 17:1–13 354 17:1–9 97 n19, 335, 346 17:1–8 12 17:2 338, 339, 340, 348

17:5 258, 345 17:6 337 17:9 337 18:10–14 61 18:10 135 n73 18:15–18 61 18:17 174 18:18 61 18:21–22 60, 61 18:23–35 60, 61 19:16–24 26 n57 19:27 252 20:13 65 20:20–28 64 20:28 252 20:29 ff. 26 n57 21:1 116 21:4–5 116 21:28–22:14 265 21:43 162, 265 22–25 27 22:1–14 65 22:12 65 22:33 105 22:34–40 204, 206 n48, 218 22:35 206 22:36–39 213 22:39 265 23 57 23:5 69 23:8–10 286 23:23 205 n47, 265 23:34 85 23:35 26 n57, 203 n41 23:37–24:2 206 23:47 215 n79 24:15 246 24:45–51 246 25:1–13 27 25:29 250 n17 25:31–46 27, 70 25:34 351 26:1–5 215 n74 26:6–13 254 26:26–29 68 26:29 68 26:50 65 26:56 81 27–28 27

Index of References

27:3–10 27 n64 27:3–5 95 27:19 27 n64 27:24–25 27 n64 27:25 65, 165, 189, 190, 209, 210, 219 n88 27:51–53 27 n64 26:62–66 27 n64 27:3–10 27 n65 27:19 27 n65 27:25 191, 192 n14, 193, 199 27:24–25 27 n65 27:51–53 27 n65 27:52 f. 32 27:54 215 n79 27:62–66 27 n65, 32 27:65 26 n57 28 106 n4 28:2–3 27 n64, 27 n65, 97 n19 28:3 340

28:7 95, 96 n14 28:9–20 17 28:9–10 27, 27 n64, 27 n65 28:9 97, 252 28:10 96 n14 28:11–15 27 n64, 27 n65 28:16–20 5, 26, 28, 95, 104, 308 28:16 26, 95 28:17 96, 252 28:18–20 257, 282 28:18–19 96, 97 28:18 95 28:19–20 200 28:19 200 n31, 246, 299, 300, 301, 309 28:19b 94, 102, 103 28:20 27, 98 28:20a 257 28:20b 98

‘Old Testament Writings’ / Septuagint Gen 1 86 n27 1:1 126 2:10 113 2:24 100 n36 Ex 5 85 23:20 233 n16 24 353 24:12–18 346 25:10–12 113 33:11–23 346 34 353 34:4–6 346 34:8 346 Lev 19:18 204 19:34 206 n48 Num 24:4 87 24:16 87 33:1–49 112 n39

403

Deut 6:5 204 29:14–15 247 29:15 251 30:19 225 n103 33:9 87 2 Sam 6:6 138 8:17 85 1 Kgs 17 138 19 353 19:3–9 346 19:11–13 346 19:15–16 346 2 Kgs 2:11 85 Ezra 4:15 77 6:2 78

404

Index of References

Esth 6:1 77 Ps 2:7 293 7:4 109 11:6 87 17:31 87 18:14 87, 88 45:2 85 104:19 87 118 87 Wis. of Sol 11–19 80 Sir 40–50 80 Hos 6:6 90 Amos 4:12–13 346 Zech 8:16 228 n111 9:9 116 14:16–21 346

Mal 3:1 233 n16 6:16 77 Isa 1:15 190 n4 11:1–2 275 29:18 241 35:5 241 40:3 233 n16 40:31 113 42:5–6 200 55 256 55:11 256 Lam 3:27–30 109 Ezek 1 86 n27 1:10 113 9:2 78 9:3 78 9:11 78 10 86 n27 Dan 7:13–14 243

Early Jewish Texts / Non-canonical Writings 4 Ezra 7:49

225 n103

7:59 14:45

Dead Sea Texts CD 20:19 78

225 n103 86 n27

Index of References

Early Jewish Authors Josephus AJ 1.2 266 18.5.2 § 116–9 234 n18 20.261 266

C Ap 1:1 266

New Testament Mark and Matthew (see above) Q 1–4 80 4:1–13 58, 66 4:9–12 70 n90 5 80 6 80 6:20–23 58 6:20–21 67 6:20 66 6:23 67 6:24–26 67 6:26 67 6:29–30 58, 67 6:40 66 6:41–42 61 6:46 61 7:1–10 59, 66 7:18–23 59 7:24–28 76 7:31–35 59 9:57–62 58 9:57–60 67 9:61–62 67 10:2 66 10:4 67 10:5–9 62 11:14–16 59 11:14–15 58 11:23 67 11:39–52 66 11:39–44 58, 67, 71 11:49–51 71 n90 12:8–9 67 12:11–12 67 12:13–14 66

12:33–34 67 12:42–46 66 12:51 67 12:53 67 13:25–27 61 13:28–29 59, 62, 67 13:34–35 71 n90 13:35b 59 14:11 67 14:26 67 14:27 59, 66 17:3–4 61 17:4 61 22:28 67 22:30 67 27:28 61 27:29–30 61 27:31 61 27:32 61 27:34–36 Luke 1:1–4 25, 28 n69, 63, 248 1:26–27 135 1:35 293 2:19 250 2:41–52 29 n79 2:50–51 250 4:38 84 5:8 138 5:27–32 75, 82 5:29 84 5:32 83 6:20–49 157 6:39 250 n18 6:40 249 n15 7:39 219 n89

405

406

Index of References

8:1–3 84 8:17 250 n16 8:19 250 n17 8:26–39 133 n66, 133 n69, 134 8:26 135 n73 8:33 135 n73 8:35 135 9:51 ff. 24 9:58 84 10:21–22 87 10:26–28 213 10:35–37 206 n48 11:17 114 11:37 219 n89 12:2 250 n16 13:6–9 228 n112 13:31 203 n41, 219 n89 14:1 219 n89 17:20 203 n41 19:26 250 n17 20:19 215 n74 22:1–12 215 n74 22:1–2 216 22:2 216 23:6–12 32 23:39–43 32 23:47 217 24 143 24:12 31 24:13–53 17 24:44 142 John 1:1–14 28 n69 1:1 28 n69 1:14 28 n69 3:1–2 219 n89 3:1 203 n41 6:4 143 7:53–8:11 17 n13 11:25–27 208 11:45–57 215 n75 11:48–49 215 n75 11:54 215 n75 12:20–24 202 n36 13–17 86 n27 13:1–17:26 179 13:13–16 249 n15 13:21–30 215 n75

13:25 113 13:35 201 n34, 202 14–17 28 n69 14:16 99 15:20 249 n15 18:1–19 179 18:3 215 n75 18:16a 179 19:16–30 179 20:11–21:25 17 20:30–31 248 21 27, 31, 32 Acts 2 234 2:36 193 2:38 102 n42, 248 n8 4:4 255 5:34–39 219 n89 5:34 203 n41 7:38 87 8:4 255 8:14 255 8:16 102 n42 10:48 102 n42 11:1 255 12:12 156 12:25 15 n4 13:38–41 248 n8 15:5 203 n41, 219 n89 15:36 ff. 15 n4 19:15 102 n42 21:40 88 22:2 88 23:6 219 n89 23:9 84, 203 n41, 219 n89 26:14 88 Rom 1:7 253 1:16 256 2:16 260 3:2 87 7:6 267 9:2–5 219 n88 9–11 175, 219 n88 10:17 256 11 219 n88 11:15 219 n88

Index of References

11:25–26 118 11:25 266 11:26 219 n88 11:28–29 219 n88 11:33–36 219 n88 12:8 200 1 Cor 1:2 253 1:9 253 1:18 256 1:24 253 1:26 253 2:1 266 2:7 266 2:13 142 4:1 266 7:17–24 253 11:17–34 68 11:23 249 13:2 266 14:2 266 15:3 249 15:5–8 27 15:5 31 15:20 346 15:51 266 2 Cor 3:6 262, 267 5:16 338 5:17–21 262 5:20 248 n8, 253 6:1 253 11:22 88 Gal 1:6 253 2 31 5:8 253 Eph 4:1 253 Phil 3:5

88, 203 n41, 219 n89

Col 1:5–6 256 3:16 261

1 Thess 1:5 256 1:6 255 2:12 253 2:13 254, 256 2:15–16 193 5:24 253 2 Thess 2:14 253 Hebr 2:18 179 3:1 253 5:7 179 5:12 87 6–10 86 n27 12:18–28 346 James/Jas/Jac 1:21 255, 256 5:12 78 1 Pet 1:15 253 1:23–25 255, 256 2:9 253 2:12 200, 202 3:19 f. 31 4:11 87 5:14 15 2 Pet 1:12–19 346 1:12 201 n34 1:16–18 31 3:14–15 228 n112 1 John 4:7–8 204 4:8 4:20 204 Jude 1 253 Rev 4:7 113

407

408

Index of References

Early Christian Texts / Extra-canonical Writings Acts of Barnabas 1:9 ff. 31 n88 2.2.292–302 15 n4 Acts Pil 17–27

31 n88

Acts of Thom 39 87 BG 2 94 n4 77,8–127,12 93 n2 77,9–78,2 95 77,11–15 103 78,2–17 96 78,10–11 100 78,14–15 102 79,16–80,3 96 83,5–87,8 97 n21 86,9 103 n45 87,12 103 n45 87,15–88,18 99 88,19–89,20 97 n21 90,3–4 103 n45 90,15–92,9 100 92,16–93,12 96 n15 93,16 103 n45 94,14–19 98 94,18–19 97 n22 100,9–10 103 n45 100,16–102,[1] 96 n15 101,7–9 100 n35 102,14–15 103 n45 104,12 97 n22 106,11–12 100 n35 106,14–15 103 n45 107,5–8 103 107,17–18 103 n45 109,1–3 103 111,6–8 100 111,6–7 103 111,7–112,2 103 114,18–115,1 103 n45 116,11–117,8 96 n15 117,18–118,1 103 n45 119,2–7 101

121,3 97 n22 121,13–17 101 121,15–122,3 102 121,16–17 97 n22 121,18–122,2 101 n39 122,6–12 100 n36 123,2–10 101 123,11–124,9 101 124,9–16 102 126,3–16 97 1 Clem 53:1 87 2 Clem 13:3 87 CT 2

94 n4

Did 9 70 Ep Apos 10:21–12:23 13:24 ff.

27 n62 27 n63

Gos Heb Frg. 7

27 n67

Gos Pet 1:1–2 32 2:3–5 32 3:7 32 4:10–8:33 27 n66 4:13 32 5:15 32 5:18 32 5:20 32 6:21 32 7:26 f. 31 8:28–33 32 8:31 32 9:35–49 32 10:41 31 11:45 31 14 27 n67

409

Index of References

14:58 30 14:60 30, 31, 32 31–51 30 n82 53–60 30 n83 NHC II 1

94 n4

NHC III 1 2 3

94 n4 94 n4 94 n8

71,13–74,12 90,14–119,18 118,6

97 n21 93 n2 102 n43

NHC IV 1 2

94 n4 94 n4

NHC V 1 3

94 n8 94 n4

Early Christian Authors Ambrose Fid 1.13.82 337 Exp Luc 1.5 340 n14 7.8 339, 340 7.12–13 340 7.12 339 Augustine Homily 78.6 341 Serm 78.2 337 78.2 347 n35 Clement of Alexandria Exc 4–5 337 Eusebius Hist eccl 2.15 15 n2 3.24.6–7 268 3.24.7 15 n2 3.25.6 30 3.3.2 30 3:39 39 3.39.4 20

3.39.11–13 3.39.15 3.39.16 5.8.3 5.14.6 6.12.3–6 6.25.4 f.

19 n22 15, 20 88 n33 15 n2 15 n2 30 n86 15 n2

Irenaeus Haer 1.25.1–6 18 3.1.1 20 3.7 64 3.10.5 f. 17 n14 3.10.16 16 n6 3.11.7–8 259 5.33.4 19 n22 John Chrysostom Expos Ps PG 55:483

112 n37

Hom Matt PG 57.13–14 PG 57.14 PG 57.14–15 PG 57.15 PG 57.16–17 PG 57.16 PG 57.17–18 PG 57.17 PG 57.19

110 n23, 110 n25 110 n29 110 n31 110 n24, 110 n26, 114 n47 111 n33 114 n46 111 n34, 114 n48 110 n27

410 PG 57.20 PG 57.21 PG 57.22 PG 57.23–24 PG 57.39–40 PG 57.41 PG 57.355 PG 57.411–12 PG 58.550–52 PG 58.553 PG 58.554–55 PG 58.627 PG 58.628 PG 58.629 PG 58:766 PG 63.700

Index of References

110 n29 110 n30 110 n30 110 n30 114 n49 112 n39 112 n38 110 n28 116 n54 116 n55 341 n18 117 n61, 117 n63 117 n62, 117 n63, 118 n64 117 n62 192 n13 341

Jerome Comm Matt Pref. 11–13 108 n13 Pref. 24–26 113 n40 Pref. 26–39 113 n44 Pref. 39–55 113 n45 Pref. 55–57 113 n43 Pref. 84–120 107 n8 Pref. 86–87 107 n8 Pref. 91 108 n15 Pref. 105–07 109 n18 Pref. 105–06 108 n17 Pref. 108–11 109 n21 1.5.40 109 n19 3.17.3 115 n52 3.17.4 115 n53 3.21.1–3 116 n57 3.21.5 117 3.21.7 117 n60 12.42 115 n51 Comm Zech Prol. 748

108 n14

De Vir Inl 2

27 n67

Dial adv Pel 2.15

17 n14

Justin 1 Apol 1.66 261 1.67 261 45 17 n14 66 20, 232 n10 66.3 78 67.3 78 Dial 10.2 20 56.4 97 n19 88.3 78 100.1 20, 78 101.3 78 102.5 78 103.6–8 78 103.8 261 104 78 105.1 78 105.5 78 105.6 78 106.1–3 78 107.1 78 Origen Cels 7.25 6.31 6.68

97 n19 101 n39 338 n7 (PG 11:1401)

Comm Io 10.174

116 n59

Comm Matt 1.1.1–17 112 n39 6.41 339 10.17 30 n86 12.36–43 338 n9 12.37 338 n9 (PG 13:1068–69), 339 n12, 340 n15 12.38 338 (PG 13:1069) 16.7 116 n57 16.15 116 n59 16.17 116 n59 43 337 n6 PG 13:1636; #28 77 Comm Ps 88:13 PG 12:1548

335 n1

411

Index of References

Hom in Num 27 3.1

112 n39 112 n39

Tertullian Marc 4:2 4:22

20 n25 337, 354

Rabbinica b. Ber 6a 78

b. Sanh 21b

b. B. Me i‘a 92a 77

Gen Rab 79:5 86

b. ul 60b 77

m. Meg. 4:10

b. Mena 70a 77

m. So a 9:15 86

b. Pesa 119a

y. B. Bat 9.1 86 9.16d 86

86 n27

b. Šabb 6b 77 89a 77 96b 77 156a 77

86 n27

86 n27

y. Ma aś Š 2.4b 77

Greco-Roman Authors Epictetus Diatr 3.22 90 5 78 n5 Herodotus Hist 1.64 87 4.178 87 8.60 87 Lucian Hist Conscr § 23

§ 48 § 60

234 n20 241

Philostratus Vit Apoll 4.45 241 Plato Phaedr 249c 78 Plutarch

231

Vit Cleom 39.1–2 242

412

Index of References

Polybius Hist 1.3.5

Suetonius De Gram et Rhet 21 n34 232 n7

Quintilian Inst 10

21 n34

Sallust Cat 4.5

232 n8

Jug 5.3

232 n8

Tacitus Hist 1.1

232 n8

Thucydides 1.1

232 n8

Xenophon Anab 1.1–6 231

Papyri* P. Oxy. 1,654 1,655

94 n6 94 n6

840 1081

* Excl. New Testament Papyri – see Index of Subjects.

17 n13 93 n2

Index of Subjects* Accessibility 125 Adam figure  100, 103 Adaptive advantage  42 Additional endings (of Mark)  18 ἀκρίβεια  109 ff., 117, 118 Alberic of Reims  127 n37 Alexander the Great 184 Alexandrian (vs. Antiochene) interpretation  107 ff. Alexandrinus 16 Allegorical (sense/explanation)  90, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 113, 121, 134, 137, 138, 144, 179, 254, 263, 263 n17, 265, 321 n19 Allegory 121 Ambrose  135, 136 n74, 339, 340, 343, 347, 352 Anagogy  121, 141 Anselm  124 ff. Antiochene (vs. Alexandrine) interpretation  107 ff. Anti-Semitism  8, 194, 226, 316 Apocalyptic  4, 64, 75, 79, 80, 86, 90, 91, 154, 184, 185, 240 Apocalypse of Peter 30 Apocryphal gospel(s)  17 n13, 21, 22 n37, 23, 24, 30, 34, 35, 36 Apolllinarius 106 Apophthegm 82 Apostolic authority  30 f., 33, 39 Apostolic connection  39 Apostolic tradition(s)  15 Archetype 100 Aristobulus 88 Arrian 78 ἀρχή  8, 232, 243, 259 Augustine  75, 124 Augustine of Dacia 121 Authorship  126 ff., 324, 327 Authority  16, 30, 31, 33, 39, 61, 65, 78, 93,

95, 97, 98, 99, 116, 118, 130, 192, 196, 207, 208, 242, 247, 257, 258, 262, 276, 312, 316, 345 Baptism  66, 67, 68 f., 73, 94, 95, 102, 103, 104, 233, 235, 236, 293, 347 Barnabas  15 n4 Barth, K.  156, 246 n3 Bezae Cantabrigiensis 16 Biblical monotheism  48 Biography  182, 183, 184, 185, 235, 242, 243, 260 Biological evolution  37, 43 ff. Bornkamm, G. 158 Bultmann, R.  22, 155, 155 n28, 156, 158 n50, 171, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 325, 326, 328, 330, 331, 333 Canon history/Kanongeschichte  34 Canonical fact  259, 299 Canonization  20, 258 Carpocratians 18 Canon  5, 9, 34, 38, 39, 64, 193, 204, 269, 271, 287, 337 Canonical theologies  9 Catena aurea 125 Christianity –– Non-Jewish 5 Christian-Jewish relationship  7 Chronicle  234, 235, 236, 244 Cicero 75 Clement of Alexandria  18, 33, 76 Codex W  17, 17 n13 Cohesion 42 Colonialism  11, 165, 291, 298, 299, 301, 302, 308 Competition-strategy  28 n69 Corpus mixtum 61 Cosmos  101, 102 Cultural and cognitive stereotype(s)  53, 62

* Compiled by Ph.D.-student, cand. theol. Jacob Mortensen (Aarhus).

414

Index of Subjects

Cultural evolution  41, 43 f., 45, 46, 47, 50, 71 Cultural studies  1 Culturally postulated superhuman agents (CPS agents)  67, 99 Decolonize 11 Defamiliarization 333 Demon(s)/demoniac  57, 58, 59, 78, 97 n22, 98 n27, 99, 102, 112, 130, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138, 236, 237, 238, 246, 252, 254, 301, 303 n60, 304, 305, 306, 308, 309 Deutero-Mark 19 Didache  70, 105 Diodore of Tarsus 106 Discursive setting  1 Dynamics of understanding  2 Emplotment  237, 238, 239, 240 Engendered  273, 332 Epictetus 78 Epiphany-narratives 27 Epistemology  46, 101, 355 Estrangement  3, 333 Ethnicity  272, 282 Ethic  66, 71, 72, 73, 80, 81, 90, 91, 165, 204, 209, 210, 240, 311, 313, 314, 322, 328, 331, 332, 333, 334 Eucharist  68, 69, 70, 73, 185, 346, 351 Eusebius  15, 19 n22, 20, 30, 39, 88, 89 εὐαγγέλιον  18, 24, 166, 232, 248 n8, 259, 262 n12, 264, 265 Evangelium veritatis  28 n71 Evolution (in general)  42, 45, 46, 47, 49 Evolution (of Christianity)  37, 48, 50, 53 Evolutionary biology  43, 44 f. Evolutionary epistemology  46 Evolutionary model  37 Evolutionary psychology  43 Exemplar 53 Expulsion rule(s)  61 Faith  9, 46, 47, 48, 49, 76, 153, 154, 159, 191, 192, 194, 201, 202, 210, 221, 223, 225, 246, 252, 253, 254, 258, 265, 281, 295, 339, 241, 344, 350 Feminism(s)/Feminist  7, 10, 10 n26, 11, 185, 186, 271 ff., 289

Feminist scholarship  10 Flesh 49 Freer-Logion  17, 17 n13 Focalization-strategy  28 n69, 29, 31, 32, 33 Form-criticism  44, 50, 151, 155, 171, 172, 174, 178, 181, 314, 315, 318, 322 n23 Formgeschichte  22 n36, 155, 262 Foucault, M. 328 Foundational story  9, 257, 258 Functionalism  42, 44 Gattungsgeschichte  s. genre studies Gender  10, 76, 95, 103, 208, 222 n97, 246, 272, 273, 275, 276, 278, 279 n28, 283, 287, 321 Genealogy  10, 23, 57, 58, 65, 110, 112, 114, 271, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 286, 287 Genre studies (Gattungsgeschichte)  15, 21, 21 n33 Gentile(s)  60, 62, 67, 71, 88, 116, 117, 118, 161, 174, 200, 202, 211 n63, 278, 281, 282, 283, 284, 286, 293, 294, 296, 297, 309 Gilbert of Auxerre 127 Gloss (glossing)  125 ff., 125 n28 Glossa Ordinaria (Gloss)  6, 121 ff. Gospel –– Concept  4, 19, 25, 31 –– genre  4, 9, 22, 28 n69, 29, 32, 33, 36, 173, 260, 261, 262 n13 –– Jewish-Christian  25, 25 n56, 29 –– Literature  32, 34, 35 –– Proclamation 25 –– story  25, 27, 28 n69, 32 –– Versions 19 Gospel of Bartholomew  27 n63, 29 Gospel of the Ebionites  25 n56, 29, 70 n89 Gospel of the Egyptians 29 Gospel of Gamaliel 29 Gospel of the Hebrews  25 n56, 29 Gospel of Judas  93 n1 Gospel of Mary  93 n1 Gospel of the Nazareans  25, 26 n57, 29, 30 Gospel of Peter /Das Evangelium nach Petrus  4, 23, 28, 29, 30, 30 n82, 31, 34, 39 Gospel of Philip  28 n71 Gospel of Thomas  27, 29, 93, 94

Index of Subjects

Great Commission  5 Group selection  41, 43, 45, 50 Hermeneutic(s)  vi, 2, 7, 8, 12, 34 n102, 84, 109, 111, 121, 122, 152, 162, 164, 167, 171, 186, 189, 191, 192, 193, 195, 196 n23, 204, 206 n48, 208, 210, 211, 212, 215, 218, 221, 223, 225, 226, 228, 231, 242, 289, 314, 315, 317 n12, 320, 335, 337, 342, 355 Hermeneutical setting(s)  12 Hilary of Poitiers  106, 135 n71 Historical critical  9, 44, 56, 75, 121, 151, 158 n50, 160, 161, 170, 171, 176, 178, 179, 180, 181, 187, 195, 199, 203, 226 n106, 274, 278, 319, 333 Historical event  173, 221, 226, 234, 235, 342, 343 Historical interpretation  107 f. Historical Jesus  75 Historicism  155, 237 Historiography  28 n69, 75, 113, 173, 232, 237, 239, 243 Holocaust  7, 194 n18, 225, 226 Hybridity 284 Hymnody  12, 336, 347, 348 Hypotext 38 Iconography  12, 336, 337, 347, 349, 350, 351 Identity construction  53, 63 Ideology  76, 157, 191, 193, 194 n18, 239, 239 n40, 271, 282, 283, 284, 285, 321 Ignatius 23 Imitate/imitation  4, 9, 22, 23, 33, 102, 114, 252, 253, 257, 341, 347, 349, 350, 352 Imperialism 283 Individual tradition(s) / Einzelüberlieferungen  17 n13 Infancy gospels (so-called)  29 Infancy Gospel of Thomas  29 n79 In-group morality  42 Interdisciplinarity 12 Interpretation-strategy  28 n69 Interpreter of Peter, Mark  15 Interpretive approach/endeavor/enterprise  2, 108 Irenaeus  16 n6, 17 n14, 18, 19 n22, 20, 28, 33, 64, 105, 259, 268

415

Jerome  5, 17 n14, 75, 105 ff., 123, 190, 276, 279, 280, 342, 343, 344, 347, 351 Jesus –– Christ-figure  5, 64 –– of Nazareth  3, 24 –– Message 49 –– Mission  28 n69 –– Narratives 4 –– Traditions  17 n13, 28 Jewish-Christian relations  161, 189 ff. John the Baptist  4, 59, 67, 70 n88, 75, 78, 81, 102 n42, 143,153, 233, 234, 235, 286 John Chrysostom  105 ff. Josephus  155, 234, 241, 266 Jung, C. G. 187 Justin Martyr  20, 33, 78, 105 Judaism  5, 40, 52 n47, 65, 68, 84, 155, 161, 162, 173, 190 n8, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196 n23, 198, 199, 201 n32, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211 n64, 214, 217, 221, 223, 224, 226, 227, 265, 266, 268, 282, 297, 315, 316, 317, 321, 322, 323, 329, 330 Kähler, M. 153 Kingdom of God  62, 78, 89, 91, 143, 164, 174, 175, 220, 235, 236, 238, 239, 240, 242, 244, 265, 266, 321 Kyriarchal  273, 285, 286, 287 Lessing, G. E. 152 Letter of Peter to Philip  27 n63 Linguistic Turn  7, 163, 178, 321 n19 Literacy/Literarizität  20 f. Literal sense  106 Literarkritik  19, 31 n90, 32 Literary author  25, 30 Literary concept  21, 28 Literary creativity  27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 36 Literary criticism  64, 160, 163, 171, 272 Literary dependency  23 Literary diversity (of Mark)  15, 16, 18 f., 21, 36 Literary dynamics  19, 21, 34 Literary history (Literaturgeschichte)  15, 17 n13, 20, 21 n34 Literary intentions  27 Literary model  23 Literary multiplicity  28

416

Index of Subjects

Literary plurality  20 Literary strategies  22 Literary ‘success’  15, 28 Literary version(s)  18 f., 21 Logia  87 ff. Longer ending  17, 17 n14 Lucian  231, 234, 238, 241 M  26, 27, 32 Macro-genre  24, 28 n69 Manicheans  136, 137 n75 Manuscript-transmission 15 Marcion  20 n25, 206, 259, 337 Marxsen, W.  159 ff., 255 Medieval exegesis  121 ff., 130, 144 Messianic secret  56, 60, 72, 165 Messianism 152 Method 319 ff. Micro-genre  24 n43 Midrash  80, 154, 336 Miracle-stories  24, 56 ff., 143, 172 ff., 241 Mishnah  77, 78, 80 Mission  11, 22, 24, 27, 42 n15, 58, 59, 60, 62, 66, 68, 72, 82, 98, 138, 200, 200 n32, 201, 202, 209, 211 n64, 214, 216, 223, 236, 282, 283, 284, 289, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 346 Morality  121, 142 Nag Hammadi  5, 28 n71 Narrative concept  9 Narrative introduction  231, 232, 233, 234, 244 Narratives 28 Nicholas of Lyra  128 n45, 137 Nostra Aetate  7, 193 n15, 196, 197 n25, 198, 199, 200, 202, 204, 206, 212, 225 Oral (Jesus) tradition(s)  3, 56, 63 Orientalism  11, 290, 291, 308, 316 Origen  77, 101 n39, 105 ff., 189, 190, 190 n4, 335 n1, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 343, 347 Origin(s) 125 Original ending (of Mark)  17 Outgroup stereoptype(s)  53

Pantheon  99 ff., 103, 104 Papias of Hierapolis  15, 19, 19 n22, 20, 20 n23, 33, 39, 79, 80, 87 ff., 91, 152, 267, 267 n24 Papyri (New Testament) –– P1  16 n7 –– P37  16 n7 –– P45  16, 16 n7 –– P53  16 n7 –– P64  16 n7 –– P70  16 n7 –– P77  16 n7 Papyrus-manuscript  16, 16 n8 Parable theory  60 Pascha (Jewish)  143 Passion –– narrative  24, 27, 31, 32, 63, 70, 179, 180, 243 –– events  25, 27 Patristic exegesis  336 ff. Paul  23, 88, 113, 114 PCair 10759  30, 30 n84 Perception-strategies 33 Peter  39, 63, 113, 114 Philo 88 Plot 24 Plutarch  184, 242 n55 Political  2, 5, 7, 10, 45, 71, 157, 161, 164, 165, 166, 185, 187, 192, 203, 220, 225, 226, 239, 240, 248, 266, 271, 272, 275, 276, 287, 289, 291, 315, 316, 319, 325, 331, 334, 335, 345 –– politically oriented readings  7, 11 Politics  8, 10, 157, 191, 193, 213, 272, 273, 274, 300 Positivist 75 Postcolonial (studies)  10 f., 165, 272, 282, 283, 289, 290, 301, 308, 309, 315 Post-Easter-epiphanies 27 Postilla  121, 129, 129 n50 Power  4, 11, 33, 48, 59, 71, 86 n27, 95, 97, 98, 99, 102, 117, 153 n15, 166 n96, 177, 184, 187, 192, 193, 193 n15, 217, 227, 235, 238, 239, 254, 256, 271, 274, 276, 283, 285, 286, 287, 289, 294, 297, 300, 312, 313, 314, 325, 329, 331, 332, 339, 345, 350, 352 POxy 2949  30 n82 POxy 4009  30 n82, 31 n89

Index of Subjects

Pre-existence-Christology  28 n69 Preservation-strategy  27, 28 n69 Private notebook(s)  77 ff., 91 Protevangelium of James 29 Proto-canonical 28 Proto-Mark 19 Proto-type  23, 24, 63 PVindob G2325  30 n82 Q (the Sayings Source)  3 n4, 75, 153 –– (written source)  3, 24 n42, 26, 37 ff., 56, 57, 58 f., 60, 61, 62, 63, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 79 ff., 87, 91, 93 Quintilian  21 n34 Rabanus Maurus  128, 135 n73 Reading/readers  10, 15 Realistic  180, 237 Realized eschatology  104 Redaction-critism 44 Redactor  25, 173, 177, 178, 181, 327 Reception  History  16, 19 f., 28, 32 f., 34 Regula fidei 151 Reimarus, H. S. 151 Religion(s)  37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, 47, 48, 50, 57, 67, 68, 73, 154, 158, 178, 183, 192, 193, 195, 202, 205, 210, 224, 225, 226, 261, 272, 282, 297, 298, 302, 309, 315, 321, 322 Religionsgeschichtliche Schule  154, 157 Religious  2, 35, 42, 44, 49, 51, 52, 54, 55, 66, 69, 71, 76, 85, 87, 88, 154, 157, 171, 191, 192, 200, 209, 224, 225, 271, 275, 276, 292, 315, 347, 351 Replacement-strategy  28, 28 n69 Revelation dialogue  93 n2, 96, 98, 100, 104 Ritual  4, 18, 55, 67 ff., 71, 72, 100 ff., 142, 209, 210, 224 Roman-Catholic exegesis  151, 163 Salvation  59, 62, 89, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 136, 175, 232, 239, 240, 244, 249, 255, 256, 340, 347, 349, 351 Salvation history  265, 275 Sayings-material 28 Satan  99, 236, 238, 244 Schleiermacher, F. D. E. 152 Schweitzer, A. 154 Scribes  85 ff.

417

Second Vatican Council  7, 169, 176, 192 n12, 194, 196, 198 n27, 198 n29, 200, 207, 223, 228 Secondary ending (of Mark)  17 n13, 56 Secret Gospel of Mark  4 n7 Self-categorization theory  37 n1 Sermon on the Mount  57, 66, 72, 97, 157, 165, 200, 201, 202, 209, 214, 214 n72, 248 Shorter ending  17, 17 n1 Sinaiticus  16, 18 Sitz im Leben  22 n36, 159, 174, 177, 179, 321, 323 n25 Social identity approach  37 n1, 53, 55, 62, 65 Social identity theory  37 n1 Social science(s)  12, 42 f., 44, 46, 49, 50, 290 Social networks  51 Sondergut  138, 143 Sophia of Jesus Christ (SJC)  5, 93 ff. Source criticism  6, 151, 152, 152 n7, 155 Strauss, D. F. 152 συγκατάβασις  109 ff. Syllogism 233 Symbolic (sense/explanation)  113 Symbolic identity marker(s)  51, 53, 64 Synoptic studies  7 Synoptic Problem  124, 227, 326, 334 Talmud  6, 77, 86, 91, 129, 154 Tatian  33, 259 n2 Textual consistency  16 Textual entity  19 Textual fluidity  18 Textual inconsistency (of Mark)  15, 16, 18 f., 20 f., 33 Textual stability  20 Textual versions (of Mark)  19, 21 θεωρία  107, 118 Thomas Aquinas  124, 128 n45 Tit-For-Tat-rule 45 Torah  77, 80, 81, 85, 86, 87, 89, 174, 205, 210, 217, 354 Traditionsgeschichte 32 Transcendence  99 f., 237 Transfiguration  12, 31, 97, 115, 258, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343,

418

Index of Subjects

344, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356 Transmitter(s) 15 Trinity 115 Two-Source-Theory (hypothesis)  26 n60, 152, 153, 153 n12, 171 Ultimate and proximate explanations  43 f. Vaticanus  16, 18 Vierevangelienkanon 20 Violence  1, 112, 189, 191, 192, 193, 222, 226, 226 n104, 277, 287 n73, 300, 305 n70

von Rad, G. 159 Vorlage  21, 25, 26, 27, 33, 94, 153 Vulgate  106, 128, 129, 129 n50 Walafridus Strabo 126 Weiss, J. 154 Wirkungsgeschichte  160, 354 f. World War I/II  7, 157, 159, 161, 171, 193, 228, 316, 317, 320, 320 n15, 325 Worship  9, 48, 83, 96, 97, 202, 252, 253, 257, 258, 260, 261, 263, 294, 345, 347, 348, 351, 352, 354 Wrede, W.  154 ff., 268 f.