Resisting Empire: Rethinking the Purpose of the Letter to “the Hebrews” 9780567659194, 9780567456014, 9780567008268

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LIBRARY OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES

484 Formerly Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series

Editor Mark Goodacre

Editorial Board John M. G. Barclay, Craig Blomberg, R. Alan Culpepper, James D. G. Dunn, Craig A. Evans, Stephen Fowl, Robert Fowler, Simon J. Gathercole, John S. Kloppenborg, Michael Labahn, Robert Wall, Steve Walton, Robert L. Webb, Catrin H. Williams

RESISTING EMPIRE

Rethinking the Purpose of the Letter to “the Hebrews”

Jason A. Whitlark

LON DON • N E W DE L H I • N E W YOR K • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing plc First published 2014 © Jason A. Whitlark, 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Jason A. Whitlark has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identi¿ed as Author of this work. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN:

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978-0-56745-601-4 978-0-56700-826-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Whitlark, Jason A. Resisting Empire: Rethinking the Purpose of the Letter to “the Hebrews”/ Jason A. Whitlark p.cm Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 978-0-567-45601-4 (hardcover) – ISBN 978-0-567-00826-8 (ePDF) Typeset by Forthcoming Publications Ltd (www.forthpub.com)

To Hannah, my beloved daughter

CONTENTS Acknowlegments Abbreviations

ix xi

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION: HEBREWS AND ITS IMPERIAL CONTEXT I. Assumptions II. Method III. Arrangement

1 4 16 19

Chapter 2 THE RHETORIC OF RESISTANCE: FIGURED SPEECH AND THE CRITIQUE OF IMPERIAL POWER I. General De¿nition of Figured Speech II. Types of Figured Speech III. Conditions for the Use of Figured Speech IV. Effectiveness of Figured Speech V. Detection of Figured Speech VI. Figured Speech and the Roman Imperial Context VII. Conclusion

21 22 23 29 31 33 36 46

Chapter 3 RESISTING ASSIMILATION: THE WARNING AGAINST IDOLATRY I. Negative Pressures and Positive Attractions in Hebrews II. Idol Polemic Among Early Jews and Christians III. Figured Use of Idol Polemic in Hebrews IV. Conclusion

49 49 50 61 75

Chapter 4 RESISTING ASSIMILATION: A BETTER HOPE I. Figured Comparisons and an Oblique Reference II. A Better ĊÁÇÍÄñž III. A Better ¸ÌÉĕË IV. A K¸ÌÚȸÍÊÀË Free of “Works” V. Conclusion

77 77 78 86 93 98

1

viii

Contents

Chapter 5 RESISTING IMPERIAL CLAIMS: THE ETERNAL CITY AND ITS RULER I. A City That Does Not Remain in Hebrews 13:14a II. The Eternity of Rome and Its Emperor III. The Eternal City and Its Ruler in Hebrews IV. Conclusion Chapter 6 RESISTING IMPERIAL CLAIMS: JESUS’ DEFEAT OF THE DEVIL I. The Devil as One Having the Power of Death: A Figured Reference to Roman Imperium II. Jesus’ Defeat of the Devil: Resistance to Coercive Imperial Power III. Conclusion Chapter 7 RESISTING IMPERIAL CLAIMS: JESUS’ HERCULEAN LABOR OF LIBERATION I. The Herculean Jesus of Hebrews II. The Herculean Emperors of Rome III. The Anti-Imperial Implications of the Herculean Jesus of Hebrews Chapter 8 RESISTING IMPERIAL CLAIMS: ANSWERING THE THEODICAL CHALLENGE OF FLAVIAN TRIUMPH I. Multiple Aims of a Discourse and the Theodical Aim of Hebrews II. The Theodical Challenge of Flavian Victory III. Some Jewish and Christian Responses to Flavian Victory IV. Hebrews’s Figured Response to Flavian Victory V. Implications of Hebrews’s Figured Critique of Flavian Victory

100 101 104 113 115

122 124 139 141

142 143 152 158

160 160 162 173 178 186

Chapter 9 CONCLUSION I. Summary II. Relapse Theories and Hebrews III. The New Testament and Hebrews IV. Christian Martyrdom and Hebrews V. Resisting Empire and Hebrews

189 189 190 193 195 196

Bibliography Index of References Index of Authors

200 216 229

1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to the numerous people who helped me bring this project to fruition. My colleagues in Baylor’s Classics Department, especially Tim Heckenlively, Jeff Hunt, Dan Hanchey, and Simon Burris, graciously pointed me to resources, stimulated my thinking, and entertained all my queries about Roman imperial culture. They often welcomed me unannounced into their of¿ces to answer questions I had from laboring over material related to the Roman world. My colleagues in the Religion Department, Lidija Novakovic, Mikeal Parsons, and Bruce Longenecker, gave me helpful feedback and thoughtprovoking discussion at various stages of this project. I have been blessed to work with such generous colleagues and established scholars. Alden Smith at Baylor University and Karl Galinsky at the University of Texas engaged the Baylor New Testament Colloquium on the Aeneid. Both are generous scholars and made a signi¿cant impact on all participants in the colloquium. Michael Martin at Lubbock Christian University, a close friend since my graduate days, read several of the chapters and always provided sage advice. Ken Schenck gave a formal and helpful response to a chapter I presented in a Hebrews session at the annual SBL meeting in Chicago. Carey Newman at Baylor University Press helped me to think through the shape of this project and to construct my proposal. Carey’s probing questions helped me to grasp my project with greater clarity. Mark Goodacre patiently shepherded my proposal through the review process with LNTS. Mark always kindly answered my numerous inquiries. Mariam Cantwell, Caitlin Flynn, Dominic Mattos, and Chloe Shuttlewood were all immensely helpful at Bloomsbury T&T Clark for guiding the manuscript to publication. I also wish to thank my copy-editor, Duncan Burns, for his work in the ¿nal stages of preparation. I am also grateful to the Religion Department and Honors College at Baylor University for providing support to travel to the International SBL in St. Andrews in order to present a chapter I was working on for this book. Baylor University also awarded me a summer sabbatical so that I could complete this book.

x

Acknowledgments

I want especially to thank my graduate assistants. David Beary meticulously worked through the ¿rst draft of this book and assembled the bibliography. David was also a good conversation partner and helped ¿ll in some gaps in research along the way. Natalie Webb worked through the ¿nal draft and assembled the indices of this book. David and Natalie engaged in their tasks with enthusiasm and rigor. Finally, I want to thank Charles and Betty Talbert, Phyllis Tippit, my life group at Calvary Baptist Church, and my wife Jennifer for their constant encouragement of this project from its inception to its completion. They patiently listened to my frustrations and breakthroughs. Their constant encouragement helped me to push through dif¿cult periods of writing. I am especially grateful to Jennifer and my daughter Hannah who allowed me the time I needed to complete this book. It is to Hannah that I dedicate this book. I will always remember her prayers at bedtime for “Daddy’s book,” her delight when she found my ¿rst book in the library, and her joy when she proudly presented me her ¿rst book fully illustrated.

1

ABBREVIATIONS Unless otherwise indicated below, the abbreviations in this book follow The SBL Handbook of Style for Ancient, Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1999). BECNT BMC Cohen IBM I. Eph. IGR ILS JSJSup LNTS LSTS Or. P&P PBSR Prov. RIC Rom. Or.

VCSup WGRW

Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum. London, 1923– H. Cohen, Description historique des monnaies frapées sous l’Empire romain communément appelées medailles imperials. 5 vols. Repr., Amherst, 1976 The Collection of Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum Die Inschriften von Ephesos (1979–84) Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertinentes (1906–27) Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism Library of New Testament Studies Library of Second Temple Studies Aelius Aristides. The Complete Works. Translated by Charles A. Behr. 2 vols. Leiden, 1981–86 Past & Present Papers of the British School at Rome Seneca. De providentia, in Moral Essays. Translated by John W. Basore. Vol. 1. LCL. Cambridge, 1928 The Roman Imperial Coinage. London, 1923–81 J. Oliver. “The Ruling Power: A Study of the Roman Empire in the Second Century After Christ Through the Roman Oration of Aelius Aristides.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 43, no. 4 (1953): 895–907, 982–91 Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae Writings from the Greco-Roman World

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION: HEBREWS AND ITS IMPERIAL CONTEXT

Ernst Käsemann in Das wandernde Gottesvolk: Eine Untersuchung zum Hebräerbrief found in Hebrews a message that seemed to address the political situation of his day. As Käsemann would later write, “By describing the church as the new people of God on its wandering through the wilderness, following the Pioneer and Perfecter of faith, I of course had in mind that radical Confessing Church which resisted the tyranny in Germany, and which had to be summoned to patience so that it could continue its way through endless wastes.”1 Robert Jewett acknowledged that the message of Hebrews was “particularly suited to the dilemma of interpreting American Civil Religion” where tensions arise between “the reactionary efforts to restore the old myths of America as the Redeemer Nation on the one side, and nihilistic ventures that convey a loss of morale and of any sense of limits on the other.”2 Klaus Wengst concluded his book on the analysis of the Pax Romana and the peace of Jesus Christ by reÀecting on Heb 13:12–14. In this summons from Hebrews to join Christ where he suffered outside the gates, Wengst saw an exhortation to the Christian community in the early 1980s to embrace solidarity with the suffering people of God and to reject the policy of “peace and security” through the escalating armament that was occurring 1. “Indem ich Kirche als das neue Gottesvolk auf seiner Wanderschaft durch die Wüste, dem Anfänger und Vollender des Glaubens folgend, beschrieb, hatte ich natürlich jene radikale Bekennende Kirche vor Augen, die sich in Deutschland der Tyrannei widersetzte und die zur Geduld gerufen werden mußte, um den Weg durch endlose Wüste fortsetzen zu können,” from Ernst Käsemann, Kirchliche KonÀikte (vol. 1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 17. The translation adopted here is found in Ernst Käsemann, The Wandering People of God: An Investigation of the Letter to the Hebrews (trans. Roy A. Harrisville and Irving L. Sandberg; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 13. 2. Robert Jewett, Letter to Pilgrims: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (New York: Pilgrim, 1981), 15.

2

Resisting Empire

between the United States and the former Soviet Union.3 Clearly modern interpreters have found in Hebrews an apt resource that challenges the political and imperial contexts in which contemporary Christian communities ¿nd themselves.4 The question I take up in this study is whether Hebrews served as such a resource for its ¿rst audience. In other words, did Hebrews address the “political” situation of its audience, namely the Roman imperial milieu? In the author’s encouragement “to resist sin” (12:4), was he encouraging resistance to the pressures and temptations of Roman power? If so, what was the manner of that resistance? Hebrews was written as a “word of exhortation” (13:22) to encourage covenant ¿delity in the face of suffering. That suffering, in part, appears to involve of¿cial action: imprisonments (10:34; 13:3), con¿scations (10:34), and torture (13:3). The threat of exile (13:13) or even execution (12:4) for members of the community might be potential repercussions that some feared.5 Such suffering, along with the ongoing derision and shame that the members of the community experienced, was “threatening to take the heart out of them.”6 Some, indeed, had already abandoned the community (10:25). If the audience of Hebrews resides in the capital of the Roman Empire (see below), would these factors, among others, not indicate that the audience is engaged in a struggle with Roman imperial power that permeated and dominated their lives? Hebrews, however, has been largely neglected in the renewed exploration of the New Testament in its Roman imperial context.7 Only a handful of studies have explored the potential engagement of Hebrews with the claims and experience of Roman rule.8 This book comes alongside these studies and attempts to 3. Klaus Wengst, Pax Romana and the Peace of Jesus Christ (trans. John Bowden; London: SCM, 1987), 142–43. 4. See also Jeremy Punt, “The Letter to the Hebrews,” in Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings (ed. Ferdinand Segovia and R. S. Sugirtharajah; New York: Continuum, 2007), 338–68, who suggests ways Hebrews engages imperialism in his modern African context. 5. Interestingly, all these sufferings can be correlated with the experiences of the faithful heroes described in Heb 11:35b–38. 6. James Moffatt, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1979), xxii. 7. The neglect of Hebrews can be seen, for example, in the edited volume by Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Modica, Jesus Is Lord, Caesar Is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies (Downers Grove: IVP, 2013), where Hebrews is not considered among the essays. 8. Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, “Portraying the Temple in Stone and Text: The Arch of Titus and the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in Hebrews: Contemporary Methods— New Insights (ed. Gabriella Gelardini; Atlanta: SBL, 2005), 131–48; Steven Muir, “The Anti-Imperial Rhetoric of Hebrews 1:3: ϸɸÁÌûÉ as a ‘Double-edged Sword,’ ” 1

1. Introduction

3

show that the Letter to “the Hebrews” challenges the claims of imperial Rome in order to resist the pressure and temptation its audience felt to compromise its confession of Jesus Christ.9 Indeed, eschatological salvation could not be experienced without such resistance. This study seeks to elucidate an essential but often overlooked background for understanding the purpose of Hebrews in light of its ¿rst reception.10 in A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient Context (ed. Richard Bauckham, Daniel Driver and Nathan MacDonald; LNTS 387; London: T&T Clark International, 2008), 170–86; Harry O. Maier, “ ‘For Here We Have No Lasting City…’: Flavian Iconography, Roman Imperial Sacri¿cial Iconography, and the Epistle to the Hebrews” (paper presented at the annual meeting of SBL, Boston, Mass., 18 November 2008); Cynthia Long Westfall, “Running the Gamut: The Varied Responses to Empire In Jewish Christianity,” in Empire in the New Testament (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Cynthia Long Westfall; McMaster New Testament Studies Series 10; Eugene: Pickwick, 2011), 230–58 (esp. 247–51). Craig Koester throughout his commentary gives attention to how Hebrews would have been heard in view of Roman imperial claims (Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 36: New York: Doubleday, 2001]). See also Herbert Braun, An die Hebräer (HNT 14; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984). While David A. deSilva, in his early study of honor and shame in Hebrews (Despising Shame: Honor Discourse and Community Maintenance in the Epistle to the Hebrews [SBLDS 152; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995]), does not speci¿cally focus on the claims of the imperial context, his study helpfully broadens the cultural context that the audience of Hebrews had to negotiate. As we will see in Chapter 8, honor and shame play a signi¿cant role in the pressures and temptations the audience of Hebrews faced in Flavian Rome. 9. Of course, “resistance” need not be equated to open rebellion that seeks to replace existing power structures. Throughout this study, the idea of resistance will refer to community solidarity that perseveres through the suffering inÀicted by the dominant culture. This idea of “resistance” is informed by the more apocalyptic, cosmic contest that stands behind Hebrews’s cosmology and eschatology, see Chapter 6 and also my essay, “Cosmology and the Perfection of Humanity,” in Interpretation and the Claims of the Text: Resourcing New Testament Theology (ed. Jason A. Whitlark et al.; Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), 117–28. 10. Several backgrounds have been explored by scholars in an effort to understand Hebrews. Some proposals have been Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah or apocalyptic mysticism, Jewish apocalypticism, Jewish Scriptures, Platonic philosophy, Philo, emerging Christianity (especially the Pauline mission), Qumranic interpretative traditions, Rabbinic Judaism, the narrative world behind the text, and the honor–shame culture of the ancient Mediterranean world, among others. Many of these backgrounds have proved helpful for interpreting Hebrews in its ¿rst-century context, since Christian communities emerged in a context of multiple interpenetrating traditions and experiences. Scholars continue to debate which of these backgrounds is primary. This study does not attempt to supplant any of these backgrounds speci¿cally but critically utilizes many of the insights from these studies 1

4

Resisting Empire

Before we begin our examination of Hebrews and its critical engagement with its imperial context, I need to say something about key operative assumptions concerning the social location and identity of the audience of Hebrews, about my audience-oriented method that informs my use of sources, and about the arrangement of this study. I. Assumptions Beyond the fact that the audience of Hebrews is suffering because of its Christian identity and, as a result, some in the community are Àagging in their faith, I am also working with three assumptions concerning the social location and ethnic identity of the audience. These issues are notoriously dif¿cult to pin down in the interpretation of Hebrews, with some being more controversial than others, but here I will explain my view that Hebrews was sent to a primarily Gentile Christian community residing in or around Rome during the Flavian period. I should add here that not all of these assumptions are equally important to each chapter. They, however, inform this study as a whole, that is, all the arguments from each chapter taken collectively ¿t a Gentile audience in Flavian Rome. Some chapters are built on these assumptions while the arguments of other chapters gain greater plausibility from these assumptions. For example, Chapter 3 may not require anything more than a broadly conceived Christian audience living in the Roman Empire, though the argument presented works especially well for a Gentile audience in Flavian Rome. On the other hand, Chapter 8 depends upon the more narrowly conceived social location of a Christian audience living in Flavian Rome. These chapters work together. The argument in Chapter 8 is enhanced by the argument put forward in Chapter 3. We begin, then, with what is the fundamental assumption for this study, Rome as the location of the audience of Hebrews. a. In Rome While Hebrews never explicitly mentions to whom or to where it was sent, ancient commentators, such as Chrysostom, believed that Hebrews was written to Christians in Palestine or Jerusalem.11 Some modern where they illuminate the text of Hebrews and its earliest reception. For surveys of many of these backgrounds see George H. Guthrie, “Hebrews in Its First-Century Contexts: Recent Research,” in The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research (ed. Scot McKnight and Grant R. Osborne; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 424–41, and Jeremy Punt, “Hebrews, Thought-patterns and Context: Aspects of the Background of Hebrews,” Neot 31 (1997): 119–58. 11. Hom. Heb. 2. 1

1. Introduction

5

interpreters have continued to favor these destinations.12 Other proposals have emerged as well: Samaria, Antioch, Corinth, Cyprus, Ephesus, Colossae or the Lycus Valley, and Alexandria, among others.13 Among modern interpreters, Rome, however, has retained strong consideration for the destination of Hebrews.14 The chief internal evidence for a Roman destination comes from the sermon’s epistolary ¿nal greeting—“Those from Italy greet you (ÒÊÈÚ½ÇÅ̸À ĨÄÜË ÇĎ ÒÈġ ÌýË `̸Âĕ¸Ë)” (Heb 13:24). The phrase “from Italy” can refer to those who are traveling or living outside their place of residence or origin (Italy in this case). We ¿nd the phrase used in this manner in Acts 17:13 (from Thessalonica), 18:2 (from Italy), 21:27 (from Asia), and 25:7 (from Jerusalem). Thus, the greeting in Heb 13:24 can be viewed as that of expatriates sending their good wishes back home to their community in Italy, likely Rome. Interpreters have also recognized that the other possible meaning of the phrase “from Italy” can refer to the place of current residence. Thus Heb 13:24 is a greeting being sent out from those presently residing in Italy or Rome.15 The expatriate interpretation, however, makes the best sense of the reference to Italy, as Raymond Brown and John Meier contend: The use of the country rather than the city in the phrase may favor the destination view. If the place of expedition were meant, so that, for example, the author was writing from Rome to Jerusalem, the claim to send greetings from the Italian (rather than the Roman) Christians would seem less personal to the recipients and more sweeping than the author could vouch for. On the other hand, if the place of destination were meant…he might wish to pass along greetings not only from the relatively few Roman Christians…but also from the larger pool of Italian Christians since they too would have had something in common with the Roman recipients as fellow countrymen.16 12. E.g., George Wesley Buchanan, The Book of Hebrews: Its Challenge from Zion (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2006), 469–77. 13. A survey of these proposal can be found in Frederick F. Bruce, “ ‘To the Hebrews’: A Document of Roman Christianity,” ANRW 2.25.4 (1987): 3515–17, and Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 9–10. 14. See commentaries by Attridge, Backhaus, Bruce, Cockerill, Ellingworth, Kistemaker, Koester, Lane, Mitchell, O’Brien, and Weiss. 15. See David A. deSilva, Perseverance in Gratitude: A Socio-rhetorical Commentary on the Epistle “to the Hebrews” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 21–22, and Martin Karrer, Der Brief an die Hebräer: Kapitel 1,1–5,10 (ÖTKNT 20/1; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2002), 96. 16. Raymond E. Brown and John P. Meier, Antioch and Rome: New Testament Cradles of Catholic Christianity (New York: Paulist, 1983), 146. They also point out 1

6

Resisting Empire

It is also reasonable to assume that Timothy, if he is the same as Paul’s young disciple, would have been known to the Roman Christians who would have welcomed news of his release from prison in the ¿nal greeting (cf. 13:23). Timothy likely was with Paul during Paul’s Roman imprisonment in the early 60s at which time Timothy became known to the Christian communities in Rome.17 The primary piece of external evidence that points to an early presence of Hebrews in Rome comes from 1 Clement, a document of Roman provenance which contains the earliest quote from Hebrews. There are many possible connections between 1 Clement and Hebrews, but most agree that 1 Clem. 36:1–5, which calls Jesus “high priest” (cf. Heb 3:1), is taken from much of Heb 1:3–14.18 Other external evidence also connects Hebrews to Rome as a result of shared terminology and contextual issues between Hebrews and other documents of Roman provenance. that, when the place of expedition (“from Italy/Rome”) is meant, a different construction or greater precision concerning the location is used (n. 314). Additionally, the compiler of p46 might have thought the ¿nal greeting indicated a Roman destination since he places Hebrews immediately after Romans among the Pauline letters. Paul’s letters were usually arranged according to length. Hebrews, when placed among Paul’s letters, is the third longest after Romans and 1 Corinthians with 2 Corinthian following Hebrews. While there is an attractiveness of keeping 1 and 2 Corinthians together, the compiler of the codex then had a choice to place Hebrews before 1 and 2 Corinthians or after them. Hebrews at times did follow 2 Corinthians (see the evidence in Hans-Friedrich Weiss, Der Brief an die Hebräer [KEK 15; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991], 118 n. 14). Thus there seems to be some signi¿cance to Hebrews being placed after Romans, possibly for the reason suggested. Cf. Knut Backhaus, Der Hebräerbrief (RNT; Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 2009), 25. Brown and Meier (Antioch and Rome, 146 n. 312), however, believe that the location in p46 could indicate that the compiler thought the letter was written from Rome as is the case in later manuscripts. For a listing of these manuscripts see Attridge, Hebrews, 12 n. 99. 17. Cf. Brown and Meier, Antioch and Rome, 144. 18. Other potential connections between Hebrews and 1 Clement are: 1 Clem. 17.1 = Heb 11:37, 39; 1 Clem. 17.5 = Heb 3:5; 1 Clem. 21.9 = Heb 4:12; 1 Clem. 27.2 = Heb 6:8; and 1 Clem. 31.3 = Heb 11:20. Eusebius noted Clement’s dependence on Hebrews (cf. Hist. eccl. 3.38.1–3). There has been signi¿cant discussion on the relationship of 1 Clement to Hebrews: Donald A. Hagner, The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome (NovTSup 34; Leiden: Brill, 1973), 179; Gareth L. Cockerill, “Heb. 1:1–14, 1 Clem. 36:1–6 and the High Priest,” JBL 97 (1978): 437–40; Paul Ellingworth, “Hebrews and 1 Clement: Literary Dependence or Common Tradition?” BZ 23 (1979): 262–69; Andrew F. Gregory, “1 Clement and the Writings that Later Formed the New Testament,” in The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (ed. Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 152–53. 1

1. Introduction

7

First, Hebrews shares with early Christian sources of a Roman provenance the terminology used for leaders (÷ºÇįļÅÇÀ, Heb 13:7, 17, 24). This terminology for leaders of the Christian community seems peculiar to early Christian communities in Rome (cf. 1 Clem. 1.3; 21.6; Herm. Vis. 2.2.6; 3.9.7). Second, some have pointed to the commendation of the community’s generosity in Heb 6:10–11. Lane, who follows Harnack, notes from early sources that such generosity was characteristic of Christian communities in Rome.19 Third, the possibility of repentance from apostasy or post-baptismal sin seems to be an issue debated by Christian communities in Rome—an issue possibly precipitated by Hebrews’s own rigorous views on apostasy (cf. Heb 6:4–6; 12:16–17).20 For example, like Hebrews, the Shepherd of Hermas is, in part, dealing with the threat of apostasy caused by compromise with the pagan culture (cf. Sim. 9.20.1–21.3).21 Hermas frames his responses in a manner similar to Hebrews. He warns (like Hebrews) that there will be no opportunity for repentance if one rejects the revealed commandments and parables (Vis. 5.7) but elsewhere acknowledges (unlike Hebrews) that there remains the opportunity of a second repentance for wayward members of the community (Mand. 4.3). Hebrews, if not the cause, seems to share in a conversation among Roman Christians early on about the possibility of repentance from apostasy.22 Finally, the reception history of Hebrews points to Rome as the original destination of Hebrews. First, Brown and Meier observe that “through the whole second century Rome remains the main witness for an awareness of Hebrews.”23 Hebrews does not show up in any other place until the late second century (Pantaenus/Clement in Alexandria and Tertullian in North Africa).24 Second, Christians in Rome were reluctant to accept Pauline authorship of Hebrews. Though 1 Clement quotes from Hebrews, it does so without acknowledging the source.25 Hebrews is not 19. William Lane, Hebrews 1–8 (WBC 47A; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), lviii. 20. On this point, see also Koester, Hebrews, 49. 21. See Chapter 3. 22. Many of these arguments in this paragraph were espoused at the turn of the twentieth century by Adolf von Harnack, “Probabilia über die Adresse und den Verfasser des Hebräerbriefs,” ZNW 1 (1900): 16–41. See Bruce, “To the Hebrews,” 3517. 23. Brown and Meier, Antioch and Rome, 147. 24. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.14.4; Tertullian, Pud. 20. 25. This is also true of Irenaeus’s use of Hebrews over a century later. See D. Jeffery Bingham, “Irenaeus and Hebrews,” in Christology, Hermeneutics, and Hebrews: Pro¿les from the History of Interpretation (ed. Jon C. Laansma and Daniel J. Treier; LNTS 423; London: T&T Clark International, 2012), 48–73. 1

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listed among Paul’s letters in the Muratorian canon from the end of the second century in Rome. Ambrosiaster’s commentary on Paul’s letters in the latter half of the fourth century comments on thirteen letters of Paul but not on Hebrews. Eusebius acknowledges the history of Rome’s rejection of Pauline authorship for Hebrews (cf. Hist. eccl. 3.3.4–5; 6.20.3). Jerome, in Epist. 129.3, as well acknowledges the reservation of “Latins” who did not accept the canonical status of Hebrews partly due to questions over its authorship. One suggestion put forward to explain this reception of Hebrews in Rome is that, in Rome, there persisted the memory that Paul was not the writer of this sermonic letter.26 That memory stems from the ¿rst recipients of Hebrews who resided in Rome. They very well knew the author of Hebrews, who was a respected leader, but he was not Paul or an apostle. All these arguments collectively, then, make a good case for seeing Rome as the original destination of Hebrews. b. During the Flavian Period Some of the imperial critiques that will be argued in this book are not strongly contingent on a post-70 dating of Hebrews since some of the targeted elements of Roman imperial culture were endemic to that culture from the Augustan principate on. Some of the critiques, however, are especially suited to the emphases of Flavian rule such as its stress upon the eternity of Rome and its emperor. One critique, in particular, is closely connected to the theodical challenge posed by Flavian triumph in the Jewish War. All the critiques, however, work well together in a Flavian context. Are there reasons, then, for dating Hebrews to the Flavian period (69–96 C.E.)? There are often two key considerations given for dating Hebrews before 70 C.E., which would put its composition prior to the Flavian period. First, some propose that the lack of mention of the Jerusalem temple’s destruction is a good reason for a pre-70 date. They argue that the author would not have failed to use this momentous event in order to clinch his argument about the end of the old covenant and its Levitical priestly ministry.27 On the other hand, Alan C. Mitchell has questioned 26. Cf. Backhaus, Hebräerbrief, 25. 27. E.g. Luke Timothy Johnson, Hebrews: A Commentary (NTL: Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 39; Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Hebrews (Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 19, and deSilva, Perseverance, 20–21. It is also commonplace to note that the use of the present tense for sacri¿cial rituals in Hebrews (e.g., 8:3–4; 9:6–8; 10:1–2) does not necessarily indicate a pre-70 date since 1 Clement, Josephus, and Mishnaic documents use the present tense for the Jewish cult in a post-70 context (cf. Brown and Meier, Antioch and Rome, 149–50, and Backhaus, Hebräerbrief, 33, among others). 1

1. Introduction

9

whether the author’s presentation of Jesus as High Priest would even be possible if the temple was still standing. Moreover, the lack of a temple on Mount Zion in the heavenly Jerusalem in Heb 12:22–24, similar to what we ¿nd in Rev 21:22, is telling of a post-70 date.28 We should recognize that the lack of the mention of the temple is a conundrum for either a pre-70 or post-70 dating of Hebrews. In Chapter 8, I will discuss why the focus on the tabernacle and the failure to mention the Jerusalem temple makes good sense in Flavian Rome. Second, if Hebrews is written to a congregation in Rome, then Heb 12:4 is often used to date Hebrews shortly before the persecutions under Nero (pre-64 C.E.). Hebrews 12:4 (“you have not yet resisted to the point of blood”) appears to indicate that martyrdom is not the present experience of the community. It is argued that such circumstances best describe Christian communities in Rome prior to Nero.29 Hebrews 12:4, however, needs only to refer to the current experiences of the community and not the whole history of the community from its origins. As I will suggest in Chapter 5, martyrdom could have been a part of the community’s history, at least for some of its earliest leaders (cf. Heb 13:7).30 More positive evidence of a later ¿rst-century date for Hebrews is potentially found in Heb 2:3. In this verse, the author explicitly places himself and his audience among second-generation Christians.31 The author and his audience might have heard living apostles of Jesus Christ but his choice of language demonstrates some distance between the audience and these leaders. There is nothing in 2:3 that requires the audience to have received the gospel from the early apostles. This statement is reminiscent of Papias’s own apostolic credentials. Papias learned the faith from the elders who had received it from the apostles of Jesus Christ (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.2–4).32 In fact, Jesus is the apostle of the community’s confession (3:1), a unique designation for Jesus in the New Testament, which might imply that we have moved into 28. Cf. Alan C. Mitchell, Hebrews (SP 13; Collegeville: Liturgical, 2009), 8–10, 26–27. 29. E.g. Lane, Hebrews 1–8, lxiii–lxvi. 30. These leaders could also have been leaders of multiple house churches in Rome or itinerant preachers who were only with the community for a short time. Additionally, Hebrews as well could have been sent either to a speci¿c house church that had escaped the deadlier consequences of Nero’s persecution or possibly to a community of Christians that came to or were converted in Rome after Nero’s persecution (cf. Attridge, Hebrews, 8; Koester, Hebrews, 74). 31. Cf. Brown and Meier, Antioch and Rome, 149. 32. Cf. Barnabas Lindars, “The Rhetorical Structure of Hebrews,” NTS 35 (1989): 386 n. 3. 1

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a transitional time after many of the apostles have died and the community no longer has these leaders for guidance. These observations would ¿t well a post-70 context. In sum, there is nothing that prevents us from dating Hebrews to the Flavian period. The lack of mention of a temple in the heavenly Jerusalem suggests a post-70 context. How much beyond 70 C.E. could we date Hebrews? The terminus ad quem for Hebrews has traditionally been set at the end of the Flavian period in 96 C.E. when 1 Clement was supposedly written.33 Seeing that 1 Clement quotes Hebrews, we cannot date Hebrews beyond 1 Clement. Moreover, if we take the reference to Timothy that was discussed above as genuine, then we could not reasonably date Hebrews beyond the 90s.34 Were there conditions in Flavian Rome that might more precisely locate the potential circumstance of the audience? If we are dealing with a primarily Gentile Christian audience (see below) that has suffered in the past (10:32–34), continues to suffer in some of the same ways (13:3, 5), and anticipates more intense suffering to come, possibly even martyrdom (2:14; 10:39; 11:37; 12:4; 13:7), then I believe between 79 C.E. and 82 C.E. is a good candidate for the context of Hebrews.35 I will offer three reasons in support this conjecture. First, in 79, Vespasian died and imperial rule transferred to his son Titus who then died in 81, with his brother Domitian assuming the rule of the Empire. Suetonius reports that many feared Titus’s accession because of his perceived cruelty, especially in eliminating alleged threats to his or his father’s power 33. Good arguments have been put forward for seeing a more Àuid dating of 1 Clement. Laurence L. Welborn (“Clement, First Epistle of,” ABD 1:1060) has argued for a date range for 1 Clement of between 80 and 140 C.E. Attridge (Hebrews, 7–8), however, argues for a more limited range of between 90 and 120 C.E. 34. Both Backhaus, Hebräerbrief, 32–36, and Karrer, Hebräer, 1:96–98 date Hebrews to the 80s or 90s. 35. There have been other attempts to locate the audience of Hebrews more precisely. A popular proposal for a pre-70, Roman destination for Hebrews correlates Heb 10:32–34 with the expulsion of Jews in Rome under Claudius in 49 C.E. and the lack of martyrdom in 12:4 to a time just prior to Nero’s persecution (e.g., Lane, Hebrews 1–8, lxiii–lxvi). Hebrews 10:32–34, however, is nondescript. Consequently, Marius Heemstra (The Fiscus Judaicus and the Parting of the Ways [WUNT 2/277; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010], 135) has attempted to correlate it with the aggressive collection of the ¿scus Judaicus under Domitian. Both of these proposals are tied to a Jewish Christian audience for Hebrews. Aitken, “Portraying the Temple in Stone and Text,” 146, proposes a date shortly after 81 when the Arch of Titus on the Sacra Via was dedicated. My proposal shares some common features with her proposal. 1

1. Introduction

11

(cf. Tit. 6.1–2). We can imagine such transitions of power bringing renewed anxieties in Rome. It had not been that long ago when the last power transition after the death of Nero resulted in civil war. Second, we see a concerted effort by Titus (and Domitian) to reassert his claim to rule based upon his victory in the Jewish War. That victory was celebrated anew between 79 C.E. and 81 C.E., in the dedication of the triumphal arches in the Circus Maximus and on the Sacra Via, and in the issuing of coins celebrating Flavian victory in the Jewish War. In light of the tensions surrounding the transition of power and with renewed emphasis on the legitimation of Flavian rule, we can speculate that at this time there would be heightened sensitivity to political loyalty along with renewed shame brought upon the God of the Jews and Christians. Additionally, Christian communities were politically ambiguous entities and already regarded with suspicion and contempt by the Roman elite and populace. Third, from 79 C.E. to 80 C.E., there had been an outbreak of catastrophes in or around Rome. Mount Vesuvius had destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum; there had been a major ¿re in Rome; and there had been a prolonged and devastating plague.36 Dio describes the terror that those in Rome felt when the smoke and ash from Vesuvius darkened the sky for several days (cf. 66.23.5). Not that long ago, Christians had been blamed for the ¿re in Rome under Nero and subjected to intense persecution. It is not unfathomable to think that the memory of martyrdom under Nero caused Christians in Rome to perceive their circumstances to be more unpredictably precarious. Moreover, Titus, who ascended to power, had served as a quaestor under Nero and very well may have been present in Rome when Nero targeted the Christian assemblies.37 Volcanic eruptions, major conÀagrations, and plagues were not just tragedies but were interpreted as the displeasure of the gods often due to the presence of some “polluting” members among a city’s inhabitants.38 Though a century later, we should not forget Tertullian’s statement addressing the pagan mentality toward Christians.39 Tertullian writes that whenever 36. Suetonius, Tit. 8.3–4; Dio 66.21.1–23.5; 66.24.1–4. 37. Cf. Suetonius, Tit. 4.3. I am grateful to Brian Incigneri for passing along this reference. 38. Cf. Martin Hengel, The Atonement: The Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament (trans. John Bowden; Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1981), 19–28. 39. Concerning the use of the term “pagan,” Bart D. Ehrman (Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999], 56) writes, “When historians use the term ‘pagan’ it does not have a derogatory connotation… Instead, it refers to anyone who followed any of the polytheistic religions 1

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there were natural disasters or plagues the Christians were blamed for angering the gods and subsequently led off to execution (cf. Apol. 40). For these reasons, I can imagine that Christian communities in Rome between 79 and 82 C.E. were very anxious. Nero’s deadly persecution against Christian communities in Rome had occurred just over a decade earlier. The community of Hebrews experienced privation, imprisonment, torture, and shame caused by their Christian confession and solidarity. In the wake of these political transitions and natural disasters, the community might have been anticipating fresh and intensi¿ed persecution from their pagan neighbors and Roman authorities. Whether an outbreak of more intense persecution actually happened is not what is being argued here, only that the Christian community would have perceived renewed and intensi¿ed persecution as a real possibility. Renewed fears and anxieties about escalated persecution could intensify the temptation toward apostasy, especially if the community was experiencing fatigue from its confession of Jesus Christ.40 c. To Primarily Gentiles Christians The ¿nal assumption concerns the ethnic identity of the audience, which I take to be primarily Gentiles.41 In view of the dif¿culty in identifying the ethnicity of the audience, whether Jew or Gentile, some recent commentaries on Hebrews have chosen to be more agnostic on this question.42 Likewise, Chapters 3–8 of the present book may not require the audience to be primarily Gentile, though the argument presented in these chapters ¿ts a Gentile audience particularly well, especially Chapter 3. In the conclusion, however, the former, pagan identity of of the ancient world—that is, anyone who wasn’t either Jewish or Christian.” Throughout this book, I follow Ehrman’s understanding of “pagan” whenever I use the term. 40. This date also allows for the good possibility that Timothy could still be alive at this time and able to travel after imprisonment. 41. German interpreters of Hebrews have traditionally been more favorable to seeing the audience of Hebrews as Gentile or mixed (e.g., see commentaries by Backhaus, Braun, Grässer, Hegermann, Karrer, and H.-F. Weiss; also introduction by W.-G. Kümmel). There, however, have been English interpreters who have entertained a predominantly Gentile or mixed audience for Hebrews (e.g., see commentaries by deSilva, Jewett, Koester, and Moffatt; also Kenneth Schenck, Understanding the Book of Hebrews: The Story Behind the Sermon [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003], 93; Patrick Gray, Godly Fear: The Epistle to the Hebrews and Greco-Roman Critiques of Superstition [Academia Biblica 16; Atlanta: SBL, 2003], 24–30). 42. See commentaries by Johnson, Mitchell, and Thompson. 1

1. Introduction

13

the audience along with its location in Flavian Rome does play a central role in the refutation of certain versions of relapse theories for Hebrews.43 Are there features in Hebrews that suggest a Christian audience of former pagans (i.e., Gentiles)? Among those who favor a Gentile audience, Heb 6:1–2 provides a signi¿cant piece of internal evidence: “Therefore let us move on to perfection leaving the basic teachings about Christ, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith in God, teaching about baptisms and the laying on of hands, resurrection from the dead and eternal judgment.” The ¿rst pair of tenets is especially telling. Repentance from dead works, if dead works is a reference to idolatry (see Chapter 3), coupled with faith toward God, point to pagan converts who are coming out of their polytheistic context to embrace the god of Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Thess 1:9). The last pair of tenets, resurrection and ¿nal judgment, were also basic teachings that were needed for pagans to respond appropriately to the gospel. When we turn to Acts, we ¿nd precisely these tenets emphasized in the missionary preaching of Christians to pagans (cf. 14:8–18 and 18:31).44 The middle pair of tenets, then, represents the actual initiation of the converts into the community as they moved out of their polytheism to embrace the hope God offered in Jesus Christ.45 In light of these observations, the strong admonition in 3:12 that “none have an evil unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God” resonates well with a Gentile audience in danger of returning to their pagan culture (see Chapter 3). Additionally, in Heb 11:3, we read that faith apprehends that God made the world by his word, and in 11:6, the one who draws near to God must ¿rst believe that he exists. These statements in Heb 11:3 and 6 seem well suited to those who have assimilated to the Christian faith from a pagan context (a context that never acknowledged the god of the Jews). Finally, 43. Gareth L. Cockerill (The Epistle to the Hebrews [NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012], 19–20) states that one cannot interpret Hebrews without taking a position on whether one thinks the audience is Jew or Gentile. Cockerill, however, describes the audience as Jewish, meaning those (Jews and Gentiles) who were attracted by Jewish religious practices. While I believe it is accurate to describe Gentile Christians as “Jewish,” I do not understand that to mean essentially an attraction to Jewish religious practices (see below). 44. Cf. Martin Karrer, Der Brief an die Hebräer: Kapitel 5,11–13,25 (ÖTKNT 20/2; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2002), 100–101; Backhaus, Hebräerbrief, 221; Weiss, Hebräer, 71; Braun, Hebräer, 159–60. 45. Hebrews 9:14 points to the audience’s experience of conversion from the pagan context: “the blood of Christ…cleanses our conscience from dead works so that we may serve the living God.”

1

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Resisting Empire

Pamela M. Eisenbaum has argued that the hero list in Heb 11 denationalizes these heroes of the Jewish heritage in order to make them the heritage of Gentile Christians. She concludes, “Hebrews…opened the way for Gentile Christians to read Israelite history as if it were their own.”46 We can elaborate further on this last point. Pagan converts to Christianity in the ¿rst century C.E. essentially adopted a Jewish identity. When pagans converted to Christianity, they took on a new god as the only God and a new religious story that was told in the Jewish Scriptures ¿ltered through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Denise Buell and Caroline Hodge have helpfully broached this issue for studies on Paul. They write: Paul does not explicitly ask his gentiles to become Judeans or to cease to be Greeks, yet it is a Judean umbrella under which he locates all those “in Christ.” Paul asks gentiles or Greeks to reject their gods, religious practices, and stories of origin and to adopt instead the God of Israel, Christ, the narrative of Israel, and its founding ancestor. Gentiles in Christ have thus shifted components of their identities that change them from gentile ethnoreligous “others” to gentiles af¿liated with Israel.47

Gentile Christians would then have been deeply interested in how they might appropriate the Scriptures of the Jews—even needing to be convinced that the Jewish heritage was now their heritage. Writing about Paul’s ministry to Gentile Christians, Richard Hays states, “[I]nstruction in how to read Scripture was at the heart of Paul’s pastoral practice: Gentiles needed to be initiated into reading practices that enabled them to receive Israel’s Scriptures as their own.”48 Arguably what Hays af¿rms about Paul can be said of the author of Hebrews. The author of Hebrews, at one level, teaches his audience how to read the Jewish Scriptures— even the old covenant cultic ministry—in light of Christ’s suffering and exaltation (cf. 5:11; 6:3).

46. Pamela M. Eisenbaum, The Jewish Heroes of Christian History: Hebrews 11 in Literary Context (SBLDS 156; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 220; see 187–88, 218–25 for her full discussion of this point. Paul had already set a precedent for this type of appropriation by pagan converts when he referred to the wilderness generation as the Gentile believers’ “fathers” (cf. 1 Cor 10:1). See also 1 Clem 4:9, who refers to Jacob as “our father.” 47. Denise Buell and Caroline Hodge, “The Politics of Interpretation: The Rhetoric of Race and Ethnicity in Paul,” JBL 123 (2004): 249. 48. Richard B. Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), viii. 1

1. Introduction

15

Scholars who reject the Gentile-audience theory for Hebrews recognize that the extensive use of Scriptures in Hebrews is not an argument against a Gentile Christian audience.49 Paul had used sophisticated arguments from and allusions to the Jewish Scriptures in Romans when addressing what were predominantly Gentile Christian communities. Moreover, Christianity in Rome may have been more ¿rmly established upon the Jewish Scriptures and traditions seeing that its founding communities were most likely comprised of Jews living in Rome in the late 30s or early 40s C.E.50 Regardless, some interpreters argue that the extensive discussion of and forceful arguments against the saving suf¿ciency of the old covenant cultic ministry in Hebrews appears more apropos to the concerns of Christian Jews (or “Jewish” Christians) than pagan converts.51 Knut Backhaus, however, has helpfully noted that Gentile Christians were without a conventional cult. As pagans they lived in a culture rich with cultic rituals. For that reason, Backhaus argues that pagan converts may have read intensely the extensive cultic material from the Torah. Thus, they would not have been uninterested in the exposition of the Levitical cult in Hebrews.52 Finally, the history of Christianity in Rome also argues for the probability that Hebrews addresses a predominantly Gentile community. By the time Paul wrote his Letter to the Romans (56–57 C.E.), Gentile Christians had come to make up the largest percentage of Christ followers in Rome.53 A growing Christian community of predominantly pagan coverts in Rome may also explain why Nero in 64 C.E. took notice of Christian communities, whose members were believed to be worthy of execution as followers of a contemptible superstition.54 If we at least date Hebrews sometime after Romans, and especially post-70 C.E., then it is reasonable to expect that the community addressed in Hebrews would be predominantly Gentile at this time. In sum, when we combine the history of Christianity in Rome in the ¿rst century C.E. alongside the 49. E.g., O’Brien, Hebrews, 10. 50. Acts 18:2 af¿rms an early presence of Christian Jews in Rome. According to Acts, Paul encounters in Corinth two Christian Jews, Priscilla and Aquila, after their expulsion from Rome under Claudius in 49 C.E. See also Robert Jewett, Romans (Hermeneia: Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 58–59. 51. Cf. Cockerill, Hebrews, 21–22. 52. Backhaus, Hebräerbrief, 471. I would add here that Gentile Christians clearly were interested in Hebrews, seeing that Hebrews circulated widely among the churches and eventually became part of the New Testament canon. 53. Cf. Jewett, Romans, 21, 70. 54. Cf. Tacitus, Ann. 15.44; Suetonius, Nero 16.2. See also Heemstra, The Fiscus Judaicus, 91. 1

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textual evidence presented, there are good grounds to presume a Gentile Christian audience for the target audience of Hebrews. To close this discussion on the social location and ethnic identity of the audience of Hebrews, William Lane notes the “considerable risk in assigning so de¿nite a social location to the community [of Hebrews] in the absence of ¿rm evidence,” but he goes on to acknowledge that it “gives a concreteness to Hebrews…a sense of social context for the statements in Hebrews that may be tested exegetically.”55 What I have attempted to set forth above is the reasonableness upon which the assumptions of this study will proceed. A ¿nal test of these assumptions is whether the collective arguments presented in the following chapters based, in varying degrees, upon these assumptions can make good sense of Hebrews in view of the audience-oriented method adopted for this study. An explanation of that method is in order. II. Method The methodological approaches that have inÀuenced much of imperialcritical studies of the New Testament (among which this study may be counted) have taken their cue from a rich interdisciplinary conversation with postcolonial theory56 and theories of resistance to domination, chieÀy informed by the proposal of James C. Scott.57 These sociological methods have renewed our awareness of the New Testament’s imperial location and have also made us mindful that there is a spectrum of resistance to domination that usually lies somewhere between unquestioning compliance and open rebellion. There are, however, some challenges in applying sociological models to ancient contexts. For instance, do the modern models ¿t the ancient evidence or describe the same phenomenon?58 55. Lane, Hebrews 1–8, lviii–lix. Likewise, Jewett (Letter to Pilgrims, 3) points out that interpretations of Hebrews that do not incorporate an audience theory “result in exegetical generality” while “the thrust of Hebrew’s argument is deÀected and dulled, robbed of all speci¿city.” 56. E.g., Stephen D. Moore and Ferdinand F. Segovia, ed., Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: Interdisciplinary Intersections (London: T&T Clark International, 2005). For its application to Hebrews see Punt, “Hebrews,” 338–68. 57. E.g., Richard A. Horsley, ed., Hidden Transcripts and the Arts of Resistance: Applying the Work of James C. Scott to Jesus and Paul (SemeiaSt 48; Leiden: Brill, 2004). For its application to Hebrews see Muir, “Hebrews 1:3,” 170–86. 58. See the discussion of this point by Pieter F. Craffert, “More on Models and Muddles in the Social-Scienti¿c Interpretation of the New Testament: The Sociological Fallacy Reconsidered,” Neot 26 (1992): 217–39 (esp. 227–30). 1

1. Introduction

17

This study is built on a different methodological approach that has been ably articulated by Charles H. Talbert from his decades of work on Luke–Acts.59 The method adopted here is what Talbert calls “reading with the authorial audience.” He acknowledges that this method is not novel to the study of the New Testament, though it derives its theoretical justi¿cation from the observations of modern literary critics, Peter J. Rabinowitz and Hans Robert Jauss.60 Talbert points to Rabinowitz’s discussion of audiences where Rabinowitz identi¿es various types of audiences assumed by a text. One of those audiences is what Rabinowitz calls the authorial audience, that is, the audience for whom the author believed he or she was writing. Thus, identifying the authorial audience involves “a careful analysis of both the text itself and context in which the text was produced.”61 Talbert, likewise, notes the similarity between Rabinowitz’s contextually located audience and what Jauss calls the “horizon of expectations (= the set of cultural, ethical, and literary expectations) that would have been current at the time the work appeared.”62 As an interpretive method, this means that the modern reader attempts to adopt the perspectives of the authorial audience, in effect becoming a member of the author’s original, target community. This method informs the uses of primary sources in this study. If Hebrews is read from the perspective of the presumed experiences, knowledge, values, and presuppositions of the author’s target audience, then primary sources from the milieu of Hebrews are used to reconstruct the conceptual world and expectations of its authorial audience. As Talbert notes, this method does not propose that the author “borrowed” from the ancient sources consulted or that even the audience had to have explicit knowledge of them, though in some cases these might be reasonable assumptions (e.g., the Jewish Scriptures).63 Moreover, Christianity 59. Charles H. Talbert, Reading Luke–Acts in Its Mediterranean Milieu (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 14–18. 60. Peter J. Rabinowitz, Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987); idem, “Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences,” Critical Inquiry 4 (1977): 126; Hans Robert Jauss, “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory,” New Literary History 2 (1970): 7–37. See also Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), 50; Hans-Josef Klauck, The Religious Contest of Early Christianity: A Guide to Graeco-Roman Religions (trans. Brian McNeil; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 2; Jewett, Romans, 59. 61. Talbert, Reading Luke–Acts, 15. 62. Ibid. 63. This point is important because some scholars have accused imperial-critical studies of “parallelomania” in their use of primary sources, e.g., Seyoon Kim, Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luke 1

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maintains its own integrity because we are interested in how the audience heard the text of Hebrews. This method also does not exclude authorial intent. “Sometimes, starting with the question, ‘How would the authorial audience have heard this text,’ leads to the conclusion about what the author of the text probably intended.”64 The assumptions laid out in the previous section, then, locate the authorial audience of Hebrews. Consequently, there are two key areas of contextual knowledge and experience of Hebrews’s audience that are central to this study, though they will not be the only areas engaged in this study.65 One of these areas involves the rhetorical categories and strategies peculiar to the historical context of Hebrews. These categories and strategies would have guided the compositional practices of the author and informed the expectations of his audience. Here, we are immensely helped by ancient rhetorical handbooks that provide a metadiscussion about these categories and strategies in the ancient Mediterranean world. The other signi¿cant area of the audience’s contextual knowledge involves the claims and experience of Roman imperial power.66 The ¿rst two assumptions concerning the social location of the (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 28–30. This term derives from the title of Samuel Sandmel’s SBL presidential address (“Parallelomania,” JBL 81 [1962]: 1–13). Sandmel, however, is not arguing against methods that look to ancient primary sources in order to illuminate the biblical text by reconstructing the authorial audience. He alerts us to the peril of methodologies that assumed genetic relationships and unidirectional inÀuence between the various sources and the biblical text that would reduce New Testament authors to parrots of their culture. Those, who use this accusation against imperial-critical studies, however, seem to mean that linguistic parallels between the imperial discourse and New Testament texts are not suf¿cient by themselves to show an anti-imperial intention by the author of a New Testament text. To be sure, careful reasoning from the argument of the text and from the context of the audience must work in tandem to argue for the probability of hearing a critique of the imperial milieu. We should, however, recognize, as Scott has pointed out in his studies on resistance (Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 18–19, 86, 136, 140, 157) and as we will see from the rhetorical situation of the ¿rst century (Chapter 2), that critiques of imperial power are not as “overt” or “straightforward” as some demand. 64. Talbert, Reading Luke–Acts, 17. 65. Broadly speaking, early Christian communities’ contextual knowledge and experience included three overlapping and dynamic spheres: the variegated Jewish milieu, the emerging Christian milieu, and the larger pagan milieu of the ancient Mediterranean world. 66. In this regard, this method will look similar to other imperial-critical studies built on sociological models since those who often employ these sociological methods give careful attention to the primary sources from the Roman imperial 1

1. Introduction

19

audience of Hebrews, especially, argue for the signi¿cance of the Roman imperial milieu as a pervasive aspect of the lives of the audience. Thus, to attempt to understand Hebrews without attending to the imperial milieu of its audience living in the imperial capital is, as Richard Horsley says, “like trying to understand Martin Luther King without knowing how slavery, reconstruction, and segregation determined the lives of African-Americans in the United States.”67 So when we approach Hebrews shaped by the rhetorical expectations of ancient Mediterranean audiences and informed by the claims and experience of Roman imperial power, we will be able to understand how the author would expect his audience to hear critiques of imperial power, for example, in such phrases as “a city that does not remain” or “a coming world” or “the devil who holds the power of death.” Moreover, this is the language of resistance—recognizable to an imperially located audience—that appropriately counters the temptations, seductions, and pressures from the audience’s imperial context. In sum, the method of this study, then, is an attempt to say something about the purpose of Hebrews in its ¿rstcentury context that is primarily shaped by the rhetorical expectations and contextual knowledge and experiences of the target audience proposed above. After pointing to the promise of audience criticism, Robert Jewett, in his own commentary on Hebrews writes, “If one were to select an audience hypothesis that seems most plausible and then take the imaginative leap of perceiving each verse as directly related to that situation, the ¿re of the argument might ignite, and the sparks could easily leap across time to the modern situation.”68 In the following pages, my hope is that the exploration of the Roman imperial context as it relates to Hebrews and its authorial audience will ignite anew the argument of Hebrews for a modern audience. III. Arrangement The arrangement of this study has three major movements. First, in Chapter 2, we will ascertain the rhetorical expectations of ¿rst-century audiences regarding critiques of power. These critiques took the form of ¿gured speech. Once the rhetorical form of ¿gured speech is described, milieu. The difference lies in the fact that the data are not subsequently correlated to the operative categories and theories of sociological studies. 67. Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 13. 68. Jewett, Letter to Pilgrims, 3–4. 1

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we can understand how and why the author of Hebrews goes about challenging imperial power without overtly referring to it. We will also see why establishing the assumed contextual knowledge and experience of the authorial audience is essential for hearing these challenges in Hebrews. Second, in Chapters 3–4, we will focus on Hebrews’s ¿gured resistance to the bene¿ts of assimilating to the imperial context by warning its audience against idolatry and by offering a superior hope to that boasted by Rome. Third, in Chapters 5–8, we will examine certain claims of imperial Rome that Hebrews challenges through a ¿gured critique of those claims. These critiques relate to Rome’s claim to eternal existence and rule, to ultimate power over the lives of its inhabitants, to leadership by the true heroic ruler who liberates the world from fear, and to impugn the power and sovereignty of God. Finally, in the conclusion, we will brieÀy look at some implications this study has for relapse theories related to Hebrews, for the relationship of Hebrews to other New Testament documents, for the relationship of Hebrews to the phenomenon of early Christian martyrdom, and for modern theories of resistance.

1

Chapter 2

THE RHETORIC OF RESISTANCE: FIGURED SPEECH AND THE CRITIQUE OF IMPERIAL POWER

This chapter takes up the rhetorical form of ¿gured speech or covert allusion as it was taught and practiced in the ancient Mediterranean world. Understanding ancient rhetorical practices teaches us something about how an ancient author, like the author of Hebrews, would go about composing his or her discourse and what type of expectations an ancient audience, like the audience of Hebrews, brought to the performance of a composition. This chapter lays the rhetorical foundation for discerning imperial critique in the discourse of the Letter to “the Hebrews.” The rhetorical phenomenon of ëÊÁ¾Ä¸ÌÀÊÄñÅÇË ëÅ ÂĠºĿ or ¿gura1— ¿gured speech or covert allusion—under consideration here was frequently taken up by teachers of rhetoric in the ¿rst and second centuries C.E. According to Ps.-Demetrius (Eloc. 5.287) in the ¿rst century B.C.E. and Quintilian (Inst. 9.2.65) under Domitian in the ¿rst century C.E., ¿gured speaking was common in oration and declamation. PseudoDionysius devotes two extensive chapters to ¿gured speaking in his Ars rhetorica in the early second century C.E., and Ps.-Hermogenes pays particular attention to this rhetorical form in his ¿fth-century C.E. handbook on rhetoric.2 This chapter will set forth a general de¿nition of 1. This Greek phrase is found in Ps.-Demetrius, Eloc. 287. See also Ps.-Dionysius, Ars rhetorica 8–9; Ps.-Hermogenes, On Invention 4.13. Quintilian identi¿es the Latin rhetorical term, ¿gurae, with the Greek ÊÁûĸ̸ (Inst. 9.1.1). Pseudo-Cicero in Rhet. Her. 4.53.67 refers to this rhetorical convention as signi¿catio. 2. There appears to have been some debate among ancient rhetoricians and philosophers over the legitimacy of this category. Some argued that all speech was ¿gured because speech gives expression to the forms in the mind while others pointed out that covert allusion was a distinctive and identi¿able rhetorical form. Cf. Ps.-Dionysius, Ars rhetorica 295, 323; Alexander Numeniu, “The Theory of Figures” (found in D. A. Russell, Criticism in Antiquity [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981], 176–78); Quintilian, Inst. 9.1.10–14. Dio Chrysostom

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¿gured speech, look at the relevant types of ¿gured speech in which students were instructed, and describe the conditions under which one employed ¿gured speech. Attention will also be given to why ¿gured speech was considered rhetorically effective and how one goes about determining the presence of ¿gured speech in a discourse. The chapter will conclude with an examination of the use of ¿gured speech under Roman hegemony in the ¿rst and second centuries C.E. I. General De¿nition of Figured Speech Figured speech was adaptable to the three major forms of rhetoric: deliberative, judicial, and epideictic.3 According to Quintilian, ¿gured speech was taught by the fourth-century rhetorician, Zoilus, who wrote that with ÊÁýĸ “a speaker pretends to say something other than what he actually says” (Inst. 9.1.14 [Butler, LCL]). In other words, the speaker “leaves more to be suspected than has been actually asserted” or “leaves the hearer himself to guess what the speaker has not mentioned” (Rhet. Her. 4.53.67 [Caplan, LCL]). Cicero, according to Quintilian, de¿ned ¿gured speaking as “saying one thing and meaning another” (Inst. 9.1.29 [Butler, LCL]). Figured speaking, then, “involves a departure from the simple and straightforward meaning of expression” (Inst. 9.1.3 [Butler, LCL]) or “a rational change in meaning” (Inst. 9.1.10–11 [Butler, LCL]).4 With ¿gured speech, the speaker intends something more than what he or she actually says, suggests a course of action, gives gentle expression to unpleasing facts, or says one thing while intending something else (Inst. 9.2.89–92). Menander Rhetor writes about a speaker (Or. 43.6) distinguishes between speaking plainly and speaking ¿guratively (ļÌÛ ÊÁûĸÌÇË) as though his audience readily understood this distinctive rhetorical convention. 3. Cf. Ps.-Dionysius, Ars rhetorica 298.4–5. The Greek text consulted and referenced here is from Dionysii Halicarnasei quae exstant, vol. 6 (ed. Hermann Usener and Ludwig Radermacher; Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana; Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1997). Malcolm Heath (“PseudoDionysius Art of Rhetoric 8–11: Figured Speech, Declamation and Criticism,” AJP 124 [2003]: 81–105) has argued that Ars rhetorica 8–9, ¼ÉĖ ëÊϾĸÌÀÊÄñÅÑÅ ¸ and ¹, are written by the same person and date to the early second century. 4. See also Inst. 9.1.23; 9.2.1; cf. Frederick Ahl, “The Art of Safe Criticism in Greece and Rome,” AJP 105 (1984): 177. Quintilian distinguishes between ¿gures of speech and ¿gures of thought (cf. Inst. 9.1.16). What is primarily meant by ¿gured speech in this chapter from the perspective of Quintilian’s discussion is ¿gures of thought, though Quintilian acknowledges that ¿gured conceptions are often accomplished through ¿gures of speech. 1

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giving “a special slant in the whole thought (ÊϾĸÌĕʸÀ »ÀÚÅÀ¸Å иÅ)” to his or her audience (2.388.28–31).5 Thus, at its heart, ¿gured speech is a way of saying something without having to say it directly or plainly or even at all. As I will discuss below, ¿gured speech requires attentive audiences to probe beneath the surface of a performance or composition in order to uncover what was left unsaid. II. Types of Figured Speech While there was not a standard typology of ¿gured speech agreed upon by rhetoricians in the ¿rst century C.E., by the ¿fth century C.E., Ps.Hermogenes could distinguish three basic types in his discussion of ¿gured speech or ÌÛ ëÊϾĸÌÀÊÄñŸ ÈÉǹÂûĸ̸: (1) ìÄθÊÀË—implied meaning, (2) ÈÂÚºÀÇÅ—deÀection, and (3) ëŸÅÌĕ¸—saying the opposite.6 There appears to be some precedent for these types since all three types are also listed by Ps.-Dionysius, in the second century C.E., in chapter 8 of his Ars rhetorica (295.15–296.5).7 The following analysis of ¿guredspeech, then, will use these three types as a general heuristic in order to discuss the nuanced understanding of ¿gured speech in the ancient world. Moreover, the analysis will take as its starting point Ps.-Dionysius’s discussion of ¿gured speech in chapters 8 and 9 of his Ars rhetorica where the rhetorical topic under examination is ëÊϾĸÌÀÊÄñÅÇÅ. a. =ÄθÊÀË For his description of ìÄθÊÀË,8 Ps.-Dionysius states that a speaker says what he or she means but with propriety (¼ĤÈÉñȼÀ¸) out of respect for the dignity of his or her opponent or out of caution (ÒÊÎÚ¼À¸) with a view to the audience. Though Ps.-Dionysius technically offers no de¿nition here, it is clear from the examples of ìÄθÊÀË he provides that the way propriety and caution were observed in a speech or writing was by 5. The text and translation consulted here is from Menander Rhetor (ed. and trans. D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson; Oxford: Clarendon, 1981, repr. 2004), 114 and commentary on 295–96. 6. Cf. Hermogenes, On Invention 4.13. The Greek text and translation consulted here are from Hermogenes, Invention and Method: Two Rhetorical Treatises from the Hermongenic Corpus (trans. George A. Kennedy; WGRW 15; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005). 7. Pseudo-Dionysius does identify a fourth type where a speaker builds on a previous speaker’s words in order to advance a new position. 8. Pseudo-Dionysius never uses the term ìÄθÊÀË but his description and illustrations of his ¿rst type of ¿gured speech indicates that ìÄθÊÀË is the category under discussion. 1

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saying something implicitly or obliquely. Writing a full century earlier, Ps.-Demetrius uses ìÄθÊÀË to describe ¿gured speech that implied (Eloc. 5.287). Quintilian notes that some would limit ¿gured speech to the rhetorical convention of ìÄθÊÀË alone (cf. Inst. 9.1.14; 9.2.65). Thus, Quintilian lists ìÄθÊÀË as the “commonest occurrence” of ¿gured speech and de¿nes it in the following manner: Emphasis may be numbered among the ¿gures also, when some hidden meaning is extracted from some phrase… It is one [manner of speaking] whereby we excite some suspicion to indicate that our meaning is other than our words would seem to imply; but our meaning is not in this case contrary to that which we express, as is the case in irony, but rather a hidden meaning which is left to the hearer to discover. (Inst. 9.2.64 [Butler, LCL])9

With ìÄθÊÀË, the speaker (or writer) signals that he or she means more than is said.10 This form of ¿gured speech, implication or oblique reference, may be used extensively throughout the whole discourse.11 I should note here that in the Greco-Roman context ìÄθÊÀË means the exact opposite of what it typically means today. When we “emphasize” something we tend to make that thing prominent or clear. When the ancients “emphasized” something, they couched it in innuendo and implication. The mistake a modern reader might make is to assume that something “emphasized” in the ancient sense of the word means it is also 9. Philo also uses ìÄθÊÀË this way in Mos. 2.168 where he writes about the Golden Calf incident and Moses’ summoning of the Levites: “ ‘Whoever,’ [Moses] said, ‘is for the Lord, let him come to me.’ It was a brief saying but the concealed meaning (ìÄθÊÀË) was important, for the meaning of such a statement is this, ‘If anyone does not think that things made with hands or created are gods but that there is only one ruler over the whole universe, let him belong to me’ ” (my translation). For Philo, Moses’ summons to the Levites was actually an oblique summons to monotheistic belief. Thus, in the following statement (169), Philo uses ÌıÎÇË as an oblique reference to Egyptian idolatry (cf. 270; Mig. 160). By appealing to and using ìÄθÊÀË, Philo is able to make an effective critique of his present Egyptian religious context. Consequently, Philo’s rhetoric can also be understood as a use of ÈÂÚºÀÇÅ (see below) in which Philo deÀects his critique of present Egyptian polytheism through his critique of ancient Egyptian “conceit” (cf. Karl-Gustav Sandelin, “The Danger of Idolatry According to Philo of Alexandria,” Temenos 27 [1991]: 131). 10. Cf. Quintilian, Inst. 9.2.3. 11. Cf. D. A. Russell, “Figured Speeches: ‘Dionysius,’ Art of Rhetoric VIII–IX,” in The Orator in Action and Theory in Greece and Rome: Essays in Honor of George A. Kennedy (ed. Cecil W. Wooten; Mnemosyne Supplements 225; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 159–60. Pseudo-Dionysius wishes to demonstrate in ch. 8 (cf. 295.2– 14) that entire speeches can be ¿gured. 1

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unimportant because it is not made prominent or clear. In fact, what is implied or concealed may be what is most important.12 Pseudo-Dionysius provides two helpful examples of this form of ¿gured speech. In chapter 8 (cf. 324.9–22) he cites the example of Iris’s message to Poseidon from Il. 15.168–219. In this pericope of Homer’s epic poem, Iris must deliver Zeus’s threat to Poseidon to desist from ¿ghting in the war. Poseidon, however, responds de¿antly by claiming equality with Zeus. The situation clearly requires Iris to have regard for the dignity of Poseidon as well as caution since Poseidon is more powerful than she. Iris aptly responds with these words: “Dark-haired Earthshaker, am I then to take this harsh and violent message back to Zeus? Or will you change your mind? The good have minds that can be changed! The Erinyes, you know, are always in attendance on the elder” (15.200– 204).13 Pseudo-Dionysius points out that here Iris praises Poseidon in order to make him willing to hear her. She does this by using honori¿c titles, by implying that he is among those who are good and thus able to be persuaded, by implying that he respects the natural order (thus the reference to the Erinyes), and by using the neutral word Äı¿ÇË to describe Poseidon’s threat to Zeus. Poseidon acknowledges that Iris speaks prudently, and he withdraws from the battle.14 Another example from the Iliad is found in chapter 9 of Ars rhetorica (353.10–354.11). Pseudo-Dionysius points to the delicate nature of Thetis’s request that Zeus restore her son Achilles’s honor. In view of the dignity of the addressee the situation calls for the propriety and caution achievable through ¿gured speech. Thetis relies on the assumed codes of reciprocity that ordered the Homeric world (“If ever among the immortals I aided you by word or deed”; Il. 1.503–4 [Murray, LCL]) when she makes her request. Whereas Achilles goes into detail with his mother about the favor Zeus owes her when she alone defended Zeus’s rule from an attempted usurpation by Hera, Poseidon, and Athena (cf. Il. 1.395–412), Thetis herself speaks obliquely and indirectly to Zeus. She never refers to the speci¿c debt Zeus owes her but instead clasps his knees as a suppliant. 12. Cf. Ahl, “Safe Criticism,” 178–79. 13. Here I have followed Russell’s translation in “Figured Speeches,” 159. 14. Ovid uses a similar rhetorical strategy with Augustus in Tristia 2. In lines 141–42 Ovid states “yet tis common for a deity to be appeased at times” (Wheeler, LCL) implying that Augustus follows the example of the gods. In lines 183–84, Ovid asks for relocation from Tomis but not a return from exile. He elliptically implies that he hopes for a return home, however, when he writes “I pray not for a return even though we may believe that more than the prayer has oft been granted by the mighty gods” (Wheeler, LCL).

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b. ÂÚºÀÇÅ The second type of ¿gured speech is ÈÂÚºÀÇÅ. In this form the speaker presents one set of headings (Á¼ÎÚ¸À¸) but develops these headings in pursuit of another objective (cf. Ps.-Dionysius, 296.14–20). PseudoHermogenes writes of ÈÂÚºÀÇÅ that “while arguing for the opposite side, the speech also accomplishes something else” (On Invention 4.13 [205]). Thus one sets out to accomplish one objective overtly while simultaneously accomplishing another covertly.15 Two examples, among others cited by Ps.-Dionysius, are instructive. In chapter 8 (304.8–14), Ps.-Dionysius points to Archidamus’s speech in Thucydides 1.80–85. In this speech, Archidamus overtly argues that the Spartans delay going to war, although he covertly wishes to persuade the Spartans from ever going to war. In chapter 9 (343.11–345.8), Ps.-Dionysius points to Demosthenes’s speech, the overt objective of which is to keep the Athenians from going to war against the Persians. The covert aim of the speech is actually to prepare them for war against Philip.16 Similarly, in Josephus’s autobiography, Josephus relates that he gave a speech to a mob of Jewish revolutionaries in order to delay their violent uprising. He tells the mob that this delay is to demonstrate the justice of their cause, but his covert aim is to give the governor of Syria time to amass a force large enough to end the revolution (Vita 20–23).17 Another illustration of this type of ¿gured speech appears in Aeschylus’s play Agamemnon. In this play Clytemnestra eagerly awaits the return of her husband, Agamemnon, who sacri¿ced their daughter Iphigenia for favorable winds in order to sail for Troy. Upon hearing the news that Troy has fallen and thus the impending arrival of her husband, Clytemnestra orders the sacred ¿res to be lit throughout the city and 15. Pseudo-Demetrius speaks of the advantages of this more indirect or deÀected (ÈÂÚºÀÇÅ) style (Eloc. 2.104). 16. See also Quintilian, Inst. 9.2.27–29. 17. See the extensive discussion of Josephus’s use of ¿gured writing by Steve Mason, “Figured Speech and Irony in T. Flavius Josephus,” in Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome (ed. Jonathan Edmondson and R. B. Rives; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 243–88. For further discussion of ¿gured subtlety in Josephus’s writings see John M. G. Barclay, “Snarling Sweetly: Josephus on Images and Idolatry,” in Idolatry: False Worship in the Bible, Early Judaism, and Christianity (ed. Stephen C. Barton; London: T&T Clark International, 2007), 73–87, and Jason von Ehrenkrook, Sculpting Idolatry in Flavian Rome: (An)Iconic Rhetoric in the Writings of Flavius Josephus (SBLEJL 33; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011). Both Barclay and Ehrenkrook argue that Josephus offers skilled critique of his Roman imperial context through subtlety without giving direct offense to his pagan Roman audience. 1

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emerges from her home to express her joy in the news of her husband’s return. The chorus receives her joy at face value. They anticipate nothing diabolical in her eagerness to be reunited with her husband. The audience, however, knows that Clytemnestra’s joy at the imminent return of Agamemnon is for the soon-to-be-realized opportunity to avenge Iphigenia. While Clytemnestra’s joy is genuine, it is also ¿gured. The manner in which she expresses her joy deÀects the chorus (and Agamemnon) from her more sinister plans. Such deÀection of purpose is necessary if she is going to be able to carry out this perilous deed.18 This second category of ¿gured speech highlights the idea that rhetoricians, like Ps.-Dionysius, believed speeches could accomplish multiple purposes or “interweave subjects” (ÊÍÈÂÇÁü ĨÈÇ¿ñʼÑÅ).19 For example, in 305.5–309.10, Ps.-Dionysius points to the multiple aims of Plato’s Apology, some of which are hidden (ÁÉįÈÌÑ [305.12]; ëÈÀÊÁĕ¸½Ñ [305.16]). Whereas the overt aim of the speech is Socrates’s defense against the accusations brought against him, the covert aims are to condemn the Athenians who put Socrates on trial, to offer an encomium of Socrates, and to teach one how to be a philosopher.20 There are three additional observations that can be made from the examples considered: (1) sometimes the overt objective is meant to deÀect attention from the covert objective of the speaker or writer, as in the examples of Clytemnestra, Archidamus, Demosthenes, and Josephus; (2) sometimes the overt aim is complemented by covert aims, as in the 18. The Agamemnon drips with ¿gured communication (cf. Anne Lebeck, The Oresteia: A Study in Language and Structure [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971], 3). The speeches are ¿lled with innuendo, obliqueness, and ambiguity. For example, Clytemnestra states that “already the victims stand by the central hearth awaiting sacri¿ce—a joy we never expected to be ours” (1056–57 [Smyth, LCL]). On the surface it is a reference to the traditional sacri¿ce to the goddess of the hearth, but the audience knows that this statement is about the impending death of Agamemnon who will be “sacri¿ced” now that he has entered his home. 19. Heath, “Figured Speech,” 83. 20. Cf. 306.3–10 and 347.21–24 for the discussion of the multiple aims of Demosthenes’s De corona. We also may consider the performance of Accius’s Clytemnestra at the dedication of Pompey’s theater complex in 55 B.C.E. which coincided with the anniversary of Pompey’s third triumph (see Cicero, Fam. 7.1.2– 3). The correlation of Pompey to Agamemnon as a victorious king who returns with the spoils of war from an Asian power would not have been missed. More subtly, a critique of Caesar’s affair with Pompey’s wife might have also been intended. Pompey had divorced his wife upon his return from Asia because of Caesar whom Pompey use to call “Aegisthus” (cf. Suetonius, Jul. 50.1). For further discussion of these points see Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge: Belknap, 2007), 26–29. 1

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example of Plato’s Apology; and (3) sometimes the covert aim is primary while the overt aim is secondary, as demonstrated in Archidamus, Demosthenes, and Josephus. c.