Studia Patristica - Papers Presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2019: Apocrypha Et Gnostica, ... Third Centuries (23) (Studia Patristica, 126) 9789042947801, 9789042947818, 9042947802

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STUDIA PATRISTICA VOL. CXXVI

Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019 Edited by MARKUS VINZENT Volume 23:

Apocrypha et Gnostica Ignatius of Antioch – The Mysterious Bishop (Edited by KEVIN KÜNZL)

The Second and Third Centuries

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2021

STUDIA PATRISTICA VOL. CXXVI

STUDIA PATRISTICA Editor: Markus VINZENT, King’s College London, UK and Max Weber Centre, University of Erfurt, Germany

Board of Directors (2019): Carol HARRISON, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, UK Mark EDWARDS, Professor of Early Christian Studies, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, UK Neil MCLYNN, University Lecturer in Later Roman History, Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford, UK Philip BOOTH, A.G. Leventis Associate Professor in Eastern Christianity, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, UK Sophie LUNN-ROCKLIFFE, Lecturer in Patristics, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK Morwenna LUDLOW, Professor, Theology and Religion, University of Exeter, UK Ioannis PAPADOGIANNAKIS, Senior Lecturer in Patristics, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London, UK Markus VINZENT, Professor of the History of Theology, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London, UK Josef LÖSSL, Professor of Historical Theology and Intellectual History, School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University, UK Lewis AYRES, Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology, Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, UK John BEHR, Regius Chair in Humanity, The School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History, University of Aberdeen, UK Anthony DUPONT, Research Professor in Christian Antiquity, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium Patricia CINER (as president of AIEP), Professor, Universidad de San Juan-Universidad Católica de Cuyo, Argentina Clayton JEFFORD (as president of NAPS), Professor of Scripture, Seminary and School of Theology, Saint Meinrad, IN, USA

STUDIA PATRISTICA VOL. CXXVI

Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019 Edited by MARKUS VINZENT Volume 23:

Apocrypha et Gnostica Ignatius of Antioch – The Mysterious Bishop (Edited by KEVIN KÜNZL)

The Second and Third Centuries

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2021

© Peeters Publishers — Louvain — Belgium 2021 All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form. D/2021/0602/160 ISBN: 978-90-429-4780-1 eISBN: 978-90-429-4781-8 A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in Belgium by Peeters, Leuven

Table of Contents

APOCRYPHA ET GNOSTICA David E. WILHITE Jesus in The Infancy Gospel of ‘the Israelite’ and the God of Israel

3

Tarmo TOOM Theological Basics: Ptolemy’s Theological Introduction to Biblical Interpretation .......................................................................................

17

Francesca MINONNE The Refutation of All Heresies, Gnostics and the Debate on a New τέχνη γραμματική in Early Christianity ............................................

29

Robert WILLIAMS Excerpts from Theodotus: Social Significance of Apostolic Identity and Boundaries ....................................................................................

39

Guiliano CHIAPPARINI The Theodotus of Clement of Alexandria was Not a Valentinian? Analysis of Excerpts from Theodotus 1-3 ..........................................

55

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH – THE MYSTERIOUS BISHOP (edited by Kevin KÜNZL) Kevin KÜNZL Introduction .........................................................................................

69

James B. LEAVENWORTH Wisely Receiving or Foolishly Perishing: Sifting the Variegated Audience of Ignatius of Antioch .........................................................

71

Brian W. BUNNELL Kingdom of God in Ignatius and Paul: A Social-Linguistic Comparison of an Early Christian Stock Phrase ........................................

81

Charles A. BOBERTZ Ritual Practice and Social Formation in Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Smyrneans .................................................................................

93

VI

Table of Contents

Kevin KÜNZL The Ignatian Eucharist in Transition: Textual Variation as Evidence for Transformations in Meal Practice and Theology..........................

99

Markus VINZENT Ignatian Recensions: What are these and How Many? ..................... 121 Reginardus EYSTETTENSIS Ignatius Theophorus. Bischof von Antiochia und ganz Syrien, Papst der Syrisch-orthodoxen Kirche ........................................................... 135 THE SECOND AND THIRD CENTURIES J. Christopher EDWARDS The Epistle of Barnabas and the Origins of the Accusation that the Jews Killed Jesus................................................................................. 147 Robert A. LANE The Relationship of Purpose, Occasion, and Structure in Irenaeus’ Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching ........................................ 155 Emiliano Rubens URCIUOLI An Archetypal Blasé? Justin Martyr and the Segmentation of Christians’ Urban Life ................................................................................. 163 Paul HARTOG The Hospitality of Noah in 1Clement ................................................. 185 Clayton N. JEFFORD Why are there no Manuscripts of the Ancient Didache?................... 195 László PERENDY Tatianus Grammaticus? Tatian’s Discordant Voices about the Achievements of Greek Grammarians ............................................................. 203 Ian N. MILLS Tatian’s Diatessaron as ‘Canonical’ Gospel. Walter Bauer and the Reception of Christian ‘Apocrypha’ ................................................... 215 Monika RECINOVÁ The Influence of the Commonplace of Xenophanean Philosophical Theology on Athenagoras of Athens’ Legatio pro Christianis .......... 229

Table of Contents

VII

Janelle PETERS The Crown and the Games in 2Clement: Healing, Status, and Almsgiving ................................................................................................... 245 Carson BAY Pseudo-Hegesippus and the Beginnings of Christian Historiography in Late Antiquity ................................................................................. 255 Ruth SUTCLIFFE No Need to Apologise? Tertullian and the Paradox of Polemic against Persecution .............................................................................. 267 Alex FOGLEMAN Tertullian as Catechist: The Example of De baptismo ...................... 279 J. Columcille DEVER Prometheus, Creation, and Christ: Tertullian of Carthage’s Defense of the Christian Narrative.................................................................... 289 Benjamin CABE The Engendered Soul in Apelles and Tertullian ................................ 301 István M. BUGÁR Hippolytus on the Virgin..................................................................... 309 Edwina MURPHY Fiery Trials and Salvific Water: Cyprian’s Use of 1Peter ................ 317 Joseph E. LENOW Cyprian on Christ’s Continuing Agency in the Church: The Importance of Epistle 10 ............................................................................... 327 Matthew ESQUIVEL Penance and Ecclesial Purity: The Divine Urgency behind Cyprian’s Response to the Decian Persecution ................................................... 341 Elisa Victoria BLUM Part of Baptism or Reconciliation? On the impositio manus in the Baptismal Dispute ............................................................................... 351 Laetitia CICCOLINI Ongoing Research on the Quod idola dii non sint (CPL 57): The Question of the Title ........................................................................... 361

VIII

Table of Contents

Zachary Cormac ESTERSON Land of the Apocalypse. The Pannonian Context of Victorinus of Pettau’s Commentary on Revelation................................................... 371 Alexey MOROZOV Pour une édition critique du De Resurrectione de Méthode d’Olympe : Enjeux et problèmes ............................................................................ 397 Nathan TILLEY Sterile Virgins and Procreative Texts: Platonic Verbal Reproduction in Methodius’ Symposium ................................................................... 407 Alberto D’INCÀ Forma feminarum. ‘Feminine’ Ideas in Third-Century Christian North Africa: An Occasion to Rethink Commodian’s Origins .................... 425

Abbreviations AA.SS AAWG.PH AB AC ACL ACO ACW AHDLMA AJAH AJP AKK AKPAW ALMA ALW AnalBoll ANCL ANF ANRW AnSt AnThA APOT AR ARW ASS AThANT Aug AugSt AW AZ BA BAC BASOR BDAG BEHE BETL BGL BHG BHL

see ASS. Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen Philologisch-historische Klasse, Göttingen. Analecta Bollandiana, Brussels. Antike und Christentum, ed. F.J. Dölger, Münster. Antiquité classique, Louvain. Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum, ed. E. Schwartz, Berlin. Ancient Christian Writers, ed. J. Quasten and J.C. Plumpe, Westminster (Md.)/London. Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge, Paris. American Journal of Ancient History, Cambridge, Mass. American Journal of Philology, Baltimore. Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrecht, Mainz. Abhandlungen der königlichen Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin. Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi (Bulletin du Cange), Paris/Brussels. Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, Regensburg. Analecta Bollandiana, Brussels. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Edinburgh. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Buffalo/New York. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, ed H. Temporini et al., Berlin. Anatolian Studies, London. Année théologique augustinienne, Paris. Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, ed. R.E. Charles, Oxford. Archivum Romanicum, Florence. Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, Berlin/Leipzig. Acta Sanctorum, ed. the Bollandists, Brussels. Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments, Zürich. Augustinianum, Rome. Augustinian Studies, Villanova (USA). Athanasius Werke, ed. H.-G. Opitz et al., Berlin. Archäologische Zeitung, Berlin. Bibliothèque augustinienne, Paris. Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, Madrid. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, New Haven, Conn. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edn F.W. Danker, Chicago. Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, Paris. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, Louvain. Benediktinisches Geistesleben, St. Ottilien. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca, Brussels. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis, Brussels.

X BHO BHTh BJ BJRULM BKV BKV2 BKV3 BLE BoJ BS BSL BWAT Byz BZ BZNW CAr CBQ CChr.CM CChr.SA CChr.SG CChr.SL CH CIL CP(h) CPG CPL CQ CR CSCO

CSEL CSHB CTh CUF CW DAC

Abbreviations

Bibliotheca Hagiographica Orientalis, Brussels. Beiträge zur historischen Theologie, Tübingen. Bursians Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, Leipzig. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester. Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, ed. F.X. Reithmayr and V. Thalhofer, Kempten. Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, ed. O. Bardenhewer, Th. Schermann, and C. Weyman, Kempten/Munich. Bibliothek der Kirchenväter. Zweite Reihe, ed. O. Bardenhewer, J. Zellinger, and J. Martin, Munich. Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique, Toulouse. Bonner Jahrbücher, Bonn. Bibliotheca sacra, London. Bolletino di studi latini, Naples. Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten Testament, Leipzig/Stuttgart. Byzantion, Leuven. Byzantinische Zeitschrift, Leipzig. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, Berlin. Cahiers Archéologique, Paris. Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Washington. Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, Turnhout/Paris. Corpus Christianorum, Series Apocryphorum, Turnhout/Paris. Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca, Turnhout/Paris. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Turnhout/Paris. Church History, Chicago. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Berlin. Classical Philology, Chicago. Clavis Patrum Graecorum, ed. M. Geerard, vols. I-VI, Turnhout. Clavis Patrum Latinorum (SE 3), ed. E. Dekkers and A. Gaar, Turnhout. Classical Quarterly, London/Oxford. The Classical Review, London/Oxford. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Louvain. Aeth = Scriptores Aethiopici Ar = Scriptores Arabici Arm = Scriptores Armeniaci Copt = Scriptores Coptici Iber = Scriptores Iberici Syr = Scriptores Syri Subs = Subsidia Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna. Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, Bonn. Collectanea Theologica, Lvov. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l’Association Guillaume Budé, Paris. Catholic World, New York. Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, ed. J. Hastings, Edinburgh.

Abbreviations

DACL DAL DB DBS DCB DHGE Did DOP DOS DR DS DSp DTC EA ECatt ECQ EE EECh EKK EH EO EtByz ETL EWNT ExpT FC FGH FKDG FRL FS FThSt FTS FZThPh GCS GDV GLNT GNO GRBS

XI

see DAL Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. F. Cabrol, H. Leclercq, Paris. Dictionnaire de la Bible, Paris. Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplément, Paris. Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines, ed. W. Smith and H. Wace, 4 vols, London. Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique, ed. A. Baudrillart, Paris. Didaskalia, Lisbon. Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Cambridge, Mass., subsequently Washington, D.C. Dumbarton Oaks Studies, Cambridge, Mass., subsequently Washington, D.C. Downside Review, Stratton on the Fosse, Bath. H.J. Denzinger and A. Schönmetzer, ed., Enchiridion Symbolorum, Barcelona/Freiburg i.B./Rome. Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, ed. M. Viller, S.J., and others, Paris. Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. A. Vacant, E. Mangenot, and E. Amann, Paris. Études augustiniennes, Paris. Enciclopedia Cattolica, Rome. Eastern Churches Quarterly, Ramsgate. Estudios eclesiasticos, Madrid. Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed. A. Di Berardino, Cambridge. Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, Neukirchen. Enchiridion Fontium Historiae Ecclesiasticae Antiquae, ed. Ueding-Kirch, 6th ed., Barcelona. Échos d’Orient, Paris. Études Byzantines, Paris. Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Louvain. Exegetisches Wörterbuch zum NT, ed. H.R. Balz et al., Stuttgart. The Expository Times, Edinburgh. The Fathers of the Church, New York. Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Berlin. Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Göttingen. Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments, Göttingen. Festschrift. Freiburger theologische Studien, Freiburg i.B. Frankfurter theologische Studien, Frankfurt a.M. Freiburger Zeitschrift für Theologie und Philosophie, Freiburg/Switzerland. Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller, Leipzig/Berlin. Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit, Stuttgart. Grande Lessico del Nuovo Testamento, Genoa. Gregorii Nysseni Opera, Leiden. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Cambridge, Mass.

XII GWV HbNT HDR HJG HKG HNT HO HSCP HTR HTS HZ ICC ILCV ILS J(b)AC JBL JdI JECS JEH JJS JLH JPTh JQR JRS JSJ JSOR JTS KAV KeTh KJ(b) LCL LNPF L(O)F LSJ LThK LXX MA MAMA Mansi MBTh

Abbreviations

Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, Offenburg. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament. Tübingen. Harvard Dissertations in Religion, Missoula. Historisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft, successively Munich, Cologne and Munich/Freiburg i.B. Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, Tübingen. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, Tübingen. Handbuch der Orientalistik, Leiden. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard Theological Review, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard Theological Studies, Cambridge, Mass. Historische Zeitschrift, Munich/Berlin. The International Critical Commentary of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, Edinburgh. Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, ed. E. Diehl, Berlin. Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, ed. H. Dessau, Berlin. Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Münster. Journal of Biblical Literature, Philadelphia, Pa., then various places. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Berlin. Journal of Early Christian Studies, Baltimore. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, London. Journal of Jewish Studies, London. Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie, Kassel. Jahrbücher für protestantische Theologie, Leipzig/Freiburg i.B. Jewish Quarterly Review, Philadelphia. Journal of Roman Studies, London. Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period, Leiden. Journal of the Society of Oriental Research, Chicago. Journal of Theological Studies, Oxford. Kommentar zu den apostolischen Vätern, Göttingen. Kerk en Theologie, ’s Gravenhage. Kirchliches Jahrbuch für die evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, Gütersloh. The Loeb Classical Library, London/Cambridge, Mass. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace, Buffalo/New York. Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Oxford. H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, new (9th) edn H.S. Jones, Oxford. Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Freiburg i.B. Septuagint. Moyen-Âge, Brussels. Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, London. J.D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, Florence, 1759-1798. Reprint and continuation: Paris/Leipzig, 1901-1927. Münsterische Beiträge zur Theologie, Münster.

Abbreviations

MCom MGH ML MPG MSR MThZ Mus NA28 NGWG NH(M)S NIV NKJV NovTest NPNF NRSV NRTh NTA NT.S NTS NTTSD OBO OCA OCP OECS OLA OLP Or OrChr OrSyr PG PGL PL PLRE PLS PO PRE PS PTA PThR PTS PW QLP QuLi RAC RACh

XIII

Miscelanea Comillas, Comillas/Santander. Monumenta germaniae historica. Hanover/Berlin. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Louvain. See PG. Mélanges de science religieuse, Lille. Münchener theologische Zeitschrift, Munich. Le Muséon, Louvain. Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th edition, Stuttgart. Nachrichten der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Nag Hammadi (and Manichaean) Studies, Leiden. New International Version. New King James Version. Novum Testamentum, Leiden. See LNPF. New Revised Standard Version. Nouvelle Revue Théologique, Tournai/Louvain/Paris. Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen, Münster. Novum Testamentum Supplements, Leiden. New Testament Studies, Cambridge/Washington. New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents, Leiden/Boston. Orbis biblicus et orientalis, Freiburg, Switz., then Louvain. Orientalia Christiana Analecta, Rome. Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Rome. Oxford Early Christian Studies, Oxford. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, Louvain. Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, Louvain. Orientalia. Commentarii editi a Pontificio Instituto Biblico, Rome. Oriens Christianus, Leipzig, then Wiesbaden. L’Orient Syrien, Paris. Migne, Patrologia, series graeca. A Patristic Greek Lexicon, ed. G.L. Lampe, Oxford. Migne, Patrologia, series latina. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, ed. A.H.M. Jones et al., Cambridge. Migne, Patrologia, series latina. Supplementum ed. A. Hamman. Patrologia Orientalis, Paris. Paulys Realenzyklopädie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft, Stuttgart. Patrologia Syriaca, Paris. Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen, Bonn. Princeton Theological Review, Princeton. Patristische Texte und Studien, Berlin. Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. G. Wissowa, Stuttgart. Questions liturgiques et paroissiales, Louvain. Questions liturgiques, Louvain. Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, Rome. Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, Stuttgart.

XIV RAM RAug RBen RB(ibl) RE

Abbreviations

Revue d’ascétique et de mystique, Paris. Recherches Augustiniennes, Paris. Revue Bénédictine, Maredsous. Revue biblique, Paris. Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, founded by J.J. Herzog, 3e ed. A. Hauck, Leipzig. REA(ug) Revue des études Augustiniennes, Paris. REB Revue des études byzantines, Paris. RED Rerum ecclesiasticarum documenta, Rome. RÉL Revue des études latines, Paris. REG Revue des études grecques, Paris. RevSR Revue des sciences religieuses, Strasbourg. RevThom Revue thomiste, Toulouse. RFIC Rivista di filologia e d’istruzione classica, Turin. RGG Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Gunkel-Zscharnack, Tübingen RHE Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Louvain. RhMus Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Bonn. RHR Revue de l’histoire des religions, Paris. RHT Revue d’Histoire des Textes, Paris. RMAL Revue du Moyen-Âge Latin, Paris. ROC Revue de l’Orient chrétien, Paris. RPh Revue de philologie, Paris. RQ Römische Quartalschrift, Freiburg i.B. RQH Revue des questions historiques, Paris. RSLR Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa, Florence. RSPT, RSPh Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, Paris. RSR Recherches de science religieuse, Paris. RTAM Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, Louvain. RthL Revue théologique de Louvain, Louvain. RTM Rivista di teologia morale, Bologna. Sal Salesianum, Roma. SBA Schweizerische Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft, Basel. SBS Stuttgarter Bibelstudien, Stuttgart. ScEc Sciences ecclésiastiques, Bruges. SCh, SC Sources chrétiennes, Paris. SD Studies and Documents, ed. K. Lake and S. Lake. London/Philadelphia. SE Sacris Erudiri, Bruges. SDHI Studia et documenta historiae et iuris, Roma. SH Subsidia Hagiographica, Brussels. SHA Scriptores Historiae Augustae. SJMS Speculum. Journal of Mediaeval Studies, Cambridge, Mass. SM Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens und seiner Zweige, Munich. SO Symbolae Osloenses, Oslo. SP Studia Patristica, successively Berlin, Kalamazoo, Leuven. SPM Stromata Patristica et Mediaevalia, ed. C. Mohrmann and J. Quasten, Utrecht.

Abbreviations

SQ SQAW SSL StudMed SVigChr SVF TDNT TE ThGl ThJ ThLZ ThPh ThQ ThR ThWAT ThWNT ThZ TLG TP TRE TS TThZ TU USQR VC VetChr VT WBC WUNT WZKM YUP ZAC ZAM ZAW ZDPV ZKG ZKTh ZNW ZRG ZThK

XV

Sammlung ausgewählter Quellenschriften zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Tübingen. Schriften und Quellen der Alten Welt, Berlin. Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, Louvain. Studi Medievali, Turin. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, Leiden. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ed. J. von Arnim, Leipzig. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Grand Rapids, Mich. Teologia espiritual, Valencia. Theologie und Glaube, Paderborn. Theologische Jahrbücher, Leipzig. Theologische Literaturzeitung, Leipzig. Theologie und Philosophie, Freiburg i.B. Theologische Quartalschrift, Tübingen. Theologische Rundschau, Tübingen. Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament, Stuttgart. Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, Stuttgart. Theologische Zeitschrift, Basel. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Lancaster, Pa. Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Berlin. Theological Studies, New York and various places; now Washington, DC. Trierer theologische Zeitschrift, Trier. Texte und Untersuchungen, Leipzig/Berlin. Union Seminary Quarterly Review, New York. Vigiliae Christianae, Amsterdam. Vetera Christianorum, Bari (Italy). Vetus Testamentum, Leiden. Word Biblical Commentary, Waco. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, Tübingen. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Vienna. Yale University Press, New Haven. Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, Berlin. Zeitschrift für Aszese und Mystik, Innsbruck, then Würzburg. Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Giessen, then Berlin. Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins, Leipzig. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, Gotha, then Stuttgart. Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, Vienna. Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche, Giessen, then Berlin. Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, Weimar. Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, Tübingen.

APOCRYPHA ET GNOSTICA

Jesus in The Infancy Gospel of ‘the Israelite’ and the God of Israel David E. WILHITE, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA

ABSTRACT In recent studies of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (IGT), the text is read as problematic because it depicts the young Jesus as shaming, cursing, and killing in an apparent arbitrary manner (van Aarde 2006 [see n. 3]; Aasgaard 2009 [see n. 5]; Whitenton 2015 [see n. 7]; Eastman 2015 [see n. 8]; Cousland 2018 [see n. 9]). In response, scholars offer to solve the problem by showing specific contextual elements from late antiquity that can explain certain facets of Jesus depicted in the IGT. In light of the ancient context, it is claimed that there is no problem to be solved; the text’s own thought-world has simply been misunderstood. In my article, I will argue that the portrayal of Jesus in the IGT is still problematic, but the problem is not created by the IGT itself: instead of claiming that the IGT’s Jesus is incompatible with the canonical picture of Jesus, I argue that the canonical Gospels’ depiction of Jesus is – to some ancient readers – incompatible with the character of the God of Israel depicted in the Jewish scriptures. The IGT dissolves this tension by depicting ‘the Lord (Kurios)’ of Israel as having become a fully human child, who then grows in character and learns ‘to bless and not to curse’ (IGT 4.2), that is, he ‘grows in wisdom’ (IGT 17.5// Luke 2:52). In short, aside from the insights gained in recent studies that focus on the late antique setting, the primary backdrop for explaining Jesus’ character in the IGT is found in the God worshipped by the ‘Israelite’ (IGT 1.1).

Introduction When reading the ancient text known as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (IGT), we almost cannot avoid borrowing the title of William Chatterton Dix’ carol, to ask: ‘What child is this?’ The text depicts the child Jesus as shaming, cursing, and killing in an apparent arbitrary manner. This depiction does not sit well with modern readers who find Jesus’ character in the IGT to be incompatible with the character found in the canonical gospels. Calvin Ellis Stowe set the tone for this interpretation in 1868 by labeling Jesus in the IGT as ‘immoral and malevolent’.1 Similarly, Adolf von Harnack described the text as, ‘die anstössige und abstossende Kindheitsgeschichte Jesu’.2 1

Calvin Ellis Stowe, Origin and History of the Books of the Bible (Hartford, CT, 1868), 206. Adolf von Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (Leipzig, 1897), 593. More recently, see L. Paulissen, ‘Jésu enfant divin: Processus de reconnaissance dans l’Évangile de l’Enfance selon Thomas’, Revue de Philosophie Ancienne 22 (2004), 17-28. 2

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 3-16. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

D.E. WILHITE

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These scholars from early modernity could easily dismiss this text as ‘Gnostic’ or even Marcosian, since it was cited as such in the late second century by Irenaeus (Haer. 1.20.1). Recent studies, however, have shown that there is nothing particularly ‘gnostic’ about the text, nor is there anything in the text that aligns with any particular sect.3 Instead, the widespread distribution of this text into numerous translations suggests the opposite: this text was well received by a large number of Christians in late antiquity. Even so, the character of Jesus is still seen as a problem by modern scholars. There has been a series of very recent studies which offer to solve the problem by showing specific contextual elements from late antiquity which explain certain facets of Jesus depicted in the IGT. This approach tends to defend the text from accusations of crudeness or being unreflective so that it can be restored to the proper corpus of early Christian literature. Thus, it has been argued that the IGT can be better understood in light of ancient constructions of ethnicity,4 or as the first Christian children’s story,5 or as an attempt to depict Jesus as a ‘Jewish Holy Man’ like Elisha,6 or in terms of classical moral development,7 or in terms of the role of curses in antiquity,8 or most recently in light of classical accounts of Greco-Roman demi-/gods in their adolescence.9 For whichever particular social insight drawn from the study of late antiquity, it is claimed by these scholars that there is now no problem to be solved; the text’s own thought-world had simply been misunderstood. Despite the contribution these recent studies have made to our understanding of the IGT, such attempts at explaining away the problem entirely has been shown to be misguided. In her 2013 article in the journal Church History, Kristi Upson-Saia demonstrated that ancient audiences, especially Christian ones, often did judge outbursts of anger to be inappropriate and immoral; even for

3

The one exception is the claim that this text reflects Ebionite Christianity, as argued by S.J. Voicu, ‘Histoire de l’enfance de Jésus’, in F. Bovon and P. Geoltrain (eds), Écrits apocryphes chrétiens (Paris, 1997), I 191-204, 19; id., ‘Verso il testo primitivo dei Παιδικὰ τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ: Racconti dell’infanzia del Signore Gesù’, Apocrypha 9 (1998), 7-95, 50. This hypothesis is also followed by Andries G. Van Aarde, ‘Ebionite Tendencies in the Jesus Tradition: The Infancy Gospel of Thomas Interpreted from the Perspective of Ethnic Identity’, Neotestamentica 40 (2006), 353-82. This option will be discussed further below (see note 21). 4 A.G. Van Aarde, ‘Ebionite Tendencies’ (2006). 5 Reidar Aasgaard, The Childhood of Jesus: Decoding the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Eugene, OR, 2009). 6 Tony Burke, De infantia Iesu euangelium Thomae graece, CChr.SA 17 (Turnhout, 2010), 276-81. 7 Michael R. Whitenton, ‘The Moral Character Development of the Boy Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 38 (2015), 219-40. 8 Daniel Eastman, ‘Cursing in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas’, Vigiliae Christianae 69 (2015), 186-208. 9 J.R.C. Cousland, Holy Terror: Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Library for New Testament Studies 560 (London, 2018).

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children.10 The most convincing part of her case is where she points out how the IGT itself cites how offensive Jesus’ actions are to his audience, which is clearly a cue to how the readers would feel as well. Her solution to what she insists is a real problem is to see the IGT as a collection of stories that were originally invented by Christianity’s opponents, but which were then cleverly accommodated by later Christians to be used as a demonstration of Jesus’ power, even in childhood. While this is a creative solution which I think rightly demonstrates that Jesus’ actions in the IGT would be seen as problematic by an ancient Christian audience, I am not convinced that Upson-Saia has given sufficient evidence to see these stories as originally composed by opponents of Christianity. In fact, she cannot point to any comparable instance of a scene from Jesus’ childhood being used by those who slandered Christians,11 nor to any Christian apologist who responded to such a charge. Therefore, while Upson-Saia has rightly identified Jesus’ behavior in the IGT as problematic for its own audience, I wish to suggest an alternative solution to this problem. I content that the portrayal of Jesus in the IGT is problematic, but the problem is not created by the contents of the IGT. Instead, the IGT is an attempt to solve a problem already present in early Christianity. Namely, instead of claiming that the IGT’s Jesus is incompatible with the canonical picture of Jesus, I argue that the canonical12 Gospels’ depiction of Jesus is, to some readers (e.g., Marcionites, Valentinians), incompatible with the character of the God of Israel depicted in the Jewish scriptures/Old Testament. Numerous sources from the second and third centuries understand Jesus as the ‘Lord (Kurios)’ of the Septuagint come in the flesh (e.g., Ep. Barn.; Justin, Dial.; catacomb imagery; etc.13), and yet the character of Israel’s God and the character of Jesus in the canonical Gospels appear to be in tension. The IGT dissolves this tension by depicting ‘the Lord (Kurios)’ of Israel as having become fully man (or better, fully child), who then grows in his character and learns ‘to bless and not to curse’ (IGT 4.2). The resulting picture is one of the ‘Lord’ come in the flesh, but who has ‘grown in wisdom’ (IGT 17.5//Luke 2:52). In short, without dismissing the insights gained in recent studies that focus on the Greco-Roman 10

Kristi Upson-Saia, ‘Holy Child or Holy Terror?: Understanding Jesus’ Anger in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas’, Church History 82 (2013), 1-39. 11 See Celsus’ claims about Mary’s illegitimate conception of Jesus (apud Origen, Contra Celsum 2.76). 12 The term ‘canonical’ is used here as a convenient short-hand way of referring to the texts which became approved by the majority of churches. It should be noted that some scholars would argue for a minimalist assumption about the IGT’s knowledge of and engagement with other gospels. See S.J. Davis, Christ Child: Cultural Memories of a Young Jesus (New Haven, 2014), 21-2. However, others make a maximalist assumption. For example, see also Geert Van Oyen, ‘Rereading the Rewriting of the Biblical Traditions in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Paidika)’, in Claire Clivaz, Andreas Dettwiler, Luc Devillers, Enrico Norelli and Benjamin Bertho (eds), Infancy Gospels: Stories and Identities, WUNT 281 (Tübingen, 2011), 482-505. 13 These will be briefly explored in the conclusion.

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background, I contend that the primary backdrop for explaining Jesus’ character in the IGT is found in the God worshipped by the ‘Israelite’ (IGT 1.1). Preliminary Concerns Before turning to the text itself to see how Jesus is depicted as the God of Israel come as a child, two preliminary concerns need to be briefly addressed. The first is in regard to the text itself, and then the second is to its dating. While Burke concludes the text was most likely authored in Greek, he later entertains the possibility that Syriac is the original language for the text.14 Regardless, the current Syriac manuscripts are witnesses to an early text, along with variants found in other Greek manuscripts (which unseats the manuscript tradition accepted as the textus receptus for most modern scholars). Therefore, Burke’s volume 17 of the Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum (2010) is the best critical edition available to assess the manuscripts,15 especially when supplemented by his work on the Syriac and Arabic manuscripts (which is translated in New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures [2017]).16 One difficulty remains, however, in that Burke provides texts and translations of each manuscript tradition, rather than attempt to reconstruct the Vorlage of the IGT. Even so, he argues that the manuscript tradition known as Recension S (primarily based on Cod. Sabaiticus 259) represents the earliest Greek tradition (hereafter known as ‘Gs’), and when compared to the Syriac and other early witnesses represents the closest possible approximation to the original text. In what follows, I will use Gs as my ‘text’, while also noting discrepancies found in other recensions when pertinent. As for the dating, the majority of scholars accept that Irenaeus17 cites a version of the IGT, since he notes the story of the boy Jesus explaining the meaning of Alpha to the teacher and then goes on to talk about the appearance of Jesus in the temple at age 12 (see IGT 17.5//Luke 2:52).18 The case is not definitive because Irenaeus could be referencing a different text with the same content, or an altogether different version of the text.19 In short the dating of the extant recensions in the form we have them remains uncertain. While my argument 14

Tony Burke, The Syriac Tradition of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas: A Critical Edition and English Translation (Piscataway, NJ, 2017), 24. 15 T. Burke, De infantia Iesu (2010). Also see the extensive discussion and bibliography in S.J. Voicu, ‘Verso il testo primitivo dei Παιδικὰ τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ’ (1998), 7-85. 16 Tony Burke and Brent Landau, New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI, 2017), 61-8. 17 Haer. 1.20.1 (ed. Rousseau and Doutreleau 1979: 288-9); See Epistula Apostolorum 4. 18 See Ron Cameron (ed.), The Other Gospels: Non-Canonical Gospel Texts (Philadelphia, PA, 1982), 122-3; and T. Burke, De infantia Iesu (2010), 202-3. 19 See T. Burke, De infantia Iesu (2010), 4-5, for a review of scholars who doubt a secondcentury dating for the text.

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does not depend on the dating of this text, I am convinced that a version of the IGT roughly equivalent to the text as it is known today existed in the midsecond century. If that is correct, then my argument about identifying Jesus with the God of Israel’s scriptures is strengthened by the fact that this was an intense debate at this time among various Christian groups like the Marcionites and the so-called Gnostics. We may now turn to the text itself to see how Jesus is presented. Jesus as the LORD of IGT The opening line states: ‘I, Thomas the Israelite, thought it necessary to make known to all the Gentile brethren all that our Lord Jesus Christ did after his birth in our region Bethlehem in the village of Nazareth’.20 The title for Jesus given here, ‘Lord’, is common, and yet the use of κύριος should not be ignored, since this was given as the divine name in the Septuagint. In this sentence, the ‘Israelite’ is contrasted with ‘the gentiles’, while Jesus’ birth in ‘our region’ is emphasized. All of these indicators serve to locate the account (fictively or otherwise) in the land of Israel. This reference to ‘Thomas the Israelite’ is found in the Greek recensions as well as later translations based on them (A, B, and S; see also the Slavonic; the Late Latin/Vat. lat. 4578 at 4.1). This opening line, therefore, has ‘the Israelite’ writing to other ‘kinsmen’ from among the gentiles.21 This opening line convinced Bellarmino Bagatti to locate the text’s origin in Palestine, noting the similarities between Jesus’ curses and those of the Elisha narrative (see 2Kings 2:23-4) and even those made by God (see 2Sam. 6:6-8).22 Burke reviewed further similarities with Jewish literature,23 but he notes that this need not tie the text to Palestine but could simply connect it to any city of the diaspora.24 While Burke is correct about its actual provenance, I would simply add that the provenance of this opening line, even if fictive, directs the reader to think in terms of Israel as surrounded by ‘the nations’. 20 IGT 1 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 302-3): Ἀναγκαῖον ἡγησάμην ἐγὼ Θωμᾶς Ἰσραηλίτης γνωρίσαι πᾶσιν τοῖς ἐξ ἐθνῶν ἀδελφοῖς ὅσα ἐποίησεν ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς ὁ Κριστὸς γεννηθεἰς ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ ἡμῶν Βηθλεέμ κώμῃ Ναζαρέτ. 21 A.G. Van Aarde, ‘Ebionite Tendencies’ (2006), 363, is correct in identifying this emphasis, even if he is mistaken in locating the text within Ebionite circles. Van Aarde’s only evidence for this conclusion is that IGT is shown to be not-Gnostic and Jewish. For the difficulties of identifying ‘Jewish Christians’ as Ebionites, see Wilhite, The Gospel According to Heretics (Grand Rapids, MI, 2015), 41-60. 22 Bellarmino Bagatti, ‘Nota sul Vangelo di Tommaso Israelita’, Euntes Docete 29 (1976), 482-9, 487. 23 T. Burke, De infantia Iesu (2010), 208-9. 24 T. Burke, De infantia Iesu (2010), 211. For further bibliography of possible locales, see J.R.C. Cousland, Holy Terror (2018), 12-3.

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It should be stipulated at this point that even if this prologue is not original (as suggested by its omission in the Syriac manuscripts),25 the following argument presented here still stands. The text begins with Jesus creating from clay and ends with Jesus in the Temple. This is clearly about Jesus and his identification with the Creator God of Israel worshipped in Jerusalem. Furthermore, the alternative Syriac (and Georgian) title is ‘The Childhood of the Lord Jesus’;26 I would contend that this would be enough for most Christians to identify ‘the Lord’ of this text as divine and the additional cues (discussed below) wherein Jesus is identified with the God of Israel’s scriptures (as known in the LXX). If anything, the addition to the Greek edition could represent (a) a clarifying signal that this story is about Israel’s God, and (b) an anti-Semitic distinction between Thomas as a true heir of Israel and ‘the Jews’ who are antagonistic to Jesus throughout the text (e.g., IGT 1.3; 2.5; 3.1; 6.2.c). The former would be understood as the ancient people of God to whom the Christians are spiritual heirs, while the latter would be understood as Jews ‘according to the flesh’ (see 1Cor. 10:18; Rom. 9:3)27 who do not belong to the covenant because of their ‘blasphemy’ in rejecting Jesus (see Acts 18:6).28 Beyond this opening line, there are several statements that support my hypothesis. The opening scene immediately ties the child Jesus both to the Creator God of Israel known in Genesis and to the Rabbinic Man from Nazareth who is known in the canonical Gospels (or at least in Luke). He ‘stirs up the waters (ταράσσων τὰ ὕδατα)’,29 which is likely an allusion to the pool of Bethesda from John 5:7 (where an angel is said to ταραχθῇ τὸ ὕδωρ), but it also likely an allusion to Genesis 1:2, where the Spirit of God ‘moves … the waters (ἐπεφέρετο ἐπάνω τοῦ ὕδατος)’.30 Then, just as in Genesis 1:9 God was ‘gathering (συναγωγήν)’ the waters at creation, so Jesus in the IGT ‘gathers (συνήγαγεν)’31 the waters, and the child Jesus does this by ‘his word alone (λόγου μόνον)’,32 just as God did in Genesis.33 25 The Syriac manuscripts, as well as many Greek copies (which combine to make up the earliest witnesses), omit the title – as well as some healing miracles (chapters 10, 17, and 18). 26 T. Burke, ‘The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Syriac): A New Translation and Introduction’, in id. and Brent Landau (eds), More New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI, 2017), 52. 27 The text is clearly aware of the Pauline corpus. See IGT 6.2.f and the use of 1Cor. 13:1. 28 This is evident in other mid-second century texts, like Ep. Barn. and Justin Martyr, Dial. Trypho. 29 IGT 2.1 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 302-3). 30 Alternatively, J.R.C. Cousland, Holy Terror (2018), 84-5, sees the cleansing of the waters, ‘which were unclean’ (IGT 2.1 [ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 302-3]), as a possible reference to Moses’ miracle in Exod. 15:22-5 and Elisha’s in 2Kings 2:21. 31 IGT 2.1 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 302-3). 32 IGT 2.1 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 302-3). 33 See Psalm 32:6, 9 LXX.

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Likewise, just as God created the first man from the dust of the earth (in Gen. 2:7), so in the IGT Jesus took clay and formed twelve birds.34 A child ‘of a certain Jew (τις Ἰουδαῖος)’35 accused Jesus for doing this on the Sabbath, which alludes to many Gospel scenes (e.g., Luke 6:1-10 and parallels). When confronted, Jesus commanded36 the birds to fly and be ‘like living beings (ὡς ζῶντες)’,37 which is likely an echo of Gen. 2:7, where man becomes a ‘living soul (ψυχὴν ζῶσαν)’. When the son of Annas the High priest (see Luke 3:2; John 18:13-24; Acts 4:6) then drained the pools of water so the child Jesus could do no more miracles on the Sabbath in them, Jesus curses him, saying, ‘Your fruit shall be without root and your shoot dried up like a branch scorched by a strong wind (Ἄριζος ὁ καρπός σου καὶ ξηρὸς ὁ βλαστός σου ὡς κλάδος ἐκκαιόμενος ἐν πνεύματι βιαίω)’,38 which sounds like the things God frequently says to the unfaithful in the scriptures (e.g., Isa. 40:6-7; Ezek. 17:9; Amos 2:9). In the next paragraph, there is another possible allusion to how God’s word is fiat in the scriptures (such as Gen. 15:1; Ps. 32:6-9 LXX; Isa. 40:8-10),39 when the crowd says of the child Jesus, ‘his word becomes a deed (τὸ ῥῆμα αὐτοῦ ἔργον ἐστίν)’.40 At the end of this scene, when Joseph tries to rebuke him, Jesus speaks openly about his pre-existence, which serves to relegate Joseph’s authority over him to one of steward, not father,41 and then when a teacher asks to train Jesus, Jesus restates his pre-existence and his prior omnipresence.42 When the crowd wonders at his response, Jesus even declares himself as the one who existed ‘before the world was created (πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον κτισθῆναι)’.43 The teacher Zacchaeus attempts to instruct the boy, but Jesus instead displays his knowledge of the alphabet and each symbol’s meaning, 34 IGT 2.2 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 302-3). J.R.C. Cousland, Holy Terror (2018), 38, while comparing this scene to the Gospels, describes these miracles as ‘Jesus’ active emulation of God’ (i.e., this is how his contemporaries would see him). I would stipulate that in the IGT Jesus is not emulating God in this scene; Jesus is God in this scene (as J.R.C. Cousland notes on elsewhere; see also Holy Terror [2018], 44, 52). 35 IGT 2.3 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 302-3). 36 See Psalm 32:6, 9 LXX. 37 IGT 2.4 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 304-5). 38 IGT 3.2 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 306-7). 39 Gen. 15:1: ‘After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram (μετὰ δὲ τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα ἐγενήθη ῥῆμα κυρίου πρὸς Αβραμ)’. Isa. 40:8-10: ‘The word of our God (τὸ δὲ ῥῆμα τοῦ θεοῦ) will stand forever … and his work before him (τὸ ἔργον ἐναντίον αὐτοῦ [NRSV, slightly altered])’. 40 IGT 4.1 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 306-7). 41 IGT 5.3. See T. Burke, De infantia Iesu (2010), 309 n. 6 for the variants in the manuscripts and the varied 42 IGT 6.2.b. 43 IGT 6.2.d (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 314-5). Pace S.J. Voicu, ‘Verso il testo primitivo dei Παιδικὰ τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ’ (1998), 50, who denies that the text describes Jesus as divine (‘senza mai affermare esplicitamente la sua origine divina’).

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which puts the teacher to shame.44 After hearing Jesus’ speech, the teacher declares: ‘This child is a great thing – either a god or an angel or what I should say I do not know (τοῦτο γὰρ τὸ παιδίον τίποτε μέγα ἐστίν, ἤ θεὸς ἤ ἄγγελος ἤ τί εἴπω οὐκ οἶδα)’.45 Later, when Jesus raises a boy from the dead (and then lets him die again), the parents, ‘praised God and worshipped the child Jesus (ἐδόξασαν τὸν θεὸν καὶ προσεκύνησαν τὸ παιδίον Ἰησοῦν)’,46 which implies their recognition of his divine status. Of course, his divine power has already been demonstrated in his miracles, and this is reiterated when Jesus’ second teacher dies after striking Jesus on the head.47 The third teacher hears Jesus and declares him to be ‘full of grace and wisdom (χάριτος χαὶ σοφία μεστόν)’,48 which finally appeases the child and seems to be a turning point in the text for Jesus’ own actions and perhaps even his character development.

The Character Development of the LORD Jesus At this point, it is worth reviewing the overarching character development of the IGT, because there is a clear shift in Jesus’ actions and demeanor. After the opening scene, wherein Jesus curses and kills two boys, the villagers insist that Joseph train Jesus. They plead, ‘teach him to bless and not to curse (δίδαξον αὐτὸν εὐλογεῖν καὶ μὴ καταρᾶσθαι)’.49 Later, after the teacher Zacchaeus concedes that Jesus is wiser,50 Jesus declares that he is from ‘on high (ἄνωθεν)’,51 and from that point on, ‘all those who had fallen under his curse were saved (ἐσώθησαν πάντες ὑπὸ τῆς κατάρας αὐτοῦ πεπτωκότες)’.52 Several miracles of healing and even raising the dead occur, and then the story ends by overlapping with Luke’s scene of Jesus at age twelve in the Temple.53 This allows the text to emphasize how ‘Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in grace before God and men (ὀ Ἰσοῦς προέκοπτεν σοφίᾳ καὶ ἡλικίᾳ καὶ χάριτι παρὰ Θεῷ καὶ ἀνθρώποις)’54 (see Luke 2:52). As reviewed above, Jesus’ character development in the IGT has been noted in recent studies, and this motif is explained as common for literature about 44

IGT 6.3-7.4. IGT 7.4 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 322-3). 46 IGT 9.3 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 324-5). 47 This scene is reminiscent of Apollodorus’ account of Hercules killing his music tutor who had struck him on the head (Apollodorus 2.4.9). 48 IGT 14.3 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 332-3). 49 IGT 4.2 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 306-7). 50 IGT 6.3-7.4.ed. 51 IGT 8.1 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 322-3). 52 IGT 8.2 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 322-3). 53 IGT 17.1-5//Luke 2:41-52. 54 IGT 17.5 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 336-7); cf. Luke 2:50-1. 45

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children in late antiquity.55 I, however, contend that the problem is real and not just one that appears so to modern sensibilities, and yet the discrepancy between the character of the child Jesus in the IGT and that found in the canonical Gospels is not so much a problem of this particular text, but one already found in second century Christian thinking, and it is a problem the IGT is able to resolve. Instead of asking how Jesus in the IGT compares to the canonical Gospels, we should first ask how Jesus in the canonical Gospels compares to the God of Israel’s scriptures. Put differently: rather than asking why Jesus in the IGT acts so different from the Jesus known in the canonical Gospels, we should be asking, how does the Jesus found in the IGT act any differently than the God of the Old Testament? Once the actions and character of Israel’s God are recalled, then the difference in character between the Creator and the canonical Jesus become salient, and the IGT offers a way of harmonizing the two. Seen in this way, Jesus’ actions in the IGT are not – strictly speaking – immoral.56 They are instead wrathful and condemnatory. But oftentimes, so are the actions of God in Israel’s stories. One way to parse the matter about the child Jesus’ ‘immorality’, would be to test his actions against the Law and in particular to the Ten Commandments.57 What moral transgression does Jesus actually enact in the IGT? He certainly honors God, avoids idolatry, and never blasphemes God’s name. As for the Sabbath, Jesus in the IGT does create on this day of rest, but here the text is intentionally challenging a Pharisaical application of Sabbath Law, and the text clearly alludes to the canonical tradition of Jesus doing the same. What is more, by having Jesus mold the doves from clay as a five-yearold boy, the text offers a creative solution: since in IGT Jesus is a child, this is clearly an act of play, not of work. This helps to clarify how in the canonical Gospels Jesus will do acts of kindness on the Sabbath, not acts of labor. As for honoring his parents, Jesus does honor his mother (IGT 10.1-2) and as for Joseph the child Jesus explicitly reminds him that he is not his true father (IGT 6.2.b). Furthermore, it is arguable that Jesus nowhere explicitly dishonors Joseph, but instead he simply outranks him in both wisdom and honor. As for the last three commandments (stealing, lying, and coveting), these are nowhere transgressed, which leaves only the question of murder. In this text, 55 In M.R. Whitenton ‘The Moral Character Development of the Boy Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas’ (2015), sees Jesus’ moral development in the IGT as that from amoral adolescence to a mature man. J.R.C. Cousland, Holy Terror (2018), 62-3, disputes this, finding the development to be immoral to moral. 56 R. Aasgaard, The Childhood of Jesus (2009), 160-1, contends that Jesus’ actions are ‘just’ because of his divine authority. Similarly, Kurt Erlemann, in ‘Erweckung eines verunglückten Spielkameraden (Junge auf dem Dach KThom 9)’, in R. Zimmerman et al. (eds), Kompendium der frühchristlichen Wundererzählung (Gütershloh, 2013), I 843-6, 845, finds the child Jesus to be morally exempted (‘ohne Schuld … Die Schuldlosigkeit’) by his miracles. 57 This specificity is used because previous studies have deemed Jesus’ actions in the IGT as ‘immoral’, without providing the criterion such a judgment (e.g., C.E. Stowe, Origin [1868], and A. von Harnack, Geschichte [1897]; more recently, see J.R.C. Cousland, Holy Terror [2018], 62-3).

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Jesus kills a total of three people: Annas’ son (IGT 3.2-3), the boy who bumped into Jesus when running past him (IGT 4.1), and the second teacher who struck him on the head (IGT 13.2). And yet, if seen in light of God’s punitive actions in Israel’s history, these killings do not necessarily constitute murder.58 After all, in the scriptures, God destroys everyone but the family of Noah in the flood (Gen. 6), commands the killing of all Amelikites, including women and children (1Sam. 15), and when Uzzah the ox-cart driver attempts to prevent the Ark of the Covenant from falling, God strikes him dead (2Sam. 6:1-7). In all these instances, however, God’s actions are not said to be murderous, but punitive, and therefore to be considered righteous. If the child Jesus is understood to be the same God of Israel, only now incarnate as a child, then his actions can also be understood as wrathful and condemnatory, but not murderous, nor immoral. The text in fact opens a pathway from the wrathful YHWH of the Old Testament to the loving and patient Jesus of the Gospels. We know of second century Christian groups who found God’s actions in the ‘Old Testament’ to be irreconcilable with the character of Jesus found in the Gospels. Groups such as Marcionites and the various so-called Gnostic sects deemed the Demiurge and all his actions as judgmental and unloving when compared with the character of Jesus. The IGT, however, offers an attempt to retain the connection between the Israelite’s God and Jesus. They are in fact, one and the same, only this God incarnate as a child has been taught ‘to bless and not to curse’. Or at least, it should be noted that Jesus’ blessing and cursing in the IGT are now seen in their wider canonical and theological story-arch. Of course, it should be stipulated that the portrayal of the God of the Old Testament as wrathful while Jesus of the New Testament is singularly longsuffering is overly simplistic to say the least. The canonical Gospels depict Jesus as displaying outbursts of anger as well, and the IGT creatively incorporates them as having been anticipated in Jesus’ childhood actions. For example,59 when the child Jesus upstages his teacher and the crowd is ‘astonished (ἐκπληττέσθαι)’60 (IGT 14.2), this seems to be re-enacted in Luke 4 when the crowd in the synagogue is similarly ‘astonished (ἐθαύμαζον)’ (Luke 4:22). Also, in the scene of the child Jesus raising an infant from the dead he tells the mother to give it ‘milk’ (IGT [recension Ga] 17.1-2),61 and there seems to be a clear re-enactment of this when the adult Jesus in Luke 8 goes to Jairus’s house and raises his twelve year old daughter and tells him to give her ‘meat’ (Luke 8:55) 58 It should also be noted, to return to the theme of character development, that all those who were struck down were raised by Jesus as well (IGT 8.2; 14.4), as were some whom Jesus had not killed (9.3; 16.2; cf. 17.1 and 18.1 in the Ga recension). 59 The following examples are discussed briefly in K. Upson-Saia, ‘Holy Child’ (2013), 5, where she provides bibliography of previous studies of these parallels in the notes. 60 IGT 14.2 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 330-1). 61 T. Burke, De infantia Iesu (2010), 382-3.

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– a detail only recorded in Luke.62 In this vein of thought, the opening story – in which Jesus curses the child to never bear fruit so that he ‘withered (ἐξηράνθη)’63 and died – seems to anticipate the scene in Matthew (21:18-22) and Mark (11:12-4), where Jesus curses the fig tree for not bearing fruit so that it ‘withers (ἐξήρανται)’. Only here it is worth noting that this scene is missing in Luke. Luke does, however, like the other two synoptics (Matt. 12:9-13// Mark 3:1-6), tell of Jesus healing the man with a ‘withered (ξηρά)’ hand (Luke 6:6-11), and in Luke when challenged by the Pharisees we hear Jesus ask, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?’ (6:9). It is as if by this point in Luke’s narrative, long after the Temple scene where Jesus is twelve years old, as found both in the IGT and Luke, Jesus has ‘grown in wisdom’ (IGT 17.5//Luke 2:52) and thus learned ‘to bless and not to curse’ (IGT 4.2 [cited above]).64 In sum, the IGT is not merely a ‘supplement’ to Luke – as many have observed,65 it is a bridge text that explains how one can get from the God of Israel to the Jesus of the Gospel. The former was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth, and there he ‘grew in wisdom and stature’. Conclusion: A Potential Objection At this point, I would like to conclude by anticipating one potential objection. Today, most Christians (both practitioners and scholars) think of the God of Israel as the Father, while Jesus is only to be found in the Old Testament by way of prophecy, foreshadowing, and/or allegory. In this way of thinking, there could be an intuitive objection to my argument: if I am correct that the IGT presents Jesus as the God of Israel incarnate, then the IGT would present a patripassianist or modalistic monarchian view of Christ. In response to this potential objection, I would initially insist that such later standards of orthodoxy cannot be used anachronistically as a priori criteria for second and third century texts like the IGT. At the same time, the concern to distance the IGT from the teachings known as patripassianism, monarchianism, and modalism is valid, since in the IGT Jesus clearly differentiates himself from the 62 Mark 5:43 has Jesus say generically to give something ‘to eat (φαγεῖν)’, not ‘meat’ in particular; Matthew mentions nothing about food. 63 IGT 3.3 (ed. Burke, CChr.SA 17, 306-7). 64 Further parallels and anticipations could be explored with regard to Acts, such as the following: Jesus kills people simply by his word (IGT 3.2; 4.1), which can be seen in Peter’s response to Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11); Jesus blinds people who resist his work (IGT 5.1), just as Jesus does to Saul (Acts 9:1-9); Jesus resurrects a boy fell from the roof (IGT 9.3; cf. 8.2 and 14.4), just as does Paul raises the man who fell from the window (Acts 20:7-12); Jesus heals James of a snakebite (IGT 15.1-2), while Paul is bitten by a snake with ill-effect (Acts 28:3-6); Jesus resurrects a child (IGTa 17.1), and Peter resurrects a woman (Acts 9:36-41). 65 As assumed, for example, by Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon in the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford, 1987), 166-7.

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Father who sent him.66 More substantially, I would note the flawed premise in this question is one that defines the God of Israel to be understood exclusively or even primarily as the Father.67 The vast majority of the surviving early Christian sources, at least from the second century on, speak of the God of Israel primarily in terms of God the Word (or Son).68 It will suffice to provide one example. The first instance I can find where this phenomenon is explained to an outsider, and therefore made explicit and not simply implicit, is when Justin Martyr articulates it as part of his Dialogue with Trypho, the Jew (ca. 165).69 There is an important point about the context of this treatise for our current discussion, since most scholars now agree that Justin wrote this treatise in Rome approximately one decade after Marcion left that city.70 Marcion and other groups rejected any linkage of Jesus with the Creator God (or ‘Demiurge’) or the Jewish scriptures. Some scholars have even claimed that this work, ostensibly written against ‘the Jews’, is in fact an anti-Marcionite treatise meant to defend the identification of Jesus with Israel’s God.71 One thing is for certain about the comparison of Marcion with the Jewish opponents described in Justin’s work, they both reject the claim that Jesus is the God of Israel.72 66

E.g., IGT 8.1; 17.3. J.R.C. Cousland, Holy Terror (2018), 106, claims, ‘The references to Yahweh are relatively limited…’, and he then notes references to God the Father. However, if Jesus is depicted as YHWH incarnate, then this claim is a mistaken assumption. 68 As part of a larger project that I am co-authoring with Adam Winn, wherein we trace this phenomenon, I have found a widespread array of sources, ranging from literary sources and even early material remains, that clearly indicate that most early Christians assumed that the primary persona encountered in their Old Testament, especially in the Theophanies, was the person of the Son, that is, the Lord Jesus pre-incarnate. 69 As for the historicity and context of this work, see discussion in Michael Mach, ‘Justin Martyr’s Dialogus cum Tryphone Iudaeo and the Development of Christian Anti-Judaism’, in Ora Limor and Guy G. Stroumsa (eds), Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics between Christians and Jews (Tübingen, 1996), 27-47, 35; Judith M. Lieu, Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (Edinburgh, 1996), 104-9. 70 Thomas P. Halton, ‘Introduction’, in Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, trans. Thomas B. Falls, ed. Michael Slusser, Selections from the Fathers of the Church 3 (Washington, DC, 2003), xi-xii. 71 Matthijs den Dulk, Between Jews and Heretics: Refiguring Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (London, New York, 2018), 52-68, argues that the entire text is written against ‘demiurgical forms of Christianity’ (i.e., those who believe in a lower deity, the Demiurge, who created the world, like the Marcionites and the ‘Gnostics’). Likewise, Andrew Hayes, Justin Against Marcion (Minneapolis, 2017), 89-162, argues that Marcion in particular is the main target of attack. 72 Later (ca. 208), Tertullian used the same kind of argument against Marcion (and cf. his Adversus Iudaeos): ‘The principal, and consequently the entire, matter of discussion is one of number, whether it is permissible to suggest the existence of two gods’ (Adv. Marc. 1.3, ‘Principalis itaque et exinde tota congressio de numero, an duos deos liceat induci’; text/trans. Ernest Evans, Tertullian Adversus Marcionem [Oxford, 1972], 8-9). 67

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In his response to Trypho, Justin’s argument takes a strange twist. After Justin laboriously and lengthily reviews the Hebrew prophets to demonstrate that the messiah would suffer and die, Trypho and his other Jewish friends (allegedly) concede this point and ask Justin to prove that Jesus was this prophesied messiah.73 Justin, somewhat surprisingly, refuses to do so, but instead insists that he must first explain how the scriptures do more than speak of Jesus prophetically. The scriptures speak of Jesus in various ways, especially by speaking of him as God, that is as the ‘Lord’ (or, as modern translations would have it, ‘the LORD’). Justin states, ‘I will supply the proofs you wish [that Jesus is the prophesied messiah], but for the present permit me to quote the following prophecies to show that the Holy Spirit by parable called Christ God, and Lord of hosts and Lord of Jacob’.74 The apologist then proceeds to review passages from the Septuagint, claiming that the Theophanies therein are in fact the Word of the Lord, who is also called ‘Lord’, and who was later revealed in the flesh as Jesus. In other words, for Justin and his Christian community, when they read about the ‘Lord’ appearing to Abraham, Moses, and other people in the Old Testament, Christians understood that to be Jesus pre-incarnate. This insight is not at all new for those who study Justin and other early Christian texts, and yet it is less prominent in modern discussions of Gospels and studies of the historical Jesus. That, I assume, is why it has been so difficult for modern scholars to perceive the rationale within the IGT: whereas most modern scholars assume that Christian thought developed from a low Christology and moved to a high Christology and the IGT locates itself squarely within this Gospel tradition. Couple this trend with the modern Christian assumption that the divine persona encountered in the Old Testament is God the Father, then there is a clear blind-spot in the expectations of many recent scholars. In other words, a high Christology wherein Jesus is the God of Israel incarnate is not to expected, and the full Trinitarian dogma of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be allowed due to a valid concern with anachronism. I believe that by comparing the Christology of Justin Martyr and other second century Christians, especially those opposing Marcion and the so-called Gnostic groups, the depiction of Jesus in the IGT can be seen even more clearly. As stated above, the text does not create a discrepancy between the character 73 Dial. 36.1, ‘But prove to us that Jesus Christ is the one about whom these prophecies were spoken (εἰ οὗτος δέ ἐστι περῖ οὗ ταῦτα προεφητεύξη, ἀπόδειξον)’. Ed. T.B. Falls and T.P. Halton, St. Justin Martyr (2003), 56; trans. Philippe Bobichon, Justin Martyr, Dialogue avec Tryphon: édition critique (Fribourg, 2003), 272. 74 Dial. 36.2 (T. Falls, T.P. Halton and M. Slusser, St. Justin Martyr [2003], 56, original italics; P. Bobichon, Justin Martyr [2003], 272: ἐλεύσομαι πρὸς ἃς βούλει ταύτας ἀποδείξειζ ἐν τῷ ἁρμόζοντι τόπῳ ἔφην. τὰ νῦν δὲ συγχωρὴσεις μοι πρῶτον ἐπιμνησθῆναι ὧνπερ βούλομαι προφητειῶν, εἰς ἐπίδειξιν ὅτι καὶ Θεὸς καὶ κύριος τῶν δυνάμενων ὁ Κριστὸς καὶ Ἰακὼβ καλεῖται ἐν παραβολῇ ὑπὸ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος).

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of the child Jesus in the IGT and the character of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Instead, the discrepancy was already felt between the character of Jesus in the earliest Gospels and the character of God found in the Jewish scriptures. The IGT helps to explain how the God of the Israelite could become the Rabbi of Nazareth. He did so by first becoming a child, and then by learning to bless and not to curse.

Theological Basics: Ptolemy’s Theological Introduction to Biblical Interpretation Tarmo TOOM, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

ABSTRACT Ptolemy’s Epistula ad Floram assesses the proper use of the Pentateuch by Christians. Ptolemy’s argument was that the law had been given by different agents. Thus, depending on the lawgiver, on the origin of the law, and on whether Christ fulfilled, abolished, or interpreted the particular law figuratively, Christians should carefully discern between the various levels of normativity of the Old Testament law. Nevertheless, in Epistula ad Floram, Ptolemy either proposed or merely used several hermeneutical principles which eventually became the accepted exegetical devices in Christian exegesis.

This article studies Ptolemy’s Epistula ad Floram1 as the earliest extant mini-treatise on biblical interpretation apart from Apostle Paul’s brief remarks on interpreting his own letters.2 In his letter, Ptolemy either proposed or employed several hermeneutical principles which eventually became commonly accepted exegetical devices in the larger Christian church. Early Christian biblical exegesis both adopted and adapted various hermeneutical devices from the Hellenistic literary culture.3 Ptolemy’s Epistula ad Floram is the earliest, yet just one of the examples of how this was done and how religious texts were interpreted by the second century Christians. It is not that the larger church necessarily learned certain interpretative principles through Ptolemy’s letter, but rather that this letter is among the first that we know of to consider these interpretative principles. Accordingly, this article identifies Ptolemy’s contribution to the history of biblical interpretation.4 1 Ptolémée: Lettre à Flora, ed. and trans. Gilles Quispel, SC 24 (Paris, 1949, 2nd ed. 1966); English translation: Bradley K. Storin, ‘Ptolemy, Letter to Flora’, in The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings. Volume I: God, ed. Andrew Radde-Gallwitz (Cambridge, 2017), 3-10 (modified, if deemed necessary). 2 Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (Cambridge, 2010), 10-2, 18-20. 3 Lewis Ayres, ‘Irenaeus vs. the Valentinians: Toward a Rethinking of Patristic Exegetical Origins’, JECS 23 (2015), 153-87. 4 Accounts of the history of biblical interpretation either do not mention Ptolemy at all (e.g., Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, ed. John H. Hayes [Nashville, 1999]), or fail to identify Ptolemy’s contribution (e.g., A History of Biblical Interpretation. Vol. 1: The Ancient Period, ed. Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson [Grand Rapids, 2003], 54, 413).

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 17-28. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Ptolemy was one of the second century Roman Christian intellectuals, a follower of Valentius.5 Epistula ad Floram is the only text which we have from Ptolemy.6 It has been preserved in Epiphanius’ Pan. 33.1-12. Arguably, this letter belongs to a genre diairetikē eisagōgē, which means a short ‘isagogic’ essay that introduces some important distinctions.7 Ptolemy reminded Flora, a ‘noble sister’ (3.1), that he had merely provided for her ‘brief statements’ and ‘a concise composition’ (6.10) about the value of the Pentateuch for Christian readers.8 The particular problem of the time was the following: as the first Christians were Jews, Scripture meant the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet, when a new set of Christian literature appeared (i.e., the gospels, letters, and everything else) and when gentiles converted to Christianity, there arose a new issue of the relationship between the Hebrew Scriptures and Christianity together with its literature. What kind of authority was to be attributed to the Old Testament, particularly to the Pentateuch, in the Christian church? Should the former be abandoned altogether, should it be adopted selectively according to some critical principles, or should it be read Christologically and affirmed as the Christian Scripture? Particularly, how to handle the seeming contradictions between the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian gospel? Were these contradictions real and irremediable, or were they apparent and needed to be explained away? Ptolemy thought that all sorts of difficulties regarding the Christian use of the Pentateuch arose precisely because it was assumed that the law as such had been ‘legislated by one particular entity’ (4.1). Accordingly, he attempted to solve the given problem by postulating three different lawgivers. For him, Scripture was a corpus permixtum in which some texts were more authoritative than others, depending on the origin of the given law. Epistula ad Floram begins by rejecting the postulated rhetorical extremes; namely, an attribution of the law either to the supreme deity, the perfect God/ 5 Irenaeus said that he composed his Adversus haereses particularly against ‘the disciples of Ptolemæus, an offshoot of the Valentinian school’ (1 Praef. 2). However, to call Ptolemy a ‘Valentinian’ might be as empty as to call him a ‘gnostic’, because it depends heavily on what these designations are taken to be (Ismo Dunderberg, Beyond Gnosticism: Myth, Lifestyle, and Society in the School of Valentinus [New York, 2008], 14-20). Furthermore, Ptolemy was evidently an independent thinker who did not just repeat what others had said (e.g., Epiphanius, Pan. 33.1.1; cf. Tertullian, c. Val. 4.3). 6 Irenaeus also provides a brief example of the Ptolemean exegesis of the Prologue of the Gospel of John in Haer. 1.8.5. For the link, or rather the lack of it, between the Epistula ad Floram and Ptolemy’s mythical ‘system’ in Irenaeus’ Haer. 1.1.1-8.5, see Einar Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the ‘Valentinians’, NHMS 60 (Leiden, 2006), 119-29. 7 Christoph Markschies, ‘New Research on Ptolemaeus Gnosticus’, ZAC 4 (2000), 225-54, 228-32. According to his opponents, however, Ptolemy’s letter belonged to the category of ‘badly composed fantasy of the Lord’s words’ (Irenaeus, Haer. 1.8.1). 8 To emphasize the introductory character of Ptolemy’s Epistula ad Floram, I had originally titled this paper as ‘THEO 001’.

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Father, or to the Adversary/devil (3.1-5).9 Ptolemy claimed that both these positions were ‘completely mistaken’ (3.3). He argued that the law could not have been given by the perfect God, for a perfect and good nature always begot and produced perfect and good things (8.1).10 But if the law had to be ‘fulfilled (plērōthēnai)’ (that is, completed or perfected), it was obviously not yet perfect. It was imperfect (3.4, 5.3) and had to be attributed to someone other than the perfect supreme God. On the other hand, the law could not be given by the Adversary/devil either, because the law was not evil.11 The created world and what was in it (incl. the law) was not brought about by the Adversary/devil, but by the ‘just (dikaios) and evil-hating God’ (3.6). In short and once again, those who attributed the law to the perfect God/ Father, or to the Adversary/devil, ‘have gone utterly astray from the truth’ (3.7). Some did not know the God of Justice, and others did not know ‘the Father … whom [the Savior] revealed’ (3.7).12 The task, therefore, was to ‘describe the law itself, its origin, and the legislator by whom it was given’ (3.8). Although it is only in the end of his letter (7.2) that Ptolemy finally explained what he really meant by ‘God’ in the phrase ‘the law of God’, one should consider this topic in the beginning of his/her analysis, because everything really depends on it.13 Or at least so his opponents thought, as they ‘wanted to make this view [i.e., that the supreme God was not the Creator and the lawgiver] as shocking as possible’.14 It is hard to say, of course, only on the basis 9 Classical diairesis eliminated all possibilities but one (Aristotle, Rhet. 2.23.10) and Ptolemy likewise postulated three possibilities and eliminated the two inadequate ones. 10 See a Valentinian, Tri. Trac. 62; Alain le Boulluec, ‘The Bible in Use among the Marginally Orthodox in the Second and Third Centuries’, in The Bible in Greek Christian Antiquity, ed. Paul M. Blowers, The Bible Through the Ages 1 (Notre Dame, 1997), 197-216, 212. 11 It is unlikely that Ptolemy had Marcion’s view in mind, because the latter affirmed, just like Ptolemy (3.6), the existence of both the just Creator-God/Demiurge and the evil Adversary (Epiphanius, Pan. 42.3.1, 6.8; Tuomas Rasimus, ‘Ptolemaeus and the Valentinian Exegesis of John’s Prologue’, in The Legacy of John: Second-Century Reception of the Fourth Gospel, ed. Tuomas Rasimus, SuppNT 132 [Leiden, 2010], 145-71, 147-8; Judith Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century [Cambridge, 2017], 348-50). 12 Numenius claimed that most people were ignorant of the existence of the First God and knew only the Demiurge (Frag. 17). According to Origen, ‘heretics’ ‘considered that the Demiurge was just, while the Father of Christ was good’ (CommJn. 1.40). See C. Markschies, ‘New Research on Ptolemaeus Gnosticus’ (2000), 233-9. The idea that the Savior revealed the unknown Father marks a major difference between the understandings of Ptolemy and the so-called Middle Platonists. 13 I concur with Anne Pasquier’s admonition, ‘Before examining the exegetical method of the Valentinians, one must summarize the theology on which it rests’ (‘The Valentinian Exegesis’, in Handbook of Patristic Exegesis, ed. Charles Kannengiesser [Leiden, 2004], vol. 1, 454-70, 457). 14 I. Dunderberg, Beyond Gnosticism (2008), 122 (modified). Because such view echoed certain Middle-Platonic speculations, Dillon has called gnostics the ‘Platonic underground’ (John M. Dillon, The Middle Platonists [London, 1977], 384). Plotinus, in turn, complained that gnostics ‘falsify Plato’s account of the manner of demiurge and many other matters’ (Enn. 2.9.6).

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of Ptolemy’s Epistula ad Floram, how central the distinction between the supreme, transcendent God and a lesser creator-god actually was to his theology.15 Nevertheless, it became the primary rationale for Ptolemy’s opponents to write their respective refutations of his teachings. Allegedly, it was also the main reason why Ptolemy and his followers were said to ‘misinterpret’ Scripture.16 Irenaeus’ five-book refutation of Valentinian/Ptolemaic theology can perhaps be summarized by the words: ‘For all things originate from one and the same God’ (haer. 2.25.1).17 So, what does Epistula ad Floram have to say about all this? To begin with, Ptolemy repeated his statement on the ‘rejected extremes’ made in 3.1-5 – the law had been given neither by the perfect God nor the Adversary/devil – and concluded that therefore, ‘the lawgiver must be someone other than these two’ (7.3). Who was this ‘other’ God? This ‘other’ God was ‘the craftsman and creator (dēmiourgos kai poiētēs) of the universe’,18 an ‘intermediary (hē mesotēs)’ God,19 who was ontologically different from ‘the perfect God (ho teleios theos)’ (7.3, 5, 6), as well as from the Adversary/devil (7.4, 6, and 8).20 This ‘intermediary’ God did not share in the unique properties of the 15 Curiously, the distinction between the transcendent God and the the inferior demiurge is not mentioned in the extant fragments of Valentinus (Christoph Markschies, Valentinus Gnosticus?: Untersuchungen zur valentinianischen Gnosis mit einem Kommentar zu denn Fragmenten Valentins, WUNT 65 [Tübingen, 1992], 60-4). However, to deduce from this (largely accidental) fact that Valentinus never made this distinction is to rely on the argument from silence. Valentinians certainly made this distinction. 16 Irenaeus, Haer. 1.3.6. At the same time, it must be clearly understood that there was no common and universally shared exegetical approach among those who are commonly lumped together as gnostics (Benjamin H. Dunning, ‘Gnosticism and Gnostic Interpretation’, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, ed. Steven L. McKenzie [Oxford, 2013], vol. 1, 373a-381b). So also, David Brakke, ‘Gnostics and their Critics’, in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation, ed. Paul M. Blowers and Peter Martens [Oxford, 2019], 383-98). 17 That there is one God who is the Creator (e.g., 2.1.1-5, 2.2.5, 2.10.1-2, 3.6.1-12.11; 3.9.1, 4.1.1-2), and that both testaments are from the same God (e.g., 3.11.7; 4.9.1-3, 4.10.1-2) are the constant themes in Irenaeus’ Adversus haereses. The claim that the entire law (and prophets) were given by (the one and only) God was also made by Clement, Strom. 5.13, Origen, CommJn. 5.5, and Epiphanius, Pan. 42.12, elenchus 7 and 15 on the First Corinthians. 18 See Plato, Tim. 28C (poiētēn kai patera); 41A; Rep. 530A; as well as Prov. 8:22-31 (Wisdom as a distinct ‘associate’) and 2Cor. 4:4 (ho theos tou aiōnos toutou). For the flowering of the idea of a Demiurge as a distinct being in the first three centuries, see Carl S. O’Brien, The Demiurge in Ancient Thought: Secondary Gods and Divine Mediators (Cambridge, 2015), 36-289. However, O’Brien doubts that there was a direct link between Plato’s Timaeus and the Valentinian Demiurge (205). So also Einar Thomassen, ‘The Platonic and the Gnostic “Demiurge”’, in Apocryphon Severini: Presented to Søren Giversen (Aarhus, 1993), 226-44. 19 Gal. 3:19: ‘[The law] was put in place through angels by the hand of a mediator (en cheiri mesitou)’. Ptolemy’s opponents were happy with the preposition ‘through (dia)’, but not with ‘from (apo)’ (4.2), which turned the mediator to an actual lawgiver. 20 See the teaching of Marcion in Justin, Apol. 26 and 58, and Irenaeus, Haer. 3.25.3. While both the Sethian Yaldabaoth and the Valentinian Demiurge were distinguished from the first principle, Yaldabaoth was demonic: ignorant, defiant, disillusioned, arrogant, and jealous (Apoc.

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perfect God, who was unbegotten, incorruptible, simple, singular, and good (7.6-8).21 This ‘intermediary’ God was, therefore, a mere image of the perfect God (7.7).22 True, this God was ‘just (dikaios)’, yet his justice too was inferior to that of the perfect God (7.5-6).23 Perhaps the so-called Tripartite Tractate, another Valentinian text, provides a good comparison here. It distinguishes between the unique, unbegotten, eternal, unchangeable, good, boundless, and incomprehensible Father (51-4),24 the generated Son (54-7), and preexistent church (57-9), as well as between the higher and lower-order aeons, including the Demiurge (100-1), who is a just creator god (101-2). While the Father is, among other things, ‘perfect’, ‘complete’,25 and ‘lacking nothing’ (53-4), the Demiurge possesses the likeness of the Father (100) but is ignorant (101). O’Brien summarizes: ‘Demiurge cannot be reduced to a single, coherent pattern, since the motif was exploited by such range of thinkers […] as a result of divergent readings of the Timaeus’.26 Having somewhat clarified what Ptolemy might have meant by the word ‘God’, one can say nevertheless that Ptolemy’s approach to biblical interpretation was truly theological, because it was based on his understanding of God (i.e., on a distinction between the Father and the Demiurge). Such ‘henotheism’ Jn. 11-12; Orig. World 100 and 103; Disc. Seth 64). Ptolemy’s Demiurge, however, was good, although and allegedly somewhat ignorant as well (Irenaeus, Haer. 1.5.3, 7.4). Dillon assesses: ‘All that the Gnostic systems disagree [. . .] on, is whether or not to take the secondary deity, the cosmic demiurge, as positively malevolent or just ignorant’ (John Dillon, ‘Monotheism in the Gnostic Tradition’, in Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity, ed. Polymnia Athanassiadi and Michael Frede [Oxford, 1999], 69-79, 70-1). 21 Such a view is interesting in the light of Numenius’ distinction between the First God and the Second God, the Demiurge, who was also called ‘the lawgiver (ho nomothetēs)’ (Numenius, Frag. 13 and 21 [Robert Petty, Fragments of Numenius of Apamea, Platonic Texts and Translations 7 (Westbury, 2012), 24-5, 32-3]; see also C. O’Brien, The Demiurge in Ancient Thought [2015], 139-58). Numenius, Ptolemy’s contemporary, divided Plato’s ‘Maker and Father’ in two and gave them distinct roles (Matthias Vorwerk, ‘Maker or Father? The Demiurge from Plutarch to Plotinus’, in One Book, the Whole Universe: Plato’s Timaeus Today, ed. Richard D. Mohr and Barbara M. Sattler [Zürich, 2010], 79-100, 88-93). 22 Numenius, Frag. 16. Origen claimed that ‘heretics’ considered the Demiurge to be a ‘different God’ (CommJn 1.14). 23 Again, Numenius contended that the second god was ‘good’ not ‘through himself’ but by participating in the First God (Frag. 19 and 20). See Winrich A. Löhr, ‘La doctrine de Dieu dans la Lettre à Flora de Ptolémée’, Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 75 (1995), 177-91, 182 and 187. ‘To be good is not the same as to be the Good’ (M. Vorwerk, ‘Maker or Father?’ [2010], 90). 24 The Middle-Platonic ‘package’ of the attributes of the highest God (e.g., Alcinous, Didaskalikos 10.164-6; Albinus, Epitome 10.3) can be found, for example, in Ptolemy’s Ep. Flor. 6.7-8; Apoc. Jn. 3; Eugnostos 71-3; and The Soph. Jes. Chr. 94-5. 25 A Sethian text, The Apocryphon of John, likewise calls the Father ‘always absolutely complete’ (3). 26 C. O’Brien, The Demiurge in Ancient Thought (2015), 4. Earlier Pétrement had stated, ‘Gnostics did not give an identical picture of the Demiurge’ (Simone Pétrement, A Separate God: The Christian Origins of Gnosticism, trans. Carol Harrison [San Francisco, 1990], 47).

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enabled him to make the distinctions between the various levels of authority of scriptural texts. Irenaeus correctly discerned that the Ptolemian regula (that is, his religious hypothesis), which Irenaeus reconstructed for polemical purposes in haer. 1.1.1-8.5, determined his opponents’ biblical interpretation. In other words, what God was taken to be, determined to a large extent one’s exegetical approach. Pasquier assesses, ‘The hermeneutical presuppositions and exegetical method of the Valentinians derive from their theological [emphasis mine] understanding of scripture’.27 Evidently and among those who made a distinction between the supreme and the inferior God, there was no consensus about what this exactly meant for the authority of law and prophets.28 Hippolytus reported a Valentinian claim that all law was spoken at the prompting of the ‘silly (mōros)’ Demiurge (ref. 6.30.1). Tripartite Tractate contended that the creator-god spoke at the prompting of the Logos (100.30-5) and thus, unknowingly expressed things which were higher than his limited knowledge.29 Ptolemy, in turn, conceded that even the imperfect law contained valid truths. That’s why he proposed a nuanced, threefold scheme for finding some clarity about this matter. Accordingly, Epistula ad Floram contends that there are three different kinds of laws and lawgivers in Scripture: (1) the law given by God/Demiurge, (2) the law given by Moses, and (3) the law given by (Jewish) elders (4.2 and 14).30 Here Ptolemy relied, at least partially, on prosopological exegesis, which 27

A. Pasquier, ‘The Valentinian Exegesis’ (2004), 469. After all, at least in the first half of the second century, there was no central ecclesial structure in Rome which would control, correct, and give uniformity to the theology found in various titular churches (Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries, trans. Michael Steinhauser [Minneapolis, 2003], 385-96). 29 Irenaeus, Haer. 1.5.6; Clement, Excerpta ex Theodoto 53. The idea that the Logos so-tospeak underwrote the deeper meaning of texts continued to have a splendid afterlife in Christian exegesis. 30 Distinguishing between various kinds of law, law-givers, interpretations, mediators, or levels of meaning is neither original nor a unique contribution of Ptolemy (see C. Markschies, ‘New Research’ [2000], 236-7). However, none of the other schemes known to us match exactly with what Ptolemy contended. Philo, for example, considered the supreme God to be the lawgiver, although some laws were also given by Moses, and some because Moses had asked God about particular issues (v. Mos. 2.187-91) (see Francis T. Fallon, ‘The Law in Philo and Ptolemy: A Note on the Letter to Flora’, VigChr 30 [1976], 45-51, who perhaps advocates Ptolemy’s greater dependence on Philo than is possible to establish). Or, according to Irenaeus, the followers of Ptolemy ‘divide up the prophecies, asserting that one part was uttered by the Mother, another by her seed, and third by the Demiurge’ (Haer. 1.7.3). Yet this was not what Ptolemy said either. The Tripartite Tractate, in turn, does not distinguish between the origins of various parts of the Hebrew Scripture, but contends instead that people ‘have received the scriptures differently in their interpretation’ (112). Consequently, some say that the God who speaks in Scripture is one, simple, and the creator of the world; others that God is many, varied, and has delegated the creation of the world to angels (112-3). Because of these diverse interpretations, there is a ‘great variety and the multiple forms of the scriptures that have given them teacher of the law’ (113). Evidently, this too was not what Ptolemy said. Nevertheless, making some sort of distinctions in 28

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attributed the sayings in Scripture to a certain person (prosōpon).31 He contended that laws which in any way contradicted the will of the Father, which were revealed by the Savior, or were unworthy of the Father, had to be attributed to some other person; for example, to Moses or elders. Prosopological exegesis as such was used with great success in later Christian exegesis. Although Ptolemy provided just an early example of prosopological exegesis, it is nevertheless important to highlight this fact for the history of Christian biblical interpretation. Ptolemy continued that threefold division (diairesis) of the law, which was classified as such on the basis of ‘the words of the Savior’ (4.1), ‘discloses the truth (alēthes anapephagken) within [the law]’ (4.14). Here we encounter some other hermeneutical principles that Christian exegesis continued to cherish. The first one states that the gospel had to be acknowledged as a key to the meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures.32 Or, to put it in the way it is usually expressed, the ‘New’ Testament has a certain priority over the ‘Old’ Testament.33 Arguably, no Christian exegete had or has any quarrel with such a general principle. However, the application of this very principle to the Hebrew Scriptures produced varied results. Some read the Hebrew Scriptures Christologically and accepted all of it, Ptolemy argued for its qualified acceptance, and Marcion for its theological uselessness for Christians.34 Ptolemy was definitely convinced that his understanding of the variety of laws and lawgivers was determined solely by the words of the Savior (3.8; 4.1, 3) and enforced by the words of Apostle Paul (6.6). Therefore, he concluded that, if at all, only a qualified acceptance of the law as a kind of secondary (deuteron) authority next to the supreme Christian gospel had to be considered legitimate. The second principle asserts that, if the law with all its prescriptions is not fitting, or is unworthy of, or ‘incompatible (anoikeion)’ (5.5) with the perfection regards to the origin of Scripture seems to have been a common enough practice during the first centuries. 31 For prosopological exegesis, see Justin, 1Apol. 36.1-2 and among non-Christian authors Philo, Cher. 49 (prosōpou tou theou), and Quintilian, Inst. or. 9.2.36. See Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in the New Testament & Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament (Oxford, 2015), 27-40. 32 Irenaeus, Haer. 4.26.1. For example, the Epistle of Barnabas says, ‘And Moses [. . .] cast the two tables out of his hands; and their covenant was broken, in order that the covenant of the beloved Jesus might be sealed upon our heart, in the hope which flows from believing in Him’ (4). Such replacement did not require the rejection of the Hebrew Scriptures, but rather their figurative interpretation. 33 I have used quotation marks here to indicate that the canonical shape of both testaments was not yet clearly determined, although Clement already employed such designations in Strom 1.5 and 5.13. 34 See M. Vinzent, Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels, Studia Patristica Supplement 2 (Leuven, 2014), 85. Hippolytus, ref. 6.30.1 states that, according to Valentinus, both the law and the prophets have to be attributed to the Demiurge.

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of the supreme Father, it must have a different origin. The hermeneutical notion of ‘fittingness’35 became – without Ptolemy’s particular conclusion about the different origins of the law – an accepted hermeneutical criterion, which served as an indication for the need of figurative interpretation.36 Acceptance of the criterion of ‘fittingness’ happened despite the fact that both Ptolemy and Marcion, the alleged ‘heretics’, had employed it in their respective assessments of the Hebrew Scriptures. Ptolemy further divided the first category, the law given by God/Demiurge, into three: (1.1) the law that the Savior came to fulfill, (1.2) the law that the Savior came to abolish, and (1.3) the law to which the Savior came to give a spiritual/figurative meaning (5.1-6.6).37 For Ptolemy, such threefold division of the divine law indicated how ‘human legislation has crept in’ (7.1) so that what seemed to be the law of the ultimate God was really something else. Again, the Savior’s threefold activity of fulfilling, abolishing, or reinterpreting helped to determine what was what (5.1-2). As an example of the law that the Savior came to fulfill,38 Ptolemy mentioned the Decalogue.39 The Decalogue was ‘pure and not interwoven with inferiority/evil’ (5.1 and 3) and did not contradict the Christian proclamation (6.1). Accordingly, it needed to be obeyed. Here Ptolemy quoted Rm. 7:12: ‘So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good’. Yet, while others applied this apostolic statement to the whole Scripture, Ptolemy restricted it to the ‘pure law’ (i.e., to the Decalogue) (6.6).40 However, according to Ptolemy, even the Decalogue was not ‘perfect’ (i.e., it was merely ‘good’) and consequently, it was ‘in the need of fulfillment by the Savior’ (5.3). Second, the law that the Savior came to abolish (see 1Cor. 13:10) was ‘interwoven with injustice’ (5.4, 6.2). It commanded things which did not fit with the teaching of the Savior and were, consequently, ‘incompatible with the nature and goodness of the Father of the whole’ (5.5). Lex talionis is the example that Ptolemy gave of the injustice that the Savior came to abolish. Lex talionis 35 For example, the argument of fittingness is part of Peter’s debate with a Samaritan Simon (Ps.-Clem. Hom. 2.38-40). 36 For example, Clement, Strom. 5.4; Origen, Princ. 4.2.1-4. 37 See Irenaeus, Haer. 1.7.3. 38 While Ptolemy cites Mt. 5:17 as it is known in the New Testament, Marcion allegedly altered it to a question ‘I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it?’ (Tertullian, c. Marc. 5.14). 39 Ptolemy may have taken the iota in Mt. 5:18 to mean the number ten; that is, the Decalogue (Kevin M. Vaccarella, Shaping Christian Identity: The False Scripture Argument in Early Christian Literature, Ph. Diss., Florida State University, 2007, 64). 40 If Ptolemy’s worldview was monistic, in which everything came forth from the unbegotten First Principle (7.9 and Jn. 1:3 cited in 3.6), and if the Logos managed to make the ignorant Demiurge say divine things, the ‘pure law’ (5.3) ultimately reflected the law of the Father. See Enrico Norelli, ‘Le Décalogue dans la Lettre de Ptolémée à Flora’, in Le Décalogue au miroir des Pères, ed. Rémi Gounelle et al., Cahiers de Biblia Patristica 9 (Strasbourg, 2008): 107-76, especially 139-45.

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was the ‘old way’; that is, it belonged to Jews before the coming of the Savior.41 It was still ‘from God’ (5.7), but as we have seen, by ‘God’ Ptolemy meant the creator god Demiurge. In fact, the Savior’s ‘fulfilling’ and ‘abolishing’ the law continues to employ the hermeneutical principle of giving the gospel a priority over the Hebrew Scriptures. Again, the results of applying this criterion varied significantly in early Christianity, including the complete rejection of the Hebrew Scriptures, until the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed confessed the conviction of the larger church that the Holy Spirit indeed ‘spoke through the prophets’.42 Third, the law that the Savior came to give a spiritual/figurative meaning to concerned ritual regulations, which were supposed to be reinterpreted; that is, the ritual regulations had to be taken as ‘images (to kat’ eikona) of the spiritual and transcendent realities’ (5.8).43 In order to see some value in ritual laws, Ptolemy proposed a theory of ‘transignification’: ‘[The signification of] all these things [i.e., sacrificial offerings, circumcision, the Sabbath, fasting, the Passover lamb, the unleavened bread and the like] changed once the truth was revealed’ (5.8).44 This means that ritual prescriptions no longer referred to sacred customs to be observed, but rather to various transcendent realities (6.4).45 ‘The names remain the same, while the realities (ton pragmatōn) [i.e., that which they referred to] have been altered’ (5.9; examples in 5.10-15). Even though Ptolemy used the word typikos in 5.8, he arguably did not propose any sort of typological interpretation, which would have presupposed the unity of Scripture and the continuity between the Old and the New Testaments. Nevertheless, what he said about figurative/allegorical46 interpretation (or, ‘transignification’) was later gladly accepted as hermeneutical ‘orthodoxy’.47 Epiphanius conceded 41 See Heb. 7:18; 8:6-13; and Marcion’s Antithesis. The ‘old way’ required what the ‘pure law’ actually forbade (e.g., ‘Do not kill!’) and what the ‘perfect law’ intensified (Matt. 5:21-2). 42 The word ‘prophets’ often designated the whole Old Testament (e.g., Clement, Strom. 7.10). 43 See Rom. 2:28; 1Cor. 5:7; Ep. Barn. 3; 8-10; 15-16. Here is another big difference between Marcion and Ptolemy: while the former generally rejected figurative interpretation (Origen, CommMt 15.3), the latter recommended it. 44 Ptolemy’s proof-texts are taken from the letters of Paul (1Cor. 5:7; Eph. 2:15, Rom. 7:12) which indicates that Ptolemy’s hermeneutical criterion included both the words of the Savior and the words of the Apostle Paul. However, it should be noted that he never called these Christian writings ‘scripture’. 45 See Heb. 8:5, 9:1-28. 46 If allegory proper operates with some kind of narrative (David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria [Berkeley, 1992], 4-5), then Ptolemy’s proposed approach cannot be called ‘allegorical’, because the ‘transignification’ theory applies to the law, to declarative statements. 47 E.g., Justin, Dial. 40; Clement, Strom. 5.6, 16; Novatian, Cib. Iud. 3-5; Origen, c. Cels. 1.17; 4.38, 48; Princ. 4.2.6. Eusebius cites Porphyry, who accused Origen by saying that ‘some persons, desiring to find a solution of the baseness of the Jewish Scriptures rather than abandon them, have had recourse to explanations inconsistent and incongruous with the words written [. . .] For they boast that the plain words of Moses are enigmas, and regard them as oracles full of hidden

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that ‘by saying that some things in the Law are written allegorically … you [i.e., Ptolemy] have touched on little bits of the truth, so that with the little bits you can fool people in the other points’ (Pan. 33.11.11). What remained controversial, however, was the way in which the figurative interpretation was to be used.48 That is, it was a question of concrete results rather than a method as such. This is to say that many Christians believed that the Old Testament precepts still applied to them, not in a literal/ceremonial sense, but in a spiritual/ figurative sense. Next to the would-be canonical texts of the New Testament (e.g., Rom. 7:14; 1Cor. 9:9; Eph. 5:31-2), Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora is an early explicit witness to this idea. In short, Ptolemy proposes, in an introductory way, a carefully differentiated hermeneutical approach to the law contained in Pentateuch. Unlike Marcion, who left the Old Testament aside,49 Ptolemy rescued at least some of it for Christians by indicating a way to solve the seeming contradictions between the law and the gospel. Namely, an interpreter had to pay attention to the provenance of a particular law; that is, to the question of who gave the particular commandment (7.9). To reiterate, according to Ptolemy, the whole confusion about the law was due to the fact that people ‘did not have nuanced knowledge of its giver or its ordinances’ (3.1) and were not able to discern the corresponding authorial intentions (4.6-7). While the laws of Moses attempted to regulate the moral weaknesses of Israelites, the traditions of Jewish elders were mere human interpolations (7.1).50 Perhaps a caution is in order here as well. Although it might be tempting to speak about various levels of inspiration in Ptolemy’s proposal,51 he does not consider the topic of inspiration at all. Neither the word theopneustos nor any of its cognates, nor any reference to 2Tim. 3:16, occurs even once in this text.52 Rather and once again, Ptolemy speaks in terms of the origin of texts and about the corresponding authorial intentions. Ptolemy also believed that, if God so willed, Flora would learn the ‘source and beginning of these things’ (7.9). Evidently, there was more to the interpretation mysteries [. . .] Becoming acquainted through them [i.e., Greek philosophers] with the figurative interpretation of the Grecian mysteries, he applied it to the Jewish Scriptures’ (Eccl. hist. 6.19.4 and 8). 48 See, for example, Irenaeus’ resistance to gnostic allegory in Haer. 3.2.2 and 5.35.1-2. 49 So did also Apelles (Hippolytus, Ref. 7.26; Epiphanius, Pan. 44.2.4) and Testim. Truth 29-30. For Marcion, while the Hebrew Scriptures did not reveal the Supreme God, they certainly helped to understand the character and nature of the Creator God (H. Clifton Ward, ‘Marcion and His Critics’, in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation [2019], 365-82, 370). 50 Irenaeus agreed that the tradition of elders contradicted the law of Moses (Haer. 4.12.1). 51 For example, Anne Pasquier thinks that Ptolemy spoke about various levels of inspiration (‘The Valentinian Exegesis’ [2004], 462-7). 52 Thus, interpretations of Ptolemy’s Epistula ad Floram which are done from the perspective of the doctrine of ‘plenary inspiration’ of Scripture tend to read into Ptolemy’s account issues which he neither mentioned nor discussed.

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of the Old Testament, as well as to theology, that Ptolemy saved for later.53 At the same time, it is telling that Ptolemy said nothing about secret traditions.54 He only hinted that his instructions were preliminary (Theological Basics; THEO 001), which implied that the more advanced instructions were available as well. Nevertheless, his instructions were authoritative, ‘worthy of the apostolic tradition55 that we too have received in succession’ (7.9).56 Furthermore, it is telling that although Irenaeus claimed that ‘they [i.e., gnostics] [were] citing from non-scriptural works’ (Haer. 1.8.1), Ptolemy made no references to any of the gnostic writings.57 Instead, he concluded his letter with yet another mention of his hermeneutical criterion that sister Flora would be able to benefit from – ‘the power to measure all assertions with the teaching of our Savior’ (7.9). In conclusion, since what Ptolemy got ‘wrong’ (theologically speaking) has been listed several times since the second century, this paper focuses on what he allegedly got ‘right’ (hermeneutically speaking). So, what is the contribution of Ptolemy’s Epistula ad Floram, one of the earliest extant guides to Christian exegesis, to the developing tradition of biblical interpretation? 1. An insight that biblical exegesis is always a theological exegesis. That is, one’s doctrine of God determines one’s approach to the Word of God (i.e., Scripture). 2. Prosopological exegesis helps to handle texts which seem ‘unfitting’ for God. 3. Another benefit coming from the use of the criterion of fittingness is that it helps to discern whether a text has to be considered on a literal or figurative level. 53 If Flora was not yet a follower of Ptolemy – thus, not yet a ‘pneumatic’ – then perhaps the words of a Valentinian Gospel of Philip applied: ‘If children, they [i.e., the disciples of God] feed them what is complete’ (81.14). 54 As contended, for example, by A. Le Boulluec, ‘The Bible in Use among the Marginally Orthodox’ (1997), 212. True, Irenaeus mentioned the claim that certain mysteries were privately told to the disciples (Haer. 1.25.5; 3.2.2). Yet, Ptolemy did not use the words ‘secret’ or ‘private’ (see GPhil. 74:12-24). The argument is not that Ptolemy’s teaching had nothing to do with ‘secret’ traditions, but rather that he did not use the word ‘secret’ in this particular text. 55 1Clem 42-4; Irenaeus, Haer. 3.3.3. While Clement of Alexandria spoke about secret traditions being transmitted through alternative apostolic successions (Strom. 1.1, 11; 7.17), Ptolemy only contended that his teaching ‘too’ or ‘also’ (kai) is backed up with apostolic succession. 56 Irenaeus, of course, adamantly denied that the apostolic succession of the Ptolemaeans was ‘correct’ (Haer. 1.8.1; 3.4.3; 4.32.1). Nevertheless, Ptolemy at least mentioned this hermeneutical criterion. 57 Ptolemy quoted the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of John, and three letters of Paul (including Ephesians); that is, only the would-be canonical documents of the New Testament. Clearly, Ptolemy did not accept Marcion’s ‘canon’. Irenaeus, in turn, wrote, ‘Not only from the words of the evangelist and apostles do they try to make proofs by perverting the interpretation and by falsifying the explanations, but also from the law and the prophets’ (Haer. 1.3.6).

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4. One of the guarantees of adequate interpretation of Scripture is the apostolic succession. It is supposed to secure the trustworthiness of both particular interpreters and interpretations. 5. The use of figurative interpretation is not only a legitimate, but a necessary interpretative device for a Christian reading of the Old Testament. 6. Above all, the criterion in the light of which one is supposed to read the Old Testament is (the ultimate) God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ. The New Testament, as well as Jesus’ fulfilling, abolishing, or reinterpreting the law, is the key to the Old Testament.

The Refutation of All Heresies, Gnostics and the Debate on a New τέχνη γραμματική in Early Christianity Francesca MINONNE, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy

ABSTRACT In a suggestive passage from the Refutation of All Heresies, attributed to the so-called western Hippolytus, the members of the early Christian group known as ‘Gnostics’ are accused of being ‘inventors of a new grammatical art’ (ἐφευρεταὶ καινῆς τέχνης γραμματικῆς). By speaking of ‘new’ in the sense of invented and non-authoritative grammar, the author discredited them as erroneous interpreters of Scriptures and blamed them for deceiving the untrained people through their fallacious exegesis. These accusations reveal the value the author of the Refutation attributed to grammar, as it was for him an important tool of textual exegesis. Interestingly, the idea of discovering ‘new arts’, that is new methods to trick the enemies or take advantage of the situation, occurs also in Athenaeus of Naucratis’ Deipnosophists and in the poem commonly referred to as Batrachomyomachia. These passages allow us to delve deeper into the meaning of the text of the Refutation, in relation to the contemporary cultural context in which Christianity flourished. From this passage we can then reflect on the Christian exegetical tools and the cultural references of the debate between the ‘Gnostics’ and the author of the Refutation. Was grammar a common hermeneutical tool for Christian interpreters? Even though the answer to this question is not simple nor can it be restricted to the study of a single author, an interesting parallel with Irenaeus of Lyon’s Against Heresies may give us some more elements to understand the spread of reading practices in early Christianity and the nature of doctrinal disputes between groups who challenged each other on the legitimacy of Scriptural interpretative methods.

Introduction Christian authors built their exegetical interpretation on relevant textual bases, using grammatical and linguistic analysis to develop their reasoning. Acquired through the traditional Graeco-Roman scholastic training, knowledge of grammar was an unquestionably strong tool. It provided Christian scholars with technical skills in examining syntax, vocabulary and sentence construction, and this competence could become a sort of pre-condition for theological exegesis too.1 1 Blossom Stefaniw, Christian Reading. Language, Ethics, and the Order of Things (Oakland, 2019), 43-91; Catherine M. Chin, Grammar and Christianity in the Late Roman World (Philadelphia,

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 29-38. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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In fact, Scriptures were the object of an in-depth study and the way they were concretely read – and reading was the first part of the grammatical techne – inevitably affected their interpretation. Grammar, in fact, was not confined to our most common understanding of it. It has to be conceived in its most inclusive meaning, as it was in traditional Greek education. In this sense, and according to Dionysius Thrax’ definition in his work on The Art of Grammar,2 grammar was divided into six parts and consisted in the comprehensive analysis of the text.3 Emendation was part of this analytical effort as well4 and it determined the variable form in which texts were spread. The reader was expected to convey the unambiguous interpretation of the text, therefore the act of reading resulted in a distinctive and topical task.5 This was notably relevant in the reading of early Christian texts, whose theological content was sometimes unclear or subject to different possible interpretations. Accordingly, mastering these reading practices and applying them to the hermeneutics of Scripture was crucial for Christian interpreters in order to deal with obscure textual passages and ambiguities.

2008), 72-109; Kim Heines-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters. Literacy, Power and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature (Oxford, New York, 2000), 105-28. See also Mark DelCogliano, ‘The Interpretation of John 10:30 in the Third Century: Antimonarchian Polemics and the Rise of Grammatical Reading Techniques’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 6 (2012), 117-38, 118-20. 2 The authorship of this treatise remains problematic. See Manuela Callipo, Dionisio Trace e la tradizione grammaticale (Acireale, 2011), 9-17, and Vivien Law and Ineke Sluiter (eds), Dionysius Thrax and the Techne Grammatike, The Henry Sweet Society Studies in the History of Linguistics 1 (Münster, 1995). 3 Dionysius Thrax, Ars grammatica, § 5-6 (ed. Uhlig): ‘On grammar: grammar is the knowledge of the expressions mostly used by poets and writers. It counts six parts: first, the trained reading according to prosody; second, the exegesis based on the poetical tropes; third, the readily accessible explanation of words and narratives; fourth, the discovery of etymologies; fifth, the setting out of analogies; sixth, the evaluation of works, which is the best part of all in this art.’ – Περὶ γραμματικῆς· γραμματική ἐστιν ἐμπειρία τῶν παρὰ ποιηταῖς τε καὶ σθγγραφεῦσιν ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ λεγομένων. Μέρη δὲ αὐτῆς ἐστιν ἕξ· πρῶτον ἀνάγνωσις ἐντριβὴς κατὰ προσῳδίαν, δεύτερον ἐξήγησις κατὰ τοὺς ἐνυπάρχοντας ποιητικοὺς τρόπους, τρίτον γλωσσῶν τε καὶ ἱστοριῶν πρόχειρος ἀπόδοσις, τέταρτον ἐτυμολογίας εὕρησις, πέμπτον ἀναλογίας ἐκλογισμός, ἕκτον κρίσις ποιημάτων, ὃ δὲ κάλλιστόν ἐστι πάντων τῶν ἐν τῇ τέχνῃ. On this passage see Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind. Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton, 2001), 185-6 and Rudolph Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford, 1968), 266-70. 4 We speak of διόρθωσις or emendatio. 5 This question, with reference to Dionysius Thrax’ passage, is more extensively dealt with in Francesca Minonne, Origen and the Grammatical Process of Interpretation: Ὑπερβατά as Solutions to Solecisms, in Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Oded Irshai, Aryeh Kofsky, Hillel Newman and Lorenzo Perrone (eds), Origeniana Duodecima. Origen’s Legacy in the Holy Land. A Tale of Three Cities: Jerusalem, Caesarea and Bethlehem. Proceedings of the 12th International Origen Congress, Jerusalem, 25-29 June, 2017 (Leuven, 2019), 659-61.

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Was Grammar a Common Hermeneutical Tool for Christian Interpreters? It is hard to argue how spread the use of the grammatical reading practices was in early Christianity. Since we can only rely on texts that have been preserved in the manuscript tradition – mainly those of the authors who were in the later centuries considered canonical and orthodox –, we derive from them quotations and allusions regarding their interlocutors belonging to different Christian groups. For instance, if we refer to assertions on the use of grammar in exegesis made by authors such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement and Origen, we may presume from their attacks on the hermeneutical activity of minority groups – such as Marcionites, Valentinians and Montanists – that even the latter participated in the debate on the correct reading of the texts. Of course, we must take into account all the issues raised by the use of indirect information, but these references are nonetheless important to outline a wider picture of how these groups interacted with each other in the process of self-definition of ancient Christianity. As Gérard Vallée argued in the introduction to his Study on Anti-Gnostic Polemics: ‘If the patristic evidence must be complemented and corrected by the direct evidence of heterodox writings, these writings offer too scattered and fragmentary a fund of information to permit, by themselves, a satisfactory reconstruction of the heterodoxy they represent. […] We must not expect to find in heresiological writings “the truth about the Gnostics”; too often in these writings the information is tainted by passion or woven within an alien argument that obscures it. Nor can we expect to draw from such writings a ready-made account of “history as it actually happened”; for here, more than ever, the data are decisively placed within an interpretative scheme that colours them. But we can hope to find in those writings what certain influential authors in the emergence of catholic Christianity considered to be the pivotal point on which Christianity would stand or fall, and how they acted to secure that point.’6 The Refutation of All Heresies and the accusation against the ‘Gnostics’ In light of this premise, we found it extremely interesting to notice that, in a passage from the fifth book of the Refutation of All Heresies, attributed to the so-called western Hippolytus,7 the members of the group of heretics known as 6

Gérard Vallée, A Study in Anti-Gnostic Polemics. Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius, Studies in Christianity and Judaism 1 (Waterloo, 1981), 1-4. 7 For the debate concerning the corpus of the works attributed to Hippolytus, we refer to Nuove ricerche su Ippolito, Studia Ephemeridis «Augustinianum» 30 (Roma, 1989). This question has been also addressed by John A. Cerrato, Hippolytus between East and West. The Commentaries and the Provenance of the Corpus (Oxford, 2002), 3-13, and Allen Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century. Communities in Tension before the Emergence of a Monarch-Bishop, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 31 (Leiden, New York, Köln, 1995), 206-57. See also Emanuele

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‘Gnostics’8 are addressed as ‘inventors of a new grammatical art’ (ἐφευρεταὶ καινῆς τέχνης γραμματικῆς).9 The accusation is peculiar and uncommon for Christians who challenge each other on the legitimacy of Scriptural interpretative methods. In this book the author, after having described in the previous ones different opinions and superstitions on the divine creation of the world, introduces the refutation of the heresies starting from the Naassenes, ‘who called themselves Gnostics’. He shows some examples of their interpretation of biblical passages and then states: Pursuing these and such like [opinions], the most marvellous Gnostics, inventors of a new grammatical art, believe that their prophet Homer mysteriously reveals these things and, collecting the holy scriptures in such thoughts, they insult the profanes.10

If we take a step back and consider the general perspective of this anti-heretical work, the main accuse the author of the Refutation levels to the heretics is ‘plagiarism’ (κλεψιλογία)11 from the Hellenic knowledge. They are blamed for deriving the truths of the Christian faith from the Greek arts, such as philosophy, astrology, mythology, magic and mysteries.12 In this framework and focusing on this passage, the author explicitly mentions Homer, criticizing the Christological interpretation through which Gnostics read the Iliad and the Odyssey.13 Castelli in Aldo Magris (ed.), Ippolito, Confutazione di tutte le eresie (Brescia, 2002), 21-55; Agusto Cosentino (ed.), Pseudo-Ippolito, Confutazioni di tutte le eresie (Roma, 2017), 11-102. 8 The new lines of research on Gnosticism, the study of which would require a much deeper discussion, can be detected in Christoph Markschies, Valentinus gnosticus? Untersuchungen zur valentinianischen Gnosis mit einem Kommentar zu den Fragmenten Valentins, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 65 (Tübingen, 1992), and more recently in Mark Edwards, Christians, Gnostics and philosophers in late antiquity, Variorum collected studies series 1014 (Burlington, 2012) and Giuliano Chiapparini, Valentino gnostico e platonico. Il valentinianesimo della “Grande notizia” di Ireneo di Lione: fra esegesi gnostica e filosofia medio platonica, Temi metafisici e problemi del pensiero antico 126 (Milano, 2012), 3-12. 9 This passage, in the context of a broader study on the act of reading as part of the grammatical art, is also mentioned in Francesca Minonne, ‘I primi autori cristiani e la lettura. L’uso della grammatica come strumento esegetico’, Adamantius 25 (2019), 292-314. 10 Haer. V 8 (ed. Wendland): Τούτοις καὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις ἑπόμενοι οἱ θαυμασιώτατοι γνωστικοί, ἐφευρεταὶ καινῆς τέχνης γραμματικῆς, τὸν ἑαυτῶν προφήτην Ὅμηρον ταῦτα προφαίνοντα ἀρρήτως δοξάζουσι καὶ τοὺς ἀμυήτους τὰς ἁγίας γραφὰς εἰς τοιαύτας ἐννοίας συνάγοντες ἐνυβρίζουσι. 11 Haer. I, proem. 11; IV 51, 14; X 34, 2. See Onofrio Vox, ‘Das Plagiat als polemisches Motiv und die Refutatio omnium haeresium’, in Alessandro Capone (ed.), Lessico, argomentazioni e strutture retoriche nella polemica di età cristiana (III-V sec.) (Turnhout, 2012), 175-88, and G. Vallée, A Study in Anti-Gnostic Polemics (1981), 48. 12 See G. Vallée, A Study in Anti-Gnostic Polemics (1981), 48-9; Miroslav Markovich (ed.), Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium, Patristische Texte und Studien 25 (Berlin, New York, 1986), 35-8, and Klaus Koschorke, Hippolyts Ketzerbekämpfung und Polemik gegen die Gnostiker. Eine tendenzkritische Untersuchung seiner „Refutatio omnium haeresium“ (Wiesbaden, 1975), 10-24. 13 In this sense, Gnostics christianize the allegorical exegesis that Stoics made of Homer and that will then be of Neoplatonists. Therefore, Gnostics were accused of depending on pagan

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The allusion to the secrecy of their mystery practices and sacred initiation is evoked by terms like ἀρρήτως (‘mysteriously’) and ἀμύητος (‘uninitiated’). In addition, there is the accusation of having discovered a ‘new’ art of grammar. Can this claim hint to an illegitimate procedure being used by Gnostics in reading and exegesis? From this expression we assume that there was a shared understanding of the grammatical methods and tools, identified as traditional, to which Gnostics allegedly opposed others. Accordingly, these practices are defined ‘new’ (καινός) as non-traditional and not usually referred to as the authoritative ones. The aim of the Gnostics’ unorthodox method of collecting and interpreting Scriptures was the deceit of those who did not have a thorough knowledge of biblical writings nor were they admitted into their mysteries. By exposing his adversaries’ deception, the author of the Refutation asserted his position as the legitimate and trustworthy interpreter of Scriptures. Mastering the traditional reading methods, without misleading purposes, he dismantles the Gnostics’ reasoning and concludes: So, the Naassenes, who call themselves Gnostics, attempt to prove these things. However, since the deceit has many heads and is diversified, truly like the hydra we are told about, having struck one head of this through refutation, by using the wand of truth, we shall eliminate the whole monster. In fact, all the other heresies are not very different from this one, being held together by the same spirit of deceit.14

The image of the Lernaean hydra as symbol of the different heresies stemming from the same erroneous root and being multiform is used also by Irenaeus in the first book of his Against heresies while speaking of Ophites, Sethians and, as another head, Valentinians, against the unicity of the Church.15 In the Refutation, the ‘wand of truth’ (ἡ τῆς ἀληθείας ῥάβδος) is the weapon that destroys the monster of heresy, whose numerous heads – that are very similar to each other – are united and inspired by the spirit of falsehood and error. This expression reminds us of the First Letter of John, where the ‘spirit philosophies. This complex question deserves separate consideration, however for an introductory bibliography see Dennis R. MacDonald, Christianizing Homer: The Odyssey, Plato, and the Acts of Andrew (New York, 1994); Jean Pépin, ‘The Platonic and Christian Ulysses’, in Dominic J. O’Meara (ed.), Neoplatonism and Christian Thought (Albany, 1982), 3-18; Félix Buffière, Les mythes d’Homère et la pensée grecque (Paris, 1956); Jérome Carcopino, De Pythagore aux apotres : études sur la conversion du monde romain (Paris, 1956). 14 Haer. V 11 (ed. Wendland): Ταῦτα μὲν οὖν οἱ Ναασσηνοὶ ἐπιχειροῦσιν, ἑαυτοὺς γνωστικοὺς ὀνομάζοντες. ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ πολυκέφαλός ἐστιν ἡ πλάνη καὶ πολυσχιδὴς ὡς ἀληθῶς ἱστορουμένη ὕδρα, κατὰ μίαν ταύτης κεφαλὴν πατάξαντες διὰ τοῦ ἐλέγξαι, τῇ τῆς ἀληθείας ῥάβδῳ χρησάμενοι ἅπαν τὸ θηρίον ἀναιρήσομεν· οὐδὲ γὰρ αἱ λοιπαὶ αἱρέσεις πολὺ ταύτης ἀπεμφαίνουσι, συνεχόμεναι ἑνὶ πλάνης πνεύματι. 15 Haer. I 30, 15. See Augusto Cosentino (ed.), Pseudo-Ippolito, Confutazione di tutte le eresie, Collana di testi patristici 247 (Roma, 2017), 270, n. 118, and Bernard Pouderon, ‘Hippolyte, un regard sur l’hérésie entre tradition et invention’, in Gabrielle Aragione and Enrico Norelli (eds), Des évêques, des écoles et des hérétiques. Actes du Colloque international sur la “Réfutation de toutes les hérésies”: Genève, 13-14 juin 2008 (Lausanne, 2011), 43-71, 50.

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of truth’ (τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας), coming from God, is opposed to the ‘spirit of deceit’ (τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης), that inspires false prophets and lives in the antichrist.16 The spirit of truth comes from God and inspires those who acknowledge Jesus Christ and his incarnation. About the Expression ἐφευρεταὶ καινῆς τέχνης γραμματικῆς Although it may seem a rather common expression, I could find the phrase ‘inventors of a new art of grammar’ (ἐφευρεταὶ καινῆς τέχνης γραμματικῆς) only in the Refutation. However, there are two interesting parallels I want to discuss here. They combine the idea of ‘inventing, discovering’ of the verb εὑρίσκω with that of a ‘new art’ (καινὴ τέχνη) used to trick the enemies or take advantage of the situation. One of these parallels occurs in Athenaeus of Naucratis’ Deipnosophists and the other one is attested in the poem commonly referred to as Batrachomyomachia. The Batrachomyomachia is a parody of Greek epic, attributed to Homer but whose dating is extremely difficult and debated. Recently, scholars tend towards the time frame between the first century BCE and the first century CE. In antiquity, the poem was perceived as Homeric and it could have been used in schools for young students.17 As regarding the content, the Batrachomyomachia tells the story of the single-day war between frogs and mice. The short poem opens with Crumbthief, the son of the king of mice, who meets on the shores 16 1John 4:1-6: ‘Beloved, do not trust every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are from God, because many false prophets have come in the world. In this way you recognize the spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, who, as you heard, is coming and now is already in the world. You are from God, children, and you have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world; because of this they speak from the world and the world listens to them. We are from God; whoever knows God listens to us, whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we distinguish the spirit of truth from the spirit of deceit.’ – Ἀγαπητοί, μὴ παντὶ πνεύματι πιστεύετε, ἀλλὰ δοκιμάζετε τὰ πνεύματα εἰ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν, ὅτι πολλοὶ ψευδοπροφῆται ἐξεληλύθασιν εἰς τὸν κόσμον. ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκετε τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ· πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ ὁμολογεῖ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν, καὶ πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ μὴ ὁμολογεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν· καὶ τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου, ὃ ἀκηκόατε ὅτι ἔρχεται, καὶ νῦν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἐστὶν ἤδη. ὑμεῖς ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστε, τεκνία, καὶ νενικήκατε αὐτούς, ὅτι μείζων ἐστὶν ὁ ἐν ὑμῖν ἢ ὁ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ· αὐτοὶ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου εἰσίν· διὰ τοῦτο ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου λαλοῦσιν καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτῶν ἀκούει. ἡμεῖς ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐσμεν· ὁ γινώσκων τὸν θεὸν ἀκούει ἡμῶν, ὃς οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἀκούει ἡμῶν. ἐκ τούτου γινώσκομεν τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης. 17 For the debate on date and authorship see Joel Christensen and Erik Robinson (eds), The Homeric Battle of the Frogs and Mice (London, New York, 2018), 1-42, and Reinhold Glei (ed.), Die Batrachomyomachie. Synoptische Edition und Kommentar, Studien zur klassischen Philologie 12 (Frankfurt am Main, Bern, New York, Nancy, 1984), 34-6.

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of a lake Bellowmouth, the king of frogs. Bellowmouth offers to guide the mouse in the realm of frogs and carries him on his back swimming on the water. Suddenly, a water snake appears and Bellowmouth, frightened, plunges, while Crumbthief drowns. The war between mice and frogs breaks out and the gods join the battle as well. After Zeus has sent the crabs to help the frogs, the mice finally withdraw and the war ends. The passage we are interested in is part of king Breadmuncher’s speech to the mice after Crumbthief’s death. He complains of the loss of his other two sons, one killed by a weasel and the other one at the hands of men. Cruel men brought the other [son] to death with very new arts inventing a wooden trick that they call trap, the maximum destroyer of mice.18

The king of mice ascribes his second son’s death to the innovative arts of men, thanks to which they created a wooden weapon (καινοτέραις τέχναις ξύλινον δόλον ἐξευρόντες) – ξύλινος δόλος seems to recall here the Trojan horse, as has been noticed,19 while the trap sounds like a reference to Callimachus20 and his description of a mousetrap.21 The other occurrence is from Athenaeus of Naucratis’ Deipnosophists, dated to the second half of the second century.22 It describes a banquet of scholars and deals in fifteen books with the topics raised from time to time by the diners. In our passage the sophist Cynulcus mocks his interlocutor Magnus, comparing him to Chaerephon, a well-known Athenian parasite mentioned in the Fugitive, one of Alexis’ comedy: And after this beautiful display of vulgarity, he goes from house to house searching where splendid banquets are set up, even more than that Chaerephon of Athens of whom Alexis says in the Fugitive: Chaerephon always finds a trick new to get free meals.23

Batr. 115 (ed. Glei): Τὸν δʼἄλλον πάλιν ἄνδρες ἀπηνέες ἐς μόρον εἷλξαν / καινοτέραις τέχναις ξύλινον δόλον ἐξευρόντες, / ἣν πάγιδα καλέουσι, μυῶν ὀλέτειραν ἐοῦσαν. 19 J. Christensen and E. Robinson (eds), The Homeric Battle (2018), 106. 20 Fr. 177, 15-37 (ed. Pfeiffer). 21 Callimaco, Aitia, giambi e altri frammenti, introduzione, traduzione e note di Giovan Battista D’Alessio (Milano, 20013), 455, n. 18. See also Ruth Scodel, ‘Stupid, Pointless Wars’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 138 (2008), 219-35, 232. 22 See S. Douglas Olson (ed.), Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters, 8 vol. (Cambridge, MA, 2006), I xii-xvi, and Luciano Canfora (ed.), Ateneo, I deipnosofisti, 4 vol. (Roma, 2001), I xvii-xxi. 23 Deipn. IV 58 (ed. Kaibel): καὶ μετὰ τὰς καλὰς ταύτας ἀμουσολογίας περιέρχεται τὰς οἰκίας ἐξετάζων ὅπου δεῖπνα λαμπρὰ παρασκευάζεται, ὑπὲρ τὸν Ἀθηναῖον Χαιρεφῶντα ἐκεῖνον, περὶ οὗ φησιν Ἄλεξις ἐν Φυγάδι· αἰεί γ’ ὁ Χαιρεφῶν τιν’ εὑρίσκει τέχνην / καινὴν πορίζεται τε τὰ δεῖπν’ ἀσύμβολα. 18

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Cynulcus quotes some verses by Alexis, a Greek Middle Comedy poet, addressing this notorious Chaerephon.24 He is renowned for inventing always new tricks and escamotages (τιν’εὑρίσκει τέχνην / καινήν) to take advantage of situations and steal a meal. From both passages emerges the adversaries’ ability to devise new τέχναι, along with the deceptive purposes they used them for. The Refutation, Irenaeus and the Gnostic Use of Grammar The parallels from the Batrachomyomachia and the Deipnosophists show us that the idea of inventing new arts and tricks when ascribed to someone’s adversary can be perceived as negative. It is true that in Refutation V 8 τέχνη is used in a technical sense, together with γραμματική. However, it is interesting to notice that, although in the Refutation the word for ‘trick’ is commonly πανούργημα, there is also evidence of the use of τέχνη with the same meaning.25 Moreover, the idea of ‘invention’26 is usually applied to discredit Gnostic theories, that are built on astrology or Pythagorean numerology. In this sense, the author uses the nouns ἐφεύρεσις in VI 52, 1 and ἐφευρήματα in VI 55, 2. Accordingly, we may presume that the association of ἐφευρεταί with καινὴ τέχνη γραμματική could remind the reader of a negative feeling of deception and trickery. This claim against Gnostics reveals also the value that the author of the Refutation attributes to grammar as an important tool of textual exegesis that must be used rightly. We can find examples of what is considered a deceptive use of grammar in Refutation VI 46, where the author explains how the twentyfour letters of the Greek alphabet are associated by Markos the Valentinian, ‘expert in magic’ (μαγικῆς ἔμπειρος),27 to the tree couples of powers, namely ‘Father and Truth’, ‘Word and Life’, ‘Human and Church’.28 The distinction between consonants, semivowels, vowels and double letters mirrors the analysis we find in Dionysius Thrax’ Art of grammar.29 The question of the correlation between grammar and Gnostic anthropology and cosmology is too complex and 24 Fr. 259 (ed. Kassel-Austin). Chaerephon is mentioned several times by Athenaeus and seems to have lived at the end of the 4th century BC, between 325 and 310. See L. Canfora (ed.), Ateneo, I deipnosofisti (2001), I 410 n. 7. 25 As in Haer. IV 36, 1 and VI 40, 3. 26 On the concept of καινότης in the Refutation, see B. Pouderon, Hippolyte, un regard sur l’hérésie entre tradition et invention (2011), 49. 27 Haer. VI 39, 1. 28 M. David Litwa (ed.), Refutation of All Heresies, Writings from the Greco-Roman World 40 (Atlanta, 2015), 463-7. 29 Dion. Thr., Ars gram. 7 (ed. G. Uhlig). See Niclas Förster, Marcus Magus. Kult, Lehre und Gemeindeleben einer valentinianischen Gnostikergruppe. Sammlung der Quellen und Kommentar, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 114 (Tübingen, 1999), 236-47.

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multifaceted to be addressed here, however it is interesting to recall the importance that the speculation on the letters of the alphabet had in Gnostic texts, as attested also in Irenaeus, Against Heresies I 14, 1-5.30 Grammatical terminology and elements were employed by some Christian groups to explain also the power of the cosmos declined in the human figure.31 We can then assume that grammar was a well-known art that could foster different interpretations of esoteric doctrines.32 With an intent that seems similar to that of the author of the Refutation in the passage we analyzed, Irenaeus addresses his adversaries as ‘sophists of words’33 and ‘perverse grammarians’.34 This last accusation is significant: it goes beyond the allusion to erudite etymological explanations and sophistic wordplays and suggests a disparaging evaluation of the adopted method of analysis and interpretation of texts.35 The expression occurs at the beginning of the fourth book of the Against Heresies, where the author wants to affirm the unicity of God against the Gnostics’ speculation on the presence of two divinities, namely the true heavenly God and the Demiurge, who created the material world. Therefore, Irenaeus states: […] it is clearly false what the perverse sophists teach, that it is God and Father by nature he whom they discovered, and that the Demiurge is neither God nor Father by nature but only in words, because he governs the creation, as these perverse grammarians say, speculating on God.

Unfortunately, we do not have the original Greek version of the text. According to the Latin translation, preserved in the manuscript tradition, Gnostics are called circumventores et perversissimi sophistae and then perversi grammatici, as they distinguish one God ‘by nature’ (naturaliter) and another ‘in words’ (verbo tenus). The comparison with the Armenian version of this passage can 30

See Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, ‘Counseling through Enigmas: Monastic Leadership and Linguistic Techniques in sixth-century Gaza’, in Sergio La Porta and David Shulman (eds), The Poetics of Grammar and the Metaphysics of Sound and Sign (Leiden, Boston, 2007), 176-99, 179-80. 31 Iren., Haer. I 14, 3. 32 See Jean-Daniel Dubois, ‘Le «nom insigne» d’après Marc le mage’, in Michel Tardieu, Anna Van den Kerchove and Michela Zago (eds), Noms barbares I: Formes et contextes d’une pratique magique (Turnhout, 2013), 253-64, 259-60. The knowledge of the creative power of the alphabet is a widespread phenomenon also in early rabbinic Judaism: see Einar Thomassen, ‘Gnostic Semiotics: the Valentinian Notion of the Name’, Temenos 29 (1993), 141-56, 142, and Dan Cohn-Sherbock, ‘The Alphabet in Mandaean and Jewish Gnosticism’, Religion 11 (1981), 227-34, 232. 33 Haer. III 24, 2. 34 Haer. IV 4, 1 (eds. Rousseau and Doutreleau): […] manifeste falsa ostenduntur ea quae dicunt circumventores et perversissimi sophistae, docentes naturaliter et Deum et Patrem esse quem ipsi adinvenerunt, Demiurgum vero naturaliter neque Deum neque Patrem esse sed verbo tenus dici eo quod dominetur conditionis, sicut dicunt perversi grammatici, excogitantes in Deum. 35 See Alain Le Boulluec, La notion d’hérésie dans la littérature grecque, IIe-IIIe siècles (Paris, 1985), I 136-8.

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be useful for a better understanding of the author’s word choice.36 The Armenian equivalent of verbo tenus is դրութեամբ, in the Instrumental case. The noun դրութիւն means ‘position, thesis’ and corresponds to the Greek θέσις, a technical term of prosody in opposition to φύσις.37 The use of the dichotomy φύσει/ θέσει in the distinction of gods ‘by nature’ and gods ‘by word convention’ recalls a grammatical background, which is made clear by the following reference to ‘grammarians’: Irenaeus associates the heretical speculations on God to the grammarians’ captious speculations on words.38 Conclusion As suggested by the numerous questions raised throughout the article and only partially argued here, the debate on the use of grammar in ancient Christian hermeneutics requires further investigation based on the comparative study of ancient sources. The passages from the Refutation and the Against Heresies give us more elements to explore the spread of reading practices in early Christianity and discuss the textual nature of doctrinal disputes. The legitimacy of the exegetical method contributes to define the boundaries of orthodoxy in the interpretation of Christian Scriptures and, consequently, the exclusion from the majority group of those accused of heresy. In fact, if the preliminary work of reading and analysis of texts does not take place according to the methodological approach recognized as authoritative, then the whole hermeneutical process is compromised. The lack of extensive first-hand sources of those theological positions that will be judged unorthodox by the subsequent Christian tradition makes the reconstruction of the cultural context of early Christianity extremely difficult. Nonetheless, the strong criticisms towards the misleading use of grammatical tools attested in these anti-heretical works must have been a clear reference for all interlocutors. This consideration can support modern scholars in assessing grammar as an integral part of the work of early Christian exegetes, not only in the use of syntactic elements in support of theological reasoning, but also for the overall interpretation of Scriptures and in view of the constitution of the biblical canon. 36 The Armenian translation of this book, traditionally dated to the 6th century, is an accurate transposition of the original Greek. Therefore, it is nonetheless valuable in comparison to the previous Latin version. See Adelin Rousseau, Bertrand Hemmerdinger, Louis Doutreleau and Charles Mercier (eds), Irénée de Lyon, Contre les hérésies, Livre IV, 2 vol., Sources Chrétiennes 100 (Paris, 1965), I 88-92 for the general description of the Armenian version and p. 201 for this specific passage. 37 Dion. Thr., Ars gram. § 8 (ed. Uhlig): ‘A long syllable can result in eight ways, three by nature and five by position.’ – Μακρὰ συλλαβὴ γίνεται κατὰ τρόπους ὀκτώ, φύσει μὲν τρεῖς, θέσει δὲ πέντε. 38 As underlined by Bertrand Hemmerdinger in A. Rousseau, B. Hemmerdinger, L. Doutreleau and C. Mercier (eds), Contre les hérésies, Livre IV (1965), I 201, ad loc.

Excerpts from Theodotus: Social Significance of Apostolic Identity and Boundaries Robert WILLIAMS, B.H. Carroll Theological Institute, Las Colinas, TX, USA

ABSTRACT In the late second century, Clement of Alexandria recorded texts from Theodotus and eastern Valentinians, accompanied by his critical responses, in Excerpts from Theodotus.1 Scholars have explored Clement’s work to analyze his reservations toward perceived rivals and to gain perspective on eastern Valentinian thought.2 This study furthers preceding research by determining the social construction of the Valentinian groups reflected by the Excerpts. They imply identity markers for these groups and boundaries constructed vis-à-vis rival groups, thereby distinguishing the Valentinians. Claiming authority on apostolic succession from Paul, they based their teaching on the ‘apostles’, mainly Paul.3 Ritual practices, informed by Pauline understanding of salvation, enriched their experience with God.4 Einar Thomassen has proposed three ‘dimensions’ in Valentinian Christianity: salvation history, ritual, and protology. The Excerpts evinces symbiosis between the first two, building on the implied foundation of the third.5 The Valentinians saw themselves as undergoing spiritual renewal, experiencing a more profound unity with God than those groups from whom they differentiated themselves. 1 The Greek text of the Excerpts is based on Clemens Alexandrinus III. Stromata Buch VII und VIII, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, Quis dives salvetur, Fragmente, ed. Otto Stählin, Ludwig Früchtel and Ursula Treu, GCS 17 (Berlin, 1970); Clément d’Alexandrie: Extraits de Théodote, ed. François Sagnard, SC 3 (Paris, 1948); and The Excerpta ex Theodoto of Clement of Alexandria, ed. Robert Pierce Casey, SD 1 (London, 1934). 2 Mark Edwards, Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church (Farnham, Burlington, VT, 2009), 58, notes that Clement is in fact restrained in his critique, inserting only ‘occasional strictures’. 3 Conversely, Christoph Markschies, Gnosis: An Introduction, trans. John Bowden (London, New York, 2003), 72-3, observes that Pauline congregations were warned at an earlier time ‘against being trapped by “philosophy and empty deceit” (Col. 2:8)’, the Christians showing an interest in gnosis: ‘they wanted to understand their Christianity against the contemporary philosophical offers of meaning’. 4 Far from unusual, such experience with the divine is common to ‘gnostic’ thought. For C. Markschies, Gnosis (2003), 16, it heads the list of eight ideas in these movements, ‘the experience of a completely other-worldly, distant, supreme God’. For terminological clarity, he (ibid. 8-10) and M. Edwards, Catholicity (2009), 11-3, 36, observe that the term ‘gnostic’ is not a self-designation for any group deemed aberrant, with the exceptions of an unidentified one by Irenaeus (Haer. I 25:6; cf. I 11:1) and those Hippolytus labels Naasenes (Ref. V 2, 6:3), though Clement employs the term both positively (Strom. II 46:1; VII 8:82) and negatively (Paed. I 52:2; Strom. II 117:5; III 30:1, perhaps referring to 1Tim. 6:20-1). 5 The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the ‘Valentinians’, NHMS 60 (Leiden, Boston, 2006), 133-4.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 39-53. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Introduction: ‘Spiritual renewal’, the nature of the document, and its provenance Einar Thomassen’s Spiritual Seed has offered ‘a coherent account of Valentinianism’6 from all sources, ‘to see how the protology, salvation history and ritual functioned together as a religious system’.7 By contrast, the present study, on the one hand, limits itself to Clement’s Excerpts and, on the other, goes beyond Thomassen’s parameters, to show the social and psychological dimensions8 found in Clement’s collection. These dimensions emerge from realized eschatological features of Pauline epistles (with much reference as well to John’s gospel). The fragments thereby suggest spiritual renewal for the hearers. First, we explain usage of our term ‘spiritual renewal’.9 Edwards understands gnosis as a whole as ‘a natural ripening (or at worst a hypertrophy) of motifs that belong to the earliest proclamation of the Gospel’.10 Bentley Layton has characterized Valentinus in particular as ‘the great Christian reformer of gnostic theology’.11 Beyond ‘ripening’ the NT teaching and ‘reforming’ such theological developments,12 this study endeavors to show how eastern Valentinians sought spiritual renewal of Christianity.13 They were a reform movement comparable to the Protestant Reformation. Valentinians focused on redemption, ἀπολύτρωσις, through baptism, βάπτισμα, with knowledge, γνῶσις. The Protestants would later center concern on justification, δικαίωσις, by grace, χάρις, through faith, πίστις. The Valentinian motivation for baptism has been summarized as a desire to escape oppression, ‘the liberation of the spirit from the 6 Ibid. 1. C. Markschies, Gnosis (2003), 91, notes that Valentinians, all the while, were intent to work ‘from the basic elements of Christian theology which were already tradition at the time’. 7 Einar Thomassen, email 8 April 2019. 8 He mentions this lack as a point on which his work has been criticized (ibid.). 9 The author expresses his appreciation to Einar Thomassen for reading an earlier draft of this article and making suggestions in the above email (ibid.). This clarification of my term ‘spiritual renewal’ was one of those suggestions. 10 Catholicity (2009), 14. 11 The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions, ABRL (New York, 1987), xv, xxii. Edwards’s term for the figure is ‘Christian innovator’ (Catholicity [2009], 25). 12 See note 5. 13 Germane to this endeavor from a broader perspective, C. Markschies, Gnosis (2003), argues that these movements were ‘an attempt to understand the Jewish-Christian religion better, orientated on the philosophical standards of antiquity’ (21), ‘an attempt by semi-educated people to explain their Christianity at the level of the time’ (83). He thus perceives an apologetic motivation. ‘Biblical traditions which were difficult to understand in an urban setting were either explained and translated … or … integrated … precisely because of their alien nature’ (110), attempting to make Christian theology ‘competitive on the market of ancient world-views’ (120, cf. 93 for Valentinians in particular), Christianity having expanded from villages of Galilee to the major cities of the Roman Empire. Applying this broad perspective to the Excerpts, the present study argues that they appeal for spiritual enrichment that will be credible in their educated urban religious community.

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bonds of cosmic existence (the physical body, passions, demons)’.14 As I perceive the evidence, the Valentinian ‘reform’ involved correcting deficiencies in Christianity as they knew it. The shortcomings are threefold, in theological interpretation of sacred texts, in mystical experience of their union with God, and in the sociological experience of unity in their earthly ἐκκλησία. Eastern Valentinians in Clement’s Excerpta, arguably from a single anonymous source,15 endeavor to effect the desired change in the Christianity of their day and place by guiding proselytes into a religious experience with the Unknown God, the Father of their Savior Jesus Christ, and into a social identity with others in the church, the ἐκκλησία, consisting of those with the spiritual seed from Sophia, a fallen aeon from God. The religious experience is individual, uniting each initiate spiritually with one’s angel, representing union with the Unknown God as Father. The resultant social identity in turn unites the initiate with the ἐκκλησία of those so blessed. The Valentinian initiation ritual in combination with their teachings about the ‘seed’ functions to create a socio-religious identity among the initiates and to establish boundaries between their group and others. Next, we clarify the nature of the document. Clement’s compilation has been described as a notebook of quotations, unsystematic in character,16 emerging with his other work in an ‘ongoing debate’ with Valentinians, weighing the correctness of their ideas against his own Christian perspectives.17 The work was divided into eighty-six sections by Heinrici in 1871.18 The title in the earliest manuscript, of the eleventh century in Florence,19 indicates that the excerpts are from Theodotus and others with eastern Valentinian teaching, Useful Excerpts from the Writings of Theodotus and the So-Called Eastern Teaching of Valentinus.20 This characterization of the excerpts as ‘eastern’ follows differentiation between eastern and western schools found as early as the turn 14 Einar Thomassen, ‘Baptism among the Valentinians’, in Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, ed. D. Hellholm et al., BZNW 176 (Berlin, Boston, 2011), II 895-916, 912. 15 Giuliano Chiapparini, ‘The Theodotus of Clement of Alexandria was Not a Valentinian? Analysis of Excerpts from Theodotus 1-3’, in this volume, p. 60-1, argues that the ‘he’ in φησί, occurring six times (E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed [2006], 29 n. 6) and traditionally understood to be Theodotus (R.P. Casey, Excerpta [1934], 6; still, M. Edwards, Catholicity [2009], 58-64), is better understood as an ‘anonymous Valentinian author of the text that Clement was using at the time’. 16 E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 29. R.P. Casey, Excerpta (1934), 4. 17 Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski, ‘Excerpta ex Theodoto – A Search for the Theological Matrix. An Examination of the Document in the Light of some Coptic Treatises from the Nag Hammadi Library’, SP 79 (2017), 55-70, 66, 69. 18 Georg Heinrici, Die valentinianische Gnosis und die heilige Schrift (Berlin, 1871), 92. 19 Laur. V 3 of the Biblioteca Laurenziana (R.P. Casey, Excerpta [1934], 3). 20 G. Chiapparini, ‘Theodotus’, in this volume, p. 59 n. 16, has shown that the abbreviation transcribed as χρόνους, ‘times’, first in the editio princeps of Petrus Victorius in 1550, and followed by scholars since (e.g., R.P. Casey, Excerpta [1934], 40) is correctly understood as χρήσιμαι, ‘useful’, modifying ἐπιτομαί, ‘excerpts’.

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of the third century and is followed as well by Thomassen in 2006.21 Joel Kalvesmaki two years later, however, and Ashwin-Siejkowski since, doubt that Clement made such a distinction in compiling the quotations.22 Chiapparini shows, from indications in the Laurentian manuscript, that the work was evidently composed from thirteen fragments.23 Of the four sections into which the work has customarily been divided, 1-28, 29-43:1, 43:2-65, and 66-86, Thomassen has shown evidence that the third section, 43:2-65, is western Valentinian teaching.24 Since the first, second, and fourth sections are consistently eastern in teaching, this article will focus on these three sections. Regarding the provenance, Clement made the compilation in the late second century while in Alexandria.25 Theodotus and Valentinians may have written as early as the first half of the century. Valentinus was presumably, but not verifiably,26 in the city before he departed for Rome in the late 130s.27 His Christian community was arguably an ἐκκλησία, not just a philosophical group, since his writings include psalms, homilies, and letters.28 In the second quarter of the second century Valentinus and his followers seem to have been within the range of diversity acceptable to Christians in Alexandria.29 The identification of the sources of Clement’s excerpts, meanwhile, remains debated and consequential. Clement considered Theodotus important. He is the only person quoted by name in the compilation.30 Chiapparini has proposed 21 Tertullian, Val. 11:2; Hippolytus, Haer. VI 35:5-7; E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 39-43, 492-503. See P. Ashwin-Siejkowski, ‘Excerpta’ (2017), 55-6. 22 Joel Kalvesmaki, ‘Italian versus Eastern Valentinianism?’, VC 62 (2008), 79-89; P. AshwinSiejkowski, ‘Excerpta’ (2017), 56. 23 G. Chiapparini, ‘Theodotus’, in this volume, p. 56-7. 24 E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 29, 82. See R.P. Casey, Excerpta (1934) 8. M. Edwards, Catholicity (2009), 58-64, surprisingly without any reference to Thomassen’s work, treats the Excerpts as ‘eastern’ (58), following the manuscript title, and not differentiating the four parts. In 2019 G. Chiapparini expressed similar doubts regarding the four-part schematic with 43:2-65 considered ‘western’ (‘Theodotus’, in this volume, p. 58). 25 Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 3 vol. (Utrecht, Antwerp, 1963-66), II 5. 26 Epiphanius knew a rumor of his birth and education in Egypt, Pan. XXXI 2:2-3 (E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed [2006], 418). 27 Ibid. 28. J. Quasten, Patrology, I (1963) 260, places Valentinus’s arrival in Rome ca. 136-140 from Irenaeus, Haer. III 4:3, ‘in the time of Hyginus’. C. Markschies, Gnosis (2003), 89, adds that he travelled, ‘for unknown reasons’, to Cyprus in the 160s, citing Epiphanius, Pan. XXXI 7:1-2. 28 E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 419, 430-90. 29 We find Thomassen’s conclusions regarding tolerance for Valentinus in Rome reasonable to apply to Alexandria. He has shown that Roman churches tolerated the diversity of Valentinus and his followers until Victor became bishop in 189 (‘Orthodoxy and Heresy in Second-Century Rome’, HTR 97 [2004], 197-256, 255). Absent information to the contrary for Alexandria, such tolerance was probably exercised there as well. A Cerdo, in fact, named by Eusebius as bishop in Alexandria in Trajan’s reign (Hist. eccl. III 21), may well be the one of that name who taught a similar view of the unknown Father in Rome at the time of Valentinus and Marcion (Irenaeus, Haer. I 27:1; III 4:3). 30 The other contemporary name is Valentinus, used only in identifying his followers, ‘the Valentinians’, G. Chiapparini, ‘Theodotus’, in this volume, p. 59. See E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 29.

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convincingly that this Theodotus was not, however, the ‘head of the “Eastern” Valentinian school’, as usually purported.31 He may instead be the adoptionist Theodotus of Byzantium, identified as a tanner, mentioned first in the early third century by ‘Hippolytus’ (Haer. VII 35:1-2; X 23:1-2) and associated with the late second century.32 Chiapparini’s proposed ‘anonymous Valentinian author’ seems to have been Clement’s Valentinian source. This anonymous Valentinian’s writing can perhaps be dated then to 140-190, the period from Valentinus’s time in Alexandria to Clement’s employing the material. AshwinSiejkowski considers that ‘this anthology of more or less defined quotations and comments emerged alongside Clement’s work on Paedagogus and Stromateis’ in ‘his ongoing debate with his Valentinian opponents’.33 This is plausible, though the survival of Valentinians as an ἐκκλησία for a half century seems dubious in light of the lack of evidence. Clement’s use of ἐκκλησιαστικός suggests that he was associated with an ἐκκλησία in Alexandria in the late second century that was not Valentinian.34 Bogdan G. Bucur notes that Clement knew patterns of spiritual formation from Greek philosophy and Jewish esoteric thought, the Excerpta with Eclogae and Adumbrationes constituting ‘the pinnacle of Clement’s exposition of doctrine’.35 He has come to understand that the believer progresses from faith to γνῶσις to perfection.36 The Excerpta present the γνῶσις and explain the procedure that lead to such Christian experience. 1. Baptism, initiation to Valentinian Christian experience: Exc. 66-86 It is in the fourth section, excerpts 66-86, that our examination begins. Exc. 78:1-2 introduces us to Valentinian spiritual renewal. It reads as follows: ‘Thus until baptism Fate is effective, but after it the astrologers no longer speak the truth. It is not, however, the bath alone that liberates, but knowledge too: who we were, what we have become, where we were, where we have been 31 Clement evidently considered Theodotus ‘very well-known and important’ and ‘likely’ used ‘quotations known by heart of key expressions of his thought’, G. Chiapparini, ‘Theodotus’, in this volume, p. 60 and 61 n. 30. 32 M. Edwards, Catholicity (2009), 58 n. 8, suggested the same. 33 P. Ashwin-Siejkowski, ‘Excerpta’ (2017), 66, 69. Eusebius dates these works to Severus’ reign, 193-211, and more particularly coordinates them with the point at which Origen became Clement’s pupil (Hist. eccl. VI 6) (Henri Crouzel, Origen, trans. A.S. Worrell [Edinburgh, 1989], 7; Joseph W. Trigg, Origen [London, New York, 1998], 14). Known as a speculative Christian philosopher, his works that have survived only as titles or fragments suggest that he may well have been more oriented to Biblical exegesis and theology (M. Edwards, Catholicity [2009], 57). 34 Strom. VII 95:1, 97:4. P. Ashwin-Siejkowski, ‘Excerpta’ (2017), 69. M. Edwards, Catholicity (2009), 58, concurs. 35 ‘The Place of the Hypotyposeis in the Clementine Corpus: An Apology for “The Other Clement of Alexandria”’, JECS 17 (2009), 313-35, 313. 36 Strom. VII 10:1-2.

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placed, where we are hastening, from what we are redeemed, what birth is, what rebirth’.37 We focus first on the middle portion, 78:2a: ‘It is not, however, the bath alone that liberates, but knowledge too’.38 The initiate will experience spiritual liberation in baptism once he or she is oriented from knowledge. Our study will explicate first how one is initiated, the initiatory loutron (λούτρον) in the extracts, and then explore what one needs to know before the initiation, the preparatory gnosis (γνῶσις) informing the catechumen. The initiatory process is recorded in Exc. 76-86. Thomassen has observed that the account intends not to be comprehensive like a church order but to show ‘the relationship between the sensible and the intelligible aspects’ of the ritual. The ritual is necessary to ‘detach the soul from the body on which the spirits operate and through which they instil fear in the soul’.39 The believer, upon being baptized in the Triune Name, is characterized in Pauline images. The initiate becomes ‘higher than all the other powers’ (76:4) in renouncing ‘the evil principalities’ (77:1b). Pauline ideas state that while we ‘struggle’ against these powers Christ has already ‘disarmed’ them.40 For this reason baptism is called death, being ‘an end of the old life’ (77:1a).41 ‘The power of the transformation of him who is baptized does not concern the body but the soul’ (77:2). Thomassen clarifies as follows: ‘The power must, therefore, be equivalent to “the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,”’ the transformation of baptism being ‘symbolic and real at the same time’.42 The physical ritual symbolizes liberation from the cosmic powers. The act at the same time effects ‘real’ transformation of the soul from ‘receiving the Name’, being ‘sealed’ by it,43 thereby ‘beyond the threats of every other power’ (80:3).44 The faithful has ‘the name of God through Christ as a superscription and the Spirit as an image’ (86:2),45 ‘assigning its bearer to the owner of the name, i.e. God and Christ’.46 The writer includes within the process, in Exc. 82, consecration of substances, the bread, the oil, and the water, which take on ‘spiritual power’. By the same means as the one being baptized, the substances become ‘sanctified’. 37 The combination of ‘bath’, λούτρον, and ‘knowledge’, γνῶσις, is found in no other excerpt and may have originated with Valentinus himself (see E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed [2006], 142 n. 9). 38 Λούτρον is associated with knowledge in Eph. 5:23 (‘the washing of water in the word’) and with regeneration and spiritual renewal in Tit. 3:5 (‘the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit’). 39 E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 339. 40 Eph. 6:12; Col. 2:15. 41 Rom. 6:4. 42 E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 141-2. 43 Eph. 1:13; see 4:30; 2Cor. 1:22. 44 See also 83; 86:2. 45 See 1Cor. 15:49. E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 142. 46 Id., ‘Baptism’ (2011), 904.

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It is ‘by the power of the Name, … transformed by power into spiritual power’ (82:1). The water is consecrated in two ways, ‘both in exorcism and baptism’ (82:2). The consecrated oil is presumably applied to the one baptized after the immersion, and the bread is consecrated for the eucharistic meal that follows (ibid.). Again the writer has made clear that ‘the power of the Name’ is the means by which the common substances have been ‘transformed … into spiritual power’ on behalf of the initiate. The writer does not indicate how this power is activated, for example whether by prayer or simply by God unilaterally, but does include initiative taken by participants. Shifting from statement to exhortation, Exc. 84 urges, ‘Therefore, let there be fastings, supplications, prayers, imposition of hands,47 kneelings, because a soul is being saved from the world and from the “mouth of lions”’. The plural forms suggest activity by the group and not just the initiate. This apparently precedes the baptismal event, intending to circumvent ‘immediate temptation for those who long also for the things from which they have been separated, and even if one has foreknowledge to endure them, yet the outward man48 is shaken’. Group solidarity is called on to fortify the newly baptized. The writer insists that the strength to be transformed in one’s soul depends on group support as well as the power of the Name. 2. Γνῶσις, the content for Valentinian spiritual renewal: Exc. 1-42:1; 66-86 Baptism is the rite that initiates the catechumen into Christianity. The Valentinian characterization of the rite departs little from what was practiced elsewhere in the second century. It is the γνῶσις preparatory to baptism, however, that is crucial for spiritual renewal. Earlier we cited Thomassen’s observation that the account of initiation focused not on being comprehensive but on showing ‘the relationship between the sensible and the intelligible aspects’ of the ritual, thus enabling the reader to understand how the physical dimension enabled the catechumen in the spiritual, namely to ‘detach the soul from the body on which the spirits operate and through which they instil fear in the soul’.49 This detachment occurs at the point of the physical ritual of baptism but on the basis of the mental enlightenment from catechesis. The pre-baptismal catechesis brings the believer to a heightened consciousness of salvation that constitutes an experience of spiritual renewal. The gnosis leads in baptism to a profound change in the believer’s life, ‘a soul is being saved from the world and the “mouth of lions”’ (84). This salvation involving deliverance from such entities is realized in the mind by gnosis (γνῶσις), 47 48 49

We follow Sagnard’s conjecture (Clément, 208). See 2Cor. 4:16. E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 339.

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particulars of which were summarized earlier in eight topics (78:2).50 To this series we return as our starting point for this section. Related to the significance of baptism, Thomassen assigns the eight topics to three sets of issues.51 We employ his labels in the following three sections. A. Valentinian Salvation History, Part 1: The Pleroma as the origin, home and destination of the spiritual This first set of issues contains background for ‘salvation history’, what happened prior to salvation history. This corresponds to the following three of the eight topics listed in Exc. 78:2: ‘who we were’, ‘where we were’, and ‘where we are hastening’. Thomassen labels this information ‘protology’52 and it constitutes the first set of catechetical teachings. ‘Who we were’, the spiritual seed, apparently directs us to the beginning of the excerpts as the anonymous Valentinian writer offered perspective on Jesus’ final words on the cross, commending his spirit to the unknown Father. 53 Thomassen observes, ‘Thus the notion of the body is ecclesiological; when Theodotus in Exc. 1:1 speaks about the flesh of the Logos, he is combining Johannine Logos Christology with Pauline ecclesiology’.54 Our initial identity was as a group, ‘the spiritual seed’. Following quotation of Jesus’ words, Clement writes, ‘What Sophia brought forth, he says, as flesh for the Logos, namely the spiritual seed, this the Savior put on and descended’ (1:1). In this way the anonymous Valentinian source indicates that the ‘seed’ later to constitute the church became initially, at the initiative of Sophia, the body for the Logos at his incarnation.55 The seed is, prior to clothing the ‘Savior’, preexistent. He then concludes the excerpt, ‘Thus, by the word already spoken of, he deposits the whole spiritual seed, that is, the elect’ (1:2). Jesus is thus understood to place his ‘spirit’ into the care of his Father. This spirit is interpreted by the anonymous source as the elect seed, now on earth at Jesus’ crucifixion.56 ‘Who we 50 M. Edwards, Catholicity (2009), 59, describes the psychological effect as follows: ‘The Gnostic is therefore not the one who escapes his corporal tenement, but the one in whom the outer and inner man are no longer at war’. 51 E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 338. See ‘Salvation History’ for the section title (ibid. 135). 52 Ibid. 2-3. Thomassen divides Valentinian thought into three areas, protology, soteriology, and initiation rituals. 53 Luke 23:46. The Father is specified as unknown first in 7:1. 54 E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 42. See n. 15 above contra φησί as reference to Theodotus. 55 M. Edwards, Catholicity (2009), 59, describes the seed as ‘the fleshy integument, the sarkion, with which Wisdom apparelled him for his descent’, ‘not an individual carapace but the whole body of the elect’. 56 Exc. 26 is similar but involves a shift of terminology from ‘the spiritual seed’ to ‘the superior seeds’.

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were’ then is a preexistent seed produced by Sophia to clothe the Savior in his incarnation and committed into the Father’s care by the Savior, at his crucifixion, as the church on earth. Exc. 39 and 41 clarify the origins of the spiritual seed. Thomassen represents the ‘standard Valentinian mythology’ as follows: ‘The spiritual seed originates in Sophia’s vision of the Saviour and his angels, who are in turn a manifestation of the Pleroma’.57 The seed came forth from their ‘mother’, Sophia. Then ‘having produced the angelic elements of the “called”, she keeps them by herself, for the angelic elements of the elect had been put forth still earlier by the male’ (Exc. 39), the Logos.58 Exc. 41 gives a glimpse of the personal character of these ‘superior seeds’ at their origin. They were ‘children’, not ‘passions’ or ‘creation’ (41:1).59 ‘And in him (the Christ) the seeds were refined, as far as possible, as they went with him into the Pleroma. Therefore, the church is properly said to have been chosen before the foundation of the world’ (41:2).60 We proceed now to ‘where we were’, which includes gender differentiation in the seed. ‘Where we were’ begins on earth and concludes in the Pleroma. Exc. 21 expresses the origins of the spiritual seed in a gender-oriented way with comments indicating where we were, Exc. 35 continuing a portion of the narrative. The biblical account of creation of male and female in God’s image (Gen. 1:27) reflects Sophia’s activity, an ‘emanation’, which is manifested on earth but then is taken up with the Logos. Two groups of spiritual seed, male and female, are referred to in Exc. 21. Males are the ‘election’, called ‘angelic’ (21:1).61 They are ‘drawn together (συνεστάλη) with the Logos (21:3). They are thus ‘election’ and ‘angelic’. Thomassen understands here that ‘the angelic and elect “males” have remained in the region of Sophia, where they are assimilated into the body of the Logos-Saviour’,62 admitting recently that it is ‘all rather puzzling’.63 In Exc. 35:1 the source, following a brief quote from Theodotus (35:1b),64 implies

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E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 435. R.P. Casey, Excerpta (1934), 134. 59 Exc. 2:1 added perspective at an earlier point on pre-human developments: ‘Those of the Valentinians’ taught further, ‘that when the animal body was fashioned, a male seed was implanted by the Logos in the elect soul while it was asleep and that this is an effluence of the angelic ’ (2:1). This identity of the spiritual seed, the elect, and eventual Christian believers is reinforced soon after by classifying ‘the church’ as ‘the elect race’ (4:1). 60 Eph. 1:4. 61 Thomassen notes that we see in Exc. 21 ‘transformation into angels’, one of a number of themes involving ‘soteriological transformation’ in the Excerpta (‘Valentinian Ideas About Salvation as Transformation’, in Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity, ed. Turid Karlsen Seim and Jorunn Økland [New York, 2009], 169-86, 179). 62 Id., Spiritual Seed (2006), 378. 63 Id., email 8 April 2019. 64 G. Chiapparini, ‘Theodotus’, in this volume, p. 65 with n. 49. 58

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the pre-existence of the church,65 noting that Jesus ‘led out the angels of the superior seed with him’ (35:1c).66 The male seed, however, does not tell us where we were. It is the females, the second group, with whom ‘we’ are identified. They are ‘the calling’ and ‘the superior seed’ (21:1), who ‘turning into men, are united to the angels, and pass into the Pleroma’ (21:3).67 Thomassen interprets this as follows: the female are ‘the human portions of the seed who have been placed on earth and who need to be ‘called’ and reunited with [their] angelic counterparts’.68 The woman is hence ‘said to be transformed into man’, meaning the male angel embodying the Logos in his descent, ‘and the church here on earth into angels’ (21:3), the unity of male angels and ‘females’ called on earth. This male and female unification is what will be referred to below in reference to the ‘bridal chamber’, analogous to union occurring in marriage.69 These passages concerning who and where we were promote spiritual renewal by heightening the catechumen’s sense of dignity in a framework of Pauline thought. The person originates in a privileged group from the Pleroma. The candidate for baptism is apprised of the forethought given by Sophia relating to God’s choosing us ‘in him before the foundation of the world’ (Eph. 1:4a), later to be incarnated, at Christ’s emptying (Phil. 2:7), and perfected in Christ (Eph. 4:13b).70 The Valentinian writer thus motivates the catechumen to spiritual completeness in illuminating the person to be baptized. We turn now to ‘where we are hastening’. ‘Where we are hastening’, as one may easily surmise by this point, is the Pleroma, our celestial abode. We find this indicated in Exc. 26:2-3 in reference to Jesus’ assertion in John 10:7 that he is ‘the door’: ‘He [Jesus] means that you, who are of the superior seed, shall come up to the boundary where I [Jesus] am. And when he enters in, the seed also enters with him into the Pleroma, brought together and brought in through the door’. The superior seed, 65

E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 42. M. Edwards, Catholicity (2009), 60, states that Jesus, as the Johannine Word, life, and light earlier (Exc. 6; John 1:4), now as ‘our light’, ‘having emptied himself’ (Exc. 35:1), dispersed the angels ‘in order to reunite the dispersed elect (Excerpt 36)’. 67 Here is introduced a ‘second category of people: “the calling” (ἡ κλῆσις)’, P. AshwinSiejkowski, ‘Excerpta’ (2017), 61. See similarly E. Thomassen, ‘Valentinian Ideas’ (2009), 178. See Exc. 79-80 (ibid. 174-5). Thomassen makes sense of the passage by considering that ‘the seed was originally brought forth by Sophia after the image of the Saviour and his angels’ (‘The Eucharist in Valentinianism’, in The Eucharist – Its Origins and Contexts, ed. D. Hellholm and D. Sänger, WUNT 376 [Tübingen, 2017], 1833-49, 1837). 68 E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 378. 69 Related, but less directly germane to our argument, Exc. 22 clarifies that those previously dead spiritually come to life in baptism (ibid. 380; see 1Cor. 5:29a). 70 C. Markschies, Gnosis (2003), 72, notes that ‘perfect man’ (Eph. 4:13) is to be derived from Judaism of the first century, not from the primordial man myth in Christian gnosis of the following century. 66

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elect and now redeemed in baptism, are assured of a future with Jesus in the Pleroma. Little more is made of this in the Excerpta, occupied as it is with narrating the salvation of the elect effected through baptism, as modelled in Jesus’ baptism, and offering minimal perspective on protology and eschatology. This set of Valentinian perspectives on who we were, where we were, and where we are hastening has emphasized repeatedly the exalted importance of the catechumens, reflecting the thoughts and actions of the Savior from catechumens’ pre-incarnational state to their present preparation for baptism and on to their destiny with Jesus in the Pleroma. Clement’s anonymous source expresses himself in Pauline and Johannine terms, with special interest in Ephesian thoughts of believers as elect from before creation and as constituting the very body of Christ both in his historical incarnation as well as to the present, thereby enriching their experience, their spiritual revitalization, in their baptism. We turn now to particulars effecting our salvation in Christ’s historical incarnation, the second part of Valentinian salvation history. B. Valentinian Salvation History, Part 2: What the world is, how it came into existence, and why redemption from it is necessary and possible This second stage explains what happened in salvation history, specifically in our participation with Jesus in his incarnation. This corresponds to the following three topics in Exc. 78:2: ‘what we have become’, ‘where we have been placed’, and ‘from what we are redeemed’, termed ‘soteriology’.71 Here we come to the heart of the Excerpta’s Pauline exposition for spiritual renewal.72 ‘What we have become’ is a church comprised of the elect that have received their ‘angel’, their ‘superior seed’ with Jesus. He has ‘emptied himself’, descending from the Pleroma, and the seed has become his body in his incarnation. Valentinians provide a starting point in Exc. 2, which has similarities with Exc. 21-2 and 35-6 and is then amplified at those points. The anonymous Valentinian writer explains that during Adam’s sleep73 the Logos implanted a ‘male seed’ in the ‘elect soul’, an ‘effluence (ἀπόρροια) of the angelic ’ (2:1). Similar to Adam’s sleep, humans are ‘dead’, ‘made dead by this existence’ (22:2), on earth. However, from Paul’s reference to being baptized for the dead74 he writes, ‘The angels of whom we are all portions were baptized for us’ (22:1b2). Thomassen explains, ‘We (spiritual) humans are female seeds’.75 The writer 71

E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 2. Thomassen observes that the Savior plays a paradoxical dual role in human redemption, as model, receiving redemption from his incarnation, and as agent for others in their subsequent baptism (ibid. 135-9). 73 Gen. 2:21. This was not, however, to make a woman. He had a ‘psychic body’ (2:1) at this point. 74 1Cor. 15:29. 75 E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 435 n. 18. 72

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adds, ‘Therefore we are raised up equal to angels, and restored to unity with the males, member for member’ (22:3). The raising equal to angels apparently refers to rising from baptism, associated then with having the ‘name’ (22:4), and ‘at the laying on of hands they say at the end, “for the angelic redemption”, that is, for the one which the angels also have’ (22:5). Related to this, it was for ‘correction of the seed’ that Jesus, ‘since he was an angel of the Pleroma, led out the angels of the superior seed with him’ (35:1-2), ultimately to ‘unite us with them in the Pleroma’ (36:2).76 Later, more concisely, narration begins with Sophia’s creation and concludes with the Savior’s adoption in Exc. 67-8. The writer enhances Paul’s realized eschatology, making it more immediately experiential for the hearers. From Pauline language of being ‘in the flesh’,77 referring to weakness, the writer speaks of ‘the woman above whose passions became creation’ (67:1, 4). She put forth ‘formless beings’ but ‘on her account the Savior came down to drag us out from passion and to adopt us to himself’, providing us ‘form’, with us thereby becoming ‘children of a husband and a bridal chamber’ (67:4; 68). The Savior’s ‘adoption’ of us, formless as we once were, has provided ‘form’ as ‘children’. This is ‘what we have become’, thus providing us an identity with the Savior and the bridal chamber. The writer thus informs the participants that baptism will bring them into a state of adoption now with two parents, a present experience, not simply a hope to be awaited in the future as one might sense from Paul.78 This brings us to the second topic in the set, ‘where we have been placed’. Association with the bridal chamber means that a boundary separates Valentinians from others. The separation was noted earlier, in Exc. 42: ‘The cross is a sign of the limit in the Pleroma, for it divides the unfaithful from the faithful79 as that divides the world from the Pleroma. Therefore, Jesus by that sign carries the seed on his shoulders and leads them into the Pleroma’ (42:1-2a).80 Thus passing ‘within the limit’, they ‘come to the vision of the Spirit (or Father)’ (64).81 The bridal chamber becomes their blessed residence, again a present

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See note 66. Rom. 7:5. See E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 134. 78 Adoption is awaited, not yet realized, Rom. 8:23. The bridal chamber is part of a ‘profound mystery’ concerning Christ and the church, not yet fully revealed, Eph. 5:31-2. 79 απιστων in the manuscript is corrected to πιστων (R.P. Casey, Excerpta [1934], 68). 80 In the multiple manifestations of the Word, ‘While Christ is the head of the church, it is Jesus who, by shouldering the Cross, sustains “the seed” (Excerpt 42)’ (M. Edwards, Catholicity [2009], 60). 81 The manuscript contains the abbreviation πνς, ‘of the spirit’, but is emended to πρς, ‘of the father’ (ibid. 82). Father is previously mentioned in 61:1, quoting John 14:6. While Thomassen (Spiritual Seed [2006], 81-2) considers this section to reflect western Valentinian thought, this ‘vision’ may be part of the earlier eastern ideas, possibly originating with Valentinus from NT images. See Rev. 22:4, the eschatological ‘beatific vision’. 77

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experience, giving them their proper place as ‘bride’ (68).82 Thus the ‘intimate relationship’ is ‘between the angels and the spiritual humans who are their images’.83 The third topic now comes into consideration, ‘from what we are redeemed’, in Exc. 69-76.84 It is ‘Fate’ that exercises control until ‘the Lord rescues us and supplies peace from the array of powers and angels, in which some are arrayed for us and others against us’ (69:1a; 72:1). The Lord ‘rescues’ us from these powers, bringing us ‘peace from the array of powers and angels’ (72:1) from his incarnation (74:1). The ‘powers’, with ‘the evil principalities’ included subsequently (81:3), are known conquests of Christ in Ephesians and Colossians.85 He disarmed them in his death (Col. 2:15), and God subjected them to him in his resurrection (Eph. 1:20-2). While this stands accomplished, it is also true that believers continue to struggle against such forces (Eph. 6:12). The Valentinian writer, by contrast, informs his hearers that this struggle is finished; the Lord has brought us peace from such adverse forces. He ‘came down to earth to transfer from Fate to his providence those who believed in Christ’ (74:2). The writer then expands on the effects of salvation. Along with rescue from the invisible powers, then, come deliverance from fire, the ‘cosmic fire’ that takes hold of all, material and immaterial (81:1), and deliverance from ‘passion’ that distracts us from following him.86 The life of the believer hence takes on equanimity, not struggle, at baptismal initiation. We shift our attention now to the third part of Valentinian salvation history. C. Valentinian Salvation History, Part 3: How there is a rebirth which liberates from the birth and corruption of the flesh Valentinian thought turns now to salvation’s being pictured as rebirth in final preparation for baptism. This corresponds to the final two topics listed in Exc. 78:2: ‘what birth is’ and ‘what rebirth’. These are discussed in Exc. 67-8 and 79-80. The Valentinian writer understands the distinction between birth and rebirth as that of having one parent, a mother only, and having two, father as well as mother. The writer describes birth and rebirth in a series of three contrasts. First, in Exc. 67-8, the writer contrasts being born ‘formless’, children of the female by herself and ‘receiving form’, children of a husband as well, from the 82

The bridal chamber is suggestive of Christ and the church (Eph. 5:25, 29b-32). Evidently, however, it refers to the male and female imagery in Exc. 21. Exc. 79 then appears to clarify ‘children of a husband’ (68) as ‘a son of the bridegroom’ (M. Edwards, Catholicity [2009], 59). 83 E. Thomassen, ‘Baptism’ (2011), 906. 84 Apparently inserted into 66-86, id., Spiritual Seed (2006), 136. 85 C. Markschies, Gnosis (2003), 72-73, observes additional affinities of the two letters with gnosis. 86 E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 138. See 1Cor. 7:9.

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Savior’s adoption (67:4). Explanation follows in 68. Birth from the woman alone brings us life in a compromised condition, incomplete. The Savior’s adoption brings health and wholeness. Thomassen proposes as the rationale, ‘Perfection arises out of the union of two, while imperfection is the result of singularity’.87 Then, in 79-80, the writer overlaps the above idea with two contrasts related to gender difference, first that of the weakness of the feminine and the strength of the masculine and then that of the death from the Mother’s ‘generation’ and the life from Christ’s ‘regeneration’. Beyond the Savior’s adoption of the ‘child’ (67:4), the person becomes ‘male’, ‘no longer weak and subject to the cosmic forces’ (79). While the ideas here speak of the woman’s inferiority to the man, the main point is to gain release from the evil cosmic forces. The underlying contrast is primarily between the inferior female origin, Sophia, and the male Savior, not between the genders of the reproduction, female and male. The writer then shifts from negative to positive, from overcoming the oppression of cosmic forces to being brought into a life with focus on God, with Pauline baptismal terms. The mother (Sophia) ‘generates’ (γεννᾷ), leading to ‘death’ and into ‘the world’, but Christ ‘regenerates’ (ἀγεννᾷ), transferring to ‘life, into the Ogdoad’ … ‘they die to the world but live to God88 that death may be loosed by death and corruption by resurrection’ (80:1-2). The contrast in the birth-rebirth juxtaposition has thus increased in intensity, from adoption (68) to transformation (79) to immortality and moral purity (80). Birth to rebirth achieves two purposes. First, the three contrasts promise the catechumen spiritual renewal from promises of wholeness in a community of God, strength of character in one’s adverse external environment, and new life from baptism like the Savior’s experience in resurrection. Second, the sequence from birth to rebirth prepares the baptizand with the highest expectation for better life, because of the spiritual renewal from God’s plan, following the baptismal initiation. Conclusion We have seen that, to promote spiritual renewal, the Excerpta contains two features: first, enriching the catechumen’s understanding of Christian scripture and taking him/her beyond them to a deeper understanding of God’s design, and second, leading him/her into experience of this life with God and fellow initiates. Following the programmatic statements in Exc. 78:2, with the guidance of Thomassen’s organizing of the eight topics of catechesis,89 the study has shown 87

‘Valentinian Ideas’ (2009), 178. See n. 17. Rom. 6:10. M. Edwards, Catholicism (2009), 61, finds in the reference to Ogdoad a ‘conceit’ in Ignatius (n. 10, Magn. 9:1) that becomes a ‘concept’ for Valentinians. 89 E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 337-8. 88

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the above two dimensions of the document. It has done so primarily on biblical foundations and is based largely on the apostolic authority of Pauline texts, while drawing on John for reference to the Logos and on Luke for Jesus’ life. The presentation has begun by showing that the physical baptismal ritual enables the catechumen, with the invocation of the Name, to be detached from the previous life and to be transformed in the consecrated elements into life with God and fortified against temptation by group solidarity. This constitutes a spiritual state hardly envisioned in proto-orthodox concepts of the second century until Clement’s perfectionism. To be prepared to experience the full meaning of the baptismal initiation, the catechumen undergoes catechesis that we have seen divided into three somewhat chronological parts, the protological understanding of oneself, followed by the soteriological activity of redemption with the Savior in his incarnation, and concluding with the change from birth to rebirth, the ‘realized’ eschatological result. As a consequence, the Excerpta establish boundaries between the Valentinians and the unclassified ‘others’. The anonymous Valentinian source differentiates between children of Sophia only, non-believers (ἄπιστοι), and those of two parents, of the Savior as well as Sophia, believers (πιστοί), the spiritual seed (πνευμτικὸν σπέρμα), the elect (ἔκλεκτοι), the church (ἐκκλησία). These latter ones Clement terms the perfect (τέλειοι).90 The boundaries in the Excerpta, then, are established not between the Valentinian initiates and other Christian groups but between the initiates and the outside world. Such boundaries allow Valentinians to appeal to those in other Christian groups, for them also to be renewed in their religious experience from Valentinian catechesis and initiation without explicitly rejecting the ‘church’ with which they have been associating. In this way the Excerpta was offering spiritual renewal in its early second century provenance.

90 Hence Bucur chooses the term ‘pinnacle’ in evaluating the Excerpta as a source in Clement’s philosophical approach (‘Hypotyposeis’ [2009], 313).

The Theodotus of Clement of Alexandria was Not a Valentinian? Analysis of Excerpts from Theodotus 1-3 Giuliano CHIAPPARINI, Catholic University, Milan, Italy

ABSTRACT The first three chapters of the so-called ‘Excerpts from Theodotus’ make up the first of the 13 fragments that are recognizable within this opusculum by Clement of Alexandria based on the indications of the ms. Laurentianus 5.3. As in the other fragments, Clement summarizes and sometimes quotes anonymous Valentinian sources. In Fragment 1, concerning the exegesis of Luke 23:46, the summary extends from Exc. 1.1 and Exc. 2.2, but it includes a brief literal quote (Exc. 1.3) of a particular Valentinian source (‘Source of the We’). Only at the end does Clement illustrate his doctrine (Exc. 3,1-2). Scholars usually think that the author of the gnostic source of Exc. 1-3 and most of the Excerpta is Theodotus. In actual fact, this attribution is fairly reckless, because it is based only on the title of the collection, which is understood incorrectly, and on only five marginal citations of the name of Theodotus. In Fragment 1 the name of Theodotus is absent, but it is usually implied as the subject of an anonymous ‘he says’ (Exc. 1,1b), based on the comparison with Exc. 25-26 where the name of Theodotus appears. The two passages are coherent from the doctrinal point of view and most probably they are derived from the same Valentinian source, as Clement himself says (Exc. 2.1 and 25.1). But the analysis of the way in which the name of Theodotus is quoted reveals that he must be distinguished from the guiding source and that he serves only as a comparison.

The so-called Excerpta ex Theodoto by Clement of Alexandria are usually considered one of the fragments from the writings of Theodotus, a disciple of Valentinus (mid-second century).1 However, the results of some recent research question many of these statements: 1) the analysis of the complete original Greek title of the Excerpta allows stating that Clement had not collected a series of literal quotations extracted 1

The current division into 86 chapters was introduced in the edition of Excerpta by Johann Albert Fabricius, Bibliothecae Graecae Liber V de scriptoribus Graecis Christianis (Hamburg, 1712), 134-79. Often, following the use of Sagnard in the commentary to his edition, the numbering is erroneously understood as if it concerned a collection of 86 individual fragments extracted from the writings of Theodotus; see Clément d’Alexandrie. Extraits de Théodote, ed. François-MarieMatthieu Sagnard, SC 23 (Paris, 1948), 52-212 (‘extrait 1’, ‘extrait 2’ etc.). So, Kurt Rudolph, Die Gnosis. Wesen und Geschichte einer spätantiken Religion (Göttingen, 1977, 19903), 346 erroneously concludes that ‘ein ganzes Buch von «Auszügen»’ of Theodotus remains.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 55-66. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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from Gnostic writings, but had made ‘epitomes’ (ἐπιτομαί), that is, summaries of those texts.2 The Latin title is abbreviated and this causes serious misunderstanding.3 The Excerpta ex Theodoto are not a direct Gnostic source. 2) The investigation of the manuscript tradition of Clement’s works showed that the Excerpta were not an autonomous piece of writing, but probably belonged to the Hypotyposeis, his principal lost work.4 On the other hand, the Excerpta are not present in the lists of the works of Clement known in Antiquity.5 On this basis, my research has reached some results that I present briefly. They have been illustrated more fully in the introduction to the new critical edition of Excerpta that I published in Italy.6 1) The codex Laurentianus 5.3 (10th-11th century), which in addition to the Stromateis and the Eclogae propheticae contains the Excerpta ex Theodoto, preserves some precious indications that allow isolating 13 sections of the text of a very different lengths (Table 1).7 The analysis of the structure and content 2 See Joel Kalvesmaki, ‘Italian versus Eastern Valentinianism?’, VC 62 (2008), 79-84, 79-81; Giuliano Chiapparini, ‘“Nuovi” frammenti delle Ipotiposi di Clemente Alessandrino: Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae Propheticae e il resto del cosiddetto libro VIII degli Stromati’, Aevum 90 (2016), 205-38, 235-8. The original title (see Laurentianus 5.3 f. 361r) is almost a summary: Ἐκ τῶν Θεοδότου καὶ τῆς ἀνατολικῆς καλουμένης διδασκαλίας κατὰ τοὺς Οὐαλεντίνου ☧ ἐπιτομαί, ‘Useful epitomes, obtained from the [writings] of Theodotus and from the so-called Eastern doctrine of the followers of Valentinus’. 3 The abbreviation Excerpta ex Theodoto was introduced by Clementis Alexandrini opera, ed. Karl Wilhelm Dindorf (Oxonii, 1869), I, XXXI and especially III, 424-55, but was definitively consecrated by Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. III: Stromata. Buch VII und VIII. Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae Propheticae, Quis dives salvetur?, Fragmente, ed. Otto Stählin, GCS 17 (Berlin, 1909), 105-33, together with the erroneous transliteration Stromata instead of Stromateis. See also The Excerpta ex Theodoto of Clement of Alexandria, ed. Robert Pierce Casey (London, 1934), 41: ‘Extracts from the works of Theodotus’, and Einar Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed. The Church of the ‘Valentinians’, NHMS 60 (Leiden, 2006), generally ‘Excerpts from Theodotus’, but also 28: ‘Excerpts from the [writings] of Theodotus’. 4 See G. Chiapparini, ‘“Nuovi” frammenti’ (2016), 205-38: this article develops the insights of Marco Rizzi, ‘The End of Stromateis VII and Clement’s Literary Project’, in Matyáš Havrda, Vít Hušek and Jana Plátová (eds), The Seventh Book of the Stromateis. Proceedings of the Colloquium on Clement of Alexandria (Olomouc, October 21-23, 2010), VC Suppl. 117 (Leiden, Boston, 2012), 299-311, 303-8. Pierre Nautin, ‘La fin des Stromates et les Hypotyposes de Clément d’Alexandrie’, VC 30 (1976), 268-302, 268-9 and Alain Le Boulluec, ‘Extraits d’œuvres de Clément d’Alexandrie: la trasmission et le sens de leurs titres’, in Jean-Claude Fredouille, Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, Philippe Hoffmann, Pierre Petitmengin and Simone Deléani (eds), Titres et articulations du texte dans les œuvres antiques (Paris, 1997), 287-300, 287-9, had already hypothesized the origin of the Excerpta from other works of Clement. 5 See Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.13.1-3 and 17; Jerome, Vir. ill. 38; also Photius, Bibl. 111. The Excerpta are documented for the first time as a self-contained opusculum with a title of its own in the second half of the 10th century in ms. Laurentianus 5.3 f. 361r-377v. 6 See Giuliano Chiapparini (ed.), Clemente di Alessandria. ‘Estratti da Teodoto’: frammenti delle perdute Ipotiposi (Milan, 2020). 7 In the Laurentianus 5.3 the text overflows in folia 361r (line 18), 362r (lines 24 and 29), 363r (line 21), 364r (line 11), 364v (lines 18 and 29), 365r (line 10), 365v (line 7), 367r (line 23), 376r (line 28) and 377r (line 9); or there are large blank spaces in the text in f. 361v (line 17), 367r (line 22), 368v (line 21), 372r (line 12) and 377r (line 8). Thus, the division is as follows:

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Table 1: Codex Laurentianus 5.3: 13 fragments of Exc.

Table 2: Chapters with short literal quotes.

of these sections confirms that these are 13 fragments excerpts from different places in Clement’s writings.8 Exc. 1-3, which we want to examine, is the first of these fragments. 2) The fragments show that Clement effectively summarized (ἐπιτομαί) the sources he had in front of his eyes. Many times he probably uses the same terminology and makes paraphrases.9 However, he only rarely transcribes the text: literal quotations are very short and fairly well defined (Table 2).10 One of them is in Exc. 1-3 (see Exc. 1.3). fragment 1 (Exc. 1.1-3.2); 2 (Exc. 4.1-5.4); 3 (Exc. 5.5); 4 (Exc. 6.1-8.4); 5 (Exc. 9.1-10.6); 6 (Exc. 11.1-13.1); 7 (Exc. 13.2-5); 8 (Exc. 14.1-4a); 9 (Exc. 14.4b-17.3a); 10 (Exc. 17.3b-23.5); 11 (Exc. 24.1-75.3); 12 (Exc. 76.1-80.3); and 13 (Exc. 81.1-86.3). 8 The thematic interruptions between the fragments are evident, with the exception of the transitions from fragment 2 to 3; from 5 to 6 and 7; from 8 to 9 and 10; from 11 to 12. But the clearest proof of the reliability of the signs present in the Laurentianus 5.3 is that in these latter cases only through them it is possible to identify the traces of the passage from one fragment to another; for example, the initial correlation of Fragment 7 οἱ μὲν … ὁ δὲ … (Exc. 13.2), which is unrelated to the previous text. 9 Clement uses reported speech (‘they say that…’, ‘he says that…’), but more often free indirect speech with parenthetical inserts (‘they say’, ‘he says’); hence the erroneous impression that they are literal quotations. For the transition from reported speech to free indirect speech, see Exc. 2.1-2; 6.1-2; 7.5; 17.1; 21.2; 23.1; 23.2a; 24.1; 30.1; 41.1; 81.1. Regarding the importance of indirect style in the Excerpta, see P. Nautin, ‘La fin’ (1976), 268-9. Similar examples are the ‘Grande Notice’ of Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses 1.1-8) and the Adversus Valentinianos of Tertullian; see Giuliano Chiapparini, Valentino gnostico e platonico. Il valentinianesimo della ‘Grande Notizia’ di Ireneo di Lione: fra esegesi gnostica e filosofia medioplatonica, Temi metafisici e problemi del pensiero antico, Studi e testi 126 (Milan, 2012), 279-96; id., ‘Irenaeus and the Gnostic Valentinus: Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Church of Rome around the Middle of the Second Century’, ZAC 18 (2014), 95-119. 10 There are 12 citations in all: Exc. 1.3; 22.1-4; 25.1-26.3; 29; 32.1; 35.1-36.2; 38.2; 41.2b; 68; 72.1-73.1; 76.1-77.1; 78.2b.

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Table 3: Sagnard’s four sections of 86 chapters of Exc. (1948).

3) The traditional division of the Excerpta into four sections (A: 1-28; B: 29-42; C: 43-65; D: 66-86) must be reconsidered (Table 3).11 Furthermore, the attribution of C to a ‘Western’ Valentinian source and of A-B-D to Theodotus, as the major exponent of the ‘Eastern’ Valentinian school, is dubious.12 4) The selection of the 13 fragments was not made by Clement, but by someone else during the 3rd century.13 As we understand from the title of the Excerpta, he knew the existence of the division between the ‘Eastern’ and the ‘Western’ Valentinian school, also documented by the author of the Refutatio omnium haeresium at the beginning of the 3rd century.14 In those same years Clement wrote the Hypotyposes, so the terminus ante quem related to the sources used in the Excerpta must be situated at that time.15 Moreover, the right interpretation of the abbreviation in the title (χρήσιμαι and not χρόνους) allows 11 The division, accepted by almost all scholars, was defined by F.-M.-M. Sagnard (ed.), Extraits (1948), 28-9; however, an in-depth analysis already appears in id., La gnose valentinienne et le témoignage de Saint Irénée (Paris, 1947), 521-59. However, F.-M.-M. Sagnard himself (ed.), Extraits (1948), 48, and more recently also Jean-Daniel Dubois, ‘Remarques sur la cohérence des Extraits de Théodote’, in Kevin Corrigan and Tuomas Rasimus (eds), Gnosticism, Platonism and the Late Ancient World. Essays in Honour of John D. Turner, NHMS 82 (Leiden, Boston, 2013), 209-23, 211 and 219, point out the limits of this excessively schematic division, identifying the substantial unity of the Excerpta. 12 Section C was assigned by F.-M.-M. Sagnard (see Excerpta [1948], 230-41) to ‘Western’ Valentinianism, because on the basis of Dibelius’s analysis, see Otto Dibelius, ‘Studien zur Geschichte der Valentinianer. I. Die Excerpta ex Theodoto und Irenäus’, ZNW 9 (1908), 230-47 it seems to use the same ‘Western’ source of Irenaeus, Haer. 1.1-8. In fact, Irenaeus does not use a single source (see G. Chiapparini, Valentino gnostico [2012], 279-96) and the correspondences with the Excerpta are rather limited (parallels only with passages from Haer. 4.5-6.1; 7.1 and 7.5); they were also identified outside the section Exc. 43-65; for example, between Exc. 2.1 and Haer. 5.5b, as well as between Exc. 23.2 and Haer. 4.5a-b. 13 At the time of Eusebius, the addition of some texts after Strom. VII (the so-called Book VIII, Excerpta ex Theodoto and Eclogae propheticae) had already been introduced in a branch of the manuscript tradition; see G. Chiapparini, ‘“Nuovi” frammenti’ (2016), 233-8. 14 See Hippolytus (?), Haer. 6.35.3-7. There is a debate about the real existence of this division. 15 The Hypotyposeis are considered a work that was completed after the Stromateis, see G. Chiapparini, ‘“Nuovi” frammenti’ (2016), 224-6, then after Clement’s move from Alexandria to Jerusalem, perhaps between 198 and 202.

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detaching the chronology of these sources from ‘Valentinus’ time’, i.e. the middle of the 2nd century.16 5) The Excerpta selector knew that in those fragments Clement had summarized the content taken ‘from the writings of Theodotus and of the so-called Eastern doctrine of the followers of Valentinus’ (ἐκ τῶν Θεοδότου καὶ τῆς ἀνατολικῆς καλουμένης διδασκαλίας κατὰ τοὺς Οὐαλεντίνου), as explained in the title. Usually καί (‘and’) is interpreted in an epexegetic sense, that is, that Theodotus is a Valentinian from the ‘Eastern school’; however καί could be understood more easily in an additive sense, that is, that Theodotus is distinct from the Valentinians.17 Furthermore, the names of Theodotus and Valentinus are the most cited in Excerpta, five and six times respectively.18 However, we do not know anything about Theodotus: no other ancient source speaks of him.19 All we can know comes from Excerpta and possibly concerns his opinions, but not his life. This silence is strange, especially if we believe, as many scholars do, that Theodotus was the head of the ‘Eastern’ Valentinian school.20 6) At the time of the Theodotus of the Excerpta another personality with that name was famous, Theodotus of Byzantium, also called ‘the tanner’.21 In the Refutatio omnium haeresium it is stated that he devised a new important 16 See G. Chiapparini, ‘“Nuovi” frammenti’ (2016), 235-7. The code contains the abbreviation ☧, reported only in the edition of Stählin, GCS 17 (1909), 105, but not in those of R.P. Casey, Excerpta (1934), 40 and F.-M.-M. Sagnard, Extraits (1948), 52. Since the editio princeps of ΚΛΗΜΕΝΤΟΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΕΩΣ ΤΑ ΕΥΡΙΣΚΟΜΕΝΑ ΑΠΑΝΤΑ ex Bibliotheca Medicea, ed. Petrus Victorius (Florentiae, 1550), the abbreviation was interpreted as χρόνους (‘times’) without further explanation; instead, it has to be understood as χρήσιμαι, that is, ‘useful’ in reference to ἐπιτομαί (‘epitomes, compendiary passages’); see Ludwig Traube, Nomina Sacra. Versuch einer Geschichte der christlichen Kürzung, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters 2 (München, 1907), 115-6. The correct interpretation was suggested to me by Carlo Maria Mazzucchi, Professor of Classical and Byzantine Philology at the Catholic University of Milan. 17 Usually the καί is interpreted in an epexegetic sense, hypothesizing a difficult connection for which the first element (Theodotus) should be understood as a component of the second (the followers of Valentinus); see still recently E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 28 n. 3. However, R.P. Casey (ed.), Excerpta (1934), 5 had already expressed some doubts. Instead, the καί seems more likely to have the usual additive meaning; therefore, Theodotus should be distinguished from the Valentinians; see J. Kalvesmaki, ‘Italian versus Eastern’ (2008), 81 n. 12. 18 See Exc. 22.7; 26.1; 30.1; 32.2 e 35.1 for Theodotus; Exc. 2.1; 6.1; 16; 23.1; 25.1; 28b for Valentinus. 19 Except in the 5th century, Theodoret, Haer. fab. 1.8, which puts it in a list of Valentinians, probably only on the basis of the Excerpta; see E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 503 n. 48. 20 See, for example, K. Rudolph, Gnosis (1990), 346; Elaine Hiesey Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York, 1979), 115 (‘the great teacher of the Eastern school’); Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures. A new translation with annotations (Garden City, NY, 1987), 268-9; E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 28-38 and 503-4. 21 For the documentary dossier about Theodotus of Byzantium called ‘the tanner’, see Claudio Gianotto, Melchisedek e la sua tipologia: Tradizioni giudaiche, cristiane e gnostiche (sec. II a.C. sec. III d.C.) (Brescia, 1984), 237-53; Winrich A. Löhr, ‘Theodotus der Lederarbeiter und Theodotus der Bankier. Ein Beitrag zur römischen Theologiegeschichte des zweiten und dritten Jahrhunderts’, ZNW 87 (1996), 101-25.

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heretical doctrine.22 Scholars call it ‘adoptionism’, because it claims that Jesus was an ordinary man, adopted by God at the time of baptism for his wisdom.23 However, as Mark Edwards showed, the doctrine of Theodotus of Byzantium is in some respects close to those of the ‘Eastern’ Valentinians of Excerpta.24 However, Edwards does not assume that the two Theodotus are the same person, because he is still convinced that the Theodotus of the Excerpta is a Valentinian. I think that the similarities highlighted by Edwards explain why Clement, while he summarized one or more Valentinian writings, sometimes also mentioned the views of Theodotus. This also means that Theodotus was considered by Clement a very well-known and important personality, like Valentinus or Basilides.25 Therefore, the possibility that the Theodotus of the Excerpta is not a Valentinian, must seriously be taken into consideration. 7) Beyond the similarities emphasized by Edwards, the doctrine of Theodotus of Byzantium is different from that of Valentinianism, as was also clear to the author of the Refutatio.26 Thus, if Clement’s Theodotus was a Valentinian, he should be distinguished from the ‘adoptionist’ Theodotus. And this is what has been done so far. But if the Theodotus of the Excerpta was not a Valentinian, it cannot be excluded that he and Theodotus of Byzantium were the same person. 8) Starting from the belief that Theodotus was a Valentinian, scholars have thought so far that almost all the ‘he says’ (φησί) found in the Excerpta text without a name, had Theodotus as their subject.27 In this way not only Exc. 1-3, where ‘he says’ appears, but above all the sections A and B (D with some major doubt) of the Excerpta have been attributed directly to Theodotus (Table 4).28 Instead, those ‘he says’ may have as their subject the anonymous Valentinian 22 See Hippolytus (?), Haer. 7.35.1: Θεόδοτος δέ τις, ὢν Βυζάντιος, εἰσήγαγεν αἵρεσιν καινὴν φάσκων τὰ μὲν περὶ τῆς τοῦ παντὸς ἀρχῆς σύμφωνα ἐκ μέρους τοῖς τῆς ἀληθοῦς ἐκκλησίας. ‘A certain Theodotus of Byzantium introduced a new heresy, announcing doctrines about the beginning of the universe, in part conforming to those of the true Church’. 23 See Adolf von Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (Freiburg, 1886; 18882), 616-48; more recently, see Manlio Simonetti, ‘Cristologia pneumatica’, Augustinianum 12 (1972), 201-32; then in id., Studi sulla cristologia del II e III secolo (Rome, 1993), 23-52, 41-2; Robert McQueen Grant, Heresy and Criticism. The Search for Authenticity in Early Christian Literature (Louisville, KY, 1993), 67-73. 24 See Mark Julian Edwards, ‘Clement of Alexandria and his Doctrine of the Logos’, VC 54 (2000), 159-77, 172-7; id., Origen against Plato (Aldershot, Burlington, 2002), 34 and 44 n. 120; id., Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church (Farnham, Burlington, 2009), 59-69. 25 Basilides is mentioned in Exc. 16 and 28a. 26 He speaks of it in very distinct points of his work: about the Valentinians in Haer. 6.21.1-37.9 and about Theodotus of Byzantium in Haer. 7.35.1-2. The two doctrines are usually considered incompatible; see F.-M.-M. Sagnard (ed.), Extraits (1948), 5. 27 See ‘sez. A’: Exc. 1.1b; 22.1 (apostle Paul); 25.2; 26.2 (Jesus); ‘sez. B’: Exc. 38.2; 41.1; 43.1 (the expunction of φησί by Stählin and Sagnard is incomprehensible); ‘sez. D’: Exc. 67.1 (two ‘he says’, the first is Paul). 28 See R.P. Casey (ed.), Excerpta (1934), 5-8; F.-M.-M. Sagnard, La gnose valentinienne (1947), 523-5, 537, 547-51 and 555 n. 3; E. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed (2006), 133-45 and 333-41, however more prudent in the attribution of the ‘he says’ to Theodotus (29 and notes).

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Table 4: Chapters with “He says” verb.

Table 5: Chapters with quotes of Theodotus’ name.

author of the text that Clement was using at the time, which, as I have shown, is very unlikely to have been Theodotus.29 9) Therefore, in order to compare the thought of Clement’s Theodotus with that of Theodotus of Byzantium, we can only use the five passages of the Excerpta in which the name of Theodotus appears (Table 5). However, in them the reference to Theodotus is always very short, limited to a few words,30 and 29 His name could appear at a previous point in the Hypotyposeis that the selector has left out. The fact, however, that he did not see it as important to insert the name on his own initiative during the transcription, may suggest that he was very well known, perhaps Valentinus himself. Indeed we know that his doctrine was faithfully preserved precisely by the ‘Eastern’ school; see Tertullian, Val. 4.2. This explains the series of references to Irenaeus, Haer. 1.1-8, not only in section C (Exc. 43-65), but also in the others (see, for example, Haer. 2.5 = Exc. 23.1-2; 29; 32.2 and 33.3; Haer. 3.5 = Exc. 26.2; Haer. 4.5 = Exc. 23; 39-40 and 41.2; Haer. 5.1-2 = Exc. 33-4; 35.2 and 37; Haer. 4.5 and 5.1-2 = Exc. 2.1-2; 21-22.1 and 25.1; Haer. 5.5-6 = Exc. 2 and 67). 30 The way the reference to Theodotus is inserted in the discourse suggests that it is likely that these are quotations known by heart of key expressions of his thought: Exc. 22.7 (ἵνα μὴ κατασχεθῇ τῇ ἐννοίᾳ ᾗ ἐνετέθη τοῦ ὑστερήματος, προερχόμενος διὰ τῆς Σοφίας, ὥς φησιν ὁ Θεόδοτος ‘So that [Jesus] not be detained because of the [typical] knowledge of the lower condition, in which he was placed, while advancing through Sophia, as Theodotus says’); 26.1 (τὸ ὁρατὸν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἡ Σοφία καὶ ἡ Ἐκκλησία ἦν τῶν σπερμάτων τῶν διαφερόντων», ἣν «ἐστολίσατο διὰ τοῦ σαρκίου», ὥς φησιν ὁ Θεόδοτος· «τὸ δὲ ἀόρατον Ὄνομα, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ὁ Υἱὸς ὁ Μονογενής, ‘the visible part of Jesus it was Sophia and the Church of the upper seeds, of which [he] was dressed by the carnal element, as Theodotus says, while what cannot be seen, [was] the Name, which is the Son, [i.e.] the Only-begotten’); 30.1 (Πατήρ, στερεὸς ὢν τῇ φύσει, φησὶν ὁ Θεόδοτος, ‘the Father, by nature, says Theodotus, is harsh and without condescension’); 32.2 (ὁ Θεόδοτος τὸν Χριστὸν, ἐξ ἐννοίας προελθόντα τῆς Σοφίας, εἰκόνα τοῦ Πληρώματος ἐκάλεσεν, ‘Theodotus called Christ, who proceeded from the Ennoia of Sophia, image of Pleroma’) and 35.1 (κατὰ Θεόδοτον, Ἄγγελος ἦν τοῦ Πληρώματος, ‘According to Theodotus [Jesus] was an angel of the Pleroma’).

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serves to establish a quick comparison within the main discourse, represented by the summary of Valentinian sources.31 Thus, despite the title still used today, in the Excerpta ex Theodoto there seems to be little of Theodotus, a lot less than what was believed.32 Fragment 1 (Exc. 1-3) is an excellent example of this. My aim will not be an in-depth analysis of the contents of this fragment focusing on an exegesis of Luke 23:46.33 Instead, I have tried to clarify what sources Clement used and how he summarized or quoted them. A. Exc. 1-3 according to the old theory According to the old theory defined by Sagnard, Exc. 1-3 is the beginning of section A which concludes in chapter 28. In this section some of Clement’s observations would alternate with excerpts from one or more ‘Eastern’ Valentinian sources.34 The first three chapters are well delimited because they 31 Theodotus is quoted directly in Exc. 22.7 and the Valentinians immediately afterwards (Exc. 23.1), while the opposite happens in Exc. 25.1 (Valentinians) and 26.1 (Theodotus). Similarly in 30.1 the name of Theodotus appears together with an ‘affirm that’, preceded by a ‘they say’ (Exc. 29); the same in Exc. 32.1 (‘they say’) and 32.2 (Theodotus), while the Theodotus quote in Exc. 35.1 is preceded by two ‘they say’ in 33.3-4 and followed by two other ‘they say’ in Exc. 35.4- 36.1, which precede the explicit reference to the followers of Valentinus (Exc. 37). The precise presence of this kind of clarification can be explained by Clement’s need to distinguish exactly what refers to Theodotus and how much to the Valentinians. Clement mentions Theodotus because he considers him close to the Valentinian positions, except in Exc. 30.1. 32 Therefore, on the basis of the Excerpta we know little about the doctrine of Theodotus: the Father is harsh and not pitiable (Exc. 30.1); Jesus also has to be redeemed (see Exc. 22.7); he clothed himself in the flesh, that is, Sophia-Church, to be visible, since the Only-begotten Son is invisible (Exc. 26.1); therefore he is ‘image of Pleroma’ (Exc. 32.2) or an ‘angel of Pleroma’ (Exc. 35.1). 33 The interpretation of Luke 23:46 in Fragment 1 can be harmonized with that of Exc. 62.2-3 (Fragment 11); see F.-M.-M. Sagnard (ed.), Extraits (1948), 185 n. 1 and Antonio Orbe, Estudios valentinianos, IV: La teología del Espiritu Santo, Analecta Gregoriana 158 (Roma, 1966), 424 and id., La teologia dei secoli II e III (Rome, 1996), II, 470-4. However Orbe elsewhere had stated that the two passages contained different interpretations, one (Exc. 1.1-2) ‘Eastern’ Valentinian and the other ‘Western’ (Exc. 62.2-3); see Antonio Orbe, Estudios valentinianos, V: Los primeros herejes ante la persecución, Analecta Gregoriana 83 (Roma, 1956), 173 and id., Cristología gnóstica. Introducción a la soteriología de los siglos II y III, Biblioteca de autores cristianos 385 (Madrid, 1976), II 311-2; so also Jean-Daniel Kaestli, ‘Valentinianisme italien et valentinianisme oriental: leurs divergences à propos de la nature du corps de Jésus’, in Bentley Layton (ed.), The Rediscovery of Gnosticism. Proceedings of the International Conference on Gnosticism at Yale New Haven, Connecticut, March 28-31, 1978, I: School of Valentinus, Studies in the History of Religions – Numen Suppl. 41 (Leiden, 1980), 391-403, 400; M. Simonetti (ed.), Testi gnostici in lingua greca e latina (Milan, 1993), 503 n. 294. 34 See O. Dibelius, ‘Excerpta’ (1908), 242-6; Eugène de Faye, Gnostiques et gnosticisme. Étude critique des documents du Gnosticism chrétien aux IIe et IIIe siècle (Paris, 1913, 19252), 258-61; Werner Förster, Von Valentin zu Herakleon. Untersuchungen über die Quellen und die Entwicklung der valentinianischen Gnosis, BZNW 7 (Giessen, 1928), 85; Walther von Loewenich, Das Johannes-Verstaendnis im zweiten Jahrhundert (Giessen, 1932), 146; F.-M.-M. Sagnard, La gnose valentinienne (1947), 521; id. (ed.), Extraits (1948), 28 and 52-121.

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contain the Valentinian doctrine, whereas the following chapters, 4 and 5, that of Clement. Here and in the rest of Section A scholars are sure that the Gnostic doctrine is Valentinian, because there are nine explicit references to Valentinus and the Valentinians, including Exc. 2.1.35 However, the name of Theodotus appears only twice (Exc. 22.7 and 26.1), but this is enough to attribute the whole section A to him. Indeed, even the anonymous ‘he says/states’ of Exc. 1.1b, 22.1 and 25.2 are usually attributed to him.36 The closeness in Exc. 1-3 between the reference to the disciples of Valentinus (Exc. 2.1: οἱ ἀπὸ Οὐαλεντίνου) and the anonymous ‘he says’ (Exc. 1.1b: φησί) is particularly important, because scholars believe that since the beginning of the Excerpta, Clement has transcribed passages from an ‘Eastern’ Valentinian script whose author is Theodotus. Thus, Theodotus and the ‘Eastern’ Valentinians would be the same thing. To say that Theodotus is behind the ‘he says’ of Exc. 1.1b, scholars observe that in Exc. 1-3 there are many correspondences both in vocabulary and in topics with Exc. 26.1, where Clement explicitly mentions the name of Theodotus together with that of the Valentinians.37 Thus Exc. 1-3 would contain three extracts from a text of Theodotus, transcribed by Clement, who would include some of his observations only in Exc. 1.3.38 Therefore, we would have available fragments of an ‘Eastern’ Valentinian source, which are short but precious because they are taken from a primary source.

B. Exc. 1-3 according to the new theory Fragment 1 (Exc. 1-3) is clearly delimited in the ms. Laurentianus 5.3 by the text overflowing at the beginning and by an obvious white space at the end.39 The analysis of style and content easily confirms this division, which does not conflict with the old one, because the beginning is ex abrupto and the conclusion 35 See Exc. 2.1; 6.1; 16; 17.1; 21.1; 23.1; 24.1; 25.1 and 28b. The anonymous ‘they say/they affirm’ of Exc. 6.2; 7.5; 21.1; 22.4; 22.5 are also referred to the Valentinians. 36 See F.-M.-M. Sagnard (ed.), Extraits (1948), 53 (Exc. 1.1b with doubt), 101 (Exc. 22.1, which, in my opinion, must be referred to the apostle Paul), 111 (Exc. 25.2 with doubt). 37 See F.-M.-M. Sagnard (ed.), Extraits (1948), 28-36; André-Jean Festugière, ‘Notes sur les Extraits de Théodote de Clément d’Alexandrie et sur les fragments de Valentin’, VC 3 (1949), 193207, 193; J.-D. Kaestli, ‘Valentinianisme italien’ (1980), 397-8. 38 See Richard Adelbert Lipsius, s.v. ‘Valentinus’, in William Smith and Henry Wace (eds), A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Vol. IV (London, 1887), 1076-99; R.P. Casey (ed.), Excerpta (1934), 25-6; F.-M.-M. Sagnard, La gnose valentinienne (1947), 521; id. (ed.), Extraits (1948), 8-9 and 54-5; James F. McCue, ‘Conflicting versions of Valentinianism? Irenaeus and the Excepta ex Theodoto’, in B. Layton (ed.), Rediscovery, I (1980), 404-16, 407-8. 39 See Laurentianus 5.3: f. 361r line 18 (beginning); f. 361v line 17 (end).

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is also sudden with a clear thematic detachment with respect to fragment 2 (Exc. 4.1-5.4), without transition.40 The quotation of the name of Valentinians (Exc. 2.1) is clear. Therefore, the doctrine of this fragment is certainly that of the disciples of Valentinus. However, there are three observations to make: 1) Theodotus is not behind the ‘he says’ of Exc. 1.1b; 2) the ideas of Exc. 1.3 are not of Clement; 3) Clement speaks only at the end (Exc. 3.1-2). 1) The Valentinian source of Fragment 1 is consistent with that of Exc. 24-6, that is, the beginning of Fragment 11 (Exc. 24-75), the longest of the Excerpta.41 In this, scholars are right. However, they are wrong in thinking that this source is Theodotus. In fact, Clement in Exc. 26.1 quotes the name of Theodotus immediately after a ‘he says’ (Exc. 25.2), but above all after two direct references to the Valentinians (Exc. 24.1 and 25.1).42 The ‘he says’ refers to the Valentinian source and probably alludes to the author of the text that Clement is summarizing and of which he literally mentions a short piece in Exc. 25.1-26.3.43 In this quote Clement inserts a brief reference to the doctrine of Theodotus, nothing more. Thus, the doctrinal closeness between the two passages makes it possible to affirm that in Exc. 1.1b the ‘he says’ has the same subject as the ‘he says’ of Exc. 25.2, who is not Theodotus, but an anonymous Valentinian teacher.44 2) The vocabulary of Exc. 1.3 is Valentinian.45 However, unlike Exc. 1.1-2 and 2.1-2, here the discourse is in the first person plural: the subject is a ‘we’ 40

Starting from Exc. 4.1 we suddenly pass to the theme of Christus angelus. See Exc. 26.1: ὥς φησιν ὁ Θεόδοτος; the passage develops some aspects of the same doctrine, using the same vocabulary: Σοφία, σπέρμα, σαρκίον, στολίζειν. See F.-M.-M. Sagnard (ed.), Extraits (1948), 111 n. 5; A.-J. Festugière, ‘Notes’ (1949), 193; Antonio Orbe, ‘La encarnación entre los valentinianos’, Gregorianum 53 (1972), 201-35, 222-7; id., Introducción a la teología de los siglos II y III (Roma, 1987), Ital. trans. La teologia dei secoli II e III (1996), I 338-9 and specially II 371-3; J.-D. Kaestli, ‘Valentinianisme italien’ (1980), 397-8; Judith L. Kovacs, ‘Participation in the Cross of Christ: Pauline Motifs in the Excerpts from Theodotus’, in Einar Thomassen and Christoph Markschies (eds), Valentinianism: New Studies, NHMS 96 (Leiden, 2020), 457-77. Scholars naturally think of Theodotus. 42 Instead the subject of the ‘he says’ of Exc. 26.2 is Jesus. See also F.-M.-M. Sagnard (ed.), Extraits (1948), 113. 43 This mode is the same as other passages with ‘he says/they say’; see above and n. 31. The closeness of the references should not be understood as continuity or overlap, but distinction and difference. 44 However, perhaps in Exc. 1.1b there is an allusion to Theodotus: Clement uses the verb στολίζειν (‘clothe himself in, wear’), that is the same technical term for which the name of Theodotus is mentioned in Exc. 26.1. However, the other important technical term, used in this passage, i.e. σαρκίον, is not at all characteristic of Theodotus, but belongs to the Valentinian tradition (see Exc. 52.1), also known to Irenaeus (see Haer. 1.5. 5 and also 1.10.3), but it is also used by Tatian, Or. Graec. 15; see M.J. Edwards, Catholicity and Heresy (2009), 59; G. Chiapparini, Valentino gnostico (2012), 178 n. 3. 45 Consequently Exc. 1.3 is attributed to the Valentinians and to Theodotus by Heinrici, Die Valentinianische Gnosis (1871), 90-2; Antonio Orbe, Estudios valentinianos, III: La unción del 41

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(‘we say’, φαμέν). This makes a break, as if the source had changed. Thus scholars thought that Clement was behind the ‘we’ and that he took up the words of the Valentinians to criticize them.46 However, some have also noted that they are not critical, but a partial approval.47 Instead, I believe that Exc. 1.3 is a brief literal quote transcribed directly by Clement from the Valentinian source which he summarizes in Exc. 1.1-2 and explains better later in Exc. 2.1-2.48 This source is very particular and I have called it ‘Source of the We’, because it also returns in other brief literal quotations scattered through the Excerpta including 25.1-26.3, where the discourse turns from ‘we’ to ‘you’ (Table 6).49 It is not Theodotus and it is not Clement. Indeed, Exc. 1.3 is consistent with the Valentinian source that Clement summarizes both before and after; the difference is that it is a literal quotation. 3) Having summarized and briefly quoted (Exc. 1,3) a passage from the Valentinian ‘Source of the We’, Clement finally illustrates his opinion. It is introduced by the conjunction ‘in fact’ (Exc. 3.1: οὖν) and, therefore, it is not a refutation, but a correction:50 he uses his own technical language, but also takes up many words of his interlocutors, using them, however, according to Verbo, Analecta Gregoriana 113 (Roma, 1961), 219 n. 6; M. Simonetti (ed.), Testi gnostici (1993), 504 n. 295. The Gnostic author identifies in the Scriptures passages that would confirm the Valentinian conception of the elect ‘spiritual seed’ (ἐκλεκτὸν σπέρμα; see Exc. 1.1b: πνευματικὸν σπέρμα; and 1.2: πᾶν πνευματικὸν σπέρμα, τοὺς ἐκλεκτούς): the ‘spark’ (σπινθῆρα) of Wis. 2:2, the ‘pupil of the eye’ (κόρη ὀφθαλμοῦ) of Deut. 32:10 and Zach. 2:8, the ‘mustard seed’ (κόκκον σινάπεως) of Matt. 13:31; Mark 3:31 and Luke 13:19, and ‘leavening’ (ζύμη) of Matt. 13:33; Luke 13:21; 1Cor. 5:6-8 and Gal. 5:9. In Exc. 2.2a Clement in his summary resumes almost verbatim the words (ἐζύμωσεν τὰ δόξαντα καταδιῃρῆσθαι ἑνοποιοῦν, ‘[the seed] leavened, making united [the genres] that appear to have been distinct’) of Exc. 1.3 (ζύμην τὰ δόξαντα καταδιῃρῆσθαι γένη ἑνοποιοῦσαν εἰς πίστιν, ‘leavening that makes the genres that appear to have been distinguished in faith’) to explain them better. Finally Clement, when illustrating his own doctrine, intentionally takes up the Valentinian technical language of Exc. 1.3, that is, ‘spark’ (Exc. 3.1-2: σπινθῆρα twice) and the verb ‘to make alive’ (Exc. 1.3: ζωοποιούμενον; 3.2: ἐζωποίει, modified by Sagnard with ἐζωοποίει and by Stählin even with ἐζωπύρει). 46 See Everett Procter, Christian Controversy in Alexandria. Clement’s Polemic against the Basilideans and Valentinians (New York, 1995), 85 n. 20. 47 See Alain Le Boulluec, La notion d’hérésie dans la littérature grecque, IIe-IIIe siècles, Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 110 (Paris, 1985), II 332. 48 In my opinion, the conclusive fact is that Clement in Exc. 2.2b specifically takes up the technical terminology of Exc. 2.1 (ὕπνος, ψυχή, ἀπόρροια, σπέρμα ἀρρενικόν, ἀγγελικόν, ἐντιθῆναι), a passage that undoubtedly has to be ascribed to a brief summary of a Valentinian source; through a parallelism in Exc. 2.2a Clement specifically refers to the expressions of Exc. 1.3 (see n. 45), which would not have had any meaning if concerned a previous passage of his own. 49 See also Exc. 22.1-22.4; 35.1-36.2; 41.2b; 68; 72.1-73.1; 76.1-77.1; 78.2b. For the identification of the author behind the ‘Source of the We’, it may be useful to consider the Valentinian sources used by Clement in the Stromateis, where he reports six of the nine surviving fragments of Valentinus. In one of them (see Strom. 4.89.1-3) Valentinus addresses his followers with the ‘you’, according to an attitude analogous to the ‘we’ of our source and found in Exc. 25,1-26.3. 50 The conjunction (οὖν) serves to indicate a partial adhesion to another’s opinion; see Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, et al. (eds), A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford, 1843, 19409, 1996),

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Table 6: Chapters with the so-called “Source of the we”.

his own thought, which is clearly different.51 The Saviour saves the soul,52 reviving the ‘spark’ as for the Valentinians, but for Clement soul and ‘spark’ ontologically are not Spirit (Πνεῦμα). According to him, it is infused in the apostles only ‘after the resurrection’ (μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν) and is not an original component of man, even if ‘gnostikòs’.53 Conclusions Fragment 1 has a balanced and linear structure. Its centre is the interpretation of Luke 23:46, that is, the way in which the Saviour saves the spirituals just before he died on the cross (Exc. 1.1a). Clement through reported speech summarizes the interpretation he read in a Valentinian script (Exc. 1.1b-1.2); its author spoke frequently through the first person plural (‘Source of the We’), as the brief quote from Exc. 1.3 and other passages of Excerpta demonstrate. Later Clement continues the summary (Exc. 2.1-2) and finally illustrates his own interpretation (Exc. 3.1-2). The ‘Source of the We’ is the same as in Exc. 25.1-26.3. Theodotus is mentioned, but only for a quick comparison. Thus Theodotus does not necessarily have to be considered a Valentinian. This leaves open the possibility of comparing the little information about his doctrine with that of his contemporary, Theodotus of Byzantium.

1271: ‘certainly, in fact, confirming something, freq. in contrast with something which is not confirmed’. 51 Clement uses ‘Lord’ (Κύριος) to indicate the Saviour. This serves to emphasize the difference with the Valentinians, because they usually avoided this epithet (see Irenaeus, Haer. 1.1.3), except for some who attributed it to Sophia Achamoth (see Irenaeus, Haer. 1.5.3); see A. Orbe, Primeros herejes (1956), 289 n. 17. On the other hand, he uses again the terms previously used by the Valentinians, such as ‘Spirit’ (Exc. 1.1; 2.2b: Πνεῦμα, πνευματικόν). ‘Saviour’ (Exc. 1.1b: Σωτήρ), ‘spark’ (Exc. 1.3: σπινθῆρα), ‘soul’ (Exc. 2.1-2: ψυχή, ψυχικόν), ‘sleep’ (Exc. 2.1-2: ὕπνος). 52 Regarding the soteriology of Clement, see Alfredo Brontesi, La soteria in Clemente Alessandrino, Analecta Gregoriana 186 (Roma, 1972), particularly about the Excerpta, 612-41. 53 See Exc. 53.2-5, consistent with Exc. 2.1; see A.-J. Festugière, ‘Notes’ (1949), 194.

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH THE MYSTERIOUS BISHOP

edited by Kevin KÜNZL

Introduction Kevin KÜNZL, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

The papers of the following section largely revolve around the following five topics: (a) the Ignatian letters’ response to social challenges and their attempt to foster the formation of a Christian identity, (b) the letters’ use of Pauline tradition, (c) their representation of the eucharist, (d) the history of their textual transmission, and (e) Ignatius as a historical person. All of these topics have already been well-covered over the years. But by combining them and/or by approaching them from a new perspective, all of the following papers achieve to deliver something new to the ongoing discussion of a mysterious figure – and an equally mysterious text corpus. James B. Leavenworth argues that Ignatius’ warnings in the Letter to the Ephesians (ch. 17) are not meant to address steadfast Christians who might be lured away from their faith, but they are directed towards members of the community who are not seen as genuine Christians. This point is made in the letter by consciously drawing on Pauline tradition from 1Cor. and adapting it to a new context. Ignatius’ reception of Pauline tradition takes centre stage in Brian W. Bunnell’s paper. He provides a thorough rhetorical analysis of how Ignatius imitates, but also modulates the Pauline usage of the phrase ‘kingdom of God’ and concludes that neither Paul nor Ignatius use the phrase to make dogmatic statements about eschatology, instead both ‘[…] merely sought to persuade their constituents how they should respond to the social dilemmas of the day […]’. Charles A. Bobertz connects the issue of social formation with a different topic: the eucharist. He finds that ritual practice and social practice in the Letter to the Smyrneans are rooted in a Christology that stresses the human nature of both Jesus and the risen Christ and asserts itself in the ecclesial hierarchy of bishops, presbyters, and deacons: ‘The complex interaction between these elements formed the unique communal identity of this part of the early second century Church.’ The paper of Kevin Künzl continues the focus on the eucharist but views it through the lens of the Ignatian letters’ complicated history of textual transmission. By reviewing textual variants that relate to meal practice, Künzl argues that a shifting ritual and theological outlook on the eucharist over the first Christian centuries led to various changes of the text. Overall, he concludes, the emergence of the variants mirrors the historical development of the Christian meal ‘from symposium to Eucharist’.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 69-70. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Markus Vinzent leaves the topic of the eucharist but stays with the issue of the Ignatian letters’ textual transmission: By reviewing the primary manuscript evidence as well as the secondary evidence from the church fathers, he shows that the common division of the letters’ transmission into three ‘recensions’ is artificial and misleading. Instead, Vinzent argues for a complex model of growing and interfering collections. New letters are added while the pre-existing ones are reworked to make them tie in with the new ones, e.g. by creating a coherent narrative world via re-occurring personal names. For Vinzent, the starting point of this development is not the seven letters referred to by Eusebius, but a short collection of only three letters. Regardless of what one may think of this specific proposal, the shortcomings the paper identifies in the common conception of the letters’ transmission are blatant and, thus, Vinzent’s call for a new critical edition is warranted. The final paper by Reginardus Eystettensis holds a special place; it may be regarded as the antipode to the other papers in this section. Rather than focusing on the text corpus of the Ignatian letters, its genesis, or its interpretation, Reginardus draws attention to the person of Ignatius. Collecting a plethora of details about the mysterious bishop’s life from various sources, he leaves the critical reader with a stimulating biography of the ‘Bishop of Antioch and the whole of Syria, Pope of the Syriac Orthodox Church’.

Wisely Receiving or Foolishly Perishing: Sifting the Variegated Audience of Ignatius of Antioch James B. LEAVENWORTH, University of Edinburgh, UK

ABSTRACT Early in the second century, Ignatius of Antioch leveled a chilling warning to the Ephesian church: ‘Do not be anointed with the stench of the teaching of the ruler of this age, lest he take you captive and rob you of the life lying before you’ (Ign., Eph. 17.1). This statement has been interpreted as an indication that Ignatius believed genuine Christians were in danger of voiding their own faith by adopting what he considered to be excessively divergent beliefs. This viewpoint seems to be based on the understanding that Ignatius sifted humanity into two categories: (1) those who were unbelievers/atheists, and (2) those who were believers/Christians. However, if it can be established that Ignatius conceived of a third category – i.e., those who professed to be Christian but who were not genuine – then this warning may not have been directed towards genuine Christians who were in danger of forfeiting their salvation. This article will examine the Letter to the Ephesians with the goal of revealing the identity of the objects of Ignatius’ warnings. When contextual factors from within the letter are analyzed alongside the seemingly intentional inter-textual links to Paul’s 1Cor. 1:18-23, it becomes evident that Ignatius’ warnings were focused on the possibility that at least a portion of professing Christianity was in danger of perishing because they were, in reality, unbelievers. A failure to differentiate friend from foe could result in disastrous consequences. Ignatius appears to have been warning the early church that tares had begun to spring up alongside God’s wheat.

Introduction A dominant theme found throughout the Ignatian epistles1 is the church’s need for unity in the face of dangerously divisive factions.2 In several passages 1 I accept the general scholarly consensus established ultimately by Lightfoot that the Middle Recension form represents the authentic Ignatian corpus: James B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Part II, Ignatius & Polycarp (London, 1889-1890), I 70-430. At the same time, it must be recognized that the text as it exists today does present some significant textual challenges and that variants should be examined on a case by case basis. For a thorough list of sources that both support and challenge the consensus, as well as for a thorough discussion on the authenticity issue as a whole, see Albert O. Mellink, Death as Eschaton: A Study of Ignatius of Antioch’s Desire for Death (Amsterdam, 2000), 5-50; Michael J. Svigel, The Center and the Source: Second Century Incarnational Christology and Early Catholic Christianity, Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics 66 (Piscataway, 2016), 50 n. 8, 9. References to the Greek text are from Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (Grand Rapids, 2007). All translations are my own. 2 For example, see his use of terms such as αἵρεσις (Ign., Eph. 6.2; Trall. 6.1), μερισμός/μερίζω (Ign., Magn. 6.2; Phld. 2.1; 3.1; 7.2; 8.1; Smyrn. 8.1), σχίζω (Ign., Phld. 3.3), and ἑτεροδοξέω/ ἑτεροδοξία (Ign., Magn. 8.1; Smyrn. 6.2).

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 71-80. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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which describe such teachers and their followers, Ignatius’ language switched from criticism to outright condemnation. In his Letter to the Ephesians Ignatius warned, Do not be deceived, my brothers: those who destroy households will not inherit the kingdom of God. Therefore, if those who do such things physically died, how much more if by evil teaching someone corrupts faith in God, on behalf of which Jesus Christ was crucified! Such a person, having become/turning out to be defiled, will go away into the unquenchable fire, likewise also will the one who listens to him. For this reason, the Lord received ointment upon his head, so that he might breathe incorruptibility upon the church. Do not be anointed with the stench of the teaching of the ruler of this age, lest he take you captive and rob you of the life lying before you.3

In his recently published monograph, Learning Christ: Ignatius of Antioch & the Mystery of Redemption, Gregory Vall understood these warnings to indicate that ‘[f]or Ignatius, justification (at least in perfection) lies in the future’ and thus, ‘there can be no certitude of salvation prior to biological death’.4 Vall concluded that Ignatius understood eternal life as a future possibility that may not be realized due to the fact that ‘there is a very real danger that the devil may divert us from the path to it (Eph. 17:1)’.5 Vall cited the Eph. 16.1-17.1 warnings several times as evidence that Ignatius believed genuine Christians could one day ultimately fall short in this life and find themselves condemned.6 Vall is certainly not alone in this analysis. David Aune similarly concluded that ‘for Ignatius, life and immortality are not so much present possessions as the object of future hope’ and that ‘an individual only participates in that salvation conditionally’.7 In support of this conclusion, like Vall, Aune cited the same warning passages (Eph. 16.1, 2; 17.1).8 Through a close and contextual reading of the Letter to Ephesus, I seek to demonstrate in this article that Ignatius was not warning that genuine Christians were in danger of forfeiting salvation by adopting excessively divergent beliefs.9 Instead, the intent is to show that Ignatius understood those in danger 3

Ign., Eph. 16.1-17.1. Emphasis mine. Gregory Vall, Learning Christ: Ignatius of Antioch and the Mystery of Redemption (Washington, DC, 2013), 196. 5 Ibid. 196. 6 Ibid. 320, 362-3, 371. 7 David E. Aune, The Cultic Setting of Realized Eschatology in Early Christianity (Leiden, 1972), 162-3. 8 Ibid. 159 n. 1, 161-3. Others who understand Ignatius to hold to a ‘conditional’ view of salvation, whether or not they directly cite the Ign., Eph. 16-7 warning passages, include Thomas G. Wilkens, “The Soteriology of Ignatius of Antioch” (Ph.D. diss., University of Aberdeen, 1968), 264: ‘between the “now” and the “not yet” life may be forfeited’; Thomas Torrance, The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers (1948; repr., Eugene, 1996), 67. 9 Ignatius did not provide any sort of doctrinal taxonomy delineating what he considered to be essential Christian beliefs and so this article will not define what specific set of beliefs Ignatius listed as ‘orthodox’. Despite the fact that he does not define what he meant by ‘evil teaching’ in 4

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of perishing to have been unbelievers who, despite their professions of faith, had not yet become convinced of the gospel in the first place. This will be accomplished by highlighting three aspects of the text: (1) his repeated warnings in multiple letters about the presence of those who falsely claimed to be believers; (2) the genuineness tests presented in Ign., Eph. 14.2; and lastly, (3) the warning passage itself where Ignatius applied lessons learned from the recent past. Warnings Concerning False Claims to Faith The first point to consider is that Ignatius repeatedly warned his readers about the presence and influence of false Christians who were attempting to indoctrinate the early church with aberrant doctrine. At first glance, it could be argued that he sifted humanity into only two distinct groups: those who were ‘unbelievers’ (οἱ ἄπιστοι/τοῖς ἀπιστοῦσιν), ‘atheists’ (ἄθεοι), or ‘gentiles’/‘pagans’ (τοῖς ἔθνεσιν) on the one side,10 and those who were ‘believers’ (τοὺς πιστεύοντας/οἱ πιστοί) or ‘Christians’ (Χριστιανός) on the other.11 Given that the letter was written to the church in Ephesus, it seems natural to conclude that the warnings about ‘inextinguishable fire’ and of ‘being robbed of eternal life’ indeed applied to genuine Christians. However, if it can be established that Ignatius conceptualized a third category – i.e., those who falsely professed to be Christian – then Ignatius’ warnings may have been directed at those who, despite their professions of faith, had never become Christian in his estimation. A brief scan of the letters shows that Ignatius seems to have envisioned such a category. For example, the Ephesians were exhorted to reject the message of ‘those with evil treachery who bore the Name’ (meaning they claimed to be Christian12) but who were ‘doing things in a manner unworthy of God’.13 Ignatius followed by labelling those who spoke falsely about Christ (cf. 6.2) as ‘rabid dogs’ who, though ‘difficult to heal’, required ‘the only [qualified] physician

Eph. 16.1-2, the language of the semi-creedal formula in 18.2 suggests that he may have been addressing Docetism. 10 Ign., Eph. 18.1; Ign., Magn. 5.2; Ign., Trall. 3.2; 8.2; 10.1; Ign., Smyrn. 1.2; 2.1; 5.3. 11 Ign., Eph. 8.2; 11.2; 21.2; Ign., Magn. 4.1; 5.2; 10.3; Ign., Trall. 9.2; Ign., Rom. 3.2; Ign., Phld. 5.2; Ign., Smyrn. 1.2; Ign., Pol. 7.3. 12 ‘The Name’ appears as a shortened reference for ‘the Name of Christ’ or ‘Christian/Christianity’ (cf. Ign., Eph. 1.2, 3; 3.1; 7.1; Ign., Magn. 10.1; Ign., Trall. 8.2; Ign., Rom. inscr; 9.3; Ign., Phld. 10.1-2; Ign., Smyrn. 4.2; 12.2; Ign., Pol. 5.1). See Robert M. Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, The Apostolic Fathers 4 (Camden, 1966), 31; William R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Seven Letters of Ignatius (Hermeneia) (Philadelphia, 1985), 43; James B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Part II, Ignatius & Polycarp (London, 1889-1890), II 37. 13 Ign., Eph. 7.1.

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Jesus Christ’.14 Later in the same letter, this group of ‘deceivers’ (8.1) were identified as the ‘weeds of the devil’. Ignatius then cautioned the Trallians to watch out for ‘those who pretended to be trustworthy’ (καταξιοπιστεύομαι) but who offered the ignorant a fatal mixture of Christ and themselves.15 Later in the Letter to Tralles, Ignatius referred to the docetists as ‘atheists’, ‘unbelievers’ … and ‘wicked offshoots/side growths’ (τὰ κακὰς παραφυάδας) who were ‘not the Father’s plants’ and whose fruit killed the recipient(s) immediately.16 The same message was repeated to the church in Philadelphia when Ignatius spotlighted the ‘seemingly trustworthy wolves’ (λύκοι ἀξιόπιστοι) who ‘with evil pleasure’ sought ‘to capture the runners in God’s race’ through evil teaching. Much like Ign., Trall. 11, here they are described as ‘not the Father’s plants’.17 Lastly, Polycarp was forewarned concerning ‘those who appear to be trustworthy’ (Οἱ δοκοῦντες ἀξιόπιστοι) but who were in reality ‘teachers of divergent doctrines’ (ἑτεροδιδασκαλοῦντες).18 These statements suggest that Ignatius’ dual categorization of humanity should be broadened to incorporate a third subgroup comprised of those who professed to be Christian but whose divisive beliefs and actions signaled to Ignatius that all was not as it seemed at first glance. The very presence of such a third category implies that the Eph. 16-7 warnings may have been directed towards this group. In other words, the false teachers and their followers appeared to be genuine on the outside, however, their evil and divisive beliefs and actions caused Ignatius to doubt their authenticity and to conclude that they did not yet belong to God. The Genuineness Tests of Ign., Eph. 14.2 The second point to consider is that, with the false teachers and their followers presenting the misleading appearance of genuineness, Ignatius reminded the 14 Ign., Eph. 7.1c-2. Numerous translations seem to misapply the phrase ‘being hard to cure’ (ὄντας δυσθεραπεύτους) by linking it to the wounds inflicted by the rabid dogs. The plural noun λαθροδῆκται (from λαθροδήκτης) is defined not as a wound but as the ‘one who bites in secret’ (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, ed. Walter Bauer, Frederkick W. Danker, W.F. Arndt and F.W. Gingrich [Chicago, 2000], 581), the ‘one who takes a surreptitious bite, fig. of dissident Christian κύνες λυσσῶντες, λ. Ign. Eph. 7.1.’ – G.W.H. Lampe, A Patristic Lexicon (Oxford, 1961), 790. The participial phrase ὄντας δυσθεραπεύτους then refers back to the κύνες who are further defined appositionally as ‘those who bite in secret’. 15 Ign., Trall. 6.2. 16 Ign., Trall. 10-11.1. Schoedel rightly sensed that this imagery expresses ‘Ignatius’s view of the false teachers as illegitimate offshoots of the Christian community’. See Ignatius of Antioch (1985), 156. 17 Ign., Phld. 2.2-3. 18 Ign., Pol. 3.1.

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Ephesians that claims to faith must somehow be validated for authenticity. Ignatius subsequently identified two signs that he believed would signal the genuineness of a person’s claim to Christianity. In a way that closely parallels synoptic material found in Matt. 12:33 and Luke 6:44,19 Ignatius referred to the first test of genuineness with an analogy: No one professing faith sins (οὐδεὶς πίστιν ἐπαγγελλόμενος ἁμαρτάνει), neither does the one who has possessed love hate. The tree [is] manifest by its fruit. In the same way, those who are professing to be Christ’s (οἱ ἐπαγγελλόμενοι Χριστοῦ εἶναι) will be noticed by the things they are doing.20

For Ignatius, the nature of the tree determined the nature of the fruit produced and therefore, he encouraged the Ephesians to validate the authenticity of a person’s profession of faith by noting their actions and beliefs.21 In short, he seems to be saying that Christians should be recognized by how they act and not just by what they claim. In Eph. 14.2c, Ignatius provided a second test: ‘For the work [i.e., Christianity22] [is] not just a current profession (οὐ γὰρ νῦν ἐπαγγελίας), but if one is discovered (εὑρεθῇ) at the end in the power of faith’. Here Ignatius emphasized that if faith did not germinate beyond the level of an initial profession, the lack of perseverance should serve as a warning signal. In short, just because 19 Consider Matt. 12:33 (ESV) ‘Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit’ and Luke 6:43-4 (ESV): ‘For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit’ [emphasis mine]. The fact that Ignatius’ wording (φανερὸν τὸ δένδρον ἀπὸ τοῦ καρποῦ αὐτοῦ) differs from Matt. 12:33 (ἐκ γὰρ τοῦ καρποῦ τὸ δένδρον γινώσκεται) and Luke 6:44 (γὰρ δένδρον ἐκ τοῦ ἰδίου καρποῦ γινώσκεται) led Foster to the intriguing suggestion that ‘[t]his pattern of alternating similarities and deviations from Matthew and Luke suggests that Ignatius is dependent on a source shared with these two evangelists, most probably Q. Or if Inge is correct … then perhaps to oral tradition’ – Paul Foster, ‘The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch and the Writings that Later Formed the New Testament’, in Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (eds), The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford, 2005), 159-86, 182; W.R. Inge, ‘Ignatius’, in The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford, 1905), 80. 20 Ign., Eph. 14.2ab. Another example is Ign., Smyrn. 6.1-2 where Ignatius referred to ‘those holding what he considered to be heretical opinions’ (τοὺς ἑτεροδοξοῦντας) with respect to ‘the grace of Christ’. Ignatius exhorted the Smyrnaeans to ‘observe well’ that the practice of these false believers did not match their profession: ‘There is no concern in them regarding love, none for the widow … the orphan … the oppressed … the prisoner or the one released … for those hungering or thirsting. They refrain from the Eucharist and prayer’. 21 Commenting on Ign., Eph. 14.2, Schoedel noted: ‘In the following sentences Ignatius goes on to emphasize deeds as the authentication of Christian lives’ – W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch (1985), 76. Ign., Eph. 14.2 is similar to what was stated in Eph. 8.2 where he seemed to suggest that Christians were not capable of being unfaithful: ‘those who are … faithful cannot do the things of unfaithfulness’. 22 Ignatius seems to have equated ‘the work’ (τὸ ἔργον, cf. Ign., Rom. 8.3) with ‘Christianity’. See Virginia Corwin, St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch (New Haven, 1960), 234; W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch (1985), 77.

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someone professed to be a Christian did not mean that they truly were. Since he defined Christianity as ‘persevering to the end in the power of faith’, it would be an apparent contradiction for him to have entertained the idea of a genuine Christian not doing so.23 If the production of godly fruit and faithful perseverance were the necessary correlatives to a true profession of faith, then a deficiency in either signaled a problem that he felt the Ephesians must recognize. Ignatius’ concern was that unity and purity of the church could be thwarted if the early Christians failed to insulate themselves from the influx of those who claimed to be part of the faith but who either acted in a contradictory manner, or who abandoned the faith altogether. Lessons Learned from the Recent Past The final point focuses on lessons Ignatius seems to have gleaned from 1Corinthians. The overwhelming scholarly consensus is that Ignatius knew 1Corinthians to the extent that he was able to repeatedly paraphrase portions of the letter from memory.24 The warning passage section in Ign., Eph. 16-8 contains perhaps the heaviest concentration of references and allusions to 1Corinthians in the letters. However, despite this consensus, very few have discussed any contextual reasons for why Ignatius’ mind was so heavily focused on the Corinthian text at this point in the Letter to Ephesus. The Corinthian Deception A very succinct summary of the nature of the Corinthian deception will serve as an interpretive backstop for understanding Ignatius’ warnings to the Ephesians. Another similar argument is found in Eph. 15.1: Ἄμεινόν ἐστιν σιωπᾶν καὶ εἶναι, ἢ λαλοῦντα μὴ εἶναι – ‘It is better to be silent and to be, than to be talking and not to be’. The curious and somewhat incomplete thought requires translators to fill in the blanks by answering the question, ‘To be what?’ Given that 14.2b, which contains Χριστοῦ εἶναι (‘to be Christ’s’), is separated from the nonpredicated uses of εἶναι in 15.1 by a short parenthetical statement, it seems to be both grammatically and contextually natural to insert the implied predicate, Χριστοῦ into 15.1. When this is done, the resultant interpretation of 14.2-15.1 fits the context: ‘If you are a Christian you should be producing fruit (14.2b) because Christians, by nature, will move beyond a simple profession and will persevere in works until the end’ (14.2c). In summary, it would be better to be silent (not professing) and to be [Christ’s], than to be speaking (professing) and not to be [Christ’s]’ (15.1). Given that Ignatius began to talk about Christian teachers in the next part of Eph. 15, it seems likely that his warning meant that it would be better to be a true Christian who was not teaching, than to be a false Christian who taught. Those who were not Christ’s posed the greatest danger if allowed to teach others. 24 P. Foster, ‘The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch and the Writings That Later Formed the New Testament’ (2005), 161, 165; W.R. Inge, ‘Ignatius’ (1905), 64-7; W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch (1985), 79-84; M. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers (2007), 174, 197; Bart D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers: I Clement, II Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Didache, Loeb Classical Library 24 (Cambridge, 2003), I 235.37. 23

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The apostle Paul had chastised the Corinthians for their schisms (1:10-7), carnal behavior (3:1ff), the arrogant attitude towards his apostleship (4:14-21), for sexual immorality, and for their lawsuits against each other (6:1-8). In 1Cor. 5:5-6 he demanded that they remove an incestuous man from their ranks so that he ‘might be saved’ (ἵνα … σωθῇ) and then cautioned, ‘do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?’ Paul suggested afterwards that these ‘factions’ (αἵρεσις) actually served to help them recognize who amongst them were ‘genuine’ (δόκιμοι) and, by implication, who were not.25 First Corinthians appears to align perfectly with Ignatius’ reasons for writing to Ephesus: Paul believed the Corinthian church contained a mixture of genuine and false Christians and Ignatius was warning the faithful Ephesians to not move in the same direction. The Corinthian Warning In 1Cor. 6:9 Paul counseled the Corinthians that they were deceived if they thought that behavior such as this warranted entrance into the kingdom of God. This is precisely Ignatius’ point, and so in Eph. 16.1 he paraphrased 1Cor. 6:9 for his Ephesian audience: ‘Do not be deceived, my brothers: those who destroy households will not inherit the kingdom of God’.26 In a somewhat cryptic manner, Ignatius followed with two seemingly paradoxical statements. In 17.1a he metaphorically described the church as being ἀφθαρσίαν, a term which is consistently defined as ‘not being subject to decay/ interruption, incorruptible’.27 In 17.1b, the following curious statement appears: ‘Do not allow yourself to be smeared with the filth of the teaching of the ruler of this age, lest he take you captive away from the life lying before [you].’ This would most likely have raised a question in the readers’ minds. Since the Ephesians had thus far been successful in resisting the corrupting influences of the false teachers,28 and since the Lord had given the church an incorruptible nature (17.1a), why was it necessary for Ignatius to warn the supposedly incorruptible church to not become corrupted in 17.1b?

25 Fee commented that this amounts to a ‘divine sifting/testing process’ involving ‘divisions that would separate true believers from those who were false’, Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, 1987), 538. 26 Compare Ign., Eph. 16.1 – Μὴ πλανᾶσθε, ἀδελφοί μου· οἱ οἰκοφθόροι βασιλείαν θεοῦ οὐ κληρονομήσουσιν with 1Cor. 6:9 – ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ἄδικοι θεοῦ βασιλείαν οὐ κληρονομήσουσιν. 27 A Greek-English Lexicon (2000), 155. Franco Montanari, in The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, ed. Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder (Leiden, 2015), 354 defines the noun as ‘incorruptibility, integrity, immortality’ and G. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (1961), 275 – s.v. ἀφθαρσία II.C.2 cites this verse as an example of the ‘state of Church and its members’. 28 Consider Ignatius’ praise for the faithfulness of the Ephesian church in Ign., Eph. inscr; 1.1-2; 4.1; 6.2; 8.1; 9.1-2; 11.2.

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Without clearing up the ambiguity, Ignatius immediately followed up by asking two paralleled and yet related questions that seem to anticipate this potential rebuttal from his readers: ‘Why is it that not all of us are becoming wise, by receiving the knowledge of God, which is Jesus Christ? Why are we foolishly perishing, by ignoring the gracious gift that the Lord has truly sent?’29 Having repeatedly lauded the Ephesians’ faithfulness, it is unlikely that the first-person references were directed towards a specific group in Ephesus. Instead, this seems to be Ignatius’ way of broadly referring to all of ‘professing’ Christianity in his day. Additionally, by using οὐ πάντες as the subject of 17.2a, the focus was further refined to a smaller subset of professing Christianity who were not becoming wise as expected. Ignatius seems to be saying, ‘if you think you cannot be corrupted because you are associated with the church, have you considered why some of those who claim to be part of professing Christianity are not progressing as expected?’ Participial Clues Most translations, including those of Ehrman and Holmes, are similar in that they both translate the dependent participial clauses as participles of means in 17.2.30 However, from a grammatical standpoint, since it is common that when a present tense main verb is adverbially modified by an aorist tense participle, the participial phrase should normally be viewed as being antecedent to the time of the main verb, this would shift the translation of the first question to something like: ‘Why is it that not all of us are becoming wise after receiving God’s knowledge which is Jesus Christ?’31 Since participles frequently carry more than just a temporal meaning, and since the second paralleled question in 17.2 is most likely being used to denote the means by which one perishes, it seems best to view λαβόντες primarily as a participle of means but with a secondary temporal meaning: ‘Why is it that not all of us are becoming wise after receiving [the means by which] the knowledge of God [should be received], which is Jesus Christ?’32 Lexically, λαμβάνω does not demand that the recipients fully embraced or understood what they had received and this is not necessarily an indication that this refers to genuine faith gone awry.33 The second question in 17.2b seems to 29 30

Ign., Eph. 17.2. M. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers (2007), 197; B. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers (2003),

I 237. 31 Emphasis mine. See Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1996), 624. 32 Wallace notes the grammatical possibility that both forces of the participle could be in view: ‘Even if a participle is labeled as temporal, this does not necessarily mean that such is its only force. Often a secondary notion is present, such as means or cause’, Ibid. 625 n. 30. 33 A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, ed. Walter Bauer, Frederick W. Danker, W.F. Arndt and F.W. Gingrich (Chicago, 2000), 583-4.

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support this by indicating that the subgroup in danger of perishing were comprised of those who had received the means by which they should have become wise … but who either remained ignorant of, or intentionally disregarded, Christ (ἀγνοοῦντες).34 The Scandalous and Foolish Message It remains to be seen why a segment of early Christianity would corrupt the faith, lead others into unquenchable fire, and why some would follow them. In 1Cor. 1:18, Paul warned his audience that ‘those who are perishing’ considered ‘the message of the cross to be foolishness’ (Ὁ λόγος γὰρ ὁ τοῦ σταυροῦ τοῖς μὲν ἀπολλυμένοις μωρία ἐστίν). In 1Cor. 1:23 he indicated that the concept of a ‘crucified Christ’ was viewed as both an ‘object of offense’ to the Jews (Χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον … σκάνδαλον) and as ‘foolishness’ (μωρίαν) to the Gentiles. In Ign., Eph. 18.1, Ignatius essentially repackaged Paul’s message from 1Cor. 1:18, 20, 23 for his Ephesian audience: ‘My spirit is the offscouring of the cross, which is a stumbling block (σκάνδαλον) to unbelievers, but salvation and eternal life to us. “Where is the wise? Where is the debater?” Where is the boasting of those who are thought to be intelligent?’ According to Ignatius, this limited segment of professing Christianity was not comprised of genuine Christians who were in danger of foolishly perishing. Instead, by appropriating Paul’s language and the context of 1Corinthians, he indicated that those in danger were actually unbelievers who, despite their supposed association with Christianity, had yet to view the saving message of the cross as anything but an object of foolishness (μωρία) and of revulsion (σκάνδαλον).

Conclusion To conclude, the warning passages in Ign., Eph. 17.1-2 do not appear to address the notion of genuine Christians being lured away into perdition (17.2b). Instead, it seems that Ignatius’ warnings were aimed at the ‘weed(s) of the devil’ (Ign., Eph. 10.3) who had begun to appear amongst the genuine. In his mind, those in danger were not true believers. Instead he utilized Paul’s language to describe them as unbelievers who had yet to truly embrace the message of the crucified Christ. Suggesting that Ignatius believed that genuine Christians were being influenced to forfeit salvation is going beyond a plain and contextual reading of the letter. Ignatius’ repeated warning about false Christians infiltrating the early church, along with his exhortation for the Ephesians to validate professions of faith (Ign., Eph. 14.2), suggests that he believed 34

Ibid. 12-3.

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the Ephesian church was in danger of becoming a variegated mixture of true and false Christians. Apparently, this had not yet occurred in Ephesus. Nevertheless, Ignatius was certainly familiar with 1Corinthians and so he proactively applied Paul’s warnings to ensure the Ephesians remained steadfast in the faith. It appears that some were not becoming wise after professing faith in Christ because they were yet ignorant of the gracious gift of salvation through Christ. Just like the Corinthians before them, a segment of professing Christianity was in danger of foolishly perishing because the message of the crucified Christ remained an object of foolishness (μωρία) and of revulsion to them (σκάνδαλον).

Kingdom of God in Ignatius and Paul: A Social-Linguistic Comparison of an Early Christian Stock Phrase Brian W. BUNNELL, University of Edinburgh, UK

ABSTRACT In his letters to the Ephesians and to the Philadelphians Ignatius uses the phrase ‘kingdom of God’ as a rhetorical tool to urge unity (Ign., Eph. 16.1; Ign., Phld. 3.3). The vocabulary, syntax, and discourse features of these passages resembles the Pauline usage of the expression in 1Cor. 6:9-10 (cf. Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5), but there are a number of features that render Ignatius’ use of this idiom distinct. In this article I argue that, although Ignatius reinscribes the structural pattern of his Pauline source, he uses the phrase ‘kingdom of God’ in an idiosyncratic way to accomplish his unique rhetorical agenda of relational harmony. Thus, this article compares Paul’s use of the expression with its use in Ignatius, in order to better appreciate Ignatius’ imitation and modification of this Pauline pattern of speech. As an additional point of comparison, the use of the expression in Gal. 5:21 and Eph. 5:5 is also considered. The effect of this short study not only advances our understanding of the kingdom of God in early Christianity by showing its adaptability to suit different social contexts, but it also contributes to the growing field of research that seeks to account for Ignatius’ use of early Christian scriptural traditions.

Introduction By my count, the phrase βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ occurs 100 times in texts that date to the first one hundred years of earliest Christianity.1 The frequent occurrence of this stable expression, compared to its near non-occurrence prior to the letters of Paul,2 indicates that for the earliest followers of Jesus, this syntagm 1 Following a majority of scholars, I date the first one hundred years of the earliest Christian texts from 1Thessalonians (late 40s CE) to the final edition of Shepherd of Hermas (140s CE). The numerical distribution is as follows: Disputed/Undisputed Letters of Paul (7×); Q Source (8×); Gospel of Mark (14×); Gospel of Matthew (4×); Luke-Acts (38×); Gospel of John (2×); 1Clement (2×); Apocalypse of John (2×); Letters of Ignatius (2×); Polycarp to the Philadelphians (2×); 2Clement (5×); Epistle of Barnabas (1×); Shepherd of Hermas (13×). N.B.: I use the expression ‘Early Christian’, and ‘earliest Christianity’, to demarcate the initial followers of Jesus during this formative first century. 2 The expression occurs three times prior to the Letters of Paul: Pss. Sol. 17:3; Wis. 10:10; Philo, De specialibus legibus 4.164. For discussion see Odo Camponovo, Königtum, Königsherrschaft und Reich Gottes in den frühjüdischen Schriften, OBO 58 (Göttingen, 1984), 218-26,

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 81-92. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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held more than marginal significance. Unfortunately, kingdom of God research is plagued by entrenched theological questions related to time and lexical meaning: is the kingdom of God present or future or does it consist of a reign or realm?3 Recent research on spatial theory offers a new approach, but even here, exegetical particularities can be overshadowed by theoretical considerations.4 A more promising tactic is to compare the function of the expression in different discourses in order to appreciate how it operates in the earliest Christian texts. Indeed, by analyzing the expression according to its social-linguistic function one avoids the pitfalls and blind alleys that have characterized previous kingdom of God research. To wit: rather than arguing which predetermined lexical, temporal, or spatial category is most suitable for classifying βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ, we are in a better position to determine the meaningfulness of the expression by examining how it was used in the native speech community of the early Jesus movement, that is, how it was deployed as a linguistic resource within the earliest Christian texts.5 A stellar example of the different ways that βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ functions in this emergent period are the cases of Ignatius and Paul.6 In his letters to the Ephesians and to the Philadelphians Ignatius uses βασιλεία θεοῦ (always in 373-5, and Burton L. Mack, ‘The Kingdom Sayings in Mark’, Foundations and Facets Forum 3 (1987), 13-7. 3 The history of this question is, of course, immense. For a recent analysis, see Volker Gäckle, Das Reich Gottes im Neuen Testament: Auslegungen-Anfragen-Alternativen (Göttingen, 2018), 3-15. 4 For example, see Karen J. Wenell, ‘Kingdom, Not Kingly Rule: Assessing the Kingdom of God as Sacred Space’, Biblical Interpretation 25 (2017), 206-33. Wenell’s article illuminates in many respects, but her argument (ibid. 219) that sayings about possessing/inheriting the kingdom are evidence that the kingdom of God is ‘bounded space’ undervalues the temporal aspects of certain passages (e.g., Mark 10:14-5; Matt. 21:43; Luke 12:32, etc.). Certainly, the kingdom of God can be understood as a sacred space in some texts, but this does not eclipse the need for other categories to help explain the meaningfulness of the expression. 5 Here I rely on the linguistic approach of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, translated by G. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, 4th ed. (Oxford, 2009), 2-23, who demonstrates that the meaning of a term resides in its function. 6 Recent decades have witnessed new challenges to the authenticity of the so called middle recension established by J.B. Lightfoot and Theodor Zahn (see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers: Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp, Part 2: Ignatius and Polycarp, 2nd ed. [London, 18891890], I 280-430; Theodor Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien [Gotha, 1873], 75-240). For a summary of the issues see Allen Brent, Ignatius of Antioch: A Martyr Bishop and the Origin of Episcopacy (London, 2007), 95-143, and Timothy D. Barnes, ‘The Date of Ignatius’, The Expository Times 120 (2008), 119-23. I concur with the succinct judgments of Andreas Lindemann, ‘Paul’s Influence on “Clement” and Ignatius’, in Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett (eds), Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford, 2005), 17, who rejects the early second century dating of the letters, but affirms there is no convincing evidence that the seven letters are pseudonymous, or that they date to the late second century. For a further defense of this position see id., ‘Antwort auf die “Thesen zur Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien”’, ZAC 1 (1997), 185-94. Thus, in what follows I proceed based on the hypothesis of the authenticity of the middle recension, while affirming the need for additional

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the non-articular form) as a rhetorical tool to urge unity (Ign., Eph. 16.1; Ign., Phld. 3.3).7 The vocabulary, syntax, and discourse features of each passage mirrors 1Cor. 6:9-10 (cf. Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5), but there a number of divergences that render Ignatius’ use of this idiom distinct. In this essay I argue that, although Ignatius reinscripts the basic grammatical pattern of his Pauline source, he uses the expression βασιλεία θεοῦ in a distinctive way to accomplish the rhetorical goal specific to his social location, namely, the promotion of relational harmony. Whereas Paul provides an incentive for moral purity, Ignatius provides a motive to maintain fellowship. Thus, this essay compares and contrasts Ignatius’ use of the expression with its use in Paul in order to account for Ignatius’ modification of this Pauline pattern of speech. The effect of this short study advances our understanding of kingdom of God in early Christianity by showing how different authors use the same idiom to address different social problems. Indeed, both Ignatius and Paul understand the kingdom of God as a future inheritance, but it is only relevant for their purposes because it addresses needs of the moment. In addition, this study also demonstrates one way that Ignatius appealed to Paul as a scriptural authority to generate credibility with his audiences. Ignatius’ Use of a Pauline Pattern of Speech The expression βασιλεία θεοῦ occurs two times in Ignatius: once in To the Ephesians 16.1 and once in To the Philadelphians 3.3. Neither text quotes Paul, but the parallels demonstrate that each text derives its language and grammar from at least one Pauline source. Ignatius was likely aware of Gal. 5:21 and Eph. 5:5, but as previous scholarship has demonstrated, a literary relationship is more certain in the case of 1Cor. 6:9-10.8 Here I provide the texts for reference: research on this question. Therefore, I refer to ‘Ignatius’ as the author of the texts I analyze in this essay. 7 For the Greek text of Ignatius, I cite the critical edition edited by Michael Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, 3rd ed. (Peabody, 2007). I have also consulted the critical edition edited by Andreas Lindemann and Henning Paulsen, Die Apostolischen Väter: Griechisch-deutsche Parallelausgabe auf der Grundlage der Ausgaben von Franz Xaver Funk/K. Bihlmeyer und M. Whittaker, mit Übersetzungen von M. Dibelius und D.-A. Koch (Tübingen, 1992). For the Pauline corpus, I cite the Greek text of Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, Jonahnnes Karavidopoulos, Carol M. Martini and Bruce Metzger, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th ed. (Stuttgart, 2012). Translations are my own. 8 See the analysis by Paul Foster, ‘The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch and the Writings that later formed the New Testament’, in Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett (eds), The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford, 2005), 164-5. Regarding Ignatius’ knowledge of 1Cor. 6:9-10 Foster provides the rating: ‘Category A: No Reasonable Doubt Concerning Knowledge of the Document’, and considers this text to show ‘a high level of correspondence, but not exact quotation’. See also the comments of Henning Paulsen, Studien zur Theologie

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Ignatius to the Ephesians 16.1 μὴ πλανᾶσθε, ἀδελφοί μου· οἱ οἰκοφθόροι βασιλείαν θεοῦ οὐ κληρονομήσουσιν. Do not be deceived, my brothers and sisters: corrupters of households will not inherit the kingdom of God. Ignatius to the Philadelphians 3.3 μὴ πλανᾶσθε, ἀδελφοί μου· εἴ τις σχίζοντι ἀκολουθεῖ, βασιλείαν θεοῦ οὐ κληρονομεῖ· Do not be deceived, my brothers and sisters: if anyone follows a schismatic, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. 1Cor. 6:9-10 Ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ἄδικοι θεοῦ βασιλείαν οὐ κληρονομήσουσιν; μὴ πλανᾶσθε· οὔτε πόρνοι οὔτε εἰδωλολάτραι οὔτε μοιχοὶ οὔτε μαλακοὶ οὔτε ἀρσενοκοῖται οὔτε κλέπται οὔτε πλεονέκται, οὐ μέθυσοι, οὐ λοίδοροι, οὐχ ἅρπαγες βασιλείαν θεοῦ κληρονομήσουσιν. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor swindlers, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit the kingdom of God.

In what follows I will note key points of similarities and differences between each text in Ignatius and 1Cor. 6:9-10, only appealing to Gal. 5:21 and Eph. 5:5 as corroborating evidence. The similarities and differences are equally relevant. The similarities show that Ignatius reinscribes a Pauline manner of speaking with respect to βασιλεία θεοῦ, and the differences demonstrate Ignatius’ literary creativity to address his social context. Indeed, rather than merely observing that Ignatius and Paul both see the kingdom of God as future, it is more exegetically specific, and far more interesting, to note how each author uses the expression as a solution to their respective situations. Each of these will now be considered. Pauline Parallels There are three parallels to consider: lexical parallels, syntactical parallels, and discourse parallels. des Ignatius von Antiochien, FKDG 29 (Göttingen, 1978), 33, who states that despite the verbal differences between 1Cor. 6:9-10 and Ign., Eph. 16.1/Ign., Phld. 3.3, ‘erklärt die Annahme literarischer Abhängigkeit die bestehenden Beziehungen zwischen den Texten wohl am besten’. For an alternative view, see Andreas Lindemann, Paulus im ältesten Christentum: Das Bild des Apostels und die Rezeption der paulinischen Theologie in der frühchristlichen Literatur bis Marcion, BHTh 58 (Tübingen, 1979), 202-3.

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Lexical Parallels. As for lexical parallels, Ignatius has six words in common with 1Cor. 6:9: μὴ πλανᾶσθε βασιλείαν θεοῦ οὐ κληρονομήσουσιν.9 Ign., Eph. 16.1 and Ign., Phld. 3.3 register the only occurrences of the verb κληρονομέω in the entire Ignatian corpus, and furthermore, these are the only two instances where Ignatius appeals to the early Christian syntagm βασιλεία θεοῦ.10 This evidence, when considered in light of the fact that Ignatius was familiar with 1Corinthians,11 suggests that Ignatius is almost certainly relying on 1Cor. 6:9-10 for his vocabulary.12 This is not a quotation, but the rare appearance of these terms in Ignatius suggests a Pauline provenance. Syntactical Parallels. There are also syntactical parallels to consider. Each text follows a common word order (minus one exception): the object βασιλείαν θεοῦ occurs first, followed by the negative particle οὐ, and then finally the verb κληρονομέω occurs last (see also Gal. 5:21). The exception is 1Cor. 6:10 where the negative particle οὐχ occurs first, but this is due to the structural demands of the sentence. Furthermore, both 1Cor. 6:9-10 and Ign., Eph. 16.1 use the future tense form of the verb κληρονομέω to portray that eschatological loss of the kingdom of God is in view.13 Finally, each text uses the active voice and the indicative mood, and both place βασιλεία in the accusative followed by the genitive form of θεός. It is significant that neither Ignatius nor Paul use the definite article before θεοῦ. In Christian texts dated before the middle of the second century CE there are only seven instances where the syntagm βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ occurs without a definite article preceding θεός: Gal. 5:21, 1Cor. 6:9-10, 1Cor. 15:50, Ign., Eph. 16.1, and Ign., Phld. 3.3 and Pol., Phil. 5.3.14 In other words, when the 9

As observed by P. Foster, ‘The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch’ (2005), 164. The phrase ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ appears in the long recension of Ign., Eph. 15.1, but I consider only the middle recension authentic. 11 See the comments by P. Foster, ‘The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch’ (2005), 164-7, 185. 12 W. Bauer and H. Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochia und der Polykarpbrief, HNT 18 (Tübingen, 1985), 40, rightly affirm that Ignatius does not quote Paul, but do not consider the alternative that the high degree of lexical correspondence indicates a literary relationship between the two documents. Theoretically, of course, the saying may not be original to Paul, and if so, Ignatius may have derived this saying from some other source. The problem is that there is no extant evidence to confirm this hypothesis. Furthermore, in a recent study Benjamin Edsall, Paul’s Witness to Formative Early Christian Instruction, WUNT 2/365 (Tübingen, 2014), 114-8, has demonstrated that the warning statement in 1Cor. 6:9-10 consists of context specific information that was included in Paul’s original teaching to the Corinthians, and that there is no source indicated for the material other than the Apostle himself. In my judgment, this suggests that the origin of the saying may well have been the Apostle rather than elsewhere. Nevertheless, regardless of the provenance of the saying, the most likely explanation is that Ignatius adopted this vocabulary due to his familiarity with 1Corinthians. 13 In contrast to 1Cor. 6:9-10 and Ign., Eph. 16.1, Ign., Phld. 3.3 uses the present tense form of the verb κληρονομέω. The significance of this decision will be examined in the next section. 14 I do not include Eph. 5:5 in this list, which states: τοῦτο γὰρ ἴστε γινώσκοντες, ὅτι πᾶς πόρνος ἢ ἀκάθαρτος ἢ πλεονέκτης, ὅ ἐστιν εἰδωλολάτρης, οὐκ ἔχει κληρονομίαν ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ 10

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syntagm does occur, it almost always occurs with the definite article. The only exceptions are the texts that speak of not inheriting the kingdom of God. This suggests that Ignatius has reinscribed 1Cor. 6:9-10 for his own purposes. Discourse Parallels. The last parallel to consider are discourse features. Ignatius not only repeats selected portions of Paul’s vocabulary and syntax, but he also repeats key discourse features in order to emulate Paul’s manner of speaking. For example, both Ignatius and Paul use the same metacomment, here identified as the command μὴ πλανᾶσθε. Following the definition of Steve Runge, a metacomment is, ‘when speakers stop saying what they are saying in order to comment on what is going to be said, speaking abstractly about it’.15 The command μὴ πλανᾶσθε, ‘do not be deceived’, is just one such metacomment. By using this command Ignatius, following 1Cor. 6:9b, slows the discourse and provides a comment on what its about to be said. Here the metacomment highlights what is to follow, which in this case underscores the significance of losing one’s kingdom of God inheritance. In other words, what Ignatius is about to say about the kingdom of God is of such importance that his readers must be sure not to be deceived about it lest they miss it. Ignatius repeats this metacomment in each text: ‘Do not be deceived [μὴ πλανᾶσθε], my brothers and sisters: corrupters of households will not inherit the kingdom of God’ (Ign., Eph. 16.1); ‘Do not be deceived [μὴ πλανᾶσθε], my brothers and sisters: if anyone follows a schismatic, they will not inherit the kingdom of God’ (Ign., Phld. 3.3). Ignatius is merely trying to sound Pauline.16 In both Ignatius and Paul this threat of a loss of inheritance employs the same grammaticalized pattern: metacomment + subject + βασιλεία θεοῦ + οὐ κληρονομέω. This pattern appears not only in 1Cor. 6:9-10, but also in Gal. 5:21 (see Eph. 5:5).17 Outside of these two ancient writers, this pattern Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ, ‘For be sure of this, that no immoral or unclean or covetous person, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God’. In this instance the article τοῦ also modifies the noun θεοῦ. Therefore, this text is excluded. 15 So, Steven E. Runge, Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical Introduction for Teaching and Exegesis (Peabody, 2010), 101-24 (quote from 101), and L. Mao, ‘I Conclude Not: Toward a Pragmatic Account of Metadiscourse’, Rhetoric Review 11 (1993), 265-89. L. Mao (ibid. 265), defines metadiscourse as, ‘various kinds of linguistic tokens that an author employs in her text to guide or direct her reader as to how to understand her, her text, and her stance toward it’. 16 William R. Schodel, Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Seven Letters of Ignatius of Antioch (Philadelphia, 1985), 79, notes that μὴ πλανᾶσθε echoes 1Cor. 6:9, ‘but was no doubt also familiar to Ignatius from sources other than Paul (see on Eph. 5.2)’. 17 Eph. 5:5 uses the pattern of metacomment + subject + kingdom of God, but changes the verb to ἔχει, makes κληρονομίαν the object, and places the expression (with the definite articles) ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ last in the sentence. Thus, the text reads: τοῦτο γὰρ ἴστε γινώσκοντες, ὅτι πᾶς πόρνος ἢ ἀκάθαρτος ἢ πλεονέκτης, ὅ ἐστιν εἰδωλολάτρης, οὐκ ἔχει κληρονομίαν ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ. A comparable pattern also appears in 1Cor. 15:50, but like Eph. 5:5, the differences do not suggest a literary relationship with Ignatius.

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does not appear in any other early Christian text. Taken together, the lexical, syntactical, and discourse overlaps suggest that by the middle of the second century CE Paul’s manner of speaking about the kingdom of God had achieved the status of a grammaticalized pattern that could be repeated in new contexts. For Ignatius, this grammaticalized pattern was a way of speaking that was distinctively Pauline.18 In summary, the lexical, syntactical, and discourse parallels demonstrates that in Ign., Eph. 16.1 and Ign., Phld. 3.3, Ignatius reinscripts or emulates his Pauline source. I suggest that Ignatius does this for at least two reason. First, Ignatius reinscripts 1Cor. 6:9-10 because he, like Paul, understood the eschatological threat of losing one’s βασιλεία θεοῦ inheritance to function as a persuasive strategy to motivate his audience to action.19 Failing to obtain the kingdom of God involved the loss of the familial right to participate in the eschatological reign and realm of God. In the case of Paul this threat incentivized former pagan Gentiles to maintain moral purity, whereas in the case of Ignatius the threat incentivized relational harmony. Second, by adopting a Pauline manner of speaking, Ignatius gains credibility with his audience since this form of argumentation derives from an acknowledged authoritative source. Ignatius not only repeats elements of Paul’s syntax and vocabulary, but he also adopts the manner in which Paul delivers this eschatological threat. He styles his warnings to match Paul’s mode of expression. Ignatius is not alone in repeating Paul’s speech pattern, nor was he, quite possibly, the first. Consider here the case of Eph. 5:5, another instance where a later author imitates a pre-established manner of speaking. Pauline Divergences In addition to the parallels there are also points of divergence between Ignatius and Paul. As before, there are three types of divergences to consider: lexical divergences, syntactical divergences, and discourse divergences. Each divergence demonstrates how Ignatius recasts the Pauline threat of losing one’s kingdom of God inheritance as a motive for relational harmony.

18 There are other texts that use similar vocabulary, but this particular grammaticalized pattern (metacomment + subject + βασιλεία θεοῦ + οὐ κληρονομέω) is only found in Paul and Ignatius. See, for example, Ps. Sol. 14:10, Mark 10:17, and Matt. 25:34. 19 The threat of the loss of inheritance is one example of the different ways that kinship and ethnicity were used in the ancient world to construct group identities for the purpose of persuasion. Ignatius, following the lead of Paul, is merely appropriating this convention to accommodate his second century context. On the use of kinship and ethnicity discourses as strategies of persuasion, see the discussion by Carolyn Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study in Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (Oxford, 2007), 19-33.

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Lexical Divergences. As for the lexical divergences, there are two: first, in both texts Ignatius adds the expression ἀδελφοί μου, and second, in both texts he changes the subject of the sentence. Commenting on Ign., Eph. 16.1, Paul Foster observes that the vocative ἀδελφοί μου takes the place of the implied subject of the verb οἴδατε in 1Cor. 6:9.20 The same expression appears in Ign., Phld. 3.3, suggesting that in both texts Ignatius adapted his Pauline source to frame the saying about the kingdom of God with a relational interest in view. The decision to employ familial language reflects a concern to preserve the unity that was under threat in both assemblies. This lexical shift is the first indicator that Ignatius reshapes Paul’s warning to serve a different function, that is, the promotion of concord. As for changing the subject of the sentence, in Ign., Eph. 16.1 Ignatius transforms Paul’s ἄδικοι, ‘unrighteous’, to οἱ οἰκοφθόροι, ‘corrupters of households’.21 Meanwhile, in Ign., Phld 3.3, Ignatius makes the subject an implied demonstrative pronoun οὗτος, which refers back to the indefinite pronoun τις: ‘if anyone [τις-indefinite pronoun] follows a schismatic, they [implied οὗτος] will not inherit the kingdom of God’.22 In both cases the subject change betrays a different social situation. In the case of Ign., Eph. 16.1, he uses the term οἱ οἰκοφθόροι to specify a group of unrighteous persons who are disqualified from receiving βασιλείαν θεοῦ, namely, those who corrupt households. Ign., Eph. 16.2 then applies this logic to the opponents: if those who corrupted homes suffered physical death,23 how much more will those who corrupt faith in God (by bad teaching) experience a more severe death. Ignatius then identifies this πόσῳ μᾶλλον, ‘much more’, death as εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἄσβεστον χωρήσει, ‘going into unquenchable fire’. The point is that in 16.1 Ignatius uses the term οἱ οἰκοφθόροι as a polemic to vilify the moral baseness of his opponents.24 Ignatius believed his opponents were worse than corrupters of households; they were corrupters of faith in God. Here Ignatius changes his Pauline source to register a specific category of unrighteous persons and applies it in a polemical fashion against the false teachers who were damaging the unity of the Ephesian community.

20

P. Foster, ‘The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch’ (2005), 164. My argument does not depend on whether οἱ οἰκοφθόροι, ‘corrupters of households’, refers to those who commit adultery or if they are temple destroyers. For discussion see W. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch (1985), 79; J.B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part 2 (1889-1890), II 71. 22 The demonstrative pronoun οὗτος is implied in the first conditional clause in 3.3, but it is explicit in the second. 23 W. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch (1985), 79, argues that this is an allusion to the Israelite adulterers referenced by Paul in 1Cor. 10:8 (see Num. 25:1-9), 46-52. 24 W. Bauer and H. Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochia und der Polykarpbrief (1985), 40. For a discussion of Ignatius’ opponents in Ephesus see Jonathan Lookadoo, The High Priest and the Temple: Metaphorical Depictions of Jesus in the Letters of Ignatius and Paul, WUNT 2/473 (Tübingen, 2018), 46-52. 21

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Likewise, the change to οὗτος as the (implied) subject in Ign., Phld. 3.3 indicates a shift to the new state of affairs with which Ignatius was concerned. Evidently the Philadelphians were under pressure to transfer their allegiance from the bishop to a group of schismatics, and in Ignatius’ view this challenge posed a direct threat a threat to the unity of the assembly.25 To address this problem, Ignatius counters with a threat of his own based on the Pauline pattern from 1Cor. 6:9-10: if anyone follows a schismatic, then such a one [οὗτος] will not inherit the kingdom of God. By changing the subject to this demonstrative pronoun Ignatius adapts Paul’s generalized statement and offers it as a contextualized warning to the assembly at Philadelphia. Thus, in both Ign., Eph. 16.1 and Ign., Phld. 3.3, Ignatius has taken a Pauline way of talking about the kingdom of God that was originally used to motivate ethical purity and he adjusts it to warn against disruptive leaders that threatened the concord of these early Christian communities. For Ignatius, receiving the eschatological inheritance of the kingdom of God is contingent upon the maintenance of unity. Here eschatology and unity are inextricably linked.26 The appeal to unity as an eschatological prerequisite coincides with Ignatius’s second century context that was concerned with ecclesial organization, and furthermore, demonstrates the extent to which Paul’s manner of speech with respect to the kingdom of God was customizable to address new social dilemmas. Syntactical Divergences. There are three syntactical differences to note, all of which occur in Ign., Phld. 3.3. First, Ignatius repackages the Pauline pattern into the form of a conditional clause. Ignatius maintains the structure of metacomment + subject + βασιλεία θεοῦ + οὐ κληρονομέω, but places it in the apodosis of a conditional statement to articulate a cause and effect relationship between following a schismatic [εἴ τις σχίζοντι ἀκολουθεῖ] and the loss of one’s kingdom of God inheritance [βασιλείαν θεοῦ οὐ κληρονομεῖ].27 It is important to note that the contingent element in the conditional clause (the protasis) does not concern the schismatics, but any person in the assembly at Philadelphia who follows after them. In other words, Ignatius does not address the status of immoral outsiders who fail to inherit the kingdom of God (as Paul does in 1Cor. 6:9-10), but registers his concern with those 25 There is, of course, debate on the social situation that Ign., Phil. 3.1-3 addresses. John-Paul Lotz, Ignatius and Concord: The Background and Use of the Language of Concord in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch (New York, 2007), 148-9, rightly notes that regardless of particulars the pressing issue was the threat of disunity. 26 On these themes in Ignatius, see Gregory Vall, Learning Christ: Ignatius of Antioch and the Mystery of Redemption (Washington, 2013), 359-76. 27 On the cause-effect relationship in a conditional sentence see Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1996), 682-3.

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inside the Philadelphian community.28 By positioning Paul’s language in this new form, Ignatius makes explicit the fatal consequence of following after a schismatic for his audience. Second, Ignatius changes the verb κληρονομέω from the third person plural [κληρονομήσουσιν] to the third person singular [κληρονομεῖ]. This change allows the conditional statement to register with the audience in a more direct manner by distinguishing the threat that the schismatics posed to individuals within the community. In 1Cor. 6:9-10 Paul uses the plural form of the verb to identify various immoral groups that forfeit their inheritance through impurity. In contrast, Ign., Phld. 3.3 uses the singular form of the verb to specify which persons within the assembly were at risk of forfeiting their inheritance. This syntactical divergence narrows the focus and individualizes his concern. Third, it is important to note that, in contrast to 1Cor. 6:9-10, Ign., Phld. 3.3 moves away from the future tense form of the verb κληρονομέω and switches to the present tense form. If proponents of verbal aspect theory are correct that the present tense form does not indicate temporal nuance but the perspective of the speaker in relation to the verbal action, then this shift demonstrates Ignatius’ choice to portray the action from a distinctive point of view.29 Rather than using the future tense form of κληρονομέω to portray the eschatological loss of the kingdom of God, Ignatius switches to the present tense form to depict the loss from an internal point of view. Stanley Porter refers to this internal point of view as the imperfective aspect, meaning that the author depicts the verbal action internally as though it is in progress.30 The warning in Ign., Phld. 3.3 presents a vivid image of someone caught in the act of following after a schismatic with their kingdom of God inheritance slipping away from their grasp. Ignatius selects the imperfective aspect because this allows him to present the Philadelphians with a real time depiction of what takes place when someone follows a schismatic.31 Discourse Divergences. Finally, there are two discourse changes to note. First, I have already mentioned the addition of ἀδελφοί μου in Ign., Eph. 16.1 and Ign., Phld. 3.3. In discourse parlance this is a specific type of metacomment identified as a redundant vocative.32 It is not necessary for Ignatius to identify the audience in order to make his point. But by adding this expression in both texts, he slows the discourse once more in order to build anticipation. Like the 28 Furthermore, this contingent element implies a requirement that the Philadelphians must meet to inherit the kingdom of God, namely, continued loyalty to the bishop and to the assembly. The theme of unity is the primary concern in Ign., Phld. 2.1-4.1. 29 For a brief introduction to verbal aspect, including commentary on the aspect of the present tense form, see Stanley Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Sheffield, 1999), 20-49. 30 Ibid. 21-2. 31 See also Eph. 5:5, which uses the present tense form of the verb ἔχω to provide an inside look at immoral persons who are not in possession of the kingdom of Christ and of God. 32 So, S. Runge, Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament (2010), 117-9.

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command μὴ πλανᾶσθε, the addition of ἀδελφοί μου emphasizes the phrase that follows, but it adds an additional wrinkle by forcing the audience to consider the familial aspect of their relationship with Ignatius as grounds for taking what he is about to say seriously. Ignatius’s concern in each text is to use the image of forfeiting one’s kingdom of God inheritance as a basis for preserving unity. The appeal to the redundant vocative ἀδελφοί μου, although not necessary, coincides with this relational interest, and strengthens the importance of the warning.33 Second, as identified above, Ign., Phld. 3.3 repackages Paul’s threat into the form of a conditional statement, or what discourse analysis Steve Runge labels an exceptive frame.34 In an exceptive frame the protasis identifies a state of affairs with which the author is concerned. This suggests that the move to recast the Pauline pattern within an exceptive frame is not an arbitrary or stylistic choice, but an intentional decision by Ignatius to underscore the danger that following a schismatic posed to the Philadelphian assembly. The depiction of eschatological loss of the kingdom of God functions as a warning to those who would dissent from the hierarchy imposed by Ignatius and switch their allegiance to these false teachers.35 Thus, the choice to use an exceptive clause to adapt 1Cor. 6:9-10 permits Ignatius to specify his concern with disruption. The threat of eschatological loss of the kingdom of God means that one should avoid entering into this state of affairs. The adjustments that Ignatius makes to Paul’s grammaticalized pattern in Ign., Eph. 16.1 and Ign., Phld. 3.3 show the extent to which Ignatius adapted his literary source to fit his situational needs. In total, these lexical, syntactical, and discourse divergences demonstrate that Ignatius appealed to Paul’s manner of speaking in order to promote the agenda of relational harmony. Although at times subtle, such changes provide insight into not only the use of βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ in early Christianity, but also Ignatius’ own social context. Ignatius takes pains to sound like Paul, but he is no slave to Pauline speech. Instead, Ignatius is his own literary artist, fully intent on making his own distinctive point. Results This study yields two main results. First, Ignatius uses a Pauline manner of speaking in regards to inheriting the kingdom of God because it provides him with a scriptural mode of expression to communicate his argument. In other 33 Note also that Ignatius does not repeat the opening metacomment in 1Cor. 6:9: ἤ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι, ‘or do you not know that…’. This is likely because this is a context specific metacomment that Paul uses to recall his prior teaching to the Corinthians. Similar metacomments appear in Gal. 5:21 [ἃ προλέγω ὑμῖν, καθὼς προεῖπον ὅτι] and Eph. 5:5 [τοῦτο γὰρ ἴστε γινώσκοντες, ὅτι]. 34 Ibid. 227-33. 35 So, David M. Reis, ‘Following in Paul’s Footsteps’, in A. Gregory and C. Tuckett (eds), Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers (2005), 300-5, esp. 303.

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words, it provides Ignatius with scriptural and apostolic credibility. Ignatius does not quote 1Cor. 6:9-10, but his awareness of this Pauline speech pattern is evident in his repetition of Paul’s argumentative style. Thus, Ign., Eph. 16.1 and Ign., Phld. 3.3 provide two additional examples of how Ignatius makes use of the Letters of Paul as an early Christian scriptural tradition. Second, Ignatius’ use of Paul displays the adaptability of the early Christian syntagm βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ in the earliest Christian texts. For Paul, the warning about missing out on one’s inheritance of βασιλεία θεοῦ is a motive for ethical purity. By the time of Ignatius, the expression had achieved status as a grammaticalized pattern of speech that can be used to motivate in a different way, such as a motive to preserve relational harmony. The repetition of vocabulary, syntax, and especially the repetition of the same discourse features, shows that this form of eschatological threat remains a consistent and vital strategy of persuasion in both Paul and Ignatius. The changes that Ignatius makes to his Pauline source demonstrates that this particular form of eschatological threat can be adapted to various situations in order to motivate different types of actions. To be sure, both Paul and Ignatius take the kingdom of God to be oriented to the future, but this eschatological insight is only significant because it offers a linguistic resource for each author to resolve the respective needs of their present. Neither Paul nor Ignatius are fundamentally concerned with the temporal import of the kingdom of God, nor are they interested in distinguishing between the categories of reign or realm or space; they merely sought to persuade their constituents how they should respond to the social dilemmas of the day, and the threat of squandering one’s kingdom of God inheritance was deemed an efficient means to achieve this. Conclusion If one sets aside the standard theological questions related to this early Christian stock phrase, such as whether βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ appears in the present or in the future, or whether the syntagm is a reign or a realm or a space, and instead investigates how different authors used the expression in different discourses, then it becomes possible to appreciate the function that the expression played in early Christianity. See for example, the cases of Ignatius and Paul.

Ritual Practice and Social Formation in Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Smyrneans Charles A. BOBERTZ, St John’s University and School of Theology, Collegeville, MN, USA

ABSTRACT This article will explore the early development of the connection between the incarnational understanding of Eucharistic ritual as the body of Christ and the practice of social ethics in the early Christian churches. Centered on Ignatius’ Letter to the Smyrneans 6:28:2, this article will consider the relationship between the incarnational understanding of the Eucharist and the development of social practices such as care for the widow, the orphan and the oppressed in the early churches. In addition the paper will consider how Ignatius ties this understanding of the incarnation in the Eucharist to the hierarchical cultic pattern of the assembly (bishops, presbyters and deacons) he so fiercely advocates.

In his Letter to the Smyrneans Ignatius of Antioch makes an explicit connection between the materiality of the Eucharist (bread and wine) and the material human body of Jesus Christ both before and after his resurrection from the dead. While this connection has been called both ‘striking’ and ‘surprising’ by scholars, the present article goes on to describe how Ignatius uses this connection to draw together his understanding of Christian ritual practice, particular social formation, and Christology to exhort the Smyrneans toward a unique communal identity in the context of early second-century Christianity. If one were to identify the central theme of Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Smyrneans it would be Ignatius’ plea that the Smyrneans understand and accept the human nature, flesh and blood, of Jesus Christ in both his earthly (that is, prior to his passion and death) and resurrected state.1 In addition, Ignatius, in the course of challenging his opponents, directly equates the elements of the Eucharist with Jesus Christ in both his earthly and resurrection state, ‘they stay away from Eucharist and prayer because they do not agree that the Eucharist is the flesh of our savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, flesh which 1 The opening chapters of the letter are sufficient to establish this conclusion: Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ σαρκί τε καὶ πνεύματι (Jesus Christ in both flesh and spirit); ἐν τῷ αἵματι Χριστοῦ (in the blood of Christ); ἐκ γένους Δαυεὶδ κατὰ σάρκα (from the lineage of David according to the flesh; Ign., Smyrn. 1.1); Ἐγὼ γὰρ καὶ μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἐν σαρκὶ αὐτὸν οἶδα καὶ πιστεύω ὄντα (‘For I know and believe that he was in the flesh even after the resurrection’; Ign., Smyrn. 3.1). In this article, I translate the Greek text of Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, 2007).

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the Father raised by his goodness’ (Ign., Smyrn. 6.2; see Ign., Phld. 4.1). 2 Ignatius’ surprising literalism here, writing that the Eucharist is the ‘flesh which suffered’ and ‘the flesh which the Father raised by his goodness’ has often startled scholars. In his important commentary on the Letters of Ignatius William Schoedel observes that Ignatius here may have drawn ‘an overly direct line between the presence of Christ in the bread (and wine) of the Eucharist and the resurrected body of Christ.’3 He then goes on to suggest that ‘it is evidently Ignatius himself who made this direct connection between the flesh of Christ in the eucharist and the crucified and resurrected body of the Lord.’4 And in a recent article Dominika Kurek-Chomycz comments that Ignatius’ reference here is a ‘striking statement of Eucharistic realism’.5 I will argue in this article that Ignatius’ understanding of the material Eucharist, both ‘striking and surprising’, is actually an integral aspect of both the anti-docetic theology and social formation expressed in the Letter to the Smyrneans. Ignatius’ apparent purpose in The Letter to the Smyrneans is to combat what modern theologians often refer to as docetism, the wide-spread understanding in the ancient Church that the true nature of Jesus of Nazareth was utterly spiritual, that is, Jesus only ‘seemed’ (δοκεῖ) to be physically human.6 In the course of his opposition to those who espouse this understanding of Jesus, Ignatius presents an understanding of the full human nature of Jesus Christ (flesh and blood) both before and after his resurrection.7 2 Εὐχαριστίας καὶ προσευχῆς ἀπέχονται διὰ τὸ μὴ ὁμολογεῖν τὴν εὐχαριστίαν σάρκα εἶναι τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τὴν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν παθοῦσαν ἣν τῇ χρηστότητι ὁ πατὴρ ἤγειρεν. 3 William R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, Hermeneia, A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia, 1985), 240. 4 W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 241, n. 10. Schoedel here is furthering a suggestion by Martin Elze, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Christologie der Ignatiusbriefe (Tübingen, 1963), 35-8. 5 Dominika Kurek-Chomycz, ‘… the Flesh of Our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for Our Sins’, in Joseph Verheyden et al. (eds), Docetism in the Early Church: The Quest for an Elusive Phenomenon, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2/402 (Tübingen, 2018), 197-215, 198. 6 For an extensive discussion of the complexities in understanding just what is meant by the term ‘docetism’, a discussion beyond the scope of this article, see the essays in J. Verheyden et al. (eds), Docetism (2018). In particular, Jörg Frey, ‘“Docetic-like” Christologies and the Polymorphy of Christ’, 34, articulates well the questions behind the many manifestations of docetism in the early Church: ‘how could the divine savior appear in human flesh, how could he be a real human being? How could his humanity be conceptualized, during his earthly ministry, and could it stay important even after his death and resurrection?’ 7 See Ign., Eph. 7.2; 18.3; 20.2; Magn. 1.2; 11.1; Trall. 9.1; Rom. 7.3; Phld. 5.1; 9:2; Smyrn. 1-2. See the quite full discussion of docetism in Ignatius’ letters in Alistair C. Stewart, ‘Ignatius’ “Docetists”: A Survey of Opinions and Some Modest Suggestions’, in J. Verheyden et al. (eds), Docetism (2018), 143-73. In general, I agree with Michael J. Svigel that in response to various forms of docetism the ‘catholic churches of the early second century primarily emphasized faithfulness to the incarnational narrative as the primary mark of catholic self-identity.’ The Center and the Source: Second Century Incarnational Christology and Early Catholic Christianity (Piscataway, 2016), 26.

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Ignatius begins his Letter to the Smyrneans by equating the Smyrneans’ faith with faith in both the flesh and spirit of Jesus Christ. They are to be established in love by the blood of Christ,8 and convinced in the truth by being fully persuaded that Jesus was of the family of David according to the flesh. The Smyrneans accept that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, baptized by John, nailed in the flesh under the historical figures Pontius Pilate and Herod the Tetrarch so that through his resurrection he might raise a sign for his holy and faithful people, Jews and Gentiles in one body (σῶμα) of his Church (Smyrn. 1.1-2).9 The early second-century context for Ignatius’ insistence on the full material as well as the spiritual reality of Jesus Christ is well illustrated in certain contemporary or near contemporary Gnostic texts. For these Christians, Jesus Christ can only have been a fully spiritual being because only the spirit of a person can be redeemed. Hence Jesus could not have been born into a human family10 and he could not have suffered and died as a human being in a particular historical setting.11 In response to such understanding Ignatius ties his insistence upon the full physical and historical reality of Jesus Christ to his own journey of suffering and his pending martyrdom in Rome: ‘for if these things only seemed (δοκεῖ) 8 Perhaps an intentional paraphrase of 1Cor. 13:13 now centered on the physical reality of Jesus Christ. 9 This is a close parallel to Eph. 2:15-6, a reference to the cross creating Gentiles and Jews in one body: ‘that he might create in himself one new man from the two, making peace, and might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, killing enmity in himself.’ Schoedel comments that the reference in Ignatius to Jews and Gentiles might ultimately come from some apologetic tradition. He also notes: ‘In any event, the fact that this concern for the unity of the two societies in the church is not characteristic of Ignatius (see Phld. 6.1) and that the theme goes beyond his immediate purpose indicates that he is dependent on traditional materials here’, W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 223. 10 See, e.g., The Second Discourse of Great Seth: ‘I approached a bodily dwelling and evicted the previous occupant, and I went in. The whole multitude of archons was upset, and all the material stuff of the rulers and the powers born of the earth began to tremble at the sight of the figure with a composite image. I was in it, and I did not look like the previous occupant.’ Marvin W. Meyer and James M. Robinson (eds), The Nag Hammadi Scriptures (San Francisco, 2007), 478. 11 See, e.g. The First Apocalypse of James: ‘The master said, “James, do not be concerned for me or these people. I am the one who was within me. Never did I suffer at all, and I was not distressed. These people did not harm me. Rather, all this was inflicted upon a figure of the rulers, and it was fitting that this figure should be [destroyed] by them.”’ M.W. Meyer and J.M. Robinson (eds), Nag Hammadi (2007), 327; ‘“And who is the one smiling and laughing above the cross? Is it someone else whose feet and hands they are hammering?” The Savior said to me, “The one you see smiling and laughing above the cross is the living Jesus. The one into whose hands and feet they are driving nails is his fleshly part, the substitute for him. They are putting to shame the one who came into being in the likeness of the living Jesus. Look at him and look at me.”’ The Apocalypse of Peter, in M.W. Meyer and J.M. Robinson (eds), Nag Hammadi (2007), 495-6; ‘Though they punished me, I did not die in actuality but only seemed to die, that I might not be put to shame by them, as if they are part of me.’ The Second Discourse of Great Seth, in M.W. Meyer and J.M. Robinson (eds), Nag Hammadi (2007), 480.

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to be done by our Lord, then I would only seem (δοκεῖ) to be in chains. Why, moreover, have I surrendered myself to death, to fire, to sword, to beasts? … I endure all things because the perfect human being empowers me’ (Smyrn. 4.2). But there is more to Ignatius’ understanding of the humanity of Jesus Christ than what he must have felt was the necessary identification of his own human suffering with the real human suffering of the historical Jesus. Ignatius also draws out a relationship between the perfect human being, Jesus Christ, and a particular understanding and practice of the ritual meal (Eucharist) as eating the flesh and blood of Christ (Smyrn. 3.2; 6.2).12 Ignatius’ lengthy opening discourse on the necessity of belief in the historical human Christ (Smyrn. 1.1-6.1) implies that he is aware of Christians in Smyrna who deny the humanity of Jesus Christ.13 He then links this denial to the failure to practice Christian charity. He wants the Smyrneans to ‘note how in opposition they (those with a docetic understanding of Jesus Christ) are to the purpose of God. They do not care about love, about the widow, about the orphan; they do not care about oppression or the one in chains or the one released, the hungry or the thirsty’ (Smyrn. 6.2).14 Whatever his opponents’ actual ethical practices were, in Ignatius’ mind the acceptance of the full humanity of Jesus Christ is linked to the defining social practices of the Christian churches. These practices of charity, in turn, are firmly theologically grounded in the particular ritual practice of the Lord’s Supper.15 The docetic opponents ‘abstain from Eucharist and prayer because they do not agree that the Eucharist is the flesh (σάρξ) of our savior Jesus Christ, which (flesh) suffered for our sins and which (flesh) the Father in his goodness resurrected’ (Smyrn. 6.2).16 One notes here that Ignatius’ primary understanding of the ritual meal is that it is the full expression of the material humanity of Jesus Christ 12 Both M.J. Svigel, Center (2016), 150, and W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 228-9, discuss the distinctive variant at Smyrn. 3.2. If the text reads κραθέντες τῇ σαρκὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ τῷ αἵματι (‘mingling with this flesh and blood’) the reference could surely be Eucharistic, though Schoedel argues that Ignatius here has preserved an originally apologetic tradition now refashioned for his anti-docetic purposes. 13 The absolute importance of this point is signaled at 6.1, even occupants of heaven (τὰ ἐπουράνια), the glory of angels (ἡ δόξα τῶν ἀγγέλων), and rulers both invisible and visible (οἱ ἄρχοντες ὁρατοί τε καὶ ἀόρατοι) are subject to judgment (κρίσις) if they do not believe in the blood (i.e. the full humanity) of Christ! 14 One obvious allusion here, though not exactly quoted, is the Matthean parable of the final judgment of the sheep and the goats; Matthew insists that only those who act with charity will enjoy eternal life; those who do show such social concern will be doomed to eternal punishment (Matt. 25:46). Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), notes parallels at Barn. 20.2 and Pol. Phil. 6.1. 15 As W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 241, notes, there is also a practical element to the link of Christian charity with the Eucharist, for it was within the ritual gathering that offerings were made to care for needs within the community (extensive references in Schoedel, Ignatius [1985], 241 n. 13). 16 The echo here of John 6:51-6 and Luke 24:39-43 is obvious, both traditions emphasize the link between the Eucharist and the corporeal nature of the resurrected Jesus (see John 20:27; 21:12).

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both before and after the resurrection. And it is precisely because Jesus Christ was fully human, fully part of creation both before and after his resurrection, that the practice of caring for the material needs of community members is essential. In other words, the ethical and social practices at the center of the churches’ activity are rooted in a particular understanding of the physical nature of the elements of the ritual meal, the enactment of Jesus Christ, the redemption of the human body as part of the redemption of the creation in the resurrection.17 Ignatius’ logic is therefore straightforward: to deny that the material elements of the Eucharist manifest the material body and blood of Christ is to deny the material humanity of Jesus Christ. The bread consumed is the flesh of Jesus and the blood consumed is the blood of Jesus. The continuity between Jesus before his death (the historical Jesus) and after his death (Jesus resurrected) must be the continuity of God’s redemption of material bodies as part of the redemption of the whole of the creation, a drama continually enacted within the ritual meal.18 Here Ignatius can connect the idea that the suffering of the historical Christ is what redeems (resurrects) his own historical suffering with his claim that material Christian charity is rooted in the Eucharist. The physical consumption of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ is participation in the resurrection of the flesh, the redemption of the body and creation. Conversely, to deny the continuity between the historical Jesus and the resurrected Jesus is to deny the necessity of the Christian practices of charity focused upon the present material needs in the community. For Ignatius the Church centered upon the Eucharist is the constant expression of a redeemed humanity within a redeemed creation: ‘a beacon through the ages through his resurrection for his saints and faithful people, whether Jews or Gentiles, in the one body (σῶμα) of his church’ (Smyrn. 1.1).19 17 On the link between the material resurrection and the redemption of the material creation, see Charles A. Bobertz, The Gospel of Mark: A Liturgical Reading (Grand Rapids, 2016), 1-7. 18 Not noticed often enough, Paul in 1Cor. 11:17-34, already links 1) the reality of the human death of Jesus (1Cor. 11:23), 2) the practices of charity within the community (some have abundance while others are not provided for, 1Cor. 11:21) and 3) the material elements of the Eucharist having an effect on the material bodies in the community (some who have eaten but who lack charity have become ill and died, 1Cor. 11:30). 19 W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 241, appears to downplay the connection between the material reality of the Eucharist as the flesh and blood of Christ and the practices of Christian charity. He argues that Ignatius appeals to the idea of the material realism of the Eucharist only when he desires to oppose docetism. He goes on to argue that the connection between the believer’s resurrection and participation in the Eucharist is balanced by the role of love in assuring salvation. My sense is that Ignatius is not so balanced. Indeed, Ignatius even argues that heavenly beings, angels and rulers, visible and invisible are all subject to judgment if they do not believe in the blood of Christ, a likely double entendre to both the humanity of Christ and the enactment of that humanity in the Eucharist (Ign., Smyrn. 6.1). For Ignatius, then, salvation is at stake in the belief in the material humanity of Jesus Christ both before and after his suffering, death and resurrection, a belief which is quite literally enacted in the Eucharist as the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ (Ign., Smyrn. 6.2).

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There is one more aspect to this intertwining of the expression of theology, social ethics and ritual practice worth noting here. Ignatius is well known for his advocacy of the three-fold hierarchy, bishops, deacons, and presbyters, in the churches to whom he writes.20 His special concern, likely because he was a bishop himself, in deference to the proper place and governance of the bishop in the Christian community. In his Letter to the Smyrneans this concern is clearly expressed: ‘Let no one do anything proper to the church without the bishop. Only allow a confirmed Eucharist (βεβαία εὐχαριστία) under the bishop or by one he has permitted’ (Smyrn. 8.1).21 We should carefully note here that the role of the bishop is clearly linked to the main theme of the letter, the redemption of the material creation expressed in an understanding of the material continuity between the historical Jesus and the resurrected Jesus. In an obvious ironic nod to his docetic opponents, Ignatius can claim that ‘wherever the bishop appears (φαίνω) let there be the congregation, just as wherever Jesus Christ would be there is the catholic church’ (Smyrn. 8.2). The human bishop, intimately connected with the material elements of the Eucharist, is himself the embodiment of the church, a real moment of the redemption of the material Creation in Jesus of Nazareth resurrected. He must himself, or one he designates, enact the ritual meal and it is his material presence that marks the concrete reality of these rituals, in him they are ‘confirmed’ (βέβαιον).22 We may summarize the argument of this article in this way. In the early second century Ignatius’ Letter to the Smyrneans, along with his other letters, describes a certain sort of Christian community in which ritual practice (the bread and wine of the meal are understood to be the corporeal flesh and blood of Jesus) and social practice (the bringing together of Jews and Gentiles and the practice of charity toward those materially in need) are rooted in a particular expression of Christology (the understanding of the corporeal continuity between the historical Jesus and the resurrected Jesus) which comes to confirmed and physical expression in an ecclesial hierarchy (episcopal governance along with presbyters and deacons). The complex interaction between these elements formed the unique communal identity of this part of the early second century Church. 20

See Ign., Smyrn. 8.1-2; Eph. 2.1-2; Magn. 3.1; 6.1-2; Trall. 2.1-3.1. It is not clear what Ignatius exactly means here and Magn. 4 (βεβαίως) by the term ‘confirmed’ with respect to the Eucharist. In the context here it would seem to be linked to the opponent’s denial of the materiality (flesh) of both Jesus and the Eucharist. 22 It might also be argued that Ignatius understands the intimate connection of the presbyters and deacons with the bishop in this same material way (Smyrn. 8.1), that is, as the necessary articulation of the continuity of the present church in the world to the world of the redeemed creation. To claim that bishops, alongside deacons and presbyters, were not necessary to the ritual enactments of the church would be to claim that the corporeal nature of Jesus, historical and resurrected, was not necessary. And in the same way, the Eucharistic elements would not be the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, the embodiment of the redemption of the creation. 21

The Ignatian Eucharist in Transition: Textual Variation as Evidence for Transformations in Meal Practice and Theology1 Kevin KÜNZL, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

ABSTRACT The Ignatian letters have a particularly complex textual history. This present study makes use of this complexity to gain insights into the development of Christian meal practice and theology in the first Christian centuries. Hence, textual variations within the different traditions of the Ignatian corpus are critically assessed from a text critical perspective and against the backdrop of the thesis of a gradual transformation of the Christian meal ‘from symposium to Eucharist’ (Klinghardt; Smith). The cases that the article focuses on are Trallians 6, Trallians 8.1, Philadelphians 4.1, and Ephesians 20.2, which are reviewed considering the Greek ‘middle recension’, its Latin, Syriac and Armenian versions, and the ‘long recension’. As different text forms are compared, text critical decisions are reconsidered and light is shed on the impact of ritual and theological developments of Christian meal practice on the text of the Ignatian letter corpus between the nascent Christianity of the 2nd century and the consolidating ‘imperial’ Christianity of the 4th century and beyond.

1. Meal and Text: Introduction and Methodological Considerations The basic methodological claim that underlies the present article may be summarized as follows: Texts may become altered alongside diachronic transformations in theology and ritual practices. Therefore, textual variation can provide us with insights into historical developments in early Christianity. The article pursues this claim by focussing on an element of Christian practice and theology that has arguably undergone significant transformations over the first centuries AD: the Christian communal meal. Over the past 25 years, approaches from sociology, ritual theory and ritual history have been introduced into its 1 The underlying concept of this article is grounded in the collective work of the network ‘Mahl und Text’, funded by the DFG. The scholars involved in the network are: Soham Al-Suadi (Rostock), Benedikt Eckhardt (Edinburgh), Tobias Flemming (Dresden), Juan Garcés (Dresden), Jan Heilmann (Dresden), Anni Hentschel (Frankfurt/Main), Kevin Künzl (Dresden), and PeterBen Smit (Amsterdam). Parts of an early draft of this article were presented as a paper at the SBL Annual Meeting 2018 in Denver, CO.

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study. As a result, an increasing number of scholars have begun to understand early Christian commensality against the broader backdrop of ancient communal meal culture in general. Scholars who approach the Christian meal from this angle usually conceptualize its development as one ‘from symposium to Eucharist’.2 This perspective stresses that the ‘Eucharist’ of the earliest Christians was not much different from the meals of any ancient group or association. Hence, the emergence of the Eucharist ritual with token food and without the context of a proper meal is seen as a secondary development in the history of Christianity, which happened alongside theological shifts.3 Although there is disagreement on many details of this process, this general outlook on the history of the Christian meal is now shared by many scholars of Liturgy, Patristics and ancient history alike.4 As the present article aims to relate textual variations to transformations of Christian meal practice and theology, it approaches the Christian meal from this perspective as well. It tries to draw attention to a largely overlooked corpus of potential evidence for the development ‘from symposium to Eucharist’: textual variants. The subject of this approach is the Ignatian letter corpus, which has two reasons: First, the supposedly authentic ‘middle recension’ of the Ignatian letters (see below) features many passages that deal with the ‘Eucharist’ or are said to ‘allude’ to it. The picture that emerges from these passages is often regarded as the first evidence for the meal as a ‘sacrament’, i.e. as evidence for a strong emphasis put on the foodstuff, its status as body and blood of Christ and its soteriological significance.5 Especially when compared with other variations of 2

See the principal works Matthias Klinghardt, Gemeinschaftsmahl und Mahlgemeinschaft: Soziologie und Liturgie frühchristlicher Mahlfeiern, TANZ 13 (Tübingen, Basel, 1996); Dennis E. Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World (Minneapolis, MN, 2003). 3 For a concise sketch of these developments see now Gerard A.M. Rouwhorst, ‘Vom christlichen Symposium zur Eucharistiefeier des vierten Jahrhunderts’, in Liuwe H. Westra and Laela Zwollo (eds), Die Sakramentsgemeinschaft in der Alten Kirche: Publikation der Tagung der Patristischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft in Soesterberg und Amsterdam (02.-05.01.2017) (Leuven, 2019), 39-59. 4 See e.g. Benedikt Eckhardt and Clemens Leonhard, ‘Art. Mahl V (Kultmahl)’, RAC 23 (2009), 1012-105, 1067-70; Paul F. Bradshaw, Eucharistic Origins (Oxford, New York, NY, 2004), 1-23; Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Collegeville, MN, 2012), 1-24; Andrew B. McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical, and Theological Perspective (Grand Rapids, 2014), 19-64; Reinhard Meßner, ‘Der Gottesdienst in der vornizänischen Kirche’, in Norbert Brox, Luce Pietri and Thomas Böhm (eds), Die Geschichte des Christentums 1: Die Zeit des Anfangs (Freiburg i. Br., Basel, Wien, 2010), 340-441, 418-30; Martin Wallraff, ‘Von der Eucharistie zum Mysterium: Abendmahlsfrömmigkeit in der Spätantike’, in Peter Gemeinhardt (ed.), Patristica et Oecumenica: FS W. A. Bienert (Marburg, 2004), 89-104, 100-3; id., ‘Christliche Liturgie als religiöse Innovation in der Spätantike’, in Wolfram Kinzig, Ulrich Volp and Jochen Schmidt (eds), Liturgie und Ritual in der Alten Kirche: Patristische Beiträge zum Studium der gottesdienstlichen Quellen der Alten Kirche (Leuven, 2011), 69-97, 83-96. 5 Jens Schröter, Das Abendmahl: Frühchristliche Deutungen und Impulse für die Gegenwart, SBS 210 (Stuttgart, 2006), 73-8; id., ‘Eucharistie, Auferstehung und Vermittlung des ewigen Lebens: Beobachtungen zu Johannes und Ignatius (mit einem Ausblick auf Justin, Irenäus und

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the letters this view of the ‘Eucharist’ in the Ignatian ‘middle recension’ will be called into question in the course of this article. Second, the Ignatian letters have a remarkably complex textual history that has already been hinted at: The corpus exists in numerous differing recensions and translations, which allows for the comparison of different textual strands and traditions. Commonly, scholars distinguish three ‘recensions’ of the letters each of which can be characterized as a different edition with its own theological outlook and historical context: What is referred to as the ‘middle recension’ (from here on: MR) comprises of seven letters, usually considered to be written by the bishop and martyr Ignatius of Antioch in the first half of the 2nd century.6 The textual priority of the MR, as well as its authorship and the early 2nd century date, are subject to debate, however: The MR’s authenticity has first been challenged by the discovery of the ‘short recension’ (from here on: SR) only attested in Syriac and consisting of only three shorter letters.7 W. Cureton, who discovered this edition of the letters, was also the first who claimed its priority over the MR.8 Finally, there is a ‘long recension’ (from here das Philippusevangelium)’, in Joseph Verheyden, Reimund Bieringer, Jens Schröter and Ines Jäger (eds), Docetism in the Early Church: The Quest for an Elusive Phenomenon, WUNT 402 (Tübingen, 2018), 89-111, 106-9; Andreas Lindemann, ‘Sakramentale Praxis in Gemeinden des 2. Jahrhunderts’, in Mark Grundeken and Joseph Verheyden (eds), Early Christian Communities Between Ideal and Reality, WUNT 342 (Tübingen, 2015), 1-27, 14-9; Lothar Wehr, Arznei der Unsterblichkeit: Die Eucharistie bei Ignatius von Antiochien und im Johannesevangelium, NTA NF 18 (Tübingen, 1987); id., ‘Die Eucharistie in den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien’, in David Hellholm and Dieter Sänger (eds), The Eucharist – Its Origins and Contexts: Sacred Meal, Communal Meal, Table Fellowship in Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, WUNT 376 (Tübingen, 2017), 883-900. For studies that question this interpretation of Ignatius see Jan Heilmann, Wein und Blut: Das Ende der Eucharistie im Johannesevangelium und dessen Konsequenzen, BWANT 204 (Stuttgart, 2014), 209-19; id., ‘A Meal in the Background of John 6:51–58?’, JBL 137 (2018), 481-500, 498-9; Frederick C. Klawiter, ‘The Eucharist and Sacramental Realism in the Thought of St. Ignatius of Antioch’, SL 37 (2007), 129-63. 6 These seven are the letters to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrnaeans and to Polycarp. 7 The letters of the SR are those to Polycarp, to the Romans, to the Ephesians. 8 See William Cureton (ed.), Vindiciae Ignatianae: The Genuine Writings of St. Ignatius, as Exhibited in the Antient Syriac Version, Vindicated from the Charge of Heresy (London, 1846). Lightfoot – next to Theodor Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien (Gotha, 1873) – has been among those who vehemently argued for the genuineness of the MR during the second half of the 19th c., see Joseph B. Lightfoot (ed.), The Apostolic Fathers, Part II,1 (London, 1889), 280-327. His influence on the formation of the current communis opinio can hardly be overestimated. Still, the debate has never really been settled: For voices who deny the attribution of the MR to the historical Ignatius and suggest that it dates to the second half of the 2nd c. (largely on the basis of possible reactions to the ‘Valentinian Gnosis’ in the Letters) see Robert Joly, Le Dossier d’Ignace d’Antioche (Brussels, 1979); Joseph Rius-Camps, The Four Authentic Letters of Ignatius, the Martyr: A Critical Study Based on the Anomalies Contained in the Textus Receptus, OCA 213 (Rome, 1980); Reinhard M. Hübner, ‘Thesen zur Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien’, ZAC 1 (1997), 44-72; id., Der paradoxe Eine: Antignostischer Monarchianismus im zweiten Jahrhundert. Mit einem Beitrag von M. Vinzent, SVigChr 50 (Leiden, Boston, Köln, 1999); Thomas Lechner, Ignatius adversus Valentinianos?: Chronologische und

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on: LR) consisting of 13 letters with several additions and interpolations.9 It can hardly date earlier than the second half of the 4th century due to its close affiliations to the so-called Constitutiones Apostolorum and 4th-century thought in general.10 To these recensions a number of versions in different languages may be added: Latin, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Arabic and Ethiopic. Whereas most of them are somewhat dependent on one of the above-mentioned recensions, each translation ultimately stands as its own textual strand. Regarding the communis opinio on the Ignatian letters’ textual history it should be added, however, that numerous shortcomings and oversimplifications have recently been brought up. M. Vinzent aptly calls for a view of the letters’ transmission which sets the macro level of differing recensions, collections, editions, translations etc. in careful relation with the micro level of the text that we find in the extant manuscripts.11 The usual model of three ‘recensions’ is most likely too simplistic. theologiegeschichtliche Studien zu den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien, SVigChr 47 (Leiden, 1999). Yet another view is e.g. that of Timothy D. Barnes, ‘The Date of Ignatius’, ExpT 120 (2008), 119-30. Barnes dates the MR to the 140s (instead of the standard date during the reign of Trajan) while still upholding the authentic authorship of the martyr bishop Ignatius. For positions that are critical of later dates, charges of inauthenticity and specifically of Hübner’s and Lechner’s theses see Andreas Lindemann, ‘Antwort auf die “Thesen zur Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien”’, ZAC 1 (1997), 185-94; Georg Schöllgen, ‘Die Ignatianen als pseudepigraphisches Briefcorpus: Anmerkung zu den Thesen von Reinhard M. Hübner’, ZAC 2 (1998), 16-25; Mark J. Edwards, ‘Ignatius and the Second Century: An Answer to R. Hübner’, ZAC 2 (1998), 214-26; Hermann J. Vogt, ‘Bemerkungen zur Echtheit der Ignatiusbriefe’, ZAC 3 (1999), 50-63; supportive of the Hübner-Lechner thesis is Walter Schmithals, ‘Zu Ignatius von Antiochien’, ZAC 13 (2009), 181-203; Allen Brent, ‘The Enigma of Ignatius of Antioch’, JEH 57 (2006), 429; id., Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic: A Study of an Early Christian Transformation of Pagan Culture (Tübingen, 2006). Brent more recently received response by Thomas Lechner, ‘Ignatios von Antiochia und die Zweite Sophistik’, in Thomas J. Bauer and Peter von Möllendorff (eds), Die Briefe des Ignatios von Antiochia: Motive, Strategien, Kontexte, Millenium 72 (Berlin, Boston, 2018), 19-68. For a recent review of the history of research see Jonathan Lookadoo, ‘The Date and Authenticity of the Ignatian Letters: An Outline of Recent Discussions’, Currents in Biblical Research 19 (2020), 88-114. 9 The LR includes, in addition to fuller versions of the letters known from the SR and the MR, a letter from Mary of Cassobola to Ignatius, one from Ignatius to Mary, one to the Tarsians, one to the Philippians, one to the Antiochenes, and one to Hero. 10 See J.B. Lightfoot (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,1 (1889), 233-79. Dieter Hagedorn, Der Hiobkommentar des Arianers Julian, PTS 14 (Berlin, New York, 1973) made the case that both, the Ignatian LR and the Constitutiones Apostolorum, are products of the same editor. 11 See Markus Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity: From Reception to Retrospection (Cambridge, 2019), 266-409; id., Offener Anfang: Die Entstehung des Christentums im 2. Jahrhundert (Freiburg i. Br., Basel, Wien, 2019), 219-51; id., ‘Ignatius of Antioch on Judaism and Christianity’, in Claudia Kampmann, Ulrich Volp, Martin Wallraff and Julia Winnebeck (eds), Kirchengeschichte: Historisches Spezialgebiet und/oder theologische Disziplin, Theologie – Kultur – Hermeneutik 28 (Leipzig, 2020), 61-80. Vinzent stresses that there are indeed no manuscripts of the MR as such. All manuscripts that have the seven letters of the MR in their supposedly ‘genuine’ form also contain spurious letters that are otherwise grouped to the LR. Moreover, the Ignatian corpus has never actually ceased to grow up until the Middle Ages when Latin

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This current status quaestionis makes it necessary for the present article to work on as few pre-assumptions about the textual tradition of the Ignatian letter corpus as possible: For the sake of practicability, the rough division into three recensions is upheld. The text commonly identified as that of the (Greek) MR is considered to be generally earlier than that of the LR. The earliest text form of the MR likely dates to sometime in the 2nd century. The editorial process that brought the LR into existence should have taken place in the second half of the 4th century. At each individual passage, however, the question of which version provides the oldest text should be approached openly. Questions regarding the SR can be largely left aside as this recension does not include any of the meal-related passages that could be compared with other recensions and versions. The outlook of this article is, thus, twofold: It aims at the study of the Christian meal as well as that of the transmission of ancient texts. Concerning the study of the Christian meal, it tries to add evidence for the transformation ‘from symposium to Eucharist’ by reading the Ignatian letters sensitive to the textual variation it experienced over the centuries. Concerning the transmission of ancient texts, it aims to draw further attention to the importance of distinguishable editions and versions as the place where semantically-significant textual variation typically originates. In this sense, the present article is in parts comparable to P.R. Gilliam III’s PhD. thesis (Edinburgh), published in 2017: Gilliam demonstrates how certain text forms and variants in the Ignatian letters are to be understood as reflections of the 4th-century Arian Controversies, in which the MR seems to have been utilized by pro-Nicaean advocates.12 Thus, on a methodological level, Gilliam traces the influence of theological debates on the textual transmission of Christian literature.13 What distinguishes this article from Gilliam’s work, however, is the concrete subject that is being studied via textual variation – as well as this subject’s nature: In contrast to a somewhat confined historical event like the Arian Controversies, the transformation ‘from symposium to Eucharist’ is a long-lasting, potentially diverse and recursive process. Accordingly, this article’s manuscripts could include a total number of up to 17 letters, see M. Vinzent, History (2019), 267. Another pending issue is the incorporation of Romans into an account of the martyrdom of Ignatius, which results in this letter having an even different textual transmission (see ibid. 362). Further, virtually all distinguishable text forms of the Ignatian letters show signs of being contaminated by each other in the extant manuscripts (see ibid. 449). 12 See Paul R. Gilliam III, Ignatius of Antioch and the Arian Controversy, SVigChr. 140 (Leiden, Boston, 2017), esp. 8-48. 13 In this sense Gilliam’s approach has similarities with Ehrman’s approach to textual variants in the New Testament, see Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 2011); id., ‘Textual Traditions Compared: The New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers’, in Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (eds), The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford, New York, 2005), 9-27.

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goal is to make use of the complex textual transmission of the Ignatian corpus in order to get some additional glimpses of this development. These glimpses are to be placed within in the larger mosaic of ritual and theological developments of the Christian meal spanning several centuries. With this goal in mind, the course of the article is as follows: Four passages from the Ignatian letters that relate to the Christian meal – or at least do so in certain textual forms – and feature semantically-significant textual variation are to be interpreted. The selected passages are Trallians 6, Trallians 8.1, Philadelphians 4.1 and Ephesians 20.2. Each of these texts is reviewed by presenting the textual evidence, interpreting the text in all its variants, and by making careful suggestions as to how the individual variants arose. A final conclusion reviews the most important findings tries to read the variants as part of a larger scheme. 2. Presentation and Interpretation of the Evidence14 2.1. Trallians 6: Christian Food15 MR (G L)

LR (g)

παρακαλῶ οὖν ὑμᾶς, οὐκ ἐγὼ αλλ’ ἡ ἀγάπη Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, μόνῃ τῇ Χριστιανῇ τροφῇ χρῆσθε, ἀλλοτρίας δὲ βοτάνης ἀπέχεσθε, ἥτις ἐστιν αἵρεσις. (6.2) οἳ ἑαυτοῖς παρεμπλέκουσιν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν καταξιοπιστευόμενοι, ὥσπερ θανάσιμον φάρμακον διδόντες μετὰ οἰνομέλιτος, ὅπερ ὁ ἀγνοῶν ἡδέως λαμβάνει ἐν ἡδονῇ κακῇ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν.

παρακαλῶ οὖν ὑμᾶς, οὐκ ἐγὼ ἀλλ’ ἡ ἀγάπη Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἵνα τὸ αὐτὸ λέγητε πάντες καὶ μὴ ᾖ ἐν ὑμῖν σχίσματα, ᾖτε δὲ κατηρτισμένοι τῇ αὐτῇ γνώμῃ καὶ τῷ αὐτῷ νοΐ. (1Cor. 1:10) εἰσὶ γάρ τινες ματαιολόγοι καὶ φρεναπάται, οὐ Χριστιανοί, ἀλλὰ χριστέμποροι, ἀπάτῃ περιφέροντες τὸ ὄνομα Χριστοῦ καὶ καπηλεύοντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ εὐαγγελίου καὶ τὸν ἰὸν προσπλέκοντες τῆς πλάνης τῇ γλυκείᾳ προσηγορίᾳ, ὥσπερ οἰνομέλιτι κώνειον κεραννύντες, ἵνα ὁ πίνων τῇ γλυκυτάτῃ κλαπεὶς ποιότητι τὴν γευστικὴν αἴσθησιν ἀφυλάκτως τῷ θανάτῳ περιπαρῇ. παραινεῖ τις τῶν παλαιῶν· Μηδεὶς ἀγαθὸς λεγέσθω κακῷ τὸ ἀγαθὸν κεραννύς.

_________ Χριστιανῇ] S1: thanksgiving

14 All sigla are given according to Joseph B. Lightfoot (ed.), The Apostolic Fathers, Part II,2 (London, 1889): G = Greek MR; L = Latin MR; S1 = Paris. Bibl. Nat. Syr. 62 (Syriac MR); A = Armenian MR; g = Greek LR. References for each text are provided in a footnote at the beginning of every subchapter. If not indicated otherwise, English translations are by the author of this article. 15 Texts and variants according to id. (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,2 (1889), 165-8 [MR]; id. (ed.), The Apostolic Fathers, Part II,3 (London, 1889), 153-4 [LR]; William Cureton (ed.), Corpus Ignatianum: A Complete Collection of the Ignatian Epistles (London, 1849), 198 [Syriac].

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I, therefore, yet not I but the love of Jesus Christ, entreat you that you only use the Christian food and abstain from the alien herb, that is heresy. They mix up Jesus Christ with their own as if they were trustworthy: like those who administer deadly medicine with honey wine, which the ignorant pleasantly takes with fatal pleasure, leading to his own death. _________ Christian] S1: thanksgiving

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I therefore, yet not I but the love of Jesus Christ, entreat you that all of you may speak the same and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought (1Cor. 1:10). For there are some talking idly and deceiving, not Christian, but Christ-bargaining, with deceitfulness carrying about the name of Christ, peddling the word of the Gospel, mingling the poison of imposture with the sweet salutation, like mixing venom with honey wine…

Considering the text of the MR (G L), the context suggests that the exhortation ‘Only use the Christian food!’ (μόνῃ τῇ Χριστιανῇ τροφῇ χρῆσθε) is not to be understood against the backdrop of actual Christian meal practice. The term χριστιανὴ τροφή is conceptualized as the semantic opposition to the ‘alien herb’ (ἀλλοτρία βοτάνη), which the text interprets as metaphorically standing for heresy. The passage is concerned with the issue of ‘orthodox’ Christian teachings becoming mixed with the heterodox, i.e. ‘corrupted’. This discourse is carried out by using imagery from the metaphorical source domain ‘food and drink’, whose consumption becomes a figure for the reception of teachings.16 This metaphor is widespread in early Christianity as well as ancient literature in general.17 After the initial exhortation to use only ‘Christian’ teachings, Trallians 6.2 further elaborates on the metaphorical picture and warns against mixing honey wine (οἰνόμελι) with deadly medicine (θανάσιμον φάρμακον). The source domain ‘food and drink’ is combined with medical imagery here.18

16 See J. Heilmann, Wein (2014), 193-4, 212; F.C. Klawiter, ‘Eucharist’ (2007), 146; William R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, Hermeneia (Philadelphia, 1985), 146; L. Wehr, Arznei (1987), 110 and others. For a ‘Eucharistic’ interpretation of Χριστιανὴ τροφή in Trallians 6.1 see e.g. HansWerner Bartsch, Gnostisches Gut und Gemeindetradition bei Ignatius von Antiochien (Gütersloh, 1940), 102-3. 17 On the metaphor of eating/drinking as the reception of teachings in ancient Judaism and Christianity see e.g. Peder Borgen, Bread from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel of John and the Writings of Philo, NT.S 10, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1981); Matthias Klinghardt, ‘Boot und Brot: Zur Komposition von Mk 3,7-8,21’, Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift 19 (2002), 183-202, 191-200; Karl-Gustav Sandelin, Wisdom as Nourisher: A Study of an Old Testament Theme, Its Development within Early Judaism and Its Impact on Early Christianity, Acta Academiae Aboensis, Ser. A. Humaniora 64/3 (Åbo, 1986). 18 One close parallel is Tertullian’s language throughout his Scorpiace. In the first chapter of this work, Tertullian refers to the ‘honey-sweet potion of the Lord’s words’. It is the only effective antidote to the poison of the heresies.

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The Syriac tradition preserved in S1 – which is generally rather close to the Greek/Latin MR – gives a different impression because the phrase ‘thanksgiving food’ (instead of ‘Christian food’) does not quite seem to fit the metaphorical image: There is no opposition between ‘Christian’ and ‘heretical’, but between ‘thanksgiving’ and ‘heretical’. Although the Greek equivalent to the Syriac word used here (ṭabutā) is not entirely clear (given that the variant originated in the translation’s Greek Vorlage), Lightfoot tentatively suggested εὐχαριστική.19 Another possibility would be εὐχαριστηθεῖσα, which is perhaps more likely considering the early Christian evidence.20 Thus, it is probable that this variant – in contrast to the corresponding reading in the Greek/Latin MT – points towards Christian ‘Eucharistic practice’. In this sense, the text of S1 does care less to distinguish between ‘orthodox’ and ‘heretical’ doctrines. It rather practically pleas the reader to partake in the Christian Eucharist instead of the ‘alien herb’ served in ‘deviant’ congregations. The LR diverts at the same point where the Greek/Latin MR differs as well: After reading the same introductory phrase as the other traditions (παρακαλῶ οὖν ὑμᾶς…) the LR quotes 1Cor. 1:10,21 which leads the passage directly to its theological and ecclesiological gist: Be aware of schisms! They are a sign of false teachings creeping into the community. Via this quote, the LR conveys this crucial point much more directly than the other text traditions. It also features the imagery of the consumption of food and drink as the reception of teachings, but the metaphors are easier to comprehend because there are more phrases from the target domain (e.g. ‘word of the Gospel’/λόγος τοῦ εὐαγγελίου) than in the other text forms. If the priority of the Greek/Latin MR is not automatically presupposed, the decision as to how these variations came about – and in what order – is not an easy one. Particularly, both, ‘Christian food’ (Greek/Latin MR) as well as ‘thanksgiving food’ (S1) have arguments in their favour. S1 seems to be the lectio difficilior since the metaphor works much more smoothly with the opposition ‘Christian’ and ‘heretic’ than with ‘thanksgiving’ and ‘heresy’. On the one hand, it is possible to make sense of the (probably) ‘eucharistic’ reference in S1. Yet it is somewhat out of place compared to the Greek/Latin MR. On the other hand, if the S1 reading is dependent on the Greek/Latin MR, it can only be explained as a rather ‘mechanic’ act of reading the ‘Eucharist’ into a text – probably simply prompted by the appearance of the word ‘food’. The LR’s text, however, is much too smooth and theologically elaborate to be the oldest form. Moreover, it is very unlikely that its Vorlage featured a reference to 19

See J.B. Lightfoot (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,2 (1889), 166. See especially Justin in chapter 65 and 66 of his apology. The adjective εὐχαριστικός is hardly ever used in collocation with food, nourishment etc. 21 The use of this quote might be prompted by the similar sentence beginnings of Trallians 6.1 (παρακαλῶ οὖν ὑμᾶς…) and 1Cor. 1:10 (παρακαλῶ δὲ ὑμᾶς…). 20

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the ‘Eucharist’ as the LR itself does not give any hint in this direction either. The reference to those who do not speak ‘Christian, but Christ-bargaining’ (οὐ Χριστιανοί, ἀλλὰ χριστέμποροι) rather seems to be a variation on the theme provided by the Greek/Latin MR’s metaphorical exhortation towards using Χριστιανὴ τροφή. The LR took up the metaphor, elaborated on it, and made its meaning clearer. If S1 is considered to be dependent on the Greek/Latin MR, the explanation of S1’s ‘thanksgiving food’ might be similar: The creator of the variant might have considered the metaphorical quality of the phrase ‘Christian food’ somewhat ambiguous. Instead of making the metaphor more intuitively comprehendible (like the LR did), he opted to establish a reference to Christian meal practice that he felt to be fitting as well. Yet, we could also explain the genesis of the variants the other way around: If S1 had the earlier text here, the Greek/Latin MR would have corrected the somewhat ‘odd’ semantic opposition between ‘thanksgiving’ and ‘heretic’ by introducing the word ‘Christian’. This explanation would opt for the classic approach of lectio difficilior potior. 2.2. Trallians 8.1: Modes of Renewal in Faith22 MR (G L)

LR (g)

ὑμεῖς οὖν τὴν πραϋπάθειαν ἀναλαβόντες ἀνακτήσασθε ἑαυτοὺς ἐν πίστει, ὅ ἐστιν σὰρξ τοῦ κυρίου, καὶ ἐν ἀγάπῃ, ὅ ἐστιν αἷμα Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. _________ τὴν πραϋπάθειαν] A: add. and mildness | ἐν πίστει … αἷμα Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ] S1: in faith, which is in hope and the enjoyment of the blood of Jesus Christ ¦ A: in faith, hope, and from the feast of the blood of Christ Now, take on mildness and renew yourselves in faith – that is the flesh of the Lord – and in love – that is the blood of Jesus Christ. _________ mildness] A: add. and gentleness | in faith … blood of Jesus Christ] S1: in faith, which is in hope and the enjoyment of the blood of Jesus Christ ¦ A: in faith, hope, and from the feast of the blood of Christ

ὑμεῖς οὖν ἀναλαβόντες πραότητα γίνεσθε μιμηταὶ παθημάτων Χριστοῦ καὶ ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ, ἣν ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς, δοὺς ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν λύτρον, ἵνα τῷ αἵματι αὑτοῦ καθαρίσῃ ἡμᾶς παλαιᾶς δυσσεβείας καὶ ζωὴν ἡμῖν παράσχηται, μέλλοντας ὅσον οὐδέπω ἀπόλλυσθαι ὑπὸ τῆς ἐν ἡμῖν κακίας.

Take on mildness and become imitators of the passion of Christ and his love through which he loved us; so he gave himself as a ransom for us so that he may cleanse us from our old impiety with his blood and grant us life, so that we may no longer perish because of the evilness in us.

22 Texts and variants according to id. (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,2 (1889), 171-2 [MR]; id. (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,3 (1889), 156 [LR]; W. Cureton (ed.), Corpus (1849), 200 [Syriac]; Julius H. Petermann, S. Ignatii patris apostolici quae feruntur epistolae: una cum ejusdem martyrio (Leipzig, 1849), 112 [Armenian].

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The variants within the MR of Trallians 8 are concerned with how believers are to renew themselves (ἀνακτήσασθε ἑαυτούς). The Greek/Latin MR connects renewal in faith with the Lord’s flesh and – parallel to that – renewal in love with his blood. This establishes a Christological dimension bound to the corporeality of Christ that stresses the profoundness and liability of the believers’ efforts towards their renewal: Since Christ’s incarnation, and thus his passion and death, are real and trustworthy, the same must apply to the believers’ efforts.23 In this sense, the text also strengthens the difference between ‘real’ Christians with ‘real’ efforts and such believers who relativize Christ’s earthly existence by claiming that he did not actually suffer bodily. This topic is present in the immediate context as well as throughout the whole letter (e.g. Trallians 10). Connecting the fundamental Christian virtues of faith and love with Christ’s bodily existence is directed polemically against these ‘docetistic’ views, since (from the perspective of the Ignatian MR) ‘orthodox’ Christian identity is founded in the conviction that Christ has become incarnate.24 Similar to Trallians 6 above, no allusion to Christian meal practice needs to be seen in the text of the Greek/Latin MR in order to understand it properly. The Syriac version (S1) shows differences. It features only one relative clause that starts after ‘in faith’ and then gives two modes by which renewal in faith is achieved: ‘in hope and the enjoyment of the blood of Jesus Christ’. Two points need to be addressed here: (1) The reading ‘hope’ (Syriac: sawrā) instead of ‘flesh’ (Syriac: besrā) is not entirely certain here. Both words have similar roots (‫ סברא‬vs. ‫)בסרא‬, thus, a simple writing mistake is entirely possible.25 Since there is no positive evidence for this claim, however, the present study keeps the reading ‘hope’. (2) The second mode of renewal according to S1 is ‘the enjoyment of the blood of Christ’. For ‘enjoyment’ the Syriac reads busāmā, whose semantics range from ‘sweetness’, ‘pleasure’ and ‘luxury’ to ‘feast’ or ‘banquet’.26 It is most likely the translation of the word ἀγάπη in the Syriac text’s Greek Vorlage.27 Different from the Greek/Latin MR, S1 seems to 23 For similar interpretations (although with individual emphases that cannot be outlined here) see J. Heilmann, Wein (2014), 212; Wichard von Heyden, Doketismus und Inkarnation: Die Entstehung zweier gegensätzlicher Modelle von Christologie (Tübingen, 2014), 322; W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 149-50; L. Wehr, Arznei (1987), 176-7. 24 See Tobias Nicklas, ‘Leid, Kreuz und Kreuzesnachfolge bei Ignatius von Antiochien’, in Andreas Merkt, Tobias Nicklas and Joseph Verheyden (eds), Gelitten – Gestorben – Auferstanden: Passions- und Ostertraditionen im antiken Christentum (Tübingen, 2012), 267-98, 281. 25 See H. Petermann, Epistolae (1849), 112-3; Lightfoot (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,1 (1889), 101; id. (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,2 (1889), 171. 26 For details and attestation, see Robert P. Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus (Oxford, 1879), 550-1. 27 ‘Agape’ was used to denote Christian meals at least from the late 2nd century onwards. First clear evidence comes from apocryphal martyr acts (Pass. Perp. 17), Tertullian (apol. 39), and Clement of Alexandria (e.g. paed. 2.1.4.3-4). Most of the earlier evidence seems inconclusive to me (esp. Jude 12; Smyrnaeans 8.2). I do not believe, however, that there was a clear distinction between ‘Agape’ and ‘Eucharist’, at least in the earlier period of Christianity. Both are terms with

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refer to Christian meal practice here. More specifically, both possible translations, ‘enjoyment of the blood of the Christ’ and ‘feast/banquet of the blood of Christ’, suggest that a drink qualified as ‘blood of Christ’ was consumed during this event, and that it has the power to renew faith. This concept is absent from the Greek/Latin MR.28 The Armenian version (A) does not specify the renewal in faith with a relative clause. Instead, it lines up three concepts paratactically: ‘faith’, ‘hope’, and ‘banquet of the blood of Christ’. This version is dependent on the Syriac as the shared reading ‘hope’ shows.29 Interestingly, busāmā becomes a ‘banquet’ in the Armenian text, which shows the translator understood the Syriac word in this sense. The importance of this ‘banquet of the blood of Christ’ for the Christian life appears to be even strengthened compared to S1: It is no longer presented as a way to ‘renew faith’, but as a means of general renewal that is equal to ‘faith’. The LR again notably differs from the other traditions. The initial exhortation is slightly different as the (Greek) MR has the more uncommon word πραϋπάθεια whereas the LR has the more common πραότης. The linguistic hint towards passion (πάθος) that is present in the MR’s πραϋπάθεια, also occurs in the LR’s following exhortation to ‘become imitators of Christ’s passion and love!’ Although there is no terminological agreement, the Greek/Latin MR’s connection of Christ’s flesh and blood to Christian virtuousness makes a point similar to the LR’s encouragement to imitate Christ’s passion and love. Only the LR’s following soteriological explanation is, besides mentioning Christ’s blood, largely unparalleled in the other traditions. The concept of Christ being a ransom who ‘may cleanse us with his blood’ (δοὺς ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, ἵνα τῷ αἵματι αὑτοῦ καθαρίσῃ ἡμᾶς) does not occur in the MR tradition at all, but it has a close parallel in the LR of Magnesians 1.2 (οὗ τῷ αἵματι ἐλυτρώθητε). In sum, the variants within Trallians 8.1 show parallels to those in Trallians 6. In both cases the Greek text of the MR does not refer to Christian meal practice. The Syriac and Armenian versions, however, make this connection. From a text critical perspective, it is difficult to decide which of these text different connotations that Christians used to refer to their communal meal practice. See e.g. Andrew B. McGowan, ‘Naming the Feast: Agape and the Diversity of Early Christian Meals’, SP 30 (1997), 314-8. Those few explicit cases in our sources where a clear distinction between ‘Agape’ and ‘Eucharist’ is made are probably rather late. From the perspective of the paradigm ‘from symposium to Eucharist’ we might say that they reflect a time when the concept of having a proper meal had become incompatible with the ritual of the Eucharist. A prominent example for this can be found in the so-called Traditio Apostolica. See Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson and L. Edward Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, 2002), 156, 160. 28 This concept is also absent from Ephesians 20.1 – at least from its oldest text form. See below chapter 2.4. 29 For details on the Armenian version’s dependence on the Syriac see J.B. Lightfoot (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,1 (1889), 87-90.

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forms is the earlier one. The absence of meal references in the LR suggests that its Vorlage may have been closer to the Greek/Latin MR than to the Syriac or the Armenian version. This may in turn suggest that Greek/Latin MR text is earlier than the S1 and A. In the case of Trallians 8.1, we may also give the Greek/Latin MR the benefit of the lectio difficilior. To make textual matters even more complicate, however, the Armenian text’s exhortation to ‘mildness’ and ‘gentleness’ may suggest the influence of the LR on this tradition: It could be the result of combining the MR’s call to πραϋπάθεια with the LR’s call to πραότης. 2.3. Philadelphians 4.1: Cup and Unity30 MR (G L S1)

LR (g)

σπουδάσατε οὖν μιᾷ εὐχαριστίᾳ χρῆσθαι· μία γὰρ σὰρξ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ ἓν ποτήριον εἰς ἕνωσιν τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ, ἓν θυσιαστήριον, ὡς εἷς ἐπίσκοπος ἅμα τῷ πρεσβυτερίῳ καὶ διακόνοις, τοῖς συνδούλοις μου· ἵνα ὃ ἐὰν πράσσητε κατὰ θεὸν πράσσητε.

ἐγὼ πέποιθα εἰς ὑμᾶς ἐν κυρίῳ, ὅτι οὐδὲν ἄλλο φρονήσετε. διὸ καὶ θαρρῶν γράφω τῇ ἀξιοθέῳ ἀγάπῃ ὑμῶν, παρακαλῶν ὑμᾶς μιᾷ πίστει καὶ ἑνὶ κηρύγματι καὶ μιᾷ εὐχαριστίᾳ χρῆσθαι·μία γάρ ἐστιν ἡ σὰρξ τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ καὶ ἓν αὐτοῦ τὸ αἷμα τὸ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐκχυθέν, εἷς γὰρ ἄρτος τοῖς πᾶσιν ἐθρύφθη καὶ ἓν ποτήριον τοῖς ὅλοις διενεμήθη, ἓν θυσιαστήριον πάσῃ τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ καὶ εἷς ἐπίσκοπος ἅμα τῷ πρεσβυτερίῳ καὶ τοῖς διακόνοις, τοῖς συνδούλοις μου.

_________ εἰς ἕνωσιν] A: om.

Take heed, then, to hold one εὐχαριστία. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup for unity of his blood, one altar as there is one bishop along with the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow-servants: so that whatever you do you may do it according to God. _________ to unity] A: om.

I have confidence of you in the Lord, that you will be of no other mind. Hence, I write because of your God-worthy love, exhorting you to hold one faith and one preaching and one Eucharist; for there is one flesh of the Lord Jesus and one blood of his that was spilt for us; for one bread was ground for all and one cup distributed to all, one altar for the whole Church, and one bishop with the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow-servants.

Most of Philadelphians is dedicated to promoting the unity of the church against schisms. In this context, Philadelphians 4.1 is an extended exhortation 30

Texts and variants according to J.B. Lightfoot (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,2 (1889), 257-8 [MR]; id. (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,3 (1889), 207 [LR]; W. Cureton (ed.), Corpus (1849), 199 [Syriac]; J.H. Petermann, Epistolae (1849), 193-4 [Armenian].

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to communal unity. Unlike in the two passages discussed so far, communal meal practice is clearly referenced in all text forms here. The Greek/Latin MR puts its emphasis on the phrase ‘Hold one Eucharist!’.31 Everything that follows elaborates and strengthens this fundamental claim. The references to the flesh and blood of Christ add a Christological dimension similar to the Greek/Latin MR of Trallians 8.1: There is just one Christ and, thus, just one origin and source of identity for the Christian community. Hence, there can only be one meal held by the whole Christian community. The following reference to ‘one cup for unity of his blood’, therefore, pronounces this Christologically-grounded ecclesiological outlook: W. Schoedel rightly links flesh and blood here to Ignatius’ fundamental ‘need to stress the historical reality of the incarnation and passion of the divine Lord.’32 ἕνωσις refers to ‘the unity of congregation’, therefore, εἰς ἕνωσιν τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ means ‘for unification from [or through] his blood’.33 Besides the incarnation, passion and death of Christ are also constitutive of Christian identity, and thus the basis of the Christian community. The Armenian versions (A) offers a semantically relevant variant here. It does not have ‘for unity’ and, thus, simply reads ‘one cup of his blood’. With this variant, the phrase does not have the same ecclesiological outlook of the other MR text forms: Instead of highlighting Christ and his deeds as the foundation of the community, it seems to qualify the contents of the cup as Christ’s blood. This may point to a ‘realistic’ understanding regarding the cup consumed at the Christian meal which cannot be deduced from the other forms of the MR.34 31 The term εὐχαριστία here could refer to the thanksgiving prayer central to the Christian meal or be used for the meal as a whole. Answering this question is not the goal of this paper’s argument since, in any case, the passage’s concern remains communal meal unity. 32 W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 199. 33 W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 199 (italics in original). Heilmann agrees with this interpretation but puts additional emphasis on ecclesiology with what he frames ‘christologisch konnotierte, auf die Gemeinde bezogene Leibmetaphorik’, see J. Heilmann, Wein (2014), 216. The identification of the cup (or its contents) with Christ’s blood is not articulated in Philadelphians 4. This claim is upheld on rather weak grounds e.g. by L. Wehr, Arznei (1987), 144; L. Wehr, ‘Eucharistie’ (2017), 895. Wehr’s main argument seems to be the alleged parallel he sees in 1Cor. 10:16. This verse, however, does not refer to some communion with the body and blood of Christ either. Instead, it relates to the communion that is founded in and belonging to the body and blood of Christ. This has been thoroughly demonstrated by Norbert Baumert, Koinonein und Metechein – synonym?: Eine umfassende semantische Untersuchung (Stuttgart, 2003), 435-6. 34 A ‘realistic’ qualification of the food of the Christian meal as ‘flesh of Christ’ is not the point of Smyrnaeans 7.1 either: The people against whom this text argues do not participate in the communal events of εὐχαριστία and προσευχή. Hence, they cause schisms among Christians. They act this way because they do not confess (διὰ τὸ μὴ ὁμολογεῖν) to the connection between the communal meal and the flesh of the saviour (τὴν εὐχαριστίαν σάρκα εἶναι τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) that ‘suffered for our sins’ (τὴν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν παθοῦσαν) and was ‘raised out of kindness’ by the God (ἣν τῇ χρηστότητι ὁ πατὴρ ἤγειρεν). This is not a statement about ‘eucharistic theology’. Instead, it once again emphasizes that all ‘orthodox’ Christian community is grounded in Christ incarnate who really suffered, died, and was resurrected. This passage builds on the same Christologically-grounded ecclesiological perspective also

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The LR significantly differs from the MR tradition once more. Instead of the imperative σπουδάσατε that leads the MR directly into its exhortations, it offers a more elaborate introduction: The exhortations start with the participle παρακαλῶν, which – besides θαρρῶν (‘being confident’) – details the purpose and mode of Ignatius’ writing. Where the MR instantly admonishes its readers to only hold one Eucharist/thanksgiving (μιᾷ εὐχαριστίᾳ χρῆσθαι) and puts utmost emphasis on communal unity, the LR seemingly prefers theological doctrine by reading ‘one faith and one preaching’ (μιᾷ πίστει καὶ ἑνὶ κηρύγματι) first. After this, both recensions elaborate on the reasoning (γάρ) for their demanded unity. The first explanation concerning Christ’s flesh (μία γάρ ἐστιν ἡ σὰρξ τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ) is shared between the MR and LR. After this, however, both traditions are divided. There is no reference to a ‘cup for unity of his blood’ in the LR. Instead, it alludes to the Last Supper tradition of the New Testament beginning with ‘one blood of his that was spilled for us’ (ἓν αὐτοῦ τὸ αἷμα τὸ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐκχυθέν). This phrase is elaborated on by referring to Jesus’ actions at his last meal: ‘for one bread was broken for all and one cup was distributed to all’ (εἷς γὰρ ἄρτος τοῖς πᾶσιν ἐθρύφθη καὶ ἓν ποτήριον τοῖς ὅλοις διενεμήθη). After this part, the LR follows the MR quite closely again. Overall, this version achieves a clearer symmetry than the MR texts by pairing ‘one flesh’ with one ‘one blood’ (instead of ‘one cup’). Accordingly, ‘one bread’ and ‘one cup’ follow. Thus, just like the MR, this version also has an ecclesiological focus. In contrast to the MR, however, this focus is realized by drawing on a tradition from the New Testament. The reference to the Last Supper tradition is interesting for three reasons: (1) The so-called tradition of Jesus’ Last Supper, which has no prominent role in the MR at all, appears in relation to Christian communal practice here. Via this reference, the LR offers a parallelism of ‘flesh and blood’ and ‘bread and cup’ unlike the MR. This may suggest that the qualification of bread and cup as ‘flesh and blood of Christ’ at the Christian meal is more pronounced in the ritual reality that forms the backdrop of LR than in that of the Greek/Latin/ Syriac MR. When compared to the Armenian MR, this is not necessarily true: The phrase ‘one cup of his blood’ suggests the prominence of this kind of Christological qualification of the foodstuff in this tradition as well. (2) The reference to the Last Supper tradition in the LR of Philadelphians 4 comes with an additional emphasis on the violent nature of Jesus’ passion and death, and on its salvific effects. There are two texts that share a peculiar feature with the LR of Philadelphians 4 to support this claim: present in Trallians 8.1 and Philadelphians 4.1. F.C. Klawiter, ‘Eucharist’ (2007), 151, thus, rightly concludes that ‘the identity is not between Christ and the elements; it is between Christ the head and the church as his branches, between the crucified, risen Lord and “the one body of his assembly”.’ Rejecting the one and only legitimate Christian assembly means rejecting Christ who became flesh.

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Constitutiones Apostolorum 8.12.36 (ed. M. Metzger; SC 336): … καὶ κλάσας ἔδωκεν τοῖς μαθηταῖς εἰπών· Τοῦτο τὸ μυστήριον τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης, λάβετε ἐξ αὐτοῦ, φάγετε, τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ σῶμά μου τὸ περὶ πολλὼν θρυπτόμενον εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν. … and having broken [sc. bread], he gave it to his disciples and said, ‘This is the mystery of the new covenant, take of it, eat. This is my body that is ground for many for forgiveness of sins.’ Theodoret, Epistula 145 (PG 83, 1251A): καὶ τὰ θεῖα δὲ παραδοὺς μυστήρια, καὶ τὸ σύμβολον κλάσας καὶ διανείμας, ἐπήγαγε· Τοῦτό μού ἐστι τὸ σῶμα, τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν θρυπτόμενον εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν. And having handed over the divine mysteries, and having broken and distributed the symbol, he [sc. Christ] went on, ‘This is my body that is ground for you for forgiveness of sins.’

The use of the verb θρύπτω is common among these two texts and the LR of Philadelphians 4.1.35 The Eucharistic prayer in the eighth book of the Constitutiones Apostolorum and the letter from Theodoret use it in Jesus’ words over the bread, i.e. in direct relation to the body. Combined with the Matthean formula ‘for forgiveness of sins’ (εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν), it strongly emphasises the connection of the Last Supper with Jesus’ redeeming passion and death. In virtually all other Greek Christian texts the breaking of the bread is referred to with κλάω.36 θρύπτω, meaning ‘to grind’ or ‘to crumble’, has more violent and negative connotations than κλάω and, thus, more readily evokes drastic images of Christ’s passion.37 35 One New Testament textual variant also attests θρυπτόμενον: in 1Cor. 11:24 – in Paul’s reference to the Last Supper tradition – the uncorrected text of Codex Claromontanus (D 06) has it after τοῦτό μού ἐστιν τὸ σῶμα. The correction reads κλώμενον. 36 The verb κλάω and its derivatives are used for ‘bread breaking’ throughout the New Testament (particularly pronounced in Luke-Acts). The same holds true a few early meal traditions that seem to highlight the breaking of the bread, like the Didache and the Syriac Acta Thomae. For bread breaking as a ritual element see Gerard A.M. Rouwhorst, ‘Faire mémoire par un geste: La fraction du pain’, in André Lossky and Manlio Sodi (eds), “Faire mémoire”: L’anamnèse dans la liturgie, (Vatican City, 2011), 75-86. C. Leonhard, however, argues that the action of breaking the bread was nothing but functional in most traditions and usually only highlighted in ascetic contexts. See Clemens Leonhard, ‘Brotbrechen als Ritualelement formeller Mähler bei den Rabbinen und in der Alten Kirche’, in Constanza Cordoni and Gerhard J. Langer (eds), “Let the Wise Listen and Add to Their Learning” (Prov. 1:5): Festschrift for Günter Stemberger on the Occasion of His 75th Birthday (Berlin, Boston, 2016), 501-19. 37 Being akin to θραύω and θρύλισσω, the range of the potential meanings of θρύπτω includes e.g. ‘to grind’, ‘shatter’, ‘crush’, ‘destroy’; ‘to enfeeble’, ‘enervate’ physically as well as mentally and morally (see LSJ, s.v. θρύπτω; θραύω; θρυλίσσω). On this semantic basis, it is very possible that θρύπτω alludes to the process of milling grain in the discussed texts. Thus, it parallels the violent death of Jesus (which redeems the believers, thus, satisfying their spiritual need) with the process of milling grain (which is made into bread that satisfies the believers bodily needs). The MR of Romans 4 addresses the theme of Ignatius’ death with similar imagery.

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Considering that all three texts are probably from around the same time and region, this shared lexical peculiarity can hardly be a coincidence: The Constitutiones Apostolorum roughly date to the second half of the 4th century and may be located in Syria. The same may be true for the redaction of the Ignatian LR. Theodoret wrote in Syria as well at the beginning of the 5th century.38 Moreover, using vocabulary that invokes drastic images fits a period in which the Eucharist has become increasingly become a dramatic re-enactment of Christ’s passion.39 Thus, it is quite possible that these three texts provide us with a glimpse of a late 4th/early 5th century Eucharistic liturgy from Syria that uses the word θρύπτω in its reference to the ‘institution narrative’ in the Eucharistic prayer. Fittingly, the 4th century is also commonly regarded as the period when the ‘institution narratives’ started to become a regular feature of Eucharistic prayers.40 2.4. Ephesians 20.2: Medicine of Immortality41 MR (G)

LR (g)

… μάλιστα ἐὰν ὁ κύριός μοι ἀποκαλύψῃ ὅτι οἱ κατ’ ἄνδρα κοινῇ πάντες ἐν χάριτι ἐξ ὀνόματος συνέρχεσθε ἐν μιᾷ πίστει καὶ ἐν Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ, τῷ κατὰ σάρκα ἐκ γένους Δαυίδ, τῷ υἱῷ ἀνθρώπου καὶ υἱῷ θεοῦ, εἰς τὸ ὑπακούειν ὑμᾶς τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ καὶ τῷ πρεσβυτερίῳ

… πάντες ἐν χάριτι ἐξ ὀνόματος συναθροίζεσθε κοινῇ, ἐν μιᾷ πίστει θεοῦ πατρὸς καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τοῦ μονογενοῦς αὐτοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ καὶ πρωτοτόκου πάσης κτίσεως, κατὰ σάρκα δὲ ἐκ γένους Δαυίδ, ἐφοδηγούμενοι ὑπὸ τοῦ παρακλήτου· (20.2) ὑπακούοντες τῷ

38 To the author’s knowledge, there are no studies on a possible connection between Theodoret and the Ignatian LR. According to Lightfoot, Theodoret only quotes from the MR, see J.B. Lightfoot (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,1 (1889), 171-2, 251. The close relation between the LR and the Constitutiones Apostolorum, however, has long been recognized. The claim that the same hand is responsible for both works goes back to Ussher, who published the editio princeps of the Latin MR in 1644, see Lightfoot (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,1 (1889), 261-2. In the 1970s, D. Hagedorn argued that the author of both texts, the LR and the Constitutiones Apostolorum, must be a certain Julian who also wrote a 4th c. commentary on Job, see D. Hagedorn, Hiobkommentar (1973), XLI-LI. For a recent overview of the debate over the authorship of the Ignatian LR, its date and relation to other texts see P.R. Gilliam, Ignatius (2017), 99-118. Gilliam acknowledges the closeness of the LR to a number of fourth-century authors and texts but is hesitant to draw conclusions about authorship. He himself highlights the relation of the LR to the Christological views expressed in the so-called Ekthesis Macrostichos and proposes a date closer to 350 (see ibid. 118-32, esp. 131-2). 39 Texts like Theodore of Mopsuestia’s 15th catechetical homily provide ample evidence for this development. Briefly on this development see e.g. M. Wallraff, ‘Liturgie’ (2011), 85-6. 40 See e.g. P. Bradshaw, Origins (2004), 130-8; Robert Taft, ‘Mass Without Consecration? The Historic Agreement on the Eucharist between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East Promulgated 26 October 2001’, Worship 77 (2003) 482-509, 490-3. 41 Texts and variants according to J.B. Lightfoot (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,2 (1889), 86-7 [MR]; id. (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,3 (1889), 265 [LR].

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ἀπερισπάστῳ διανοίᾳ, ἕνα ἄρτον κλῶντες, ὅς ἐστιν φάρμακον ἀθανασίας, ἀντίδοτος τοῦ μὴ ἀποθανεῖν, ἀλλὰ ζῆν ἐν Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ διὰ παντός. __________ ὅς] L: ὅ ἐστιν

ἐπισκόπῳ καὶ τῷ πρεσβυτερίῳ ἀπερισπάστῳ διανοίᾳ, ἕνα ἄρτον κλῶντες, ὅ ἐστιν φάρμακον ἀθανασίας, ἀντίδοτος τοῦ μὴ ἀποθανεῖν, ἀλλὰ ζῆν ἐν θεῷ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, καθαρτήριον ἀλεξίκακον.

Above all may the Lord reveal to me that you all come together – man by man, every single one by common consent and in grace – in one faith and in Jesus Christ, offspring of David according to the flesh, son of man and son of God, so that you obey the bishop and the presbytery with an undivided mind and break one bread which is the medicine of immortality, antidote against dying but for living in Jesus Christ. __________ which42] L: that is

Do all come together in common in grace, in one faith of God the Father, and Jesus Christ his only-begotten son, and the first-born of all creation, but of the offspring of David according to the flesh, being under the guidance of the comforter, obeying the bishop and the presbytery with an undivided mind and breaking one bread – that is the medicine of immortality, antidote against dying but for living in God through Jesus Christ, cleansing remedy driving away the evil.

In comparison to the passages reviewed so far, in Ephesians 20.2 there are no semantically relevant variants in the Syriac or Armenian. Moreover, the MR and LR are rather similar. Both deal with ‘unity’ as the main issue of the Ignatian letters. Nonetheless, there is an interesting variant in the extant witnesses: The phrase ὅς ἐστιν φάρμακον ἀθανασίας is found only in the Greek MR. The Latin text of the MR (L) as well as the LR read the neuter relative pronoun ὅ/quod instead of the masculine ὅς.43 The decision between these two readings is not easy on text critical grounds. Consequently, editions differ at this point. Funk/Bihlmeyer follow the Greek MR and reconstruct ὅς. It is unclear whether they are aware of the variant since it is does not feature in their apparatus either.44 Lightfoot makes his decision in favour of ὅ and delegates ὅς into the apparatus.45 His reasoning is based upon his evaluation of the extant Greek and Latin witnesses of the MR. Lightfoot 42 The relative pronoun ‘which’ is to be understood here as the antecedent to ‘one bread’ in this variant. 43 There are no extant Syriac witnesses for this passage, and even if there were, they would be inconclusive for the issue of the relative pronoun due to the language’s structure. The extant Armenian version is quoted by Lightfoot as dubious, too, see J.B. Lightfoot (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,2 (1889), 87. 44 See F.X. Funk and K. Bihlmeyer (eds.), Väter (1970), 88. 45 See J.B. Lightfoot (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,2 (1889), 87. Other proponents of the reading ὅ are Graydon F. Snyder, ‘The Text and Syntax of Ignatius ΠΡΟΣ ΕΦΕΣΙΟΥΣ 20,2c’, VC 22 (1968), 8-13, 9; J. Heilmann, Wein (2014), 211-2. W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 98 also argues for the neuter but does not interpret the text accordingly (see below, esp. note 49).

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observes that the value of the Latin MR ‘consists in its extreme literalness’ in relation to the Greek.46 Additionally, its Vorlage ‘was evidently superior to the existing manuscripts of the Greek’.47 This can be observed, for instance, in the degree of cross-influence of the LR tradition on the MR, which is much more prominent in the Greek MR than in the Latin MR.48 Thus, on text critical grounds, it is very plausible to find older readings in the Latin version and not in the Greek manuscripts at times. Moreover, as ὅ is also supported by the Greek LR – which is generally close to the MR in Ephesians 20.2 – the case for ὅ being the older reading in the MR, too, may be quite plausible. The strongest argument in favour of ὅ comes, however, from the argumentative context: The phrase ὅ ἐστιν leads to a relative clause that lacks a specific lexical antecedent and, thus, refers to the whole preceding clause. It explains under which circumstances (coming together in one faith, under one bishop and breaking one bread) Christian community becomes a ‘medicine of immortality’.49 This kind of relative clause with a broader antecedent occurs multiple times in the Ignatian letters, especially in the MR. We have already encountered it in Trallians 8 where the processes of renewal in faith and love were semantically connected to the ‘flesh and blood of Christ’ in a similar manner. In contrast to ὅς, the reading ὅ therefore fits the passage’s urge for communal unity. Breaking one bread – just like coming together in one faith (συνέρχεσθε ἐν μιᾷ πίστει) – emphasizes the communal harmony that the text seeks to promote. It takes up the ecclesiological ‘one bread/one body’ metaphor that we see in the Pauline letters as well.50 Celebrating the communal meal together – in concord and without schisms – is the ‘medicine of immortality’ for both, the MR and the LR. This concept shares similarities with passages like the MR of Philadelphians 4.1 (see chapter 2.3 above) and Smyrnaeans 7.1 (see note 34 above): In all these cases communal unity is coupled with strong soteriological implications. It is, however, also possible to interpret Ephesians 20.2 as part of a metaphorical 46

J.B. Lightfoot (ed.), Apostolic Fathers, 2,1 (1889), 79. Ibid. 79. 48 Ibid. 79-80. 49 W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 98-9 contests that the ὅ ἐστιν implies a broader antecedent than a single word. But his claim does not hold up from a methodological perspective: If we compare passage like Magnesians 8.2 (διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ λόγος) and Trallians 8.1 (ἐν πίστει, ὅ ἐστιν σὰρξ … ἐν ἀγάπῃ, ὅ ἐστιν αἷμα) it is phenomenologically clear that there are relative clauses with a concrete antecedent and such without one in the Ignatian letters. Thus, as there are two distinguishable phenomena, we should assume that there is also a semantical difference between them. Schoedel’s claim that there is none consequently carries the burden of proof, which, I believe, he does not deliver. G.F. Snyder, ‘Text’ (1968), however, set forth convincing linguistic arguments for a semantical difference between both kinds of relative clauses. 50 For an overview of the (Proto-)Pauline evidence see Matthias Walter, Gemeinde als Leib Christi: Untersuchungen zum Corpus Paulinum und zu den «Apostolischen Vätern» (Freiburg, 2001), 105-64. 47

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discourse about true and false teachings and their effects akin to Trallians 6 (MR), which referred to heretical teachings as ‘deadly medicine’ (θανάσιμον φάρμακον).51 This passage employs exactly the same medical imagery – even the same word – as Ephesians 20.2. On this basis, ὅ ἐστιν φάρμακον ἀθανασίας could also point towards the whole of ‘orthodox’ Christian life and doctrine that Ephesians 20.2 encapsulates in a simple message: Come together in one faith that is founded in Jesus Christ, and celebrate your communal meal in harmony under your bishop. Identifying the element of the bread as the medicine of immortality, however, does not positively contribute to the text’s ecclesiological focus at all. Combined with the text critical considerations about the reliability of the witnesses presented above, I am strongly inclined to regard ὅ ἐστιν φάρμακον ἀθανασίας as the older reading of the MR than ὅς ἐστιν φάρμακον ἀθανασίας. The text reading ὅς ἐστιν, provided by the Greek MR witnesses, needs to be understood and contextualized as well. Compared to the text with ὅ, this variant suggests that the actual bread consumed at the Christian meal is regarded as having the powers of a ‘medicine of immortality’. Two liturgical parallels to this concept from between the 4th and 6th centuries may help us historically locate it:52 Serapion of Thmuis, Euchologion 153 Ἐπιδημησάτω θεὲ τῆς ἀληθείας ὁ ἅγιός σου λόγος ἐπὶ τὸν ἄρτον τοῦτον, ἵνα γένηται ὁ ἄρτος σῶμα τοῦ λόγου, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο, ἵνα γένηται τὸ ποτήριον αἷμα τῆς ἀληθείας. καὶ ποίησον πάντας τοὺς κοινωνοῦντας φάρμακον ζωῆς λαβεῖν εἰς θεραπείαν παντὸς νοσήματος καὶ εἰς ἐνδυνάμωσιν πάσης προκοπῆς καὶ ἀρετῆς, μὴ εἰς κατάκρισιν θεὲ τῆς ἀληθείας μηδὲ εἰς ἔλεγχον καὶ ὄνειδος. God of truth, your holy Logos shall reside on this bread, so that the bread may become the body of the Logos, and on this cup, so that the cup may become the blood of truth. Make all who share part take a medicine of life for the treatment of every illness and the strengthening of every progress and virtue, not for judgment, God of truth, and not for examination and rebuke. Papyrus Berolinensis 1391854 […]μενα ζωῆς, φ … … … … . ν ἀφθαρσίας εἰς κοινωνίαν πνεύματος ἁγίου, εἰς φιλαδελία[ν … . εἰ]ς ἰσχυρὰν [ἀγ]αλλίασιν, εἰς νῆψιν καὶ σωφροσύνην, εἰ[ς ἐνδυ51

See chapter 2.1 above. Both following parallels are briefly mentioned by W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 98. Schoedel’s conclusions, however, are very different from those proposed in the present paper. 53 Text according to Maxwell E. Johnson, The Prayers of Sarapion of Thmuis: A Literary, Liturgical, and Theological Analysis, OCA 249 (Rome, 1995), 48. The anaphora is probably mid-4th-century, perhaps drawing on traditions from the 3rd c. (see ibid. 281). 54 Edited in Hans Lietzmann, ‘Ein liturgischer Papyrus des Berliner Museums’, in Kommision für spätantike Religionsgeschichte (ed.), Hans Lietzmann: Kleine Schriften III, TU 74 (Berlin, 1962), 56-70. The papyrus may date to the late 5th or early 6th c. See Agnes T. Mihálykó, The Christian Liturgical Papyri: An Introduction (Tübingen, 2019), 83-4, 325. 52

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νάμ]ωσιν [… …] ἡμῶν, εἰς φάρμακον ἀθανασίας, ἀντίδοτον ζωῆς ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ ἅπαντα ἀποθανεῖν, ἀλλὰ ζῆν ἐν σοὶ διὰ τοῦ ἠγαπημένου σου παιδός. … of life, … of incorruptibility for communion of the Holy Spirit, for brotherly love … for great joy, for sobriety and soundness of mind, for strengthening … of us, for medicine of immortality, antidote of life for not wholly dying but living in you through your beloved child.

In its Logos epiclesis over bread and cup, Serapion’s prayer pleas that those assembled may consume the consecrated bread and cup as ‘a medicine of life’. The second text, a liturgical papyrus from Berlin, refers to a ‘medicine of immortality’ in the prayer that follows the reception of the Eucharistic gifts by the faithful.55 Both texts share the same theological concept as Ephesians 20.2 with the reading ὅς: They attribute salvific effects to the foodstuff of the Eucharist by using medical imagery.56 Patristic parallels point to the 4th century and beyond as well: In the Apocriticus attributed to Macarius Magnes we read that ‘Christ gave believers his own blood and put a life-giving medicine of God into it’ (ζωτικὸν ἐνθέμενος φάρμακον τῆς θεότητος).57 Gregory Nyssen thinks along similar lines in his Catechetical Oration where he argues that the believer needs to take a physical medicine (φάρμακον) – the food of the Eucharist – to restore his body that has been injected with sin by the Edenic poison.58 Earlier Christian texts, in contrast, tend to use such medical imagery differently and unrelated to Christian meal practice: Irenaeus calls having the right view of Christ an antidotum vitae.59 Clement of Alexandria writes that the φάρμακον τῆς ἀθανασίας is letting go of poisonous pagan philosophy and to taking up Christian doctrine instead.60 Yet another example is Tertullian’s Scorpiace whose imagery is similar to Clement (see also note 18 above). Since the search for conceptual parallels does not lead us to a date earlier than the 4th century, it may be safe to assume that the reading ὅς ἐστιν φάρμακον ἀθανασίας, which attributes salvific effects to the consumption of ‘Eucharistic food’, did not emerge prior to this period. The observation that the LR – probably also a 4th century text – did not introduce this change from ὅ to ὅς does not contradict this argument: As we have seen in other passages reviewed in this article, the LR transforms its Vorlage with very close attention to its original message and intent. As the LR shares the ecclesiological perspective 55

See H. Lietzmann, ‘Papyrus’ (1962), 65-6. Papyrus Berolinensis 13918 might even suggest a direct relation (or to a common tradition) since the formulations are strikingly similar to Ignatius, see H. Lietzmann, ‘Papyrus’ (1962), 66. The use of medical imagery in different (metaphorical) contexts, however, is in no way uniquely Ignatian or even Christian, see e.g. the parallels provided by W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius (1985), 97-8. 57 Macarius Magnes, apocr. 3.23.11 (ed. U. Volp; TU 169, 212). 58 Gregory Nyssen, orat. catech. 37 (ed. R. Winling; SC 453). 59 Irenaeus, adv. haer. 3.19.1 (ed. A. Rousseau and L. Doutreleau; SC 211). 60 Clement of Alexandria, protr. 10.106.1 (ed. O. Stählin and U. Treu; GCS 12, 76). 56

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of the MR, a change would not have been warranted. It is much more likely that the small change from ὅ to ὅς was made by an editor (or scribe?) who was not as deeply engaged with his Vorlage as the creator of the LR. This superficial way of ‘updating’ the text to fit a developing ‘eucharistic theology’, thus, is much more akin to the variants in the Syriac and Armenian traditions discussed above in Trallians 6, Trallians 8.1, and Philadelphians 4.1. 3. Conclusion After exploring the textual variations of four different meal-related passages from the Ignatian corpus, some conclusions are warranted. The evidence suggests that most semantically significant changes were introduced into the text of the Ignatian letters as part of editorial processes, i.e. when reworking the MR into the LR or when making translations. This has become particularly visible in Trallians 6, Trallians 8.1 and Philadelphians 4.1. Although text critical decisions are difficult to make in many cases, viewing the variants from the perspective of the development ‘from symposium to Eucharist’ may provide us with additional guidelines: In Trallians 6, Trallians 8.1 and Philadelphians 4.1, the Syriac and Armenian versions of the MR seemed much more prone to make connections to Christian meal practice and theology than their Greek/Latin counterparts. They tended to do so in a way that stresses the Christological qualification of the food as ‘flesh and blood of Christ’ (Trallians 8.1; Philadelphians 4.1) and the salvific effects of the consumption of this food (esp. Trallians 8.1). The latter tendency is also present in the ὅς reading of Ephesians 20.2. These variants are all rather small and may even seem ‘mechanic’ as they show little awareness of the argumentative context or theological outlook of a given passage. Their superficial character might make it plausible to regard them as secondary. When these variants are placed within the diachronic development of Christian meal practice, however, a later origin for them becomes even more likely: Stressing the ‘elements’, their Christological quality, and their salvific effects are all features typical of ‘eucharistic theology’ from the 4th century and later.61 Making these textual changes could have been triggered by the appearance of certain key terms, such as ‘flesh’ and ‘blood’, which later recipients more readily connected with ‘the Eucharist’ than believers of earlier times did.62 61 For a brief overview of these developments see P.F. Bradshaw and M.E. Johnson, Liturgies (2012), 111-36. 62 There are many early Christian meal traditions that do not stress the motifs of ‘flesh’ (or ‘body’) and blood of Christ. The most popular of these can be found in the Didache (chapters 10 and 14). Many traditions evidenced in early apocryphal acts (late 2nd to early 3rd c.) also fall into this category as can be deduced from the recent overview provided by Jan M. Bremmer, ‘Eucharist and Agapê in the Later Second Century: The Case of the Older Apocryphal Acts and

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The increasingly close connection between Christian meal practice and the New Testament tradition of Jesus’ Last Supper, which coincides with the first extant eucharistic prayers featuring ‘institution narrations’ dating to the 4th century, belongs into the same historical context. Thus, the LR of Philadelphians 4.1 readily referring to the Last Supper tradition in a meal context (whereas the older MR shows no signs of making this connection at all) may be plausibly read in relation to these developments as well. If interpreted against the backdrop of the development ‘from symposium to Eucharist’, the Greek/Latin MR of Trallians 6, Trallians 8.1 and Philadelphians 4.1, as well as the ὅ reading in Ephesians 20.1 (LR and Latin MR), are most likely to offer the earlier text forms. They are situated within the typical values of ancient Mediterranean commensality much clearer: The fundamental value attached to the meal in these traditions is that of communal unity. The emphasis is put on meals as communal events paramount for constructing and expressing a group’s collective identity. The foodstuff and its identification as ‘flesh and blood of Christ’ is not pronounced.

the Pagan Novel’, in Nienke M. Vos and Albert C. Geljon (eds), Rituals in Early Christianity: New Perspectives on Tradition and Transformation (Leiden, Boston, 2021), 69-105. For further evidence see Andrew B. McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (Oxford, 1999).

Ignatian Recensions: What are these and How Many? Markus VINZENT, King’s College London, UK; Max-Weber-Kolleg, Erfurt, Germany

ABSTRACT In this article it is suggested to move away from the older nomenclature of three recensions of the Ignatian Letters, a short, middle, and long recension, and rather speak of different collections of these letters and greater number of recensions, even if the three mentioned ones seem to have been the outstanding ones. It is also suggested that both by the transmission history and the witnesses and manuscript evidence it seems that the 3 Letters collection preceded the 6/7 Letters collection (both belonging to the second century), then followed by the 13 Letters collection (which, then is followed by a 17 Letters collection in the Middle Ages). The article also gives insights, into how the redactors tried to create the impression of coherence by dropping names both into older letters and novel letters that spring to the eye of readers.

The seven letters of the ‘middle recension’ – the state of the art At the latest with the work of two eminent scholars of the 19th c., Theodor Zahn (1838-1933) and Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1889), it has become common knowledge that the genuine Ignatian letters are seven in number and that these are preserved in three different recensions: 1. The ‘middle’ recension, regarded as authentic, was given its name, because there are two more recensions of these seven letters, one shorter, one longer, hence the middle recension stands in between these two. The middle recension is dated to the early second century, following Eusebius of Caesarea,1 and contains IgnEph: Ignatius, Ad Ephesios; IgnMag: Ignatius, Ad Magnesianos; IgnTral: Ignatius, Ad Trallianos; IgnRom: Ignatius, Ad Romanos; IgnPhilad: Ignatius, Ad Philadelphienses, IgnSm: Ignatius, Ad Smyrnenses; IgnPol: Ignatius, Ad Polycarpum. 1 The dating derives from Eusebius who sources himself from Irenaeus and Polycarp (Hist. eccl. III 36,12-5), telling his readers that Ignatius became the second bishop of Antioch, Euseb. Caes., Hist. eccl. III 22 (236.14-5 Schwartz), III 36,2-3 (274.17-9 Schwartz) at the time when Simon was second bishop of Jerusalem, ibid. (236.15-7 Schwartz); in addition, Ignatius was contemporary of apostolic men like Papias, Polycarp and Clement, ibid. III 36,1-2 (274.13-7 Schwartz); see on this Thomas Lechner, Ignatius versus Valentinianos? Chronologische und theologiegeschichtliche Studien zu den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien, SVigChr 47 (Leiden, 1999), 78-81.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 121-134. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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2. The ‘long’ recension carries its name for two reasons: a) The seven letters, known from the middle recension, are all incorporated into this recension, but they are longer by having been extended; b) in this recension six more letters have been added to the older seven letters (MarCIgn: Maria Cassobelis, Ad Ignatium; IgnMarC: Ignatius, Ad Mariam Neapolin; IgnTar: Ignatius, Ad Tarsenses; IgnPhil: Ignatius, Ad Philippenses; IgnAnt: Ignatius, Ad Antiochenses; IgnHer: Ignatius, Ad Heronem). 3. The ‘short’ recension carries its name, too, for two reasons: a) Of the seven letters, known from the middle recension, four were eliminated in this recension (IgnMag: Ignatius, Ad Magnesianos; IgnTral: Ignatius, Ad Trallianos; IgnPhilad: Ignatius, Ad Philadelphienses, IgnSm: Ignatius, Ad Smyrnenses); b) the three ones retained (IgnPol; IgnRom; IgnEph) are shorter by having been abbreviated. So far, the state of the art. While I wrote the case study on the Ignatian letters as part of my recently published book on Writing the History of Early Christianity,2 pursuing a retrospective historiography, I stumbled again about the debate between the two mentioned scholars, Zahn and Lightfoot, and their arch-opponent, the syriologist William Cureton (1808-1864). Cureton, just a few years earlier, had discovered the three letters of the ‘short’ recension in Syriac manuscripts and believed that these three letters in this recension were the genuine letters, predating the seven letters of the ‘middle’ recension. And although Lightfoot first sided with Cureton,3 later in his monographic study on Ignatius, it was his explicit aim to fight against Cureton’s hypothesis. Lightfoot states in the preface to this monograph: When I first began to study the subject, Cureton’s discovery dominated the field. With many others I was led captive for a time by the tyranny of this dominant force … For a time therefore I accepted the Curetonian letters as representing the genuine Ignatius, and this opinion was expressed in some of my published works. Subsequent investigation however convinced me of the untenableness of this position.4

If not already Zahn, then it was Lightfoot who, indeed, killed Cureton’s position. In what follows, I will approach the topic from a different angle to show that we need to move away from a brush stroke of the Ignatian letters being preserved in three different recensions. Moreover, I would like to show that, instead, we need to distinguish between a) different letter collections and b) different versions of the letters in these different collections. Hence, the Ignatian picture 2 Markus Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity. From Reception to Retrospection (Cambridge, 2019), 266-464. 3 Joseph Barber Lightfoot, ‘Two neglected facts bearing on the Ignatian controversy’, Journal of Philology 1 (1868), 47-55. 4 J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers. Part II. S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp. Revised texts (London, 1889), ix-x.

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will turn out to be much more complex and – alas – there is no critical edition of the Ignatian letters available, an important desideratum which scholarship has to take up in the near future, but a fact which also renders my remarks to remain preliminary. Collections vs. Versions So, why do I think, we need to distinguish between a) collections and b) versions of the letters? First, I will give a survey of how the Ignatian letters have come down to us, to give an insight into the extraordinary complexity of this well received bulk of literature. Second, I will give a short comparison of the order in which the letters appear in the major collections. Third, I will use Ignatius’ Letter to the Romans to caution us with regards the oversimplifaction that is given by focussing on three recensions only. Fourth, I will show how and why the various versions have been hyperlinked to each other. 1. Survey of the Transmission of the Ignatian letters The most obvious candidate to show the need for the distinction between collections and versions (and also for the oversimplifaction by the three recensions, as we will later see) is Ignatius’ Letter to the Romans. Though this letter is seen today as part of the seven letter collection of the genuine letters of Ignatius of the ‘middle’ recension, it has long been recognised that this letter had a different trajectory of transmission, as it was not handed down as part of the collection of the seven letters of the ‘middle’ recension, but was, instead, included into chapter four of one of the Vatican Martyrdom of Ignatius.5 This can be seen from our earliest witnesses that attest for the so-called ‘middle’ recension. Theophilus of Antioch6, Clement of Alexandria7, Pionius’ MartPol8, 5 Unfortunately, this footnote 4 of chapter 5 in my recent book was somehow distorted and needs to be corrected, as stated here in the main text; this Martyrdom see T. Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien (1873), 31-2. 6 See in the letter, given by Euseb. Caes., Hist. eccl. 5.1: ὥστε καὶ τὰ δεσμὰ κόσμον εὐπρεπῆ περικεῖσθαι αὐτοῖς, ὡς νύμφῃ κεκοσμημένῃ ἐν κροσσωτοῖς χρυσοῖς πεποικιλμένοις and compare with IgnEph 11,2: χωρὶς τούτου μηδὲν ὑμῖν πρεπέτω, ἐν ᾧ τὰ δεσμὰ περιφέρω, τοὺς πνευματικοὺς μαργαρίτας. And also ἐχρῆν δ’ οὖν τοὺς γενναίους ἀθλητὰς ποικίλον ὑπομείναντας ἀγῶνα καὶ μεγάλως νικήσαντας ἀπολαβεῖν τὸν μέγαν τῆς ἀφθαρσίας στέφανον with IgnPol 3,1: μεγάλου ἐστιν ἀθλητοῦ τὸ δέρεσθαι καὶ νικᾶν, on these see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 141. 7 Clem. Alex., Paed. II 8 (μύρῳ ἀλειφόμενον) compare with IgnEph 17 (μύρον ἔλαβεν). 8 MartPol 22,1: ὁ μακάριος Πολύκαρπος, οὗ γένοιτο ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ πρὸς τὰ ἴχνη εὑρεθῆναι ἡμᾶς, compare with IgnEph 12,2: Παύλου συμμύσται τοῦ ἡγιασμένου, τοῦ

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Apost. Const.9, P. Berol. 1058110, Ephraem of Antioch11, Gelasius12, Theodoret of Cyrus13 all do refer to letters of the so-called ‘middle recension’, but none of them to the Letter to the Romans, while those who do refer to this letter are all witnesses for the three letter collection, so Irenaeus of Lyon14, arm. MartPol15, Origen16, and Chrysostom17. Eusebius of Caesarea, the first in history to make a claim for seven letters of Ignatius, but he gives a peculiar account. μεμαρτυρημένον, ἀξιομακαρίστον, οὗ γένοιτό μοι ὑπὸ τὰ ἴχνη εὑρεθῆναι, ὅταν θεοῦ ἐπιτύχω, ὃς ἐν πάσῃ ἐπιστολῇ μνημονεύει ὑμῶν ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. 9 IgnEph 7,2. Ap. Const. 8,12,31: καὶ γέγονεν ἐν μήτρᾳ παρθένου ὁ δαπλάσσων πάντας τοὺς γεννωμένους, καὶ ἐσαρκώθη ὁ ἄσαρκος, ὁ ἀχρόνως γεννηθεὶς ἐν χρόνῳ γεγέννηται. 10 IgnSm 3,3-12,1 (Karl Bihlmeyer and Wilhelm Schneemelcher [eds], Die Apostolischen Väter [Tübingen, 1970], xxxvi; Paul Foster, ‘The epistles of Ignatius of Antioch’, in id., The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers [London, 2007], 84; Carl Schmidt and Wilhelm Schubart, Altchristliche Texte. Mit 2 Lichtdrucktafeln [Berlin, 1910], 3-12). 11 Explicit reference to Ignatius Theophorus and IgnSm 1,1. So in Photius, Bibl. 228: καὶ ὁ θεοφόρος δὲ Ἰγνάτιος καὶ μάρτυς, Σμυρναίοις ἐπιστέλλων, ὁμοίως κέχρηται τῷ ἄρθρῳ (PG 103, 961); see Michael Rackl, Die Christologie des Heiligen Ignatius von Antiochien nebst einer Voruntersuchung: Die Echtheit der sieben Ignatianischen Briefe verteidigt gegen Daniel Voelter (Freiburg i.Br., 1914), 362. 12 IgnEph 7,2; 20,2. Gel., De duabus naturis in Christo adversus Eutychem et Nestorium. According to Zahn, his Latin translation is Gelasius’ own from a Greek text that differs considerably from that of the middle recension, see Theodor Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien (Gotha, 1873), 87. 13 Explicit reference to Ignatius; excerpts from IgnSm 1; 3,1.2; 4; 5,2; 7,1; IgnEph 7; 18; 20, IgnTral 9. On Theodoret who ‘provided no fewer than ten quotations from Ignatius to illustrate his view of the Son as immutable, not “confused” in nature, and impassible. Six come from Smyrnaeans (5,2; 7,1), three from Ephesians, one from Trallians’, see Robert M. Grant, ‘The apostolic fathers’ first thousand years’, Church History 31 (1962), 421-9, 426. On Theodoret in more detail see M. Rackl, Die Christologie des Heiligen Ignatius von Antiochien nebst einer Voruntersuchung (1914), 365-6. 14 IgnRm 4; Iren., Adv. haer. V 38: quoniam frumentum sum Christi et per dentes bestiarum molor, ut mundus panis Dei inveniar. This is all the more astonishing as Irenaeus elsewhere fights against ‘docetists’, might have even known the additional four letters, but does not point to them, see Iren., Adv. haer. 4.33.5: Putativum est igitur et non veritas omne apud eos, et nunc iam quaeretur, ne forte, cum et ipsi homines non sint, sed muta animalia, hominum umbras apud plurimos proferant. 15 MartPol 3: ἐπεσπάσατο εἰς ἑαυτὸν τὸ θηρίον, οὐ μόνον παροξύνας ἀλλὰ καὶ προσβιασάμενος compare with IgnRom 5: κἂν αὐτὰ [τὰ θηρία] δὲ ἄκοντα μὴ θελήσῃ, ἐγὼ προσβιάσομαι. MartPol according to the restitution from an Armenian translation by Otto Zwierlein, Die Urfassungen der Martyria Polycarpi et Pionii und das Corpus Polycarpium, Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 116 (Berlin, New York, 2014), I 19. 16 Quotes from IgnRm 7,2; IgnEph 19,1 [IgnSm 3, but attributed to the Kerygma Petrou]. Orig., In Cant. Cant. prol.: meus autem amor crucifixus est; Hom. VI in Lucam: καὶ ἔλαθε τὸν ἄρχονια τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου ἡ παρθενία Μαρίας. 17 See Richard Adelbert Lipsius, ‘Ueber die Aechtheit der syrischen Reyension der ignatianischen Briefe’, Zeitschrift für die historische Theologie 26 (1856), 3-160, 11-1. Instead, Lightfoot sees Chrysostom using the middle recension: see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889). On Chrysostom and Ignatius see now Paul R. Gilliam III, Ignatius of Antioch and the Arian Controversy (Leiden, 2017). Gilliam agrees with Lightfoot on Chrysostom’s use of the middle recension, but he does not see any reason ‘why Chrysostom could not have been familiar with the Ignatian long recension’ (ibid. 209). I am still not convinced that Chrysostom knew the middle

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He quotes twice from the same Letter to the Romans, but only the first one he refers to the letter itself (IgnRom 5), while the next quote he gives with reference to Irenaeus, though the quote derives from just a chapter before IgnRom 4. In between he adds another quote, taken from IgnSm 3, though this quote Origen knows, but refers it not to Ignatius,18 but to the Doctrina Petri.19 Did Eusebius have the letters in his library at all? Or did he report from hearsay? This would account for the order, in which he mention these letters and which do not reflect the order in any manuscript evidence that we possess. With regard to the wording that Eusebius gives, some, as I have shown, reflect the text of the 3 Letters collection, others of the 6/7 Letters collection – already a first indication that the divine between a short and a middle recension does not work with regards to Eusebius. In Egypt, during the late 4th or even in the 5th c. the Letter to the Romans seems to have become part of the collection, but it is a time, when the 13 Letters collection was created, as the Letter to Hero first appears in the Codex Borg. 248 that presents a Coptic translation of excerpts of the 7 Letters collections and the 13 Letters collection, a manuscript that is dated to the fourth century.20 In the same century, the Miaphysite Timothy Aelurus of Alexandria for the first time knows of a seven letter collection by also drawing on Ignatius’ Letter to the Romans,21 perhaps an indication that he knew of both, the three plus three letters and the Letter to the Romans from the Martyrdom of Ignatius that is also commonly dated to the 4th c.22 That also another Miaphysite, Severus recension as the ‘parallels’ are too vague to be conclusive, as the closest parallels (IgnRom 7,2; IgnPol 2,3; IgnRom 2,2) are present in the short recension. 18 In IgnSm 3 there is no indication that this letter would point to another source. If so, it would be obvious, that Origen would quote the source that is being cited against him as an authority, but it rather looks as if Origen knew this text from the Doctrina Petri alone. 19 See Euseb. Caes., Hist. eccl. III 36,7-12 and Orig., De princ. praef. 8 (‘lay hold, handle me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit’). 20 See M. Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity (2019), 435; J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 108-9, 275. The texts have been presented in Coptic and French by Louis T. Lefort, Les pères apostoliques en copte (Louvain, 1952). We notice the familiar fact that the texts are known in the middle recension, yet the fragment of IgnHer shows that this letter, which is normally part of the long recension, appears in this codex. A similar example we have already seen in Ado of Vienne. These are examples for what recurs in later manuscripts that apparently the seven letters were mainly, if not solely, transmitted bound together with that of the version of the same letters as part of the 13 Letters collection. 21 IgnSm 5,3-6,1; IgnRom 3,3-4,1, 6,1-3; IgnEph 18,1-19,1; IgnMag 8,1. See Richard Adelbert Lipsius, Ueber das Verhältniss des Textes der drei syrischen Briefe des Ignatios zu den übrigen Recensionen der Ignatianischen Literatur (Leipzig, 1859), 15; see also ‘Timothy Aelurus, patriarch of Alexandria for a time in the mid-fifth century, quoted Smyr. 5:3-6:1 … and Rom. 3:3-4:1, 6:1-3 all to prove that Christ had one nature after the incarnation’, so R.M. Grant, ‘The apostolic fathers’ first thousand years’ (1962), 426. 22 Mark Edwards pointed out that ‘it is interesting that Apollinarians were spourious forgers, and that Dionysius the Areopagite is also first quoted in Miaphysite circles’ (comments on a draft of this paper).

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of Antioch, knows the same set as Timothy Aelurus points to the possibility that in these circles the 3 Letters collection was transmitted together with the 7 Letters collection as the 7 Letters collection was transmitted together with the 13 Letters collection. At the latest in the 9th century, the triplication of letters in the same collection seems to be cut down to the transmission of only the 7 Letters collection together with the 13 Letters collection. Still, the divided line of transmission between the six letters of the so-called ‘middle’ recension and that of the Letter to the Romans as part of the Martyrdom continues after the sixth century (witnesses for the ‘middle’ recension without IgnRom: Job23, Andreas of Crete24) and for IgnRom as part of the Martyrdom or stand-alone (Pseudo-Dionysius25, Anastasios Sinaita [in the form of the ‘middle’ recension]26). From the 4th c. to the 13th c. we then find: – the so-called ‘long’ recension with the addition of further 5 letters by Ignatius and one by a certain Mary of Cassobola (sometimes missing) (Stephan Gobarus27, the Chronicon Paschale28, with a defective beginning Codex Vaticanus 859 (g2)29, Codex Monacensis Graecus 394 = Codex Augustanus, g1)30, Codex 23 With reference to IgnEph 19,1. Photius, Bibl.: ἀναγκαῖον δὲ ἦν τὸ ἐπισκιάζεσθαι τὸ μυστήριον τῆς τοῦ λόγου σαρκώσεως διά τε τὸ γενέσθαι τοῖς ἀκροωμένοις εὐπαράδεκτον, καὶ ἵνα λάθῃ τοῦ σκότους τὸν ἄρχοντα. Φησὶ γὰρ ὁ θεοφόρος Ἰγνάτιος τρία λαθεῖν τὸν ἄρχοντα τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου τὴν παρθενίαν Μαρίας, τὴν σύλληψιν τοῦ κυρίου, καὶ τὴν σταύρωσιν. λέγει δὲ καὶ ὁ θεσπέσιος Παῦλος περὶ τῶν ἀρχόντων τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου, ὡς εἰ ἔγνωσαν, οὐκ ἂν τὸν κύριον τῆς δόξης ἐσταύρωσαν (PG 103, 785). 24 Andreas of Crete, Or. III in nativit. B. Mariae: ἓν οὖν τῶν μάλιστα σεσιγημένων καὶ τὸ κατὰ τὴν γέννησιν αὐτοῦ θαῦμα ἦν, ὀλίγου δεῖν πάντας λαθόν, καθ’ ὃν ἐνηνθρωπήκει χρόνον, ὀλίγων ἐκτός, ὥς φησί που ἅγιος ἀνήρ, Ἰγνάτιος ὄνομα αὐτῷ (PG 97, 853). 25 With explicit reference to the divine Ignatius, IgnRom 7,2. Ps.-Dion., De div. nom. 4,12 (PG 3, 709). 26 With explicit reference to the holy Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch and a quote from IgnRom 6,3. Anast. Sin., Hodegos 12: τοῦ ἁγίου Ἰγνατίου ἐπισκόπου Ἀντιοχείας· ἐάσατε μιμητὴν γενέσθαι τοῦ πάθους τοῦ θεοῦ μου (PG 89, 196). See R.A. Lipsius, Ueber das Verhältniss des Textes der drei syrischen Briefe des Ignatios zu den übrigen Recensionen der Ignatianischen Literatur (1859), 15. 27 See R.A. Lipsius, Ueber das Verhältniss des Textes der drei syrischen Briefe des Ignatios zu den übrigen Recensionen der Ignatianischen Literatur (1859), 16. See Phot., Bibl. cod. 132 (Ignatius fights against Nikolaos and the Nikolaites, IgnTral 11. 28 See R.A. Lipsius, Ueber das Verhältniss des Textes der drei syrischen Briefe des Ignatios zu den übrigen Recensionen der Ignatianischen Literatur (1859), 16. 29 ‘The Ignatian Epistles are defective at the beginning, the Epistle to Mary of Cassobola and part of that to the Trallians being wanting’, so J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 111. 30 Ignaz Hardt, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum Graecorum Bibliothecae Regiae Bavaricae (München, 1810), 221-6, 2: 10th c. Lightfoot suggests the eleventh century, see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 110. Here, Lightfoot also states that ‘Fol. 212 is a single leaf, the rest of the quire, which contained the end of the last Catechesis [by Cyril of Jerusalem] and the beginning of the Epistle of Mary to Ignatius, having disappeared. The fragment of the Epistle of Mary is not given in the editio princeps’, but it was printed by James Ussher, Polycarpi et Ignatii

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Reginensis 8131, Codex Constantinopolitanus (g4)32, Codex Atrebatensis 5133, Codex Bruxellensis 551034, Codex Paris. Bibl. Nat. 1639 (formerly Colbert. 1039)35, Codex Oxon. Balliolensis 22936, Codex Carolopolitanus 26637, Codex Carolopolitanus 17338, Codex Trecensis 41239. a 6 Letters collection without the Letter to the Romans (Codex Paris. Bibl. Nat. syr. 62 (olim Sangermanensis 38)40, Codex Cantabrigensis (syr. add. 202341), the 6 Letters collection together with the Martyrdom (Antonius42), the 7 Letters collection in the so-called ‘middle’ recension (British Museum Codex syr. 421 (= Add. 17134)43, Coptic Codex B44 made of the following Codices: Vienna B.N. k 9623; British Museum or. 3581 (A) = Catal. n. 183), and more and more often the combination between the so-called ‘middle’ and ‘long’ recensions (John of Damascus, Antonius Melissa45, Theodoros Studites46, Ado of Vienne47, British Museum Codex syr. 793 (= Add.

Epistolae (Oxford, 1644), 129-30. The first printed edition of the long Greek recension by Valentinus Pacaeus was based on this manuscript. 31 Vatican Library, formerly belonging to Christina, Queen of Sweden, see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 126-7. 32 Ibid. 118-9. 33 Library of Arras, belonged formerly to the Abbey of S. Vedast or Waast, see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 129. 34 J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 128. 35 Ibid. 36 Oxford, Balliol College; see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 129-30. 37 In the Library of Charleville, see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 129-30. 38 In the Library of Charleville, see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 129. 39 Public library of Troyes, belonged formerly to the monastery of Clairvaux; see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 127-8. 40 See J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889); Hermann Zotenberg, Manuscrits orientaux. Catalogue des manuscrits Syriaques et Sabéens (Mandaïtes) de la Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris, 1874), 22-9. 41 William Wright, A Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1901), 600-28; J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 93-4. 42 Anton., Loci communes (PG 136, 765-6); see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 226-8. 43 William Wright, Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum (s.l., 1870), 330-9; see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 92-3. 44 Louis T. Lefort, Les pères apostoliques en copte (1952), I 64-6 (text); II 60-2 (translation). 45 See R.A. Lipsius, Ueber das Verhältniss des Textes der drei syrischen Briefe des Ignatios zu den übrigen Recensionen der Ignatianischen Literatur (1859), 15; T. Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien (1873), 84-5. 46 Without mentioning Ignatius; IgnSm 4; IgnPhilad 3; IgnRom 7,2. See R.A. Lipsius, Ueber das Verhältniss des Textes der drei syrischen Briefe des Ignatios zu den übrigen Recensionen der Ignatianischen Literatur (1859), 16. He quotes IgnSm 4 according to the middle recension and IgnPhilad 3 according to the long recension, and IgnRom 7,2 pointing to the long recension. 47 De quo et beatus Ignatius, Ephesiis mittens epistulam, ita dicit: Quoniam ergo suscepi multitudinem vestram in nomine Domini in Onesimo, dilecto praeceptore nostro, vestro autem episcopo, obsecro eum secundum Iesum Christum diligere vos, et vos omnes in concordia eius in

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14577)48, Severus of Ashmunin49, Codex Laurentianus Plut. lvii. Cod. 7 = Codex Mediceus50). – the 3 Letters collection (Codex British Museum 768 (= Add. 14618) (S2)51, Codex British Museum 789 (= Add. 17192) (S3)52, Joseph the Hymnographer53, Michael Syncellus54), – the stand-alone Letter to the Romans, sometimes also as part of the Martyrdom (Codex Parisinus Graecus 1451 [formerly Colbert. 460,55 basis for the editio princeps by Thierry Ruinart in 1689], Codex Colbertinus56, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Hierosolymitanus, Codex Monacensis Graecus 132 57, Ms. Sinaï ar. 443, ff. 135r–140r58), ipso esse. Benedictus enim Dominus, qui vobis talibus talem episcopum donavit habere in Christo: see Ado Vien., Libell. de festiv. SS. Apost. (PL 123, 181-2), see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 225-6; Natalis sancti Euodii, qui ab apostolis Antiochiae episcopus ordinatus est, de quo beatus Ignatius ad Antiochenam ecclesiam; Pauli et Petri facti estis discipuli; nolite perdere depositum quod vobis commendaverunt. Mementote digne beatissimi Euodii, pastoris vestri, qui primus vobis ab apostolis antistes ordinatus est. Non confundamus patrem, sed efficiamur certi filii et non adulterini. Hic martyr apud Antiochiam urbem, cui praefuit, sepultus est: see ibid. 191-2. The combination of the letters of the middle recension and them being connected with the excerpt of IgnHer 7 of the long recension will re-occur in the Coptic tradition. 48 J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 92; William Wright, Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum (s.l., 1871), 784-8. 49 Sev., Ashm., De conciliis 4; see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 228-30. 50 The text from this manuscript was published by Isaac Vossius, Epistolae genuinae S. Ignatii martyris: quae nunc primum lucem vident ex bibliotheca Florentina. Adduntur S. Ignatii Epistolae, quales vulgo curcumferuntur (Amsterdam, 1646). According to F. Guy it is ‘the parent, either directly or indirectly, of the other three [Greek manuscripts] and is therefore the only one of primary textual significance’, so Fritz Guy, ‘The Lord’s Day in the letter of Ignatius to the Magnesians’, Andrews University Seminary Studies 2 (1964), 1-17, 7. A sample page is given as fig. 1 there. IgnTar ‘breaks off abruptly in the middle of a word …[in] the last line of fol. 2552 b, which leaf is also the end of a quaternion. Thus it is plain that the imperfection of the MS was caused by the loss of some sheets. It was doubtless originally complete and, like the corresponding Latin Version, contained all the 12 epistles (excluding the Epistle to the Philippians), the Epistle to the Romans probably being embedded in the Martyrology, as in Colbert. 460’, so J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 74. 51 See W. Wright, Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum (1871), 736-7. 52 See W. Wright, Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum (1871), 778. As Wright notes, the scribe also ascribed the following two letters of John the monk on Love to Ignatius. 53 J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 223-4. 54 Mich. Syn., Encom. in Dionys. Areop., (Ps.-)Dionys., Op. II 233 (Corder). See J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 224. 55 National Library of Paris. 56 Without title, see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1889), 292; Angel Urbán, Concordantia in patres apostolicos. Pars IV Ignatii epistularum Concordantia (Hildesheim, 2001), 15. 57 See Kerstin Hajdú, Katalog der griechischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München (Wiesbaden, 2003), 145-7. 58 The most recent French translation is provided by Joseph Obeid, ‘Ignace d’Antioch, lettre aux romains’, Parole de l’Orient 21 (1996), 65-109 which also takes into account Ms. Sinaï ar. 482, ff. 87v-90r, dated to the thirteenth century CE.

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As this short survey from the 4th to the 13th c. shows, the Ignatiana were most widely known in the so-called ‘long’ recension within the 12 or 13 letter collection. To these letters were, then, added four more letters in the 12th or 13th c., only preserved in Latin, which I have discussed in my recent monograph.59 As a result from this survey one must take that, as I have already suggested with further arguments from semantics, use of Scripture and theology that apparently the 3 Letters collection preceded the 6/7 Letters collection, though, once the latter was created, they seem to have run together, before they started their separate transmission during the fourth century. This might have happened at the time, when Ignatius’ Martyrdom with the inclusion of the Letter to the Romans in the so-called middle recension and the 6/7 Letters collection of this recension was complemented by the 13 Letters collection of the so-called long recension. Note, that the 6/7 Letters collection is not found in any of our witnesses and manuscripts without either the 3 or the 13 Letters collections. That the 3 letters were then not abandoned, is shown in their survival in the Syriac manuscripts. 2. The order of the letteres in the collections When we look at the order in which the letters are transmitted in our witnesses and manuscripts, we find an interesting pattern: 3 Letters collection

Ignatian Martyrdom

6/7 Letters collection

IgnTral IgnMag IgnPhilad IgnSm IgnPol

IgnPol IgnEph IgnRom

(IgnRom)

IgnEph (IgnRom)

13 Letters collection MarCIgn IgnMarC IgnTral IgnMag IgnTar IgnPhil IgnPhilad IgnSm IgnPol IgnAnt IgnHer IgnEph IgnRom

As we can seen from this table, and if my suggestion were correct that the 3 Letters collection preceded the other collections, then the redactor of the 4 additional letters for the 6/7 Letters collection simply stuck these letters in front 59

M. Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity (2019), 402-9.

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of the existing letters, whereby the last letter was cut off and entered Ignatius’ Martyrdom, almost like the finishing touch to the story from a willing-to-be martyr to an actual martyr. This does not preempt that the author of the Martyrdom needs to be identical with the redactor of the 6/7 Letters collection, a question one would need to assess. Even when the earliest three letters, together with the added four letters entered the 13 Letters collection, their order did not change. The redactor of the 13 Letters collection, just as the earlier redactor, first added letters to the front, this time two. Then he distributed his new letters almost equally by putting two more new letters after the first two older ones, and then two more after three older ones. Why did he pick three instead of two? Perhaps he had a double tradition of the two earlier collections of the 3 letters and the 7 letters in front of him60 and wanted to make sure that the bond between the three letters and the four letters was not broken. After these he put in a further two new letters with the collection closing with two letters, already present in the oldest 3 Letters collection. 3. How many recensions? The example of IgnRom As has been seen, the most important finding is that Ignatius’ Letter to the Romans is preserved in a number of witnesses that defy the three-fold classification of ‘short’, ‘middle’ and ‘long’ recensions. The case of Eusebius has already been mentioned, and in previous publications, I have given comparisons of IgnRom praef. and IgnRom 3 to show that this Epistle is known in many more recensions.61 The most particular case is the special version that is preserved in Symeon Metaphrastes (PG 114, 1269-85) and another that can be found in an Arabic Manuscript (Ms. Sinaï ar. 443, ff. 135r-140r). Without repeating the exercise, I simply draw on the conclusions: All of the versions need to be taken into account, be it those that we find in the Syriac 3 Letters collection, the Martyrdom of Ignatius in the many different manuscript forms of Symeon Metaphrastes, the Greek 6/7 Letters collection, the Greek 13 Letters collection, and likewise all of any of the translations of the above (Armenian, Coptic, Syriac, Arabic, Latin), of which not one goes back to any known Greek manuscript tradition, hence all these texts are to be checked for studying the text of Ignatius, and they show following phenomena: 1) they reflect the stages of the three different major collections, 2) the texts are often cross-contaminated, 3) the Arabic and, particularly, the Latin translation of the 13 Letters collection is sometimes astonishingly close to the text of the 3 Letters collection. 60 This is all the more likely, as scholars have noticed that the 13 Letters collection is textually sometimes closer to the letters of the 3 Letters collection than to that of the 7 Letters collection, even though it mostly follows the latter. 61 M. Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity (2019), 340-9; 349-355.

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4. Names: Hyperlinking in collections As seen in the previous three sections, the different collections grew by a combination of two exercises: 1) by adding of new letters and 2) by reworking of the text of the existing set of letters to make them tie in with the new letters. One important tool for linking new and existing letters is name dropping. The following graphic design that shows the main sections where names appear will give an impression what is meant by name dropping. One first has to note that in the 3 Letters collection, there are barely any names mentioned. In the 3 Letters collection, we find only four names. Ignatius’ Letter to Polycarp mentions Ignatius, Theophoros,62 and Polykarpos (IgnPol praef.), and the two of Ignatius and Onesimus in Ignatius’ Letter to the Ephesians (IgnEph 1). Given that Onesimus is called the bishop of Ephesus, it is astonishing that Eusebius of Caesarea never comes back to this name in his works which he only got to know from Ignatius. Likewise, Eusebius does not know of the name ‘Theophoros’ (as no author does who refers to Ignatius prior to the sixth century, the first being Severus of Antioch), but calls him just as the Latin translation of the 13 Letters collection does, ‘the bishop of Antioch’. The use of names, however, will drastically change with the addition of the four letters in the 6/7 Letters collection, and likewise again with the added six letters in the 13 Letters collection. In the 6/7 Letters collection we do not only find a range of names appearing in the additional letters, we now also find a series of names in the added material and chapters of this redaction to the earlier extant letters. For example in the added chapter 8 of IgnPol we now find ‘the wife of Epitropus’, then Attalus, Polycarp and Alke. In a very important recent article, Jan Bremmer places these names into the prosopography of late antiquity: Not surprisingly, given the rule of the Attalid dynasty, the first name was extremely popular in Asia Minor. Epitropos, on the other hand, is rare but can be found slightly more often than Vinzent suggests.63 The name is found twice for Athenians in classical and Hellenistic times (IG II2 1156; Agora XV 72.43), but afterwards only in Roman times in the Roman world, especially Rome itself (CIL VI.1058, XII.4885),

and on Alke he states: We cannot fail to notice that she receives special attention in the Letters as she is mentioned twice, even as the very last name of all the Letters at the very end of the 62 The Syriac takes this as a double name: ‘Ignatius who is Theophoros’ with both being untranslated. The latter name, ‘Theophoros’, seems to have been only introduced to this text at the time, when Ignatius’ Martyrdom (Vatican version) was written in the 5th century (see T. Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien [1873], 31-2), as can be seen from the discussion between Ignatius and Trajan about this name in the opening of the Martyrdom, whereas, for example, in the Latin translation of the 13 Letters collection, this name is still absent. 63 M. Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity (2019), 398.

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Letter to Polycarp: there can be no doubt that the reader should take notice and remember her. Now according to the Martyrdom of Polycarp (17.2), Alke was the aunt of Herodes and the sister of Nicetes, Herodes’ father. She obviously came from an upperclass, pagan Smyrnaean family.64 Given that Herodes occupied the position of eirenarchos, Alke cannot have been that young at that time. If we take it, conservatively, that Polycarp was executed around AD 157,65 Alke should have been not much older than 30 years around AD 115, if we follow the traditional date. At that time, then, she would already have been a Christian convert and a clearly intimate acquaintance of Ignatius, who twice mentions her with “the name dear to me”. That is not very probable, I suggest. It is thus much more likely that the author of the Ignatians took her name from the Martyrdom to authenticate his Letters than the reverse position.66

Bremmer’s onomastic observations not only support that the 6/7 Letters collection was put together at a later stage than the 3 Letters collection, it also dates the 6/7 Letters collection roughly to the same time, as I did in my aforementioned monograph, namely to the years shortly before Irenaeus writing is Adversus haereses (around 177 CE). Looking more closely at the new names and their function, we see that Alke, for example, is being introduced, as mentioned at the end of IgnPol 8, hence to one of the existing letters from the 3 Letters collection, but we find her again right at the end of IgnSm 13, too, one of the newly added letters. The reader who finds this name in both letters has been given the impression that both letters had always existed together, that they were written by the same author at around the same time and originally belonged to the same collection. The same kind of hyperlinking letters and confirming a collection can be seen with the many other names:

64 Jan Bremmer states in his footnote: The names of her male relatives were probably derived from the famous sophist Herodes Atticus and the local Neronian sophist Nicetes, as suggested by W. Ameling, ‘Smyrna von der Offenbarung bis zum Martyrium des Pionios – Marktplatz oder Kampplatz der Religionen?’, in S. Alkier and H. Leppin (eds), Juden–Christen–Heiden? (Tübingen, 2018), 391-432, 418 note 157. Nicetes was the name of a Smyrnaean sophist (Philostratus, VS 1.19), but a connection with the Nicetes of the Martyrdom cannot be proved, although not be excluded either, cf. G. Petzl on I.Smyrna 697.22. 65 Jan Bremmer in a further footnote: For the much debated date, see, most recently, J. den Boeft and J. Bremmer, ‘Notiunculae martyrologicae V’, VC 49 (1995), 146-64, 146-51; B. Dehandschutter, Polycarpiana (Leuven, 2007), 56-60; T.D. Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography and Early Roman History (Tübingen, 2010), 368-73; O. Zwierlein, Die Urfassungen der Martyria Polycarpi et Pionii und das Corpus Polycarpianum, 2 vol. (Berlin, Boston, 2014), II 30-6. 66 J. Bremmer, ‘The place, date and author of the Ignatian Letters: An onomastic approach’, in W. Grünstäudl and M. Schmidt (eds), Die Datierung neutestamentlicher Pseudepigraphen. Herausforderungen und neuere Lösungsansätze (Tübingen, 2021) (forthcoming). I am grateful to the author for letting me have a copy of the unpublished paper.

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What looks rather chaotic at first, is the nuanced network of names that two redactors have laid upon their Letters collections. The green lines show the inter-connections that the redactor of the 6/7 Letters collection created between letters, the blue lines those that the redactor created within and between his added letters, the yellow lines show those connections that, like the earlier redactor, created between extant letters and his new ones. What should become clear by this picture is that names are less important for their content or the people that carry them, as most of the people are unknown for any reader (at least for the modern ones, but most likely, as Eusebius has shown also for the ancient readers) of ancient prosopography. They function differently, namely has reference points to stick letters, and most importantly, novel letters to older letters, hence serve as links that make a collection looking coherently. Outlook Instead of speaking of three Ignatian recensions we would better look at the different stages in terms of letter collections. Already here, we need to speak about more than just the 3 Letters, 6/7 Letters and 13 Letters collection, even though these three seem to be the dominant ones. In addition, we need to take into account the special life that Ignatius’ Letter to the Romans had. This letter than highlights already that at least with regards to it we can no longer speak of three recensions, as this letter existed in many more than just these three recensions. This multiplying of recensions, however, also applies to the other letters, once one takes seriously that all translations that we have into the various old languages do not neatly fit into the rough cut of three recensions. In addition, the fact that all the extant versions of texts in the various languages show crosscontaminations which renders the description of these texts and their belonging to specific recensions even more complex. Suffice to say that only the desideratum of an editio critica maior will allow us in the future to properly assess the Ignatian letters. Instead of focussing on the 6/7 Letters collection alone – as has been done in the scholarship of the past 150 years – we should move to look at all the various letter collections and the multiple recensions that these highly important witnesses of Early and Medieval Christianity provide.

Ignatius Theophorus. Bischof von Antiochia und ganz Syrien, Papst der Syrisch-orthodoxen Kirche Reginardus EYSTETTENSIS, Eichstätt, Germany

ABSTRACT Not every saintly person had the luck of Augustine to have a biographer like Possidius who did present the life in an appropriate way. That Ignatius, too, would have been worthy enough to be the subject of such a biography is beyond doubt and will be shown here, even though, the data of his life have not been fully gathered in past scholarship. For a long time, Ignatius’ letters has overshadowed their author, something that in this article is attempted to be rectified.

Ignatius wurde etwa in den Jahren zwischen 20 und 24 n. Chr. als Sohn heidnischer Eltern in Caesarea in Palästina geboren. Sein Vater stand dort als römischer Offizier im Dienste des Statthalters von Judäa, seine Mutter war Griechin und stammte aus Thessaloniki. Das eine lässt sich aus dem römischen Namen des Ignatius und den lateinischen, insbesondere militärischen Lehnwörtern seiner Briefe erschließen (desertor, deposita, accepta),1 das andere daraus, dass Griechisch offenkundig seine Muttersprache war und sein Name die griechische Form des lateinischen Egnatius hatte.2 Ort und Jahr seiner Geburt ergeben sich, wenn auch nur mit Wahrscheinlichkeit, aus dem einzigen Ereignis, das wir aus seiner Kindheit kennen und über das uns Symeon Metaphrastes im 10. Jh. berichtet. Die späteren Worte und Taten des Ignatius erweisen die Zuverlässigkeit von dessen Mitteilungen. Symeon sagt gleich zu Beginn seiner Ezählung,3 Ignatius sei das kleine Kind gewesen, dem Jesus inmitten der um ihre Größe im Gottesreich eifersüchtig streitenden Jünger die unbefleckten Hände mit den Worten aufgelegt habe: „Wenn einer sich nicht erniedrigt wie dieses Kind, so wird er in das Himmelreich nicht eingehen; und wer eines von diesen Kindern in meinem Namen aufnimmt, der nimmt mich auf.“ Das geschah in Kapharnaum, wo der Vater des Kindes gerade stationiert war, und Jesus hatte hinzugefügt: „Wenn einer der Erste sein will, so sei er der Letzte von allen und aller Diener“ (Mk. 9:33.35). 1

IgnPol. 6,1f. Man vgl. auch exemplarion, IgnEph 2,1 passim. Vgl. Via Egnatia, die in Thessaloniki beginnt. 3 Martyrium Ignatii per Symeonem Metaphrasten conscriptum 1,2 (hrsg. von F. Diekamp, Patres Apostolici 2 [Tübingen, 1913], 383-96). 2

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 135-144. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Das waren Worte von zukünftiger Bedeutung, die der kleine Ignatius natürlich noch nicht begreifen konnte, aber er bewahrte sie alle in seinem Herzen. Jesus hatte vorausgesehen, dass der heidnische Knabe sich einmal zur katholischen Kirche bekehren4 und schließlich den bischöflichen Stuhl von Antiochia in Syrien besteigen werde. So hat er ihn durch die Handauflegung vorsorglich zum Bischof geweiht. Ignatius deutet das später selbst an, wenn er sagt, „der Bischof sei nicht von Menschen, sondern unmittelbar durch die Liebe Gottes des Vaters und des Herrn Jesus Christus“ eingesetzt.5 Jesus hatte eben auch die zukünftige demütige Erniedrigung des reumütigen Heiden vorausgesehen, der sich später, obwohl „Erster“ im Klerus, in jedem Brief als den „Letzten“ in seiner Kirche bezeichnen wird.6 Aber auch das Wort Jesu, dass der demütig sich Erniedrigende mit ihm eins sei, hat der junge Ignatius in seinem Herzen bewegt. Es kehrt in seinem Grundsatz wieder, dass der Bischof an Stelle Gottes steht und dass Gott gehorcht, wer dem Bischof gehorcht.7 Über seine weitere Kindheit und Jugend schweigen unsere Quellen, wohl deshalb, weil Ignatius ein heidnisches, das heißt vom christlichen Standpunkt aus betrachtet, liederliches Leben führte ähnlich wie Augustinus.8 Seine Eltern waren begütert genug, um ihm eine kostspielige Ausbildung als Rhetor zu bezahlen. Der extravagante, von Kennern wie E. Norden gepriesene Stil seiner Briefe mit seinen gedrechselten, barocken Wortbildungen, paradoxen Antithesen, Anakoluthen usw. ist Beleg genug, dass er die Rhetorenschule erfolgreich absolvierte.9 Eine weitere mögliche Spezialausbildung zum Arzt, die sich aufgrund seiner Kenntnisse von Giftpflanzen, Wundpflastern und Fieberbehandlungen vermuten lässt, scheint er nicht abgeschlossen zu haben.10 Die Gründe dafür kennen wir ebenso wenig wie den Zeitpunkt seiner Bekehrung. Sie wird höchstwahrscheinlich in Antiochia und bald, spätestens nach dem Apostelkonzil (ca. 49 n. Chr.) erfolgt sein, denn nur dort und nur zu dieser Zeit hat er Petrus und Paulus kennenlernen können.11 Paulus, der ihm zum Vorbild wurde, „in dessen Spuren“ den Weg von Syrien zum Martyrium in Rom zu gehen er sich sehnte,12 Petrus, der ihm (sonst nur apokryph überlieferte) persönliche Worte des leiblich Auferstandenen mitteilte.13

4

Vgl. IgnSm 8,2. IgnPhild 1,1. 6 Vgl. IgnEph 21,2; IgnTral 13,1; IgnRöm 9,2; IgnSm 11,1. 7 Vgl. IgnMagn 6,1; IgnEph 6,1. 5. 3; IgnMagn 3,2; IgnTral 13,2; IgnSm 8,2-9,1. 8 Vgl. J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers 2. S. I., S. Polycarp (London, 1885, 21889), 28. 9 Vgl. E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa (Darmstadt, 51958), 510-2. 10 Vgl. IgnEph 10,3; IgnPhld 3,1; IgnPol 2,1. 11 Vgl. F.X. Funk, ‘Art. Ignatius der heilige’, in Wetzer und Weltes’s Kirchenlexikon 26 (1889), 581-90, 582. 12 Vgl. IgnEph 12,2; IgnRöm 4,3-5,1. 13 Vgl. IgnSm 3; hierzu Markus Vinzent, ‘„Ich bin kein körperloses Geistwesen“. Zum Verhältnis von κήρυγμα Πέτρου, „Doctrina Petri“, διδασκαλία Πέτρου und IgnSm 3’, in Reinhard 5

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Als Petrus um 55 n. Chr. in Richtung Korinth und weiter nach Rom aufbrechen wollte und deswegen den sonst unbekannten Evodius zu seinem Nachfolger weihte, befahl er diesem, den Ignatius als Diakon in den antiochenischen Klerus zu berufen, denn der Apostelfürst hatte in dem begabten, jungen Christen den geeigneten Kandidaten für eine spätere Besetzung seines antiochenischen Papststuhles erkannt – in diesem Edikt des Petrus ist die kanonische Begründung dafür zu sehen, dass in der Folgezeit Diakone Nachfolger ihrer Bischöfe wurden. Sein Diakonenamt hat Ignatius überaus geliebt, wie aus seinen Briefen hervorgeht, in denen er sich, obwohl doch antiochenischer Papst und aufgrund seines Christusbekenntnisses prophetisch begabt, als „Mitsklave“ seiner „allersüßesten Diakone“ bezeichnet.14 Die Hauptaufgabe bestand natürlich in der Verwaltung der Mysterien,15 damit ist gewiss die Kommunionausteilung, damals noch in beiderlei Gestalt, gemeint.16 Aber als Diakon oblag ihm auch die Leitung des Jungfrauenchores, in den auch junge Witwen aufgenommen wurden.17 Mit ihnen studierte er die von ihm gedichteten Christushymnen ein, deren Echo wir in seinen Briefen finden,18 und in der Begleitung von Zitherspiel während der feierlichen Pontifikalämter im Altarraum vor dem Papstthron und den Presbytersitzen zur Aufführung kamen.19 Damit wurde Ignatius, was schon Sokrates20 erkannt hat, zum Begründer des byzantinischen Kirchengesangs. Die Christushymnen des Ignatius wurden in der Kirche Antiochias weiterhin gesungen, bis der ruchlose und anmaßende Paulus, der aus Samosata stammte und, man weiß nicht durch welche Machenschaften, wahrscheinlich durch Bestechung mit Geldern der Königin Zenobia von Palmyra, deren Ducenarius er war, ca. 261 n. Chr. den Bischofsstuhl von Antiochia erlangt hatte, den Frauenchören verbot, Psalmen auf Christus zu singen, und anordnete, statt dessen Preislieder auf seine gottlose Person als einen vom Himmel gekommenen Engel vorzutragen, und das sogar am Osterfest, mitten in der Kirche.21 Doch kehren wir zu Ignatius zurück. Die Nachricht vom Martyrertod des Petrus und Paulus 63 n. Chr. unter Nero in Rom hat den aufstrebenden, aber bescheidenen Diakon Ignatius angespornt, wie schon gesagt wurde, in deren Fußstapfen zu treten, was er fast 50 Jahre später mit seinem kühnen Bekenntnis vor Trajan und mit dem Tod im Magen M. Hübner, Der paradox Eine. Antignostischer Monarchianismus im zweiten Jahrhundert, SVigChr 50 (Leiden, 1999), 241-86. 14 So IgnSm 12,2; IgnMgn 6,1. 15 Vgl. IgnTral 2,3. 16 Vgl. IgnPhld 4,1 und passim: σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα. 17 Vgl. IgnSm 13,1. 18 Etwa IgnEph 7; 19; IgnPol 3. 19 Vgl. IgnEph 4,1f.; IgnRöm 2,2; IgnPhld 4,1; vgl. S. Heid, Altar und Kirche. Prinzipien christlicher Liturgie (Regensburg, 2019), 46-53, 96-7. 20 Hist. eccl. VI 8,10-2. 21 Vgl. Euseb. Caes., Hist. eccl. VII 30,6-11.

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der Löwen verwirklichen konnte. Aber es soll nicht vorgegriffen werden. Seine Bekanntschaft mit dem Evangelisten Johannes, die auch in diese Zeit fiel, scheint nicht so intensiv gewesen zu sein, wahrscheinlich weil Johannes bald mit Maria nach Ephesus übersiedelte. Ignatius deutet den Aufenthalt der Apostel Paulus und Johannes in dieser Stadt IgnEph 11,2 an.22 Erkennbar sind in den Briefen aber doch johanneische Traditionen, allerdings keine wörtlichen Zitate, denn das Evangelium ist erst vom Schülerkreis Jahrzehnte nach dem Tod des Johannes ergänzt und veröffentlicht worden; besonders fällt die Verwandtschaft der Eucharistielehre des Ignatius mit Joh. 6:51c-58 auf, einem erst um 150 n. Chr. von der johanneischen Schule ergänzten Textstück.23 Als Evodius im Jahre 69 plötzlich starb und wegen des Ausbruchs des jüdischen Krieges der Nachfolger des Herrenbruders Jakobus, Symeon, nicht zur Bischofsweihe nach Antiochia kommen konnte, zeigte sich, wie vorausschauend Jesus gehandelt hatte. Als Gemeinde und Klerus den bewährten Diakon einmütig als Nachfolger des Evodius wünschten, aber wegen des Mangels eines gültig Ordinierenden in Verlegenheit waren, konnte Ignatius auf die Handauflegung durch den Kirchengründer selbst hinweisen und wurde so rechtsgültig als Bischof installiert.24 Ignatius war damals etwa 45-9 Jahre alt. Leider haben wir über die mehr als 40 Jahre seiner bischöflichen Tätigkeit keine Nachrichten, weil er aus christlicher Bescheidenheit in seinen Briefen davon schweigt. Aus seiner Selbstbezeichnung als ‘Bischof Syriens’25 ergibt sich allerdings, dass durch seinen Missionseifer das Christentum bis an die Grenzen der römischen Provinz verbreitet wurde und er auch wohl weitere Suffraganbistümer gegründet hat. Das muss beispielhaft gewirkt haben, denn er kann später sagen, dass es Bischöfe bis an die Grenzen der Erde gebe.26 Nachzutragen ist in diesem Zusammenhang, dass Petrus kraft seiner ihm vom Herrn verliehenen päpstlichen Vollmacht (Matth. 16:18-9), als er nach dem Apostelkonzil von Jerusalem nach Antiochia kam, die dortigen gemeindlichen (in seinen Augen ungeordneten) Verhältnisse rigoros reformiert hat und dass diese petrinische Reform der tiefere Anlass für die Auseinandersetzung mit Paulus und dessen Weggang aus Antiochia war (Gal. 2:11-4). Denn bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt wurde die antiochenische Christengemeinde von Aposteln, Propheten und Lehrern geleitet, zu denen auch Paulus zählte (Apg. 13:1; 14:4). Unter Berufung auf seinen Primat hat Petrus die hierarchische Kirchenverfassung in Antiochia durchgesetzt und den Paulus, der die alte Ordnung nicht aufgeben 22

J.A. Fischer (Hrsg.), Die Apostolischen Väter (Darmstadt, 31959), 109-225, 151 mit Anm. 48. Vgl. David Trobisch, Die Endredaktion des Neuen Testaments. Eine Untersuchung zur Entstehung der christlichen Bibel (Freiburg i.d. Schweiz, 1996). 24 Vgl. hierzu weiter oben. Das Datum des Amtsantritts bei Eusebius, Chron. CCXII Olymp.; vgl. Thomas Lechner, Ignatius versus Valentinianos? Chronologische und theologiegeschichtliche Studien zu den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien (Leiden, 1999), 76. 25 IgnRom 2,2; vgl. IgnEph 21,2; IgnMgn 14; IgnTr 13,1. 26 IgnEph 3,2. 23

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wollte, zum Weggang gezwungen. Dieser hat jedoch in seinen Gemeinden die antiochenische charismatische Ordnung beibehalten, wie sich aus dem 1. Korintherbrief (12:28) ergibt. Und auch ein kleiner Teil der antiochenischen Gemeinde (und eventuell umliegender Dörfer) blieb noch Jahrzehnte danach bei der charismatischen Leitungsform und unterstellte sich nicht dem Bischof von Antiochia. Das lässt sich aus der aus derselben Stadt oder ihrer Umgebung stammenden, mit Ignatius gleichzeitigen Didache ersehen, welche die antiochenischen Apostel, Propheten und Lehrer lange beibehalten hat.27 Jüngere Forschungen gehen davon aus, dass diese Gemeinde in einen Stadtteil der Großstadt Antiochia abgedrängt, gewissermaßen ghettoisiert wurde.28 Das konnte umso leichter geschehen, als die Stadtteile von Antiochia jeweils durch eigene Mauern abgetrennt waren.29 Kein Wunder also, dass der antiochenische Papst in jedem seiner Briefe die Einheit der Kirche beschwört, die nur in der Unterordnung unter den Bischof und die Hierarchie garantiert ist. Denn ohne diese kann, wie er sagt, von Kirche nicht die Rede sein.30 Damit ist erwiesen, dass die Gemeinden des Paulus und die der Didache nicht zur katholischen Kirche gehörten. Ignatius scheint als Bischof jedoch ein enormes Ansehen und eine große Machtfülle erreicht zu haben, die auch den Heiden Antiochias bekannt geworden sein muss. Denn nur so ist es zu erklären, dass der Kaiser Trajan, als ihm während eines Aufenthalts in Antiochia Ignatius von den neidischen Heiden als Verächter ihrer Götter und Verführer der Menschen angezeigt worden war, diesem, um ihn zum Abfall zu bewegen, sein eigenes Amt als Pontifex Maximus des Zeus übertragen und ihn gewissermaßen zum Mitregenten erheben wollte, wenn er nur mit ihm den Göttern opferte, was zweifellos einen großen Werbeeffekt bewirkt hätte. Mit dem Hinweis darauf, dass er Priester des höchsten Vaters und des einzigen Hohenpriesters, seines Gottes Jesus Christus sei,31 hat Ignatius dieses nichtswürdige Angebot abgelehnt, sehnsüchtig danach verlangend, als Ganzopfer seinem Gott Jesus Christus dargebracht zu werden.32 Ignatius bestätigt in seinem Brief an die Römer (6:1) dieses schier unvorstellbare Herrschaftsangebot des Kaisers Trajan, wenn er schreibt: ‘Nichts werden mir nützen die Enden der Welt und auch nicht die Kaiserreiche dieses Äons. Gut ist es für mich, in Jesus Christus zu sterben, besser als Kaiser zu sein über die Enden der Erde!’ Was so unglaublich, um nicht zu sagen, verrückt klingt, 27

Vgl. Did. 11-3. Vgl. N. Jefford, ‘The Milieu of Matthew, the Didache, and Ignatius of Antioch’, in H. van de Sandt (Hrsg.), Matthew and the Didache. Two Documents from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu? (Assen, Minneapolis, 2005), 35-47. 29 Vgl. A. Wittke, ‘Antiocheia. 1, am Orontes’, DNP 1 (1996), 762-3. 30 Vgl. IgnTr 3,1. 31 Mart. Metaphr. 5 (Martyrium Ignatii per Symeon Metaphrasten conscriptum, hrsg. von. F. Diekamp, Patres Apostolici 2 [Tübingen, 1913], 383-96); vgl. IgnRom Inscr., IgnPhilad 9,1. 32 Mart. Metaphr. 5,2-3; vgl. IgnRom 4,2. 28

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war für ihn reale Möglichkeit, und ‘verrückt’ in den Augen des Kaisers war es, diese Möglichkeit auszuschlagen und in irrwitzigem Fanatismus – so musste das Trajan sehen – bereit zu sein, aus Liebe zu dem für ihn gekreuzigten Gott, nach tausend Toden zu verlangen, wie er auch bald den Römern schreiben wird: ‘Feuer und Kreuz und Rudel von Bestien, Zerreißen der Knochen, Zerschlagen der Glieder, Zermalmung des ganzen Körpers, des Teufels (!) böse Strafen sollen über mich kommen, damit ich nur Jesus Christus erlange’.33 Von den ersehnten Todesarten konnte ihm Kaiser Trajan, der mit Kopfschütteln sein großmütiges Angebot ausgeschlagen sah, allerdings nur eine gewähren: Ignatius wurde, damit sein Martyrertod ihm nicht noch mehr Ruhm und Ehre bei den Einwohnern Antiochias verschaffte, zum Tierkampf in Rom verurteilt.34 Christen wurden zwar erst unter Marcus Aurelius zum Tierkampf verurteilt,35 aber Kaiser Trajan hat Ignatius zuliebe der Geschichte vorgegriffen. Der Bischof muss zu dieser Zeit etwa 85 Jahre alt, aber noch außerordentlich robust gewesen sein. Denn den kostspieligen Aufwand eines so weiten Transports eines Verurteilten zum Tierkampf nach Rom leistete sich der Staat nur im Falle kraftstrotzender Strafgefangener, die zum Vergnügen der Zuschauer den Bestien lange Widerstand leisten konnten. Und offenbar fühlte der Greis diese Kraft noch in sich, da er den Römern schreibt, ‘er werde den bereitgehaltenen Bestien schmeicheln’ und ‘sollten sie nicht freiwillig’ anspringen, ‘werde er sie mit Gewalt herbeizwingen’.36 Auch geistig war Ignatius, wie die Briefe zeigen, voll auf der Höhe, plante er doch noch weitere Publikationen über seine Briefe hinaus, wie er im Brief and die Epheser erwähnt.37 O wunderbare Kraft des auserwählten Martyrers! In Ketten gelegt und Tag und Nacht an eine Soldatenabteilung von zehn schikanösen ‘Leoparden’ gefesselt, wird er, teils zu Wasser, teils auf dem Landweg,38 nach Smyrna geschafft, kann aber während des Transports sich doch des Ehrengeleits von Diakonen der berühmten Gemeinden erfreuen und trotz der schweren Bewachung in ihren Kirchen predigen.39 In Smyrna wird er von Bischof Polykarp, seinem ehemaligen Mitschüler beim Evangelisten Johannes in Antiochia,40 freudig begrüßt. Über die Zeit seines Aufenthalts in Smyrna sind wir durch die Briefe, die er den Bischofs- Presbyter- und Diakonengesandtschaften der westkleinasiatischen 33

IgnRom 5,3; Übers. Fischer; vgl. Mart. Metaphr. 6,2-7,1. Vgl. Mart. Metaphr. 8-9. 35 H. Grégoire, Les persécutions dans l’Empire Romain (Brüssel, 21964), 105-6; R. Joly, Le dossier d’Ignace d’Antioche (Brüssel, 1979), 50-1. 36 IgnRom 5,2. 37 IgnEph 20,1: Ἐάν με καταξιώσῃ Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐν τῇ προσευχῇ ὑμῶν καὶ θέλημα ᾖ, ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ βιβλιδίῳ, ὃ μέλλω γράφειν ὑμῖν… 38 Vgl. IgnRom 5,1. 39 Vgl. IgnPhilad 11; IgnSm 10,1. 40 Vgl. Mart. Antioch. 3,1 (Martyrium Antiochenum [Colbertinum] Ignatii, hrsg. von F. Diekamp, Patres Apostolici 2 [Tübingen, 1913], 324-38). 34

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Kirchen mitgibt (IgnEph, IgnMg, IgnTr) oder von Troas aus an sie richtet (IgnPhilad, IgnSm), gut unterrichtet. Bekanntes braucht hier nicht ausgebreitet zu werden. Nur einige bislang, soweit der Verfasser sieht, nicht gebührend gewürdigte Tatsachen sollen hervorgehoben werden. Das ist zuerst die prophetische Begabung: Ignatius ist sich voll bewusst, dass ‘der Geist des Vaters’ aus ihm spricht, seit er vor den Kaiser Trajan geführt wurde.41 Er ist nun ‘Gottesträger’, Theophoros. Er ist ‘Logos Gottes’,42 ‘er schreit’ in den Gemeinden ‘mit gewaltiger, mit Gottes Stimme’43 die Verkündigung des Geistes hinaus. Aber er kann nicht alle ‘himmlischen Dinge’, die er schaut, mitteilen, sonst würden die unmündigen Christen ‘stranguliert: die himmlischen Platzordnungen der Engel und die Systeme der Archonten’, die er schon so gut kennt wie die späteren Gnostiker, muss er verschweigen.44 Eine Folge seines Prophetismus ist sein praktischer Sinn für die Wirklichkeit, das heißt für die Schwächen der Mitchristen, für die er sehr handfeste Verhaltensregeln parat hat. So wünscht er der Hausgemeinschaft der Tavia in Smyrna, deren Gast er wohl gewesen ist, ‘tüchtig auszuruhen in fleischlicher und geistlicher Liebe’,45 wie er auch der gesamten Gemeinde von Smyrna ans Herz legt, ‘gemeinsam zu arbeiten, miteinander zu leiden, miteinander zu schlafen, gemeinsam (vom Schlafe) aufzustehen’.46 Aus seinem Brief an die Kirche von Smyrna, den er von Troas aus schreibt, gewinnt man den Eindruck, dass er mit dem geistigen und moralischen Zustand dieser Kirche nicht sehr zufrieden war – trotz seines Lobes im Eingang des Briefes. Denn er beginnt nicht etwa, wie man es erwarten sollte, mit einer Danksagung für die so lange genossene Gastfreundschaft, sondern – so als ob er nie dort gewesen wäre, vielmehr Unbekannten schriebe – mit grundsätzlichen theologischen Erörterungen über die Glaubensregel, Warnungen vor den, wie er offenbar voraussah, ein halbes Jahrhundert später auftauchenden gnostischen Häretikern, Ermahnungen zur Unterordnung unter die Hierarchie, insbesondere den Bischof der katholischen Kirche,47 und erst dann erwähnt er in ein, zwei Zeilen die empfangenen Wohltaten und entschließt sich zu dem Wort: ‘Gott mag es euch vergelten’.48 Was hier als unhöfliche Gedankenlosigkeit, ja Ruppigkeit anmuten könnte, ist nur Folge der ihn vollkommen erfüllenden Sehnsucht, auf dem ‘Altar’ des Martyriums, gleichsam zu Rauch verzehrt, in Gott aufzugehen49 und dadurch als ‘Geist’ zum ‘Lösegeld’ für das Seelenheil der Angeredeten zu werden.50 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Vgl. IgnPhilad 7,2; vgl. Matth. 10:18-20 par. IgnRom 2,1. IgnPhilad 7,1. Vgl. IgnTr 5. IgnSm 13,2, die Betonung liegt hier auf ‘geistlich’. IgnPol 6,1. IgnSm 1-9,1. IgnSm 9,2; vgl. ebd. 10,1. Vgl. IgnRom 2,2. IgnSm 10,2.

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Das will er ‘in jeder Hinsicht’ auch für Polykarp sein, damit dieser ‘Unvergänglichkeit und ewiges Leben’ erlange.51 Diesem, nach seinen Äußerungen zu urteilen, in mehrfacher Hinsicht wohl etwas schwerfälligen, um nicht zu sagen einfältigen Bischof, legt er ans Herz, nicht einzuschlafen, sondern zu wachen und schneller zu werden: um mehr Verstand zu beten, als er besitze – der Herr ertrage ihn ja52 – überhaupt ‘eifriger zu werden als er es sei, und zu erkennen, was die Zeit erfordere’.53 Er ermahnt ihn sogar – ob das wirklich nötig war? – die (teuflischen) Künste oder Machenschaften zu lassen und besser darüber eine Homilie zu halten.54 Fest wie ein Amboss müsse er die eintreffenden Schläge aushalten.55 Ob ihn wohl Bischof Polykarp enttäuscht oder gar durch zu geringen Eifer verärgert hat?56 Denn wie wenn er ihm nicht genug zutraute, wendet er sich in diesem ‘Dankesbrief’ – der, nebenbei bemerkt, vor allem Ermahnungen und Befehle, nicht ein einziges eigentliches Dankeswort, nicht einmal einen Schlussgruß an seinen ehemaligen Gastgeber enthält – unvermittelt an die Gemeinde und regelt vor allem mit ihr – Polykarp erhält noch zweimal eine direkte Anweisung –, dass Eilboten (‘Schnellläufer Gottes’) mit Glückwunschschreiben von Smyrna und weiteren zu mobilisierenden Kirchen unverzüglich nach Antiochia aufbrechen sollten, um der dortigen Kirche zum inzwischen hergestellten Frieden zu gratulieren. Dann grüßt er ‘namentlich’ noch zahlreiche Mitglieder der katholischen Kirche von Smyrna, indem er sie dem ‘Bischofsamt Gottes’ – nicht Polykarps! – empfiehlt, zuletzt, wie schon im Brief an die Gemeinde,57 den ihm ‘teuren Namen Alke’, eine hochgestellte Christin, die mehr als fünfzig Jahre später bei Tod und Begräbnis Polykarps zugegen sein wird.58 Das lässt sich den letzten drei Kapiteln des Briefes an Polykarp entnehmen. Im übrigen hat sich der hellsichtige Ignatius über die Zögerlichkeit seines Gastgebers nicht getäuscht, denn auf die in einem zweiten, von Philippi aus expedierten Brief nochmals geäußerte Bitte, die Eilboten mit den Glückwunschschreiben nach Antiochia zu schicken, antwortete Polykarp, er wollte das tun, ‘wenn er dafür eine passende Gelegenheit finde’!59 Noch viel größer könnte die Enttäuschung des antiochenischen Bischofs, der glühend danach verlangte, 51

IgnPol 2,3. Vgl. IgnPol 1,2-3. 53 IgnPol 3,2. 54 Vgl. IgnPol 5,1; vgl. IgnPhilad 6,2. 55 IgnPol 3,1. 56 Die Mitteilungen (kein Dankeswort, kein Gruß, der Adressatenwechsel) sprechen nicht für eine freundschaftliche Kritik. 57 Vgl. IgnSm 13,2. 58 Vgl. Mart. Pol. 17,2; vgl. R. Joly, Le dossier d’Ignace d’Antioche (1979), 119; W.R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch. A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch (Philadelphia, 1985), 253; Otto Zwierlein, Die Urfassungen der Martyria Polycarpi et Pionii und das Corpus Polycarpianum, Bd. 2 (Berlin, 2014), 122-3. 59 Polyc., Ep. ad Phil. 13,1. 52

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von den Zähnen der Tiere zu Brei gemahlen und zu ‘Brot Gottes’ gebacken zu werden,60 gewesen sein, wenn er in seinem prophetischen Geist erschaute, dass Polykarp, wenn dereinst der heidnische Pöbel ihn zum Tierkampf ins Stadion fordern werde, vor seinen Häschern fliehen und sich tagelang an verschiedenen Orten verstecken werde,61 ohne im geringsten sich des Beispiels des Martyrers Ignatius zu erinnern! – Aber wir wollen annehmen, dass unserem Helden diese Enttäuschung erspart geblieben ist. Dagegen lassen sich andere, wahrhaft staunenswerte Wirkungen seiner prophetischen Begabung mit absoluter Sicherheit feststellen. Der Martyrer sah voraus, dass spätere Theologen viele seiner Worte als für die eigene Zeit nützlich empfinden würden, und so formulierte er sie bereits im Hinblick auf deren zukünftige Situation: Im ‘Hirten’ des römischen Hermas klingen sie wider,62 ebenso wie im Martyrium Polycarpi63 und im Bericht der Kirchen von Vienne und Lyon über die Martyrer des Jahres 177 daselbst.64 Der später berühmt gewordene Erzketzer Markion greift auf die von Ignatius erfundene Selbstbezeichnung ‘Christentum’ zurück, um sie für sich zu reklamieren und sich noch deutlicher als Ignatius vom ‘Judentum’ abzusetzen.65 Und um sich den Schein frommer Orthodoxie zu geben, hat sogar der zur Zeit des Irenaeus im westlichen Kleinasien sein Unwesen treibende valentinianische Häretiker Marcus Magus das Vokabular der Briefe des Ignatius aufgegriffen!66 Dass aber Ignatius auch einem der Nachfolger des Polykarp, Noëtus, und über diesen dessen Zeitgenossen Melito von Sardis, weiter den namenlosen Verfassern der Petrus- und Paulusakten, ja selbst dem großen Irenaeus, dem Tertullian und Papst Kallistus die rechten Worte in ihrem Kampf gegen die gnostischen Irrlehrer vorformulieren konnte, darf man dankbar als Wirkung des prophetischen Geistes dieses Martyrers erkennen. Es ist nun noch abschließend von Tod und Begräbnis des Heiligen zu berichten – vielmehr davon, wie er sich beides gewünscht hat, denn von seinem Tode wissen wir leider nichts: Die sicheren Nachrichten enden mit dem zuletzt augeschöpften, von Troas aus geschriebenen Brief an Polykarp. Irenaeus, der als 60

IgnRom 4,4. Vgl. Mart. Pol. 5-7, hrsg. von O. Zwierlein, Die Urfassungen der Martyria Polycarpi et Pionii und das Corpus Polycarpianum, Bd. 1 (Berlin, 2014), 6. 62 Vgl. Theodor Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien (Gotha, 1873), 616-20; R. Joly, Le dossier d’Ignace d’Antioche (1979), 118; O. Zwierlein, Die Urfassungen der Martyria Polycarpi et Pionii und das Corpus Polycarpianum, Bd. 2 (2014), 397-405. 63 Vgl. J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers 2. S. I., S. Polycarp (1885, 21889), 137; R. Joly, Le dossier d’Ignace d’Antioche (1979), 116-20. 64 Vgl. J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers 2. S. I., S. Polycarp (1885, 21889), 141. 65 Vgl. Markus Vinzent, ‘Ignatius of Antioch on Judaism and Christianity’, in Claudia Kampmann, Ulrich Volp, Martin Wallraff und Julia Winnebeck (Hrsg.), Kirchengeschichte. Historisches Spezialgebiet und/oder theologische Disziplin, Theologie, Kultur, Hermeneutik 28 (Leipzig, 2020), 61-80. 66 Th. Lechner, Ignatius versus Valentinianos? (1999), 270-300. 61

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Knabe zu Füßen des von ihm zeitlebens hochverehrten Bischofs von Smyrna gesessen und seine Worte bis ins hohe Alter bewahrt hat,67 kennt dessen berühmten bischöflichen Gast aus Syrien nicht, er weiß aus dessen Brief an die Römer nur von einer Verurteilung ad bestias;68 er hat, als er 177 in Rom weilte (wo ihm auch der besagte Römerbrief in die Hände gekommen sein muss), nichts von einem Martyrer Ignatius gehört und auch kein Grab gesehen. Und Symeon Metaphrastes lässt in seinem Martyriumsbericht (Kap. 8) durchblicken – und das ist ihm offensichtlich peinlich –, dass der den Römern noch im 10. Jahrhundert unbekannte Martyrer nicht einmal die kürzeste Zeit nach seinem Tod irgendeiner Verehrung gewürdigt worden sei. So hat sich denn die weitere prophetische Vorausschau im sehnlichen Wunsch des Ignatius erfüllt, dass ‘die Bestien ihm zum Grabe würden und nichts von seinem Leibe übrig ließen’, damit die römischen Christen keine Beschwernis mit der Bestattung seines Leichnams hätten;69 das werde sein wahrer Geburtstag sein.70 Doch – zum Nutzen der heiligen Kirche von Antiochia – haben die Löwen ‘durch die Gnade des Martyrers’ ‘einige von den härteren Knochen’ des greisen Gottesathleten übrig gelassen. Dieser kostbare Schatz wurde – ‘offenbar ohne Wissen der römischen Christen’ – von den uns unbekannten, dem Martyrer nach Rom vorausgeeilten antiochenischen Boten71 geborgen und sogleich nach Antiochia gebracht.72 Auf diese Weise wurde von Gott dem Verlangen des Heiligen, den römischen Christen nicht zur Last zu sein, stattgegeben und dennoch der Syrisch-orthodoxen Kirche von Antiochia das Grab des dritten, von Jesus selbst eingesetzten Papstes geschenkt.

67

Vgl. Euseb. Caes., Hist. eccl. V 20. Iren., Adv. haer. V 28,4. 69 IgnRom 4,2. 70 IgnRom 6,1; vgl. S. Heid, ‘Märtyrergrab im Römerbrief des Ignatius’, in C. Gnilka, S. Heid und R. Riesner, Blutzeuge. Tod und Grab des Petrus in Rom (Regensburg, 22015), 81-197. 71 Vgl. IgnRom 10,2. 72 Mart. Antioch. 8,6; Evagrius Scholasticus, Hist. eccl. 1,16. 68

THE SECOND AND THIRD CENTURIES

The Epistle of Barnabas and the Origins of the Accusation that the Jews Killed Jesus J. Christopher EDWARDS, St Francis College, Brooklyn, NY, USA

ABSTRACT Following a trend which becomes disturbingly common in later NT and Early Christian literature, the Epistle of Barnabas affixes blame for killing Jesus on his opponents, variously labelled ‘Israel’, ‘a synagogue of evil people’, or most frequently ‘them’. The accusation that Israel, or Jews, are directly responsible for inflicting Jesus’ wounds ostensibly began alongside the desire to remove culpability from Pilate, since the detail that Jesus was crucified by a Roman official for political crimes would cause difficulties for Christian evangelism in the Roman world. The desire to shield Roman officials is easily observed in the canonical gospels. However, the author of Barnabas offers another rationale. He asserts that Israel killed Jesus because God himself predictively accused Israel of abusing and crucifying Jesus: ‘God says that the wounds of his flesh came from them’ (Barn. 5.12b). This scripturally based accusation does not appear in the canonical literature. It most likely originates in the late first or early second century, and Barnabas is its earliest extant witness. Early Christians, who desired to adjust their collective memories and shield Roman officials, ultimately found it necessary to establish a scriptural foundation for the accusation that the Israel killed Jesus, to demonstrate that ‘God says that the wounds of his flesh came from them’.

The Epistle of Barnabas is an enigmatic early Christian letter, probably written in the early to mid-second century within an Egyptian context. It was considered a scriptural text by some of the fathers, and it is included in one of our earliest collections of biblical writings, Codex Sinaiticus. Ultimately, however, it does not make the team of New Testament scriptures, and honestly this is for the best.1 Early scholarship on Barnabas focused on standard introductory questions, such as authorship, provenance and especially dating.2 There were also important 1 This essay follows Michael W. Holmes’ translation of Barnabas into English (The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, 3rd ed. [Grand Rapids, 2007], 380-441). New Testament translations come from the NRSV. 2 Barnabas must have been written sometime between 70 AD and the end of the second century since Barn. 16.3-5 references the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, and Clement of Alexandria is the earliest witness to Barnabas. Attempts to offer a more precise date are based on Barn. 4.4-5 and 16.3-4. Barn. 4.4-5 cites Daniel’s prophecy concerning the humiliation of three

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projects during the mid-20th century consumed with source-critical approaches that questioned the literary unity of the epistle.3 More recent research has centered on the purpose of Barnabas, either as an exhortation to proper ethics, or more frequently as a polemic against Judaism. One of the first things that stands out to the reader of Barnabas is its polemical tone. The language of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ is ubiquitous within the epistle. The author of Barnabas sees himself and his audience in a conflict, either real or imagined, with Jewish communities. So, in addition to ‘them’, the author variously labels his opponents as ‘Israel’ and ‘a synagogue of evil people’.4 Further, the author insists that religious practices, such as Sabbath, fasting, circumcision, food regulations, and sacrifice (Barn. 2-3, 9, 10), represent profound misunderstandings of the scriptures (e.g. Barn. 10.9). The author also insists that the Jerusalem Temple was never a dwelling place for God (Barn. 16). Perhaps most importantly, the author claims his opponents do not possess a covenant with God, since they forfeited it at Sinai when Moses smashed the stone tablets as a result of the people’s idolatry (Barn. 4.6-8; 14.1-4). There are numerous Jesus traditions scattered throughout Barnabas, and a majority of these concern his suffering and death. Unsurprisingly, given Barnabas’ polemical tone, the author blames Israel for inflicting Jesus’ wounds. This accusation follows a trend which becomes increasingly common in later New Testament and Early Christian literature. The original accusation that Israel is directly responsible for inflicting Jesus’ wounds ostensibly began alongside the desire to remove culpability from Pilate, since the detail that Jesus was crucified by a Roman official for political crimes would cause difficulties for Christian evangelism in the Roman world. The gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John emphasize that Pilate is reluctant to order Jesus’ death: Pilate declares Jesus innocent (Luke 23:4, 14-5, 22; John 18:38; kings, which could be a reference to the humiliation of three Roman emperors, although there is no agreement on which three. Barn. 16.3-4 recognizes an effort to rebuild the Jerusalem temple, but there are difficulties matching this text with a particular building project. While the ambiguous nature of the evidence for a precise date will likely never produce a scholarly consensus, there are clusters of support around the reigns of Vespasian, Nerva, and especially Hadrian, whose construction of the temple to Jupiter in his Aelia Capitolina is thought to match the temple construction mentioned in 16.3-4. 3 E.g. Robert Alan Kraft, ‘The Epistle of Barnabas: Its Quotations and Their Sources’, PhD diss. (Harvard, 1961); Pierre Prigent, Les Testimonia dans le Christianisme Primitif: L’Épitre de Barnabé I-XVI et ses Sources (Paris, 1961); Klaus Wengst, Tradition und Theologie des Barnabasbriefes, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 42 (Berlin, 1971). 4 It is frequently noted that the vocabulary of ‘Jew’ or ‘Judaism’ never occurs in Barnabas. However, James N. Rhodes points out that ‘with a single exception (9.2), L consistently renders Ἰσραήλ as “Iudaei” (6:7; 8:3; 12:2) or “populus Iudaeorum” (4:14; 5:2, 8; 8:1; 11:1; 12:2, 5; 16:5)’ (The Epistle of Barnabas and the Deuteronomic Tradition: Polemics, Paraenesis, and the Legacy of the Golden-Calf Incident, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2/188 [Tübingen, 2004], 27, n. 74).

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19:4, 6); he tries to release Jesus, while being warned by his wife not be involved in Jesus’ prosecution (Matt. 27:15-23); he washes his hands of Jesus’ blood (Matt. 27:24).5 In all four canonical gospels, the Jewish crowds demand that Jesus be crucified, and in Matthew they famously request that ‘his blood be on us and on our children’ (Matt. 27:25). The gospels of Mark and Matthew specify that when Jesus is handed over to be crucified, he is handed over to the Roman soldiers (Mark 15:16-20; Matt. 27:27-31). In the later gospels of John and Luke, this detail is absent, with the result that the reader suspects Jewish involvement in the actual crucifixion of Jesus. John 19:16-8 states that ‘he [Pilate] handed him over to them [the Jews] to be crucified. So they took Jesus […] they crucified him’. Later John states that the soldiers crucified Jesus (19:23), but a reader might reasonably assume this was a group effort. Similarly, in Luke 23:25-6, 33 it remains unspecified who ‘they’ are who lead Jesus away and crucify him, and Luke portrays the Jewish leaders as together with the soldiers mocking Jesus after he is on the cross (23:35-7).6 The ambiguity in Luke is slightly clarified in Acts 2:23, when Peter accuses those gathered in Jerusalem of crucifying and killing Jesus ‘by the hands of those outside the law’, though this important detail is missing from many similar accusations elsewhere in Acts (see 3:13-7; 4:10, 27-8; 5:30; 7:52; 10:39; 13:27-9). In addition to the canonical narrative literature, 1Thess. 2:14-5 accuses the Judean Jews of having ‘killed the Lord Jesus’. This accusation is likely a later non-Pauline interpolation.7 Not long after the writing of John and Luke/Acts, other second-century Christians begin to remove the Romans entirely from the scene and portray the Jews as unquestionably the ones who inflict Jesus’ physical punishment. For example, Gos. Pet. 1-17 clearly identifies the Jews as those to whom Pilate delivers Jesus. They abuse him, beat him, flog him, and then crucify him. Similarly, Justin Martyr states, ‘Jesus Christ stretched forth his hands, being crucified by the Jews speaking against him, and denying that he was the Christ’ (1Apol. 35 [ANF 1.174]).8 Given this data, Barnabas’ accusation that Jews killed Jesus is not at all surprising. In fact, Barnabas’ accusation places 5

If partially authentic, Josephus’ claim that Pilate condemned Jesus to the cross could have been made in response to efforts by Christians to absolve him (Ant. 18.3.3). I am thankful to Stephen C. Carlson for mentioning this possibility to me. 6 However, see Luke 18:32-3. 7 See Birger A. Pearson, ‘1 Thessalonians 2:13-16: A Deutero-Pauline Interpolation’, HTR 64 (1971), 79-94. 8 For other accusations in Justin, see 1Apol. 36, 49; Dial. 14, 16, 17, 93. For a fuller discussion of these second-century texts, along with many others, see Timothy P. Henderson, The Gospel of Peter and Early Christian Apologetics, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2/301 (Tübingen, 2011), 78-88. The common designation of the Jews as the executioners of Jesus in much later Christian gospels is easily perceived when reading through Bart D. Ehrman and Zlatko Pleše, eds. and trans., The Other Gospels: Accounts of Jesus from Outside the New Testament (Oxford, 2014).

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the epistle comfortably alongside later New Testament and second-century Christian literature. What makes Barnabas’ accusation distinctive is its rationale. The author of Barnabas is the first writer to assert that Israel killed Jesus because that is what the scriptures said they would do. Barn. 5.12b reads: ‘God says that the wounds of his flesh came from them’.9 Of course, early Christians frequently used scripture to demonstrate the details of the passion, but Barnabas is the earliest extant text to ground in divine prophecy the specific detail of Jewish involvement in the crucifixion of Jesus. It makes sense that the accusation that the Jews killed Jesus would eventually be grounded in a Christian reading of scripture, since a great many details of Jesus’ passion were formed through reflection upon the scripture. Helmut Koester states: ‘one can assume that the only historical information about Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion, and death was that he was condemned to death by Pilate and crucified. The details and individual scenes of the narrative do not rest on historical memory, but were developed on the basis of an allegorical interpretation of Scripture’.10 Perhaps allegory is not the best word to describe all the ways in which early Christians used the scripture to discover the details of Jesus’ passion, but the force of Koester’s statement is certainly correct. Early Christians filled in the details of the passion based on the assumption that the manner of Jesus’ death was predicted in the scriptures. For example, it is very likely not because of the memory of an eye witness that Jesus is portrayed as saying: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:34; Matt. 27:46). Rather, early Christians read Ps. 22:1 and concluded that this must be a prefiguration of the words of Jesus upon the cross; they concluded that God revealed in the scriptures that Jesus would say these words upon the cross. This same point can be made about the thirty pieces of silver, the choice of Barabbas, the casting of lots for Jesus’ garments, and a good many of the other details related to Jesus’ passion and ministry.11 Therefore, it is no surprise 9 While Barnabas is the earliest extant witness to this rationale, there is a similar statement made by Justin, who says in Dial. 96: ‘God foretold that which would be done by you all […]’. 10 Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (London, 1990), 224. Koester goes on to state: ‘The earliest stage and, at the same time, the best example of such scriptural interpretation is preserved in the Epistle of Barnabas’ (ibid.). In my view, this statement is too strong. 11 On this point, I agree with John Dominic Crossan that many of the details of the passion account are prophecy historicized (Who Killed Jesus?: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus [San Francisco, 1995], 1-6). For Crossan’s scheme on the creation of the passion, see The Cross that Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative (San Francisco, 1988), 114-233. I disagree with Crossan that there exists a ‘Cross Gospel’ buried within the Gospel of Peter, which is among the earliest representatives of this historicizing process. For a discussion of Crossan’s thesis, see Paul Foster, The Gospel of Peter: Introduction, Critical Edition and Commentary, Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 4 (Leiden, 2010), 124-9.

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that the early Christian accusation that the Jews killed Jesus, which is simply another detail in the passion narrative, is created within early Christian communities, who are motivated to remove guilt from Pilate and the soldiers, and who discover in their reading, and redacting, of scripture a person who suffers at the hands of Israel. They conclude that this suffering is the divine disclosure of the future detail that Jesus would suffer at the hands of Israel. Or as Barnabas puts it: ‘God says that the wounds of his flesh came from them’. There are a few places in Barn. 5-8 where the author draws on the scriptures to demonstrate that God foretold that Jesus’ wounds would come from his opponents. They are Barn. 5.12b-14c; 6.6-7; 7.4-5, 8-9. Barn. 5.12b-14c: God says that the wounds of his flesh came from them. ‘When they strike down their own shepherd, then the sheep of the flock will perish’ (Zech. 13:7). But He himself desired to suffer in this manner, for it was necessary for him to suffer on a tree. For the one who prophesies says concerning him: ‘Spare my soul from the sword’ (Ps. 22:20), and ‘Pierce my flesh with nails (Ps. 118:120a LXX; Ps. 22:16c), for a synagogue of evildoers has risen up against me’ (Ps. 22:16b). And again he says: ‘Behold, I have given my back to whips, and my cheeks to blows’ (Isa. 50:6). Barn. 6.6-7: What, then does the prophet again say? ‘A synagogue of evildoers has surrounded me (Ps. 22:16b), they have swarmed around me like bees around a honeycomb’ (Ps. 118:12), and ‘For my garments they cast lots’ (Ps. 22:18). Therefore, inasmuch as he was about to be revealed and to suffer in the flesh, his suffering was revealed in advance. For the prophet says concerning Israel: ‘Woe to their soul, for they have plotted an evil plot against themselves by saying, “Let us bind the righteous one because he is troublesome to us”’ (Isa. 3:9-10 LXX). Barn. 7.4-5: What, therefore, does he say in the prophet? ‘[…] and let all the priests (but only them) eat the unwashed intestines with vinegar’ (source unknown). Why? ‘Since you are going to give me, when I am about to offer my flesh for the sins of my new people, gall with vinegar to drink […]’. This was to show that he must suffer at their hands. Barn. 7.8-9: ‘And all of you shall spit upon it [the scapegoat] and pierce it, and tie scarlet wool around its head […].’ (Lev. 16:10, 20-2) For they will see him on that day, wearing a long scarlet robe about his body, and they will say, ‘Is this not the one whom we once crucified, insulting and piercing and spitting on him?’

It is likely that Barnabas is at least in part the originator of this new scripturally based accusation. In several of the texts just quoted, the author is suspected of making edits and interpretive innovations in order for them to function as proof that ‘the wounds of his flesh came from them’. For example, the author quotes Zech. 13:7 as stating, ‘When they strike down their own shepherd, then the sheep of the flock will perish’. This version of the verse differs significantly from the version quoted in Mark 14:27, Matt. 26:31, and Justin, Dial. 53.6. The synoptic version reads: ‘I strike down’ (πατάξω); Justin reads: ‘Strike down’ (πάταξον), and Barn. reads: ‘they strike down’ (πατάξωσιν). The author

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of Barnabas has either found a version of Zech. 13:7 that reads πατάξωσιν, or, more likely, he has redacted the text himself so that it supports his thesis that God predicted that ‘they’ would strike down Jesus. Second, the author’s proof-text for his assertion regarding Jesus’ necessary suffering ‘on a tree’ is a conglomeration of verses from Ps. 22 (21 LXX) and Ps. 119 (118 LXX): ‘“Spare my soul from the sword” [Ps. 22:20], and “Pierce my flesh with nails” [Ps. 118:120a LXX; Ps. 22:16c], “for a synagogue of evildoers has risen up against me” [Ps. 22:16b].’12 Naomi Koltun-Fromm observes that while various verses from Ps. 22 feature prominently in the presentation of Jesus in the canonical gospels, specifically verses 1, 7-8, 18, absent is any appeal to Ps. 22:16c.13 This is probably because the canonical authors understood the key word from Ps. 22:16c (21:17c LXX), ὤρυξαν, to mean ‘dig’ rather than ‘pierce’.14 Barnabas opens the possibility of a new meaning for ὤρυξαν by working the clause from Ps. 118:120a LXX, καθήλωσόν μου τὰς σάρκας (‘Pierce my flesh with nails’), into the exegesis of Ps. 22.15 This paves the way for later interpreters, like Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Aphrahat to assume that the clause in Ps. 22:16c, ὤρυξαν χεῖράς μου καὶ πόδος, means ‘They pierced my hands and feet’.16 So Barnabas is responsible for combining verses in a new way which allows him to state that a synagogue of evildoers has pierced Jesus’ hands and feet. Such interpretive innovations mean that Barnabas is not only the earliest extant witness to the assertion that Israel killed Jesus because that is what the scriptures said they would do, he also may be its origin. In conclusion, the early Christian accusation that the Jews killed Jesus rests on two pillars. The first is the desire to shield Roman officials. The effort to minimize the guilt of Pilate, and later the soldiers, is easily observed in the canonical gospels, as discussed earlier. The second pillar is the conviction that God himself predictively accused Jews of abusing and crucifying Jesus. We do not find evidence of this second pillar in the canonical literature. It most likely originates in the late first or early second century, and the texts from Barnabas quoted above are the earliest extant witness to this new scripturally based While the term, συναγωγή, is non-specific in the Psalm itself, it is almost certainly used negatively by the author as a reference to the Jewish identity of Jesus’ assailants. The author identifies his own group as part of the ἐκκλησία (6.16; 7.11). Quoting Ps. 22:16 to say that a synagogue of evildoers has ‘risen up against me’ (ἐπανέστησάν μοι) does not match the LXX, which reads ‘surrounded me’ (περιέσχεν με). The author again quotes Ps. 22:16 in Barn. 6.6 with ‘surrounded me’ which suggests that the version in 5.13 has been edited by the author for rhetorical effect. 13 ‘Psalm 22’s Christological Interpretive Tradition in Light of Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic’, JECS 6 (1998), 37-38. 14 See Mark 12:1; Matt. 21:33; 25:18. 15 In Barn. 6.6, the author again uses a later Psalm, 117:12 LXX, to enhance his understanding of Ps. 22:16. 16 Ibid., 46-51. Also see John 19:37, which connects Jesus’ pierced side to Zech. 12:10. 12

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accusation. While the first pillar precedes the second chronologically, the second pillar is ultimately decisive for grounding the desire of the first. It was ultimately necessary for Christians who desired to adjust their collective memories and shield Roman officials to establish a scriptural foundation for the accusation that the Jews killed Jesus, to demonstrate that ‘God says that the wounds of his flesh came from them’.

The Relationship of Purpose, Occasion, and Structure in Irenaeus’ Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching Robert A. LANE, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, TX, USA

ABSTRACT The scholarly consensus concerning the structure of Irenaeus’ Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching is that the writing is composed of two sections, a ‘narratival’ presentation of the truth and a ‘proof from prophecy’ of the truth. This structure has led to a number of possible purposes, including pedagogical, catechetical, hermeneutical, and apologetic proposals. James B. Wiegel’s ‘The Trinitarian Structure of Irenaeus’ Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching’ challenged this consensus, stimulating renewed interest in this writing. After reviewing Wiegel’s article as well as those of two earlier scholars, Susan L. Graham and Thomas F. Torrance, who have also challenged the consensus in different ways, Demonstration is analyzed in light of the three-part proposal. The close connection between the three-part Rule of Faith, the three-part structure and the specific content of each part appears to indicate that these are not directly related to any of the proposed purposes. Instead, it is the occasion of the writing, the appearance of people who have heretical understandings of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that guided the arrangement. This ‘demonstration’ was then useful for a variety of purposes in the church.

The scholarly consensus concerning the structure of Irenaeus’ Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching is that the writing is composed of two sections, a ‘narratival’ presentation of the truth and a ‘proof from prophecy’ of the truth. This structure has led to a number of possible purposes, including pedagogical, catechetical, hermeneutical, and apologetic proposals. James B. Wiegel’s ‘The Trinitarian Structure of Irenaeus’ Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching’ challenged this consensus, stimulating renewed interest in this writing. An analysis of Demonstration in light of Wiegel’s three-part structure, especially as it relates to the form of the Rule of Faith and the content of the writing, appears to indicate that these are not directly related to any of the proposed purposes. Instead, it is the occasion of the writing, the appearance of people who have heretical understandings of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit that guided the arrangement. This ‘demonstration’ was then useful for a variety of purposes in the church.

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Literary Review Exemplary of the scholarly consensus, Behr asserted that in Demonstration ‘two interrelated projects’ were at work: ‘first, to demonstrate or unfold the content of Scripture, the Old Testament, as it pertains to the revelation of Jesus Christ as preached by the apostles (chapters 8-42a); second, to recognize the scriptural authority of that preaching by demonstrating that the apostles’ proclamation of what had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, shaped as it is by Scripture, was indeed so prophesied (chapters 42b-97)’. In this way, Irenaeus’ Demonstration is both an ‘exposition’ and a ‘proof’, a ‘natural’ division in the body of the work.1 While Behr considered the purpose to be catechetical, other adherents to this basic outline have proposed other possibilities.2 In addition to Wiegel, two other scholars, Susan L. Graham and Thomas F. Torrance, have moved from this consensus in different ways and deserve further examination. While Graham accepted the consensus outline, she proposed that the work was a form of ‘εἰσαγωγαί, or introductory treatises, in philosophical subjects’. These contain a ‘bipartite form’ in the body of the writing which ‘comprised two reviews of the subject matter’, a summary and then a treatment of the material from a different perspective. As such, this writing was likely for people already catechized and baptized ‘to expand the education of its readers’. She concluded that the writing was intended to show that the ‘Apostles’ preaching is true’.3 A strong argument against this thesis, however, is that none of the second section (starting in chapter 42b) reviews the first half of the second section (approximately chapters 8-30).4 Additionally, while chapters 8-30 could be considered narratival, chapters 31-42a appear to have a different format. Even though these issues call into question her thesis, the analysis of Demonstration through classical literary/rhetorical forms and devices was insightful. 1

John Behr (ed.), On the Apostolic Preaching: St Irenaeus of Lyons, Popular Patristics Series 17 (Crestwood, NY, 1997), 7. 2 J. Behr, Apostolic Preaching (1997), 17. Joseph Smith, St Irenaeus: Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, ACW 16 (Westminster, 1952), 19-20, dismissed the ‘apparent aim’ as catechetical, instead determining the work to be apologetic. Everett Ferguson, ‘Irenaeus’ Proof of the Apostolic Preaching and Early Catechetical Instruction’, SP 18.3 (1990), 119-40, 125, 128, acknowledged that Irenaeus provided three purposes for his writing, but asserted that catechetical was primary due to the body being ‘essentially an account of Biblical history centered on Christ with a baptismal/doctrinal introduction and a moral/anti-heretical conclusion’. Adelin Rousseau, Irénée de Lyon: Démonstration de la Prédication Apostolique, SC 406 (Paris, 1995), 50-1, wrote that Irenaeus ‘expose sereinement la vérité transmise par l’Église et consignée dans les Écritures’ (‘calmly exposes the truth transmitted by the Church and recorded in the Scriptures’), which indicated a catechetical vice polemical intent. 3 Susan L. Graham, ‘Structure and Purpose of Irenaeus’ Epideixis’, SP 36 (2001), 210-21, 219-20. In addition to the listed weaknesses of her arguments, she also acknowledged that Irenaeus provided other possible purposes in chapter 1. 4 This issue was also noted by James B. Wiegel, ‘The Trinitarian Structure of Irenaeus’ Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 58 (2014), 113-39, 118.

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Torrance claimed that the purpose of Demonstration is ‘to offer a summary account of the structure of Christian belief through bringing to light the inner connection of the saving truths’. These ‘basic truths’ proclaimed by the apostles are ‘to be grounded in the ultimate truth of Deity of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’, a specificity that goes well beyond the general categories proposed by others. Although Torrance considered the teaching to be ‘definitely and inherently trinitarian’ and acknowledged that Irenaeus’ ‘declared intention is to order his exposition in accordance with ‘the three heads’ of the Rule, he concluded that the ‘central focus’ was on the Father (approximately chapters 8-30) and the Son (approximately chapters 31-97), while the Holy Spirit, ‘as the relation between the Father and the Son’, is found throughout the writing and ‘is not given in separate chapters’. While this assertion concerning the Holy Spirit appears forced given the specific works attached individually to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Rule, he does present a very different division of the body.5 Wiegel proposed that Demonstration ‘ultimately presents a three-fold, Trinitarian structure’ instead of a two-fold structure. This was first supported by the appearance of summary statements and transitional paragraphs in chapters 8, 30 and 42b. When these paragraphs were examined in relation to the conclusion in chapters 98-100, the ‘intention’ of a Trinitarian structure was reinforced. Secondly, an internal coherence of the Trinitarian structure was found through a correspondence of words, phrases, and themes between the body, the summary statements, the introduction, and the conclusion.6 While this thesis and argument is persuasive, further analysis revealed a stronger and more extensive relationship than ‘correspondence’ between the occasion, the Rule, the structure, and the content. Purpose But, since at this present time, we are separated from each other in body, we have not hesitated to speak with you, as far as possible, by writing, and to demonstrate, by means of a summary, the preaching of the truth, so as to strengthen your faith. We are sending you, as it were, a summary memorandum, so that you may find much in a little, and by means of this small [work] understand all the members of the body of truth, and through a summary receive the exposition of the things of God so that, in this way, it will bear your own salvation like fruit, and that you may confound all those who hold false opinions and to everyone who desires to know, you may deliver our sound and irreproachable word in all boldness.7 5 Thomas F. Torrance, ‘Kerygmatic Proclamation on the Gospel: Irenaeus’ The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching’, in Divine Meaning: Studies in Patristic Hermeneutics (Edinburgh, 1995), 56-74, 58, 61-2, 70-1. His primary argument concerning the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Father and Son was that the activity of the Spirit and the Word is a ‘conjoint operation’. 6 J.B. Weigel, ‘Trinitarian Structure’ (2017), 121-2, 124-5. 7 J. Behr, Apostolic Preaching (1997), 39. Italics added for emphasis. All references and quotations are from this translation, unless otherwise noted.

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In this section of chapter 1, Irenaeus provided four ways that Demonstration could be utilized by Marcianus and the Christians with him, including pedagogical, catechetical, hermeneutical, and apologetic purposes. Since all of these are possible, this indicates that the structure must be dependent on another aspect of the writing. Occasion While the exact circumstances that prompted Irenaeus to write cannot be fully known, indicators are present in chapters 1 and 99-100. According to chapter 1, Irenaeus provided a ‘summary memorandum’ as a response to Marcianus, who is requesting help to ‘confound all those who hold false opinions’ which are challenging the ‘members of the body of truth’. The specific false opinions are then listed and reiterated in chapters 99-100. Of note is that specific false opinions are associated individually with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.8 Table 1 lists these false opinions. The Rule of Faith When comparing the various presentations of the Rule in Irenaeus and Tertullian, Bokedal found ‘a perplexing combination of flexibility and relative fixity’. To account for this, he proposed the presence of ‘earlier oral (and written) traditions, the contemporary oral culture, or the inclination toward integrating various creedal traditions’.9 A much simpler explanation is that the specific wording of the Rule is designed to support the specific context of its employment. In chapter 6 of Demonstration, the specific language Irenaeus used in the descriptions of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Rule, found in Table 1, appear specifically constructed to refute the false teachings. This apparent direct influence of the occasion on the wording of the Rule leads to two inferences. First, either there was no official wording for the Rule or Irenaeus, and possibly others, felt free to change wording of the articles in the Rule. Second, if Irenaeus ‘tailored’ the Rule, then this writing likely only contains material he deemed sufficient to counter the specific false teachings.10

8

J. Behr, Apostolic Preaching (1997), 39, 100-1. Tomas Bokedal, ‘The Rule of Faith: Tracing its Origins’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 7 (2013), 233-55, 235, 238-42. 10 J. Smith, Proof (1952), 20, noted that Irenaeus’ real aim was apologetic, in order to enable Marcianus to ‘comprehend all the members of the body of truth … in a few details’. In light of this, Smith concluded that Irenaeus was ‘concerned’ ‘for the “integrity” of the faith not so much in the sense of its “exhaustiveness” as in the sense of its “soundness”’. 9

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Table 1 COMPARISON OF FALSE TEACHINGS AND THE RULE OF FAITH False Opinions (99)

Rule of Faith (6)

… there is another God the Father besides God, the Father, uncreated, uncontainable, our Creator, as the heretics think, who invisible, one God, the Creator of all despise the God who Is, and make an idol of that which is not, and fashion for themselves a ‘father’ much higher than our Creator … despise the advent of the Son of God and the economy of His Incarnation, which … would be the recapitulation of mankind

the Word of God, the Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord, who was revealed by the prophets according to the character of their prophecy and according to the nature of the economies of the Father, by whom all things were made, and who, in the last times, to recapitulate all things, became a man amongst men, visible and palpable, in order to abolish death, to demonstrate life and to effect communion between God and man

… do not admit the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and cast off the prophetic grace from themselves, being watered by which, man bears as fruit the life of God

the Holy Spirit, through whom the prophets prophesied and the patriarchs learnt the things of God and the righteous were led in the paths of righteousness, and who, in the last times, was poured out in a new fashion upon the human race renewing man, throughout the world, to God

Structure and Content of Demonstration While the expectation of a three-part body would seem appropriate given the three specific false teachings and the three-part Rule, this view is the exception.11 Given the three outlines above proposed for Demonstration, the primary question concerning the structure seems to be the status of chapters 31-42a. A second important question found during analysis concerns the exact division between the second and third parts of the body, with chapter 40b seemingly a more plausible alternative. 11 E. Ferguson, ‘Early Catechetical Instruction’ (1990), 127, asserted that Irenaeus ‘imposed a modified Trinitarian provided a possible Trinitarian framework’ because of his ‘doctrinal interests’ but rejected this possible outline for that of the scholarly consensus which he believed better supported Irenaeus’ primary purpose.

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There are four reasons why chapters 31-40b should be considered separate from what comes before and after. First, as noted above, beginning in chapter 31 the writing is no longer a narrative. Instead, the focus is on the necessity of the incarnation, answering the question of ‘why’ instead of ‘what’ or ‘how’. Second is the presence of an inclusio, or Irenaean sandwich, between the opening line in chapter 31, ‘the Son united man with God … we being unable to have any participation in corruptibility’, with the last line of chapter 40a, ‘that by this communion with Him [God], we may receive participation in incorruptibility’.12 Third, the format of this section appears better classified as question and answer, since chapters 32 and 38b open with a question. This feature may also indicate the presence of two sub-sections. Lastly, this part appears to elaborate on the last section of the description of the Son in the Rule, which indicates a direct governing relationship. For the Son, Irenaeus wrote, ‘who, in the last times, to recapitulate all things, became a man amongst men, visible and palpable, in order to abolish death, to demonstrate life and to effect communion between God and man is found’. In line with the sub-sections suggested above, Irenaeus demonstrated the ‘recapitulation’ of Adam by the Son through parallels in their lives and the fulfillment of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants in chapters 32-8a. A change in focus on Christ’s being ‘a man amongst men, visible and palpable’, with Irenaeus’ arguing that without the reality of the incarnation there is no resurrection, is found in chapters 38b-39. The final few phrases appear directly reflected in this part as a whole. Given these arguments, it appears that chapters 31-40b should be considered a separate part of the body associated directly with the description of the Son in the Rule. Regarding the second issue, while 42b is considered the beginning of the next section by most scholars, there are four reasons why 40b should be given more consideration. The first is the inclusio described above. Second, there appears to be a move from the Advent to its proclamation by the prophets beginning in 40b, a change reflected in the movement from the description of the Son to the Holy Spirit in the Rule. Third, Irenaeus’ use of John the Baptist in 41 appears indicative of a transition, since the emphasis is on his prophetic work of ‘preparing and readying the people’ for the Advent.13 Lastly, Graham determined that 42b is the transition between section one and two (section two and three in this essay), based on her finding that ‘summaries … might suggest 12

J. Behr, Apostolic Preaching (1997), 60, 65. This construction is also found in K. TerMekerttschian and S.G. Wilson, with Prince Maxe of Saxony (ed. and Eng. trans.), Εἰς ἐπίδειξιν τοῦ ἀποστολικοῦ κηρύγματος: Proof of the Apostolic Preaching with Seven Fragments, PO 12.5 (Paris, 1917), 683, 689; A. Rousseau, Démonstration (1995), 126-7, 138-9, in the Latin and French translations; J. Smith, Proof (1952), 67-8, 73; and J. Armitage Robinson, St. Ireneaus: The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching with Introduction and Notes (London, 1920), 97-8, 105. The term ‘Irenaean sandwich’ used with permission of Susan Graham. 13 J. Behr, Apostolic Preaching (1997), 66.

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that such transitions are conclusions’, but in reality ‘[t]hey are introductions’.14 Since chapters 40b to 42a also appear to be summary material, this argument along with the others supports 40a as end of the second part of the body, with 40b beginning the third.

Conclusion and Implications In light of the multiple usages envisioned by Irenaeus in the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, the structure of the writing must be dependent on another factor. A close analysis of the occasion and the Rule of Faith indicated that, although the source of the Rule is the apostolic proclamation, the occasion that initiated the writing directly influenced the specific language used in the descriptions of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Analysis of the relationship of the Rule with the structure and content of the body confirmed that the Rule was the outline or organizing principle for the body of this writing. Given this conclusion, a number of paths for further research are opened. While this analysis focused on Irenaeus’ demonstration of distinct truths about God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, chapters 3-5 and 7 appear written to ensure that the unity of God and His unified work are not lost.15 According to Bingham in his study of Irenaeus’ use of Eph. 4:6, ‘the word and spirit … are not mediating agents, but unified with the Father, “Himself within Himself”’. From this, he concluded: ‘Any concept of Father included the Son and Spirit who are within him so that all divine activity is of the Father himself within himself, through the Son, and by the Spirit’.16 Although beyond this study, Irenaeus moved back and forth between the unity and diversity of God and His work throughout the body. Further study in the how Irenaeus balanced this three-in-one tension could deepen our understanding of both his and other early church authors’ Trinitarian theology. Another possible area of study concerns the hermeneutics used to analyze early church writings. In Demonstration, occasion appeared to directly influence, or even govern, significant aspects of the writing, such as its organization and specific content. Additionally, Irenaeus appears to have knowledge of classical rhetoric. Two devices highlighted in this study were the use of an inclusio and summaries within the sections of the body.17 Lastly, further research into 14

S.L. Graham, ‘Structure and Purpose’ (2001), 214. J. Behr, Apostolic Preaching (1997), 42-4. 16 D. Jeffrey Bingham, ‘Himself within Himself: The Father and His Hands in Early Christianity’, Southwestern Journal of Theology 47 (2005), 137-51, 139-41, 151. 17 For information on Irenaeus’ philosophical and rhetorical acumen, see William R. Schoedel, ‘Philosophy and Rhetoric in the Adversus Haereses of Irenaeus’, Vigiliae Christianae 13 (1959), 22-32; Thomas C Ferguson, ‘The Rule of Truth and Irenaean Rhetoric in Book 1 of Against Heresies’, 15

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Irenaeus’ use of the Rule of Faith as a possible summary and organization for his teachings would seem beneficial. The use of similar types of summaries by other authors may also provide this same type organizational insights for their writings.

Vigiliae Christianae 55 (2001), 356-75; Anthony Briggman, ‘Revisiting Irenaeus’ Philosophical Acumen’, Vigiliae Christianae 65 (2011), 115-24, ‘Literary and Rhetorical Theory in Irenaeus, Part 1’, Vigiliae Christianae 69 (2015), 500-27, and ‘Literary and Rhetorical Theory in Irenaeus, Part 2’, Vigiliae Christianae 70 (2016), 31-50.

An Archetypal Blasé? Justin Martyr and the Segmentation of Christians’ Urban Life1 Emiliano Rubens URCIUOLI, Max-Weber-Center, Erfurt University, Germany

ABSTRACT In this article I argue that, unlike small towns and more radically than other large centers, a megacity like the 2nd-century Rome was liable to produce what Georg Simmel famously called the ‘psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality’. Following Simmel’s heuristic track, I will examine the way Justin Martyr’s personality made it to accommodate to the external forces of the city of Rome, as well as how the metropolis shaped the way his intellectuality branched out in three intertwined directions: namely that of a (1) Christ believer, (2) a teacher, and a (3) heresiologist. How did Justin’s personality, understood as the unifying social surface that provided him with the capacity of existing in different fields as an agent drawing on heterogeneous socializing experiences, cope with a megacity that was replete with Christ groups, supplied a multitude of potential students, and sprouted several heresies-to-be? In the conclusion I will push my arguments to the very limits of the sociological imagination of Justin’s metropolitan psychic life and urban experience.

Introduction: Putting Simmel into the Mediterranean World An inquiry into the inner meaning of specifically modern life and its products, into the soul of the cultural body, so to speak, must seek to solve the equation which structures like the metropolis set up between the individual and the super-individual contents of life. Such an inquiry must answer the question of how the personality accommodates itself in the adjustments to external forces (… den Anpassungen der Persönlichkeit, durch die sie sich mit den ihr äußeren Mächten abfindet).2

When Georg Simmel penned these words in 1903, his hometown Berlin was recently given the official status of a Großstadt.3 At the time, urbanization was 1 Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – FOR 2779. 2 Georg Simmel, ‘The Metropolis and the Mental Life’, in Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, ed. Kurt H. Wolff (New York, 1950 [1903]), 409-24, 409. 3 A social-statistics conference in 1887 defined a metropolis as possessing a minimum population of 1 million (Millionenstadt). See Iain Boyd White and David Frisby (eds), ‘General introduction’, in Metropolis Berlin: 1880-1940 (Berkeley, 2012), 1-5, 2.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 163-183. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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spurred by fossil fuels, cities were shaped (assaulted, taken, ravaged?)4 by the capitalist production and circulation of commodities, and metropolises were about to become one of the most prominent man-made features of the planet. The relationship between metropolis and modernity was such that the former was seen as the crucial ‘site of intensification’ of the latter.5 Nevertheless, this article sets out to show that the general question posed by Simmel’s famous Dresden lecture on ‘The Metropolis and the Mental Life’ (Die Grossstädte und das Geistesleben),6 that is, ‘how the personality’ of a city-dweller ‘accommodates itself in the adjustments to [the] external forces’ of a vast and dense city-space,7 can be profitably referred back onto the life of some urban populations of past agrarian societies. The Roman-ruled ancient Mediterranean world was a politically unified territory dotted with cities. These urban nodes were at once hierarchically nested in legal fabric of the Empire and regularly breaking the imperial ‘smooth space’8 down into a fractionated and heterarchical9 ‘lived space’.10 Featuring a pre-industrial type of urbanism,11 such urban formations functioned without cars, trams, electric lights, skyscrapers, bank bills, spatial segregation, high-street shopping, and the knowingly aimless urban walkers who came to symbolize the 4

See Henri Lefebvre, Writings on Cities (Oxford, 1996), 70. David Frisby, Georg Simmel. Revised Edition (London, 2002), xxxvii. 6 The English title should more accurately follow the German and therefore be “Metropolises and Mental Life”. See Thomas Kemple, Simmel (Cambridge, 2018), 75. Given in February 1903, the lecture was part of a Dresden series on modern metropolises planned for the winter 1902-1903 and associated with the opening of the first German Metropolitan Exhibition. The text was published as an essay in the same year and influenced heavily the ‘Chicago School’ of Sociology in the 1920s and 1930s. Simmel’s student Louis Wirth hailed it as ‘the most important single article on the city from the sociological standpoint’. See Louis Wirth, ‘A Bibliography of the Urban Community’, in Robert E. Park and Ernest Burgess (eds), The City (Chicago, 1967 [1925]), 161-228, 219. 7 Simmel’s theory of urban culture is not separable from his sociology of space, which constitutes a major chapter (‘Der Raum und die räumlichen Ordnungen der Gesellschaft’) of his 1908 Soziologie. The overall position of Simmel’s epistemology of space ‘lies somewhere between spatial determinism and social constructionism’ (David Frisby and Mike Featherstone, ‘Introduction to the texts’, in David Frisby and Mike Featherstone [eds], Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings [London, 1997], 1-31, 11). 8 Michael Hardt and Toni Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 198. According to Hardt and Negri, universal inclusion and acceptance of differences constitute the so-called ‘first moment’ or ‘first imperative’ of the Empire. 9 On the concept of ‘heterarchy’, see Carole L. Crumley, ‘Heterarchy and the Analysis of Complex Societies’, Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 6 (1995), 1-5. 10 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford, 1991 [1974]), 39. 11 A classic reference for this long accepted distinction (pre-industrial / industrial city) is Gideon Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City: Past and Present (Glencoe, 1960). The most famous model of the ‘ancient city’ is that of Moses I. Finley, The Ancient Economy (Berkeley, 1973). For a critique of modeling approaches that assume a ‘fundamental difference’, see Monica L. Smith ‘Introduction’, in ead. (ed.), The Social Construction of Ancient Cities (Washington, 2003), 1-36, especially 3-8. For a recent ‘intellectual justification’ of the concept of ‘Greco-Roman urbanism’, see Arjan Zuiderhoek, The Ancient City (Cambridge, 2016), 1-19. 5

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rise of modern city life: the flâneurs.12 Yet, however differently experienced, internalized, and played out by their inhabitants, past city-spaces, too, generated ways of life that we can capture by the cross-temporal and normatively charged term of ‘urbanity’.13 Ancient cities were no less capable than modern cities of enabling distinctive lifestyles and patterns of sociability that were rooted in specifically urban experiences, conditions, and geographies. To borrow from sociologist Anna Strhan, ancient ‘modes of urban sociation distinctively shaped subjectivities’, insofar as ‘individuals’ micro-level interactions were affected by and contributed to wider processes occurring at the level of the city-space.14 This holds especially true when it comes to 2nd-century Rome, the capital and center of the Empire and possibly its only genuine metropolis, with population estimates ranging between 450.000 (‘Great Rome’ theorists) and 1 million (‘Little Rome’ theorists) inhabitants.15 Note that Simmel’s Berlin counted almost 2 million residents at the time of the metropolises essay16 but its population density in the inner city boroughs (280 p/ha at 1900)17 was lower than the lowest – and most reliable – figure reckoned for imperial Rome in the whole area within the Aurelian Walls (around 32.000 p/km2 = 320 p/ha). Both cities thrived on human diversity. All things considered, the Rome of the Caesars was no less metropolitan than the Berlin of the Kaisers. Yet what about the ‘mental life’ of its inhabitants? Was it equally shaped by the city? Given the special proportion of factors such as population size, density, human heterogeneity, etc., the life conditions of the inhabitants of the imperial Rome were probably unique at the time. In this article I argue that, unlike small towns and more radically than other large centers, the megacity of the emperors 12

For a genealogy of city strolling, see Merlin Coverley, Psychogeography (London, 2006). See Susanne Rau, ‘Urbanität’, in Friedrich Jaeger (ed.), Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 2011), vol. 13, 1120-3; most recently Jörg Rüpke, Urban Religion: A Historical Approach to Urban Growth and Religious Change (Berlin, 2020). On the normative quality of the concept, see Thomas Wüst, Urbanität. Ein Mythos und sein Potential (Wiesbaden, 2004). The distinction between ‘urbanity’ and ‘urbanism’ is clearly post-Wirthian: see Louis Wirth, ‘Urbanism as a way of life’, American Journal of Sociology 44 (1938), 1-24. Especially the Anglo-Saxon urbanological discourse has been resorting to the notion of ‘urbanity’ to refer to the cultural-symbolic dimension of cities in their interplay with the architectural-functional aspects. For the historical-disciplinary dialectic between the semantic axis of the cité and that of the ville, see Richard Sennett, Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City (London, 2018). 14 Anna Strhan, Aliens and Strangers? The Struggle for Coherence in the Everyday Lives of Evangelicals (Oxford, 2015), 44. 15 Glenn R. Storey, ‘The population of ancient Rome’, Antiquity 1 (1997), 966-78. 16 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bev%C3%B6lkerung_Berlins#Von_1825_bis_1919 (acc. 25 March 2020). In the period between 1850 and 1890, the population of Berlin more than quadrupled. For the impact of this tumultuous change on Simmel’s urban experience and theorizing, see Dietmar Jazbinsek, ‘The Metropolis and the Mental Life of Georg Simmel: On the History of an Antipathy’, Journal of Urban History 30 (2003), 102-25. 17 https://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/umwelt/umweltatlas/edm606_01.htm (acc. 25 March 2020). 13

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was liable to produce what Simmel calls the ‘psychological basis (Die psychologische Grundlage) of the metropolitan type of individuality’.18 In his 1903 essay, Simmel relates this specific – and, in his view, specifically modern – mental state to the massive ‘intensification of nervous stimulation (die Steigerung des Nerveslebens) which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli’:19 With each crossing of the street, with the tempo and multiplicity of economic, occupational and social life, the city sets up a deep contrast with small town and rural life with reference to the sensory foundations of psychic life. The metropolis exacts from man as a discriminating creature a different amount of consciousness (in dem Bewußtseinsquantum, … abfordert) than does rural life. Here the rhythm of life and sensory mental imagery flows more slowly, more habitually, and more evenly. Precisely in this connection the sophisticated character of metropolitan psychic life becomes understandable.20

Inspired by these sentences of Simmel, this article assumes that the interactional variety and complexity, the sensory stimulation, and the semiotic accumulation produced by the imperial city of Rome ‘exact[ed]’ and ‘use[d] up’ an exceptionally high ‘amount of consciousness’ from its inhabitants on a daily basis.21 The aim of the article, then, is to pursue the implications of this assumption and look at whether, despite the low regime of technological pageantry, inner mobility, and life acceleration compared to Simmel’s modern Berlin, distinctive behavioral attitudes and psychological traits mapped directly onto specific sociospatial features and conditionings of the ancient metropolis of Rome. To test the hypothesis, we need a dweller. Among the hundred thousand Roman residents there was an immigrant and Christ-believing intellectual22 called Justin of Neapolis. Palestinian by birth, Justin settled in the capital around the mid-2nd century CE.23 As far as we know, he mainly dedicated his 18

G. Simmel, ‘The Metropolis’ (1950 [1903]), 409. Ibid. 410. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. For an overview of different sources of sensory stimulation in ancient Rome, see Ray Lawrence and David J. Newsome (eds), Rome, Ostia, Pompeii: Movement and Space (Oxford, 2011). 22 On this notion, see most recently Lewis Ayres and H. Clifton Ward (eds), The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (Berlin, 2020). 23 Justin was born in Flavia Neapolis, modern Νablus, in what was then Syria Palaestina. The exact date of his arrival in Rome is unknown but it is widely assumed that he was already based in the city around the year 150. He suffered martyrdom in Rome somewhen between 163 and 168. Since the Justin that is presented in the homonymous Acts speaks of a ‘second sojourn’ in the capital (Acts of Justin 3:3), it is possible, though unprovable, that (A) either he dwelled already in Rome for a while in the 130s or 140s (see Adalbert G. Hamman, ‘Essai de chronologie de la vie et des œuvres de Justin’, Augustinianum 35 [1995], 231-9) or that (B) he temporarily left the city at a certain moment between 150 and his death. All in all, it is safe to say that Justin spent circa fifteen years as a foreign resident in Rome. Technically he was a peregrinus, that is, a free provincial subject of the empire with no Roman citizenship. For general studies on Justin’s 19

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intellectual life of a literate ‘provincial’ to two professional tasks: (a) teaching classes of Christian doctrine and (b) mapping other Christians’ misbeliefs and misdeeds. In other words, lecturing on truth and cataloguing heresies. This ‘job’ made Justin a man relying on a substantial and regularly up-to-date urban flow of information, as well as a person steadily depending on an urban audience to whom this knowledge – or better, a carefully selected fraction thereof – had to be conveyed. Yet at the same time, to not get ‘worn out’24 by the city mechanism, Justin needed at once to get and discount information, to search for and avoid inter-human contacts. Like the brain of any other Roman resident, Justin’s intellect, too, had to somehow protect itself from perceptual and cognitive overstimulation, thus managing the heightened awareness the metropolis exacted from its inhabitants at any time of the daylight. A ‘differentiating creature (Unterschiedswesen)’25 fully nested in his urban environment, the metropolitan Justin must have developed the ability to preselect and filter out external inputs. Having said that, the following question arises: how did Justin psychically and behaviorally react to metropolitan phenomena such as the serial accumulation and spatial distribution of religious knowledge, the dissemination of religious freelancing,26 the multiplication and scattering of religiously motivated meetings, the overstimulation from claims, messages, and experiences-deemedreligious? Following Simmel’s heuristic track without necessarily subscribing to his harsh picture of urban life,27 I will examine the way Justin’s ‘personality (Persönlichkeit)’ made it to accommodate to the ‘external forces’ of the city of Rome. More specifically, I will look at how the metropolis shaped the way his ‘intellectuality (Verstandesmäßigkeit)’28 actually ‘branche[d] out’29 in three intertwined directions, namely that of a (1) Christ believer, (2) a teacher, and a (3) ‘heresiologist’. How did Justin’s personality, understood as the unifying social surface that provided him with the capacity of existing in different fields as an agent drawing on heterogeneous socializing experiences,30 cope with a life and thought, see Leslie W. Barnard, Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought (Cambridge, 1967); Eric F. Osborn, Justin Martyr (Tübingen, 1973). 24 G. Simmel, ‘The Metropolis’ (1950 [1903]), 409. 25 Ibid. 410. 26 Heidi Wendt, At the Temple Gates: The Religion of Freelance Experts in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2016). 27 For a methodological ‘revolt’ against the Simmelian-Wirthian take on urban life and the social effect of urbanism, see already Claude S. Fischer, ‘Toward a subcultural theory of urbanism’, American Journal of Sociology 80 (1975), 1319-41. For a most recent sociological inquiry into contemporary urban believers that brings together Simmel’s urban analysis with his approach to religion, see A. Strhan, Aliens and Strangers? (2015). 28 On Justin’s ‘Intellektualismus’ – in a Weberian sense –, see Hartmut Leppin, Die frühen Christen: Von den Anfängen bis Konstantin (München, 2018), 177. 29 G. Simmel, ‘The Metropolis’ (1950 [1903]), 410. 30 I understand ‘personality’ in the sense of Bourdieu, that is, as ‘the totality of positions simultaneously occupied at a given time by a socially instituted biological individuality instituted

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megacity that was replete with Christ groups, supplied a multitude of potential students, and sprouted several heresies-to-be? In the conclusion I will push my arguments to the very limits of the sociological imagination of Justin’s metropolitan psychic life and urban experience.

1. How did the metropolis affect Justin as a Christ believer? Rusticus the prefect said [to Justin]: ‘Tell me, where do you meet, in what place?’ Justin said: ‘I have been living above the Bath of Myrtinus for the entire period of my sojourn at Rome, and this is my second; and I have known no other meeting-place but here. Anyone who wished could come to my abode and I would impart to him the words of truth’.31

When he is tried by the urban prefect Quintus Junius Rusticus somewhere in the 160s, the literary Justin narrated in the Acts of Justin and Companions provides four topographical, locational, and existential information: 1) his Roman flat is located above a neighborhood bathhouse (τοῦ … βαλανείου) whose designation varies according to the three recensions of the text;32 2) he is spending his second sojourn in the capital (παρὰ πάντα τὸν χρόνον ὃν ἐπεδήμησα τὸ δεύτερον τῇ Ῥωμαίων πόλει); 3) he knows of no other meeting-place of Christians apart from the one supplied by his own apartment (οὐ γινώσκω δὲ ἄλλην τινα συνέλευσιν εἰ μὴ τὴν ἐκεῖ); 4) he teaches his doctrine at his place to anybody interested in learning it (εἰ τις ἐβούλετο ἀφικνεῖσθαι παρ’ ἐμοί).

acting as a support for a set of attributes and qualities that will enable her/him to act as an efficient agent in different fields’ (Pierre Bourdieu, ‘L’illusion biographique’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 62-63 [1986], 69-72, 72). 31 Acts of Justin 3:3, Recension A; trans. Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford, 1972), 45. 32 The Acts survives in three different versions. The quotation above, which situates Justin ‘above the bath of Myrtinos (τοῦ Μυρτίνου βαλανείου)’, is taken from the so-called Recension A, which is likely to represent the oldest text. Recension B adds: ‘Where do you gather your disciples?’ and reports a different bathing location, ‘above the bath of a certain Martinos son of Timiotinos (τινὸς Μαρτίνου τοῦ Τιμιοτίνου βαλανείου)’, clearly ‘a secondary reading that attempts an identification’ (Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries [Minneapolis, 2003 (1989)], 259 note 6; thus also Harlow G. Snyder, ‘“Above the Bath of Myrtinus”: Justin Martyr’s ‘School’ in the City of Rome’, Harvard Theological Review 100 [2007], 335-62, 350). Recension C omits any reference to a location. There is no consensus on a precise dating of the extant recensions of the Acts. The datings of Recension A oscillate from very close to quite far removed from Justin’s time. All quotations from, and references to, the Acts are taken from Recension A.

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Of these four information only the third is mostly considered as historically unreliable.33 Scholars tend to agree that the declaration that Justin knows of no other Christ group is a false statement that is ‘clearly’ aimed at preventing the search of other fellow Christians. As Harlow Gregory Snyder put it, ‘we should hardly expect [Justin’s] display of bold speech to the authorities to include the betrayal of other Christians’.34 This is prima facie reasonable. Yet Markus Vinzent has most recently questioned this understanding by arguing that the ‘defensive’ interpretation of the statement not only seems to assume an already existing strongly integrated web of Christ groups at Rome but also ‘ignores that the Martyrdom is not directed to a non-Christian audience. If one assumed a strong Christian Roman community – continues Vinzent –, how would such narrative strengthen it?35 In contrast, it seems … that the Martyrdom reflects a state of early Christian classroom life which was not yet community related’.36 Bearing Vinzent’s argument in mind, it is worth a digression in order to illustrate a point. Somebody who is familiar with Simmel’s work might believe to recognize in Justin, the urbanized immigrant, another famous Simmelian sociological type, ‘the Stranger’, as depicted in the short Exkurs über den Fremden. A ‘person who comes today and stays tomorrow’,37 the stranger has a peculiar relation with the native members of the Gemeinschaft. In Simmel’s sociology, the stranger encapsulates a ‘specific form of interaction’ which is characterized by a distinctive organization of ‘the unity of nearness and remoteness (die Einheit von Nähe und Entferntheit) involved in every human relation’: ‘in the relationship to him, distance means that he, who is close by, is far, and strangeness means that he, who is also far, is actually near’.38 33 Of course, scholars who reject in toto the reliability of the Acts as a source for Justin’s historical life do not take any of these information into account. See, e.g., Jörg Ulrich, ‘What Do We Know about Justin’s “School” in Rome?’, Zeitschrift für Antike und Christentum 16 (2012), 62-74, 64-5, who believes to find linguistic hints of historical anachronisms in the Acts as compared with Justin’s extant writings. 34 H.G. Snyder, ‘“Above the Bath of Myrtinus”’ (2007), 361. Less assertive are Denis Minns and Paul Parvis, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies. Edited with a commentary on the text (Oxford, 2009), 58. 35 It could eventually serve another function. Elsewhere I have argued that early Christian martyrdom texts contain linguistic tricks and wits that are less explicable as objective reports of actual statements than as formulas aimed at instructing the audience about how to take advantage of the authorities’ susceptibility and get away with it. See Emiliano R. Urciuoli, ‘Weapons of the (Christian) Weak: Pedagogy of Trickery in Early Christian Texts’, in Valentino Gasparini et al. (eds), Lived Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Approaching Religious Transformations from Archaeology, History and Classics (Berlin, 2020). Justin’s pretended ignorance can be one of these cases. 36 Markus Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity: From Reception to Retrospection (Cambridge, 2019), 148, emphasis mine. 37 George Simmel, ‘The Stranger’, in Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel (1950 [1903]), 402-8, 402. 38 Ibid. The significance of spatiality for the socialization of the stranger is evidenced by the fact that the short essay was published as an appendix of the extensive chapter on the sociology of space in Simmel’s major sociological work Soziologie.

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It is quite clear in whose eyes Justin embodied this ‘special proportion and reciprocal tension’39 of being near and being far, and with which group he established such ‘a pattern of coordination and consistent interaction’.40 Like thousands of long- and short-term immigrants who set up shop in Rome, the Christian freelance was sociospatially proximate-and-remote to the Romanborn and Latin-speaking free section of the city population, from whom he did not stem, whose civil rights he did not share, and whose idiom he did not fully master.41 Yet actually Justin was twice a stranger and only once in a genuine Simmelian sense. In fact, when saying that Justin’s ‘Christian classroom life’ was ‘not community related’, Vinzent is referring to the specific organizational layout of Christ religion in 2nd-century Rome. A foreign resident, Justin the Stranger was also a ‘relatively withdrawn philosopher’,42 estranged from other fellow Christians in Rome. He did not relate to them and, most importantly, he was not the only one doing so. Following up Peter Lampe’s seminal narrative of ‘fractionation’,43 current research generally agrees that, around the year 150, the urban presence of Christ believers featured topographically separated and differently patronized house-churches and school-styled circles that lacked a structured overarching organization. Different modes of group-styling and diverse strategies of recruiting characterized a scattered Christian religious-scape with no central hub of governance and overall coordination. This loosely connected web facilitated a ‘theological pluralism’44 that is hardly possible to map onto the different labels that ancient heresiology fabricated and scholars have long taken at face value. Despite the efforts of some freelance ‘agents of unity’ such as Hermas, Marcion, and Valentinus to institute moral, ritual, and/or doctrinal uniformity,45 which produced the more or less anticipated effect of ‘accentuating differences and hardening lines of divisions’ among Christians,46 a low rate of ‘groupism’ and identity normativity characterized the grouping processes until at least the end of the century. This decentralized organization of Christian memberships, coupled with a quite sweeping distribution of Christian religious powers and services, was likely 39

Ibid. 408. Ibid. 403. 41 See textual hints in P. Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus (2003 [1989]), 269. 42 Eric Thomassen, ‘Orthodoxy and Heresy in Second-Century Rome’, Harvard Theological Review 97 (2004), 241-56, 242. 43 P. Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus (2003 [1989]), 357-407. 44 Ibid. 381. 45 E. Thomassen, ‘Orthodoxy and Heresy’ (2004), 251. 46 Karen King, ‘Social and Theological Effects of Heresiological Discourse’, in Eduard Iricinschi and Holger M. Zellentin (eds), Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity (Tübingen, 2008), 28-49, 33. For this tension between ‘decentralizing and centralizing forces and actors’, see E. Thomassen ‘Orthodoxy and Heresy’ (2004), 248-56. Oddly enough, Thomassen overlooks spatial determinants among the factors conducive to decentralization. 40

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to generate three effects: (1) intergroup inclusiveness;47 (2) heterogeneous patterns of attendance and affiliation on the part of rank-and-file Christ believers; and (3) self-organizing strategies on the part of competing religious experts lacking a clearly established authority.48 Moreover, all these behaviors were contingent on space, that is, depended on the spatial structural characteristics of an exceptionally huge, densely populated, and extremely heterogeneous ‘multicultural city’.49 Due to its territorial size, population density, and overall centr(ipet)ality, Rome was a magnet for human diversity. The city functioned as an unparalleled geographical attractor for human aspirations and swarmed with religious offerings. Yet it afforded much less heightened internal mobility than nowadays’ metropolises and therefore produced segmentation and dispersion.50 So, returning to our initial question, why not believe in Justin’s ignorance about the location of other Christ groups? To gain plausibility, this reported confession of ignorance should be disentangled from the traditional concern with Justin’s loyalty to his fellow Christians. Rather, Simmel’s essay on the metropolises and ‘the evolution of individuality in urban life’51 should invite us to less hesitantly bring this information to bear on the comprehension of the highly autonomous existence of Justin’s circle, as generally admitted by recent scholarship.52 Not necessarily a false testimony and a commendable lie,53 a statement that implies that the Christian 47 ‘Before the end of the second century, specifically before the episcopacy of Victor (c. 189199 C.E.), hardly any Roman Christian group excluded another group in the city from the communion of the faithful – apart from a few significant exceptions’ (P. Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus [2003; 1989], 385). 48 H. Wendt, At the Temple Gates (2016), 202-8. 49 Jürgen Zangenberg and Michael Labin (eds), Christians as a Religious Minority in a Multicultural City: Modes of Interaction and Identity Formation in Early Imperial Rome (London, 2004). 50 See the focus on Roman neighborhoods and neighboring relationships as prime incubators for new religious phenomena in Heidi Wendt, ‘Marcion the Shipmaster: Unlikely Religious Experts of the Roman World?’, in Markus Vinzent (ed.), Marcion of Sinope as Religious Entrepreneur (Leuven, 2018), 55-74 (on Marcion) and Harry O. Maier, ‘Romans Watching Romans: Christ Religion in Close Urban Quarters and Neighbourhood Transformations’, Religion in the Roman Empire 6 (2020), 106-21 (on Hermas). 51 G. Simmel, ‘The Metropolis’ (1950 [1903]), 417. 52 See already P. Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus (2003 [1989]), 376-7; E. Thomassen, ‘Orthodoxy and Heresy’ (2004), 242; Judith Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century (Cambridge, 2015), 300; Birgit van der Lans, ‘The Written Media of Imperial Government and a Martyr’s Career: Justin Martyr’s 1 Apology’, in Laura Feldt and Jan N. Bremmer (eds), Marginality, Media, and Mutations of Religious Authority in the History of Christianity (Leuven, 2019), 117-34; H. Leppin, Die frühen Christen (2018), 174-6. 53 In order to add theological-moral consistency to the picture, Lampe connects the statement to a passage in the First Apology where Justin emphasizes the Christian’s obligation during a judicial hearing ‘to tell the whole truth’ (Second Apology 3:4; the order and numbering of chapters follows D. Minns and P. Parvis, Justin, Philosopher [2009], 56). See P. Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus (2003 [1989]), 376-7.

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immigrant cultivated no significant social contacts with other Christian homeschools and house-churches54 is to be related to the socio-spatial fabric of the metropolis as a constellation of ‘external forces’ impinging on grouping dynamics. Justin’s indication that he is living in Rome ‘for the second time’ – an information that scholars normally do not question – not only indicates the immigrant status of the individual but also hints at the ‘ephemeral character of lodging and communicating in a big city’.55 People coming and going might have leaned on a remarkably fluid rental market56 and, among them, Christian immigrants could eventually rely on existing local Christian networks for renting space. They could also decide to eventually use their abode for establishing a new Christ group via a neighborhood-based model of recruitment57 but not necessarily for getting acquainted with other believers in other areas of the city. In a couple of cases, Justin seems not to know the names of the Roman Christian martyrs whose most recent courageous acts he himself describes (2Apology 2:1 and 20). In conclusion, there are no compelling reasons to assume that the unconnected and autonomous Christ groups of 2nd-century Rome, which revolved around self-styled religious freelances, were fully cognizant of each other’s locations. 2. How did the metropolis affect Justin as a teacher? Justin was a well-educated,58 Greek-speaking immigrant from Neapolis (today’s Nablus) in Samaria who presumably used to stroll along the streets of Rome wearing a philosopher’s trademark cloak (Dialogue with Trypho 1:2; 54 When confessing his ignorance about other places of meeting, the Justin of the Acts uses the same word (συνέλευσις) that Justin the writer adopts to describe the gathering of Christians for the Sunday service when ‘all who live in the cities or in the countryside gather together in one place (πάντων κατὰ πόλεις ἢ ἀγροὺς μενόντων ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συνέλευσις γίνεται)’ (1Apology 67:3). Since the two statements are at odds with one another and the latter is particularly unrealistic for Rome, exegetes offer two possible solutions: a) the whole passage of the Acts is a mere creation of the redactor (J. Ulrich, ‘What Do We Know’ [2012], 64, note 8); b) the formula ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ (literally: ‘in the same place’) is pleonastic and means simply ‘a gathering together’ (D. Minns and P. Parvis, Justin, Philosopher [2009], 259 note 3). I suggest it is easier to think that all the descriptions of rituals provided in 1Apology 61-67 (baptism, eucharist, Sunday service) are ideal-type liturgies maybe patterned on some actual local practices and aimed to function as a general model. 55 See M. Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity (2019), 149. 56 Bradley S. Billings, ‘From House Church to Tenement Church: Domestic Space and the Development of Early Urban Christianity – The Example of Ephesus’, JTS 62 (2011), 541-69, 560. 57 Richard Last, ‘The Neighborhood (vicus) of the Corinthian ekklēsia: Beyond Family-Based Descriptions of the First Urban Christ- Believers’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 38 (2016), 399-425. 58 For a survey of the components of his education, see P. Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus (2003 [1989]), 260-72.

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9:2). A philosopher of fashion and adornment among many other things,59 Simmel would probably connect this outfit with the attempt to stand out, ‘assert […] his own personality within the dimensions of metropolitan life’, and ‘attract the attention of the social circle by playing upon their sensitivity for difference’.60 Recognizable as such, Justin occasionally engaged in public disputes with intellectual peers and competitors, among which he himself reports the vitriolic debate with the Cynic Crescens (2Apology 8).61 As already mentioned, the Acts of Justin suggest that a presumably small circle of students gathered around him in his living quarters above a neighborhood bathhouse (Acts of Justin 3:3). Justin used to teach them on the philosophically laden version of Christ religion62 we know from his extant writings. These latter consist in two Apologies,63 that is, literary petitions addressed to the rulers on behalf of all Christ believers, and an anti-Jewish treatise called Dialogue with Trypho. His only ‘famous’ student, the early Christian writer Tatian,64 and two ‘companions’ of the six arrested with him (one woman and five men) were also Near Eastern immigrants (Acts of Justin 4:7-8). There is no reason to doubt that the text wants to characterize them as current or past pupils of Justin’s teaching circle.65 This professional cameo demands at least a city as a socio-spatial context. Yet what the metropolis of Rome, that is, the largest and probably most densely populated city of the empire, could further supply to a foreign freelance philosopher is more than a decent ecological niche. Rome was likely to be the widest book market66 and richest literary emporium in the Mediterranean basin. 59 G. Simmel, ‘The Philosophy of Fashion’ (1905), in D. Frisby and M. Featherstone, Simmel on Culture (1997), 187-206. 60 G. Simmel, ‘The Metropolis’ (1950 [1903]), 420. 61 See also Tatian, Oration 19; Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 4:16. The idea that Crescens’ hostility towards the man and his philosophy had a bearing on Justin’s death comes from Eusebius’ far-fetched interpretation of Tatian’s report. 62 For a plausible reconstruction of some bits of Justin’s educational agenda, curriculum, didactic work and techniques, see J. Ulrich, ‘What Do We Know’ (2012), 68-70. 63 Or most probably one. I subscribe to Parvis’ persuasive solution of the age-old conundrum of the relationship between the two Apologies. A way too short and messy, the so-called Second Apology is not an autonomous text: it ‘is essentially clippings from the cutting-room floor’ that were deleted and excluded from Justin’s reworking of a previous petition (ἔντευξις) addressed to the reigning emperors, the senate, and the Roman people (1Apology 1:1). Such reworked document corresponds to the First Apology as we know it. See Paul Parvis, ‘Justin, Philosopher, and Martyr: The Posthumous Creation of the Second Apology’, in Sara Parvis and Paul Foster (eds), Justin Martyr and His Worlds (Minneapolis, 2007), 22-37. 64 Tatian, Oration 18:2-3 and 19:1 are generally taken as evidence for this discipleship. 65 Tobias Georges, ‘Justin’s School in Rome – Reflections on Early Christian “Schools”’, ZAC 16 (2012), 75-87, 79. 66 Peter White, ‘Bookshops in the Literary Culture of Rome’, in William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker (eds), Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford, 2009), 233-67.

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Rome had an exceptionally high concentration of literate population endowed with economical, social and, cultural capitals.67 Rome reckoned a generous amount of institutional and domestic libraries,68 offered a large number of house sales and rentals, and featured several scattered neighborhood institutions operating as spatial landmarks, focal points of social interaction, and centers of recruitment.69 Last but not least, Rome presumably accommodated the highest number of potential patrons for not self-sufficient intellectuals in the whole empire. With regard to this last point, it is worth mentioning that we know nothing about Justin’s income. A few passages from the Dialogue with Trypho suggest he probably demanded no money from his students (Dial. 2:3; 58:1; 82:3-4). Justin insists on the financial freedom of true philosophy as a proof of the Christian authenticity of the teaching70 and thus states his refusal to attune his highly sophisticated intellectuality to ‘the pecuniary principle’.71 If we bear in mind Simmel’s straightforward equation between money economy and the dominance of intellect in the modern metropolitan type of man, we have to admit that we are far away from this scenario: Justin, the ancient metropolitan intellectual, refused to reduce his professional relations with fellow Christians to ‘rational relations’ valued according to the ‘objective measurable achievement’ of money.72 However, teaching for free was no mere charity either. In addition to supporting the claim to be considered both a true Christian and a genuine philosopher, it represented also a good marketing strategy for recruiting potential students who were not able to afford either the closed shop of state-sponsored 67 Among various degrees and types of ‘literacies’ as abilities in making sense/use of written words, we should at least distinguish between basic literacy (in the sense of the UNESCO definition of the capacity to both read and write a short simple statement on everyday life) and the capacity to make private use of books and participate in ‘literacy events’ as ‘occasions in which written language is integral to the nature of participants’ (Shirley B. Heath, ‘What No Bedtime Story Means: Narrative Skills at Home and School’, Language in Society 11 [1982], 49-76, 50). Only the latter set of skills is significant for our purposes. However, to suggest a percentage for this constituency of readers in 2nd-centrury Rome is to hazard a guess. 68 Jason König, Katerina Oikonomopoulou and Greg Woolf (eds), Ancient Libraries (Cambridge, 2013). 69 See H.G. Snyder, ‘“Above the Bath of Myrtinus”’ (2007), 346. Some huge imperial thermal structures, such as the Baths of Trajan and the Baths of Caracalla, had also libraries among their facilities. 70 J. Ulrich, ‘What Do We Know’ (2012), 70. Justin seemed to have instructed Tatian accordingly. See Tatian, Oration 32:2. 71 G. Simmel, ‘The Metropolis’ (1950 [1903]), 411. 72 Ibid. 411. Yet scholars who propose that this attitude expressed a form of ‘solidarity with the [Roman] community (Gemeindesolidarität)’ overlook, once again, the fact that there seemed to be no congregation, neither city-wide nor neighborhood-based, with which Justin had the kinds of ‘intimate emotional relations’ (ibid.) that could motivate such a commendable behavior (thus J. Ulrich, ‘What Do We Know’ [2012], 70 contra Stefan Heid, ‘Iustinus Martyr I’, in Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum [Stuttgart, 2001], vol. 19, 801-47, 813).

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education or the lectures given by members of the senatorial class who instructed gratis for reasons of social standing.73 Be that as it may, the question still arises as to how such free classes of a non-senatorial teacher were financed. After mentioning a handful of possibilities – private means, occasional free gifts from his students, revenue obtained by occasional labor –, historian of early Roman Christians Peter Lampe has to give up and admit that the ‘questions remains open’.74 We simply do not know what Justin’s intellectuality could live off. The impact of other structural characteristics of the Roman city-space on the philosopher’s material and mental life is far less speculative. For instance, the ethnically mixed character of the city was international enough to supply a Greek-speaking immigrant, who seemed to be pretty uncomfortable with Latin, with a student demand that spoke the same language and perhaps even came from the same geographical area. As mentioned above, it is possible that at least a few among Justin’s Eastern students who, like Tatian from Syria and Euelpistus from Cappadocia, were not imperial slaves75 had found in their master somebody who could help them not only to refine and strengthen their beliefs but also to better acclimate to a new urban environment. The role of religious or religiously-infused networks in engaging and overcoming urban issues represents one side of the dialectical relation between religious expectations and urban hopes of achievement that sociologists call ‘urban religious aspirations’. This dialectic fits especially the migrants.76 A further spatial aspect that ‘translate[s] [it]self into the liveliness of [Justin’s] sociological interactions’77 as a teacher is connected to the location of 73 Building on Dialogue with Trypho 58:1, Lampe mentions also ‘eschatological fear’ as a motivation to transmit Christian philosophy gratis (P. Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus [2003 (1989)], 283). Of course, a genuine interest in salvation must not be excluded, even though statements and behaviors showing consistency with Christian eschatological doctrines also helped increase symbolic capital among other Christ believers. 74 P. Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus (2003 [1989]), 279. 75 Another Eastern ‘companion’ and student of Justin, Hierax, said to the prefect he had been ‘dragged off’ from Cappadocia a long time before, thereby suggesting he was, or had been, a slave. See Acts of Justin 4:8. 76 Urban studies have recently taken up the term ‘aspirations’ from studies of social mobility to designate specific driving motifs and attitudes of immigrants as well as homegrown inhabitants: namely, ‘forward-looking hopes of achievement’ instantiated in ideas and behaviors connected with urban life and mobilized in ways that ‘engage and overcome’ urban issues. More specifically, the dialectical notion of ‘urban religious aspirations’ designates situations in which religiously infused motivations stir urban creativity or urban concerns are conducive to religious innovations. See Daniel P.S. Goh and Peter van der Veer, ‘Introduction: The Sacred and the Urban in Asia’, International Sociology 31 (2016), 367-74, 371; Marian Burchardt and Mariske Westendorp, ‘The im-materiality of urban religion: towards an ethnography of urban religious aspirations’, Culture and Religion 19 (2018), 160-76. For antiquity see Emiliano R. Urciuoli and Jörg Rüpke, ‘Urban Religion in Mediterranean Antiquity’, Mythos 12 (2018), 117-35. 77 G. Simmel, ‘The Sociology of Space’ (1997 [1903]), 151.

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his dwelling place-cum-school above a neighborhood bath – Rusticus the prefect said [to Justin]: ‘Tell me, where do you meet, in what place?’. Justin said, ‘I have been living above the Bath of Myrtinus for the entire period of my sojourn at Rome…’. As shown by Harlow Gregory Snyder in a quite daring article78 on Justin’s residence, an apartment situated above a neighborhood bathing establishment could provide several advantages to an intellectual and freelance teacher like Justin. The list includes benefits such as: a plentiful amount of daylight, availability of important services (like food, water, latrines, and other necessities for the maintenance of personal hygiene), a relatively generous amount of quiet in order to better organize one’s own work time,79 and the convenience of being located near a local landmark, which, given the absence of street signs, also provided a recognizable address for prospective students.80 With regard to this last issue, that is, the ‘address’ succinctly mentioned by Justin, Snyder argues that, due to the presumably well-know nature of the location of the bathhouse, ‘the address might even have carried with it a certain prestige, important for someone who wished to appear socially benign if not actually respectable’. Furthermore, he adds, to declare a prolonged stay in the same place ‘projects an image of stability’.81 In addition to this, we may think of a further psychological effect that this act of designation, or better, the very fact to live in a kind of ‘named house’, might have produced on the tenant. I am referring to the phenomenon that Simmel, in his sociology of space, explains as ‘sociological significance of the fixed point’ and calls ‘individualization of space’: The house that is called by its own name must give its inhabitants a feeling of spatial individuality, of belonging to a qualitatively fixed point in space. Through the name associated with it, the house forms a much more autonomous, individually nuanced existence.82

Simmel measures this effect against our modern metropolitan sensibility of people living in houses and looking for addresses which are numbered and no longer named.83 Yet not all past city dwellers could easily associate their abodes to a known point of the urban map either. 78 H.G. Snyder, “‘Above the Bath of Myrtinus’” (2007). Snyder tries first to localize Justin’s abode by identifying a precise location for the bathhouse (i.e., Baths of Mamertinus, outside the Porta Capena on the south-eastern side of the Antonine Baths) and then looks for textual evidence in Justin’s work that could support such an identification. Given the long chain of perceptive but unprovable assumptions they build upon, Snyder’s arguments do not seem conclusive. 79 Pace Seneca, Letters 56, who describes his address supra balneum as an acoustic nightmare for intellectual workers. For the discussion of this testimony, see H.G. Snyder, “‘Above the Bath of Myrtinus’” (2007), 338 and 348-9. 80 Ibid. 346-50. 81 Ibid. 357. 82 G. Simmel, ‘The Sociology of Space’ (1997 [1903]), 149; original emphasis. 83 ‘… to our sensibility, it [scil. the house] has a higher type of uniqueness than when designated by numbers, which are repeated in the same way in every street with only quantitative differences between them’ (ibid. 149).

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A last point: since the imperial mega-city of Rome counted several relatively cheap neighborhood bathhouses, archeologist Dirk Steuernagel has most recently suggested that Justin might have deliberately chosen this kind of apartment ‘to be in close contact with wide circles of the urban population, drawing on the function of public thermae as spots and vehicles for spreading news’. We know that, in the late 4th-century Hippo Regius, ‘Augustine held religious disputes in bath buildings’.84 Therefore, it is not implausible that Justin’s violent debate with the Cynic philosopher Crescens took place in this environment, which accommodated – as Justin himself says – an ‘erring multitude (τῶν πολλῶν τῶν πεπλανημένων)’ of Romans (2Apology 8:2).85 3. How did the metropolis affect Justin as a heresiologist? Heresiology is a term that did not exist at Justin’s time. Nor is ‘heresiologist’ a title that Justin might have used for self-(re)presentation and self-promotion. Yet Justin is considered the ‘inventor of heresy’86 in the sense of the originator of heresiology as a discourse that organizes (i.e., enables and constraints) religious knowledge about ‘truth’ and ‘error’.87 In this last section of the article, I will briefly look at how the metropolis affected Justin as a heresiologist. To accomplish his pioneering task, the ‘inventor of heresy’ was precisely where he had to be, namely in the largest and the most populated city of the empire, the city-space with the highest and most differentiated number of religious signs, gatherings, and groups – Christian and no – per acre in the Mediterranean world. Such a place is certainly a most suitable one for a religiously committed intellectual who wanted to produce division out of difference, or better, to boost the religious groups’ ‘narcissism of minor differences’.88 To put it in another 84

Dirk Steuernagel, ‘Roman Baths as Locations of Religious Practice’, in Asuman Lätzer-Lasar and Emiliano R. Urciuoli (eds), Urban Religion in Late Antiquity (Berlin, 2020), 225-59, 252. Steuernagel refers to The disputatio contra Fortunatum manichaeum, which took place ‘in urbe Hipponensium regionum, in Balneis Sossii, sub praesentia populi’ (Augustine, Against Fortunatus, praef.). 85 Minns and Parvis think of ‘a street-corner or bathouse debate’ (D. Minns and P. Parvis, Justin, Philosopher [2009], 27). 86 Alain Le Boulluec, La notion d’hérésie dans la littérature grecque (IIe-IIIe siècles). De Justin à Irénée (Paris, 1985), vol. 1; also Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines. The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia, 2003), 37-73; Emiliano R. Urciuoli, Un’archeologia del “noi” cristiano. Le “comunità immaginate” dei seguaci di Gesù tra utopie e territorializzazioni (I-II e.v.) (Milano, 2013), 272-6. 87 Although Robert Royalty rightly points out that a genealogy of heresiology in a Foucauldian sense should have Justin as the ‘endpoint’, since ‘he is by no means the first Christian writer to respond discursively to difference by marginalizing and demonizing Christian opponents’ (Robert M. Royalty, The Origin of Heresy: A History of Discourse in Second Temple Judaism [London, 2013], 8). 88 Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (New York, 1962 [1930]), 61.

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way, city dwellers could respond to the urban accumulation and proximity of comparable religious options by either embracing multiple religious affiliations (‘cumulative membership’) or developing normative religious identities (‘confessionalism’). Justin opted for the latter and turned it into a (posthumously) successful literary genre. However, most interestingly, if we survey the two/three extant works of Justin, the Apology/ies and the Dialogue with Trypho, we can hardly find traces of this multifarious, Christ-focused ‘religious village’ which was generated by the clustering of heterogeneous people, ideas, medias, and communication pathways to connect them. No deviant Christ group is thoroughly described as such. No picture is provided of their practices and the style of their get-togethers. Judging from what we can see, the inventor of heresy is no ethnographer of the heresies that proliferated in his adoptive city. A telling example of this lack of ethnographic services is that Justin seems to have no solid and direct knowledge of any contemporary Roman follower of Simon Magus, his country fellow from Samaria who was said to have beguiled the Roman populace and even ‘amazed’ the Senate with his magical tricks.89 How explain this informational shortage? There are, in fact, two possible and not mutually exclusive explanations. The first explanation is at once the simplest and the most convenient. At the end of a short list of masters of putative Christians labelled as heretics, Justin informs us to have written a ‘composition … against all the heresies that have arisen (σύνταγμα κατὰ πασῶν τῶν γεγενήμενων αἱρέσεων συντεταγμένον)’ (1Apology 26:8). This text, which was likely to be a survey of mistaken doctrines revolving around the figure of Christ, happened to be the first Christian work of this kind. All the missing ‘ethnographic’ information should, therefore, have been contained in the Syntagma but we cannot peer into them since this earlier work has been lost. A skillful, though unlucky, writer, Justin, the inventor of heresy, felt possibly no need to copy and paste the same data in the apologeticpolemic writings, which are the only works of him that have survived to the present day. Moreover, as scholars aware of this absence of testimonies have argued, some heresiological information were not to be transmitted. Take for instance Marcion of Sinope, another Christian freelance expert who was also based in Rome at Justin’s time.90 Sebastian Moll, a specialist on Marcion, poses 89 ‘Whence we petition you [scil. the reigning emperor and his adoptive sons] to receive the holy Senate and your People as joint adjudicators with you of this our petition, in order that, should anyone be held down [εἴ τις εἴη … κατεχόμενος] by the teachings of this fellow he might be able, οn learning the truth, to flee the error’ (1Apology 56:3), trans. D. Minns and P. Parvis, Justin, Philosopher (2009), 229. Concerning the adepts of Menander, another Samaritan religious entrepreneur that Justin ranks among the first ‘heretics’ and whose activity seems to place also in Rome, he vaguely says that ‘some of his followers are still around’ (1Apology 26:4; see also 56:1). 90 The arrival of Marcion in Rome from Pontus is generally dated around the year 140 – or shortly before. Based on a statement of Tertullian (Against Marcion 1:19), the date of his ‘break’

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the question as to why Justin’s remarks on Marcion’s doctrine are so few in the First Apology (26:5; 58:1-2)91 despite the stated huge impact of this Asianborn heresiarch (1Apology 26:5). Moll’s answer is that these scanty testimonies on Marcionite theology are just a tiny and carefully selected fraction of the material Justin had already provided in the Syntagma but excluded from the Apology for strategic purposes: the target audience of the script, made of ‘philosophically educated pagans’, might have found some of those ideas quite appealing.92 ‘Silence does not equal ignorance’ – especially when silence can be ‘golden’.93 All this is certainly possible, and yet theories and doctrines are unlikely to tell the whole story about religious rivalry. In Justin’s extant writings, including the 142 chapters of the Dialogue with Trypho, no specific information about the Marcionites’ group styles, practices, and activities are supplied either. The already circulating slanders about cannibalism and free-love performances, which Justin neither confirms nor denies (1Apology 26:7), on the one hand, and the accusation of eating sacrificial meat, which Justin reports without commenting (Dialogue with Trypho 35:1), on the other, are globally addressed to a wider list of heresies that includes but not differentiates the Marcionites.94 Once again, silence might not imply ignorance. Considering that ‘the organization and rites of Marcionite congregations resembled those of the Catholic’,95 it is possible that Justin, a virtuoso in the art of inflating minor differences, opted for glossing over such annoying major similarities in order to convey the idea that the perfect order of the rituals he scrupulously describes – i.e., baptism, Eucharist, and Sunday assemblies (1Apology 61-7) – was the prerogative of ‘true Christians’ alone. I propose, however, a supplementary explanation that makes silence matter in a different way. My hypothesis is that probably Justin, the Metropolitan Intellectual, never met a Marcionite in person, just as he never came across a follower of Simon or a disciple of Menander. If ever he knew where they gathered,

with the Roman presbyters, i.e., the readers of the different local house churches, and teachers is given with 144. His activity in Rome spanned circa two decades (140s-150s). 91 For a thorough analysis of these passages, see Markus Vinzent, Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels (Leuven, 2014), 28-36. 92 Moll cites as examples the disapproval of the Mosaic law, the logical confutation of the contradictions between Jewish scriptures and some Christian authoritative texts, and the denial of the resurrection of the flesh. See Sebastian Moll, ‘Justin and the Pontic Wolf’, in S. Parvis and P. Foster (eds), Justin Martyr and His Worlds (2007), 145-51, 150-1. 93 Ibid. 151. 94 In the first case, Marcionites fall in with the followers of Simon and Menander, in the second they are associated with Valentinians, Basilidians, Saturnilians, ‘and others by still other names’ (Dialogue with Trypho 35:1). 95 Heikki Räisänen, ‘Marcion’, in Antti Marjanen and Petri Luomanen (eds), A Companion to Second-Century Christian ‘Heretics’ (Leiden, 2005), 100-24, 119.

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he presumably had no idea what their meeting looked like.96 Justin did collect more or less reliable, accurate, and dispassionate second-hand information about all of them and then spread them out in his works according to different agendas. Yet this strategy tells about the use of books and booklets as well as about trust and reliance on others’ testimonies rather than implying close and ‘continuous external contacts with innumerable people’.97 Justin’s professional treatment of heresy bespeaks a trained intellectual disposition towards detachment and maintenance of distance rather than a quest for sensory proximity and contact stimuli. Positing that abstraction and indirect communication can effectively replace the ‘psychological effect of proximity’, Simmel sets the following rule: Perhaps the totality of social interactions could be arranged on a scale from this viewpoint, according to what degree of spatial proximity or distance a sociation either demands or tolerates from given forms and content.98

My opinion is that, contrary to the social form of schoolmastering and discipleship, Justin’s urban and intellectual invention of orthodoxy and heresy as forms of sociation was such as to demand a very low degree of sensory contact and spatial proximity with the recipients of those relations, namely the fellow Christians and the heretics. To substantiate the point, I will offer a final example. In a metropolis like Rome, texts and news moved faster than embodied individuals. Without mass transportation systems and little vehicular traffic, daily inner-city mobility was extremely slow and limited.99 The city was a ‘walking city’ in which neighborhood streets were the primary stages of day-to-day living. Moreover, without a technologically enhanced mass communication, neighborhood settings provided much of the information and resources people needed to function in their daily lives. Face-to-face interactions played a bigger role in ‘structuring neighborhoods in preindustrial cities than in many contemporary cities’.100 Justin of Neapolis’ patterns of movements might have been 96 After all, had the Marcionites, as ‘radical Paulinists’, followed Paul’s advice about not to make outsiders or unbelievers enter (see 1Cor. 14:23), they would have probably sniffed at Justin’s inquisitive self-invitation. 97 G. Simmel, ‘The Metropolis’ (1950 [1903]), 415. 98 G. Simmel, ‘The Sociology of Space’ (1997 [1903]), 152. 99 ‘Rome was the first city in which urban journeys could be made over a number of miles, rather than as a 15- to 20-minute stroll across the city’ (Ray Laurence, ‘Towards a History of Mobility in Ancient Rome [300 BCE to 100 CE]’, in Ida Ostenberg, Simon Malmberg and Jonas Bjornebye [eds], The Moving City: Processions, Passages and Promenades in Ancient Rome [London, 2015], 175-86, 181). 100 Michael E. Smith, ‘The archaeological study of neighborhoods and districts in ancient cities’ Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (2010), 137-54, 140. ‘In a similar way, even today in the backwardness of small town conditions the relationship to one’s neighbors in a building plays a very different role than in the metropolis where, […], one grows accustomed to continual

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those of a neighborhood-based teacher and preacher, rather than those of a city stroller. This can be illustrated by the fact that he terribly mistakes the statue of an ancient Sabine god called Semo Sancus, situated in the Tiber Island, for a cult image of the heresiarch Simon (Magus) exalting ‘Simon, the Holy God’ (in Latin: Simoni Deo Sancto; 1Apology 26:2; see also 56:3-4).101 He even petitions the emperors to pull down the sculpture (56:4). Unfortunately for him, a statue bearing the inscription Sermoni Sancto Deo Fidio was eventually unearthed in 1574, thereby revealing his blunder. As said, Justin’s Latin was quite poor, but the mistake makes more sense if the urban area of Transtiberim was out of his daily paths and usual movements. In fact, as Harlow Snyder incisively comments, ‘had [Justin] passed it more often…, he might have eventually learned of its actual identity’.102 Such indifference ‘to [the] genuine individuality’103 of his religious enemies did not prevent him from investing intellectual energy into the heresiological construction and defamation of Simon and his followers. Conclusion I would try to end this article by pushing the Simmelian reading of Justin’s urbanity to its limits and bringing it to the conclusion announced by the title. I would venture that there are some traits in the way Justin’s personality accommodated to the ‘overwhelming power of metropolitan life’104 that remind of Simmel’s famous description of the ‘blasé attitude (Blasiertheit)’ as the specific stimulus-response pattern of the metropolitan dweller. With this formula Simmel designates a set of coping behaviors that coalesces into a disposition of detachment. The blasé manifests a ‘mental attitude’ of ‘reserve (Reserviertheit)’,105 a daily trained and performed apathetic stance that functions as a defensive precaution against the intensification of the nervous stimulation produced by ever-changing images, intensity of contacts, and unexpected onrushing impressions. In the blasé attitude the concentration of men and things stimulate the nervous system of the individual to its highest achievement so that it attains its peak. Through the mere quantitative intensification of the same conditioning factors this achievement is abstractions, to indifference towards what is spatially closest and to an intimate relationship to that which is spatially very far removed’ (G. Simmel, ‘The Sociology of Space’ [1997 (1903)], 153). 101 Depending on Justin’s information, other two top-class heresiologists like Irenaeus (Against Heresies 1:23:1) and Tertullian (Apology 13:9) make the same mistaken identification. 102 H.G. Snyder, ‘Above the Bath of Myrtinus’ (2007), 361. 103 G. Simmel, ‘The Metropolis’ (1950 [1903]), 411. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid. 415.

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transformed into its opposite and appears in the peculiar adjustment of the blasé attitude. In this phenomenon the nerves find in the refusal to react to their stimulation the last possibility of accommodating to the contents and forms of metropolitan life.106

At its peak, the over-stimulated intellectuality of the ‘metropolitan man’ as ‘differentiating creature’ retreats into the self and stops differentiating. Justin’s personality assembles and displays aspects that might indicate the psychoattitudinal traits of a 2nd-century blasé. Among these are: his withdrawn individuality; his largely bookish and intellectualist Christian-ness; his apparent reluctance to actively proselytize107 and preference for receiving a small circle of students in his refuge-like apartment, while, at the same time, relying on neighborhood facilities to maintain the necessary social contacts; his lack of interest in the subjective qualities of the religious opponents coupled with the stylization and de-personalization of their traits through the all-encompassing, abstract device of ‘heresy;’ his capacity to design, and be committed to, a normative and clearly bounded religious imagined community by doing without sustained and ramified personal connections. Of course, the economic ‘source’ of the Simmelian blasé as form of life produced by modern capitalist urbanism is not applicable to Justin: his ‘discoloration (Entfärbung)’ of the different Christian tones through their heretical equivalence is not ‘the faithful subjective reflection of the completely internalized money economy’.108 Furthermore, some main characteristics of Justin, like the relative insignificance of his condemnatory heresiology among the Roman Christian circles,109 as well as the social marginality of a provincial philosopher with no patrons, cannot be generalized beyond the specific historical and geographical context. Lastly, and unfortunately, the lack of information about several other critical aspects of Justin’s urban life prevents us from venturing further analogies. For instance, we do not know whether the vibrant public confrontation Justin waged with the Cynic philosopher Crescens can be captured by the clash of personalities that Simmel pictures as follows: Indeed, if I do not deceive myself, the inner aspect of this outer reserve is not only indifference but, more often than we are aware, it is a slight aversion, a mutual strangeness and repulsion, which will break into hatred and fight at the moment of a closer contact, however caused. The whole inner organization of such an extensive communicative life rests upon an extremely varied hierarchy of sympathies, indifferences, and aversions of the briefest as well as of the most permanent nature. The sphere of indifference in this hierarchy is not as large as might appear on the surface. Our psychic activity still responds to almost every impression of somebody else with a somewhat distinct feeling. The unconscious, fluid and changing character of this impression seems to result in a 106 107 108 109

Ibid. See M. Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity (2019), 148. G. Simmel, ‘The Metropolis’ (1950 [1903]), 414. E. Thomassen, ‘Orthodoxy and Heresy’ (2004), 241-2.

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state of indifference. Actually this indifference would be just as unnatural as the diffusion of indiscriminate mutual suggestion would be unbearable. From both these typical dangers of the metropolis, indifference and indiscriminate suggestibility, antipathy protects us. A latent antipathy and the preparatory stage of practical antagonism effect the distances and aversions without which this mode of life could not at all be led.110

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The Hospitality of Noah in 1Clement Paul HARTOG, Faith Baptist Theological Seminary, Des Moines, IA, USA

ABSTRACT 1Clement mentions Noah on two occasions. According to chapter 7, Noah ‘preached repentance, and they that obeyed were saved’ – a seeming reference to Noah’s family. Nevertheless, the context (with the paralleling of the ‘Ninevites’ and their response to Jonah’s preaching) may hint at the inclusion of the animals in the ark as well (see Jonah 3:7-8). 1Clem. 9.4 declares that Noah ‘preached regeneration’, and ‘through him the Master saved the living creatures that entered into the ark in concord’. This second mention of Noah explicitly highlights the animals who ‘entered into’ (εἰσελθόντα) the ark and appears within a series of Hebrew Scripture illustrations. The lengthy case of Abraham immediately follows: ‘For his faith and hospitality (φιλοξενία) a son was given unto him in old age’ (10.7). Chapter 11 adds, ‘For his hospitality (φιλοξενία) and godliness Lot was saved from Sodom’ (11.1). Chapter 12 appends, ‘for her faith and hospitality (φιλοξενία) Rahab the harlot was saved’, because she had sheltered the Hebrew spies who ‘entered into’ (εἰσῆλθον) her house. Numerous scholars have compared 1Clem. 9-11 with Jas. 2, Rom. 4-5, and/or Heb. 11. Nevertheless, they have overlooked a key implication – the structure and vocabulary of 1Clem. 9-12 suggest that Noah also practiced hospitality, thus paralleling the instances of Abraham, Lot, and Rahab that immediately follow. This intimation of Noahic hospitality by welcoming the ‘living creatures’ who ‘entered into’ his ark could inform theological ‘environmental ethics’ through a thicker reading of his ‘ministry’ (λειτουργία) of ‘hospitality’.

1Clement addresses a rift within the Corinthian assembly. The opening chapter focuses upon ‘the detestable and unholy schism, so alien and strange to those chosen by God, which a few reckless and arrogant persons have kindled to such a pitch of insanity that your good name, once so renowned and loved by all, has been greatly reviled’ (1:1).1 With the repeated condemnation of jealousy, envy, and schism, the letter reiterates a forceful critique of this state of dissension. It seems that younger members had opposed the established congregational leaders – the author even accuses them of rebellion. Clement (using the ‘traditional’ author’s name in this essay) repeatedly calls them to repentance – the 1 English translations of 1Clement in the abstract come from J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers: Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp (Peabody, reprint, 1989), I.2. Unless otherwise noted, English translations of 1Clement in the body of the essay come from Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, 2007).

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 185-194. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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μετάνοια word group appears dozens of times in his epistle.2 He also implores a return to ‘concord’ or ‘harmony’ (ὁμόνοια), a word surfacing on fourteen occasions but constantly hovering just below the surface of the discourse. Immediately following, yet still within the letter opening, Clement declares, ‘For has anyone ever visited you who did not approve your most excellent and steadfast faith? Who did not admire your sober and magnanimous piety in Christ? Who did not proclaim the magnificent character of your hospitality? Who did not congratulate you on your complete and sound knowledge?’ (1Clem. 1.2). This praise of the Corinthian faith, piety, hospitality, and knowledge occurs within an extended captatio benevolentiae, extending to the end of chapter two, in which Clement thoroughly and gushingly praises the past character and reputation of the assembly. Moreover, as Robert Grant and Holt Graham demonstrated, these themes in the epistolary opening are developed later throughout the letter.3 For our purposes, it is important to note the presence of ‘hospitality’ (φιλοξενία), manifestly embedded within the rosy portrayal of the church’s past. So optimistic is his praise, in fact, that Clement’s rose-tinted spectacles seem temporarily to have filtered out the full realities of the Corinthian foibles and failures reflected in the Apostle Paul’s heavy-handed correspondence. A change in tenor akin to rhetorical whiplash then crashes into the third chapter of 1Clement. ‘All glory and growth were given to you, and then that which is written was fulfilled: “My beloved ate and drank and was enlarged and grew fat and kicked.” From this came jealousy and envy, strife and sedition, persecution and anarchy, war and captivity. So people were stirred up: those without honor against the honored, those of no repute against the highly reputed, the foolish against the wise, the young against the old’ (1Clem. 3.1-3). Henry Chadwick theorizes that Clement’s emphasis upon hospitality and the schismatic crisis of generational conflict were related to each other. He proposes ‘that some visiting Christians at Corinth accepted hospitality from the old clergy rather than the new; that the old clergy had seen in this act of communion on the part of the other churches a golden opportunity of reaffirming their position; and that the visitors would have become the object of hostile comment from the rest of the church and therefore come away from Corinth with unfavourable impressions’.4 Davorin Peterlin finds a more mundane reason for the inclusion of φιλοξενία (‘hospitality’) among the themes of the letter opening: ‘As Corinth’s strength lay in commerce and trade, many visitors would visit it on business. Some of them were indeed Christian business persons from other cities or their representatives. … A most natural place for the Christian visitor was a local 2

See Stuart G. Hall, ‘Repentance in 1 Clement’, SP 8 (1966), 30-43. Robert M. Grant and Holt H. Graham, The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2: First and Second Clement (New York, 1964), 18. 4 Henry Chadwick, ‘Justification by Faith and Hospitality’, SP 4 (1961), 280-5, 284. 3

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Christian church.’5 Yet the geographical and commercial context may not be unrelated to the ecclesiastical tensions. Peterlin adds, ‘Although all Christians were called to showing hospitality, it was particularly enjoined upon the primitive church leaders (1 Tim 3:2; Tit 1:8). Local presbyters would have been in charge of housing visitors.’6 In this generational conflict, Clement abandons neutral ground and openly sides with the seasoned saints against the young and restless usurpers. As John Lawson notes, Clement fills the role of a moralistic patriarch, dispensing parental advice to wayward children.7 It is well-known that his argumentation frequently draws from the wells of the Hebrew Scriptures.8 Joshua Jipp concludes that ‘the author of 1 Clement is offering a serious reading of the biblical texts’.9 In doing so, Clement retraces the unfolding steps of redemptive or salvation history. As James Kleist states, Clement ‘launches into a comprehensive survey of ancient Jewish and contemporary Christian history’.10 Or, as Joshua Greever explains, the Corinthians were to study ‘the ways in which God has bestowed his saving blessing throughout redemptive history’.11 Noah is mentioned twice within 1Clement. The first citation appears in chapter 7, within a discussion of ‘the grace of repentance’.12 Clement declares: ‘Let us review all the generations in turn, and learn that from generation to generation the Master has given an opportunity for repentance to those who desire to turn to him’ (1Clem. 7.5; see Wis. 12:10).13 While T.F. Torrance argued that ‘Clement virtually identifies μετάνοιας χάριν, with μετάνοιας τόπον’, Lawson tempered such conclusions.14 5

Davorin Peterlin, ‘The Corinthian Church Between Paul’s and Clement’s Time’, AsTJ 53 (1998), 49-57, 50. 6 Ibid. 7 John Lawson, A Theological and Historical Introduction to the Apostolic Fathers (New York, 1961), 21, 23. 8 See James G. Bushur, ‘The Early Christian Appropriation of Old Testament Scripture: The Canonical Reading of Scripture in 1 Clement’, CTQ 83 (2019), 63-83; Enrico Norelli, ‘La Septante dans quelques testimonia non canoniques des origenes chrétiennes’, in Eberhard Bons, Ralph Brucker and Jan Joosten (eds), The Reception of Septuagint Words in Jewish-Hellenistic and Christian Literature, WUNT 2/367 (Tübingen, 2014), 129-61; Philippe Henne, ‘Les Pères de l’Église et les saintes Écritures: en route vers une théorie générale de l’interprétation biblique’, MScRel 71 (2014), 29-39. 9 Joshua W. Jipp, Saved by Faith and Hospitality (Grand Rapids, 2017), 5. 10 James A. Kleist, The Epistles of St. Clement of Rome and St. Ignatius of Antioch, ACW 1 (Westminster, 1946), 5. 11 Joshua M. Greever, ‘Between Paul and James: Faith and Works in 1 Clement 29.1-32.4’, Journal for the Center for Ancient Christian Studies 2 (2015), 25-46, 36-7. 12 ‘Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ and understand how precious it is to his Father, because, being poured out for our salvation, it won for the whole world the grace of repentance’ (1Clem. 7.4). 13 R.M. Grant and H.H. Graham, Apostolic Fathers (1964), 28-9. 14 Thomas F. Torrance, Grace in the Apostolic Fathers (Eugene, reprint, 1996), 46; J. Lawson, Theological and Historical Introduction (1961), 33-4.

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As specific examples of opportunities for repentance, Clement summons the preaching of Noah and Jonah. The case of Jonah seems plainly apropos, as the runaway prophet’s proclamation of divine judgment led to such a thorough repentance that even the livestock were adorned with penitential attire. Clement observes, ‘Jonah preached destruction to the people of Nineveh; but those who repented of their sins made atonement to God by their prayers and received salvation, even though they had been alienated from God’ (1Clem. 7.7). The case of Noah is not quite as obvious. Clement declares, ‘Noah preached repentance and those who obeyed were saved’ (1Clem. 7.6). The Hebrew Scriptures never explicitly refer to Noah as a preacher of repentance. Nevertheless, this depiction had developed within Jewish tradition, and 2Pet. 2:5 refers to him as ‘a preacher of righteousness’ (ASV).15 More direct parallels to Noah being a preacher of repentance include Josephus, Ant. I 74; Gen. Rab. 30.7; and Sib. Or. I.127.16 Clement relates the results of Noah’s preaching – ‘and those who obeyed (ὑπακούσαντες) were saved (ἐσώθησαν)’ (1Clem. 7.6). Without further explanation, the reader’s mind may turn to the Noahic family of eight – consisting of Noah’s wife; their sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth with their wives; as well as Noah himself. As 1Pet. 3:20, for instance, explains of this deluvian rescue, ‘a few (ὀλίγοι), that is eight souls (ὀκτὼ ψυχαί), were delivered (διεσώθησαν) through water’ (NET). It is possible, however, that Clement has in mind more than just the ark’s human passengers alone, when he refers to ‘those who obeyed’ and ‘were saved’. As D.W.F. Wong notes, Clement repeatedly appeals to ‘the order manifested in the natural world’, in order to draw his paraenetic conclusions.17 Therefore, ‘… the established order in nature serves as an ideal pattern of God’s perfect rule, a model for the church to emulate’.18 David J. Downs similarly comments, ‘… the author of 1 Clement images all creation living in harmony and peace in obedience to God (esp. 1Clem. 20), an idyllic representation that serves Clement’s goal of promoting concord among his divisive audience’.19 Downs 15 See Mark W. Wilson, ‘Noah, the Ark, and the Flood in Early Christian Literature’, Scriptura 113 (2014), 1-12, 8. Wilson believes that ‘it is certainly possible that Clement had access to 2 Peter as a literary source’ (ibid. 10 n. 41). Contra Richard Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 50 (Waco, 1983), 251: ‘The fact that this tradition appears also in 1 Clement (7:6: ἐκήρυξεν μετάνοιαν, “he preached repentance”; cf. 9:4) does not prove that Clement knew 2 Peter; on the contrary, his use of μετάνοιαν (“repentance”) shows that he had independent access to the tradition about Noah’s preaching. But it is one of many signs that the two works belong to a common milieu’. 16 For Jewish parallels, see R.M. Grant and H.H. Graham, Apostolic Fathers (1964), 29; J.B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers (reprint, 1989), I.2, 37 n. 8; M.W. Wilson, ‘Noah’ (2014), 8. 17 D.W.F. Wong, ‘Natural and Divine Order in I Clement’, VC 31 (1977), 81-87, 81. 18 Ibid. 82. 19 David J. Downs, ‘Justification, Good Works, and Creation in Clement of Rome’s Appropriation of Romans 5-6’, NTS 59 (2013), 415-32, 416. See also Cilliers Breytenbach, ‘Civic Concord and Cosmic Harmony: Sources of Metaphoric Mapping in 1 Clement 20:3’, NovT (2003), 297-312; D.W.F. Wong, ‘Natural and Divine Order’ (1977).

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maintains that this ‘harmonious characterization of the physical world’ is ‘paralleled briefly’ in 1Clem. 9.4.20 The next example that Clement cites in this particular passage is the preaching of Jonah (1Clem. 7.7). Although the Michael Holmes translation refers to ‘the people of Nineveh’, the Greek is merely Νινευίταις, leading to Bart Ehrman’s generic rendition of ‘Ninevites’.21 The descriptions that follow refer to ‘those who repented of their sins’ and ‘made atonement to God by their prayers and received salvation’ (1Clem. 7.7).22 On a prima facie level, such descriptions seem to focus upon traits true of the human residents alone. Nevertheless, the royal decree of Jonah 3 declared, ‘No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water. Every person and animal must put on sackcloth and must cry earnestly to God, and everyone must turn from their evil way of living and from the violence that they do’ (Jonah 3:7b-8; NET). In the final chapter of Jonah, the pouting prophet laments the divine mercy bestowed upon Nineveh and wishes himself dead, because a worm blew his cover. Within the book, this small creature does God’s bidding, even as the great fish does in chapters one and two. The narrative closes with Yahweh’s rhetorical question, ‘should I not be even more concerned about Nineveh, this enormous city? There are more than one hundred twenty thousand people in it who do not know right from wrong, as well as many animals!’ (Jonah 4:11; NET). An implicit reference to animals in 1Clem. 7 would be an amazing rhetorical ploy – combining the sentiments of ‘go to the ant you sluggard’ with the tenor of ‘O foolish Corinthians!’ Even irrational animals availed themselves of the grace of repentance! Why can’t you rational bipeds fall into line by participating in repentance as well (1Clem. 8.5), for your own deliverance? As J.B. Lightfoot quipped: ‘Even the dumb animals set an example of concord.’23 Whether or not 1Clem. 7.6 includes Noah’s animal menagerie among ‘those who obeyed’ and ‘were saved’ and not just the Noahic family of eight human souls, the second Clementine reference to Noah (in 1Clem. 9.4) definitively encompasses the deluvian zoo – ‘the living creatures (ζῶα) that entered into the ark in harmony’, as we will soon see. Chapter 8 of 1Clement contains five uses of the μετάνοια word group. The final verse concludes, ‘seeing, then, that he [the Lord] desires all his beloved to participate in repentance, he established it by an act of his almighty will’ 20

D.J. Downs, ‘Justification’ (2013), 430. Bart D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers I, LCL 24 (Cambridge, 2003), 47. 22 On the theme of ‘salvation’ in 1Clement, see Taras Khomych, ‘The Concept of Salvation in First Clement’, in Theresia Hainthaler, Franz Mali, Gregor Emmenegger and Manté Lenkaityté Ostermann (eds), Für uns und für unser Heil: Soteriologie in Ost und West. Forscher aus dem Osten und Westen Europas an den Quellen des gemeinsamen Glaubens, Wiener Patristische Tagungen 6 (Innsbruck, 2014), 23-34. 23 J.B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers (reprint, 1989), I.2, 43 n. 10. 21

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(1Clem. 8.5). The first verse of the next chapter picks up on ‘his [God’s] magnificent and glorious will’, and targets ‘the strife and the jealousy that leads to death’ (1Clem. 9.1). With hortatory subjunctives in hand, Clement exhorts the Corinthians, ‘let us fix our eyes on those who perfectly served his magnificent glory’ (1Clem. 9.2). And more particularly, ‘let us consider Enoch.’ In his retelling of salvation history, Clement narrates the faithful commitment of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Lot, and Rahab. As Benjamin Bacon notes, 1Clem. 9-12 traces ‘the sacred history from Genesis to Joshua’.24 The similarities between Clement’s overview and Sir. 44 and especially Heb. 11 have not been lost upon commentators.25 The verbal parallelism is not exact though, as Lightfoot comments, ‘the words are displaced, as often happens when memory is trusted’.26 Others, including Franklin Young and Joshua Greever, have compared the references to Abraham and Rahab with the discussion in James 2.27 Robert Grant and Holt Graham reasoned, ‘it is difficult not to suppose that Clement’s examples are inspired by a similar list in Hebrews 11:5-7 … In Hebrews these persons are listed as heroes of faith, not obedience; but (1) Clement shares with James (2:14-26) the view that faith without works is dead, and (2) he speaks of the fidelity of Noah, Abraham, and Rahab’.28 While Lightfoot (followed by others), points to the similar ordering of Enoch, Noah, Abraham as found in Heb. 11 and 1Clem. 9-10, one must acknowledge that the ordering may merely reflect the sequence of salvation history.29 The stronger argument for dependence upon Heb. 11, as described by Grant and Graham, concerns the cumulative case for a knowledge of Hebrews attested elsewhere in 1Clement.30 Andrew F. Gregory 24 Benjamin Wisner Bacon, ‘The Doctrine of Faith in Hebrews, James, and Clement of Rome’, JBL 19 (1900), 12-21, 17. Some interpreters have directed their scholarly focus upon specific individuals in the recitation. Anthony Hanson has investigated the character of Rahab within 1Clement, and Mark Wilson has examined the role of Noah within the letter. See Anthony T. Hanson, ‘Rahab the Harlot in Early Christian Tradition’, JSNT 1 (1978), 53-60; Janelle Peters, ‘Rahab, Esther and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement’, JECH 5 (2015), 94-110; see also M.W. Wilson, ‘Noah’ (2014). 25 Franklin Woodrow Young, ‘The Relation of 1 Clement to the Epistle of James’, JBL 67 (1948), 339-45. See also Annie Jaubert, Clément de Rome: Epître aux Corinthiens, SC 167 (Paris, 1971), 114 n. 1; M.W. Wilson, ‘Noah’ (2014), 9. 26 J.B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers (reprint, 1989), I.2, 42 n. 6. 27 F.W. Young, ‘Relation of 1 Clement to the Epistle of James’ (1948); J.M. Greever, ‘Between Paul and James’ (2015), 38; B.W. Bacon, ‘Doctrine of Faith’ (1900); Dennis Ingolfsland, Clement of Rome: Salvation by Faith or Works? (Seattle, 2010); David R. Maxwell, ‘Justified by Works and not by Faith Alone: Reconciling Paul and James’, ConJ 33 (2007), 375-8; A.T. Hanson, ‘Rahab the Harlot’ (1978). See also Donald Alfred Hagner, The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome (Leiden, 1973), 248-56. 28 R.M. Grant and H.H. Graham, Apostolic Fathers (1964), 31. 29 J.B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers (reprint, 1989), I.2, 42 n. 6; R.M. Grant and H.H. Graham, Apostolic Fathers (1964), 30-1; D.A. Hagner, Use of the Old and New Testaments (1973), 184. 30 R.M. Grant and H.H. Graham, Apostolic Fathers (1964), 31; see also D. Ingolfsland, Clement of Rome (2010), 5; D.A. Hagner, Use of the Old and New Testaments (1973), 179-95.

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considers it ‘very likely indeed’ that Clement’s epistle used Hebrews.31 The use of Hebrews 11 may help explain Enoch’s inclusion in 1Clem. 9.3. 1Clem. 9.4 affirms, ‘Noah, being found faithful, by his ministration preached regeneration unto the world, and through him the Master saved the living creatures that entered into the ark in concord’.32 This text shares some affinities with the previously discussed passage in 7.6. Both mention the preaching of Noah (ἐκήρυξεν in 7.6 and ἐκήρυξεν again in 9.4). Nevertheless, the subject of the preaching differs – being μετάνοια in 7.6 and παλιγγενεσία in 9.4.33 The latter (‘regeneration’, ‘rebirth’, ‘renewal’, or ‘restoration’) echoes Jesus’ teaching (Matt. 19:28), but also the Stoic renewal after the great conflagration.34 Clement’s usage of παλιγγενεσία parallels the word ‘renewal’ following the Noahic flood found in Philo, Life of Moses II 12,65.35 1Clement refers to Noah as an example of those who ‘served’ (λειτουργήσαντας) (9.2) and also to his ‘ministry’ or ‘service’ (λειτουργίας) (9.4). According to Wilson, ‘Clement’s use of such priestly language suggests that he saw Noah as the first priest of the new world to offer sacrifices to God (Genesis 8:20).’36 Clement claims that the ‘living creatures … entered into the ark (κιβωτόν) in harmony (ὁμόνοιᾳ)’. In this manner, they were ‘saved’ or ‘delivered’ (διέσωσεν) by the Master (ὁ δεσπότης) himself (1Clem. 9.4). The text thus uses a slightly different verb (διασώζω) than 7.7 does (σώζω). As mentioned previously, the same verb (διασώζω) is found in 1Pet. 3:20 – although literary dependence is not thereby proven. Another difference between the two Clementine passages is the inclusion of ὁμόνοια as ‘concord, harmony’ in 9.4. What I do wish to argue, however, is that 1Clem. 9.4 implicitly depicts Noah as a paradigm of hospitality. Even as chapters 7 and 8 underscore the necessity of ‘repentance’ (with the μετάνοια word group appearing four times in chapter 7 31 Andrew F. Gregory, ‘1 Clement and the Writings that Later Formed the New Testament’, in Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (eds), The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford, 2005), 129-57, 154. See also A.J. Carlyle, ‘Clement of Rome’, in The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford, 1905), 37-62, 44-8; D.A. Hagner, Use of the Old and New Testaments (1973), 179-95. 32 English translation from J.B Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers (reprint, 1989), I.2, 276. 33 The word παλιγγενεσία has been translated alternatively as ‘regeneration’ (ibid.); ‘new birth’, Francis X. Glimm, Joseph M.-F. Marique and Gerald G. Walsh, The Apostolic Fathers, FC 1 (Washington, 1947), 17, Cyril C. Richardson, Early Christian Fathers, LCC (Louisville, 1953), 48; ‘rebirth’, J.A. Kleist, Epistles (1946), 14, Edgar J. Goodspeed, The Apostolic Fathers: An American Translation (New York, 1950), 53; ‘renewal’, R.M. Grant and H.H. Graham, Apostolic Fathers (1964), 31; ‘new beginning’, Kirsopp Lake, The Apostolic Fathers I, LCL 24 (Cambridge, 1912), 23, B.D. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers I (2003), 51; ‘second birth’, M.W. Holmes, Apostolic Fathers I (2007), 57; and ‘restoration’, Kenneth J. Howell, Clement of Rome and the Didache: A New Translation and Theological Commentary, Early Christian Fathers 2 (Zanesville, 2012), 88. 34 See also 2Pet. 2:5; 3:6; Sib. Or. 1.195, see R.M. Grant and H.H. Graham, Apostolic Fathers (1964), 31. 35 A. Jaubert, Clément de Rome (1971), 114 n. 3. 36 M.W. Wilson, ‘Noah’ (2014), 10.

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and five times in chapter 8), so chapters 10-2 mention the φιλοξενία (‘hospitality’) word group on four occasions.37 1Clem. 10.7 declares of Abraham, ‘because of his faith (πίστιν) and hospitality (φιλοξενίαν) a son was given to him in his old age, and for the sake of obedience he offered him as a sacrifice to God on one of the mountains that he showed him’. 1Clem. 11.1 declares, ‘because of his hospitality (φιλοξενίαν) and godliness (εὐσέβειαν) Lot was saved from Sodom when the entire region was judged by fire and brimstone’. 1Clem. 12.1 avers, ‘because of her faith (πίστιν) and hospitality (φιλοξενίαν) Rahab the harlot was saved’. 1Clem. 12.3 adds: ‘The hospitable (φιλόξενος) Rahab’ took the spies in ‘and hid them in an upstairs room under some flax stalks’. John Lawson contends that ‘Clement’s concept of πίστις in this passage is nearer to “fidelity” – the committing of one’s life to a course of action based on obedience to God, in trust that God will fulfill his promise to guide, strengthen, and to bless.’38 Such fidelity is demonstrated in obedience, humility, and hospitality.39 While James 2 underscores the faith and works of Abraham and Rahab, 1Clement emphasizes their faith and hospitality.40 Yet James 2:25 does allude to Rahab’s hospitality: ‘And similarly, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed (ὑποδεξαμένη) the messengers and sent them out by another way?’ (NET).41 As noted by Franklin Young, ὑποδεξαμένη meant ‘to receive as a guest’ in both classical and koine Greek.42 Similarly, Heb. 11:31 explains, ‘by faith Rahab the prostitute escaped the destruction of the disobedient, because she welcomed (δεξαμένη) the spies in peace’ (NET).43 Lot may seem something like ‘the odd man out’ in an enumeration of ‘heroes of the faith’.44 For instance, Lawson declares, ‘we are less convinced about Lot 37 See B.W. Bacon, ‘Doctrine of Faith’ (2010), 19-21; D. Ingolfsland, Clement of Rome (2010), 2-5. 38 J. Lawson, Theological and Historical Introduction (1961), 34. 39 B.W. Bacon, ‘Doctrine of Faith’ (2010), 21. 40 Hanson notes the similar emphases upon the scarlet rope as a ‘sign’ in 1Clem. 12.7 and Josephus, Ant. V 4. ‘If so, Josephus may be said to act as a bridge between the New Testament allusions and I Clement’, A.T. Hanson, ‘Rahab the Harlot’ (1978), 55-7. See Josh 2:18. Jipp argues that Abraham’s hospitality is implicitly included among his ‘works’ in James 2, J.W. Jipp, Saved by Faith and Hospitality (2017), 5-6. See also R.B. Ward, ‘The Works of Abraham: James 2:14-26’, HTR 6 (1968), 283-90; Luke Timothy Johnson, Brother James, Friend of God: Studies in the Letter of James (Grand Rapids, 2004), 178-9. 41 See J.W. Jipp, Saved by Faith and Hospitality (2017), 6. Hagner concludes that 1Clement may have been dependent upon James, D.A. Hagner, Use of the Old and the New Testaments (1973), 124. 42 F.W. Young, ‘Relation of 1 Clement’ (1948), 343. 43 Hanson reasons that it is ‘quite likely’ that 1Clement was ‘consciously trying to reconcile’ James and Hebrews, A.T. Hanson, ‘Rahab the Harlot’ (1978), 57, 59. See also A. Jaubert, Clément de Rome (1971), 65, 119 n. 4. 44 Some suggest that Lot came to mind tagging from Abraham, since Lot does not appear in Heb. 11. Perhaps, but thematically a direct connection seems to be hospitality.

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as a type of faith’.45 Heb. 11 does not list Lot in its annals. Yet 1Clem. 11 does not cite Lot for his πίστις but for his εὐσέβεια and φιλοξενία (‘godliness’ and ‘hospitality’). He had welcomed the heavenly visitors into his home. ‘Pious’ or ‘godly’ Lot may be a stretch of the virtuous imagination, but not without parallel in early Christian literature.46 2Pet. 2:7 dares to call him ‘righteous Lot’ (δίκαιον Λώτ).47 More contextually, within this Clementine passage, the inclusion of Lot allows Clement to make a salty comment about Lot’s wife, who ‘was destined to be a sign, for after leaving with him she changed her mind and was no longer in harmony (ὁμόνοιᾳ)’ (1Clem. 11.2). Because of her lack of ὁμόνοια, or concord, she became a pillar of salt. Clement tightens his paraenetic noose by drawing out the moral of the story, ‘that it might be known to all that those who are double-minded and those who question the power of God fall under judgment and become a warning to all generations’. Clement has clearly marked his purpose, indelibly stamping it with a personal warning akin to ‘Schismatics beware!’ For our purposes, I wish to highlight further particular vocabulary in the Rahab entry. In Holmes’ translation of 1Clem. 12.4, the king’s representatives accosted her, exclaiming ‘the men spying on our land came to you’. And she responds: ‘Yes, the men whom you seek came to me, but they left immediately and are already on their way’. But the verb standing behind ‘came’ is not merely ἔρχομαι but εἰσέρχομαι, to ‘come into’, a fitting vocabulary choice in light of the emphasis upon hospitality. In order to convey the connotation, Ehrman renders the verb with the elongated translation of ‘come into your house’.48 The old Lightfoot rendition succinctly yet fittingly translates the two uses as ‘entered in unto thee’ and ‘entered in unto me’.49 The employment of εἰσέρχομαι parallels Rahab’s own actions in 12.3. Having received (εἰσδεξαμένη) them, she hid (ἔκρυψεν) them.50 With this data in mind, we may return to the entry of Noah in 1Clem. 9.4: ‘Noah, being found faithful, by his ministration preached regeneration unto the world, and through him the Master saved the living creatures that entered into

45

J. Lawson, Theological and Historical Introduction (1961), 35. See J. Newman, ‘Lot in Sodom: The Post-Mortem of a City and the Afterlife of a Biblical Text’, in Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders (eds), The Function of Scripture in Early Jewish and Christian Tradition, JSNTSupp 154 / SSEJC 6 (Sheffield, 1998), 34-44. 47 Jipp contends that ‘Lot’s hospitality is probably the sole reason 2 Peter refers to him as “righteous Lot” (2 Pet 2:7)’, J.W. Jipp, Saved by Faith and Hospitality (2017), 5. If so, 2Pet. 2:7 provides a depiction paralleling 1Clem. 11.1. See also T. Desmond Alexander, ‘Lot’s Hospitality: A Clue to His Righteousness’, JBL 104 (1985), 281-5. 48 B.D. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers I (2003), 55. 49 J.B Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers (reprint, 1989), I.2, 277. 50 See A.T. Hanson, ‘Rahab the Harlot’ (1978), 54. Rahab would have ‘received’ her clients while working her trade (ibid. 58). 46

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(εἰσελθόντα) the ark in concord’.51 Even as the Israelite spies ‘entered into’ Rahab’s house and were hospitably welcomed, so the ‘living creatures’ ‘entered into’ Noah’s ark. By inference, even as hospitable Rahab welcomed the spies, so Noah welcomed the animals and was himself hospitable. 1Clem. 9 serves as a bridge passage between the emphasis upon ‘repentance’ in chapters 7-8 and the emphasis upon ‘hospitality’ in chapters 10-12. The structure of this passage implies (without explicitly using the word) that Noah also practiced ‘hospitality’, like the characters of Abraham, Lot, and Rahab which follow. If I am right in this interpretation of hospitable Noah, noteworthy theologicalethical results follow. If Noah’s implied hospitality was demonstrated by welcoming all the ‘living creatures’ into his ark, this Clementine text serves as a reminder that hospitality may welcome the well-being of non-human species within a full-orbed ‘creation care’.52 Wilson mentioned the importance of the 1Clement material for ‘ecological’ stewardship.53 Yet he did not note the implied focus upon the hospitality of Noah.54 Expressed more directly, Noah’s hospitality of welcoming the ‘living creatures’ who entered into his ark, as expressed by 1Clement, can inform contemporary theological ‘environmental ethics’.

51

English translation from J.B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers (reprint, 1989), I.2, 276. ‘The story of Noah and the flood opens up wonderful possibilities for ecological preaching. The flood story culminates in what can be called the original “eco-covenant,” a covenant made with every living creature’ (Barbara R. Rossing, ‘Fourth Sunday in Creation: River Sunday’, in Norman C. Habel, David M. Rhoads and H. Paul Santmire (eds), The Season of Creation: A Preaching Commentary (Minneapolis, 2011), 114. 53 ‘Clement’s portrayal of Noah leading the creatures to safety inside the ark proved to be salvation for God’s created order as well as for Noah and his family’, M.W. Wilson, ‘Noah’ (2014), 12. 54 Ibid. 52

Why are there no Manuscripts of the Ancient Didache? Clayton N. JEFFORD, Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, St Meinrad, IN, USA

ABSTRACT While scholars speak of the Didache’s origins and evolution with seeming confidence based on the eleventh-century text of H54, no complete parallel to the tradition appears prior to the late fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions Book 7. Several researchers have attempted with various degrees of success to illustrate knowledge of the Didache among early patristic sources, notably von der Goltz (1905) for Athanasius, Robinson (1920) and Hitchcock (1923) for Clement of Alexandria, Smith (1966) for Justin Martyr, and Jefford (1995) for Ignatius of Antioch, yet evidence for the entirety of the text remains elusive. After a survey of such attempts, this essay concludes that the reason no manuscripts of the entire text are available is because there were never any to be found. While portions of the tradition were known among ancient Christian authors, no complete version of what is now associated with the witness of H54 was available.

The late Helmut Koester once wrote: ‘The Didache, though not often copied in antiquity, was nevertheless influential’.1 I contend, in fact, that it was never copied in the form in which we now know it because no written text to that same extent existed then. The 1873 rediscovery of Codex Hierosolymitanus 54 (H54) initiated a quest for the origins of the Didache’s tradition. Recorded during the medieval period,2 H54 offers opportunity to evaluate the trajectory at work elsewhere. Thus, with H54 one may now compare the early eighth-century Stichometry by Nicephorus of Constantinople, who specified the length to be 200 ‘lines’ (stichoi) and which now Jonathan Draper thinks to reflect the tradition of H54 itself as the best witness to the work in the patriarch’s time.3 Earlier yet one finds the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions Book 7 (AC7) as a witness to the whole of the work, though its evolution seemingly does not reflect the literary trajectory of H54.4 1 Helmut Koester, ‘The Apostolic Fathers and the Struggle for Christian Identity’, in Paul Foster (ed.), The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers (New York, London, 2007), 1. 2 Being internally dated to 11 June 1056. 3 This comment derives from personal conversation with Draper in 2017 and his ensuing study on the genre and Sitz im Leben of the Didache. 4 This view is supported by a long history of primarily German scholarship, seen most recently in Kurt Niederwimmer, Die Didache, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, 1998 [German 1st edition, 1989]),

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 195-201. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Instead, AC7 derives from related, though slightly altered, roots. Beyond these accounts, mere reflections of the Didache appear in older works, including the Latin Doctrina apostolorum, Greek P.Oxy. 1782, Greek Apostolic Church Order, and Greek and Syriac Didascalia. The foundations of such literature date to the second century, but regrettably these works preserve mere fragments of the tradition. Otherwise, only individual Didache sayings appear among patristic authors. Scholars have pursued the Didache’s origins to some lost primitive moment, assigning its composition to a hypothetical ‘Didachist’, defined as author or editor for the initial form of the literary tradition. Theories about date and provenance vary, but common views indicate a time between 50-150 CE and a location in Syria, Palestine, or Egypt.5 While these are educated guesses, specialists continue to chase the tradition’s pedigree beyond direct manuscript evidence. Four examples suffice here in illustration of these efforts. One begins with Eduard von der Goltz, who in 1905 examined the ‘table and Eucharistic prayers’ of early patristic tradition with an eye toward how material in Didache 9-10 influenced the practices of Athanasius.6 Set within the broader task of identifying the roots of meal rituals from Jewish tradition, he found in the Didache a custom of local prayers that served as a basis for the bishop’s own meal celebrations, particularly within the context of ascetical practices.7 Of concern was von der Goltz’s desire to discover in Athanasius some support by which to view the Didache’s prayers as essentially Eucharistic in nature, at least from the perspective of the fourth-century bishop. As he noted, here is apostolic liturgy grounded in the earliest ritual practices, though he admitted the Eucharistic traditions of Athanasius were also influenced by contemporary monastic usage.8 In the final analysis, he stated about the earliest form of the prayers from the tradition that ‘[s]uch agape prayers are no longer available to us. But we need not doubt that they were very similar to those of the Didache or those of Athanasius’.9 This study combined language from H54 and AC7 to argue for common traditions behind the liturgical prayers of Alexandrian Christianity as seen in 28, and Matthias Günther, Einleitung in die Apostolischen Väter, Arbeiten zur Religion und Geschichte des Urchristentums 4 (Frankfurt am Main, 1997), 21. 5 Such perspectives find their original already with Adolf von Harnack (1883). 6 Eduard von der Goltz, Tischgebete und Abendmahlsgebete in der altchristlichen und in der griechischen Kirche, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 29, NF 14,2b (Leipzig, 1905). 7 E. von der Goltz, Tischgebete und Abendmahlsgebete (1905), 32ff. See Ep. virg. 12-14. 8 E.g., he finds the Athanasian formula ημας μεταλαβειν των αγαθων των σων (‘us to receive your holy things’) to derive from ancient Egyptian prayers, attested by the Apostolic Church Order and AC7. 9 E. von der Goltz, Tischgebete und Abendmahlsgebete (1905), 37: ‘Erhalten sind uns solche Agapegebete nicht mehr. Wir brauchen aber nicht daran zu zweifeln, daß sie denen der Didache oder denen des Athanasius sehr ähnlich waren’.

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Athanasius’ writings. If accepted at face value, the position is sufficient for the day yet offers nothing concerning the fundamental nature of the Didache’s originary textual roots. Indeed, the ancient tradition of prayers was widely used in ecclesiastical circles in scattered contexts, often preserved apart from the Didache.10 To this end, one need not derive from this popularity that they were necessarily employed from within the larger framework of the text as now known from available manuscripts. After von der Goltz there appeared a 1923 note by Montgomery Hitchcock related to prospective use of Didache tradition by Clement of Alexandria in the third century.11 The location for Hitchcock remained Egypt, but the date of review moved more closely toward an earlier point of origin. He worked from a prior comment by J. Armitage Robinson, who remarked about Strom. 1.25.100 (1.378) that the author either employed Did. 3.5 concerning ‘lying leads to theft’ or the two authors adopted from a common apocryphal source. In favor of the latter, he noted that ‘[i]f this be so, we should no longer be faced with the difficulty that Clement quoted the Didache as Scripture on this one occasion, and yet never used it again…’12 Hitchcock correctly took issue with Robinson’s airy comment, tracing as evidence a list of potential Didache parallels that arise in Clement’s Paed. 3.12. He observed that Clement preserves a form of ‘Two Ways’ tradition that closely mirrors Didache 1-6. Parallels include references to the ‘way of life’, love of God and neighbor, so-called ‘golden rule’, blessing for enemies, Decalogue, charge to be perfect and to give ‘according to the commandment’, etc. These are chiefly allusions, however, not quotations of Didache tradition directly. Also, Hitchcock admitted such references were intermingled with various scriptural and non-canonical parallels, including ‘garbled passages from the Sermon on the Mount’, as well as ‘many long quotations’ from the Epistle of Barnabas that he said Clement had ‘at his elbow’.13 Yet, in his estimation this combination of elements appears to reflect Didache tradition in some respect.14

10

See, e.g., the more extensive and recent study on use of the prayers in ancient tradition by Jonathan Schwiebert, Knowledge and the Coming Kingdom, Library of New Testament Studies 373 (London, New York, 2008). 11 F.R.M. Hitchcock, ‘Did Clement of Alexandria Know the “Didache”?’ JTS 24 (1923), 397-401. 12 J. Armitage Robinson, Barnabas, Hermas and the Didache (London, 1920), 62. See F.R.M. Hitchcock, ‘Clement of Alexandria’ (1923), 397. 13 For both references, see F.R.M. Hitchcock, ‘Clement of Alexandria’ (1923), 399 (for the latter, see note 2). 14 He offers as further evidence that Clement introduces his various sections with the phrase ‘and concerning’ (Greek peri de) found elsewhere in the Didache, but this convention seems strained, as such usage is widely employed in Greek literature of the period. See F.R.M. Hitchcock, ‘Clement of Alexandria’ (1923), 401.

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At the conclusion of his argument, Hitchcock turned to Clement’s Quis Dives 29, which speaks of the ‘blood of David’s vine’. He saw as a parallel here the phrase ‘holy vine of David’, recognized elsewhere from Did. 9.2, though Clement’s usage refers to the wine that ‘the good Physician pours into wounded souls’, while the Didache clearly references wine involved in meal practices. In summation of his evidence, Hitchcock observed that ‘[p]utting all these points together one may reasonably infer from them that Clement was acquainted with the Didache’.15 In 1963 M.A. Smith presented a paper at the Fourth International Conference on Patristic Studies with reference to Justin’s possible use of the Didache.16 His focus on the liturgical sections of Justin’s First Apology offered reference to previous work by Rendel Harris and Charles Taylor from 1887.17 Smith’s allusion to the mid-second-century apology argued for access to an even earlier witness to liturgical traditions employed later by Athanasius. In his review of Apol. 1.61-7, Smith found close association with Didache 7-14 in reference to baptismal and Eucharistic rituals, closing ultimately with mention of believers who gather on Sundays.18 He proposed that slices of Didache tradition are omitted within Justin’s account, most especially texts related to fasting, the Lord’s prayer, specific elements of the remaining prayers, and the Didache’s lengthy comment on prophets. So too, Justin includes biblical materials on activities of Moses that the Didache does not. Smith credited such omissions and alterations to ‘the wide difference of purpose of the two works’. In summation, he finally concluded that ‘[i]n view of the fact that Justin probably inherited his liturgy from the church in Samaria, it seems that he is dependent on the Didache for his description of Christian worship’.19 More recently, in 1995 I myself pushed even further to link the Didache with Ignatius of Antioch from earlier in the second century.20 I conjectured that each source, possibly deriving from a common Antiochean setting, might have mutual links. Both closely unite to the Gospel of Matthew, together with other early Christian traditions, and each employs seven specific phrases worthy of note. These include reference to ‘Two Ways’ tradition, command to receive/honor others ‘as the Lord’, allusion to ‘immortality’, mention of submitting to masters as God’s representatives, avoidance of those who teach corrupt 15

F.R.M. Hitchcock, ‘Clement of Alexandria’ (1923), 401. M.A. Smith, ‘Did Justin know the Didache?’ SP 7.1 (1966), 287-90. 17 J. Rendel Harris, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (London, Baltimore, 1887), 36-7; Charles Taylor, ‘The “Didache” and Justin Martyr. Traces of the so-called “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” in the Writings of Justin’, The Expositor 3rd series 6,5 (November 1887), 359-71, accessed by Smith in F.E. Vokes, The Riddle of the Didache (London, New York, 1938), 63-5. 18 Cf. Didache 14. 19 M.A. Smith, ‘Did Justin know the Didache?’ (1966), 290. 20 Clayton N. Jefford, ‘Did Ignatius of Antioch Know the Didache?’, in C.N. Jefford (ed.), The Didache in Context, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 77 (Leiden, 1995), 330-51. 16

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principles, use of some version of the rare phrase ‘the Lord’s day of the Lord’, and appointment of leaders ‘worthy of the Lord/God’. Most intriguing is indication of diverse placements of these parallels within the Didache, with phrases deriving from 1.1, 4.1, 4.8, 4.11, 11.2, 14.1, and 15.1 of the tradition. My conclusions ultimately were not that Ignatius employs the Didache as known from H54, but rather that he has access to a primitive form of the tradition. As I said then, ‘it appears much more plausible that Ignatius knew some form of the Didache … and even more likely that he was familiar with materials and traditions which eventually were compiled by the Didachist’.21 These beliefs hint at recognition of the Didache not as the construction of an originary textual archetype, which is typically assumed by those who rely on H54 as a model for the initial literary form of the tradition, but as the culmination of evolving teachings and rituals from ancient constructions predating known forms of our literary tradition.22 These four examples taken from von der Goltz, Hitchcock, Smith, and myself are by no means exhaustive. Ample hints to the Didache and materials it contains are known from various divergent sources. My purpose here is to illustrate that scholarly efforts to trace the tradition’s movement to some ancient written source are numerous, with the result that even as early a figure as Ignatius may be calculated into the effort. Yet several elements arise in this quest for the Didache’s origins that should raise significant concern. Firstly, beyond Nicephorus, allusions to the Didache by patristic authors do not specify materials related to the tradition. This is simply assumed.23 To expect either H54 or AC7 to reflect what the tradition always contained in its circulation is presumptuous. For example, use of the tradition tends to favor only certain features of the Didache, most notably the catechetical sayings of the ‘Two Ways’ found in Didache 1-624 or the liturgical directives of Didache 9-10.25 Such catechetical and liturgical materials require no knowledge of the longer work as we now identify it. Thus one need not assume such materials drew from some broader Didache tradition so much as from common elements of daily practice, much the same as those from which the Didache itself adopted.

21

C.N. Jefford, ‘Did Ignatius of Antioch Know the Didache?’ (1995), 351. Here one might observe that to suggest Didache as we know it from H54 and AC7 employed fragmentary versions of ‘Didache tradition’ is not to argue that all such sources were oral in form. Indeed, many may have assumed literary formats that reflected quite stable, practical usage. It simply is impossible to know the numerous ways such sources and their forms evolved over time, even after the construction of AC7 and H54. 23 Even the Stichometry of Nicephorus, while listing the length of the known tradition, does not identify its specific contents. 24 Cf., e.g., Barnabas 18-21, Didascalia (with Did. 8.1 and 13.3), Apostolic Church Order and Epitome, P.Oxy. 1782, Syntagma doctrinae and Fides Nicaena (again with Did. 8.1 and 13.3). 25 One thinks immediately here of Coptic Brit. Mus. Or. 9271. 22

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Secondly, since no literary evidence supports any complete version of Didache usage prior to the late fourth century, there is no clear basis to assume there really was an extensive literary model accessible to embryonic Christian communities akin to what we now have in H54 and AC7. It is true that AC7’s incorporation of ‘Two Ways’ catechesis (chaps. 1-6), liturgical directives (chaps. 7-10), church order instructions (chaps. 11-5), and apocalyptic warning (chap. 16) suggests some model of transmission available at that time; however, adoption of traditions prior to the fourth century may reflect only individual practices within regional contexts before arrangement by an unspecified and (perhaps) later editor into their current form.26 The detached appearance of these materials in diverse settings prior to the fourth century reinforces this inference and, given variations in form among available witnesses, advises they evolved largely through oral usage. Truly, catechetical training and liturgical directive endured in community milieus through applied practice, not as literary forms, and likely this was expressly true in the ancient ecclesiastical setting.27 Yet no evidence exists of how the tradition was originally employed, so one cannot know how the Didache was shaped to fit diverse community demands. Thirdly and in brief, while later tradition preserves the Didache’s materials, no context for their original usage is ever specified in that process. Instead, attributions of ‘church manual’ or ‘catechetical function’ are primarily assumed by contemporary researchers without firm evidence in support. Scholarly ideas of such practice are merely that – speculative suppositions. They may be good, but they are hardly definitive. Finally, deviation among versions and formats of the Didache advocates for substantial alteration to tradition over time. For example, both Barnabas 18-21 and the Doctrina contain similar ‘Two Ways’ teaching, but without the so-called sectio evangelica of Did. 1.3b-2.1 or any wisdom orientation.28 So too, prophetic instruction in Didache 11 is widely omitted by later witnesses, including the Didascalia, Apostolic Church Order, and AC7. The endings of Didache 6 and 16 also vary, thus to suggest diversity in the original conclusion of the ‘Two Ways’ tradition and, within H54 itself as marked by the scribe, the conclusion of the entire work. Such variances argue for inconsistency in the early form of the tradition and, almost certainly, principally (though perhaps not exclusively) 26 Thus as Massey Shepherd noted already in 1956: ‘This work is probably a combination of two documents: a catechism on the Two Ways, and a Church Order.’ M.H. Shepherd Jr., ‘The Epistle of James and the Gospel of Matthew’, JBL 75 (1956), 40-51, 48. 27 Here I give full credit to consideration for orality with respect to the Didache offered some years ago by Ian Henderson; see Ian H. Henderson, ‘Didache and Orality in Synoptic Composition’, JBL 111 (1992), 283-306, and ‘Style-Switching in the Didache: Fingerprint or Argument?’, in C.N. Jefford (ed.), The Didache in Context, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 77 (Leiden, 1995), 177-209. 28 Though curiously, fragments of the section in H54 are preserved elsewhere, as with P.Oxy. 1782 (1.3c-4a), AC7 (1.3b-5a), and the Georgian fragment (1.3b-4).

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oral usage with no particular evidence of a codified, literary arrangement of Didache tradition. In the end, one might argue from the records, and more so from lack of data to the contrary, that no ‘autograph’ of the ancient Didache in written form approximating H54 or AC7 existed in the first two centuries of church history, that Didache tradition circulated in formats altered by orality for purposes now lost, and that its gathering came together in uneven fashion in literary circles to achieve community needs rather than via official authorization by decree. The belief that some ‘Didachist’ once sought to preserve later usage of early traditions is possibly mistaken and, even worse, a misleading historical inaccuracy, while efforts to find that person’s date and setting remain vain attempts to revive a ‘holy grail’ text that may never have existed. If one cannot know with certainty just exactly who may have first employed Didache tradition, one certainly cannot recognize its origins.

Tatianus Grammaticus? Tatian’s Discordant Voices about the Achievements of Greek Grammarians László PERENDY, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary

ABSTRACT According to Jerome Tatian became famous as a rhetorician. Eusebius writes about his erudition less specifically. Tatian’s Oratio contains immense information about the activities of grammarians. Ch. 26 is completely dedicated to their criticism, but also other chapters make disapproving statements of their idiosyncratic views. They are called the first adulterators of wisdom. But why can grammarians do much harm in Tatian’s view? In the Hellenistic period expounding myths incited many debates. Some saw the key in allegoric interpretation. For others – grammarians among them – the acceptable solution seemed to be euhemerism: the theory that the so-called gods were in fact kings of ancient times. Tatian names some grammarians (e.g. Apion), who gave a euhemeristic explanation to the myths. In his opinion by teaching the elements of grammar with illustrative texts taken from Homer and interpreting them in a seemingly rational way they disseminate false knowledge about the true nature of God. For Tatian neither the allegoric, nor the euhemeristic interpretation of the myths was acceptable. Just like Justin, he identified the pagan gods with evil demons, who incited the Roman authorities to persecute Christians. I argue that Tatian was trained as a grammarian and practised this profession before his conversion. Then he left his professional association, joined Justin’s school, and supported his master’s efforts to demonstrate the true nature of pagan gods with his expertize. However, despite his harsh criticism of Hellenic culture he was often unable to break away from the literary conventions of his times.

Saint Justin’s renowned disciple, Tatian, who was a native of Syria,1 touches on numerous questions of grammar and condemns the blameworthy activities of grammarians explicitly in five chapters of his ΠΡΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΑΣ.2 1 On his career see Tatianos: Oratio ad Graecos. Rede an die Griechen, ed. Jörg Trelenberg, Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 165 (Tübingen, 2012), 1-8. On the causes why he was condemned as heretic by Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and other writers of Christian antiquity despite the appreciation of his literary output see Kendra Eshleman, The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire: Sophists, Philosophers, and Christians (Cambridge, 2012), 170. 2 On his only work which has survived the centuries in its entirety see ibid. 8-29 and Tatian: Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments, ed. Molly Whittaker (Oxford, 1982), xvii-xxii; see also another text edition: Tatiani Oratio ad Graecos, ed. Miroslav Marcovich, Patristische Texte und Studien 43 (Berlin, New York, 1995), 1-6.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 203-214. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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We can find only a short reference in ch. 17: ‘letter-characters and lines formed from them cannot themselves give the meaning of their arrangement, but men have fashioned for themselves symbols of their thoughts and from the nature of the combination know how the meaning of the word has been prescribed…’3 Ch. 26 is mostly devoted to grammatical questions, but we can find also apparently inapposite statements of his doctrine of God. First he calls upon his Hellenic audience not to boast with doctrines of foreign origin. Then his train of thought becomes seemingly disjointed. He says that the language of the Hellenes would impoverish very much if they stopped applying expressions which had been taken over by them: ‘If each city takes its own phraseology out of your hands your quibbles will become impossible’.4 Somewhat surprisingly, in the next few sentences he emphasizes that their efforts concerning the doctrine of God are obviously futile: the contents of their books are contradictory and the sufferings of their readers are like those of the Danaids. Concentrating on grammar again, he even questions that time can be divided into three parts: ‘Tell me, why do you divide up time, saying that part of it is past, part present, and part future? How can the future become past, if the present exists?’5 Next he reproaches the Hellenes for regarding themselves as final points of reference, so they resemble inexperienced travellers, who ridiculously think that the mountains are rocking in the storm and not their boat. Tatian has a grudge against all the Hellenes also because they reject his own doctrine, and they consider themselves the sole proprietors of wisdom. But he also specifies the group of the Hellenes whom he considers the leading advocates of this fatal error: ‘The origin of your nonsense is the grammarians, and by dividing up wisdom you cut yourselves off from true wisdom, when you attributed the names of its parts to men. Because you do not know God you make war among yourselves and kill one another. For this reason you are all nothing; you appropriate words but your conversation is like a blind man with a deaf’.6 The grammarians are similar to the bunglers who take serviceable tools into their hands, but they cannot handle them: ‘Why do you keep a carpenter’s tools, when you are 3 οἱ τῶν γραμμάτων χαρακτῆρες στίχοι τε οἱ ἀπ’ αὐτῶν οὐ καθ’ ἑαυτούς εἰσι δυνατοὶ σημαίνειν τὸ συνταττόμενον, σημεῖα δὲ τῶν ἐννοιῶν σφίσιν ‹αὐτοῖς› ἄνθρωποι δεδημιουργήκασι, παρὰ τὴν ποιὰν αὐτῶν σύνθεσιν γινώσκοντες ὅπως καὶ ἡ τάξις τῶν γραμμάτων ἔχειν νενομοθέτηται… Tatian: Oratio (1982), 34-5. 4 ἑκάστη πόλις ἐὰν ἀφέληται τὴν ἰδίαν αὐτῆς ἀφ’ ὑμῶν λέξιν, ἐξαδυνατήσουσιν ὑμῖν τὰ σοφίσματα. Ibid. 48-9. 5 τί μοι μερίζετε τὸν χρόνον, λέγοντες τὸ μέν τι εἰναὶ παρῳχηκὸς αὐτοῦ, τὸ δὲ ἐνεστώς, τὸ δὲ μέλλον; πῶς γὰρ δύναται παρελθεῖν ὁ μέλλων, εἰ ἔστιν ὁ ἐνεστώς; Ibid. 6 ἀρχὴ τῆς φλυαρίας ὑμῖν γεγόνασιν οἰ γραμματικοί, καὶ οἱ μερίζοντες τὴν σοφίαν τῆς κατὰ ἀλήθειαν σοφίας ἀπετμήθητε, τὰ δὲ ὀνόματα τῶν μερῶν ἀνθρώποις προσενείματε· καὶ τὸν μὲν θεὸν ἀγνοεῖτε, πολεμοῦντες δὲ ἑαυτοῖς ἀλλήλους καθαιρεῖτε. καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πάντες οὐδέν ἐστε, σφετερίζοντες μὲν τοὺς λόγους, διαλεγόμενοι δὲ καθάπερ τυφλὸς κωφῷ. Ibid. 50-1.

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ignorant of carpentry? Why so ready to talk, so reluctant to act?’7 He reproaches them for other character flaws in the next sentences: ‘With inflated reputations but humiliating misfortunes you make irrational use of figures of speech. Your processions are public enough, but your words you hide away in corners’. 8 Then he says that he broke away from them for good: ‘Recognizing you for what you are we have abandoned you and cut off contact with you; we follow God’s word’.9 At the end of ch. 26 we can read another diatribe, this time against the Attic pronunciation, which was considered by many as a norm to follow: ‘Why, sir, do you set the letters of the alphabet at war? Why do you behave like a boxer and smash their sounds together by means of Athenian mumbling, when you ought to talk more naturally? If you speak Attic when you are not an Athenian, tell me the reason why you do not speak Doric. How is it that you consider the one more barbarous and the other more agreeable for social intercourse?’10 In ch. 27 he apparently changes his topic: he blames his opponents for their grievous intolerance against Christians, who – citing Hellenic παιδεία as an instance – reject the Christian teaching about God: ‘If you cling to their education, why do you oppose me when I choose the doctrinal opinions that I like?’11 He calls their attention also to the fact that it is incompatible with the basic principles of Roman law to attack Christians: ‘Is it not absurd to refrain from punishing the bandit because that is the charge on which he is arraigned, before establishing the truth in detail, but to hate us without investigation and revile us in advance?’12 To his mind the much-celebrated Greek παιδεία, which is allegedly free from any kind of inner contradiction and coherent in every respect, is in fact not a homogeneous system. The views of its representatives about the most basic questions concerning the being and proprieties of gods are erroneous and contradictory. He strongly condemns the behaviour of the Hellenes because they do not reprove the views of Diagoras, Leon, Apion, Epicurus, and Herodorus, who 7 τί κατέχετε σκεύη τεκτονικὰ τεκταίνειν μὴ γινώσκοντες; τί λόγους ἐπαναιρεῖσθε τῶν ἔργων μακρὰν ἀφέστῶτες; Ibid. 8 φυσώμενοι μὲν διὰ δόξης, ἐν δὲ ταῖς συμφοραῖς ταπεινούμενοι παρὰ λόγον καταχρᾶσθε τοῖς σχήμασι· δημοσίᾳ μὲν γάρ πομπεύετε, τοὺς δὲ λόγους ἐπὶ τὰς γωνίας ἀποκρύπτετε. Ibid. 9 τοιούτους ὑμᾶς ἐπιγνόντες καταλελοίπαμεν καὶ τῶν ὑμετέρων οὐκέτι ψαύομεν, θεοῦ δὲ λόγῳ κατακολουθοῦμεν… Ibid. 10 τί γάρ, ἄνθρωπε, τῶν γραμμάτων ἐξαρτύεις τὸν πόλεμον; τί δὲ ὡς ἐν πυγμῇ συγκρούεις τὰς ἐκφωνήσεις αὐτῶν διὰ τὸν Ἀθηναίων ψελλισμόν, δέον σε λαλεῖν φυσικώτερον; εἰ γὰρ ἀττικίζεις οὐκ ὢν Ἀθηναῖος, λέγε μοι τοὺ μὴ δωρίζειν τὴν αἰτίαν· πῶς τὸ μὲν εἶναί σοι δοκεῖ βαρβαρικώτερον, τὸ δὲ πρὸς τὴν ὁμιλίαν ἱλαρώτερον; Ibid. 11 εἰ δὲ σὺ τῆς ἐκείνων ἀντέχῃ παιδείας, τί μοι δόξας αἱρουμένῳ δογμάτων ὧν θέλω διαμάχῃ; Ibid. 12 πῶς γὰρ οὐκ ἄτοπον τὸν μὲν λῃστὴν διὰ τὸ ἐπικατηγορούμενον ὄνομα μὴ κολάζειν πρὶν ἢ τἀληθὲς ἐπ’ ἀκριβείᾳ καταμανθάνειν, ἡμᾶς δὲ προλήμματι λοιδορίας ἀνεξετάστως μεμισηκέναι; Ibid.

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make a laughingstock of the gods of the Egyptians and the Greeks, but they angrily attack the teaching of Christians as regards the existence of the one true God: ‘you exclude us from civic rights as if we were the most godless of men’.13 He states also that he cannot accept the scientific views of the representatives of natural philosophy, either: ‘How am I to believe one who says that the sun is red-hot and the moon an earth? Such sayings are competition entries for story-telling, not an orderly exposition of the truth’.14 He concludes the chapter by saying that there is no area in Hellenic παιδεία which would be worth studying. In his lengthy enumeration of the examples of the stupidity of the Hellenes a question from the area of grammar is the first to be mentioned: ‘What good can come out of Attic diction, and philosophers’ sorites, syllogistic probabilities, measurement of the earth, positions of stars and courses of the sun? Preoccupation with such research is the work of one who makes laws for himself out of his own opinions’.15 As we have noted, he regards the grammarians as the initiators of the falsification of true wisdom, in ch. 5 he nevertheless refers to the following example taken probably from grammatical handbooks in order to illustrate the mystery of the Holy Trinity. First he affirms that God existed before creation. Then he says the following: ‘By his mere will the Word sprang forth and did not come in vain, but became the ‘firstborn’ work of the Father. Him we know as the beginning of the universe. He came into being by partition, not by section, for what is severed is separated from its origin, but what has been partitioned takes on a distinctive function and does not diminish the source from which it has been taken’.16 So he emphasizes that when the Logos sprang forth from God, God himself was not diminished in his essence in any respect. He adds a comparison taken from everyday life, which is more understandable for an audience not initiated into the technicalities of grammar: ‘Just as many fires may be kindled from one torch, but the light of the first torch is not diminished because of the kindling of the many, so also the Word coming forth from the power of the Father does not deprive the begetter of the power of rational speech’.17 ὡς ἀθεωτάτους ἡμᾶς ἐκκηρύσσετε. Ibid. πῶς πεισθήσομαι τῷ λέγοντι μύδρον τὸν ἥλιον καὶ τὴν σελήνην γῆν; τὰ γὰρ τοιαῦτα λόγων ἐστὶν ἅμιλλα καὶ οὐκ ἀληθείας διακόσμησις. Ibid. 52-3. 15 τί δ’ ἂν ὠφελήσειε λέξις Ἀττικὴ καὶ φιλοσόφων σωρεία καὶ συλλογισμῶν πιθανότητες καὶ μέτρα γῆς καὶ ἄστρων θέσεις καὶ ἡλίου δρόμοι; τὸ γὰρ περὶ τοιαύτην ἀσχολεῖσθαι ζήτησιν νομοθετοῦντός ἐστιν ἔργον ἑαυτῷ τὰ δόγματα. Ibid. 16 θελήματι δὲ τὴϛ ἁπλότητος αὐτοῦ προπηδᾷ λόγοϛ· ὁ δὲ λόγοϛ οὐ κατὰ κενοῦ χωρήσας ἔργον “πρωτότοκον” τοῦ πατρὸς γίνεται. τοῦτον ἴσμεν τοῦ κόσμου τὴν ἀρχήν. γέγονεν δὲ κατὰ μερισμόν, οὐ κατὰ ἀποκοπήν· τὸ γὰρ ἀποτμηθὲν τοῦ πρώτου κεχώρισται, τὸ δὲ μερισθὲν οἰκονομίας τὴν διαίρεσιν προσλαβὸν οὐκ ἐνδεᾶ τὸν ὅθεν εἴληπται πεποίηκεν. Ibid. 10-1. 17 ὥσπερ γὰρ ἀπὸ μιᾶς δᾳδὸς ἀνάπτεται μὲν πυρὰ πολλά, τῆς δὲ πρώτης δᾳδὸς διὰ τὴν ἔξαψιν τῶν πολλῶν δᾳδῶν οὐκ ἐλαττοῦται τὸ φῶς, οὕτω καὶ ὁ λόγοϛ προελθὼν ἐκ τὴς τοῦ πατρὸς δυνάμεως οὐκ ἄλογον πεποίηκε τὸν γεγεννηκότα. Ibid. 13 14

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Throughout the Oratio Tatian seems to pose as a rhetorician of authority and an expert on Christian philosophy. Indeed, he often treats of questions which at the first sight seem to be deeply philosophical. However, his erudition is not highly regarded by modern scholarship. We can rightly ask the question if his education was comprehensive enough to accept Jerome’s opinion, who in De viris inlustribus (ch. 29) alleges that Tatian became known as a rhetorician: ‘Tatian who, while teaching oratory, won not a little glory in the rhetorical art, was a follower of Justin Martyr and was distinguished so long as he did not leave his master’s side. But afterwards, inflated by a swelling of eloquence, he founded a new heresy…’18 The most important source of Jerome’s information is Book 4 of Eusebius’ Church History, whose ch. 29 is devoted exclusively to Tatian and his followers. Here nothing is said about the sources of Tatian’s erudition, but only about the heresy attributed to him. Earlier, in ch. 16 Tatian is mentioned in connection with Justin’s martyrdom. Here Eusebius writes about Tatian: ‘A man who in early life was trained in the learning of the Greeks and gained great distinction in it and has left many monuments of himself in writing, narrates as follows in his treatise against the Greeks’.19 So Eusebius does not claim that Tatian was trained and became famous as a rhetorician (or a philosopher). Several scholars have attempted to find the sources and extent of Tatian’s erudition. In a communication20 – whose results are published also in her text edition of the Oratio – Molly Whittaker notes that in the Oratio several citations are taken from Homer (both the Iliad and the Odyssey). Tatian mentions also the Alcmaeon of Euripides, which he may have seen in a theatre. He quotes the Frogs of Aristophanes. He mentions Menander, quotes Solon and Heracleitus. Peter Lampe provides for us a more thorough inventory. As to Tatian’s literary education, from Lampe’s lengthy list I add a few more items: references to Aesop and his fables (34.2), to Sappho’s songs (33.2), to the poetess Praxilla (33.1), to a cultural-historical comment by Hellonikos (1.2), to the lyrical poet Diagoras ὁ ἄθεος of Melos (27.1), to Sophron and his mimes (34.2), to Callimachus’s Hymnus in Jovem (27.2), and to Leon of Pella (27.1).21 From the group 18

Ernest Cushing Richardson (tr.), Jerome and Gennadius: Lives of Illustrious Men, in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (eds), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Volume 3 (Buffalo, 1892), 351-402, 369; Tatianus, qui primum oratoriam docens non parvam sibi ex arte rhetorica gloriam comparaverat, Iustini martyris sectator fuit, florens in ecclesia, quamdiu ab eius latere non discessit. Postea vero, elatus eloquentiae tumore, novam condidit heresin, Hieronymi de viris inlustribus liber, ed. Guilelmi Herdingi (Lipsiae, 1879), 27. 19 ἀνὴρ τὸν πρῶτον αὐτοῦ βίον σοφιστεύσας ἐν τοῖς Ἑλλήνων μαθήμασι καὶ δόξαν οὐ σμικρὰν ἐν αὐτοῖς ἀπενηνεγμένος πλεῖστά τε ἐν συγγράμμασιν αὐτοῦ καταλιπὼν μνημεῖα, ἐν τῷ Πρὸς Ἕλληνας ἱστορεῖ…, Eusebius: The Ecclesiastical History, ed. Thomas Ethelbert Page, The Loeb Classical Library (London, Cambridge, MA, 1959), I 362-3. 20 M. Whittaker, ‘Tatian’s Educational Background’, SP 13 (1975), 57-9. 21 Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries (Minneapolis, 2003), 427-8.

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which Lampe calls ‘philosophical’ components of education I think that the references to Dio of Prusa are especially interesting. This famous rhetorician, also called Dion Chrysostomos, was Tatian’s older contemporary, and was banished from Rome under Domitian. He had an impressive history of influence, attested by Philostratus. He criticized gladiatorial games in his speeches to the Rhodians and the Nicomedians, like Tatian does in Oratio 23. We can find references in chapters 28 and 30 to Dio’s Euboicos, in ch. 9 to his Concerning the Demon. Lampe notes that ‘Tatian’s distinction between the false paideia of the Greeks and the genuine paideia of the Christians corresponds to Dio’s (4 §29-31) double paideia’.22 However, these numerous quotations and references do not necessarily imply that Tatian was trained at the highest level of education as a rhetorician, because the reading and interpretation of the classical works of Greek literature was part and parcel of secondary education already. This can be easily proved from the numerous papyri, on which the texts of the classical authors were used as illustrations for grammatical exercises. Already Henri-Irénée Marrou demonstrated this didactic method with numerous examples.23 Therefore, on the basis of his extant work we are not compelled to suppose that Tatian was trained as a rhetorician, because also as a grammaticus, i.e. a secondary school teacher he must have given similar exercises to his own pupils in order that they could learn for example the Greek declensions.24 As we have noted, in ch. 26 Tatian calls the grammarians ‘[t]he origin of your nonsense’, the principal adulterators of wisdom. He declares that he left them (with some other persons) when he recognized that they were preventing 22 Ibid. 29. On Tatian’s work in the context of the second sophistic see also Laura Nasrallah, ‘Mapping the World: Justin, Tatian, Lucian, and the Second Sophistic’, HTR 98 (2005), 283-314, 298-306. 23 Henri-Irénée Marrou, Histoire de l’éducation dans l’antiquité (Paris, 19656), 243-64: II. Tableau de l’éducation classique à l’époque hellénistique, Chapitre VII: Les études littéraires secondaires. Marrou writes about the finds in Egypt: ‘The papyri contain a few examples of historical narrative – Alexander’s letter to the Carthaginians, a supposed letter from Hadrian to Antoninus – a reference to very recent history, this, for the papyrus it is written on dates from the second century. But usually the narratives were from poetry, and closely connected with the literary study of the classics. The teacher would describe the subject of a poem or play, and thus have a ready-made story that the children could try to put into their own words; and so we find little Egyptian schoolboys writing a few lines on the story of Philoctetes, or Aeneas, or Achilles; Iphigenia in Aulis, Adrastus and his daughters, Lycurgus the son of Dryas, Patroclus saving Eurypylus’, id., A History of Education in Antiquity (New York, 1964), 240. 24 ‘[A]n Egyptian writingboard shows us a schoolboy dutifully declining a chria based on Pythagoras. First, in the singular: “The philosopher Pythagoras, having gone ashore and started giving language lessons, advised his disciples to abstain from flesh meat. We are told that the opinion of the philosopher Pythagoras was…” and so on – the genitive case following the nominative. “It seemed good to the philosopher Pythagoras…” (dative). “They describe the philosopher Pythagoras as saying…” (accusative and infinitive construction). “O philosopher Pythagoras” (vocative). Then, scorning all logic, this had to be repeated in the dual number (…) and then in the plural…’; ibid. 242. A chria (χρεία) was a fable attributed to a famous person.

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him from achieving true wisdom. On the basis of the widespread references to the τέχνη of grammarians noted above, we can arguably say that this statement means not only that he used to be their disciple, but also that for a while he belonged to their professional association as a teacher of Greek grammar. I think that is what Eusebius’ words (he ‘was trained in the learning of the Greeks and gained great distinction in it’) refer to. Actually, as Robert M. Grant pointed out, there are more references to the activities of grammarians than we would deem from the number of the clear references in the five chapters quoted above: ‘In various parts of his Oration he uses lists which were employed in grammatical teaching: of “inventions” (c. 1), of gods and goddesses (c. 8), of stars (cc. 9-10), of poets and mythographers (c. 24), of writers on the date of Homer (c. 31), of poetesses (c. 33), of sculptors (cc. 33-4), of Argive and Attic kings (c. 39), of pre-Homeric writers, of wise men or legislators, and of the seven wise men (c. 41)’.25 R.M. Grant observed even more connections with various topics of grammar in the Oratio. In his opinion Tatian must have borrowed from manuals written by famous Greek grammarians, which were utilized in secondary education to improve the performance of the pupils: those of Metrodorus of Lampsacus (ch. 21), Diagoras, Leon of Pella, Apion (ch. 27), and other authors (chs 36-8).26 So at least one half of the chapters of the Oratio contain some kind of material which has to do with grammar, either explicitly or in a concealed way. Returning back to the chapters where Tatian attacks grammarians vehemently, we can notice that in ch. 26 he mentions as a repulsive fact that they incite war even between the letters. This statement may allude to a satirical work of Lucian of Samosata, the Consonants in Court, in which Sigma as plaintiff attacks the Atticizing use of Tau.27 As we have observed, in ch. 17 Tatian explains also his own point of view that the letters are not ‘natural’, but conventional: i.e. signs are not connected to the denotata in a natural way, but only on the basis of social conventions, which idea may be a reference taken from one of the works of Sextus Empiricus, Against Professors.28 Like this famous sophist, in chapters 1, 26, and 30 Tatian also treats of the differences among the dialects (Doric, Attic, Aeolic, and Ionic). He also emphasizes that poetry is often immoral (chs 1 and 24), and rhetoric is harmful for justice (ch. 1).29 We have already come across a problem which has to do with philosophy and grammar: ‘Tell me, why do you divide up time, saying that part is past, 25

Robert M. Grant, ‘Studies in the Apologists’, HTR 51 (1958), 123-34, 124. Concerning the lists of “inventions” (περὶ Εὑρημάτων) already Aimé Puech made the remark that they were used by Alexandrian grammarians, e.g. Philostephanus of Cyrene, but also by the historian Ephorus; see Aimé Puech, Recherches sur le Discours aux Grecs de Tatien (Paris, 1903), 38. 26 R.M. Grant, ‘Studies’ (1958), 124. 27 See id., Greek Apologists of the Second Century (Philadelphia, 1988), 118. 28 Ibid. In the relating endnote Grant gives the exact references: Sextus Empiricus, Against Professors, 1.99-119 (esp. 103); 142-58. 29 R.M. Grant, ‘Studies’ (1958), 125.

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part present, and part future? How can the future become past, if the present exists?’30 Already Chrysippus (3rd century BC) attempted to find a solution to this problem. Tatian does not mention this Stoic philosopher, but a fragment from Apollonius Dyscolus demonstrates that also grammarians went into the details of similar problems.31 Actually, another famous grammarian, Dionysios Thrax also treats of this dilemma. In his Scholia he says that although there are three tenses, from a philosophical point of view – which he considers more relevant – there are only two parts of time: past and present. Tatian denies the truth of this statement. He suggests a third solution: only the present exists.32 As to “phonetics”, Justin’s disciple knows also about the Stoic distinction between the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and λόγος προφορικός. He ridicules these philosophers, calling them ‘croakers’ (κορακόφωνοι), because they allege that not only human beings, but also crows can produce specific sounds, which is otherwise a distinctive characteristic of man as an intelligent being. The rhetorician Hermogenes makes this remark too, so in Grant’s opinion we do not have to suppose that this idea comes from a philosophical work.33 Tatian attempts to utilize his expertize of grammar also in the exegesis of biblical texts. He knows that in the first line of the Iliad the imperative has an optative force. He thinks that this is the case also in Gen. 1:3: the Demiurge, who is in darkness, asks the ‘God above’ for light.34 Perhaps the most striking paradox of the Oratio is that – in spite of his harsh criticism of grammarians – Tatian applies grammatical concepts even in his doctrine of the Holy Trinity. As we have noted above, in ch. 5 he has recourse to two analogies in this respect. In fact, both of them are taken over – with some modifications – from his master, Justin. The image of the torches ignited from one torch is the same as what we find in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 128:4, although there are slight differences between the application and the content of the imagery.35 The other simile again resembles that of Justin in Dialogue, chapters 61 and 128, but in Tatian’s work its phraseology is so technical that its exact meaning has caused many debates among scholars. R.M. Grant points again at grammatical books as sources: ‘he may perhaps be thinking of one of the many meaning of merismos as a grammatical term, for example, the “distinction” of topics under different heading, or “distinctness” as compared with “confusion” (synchysis). The word for “section” (apokopē) 30 31

Tatian: Oratio (1982), 49. See R.M. Grant, Greek Apologists (1988), 225: Apollonius Dyscolus, frag., pp. 78-9 Schnei-

der. 32 R.M. Grant, ‘Studies’ (1958), 124-5. On the doctrines of the various philosophical schools about the nature and divisibility of time see Martin Elze, Tatian und seine Theologie (Göttingen, 1960), 103-4. 33 Ibid. 125-6. 34 Ibid. 125. 35 See Roman Hanig, ‘Tatian und Justin. Ein Vergleich’, VigChr 53 (1999), 31-73, 53.

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is used by grammarians of cutting off letters at the end of one word to make another, as dōma, dō’.36 Grant notes that in Str. 7, 5, 5 Clement of Alexandria rejected Tatian’s ideas about the applicability of the term μερισμόϛ to the Son of God, and returned to Justin’s view.37 I think we must come to the conclusion that the application of such technicalities of grammar presupposes that his audience must have had some knowledge of the grammatical problems discussed by Tatian; otherwise he could not have hoped being understood. This harmonizes with what Paul Foster states: ‘[A]s Whittaker has noted “Tatian’s apologetic is essentially hortatory rather than didactic”. Therefore one may assume that although it is written against Greek philosophers, it is actually written for Tatian’s Christian audience to read. Therefore its purpose may be to supply arguments that could be used by believers to exhort philosophical opponents to convert to the Christian faith’.38 Thinking along these lines, I think we can rightly suppose that the Oratio was written primarily for a Christian audience who had some knowledge about various areas of Greek grammar. The members of this audience were most likely his own pupils. As we have noted above, Tatian was well informed about the main fields and issues of Greek grammar discussed in widely used manuals of grammarians, e.g. those of Apollonius Dyscolus, Herodes Grammaticus, and Dionysios Thrax. He also read some writers of pamphlets (e.g. Lucian of Samosata) who ridiculed them. However, from several parts of his Oratio it is also obvious that in spite of his critical attitude to Hellenic culture in general he was unable to break away from the linguistic and literary conventions of his times: e.g. he is fond of neologisms and indulges in coining new words, just like Lucian of Samosata does.39 Now let us turn our attention to the role and social status of the grammarians in the second-century Roman Empire. Literary and epigraphic evidence proves that (like philosophers, rhetoricians, and doctors) they enjoyed various privileges. Glen Warren Bowersock indicates that also the outstanding collection of Roman laws, Digest (27. 1. 6. 8.) testifies this: ‘With Hadrian the privilege of μὴ κρίνειν (with others) was made available to philosophers as a whole as well as to ῥήτορες, γραμματικοί, and ἰατροί. The evidence is from Modestinus, 36 R.M. Grant, Greek Apologists (1988), 130. In the endnotes Grant gives the titles of the handbooks in which this topic is treated by two outstanding grammarians: Apollonius Dyscolus, Syntax 6,11 and Herodes Grammaticus, Forms (L. Spengel, Rhetores Graeci III, 94,22). 37 R.M. Grant, ‘Studies’ (1958), 127. R. Hanig gives a detailed comparison between the contents of the application of Justin and Tatian also in connection with this imagery: ‘Tatian und Justin’ (1999), 54-7. 38 Paul Foster, ‘Tatian’, ET 120 (2008), 105-18, 110. On the genre of the Oratio, the nature of the teaching activities of Tatian, and his (financial) independence from the local hierarchy see Michael McGehee, ‘Why Tatian Never “Apologized” to the Greeks’, JECS 1/2 (1993), 143-58. 39 See R.M. Grant, Greek Apologists (1988), 118. In the relating endnote Grant gives the exact reference to the work of Karl Ludwig Heiler, who pointed out these similarities between Tatian and Lucian of Samosata: De Tatiani Apologetae Dicendi Genere (Marburg, 1909), esp. 86-101.

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quoting an edict of Commodus which includes a paragraph from an edict of Pius’.40 (Commodus reigned as a sole ruler from 180 to 192). This edict in turn cites an edict of Hadrian (117-138), who declared that – just like rhetors and doctors – also grammatici enjoy immunity (ἀτέλεια) from various liturgies, priesthoods, and any civic duties. Although Hadrian’s successor, Antoninus Pius (138-161) imposed strict limits on their number in each settlement (three grammatici in small towns, four in moderate-sized cities, five in the biggest cities), he did not deprive the grammarians of their privileges.41 Successive emperors were less generous with teachers in general. For example Philostratus relates how Septimius Severus and Caracalla deprived famous sophists of their ἀτέλεια.42 However, in Tatian’s lifetime the privileges of the grammarians seem to have been secured by Roman law. As we have noted, in ch. 27 Tatian disapprovingly mentions several renowned writers to whom the Hellenes tolerated the criticism of the traditional doctrine of the gods and the open rejection of the literal interpretation of their myths: Diagoras, Leon, Apion, Epicurus, and Herodorus. Diagoras, who lived in the 5th century BC, was often mentioned in antiquity as a notorious atheist.43 Leon of Pella, who was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, stated that the gods of Egypt were originally the ancient kings of Egypt.44 He was widely known even in the first centuries AD: he was quoted also by Clement of Alexandria45 and Augustine.46 About Epicurus (341-270 BC) it was well-known that he did not accept the narratives about the gods of Olympus. Herodorus (5th century BC), who wrote books about the story of Heracles, also questioned the truth of the myths of the Hellenes.47 Besides Epicurus, perhaps the name of Apion sounds the most familiar for us. Iosephus Flavius attacked him viciously in his Contra Apionem. He was an Alexandrian grammarian, who denounced the Jews living there. He was the head of an embassy sent to Rome to Caligula in 38 AD. To counterbalance his political influence, Philo had to travel to the capital as the head of the Jewish delegation. Apion was a very famous grammarian, who was praised even by Tiberius as cymbalum mundi. He is mentioned also by Pliny the Elder48 and Seneca.49 In fact, in ch. 38 Tatian himself names Apion 40

Glen Warren Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1969), 33. Ibid. 33-4. 42 Ibid. 40-1. 43 On the numerous witnesses (e.g. Cicero, Sextus Empiricus, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, and Minucius Felix) of his atheism see Tatiani Oratio ad Graecos (1995), 52. 44 Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. Carolus Muller (Paris, 1848-1874), iii C. 659. For other witnesses of Leon’s ὑπομνήματα see Tatiani Oratio ad Graecos (1995), 52. 45 Strm I, 3, 22. 46 De civitate Dei, VIII 5, 27. 47 See Tatian: Oratio (1982), 53: ‘Herodorus, 5th cent., wrote on Heracles and fr. 28 (FGrH i, 31, fr. 20) refers to human inhabitants of the moon.’ 48 Historia Naturae, Praef. 49 Ep. 88, 34. For other testimonies on Apion see Tatiani Oratio ad Graecos (1995), 52. 41

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once again. This time he calls him a γραμματικός, but also mentions a historical work of his: ‘After him the scholar Apion, a man of high repute, in the fourth book of his Egyptian History (he has five books) among much else says also that “Amosis destroyed Avaris and lived at the time of the Argive Inachus, as Ptolemy of Mendes recorded in his Chronicles”’.50 As Tatian’s information about Apion also illustrates, among the so-called γραμματικοί there were at least some who did not accept the literal interpretation of the myths. That is why they could have been grouped together with the notorious atheists, like Diagoras and Epicurus. In their history books they wrote about the so-called gods as historical figures of old times. The theory that the forefathers of the nations or the kins of tribes were venerated by the subsequent generations as gods is called euhemerism. This term came from the name of Euhemerus, who was serving in the court of Cassandrus between 311 and 298 BC. As we have seen, the texts of the epic poems and other classical works were extensively utilized by grammarians in order that their students can practice the rules of Greek grammar. From our sources it seems clear that at least some of them interpreted the myths in a euhemeristic way, teaching that the gods of Hellas are in fact not supernatural beings. They could have been accused of atheism (as the Christians actually were); nevertheless – as Tatian was eager to point out – they were celebrated representatives of Hellenic παιδεία. In the Hellenistic period the interpretation of the myths incited many debates. Those accepting stoic philosophy saw the key of the solution in the allegoric interpretation of the texts of Homer and of the other classics of Greek παιδεία. Tatian knows about this alternative way of interpretation, but he strongly rejects it: ‘men of Greece: do not allegorize either your stories or your gods…’51 The other acceptable solution seemed to be euhemerism, considered more or less rationalistic. As attested by several writers of antiquity, Euhemerus regarded also the gods of Olympus as kings who lived in ancient times.52 I think that is why Tatian attacks grammarians so vehemently. In his opinion by teaching the elements of grammar with the help of using illustrative texts taken from Homer and interpreting them in a euhemeristic, seemingly rational way they start disseminating false knowledge about the true nature of God already in the early age of children. Euhemerism may have seemed for him even more dangerous than the allegoric interpretation of the myths, because due to its rationalistic appearance it could have appeared more attractive for intellectuals. μετὰ δὲ τοῦτον Ἀπίων ὁ γραμματικὸς ἀνὴρ δοκιμώτατος, ἐν τῇ τετάρτῃ τῶν Αἰγυπτιακῶν (πέντε δέ εἰσιν αὐτῷ γραφαί) πολλὰ μὲν καὶ ἄλλα, φησὶ δὲ ‹καὶ› ὅτι “κατέσκαψε τὴν Αὐαρίαν Ἄμωσις κατὰ τὸν Ἀργεῖον γενόμενος Ἴναχον, ὡς ἐν τοῖς Χρόνοις ἀνέγραψεν ὁ Μενδήσιος Πτολεμαῖος”. Tatian: Oratio (1982), 68-71. 51 ὦ ἄνδρες Ἕλληνες, μηδὲ τοὺς μύθους μηδὲ τοὺς θεοὺς ὑμῶν ἀλληγορήσητε… Ibid. 42-3. He mentions the Stoics by name in ch. 6 for another reason: here he attacks them for their belief in the ’recurrent cycles of birth and death’; ibid. 10-1. 52 See e.g. Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica II 53-5. 50

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Although he had to reject euhemerism, as we have noted, he often makes efforts to apply a great deal of information taken from the manuals of the grammarians in order to ridicule the representatives of the παιδεία of the Hellenes, and sometimes even to introduce his audience to the most fundamental Christian doctrines. To establish his scholarly authority he needed to seem to be a distinguished expert on linguistics, and we have noted that he is indeed in possession of the knowledge of numerous issues discussed by the grammarians of his time. He states that he left the professional group of γραμματικοί because he regarded them as the corruptors of true wisdom, which he found in Christianity. In fact, the other reason that he rejected not only the allegoric, but also the euhemeristic interpretation of myths was that – following his master, Justin53 – he regarded the gods of the Hellenes as malicious, evil-minded δαίμονες: ‘These, men of Greece, you worship, though they were generated from matter and have been found to be far from orderly in their conduct; for through their own folly they turned to conceit, rebelled, and were determined to steal divine status’.54 The purpose of the works of Justin and Tatian was finally the same: they wanted to defend their Christian communities from the intellectual and physical attacks of the representatives of the hostile empire. Neither the literal, nor the euhemeristic interpretation of the myths (which were part and parcel of the Greek παιδεία) was acceptable for them. The master and his disciple identified the gods of the empire with the evil demons, who – casting aspersions upon Christians – incited the authorities to persecute them.55 For Tatian’s audience – which probably consisted mainly of his own students of grammar – it obviously did not seem to be so awkward that the grammatical questions and the suggestions to interpret the myths were put side by side in one single chapter (26th) of the Oratio. So we should not accept Jerome’s overstatements about Tatian’s career. He evidently was a well-trained grammarian, who left his professional group (losing his privileges), joined Justin’s Christian school in Rome, and with his expertize he supported his master’s efforts to demonstrate the true nature of pagan gods.

53

See 2Apol. 7(6), 5; Dial. 88,5 and 102,4. τούτους δέ, ἄνδρες Ἕλληνες, προσκυνεῖτε γεγονότας μὲν ἐξ ὕλης, μακρὰν δὲ τῆς εὐταξίας εὑρεθέντας. οἱ γὰρ προειρημένοι τῇ σφῶν ἀβελτερίᾳ πρὸς τὸ κενοδοξεῖν τραπέντες καὶ ἀφηνιάσαντες λῃσταὶ θεότητος γενέσθαι προὐθυμήθησαν·; Tatian: Oratio (1982), 24-5. 55 On Tatian’s demonology see also Emily J. Hunt, Christianity in the Second Century: The Case of Tatian (London, New York, 2003) and J. Trelenberg, Tatianos: Oratio ad Graecos (2012), 45-9. E.J. Hunt finds ‘a tension between the hellenistic and developing Judeo-Christian definitions of δαίμων’, and notes – just like Trelenberg – Tatian’s claim that the demons are identical with the pagan gods (ibid. 134-5). 54

Tatian’s Diatessaron as ‘Canonical’ Gospel. Walter Bauer and the Reception of Christian ‘Apocrypha’ Ian N. MILLS, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

ABSTRACT Up through the fifth century, the life of Jesus was known in the Syriac speaking east not from the four canonical gospels but a single, continuous narrative – Tatian’s socalled Diatessaron. This gospel was used liturgically, became the object of commentaries, and rivaled the subsequently introduced ‘separate gospels’. For this reason, scholars seeking to reify received canonical boundaries often neglect Tatian’s Diatessaron. In Ancient Apocryphal Gospels, Markus Bockmuehl argues that certain characteristics distinguish apocryphal gospels from the canonical four. Tatian’s gospel, however, boasts every feature reserved for the canon. Furthermore, Tatian’s gospel is the best documented instance of the formal suppression of once-authoritative Christian scripture – a phenomenon now widely denied. While the Diatessaron is not unique among ‘apocryphal’ books in any of these particulars, its third through thirteenth century reception history offers unrecognized support for Walter Bauer’s account of the origins of Christian scripture.

Walter Bauer’s landmark study of the production of orthodoxy argues that, outside the city of Rome, theologies later deemed heterodox pre-dated and, in the second century, often outnumbered the orthodox. Notably – and often forgotten – Bauer did not dispute that Christians in Rome stood in some genuine continuity with the first generation of Jesus followers.1 Rather, he rejected what he called the ‘Eusebian model’ of Christian origins, wherein ‘orthodoxy’ is always and everywhere prior and primary.2 According to Bauer, Rome’s orthodoxy * Thank you to Mark Goodacre, Jeremiah Coogan, James Walters, and the Duke New Testament colloquium for reading drafts of this essay. 1 Bauer implies that this is uniquely true of (proto-)orthodox Christians in Rome – a claim that many of his admirers would reject. Walter Bauer, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (Tübingen, 1934), 117, 124-5, 132, 233. 2 Walter Bauer entitles the traditional view wherein the orthodoxy recognizable to the fourthcentury church began with Jesus’ disciples and all heresies were derivative corruptions thereof as the ‘Eusebian model’ of Christian origins. W. Bauer, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (1934), 1-2. This view is not peculiarly Eusebian. The chronological priority of ‘orthodoxy’ and the parasitic derivation of ‘heterodoxy’ find equally clear expression in Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 7.17), Tertullian (Prescript. 29), and Origen (Commentary on the Song of Songs 3).

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 215-228. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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triumphed through administrative innovations and political machinations before rewriting Christianity’s heterogeneous history in its own image. This orthodox revision of Christian origins was both conscious (e.g. fabricated apostolic foundation myths) and unconscious (e.g. the failure to copy sectarian literature), but its object was an understanding of heterodoxies as parasitic minorities, populated by once-orthodox apostates, not ‘pagan’ converts to a Christianity with alternative apostolic claims. In Ancient Apocryphal Gospels, Marcus Bockmuehl advances just such a “Eusebian” vision of gospel traditions. While the canonical gospels possibly hail from a ‘chain of […] living memory’, the apocryphal gospels, according to Bockmuehl, are ‘epiphenomenal’ and invariably ‘para-canonical’.3 That is, the authors and readers of all such apocrypha presuppose Matthew, Mark, Luke, and/or John.4 They do not represent genuine alternative lives of Jesus but were only ever complementary to the canon. Like heterodoxy from the Eusebian perspective, apocryphal gospels are parasitic expansions, reaffirmations, and sometimes subversions of the four canonical lives of Jesus. This is the conclusion of a series of arguments characterizing apocryphal and canonical gospels as distinct, both intrinsically (i.e. they’re different kinds of books) and in their earliest reception. Bockmuehl appeals to a panoply of properties purportedly particular to books properly considered canonical throughout his survey of gospel literature to bolster this traditional view of gospel origins. Namely, canonical gospels – but not apocryphal – contain complete lives of Jesus, were titled only ‘the gospel’, boast relatively stable text traditions, were employed liturgically, and were copied and combined with other canonical books. By these criteria, you will know them – the canonical gospels distinguished from apocrypha. This is an unsatisfactory description of many gospels, but Bockmuehl’s account again and again runs up against Tatian’s Diatessaron.5 Of course, as Tobias Nicklas notes, ‘any overall statement about apocryphal writings must be at least partly wrong’.6 However, the consistency with which Bockmuehl’s 3 Bockmuehl’s argument is that the ‘remarkably early and stable’ gospel titles leave open the possibility that the ‘apostolic attributions’ derive from ‘living memory’. He, however, qualifies that this memory may be correct or ‘in error’. It is unclear to me how the parts of this argument work together. Markus Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (Louisville, KY, 2017), 7, see also 28-30. Elsewhere, however, he more explicitly advocates the traditional ‘Eusebian’ vision, describing creedal orthodoxy’s ‘organic connection to the faith of the apostles’. M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 8-9. 4 The canonical four, according to M. Bockmuehl, provide a ‘reference grid’ for the composition and intelligibility of non-canonical gospels. M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 30. 5 Bockmuehl, as discussed below, acknowledges the exceptional character of Tatian’s gospel. For instance, M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 30. For Tatian’s biography, see Emily J. Hunt, Christianity in the Second Century: The Case of Tatian (New York, London, 2003). 6 Tobias Nicklas, ‘Christian Apocrypha and the Development of the Christian Canon’, Early Christianity 5.2 (2018), 220-40, 222. Bockmuehl himself makes this point M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 225-6.

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characterization of the canonical/apocryphal divide fails to account for Tatian’s composition is instructive. Tatian’s gospel and its reception boast every characteristic Bockmuehl reserves for canonical gospels. Furthermore, Tatian’s gospel is the best documented instance of another phenomenon that the chorus of Bauer’s critics are at pains to deny: the suppression of once authoritative scripture. Bockmuehl and Charles Hill both characterize the suppression of gospels as conspiratorial thinking, comparable to the fictions of Dan Brown.7 On the “Eusebian” vision of gospel origins, the canonical tetraevangelion is a reality that need only be ‘recognized’.8 Qualities unique to these gospels, such as those listed above, make the traditional tetraevangelion inevitable and the suppression of alternatives unnecessary. This study will treat each of Bockmuehl’s canonical generalizations as they apply to Tatian’s gospel and then briefly recount the suppression of this once sacred scripture. I conclude with a reflection on what Bockmuehl’s characterization of Christian apocrypha can teach us about the development of the canon. Complete Lives of Jesus Bockmuehl argues that apocryphal gospels are not alternative lives of Jesus.9 They are not whole, self-sufficient narratives but ‘epiphenomenal’ – that is, secondary, subsidiary supplements to the genuine gospels. This, perhaps, best describes the infancy gospels and post-resurrection dialogs. Such gospel-like literature treats a small segment of Jesus’ life, often filling-in gaps in the synoptic narrative(s). Moreover, they often make passing allusions to characters and events from other, more familiar gospels.10 While these contradict and correct the now-canonical tetraevangelion as often as they complement it, they do appear to assume the reader’s acquaintance with synoptic stories. Problems arise, however, as Bockmuehl tries to fit the wide variety of early Christian gospels into this mold. Especially remarkable is his account of the 7

M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 230-2. Charles E. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy (Oxford, 2012), 2-3, 21-22, 151. 8 For example, Michael J. Kruger, Christianity at the Crossroads (Downers Grove, IL, 2013), 225. 9 M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 29-30, 226. 10 Notably, this description would also fit John’s Gospel (e.g. Mary and Martha in John 11:1). The description ‘epiphenomenal’ is also inappropriately applied to these gospels, since they too correct and subvert the synoptic narratives in important ways. See, for instance, Mark Goodacre, ‘The Protoevangelium of James and the Creative Rewriting of Matthew and Luke’, in Francis Watson and Sarah Parkhouse (eds), Connecting Gospels: Beyond the Canonical/Non-Canonical Divide (Oxford, 2018), 57-76. The Syriac Gospel of the Twelve is perhaps the clearest case of an epiphenomenal gospel, in that it explicitly refers the reader to the four canonical gospels. J. Rendel Harris, The Gospel of the Twelve Apostles Together with the Apocalypses of Each One of Them (Cambridge, 1900), 26.

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Gospel of the Hebrews. As Bockmuehl himself understands the patristic testimonia, this gospel included a baptism, temptation, teaching ministry, last supper, and resurrection appearances.11 Nevertheless, Bockmuehl asserts that this gospel was not ‘a complete and coherent alternative narrative’.12 A remarkable statement considering that the apocryphal Gospel of the Hebrews, according to Bockmuehl’s reconstruction, has a more expansive narrative scope than the canonical Mark. There is, likewise, no reason to believe that the fragmentarily preserved narrative gospels were para-canonical. Bockmuehl casts the so-called Gospel of the Savior as a ‘passion gospel’, but fails to note that the fragmentary remains begin with a farewell discourse on the gospel’s 97th page. Stephen Emmel calculates that the preceding pages would have contained between sixty and eighty thousand characters.13 Approximately the same number of characters, according to Emmel, precede the passion narratives in Luke and John. There is every reason to believe, therefore, that this ‘unknown Berlin gospel’, extant in seven folios and more than twenty additional fragments, represents an alternative, complete life of Jesus. In fact, none of the fragmentary narrative gospels – Peter, Egerton, P. Dura 24, P. Oxy 840, P. Oxy 1224, etc. – give any indication of being para-canonical.14 Tatian’s gospel too contained a complete life of Jesus. Although no manuscripts survive, the Diatessaronic commentary attributed to Ephrem treats Jesus’ nativity, baptism, ministry, passion, and resurrection appearances.15 The commentary is corroborated by the concordant sequence in Codex Fuldensis and the Arabic Diatessaron as well as additional testimonia to Tatian’s text.16 Theodore bar Koni, for instance, quotes the distinctive introduction to Tatian’s resurrection appearances (Liber Scholiorum, Siirt Recension 8.39)17 and 11

M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 99-100. Ibid. 100. 13 Stephen Emmel, ‘The Recently Published Gospel of the Savior (‘Unbekanntes Berliner Evangelium’): Righting the Order of Pages and Events’, HTR 45 (2002), 45-72, 49 n. 19. 14 There are no uncontroversially para-canonical gospels concerned with Jesus’ ministry from the early centuries (although some appear centuries later). There are, on the other hand, several analogies that are complete (Synoptics, John, Hebrews, Marcion, Apelles, Tatian). The most probable reconstruction is that these fragments were extracts from other complete gospels. 15 For critical editions of the Syriac and Armenian, see Louis Leloir (ed.), Saint Ephrem, Commentaire de l’Évangile concordant: Texte Syriaque (Manuscript Chester Beatty 709), Folios Additionnels, Chester Beatty Monographs 8 (Leuven, Paris, 1990); Louis Leloir (ed.), Saint Ephrem, Commentaire de l’Évangile concordant: Texte Syriaque (Manuscript Chester Beatty 709), Chester Beatty Monographs 8 (Dublin, 1963); Louis Leloir, Saint Ephrem Commentaire de l’Évangile concordant: Version Armenienne, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 137, Scriptores Armeniaci 1 (Louvain, 1953). For an English translation, see Carmel McCarthy, Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 (Oxford, 1993). 16 For a chart comparing the sequence of these gospel harmonies, see Louis Leloir, L’Évangile d’Éphrem d’après les œuvres éditées (Louvain, 1958). 17 Addai Scher, Theodorus Bar Koni. Liber Scholiorum, II (Syr. II, 66), CSCO 69, Scriptores Syri 26 (Louvain, 1912), 159. 12

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Isho῾dad provides Diatessaronic readings from the nativity,18 baptism,19 and ministry.20 Bockmuehl, of course, denies none of this. Instead, he pivots: The Diatessaron is para-canonical not because of its narrow narrative focus but because of its literary dependence on canonical gospels.21 The goal posts have moved. No longer must apocrypha assume knowledge of canonical names and narratives to be epiphenomenal. Now it is sufficient that the extra-canonical evangelist employs canonical sources. However, this, as Bockmuehl concedes, is no more true of Tatian and Thomas than Matthew and Luke.22 Luke incorporates material from Mark and Matthew (or, if one must, Q) in the same fashion that Tatian takes over traditions from the Synoptics and John. Unless one wishes to restrict their canon to Mark and Mark alone, refashioning source material need not reflect epiphenomenal aims or paracanonical reception.

Titled ‘the Gospel’ The paracanonical purpose of apocrypha is purportedly evidenced already in their titles. ‘No ancient author’, according to Bockmuehl, ‘refers to any identifiable version of a noncanonical text […] as “the gospel”’.23 In its Pauline sense, εὐαγγέλιον refers to the saving message about Jesus, and it continued to be used in this way throughout the second century.24 Probably as early as Ignatius, however, εὐαγγέλιον referred to a text.25 A recent essay by Matthew Larsen argues that early manuscripts set ‘the gospel’ apart from the apostolic attribution (e.g. according to Matthew) with an unnecessary line-break and an unconventional post-position in order to designate it as the proper title of each work.26 18 Margaret Dunlop Gibson (ed.), The Commentaries of Isho῾dad of Merv, Horae Semiticae 6 (Cambridge, 1911), II 22-3. 19 M.D. Gibson, The Commentaries of Isho῾dad of Merv (1911), II 208. Margaret Dunlop Gibson, The Commentaries of Isho῾dad of Merv, Horae Semiticae 5 (Cambridge, 1911), I 23. 20 M.D. Gibson, The Commentaries of Isho῾dad of Merv (1911), I 80. 21 M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 30, 126-8. Bockmuehl explicitly labels the Diatessaron ‘para-canonical’ on page 27. 22 Ibid. 129. 23 Ibid. 6. 24 Annette Y. Reed, ‘EUAGGELION: Orality, Textuality, and the Christian Truth in Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses’, VC 56 (2002), 11-46; James A Kelhoffer, ‘How Soon a Book Revisited: EUANGELION as a Reference to Gospel Materials in the First Half of the Second Century’, ZNW 95 (2006), 1-34. 25 Apart from the contested reference to “the gospel” in Philadelphians 8.2, Ignatius lists “the gospel” alongside other texts (Phil. 5.1-2, 8.2, 9.1-2, Smyr. 5.1, 7.2). C.E. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy, Reprint edition (Oxford, 2012), 195-9. 26 Matthew D.C. Larsen, ‘Correcting the Gospel: Putting the Titles of the Gospels in Historical Context’, in Rethinking ‘Authority’ in Late Antiquity: Authorship, Law, and Transmission in Jewish and Christian Tradition (London, New York, 2018), 78-104.

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The secondary κατά formula probably arose as a means of differentiating between multiple works with the same title.27 ‘The gospel’ simpliciter seems, therefore, to be the earliest recoverable title for each of the canonical lives of Jesus. That is, lives of Jesus were by convention first called merely ‘the gospel’. It would be suggestive, therefore, if this appellation never attached itself to any work other than the four now-canonical gospels. This, however, is not the case. While proto-orthodox heresiologists are predictably unwilling to grant this title to other gospels, they indicate that their opponents claim it for themselves. Megethius, a representative of Marcionite Christianity in the Dialogue of Adamantius, repeatedly contrasts ‘the gospel’ – referring to that recovered by Marcion – with the canonical tetraevangelion (4-8). Tertullian, a century earlier, corroborates the dialogue’s portrayal of Marcionite practice, reporting that this nomenclature originated with Marcion himself (Against Marcion 4.2-3). Likewise, Apelles, in a quotation preserved by Epiphanius, refers to his own composition as ‘the gospel’ (Epiphanius, Pan. 2.44.2.6). In terms of material evidence, the same unnecessary line-break and unconventional post-position that suggest to Larsen that early copyists of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John considered ‘the gospel’ to be a formal title for the canonical books are also present in manuscripts containing titles for the Gospel according to Thomas, Judas, and Mary. Christians of different stripes each claimed the tile ‘gospel’ simpliciter for their own book(s). The same is true of Tatian.28 Aphrahat and the Ephremic commentator know the Diatessaron only as ‘the gospel’ (e.g. Demonstration 1.10, 6.1; Commentary 1.7).29 The titular use of Diatessaron is a misreading of Eusebius (EH 4.29.6). As Matthew Crawford, following a suggestion in William Petersen, has argued compellingly, the article τὸ in τὸ διὰ τεσσάρων refers to an elided εὐαγγέλιον – on analogy with τὸ κατὰ Ματθαῖον (EH 6.25.3).30 The term Diatessaron, Crawford argues, was attached to Tatian’s text by association with Ammonius’ so-named canons. While some early Syriac authors adopted this Eusebian 27 Silke Petersen argues that the title ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ is anterior to the shortened form ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ and lengthened ΑΓΙΟΝ ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ. This is itself, however, a secondary development, arising from the acceptance of multiple gospels. Silke Petersen, ‘Die Evangelienüberschriften und die Entstehung des neutestamentlichen Kanons’, ZNW 97 (2006), 250-74. Before the ascent of this pluralistic perspective, the κατά element would not be necessary. This is apparently corroborated by the use of the title ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ by Marcion, Apelles, Basilides, and Tatian. 28 M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 134. 29 Bockmuehl notes this for Ephrem and, in a discussion of the Abgar Legend, for the Doctrine of Addai, M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 123, 7. 30 Petersen and Crawford actually propose emending the text on the basis of the Latin, Syriac, and Epiphanius’ citation. This, I argue in a forthcoming article, is misguided. We should instead understand εὐαγγέλιον as implied. William L. Petersen, Tatian’s Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance, and History in Scholarship, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 25 (Leiden, New York, 1994), 37; Matthew R. Crawford, ‘Diatessaron, a Misnomer? The Evidence from Ephrem’s Commentary’, Early Christianity 4 (2013), 362-85, 363.

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misnomer (Doctrine of Addai 34), other titles are attested for Tatian’s gospel. The Syriac translator of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastic History glosses the title Diates? 31 saron with ‘[the gospel] of the mixed’ (¿ÔáÑãx). Theodore bar Koni, in turn, reports that Tatian named the gospel after himself (Liber Scholiorum 11.39). This presumably reflects the title ‘Gospel according to Tatian’.32 In any case, the two earliest proto-orthodox authors who accepted Tatian’s extracanonical life of Jesus as authoritative referred to it simply as ‘the gospel’. Relative Textual Stability ‘There appears from the start’, according to Bockmuehl, ‘to be greater textual stability in the extant manuscripts of subsequently canonical gospels than in those of Thomas, Peter, and other apocryphal gospels’.33 This suggests to Bockmuehl ‘more widespread copying, liturgical reading and memorization’ of canonical books than all others.34 One wonders how Bockmuehl is able to make this calculation, considering the Gospel of Peter – according to his own analysis – is extant in only a single manuscript.35 The same is true, according to Bockmuehl, with every early extra-canonical gospel, save Thomas and Mary.36 Arguing for the relative instability of apocryphal gospels, Bockmuehl appeals plausibly to Thomas. The surviving Coptic translation of Thomas and the three Greek fragments indeed evince considerable textual variation. It is not at all clear, however, how this compares with the earliest Coptic translations of other Greek gospels. Codex Schøyen 2650, the earliest Coptic manuscript of Matthew, is famously so erratic that its first editor, H.-M. Schenke, judged it a non-canonical gospel.37 Nevertheless, Bockmuehl’s characterization of noncanonical text traditions as relatively uncontrolled may pertain to Thomas. 31

Norman McLean, Adalbert Merx and William Wright (eds), The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius in Syriac (Piscataway, NJ, 2003), 243. 32 It might alternatively reflect the genitive construction ‘Gospel of Tatian’ as with ‘Gospel of Judas’. Silke Petersen argues that the κατά formula is an acknowledgment of both pluriformity and an underlying unity while Judas’ genitive construction suggests that this gospel is a ‘Gegengeschichte’. S. Petersen, ‘Die Evangelienüberschriften und die Entstehung des neutestamentlichen Kanons’ (2006), 274. Since this title probably originated in a late antique Syriac milieu (rather than Tatian himself), Theodor bar Koni’s account of Tatian as a fifth evangelist (discussed below) favors the κατά formula. 33 M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 7. 34 Ibid. 8. 35 Bockmuehl rejects identifying P.Oxy 2949 as a fragment of the Gospel of Peter. M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 149-50. This judgement is also assumed in his tabulation of manuscripts, ibid. 26. 36 Curiously, the manuscripts for the Epistlula Apostolorum (considered an apocryphal gospel by Bockmuehl) are not listed in the relevant table, see ibid. 27. 37 In chapter 28, women go to the tomb ‘in the night of the Sabbath, early in the morning at the hour of light, while the stars were still above’ (28:1) and the guards arise ‘like dead men’ (28:4). Translation from James M. Leonard, Codex Schøyen 2650: A Middle Egyptian Coptic

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The Gospel of Mary is another story altogether. Mary survives in a single Coptic MS and two Greek fragments. Variants are cataloged and commented upon in Christopher Tuckett’s study of Mary’s Gospel.38 Allowing for the vagaries of translation and mechanical error, the manuscripts of Mary evince only a small handful of meaningful textual variants. Arguably, these are as close as the early fragments of the canonical gospels.39 A statistically sound assessment of the relative stability of Tatian’s Gospel is hardly possible. Without any manuscripts, the Diatessaron must be reconstructed exclusively from citations; and those almost entirely in translation. Lacking a base text by which to distinguish adaptations and allusions from careful citations – as is standard in the use of patristic citations in New Testament textual criticism – the Vorlagen of Aphrahat and the Ephremic commentator cannot be compared.40 Likewise, the vulgatized 6th century Latin Codex Fuldensis and 9th century Arabic Diatessaron reflect recensional activity in a context where Tatian’s Gospel was un-controversially non-canonical. We are not, however, entirely without recourse. Ephrem and the Ephremic Commentator note six variant readings in Tatian’s text tradition.41 These are a singular noun exchanged for a plural (Jn. 1:4 in Refutationes ad Hypatium), an itacism or a translation mistake arising therefrom (Jn. 2:2-3 in Comm 5.2), the omission/addition of ‘God’ and ‘Lord’, redundant titles on either side of ‘Father’ (Matt. 11:25 in Comm 10.14), the substitution of a single conjunction (Matt. 28:18 in Comm 15.19), the change of an object to the subject (Lk. 2:35 in Comm 2.17), and the substitution of two words plausibly reflecting different translation techniques (Jn. 17:5 in Comm 19.17). Compared with the variants explicitly noted in Greek and Latin commentators as compiled by Bruce Witness to the Early Greek Text of Matthew’s Gospel: A Study in Translation Theory, Indigenous Coptic, and New Testament Textual Criticism (Leiden, Boston, 2014), 265. Hans-Martin Schenke, Das Matthäus-Evangelium im mittelägyptischen Dialekt des Koptischen, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection I edition (Oslo, 2001). This thesis is challenged by Tjitze Baarda and James M. Leonard. Tjitze Baarda, ‘Mt. 17:1-9 in “Codex Schøjen”’, NovT 46.3 (2004), 265-87; J.M. Leonard, Codex Schøyen 2650 (2014). 38 Christopher Tuckett, ‘Comparison of the Greek and Coptic Texts’, in id. (ed.), The Gospel of Mary (Oxford, 2007), 119-34. 39 Tuckett is helpfully over-precise in cataloging differences between the Greek and Coptic. Additional pronouns (especially possessive pronouns and indirect objects) and the selection of corresponding terms with slightly different emphases across languages (e.g. νοῦν vs. ϩⲏⲧ) are an insecure basis to reconstruct divergent Vorlagen. 40 Carroll Osburn, ‘Methodology in Identifying Patristic Citations in NT Textual Criticism’, Novum Testamentum 47 (2005), 313-43. 41 Crawford, against Christian Lange, has argued that ‘the Greek’ here refers to a Greek text of Tatian. Matthew R. Crawford, ‘The Fourfold Gospel in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian’, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 18 (2015), 9-51; Christian Lange, ‘Ephrem, His School, and the Yawnaya. Some Remarks on the Early Syriac Versions of the New Testament’, in The Peshitta: Its Use in Literature and Liturgy, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute Leiden 15 (Leiden, Boston, 2006). I offer support for Crawford’s contention in a forthcoming NTS piece.

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Metzger and Amy Donaldson, or the variants between the Greek and Syriac noted in the commentaries of Isho῾dad, one gets the impression that the Diatessaronic commentator did not have much to discuss.42 There are, of course, other possible explanations for the minimal noted variations but any more reliable analysis will have to be founded on sources for Tatian’s text yet unrecovered. What little evidence survives suggests that in those communities that regarded Tatian’s Gospel as scripture, the text tradition evinced comparable variation to that attested for the canonical gospels.

Liturgical Use The church, according to the “Eusebian” vision, early and everywhere recognized an exclusive tetraevangelion. This was, of course, reflected in their worship. ‘Non-canonical gospels’, says Bockmuehl, ‘do not appear to exercise a public liturgical role’.43 Immediately, however, this is qualified: The Protoevangelion of James and the Epistula Apostolorum both found a place in orthodox liturgies. To these exceptions, we should add the Gospel of Peter, according to both Serapion (Eusebius, EH 6.12) and 2Clement (5:1-4).44 Likewise, the Gospel of Thomas, according to the pseudo-Athanasian Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae, was read liturgically.45 Presumably, Marcion’s Gospel was 42 Bruce Metzger, ‘St Jerome’s Explicit Reference to Variant Readings in Manuscripts of the New Testament’, in Ernest Best and Mc.L. Wilson (eds), Text and Interpretation: Studies in the New Testament Presented to Matthew Black (London, New York, Melbourne, 1979), 179-90; B.M. Metzger, ‘The Practice of Textual Criticism Among the Church Fathers’, SP 12 (1975), 340; Amy Donaldson, ‘Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings Among Greek and Latin Church Fathers’ (University of Notre Dame, 2009). Admittedly, Origen is more meticulous than most. Still, even the smallest variations noted in the gospels arguably reflect more substantial changes than any discussed by Ephrem. See, for instance, M.D. Gibson, The Commentaries of Isho῾dad of Merv (1911), II 96. 43 M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 13, 129. 44 On the assumption that 2 Clement is a sermon, it directly attests the use of a non-canonical gospel in Christian worship. Whether this belongs to the same gospel of Peter known to Serapion is a matter of debate – and not strictly relevant to my argument. 45 PG 28, 432B. Simon Gathercole, ‘Named Testimonia to the Gospel of Thomas: An Expanded Inventory and Analysis’, Harvard Theological Review 105 (2012), 53-89, 61. Furthermore, Annemarie Luijendijk has argued that the paratextual features (i.e. reading aids, format) of the fragments of the Gospel of Thomas at Oxyrhynchus suggest a transition from public reading to private study by Christians there. Annemarie Luijendijk, ‘Reading the Gospel of Thomas in the Third Century: Three Oxyrhynchus Papyri and Origen’s Homilies’, in Claire Clivaz and Jean Zumstein (eds), Reading New Testament Papyri in Context (Leuven, Paris, Walpole, MA, 2011), 241-67. See also Stephen Carlson on the status of Thomas for one particularly influential proto-orthodox preacher. Stephen C. Carlson, ‘Origen’s Use of the Gospel of Thomas’, in James H. Charlesworth (ed.), Sacra Scriptura: How ‘Non-Canonical’ Text Functioned in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (London, 2014), 137-51.

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read in Marcionite churches, the Gospel of the Hebrews in Jewish-Christian churches, and so on. ‘Public’ and ‘liturgical’ are not adjectives reserved for the proto-orthodox. In a subsequent discussion, Bockmuehl includes Tatian’s Gospel (but now omits the Epistula Apostolorum) as another exception to this rule.46 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, a fifth-century bishop in North Western Syria, reports finding more than two hundred copies of Tatian’s Gospel being used in local churches (Haer. fab. comp. 1.20). The Doctrine of Addai, an apostolic etiology of the Syriac church, depicts the disciples of Thaddeus meeting together for prayer and readings from the Old Testament and the Diatessaron (34).47 At least in his homeland, Tatian’s Gospel was read publicly and used liturgically.

Copied and Combined with Canonical Books Extra-canonical gospels, on the Eusebian vision, were never true competitors. Certainly, somebody read them, but the material remains reflect a reception in different circles and circumstances than those considered canonical. Bockmuehl, echoing Hurtado, claims that ‘Christians did not copy or read [canonical and non-canonical gospels] as equivalents side by side’.48 Gospels in the second century and third century, as Michael Dormandy demonstrated with admirable thoroughness, circulated primarily as individual codices.49 Only a single collection of the four canonical gospels (P45) survives from before the great fourth century pandects.50 And only one other papyrus (P75) from nearly ninety New Testament papyri and one parchment (0171) belonging to this period combine any two gospels. It is not remarkable, therefore, that we do not discover Mary bound up with Mark. Nevertheless, Oxyrhynchus yields evidence that does not comport with Bockmuehl’s characterization. Geoffrey Smith and Brent Landau recently demonstrated that P.Oxy II 209 (= P10), containing Romans 1:1-7, and P.Oxy II 210, 46

M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 27. Elsewhere, Addai instructs the public reading of the Law, Prophets, Gospel (singular), Letters of Paul, and Acts of the Twelve Apostles. 48 M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 27; Larry Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids, MI, 2006), 35-7. 49 Michael Dormandy, ‘How the Books Became the Bible: The Evidence for Canon Formation from Work-Combinations in Manuscripts’, TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism (2018), 1-39. 50 Juan Chapa, ‘Textual Transmission of “Canonical” and “Apocryphal” Writings within the Development of the New Testament Canon: Limits and Possibilities’, Early Christianity 7 (2018), 119-23. Even P45 is not a tetraevangelion but also includes Acts. Against combining P64 and P67 with P4, see Peter M. Head, ‘Is P4, P64 and P67 the Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels? A Response to T. C. Skeat’, New Testament Studies 51 (2005), 450-7. 47

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containing an unknown apocryphal gospel, were copied by the same scribe.51 Likewise, Grenfell and Hunt suggest that the discovery of P.Oxy I 1 and P.Oxy I 2 in the same mound at nearly the same time indicates a common provenance.52 These contain the Gospels of Matthew and Thomas respectively. Again, Dirk Jongkind argues that the Gospel of Thomas as preserved in P. Oxy 655 likely influenced the first hand of Codex Sinaiticus at Matthew 6:28.53 There is scarce material evidence for Christian libraries in the second and third centuries, but what we have suggests that some-day canonical and some-day apocryphal books were copied and read side-by-side.54 Tatian too kept good company. The Doctrine of Addai suggests that in the Syriac east the Diatessaron was once the only gospel read alongside Jewish scripture, Paul, and Acts.55 Ephrem, however, already knows the tetraevangelion – and certainly used it in some of his hymns.56 Nevertheless, the Diatessaronic Commentary, probably authored by one of Ephrem’s disciples cites Tatian’s text throughout, without apparent reference to other gospels.57 Theodore bar Koni, although espousing a four gospel canon, lists Tatian last in a sequence of five evangelists (Liber Scholiorum, Siirt Recension 8.39).58 Here, he offers nothing but praise for this fifth gospel.59 Subsequent Syriac commentators would continue to cite the Diatessaron as a source of reliable Jesus traditions.60 Likewise, Victor of Capua in the west allowed Tatian to displace at least one 51 Geoffrey S. Smith and Brent C. Landau, ‘Canonical and Apocryphal Writings Copied by the Same Scribe’, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 95 (2019), 143-60. 52 B.P. Grenfell, Excavations at Oxyrhynchus: First Season (1896-7), in A.K. Bowman et al. (eds), Oxyrhynchus: A City and Its Texts (London, 2007), 348. This proposal is also treated in G.S. Smith and B.C. Landau, ‘Canonical and Apocryphal Writings Copied by the Same Scribe’ (2019), 154; A.M. Luijendijk, ‘Reading the Gospel of Thomas in the Third Century: Three Oxyrhynchus Papyri and Origen’s Homilies’ (2011), 241-67, 257. 53 Dirk Jongkind, ‘The Lilies of the Field’ Reconsidered: Codex Sinaiticus and the Gospel of Thomas’, NovT 48 (2006), 209-16. 54 A fifth century Latin palimpsest contains the gospels of Matthew, Infancy Thomas, and Nicodemus (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek lat. 563; cla 10,1485). 55 George Howard, The Teaching of Addai (Chico, CA, 1981), 73, 93. 56 M. Crawford, ‘The Fourfold Gospel in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian’ (2015). 57 Christian Lange, The Portrayal of Christ in the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron (Louvain, 2005). As noted above, I side with Crawford against Lange on the identification of ‘the Greek’. C. Lange, ‘Ephrem, His School, and the Yawnaya. Some Remarks on the Early Syriac Versions of the New Testament’ (2006); M. Crawford, ‘The Fourfold Gospel in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian’ (2015). 58 A. Scher, Theodorus Bar Koni. Liber Scholiorum, II (1912), 159. 59 Theodore argues in his eighth book that the apostles selected four evangelists in order to avoid redundancy. Tatian is introduced immediately thereafter and credited with the same motives in the creation of the Diatessaron. 60 See especially the testimony in ῾Abd Iso῾ bar Berika’s Nomokanon at J.S. Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana: De Scriptoribus Syris Nestorianis, vol. 3 (Rome, 1725), 12. Further discussion in J. Rendel Harris, The Diatessaron of Tatian: A Preliminary Study (London, 1890), 16.

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tetraevangelion, binding a reworked Diatessaron together with the rest of a Latin New Testament. Suppressed Gospels Finally, Bockmuehl attributes to Bauer’s reception (though not Bauer himself) the ‘conspiracy minded’ idea that alternative gospels were suppressed by ecclesiastical leadership.61 This Bockmuehl flatly rejects. Likewise, Charles Hill characterizes the suppression of rival gospels as a ‘conspiracy theory’ encouraged by the Bauer thesis.62 It is, indeed, a topos of anti-Bauer apologia to deny ecclesiastical authority any role in curating the canon.63 This collection, they would have us believe, was born not by the will of man. Tatian stands athwart such ‘Eusebian’ revisions.64 As Bockmuehl himself notes, Tatian’s Gospel was the victim of ecclesiastic censure. While Aphrahat, Ephrem, and Addai regard it as ‘gospel’, nearly a century later, Theodoret warns of its dangers. He boasts of replacing more than two hundred copies of the Diatessaron Gospel with his preferred tetraevangelion (Haer. fab. comp. 1.20). Likewise, Rabbula, the slightly senior Bishop of Edessa, circulated a rule requiring churches to use the ‘separated gospels’ (Canon 43).65 Tatian’s Gospel thereafter quickly fades from view – lingering only in the libraries of the learned. While Serapion’s stayed suppression of Peter’s Gospel proffers one parallel case (Eusebius, EH 6.12), such heavy-handed micro-management seems to have been relatively rare. The text tradition of the Protoevangelium of James probably reflects a more typical case study in the orthodox refashioning of the past. This work survives in over 150 manuscripts in Greek as well as manuscripts in eight other ancient languages.66 Not a single manuscript, however, survives in Latin. The extant Latin manuscript tradition for the Infancy Gospel of Thomas suggests an appetite for such pious prequels in the Latin west, and the seventh-century gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the so-called J Composition indicate that a Latin version of the Protoevangelium once existed. How is it 61

M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 22-3. C. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels? (2012), e.g. 21-2. 63 Darrell L. Bock, The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities (Nashville, TN, 2007); Michael J. Kruger, The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate (Downers Grove, IL, 2013). 64 This view of the gospels is only ‘Eusebian’ on analogy with Bauer’s nomenclature. Eusebius himself, as Jeremiah Coogan brought to my attention, is invested in the role of ecclesiastical authority in curating the canon. 65 Arthur Vööbus, Syriac and Arabic Documents Regarding Legislation Relative to Syrian Asceticism, PETSE 11 (Stockholm, 1960), 47. 66 My account of the manuscript tradition and non-reception in Latin is indebted to Bart D. Ehrman and Zlatko Pleše (eds), The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations (New York, 2011), 31-2. 62

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then that no copies have been handed-down? Probably, the answer is that Rome and Rome alone formally condemned the work. First, Jerome spoke against its content (De perpetua virginitate beatae Mariae adversus Helvidium) and then, in Innocent I’s Letter to Exsuperius (7.30) and the subsequent Gelasian Decree (8), Roman authorities condemned the Protoevangelion itself. In contrast, this gospel prolog found a place in the Greek liturgy.67 Here we need not envision any effort at enforcement for these edicts to take effect. Only, as Bauer long ago proposed, the preferences of so-many anonymous copyists and collectors informed by the amplified voices of those in authority.

Conclusion There is a more fundamental problem with Bockmuehl’s characterization of all apocrypha as ‘para-canonical’. The ‘canonical tradition’ of gospels, which apocrypha purportedly presume, is itself a phantasm. There is no such singular ‘tradition’ simpliciter. Matthew is, of course, deeply indebted to Mark but these earliest evangelists diverge drastically on the necessity of Torah observance.68 The Johannine Baptist refuses identification with Elijah (Jn. 1:21 contra Matt. 11:14, 17:10-3; Mk. 9:11-3) and the Johannine Jesus foreswears a Synoptic Gethsemane (John 12:27-8). These are not trivialities – law observance and Christology were perhaps the premier controversies of the mid-first through early-second centuries. Luke and Papias (Eusebius, EH 3.39.15-6) offer only criticism of their evangelical predecessors.69 Mark and Matthew no more represent one harmonious tradition than do Luke and Marcion. Ultimately the neat dichotomy of Zahn versus Harnack, internal versus external, ‘push’ versus ‘pull’ is too simplistic. Matthew and Mark no doubt gained considerable advantage in being early.70 But in denying Dan Brown-esque canonical conspiracies, historians should not leave open a backdoor for what Kruger calls his own ‘ontological’ view of the canon.71 On Bockmuehl’s own criteria, Tatian’s Diatessaron belongs to the canonical side of his apocryphal-canonical dichotomy. While I wish that this gospel would 67 Stephen J. Shoemaker, ‘Apocrypha and Liturgy in the Fourth Century: The Case of the “Six Books” Dormition Apocryphon’, in J.H. Charlesworth and L.M. McDonald (eds), Jewish and Christian Scriptures: The Function of ‘Canonical’ and ‘Non-Canonical’ Religious Texts (New York, 2010), 153-63. 68 David C. Sim, ‘Matthew’s Use of Mark: Did Matthew Intend to Supplement or to Replace His Primary Source?’, New Testament Studies 57 (2011), 176-92. 69 Patristic interpreters univocally understand the term ἐπεχείρησαν in the Lukan prolog as criticism (e.g. Origen, Homily on Luke 1; Jerome, Prolog to the Four Gospels; Eusebius, EH 3.24; Epiphanius, Pan 51.7.3; Athanasius, Festal Letter 2.7; Ambrose, Comm on Luke 1). 70 M. Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (2017), 23. 71 M. Kruger, The Question of Canon (2013), esp. 40-6.

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attract more scholarly attention, I am certainly not suggesting we work Tatian into contemporary liturgy. I purpose instead to illustrate the artificiality of reifying a fourth-century anthology. The canon is an artifice – produced by human activity – not a mind-independent reality some Syriac, Ethiopian, and Armenian Christians were reticent to recognize. Tatian’s Gospel lost out not because of some intrinsic inferiority but due to the efforts of an energetic episcopacy and, no doubt, countless copyists, collectors, and lectors influenced thereby. Vindicating Bauer against his critics (regarding gospel origins) does not mean demonstrating that the Synoptics stood in no genuine continuity with the earliest Jesus movement or adducing some new gospel earlier than Mark. Rather, it requires showing that certain ‘apocrypha’ in certain places represented real alternatives to the canonical lives of Jesus, and that those churches eventually deemed orthodox worked to supersede such rivals. Tatian’s Diatessaron, I think I have demonstrated, represents just such a vindication.

The Influence of the Commonplace of Xenophanean Philosophical Theology on Athenagoras of Athens’ Legatio pro Christianis Monika RECINOVÁ, Olomouc, Czech Republic

ABSTRACT Although the influence of the philosophical templates on Athenagoras’ Embassy for the Christians is generally acknowledged, it has thus far escaped attention that the main thought structure of Athenagoras’ Christian apologetic argumentation is heavily shaped by the well-known philosophical commonplace of Xenophanean philosophical theology. This, in antiquity widely shared philosophical commonplace, consisted of a Xenophanean critique of the mythical gods, which was based on the new rational and strongly ontologized concept of God, and the philosophical theology developing its philosophical perfections. In the adoption of this philosophical commonplace as the basis of his Christian argumentation, Athenagoras followed a much older apologetic tradition. He adopted almost all the traditional Xenophanean arguments against Greek religion and mythology from his philosophical templates, but the profound influence of this philosophical commonplace on Athenagoras’ thinking is evident from the fact that he also interpreted his own religious tradition of biblical monotheism in the categories of Xenophanean philosophical theology. This early Greek apologist was neither aware of the substantial differences between biblical monotheism and Xenophanean philosophical monotheism, nor the difficult theological problems of later patristic thinking that arose from his and other early Greek apologists’ adoption of the Xenophanean philosophical theology for interpretation of the biblical notion of God. Already in Athenagoras’ writing, however, the serious consequences of his reception of Xenophanean philosophical theology are evident from his Xenophanean misinterpretation of Greek religion and mythology and his underestimation of the anthropomorphism of New Testament Christology.

It is1 generally acknowledged that the early Greek apology Embassy for the Christians (Legatio pro Christinanis)2 by Athenagoras of Athens is heavily 1

This article was written with the support of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic given to Palacký University, Czech Republic (IGA_FF_2019_018). Important ideas in this article were published in a different wording in the introductory study to my Czech translation of Athenagoras’ Embassy, in Athénagorás z Athén, Přímluva za křesťany, Pro Oriente 46 (Červený Kostelec, 2019), 9-82. 2 The best edition of Athenagoras’ Embassy available is the edition by Bernard Pouderon, in Athénagore, Supplique au sujet des chrétiens et Sur la résurrection des morts, SC 379 (Paris, 1992), 70-208. This article refers to the wording and numbering of this edition.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 229-243. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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dependent on classical philosophical sources, especially of the Middle Platonic provenance.3 It has escaped attention, however, that the influence of Greek philosophical sources on Athenagoras is not restricted to his adoption of numerous philosophical notions, citations and ideas from his philosophical templates, but that the main thought structure of his Christian apologetic argumentation is heavily shaped by the well-known philosophical commonplace of Xenophanean philosophical theology.

The commonplace of Xenophanean philosophical theology The pre-Socratic Xenophanes of Colophon (580/577 – after 478 BC) formulated in a very influential way the sharpest moralizing and anti-anthropomorphic critique of the mythical gods ever expressed in the Greek intellectual tradition. He was not viewed, however, as an atheist in antiquity,4 because instead of the mythical gods, he coined a new rational theology developing a philosophical notion of God which was already heavily ontologized in Xenophanes’ thinking.5 Since the qualities and actions of the mythical gods contradicted this ontologized notion of God, Xenophanes rejected not only the divinity of the mythical gods, but also their being.6 Greek myth was labelled as false lore about the gods7 and was replaced by the Xenophanean philosophical theology developing the philosophical perfections of this rational and ontologized notion of God.8 Xenophanes’ philosophical theology, composed of a critique of the mythical gods and the new rational theology, soon became a philosophical commonplace due to its early reception in the generation of Socrates’ disciples,9 especially 3

See especially Abraham J. Malherbe, ‘The Structure of Athenagoras, “Supplicatio pro Christianis”’, VC 23 (1969), 1-20; Bernard Pouderon, Athénagore d’Athènes, philosophe chrétien, Théologie historique 82 (Paris, 1989), 327. 4 Wilhelm Fahr, ΘΕΟΥΣ ΝΟΜΙΖΕΙΝ. Zum Problem der Anfänge des Atheismus bei den Griechen, SPUDASMATA: Studien zur Klassischen Philologie und ihren Grenzgebieten 26 (Hildesheim, New York, 1969), 20. 5 Jens Halfwassen, ‘Der Gott des Xenophanes: Überlegungen über Ursprung und Struktur eines philosophischen Monotheismus’, ARG 10 (2008), 275-94, 288-94. 6 Xenophanes, Fr. DK B 15; B 16 (popular gods as mere human projections); see also J. Halfwassen, ‘Der Gott des Xenophanes’ (2008), 283. 7 Xenophanes, Fr. DK B 1.22. 8 Xenophanes, Fr. DK B 23 – B 26; B 34. 9 See Isoc., Bus. 38-39 (ed. Flacelière) (with echoes of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 11.2-3; B 12; C 1.1342); Xen., Mem. 1.4.18 (ed. Marchant) (with echo of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 24); Antisthenes, Fr. 39A-39E (ed. Decleva Caizzi) (with echo of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 23.1); Antisthenes, Fr. 40A-40D (with echo of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 23.2); Antisthenes, Fr. 109A (Aphrodite as the bad example for women, see the paideia motif based on Xenophanes, Fr. DK B 1.23; Aphrodite as a mere projection of human passion, see Xenophanes, Fr. DK B 15; B 16).

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by Plato.10 In late antiquity, this commonplace was widely shared and further developed by a large number of thinkers of different philosophical schools.11 The frequent citations and echoes of Xenophanes’ theological fragments in classical authors also prove that they were not a late Christian forgery.12 For emerging Hellenistic-Jewish and early Christian thinking, Xenophanes’ reception by the Middle Platonists was of the greatest importance.13 The reception of the Xenophanean philosophical commonplace in apologetics before Athenagoras Athenagoras very likely knew the Xenophanean commonplace from his study of Greek philosophy, but in its adoption to the framework of his Christian argumentation, he also followed a much older apologetic tradition. This commonplace can be traced already in the Hellenistic-Jewish writing Epistula Aristeae14 (the second century BC), more clearly in the second book of [Philo of Alexandria]’s De providentia15 and very strikingly in Josephus Flavius’ Contra Apionem.16 The earliest Christian proto-apologetic writing containing elements of Xenophanean philosophical theology is the only fragmentary preserved Kerygma Petri17 (beginning of the second century AD). The first fully preserved Christian apologetic writing before Athenagoras, whose argumentation is wholly based on the Xenophanean theological commonplace, is the Apology of Aristides of 10

See especially Pl., R. 2.377b-3.391e (with echoes of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 12; B 1.21-3 [including the paideia motif]; C 1.1342; B 11.3); Euthphr. 5d-6c; 7b (with echoes of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK C 1.1342; B 12; B 1.21-3, including the paideia motif). 11 The broad reception of Xenophanes’ fragments in later classical authors has not yet been sufficiently studied; the most comprehensive contribution to this problem available is Christian Schäfer, Xenophanes von Kolophon. Ein Vorsokratiker zwischen Mythos und Philosophie, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 77 (Stuttgart, 1996), 214-64. 12 In contrast to the opinion of Mark J. Edwards, ‘Xenophanes Christianus?’, GRBS 32 (1991), 219-28: Xenophanes’ theological fragments, preserved by Clement of Alexandria, are also documented in classical authors: Fr. DK B 15 was paraphrased not only by Epicharm., Fr. DK 23 B 5, but very likely also by Cic., Nat. D. 1.27.77 (ed. Pease); echo of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 16 is noticeable in Plin., HN 2.17 (ed. Beaujeu); Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 23 was very likely paraphrased by Antisthenes, Fr. 39A-39E (ed. Decleva Caizzi) and later by Varro in August., De civ. D. 4.31 (ed. Dombart/Kalb). 13 See Jaap Mansfeld, ‘Compatible Alternatives: Middle Platonist Theology and the Xenophanes Reception’, in Roelof van den Broeck, Tjitze Baarda and Jaap Mansfeld (eds), Knowledge of God in the Graeco-Roman World, Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l’Empire romain 112 (Leiden, New York, 1988), 92-117. 14 Ep. Ar. 9.132-9 (ed. Pelletier). 15 [Philo], De prov. 2.35-9 (ed. Hadas-Lebel). 16 Joseph., Ap. 2.167-275 (ed. Reinach). 17 Fr. 2a (ed. Cambe) = Clem. Al., Strom. 6.5.39.1-3 (ed. Stählin/Früchtel/Treu) (with echoes of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 23.1; B 24; A 28,3.2; C 1.1345).

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Athens (during the reign of Antoninus Pius) which originated as a Christian adaptation of several classical or Hellenistic-Jewish templates.18 At the beginning of his apology, Aristides first defines his concept of God, 19 which is strongly influenced by the Xenophanean God of the philosophers, and then on its basis criticizes – using almost all traditional Xenophanean arguments – the ‘Chaldean’ religion of nature,20 Greek polytheism21 and Egyptian zoolatry.22 Athenagoras in his Embassy followed the same Xenophanean pattern as Aristides, but Athenagoras’ later adoption of this commonplace (around 177 AD) is more sophisticated in comparison with Aristides’. Prior to Athenagoras, certain motifs of Xenophanean philosophical theology are also present in Justin’s writings.23 The Xenophanean theological commonplace as the basis of Athenagoras’ argumentation in Leg. 4-30 The structure of Athenagoras’ apologetic argumentation is determined by the gradual refutation of three frequent allegations against Christians in the second century: of atheism, cannibalism and incest. The predominant part of the Embassy (Leg. 4-30) is devoted to the refutation of the allegation of atheism which Athenagoras considered the most serious. Its subject was that the Christians did not believe in the ancient gods (theoretical atheism)24 and did not participate in the public cult (practical atheism).25 It was in this main part of his apology where Athenagoras adopted the Xenophanean philosophical commonplace as the basis of his argumentation. This Christian apologist searched for ideas he could lean on in Greek intellectual tradition. As an heir to biblical monotheism, he could not follow the ancient religions, but found a powerful ally in Greek philosophy. Greek philosophers of the Xenophanean tradition had already rejected the divinity of the mythical gods but were not considered atheists because instead of the popular gods, they embraced philosophical monotheism based on the Xenophanean notion of God. Athenagoras firmly condemns the alleged atheism of Diagoras of Melos,26 who in antiquity 18 See Willem C. van Unnik, ‘Die Gotteslehre bei Aristides und in gnostischen Schriften’, TZ 17 (1961), 166-74; Bernard Pouderon, Marie-Joseph Pierre, Bernard Outtier and Marina Guiorgadzé, in Aristide, Apologie, SC 470 (Paris, 2003), 77-100. 19 Arist., Apol. 1.2 (eds. Pouderon/Pierre/Outtier/Guiorgadzé). 20 Arist., Apol. 3-7: ‘Chaldean’ (Ba); ‘barbarian’ (Sy); ‘Persian’ (Ar). 21 Arist., Apol. 8-11. 22 Arist., Apol. 12. 23 See especially Justin, Dial. 127.2 (ed. Bobichon) (with echoes of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 26; B 24); Apol 1.10.1 and 1.13.1 (ed. Munier) (with echo of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK C 1.1345); etc. 24 Leg. 4-12. 25 Leg. 13-30. 26 Leg. 4.1.

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was considered an example of an atheist, and compares the attitude of Christians to the positions of Greek poets and philosophers who, like the poet Euripides,27 also questioned the pagan gods, but were not considered atheists,28 because they professed philosophical monotheism.29 As Athenagoras illustrates with rather simplistic interpretations, philosophical monotheism was also professed by many Greek philosophers such as Philolaus,30 the Pythagoreans Lysis and Opsimus,31 Plato,32 Aristotle33 and the Stoics.34 If these thinkers could profess their theological opinions with impunity, Christians should not be punished either, for instead of the mythical gods, they believed in the one God, the creator.35 Athenagoras does not explain the relationship between the monotheism of Greek philosophers and the monotheism of Christians – unlike some other early Greek apologists36 – by the misleading Hellenistic-Jewish hypothesis of the theft of Greek philosophers from the Hebrew prophets, but using the epistemological categories opinion – true knowledge: while Greek philosophers had mere conjectures about God, for they drew only from their minds,37 Christian monotheism represented the true knowledge of God, for it is based on the self-revelation of God through the Hebrew prophets.38 This comparison of the attitude of Christians to that of the Greek philosophers of the Xenophanean tradition enabled Athenagoras to adopt the entire Xenophanean commonplace as the basis of his apology of Christian monotheism. He first defines his Christian notion of God (against the accusation of theoretical atheism),39 which is heavily influenced by the Middle Platonic version of Xenophanean philosophical theology, and subsequently on its basis refutes – using almost all traditional Xenophanean arguments – (against the accusation of practical atheism) the pagan sacrificial cult,40 the conflicting multiplicity of the Greek ideas of the gods,41 the cult 27 Leg. 5.1; Athenagoras cites Euripides, Fr. 900 (TrGF V/2, 910-1). See also the reception of Xenophanes’ ideas in Eur., HF 1314-9; 1341-6 (ed. Kovacs) (= Xenophanes, Fr. DK C 1) (with echoes of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 1.22; B 12; A 28, 4.2-4); Ion 442-7 (with echo of Xenophanes’ Fr. B 12.1); see also Beller., Fr. 292 (ed. Nauck) (rejection of the divinity of the evil-doing mythical gods). 28 Leg. 5.1. 29 Leg. 5.1-3. 30 Leg. 6.1. 31 Ibid. 32 Leg. 6.2. 33 Leg. 6.3. 34 Leg. 6.4. 35 Leg. 10.5. 36 See Justin, Apol. 1.60.10 (ed. Munier); Tatianus, Ad Gr. 40.1-2 (ed. Trelenberg). 37 Leg. 7.2. 38 Leg. 7.3. 39 Leg. 10.1. 40 Leg. 13. 41 Leg. 14.

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statues,42 the divinization of the world,43 the Greek mythical gods44 and their allegorical exegesis.45 Athenagoras did not adopt the Xenophanean commonplace mechanically, but it did profoundly influence his own theological thinking, as can be seen from the fact that he for apologetic reasons not only took over the Xenophanean critique of Greek religion and mythology, but also explicitly interpreted his own religious tradition of biblical monotheism in terms of Xenophanean philosophical theology. An explication of biblical monotheism in terms of Xenophanean philosophical theology For Athenagoras, the essence of Christianity is monotheism: ‘We recognize that there is one God’.46 In defence of this Christian monotheism, Athenagoras adopted the rational proof of the oneness of God from his philosophical templates, which was remotely inspired by Xenophanean philosophical theology. He refutes the existence of the plurality of gods by pointing out that there is no place where these gods could linger,47 and further argues against the plurality of gods considered as constitutive parts of the one God48 by means of the Xenophanean notion of the simplicity of God.49 Athenagoras was aware that this rational proof could be regarded as a mere human statement, and therefore supported Christian monotheism by the self-revelation of God through the Jewish prophets50 whom he presented as part of Christian tradition. Athenagoras intentionally cites from the Old Testament – very likely using Hellenistic-Jewish or early Christian apologetic florilegia – the monotheizing statements of the post-exilic prophets, especially from ‘Second Isaiah’: ‘The Lord is our God; no other shall be reckoned in addition to him.’51 And again: ‘I am God, first and last; and except for me there is no God.’52 Similarly: ‘There was no other 42 Especially Leg. 15; 17; see also the demonic interpretation of the influences of the cult statues in Leg. 23; 26-7. 43 Leg. 16. 44 Leg. 18-21. 45 Leg. 22. 46 Leg. 10.1. 47 Leg. 8.1-2; 4-8; see also William R. Schoedel, ‘“Topological” Theology and Some Monistic Tendencies in Gnosticism’, in Martin Krause (ed.), Essays on the Nag Hammadi Texts in Honour of Alexander Böhlig, Nag Hammadi Studies 3 (Leiden, 1972), 88-108. 48 Leg. 8.3; see also Robert M. Grant, ‘Place du Basilide dans la théologie chrétienne ancienne’, REAug 25 (1979), 201-16; Robert M. Grant, The Early Christian Doctrine of God (Charlottesville, 1966), 105-10. 49 Xenophanes, Fr. DK B 24; A 28.6; see also Alc., Didasc. 10 (ed. Whittaker). 50 Leg. 9.1. 51 LXX Bar. 3:36 (see also Ex. 20:2-3). 52 LXX Isa. 44:6.

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God before me and there will be none after me; I am God and there is none beside me.’53 Immediately after, however, Athenagoras explains these monotheizing biblical statements in philosophical terms taken from the Middle Platonic version of Xenophanean philosophical theology: We have brought before you a God who is ungenerated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, and infinite, who can be apprehended by mind and reason alone, who is encompassed by light, beauty, spirit, and indescribable power, and who created, adorned, and now rules the universe through the Word that issues from him.54

Although God is presented as the ‘creator’, which represents a biblical idea, and ‘rules the universe through the Word’, which is a motif corresponding to the prologue of the Gospel of John, the other predicates: ‘ungenerated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, and infinite, who can be apprehended by mind and reason alone’, are clearly of the Middle Platonic provenance and represent the Middle Platonic explanation of the Xenophanean philosophical notion of God.55 Athenagoras thus interpreted biblical monotheism in the terms of the Middle Platonic version of Xenophanean philosophical theology, which he understood as a philosophical explication of biblical monotheism. Instead of biblical theology, however, he developed here his own Christianized version of Xenophanean philosophical theology. The quoted monotheizing biblical statements were merely used to legitimize its assumption into the framework of Athenagoras’ Christian thought.

Sources of Athenagoras’ Xenophanean interpretation of biblical monotheism The adoption of Xenophanean philosophical theology for the explication of biblical monotheism was, however, not invented by Athenagoras but had a much older tradition that can be traced back to the Hellenistic historian Hecataeus of Abdera (the fourth century BC) who incorporated into his ethnography Aegyptica the excursion about the religion of the Jews56 which he interpreted in terms of Xenophanean philosophical theology. Hecataeus’ Xenophanean interpretation57 of the religion of the Jews obviously represented the interpretatio Graeca of 53 LXX Isa. 43:10-1. Leg. 9.2. Translation by William R. Schoedel, in Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (Oxford, 1972), 21. 54 Leg. 10.1. Slightly modified translation by William R. Schoedel, in Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 21. 55 See especially Alc., Didasc. 10; [Arist.], Mund. 6, 399b19-22 (ed. Thom); Plut., Comm. not. 1074f-1075a (eds. Pohlenz/Westman); etc. 56 Cited by Diod. Sic., Bibl. hist. 40.3.1-6 (LCL 423). 57 Martin Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus. Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Palästinas bis zur Mitte des 2. Jh. v. Chr., Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen

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Jewish religion, whose purpose was to explain the Jewish religion to Hecataeus’ Hellenistic readers in terms of the Greek intellectual tradition.58 The similar Xenophanean interpretation of the religion of Jews was later also embraced by certain Hellenistic-Jewish apologists who tried to prove, in their efforts to address pagan intellectuals, that Jews did not confess intellectually inferior anthropomorphic polytheism as other barbarian peoples and folk masses of the ancient world, but that the Jewish religion was compatible with the best achievements of the Greek intellectual tradition.59 The adoption of the Xenophanean commonplace or its parts in Athenagoras and other early Greek apologists was thus not accidental but resulted from the strong influence of Hellenistic philosophical culture on Hellenistic-Jewish and early Christian apologists. The problematic identification of biblical monotheism with Xenophanean philosophical monotheism Despite the identification of biblical monotheism with Xenophanean philosophical monotheism in some Hellenistic-Jewish and Christian apologists, there exists substantial differences between both concepts. Biblical monotheism is contemporary or slightly older than Xenophanean philosophical monotheism, but historically there are no influences between them. The biblical God is the creator of the world, but his difference from the world is not specified in ontological categories. Biblical thinking thus does not know the ontological difference between God and the world.60 Consequently, the Hebrew Bible uses anthropomorphic language when speaking about God and develops the anthropomorphic image of God. In contrast, Xenophanean philosophical monotheism is built on the idea of the absolute transcendence and otherness of God whose being differs ontologically from the being of the world: while the world and the things in it are ephemeral, the Xenophanean God of philosophers is considered eternal, immobile and immutable. Any anthropomorphic language about this philosophical God is excluded and anthropomorphic language is replaced by philosophical theology developing the philosophical perfections of this rational concept of God. zum Neuen Testament 10 (Tübingen, 1969), 465-7; Edouard Will and Claude Orrieux, IOUDAÏSMOSHELLÈNISMOS. Essai sur le judaïsme judéen à l’époque hellénistique (Nancy, 1986), 85. 58 See also Bezalel Bar-Kochva, The Image of the Jews in Greek Literature. The Hellenistic Period, Hellenistic Culture and Society 51 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 2010), 119. 59 See the idea of that Jews profess the same God as Greek intellectuals: Varro, Fr. 16 (ed. Cardauns) = August. De consens. evang. 1.22.30 (ed. Weihrich); Ep. Ar. 16-17; Aristobulos in Euseb., Praep. ev. 13.12.6-9; Joseph., Ap. 2.255 (ed. Reinach). 60 J. Halfwassen, ‘Der Gott des Xenophanes’ (2008), 291.

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The interpretation of biblical monotheism in terms of Xenophanean philosophical theology amongst Hellenistic-Jewish and Christian apologists therefore does not develop the biblical image of God but amounts to its redefinition in terms of Greek metaphysical theology. The tensions between both concepts became apparent already in HellenisticJewish thinking where the reception of Xenophanean philosophical theology facilitated the dialogue with Greek philosophy, but by taking up some of its elements, Hellenistic-Jewish theology came into the conflict with the sacred texts of its own religious tradition. Consequently, the problem of biblical anthropomorphism and related theological problems, such as the problem of the immutability and impassibility of God, were constituted. Athenagoras from his part substantially contributed to the analogical reception of Xenophanean philosophical monotheism into the framework of Christian thinking. Due to the initial state of Christian thought of his time, Athenagoras uncritically adopted Xenophanean theology for the explication of his Christian theology: he was not yet aware of the contradictions between it and the biblical texts, nor the problem of biblical anthropomorphism and the subsequent theological problems, although they were partly discussed already in HellenisticJewish thinking. Although the indicated theological problems still lie beyond Athenagoras’ attention, the consequences of the adoption of Xenophanean philosophical theology for the explication of Christian thinking are apparent already in Athenagoras’ apology in his ontologization of the Christian notion of God, and also in related problems of the misinterpretation of Greek religiosity and the underestimation of the anthropomorphism of New Testament Christology. The ontologization of the notion of God Due to the adoption of the Middle Platonic version of Xenophanean philosophical theology, Athenagoras’ Christian notion of God is heavily ontologized. Using a quotation from Plato’s Timaeus, Athenagoras refers to the Platonic ontology: ‘What is that which always is and does not come to be, or what is that which comes to be but never is?’61 Plato in his dialogues on the intelligible and perceptible teaches that that which always is, the intelligible, is uncreated, whereas that which is not, the perceptible, is created, having a beginning to its existence and an end.62 On this Platonic basis, Athenagoras distinguishes between a true being which does not come to be and does not cease to exist, but is eternal, unchangeable, immobile, non-bodily and recognizable only by the mind and reason,63 and 61 62 63

Pl., Ti. 27d. Leg. 19.2. Translation by W.R. Schoedel, Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 41. Leg. 4.1.

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the material world, which is sensual and created, and therefore ephemeral.64 Athenagoras very closely connects this true being of Platonic ontology with his notion of God. Athenagoras reformulates the Platonic dualism of perceptible – intelligible in a basic ontological dichotomy of matter (the material world) – God: We distinguish God from matter and show that matter is one thing and God another and the difference between them immense; for the divine is uncreated and eternal and can be contemplated only by thought and reason, whereas matter is created and perishable.65

Although Athenagoras denotes a true being as a mere accident of God,66 he actually in many places in his writing explicitly characterizes God by the same terms he uses elsewhere about the true being: God is defined as ungenerated,67 while matter is created, and thus ephemeral. As ungenerated, God is not subjected to the law of becoming and passing away,68 but is immortal69 and eternal.70 Like the true being of Platonic ontology, he is completely perfect, so no change affects him, for every change would be for the worse, but he is completely immutable.71 He is also not subject to a change of place, therefore he is completely immobile,72 but at the same time, like Aristotle’s motionless mover, he is the first cause of the movement.73 Because nothing can influence him, he is not subject to any mental change, but is completely impassible.74 As perfect he needs nothing, but is completely self-sufficient.75 His being is simple, not composed of parts,76 and he is identical with the Mind.77 Like the true being of Platonic ontology, he is incorporeal and knowable only by the mind and reason.78 The identification of the concept of God with the true being of Platonic ontology, which was foreshadowed already in the ontological difference between God and world in Xenophanes’ theology, was part of the philosophical 64 See e.g. Leg. 4.2: ‘it is not Being that is created, but non-being’. Translation by W.R. Schoedel, Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 11. 65 Leg. 4.1. Translation by W.R. Schoedel, Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 9. 66 Leg. 23.7. 67 Leg. 4.1. 68 Leg. 19.1; see also Leg. 20.1; 23.8. 69 Leg. 22.6. 70 Leg. 23.7. 71 Leg. 22.6. 72 Ibid. 73 Leg. 16.3. 74 Leg. 8.3; see also Leg. 10.1; 21.1. 75 Leg. 13.2. 76 Leg. 8.3. 77 Leg. 10.3. 78 Leg. 4.1; see also Leg. 5.1; 10.1; 15.1; 23.7.

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theology of the Middle Platonists in Athenagoras’ time.79 Before Athenagoras, this Greek onto-theology was assimilated already in Hellenistic-Jewish thinking where the interpretation of the biblical notion of God in the categories of Greek onto-theology was legitimized by the LXX translation of Ex. 3:14 (Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν). Building on this translation, Hellenistic-Jewish thinking developed the ‘metaphysics of Exodus’, elaborated especially by Philo of Alexandria.80 Athenagoras followed this theological tradition. Critical modern research has demonstrated, however, that the Hebrew text does not provide the basis for the ontological interpretation of God’s Name.81 The Hebrew text Ex. 3:14 does not denote the Being separated from the world and characterized by the abstract immutability and eternity, but indicates God’s immutable fidelity in his relation to his people. Therefore, when LXX translates God’s Name in Greek ontological categories, it gives it a philosophical colouring, which is foreign to the Hebrew text. Due to the ontologization of the concept of God, the biblical God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is transformed in Athenagoras’ theology into a metaphysical Being which Athenagoras does not hesitate to label by the impersonal notion ‘the divine’ (τὸ θεῖον).82 The ontologization of the notion of God represents the main idea of Athenagoras’ writing on which he based all his other important ideas, especially his critique of Greek religion and mythology. The critique of the Greek sacrificial cult To defend Christians who did not take part in the Greek sacrificial cult, Athenagoras referred to the Xenophanean notion of the self-sufficiency of God,83 who ‘himself is the perfect fragrance and is in need of nothing from within or without (ἀνενδεὴς καὶ ἀπροσδεής)’84 and who ‘does not need’ (μὴ δεῖται)85 burnt offerings. Although some texts of the Hebrew Bible relativize the sacrificial cult in favour of the ethical behaviour of men,86 the Xenophanean notion of the self-sufficiency of God does not accurately describe the biblical notion for God who is in some sense in need of men.87 79

Alc., Didasc. 10 (οὐσιότης); see also Apul., De dog. Plat. 1.11; Aët. 1.7.31 (ed. Diels, 304). See Philo, De vita Mosis 1.75. 81 See Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, The Old Testament Library (Philadelphia, 1961), 1,190. 82 Leg. 4.1. 83 Xenophanes, Fr. DK C 1.1345. 84 Leg. 13.2. Translation by W.R. Schoedel, Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 27. 85 Leg. 13.4. Translation by W.R. Schoedel, Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 29. 86 See e.g. Hos. 6:6; see also Matt. 9:13; 12:7. 87 See Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets (New York, 1962), 235. 80

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The Xenophanean critique of the conflicting multiplicity of Greek ideas about the gods Athenagoras lists three different catalogues of Greek gods,88 where almost exclusively the semi-gods and divinized heroes are mentioned, which supported Athenagoras’ Euhemeristic thesis that the Greeks venerated deified mortals.89 The main purpose of these catalogues was, however, to also point to the conflicting multiplicity of the Greek ideas of gods: ‘Since they themselves are in disagreement about their own gods, why do they accuse us of not conforming?’90 This argument was very likely first coined by Xenophanes91 and was often used against the credibility of the popular ideas about the gods.92 The critique of the cult statues Athenagoras declared cult statues as mere artefacts made from corruptible matter.93 They were also not from the beginning but were made relatively recently by human artists,94 which contradicted the ontologized notion of God. This Christian apologist was aware, however, that the Greeks did not venerate mere material objects but through them the gods,95 but because he denied the existence of the gods in the ontological realm (see below), he attributed the influence of some cult statues, which even he did not deny,96 to wicked demons.97 The Xenophanean critique of the Greek mythical gods In accordance with the Xenophanean commonplace, Athenagoras adopted practically all the traditional Xenophanean arguments against Greek mythology: 88

Leg. 1.1; 14.1; 29.1-4. Leg. 28-30. 90 Leg. 14.2. Translation by W.R. Schoedel, Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 31. 91 Xenophanes, Fr. DK B 16. This idea is also present in Sextus Empirirus’ introduction to Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 11, Math. 9.191-3 (ed. Mutschmann). Sextus could have adopted it from Xenophanes’ lost text. The Xenophanean provenance of this motif is further attested to by Lucian, who explicitely connected it with the paraprasis of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK B 16, see Iupp. trag. 42 (ed. Macleod). Similarly see also Athan. C. gent. 23 (ed. Thomson). 92 See e.g. Plin., HN 2.15 (ed. Beaujeu). 93 Leg. 15.1-4. 94 Leg. 17.3-5. 95 Leg. 18.1; 23.2. 96 Leg. 23.2. 97 Leg. 26.1-27.2. 89

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on the basis of his ontologized notion of God, he criticized the generations of mythical gods, which he refuted using the Xenophanean argument that ‘either they are something uncreated and so eternal; or they are created and so perishable’,98 the deaths of and tombs of some mythical gods,99 ritual mourning of them (using the paraphrase of Xenophanes’ Fr. DK A 13),100 the wrath of Athena and Hera against Zeus,101 the fury of Ares,102 the love of Aphrodite for the mortal Anchises,103 Zeus’ grief over Hector and his mourning over his son Sarpedon, whom this ‘father of gods and men’ could not help.104 Apart from this imperfection of Zeus, Athenagoras also criticized other weaknesses of the gods: the wounds of Aphrodite and Ares by the mortal hero Diomedes,105 Apollo’s service to king Admetus106 and his lack of divination skills.107 On the basis of the Xenophanean notion of the self-sufficiency of God, Athenagoras also criticised the greediness of Asclepius.108 He also adopted the Xenophanean critique of the amorality of the deeds of the mythical gods.109 Athenagoras did not identify the mythical gods with the wicked demons, unlike some other Greek apologists,110 but he came to the Xenophanean conclusion,111 that nothing at all ontologically corresponds to the mythical gods.112 Since no substances correspond to the mythical gods, their names are mere flatus vocis. These names originated from the names of the former human kings.113 Athenagoras considered the ontologized concept of God normative. Since the ancient gods did not have the qualities of the true being, he rejected their divinity and being. Attempting to understand the ancient gods as substances

98

Leg. 19.1. Translation by W.R. Schoedel, Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 41. Xenophanes, Fr. DK A 1.19; see also Fr. B 14.1; A 12. 99 Xenophanes, Fr. A 12. Athenagoras criticizes the tomb of Osiris in Egypt (Leg. 22.8; see also 28.9-10) and of Zeus on Crete (Leg. 30.3); the death of Styx (Leg. 21.4); of Asclepius (Leg. 29.2); and of Heracles (Leg. 29.1). 100 Leg. 14.2; 28.8. 101 Leg. 21.2. 102 Leg. 21.3. 103 Leg. 21.4. 104 Leg. 21.2. 105 Leg. 21.3. 106 Leg. 21.5. 107 Leg. 21.6. 108 Leg. 29.2-3. 109 Athenagoras criticizes the unlawful deeds of the gods: the battles between the first generation of Hesiodic gods (Leg. 20.3; 21.4) – see Sextus Empiricus’ commentary on Xenophanes, Fr. DK B 12 (Math. 1.289) (ed. Mutschamnn/Mau) –, the incest of Zeus with his mother and daughter (Leg. 20.3) and sister (Leg. 22.7); the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite (Leg. 21.3) and the adulteries and incontinence of Zeus (Leg. 21.5) – see Xenophanes, Fr. DK B 11.3 / B 12.2. 110 Justin, Apol. 1.5.2; Tatianus, Ad Gr. 8.1-10. 111 Xenophanes, Fr. DK B 15; B 16: gods as mere human projections. 112 Leg. 5.2. 113 Leg. 28.2-10.

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in the intelligible realm, Athenagoras completely missed, however, their understanding in archaic religious experience which did not know the distinction sensible – intelligible. Athenagoras criticized Greek myth using the Xenophanean criterions as not seemly of gods114 and devaluated it as ‘laughable nonsense’115 and ‘deceit of poets’.116 In accordance with his ontologized notion of God, he also refused to admit any allegorical meaning to the mythical gods as allegories of natural forces.117 Underestimation of the anthropomorphism of New Testament Christology Athenagoras’ own reception of the Xenophanean anti-anthropomorphic critique of Greek myth had a strong influence on his own attitude to the anthropomorphism of the New Testament. For apologetic reasons, the Christ of the New Testament Gospels is almost completely absent from Athenagoras’ writing. Athenagoras was aware that the New Testament account of Christ could be equated by ancient scholars to anthropomorphic myths of Greek demigods and heroes:118 For we think there is also a Son of God. Now let no one think that this talk of God having a Son is ridiculous. For we have not come to our views on either God the Father or his Son as do the poets, who create myths in which they present the gods as no better than men.119

He therefore strictly avoids any anthropomorphism in the conception of the Son of God who is presented by him only as the pre-existent Logos which was generated from the Father before the ages.120 The motives of Christ’ incarnation, suffering and resurrection are not mentioned. Only in one place of his apology Athenagoras paves the way for the Christian idea of the incarnation generally acknowledging the possibility of the incarnation of the deity, but he immediately adds that the incarnation of a god does not mean that he must be subject to desires.121 This note suggests that if Athenagoras had developed his Christology more, he would have been inclined to the idea of the absolute 114

Leg. 20.4; see Xenophanes, Fr. DK B 26.2; B 1.23. Leg. 21.1. Translation by W.R. Schoedel, Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 45. 116 Leg. 22.1. Translation by W.R. Schoedel, Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 49. 117 Leg. 22.1-12. 118 See Celsus in Origen, C. Cels. 1.37; 2.16; 3.22. 119 Leg. 10.2. Translation by W.R. Schoedel, Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 21. 120 Leg. 10.3. 121 Leg. 21.4. 115

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impassibility of the incarnate Logos, which in Athenagoras’ concept has the same divinity as the Father122 and is therefore subject to the same ontological predicates that Athenagoras associates with his ontologized notion of God. Athenagoras’ ontologized notion of God, which implies the idea of the absolute impassibility of the Divine Logos, thus contains within itself the danger of the docetic underestimation of Christ’s human nature. Conclusion Once recognized, the pattern of the Xenophanean philosophical commonplace as the basis of Athenagoras’ argumentation is clearly noticeable. Athenagoras’ Embassy was one of the early Christian writings through which Xenophanean philosophical theology entered Christian thought. It was also a precedent for the analogical reception of Xenophanean philosophical theology in many later patristic writings. The reception of Xenophanean philosophical theology in Athenagoras and other early Greek apologists thus heavily shaped the foundations of emerging Christian thinking. Due to the profound differences between Xenophanean philosophical theology and biblical theology, the uncritical adoption of Xenophanean philosophical theology in early Greek apologists became the basis of many later serious theological problems of patristic thinking. Athenagoras thus left a quite problematic heritage to later generations of Christian theologians which requires critical study that can contribute to the critical assessment of the problematic heritage of the Xenophanean God of philosophers in Western theological thought.

122 See Leg. 10.2: ‘the Father and the Son are one’. Translation by W.R. Schoedel, Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione (1972), 21.

The Crown and the Games in 2Clement: Healing, Status, and Almsgiving Janelle PETERS, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA

ABSTRACT The two images of the athletic games in 2Clement occur several chapters apart and potentially in separately authored sections of the homily. This article analyzes the crowns in chapters 7 and 20. While the two images share many features, they envision athletic games with different contours (sailing versus competing) and serve different rhetorical purposes (keeping religious commitment versus virtuous action). Thus, the two images of the crown appear to offer additional evidence that chapters 1-18 and 19-20 could be discrete sections of instruction and possibly written by different authors.

Athletic imagery is a common motif in early Christian literature, beginning with the letters of Paul and continuing to later letters such as that of 1Clement. These athletic comparisons range widely, even within the same work. Starting with 1Corinthians, they can pivot from exhorting the Christian in the footrace of life to envisioning the Christian athlete as a positive spin on being juridically condemned to be exhibited in the Roman arena.1 In all cases, the athletic ascription is a positive one, but the Christian use of athletic imagery both follows and resists contemporary interpretations of the social and political status of athletics, which Zahra Newby has shown to be a site of cultural colonization of Greece by Rome.2 In 2Clement, a work considered part of the New Testament by the Coptic canon, we find two extended pieces of athletic imagery in chapters 7 and 20.3 Both refer to athletic contests that award crowns as opposed to contests that yield cash prizes. Both use the crowns of athletic games to exhort a specific virtue, that of almsgiving. In this, they are more precise than the Pauline imperishable crown, which Paul applies to the overall contest of faith. However, as 1 Janelle Peters, ‘Crowns in 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and 1 Corinthians’, Bib 96 (2015), 67-84. 2 Zahra Newby, Greek Athletics in the Roman World: Victory and Virtue (Oxford, 2005), 4-6. 3 For a discussion of 2Clement’s canonicity, see Philip R. Davies, Whose Bible Is It Anyway? (Sheffield, 1995), 63. For the continuing citation of 2Clement as authoritative teaching through to the seventh century, see Christopher Tuckett, 2Clement: Introduction, Text, and Commentary (Oxford, 2012), 7-11.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 245-253. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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the crown in contemporary texts describes attributes of martyrs (e.g., Polycarp), the imagery of the author(s) whom I shall call ‘Clement’ is nonetheless important as it demonstrates that this attribute of the faithful retains its broad set of virtues into the second century. This essay analyzes the imagery of the crown and games of 2Clement as a powerful and multivalent image in its own right. I will argue that the two crowns in 2Clement are different: the first crown in chapter 7 is one that is involved in a matrix of healing and body imagery. The second crown in chapter 20 is one that explicitly emphasizes almsgiving and provides at least the basic mechanics necessary for eventual revision of the social order, juxtaposing the ‘slaves of God’ with the ‘rich’. This twofold imagery provides more evidence for emerging ascription of two distinct authors for the two sections, chapters 1-18 and 19-20, which already have noted variations in themes and terminology such as ‘brothers’ and ‘brothers and sisters’. 1. The Genre and Purpose of 2Clement 2Clement is a homily written in the second century AD.4 It lacks epistolary hallmarks such as personal greetings, mention of recipients, and personal experiences of the author. At several points, it speaks of being read aloud to its audience (15.2, 17.3, 19.1). It would probably have been read along with the ‘memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets’ that Justin Martyr mentions were standard for church gatherings in Rome (1Apology 67.3). From its own description, the text is not small discourse (συμβουλία, 15.1), but it is a supplication (ἔντευξις, 19.1). The homily shares features with 1Clement, but even ancient authors opined that the two texts did not share a single author. Both texts describe the Christian existence in communities on earth as one of temporary tenting (παροικία). Yet, 2Clement differs from 1Clement in using the first person singular often, and 2Clement is not as well-attested as 1Clement. Eusebius decides that Clement is not the author of 2Clement, because earlier authors do not mention him as the homily’s author (Hist. Eccl. 3.38.4). Some scholars have held that chs. 1-18 were composed by a different author than subsequent chapters.5 A doubled self-reference at 18.2 and 19.1 has seemed sufficiently excessive as to mandate at least two authors. Though not declaring the two parts a unity, Tuckett observes that the differences between 4 Ernst Baasland, ‘Der 2.Klemensbrief und die frühchristliche Rhetorik: „Die erste christliche Predigt“ im Licht der neueren Forschung’, in Wolfgang Haase and Hildegard Temporini (eds), Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 2 (Berlin, 1993), 78-157, 100; Wilhelm Pratscher, Der Zweite Clemensbrief. Kommentar zu den apostolischen Vätern (Göttingen, 2007), 125. 5 A. Di Pauli, ‘Zum sog. 2. Korintherbrief des Clemens Romanus’, ZNW 4 (1903), 326; W. Pratscher, Der Zweite Clemensbrief (2007), 18-21.

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chs. 1-18 and chs. 19 and 20 are not so significant as to necessitate two separate authors.6 For the entire homily as we have it, the overall message is to fast, repent, and engage in charity. Almsgiving could thus be seen as the homily’s primary purpose, as Roman Garrison and David Downs have shown.7 To push its audience toward generosity, the text adduces negative and positive encouragement. The negative argument for giving financial support to the poor includes avoidance of eternal damnation in hell, much like the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 and possibly echoing that parable with phrases that envisage the believer ‘nestled in the breast’ of the Lord only to be shunted aside for lack of appropriate almsgiving. Forming a contrast, the positive argument employs athletic imagery that parallels Paul’s in 1Corinthians 9 in order to point out that the life of faith involves training, discipline, and perseverance. Without waiting, the homily suggests, the pious benefaction of church members would be perceived as being desirous of personal gain on earth rather than the first fruits of a future place in heaven.

2. Previous Scholarship on the Athletic Imagery of 2Clement The meaning of these athletic references has been somewhat elusive to interpreters. Like those of 1Corinthians, they are most often taken as possible instances of ‘local color’ and therefore suggestive of a homily that originated in Corinth. Stewart-Sykes has taken the verb for sailing at 7.3 as ‘sailing in’, calling this ‘determinative’ of the homily’s placement in Corinth rather than Rome. He claims that ‘the reference to sailing without indication of any particular direction would point most obviously to Corinth, and to the Isthmian games’.8 Roman Garrison agrees with Vernon Bartlet, Edgar Goodspeed and Robert Grant have that any number of major Christian ports – including Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome – could be cities with games comparable to those described in the homily.9 There is compelling evidence for these games being situated away from Corinth and its Isthmian Games. Christopher Tuckett thinks the lack of determinant means they could be sailing anywhere and are probably not in Corinth 6

C. Tuckett, 2Clement (2012), 33. Roman Garrison, Redemptive Almsgiving (Sheffield, 1993), 107-8; David J. Downs, ‘“Love Covers a Multitude of Sins”: Redemptive Almsgiving in 1 Peter 4:8 and Its Early Christian Reception’, JTS 65 (2014), 489-514; David J. Downs, ‘Almsgiving and Competing Soteriologies in Second-Century Christianity’, Religions 9 (2018). 8 Alistair Stewart Sykes, From Prophecy to Preach: A Search for the Origins of the Christian Homily (Leiden, 2015), 185. 9 R. Garrison, Redemptive Almsgiving (1993), 98. 7

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if they must sail.10 Victor Pfitzner’s primary conclusion about the motif in 2Clement is that it is ‘portrayed in a style which is closer to that of the diatribe or Philo than to any passage in Paul’s letters’.11 Moreover, the whole point of panhellenic games was to travel from city to city competing like athletic teams and fan tour their league’s regions today. In Christa Stegemann’s opinion, this athletic imagery in and of itself should be the sole reason for ascribing the location of the homily to Corinth.12 She characterizes 2Clement as an appendix to 1Clement. While this proposal is also speculative, it has the merit of accounting for similarities in thought between 1 and 2Clement. Though the text differs from 1Corinthians and 1Clement in not naming its receiving community nor its carrying messengers, it does have overlap with 1Clement in seeing the community as merely ‘tenting’ or ‘temporarily residing’ in the present world order. Were we able to tie 1 and 2Clement together and place 2Clement in Corinth at least in its heart if not in its actual place of authorship, we might be able to use the Isthmian Games to give us context to both sets of athletic contests in chapters 7 and 20. However, a number of significant stylistic differences occur between chapters 1-18 and 19-20, leading many to attribute the two sections to different authors.13 The author of chapter 1-18, for instance, repeatedly addresses ‘brothers’. In an extended section at 9.10-10.1, he relates his use of the sibling language ‘brothers’ to sibling theology in Matthew, John, and Hebrews.14 By contrast, the author of chapter 19 repeatedly addresses ‘brothers and sisters’. The presence of athletic contests with eternal crowns in both sections ties the two together, but the two sections still manage to use the more generic and widespread elements of the games. They do not share metaphoric features such as sailing, slaves of God, and commerce. 3. The First Athletic Contest: Sailing to the Games The second century homily mentions to ‘brothers’ in chapter 7 that the community ‘should compete in games’ ‘that we all may be crowned’ and yet also instructs that ‘many’ should set sail to these games. Unlike previous athletic imagery in letters such as 1Corinthians, there are degrees to success. If not all can receive the crown, the community should ‘at least come close to it’. Clement 10

C. Tuckett, 2Clement (2012), 60. Victor Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif (Leiden, 1967), 126. 12 Christa Stegemann, Die Herkunft und Entstehung des sogenannten zweiten Klemensbriefes, PhD diss., University of Bonn, 1974. 13 Tuckett gives a summary of the scholarship and refuses to assign chapters 19 and 20 to the preceding section, particularly with the most striking piece of evidence ‘brothers’ and ‘brothers and sisters’ not well-explained by those arguing for unity. See C. Tuckett, 2Clement (2012), 27-33. 14 Reidar Aasgaard, The Formation of the Early Church (Tübingen, 2005), 308. 11

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provides for almost receiving the crown being sufficient since he then goes on to observe that cheaters are thrown out of the stadium, a condition that is an apt metaphor for the unextinguished fire reserved for those who do not keep the seal of their baptism. There are several intriguing aspects of this athletic imagery. First, it is not clear who the ‘many’ who set sail as opposed to simply running are.15 Do the ‘many’ represent those who give to charity? Do they comprise all men or a combination of men and women? If the latter is the case, is Clement suggesting the Christian community is a more welcoming place for both slaves and women than the rest of society? That Clement differentiates the many who sail from the all who will hopefully be crowned suggests an ethic of discrimination along the lines of his call for enhancing Christian living by increasing euergetism much as James Kelhoffer has argued that Clement’s charitable rhetoric positions Christ as patron.16 Second, there is some engagement with the nachleben of the Pauline imperishable crown of 1Corinthians. Christopher Tuckett notes that Paul and 2Clement adopt different strategies to extricate themselves from the ‘full force’ of their metaphors.17 As Roman Garrison says, the idea of an imperishable and heavenly reward permeates early Christian literature (e.g., Matt. 6:19-20; 2Tim. 4:8; Jas. 1:12; 1Pet. 5:4; Rev. 2:10, 3:11), but Clement – along with the author of the Shepherd of Hermas – participates in a novel soteriology that relies upon almsgiving and not exclusively on belief in the salvific death and resurrection in Christ and its accompanying love ethic.18 Indeed, the martyrdom of Polycarp was seen as his means of gaining the imperishable crown of imperishability/ immortality (Mart. Pol. 19.2). Clement, however, requires not martyrdom but simple repentance and acts of charity for believers to be awarded the heavenly citizenship that accrues to eternal laurels, much like Paul’s ascription of the imperishable crown to all believers, regardless of their experience with persecution and/or martyrdom. Third, we have the question of whether Clement’s slowly nuanced position is: 1) the result of his theology of the human condition of believers, 2) the development toward what would become differentiated halos for saints and martyrs as opposed to more normal believers in the medieval period, or 3) the general resistance and recalcitrance of his audience. Certainly, there is no idea of Clement contemplating a rich man’s road to almsgiving being more impossible than putting a camel through the eye. Clement does not censure the 15 Clare Rothschild has suggested that the sailing references are indicative of borrowing from Aeneid 5. See Clare Rothschild, New Essays on the Apostolic Fathers (Tübingen, 2017), 156. 16 James A. Kelhoffer, ‘Reciprocity as Salvation: Christ as Salvific Patron and the Corresponding “Payback” Expected of Christ’s Earthly Clients according to the Second Letter of Clement’, NTS 59 (2013), 433-56. 17 C. Tuckett, 2Clement (2012), 45. 18 R. Garrison, Redemptive Almsgiving (1993), 145.

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community for its lack of charity here in chapter 7, reserving ire for those who cheat in the eternal competition and do not keep the seal of their baptism. The next three chapters demonstrate the importance of this athletic image for Clement in this section by extending the discussion of the bodies of believers and the seals of their baptism. Chapter 7 contains similar themes to chapters 8, 9, and 10. Likewise, chapters 8, 9, and 10 possess themes that correspond with each other, though each chapter has its own iteration of these themes. The density of the physical and baptismal imagery demonstrates that the athletic contest in chapter 7 is not a one-off metaphor that connects to Christian teaching on almsgiving only coincidentally. Rather, Clement has grouped instruction related to the body within four chapters, emphasizing the import of these deeply traditional concepts for Clement. Chapter 8 continues the themes of body and baptism in chapter 7. Reminding the audience that their very bodies are made by God with the image of the divine potter shaping human ‘vessels’, Clement develops the Lord’s attention to matters of the flesh (8.2). He twice reiterates the need to keep the flesh pure in order to attain eternal life (8.4; 8.6). With the final injunction in verse 6, he draws attention to the necessity of preserving a ‘stainless’ seal of baptism. The metaphor of the potter underscores the time-sensitive nature of this purity and/or repentance, since the believer must achieve pure flesh in this world – once thrown into the kiln of the afterlife, it is too late for God the potter to fix the clay that has broken (8.2). Cavan Concannon observes that this notation of a temporal limit seems to follow the lead of 1Peter 4.19 The connection between purity and vessels goes back to Paul’s 1Corinthians 6, and the idea that God is a potter can be found in Paul’s reuse of Old Testament traditions in Romans 9 and in 2Timothy 2.20 As Chris de Wet notes, chapter 9 introduces into the argument of chapter 7 bodily submission to the health regime and benefaction of God.21 Clement gives a saying of Jesus that uses the masculine plural brothers generically as is customary in Greek: ‘My brothers are those who do the will of my Father’. People are to give themselves over to God. Clement says that God brings healing and that God should be paid for the healing services they provide. Rather than depicting the community as slaves of God, as does the author of ch. 20, Clement says that God will welcome the community as ‘children’. Like Jesus Christ, who was both spirit and flesh, the community will be saved in ‘this flesh’. The network of terms suggests benefaction, privilege, and elite patrons getting what 19 Cavan W. Concannon, Assembling Early Christianity: Trade, Networks, and the Letters of Dionysios of Corinth (Cambridge, 2017), 117. 20 Donfried notes that it is likely that Clement’s use of this imagery goes back to his reading of Romans. See Karl Donfried, The Setting of Second Clement in Early Christianity (Leiden, 1974), 84-5. 21 Chris L. de Wet, ‘“No Small Counsel about Self-Control:” Enkrateia and the Virtuous Body as Missional Performance in 2Clement’, HTS Teologiese Studies 69 (2013), 1-10.

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they want, their own fleshly salvation and healing. While de Wet notes that the concern for the flesh combats Gnostic tendencies, it also ‘indicates the importance and power the author understands the physical body to possess’.22 It is interesting that athletic-influenced vocabulary that morphs into militaristic vocabulary occurs just a few chapters later in chapter 10. There, the text discusses the pursuit of virtue and abandoning evil as a ‘forerunner of sins’, implying that people have bad intentions. A general sketch of Clement’s opponents occurs in verses 4 and 5. These opponents act out of ignorance, without awareness that their afterlife will have the double penalty of both missing out on heaven and being consigned to hell. This picture is consistent with the lack of financial giving on the part of the rich in the second athletic contest of 2Clement in chapter 20. Progressing with the embodied nature of the believer, Clement talks about peace pursuing those who pursue virtue and do not let evil overtake them. Thus, Clement here starts off more negatively than he began, transitioning from the pacific vision of sailing to athletic events free of anxieties about war or finance. As Clement meditates on the body and its baptism, he warns of the consequences of a lack of repentance and almsgiving. As he does so, the optimistic image of the Greek-style games – whether in Corinth or Alexandria – becomes more ominous and bellicose. 4. The Second Athletic Contest: Slaves of the Living God In chapter 20, which could be part of a two-chapter-addendum to the homily, the author mentions ‘the contest of the living God’. This competition is meant to illustrate that the ‘slaves of God’ will eventually overcome the ‘unjust rich’. Clement uses the prestigious and wealthy games to point out that the values they inculcate are those of perseverance and giving up immediate wealth. His exhortation is directed at ‘brothers and sisters’ who ‘need to have faith’. Clement presents the Christian life as an extended training session and athletic event in 20.2-3. Reminding his audience of the need for faith, the author extends this desire to both ‘brothers and sisters’. Everyone is included by use of the first person plural in the ‘contest of the living God’. There is a temporal disconnect between the training of the present world and the reward that will accrue to that training in the afterlife. Righteousness equates to waiting, with the possibility of being just denied to anyone who receives a reward too quickly. There is thus an analogy to the Pauline distinction of a perishable and imperishable crown in the opposition of long-term glory and short-term game and gain in Clement’s image of the crown. The idea of a future crown could activate in the reader’s mind the ancient distinction between the stephanitic and chrematic games. The more prestigious 22

Ibid.

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stephanitic games awarded the crown as opposed to the cash prize awarded by the chrematic games. Such amateurism went along with the financially exhausting expectation of sailing to compete in games in other cities – certainly, no one became an athlete because it was a quick and easy path to financial security. Rather, they did it with an expectation of gaining glory and possibly attaining a modicum of immortality as an athletic hero.23 Moreover, Clement goes on to reinforce mercenary interests twice. In verse 4, he contrasts ‘commerce’ with ‘devotion to God’, and, in verse 5, he opposes the motives of ‘piety’ and ‘profit’. Given that Paul Parvis has suggested that the appearance of ‘brothers and sisters’ in the chapter where earlier chapters, such as chapter 7, had ‘brothers’ indicates an awareness in church worship of both male and female contingents paralleling those in some synagogue worship, the extended use of more honorific athletics and their contradistinction to sellout athletic games is extremely interesting.24 It hints at the inclusion of women in the future body of Christ. Moreover, it includes them in their contemporary athletic context, where women’s events were not as popular as those of men. Clement’s need to wait for the ‘fruit of labor’ pulls apart the dynamic of work and reward. Fruit, we know, comes from trees and plants, which require time-consuming cultivation. Food grows on trees, but trees have harvest seasons. It is not possible to simply pluck fruit from trees whenever one wishes like one of Augustine’s infamous pears. Presumably, such a network of images is meant to buttress the explicit directives to forego profit and give generously. Yet, references to slavery commence and conclude the passage, and they end with the same status quo as the surrounding Roman culture. Verse 1 encourages the audience not to worry that the ‘unjust’ become wealthy while the ‘slaves of God’ suffer. Clement’s choice of verb for the burdens faced by the slaves of God, στενοχωρέω, potentially echoes Paul’s term for the constraints placed on his ministry in Romans (2:9, 8:35) and 2Corinthians (10:4, 12:10). While possibly included in the ministry of Paul, the community seems excluded from the class of merchants in verse 4 as they do not engage in commerce as they put God first. Verse 4 culminates with the admonition that a divine spirit puts ‘chains’ on a spirit that engages in almsgiving for short-term advantage in this life.25 It would seem that this second author of 2Clement cannot help but persist in mere status reversal for the rich and the slaves on the basis of virtue through good works instead of commerce instead of abolishing the social ill of the category of slavery altogether. 23

Joseph Fontenrose, ‘The Hero as Athlete’, CSCA 1 (1968), 73-104. Paul Parvis, ‘2Clement and the Meaning of the Christian Homily’, ET 117 (2006), 265-70. For an overview of the gender variations in second century synagogue worship, see Chad Spigel, ‘Reconsidering the Question of Separate Seating in Ancient Synagogues’, JJS 63 (2012), 62-83. 25 The Greek δεσμός could potentially also indicate a physical infirmity as in Luke 13:16, though its repetition in Philippians 1 (and not Romans or 2Corinthians, where Paul’s ministerial challenges occur) is typically translated as imprisonment or bondage without an association with illness. 24

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Overall, the effect of this imagery is much different than the first imagery. The community is envisioned with the Pauline ‘slaves of God’, which in its Pauline form Dale Martin has identified as a conservative social stratagem.26 However, the inclusive address of both men and women as Christian family members pushes against a conservative social order. Moreover, Clement is explicitly referencing the problem of theodicy from a socioeconomic perspective, upholding the marginalized in the face of oppression in the demands of the world as we know it. The decision to make this world more like the world to come results in a reward in the afterlife. 5. Conclusion In conclusion, 2Clement has two chapters that contain an athletic contest. In both, the contest awards the eternal crown familiar to Christian circles since the time of Paul. The two contests differ in being addressed to ‘brothers’ and ‘many’ setting sail on the one hand and to ‘brothers and sisters’ and the ‘slaves of God’ on the other. This provides further evidence that the chapters 1-18 and 19-20 differ sufficiently stylistically so as to potentially be attributed to different authors. The contests tell us nothing about the location of the homily’s composition, other than perhaps a major city-port harboring both Christians and sports fans attending athletic games. That the community might sail to games indicates both an affluent and cosmopolitan church. However, the lack of any clue as to which games might be involved suggests that the athletic imagery is more concerned with heaven versus hell than Corinth versus Alexandria. While both images use the most valorous category of athletic games to encourage wealthy audiences, they differ in the ways in which they fail to fully open up the high status of the games to the lower classes of the Christian community. Nonetheless, both authors appear to try to include all social classes. Both sections redistribute wealth within the community while lessening the social obligation the poor had to the rich for benefaction. Although both authors threaten those who do not comply with eternal punishment and eschatological enshacklement, they introduce the idea of gradation. It is acceptable, in the case of chapter 7, not to get the martyr’s crown but to come quite near it. In the case of chapter 20, human goodness is predicated on waiting through earthly time, without which humans presumably would devolve into pecuniary worship. Both authors understand the fragility of human goodness. They imbue the human journey toward moral perfection with forgiveness and grace. 26 Dale B. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven, 1990).

Pseudo-Hegesippus and the Beginnings of Christian Historiography in Late Antiquity Carson BAY, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

ABSTRACT Scholars routinely date the beginnings of Christian history-writing to the fourth century AD. In this century, so the story goes, Eusebius reinvented and solidified for subsequent Christian generations the two normative forms of Christian historiography: the church history and the (Christian) world chronicle. But this is not the entire story. For in that same century another type of Christian historiography emerged: namely, historiography written in the classical mode as established by Thucydides (i.e., the ‘war monograph’) and continued by later Roman historians. To wit, in the 370s a Latin text appeared, colloquially referred to as Pseudo-Hegesippus, or De excidio Hierosolymitano (On the Destruction of Jerusalem). This text rewrites the story of the Roman Jewish War (66-70/73 AD), which Flavius Josephus had recorded centuries earlier, using a number of sources and following standard literary conventions of Greco-Roman historiography. Rather than a history about Christians (i.e., church history) or a universal history (i.e., the world chronicle), this work continues in a Christian vein the tradition of ancient historiography by dealing with a particular war and its defining episodes, characters, descriptions, and speeches. The fact and significance of this text has been missed by scholars of early Christianity and late antiquity. In the defining era for Christian historiography, Christians were not only thinking and writing about history in terms of church history or world history; the formative fourth century also witnessed Christians conceptualizing and articulating history in the more classical mode, thus illustrating a hitherto unappreciated facet of late antique Christianity.

The scholarly narrative outlining the beginnings of Christian historiography is well-known. It goes something like this: while the Acts of the Apostles contains the pockmarks of historiography,1 and while second- and third-century 1 Luke-Acts is still widely considered to represent Hellenistic historiography in some meaningful way, although discussion continues; see Chapter 2, ‘History of Interpretation,’ with bibliography in Clare K. Rothschild, Luke-Acts and the Rhetoric of History: An Investigation of Early Christian Historiography, WUNT 2/175 (Tübingen, 2004), 24-59. Integral to Rothschild’s understanding of the issue in terms of history of scholarship, as witnessed by her footnotes, is the late-nineteenth century argument ‘that Christian literature developed at a greater distance from the surrounding world than previously supposed’, made by Franz Overbeck, Über die Anfänge der patristischen Literatur (Darmstadt, 1954 [1882]), 36, and further developed by Karl Ludwig Schmidt, ‘Die Stellung der Evangelien in der allgemeinen Literaturgeschichte’, in Karl L. Schmidt (ed.), Neues

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 255-266. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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figures like Clement of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, and Hippolytus of Rome had done ‘the spade-work of Christian chronology’ (to use Arnaldo Momigliano’s phrasing),2 Christian historiography really began in earnest in the fourth century. Momigliano’s landmark 1963 essay on ‘Pagan and Christian Historiography in the Fourth Century A.D.’ proffered an authoritative articulation of this argument which is ubiquitously cited in surveys written since.3 His reconstruction centers upon Eusebius. For Momigliano, the eventual bishop of Caesarea pioneered the two essential forms of history-writing that took shape in the fourth century, both of which became the dominant models for subsequent historiography: the world chronicle and the ecclesiastical history.4 This bipartite framework has won the day. It is the template for William Adler’s chapter in the weighty Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies on ‘Early Christian Historians and Historiography,’ an essay almost completely concentrated upon Eusebius’ Chronicon and Historia Ecclesiastica.5 In the Testament-Judentum-Kirche, TB 69 (Munich, 1981 [1923]), 66-7, cited at C.K. Rothschild, Rhetoric of History (2004), 16 n. 54. 2 Arnaldo Momigliano, ‘Pagan and Christian Historiography in the Fourth Century A.D.’, in Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Chicago, 2012), 107-26, 110; this is a reprint of the essay as it first appeared in Arnaldo Momigliano (ed.), The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford, 1963), 79-99. 3 William Adler, ‘Early Christian Historians and Historiography’, in Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2008), 584602, cites Momigliano’s framework as authoritative and programmatic (beginning at 585); Brian Croke, ‘The Originality of Eusebius’ Chronicle’, in Christian Chronicles and Byzantine History, 5th-6th Centuries, CSS 386 (Brookfield, VT, 1992), 195-200, cites Momigliano to undergird the suggestion that Eusebius established both the Christian world chronicle and ecclesiastical history (195); a leading scholar in late antique and Byzantine Christian historiography over the past halfcentury, Croke in his Preface to this volume names Momigliano as one of his ‘historiographical idols’ (along with Theodor Mommsen) and states: ‘Although incapable of emulating my heroes my historical inquiries have been largely influenced by their work’ (ix). Below, I note further where other scholars have attached themselves to Momigliano’s perspective. Momigliano’s reception and influence are well-placed and well-deserved – here I only wish to point out their impact and weight. 4 Eusebius is often cited as being self-consciously aware of his being a trailblazer in this regard: note Hist. Eccl. 1.1.3: ‘My discourse, therefore, begs the indulgence of the considerate, for it admits that to deliver on our promise perfectly and completely is beyond our power, since we are the first who have taken in hand to tread this subject, as if traveling a deserted and untrodden road. … In fact, we cannot even find the bare traces of any who have already traveled the same road as we, except only a few small pretexts, by means of which they have in different ways left behind partial narratives of the times during which they lived’. Translation from the new Eusebius of Caesarea, The History of the Church: A New Translation, trans. Jeremy M. Schott (Berkeley, 2019), 39-40. 5 W. Adler, ‘Early Christian Historians and Historiography’ (2008) avers that the chronicle and the church history became rivals for preeminence in the fourth century (586), repeating the commonplace view that Eusebius’ moniker as ‘the father of church history’ was earned by his Ecclesiastical History (584). Adler begins with a somewhat wider scope, noting that ‘[a] wealth of historical writing survives from the early church: ecclesiastical histories, memoirs, universal histories and chronicles, biographies, historical fiction, and accounts of the acts of the martyrs’ (584).

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perhaps even weightier Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, the reader is left to infer what kind of Christian history-writing existed in late antiquity – the only historiographically-oriented chapter is Andrew Louth’s on ‘Eusebius and the birth of church history’.6 Indeed, in myriad surveys of early Christian historiography,7 almost all of which cite Momigliano, three things appear as consensus opinio: 1) the beginnings of Christian historiography are to be dated to the fourth century; 2) Eusebius is the most important authorial figure within this literary-cultural development;8 and 3) two forms of Christian 6 Andrew Louth, ‘Eusebius and the birth of church history’, in Frances Young, Lewis Ayres and Andrew Louth (eds), The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature (Cambridge, 2004), 266-74. The chapter regards the entirety of Eusebius’ literary output, much of which is unknown, yet concludes, among other things, that ‘as world chronicler and church historian, he created the forms in which later Christians expressed their historical consciousness’ (273). Louth cites Momigliano’s 1963 essay at 274 n. 7. 7 In addition to those already mentioned, see Eve-Marie Becker (ed.), Die Antike Historiographie und die Anfänge der christlichen Geschichtsschreibung, BZNW 129 (Berlin, 2005), where early Christian historiography is manifestly represented predominantly by Luke-Acts and Eusebius, and where Ps-Hegesippus is never mentioned; Michel Fédou, ‘L’écriture de l’histoire dans le Christianisme ancien’, Recherches de Science Religieuse 92 (2004), 539-68, who cites Momigliano throughout his discussion of theology in early Christian historiography, noting peculiarities of certain authors in East and West, and who likewise sees church history and world chronicle as constituting late antique Christian historiography. De excidio is never mentioned in P. Van Deun, ‘The Church Historians after Eusebius’ (151-76), H. Leppin, ‘The Church Historians (I): Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret’ (219-54), or any of the other chapters in the seemingly-comprehensive Gabriele Marasco (ed.), Greek & Roman Historiography in Late Antiquity: Fourth to Sixth Century A.D. (Leiden, 2003). Van Deun’s chapter in particular, which deals with Gelasius of Caesarea, Rufinus, and the Historia acephala, has received a withering critique in the often-devastating review of R.W. Burgess (BMCR [2004] 03.49), who notes, among other things, Van Deun’s ‘demonstrably false claim that Lactantius and Eusebius were ‘explicitly referred to by nearly all the later authors of Church histories’ (p. 151)’. Pseudo-Hegesippus appears nowhere in David Rohrbacher, The Historians of Late Antiquity (London, 2002), which nevertheless deals with Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Orosius. I can find De excidio mentioned nowhere in the quite thorough and extensive Bernard Pouderon and Yves-Marie Duval (eds), L’historiographie de l’Église des premiers siècles, Théologie Historique 114 (Paris, 2001). G.W. Trompf, Early Christian Historiography: Narratives of Retribution (London, 2000), only mentions the secondcentury Hegesippus, a main source of Eusebius, yet may confuse him with Pseudo-Hegesippus at times (see 96, 116-8, 127, 135, 145-6, 149, 313). I cannot find Pseudo-Hegesippus either mentioned in the erudite, far-reaching, and programmatic essay – or in the larger work of which it is a part – by Yves-Marie Duval, ‘Les métamorphoses de l’historiographie aux IVe et VIe siècles: Renaissance, fin ou permanence de l’Empire romain’, in Histoire et historiographie en Occident aux IVe et Ve siècles, CSS 577 (Brookfield, VT, 1997 [orig. essay 1979]). See also the authoritative work of Glenn Chestnut, whose general survey is condensed in Glenn Chestnut, ‘Eusebius, Augustine, Orosius, and the Later Patristic and Medieval Christian Historians’, in Harold Attridge and Gohei Hata (eds), Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism (Detroit, 1992), 687-713 – PseudoHegesippus is absent in this chapter, as well as in Chestnut’s larger work, whose title betrays its focus: id., The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius (Macon, GA, 1986). 8 W. Adler, ‘Early Christian Historians and Historiography’ (2008), 584. Eusebius’ inheritors are routinely characterized as derivative, paling in the light of the Caesarean’s novelty and

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historiography emerged in the fourth century: world chronicle and church history.9 The first two points I am happy to agree with. The third is problematic. Momigliano’s oft-adopted position that world chronicle and church history together embody fourth-century Christian historiography is partial, incomplete, flawed. In the technical sense, it is wrong. If Momigliano’s construction of fourth-century Christian history-writing consists of a two-towered edifice, a third tower must be added if the scholarly imagination with which we conceive of early Christian historiography is to be complete. I make this proposal based upon the simple fact that a third, very different kind of historiography also took shape by Christian hands in the fourth century. This was history written in the classical mode. To wit, an anonymous Latin text was written in the 370s, generally referred to as Pseudo-Hegesippus or De excidio Hierosolymitano (On the Destruction of Jerusalem).10 This text’s date is more or less agreed upon by those who have written on Pseudo-Hegesippus, and the work should probably be understood as part of a larger cultural response to the program of the Emperor Julian, involving his attempt to restore the Jewish Temple, re-establish a robust and public Judaism, and marginalize Christianity.11 De excidio’s authorship is unknown, Ambrose being the most frequent definite personality to whom the work has been attributed;12 I do not ingenuity. So Andrew Louth, ‘Eusebius and the birth of church history’ (2004), 273: ‘No on attempted to repeat the historical work of Eusebius: Gelasius, Jerome and Rufinus, Socrates and Sozomen take up where Eusebius left off … and extended his notion of Church history into their own times’. Even further, see Schott in Eusebius of Caesarea, The History of the Church: A New Translation, trans. J.M. Schott (2019), 1, who notes that Eusebius’ Church History has enjoyed the ‘privileged status as the canonical account of the centuries between the apostolic age and Constantine. Indeed, the fact that historians often speak so naturally of ‘the church’ as a specific entity with a history is due in no small part to the long shadow cast by Eusebius’s work. By the end of the fourth century, moreover, “ecclesiastical history” had emerged as a genre of Christian literature. The ecclesiastical histories of Rufinus, Gelasius, and, later, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret all began where Eusebius left off. It is only mildly hyperbolic to say that all subsequent histories of early Christianity can be read as footnotes on and responses to his narrative’. 9 Peter Van Nuffelen, ‘Ecclesiastical History’, in Scott McGill and Edward J. Watts (eds), A Companion to Late Antique Literature (Malden, MA, 2018), 161-76 does account for fragmentary material in reconstructing late antique Christian historiography, and criticizes structuring an understanding of church history on a very few sources. 10 The critical text of the Latin, cited here, is Hegesippi qui dicitur historiae libri V, ed. Vincenzo Ussani, CSEL 66.1 (Leipzig, 1932). 11 Albert A. Bell, Jr., ‘An Historiographical Analysis of the De excidio Hierosolymitano of Pseudo-Hegesippus’, PhD Dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC, 1977), 3, 214 et al. 12 See the early Otto Scholz, ‘Die Hegesippus-Ambrosius-Frage: Eine literaturhistorische Besprechung’, Ambrosiaster-Studien 8 (1909), 149-95, and the more recent Chiara Somenzi, Egesippo – Ambrogio: Formazione scolastica e cristiana a Roma alla metà del IV secolo, Studia Patristica Mediolanensia 27 (Milan, 2009). Debate has historically revolved around whether or not Ambrose penned the work, though others have been suggested (e.g., Nummius Aemilianus Dexter, Evagrius of Antioch, Isaac the Jew). Somenzi’s work demonstrates the clear and constant

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think Ambrose penned the work, but am convinced that it and its author had some kind of proximity to or relationship with the Milanese bishop. This is the text which, I argue, should fundamentally reorient the way we imagine fourthcentury Christian historiography. De excidio as a text is not unknown. It appears, for example, mostly recently as an entry in the forthcoming Clavis Historicorum Antiquitatis Posterioris, but this volume simply lists basic information regarding a great number of ancient ‘historiographical’ texts with no interpretive analysis.13 De excidio is at times even recognized as something unknown elsewhere within late antique Christian historiography, but (correct) identifications of the text as (Christian) “Historiographie in der paganen Tradition” are never integrated into discussions of the beginnings of Christian historiography.14 I argue that De excidio should restructure the framework on which we build our understanding of early Christian historiography. This article briefly delineates several of the most salient issues that this assertion entails. First: De excidio does constitute Christian historiography.15 The work is a five-book history of the late Second Temple period which centers on the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 CE. Pseudo-Hegesippus largely translates, rewrites, and reworks Flavius Josephus’ first-century, seven-book Jewish War (Bellum Judaicum); in addition, however, he also taps a host of other sources: Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities, 1Maccabees, Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, Livy, Lucan, Ovid, Sallust, Seneca, Tacitus, Terence, Valerius Maximus, Virgil, a smorgasbord of biblical episodes, material from the apocryphal acts of Peter and Paul16 (a full treatment of De excidio’s sources remains a desideratum). ideological consistency and semantic overlap between De excidio and Ambrose’s literary corpus, and she concludes with a tentative affirmation of Ambrosian authorship: ‘A questo punto la soluzione, che si prospetta più “economica” rispetto all’ipotesi della coesistenza nel medesimo ambiente di due distinte personalità la cui formazione coincide sotto ogni punto di vista, è che Egesippo (il quale altrimenti resterebbe stranamente innominato) si sovrapponga fino ad identificarsi con il giovane Ambrogio’ (189). See further A.A. Bell, ‘Historiographical Analysis’ (1977), 24-34 (with bibliography); for the earlier and less-likely date of ca. 358 CE, see J.-P. Callu, ‘Le De bello Iudaico du Pseudo-Hégésippe: Essai de datation’, in J. Straub (ed.), Bonner Historia Augusta Colloquium 1984/1985 (Bonn, 1987), 117-42. 13 Peter Van Nuffelen and Lieve Van Hoof (eds), Clavis Historicorum Antiquitatis Posterioris, Claves – Subsidia (Turnhout, 2019). This volume is set to come out just after the writing of the present article. Its entries span a number of texts which represent the diversity of historicallymoded writing in late antiquity, but only contains basic information regarding each text’s author, date, provenance, and general contents, in addition to a basic bibliography. 14 Markus Sehlmeyer, Geschichtsbilder für Pagane und Christen (Berlin, 2009), 222. 15 In general on the following material, see the recent treatment and discussion, with bibliography, in Carson Bay, ‘The Bible, the Classics, and the Jews in Pseudo-Hegesippus: A Literary Analysis of the Fourth-Century De Excidio Hierosolymitano 5.2’, PhD Dissertation, Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL, 2018). 16 See C. Bay, ‘The Bible, the Classics, and the Jews’ (2018), 1-59; C. Somenzi, Egesippo – Ambrogio (2009), 12; Bell, ‘Historiographical Analysis’ (1977), 98-9. Some of these sources may

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Pseudo-Hegesippus uses his source materials like other ancient (classical) historians,17 and his relationship to his main source, Josephus’ Jewish War, bears many similarities to Livy’s relationship to his main source, Polybius. In addition, De excidio begins with a first-person, explanatory preface situating the work within the author’s oeuvre and the past work of others and justifying itself conceptually. Further, the work practices perhaps the most distinctive literary habit of ancient historiography: the radical re-scripting of character speeches.18 From the standpoint of narrative content, literary convention, and rhetorical style, De excidio aligns remarkably well with the standard taxonomy of ancient historiography qua genre.19 Virtually everyone who has worked on De excidio recognizes it as Christian ‘classical historiography’.20 So why is De excidio not accounted for in the standard scholarly historiography of fourth-century Christian historiography? Pseudo-Hegesippus has been

be conjectural, based upon the extensive cross-references listed in Ussani’s critical edition, which have yet to be studied closely. Many, however, are crystal clear, as are Josephus, 1Maccabees, Sallust, Lucan, Tacitus. On De excidio’s use of Tacitus, e.g., see René Bloch, Antike Vorstellungen vom Judentum: Der Judenexkurs des Tacitus im Rahmen der griechisch-römischen Ethnographie, Historia-Einzelschriften 160 (Stuttgart, 2002). 17 That is to say, as a competitor within a tradition. See John Marincola, ‘The Rhetoric of History: Allusion, Intertextuality, and Exemplarity in Historiographical Speeches’, in Dennis Pausch (ed.), Stimmen der Geschichte: Funktionen von Reden in der antiken Historiographie, BzA 284 (Berlin, 2010), 259-90, who explains of ancient historians that ‘… it is clear that authors saw themselves as working within a tradition, and that the tradition had endorsed certain models who had attained to the status of canonical authors; later writers were expected to compete, and saw themselves as competing, with their great predecessors. They imitated these past masters by borrowing, modifying, alluding and so forth’ (260). 18 On speeches as a staple taken for granted among ancient historians, such that ‘[i]t never would have occurred to any historian to write a narrative history wholly without reported speech’, see John Marincola, ‘Speeches in Classical Historiography’, in John Marincola (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Malden, MA, 2007), 1.118-32, 1.119. Pseudo-Hegesippus’ speeches are the subject of one of the only works to analyze De excidio to date, A.A. Bell, Jr., ‘An Historiographical Analysis’ (1977). This work functionally situates the speeches broadly within the categories of ancient rhetorical conventions; a thorough treatment of the speeches remains to be undertaken. 19 I make this statement in a broad sense, in which I find it applicable and accurate. One must acknowledge, however, the fact that ‘… the historiographical genres of the Greeks and Romans were not static categories’, as expertly shown and thoroughly discussed by John Marincola, ‘Genre, Convention, and Innovation in Greco-Roman Historiography’, in Christina S. Kraus (ed.), The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts (Leiden, 1999), 281-324, 320. 20 See A.A. Bell, ‘Historiographical Analysis’ (1977), passim; his work is also distilled into the shorter essay in Albert A. Bell, Jr., ‘Josephus and Pseudo-Hegesippus’, in Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata (eds), Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity (Detroit, 1987), 349-61, where Bell states his oft-repeated and well-founded argument that Pseudo-Hegesippus is not to be dismissed as translating or copying Josephus, but rather that he ‘was writing history in the only way ancient historians knew how, by adapting an earlier work’ (351); Bell bears this argument out hereafter.

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known within patristics research since its inception.21 Why is he excluded from narratives of the beginnings of Christian history-writing? One answer might be that Pseudo-Hegesippus has been oft ignored in scholarship generally, something Albert Bell attributed to when this work appeared, the author’s anonymityturned-pseudonymity, and the fact that the author was a Christian but did not write in a standard Christian mode.22 Perhaps. Or perhaps it is because Pseudo-Hegesippus did not write contemporary history – his history ended in the first century, not the fourth, in which he lived. But this is no reason to exclude De excidio from accounts of fourth-century Christian historiography: many ancient historians wrote non-contemporary histories, as witness, e.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus;23 moreover, many ancient historians wrote on the less-recent past, even if they did often trace things up to their own times (consider Livy’s Ab urbe condita and Tacitus’ Annales, both inspirations for PseudoHegesippus).24 Also, unlike the modern (faux) ‘science’ of historiography, ancient historiography was ‘paradigmatic and educative’, and antiquarianism in particular was ‘necessary to create and reinforce identity and the sense of

21 This is true from the work’s early printed editions in French and German to a host of twentieth-century work in English, German, French, and Italian. See Chapter 1’s bibliography in C. Bay, ‘The Bible, the Classics, and the Jews’ (2018). 22 Albert A. Bell, Jr., ‘Classical and Christian Traditions in the Work of Pseudo-Hegesippus’, Indiana Social Studies Quarterly 33 (1980), 60-4, 60: ‘If an ancient author wished to guarantee his own obscurity he could do so in one of several ways. He could begin by writing in the fourth century A.D., a period too late for most classicists and too early for most medievalists. Or he might be a Christian, so that scholars interested in secular writers would overlook him. Or, being a Christian, he might write about something other than theology or church history, so that patristic scholars would ignore him. As a last resort he might write anonymously, so that virtually everyone would pass by him. The late fourth-century Latin author known as pseudo-Hegesippus has the almost insuperable handicap of all four of these conditions weighing him down. As a result, he is all but unheard of except among a handful of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century scholars’. It is ironic that Albert Bell wrote this essay in an obscure journal, wont to be overlooked by classicists, medievalists, and patristics scholars. 23 Indeed, the idea that Thucydides established contemporary history as the only proper kind of history within the tradition of Greek historiography and, by derivation, its Latin inheritors is not tenable. Though espoused by Momigliano (see Arnaldo Momigliano, The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography, Sather Classical Lectures 54 [Berkeley, 1990], 29-79), it can be shown that historians debated the necessity of ‘real’ or ‘good’ or ‘superior’ history to be contemporary and/or based upon eyewitness accounts or personal experience beginning in the Hellenistic period at least; see Guido Schepens, ‘History and Historia: Inquiry in the Greek Historians’, in John Marincola (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Malden, MA, 2007), 39-55, 41-54. 24 It may be important here to note that, in his Prologue, Pseudo-Hegesippus also situates De excidio within a larger oeuvre which is said to have covered the period of ancient Israel’s monarchies (Quattor libros Regnorum, corresponding to the LXX/Vulgate’s 4 Books of Kingdoms, i.e. 1-2Sam. + 1-2Kgs.) down to the deportation and destruction by the Babylonians (a period of maybe 500 years down to 586 BC) as well as the res gestae of the Maccabees (2nd and 1st centuries BC). Thus, in one respect, De excidio need not be seen as a standalone history.

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belonging to a community’.25 And indeed, De excidio’s unanimously-recognized anti-Jewish bent marks the text as an alterity-focused historiography which has as its goal the justification and explication of a late antique Christian identity formation.26 De excidio’s not being contemporary history (or church history) does not make it any less of Christian historiography. But perhaps one is tempted to restrict discussion of early Christian historiography to history-writing that is overtly, specifically Christian in content, perspective, language. Even within this rubric, one cannot ignore Pseudo-Hegesippus’ Christian content, albeit brief, in the form of a narrative subplot involving the apostles Peter and Paul at De excidio 3.2, or the trinitarian theological/ Christological ruminations emerging in De excidio 5.9.3-4. The Christian perspective and language of Pseudo-Hegesippus speak for themselves. But even if they did not, it would be a mistake to separate De excidio categorically from the two Eusebeian forms of historiography. Certainly, De excidio narrates one particular period, concentrates on one particular people and war (the Jewish War) – this on the classical model set by Thucydides – while church history is a history about Christians collectively and individually, and the Christian world chronicle has a universal scope. But all three types of work, while mutually distinctive, are fundamental forms of historiography: all three are narratival, sequential accounts of past words, deeds, and developments.27 To separate them 25 Roberto Nicolai, ‘The Place of History in the Ancient World’, in John Maricola (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Malden, MA, 2007), 1.13-26, 1.16-7. Note that just after the second quotation noted above Nicolai adds that there also existed in antiquity ‘works on the customs of foreign peoples, which exhibited and explained the other’ (1.17). De excidio combines a semi-antiquarianism and this ethnographic historiographical impulse together with a particular Christian social-theological perspective. 26 Somenzi adopts a conflict theory approach to ‘La polemica antigiudaica’ in De excidio in her chapter by that name (Egesippo – Ambrogio [2009], 151-82). In his review, Roberto Alciati (‘Review of Somenzi, Egesippo – Ambrogio,’ JEH 62 [2011], 359-61) rightly marks as one of the most valuable contributions of Somenzi’s work the identification of De excidio with a ‘symbolic anti-Judaism’ wherein ‘the Judaism opposed by Christian authors is not a living Judaism linked to Jewish contemporaries, but a symbolic one which has a vital function in the formation of Christian identity’ (360). 27 Ancient history has been defined as ‘prose narrative of past events which is true,’ or, we should say, which presents itself as ‘true’ in some (probably ancient) sense of that word or its semantic range. See Rohrbacher, The Historians, 11, who cites two traditional authorities on the subject: Charles W. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley, 1983), and A.J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (Portland, OR, 1988). The latter has been particularly formative in the present author’s thinking about historiography and rhetoric in antiquity. It may be that other works in addition to De excidio should broaden our perspective of fourth-century Christian history-writing, and that the classical-Christian historiography of Pseudo-Hegesippus is only one among other Christian historiographical forms of that time that should be used to modify the Eusebius-centric narrative of church history + world chronicle = (or ≈) fourth-century Christian historiography. However, I see the kind of historiography that De excidio represents as much more of a distinctive, established generic form of historiography than, say, the writings of Lactantius (i.e. De mortibus Persecutorum), which are

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hermetically is anachronistic, as Ernest Breisach has noted that, even during the later Carolingian era ‘[n]o clear definition delimited the chronicle from other historiographical forms’.28 The (Christian) classical historiography of Pseudo-Hegesippus is as much a part of fourth-century Christian historiography as are the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius (and Rufinus) and the Chronicle of Eusebius (and Jerome).29 Finally, we might suggest that Pseudo-Hegesippus has not entered the modern canonical annals of fourth-century Christian history-writing because his influence was not that of Eusebius’. The latter’s Historia Ecclesiastica and Chronikon did, after all, set the stage for subsequent Christian historiography, as many scholars have been quick to point out. But alas, the influence of De excidio on subsequent generations was enormous, if not commonly recognized. This has been most thoroughly demonstrated by Richard Pollard, who shows via manuscript traditions, literary influences, and general Rezeptionsgeschichte that Pseudo-Hegesippus was spectacularly formative in the historiographical imaginations of Christian readers and authors, beginning in late antiquity.30 often included in discussions of fourth-century historiography but which arguably do not fit the generic distinction very well, and which can be seen as a subset of church history or which may be considered of too small a scope or chronological extent to merit analysis qua historiography in its own right. 28 Ernest Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 2007 [1983]), 103. This is not to say that definitions did not exist, but rather to suggest that any clearcut separation between ancient historiographical subgenres is wildly ambitious, as discussions ancient and modern attest. It is also interesting to note here that, during the Carolingian era, also a period in which church history and world chronicle were the dominant historiographical forms, there appeared one idiosyncratic history written in the classical mode and dealing with a war and ‘the decline of a once powerful state’ (i.e., that Carolingian Empire); this is comparable to De excidio as the one late antique Christian history written in the classical mode and also recounting the decline of a (Jewish) state. I refer to the Histories of Nithard, discussed by Breisach and summarized thus: ‘The historiography of the Carolingian period included one unusually stylish narrative by an unusual man’ (102-3). 29 I mention Rufinus and Jerome here because the former translated and continuated Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History into Latin, as the latter did with the Chronicle. As with the classical historians, I suggest that the two works of these latter fourth-century Latin authors should not be seen as derivative or important mainly vis-à-vis their comparative relationships to Eusebius’ earlier Greek texts, but rather as texts in their own right with authors and authorial choices, readers and audiences, cultural contexts and, yes, sources to which they closely adhere. Translation, especially in antiquity, is often closer to original authorship than it is usually given credit for. 30 Richard Matthew Pollard, ‘The De Excidio of “Hegesippus” and the Reception of Josephus in the Early Middle Ages’, VIATOR 46 (2015), 65-100. Granted that medieval readers often thought that they were reading Josephus when they were reading De excidio (71), though it is ‘clear that the De Excidio was not a mere translation but written by a historiographus in his own right, someone who felt he was writing a new history based on Josephus’ (80). On the widespread, enormous impact of De excidio, see Pollard’s conclusion at 99-100. De excidio has reader-writers who relied upon it beginning at least in the earlier fifth century, as witness Eucherius of Lyons (ca. 380-449). See further C. Bay, ‘The Bible, the Classics, and the Jews’ (2018), 18-9.

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Transmitted as part of the Josephus tradition, De excidio was arguably one the of most influential historical works of the Medieval era and early Middle Ages.31 In terms of later impact, De excidio ranks among the most influential Christian writings of late antiquity.32 So, once more: why is the De excidio and the kind of historiography it represents – classical, military historiography focused on a particular region, battle, or historical development – absent from the standard scholarly account of nascent Christian historiography in the fourth century? Answers other than those mentioned above could be given: … Eusebius and Pseudo-Hegesippus wrote in different historical moments, and it was the Constantinian era, not the post-Julian, which cemented the historiographical norms for the recently-legal Christian tradition.33 … Even though Christian in outlook, De excidio belongs more properly to the canons of ancient historiography traditionally called ‘classical’ or ‘secular’ or ‘pagan’.34 … De excidio has usually been treated as part of Josephus’ Rezeptionsgeschichte, and thus has not been taken seriously as a history in its own right.35 Arguments could be made in favor of all of these postulates, but none of them, to my mind, justifies excluding De excidio from the narrative of fourth-century Christian historiography.

31 See Richard Matthew Pollard, ‘Flavius Josephus: The Most Influential Classical Historian of the Early Middle Ages’, in Elina Screen and Charles West (eds), Writing the Early Medieval West: Studies in Honour of Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 2018), 15-32. 32 And even if later Christians did not model new histories upon De excidio, that is, up-to-date histories of their own or more recent times they did copy over and over and over again histories and versions of the same history, i.e. that of the Roman-Jewish War codified in Josephus, PseudoHegesippus, and others. It is difficult to justify, in my mind, qualifying as Christian historiography only those forms that present new material (i.e. of more recent vintage), because this fails to do justice to the standards of ancient literary convention (namely, copying and/or re-telling) and to the realities of the historiographical imagination, as well as the function of historical thinking and writing vis-à-vis collective identity and worldview formation. 33 Eusebius’ chronological precedence is significant, and one should note that Eusebius seems to have had, whether directly or indirectly, some influence upon Pseudo-Hegesippus’ own writing, which can be demonstrated at several points in De excidio but which has not been shown heretofore, so far as I know. Such a demonstration lies beyond the scope of the present article, however. 34 If so, then Pseudo-Hegesippus is equally conspicuously absent from survey treatments in this tradition, something with which I deal elsewhere. However, I would note that, even in surveys by classicists, when Christian histories are allowed to enter the discussion at all it is Eusebius, and sometimes others like Socrates and Sozomen, who appear. De excidio, interestingly enough, is perhaps the one history that belongs properly to both the classical historiographical canon (usually concluded with Ammianus Marcellinus, a contemporary of Pseudo-Hegesippus who nevertheless wrote slightly later) and the Christian historiographical canon, and this is the one author that is routinely omitted from both! 35 This is surely true, though even in surveys of Josephus’ reception history in late antiquity, De excidio has almost always been left out, as noted by R.M. Pollard, ‘The De Excidio of “Hegesippus” and the Reception of Josephus in the Early Middle Ages’ (2015).

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Whatever particular causes may have been involved, I suggest that it has simply been an accident of scholarship that De excidio has not been accounted for in scholarly reconstructions of Christian historiography’s formative era. Scholars rely upon other scholars and even the most learned experts have an incomplete grasp of the gigantic collection of literature from late antiquity. I would also suggest that now we should rewrite the normative account of Christian historiography’s late antique beginnings. I will conclude with a suggestion of what this means. It does not mean taking the standard account of the fourth century as the defining era for Christian historiography and tacking De excidio onto the end of that narrative. Rather, it means integrating. We must reconceptualize what historiography could be and mean to Christians in the formative fourth century. In that period it became standard for a Christian author to conceive of Christian history as a narrative outlining the beginnings of Christianity, starting with Jesus, up through the present; alternatively, one could apprehend the history of the world within/ towards a Christian Weltanschauung; but, alternatively again, one could also fixate upon particular wars, complete with their defining episodes, battles, characters, and speeches, thus retooling the classical lens of history for a Christian perspective. That this last option was open to Christians in the fourth century is highly significant for our understanding of Christian identity, history, culture, literature.36 For decades now, scholars have studied the classical connotations and foundations imbuing and undergirding late antique Christian literature, sometimes emphasizing historiography;37 yet the classical historiographical product of Pseudo-Hegesippus, De excidio, has been all but missed. The fact is that the formative century for Christian historiography contained not just 36 The present essay’s scope does not allow for a full exposition regarding this significance, which would in fact constitute a substantial piece of work. De excidio demonstrates itself as important for a great many scholarly conversations on and around early Christianity, late antique historiography, culture, and literature, and the various ‘revolutions’ with which the fourth century is often imputed. Most significant here would be ‘The Christian Historiographical Revolution’, to which E. Breisach, Historiography (2007 [1983]), dedicates a chapter (Chapter 7, 77-106). 37 The bibliography behind this statement is far too large to cite here. I will rather nod to the succinct and excellent essay by Frances Young, ‘Classics genres in Christian guise; Christian genres in classical guise’, in ead., Lewis Ayres and Andrew Louth (eds), The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature (Cambridge, 2004), 251-8, who remarks that ‘[l]ittle of the Christian literature of the fourth and fifth centuries escapes influence from the classical traditions of antiquity, yet little of it can be analysed neatly according to the classical genres’ (253). However, even Young cites Eusebius as the emblem for the novel Christian adaptation of the classical historiographical tradition: ‘History in the ancient rhetorical tradition had likewise sought to use narrative of the past as a way of conveying moral lessons and exploring the outworkings of fate. But Eusebius’ historical writing did not straightforwardly conform to the classical conventions. … History, for Eusebius, had become a kind of apologetic, an alternative method of proof that Christianity was true’. Indeed, De excidio seems closer to what Young describes as the classical conventions of historiography than to the new Christian ones, and the fact that Pseudo-Hegesippus is not mentioned here is again significant.

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church history and world chronicle, but also a classical version of historiography which followed in the footsteps of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, and of course, Flavius Josephus.38

38 I end the article this way as a nod to the centrality of tradition and inheritance within ancient historiography. In the ancient world, it is difficult to imagine an author understanding or presenting himself (or herself) without a constant preoccupation with his (or her) forebears. Thus, I do not think that De excidio’s significant reliance upon Josephus is something to be downplayed or which needs to be justified in order to establish genuine value for De excidio; on the contrary, De excidio garners its own identity and character as a robust and rich history precisely when viewed in the relief of earlier historians of the Greco-Roman tradition, most prominently Josephus.

No Need to Apologise? Tertullian and the Paradox of Polemic against Persecution Ruth SUTCLIFFE, Townsville, Australia

ABSTRACT The apologetic writings of the early church present a paradox; the apologists argue against the injustice of persecution merely for the name of Christian. They call for the cessation of persecution and for tolerance for Christianity. Yet the New Testament presents persecution for the Name of Christ as an inevitable result of the essential confession of that Name. Furthermore, to be persecuted as a Christian is to be blessed. Tertullian uniquely addresses this paradox by presenting a coherent theology of persecution, arguing that persecution is both inevitable and good, but only if Christians are persecuted for the right reasons.

The extant apologies of the second and third centuries present a paradox, which has received little attention. The apologists argued that persecution merely for bearing the name of Christian was unjust and illogical and arose from ignorance and demonic influence. Rumours of immoral activities of the sect were untrue, and if Christianity were better understood it would be readily embraced. However, the New Testament paints a picture of the inevitability of suffering for the Name, because the world and Christ are mutually opposed. Indeed, this opposition and persecution marks the Christian as the follower of Christ and is to be faced with patient endurance. The early apologies were a diverse set of writings, each prompted by particular circumstances, yet are generally resistant to embracing persecution and suffering — in contrast to the martyr acts. I suggest that the paradox of arguing for the cessation of something the Scriptures predicted and endorsed results from a minimally developed and poorly integrated theology of persecution, a theology articulated for the first time in the writings of Tertullian. Although Tertullian’s apologetic writings develop many of his predecessors’ arguments, he displays a more integrated apprehension of the providential origin, purpose, benefits and appropriate response to persecution. In accord with the martyrologies’ portrayal of participation in Christ’s cosmic battle against the demonic world, he determines that Christians must be persecuted, but pleads for it to be for the right reasons.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 267-278. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Apologetic Strategies The apologies are a diverse collection of writings which are still the subject of scholarly dispute. Some purport to be addressed to emperors and other elites, some to pagans generally and some to individuals. Petition was only part of the apologists’ endeavour. There were two main lines of argument: the positive presentation of the beliefs and character of Christians and a defence against ill-informed negative characterisations. They sought to inform, correct and impress, to encourage conversion to the faith and to discourage discrimination and persecution. Different works have different emphases.1 Polemics against paganism were also a feature of many apologies. Lieu has identified the difficulty in identifying what is, and is not, ‘apologetic’, whether as a genre, an intention or a strategy.2 She has also noted the mutual dependence of apology and martyr act.3 Apologies directed to pagans contain very few, if any, direct scriptural quotations or allusions. Pagan readers would not understand scriptural references and arguments, nor would they consider them authoritative.4 Additionally, theologising on scriptures which present the inevitability of suffering for the name, the promised reward and the necessity for endurance, would be rather counterproductive to an argument against persecution. The apologetic works of Theophilus, Justin, Athenagoras, Aristides, Minucius Felix and others affirmed the Christians’ commitment to love their enemies and pray for the emperors.5 They suggest that if their persecutors learned the truth about Christianity they would desist from persecuting.6 Christians were persecuted for the name alone, not for any proven crimes;7 the charges against them are unsustainable and arise only from rumour and ignorance.8 They refuted the 1 Mary Sheather, ‘The Apology of Justin Martyr and the Legatio of Athenagoras: Two Responses to the Challenge of Being a Christian in the Second Century’, Scrinium 14 (2018), 115-32 helpfully contrasts two apologetic works. 2 Judith Lieu, ‘The Audience of Apologetics: The Problem of the Martyr Acts’, in Jakob Engberg and Uffe Holmsgaard Petersen (eds), Contextualising Early Christian Martyrdom (Frankfurt am Main, 2011), 205-23, 207. 3 J. Lieu, ‘Audience of Apologetics’ (2011), 210-6. 4 Livermore so explains Tertullian’s limited but implicit use of scripture in his Apology; Paul Livermore, ‘Reasoning with Unbelievers and the Place of the Scriptures in Tertullian’s Apology’, Ashbury Theological Journal 56 (2001), 61-75, 63-4. Frend identifies a shift from arguments from fulfilled prophecy in the second century to demonstrating the superiority of Christianity as a philosophy in the third century. W.H.C. Frend, ‘Some North African Turning Points in Christian Apologetics’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 57 (2006), 1-15, 1-3. However, this latter emphasis is evident in Justin. 5 Athenagoras, Embassy 1, 11; Theophilus, Autolycus 1.11, 3.14; Justin, 1Apol 17. 6 Diognetus 1.1; Theophilus, Autolycus 1.14; M. Felix, Octavius 41; Justin, 1Apol 14, 57. 7 Pliny, Letters 10.96; M. Felix, Octavius 28; Athenagoras, Embassy 1, 2; Theophilus, Autolycus 1.1; Justin, 1Apol 4, 7. They also argued that pagans did not really understand the name “Christian”; Theophilus, Autolycus 1.12; Justin, 1Apol 4. 8 Athenagoras, Embassy 2, 3; Theophilus, Autolycus 3.4; M. Felix, Octavius 28, 35; Justin, 1Apol 2, 3; 2Apol 3.

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accusations of incest and cannibalism9 and the appellation of atheist, asserting their right to worship their God10 and denouncing idolatry as demonic and foolish.11 They seemed to resist the inevitability of persecution and tried to reason against it from a position of justice and logic. Although accepting that death was not to be feared, that glory awaited and that they must endure to the end,12 they did not promote martyrdom as the way to glory and as intrinsically good. That came with the martyr acts, which were developing contemporaneously. Middleton explores how martyrological narrative ‘mirrored, developed or even constructed a theological universe’ informing Christian attitudes to martyrdom.13 Although, as Lieu describes,14 there was some interplay between apologetics and martyrology, the two thematic trajectories do not form a coherent synthesis until they reach the pen of Tertullian.

Perceived Deficiencies It appears that the second century apologists’ strategies were not particularly successful. There is no evidence that the legal position of Christians changed from the time of Nero to that of Decius.15 The first legal acknowledgement of Christian rights came from Gallienus in 260 AD.16 There is no extant evidence of rescripts or acknowledgement of apologies by those to whom they were addressed – although absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It is 9

Athenagoras, Embassy 31-32ff; Theophilus, Autolycus 3.4ff; M. Felix, Octavius 30; Justin, 1Apol 29. 10 Athenagoras, Embassy 1, 4; Justin, 1Apol 5, 6, 8, 24. 11 Diognetus 2; Athenagoras, Embassy 8, 14ff; Theophilus, Autolycus 1.9, 1.10; M. Felix, Octavius 21-24; Justin, 1Apol 9, 24. 12 Athenagoras, Embassy 12; Justin, 1Apol 11, 57; 2Apol 11-2. 13 Paul Middleton, Radical Martyrdom and Cosmic Conflict in Early Christianity (London, 2006), 3; see also Moss’ thesis in chapter 3 of Candida Moss, The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians invented a Story of Martyrdom (New York, 2013), 83-125. Although Moss overstates her case in effectively dismissing the reality of early Christian persecution, she makes some valid points about martyr acts framing a theology of martyrdom. 14 Lieu shows that Justin makes apologetic use of the account of Ptolemaus’ martyrdom (2Apol 2) and martyr accounts provide opportunity for apologetics, as in the account of Polycarp. Tertullian’s Apology brings together the two traditions; J. Lieu, ‘Audience of Apologetics’ (2011), 210-14, 217. 15 Timothy D. Barnes, ‘Legislation Against the Christians’, Journal of Roman Studies 58 (1968), 32-50, reprinted in T.D. Barnes, Early Christianity and the Roman Empire (London, 1984). Williams also demonstrates that the situation of the addressees of 1Peter was consistent with Roman policy toward Christians from Nero onwards, as per the Pliny-Trajan correspondence; Travis B. Williams, Persecution in 1 Peter: Differentiating and Contextualizing Early Christian Suffering, NT.S 145 (Leiden, 2012), 179. 16 As cited by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 7.13. The edict returned Christians to their former perilous legal status, but did permit unmolested worship; J. Patout Burns and Robin M. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa, the development of its practices and beliefs (Grand Rapids, 2014), 26.

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nevertheless unlikely that they were read by the addressees, and many scholars consider that they were never intended to be, but were rather for use within the Christian community.17 Kreider suggests the primary function of the apologies was to build up the Christian community, giving them a reasonable basis for their faith and arguments they could use with their neighbour.18 Second century apologies have been criticised as long winded, inappropriately addressed, insulting and poorly written.19 Buck asserts that because Christianity was an illicit sect, Christians had no right to petition emperors nor to expect to be heard, however offers no evidence for this.20 There is a difference between not being recognised as legal and being illegal to the extent of being outlawed and bereft of any rights. The ineffectiveness of Christian petition may instead largely reflect the size, social composition and influence of the little-known sect generally. Furthermore, as Bowlin argues,21 it is the nature of the request, rather than the status of the petitioners, that would be most objectionable. Nevertheless, it seems that until Decius the emperors showed little knowledge of or interest in Christians and consensus is that persecution arose locally. Even Decius’ edict was not specifically directed against Christians, but imposed the sacrificial requirement on all inhabitants of the Empire.22 Although the apologists addressed real concerns from the Christians’ perspective, their arguments for imperial intervention seem somewhat naive. What is also lacking from the largely ‘reactive’ apologies is a coherent theology of persecution, understood as an integrated apprehension of the origin of persecution in the context of God’s providence and goodness, the scriptural basis of the inevitability of suffering for the Name, God’s purposes in permitting it, the good deriving from it and its eschatological vindication, all of which should inform the appropriate response to persecution. Jesus taught that persecution is inevitable, an opportunity for witness, and a blessing.23 It arises for the name of Christ, whose followers the world hates, as it hated him.24 Therefore persecution was not to be resisted but rejoiced in, enemies to 17 Buck argues that Athenagoras’ Embassy is a literary fiction, composed in the form of an imperial petition, but never intended to be read by the emperors. P. Lorraine Buck, ‘Athenagoras’ Embassy: A Literary fiction’, Harvard Theological Review 89 (1996), 209-26. Cf. Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church (Grand Rapids, 2016), 95-6. To this extent, early apologetics was not inconsistent with a high view of martyrdom. 18 Ibid. 19 P.L. Buck, ‘Athenagoras’ Embassy’ (1996), 220-2; she is even more critical of Justin’s verbose Apologies; see also P. Lorraine Buck, ‘Justin Martyr’s Apologies: Their Number, Destination, and Form’, Journal of Theological Studies 54 (2003), 45-59. 20 P.L. Buck, ‘Athenagoras’ Embassy’ (1996), 217, 225. 21 John R. Bowlin, ‘Tolerance among the Fathers’, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 20 (2006), 3-36. 22 J.P. Burns and R.M. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa (2014), 12-3. 23 Matt. 10:16-8, 21, 34-6; Lk. 21:12-3; Matt. 5:10-2; Lk. 6:22, 26. 24 Matt. 10:21-4; 24:9; Lk. 21:17; Jn. 15:18-21; 17:16.

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be loved and prayed for, Christ confessed at all costs.25 The apostles reiterated these teachings, even as they rejoiced to be persecuted;26 given over to death for Jesus’ sake but not separated from him.27 Christians are to patiently bear his reproach, knowing their reward is future. Persecution, according to the Scriptures, was God-ordained, and was to be countered with patient endurance and love for one’s enemies.28 Unjust persecution was a cause for rejoicing, and martyrdom brought glorious reward.29 How then should arguments against persecution be reconciled with New Testament teaching? Is such apologetic even legitimate? If such theologising occurred in the second century, it is not a feature of the apologies. Perhaps it was expressed as exhortations to persevere and suffer with Christ in homilies, treatises and sermons that are not extant. Apart from this theological inconsistency, Bowlin has identified a key deficiency in the second century apologists’ arguments.30 The apologists asked for the same toleration afforded to other foreign sects who were, nevertheless, already ‘inside’ the pagan community and prepared to accept its terms. But the Christians would not accept those terms, which included acknowledgement of the tutelary deities and participation in related civic duties and activities. They could not claim the rights of insiders when they refused to be insiders. From 212 all residents of the Empire became citizens, so Christians, increasingly more numerous and including more honestiores, now had greater obligation to behave as such and to participate in civic cultic activities. Rumours of flagitia became less widely believed, and the conflict centred more on their refusal to worship the gods and the charge of atheism.31 As the empire suffered the instability of rapid emperor turnover and barbarian encroachments, the appeal to the pax deorum would have become more urgent. There were more than a dozen emperors in the first half of the third century, prior to Decius. His edict was, from the Roman perspective, a timely call to solidarity with Rome’s divine protectors. This conflict of loyalties, rather than easily disproved accusations of immorality, was the reason why persecution remained inevitable, both socially and theologically. This is the crux of the paradox of apology. The fathers were unanimous in their rejection of idolatry and the imperative to confess, not deny Christ.32

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Matt. 5:39; 10:22, 37-9, 44; Lk. 21:17-9. Act. 5:41. 27 Rom. 8:35-7; 2Cor. 4:7-11. 28 Rom. 12:14-7; 2Cor. 12:10; 2Thess. 1:4-7; Heb. 13:12-4. 29 1Pet. 2:12-5, 19-23; 3:13-7; 4:12-9; Rev. 2:9-13; 6:9-10. 30 J.R. Bowlin, ‘Tolerance’ (2006), 11-9. 31 J.R. Bowlin, ‘Tolerance’ (2006), 13. 32 Christ’s promise of reciprocal confession or denial in Matt. 10:32-3; Mk. 8:38; Lk. 9:26 is one of the most frequently quoted by the early fathers, particularly Tertullian. 26

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Tertullian’s Apologetics Whilst Tertullian covers the classic apologetic arguments,33 arguably more skilfully than his predecessors, he also advances beyond them, both in his strategies and in his underlying theology. Firstly, strategy. Tertullian innovatively argues from natural law that Roman laws against the Christians are unjust and should be revised.34 Rather than denying that religion was a legitimate concern of the state,35 Tertullian suggests that willing worship is more honouring than compulsion.36 Livermore notes that Tertullian could have argued (but didn’t) that religion was a private matter in which the state had no right to impose its will, or that because the state is ruled by evil people, it could be defied; rather, ‘the Apology’s tone suggests something different from defiance. It suggests an appeal to people who can reach a sound judgment. This is a genuine apology.’37 Nevertheless, although Tertullian transforms rather than rejects state involvement in religion, he fundamentally does attribute evil influence to the state, and promotes defiance of it in the rejection of idolatry; there is an inherent defiance in Apologeticum as well as in Ad Scapulam.38 From a social or legal perspective, persecution merely for the name of Christian was 33 Christians love their enemies and pray for their persecutors; Apol. 31, 37 (CChr.SL 1, 31; 147-9); Scap. 1.3 (CChr.SL 2, 1127). Christians honour the emperor; Apol. 29, 31, 33, 34, 36 (CChr.SL 1, 140-1, 142, 143-4, 144, 147); Scap. 2.5-8 (CChr.SL 2, 1128). Persecutors will be judged and punished by God; Nat. 1.7.29, 1.19 (CChr.SL 1, 21, 38-9); Apol. 41.4 (CChr.SL 1, 156) ; Scap. 3.1, 3.3, 3.5; 4.1; 5.4 (CChr.SL 2, 1129; 1130; 1132) . If reasoned with, persecutors would be convinced and convert; Nat. 1.1.1-3, 1.20 (CChr.SL 1, 11, 39-40); Apol. 50.15-6 (CChr.SL 1, 171); Scap. 5.4 (CChr.SL 2, 1132). Christians are persecuted for the name alone, even though they are ignorant of the sect and its founder; Nat. 1.3-4 (CChr.SL 1, 13-6); Apol. 1.4, 2, 3, 21.1-3 (CChr.SL 1, 85, 87-91, 91-2, 122-3). Unlike real criminals, Christians are, unjustly, tortured when the confess to try to make them deny; Nat. 1.2 (CChr.SL 1, 12-3); Apol. 2 (CChr.SL 1, 87-91); Scap. 4.2 (CChr.SL 2, 1130). Christians are good people with no rational ground for hatred; Nat. 1.1.9-10, 1.4 (CChr.SL 1, 11-2, 14-6); Apol. 3, 39, 44, 45, 46 (CChr.SL 1, 91-2, 150-3, 158-9, 159-60, 160-2); Scap. 2.3, 2.5, 2.6, 2.10; 4.5-8 (CChr.SL 2, 1128; 1130-1). Charges against Christians are unsubstantiated, arising from rumour and ignorance; Nat. 1.1, 1.4, 1.7, 1.20 (CChr.SL 1, 11-2, 14-6, 17-21, 39-40); Apol. 1.1-5, 4.1, 7, 49 (CChr.SL 1, 85-6, 92, 98-100, 168-9). Christians do not commit incest or eat children; Nat. 1.7, 1, 15-6 (CChr.SL 1, 17-21, 33-6); Apol. 7-9 (CChr.SL 1, 98-105). Christians are not atheists; Apol. 10, 16, 17, 24, 27 (CChr.SL 1, 105-9, 115-7, 117-8, 133-5, 138-9); Scap. 2.1 (CChr.SL 2, 1127). Polemic against idolatry; Nat. book 2 (CChr.SL 1, 40-75); Apol. 11-5, 26, 29 (CChr.SL 1, 107-14, 138, 140-1). Christians are not the cause of public calamities; Nat. 1.9 (CChr.SL 1, 22-4), Apol. 40-1 (CChr.SL 1, 153-6). This accusation seems to have been more of an issue as the Empire experienced civil unrest and plagues in the third century. See also Cyprian, Ad Demetrianum. 34 Paul Livermore, ‘Reasoning with Unbelievers and the Place of the Scriptures in Tertullian’s Apology’, Ashbury Theological Journal 56 (2001), 61-75. 35 P. Livermore, ‘Reasoning with Unbelievers’ (2001), 62. 36 Tertullian, Scap. 2.2 (CChr.SL 2, 1127). 37 P. Livermore, ‘Reasoning with Unbelievers’ (2001), 62. 38 Tertullian, Apol. 2, 24, 37, 49, 50 (CChr.SL 1, 87-91, 133-5, 147-9, 168-9, 169-71).

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illogical and unjust,39 harmful to society and condemnatory of the persecutors.40 Furthermore, Christians are innocent of criminal acts because the laws that convict them are flawed.41 Laws are framed by men, and it wouldn’t be the first time that recognisedly unjust laws had required amendment. It is supposed to be deeds that are punished, not mere names, but in the case of Christians, deeds are assumed merely on the grounds of the name. Such a law is not only suspicious, but wicked, if it is employed tyrannically once disproved.42 Regardless of the value of Tertullian’s legal arguments, his most important contribution to apologetics is theological. The critical advance was how he addresses the paradox of apology, which he identifies at the climax of his Apologeticum. So you say, ‘Why do you complain that we persecute you, if you wish to suffer, since you ought to love those by whose means you suffer what you wish?’ Certainly we wish to suffer, but in the way in which a soldier also suffers war … to obtain that for which one has struggled is victory, a victory that comes with it both the glory of pleasing God and the spoil, which is eternal life … we are convicted, yes, but it is after we have won the day, therefore we have conquered, when we are killed.43

From the Christian perspective, Tertullian realised that persecution for the Name was not only inevitable but entirely appropriate. [This sect] asks no mercy in her case, because she does not feel any surprise either as to her circumstances. She knows that her part is that of a foreigner upon earth, that amongst aliens she easily finds enemies, while she has her race, her home, hope, welcome and honour in heaven.44

And again: We are not in any great perturbation or alarm about the persecutions we suffer from the ignorance of men; for we have attached ourselves to this sect, fully accepting the terms of its covenant, so that, as men whose very lives are not their own, we engage in these 39

Tertullian, Apol. 2 (CChr.SL 1, 87-91). Tertullian, Scap. 3.1, 5.3 (CChr.SL 2, 1129, 1132). 41 P. Livermore, ‘Reasoning with Unbelievers’ (2001), 63. 42 Tertullian, Apol. 4.4-13 (CChr.SL 1, 93-4). 43 Tertullian, Apol. 50.1-3 (CChr.SL 1, 169): Ergo, inquitis, cur querimini, quod uos insequamur, si pati uultis, cum diligeredebeatis, per quos patimini quod uultis? Plane uolumus, uerum eo more, quo et bellum miles … Proelium est nobis, quod prouocamur ad tribunalia, ut illic sub discrimine capitis pro ueritate certemus. Victoria est autem, pro quo certaueris, obtinere. Ea uictoria habet et gloriam placendi Deo et praedam uiuendi in aeternum. Sed occidimur. Certe, cum obtinuimus. Ergo uincimus, cum occidimur, denique euadimus, cum obducimur. Trans. Alexander Souter http://www.tertullian.org/articles/. 44 Tertullian, Apol. 1.2 (CChr.SL 1, 85): Nihil de causa sua deprecatur, quia nec de condicione miratur. Scit se peregrinam in terris agere, inter extraneos facile inimicos inuenire, ceterum genus, sedem, spem, gratiam, dignitatem in caelis habere. He reiterates this idea of Christians as foreigners in Cor. 13.4 (CChr.SL 2, 1061). Trans. Souter. 40

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conflicts… Hence we shrink not to grapple with your utmost rage, coming even forth of our own accord to the contest; and condemnation gives us more pleasure than acquittal.45

He states that Christians are not ashamed of Christ, rejoicing to be reckoned as his servants and condemned with him.46 In De fuga he observes that to suffer for Christ is to suffer with him, to take up his cross and follow him, to lose his life for Christ’s sake and be counted worthy of him.47 Consistently he identifies the defining mark of the Christian as the confession of Christ, which in turn brings confession by him before the Father.48 Significantly, in De fuga he determines that only when pressured to deny their Lord would this confession have any moral force, and persecution provided this opportunity.49 Because persecution is appointed by God, and is the supreme opportunity for confession, it should not be avoided or fled.50 Tertullian attributed the instrumentality of persecution to the devil. All the powers and dignities of the world are alien to and enemies of God and are devilish instrumental causes of persecution. The hatred of the heathen toward Christians is unjust because it is based on culpable ignorance,51 but the impetus is demonic.52 Nevertheless, God allows persecution to occur, through such evil instrumentation.53 In Scorpiace, Tertullian affirmed that martyrdom is good, because it strives against and opposes idolatry. God appointed martyrdoms so we may make trial with and vanquish our opponent, the devil.54 Against Marcion, Tertullian distinguishes sinful evils (mala culpoe) from penal evils (mala poenoe). The former are morally bad, and the devil is their author. The latter are

45 Tertullian, Scap. 1.1-2 (CChr.SL 2, 1127): Nos quidem expauescimus, neque pertimescimus ea quae ab ignorantibus patimur, cum ad hanc sectam, utique suscepta condicione eius pacti, uenerimus, ut etiam animas nostras exauctorati in has pugnas accedamus… Denique cum omni saeuitia uestra concertamus, etiam ultro erumpentes, magisque damnati quam absoluti gaudemus. Trans. Sydney Thelwall, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III. 46 Tertullian, Apol. 21.25-8 (CChr.SL 1, 127), citing the apostles’ experience in Acts 5:41. 47 Tertullian, Fug. 7.2, 14.3 (CChr.SL 2, 1145, 1155) probably a composite or paraphrase or result of translation into Latin of one or all of Matt. 10:37, 16:24; Mk. 8:34; Lk. 9:23. 48 Matt. 10:32 and Lk. 12:8; ‘homologeo’ confess/profess, ‘arneomai’ deny; Mk. 8:38 and Lk. 9:26; ‘epaischunomai’ be ashamed. Tertullian quotes or refers to these words of Jesus regularly; Tertullian, Idol. 13.6 (CChr.SL 2, 1113); Fug. 7.2 (CChr.SL 2, 1145); Scorp. 9.8, 10.4 (CChr.SL 2, 1085, 10.87-8); Prax. 26.9 (CChr.SL 2, 1197); Carn. 5.3 (CChr.SL 2, 881); Cor. 11.5 (CChr.SL 2, 1957); Marc. 4.21.10 (CChr.SL 1, 599). 49 Tertullian, Fug. 1.3, 1.5-1.6, 3 (CChr.SL 2, 1135, 1136, 1139). 50 Tertullian, Fug. 4.1, 7.2 (CChr.SL 2, 1139-40, 1144-5). The soldier who refused the military garland, although criticised for being headstrong and rash, eager to die, and drawing unwanted negative attention on other Christians; he alone was a Christian, commends Tertullian; Cor. 1.4 (CChr.SL 2, 1040). 51 Tertullian, Nat. 1.1 (CChr.SL 1, 11). 52 Tertullian, Apol. 27 (CChr.SL 1, 138-9). 53 Tertullian, Apol. 50.12 (CChr.SL 1, 171). 54 Tertullian, Scorp. 6, 11 (CChr.SL 2, 1079-81, 1090-2).

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God’s just operations against sin.55 Thus God actually permits evil, including sin and death and the author of sin, the devil.56 In De fuga, Tertullian asserts that because nothing happens without the will of God, evil and sin are both from God.57 But he is careful to discriminate between God-ordained persecution as an ‘evil’ and the injustice of it, which is of the devil. Persecution, Tertullian asserts, is especially worthy of God; it is requisite for the approving or rejection of his professing servants.58 This is why Tertullian is so adamant that Christians should not flee persecution. Tertullian distinguishes between the devil’s evil objective, to destroy faith and subvert salvation, and God’s salvific objective, to defeat the devil, through the necessary injustice of persecution. Tertullian argues that persecution is appointed by God for the trial of faith, albeit ministered through the injustice of the devil; by the devil’s agency, but not by his origination.59 Nor is the devil’s persecution ever outside God’s control.60 Finally, in Ad Scapulam, Tertullian admits the tension between the ordaining of Christians to suffer and the culpability of the persecutors. To persecute Christians is to fight against God.61 The individual persecutor is responsible for that sin, and although it was ordained that Christian’s should suffer, Scapula and even Carthage itself will suffer the consequences.62 Although there appears to be ‘an important but subtle shift’ in Tertullian’s perspective on the origin of persecution,63 Moss is correct in denying an outright contradiction, recognising instead a development and consolidation of Tertullian’s theology of persecution.64 The battle thus transcends the conflicts of a local society, the rumours and unfounded hatred; it is a cosmic battle.65 Satan seeks to destroy Christians by tempting them to deny Christ, by which the apostate belongs to Satan once 55

Tertullian, Marc. 2.14 (CChr.SL 1, 491). Tertullian, Marc. 2.28 (CChr.SL 1, 507-8). 57 Tertullian, Fug. 1.2-3 (CChr.SL 2, 1135). 58 Tertullian, Fug. 1.6 (CChr.SL 2, 2136). 59 Tertullian Fug. 2.2 (CChr.SL 2, 1137). 60 Tertullian, Fug. 2.7 (CChr.SL 2, 1138). 61 Tertullian, Scap. 4 (CChr.SL 2, 1130-1). 62 Tertullian, Scap. 5 (CChr.SL 2, 1131-2). 63 Candida Moss, ‘The Justification of the Martyrs’, in Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite (eds), Pauline and Patristic Scholars in Debate: Tertullian and Paul (New York, 2013), 104-18, 114. 64 C. Moss, ‘Justification of the Martyrs’ (2013), 118. 65 Jonathan Koscheski, ‘The Earliest Christian War: Second and Third Century Martyrdom and the Creation of Cosmic Warriors’, Journal of Religious Ethics 39 (2011), 100-24, 105 misses the mark when he asserts that the Christian’s understanding of the cosmic war led them to ‘seek out and participate in the violence provided by the Roman Empire’, laying ‘much of the ideological groundwork for an easy fourth-century shift to the celebration of an actual armed Christian militia.’ He overlooks the centrality of patient acceptance of persecution, leaving vengeance to God, praying for one’s enemies and good citizenship that were essential to the apologists’ arguments. Much more in tune with Tertullian’s thinking is P. Middleton, Cosmic Conflict (2006) 16-39, 71-102. 56

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more.66 Therefore, confession of Christ is a victory against Satan, a participation in Christ’s victory over the adversary.67 These themes of confession and contest are prominent in the martyr acts;68 significantly, in Tertullian’s work, they and apology become the two sides of the same coin.69 Christians should accept the inevitability of persecution for the Name of Christ, to embrace it and confess the Name and therein attain victory. This is how Tertullian sees the providence of persecution; it comes by no mere permission, or non-prevention,70 but by God’s decree.71 Tertullian uniquely reconciled persecution with the goodness of God by seeing persecution itself as good, not merely resulting in good, although it does that also.72 Persecution is good because it reflects God’s good purpose in defeating evil, and opposing idolatry;73 a purpose in which Christians participate.74 The persecuted receive their vindication in the next life, when Christ’s victory is consummated.75 This is why Christians are content to leave vengeance to God. This is why they do not resist evil but pray for their persecutors76 and why, if necessary, they will come forward voluntarily.77 66

Tertullian, Paen. 5 (CChr.SL 1, 327-9). ‘We never triumph over [demons] more than when we are condemned for the persistence of our belief’, Tertullian, Apol. 27.7 (CChr.SL 1, 139): illos numquam magis detriumphamus quam cum pro fidei obstinatione damnamur. 68 For a detailed discussion of these perspectives, with examples, see P. Middleton, Cosmic Conflict (2006), 71-102. 69 Tertullian, Bapt. 16 (CChr.SL 1, 290-1); Pud. 9.21 (CChr.SL 2, 1299) so also J. Lieu, ‘Audience of Apologetics’ (2011), 217. 70 Which was the position of Tertullian’s contemporary, Clement, Strom. 4.11 (PG 8, 1288-9). 71 Tertullian, Fug. 3 (CChr.SL 2, 1139). 72 Suffering is character-building; Spec. 1-2, 28 (CChr.SL 1, 227-30, 250-1); Pat. 8 (CChr. SL 1, 308-9); Mart 3 (CChr.SL 1, 5-6). Persecution permits striving against idolatry; Idol. 12 (CChr.SL 2, 1111-2). It shows the sufferer’s worthiness; Pat. 11 (CChr.SL 1, 311-2). Reward comes in proportion to suffering; Scap. 4.8 (CCSL 2, 1131); Scorp. 6 (CCSL 2, 1079-81). Martyrdom witnesses to outsiders; Scap. 5.4 (CChr.SL 2, 1132); Apol. 50.14-5 (CChr.SL 1, 171) and purges sin; Apol. 50.16 (CChr.SL 1, 171); Scorp. 6.9-11 (CChr.SL 2, 1080); Res. 8.5-6 (CChr.SL 2, 931-2); Pud. 9.21 (CChr.SL 2, 1299); Bapt. 16 (CChr.SL 1, 290-1). 73 Tertullian, Scorp. 2.1-2, 4.1 (CChr.SL 2, 1071, 1075-6); Fug. 4 (CChr.SL 2, 139-41). 74 Tertullian, Scorp. 5.9-10 (CChr.SL 2, 1078): Bonum contendo martyrium apud eundem deum, a quo et prohibetur et punitur idolatria. Obnititur enim et aduersatur idolatriae martyrium. … liberat enim ab idolatria. [uoluit] mortem morte dissoluere, occisionem occisione dispargere, tormentis tormenta discutere, supplicia suppliciis euaporare, uitam auferendo conferere, carnem laedendo iuuare, animam eripiendo seruare. … Ita deo de momentaneis aeterna medicante magnifica bono tuo deum tuum. 75 Based on Rev. 6:9-11, Tertullian believed that the martyrs, in fact, went to heaven immediately; An. 55.4-5 (CChr.SL 2, 862-3), although their final vindication awaited the end of the age; Or. 5.3 (CChr.SL 1, 260); Res. 25.1 (CChr.SL 2, 953). 76 Tertullian, Apol. 31 (CChr.SL 1, 142); Scap. 1.3 (CChr.SL 2, 1127). 77 Tertullian, Scap. 1.2, 5.2 (CChr.SL 2, 1127, 1132). P. Middleton, Cosmic Conflict (2006), 19, regards Tertullian as an ‘enthusiastic proponent of martyrdom’; Middleton’s thesis is that voluntary martyrdom was both common and part of the spectrum of orthodoxy in the early church. See particularly pages 29-39. 67

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Reconciling the Paradox Why then does Tertullian engage in apologetic at all? How does he reconcile the paradox of arguing against what he regards to be good, and divinely ordained? Persecution is inevitable and appropriate while the world and Christ are at enmity, but Christians must be persecuted for the right reasons, for righteousness’ sake (Matt. 5:10). They seek divine glory and reward rather than earthly fame.78 They must be persecuted for upholding the name of Christ, not for supposed crimes or immorality.79 The objective of his Apologeticum is that Christianity be known for what it is, and not persecuted out of ignorance. 80 Ignorant persecutors, duped by Satan, will face dreadful consequences, of which Christians should warn them.81 Martyrdom is witness; the willingness of Christians to die for their confession draws people to Christ.82 Ultimately, God will prevail and his saints will be vindicated. Once someone becomes a Christian they desire the forgiveness that comes through martyrdom, and condemnation by the Romans brings acquittal from God.83 Your injustice is a proof of our innocence. It is for that reason that God allows us to suffer these things… Nor yet does your cruelty, though each act be more exquisite than the last, profit you; it is rather an attraction to our sect. We spring up in greater numbers the more we are mown down by you; the blood of Christians is seed.84

Tertullian writes apology because he wants pagans to truly understand their position, that they fight against God and cannot win. Christians are not on the defensive but the offensive, and their battle is on a cosmic level, their apparent defeat is victory. Persecution is unjust, but intrinsic to the Christian’s identity. Persecution will only cease when there is no longer a difference between the world and the church, which for Tertullian means the eschaton.85 In the meantime, the world remains antagonistic to God’s people; to the extent that even prison is an escape from the world.86 The church cannot move toward the world, for that would be compromise, and this he would not countenance in

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Tertullian, Mart. 4-5 (CChr.SL 1, 6-7) as opposed to the dramatic suicides of pagans. 1Pet. 2:19-20, 3:17; Tertullian, Scorp. 12.2-3 (CChr.SL 2, 1092). 80 Tertullian, Apol. 1 (CChr.SL 1, 85-7). 81 Tertullian, Scap. 5.2-5.3 (CChr.SL 2, 1132); Spect. 30 (CChr.SL 1, 252-3). 82 Tertullian, Scap. 5.4 (CChr.SL 2, 1132). 83 Tertullian, Apol. 50.14-6 (CChr.SL 1, 171). 84 Tertullian, Apol. 50.12-3 (CChr.SL 1, 171): probatio est enim innocentiae nostrae iniquitas uestra! Ideo nos haec pati Deus patitur… Nec quicquam tamen proficit exquisitor quaeque crudelitas uestra: illecebra est magis sectae. Etiam plures efficimur, quotiens metimur a uobis: semen est sanguis Christianorum! Trans. Souter. 85 ‘A church without spot or wrinkle should be an offense and a threat, not a benign object of tolerance’, J.R. Bowlin, ‘Tolerance’ (2006), 17. 86 Tertullian, Mart. 1-2 (CChr.SL 1, 3-5). 79

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any form.87 Tertullian’s plea to Christians was to wholly reject the idolatry of the world and to confess Christ, rejoicing in being counted worthy to share his sufferings and his cosmic victory. His plea to pagans was to disregard the rumours they had heard and the idols they foolishly followed, and see the truth about Christianity and her God. Then they would surely leave the world’s deadly embrace, join those whom they formerly despised, and save themselves from judgment.

87 Whether it be any of the trappings of idolatry, attendance at shows or the wearing of crowns, Tertullian regards that what has not been freely allowed as forbidden. Cor. 2.4 (CChr.SL 2, 1042).

Tertullian as Catechist: The Example of De baptismo Alex FOGLEMAN, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA

ABSTRACT Despite the paucity of evidence available for pre-Constantinian catechesis, many scholars continue to assume that the legalization of Christianity must have significantly altered the shape of pre-baptismal education. This article examines the evidence of Tertullian’s De baptismo to better understand the character of catechesis in this early period, and so to provide grounds for evaluating to what extent and how such changes took place. If most studies of De baptismo have appreciated its liturgical and theological utility, this article considers the patterns of discourse and rhetorical structures present within the text that indicate the nature of pre-Constantinian catechesis. While Tertullian was certainly concerned with the social and moral aspects of living Christianly amidst Graeco-Roman culture – creating an alternative community or ‘counter culture’ amidst a persecutory empire – in addition, and perhaps more centrally, Tertullian’s catechesis was concerned to shape a certain conception of creation’s orderedness to divine power, on guard against both gnostic forms of Christianity and Graeco-Roman cult. In fact, Tertullian configures both gnostic and non-Christian Graeco-Roman practice as dual errors that stem from a common flaw: a failure to rightly order material and divine realities. This article discusses two aspects of Tertullian’s De baptismo that show this strategy at work: first, the ways in which Tertullian sought to curate perceptions of the material creation as ordered to divine or heavenly realities; and second, the logic by which Tertullian attempted to argue for the need to delay baptism.

Catechesis in the Pre-Constantinian Age Despite the scarcity of evidence for pre-Constantinian catechesis, it has become common to assume – and even argue – that the legalization of Christianity in the fourth century must have significantly impacted pre-baptismal education. As the argument often goes: what was once a multi-year moral and social formation into a counter-cultural society quickly receded into a multi-week credal and sacramental preparation for a ritually awe-inspiring baptismal ceremony, inducing one into the now imperially sanctioned religion.1 The end of 1 For representative cases, see Michel Dujarier, A History of the Catechumenate: The First Six Centuries (New York, 1979), Alan Kreider, ‘Baptism, Catechism and the Eclipse of Jesus’ Teaching in Early Christianity’, Tyndale Bulletin 47 (1996), 315-48; id., The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom (Eugene, 2007); id., ‘Changing Patterns of Conversion in the

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 279-288. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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persecution, it would seem on this account, entailed a significant reconfiguration of the content and structures of early Christian catechetical practice. A few difficulties emerge with such an account. First, there is hardly enough firm data from the pre-Constantinian period to substantiate this claim except in sporadic cases. Second, moreover, such analyses tend to oversimplify or obscure what were in fact the complex and multifaceted approaches to catechesis that we can surmise from the few sources we have. In this article, I examine some evidence from Tertullian in order to better understand the nature of preConstantinian catechesis, which will hopefully offer a small contribution to the larger history of catechesis – a history that, as several scholars have recently noted, remains to be written.2 Tertullian’s catechesis, I argue, was certainly concerned with the social and moral aspects of living Christianly amidst Graeco-Roman culture: creating an alternative community or ‘counter culture’ amidst a persecutory empire.3 In addition, however, and perhaps more centrally, Tertullian’s catechesis was concerned to shape a certain conception of creation and cosmology as ordered to divine realities, on guard against what he viewed as heretical forms of Christianity as well as non-Christian cultic practice.4 I have no wish to rehash debates about whether social or theological issues were more determinative in early Christianity. What is more interesting in the case of Tertullian’s catechesis is the way in which he attempts to reconfigure perceptions of both heretical and Graeco-Roman culture as symptomatic aspects of common errors – variegated symptoms to be cured by a common remedy. While space permits here only an examination of one treatise, De baptismo, similar arguments could be made for other texts in Tertullian’s corpus in which catechumens are in view: e.g., De oratione, De paenitentia, and De spectaculis.5 West’, in Alan Kreider (ed.), The Origins of Christendom in the West (New York, 2001), 3-46; id., The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Early Church (Grand Rapids, 2016), 133-84; Everett Ferguson, ‘Catechesis and Initiation’, in A. Kreider (ed.), The Origins of Christendom (2001), 229-68; and Alistair Stewart-Sykes, ‘Catechumenate and Contra-Culture: The Social Process of Catechumenate in Third-Century Africa and Its Development’, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 47 (2003), 129-40. 2 William Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, rev. ed. (Collegeville, 2014), 25, and Benjamin Edsall, The Reception of Paul and Early Christian Initiation: History and Hermeneutics (Cambridge, 2019), 20, echo Jean Daniélou over fifty years ago that ‘the history of catechesis remains to be written’. Jean Daniélou and Régine du Charlat, La catéchèse aux premiers siècles (Paris, 1968), 11. 3 See esp. Stewart-Sykes, ‘Catechumenate and Counter-Culture’ (2003). 4 In this I am testing with regard to the practice of catechesis Frances Young’s argument that debates about the doctrine of creation had a significantly determinative influence on subsequent belief and practice. See Frances Young, ‘Creatio Ex Nihilo: A Context for the Emergence of the Christian Doctrine of Creation’, SJT 44 (1991), 139-52; ead., ‘Creation: A Catalyst Shaping Early Christian Life and Thought’, in David Fergusson and Bruce McCormack (eds), Schools of Faith: Essays on Theology, Ethics and Education (London, 2019), 23-33. 5 Excepting Spect., which is generally recognized as one of Tertullian’s earliest works, this set of treatises is difficult to date. Barnes puts Bapt., Paen., Or., and Pat. sometime between 198-203 AD,

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While other studies have mined these texts to reconstruct rituals, theologies, or disciplinary practices, I am most interested in the ‘processes of communication’ in Tertullian’s catechetical treatises.6 In consideration of Tertullian’s rhetorical training, what were his objectives and tactics, as well as obstacles, as a teacher of the faith to new believers? What pictures of the Christian life did he present to those seeking baptism, and what strategies did he undertake in the persuasion of aspiring Christians? Drawing upon recent studies of the oral and aural dimension of what later appears in literary form, I am particularly interested in the images and metaphors used by catechists to inscribe Christian identity.7 The following discussion of De baptismo will proceed as responses to two questions. First, in what ways did Tertullian seek to curate perceptions of the material creation as ordered to divine or heavenly realities? And second, by what logics did Tertullian attempt to argue for the need to delay baptism? ‘Christ Is Never without Water’: De baptismo and the dignitas of Creation De baptismo is perhaps Tertullian’s most clearly catechetical text, addressed to those in preparation for baptism and to neophytes whose belief was simplistic and liable to alternative persuasions.8 The first portion of the treatise (sections 1-9) takes its point of departure in response to a female teacher of the ‘Cainite heresy’, which had purportedly influenced a number of catholic Christians with its attack on water baptism.9 To this issue, Tertullian responds with a kind of epideictic praise on the ‘dignity’ of water.10 The next section of the but suggests that they ‘occupy a peripheral place in Tertullian’s literary career’, concerned only with ecclesiastical issues (Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Approach [Oxford, 1971], 120). Evans likewise notes that Bapt. and Or. stand ‘outside the three main series of his writings’ – apologetic, disciplinary, or theological (Ernest Evans, Tertullian’s Homily on Baptism [London, 1964], xi). Refoulé puts these two texts, along with Paen. and Pat., in a distinct category in the corpus, and dates them 200-206 AD (R.F. Refoulé, Tertullien: Traité du baptême, SC 35 [Paris, 1952], 12). 6 Éric Rebillard, ‘Sermons, Audience, Preacher’, in Anthony Dupont et al. (eds), Preaching in the Patristic Era: Sermons, Preachers, and Audiences in the Latin West, A New History of the Sermon 6 (Leiden, 2018), 92: ‘Rather than mining sermons for information, scholars now study the act of preaching itself and the delivery of sermons as a process of communication’. 7 See, e.g., Giselle de Nie and Thomas F.X. Noble (eds), Envisioning Experience in Late Antiquity and the Late Middle Ages: Dynamic Patterns in Texts and Images (Surrey, 2012), 1-12; Paul R. Kolbet, Augustine and the Cure of Souls: Revising a Classical Ideal (Notre Dame, 2010); Carol Harrison, The Art of Listening in the Early Church (Oxford, 2013), 87-116. 8 Bapt. 1.1 (trans. E. Evans, Tertullian’s Homily on Baptism [1964], 5): instruens tam eos qui cum maxime formantur quam et illos qui simpliciter credidisse contenti, non exploratis rationibus traditionum, temptabilem fidem per imperitiam portant. 9 The only surviving manuscript, from the twelfth-century Clairvaux collection (now at Troyes), has caina haeresi. The first printed edition (1545), has it as Gaiana. 10 Bapt. 3.1 (Evans, 3).

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treatise (10-16) responds to various scripturally based reasons why one might avoid or put off baptism. And the remaining chapters (17-20) provide guidelines for the proper administration of baptism. It has been suggested that the somewhat unorganized nature of this treatise stems from an originally homiletic context, with later emendations accumulated to respond to different arguments against baptism.11 This form actually accords quite well with later styles of catechetical handbooks, such as Gregory of Nyssa’s Catechetical Oration, which were edited and arranged to supply catechists with responses to different objections catechumens might have depending on their potential backgrounds.12 We know very little about these so-called Cainites.13 Ancient heresiologists considered them a variety of ‘knowledge falsely so-called,’ sometimes associated with Ophitic circles (Ps.-Tertullian, Adu. omn. haer. 2; Origen, c. Cels. 3.13), other times with Nicolaitans (Tertullian, Praesr. 33.10) or Carpocratians (Irenaeus, Haer. 1.31.2; Epiphanius, Pan. 38.1.6), and still other times as progenitors of Valentinians (Irenaeus, Haer. 1.31.4).14 According to Irenaeus and Epiphanius, the Cainites believed that the higher power sired Cain, who then became, along with Esau, the Sodomites, and finally Judas, an enemy of the creator of the world, escaping demise though transposition into the higher aeons via gnosis of the higher power.15 None of this teaching is immediately apparent in De baptismo. The only immediate issue is that apparently this woman taught that water baptism was unnecessary. Yet if Cainite or some related teaching is in the background, it does help make sense of why Tertullian spends so much time attempting to 11

E. Evans, Tertullian’s Homily on Baptism (1964), xi; R.F. Refoulé, Tertullien: Traité du baptême, SC 35 (Paris, 1952), 11. 12 For a helpful discussion, see Ignatius Green, ‘Introduction’, in Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Discourse: A Handbook for Catechists (Yonkers, 2019), 18-24. 13 A flurry of scholarship a little over a decade ago became newly interested in the Cainites with the (then) recent discovery of the Gospel of Judas. Given this text’s Sethian rather than Cainite orientation, some proposed that the Cainites were an Irenaean fiction, e.g., Birger Pearson, Ancient Gnosticisms: Tradition and Literature (Minneapolis, 2007), 48-50; Bart Ehrman, The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot (New York, 2006), 64-5, while others re-affirmed their historical verity, though qualified the extent to which this text relates to the Cainites depicted in the ancient sources, Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Judas: Rewriting Early Christianity (Oxford, 2007), 114-31. April DeConick notes that Irenaeus did not explicitly say that the Cainites produced the Gospel of Judas, only certain people who traced themselves back to Cain; it was Epiphanius who made the connection more explicitly (‘After the Gospel of Judas’, in Jacob Albert van den Berg et al. [eds], ‘In Search of Truth’: Augustine, Manichaeism and Other Gnosticism: Studies for Johannes van Oort at 60 [Leiden, 2011], 629). 14 In addition, mention of Cainites can be found in Hippolytus, Ref. 8.20 and Jerome, Ep. 69.1. Tertullian’s derisive comment that she is a ‘viper’ who dwells on dry land, as opposed to Christians who belong in the water, might suggest also Naassene groups, for whom the serpent of Genesis symbolized gnosis. It may be noted, too, that Marcion claimed Cain as one of the few Old Testament figures, along with Esau and the Sodomites, whom Christ redeemed from the dead. 15 Irenaeus, Haer. 1.31.1-2; Epiphanius, Pan. 38.1.1-4. This confirms, for Gathercole the Cainites’ basic gnostic orientation, S. Gathercole, Gospel of Judas (2007), 118.

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explain the goodness of water – a product of the creator – and its close relation to salvation through water baptism. Furthermore, it explains the development and explication of Old Testament water-related typologies. Tertullian’s concern, in other words, is not simply to supply an abstract theology or practice of baptism. He is animated to present images of creation that in turn serve as preconditions for properly administered baptisms. Tertullian works very hard here to correlate creation and salvation in order to give the more susceptible members of the church a proper perception of God’s ability to work in and through ordinary matter. Against a gnostic disjunction between a higher power who administered salvation through gnosis and a creator god responsible for the production of matter (in this case water), Tertullian sought to retrain his catechumens’ cosmological imaginaries so as to make clear why their participation in water baptism was both necessary and important. If certain enemies of water baptism condemned its use as the product of a lesser, and possibly misanthropic god, Tertullian stressed the simplicity of water baptism, which nonetheless demonstrated the extraordinary power of God.16 When a person goes down into the water, Tertullian says, they do so with ‘complete simplicity, without pomp, without any unusual preparation, and not least without any expenses’; when they emerge having attaining eternity, the power of God comes fully to light.17 Tertullian strives here to cultivate a sense of faith – of admiratio – in God’s ability to work in and through the ordinary means of water.18 Tertullian utilizes the Pauline principle of foolishness confounding the wise as a rule for elucidating the dignitas of water in Scripture (see 1Cor. 1:27). His primary Old Testament biblical motifs are from Genesis and Exodus, interpreted typologically with mostly Johannine passages.19 The great antiquity of water, pre-existing even God’s ordering of creation in the beginning of time, was one such cause for honor.20 Another was water’s originally generative capacity. Scripture speaks of water as the first element that gave life to other 16 Bapt. 2.1: nihil adeo nihil adeo est quod obduret mentes hominum quam simplicitas diuinorum operum quae in actu uidetur, et magnificentia quae in effectu repromittitur. Refoulé notes that this passage bears a similarity to similar rhetorical effects in other anti-gnostic passages such as Marc. 2.2 and Carn. 5 (SC 35, 66 n. 5). 17 Bapt. 2.2 (Evans, 4-5): sine pompa sine apparatu nouo aliquo, denique sine sumptu, homo in aqua demissus et inter pauca uerba tinctus non multo uel nihilo mundior resurgit, eo incredibilis existimatur consecutio aeternitatis. 18 Bapt. 2.2: quia mirandum est, idcirco non creditur? atquin eo magis credendum est: qualia enim decet esse opera diuina nisi super omnem admirationem? On the theme of power and simplicity in this treatise, see Eric Osborn, Tertullian: First Theologian of the West (Cambridge, 1997), 2-4, and Øyvind Norderval, ‘Simplicity and Power: Tertullian’s De Baptismo’, in David Hellholm et al. (eds), Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity (Berlin, 2011), II 947-72. 19 R.F. Refoulé, ‘Introduction’, SC 35, 21-8. 20 Bapt. 3.2 (Evans, 6). Sider notes antiquity as typical merit of laudatory speech in epideictic rhetoric (R. Sider, Ancient Rhetoric [1971], 125).

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creatures (Gen. 1:20), and so it should not surprise that it now has the power to grant new life in baptism. Thus, concludes Tertullian, ‘it is not to be doubted that the material God has disposed in all things and in all his works he has also prepared in these very sacraments, so that what governs earthly life may procure heavenly things also’.21 Tertullian raises the question of whether this view of water’s power reintroduces a kind of pagan idolatry. What difference is there, he asks, between Christian baptism and the rites of Isis and Mithras, or the purification rituals of the Apollinarian and Pelusian games?22 Tertullian’s raising of this comparison, if only to dismantle it, provides him the opportunity to clarify the relationship between creaturely realities and angelic or divine sources of power. These pagan baptisms, Tertullian tries to make clear, are ineffectual, not because they use water but because they are ordered to demonic forces. These rites pervert the true washing of Christian baptism. At the same time, however, there is an implicit assumption that the pagan intuition is correct – water is meant for healing. This is why unclean spirits will often be found ‘pretending to reproduce that primordial resting of the divine Spirit upon them’.23 The problem is not their appropriation of water, but their misconnecting water with its proper divine source. Having shown the disillusionment of such rituals, Tertullian next shows how Christian baptism offers true salvation through the proper ordering of the natural waters to the grace of the Holy Spirit. It begins with an angelic preparation of the water, such as in the pool of Bethsaida (Jn. 5:4), where physical healing was administered to those who entered its angel-stirred waters. The physical healing in the Scripture passage served as a type of spiritual healing, according to a general rule that carnal things precede spiritual things in a figurative manner. In this way, baptism restores to humankind the likeness of God by washing away guilt. Employing a distinction frequent in Irenaeus (though only occurring in Tertullian’s corpus here), Tertullian says that the imago pertains to humankind’s creation (in effigie), while the likeness (simitudo) pertains to eternity; the Spirit of God was given in creation, but lost in the Fall.24 Tertullian then provides a more specific description of how water makes salvation effectual through its relation to the Holy Spirit. Technically, he explains, the Spirit is not in the water per se; rather; the angels initially clean human persons in the water, which prepares them to receive the Holy Spirit by a process of anointing and laying on of hands. Tertullian describes this process as the Spirit’s descent upon the waters ‘as though recognizing an original throne’.25 21 Bapt. 3.6 (Evans, 8): licet eo plenius docerem non esse dubitandum si materiam quam in omnibus rebus et operibus suis deus disposuit, etiam in sacramentis propriis parere fecit, si quae uitam terrenam gubernat etiam caelestia procura. 22 Bapt. 5.1 (Evans, 12). 23 Bapt. 5 (Evans, 12-3). 24 Bapt. 5.7 (Evans, 14). 25 Bapt. 8.3 (Evans, 18): pristinam sedem recognsocens. Evans translates: ‘revisiting his primal dwelling-place’ (ibid. 19).

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Tertullian’s need to clarify the relation between the material element, the angelic mediator, and the Holy Spirit underscores his catechetical goal of shaping a cosmic vision in which created realities – whether physical (water) or spiritual (angels) – are rightly ordered to God’s activity via the Holy Spirit. If Irenaeus’ report is correct, then Cainites, like the Carpocratians, connected salvation with a multiplicity of experiences that were accompanied by the activity of various angelic powers.26 It would be imperative for someone like Tertullian, then, to show the proper function that angelic powers play in the process of a water baptism. However, Tertullian also links gnostic ritual with pagan cultic practice, against which he articulates a view of creation that stresses materiality’s receptivity of angelic activity, which in turn prepares catechumens for the reception of the Holy Spirit in the baptismal waters. By the end of this section, Tertullian has rendered both gnostic and pagan ritual as variegated forms of a common problem – namely, a false understanding of creation’s proper relation to divine realities. Tertullian concludes the first portion of this essay by extolling the ‘patronage’ and the ‘privileges of grace’ that have been ordained in what he calls the ‘religion of water’ (religionem aquae).27 Setting out in rapid succession a number of figural connections between Old Testament water-related wonders and baptismal restoration in Christ, Tertullian emphasizes the close relationship between creation and salvation. Most of the figures are Exodus-related – the Israelites’ escape from Egypt through water; Moses throwing the branch in the bitter waters of Marah, which then became sweet; the water flowing from the rock, which was Christ. Tertullian concludes: ‘Consider how great is the grace of water in the presence of God and his Christ for the confirmation of baptism. Christ is never without water.’28 In sum, Tertullian offers in this catechesis a multi-faceted defense of water baptism by detailing at great length the understandings of creation and salvation that inform its practice. He positions himself against both heretical and pagan practices in a way that links Christian identity with a cosmological imaginary that highlights one god as both creator and savior. A Disciplined Community: Tertullian on the Delay of Baptism Having attempted to reimagine for his hearers the cosmic dimensions of water salvation, Tertullian also stresses the need to approach baptism with due reverence and fear. The emphasis on the delay of baptism in this passage has been of much interest in relation to questions about infant baptism. More germane to 26

Irenaeus, Haer. 1.31.2. Bapt. 9.1 (Evans, 18): Quot igitur patrocinia, quot priuilegia gratiae, quot sollemnia disciplinae, figurae praestructiones praedicationes, religionem aquae ordinauerunt. 28 Bapt. 9.3-4 (Evans, 20). 27

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the thesis of this paper, however, is that Tertullian’s encouragement to delay baptism would seem to justify the claim that pre-Constantinian catechesis was more about socializing new believers into a counter-cultural community, in juxtaposition to the more attenuated fourth-century forms, in which many catechists felt the need to discourage delay – especially among the new class of elite converts who followed Constantine in remaining catechumens until close to death.29 Yet again, however, a close consideration of Tertullian’s mode of argument reveals a more complex rationale for the delay of baptism, in which both anti-pagan and anti-heretical arguments converge to provide Tertullian an opportunity to reposition Christianity as the noblest form of life. In this section, I argue that Tertullian’s emphasis on delay can be seen as an attempt to distance catholic Christianity from unstructured gnostic forms of Christianity, comparable to the way neo-Platonists like Plotinus could critique so-called gnostic groups as a brand of Epicureanism, which was largely considered inimical to structured forms of learning and virtue within a well-ordered society. The key passages on the delay of baptism are De baptismo 18 and De paenitentia 6. In the former, Tertullian stresses the importance of needing to be well-educated before committing to baptism. In the latter, his argument for delay presumes that a Christian might use the catechumenate as a ‘holiday for sinning rather than an education in not sinning’.30 Given the gravity of change that occurs when one becomes baptized, baptism should be deferred until this significance is grasped.31 In both passages, Tertullian discourages rashly administered baptism, yet in neither case does the reason have to do with the social cohesion of the church or the threat of persecution. Tertullian certainly does have these concerns, but in these two passages, the more overt worries are a proper understanding of the significance of baptism. The need to make such a seemingly benign argument reveals the extent of contestation surrounding the meaning and function of baptism in second-century Carthage. His primary concern appears to be the need to counter gnostic or pagan assumptions that water rituals have a merely obligatory or transactional character, isolable from baptism’s ontological and ethical implications. If we consider the broader context of De baptismo, it would make sense for Tertullian to counter assumptions that the simplicity of water baptisms would not be worth taking seriously and so 29 Although cf. John Chrysostom, Instr. 12.21, where he cautions against seeking baptism before the appropriate reformations of moral life are made. Éric Rebillard questions the assumption that Augustine’s concern for delay was based on an influx of new catechumens grasping for social privileges without the commitments entailed by full membership, ‘La figure du catéchumène et le problème du délai du baptême dans la pastorale d’Augustin’, in G. Madec (ed.), Augustin Prédicateur (Paris, 1998), 287-92; followed by William Harmless, ‘The Voice and the Word: Augustine’s Catechumenate in Light of the Dolbeau Sermons’, AugStud 35 (2004), 23-4. 30 Paen. 6.3 (SC 316, 164): commeatum sibi faciunt delinquendi, quam eruditionem non deliquendi. 31 Paen. 6.21-4 (SC 316): Qui enim optat, honorat; qui praesumit, superbit.

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could be received hastily and without much forethought – especially in comparison with the more elaborate and expensive pagan rituals. We gain a better sense of Tertullian’s reasons for delaying baptism when we consider the well-known passage from De praescriptione haereticorum 41. Here, Tertullian makes a series of accusations against so-called heretical practice (as distinct from faulty doctrine).32 These groups do not distinguish catechumens from fideles, and instead allow anyone to enter church at the same time, to listen and pray together. They do not bar the non-baptized from participation in the Eucharist, and perhaps also the Lord’s Prayer.33 These heretical groups even allow pagans into their services, thus ‘casting pearls before swine’ (Matt. 7:6). Ironically, given what Tertullian has said in De baptismo 3 about the simplicity of Christian baptism, he says that these heretical groups consider their own lack of structure a matter of simplicity, in contrast to the elaborate orders of catholic communities, which they describe as mere affectation. These groups, Tertullian argues, promise knowledge without learning. They consider catechumens ‘perfect’ before fully instructed. They make no qualms about quickly ordaining a neophyte or lector without any testing or length of time. We do not need to assume Tertullian is giving an accurate picture of so-called heretical communities to understand his constructive purpose. In smearing such groups with the taint of Epicureanism, he implicitly distances catholic Christianity from seditious, non-providentialist groups within the empire, aligning himself and his version of Christianity with more socially acceptable forms of philosophical life. For a separate but illuminating rhetorical construct, one might compare Plotinus’s critique of gnostic ethos.34 In Enneads 2.9.15 – part of a section that Porphyry titled Against Gnosticism – Plotinus takes aim at the rejection of virtue associated with certain gnostic schools, implicitly linking it with Epicureanism. These schools, he claimed, lack any discussion of virtue – what it is or how it is obtained – and so placed them out of step with the best of Hellenistic philosophy and culture. They say, ‘look to God’, but do not advise how to live. It is only virtue, Plotinus counters, linked with right thinking about God that leads one to beatitude; ‘God on the lips, without a good conduct of life, is [just] a word’.35 To return to Tertullian, the logic behind his remarks is not merely an arbitrary one about church order. There is something implicit in gnostic theology, perhaps, that undermines the need for a catechumen to remain a catechumen for very long. As Rowan Williams has pointed out, the ‘strong gnostic emphasis 32

Praescr. 41.1-8. It is doubtful that the disciplina arcana as observed in the fourth century is already in place in Tertullian. Nonetheless, this passage suggests there was some sense of varying levels of participation in ecclesial gatherings. 34 On the extent and validity of Plotinus’s criticisms of the Gnostics, see Dylan Burns, Apocalypse of the Alien God: Platonism and the Exile of Sethian Gnosticism (Philadelphia, 2014), 42. 35 Plotinus, Enn. 2.9.15. 33

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on the recovery of an identity as a spiritual being, the discovery of one’s true genos, works against any differentiation between teacher and learner’.36 The gnostic sensibility that salvation occurs through gnosis and not through a disciplined form of learning and paideia cuts against a clear need for catechumens to undergo a period of instruction or to develop structures of interdependence and tutelage between catechumens and their teachers. Tertullian’s stress on the deferral of baptism can be seen as important for cultivating a sense of catholic Christianity, which claims to be non-gnostic in its philosophically sophisticated and structurally well-organized churches. Tertullian wants his hearers to imagine Christianity as not short-cutting the creaturely goods of culture and learning but instead as reintroducing properly ordered ones. Once again, at bottom of these discussions are the role of creation in the divine economy. Are structures of learning and discipline important? Not if salvation occurs through gnostic transposition through the aeons. However, if creaturely life is deeply implicated in the processes of salvation, then the development of learning communities constituted by instructors and catechumens takes on a new urgency. In sum, while we may continue to appreciate the deeply antithetical strand of North African Christianity witnessed to by Tertullian, we miss important dimensions of his catechesis if we do not see how the more fundamental issues of creation and cosmology figure into his practice. Anti-gnostic arguments are equally as important as anti-Roman ones. Indeed, Tertullian can best be understood as positioning both gnostics and pagans as purveyors of knowledge falsely so-called, with Christianity alone representing the true way of life. To counteract these alternative paths, Tertullian seeks to shapes a particular vision of reality among the catechumens – a view of creation ordered conjunctively to heavenly grace, with the church as the site of structured patterns of order and learning. Tertullian’s goals are broad and far-reaching, and considering his catechesis as merely social or ritualistic will be to miss important dimensions of his catechetical strategies. What is needed is a greater grasp of the multifaceted dimensions by which Tertullian presents the faith to those on the cusp of baptism.

36 Rowan Williams, ‘Does it Make Sense to Speak of Pre-Nicene Orthodoxy?’, in id. (ed.), The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge, 1989), 1-23, 15.

Prometheus, Creation, and Christ: Tertullian of Carthage’s Defense of the Christian Narrative J. Columcille DEVER, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA

ABSTRACT Tertullian of Carthage refers to the God of Christian revelation as the verus Prometheus twice in his oeuvre. In Adversus Marcionem 1.1.4-5 (= Marc., ca. 208), Tertullian deploys a version of the earliest textual record of the Prometheus myth, in which the titan is depicted as suffering punishment for his love of humanity and his opposition to the regime of Olympian Zeus. In Apologeticum 18.2-3 (= Ap., ca. 197/8), Tertullian evokes later developments in the Prometheus myth, in which Prometheus is depicted as the creator of humankind. In this essay, I offer a brief account of variations in the Prometheus myth in antiquity, from Hesiod and Aeschylus to Ovid. I demonstrate Tertullian’s knowledge of both strands of the myth in Ap. and Marc. in order to argue that his reference to Prometheus in the latter text activates a way of thinking about the unity of the God who creates with the God who redeems, a unity that unfolds in the course of the biblical narrative. For Tertullian, the unity of God as both creator and redeemer is fully revealed in Christ, and I conclude with a reading of the significance of Christ in the third book of Marc. For Tertullian, attending to Christ reveals both the unity of the Christian narrative and the incoherence of Marcion’s contraction of that narrative, which ultimately requires a myth that Marcion was either unable or unwilling to provide.

1. Introduction In her Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks,1 Simone Weil links ‘the first lines spoken by [Aeschylus’] Prometheus’ with ‘the end of the Book of Job’. Both, she thinks, evidence ‘the same mysterious linking between extreme physical suffering, accompanied by an extreme distress of soul, and the complete revelation of the beauty of the world’.2 Weil goes so far as to claim that ‘the story of Prometheus is like the refraction into eternity of the Passion of Christ’, that ‘Prometheus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of world’.3 Attention to the ‘carnal character’ of this suffering reveals, Weil thinks, ‘the love that God bears us’.4 In other words, Christ’s suffering reveals 1 2 3 4

Simone Weil, Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks (New York, 1957). Ibid. 59. Ibid. 70, 71. Ibid. 71.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 289-300. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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the depth of God’s love for the world, the love at the heart of God’s creation of the world. Of course, there are as many dissimilarities as similarities between the two stories;5 but for Weil, the Prometheus myth is not simply a Christian story, but an ‘intimation’ of Christianity, the intuition of a truth greater than the myth can of itself convey. In what follows I explore Weil’s intimation as it appears in two moments in Tertullian of Carthage’s oeuvre, wherein he identifies the Christian God as ‘the true Prometheus’. Tertullian describes the effects of Marcion’s teaching in the preface to Adversus Marcionem thus:6 ‘the true Prometheus, God Almighty, is lacerated with blasphemies by him [i.e., Marcion]’.7 Commenting on Tertullian’s reference to Prometheus in the preface of Marc., René Braun suggests that the figure of Prometheus (Προμηθεύς) appears in the treatise as a preliminary criticism of Marcion’s denial of ‘forethought (προμηθής)’ to the Creator.8 Although this is certainly part of Tertullian’s polemical purpose in the treatise, I propose a more programmatic reading of the figure, arguing that the explicit reference to Prometheus in the preface activates a way of thinking about the identity of God as both Creator and Redeemer that continues throughout the treatise as a whole. After describing ancient ‘work on’ the Prometheus myth,9 I show how Tertullian highlights Prometheus’ role as both creator and redeemer against Marcion’s contraction of the Christian narrative, that is, against Marcion’s emphasis on the redemptive action of God to the exclusion of that same God’s creative action. I then argue that Tertullian’s account of the coherence of the biblical narrative depends upon the unity of the agent who creates and redeems, the unity, that is, of the Creator and the ‘crucified God’. I conclude by gesturing towards the significance of Tertullian’s presentation of Christ at the center of Marc., how Tertullian unmasks Marcion’s claim regarding the incoherence of the biblical narrative (the separation of the Old from the New Testament) as itself unwarranted and incoherent. I describe this presentation as a defense of 5 Prometheus, for example, is guilty of a crime and Christ is not; Prometheus does not die but Christ does; Prometheus is punished continuously, but Christ only once in a redemptive act of self-sacrifice. I owe this insight to a personal correspondence with Geoffrey D. Dunn. 6 I have followed the Latin text in René Braun (ed. and trans.), Tertullien: Contre Marcion, Livres I-III, SC 365, 368, 399 (Paris, 1990, 1991, 1994) and René Braun (trans.), Claudio Moreschini (ed.), Contre Marcion, Livres IV-V, SC 456, 483 (Paris, 2001, 2004). I quote the English translation of Ernest Evans (ed. and trans.), Adversus Marcionem, 2 vol., Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford, 1972), making minor alterations without comment in light of the original language. 7 Tertullian, Marc. 1.1.5, ed. Braun (1990), 102: Quidni? petes quem verus Prometheus deus omnipotens blasphemiis lancinatur. 8 Braun (Paris, 1990), 103 n. 3: ‘Ici le motif est adapté à la polémique contre le marcionisme qui mettait en cause la prescience du Créateur … l’allusion au sens du nom même de Prométhée (= le Prévoyant) semble transparente’. Braun refers the reader to Tertullian, Marc. 2.5-6, ed. Braun (1991), 40-54 and 2.25, ed. Braun (1991), 148-54 for Tertullian’s defense of God’s providence. 9 See Hans Blumenberg’s Work on Myth, trans. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge, MA, London, 1985).

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Christ’s revelation of the love manifest in the self-sacrifice of Christ, which is at one with the love at the heart of creation.

2. The Figure of Prometheus Tertullian’s reference to myths of ‘Caucasian crucifixions (crucibus Caucasorum)’ and to Prometheus’ ‘laceration’ in Adversus Marcionem evokes the extant textual origins of the myth in Hesiod and Aeschylus. Hesiod signals the importance of the Prometheus myth by relating it twice, once in the middle of Theogony,10 and again at the beginning of the Works and Days.11 In the former, Hesiod displays ‘devious, wily Prometheus” as “bound … tightly in chains / too tough to escape from,’ ‘skewered’ through ‘his middle,’ while ‘a longpinioned eagle’ devours his ‘immortal liver’.12 In spite of his acknowledged ‘foresight’,13 Prometheus suffers for his ‘crafty deception’ of Zeus,14 both regarding the ritual meal at Mecone and his theft of ‘inexhaustible fire’,15 ambiguously gifted to mortal men.16 In the Works and Days, Prometheus is 10 See Friedrich Solmsen (ed.), Hesiodi Theogonia, Opera et Dies, Scutum, Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford, 1970), and the translation of Daryl Hine, Works of Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns (Chicago, 2005). See Hesiod, Theogony, ed. F. Solmsen (Oxford, 1970), 27-31, ll. 521-616, trans. D. Hine (Chicago, 2005), 71-4. 11 See Hesiod, Work and Days, ed. F. Solmsen (1970), 51-53, ll. 47-105, trans. D. Hine (2005), 24-6. 12 Hesiod, Theogony, ed. F. Solmsen (1970), 27, ll. 521-5, trans. D. Hine (2005), 71 13 Hesiod, Theogony, ed. F. Solmsen (1970), 28, l. 536, trans. D. Hine (2005), 72. See also Carol Dougherty’s Prometheus (New York, London, 2006), 4 on the etymology of ‘Prometheus (Προμηθεύς)’. Hesiod and Aeschylus seem to understand the second part of Prometheus’ name to derive from μῆτις, a cognate of the verb μέδομαι meaning ‘cunning intelligence’. ‘Recent work in linguistics’, however, suggests that the ‘μεθ-’ component derives from the Sanskrit root ‘math-’ meaning ‘to steal’, which indicates that the etymology refers to Prometheus’ theft of fire. 14 Hesiod, Theogony, ed. F. Solmsen (1970), 28, l. 555, trans. D. Hine (2005), 72. On the integrity of Hesiod’s presentation of the Prometheus myth, see Jean-Pierre Vernant, ‘Le Mythe prométhéen chez Hésiode’, in Mythe et société en Grèce ancienne (Paris, 1974), 178-94, and Jean-Pierre Vernant, ‘À la table des hommes: Mythe de fondation du sacrifice chez Hésiode’, in M. Detienne and J.-P. Vernant (eds), La Cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec (Paris, 1979), 37-132, as well as Jenny Strauss Clay, Hesiod’s Cosmos (Cambridge, 2003), 100-28. Each argues that there is ‘unity and coherence’ to Hesiod’s account, which is structured by giving and receiving, refusing and hiding, various gifts. 15 Hesiod, Theogony, ed. F. Solmsen (1970), 29, l. 566, trans. D. Hine (2005), 73. As Denis Donaghue notes in his Thieves of Fire (New York, 1974), 17: ‘In its simplest version, the myth of Prometheus tells a story to account for the origin of human consciousness. Prometheus stole it from Zeus and gave it to human beings, ostensibly in the form of fire’. 16 See D. Donaghue, Thieves of Fire (1974), 17-8 on the strangeness of the ‘stolen gift’. See also J.S. Clay, Hesiod’s Cosmos (Cambridge, 2003), 106-7 for her argument concerning the political (even, revolutionary) motives behind Prometheus’ seemingly gracious act of benefaction in the Theogony, namely, establishing a political alliance through reciprocal gift exchange with an eye towards overthrowing the Olympian regime.

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described as both ‘devious-minded’ with respect to the gods and ‘noble’ with respect to humankind.17 His benefaction is (once again) ambiguous: fire enables human beings to survive the onslaught of the evils unleashed Zeus’ ‘counter-gift’, themselves occasioned by Prometheus’ deception and theft. Aeschylus freely adapts Hesiod’s version of the myth,18 smoothing over ambiguities in Prometheus’ character by giving voice to Prometheus’ ‘excessive love of mortals (διὰ τὴν λίαν φιλότητα βροτῶν)’ as (somehow) the motive for his theft and the ultimate cause of his suffering.19 Not only does Aeschylus’ Prometheus give men fire, a symbol in the drama for ‘all arts’, the ‘use of their wits’, and ‘mastery of their minds’, he also saves them from some ‘shattering destruction’ prepared by Zeus. Aeschylus heightens the injustice of Prometheus’ suffering by suggesting that Zeus’ overthrow of Cronos and his allies was accomplished with the aid of Prometheus’ ‘foresight (προμηθής)’. Throughout, Prometheus’ love is contrasted with the absent Zeus’ reliance on personified ‘Force’ and ‘Violence’, by which Zeus both coerces allegiance to his new regime and impales Prometheus in the Caucasus. In both Hesiod and Aeschylus, however, the motivation for Prometheus’ act of benefaction remains obscure.20 Later traditions, evident first in the middle of the 4th c. BCE in Attic New Comedy,21 as well as obliquely in Plato,22 and 17

Hesiod, Works and Days, ed. F. Solmsen (1970), 51, l. 48, 50, trans. D. Hine (2005), 24-5. See Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Vol. 1 (Baltimore, London, 1993), 159, who remarks on the ‘surprising deviations from Hesiod’ in Aeschylus, although there is debate concerning the textual nature of whatever ‘dependence’ there may be. 19 For Aeschylus see Denys Page (ed.), Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoedias, Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford, 1972). I have relied upon the translation of David Grene in David Grene and Richmond Lattimore (eds), The Complete Greek Tragedies, Vol. 1, Aeschylus (Chicago, 1960). Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, ed. D. Page (1972), 293, l. 123, trans. D. Grene (1960), 315. 20 See, however, J.S. Clay, Hesiod’s Cosmos (Cambridge, 2003), 106-7 for an interpretation of Prometheus’ motivation in Hesiod’s Theogony, which (she notes) is ‘a problem that most scholars suppress or ignore’. The ‘problem’ of Prometheus’ motivation is even more acute in Aeschylus, in which any ulterior motive on the part of the Titan is muted. See also H. Blumenberg, Work on Myth (1985), 299-327, who provocatively suggests that absent the ‘consistent extension of the myth’ to include Prometheus’ creative activity, Prometheus would be ‘the “foreign god,” whose motive in espousing the cause of the forlorn beings is, precisely, love, because it is not duty and obligation – just as will be the case with Marcion’s foreign god half a millennium later’ (325). 21 See H. Blumenberg, Work on Myth (1985), 328, who writes: ‘Prometheus as the modeler of man is first attested, in literature, in the comedies of Philemon and Menander…’ Adaptations of earlier Prometheus mythology also appear in the comedies of Aristophanes, notably Birds, 1493-1552, in Jeffrey Henderson (ed. and trans.), Aristophanes III, LCL 179 (Cambridge, MA, London, 2000), 222-5. To my knowledge, however, there is no account in Aristophanes of Prometheus as the artificer of humanity. 22 See Plato, Protagoras, 320c-322a, ed. John Burnet, Platonis Opera, Vol. 3: Tetralogias V-VII Continens, Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford, 1903). According to Plato’s Protagoras, the ‘gods’ 18

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clearly, though much later, in Apollodorus of Athens (ca. 2nd c. BCE), supply what is lacking by suggesting that ‘Prometheus fashioned humans from water and earth’.23 These authors indicate that Prometheus was motivated to help human beings because he was their creator.24 Indeed, this strand of the Prometheus myth predominates in Roman sources,25 particularly in Ovid, who gives an account of Prometheus’ act of creation at the beginning of the Metamorphoses: Prometheus, son of Iapetus, made man / by mixing new-made earth with fresh rainwater … And when he fashioned man, his mold recalled / the masters of all things, the gods … [To] man / he gave a face that is head high; he had / man stand erect, his eyes upon the stars. / So was the earth, which until then had been / so rough and indistinct, transformed: it wore / a thing unknown before – the human form.26

Thus the ‘rough and indistinct’ face of the earth is transformed into human images of the gods, whose erect posture and upturned eyes render them capable of both immanent admiration of the world and transcendent surpassing of it. Prometheus emerges from Ovid’s telling as both the shaper of human beings form mortal species from the elements and command Prometheus and Epimetheus to order and distribute powers to all. Epimetheus preforms this work, but uses up capacities like strength, speed, and armor, before attending to human beings. Prometheus remedies this lack by stealing ‘technical wisdom (τὴν ἔντεχνον σοφίαν)’ and ‘fire’ from Hephaestus and Athena and giving it to human beings, for which he was subsequently prosecuted (see Protag. 321e3-322a2). 23 Apollodorus of Athens, Library 1.7.45-46 in Apollodorus’ Library and Hyginus’ Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, trans. R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma (Indianapolis, Cambridge, 2007), 7. Compare Austin M. Harmon (ed. and trans.), Lucian II, LCL, 54 (Cambridge, MA, London, 1915), 244-5. In Lucian of Samosata’s second-century CE Prometheus [on the Caucasus], Hermes testifies that it was Prometheus who ‘made human beings (ἔπειτα δὲ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἀνέπλασας)’. The same theme of Prometheus’ ‘invention’ of the human appears in Lucian’s short tract, To The One Who Said, ‘You are a Prometheus in Words’, with reference to Lucian’s own literary creations: see K. Kilburn (ed. and trans.), Lucian VI, LCL 430 (Cambridge, MA, London, 1959), 419-27. 24 See also David A. Campbell (ed. and trans.), Greek Lyric I: Sappho and Alcaeus, LCL 142 (Cambridge, MA, London, 1982), 191, who notes that in his 4th c. CE Commentary on the Eclogues of Virgil (6.42), Maurus Servius Honoratus alleges that both Hesiod and Sappho give the following account: Prometheus … post factos a se homines dicitur … ignem furatus, quem hominibus indicavit. Ob quam causamirati dii duo mala immiserunt terries, mulieres et morbos… To my knowledge, however, there is no explicit account in Hesiod, nor an extant fragment of Sappho, that claims Prometheus made human beings. 25 See also Horace, Carmina 1.16.13-6, in Niall Rudd (ed. and trans.), Horace Odes and Epodes, LCL 33 (Cambridge, MA, London, 2004), 56-7: ‘They say that when Prometheus was compelled to add an element cut from every animal to our primordial clay, he also put into the human heart the violence of a raging lion’ (fertur Prometheus addere principi / limo coactus particulam undique / desectam et insani leonis / vim stomach apposuisse nostro). 26 Ovid, Metamorphoses, ed. R.J. Tarrant, P. Ovidi Nasonis Metamorphoses, Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford, 2004), 4, 1.82-8: … quam status Iapeto mixtam pluuialibus undis / finxit in effigiem moderantum cuncta deorum. / pronaque cum spectent animalia cetera terram, / os homini sublime dedit caelumque videre / iussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. / sic modo quae fuerat rudis et sine imagine tellus / induit ignotas hominum conversa figuras, trans. Allen Mandelbaum, The Metamorphoses of Ovid: A New Verse Translation (New York, London, 1993), 6.

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and shaper of the world, drawing comparisons down the centuries with the biblical Creator.27 3. Tertullian’s True Prometheus Several early Christian authors gesture in the direction of the connection between Prometheus and the biblical Creator,28 but none as emphatically as Tertullian. In Apologeticum (ca. 197), Tertullian describes the necessity of God’s self-revelation through the Scripture (lit., instrumentum litteraturae) and summarizes the spirit-filled ‘prophecy’ of the authors of Scripture thus: These men would prophecy that there was one God, who made the universe and formed the human being from the earth – this one indeed is the true Prometheus –, who ordered the course of the world by the divisions and ends of the times, so that thereafter [the prophets] might proclaim what signs of majesty in judging [God] performed through rains and fires; what regulations he established for those under obligation to him; what he intended as recompense for those ignorant [of those regulations], those who forsake them, and those who observe them, since he is the one who at the end of this age will assign the reward of eternal life to those who have worshiped him and a perpetual and unending fire to those who have profaned him – when all those who have died since the beginning have been revived, and [their bodies] reformed, and all have been called to account according to their merits.29 27 See H. Blumenberg, Work on Myth (1985), 353-4, who writes: ‘So the introduction of the shaper of man alongside the shaper of the world carries no disposition toward Gnosticism [in Ovid] … The biblical Elohim’s talk of making man after his own image and likeness will have been an entirely heterogenous idea to the tradition that thought in terms of a demiurge’. 28 See Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1.21.106.1-2; cf. Strom. 1.21.103.2; 5.14.100.2. See also Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio evangelica 10.10 who refers to Sextus Julius Africanus’ Chronographia. In addition, Eusebius refers to Clement’s reliance upon Callimachus of Cyrene’s version of the Prometheus creation-myth in Praep. evang. 13.13. For Latin speaking Christianity, Tertullian’s North African successors, Lactantius (Divinae institutiones 2.10.5-6) and Augustine (De civitate Dei 18.8.1), both refer to the myth, offering broadly euhemerist interpretations of the figure of Prometheus. 29 Tertullian, Apologeticum 18.1-4 in Dom Eligius Dekkers (ed.), Tertullianus Opera, CChr.SL 1 (Turnhout, 1953-4), 118, ll.4-17: Viros enim iustitiae innocentia dignos deum nosse et ostendere a primordio in saeculum emisit spiritu divino inundatos, quo praedicarent deum unicum esse, qui universa condiderit, qui hominem de humo struxerit – hic enim est verus Prometheus –, qui saeculum certis temporum dispositionibus et exitibus ordinavit, exinde quae signa maiestatis suae iudicantis ediderit per imbres, per ignes, quas demerendo sibi disciplinas determinaverit, quae ignoratis et desertis et observatis his praemia, ut qui prodacto aevo isto iudicaturus sit suos cultores in vitae aeternae retributionem, profanos in ignem aeque perpetem et iugem, suscitatis omnibus ab initio defunctis et reformatis et recensitis ad utriusque meriti dispunctionem. I consulted the translations of T.R. Glover (trans.), Tertullian: Apology, De spectaculis, LCL 250 (Cambridge, MA, 1931), 88-91, and Robert D. Sider in his Christian and Pagan in the Roman Empire: The Witness of Tertullian (Washington, DC, 2001), 37-8, but ultimately, the translation is my own.

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According to Braun, Tertullian here invokes Prometheus in order to ‘affirmer, contre les fables païennes, l’unicité de Dieu, créateur de l’homme et du monde’.30 Tertullian thus affirms God’s oneness in terms of a myth well known to his pagan audience. Unlike the myth, however, Tertullian describes as true the Prometheus whose creative activity is described in the course of Scriptural prophecy. This prophecy extends from the creation of the cosmos as a whole (Gen. 1) to the creation of the first human being from the soil (Adam, Gen. 2:7) to the creation of the people of Israel from Noah (Flood, Gen. 6-9), Abraham (fire, Gen. 19),31 Moses (Law, cf. Ex. 20-4), and the prophets (eschatological prophecies, cf. Ezek. 37:1-14; Dan. 12:1-4).32 For Tertullian, this prophecy is neither merely oriented to the future, nor exclusively concerned with present, ethical matters; rather, it involves a proclamation about the past, and particularly, about God’s creative agency seen from the vantage point of the Incarnation. Tertullian’s claim for the Bible’s coherence requires that this prophecy be read ‘prophetically’, that is, with an awareness of what the Scriptural figures figure. For Tertullian, apprehending the prophecy of God’s creative agency requires the apprehension in faith of that same God’s redemptive agency, hidden since, but also in, the very foundations of the world. In Marc., Tertullian alludes to Prometheus’ suffering in such a way that he makes present the events leading up to that suffering, namely, Prometheus’ creative and redemptive activity. Prometheus is punished, recall, for stealing the fire that would enable his creation to flourish. Tertullian thus suggests a now traditional answer to the question of Prometheus’ motivation to save humankind in the myth: Prometheus suffers for creation because he is its author. By characterizing the Christian God as the ‘true Prometheus’, Tertullian suggests that it is precisely attention to the ‘crucified God’ that enables us to see what God’s act of creation always was, namely, God’s involvement in creation, God’s commitment to it, which costs not less than everything. Both creation and redemption issue from the same love and according to the same logic by which God manifests God’s greatness precisely in God’s willingness to condescend to and for us.33 This lowering extends to God’s willingness to 30

R. Braun, Tertullien (1990), 103, n. 3. In a personal correspondence, Geoffrey D. Dunn pointed out that the Prometheus myth seems echoed in Tertullian’s appeal to fire, not as an instrument of benefaction, but as an instrument of punishment. He writes: ‘It would seem that what makes the Creator true (and Prometheus false) is that the former not only creates but will judge’. That God’s goodness requires just punishment is another key theme in Marc. See, for example, Tertullian, Marc. 1.26.1-28.1, ed. Braun (1990), 226-36 and Marc. 2.11-9, ed. Braun (1991), 78-124. 32 See R.D. Sider, Christian and Pagan in the Roman Empire (Washington, DC, 2001), 38, n. 78 for the biblical echoes. 33 See Tertullian, Marc. 2.2.6, ed. Braun (1991), 28: Et ita deus tunc maxime magnus cum homini pusillus, et tunc maxime optimus cum homini non bonus, et tunc maxime unus cum homini duo aut plures, trans. Evans (1972), 94: ‘Consequently God is then most supremely great when man thinks him small, is then most supremely good when man thinks him not good, is then most 31

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have God’s own words and actions recorded in an all-too-human ‘body’ of text’,34 which Marcion’s editorial practice lacerates by severing the activity of the ‘God of Jews’ from the activity of ‘the Creator’s Christ’.35 Marcion’s “blasphemies” tear this Prometheus to pieces, that is, the true Prometheus, who is at once creator and redeemer, who reveals himself in ‘the’ narrative of Scripture proclaimed by the Church.36 4. Conclusion: Incarnation and Myth Up to this point, I have described the development of the Prometheus myth in antiquity, and specifically how subsequent authors attempted to account for the motive of Prometheus’ act of benefaction by suggesting that Prometheus was willing to suffer for humankind because he was their maker. I showed that Tertullian demonstrated knowledge of the full range of the Prometheus myth, and have argued that his account in Marc. activates a way of thinking about God that emphasizes the continuity of God’s creative and redemptive work. By way of conclusion, therefore, I will focus on how the incarnation enables one to identify that coherence in terms of God’s self-emptying love and suggest that Tertullian’s emphasis on Jesus’ flesh connects to Prometheus’ embodied suffering on behalf of humankind, thereby deepening his opposition to Marcion’s repudiation of the Creator’s works, and particularly, the flesh. In his characteristically bracing review of John Hick’s edited volume, The Myth of God Incarnate,37 Herbert McCabe remarks that ultimately the ‘mystery of Jesus … is the mystery of what “God” means’.38 Tertullian places the mystery of Jesus at the heart of his treatise against Marcion.39 Although Tertullian acknowledges the ‘superfluity’ of the third book of five, his first two books especially one when man thinks there are two gods or more’. See also Tertullian, Marc. 2.27.1, ed. Braun (1991), 158-60: … deum non potuisse humanos congressus inire, nisi humanos et sensus et affectus suscepisset, per quos vim maiestatis suae, intolerabilem utique humanae mediocritati, humilitate temperaret, sibi quidem indigna, homini autem necessaria, et ita iam deo digna, quia nihil tam dignum deo quam salus hominis. 34 See Tertullian, Marc. 4.2.3, ed. Moreschini (2001): Contra Marcion evangelio, scilicet suo, nullum adscribit auctorem, quasi non licuerit illi titulum quoque adfigere, cui nefas non fuit ipsum corpus evertere. Evans (1972), 263 renders the relevant phrase: ‘… he to whom it was no crime to overturn the whole body’. 35 See Tertullian, Marc. 1.10.3, ed. Braun (1990), 146. 36 Compare Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1: The Triune God (Oxford, 1997), 58: ‘If we say that the Christian God is the God identified by the biblical narrative, we must also say there is “the” biblical narrative only as we read the temporally, culturally, and religiously various documents in Scripture as witness to the continuing action of one and the same agent’. 37 John Hick (ed.), The Myth of God Incarnate (London, 1977). 38 Herbert McCabe, O.P., ‘The Myth of God Incarnate’, in id., God Matters (New York, London, 2010), 57. 39 Pace T.D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Survey (Oxford, 1985), 128.

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having argued his ‘proof that divinity implies uniqueness’, he offers an account of Christ as having been ‘announced’ and ‘foretold of all down the ages’.40 He devotes an entire book to Christ, both in fidelity to his original plan for the work, and for the sake of providing a comprehensive refutation of Marcion. More than this, however, Tertullian completes his investigation into the meaning of ‘God’ by examining the mystery of Jesus, and, in particular, how Jesus’ story can be understood as revelation of the Creator. The first mark of God’s goodness, according to Tertullian, is God’s desire to be known by created knowers.41 Creation, therefore, expresses God’s indefectible goodness.42 The Fall neither calls this goodness into question,43 nor pollutes this goodness by requiring the exercise of just judgment,44 but it does make saving knowledge of God apart from an explicit self-revelation virtually impossible.45 That is, knowledge of God requires both God’s self-revelation in Scripture and in Christ. For Tertullian, in order for revelation to be received as 40

Tertullian, Marc. 3.1.2, ed. Braun (1994), 56. See Tertullian, Marc. 1.10.4, ed. Braun (1990), 146; 2.3.2-5, ed. Braun (1991), 30-4; 2.27.4-5, ed. Braun (1991), 162-4, and especially his remark in 2.3.2, ed. Braun (1991), 30: Prima denique bonitas creatoris, qua se deus noluit in aeternum latere, id est non esse aliquid cui deus cognosceretur, trans. Evans (1972), 93: ‘So then, the Creator’s primary goodness is that by which it was God’s will not to be eternally in hiding, that is, that there had to be something to which he as God might become known.’ 42 Compare Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology (Washington, DC, 1995), 39-40: ‘[The] generosity of the incarnation is seen against another generosity and another gift, the act of creation, which was also done out of no compulsion and no need: ‘mirabiliter condidisti et mirabilius reformasti; you have wonderfully established and yet more wonderfully renewed’. The act of creation does not bring in its train the necessity of the incarnation, so the presence of God among human beings is doubly generous; but the sense of creation, the sense of the distinction between God and the world, becomes more fully visible to us in the light of the incarnation and the salvation brought to us when God became man’. 43 See Tertullian, Marc. 2.6.8, ed. Braun (1991), 54: Ceterum facile est offendentes statim in hominis ruinam, antequam conditionem eius inspexerint, in auctorem referre quod accidit, quia nec auctoris examinata sit ratio. Denique et bonitas dei a primordio operum perspecta persuadebit nihil a deo mali evenire potuisse, et libertas hominis recogitata se potius ream ostendet quod ipsa commisit. 44 See Tertullian, Marc. 2.11.2, ed. Braun (1991), 80: Ita prior bonitas dei secundum naturam, severitas posterior secundum causam. R. Braun, Tertullien (1991), 81-2, n. 3 remarks that the ‘parallèle rhétorique entre “bonté naturelle” et “sévérité occasionnelle”’ enables Tertullian to defer discussion of God’s justice until Marc. 2.12, in which ‘il montrera que “justice” et “bonté” ne sont pas séparables’. 45 See Tertullian, Marc. 3.6.4-6, ed. Braun (1994), 78-80 where he both addresses the ease with which human beings fall prey to ‘deception’, and refers to Scriptural prophecies (Isa. 29:14; 6:9-10 and Acts 28:26-7) directly addressed to God’s removal of ‘the whole faculty of understanding (omnem vim intellectus)’ from the people of Israel as a punishment for ‘loving [God] with their lips, but with their heart, withdrawing far from [God]’. See also the nuanced account of Frédéric Chapot, Virtus Veritatis: Langage et verité dans l’œuvre de Tertullien (Paris, 2009), 28-57 on ‘la connaissance de Dieu et la Nature’ across Tertullian’s works. 41

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revealed, faith is necessary: ‘it had to be believed, or remain ineffective’.46 God’s revelation in Christ, therefore, required the ‘preparatory work built upon foundations of previous intention and prior announcement’, that is, both God’s intention to create and to announce the redemption of creation through prophecy.47 Although Marcion is willing to acknowledge a ‘sublime’ advent of Christ, he repudiates Christ’s humble advent, that is, the advent of Christ in the flesh.48 For Tertullian, however, nothing is more revelatory of God’s transcendence than Jesus’ fleshly life, from his nativity (‘the nativity of God’)49 to his crucifixion (‘God crucified’)50 and resurrection. Here, at the apex of God’s ‘indignity’,51 the significance of the whole ‘rule of the scriptures’ is revealed.52 The difficulty of understanding the extent of God’s self-abasement impels the person of faith to ‘make request for the grace of God’ to be given in order to see how the ‘figures’ of the Law are manifest in the ‘New Covenant … in Christ’.53 46 Tertullian, Marc. 3.2.4, ed. Braun (1994), 60: Et utique tantum opus, quod scilicet humanae saluti parabatur, vel eatenus subitum non fuisset qua per fidem profuturum. In quantum enim credi habebat ut prodesset… (emphasis mine). Compare Tertullian, Marc. 1.12.2, ed. Braun (1990), 154-6. 47 Tertullian, Marc. 3.2.4, ed. Braun (1994), 60: … in tantum paraturam desiderabat ut credi posset, substructam fundamentis dispositionis et praedicationis, quo ordine fides informata merito et homini indiceretur a deo et deo exhiberetur ab homine, ex agnitione debens credere quia posset, quae scilicet credere didicisset ex praedicatione. As R. Braun, Tertullien (1994), 60, n. 5 notes, dispositio (‘intention’) refers to God’s arrangement of creation in such a way that the human being might come to know him (however imperfectly) through it, whereas praedicatio refers to ‘la parole divine’ recorded in Scripture. 48 See Tertullian, Marc. 3.7-8, ed. Braun (1994), 84-100, in which Tertullian appeals to prophecy to demonstrate the two ‘advents’ in which Christ appears: first, ‘in the humility of the human condition’ (Marc. 3.7.6, ed. Braun [1994], 90) and second, in the sublimity of the divine majesty (see Marc. 3.7.8, ed. Braun [1994], 92). In Marc. 3.8.2, ed. Braun (1994), 94-6 Tertullian claims that the root of the rejection of the first advent, in humilitatem, owes to an inability on the part of both ‘Jews’ and ‘heretics’ to believe in a ‘God made flesh (deum carnem)’. See also Geoffrey D. Dunn, ‘Two Goats, Two Advents and Tertullian’s Adversus Iudaeos’, Augustinianum 39 (1999), 245-64. 49 Tertullian, Marc. 3.11.6, ed. Braun (1994), 114: dei … vera nativitas. 50 Tertullian, Marc. 2.27.7, ed. Braun (1991), 166: deum crucifixum. 51 Tertullian, Marc. 3.11.7, ed. Braun (1994), 116: Tamen cum omnia ista destruxeris, ut deo indigna confirmes, non erit indignior morte nativitas et cruce infantia et natura poena et caro damnatione. On the question concerning what is ‘worthy’ of God, see Isabelle Bochet, ‘Transcendance divine et paradoxe de la foi chrétienne: La polémique de Tertullien contre Marcion’, Recherches de Science Religieuse 96 (2008), 255-74. 52 Tertullian, Marc. 3.17.5, ed. Braun (1994), 154-6: regulam scripturarum, according to which Jesus’ teaching and miracles are those prophesied concerning ‘Isaiah’s Christ’. 53 Tertullian, Marc. 3.18.2, ed. Braun (1994), 158: Et utique vel maxime sacramentum istud figurari in praedicatione oportebat, quanto incredibile, tanto magis scandalo futurum si nude praedicaretur, quantoque magnificum, tanto magis obumbrandum, ut difficultas intellectus gratiam dei quaereret; and Tertullian, Marc. 3.20.8, ed. Braun (1994), 176: Ita quae in Christo nova dispositio invenitur hodie, haec erit quam tunc creator pollicebatur, religiosa et fidelia David appellans, quae erant Christi, quia Christus ex David, respectively. Evans (1972), 225 renders

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In addition to affirming the unity of God’s agency, the figure of Prometheus provokes the question of myth, particularly the extent to which myth is an accurate description for the competing theological narratives of Tertullian and Marcion.54 On the one hand, Tertullian’s account of the ‘historical reality’ of both the Old Testament figures and their fulfillment speak strongly against any willingness to admit the genre of myth into an account of Scripture’s veracity.55 He criticizes Marcion, on the other hand, for failing to develop a myth, a theogony, that could account for the origin of the Creator. When he ironically praises Valentinus for his bountiful generosity,56 the irony cuts against Marcion’s lack of attention to the incoherence that results of positing two deities. Later, when Tertullian chastises Marcion for failing to assert a genuine dualism, something similar is at work.57 Rather than exhibiting what Judith Lieu considers ‘perplexity about’ or ‘lack of interest in Marcion’s own rationale for his position’,58 I understand Tertullian to be subtly analyzing that position, not as coherence masked by apparent incoherence, but as incoherence all the way down. Put differently, Tertullian’s attention to the mystery of what ‘God’ means, and his discernment of the ultimate meaning of ‘God’ in the story of Jesus, applies the pressure that gradually exposes the incoherence in Marcion’s theology, as leading inexorably towards mythology. In order to demonstrate this incoherence, Tertullian offers an account of the coherence of the Christian narrative, based on the unity of God and God’s agency, which unfolds according to the two-fold dispensatio recorded in the figura as ‘types’, or even ‘types and figures’. R. Braun, Tertullien (1994), 158, n. 2 clarifies that while τύπος is an ‘équivalent terme’, Tertullian hermeneutically privileges figura, usually insisting upon ‘le caractère historique de la figura’. 54 Compare Judith Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century (Cambridge, 2015), 16, who makes a similar claim about Justin Martyr’s Apology: ‘The context [of what Lieu calls the “mythologization” of Marcion] is provided by the demands of an apologetic: Justin is having to negotiate the similarities and differences between pagan mythology and the claims Christians made about Jesus’. 55 See Erich Auerbach, ‘Figura’, in James I. Porter (ed.), Selected Essays of Erich Auerbach: Time, History and Literature, trans. Jane O. Newman (Princeton, Oxford, 2014), 79 and R. Braun, Tertullien (1994) 158, who explicitly refers to Auerbach’s understanding of ‘Realprophetie’. One should also keep in mind the important intervention of Geoffrey D. Dunn, ‘Tertullian’s Scriptural Exegesis in De praescriptione haereticorum’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 14 (2006), 141-55, in which Dunn argues persuasively against assuming that Tertullian advanced ‘a unified or single attitude’ towards exegesis (141). 56 See Tertullian, Marc. 1.5.1, ed. Braun (1990), 120: Honestior et liberalior Valentinus, qui simul ausus est duos concipere, Bython et Sigen, tum usque ad xxx aeonum fetus, tanquam Aeneiae scrofae, examen divinitatis effudit. 57 See Tertullian, Marc. 4.1.11, ed. Moreschini (2001): Prius itaque debueras alium deum luminis, alium tenebrarum determinasse, ut ita posses alium legis, alium evangelii asseverasse. 58 See J. Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic (2015), 64, who characterizes Tertullian’s request for a genuine dualism as a ‘complaint’, but fails to develop what I take to be her real insight, namely, that from Tertullian’s perspective ‘a genuine dualism … would have been a more logical position’, or, on my reading, a more narratively coherent one.

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Scripture proclaimed in the Church. Tertullian’s readings in the final books of Marc. enable him to plumb the depths of the understanding of the ‘Christian truth’ of God’s transcendence articulated earlier in the work.59 The ‘antitheses’ evident in the world, and specifically, the world viewed from the perspective of Scripture, are God’s: ‘[God’s] antitheses are in conformity with his own world: for it is composed and regulated by elements contrary to each other, yet in perfect proportion (summa tamen ratione modulatus)’.60 It is in this sense that Tertullian considers Marcion’s God to be ‘irrational’. What he considers ‘the highest reason’,61 or reason informed by faith in God’s self-revelation, requires acknowledging that God’s involvement with the world necessitates the kind of self-emptying evident in creation and redemption. For Tertullian, this transcendence must be thought of as encompassing the union of apparent opposites, the resolution of antitheses, according to which God transcends a conception of transcendence that would prevent God’s involvement in the world.62 Tertullian was no stranger to irony, and his use of the figure of Prometheus, the mythological titan, ultimately serves as an ironic figure of Marcion’s theological incoherence. Simultaneously, Tertullian’s use of the figure activates a way of holding together the various patterns of coherence in Scripture, which he explores and integrates in the course of Marc. What emerges from his trenchant diagnosis of Marcion’s theology in relation to that of Scripture proclaimed in the Church is an understanding of the fundamentally non- or antimythological spirit of God’s self-revelation as incarnational, that is, as involving at every turn a self-emptying disclosure of God’s involvement in and commitment to creation.63

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Tertullian Marc. 1.3.1-2, ed. Braun (1990), 110-2; I refer to the way in which Tertullian unfolds the significance of his ‘definition’ of God, stipulated in Marc. 1.3.1, as ‘the supremely great (summa magnum)’, in the course of Marc. 1.3-7, ed. Braun (1990), 110-32. 60 Tertullian, Marc. 2.29.4, ed. Braun (1991), 174-6; compare Marc. 4.1.10, and see also I. Bochet, ‘Transcendance Divine’ (2008), 273 and J. Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic (2015), 76 on the Stoic background, as well as Eric Osborn, Tertullian: The First Theologian of the West (Cambridge, 1997), 103-4 on the ‘antitheses in God’. 61 Note that Evans (Oxford, 1972), 169 translates ‘summa … ratione’, as ‘perfect proportion’. 62 Tertullian uses philosophical discourse to show the incoherence (even on the level of reason alone) of Marcion’s conception of two Gods, but he does not rest there. If Marc. is purely deconstructive, then Marc. 3 is not (strictly speaking) necessary. If, that is, Tertullian is only showing the incoherence, on the basis of reason alone, of ditheism, or ‘theological dualism’. The third book is necessary if the biblical tradition is to add anything to what unaided reason can demonstrate. The evocation of an idiom and a coherence that transcends what the philosophers can articulate reveals an even deeper dimension of the incoherence that reason alone could locate. 63 I extend my sincere thanks to J. Patout Burns, John C. Cavadini, Thomas R. Clemmons, Geoffrey D. Dunn, Samuel B. Johnson, Christopher R. Mooney, and Cyril J. O’Regan for their generous and gracious feedback on earlier drafts of this essay.

The Engendered Soul in Apelles and Tertullian Benjamin CABE, Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, South Canaan, PA, USA

ABSTRACT Can a biological male have a female soul? Can a biological female have a male soul? These questions are at the heart of recent controversies surrounding gender theory, and from Christianity they deserve a theological response rooted in a deep engagement with the tradition. However, up to now, relatively little work has been done to address these questions from the perspective of the anthropology and Christology articulated in the patristic era. This article represents the beginnings of an attempt to remedy this lacuna. It will focus on the debate between Tertullian and Apelles on the engendered soul, which has been for the most part overlooked in modern patristic scholarship. The original catalyst of this debate was whether or not there is an interval between the creation of the soul and the body. However, as I will show, this debate has significant implications for modern gender controversies. Both Tertullian and Apelles come to admit the presence of gender in the soul. But this conclusion was to be consistently rejected by later church fathers, pointing toward a possible patristic consensus regarding the ‘sexlessness’ of the soul. In the final portion of my article, I will point to the writings of scholars like Valerie Karras, Verna Harrison, and Sarah Coakely who repeat this patristic consensus on the sexlessness of the soul, but also (as I will argue) diverge from it in important ways.

Nearly one hundred years ago Adolf Von Harnack remarked that the transference of the sexual distinction from the physical body to the immaterial soul within the theological system of Philumene and her companion Apelles deserves special attention.1 Though this sentiment was repeated in 2000 by Katharina Greschat in her excellent study Apelles und Hermogenes, further scholarly research on the subject has yet to be undertaken.2 On account of this, I would like to discuss the role and motivation of Apelles in co-pioneering this radical 1

A. von Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott (Leipzig, 1924), 190, n. 3: ‘Dort schon waren die Seelen männlich und weiblich (so Philumene in den Phaneroseis). Es verdient besondere Beachtung, daß sich die Prophetin mit dem sexuellen Problem beschäftigt und die Differenzierung nicht in dem Leiblichen (das paßte sich also nur an), sondern in der seelischen Anlage gefunden hat. Sie muß also auf ihr Geschlecht etwas gehalten haben’. 2 K. Greschat, Apelles und Hermogenes: Zwei Theologische Lehrer des zweiten Jahrhunderts (Leiden, 2000), 112, n. 11. Here, I see no reason to repeat the work of Greschat and will thus build upon her foundation.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 301-307. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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development in second century anthropology. Moreover, I want to suggest that even though Tertullian wrote vehemently against Apelles, he unwittingly retraced the same methodological errors – a subtle mistake that would estrange him from the developing consensus patrum concerning the soul’s sexlessness. With academic developments probing the boundaries of gender and theology in our own day, an investigation into the Apellean placement of gender within the soul seems timely. The evolution of Apelles’ theology was undoubtedly influenced by the visions of Philumene, which he accepted without question. Establishing gender as an aspect of the pre-existent soul, per her prophecies, was creatively integrated in like fashion; according to Apelles, when souls fell from the intelligible realm they were cloaked in a celestial substance and then trapped in corrupt material flesh.3 These souls then pressed their already-existing sex onto these substances – a process much like the pressing of a seal on wax. For Apelles, then, the differentiation between male and female is the result of this pre-existent differentiation of souls.4 This detail concerning the engendered soul would assist Apelles in his ambition to distance himself from his former teacher, Marcion. By confessing that Jesus Christ possessed a real, male body made of celestial substance, but not of gross materiality,5 he was able to account for Christ’s enfleshment and male form without capitulating to either of the two beliefs of the time: the incarnational credo of the growing Christian Church or Marcion’s alleged docetism. This distinction between Marcion and Apelles has been variously pointed out in German scholarship; for his part, Johannes Quasten noted that, ‘Apelles disagreed with Marcion in most important questions’.6 I shall draw out the implications of this for the soul’s engenderment in what follows. Contra Marcion, Apelles confessed a single, ineffable principle. To do this, he simply placed the cosmic battle between good and evil, as well as his theory of cosmogony, within the realm of created angels.7 The entire order of creation resulted from the dissociative efforts of two such angels. The first, whom Apelles calls the good angel, created ethereal matter in an attempt to depict the 3

See Tertullian, De anima 23.3 (31.25-7 Waszink); Epiphanius, Panarion 44.5.5 (196.24-7 Holl-Dummer) on the souls being lured from their heavenly homes to assume a fleshly existence; K. Greschat, Apelles und Hermogenes (2000), 89-91. 4 See Tertullian, De anima 36.2 (52.22 Waszink): … ante corpora constituens animas uiriles ac mulieres…; see below n. 15. 5 K. Greschat has labored to differentiate Apelles from Marcion, noting that the former devised a much more plausible solution to Marcion’s initial concerns (namely the link between the ineffable God and fallen creation): Apelles und Homogenes (2000), 89-91. Unlike Marcion, Apelles distinguished between the initial creator or demiurge (the good angel) and the God of Israel (the fiery angel). See Tertullian, De resurrectione 5.2 (926.7-12 Borleffs); De anima 23.3 (32.25-7 Waszink) and others (cited by Greschat on p. 91 n. 51). 6 J. Quasten, Patrology, vol. 1 (New York, 1986), 273-4. 7 K. Greschat, Apelles und Hermogenes (2000), 74.

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noetic reality and glorify God.8 This creation was not evil in itself, but it was not perfect – and the good angel repented of it.9 The second, fiery angel rebelled against the ineffable; he renounced him entirely, declaring himself to be a god.10 To finalize his departure, he wrapped around the first creation a kind of dense materiality which he used to trap the souls lured down from above. The souls that fell prey to his bait were concealed in the first-created sidereal substance on their descent through the spheres, which then formed a kind of protective layer between them and the corrupt flesh.11 As mentioned above, these engendered souls then imprinted their sex upon their materiality. Framing the narrative of creation in this manner – as a two stage process affected by two separate entities – allowed Apelles to avoid the problems with Marcion’s apparent docetism by pointing to sidereal matter, created by the good angel, as the source of Christ’s material body. In his view, Christ, though not born of the Virgin Mary, possessed a real body – a pure material shell – which he obtained on his descent through the heavenly spheres.12 Freed from the bonds of the flaws in Marcion’s approach, he was able to develop a mediation between God and the fallen souls through this first-created celestial matter, common to the economy of Christ and souls alike, as well as prioritize and maintain complete alienation of the ineffable from the evils of dense corporeality.13 Here, I would like to propose that, for Apelles, the engenderment of the soul would serve as an adequate solution to the tension between Christ’s physical embodiment as a male, via ethereal matter, and his complete separation from corrupt materiality. I would suggest that navigating this tension was Apelles’ primary motivation in accepting the engendered soul: it enabled him to account for Christ’s sexually differentiated body without its corporeal contamination

8

See K. Greschat, Apelles und Hermogenes (2000), 125. Ibid. 90. 10 Ibid. 92, 94-5, 128. 11 Tertullian expounds the Apellean view in De anima 23.3 (31.25-7 Waszink): ‘Our souls were enticed by earthly baits down from their supercelestial abodes by a fiery angel, Israel’s God and ours, who then enclosed them firmly within our flesh’ (the translation is that of ANF 3, ed. Ph. Schaff and A. Menzies). Unsurprisingly, the pre-existence of souls and slow dematerialization (or redistribution) of the body in the teachings of Apelles resembles Origenism. While Apelles would take a similar view of the material body he would necessarily disagree with Origen on the matter of sexual differentiation in the eschaton. 12 K. Greschat, Apelles und Hermogenes (2000), 128; see Tertullian, De carne Christi 21-2; On the Flesh of Christ (Peabody, 2012), 529. 13 As K. Greschat has pointed out, it seems clear that ‘Platonic dichotomy between the bodiless and divine-derived soul and the lesser body, considered to be the cause of all evil in man’, serviced Apelles’ claims. See K. Greschat, Apelles und Hermogenes (2000), 128, 93, 95. Furthermore, with gender an integral part of the noetic realm, and a part of pre-existent souls as such, we might extrapolate that Christ came to free from imprisonment to gross corporeality and the tyranny of the fiery angel these souls along with their sex (see K. Greschat, Apelles und Hermogenes [2000], 94). 9

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– as the sexual distinction could then be situated outside of the evil materiality devised by the fiery angel. Writing against Apelles, Tertullian would expend great effort in refuting his idea of the pre-existent soul – an error for which he blamed Plato.14 In this vein, he writes that ‘Apelles … gives the priority over their bodies to the souls of men and women, as he had been taught by Philumene, and in consequence makes the flesh, as the later, receive its sex from the soul.’15 The main point of contention, I would like to emphasize, was not the engendered soul, per se, but the soul’s pre-existence of the body, on which account it functioned for Apelles as the locus of the sexual differentiation. For this reason, Tertullian does not refute the idea of the engendered soul explicitly; instead, he undertakes the correction of Apelles on the origin of soul and body. Tertullian is adamant: ‘The soul … [is] sown in the womb at the same time as the body.’16 Prior to explaining his reasons for this view, which he does at length in the following chapters of De anima, he claims that, because the soul is not anterior to the body, sex must necessarily belong to both body and soul without disjunction. He writes: ‘The soul, being sown in the womb at the same time as the body, receives likewise along with it its sex; and this indeed so simultaneously, that neither of the two substances can be alone regarded as the cause of its sex’.17 The foundation of Tertullian’s argument – that the soul and the body originate at the same time – stands in contradistinction to Apelles’ theory of the pre-existence of souls. But in striking down Apelles’ argument, Tertullian follows him methodologically by reasoning through the formula of interval, concluding that just as the soul and body are not separated by interval neither can sex be distinguished as a unique characteristic of either but belongs to both alike. It should be noted that neither Apelles nor Tertullian distinguished between the sex of the body and the sex of the soul; neither claimed that there can be a discrepancy between the two. Both were claiming in different ways that the external sex/gender of the body is somehow also an internal sex/gender which belongs to the soul. Where Apelles claims that the soul is the sole point of gender, Tertullian claims that it is body and soul together. Regardless, Apelles 14 Tertullian, De anima 4 (5 Waszink); A Treatise on the Soul (2012), 203; but see K. Greschat, Apelles und Hermogenes (2000), 237 n. 14. 15 Tertullian, De anima 36.2 (52.22 Waszink): … Apelles … ante corpora constituens animas uiriles ac muliebres, sicut a Philumena didicit, utique carnem ut posteriorem ab anima facit accipere sexum; A Treatise on the Soul (2012), 217; see above n. 4. 16 Tertullian, De anima 36.1 (52.14 Waszink): anima in utero seminata partier cum carne; A Treatise on the Soul (2012), 217. 17 Tertullian, De anima 36.1 (52.14-6 Waszink): anima in utero seminata pariter cum carne pariter cum ipsa sortitur et sexum, ita pariter, ut in causa sexus neutra substantia teneatur; A Treatise on the Soul (2012), 217.

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and Tertullian alike, with their location of gender within the soul, are major outliers in Christian theology of the first millennium.18 I would now like to shift focus to the modern theological considerations of gender and the soul, where two distinct views – within two different realms – can be discerned. On the one hand, the idea that the soul is engendered seems to be the automatic assumption within most lay Christian circles. Various popular writers, and a handful of scholars, have taken this view to publication, including the Thomist philosophers Elliott Bedford and Jason Eberl,19 Peter Kreeft,20 popular writers such as Matt Walsh,21 and the Christian Research Institute.22 For his part, Dumitru Staniloae included a curious citation of Sergei Bulgakov on this theme in the sixth volume of his works on dogmatic theology.23 Outside of mainstream Christianity, the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints and the mystical sect of Judaism known as Kabbalah both place sex/ gender in the soul.24 18 See Ps.-Athenagoras, De resurrectione 23.4.2 (49 Marcovich): οὔτε οὖν τὸ ‘οὐ μοιχεύσεις’ ἐπὶ ψυχῶν λεχθείη ποτ’ ἂν ἢ νοηθείη δεόντως, οὐκ οὔσης ἐν αὐταῖς τῆς κατὰ τὸ ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ διαφορᾶς οὐδὲ πρὸς μῖξιν τινὸς ἐπιτηδειότητος ἢ πρὸς ταύτην ὀρέξεως. Jerome, Epistula 122.4 (CSEL 56, 71.2-4): Recte enim appellabo animam tuam, filiam animae ejus, quae sexus nescit diversitatem. Augustine of Hippo, De natura et origine animae 1.29 (CSEL 60, 330.23-4): Nam etsi anima sexu caret, non tamen quando appellantur mulieres, excepta anima eas necesse est intellegi. Cf. De ciuitate Dei 14.22 (CSEL 40.2, 45-7); On Marriage and Concupiscence, 2.13 (CSEL 42, 264-5); Ambrose of Milan, De Fide 1.12.78 (PL 16, 546D; CSEL 78, 36): Si igitur in Virgine usus deluit generationis humanae quemadmodum in Deo Patri propriae generationis usum requiris? Certe usus in sexu est, quia sexus in carne est: ubi ergo caro non est, quemadmodum carnis infirmitatem exigis? Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses 4.20 (PG 33, 480C-481A; ed. Reischl-Rupp): Ἀθάνατός ἐστιν ἡ ψυχή· καὶ ὁμοῖαι πᾶσαι αἱ ψυχαί εἰσιν ἀνδρῶν τε καὶ γυναικῶν· τὰ γὰρ μέλη τοῦ σώματος διακέκριται μόνον … Οὐκ ἔστι τάγμα ψυχῶν κατὰ φύσιν ἁμαρτανουσῶν, καὶ τάγμα ψυχῶν κατὰ φύσιν δικαιοπραγουσῶν· ἀλλ’ ἐκ προαιρέσεως ἀμφότερα, μονοειδοῦς. Gregory of Nazianzus, In laudem sororis Gorgoniae (orat. 8) (PG 35, 805B): Ὢ γυναικεία φύσις τὴν ἀνδρείαν νικήσασα διὰ τὸν κοινὸν ἀγῶνα τῆς σωτηρίας, καὶ σώματος διαφορὰν οὐ ψυχῆς τὸ θῆλυ καὶ τὸ ἄῤῥεν ἐλέγξασα!; Theodore the Studite, Antirrheticus 3 (PG 99, 409C): Ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ, μόνοις ἐν τοῖς τῶν σωμάτων ζητεῖται σχήμασι· μηδεμιᾶς ἐν τοῖς ἀσωμάτοις διαφορᾶς γνωριζομένης, τῆς χαραχτηριζούσης ἀμφóτερα. Οὐκοῦν εἰ ὁ Χριστὸς ἀπερίγραπτος, ὡς ἔξω σώματος, ἔξω ἄν εἴη καὶ τῆς προδηλουμένης διαφορᾶς; Ἀλλὰ μὴν ἄρσεν τεχθείς, ὥς φησιν Ἡσαΐας, ἐχ τῆς προφήτιδος· οὐκοῦν καὶ περιγραπτóς. 19 See E. Bedford and J. Eberl, ‘Is the Soul Sexed? Anthropology, Transgenderism, and Disorders of Sex Developments’, Catholic Health Association (2016). E. Bedford and J. Eberl, ‘Actual Human Persons are Sexed, Unified Beings’, Ethics and Medics 42 no. 10 (2017), 1-4. 20 P. Kreeft, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven (San Fransisco, 1999). 21 M. Walsh, ‘Calling Bruce Jenner a Woman is an Insult to Women’, The Blaze (2015). 22 Christian Research Institute, ‘Will There Be Sex in Heaven?’ (2011), Web: www.equip.org. 23 S. Bulgakov, Jacob’s Ladder (Grand Rapids, 2010), 91-3; D. Staniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology 6 (Brookline, 2013), 176: ‘Male and female principles are not reduced to a corporeal, sexual distinction, no, they are extended to the spiritual essence of humankind too’. 24 I would suggest that the placement of sex/gender within the soul could have galvanized the restriction of salvation to males within the Gospel of Thomas (saying 114). Whether or not this logical channel influence saying 114 would be worth considering. Nonetheless, it should be evident that the general premise of this theory, that differentiation of an immaterial substance such

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On the other hand, the sexlessness of the soul is well attested within academic circles and theological articles. Indeed, the modern theological conversation on sex/gender has been expanded by the contributions of Verna Harrison, Valerie Karras, and Sarah Coakley, and others who use Gregory of Nyssa to demonstrate that the destiny of the human race is even a transcendence gender through theocentric desire.25 Within the academic sphere, however, I would like to propose that there is still need to expand the discussion on eastern Fathers who speak of the the body as an integral part of humanness and its resurrected state in the eschaton to their western counterparts.26 Even though the topic of embodiment seems very much in vogue, I would like to suggest that, though the sexlessness of the soul the consensus of eastern and western Fathers alike, a sexless resurrected state is not. To be clear, my critique is twofold: first, it is of those who, like Apelles and Tertullian, argue for the placement of gender or sex within the soul. Second, it is of those who argue beyond the consensus patrum concerning the soul’s sexlessness by positing the resurrection of sexless bodies – that human beings become androgynous in the eschaton. The latter view is most explicitly represented in Karras’ ‘Patristic Views on the Ontology of Gender’.27 I would like to caution against such an extension, grounded as it may be in Nyssa, Maximus, and other eastern fathers, as it is not representative of a universal consensus. Simply acknowledging the restoration of the characteristics of a prelapsarian bodies does not adequately account for the physicality of the general resurrection, which, for Pseudo-Athenagoras (a possible eastern counterpart), Jerome, Augustine, and others is of primary importance in Christian confession.28 Rather, I would propose that this view of resurrected androgyny essentially reverses the Apellean method by noting that the soul’s sexlessness as the soul would divide the human race in a way that the material body does not, stands on the shoulders of two thousand years of Christian theology (namely by attributing sex to the soul), one is forced to the conclusion that there are male souls and female souls which are substantially different. Thus, the salvific work of Christ would be restricted to male souls, as He, being embodied as a male, would have like soul. Extrapolating from the famous saying of Gregory Nazianzus, that ‘what was not assumed is not healed’, the female soul would not be saved (see Epistula 101, Letter to Cledonius). 25 See Verna E.F. Harrison, ‘Gender, Generation, and Virginity in Cappadocian Theology’, JTS 47 (1996), 38-68 and ead., ‘Male and Female in Cappadocian Theology’, JTS 41 (1990), 441-71; V. Karras, ‘Patristic Views on the Ontology of Gender’, in John Chirban (ed.), Personhood: Orthodox Christianity and the Connection Between Body, Mind, and Soul (New York, 1996), 111-9; Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (Cambridge, 2013); and ead., ‘The Eschatological Body: Gender, Transformation, and God’, Modern Theology 16 (2000), 61-73. These point to ‘gender reversals’ in Gregory of Nyssa. 26 I would to point out that the very topic of embodiment been the foci of many of the aforementioned scholars, specifically Sarah Coakley and Hans Boersma. 27 V. Karras, ‘Patristic Views on the Ontology of Gender’ (1996). 28 See Ps.-Athenagoras, On the Resurrection of the Body; Jerome, To Pachomius Against Jerusalem; Augustine, On the Soul and Its Origin, City of God, and so on.

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is (re-)imprinted upon our resurrected bodies (of course, this analogy can only go so far). I would sincerely ask if it is possible to confess, with Gregory, Maximus the Confessor, and others, the provisional, postlapsarian nature of our sexually differentiated bodies without adhering to its disappearance in the eschaton? Might we confess a kind of transfiguration (or sanctification) of the sexed body, where differentiation exists but in a virginal state? Since it is well-admitted that God even works through our brokenness to achieve something of eternal, lasting value, this proposition seems plausible to me – after all, it is not materiality itself that is evil. These questions received interest when they were posed at the 2019 Oxford Patristics Conference during the initial presentation of this article. Still, it seems to me that discussion on these questions deserves more published attention. Within this article I have explored the motivation of Apelles in admitting sex/gender residence within the soul. I have argued that, in refuting Apelles on the pre-existence of the soul, Tertullian methodologically follows Apelles into error on the question of gender and the soul, estranging himself from the unfolding consensus patrum on the soul’s sexlessness. Additionally, I have made a first attempt at pinpointing where this error has been repeated in modern publications and religious systems, suggesting that such a view is the underlying assumption of most lay Christians today. Finally, I have attempted to suggest that the sexlessness of the soul, as consensus patrum, does not lead necessarily to an androgynous resurrection. The former, being attested to by eastern and western fathers alike throughout history, cannot be extended to the latter, which deserves further consideration than it is currently given in scholarship (specifically as a contrary view can be found in Pseudo-Athenagoras, Augustine, Jerome, and others). Since there is much to be gained pastorally from this subject, specifically within the realms of transgenderism and gender dysphoria, further investigation would serve the academic world and non-academic social sphere alike.

Hippolytus on the Virgin István M. BUGÁR, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary

ABSTRACT The correct assessment of the theological output of the early-third-century author Hippolytus was considerably hindered by the discovery of a contemporary text transmitted under the name of Origen that soon became attributed to Hippolytus nearly unanimously by scholars from the middle of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century and was still considered a work by the renowned author by many for further four decades. The discussion of this controversial text and later of its authorship took virtually all the space devoted to Hippolytus by the scholarly literature. Now that this unfruitful digression of Hippolytan studies is nearly over, it is worth revisiting the literary remains of this early Christian theologian for an assessment of his remarkably consistent thought. This concerns not only the fields of Trinitology, exegesis, or the theology of the Incarnation, but – largely resulting from his treatment of the latter subject – also his insights concerning the place of the Virgin in salvation history. In this field, too, his achievement is not only remarkable as largely unparalleled in the surviving literary output by notable authors of this early period, but also as completely ignored by earlier scholarship. Thus, in the present article I attempt at a comprehensive overview of his propositions concerning the Mother of Christ.

1. The Question The declaration ex cathedra of the dogma of the assumption of the Virgin in 1950 by Pope Pius XII1 had been preceded by a thorough research into early Christian testimonies concerning the tradition on the death of the Theotokos,2 1 Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus § 44: auctoritate Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, Beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli ac Nostra pronuntiamus, declaramus et definimus divinitus revelatum dogma esse, http://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_ apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus.html (with English; Italian, Portugiese translations); cf. Heinrich Denzinger and Peter Hünermann (eds), Kompendium der Glaubensbekenntnisse und kirchlichen Lehrentscheidungen (Freiburg-im-Bresgau, 199137) [henceforth DH], no. 3903. 2 For a review of these efforts see Stephen J. Shoemaker, Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2004), 9-25. The quest at first appears not to have proved fruitful enough, since the authorities quoted in the document are relatively late, from the eighth century: John Damascene; Germanos of Constantinople; Hadrian I: Munificentissimus Deus §10; 8.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 309-316. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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as is emphasized in the text of the document itself.3 The declaration triggered a research into the more general question of early Christian devotion to Mary. A comprehensive and balanced history was outlined by the Patristic scholar Hilda Graef in 1963, which remains unparalleled to this day. Now, she notes the scarcity of testimonies among theologians of the early centuries.4 The most significant ‘Mariological’ statement in this period is made by Justin Martyr, who extended Paul’s parallelism of Adam and Christ into that of Eve and Mary. This then had been repeated by Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen.5 Let me quote just the passage of Irenaeus, where he most widely elaborates the topic: Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying: Behold the handmaid of the Lord … Eve, however, disobedient: for she did not obey, even though she was still a virgin. Inasmuch as she, having indeed Adam for a husband, yet being still a virgin, became disobedient and was made both for herself and the whole human race the cause of death, so also Mary, having a husband destined for her yet being a virgin, by obeying, became the cause of salvation both for herself and the whole human race. ... Thus also was the knot of Eve’s disobedience dissolved by Mary’s obedience; for what the virgin Eve had tied up by unbelief, this the virgin Mary loosened by faith.6

Graef finds these assertions extraordinary for Irenaeus’ period.7 Indeed, very few early Patristic passages of comparable importance have been drawn into the discussion.8 As Stephen J. Shoemaker, the most recent author on our general issue,9 notes, there has been an overall tendency by historians to minimize the evidence on early devotion to Mary.10 He, however, claims that people were looking for evidence in the wrong place scanning texts transmitted as authoritative 3 Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus §8: ‘Many outstanding theologians eagerly and zealously carried out investigations on this subject either privately or in public ecclesiastical institutions and in other schools where the sacred disciplines are taught. Marian Congresses, both national and international in scope, have been held in many parts of the Catholic world. These studies and investigations have brought out into even clearer light the fact that the dogma of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption into heaven is contained in the deposit of Christian faith entrusted to the Church.’ (translation supplied on the site, see above n. 1). Ibid. §10: ‘we issued special orders in which we commanded that, by corporate effort, more advanced inquiries into this matter should be begun’. 4 Hilda Graef, Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion (London, 19853), 32-3. 5 H. Graef, Mary (1985), 40, 41, 45, respectively. This feature is highlighted – without naming the authorities – also by the document in question, Munificentissimus Deus §39 (cf. DH 3901): ‘since the second century, the Virgin Mary has been designated by the holy Fathers as the new Eve’. 6 Irenaeus, AH III 22, 4: translation quoted from H. Graef, Mary (1985), 39. 7 H. Graef, Mary (1985), 46. 8 Besides this, the most important trace of the place of the Virgin in early Christian theology is the first attested use of the adjective theotokos by Origen as attested by Socrates, HE VII 32 and by some fragments of Origen’s commentary to Luke’s Gospel. The validity of our testimonies has been questioned, although S.J. Shoemaker appears to be in favour of accepting them: Stephen J. Shoemaker, Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion (New Haven, 2016), 67-8, 71. 9 S.J. Shoemaker, Mary (2016), 30-129 deal with the early patristic period. 10 S.J. Shoemaker, Assumption (2004), 288.

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instead of apocrypha and papyri, which are in fact more telling in this respect.11 My proposal now is different; I suggest we look at Hippolytus, who for posterity is the most respected representative of pre-Nicaean orthodoxy besides Irenaeus.

2. The author Since a considerable confusion prevails concerning the author and his oeuvres, I should add a few words on what we know about his personality. The academic Dunkel – as a monograph lately put it12 – was created by the discovery of an early third century writing under the name of Origen in 1842. The author, a Roman presbyteros or episkopos was vehemently opposing the version of monarchianism proposed by bishop Kallistos of Rome and denounced him for a series of moral faults both of personal and of doctrinal nature. Since the author could in no way be Origen of Alexandria, and he was of a considerable learning and authority, the text came to be attributed to Hippolytus, himself an opponent of monarchianism and known as a bishop of an uncertain location. Thus Hippolytus has become an antipope and champion of Trinitarian orthodoxy. The timing was crucial. We are in the years before the First Vatican Council, at which the much-debated doctrine of papal infallibility was promulgated. The attribution to Hippolytus first occurred in 1851, just three years before the declaration Ineffabilis Deus by Pius IX, in which the pope of the First Vaticanum first asserted his absolute doctrinal authority while declaring the dogma of the immaculate conception of the Virgin.13 The doctrinal milieu of this period can be well described by the memoires of the Jewish convert Joseph Wolf, a seminarist in Rome in the late 1810s, who came across the issue many times, beginning with the very first lecture of systematic theology he sat: After the first hour was passed, I said to the Professor in the presence of all the other priests, ‘You speak here about the authority of the Pope in such a manner, that I suppose you believe, and command to others to believe, the infallibility of the Popes!’ He replied, ‘They believe in Rome indeed, that the Pope is infallible, but they don’t believe 11 S.J. Shoemaker, Mary (2016), ix. Of course the Protoevangelium Jacobi, apparently used already by Clement of Alexandria, has never been ignored. However, this is not the only revealing early apocryphon, as Shoemaker has pointed out. The 19th Ode of Solomon, roughly contemporary with the Protoevangelium is especially remarkable (ibid. 44). 12 The expression is that of J. Frickel: Josef Frickel, Das Dunkel um Hippolyt von Rom: Ein Lösungsversuch: Die Schriften Elenchos und Contra Nöetum, Grazer Theologische Studien 13 (Graz, 1988). His monograph, however, appears to have not dissolved the confusion; see n. 19 below. 13 Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854 Dec. 8) (auctoritate Domini nostri Jesu Christi, beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli ac Nostra declaramus) see DH 2803-4.

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it in France’. I answered, ‘The Catholics in Germany do not believe it!’ When I spoke thus, all the priests present arose against me, and said, ‘If you will stay longer in Rome, you must believe it; wretched wicked man! Do you not believe in the infallibility of the Pope?’ I rejoined angrily, ‘I do not believe in the infallibility of the Pope’. And when I had said this, I left the lecture-room, and went to Cardinal Litta, and told him that I had a dispute about the Pope’s infallibility, and that I did not believe in it. The Cardinal said to me with great kindness and softness, ‘You must not dispute about this subject until you have finished your studies. You will be persuaded of the Pope’s infallibility when you have heard the reasons’.14

In fact, it turned out that during the course of Church History Dissertations about celibacy, the holy wars, and the infallibility of the Popes, and reconciling the fallibility of Pope Honorius with the doctrine of infallibility, take up the greatest part of history.15

In such an atmosphere the supposed discovery of a debate of a much respected Roman martyr and doctrinal authority with another ‘pope’ was a sensation. No wonder that within a period of a few years several monographs were produced on the issue: by the militant protestant Josias Bunsen,16 by the much respected catholic professor of theology and later opponent of the First Vaticanum, I. Döllinger,17 and the Anglican bishop Chr. Wordsworth.18 In Britain, further, this period witnessed the rise of the Anglo-Catholic movement and only a few years have passed since the conversion of John Henry Newman to Catholicism. Thus the resulting excitement concealed for nearly a century how doubtful and unfounded the assumption of the Hippolytan authorship for the work discovered was. And even after the first concerns raised around World War II, one had to wait another 50 years until a clarification gradually began to emerge, mainly due to the work of M. Simonetti and A. Brent.19 This now allows us to concentrate on the authentic literary output of Hippolytus instead 14

Joseph Wolf, Missionary Journal and Memoir, ed. by John Bayford (New York, 1824),

25-6. 15

Ibid. 28. Christian Charles Josias Bunsen, Hippolytus and His Age: The Beginnings and Prospects of Christianity (London, 1852) a German version followed in the very same year. 17 Ignaz Josef Döllinger, Hippolytus und Kallistus: Die Römische Kirche in der ersten Hälfte der dritten Jahrhunderts (Regensburg, 1853). 18 Chr. Wordsworth, Hippolytus and the Church of Rome (London, 1853). 19 For the most thorough and illuminating treatment of the question (with further Forschungsgeschichte) see Allen Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century: Communities in Tension Before the Emergence of a Monarchbishop, Vigiliae Christianae Supplement 31 (Leiden, 1995); cf. also Manlio Simonetti, ‘Una nuova proposta su Ippolito’, Augustianum 36 (1996), 13-46; and J.A. Cerrato, Hippolytus Between East and West, Oxford Theological Monographs (Oxford, 2001). A recent re-examination of the evidence can be found in István M. Bugár, A teológia kezdetei – a jánosi tradícióban: A Melitón- és a Hippolütosz-dosszié [The Formation of Christian Theology and the Asiatic Tradition: The Dossiers of Melito and Hippolytus], Caténa monográfiák 16 (Budapest, 2016), 151-403 with an English summary on pp. 432-6. 16

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of the falsely attributed work that took nearly all the attention in the past one and a half century. The authentic oeuvres show a remarkable consistency and display a recognizable ‘accent’ with a network of recurring ideas and expressions throughout what remains of a once considerably large production. This will appear true also in the case of Hippolytus’ message concerning the Virgin Mary. 3. The evidence Although both H. Graef and S. Shoemaker omit Hippolytus in their account, our author turns exceptional attention to the Virgin as compared to other early writers known. Let us have a closer look at the nature of his insights. First, it is no surprise that we find in our author so deeply indebted to Irenaeus the typology (or as I prefer to call, the anti-typology) of Eve and Mary, together with the Marian-Christological interpretation of Gen. 3:15 (‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed…’ RSV)20. It is more unusual, however, that he calls the Virgin ‘saint’21 and ‘blessed’ – titles as a rule applied at this early stage to heroes of the Old Testament, to apostles, and to martyrs. Thus Hippolytus in a fragment addresses rhetorically the Virgin directly: Tell me, you blessed Mary, who was it whom you received into your abdomen and bore in your womb? Indeed it was the firstborn Word of God, who descended unto you from heaven in order to be formed into a man in your womb, so that the firstborn Word of God may appear joined to a firstborn man.22

It seems, that for Hippolytus, Mary shares this blessedness with her ancestors.23 He also appears to make his own the conviction present in the Protoevangelium and later in Origen that the persons called the brothers of Jesus in the Gospels were not indeed his bothers according to the flesh. As Hegesippus somewhat 20 Hippolytus, In Canticum Canticorum 25,5: Yancy Smith, The Mystery of Anointing: Hippolytus’ Commentary on the Song of Songs in Social and Critical Contexts: Texts, Translations, and Comprehensive Study, Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics 62 (Piscataway, 2015), 539. 21 Hippolytus, De Christo et Antichristo 4. 22 Hippolytus, In Elcanam et Annam fr. 2: Hippolytus Werke I/2, ed. Hans Achelis GCS 1.2 (Leipzig, 1897), 121 [my translation as all quotations from Hippolytus]. The passage appears paraphrased also in the Lucas-catena of Niketas the deacon: see Hippolytus, In Sanctam Pascham fr. 1, GCS 1/2, 267; cf. Pierre Nautin, Le dossier d’Hippolyte et de Méliton dans les florilèges dogmatiques et chez les historiens modernes, Patristica I (Paris, 1953), 22. The interpretation of In Canticum Canticorum 22,1, ed. Y. Smith (2015), 520, where the Virgin is compared to a chariot carrying the Lord, is uncertain. 23 Hippolytus, In Canticum Canticorum 27,9, ed. Y. Smith (2015), 558. Although, while the Georgian speaks of ‘blessed loins’, the Slavonic has it in singular ‘blessed loin’.

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earlier has termed them the ‘so-called brothers’, Hippolytus also refers to them as ‘those who were believed to be his brothers’.24 This appears to be assumed also behind the spiritual message of the following lines of The benediction of Moses surviving in Armenian: He called brothers those, who were held to be his brothers according to the flesh. The Saviour does not acknowledge them, since they were not real brothers. There were indeed some born out of the seed of Joseph, but he was born of a Virgin and the Holy Spirit.

The issue, however, is not so relevant for him as to be discussed or debated. What is really outstanding in Hippolytus is the role of the holy Virgin in his exegesis. No surprise, since he is the first Christian commentator of the Holy Scripture with a surviving corpus.25 Now, in his interpretation of the Old Testament, Mary, like Jesus or the Church, is often the subject of typology: Since it has been said ‘out of the blessing of the Lord his land...’ (Dt. 33:13a LXX), this can be referred to Mary, who has become a blessed land, as the Word has descended on her like dew.26

Similarly, in his first book of the Blessings in Genesis, Hippolytus discovers another allusion to the Virgin ‘blessings of the breasts’ (Gen. 49:25) [...] This refers to the breasts of Mary, which He has sucked, since these were indeed blessed as the woman exclaimed: ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!’ (Luke 11:27 RSV)27

So does Hippolytus interpret in the same work the messianic prophecy of Is. 11:1 not directly unto Christ, as usual, but unto the Virgin: The root of Jesse was the generation of the forefathers, planted in the earth like root, and the shoot come forth out of them was Mary.28

Another typological pattern so dear to Hippolytus concerns the Ark of the Covenant. In his commentary on the Psalms he writes: The Lord, however, was without sin, thus made out ‘of incorruptible wood’ (Ex. 25:10 LXX), that is to say, out of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit,29 and has been covered from inside and outside by the most pure gold of the Word of God.30 24 Hippolytus, In benedictionem Isaac et Jacob 30,1-2: Hippolyts Schrift über die Segnungen Jakobs, ed. C. Diobouniotis and N. Weis, TU 38.1 (Leipzig, 1911). 25 Cf. J.A. Cerrato, Hippolytus (2001), 15-25. 26 Hippolytus, In benedictionem Moysis: Hippolyte de Rome, Sur les bénédictions d’Isaac, de Jacob et de Moïse, ed. Maurice Brière, Louis Mariès and B.C. Mercier, PO 27.1-2 (Paris, 1954), 169 (Hippolytus envisages also a Christological and an Ecclesiological interpretation of the passage). 27 Hippolytus, In benedictionem Isaac et Jacob 108,3-8 (Hippolytus proposes also other possible interpretations of the Biblical passage). 28 Hippolytus, In benedictionem Isaac et Jacob 76,10-2. 29 Cf. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Ephesios 7,2; Ad Smyrnaeos 1,1 and, partially, Ad Trallianos 9,1. 30 Hippolytus, In Psalmos fr. 19.

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In parallel passages it becomes clear that the raw wood of the Ark are the Virgin and the Holy Spirit taken together, while the wrought wood is the body of Christ.31 This is enough to show that Hippolytus is our first source on the Marian interpretation of Old Testament passages, so much cherished by later liturgical poetry. What we do not find in Hippolytus, however, is the Marian interpretation of the woman clothed with the Sun of Revelation so popular in later Latin Christianity. While we do find it in the East in the sixth century, in Oecumenius’ commentary,32 and already in Epiphanius of Salamis,33 for Hippolytus the vision refers unequivocally to the Church. The above examples also reveal that Hippolytus’ interest in the person of the Virgin is clearly and deeply related to his emphatic theology of the Incarnation, or, better said, of the mystery of the Incarnation centred around the full divinity and humanity of Christ. While the Holy Spirit and the Word guarantee his divinity through the incarnation, the Virgin warrants his full humanity. This leads us to the appropriate context of his assertions, that is, Asiatic theology of the late second, early third century, which made this point its central message.34 Hippolytus, though most probably active in Rome at least in his later career, is an heir of this early Christian parlance,35 like Irenaeus. 4. A possible context Historians of religion have many times asserted that the location of the canonization of the epithet Theotokos in 431 was not accidental. It has been hinted at also by H. Graef36 and S. Shoemaker37 and emphasized by S. Benko.38 No doubt, Ephesian Artemis was a goddess that was in a sense both virgin and 31

See also Hippolytus, In Danielem IV 24,3; similarly De resurrectione fr. 2.ii.a; cf. In Elcanam et Annam fr. 4; Ad Mammaeam fr. in cod. Achrid., Mus. nat., 86.35, ed. Marcel Richard, ‘Les difficultés d’une édition des œuvres de S. Hippolyte’, SP 12 (1975), 51-70. 32 See H. Graef, Mary, 131-2, with an earlier Latin testimony: Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo de symbol III, PL 40, 661 probably by Quodvultdeus (see CPL 403). Cf. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, Andrew of Caesarea and the Apocalypse in the Ancient Church of the East, PhD. Diss. Université Laval (Québec, 2008), Vol. II: Translation of the Apocalypse Commentary of Andrew of Caesarea, 125-6 n. 596 with further literature. 33 Epiphanius, Panarion 78,11,4, see S.J. Shoemaker, Assumption (2004), 12. 34 Cf. Contra Artemonem, Eusebius, HE V 28,5. 35 I have argued elsewhere in detail that both the character of his theology and his attachment to all Johannine writings indicate this: I.M. Bugár, A teológia kezdetei (2016), 325-32, 339; cf. English summary ibid. 432-3, 435. For features of his exegesis and eschatology pointing to the same direction, see J.A. Cerrato, Hippolytus (2001), 127-259. 36 H. Graef, Mary (1985), 109. 37 S.J. Shoemaker, Assumption (2004), 53, 74-6. 38 Stephen Benko, The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology, Studies in the History of Religions 59 (Leiden, 1993), 256-7. The connection has been restated

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mother. It would be senseless to deny that religious patterns – verbal, emotional, and behavioural – do travel, or influence each-other either by way of affinity or of contrast. I also endorse fully the conclusion that the setting of Ephesus was not a simple coincidence, but, as I see, for a different reason. Ephesus was traditionally the place of residence for both the Virgin39 and John.40 Its broader geographical context appears to have been a place of birth of the epithet: theologos of the evangelist John,41 and might have played a similar role in the birth of the title theotokos.42 At least in the second and third century the Johannine tradition or Asiatic theology, with its hub at Ephesus, can be characterized, as we have seen, by a strong, uncompromised, and unequivocal emphasis on the divinity of Christ as compared to other authors of the same period – as is true already of the Johannine writings of the New Testament, which – whatever we think of their origin – were highly treasured in this milieu. The Johannine Gospel also closely connects the Virgin and the apostle.43 As indicated above, Hippolytus also clearly appears to belong to this Asiatic dialect of early Christianity. Thus what we find in Hippolytus concerning the Virgin fits into this early Christian tradition.44

and elaborated in a recent Canadian doctoral thesis: Carla Ionescu, The Enduring Goddess: Artemis and Mary, Mother of Jesus, PhD Diss. York University (Toronto, 2016). 39 See e.g. C. Ionescu, Enduring Goddess (2016), 154-6. 40 Justin Martyr, Dial. 81; Clement, Quis dives salvetur 42 etc.: the early evidence is reviewed e.g. in Eusebius, Church History, tr. by Arthur Cushman McGiffert, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers II 1 (Edinburgh, 1890), n. 568 on p. 132; and C. Ionescu, Enduring Goddess (2016), 146-50 followed by a discussion of scholarly opinions; cf. ibid. 107. For a brief but thorough discussion of early Asiatic Christianity with its centre, Ephesus, see Manlio Simonetti, ‘Alle origini di Efeso cristiana. Tradizione Paolina e tradizione Giovannea’, in Renate Pillinger, Reinhardt Harreither and Gunhild Jenewein (eds), Efeso paleocristiana e bizantina - Frühchristliches und byzantinisches Ephesos: Referate des vom 22. bis 24. Februar 1996 im Historischen Institut beim Österreichischen Kulturinstitut in Rom durchgeführten internationalen Kongresses aus Anlass des 100-jährigen Jubiläums der österreichischen Ausgrabungen in Ephesos, Denkschriften der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse 282 (Wien, 1999), 15-25. 41 See István M. Bugár, ‘Hippolytus Recast and a Late Antique Dies Irae’, Acta Antiqua Hungariae 56 (2016), 209-22, 215 n. 47 and 216 with n. 57. 42 In this case, however, there is evidence pointing to Origen (see n. 8 above), probably to his residence in Caesarea (Commentary in Romans, perhaps also in Luke). Eusebius is at least familiar with the epithet: Vita Constantini III 43,2; Contra Marellum II 1,4; Commentaria in Psalmos, PG 23, 1344; Quaestiones evangelicae ad Marinum, PG 22, 945 etc. 43 John 19:26-7. 44 Eventually, the Eve-Mary typology also (see p. 310 with n. 5 above) with its first witness, Justin Martyr, and its most eloquent elaborator, Irenaeus is closely connected to Ephesus or, in the broader sense, to Asia. Of course, it does not amount to say that the Asiatic tradition played the sole role in spreading the veneration of the Virgin; it would be, for example, pointless to attribute the Protoevangelium or the 19th Ode of Solomon to an Asiatic milieu; cf. also n. 42 above.

Fiery Trials and Salvific Water: Cyprian’s Use of 1Peter Edwina MURPHY, Morling College (ACT and UD), Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT Cyprian was bishop of Carthage in the mid-third century, a time when the church was facing opposition and persecution. He encouraged his flock to persevere in the faith by drawing on Scripture, so it is not surprising that he makes use of 1Peter in this regard. Cyprian particularly focuses on Christ’s innocent suffering as a model for believers, who should follow in his footsteps, as well as drawing on the letter for a number of Christological statements. In terms of maintaining discipline, Cyprian applies 1Peter’s directions on how women should dress to those in his congregation, particularly virgins. And given his focus on the unity of the church and its one baptism, he does not miss the opportunity to exploit the image of Noah’s ark. Finally, an interesting omission: although 1Pet. 4:8, ‘love covers a multitude of sins’, is often used in the early church with regard to almsgiving, Cyprian never quotes this verse.

Cyprian of Carthage was himself shaped by Scripture and, as bishop, he uses it to guide and direct his flock along the path to salvation.1 Whilst he is adept at finding texts from throughout the Bible to apply to his own context, 1Peter is particularly relevant to the tense situation facing his congregation in midthird century North Africa.2 Cyprian uses this letter to teach on the person and work of Christ, as well as presenting him as a model for imitation, particularly in his sufferings. He also finds explicit directions in 1Peter on how to live as a faithful Christian as well as appropriating the image of the ark in the context of the baptismal dispute.3 Despite Cyprian’s well-known reverence for Scripture, * I would like to thank the University of Divinity for providing the grant which enabled me to attend this conference. 1 Vit. Cypr. 2 (A.A.R. Bastiaensen [ed.], Vita Cypriani, Vite dei santi 3 [Milan, 1975], 6-8). Michel Réveillaud, Saint Cyprien: L’oraison dominicale (Paris, 1964), 53. 2 The phrase ‘In epistula petri ad ponticos’, used in Book 3 of Ad Quirinum (Test. 3.36, 37, 39 [CChr.SL 3, 130-1]), is similar to the phrase used by Tertullian in Scorp. 12 (CChr.SL 2, 1092), as already noted by Turner, and probably reflects the earliest Latin title of the letter. Cuthbert H. Turner, ‘Prolegomena to the Testimonia of St Cyprian’, JTS 6 (1905), 246-70, 258-9. In both Books 2 and 3 of Ad Quirinum, 1Peter is also introduced as ‘in epistula petri’. Test. 2.27; 3.11 (CChr.SL 3, 65; 3, 102). 3 ‘It is not right for him to render evil for evil’ (nec malum pro malo reddere liceat), Pat. 16 (CChr.SL 3A, 128) is probably not an allusion to 1Pet. 3:9, but to Rom. 12:17a, since Test. 3.23 (CChr.SL 3, 120) cites the entire verse from Romans.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 317-326. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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his use of 1Peter also shows that he is not averse to modifying it to suit his goals when necessary. The Person and Work of Christ Firstly, 1Peter is used to support some christological statements. Two texts are cited, among others, to demonstrate in Ad Quirinum Book 2, that ‘one cannot come to God the Father except through his Son Jesus Christ’:4 ‘Also in the Epistle of Peter: “Christ died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.”5 Also in the same place: “For in this also was it preached to the dead, that they might be raised up.”’6 The close link between the words of the first verse and the title of the testimony it is intended to support is clear. On the other hand, 1Pet. 4:6, the subject of much modern exegetical debate, has been truncated, the second part of the verse summarised.7 The words about judgement according to the flesh and living according to the spirit of God are simply replaced by the concept of being raised – Cyprian’s focus here is on the idea of being brought to life through Christ. He does not use this verse elsewhere in his writings, so we have no further information on whom he believes ‘the dead’ might be. As Michael Fahey notes, Cyprian’s use of verses from Wisdom literature regarding death (mors) shows that he understands it to mean spiritual death,8 and that is probably also the case here – the dead are simply those who have not yet been made alive in Christ. Another statement on the work of Christ, to which Cyprian refers several times, is that ‘Christ bore our sins’, an allusion, as Fahey suggests, to 1Pet. 2:24.9 Cyprian uses this phrase more as an aside than as central to his argument. So, in Ep. 11, while exhorting his congregation to prayer, he combines the words of Paul10 with the example of the apostles and of Jesus himself, who frequently 4 Quod perueniri non possit ad Deum Patrem nisi per Filium eius Iesum Christum, Test. 2.27 (CChr.SL 3, 65). John 14:6 is the first text cited. 5 1Pet. 3:18. 6 1Pet. 4:6. Item in epistula Petri: ‘Christus semel pro peccatis mortuus est, iustus pro iniustis, ut nos offerret Deo’. Item illic: ‘In hoc enim et mortuis praedicatum est, ut suscitentur’, Test. 2.27 (CChr.SL 3, 65). 7 Cf. Vulgate: propter hoc enim et mortuis evangelizatum est ut iudicentur quidem secundum homines in carne vivant autem secundum Deum spiritu. Cyprian’s testimonia collections are therefore reliable, but not infallible, sources for the Old Latin text then current in North Africa. For further discussion, including a defence of the attribution of Ad Quirinum to Cyprian, see Edwina Murphy, ‘“As Far as My Poor Memory Suggested”: Cyprian’s Compilation of Ad Quirinum’, VC 68 (2014), 533-50. 8 Michael Andrew Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible: A Study in Third-Century Exegesis (Tübingen, 1971), 172. 9 M.A. Fahey, Cyprian (1971), 521. 10 ‘Be urgent and watchful in prayer’ (instate orationi uigilantes in ea), Col. 4:2. Here, as elsewhere in his use of this verse, Cyprian omits Paul’s direction to be thankful. Edwina Murphy, The Bishop and the Apostle: Cyprian’s Pastoral Exegesis of Paul (Berlin, 2018), 129.

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prayed, even spending the whole night in prayer on the mountain.11 He then adds, ‘There can be no doubt that when He prayed He was praying for us, for He was not a sinner Himself, but He bore our sins’.12 Here prayer is not so much communication with God, as asking for forgiveness. This is because the letter is calling for repentance: the church is suffering persecution because its members have strayed from the Lord’s commands.13 The wording appears again in De lapsis, where Cyprian is arguing that it is Christ, not the confessors, who has the power to grant mercy: ‘Sins committed against Him can be cancelled by Him alone who bore our sins and suffered for us, by Him whom God delivered up for our sins’.14 Bishops must therefore be sure that what the martyrs request is aligned with the will of the Judge.15 Cyprian also refers to the concept twice in the context of the sacraments. The first is when prescribing the correct composition of the Eucharistic cup. Before explaining that the water represents God’s people and the wine represents the blood of Christ, the two being mixed together uniting the people with Christ, he says: ‘For Christ bore the burden of us all, having borne the burden of our sins’.16 The second is found in Ep. 73, one of the letters regarding the baptismal dispute, in which he questions whether Marcion can have baptism when he does not have the Trinity: Surely he does not confess the same God the Father and Creator as we do? Does he recognize the same Christ his Son, born of the Virgin Mary, the Word which was made flesh, who bore our sins, who by dying overcame death, who initiated the resurrection of the flesh, beginning with his own person, and who revealed to His disciples that He had risen again in the same flesh?17 11

Citing Luke 6:12. Ep. 11.5.1 (CChr.SL 3B, 61-2). Et utique quod orabat orabat ille pro nobis, cum peccator ipse non esset, sed nostra peccata portaret, Ep. 11.5.2 (CChr.SL 3B, 62). All English translations of the letters are from Graeme W. Clarke, The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, 4 vol. (New York, 1984-1989). 13 Ep. 11.1.1-2 (CChr.SL 3B, 56-7). For shifts in Cyprian’s perspective on persecution, see James Patout Burns, ‘Cyprian’s Eschatology: Explaining Divine Purpose’, in The Early Church in its Context: Essays in Honor of Everett Ferguson, ed. Abraham J. Malherbe, Frederick Norris and James Thompson (Leiden, 1998), 59-73. 14 This allusion is not noted by M.A. Fahey, Cyprian (1971), 521-2. It is followed by an allusion to Rom. 4:25/8:32. Veniam peccatis quae in ipsum commissa sunt solus potest ille largiri qui peccata nostra portauit, qui pro nobis doluit, quem Deus tradidit pro peccatis nostris, Laps. 17 (CChr.SL 3, 230). Although, as Bévenot clarifies, this statement is directed against the wholesale remission of sins without penance. It is not intended to ‘deprive bishops and priests of the power to forgive sins under proper conditions’. Maurice Bévenot, ‘The Sacrament of Penance and St. Cyprian’s De lapsis’, TS 16 (1955), 187. 15 Laps. 18 (CChr.SL 3, 231). 16 Nam quia nos omnes portabat Christus qui et peccata nostra portabat, Ep. 63.13.1 (CChr. SL 3C, 406-7). 17 Numquid hanc trinitatem Marcion tenet? Numquid eundem adserit quem et nos deum patrem creatorem? Eundem nouit filium Christum de uirgine Maria natum, qui sermo caro factus sit, qui peccata nostra portauerit, qui mortem moriendo uicerit, qui resurrectionem carnis per semet ipsum primus initiauerit et discipulis suis quod in eadem carne resurrexisset ostenderit? Ep. 73.5.2 (CChr.SL 3C, 535). 12

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His use of 1Pet. 2:24 in this instance is, therefore, part of a creedal formula on the person and work of Christ. Cyprian may be using it here in order to point out that the followers of Marcion cannot have the same baptism as they do not make the same baptismal confession. Imitating Christ For Cyprian, as for other early Christian writers, Christ is the model for the Christian life. This is summarised at the beginning of Cyprian’s ministry in a testimony entitled, ‘An example of how to live has been given to us in Christ’,18 in which one of the supporting texts is 1Pet. 2:21-3. As Deléani notes, a particular emphasis of Cyprian is that to imitate Christ is to follow him,19 and this is evident in another work from the latter stages of Cyprian’s life, De bono patientiae.20 Here he unites the image of ‘putting on Christ’ with that of modelling oneself on him by walking in his ways, combining the above text from 1Peter with 1John 2:6:21 But if we also, beloved brethren, are in Christ; if we put Him on,22 if He Himself is the way of our salvation, let us who follow in the salutary footsteps of Christ walk by the example of Christ as John the Apostle teaches, saying, ‘He who says that he abides in Christ ought himself also to walk just as He walked’.23 Likewise Peter, on whom the Lord had deemed it worthy for His Church to be founded, writes in his letter and says: ‘Christ also has suffered for you, leaving you an example that you may follow in His steps, “Who did no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth”, who when He was reviled, did not revile in turn, when He suffered did not threaten, but yielded Himself to [him] who judged Him unjustly’.24 18 Datum nobis exemplum uiuendi in Christo, Test. 3.39 (CChr.SL 3, 131). Also supported by Phil. 2:6-11 and John 13:14-5. This includes martyrdom, but is not limited to it, as the citation from John on Jesus washing the disciples’ feet shows. On the implications of this relationship between the martyr and Christ, see Candida R. Moss, The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom (New York, 2010). 19 See Simone Deléani, Christum Sequi: Étude d’un thème dans l’œuvre de saint Cyprien (Paris, 1979). As Jean Molager summarises Deléani’s thought: ‘L’auteur développe ensuite la spiritualité du martyre chez Cyprien, la prééminence de ce thème chez lui, le martyre non sanglant, l’obéissance et l’imitation jusqu’à la consummatio et la perfection … montrant alors que l’écrivain aboutit à une vie de foi qui reproduit scrupuleusement l’exemple des vertus pratiquées par le Christ tout au long de son existence, autant que dans sa Passion’, Jean Molager, Cyprien de Carthage: À Donat et La vertu de patience (Paris, 1982), 146. 20 It is referred to in Ep. 73, and therefore dated to 256. G.W. Clarke, Letters (1989), 4:219. 21 Cyprian was the first to combine these two verses. S. Deléani, Christum Sequi (1979), 63-4. 22 Allusion to Gal. 3:27. For Cyprian’s use of this verse with regard to discipline, see E. Murphy, Bishop and the Apostle (2018), 121-2. 23 1John 2:6. 24 1Pet. 2:21-3: Quodsi et nos, fratres dilectissimi, in Christo sumus, si ipsum induimus, si ipse est salutis nostrae uia, qui Christum uestigiis salutaribus sequimur per Christi exempla gradiamur,

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This is an interesting variation from the Greek (one shared with the Vulgate): Jesus gives himself up, not to the one who judges justly (i.e. the Father), but rather submits himself to the unjust human judge.25 This reading which, I believe, originates with his text rather than Cyprian himself, does, nevertheless, reflect the circumstances facing his congregation – believers must persevere in the face of injustice. The themes of imitation and following are again in view in De zelo et livore, where Cyprian quotes verse 21 alone: But he follows Christ who abides by His precepts, who walks in the way of His teaching, who follows His footsteps and ways, who imitates what Christ both taught and did, according as Peter also urges and advises, saying, ‘Christ has suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you may follow in His steps’.26

This imagery is continued later in the letter in conjunction with a brief allusion to laying aside malice in 1Pet. 2:1: ‘That you also may be able to arrive at these crowns, you who had been possessed by jealousy and zeal, abandon all that malice with which you were formerly held, and reform yourself to the way of eternal life with the footsteps of salvation’.27 To follow in the footsteps of Christ therefore encompasses imitating him in the purity of his life, as well as in his suffering and death. It is, however, the latter aspect which is emphasised by another citation of 1Peter in Ep. 58, Cyprian’s exhortation to the people of Thibaris who are anticipating intense persecution.28 He encourages his audience not to be surprised or dismayed by affliction as these things were foretold by the Lord and, likewise: sicut Iohannes apostolus instruit dicens: ‘Qui dicit se in Christo manere debet quomodo ille ambulauit et ipse ambulare’. Item Petrus, super quem ecclesia Domini dignatione fundata est in epistula sua ponit et dicit: ‘Christus passus est pro uobis relinquens uobis exemplum, ut sequamini uestigia eius qui peccatum non fecit, nec dolus inuentus est in ore eius: Qui cum malediceretur, non remaledixit, cum pateretur, non minabatur, tradebat autem se iudicanti iniuste’, Pat. 9 (CChr.SL 3A, 123). The same text, prefaced by ‘In epistula Petri ad Ponticos’, but reading ‘maledixit’ instead of ‘remaledixit’, appears in Test. 3.39 (CChr.SL 3, 131-2). All English translations of the treatises are from Saint Cyprian: Treatises, ed. and trans. Roy J. Deferrari et al., FC 36 (New York, 1958). 25 Not discussed by M.A. Fahey, Cyprian (1971), 521. Similarly, the Vulgate reads: tradebat autem judicanti se injuste. Tertullian does not cite this verse. If there was a Greek textual tradition behind this translation, it is no longer preserved. A similar concept is present in the Troparion for Holy Thursday in the Orthodox Church: ‘to lawless judges [Judas] delivered thee the righteous judge’. 26 Sequitur autem Christum qui praeceptis eius insistit, qui per magisterii eius uiam graditur, qui uestigia eius adque itinera sectatur, qui id quod Christus et docuit et fecit imitatur, secundum quod Petrus quoque hortatur et monet dicens: ‘Christus passus est pro uobis relinquens uobis exemplum, ut sequamini uestigia eius’, Zel. 11 (CChr.SL 3A, 81). 27 Ad quas ut peruenire tu etiam possis qui fueras zelo et liuore possessus, omnem illam malitiam qua prius tenebaris abice, ad uiam uitae aeternae uestigiis salutaribus reformare, Zel. 17 (CChr.SL 3A, 85). 28 Dated to May 253 by G.W. Clarke, Letters (1986), 3:226.

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Peter, His apostle, has also taught that persecutions come so that we may be tested and that if we follow after the just example of the just men who have gone before us, we, too, may be united to the love of God through suffering and death. For he makes the following claim in his epistle: ‘Dearly beloved, do not feel surprised by the fiery trial which afflicts you: this has come to test you. And do not feel dismayed because something unexpected besets you. But as often as you have a share in the sufferings of Christ, be exceedingly glad, so that when His glory is revealed you may also rejoice and be glad. But if you are reviled for the Name of Christ, you are blessed; for the Name of the majesty and power of the Lord rests upon you. That Name is indeed blasphemed among them, but among us It is glorified’.29

The same verses, with the same Latin text,30 are cited in Ad Fortunatum in support of the testimony: ‘That troubles and persecutions take place for this purpose, that we may be proved’.31 Cyprian finds in 1Peter words of comfort and strength that are directly relevant to the concerns of his own time. The contrast between the earthly and the heavenly, the temporal and the eternal, is typical of his thought. This close connection between the believer, Christ, suffering and glory is also found in an allusion to 1Pet. 2:24 that has not, to my knowledge, been noted before.32 In Ep. 76, Cyprian is writing to bishops, presbyters, deacons and others in the mines. In it he details their sufferings: First of all, you were severely belaboured and beaten about with clubs; such were the afflictions with which you entered upon the holy beginnings of your confession. However, that is not a matter which we need deplore. For the body of a Christian feels no terror at the sight of clubs, given that all his hopes in fact depend upon wood. Indeed, the servant of Christ discerns in them a holy sign of his salvation: by wood he has been redeemed for life eternal, and by wood he has now been set on his way to win his crown.33

29 1Pet. 4:12-4. Petrus quoque apostolus eius docuerit ideo persecutiones fieri ut probemur et ut dilectioni dei iustorum praecedentium exemplo nos etiam morte et passionibus copulemur. Posuit enim in epistula sua dicens: ‘carissimi, nolite mirari ardorem accidentem uobis, qui ad temptationem uestram fit, nec excidatis tamquam nouum uobis contingat, sed quotienscumque communicatis Christi passionibus, per omnia gaudete, ut et in reuelatione facta claritatis eius gaudentes exultetis. Si inproperatur uobis in nomine Christi, beati estis, qui maiestatis et uirtutis domini nomen in uobis requiescit, quod quidem secundum illos blasphematur, secundum nos autem honoratur’, Ep. 58.2.2 (CChr.SL 3C, 321-2). 30 Et Petrus in epistula sua ponit et dicit: [Cites 1Pet. 4:12-4], Fort. 9 (CChr.SL 3, 198). 31 Ad hoc praessuras et persecutiones fieri ut probemur, Fort. 9 (CChr.SL 3, 197). 32 It is not mentioned in the critical edition (CChr.SL 3C, 608), BiblIndex, M.A. Fahey, Cyprian (1971), 521-2, or G.W. Clarke, Letters (1989), 4:282. 33 Quod autem fustibus caesi prius grauiter et adflicti per eiusmodi poenas initiastis confessionis uestrae religiosa primordia, execranda nobis ista res non est. Neque enim ad fustes christianum corpus expauit, cuius est spes omnis in ligno. Sacramentum salutis suae Christi seruus agnouit, redemptus ligno ad uitam aeternam ligno prouectus est ad coronam, Ep. 76.2.1 (CChr.SL 3C, 608).

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The similarity of the experience of Cyprian’s correspondents with the unjust beatings envisaged in 1Pet. 2:18-20,34 along with the wood of 1Pet. 2:24, makes it likely that it is this image that has inspired Cyprian to rhetorically reframe the sufferings of those imprisoned.35 The wood of clubs is not to be feared given that the Christian has been redeemed by the wood of the cross. Eternal hope is dependent upon that wood, so it is only fitting that in this instance their path to martyrdom commences with suffering caused by wood. Discipline The concern with suffering for the right reasons, rather than the wrong ones, is evident in the testimony, ‘The believer ought not to be punished for other offences, except for the name he bears’.36 In support, Cyprian cites 1Pet. 4:156a: ‘In the Epistle of Peter to those in Pontus: “Nor let any of you suffer as a thief, or a murderer, or as an evil-doer, or someone who interferes in other people’s business, but as a Christian”’.37 Cyprian has cause to allude to these verses in Ep. 13 (to Rogatianus the presbyter and other released confessors), encouraging them to maintain gospel discipline. The upright confessors must rebuke those who are disgracing the reputation of the entire group, through drunkenness and debauchery or by unlawfully returning from banishment, ‘so that he dies, if he is caught, now not as a Christian but as a criminal’.38 Cyprian has already pointed out that while all Christians are to ‘persevere along the straight and narrow road of honour and glory’,39 this is even more crucial for confessors as they are examples for other believers. After citing the words of Christ40 and Paul,41 Cyprian continues by quoting from 1Pet. 2:11-2:

34

Beatings were a common punishment. Even Perpetua’s father (exceptionally, for a man of his status), is depicted as being beaten with a rod (uirga percussus est). Mart. Perp. 6 (Musurillo, 114-5). 35 Possibly conflated with Gal. 3:13 (Vulg. Christos nos redemit de maledicto legis, factus pro nobis maledictum: quia scriptum est: Maledictus omnis qui pendet in ligno). ‘Wood’ meaning ‘cross’ also appears in Peter’s preaching in Acts 5:30 and 10:39. 36 Fidelem non oportere ob alia delicta nisi ob nomen solum puniri, Test. 3.37 (CChr.SL 3, 131). 37 In epistula Petri ad Ponticos: ‘Nec quisquam uestrum tamquam fur aut homicida patiatur aut tamquam maleficus aut curas alienas agens, sed tamquam christianus’, Test. 3.37 (CChr.SL 3, 131). 38 Allusion to 1Pet. 4:15-6a. Noted by G.W. Clarke, Letters (1984), 1:257, but not M.A. Fahey, Cyprian (1971), 524. Ut deprehensus non iam quasi Christianus sed quasi nocens pereat, Ep. 13.4.1 (CChr.SL 3B, 75). Clarke notes Cyprian’s insistence ‘on the proper respect for law however misguided.’ G.W. Clarke, Letters (1984), 1:257. 39 Allusion to Matt. 7:14. Perseuerandum nobis et in arto et in angusto itinere laudis et gloriae, Ep. 13.3.1 (CChr.SL 3B, 73). 40 Matt. 5:16. Sicut scriptum est domino praemonente et dicente: ‘luceat lumen uestrum coram hominibus, ut uideant bona opera uestra et clarificent patrem uestrum qui in caelis est’. 41 Phil. 2:5b: Lucete sicut luminaria in mundo.

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‘Likewise Peter urges: “Like pilgrims and strangers42 refrain from carnal desires which war against the soul, maintaining good conduct among the Gentiles, so that whilst they disparage you as evil-doers they may see your good works and glorify the Lord”’.43 They are to be distinct from the world, lights among its darkness. Amidst this emphasis on the two ways in Cyprian is the acknowledgement that the Christian does not only struggle against the world and the flesh. At the beginning of the treatise De zelo et livore, Cyprian uses 1Pet. 5:8 as part of his warning against the devil, the originator of the sins of jealousy and envy:44 So, most beloved brethren, we must be on our guard, and strive with all our strength, so that we may with watchful and full diligence repulse the enemy who rages and directs his shafts45 against every part of the body where we can be struck or wounded, as Peter the Apostle in his Epistle forewarns and teaches, saying, ‘Be sober, be watchful! For your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking something to devour’.46

Somewhat surprisingly, given Cyprian’s frequent warnings about the devil and the vivid imagery employed here, this is the only time Cyprian cites this verse. The final use of 1Peter that Cyprian makes with regard to discipline relates to how women, particularly virgins, should dress. After citing Paul’s objections to displays of wealth in 1Tim. 2:9-10, he continues: Peter also agrees with these same precepts and says: ‘Let there be in woman not the outward wearing of ornament or gold or the putting on of apparel, but the ornamentation 42 Cyprian also uses this image in De mortalitate when he is urging his congregation not to fear death, however it may come, as they will be received into their heavenly home, ‘restored to paradise and the kingdom’ (paradiso restituit et regno). Mort. 26 (CChr.SL 3A, 31). Not Mort. 25 as in M.A. Fahey, Cyprian (1971), 520. Note that ‘paradise’ and ‘the kingdom’ are not differentiated. Cf. Irenaeus, Haer. 5.36 (PG 7.2, 1222-3). 43 1Pet. 2:11-2: Et Petrus similiter hortatur: ‘sicut hospites, inquit, et peregrini abstinete uos a carnalibus desideriis, quae militant aduersus animam, conuersationem habentes inter gentiles bonam, ut dum retractant de uobis quasi de malignis, bona opera uestra aspicientes magnificent dominum’, Ep. 13.3.2 (CChr.SL 3B, 74). This text also supports the testimony that ‘The one who has received faith and put aside the old man ought to think only about heavenly and spiritual realities and not pay attention to the world which has already been renounced’ (Eum qui fidem consecutus est exposito priore homine caelestia tantum et spiritalia cogitare debere nec adtendere ad saeculum, cui iam renuntiauit), Test. 3.11 (CChr.SL 3, 99). The text is identical except that it reads quasi instead of sicut. 44 For Cyprian’s use of models in this work, see Edwina Murphy, ‘Imitating the Devil: Cyprian on Jealousy and Envy’, Scrinium 14 (2018), 75-91. 45 Allusion to Eph. 6:16. This image is also used in Laps. 4 (CChr.SL 3, 223), Mort. 4 (CChr.SL 3A, 18-9), Pat. 18 (CChr.SL 3A, 128), Zel. liv. 3 (CChr.SL 3A, 76), Zel. liv. 16 (CChr.SL 3A, 84), Fort. praef.2 (CChr.SL 3, 183). This list is expanded from the one given in E. Murphy, Bishop and the Apostle (2018), 42. 46 1Pet. 5:8: Excubandum est itaque, fratres dilectissimi, adque omnibus uiribus elaborandum, ut inimico saeuienti et iacula sua in omnes corporis partes quibus percuti et uulnerari possumus dirigenti sollicita et plena uigilantia repugnemus secundum quod Petrus apostolus in epistula sua praemonet et docet dicens: ‘Sobrii estote, uigilate, qui aduersarius uester diabolus tamquam leo rugiens aliquid deuorare quaerens circuit’, Zel. 1 (CChr.SL 3A, 75).

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of the heart’.47 But if [they advise] that married women also, who are accustomed to make their husbands the excuse for their costly attire, should be restrained and kept within bounds by a scrupulous observance of church discipline, how much greater is the obligation of a virgin to render such obedience, who may claim no forbearance for her adornment, and who cannot attribute to another the deception in her fault, but remains herself alone accountable.48

As Fahey says, this is a rather free translation of the text.49 When compared to the Greek, a specific reference to women is introduced (borrowed from 1Pet. 3:1), the reference to hairstyles is missing,50 replaced by ornament, and verse four is summarised as the ‘cultus cordis’ – adorning or ornamentation of the heart.51 But this is the same version of the text52 that Cyprian uses in support of the testimony: ‘A woman should not be adorned in a worldly manner’.53 It is not clear whether Cyprian had a variant text (unlikely, I think), or whether he modified it consciously or unconsciously. Perhaps hairstyle (rather than hair colour)54 was not an issue at the time. Unity of the Church Cyprian is best known, of course, for his views on the unity of the church. He only uses one passage from 1Peter in this regard, but it is an important one – Peter’s interpretation of Noah’s ark.55 He cites and comments on it twice, both times in the context of the baptismal controversy. In Ep. 69 he states: This same point Peter also affirmed when he showed that the Church is one and that only those who are within the Church are able to be baptized: ‘In the ark of Noah’, he said, ‘a very few men (eight souls all told) were saved by water. And it is in just the 47

1Pet. 3:3-4a. Item Petrus ad haec eadem praecepta consentit et dicit: ‘Sit in muliere non exterior ornamenti aut auri aut uestis cultus, sed cultus cordis’. Quodsi illi mulieres quoque admonent coercendas et ad ecclesiasticam disciplinam religiosa obseruatione moderandas, quae excusare cultus suos soleant per maritum, quanto id magis obseruare uirginum fas est, cui nulla ornatus sui conpetat uenia nec deriuari in alterum possit mendacium culpae, sed sola ipsa remaneat in crimine, Hab. virg. 8 (CChr.SL 3F, 296). 49 M.A. Fahey, Cyprian (1971), 522. 50 On the potential connection between the hairstyle and the date of the letter, see Troy W. Martin, ‘Dating First Peter to a Hairdo (1 Pet. 3:3)’, EC 9 (2018), 298-318. 51 See Vulgate: Quarum non sit extrinsecus capillatura, aut circumdatio auri, aut indumenti vestimentorum cultus: sed qui absconditus est cordis homo. 52 De hoc ipso in epistula Petri ad Ponticos: ‘Sit in muliere non exterior ornamenti aut auri aut uestis cultus sed cultus cordis’, Test. 3.36 (CChr.SL 3, 130-1). 53 Mulierem ornari saeculariter non debere, Test. 3.36 (CChr.SL 3, 130-1). Preceded by Rev. 17:1-4, 1Tim. 2:9-10, followed by Gen. 38:14-5. 54 Hab. uirg. 16 (CChr.SL 3F, 307). 55 This use of the ark with regard to unity may reflect an early interpretative tradition. In 1Clem. 9.4, for example, the animals entered it in concord (ἐν ὁμονοίᾳ), although this detail is not in the LXX. 48

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same manner that baptism will save you also’.56 By this testimony he established that the ark of Noah (one only) was a type of the Church (also one). And if at that time it had been possible for a man, not in the ark of Noah, to be saved by water during that baptism of the world when it was being purged and purified, then it would also be possible today for a man not in the Church to be given life by baptism, whereas it is to the Church alone that the power to baptize has been granted.57

Cyprian uses very similar words in Ep. 74. First Peter 3:20-1 expresses ‘the sacred mystery’ (sacramentum) of the ‘unity prescribed by the Lord, after the sacred model of one ark’.58 Those not baptised within the Church, cannot be considered saved by baptism. The image of the ark, therefore, like that of the enclosed garden of Song of Songs,59 is used by Cyprian to emphasise the boundaries of the church and the necessity of being within it.60 Conclusion In Cyprian’s context of persecution, schism and plague, 1Peter is a source of divine truth which illuminates believers, allowing them to recognise where their eternal hope lies. He uses it to emphasise the work of Christ in salvation and the necessity of Christians modelling themselves on him. This is a path that passes through suffering, but will ultimately result in glory. There is no merit, however, in suffering for wrongdoing. Cyprian’s appropriation of the image of the ark in the baptismal dispute fits well with his consistent emphasis on the clear distinction between the one church, in which salvation is found, and the world, which is condemned. First Peter also speaks directly to other aspects of the Christian life, such as how women should dress. Interestingly, despite Cyprian’s emphasis on the benefits of almsgiving, we have no record of him using 1Pet. 4:8: ‘Love covers a multitude of sins’.61 56

1Pet. 3:20-1. Quod et Petrus ostendens unam ecclesiam esse et solos eos qui in ecclesia sint baptizari posse posuit et dixit: ‘in arca Noe pauci id est octo animae hominum saluae factae sunt per aquam, quod et uos similiter faciet baptisma’, probans et contestans unam arcam Noe typum fuisse unus ecclesiae. Si potuit tunc in illo expiati et purificari mundi baptismo salus per aquam fieri qui in arca Noe non fuit, potest et nunc uiuificari per baptisma qui in ecclesia non est, cui soli baptisma concessum est, Ep. 69.2.2 (CChr.SL 3C, 472-3). 58 Ad arcae unius sacramentum dominica unitate fundata est, Ep. 74.11.3 (CChr.SL 3C, 579). 59 For an examination of the use of this book in the Latin tradition, see Karl Shuve, Song of Songs and the Fashioning of Identity in Early Latin Christianity (Oxford, 2016). 60 Cyprian’s famous statement: ‘If a man is to have God for Father, he must first have the Church for mother’, is preceded by an argument constructed from a series of images: Christians as children of God (allusion to Rom. 8:14-7); the identification of the church as the bride of Christ, sanctified and cleansed (Eph. 5:25b-26, 31-2); the putting off of the old man (allusion to Eph. 4:22-4 or Rom. 6:6); and the washing of rebirth (Tit. 3:5b). Ep. 74.6.1-6.2 (CChr.SL 3C, 570-2). 61 For the use of this text in the first three centuries, see David J. Downs, ‘“Love Covers a Multitude of Sins”: Redemptive Almsgiving in 1 Peter 4:8 and Its Early Christian Reception’, JTS 65 (2014), 498-514. 57

Cyprian on Christ’s Continuing Agency in the Church: The Importance of Epistle 10 Joseph E. LENOW, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA

ABSTRACT Cyprian of Carthage displays a clear understanding of the church as knit together with Christ in one body (Ep. 63.13). Joined to this understanding of the Church as Christ’s body is a sense of his agency in the lives of the faithful – his work in the world as mediated through the activity of this community. This paper considers the theology of Christ’s agency as encountered in Cyprian’s letters, with special attention to how shifting emphases in his deployments of this theme may be attributable to the ecclesial circumstances of his writing. In the relatively early Ep. 10, written to the confessors of the Carthaginian church likely before the controversy over the lapsed, Cyprian exhibits a strong sense of Christ actively struggling and conquering in the witness of the martyrs and confessors (Ep. 10.3-4). Later letters generally move away from a direct identification of Christ’s work with the activity of the martyrs and confessors, likely so as to undercut the belief that the readmission to the fellowship of peace by Lucian and other confessors was itself properly identifiable as Christ’s own work of forgiveness. Instead, later letters tend to emphasize Christ’s agency as (i) spectator of the martyr’s combat, rather than himself an active combatant; (ii) continuing to legislate the church’s communal life through the commands delivered in scripture; (iii) active in the work of the bishops and clergy, to whom he has entrusted the care of his body the church; and (iv) patiently awaiting his return in judgment.

In his characteristically insightful study Cyprian the Bishop, J. Patout Burns begins his discussion of Cyprian’s opponents in the controversy over the lapsed thusly: ‘Fortunatus, Novatus and the other laxist presbyters in Carthage recognized the exalted status of the martyrs and accepted their power to secure forgiveness directly from Christ. The peace granted by Christ in heaven, they reasoned, could not then be withheld by the church on earth’.1 With this framing, Burns draws to our attention a sometimes under-appreciated feature of the controversy over the lapsed: at the core of the dispute between Cyprian and his opponents is a disagreement about how to understand the work of the risen Christ in the world.

1

J. Patout Burns Jr., Cyprian the Bishop (London, 2002), 27.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 327-339. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Allen Brent similarly has presented this controversy as an opposition between two competing conceptions of Christ’s action. On the one hand, there is what Brent argues is a more ancient martyrdom tradition that saw the sufferings of martyrdom and the tortures of the confessor as such an intense form of imitatio Christi that it united the one who had undergone it to Christ’s priestly ministry – an ordinatio per confessionem that Lucianus believed granted the confessor the right to readmit the lapsed to communion.2 On the other hand, Cyprian held that the laying on of hands and the offering of the unbloody sacrifice was the fullest possible union with Christ’s priestly ministry, and thus concluded that only the bishop could validly ordain or absolve the lapsed.3 The crux of the dispute, then, is over the proper understanding of Christ’s agency in the Church. Cyprian certainly employed the Pauline metaphor of the Church as the Body of Christ; at Ep. 63.13, for instance, he takes the mixing of water and wine in the Eucharistic chalice as a sign of the Church’s union with Christ, irrevocably ‘bound and joined to him in whom they believe’.4 The belief that Christ himself remains active in the Church is a natural consequent of the claim that the Church has been joined to the living Christ as his Body: Christ’s agency is mediated through his Body the Church after his ascension, sanctified human lives serving as the instrument through which he remains active in the world. Following Burns and Brent, we may consider the controversy over the lapsed a result of a disagreement about how Christ continues to exert agency in the world – specifically, whether Christ absolves sin through the grace granted to martyrs and confessors, or only through formal ordination. While some account of Christ’s continuing agency in the Church is necessary for understanding the key points of dispute in the controversy over the lapsed, it is rarely the primary focus of scholarly discussion. More commonly, it is considered en route to questions more familiar to studies of Cyprian’s writings: the development of the theology of the episcopacy and Christian unity, or penance and absolution, or martyrdom. In this paper, however, I will argue that foregrounding the properly christological question of Christ’s agency allows us to tell a more complicated narrative of how Cyprian understood Christ’s work in the Church, and how his understanding developed in response to changing ecclesial circumstances. In particular, I will argue that Cyprian’s Epistle 10, written after the outbreak of the Decian persecution and in the early stages of the controversy over the lapsed, presents 2 Allen Brent, ‘Cyprian’s Reconstruction of the Martyrdom Tradition’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 53 (2002), 241-68, 257. Brent also argues that social prejudice prevented the application of this ordinatio per confessionem to women. 3 A. Brent, ‘Reconstruction’ (2002), 266-7. 4 Ep. 63.13, in St. Cyprian: Letters (1-81), trans. Sr. Rose Bernard Donna, C.S.J., FC 51 (Washington, 1964), 211.

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Christ’s work in the martyrs and confessors in a manner that would soon become quite alien to Cyprian’s theological rhetoric. This article will proceed in three sections. First, I will examine the distinctive theology of Epistle 10, which I tentatively take to be a reasonable approximation of the theology of Christ’s work in the martyrs and confessors as the still-recently converted Cyprian had received it within the Carthaginian church. Second, I will illuminate both the place of Epistle 10 within Cyprian’s early thought and within the theology of the North African church through comparison with Cyprian’s Ad Donatum and Tertullian’s De pudicitia. Third, I will map the transformations that occur in Cyprian’s theology of Christ’s agency in the wake of the controversy over the lapsed, with attention to the themes and images that replace the newly-dangerous ones predominant in Epistle 10. In so doing, I will argue that Cyprian’s letters exhibit a robust and distinctive theology of Christ’s abiding agency in the world, though one responsive to the demands and dangers that confronted the Carthaginian church. I. Epistle 10 and Cyprian’s Earliest Theology of Christ’s Agency in the Church The tenth letter in Cyprian’s epistolary corpus is the earliest one that can be dated with certainty. In it, he recounts the death of Mappalicus, martyred in mid-April of 250 AD, and it is likely that the letter was composed in response to reports of Mappalicus’ martyrdom.5 This situates the letter at a very particular moment in the Decian persecution. Cyprian writes from exile to the confessors of the Carthaginian church, lauding their witness and the witness of those who have completed the course of martyrdom. If Cyprian’s retirement from the city was not evident enough, it is clear that the persecution is ongoing: as he writes to those in prison, ‘I have found that some of you are crowned; some, assuredly, very near to the crown of victory’.6 If, as G.W. Clarke argues, Epistles 13 and 14 are to be dated before Epistle 10, then this letter comes at the very beginning of the controversy over the lapsed.7 The conclusion of Epistle 14 obliquely references the communications of the presbyters who will be a thorn in Cyprian’s side in the months and years ahead, but as of yet his opponents have only begun pushing for a more relaxed discipline for the lapsed. There is no indication in this letter or earlier ones that any among the confessors have yet readmitted the lapsed to Eucharistic fellowship, 5 G.W. Clarke, ‘Prosopographical Notes on the Epistles of Cyprian II. The Proconsul in Africa 250 A.D.’, Latomus 31 (1972), 1053-7, 1053; G.W. Clarke, The Letters of Cyprian of Carthage Volume I (Letters 1-27), Ancient Christian Writers 43 (New York, 1984), 226. 6 Ep. 10.1; FC 51, 24. 7 G.W. Clarke, Letters I (1984), 227.

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by the power of their own witness or that of the martyrs. Indeed, the fact that Epistle 13 is addressed only to confessors and that neither it or Epistle 14 mention martyrs suggests that Epistle 10 is the first letter composed after executions of Carthage’s faithful have begun.8 In view of this context, Epistle 10 contains a remarkable and quite uncharacteristic (at least by the standard of Cyprian’s later writings) account of Christ’s agency in the martyrs and confessors. From nearly the beginning of the letter, Cyprian’s principal rhetorical strategy for praising them is to stress their intimacy with Christ, referring for instance to the suffering of the martyrs as ‘the celestial and spiritual combat of God, the battle of Christ’ (10.2).9 Cyprian takes great pains to stress Christ’s active presence within the martyrs and confessors; he is personally (if mediately) the one who wages this battle against the powers of the world. So, in describing the death by which the martyrs are crowned in glory, he exclaims: How joyful was Christ therein! How willingly in such servants of His has He both fought and conquered as Protector of the faith, giving to the believers as much as he who receives believes he can take! He was present at his own struggle; He lifted up, strengthened, animated the defenders and protectors of His Name. And He who once conquered death for us always conquers it in us. ‘But when they deliver you up,’ He says, ‘do not be anxious what you are to speak; for what you are to speak will be given you in that hour. For it is not you who are speaking, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks through you’ (10.3).10

At this moment in Cyprian’s theological career, then, he is most concerned to stress to the confessors that their victory over their Roman persecutors must be attributed to Christ’s direct work within them. It is not their own power that has allowed them to defeat their tormentors: it is Christ’s work strengthening them to endure. The martyr’s ability to confess Christ in the face of torture is to be attributed not to the martyr him or herself, but to the work of the Holy Spirit within, communicating to the martyr Christ’s own power. It is finally Christ who defeats death in the death of the martyr. While Cyprian of course acknowledges the praiseworthiness of the martyrs’ and confessors’ actions, he makes very clear that his language here is not merely metaphorical. He tells the confessors that they should be given confidence to stand firm in their confession of Christ because Christ ‘is not such that He only looks upon His servants, but He Himself struggles in us; He Himself joins battle; He Himself in the context of our struggle both crowns and is likewise crowned’ (10.4).11 This passage gives us perhaps our clearest glimpse into 8 Cyprian had, in Epistle 9, written to the church in Rome in response to the martyrdom of Fabian. 9 FC 51, 25. 10 FC 51, 26. 11 FC 51, 27-8.

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Cyprian’s understanding of Christ’s agency in the Church at this early stage of his episcopacy. Christ is not distant from the martyrs, but extends his own battle against sin and death in their struggle. Christ is the Lord who glorifies the martyrs, but receives himself further glorification as he once again conquers through their action. Cyprian is unambiguous on this point: Christ is spiritually present within the martyrs and confessors, working within them and alongside them to secure their victory. Clarke has described this as a theology of Christus in martyre: ‘Christ not only contends within the martyr, Christ and the martyr become as one, Christ’s glory becomes the martyr’s glory’.12 There are thus two distinct but interrelated dynamics at play in this early account of Christ’s agency in the Church. The first is that Christ’s agency is the foundation of the martyrs’ and confessors’ agency; without his active work within them, communicated by the Holy Spirit, their praiseworthy acts of faithfulness would be impossible. Christ’s agency is the sine qua non of the martyr’s own holy life. Yet, secondly, it is difficult at this stage of Cyprian’s writings to determine precisely where Christ’s agency ends and the martyr’s own agency begins. Christ is intimately involved in the struggle here on earth; all the martyr’s faithful action is to be referred to him as source. The martyr’s activity shades inextricably into Christ’s: he is the one who is an active combatant, the one who speaks in each faithful confession, the one who is crowned through the martyr’s action. We may, in concluding this section, identify four significant themes or images in Cyprian’s Epistle 10. First, Christ is presented as himself a combatant in the martyr’s own struggle against sin and death. Second, the martyr’s confession of Christ is understood to be not the martyr’s speech alone, but the Spirit of Christ speaking in her. Third, the martyrs are a clear sign for the whole Church of Christ’s presence and activity in the world, meant to edify the faithful. Fourth, Christ’s continuing agency in the martyrs and confessors is figured predominantly in active terms: fighting, struggling, speaking, crowning, conquering. As we will see, each of these themes undergoes at least significant modification in Cyprian’s later epistolary corpus. II. Epistle 10 in Context Epistle 10 appears to be the only passage in Cyprian’s work that performs such an identification of the work of Christ and that of the martyrs. Our understanding of this text may be enriched, however, through comparison with several other sources: first, the Ad Donatum, which offers a parallel account of God’s agency in the Church and hails (as does Epistle 10) from early in Cyprian’s literary career as a Christian; second, Tertullian’s De pudicitia, which considers how Christ should–and more importantly, should not–be understood as present 12

G.W. Clarke, Letters I (1984), 228.

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and active within the lives of the confessors and martyrs. These two comparisons may help us understand, on the one hand, why Cyprian might have been drawn to a strong identification between the struggle of the martyrs and the agency of Christ early in the Decian persecution, and on the other, why this identification is absent elsewhere in Cyprian’s writings. The Ad Donatum is notable within Cyprian’s corpus for its synergistic depiction of his own action and the Holy Spirit’s illumination in his conversion.13 The Ad Donatum clearly identifies the work of the Holy Spirit, mediated through baptism, as the origin of Cyprian’s regeneration. In chapter four, he describes himself as hopelessly entangled in the delights of power and luxury, indulging these desires out of despair of ever breaking away from these worldly attachments. The decisive point of transition is the Spirit’s work in baptism: afterwards, when the stain of my past life had been washed away by the aid of the water of regeneration, a light from above poured itself upon my chastened and pure heart; afterwards when I had drunk of the Spirit from heaven a second birth restored me into a new man; immediately in a marvelous manner doubtful matters clarified themselves, the closed opened, the shadowy shone with light, what seemed impossible was able to be accomplished, so that it was possible to acknowledge that what formerly was born of the flesh and lived submissive to sins was earthly, and what the Holy Spirit was animating began to be of God.14

The advent of the Holy Spirit is experienced here as an enlivening power, enabling rather than riding roughshod over Cyprian’s own agency. The gift of the Spirit restores Cyprian’s own moral capacities making his own life a life properly ‘of God’. Other passages of the Ad Donatum bear out this emphasis on the Spirit’s enabling work. As Cyprian reflects upon his newfound ability to resist sin, he writes, ‘Boasting to one’s own praise is odious, although that cannot be a matter of boasting of but an expression of gratitude, which is not ascribed to the virtue of man but is proclaimed as of God’s munificence… Our power is of God, I say, all of it is of God’.15 Later in the same text, Cyprian will appeal to the images of the sun shedding its rays upon the world and a rain-shower moistening the earth to expound the Holy Spirit’s suffusing the souls of those being redeemed and empowering them to will the good. This ‘highest dignity or power’ is not ‘achieved with elaborate effort. It is both a free and easy gift from God’.16 There are, of course, relevant dissimilarities between these sections of the Ad Donatum and Epistle 10, chief among which is the fact that Ad Donatum 13 See Michael A.G. Haykin, ‘The Holy Spirit in Cyprian’s To Donatus’, Evangelical Quarterly 83 (2011), 321-9. 14 Ad Donatum 4 (hereafter Ad Don.); trans. Roy J. Deferrari, ‘To Donatus’, in Saint Cyprian: Treatises, ed. Roy J. Deferrari, FC 36 (Washington, 1958), 5-21, 9-10. 15 Ad Don. 4; FC 36, 10. 16 Ad Don. 14; FC 36, 20.

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focuses upon the work of the Spirit rather than attributing this divine agency to Christ. Nevertheless, this text offers a clear instance in which Cyprian’s moral and spiritual exertion is portrayed as founded and dependent upon the prior action of God. Where previously Cyprian believed himself to lack the power to break away from sin, the Spirit’s illumination fills him with hope and strengthens him to resist its power. It is truly his own agency that turns away from sin, but this agency is dependent upon the indwelling of the Spirit. Furthermore, though Christ’s work is not an explicit focus of this text, it shares with Ep. 10 a sense of God’s redemptive work as a struggle against the evil powers at work in the world. Alongside an emphasis on personal virtue and resistance to sin, Cyprian marvels to Donatus in chapter fourteen of ‘what a crafty destruction on the part of an attacking enemy formerly proceeded against us,’ and addresses him in chapter fifteen as one ‘whom already the heavenly warfare has designated for the spiritual camp’.17 Such martial metaphors fit nicely alongside the discussions of God’s agency in the Church in Epistle 10, suggesting that Cyprian views the Spirit’s work here as possessing a cosmic significance far beyond the experience of any individual Christian. If the Ad Donatum serves as a reasonable depiction of the interplay between divine and human agency in Cyprian’s early thought, it lays much of the theological groundwork for the more christocentric focus of Epistle 10. It would be quite natural for Cyprian to describe the sufferings of the martyrs and confessors as themselves the actions of Christ, for the power of God in Christ does not exist in competition with the martyrs’ own agency. The martyr’s act can be directly identified with Christ’s act, for it is the power of Christ in the martyr that enlivens her own ability to face suffering and death without fear or apostasy. This identification of the martyr’s act with Christ’s act would be even more natural if such a theological claim were traditional in the North African church, rather than Cyprian’s own theological innovation. A second comparison, the twenty-second chapter of Tertullian’s De pudicitia, suggests that this theology of Christ’s work in the martyrs had been present in North African Christianity long before Cyprian’s conversion. In this chapter, Tertullian responds to those who hold that Christus in martyre est, and that Christ’s presence within the martyrs empowers them to forgive sins. He writes, ‘I have, besides, another way of recognizing the presence of Christ. If Christ is in the martyr so that the martyr may absolve (absolvat) adulterers and fornicators, let him reveal the secrets of the heart and so partdon sins – then he is Christ!’18 The point, of course, is that since no confessor or martyr can read one’s secret thoughts as Jesus can, we should not think they can forgive sins. And indeed, as the by-then Montanist Tertullian has already 17

Ad Don. 14-5; FC 36, 20. Tertullian, De pudicitia 22.6; trans. William P. LeSaint, ‘On Purity’, in Tertullian: Treatises On Penance: On Penitence and On Purity, Ancient Christian Writers 28 (New York, 1959), 41-130, 123. 18

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discussed in De pudicitia 21, neither should we think that bishops have the power to absolve; the power of the keys was given to Peter alone for a very specific purpose, and we should not trust Peter’s successors, but those whom the prophetic Spirit of God has empowered for this task in the present day. It is quite likely, then, that this was a conventional way of describing Christ’s relation to the martyrs in the North African church by Cyprian’s day – that Cyprian was playing to the crowd, signaling his veneration of martyrs and confessors in a language familiar to the Carthaginian church. More broadly, this traditional theology of Christ’s presence in the martyrs and Tertullian’s consideration of this topic shortly after discussing the bishops’ own power to absolve dovetails nicely with Allen Brent’s depiction of a widespread early theology of martyrdom within which the martyr’s self-offering was conceived as a participation in and extension of Christ’s priestly ministry. It is not merely Christus, but Christus presbyter, who dwells within the martyrs, and for at least some in Tertullian’s day and in Cyprian’s this was sufficient to grant them the power to absolve and readmit the lapsed to Eucharistic fellowship.19 Might De pudicitia 22 have served as a direct influence on Cyprian’s Epistle 10? While Tertullian’s words here help denominate the theme of the Christus in martyre est that Clarke finds in Epistle 10, there is little evidence of literary dependence. Nevertheless, we must recall that, as St Jerome would later report, Cyprian’s daily instruction to his secretary was ‘Give me the master, meaning by this, Tertullian’.20 Though in Epistle 10 Cyprian is content to employ what appears to be a traditional (for the North African church) theological identification between Christ’s work and the acts of the martyrs, reading Tertullian may have helped him see the danger of this identification shortly thereafter. It is at least possible that at the outbreak of the controversy over the lapsed, Cyprian turned to the master, Tertullian, where he found this intellectual luminary of the North African church considering together the questions of Christ’s presence in the martyrs and the power of martyrs and confessors to forgive sins. Tertullian may have helped Cyprian see that in rejecting the reconciliatory practice of his opponents, it was necessary also to reject the theology of Christ’s agency that underwrote it. Similarly, Cyprian’s conviction that only the bishop could properly readmit the lapsed to Eucharistic fellowship would have made it clear by way of contrast with Tertullian that the acts of the bishops of the Church must be identified with Christ’s act.21 19

For Brent’s fullest presentation of his argument that the confessors possessed a priestly power to readmit the lapsed to Eucharistic fellowship, see Allen Brent, Cyprian and Roman Carthage (Cambridge, 2010), 250-89. 20 Jerome, On Illustrious Men, 53; cited at M.A.G. Haykin, ‘The Holy Spirit in Cyprian’s To Donatus’ (2011), 327 n. 37. 21 See Tertullian’s conclusion in De pudicitia 21: ‘it is true that the Church will pardon sins, but this is the Church of the Spirit, through a man who has the Spirit; it is not the Church which consists of a number of the bishops’; Tertullian, Treatises on Penance 122.

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While the De pudicitia is thus plausibly considered as one of the sources that lead Cyprian to reject (at least one construal of) the theology of the Christus in martyre est as the controversy over the lapsed escalates. In teaching subsequent to Epistle 10, he consistently avoids direct identification of the martyr’s work with the work of Christ, likely because he recognized with Tertullian that stressing the martyrs’ intimacy with Christ was dangerously liable to misinterpretation by his opponents. Even if Cyprian dissents from Tertullian’s judgment that Christ had not empowered the bishops to absolve any more than he had empowered the martyrs, Tertullian’s reasoning still underlines the danger of viewing the martyrs’ struggles as expressions of Christ’s agency. Consequently, Cyprian’s later work – even texts like the Ad Fortunatum, Cyprian’s late exhortation to martyrdom – contain neither the theological claims nor the supporting imagery that abounds in Epistle 10. In sum, the identification of the action of the martyrs with the action of Christ seems a natural theological move both within Cyprian’s own early thought, and within the theology of the early North African church more broadly. Within this North African theological inheritance, however, there are also seeds of the critique that will motivate Cyprian to reject this identification in his later writings. Though Cyprian never reflects explicitly on this theological turn, his writings from the period after the outbreak of the controversy over the lapsed consistently avoid the theology of the Christus in martyre est, a change that touches both the theological claims and images he will use to describe Christ’s abiding presence and action in the world. To these later writings we now turn. III. The Agency of Christ in Cyprian’s Later Letters After the outbreak of the controversy over the lapsed, Cyprian’s theology of Christ’s agency in the Church undergoes a transformation. On essential matters, it is more a change of emphasis than of substance: Christ is still understood to be at work in the world after his resurrection and ascension; he still mediates this action through his body the Church; his divine agency is not understood to be in competition or to ‘elbow out’ the agency of those who have been united to him, but rather empowers their own agency. Yet we should not underestimate how thoroughgoing is Cyprian’s revision of the theology of Epistle 10. Each of the four tendencies discussed above at the end of section one undergoes significant modification, and in some cases reversal. So, for instance, where Epistle 10 unambiguously presents Christ as a combatant against sin and death in the struggle of martyr and confessor, by Epistle 58.8 he will state no less clearly: Christ ‘enjoys the spectacle of our combat. God looks upon us fighting and battling in the assembly of faith; His angels

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look on, and Christ looks on’.22 Where previously Christ shared the same field of battle with the martyrs and confessors, battling alongside and, more importantly, within them, now he dwells in heaven, awaiting return at the Day of Judgment. This stands in stark contrast to Epistle 10.4, quoted above: there, he ‘is not such that He only looks upon His servants, but He Himself struggles in us’.23 By Ep. 58.8, Christ has become just such a spectator, without any indication in this later text that Christ struggles within the martyr; for if Christ is within the martyr and confessor in their suffering, why should he not similarly act through them in absolving? By the time of the controversy over the lapsed, Cyprian seemingly wishes to put more distance between the confessors and Christ. Christ is one who, from his heavenly vantage, regards both the just actions of the faithful as they persist in confessing his name through persecution, but sees also when some of those same confessors swollen with pride promise an easy forgiveness disconnected from Christ’s own injunctions to holiness. Christ is an observer, not a combatant. A related transformation occurs in our second theme. Before the controversy over the lapsed, Cyprian was content to say that every confession of Christ made by those imprisoned or tortured by imperial power was the Holy Spirit, speaking through martyr and confessor alike. Indeed, in the context of Epistle 10, Cyprian’s point seems even more expansive. Cyprian’s guiding scriptural reference point when he discusses this inspired speech is Matt. 10:20: Christ tells the disciples that in their suffering, ‘it is not you who are speaking, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks through you’. Cyprian picks up this pneumatological reference in describing Mappalicus’s confession, in which ‘A voice filled with the Holy Spirit broke forth from the lips of the martyr’.24 Yet both the initial quotation of Matt. 10:20 and Cyprian’s subsequent discussion of confessing Christ’s name at the conclusion of Ep. 10.4 occur in contexts when Cyprian describes Christ’s dwelling within the believer. We may conclude that the Spirit inspires the faithful to confess Christ’s name because he dwells within them – it is by Christ’s agency, inseparable from the Spirit’s work in the heart of the believer, that Christ’s name may be proclaimed. This speech is Christ’s speech, no less than the suffering of the martyr is his suffering. By contrast, in later letters, Christ’s speech shapes human hearts principally through the commands he has laid down to be observed for all time. In Epistle 28.2, for instance, Cyprian appeals to 1Jn. 2:3-4’s statement that one knows Christ if one keeps his commandments, commenting: ‘You suggest the keeping of these precepts; you observe the divine and celestial commands. This is to be a confessor of the Lord; this is to be a martyr of Christ, to keep the inviolate and solid strength of His voice in all things; it is not to become a martyr of the 22 23 24

FC 51, 169. FC 51, 27-8. Ep. 10.4; FC 51, 26.

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Lord and, at the same time, to attempt to destroy the precepts of the Lord’.25 Where previously, the indwelling of Christ had authorized an understanding of one’s confession as divine speech based on the Spirit’s inward work, now Cyprian consistently emphasizes the publicly available commands of Christ recorded in Scripture. This is still an avenue through which Christ exercises agency in the Church, for those commands are meant to reshape the hearts of the faithful; yet the presence of Christ and the Spirit within the martyr can no longer serve as a source of divine authority independent of episcopal oversight. As Ep. 57.1 makes clear, it is Christ himself who has given the law according to which the Church’s life is to be governed. This change in emphasis leads naturally to the modification of our third theme: where in Epistle 10, Cyprian lauds the martyrs as a sign of Christ’s presence and activity within the world, Cyprian’s later letters consistently emphasize Christ’s activity in those he has appointed to safeguard the teaching and proper discipline of his Body, the bishops of the Church. Indeed, in letters after the height of the controversy over the lapsed, the bishops will be the near exclusive group described as those through whom Christ remains active in the world today, as the martyrs and confessors drop out of discussion of Christ’s continuing agency. As at Ep. 57.1, Cyprian frequently marshals Matthew 16’s discussion of binding and loosing as support for the view that it is the bishops who truly speak and act for the good of the Church in a manner animated by Christ himself. Epistle 66.4 is representative here: ‘Christ … says to the apostles and thus to all of those placed in charge who now succeed to the apostles by delegated ordination: “He who hears you, hears me; and he who hears me, hears him who sent me; and he who rejects you, rejects me and him who sent me”’.26 Elsewhere, Cyprian makes explicit that the authority of the episcopacy to speak in Christ’s name is itself founded on Christ’s speech: ‘God is one and Christ, one and the Church, one and the Chair established upon Peter by the voice of the Lord, one’.27 Where previously Cyprian emphasized that Christ dwelt within the faithful and enabled their martyrdom and confession, in later texts Cyprian prays that ‘the Lord, who condescends to elect and appoint for Himself bishops in His Church, may protect those chose and also appointed by His will and assistance, inspiring them in their government and supplying both vigor for restraining the insolence of the wicked and mildness for nourishing the repentance of the lapsed’.28 As in Epistle 10, Christ is dwelling within and empowering his servants – but in later texts, these servants are uniformly those in the succession of the apostles, rather than those undergoing persecution.29 25 26 27 28 29

FC 51, 70. FC 51, 226; quoting Lk. 10:16. Ep. 43.5; FC 51, 109. Ep. 48.4; FC 51, 121. See also Ep. 33.1 and 73.7.

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Turning finally to our fourth theme mentioned above, Cyprian tends in later texts to forego the use of terms presenting Christ as active within those suffering persecution. In Epistle 10, he speaks confidently of Christ fighting, struggling, speaking, crowning, and conquering within the persecuted faithful. Increasingly, however, he comes to speak Christ’s work in them in more passive categories, as exercising patience or suffering with them. This tendency can be seen, for instance, in Ep. 58 or the late treatise De bono patientiae, yet it is Epistle 62 that provides perhaps the most direct parallel to the soaring rhetoric of Epistle 10. Here, Cyprian comes closest to the rhetoric of this earlier text, acknowledging that Christ does indeed still dwell within those who suffer in Christ’s name. At Epistle 62.2, Cyprian addresses a number of fellow bishops after a group of North African Christians had been taken prisoner by bandits. Cyprian writes, Christ must be contemplated in our captured brethren and He, who redeemed us from the danger of death, must be redeemed form the danger of captivity, that He, who delivered us from the jaws of the devil, now Himself, who remains and dwells among us, who redeemed us by the Cross and Blood, must be delivered from the hands of barbarians and redeemed by a sum of money.30

Two features of this passage are notable. First, even after the outbreak of the controversy over the lapsed, Cyprian’s first impulse in describing the unjust suffering of the faithful is to note Christ’s presence in their suffering, an expression of his continuing agency in the world. In a context less fraught than his dispute over the lapsed, he seems comfortable returning to language that echoes his initial response to the Carthaginian confessors. Superficially, this passage closely resembles Epistle 10: Christ is present in the suffering, those who have been kidnapped for ransom. Yet second, both here and in the ensuing section of the letter, Christ’s presence among the captive North African Christians is figured in exclusively passive terms. He is present: he is captive, he awaits redemption even within the members of the Church who have been taken by force. Yet this is not figured as a struggle or battle against the power of sin in the world. The redemption wrought through the cross and deliverance from the power of the devil is clearly delineated from the mode of his activity among these suffering Christians now, in whom he awaits release just as he awaits the Second Coming. He no longer battles, or speaks, or conquers in the lives of the suffering faithful; rather, he patiently bears the sufferings and humiliations of his Body until his glorious return.31 Christ remains present in the lives of the faithful, but inasmuch as Cyprian describes his continuing activity in the world, it is the bishops through whom he acts. 30 31

FC 51, 200. See De bono patientiae 24.

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Conclusion From the beginning of his episcopacy to its premature end, Cyprian remained convinced that the ascended Christ remained at work in the world, and particularly in the Church that was his Body. Yet his understanding of the earthly locus of this agency – or at least the terms in which he was publicly willing to describe it – change dramatically over the course of his ministry. In the early days of the Decian persecution, as Cyprian works to rally a community that has likely already begun fracturing as some of its members choose apostasy to be a lesser evil than torture or execution, he confidently identifies the work of Carthage’s most recent confessors and martyrs as the work of Christ. It is he, and they in him, who struggles, he who is victorious. Yet as the controversy over the lapsed begins to unfold, the dangers of this rhetoric become clearer to Cyprian. If it is Christ himself who acts in the decisions and sufferings of the confessors and martyrs, why should he not similarly act through them in dispensing absolution? Weighing what was likely a deeply traditional theology of Christ’s action in the martyrs against his understanding of the proper scope of episcopal authority in readmitting sinners to communion, Cyprian privileges the latter. In his later writings, Christ is still present to the martyrs and confessors in their suffering, but as a heavenly spectator, rather than an active combatant. Looking down on the travails of his people, he waits patiently for the Day of Judgment, when the wrongs inflicted upon his Body will be avenged. Christ’s agency is not, however, banished to the heavenly realm. He commands, legislates, encourages, and pronounces forgiveness in the voices of his bishops. This is where Christ’s continuing agency is to be found; this is where the Carthaginian church should look, if they seek trustworthy guides to help them discern Christ’s will in their own day. The martyrs are models of faithfulness, and Christians should train their eyes on these exemplars as Christ does – but it is the bishops whose actions are Christ’s actions. In response to the pressures of the controversy over the lapsed, Cyprian has not only subtly checked a traditional theology of martyrdom, but proffered a theology of the episcopacy in its place: Christus in episcopo est. It is this theology, perhaps ironically bolstered by Cyprian’s ensuing martyrdom, that would carry the day in subsequent generations of North African Christianity.

Penance and Ecclesial Purity: The Divine Urgency behind Cyprian’s Response to the Decian Persecution Matthew ESQUIVEL, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA

ABSTRACT After the outbreak of the Decian persecution in 250 AD, the Church faced the controversy of admitting back into communion Christians who had committed apostasy by offering sacrifices to the Roman and Punic gods at the command of the emperor. Cyprian of Carthage responds with a penitential program based upon the authority of the bishops in order to mediate between the laxist position of Felicissimus and the rigorist position of Novatian. The former appealed to the authority of the martyrs to supply reconciliation for the lapsed without penance, while the latter provided no means of reconciliation to the Eucharistic fellowship even with penance. Against the laxists, readmittance was to be administered through the penitential protocol of the bishops and the imposition of their hands for absolution. Against the rigorists, penitents who followed the proper protocol of the bishops were not to be denied restoration to communion. By analyzing Cyprian’s treatises such as De lapsis and De catholicae ecclesia unitate, as well as his related letters, this study argues that his response was based upon his views of 1) divine command regarding idolatry and apostasy, 2) divine judgment both now and in eternity, and 3) the divine order of the Church located in the authority of the bishops. Moreover, the outbreak of riots, prophetic warnings from the laity, and instances of the lapsed experiencing demonic fits and dropping dead at the Lord’s Supper, only strengthened his resolve on these matters. I argue that these theological convictions and pastoral crises produced the urgency in Cyprian to posit a penitential program that rested on the authority of the bishops. This ‘divine order’ of episcopal authority, for Cyprian, would ensure the Church’s obedience to divine command and its aversion of divine judgment. Such a program, for Cyprian, was essential for maintaining both the purity and unity of the Church.

Divine Command and Divine Judgment For Cyprian, the act of sacrificing to the Roman and Punic gods constituted the grave sins of idolatry and apostasy; and such sins would require atonement. Deuteronomy and Exodus, he notes, command the people of God to worship and serve no other god but the Lord; and God, who is holy and just, promises

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to destroy those who sacrifice to other gods.1 These prohibitions are to be taken seriously, for they are, he says, ‘showing the anger of the divine wrath and forewarning us with the fear of punishment’.2 Those who so willingly sacrificed, he continues, had ‘burned up [their] salvation … [and] incinerated [their] hope, [their] faith’.3 In Cyprian’s eyes, violation of these divine commands causes one to incur divine judgment and forfeit one’s salvation unless penance is performed and thus atonement is made.4 Moreover, participation in these unholy pagan sacrifices, as Cyprian saw them, render a person unworthy to partake of the holy Eucharistic sacrifice. He denounced the former as ‘the altars of the devil’ which brought defilement upon the lapsed.5 The failure to make atonement through penance before receiving the Lord’s Supper caused the lapsed, he says, to ‘[bring] violence to bear upon the body and blood of the Lord … [and to] sin far more against the Lord with their hands and mouth than when they denied the Lord’.6 Likewise, presbyters who knowingly administered the Eucharist to the impenitent were, he says, ‘[profaning] the holy Body of the Lord’.7 Only after penance and the imposition of the bishops’ hands could the lapsed become pure and be made worthy to partake of the body and blood of Christ. Because of the severity and kindness of God, penance ought to require, Cyprian argued, specific prayers and actions on the part of the penitent that were to vary in duration based upon the gravity of the offense. As J. Patout Burns Jr. and Robin M. Jensen describe, this period of penance involved the penitent fasting and crying aloud for mercy while standing or kneeling outside of the Church, as well as performing works of repentance like giving alms, taking care of the persecuted, and aiding the poor. Also, the community joined in fasting and prayer for God’s forgiveness for the sinner. Once the prescribed period of penance ended, a worthy penitent would make a final public confession before the laity and clergy.8 After the public confession, the penitent was to 1 De lapsis, 7. He quotes from Deut. 6:13 and Exod. 22:19. All quotes from this treatise are taken from St Cyprian of Carthage, On the Church: Select Treatises, trans. Allen Brent, in John Behr (ed.), Popular Patristics Series 32 (Crestwood, 2006). 2 De lapsis, 7. 3 De lapsis, 9. 4 As I will describe later, Cyprian describes varying degrees of offense that would constitute varying degrees of penance for restoration to the Church. 5 De lapsis, 15. 6 De lapsis, 16. The theme of committing sins with one’s body against the body of the Lord continue throughout Cyprian’s writing on this matter. Clearly, Cyprian denies any Gnostic dualism that rejects the effects of bodily actions on the soul. 7 Ep. 15.1.2. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from Cyprian’s letters are taken from St Cyprian of Carthage, On the Church: Select Letters, trans. Allen Brent, in John Behr (ed.), Popular Patristics Series 33 (Crestwood, 2006). 8 J. Patout Burns Jr. and Robin M. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of its Practices and Beliefs (Grand Rapids, Cambridge, 2014), 315-7. As Burns and Jensen note,

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receive the imposition of hands from the bishop and clergy.9 Only after fulfilling this protocol, Cyprian argued, could the lapsed make atonement, become purified, and be readmitted to communion.10 Therefore, for Cyprian, penance was both personal and communal. Whereas a great deal of prayers and works were required from the individual for readmittance to the Eucharist community, neither God nor the community forsook the penitent.11 Because reconciliation meant peace with the Church, the corporate intercession of the laity and clergy played a vital role in the penitent’s restoration.12 In addition, the duration of penance ought to vary for each individual offender, Cyprian argued, because of the diversity of the nature and reasons for each offense. The libellaciti, those who had purchased certificates (libelli) from the Roman government affirming that they had sacrificed – when in fact they had not – should not be judged with the same severity as the sacrificati, those who in fact had sacrificed.13 All sins were not equal for Cyprian. To equate the two types of offenders and administer to them the same period of penance, Cyprian says, would be ‘sheer brutality and harsh to excess’.14 Even among the sacrificati, individual cases should be examined because of their diversity: One of them jumped eagerly into making a sacrilegious sacrifice voluntarily and readily. Another struggled against and offered strong resistance, and only came to perform the Cyprian refers to this prayer as a deprecatio, a begging for mercy. ‘This begging included weeping, lamentation, sorrow, fasting, and other manifestations of loss and grief … Friends and relatives, the bishop, and the whole congregation joined in these prayers and in fasting to support the penitent’s petition to God for forgiveness…’ Also, they note, for the public confession, ‘exomologesis continued to be used – before the bishop, the clergy, and the entire community’. 9 To be sure, for grave sins like apostasy and idolatry, which were sins committed directly against God, the bishops could only grant peace to the Church; they could not guarantee forgiveness from God at the judgement seat. The common belief in the North African Church, however, was that this peace with the Church was necessary for any hope of forgiveness from God both now and in eternity. J. Patout Burns Jr., Cyprian the Bishop (London, New York, 2002), 46. 10 Ep. 15.1.2. Cyprian, here, was furious that readmittance to communion was being granted ‘before the performance of penitence, before confession has been made for the most serious and desperate sin, before imposition of hands by the bishop and clergy in recognition of penitence’. This premature readmittance to the Eucharistic table for Cyprian, as noted above, constituted profaning the body and blood of Christ. 11 J.P. Burns Jr. and R.M. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa (2014), 316. 12 See J.P. Burns Jr. and R.M. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa (2014), 317. They note the involvement of the laity’s advice to the bishop in the final reconciliation of the penitent. 13 These libelli (certificates) from the Roman government are not to be confused with the libelli from the martyrs granting absolution. The former were purchased by Christians from the Roman government in order to avoid the act of sacrificing. The latter were obtained from the confessors and martyrs to grant absolution to Christians who had sacrificed. 14 Ep. 55.14.1. In this letter, Cyprian defends the change in his view on the measure of penance required from various offenders. After meeting in the council of bishops, he lightened his severity. However, he and the other bishops all agreed that atonement for each offender was necessary, thus they still attempted to enforce penance commensurate with the degree of the offense for each individual.

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act that brings death under compulsion. Then there is someone who handed himself over with his whole family … then there is someone who forced his friends to an evil act…15

Whereas Cyprian does not specify the exact duration of penance for each type of offender, he does clarify that each were dealt with differently.16 Both libellaciti and all types of sacrificati had defiled their consciences with grave sin, Cyprian argued, and God in his severity required that reconciliation was not to be granted without the proper administration of penance to each offender.17 However, in accord with the kindness of God, the reasons for and conditions under which the grave sins were committed, for Cyprian, ought to be taken into consideration when dispensing penitential requirements for the lapsed.18 Moreover, the discipline of penance, for Cyprian, flows from God’s mercy and love, not from rigorous cruelty. 19 Though God, in Cyprian’s eyes, is the Righteous Judge that demands atonement for sin, He is also a merciful Father that chastises those whom He loves. Penance, therefore, ought to be unto reconciliation.20 Otherwise, the lapsed would despair and turn away from God and the Church to ‘seek again this world and live the pagan life’.21 Furthermore, 15

Ep. 55.13.2. See J.P. Burns Jr. and R.M. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa (2014), 316-7. They outline various references to periods of penance in Cyprian’s works. In Ep. 55.6.1, Cyprian vaguely refers to ‘a long period’. None were to be rashly readmitted to communion lest the ‘moral order of the gospel’ be weakened. ‘Rather’, Cyprian says, ‘their penance should extend over a long period, and the Father’s clemency should be petitioned in a spirit of mourning’. 17 Ep. 55.14.1. 18 The changing climate of persecution would result in Cyprian and the bishops adapting their decisions. See Ep. 56.1 where Cyprian responds to a petition about whether to reconcile some lapsed persons who had been performing penance for three years after having sacrificed under torture. In Ep. 57 Cyprian describes the bishops’ decision to reconcile all the lapsed who had been performing penance since the time they had committed their offense because God was sending ‘frequent’ and ‘reliable’ signs that another wave of persecution was on the rise. During the respite of the persecution, he says, an extended time of penance was appropriate, and reconciliation was to be granted to any lapsed persons on their deathbeds who had been faithfully fulfilling their penitential requirements. The resurgence of the threat of persecution, however, would require that all ‘be armed and ready for engagement on the spiritual battlefield’. Ep. 57.1.2; 57.2.1. These quotations from Ep. 56.1, Ep. 57.1.2, and Ep. 57.2.1 each come from St Cyprian of Carthage, The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, trans. G.W. Clarke, in Johannes Quasten, Walter J. Burghardt and Thomas Comerford Lawler (eds), Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation 46.3 (New York, Mahwah, 1986). As I will note later, these charismatic signs from bishops and laity alike played a vital role in the conciliar decisions of Cyprian and the bishops. 19 See Ep. 55.28.1 and 55.29.1. This cruel rigorism, in Cyprian’s eyes, characterizes the position of Novatian and his party since they required lifelong penance of the lapsed but offered no reconciliation. 20 Ep. 55.29.1. ‘God is merciful, and with a father’s love, so that we must allow the laments of those who beat their breasts in sorrow, and not deny to those thus grieving the fruit of their penitence’. 21 Ep. 55.6.1. Cyprian again also considers the severity of God in his position. ‘On the other hand, the moral order of the gospel should not be weakened by their rushing back haphazardly into making their communion’. 16

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God is the Divine Physician who seeks to heal and revive the soul of the penitent. Idolatry and apostasy inflict a deadly wound that must be treated with the salutary effects of penance.22 Penance, then, was not only obligatory to atone for sin committed against God, but it was redemptive and necessary for healing the penitent from the fatal affects of grave sin inflicted upon the soul. The initial screams, cries, and complaints from a sick patient undergoing necessary treatment are no grounds for a physician to cease treating the patient, Cyprian says. Likewise, the discomfort and pain the lapsed may experience because of penitential discipline, Cyprian argues, should by no means prevent laity and clergy from administering the very cure that will heal and restore the souls of the lapsed.23 Therefore, rather than caving to the demands of the lapsed for immediate readmittance to the Eucharistic table, priests were to require penance, which would serve as ‘the healing medicines of salvation’.24 The bishops, for Cyprian, were to serve as the primary oversight in administering this Fatherly discipline and divine medicine. Divine Order For Cyprian, the authority of the bishops was the order for the Church that God instituted to preserve her purity and unity. He responds to a letter from a group of Christian confessors in prison, 25 who had been granting libelli (certificates of reconciliation) to impenitent lapsed persons and demanding the bishops to readmit these now ‘absolved’ members to the Eucharistic community.26 In the confessors’ eyes, confessors and martyrs possessed the authority 22

De lapsis, 14. Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 The terms ‘confessors’ and ‘martyrs’ are sometimes used interchangeably (by both Cyprian and myself). However, ‘confessors’ specifically refers to Christians imprisoned (and usually tortured) because of their confession of Christ, yet they are still alive. ‘Martyrs’ refers more specifically to those who had died for their confession. For a more detailed examination of Cyprian’s distinction between confessors and martyrs, as well a description of the debate in the Church regarding the efficacy of martyr intercession during and prior to the time of Cyprian, see St Cyprian of Carthage, The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, trans. G.W. Clarke, in Johannes Quasten, Walter J. Burghardt and Thomas Comerford Lawler (eds), Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation 43.1 (New York, Ramsey, 1984), 272, n. 1; 275, n. 8; 289, n. 5. See also J.P. Burns and R.M. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa (2014), 295-361. Burns and Jensen carry the discussion forward into Augustine’s time. 26 Ep. 23. A confessor named Lucianus was a primary perpetrator here. He even demanded that Cyprian and the bishops be reconciled to the confessors and martyrs. Allen Brent notes that the Latin terms that Lucianus used in this letter to Cyprian indicate that the letter was not a request of Cyprian and the bishops, but an order. ‘The libelli have been issued ordering and not merely requesting the bishops to do what the confessors could have done themselves had they not been imprisoned’. A. Brent, Cyprian and Roman Carthage (Cambridge, 2010), 271. 23

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to forgive sins and to reconcile sinners to the Church, not the bishops. However, Cyprian appeals to the words of Jesus to Peter in Matthew 16:18-9. These words of Christ, he says, set out ‘the place of honor for the bishop and the ruling principle of his Church’.27 For Cyprian, this means the bishops, not the confessors and martyrs, have the responsibility and authority to prescribe and enforce disciplinary action and terms of reconciliation. ‘The Church’, he says, ‘is founded on the bishops, and every movement of the Church is steered through the governance of those same presiding bishops’.28 Those who oppose this ‘ruling principle’ and ‘divine law’, Cyprian holds, violate the God-ordained order for the Church and are guilty of seeking to overthrow the very foundation of the Church.29 These bishops, for Cyprian, are the source and guardians of unity in the Church. Christ, he says, has ‘established on one Chair and ordained by his own authority that Chair as the source of unity and its guiding principle’.30 The authority of Peter granted by Christ extends to the bishops, thus the bishops 27 Ep. 33.1.1. As Robert Evans notes, by attributing the authority given to Peter in Matthew 16 and the authority given to all of the apostles to forgive sins in John 21 to the present-day bishops, Cyprian made a significant theological move in history which tied contemporary bishops much more closely with both the Apostles and with Christ. Also, with this understanding of the episcopacy, to defame a bishop haphazardly was to judge Christ. ‘In this regard Cyprian took a crucial step in the history of thought about the episcopate: the Apostles themselves were the first bishops of the Church’. Moreover, Evans says, ‘to say that bishops succeed the Apostles in this way is to say that they possess their office “by appointment with fully delegated power”. When Christ, therefore declared to the Apostles, “He that hears you, hears me”, he was speaking to the first bishops of the Church and to all future bishops. Lightly to engage in calumny of a bishop is to make oneself a judge of God and of Christ, who have delivered to bishops their awesome authority in the Church’. Robert Evans, One and Holy: The Church in Latin Patristic Thought (Eugene, 1972), 48-9, 50. 28 Ep. 33.1.1-2. 29 This God-ordained order of the bishops, for Cyprian, would require the assembly of the bishops in a council after the persecution had subsided. Cyprian even submitted to this assembly his initially much more rigorous views on how the crisis should be handled. To bypass or malign the decision of the bishops assembled in the council, for Cyprian, was the devil’s attempt to fracture the Church’s unity: ‘We must not now draw back from our resolutions, passed decisively in our council and reach by a common decision, in the face of sentiments bandied about and voiced by many people. These include those deliberate lies flaunted against the priests of God, and emanating from the Devil’s mouth, the intention of which is to fracture everywhere the bond of the unity of the Catholic Church’. Ep. 55.7.2. 30 De catholicae ecclesiae unitate, 4. All quotations from this treatise come from St Cyprian of Carthage, On the Church: Select Treatises, trans. Allen Brent, in John Behr (ed.), Popular Patristics Series 32 (Crestwood, 2006). This quotation comes from the first version of the chapter and denotes Cyprian’s interpretation of John 21:17. The second version of the chapter says, ‘he ordained by his own authority that the source of that same unity should begin from the one who began the series’. Though the other apostles share equal honor and power as Peter, ‘the starting point from which they begin is from their unity with him in order that the Church of Christ might be exemplified as one’. Though discussing which version is the original certainly has merit, this topic will not be taken up here. My point is to emphasize that Cyprian sees the authority of the bishops as being granted by Christ.

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serve as God’s divine order and source of unity.31 Therefore, they are under divine compulsion to assert their authority in this aftermath of the Decian persecution to bring order and peace to the Church.32 The confessors, as Cyprian would have it, should be submitting to the disciplinary action of the bishops, not vice versa, lest the bond of unity in the church be broken and the Church thrown into chaos.33 Pastoral Crises: Violent Mobs, Prophetic Warnings, and Dead Bodies The outbreak of riots in the churches throughout numerous cities in the province confirmed Cyprian’s conviction that the God-ordained order of bishops is necessary to secure the purity and unity of the Church. These impassioned mobs of impenitent lapsed persons, Cyprian writes, demanded immediate reconciliation, which they repeatedly insisted had ‘been granted … by the martyrs and confessors’.34 Also, he reports, a number of absolution certificates were being handed out as blank checks, resulting in multiple people claiming absolution from a single certificate.35 Moreover, these rioting crowds, he says, ‘have terrorized their bishops and forced them into submission’.36 The mob crisis that resulted caused extreme upheaval in several churches, and he feared that silence on the matter would bring danger upon both laity and bishops.37 31 Evans highlights the bishops’ reception of authority from Christ the judge and relates Cyprian’s episcopal-centered ecclesiastical structure to the organization of the Roman empire: ‘Just as the provinces of the empire each had its “council of the province” to which went delegates from the cities to discuss matters of common interest, so do Cyprian’s bishops come regularly from their towns and cities to debate and to decide in council upon issues of present concern. Each bishop in his own time and at his own place is a “judge in place of Christ”, which is to say that the bishop is a magistrate having plenipotentiary authority from Christ the judge. It is bishops, therefore, who in fact have authority to regulate and to modulate the Church’s penitential requirements, and to decide individual cases on their merits’. R. Evans, One and Holy (1972), 48. 32 See De unitate, 5 (version 2), ‘the bishops who preside over the Church, are under the foremost obligation to grasp tightly this unity and to assert our title to it’. This sentence does not occur in version 1. 33 Brent argues that a number of power struggles were at play between Cyprian and the opposing parties, and he repeatedly refers to Cyprian as ‘the bureaucrat’. He even calls Cyprian ‘the divine model for bureaucrats of any kind’. A. Brent, Cyprian and Roman Carthage (2010), 253. I argue that Cyprian’s writings reveal that the bishop’s response to the Decian crisis was primarily rooted in a deep theological and pastoral concern that was amplified by a series of prophetic warnings from the laity and the ill-fate of some impenitent lapsed persons, which I will discuss in the next section. 34 Ep. 27.3.1. 35 Ep. 15.4.1. Some certificates, Cyprian noted, indicated a person’s name along with one’s entire household. He reports that as many as twenty or thirty people, including household slaves, would approach the bishops claiming relation to the named person. Cyprian opposed this and demanded that specific names be included on the certificates. 36 Ep. 27.3.1. 37 Ep. 16.1.1.

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The Church needed unity and order, and the bishops needed courage and urgency to overcome the chaos and discord arising from the demands of the lapsed. Cyprian urged the church leaders not to ‘promise anything rash and unworthy’ to those demanding reconciliation but to cautiously examine each case individually as ‘friends of the Lord destined afterwards to sit in the Judgment with him’.38 The chaos of this mob crisis only strengthens Cyprian’s conviction that bishops are God’s appointed shepherds over the Church who are entrusted with oversight and judgment in both this life and the next. However, another pressing matter heightened his urgency to charge his fellow bishops to uphold their posts and to keep their nerve. Cyprian reports that numerous people from his community were having prophetic experiences warning the Church. For Cyprian, these were direct commands from God demanding the Church to take apostasy and penance seriously. ‘For we receive divine visitations’, Cyprian says, ‘and we are constantly reprimanded and admonished that the commandments of the Lord might be allowed to remain incorrupt and inviolate’.39 Moreover, Cyprian refers to several divine rebukes that had come through ‘visions of the night’ from various church members and through spontaneous, prophetic utterances in the day from young boys who, he says, ‘are filled with the Holy Spirit, who see in ecstasy with their eyes, and hear and speak those things by means of which the Lord deigns to warn and instruct [the Church]’.40 For Cyprian, the charismatic and institutional dimensions of the Church worked together, not against each other.41 These divine visitations and prophetic admonitions of the laity, for Cyprian, confirmed the Church’s teaching on the need for atonement for grave sins through the sacrament of penance before readmittance to the Eucharistic communion. Moreover, these charismatic experiences drove Cyprian to ensure that bishops were administering penitential discipline in accordance with divine command in order to avert divine judgment.42 38

Ep. 27.3.1. Ep. 15.3.1. Though the Latin word here is simply visitamur, ‘we are visited’, Brent follows Clarke in translating this in a way that coincides with Ep. 16.4.1. See St Cyprian, St Cyprian of Carthage On the Church: Select Letters, trans. Allen Brent (2010), 63, n. 9. 40 Ep. 16.4.1. 41 He parted on this point from his predecessor Tertullian, who would later in his career exalt those of the New Prophecy who claimed similar prophetic experiences above bishops who lacked such charisms. See De pudicitia 21. As Evans says regarding Tertullian’s ecclesiology, ‘the Apostles were men possessing a full endowment of the Spirt; they were not “bishops”. It is to “spiritual” men, if to any at all, that such power now belongs as that claimed by the miserable bishop … The Church … is not a “collectivity of bishops” but is simply the company of “spiritual” men’. R. Evans, One and Holy (1972), 33. 42 See Ep. 11.3.1. Cyprian recounts three visions in this letter that members of his community experienced before the outbreak of the persecution. They admonished the people for discord in the Church, laxity towards impenitent sinful members, and prayerlessness. Cyprian even interprets the persecution as God’s divine discipline on his Church for these sins. For more on the high regard of dreams and visions for Cyprian and his community, see St Cyprian, The Letters of St. Cyprian, trans. G.W. Clarke (1984), 43.1, 243, n. 21; 287-91, n. 27-30. 39

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Finally, Cyprian’s urgency from the warnings of God’s judgment from Scripture is amplified by the reports of alarming events happening to various lapsed Christians who had not performed penance. He interprets these events as ‘punishments of those for whose sad decease we are in tears … punishments meted out on those who have denied Christ’.43 One man is struck dumb after denying Christ as a punishment against the very organ (his tongue) which committed the crime against God.44 Another instance involved a woman who had gone to the public baths after offering her sacrifice. An evil spirit possessed her, he says, and caused her to bite her own tongue to pieces, and she eventually died of severe pains inflicted on her stomach and vital organs. Her punishment likewise coincided with her offense: ‘After she had consumed the food that was accursed’, he reports, ‘her frenzied lips were turned into the weapons of her own destruction’.45 Another apostate woman snuck in to receive Eucharist as Cyprian and his clergy were officiating, and upon drinking the cup, as he recounts, she choked, ‘as if imbibing some deadly poison’ and then fell dead ‘quivering and quaking’ in the sight of all.46 ‘She who had misled man’, Cyprian says, ‘now felt the vengeance of God’.47 What did Cyprian make of these events? Judgment had begun in the house of God. For Cyprian, these present judgments were to serve as warnings to both clergy and laity to respond rightly to this crisis of readmitting the lapsed so that guilt would not be incurred on the final day of judgment: ‘Some are punished in the meantime’, he warns, ‘so the remainder might be suitably directed. The agonies of the few are examples for us all’.48 An apostate who had not experienced such unfortunate events should take no comfort, for they were awaiting a more severe judgment: ‘You ought rather to be more afraid’, he rebukes, ‘because God has kept back the anger of his judgment to apply it later for himself’.49 These instances of immediate divine judgment strengthened Cyprian’s convictions of eschatological divine judgment; and they heightened his urgency to ensure that the lapsed perform penance and receive absolution from the bishops, not the martyrs, before readmittance to communion.

43

De lapsis, 23. De lapsis, 24. 45 Ibid. 46 De lapsis, 25. This section also includes a jarring story of a young girl whose nurse fed her the food of the sacrifices. Afterward, the girl received the Eucharist and experienced ‘convulsive sobbing and vomiting’. 47 De lapsis, 26. Two other apostates tried to take the Eucharist, but a fire blazed from the sacrament and terrified them, while another attempted to partake of the Eucharist only to find that it turned to ashes in his very hands. 48 De lapsis, 23. His narratives recall the account of judgement upon Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 and the on the ‘prophet’ Jezebel in Revelation 3. Especially note the latter’s reference to eating food sacrificed to idols. 49 De lapsis, 26. 44

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Conclusion For Cyprian, responding to the Decian persecution was not solely a power struggle against the martyrs, the laxist party of Felicissimus, or the rigorist party of Novatian. His theological convictions regarding divine command, divine judgment, and divine order and the pastoral crises that emerged during this controversy stirred in him the urgency – a divine urgency, one might say – to implement a penitential program that necessitated the authority of the bishops in order to uphold the purity and unity of the Church. Moreover, the charismatic experiences of the laity were not in conflict with the ecclesial hierarchy for Cyprian. The charisms of prophecy, visions, and dreams further urged Cyprian to work with his fellow bishops to institute order in the Church that he believed aligned with the divine commands communicated through the Scriptures and through these prophetic experiences. Though Cyprian argues for the necessity of unity in the Church, he does recognize that unity has its limits: that is, when unity with people has broken unity with God. For Cyprian, there is no unity in the Church apart from unity with God. There is no unity with God apart from purity. For Cyprian, the laxist appeal to the martyrs’ absolution certificates attempted to produce a unity with God and the Church that lacked penance and thus lacked purity. Relying solely upon the intercession of the martyrs and confessors resulted in a superficial unity because it did not satisfy the need to atone for the grave sins of apostasy and idolatry committed against God who is holy and just. The rigorist position attempted to ensure the Church’s purity but lacked the hope of re-unification with God and the Church by requiring lifelong penance without providing any means of reconciliation for the lapsed. Such reconciliation, for Cyprian, was the aim of penance prescribed by God who is also merciful and kind. In Cyprian’s eyes, this episcopal-centric penitential program would keep the Church pure and unified by satisfying two concerns: first, the concern to atone for the grave sins of idolatry and apostasy against a God who is a Righteous Judge; and second, the concern to reconcile the penitent to the same God who is a Merciful Father.

Part of Baptism or Reconciliation? On the impositio manus in the Baptismal Dispute Elisa Victoria BLUM, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany

ABSTRACT The impositio manus as an important rite in the baptismal dispute in the third century is a dazzling and ambiguous ritual, as a glance at Cyprian’s letters shows. The essay explores how Cyprian understands the laying on of hands unlike his opponents who recognize heretic baptism and perform the laying on of hands as an act of (re)admission into the Church. The article analyses the positions of Cyprian, of his opponents and of Stephen of Rome, all of which are derived from the Corpus Cyprianum. Cyprian consequently interprets the laying on of hand as the second part of baptism and accuses his opponents of splitting baptism, even though the Holy Spirit either already ministers the forgiveness of sins during water-baptism or not at all. This can be seen as a deliberate misunderstanding, because it is proven that Cyprian knows the laying on of hands as an act of repentance independent of baptism. The construct of the laying on of hands serves as an easily conveyed vehicle for this purpose due to its multiple possibilities of meaning. Thus, Cyprian can emphasize his ecclesiology and doctrine of sacraments, which are closely related to the Holy Spirit and are therefore a matter of pneumatology. Being against the practice of laying on of hands helps Cyprian to argue why there is no salvation outside the Church and why the heretics need to be baptized in the Holy Catholic Church.

Introduction The dispute about the recognition of heretic baptism, including all its theological implications and consequences, manifests itself in the third century in one act: the impositio manus. However, the laying on of hands is an ambiguous ritual, as a glance at Cyprian’s letters1 shows, from which both positions can 1 Sancti Cypriani Episcopi Epistularium. Epistulae 1-57, ed. Gerard F. Diercks, CChr.SL 3B (Turnhout, 1994); Epistulae 58-81, ed. id., CChr.SL 3C (Turnhout, 1996). The English translation requested for the main text is taken from The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage. Vol. IV: Letters 67-82, translated and annotated by Graeme W. Clarke, ACW 47 (New York, 1989). However, the Latin original, because of its increased precision, remains the key to the understanding of the dispute.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 351-360. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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be derived – that of those who recognize heretic baptism and that of opponents to this view. In my article, I will therefore address three questions: (i) What does the laying on of hands according to Cyprian stand for? (ii) What does it mean for his opponents and for Stephen of Rome? And (iii) how does Cyprian think about his opponents’ and Stephen’s understanding of the laying on of hands? May there be a reason for the hardening of this triad confrontation, although Cyprian repeatedly emphasizes that he does not want to coerce any of his colleagues?2 Baptismal understanding in Carthage In large parts of North Africa, as probably also in Asia Minor,3 the opinion is held that ‘no one can be baptized outside and away from the Church, on the grounds that there is only one baptism that has been appointed and that is in the holy Church’.4 This was the common question of baptism in North Africa at that time, which is handed down in the synodal letter of 255: ‘Do you believe in everlasting life and the forgiveness of sins through the holy Church?’5 The forgiveness of sins invoked through baptism is therefore only possible in the Holy Church and also requires the Holy Spirit, so ‘that sins can be forgiven only through those who possess the Holy Spirit’.6 Both proponents and opponents of the efficacy7 of heretical and schismatic 2

See Cypr., ep. 69,17,1 (CChr.SL 3C, 496); 72,3,2 (ibid. 528); 73,26,1 (ibid. 561). See the Synods of Iconium and Synnada, but also the letter of Firmilian from Caesarea in Cappadocia (Cypr, ep. 75, ibid. 581-604); there is disagreement about the attitude of Dionysius of Alexandria, see Johann Ernst, ‘Die Stellung Dionysius des Großen von Alexandria zur Ketzertauffrage’, ZKTh 30 (1905), 38-66, or Karl Müller, ‘Die Grundlagen des Ketzertaufstreits und die Stellung des Dionys von Alexandrien in ihm’, ZNW 23 (1924), 235-47; Eva Baumkamp, Kommunikation in der Kirche des 3. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 2014), 307-8, expresses her astonishment that an exchange between him and Cyprian is not proven. She emphasizes that Dionysius, like Cyprian, strives for unity, but, like Rome, does not practice rebaptism (309f.). 4 Cypr., ep. 70,1,2 (CChr.SL 3C, 503): neminem baptizari foris extra ecclesiam posse, cum sit baptisma unum in sancta ecclesia constitutum. 5 Cypr., ep. 70,2,1 (ibid. 505f.): credis in vitam aeternam et remissionem peccatorum per sanctam ecclesiam? 6 Cypr., ep. 69,11,1 (ibid. 485): per eos solos posse peccata dimitti qui habeant spiritum sanctum. Here, the problem is already clearly concentrated on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit connects the two parts of baptism (water and laying on of hands), as will be shown later. 7 Henceforth the term ‘efficacy’ is used here above all, since with Cyprian it is primarily a question of whether the Holy Spirit is effective in the rite performed and thus the forgiveness of sins is obtained; see Cypr., ep. 63,8,3 (CChr.SL 3C, 399); 69,11,1 (ibid. 485); 74,5,4 (ibid. 570). In Cypr., ep. 74,5,1 (ibid. 569) he even speaks of the effectum baptismi. Often it follows that baptism simply does not exist among heretics and schismatics, as ep. 71,1,3 (ibid. 517); 74,7,2 (ibid. 572) show. The phrase in acceptum refertur (ep. 73,12,1; ibid. 542) for example – translated as ‘als gültig (valid) hinnehmen’ or as ‘we recognize their baptism’ – originally comes from bookkeeping: i.e. in the end, baptism is not on the credit side; see ‘accipio’ in Karl Ernst Georges, 3

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baptism agree that heretical or schismatic communities8 do not possess the Holy Spirit. Thus, Cyprian writes in his first letter on this subject: ‘they do admit this point, viz. that no one, whether heretic or schismatic, can anywhere possess the Holy Spirit’.9 Cyprian therefore concludes that heretics cannot administer valid baptism, when he answers the question, whether ‘it is obligatory […] that they are to be baptized and sanctified within the catholic Church by means of the one, true, and lawful baptism, that is to say, that of the Church’,10 with a resounding yes: ‘without exception all heretics and schismatics are without any powers or rights

Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch 1 (Darmstadt, 19988), 60-4, 61, and ‘referro’ in A Latin Dictionary. Founded on Andrews’ edition of Freund’s Latin dictionary. Revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten by Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (Oxford, 1879). At the same time, Cyprian also knows about the aspect of ‘validity’ when he writes about potestas ac ius and legitimo […] baptismo (ep. 69,1,1; ibid. 469-70) or uses licere/licet (ep. 73,7,2; ibid. 537) or probare (ep. 70,3,1; ibid. 511). Efficacy and validity therefore coincide in Cyprian’s case to some extent and – as in this article – are not distinguished. In fact, the lack of validity results from the lack of efficacy. Both terms are therefore also used side by side in the literature, see Graeme W. Clarke, Sancti Cypriani Episcopi Epistularium. Prolegomena, CChr.SL 3D (Turnhout, 1999), 702. The terminological problem is also evident in Cypr., ep. 70,3,1 (CChr.SL 3C, 511): while G.W. Clarke, The Letters (1989), translates the opposite pair inanis esse/praevalere with ‘void’/‘valid’, the only German translation to date – Des Heiligen Kirchenvaters Caecilius Cyprianus Briefe, translated by Julius Baer, BKV 60 (München, 1928) – reads ‘unwirksam’/‘wirksam’ (i.e. ineffetive/effective). 8 From now on – also for the sake of simplicity – we speak of heretical communities, especially since Cyprian is ‘an der Angleichung von Häresie und Schisma viel mehr interessiert […] als an der Differenzierung’ (Alfred Schindler, ‘Häresie. II Kirchengeschichtlich’, TRE 14 [1986], 318-41, 320). For him ‘[d]ie Trennung von der kirchlichen Einheit macht die “haeretica factio” aus’, as stated in id., ‘Die Unterscheidung von Schisma und Häresie in Gesetzgebung und Polemik gegen den Donatismus’, in Ernst Dassmann and Karl Suso Frank (eds), Pietas. FS für Bernhard Kötting, JAC 8 (Münster, 1980), 228-36, 229. G.W. Clarke, The Letters (1989), 179, states as well: ‘it is enough for him that they [heretics and schismatics] are both outside’. Cyprian himself writes in ep. 74,11,1 (CChr.SL 3C, 578): ‘And the tradition handed down to us is that there is one God and one Christ, one hope and one faith, one Church and one baptism appointed only in that one Church. Whoever departs from that unity must be found in company with heretics’ (traditum est enim nobis quod sit unus deus et Christus unus et una spes et fides una et una ecclesia et baptisma unum non nisi in una ecclesia constitutum, a qua unitate quisque discesserit cum haereticis necesse est inueniatur), whereby the schism receives a content component and is therefore considered by Cyprian as heresy. Consequently, in his letters in the context of the baptismal dispute haeresis/haeretici can be found in eighty passages, ten of which also mention schisma/schismatici, whereas the latter term (schisma/schismatici) occurs on its own in only five passages. Also in the direct quotation by Stephen of Rome, which is preserved in Cypr., ep. 74,1,2 (ibid. 564), he only speaks of haeresis/haeretici. 9 Cypr., ep. 69,10,2 (ibid. 484): confitentur quod uniuersi siue haeretici siue schismatici non habeant spiritum sanctum. 10 Cypr., ep. 69,1,1 (ibid. 469f.): baptizari et sanctificari in ecclesia catholica legitimo et uero et unico ecclesiae baptismo oporteat; similar to 71,1,3 (ibid. 517f.); 72,1,1 (ibid. 524); 73,21,3 (ibid. 555f.).

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whatsoever’.11 He also emphasizes that this catholic baptism is the only correct one in the first place, and so is not rebaptizing.12 In the baptismal dispute he will recognize, that others do not seem to be able to come to this conclusion. The laying on of hands in the letters of Cyprian Cyprian writes his first letter on the question of the recognition of heretic baptism in 254 or 255 to the layman Magnus.13 Here, he points out that elsewhere, in conversion from a heretical community, ‘they […] have hands laid upon them for receiving the Spirit’.14 Cyprian understands the laying on of hands in the context of Spiritual communion and baptism, although it is not clear whether his interpretation corresponds to the actual understanding of his opponents. At least from his perspective, Cyprian anticipates a crucial question: ‘We challenge, then, those who espouse the cause of these heretics and schismatics to answer us this: do they, or do they not, possess the Holy Spirit?’15 Cyprian believes to have recognized an inconsistency in the arguments of his opponents: they confirm that heretics do not possess the Holy Spirit and therefore cannot officiate at conveying the Holy Spirit, but, in contrast to Cyprian’s position, they may nevertheless baptize. This is exactly where Cyprian objects, pointing to the connection between the Holy Spirit and water-baptism: ‘we can prove that they cannot possibly baptize who do not possess the Holy Spirit.’16 Since baptism conveys the forgiveness of sins and since this very baptism is tied to the Holy Spirit, as Cyprian emphasizes with the help of John 20:21-3, such a baptism cannot exist with heretics from Cyprian’s point of view.17 Cyprian is therefore opposed to the procedure of the laying on of hands on its own, but is well aware of the use of such procedure in conversion, as his letter to the Mauritanian bishop Quintus shows. However, this applies in the case of ad ecclesiam reuertentes,18 where no new baptism is required, but only repentance: ‘it is sufficient to lay hands upon them in penitence’.19 11 Cypr., ep. 69,1,1 (ibid. 470): dicimus omnes omnino haereticos et schismaticos nihil habere potestatis ac iuris. 12 See Cypr., ep. 71,1,3 (ibid. 517): non rebaptizari apud nos, sed baptizari; similar to ep. 73,1,2 (ibid. 530). 13 The dating of the letters follows G.W. Clarke, Prolegomena (Turnhout, 1999). 14 Cypr., ep. 69,11,3 (CChr.SL 3C, 486): manus inponitur ad accipiendum spiritum sanctum. 15 Cypr., ep. 69,11,2 (ibid. 485f.): Itaque qui haereticis siue schismaticis patrocinantur, respondeat nobis an habeant spiritum sanctum an non habeant. 16 Cypr., ep. 69,10,2 (ibid. 485): ostendamus nec baptizare omnino eos posse qui non habeant spiritum sanctum. 17 See Cypr., ep. 69,11,1 (ibid. 485). 18 Cypr., ep. 71,2,1 (ibid. 518): i.e. those returning to church. It also expresses itself in ep. 74,12,1 (ibid. 579f.). 19 Cypr., ep. 71,2,2 (ibid. 518): satis sit in paenitentiam manum imponere.

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In his letter to Stephen of Rome, whose opinion on the baptism of heretics Cyprian may not even have known at that time,20 the Bishop of Carthage reports in the concilium held previously in spring 256. At the concilium, it was established that ‘it is not sufficient just to lay hands upon them for receiving the Holy Spirit, unless they also receive the baptism of the Church’.21 He further explains that converts ‘who have been bathed beyond and outside the Church and have thus become stained and polluted by the unholy water of heretics and schismatics’22 must be baptized. For their salvation and filiation of God they must be ‘born of both sacred rites’,23 that is, as in John 3:5 of water and the Spirit. Here Cyprian draws on Acts 10:44-8 in addition to John. In the summer of 256 in the letter to his Mauritanian bishop colleague Jubaianus, who might have been influenced by Stephen,24 Cyprian understands the laying on of hands administered elsewhere as a rite of spiritual communication.25 The faith of the person to be baptized is more strongly emphasized here than before, because Cyprian’s opponents may have written in a lost letter26 to Jubaianus that one should not ask, ‘who administered baptism, since the person baptized can have received forgiveness of sins according to his faith’.27 Cyprian counters that if even ‘according to his perverted faith’28 someone could be baptized in a heretical community and receive the forgiveness of sins, then the 20 Even if Stephen of Rome is in retrospect considered an important representative or even spokesman for the other party, this is not evident in Cyprian’s first letters. Ep. 72 gives the impression that Cyprian still reports quite neutrally to his bishop colleague; see also Johann Ernst, Papst Stephan I. und der Ketzertaufstreit (Mainz, 1905), 6; a different opinion is put forward by J. Baer, Briefe (München, 1928), 331. E. Baumkamp, Kommunikation (2014), 286, expresses her uncertainty. At the same time, she sees in the sender’s statement Cyprianus et ceteri a hint that Cyprian wanted to prevent an interaction of the Bishop of Rome with his colleagues by not naming them, since his contrary position on the question of heretic baptism was already known (298). 21 Cypr., ep. 72,1,1 (CChr.SL 3C, 524): parum sit eis manum inponere ad accipiendum spiritum sanctum, nisi accipiant et ecclesiae baptismum. 22 Cypr., ep. 72,1,1 (ibid. 524): qui sint foris extra ecclesiam tincti et apud haereticos et schismaticos profanae aquae labe maculati. Here it is clearly shown that in Cyprian’s view not only has heretic baptism not taken place and the heretics are unbaptized, but that they have even polluted themselves. 23 Cypr., ep. 72,1,2 (ibid. 524): sacramento utroque. 24 Jubaianus had received a letter from the other party, as can be seen from ep. 73,4,1 (ibid. 533); but it is not possible to determine who the sender of this letter was. Stephen of Rome, at the latest since Cyprian’s letter to him (ep. 72) alert, could but need not be the sender; see for discussion Geoffrey D. Dunn, Cyprian and the Bishops of Rome. Questions on Papal Primacy in the Roman World, Early Christian Studies 11 (Strathfield, 2007), 165-8, who locates the author in Africa; differently Allen Brent, Cyprian and Roman Carthage (Cambridge, 2010), 300-3, who considers Stephen of Rome. 25 See Cypr., ep. 73,6,2 (CChr.SL 3C, 536). 26 See Cypr., ep. 73,4,1 (ibid. 533): scriptum esse. 27 Cypr., ep. 73,4,1 (ibid. 533): quis baptizauerit, quando is qui baptizatus sit accipere remissam peccatorum potuerit secundum quod credidit. 28 Cypr., ep. 73,6,2 (ibid. 536): secundum prauam fidem.

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Holy Spirit could have been received according to this faith as well. Here Cyprian again points out that the practice of the subsequent laying on of hands strangely splits up the sacrament of baptism: ‘Either he can obtain both outside through his faith or, being outside, he receives neither of them.’29 Water-baptism and the gift of the Spirit do not require different preconditions. In addition, he contradicts the view that the question of who baptizes is irrelevant. With the help of Matt 16:16 and John 20:21 he explains in ep. 73,7,1-2 that the ability to baptize and forgive sins is only given to those officiating in the Church through the appointment of the Lord. In ep. 73,9,1 Cyprian now takes up the report from Acts 8:14-7 about the subsequent gift of the Spirit by laying on of hands. The opponents of Cyprian seem to have argued that the people of Samaria received only the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands, but not baptism again.30 Cyprian can contradict such a use of the Bible passage by stressing that the people of Samaria had indeed become believers, had therefore had the true faith, and, in addition, had legitimately received baptism in the one Church by an appointed deacon. Thus Acts 8 becomes an argument for the practice in Carthage: ‘[T]hose who are baptized in the Church are presented to the appointed leaders of the Church, and by our prayer and the imposition of our hands they receive the Holy Spirit’.31 Before Cyprian writes his letter to Pompeius in the summer of 256, an answer from Rome must have arrived in Carthage at the latest. Now Stephen’s position becomes really tangible for the first time.32 Cyprian quotes from his letter: ‘And so, in the case of those who may come to you from heresy whatsoever, let there be no innovation beyond what has been handed down: hands are to be laid on them in penitence, since amongst heretics themselves they do not use their own rite of baptism on other heretics when they come to them, but they simply admit them to communion.’33 If Cyprian had previously understood the laying on of hands as a baptismal act of communicating the Spirit, it becomes clear here: Stephen of Rome understands the laying on of hands as an act of penance for re-admission into the Church! Thus, Cyprian himself repeats this understanding in ep. 74,2,3 and takes up this interpretation again in ep. 74,3,1 when he contradicts Stephen of Rome’s assertion that the rite of the laying on of hands can be derived from tradition, because the apostles were

29 Cypr., ep. 73,6,2 (ibid. 536): Aut utrumque enim fide sua foris consequi potuit aut neutrum eorum qui foris fuerat accepit. 30 See Cypr., ep. 73,9,1 (ibid. 539). 31 Cypr., ep. 73,9,2 (ibid. 539): ut qui in ecclesia baptizantur praepositis ecclesiae offerantur et per nostram orationem ac manus inpositionem spiritum sanctum consequantur. 32 See G. Dunn, Cyprian and the Bishops (2007), 161. 33 Cypr., ep. 74,1,2 (CChr.SL 3C, 564): si qui ergo a quacumque haeresi uenit ad uos, nihil innouetur nisi quod traditum est, ut manus illis inponatur in paenitentiam, cum ipsi haeretici proprie alterutrum ad se uenientes non baptizent, sed communicent tantum.

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not confronted with the problem of heresy at all.34 So Cyprian does not discuss here at all what the act the laying on of hands stands for, but denies its right to exist on the grounds that he can prove that it cannot be derived from tradition. The Holy Spirit does not play a role here.35 While in ep. 73 the effect of faith on the efficacy of baptism was questioned, Cyprian now deals with the Roman practice that all baptisms are effective and therefore valid which are administered ‘in the Name of Jesus Christ, no matter where nor in what manner’.36 But if such an effect is attributed to the name of Jesus Christ, then his name could also be effective through the laying on of hands to ‘receive the Holy Spirit’.37 Cyprian then challenges his opponents with the very explicit question: ‘Why does the same power of the same Name, which they maintain had efficacy in the sanctification of baptism, have no efficacy in the laying-on of hands?’38 Here Cyprian again falls back on his understanding of the laying on of hands as the conveying of the Spirit. For Cyprian, this laying on of hands, however, can only convey the Holy Spirit if the recipient has been born again in water-baptism.39 The consequences of focusing on the laying on of hands for Cyprian If one looks at the laying on of hands in the context of the question of heretic baptism, it becomes apparent that the understanding of the laying on of hands is not clear. As far as converts are concerned who were once baptized as Catholics, Cyprian understands the laying on of hands as a rite of repentance;40 but as far as the rite of baptism in Carthage is concerned, the laying on of hands serves the gift of the Spirit and is related to baptism:41 in ep. 73,9,2 he explains, 34

See Cypr., ep. 74,2,4 (ibid. 566f.). If one assumes that sinners and heretics have lost the Holy Spirit through their actions, it makes sense if Johannes Behm, Die Handauflegung im Christentum nach Verwendung, Herkunft und Bedeutung in religionsgeschichtlichem Zusammenhang (Leipzig, 1911), 184-5, also understands the laying on of hands in the act of reconciliation as a sign of the communication of the Holy Spirit. He refers to Didascalia 10, where the laying on of hands is supposed to replace baptism for repentant sinners, and adds that this rite may have developed from the post-baptismal laying on of hands and is now ‘eine verselbständigte Abart dieses Ritus’. Alfons Fürst, Die Liturgie der alten Kirche. Geschichte und Theologie (Münster, 2008), 214, explains: ‘diese Handauflegung fungierte einerseits als Geistmitteilung, andererseits als Bußritus zur Sühne der Sünde der Häresie’. 36 Cypr., ep. 74,5,1 (CChr.SL 3C, 569): in nomine Iesu Christi ubicumque et quomodocumque. 37 Cypr., ep. 74,5,1 (ibid. 569): ad accipiendum spiritum sanctum. 38 Cypr., ep. 74,5,1 (ibid. 569): cur non eadem maiestas nominis praeualet in manus impositione quam ualisse contendunt in baptismi sanctificatione? 39 See Cypr., ep. 74,7,1 (ibid. 571). 40 See Cypr., ep. 71,2,2 (ibid. 518) and 74,12,1 (ibid. 580). 41 Thus already Tert., de bapt. 8 (CSEL 20, 207) testifies to the laying on of hands in baptism with prayer for the Holy Spirit. J. Behm, Handauflegung (1911), 81, states self-confidently: ‘So der afrikanische Brauch um 200.’ 35

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following Acts 8: ‘And this same practice we observe today ourselves: those who are baptized in the Church are presented to the appointed leaders of the Church, and by our prayer and the imposition of our hands they receive the Holy Spirit and are made perfect with the Lord’s seal.’42 He also makes clear: ‘Thus the Spirit cannot be received unless there exists already the person to receive it.’43 But only those who have been born anew in baptism can accept. This understanding of baptism and of the Holy Spirit may have led Cyprian to understand the laying on of hands as practiced elsewhere as nothing else but the baptismal act of Spirit-giving, which must be made up for in conversion. At least he always interprets the laying on of hands, as shown above, as communication of the Spirit in the context of baptism, but without clarifying what his opponents really said or wrote. There is only one exception, after a letter of Stephen has been received in Carthage: if one accepts ep. 74,1,2 as a direct quotation, then the laying on of hands is actually considered by Stephen as an act of repentance. Even though Cyprian at first discusses the laying on of hands for penance, in the end he returns to his own explanatory model.44 Cyprian is not unfamiliar with the admission into the community after a penitential procedure and by means of the laying on of hands. Not only does he prefer this rite in the case of the Catholic baptized returnees; even before, in his letters written from May to July 250, that is, during the Decian persecution, he provides the laying on of hands for the resumption of the lapsi after the repentance.45 So Cyprian knows the laying on of hands as an act of reconciliation. Why then does he not understand the reception of heretics as such, but consistently speaks out against the laying on of hands alone? Georg Kretschmar sums up that the laying on of hands, taken over in Rome from the penitential practice, ‘wirkte nach Afrika hinüber und wurde hier so verstanden, daß dadurch zwar das Tauchbad der Häretiker anerkannt würde, nicht aber ihre den Geist vermittelnde Handauflegung. Es ist schwer zu entscheiden, wie weit dies ein Mißverständnis war oder nicht.’46 How much Cyprian tries to maintain the unity of baptism against this Roman division is revealed at various points in his letters.47 In their synodal letter of 255 the bishops of North Africa state that by recognizing the water-baptism and the making up for the laying on of hands, a strange situation emerges: ‘it is not 42 Cypr., ep. 73,9,2 (CChr.SL 3C, 539): Quod nunc quoque apud nos geritur, ut qui in ecclesia baptizantur praepositis ecclesiae offerantur et per nostram orationem ac manus inpositionem spiritum sanctum consequantur et signaculo dominico consummentur. 43 Cypr., ep. 74,7,2 (ibid. 572): nec enim potest accipi spiritus, nisi prius fuerit qui accipiat. 44 See Cypr., ep. 74,5,1 (ibid. 569). 45 See Cypr., ep. 15,1,2 (CChr.SL 3B, 68); 16,2,3 (ibid. 92); 17,2,1 (ibid. 97); 18,1,2 (ibid. 101); 19,2,1 (ibid. 104); 20,3,1 (ibid. 109). 46 Georg Kretschmar, ‘Die Geschichte des Taufgottesdienstes in der alten Kirche’, in Karl Ferdinand Müller and Walter Blankenburg (eds), Leiturgia. Handbuch des evangelischen Gottesdienstes. Bd. 5: Der Taufgottesdienst (Kassel, 1970), 1-348, 107. 47 This was already the case in Cypr. ep. 69,11,1 (CChr.SL 3C, 485).

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possible for some part of their baptism to be void while another part of it is valid.’48 Cyprian later refers to these two parts as ‘born of both rites’49 and stresses that both are necessary for salvation according to John 3:5.50 The Holy Spirit serves as a link: ‘Water by itself cannot cleanse sins and sanctify man unless it possesses the Holy Spirit as well.’51 For Cyprian, the Holy Spirit already takes effect in the water-baptism: ‘For it is through baptism that we receive the Spirit.’52 He formulates more cautiously when he sees water-baptism as a precondition for receiving the Holy Spirit, because one can only accept it as ‘born already’.53 It is the Spirit by whom the two parts or two sacraments cannot be separated. Consequently, it is also illogical for Cyprian to acknowledge one and not the other, when the effect of both depends on the Holy Spirit. He therefore repeatedly argues that heretics, if they were supposed to have received one, must have received the other.54 But since Cyprian assumes that the Spirit necessary for this can only to be found and act in the Church – and consequently receives approval from the other side – the answer to his mocking questions is obvious. Neither water-baptism nor the gift of the Spirit could be effectively conferred; therefore, the laying on of hands is not sufficient. Conclusion Cyprian can understand the laying on of hands as an act of reconciliation for the lapsi as well as for the ad ecclesiam reuertentes; it is also part of the baptismal rite in Carthage.55 In his first letters on the question of heretic baptism, he interprets the laying on of hands as a spiritual gift in connection with 48

Cypr., ep. 70,3,1 (ibid. 511): neque enim potest pars illi inanis esse et pars praeualere. Cypr., ep. 72,1,2 (ibid. 524) and ep. 73,21,3 (ibid. 556): sacramento utroque nascantur. 50 Cyprian also interprets Acts 8:14-7 in his favour in ep. 73,9,1-2 (ibid. 539), but does not seem to be mistaken. The view that water-baptism and the laying on of hands belong together in the Acts of the Apostles is supported by Friedrich Avemarie, Tauferzählungen in der Apostelgeschichte. Theologie und Geschichte, WUNT 139 (Tübingen, 2002). In addition, he points out that the Spirit is not automatically bestowed through with the baptismal rite. (143) ‘Die Handauflegung hingegen, die den bezweckten Geistempfang mit selbstverständlicher Regelmäßigkeit nach sich zieht, ist eben aus diesem Grunde unproblematisch.’ (166) See for a similar view J. Behm, Handauflegung (1911), 165-6. However, James D.G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit (London, 1970), 6, notes, that ‘[i]n the NT βάπτισμα and βαπτίζειν are never concertina words; their meanings are always clear cut’, but sees the development, ‘that the confusion of water-baptism with Spiritbaptism inevitably involves the confusion of water with Spirit, so that the administration of water becomes nothing other than the bestowal of the Spirit.’ (5-6) 51 Cypr., ep. 74,5,4 (CChr.SL 3C, 570): Peccata enim purgare et hominem sanctificare aqua sola non potest, nisi habeat et spiritum sanctum. 52 Cypr., ep. 63,8,3 (ibid. 399): Per baptisma enim spiritus sanctus accipitur. 53 Cypr., ep. 74,7,1 (ibid. 571): iam natus. 54 See Cypr., ep. 73,6,2 (ibid. 536); 74,5,1 (ibid. 569); 74,5,3 (ibid. 570). 55 See Cypr., ep. 73,9,2 (ibid. 539); 74,7,1-2 (ibid. 571f.). About the fallen see Cypr., ep. 15-20 (CChr.SL 3B, 85-110); about those returning to church see n. 18. 49

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water-baptism, despite his awareness of both rites.56 Only with the arrival of a letter from Stephen of Rome does it become clear that at least Stephen understands the laying on of hands as a rite of penance. Cyprian does not deal with Stephen’s point of view here in regard to the content, but with the formal logic, because Cyprian does not accept Stephen’s argument of tradition. Thus, we can conclude that Cyprian does not misunderstand the Roman laying on of hands, but deliberately misinterprets it by accusing his opponents of an inadmissible division of baptism and thus of the action of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, he can make clear his view that the Holy Spirit is bound to the Church and her ministers in succession. He therefore concludes that both rituals can only be administered in the Church, hence ‘there is no salvation outside the Church’.57 Cyprian’s doctrine of sacraments and ecclesiology would then be understood primarily through his pneumatology.58 He polarizes between an ‘all or nothing’. Obviously the baptismal dispute is uncompromising and a question of power: it would then be a matter of keeping the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit, i.e. baptism and the laying on of hands, firmly within the institution of the Church, and of withdrawing these from any individuality and arbitrariness in order to protect the true faith effected by the Holy Spirit and receiving the Holy Spirit.59 The construct of the laying on of hands serves as an easily conveyed vehicle for this purpose due to its multiple possibilities of meaning. Cyprian misunderstands Roman practice for tactical reasons and thus produces Catholic clarity from a Carthaginian perspective.

56

See Cypr., ep. 69,11,3 (ibid. 486); 72,1,1 (ibid. 524); 73,6,2 (ibid. 536) and then again 74,5,1 (ibid. 569). 57 Cypr., ep. 73,21,2 (ibid. 555): salus extra ecclesiam non est. 58 Similarly G. Kretschmar, ‘Geschichte des Taufgottesdienstes’ (1970), 241, which here certifies a ‘verhängnisvolle Engführung’. A paradigm shift follows: ‘Die Kirche wächst nicht mehr aus Glauben und Taufe, sondern sie ist es, die Glaube und Taufe erst legitimiert. Am Glauben, daß der Geist die Kirche gründet, hängen Theologie und kirchliche Existenz Cyprians.’ (109). 59 There is a pastoral argument behind this with Cyprian: Cypr., ep. 70,3,3 (CChr.SL 3C, 515).

Ongoing Research on the Quod idola dii non sint (CPL 57): The Question of the Title Laetitia CICCOLINI, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France

ABSTRACT The Quod idola dii non sint (Idol.) has been known to borrow from Minucius Felix and Tertullian; three traditional themes of apologetics are addressed in it. Its attribution to Cyprian has been questioned since the end of the nineteenth century. Today, its composition is usually dated as belonging to the second or third quarter of the fourth century, after Lactantius. The aim of this article is to show the importance of examining the manuscripts again on the basis of the work’s title. Based on a review of the manuscripts, the title’s long form has been attested since Late Antiquity and should therefore probably be endorsed. Whether due to the author or to an editor, this rubric, and the brevity of the remarks, lead us to examine the text’s nature. A rubric in quod is unusual for the title of a work from Late Antiquity. However, such wording was common for chapter headings, since these titles have been known to be longer as attested by Cyprian’s biblical florilegia. Idol. may have simply been an annex to another text which was then attached the letters of Cyprian due to its apologetic bent. But the hypothesis of working notes, which Paul Monceaux formulated, is worth considering again in light of this initial rubric and of its formal similarities with the Ad Fortunatum and the Ad Quirinum. Idol. would then belong to the commentarii genre: reading notes on a precise theme. The question of the text’s nature also leads us to reflect on some of the arguments alleged against its authenticity. For K. Götz, and, later, for H. von Soden, the main argument was the fact that Idol. was absent from the series of treatises and that it was included in the middle of the letters. However, Idol. differs from the treatises since the latter are longer, they are addressed (to the community or to a person in particular) and their dissemination was organised by Cyprian. The early circulation of the text under Cyprian’s name was attested by Jerome and Augustine; it also suggests that it was tied to the works of the bishop of Carthage early on, perhaps as early as the fourth century. Due to considerations on the transmission of the text, we are led to examine the question of authenticity separately from the date. The date that is currently accepted is based on parallels with Lactantius. These parallels are often limited to a word or an expression and are of a different nature than the borrowings from Minucius Felix and Tertullian. Such a difference in treatment must be explained if later dating is to be maintained. Due to the nature of the parallels with Lactantius, we must first revise the text’s edition before advancing solid conclusions on relative chronology.

The Quod idola dii non sint (now Idol.) is a short text in which three traditional themes of apologetics are addressed:

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 361-370. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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– chap. 1-7: gods are not gods but dead human beings who were deified; – chap. 8-9: the existence of a single god; – chap. 10-15: Christ and the story of salvation. Its most striking feature hinges on the way it borrows, sometimes substantially, from Minucius Felix in the two first sections and from Tertullian’s Apologeticum in the third section.1 Idol. is attributed to Cyprian in the 140 or so manuscripts in which it is featured but its authenticity has been discussed since the late nineteenth century. K. Götz, and later H. von Soden focused primarily on the work’s manuscript tradition.2 The debate then shifted to internal evidence: while the points of contact with Lactantius had been identified by the editors of both authors,3 the interpretation no longer focused on the fact that Lactantius may have used Idol. but the parallels were rather interpreted as an indication that the author of Idol. had depended on the apologist.4 This demonstration consequently affected the dating of Idol.: its composition was assessed as belonging to the second or the third quarter of the fourth century at the latest, therefore between the Epitome by Lactantius (ca. 314/321) on one end and the Ser. Guelf. 28, 7 (= 313E) by Augustine (395/396) and letter 70, 5 by Jerome (397/398) on the other. The first text was pronounced in honour of Cyprian and Augustine does seem to allude to Idol.,5 which is explicitly attributed to Cyprian by Jerome in his letter. 1 See the presentation by Antonie Wlosok, ‘Pseudo-Cyprien, Quod idola dii non sint (idol.)’, in Klaus Sallmann (ed.), Nouvelle histoire de la littérature latine, 4. L’âge de transition. De la littérature romaine à la littérature chrétienne, de 117 à 284 après J.-C. (Turnhout, 2000), § 481.3; and Nicholas L. Thomas, Defending Christ. The Latin Apologists before Augustine (Turnhout, 2011), 111-6. 2 Karl Götz, Geschichte der cyprianischen Literatur bis zur der Zeit der ersten erhaltenen Handschriften (Basel, 1891), 129; Hans von Soden, Die cyprianische Briefsammlung. Geschichte ihrer Entstehung und Überlieferung (Leipzig, 1904), 205-11. 3 In the case of Lactantius, see the parallels signalled by Samuel Brandt in his index, L. Caeli Firmiani Lactanti opera omnia, ed. Samuel Brandt, CSEL 27.2 (Pragae, Vindobonae, Lipsiae, 1897), 252; in regards to Cyprian, the similarities with Lactantius are reported in Pamelius’s notes: Opera D. Caecilii Cypriani… (Antverpiae, 1568), 291-5, and Baluze, Sancti Caecilii Cypriani episcopi Carthaginensis et martyris opera… (Parisiis, 1726), 566-76. 4 See, in particular, Hans Diller, ‘In Sachen Tertullian-Minucius Felix’, Philologus 90 (1935), 98-114 ; Bertil Axelson, ‘Echtheits- und textkritische Kleinigkeiten’, Eranos 39 (1941), 64-81, 67-74, and Eberhard Heck, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian, Quod idola dii non sint und Lactanz, Epitome diuinarum institutionum’, in Manfred Wacht (ed.), Panchaia. Festschrift für Klaus Thraede (Münster, 1995), 148-55. 5 Augustine, Ser. Guelf. 28, 7 (= 313E): Nam et beatus Cyprianus inter persecutores et gentiles uitam agens, cum esset inter idolorum cultores, potestatem imperii temporalis non timuit, neque tacuit quod idola dii non erant. In view of the other allusions in the De baptismo 6, 44, 87 and in the De unico baptismo 4, 6 in which Cyprian is compared to Paul in front of the Areopagus in Acts 17:28, it is more plausible to see this sermon as alluding to Idol. rather than to Ad Quirinum 3, 59 (De idolis quae gentiles deos putant), or to Ad Fortunatum, tit. 1 (Quod idola dii non sint et quod nec elementa uice deorum colenda sint).

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The main handbooks and source repertories ratify this position. However, the attribution to Cyprian has always had its supporters.6 My goal here is not to put an end to this debate but rather to demonstrate, based on the specific case of the title, the importance of re-examining the manuscripts, a task I have been undertaking as I edit the text in the Corpus Christianorum. The chosen example also invites us to reflect on the nature of the text and to re-examine the relevance of certain arguments that fuel the authenticity debate. 1. The text’s heading: the manuscripts and their testimony In the edition that W. Hartel prepared for the CSEL 3.1 (1868), Quod idola dii non sint was given as the title of the text which begins with the following clause: Deos non esse, quos colit uulgus, hinc notum est. The title Quod idola dii non sint became widespread, despite the fact that it only applied to the first part of the text (chap. 1-7)7. In most manuscripts, Idol. opens with a more complex turn of phrase comprised of three coordinate object clauses. This turn of phrase is an exact reflection of the intellectual content of each section. Depending on the manuscripts, it is either featured as the text’s true beginning (case A), or as its title (case B)8. In case A, the text begins with the following words: Quod idola dii non sint et quod unus deus sit et quod incredentibus [variant: credentibus] datum sit. Deos non esse… The third part – quod incredentibus/credentibus datum sit – clearly poses a textual problem. An additional heading, Quod idola dii non sint, appears in some of the manuscripts and can be viewed as the reiteration of the first words of the text. Such a presentation dates back to Late Antiquity: the lost manuscript (fifth century?), which spurred an entire portion of Medieval tradition, can be reconstituted through a consensus of several witnesses such as X (Manchester, John Rylands University Library, lat. 15, 8th c.) and through P 6 See, in particular, Hugo Koch, ‘Quod idola dii non sint: ein Werk Cyprians’, in Cyprianische Untersuchungen (Bonn, 1926), 1-78; Manlio Simonetti, ‘Sulla paternità del “Quod idola dii non sint”’, Maia 3 (1950), 265-88; Hans van Loon, ‘Cyprian’s Christology and the Authenticity of Quod idola dii non sint’, in Henk Bakker, Paul van Geest and Hans van Loon (eds), Cyprian of Carthage. Studies in His Life, Language, and Thought (Leuven, 2010), 127-42. 7 Editors used the title De idolorum uanitate for a long time. It had initially appeared in the table of the Rembolt edition (Paris, 1512) and has, to my knowledge, not been found in any manuscripts; while this had already been mentioned by Baluze – Sancti Caecilii Cypriani episcopi Carthaginensis et martyris opera… (Parisiis, 1726), 566 – he kept the title for convenience. 8 The ancient editors had already noticed that the manuscripts varied a lot on this point, Pamelius in particular: Opera D. Caecilii Cypriani… (Antverpiae, 1568), 291. Erasmus – Opera diui Caecilii Cypriani… (apud inclytam Basileam, 1520), f. a5v – attributed the long title to a doctus aliquis. Given the diversity of the manuscripts, Baluze – Sancti Caecilii Cypriani episcopi Carthaginensis et martyris opera… (Parisiis, 1726), 566 – wondered whether the work even had a title.

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(Paris, BnF, lat. 1647A, second quarter of 9th c.), a direct copy of an uncial manuscript.9 In case B, the title of the manuscripts is Quod idola dii non sint et quod unus deus sit et quod [some manuscripts add per christum here] credentibus salus data sit. The text then begins as follows: Deos non esse… This title only appeared in the eleventh century,10 but we know of an older variant which could be read in the Veronensis. The latter manuscript has been lost and is only known through the collations of the Italian humanist Latino Latini (ca. 15131593). The analysis of the variants suggests that the Veronensis conveyed a type of Late Antique edition of Cyprian.11 In the case of Idol., Latini reported the following heading, at the beginning and at the end: Quod idola dii non sint et quod per christum salus credentibus data sit.12 One can lastly mention another group of related manuscripts13 in which the complex turn of phrase is ignored (case C). The oldest witnesses are Carolingian. Hartel based his edition on a representative of this group: Paris, BnF, lat. 12126, mid-ninth century, Corbie.14 The indirect tradition provides us with two indications. First, Augustine in the Ser. Guelf. 28, 7 (= 313E): Nam et beatus Cyprianus inter persecutores et gentiles uitam agens, cum esset inter idolorum cultores, potestatem imperii temporalis non timuit, neque tacuit quod idola dii non erant. He is followed by Jerome in Epist. 70, 5: Cyprianus, quod idola dii non sint, qua breuitate, qua historiarum omnium scientia, quo uerborum et sensuum splendore perstrinxit! Their scope, however, is limited due to the turn of phrase quod idola dii non erant/sint which has less the status of a title and seems closer to a sequence of text completing the verbs tacuit and perstrinxit. The manuscripts that Jerome and Augustine read began with these words, but we are unable to determine 9 Regarding this family, see Maurice Bévenot, The Tradition of Manuscripts. A Study in the Transmission of St. Cyprian’s Treatises (Oxford, 1961), 29-47, and Pierre Petitmengin, ‘Cinq manuscrits de Saint Cyprien et leur ancêtre’, Revue d’histoire des textes 2 (1972), 197-230, which our edition of the De laude martyrii confirms (see Opera pseudo-Cyprianea, ed. L. Ciccolini, CChr.SL 3F [Turnhout, 2016], 365-6). 10 At the end of the text in the manuscript Vaticano, BAV, Reg. lat. 117, end of 11th c., Angoumois (the opening heading is Quod idola dii non sint), then regularly as an opening heading from the twelfth century onwards. 11 On the philological works of Latino Latini, see Pierre Petitmengin, ‘Le codex Veronensis de saint Cyprien. Philologie et histoire de la philologie’, Revue des études latines 46 (1969), 33078. 12 Cf. Napoli, Bibl. nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III, Rar. Branc. A 19, t. 1, p. 56 and 271. 13 These are the main witnesses of the ‘interpolations’ which Hartel printed in square brackets. 14 The final title of this manuscript is De idolis quod idola dii non sint, to be compared with the title one can read in the Reichenau catalogue (ca. 821/822), De idolis, see Paul Lehmann, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, 1. Die Bistümer Konstanz und Chur (München, 1918), 246.

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whether the heading or the beginning of the text were limited to these words or whether they were more complete. To consider the data from the manuscripts, the most economical scenario seems to be as follows: the beginning of the text (deos non esse…) was preceded by a summary, the latter of which had in turn been viewed as the true incipit or as the title. In case C, the absence of a complex rubric – as a title or as an opening – could be the result of the abridgment of the long rubric. One can form the hypothesis that the group of manuscripts was dependent upon a model in which the first words of the summary quod idola dii non sint were traced in a distinctive script. The interpretation consisting in viewing the first words as an overall rubric may have been heightened by such a lay-out, leaving the rest unresolved and irrelevant as the text’s true incipit. If this reconstitution is correct, the archetype of the tradition was comprised of a complex rubric. The text of the recentiores, with quod credentibus salus data sit, is more satisfactory. Should it be interpreted as the preservation of a good reading or as the scholarly correction of a syntagma (quod incredentibus/ credentibus datum sit) that has been corrupted since Late Antiquity? Choosing between the two options is difficult at this stage, especially since the beginning of chapter 10 allows one to easily amend the rubric.15 Of course, such a rubric is not necessarily connected to the author. It could have been the fruit of a decision made by a Late Antique editor to include the text the Cyprianic corpus. In any case, the example of the title shows why the manuscript tradition would benefit from being re-examined since this tradition is not as stable as it is for the other works, whether authentic or inauthentic.16 This example also leads us to reflect on the nature of the text that is available to us. 2. The nature of the text A quod rubric is unusual as the title of a Late Antique work. However, this turn of phrase is common for the titles of chapters as these can be much longer.17 These clauses as titles can be found in Cyprian’s biblical florilegia. They can be simple, as in the Ad Fortunatum, tit. 2: Quod deus solus colendus sit; or double, such as in the Ad Fortunatum, tit. 1: Quod idola dii non sint et quod nec elementa uice deorum colenda sint. The titles that are medieval creations 15

Idol. 10: Quod uero Christus sit et quomodo per ipsum nobis salus uenerit, sic est ordo, sic est ratio. 16 The edition will need to adjudicate on the status of the passages that Hartel printed in square brackets. 17 See Michèle Fruyt, ‘Sémantique et syntaxe des titres en latin’, in Jean-Claude Fredouille et al. (eds), Titres et articulations du texte dans les œuvres antiques (Paris, 1997), 9-34, 14-5, and for a study on the chapter headings in Cyprian: Simone Deléani, ‘La syntaxe des titres dans les recueils scripturaires de saint Cyprien’, Recherches augustiniennes 29 (1996), 91-112.

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are in fact easy to recognise in the manuscripts; they were meant to lend to the text a better suited title, both syntactically and intellectually.18 On top of these syntactic considerations, the text’s brevity (1768 words) is to be noted, as it is significantly shorter than the Ad Donatum, for example (2747 words). For these two reasons, one would be tempted to see Idol. as a chapter in a larger work. Erasmus had already formed this hypothesis, as he judged the opening to be too abrupt.19 The intellectual scope of the discussion – from a critique of paganism to Christian martyrdom – may constitute a difficulty when viewing it as an isolated piece within a larger work. Other possibilities exist. Idol. may have been an annex to another text: detached from its original context and due to its apologetic bent, it would have been associated with the letters of Cyprian.20 Due to the themes it addresses, such as the story of salvation fulfilled through Christ, it could also be seen as a convenient catechetical compendium. Lastly, we can also wonder whether this text was initially designed to circulate: Idol. may have served as documentation or as a working base. From a formal standpoint, Idol. is made up of borrowings, often literal borrowings, from Minucius Felix and Tertullian that illustrate three clauses: (chap. 1) Deos non esse, quos colit uulgus, hinc notum est; (chap. 8) Vnus igitur omnium dominus deus; (chap. 10) Quod uero christus sit et quomodo per ipsum nobis salus uenerit, sic est ordo, sic est ratio. This device reminds us of the florilegia Cyprian sent to Fortunatus and Quirinus and which Cyprian presented as a compendium, the latter of which is not a formal treatise but contains the material for a treatise: the clauses to bear in mind (tituli) are substantiated with biblical excerpts (capitula).21 It became a preaching outline for Bishop Fortunatus; as for Quirinus, a beginner Christian, he completed his training in the first truths of the faith by learning to read the Bible.22 In both cases, unlike for Idol., the source of the excerpts is explicitly stated. But this difference may be 18

Here are a few examples: Tractatus sancti Cypriani de contemptu deorum gentilium et aduentu domini nostri Iesu Christi (Cremona, Biblioteca Statale e Biblioteca Civica, 104 [7.5.16], end of 13th c., Southern Italy [Naples ?]); Tractatus sancti Cypriani de ydolis gentium (Dijon, Bibl. municipale, 124, second third of 12th c., Cîteaux); Cyprianus de origine et generibus ydolorum et de uero deo (Firenze, BML, San Marco 536, 12th c., Italy); De idolis uitandis et uero deo colendo Cipriani (Pavia, Bibl. universitaria, Aldini 116, 15th c.). 19 Opera diui Caecilii Cypriani… (apud inclytam Basileam, 1520), f. a5v. 20 As one can assume for the Exhortatio de paenitentia (CPL 65), see Laetitia Ciccolini, ‘Un florilège biblique mis sous le nom de Cyprien de Carthage: l’Exhortatio de paenitentia (CPL 65)’, Recherches augustiniennes et patristiques 36 (2011), 89-138, 126. 21 Ad Quirinum 1-2, praef.: (…) ita a nobis sermo conpositus et libellus conpendio breuiante digestus est, ut quae scribebantur non copia latiore diffunderem, sed quantum mediocris memoria suggerebat, excerptis capitulis et adnexis necessaria quaeque colligerem, quibus non tam tractasse quam tractantibus materiam praebuisse uideamur. Ad Fortunatum, praef. 3: (…) compendium feci, ut propositis titulis quos quis et nosse debeat et tenere capitula dominica subnecterem et id quod proposueram diuinae lectionis auctoritate solidarem, ut non tam tractatum meum uidear tibi misisse quam materiam tractantibus praebuisse. 22 Ad Quirinum 1-2, praef.: quae legenti tibi interim prosunt ad prima fidei liniamenta formanda.

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due to the particular status of the Biblical text compared to the human words23 of past apologists. P. Monceaux and M. Simonetti had already drawn connections between Idol. and Cyprian’s biblical florilegia.24 In a suggestive way, P. Monceaux viewed them as working notes which disciples had circulated following the bishop’s death.25 M. Simonetti refuted this idea due to the degree of stylistic elaboration: Idol. may instead be the work of Cyprian just after his conversion when he mainly engaged in compilation work. The text’s brevity and the form of its title seems to lead to the first hypothesis: a production which would correspond to the genre of the commentarii, reading notes on a precise theme, which does not exclude a certain degree of elaboration. The Ad Quirinum and the Ad Fortunatum26 also show that a working document could be put into circulation, in this case by Cyprian, who also added a cover letter. Augustine reminds us that the De immortalitate animae was nothing more than a memory aid (quasi commonitorium) which was distributed against his will (Retract. 1, 5). 3. Considerations on external evidence Whatever the retained hypothesis at this stage, the question of the nature (and the purpose) of the text should still be posed. It also leads us to reflect on some of the arguments that have been made against the text’s authenticity. The main argument put forward by K. Götz, and later by H. von Soden, is that Idol. is absent from the series of the treatises27 that form the oldest core of Cyprian’s corpus of texts, as shown by Pontius when referring to his bishop’s œuvre in the Vita Cypriani.28 Idol. has most often been inserted in the middle 23

Regarding this difference, see Ad Fortunatum, praef. 4. Paul Monceaux, Histoire littéraire de l’Afrique chrétienne depuis les origines jusqu’à l’invasion arabe, 2. Saint Cyprien et son temps (Paris, 1902), 266-70; M. Simonetti, ‘Sulla paternità’ (1950), 287-8. Both authors defend the attribution to Cyprian. Monceaux’s main aim is to clear Cyprian of ‘plagiarism’ accusations (p. 266 and 270) and for having published ‘une œuvre si informe’ (‘such a shapeless oeuvre’) (p. 269). 25 This possibility is also considered by N.L. Thomas in Defending Christ (2011), 113-4. 26 Without entering into a debate on dating the two works (on this point, see H. Gülzow, in Klaus Sallmann [ed.], Nouvelle histoire de la littérature latine, 4. L’âge de transition. De la littérature romaine à la littérature chrétienne, de 117 à 284 après J.-C. [Turnhout, 2000], § 478.9 and 18), it is likely that Cyprian had a certain level of authority to be solicited in such a way. The date of sending must also be differentiated from the date at which the material was collected. Despite the fact that Cyprian gives the impression of having worked to answer his correspondents individually, he certainly reused material that he had previously collected. 27 As an example, see H. von Soden, Die cyprianische Briefsammlung (1904), 207: ‘Idola steht in keinem alten und originalen Hss.typ unter den Libelli. Dort müssten wir aber die Schrift zu finden erwarten, wenn sie echt wäre’. 28 The hypothesis dates back to Cuthbert Hamilton Turner, ‘Two Early Lists of St. Cyprian’s Works’, Classical Review 6 (1892), 205-9; it is underlying in the work of M. Bévenot, The Tradition 24

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of the letters, which is the evolving part of the corpus: documents such as the transcript of the proceedings of the Council of 256, the Vita Cypriani, as well as texts not authored by Cyprian were included. However, K. Götz and H. von Soden view as a given the fact that Idol. should have had the same editorial destiny as the first set of texts assembled after Cyprian’s death. They reasoned this way because they depended on the Hartel edition which classified Idol. in the ‘treatise’ category due to its apologetic bent and its general scope,29 as had all editors since Pamelius.30 However, Idol. does not share the same characteristics since the other texts are longer, they are addressed (to the community or to a person in particular) and their dissemination was organised by Cyprian.31 Without going into the details of the text’s transmission, we must note that Idol. is present in most of the families identified by the editors.32 This is not proof of authenticity, but it is the proof of early distribution under the name of Cyprian. This is confirmed by the explicit attestations made by Jerome (Epist. 70, 5) and Augustine (Ser. Guelf. 26, 2 [= 313C]; 28, 7 [= 313E]; De baptismo 6, 44, 87; De unico baptismo 4, 6). The same applies for its use by the author of the Acta Maximiliani among works by Cyprian (second half of the fourth century?)33 and

of Manuscripts (1961), 1-2. For further discussion of Pontius’ list, see Maria Boccuzzi, ‘I fondamenti materiali della tradizione degli Opuscula di Cipriano: la tarda antichità’, Segno e Testo 16 (2018), 155-207, 174-82. 29 In a way, Augustine does something similar in Ser. Guelf. 26, 2 (= 313C): the reference to Idol. appears after the mention of the De mortalitate and before that of the De opere et eleemosynis. 30 The overall organisation of the opera omnia in three sections – letters, treatises, questionable or inauthentic works – dates back to Pamelius (Opera D. Caecilii Cypriani… [Antverpiae, 1568]); Idol. had however been separated from the letters since the Rembolt edition (Beatissimi Cecilii Cypriani Carthaginensium praesulis oratoris … opera [Parisiis, 1512]), in which Idol. was classified in the ‘tractatus’ which are followed by the ‘sermones’. The Morel edition (D. Caecilii Cypriani episcopi Carthaginiensis, martyris Christi opera… [Parisiis, 1564]), follows the order of a manuscript, and therefore places Idol. in the middle of the letters; such a placement is an exception. 31 The letter 54, 4 shows this well for the De unitate ecclesiae and the De lapsis. 32 If we set aside the fragmentary manuscripts and those only composed of treatises and a few letters such as S, the Δ family of Gerardus Frederik Diercks, the editor of the letters, is the only one not to have Idol. (based on the census featured in the introduction to the edition of the letters, CChr.SL 3D [Turnhout, 1999]). 33 See Johannes Theurerus, Passio sancti Maximiliani martyris e latino in graecum uersa quibusdam notis illustrata (Argentorati, 1697), 18; and Paolo Siniscalco, ‘Bibbia e letteratura cristiana d’Africa nella Passio S. Maximiliani’, in Forma futuri. Studi in onore del Cardinale Michele Pellegrino (Torino, 1975), 595-613, 611. The fact remains significant, regardless of the date assigned to the Acta Maximiliani. Ever since the comments made by Constantine Zuckerman in ‘Two Reforms of the 370s. Recruiting Soldiers and Senators in the Divided Empire’, Revue des études byzantines 56 (1998), 79-139, 136-9, critics have tended to place the writing of the text at least during the second half of the fourth century; see the overview by Sabine Fialon, Mens immobilis. Recherches sur le corpus latin des actes et des passions d’Afrique romaine (IIe-VIe siècles) (Paris, 2018), 82-3.

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in the Contra paganos of the Verona collection (fifth century).34 While H. von Soden denied the text’s authenticity, he did highlight its early distribution under Cyprian’s name: he therefore concluded that Idol. had been aggregated to the corpus at the beginning of the fourth century.35 This point would merit to be further discussed by the proponents of dating the work after Lactantius.

4. Two methodological conclusions regarding internal evidence Internal criticism arguments are the most widespread in current discussions on Idol. They are also more delicate to handle. Examining the title and the ensuing considerations on the nature of the text allow us to form two conclusions. The first is not encouraging. If Idol. is a working document or a simple annex, the comparison with Cyprian ends quickly since the discussion goes as follows: should the differences with Cyprian, in terms of the handling of the sources and of the language, be attributed to the nature of the text or to its inauthenticity? In Cyprian’s corpus of letters, the letter ‘to Silvanus, Reginus and Donatianus’ is an analogous case. G.W. Clarke considers it as letter 82 of the corpus, but when edited by G.F. Diercks, it is featured with the letters that were wrongly attributed to Cyprian.36 The letter is a short private note; it is difficult to compare it with the administrative letters that Cyprian often planned on distributing more widely than to the sole intended recipient. The themes present in Idol. can also be found in Cyprian’s texts: the theme of idols appears in the Ad Quirinum 3, 59 and in the Ad Fortunatum 1, that of the single god in the Ad Fortunatum 2, and book 2 of the Ad Quirinum is entirely devoted to Christ. But Cyprian discussed these themes by relying on the Bible.37 With regard to the sources, the use of the Apologeticum would not be surprising coming from an author who had been trained reading Tertullian and who used his works very often.38 Net borrowings from Minucius Felix are more surprising. However, 34

See the edition of Roger Gryson, CChr.SL 87 (Turnhout, 1982), 282. H. von Soden, Die cyprianische Briefsammlung (1904), 209. 36 See The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, vol. 4, tr. G.W. Clarke, ACW 47 (New York, Mahwah, 1989), 106-7 and 319-24, and Sancti Cypriani episcopi epistularium, ed. G.F. Diercks, CChr.SL 3C (Turnhout, 1996), 656-60. The princeps edition by Maurice Bévenot, ‘A New Cyprianic Fragment’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 28 (1944), 76-82, presents the elements of the problem (see p. 81 in particular). 37 Lactantius reproached him for this, see Diuinae institutiones 5, 1, 26 and 4, 3-7 (regarding the Ad Demetrianum). 38 In particular, see the anecdote reported by Jerome in De uiris illustribus 53 and Epist. 84, 2. Regarding the use of Tertullian in Idol., one must go back to the study by H. van Loon, ‘Cyprian’s Christology’ (2010), 127-42: the third section of Idol. presents a stronger soteriological orientation than in the text by Tertullian, which is reminiscent of the way in which Cyprian reworked borrowings from Tertullian. 35

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parallels made by critical editions suggest that the Octavius was not unknown to him.39 The second conclusion relates to the work’s date, which should be separated from the issue of authenticity. The date that is currently accepted is based on parallels with Lactantius. Such parallels often limit themselves to a word or an expression and are of a different nature than the borrowings from Minucius Felix and Tertullian wherein full clauses are reproduced, often in the order of the source.40 The difference in treatment between the texts before Cyprian, which are massively present, and Lactantius, who seems to be used only occasionally, is a question per se. One must indeed explain why the same author so closely depended on the old apologetics, and why he involved Lactantius so rarely – and in such a sophisticated way – despite the apologist’s claims to renew the genre. Finally, the subtlety of the linguistic parallels with Lactantius bounds us to revise the text on which we are working before formulating conclusions on relative chronology.

39 See Christoph Schubert, Minucius Felix ‘Octavius’ (Freiburg, Basel, Wien, 2014), 81, who provides the anterior bibliography. 40 As Simone Deléani noted in ‘Chronica Tertullianea et Cyprianea 1995’, Revue des études augustiniennes 42 (1996), 295-320, 317-8.

Land of the Apocalypse. The Pannonian Context of Victorinus of Pettau’s Commentary on Revelation Zachary Cormac ESTERSON, Cardiff University, UK

ABSTRACT While much attention has been paid to Victorinus of Pettau’s literary and exegetical inheritance from his predecessors, less regard has been given to influences from his local cultural, linguistic, social and religious circumstances, which recent research suggests were greater than previously thought. Pannonia in the third century was unique in many ways. It was one of the most militarised provinces, while Poetovio was a widely frequented centre of Mithraism. Many Jews also resided there, perhaps where last one would expect, the imperial army and administration. We know little of these perhaps most Romanized of Jews, centuries after destruction of temple in Jerusalem and its conversion to pagan colony. But there is evidence, direct and indirect, of wider Jewish survival and influence in Pannonian culture, while Victorinus’ paranoid Christian fantasy of Antichrist, a Judeo-pagan hybrid-Caesar, who seduces Christians into circumcising while restoring Jews to Jerusalem, his traditional inheritance, may have been more grounded in a perceived local reality than in any other time or place. Moreover, Pannonia was a province of vestige linguistic cultures, indigenous and foreign, holding on in the face of relentless Roman- and Latinization, making it a fruitful region for cultural, linguistic and religious miscegenation. Victorinus’ Poetovian church was a paradoxically established rock against this rising tide, as he defined the Church as both fundamentally anti-imperial, but also sought to appeal to its military, Jews, indigenes and others, in a new Christian Latin culture that set its compass towards a notional Christian authority in Jerusalem rather than Rome.

Victorinus was bishop of the Roman colonial town of Poetovio, probably from the mid-late third century, until his martyrdom under Diocletian, in 304.1 The town had originally been a military encampment, the winter headquarters of the Pannonian legions, first appearing in the historical record as having decided for Vespasian in 68, during the war of the four emperors.2 At least one legion whose detachments had fought in suppressions of both the first and 1 Martine Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio premier exégète latin, 2 vol., Collection des Études augustiniennes, Série Antiquité = EEA 139-140 (Paris, 1993), I 11-2. 2 Tacitus, Hist. 3.1.1-3 (P. Cornelius Tacitus, Die Historien, Kommentar, Band III, Drittes Buch, ed. Heinz Heubner, WKGLS [Heidelberg, 1972], 10-8).

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second Jewish revolts, V Macedonica, would quarter there,3 beginning Poetovio’s recorded connection with the Holy Land,4 while several legions which had and would serve in Palestine and the middle east were stationed in Transdunabia.5 Poetovio had been formally granted colony-status under Hadrian,6 and, though archaeological traces of its Christian community begin only in the fourth century,7 it must have had a considerable church by the mid-third, in order for it to have a bishop.8 But this is primarily evinced therefore in the reputation of Victorinus, as the first Latin biblical commentator, with a considerable opus of at least one Adversus haereses, many commentaries on books of the Old and New Testaments including, crucially, the first Latin translation of, as well as commentary on, the Apocalypse,9 the earliest complete extant. Ultimately it was this that was to be his greatest legacy because, although undoubtedly his other works were used by his successors, with whom traces still survive,10 his commentary on Revelation was to be repeatedly copied into mediaeval times, in various versions, all yet deriving from a text originally edited by Jerome.11 This turned out to have been somewhat censored with the discovery of a 15th-century manuscript in the Vatican library by a German Lutheran theologian, Johannes Haussleiter. This was surely closer to Victorinus’ original, since it displayed a clear, hitherto scarcely evinced millenarianism, and was first published in 1916.12 Asides this, all information concerning a church or Christianity in Poetovio must be discerned directly or indirectly from other sources, textual and archaeological, which mostly concern elsewhere in Pannonia, or from within the text of Victorinus itself, and how its regional situation bears upon it. Some of this is suggested, for instance, by his description of the seven churches of Rev. 1:11-3:22, which become seven universal ecclesiastical classes,13 nevertheless containing 3

M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 14. V Macedonica, in the first revolt: Gary N. Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans: The origins and history of their early relations (Oxford, 2013), 223; in the Bar Kokhba revolt: Menahem Mor, The second Jewish revolt: the Bar Kokhba war, 132-136 CE (Leiden, 2016), 303-4; indeed some of its veterans were among the first citizens of Aelia Capitolina: 261-2. See also William Horbury, Jewish war under Trajan and Hadrian (Cambridge, 2014), 390. Is it too much to speculate that such connections and networks might have facilitated Victorinus’ scholarly pilgrimage to Jerusalem, as well as his collation and transport of valuable recorded texts from Christian collections in Palestine? 5 E.g. XV Apollinaris in Carnuntum, which, transferred from Alexandria, had served under Titus in Judaea in 72 CE: M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 14. And see below. 6 M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 13. 7 Ibid. I 14, II 10, n. 40. 8 Ibid. I 15. 9 Jerome, Vir. 74 (TU 14.1a, 40). 10 M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 37-67. 11 Ibid. I 355-65. 12 Ibid. I 20. 13 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 1.7-3.3 (SC 423, 52.1-62.21). 4

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curiously specific information suggestive of local references for Pannonian Christians. Other hints derive from his ‘future history’ of the end times, again relating data otherwise anomalous unless regionally contextual. One such is Victorinus’ unique interpretation of ‘the mark of the beast’ (Rev. 13:16-8) as nothing less than circumcision,14 a notion that makes especial sense in the distinctive cultural melange of Pannonia in the third century. Pannonia was a province of forest, game, viticulture,15 mineral resources,16 fertile and arable land, waterways and water-lands, whence likely its Indo-European etymology, cognate with the Anglo-Saxon ‘fen’, and probably the name of the god ‘Pan’, deity of woods and pastures, with whom Illyrians seemed strongly associated by the first Roman settlers.17 It was also highly militarised, serving as Rome’s chief garrison state on the Danube in the days of the early empire, at the ‘gates’ of the Mount Okra pass to Italia, via the Julian Alps. Pertaining to a Roman sense of vulnerability, the Celts of Noricum, the Taurisci and Eravisci, had figured in the plans of Philip V and Mithridates against Italy, in line with a generally Roman-perceived Transalpine Gallic problem,18 but also making Victorinus’ vision of an eastern barbarian army, marching with a Nero redivivus from Mesopotamia (Rev. 16:12),19 less outlandish than it might otherwise appear. Other, more local factors might have also contributed to its general plausibility, as we shall see. In Pannonia many would-be-emperors would win their spurs, from its conquest, through the attempt, then failure, to utilise Dacia and Dalmatia as buffer states, until its loss in the fifth and sixth centuries. Viewed historically, it was in constant flux, but its inhabitants must have often suffered the illusory hope of permanence and security, an inherently unstable situation fertile for cults and quasi-religious discourses of hope and the hereafter. It contained multiple identities, languages and histories, even if some of these were supposedly extinct from an earlier time. 14

Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 13.3 (SC 423, 106.12-4). Edit B. Thomas, ‘Villa Settlements’ (1980), in A. Lengyel and G.T.B. Radan (eds), The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia (Budapest, 1980), 275-321, 281-4. 16 84% of marble found in Poetovio derives from Pohorje, probably within provincial Pannonia, 16% from Norican Gummern: Erwin Pochmarski, ‘Transport of marble on land or by river in SE-Noricum and Western Pannonia’, Histria Antiqua 21 (2012), 29-36, 31. See also Bojan Djuric and Harald W. Müller, ‘White Marbles in Noricum and Pannonia: an outline of the Roman quarries and their products’, in Philippe Jockey (ed.), Interdisciplinary Studies on Mediterranean Ancient Marble and Stones. Proceedings of the VIIIth International Conference of the Association for the Study of Marble and Other Stones used in Antiquity (ASMOSIA) Aix-en-Provence 12-18 June 2006 (Paris, 2009), 111-27, 122. Jenó Fitz, ‘Administration and Army’, in A. Lengyel and G.T.B. Radan (eds), The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia (Budapest, 1980), 125-39, 129-30. 17 E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’, in A. Lengyel and G.T.B. Radan (eds), The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia (1980), 178-80. 18 Marjeta Šašel Kos. ‘Cincibilus and the march of C. Cassius Longinus towards Macedonia’, Arheološki vestnik 65 (2014), 391-6. 19 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 6.6 (SC 423, 84.1-6). 15

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Before the Roman conquest, ties with the La Tène macro-economy seem stronger than with the Mediterranean or Daco-Gothic area, and included Aquileia in northern Italy. Pannonia Superior, and once-Norican Poetovio, became closely connected with Noricum in terms of metallurgy, Roman interest in the region having been originally inextricable from acquiring mineral resources, especially iron.20 Norican steel had long been a byword for bladesmithing, indeed Clement of Alexandria records a tradition that the Noricans were the first to refine iron,21 broadly corroborating modern theories of the spread of the La Tène culture from central Europe,22 while Victorinus betrays knowledge of carburisation.23 By the third century, Poetovio, as the seat of the procurator fiscal and provincial mint,24 had a probably especial name in alloying, and Victorinus’ language suggests an acquaintance with its techniques.25 Thus the double-edged sword of Revelation (Rev. 1:16, 2:12; Heb. 4:12; cf. Prov. 5:4), may be envisaged as much a Norican ‘Excalibur’ as an imperial rhomphaia or gladius.26 Gladius is itself a Celtic (Celtiberian?) loanword, perhaps via Etruscan,27 and early imperial Roman swords in Pannonia exhibit native 20 Géza Alföldy, Noricum, Provinces of the Roman Empire 3, trans. Anthony Richard Birley (London, 1974), 114. 21 Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.16.76.2 (GCS 15, 49.12-4). 22 G. Alföldy, Noricum (1974), 14-22. 23 The technical Latin for smelt, that is, in modern terms, reduce, is conflare: Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. 1.4 (SC 423, 48.3-7). Orichalcum, whereby Victorinus describes the smelted brazen feet of the Son of Man (Rev. 1:15), is thought to have been originally a caburised alloy of copper and zinc (Earle Radcliffe Caley, Orichalcum and related ancient alloys: origin, composition, and manufacture, with special reference to the coinage of the Roman empire, Numismatic notes & monographs 151 [New York, 1964], 11-8), a process also alluded to by Strabo with his ‘burnt iron’ (καιόμενος σίδηρος), ‘mock-silver’ (ψευδάργυρος) or ‘mountain copper’ (ὀρείχαλκον, the origin of ‘ori-/auri-chalcum’): Strabo, Geogr. 13.1.56. (ed. T.E. Page; LCL 223, vol. 6/8 [London, 1929], 114); 14.6.5 (ed. T.E. Page; LCL 223, vol. 6/8 [1929], 382). Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 1.5 (SC 423, 52.4). Orichalcum, aurichalcum: Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin dictionary [Oxford, 1879], 1278). This translates χαλκολίβανον = ὀρείχαλκον = ὁχαλκοειδής λίβανος (Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English lexicon [New York, 1883], 1710), the libanon part of which may refer to fine (originally cedar?) charcoal whereby the chalcos, copper, was reduced. This is suggested by Strabo’s detail that copper smelting on Cyprus necessitated the felling of swathes of forest, Strabo, Geogr. 14.6.5 (ed. T.E. Page; LCL 223, vol. 6/8 [1929], 382). Analogous to its copper production, the process of high-temperature iron reduction and smelting into steel has been recreated in ancient mine workings in formerly Norican Magdalensberg, G. Alföldy, Noricum (1974), 113-4, first mentioned by Pliny, Nat. 34.14 (ed. T.E. Page; LCL 394, vol. 9/10 [London, 1938], 128). 24 J. Fitz, ‘Administration and Army’ (1980), 129. 25 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 1.4 (SC 423, 48.3-7); 1.5 (SC 423, 52.4-6). 26 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 1.4 (SC 423, 50.31-3). 27 Fergus Kelly, ‘Old Irish ad-claid; Old Irish claideb and its cognates’, Ériu 22 (1971), 196. Short swords found in the Ljubljanica, usually dated up to the early first century, are longer than their normal Roman counterparts: Janka Istenič, ‘The Ljubljanica and the Roman army’, in Maja Andrič, Barbara Jerin, Peter Turk, Janka Istenič and Timotej Knific (eds), The Ljubljanica – a River and its Past (Ljubljana, 2009), 86-91, 87. The depositing of such items in the river perhaps

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La Tène influences,28 while first century weapons found along the amber route from Poetovio to Carnuntum suggest Celtic imperial cavalry stations.29 A type of local Celtic knee-brooch is found especially near the limes in Noricum and Pannonia, incorporated into military garb by the mid-second century, attaining a heyday by the late second, early third century, but still appearing in Pannonia and Syria in the fourth. It was chiefly worn by legionaries, less so by natives, civilians or women,30 an imperial, Romano-Celtic military legacy, like the gladius. Thus Roman features are often indistinguishable from Romanizing indigenous ones. Likewise metallurgical, Victorinus’ technical translation of the brazen element of the feet of the ancient of days (Dan. 10:6, Rev. 1:15), given the increase in production of bronze coinage from Viminacium, to pay soldier’s salaries, from the mid-third century, aggregating predominantly in Carnuntum and Poetovio,31 as silver production decreased, may be significant32 (in a tangential, albeit related, vein, the mines (metallum) of John’s incarceration (Rev. 1:9)33 are probably for Victorinus marble quarries, though no workings of any kind have been discovered on Patmos,34 since the mines of Pannonia were poor in metals, in comparison with Noricum’s).35 also testifies to Celtic ritual: Andrej Gaspari, ‘Celtic warriors and the Ljubljanica’, in Maja Andrič, Barbara Jerin, Peter Turk, Janka Istenič and Timotej Knific (eds), The Ljubljanica – a River and its Past (Ljubljana, 2009), 72-8, 75-6. Also see Ivan Radman-Livaja, ‘Non-military sites and stray finds’, in Ivan Radman-Livaja (ed.), The catalogue of finds of Roman military equipment in Croatia (Zagreb, 2010), 252-9, 252-3. 28 Z. Mráv, ‘Graves of auxiliary soldiers’ (2013), 97. 29 Ibid. 98. 30 László Borhy, Kata Dévai, Anikó Bózsa and Emese Számadó, ‘The western cemetery of the civil town of Brigetio’, in László Borhy, Kata Dévai and Károly Tankó (eds), Celto – Gallo – Roman, Studies of the MTA-ELTE Research Group for Interdisciplinary Archaeology (Paris, 2018), 97-186, 109. 31 Alenka Miškec, ‘The monetary circulation of Roman provincial coins from the Viminacium mint in the territory of present-day Slovenia’, in Vujadin Ivanišević, Bojana Borić-Brešković and Mirjana Vojvoda (eds), Proceedings of the international numismatic symposium Circulation of antique coins in southeastern Europe, September 15th-17th 2017 (Belgrade, 2018), 105-14, 111. See also Mirjana Vojvoda and Adam Crnobrnja, ‘Circulation of coinage from the Bithynian mint of Nicaea in the territory of present day Viminacium, Serbia’, in Vujadin Ivanišević, Bojana Borić-Brešković and Mirjana Vojvoda (eds), Proceedings of the international numismatic symposium Circulation of antique coins in southeastern Europe, September 15th-17th 2017 (Belgrade, 2018), 131-41, 131. 32 See previous note on orichalcum. Perhaps coincidentally, copper smelting is first evinced in Serbian southern Pannonia in the late 6th millennium BCE: Miljana Radivojevic, Thilo Rehren, Ernst Pernicka, DusanSljivar, Michael Brauns and Dusan Boric, ‘On the origins of extractive metallurgy: new evidence from Europe’, Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010), 2275-87, 2786. 33 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 10.3 (SC 423, 92.5-13). 34 Brian Mark Rapske, ‘Exiles, islands, and the identity and perspective of John in Revelation’, in Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts (eds), Christian origins and Greco-Roman culture: social and literary contexts for the New Testament, Early Christianity in its Hellenistic Context 1; Texts and Editions of New Testament Study 9 (Leiden, 2013), 311-46, 331-2. 35 84% of marble found in Poetovio derives from Pohorje, probably within provincial Pannonia, 16% from Norican Gummern: E. Pochmarski, ‘Transport of marble’ (2012), 31. See also B. Djuric

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Unsurprisingly, Noricum and Pannonia’s wealthier elites tended to Latinize faster than those poorer,36 creating obvious tensions between tradition and the dominant, imperial culture, that all had somehow to negotiate, whether trading in precious metals or languages. The majority who first encountered Rome in the west and north, and between the upper Sava and Drava rivers, spoke a variety of Celtic,37 and had a coinage based on Hellenistic, then Roman copies,38 though the prior speakers of sundry ‘Illyrian’ dialects survived among them too.39 Previously the former was thought vanished by the first century, until the discovery and probable deciphering of a funerary urn inscription in Poetovio, dated to the late second, early third centuries. This appears to be in Norican Celtic, one of only two examples extant. But it is written not in Greek or Roman letters, rather Rhaetic, whose alphabet derived, via Venetic, from Etruscan.40 This suggests an inheritance that predated eastern European Celtic interaction with Rome.41 It likely went back centuries, given comprehension of written Etruscan had ended by the mid-first century.42 It surely would preserve that language in an alphabet distinct from those two dominant in Pannonia, Greek and Latin. It may have even become a quasi-holy script, faintly evocative of Aramaic Hebrew script for Jews, or, better still, Ogham, in Ireland and Wales.43 Comparative newcomers to central Europe, Jews and Syrians more often render Semitic terms in Greek or Roman characters,44

and H.W. Müller, ‘White marbles in Noricum and Pannonia’ (2009), 111-27, 122. J. Fitz, ‘Administration and Army’ (1980), 129-30. 36 Danijel Dzino, ‘Segesta and Siscia: Empire, globalization and frontier-zones’, in Ivan Drnić (ed.), Segestica and Siscia – From the periphery of the Empire to a provincial center, Catalogues and Monographsof the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb 16 (Zagreb, 2018), 279-92, 286-9. 37 László Barkóczi, ‘History of Pannonia’, in A. Lengyel and G.T.B. Radan (eds), The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia (Budapest, 1980), 85-120, 99-100. 38 Katalin Bíró-Sey, ‘Currency’, in A. Lengyel and G.T.B. Radan (eds), The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia (Budapest, 1980), 337-346, 338-9. 39 John Joseph Wilkes, The Illyrians (Oxford, 1988), 69. 40 Heiner Eichner, Janka Istenič and Milan Lovenjak, ‘Ein römerzeitliches Keramikgefäß aus Ptuj (Pettau, Poetovio) in Slowenien mit Inschrift in unbekanntem Alphabet und epichorischer (vermutlich keltischer) Sprache’, Arheološki vestnik 45 (1994), 131-42, 132, 134-8. But is there a connection with the transfer of Legio XIII Gemina from Vindonissa, Raetia, in 45 CE? 41 Blanca María Prósper, ‘Celtic and Venetic in Contact: The Dialectal Attribution of the Personal Names in the Venetic record’, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie (2019), 33-73, 45. 42 L. Barkóczi, ‘History of Pannonia’ (1980), 107. 43 There are varying theories as to the motivation for Ogham’s invention, from the Latin alphabet: some once thought it devised by druids in pagan hostility to Roman Christianity, others to more accurately reflect archaic Irish pronunciation, more lately quasi-military and -nationalist needs, to constitute a code impenetrable to Latin speakers (summarized in Niall Mac Coitir, ‘The Ogham alphabet – a military origin?’, Archaeology Ireland 26 [2012], 22-5, 22-3). 44 Nora David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’, in Michael Labahn and Outi Lehtipuu (eds), People under Power, Early Jewish and Christian Responses to the Roan Empire, Early Christianity in

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rarely in Hebrew or Aramaic. But those of Jewish descent or association, still do so, from time to time.45 Alongside extensive local Celtic imperial military recruitment,46 this nevertheless suggests a current of native cultural resistance to the Romanizing of territory47 (begun with Julio-Claudian urbanization on the Sava river and Amber Route),48 including the perpetuation of Celtic and Illyrian burial forms,49 analogous to how other groups, such as Jews and Syrians, sought to maintain identities in the face of assimilative pressures. These last chiefly resided in Intercisa,50 having arrived after the Marcomannic wars, from the late second century, mainly from Emesa (Homs),51 with the orientalising Septimius Severus.52 With them came an Aramaic culture, as well as the cults and rites of their religions of origin.53 Poetovio had at least three Mithraea, initially founded by customs officials,54 surely catering for a cult extremely popular with the army,55 especially encouraged, if not founded, under the Severans themselves,56 to cement imperial loyalty. Therein would the quasi-monotheist, Sol-centred worship of Elagabalus, in the camps of Aquincum and Brigetio, but especially that of the Pannonian Aurelian, play a crucial part,57 a syncretistic theme that would fuel Victorinus’ apocalyptic anxieties about the Antichrist, a Judaizing pagan the Roman World 1 (Amsterdam, 2015), 82. Alexander Scheiber, ‘Jews at Intercisa in Pannonia’, JQR 45 (1955), 189-97, 197. 45 N. David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’ (2015), 91-2. 46 Zsolt Mráv, ‘Graves of auxiliary soldiers and veterans in northern part of province Pannonia in the 1st Century AD’, in M. Sanader, A. Rendić-Miočević, D. Tončinić and I. Radman-Livaja (eds), Proceedings of the XVIIth Roman Military Equipment Conference: Weapons and Military Equipment in a Funerary Context (Zagreb, 2013), 87-116, 88. Jenó Fitz, ‘Population’, in A. Lengyel and G.T.B. Radan (eds), The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia (Budapest, 1980), 14159, 143. 47 D. Dzino, ‘Segesta and Siscia’ (2018), 289. E.B. Thomas, ‘Villa Settlements’ (1980), 288. J. Fitz, ‘Population’ (1980), 141-2. 48 Klárar Poczy, ‘Pannonian cities’, in A. Lengyel and G.T.B. Radan (eds), The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia (Budapest, 1980), 239-74, 139. 49 Jenó Fitz, ‘The Way of Life’, in A. Lengyel and G.T.B. Radan (eds), The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia (Budapest, 1980), 161-75, 170-1. 50 ‘All in all, of the inscriptions left behind by Jews in Roman Pannonia, some two-thirds are those of soldiers, while the remaining one-third were executed at the behest of Jewish officials. All of them show a considerable degree of cultural and even religious assimilation to Roman civilization’: Raphael Patai, The Jews of Hungary: History, Culture, Psychology (Detroit, 1996), 22. Alexander Scheiber, Jewish inscriptions in Hungary = Corpus inscriptionum Hungariae Judaicarum: from the 3rd century to 1686 (Leiden, 1983), 14. 51 N. David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’ (2015), 90. E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 193. 52 N. David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’ (2015), 81. 53 A. Scheiber, ‘Jews at Intercisa’ (1955), 189-90. J. Fitz, ‘The Way of Life’ (1980), 167. 54 J. Fitz, ‘The Way of Life’ (1980), 167. 55 E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 190-2 56 N. David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’ (2015), 81. J. Fitz, ‘The Way of Life’ (1980), 168. 57 E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 191-2.

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emperor who would instigate worship of himself in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem (2Thess. 2:4, Rev. 13:4-15).58 Other orientals were similarly visible in the imperial administration and military, combining an outward cultural conformity, which discipline demanded, replete with sundry awards and honours,59 with various distinguishing qualities. Syrians might worship Jupiter Dolichenus and other eastern gods,60 reproducing their recorded forms on sculpture,61 armour,62 gravestones63 or epigraphy.64 Jews likewise recorded religious themes and offices in inscriptions, chiefly dedicatory and funerary,65 preserving, like those Norican Celts, ‘native’ forms, whether pictorial,66 biblical or liturgical,67 sometimes translated or transliterated from Hebrew into Greek or Latin, occasionally in Aramaeo-Hebrew script itself.68 The vast majority of Jewish names, terms or formulae are rendered in Greek, however, albeit usually in Roman letters, suggesting a high motivation to write as well as speak in the languages of the imperial administration, while still valuing the sacred or ‘mother’ tongue or alphabet i.e. more likely Greek, albeit its orthography weakening with time.69 Very occasionally, a biblical verse will appear,70 suggesting the liturgy of Pannonian synagogues, their biblical text, if any. Almost certainly this would have been in Greek, whether the Septuagint or no, with prayers likely recited in Hebrew, albeit with the memory of their meaning also increasingly distant.71 More crucially, however, for the purpose of understanding the background to Victorinus and his commentarial opus, it suggests the transfer of biblical and other texts from the middle east, especially Syria and Palestine, to Transdanubia, almost certainly along military lines of communication. 58

Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 13.4 (SC 423, 108.7-11). Tünde Vágási, ‘Epigraphic records of the friendship of Mithras and Sol in Pannonia’, Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 58 (2018), 359-78, 362. 60 J. Fitz, ‘The Way of Life’ (1980), 167. 61 E.g. Jupiter Dolichenus, with thunderbolts and hammer; Victoria offers him her wreath of victory (E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ [1980], 189), evocative of Victorinus’ interpretation of Rev. 4:10: Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 4.7 (SC 423, 72.6-18). 62 Edit B. Thomas, ‘Armour’, in A. Lengyel and G.T.B. Radan (eds), The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia (Budapest, 1980), 385-96, 391, 393. T. Vágási, ‘Epigraphic records’ (2018), 360. 63 J. Fitz, ‘The Way of Life’ (1980), 171. 64 T. Vágási, ‘Epigraphic records’ (2018), 362. 65 E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 193. 66 E.g. the menorah: E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 193. 67 N. David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’ (2015), 92-3. 68 Ibid. 82. 69 A. Scheiber, Jewish inscriptions (1983), 21 70 The so-called Halbturn amulet, a silver capsule containing a second-third century sestertius, also holds a silver lamula of the Shema, that is Deut. 6:4. It is buried with a child in the cemetery of Carnuntum: N. David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’ (2015), 92-3. 71 Hebrew was not widely known, even in Palestine, with even the Shema recited in Greek in Hellenistic Caesarea: A. Scheiber, Jewish inscriptions (1983), 25-7. 59

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One archisynagogus,72 Cosmius, was apparently chief of an imperial customs station in Intercisa,73 a regional hub-depot for all manner of items, chiefly for military use, its being on the road to Dacia.74 Other Jews in the locale, Moesia, Dacia and Istria, as well as Pannonia, dedicating inscriptions to their benefactors in the Severan dynasty, employ the term archisynagogos, implying the existence of either Jewish or quasi-Jewish, heterodox communities,75 which Victorinus likely designates as John’s ‘synagogue of Satan’. These are the especial adversaries of his understanding of the church of Smyrna (Rev. 2:8-11), which they somehow harry to martyrdom and death (Rev. 2:9),76 and whose rites, chiefly observing the Sabbath and circumcision, Antichrist drives Christian apostates to imitate.77 These are the most likely source of Victorinus’ concern about Judaizing penetration, from communities of self-identifying Jews wherein Christians could participate, and their corollary, churches sufficiently lax to include unregenerate Jews, while yet taking and offering communion.78 Something about the combination of the military melting pot, the impress of barbarians on the limes, and the need to preserve an overarching, defensive, imperial Roman identity seems to have facilitated this cultural miscegenation,79 which clearly much preoccupies the Poetovian. Christian authors themselves apparently testify further to these unique circumstances, the threat of the barbarian enemy from without and the need for a requited, quasi-biblical monotheism from within, to address it. Thus, for instance, they retrospectively Christianize Marcus Aurelius’ reception of the late second century’s so-called ‘rain miracle’, or at least include Christians therein, spuriously or otherwise.80 Curiously, the Christians concerned allegedly belonged to the Legio XII Fulminata, which had participated in the last stages of suppressing the first Jewish revolt. Perhaps only by coincidence it also supported the philosemitic Septimius 72

A. Scheiber, ‘Jews at Intercisa’ (1955), 194. N. David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’ (2015), 90. E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 193. 74 A. Scheiber, ‘Jews at Intercisa’ (1955), 192-3. 75 Tessa Rajak and David Noy, ‘Archisynagogoi: office, title and social status in the GrecoJewish synagogue’, JRS 83 (1993), 75-93, 83, n. 41. 76 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 2.2 (SC 423, 58.2-8). 77 Circumcision: Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 13.3 (SC 423, 106.12-4); for the Sabbath, see also: Tract. fabr. mund. 5 (SC 423, 142.4-10). 78 Victorinus of Pettau, Tract. fabr. mund. 5 (SC 423, 142.2-4). 79 A. Scheiber, Jewish inscriptions (1983), 14. 80 Tertullian, Apol. 5.25 (PL 1, 295-6); Scap. 4 (PL 1, 703C); and see also Claudian, 6 Cons. Hon. 347-350 (ed. E. Capps, T.E. Page, M. Platnauer and W.H.D. Rouse, LCL 136 = vol. 2/2 [London, 1922], 99). Jerome, Chron. 174-6 (GCS 47, 207). Hist. Aug. Marc. Aur. Anton. 24.4 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie, LCL 139 = vol. 1/3 [London, 1921], 192). Cassius Dio, Hist. rom. 71.8-10 (ed. E. Carey and T.E. Page, LCL 177 = vol. 9/9 [London, 1927], 26-8). Garth Fowden, ‘Pagan Versions of the Rain Miracle of AD 172’, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 36 (1987), 83-95, 85. 73

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Severus’ rival, Pescennius Niger, and may have been consigned to the reserves as punishment.81 Thus the earliest contact between Pannonia and Palestine is already steeped in conflict between the Greco-Latin and Aramaeo-Greek worlds. Pannonian tax offices in both provinces kept meticulous records, serviced by a secretariat competent in multiple languages.82 After all, Cosmius was both chief, and probable founder, of his synagogue, as well as customs station, and likely read whichever biblical text his liturgy employed. Imports came from Britain, Spain, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, by ship and road, river and sea. These included weapons and armour of apparently middle eastern manufacture,83 while relatively luxurious goods, such as olive oil, wine and fish-based products, expensive to preserve, store and transport, mainly enter Pannonia via military networks, and experience their first considerable reduction during the Marcomannic wars, and even more drastically from the approximate time of Victorinus, the third quarter of the third century.84 The epoch of ‘Hurt not the oil and the wine’ (that of the third seal, Rev. 6:5-6), mere prelude to true famine,85 must have seemed long gone for Pannonian soldier and civilian alike by Victorinus’ time. Small wonder he chooses to interpret it figuratively, of how the spiritual man would escape the commensurately psychic afflictions of the times.86 But the technology and technique of transporting preserved goods, incidentally (both, as we would say, air- and) water-tight, must have underlay that of transporting fragile papyrus and parchment. Both needed secure communications, by land and water, again, probably, military, and thus Poetovio might have become a western Christian literary centre, as Victorinus collated the likely Palestinian ‘seeds’ of his scholarly endeavour. As already noted, there was a pagan, non-Jewish or non-‘Semitic’ connection with the literal Holy Land from of old. Key Pannonia-stationed detachments had participated in the suppression of at least one Judaean revolt,87 while its 81

It nevertheless seems to have distinguished itself under Gallienus, during the crisis of the third century, however, albeit in the east (and see below): Péter Kovács, ‘Marcus Aurelius’ rain miracle: when and where?’, Študijné zvesti Archeologického ústavu SAV Nitra 62 (2017), 101-11, 103. 82 Jenó Fitz, ‘Administration and Army’, in A. Lengyel and G.T.B. Radan (eds), The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia (Budapest, 1980), 125-39, 127-8. 83 E.B. Thomas, ‘Armour’ (1980), 393. 84 Piroska Magyar-Hárshegyi, ‘Supplying the Roman army on the Pannonian Limes Amphorae on the territory of Budapest, Hungary (Aquincum and Albertfalva)’, RCRF Acta 44 (2016), 619-32, 628-30. 85 Robert H. Charles, A critical and exegetical commentary on the Revelation of St. John: with introduction, notes, and indices, also the Greek text and the English translation, 2 vol., The international critical commentary on the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (Edinburgh, 1920), I 166-8. 86 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 6.2 (SC 423, 80.6-7). 87 A Bar Kokhba-era coin found in Brigetio suggests a detatchment of I Adiutrix participated in that war, while an individual buried there appears to have been a native of Caesarea Maritima, and may have arrived with the same legion. Nothing suggests he was a Jew, though it still remains an

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corollary was likely the arrival of the first Jews in the region, captives of war, afterwards freed: only later did Jews come as traders.88 Thus orientals, Greek and Aramaic-speaking, probably comprised the first merchants to reside in the province,89 bringing deities such as Dea Syria and Baltis with them, already worshipped in Aquincum from the second century, paradoxically also serving the further purpose of Romanizing the region.90 It is perhaps significant these cults were not only popular with women, but among civilians generally, including slaves and liberti,91 further contributing to a distinctive Pannonian mixture. With ambiguous implications, coins struck by first and second century Judaean rebels now appear in the province, while some of the first Christians are likely Greek or Aramaic-speakers. Even if a kind of orthodoxy radiated from Italian Aquileia, contemporary records place a bishopric in third-century Cibalae, south eastern Pannonia Inferior,92 suggesting a ‘bottom-up’ process as much of early Christian immigration from the east, as evangelism from the west, perhaps like Victorinus himself.93 A martyr under Diocletian, virtually contemporary with Victorinus, is the Norican Florianus, a military officer locally popular for fighting fires,94 both ultimately interned in Lauriacum in the fifth century.95 Florianus’ story is evocative of the semi-legendary, military near-contemporary, intriguing possibility. According to an inscription in Aquincum, one Aelianus Silvanus was a native of ‘Colonia Capitoliana’ in Syria Palaestina (probably Jerusalem / Aelia Capitolina), a centurion of II Adiutrix, thence stationed and ultimately buried in Pannonia. Scheiber speculates Hadrian granted him citizenship after joining the legion on campaign against Bar Kokhba, an extraordinary journey for a Judaean, if correct. There is evidence of another Jerusalemite buried in Pannonia and of other, Upper Pannonian vexillations which served in Palestine. Although their legions are unknown, they apparently comprise specifically Celtic units, by tribal names, at least, in another notable cultural encounter (A. Scheiber, Jewish inscriptions [1983], 67-8). Also pertinent is ‘epigraphic evidence that a vexillation of this legion [X Fretensis, stationed in Jerusalem, post-70] participated in the Marcomannic wars’: Péter Kovács, ‘Marcus Aurelius’ rain miracle’ (2017), 105. 88 A. Scheiber, Jewish inscriptions (1983), 13-4. E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 192. 89 N. David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’ (2015), 80-1. 90 ‘The from-above driven sacralisation of out of city locations begins once the Romans have arrived in the territories. This type of sacralisation was planned, initiated and implemented by those occupying the higher hierarchical positions in society. It is characterised by being highly organised and had the aim of romanising the local population. It could be performed by the rulers, by the city administrators, the college of priests or by recognised groups, either professional (stonemasons, soldiers, doctors’ associations, fortune tellers) or national (Greeks, Egyptians, and Orientals)’: Vesna Lalošević, ‘Examples of pagan sacralisation of Sirmium and Salona landscapes in the early Christian legends’, in Juraj Belaj, Marijana Belai and Siniša Krznar (eds), Sacralization of Landscape and Sacred Places. Proceedings of the 3rd International Scientific Conference of Mediaeval Archaeology of the Institute of Archaeology, Zagreb, 2nd and 3rd June 2016, Zbornik Instituta za Arheologiju 10 (Zagreb, 2018), 165-78, 169-70. 91 E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 189. 92 E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 193-4. 93 M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 14-5. 94 Jodok Stülz, Geschichte des regulirten Chorherrn-Stiftes St. Florian: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Landes Österreich ob der Enns (Linz, 1835), 2-3. 95 M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 13.

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the Cappadocio-Palestinian saint, George. Indeed, in Eusebius’ version of the ‘rain miracle’, the legion, whose Christians, Tertullian says, successfully prayed for a miracle, is called ‘the Melitene’, after the region in Cappadocia where it was usually stationed,96 and which, his earliest Latin biographer says, was George’s ‘patria’.97 The martyrologies of all three, imputed to Diocletian, may witness to the a priori tolerance more general for Christianity which Victorinus perceives,98 perhaps even in imperial military circles, necessitating a conservative administrative backlash. The appearance of a Near Eastern, Semitic culture in central Europe, with integrity and endurance, impenetrable to primarily Latin or Greek-speakers, may have contributed to an impression of Jews in apparent alliance with pagans, or indeed with the pagan imperial administration or army. Indeed, fully two thirds of Pannonian Jewish inscriptions constitute those of legionaries, chiefly the First Syrian Archers, Aurelia Antoniana and First Hemesian Archers.99 Moreover, during Victorinus’ time, several emperors as well as pretenders had come from Pannonia, in whose European campaigns Syrians and some Jews had surely participated.100 Aurelian’s encounter with Zenobia’s forces in Emesa would bring these originally Severan contacts101 full circle,102 his subsequently reviving the cult of Elagabal, albeit recreated as that of the thoroughgoingly Roman Sol Invictus, and giving it official status.103 More pertinent for Pannonia, tradition maintains that sometime in the late third century Diocletian dedicated a temple to Sol near Sirmium, along with a statue of the Sun (whether Sol, Helios, Elagabal or a syncresis) in classical four-in-hand harness (whether or not in his image is unclear, his also being deemed incarnation of Jove), apparently from the solid or living rock of a (likely sacred) local place,104 but perhaps 96 Eusebius (Greek), Hist. eccl. 5.1-6 (Eusebius Werke II.1. Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. Eduard Schwartz, GCS NF 6.1 [Leipzig, 1903; Berlin, 1999], 434.1-436.16). 97 Act. sanct. april. 3. de s. georg. meg.-mart. 13 1.4 (Acta sanctorum XII, April 21-end, ed. J. Bollandus and G. Henschenius, new ed. J. Carnadet et al. [Paris, Rome, 1866], 102D). 98 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 14.2 (SC 423, 110.4). 99 Andrew J. Schoenfeld, ‘Sons of Israel in Caesar’s Service: Jewish Soldiers in the Roman Military’, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 24 (2006), 115-26, 122. 100 A. Scheiber, Jewish inscriptions (1983), 14. 101 Zenobia’s husband Septimius Odaenathus derived from a family that gained citizenship and ascendancy under Septimius Severus, perhaps having opposed Palmyrene support for Pescennius Niger in 193, and was likely linked to the imperial marriage into the Emesan priestly dynasty: Maurice Satre, The Middle East Under Rome, trans. Catherine Porter and Elizabeth Rawlings (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 352, 357. 102 Against a general background of Jewish opposition to Zenobia’s rule, in which religion played at least a minor role, Smallwood suggests at least some of the Palestinian conscripts who played a key role in her defeat were Jews: E. Mary Smallwood, The Jews Under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian (Leiden, 1976), 533. 103 Gaston Halsberghe, The Cult of Sol Invictus, Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l’Empire romain 23 (Leiden, 1974), 136, 141, 149, 156. 104 Pass. sanct. quat. cor. 1910:1-3 (Passio Sanctorum Quattuor Coronatorum, ed. Wilhelm Wattenbach [Vienna, 1853], 6). V. Lalošević, ‘Examples of pagan sacralisation’ (2018), 169.

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also distantly evocative of the earlier cult actions in Rome by Elagabalus, who enacted the ritual to install the sacred solar stone from Emesa.105 That echo may not have been lost on Victorinus, but at least as relevant for his commentarial milieu, was that this same Elagabalus had practiced abstention from pork106 and himself performed public circumcision,107 a deed especially associated with his allegedly effeminate sexuality,108 both of which Victorinus also connects and condemns.109 Indeed, the Syrian is said to have ordered Jewish, Samaritan and Christian rituals to be observed on the Palatine, in an effort to syncretise these with the sun-god, whom he placed before Jupiter, himself as his high priest.110 Furthermore, his circumcising many of his companions suggests a sense of mission,111 and thus Elagabalus quite possibly constitutes for Victorinus a key model for Antichrist. This one demands of Christians ‘nothing else but’ that they circumcise,112 and sets himself up in the restored temple of Jerusalem,113 as Jews and apostates’ object of worship (see 2Thess. 2:4),114 in some respects better suiting an Elagabalus than a Nero, Antichrist’s usual ‘type’.115 The Severan nicely combines a quasi-‘Jewish’ ritual with an allegedly ‘filthy’ behaviour, against the ‘use of women’, while worshipping gods his fathers had not known (Dan. 11:37),116 revolting both Christian and Roman sensibilities, traditional and military,117 as well as perhaps ones Jewish, in a curious synthesis perhaps unique to his time and place. Likewise had his adopted son, Alexander, tolerated both Christians and Jews, honouring statues of Abraham and Jesus in his private shrine,118 and re-affirming for Jews the full privileges of citizenship,119 which Caracalla had bestowed on 105

Herodian, Hist. rom. 5.6.7 (ed. Ludwig Mendelssohn [Leipzig, 1883], 144). ‘According with Phoenicians’ custom’: Herodian, Hist. rom. 5.6.9 (ed. Ludwig Mendelssohn [Leipzig, 1883], 144). 107 Cassius Dio, Hist. rom. 80.11.1 (ed. E. Carey and T.E. Page; LCL 177, vol. 9/9 [1927], 456). 108 Cassius Dio, Hist. rom. 80.13.1-80.16.7 (ed. E. Carey and T.E. Page; LCL 177, vol. 9/9 [1927], 460-70). 109 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 13.3 (SC 423, 106.9-12). 110 Hist. Aug. Anton. Elag. 3.4-5 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [London, 1924], 110-2). Confusingly, he served his guests ostrich meat, claiming Jews so mandated it (Hist. Aug. Anton. Elag. 28.4 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [1924], 162), nevertheless suggesting an alleged Judeophilia to some. 111 Cassius Dio, Hist. rom. 80.11.1 (ed. E. Carey and T.E. Page; LCL 177, vol. 9/9 [1927], 456). 112 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 13.3 (SC 423, 106.12-4). 113 Compare how the Judeo-’Christian’ heretics, the Ebionites, are said to revere Jerusalem: Irenaeus, Haer. 1.26.2 (PG 7, 686B-697A). 114 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 13.4 (SC 423, 108.12-9). 115 And with which Nero Elagabalus was associated: Hist. Aug. Anton. Elag. 34.1 (ed. C.P. Gould; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [1924], 172). 116 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 13.3 (SC 423, 106.9-11). See Hippolytus, Comm. Dan. 4.48.2 (GCS 1, 310.13-5). 117 Cassius Dio, Hist. rom. 80.17.1 (ed. E. Carey and T.E. Page; LCL 177, vol. 9/9 [1927], 470). 118 Hist. Aug. Alex. Sev. 29.2 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [1924], 234). 119 Hist. Aug. Alex. Sev. 22.4 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [1924], 218). 106

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them and all freedmen,120 albeit earning a reputation for unmartial qualities, wherefore his troops would subsequently assassinate him, along with his Syrian mother, Julia Mamaea.121 According to tradition, she had been tutored in Christianity at Antioch by one Origen,122 whose father had been martyred under the great-granduncle, Septimius Severus, once also considered a candidate for the Antichrist.123 In any event, the Severan dynasty as a whole would have provided an extraordinary example to the Poetovian of the perils of commingling the secular with varieties of the sacred, some licit, others less so. Freund considers it likely that it is Caracalla who is to be identified with the ‘Antoninus’ who finds favourable mention in the Talmud, for reason of his extending citizenship to Jews.124 But perhaps it might also be a gestalt conflation of the philosemitic Severan dynasty generally, including the publicly circumcising, né ‘Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus’, who only became ‘Elagabalus’ upon assuming priestly office.125 Tellingly, within Alexander’s own lifetime, sundry orientals, perhaps those who had favoured his rival, Pescennius Niger, then governor of Syria (for whom the formerly Judaea- and Pannonia-, now Cappadocia-, based legion XII Fulminata had fought) had mobbed Alexander, abusing him as the ‘Syrian archisynagogus’,126 suggesting possible divisions in affiliation between Semitic- and non-Semitic-speakers,127 perhaps iterated in late third century Transdanubia. As with Nero, Alexander Severus’ death precipitated civil crisis and barbarian confrontation.128 Nor was the latter excluded from pagan

120

A. Scheiber, Jewish inscriptions (1983), 14. Hist. Aug. Alex. Sev. 60.1-61.7 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [1924], 300-2). 122 Jerome, Vir. 54 (PL 23, 699B). Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 6.21.3-4 (GCS NF 6.2, 568.4-12). 123 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.7 (GCS NF 6.2, 534.10-1). See Jerome, Vir. 54 (PL 23, 698B-699A). 124 Richard A. Freund, ‘Two Greco-Roman heroes of the rabbis’, in Menahem Mor (ed.), Crisis & reaction: the hero in Jewish history (Omaha, 1995), 19-72, 19-22. See also A. Scheiber (Jewish inscriptions [1983], 25, n. 27), on midrashic evidence for the popularity of Septimius Severus among Jews. 125 Hist. Aug. Anton. Elag. 1.1-7 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [1924], 104-6, n. 2) 126 Hist. Aug. Alex. Sev. 28.7 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [1924], 234). 127 Elagabalus was scathingly called ‘the Assyrian’ for his Syrian priestly dress, perhaps also to distinguish him from Hellenistic Syrians: Cassius Dio, Hist. rom. 80.11.1 (ed. T.E. Page; LCL, vol. 9/9 [1927], 456). The author of the Historia Augusta commends Alexander most favourably against Elagabalus and many a baser Roman, despite his oriental heritage: Hist. Aug. Alex. Sev. 65.1-3 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [1924], 306-8); likewise his mother: Hist. Aug. Alex. Sev. 66.1 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [1924], 308). An allegation the author seems implicitly keen to deny is that Alexander was ashamed to be called ‘Syrian’, suggesting among his Greco-Roman pagan detractors ‘Syrian’ could have a quintessentially positive non-Semitic or Hellenistic valency, as well as the converse: Hist. Aug. Alex. Sev. 64.3 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [1924], 306). 128 Hist. Aug. Alex. Sev. 64.1 (ed. C.P. Gould and D. Magie; LCL 140, vol. 2/3 [1924], 304-6). 121

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deification,129 another canard of Antichrist, while most military inscriptions in his honour probably reside in the Danubian region from Noricum to Dacia,130 a very visible presence for Victorinus mere decades later. These include dedications by Pannonian Jews in imperial service, such as by the Cosmius above, to both the Syrian Julia Mamaea and her son Alexander,131 his aforementioned title ‘archisynagogus’’ very namesake!132 Yavetz compares the reception of Jews and Dacians in pagan Latin authors, finding differences as well as similarities, chiefly a greater hostility to the former, arising, he thinks, from familiarity with Jews in Rome, and awareness of Judaism as threatening traditional mores and cults, with circumcision as perhaps among the more repugnant of its practices.133 By a curious convergence, a later Latin Christian Transdunabian author like Victorinus, otherwise so anti-Roman,134 would hold analogous views, the Jewish threat especially acute by virtue of the degree of Jews’ integration into Pannonian Roman and Latin culture and society. Yet Victorinus’ Antichrist is still the ‘legis vindex’, the ‘avenger of the (Mosaic) law’, raising the question, ‘Avenging the Mosaic law against whom or what, precisely?’ Against the church, forced to circumcise, certainly.135 But, normatively, it would have to be, to some extent, also against the pagan Roman empire that had destroyed temple, Jewish state and perpetrated a general exile. However, in Pannonia, with so many Jews manifestly in the imperial army or administration, perhaps notionally hoping for a restoration in return for obedient service, one might, if one was so minded, envisage a seamless unity of pagan Roman and Jewish purpose, nevertheless undoing the dispossession the empire had wreaked as Christ’s unknowing avenger upon disobedient Israel. Sulpicius Severus, whether related to that dynasty or no, reports how Titus himself had wanted to destroy the temple, contra Josephus, with a view to eradicating both Judaism and Christianity,136 while Hadrian similarly banned Jewish access to Jerusalem, unintentionally benefiting Christians, who could yet return thither, even if of Jewish extraction,137 an example 129 Duncan Fishwick, The imperial cult in the Latin west. Volume 3: Provincial cult. Part 1: Institution and evolution, Religions in the Graeco-Roman world 145 (Leiden, 2002), 199. 130 R.V. Nind Hopkins, The life of Alexander Severus (Cambridge, 1907), 123-4. 131 A. Scheiber, ‘Jews at Intercisa’ (1955), 192. 132 Ibid. 195. 133 Zvi Yavetz, ‘Latin Authors on Jews and Dacians’, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 47 (1998), 77-107, 98. 134 He envisages the Roman state’s utter destruction by Christ: Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 8.1 (SC 423, 86.1-3); 8.2 (SC 423, 88.10-3); inseparable from, and for the sake of, the Senate’s utter guilt, and impermissibility, for persecution, distinct from the imperial peoples’ general tolerance of Christianity (who will yet mostly be destroyed, and damned, too!): Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 14.2 (SC 423, 110.4-8). 135 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 13.3 (SC 423, 106.12-4). 136 Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2.30 (PL 20, 146C). 137 Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2.31 (PL 20, 147A).

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of incidental pagan Roman and Christian lock-step. For many Christians, up to the fourth century at least, a reconstructed temple would have implied the reversal of all Christian gains hitherto, unless Christ intervened,138 since Jewish exile was now deemed properly permanent.139 Jews in the tax and other registers of the province, in the offices or households of the governors themselves, may have only further contributed to this impression, doubtless incomprehensible to some Christians, who perceived Jews as being properly a defeated people (Luke 21:24), condemned by God to permanent subjugation, to Rome above all, but likewise incomprehensible to pagan GrecoRoman soldiers, who may have resented serving with such former enemies as though equals. This might have been most keenly felt in the legions of former Judaean and Palestinian campaigns, which may have been responsible for the presence of at least some of the aforementioned Judaean rebel coins. The semitophilia of the Severan dynasty would meet a backlash from Roman conservatives, especially in the army, and this may have been one of the many elements that catalyzed a specifically Latin Christian culture in the Danubian provinces. Yet, paradoxically, the presence of Jews and perhaps even increasingly solarcentred eastern cults, such as that of Elagabal and Mithras,140 also likely prepared Pannonians for a kind of monotheism.141 In Brigetio, the latter two stood side by side, even as Dolichenus adopted many features of the classical Roman deities ever surrounding him,142 doubtless fueling such as Victorinus’ fears of a perceived syncretism which might include Judaism.143 A rudimentary and evolving Latin culture was one all Pannonians shared, and the occupation and presence of the imperial Roman administration and army inevitably informed every level of its society. In a similar vein, Victorinus is certainly preoccupied with an apparently widespread Jewish ritual influence,144 the person of Antichrist’s encapsulating his fears of cultural hybridism. 138

Even Fortunatianus of Aquileia probably so hopes, if he indeed seems to counsel Christians to equanimity in the face of a Julian-restored Jewish Holy Land or temple (e.g. the promised land is given to the Jews (Fortunatianus of Aquileia, Comm. Ev. praef. [CSEL 103, 110.77-9]); Christians should focus in every direction away from the location of the Jerusalem temple (Fortunatianus of Aquileia, Comm. Ev. praef. (CSEL 103, 112.108-12), since he foresees Jews’ ultimate slip and fall into the noose of Antichrist (Fortunatianus of Aquileia, Comm. Ev. M. LXLVI. [CSEL 103, 206.2192-5]). He grants the Flavian dynasty a quasi-sacred role in the Christian story: Fortunatianus of Aquileia, Comm. Ev. M. LXLVII. (CSEL 103, 207.2221-6); M. C. (CSEL 103, 209.2271-3). 139 Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2.30 (PL 20, 146C). 140 E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 190-2. 141 Jerome and Eusebius commend Julia Mamaea, of the Syrian family of the high priest of Emesa, who, they purport, consulted Origen, for her piety: Jerome, Vir. 54.893 (PL 23, 699B-C). Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 6.21.3-4 (GCS NF 6.2, 568.4-12). 142 E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 186, 189. 143 Ibid. 190-1. 144 Particularly Sabbath-observance, as well as circumcision: Victorinus of Pettau, Tract. fabr. mund. 5 (SC 423, 142.2-10).

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As legionary camps and cannabae gave way to coloniae and municipia, their canards in terms of trade, industry and economy came with them, raising the cultural and financial level of natives, as well as settlers. At first merely selfsufficient, Pannonian estates would later export everyday manufactured goods, the drain on provincial coinage amply compensated by imperial investment and procurement, civil and military, and especially by the local expenditure of soldiers’ salaries. From the first century on we see latefundia freeing their slaves, while yet re-employing them for their skills. Thus they reduced maintenance costs, while also keeping a kind of servile manpower, ultimately outcompeting urban freedmen’s manufacturing and industry, rendered better-proof against repeated barbarian incursions and destructions.145 Nevertheless, Jewish and other liberti in early Pannonian urban trade professions contribute significantly to the transformation of a provincial culture in various ways. One of these is in the use of gravestones to mark burials,146 combined with the growth of collegia, including one Syrian in Aquincum,147 and other societies. Indeed sometimes the term συναγωγή may refer to such associations,148 while such oriental bodies could have considerably influenced Victorinus’ understanding of the local manifestation of the phenomenon of the ‘synagogue of Satan’ (Rev. 2:8-11).149 In Danubian Jewish funerary inscriptions, the term of ‘ancient of days’ (Dan. 7:9), rendered ‘[he of] eternity’ by Victorinus,150 has an echo which refers to ‘the eternal god’.151 Likewise the three-fold evocation of the Shema, ‘There is one God etc.’,152 suggestive of Is. 6:3 and its echo in Rev. 4:8, specifically treated by Victorinus,153 is found on one Jewish tombstone, emphasised with a thrice-depicted menorah.154 This in turn evokes the seven candelabra of the seven churches of Rev. 1:20, an image which appears on other Pannonian finds,155 where clearly Judaica and their associations had penetrated a society whose native culture was evolving under various external pressures and influences. We have already seen the quasi-sacred script of the Poetovian Celtic inscription. But a society with scarcely any indigenous written culture must inevitably adopt the traits of those ones dominant. As Latin increasingly became the language of administration and trade, so sundry foreign discourses, mainly religious, 145

E.B. Thomas, ‘Villa Settlements’ (1980), 278: in purely economic terms; but also defensively: 312-20. 146 J. Fitz, ‘The Way of Life’ (1980), 171. 147 A. Scheiber, Jewish inscriptions (1983), 19. 148 Ibid. 26, n. 33-5. Shaye J.D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, Library of Early Christianity 7 (Philadelphia, 1987), 116. N. David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’ (2015), 86. 149 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 2.2 (SC 423, 58.2-8). 150 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 1.2 (SC 423, 48.9-13). 151 N. David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’ (2015), 85-8. 152 E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 193. N. David, ‘Μεμορια IUDATI PATIRI’ (2015), 89. 153 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 4.3 (SC 423, 66.2). 154 A. Scheiber, Jewish inscriptions (1983), 21. 155 Ibid. 15-7, 46, 50, 54.

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competed for local patronage. Celtic and Illyrian deities often easily assimilated to classical ones,156 some nevertheless retaining and successfully promoting their unique characteristics. One example would be the Nutrices or ‘nurturing mothers’,157 who had an especial cult in Poetovio,158 and perhaps also an echoing cult of the Matres Magnae, a likely native, perhaps Venetic Salonitan cult, syncretized to Asiatic Cybele.159 Another would be Pan, god of forests and waterways, etymologically cognate with the province’s very name, and which became virtually emblematic of Transdanubia. But similarly imperial military connections imported influences from further afield, such as Mithraism, Judaism, the worship of the Syrian Elagabal160 and Dolichenus161 and, of course, Christianity. Sympathetic Jewish-Christian interaction or heterodoxies are evinced by the clear, even overriding, concern of Victorinus about the penetration of Jewish practices into the church, chiefly circumcision and Sabbath observance.162 Circumcision may not have been an unusual Syrian practice in the first century, until outlawed by Hadrian. Thence Antoninus Pius granted exemption for Jews, while a general proscription remained,163 though it is unclear to what extent it was enforced, especially in Near Eastern regions which had traditionally circumcised their sons, such as Egypt, Arabia Felix or indeed the Syria of the cult of Elagabal. Thus Elagabalus’ public act in Rome may have been significant in its implicit rescript for non-Jewish circumcision,164 and it is by no means impossible that some soldiers of Syrian descent, Jewish or otherwise, were circumcised and transmitted it beyond the first generation of settlement.165 Thus the impression of a longstanding ‘Abrahamic’ or ‘Semitic’ culture, promulgating itself from fathers to sons, may have further exacerbated Victorinus’ fears. The very fact of Jews or perceived Jews participating in the army that was supposed to have punished them definitively for their rejection of Christ may have seemed a reversal of the divinely appointed order, that seemed to confirm Irenaeus and Hippolytus’ vision of a 156

E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 177-8. Ibid. 180. 158 J. Fitz, ‘The Way of Life’ (1980), 163-4. 159 Marjeta Šašel Kos, ‘Cybele in Salonae a Note’, in Yahn Le Bohec (ed.), L’Afrique, la Gaule, la religion à l’époque romaine : mélanges à la mémoire de Marcel Le Glay, Collection Latomus 226 (Bruxelles, 1994), 780-91, 788-91. 160 J. Fitz, ‘The Way of Life’ (1980), 165. 161 Ibid. 167. 162 Victorinus of Pettau, Tract. fabr. mund. 6 (SC 423, 142.10-20). 163 Shaye J.D. Cohen, The beginnings of Jewishness: boundaries, varieties, uncertainties. Hellenistic culture and society, S. Mark Taper Foundation imprint in Jewish studies 31 (Berkeley, 1999), 46. See also Philo, QG 3.48 (trans. from the Armenian by Ralph Marcus; LCL 380 [Cambridge, MA, 1953], 243). 164 Shaye J.D. Cohen, The beginnings of Jewishness (1999), 47. 165 L. Barkóczi, ‘History of Pannonia’ (1980), 108. 157

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Judeo-pagan Antichrist who would restore Israel to Jerusalem and unleash the ultimate persecution of the church.166 Indeed, the presence of coins minted or struck by the rebels of the first two Judaean revolts, which spoke of the liberation of Jerusalem and Israel,167 cannot be excluded as tokens of a future hope, which Jewish soldiers and officials held as possible reward for their loyal service. A century and a half before Julian, the orientalising Severans and their decree of universal Roman citizenship may have suggested such a possibility. The common Jewish naming of their selves and children after such benefactors testifies to a general warmth of feeling,168 towards a ruling class who had previously wrought such destruction on Israel, hitherto scarcely imaginable. But by the late third century the experience of repeated, subjectively similar destructions must have haunted the popular imagination. The devastations of many towns, garrison and civilian, often deep within Pannonian territory, in the Marcomannic wars, had been largely repaired, only to be again reversed by the incursions of Iazyges, Sarmatians, Quadi, Goths, Carpi, Roxolaniani, Vandals, Suebi and others.169 War, plague and scarcity fit the apocalyptic warnings in Victorinus’ commentary. These always have the whiff of the tangible, in addition to their figurative interpretations by the Poetovian, whereas his successors, after Constantine, tend to stress the allegorical above all else,170 even as he offers material millennial rewards.171 He rails against those who study scripture or literature in cubicula, banqueting halls or bedrooms,172 a description best suiting the urban palatia of provincial rulers,173 or the latefundia villas of the countryside.174 An increasing economic disparity between the latter and town freedmen-traders was due to the fact that the rural rich could manufacture everyday goods, such as ceramics and ironmongery, at lower costs, through a 166 According to some, Antichrist derives physically from the tribe of Dan: Hippolytus, Antichr. 25 (GCS 1.2, 11.5-18); 14 (GCS 1.2, 11.10-1); derives from Rome: Irenaeus, Haer. 5.25.3 (SC 153, l. 54-65; PG 7, 1190B-1191A); 5.30.3 (PG 7, 1206B); Hippolytus, Antichr. 25 (GCS 1.2, 17.15-18.1); 33-4 (GCS 1.2, 20.16-22); Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 12.3 (SC 423, 102.11-2); restores the Jews: Irenaeus, Haer. 5.25.4 (SC 153, l. 80-3; PG 7, 1191A); 5.26.1 (PG 7, 1192B-1193D); Hippolytus, Antichr. 25 (GCS 1.2, 18.1-2); 6 (GCS 1.2, l. 8-14); Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 8.2 (SC 423, 88.10-4); 2.2 (SC 423, 58.2-8); 13.3 (SC 423, 106.11-2). See also Hippolytus, Antichr. 30 (GCS 1.2, 20.8-12). 167 Hanan Eshel, Boas Zissu and Gabriel Barkay, ‘Sixteen Bar Kokhba Coins from Roman Sites in Europe’, INJ 17 (2009-10), 89-97, 91-5. A. Scheiber, Jewish inscriptions (1983), 63. 168 A. Scheiber, ‘Jews at Intercisa’ (1955), 195. E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 192-3. 169 L. Barkóczi, ‘History of Pannonia’ (1980), 96-110. 170 E.g. Tyconius, Reg. 4 (ed. F.C. Crawford [Cambridge, 1894], 48.1-4). 171 E.g. the restoration to the faithful of material loss in this world, many-fold: Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 21.5 (SC 423, 120.1-9); and the wine of the ten thousand-fold millennial vine: 21.6 (SC 423, 122.1-6). 172 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 3.3 (SC 423, 62.1-7). 173 J. Fitz, ‘Population’ (1980), 153. 174 E.B. Thomas, ‘Villa Settlements’ (1980), 307-9.

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mixed economy of slave and freed workers. Coin hordes, evidently buried in the face of babarian threats from the second century,175 but likely also the action of the wealthy to salt away gold and silver coins in the face of devaluation and counterfeiture, suggest the poorer classes were the victims of inflation and a debased currency.176 Of this Victorinus intimates by his otherwise anomalous valuing of the stater as two denarii (Matt. 17:24-7; properly valued at four, or two didrachmas, as others note).177 This is likely because he confuses it with the contemporary antoninianus, a debased double-denarius or radiate, itself replacing the denarius as standard silver coin, from the reign of Decius on.178 Even soldiers would increasingly be paid in bronze alone. In short, there would have been many reasons why locals would have been driven by contemporary crises to seek consolation against a world gone from bad to worse. Many freedmen’s family trades and businesses would have been twice wiped out by barbarian incursions,179 while latefundia would have better overcome such vicissitudes.180 The difference in fortunes must have been a clear social fault line. Moreover, his criticism of those who read or studied literature frivolously or arcanely intimates of a perceived injustice in education, secular or religious, ascribed to John’s church of Laodicaea (Rev. 3:14-22),181 wherefore the Poetovian holds the illiterate and rustic (rusticani) as the epitome of the believing faithful, and best of John’s seven churches, that of Philadelphia (Rev. 3:7-13).182 It is also hard not to recall that Rusticus is a common cognomen in the Celtic regions of Spain183 and Cisalpine Gaul, as well as Pannonia, in the Roman period.184 That said, those among the wealthy or ruling classes endowed with texts and literacy, also designated as the church of Laodicaea,185 while illdefined, are most likely the Pannonian pagan Greco-Roman governing elite, senators and equites.186 But merchant-owners would have been disproportionately 175

L. Barkóczi, ‘History of Pannonia’ (1980), 101-9. K. Bíró-Sey, ‘Currency’ (1980), 341-3. 177 Origen, Comm. Matth. 13.13 (GCS 40.1, 213.27-30). Hilary of Poitiers, Comm. Matth. 17.10 (SC 258, 70.1-10). Augustine, Enarrat. Ps. 137.16 (PL 37, 1783); Serm. 155 (PL 38, 844D845A). 178 Constantina Katsari, The Roman monetary system: the eastern provinces from the first to the third century AD (Cambridge, 2011), 82, 129. 179 J. Fitz, ‘Population’ (1980), 155. 180 E.B. Thomas, ‘Villa Settlements’ (1980), 278 (economically), 312-20 (defensively). 181 Pannonia especially evinces the type of village ‘estate of a sole ‘despot’ landlord’: E.B. Thomas, ‘Villa Settlements’ (1980), 288-9, 299-300. Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 3.3 (SC 423, 62.1-19). 182 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 3.2 (SC 423, 60.1-11). 183 Leonard A. Curchin, ‘Toponyms of Lusitania: a re-assessment of their origins’, Conimbriga 46 (2007), 150. 184 Marjeta Šašel Kos, ‘Emona and its pre-Roman population: epigraphic evidence’, Arheološki vestnik 68 (2017), 444. 185 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 3.2 (SC 423, 60.1-11); 3.3 (SC 423, 62.1-19). 186 E.B. Thomas, ‘Villa Settlements’ (1980), 280. 176

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oriental,187 so Victorinus may also mean rich Christians or even Jews, who do appear within the administration, as has been noted, in roles requiring probably more than basic, monoglot literacy, in taxation and record-keeping of other kinds.188 Thus he seems to consciously compose a discourse for the benefit of those whose learning begins and ends with church teaching, perhaps coloni and inquilini,189 some still dwelling in half-buried vici, in the manner of the Celtic Eravisci,190 though most now building Romanesque structures of brick, stone and mortar.191 He may also include many soldiers and poorer owners of simpler villae rusticae,192 distinct from more luxurious villae urbanae.193 The former are most likely Pannonian natives, with a basic Latin, whose vernacular Victorinus’ language suggests,194 who may have nevertheless continued to speak a variety of Celtic or Illyrian with kinsfolk, or whose dialect may betray Celtic or Venetic areal features, even in the second century.195 Conversely, the bishop of Poetovio clearly seeks the patronage of the rich and powerful for his church, hence his holding before them the prospect of high office in the millennial kingdom, should they convert (Rev. 3:21).196 His successful and thriving scholastic incumbency, in such a militarised region, over several decades, suggests protection of some sort, perhaps even army-connections (and his martyrdom in the context of Diocletian’s purge perhaps hints of a such a possibity), while such endeavours could also require considerable funding, if his model of Origen’s Caesarean enterprise was anything to go by.197 The genre of commentary itself suggests the interest of those wishing to proceed beyond the level of mere candidatus, the newly baptised, who comprise for the Poetovian the white hairs of the son of man-cum-ancient of days (Rev. 1:14; Dan. 7:9).198

187

Ibid. 292-3. Andrew J. Schoenfeld, ‘Sons of Israel in Caesar’s Service: Jewish Soldiers in the Roman Military’, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 24 (2006), 115-26, 121, n. 24. 189 E.B. Thomas, ‘Villa Settlements’ (1980), 280. 190 Z. Mráv, ‘Graves of auxiliary soldiers’ (2013), 5. E.B. Thomas, ‘Villa Settlements’ (1980), 290. 191 Ibid. 276. 192 Ibid. 291. 193 Ibid. 284. 194 M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), II 11, n. 54. 195 Marjeta Šašel Kos, ‘Who was L. Licinius Sura, Hispanus, on a curse tablet from Siscia?’, in A. Guzmán Almagro and J. Velaza (eds), Miscellanea philologica et epigraphica Marco Mayer oblata: Presentació, Anuari de Filologia Antiqua et Mediaevalia 8 (Barcelona, 2018), 829-32. Online: http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/AFAM/article/view/27176/28202. Last accessed 09/07/2019. 196 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 3.3 (SC 423, 62.7-19). 197 Anthony Grafton and Megan Hale Williams, Christianity and the transformation of the book: Origen, Eusebius, and the library of Caesarea (Cambridge, MA, 2008), 106-7. 198 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 1.2 (SC 423, 48.9-11). M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 222. 188

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Which raises the question, what sort of future, terrestrial or otherwise, did Victorinus envisage for his Latin-speaking flock? This derived from a population likely swelled, even in the aftermath of the Marcomannic wars and concomitant plague, wherein family names vanish from first and second century-records, to be replaced by those from the barbaricum, including levies therefrom, prisoners of war, refugees and poorer Greek-speakers from the eastern empire.199 Such were likely the ancestors of Jerome, in Dalmatia,200 and perhaps Victorinus, too.201 As we have seen, partly to remedy these losses, the Severans brought Aramaic-speaking personnel, pagan, Jewish and possibly Christian, further contributing, on one level, to the further barbarizing of the province;202 on another, to its further Romanization.203 Apocalyptic signs of war, death and dearth (Rev. 6:1-8) would have been plentiful. But well before his death at the hands of Diocletian in 304, Victorinus may have already heard of the latest purge of Christians from the army at the turn of the century,204 and intimated of what was to come. We do not know when he wrote his In Apocalypsin, but it is tempting to speculate it was written to answer this particular crisis, and was his last work to be published, his epitaph, and his only commentary to survive in its entirety. Septimius Severus’ reforms allowed rapid advancement through the army to equestrian status,205 and, while ruling indigenous elites would have been better placed to Romanize and improve their status, so might those of lower rank.206 Not a few imperial pretenders and incumbents had come from Transdanubia, such as Aurelian and Probus. But the very members of the first tetrarchy, contemporary with Victorinus, that is, Diocletian (Dalmatia),207 Maximian (Pannonia), Constantius 199 Marjeta Šašel Kos, ‘The Defensive Policy of Valentinian I in Pannonia – A Reminiscence of Marcus Aurelius?’, in Rajko Bratož (ed.), Westillyricum und Nordostitalien in der spätrömischen Zeit (Ljubljana, 1996), 145-75, 151. 200 Daniele Pevarello, The Sentences of Sextus and the origins of Christian ascetiscism (Tübingen, 2013), 1. 201 M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), II 11, n. 54. 202 M.Š. Kos, ‘Defensive Policy’ (1996), 151. 203 Lalošević, ‘Examples of pagan sacralisation’ (2018), 169-70. 204 It seems it was unilaterally decreed by letter, sans the initial consent of the rest of the Tetrarchy (Roger Rees, Diocletian and the tetrarchy, Debates and Documents in Ancient History [Edinburgh, 2013], 34), in a manner evocative of Victorinus’ military metaphor for church discipline, where he also employs the term vexillatio, the basic unit of Danube limes defence: Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 1.7 (SC 423, 52.1-5). 205 M.Š. Kos, ‘Defensive Policy’ (1996), 152. 206 Marjeta Šašel Kos, ‘The Final Phase of the Augustan Conquest of Illyricum’, in Giuseppe Cuscito (ed.), Il bimillenario Augusteo: atti della XLV settimana di studi Aquileiesi, Aquileia, Sala del Consiglio Comunale (12-14 giugno 2014), Antichità Altoadriatiche 81 (Trieste, 2015), 65-87, 77-8. 207 Remains of a cult of Ananka, virtually unique in the western empire, found in his birthplace Doclea, suggest likely eastern Adriatic Greek influence on the region, as well as a local collegium fabrum, where Jupiter, Celtic Epona and a Genius Loci were worshipped by members of legion

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(Moesia Superior) and Gallerius (Dacia) all had rumoured local, servile origins, disguised with noble fabrications, via their military distinctions.208 The eastern European frontier provinces must have seemed to spontaneously generate emperors and generals whose origins echoed those of Antichrist and his minions, basely born, but claiming high lineage, legitimated with strange, middle eastern gods ‘their fathers had not known’ (Dan. 11:37-8). Aurelian had had to defeat an Alemanni-attempted invasion of Italy,209 perhaps suggesting Antichrist’s future burning of Rome, abetted by his eastern hosts and ten allied generals (Rev. 17:12).210 The so-called crises of the third century must have intimated of the possibility of the destruction of Rome from Christ’s agents, barbarian and supernatural, and a final persecution wherein Christians are seduced into the final blasphemy, accepting circumcision in lieu of the mark of the beast (Rev. 13:16-8), which seems to be its equivalent.211 The threat of an imminent purge might have stimulated Victorinus into his final collation of his most important thoughts on the most difficult, yet relevant, biblical work,212 by no means coincidentally cementing the Old Testament firmly within the Christian canon,213 while also definitively excluding unregenerate Jews, heterodox, quasi-Christian groups and any admixture thereof from salvation.214 Moreover, Danubian Pannonia had likely had its heyday of prosperity before Victorinus’ time, under the Severans. These had transformed the formerly Celtic Boian and Eraviscan settlements of Carnuntum (transferred from Noricum, in the early first century, along with likely Savaria, Scarbantia and perhaps Poetovio itself,215 explaining the presence of a Celtic inscription so late, on the I Adiutrix, from Brigetio: Marjeta Šašel Kos, ‘Ananca: Greek Ananke worshipped at Doclea (Dalmatia)’, in Werner Eck, Benedictus Fehér and Péter Kovács (eds), Studia epigraphica in memoriam Géza Alföldy (Bonn, 2013), 295-306, 297-8. Otherwise, the descendants of originally Greek colonists of the south eastern Adriatic had largely forgotten their origins by his time (Kos, ‘Ananca’ [2013], 302). Greek remains in pre-Roman Pannonia are scant, however: Marjeta Šašel Kos, ‘The Ljubljanica and the myth of the Argonauts’, in Maja Andrič, Barbara Jerin, Peter Turk, Janka Istenič and Timotej Knific (eds), The Ljubljanica – a River and its Past (Ljubljana, 2009), 120-4, 123. 208 Noel Emmanuel Lenski, The Cambridge companion to the age of Constantine (Cambridge, 2006), 42. 209 Dexippus of Athens, Frag. hist. graec. 24 (ed. Karl Müller; vol. 3/5 [Paris, 1849]), 682-5. 210 Irenaeus, Haer. 5.25.3 (SC 153, l. 54-65; PG 7, 1190B-1191A). Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 13.2 (SC 423, 106.15-8). 211 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 13.3 (SC 423, 106.12-4). 212 Dulaey prefers an earlier date, under Valerian: M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 225. 213 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. (SC 423, 70.1-11). 214 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. (SC 423, 70.11-22). M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 223. 215 Marjeta Šašel Kos, ‘The Family of Romulus Augustulus’, in Ingomar Weiler and Peter Mauritsch (eds), Antike Lebenswelten: Konstanz, Wandel, Wirkungsmacht: Festschrift für Ingomar Weiler zum 70. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden, 2008), 439-49, 443-4.

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amber route, perhaps permitting it to remain a provincia inermis up to the Marcomannic wars) and Aquincum into both colonies and seats of the provincial governor, as well as promoting extensive urban autonomy, whether as municipia, coloniae, e.g. Bassianae, under Caracalla, or Sopianae (an important late antique Christian site), or civitates.216 Victorinus’ concern with Jewish influence and conspiring with pagans does not alone explain his centring of the Holy Land to his eschatological vision: it answered a wider crisis of identity of indigenes and immigrants in the face of relentless Romanizing. Now we know of the likelihood of his scholastic pilgrimage to Palestine, perhaps during the reign of Gallienus,217 the Peotovian’s love of the land was surely rooted in more than the merely theoretical, and existed alongside his essential love of the general peoples of the empire he deemed tolerant of Christianity, stirred up by the Senate alone. Not only had he been to Palestine, his literary endeavours were surely inseparable from it. It remains the most likely source for his considerable acquaintance with the Greek fathers before him, as well as the many texts he must have possessed.218 As we have noted, the military connections between Pannonia, Judaea and Syria went back centuries, and the traffic in materials, earthly and traditional, must have been well established.219 The need to hold a material Holy Land and kingdom before his flock must have answered the need for consolation in deep distress, as well as uncertainty about the future. It may have also been offered to Jews and Syrian converts in lieu of the Semitic way of the life they were expected to renounce. Likewise to Celtic natives, John’s double-edged sword was both the word of God (Rev. 2:12) and a kind of Norican Excalibur, even as the ubiquitous native funerary depictions of ‘the keys of heaven’, the disk of the sun, the sickle of the moon and stars,220 and coach burials, vehicles for the afterlife, inevitably evoke221 analogous apocalyptic biblical symbols. Irenaeus too had laboured primarily among Gallic 216

Marjeta Šašel Kos, ‘The early urbanization of Noricum and Pannonia’, in Livio Zerbini (ed.), Roma e le province del Danubio: atti del I Convegno Internazionale, Ferrara - Cento, 15-17 Ottobre 2009 (Soveria Mannelli, 2010), 209-30, 222-3. 217 Victorinus of Pettau, Frag. chron. l. 2 (SC 423, 134). 218 M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio(1993), I 299. 219 Ibid. I 12. 220 A Mithraic altar in Salonae appears to depict sol and luna as each a stella fructifera / frugifera, associated with a Mazdaic mystery of the sun and a tree of life-cum-genetrix, suggesting equinoctial observances. In this case, dedicated by a customs official to a Mithraeum, it recalls the archisynagogus Cosmius. The Sun is in fact a seven-rayed or -pointed star, which inevitably evokes Victorinus’ image of the seven star-churches in Christ’s hand (Rev. 1:20), likewise his explication of John’s apocalyptic pairing of sun and moon as Christ and church, and the fecundifying moon’s waxing and waning, which preserves the martyred dead in hope of resurrection (Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 12.1 [SC 423, 100.7-13], of Rev. 6:10 and 12:1). Of course some of these are universal symbols, which could equally resonate with Celts and other groups (Marjeta Šašel Kos, ‘An unusual gift for Mithras’ sanctuary in Salonae’, Tyche 8 [1991], 145-7). 221 E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 177-8.

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Celtic-speakers, apparently revealing he spoke their dialect most of the time, and suggesting it informed his simple, unpretentious and homely style of Greek.222 Thus both these authors, Lyonnaise and Poetovian, represent a challenging yet fruitful encounter with an early, pre- and intra-Romanizing, pan-European culture, representing Roman Italia’s first continental subjugations, attempting in various ways to express and preserve its distinctiveness. In short, a Celtic European encounter is at the heart of the earliest western reception of the Apocalypse. Sarah Iles Johnston suggests the powerful synergy that could result in the figure of the Rider in the Sky: not only in biblical apocalyptic, Jewish and Christian, but also that revered in Danubian and Celtic cults, as well as that of Mithras and Cybele,223 often linked via classical cultic, theurgic and Middle Platonic interpretation.224 All of these appear in Pannonia, often in close proximity,225 in contexts likely facilitated by the Roman military, particularly in pictorial representation.226 Thus Victorinus’ commentating, his mantic revelation of the Apocalypse, the prophetic apocalyptic of apocalyptic, as it were,227 well-suited a general desire to uncover the hidden, whether by the interpretation of nature and the heavens, or peering into the mysteries of life, death and the hereafter, on earth or beyond. As aforementioned, probably within Victorinus’ memory, Diocletian had installed a statue of Sol-in-quadriga in Sirmium,228 perhaps iterating Elagabalus’ high-priestly re-enactment in Rome,229 in unholy cross-cultural echoes, but nevertheless signifying an attempt to converse with the divine in symbols that demanded a Christian biblical response. In any case, Victorinus’ so-called millenarianism might have been intended to allow all groups to preserve a kind of distinctiveness qua resistance to their imperial Roman rulers or oppressors, including Jews who, by the time the Jewish patriarch, the Nasi, sent delegates from the Holy Land in the fourth century, were found only to speak and read Latin.230 The Poetovian had a fundamental 222

Irenaeus, Haer. 1 (praef. 3) (PG 7, 455A). Poetovio had both, but was the most significant centre for Mithraism in Europe, outside Rome: Jenó Fitz, ‘The Way of Life’ (1980), 167. M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 14, II 10, n. 39. 224 Sarah Iles Johnston, ‘Riders in the Sky: Cavalier Gods and Theurgic Salvation in the Second Century AD’, CP 87 (1992), 316-20. 225 S.I. Johnston, ‘Riders in the Sky’ (1992), 310-4. 226 V. Lalošević, ‘Examples of pagan sacralisation’ (2018), 173. S.I. Johnston, ‘Riders in the Sky’ (1992), 314. 227 On the Pauline principle of checking every interpretation alongside two or three witnesses i.e. ‘catholic’ testimoniae, received patristical biblical exegeses: Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 10.2 (SC 423, 90.10-25); and underlies his notion of the recapitulation of scripture, the need to interpret the Old Testament by, and so its integrality to, the New, and vice versa: 4.1 (SC 423, 64.1-16); which is at the heart of the revelation which constitutes the Apocalypse itself: 5.2 (SC 423, 76.29-33). 228 V. Lalošević, ‘Examples of pagan sacralisation’ (2018), 169. 229 Herodian, Hist. rom. 5.6.7, ed. Ludwig Mendelssohn (Leipzig, 1883), 144. 230 A. Scheiber, ‘Jews at Intercisa’ (1955), 27. 223

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love of the imperial subject nations, distinct from the governance of the Senate, solely responsible for persecution of Christians, in his view, and attributed to them a general tolerance of the church,231 quite different from the attitude of the chief model for his genre, Origen,232 upon whose Palestinian library in Caesarea he had nevertheless likely depended, for both his materials and eschatalogical outlook.233 But, above all, his setting the millennial kingdom in a literally enlarged and material promised land234 was his offering his community a security and certainty about an eternal future, the placing of sure ground beneath their feet, indeed that precisely where the apostles had worshipped,235 as local borders and peoples ebbed and flowed, lives and livelihoods were destroyed, injustice increased, without sign of reverse. For Jews and perhaps even Syrians, the Sabbath, otherwise proscribed for believers, might find its fulfilment in the ‘true and just Sabbath [which is] the Seventh Millennium.’236 Even soldiers in service for many decades might hope for ‘peace, happiness, wealth and [a] prosperous citizenship.’237 Christ’s return would destroy the empire238 and those nations responsible for such plunder and oppression,239 and reverse the pain and loss endured240 by those who converted before the gates of repentance closed.241

231

Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 14.2 (SC 423, 110.4). M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 295-9. 233 Ibid. I 299. 234 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 21.2 (SC 423, 118.7-12). 235 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 1.5 (SC 423, 52.7-11). 236 Victorinus of Pettau, Tract. fabr. mund. 6 (SC 423, 142.10-20). M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio (1993), I 228-31. 237 E.B. Thomas, ‘Religion’ (1980), 186. 238 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 8.1-2 (SC 423, 86.1-88.13). 239 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 8.2 (SC 423, 88.10-3). 240 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 21.5 (SC 423, 120.1). 241 Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 10.1 (SC 423, 90.13-6). 232

Pour une édition critique du De Resurrectione de Méthode d’Olympe : Enjeux et problèmes Alexey MOROZOV, Université de Fribourg / Sorbonne Université, Fribourg, Suisse

ABSTRACT La question de la résurrection nourrit, dès la naissance du christianisme, de nombreux débats parmi lesquels la polémique de la Grande Église contre Origène. La doctrine de ce dernier, exposée dans le Traité des Principes, et selon laquelle après la résurrection l’homme recevra un corps ‘spirituel’ et non pas ‘charnel’, a suscité une réaction immédiate chez d’autres représentants de la Grande Église. Parmi ses adversaires, ayant vécu au IIIe siècle, le seul dont l’œuvre nous demeure attestée est Méthode d’Olympe. Composé de trois livres en grec, le De Resurrectione ne nous est parvenu dans sa version originale qu’à l’état fragmentaire. En revanche, les traductions anciennes nous permettent de connaître ce traité dans sa totalité, car le De Resurrectione a été intégralement traduit en vieux-slave. La tradition complexe de cette œuvre majeure de la fin de l’époque prénicéenne (des fragments grecs de la moitié du traité; la totalité de l’ouvrage en vieux-slave; des fragments, des citations et des allusions en latin, syriaque et arménien) fait surgir plusieurs problèmes concernant la méthode d’édition. En outre, la découverte des nouveaux manuscrits vieux-slaves et des nouveaux témoins grecs, inconnus à l’époque de la première édition de ce traité, faite par N. Bonwetsch, permet de compléter de façon importante ce texte, ainsi que d’y introduire plusieurs corrections qui rendront plus clair le sens de la traduction vieux-slave du De Resurrectione.

Le corpus de Méthode d’Olympe, édité au début du XXe siècle par N. Bonwetsch, présente un grand intérêt pour les études de la théologie anténicéenne. Pourtant, l’édition des œuvres de cet auteur ne répond plus aux exigences de notre époque. C’est pourquoi, depuis 2018, dans le cadre de ma thèse de doctorat j’ai entrepris la préparation de l’édition critique d’un des traités de Méthode d’Olympe. Il s’agit du De Resurrectione ou Aglaphon. Cet écrit du début du IVe siècle est composé de trois livres calquant la forme des dialogues platoniciens. Malheureusement, c’est seulement à l’état fragmentaire, par l’intermédiaire de citations faites par des auteurs postérieurs et des florilèges, que son original grec nous est parvenu. En revanche, la totalité de ce traité, avec des coupures, est conservée dans sa traduction en vieux-slave. Son texte, donné en traduction allemande presque littérale et seulement pour les parties dont l’original grec est perdu, a été édité par N. Bonwetsch. Quant à l’édition que je prépare, elle comportera à la fois le texte vieux-slave même et le texte grec qui seront accompagnés de leur traduction française.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 397-406. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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I. Texte vieux-slave du De Resurrectione Au début de mes recherches, la liste des manuscrits vieux-slaves, contenant le De Resurrectione, comprenait 16 manuscrits1, répartis entre trois bibliothèques et deux musées russes2 (la localisation de l’un de ces manuscrits est encore inconnue jusqu’à maintenant3). À cette liste, il faut encore ajouter deux autres manuscrits, inconnus auparavant, mais que j’ai retrouvés au cours de l’année 20194. Il s’agit du manuscrit du XVIe siècle de la Collection d’Ovtchinnikov et du manuscrit du XVIIe siècle de la Collection de Gorskiy. Ainsi, l’édition du texte vieux-slave du De Resurrectione sera basée sur dixsept manuscrits5, datés entre les XVIe et XIXe siècles et contenant cette œuvre dans son intégralité: N° 1.

Saint-Pétersbourg, RNB, Ms. Collection du comte Tolstoï, Q I 265, ff. 42v-168r, XVIe siècle6.

1 Dans la seule édition de tout le corpus de Méthode d’Olympe, N. Bonwetsch mentionne l’existence de neuf manuscrits vieux-slaves contenant les œuvres de cet auteur (Methodius, éd. Nathanael Bonwetsch, GCS 27 (Leipzig, 1917), XX-XXII). Pourtant, seulement les deux de ces neuf manuscrits ont été utilisés dans l’édition. Dans la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle, un chercheur russe, Mikhail Čub, publie un article, consacré à Méthode d’Olympe et sa théologie, où il ajoute aux neuf manuscrits vieux-slaves, donnés par Bonwetsch, encore sept nouveaux manuscrits (Mikhail Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ svjaŝennomučenik Mefodiĭ i ego bogoslovie’, Bogoslovskie trudy X [1973], 43-5) dont deux, conservés en Roumanie, ne contiennent que le traité Sur le libre arbitre (Il s’agit des deux manuscrits [BAR. 74 et BAR. 310] décrits dans Aleksandr I. Jacimirskij, Slavjanskie i russkie rukopisi rumynskih bibliotek [Sankt-Peterburg, 1905], 200, 487). En 2017, Anna Jouravel publie un article consacré à un des traités de Méthode d’Olympe, De Lepra. Elle y donne une liste de treize manuscrits dont les deux, contenant le corpus complet de cet auteur, ne figurent nulle part ailleurs (Anna Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen zu Methodius’ Schrift De Lepra’, dans Katharina Bracht (éd.), Methodius of Olympus. State of the Art and New Perspectives [Berlin, 2017], 214-5). 2 Il s’agit de la Bibliothèque d’État de la Russie (RGB) à Moscou, de la Bibliothèque Nationale de la Russie (RNB) et de la Bibliothèque de l’Académie des Sciences (BAN) à Saint-Pétersbourg, du Musée Historique d’État (GIM) à Moscou, du Musée-réserve de Vladimir et Souzdale (VSMZ) à Vladimir. 3 Il s’agit du manuscrit du Séminaire orthodoxe d’Archangelsk 68 (XVIIe s.), mentionné par Bonwetsch (Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch [1917], XXII) et par Čub (M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ [1973], 45). D’après le catalogue d’A.E. Viktorov, ce manuscrit contenait tout le corpus habituel de Méthode d’Olympe qui se trouve aussi dans le manuscrit GIM Ms. Synod. 110 (Aleksey E. Viktorov, Opisanie rukopisnyh sobranij v knigohraniliŝah Severnoj Rossii [Sankt-Peterburg, 1890], 18). 4 Il s’agit du manuscrit du XVIe siècle RGB (Fonds 209) Ms. Collection d’Ovtchinnikov 127 et du manuscrit du XVIIe siècle RGB (Fonds 79) Ms. Collection de Gorskiy 44. 5 Ce sont les dix-sept manuscrits dont la localisation est identifiée. 6 Konstantin Kalajdovič et Pavel Stroev, Obstojatelʹnoe opisanie slavjano-russkih rukopisej, hranjaŝihsja v Moskve v biblioteke tajnogo sovetnika, senatora, Dvora Ego Imperatorskago Veličestva dejstvitelʹnago kammergera i kavalera grafa Fedora Andreeviča Tolstova (Moskva, 1825), 240-2 (Ms. II N° 56); Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch (1917), XX (Sigle Sa); Le De autexusio de Méthode d’Olympe. Version slave et texte grec édités et traduits en français, éd. André Vaillant, PO 22.5 (Paris, 1930), 660; Mikhail Čub, ‘Izvlečenie iz slavjanskogo sbornika tvorenij Mefodija’, Bogoslovskie trudy II (1961), 149; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 43-4 ; Boris Danilenko,

Pour une édition critique du De Resurrectione de Méthode d’Olympe

N° 2. N° 3. N° 4. N° 5.

N° 6.

N° 7. N° 8.

399

Moscou, GIM, Ms. Collection de la Bibliothèque Synodale 110, ff. 52v-206v, XVIe siècle7. Moscou, RGB, Ms. (Fonds 173.1) Académie orthodoxe de Moscou 40, ff. 28r-105v, XVIIe siècle8. Moscou, RGB, Ms. (Fonds 173.1) Académie orthodoxe de Moscou 41, ff. 31r-120v, 1632/16339. Moscou, GIM, Ms. Collection de la Bibliothèque Synodale 995, Grands Ménées de lecture du métropolite Macaire recension Uspenskij, ff. 262r-303v, XVIe siècle10. Moscou, GIM, Ms. Collection de la Bibliothèque Synodale 181, Grands Ménées de lecture du métropolite Macaire recension Tsarskij, ff. 344r-399v, XVIe siècle11. Moscou, GIM, Ms. Collection du comte Ouvarov 115 (167), ff. 35r-128v, XVIe siècle12. Saint-Pétersbourg, BAN, Ms. Collection du monastère d’Antoine-Siyskiy 24, BAN Signature: Arch. D 433, ff. 71r-244v, XVIe siècle13.

‘Slavjanskie perevody tvorenij svjatogo Mefodija Patarskogo. K voprosu o slavjanskoj versii rannih svjatootečeskih tekstov, posvjaŝennyh biblejskoj èkzegeze’, Studi Slavistici XIII (2016), 374; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 214. 7 Aleksandr V. Gorskij et Kapiton I. Nevostruev, Opisanie slavjanskih rukopisej Moskovskoj Sinodalʹnoj biblioteki. Otd. II: Pisanija svjatyh otcov. Č. 2: Pisanija dogmatičeskie i duhovnonravstvennye (Moskva, 1859), 16-31; Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch (1917), XXI (Sigle Sb); Le De autexusio, éd. A. Vaillant (1930), 660; M. Čub, ‘Izvlečenie’ (1961), 149 (Ce manuscrit est donné ici sous la Signature 170, ce qui est évidement une erreur de M. Čub); M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 43-4; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 214. 8 Leonid Kavelin, Svedenija o slavjanskih pergamennyh rukopisjah, postupivših iz knigohraniliŝa Svjato-Troice-Sergievoj duhovnoj seminarii v 1747, T. 2 (Moskva, 1887), 35-9; Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch (1917), XXI; Le De autexusio, éd. A. Vaillant (1930), 660; M. Čub, ‘Izvlečenie’ (1961), 149; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 44; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 214. 9 L. Kavelin, Svedenija (1887), 39-40; Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch (1917), XXI (Sigle Sc); Le De autexusio, éd. A. Vaillant (1930), 660; M. Čub, ‘Izvlečenie’ (1961), 149; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 43; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 215. 10 Iosif Levickij, Podrobnoe oglavlenie Velikih Četiih Minej Vserossijskogo Mitropolita Makarija, hranjaŝihsja v Moskovskoj Patriaršej biblioteke (nyne Sinodalʹnoj) (Moskva, 1892), 233-6; Tat’jana V. Čertorickaja, ‘Četʹi sborniki v sostave Velikih Minej Četʹih mitropolita Makarija’, TODRL 46 (1993), 101; Tat’jana N. Protaseva, Opisanie rukopisej Sinodalʹnogo sobranija (ne vošedših v opisanie A.V. Gorskogo i K.I. Nevostrueva) T. I (Moskva, 1970), 184; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 215. 11 T.N. Protaseva, Opisanie rukopisej Sinodalʹnogo (1970), 202-3; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 215. 12 Leonid Kavelin, Sistematičeskoe opisanie slavjano-rossijskih rukopisej sobranija grafa Uvarova T. I (Moskva, 1893), 103; M. Čub, ‘Izvlečenie’ (1961), 149; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 44; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 215. 13 A.E. Viktorov, Opisanie (1890), 75; Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch (1917), XXII; Le De autexusio, éd. A. Vaillant (1930), 660; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 45; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374-5; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 215.

400 N° 9. N° 10. N° 11. N° 12. N° 13. N° 14. N° 15. N° 16. N° 17. –

A. MOROZOV

Moscou, RGB, Ms. (Fonds 209) Collection d’Ovtchinnikov 127, ff. 50r-190v, XVIe siècle14. Moscou, GIM, Ms. Collection du monastère de Tchudov 233 (31), ff. 604r-717r, XVIe-XVIIe siècles15. Saint-Pétersbourg, BAN, Ms. Collection de la Bibliothèque de l’Académie des Sciences de la Russie 16.16.2 (osn. 754), ff. 43v-156r, XVIIe siècle16. Moscou, RGB, Ms. (Fonds 205) Collection de la Société de l’Histoire et des Antiquités de la Russie 137, ff. 49r-201v, XVIIe siècle17. Moscou, GIM, Ms. Collection du monastère de Tchudov 205 (3), ff. 48v-187r, XVIIe siècle18. Moscou, GIM, Ms. Collection du monastère Edinovercheskiy 12, ff. 77v-289v, XVIIe siècle19. Vladimir, VSMZ, Ms. Collection de l’ermitage de Florischeva 28, VSMZ Signature : N° 5636/137, ff. 52r-192v, XVIIe siècle20. Moscou, GIM, Ms. Collection de Barsov 264, ff. 59r-204v, XVIIe siècle (un faux qui imite le manuscrit du XVIe siècle)21. Moscou, RGB, Ms. (Fonds 79) Collection de Gorskiy 44, ff. 69r-162r, XVIIe siècle22. Non localisé : Ms. Collection de Séminaire orthodoxe d’Archangelsk 68, XVIIe siècle23.

14 Nikolaj N. Voronovič, Opisʹ sobranija rukopisnyh knig P. A. Ovčinnikova. Fond 209 (Moskva, 1963), 27. 15 M. Čub, ‘Izvlečenie’ (1961), 149; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 45; Tat’jana N. Protaseva, Opisanie rukopisej Čudovskogo sobranija (Novosibirsk, 1980), 131; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374. 16 Vjačeslav I. Sreznevskij et Fedor I. Pokrovskij, Opisanie rukopisnogo otdelenija biblioteki imperatorskoj Akademii nauk, I, Rukopisi, tom 2 (III. Tvorenija otcov iučitelej cerkvi, IV. Bogoslovie dogmatičeskoe i polemičeskoe i V. Bogoslovie učitelʹnoe) (Sankt-Peterburg, 1915), 2-3; M. Čub, ‘Izvlečenie’ (1961), 149; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 44; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374. 17 Pavel M. Stroev, Biblioteka Imperatorskogo OIDR (Moskva, 1845), 49-50; M. Čub, ‘Izvlečenie’ (1961), 149; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 44; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 215. 18 M. Čub, ‘Izvlečenie’ (1961), 149; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 45 (Ce manuscrit est donné ici sous la signature 265, ce qui est évidement une erreur de M. Čub); T.N. Protaseva, Opisanie rukopisej Čudovskogo (1980), 111; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374 (Ce manuscrit est donné ici sous la signature 265, ce qui est évidement une erreur de M. Čub, reprise par B. Danilenko); A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 215. 19 M. Čub, ‘Izvlečenie’ (1961), 149; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 45; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 215. 20 A.E. Viktorov, Opisanie (1890), 230-1; Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch (1917), XXII; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 215. 21 M. Čub, ‘Izvlečenie’ (1961), 149; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 45; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 215. 22 Ljudmila V. Tiganova, Opisʹ sobranija rukopisnyh knig A. A. Gorskogo. Fond 79 (Moskva, 1966), 16. 23 A.E. Viktorov, Opisanie (1890), 18 (D’après ce catalogue, le manuscrit contenait tout le corpus habituel de Méthode d’Olympe qui se trouve aussi dans le manuscrit GIM Ms. Collection

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Parmi ces dix-sept manuscrits localisés, les seize premiers représentent une seule famille. Quant au dix-septième manuscrit, celui de la collection de Gorskiy, il appartient à une autre famille dont il est le seul représentant. Cette division en deux familles est dictée tout d’abord par le contenu du corpus de Méthode d’Olympe: Seize premiers manuscrits

RGB, Ms. (Fonds 79) Collection de Gorskiy 44

CPG 1811: De Autexusio CPG 1813: De vita

CPG 1810: Symposium (ff. 4r-68r) CPG – : Sur la mort miraculeuse (Adversus Origenem de pythonissa [Hier., Vir. ill. 83]  ???) – 2 fragments (ff. 68r-68v)

CPG CPG CPG CPG

CPG 1812: De Resurrectione (ff. 69r-162r) CPG 1814: De cibis (ff. 162r-176r) CPG 1815: De lepra (ff. 176v-188r) CPG 1816: De sanguisuga (ff. 188r-194v)

1812: De 1814: De 1815: De 1816: De

Resurrectione cibis lepra sanguisuga

En effet, dans le corpus vieux-slave habituel, on trouve six œuvres, énumérées dans la colonne gauche, tandis que le manuscrit de Gorskiy contient, lui aussi, six écrits, énumérés dans la colonne droite, mais qui ne sont pas les mêmes, car les deux premiers traités (De Autexusio, De vita) sont remplacés par deux autres. Il s’agit du Banquet, dont la traduction vieux-slave était considérée jusqu’à maintenant comme inexistante24, et de deux fragments, intitulés Sur la mort miraculeuse et dont le contenu fait supposer qu’ils appartiennent probablement au traité perdu de Méthode, Adversus Origenem de Pythonissa, mentionné par Jérôme (Vir. ill. 83)25. Ainsi, ce manuscrit nous fournit un nouveau traité de Méthode d’Olympe sous sa version vieux-slave et dont il faut tenir compte et aussi deux fragments du traité perdu, pour lequel il n’existe même pas de numéro dans la Clavis. Deuxièmement, tous les autres manuscrits présentent une grande lacune, qui concerne trois chapitres du premier livre du traité (De Res. I,27,3-29,5) 26. Ce texte est transmis sous sa version grecque grâce à Epiphane de Salamine (Pan. 64,19,5-21,11)27. Ainsi le texte vieux-slave de ce passage était considéré de la Bibliothèque Synodale 110); Methodius, ed. N. Bonwetsch (1917), XXII; M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ (1973), 45; B. Danilenko, ‘Slavjanskie perevody’ (2016), 374; A. Jouravel, ‘Beobachtungen’ (2017), 215. 24 Voir par exemple Katharina Bracht, ‘Methodius of Olympus: State of the Art and New Perspectives. Introduction’, dans K. Bracht (éd.), Methodius of Olympus (2017), 13. 25 Hieronymus liber De viris inlustribus. Gennadius liber De viris inlustribus, éd. Ernest C. Richardson, TU 14 (Leipzig, 1896), 43: ‘De resurrectione opus egregium contra Origenem, et adversus eundem De Pythonissa’. 26 Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch (1917), 255-60. 27 Epiphanius: Panarion, éd. Karl Holl, GCS 31.2 (Leipzig, 1922), 431-4.

402

A. MOROZOV

par N. Bonwetsch comme perdu, mais c’est précisément grâce à ce manuscrit de Gorskiy qu’il est possible, désormais, de le restituer, car lui seul nous le donne (ff. 88r-90v). En outre, il faut aussi signaler que ce manuscrit fournit encore un long passage du livre III. Ce passage est perdu dans tous les autres manuscrits vieux-slaves et il n’est pas non plus préservé en grec. Il s’agit de la fin du chapitre II et du début du chapitre III du dernier livre du De Resurrectione (De Res. III,1,5-2,2). N. Bonwetsch y signale une lacune28, tandis que le manuscrit de Gorskiy nous donne le texte, contenu dans deux folios du manuscrit (ff. 143r-144r). Ce passage retrouvé explique aussi la suite du texte, notamment celui du paragraphe 4 du chapitre II où Bonwetsch a supposé la présence d’une autre lacune à cause de l’incohérence du texte (De Res. III,2,4)29 qui peut alors être résolue si on y ajoute le texte retrouvé du début du chapitre. Enfin, il faut aussi dire que le texte de ce manuscrit présente plusieurs fautes, mais pour de nombreux passages il nous fournit des meilleures leçons dont la plupart sont proposées comme conjectures par N. Bonwetsch30. Pourtant, on y trouve aussi des leçons qui corrigent l’édition allemande. Par exemple, un groupe des mots, situé dans le livre III: ‘на прасно житие въстаꙗти’ (De Res. III,11,3) que N. Bonwetsch propose de traduire ainsi: ‘zu einem Leben der Ruhe (‘Erquickung’?) auferstehn’31 (se relever pour une vie de tranquillité/ de réconfort). Le traducteur italien suit cette traduction en proposant: ‘risorgere a una vita di pace’32. En effet le mot ‘праснь’ ou ‘праздьнь’ signifie ‘repos’ et ‘tranquillité’33, mais dans ce passage il s’agit de l’adjectif ‘праздьнъ’ et non pas du substantif, alors l’adjectif signifie ‘vide’, ‘oisif’, ‘disponible’ ou même ‘celui qui a besoin de quelque chose’34, ce qui ne correspond pas vraiment au contexte du passage où il s’agit de la vie après la résurrection. Quant au manuscrit de Gorskiy, on y trouve la leçon suivante: ‘на пр(и)сно житие въстаꙗти’ (f. 153r) qu’on traduit par ‘se relever pour la vie éternelle’, ce qui correspond mieux au contexte. Concernant d’autres témoins vieux-slaves, d’une part il existe au moins un manuscrit présentant un court passage, tiré de ce traité à partir du corpus 28

Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch (1917), 389. Ibid. 30 Par exemple, dans le passage du De Res. III,16,8, N. Bonwetsch suppose la présence d’une omission, faite par le copiste et qu’il propose de remplir par: ‘aber dann der Kraft und Unverweslichkeit’ (Methodius, ed. N. Bonwetsch [1917], 412). Le manuscrit de Gorskiy nous le confirme. En effet, pour tous les autres manuscrits il s’agit vraiment d’une omission, alors que ce seul manuscrit transmet le texte perdu: а тогда бꙋдет(ъ) сила и неᲄленїа (f. 156r), ce qui est identique à la conjecture proposée par N. Bonwetsch. 31 Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch (1917), 407. 32 Metodio di Olimpo, La risurrezione, trad. Miroslaw Mejzner et M. Benedetta Zorzi, TP 216 (Roma, 2010), 259. 33 Slovník jazyka staroslověnského. Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, éd. Josef Kurz (Praha, 1966-1997), 250. 34 Ibid. 249. 29

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complet vieux-slave des œuvres de Méthode35. D’autre part, on trouve aussi 70 manuscrits36 contenant dix passages, tirés du De Resurrectione d’après la tradition manuscrite. Il s’agit ici d’une autre tradition vieux-slave de cet écrit de Méthode d’Olympe, liée à la traduction des Chaînes exégétiques sur les Épitres de Paul, attribuées au Ps.-Œcuménius et dont le texte grec a été utilisé aussi dans l’édition de N. Bonwetsch37. Dans notre édition nous éditerons aussi le texte grec des passages de ces Chaînes, accompagné de sa traduction vieuxslave, établie à partir de deux manuscrits datant du XIIe et du XIIIe siècle38 et de deux manuscrits datant du XVIe siècle, contenant en outre le corpus vieuxslave complet de Méthode d’Olympe39. II. Texte grec du De Resurrectione Quant à l’édition du texte grec du De Resurrectione, nous reprendrons et réexaminerons tout le dossier grec, réuni par N. Bonwetsch. Pour certains de ces textes, nous proposerons une nouvelle édition critique, notamment pour le plus long passage grec du De Resurrectione, conservé dans le Panarion 35 Il s’agit de: RGB (Fonds 113) Ms. Collection du monastère de Josèphe de Volokolamsk 151 (514) (XVIe s., f. 311v = De Res. III,5,2-3) qui est mentionné à la fois par N. Bonwetsch (Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch [1917], XXII) et par M. Čub (M. Čub, ‘Svjatoĭ’ [1973], 45). 36 La liste de ces manuscrits nous a été transmise par Madame M. A. Bobrik, ce dont nous lui sommes très reconnaissants. D’après cette liste, il existe un manuscrit du XIIe siècle, un du XIIIe siècle, un du XIVe siècle, 20 du XVe siècle, 31 du XVIe siècle, 11 du XVIIe siècle, 4 du XVIIIe siècle et un du XIXe siècle. 37 Il s’agit des fragments relatifs à l’exégèse des Épîtres de Paul (Rom. 7:18; Rom. 7:22; Rom. 8:7; Rom. 9:21; Rom. 9:21; 1Cor. 15; 1Cor. 15:44; 2Cor. 5:10; 2Cor. 5:1; Phil. 3:21; 1Thess. 4:16) qui ont été édités par Bonwetsch soit dans l’apparat critique (car il s’agit plutôt des allusions au texte de Méthode que des citations directes: Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch [1917], 293, 322, 340, 341, 360, 361, 369, 376, 407, 410), soit dans le corps du texte lui-même (Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch [1917], 413; dans ce seul cas le compilateur des Chaînes a indiqué qu’il s’agit du texte de Méthode d’Olympe [ἀλλ’ ὅρα τί φησι Μεθόδιος ἐν τῷ περὶ ἀναστάσεως λόγῳ], alors que dans tous les autres cas, il est seulement indiqué que la pensée exposée correspond aux idées exprimées dans le De Resurrectione [οὕτως ὁ ἐν ἁγίοις Μεθόδιος ἐν τῷ περὶ ἀναστάσεως λόγῳ]). 38 Il s’agit des manuscrits suivants: Lviv GIM Ms. 39 (XIIe s.) et Moscou GIM Ms. Collection de la Bibliothèque Synodale 7 (XIIIe s.). 39 Il s’agit des manuscrits suivants: Moscou GIM Ms. Collection de la Bibliothèque Synodale 175 (XVIe s.) et Moscou GIM Ms. Collection de la Bibliothèque Synodale 995 (XVIe s.). Si les deux premiers manuscrits ont été choisis à cause de leur ancienneté, alors le choix des deux derniers est dicté par le fait que ce sont précisément ces deux manuscrits qui présentent deux recensions des Grands Ménées de lecture du métropolite Macaire (rus.: Velikija Četʹi–mineï mitropolita Makarija) : Tsarskij et Uspenskij. Ces deux recensions contiennent non seulement le corpus complet des œuvres de Méthode d’Olympe, mais aussi deux traductions différentes des Chaînes exégétiques (voir Marina A. Bobrik, ‘Tolkovyj Apostol v Velikih Četʹih Minejah: dva spiska – dve redakcii’, dans Lingvističeskoe istočnikovedenie i istorija russkogo jazyka (2010-2011) [Moscou 2011], 52-102).

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A. MOROZOV

d’Epiphane de Salamine40. En outre, nous compléterons cette édition par des passages qui ont été ignorés de N. Bonwetsch. Comme exemple de tels passages, nous pouvons signaler le manuscrit Parisinus graecus 111541. Ce manuscrit est conservé à la Bibliothèque Nationale de France et contient le tout dernier chapitre du traité (il y manque seulement le premier paragraphe). D’après le titre de ce passage, donné dans le manuscrit, il est tiré du Banquet de Méthode d’Olympe42. Pour l’édition du De Resurrectione, ce passage est intéressant non seulement pour son texte grec inconnu de l’éditeur du début du XXe siècle, mais aussi pour la possibilité qu’il offre de corriger la faute commise dans l’édition de N. Bonwetsch, ainsi que celle de la traduction italienne. En effet, l’éditeur allemand a supposé la présence d’une lacune à la fin du paragraphe 2 et au début du paragraphe 3 de ce chapitre XXIII43 (De Res. III,23,2-3), mais cette conjecture est fausse. En effet, N. Bonwetsch signale une lacune à cause de l’absence du sujet de la phrase au début du paragraphe 3: ‘пожрѣ преѡдолѣвши см(е)рть и пакы ᲂуѧ всѧкᲂу слезѫ ѡт всѧкѡг(о) лица’, identifié comme la citation tirée du livre d’Isaïe (Isa. 25:8). Dans sa traduction en allemand, la mort ‘Tod’ est traitée comme complément d’objet direct: ‘… hat siegreich verschlungen den Tod und wieder weggenommen jede Träne von jedem Antlitz’44. Une telle compréhension du texte est aussi reprise dans la traduction italienne récente qui y ajoute uniquement le sujet, Logos: ‘[Il Logos] ha vittoriosamente ingoiato la morte et di nuovo tolto ogni lacrima da ogni volto’45. Ainsi dans ce passage, N. Bonwetsch en considérant la mort ‘см(е)рть’ comme complément d’objet direct, suit la tradition du texte hébreu de cette citation biblique: ‘Il fera disparaître la mort pour toujours. Le Seigneur Dieu essuiera les larmes sur tous les visages’46 (Isa. 25:8). Pourtant, il faut se rappeler que Méthode d’Olympe avait plus probablement utilisé le texte grec du livre d’Isaïe que l’hébreu47. En effet, dans la Septante, 40

Pan. 64,12,1-62,15 = De Res. I,20-II,8. Ce manuscrit comme témoin du texte du De Resurrectione n’est mentionné que par M. Richard (Marcel Richard, ‘Le florilège du cod. Vatopédi 236 sur le corruptible et l’incorruptible’, Le Muséon 86 [1973], 270) qui a édité dans cet article un autre fragment parallèle, contenu dans le ms. Athos Vatop. 236, et qui correspond au De Res. III,23,4-5. Dans l’apparat critique qui accompagne ce fragment édité, M. Richard indique que l’édition du ms. Paris. gr. 1115 est en train d’être préparée par J. Paramelle, mais malheureusement, nous n’avons trouvé aucune autre information à ce propos. 42 Titre d’après le ms. Paris. gr. 1115, f. 204r: Τοῦ ἁγίου Μεθοδίου ἐκ τῶν συμποσίων τῶν περὶ παρθενίας· περὶ μετανοίας. 43 Methodius, éd. N. Bonwetsch (1917), 420. 44 Ibid. 45 Metodio di Olimpo, trad. M. Mejzner et M.B. Zorzi (2010), 277. 46 La traduction du texte hébreu d’Isa. 25:8 (‫ים–כּל‬ ָ ִ‫וּמ ָחה ֲאד ֹנָ י יְ הוִ ה ִדּ ְמ ָעה ֵמ ַעל ָפּנ‬,‫ח‬ ָ ‫)בּ ַלּע ַה ָמּוֶ ת ָלנֶ ַצ‬ ִ est donnée d’après La Bible. Traduction œcuménique (Paris, 2004), 839. 47 Ce fait a été signalé par M. Čub, traducteur russe du corpus de Méthode d’Olympe. Ce chercheur a bien interprété ce passage difficile du vieux-slave en traitant le mot ‘см(е)рть’ comme sujet et non comme complément d’objet direct: M. Čub, ‘Izvlečenie’ (1961), 152. 41

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ce verset présente la mort non comme complément d’objet direct, mais comme sujet: ‘La mort avait englouti au temps de sa force; plus tard Dieu a ôté toute larme de toute face’48 (Isa. 25:8), en outre, la forme même du mot vieux-slave ‘см(е)рть’ indique à la fois le nominatif et l’accusatif, ce qui aurait pu conduire N. Bonwetsch à cette confusion. Quant à ce passage grec contenu dans le manuscrit Parisinus graecus 1115, il témoigne tout d’abord de l’absence de la lacune supposée par N. Bonwetsch, et il confirme aussi l’affirmation d’après laquelle le sujet de cette phrase est la mort: ‘παραβάντων ἡμῶν ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ τὴν ἐντολήν σου, κατέπιεν ὁ θάνατος ἰσχύσας καὶ πάλιν ἀφεῖλας πᾶν δάκρυον ἀπὸ προσώπου’49, qu’on peut traduire par: ‘comme nous avions transgressé en Adam ton commandement, la mort nous a victorieusement engloutis, et tu as de nouveau essuyé toute larme sur la visage’. Le deuxième exemple qui présente de nouveaux fragments grecs de ce traité est l’Adversus iconomachus de Nicéphore de Constantinople50. La fin de cet écrit du début du IXe siècle51 nous fournit sept passages, tirés du De Resurrectione, dont les quatre premiers sont parallèles au texte donné par Epiphane de Salamine, et ils présentent peu de divergences par rapport au texte du Panarion52. Quant aux trois autres fragments, l’un53 correspond bien au texte vieuxslave pour lequel le texte grec manquait auparavant (De Res. II,10,8-9), tandis que la deuxième moitié d’un autre passage54 correspond au texte grec, fourni par les Sacra Parallela et publié par N. Bonwetsch qui, par ailleurs, signale une lacune au début de ce passage publié. Enfin, le texte du troisième passage55 ne possède aucun parallèle grec, ni vieux-slave, mais d’après des indications La traduction du texte grec d’Isa. 25:8 (κατέπιεν ὁ θάνατος ἰσχύσας, καὶ πάλιν ἀφεῖλεν ὁ θεὸς πᾶν δάκρυον ἀπὸ παντὸς προσώπου· τὸ ὄνειδος τοῦ λαοῦ) est donnée d’après Alain Le Boulluec et Philippe Le Moigne (trad.), Vision que vit Isaïe, La Bible d’Alexandrie (Paris, 2014), 59. 49 Le ms. Paris. gr. 1115, f. 204r. 50 Jean-Baptiste Pitra, ‘Sancti Nicephori Antirrheticus liber quartus’, in Spicilegium Solesmense vol. 4, éd. Jean-Baptiste Pitra (Paris, 1858), 278-91. Cette édition est faite à partir de deux manuscrits: Paris. gr. 911 et Paris. gr. 1250, la base de Pinakes en donne encore un: Coisl. 93, les trois manuscrits sont conservés à la BNF. 51 Paul J. Alexander, The Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople. Ecclesiastical Policy and Image Worship in the Byzantine Empire (Oxford, 1958), 184. 52 Adv. icon. 19 (J.-B. Pitra, ‘Sancti Nicephori’ [1858], 278-9) = De Res. I,28,2-3; Adv. icon. 21 (ibid. 284) = De Res. I,27,2-28,1; Adv. icon. 22 (ibid. 286) = De Res. I,35,2-4; Adv. icon. 22 (ibid. 287-8) = De Res. I,42,3-43,2. 53 Adv. icon. 23 (ibid. 289) = De Res. II,10,8-9. 54 Adv. icon. 24 (ibid. 290) = De Res. II,4,1. Le texte du passage conservé dans les Sacra Parallela sous le numéro 430 commence par ‘αὐτίκα γοῦν’ (Fragmente vornicänischer Kirchenväter aus den Sacra Parallela, éd. Karl Holl, TU 20.2 [Leipzig, 1899], 183), tandis que le fragment, fourni par Nicéphore, donne encore le texte suivant: ‘Ὦ ψυχαὶ ἀνθρώπων, ὧν ἐγὼ πατὴρ δημιουργός τε σαρκὸς, ἣ ἐπείπερ ἐξ ὕλης ἐγένετο, ἀθάνατος μὲν οὐκ ἔσται, οὐ μὴν ἀπολείψει, οὐδὲ τεύξεται θανάτου διηνεκοῦς, δυνάμεώς τε καὶ μοίρας μείζονος· ἔτι καὶ κυριωτέρου δεσμοῦ τῆς ἐμῆς βουλῆς τε καὶ εἰκόνος λαχοῦσα’. 55 Adv. icon. 23 (J.-B. Pitra, ‘Sancti Nicephori’ [1858], 289). 48

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données par Nicéphore, il nous est possible de le situer tout à la fin du paragraphe 2 du chapitre 12 du livre II du traité (De Res. II,12,2)56. Ainsi, cette nouvelle édition du De Resurrectione de Méthode d’Olympe permettra de fournir aux chercheurs le texte critique vieux-slave inédit et basé sur plusieurs témoins manuscrits, ainsi que la nouvelle édition du texte grec complété. En outre, elle mettra en disposition de nouveaux longs fragments vieux-slaves et grecs de ce traité, inconnus auparavant. Enfin, cette édition donnera aussi l’occasion de revoir la traduction erronée de certains passages.

56 La possibilité d’une telle localisation est fondée sur la phrase introductive de Nicéphore dans laquelle il décrit le contexte où ce passage est inséré et sa position par rapport au passage précédent, c’est-à-dire, à l’Adv. icon. 23 (ibid. 289) = De Res. II,10,8-9: ‘Καὶ ὡς μετὰ ταῦτα πάλιν εὕροις, ἡνίκα περὶ τῆς συστάσεως (+ καὶ γενέως Coisl. 93) τοῦ ἀνθρωπείου σώματος διαλαμβάνει, φησίν’, ce qu’on peut traduire par: ‘Et peu après ce passage-là tu le trouveras de nouveau, lorsqu’il explique en détail la composition (et la création) du corps humain et il dit’. Le seul endroit, qui se trouve non loin du passage précédent et où il s’agit de la composition et de la création du corps humain, est la fin du De Res. II,12,2. En outre dans le contexte immédiat, on trouve aussi un lexique semblable (Sagesse de Dieu) qui figure dans le fragment de Nicéphore.

Sterile Virgins and Procreative Texts: Platonic Verbal Reproduction in Methodius’ Symposium Nathan TILLEY, Durham, NC, USA

ABSTRACT Although Methodius of Olympus’ Symposium uniquely depicts the ideal Christian as a female, formative mother, he surprisingly does not depict the virgins of the dialogue explicitly as this kind of mother. In fact, the dialogue even praises the sterility of virginity. However, a reexamination of Methodius’ use of Plato reveals another kind of verbal procreation in which the virgins are mothers through their speeches. This article first considers the tension between the dialogue’s feminine ideal of the formative mother and its strong association between virginity and sterility – albeit a sterility paradoxically related to fruitfulness. Second, it outlines two alternate ways available to Methodius from Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus in which words and texts can be involved in procreation. Plato’s dialogues depict words or speeches as both the products of contemplation and also as a means of rhetorical, psychic procreation. Lastly, it shows how Methodius depicts the speeches of the virgins as their means of reproduction and forming new Christians with life-giving doctrine. Methodius’ virgins give beautiful speeches begotten from a vision of beauty itself – Christ the bridegroom. The beautiful speeches, then, are also the seeds and true children of their virginity which implant the fertile λόγοι of Scripture in a reader and bring them to mature virtue. By drawing on platonic verbal procreation, Methodius can both distance the virgins from any hint of physical procreation and also position them as exemplars of his female Christian ideal of motherhood.

Many early Christians attempted to appropriate the non-Christian literary past, but Methodius of Olympus wrote one of the more creative – if not also more unusual – attempts: his Symposium or On Chastity.1 This Symposium, probably composed in the late 3rd century in Asia Minor, consciously imitates the dialogue form and language of Plato’s Symposium, and fits into a broader genre of symposia in imperial Greek literature.2 1 Greek text from Methodius of Olympus, Le Banquet, ed. Herbert Anthony Musurillo, trans. Victor Henry Debidour, SC 95 (Paris, 1963). English translations are my own, but often with consultation of The Symposium: A Treatise on Chastity, trans. Herbert Anthony Musurillo, ACW 27 (Westminster, 1958). 2 For a brief account of the works and life of Methodius, see Katharina Bracht, ‘Introduction’, in Methodius of Olympus: State of the Art and New Perspectives, ed. ead. (Berlin, 2017), 1-17.

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 407-423. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Although previous scholarship has considered Methodius’ use of the Platonic dialogues, I return to this topic in order to make sense of an underexamined problem – the complex intertwining of reproduction and sterility in the dialogue.3 Methodius depicts mature Christians as forming other Christians like a mother forms an embryo in her womb, but he appears hesitant to depict the virgins in the dialogue with such maternal imagery and even praises the sterility of chastity. In order to unravel the question of whether the virgins are mothers, I argue that the role of textual or verbal reproduction in the dialogue reveals that the virgins exert their formative maternal role in their speeches themselves. Their speeches are both the products of an encounter with the true beauty of Christ and also the means of reproducing virginity in a reader. By depicting the virgins as reproducing through their words, Methodius can distance his virgins from any hint of physical procreation and also position them as exemplars of the feminine ideal of Christian spiritual motherhood. To show this, I first briefly outline the tension between the dialogue’s feminine ideal of the formative mother and its strong association of virginity and sterility – albeit a sterility which is paradoxically related to fruitfulness. To consider an alternate means of fertility available to Methodius in the Platonic dialogues he drew from, I then turn to examine how words and texts are involved in procreation in Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus. Plato’s dialogues depict words or speeches as both the products of contemplation and also as a means of rhetorical, psychic procreation. Lastly, I show how Methodius depicts the speeches of the virgins as their means of reproduction and forming new Christians with life-giving doctrine. As in Plato, these speeches are the result of psychic procreation and, in their ability to plant the fertile words of Christ in a reader, become a way to reproduce virginity. The sterile virgins are mothers through their speeches.

For more extended discussion of his life and works, see ead., Vollkommenheit und Vollendung: Zur Anthropologie des Methodius von Olympus (Tübingen, 1999), 339-91. 3 Katharina Bracht offers a useful overview and lays out the central interpretive questions for how Methodius’ dialogue draws on and transforms his Platonic Vorbild in Vollkommenheit und Vollendung (1999), 174-83. See also Dawn LaValle Norman, ‘Coming Late to the Table: Methodius in the Context of Sympotic Literary Development’, in Methodius of Olympus: State of the Art and New Perspectives, ed. Katharina Bracht (Berlin, 2017), 29-31. She argues that Methodius writes a dialogue unlike other contemporary authors of symposia, in that he writes a specifically Platonic Symposium. See also Jacques Farges, Les idées morales et religieuses de Méthode d’Olympe: Contribution à l’étude des rapports du Christianisme et de l’Hellénisme à la fin du troisième siècle (Paris, 1929), 47-51. For a more negative assessment of the relationship between Plato and Methodius, see, for instance, Alexander Bril, ‘Plato and the Sympotic Form in the Symposium of St Methodius of Olympus’, Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 9 (2006), 279-302.

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1. Motherhood and Sterility in Methodius’ Symposium In a recent article, Dawn LaValle Norman convincingly demonstrates a ‘staggering change in the imaginative sphere’ in Methodius’ dialogue: that Methodius represents the ‘ideal Christian’ as a female.4 In contrast to the common and frequent trope of Christian perfection as ‘becoming male’, Methodius depicts the Church and all Christians as called to the ‘feminine task of actively co-working with the creative activity of God’.5 Methodius does so, Norman argues, by drawing on and transforming contemporary embryology which downgrades the role of sperm in forming the embryo and elevates the maternal formative power of the mother’s ‘living earth’.6 Thalia’s important speech in the dialogue portrays the Church as receiving the seed of Christ and shaping it like a mother towards perfection.7 The more perfect Christians ‘become fellow workers [συνεργήσωσι] in the formation of Christians in perfection’, and new Christians, then, ‘collaborate [ὑπεργήσουσι] in additional births and rearing of children, like mothers’.8 Christians at varying degrees of progress participate in the birth and rearing of other Christians. Though the dialogue is not without male imagery for perfection, formative motherhood remains the dominant Christian ideal in Methodius’ dialogue. But despite this ideal, Methodius hesitates to depict the virginal speakers of the dialogue themselves as this kind of mother. The dialogue comes closest to depicting them as such when one speaker calls the ‘order of virgins’ the ‘most precious and honored’ of the daughters of the Church.9 But as Elizabeth Clark 4

Dawn LaValle Norman, ‘Becoming Female: Marrowy Semen and the Formative Mother in Methodius of Olympus’ Symposium’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 27 (2019), 207. 5 D. LaValle Norman, ‘Becoming Female: Marrowy Semen and the Formative Mother in Methodius of Olympus’ Symposium’ (2019), 206. For discussion of this well-known trope of ‘becoming male’, see ibid. 186 n. 2. Of particular interest are the arguments of Kerstin Aspegren, The Male Woman: A Feminine Ideal in the Early Church, ed. René Kieffer, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Uppsala Women’s Studies 4 (Stockholm, 1990) and Gail Paterson Corrington, Her Image of Salvation: Female Saviors and Formative Christianity (Louisville, 1992). It is worth noting that the section on Methodius in Aspegren’s work is a summary by Ragnar Holte of the chapters on Methodius unfinished at the time of Aspegren’s death in 1987. As Dawn LaValle Norman notes, perhaps ‘her more complete and mature reflection would have picked up on the countervailing metaphors in his text’ (‘Becoming Female’ [2019], 206). 6 Symp. 2.2.32 (SC 95, 72): εἰς τὴν ἔμψυχον τῆς θηλείας … γῆν. 7 Symp. 3.8.70-1 (SC 95, 106): καθαρίσας τῷ λουτρῷ πρὸς ὑποδοχὴν τοῦ νοητοῦ καὶ μακαρίου σπέρματος, ὃ σπείρει μὲν αὐτὸς [ὁ Χριστός] ὑπηχῶν καὶ καταφυτεύων ἐν τῷ βάθει τοῦ νοός, ὑποδέχεται δὲ καὶ μορφοῖ δίκην γυναικὸς ἡ ἐκκλησία εἰς τὸ γεννᾶν τὴν ἀρετὴν καὶ ἐκτρέφειν. 8 Symp. 3.8.73-5 (SC 95, 110). 9 Methodius Symp. 7.3.157-8 (SC 95, 186). For discussion of possible meanings of the phrase τάγμα τῶν παρθένων, see Federica Candido, ‘The Symposium of Methodius: A Witness to the Existence of Circles of Christian Women in Asia Minor’, in Methodius of Olympus: State of the Art and New Perspectives, ed. K. Bracht (2017), 114-7. For further context, see the discussion of the τάγμα τῶν παρθένων and other similar offices with particular reference to 4th c. Asia Minor

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argues, the dialogue only seems to make available the inference that these virgins (or other female virgins) are spiritual mothers.10 Clark speculates that Methodius may hesitate to make this connection explicit because of the dangers of associating non-textual, ‘real life’ virgins with even metaphorical reproduction.11 The speakers instead speak of motherhood in generalized, even gender-bending terms. Just after the rich discussion of spiritual motherhood in Thalia’s speech, the examples of these more perfect ones surprisingly include Paul and Ananias, the ‘mother’ of Paul, and elsewhere the male prophets.12 Joseph Plumpe even argues that the ‘more perfect [τελειότεροι]’ who bring to birth new Christians are specifically the male ‘hierarchical representatives of the Church’ carrying out the sacramental offices of the Church.13 Whether or not Plumpe is correct, the dialogue offers hardly any female exemplars of female motherhood. Plumpe also notes how Methodius depicts Mother Church as a mystical power transcending particular Christians. Despite the order of virgins being exhorted to ‘imitate [their] mother [the Church]’, Plumpe argues that Methodius’ understands the Church more-fundamentally, in the words of one of the virgins, as ‘a power in herself and distinct from her children’.14 Plumpe observes that the more-perfect are not identified with their Mother in the major discourse on ‘the Mother Church’ in the eighth speech, ‘nor are they even mentioned’.15 Rather, the mystical image of the Church comes to the fore and, he says, ‘the Μήτηρ Ἐκκλησία maintains her indefinable, mystical personality and individuality apart from all the faithful’.16 Plumpe’s reading of Methodius concludes his broader story of the development of a ‘Mother Church’ mysticism in early Christianity and he thus argues for a gap between the Church’s reproductive power and any particular individual – particularly the virgins.

in Susanna Elm, Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1996), 137-66. 10 Elizabeth A. Clark, ‘The Celibate Bridegroom and his Virginal Brides: Metaphor and the Marriage of Jesus in Early Christian Ascetic Exegesis’, Church History 77 (2008), 1-25, 14: ‘Methodius’ virgins fail even metaphorically to reproduce: although Methodius represents the Church, Paul, and even God as “mothers”, maternity is a state to which the virgins never even figuratively advance’. 11 E.A. Clark, ‘The Celibate Bridegroom and his Virginal Brides: Metaphor and the Marriage of Jesus in Early Christian Ascetic Exegesis’ (2008), 14-6. 12 For Paul and Ananias, see Methodius, Symp. 3.9.75-6 (SC 95, 111-3); for prophets as giving birth, see Symp. 7.4.159 (SC 95, 188). 13 Joseph C. Plumpe, Mater Ecclesia: An Inquiry into the Concept of the Church as Mother in Early Christianity (Washington, 1943), 116. Plumpe observes that Methodius uses the term τελειότεροι rather than Origen’s preferred term for the spiritually advanced, τέλοι (117). 14 J.C. Plumpe, Mater Ecclesia (1943), 122; Methodius, Symp. 7.3.157-8 (SC 95, 186); Methodius, Symp. 8.5.183 (SC 95, 212): δύναμίς τις οὖσα καθ’ ἑαυτὴν ἑτέρα τῶν τέκνων. 15 J.C. Plumpe, Mater Ecclesia (1943), 122. 16 Ibid.

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Even though Clark and Plumpe both highlight the difficulties for considering the virgins as mothers of Mother Church, they allow that it is reasonable enough to infer that the virgins are also among the ‘more perfect’. But the ambiguous depiction of the virgins is further complicated by the dialogue’s extensive association of sterility and virginity. In terms of symbolism, the entire banquet is held in the shade of the ἄγνος tree.17 At one level this echo of Plato’s Phaedrus offers a treat for the educated reader with keen intertextual senses.18 But the ἄγνος tree was also known in antiquity for its power as anaphrodiasic and as contraceptive, along with the willow tree.19 In addition to mentioning the ἄγνος tree, the dialogue explicitly glosses the willow tree as a botanical symbol for sterility and cites approvingly Homer’s description of willow as ‘fruit destroying [ὠλεσίκαρποι]’.20 On its face, the dialogue’s direct and indirect association of virginity with sterility seems to provide definitive evidence against virginal motherhood in the dialogue. Nevertheless, the following passages relating to sterility depict virginal sterility as paradoxically productive and thereby signal the possibility of alternative modes of procreation. Theopatra, the fourth speaker, explicitly describes virginity as sterile in her interpretation of Ps. 136(7). Her speech praises virginity by noting how it helps humans who are mired in the passions. To explain that chastity offers freedom from the passions, she turns to Ps. 136(7) – ‘Upon the rivers of Babylon … on the willows in the midst thereof we hung up our instruments’. These ‘instruments’, 17

Methodius, Symp. prel. 8 (SC 95, 48-50). The framing scene of Methodius’ dialogue echoes Plato, Phaedr. 229-30 (for the ἄγνος tree, see 230b3). 19 Pliny the Elder, Nat. 24.37-8. Methodius seems to draw some of what he says about the willow from Origen (cf. On Exodus 9.4). See the learned discussion in Hugo Rahner, Greek Myths and Christian Mysteries, trans. Brian Battershaw (New York, 1971), esp. 289-98, 315-9. For discussion of the chaste tree as part of a larger argument about contextualizing ancient science within ancient history, myth, and ritual, see Heinrich von Staden, ‘Spiderwoman and the Chaste Tree: The Semantics of Matter’, Configurations 1 (1993), 23-55. Some further discussion and recent bibliography in Jan Bremmer, Greek Religion and Culture, The Bible, and the Ancient Near East (Leiden, 2008), 186-7. Rebecca Flemming provides a useful discussion of the emergence of ‘infertility’ as a category for reproductive failure in ‘The Invention of Infertility in the Classical Greek World: Medicine, Divinity, and Gender’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 87 (2013), 565-90. For a modern catalogue of medical uses of the willow in antiquity and late antiquity, see John M. Riddle, Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1992), 32-6, 61, 79, 82-3, 85-6, 89-90. Helen King criticizes Riddle’s approach and offers further discussion of interpretive issues in Hippocrates’ Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece (London, 1998), 32-156 (discussion of willow on 150-1). 20 Homer, Od. 10.510, quoted at Methodius, Symp. 4.3.99 (SC 95, 134). The chaste tree appears in Tusianē’s Methodius, Symp. 9.4.250 (SC 95, 276) in her discussion of the adornments for the feast of Tabernacles in Lev. 23. The chaste-tree reappears once again in a later speech by Domnina in which she notes that the ‘bramble bush’ mentioned in Judg. 9:14-5 is ‘the same as the chaste-tree’. For her, the name ‘bramble’ indicates virginity’s ‘firm and sturdy attitude towards pleasure’, whereas the name ‘chaste tree’ indicates virginity’s ‘persistent chastity’ (Symp. 10.3.265-6 [SC 95, 290-2]). 18

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she says, are the bodies of virgins hung on the ‘branches of chastity’.21 She continues: [Scripture] everywhere uses [the willow] as a symbol of chastity, because if you drink its flower steeped in water it extinguishes whatever arouses carnal desires and passions within us, even to the point of making a person utterly sterile [ἀποστειρώσῃ] and rendering fruitless all drive towards procreation [ἄγονον ἀπεργάσηται πᾶσαν τὴν ἐπὶ παιδοποιίαν φοράν].22

Here she highlights two effects of virginity: first, that it calms all passions of the soul; second, that it specifically hinders movements towards procreation. Although she does not specify here, the following sections of her speech show that she understands sterility in terms of the soul’s activity in resisting and uprooting the passions, which are the ‘children’ that it no longer bears.23 Virgins, then, are those who are ‘found to be sterile [στεῖραι] and unproductive [ἄγονοι] of seething and painful passions’.24 According to Theopatra, virginity provides stability to humanity in the midst of the ‘rivers of Bablyon’ – namely the floods of passions. Theopatra’s emphasis on sterility might surprise a reader who still hears the echoes of the previous speaker’s rousing defense of spiritual procreation. But immediately after explaning the willow’s contraceptive power, she adds that the willow itself grows richly by streams of water. She says, ‘So too in Isaiah, the just are said to spring up as willows beside the running waters. Then truly does the tiny shoot of chastity grow to a great and glorious height when the just man … waters it with the most gentle streams of Christ’.25 Surprisingly, the tree which causes sterility also grows with particular vigor and fruitfulness when watered by the wisdom of Christ – the running waters of Is. 44:4. Although the overlapping images in Theopatra’s speech do not offer the reader a clear answer for whether the virgins are mothers, her praise of virginal sterility goes hand in hand with the praise of virginity’s fruitfulness in spiritual words or teachings. In her words, ‘it is the nature of chastity also to flower, luxuriant with λόγοι’.26 The other significant passage thematizing sterility can be found in Thecla’s exegesis of Rev. 12 in which the ‘mother’ of the virgins brings forth a man child in the wilderness. Thecla says that this woman is the ‘Church,’ ‘our mother most of all and in the exact sense of the term [κυρίως καὶ κατὰ τὸν ἀκριβῆ λόγον]’.27 She ‘stands over our faith and our adoption’ in our birth by baptism 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Methodius, Symp. 4.3.98 (SC 95, 132). Methodius, Symp. 4.3.99 (SC 95, 134). See Pliny the Elder, Nat. 24.37. Methodius, Symp. 4.5.103-4 (SC 95, 137-8). Ibid. Methodius, Symp. 4.3.99 (SC 95, 134); cf. Is. 44:4 (LXX). Methodius, Symp. 4.3.99 (SC 95, 134). Methodius, Symp. 8.5.183-4 (SC 95, 212).

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and also brings forth a ‘man child’ in much labor and pain – that is, the mature Christian formed in the likeness of Christ.28 After the woman gives birth to a ‘male child’, she flees to be nourished in a wilderness which paradoxically flourishes in its sterility.29 This wilderness, Thecla says, ‘is a wilderness [ἔρεμος] truly bare of evil, infertile and sterile in what is corruptible [ἄγονος καὶ στείρα φθορᾶς], difficult of access and hard for the majority to pass through’.30 Thecla here does not gloss sterility as freedom from passions as Theopatra did, but as freedom from corruptibility in general. As Thecla argued earlier in her speech, chastity enables humans to raise up their mortal flesh and progress towards the attainment of immortality. Thus, for the holy ones, the sterile wilderness is actually ‘fruitful and abounding in pasture, blossoming and easy of approach … full of wisdom, and flowering with life’.31 This place is the beautiful ‘place of virtue [τῆς Ἀρετῆς … χωρίον]’ where virgins now gather flowers and fruits in order to adorn the Church, the bride of the Word for immortality. What exactly are the fruits which adorn the church? This complicated passage does not leave things entirely clear, but the final lines suggest that the virgins adorn the Church through their practice of virtue. She specifies, ‘it is for this that we are now gathering flowers and weaving a beautiful crown with chaste fingers for our queen – for it is with the fruits of Virtue [Ἀρετῆς … καρποῖς] that the Bride of the Word is adorned’.32 Thecla here depicts the virgins as fruitful – not exactly as begetting children, but as producing the adornments of the Church by their own virtue. The virgins who can rise above what is mortal and passible are thereby able to produce beautiful virtues which prepare the Church for its eschatological life with Christ. Although the dialogue does not offer a clear depiction of the virgins as the maternal formative power of the Church, closer examination of the virgins’ sterility in these passages show that sterility cannot be simply taken as evidence against the virgins’ maternal formative power. Rather it is paradoxically their sterility which makes them fertile. For Theopatra, virginity is the lush willow, sterile of all passions and thereby rich and fertile with divine teaching. The sterile wilderness of Rev. 12 becomes for Thecla the place of virtue in which the virgins blossom in their full beauty. Having established that the text’s ambiguities do not prevent one from understanding the virgins as productive in some sense, I want to turn now to an alternate means of reproduction prominent 28

Methodius, Symp. 8.6.186-97 (SC 95, 214-6); Symp. 8.8.190-1 (SC 95, 218-20). See D. LaValle Norman, ‘Becoming Female: Marrowy Semen and the Formative Mother in Methodius of Olympus’ Symposium’ (2019), 207-8 for her reading of this passage in relation to late ancient theories of reproduction. 29 Methodius, Symp. 8.11.198 (SC 95, 226). 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Methodius, Symp. 8.11.198 (SC 95, 226).

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in Methodius’ Platonic exemplars – verbal reproduction. I will argue that reproduction in words offers Methodius a way of using the attractive holiness of the virgins to reproduce chastity in a safely textual medium. 2. Verbal Reproduction in Plato’s Erotic Dialogues In both Plato’s Phaedrus and the Symposium, a discussion of love draws the speakers into a discussion of language. David O’Connor has noted that for Plato the problems of erotic life are connected in some way to the status of formal language and rhetoric.33 As I will show in the final section, Methodius positions virginity within this same space where the power of language and erotic life work together for fruitful, procreative purposes. Previous scholarship has been well aware of the connections between reproduction in the Symposium of Plato and that of Methodius.34 Perhaps because of the prominence of the influence of Plato’s Symposium on Methodius’ work, scholarship has focused – sometimes very negatively – on Methodius transformation of Plato’s work.35 Readers of the dialogue since at least the 19th century have also noted the influence of the Phaedrus. But the index of the erudite, early 20th century edition of Methodius by G.N. Bonwetsch only notes citations of the famous charioteer speech in Socrates’ palinode and one sole reference to the close of the crucial final discussion of rhetoric.36 Methodius’ Symposium bears many more traces of the influence of the second half of the Phaedrus, which includes the discussion of rhetoric and the so-called ‘critique of writing’.37 33 For his readings of Plato’s erotic dialogues, see David O’Connor, Plato’s Bedroom: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Love (South Bend, 2015). 34 See for instance Albert S. Jahn, S. Methodii opera et S. Methodius platonizans, vol. 2: S. Methodius Platonizans sive Platonismus SS. Patrum ecclesiae graecae S. Methodii exemplo illustratus (Halle, 1865) and the apparatus of Methodius, ed. G. Nathanael Bonwetsch, GCS 27 (Leipzig, 1917). More recently, Katharina Bracht and Selene M. Benedetta Zorzi have each produced their own extensive comparison of the speech of Socrates in Plato’s Symposium and Thecla’s speech in Methodius (Vollkommenheit und Vollendung [1999], 186-206; Desiderio della bellezza (ἔρως τοῦ καλοῦ): da Platone a Gregorio di Nissa: tracce di una rifrazione teologico-semantica, Studia Anselmiana 145 [Rome, 2007], 358-63). 35 Peter Brown calls it a ‘bare-faced pastiche of Plato’s great work’ (The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity [New York, 2008], 184). Meanwhile, Alexander Bril renders a much more negative judgment: ‘not only is Methodius’ sympotic genre dead, but, because of his imperfect understanding of the symposion, the exhumed cadaver has missing bits, hence the resulting monstrosity’ (Alexander Bril, ‘Plato and the Sympotic Form’ [2006], 299-301). One might also add Edward Gibbon’s judgment of the Symposium as ‘a troubled stream of … eloquence’ in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. David Wormsley (London, 1995), 481. 36 G.N. Bonwetsch, Methodius (1917), 536. 37 Hugo Rahner (Greek Myths and Christian Mystery [1971], 317) pays greater attention to the Phaedrus in his discussion of the willow tree than other scholarship in order to show how

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Turning first to Plato’s Symposium, Diotima offers the famous image of ‘giving birth in beauty’ which entails the begetting of ‘words’ or ‘thoughts’ (λόγοι) as the result of a vision of true beauty.38 Diotima’s speech is recounted as part of Socrates’ speech at a drinking party. Unlike Methodius’ dialogue, speeches are delivered not by Christian, female virgins, but by sexually active, Greek males.39 Socrates recounts how Diotima, a woman from Mantinea, taught him the things of ἔρως. They had agreed that love wants to have what is good forever, and Diotima concluded, then, that what love really desires is procreation [τόκος] in beauty, since procreation goes on forever and is a kind of immortality.40 Those who are pregnant in soul more than body seek for someone beautiful – preferably in body and soul – by whom to give birth. Upon finding a beautiful soul, the pregnant man ‘instantly teems with λόγοι about virtue’.41 These λόγοι seem to be the ‘children’ which Diotima says the two go on to share.42 Reproduction in beauty both in thought and in λόγος becomes a means of immortality for the philosopher-lover. These λόγοι reappear shortly after the famous ladder of love, in which Diotima narrates a mystical ascent through ecstatic experiences of beauty. A lover traverses particular beauties – beautiful bodies, beautiful souls, beautiful activities and laws – and eventually comes to gaze upon ‘the great sea of Methodius depicts the virgins as intermediary images of heaven on earth. Recent work by Katharina Bracht also draws attention to Methodius’ use of the Phaedrus in his rendering of platonic ἔρως (‘Eros as Chastity: Transformation of a Myth in the Symposium of Methodius of Olympus’, in Methodius of Olympus: State of the Art and New Perspectives, ed. Katharina Bracht [Berlin, 2017], 57-9). The Phaedrus was well-known in antiquity, particularly for its discussions of the soul. For more, see Egil A. Wyller, ‘Plato’s Concept of Rhetoric in the Phaedrus and Its Tradition in Antiquity’, Symbolae Osloenses 66 (1991), 59-61 and Harvey Yunis, ‘Introduction’, in Plato: Phaedrus, ed. Harvey Yunis (Cambridge, 2011), 25-30. 38 For discussion of the role of reproduction and the play of gender in the dialogue, see especially the classic essay of David M. Halperin, ‘Why is Diotima a Woman?’, in One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and Other Essays on Greek Love (New York, 1990), 113-51, 190-211. For critiques of some aspects of Halperin’s argument, especially regarding reciprocity and the need for a feminine presence, see Miglena Nikolchina, ‘Feminine Erotics and Paternal Legacy: Revisiting Plato’s Symposium’, Paragraph 16 (1993), 239-60, 250-1. For more recent discussion, see Frisbee C.C. Sheffield, Plato’s Symposium: The Ethics of Desire (Oxford, 2016), 75-111. Angela Hobbs discusses the female imagery in the Symposium in relation to Plato’s educational projects in Angela Hobbs, ‘Female Imagery in Plato’, in Plato’s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception, ed. James H. Lesher, Deborah Nails and Frisbee C.C. Sheffield (Cambridge, 2006), 252-71. See also Giovanni Ferrari, ‘Platonic Love’, in The Cambridge Companion to Plato, ed. Richard Kraut (Cambridge, 1995), 248-76. 39 For the connection of pederasty and symposia in Greek society at various periods, see Jan Bremmer, ‘Adolescents, Symposion, and Pederasty’, in Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposion, ed. Oswyn Murray (Oxford, 1990), 135-48, 142. 40 Plato, Symp. 206e5; Greek text for Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus from Platonis Opera II, ed. J. Burnet (Oxford, 1967). 41 Plato, Symp. 209b7-8. 42 Plato, Symp. 209c4-d4.

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beauty’ itself.43 When a lover glimpses beauty itself, Diotima says, ‘he gives birth to many gloriously beautiful λόγοι and thoughts [διανοήματα] in unstinting love of wisdom [φιλοσοφίᾳ ἀφθόνῳ]’.44 Some translations render λόγοι here in a more contemplative mode as ‘ideas’, ‘theories’, or ‘arguments’.45 But given the context of lovers giving speeches, one might also render it as ‘words’ or ‘speeches’. The lover who contemplates true beauty eventually gives birth to true virtue, but he also begets many wonderful words along the way, much as Socrates himself does in this dialogue.46 In the Symposium, then, knowledge of beauty itself generates thoughts and words which reflect one’s connection to the divine realm – the realm of beauty itself. As Diotima says earlier in the dialogue, ‘this is a divine matter and this is truly something immortal for the mortal living being – pregnancy and generation [κύησις καὶ ἡ γέννησις]’.47 Although Methodius’ appropriation of this Platonic ‘birth in beauty’ in the Symposium has received some attention, much less has been said about his appropriation of the rhetorical discussion in the Phaedrus. As I argue below, it is both ‘birth in beauty’ in the Symposium and the discussion of rhetoric in the Phaedrus which provide the contours of Methodius’ depiction of virginal fertility in speech making. Like Plato’s Symposium, Plato’s Phaedrus draws a connection between true knowledge and the generation of words. But Plato’s Phaedrus focuses less on the generation of words and more on the planting of words fruitfully in a reader or listener. In the first half of the dialogue Phaedrus and Socrates give three speeches arguing the relative advantages of having sex with a lover or a nonlover. The second half of the dialogue then relates their conversation discussing proper rhetoric. Skillful rhetoric, they agree, is ‘the art of leading the soul through words’.48 Moreover, this art requires knowledge both of the soul of one’s audience and also of the proper words for each occasion.49 Socrates says that a serious rhetorician will care about implanting not just any words, but words with knowledge which can be fruitful for another person. These words, as he says, ‘are by no means fruitless [ἄκαρποι], but have seeds, which, when planted in certain souls, are always enough to make those people immortal and

43

Plato, Symp. 210d4. Plato, Symp. 210d4-6. 45 See, for instance, the translation of Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff in Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis, 1997), 492-3. 46 Near the beginning of this dialogue, Socrates enters the feast late because he fell into a sort of trance on the neighbor’s porch – a moment in which Agathon suggests he has caught a bit of something wise (175a6-d6). Perhaps Plato wants us to understand Socrates’ own speech as begotten from contemplation of true beauty itself. 47 Plato, Symp. 206c6-8. 48 Plato, Phaedr. 261a7-8: ἆρ’ οὖν οὐ τὸ μὲν ὅλον ἡ ῥητορικὴ ἂν εἴη τέχνη ψυχαγωγία τις διὰ λόγων. 49 Plato, Phaedr. 270d9-271b6. 44

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flourishing’.50 Socrates offers here an image for philosophical rhetoric: effectively implanting words of true knowledge in the soul of a pupil. Just as in the Symposium, Plato here connects the generation and implantation of words with human perfection and immortality. Fertile words, whether spoken or written, are the ‘legitimate sons [ὑεῖς γνησίους]’ of their author in that they are seeds which can grow to maturity in their recipient and make their possessor immortal.51 But in these passages dealing with rhetoric, Plato’s characters explore not just the birth in beauty of one’s own knowledge, but also how to help others to follow on the same path towards knowledge. The Phaedrus more directly takes up the question of transmission: how one’s words produce psychic effects in another. At first blush, as Socrates goes on to discuss proper rhetoric, he seems to denigrate writing and instead associate fertile words specifically with dialectic. But the dialogue’s dramatic framing makes the critique of writing not apply only to writing. In the famous ‘critique of writing’, Socrates tells a myth about the origins of writing in Egypt. Theuth, also known as Ibis, comes to the Egyptian King Thoth to present a variety of arts for the Egyptian people including writing, which he presents as a ‘potion for memory [μήμης τε γὰρ καὶ σοφίας φάρμακον]’ that would make the Egyptians ‘wiser and better at memory’.52 But King Thoth responds, saying that writing actually will introduce forgetfulness, ‘since their memory will be out of practice [μνήμης ἀμελετησίᾳ]’.53 Writing is a potion, he agrees, ‘for reminding [ὑπομνήσεως φάρμακον]’ only and not for memory.54 The king explains that interior memory will fade into disuse because of an excessive trust in external marks.55 The problem, as Socrates and Phaedrus put it, is that writing can only remind those who already know the subject of the words, but it cannot make distinctions between fitting and unfitting souls for it to talk to.56 Their conversation does not end here, however, particularly given that Plato’s dialogue itself is a piece of writing. Socrates introduces another kind of word we have already referred to above – the word ‘written with knowledge [μετ’ ἐπιστήμης] on the soul of a pupil’.57 To explain what this word might be, Socrates introduces a contrast between a serious farmer (γεωργός) and a playful farmer. The farmer in his right mind would plant in the proper season in fields, but another farmer would plant out of season in the ‘gardens of Adonis’ for the

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

Plato, Plato, Plato, Plato, Plato, Plato, Plato, Plato,

Phaedr. 277a1-4. Phaedr. 278a5-b4. Phaedr. 274e5-7. Phaedr. 275a2. Phaedr. 275a5. Phaedr. 275a2-5. Phaedr. 275c5-e5: τοῦ τὸν εἰδότα ὑπομνῆσαι περὶ ὧν ἄν ᾖ τὰ γεγραμμένα. Phaedr. 276a1-10.

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short blossom of the festival.58 Sowing in the ‘gardens of Adonis’ – explicitly identified as writing – is not serious planting, but would only be done ‘as a kind of play [παιδιᾶς χάριν]’ for the festival.59 Such play, however, is ‘not at all cheap’, as Phaedrus says, since that kind of play is the means whereby one ‘deposits precious reminders [ὑπομνήματα θησαυριζόμενος] … for the imminent forgetfulness of old age and also for anyone else who shares the same paths’.60 This significant passage suggests that despite the weaknesses of writing, it can play a central role in philosophical pedagogy. Indeed, the dialogues can be seen as Plato’s attempt to ‘sow seeds in the gardens of writing’ and ‘deposit precious reminders for himself … and for anyone else who shares the same paths’ – all as a kind of serious play.61 Thus, in the Phaedrus, Plato sketches reproduction through words in a psychagogical or pedagogical trajectory. Rhetoric allows the speaker or writer to create paths of words by which the proper words are planted in another person such that the words transform their soul and leads them to true beauty and knowledge. In sum, we see in Plato two paradigms of erotic reproduction in words. In the Symposium, a vision of the great sea of Beauty itself engenders words, thoughts, and even speeches for a knower. In the Phaedrus, fertile words can be skillfully implanted in another by someone with true knowledge. These two dimensions of Platonic verbal procreation – birth in beauty and fertile textual rhetoric – illuminate Methodius’ own depiction of virginal procreation through words.

3. The Fertile Words of Sterile Virgins As we saw in the first section, despite depicting the Church as a formative mother, Methodius hesitates to depict the virgins themselves as fertile. But even in those passages distancing virgins from reproduction or the desire for reproduction, Methodius tends to pair images of sterility with those of productivity. If physical procreation certainly does not suit the life of virginity, catechetical or philosophical reproduction may be a more fitting kind. Platonic verbal reproduction – particularly through a written text – offers Methodius an alternate 58 The ‘gardens of Adonis’ seem to be the equivalent of something like window-boxes or planters. For more, see the commentary on this passage in Plato: Phaedrus, ed. Harvey Yunis (Cambridge, 2011), 232. 59 Plato, Phaedr. 276d2. 60 For Phaedrus’ comment, see Plato, Phaedr. 276e1: παγκάλην λέγεις παρὰ παύλην παιδιάν. 61 Plato, Phaedr. 276d1-8: ἐν γράμμασι κήπους … παιδιᾶς χάριν σπερεῖ τε καὶ γράψει, ὅταν γράφῃ, ἑαυτῷ τε ὑπομνήματα θηραυριζόμενος, εἰς τὸ λήθης γῆρας … καὶ παντὶ τῷ ταὐτὸν ἴχνος μετιόντι. This particular passage seems to have been known to Christian literary elites given echoes of it in two influential authors of the 2nd and 4th centuries: Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1.14.1) and Evagrius Ponticus (Letter to Anatolios 9 [= Praktikos, prol. 9]).

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way in which the virgins can exert a maternal influence safely apart from any danger to the integrity of their chastity. It is first worth noticing how Methodius uses images of both agricultural and human reproduction to depict the word of the Scriptures derived from the truth of Christ. The words of the prophets or the gospels are called fruits to be enjoyed and seeds to be planted.62 The words of scripture are also are children, as Procilla calls ‘the writings of Moses or David or Solomon’ ‘the progeny [ἔκγονα] they left behind for the salvation of lives’.63 In her speech, she interprets the various women of Song of Songs 6:8 – queens, daughters, concubines, etc. – as righteous souls before Christ ‘espoused to the Word’.64 In these ‘the Lord sowed the seeds of truth in a rich and a pure philosophy, so that by conceiving faith they might beget the spirit of salvation by Him’.65 Moses, David, and others before Christ receive the truth from Christ and thus are able to beget a ‘spirit of salvation’66 which extends to future generations. Procilla concludes generally that all righteous are like this, for ‘such indeed is the fruit that is bought forth by those souls which are wed to Christ – fruit that has an everlasting beauty’.67 In this passage, the Church does not beget the fruits of immortality as a power separate from individuals but through the mediating activity of the righteous. But where are these ‘fruits’ of Christ in the Scriptures in the dialogue? These words appear almost entirely in the speeches of the virgins. Agathē and Thecla explicitly describe their speeches as plaited from the fabric of Scripture: for one ‘a crown woven together from the meadows of the prophets’ and for the other ‘gifts of mine [her words] woven from God’s own words’.68 Indeed, new readers of the dialogue may be surprised at the proportion of the dialogue occupied by extensive spiritual interpretation of Scripture. But we can understand the time spent by the virgins interpreting scripture by noting how Methodius, drawing on Plato, sees a connection between one’s words and one’s proximity to divine reality. As in Plato’s Symposium, the virgins’ speeches derive from their close connection to the divine and from a vision of beauty itself. Thecla praises the close connection between virginity and the divine through an etymology: ‘virginity [παρθενία]’ is almost παρθεΐα – a neologism riffing on παρὰ and θείος to suggest ‘near the divine’.69 As she unpacks the divine associations of virginity, Thecla draws on images from Plato’s Phaedrus and from the Edenic Garden to 62 For fruit, see Methodius, Symp. 9.3.243 (SC 95, 270); for semen/seed, see Symp. 3.8.69-75 (SC 95, 106-10). 63 Methodius, Symp. 7.4.159-60 (SC 95, 188). 64 Methodius, Symp. 7.4.159-60 (SC 95, 186-8). 65 Methodius, Symp. 7.4.159-60 (SC 95, 186-8). 66 Is. 26:18 (LXX); note the imagery of childbirth in this passage from Isaiah. 67 Methodius, Symp. 7.4.159 (SC 95, 188). 68 Methodius, Symp. 6.5.147 (SC 95, 176), Symp. 8.17.231 (SC 95, 258). 69 Methodius, Symp. 8.1.171-2 (SC 95, 200-2).

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describe the ascent of the virtuous soul to true reality. The virtuous virgin can despise earthly things and ascend to behold the true beauties – trees of the forms of true realities among which are a tree of Beauty itself and even ‘Continence itself [δένδρον σωφροσύνης αὐτῆς]’!70 As she concludes her opening, Thecla uses the glories she has described to exhort the virgins to see how much chastity contributes to the attainment of immortality. In language echoing the erotic imagery of Plato’s famous charioteer speech, virginity ‘waters’ or ‘impregnates’ (καταρδόμενον) the soul to make it light and nourish its wings to fly to heaven.71 Among the means of achieving such connection to divinity, the virgins emphasize ‘[s]piritual exercise in the scriptures [ἡ πνευματικὴ μελέτη]’.72 The scriptures are able to sterilizes the passions and also furnish contemplation of the true beauty of Christ the bridegroom.73 In fact, the importance of scriptural interpretation for virginity explains Aretē’s description of the banquet as a ‘contest [ἀγῶν]’74 The ability of each virgin to spiritually interpret a text reveals which kinds of fruits they bear. It manifests externally the degree of her ‘internal’ spiritual progress.75 Thalia, for instance, criticizes the previous speaker for only taking up the more-literal (φυσικώτερον) sense of scripture, when, to her, Paul writes in a ‘more-spiritual [πνευματικώτερον]’ mode.76 She continues and depicts the proper interpreter as one who has sufficiently tamed her desire for external goods so as to discern the ‘interior’ realities of the scriptures. This recalls the first paradigm of Platonic erotic reproduction in words, ‘birth in beauty: the best virgin speakers display the logoi they derive from a vision of beauty itself, the form of Christ. We can further see how much the virgins’ speeches mirror their own progress in the considerable anxiety that they express about giving the speeches. Methodius uses the Socratic language of ἀπορία both for Tusianē’s decision to speak so that ‘[she] might not be at a loss [ἀπορήσω]’ and for Euboulion’s fear for Domnina, when she seems to freeze from embarrassment and anxiety.77 Euboulion hopes that she is ‘not at a loss for words [μὴ ἀπορήσῃ λογῶν]’, but, to his relief, she was ‘disturbed but not at a loss [οὐ μὴν ἠπορηκέναι]’.78 70

Methodius, Symp. 8.3.176-7 (SC 95, 206). Methodius, Symp. 8.1.171 (SC 95, 202). 72 Methodius, Symp. 1.1.14 (SC 95, 54). 73 See Methodius, Symp. 9.4.247-52 (SC 95, 274-8). 74 Methodius, Symp. 1.3.22 (SC 95, 62). 75 Methodius, Symp. prel.9 (SC 95, 50); note also the steep ascent required to reach the banquet in the first place at Symp. prel.5 (SC 95, 46). 76 Methodius, Symp. 3.1.53-4 (SC 95, 92). For Methodius’ reliance on Origen’s method of biblical interpretation, in spite of disagreements with aspects of Origen’s theology, see Lloyd G. Patterson, Methodius of Olympus: Divine Sovereignty, Human Freedom, and Life in Christ (Washington, 1997), 123-40. 77 Methodius, Symp. 9.1.233 (SC 95, 262), 9.5.235 (SC 95, 264). 78 Methodius, Symp. 9.5.256 (SC 95, 282). Note also the parable of the wise and foolish virgins regarding true and false chastity in Agathē’s speech. 71

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Ἀπορία seems especially appropriate in this usage because of its double sense of material deprivation and intellectual confusion or ignorance, given that the ‘goods’ at issue are interpretations of scripture which legitimize one’s virginity. As Tusianē asks, ‘how will [one] unable to show God his tabernacle adorned with the loveliest of fruit be able to celebrate the Feast?’79 Despite this fear, the virgins in the dialogue are all quite proficient and richly adorned with scripture-laden speeches. Among the adornments with which ‘each should adorn [κοσμεῖν] their own tabernacle above all with chastity’ Tusianē includes ‘palm branches’, which are ‘the practice and exercise of the Scriptures [ἄσκησιν καὶ μελέτην τῶν γραφῶν]’.80 So as proper fruits, each virgin’s interpretations of scripture become her ‘external’ adornments of chastity and virginity.81 Indeed, as the later, distinguished speakers plunge deeper into the mysteries of scripture, Aretē observes how their beauty grows. At the end of Thecla’s considerable speech, one of the narrators comments, ‘all of us … marveled at the way her beauty seemed to flower in her words [τῆς μορφής ἐπανθούσης τοῖς λόγοις] … She is a woman entirely brilliant [λευκή] in body and in soul’.82 These speakers gleam with the beauty of Christ – beauty manifest in their scripture-laden speeches and beauty which elicits desire in the reader for that same beautiful chastity. Thecla’s speech at the heart of the dialogue manifests this combination in particular, as her soul and body work in such harmony that she shines with beauty in body and in her words – beautifully adornments ‘woven together from God-spoken words [ἀπὸ θεορήτων συγκαθυφασμένα λογων]’.83 Within the lush, fertile pastoral atmosphere, like that of the Phaedrus, the reader encounters the erotic attraction of the virgins, and even strong sexual imagery.84 79

Methodius, Symp. 9.3.43. Methodius, Symp. 9.1.14. 81 Methodius, Symp. 9.4.16-7; note that Procilla’s speech is described as ‘word exercises on behalf of chastity’ [τὰ γυμνάσματα τῶν λόγων ὑπὲρ ἁγνείας] (7.9.18). 82 Methodius, Symp. 8.17.231 (SC 95, 258). 83 Methodius, Symp. 8.17.231 (SC 95, 258); Benedetta Zorzi, ‘The Use of the Terms ἁγνεία, παρθενία, σωφροσύνη, and ἐγκράτεια in the Symposium of Methodius of Olympus’, Vigiliae Christianae 63 (2009), 138-68, 158. For a possible source in Origen of the connection of beauty and salvation, see Illaria Ramelli, ‘L’Inno a Cristo Logos alla fine del Simposio di Methodio’, in Motivi e forme della poesia cristiana antica tra scrittura e tradizione classica: XXXVI Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità cristiana, Roma, 3-5 maggio 2007, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 108 (Rome, 2008), 257-80, 270-1. Thecla says at the outset that she is a ‘cithara inwardly attuned and prepared to speak with care and with grace and dignity [κιθάρας δίκην ἔσωθεν ἁρμοζομένην με καὶ παρασκευάζουσαν εἰς τὸ μεμελημένως εἰπεῖν καὶ εὐσχημόνως]’ (Symp. 8.1.169). Her words, themselves, have a loveliness which manifest the beauty of her virgin soul, as Arete was also said earlier on to walk ‘gracefully [εὐσχημόνως]’ (Symp. prel.45). 84 Given the resonances between the dialogue’s imagery, the virgins’ lives, and the virgins’ speeches, it is hard to agree with Giuseppe Lazzati that Methodius lacks the particular character of the Platonic dialogue form in which ‘pensiero e vita formano una indivisibile unità’ (‘La tecnica dialogica nel Simposio di Metodio d’Olimpo’, in Studi dedicati alla memoria di Paolo Ubaldi [Milan, 1937], 117-24, 119). For the sexual imagery, see the fascinating and wide-ranging discussion of 80

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These erotic images and beautiful words work in tandem to bring the reader to an encounter with the attraction of virginity from which he or she can become a lover of virginity – to ‘envy’ those adorned the most beautiful words of Christ, as Arete suggests.85 Moreover, Platonic intertexts return at Aretē’s crucial summary of the purpose of the final speech using Platonic vocabulary drawn from the Phaedrus. Aretē says Domnina has not only provided a pleasant account (γλυκυμυθία), but also has spoken ‘seriously [μετὰ σπουδῆς]’, as ‘a reminder [ὑπόμνημα] for correction and watchfulness’.86 With this crucial echo, Methodius hints at the purpose of his writing – a Platonic form of serious play that can help lead souls to the divine. For Methodius as for Plato the dialogue offers the reader an attractive particular which uses the love of a reader to draw them towards true Beauty – in this case towards chastity. In this way, the virgins in this dialogue imitate their mother – the Church – by giving their speeches. As Thecla observes, ‘It was for this that all of our discourses up till now have been held, in order to teach you, my fair virgins, to imitate your Mother [the Church] as best you can’.87 The virgins certainly imitate her as in Thecla’s interpretation by avoiding the dragon who chases the woman clothed with the sun. But they also cooperate in new births, as Thalia mentions in her speech, by offering the fruits of their contemplation and virtue to readers of the dialogue. The speeches of the virgins become sites of spiritual procreation in that they allow the reader an encounter with the fruits of chastity – virtue and contemplation of Christ in Scripture. These fruits, then, are also seeds of virginity which grow and produce those same fruits in a reader. Thus, we can see here the second form of Platonic verbal procreation, implanting fertile words in readers. As in the Phaedrus, the virgins ‘sow … true words with knowledge’ and offer their reader genuine progeny that can mature to salvation.

Methodius’ depiction of the death of Christ as a kind of orgasmic shudder (Symp. 2.2.31-4 [SC 95, 70-2]) in Ralph Norman, ‘Methodius and Methodologies: Ways of Reading Third-Century Christian Sexual Symbolism’, Theology & Sexuality 13 (2006), 79-100. 85 For the winner of the contest becoming ‘one who is envied [ζηλωτὴς]’ see Symp. prel.9-10 (SC 95, 50). See Symp. 1.1.14 and 1.1.15 (SC 95, 56) for the need for virgins to have a ‘love for temperance [ὁ τῆς σωφροσύνης ἔρως]’ that ought to grow in the process of sanctification. Arete also says that the virgins are ‘exemplary in all things, themselves practicing virginity in deed as well as in word [νόμος διὰ πάντων, αὐταὶ γὰρ παρθενεύσασαι καὶ ἔργῳ καὶ λόγῳ]’ (Symp. 11.283 [SC 95, 308]). 86 Methodius, Symp. 11.278-9 (SC 95, 307): πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν ὑπόμνημα καὶ νῆψιν. Clement of Alexandria, whose writings Methodius seems to have known, also describes his own work as ὑπόμνημα with specific reference there and in surrounding passages to Plato’s Phaedrus (Strom. 1.14.2). For Methodius’ use of Clement, see the apparatus of Bonwetsch in Methodius (1917) and discussion throughout Patterson, Methodius of Olympus (1997), for instance, 8-9, 40. 87 Methodius, Symp. 8.12.204 (SC 95, 232).

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Conclusion Although Methodius’ dialogue surprisingly offers a female ideal of formative motherhood for Christian life, the dialogue puzzlingly does not depict the virgins explicitly as mothers shaping other Christians. However, as I have shown, a return to Methodius’ Platonic sources allows us to see the virgins’ words and speeches themselves as sites of procreation. Methodius’ virgins give beautiful speeches which manifest the beauty of their own souls, teeming with words born out of a vision of beauty itself – Christ the bridegroom. And the beauty of these speeches, then, are also the seeds and the true children of their virginity which implant the fertile λόγοι of Scripture in a reader and bring them to maturity in true virtue. Methodius’ dialogue allows for a safer encounter with fertile, virgin beauty which entices a reader to a more chaste life. The virgins reproduce after all: by their speeches, they reproduce chastity.

Forma feminarum. ‘Feminine’ Ideas in Third-Century Christian North Africa: An Occasion to Rethink Commodian’s Origins Alberto D’INCÀ, Theological Faculty of Northern Italy – Diocesan Seminary, Milan, Italy; ‘Laurentianum’ Theological Faculty, Milan, Italy; ‘P.I.M.E.’ Theological Faculty, Monza–Milan, Italy

ABSTRACT The studies about Commodian’s origins have reached disparate results. On the one hand, the poet’s provenance has been placed in the Syriac area (considering both the author’s ‘nomen Gasei’ and the Jewish influences on his thought); on the other, in 4th-5th century Gaul (thanks to Gennadius of Marseilles’ reference) or in the Roman background of the 3rd century (in light of ‘Monarchian’ leanings of Commodian christology). It seems possible, however, to reconsider the matter by placing Commodian’s works in Christian Africa during the 3rd century, starting from the close relationship between his and Tertullian’s thought about the idea of ‘feminine’. A comparison between Commodian and Tertullian, for example, reveals an identical point of view about the origins of evil: indeed, both use the (Enochic) scheme of sin caused by the union of the fallen angels with human women (e.g. Instructiones 1,3,1-6 and Apologeticum 22,3-4; De cultu feminarum 1,3,1; De idolatria 9,1; De virginibus velandis 7,2). Tertullian, moreover, blames the rebellious angels for having created female ornaments (e.g. De cultu feminarum 2,10,2); Commodian, likewise, accuses Christian women of having replaced Psalm reading with love songs (Instructiones 2,15,16-8). We could suppose that Commodian reflection discloses Cyprian of Carthage’s warnings against those believers (women?) who prefer ‘illicit’ songs to ‘licit’ songs (De habitu virginum 11) and who, consequently, yield to Devil’s assaults (De zelo et livore 2).

Placing Commodian in third-century Christian North Africa: a brief status quaestionis Among the Christian authors of Roman Africa a role of main importance is occupied, as known, by Tertullian and Cyprian of Carthage. The interest in these writers is justified by the pivotal problems faced in their respective works, spanning historical, literary and theological issues. Inevitably, other African christian writings of this period are somewhat related to these two figures. A famous example is the debate on the authorship of the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis, whose attribution to Tertullian is still an object of discussion due to

Studia Patristica CXXVI, 425-435. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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the theological similarities with the New Prophecy, especially in the prologue of the Passio.1 This very question also concerns a mysterious author like Commodian. Giving value to the literary and thematic contacts with Tertullian and, above all, Cyprian, Antonio Salvatore, Victor Saxer and Jean Daniélou, embracing the insight of Paul Monceaux,2 tend to place him in Christian Africa during the middle of the 3rd century.3 In addition, scholars have valued the supposed historical references within Commodian’s Instructiones and Carmen Apologeticum: the persecution of Decius and the invasion of the Goths; the pressure of the Persians of Shapur I; the problem of lapsi and the consequent schism of Novatus and Felicissimus.4 However, the current scholarly debate on such matters is far from over, as studies concerning Commodian’s origins have reached the most disparate results.5 It is possible to summarize them as follows: 1. According to Jean-Michel Poinsotte, the origin of the poet ought to be placed in Syria.6 He deduced it from the reference to the nomen Gasei of Commodian in the last acrostic of the Instructiones (if so, Gaza would be identified with his hometown),7 together with the marked Jewish influences on his Millenarian thought.8 Furthermore, Jean-Michel Poinsotte has better clarified this proposal: he has thought about a ‘temporary presence’ of Commodian in North Africa, as a necessary stop of the journey that would have led him from Syria to Italy. 2. Heinrich Brewer and Pierre Courcelle have supported a second hypothesis in the light of an information of Gennadius of Marseille:9 for them, Commodian’s 1 This matter has been reconsidered by Christoph Markschies, ‘The Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis and Montanism?’, in Jan N. Bremmer and Marco Formisano (eds), Perpetua’s Passions. Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis (Oxford, 2012), 277-90. 2 Paul Monceaux, Histoire littéraire de l’Afrique chrétienne depuis les origines jusqu’à l’invasion arabe, 7 vol. (Paris, 1905), III 451-89. 3 See, respectively, Antonio Salvatore, ‘L’enigma di Commodiano. Considerazioni sullo scrittore, il suo ambiente e la sua epoca’, Vichiana 3 (1974), 50-81; Victor Saxer, ‘La Bible chez les Pères latins du IIIe siècle’, in Jacques Fontaine and Charles Pietri (eds), Le monde latin antique et la Bible (Paris, 1975), 339-70, 346-8; Jean Daniélou, ‘Les Testimonia de Commodien’, in Forma Futuri. Studi in onore del cardinale Michele Pellegrino (Torino, 1975), 59-69. 4 For a detailed analysis of all these subjects see Antonio Salvatore, Commodiano. Carme Apologetico, Corona Patrum 5 (Torino, 1977), 15-31, whose results are still persuasive. 5 Summarised in Jean-Michel Poinsotte, ‘Le recours aux sources ou les avatars de l’historiquement correct: le cas extrême de Commodien’, in Sylvie Crogiez-Pétrequin (ed.), Dieu(x) et hommes. Histoire et iconographie des sociétés païennes et chrétiennes de l’Antiquité à nos jours (Mont-Saint-Aignan, 2005), 69-77. 6 Id., Commodien. Instructions, CUF 382 (Paris, 2009), IX-XVII. 7 Commodianus, Instructiones 2,35,1-26, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, CUF 382 (2009), 89-90. 8 As attested in Manlio Simonetti, ‘Il millenarismo cristiano dal I al V secolo’, Annali di storia dell’esegesi 15 (1998), 7-20, 17-8. 9 Gennadius Massiliensis, De viris inlustribus 15, ed. Ernest C. Richardson, TU 14.1A (Leipzig, 1896), 67.

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education would be placed not in Africa or in Syria, but in fourth- or fifthcentury Gaul.10 Finally, Isabella Salvadore has strongly supported the necessity to analyse this theory again.11 3. In a third hypothesis, originally formulated by Josef Martin12 and recently welcomed by Marta Sordi and Ilaria Ramelli, Commodian’s works were written in the 3rd century in Rome.13 Their studies rely both on the ‘Monarchian’ tendencies of Commodian Christology – that have been highlighted, for example, by Vincenzo Loi too14 – and on the use of some biblical testimonia (included in the Petrine Epsitles) of supposed Roman origins. 4. Lastly, in 1958 Jean Paul Brisson proposed to place Commodian in 5thcentury Roman Africa.15 His thesis is supported by alleged allusions to the Donatist schism (especially to the Circumcellion movement), as found in the description of the populus absconsus elaborated in Carmen Apologeticum.16 Recently, Remo Cacitti has welcomed this conclusion in his monograph about the Circumcellions’ theological attitudes.17 Especially, the Italian scholar finds a strict comparison between a verse of Commodian, in which is depicted a particular behaviour of the hidden populus that comes from the East (men that quasi leones, qua transeunt, omnia vastant),18 and a similar accusation hurled at Circumcellions by Augustine.19 The present paper, however, would like to reconsider such reconstructions starting from a comparison of Commodian with Tertullian and Cyprian. Indeed, the possibility of placing the poet’s works in Christian Africa during the third century is strengthened by the close similarity between his idea of ‘feminine’ 10 Heinrich Brewer, Kommodian von Gaza. Ein Arelatensischer Laiendichter aus der Mitte des V. Jahrhunderts (Paderborn, 1906), passim, and Pierre Courcelle, ‘Commodien et les invasions du Ve siècle’, RÉL 24 (1946), 227-46. 11 Isabella Salvadore, Commodiano. Carmen de duobus populis, Testi e Manuali per l’Insegnamento Universitario del Latino 119 (Bologna, 2011), 209-20. 12 Josef Martin, Commodiani Carmina, CChr.SL 128 (Turnhout, 1960), XI. 13 Marta Sordi and Ilaria Ramelli, ‘Commodiano era di Roma?’, RIL 138 (2004), 3-23. 14 See Vincenzo Loi, ‘Commodiano nella crisi teologica ed ecclesiologica del III° secolo’, in La poesia tardoantica: tra retorica, teologia e politica (Messina, 1984), 187-207, 190-203. 15 Jean P. Brisson, Autonomisme et christianisme dans l’Afrique romaine de Septime Sévère à l’invasion vandale (Paris, 1958), 378-410. 16 Commodianus, Carmen Apologeticum 941-88, ed. A. Salvatore, Corona Patrum 7 (Torino, 1977), 106-10. 17 Remo Cacitti, Furiosa Turba. I fondamenti religiosi dell’eversione sociale, della dissidenza politica e della contestazione ecclesiale dei Circoncellioni d’Africa, Studi di Storia del Cristianesimo e delle Chiese Cristiane 9 (Milano, 2006), 45-51. 18 Commodianus, Carmen Apologeticum 972, ed. A. Salvatore, 108. 19 Augustinus, Enarrationes in Psalmos 132,6, ed. Vincenzo Tarulli, NBA 28.4 (Roma, 1977), 314. However, V. Loi, ‘Commodiano’ (1984), 204-5, excludes the possibility that Commodian ‘Monarchian’ Christology could be placed under the influence of Novatianism or Donatism.

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and those of Tertullian and the bishop of Carthage.20 Furthermore, the investigation will emphasise that the degrading depictions of the women’s role within African Christian communities21 would represent a further confirmation of this proposal. Tertullian, Commodian and the radical criticism of the matronae christianae First of all, a comparison between Tertullian and Commodian reveals an identical point of view about the origins of evil. Both of them use the (Enochic) scheme of sin caused by the union of the fallen angels with women22 and, for Commodian, the angels fall in love precisely with ‘forma feminarum’.23 In this regard, Tertullian reaches the shameful conclusion that the female sex has introduced sin into the world24 and has annihilated Adam, the real ‘imago Dei’.25 For this reason, a woman must be put under the rule of a man, who is her master (as attested in De cultu feminarum 1,1,1,26 that here recalls Gen. 3:16 and 1Cor. 11:7-9). Although Commodian does not envision such drastic assertions, in his works the position that belongs to women in the Christian assembly is clear. Commodian accuses Christian women of entering in the church as if they were in thermal baths (quasi inirent balneo)27 and of having replaced Psalm reading with love songs (Respuitis Legem, mavultis mundo placere / Saltatis in domibus pro psalmis cantatis amores).28 According to his point of view, these behaviours are described as the habits of Gentile women who worship Venus.29 20

For a brief introduction about this theme in Tertullian and Cyprian see Anders-Christian Jacobsen, ‘Images of the Others in Tertullian’, in Maijastina Kahlos (ed.), The Faces of the Other: Religious Rivalry and Ethnic Encounters in the Later Roman World, Cursor Mundi 10 (Turnhout, 2011), 105-34, and Geoffrey D. Dunn, ‘Widows and Other Women in the Pastoral Ministry of Cyprian of Carthage’, Augustinianum 45 (2005), 295-307. 21 A concise account is offered by Elizabeth A. Clark, ‘Ideology, History, and the Construction of “Woman” in Late Ancient Christianity’, JECS 2 (1994), 155-84. 22 See 1Enoch 6-9. The most significant references in Tertullian are Apologeticum 22,3-4, ed. Eligius Dekkers, CChr.SL 1 (Turnhout, 1954), 85-171, 128-9; De cultu feminarum 1,2,1; 1,3,1, ed. Marie Turcan, SC 173 (Paris, 1971), 46-50; De idolatria 9,1, ed. Jan H. Waszink and Jacobus C.M. van Winden, SVigChr 1 (Leiden, 1987), 34; De virginibus velandis 7,4, ed. Eva SchulzFlügel, SC 424 (Paris, 1997), 152. 23 Commodianus, Instructiones 1,3,1-6, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 3. See also Jean Daniélou, Le origini del cristianesimo latino. Storia delle dottrine cristiane prima di Nicea (Bologna, 1991), 106-7 (Italian translation from the 1978 French original). 24 Taylor G. Petrey, ‘Semen stains: Seminal Procreation and the Patrilineal Genealogy of Salvation in Tertullian’, JECS 22 (2014), 343-72, 343-6, remembers, likewise, the fundamental involvement of ‘Adam’s semen’ in spreading the sinful condition among human beings. 25 Tertullianus, De cultu feminarum 1,1,2, ed. M. Turcan, 42-4. 26 Id., De cultu feminarum 1,1,1, ed. M. Turcan, 42. 27 Commodianus, Instructiones 2,31,12, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 86. 28 Id., Instructiones 2,15,17-8, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 69. 29 See id., Instructiones 1,16,10, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 16.

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Likewise, Tertullian explicitly denies that the mulier has any role in the church (for example, the use of the word, the teaching task and the priestly duties): ‘“Non permittitur mulieri in ecclesia loqui, sed nec docere”, nec tinguere, nec offerre, nec ullius virilis muneris, nedum sacerdotalis officii sortem sibi vindicarent. Quaeramus an aliquid horum virgini liceat!’30 Similarly, referring to 1Cor. 14:34-5 and 1Tim. 2:11-5, he condemns a woman of a Cainite group who has dared to teach the uselessness of baptism: ‘Sed nos pisciculi secundum ιχθὺν nostrum Iesum Christum in aqua nascimur nec aliter quam in aqua permanendo salvi sumus. Itaque illa monstrosissima cui nec integre quidem docendi ius erat optime norat necare pisciculos de aqua auferens’.31 There is even more conformity to Christian authors if one looks at the literary aspects. For example, in Ad nationes the adjective ‘historicus’ is employed to describe the actors’ work, instead of a more appropriate ‘histrionicus’ or ‘scenicus’,32 and a similar example can be found also in Cyprian.33 The same use of ‘historicus’ appears in both Commodian’s works.34 In addition, Commodian thinks that theatric performances are Satanic expedients to mislead the faithful.35 This can be said even more for Tertullian, who extensively elaborates the theme in De spectaculis. Furthermore, Tertullian’s thought about theatrical performances explicitly involves the idea of ‘women corruption’, and the actors who interpret Gentile divinities are judged ‘effeminate’: ‘Cetera lasciviae ingenia etiam voluptatibus vestris per deorum dedecus operantur. Dispicite Lentulorum et Hostiliorum venustates, utrum mimos an deos vestros in iocis et strophis rideatis: “moechum Anubin” et “masculum Lunam” et “Dianam flagellatam” et “Iovis mortui testamentum recitatum” et “tres Hercules famelicos irrisos”’.36 Moreover, in the first book of Instructiones Commodian also ridicules many times Roman divinities and highlights the ‘licentious nature’ of them.37 The Carthaginian even criticises another religious habit, the crown on a woman’s head (this is essentially considered ‘summae lasciviae nota’),38 as this attitude, like the refuse of 30

Tertullianus, De virginibus velandis 9,2, ed. E. Schulz-Flügel, 158-60. Id., De baptismo 1,3, ed. François Refoulé, SC 35, 2nd ed. (Paris, 2002), 65. 32 Id., Ad nationes 1,10,44-6, ed. Jan W.Ph. Borleffs, CChr.SL 1 (Turnhout, 1964), 9-75, 29. 33 Cyprianus, Ad Donatum 7, ed. Manlio Simonetti, CChr.SL 3A (Turnhout, 1976), 3-13, 6-7. 34 See Commodianus, Instructiones 2,12,22, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 64, and id., Carmen Apologeticum 877, ed. A. Salvatore, 102. 35 See id., Instructiones 2,12,4-5.19-23, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 63-4, and id., Carmen Apologeticum 207-8; 211-2, ed. A. Salvatore, 58. 36 Tertullianus, Apologeticum 15,1, ed. E. Dekkers, 114. 37 See, for example, Commodianus, Instructiones 1,5,3; 1,6,17; 1,7,6; 1,11,2; 1,11,6; 1,11,10-3, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 5-7; 11. A further note is that the couple ‘Apollo / Neptune’ appears at the same time in id., Instructiones 1,10,4, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 10; in Tertullianus, Apologeticum 14,4, ed. E. Dekkers, 112-3; and in Cyprianus, De idolatria 2, ed. J.H. Waszink and J.C.M. van Winden, 24. 38 Tertullianus, De corona 14,2, ed. Emil Kroymann, CChr.SL 2 (Turnhout, 1954), 1039-65, 1063. 31

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wearing a veil, violates 1Tim. 2:9 and the instructions about woman decorum and, perhaps, prevents the achievement of salvation.39 Both Tertullian and Commodian focus on mulieres that use body ornaments.40 In De cultu feminarum41 the former addresses his charges against ‘Ancillae Dei vivi’, in the same way as the latter, which defines them ‘Matronis Ecclesiae Dei vivi’ in the title of the fourteenth acrostic of Instructiones second book.42 For Tertullian, who here recalls the Book of the Watchers [1Enoch] 8,1, women decorations were introduced in the world by rebel angels.43 This reference probably shows a clear indication of a larger scheme employed by the Carthaginian inside his writings: indeed, Tertullian here seems to strengthen the construction of an idea of ‘heterodoxy’, which in this case appears strictly related to the bad attitudes of African Christian women.44 A similar theme is also visible in Commodian, who blames the Devil for it: ‘Res vanas adfectas cuncta de Zabuli pompa, / Ornans et ad speclum cincinnos fronte reflexos, / Nec non et inducis malis medicamina falsa, / In oculis puris stibium perverso decore, / Seu crines tingis, ut sint toto tempore nigri’.45 At the same time, as it can be seen, the poet defines these techniques (and uses the same word ‘medicamina’) as ‘Zabuli pompa’, an expression that recurs also in Instructiones 2,15,1646 and that is specific to Tertullian, who quotes it in De anima 35,347 and in De spectaculis 4,1,48 just to cite two renowned examples. In addition, Commodian defines those matrons who put make-up on as ‘iniustas feminas’.49 It is likely that this is an echo of De cultu feminarum, where Tertullian depicts the colours of women’s clothes ‘unfair’: ‘Quis enim et vestium honor iustus de adulterio colorum iniustorum? Non placet Deo quod non ipse produxit’.50 Therefore, a strong opposition between ‘sanctae feminae’ and ‘gentiles feminae’ emerges clearly from both authors’ writings, for example in Ad Uxorem 39

A thorough investigation about this theme is given by Carly Daniel-Hughes, ‘“Wear the Armor of Your Shame!”: Debating Veiling and the Salvation of the Flesh in Tertullian of Carthage’, Studies in Religion 39 (2010), 179-201. 40 For an introduction see J. Daniélou, Le origini del cristianesimo latino (1991), 159-61. 41 Tertullianus, De cultu feminarum 2,1,1, ed. M. Turcan, 88-90. 42 Commodianus, Instructiones 2,14, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 66. 43 See Tertullianus, De cultu feminarum 1,2,1, ed. M. Turcan, 46-50. 44 For the Carthaginian the female being seems to be more susceptible to ‘heresy’ than the male: this is clearly outlined, for example, by Brad Windon, ‘The Seduction of Weak Man: Tertullian’s Rhetorical Construction of Gender and Ancient Christian “Heresy”’, in Todd C. Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele (eds), Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses. Biblical Interpretation Series 84 (Leiden, Boston, 2007), 457-78. 45 Commodianus, Instructiones 2,14,4-8, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 66. 46 Ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 69. 47 For the critical edition see CChr.SL 2, 781-869, 837. 48 Ed. Marie Turcan, SC 332 (Paris, 1986), 114-6. 49 See Commodianus, Instructiones 2,15,9, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 68. 50 Tertullianus, De cultu feminarum 1,8,2, ed. M. Turcan, 78.

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(‘Durum plane et arduum satis continentia sanctae feminae post viri excessum Dei causa, cum gentiles satanae suo et virginitatis et viduitatis sacerdotia perferant’)51 and, once again, in Instructiones 2,14, 1 (‘Matronas vis esse Christiana ut saeculi discens’)52 and in Instructiones 2,15, 6-7 (‘Fas in Deo non est Christianam coli fidelem; / Gentili more queris procedere, Dei sancta?’).53 This reflects a further conflict between the ‘Christian matron’ and the ‘Gentile prostitute’, as it is possibile to read in the Carthaginian (‘Ergo, benedictae, primo quidem ut lenones et prostitutores vestitus et cultus ne in vos admiseritis’)54 and in the poet (‘Vos, matrone bone, vanitatis fugite decorem: / Incestas in feminas congruet cultura lupana’).55 Finally, Tertullian clearly describes behaviours of the mulieres christianae: Prodite vos iam medicamentis et ornamentis extructae prophetarum et apostolorum, sumentes de simplicitate candorem, de pudicitia ruborem, depictae oculos verecundia et os taciturnitate, inserentes in aures sermonem Dei, adnectentes cervicibus iugum Christi. Caput maritis subicite et satis ornatae eritis; manus lanis occupate, pede domis figite et plus quam in auro placebitis. Vestite vos serico probitatis, byssino sanctitatis, purpura pudicitiae. Deum habebitis amatorem.56

In this passage several attitudes are listed – modesty; refusal of jewellery and luxury; obedience to Christ as to one’s husband; Moses’ Law and Prophets listening – which extensively appear also in the fourteenth and fifteenth Commodian acrostics about matrones. The conduct of Christian women is compared to that of Gentile women once again. In addition, one of the most striking links between Tertullian and Commodian is that of charity towards needy brothers. It is incredible to note that the same example appears in both of them, that is the wife who comforts the infirms. The first uses a rhetorical question: ‘Quis autem sinat coniugem suam visitandorum fratrum gratia vicatim aliena et quidem pauperiora quaeque tuguria circuire?’57, while the poet states the following conclusion: ‘Soror si paupera lecto decumbet, / Incipiant vestre matrone victualia ferre. / Clamat ipse Deus: “Frange tuum panem egeno!” [Isa. 58:7]’.58 It’s worth noting that the last detail – the husband’s consent for his wife’s task – is missing in Commodian, but in another verse of Instructiones he claims that, for a woman, it is enough to be appreciated by her husband (‘Ex corde qui credit femina marito probata / Sufficiat esse non cultibus, sed bona 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

Id., Ad uxorem 1,6,3, ed. Charles Munier, SC 273 (Paris, 1980), 112. Ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 66. Ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 68. Tertullianus, De cultu feminarum 2,9,4, ed. M. Turcan, 138. Commodianus, Instructiones 2,14,21-2, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 67. Tertullianus, De cultu feminarum 2,13,7, ed. M. Turcan, 168-70. Id., Ad uxorem 2,4,2, ed. Ch. Munier, 136. Commodianus, Instructiones 2,26,9-11, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 81.

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mente’).59 Moreover, it seems obvious finding a strong correspondence between the role of the husband in Tertullian, according to his view of gender and social roles,60 and that of God in Commodian.

Fidelity to Christ and surrender to the saeculum: the relationship between Commodian and Cyprian about the role of Christian feminae Cyprian lives personally the heavy contrasts that divide the Carthaginian community during and after the Decian persecution. He also debates the thorny ‘feminine theme’61 highlighting the tensions between the recognized social models and the possibility (albeit weak) of overcoming them because of Christ. The bishop, referring to 2Tim. 3:6-7, sees the deceit of those who ‘repunt in domos et praedantur mulierculas oneratas peccatis, quae ducuntur variis desideriis, semper discentes et numquam ad scientiam veritatis pervenientes’62 among the signs of the eschata. Using humiliating tones, he does not hesitate to identify women with the ‘instrument’ through which Satan tests Job, as it can be seen both in De bono patientiae (‘Ac ne quid omnino remaneret quod non Iob in sui temptationibus experiretur, armat diabolus et uxorem, illo antiquo nequitiae suae usus ingenio, quasi omnes per mulierem decipere posset et fallere, quod fecit in origine’)63 and in De mortalitate, where the wife who tests Job is described as ‘querula et invidiosa’.64 Nevertheless, Cyprian does not only see the negative traits in the female condition, since he acknowledges that many women confessed their faith bravely during the persecution (‘Cum saeculo sexum quoque’, in De lapsis65): ‘Aut si in carne sit gloriandum, tunc plane quando in nominis confessione cruciatur, quando fortior femina viris torquentibus invenitur, quando ignes aut cruces aut ferrum aut bestias patitur ut coronetur. Illa sunt carnis pretiosa monilia, illa corporis ornamenta meliora’.66

59

Id., Instructiones 2,14,13-4, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 67. On this subject see Charlotte Methuen, ‘The “Virgin Widow”: A Problematic Social Role for the Early Church?’, HTR 90 (1997), 285-98. 61 About this matter see Geoffrey G. Dunn, ‘Cyprian and Women in a Time of Persecution’, JEH 57 (2006), 205-25. 62 Cyprianus, De unitate Ecclesiae Catholicae 16, ed. Maurice Bévenot, CChr.SL 3 (Turnhout, 1972), 249-68, 261. 63 Id., De bono patientiae 18, ed. Claudio Moreschini, CChr.SL 3A (Turnhout, 1976), 118-33, 128-9. 64 Id., De mortalitate 10, ed. Manlio Simonetti, CChr.SL 3A (Turnhout, 1976), 17-32, 21-2. 65 Id., De lapsis 2, ed. Maurice Bévenot, CChr.SL 3 (Turnhout, 1972), 221-42, 221. 66 Id., De habitu virginum 6, ed. Laetitia Ciccolini, CChr.SL 3F (Turnhout, 2016), 283-320, 292-3. 60

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In any case, there are several similarities between Cyprian and Commodian, even if the alleged literary proximity seems at a first glance to be closer than that with Tertullian. Anyway, just as in Tertullian, they are both concerned about the habits of Christian matrons. For instance, in De lapsis the bishop, who describes the decline of the Christian habits in a time of persecution, employs the noun ‘femina’ in a pejorative sense: ‘Non in sacerdotiis religio devota, non in ministeriis fides integra, non in operibus misericordia, non in moribus disciplina. Corrupta barba in viris, in feminis forma fucata: adulterati post Dei manus oculi, capilli mendacio colorati; ad decipienda corda simplicium callidae fraudes, circumveniendis fratribus subdolae voluntatis’.67 It is worth noting that, as already seen, this meaning of ‘femina’ can be found in Instructiones as well.68 A similar example can be found, in addition, in De habitu virginum: ‘Ornamentorum ac vestium insignia et lenocinia formarum non nisi prostitutis et inpudicis feminis congruunt et nullarum fere pretiosior cultus est quam quarum pudor vilis est’.69 Cyprian here seems to mark even more the distance between the ‘masculine’ and the ‘feminine’ by claiming that women are incessantly searching for an artificial beauty, rather than the ‘ornamenta meliora’ impressed in the faithful’s flesh by the struggle towards martyrdom. Moreover, in Cyprian’s works the same examples are available as in Instructiones 2,14,8 (‘Seu crines tingis, ut sint toto tempore nigri’)70 and Instructiones 2,15,10 (‘Kapillos infigitis, oculos nigrore linitis’).71 In De habitu virginum, the bishop of Carthage states that the fallen angels ‘oculos circumducto nigrore fucare et genas mendacio ruboris inficere et mutare adulterinis coloribus crinem et expugnare omnem oris et capitis veritatem corruptelae suae inpugnatione docuerunt’.72 In De lapsis, he turns to the women: ‘Et quae capillos tuos inficis vel nunc in doloribus desine; et quae nigri pulveris ductu oculorum liniamenta depingis vel nunc lacrimis oculos tuos ablue’.73 In all the passages, the pair ‘hair dye / eye makeup’ serves to accuse those who use them. These correspondences are not isolated: Cyprian, indeed, defines hair dye as ‘malo praesagio’ in De habitu virginum74 and this saying reappears identical in Instructiones second book (‘Palmas Deo dignas presagio malo ligatis’) to condemn Christian women’s jewellery.75 For this reason, Cyprian extensively writes in De habitu virginum that the virgin must not show off riches or indulge 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

Id., De lapsis 6, ed. M. Bévenot, 223-4. See Commodianus, Instructiones 2,15,9, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 68. Cyprianus, De habitu virginum 12, ed. L. Ciccolini, 300. Ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 66. Ibid. 68. Cyprianus, De habitu virginum 14, ed. L. Ciccolini, 303-4. Id., De lapsis 30, ed. M. Bévenot, 238. Id., De habitu virginum 16, ed. L. Ciccolini, 307. Commodianus, Instructiones 2,15,15, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 69.

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herself in luxury.76 Furthermore, he condemns bitterly this feminine inclination in other works, like De opere et eleemosynis.77 Contrarily, the bishop abundantly exhorts Christian matrons to use their wealth in favour of God’s people,78 as Commodian openly confirms: ‘Et in plebe Dei facultatis dona demonstris’.79 Finally, in De opere et eleemosynis Cyprian’s phrases relating to the true ornaments of the ‘Xanta Dei mulier’ are similiar to those of Commodian. For the former, ‘collyrio Christi’80 (an undeniable baptismal reference) leads to the vision of God, not the make-up, while for the latter the hairstyle must be replaced by ‘bona mente’81 and by ‘divitias corde’.82 It is clear that Cyprian of Carthage, like Tertullian and Commodian, is afraid of the serious risk that mulieres fall into the traps set by the saeculum. Thus, in Ad Quirinum83 Cyprian reproaches the faithful one who, as in Instructiones,84 want to live like Gentiles by attending world tendencies (above all secular music, songs, theatre and shows). In De zelo et livore,85 the bishop remembers that the music (‘canora musica’) is the instrument of Satan to lead astray the soul. Consequently, it seems not fortuitous that the title of the thirty-sixth paragraph in Ad Quirinum 3 (‘Mulierem ornari saeculariter non debere’)86 warns only women: it is the same way choosen by Commodian in the examples evaluated up until now. Final remarks and prospects: Tertullian, Commodian and Cyprian between martyrdom and biblical testimonia These connections show that Commodian, Tertullian and Cyprian share the same cultural atmosphere, typical of a very specific historical moment in Christian North Africa, at the decades between the beginning and second half of the third century. As the relations between Tertullian and Commodian seem to be more numerous and consistent than those between Cyprian and Commodian, one may suppose that the latter had followed Tertullian more closely, maybe drawing teachings from his vast literary production. Elsewhere, the profile of 76

Cyprianus, De habitu virginum 4-5; 7-8; 10; 12-3, ed. L. Ciccolini, 288-91; 293-8; 300-3. See, for example, id., De opere et eleemosynis 15, ed. Michel Poirier, SC 440 (Paris, 1999), 118-20. 78 See id., De habitu virginum 7-10, ed. L. Ciccolini, 293-8. 79 Commodianus, Instructiones 2,14,17, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 67. 80 Cyprianus, De opere et eleemosynis 14, ed. M. Poirier, 116. 81 Commodianus, Instructiones 2,14,14, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 67. 82 Id., Instructiones 2,15,21, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 69. 83 Cyprianus, Ad Quirinum 3,34, ed. Robert Weber, CChr.SL 3 (Turnhout, 1972), 3-179, 128-9. 84 See Commodianus, Instructiones 2,13,1-2; 2,13,11-3, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 65. 85 Cyprianus, De zelo et livore 2, ed. Michel Poirier, SC 519 (Paris, 2019), 68. 86 Id., Ad Quirinum 3,36, ed. R. Weber, 130. 77

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a martyrdom theology in Commodian’s writings has already been outlined87 and this seems to fit well with the African background of the Decian persecution, as Gian Luca Potestà and Marco Rizzi have recently stated.88 Jean Daniélou’s hypothesis of 1975 was further developed in 1978: he stated that the independent use of the same biblical testimonia by Commodian and Cyprian would allow to backdate the former in relation to the latter, and this remains a fascinating hypothesis.89 If so, we could suppose that Commodian’s thought, following that of Tertullian, anticipates Cyprian of Carthage’s warnings of De habitu virginum (‘Nam et vocem Deus homini dedit, et tamen non sunt amatoria cantanda nec turpia’).90 It is not certain that these believers are really women who prefer ‘illicit’ songs to ‘licit’ songs and who, consequently, yield to the Devil’s assaults, as attested by the bishop in De zelo et livore. But this last conclusion is still possible. Yet, this hypothesis leaves an open question, worthy of further investigation. Would it still be possible to identify the ‘Nero redivivus’91 of Instructiones92 and Carmen Apologeticum93 with the emperor Valerian, of which Commodian seems to know the defeat of 260 AD against the Persians of Shapur I,94 that is, when Cyprian had already suffered martyrdom about two years earlier?

87 For example in Alberto D’Incà, ‘Turba choraulica, silenzio di Dio e canto dei martiri. L’opposizione tra “segni di salvezza” e “segni di condanna” nella teologia apocalittica di Commodiano’, Eastern Theological Journal 4 (2018), 9-43, 32-43. 88 Gian Luca Potestà and Marco Rizzi, L’Anticristo, 2 vol., Scrittori Greci e Latini (Milano, Roma, 2005), I 562-3, indeed, have also approved the link between ‘septima persecutio’ of Commodianus, Carmen Apologeticum 807-8, ed. A. Salvatore, 98, and the persecution of Decius. 89 J. Daniélou, Le origini del cristianesimo latino (1991), 260-73, 261. 90 Cyprianus, De habitu virginum 11, ed. L. Ciccolini, 298-300. 91 See Jean-M. Poinsotte, ‘Un “Nero redivivus” chez un poète apocalyptique du IIIe siècle (Commodien)’, in Jean-M. Croisille, René Martin and Yves Perrin (eds), Neronia, V. Néron, histoire et légende. Actes du Ve Colloque International de la SIEN, Collection Latomus 247 (Bruxelles, 1999), 201-13. 92 Commodianus, Instructiones 1,41,7-8, ed. J.-M. Poinsotte, 44. 93 Id., Carmen Apologeticum 827, ed. A. Salvatore, 100. 94 This identification was suggested also by Marta Sordi, ‘Dionigi d’Alessandria, Commodiano ed alcuni problemi della storia del III secolo’, Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 35 (1962-1963), 123-46, 139-40.

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