Studia Patristica - Papers Presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2019: Biblica, Judaica, ... Ethica (20) (Studia Patristica, 123) 9789042947740, 9789042947757, 9042947748

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STUDIA PATRISTICA VOL. CXXIII

Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019 Edited by MARKUS VINZENT Volume 20:

Biblica Judaica Philosophica, Theologica, Ethica

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2021

STUDIA PATRISTICA VOL. CXXIII

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. CXXIII

Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019 Edited by MARKUS VINZENT Volume 20:

Biblica Judaica Philosophica, Theologica, Ethica

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/2021/0602/157 ISBN: 978-90-429-4774-0 eISBN: 978-90-429-4775-7 A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in Belgium by Peeters, Leuven

Table of Contents

BIBLICA Sébastien MORLET Symphonic Exegesis: From Greek to Patristic Thought ....................

3

Charles E. HILL The Capitulatio Vaticana: The Earliest Biblical Chapter System, with a New Tradent .............................................................................

25

Francesco CELIA ‘Vanity and Choice of Spirit’: Physics and Human Will in the Early Christian Exegesis of Ecclesiastes ......................................................

39

Jörg RÜPKE Urbanität als Distinktionsmerkmal von Texten: Urbanisierung und Ruralisierung in den römischen Evangelien .......................................

51

Timothy P. HEIN Magically Satisfying: Matthew’s Magi Came in Order to Fulfill what was Written by the Early Christian Interpreters .................................

65

Anna PESSINA The Use of Patristic Literature for the Reconstruction of the New Testament. A Case Study: Matt. 27:51-3...........................................

75

Riemer ROUKEMA Christ as Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption (1Cor. 1:30): Neglect and Appropriation of Pauline Theology in Ancient Christianity ............................................................................

87

Martina VERCESI Revelation 19–21 in North African Authors: Chance for Reconstructing the Most Ancient Text? ................................................................

99

JUDAICA Jenny R. LABENDZ Eschatological Laughter: Tertullian and the Rabbis .......................... 115

VI

Table of Contents

Marius A. VAN WILLIGEN The Typology of the Patriarchs Jacob and Joseph in Early Christian Tradition .............................................................................................. 123 Serafim SEPPÄLÄ Portrayal of Jews in Syriac and Early Byzantine Mystical Literature

141

PHILOSOPHICA, THEOLOGICA, ETHICA György GERÉBY On the Theology of the Anonymous Hymn to god ............................ 153 Cyril HOVORUN The Figure of Socrates in the Early Patristic Culture Wars ............... 165 Jussi JUNNI Creation out of Nothing or out of Really Nothing? Uses of μὴ ὄν and οὐκ ὄν in Pre-Nicene Theology .......................................................... 173 Gianluca PISCINI Qu’est-ce qu’une ἄλογος πίστις ? Étude des emplois de ce grief en dehors de la polémique antichrétienne antique................................... 187 Tina DOLIDZE The Case for Considering Theological Language as a Special Linguistic System ............................................................................................ 201 Manea Erna SHIRINIAN The Schema isagogicum apud Patres Ecclesiae ................................ 215 Dean GEORCHESKI Divine Origin or Divine Becoming: The Concept of διπλοῦς in Pseudo-Macarius’ Homilies and Plotinus’ Enneads ........................... 227 Xavier MORALES ‘Modalism’ – A Critical Assessment of a Modern Interpretative Paradigm ..................................................................................................... 237 Hieromonk METHODY (ZINKOVSKIY) Variegated Unity: On the Discrepancy and Overlapping of the Semantic Fields of the Terms ‘Atom’ and ‘Hypostasis’ in Patristic Thought ................................................................................................ 249

Table of Contents

VII

Meredith DANEZAN The Exegesis of Filiation from Origen to Didymus: A Rewritten Heritage ............................................................................................... 259 Marie FREY RÉBEILLÉ-BORGELLA La traduction de παράκλητος dans les citations bibliques des Pères de l’Église latins : Paracletus, aduocatus ou consolator ? ................ 271 Samuel FERNÁNDEZ The Fourth-Century Controversies. Reevaluating the Evidence towards the Next Centenary of Nicaea (325-2025) .......................................... 289 Johannes ZACHHUBER The Philosophical Dimension of the Christological Controversy ...... 303 Matthew J. THOMAS Righteous-ed by Faith: Justification as Factitive in the Pre-Augustinian Tradition .............................................................................................. 327 Lorenzo PERRONE ‘Sacrifice of a Broken Spirit’: The Prayer of the Sinner in Ancient Christianity .......................................................................................... 333 Stephen M. MEAWAD Virtue Ethics, Scripture, and Early Christianity: Patristic Sacred Reading as a Transformative Struggle ................................................ 365 Thea GOMELAURI Satan between the Sages and the Fathers ........................................... 385 Chungman LEE Reconsidering the Filioque from Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine of Hippo ............................................................................................... 399 Jason R. RADCLIFF Patristic Theologies of Holy Orders and the Issue of Homosexual Ordination Today ................................................................................ 411 Miguel Ángel Ramírez BATALLA ¿Vino nuevo en odres viejos? Sexualidad y matrimonio en la literatura patrística de Hermas a Clemente de Alejandría ................................. 419 Mark D. ELLISON A Gold-Glass Medallion’s Participation in Early Christian Discourse on Marriage ......................................................................................... 431

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.

BIBLICA

Symphonic Exegesis: From Greek to Patristic Thought Sébastien MORLET, Sorbonne Université / UMR 8167 “Orient et Méditerranée”, France

ABSTRACT “Symphonic” exegesis consists in reading one text in the light of another text. It emerges gradually in Greek literature, first in Alexandrian philology, then in history writing and philosophy. This reading practice was rooted in the typically Greek assumption that concord has a connection to truth. It was used either to edit, or to comment on a text. The Christians who were convinced that Jesus accomplished the prophecies inherited these scholarly practices and adapted it to the Biblical text, with a view to show that the Bible was a harmonious body, or that it sometimes exhibits some parallels with Greek literature. However, they deeply transformed the meaning of these practices, and the very notion of textual συμφωνία, in a new theological frame which implied a connection between concord and divine inspiration, and a conception of the biblical συμφωνία as a “mystery”, leading the reader to a deeper understanding of the text, and to a process of unity with himself, and with God.

Harmonizing philosophical traditions has long been recognised as a typical feature of late Greek philosophy, especially neoplatonism. From Porphyry onwards, the neoplatonists began to read Plato in the light of Aristotle, or Aristotle in the light of Plato, and gradually extended what Philippe Hoffmann has called a “symphonic” prejudice (“préjugé ‘symphonique’”1) to the Chaldaic Oracles, Pythagoras and Orpheus, who were all supposed to transmit the same doctrines, though in different manners.2

1 ‘La triade chaldaïque ἔρως, ἀλήθεια, πίστις: de Proclus à Simplicius’, in Alain-Philippe Segonds and Carlos Steel (eds), Proclus et la théologie platonicienne (Louvain, Paris, 2000), 45989, 460 n. 8. 2 See Pierre Hadot, ‘L’harmonie des philosophies de Plotin et d’Aristote selon Porphyre dans le commentaire de Dexippe sur les Catégories’, in Plotino e il neoplatonismo in Oriente e in Occidente, Atti del Convegno internazionale, 5-9 ottobre 1970 (Roma, 1974), 31-47 (= Pierre Hadot, Plotin, Porphyre. Études néoplatoniciennes [Paris, 2010], 355-82); Henri-Dominique Saffrey, ‘Accorder entre elles les traditions théologiques: une caractéristique du néoplatonisme athénien’, in Egbert P. Bos and Pieter Ane Meijer (eds), On Proclus and his Influence in Medieval Philosophy (Leiden, New York, 1992), 35-50; Ilsetraut Hadot, Athenian and Alexandrian Neoplatonism and the Harmonization of Aristotle and Plato (Leiden, Boston, 2015).

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 3-24. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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S. MORLET

Exactly at the same period, from the 3rd to the 6th c., the Christians applied the same kind of symphonic readings to their texts. The New Testament was thought to be in perfect accordance with the Old Testament, and the Bible was considered as agreeing with the best authors of hellenism, especially Plato, but sometimes also Aristotle, Pythagoras and Orpheus, that is to say the same authorities as those of the neoplatonists. The so-called “patristic argument”, which developped during the “arian crisis”, implied that even the best Christian theologians, who were supposed to illustrate “orthodoxy”, spoke in agreement. The chronological coincidence between these two different, and in a way competing, symphonic traditions, raises a major historical problem. Is there an influence of the Christians on the neoplatonists? Is there an influence of the neoplatonists on the Christians? None of these hypotheses seems satisfactory. Generally speaking, it is hard to believe that Christianity had any influence on neoplatonim, though “reaction mechanisms”, so to say, cannot always be excluded. Conversely, symphonic tendencies existed in Christianity before the birth of neoplatonism. They reached a culmination point in the work of Origen, who was Plotinus’ contemporary, but whose thought precedes the eclosion of neoplatonism proper. When influence is not relevant to account for shared patterns, the only other possibility seems to postulate common sources. I recently devoted a book to the origins of Christian symphonic thought up to the time of Origen, that is to say just before the birth of neoplatonism and also just before the great patristic centuries.3 The main thesis of this book is that Christian symphonic thought is one development, and at the same time, one synthesis, of Greek symphonic practices which emerged gradually in the Greek world, far before Christianity, and of which neoplatonist symphonic thought is also another, sometimes twin, sequel. In this article, I would like first to briefly summarize what should be considered as “the Greek roots” of Late Antique concordism, Christian or neoplatonist. I will then describe the emergence of Christian concordism in the first three centuries, in order to highlight in what way it continued Greek symphonic practices, and in what way it also gave rise to new practices or new ideas about textual or doctrinal symphônia. The Greek roots of Late Antique concordism As far as we could go back to, we should first say a word about the importance of harmony in Greek thought.4 In the Greek texts from the archaic and 3 Symphonia. La concorde des textes et des doctrines dans la littérature grecque jusqu’à Origène (Paris, 2019). This paper gives a short overview of the content of the book, except its last part (“Continuity and changes”), in which I try to draw some general conclusions which are absent from the book. 4 For a history of the notion of harmony, especially the harmony of the world, see Leo Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas on World Harmony: Prolegomena to an Interpretation of the Word

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the classical periods, something which was good or true was often thought to be in harmony with itself or with something else; conversely, something harmonious could only be good or true. The world as a κόσμος is by definition a harmony, unifying heterogeneous realities.5 The good soul, the virtuous soul, is, according to Plato, the one who managed to achieve harmony in itself.6 Harmony was a goddess, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, symbolizing the conciliation of contradictory realities.7 To this notion of harmony, the Greeks were used to apply a musical vocabulary. The verb συμφωνεῖν/ξυμφωνεῖν and its derivatives etymologically refer to the concord of instruments or voices,8 or to the agreement of the different strings of a lyre or a cithar.9 Ancient sources suggest that the Pythagoreans were probably the first ones to speak of a συμφωνία of the world10 or of a συμφωνία of the soul.11 From this idea of a συμφωνία of the soul, words like συμφωνία/ξυμφωνία or συμφωνεῖν/ξυμφωνεῖν, to be in accordance with, and sometimes the verb συνᾴδειν/ξυνᾴδειν and its derivatives, began to be applied to the agreement, not only of the soul with itself, but also of a man with another man, of an opinion with another opinion.12 Very soon in Greek literature, we meet the idea that to be in accordance with somebody is a good thing : on a political level, it is a condition of peace and good functioning of the state;13 on a moral level, it is a condition of true “Stimmung” (New York, 1945, 19632). See also Anne-Gabrièle Wersinger, La Sphère et l’intervalle. Le schème de l’Harmonie dans la pensée des anciens Grecs, d’Homère à Platon (Grenoble, 2008). 5 The harmonious coexistence of contradicting realities in the world is a theory ascribed in Antiquity to Heraclitus (see esp. fr. 8, 10 and 51 DK). The idea that harmony unifies heterogeneous entities was also promoted by the Pythagoreans, in their conception of he world or of music (see Philolaos, fr. B6 and B10 DK and the testimony of Theon of Smyrna, De utilitate mathematicae, p. 12 Hiller). It is rooted in the very definition of the word ἁρμονία, which suggests the “adaptation” of things which are different from one another. 6 Phaed., 85e-86c; Rep., 442c. 7 See Hesiod, Theogony, v. 733-7. 8 Homeric Hymn to Hermes, v. 51; Aristophanes, Aues, v. 221; v. 659; Sophocles, Oedipus rex, v. 421. 9 The Pythagoreans apparently used the word to refer to the different chords played on an instrument (see Archytas, fr. 19a DK and Hippasus of Metapontum, fr. 12 DK; fr. 13 DK). 10 See Porphyry (Pyth., 31) and Jamblichus (Pyth., 45). More ancient sources would tend to confirm that this vocabulary was used by the old Pythagoreans (see Plato, Rep., 617b). 11 See Plato, Rep., 442c (φιλία καὶ ξυμφωνία), who may be under the influence of Pythagorism. 12 See the phrase φρονεῖν ξυνῳδά, to think in accordance with, used by Aristophanes, Aues, v. 634. The συμφωνία vocabulary is frequently used by Plato to refer to the concord of men or opinions: Phil., 24e; 28c; Phaedr., 263b; Rep., 401d; Laws, 662a; 772d; 891e. On the differents usages of this vocabulary in Plato, see Jacqueline de Romilly, ‘Les différents aspects de la concorde dans l’œuvre de Platon’, RPh 46 (1972), 7-20. 13 See esp. Plato, Rep., 430e; 432a; Laws, 746e. The use of the συμφωνία vocabulary by Plato to refer to the concord of the state is often a result of his comparison between the state and the soul, and the state and the musical harmony.

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friendship;14 on an intellectual level, the notion of concord is often connected to the idea of truth, because the agreement with oneself is considered as a condition of truth, and because to be in accordance with somebody who says the truth means to be also true. Plato already mentions these two aspects of the connection between the notions of agreement and truth and he is also the first one to use, in this context, the musical term συμφωνία. In several texts (esp. Gorg., 482c15), he insists on the necessity to be in accordance with oneself in order to produce a true discourse. In another text (Phaed., 100a16), Socrates claims that he will hold true whatever is in accordance (συμφωνεῖν) with the strongest opinion which he will use as a foundation of his argument. A third connection between συμφωνία and truth consists in the Greek confidence in the value of consensus. It is not here the fact that one speaks in accordance with someone who says the truth which indicates that he also says the truth, but the fact that two or more persons say the same thing which entails that they all speak the truth. We have a clear illustration of this postulate in the Greek usage of witnesses during trials. The principle that no single witness is acceptable (that we often summarize in the formula testis unus, testis nullus) was first prescribed lately, in a constantinian constitution (25 august 324)17 but it was already an implicit principle of Greek and then Roman law. This principle implies that in order to demontrate a view, one should resort to two or more witnesses and that several witnesses who speak in agreement may probably say the truth,18 unless they belong to a plot, a possibility which is also mentioned in the texts.19 Consensus, however, is stronger when it is thought to be universal.20 The idea of universal consensus, which was promoted primarily by the 14 Friendship was often defined in Antiquity as a concord of thoughts (see Democritus, fr. 107 DK; Plato, Lysis, 214c-d). It was particularly important for the Stoics, who seem to be the first ones to use the term συμφωνία in that respect (SVF III, fr. 112; 661). Plutarch speaks of a φιλικὴ συμφωνία (The Plurality of Friends, 96e). 15 “And yet I, my very good sir, should rather choose to have my lyre, or some chorus that I might provide for the public, out of tune and discordant, or to have any number of people disagreeing with me and contradicting me, than that I should have internal discord and contradiction in my own single self” (tr. Lamb). 16 “I assume in each case some principle which I consider strongest, and whatever seems to me to agree (συμφωνεῖν) with this, whether relating to cause or to anything else, I regard as true, and whatever disagrees with it, as untrue” (tr. Fowler). 17 Theodosian Code, 9.39.3. 18 In Greece, from the classical period onwards, orators were used to appeal to several witnesses. The Romans did the same. See Rhetorica ad Herennium, 2.9: “In favour of witnesses we shall speak under the heads: (a) authority and manner of life of the witnesses, and (b) the consistency of their evidence” (tr. Caplan). Cicero, Pro scauro, 29, denounces the testimony of his adversary, because it is isolated, it comes from an obscure man, and has no authority. 19 See Quintilian, Inst. orat., 5.7.23 (the consensus could be the sign of a conspiratio). 20 On this notion, see Hans Ulrich Instinsky, ‘Consensus Universorum’, Hermes 75 (1940), 265-78; Leo Koep, ‘Consensus’, RAC 3 (1957), 294-303; Klaus Oehler, ‘Der consensus omnium

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sophists21 and the Stoics,22 was often considered, in Greek and Roman Antiquity, as an undisputable argument in support of an idea. As Cicero writes in his Tusculanae, echoing stoic reflexions on consensus : “The consensus of all men is the voice of nature” (that is to say, from a stoic perspective, as the voice of God).23 The birth of symphonic exegesis Symphonic exegesis proper, that is to say reading practices grounded on these postulates about agreement and truth, appeared when a few Greek scholars started to wonder about the agreement, or disagreement, not of men or opinions anymore, but of the literary texts. This shift from an anthropological to a philological discourse on συμφωνία already occurs in a few passages of Plato, who underlines the agreement of a few Greek writers. In a text from Cratylus, 402b-c, he mentions the agreement of Hesiod, Homer and Orpheus with Heraclitus. In a text from Theaetetus, 152e, Plato underlines the agreement of all the sages, poets and philosophers, except Parmenides, on the fact that everything becomes, and nothing is, properly speaking. However, the history of symphonic exegesis proper began with Alexandrian philology, from the 3rd c. BC onwards. The Alexandrian commentaries on Homer, Pindar, Euripides and Apollonius are essentially known thanks to scholia which are found in the margins of manuscripts.24 These scholia show that the commentators of the classical texts, especially Homer, were constantly eager to show the concord of the poet with himself, and his agreement or disagreement with other writers. They created a specific technical vocabulary, primarily based on the verbs συμφωνεῖν and συνᾴδειν, which deeply influenced the history of als Kriterium der Wahrheit in der Patristik. Eine Studie zur Geschichte des Begriffs der allgemeinen Meinung’, Antike und Abendland 10 (1961), 103-29 (= Antike Philosophie und Byzantinisches Mittelalter [München, 1969], 234-71); Ruth Schian, Untersuchungen über das Argumentum “e consensu omnium” (Hildesheim, 1973); Stephen Gersh, Concord in Discourse: Harmonics and Semiotics in Late Classical and Early Medieval Platonism (Berlin, New York, 1996). See, for a few examples in the literature of the classical period, Plato, Prot., 323a; Thuc., Hist., 2.49.1; 4.62.2; 6.89.6; Xen., Hell., 2.3.38. 21 Because they thought that what is held true is often the result of an agreement (see Xen., Mem., 4.4.13) or because they admitted the existence of common notions in every man (see Gorgias, fr. 6 DK). 22 See for instance Seneca, Letter 117.6. The stoic confidence in the value of universal consensus is connected, in my view, to their theory of ἔμφυτοι προλήψεις, natural prenotions inscribed in every man (see SVF III, fr. 69). 23 Tusc., 1.35. 24 For a presentation of this literature, see Eleanor Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship. A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises, from their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period (Oxford, 2007).

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Greek concordism, including Christian concordism. According to the Greek philologists, the συμφωνία is primarily a criterion for the right edition of a text. If, in Homer, a verse disagrees with another one, it must be corrected.25 The συμφωνία of the poem with itself can also be an exegetical criterion, helping to understand one passage thanks to another passage. For example, in order to know if “Olympus” refers to the Mount Olympus or to a part of heaven or heaven itself, a commentator quotes a few passages which seem to contradict the second view.26 Likewise, in order to know if the Cyclop had one or two eyes, a scholiast remarks that, in Odyssey, 9, verse 503, Polyphemus speaks about “his” eye.27 As can be seen thanks to these examples, the edition and the exegesis of the Homeric texts is based on the idea that these texts are perfect coherent entities, devoid of any contradiction, which authorizes the rule Ὅμηρον ἐξ Ὁμήρου σαφηνίζειν, to clarify Homer thanks to Homer, which is first mentioned by Porphyry,28 but which is now ascribed, with a certain plausability, to Aristarch. The commentators may also mention the agreement, or disagreement, of a poet with other writers. A commentator remarks that a proverb ascribed to Solon (τέλος ὅρα μακροῦ βίου) is in accordance with a verse in Euripides (Andr., v. 100);29 another one notices that Pindar and Bacchylides tell the same story about Philoctetus.30 From philology, this interest in the agreement or disagreement of texts, with themselves or with other texts, passes to history writing. The first one to use the technical vocabulary created by Alexandrian philology is Polybius, who uses it to stress the agreement or disagreement of his sources. For instance, he says that the Ancients agree (συμφωνοῦσι) when they say that the Maeotic lake (the sea of Azov) was once in contact with the Pontus.31 Conversely, Polybius criticizes the historian Philinus, author of a narrative on the first Punic war, because his words “can in no way be in accordance (συνᾴδειν) with one another”.32 In later historians, Strabo or Diodorus of Sicily, the notion of συμφωνία continues to be used in order to establish the truth (witness who all agree must be thought to say the truth),33 or to denounce the credibility of another historian, because he disagrees with a consensus of other historians.34 25 See Schol. Il., 8.448 (ed. Erbse); 16.243a; 22.216a. To edit the text implies to respect its coherence, τηρεῖν τὸ σύμφωνον, according to Schol. Od., 11.573 (ed. Dindorf). 26 Schol. Il., 8.19; 14.174a1. 27 Schol. Od., 9.106. 28 Homeric Questions, 56. 29 Schol. Andr., 100 (ed. Schwartz). 30 Schol. Pind. Pyth., 1, 100 (ed. Drachmann). 31 Hist., 4.40.9. 32 Ibid. 1.15. 9. 33 Strabo, Geogr., 2.1.6; Diodorus, Bibl., 3.11.3. 34 Strabo, Geogr., 2.1.6.

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The third intellectual tradition which must be mentioned before speaking of συμφωνία among the Christians is Greek philosophy. At some point during the first century BC, Enesidemus, now considered as the founder of the first real Sceptic school,35 created a list of nine or ten arguments, τρόποι, against any dogmatic view.36 One of these arguments was based on the disagreement, διαφωνία, of beliefs and philosophical opinions.37 The sceptic tendencies also at the basis of the New Academy probably encouraged the dogmatic reaction of Antiochus of Ascalon. As is well known, the refoundation of Platonic philosophy against the New Academy was based, in Antiochus’ view, on two principles: the agreement of Plato and Aristotle; the agreement of Platonic philosophy and stoicism, which, according to Antiochus, only differed from the former by the words employed by the Stoics.38 The reflexion of Antiochus about the agreement of philosophical schools is documented primarily by Cicero, who uses a Latin vocabulary which seems to imply that Antiochus used the technical terms created by Alexandrian philology (the main couple of verbs used by Cicero is consentire/ dissentire,39 which may be an equivalent of συμφωνεῖν/διαφωνεῖν). G.E. Karamanolis showed that Antiochus’s thought was the starting point of a debate, in Platonic tradition, about the agreement or disagreement of Plato and other philosophers which announces the symphonic reflexion of the neoplatonists.40 We should add that, at the same period, the notions of συμφωνία/ διαφωνία also played a role in philosophy independently from this debate. First, we find in doxographers a constant interest for the συμφωνία or the διαφωνία between the philosophers, and not only Plato.41 Second, we also find at the same period an interest in συμφωνία in the commentaries on the philosophers. Exactly like the Alexandrian commenting on Homer, Alexander of Aphrodisias, for instance, is constantly confronted to the necessity of establishing Aristotle’s coherence against seemingly contradicting texts,42 and he also 35 See the recent edition of the testimonies and fragments by Roberto Polito, Aenesidemus of Cnossus, Testimonia (Cambridge, 2014). 36 The list of the ten “modes” is given (with a few differences) by Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, 1.3-155, Diogenes Laertius, 9.79-88, and Photius, Bibl., cod. 212, and it is partially transmitted in Philo, De ebrietate, 169-202 (excluded from Polito’s edition). 37 Sextus, 1.145 and 151 = Diog., 9.83-4 (5th mode) = Phot., 169b-170a = Philo, Ebr., 199-202 (a passage which is at the starting point of the topos of the disagreement of philosophers in Jewish greek, then Chrisian writers). 38 See J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists. A Study of Platonism 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (London, 1977, 19962), 54-60. On Antiochus see also George E. Karamanolis, Plato and Aristotle in Agreement (Oxford, 2006), 44-84. 39 Orat., 3.67; Fin., 4.5; 4.72. 40 See the reference given at n. 38. 41 Among the fragments from Aetius, see for instance Hermann Diels, Doxographi Graeci (Berlin, 1879), 284; 327; 386; 360a-b; 443a. For other references to doxographies, see S. Morlet, Symphonia (2019), 94-5. 42 See for instance In Aristotelis Metaphysica, 677.19; 680.28 Hayduck.

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regularly discusses his agreement or disagreement with other philosophers.43 We find similar concerns for doctrinal συμφωνία in Plutarch commenting on Plato,44 or Galen commenting on Hippocrates,45 which shows that this interest for συμφωνία was already, during the 2nd c. AD, a fundamental aspect of Greek exegetical practices. The third reason why the notions of συμφωνία and διαφωνία became so important in Greek philosophy at that period is the development of doctrinal polemics, in which the argument of contradiction played an important role. Plutarch wrote two treatises against the contradictions of the Stoics and the Epicureans.46 Galen also wrote a book entitled “On the disagreement of the Empirists”, Περὶ τῆς τῶν Ἐμπειρικῶν διαφωνίας.47 If I wanted to be thorough, I should say a word about three other aspects of symphonic discourse in the Greek world at the time when Christianity appeared and developped. I should mention the texts devoted to literary plagiarism, once described in a famous study by Stempflinger,48 and which consisted in denouncing the way certain writers were supposed to steal their words from other writers; I should say a word about the Greek reflexion on the agreement of wisdoms, especially Hellenism and barbarian wisdoms, and I should speak about the Greek discussions on the agreement of myths and philosophy, attested in Plutarch or Cornutus for instance.49 All these three fields of inquiry (plagarism, agreement of the wisdoms and relations between myth and philosophy) constituted precedents to the Jewish and Christian reflexion on the relationships between Hellenism and biblical wisdom. What I wanted to show in this first part is that, at the time when Christianity appeared and developped, and this is certainly a real historical coincidence, the notions of συμφωνία and διαφωνία had become, for many reasons, and in many fields of knowledge, crucial concepts which enabled scholars to judge, to establish truth or error and to make connections or to introduce oppositions between intellectual traditions. The interesting thing is that Christianity, at least main stream Christianity, was based, right from the start, on a symphonic postulate, namely, that Jesus accomplished the messianic prophecies. What is remarkable is the way this symphonic nucleus soon encouraged the 43 In Aristotelis Topicorum libros, 29.2 Wallies (Aristotle and Plato); In Aristotelis Metaphysica, 28.10 Hayduck (Plato and Anaxagoras). 44 The Education of Children, 6a. For other symphonic remarks in Plutarch, see S. Morlet, Symphonia (2019), 66-7. 45 See his De placita Hippocratis et Platonis and also an interesting passage from his Methodi medendi, 1.2. 46 The first work is preserved. The second is mentioned in Catalogue of Lamprias n° 129: Περὶ τῶν ᾽Επικουρείων ἐναντιωμάτων. 47 See On his own books, 12.2. 48 E. Stempflinger, Das Plagiat in der griechischen Literatur (Leipzig, Berlin, 1912). 49 On these three topics, I refer to S. Morlet, Symphonia (2019), 99-108, for a more detailed discussion.

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Christian writers to take part in the symphonic reflexion of the Greeks, by dealing with the same kind of exegetical problems, and by using the same technical vocabulary. Symphônia in Christian thought Christian symphonic discourse developped in two main directions : it dealt with the agreement of the Bible with itself, or about its agreement (or disagreement) with Greek writers. This corresponds, as we saw, to the two basic uses of the notion of textual συμφωνία in Greek thought: the συμφωνία of a text with itself, or with other texts. It is important to keep in mind that, as far as these two issues are concerned, the Christians were preceded by Greek-speaking Jewish writers like Aristobulus, Philo and Josephus. The word σύμφωνον already appears in one fragment of Aristobulus to refer to the agreement of a passage from Prov. 8:22-31 (Wisdom existed before heaven and earth) and a peripatetic teaching about wisdom,50 and Aristobulus’s work – apparently, an exegesis of the Law of Moses – aimed at showing, or at least contained passages which showed, the agreement of the Bible and of a few figures of Greek wisdom. Philo uses the word συνᾴδειν to speak about the harmony within the Bible51 and also stresses many connections between Greek and biblical texts, though he does not appear to speak of a συμφωνία in this context.52 Josephus, in his Against Apion, opposes the perfect harmony of the Bible and the διαφωνία, the disagreement of the Greeks,53 and also stresses the agreement of a few philosophers with biblical teaching,54 eventhough, like Philo in his preserved works, he does not speak here of a συμφωνία. The Christian symphonic discourse evolved along the same lines, sometimes for apologetic, sometimes for non apologetic reasons. The first line of thought which can be traced from the New Testament to Origen is the idea that the Bible is in harmony with itself and contains no contradiction. Three reasons should lead us to start this story with the New Testament. First, the texts which are gathered in the New Testament, especially the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles, constantly seek to show that Jesus has 50 See Aristobulus, fr. 5 Carl R. Holladay, Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors, vol. 3, Aristobulus (Atlanta, 1995). There may be another way of undertanding this σύμφωνον (see S. Morlet, Symphonia [2019], 119). 51 See Sobr., 27; Virt., 145; QG, 4.174. 52 But we should be careful about the fact that some of Philo’ works have disappeared. In the Latin translation of the Armenian version of the Quaestiones in Genesim, the verb concordare is used twice in an exegetical context (QG, 5.139; 6.174). Specialists of Armenian should try to check if the underlying Greek is συνᾴδειν, συμφωνεῖν, or another verb. See S. Morlet, Symphonia (2019), 133-41, for a more detailed analysis of Philo’s symphonic exegesis. 53 Ap., 1.37-8; 2.251-52. 54 Ibid. 1.162-65; 2.168-9; 2.257.

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accomplished the prophecies or, conversely, that what happened was “written”.55 This very important idea is the starting point of a reflexion, in Christianity, about the agreement of the old and new Scriptures, which, at the time of Clement of Alexandria, begin to be called Old and New Testaments. Second, we must keep in mind that, in a few passages from the New Testament, the most fundamental idea which is ascribed to Jesus is that to love God (Deut. 6:5) and to love his neighbour (Lev. 19:18) summarize all the Law and the Prophets.56 This precept already announces later Christian reflexions about an agreement within the different parts of the Old Testament, an idea which was also put forward by Philo, though in different terms.57 The third interest of the New Testament lies in a passage from the Acts of the Apostles (15:15), which has no special significance for the historians of Christianity, but which has a huge significance in the story which I am trying to tell. In the narrative describing the so-called “council of Jerusalem”, Jacob remarks that a passage from Amos (9:11-2) is in accordance (συμφωνεῖν) with the fact that God now speaks to the pagans. This text contains the first and the only use of the verb συμφωνεῖν in the New Testament and this verb, as I hope to have shown, directly comes from Greek technical philological vocabulary. This vocabulary became more and more important in Christian literature in the course of time. Justin Martyr ignores it. Athenagoras may be the first to attest his usage.58 Theophilus of Antioch is the first to apply it to Scripture.59 Irenaeus, as it seems, is the first one to use it regularly,60 but Clement of Alexandria is the first one to use it in an exegetical commentary.61 In Origen, this vocabulary is now common and constant.62 In patristic literature, the idea of a συμφωνία within the Bible emerges for several reasons. First, the necessity to show, against the Jews but also against the Christians who reject the Jewish Bible Bible (marcionites, gnostics), that Jesus accomplished the prophecies, or, as Irenaeus puts it, that the New scriptures are in accordance with the old ones.63 This is the prophetic argument. In that respect, συμφωνία within the Bible often means agreement between the two Testaments.

55 The notion of accomplishment is refered to in passages like Matt. 1:22 or Lk. 4:21. The idea that “it was written” is mentioned in Mk. 1:2, Matt. 2:5 and many other passages. See S. Morlet, Symphonia (2019), 158-9 for a fuller list. 56 Matt. 22:40; Mk. 12:28-31; Lk. 10:25-8; 13:9; Gal. 5:14. 57 See Dec., 18-9; 32; 154; 175: the particular laws are in accordance with the general laws of the Decalogue. 58 See S. Morlet, Symphonia (2019), 182. 59 Ibid. 194-5. 60 Ibid. 209-10. 61 Ibid. 262-5. 62 Ibid. 267-348. 63 See Haer., 4.9.1.

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Another reason which led the Christian writers to present the Bible as a harmonious text is their demonstrative method, in their antijewish or antipagan works. From Justin onwards, they tend to present the biblical proof texts as testimonies (μαρτυρίαι). Very often, several quotations are given instead of one in order to demonstrate a point.64 Like in a trial, the Christians produce as many witnesses as possible (in a reasonable limit), because, as we saw, in the view of he Ancients, several witnesses who speak in agreement may speak the truth. This rhetorical method, as we saw, is the continuation of a literary practice which is well attested in pagan texts before Christianty. In Christian texts, however, it automatically conveys the idea that the Bible is a coherent corpus, entirely in accordance with itself. From Origen onwards, this method begins to be explicitly justified by three texts taken from the Pentateuch : Num. 35:30: πᾶς πατάξας ψυχήν, διὰ μαρτύρων φονεύσεις τὸν φονεύσαντα, καὶ μάρτυς εἷς οὐ μαρτυρήσει ἐπὶ ψυχὴν ἀποθανεῖν. Anyone who kills a person, you shall put to death the murderer on the testimony of witnesses. And no single witness is to witness if a person should be put to death. Deut. 17:6: ἐπὶ δυσὶν μάρτυσιν ἢ ἐπὶ τρισὶν μάρτυσιν ἀποθανεῖται ὁ ἀποθνῄσκων· οὐκ ἀποθανεῖται ἐφ’ ἑνὶ μάρτυρι. On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person shall be put to death, but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. Deut. 19:15: Οὐκ ἐμμενεῖ μάρτυς εἷς μαρτυρῆσαι κατὰ ἀνθρώπου κατὰ πᾶσαν ἀδικίαν καὶ κατὰ πᾶν ἁμάρτημα καὶ κατὰ πᾶσαν ἁμαρτίαν, ἣν ἂν ἁμάρτῃ· ἐπὶ στόματος δύο μαρτύρων καὶ ἐπὶ στόματος τριῶν μαρτύρων σταθήσεται πᾶν ῥῆμα. One witness shall not be enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense or sin he may have committed. Every matter shall be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses (tr. NETS).

Of course, these texts concern criminal cases. Origen, however, in a homily on Jeremiah (1.7), understands them as principles for the exegesis of biblical texts. The two witnesses would be the two testaments. The three witnesses would be a prophet, a gospel and an apostle. Later on, in Eusebius,65 in Basil,66 in Theodoret,67 the origenian exegesis of theses passages on the biblical texts as witnesses was extended to any kind of theological demonstration: any theological position must be established on the testimony on more than one single biblical text. The notion of the biblical texts as witnesses or testimonies is sometimes connected to another idea. Athenagoras, in the 2nd c., refers to it in order to 64 65 66 67

See S. Morlet, Symphonia (2019), 171-3 (Justin); 259-60 (Clement). Dem. ev., 9.3.12. On the Holy Spirit, 29. Eranistes, 221.

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oppose to the agreement of the biblical witnesses, the prophets, the disagreement of the Greeks: … they came each to his own conclusion respecting God, and matter, and forms, and the world. But we have for witnesses of the things we apprehend and believe, prophets, men who have pronounced concerning God and the things of God, guided by the Spirit of God68 (tr. ANF).

The argument does not only imply that the Greeks are in disagreement and that the prophets are in agreement; the very fact that the latter agree indicates that, contrary to the Greeks, they benefited from a divine inspiration. Theophilus opposes the disagreement of the Greeks and the agreement of the prophets in the same way, and more explicitly connects the notion of agreement with the notion of inspiration: One can see how consistently and harmoniously all the prophets spoke, having given utterance through one and the same spirit concerning the unity of God, and the creation of the world, and the formation of man69 (tr. ANF).

Another and final aspect of this biblical συμφωνία is the assumption that, as a harmonious corpus, the Bible may be used to explain the Bible, in other words, that it contains the key to its own interpretation, exactly like the Greeks used to read Homer through Homer. This principle is already suggested by Justin: But perhaps you are not aware of this, my friends, that there were many sayings written obscurely, or parabolically, or mysteriously, and symbolic actions, which the prophets who lived after the persons who said or did them expounded70 (tr. ANF).

Irenaeus elaborates several times on the same idea, insisting, more often than Justin, on the centrality of Christ in the interpretation of Scripture, and on the fact that the new Scriptures have revealed the meaning of the old ones.71 Clement of Alexandria repeats the same ideas and is, as far as I know, the first one to apply them in his own commentaries on Scripture. For instance, the unleavened bread which Moses commands to make in Ex. 12:39 would be the hidden wisdom mentioned by Paul (Rom. 11:33 ; 1Cor. 2:6-7).72 This reflexion on the symphonic nature of the biblical text reaches a culmination point in Origen. Compared to his predecessors, Origen innovates in two ways. First, his work testifies to a deep and constant theoretical reflexion on the biblical συμφωνία, in passages, which have been, in part, transmitted in the Philocalia. Second, symphonic exegesis becomes a central aspect of Origen’s 68 69 70 71 72

Plea for the Christians, 7.2. Theophilus, To Autolycus, 2.35. Dialogue with Trypho, 68.6. See Haer., 4.2.3; 10.1; 13.1; 26.1; 33.15. Strom., 5.80.2-4.

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exegetical practice, and he does not reduce the συμφωνία of the Bible to an agreement between the two testaments. A passage from his Commentary on Matthew, transmitted in the Philocalia (ch. 6) alludes to several possible cases : For as the different strings of the psaltery or the lyre, each of which gives forth a note of its own seemingly unlike that of any other, are thought by an unmusical man who does not understand the theory of musical harmony (συμφωνία) to be discordant, because of the difference in the notes: so they who have not ears to detect the harmony of God in the sacred Scriptures suppose that the Old Testament is not in harmony with the New, or the Prophets with the Law, or the Gospels with one another, or the Apostle with the Gospel, or with himself, or with the other Apostles73 (tr. Lewis).

Origen often insists on the necessity to detect the harmonics within the Bible in order to rightly understand it. The word of God is one, despite its multiplicity.74 The interpreter must be “rich in every word” (1Cor. 2:13), a passage which Origen understands as an incitation to gather, in Scriptures, all the passages which seem to agree.75

The symphônia of the Bible and the Greeks The second aspect of biblical συμφωνία in patristic literature is the agreement which Scriptures exhibit, not with themselves, but with other texts, namely Greek literature. From the 2nd c. apologists onwards, passages from the poets and the philosophers, sometimes the historians and the oracles, are quoted for their supposed agreement with biblical teachings. This very important trend in patristic thought also gave raise to works which were specifically devoted to showing the agreement of Greek literature and the Bible. Origen’s lost Stromateis, according to Jerome, comprised ten books in which the Alexandrian sought to “demonstrate all the doctrines of the Church thanks to Plato, Aristotle, Numenius and Cornutus”.76 A series of anonymous collections edited by Erbse and entitled Theosophiai or Symphoniai gathers sayings attributed to Greek writers 73

Phil., 6.2. Ibid. 5. See also the important text preserved in Phil., 2.3 about the “keys” dispersed in the Bible (see n. 105). 75 3 Hom. Ps. 36.6. 76 Jerome, Letter 70.4. The remains of this lost works are mentioned by Pierre Nautin (Origène, [Paris, 1977], 293-302). See also, for new evidence, Claudio Moreschini, ‘Note ai perduti Stromata di Origene’, in Lothar Lies (ed.), Origeniana quarta (Innsbruck, 1987), 36-43. I recently tried to sustain H.-D. Saffrey’s view that Eusebius’s Praeparatio evangelica (book 11-3) was inspired by Origen’s Stromateis (see Henri-Dominique Saffrey, ‘Les extraits du Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ de Numénius dans le livre XI de la Préparation Evangélique’, SP 13 [1975], 46-51; Sébastien Morlet, ‘Eusèbe de Césarée a-t-il utilisé les Stromates d’Origène dans la Préparation évangélique ?’, RPh 78 [2004], 127-40; ‘La Préparation évangélique d’Eusèbe et les Stromates perdus d’Origène: nouvelles considérations’, RPh 87 [2013], 107-23). 74

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prophecizing the Trinity, the birth of Christ and the virgin Mary.77 In the tenth century, Photius mentions another anonymous collection (15 books), probably composed in the 7th c., in which the author showed the agreement of Christian doctrines with Greek and other pagan texts.78 Two reasons can account for the development of a reflexion, in patristic literature, about the agreement of Greek texts and Scriptures. The main reason is apologetic. Greek texts are quoted by the Christians because of their supposed agreement with biblical teachings. The concept of “witnesses” here again, is sometimes advocated, implying that the Greeks, like witnesses in a trial, speak in favour of the Christians. And, if the Greeks are true, then the Bible must also be true. The connection between συμφωνία and truth does not lie here in the συμφωνία in itself, but on the principle that to be in agreement with someone who says the truth means to say the truth. The recognition of an agreement between the Bible and a few Greek authors is not however a pure apologetic argument. In Clement’s Stromateis, for instance, the utility and truth of Greek wisdom, especially philosophy, is defended as a fact,79 and Clement does not address the pagans but Christians who would be tempted to attribute Greek culture to the devil.80 In a famous passage from the first Stromateus, Clement compares the harmony of barbarian wisdom, that is to say christianity, and Greek wisdom, to the harmony of the strings of a cithar,81 an image which was a common place in Greek literature,82 and which Origen, as we saw, uses to describe the harmony within Scripture. In Origen’s Letter to Gregory, the idea that Greek literature contains useful and true teachings is also put forward, independently from any polemic with the pagans.83 It is well known that the idea of an agreement of Scriptures and Greek literature was contested by authors like Tatian, Theophilus or Hermias,84 and that, in Irenaeus’ Refutation of heresies, agreement with Hellenism means heresy rather than right teaching.85 77 H. Erbse, Theosophorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Stuttgart, Leipzig, 1995). The most significant collection of this type, the so-called “Tübingen theosophy”, is now re-edited and analysed by Laura Carrara and Irmgard Männlein-Robert, Die Tübinger Theosophie, eingeleitet, übersetzt und kommentiert (Stuttgart, 2018). See also the recent study by Lucia Maddalena Tissi, Gli oracoli degli dèi greci nella Teosofia di Tubinga (Alessandria, 2018). 78 Bibl., cod. 170. 79 Str., 1.29.8; 30.1. 80 Ibid. 1.18.2-3. 81 Ibid. 1.57.1-6. 82 See Plato, Gorg., 482c (see n. 15); Ps.-Arist., De mundo, 5.396b; Plut., The Plurality of Friends, 96e. 83 Letter to Gregory, 1. 84 We should stress the fact, however, that Theophilus may mention the agreement of the Greeks and the Christians for apologetic purposes, eventhough his basic idea if that Greeks were all wrong (see S. Morlet, Symphonia [2019], 205-7). 85 See Haer., 2.14.1-7.

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On the other side, the defenders of this συμφωνία tried to account for it. Three explanations may be found during the first three centuries. First possibility: Christians and Greeks sometimes say the same things because they all knew the same Logos. This is the “rational” explanation first given by Justin.86 Second explanation: the Greeks speak like the Christians because they knew their Scriptures and borrowed from them. This is the “philological” explanation which Justin also alludes to87 and which became very popular in patristic literature. A third and less frequent explanation, first expressed by Clement, consists in assuming that the Greeks may have benefited from a kind of revelation, like the prophets.88 Clement, as is well known, suggests that Hellenism may be a Testament of the Greeks comparable to the Testament of the Jews.89 This is what I would call the “theological” explanation. Origen does not go so far as to consider Hellenism as a Testament, but he several times comments on two texts which lead him to say that Greek wisdom came, in a way or another, from God: Rom. 1:19 (‘what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them’)90 and Sir. 1:1 (‘every wisdom comes from the Lord’).91 In Cels., 6.3, Origen states that whenever the Greeks spoke the truth, that came from God. Continuity and changes Beyond the obvious continuity of the Greek and patristic discourse on συμφωνία, the preceding presentation already illustrated a few differences. At first sight, we could be tempted to say that the Christian novelty simply consists in the fact that the Christians applied the symphonic vocabulary and exegetical techniques to new kinds of texts, viz. sacred, religious texts. But that would not be enough. More fundamentally, the context of the Christian reflexion on συμφωνία is not exactly the same as in Greek tradition. Of course, it contains by definition 86

Ap., 46, 1-6. It then recurs in Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, 7.2. Clement suggests that Plato may have been informed by certain wise men (Str., 2.100.3), or that he may have borrowed from Scripture (2.133.2). 88 Str., 6.42.3: “For that, as God wished to save the Jews by giving to them prophets, so also by raising up prophets of their own in their own tongue, as they were able to receive God’s beneficence, He distinguished the most excellent of the Greeks from the common herd” (tr. ANF). The same idea is suggested in passages such as 1.42.1, in which Clement says that Plato was “like inspired by God”, οἷον θεοφορούμενος. In Pr., 72.5, Clement writes that the Pythagoreans had spoken about God “under divine inspiration” (ἐπιπνοίᾳ θεοῦ). 89 See Str., 6.41.6; 42.2; 44.1; 63.3. 90 Cels., 3.47; 4.30; 7.46-7; Com. Rom., 1.19. 91 Hom. Num., 18.3. 87

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a major and crucial philological element. But this philological element is now dependent on another kind of approach which is fundamentally theological. Historians of philosophy now speak about the “theologization” of doctrines which occured in late Greek philosophy. We could use the same concept to refer to the way Greek ideas or intellectual practices were taken up and reinterpreted in the light of theological postulates in patristic literature. The history of symphonic exegesis gives, I think, an excellent example of this process. A first aspect of this new theological frame is the constant need, in patristic literature, to explain, to account for the biblical συμφωνία. As we saw, no less than three explanations were suggested to explain the agreement of the Bible with the Greeks, which means that this agreement was not taken for granted, it had to be accounted for. And the reasons of this questionning are very obvious. If God revealed himself in the Scriptures, how could the Greeks sometimes say things similar to the Bible? At the background of the Christian reflexion on the agreement of the Bible and the Greeks, there is an obvious theological problem. Among the Greeks, the συμφωνία between two authors is most of the time considered as a fact, which does not raise any problem and which does not need to be explained. A second aspect of the new theological frame of the Christian symphonic reflexion is what we could call the supernatural element. Describing the three explanations given by the Christians to account for the συμφωνία of the Bible and the Greeks, I spoke of a rational, a philological and a theological explanation. The theological explanation implies that the agreement between Greeks and Scriptures may be explained because the Greeks were inspired like the prophets. The same connection between συμφωνία and inspiration is often put forward to explain the agreement within the Bible: if the prophets say the same things, it is because they are all inspired by the same God.92 As we saw, the symphonic dimension of the biblical text was sometimes opposed to the diaphonic discourses of the Greeks in order to demontrate that the Bible has a divine source, and that the Greeks, on the contrary, were cut from any divine inspiration. This connection between the idea of agreeement and the notions of revelation or inspiration becomes very important in patristic literature, and seems to me to be absent from Greek reflexions on συμφωνία, at least before neoplatonism.93 That is what I would call the supernaturel element in the Christian conception of the biblical συμφωνία. 92 We could add that the “rational” and the “philological” explanations given to account for the συμφωνία of the Bible and the Greeks are no less “theological” than the one I called “theological”, since it automatically leads Christian writers to enrich their theology of the relationships between Greek and biblical wisdoms, with obvious historico-theological implications. 93 We may find texts about concording dreams (see S. Morlet, Symphonia [2019], 45) or predictions (Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia, 1.6.3) which may suggest this type of connection, but this kind of texts does not occur in exegetical contexts.

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The third and final aspect of the theologization of symphonic thought in patristic literature concerns the very notion of συμφωνία. In the patristic view on biblical συμφωνία which is developping up to Origen’s time, the agreement of the Bible with itself or with the Greeks is not only something which needs to be theologically explained and which implies supernatural aspects. It becomes more and more, in itself, a mystery, taken in the wider sense (something mysterious, obscure) or taken in the stricter, religious sense (an initiation to a close contact with the divine). This dimension of biblical συμφωνία is not obvious in the first patristic texts. It is absent from the works of Justin and Athenagoras. It probably emerges surreptitiously in Theophilus, who mentions the divine inspiration of the prophets94 and who alludes to the agreement of the Bible and the Greeks as a divine disposition which aimed at making the Greeks witnesses of the truth which would eventually be revealed by Christ.95 We could here use a concept recently forged by specialists of the Roman religion during the Empire: the concept of “mysterization”.96 In this mysterization process of the notion of συμφωνία, three writers have a special significance: Irenaeus, Clement and Origen. In these three theologians, the συμφωνία of the Bible clearly appears as one aspect of God’s action in the world. The music, the συμφωνία which pervades Scriptures is the same music that God, or his Logos, as a musician, plays in the world or in history. In that respect, Scriptures appears as a microcosm. The idea that the world is pervaded by a divine music is first expressed, in Christian tradition, by Irenaeus, who uses the image of the lyre, which, as we saw, was used again by Clement and Origen to describe the harmony of Scripture with the Greeks and with itself: But since created things are various and numerous, they are indeed well fitted and adapted to the whole creation; yet, when viewed individually, are mutually opposite and inharmonious, just as the sound of the lyre, which consists of many and opposite notes, gives rise to one unbroken melody, through means of the interval which separates each one from the others. The lover of truth therefore ought not to be deceived by the interval between each note, nor should he imagine that one was due to one artist and author, and another to another, nor that one person fitted the treble, another the bass, and yet another the tenor strings; but he should hold that one and the same person [formed the whole], so as to prove the judgment, goodness, and skill exhibited in the whole work and [specimen of] wisdom. Those, too, who listen to the melody, ought to praise and extol the artist, to admire the tension of some notes, to attend to the softness of others, to catch the sound of others between both these extremes, and to consider the special character of 94

See n. 69. Aut., 1.14; 2.8; 2.37. 96 See the conference organized by Nicole Belayche, Philippe Hoffmann and Francesco Massa, Les “mystères” au IIe s. de notre ère: un “mysteric turn”? (20-22 sept. 2018, INHA, Paris), especially B. Pañeda Murcia’s paper: ‘Les cultes isiaques au IIe siècle de notre ère: entre mystérisation et égyptianisation ?’ 95

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others, so as to inquire at what each one aims, and what is the cause of their variety, never failing to apply our rule, neither giving up the [one] artist, nor casting off faith in the one God who formed all things, nor blaspheming our Creator.97 (tr. ANF)

The same Irenaeus deduces from this action of God in the universe (a music which is one and at the same time diverse), the idea that God’s action in history is also something which is at the same time one and multiple: Therefore the Son of the Father declares [him] from the beginning, inasmuch as he was with the Father from the beginning, who did also show to the human race prophetic visions, and diversities of gifts, and his own ministrations, and the glory of the Father, in regular order and connection, at the fitting time for the benefit [of mankind]. For where there is a regular succession, there is also fixedness; and where fixedness, there suitability to the period; and where suitability, there also utility.98

This conception of history serves as a foundation for a certain conception of Scripture: the old and the new Scriptures, though different, come from the same God.99 It contains the traces of distinct “economies”, which, though they could seem contradictory, play, in fact, a unique and coherent melody.100 To summarize, the idea of biblical συμφωνία in Irenaeus is based on a symphonic conception of history, which is grounded on a symphonic conception of God’s general activity in the world. Similar ideas may be found in Clement and Origen, in texts which imply that the συμφωνία in Scriptures is not different from the melody which God plays in the world and in history101 – it is interesting to remark in that respect that the notion of “economy” is sometimes used by Origen to refer, not only to God’s activity, but also to the mysterious logic of the biblical text,102 and, in one passage which we already saw, he alludes to the “harmony of God” which would be contained in Scriptures.103 In other words, if the συμφωνία of the biblical text is mysterious, it is first because God’s actions are by definition mysterious : the melody of Scripture sends us back to the mystery of creation and to the mystery of history. It is an incitation to research, it arouses questions, it leads the exegete to the assumption that the biblical text is not any text, but a text full of hidden significations. But that is not enough. Another reason which makes the biblical συμφωνία mysterious is that it often implies that something which is hidden may be revealed by a passage in Scripture which contains its interpretation. We already 97

Haer., 2.25.2. Ibid. 4.20.7. 99 Ibid. 4.9.1. 100 Ibid. 3.11.8. For the concept of “economy”, see for instance Haer., 5.32.1. 101 See Clement, Pr., 1.5.1-2; Origen., Princ., 2.1.2; 2.9.6. 102 See Hom. Jer., 16.5, about the translators who acted οἰκονομήσαντες, and Princ., 4.2,2, about the “mystical economies” (οἰκονομίαι μυστικαί) which pervade Scriptures. 103 See n. 73. 98

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mentioned this aspect of symphonic exegesis. It means that the συμφωνία indicates a hidden logic, which the exegete must discover, but also that it has a revealing function, and that is exactly the function of a mystery, taken in the Greek religious sense – an initiation which reveals what is hidden. Most of the time, the basic idea, in Irenaeus, Clement and Origen, is that the new Scriptures have revealed the old ones. The revealing dimension of the biblical συμφωνία, however, as we saw, does not only consist in the fact that the New Testament reveals the Old Testament. In Origen, any passage from the Bible may be explained by another passage in any book of the Bible.104 This revelation within the text is particularly emphasized through the image of the keys dispersed in Scriptures, which is alluded to in a famous text transmitted in the Philocalia: That great scholar used to say that inspired Scripture taken as a whole was on account of its obscurity like many locked-up rooms in one house. Before each room he supposed a key to be placed, but not the one belonging to it; and that the keys were so dispersed all round the rooms, not fitting the locks of the several rooms before which they were placed. It would be a troublesome piece of work to discover the keys to suit the rooms they were meant for. It was, he said, just so with the understanding of the Scriptures, because they are so obscure; the only way to begin to understand them was, he said, by means of other passages containing the explanation dispersed throughout them.105

What contributes to reinforce the mysterious, or more precisely, mysteric dimension of Scripture as a symphonic text is the idea that the clarification process which emerges from the comparison of texts leads to a spiritual progress. Of course, this is particularly obvious in the case of the New Testament clarifying the Old one. Clement of Alexandria already describes the relation between the two in terms of pedagogy: the Law would contain a παιδαγωγία, a προπαιδεία.106 In a passage from his Homilies on Leviticus, 1.4, Origen writes that the Law contains the beginnings (principia), the prophets, the progress (profectus), and the gospels, the fullness of perfection (plenitudo perfectionis). The notion of spiritual progress is extended in Origen to any form of symphonic exegesis, even if it does not concern the passage from the Old to the New Testament. Symphonic exegesis, indeed, is often considered by Origen as a tool to reach the spiritual meaning. This connection, according to Origen, would be suggested by 1Cor. 2:13, “comparing spiritual things to spiritual things” (πνευματικοῖς πνευματικὰ συγκρίνοντες), which he sees as an exegetical rule meaning that one should understand the fundamentally spiritual meaning of Scriptures by connecting the passages which are supposed to respond to one another.107 104 105 106 107

See n. 73 and S. Morlet, Symphonia (2019), 298-318, for further references. Phil., 2.3. Who is the rich man who shall be saved, 9.2. Hom. Gen., 2.5.

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But before I reach my conclusion, more should be said about Origen and his conception of symphonic exegesis. Origen is not only the first real theoretician of this aspect of biblical interpretation. He is not only the first to make an extensive use of this type of exegesis in his work. His reflexion also constitutes the culmination point of the mysterization process which I am trying to describe. In his treatise On principles, written in his early career, Origen, drawing on the philosophical topos, but also maybe echoing the reflexions of his christian predecessors, describes the condition of humanity as something fundamentally diverse and at the same time pervaded by a tension towards unity. After the fall of the souls, the conditions of men are by definition diverse. But God, by his divine and ineffable wisdom, works at unifying the creation. This work will eventually be achieved at the end of time, in the restauration, the apocatastasis, of all creation in the unity with God.108 We should probably read Origen’s reflexions on the biblical συμφωνία with this conception of history in mind. To the diversity which is the main feature of the material creation, the biblical text offers a remarkable exception. It gives to men an idea of unity which does not exist here down, and which may give them a possibility to experience unity right now, before the general apocatastasis. Origen often suggests, indeed, that there is a moral imperative to unity, because diversity is the sign of sin.109 A first possibility to achieve unity is to imitate God, who is one by definition,110 or to be in accordance with his precepts.111 In other words, to be one may be achieved by the assimilation to God. A second possibility consists in applying the rules of musical harmony in one’s own life : Therefore, it is extremely urgent for us to learn the discipline of harmoniousness. For just as in music, if a harmony of the notes is made consonantly, it produces the agreeable sound of a song with rhythm. But if some dissonance occurs on the lyre, a very displeasing sound is produced and the pleasantness of the song is ruined. The same applies to those who fight for God. If they have discords and dissensions among themselves, everything will be displeasing and nothing will seem acceptable to God, even if they wage many wars, even if they carry back many spoils and offer many gifts to God.112

A passage from the Homilies on Joshuah (7.2) seems to connect both ideas (unity with God / unity through music). It explicitly states that the harmonious music of Scripture enables the soul to achieve unity. As a divine music, the biblical συμφωνία, as it seems, makes a connection between the two ways of achieving unity with oneself. It is not any music, but the music of God, the 108 See for instance Henri Crouzel, ‘L’apocatastase chez Origène’, in Lothar Lies (ed.), Origeniana Quarta (Innsbruck, 1985), 282-90. 109 See for instance: Hom. Joshuah, 7.2; 9.2; Cels., 8.69; Hom. Ez., 9.1; Com. Rom., 10.7.3-5. 110 Hom. 1 Kingd., 1.4. 111 Hom. Numb., 26.2.2. 112 Hom. Numb., 26.2.3 (tr. T.P. Scheck).

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expression of his word. To be in accordance with it, to imitate it, is to imitate musical harmony and at the same time to imitate God. Even if Origen never says so, it was in his view, no doubt, the best music that one could imitate. When he speaks about the possible effect of music on the soul, in this text and other texts, Origen is dependent on greek reflexions on the therapeutic and moral dimension of musical harmony.113 In pythagorism of imperial period, we find the idea that the best music which one could tune into was the celestial music of the spheres, sometimes considered as a divine music.114 In Origen, the divine music to which we should conform our soul is not the music of the spheres anymore, but the music of Scriptures. I am quite convinced that Origen knew the pythagorean conception of the music of the spheres and deliberately transfered it to the biblical text.115 When Origen quotes the precept “to be rich in every word (1Cor. 1:5)”, then, he does not express a pure philological rule. He is describing a fundamentally existential and mystical imperative, the quest for unity, which is a form of assimilation to God. It is another aspect of what I suggest to call the “mysterization” of the notion of συμφωνία and of symphonic exegesis. It is doubtful that, in the view of the Alexandrian commentators of Homer, there was any existential or mystical imperative to search for parallel passages in the Homeric epic. The meeting of Greek philology and Christian mysticism gave birth, in Origen’s work, to a new, mystical conception of symphonic exegesis. Conclusion The case of symphonic exegesis gives a good example, I think, of the deep intellectual continuity between Hellenism and Christianity, and at the same time, of the way Christians transformed what they received from Hellenism. Their exegesis of the Bible is grounded on the same technical vocabulary and exegetical procedures which are at the basis of Greek exegesis of poetic and philosophical texts. They share with the Greeks the same postulates connecting 113

The idea that music may have an effect on the soul was particularly promoted by the Pythagoreans (Porphyry, Pyth., 30; Jamblichus, Pyth., 64; Censorinus, De die natali, 12.4-5), Damon of Oea (see Aristides Quintilianus, On Music, 2.14), Plato (Tim., 47d; Prot., 326b; Rep., 398c ff.; 401d; Laws, 3.673), Aristotle (Pol., 8.1339a11-1342b35) and other writers. 114 About the pythagorean notion of a music of the spheres, see Arist., De caelo, 2.9; Met., 1094b4; 985b; Pliny, Nat. hist., 2.19-20; 83; Theon of Smyrna, De utilitate mathematicae, p. 147 Hiller; Porphyry, Pyth., 30; Jamblichus, Pyth., 82; Censorinus, De die natali, 13. About this music as a divine music, see Censorinus, De die natali, 13.5 (Praeterea multa, quae musici tractant, ad alias rettulit stellas et hunc omnem mundum ἐναρμόνιον esse ostendit. Quare Dorylaus scripsit esse mundum organum dei, ed. Sallmann), and Theon of Smyrna, De utilitate mathematicae, p. 12 Hiller. Philo knew this pythagorean conception of divine music (Her., 259). 115 In that respect, he was preceded by Philo, Det., 124-5 (see S. Morlet, Symphonia [2019], 136).

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the notions of agreement and truth. But they applied these ideas and techniques to a new kind of texts, with new presuppositions, and in a new theological frame which eventually transformed entirely the meaning of the notion of textual συμφωνία and of symphonic exegesis. Their symphonic conception of the biblical text does not only imply that the Bible is a coherent text, sometimes in accordance with other texts. From Irenaeus to Origen emerges the idea that the Bible is pervaded by numerous mysterious echoes, which are the signal of God’s economy, which illustrate the inspiration of this very special text, and which may be a way to reach, not only the spiritual meaning of Scriptures, but also unity with oneself, and with God – wich is, from an origenian perspective, exactly the same thing. It would be interesting to see how this origenian conception of the biblical συμφωνία evolved in later patristic centuries, and especially if there is a difference between Alexandrian and Antiochian exegetes concerning this topic, but this is another story.

The Capitulatio Vaticana: The Earliest Biblical Chapter System, with a New Tradent Charles E. HILL, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL, USA

ABSTRACT The first known, large-scale effort to order the text of Scripture by means of numbered chapters is found in Codex Vaticanus 1209, the famous fourth-century codex that once contained the entire Bible. Tregelles referred to the result as the capitulatio Vaticana. By any measure, this is an impressive achievement. Yet in terms of generating a significant paradosis, this early attempt to facilitate reading, reference, and interpretation of Scripture by means of numbered chapters is generally believed to have failed. To my knowledge, only three witnesses to its chapter divisions in any single book have previously been documented. This article briefly summarizes my research into the prehistory of the capitulatio, and then presents a new witness to this capitulation in Vat. Barb. gr. 549 (Rahlfs 86), a ninth- or tenth-century manuscript containing text, commentary, and catenae on the Prophets. It highlights the commentaries of Olympiodorus the sixth-century Alexandrian deacon (some of which are preserved in Barb. 549), who structured his commentaries according to chapter divisions found in Codex Vaticanus, demonstrating that its ancient capitulations were once achieved a greater diffusion than we previously knew.

Introduction In the early sixth century an Alexandrian deacon named Olympiodorus wrote a number of commentaries on Scriptural books. One of the notable and distinctive features of these commentaries is that the Scripture text commented on is divided into chapters,1 and the commentary is then structured according to these chapter divisions. Unlike the commentaries of Origen and others, which were organized merely by ‘book’, that is, by the physical limitations of the commentary itself, the commentaries of Olympiodorus were chiefly organized by a set of divisions made in the text of Scripture. Where did these chapter divisions come from? Were they the work of Olympiodorus himself? And how did Olympiodorus arrive at the idea of organizing his commentaries by means of them? 1 This was noted already by Michael Faulhaber, Die Propheten-Catenen nach Römischen Handschriften (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1899), 117.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 25-38. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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We might think to search for answers to these questions in the didactic practices of the Alexandrian academy in Olympiodorus’ day, where he likely had received an education. For example, the preface to a commentary on Porphyry’s Eisagoge attributed to Ammonius of Alexandria, head of the philosophical school in Alexandria in the late fifth and early sixth century, lists six introductory topics to be addressed in studying any Aristotelian work: first, the scope of the book; second what use we will derive from it; third, its order (ἡ τάξις); fourth, an explanation of its title; fifth, whether it is spurious or genuine; sixth, what its division into chapters is (ἡ εἰς τὰ κεφάλαια διαίρεσις).2 Since the time of Ammonius’ teacher Proclus of Athens (mid fifth-century), the division of a work into chapters had been a standardized element of introduction to, and therefore of interpretation of, the works of Plato and Aristotle among Neoplatonist scholars.3 Olympiodorus’ decision to organize his commentaries according to ‘chapters’, meaningful sequential units of the text of Scripture itself, then, may have been influenced by his Alexandrian intellectual milieu. But how did he decide to treat the prophecy of Jeremiah in precisely 100 numbered chapters and the strophes of Lamentations in eighty-five? This determination was not made on the basis of Olympiodorus’ own literary assessments. The Alexandrian commentator was instead relying on a pre-existing system of numbered chapter divisions, the achievement of a significantly earlier generation of Christian scribes who predated his work by about 200 years, or possibly more. A. Description of the Capitulatio The collective effort of Christian scribes and scholars not only to conserve and replicate books of holy Scripture, but also to organize and reshape their 2

For the text see A. Busse (ed.), Ammonius in Aristotelis Categorias Commentarius (Berlin, 1895), 37a, 7-8; an English translation is available in On Aristotle Categories, trans. S.M. Cohen and G.B. Matthews (Ithaca, 1992), 15-6, but Cohen and Matthews translate τὰ κεφάλαια as ‘main points’. The illustration which follows suggests that τὰ κεφάλαια here are the natural divisions within the text: ‘Just as it is someone who has carefully examined each of the limbs and joints of a human being who knows best the whole human being composed of them, so too it is one who has gone through in detail the main points [rather, ‘chapter divisions’] into which a discussion (logos) is divided who knows the discussion best’ (Cohen and Matthews, 16). Later in the introduction (Busse, 14; Cohen and Matthews, 20) Ammonius says the Categories is divided (διαρεῖται) into three (though no noun is supplied, it is probably three κεφάλαια that are meant): the ‘pre-categories’; the categories themselves, and the ‘post-categories’. The same essential schema of introductory topics was taught by Ammonius and a succession of Alexandrian Neoplatonic teachers. See Ilsetraut Hadot, ‘Les Introductions aux commentaires exégétiques chez les auteurs néoplatoniciens et les auteurs chrétiens’, in Michel Tardier (ed.), Les Règles de l’interprétation (Paris, 1987), 99-122, 101-2; Matthias Skeb, Exegese und Lebensform: Die Pröemien der antiken griechischen Bibelkommentare (Leiden, 2007), 76-8. These same topics were applied not only to Aristotle’s Categories but also to the rest of his works (Hadot, 105), as well as to the dialogues of Plato (Hadot, 108). 3 I. Hadot, ‘Les Introductions’ (1987), 106-10.

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pages, bringing them from, presumably, an almost undifferentiated scriptio continua4 to a sometimes highly partitioned mise en page, divided according to perceived sense units, could surely be considered one of the great examples of ‘the ordering of Christian knowledge’ in antiquity. Every exegete knows that a right understanding of a text sometimes requires a correct apprehension of where one of its sections ends and another begins, as exemplified by Hippolytus when he charged that Noetus’ misinterpretation of a portion of Isaiah’s prophecy (Isa. 45:14-5, in modern denotation) could be corrected by recognizing that the chapter (κεφάλαιον) really began a few lines earlier (at 45:11b; Hippolytus, CNoet. 4.3-4). Due to the strong emphasis Christians placed on understanding the sacred text, their scribes developed surprisingly quickly a range of techniques for marking visually in the text they were copying the conceptual movements thought to be enacted there. These techniques included the introduction of space between sentences, punctuation, the paragraphos mark, ekthesis, enlarged first letter of a line, and eventually, numerals placed in the margins to signify (and in some sense, to quantify) the ordered flow of pericopes or κεφάλαια, ‘chapters’, in a book. The story of how these enterprising scribes, without changing the wording of the text, materially sculpted its appearance on the page in order better to convey its meaning, has not yet been told in detail. If it ever is, an important focal point will have to be the great fourth-century Codex Vaticanus 1209 (B 03). Widely famed for its text, it deserves some glory for its paratext as well. Like the scribes of most other early Christian Biblical manuscripts, though more sparingly than many of their fourth-century contemporaries, the two scribes of this codex apportioned the text of Scripture into paragraphs through various combinations of blank spaces, ektheses, and paragraphoi. Unlike any of their known peers, however, the creators of this codex supplemented these other forms of textual division by adding, in the left-hand margin of most of its books, a set of section or chapter numbers, sometimes penned in the same light brown ink of the text, sometimes in a once brilliant red ink (Figures 1-3). Some scholars have judged that this capitulation was not a part of the original production of the manuscript but was added later in the fourth century or even in the fifth.5 I am convinced it is the work of the original creators of the codex 4 It is sometimes assumed that the books of Scripture were written without textual breaks of any kind, but even some of our very earliest Hebrew and Greek copies show at least rudimentary breaks. 5 Carlo M. Martini, Introductio ad Novum Testamentum e codice Vaticano graeco 1209 tertia vice phototypice expressum (Vatican City, 1968), xii-xiii, esp. n. 10; T.C. Skeat, ‘The Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Vaticanus, and Constantine’, JTS n.s. 50 (1999), 583-625; Stephen Pisano, ‘The Vaticanus graecus 1209: A Witness to the Text of the New Testament’, in Patrick Andrist (ed.), Le manuscript B de la Bible (Vaticanus graecus 1209). Introduction au fac-similé. Actes du Colloque de Genève (11 juin 2001) Contributions supplémentaires (Lausanne, 2009), 77-97; Jesse R. Grenz, ‘Textual Divisions in Codex Vaticanus: A Layered Approach to the Delimiters in B(03)’, TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 23 (2018), 1-22. Giorgio Giurisato and Gaetano Massimo

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Figure 1. Vat.gr 1209 p. 1235, numbered capitulation Γ, Δ, Ε, in Matthew 1 Image from: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1209

Figure 2. Vat.gr. 1209, p. 1355, ch. ΙΕ at John 5:1 (Numerator 1)

Figure 3. Vat. gr. 1209, p. 1280, ch. ΙΕ at Mark 3:7 (Numerator 2)

Images from: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1209

who also embellished its text with titles, running headings, and subscriptions,6 and this is now supported by Pietro Versace’s wonderful book on the marginalia Carlino, ‘I segni di divisione del Codex B nei vangeli’, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Liber Annus LX (2011), 137-54, argue that the numbers written in red ink are original but that those in black are part of the restoration of the 9th or 10th century. Instead, those in black are often seen to be written over original numbers written in brown in the hand of one of the numerators who also wrote in red. 6 I hope to provide the evidence for this in a forthcoming book. Among previous scholars who have considered the capitulations to be original is Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduction to the

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of Vaticanus.7 But even if we should suppose the capitulation was added as late as the early fifth century, it remains the first known, large-scale attempt to structure virtually the entire text of Scripture by means of numbered chapters.8 Many of the books of Codex Vaticanus also bear a second set of capitulation numbers, written in ‘large coarse characters’,9 added in probably the 9th century.10 Sometimes this secondary capitulator simply appropriated the primitive capitulation and overwrote its smaller numbers, at times completely obscuring them, but sometimes he contributed a new and essentially unrelated set of divisions. What I am mainly concerned with in this article is the primary capitulation of the books in Codex Vaticanus, what nineteenth-century textual critic Samuel Tregelles called the capitulatio Vaticana,11 which he noted was then (and still is now), ‘probably the most ancient notation of the kind’.12 I shall adopt his term capitulatio Vaticana (capVat) to refer to the primary set of numbered capitulations found in Vaticanus, whether it appears in that codex or anywhere else. Other systems of numbered sectional divisions for the Gospels, namely the Ammonian section numbers with the Eusebian canons13 and the so-called Kephalaia numbers,14 have been preserved and incorporated into recent editions of the Nestle-Aland text. But at present, the capitulatio Vaticana is unrepresented in any recent, critical edition of the NT or OT.15 The reason for the modern neglect is certainly that while both the Ammonian/Eusebian and the Kephalaia systems are represented in high numbers of Greek Gospel manuscripts throughout the Byzantine era, the capitulatio Vaticana has long been considered a Old Testament in Greek, revised by Richard R. Ottley, with an Appendix containing the Letter of Aristeas, edited by H. StJ. Thackeray (Cambridge, 1914, repr. 1989), 351. 7 Pietro Versace, I Marginalia del Codex Vaticanus, Studi e Testi 528 (Vatican City, 2018). 8 The 4th c. Sinaiticus (‫‘ )א‬seems to have no chapter-marks prima manu, but in Isaiah they have been added by ‫א‬cc throughout the book’ (H.B. Swete, Introduction [1914], 352). There are remnants of another chapter numbering system in the margins of the 5th c. Alexandrinus’s (A) texts of Deuteronomy, Joshua, 3-4 Kingdoms, and Isaiah; the 6th c. Coislinianus (M) has another in the Hexateuch and in 1-3Kgs; the 10th c. Sinai Cod. gr. 1 has another; and the minuscule cod. Barb. iii.36 (10th or 11th c.) has another (Swete, 352-3). On the 6th c. Marchalianus (Q), see below. 9 H.B. Swete, Introduction (1914), 351. 10 P. Versace, I Marginalia (2018), 32-4, 212. 11 Samuel P. Tregelles, Greek Palimpsest Fragments of the Gospel of Saint Luke (London, 1861), iii. 12 Samuel P. Tregelles, The Greek New Testament, vol. 1 (London, 1857), vi. 13 These, in any case, were not originally conceived of primarily as literary divisions but as a tool for comparing perceived parallels between the four Gospels. Despite this, the Ammonian sections still provided, in effect, a workable set of ‘chapter divisions’ for the Gospels. When Epiphanius said that there were 1,162 κεφάλαια in the four Gospels (Ancoratus 50.6), he was evidently adding up the total number of Ammonian sections of the Eusebian canons. Some Gospel codices too carry only the Ammonian section numbers without the canons. 14 First attested in the pages of the fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus. 15 Tregelles, however, did include it in his edition of the NT.

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fruitless bough. Despite its much wider scope, overlaying as it does most of the books of Scripture, and its seemingly ground-breaking originality, it is not known to have generated a more than negligible paradosis.16 A main purpose of this article is to deliver some new evidence demonstrating that this early capitulation in fact had a greater progeny, and has even played an appreciable role in the history of Biblical exegesis.

B. Backgrounds to the Capitulatio The question of the origins of the capitulatio Vaticana may for our purposes be split into two: do these numbered capitulations have a knowable prehistory before their appearance in Codex Vaticanus, and, could the numbers have been added to an earlier capitulation that once lacked them? 1. Numerated Chapter Divisions Certain irregularities in the numeration show that at least for some books in the codex the numeration was taken over from an exemplar. The best-known example is the Pauline corpus, which has a continuous numeration of chapters throughout its individual books – for instance, Romans has 21 chapters and 1Corinthians begins with chapter 22. We know this sequence had an earlier exemplar because there is an eleven-number gap between Galatians and the next book in the codex, Ephesians, and the missing numbers are found in Hebrews (until Hebrews breaks off), which in Vaticanus is placed after 2Thessalonians. This means that a prototype with numbered chapter divisions must have had Hebrews between Galatians and Ephesians, for no one would intentionally skip eleven numbers and then insert them, out of order, in a later book of the corpus. In some other books (e.g. 1Kgs.; Matt.) there are gaps in the number sequences over a significant span of text, implying that the scribe was copying the numbers from an exemplar and through inattention sometimes skipped one or more. Though it is possible that the margins of the exemplars in these cases could have been originally blank, and were only numbered by Vaticanus’ scribes in preparation for their new work (in which case, the capitulation would still be creditable to them), this seems less likely, particularly in the case of the Pauline corpus.

16 ‘[T]his pattern is rare and never achieved the status of’ the Kephalaia, so H.K. McArthur, ‘The Earliest Divisions of the Gospels’, in Frank L. Cross (ed.), Studia Evangelica, vol. III, Papers Presented to the Second International Congress on New Testament Studies Held at Christ Church, Oxford, 1961 (Berlin, 1964), 266-72, 266.

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This means that, at least for some Biblical books (though not necessarily for all), the scribes of Vaticanus almost certainly did not invent the numbered capitulations but copied them from predecessors. None of these predecessors, however, is now known,17 and our lack of early examples outside of Codex Vaticanus suggests that by the early fourth century, numbered capitulation was a relatively recent advance in the visual formatting of the Scriptural text. 2. Unnumbered Chapter Divisions If numbered chapter divisions were relatively new, other forms of textual division, as already mentioned, were not. Some of our very earliest Hebrew and Greek copies of Scriptural books, antedating the Christian era, show paragraph markings. But until very recently, the consensus of scholarship has been that the matter of whether, where, and how to mark divisions in the Scriptural text was highly individualistic to each scribe, with very little influence from the exemplar from which the scribe was copying. An essay published in 2015, however, demonstrated the close correspondence between the numbered capitulation in Vaticanus’ text of John and the textual divisions in P75’s text of John, though the latter were marked not by numbers but by ekthesis.18 My work in this area is ongoing, but I can say that similar relationships exist between the numbered capitulations in Vaticanus and the unnumbered textual divisions in some other, older manuscripts. This means that the particular placement of divisions in the text of Scriptural books was at least sometimes considered a matter worthy of preservation as a constituent element of the new antigraph. The act of placing numbers in the margins of Scripture to create more easily-referenceable κεφάλαια, as we see monumentally in Vaticanus and sporadically elsewhere in the fourth and fifth centuries, though it may strike us as a radical, new departure, was simply a further step in a long historical process of illuminating the perceived conceptual movements of the Scriptural text.

17 I know of just one earlier Greek Biblical manuscript which bears numbered textual divisions, and that is the LXX Daniel in Rahlfs 967 (late second to late third century AD, one of only two surviving manuscripts of LXX Daniel; the rest are Theodotionic). Rahlfs 967 also holds copies of Ezekiel and Esther, but these have no numbered capitulation. The method of numeration in P967 Daniel differs from that of B (and from A and Q) in that it marks the ends of sections rather than the beginnings. 18 C.E. Hill, ‘Rightly Dividing the Word: Uncovering an Early Template for Textual Division in John’s Gospel’, in Daniel M. Gurtner, Juan Hernández, Jr. and Paul Foster (eds), Studies on the Text of the New Testament and Early Christianity in Honor of Michael W. Holmes (Leiden, 2015), 221-42.

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C. Later Tradents of the Capitulatio 1. Codex Zacynthius Rescriptus To date, the only known republication of the capitulatio Vaticana for any NT book19 now lies buried beneath the text of a thirteenth-century lectionary.20 Codex Zacynthius Rescriptus (Ξ, 040), a seventh- or eighth-century, palimpsest, Gospels-plus-catena manuscript, preserves in its present state only the first 11 (modern) chapters of the Gospel of Luke, but its margins contain the capVat, along with the more common Kephalaia divisions. 2. Codex Marchalianus As for the OT, the great LXX scholar H.B. Swete noted that two books of the sixth-century21 Prophets codex Marchalianus (Q), namely the Epistle of Jeremiah and the prophecy of Ezekiel, carry capitulation numbers that agree with those of Vaticanus.22 For the Epistle of Jeremiah, however, only three (Β, Γ, Δ) of the six chapters in the capVat of this book are marked in Q, and these are in a smaller and lighter hand, perhaps the one which supplied the Hexaplaric notes in the margins. But it is different with the 56 chapters of the capVat in Ezekiel. The chapter numbers appear to be quite naturally a part of the original production, being written in the same style, ink colour, and letter shapes, and bearing the same type of decorative framing as the title (see Figure 4). It so happens that Q’s copy of Ezekiel has a preface (p. 568) which tells an interesting history of its transmission, tracing its text back to Eusebius and Pamphilus.23 The author of the note claims to have taken (μετεληφθη) the copy 19

It has been often repeated that ms 579 of the 13th c. preserves the capitulation (e.g., Ezra Abbot, ‘On the Comparative Antiquity of the Sinaitic and Vatican Manuscripts of the Greek Bible’, JAOS 10 [1872], 189-200, 190; Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration [4th ed.; New York, Oxford, 2005], 83). But this is false; it bears the Ammonian sections instead. See C.E. Hill, ‘Rightly Dividing the Word: Uncovering an Early Template for Textual Division in John’s Gospel’ (2015), 228. 20 S.P. Tregelles, Greek Palimpsest Fragments of the Gospel of Saint Luke (1861). A new edition of Zacynthius, funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Grant, is being prepared by the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing at the University of Birmingham, led by David Parker and Hugh Houghton. 21 H.B. Swete, Introduction (1914), 144; Joseph Ziegler, Jeremias, Baruch, Threni, Epistula Jeremiae, 4. Auflage, Septuaginta Vetus Testamentum Graecum 25 (Göttingen, 2013, 1957), 7; though LDAB lists it as seventh or eighth century. 22 H.B. Swete, Introduction (1914), 352. This is repeated by John W. Olley, Ezekiel: A Commentary based on Iezekiel in Codex Vaticanus (Leiden, Boston, 2009), 43. Swete observes correctly that there are numbers partway through the text of Jeremiah and that here the agreement with B is less complete. 23 H.B. Swete, Introduction (1914), 145, seems to think this refers only to the Hexaplaric notations added to the margins not long after the text was produced, and with him, Sidney Jellicoe,

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Figure 4. Marchalianus (Q), p. 569, Ezekiel title and first capitulatio number Image from: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.2125

from an antigraph that once belonged to Abba Apolinarios the Cenobiarch, which itself bore these words: Taken (μετεληφθη) from the Hexapla according to the versions (ἐκδόσεις) and corrected (διορθωθη) from the Tetrapla of Origen himself, which he also by his own hand corrected and annotated (ἐσχολιογραφητο); from whence I, Eusebius, placed the annotations alongside (τὰ σχόλια παρέθηκα). Pamphilus and Eusebius corrected.24

If the history narrated by the prefatory note is true, and if this reading of it is more or less correct, it would mean that the text of Ezekiel in Q was taken directly from an artefact made by Eusebius himself in Caesarea while Pamphilus was still alive, that is, before 309 AD, and therefore almost certainly before the creation of Codex Vaticanus. The capitulation could, of course, have been added to Abba Apolinarios’ copy sometime after its creation, but this at least raises the tantalizing possibility that the capitulatio Vaticana now in Q’s copy of Ezekiel, could go back to Eusebius and Pamphilus.25 3. Vat. Barb. gr. 549 (Rahlfs 86) I now wish to present a new witness to the capitulatio Vaticana, Vat. Barb. gr. 549 (Rahlfs 86), an unusual ninth- or tenth-century26 LXX manuscript of the Prophets, containing Scriptural text, commentary, and catenae. Its contents are in four parts: The Septuagint in Modern Study (Oxford, 1968), 201-2. But R. Devreesse, Introduction à l’étude des manuscrits grecs (Paris, 1954), 138, reads it as applying to the text. 24 My translation. I am also following the accentuation of the manuscript. I take it that the annotations referred to would include the readings of the versions placed in the margins as well as other Origenic materials. See also Eric Scherbenske, ‘Scholia’, in Paul M. Blowers and Peter W. Martens (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation (Oxford, 2019), 187-97, 193. 25 Could it even go back to the work of Origen? It must be said, however, that Isaiah in Q, which shows no numbered capitulation, has a similar preface, attributing its text to a copy owned by Apolinarios. 26 According to the official Rahlfs LXX list at https://rep.adw-goe.de/bitstream/handle/11858/00001S-0000-0022-A30C-8/Rahlfs-Sigeln_Stand_Dezember_2012.pdf?sequence=1.

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1. The text of the Minor Prophets, alternating with the commentary of Theodoret of Cyrrhus in the text block, and, for Hosea and part of Joel, with the commentary of Cyril of Alexandria written in the margins (pp. 1r-96r). The prophecy of Nahum is missing, no doubt by mistake. Ten of the eleven remaining Minor Prophets either bear the capitulatio Vaticana or show remnants of it in their margins. Only Joel has an alien system. 2. The Septuagint text of Isaiah (missing the beginning of the book up to 27:5), unaccompanied by any commentary or catena (pp. 97r-118v). The entirety of the preserved text of Isaiah is furnished with the 74-chapter system of the capitulatio Vaticana. 3. The Jeremian corpus, though missing the text up to Jer. 5:19 and lacking Jer. 21:7-26:6, consisting of Jeremiah followed by Lamentations, Epistle of Jeremiah, and Baruch, all with the commentary of Olympiodorus, deacon of Alexandria (pp. 119r-224v).27 The capitulation of Jeremiah, 100 chapters, and Lamentations, eighty-five chapters, is the same as that of Vaticanus. Baruch’s nine chapters appear to be a modification of the Vatican capitulation (not matching in 3 places). Only the Epistle carries a different capitulation. 4. The text of Ezekiel with a catena of commentary from Origen, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Severian of Gabala, Polychronius of Apamea, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret, Apolinarius, Basil of Caesarea, and an unidentified commentator (pp. 225r-288v). The manuscript breaks off after Ezekiel 34:1-15a, and, probably due to this loss of text it is missing the book of Daniel. The text of Ezekiel bears the 56-chapter capitulatio Vaticana, though the catena commentary is not intrinsically related to it. This means that the capVat is now attested outside of Codex Vaticanus in 16 OT books, and for Ezekiel there are three representatives: B, Q, and Barb. 549. Table 1. Manuscript Witnesses to the Capitulatio Vaticanus in OT Books

Vaticanus

The 12

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Lament.

Epistle

Baruch

Ezek.

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Marchal. Barb. 549

X (part.) 28

X

X

X

X

X X (part.)

X

27 According to Bernard Pouderon, ‘Les Lamentations de Jérémie et l’Exégèse sur l’âme (NHC II, 6) chez Origène et Olypiodore d’Alexandrie’, in S. Kaczmafek, H. Pietras, in collaboration with A. Dziadowiec (eds), Origeniana Decima. Origen as Writer. Papers of the 10th International Origen Congress, Krakow, Poland, BETL 244 (Leuven, Paris, Walpole, MA, 2011), 733-49, 734, this is the only surviving manuscript that contains Olympiodorus’ actual commentary. Ghisler’s edition reprinted in PG 93 is taken from a catena manuscript. 28 Minus Joel and (because it is absent) Nahum.

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The irregular nature of the manuscript Barb. 549, in that some books have commentaries, one has a catena, and one is unaccompanied by any except marginal Hexaplaric and textual notations, leaves questions about the unitary nature of the Scriptural text it preserves. Theoretically, each of the four main sections could have had a separate Scriptural source, perhaps keyed to the particular expositional apparatus that accompanied it. Yet it is the capitulatio Vaticana that unites every portion of the codex (with the exception of Joel and the Ep. Jer.). Barb. 549, therefore, presupposes an earlier, stand-alone manuscript of the Prophets which was equipped with the capitulatio (and perhaps the Hexaplaric notations). If the catenae portions were created by the ninth- or tenth-century scribes (and not copied from another manuscript), it means that such a manuscript of the Prophets was still available at that time. Where and when might such a manuscript have been created? It is the Jeremian corpus in Barb. 549 that gives us at least one firm, biographical and topographical anchor for post-Vaticanus capVat witnesses, for it contains the early sixth-century commentary of the deacon Olympiodorus of Alexandria, mentioned in our Introduction. Unlike the other commentators represented in the manuscript, whose comments do not seem to be intrinsically connected to the capitulation of the Biblical text, Olympiodorus was certainly using a text equipped with capitulation, for his commentary is explicitly structured by it. His commentary on the Jeremian books is called a commentary κατὰ κεφάλαιον,29 and the κεφάλαια (for Jer., Lam., and a modified version for Bar.) are none other than the capitulatio Vaticana. Thus, we may be certain there were copies of the Prophets (and, in all probability, other portions of Scripture) in Alexandria in the early sixth century bearing the capitulatio. Moreover, that it should seem natural for Olympiodorus to write a commentary κατὰ κεφάλαιον based on this capitulatio suggests that it must have been fairly well established, perhaps even standard, in Alexandria if not elsewhere at the time. The text of Isaiah in Barb. 549 is considered by Ziegler to be part of his Alexandrian group, along with A, Q, 26, 106, and 710.30 But B’s text of Isaiah is not in this group.31 Similarly, the Jeremian corpus in Barb. 549 is part of Ziegler’s Q-text,32 along with Q, V and several other minuscules,33 while B is not a member of this group. This means that for Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations the capitulatio has survived the transition from one type or recension to another. 29

This comes on p. 224v at the end of the commentary on the Ep. Jer. S. Jellicoe, Septuagint (1968), 202, 218-9. 31 Ibid. 219. 32 J. Ziegler, Jeremias, Baruch, Threni, Epistula Jeremiae (2013, 1957), 59. 33 Ibid. 16-7, also notes that the citations in Olympiodorus’s commentary usually align with the freestanding Scripture text. 30

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Besides his work on the Jeremian corpus, Olympiodorus is credited with writing commentaries on Job, Esdras, Ecclesiastes, and Luke. His commentary on Job is extant in the catena manuscript Vat. gr. 749 (eighth or ninth century), and it too evinces his approach of commenting ‘according to chapter’. Though this is a catena manuscript, it is the capitulated text of Job, and Olympiodorus’ comments pinned to this capitulation, which provide the structure for the comments added from other interpreters. This capitulation of Job also matches the capitulation in Codex Vaticanus,34 though we should not call this the capitulatio Vaticana in the same sense because the book of Job is one of the exceptions in Vaticanus, a canonical book35 which for some reason was not marked in the primary capitulation but only in the large and coarse, ninth-century characters. The evidence of Vat. gr. 749 could suggest that this secondary capitulation might have been extant when Vaticanus was constructed and that its absence from Vaticanus was an oversight.36 On the other hand, Olympiodorus’ commentary on Ecclesiastes preserved in the twelfth-century Parisinus nationalis gr. 153, which again shows his treatment according to chapter, is also based on the secondary capitulation in Vaticanus (the primary capitulation has 25 chapters, the secondary seven). The capitulation of Job in Vat. gr. 749 thus becomes perhaps the earliest physical witnesses to the secondary capitulation in Vaticanus, and both Vat. gr. 749 Job and Paris. gr. 153 Ecclesiastes prove that this capitulation was extant in the early sixth century when Olympiodorus wrote his commentaries. D. Olympiodorus and the Exegetical Benefits of Capitulation The colophon on p. 224 of Barb. 549 tells us that Olympiodorus was a deacon ordained by John Niciota, bishop of Alexandria (507-517 AD, some reports say 505-515/16). Some have identified Olympiodorus with the teacher of that name who held the chair of philosophy in Alexandria in the early sixth century,37 a pupil of the pagan philosopher Ammonius mentioned in our Introduction.38 Today they are typically regarded as distinct individuals, though they lived at 34

The edition in PG 93 is taken instead from a catena compiled by Nicetas of Heraclea in the eleventh century, which does not preserve the original chapters. 35 After Numbers, all of the books noted by Athanasius in his 39th Festal Letter as canonized bear the primary capitulation (what I am calling, after Tregelles, the capitulatio Vaticana) except Job (Esther, it is noted, also not capitulated in B, is listed by Athanasius as among the catechetical books). 36 Job is immediately followed in B by the collection of catechetical books, which are not capitulated. The capitulation resumes with the Minor Prophets. 37 On whom see Christian Wildberg, ‘Olympiodorus’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, URL = , who gives his dates as approximately 500-570. 38 Note in cols. 477-8 in PG 93; art. ‘Olympiodorus of Alexandria’, in John McClintock and James Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature (New York, 1870).

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Figure 5. Barb. 549, p. 124v, προθεωρία τοῦ κεφαλαίου in Jeremiah Image from: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Barb.gr.549

Figure 6. Barb. 549, p. 124v, αἱ λέξεις in Jeremiah Image from: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Barb.gr.549

the same time in the same city. In any case, they were beneficiaries of the same literary and philosophical paideia. In his commentaries on the Jeremian books in Barb. 549, the deacon Olympiodorus followed a standard procedure of first citing the Biblical text, then structuring his treatments of each chapter under the two headings, προθεωρία τοῦ κεφαλαίου and αἱ λέξεις (Figures 5 and 6). This mirrors exactly the classroom procedure of the philosopher Olympiodorus, as described by Wildberg: each class (praxis) was divided into three sections. The reading of the original Platonic (or Aristotelian) text was followed by an ‘overview’ over the passage (theôria), which in turn segued into a closer reading (lexis). The overview allowed the professor to make all kinds of general remarks on the significance and meaning of the passage under discussion; the close reading presented more detailed and often simply philological, linguistic, logical, or rhetorical observations not unlike those found in our modern annotated editions. The procedure of dividing one’s comments into these two different sections seems to be a formalized development of Proclus’ work.39

The commentaries of Olympiodorus not only illustrate the benefits of capitulation for ease of reference.40 If we are correct in reading his treatments of Scripture ‘according to chapter’ as informed by the Neoplatonic scholars’ attention to the ‘division into chapters’ of classical authors, we may infer his recognition 39 Ch. Wildberg, ‘Olympiodorus’ (see n. 37). Concerning Olympiodorus’s students David and Elias, who also wrote commentaries, Wildberg says: ‘We can tell that they were influenced by Olympiodorus, not only because they refer to him, but also because they adopt his pedagogical method of dividing their lectures into theôria and lexeis. The same goes for Stephanus of Alexandria, who taught philosophy in Constantinople at the beginning of the 7th century’. 40 We have earlier examples of this, e.g., in Fortunatianus (mid fourth century), who provided numbered chapter headings for the Gospel in his exegetical work. These were specific to and keyed to his commentary, however, and he makes plain that they were only to aid reference to his comments. See Fortunatianus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Gospels, translated and introduced by H.A.G. Houghton, in association with Lukas J. Dorfbauer (Berlin, Boston, 2017), lines 575-6 (p. 21) and p. xv.

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of at least some inherent structural significance, and therefore hermeneutical potential, of a clearly capitulated Biblical text. The chapter divisions Olympiodorus adopted, at least those for Jeremiah, Lamentations, and in an earlier form the Epistle, had been extant for at least about 200 years and he may well have considered them ‘standard’. The chapter divisions he used served not only Olympiodorus, his hearers,41 and his readers, but also the creator and users of the Job catena (Vat. gr. 749), which accepts these divisions as the organizing principle of the catena. One can only wonder if these were the sorts of exegetical advantages envisioned by the scribes of Codex Vaticanus when they provided its Scriptural text with this innovative apparatus. E. Conclusions and Future Research Zacynthius and Marchalianus are no longer our only known tradents of the capitulatio Vaticana. Now there is the combination Scripture, commentary, and catena manuscript Vat. Barb. gr. 549 (R 86), which reveals that the capVat, at least for the Prophets, must have been fairly common in Alexandria in the early sixth century. At least one significant enterprise of Biblical exegesis from that time and place (the teaching and writing ministry of Olympiodorus) was based on this capitulation of the Prophets. And for the Poetical books it adopted a capitulation that is also found on the pages of Codex Vaticanus, though added sometime after that codex was manufactured. The three manuscripts Barb. 549, Vat. gr. 749, and Paris. gr. 153 also demonstrate that these ancient capitulations played a role in the history of exegesis greater than was previously known, the extent of which still waits to be discovered. It is important to observe that we would not have known about the chapter divisions in Olympiodorus’ commentaries and their relationship to the capVat from the PG 93 edition.42 These things are discoverable only through visual interaction with manuscripts, which in this case has depended upon the digitization and online accessibility provided by the Vatican and BnF libraries. As the truly praiseworthy efforts of such libraries to make images of their precious holdings freely available online continue, the prospects for the further recovery of the capitulatio Vaticana’s lost legacy can only be seen as bright. 41 Ineke Slutter, ‘Commentaries and the Didactic Tradition’, in Commentaries – Kommentare, edited by Glenn W. Most (Göttingen, 1999), 173-205, 173, observes that ‘the existence of a commentary on any given text is evidence that that text was used in teaching. The commentator is essentially a teacher’. The parallel with the philosopher Olympiodorus cited above strongly suggests that the deacon taught on these Scriptural texts as well. 42 B. Pouderon, ‘Les Lamentations de Jérémie et l’Exégèse sur l’âme (NHC II, 6) chez Origène et Olypiodore d’Alexandrie’ (2011), 734, reports that his student Alain Demillac prepared an edition and translation of Vat. Barb. gr. 549 for his degree, but as of this point it apparently has not been published.

‘Vanity and Choice of Spirit’: Physics and Human Will in the Early Christian Exegesis of Ecclesiastes Francesco CELIA, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

ABSTRACT At the beginning of his Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Metrophanes of Smyrna (9th c.) wrote that Ecclesiastes concerns the ‘order and status of almost all beings and phenomena of nature, as well as of goodness and wickedness of human volitional faculty’. A quick look at the volumes of Biblia Patristica provides evidence that such an imposing claim was never really reflected in the Patristic interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, where Ecclesiastes played an undisputed minor role. Moreover, Metrophanes’ description might appear an extremely simplistic rendition of the contents of Ecclesiastes when one would consider its internal contradictions and doctrinal antinomies, which had notoriously troubled its inclusion in the Hebrew Bible and still puzzles contemporary exegetes. However, it summarises well perhaps the most persistent exegetical solutions which have characterised centuries of gradual appropriation of this biblical book by Christian exegetes, especially after Origen of Alexandria. The present study aims to explore how the claims that Ecclesiastes is a book of physics and deals with human will became two major themes which have orientated the Early Christian exegesis of this biblical book. In particular this paper will focus on the comments of the nine passages of Ecclesiastes where ματαιότης and προαίρεσις πνεύματος occur together made by a number of key, mostly Greek-speaking, Christian exegetes between the third and ninth century. It will show that later commentators have been significantly influenced by the exegesis of Origen of Alexandria and, accordingly, that their comments are an essential complement for the reconstruction of the almost completely lost interpretation of this biblical book by the Alexandrian master.

According to Metrophanes, the ninth-century bishop of Smyrna, Ecclesiastes deals with the ‘order and status of almost all beings and phenomena of nature, as well as of goodness and wickedness of the human volitional faculty’ (προαιρετική) (Commentary on Ecclesiastes I,2,19-23).1 In the light of the internal 1 Pseudo-Gregorii Agrigentini seu pseudo-Gregorii Nysseni Commentarius in Ecclesiasten, ed. Gerard H. Ettlinger and Jacques Noret, Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca (= CChr.SG) 56 (Turnhout, Leuven, 2007), 5. Scholars have often questioned the long held attribution of this work to Gregory of Agrigentum. One year after its critical edition was published, Peter van Deun, ‘La chasse au trésors: la découverte de plusieurs œuvres inconnues de Métrophane de Smyrne

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 39-49. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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contradictions and doctrinal antinomies of Ecclesiastes, this depiction might seem an oversimplification. In fact, it summarises apparently the most significant guidelines which have oriented centuries of Christian interpretation of this biblical book. In this article I intend to illustrate how the idea that Ecclesiastes concerns physics and human will originated and became conventional. To this end I will concentrate on the exegesis of the nine passages where ματαιότης2 and προαίρεσις πνεύματος occur together (1:14. 17; 2:11. 17. 26; 4:4. 6. 16; 6:9)3 given by some major commentators between the third and ninth century, such as Gregory of Neocaesarea, Dionysius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius of Pontus, Jerome, Olympiodorus of Alexandria, and Metrophanes of Smyrna.4 None of them seem to have escaped the direct or indirect influence of the now almost completely lost comments on Ecclesiastes by Origen of Alexandria. The theory that Ecclesiastes deals with physics appeared for the first time in a famous passage of Origen’s Prologue to his Commentary on the Song of Songs,5 where the Alexandrian master established that the Solomonic trilogy (IXe-Xe siècle)’, Byzantion 78 (2008), 346-67 has demonstrated that it must be ascribed to Metrophanes of Smyrna. 2 Jean-Jacques Lavoie, ‘Habel habalim hakol habel, histoire de l’interprétation d’une formule célèbre et enjeux culturels’, Science et esprit 58 (2006), 219-49, has provided an overview of the history of the Jewish and Christian interpretation of Eccl. 1:2 where very little space is dedicated to patristic exegesis. 3 A study of all the appearances of ματαιότης and προαίρεσις, which occur another thirty-one times in the text in relation to a variety of subjects, would surpass the scope of this article. 4 With the exception of scattered comments by other key authors which have been preserved in various catenae on Ecclesiastes and of Didymus of Alexandria. Unfortunately, the Commentary on Ecclesiastes of Didymus has been handed down only incompletely and does not provide us with enough evidence to outline how he interpreted the expression προαίρεσις πνεύματος. See Gerhard Binder (ed.), Didymos der Blinde, Kommentar zum Ecclesiastes, I/2, Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen (= PTA) 26 (Bonn, 1983), 103. However, we will have a chance to refer to this work later on (n. 43). 5 Jean Kirchmeyer, ‘Origène, Commentaire sur le Cantique, Prol.’, SP 10 (1970), 230-5; Sandro Leanza, ‘La classificazione dei libri salomonici e i suoi riflessi sulla questione dei rapporti tra Bibbia e scienze profane, da Origene agli scrittori medioevali’, Augustinianum 14 (1974), 651-66; Marguerite Harl, ‘Les trois livres de Salomon et les trois parties de la philosophie dans les Prologues des Commentaires sur le Cantique des Cantiques (d’Origène aux Chaînes exégétiques grecques)’, in Jürgen Dummer (ed.), Texte und Textkritik. Eine Aufsatzsammlung, TU 133 (Berlin, 1987), 249-69. Some scholars, such as M. Harl (ibid. 252), have already pointed out that this partition of knowledge is not exactly the typical one among Greek philosophical schools (which included logic, ethics and physics), and it has become common knowledge, after the studies of Pierre Hadot, that this would have resulted from a Middle- or Neo-Platonic influence on Origen. But Origen dedicates some space to explaining that logic can easily be mingled with the other branches of knowledge both in the Prologue as well as Fragments on Lamentations XIV. This suggests that Origen had in mind an often overlooked fourfold pattern that goes back to Chrysippus (Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta [= SVF], ed. Hans von Arnim, 3 vol. [Stuttgart, 1903-5], II 42), where theology replaces epoptics. For more details on this issue see Francesco Celia, ‘Studying the Scriptures at the School of Caesarea: The Testimony of Gregory

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of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs corresponds to the ‘three branches of learning … the moral, the natural and the inspective’, which is what the Greeks called, borrowing ‘these ideas from Solomon’, ‘Ethics, Physics and Epoptics’.6 This order of disciplines mirrors the paradigmatic progression of the soul towards knowledge of and union with God: by carrying out these studies the soul is, first, morally purified, then it becomes able to ‘discriminate between natural things’, and finally ‘competent to proceed to dogmatic and mystical matters’.7 More specifically, as Origen explains, ‘[t]he study called natural is that in which the nature of each single thing is considered; so that nothing in life may be done which is contrary to nature but everything is assigned to the uses for which the Creator brought it into being.’8 Although Origen repeats here a major ethical tenet of Stoicism which was essential also to its physics9 and which was positively regarded in the intellectual milieux of Alexandria,10 that is ‘living in accordance with nature’, he never accepted the Stoic theories that God is identified with the cosmos and is corporeal. On the contrary, Origen looked at nature through the Platonic dichotomy between material and intelligible worlds, and this perspective was predictably crucial in his understanding of Ecclesiastes as a book of physics as well as of of Neocaesarea’s Oratio Panegyrica’, in Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Oded Irshai, Arieh Kofsky, Hillel Newman and Lorenzo Perrone (eds), Origeniana Duodecima, BETL 302 (Leuven, 2019), 285-95, 285, n. 3. 6 Origen, Commentary on Song of Songs, Prol. 3,5-7, in Origène, Commentaire sur le Cantique des Cantiques, ed. Luc Brésard, Henri Crouzel and Marcel Borret, SC 375 (Paris, 1991), 128-30. Trans. R.P. Lawson in Origen, The Song of Songs. Commentary and Homilies, ACW 26 (Westminster, MD, 1957), 39-40. Lawson writes ‘Enoptics’, but the correct reading of the Latin is epopticen (see SC 375, 128 and J. Kirchmeyer, ‘Origène, Commentaire’ [1970], 230-5). 7 Origen, Commentary on Song of Songs, Prol. 3,16, SC 375, 138; trans. R.P. Lawson in Origen, The Song of Songs (1957), 44. 8 Origen, Commentary on Song of Songs, Prol. 3,3, SC 375, 130; trans. R.P. Lawson in Origen, The Song of Songs (1957), 40. 9 See SVF III,12-4, III,142, III,282. On the significance that the knowledge of nature has for ethics in Stoicism see the third part of the volume edited by Ricardo Salles in God and Cosmos in Stoicism (Oxford, 2009), in particular Marcelo D. Boeri, ‘Does Cosmic Nature Matter? Some Remarks on the Cosmological Aspects of Stoic Ethics’, 173-200. For the reception of the link between ethics and cosmology in the context of the Christian interpretation of Ecclesiastes see Alfons Fürst, ‘Der Anthropokosmismus des Origenes im Koheletkommentar des Hieronymus’, in Elisabeth Birnbaum and Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger (eds), Hieronymus als Exeget und Theologe. Interdisziplinäre Zugänge zum Koheletkommentar des Hieronymus, BETL 268 (Leuven, 2014), 43-86, 43-50. The core of this study, which pays particular attention to Jerome’s exegesis of the ‘cosmic poem’ (Eccl. 1:4-11) vis-à-vis Origen’s cosmology and anthropology, is that the centrality of human being in Hellenistic philosophy, which constituted the cultural ‘Zeitgeist’ within which Ecclesiastes itself originated (Hengel), was inherited and amplified in Origen’s and Jerome’s interpretations of Ecclesiastes. 10 For instance, Philo, On the Migration of Abraham 23,127-31, On the Life of Moses 2,12-6, and Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis II 19,100-1, V 14,94,6-95,1.

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Solomon’s knowledge embracing ‘what is secret and what is manifest’ in the universe (Wis. 7:21).11 ... by discussing at length the things of nature, and by distinguishing the useless and vain from the profitable and essential, he [Solomon] counsels us to forsake vanity and cultivate things useful and upright ... Ecclesiastes [...] teaches [...] that all visible and corporeal things are fleeting and brittle; and surely once the seeker after wisdom has grasped that these things are so, he is bound to spurn and despise them; renouncing the world bag and baggage, if I may put it in that way, he will surely reach out for the things unseen and eternal which, with spiritual meaning verily but under certain secret metaphors of love, are taught in the Song of Songs.12

That the goal of natural science contained in Ecclesiastes is to acknowledge that corporeal reality is ephemeral and that its vanity should be forsaken is then originating from a precise theoretical position reflecting Origen’s recognition of the philosophical importance of physics for ethics. No doubt one must be aware also of his apologetic intention to trace back profane wisdom to Scripture,13 but I dispute Marguerite Harl’s opinion that Origen’s view was motivated by the mere necessity of introducing an intermediary step between ‘moral purification’ and ‘union with God’, or by an alleged distortion of the meaning of ‘vanity’.14 For Origen, the whole physical universe is indeed subject to vanity and corruption. And even though the fragmentary remains of his scholia and homilies on Ecclesiastes are still little known,15 it is significant that time and again he referred to ματαιότης ματαιοτήτων of Eccl. 1:2 and τα πάντα ματαιότης of 1:14 to explain Rom. 8:20 (‘the creation was subjected to vanity, not willingly but by reason of him who subjected it in hope, because creation itself shall be set free from the bondage of corruption...’).16 Scholars have already surveyed the vast circulation of Origen’s views on Solomon’s trilogy and on Ecclesiastes’ place in it in Early and Medieval Christianity.17 On the one hand, this dissemination has certainly facilitated the treatment of 11

Origen, Commentary on Song of Songs III 13,15-8. Origen, Commentary on Song of Songs, Prol. 3,6. 15, SC 375, 132, 138; trans. R.P. Lawson in Origen, The Song of Songs (1957), 41, 44. See also Origen, Commentary on Song of Songs, Prol. 3,14. 13 S. Leanza, ‘La classificazione dei libri salomonici’ (1974), 657. 14 M. Harl, ‘Les trois livres de Salomon’ (1987), 253. 15 Jerome (Ep. 33,4) attests that Origen wrote scholia and eight homilies on Ecclesiastes. Except for a number of scholia preserved in a few catenae, all these materials are now lost, but elements of Origen’s interpretation of Ecclesiastes can be gathered from his other works or traced back by cross-checking the later commentaries. The most thorough, albeit incomplete and outdated, investigation of this subject remains Sandro Leanza, L’esegesi di Origene al libro dell’Ecclesiaste (Reggio Calabria, 1975). 16 See On First Principles I 7,5 and Against Celsus VII 50. Origen quotes Eccl. 1:2 again in other works where it plays a minor role (Commentary on the Song of Songs, Prol. 3,14 and Homilies on Numbers 11,8 and 25,3). 17 See S. Leanza’s and M. Harl’s articles referred to in the previous notes. 12

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the motto ‘all is vanity’, which – as we will be able to appreciate – virtually every Greek and Latin Christian exegete read through the lens of the theory of the two worlds, so that ‘vanity’ was applied to the realities, either physical or merely human, ‘under the sun’ (ὑπὸ τὸν ἥλιον) or ‘under the sky’ (ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανόν). On the other hand, the fact that Origen conceived Solomon’s trilogy in the terms of a spiritual path towards God must have played a major role in favouring an exegesis of Ecclesiastes focusing on ethical subjects more than on physics. These trends are sharply exemplified by the later interpretations of the occurrences of ματαιότης καὶ προαίρεσις πνεύματος, where predominant importance was assigned to the second part of this turn of phrase. The Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes by Gregory Thaumaturgus, an exegetical paraphrase of Ecclesiastes, is the earliest Christian work preserved in its entirety focusing on this biblical text.18 Gregory’s interpretation of προαίρεσις πνεύματος touches upon both anthropological and natural subjects. Thus, πνεῦμα means the ‘irrational impulse’ (ἀλόγιστος ὁρμή)19 that drove Solomon to accomplish his many works in Eccl. 2:17,20 the ‘wretched soul’ (ἀθλία ψυχή) of the wicked man in Eccl. 2:26,21 and the ‘passion’ (ἐπιθυμία) for whatever ‘lascivious eyes see’ in Eccl. 6:9.22 In most cases, however, Gregory gives a more strictly allegorical interpretation of the expression, which comes to mean a demonic activity and which derives from Origen’s teaching.23 Accordingly, Solomon becomes aware that his accomplishments in Eccl. 2:11 are ‘works of an evil spirit’ (πνεύματος οὐκ ἀγαθοῦ ποιήματα);24 the neighbour’s envy of a man’s works in Eccl. 4:4 is in fact a ‘sting of an evil spirit’ (οἶστρος πονηροῦ πνεύματος);25 the fool’s greed in Eccl. 4:6 derives from a ‘craftiness of a deceitful spirit’ (δολεροῦ πνεύματος πανουργία);26 the ‘impulse’ which leads those who do not praise the poor young man of Eccl. 4:13-6 originates from a ‘contrary spirit’ (ὁρμὴ πνεύματος ἐναντίου).27 Most interestingly, Gregory 18

On this work, which is still lacking a critical edition, see Francesco Celia, Preaching the Gospel to the Hellenes: The Life and Works of Gregory Thaumaturgus, Late Antique History and Religion 20 (Leuven, 2019), 173-215. 19 The same definition of πνεῦμα returns in Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 7,19, which deals with Eccl. 2:11 (ἀλόγιστος ὁρμὴ τῆς ψυχῆς). 20 Gregory Thaumaturgus, Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes II, PG 10, 993C. 21 Gregory Thaumaturgus, Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes II, PG 10, 993D. 22 Gregory Thaumaturgus, Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes VI, PG 10, 1004B. The only exception is when Gregory deals with Eccl. 1:17, PG 10, 992A, where he ignores it. 23 On this dependence see below. 24 Gregory Thaumaturgus, Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes II, PG 10, 993A. 25 Gregory Thaumaturgus, Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes IV, PG 10, 997B. 26 Gregory Thaumaturgus, Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes IV, PG 10, 997C. 27 Gregory Thaumaturgus, Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes IV, PG 10, 1000A. Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes I reports Gregory’s idea commenting on Eccl. 1:15 (‘a twisted thing cannot be made straight, and what is not there cannot be numbered’) with some smaller changes and without mentioning – as usual – his source. See Der Koheletkommentar des Hieronymus, ed. Elisabeth Birnbaum, CSEL Extra seriem (Berlin, Boston, 2014), 68.10-2: Tanta malitia in mundi huius

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gives a demonological interpretation which accommodates a more general speculation about the constitution of nature when dealing with the first occurrence of ματαιότης καὶ προαίρεσις πνεύματος in Eccl. 1:14-5: ‘All things here below are full of a portentous and abominable spirit, so that it is not possible that they can be the same again, but neither that they completely vanish like smoke: so great is the absurdity which overwhelms human affairs’.28 In other words, Gregory interprets πνεῦμα as the devil itself, which turns into the secret cause both of the ‘absurdity’ (ἀτοπία) of human affairs and of the changeability of nature, that is of their ματαιότης.29 The same lines of thought are maintained by another direct pupil of Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, whose exegesis of Ecclesiastes is known through a number of scholia contained in the Catena Hauniensis.30 Commenting upon Eccl. 1:17 Dionysius first declares that Solomon’s wisdom was ‘of this world’ (κοσμική), neither the true wisdom (ἀληθῆ σοφία) nor the γνώσις ὄντως.31 Then he clarifies that when Solomon speaks of ‘choice of spirit’ he does not mean the Holy Spirit, but the choice made by ‘the prince of this world’ (1Cor. 2:6.8) that ‘leads souls to ruin, to meddle with the limits of the sky, the disposition of earth, the boundaries of the sea’. Hence, Dionysius rephrases Eccl. 1:18 as follows: ‘he who increases knowledge of these things will increase sorrow’.32 Dionysius’ comment on Eccl. 2:11 insists on the dichotomy between the wisdom of this world and that of the world above. After stating that all human pursuits ‘under the sun’ are of ‘no advantage’ and are ‘vanity and choice of spirit’, Dionysius adds: ‘if we wished advantage and sought for capacitate versatur, ut ad integrum boni statum mundus redire vix valeat nec possit facile recipere ordinem et perfectionem suam, in quibus primum conditus est. Jerome made extensive use of Gregory’s Metaphrase as has been recently shown by Aline Canellis, ‘Le Commentaire sur l’Ecclésiaste de Saint Jérôme’, in Laurence Mellerin (ed.), La réception du Livre de Qohélet. Ier-XIIIe s. (Paris, 2016), 205-27. 28 Gregory Thaumaturgus, Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes I, PG 10, 989D. Trans. by Michael Slusser in St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Life and Works, FC 98 (Washington, DC, 1998), 128 (slightly altered). 29 For further details on the significance of this interpretation for the rest of the Metaphrase see F. Celia, Preaching the Gospel to the Hellenes (2019), 197-9. 30 Catena Hauniensis in Ecclesiasten in qua saepe exegesis servatur Dionysii Alexandrini, ed. Antonio Labate, CChr.SG 24 (Turnhout, Leuven, 1992). Here I will take into consideration only those scholia of certain attribution. The edition of Dionysius’ comments by Charles L. Feltoe (The Letters and Other Remains of Dionysius of Alexandria [Cambridge, 1904], 208-27) should be used with extreme caution as shown by Sandro Leanza, ‘Il Commentario sull’Ecclesiaste di Dionigi Alessandrino’, in Scritti in onore di Salvatore Pugliatti, vol. 5 (Milano, 1978), 397-429 and ‘Pour une réédition des scholies à l’Ecclésiaste de Denys d’Alexandrie’, in ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΙΝΑ: Hellénisme, judaïsme et cristianisme à Alexandrie. Mélanges offerts à P. Claude Mondésert (Paris, 1987), 239-46. 31 Catena Hauniensis I 228-38, CChr.SG 24, 16, where Dionysius refers to several passages from 1Cor. (especially to 1Cor. 3:19: ‘wisdom of this world’) and identifies the parables of Eccl. 1:17 with those three thousand ones mentioned in 3Kgdms. 5:12. 32 Catena Hauniensis I 242-7, CChr.SG 24, 16-7.

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being incorruptible, we should toil for toils that run above the sun; in these, indeed, there is neither vanity nor choice of a spirit that diverts in vain here and there’.33 The idea that the demonic ‘spirit’ somehow ‘misdirects’ men returns when Dionysius refers to Symmachus’ Greek translation of the Hebrew text into κάκωσις πνεύματος in Ecclesiastes 4:4: ‘this spirit indeed oppresses (κακοῖ) those who have it’.34 Gregory of Nyssa’s eight homilies on Ecclesiastes concern only the first three chapters of the book, but testify to an interpretation of προαίρεσις πνεύματος with a predominantly moral focus, which is somehow expected given the homiletical context.35 Gregory argues that the reason for the claim in Ecclesiastes 1:14 that ‘all is vanity’ cannot be God, but ‘the choice made by human impulse, which he calls spirit’.36 At the beginning man’s soul was in harmony with nature, but then, ‘by becoming crooked it has ceased to fit the design of the world.’37 But human choice is not just oriented to wickedness because it was by ‘choice of spirit’ that Solomon started looking for the real ‘knowledge of beings’ (ἡ τῶν ὄντων γνώσις), as Gregory points out when interpreting Eccl. 1:17.38 His interpretation of Ecclesiastes 2:11 and 2:17 is akin to Dionysius of Alexandria’s: Solomon’s works under the sun deliver no advantage and are futile because they originate from the search for pleasure and ‘impulse of choice’ (ὁρμὴ προαιρέσεως)39 and because ‘all power and activity of the senses has life under the sun as its limit, and the sensual nature cannot reach what is beyond it and comprehend the good things which lie above’.40 Accordingly, Gregory defines the trouble of the sinner of Eccl. 2:26 as due to his ‘quest for adding and collecting’ and to the fact that his soul is ‘dragged down from the things above to the things below’.41 The comments of the Scholia on Ecclesiastes ascribed by Paul Géhin, apparently not always on solid critical grounds, to Evagrius of Pontus, confirm the 33

Catena Hauniensis II 56-60, CChr.SG 24, 25. Catena Hauniensis IV 76-9, CChr.SG 24, 64-5. 35 See Gregory’s careful treatment of the polisemy of ματαιότης in Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on Ecclesiastes I,3-4, ed. Françoise Vinel, SC 416 (Paris, 1996), 112-8. 36 Gregory describes the expression προαίρεσις πνεύματος also as ‘impulse of nature’ (ὁρμὴ τῆς φύσεως) in Homilies on Ecclesiastes II 5, SC 416, 168.46. 37 Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on Ecclesiastes II 3, trans. by Stuart G. Hall and Rachel Moriarty in Stuart G. Hall (ed.), Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on Ecclesiastes. An English Version with Supporting Studies. Proceedings of the Seventh International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (St Andrews, 5–10 September 1990) (Berlin, New York, 1993), 51. 38 Gregory of Nyssa, Homily on Ecclesiastes II 6, SC 416, 172.43, where Gregory ignores ματαιότης. A few lines before (SC 416, 172.30-1) he had defined this knowledge as ‘comprehension of the transcendent’ (τοῦ ὑπερκειμένου κατάληψις). 39 Gregory of Nyssa, Homily on Ecclesiastes V 6, SC 416, 288.68. 40 Gregory of Nyssa, Homily on Ecclesiastes IV 5, trans. S.G. Hall and R. Moriarty, in Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on Ecclesiastes (1990), 84. 41 Gregory of Nyssa, Homily on Ecclesiastes V 8, trans. S.G. Hall and R. Mogarty, in Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on Ecclesiastes (1990), 98. 34

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trends of exegesis observed so far.42 Evagrius seems to have argued that Eccl. 2:11 ‘calls πνεῦμα the soul, because choice is a certain movement of the intellect’ (νοῦ κίνησις)43, that προαίρεσις πνεύματος of Eccl. 4:6 ‘is subjected to passion as psychic will’ (ψυχικὸν θέλημα),44 and, likewise, that vanity and choice of spirit of Eccl. 6:9 should be applied only to things which can be blamed such as what ‘wanders in the soul’ that is the ‘wills of the soul’.45 More convincing evidence is provided by Gehin in support of the authenticity of Evagrius’ comment on Eccl. 4:4, where man’s envy is interpreted as the devil’s vain envy towards the human race.46 Confronting Eccl. 1:14 in his Commentary Jerome objects that προαίρεσις does not offer the correct translation of the Hebrew routh, as ‘προαίρεσις sounds more like will (voluntas) than presumption (praesumptio)’47 which is, instead, the meaning conveyed by the Greek translations of Aquila (νομή) and Theodotion (βόσκησις), which, in turn, were drawn from ‘pasture’ (pastio). Jerome followed his Hebrew teacher’s explanation of the term and endorsed the meaning of ‘wickedness’ (malitia), that is ‘distress of the spirit (miserias spiritus), by which the soul is afflicted by contrary thoughts’.48 Thus, Jerome translated the other occurrences of the Hebrew routh into praesumptio (on Eccl. 1:17; 2:26; 4:4; 4:6; 4:16; 6:9), voluntas (on Eccl. 2:11) and pastio (on Eccl. 2:17). Still, he maintained the meaning of will while commenting upon some of these passages. As a consequence: all the things under the sun of Eccl. 2:11 are worthless when compared to other things and ‘different because of the 42 These materials have been published by Paul Géhin in Évagre le Pontique, Scholies à l’Ecclésiastique, SC 397 (Paris, 1993). Sandro Leanza, ‘A proposito di una recente edizione del presunto ‘Commentario all’Ecclesiaste’ di Evagrio Pontico’, Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 33 (1997), 365-98 has put forward several decisive criticisms against the trustworthiness of this edition which have been merely ignored by other scholars and went unanswered by Paul Gehin (‘L’Ecclésiaste à l’épreuve de l’allégorie dans les Scholies d’Évagre le Pontique’, in Laurence Mellerin [ed.], La réception du livre de Qohélet. Ier-XIIIe siècle [Paris, 2016], 134, n. 5). The latter is perhaps right to point out some acrimony in Leanza’s remarks but, unfortunately, the methodological problems of his edition remain. Therefore, I use it with some reservations. 43 Evagrius of Pontus, Scholia on Ecclesiastes 10, SC 397, 74.1-2. This scholium, as noted by Gehin, has been handed down under the name of Dionysius of Alexandria and Eustathius of Antioch as well. Moreover, the idea that ‘spirit’ means in fact ‘soul’ is repeatedly attested in Didymus of Alexandria’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes. See Didymos der Blinde, Kommentar zum Ekklesiastes, Teil I,1, ed. Gerhard Binde and Leo Liesenborghs, PTA 25 (Bonn, 1979), 25.25 (on Eccl. 1:14), 30.19 (on Eccl. 1:17) and 45.18-22 (on Eccl. 2:11). 44 Evagrius (?), Scholion 27, SC 397, 103. This scholium is ascribed, among others (see Gehin’s comment ad locum), also to Dionysius of Alexandria in the Catena Hauniensis (IV 91-106, CChr. SG 24, 65-6). 45 Evagrius (?), Scholia 50-1, SC 397, 146-8. As noted by P. Gehin, ibid. 147, the expression τοῖς θελήμασι τῆς ψυχῆς occurs in a scholium attributed to Dionysius in Catena Hauniensis (VI 118, CChr.SG 24, 100). 46 Evagrius, Scholion 25, SC 397, 100. See P. Gehin, ibid. 100-1. 47 Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes I,14,4-7 ed. E. Birnbaum, CSEL Extra seriem (2014), 66. 48 Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes I,14,12-8 ed. E. Birnbaum, CSEL Extra seriem (2014), 66.

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variety of wills’ (pro voluntatum varietate diversa);49 the fool’s trouble of Eccl. 2:26 was not caused by God but by the fool himself, ‘who had previously sinned sponte sua’;50 what ‘wanders in the soul’, which is identified with προαίρεσις πνεύματος in Eccl. 6:9, is the ‘will of the heart’ (voluntas cordis) which goes against the ‘eye of the soul’ (animae oculus).51 All in all, despite Jerome’s intentions to be philologically sound, the meaning of his interpretation reveals itself to be in line with the already traditional interpretation of προαίρεσις πνεύματος and, as expected, receptive to the influence of Origen’s and other Alexandrian commentators. The moral focus is crucial in the interpretation given in Olympiodorus of Alexandria’s Commentary.52 This feature becomes programmatical when he states that Eccl. 1:14 calls πνεῦμα the ‘rational soul equipped with free will’ (αὐτεξούσιον). Consequently, vanity is comprised of those ‘worldly and corruptible things’ which men toil for ‘under the sun’; moreover, in this way men arrange for themselves the future punishment by their own choice and not out of necessity (προαιρετικῶς ... καὶ οὐκ ἀναγκαστικῶς).53 But God let men sin and experience the ‘trouble’ (περισπασμός) of Eccl. 2:26 so that some day they will disdain vanity and toil for the immortal life prepared for the ‘future age’ (ἀιών).54 Dealing with Eccl. 2:11, Olympiodorus argues that those who do not look for the things ‘above the sun’, which are the only things worth craving, cannot be justified either by ‘an act of irrational fortune’ (τύχη), or by ‘the necessity of fate’ (εἱμαρμένη), because humans are led by ‘choice’ (προαίρεσις) and ‘free will’ (αὐτεξούσιον).55 Indeed, wisdom and gnosis in Eccl. 1:17 are not called vanity but ‘choice of spirit’, because men do not become wise ‘according to fate’ (κατὰ εἱμαρμένη) but by ‘desiring wisdom’ (σοφίαν ἐπιθυμήσαντες).56 Olympiodorus’ exegesis of Eccl. 4:16 endorses Origen’s well-known anagogic interpretation of the ‘old king’ as Satan and the ‘poor young’ as Christ,57 and 49 Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes I,11,5-6 ed. E. Birnbaum, CSEL Extra seriem (2014), 82. It occurs here once more the theme of a multiplicity of wills (see n. 45 above). 50 Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes II 26,35-7 ed. E. Birnbaum, CSEL Extra seriem (2014), 90. 51 Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes VI 9,3-12 ed. E. Birnbaum, CSEL Extra seriem (2014), 138, where he mentions also the translations of Theodotion and Aquila (pastio venti) and Simmacus (afflictio venti). 52 Olympiodorus had access to multiple sources, even though he never mentions them. The work has been critically edited by Theodora Boli in a Dissertation which has remained unpublished: Olympiodor, Diakon von Alexandria, Kommentar zum Ekklesiastes. Eine kritische Edition (PhD Dissertation, Univ. Heidelberg, 2004). 53 Olympiodorus of Alexandria, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, ed. T. Boli (2004), 9.1-5. 54 Olympiodorus of Alexandria, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, ed. T. Boli (2004), 19.24-30. 55 Olympiodorus of Alexandria, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, ed. T. Boli (2004), 14.16-8. 56 Olympiodorus of Alexandria, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, ed. T. Boli (2004), 10.13-5. 57 See Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes IV 13-6,47-68 ed. E. Birnbaum, CSEL Extra seriem (2014), 120-2.

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warns again that those who follow Satan do that ‘not out of necessity’ (οὐκ ἀναγκαστικῶς), but ‘by choice’ (προαιρετικῶς) and ‘choice made by free will’ (αὐτεξούσιος προαιρέσεως ῥοπή).58 Accordingly, those who follow what ‘wanders in the soul’ in Eccl. 6:9 – that is their psychic choice – in fact choose to become, in Pauline terms (1Cor. 2:14), not πνευματικός but ψυχικός and ἀφώτιστος, because their eyes are not enlightened by the Holy Spirit.59 Metrophanes’ Commentary supplies us with an ingenious synthesis of previous exegetical motives. This is particularly evident when he links the theme of harmony with nature with that of freedom of will: Metrophanes establishes that πνεῦμα in Eccl. 1:14 defines the soul’s free will (αὐτεξούσιον) and argues that προαίρεσις πνεύματος does not apply to the nature of beings but only to those things which men do ‘against nature. Because ... the evil trouble (Eccl. 1:13) and the vanity of perverse works is not according to nature’ (οὐ κατὰ φύσιν).60 Thanks to the equivalence between πνεῦμα and ψυχή, Metrophanes interprets the ‘wisdom and knowledge’ of Eccl. 1:17 as futile because they are the ‘work of a psychic will’ (ψυχικῆς βουλήσεως ἔργον),61 that is, they are useless for those who do not draw their intellect (νοῦς) to care for ‘intelligible goods’ (νοητὰ ἀγαθά).62 The evil work under the sun of Eccl. 2:17 is not due to God but to the fool who does not make use either of his ‘deliberate wills’ (προαιρετικὰ βουλήματα) or of his ‘natural motions in a rational way’ (φυσικαὶ κινήσεις λογικῶς), because of a certain ‘deliberate thoughtlessness of [his] soul’ (προαιρετικὰ τῆς ψυχῆς ἀβουλία).63 Commenting on Eccl. 2:26 Metrophanes claims that ματαιότης and προαίρεσις πνεύματος form the usual way in which Ecclesiastes speaks of ‘those who choose false and evil things’.64 In line with Origen’s anagogic interpretation of Eccl. 4:13-6, Metrophanes interprets προαίρεσις πνεύματος of 4:16 as the fool’s choice not to follow Christ.65 Similarly, he sees in what ‘wanders in the soul’ in Eccl. 6:9 the ‘impulses of psychic wills’ (ὁρμαὶ ψυχικῶν βουλημάτων) of men who crave for ‘passing things’ and reject the sight of the spiritual eyes which guide to Christ.66 Although Origen’s theory that Ecclesiastes is a book of physics was paramount among later interpreters, this investigation, however limited, has pointed out that their major centre of attention remained ethical throughout centuries. 58

Olympiodorus of Alexandria, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, ed. T. Boli (2004), 39,18-40,8. Olympiodorus of Alexandria, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, ed. T. Boli (2004), 52,19-26. 60 Metrophanes, Commentary on Ecclesiastes I 16,10-9, CChr.SG 56, 38. 61 Metrophanes, Commentary on Ecclesiastes I 18,21-2, CChr.SG 56, 41. 62 Metrophanes, Commentary on Ecclesiastes I 18,27-9, CChr.SG 56, 41. 63 Metrophanes, Commentary on Ecclesiastes II 8,15-31, CChr.SG 56, 64-5. 64 Metrophanes, Commentary on Ecclesiastes II 14,2-7, CChr.SG 56, 76. Little or no attention is dedicated to the occurrences of the expression in Eccl. 4:4 and 4:6. 65 Metrophanes, Commentary on Ecclesiastes IV 3,96-103, CChr.SG 56, 148. 66 Metrophanes, Commentary on Ecclesiastes V 6,62, CChr.SG 56, 187. 59

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This outcome is not surprising if we consider that the ethical connotation of Ecclesiastes’ contents was already embedded in Origen’s notion of physics and in his reading of the Solomonic trilogy as symbolising a spiritual and intellectual path towards God. A perhaps more direct influence of Origen’s exegesis on later commentators is detectable in the fact that they have predominantly understood ματαιότης καὶ προαίρεσις πνεύματος as referring to another critical subject in the thought of the Alexandrian, namely free will. Through the exegetical expedient of considering πνεῦμα as equivalent of ψυχή, God’s part in the vanity of the world was automatically rejected: it is because of human choice that the world ‘under the sun’ turns out to be vain. Such a result was without a doubt central in Origen’s works on Ecclesiastes, but it is equally certain that this was not his only original solution to its problematic contents. The largely neglected exegesis of his direct pupils, Gregory Thaumaturgus and Dionysius of Alexandria, seems to offer an advantaged point of departure to recover the wealth of their master’s comments. Gregory and Dionysius could not, and did not, deny the component of human free will, but they appear to have assigned more importance than later exegetes to expose the effects of the devil’s activity in this world. In doing so, they demonstrate that they have preserved their master’s teaching that πνεῦμα means visibiliter ‘wind’, invisibiliter ‘impure spirit’. Origen indeed associated the ‘violence of πνεύματα’ which Solomon said he was knowledgeable about in Wis. 7:20 with the opposing ‘spirit of the ruler’ of Eccl. 10:4 and interpreted these passages as referring to the devil.67 Gregory’s and Dionysius’ demonological interpretations of προαίρεσις πνεύματος have therefore preserved the gist of other lost comments of Origen and add significant details to elucidate his general treatment of cosmic reality and, more in particular, his understanding of Ecclesiastes as a book of physics. Even though Origen’s interpretation of this biblical book is still an imperfectly understood, though crucial, moment in the history of Patristic exegesis, there is – I hope I have shown – solid ground to believe that a methodical analysis of later commentaries will shed new and substantial light on its contours and its vast and complex legacy.

67 Origen, Commentary on the Song of Songs III,13,24, SC 376, 638. See also On First Principles III,2,1. 4 where Eccl 10:4 is again mentioned.

Urbanität als Distinktionsmerkmal von Texten: Urbanisierung und Ruralisierung in den römischen Evangelien Jörg RÜPKE, Max-Weber-Kolleg, Universität Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany

ABSTRACT The question of how urbanity changes religion and how religion changes urbanity is explored in this essay using the example of the Gospels written in the city of Rome between 130 and 150 AD. These texts, I propose, allow a glimpse into the intertwining of religious and urban discourses, that is, the connection between the question of life with and under the divine with the question of urbanity, of the differentia specifica of life that can be qualified as urban. It is precisely this comparative view that allows us to move beyond the fruitless question of the ‘original’ urban or rural character of the movements understood as precursors of ‘Christianity’. Instead, the question is asked here about the role that urbanity is ascribed for one’s own religious practice and history: an urbanity, therefore, which thus also changes the role of religion for one’s own urban practice and history. The article shows that the Gospels of Mark and Luke are not just to be read as products for an urban audience. Rather, they are texts that offer a history of urban content and urban orientation for urbanites. In this respect Luke goes beyond Marcion once again. The narrated biography of Jesus is constructed as the biography of a person born in a city (polis) from an urban family and growing up in a city. The comparison with Matthew – and his radicalization in Q – shows the spectrum of possible positions within a discourse of city dwellers: Luke’s urbanity is contrasted with Matthew’s deliberate rurality. It is characteristic of New Testament research of the 19th (and still 20th) century, influenced by Romanticism, how it transforms this range into a development whose starting point can only be the rural, the suburban or even the suburban. The hypothesis Q translates this into a text sequence.

1. Fragestellung Wie verändert Urbanität Religion und wie Religion Urbanität?1 Dieser Ausgangsfrage soll hier an einem religionsgeschichtlich äußerst folgenreichen Prozess, 1 Zu dieser Grundfrage s. Susanne Rau und Jörg Rüpke, ‘Religion und Urbanität: Wechselseitige Formierungen’, Historische Zeitschrift 310 (2020), 654-80. Der Text entstand im Rahmen der Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe ‘Religion und Urbanität: Wechselseitige Formierungen’ (DFG FOR 2779) und wurde erstmals in Gießen zum 60. Geburtstag von Helmut Krasser vorgetragen, dem ich diesen Text widmen möchte. Ich danke den Zuhörerinnen und Zuhörern für die Diskussion;

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 51-63. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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der Abfassung von Evangelien und eines ersten „Neuen Testaments“ in der Stadt Rom zwischen 130 und 150 n. Chr., nachgegangen werden. Dabei steht nicht die Frage im Raum, ob es sich um die Entstehung einer christlichen Literatur2 oder die Erfindung des Christentums3 handelte: Dieser Prozess religiöser Gruppenbildung, und vor allem -differenzierung, war kompliziert, Textproduktion und die Etablierung religiöser Autorität durch den auktorialen Gestus der Verfasser (der nicht notwendig mit Orthonymität einhergehen muss) waren Teile des Spektrums von Strategien, die in diesem Prozess zum Einsatz kamen, aber diese Produkte gewannen zugleich eine Materialität, die leicht zu nichtintendierten Effekten und Rezeptionen führen konnte.4 Eine solche Entwicklung waren schon an sich ein typisch städtischer Prozess. Die wichtigsten Akteure verfügten über die in Städten entwickelte und in der Antike regelmäßig in Städten konzentrierte Technologie des Schreibens. Ja, sie verfügten über eine literarische Kompetenz, die fast ausschließlich in Städten zu gewinnen war, wenn sie auch außerhalb derselben ausgeübt werden konnte. Die Idee einer religiös basierten und über die für antike Vereine üblichen wenigen jährlichen Versammlungen mit rituellen Praktiken hinausgehenden Gruppenbildung war in der mediterranen Antike Teil der verbundenen Prozesse von Urbanisierung und Individualisierung, wie ich andernorts versucht habe, plausibel zu machen.5 Die unter solchen Bedingungen entstehenden Texte haben sich im konkreten Fall untypisch umfangreich erhalten – ich denke hier zumal an die fünf Evangelien des Markion, Lukas, Matthäus, Markus und Johannes – und erlauben einen Blick in die Verschränkung der religiösen und urbanen Diskurse. Unter letzteren seien hier Diskurse verstanden, die um die Frage nach der Urbanität für eine kritische Lektüre und entscheidende Veränderungen der Argumentation in der Folgezeit Gudrun Nassauer, jetzt Fribourg, und Markus Vinzent, London/Erfurt. 2 So Markus Vinzent, Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels, Studia Patristica Suppl. 2 (Leuven, 2014), 280. 3 So Jörg Rüpke, Pantheon: Geschichte der antiken Religionen, Historische Bibliothek der GerdaHenkel-Stiftung (München, 2016), 362; dazu Markus Vinzent, Offener Anfang: Die Entstehung des Christentums im 2. Jahrhundert (Freiburg i.Br., 2019), 8. 4 Allgemein Eve-Marie Becker and Jörg Rüpke, ‘Autor, Autorschaft und Autorrolle in religiösen literarischen Texten: Zur Betrachtung antiker Autorkonzeptionen’, in Eve-Marie Becker and Jörg Rüpke (Hrsg.), Autoren in religiösen literarischen Texten der späthellenistischen und der frühkaiserzeitlichen Welt: Zwölf Fallstudien, Culture, Religion, and Politics in the Greco-Roman World 3 (Tübingen, 2019), 1-17; Jörg Rüpke, ‘Narratives as factor and indicator of religious change in the Roman Empire (1st and 2nd centuries)’, in Markus Vinzent (Hrsg.), Marcion of Sinope as Religious Entrepreneur, Studia Patristica 99 (Leuven, 2018), 35-53. 5 Jörg Rüpke, Religiöse Transformationen im römischen Reich: Urbanisierung, Reichsbildung und Selbst-Bildung als Bausteine religiösen Wandels, Hans-Lietzmann-Vorlesungen 16 (Berlin, 2018) zu Urbanisierung und Individualisierung; zu Gruppenbildung und Individualisierung Martin Fuchs et al., ‘General introduction’, in Martin Fuchs et al. (Hrsg.), Religious Individualisations: Historical Dimensions and Comparative Perspectives (Berlin, 2019), 1-31; id., ‘Introduction: authorities in religious individualisation’, in ibid., 971-82; Luise Marion Frenkel, ‘Institutionalisation of tradition and individualised lived Christian religion in Late Antiquity’, in ibid., 1223-54.

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kreisen, der differentia specifica von Leben, das so als städtisch und nicht mehr ländlich qualifiziert werden kann. Gerade der textvergleichende Blick erlaubt, über die fruchtlose Frage nach dem „ursprünglich“ städtischen oder ländlichen (womit hier das aus städtischer Sicht nichtstädtische Normalleben, nicht die Wildnis gemeint ist) Charakter der als Vorläufer von „Christentum“ verstandenen Bewegungen hinwegzusehen. Vielmehr kann detaillierter nach der Rolle gefragt werden, die Urbanität für die eigene religiöse Praxis und Geschichte zugeschrieben wird: eine Urbanität mithin, die damit auch die Rolle von Religion für die eigene urbane Praxis und Geschichte verändert. Dass diese Urbanität statistisch eine Minderheitenpraxis von kaum mehr als zehn Prozent etwa der Bevölkerung des Imperium Romanum6 war, war Teil der Wahrnehmung – und als Distinktionsmerkmal geschätzt. 2. Methode Folgt man der zunehmend Argumente zusammenbringenden Hypothese einer Entstehung der neutestamentlichen Evangelien als Reaktion auf das euangelion des kleinasiatischen Reeders Markion in Rom,7 müssen diese vier Evangelien als fast gleichzeitige, aufeinander reagierende und in Rom verfasste Texte betrachtet werden – Texte für ein in der Metropole Rom lebendes griechischsprachiges Publikum, geschrieben in der nicht untypischen Konkurrenzsituation von Historiographinnen und Historiographen.8 Während Markion die narrative Verknüpfung von Zitaten gerade dazu nutzt, die Botschaft des Christus vom jüdischen Kontext abzusetzen, verstärken die darauf reagierenden Texte die Einbindung; die Kindheitsgeschichten sind hier bezeichnend. Markion wies das als judaisierend zurück.9 Die Qualifizierung und Akzentuierung des Urbanen fiel in diesen Reaktionen sehr unterschiedlich aus – wie anderes, etwa die Gestaltung der Hauptfigur, auch. Es soll im Folgenden nicht der Versuch unternommen werden, solche Textbefunde an der historischen Urbanisierung Palästinas im frühen ersten Jahrhundert zu messen. Unbestreitbar werden die wichtigsten Elemente der Überlieferung mit der größten Stadt Syrien-Palästinas, Jerusalem, verbunden; unbestreitbar findet aber auch eine alte, durch die jüdischen Aufstände von 66/70 und 132/135 n. Chr. sicher massiv verstärkte Jerusalem-Kritik Widerhall. Für Galiläa, jene dünn besiedelte Region, in der die Wanderungen Jesu angesiedelt werden, zeichnet die Archäologie ein zunehmend komplexeres 6 Für einen Überblick über historische Urbanisierungsraten s. Peter Clark, ‘Introduction’, in Peter Clark (Hrsg.), The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (New York, 2013), 1-24. 7 Umfassend M. Vinzent, Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels (2014). 8 Vgl. Frank R. Ankersmit, Historical representation (Stanford, 2001). 9 Tert., adv. Marc. 4,4.

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Bild.10 Unbestreitbar, erneut, ist aber nicht nur ein allgemeiner Urbanisierungsprozess, sondern auch die Tatsache, dass die ökonomische und damit verbunden kulturelle Ausrichtung auf städtischen Austausch (wie fast überall) bis in entlegene ländliche Winkel reichte. Das lässt es nur plausibler erscheinen, dass stadtbezogene Diskurse in einer solchen Region normative Diskurse waren – gegebenenfalls unter konträren Vorzeichen. Wie reagierte der Wanderprediger Jesus darauf?

3. Q oder die Enturbanisierung der Anfänge des Christentums Für die römischen Textproduzenten war diese Frage von hoher Bedeutung – und sie gaben sehr unterschiedliche Antworten darauf. Für die Klassische (und bald auch eigenständisch neutestamentliche) Philologie des 19. Jahrhunderts galt das Gleiche. Im Versuch, die Lücke zwischen den überlieferten Texten und den ursprünglichen Aussagen Jesu zu schließen, wurde auch diese Frage intensiv verhandelt. Eine Antwort darauf (und primär eine Antwort auf die Frage nach dem Verhältnis der Evangelien zueinander, die man an ganz verschiedenen Orten und ohne direkten Kontakt miteinander sich entstanden dachte11) war Carl Lachmanns Hypothese einer nicht weiter überlieferten Quelle (1835), eine Hypothese, die sich bis heute erhalten und sogar in „Editionsprojekten“ niedergeschlagen hat – die Verleihung einer neuen Materialität an ein Postulat.12 Dieser hypothetische Text sei kurz vorgestellt, nicht weil er Teil der hier unterstellten historischen Rekonstruktion wäre, sondern weil er wie in einem Brennglas die Differenzen in den Urbanitätsdiskursen der Evangelien deutlich macht. Zugleich lässt er erkennen, wie stark neuzeitliche Urbanitätsdiskurse den Blick auf die Religionsgeschichte verändern können.13

10 Carsten Claußen, Jörg Frey and Mordekhai Avi῾am (Hrsg.), Jesus und die Archäologie Galiläas, Biblisch-theologische Studien 87 (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2008), bes. Jürgen Zangenberg, ‘Jesus - Galiläa - Archäologie: Neue Forschungen zu einer Region im Wandel’, in C. Claussen and J. Frey (Hrsg.), Jesus und die Archäologie Galiläas (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2008), 7-38; James H. Charlesworth and Mordechai Aviam, ‘Überlegungen zur Erforschung Galiläas im ersten Jahrhundert’, in ibid., 93-128. 11 Siehe M. Vinzent, Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels (2014), 161-214. 12 Zuletzt Paul Hoffmann and Christoph Heil, Die Spruchquelle Q: Studienausgabe Griechisch und Deutsch, 3. überarb. Aufl. (Darmstadt, 2009); kurz Christoph Heil, ‘Die Q-Rekonstruktion des internationalen Q-Projekts: Einführung in Methodik und Resultate’, Novum Testamentum 43/2 (2001), 128-43 zum Methodischen. Das beinhaltet auch Kommentare, z.B. Dieter Zeller, Kommentar zur Logienquelle, Stuttgarter kleiner Kommentar: Neues Testament 21 (Stuttgart, 1984); s.a. James M. Robinson and Christoph Heil (Hrsg.), The Sayings Gospel Q: Collected Essays, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 189 (Leuven, 2005). 13 Dazu allgemein Markus Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity. From Reception to Retrospection (Cambridge, 2019).

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Die Logien-Quelle (daher „Q“) entspricht im Umfang etwa einem Viertel des Lukas-Evangeliums. Sie setzt ein – vielleicht nach einer Überschrift oi lógoi toû Iesoû – mit Worten Johannes des Täufers, der Taufe Jesu und dessen Entführung in die Wüste zwecks Versuchung. Alle weiteren, und jeweils ganz kurzen narrativen Informationen beziehen sich auf das Hin- und Herziehen Jesu, wobei einzig Kafarnaum als Ort heraussticht. Die Sammlung der an unbestimmte oder nur knapp umrissene Situationen anknüpfenden Zitate endet mit der Zusage Q22:30 – die Zählung von Q erfolgt immer nach den Versen von Lukas (Lk) –, dass die Angesprochenen auf Thronen sitzen und die zwölf Stämme Israels richten werden: καθήσεσθε ἐπὶ θρόνους κρίνοντες τὰς δώδεκα φυλὰς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ. „werdet ... auf Thronen sitzen und die zwölf Stämme Israels richten.“14

Hier wird das politisch-geographische Weltbild des hypothetischen Textes zu einem Ende gebracht, ein Weltbild, das im gesamten Text der „Quelle“ äußerst schwammig bleibt. Die Taufe ist in der „Gegend am Jordan“ lokalisiert (Q 3:3a), der Versucher führt „in die Einöde“, präzisiert allerdings den Versuchungsort Jerusalem (4:9), bevor er die Herrschaft über „alle Reiche der Welt und ihre Pracht“ (4:5) anbietet. Und dann sind wir in Nazara, Kapernaum und irgendwo auf dem Weg. Es ist der oíkos, das Haus, und sehr selten der Dorfplatz, die agorá, die neben unbestimmten Orten unter freiem Himmel die Schauplätze bieten. Ihnen stehen die „Königreiche“ und ihre Paläste entgegen; die Stadt hat in diesem Weltbild keinen funktionalen Ort (s. etwa 11:17). Das Imperium Romanum ist allerdings in der Gestalt des römischen Offiziers in Kafarnaum (7:2-10) und in der Währungseinheit Asse (12:6) präsent – allerdings ohne weitere erkennbare Folgen. Gleich welchen Stellenwert man Q geben will – ob man ihn für eine vorkanonische Quelle hält, die zusammen mit dem Markusevangelien den beiden voneinander unabhängig schreibenden Autoren des Matthäusevangeliums und des Lukasevangeliums gedient hat, so die berühmte Zwei-Quellen-Theorie,15 oder ob man Q in Frage stellt und für ein reines Konstrukt der Forschung hält, das nie existiert habe, so etwa die Farrer-Golder-Goodacre-Kritik16 –, die modernen Redaktoren, die diesen hypothetischen Text erstellt haben, gaben diesem Text ein betont rurales, unstädtisches Profil.17 Ja, eine Darstellung von 14 Übersetzungen für Q hier und im Folgenden aus James M. Robinson, Paul Hoffmann and John S. Kloppenburg, The Critical Edition of Q: Synopsis including the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mark and Thomas with English, German, and French Translations of Q and Thomas (Leuven, 2000). Der ohnehin hypothetische griechische Text ist hier als Lesetext ohne die Probabilitätsmarker und Diskussionen der Edition wiedergegeben. 15 Vgl. M. Vinzent, Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels (2014), 194-6, 201-7. 16 Vgl. ibid. 208-12. 17 Vgl. hierzu Ky-Chun So, Jesus in Q: The Sabbath and Theology of the Bible and Extracanonical Texts (Eugene, 2017), 58; Petros Vassiliadis, ‘The Nature and Extent of the Q-Document’,

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„Landleben“ wurde bereits früh geradezu zu einem Entscheidungskriterium für die Zugehörigkeit einer Passage zu Q,18 gerade dann, wenn es um die Entscheidung ging, ob man eher der Version des stadtliebenden Lukas oder der des landliebenden Matthäus folgen sollte.19 Und tatsächlich kann man sich bei der Charakterisierung dieses Textes als nichtstädtisch kurz fassen: Die Aussagen und Gleichnisse Jesu appellieren grundsätzlich an bäuerliches Wissen von Aussaat und Ernte, Obstbau oder Viehzucht. Der Text ist als „weisheitlich“ charakterisiert worden, aber diese Weisheit ist die Fähigkeit, landwirtschaftliches Basiswissen (den Hausbau und Hauseinbrüche eingeschlossen) metaphorisch zu nutzen. Städte sind in der Welt dieser Hypothese – in der hier benutzten Textform – ein Fremdkörper, in einem gewissen Sinne Nicht-Orte, haben keine Ausdehnung oder Binnendifferenzierung, kurzum, sind ideologisches Konstrukt. Sie sind fast durchgehend negativ konnotiert, beginnend mit Jerusalem. Städte handeln als Kollektiv, wie besonders eindrucksvoll Q 10:8-10 zeigt, wo es um die Aussendung von Jüngern geht: καὶ εἰς ἣν ἂν πόλιν εἰσέρχησθε καὶ δέχωνται ὑμᾶς, ἐσθίετε τὰ παρατιθέμενα ὑμῖν καὶ θεραπεύετε τοὺς ἐν αὐτῇ ἀσθενοῦντας καὶ λέγετε αὐτοῖς· ἤγγικεν ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ. εἰς ἣν δ’ ἂν πόλιν εἰσέλθητε καὶ μὴ δέχωνται ὑμᾶς, ἐξερχόμενοι ἔξω τῆς πόλεως ἐκείνης... Und wenn ihr in eine Stadt kommt und sie nehmen euch auf, [[esst, was euch vorgesetzt wird]]. Heilt die Kranken in ihr und sagt [[ihnen]]: Nahegekommen ist zu euch das Reich Gottes. Wenn ihr aber in eine Stadt kommt und sie nehmen euch nicht auf, dann geht weg [[aus jener Stadt]]...

Während im vorangehenden Abschnitt für den Besuch eines Hauses überhaupt nicht mit der Möglichkeit der Verweigerung von Gastfreundschaft gerechnet wird – und nur der Fall unterschieden wird, dass die Bewohner friedliebend Novum Testamentum 20/1 (1978), 49-73, hier 63; John Macleod Campbell Crum, The Original Jerusalem Gospel. Being Essays on the Document Q (London, 1927), 49-63. 18 “Those passages which fulfill” rural characteristics “seem likely to stem from Q”, so K.-C. So, Jesus in Q (2017), 58. Bereits Crum hatte auf diesen ländlichen Charakter von Q als Kriterium für Passagen verwiesen: “They recall unconsciously the conditions, the local colouring, the atmosphere of the homely village life of Galilee” (The Original Jerusalem Gospel [1927], 52), “between the great towns and wild open country, the villagers live their homely life. And Q is full of that” (ibid. 56), “the language is a language of the land near the villages” (ibid. 59), “they accord with the country life language of Q” (ibid. 67), “Village life in Galilee, the open sky, the work in the fields, is here in Q. There is as good internal evidence of the country origin of Q as any you will find” (ibid. 62). Vgl. auch der Mitherausgeber der kritischen Ausgabe von Q in seinem Vorwort “Down-to-Earth Jesus” zu John J. Rousseau and Rami Arav, Jesus and his World: An Archaeological and Cultural Dictionary (Minneapolis, 1995). 19 So etwa: “One touch of homeliness, Lk has lost, and MT saved”, J.M.C. Crum, The Original Jerusalem Gospel (1927), 60. Diese Aussage mit Bezug auf Lk 14:5 par. Mt 12:11 macht auch andere kritisch gegenüber der Auslassung dieses Verses in der kritischen Ausgabe von Q, vgl. etwa K.-C. So, Jesus in Q (2017), 58, der aus dem ländlichen Charakter dieser Szene ableitet, dass sie gut zu Q passen würde.

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oder nicht sind –, ist in der Stadt als Kollektivsingular mit dieser Möglichkeit zu rechnen. (Die Erfahrung eines Städters würde gerade das Gegenteil vermuten lassen.) Entsprechend wird auch die literarische Tradition der Verfluchung ganzer Städte, die sich vor allem beim Propheten Jeremias findet, hier angeschlossen (Q10:13-5): Οὐαί σοι, Χοραζίν, οὐαί σοι, Βηθσαϊδά· ὅτι εἰ ἐν Τύρῳ καὶ Σιδῶνι ἐγενήθησαν αἱ δυνάμεις αἱ γενόμεναι ἐν ὑμῖν, πάλαι ἂν ἐν σάκκῳ καὶ σποδῷ καθήμενοι μετενόησαν. (14) πλὴν Τύρῳ καὶ Σιδῶνι ἀνεκτότερον ἔσται ἐν τῇ κρίσει ἢ ὑμῖν. (15) καὶ σύ, Καφαρναούμ, μὴ ἕως οὐρανοῦ ὑψωθήσῃ; ἕως τοῦ ᾅδου καταβήσῃ. Wehe dir, Chorazin! Wehe dir, Betsaida! Denn wenn in Tyrus und Sidon die Krafttaten geschehen wären, die bei euch geschehen sind, längst wären sie in Sack und Asche umgekehrt. Doch Tyrus und Sidon wird es erträglicher ergehen im Gericht als euch. Und du, Kafarnaum, wirst du etwa zum Himmel erhöht werden? Bis zum Totenreich wirst du hinabsteigen.

Selbst kleinste Orte werden, wie der Vergleich mit Tyrus und Sidon deutlich macht, als Städte klassifiziert, wenn es um eine negative Perspektive geht. Zugleich impliziert die Jesus in den Mund gelegte Aussage, dass dieser selbst in Städten aktiv war; die Stadtkritik ist damit post-, nicht prä-urban.

4. Urbanität als Textmerkmal Q ist eine Hypothese. Das darin verwendete Textmaterial ist es aber – im Wesentlichen – nicht. Es spiegelt die Differenz zwischen Markion und Lukas auf der einen und Matthäus auf der anderen Seite wider. Gerade die ruralen Fassungen von Passagen, die durch ihre Konzentration Q sein Profil geben sollen, sind aus Matthäus gewonnen. Vergleichbares findet sich auch in Markus, doch kennt Markus stärker als Matthäus (und dem Destillat von „Quelle“) eine Mischung aus urbaner und ruraler Szenerie.20 Daraus können im hier gewählten interpretatorischen Rahmen keine Abhängigkeiten konstruiert werden. Auch wenn Markion und Lukas nach den bei Tertullian referierten Streitigkeiten Priorität genießen dürften, könnten Matthäus und Markus auf alternative, vielleicht sogar ältere Traditionen zurückgegriffen haben. Das ist historisch (bislang) nicht zu klären, angesichts der unterstellten wechselseitigen Beeinflussung aber auch unerheblich. Der fundamentale Befund ist, dass Urbanität, die affirmative Reflexion über (sein eigenes) städtisches Leben,21 ein wichtiger 20

Vgl. C. Clifton Black, Mark: Images of an Apostolic Interpreter (Columbia, SC, 1994), 232. Für einen knappen Überblick über Urbanitätsbegriffe mit der hier übernommenen Akzentuierung s. Susanne Rau, ‘Urbanität’, Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit online (Stuttgart, 2014); ganz anders die Begriffsbestimmung von urbanité etwa bei Michel Lussault, ‘Urbanité’, in Jacques Lévy and Michel Lussault (Hrsg.), Dictionnaire de la géographie et de l’espace des sociétés, Nouvelle éd. revue et augmentée (Paris, 2013), 1053-5. 21

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Parameter der Distinktion von Texten, ja theologischen Entwürfen, geworden ist, und zwar in einer Stadt, ja Großstadt und Metropole. Das sei kurz an Markion beziehungsweise Lukas nun im Gegensatz zur ruralen Textgestaltung für eine urbanisierte Version vorgestellt. Ein Beispiel dafür liefert das Gleichnis von den Hochzeitsgästen. Bei Matthäus wird das eher summarisch und antistädtisch erzählt: Die Gäste kommen nicht, weil sie sich um ihre Landwirtschaft oder ihren Laden kümmern müssen, ja sogar die Hochzeitsbitter erschlagen. Natürlich könnte man fast hinzusetzen, stammen solche Missetäter aus einer Stadt, die daher kurzerhand niedergebrannt wird, bevor die Diener auf der Straße neue Gäste suchen (Mt 22:1-10). Bei Markion (und mit minimalen Textabweichungen Lukas) haben die ursprünglich Eingeladenen Entschuldigungsgründe, die allesamt mit der Landwirtschaft zu tun haben. An ihrer Stelle werden nun ganz explizit Städter eingeladen, die auf belebten städtischen Plätzen als Gäste zu gewinnen sind (Mcn 14:21): καὶ παραγενόμενος ὁ δοῦλος ἀπήγγειλεν τῷ κυρίῳ αὐτοῦ ταῦτα. τότε κινηθεὶς (Lukas: ὀργισθεὶς) ὁ οἰκοδεσπότης εἶπεν τῷ δούλῳ αὐτοῦ· ἔξελθε ταχέως εἰς τὰς πλατείας καὶ ῥύμας τῆς πόλεως καὶ τοὺς πτωχοὺς καὶ ἀναπείρους καὶ τυφλοὺς καὶ χωλοὺς εἰσάγαγε ὧδε. καὶ εἶπεν ὁ δοῦλος· κύριε, γέγονεν ὃ ἐπέταξας, καὶ ἔτι τόπος ἐστίν. (23) καὶ εἶπεν ὁ κύριος πρὸς τὸν δοῦλον αὐτοῦ· ἔξελθε εἰς τὰς ὁδοὺς καὶ φραγμοὺς καὶ ἀνάγκασον εἰσελθεῖν, ἵνα γεμισθῇ μου ὁ οἶκος· (24) λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν ὅτι οὐδεὶς τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἐκείνων τῶν κεκλημένων γεύσεταί μου τοῦ δείπνου. Als der Sklave zurückkam und alles seinem Herrn berichtete, wurde dieser erregt und befahl dem Sklaven: „Dann geh sofort auf die Straßen und Plätze der Stadt und bring mir die Armen, die Krüppel, die Blinden und Gelähmten ins Haus.“ Als der Sklave wiederkam und sagte: „Herr, dein Befehl ist ausgeführt. Es immer noch Platz“, sagte der Herr zu seinem Sklaven: „Geh hinaus an die Wege und Zäune und zerre alle in mein Haus, die du finden kannst, damit es voll wird.“ Ich kann euch versichern: keiner von denen, die zuerst eingeladen waren, wird an meiner Tafel sitzen.22

Von den „Durchgangsstraßen“ der Stadt spricht Lukas – im Unterschied zu Matthäus – auch in der zuvor zitierten Anweisung zum Verlassen einer ungastlichen Stadt. In Q erscheint der Begriff überhaupt nur als Zitat eines Städters, der davon spricht, dass der Meister „uns auf den breiten (Straßen) unterrichtet“ habe (Q 13:26), und zwar als Textrekonstruktion nach Lukas. Eine städtische, und zwar hauptstädtische Perspektive ergänzt Lukas – wohl über Markion hinausgehend – in der Wiedergabe des Gleichnisses von den klugen Verwaltern, denen der abreisende Herr jeweils eine Summe von einer Mine überantwortet. Denjenigen, die aus der einen zehn bzw. fünf Minen 22 Übersetzung nach Klaus Berger and Christiane Nord, Das Neue Testament und frühchristliche Schriften: Übersetzt und kommentiert, 5. rev. Aufl. (Frankfurt/Main, 2001), 292 (dort Übersetzung des lukanischen Textes, hier nach Markion korrigiert). Orthographische Fehler sind stillschweigend korrigiert.

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erwirtschaften, spricht Jesus nicht nur Herrschaft „über viele“ (Mt 25:21.23 – Markion formuliert überhaupt keine Belohnungen) zu, sondern ersetzt diesen allgemeinen Begriff durch Herrschaft über zehn bzw. fünf Städte, vielleicht mit einer Kenntnis des Begriffs der Dekapolis im Hinterkopf (Lk 19:17-9):23 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· εὖγε, ἀγαθὲ δοῦλε, ὅτι ἐν ἐλαχίστῳ πιστὸς ἐγένου, ἴσθι ἐξουσίαν ἔχων ἐπάνω δέκα πόλεων. (18) καὶ ἦλθεν ὁ δεύτερος λέγων· ἡ μνᾶ σου, κύριε, ἐποίησεν πέντε μνᾶς. εἶπεν δὲ καὶ τούτῳ· καὶ σὺ ἐπάνω γίνου πέντε πόλεων. Und er sagte zu ihm: „Sehr gut, du bist ein vorbildlicher Knecht. Weil du mit dem wenigen zuverlässig gewirtschaftet hast, will ich dir Großes anvertrauen: die Herrschaft über zehn Städte.“ Dann kam der zweite Sklave und sagte: „Dein eines Pfund, Herr, hast sich verfünffacht.“ Auch ihn lobte der Herr und sagte: „Du sollst über fünf Städte regieren.“

Die deutliche Opposition und die weitere Rezeption beider Texte, Matthäus wie Lukas, lässt erkennen, dass auch in der Stadt Christus-Anhängern ein Werk wie das des Matthäus attraktiv erschienen sein muss. Viele der Stadtbewohner der kaiserzeitlichen Urbanisierungswelle waren noch kurz zuvor Landbewohner gewesen oder pflegten weiterhin landwirtschaftliche Tätigkeiten außerhalb oder manchmal sogar innerhalb eines Mauerrings. Rurale Vorstellungswelten, aber auch ein sehr kritischer Blick auf Stadt erscheinen so durchaus plausibel. Aber auch das Gegenteil muss – nach Ausweis von Markion und Lukas – der Fall gewesen sein. Indem sie sich an Lesende richteten, bestimmten primär die gebildeten Einwohnerinnen und Einwohner in den oder wenigstens in einzelnen großen Städten der Mittelmeerwelt die Rezeptionsmöglichkeit. Der Verfasser des Lukas-Evangeliums – und noch mehr der kanonische Redaktor, der vermutlich kurz nach der Mitte des Jahrhunderts das Evangelium mit den Apostelakten durch eine redaktionelle Einleitung zu letzteren zusammenfügte, gingen diesen Weg mit aller Konsequenz und im Zweifel auch gegen historische Plausibilität, wie abschließend gezeigt werden soll. 5. Lukas’ Biographie Der Lukanische Text – Markion folgend und an entscheidenden Punkten über ihn hinausgehend – präsentierte nicht nur einige Jesusworte für städtische Rezipientinnen und Rezipienten, sondern schuf insgesamt einen Text, der nicht nur ein städtisches Publikum erreichen, sondern an einem urbanen Diskurs teilnehmen und diesen verstärken will. Hinweisen möchte ich an dieser Stelle nur auf den ersten, aber wohl wichtigsten Schritt: Erstmals – erneut setze ich die Lukanische Priorität gegenüber 23

Für den Hinweis danke ich Prof. Nassauer.

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Markus voraus – in der Geschichte der innerjüdischen Christus-Bewegung wurde eine Biographie geschrieben, und zwar nicht (und hier wird die hypothetische Datierung wichtig), um eine mündliche Überlieferung, die nach drei Generationen abzureißen droht, zu sichern, sondern um einer Gruppe eine biographisch fassbare und damit konkurrenzfähige Gründerfigur zu geben.24 Diese Biographisierung war selbst Reaktion auf einen primär städtischen Prozess, nämlich eine Individualisierung, die Entwicklung urbaner Subjekte, die selbst vor der Aufgabe stehen, ihre Subjekthaftigkeit im sozialen Kontext hochfrequenter und durch hohe Diversität gekennzeichneter Interaktionen zu behaupten bzw. zu entwickeln.25 In diesem Sinne bot die neue Textgruppe „Evangelium“ eine individuelle Reflexions- und Identifikationsfläche, die gerade nicht nur eine (neue) kollektive Identität in Form einer historischen Erzählung bietet („so sind wir Jesus-Anhänger entstanden“), sondern auch eine individuelle religiöse Identität („so bietet Jesus ein Muster für meine eigene Lebensführung“) eröffnet. Dieser erstmals unternommene – und gegenüber der Theologie und „Christologie“ Markions äußerst polemische – Schritt findet sich dann auch bei Matthäus, gewinnt aber in der Lukanischen Biographie einen spezifisch urbanen Charakter. In Anbetracht einer Forschungslage, in der schon kürzere Texte geradezu eigene Subdisziplinen der New Testament Studies bilden, kann ich das nur in einem summarischen Zugriff leisten. Es dürfte kaum auf Widerspruch stoßen, die (wohl später redaktionelle) Einleitung als „urban“ zu bezeichnen. Einen Widmungsbrief, der die Qualitätsmaßstäbe der Historiographie für das eigene Werk als verpflichtend erklärt – „den Geschehnissen von ihrem Anfang her genau nachzugehen und sie für dich der Reihe nach aufzuschreiben“ (1:3) –, kann man wohl in antiken Gesellschaften als urban einordnen: Betonte Schriftlichkeit, Umgangsform mit dem Gegenüber, argumentative Redlichkeit, Anerkennung von Vorgängern und Konkurrenz, das alles gehört dazu und setzt städtische Kommunikation voraus (Lk 1:1-4): Ἐπειδήπερ πολλοὶ ἐπεχείρησαν ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν περὶ τῶν πεπληροφορημένων ἐν ἡμῖν πραγμάτων, καθὼς παρέδοσαν ἡμῖν οἱ ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρέται γενόμενοι τοῦ λόγου, ἔδοξεν κἀμοὶ παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς καθεξῆς σοι γράψαι, κράτιστε Θεόφιλε, ἵνα ἐπιγνῷς περὶ ὧν κατηχήθης λόγων τὴν ἀσφάλειαν. Lieber Theophilus! Mein Unterfangen ist nicht neu – schon etliche haben versucht, die Ereignisse darzustellen, die sich bei uns zugetragen haben. Sie wurden uns von

24

So J. Rüpke, Pantheon (2016), 349-65. Siehe Rüpke, Religiöse Transformationen im römischen Reich: Urbanisierung, Reichsbildung und Selbst-Bildung als Bausteine religiösen Wandels (2018), und grundlegend id. and Greg Woolf (Hrsg.), Religious Dimensions of the Self in the Second Century CE, Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 76 (Tübingen, 2013); id., The Individual in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean (Oxford, 2013). 25

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Augenzeugen überliefert, die von Anfang an dabei waren und sich in den Dienst der Botschaft gestellt haben. Auch ich hielt es für richtig, den Geschehnissen von ihrem Anfang her genau nachzugehen und sie für dich der Reihe nach aufzuschreiben, damit du einsiehst, dass all das, was du gelernt hast, wohlbegründet ist.

Diese Urbanität knüpft aber an eine entsprechend urban überformte Erzählung an. Aufschlussreich ist die Verwendung des Wortes polis an manchen Stellen im Vergleich gegenüber Markus und Matthäus. Lukas ist die Verortung der wichtigsten Geschehnisse in Städten wichtig. Der Jerusalemer Tempel, das monumentale Bauwerk des Herodes, das noch in seiner Trümmergestalt Ehrfurcht einflößte, ist als Zentrum der Stadt Jerusalems der Mittelpunkt und der Rahmen der Erzählung. Hier beginnt in 1:5 die Erzählung mit der Anwesenheit des Priesters Zacharias und hier endet in 24:53 die Erzählung mit der fortgesetzten Anwesenheit und dem Gotteslob der Anhänger Jesu im Jerusalemer Tempel. Erst die Acta apostolorum werden dann erklären, warum das nicht der einzige, ja nicht einmal wichtigste Ort geblieben ist. Dafür kann der Verfasser von Lukas nichts. Nach der Dienstperiode geht in seiner Erzählung Zacharias in sein oikos (1:23), seine suburbane Villa sozusagen, die aber wiederum, wie allein Lukas sagt, in einer polis liege, Juda im Gebirge (1:39). Historisch und archäologisch lässt sich selbst für einen losen Sprachgebrauch dafür keine Rechtfertigung finden. Als polis wird sie damit vergleichbar gemacht mit Nazareth, dem ebenfalls der Status einer „Stadt“ Galiläas zugesprochen wird, in der Lukas in 1:2638 eine parallele Epiphaniegeschichte ansiedelt: Gabriel kündigt Maria die Geburt eines Sohnes mit dem Namen Jesus an. Wie sehr die Charakterisierung der Bergsiedlung des Zacharias und seiner Frau Elisabeth die Lukas vorliegende Erzählung stören, zeigt der Begriff der perioikoi, die auf die Geburt des Johannes reagieren: das sind gerade keine städtischen Nachbarn, Tür an Tür wohnend, sondern „Umlieger“, nächst Wohnende in einem ländlichen Kontext (1:58 und 65). Es sei an dieser Stelle darauf hingewiesen, dass es Lukas im Folgenden, in seiner Geburtsgeschichte Jesu, trotz aller „Hirteleien“ ganz wichtig ist, dass Jesus in der Stadt Bethlehem, der „Stadt Davids“, geboren wird. Einer gewaltigen Imaginationsgeschichte einsamer Krippen zum Trotz ist der Wortlaut der Lukanischen Erzählung eindeutig. In der Stadt Bethlehem finden sie keinen anmietbaren Raum und müssen daher das Kind im Mietstall daneben ablegen (2:7-8). Erst dann erfolgt sprachlich ein „Kameraschwenk“ in die weitere ländliche Umgebung, der die Hirten später zu einem Fußmarsch nach Bethlehem zwingt: ... καὶ ἀνέκλινεν αὐτὸν ἐν φάτνῃ, διότι οὐκ ἦν αὐτοῖς τόπος ἐν τῷ καταλύματι. (8) Καὶ ποιμένες ἦσαν ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ τῇ αὐτῇ ἀγραυλοῦντες

Ich erspare mir hier eine Übersetzung, möchte aber doch darauf aufmerksam machen, dass katalyma, das wir so gerne als „Herberge“ übersetzen, noch an einer weiteren Stelle bei Lukas erscheint (und dort parallel bei Markus), nämlich als

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Bezeichnung für jenes berühmte „Obergemach“, das die Jünger für die Abhaltung des Paschamahls finden müssen (Lk 22:11). καὶ ἐρεῖτε τῷ οἰκοδεσπότῃ τῆς οἰκίας· λέγει σοι ὁ διδάσκαλος· ποῦ ἐστιν τὸ κατάλυμα ὅπου τὸ πάσχα μετὰ τῶν μαθητῶν μου φάγω; In dem Haus, in das ihr dann kommt, meldet dem Hausherrn: Der Lehrer lässt fragen: „Wo ist der Raum, in dem ich mit meinen Jüngern das Passahmahl einnehmen kann?“

Es sind städtische Institutionen und städtische ökonomische Verfahren, die Lukas hier im Kopf hat. Diese Passagen stehen nicht isoliert. An vielen Stellen ist es schlicht die differenzierte städtische Welt mit ihren Institutionen und diversen Einwohnern, die Lukas für seine Erzählungen einzelner Ereignisse voraussetzt. Natürlich ist es eine polis, in der die Existenz einer Prostituierten angesiedelt wird (Lk 7:37): καὶ ἰδοὺ γυνὴ ἥτις ἦν ἐν τῇ πόλει ἁμαρτωλός... Doch in der Stadt lebte auch eine Frau mit schlechtem Ruf...

Die Frau mit ihren ständigen Blutungen, die Jesus auf dem Weg zur Tochter des Jairus quasi im Vorübergehen heilt, lebt, so suggeriert Lukas mit seinem Vokabular, ebenfalls in einer Stadt, in der sie auf unersättliche Ärzte stößt – deren Tilgung, wie sie die 28. Ausgabe von Nestle, Aland vorschlägt, ich gerade nicht folgen möchte: Καὶ γυνὴ οὖσα ἐν ῥύσει αἵματος ἀπὸ ἐτῶν δώδεκα, ἥτις ἰατροῖς προσαναλώσασα ὅλον τὸν βίον οὐκ ἴσχυσεν ἀπ’ οὐδενὸς θεραπευθῆναι... Da war eine Frau, die litt seit zwölf Jahren an unstillbaren Blutungen. Sie hatte ihr ganzes Vermögen für Ärzte aufgewendet, doch niemand hatte ihr helfen können.

Von Anfang an ist Jesus in Städten tätig. Während Markus und Matthäus nur von patrís, „Heimat“, sprechen, ist Nazareth auch in der Erzählung vom ersten Auftritt Jesu bei Markion und Lukas eine „Stadt“. Obwohl beide das Zitat Jesu, der Prophet gelte nichts in seiner Heimat, patris, in derselben Form wiedergeben wie Markus und Matthäus, ist es ihnen wichtig, am Ende der Erzählung gleich zweimal das Wort polis unterzubringen (Lk 4:28-9): καὶ ἐπλήσθησαν πάντες θυμοῦ ἐν τῇ συναγωγῇ ἀκούοντες ταῦτα (29) καὶ ἀναστάντες ἐξέβαλον αὐτὸν ἔξω τῆς πόλεως καὶ ἤγαγον αὐτὸν ἕως ὀφρύος τοῦ ὄρους ἐφ’ οὗ ἡ πόλις ᾠκοδόμητο αὐτῶν ὥστε κατακρημνίσαι αὐτόν· Als die Synagogenbesucher dies hörten, wurden sie wütend. Sie sprangen auf, trieben Jesus aus der Stadt hinaus und drängten ihn bis an den Steilhang des Berges, auf dem die Stadt liegt, um ihn hinabzustürzen.

Gerade hier, in der Exposition des Wirkens Jesu, so muss man schlussfolgern, ist es Markion wie Lukas wichtig, die Probleme und das scheinbare Scheitern der Verkündigung Jesu als urbane Problemlage darzustellen, als etwas, was ihre städtische Rezipienten unmittelbar angeht. Das hat wenig mit dem Jesus zu tun,

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den man in Q reden lässt. Einer Übersetzungstradition, in der die Heimat zur „Vaterstadt“ wird, entgehen diese Akzente. 6. Zusammenfassung Das Evangelium des Lukas in seiner Fortführung und Modifikation von Markion ist ein Produkt eines städtischen Autors für ein städtisches Publikum. Aber es ist mehr, es ist ein urbaner Text, der für urbane, pro-städtische Kommunikation eine Geschichte städtischen Inhalts bietet. Die erzählte Biographie Jesu ist – wohl über die Überlieferung hinausgehend – als die Biographie eines in einer Stadt aus einer städtischen Familie Geborenen und in einer Stadt Aufwachsenden konstruiert. Gerade das zu beweisen tritt Lukas an – und macht damit – bei allen Differenzen – die Anknüpfung der Apostelakten plausibel, die vorführen, wie diese städtische Geschichte urbane Relevanz in den Städten des Imperium Romanum erlangte. Der Vergleich mit Matthäus – und dessen Radikalisierung in Q – zeigt, welche Spannbreite an Positionen innerhalb eines Diskurses von Städtern möglich war: Der Urbanität gerade des Lukas steht die Ruralität des Matthäus gegenüber. Es ist bezeichnend für eine von der Romantik beeinflusste neutestamentliche Forschung des 19. (und noch 20.) Jahrhunderts, wie sie diese Spannbreite in eine Entwicklung verwandelt, deren Ausgangspunkt nur das Ländliche, das Außer- oder gar Vorstädtische sein kann. Die Hypothese Q setzt das in eine Textreihung um. Lukas bietet seinen Leserinnen und Lesern einen Spiegel zur Reflexion städtischer Erfahrungen mit einer urbanen Grundstimmung. Diese religionsgeschichtliche Veränderung ist, was ich als „urban religion“ zu rekonstruieren versuche: religiöse – und eben auch textuelle – Praktiken, die unter den Bedingungen von städtischem Raum und urbaner Lebensführung sich verändern – und zugleich diese städtischen Räume verändern.26 Das ist kein spezifisches Merkmal von Judentum oder, wenn man seit der Mitte des weiten Jahrhunderts davon schon sprechen wollte, Christentum. Ähnliches findet man in Rom bei Varro, Cicero, Horaz, Properz oder Seneca. Aber nicht mit vergleichbaren religionsgeschichtlichen Folgen.

26 Jörg Rüpke, Urban Religion: A Historical Approach to Urban Growth and Religious Change (Berlin, 2020).

Magically Satisfying: Matthew’s Magi Came in Order to Fulfill what was Written by the Early Christian Interpreters Timothy P. HEIN, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

ABSTRACT Matthew’s magi travel far and wide in the hands of early Christian authors. Recasting Matthew’s narrative within new narratives for new theological trajectories, Protevangelium Jacobi reuses the pericope in a stripped-down fashion. Justin Martyr used Matthew’s ‘Arabian’ magi to ‘prove’ Jesus as fulfillment of Isaiah 8:4, leading Irenaeus to find prophetic fulfillment in following Balaam’s star, the magi’s gifts, and seeing Matthew’s magi avoid the ‘Assyrian way’ (Haer. 3.9, 16; Epid. 58). Similarly, Tertullian denounced all Christian practice of magic and was first to suggest Christians think Matthew’s magi as kings (Idol. 9.3). Origen interprets Matthew’s magi by Balaam’s prophecy as both of Balaam and ‘Persian’ (Num. 23). In his Commentary on Daniel, ‘Hippolytus’ used Matthew’s ‘Chaldean’ magi to interpret the story of Daniel (Dan. 2; Danielem 1:8-9, 2:1-9). These Early Christian authors seem to understand Matthew’s point about fulfillment, then redeploy it for diverse purposes, re-using Matthew’s magi as magical characters who prove Hebrew Scripture’s fulfillment in Jesus life. This article explores the development of these interpretive trajectories to show early Christian authors understood Matthew’s magi as (1) magic practitioners (including astrology) with (2) a particular ethnic identity, a necessary twofold identity for their intended ‘fulfillment’ that goes beyond what Matthew’s Gospel says explicitly.

Matthew’s1 earliest interpreters have a variety of different uses for Matthew’s magi. Early Christian Authors recast Matthew’s magi in a similar paradigm and formula for fulfillment as Matthew, yet what they mix with Matthew’s magi to satisfy their fulfillment is a cocktail Matthew may not entirely recognize. The formula is simple: magic practitioners of a particular ethnic origin are recast by an Early Christian Author so Jesus fulfills what said authors envision. Matthew left interpretive options open to readers with his vague μάγοι ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν (Matt. 2:1). Matthew’s deliberate choice of μάγοι is troubling because of its association with ancient practitioners and practices of μαγεία that 1

This article has been modified slightly from the original presentation to incorporate insights gained from conference participants with thanks. Special thanks also to the anonymous peer reviewers.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 65-74. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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are forbidden for Christians (see ).2 This magical context shapes early Christian receptions of Matthew’s μάγοι. Matthew only tells us his eastern magi follow an easterly star, but their designation as ‘magi’ indicates astrology is not their only skill. Appian and Strabo show μάγοι are learned men, counselors to the king, have ‘slender wands’ (ῥάβδοις) to aid their work and incantations3 and priestly functions leading Persian sacrifices to the gods.4 In the first-century CE Greek novel Callirhoe, we find a literary witness to the belief that μάγοι can resurrect the spirit of a dead man.5 They are typically calling upon spirits, manipulating them to do favors for the magi’s client. Lucian says they shout incantations and sounds to invoke the spirits of Hades.6 Magi practices are impressive and extend far beyond astrology. Matthew is intentionally vague about his magi’s ethnicity. The phrase μάγοι ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν is uniquely Matthean, first appearing here in Greek literature, then 19 times more in Greek literature, all of which are receptions of Matthew. On the surface, magi is a Persian loan word, so in combination with ‘from the east’ it is reasonable to conclude a default Parthian/Persian ethnicity. Technically, ‘from the east’ could include anywhere reasonably conceived as ‘eastern’ to Matthew’s community or to Jerusalem.7 Yet, here lies yet another interpretive gap Matthew’s readers fill in myriad ways. Readers understood Matthew’s magi as magic practitioners (which includes more than just astrology) with a particular ethnic identity, a necessary twofold identity for fulfillment. This article, which stems from my thesis research on early Christian use of Matthew’s magi, proceeds by examining several uses Early Christian Authors make of Matthew’s magi to expose their diverse ‘fulfillments’. 2 This Persian-loanword can include a myriad of practices. Delling cites four broad uses for μάγος: (1) a member of the Persian priestly caste, (2) ‘possessor and user of supernatural knowledge and ability’, (3) ‘magician’, sometimes similar to γοής, (4) figuratively, ‘deceiver’ or ‘seducer’, often used critically (TDNT, 356-7). Similarly, μαγεία is the activity of a μάγος (TDNT, 359). In our literature μάγος a term used similar to the way English uses the word ‘scientist’ or ‘engineer’, which has specializations: nuclear, computer, electrical, et al. 3 Strabo, Geography, Book III 14. This term is also used in OG, ‘shepherd’s staff or crook’, Ps. 22(23):4; see also Mic. 7:14. 4 Appian, Civil Wars, Book 2.21.154 (LCL 4, 512-5). Strabo, Geography, Book 15.3.1, 13-6. See also Book 16.2.39; it was common for leaders around the world to get counsel from oracles and decision-making help from the gods mediated by magi (16.2.8). See also the vast array of incantations, amulets, and all forms of divination commonly practiced in Hans Dieter Betz (ed.), The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 2002). 5 Chariton, Callirhoe, 5.7-9 (LCL 481, 270-5). Leucippe and Clitophon also suggest μάγοι can raise the dead. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon, Book III 17ff. (LCL 45, 170-5). 6 Menippus, LCL 162, 88-9. 7 Sim considers possibility Matthew’s magi were Jews from the East, which is technically possible (though not really probable) in light of Matthew’s broad description. David C. Sim, ‘The Magi: Gentiles or Jews?’, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 55 (1999), 980-1000.

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Protevangelium Jacobi produces surprisingly unfulfilling magi. ProtJac. revises Matthew’s μάγοι ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν (Matt. 2:1) to simply μάγοι (ProtJac. 21.1).8 ProtJac. reveals it’s theological [and artistic] motivations via so-called geographical and temple cult ‘errors’ (ProtJac. 1; 5:1-4; 8:2; 10; 23:1, 8-24:11).9 The ‘trouble’ is in ‘Bethlehem of Judea’ (21:1), while the birth (17:1; 18:1) and magi visit are at a cave outside Bethlehem (ProtJac. 21:1, 3). ProtJac. deliberately omits Matthew’s ‘all Jerusalem’ (Matt. 2:3), implicitly broadening Matthew’s charge to ‘all Judeans’, the very ones decimated by Titus and despised by the Roman world.10 While a Jewish midwife and Salome come and see the newborn King of the Jews (ProtJac. 19:11-20:12), Matthew’s magi are the only characters who see the child and they are ProtJac.’s only Gentile characters. Yet Joseph and the midwife jostle over their own ‘Jewishness’ (ProtJac. 19:1-3) before agreeing to go to the cave. An initially skeptical Salome commits to προσκυνήσω the child (20:10), just as the magi later do (21:8-9). ProtJac. provides narrative details to understand Jewish origins for the Messiah who will ‘save his people from their sins’ (ProtJac. 11:8; 14:6; see Matt. 1:21), though his people turn away from him. ProtJac. keeps Jesus’s Jewish origins fulfilling as Mary and Joseph fulfill numerous literary tropes and Jewish traditions. Yet ‘all Judeans’ reject Jesus and King Herod seeks to destroy Jesus and his mother Mary. Jesus’ earthly family fulfills the Hebrew Scriptures, yet Jesus’s birth is indifferent to Micah 5:2, as both Judean women and Gentile magi do not need the Hebrew Scriptures fulfillment to arrive at Jesus. What is needed is an invitation and a willingness to come and see. ProtJac.’s unfulfilling magi do fulfill Hebrew Scriptures, but they do fulfill a role as exemplars of Gentile devotion to a Jewish Messiah. Justin Martyr provides the earliest exposition of Matthew’s magi (Dial. 78, 77-9). In his Apology, magi cannot be any worse: they perform all kinds of μαγεία as middlemen of the spiritual realm, under bondage to the devil and his 8 Some MSS bring ProtJac. into compliance with Matthew; omit: majority text, Z, cp, Ti, Syrab; include: C, D, Fa, vp. 9 ProtJac. cites ‘Bethlehem of Judea’ (ProtJac. 21:1) and Joseph observes the outburst, which cannot be in Bethlehem as ProtJac. implies if Herod is in Jerusalem with the magi (so Matt. 2:1-3). Commentators are quick to see such statements as limitations of the author. See, for example, Ronald F. Hock, The Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas: With Introduction, Notes, and Original Text Featuring the New Scholars Version Translation, Scholars Bible 2 (Santa Rosa, CA, 1995), 12-3; Émile de Strycker, La forme la plus ancienne du Protévangile de Jacques: Recherches sur le Papyrus Bodmer 5 avec une édition critique du texte Grec et une traduction annotée (Bruxelles, 1961), 353. 10 This may parallel early Christian sentiments that were less than positive towards the Jews (for example, Epistle of Barnabas). This also coincides with the rise of negative views towards Jews within the Roman empire after Titus’ successful campaign. Smid sees no reason for ProtJac. to change the location to Bethlehem. H.R. Smid, Protevangelium Jacobi: A Commentary, translated by G.E. van Baaren-Pape (Assen, 1965), 147. Some MSS resolve geographical concerns by harmonizing to Matthew (see Syrb Georg [Armab Aeth]).

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demonic hoards. They summon demons for divination, necromancy, even resurrection (1Apol. 18); magi can interpret visions, are astute astrologers, knowledgeable in philosophy; they are masters of the wisdom and power of this world and the world beyond. Their magic powers are sourced by demons whose ends are contrary to Christian and Roman ideals. Then Justin hits a major roadblock: such magi, conflated with Mithras priests (see 1Apol. 66.4; compare 64-7, 70.1-2; see also 1Apol. 26.7, 27, 28-9; 56.1-2), enter a cave to worship the newborn king who is divine, Jesus (Dial. 70).11 Trypho further complicates the matter with his Jewish reading of Isaiah 8:4 as fulfilled in Hezekiah. Trypho is wrong, Justin argues, because Hezekiah did not receive ‘the power of Damascus’ nor ‘the spoils of Samaria’ in the presence of the king of Assyria, and certainly not as a child (Dial. 77.2-4).12 Rather, Justin argues fulfillment is found in Matthew’s Arabian magi. Herod is situated typologically as ‘King of Assyria’ (Ezek. 16; Dial. 77.4). Arabian magi tighten Justin’s link between the Damascus power/Samaria spoils with the Isaiah fulfillment, creating a multilayered geographical construction that relocates Damascus and Samaria in Arabia to accomplish his rhetorical objective.13 Justin’s Arabian magi bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to worship the newborn king (χρυσὸν καὶ λίβανον καὶ σμύρναν, Dial. 78.2; see Matt. 2:11), fulfilling Isaiah 8:4 (Dial. 78; see also 77, 79).14 Matthew’s magi are themselves the spoils of Samaria and their gifts are the powers of Damascus (Dial. 77.2), as are the acts of worship. Similarly, Irenaeus follows Justin on these points, finding prophetic fulfillment in following Balaam’s star, the magi’s gifts, and seeing Matthew’s magi avoid the ‘Assyrian way’ (Haer. 3.9, 16; Epid. 58). 11 Justin intends to squelch any semblance of Christianity with Mithras, Zoroastrian, or any such cults. Mithras are bad imitations, even Zeus and Kore (1Apol. 66.4; see 64-7, 70.1-2). The mysteries of Mithras are misguided imitations of Daniel (2:34) and Isaiah (33:13-9), including Mithras’ origins in a cave, mirroring Jesus birth in a cave, reminiscent of ProtJac. 18:1; 19:12; 21:10 (Dial. 69; 70; 78.5). The parallel is noted by others: Martyr Justin, Iustini Martyris Dialogus cum Tryphone, ed. Miroslav Marcovich, Patristische Texte und Studien 47 (Berlin, 1997), 205; Martyr Justin, Justin Martyr, Dialogue avec Tryphon: édition critique, ed. Philippe Bobichon, 2 vol., Paradosis 47 (Fribourg, 2003), I 399; Martyr Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, ed. Michael Slusser, trans. Thomas B. Falls, Fathers of the Church 3 (Washington, DC, 2003), 121. 12 Horner argues that Trypho’s argument is based upon an actual document that Justin is answering, though it is unclear if the ‘historical Trypho’ exists or not. See Timothy J. Horner, ‘Listening to Trypho’: Justin Martyr’s Dialogue Reconsidered (Leuven, 2001). 13 Laura Nasrallah, ‘Mapping the World: Justin, Tatian, Lucian, and the Second Sophistic’, HTR 98 (2005), 283-314, 286-7, 309-10. 14 Though προσκυνέω as ‘worship’ may not entirely match the sense of Isaiah 8:4 and taking/ receiving spoils (Dial. 77.2), it does match one sense of Matthew 2:11 and intensifies Justin’s typos. On προσκυνέω, see Hugh Bowden, ‘On Kissing and Making Up: Court Protocol and Historiography in Alexander the Great’s “Experiment with Proskynesis”’, Bull. Inst. Class. Stud. 56 (2013), 55-77; Hak Chol Kim, ‘The Worship of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew’, Biblica 93 (2012), 227-41.

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For Justin, magi must come because magi are the only ones who can truly represent the spiritual realities for what was handed over in Isaiah 8:4. They are religious outsiders, spiritual enemies, from Arabia. They have no stake in the Roman gods, Greek sophistry or deities, Judaism nor Christianity – they are beholden to no one. Their expertise and their ethnicity render them enemies of God and Rome. Their chief exemplars, the Egyptian magi opposing Moses and Simon the Magus opposing the Apostles, are among the staunchest opponents of God’s people at any given epoch.15 Magi have every reason to oppose Jesus, yet testimony by Matthew’s magi appraises every prophetic fulfillment. Shockingly, Matthew’s foreign magi fulfill prophecy confirming that Jesus fulfills prophecy; they came, worshipped, gave gifts, and point readers to Christ. Justin tells Trypho he and the Jews should turn from their false doctrine like Matthew’s magi, who in some sense also fulfill Isaiah 24:13-4 by turning from their false doctrines and wisdom of this world (Dial. 78.10). As Justin [allegedly] appeals to Caesar in the Apologies and reasons with Trypho in his Dialogue Justin finds Matthew’s magi qualified by their magical prowess and fulfilling by their ethnic background to evaluate and appraise Christian claims about Jesus, inviting Caesar and Trypho to be like Matthew’s magi. Justin may be implying something of a conversion. The allusion to Psalm 95 (96) at the end is key: ‘the Gentile’s gods are devils…’ meaning Justin sees their gods as enemy agents of God (Dial. 79.4). This makes Justin’s point in Dial. 78 all the more compelling: these Arabian magi should not have taken an interest in the birth of the Savior, yet there they were, following what revelation they were given, a star and a redirect from Herod and the elders to Bethlehem. Matthew’s magi turned from their demonic ways and worshipped Christ. Though Justin shows respect for Trypho’s piety (see Dial. 79.2), Justin scandalously implores Trypho the Jew to be more like pagan μάγοι and read the Old Testament like a Christian (see Dial. 106.4; 142.2-3). Tertullian similarly deploys Justin’s Arabian magi in Adversus Marcion (3.12-4).16 Contradicting Marcion’s purge of all things Jewish, Tertullian spends the majority of Book 3 showing Jesus’ fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures. As a matter of correct interpretation and method, Tertullian turns to Jesus’s fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14 and 8:4. Correctly interpreted, these verses show that Christ is ‘God with us’, Emmanuel, because Emmanuel receives the ‘spoils of Samaria’ and the ‘power of Damascus’ as a child when magi come with gifts to worship him. The gifts are ‘the power’ and the magi themselves are ‘the spoils’, kings bringing gifts (cf. Zech 14:14). Christ is not a warrior as Marcion describes it because that is not what Isaiah said (3.14.50-2). Marcion not only misses this sound (sono) of Emmanuel/God-with-us, he also misses the sense 15

Balaam is also mentioned in Justin’s critique of Simon (1Apol. 56). Concerning Justin’s influence, see Sara Parvis, ‘Justin Martyr and the Apologetic Tradition’, in Justin Martyr and His Worlds, ed. Paul Foster and Sara Parvis (Minneapolis, 2007), 115-27. 16

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(sono) of virtutem Damasci et spolia Samariae et regum Assyriorum (‘the powers of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria and the king of Assyria’, Adv. Marc. 3.13.1). Tertullian sees a problem in the way Marcion interprets the ‘strength of Damascus’ and the ‘spoils of Samaria’ and what God is promising – it is an exegetical method problem. Tertullian is also eager to correct Marcion. Matthew’s gift-bearing magi are the fulfillment of the signs in Isaiah 8:4, confirming the fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14 (Adv. Marc. 3.13.6). Matthew’s magi come with two gifts – gold and incense – by which infant Jesus gains the strength and spoils without a fight. The strength of the East is its gold and spices – Tertullian sees this as a universal fact instituted by God. Tertullian validates this reasoning with Zechariah 14:14 (Adv. Marc. 3.13.7). Tertullian uses scripture to interpret Scripture, through what seems to be a ‘keyword search’: Emmanuel  ‘God with us’ 
Christ  spoils of Samaria, powers of Damascus  gold and spices  Matthew’s magi  Zechariah’s ‘kings’ bring presents. Damascus was considered Arabia when Christ was born.17 However, Zechariah presents a new twist: who are the ‘kings of the Arabs and of Saba’ that give gifts? Tertullian confidently appeals to ‘what we all know’: the strength of the East is its gold and magi are ‘for the most part’ regarded as kings (Nam et magos reges habuit fere oriens, Adv. Marc. 3.13.8.53-4).18 Tertullian then doubles-down on Justin’s typos. Christ fulfills Isaiah, and now Zechariah, by taking up power’s tokens, which are the gold and spices, and the spoils, which are the magi themselves (Adv. Marc. 3.13.8.57-58). The magi honored Christ with gifts (muneribus honorassent), knelt and worshipped him as God and king on the evidence of the star (Adv. Marc. 3.13.8.58-62). In so doing, Matthew’s magi were themselves made the spoils of Samaria, where Samaria is figurative for idolatry since King Jeroboam. Similarly, Jewish princes were princes of Sodom, the people citizens of Gomorra – they are idolaters. Geo-tagging idolatry further still, Tertullian’s phrase ‘your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite’ is another way of saying one born to such parents is an idolater; Egypt sometimes refers to the world charged with idolatry. Since John calls Rome ‘Babylon’ for how it wars with God’s people (Adv. Marc. 3.13.10), Tertullian uses similar associations to show magi akin to Samaritans, for the magi were ‘despoiled of idolatry’.19 Further, ‘Against the king of Assyria’ (Adversus regem autem Assyriorum) means ‘against Herod’ 17

Damascus was later transferred to Syrophoenicia when the Syrias were divided. ‘Damascus was reckoned to Arabia unil it was brought into Croele Syria, on the division of Syria by Septimius Severus between 193 and 198 (Dio Cassius, 53.12): Justin, Dial. 78, seems to have previous knowledge of this rearrangement unless the observation is a later addition’. Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, ed. and trans. Ernest Evans (Oxford, 1972), 209, footnote 3. 18 Depending upon one’s chronology of Tertullian’s writings, this (or Idol. 9) is the first appropriation of magi as ‘kings’ in Christian literature. 19 Evans, Adversus Marcionem, 211.

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– Matthew’s magi worked against Herod by not bringing Herod details about Christ’s birth. Yet, elsewhere Tertullian returns to Matthew’s magi as Persian astrologers, mathematici, diviners, with royal prestige from Persia who worship Jesus, turning from their ways (Idol. 9.2-5; Iudaeos 9.12.89-90).20 Origen reads Matthew’s magi with mixed ethnic identities in both his rebuttal to Celsus and his homilies on Numbers. Origen challenges Celsus’s numerous errors about Jesus’s origins, including the magi story (Cels. 1.58), providing a right interpretation that is valuable in part for both Greeks and Jews (Cels. 1.59). Matthew’s magi are Persian, not Chaldean (Cels. 1.58). By confusing (Persian) magi with Chaldeans, who have differing beliefs, Celsus falsifies the Gospel narrative (Cels. 1.58) – Matthew’s magi must be Persian. The ethnic origins of Matthew’s magi demonstrate they are more than astrologers, indicating their origins are central to a correct interpretation for Origen. Interestingly, Matt. Cat. Frag 24 identifies both Matthew’s magi and Balaam as Persian. This corroborates Origen’s Homilies on Numbers 24, identifying Matthew’s magi as descendants of Balaam by both ancestry and doctrine, just as there is a biological and spiritual Israel (Hom. Num. 15.4.1-4.2; see also 13.7.4). Balaam’s writings were passed down to them, including Balaam’s prophecy of a star in the east, such that Jesus’ star was easily recognizable to Matthew’s magi when the time came. Interestingly, Matthew’s magi are not fulfilling any of Matthew’s fulfillment quotes or allusions for Origen (Isa. 7:14, 8:4, Mic. 5:2, nor Hos. 11:1). Rather, Matthew’s magi fulfill Balaam and Moses. Origen saw Matthew’s magi as more than just astrologers. The magi’s knowledge of stars and celestial movements are essential to the Matthean narrative, but even Origen recognizes this is but one attribute of Matthew’s magi. Powered by demons, they are well educated in ‘magical arts’ and philosophies foreign and domestic, do miracles, divination, augury, etc. (Cels. 1.60). They are spiritual and physical descendants of Balaam, hence their familiarity with his prophecy of a rising star in Israel – from their own writings as well as from Torah (Cels. 1.60).21 Because of their ‘magical skills’, because they are Persian descendants of Balaam by genealogy and profession, properly interpreted Matthew’s magi are able to fulfill Balaam’s and Moses’ prophecies. 20 There may be hints at the magi’s conversion in Justin, Dial. 78.2, 10, but it is not clear. Similarly, that magi προσκυνέω in Irenaeus suggests more than just obeisance (see Haer. 3.9). Interestingly, Tertullian addresses the proverbial elephant in the room: converted magi are proofpositive that Christians do not need to turn to μαγεία (Idol. 9). 21 Interestingly, Origen looks to Jesus’ birth narrative to critique the disciple’s keeping children away from Jesus (Comm. Matt. 15.7; see Matt. 19:13-5). Jesus was himself a child at one point and even the magi come to see him bearing gifts. Magi, in this sense, help Origen establish the historia (κατὰ τὴν ἱστορίαν, 15.7.24-5) of Jesus’ childhood as grounds for how disciples ought to have behaved towards these children. Just as no one was prohibited from coming to newborn Jesus, so no child should be prohibited from coming to Jesus, especially when the motive is so pious as laying hands on and blessing the children.

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Finally, ‘Hippolytus of Rome’22 also takes an unexpected turn with Matthew’s magi (Danielem 1.9.1-7). Providing a thoroughly Christian reading of Daniel, ‘Hippolytus’ finds interpretive help from the Gospel according to Matthew for a distinctly Christian exegesis. ‘Hippolytus’ summarizes Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar’s order to collect the beautiful and wise Hebrews as slaves to the king’s court, namely Daniel and his friends (1.7.1). Then comes ‘Hippolytus’ challenge to his readers: the blessings and demonstration of all things by the prophets are also for Christians, who should read these stories carefully to prepare the mind for what comes next (1.7.2). ‘Hippolytus’ then recounts a sick King Hezekiah’s request for a sign from God: a shadow’s irregular movement caused by the sun’s irregular movement (1.7.3-6; 2Kgs. 20:1-3). Entertaining the question that such things are impossible (1.8.1), Hippolytus cites two examples demonstrating God can and does alter the movements of sun, moon, and stars: Joshua’s unmoved sun and moon (1.8.2-5) and Matthew’s magi following the new easterly star (1.9.2). God halts creation’s movements and God adds to creation’s celestial bodies, all for prophetic purposes. For ‘Hippolytus’ and his readers, they must wrestle with whether or not God can alter astrological phenomena and fulfill prophecy (1.8.1, 4), as well as who can verify such activity. On closer inspection, Joshua’s halted movements and Matthew’s added star are in service to Hezekiah’s moving shadow for different purposes. Joshua’s halted sun and moon primarily supports the idea that God could intervene and alter the natural course of heavenly bodies. Matthew’s magi confirm the possibility that these things really happened because the Chaldean king saw the irregular sun movements and brought Hezekiah letters and gifts, just as Matthew’s magi saw the eastern star-sign and brought gifts (1.9.2-6; 2Kgs. 20:12-3; 2Chron. 32:31; Isa. 39:1). Berodach, king of Babylon, a Chaldean, practiced astrological arts (ἀστρολογικὴν τέχνην), precisely measuring movements of sun and moon, immediately took notice of this ‘Hezekiah sign’ God performed (Danielem 1.9.1; see 2Chron. 32:31; 2Kgs. 20:9-11). Berodach sends letters and gifts to Hezekiah (1.9.1, 3; 2Kgs. 20:12). That Berodach is singled out as a Chaldean king of Babylon, yet also possesses the ‘magical skills’ of astrology is likely due to the impact of Origen’s careful distinction between the two (see above, Cels. 1.58). The entire Hezekiah episode, in effect, is a proof: yes, God can perform such a sign because Chaldean astrological experts independently verified it, so to speak. They observed the movement and were themselves moved 22

Identifying ‘Hippolytus’ and his texts is complex. For this article (1) there are two or more writers so-named ‘Hippolytus’; (2) one may be eastern influence, the other of western influence; however (3) the Christian tradition has held all such texts as part of a ‘Hippolytean corpus’ despite the tensions. This article is not dependent upon a solution. The Commentary on Daniel is understood as part of a corpus of writings for a church community and used for many subsequent generations. These texts were treated as a corpus and warrant comparison as such to reflect the tensions and parallels these texts have with each other. Hence this article refers to ‘Hippolytus’ with quotes to reflect both the tradition and uncertainty of Hippolytean authorship.

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to respond with letters and gifts to the King of the Jews. ‘Hippolytus’ connects both ethnicity and magical skills to Matthew’s eastern magi who found and followed an eastern star in the sky. ‘Hippolytus’ then parallels this with Matthew’s magi (1.9.2). Matthew’s magi share similar ethnicities and perform a similar function: they saw the star and came to the newborn King of the Jews from the east with gifts. Similarly, Matthew’s magi come from the East and are astonished at the astronomical phenomena God causes – ‘Hippolytus’ ethnically identifies Matthew’s magi and Berodach ‘Chaldean’ from Babylon (Danielem 1.9.1, 1.9.2). Matthew’s magi, now from Babylon, are astonished at the sign, come to Jerusalem looking for ‘the one born king of the Jews’ – they saw his star in the east and came to προσκύνεσεν him (Danielem 1.9.2; see Matt. 2:1-2). This is similar to the Chaldeans seeing Hezekiah’s peculiar sun and honoring him (Danielem 1.9.3). Notice that Joshua, Hezekiah, and Jesus share numerous points of contact, not least their messianic features.23 How they fulfill messianic expectations, how God does miracles, is evidenced by the actions of ethnically-tagged ‘magic’ practitioners. The rhetorical effect is to claim that whether one is willing to accept Jewish or Christian sources, Judean or Roman or Greek sources, one cannot discount the testimony about Jesus from these religious experts of another ethnicity with nothing to gain. In academic parlance, these signs were peerreviewed, and the reviewers’s qualifications to be reviewers include both their ethnicity and their mageia skills. ‘Hippolytus’ here implies that such a careful reading of Hezekiah’s story and Isaiah’s prophecy is cause for Daniel and friends being well prepared, or at least that Christians should see these connections and be prepared themselves. We see Daniel’s preparation on full display later, when he saves the magi because he alone is able to interpret the King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Danielem 2.3.111.1). Notice the list of counselors Nebuchadnezzar is dissatisfied with and Daniel must save: δὸν μάγον φάρμακον ἤ Χαλδαῖον (Danielem 2.3.1) a distinction is again made between ‘Chaldean’ and ‘magi’ (so too Dan. 2:2, 10, LXX). The ‘Chaldean’ and the ‘magus’ are distinct identifiers with distinct ethnicities, but they share at least the common astrological abilities, probably other forms of mageia, et al. (when ‘Chaldean’ is being used of a counselor in this way). ‘Hippolytus’ needs these ethnic identifiers to complete his exegetical goals. ‘Hippolytus’ qualifies Nebuchadnezzar as ‘Babylonian’, Berodach as the Chaldean 23 Recall Justin Martyr reasons Christ is the fulfillment of Isaiah 8:4, not King Hezekiah, because of Matthew’s magi visit (see Dial. 77-9). ‘Hippolytus’ is familiar with Justin and there is some degree of borrowing. ‘Hippolytus’ later reasons that in Hezekiah’s parents the two tribes mixed, Susannah was of tribe of Levi and Joakim of Judah, so that later the Christ can be born of both tribes as demonstrated from Matthew’s genealogy (Danielem 1.13.4-8; Matt. 1:2-17; Susan. 1-2; see also Danielem 1.13.1-3; 2.27.6). This is also likely shaped Matthew’s genealogy (Matt. 1:2-17).

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‘King of Babylon’, then Matthew’s magi ‘from the east’ because their ethnicity means something. In each case, ‘Hippolytus’ follows the descriptors of the authoritative texts, unlike Tertullian and Justin before him. ‘Hippolytus’ draws parallels to their ethnic identity, astrological capabilities, and response to the astrological phenomena God performed as a prophetical signs and exhortations for careful Christians to be prepared for hardship. In each case, the interpretive cup begins to overflow when Matthew’s magi are situated as magicians of a particular ethnic origin. For Early Christian Authors, that formula finds fulfillment in a myriad of ways familiar in style to Matthew, but not necessarily his content. Scant attention is given to Micah 5:2 or Isaiah 7:14, nor to Jesus’s prophecy-fulfilling ethnic designation as a Nazarene.24 The Protevangelist reduces Matthew’s magi to something less fulfilling. Irenaeus and Tertullian follow Justin’s interpretive trajectories about Arabian magi. Matthew’s Arabian magi fulfill Moses and Balaam, not (necessarily) Isaiah or Micah. Matthew’s magi are Babylonian, not Chaldean, physical and spiritual descendants of Balaam for Origen and ‘Hippolytus’. In each case, Matthew’s magi are ethnic outsiders that are very learned and can work various kinds of mageia, even astrology. Indeed, Early Christian Authors seem to have other theological objectives for Matthew’s magi to fulfill. Ethnicity has diverse theological values for Early Christian Authors, such that the diverse ethnicities of Matthew’s magi corresponds to what it is they fulfill. That may not be satisfying to some, but therein lies the magic.

24 E.g., ‘Jesus the Nazarene’, ‘a Nazarene’ or ‘from Nazareth’ (Ναζαρηνός, Ναζωραῖος, ἀπὸ Ναζαρὲθ); see Matt. 2:23; 21:11; 26:71; Mark 1:9, 24; 10:47; 14:67; 16:6; Luke 1:26; 2:4, 39, 51; 4:34; 18:37; 24:19; John 1:45-6; 18:5, 7; 19:19; Acts 2:22; 3:6; 4:10; 6:14; 10:38; 22:8; 26:9). Similarly, Brown observes that not even Matthew’s Gospel refers back to the special information in the infancy narrative. Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, updated edition (New Haven, London, 1993), 48-51.

The Use of Patristic Literature for the Reconstruction of the New Testament. A Case Study: Matt. 27:51-3 Anna PESSINA, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy

ABSTRACT Patristic quotations from the New Testament are so copious that some scholars have asserted that they alone could be sufficient to reconstruct the entire text of the Gospels (Metzger, Ehrman, 2005). However, the indirect tradition, that includes patristic quotations and allusions from the Bible in the Fathers, versions, and lectionaries, is less considered in critical editions of the New Testament. The patristic literature is mostly evaluated only when the direct tradition cannot confirm a variant. This article postulates the relevance of patristic literature for the reconstruction of the early text of the New Testament, by proposing a methodological reflection about the importance and the difficulties in the use of this tradition. It is, in fact, more ancient and it could often preserve a more ancient form of the text in respect of that present in the direct manuscripts. In order to demonstrate this statement, this article will offer a case study: the history of the transmission of Matt. 27:51-3. These verses describe the cosmic phenomena that take place at Jesus’ death and particularly, verse 53 causes some hermeneutical problem. Through the analysis of the all quotations of these verses in the Fathers, the existence of a different recension of verse 53 is shown, probably more ancient than the canonical one. This recension is well attested in the Christian writers of the second and third centuries, but is not recorded in the direct tradition. In light of this case study, I would suggest the possibility of a new critical methodology, which systematically reconsiders patristic quotations in order to reconstruct the primary text of the New Testament.

The use of patristic literature for the reconstruction of the text of the New Testament1 is a largely debated matter, which entails – first – the problematical issue of ‘the business of textual criticism’, that is, as the classicist Paul Maas proposed, ‘to produce a text as close as possible to the original’.2 The subject for NT textual criticism is more complicated than for classical philology, because it involves the definition of ‘original text’,3 which is excluded from the NT. 1

From here: NT. Paul Maas, Textual Criticism (Oxford, 1958), §1. 3 See Eldon J. Epp, ‘The Multivalence of the Term “Original Text” in New Testament Textual Criticism’, HTR 93 (1999), 245-81 (= in id. [ed.], Perspectives on New Testament Textual Criticism: Collected Essays, 1962-2004, Novum Testamentum Supplement 116 [Leiden, Boston, 2005], 551-94). 2

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 75-85. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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In fact, the nature, the processes that lead to the composition of this text, the redactional stages, and its employment in the communities’ worship are a unicum as compared with any other ancient literature. It must be considered that the proto-Christian communities considered themselves to have a charismatic identity, a premise which allows them to improve, on different occasions, change, sum up, and even censor the text of these Urchristliche Dokumente, without a negative evaluation of this praxis. This continuous and progressive redactional process probably took place until the canonization of the entire NT collection.4 For these reasons, the real problem for the NT textual criticism is not to reach ‘a text as close as possible to the original’, but what might be considered as ‘original’: is it the product of the communities at the end of the first century? Or is it the fixed form of the text present in most ancient witnesses, at least, in the late third century?5 A second question raises as well: how is it possible to reach this ‘original’ text? Concerning this problem, it is not out of line to consider another question, proposed by William L. Petersen, who asks: ‘How can one reconstruct a text “as close to the original as possible”, if the “original” was not fixed until at least 80 or 100 years after its “composition”?’6 According to the classical philological rules, for the reconstruction of a text, the direct tradition is usually more reliable and its weight is superior to that of the indirect one, which is weaker and more exposed to corruptions and modifications.7 The NT text instead, because of its uniqueness, needs a different approach: it requires a philological method that takes into consideration also the peculiar traits of this proto-Christian literature. In fact, at first, one must consider that the Bible is the most copied book in the history of the world, and nowadays, the number of the direct witnesses is so high that collecting them completely is quite impossible.8 The second issue, which cannot be overlooked, is the date of these documents: the papyri, which are the earliest proofs of the NT, date back from the end of

4 See David C. Parker, ‘Textual Criticism and Theology’, ExpT 119 (2007), 583-9, 585; Thomas Söding and Christian Münch, Kleine Methodenlehre zum Neuen Testament (Freiburg im Breisgau, 2005), 33. 5 See D.C. Parker, The Living Text of the Gospels (Cambridge, 1997). 6 William L. Petersen, ‘What Text Can New Testament Textual Criticism Ultimately Reach?’, in Barbara Aland and Joel Delobel (eds), New Testament Textual Criticism, Exegesis, and Early Church History: A Discussion in Method, Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 7 (Kampen, 1994), 136-51, 149. 7 See Heinrich Zimmermann, Neutestamentliche Methodenlehre. Darstellung der historischkritischen Methode (Stuttgart, 1967), 31. 8 The total number of NT manuscripts (up to 2013) is 5838 among papyri (128), majuscules (322), minuscules (2926), lectionaries (2462); the information is reported by Riccardo Maisano, Filologia del Nuovo Testamento. La tradizione e la trasmissione dei testi (Roma, 2014), 86. The number of them is continuously increasing.

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the second century and the beginning of the third;9 in addition, they are all fragmentary or incomplete. Nowadays, the first complete preserved copies of the NT are manuscripts Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, both dated from the first half of the fourth century.10 We know very little about what might have happened to the NT text since its composition to its first manuscript evidence and this is the reason why James Elliot has defined the second century as such a ‘dark age’11 for the history of the NT text: because we have not almost any direct evidence from that period. Thus, it entails that the direct tradition alone could not be sufficient for the reconstruction of the entire history of this text. On the contrary, patristic quotations could assume a relevant role because they help us to reach that part of the textual transmission not preserved by any manuscript. The indirect evidences, in fact, are not only often more ancient than the direct witnesses,12 but through them it is also possible to situate quite certainly a textual variant in a punctual place and in a specific moment of the history of the text.13 The matter has been strongly debated and dozens of essays have been written about the use and the importance of patristic literature in NT textual criticism, starting from the Fifties of the last century.14 Nevertheless, their importance in 9 See, for example, Pasquale Orsini and Willy Clarysse, ‘Early New Testament Manuscripts and Their Dates: A Critique of Theological Palaeography’, ETL 88 (2012), 443-74; Don Barker, ‘The Dating of New Testament Papyri’, NTS 57 (2011), 571-82. 10 Among others, some studies on these two important manuscripts are, on Codex Sinaiticus: Theodore C. Skeat, ‘The Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Vaticanus and Constantine’, JTS 50 (1999), 583-625; D.C. Parker, Codex Sinaiticus. The Story of the World’s Oldest Bible (London, 2010); Christfried Böttrich, ‘Codex Sinaiticus and the Use of Manuscripts in the Early Church’, ExpT 128 (2017), 469-7; on Codex Vaticanus: Patrick Andrist, Le manuscript B de la Bible (Vaticanus graecus 1209) (Lausanne, 2009). 11 James K. Elliot, ‘The New Testament in the Second-Century: a Challenge for the TwentyFirst Century’, in id. (ed.), New Testament Textual Criticism: The Application of Thoroughgoing Participles. Essay on Manuscripts and Textual Variation, Novum Testamentum Supplement 137 (Leiden, Boston, 2010), 15-27, 13. 12 Think about the texts of Ignatius (early 2nd century or mid 2nd century), Justin (second half of 2nd century), Tatian (second half of the 2nd century). 13 Gordon D. Fee, ‘The Use of the Greek Fathers for NT Textual Criticism’, in Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes (eds), The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research. Essays on the Status Quaestionis, New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents 42 (Leiden, Boston, 2013), 351-69, 352. 14 Among others, some significant contributions are: Marie-Émile Boismard, ‘Critique textuelle et citations patristiques’, RB 57 (1950), 388-408; M. Jack Suggs, ‘The Use of Patristic Evidence in the Search for a Primitive New Testament Text’, NTS 4 (1958), 139-47; Jean Duplacy and M.J. Suggs, ‘Les citations grecques et la critique du texte du Nouveau Testament: le passé, le présent et l’avenir’, in La Bible et les Pères. Colloque du Strasbourg (1er-3 octobre 1969) (Paris, 1971), 187-213; Bruce M. Metzger, ‘Patristic Evidence and the Textual Criticism of the New Testament’, NTS 18 (1972), 379-400; id., ‘The Practice of Textual Criticism Among the Church Fathers’, in id. (ed.), New Testament Studies. Philological, Versional, and Patristic, New Testament Tools and Studies 10 (Leiden, 1980), 189-98; Giuseppe Visonà, Citazioni patristiche e critica testuale neotestamentaria. Il caso di Lc 12,49 (Roma, 1990); Jean-François Racine,

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critical editions is still underestimated and critics usually consider patristic quotations just as variant readings. Petersen has stressed how in Nestle-Aland 27 there is not one lectio in the critical apparatus supported only by patristic evidences.15 Surely, the indirect tradition is not without limits and negative aspects, which must be noticed. The first one is how the ancient authors used the Bible, which involves four different approaches: a) The manner of citing. It has been demonstrated that in antiquity most biblical quotations were made by memory. A memory quotation surely could produce more variant readings and modifications than a citation copied directly from a book. b) The distinction between perfect quotations, allusions and paraphrases.16 Patristic quotations were usually more precise in commentaries and polemical treatises whereas in homiletic works or sermons, the words belonging to the Scripture were often mixed and confused with those of the author, and viceversa. c) The matter of the ‘living’ text: Petersen has argued that until the late second century, the text of the NT was not fixed.17 David Parker, indeed, wrote: ‘The early Christian users of the Gospels treated them as living texts, which were re-worded, expanded or reduced, to bring out what these users believed to be the true meaning of the text’.18 d) The correspondence between patristic quotation and a text form preserved by the direct tradition. The question involves which and how many manuscripts or text forms were known and used by a Christian author for his works. The second stage concerns the transmission of patristic texts themselves: the matter refers, on the one hand, to the dimension of the Church Fathers’ critical editions. These texts were submitted to all the limits of the copy process, including scribal modifications and mistakes: for a long time, critics used to employ low quality or ancient editions of the Fathers.19 On the other hand, it ‘L’utilisation des Pères en critique textuelle du Nouveau Testament’, Science et Esprit 51 (1999), 161-70; B.D. Ehrman, ‘The Use and Significance of Patristic Evidence for NT Textual Criticism’, in B. Aland and J. Delobel (eds), New Testament Textual Criticism (1994), 118-35; G.D. Fee, ‘The Use of the Greek Fathers’ (2013), 351-69; Hugh A.G. Houghton, ‘The Use of the Latin Fathers for New Testament Textual Criticism’, in B.D. Ehrman and M.W. Holmes (eds), The Text of the New Testament (2013), 375-99; Sebastian Brock, ‘The Use of Syriac Fathers for New Testament Textual Criticism’, in ibid., 406-25. 15 W.L. Petersen, ‘What Text?’ (1994), 139-40. 16 See Carrol D. Osburn, ‘Methodology in Identifying Patristic Citations in NT Textual Criticism’, NT 47 (2005), 313-43. 17 W.L. Petersen, ‘What Text?’ (1994), 149. 18 D.C. Parker, ‘Textual Criticism’ (2007), 585. 19 The Migne’s Patrologia itself was produced for a didactical initiative, copying previous and often inappropriate texts of the 1600 or 1700.

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involves the problem of the biblical quotations in the copy process. One might ask whether the text reported by the ancient author is that available to him in that place and that moment in which his work was composed, or it could have been modified later, for example, by the widespread harmonizing process of the biblical quotations.20 The difficulties proposed must not lead to give up the challenge; rather, they invite critics to be more aware of the complexity of the NT formation and transmission. Taking into consideration this methodological approach, it is interesting to consider a case study in which the patristic literature retained an earlier text than that conserved by the manuscript tradition. This latter becomes the textus receptus in all critical editions of the NT; however, a closer look to the indirect tradition could revealed new insights: it is the case of Matt. 27:51-3, and more specifically verse 53. Only in the Matthean Passion narrative, when Jesus died on the Cross, a series of apocalyptic prodigia, like the earthquake, the splitting of the rocks, the opening of the graves, the awakening of the dead saints’ bodies, and their appearance in the holy City, took place, in order to underline the power of the Lord’s sacrifice.21 Nevertheless, at verse 53, the short temporal phrase μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ, postpones the most relevant sign, the resurrection or, at least, the manifestation of the dead, to a later moment. By considering the textual transmission of the verse, the entire direct tradition preserved the expression μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ and NA28 does not record any variants. Nevertheless, this temporal sentence evidently causes some hermeneutical problems: on the one hand, it modifies the chronological sequence of events, postponing the sign of the resurrection a moment, actually after Jesus’ resurrection. On the other hand, as Wolfgang Schenk22 and Aguirre Monasterio23 have pointed out, it can be considered an element that breaks the literary rhythmic construction of the entire passage, which was probably an ancient liturgical hymn. 20 It is not unusual that the biblical quotations have been adapted with the textus receptus, which is a philological product, often more recent than the indirect quotation. 21 Matt. 27:51-3 (NA28): Καὶ ἰδοὺ τὸ καταπέτασμα τοῦ ναοῦ ἐσχίσθη ἀπ’ ἄνωθεν ἕως κάτω εἰς δύο καὶ ἡ γῆ ἐσείσθη καὶ αἱ πέτραι ἐσχίσθησαν, καὶ τὰ μνημεῖα ἀνεῴχθησαν καὶ πολλὰ σώματα τῶν κεκοιμημένων ἁγίων ἠγέρθησαν, καὶ ἐξελθόντες ἐκ τῶν μνημείων μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ εἰσῆλθον εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν πόλιν καὶ ἐνεφανίσθησαν πολλοῖς. (NRSV: At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many). 22 Wolfgang Schenk, Der Passionsbericht nach Markus. Untersuchungen zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der Passionstraditionen (Berlin, 1974), 75-9. 23 Rafael Aguirre Monasterio, Exegesis de Mateo 27,51b-53. Para una teologia de la muerte de Jesus en el evangelio de Mateo (Vitoria, 1980), 59-66.

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On the contrary, by considering the indirect tradition of the text from the earliest witness, that is Tatian’s Diatessaron, to the first manuscript evidence of this passage, found in Codex Sinaiticus, Matthew’s verses have been cited many times in different works and authors.24 Among these, it is interesting to 24 From the earliest quotation of Matt. 27:51-3 to the first direct witness: Tatian, Diatessaron (Biblia Polyglotta Matritensia, VI: Vetus Evangelium Syrorum et exinde excerptum Diatessaron Tatiani, ed. Ignacio Ortiz de Urbina [Madrid, 1967]). Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies IV 34, 3 (Irénée de Lyon. Contre les hérésies, livre IV, ed. Adelin Rousseau, Bertrand Hemmerdinger, Louis Doutreleau and Charles Mercier, SC 100.2 [Paris, 1965], 852-4). Questions of Bartholomew I 6-9; 20 (André Wilmart and Eugène Tisserant, ‘Fragments grecs et latins de l’Évangile de Barthélemy’, RB 10 [1913], 161-90; 321-68, 185; and Umberto Moricca, ‘Un nuovo testo dell’ “Evangelo di Bartolomeo”’, RB 30 [1921], 481-516; 31 [1922], 20-30, 490; 92). Hippolytus, Against Noetus 18, 8 (Hippolytus of Rome, Contra haeresin Noeti, ed. Robert Butterworth, Heythrop Monographs 2 [London, 1977], 91). The date of this work is dabated: here the date proposed is based on the research of Manlio Simonetti (M. Simonetti, ‘Ippolito’, in Angelo di Berardino [ed.], Nuovo Dizionarario Patristico di Antichità Cristiane, 3 vol., 2nd ed. [Genova, 2007], II 2584-99) and Enrico Norelli (Ippolito. Anticristo, ed. E. Norelli [Firenze, 1987]). If one follows Marcel Richard (John A. Cerrato, Hippolytus between East and West: The Commentaries and the Provenance of the Corpus [Oxford, 2002]) this is a fourth century text. See also Markus Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity. From Reception to Retrospection (Cambridge, 2019), 162-95. Coptic fragment n. 13 (Les Apocryphes Coptes, I: Les Évangiles des Douze Apôtres et de saint Barthélemy, ed. E. Revillout, PO 2 [Paris, 1907], 168). The Second Treatise of the Great Seth 58,23-59,9 (Der zweite Logos des Großen Seth, ed. Martin Krause, in Franz Altheim and Ruth Stiehl, Christentum am Roten Meer, II [Berlin, New York, 1973], 106-51, 124-6). Julius Africanus, Chronography F. 93 (Iulius Africanus Chronographiae, ed. Martin Wallraff, GCS NF 15 [Berlin, 2007], 276-8). Pseudo-Clemens, Recognitions I 41 (Die Pseudoklementinen II. Rekognitionen, ed. Bernhard Rehm and Franz Paschke, GCS 51 [Berlin, 1965]). Pseudo-Cyprian, Glory of Martyrdom 29,1-2 (Opera Pseudo-Cyprianea, De laude martyrii, ed. Laetitia Ciccolini and Paul Mattei, CChr.SL 3F [Turnhout, 2016], 437). Pseudo-Cyprian, De duobus montibus Sina et Sion 8,1-2 (Pseudo-Cipriano, I due monti Sinai e Sion, ed. Clara Burini, Biblioteca Patristica [Bologna, 1994], 166-8). Papyrus Egerton n.3 (Harold I. Bell and T.C. Skeat, Fragments of an Unknown Gospel and Other Early Christian Papyri [London, 1935], 42-51). Origen, Commentary on the Gospel according to John XIX 16,102-3 (Origenes Werke IV. Commentarius in Iohannem, ed. Erwin Preuschen, GCS 10 [Berlin, 1903], 316). Origen, Commentary on Psalms III (Origenis Opera Omnia, Selecta in Psalmos, PG 12, 1125-7). Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans I 8; V 1; V 10 (Der Römerbriefkommentar des Origenes. Kritische Ausgabe der Übersetzung Rufins, 3 vol., ed. C.P. Hammond Bammel, Vetus Latina, Aus der Geschichte der lateinischen Bibel 16, 33, 34 [Freiburg im Breisgau, 19901998], 62-3; 387-8; 448-9). Origen, Commentary on Song of Songs III 32-4 (Origenes Werke VIII. Homilien zu Samuel I, zum Hohelied und zu den Propheten, ed. Wilhelm A. Baehrens, GCS 33 [Berlin, 1925], 222-3). Origen, Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthaeum XII 43 (Origenes Werke X. Matthäuserklärung, I: Die Griechisch erhaltenen Tomoi, ed. Erich Klostermann and Ernst Benz, GCS 40 [Berlin, 1935], 168-9).

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underline that more than half of all quotations, particularly regarding verse 53, do not report the expression ‘after his resurrection’. The entire tradition could be summarised in the following table (Table 1): Witnesses with μετὰ κ.τ.λ.

Witnesses without μετὰ κ.τ.λ.

Witnesses with fluid text

Tatianus, Diatessaron Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses Quaestiones Bartholomaei Hippolytus, Contra Noetum Apocryphal coptic fragment n.13 Liber secundus Seth Magni Julius Africanus, Chronographiae Pseudo-Clemens, Recognitiones Pseudo-Cyprianus, De laude martyrii Pseudo-Cyprianus, De duobus montibus Sina et Sion P. Egerton n.3 Origenes, Commentarii in Matthaeum – Vetus Interpretatio Origenes, Contra Celsum

Origenes, Libri in Psalmos Origenes, Commentarii in Origenes, Commentarii in Iohannem epistulam ad Romanos Origenes, Commentarii in Origenes, Commentarii in Matthaeum – Series Latina Cantica Canticorum Eusebius, Contra Marcellum Eusebius, Demonstratio evangelica Eusebius, Commentarii in Psalmos

Table 1. Indirect Quotations of Matt. 27:51b-53 until the Fourth Century.

It is clear from the table that three text groups are identified: 1) writings without the canonical formulation μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ: this is the largest group; 2) those that have a sort of ‘fluid text’, which means that they report the same concept of the temporal phrase, but through different words, without quoting it exactly; 3) texts in which the expression is present with the identical words contained in the direct tradition. This last group is composed only by three works (Origen, Commentary on the Gospel according to John XIX 16,102-3, Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew – Series Latina 139 and Eusebius, Against Marcellus I 2,12): these texts are particularly relevant because Origen, Commentariorum Series Latina in Matthaeum 139 (Origenes Werke XI. Matthäuserklärung, II: Die lateinische Übersetzung der Commentariorum Series, ed. E. Klostermann and E. Benz, GCS 38 [Berlin, 1933], 287-9). Origen, Against Celsus II 16 (Origenes Werke I. Contra Celsum I-IV, ed. Paul Koetschau, GCS 2 [Berlin, 1899], 145). Eusebius, Demonstratio evangelica IV 12,1-4; X 8,63-4 (Eusebius Werke VI. Demonstratio evangelica, ed. Ivar A. Heikel, GCS 23 [Berlin, 1913], 170-1; 482-3). Eusebius, Commentary on Psalms, III 68,4-5; 87,11-3; Ps. 3:6; Ps. 4:9 (Eusebii Pamphilii Opera omnia quae exstant. Commentaria in Psalmos, PG 23 [Paris, 1857], 729; 1064; 96; 113). Eusebius, Against Marcellus I 2,12 (Eusebius Werke IV. Contra Marcellum, ed. E. Klostermann, GCS 14 [Berlin, 1906], 11).

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they are the unique proofs of the existence of μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ, before its definite recording in the manuscript tradition. The passage belonging to the Commentary on the Gospel according to John, dated back between the Twenties and the Forties of the 3rd century,25 is particularly significant because it reports the first attestation of the phrase in the history of the Matthean text. Before this quotation, in fact, the sentence was never mentioned. The second attestation comes from the Latin translation of the Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew: the original Greek writing, dated back to the second part of the Forties of the 3rd century, is fragmentarily preserved; the Latin translation, instead, is anonymous and it dates back to between the 5th and the 6th century.26 One could easily object that the canonical phrase could be preserved only in these two writings and all the other indirect witnesses could have omitted it for different reasons. It could be true, but two elements stand against this statement. The first element is a passage, belonging to the third mentioned writing: Eusebius’ Against Marcellus. In the second chapter of the first book, debating about the theme of the resurrection from the dead, Marcellus claims that Jesus cannot be considered as the firstborn of them that were resurrected, because others were resurrected before him. He quotes the man raised by Elisha the prophet, Lazarus, and finally the saints resurrected at the moment of Jesus’ Passion (ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τοῦ πάθους).27 He clearly knows and refers to a version of verse 53 without ‘after his resurrection’, otherwise his statement would be false, and consequently his argumentation very weak. Eusebius, on the contrary, by answering back to Marcellus, harshly criticizes him, arguing that he was not aware of the entire Scripture, which reports that the saints were resurrected only after Jesus’ resurrection. In order to sustain his hypothesis, Eusebius reports the Gospel words: μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ. Therefore, the Apostle says that he is not only ‘firstborn of the new creation’, but also ‘firstborn of the dead’ for no other reason, it seems to me, but so that through the expression ‘firstborn of the dead’ one might grasp how the expression ‘firstborn of all creation’ is to be understood. For our Lord Jesus Christ was not the first to rise from the dead, but the man who was raised by Elisha the prophet rose before [him], and 25

Lorenzo Perrone, ‘Il profilo letterario del Commento a Giovanni: operazione esegetica e costruzione del testo’, in Emanuela Prinzivalli (ed.), Il Vangelo di Giovanni di Origene: il testo e i suoi contesti. Atti dell’VIII Convegno di Studi del Gruppo Italiano di Ricerca su Origene e la Tradizione Alessandrina, Roma 28-30 settembre 2004 (Villa Verrucchio, 2005), 43-81, 55. 26 Robert Girod, ‘La traduction latine anonyme du commentaire sur Matthieu’, in Henri Crouzel, Gennaro Lomiento and Josep Rius-Camp (eds), Origeniana: premier colloque international des études origéniennes. Montserrat, 18-21 septembre 1973 (Bari, 1975), 125-38, 131-2. 27 The use of temporal dative with ἐν ‘designates point of time’, see Friedrich Blass and Albert Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. A translation and revision if the ninth-tenth German edition incorporating supplementary notes of A. Debrunner, by Robert W. Funk (Cambridge, 1961), § 200.

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Lazarus rose before his resurrection, and at the time of the Passion ‘many bodies of those who had fallen aspleep’ rose. But Marcellus seems to me to have taken even this without carefully considering it; I mean the statement that ‘many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep’ were raised before him [Christ]. For he did not take into consideration the whole text of the gospel when it teaches that ‘after his ’ the bodies of the saints were raised.28

In my opinion, this passage is the most meaningful proof of the existence of a double tradition of the Matthean text: one known and used by Marcellus and another opposed by Eusebius. A different solution proposes that one of the two opponents is lying about Scripture, but in this case his own position would result to be very weak. In addition, Matthew’s passage quoted by Marcellus without the temporal expression, is largely supported by the other patristic quotations mentioned before. The second element regards the use of the Matthean quotation and its interpretation in patristic literature. The analysis of the literary context in which Matt. 27:53 is reported, especially until the third century, shows that the phenomenon of the resurrection of the saints’ bodies is always related to Jesus’ death and not to his resurrection. This element cannot be overlooked and, in my opinion, it is relevant because it carries only two possible explanations: on the one hand, all these authors did not know the expression “after his resurrection” in the ancient Matthean text; on the other hand, everyone intentionally chose to omit it. Moreover, it must be considered the theological value of the entire passage, which involves the most ancient Christian kerygma related to Jesus’ sacrifice. Modifying this section of the text, even in a citation, could be interpreted as an alteration of the focus of the Christian kerygma. Finally, the amount of evidence cannot be neglected. The relevance of the case is confirmed by all the indirect witnesses of Matt. 27:53, which belong to different works and languages in the whole Mediterranean area. It seems an unconvincing argument hypothesised that each of these authors, up to the 3rd century, intentionally or casually omitted the expression “after his resurrection”. 28 Eusebius of Caesarea. Against Marcellus and On Ecclesiastical Theology, trans. Kelley McCarthy Spoerl and Markus Vinzent, Fathers of the Church Patristic Series 135 (Washington, 2017). [Greek Text, GCS 14,11: Οὐ μόνον τοίνυν τῆς καινῆς κτίσεως πρωτότοκον αὐτὸν ὁ ἀπόστολος εἶναι φησίν, ἀλλὰ καὶ πρωτότοκον ἐκ νεκρῶν, δι’οὐδὲν ἕτερον, ἐμοὶ δοκεῖν, ἀλλ’ ἵνα διὰ τοῦ πρωτοτόκου τῶν νεκρῶν, ὅπως καὶ πρωτότοκος ἁπάσης κτίσεως εἴρηται, γνωσθῆναι δυνηθῇ. οὐ γὰρ ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀνέστη πρῶτος ὁ δεσπότης ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός· ἀλλ’ ὁ δι’ Ἐλισσαίου τοῦ προφήτου ἀναστὰς ἀνέστη πρότερος, καὶ Λάζαρος δὲ πρὸ τῆς αὐτοῦ ἀναστάσεως ἀνέστη, καὶ ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τοῦ πάθους πολλὰ σώματα τῶν κεκοιμημένων ἀνέστησαν. Καὶ τοῦτο δὲ ἀθεωρήτως δοκεῖ μοι τεθεικέναι ὁ Μάρκελλος, λέγω δὲ τὸ πολλὰ σώματα τῶν κεκοιμημένων ἁγίων πρὸ αὐτοῦ ἐγηγέρθαι. οὐ γὰρ προσέσχεν ὅλῃ τῇ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου γραφῇ διδασκούσῃ, ὅτι μετὰ τὴν αὐτοῦ τὰ τῶν ἁγίων ἐγήγερται σώματα]. It is interesting to note that in the most ancient manuscript of Eusebius’ Against Marcellus (Marcianus gr. Z. 496, 10th century) the word εγερσιν is omitted.

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According to the double textual tradition proposed in Against Marcellus, and to the context in which Matthew’s verses were quoted, and considering the analysis of the entire direct and indirect tradition of this text up to the fourth century, it is possible to presume that the earliest form of verse of Matt. 27:53 probably did not have the expression μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ. In my opinion, this phrase could have been added for theological reasons only in the third century, when it finally appeared in the textual transmission. The reasons for this addition need a complex analysis of the theological context in which the NT text was composed and its implications.29 This is not the right place for taking on the theological matter, nevertheless, two main reasons could be summarised. On the one hand, the most traditional explanation stresses that the sign of the resurrection of the saints at the Passion moment would contradict the Pauline ancient kerygma contained in 1Cor. 15:20 and Col. 1:18,30 which discloses that Christ is the firstborn of those who were resurrected. On the other hand, without overlooking the Pauline references, another theological matter could justify the textual modification; it entails the paschal theology and its development in the first centuries of early Christianity. Some scholars have claimed that the most ancient Paschal theology was Quartodeciman and it emphasized Jesus’ Passion and Parousia more than his resurrection.31 The Matthean pericope could be interpreted in this perspective: the moment of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross, is so powerful that it makes possible the manifestation of prodigious signs. This Quartodeciman theology was widespread not only in micro-asiatic communities, but in others places of the empire, for example in Gaul or in Aquileia. On the contrary, the Churches of Alexandria and Rome, celebrating the feast on Sunday, are used to focus closely on Jesus’ resurrection. Within the third century, and more likely within the fourth, the paschal theology was modified and its central point became Jesus’ resurrection.32 This different point of view could have contributed to the textual modification, by inserting a temporal specification that underlines the power of Jesus’ resurrection, and not anymore his sacrifice.

29 The analysis of the theological context and the reasons that could have led to a textual modification are deeply discussed in my PhD Dissertation, Anna Pessina, Analisi filologica e storico teologica di un inno pasquale primgenio. Il caso di Matteo 27:51b-53, defense on September 2019 at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano (forthcoming). 30 1Cor. 15:20: ‘But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died’ (NRSV); Col 1:18: ‘He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything’ (NRSV). 31 See Raniero Cantalamessa, La Pasqua della nostra salvezza. Le tradizioni pasquali delle Bibbia e della Chiesa primitiva (Genova, 1984); G. Visonà, ‘Pasqua quartodecimana e cronologia evangelica della passione’, Ephemerides Liturgicae 102 (1988), 259-315; Paul F. Bradshaw and Lawrence A. Hoffmann, Passover and Easter. Origin and History to Modern Times (Notre Dame, 1999). 32 See M. Vinzent, Christ’s Resurrection in Early Christianity and the Making of the New Testament (Farnham; Burlington, 2011), 193-226.

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The geographical provenience of the quotations of the Matthean verses could support this hypothesis: in fact, the main part of the texts that refer verse 27:53 without μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ comes from a micro-asiatic area or from places where the Quartodeciman theology was widespread. Instead, the witnesses in which the sentence is present mainly belong to Alexandria or Caesarea, where Easter was certainly celebrated on Sunday. It is not possible to surely affirm whether these few words, firstly attested in Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel according to John, derive from him, but one cannot deny his impact on the controversia paschalis and, more generally, on the Alexandrian tradition and Eusebius’ works, where the sentence was definitely attested.33 However, the hypothesis that the modification of verse 53 could be due to a different interpretation of Easter, and who the author of the addition was are matters that need to be inspected more deeply. In conclusion, this case study intended to propose some methodological considerations concerning the use of patristic literature in the reconstruction of the NT text. The first consideration entails the peculiar traits and the religious use of this proto-Christian literature, which cannot be ignored by philologists. The classical philological rules, in fact, are not fully suitable for this text, because – until now – they do not take into account the long and plural redactional stage of the NT, its continuous revision during the early Christian centuries and, finally, not only the existence of an exterminated number of copies of it, but also the history of these manuscripts. Each one of them reports a text that mirrors the theological controversies, the history and the tradition of the place, of the communities or of the century in which the witness was copied. New Testament textual criticism can not overlook all these elements. Thus, the direct tradition alone should be not sufficient for the reconstruction of the entire history of the NT text, although it has still a notable weight in the NT critical editions. Patristic quotations, indeed, if correctly assessed, can be useful not only to recognize the precise place and time of a text form, but also to reach that part of the tradition not preserved by manuscripts: this is the reason why they should be systematically considered by critics together with papyri and manuscripts. The case study presented has shown how the patristic literature could have preserved a more ancient form of Matt. 27:53, in which probably the expression μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ was not present. Definitely, there are some difficulties in the use of the indirect tradition that cannot be underestimated, but a correct analysis of the context in which the biblical quotation is reported, and more over a deep study of the milieu of the author’s work could explain the reason why a textual modification, not necessarily related to scribal mistakes, appear or disappear during the process of textual transmission. 33

M. Vinzent, Christ’s Resurrection (2011), 225-6.

Christ as Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption (1Cor. 1:30): Neglect and Appropriation of Pauline Theology in Ancient Christianity Riemer ROUKEMA, Protestant Theological University, Amsterdam/Groningen, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT 1Cor. 1:30 states that ‘due to him (i.e. God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’. This article explores the possible reasons for the neglect of this text by Marcion, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, authors who drew on Paul and used the texts occurring in the immediate context of 1Cor. 1:30. With reference to Irenaeus’ discussion of certain Valentinians and to the Valentinian Tripartite Tractate it is argued that Valentinians appealed to 1Cor. 1:30 as a testimony to their view of redemption, so that the Valentinian appropriation of this text caused Irenaeus’ unwillingness to integrate it into his own arguments. This may have been true for Tertullian as well. Tertullian’s reticence toward this text may have been reinforced by his acquaintance with Christians whom he considered lax and who held that in Christ they had received full wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption already, irrespective of the sins they had committed after baptism. This second reason may also hold for Marcion. Origen was the first patristic author who regularly quoted and alluded to 1Cor. 1:30, but he mostly interpreted wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption as virtues of Christ that should be adopted by the believers. Most probably this is far from Paul’s intention. Origen’s understanding may have been inspired by the wish to counter the use that lax Christians made of this text. In the 4th and 5th centuries its Pauline, soteriological meaning (if its present-day interpretation is correct) appeared more clearly. Three brief examples are given from Eusebius, Basil, and Augustine.

2Pet. 3:15-6 states that in Paul’s epistles some things are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction. To illustrate this complaint, this article deals with the early neglect and reception of 1Cor. 1:30, where the apostle says to the Corinthian Christians, ‘due to him (ἐξ αὐτοῦ, i.e. God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’. Paul says this in his discourse on the foolish proclamation of Christ crucified, in whom God paradoxically revealed his wisdom and power, which included the way to salvation (1Cor. 1:18-25).

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 87-98. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Paul’s designation of Christ as God’s wisdom is to be understood in the sense of the message about Christ ‘for us’, i.e. for those who hear and accept it, whether they are powerful or despised (1Cor. 1:26-7). It is controversial, however, whether Paul also meant ‘wisdom from God’ in 1Cor. 1:30 and 1:24 (‘Christ, God’s power and wisdom’) as a testimony to Christ as God’s primordial Wisdom, as many early Christian authors believed.1 To present-day exegetes, the designations of Christ as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (also ‘for us’) refer to Paul’s view on redemption by Christ’s death,2 to the righteousness or justification imparted to those who have believed in Christ,3 and to the sanctification of the believers thanks to their faith in Christ and their dedication to him.4 Remarkably, except for the notion of wisdom in the preceding sentences and his passing designation of the Corinthians as ‘saints’ in 1Cor. 1:2, Paul did not discuss the terms righteousness, sanctification, and redemption in this context, which implies that he considered them well-known to his audience. For justification and sanctification, this is confirmed by his statement in 1Cor. 6:11: ‘But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God’. In the second and early third centuries, however, the patristic reception of 1Cor. 1:30 was anything but evident. This article investigates the possible reasons for the early patristic reticence toward Paul’s slogan-like summary of his proclamation, and how patristic authors appropriated it from Origen onward. Irenaeus of Lyons and the Valentinians Irenaeus is the first author who explicitly integrates considerable passages and important features of the Pauline epistles into his works.5 If we take 1Cor. 1:182:5 as the immediate context of 1Cor. 1:30, Irenaeus’ work Against Heresies refers to 1Cor. 1:23, which mentions Paul’s proclamation of Christ crucified; to 1Cor. 1:26-7a, where Paul describes the church as mostly consisting of 1 E.g. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis VII 7,4 (SC 428); Excerpts from Theodotus 4,2; 12,3 (SC 23); Tertullian, Against Praxeas 19,2-3 (CChr.SL 2); Origen, Comm. John I 243-8 (SC 120); Princ. I 2,1-12 (Behr); Athanasius, Against the Arians I 11; I 37; III 63 etc. (AW I 1), and numerous other authors of the 4th c. AD; see Th. Hainthaler, ‘Christ, God’s Wisdom and God’s Power (1 Cor 1.24) and Sophia Christology: Some Observations’, in ead. et al. (eds), Sophia: The Wisdom of God – Die Weisheit Gottes, Pro Oriente 40 / Wiener Patristische Tagungen 7 (Innsbruck, 2017), 25-40, and other papers in this volume. 2 See Rom. 3:24-6; also Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14. 3 Rom. 3:21-5:21; 1Cor. 6:11; 2Cor. 5:17-21; Gal. 2:15-3:14; Phil. 3:9. 4 Rom. 6:19, 22; 1Cor. 1:2; 6:11; 1Thess. 4:3-4, 7. For this interpretation see A.C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids, MI, 2000), 188-95. 5 Rolf Noormann, Irenäus als Paulusinterpret. Zur Rezeption und Wirkung der paulinischen und deuteropaulinischen Briefe im Werk des Irenäus von Lyon, WUNT 2/66 (Tübingen, 1994).

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plain, unimportant people, contrary to the Valentinian view of those who had received the pneumatic seed within themselves; to 1Cor. 1:29, which says that no one should boast in the presence of God, and to 1Cor. 2:2 about seeking no other knowledge except Jesus Christ crucified.6 He also quotes a Valentinian interpretation of 1Cor. 1:18, concerning the ‘message about the cross’ that ‘is foolishness to those who are perishing, but the power of God to those who are being saved’,7 but Irenaeus does not quote, let alone explain, this text in his own argument. Neither does he quote the text under review now, about Christ who ‘became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’. As a matter of fact, Irenaeus did not write a running commentary on 1Cor., and therefore he was free to ignore any text he wanted; but given his acquaintance with this epistle he must have known this meaningful summary of Paul’s view of Christ and of salvation through him, yet without feeling any need or urge to quote it. There may be two reasons why Irenaeus was not inclined to quote 1Cor. 1:30. First, concerning wisdom, σοφία, this designation of Christ did not fit with Irenaeus’ theology, neither in the sense of the message of Christ crucified, nor in the sense of God’s primordial Wisdom; for he differentiated between Christ, the Son, being God’s Word (λόγος), and the Holy Spirit, whom he identified as God’s Wisdom.8 In addition, we may note that the Valentinians promulgated various Wisdom speculations,9 and although Irenaeus rejected their views,10 he did not explicitly counter them with his own view of God’s Wisdom. Second, Irenaeus could not have any reticence toward ‘righteousness’ and ‘sanctification’ as short-hand designations of what Christ was ‘for us’, since in his arguments he quotes Pauline texts on justification (or righteousness) and 6 Irenaeus, Against Heresies III 18,2; II 19,7; III 20,1; IV 27,1; I 26,1 (SC 100; 211; 294). See R. Noormann, Irenäus als Paulusinterpret (1994), 93-4; 102-3; 137; 155-6; 227-8; 386; 452; 475. 7 Irenaeus, Against Heresies I 3,5 (SC 264). The interpretation held that the cross referred to the boundary between the material world of the earth and the planets and the Pleroma, i.e. the supracelestial sphere of the Father; thus Against Heresies I 2,4; Clement of Alexandria, Excerpts from Theodotus 42,1 (SC 23); Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies VI 31,5-7 (PTS 25). See my paper ‘The Foolishness of the Message about the Cross (1Cor. 1:18-25): Embarrassment and Consent’, in SP 63 (2013), 55-67, 58-9. 8 Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV 20,1; 20,3 (SC 100); Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 5; 10 (SC 406). For the same reason Irenaeus does not quote 1Cor. 1:24c, ‘Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God’, either. Irenaeus’ view of the Spirit as God’s Wisdom differs from Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 61; 129 (Bobichon), who interprets the Lord’s Wisdom in Prov. 8:21-36 as a testimony to the Son. 9 See Einar Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the ‘Valentinians’, NHMS 60 (Leiden, Boston, 2006), 248-62. 10 Cf. Irenaeus, Against Heresies II 18,1-4 (SC 264); also I 10,3,81-92 (SC 294). Irenaeus’ identification of the Lord’s Wisdom and the Spirit is discussed by Jacques Fantino, La théologie d’Irénée. Lectures des Écritures en réponse à l’exégèse gnostique. Une approche trinitaire, CFi 180 (Paris, 1994), 283-91.

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sanctification by Christ with approval.11 Yet, there may be a particular reason why Irenaeus would not say, without any qualification, that for us Christ became redemption, ἀπολύτρωσις, which is the last term of 1Cor. 1:30. Remarkably, he does not quote Rom. 3:24 either, where Paul says that all who believe ‘are justified by his (i.e. God’s) grace through the redemption (ἀπολύτρωσις) that is in Christ Jesus’, after which the apostle refers to Christ as an expiation (ἱλαστήριον) by his blood (Rom. 3:25). Irenaeus does, however, quote the phrases ‘in whom we have ἀπολύτρωσις through his blood’ (Eph. 1:7) and ‘in whom we have ἀπολύτρωσις through his blood, the forgiveness of sins’ (a conflation of Eph. 1:7 and Col. 1:14).12 In other passages too Irenaeus refers to redemption by Christ;13 so, as a matter of fact, he did include this traditional tenet in his books against the ‘heretics’. Nevertheless, his reticence toward the term redemption in 1Cor. 1:30 may have been inspired by the Valentinian appropriation of this text by which Valentinians underpinned their own view of redemption, which they called ‘invisible and incomprehensible’. Irenaeus says about them that their views varied from one teacher to another, so that he scoffed that they knew as many redemptions as they had mystagogues.14 It is most important, however, that according to Irenaeus’ testimony the Valentinian teachers whose views he knew said that ‘Paul has often indicated in express terms the redemption (ἀπολύτρωσις, redemptio) which is in Christ Jesus’.15 Irenaeus gives a vivid description of the activities of the Valentinian teacher Mark, whom he dubbed ‘the Magician’, and who was active in his own region, the valley of the River Rhône. According to Irenaeus, Mark and his disciples taught that thanks to the ἀπολύτρωσις and an invocation of Sophia their followers 11 Irenaeus, Against Heresies III 16,9,297-308 (quotation of Rom. 5:6, 8-10; SC 211); IV 12, 4,74-7 (quotation of Rom. 10:3-4); 27,2,91-4; 27,4,168-71 (quotation of 1Cor. 6:11); 37,4,81-6 (quotation of 1Cor. 6:11; SC 100); V 11,1,26-34 (quotation of 1Cor. 6:9-11); 32,2,51-64 (SC 153); Demonstration 35 (SC 406). 12 Irenaeus, Against Heresies V 14,3,67-71 (SC 153). Allusions to this phrase in III 16,9, 297-9; V 1,1-2 (SC 211; 153); see footnote 25. 13 E.g. Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV 5,4,74 (redemptio) / 75 (λύτρωσις; SC 100); V 14,4 (carne Domini nostri redemptus es et sanguine eius redhibitus; SC 153). 14 Irenaeus, Against Heresies I 21,1 (SC 264). In their Sources Chrétiennes edition and translation (Paris, 1979), Adelin Rousseau and Louis Doutreleau attribute the practices described in Against Heresies I 19-21 to the Marcosians, as previous scholars did. However, Irenaeus does not refer to Mark the Magician explicitly in these chapters. Niclas Förster, Marcus Magus. Kult, Lehre und Gemeindeleben einer valentinianischen Gnostikergruppe. Sammlung der Quellen und Kommentar, WUNT 114 (Tübingen, 1999), 8-13, argues that in Against Heresies I 16,3-21,5 Irenaeus does not discuss the Marcosians, but other Valentinian traditions. E. Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed (2006), 360-77, shares this view in his analysis of Against Heresies 21, but Ismo Dunderberg, Beyond Gnosticism: Myth, Lifestyle, and Society in the School of Valentinus (New York, 2008), 113-7 maintains that these chapters should yet be ascribed to the Marcosians. 15 Irenaeus, Against Heresies I 21,2, esp. 2,29-30 (SC 264); trans. Dominic J. Unger and John J. Dillon, St. Irenaeus of Lyons Against the Heresies, ACW 55 (New York, Mahwah, NJ, 1992), 78.

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could not be apprehended by the Judge, i.e. the Demiurge, and were invisible to him.16 According to Niclas Förster their elusiveness and invisibility are to be situated both during their lives on earth and after the death of their body, on their way home to the supracelestial Pleroma.17 Hippolytus (the heresiologist) confirms that ἀπολύτρωσις was an important term in Mark’s religious practice, and describes it in more detail, claiming to have carefully investigated this ritual. Like Irenaeus, he also characterizes Mark’s teaching of redemption as a preparation for death and the journey in the hereafter. What is more, Hippolytus tells that a bishop and other members of the community whisper secret words into the ear of the person to whom the ritual of ἀπολύτρωσις is administered and lay hands on him. According to Hippolytus they consider ἀπολύτρωσις a second bath or baptism which brings about forgiveness after the first baptism.18 Irenaeus’ and Hippolytus’ testimonies to the Valentinian interest in redemption are corroborated by the first Revelation of James, where Jesus says to James, ‘do not be concerned about anything else except your redemption (ⲥⲱⲧⲉ)’, and clarifies that it is ‘the imperishable Sophia (or Wisdom) through whom you will be redeemed (ⲕⲛⲁⲥⲱⲧⲉ)’.19 The Gospel of Philip says that Christ came to ransom some (ⲉⲧⲣⲉϥⲧⲟⲟⲩⲥⲉ) and to redeem others (ⲉⲧⲣⲉϥⲥⲟⲧⲟⲩ), and mentions redemption (ⲥⲱⲧⲉ) as one of the mysteries of the Lord.20 The Treatise on the Resurrection says, ‘we are elected to salvation and redemption’.21 The Tripartite Tractate contains an exposition of redemption. It even alludes to 1Cor. 1:30 when it calls the Son, ‘the one who is the redemption (ⲥⲱⲧⲉ), that is, the way toward the incomprehensible Father’ (cf. John 14:6), and further on ‘he is called “the redemption” of the angels of the Father’ – for the angels also wished to share in the redemption meant for humans.22 However, although at least some Valentinians taught their views on redemption through Christ with reference to Paul,23 they did not hold that redemption took place through the blood of the true, supracelestial Saviour, whom they 16

Irenaeus, Against Heresies I 13,6-7 (SC 264). N. Förster, Marcus Magus (1999), 144-5; and 138-53, 158-62 for his analysis of Irenaeus, Against Heresies I 13,6-7. 18 Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies VI 41,2-42,1 (PTS 25). See N. Förster, Marcus Magus (1999), 27-31; 153-8. 19 (First) Revelation of James 29,7-8; 36,8-9; also 32,28-33,1, in Nag Hammadi Codex V 3 (NHS 11). 20 Gospel of Philip 9; 68, in NHC II 3, 52,35-53,3; 67,27-30 (NHS 20). Its author also observes that ‘Jesus in Hebrew is “the redemption”’ (62,13-4). 21 Treatise on the Resurrection 46,25-6, in Nag Hammadi Codex I 5 (NHS 22). 22 Tripartite Tractate 123,29-32; 125,11-21 (the full exposition in 122,12-129,34), in NHC I 5 (NHS 22). 23 Other Valentinian references to Paul (Rom. 11:36; 1Cor. 1:18; 2:6; Gal. 6:14; Eph. 1: 10; 3:21; Col. 1:16; 2:9; 3:11 etc.) in Irenaeus, Against Heresies I 3,2; 3,4-5; 4,5; 8,4 (SC 264). For Simon ‘the Magician’ drawing on a Pauline theme see Against Heresies I 22,3, 17

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considered impassible. In their view, the Christ who was crucified – and thus shed his blood –, was the psychic one, sent by the Demiurge.24 Since 1Cor. 1:30 is the only Pauline text that mentions ἀπολύτρωσις without an explicit reference to Christ’s blood,25 we may conclude that in fact the Valentinians mentioned by Irenaeus particularly referred to this text for their views of redemption through the supracelestial Christ. In 1975 Elaine Pagels also proposed that Valentinians appealed to this text, but she did not give any particular argumentation or reference for her view.26 If this is true for Paul’s term ‘redemption’ in 1Cor. 1:30, Valentinians may also have appealed to Christ as their righteousness and sanctification, mentioned before redemption, but traces of this appeal have not been preserved. However this may be, if Valentinians appealed to 1Cor. 1:30 mainly because of its last term, ‘redemption’, without the qualification that this was granted through Christ’s blood, this text was – so to say – annexed and occupied, because it reminded Irenaeus and his audience of the Valentinian appeal to it that had been proclaimed in the Rhône valley. This may be the reason why, in his work Against Heresies, Irenaeus did not give his own interpretation of this text, as he did not give his own interpretation of 1Cor. 1:18, about the foolish ‘message about the cross’ either.27 Tertullian and Marcion From Irenaeus we go to Tertullian and to Marcion, whose text of 1Cor. is known to a considerable extent thanks to his Carthaginian opponent. In his fifth book Against Marcion Tertullian quotes in part 1Cor. 1:18-29 and 1:31, which 74-5: secundum enim ipsius (i.e. Simon’s) gratiam saluari homines, sed non secundum operas iustas; cf. Eph. 2:8-9. 24 E.g. Irenaeus, Against Heresies I 7,2 (SC 264); also Clement, Excerpts from Theodotus 59,2-61,4 (SC 23), where the spiritual, supracelestial Saviour is called Jesus, who clad the invisible, psychic Christ and the body made for him. See E. Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed (2006), 73-6. 25 Christ’s blood as the means of redemption is not mentioned in Col. 1:14 either, but it is in Col. 1:20. When Irenaeus quotes Col. 1:14, he inserts ‘by his blood’ (Against Heresies V 2,2, 28-30; cf. V 1,1,20; 33; V 2,1,7.12 [SC 153]). 26 Elaine H. Pagels, The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters (Philadelphia, 1975), 56. See also ead., ‘The Valentinian Claim to Esoteric Exegesis of Romans as Basis for Anthropological Theory’, VigChr 26 (1972), 241-58, 254: ‘We suggest … that their (i.e. the Valentinians’) theology emerges primarily out of their concern to articulate their experience of redemption – the experience of having received justification “according to grace”’. 27 This neglect does not hold, however, for all the Pauline texts quoted by Valentinians. Irenaeus was aware that 1Cor. 2:6 (about the wisdom that Paul speaks among the perfect) was favourite among them (Against Heresies I 8,4; III 2,1; 3,1 [SC 264; 211]), but in Against Heresies V 6,1 (SC 153) he gave his own interpretation of these words. This observation was rightly made by Margaret Mitchell in reaction to my initial communication.

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implies that the text under discussion, 1Cor.1:30, was most probably not found in Marcion’s Apostolikon.28 This omission corresponds with his apparent exclusion of the other Pauline texts about ἀπολύτρωσις by Christ, viz. Rom. 3:24 (actually most or all of Rom. 3-4), Eph. 1:7, 1:14, and Col. 1:14.29 On the one hand this suggests that Marcion did not like the idea of ἀπολύτρωσις by Christ, even by his blood, but on the other hand he did retain Col. 1:20 (about reconciliation and peace by the blood of his cross), and texts in which the notion of redemption is expressed by the verbs ἀγοράζειν and ἐξαγοράζειν, i.e. to purchase at the market (Gal. 2:20 [perhaps], 4:5, and 1Cor. 6:20).30 In these texts Christ’s blood is implied, but not mentioned explicitly. We see that Marcion emphatically maintained that Christ bought or redeemed the souls of his people from the Creator,31 but – according to the available data – he was reluctant to use the Pauline term ἀπολύτρωσις for this redemption. A few remarks may suffice with regard to the other designations of Christ in 1Cor. 1:30: wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification. As far as we know, Marcion did not include the previous text about Christ being God’s Wisdom (1Cor. 1:24), which suggests that he had not integrated this title of Christ into his beliefs. However, he did accept righteousness by faith in Christ (Rom. 5:1; 28 Tertullian, Against Marcion V 5,5-10 (SC 483); Ulrich Schmid, Marcion und sein Apostolos. Rekonstruktion und historische Einordnung der marcionitischen Paulusbriefausgabe, ANTT 25 (Berlin, New York, 1995), 320-1. Tertullian declares his method of using Marcion’s text in Against Marcion IV 6,2 (SC 456). – In a private communication (2nd February, 2020), Markus Vinzent kindly suggested to me that the actual reason of the initial neglect of 1Cor. 1:30 might be that it was added to this letter only after Marcion had published his edition of the Pauline epistles; cf. his paper on 1Cor. 4-6 written with Janelle Priya Mathur, ‘Pre-canonical Paul: His Views towards Sexual Immorality’, SP 99 (2018), 157-75. This is an intriguing suggestion indeed which, however, I still consider unlikely; for I wonder which unknown Pauline theologian may have added 1Cor. 1:30, which clearly reflects and summarizes Paul’s authentic theology, between 150 AD and its earliest attestation in Chester Beatty Papyrus46, dated to ca. 200 AD. In this period the reception of the apostle’s own view of ἀπολύτρωσις and other aspects of his theology was not evident at all. My attempt to retrieve the Valentinian appeal to 1Cor. 1:30 in Irenaeus’ time presupposes and corroborates my assumption that it was found in Paul’s original text. 29 U. Schmid, Marcion und sein Apostolos (1995), 332, 337-8; 341. Adolf von Harnack, Marcion. Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1924), 114*, included Eph. 1:7 in his text of Marcion’s Apostolikon with reference to Adamantius’ Dialogue V 12,25-6 (GCS 4), where the orthodox Christian Adamantius quotes Eph. 1:6b-7a; but Schmid, ibid., 230; 337, rightly excludes this text from the Marcionite testimonies to the Pauline text. 30 U. Schmid, Marcion und sein Apostolos (1995), 208; 317; 323; Judith M. Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic. God and Scripture in the Second Century (Cambridge, 2015), 380-6, assumes, with Harnack and unlike Schmid, that Marcion read ἀγοράζειν/ἐξαγοράζειν in Gal. 2:20 and 3:13; see also ibid. 114; 261-2 and A. von Harnack, Marcion (1924), 72*-3*; moreover 85* for 1Cor. 6:20 (ἠγοράσθητε τιμῆς), allegedly used by Marcion as a slogan (‘Stichwort’), for which von Harnack erroneously referred to Origen, Hom. in Numbers 7,1; this should be the reference to the haeretici in Origen, Hom. in Exod. 6,9,31-3 (SC 321). 31 A. von Harnack, Marcion (1924), 132-7; 288*; Barbara Aland, ‘Marcion. Versuch einer neuen Interpretation’, ZThK 70 (1973), 420-47, 439.

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Gal. 2:16; 3:11).32 It is difficult to assess Marcion’s view of Christ being sanctification for us, for according to the available testimonies he did not include Rom. 6 (ἁγιασμός in 6:19, 22) and 1Cor. 6:11 (‘you were sanctified’), but he preserved this notion in 1Thess. 4:3 (‘the will of God: our sanctification’).33 Yet in this text it is not Christ who is called ‘sanctification for us’. In conclusion, we can establish that – if our spokesmen were correct – Marcion, as a would-be Pauline Christian, did not include 1Cor. 1:30 in his Apostolikon, and that this may have been induced at least by the designation of Christ as ἀπολύτρωσις, since he also excluded the other Pauline texts in which this term is found.34 However, given his persuasion that Christ by his death bought or redeemed (ἐξηγόρασεν) from the Creator the souls of those who would believe in him, the actual reason for his exclusion of Christ being ἀπολύτρωσις for us, and of 1Cor. 1:30 as a whole, is not clear. Possibly Marcion feared that ‘lax’ Christians might appeal to it, while his own teaching of a Christian lifestyle was rather demanding, e.g. with regard to celibacy. Besides his references to 1Cor. 1:18-29 and 1:31 in his work Against Marcion, Tertullian quotes or alludes to texts from 1Cor. 1:19-27 and to 2:2,35 which implies that like Irenaeus he neglects 1Cor. 1:30. As we did with regard to Irenaeus, we may observe for Tertullian as well that he was not obliged to quote this text, since he did not write a running commentary on 1Cor., but still his disregard of Paul’s concise characterization of his teaching is intriguing. In any case Tertullian did not neglect this text because it designated Christ as ‘wisdom for us from God’, since (as noted in footnote 35) in his work Against Praxeas he referred to ‘Christ, God’s wisdom and power according to the apostle’ (1Cor. 1:24). As for Christ being ‘righteousness’ (iustitia), it is noteworthy that in his debate with Marcion Tertullian wrote about righteousness (or justification) by faith.36 He also argues that ‘both the righteousness and the peace of the Creator were announced in Christ’, and that it was through Christ that Paul’s righteousness came from God, not from the law.37 This means that basically Tertullian could not have any objection to Christ being designated as righteousness (‘for us’) in 1Cor. 1:30. This also holds for the next term in 32

See U. Schmid, Marcion und sein Apostolos (1995), 316; 332. See U. Schmid, Marcion und sein Apostolos (1995), 322; 332-3; 335. 34 Marcion retained ἀπολύτρωσις in Luke 21:28, according to Tertullian, Against Marcion IV 39,10 (SC 456), but this passage does not explicitly refer to redemption by Christ. 35 Tertullian, Patience 1,9 (1Cor. 1:19, allusion; CChr.SL 1, 300); Idolatry 9,7 (1Cor. 1:20, quotation; CChr.SL 2, 1108); Pudicity 9,14 (1Cor. 1:21, partial quotation; CChr.SL 2, 1298); Against the Jews 10,5 (1Cor. 1:23, allusion; CChr.SL 2, 1375); Against Praxeas 19,2-3 (1Cor. 1:24, quotation; CChr.SL 2, 1184-5); Baptism 2,3 (1Cor. 1:27, quotation; CChr.SL 1, 278); Flesh of Christ 4,5-6 (1Cor. 1:27, quotation; CChr.SL 2, 879-80); Pudicity 14,6 (1Cor. 2:2, quotation; CChr.L 2, 1307). 36 Tertullian, Against Marcion IV 35,11; V 13,8 (SC 456; 483). 37 Tertullian, Against Marcion V 17,14; 20,6 (SC 483); cf. Phil. 3:9 and Patience 6,3 (CChr.SL 1, 306); Resurrection of the dead 47,12 (CChr.SL 2, 986), in which Rom. 5:21 is quoted, ‘righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ’. 33

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this text, ‘sanctification’, for several times Tertullian related it to Christ, e.g. by referring to ‘sanctification in Christ’ and by quoting from 1Cor. 6:11, ‘you were sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ’, as his argument in a treatise against the Church’s forgiveness of grave sins.38 Finally, it would be most surprising if Tertullian were not to apply the last term in 1Cor. 1:30, ‘redemption’, to Christ. Indeed, in his discussion of the question whether Christians should buy themselves or their brethren off in case of persecution (an [persecutio] redimenda … sit) he holds that they should not do so, arguing that Christ redeemed (redemit) us by his blood.39 This persuasion about redemption by Christ is confirmed in his other works. However, there Tertullian consistently quotes or alludes to 1Cor. 6:20 or 7:23, where Paul used the verb ἀγοράζειν with the genitive of price τιμῆς, ‘to buy (or redeem) with a price’.40 It is striking that in his extant works Tertullian not only passes over 1Cor. 1:30, but also the other Pauline texts that deal with ἀπολύτρωσις by Christ.41 Since he read Greek fluently,42 it would be interesting to know whether he had a particular reason for not basing his arguments on Pauline texts that included this term. Perhaps Tertullian knew that 1Cor. 1:30 was claimed by Valentinians or also by Christians whom he considered lax and who held that in Christ they had received full wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption already, even if they had committed serious sins after their baptism.43 Clement of Alexandria and Origen Although the theology of Clement of Alexandria was quite different from Tertullian’s, both authors agree in quoting texts that surround 1Cor. 1:30 but neglecting this verse. However, for Clement this is less conspicuous than for Tertullian. The Alexandrian quotes 1Cor. 1:19-24 and briefly comments on it,44 38 Tertullian, Baptism 10,5 (CChr.SL 1, 285); Pudicity 1,6; 16,5 (CChr.SL 2, 1281-2; 1312); also Resurrection of the dead 47,4-7 (CChr.SL 2, 985), including a quotation of Rom. 6:19-22. 39 Tertullian, Flight 12,1-8 (CChr.SL 2, 1149-52). 40 E.g. Tertullian, To his Wife II 3,1 (pretio empti … sanguine dei; CChr.SL 1, 387); Against Marcion V 7,4-5 (empti enim sumus magno); 14,1 (SC 483); Flesh of Christ 4,3-4 (magno redemit; CChr.SL 2, 878-9); Crown 13,5 (tu iam redemptus es a Christo, et quidem magno; CChr.SL 2, 1061); Pudicity 6,18 (magno redempta est, sanguine scilicet Domini); 16,10 (empti enim estis pretio, sanguine scilicet Domini; CChr.SL 2, 1291; 1313). In Against Marcion V 4,3 he quotes Gal. 4:5, ut eos qui sub lege erant redimeret, for which Paul used the verb ἐξαγοράζειν. 41 Rom. 3:24-6; Eph. 1:7; Col 1:14; neither does Tertullian quote Eph. 1:14; Heb. 9:15; 11:35, which include ἀπολύτρωσις in general. 42 Claudio Moreschini and Enrico Norelli, Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature: A Literary History, trans. from Italian by Matthew J. O’Connell (Peabody, MA, 2005), I 348. 43 For the second hypothesis see Adolf von Harnack, ‘Geschichte der Lehre von der Seligkeit allein durch den Glauben in der alten Kirche’, ZThK 1 (1891), 82-178, 108-23 on Tertullian. 44 Clement, Stromateis I 88,1-89,2 (SC 30); VI 127 (SC 446). See my paper ‘Foolishness’ (2013), 59-60.

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he alludes to 1Cor. 1:26-7,45 and quotes 1Cor. 1:31 and 2:5.46 This means that he not only passed over 1Cor. 1:30 but also 1Cor. 1:28-9 and 2:1-4, so that his neglect of 1Cor. 1:30 less striking. Origen is the first known author who regularly quotes 1Cor. 1:30, both in his interpretation of this epistle and in other works. In a catena fragment on 1Cor. he connects 1Cor. 1:30 with 1:31, saying that Christ is wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption for us, so that the following words ‘let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’, mean that this person boasts in Christ who is all these things.47 In his comments on John 1:1, in volume I of his Commentary on John, Origen presents a more detailed investigation of the designations of Christ in 1Cor. 1:30 and in other texts. He makes a clear distinction between ‘redemption’ and other titles of Christ when he praises advanced Christians who do not need a physician, a shepherd, and redemption anymore, but desire wisdom, reason (λόγος), righteousness, and similar characteristics that they receive thanks to their perfection (τελειότης).48 Further on in the same volume Origen distinguishes between Christ as God’s power and wisdom (1Cor. 1:24) in an absolute sense (ἀπολελυμένως), and as wisdom, power, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption that he is ‘for us’ (1Cor. 1:30). He observes that Christ is God’s power and wisdom both in an absolute sense and ‘for us’, whereas Christ is sanctification, righteousness, and redemption only ‘for us’, and not in an absolute sense. This means that ‘Christ is our redemption’ because as prisoners we were in need of it, but we should not consider redemption an absolute, essential concept that applied to Christ himself. According to Origen this distinction also holds for righteousness and sanctification (or holiness), although, unlike redemption, these concepts do still apply to the Father in his relationship with Christ and mankind.49 Here Origen seems to consider righteousness and sanctification/holiness an intermediate category in between the essential, absolute virtues of power and wisdom, which Christ is also ‘for us’, and his capacity of redemption, which he is only ‘for us’. In volume VI of his Commentary on John, however, in his comments on John 1:19, Origen does explain that Christ is the essential righteousness himself (ἡ … αὐτοδικαιοσύνη ἡ οὐσιώδης), which implies to him that the righteousness in each person is shaped (τυποῦται) by this essential righteousness.50 Apparently, between his work on the Commentary on John, volumes I and VI, written in respectively 231 and 45

Clement, Instructor III 78,2 (SC 158). Clement, Instructor I 37,2 (SC 70); Stromateis I 50,2 (SC 30); V 9,2 (SC 278). 47 Origen, Cat. 1Cor. 8, 59-64 (JThS 8 [1908], 238). 48 Origen, Comm. John I 123-4 (SC 120). 49 Origen, Comm. John I 243-22 (SC 120). Cf. Princ. I 2,13,352-5; II 9,4,78-81 (Behr), written briefly before Comm. John I, and Plato’s distinction between the Ideas as such and Ideas in which one participates, in Parmenides 130B (Burnet). 50 Origen, Comm. John VI 40 (SC 157). Cf. ἡ αὐτοαλήθεια ἡ οὐσιώδης as the divine πρωτότυπος of the truth that is found ἐν ταῖς λογικαῖς ψυχαῖς because it is mediated by Christ, in Comm. John VI 38-9. Also Princ. I 3,6; 3,8; IV 4,1,33-8 (Behr). 46

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234 AD,51 his view of the designations listed in 1Cor. 1:30 had changed. In later works Origen refers to wisdom, righteousness, sanctification/holiness, and redemption as qualities of God that are personified in Christ in his pre-existence, during his ministry on earth, and as the risen and heavenly Christ in whom Christians believe and whom they proclaim.52 He explains that, since Christ is wisdom and righteousness, a Christian who adopts these virtues (ἀρεταί) confesses Christ.53 With a Platonic concept he says that a human being participates (μετέχειν) in these properties of Christ.54 In his Commentary on Romans Origen quotes 1Cor. 1:30 when commenting on Rom. 3:21-4, saying that the righteousness from God that is Christ is not attested by the natural law but by the law of Moses and the prophets (Rom. 3:21). This righteousness is testified to all who believe, both Jews and gentiles, and depends on faith and on the Mosaic law and the prophets. With reference to the last term in 1Cor. 1:30 Origen interprets ‘the redemption that is in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 3:24) as Christ’s blood that he gave to the enemies as ransom for the captives.55 In his comments on Rom. 4:25, about ‘Christ who was raised for our justification’, he alludes to 1Cor. 1:30 with the phrase ‘Christ who is righteousness’, which implies to him that if we rose with Christ (Col. 3:1) we should live a new life in accordance with righteousness.56 Likewise, Origen comments that many are made righteous (Rom. 5:19) through Christ, ‘who became for us righteousness from God’.57 As a matter of fact, such exegetical comments were elicited by Paul’s discussion of righteousness and redemption through Christ in his epistle to the Romans. In other contexts such observations are rare, but not absent. For example, in Origen’s comment on Ps. 118:40, ‘vivify me through your righteousness’, he notes that this means ‘to live virtuously (κατ’ ἀρετήν), and since the righteousness of the Father is the Son (cf. 1Cor. 1:30), someone who wants to live through/in the Son says this prayer. “For in him (i.e. the Son) God’s righteousness is revealed, from faith to faith” (Rom. 1:17)’.58 We see that, unlike Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement, Origen fully integrated 1Cor. 1:30 into his arguments, but his interpretation of the designations of Christ as essential properties and as his virtues to be adopted by Christians does not really correspond with Paul’s intention, if we may take our cue from the 51

See Pierre Nautin, Origène. Sa vie et son œuvre, Christianisme antique 1 (Paris, 1977), 377; 410. Origen, Hom. Jer. 8,2 (SC 232); Cat. Matt. 83 (GCS 41); Cat. Eph. 14,5-9 (JThS 3 [1902], 409); Prayer 1,6-11 (GCS 3); also Comm. John I 59; 140 (SC 120); Comm. Rom. IX 1,66-9 (AGLB 34). 53 Origen, Comm. Rom. V 4,12-7 (Toura papyrus, ed. Jean Scherer [Cairo, 1957], 154-7); Comm. Matt. XII 24-5 (GCS 40); Hom. Num. 20,2,5,212-4 (SC 461). 54 Cat. Ps. 57,2; 60,3 (PG 12, 1473A; 1481A); Princ. I 3,6; 3,8 (Behr). See e.g. Plato, Parmenides 130B (Burnet) and footnote 49. 55 Origen, Comm. Rom. III 4 (7),117-29; 137-44; 159-67 (AGLB 16). 56 Origen, Comm. Rom. IV 7,100-2 (AGLB 33). 57 Origen, Comm. Rom. V 5,86-9 (AGLB 33). 58 Origen, Cat. Ps. 118,40 (SC 189). 52

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present-day understanding of the apostle’s theology. Origen’s interpretation of wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption as virtues (ἀρεταί) may be his alternative to a contemporaneous soteriological appropriation of this text that he considered undemanding and inducing laxity. He may have found this appropriation both among Valentinians and among Christians of his own Church who simply considered themselves wise, righteous, sanctified, and redeemed thanks to Christ, irrespective of the sins they committed after being baptized. Eusebius of Caesarea, Basil of Caesarea, Augustine of Hippo, and Conclusion In the fourth and fifth centuries 1Cor. 1:30 was often quoted in a sense that we might consider Pauline (viz. in a present-day perspective), both in exegetical works and in other contexts, but space is lacking here to discuss elaborately its reception in this period. Passing over homilies and commentaries on 1Cor., where our text is explained anyway,59 we will briefly mention only three authors. In a discussion of Christ as ‘the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29) and as ‘the propitiation (ἱλασμός) for our sins … and for the whole world’ (1John 2:2), Eusebius of Caesarea argues that according to Paul Christ is also ἀπολύτρωσις, as 1Cor. 1:30 testifies.60 In a homily on humility Basil of Caesarea comments on 1Cor. 1:30-1, ‘For true and perfect boasting in God is this: when someone takes no pride in his own righteousness, but is aware that he lacks true righteousness, and is made righteous solely through faith in Christ.’61 Likewise, Augustine argues that those who believe in Christ crucified (1Cor. 2:2) do not wish to acquire a more spiritual, allegedly secret teaching, but know that Christ crucified ‘became (factus sit) for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord”’ (1Cor. 1:30-1).62 In conclusion, we might say that in this period Paul’s slogan in 1Cor. 1:30 was finally appropriated, not only without any reticence, but also in a way that may be considered Pauline, without being hindered by the appeal to it either by Valentinians or possibly by lax Catholic Christians. 59 See e.g. John Chrysostom, Hom. 1 Cor. 5, 3 (PG 61, 42), who explains that 1Cor. 1:30 does not deal with the origin of our essence (οὐσίωσις), but with faith; and Konstantin Nikolakopoulos, ‘Paulus über „Gerechtigkeit“ und „Rechtfertigung“. Exegetische Perspektiven unter Berücksichtigung von 1 Kor. 1,30’, in Athanasios Despotis (ed.), Participation, Justification, and Conversion. Eastern Orthodox Interpretation of Paul and the Debate between “Old and New Perspectives on Paul”, WUNT 2/442 (Tübingen, 2017), 89-106, 104-5. 60 Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel VIII 2,23-4 (GCS 23). 61 Basil, Hom. on Humility 3 (PG 31, 529C); translation inspired by Judith Kovacs, 1 Corinthians Interpreted by Early Christian Commentators, The Church’s Bible (Grand Rapids, MI, Cambridge, 2005), 32. 62 Augustine, Treatises on John 98,3 (CChr.SL 36); see also City of God XXI 24,139-45 (CChr.SL 48).

Revelation 19–21 in North African Authors: Chance for Reconstructing the Most Ancient Text? Martina VERCESI, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to shed new light upon the early text of Rev. 19–21. It is known that the Book of Revelation has played a very particular role in the history of the text of the New Testament; while it was contested by many Christian authors of the Eastern part of the Empire, it presents a significantly tradition in the Western part, above all in North Africa. One of the reasons of its difficulty in finding acceptance in the canon was the passage related to the millennial kingdom of Christ and the coming of the new Jerusalem (Rev. 19–21). The peculiar history of Revelation’s interpretation has influenced the scarcity of witnesses that we have nowadays; the most ancient one that retains the Greek text of these chapters, in fact, is the Codex Sinaiticus (4th century). As far as the Old Latin text is concerned, we observe a continuous tradition in North Africa, but the earliest direct witness at our disposal, the Fleury Palimpsest, stops at Rev. 16:5. In this critical situation, this research proposes the study of North African authors’ quotations of Rev. 19–21 in order to try to establish, when possible, the early Latin text of these chapters that influenced the exegesis of the early Christian communities. This research could also allow us to make some observations on the Greek text and to deal with the ongoing debate concerning the possibility of recognizing a ‘Western’ text-type of Revelation.

The history of the transmission1 of the Book of Revelation strongly differs from that of any other books of the New Testament. The reason for this distinctiveness is to be found in the role which this text has played during the centuries; many authors from the eastern part of the Roman Empire, in fact, 1 A summary of the history of the research on the Greek text of Revelation can be found in Juan Hernández Jr., Scribal Habits and Theological Influences in the Apocalypse: The Singular Readings of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 218 (Tübingen, 2006), 10-28; Martin Karrer who provides a table of the tradition up until the 6th/7th century, ‘Der Text der Johannesapokalypse’, in Jörg Frey, James A. Kelhoffer and Franz Tóth (eds), Die Johannesapokalypse: Kontexte – Konzepte – Rezeption / The Revelation of John: Contexts – Concepts – Reception (Tübingen, 2012), 43-78, 58-60; Markus Lembke, ‘Beobachtungen zu den Handschriften der Apokalypse des Johannes’, in Michael Lebahn and M. Karrer (eds), Die Johannesoffenbarung: Ihr Text und ihre Auslegung, Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte 38 (Leipzig, 2012), 19-69, 62-9; David C. Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts (Cambridge, 2008), 227-32.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 99-111. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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excluded it from the Canon2 and/or did not quote it.3 In this article, I would like to focus on Rev. 19–21, highlighting the characteristics of its Latin tradition which can offer some useful insights for its reconstruction. The chapters chosen to be examined are part of the final section of the Book of Revelation in which the defeat of Satan, the millennial Kingdom, and the new creation are described. At first sight, one must notice that Rev. 19–21 was ‘one of the most disputed sections of the book’4, and this might probably be the reasons of its complex textual transmission. It is first necessary to briefly present the transmission situation of the Book of Revelation as a whole. There are, in fact, some characteristics of the Apocalypse’s Greek text worth considering;5 the first important one is the scarcity of direct witnesses that survived until nowadays which considerably affects the reconstruction of the text. Secondly, the first Greek commentaries on this book are late; the most ancient is the one written by Oecumenius (6th century). Lastly, no Greek lectionaries retained any quotations from Revelation.6 As Juan Hernández has pointed out, this statement leads to three kinds of consequences: ‘First, textual critics possess less evidence for tracing the history of its MSS. Second, since lectionaries played a critical role in stabilizing the Byzantine text elsewhere in the NT, the lack of a lectionary results in a less homogeneous Byzantine text for the book of Revelation…. Third, the absence of lectionaries may suggest that the text of the Apocalypse was excluded from liturgical usage’.7 2 Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament. An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids, 1989), 49. See also Joseph Verheyden, ‘The New Testament canon’, in James Carleton Paget and Joachim Schaper (eds), The New Cambridge History of the Bible, I. From the beginnings to 600 (Cambridge, 2013), 389-411, 400. 3 For example, the Cappadocian Fathers. See Charles E. Hill and Michael J. Kruger (eds), The Early Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 2012), 225. See also Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament. Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford, 1989), and Michael J. Kruger, ‘The Reception of the Book of Revelation in the Early Church’, in Thomas J. Kraus and Michael Sommer (eds), Book of Seven Seals: The Peculiarity of Revelation, its Manuscripts, Attestation, and Transmission, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 363 (Tübingen, 2016), 159-74. 4 Craig R. Koester, Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Bible 38A (New York, 2014), 741. Of the same opinion Ugo Vanni, ‘L’Apocalypse johannique. État de la question’, in Jan Lambrecht (ed.), L’Apocalypse johannique et l’Apocalyptique dans le Nouveau Testament, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 53 (Gembloux, 1980), 21-46, 42. 5 A summary list of the Apocalypse’s features is found in Joel Delobel, ‘Le texte de l’Apocalypse: Problèmes de méthode’, in J. Lambrecht (ed.), L’Apocalypse johannique (1980), 151-66, 156. 6 Carroll Osburn, ‘The Greek Lectionaries of the New Testament’, in Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes (eds), The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research. Essays on the Status Quaestionis, 2 vol., New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents 42, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 2012), 93-113, II 94. 7 J. Hernández Jr., Scribal Habits (2006), 3-4.

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As far as the other versions8 (apart from the Latin one) are concerned, Revelation was not present in the Canon of the Peshitta and there is no evidence of other translations before that work.9 The Coptic version of Revelation, according to M. Karrer, needs to be revised;10 scholars claim that the text of the Apocalypse in the Coptic language is similar to the one of P47 and ‫א‬.11 According to the more recent studies, at the present there are 31012 witnesses of Revelation classified as follows:13  Papyri:14  P18: (3rd/4th century), London, Brit. Libr., Inv. 2053v; P. Oxy. 1079 (Rev. 1:4-7);  P24: (4th century), Newton Centre, Andoven Newton Theol. School, F. Trask Libr., OP 1230; P. Oxy. 1230 (Rev. 5:5-8; 6:5-8);  P43: (4th/7th century), London, Brit. Libr., Inv. 2241 (Rev. 2:12-13; 15:816:2);  P47: (3rd century), Dublin, Chester Beatty Libr., P. Chester Beatty III (Rev. 9:10–11:3; 11:5–16:15; 16:17–17:2); 8 For a brief discussion of the other versions see Roger Gryson, Apocalypsis Johannis, Vetus Latina. Die Reste der Altlateinischen Bibel 26/2 (Freiburg, 2000), 95-6; Bruce M. Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission and Limitations (Oxford, 2001), 67-8, 123, 161, 168, 265-6; Tobias Nicklas, ‘The Early Text of Revelation’, in C.E. Hill and M.J. Kruger (eds), The Early Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 2012), 225-38, 237-8; J.N. Birdsall, ‘The Text of the Revelation of St. John: A Review of its Materials and Problems with Special Reference to the Work of Josef Schmid’, EvQ 33 (1961), 228-37, 230-1; and David E. Aune, Revelation 1-5, Word Biblical Commentary 52 (Nashville, 1997), 154-6. 9 Consider Peter J. Williams, ‘The Syriac versions of the New Testament’, in B.D. Ehrman and M.W. Holmes (eds), The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research (2012), 143-66. 10 M. Karrer, ‘Der Text der Johannesapokalypse’ (2012), 62. 11 See Josef Schmid, Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse. The Ancient Stems, trans. and ed. J. Hernández Jr., Garrick V. Allen and Darius Müller, Text-Critical Studies 11 (Atlanta, 2018), 121. For a general overview of the Coptic versions of the New Testament: Christian Askeland, ‘The Coptic Versions of the New Testament’, in B.D. Ehrman and M.W. Holmes (eds), The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research (2012), 201-29. This author has recently proposed the text of the Sahidic version: ‘An Eclectic Edition of the Sahidic Apocalypse of John’, in Marcus Sigismund and Darius Müller (eds), Studien zum Text der Apokalypse II, Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung 50 (Berlin, 2017), 33-79. 12 M. Lembke, D. Müller and Ulrich Schmid, Text und Textwert der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments. VI: Die Apokalyspe. Teststellenkollation und Auswertungen, Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung 49 (Berlin, 2017), 85-6. See also James K. Elliott, ‘Recent Work on the Greek Manuscripts of Revelation and the Consequences for the Kurzgefasste Liste’, JTS 66 (2015), 574-84, 576. 13 This list is taken from J. Schmid, Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (2018), 14-31 (for the updated information see also 265-8); D.E. Aune, Revelation 1-5 (1997), 136-48 (a bibliography is also supplied at 134-5); NA28, 792-814; M. Lembke, ‘Beobachtungen zu den Handschriften der Apokalypse’ (2012), 62-9, J.K. Elliott, ‘Recent Work’ (2015), 574-84, M. Lembke, D. Müller and U. Schmid, Text und Textwert (2017), 2-22. 14 All these witnesses contain only the Book of Revelation.

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P85: (4th/5th century), Strasburg, Bibl. Nat. et Univ., P. Gr. 1028 (Rev. 9:19– 10:1.5-9);  P98: (2nd century?), Cairo, Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, P. IFAO inv. 237b (Rev. 1:13-20);  P115: (3rd/4th century), Oxford, Ashmolean Mus.; P. Oxy. 4499 (Rev. 8:11– 9:5; 9:18–10:5; 10:7–11:6; 11:18–12:5; 13:6–14:7; 14:18–15:1). 

 Uncials:   

        

‫( א‬01) Sinaiticus, (4th century), London, Brit. Libr. Add. 43725; A (02) Alexandrinus, (5th century), London, Brit. Libr., Royal 1 D. VIII; C (04) Codex Ephraemi rescriptus, (5th century), Paris, Bibl. Nat., Gr. 9 (Rev. 1:2-3–3:19; 5:14–7:14; 7:17–8:4; 9:17–10:10; 11:3–16:13; 18:2–19:5); P (025) Codex Porphyrianus, (9th century), St Petersburg, Ross. Nac. Bibl., Gr. 225 (Rev. 1:1–16:11; 17:2–19:20; 20:10–22:5); 046, (10th century), Città del Vaticano, Bibl. Vat., Vat. Gr. 2066; 051, (10th century), Athos, Pantokratoros, 44 (Rev. 11:15–13:1.4–22:17.15-21); 052, (10th century), Athos, Pantokratoros, 99,2 (Rev. 7:16–8:12); 0163, (5th century), Chicago, Univ. Libr., Orient. Inst., 9351; P. Oxy. 848 (Rev. 16:17-20); 0169, (4th century), Princeton, Theol. Sem., Speer Libr., Pap. 5; P. Oxy. 1080 (Rev. 3:19–4:3); 0207, (4th century), Firenze, Bibl. Medicea Laur.; PSI 1166 (Rev. 9:215); 0229, (8th century), Olim: Firenze, Bibl. Medicea Laur.; PSI 1296b (Rev. 18:16-7; 19:4-6); 0308, (4th century), Oxford (Rev. 11:15-8).

The characteristic which stands out is that this list lacks two important manuscripts for the study of the text of the New Testament; Codex B (Vaticanus) which is, as Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman have pointed out, ‘one of the most valuable of all the manuscripts of the Greek Bible’15 and Codex D (Bezae). Concerning the minuscules, I refer to the words of James K. Elliott who summarizes: ‘The remainder are minuscules, and these date from the ninth to the nineteenth century. The oldest minuscules are 1424, 1841, and 1862. Modern editors of a critical edition of the Greek text of Revelation are largely dependent on minuscules with a higher than usual age. One hundred and thirtyeight minuscules contain only Revelation’.16 Moreover, many manuscripts 15

B.M. Metzger and B.D. Ehrman (eds), The Text of the New Testament. Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (Oxford, 2005), 67. 16 J.K. Elliott, ‘Recent Work’ (2015), 576.

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contain Revelation with other non-canonical writings, in some others, the Book of Revelation is written in a different hand than the rest of the New Testament. Finally, another feature concerns the addition of the commentary next to the text, mostly that of Andrew of Caesarea. Since the Editio Critica Maior of the Book of Revelation is not yet available17, the most considerable study for the history of the transmission of the text is the work of Josef Schmid, Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen ApokalypseTextes (Munich, 1955).18 This is not the place to give a full account of it, but it is necessary to highlight its relevant results in order to clarify the status of the witnesses of the text of the Apocalypse. According to J. Schmid, four different text forms can be revealed to investigate the history of the transmission of the text of Revelation: 1. P47 ‫א‬: Papyrus P47 (3rd century) and Codex Sinaiticus (‫א‬, 4th century). 2. AC Oec: Codex Alexandrinus (A, 5th century), Codex Ephraemi (C, 5th century) and the Commentary on Revelation written by Oecumenius (6th century). 3. K: the Koinè-text.19 4. Aν: the Commentary on Revelation written by Andrew of Caesarea (7th century).20 The first two text types are groups formed with different witnesses, the other two are recensions. It is necessary to underline that the minuscules can be subdivided among these text forms.21 J. Schmid comes to the conclusion that each of four text types preserves the Urtext in some places,22 although he gave preference to the second one (AC Oec). However, the situation is far from being 17 For an insight on the ECM of the Apocalypse see: U. Schmid, ‘Die neue Edition der Johannesapocalypse. Ein Arbeitsbericht’, in M. Sigismund, M. Karrer and U. Schmid (eds), Studien zum Text der Apokalypse, Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung 47 (Berlin, 2015), 3-15, M. Sigismund, ‘Die neue Edition der Johannesapokalypse: Stand der Arbeiten’, in M. Sigismund and D. Müller (eds), Studien zum Text der Apokalypse II (2017), 3-17, id., ‘Aus der laufenden Arbeit an der ECM der Apokalypse’, in M. Sigismund and D. Müller (eds), Studien zum Text der Apokalypse III, Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung 51 (Berlin, 2020), 3-21. 18 I refer to this work with the new English Translation: J. Schmid, Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (2018). An insight of the history of research on the text of Revelation is offered by D.C. Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts (2008), 227-32 and J. Hernández Jr., Scribal Habits (2006), 10-48. 19 ‘One peculiar characteristic is the division of the Byzantine Majority text into two distinct textual tradition: … the large number of manuscripts with the commentary on Revelation by Andreas of Caesarea … the Koine tradition proper’ (NA28, 66-7). 20 The recent work of collation proposed in M. Lembke, D. Müller and U. Schmid, Text und Textwert (2017) have put into question these groupings (137, 141-2). See also M. Sigismund, ‘Die neue Edition der Johannesapokalypse’ (2017), 8. 21 ‘The vast majority of minuscules belong to one of the two other stems, Aν e K, or to one of the various mixed texts from Aν and K’ (J. Schmid, Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse [2018], 27). 22 See the summary results in ibid. 154-9.

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exhaustively clear. He argues, in fact, that ‘it is not possible to determine the mutual relationships of the old major stems of the Greek text of the Apocalypse tradition completely and to classify them accurately all together in a stemma. The four text forms are clearly not related to each other exclusively by the original’.23 Furthermore, if we limit the research to Rev. 19–21, it can be noticed that the witnesses’ situation gets worse. The lists below highlight the witnesses (papyri and uncials) that contain the text of the three chapters.  Papyri: No papyri retain the text of Rev. 19–21, or part of it.  Uncials: 

All of Rev. 19–21: ‫( א‬01) Sinaiticus, (4th century), London, Brit. Libr. Add. 43725; A (02) Alexandrinus, (5th century), London, Brit. Libr., Royal 1 D. VIII; 046, (10th century), Città del Vaticano, Bibl. Vat., Vat. Gr. 2066; 051, (10th century), Athos, Pantokratoros, 44 (Rev. 11:15–13:1.4– 22:1-7.15-21);  Fragments of Rev. 19–21:  C (04) Codex Ephraemi rescriptus, (5th century), Paris, Bibl. Nat., Gr. 9 (Rev. 1:3–3:19; 5:15–7:13; 7:18–8:4; 9:17–10:9; 11:4–16:12; 18:3– 19:4);  P (025) Codex Porphyrianus, (9th century), St Petersburg, Ross. Nac. Bibl., Gr. 225 (Rev. 1:1–16:11; 17:2–19:20; 20:10–22:5);  0229, (8th century), Olim: Firenze, Bibl. Medicea Laur.; PSI 1296b (Rev. 18:16-7; 19:4-6).    

This situation means that we do not possess two fundamental witnesses among the ones that establish the text-forms highlighted by J. Schmid, that is P47 and Codex Ephraemi. Besides, Codex Sinaiticus, the most ancient witness of the text of these chapters, brings with it a series of problems. As J. Hernández has pointed out, in fact: ‘Two considerations complicate any investigation of Codex Sinaiticus: 1) block mixture 2) the quantity and diversity of its corrections’.24 In contrast to the situation of the Greek tradition of the Apocalypse, there is a rich Latin tradition well developed which emerged through a series of commentaries on Revelation from the end of the 3rd to the 8th century. The first one 23

Ibid. 156. J. Hernández Jr., Scribal Habits (2006). For detailed studies see Dirk Jongkind, ‘One Codex, Three Scribes, and Many Books: Struggles with Space in Codex Sinaiticus’, in Thomas J. Kraus and Tobias Nicklas (eds), New Testament Manuscripts. Their Texts and Their World, (Leiden, 2006), 121-35; Peter Malik, ‘The Corrections of Codex Sinaiticus and the Textual Transmission of Revelation: Josef Schmid Revisited’, NTS 61 (2015), 595-614; Scot McKendrick et al. (eds), Codex Sinaiticus: New Perspectives on the Ancient Biblical Manuscript (London, 2015). 24

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is written by Victorinus of Poetavius, followed by the relevant commentary of Tyconius.25 Concerning the direct tradition witnesses that retain the Old Latin text of Revelation, we have twelve manuscripts, of which the most relevant are:26 – 51 (Codex Gigas or Gigas librorum) Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, A. 148 (Bohemia, first quarter of 13th century). This is the main witness of the 4th century Italian text (text-type I).27 – 55 (Palimpseste de Fleury) Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 6400 G fol. 113130 (“Palimpseste, texte primaire ; probablement d’origine africaine, 5e s., CLA V 565”). This manuscript retains an early African text of Revelation (texttype K). Unfortunately, it is incomplete (the portions extant are Rev. 1:1–2:1, 8:7–9:12, 11:16–12:14, 14:15–16:5).28 In summary, it can be argued that research on the text is far from being easy, because of the lacunae derived from its transmission. However, the study of the reception and interpretation of Rev. 19–21 in North African authors could shed new light on the ancient Latin text of these chapters. In the noteworthy study of Roger Gryson (Apocalypsis Johannis) the importance of the African tradition of Revelation is stressed.29 Moreover, the North African tradition of this text could give us a chance to have access to the most ancient text of Rev. 19–21 for the following reasons. The first crucial element is found in the fact that the first translation of the Bible into Latin, as far as we know, took place in North Africa (the earliest Latin form of the New Testament text, in fact, appears to be the African one30). Moreover, the first Christian author, whose documents survived, writing in Latin is Tertullian. Secondly, Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, is the author who provides the first evidence of a fixed form of a complete Latin Bible.31 As previously said, while in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire the text of the Book of Revelation was often condemned, in the Western part, especially in the North African Christian communities, developed an exegetical 25 R. Gryson, ‘Les commentaires patristiques latins de l’Apocalypse (à suivre)’, RTL 28 (1997), 305-37; and id., ‘Les commentaires patristiques latins de l’Apocalypse (suite et fin)’, RTL 28 (1997), 484-502. 26 See J.K. Elliott, ‘Recent Work’ (2015), 583; D.A. Aune, Revelation 1-5 (1997), 152-3; R. Gryson, Apocalypsis Johannis (2000), 8-53 (for a complete list of all the Latin manuscripts of Revelation); T. Nicklas, ‘The Early Text of Revelation’ (2012), 236-7. 27 H.A.G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament: A Guide to its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts (Oxford, 2016), 233; and R. Gryson, Apocalypsis Johannis (2000), 10. 28 H.A.G. Hougton, The Latin New Testament (2016), 235; and R. Gryson, Apocalypsis Johannis (2000), 10-1. 29 R. Gryson, Apocalypsis Johannis (2000), 81. 30 Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, ‘La Bible latine des origines au moyen âge. Aperçu historique, état des questions (Première partie)’, RTL 19 (1988), 137-59, 143. See also B.M. Metzger, The Early Versions (2001), 286-9. 31 H.A.G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament (2016), 9.

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tradition of this text. According to Tobias Nicklas: ‘Until now research on the textual history of Revelation mainly concentrated on Greek witnesses – Greek manuscripts and Greek authors. However, from early times Revelation played an important role in the Latin Church and was read and interpreted by many Latin fathers … it would be important to ask whether (and how) the material from Latin (and other) versions and authors fits into Schmid’s overall pattern or not’.32 In this regard, I would like to present a case study which can give us a chance to reconsider the value of the Latin text; it is a variant present in Rev. 19:13. The context in which this verse is found is the vision of the rider (Jesus), portraited as a warrior: καὶ περιβεβλημένος ἱμάτιον βεβαμμένον αἵματι, καὶ κέκληται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ.33 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the word of God.34

The variants I am interested in are related to the verb βεβαμμένον and they are: – – – – – –

ρεραντισμενον P 2329 Hipp ερραντισμενον 1006 1841 περιρεραμμενον ‫*א‬ περιρεραντισμενον ‫א‬2 ερραμενον 2053 2062 ρεραμμενον 161135

32 T. Nicklas, ‘The Early Text of Revelation’ (2012), 238. Also consider the words of J.N. Birdsall: ‘Scholarship may now devote its attention to the question of the versions and their place in the overall tradition. Hermann von Soden was of the opinion that the versions present us with a prerecensional text. This judgment demands further examination’ (‘The Text of the Revelation of St. John’ [1961], 237). See the recent publication of Matthias Geigenfeind who provides an account of the relationship between the Latin tradition and the collation of Text und Textwert (‘Die Vetus Latina Apocalypsis Iohannis. Untersuchung der Relationen zur griechischen Tradition mithilfe von Text und Textwert VI’, in M. Sigismund and D. Müller (eds), Studien zum Text der Apokalypse III [2020], 127-255). 33 NA28. The critical edition of Tischendorf8 retains the following text: καὶ περιβεβλημένος ἱμάτιον περιρεραμμένον αἵματι, καὶ κέκληται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ, whereas Brooke F. Westcoot and Ferton J.A. Hort report: καὶ περιβεβλημένος ἱμάτιον ρεραντισμενον αἵματι, καὶ κέκληται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ (The New Testament in the Original Greek [Cambridge, 1881-1882]). 34 NKJV. 35 The witnesses which support the text present in the NA28 are: A 046 051 1854 2030 2344 koinè. See also other lists of witnesses in J. Schmid, Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (2018), 122 n. 165; J.K. Elliott, ‘A Short Textual Commentary on the Book of Revelation and the “New” Nestle’, NovT 56 (2014), 68-100, 97-8; D.A. Aune, Revelation 17-22, Word Biblical Commentary 52C (Nashville, 1998), 1043; P. Malik, ‘The Corrections of Codex Sinaiticus’ (2015), 604.

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All the verbs of these variant readings derived from the stem ραν- and they have the meaning of ‘to sprinkle’,36 while the verb present in the text of the NA28 critical edition – βάπτω – means ‘to dip/to dye’.37 The most important Greek witnesses which support these readings are: Codex Sinaiticus, codex P and minuscule 2053. The major scholarly opinion considered the verb βάπτω the original reading of the text of Rev. 19:13. In this regard, Bruce Metzger has claimed: ‘Among the many variant readings βεβαμμένον appears to be both the best supported (A 046 051 most minuscules copsa arm al) and most likely to provoke change’.38 However, I would like to offer a different account. First, it is necessary to consider both the witnesses and patristic quotations in chronological order. The first attestation of this verse is present in Cyprian.39 Later on, we find the same reading in Origen.40 Further, in the Contra Noetum of Hippolytus Romanus (?41) the verb is ρεραντισμενον.42 The earliest manuscript evidence is present in Codex Sinaiticus, which is the most ancient direct witness for the text Rev. 19–21. Further, it is remarkable that in all the Latin tradition there is not any evidence of a verb who could translate the Greek verb βάπτω. According to the text types classified by R. Gryson,43 in fact, the African tradition presents the verb spargo, while the so-called European text (or Itala) uses the verb aspergo which clearly translate the verbs derived from the stem ραν- with the meaning of ‘to sprinkle’.44 36 Henry G. Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. (Oxford, 1996), 1564. For the compound forms see pages 1385 and 1565. See also Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1985), 83. 37 H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (1996), 306. 38 Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London, 1971), 763. 39 Cyprianus Carthaginensis. Ad Quirinum, ed. Robert Weber, CChr.SL 3 (Turnhout, 1972), 32. 40 Origenes Werke. Der Johanneskommentar, ed. Erwin Preuschen, GCS 3 (Leipzig, 1903), 62, Origenes Werke VIII. Homilien zu Samuel 1, zum Hohelied und zu den Propheten; Kommentar zum Hohelied in Rufins und Hieronymus’ Übersetzungen, ed. W.A. Baehrens, GCS 33 (Leipzig, 1925), 152. 41 The question about the origins and the works to be attributed to Hippolytus Romanus is still debated. Manlio Simonetti claims that the work Contra Noetum has to be attributed to an Eastern author, ‘Ippolito’, in Angelo Di Berardino (ed.), Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, 3 vol., 2nd ed. (Genova, 2007), II 2584-99. There is also not any certainty regarding the date of this work: ‘Whether the text was composed in the ante-Nicean period as Nautin, Buttherworth, and Brent believe, or in a later period (post-Apollinarian, post-monophysite) as Marcel Richard and Josef Frickel have proposed, is also unresolved’, J.A. Cerrato, Hippolytus Between East and West. The Commentaries and the Provenance of the Corpus (Oxford, 2002), 73. See also the recent discussion provided by Markus Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity. From Reception to Retrospection (Cambridge, 2019), 162-95. 42 Hippolytus of Rome. Contra Noetum, ed. Robert Butterworth, Heythrop Monographs 2 (London, 1977), 79. 43 R. Gryson, Apocalypsis Johannis (2000), 659. 44 Peter G.W. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1968), 1796-7, adspergo, 183, conspergo, 418.

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Secondly, it is necessary to look at the context of this verse and its relationship with the Old Testament. Rev. 19:13 and the robe with blood recall Isa. 63:1-3 where Yahweh appeared with red garments after having revenged on his enemies. The garments in Isaiah are sprinkled with blood; the Hebrew text, in fact, has the verb ‫ נָ זָ ה‬which means ‘to sprinkle’45 and it is translated in Greek with the verb ῥαίνω (only in the versions of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, because the LXX omits this phrase46). The majority of scholars claim that βεβαμμένον is the original reading because it is difficult to explain the change from ῥαίνω to βάπτω.47 However, I would like to propose some considerations in favour of hypothesising the verb ῥαίνω and its derivatives as the original reading48: 1) Direct and indirect witnesses. Scholars agree in considering βεβαμμένον the original reading, and they explain the variants on the basis of the connection with Isa. 63:3 in which the verb ῥαίνω is found.49 First of all, one must notice that the attestations of the verb ῥαίνω and its derivatives are present in all the indirect tradition examined above.50 On the contrary, the reading βεβαμμένον is firstly attested in the 5th century, in Codex Alexandrinus. In addition, it is relevant to highlight that all the Latin tradition starting from Cyprian retains readings which translate the Greek verb ῥαίνω and derivatives. If βεβαμμένον is the original reading, we are forced to argue that the same variants were originated at the same time (2nd-3rd century), in different contexts (Origen in Alexandria, Cyprian in North Africa, Hippolytus 45

Francis Brown, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament: with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1900), 633. 46 Frederick Field (ed.), Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt sive veterum interpretum Graecorum in totum Vetus Testamentum fragmenta, vol. 2 (Hildesheim, 1964), 557. 47 See Gregory K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, 1999), 960. 48 Some of these positions have been claimed by Giancarlo Biguzzi, Apocalisse. Nuova versione, introduzione e commento, I libri biblici: Nuovo Testamento (Milano, 2005), 339, n. 4. 49 Pierre Prigent, L’Apocalypse de Saint Jean (Paris, 1981), 294. In support of βεβαμμένον as the original reading, scholars also suggest the connection with Gen. 49:11: ‘In support of understanding Christ in 19:13 as an agent of judgment is Targ. Pal. Gen. 49:11: “his garments, dipped [or “rolled”, m ̔ g ̔ gyn] in blood, are like the outpressed juice of grapes,” which alludes to Isa. 63:2 in describing the Messiah’s defeat of the enemy. (Targum Neofiti uses the same verb “dipped”).’ K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (1999), 959. In Gen. 49:11 the verb is ‫כּבם‬ ַ which means ‘to wash’, F. Brown, A Hebrew and English Lexicon (1900), 460. 50 The Coptic versions need further examination: the Bohairic version, in fact, retains a verb which means ‘sprinkle’ (George W. Horner, The Coptic version of the New Testament in the Northern dialect otherwise called Memphitic and Bohairic: with introduction, critical apparatus, and literal English translation [Osnabrück, 1969], 492), whereas the Saihidic one has a verb which means ‘dye’ that could be compared to the witness of Codex Alexandrinus (id., The Coptic version of the New Testament in the Southern dialect otherwise called Sahidic and Thebaic: with critical apparatus, literal English translation, register of fragments and estimate of the version [Osnabrück, 1969], 565).

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in the East51). Moreover, scholars claim that the reason for the variants is the harmonization with the Isaiah passage. However, since the phrase it is not present in the LXX, it should also be assumed that the authors referred to the Hebrew text or to a version of the Old Testament different from the Septuagint.52 2) Theology. The robe sprinkled with blood which has Jesus in Revelation is the same robe of Yahweh who avenged his enemies on the last days in the prophecy of Isa. 63:1-3 whose theme is thus the revenge of God. In Rev. 6:911 are found the martyrs under the altar asking God: ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’53 There is probably a connection between these two passages; in this case, Jesus in Rev. 19, ready for the final battle, has finally avenged the blood of the martyrs. Craig R. Koester (and others) thinks that the blood on the robe is Jesus’ own blood and it is unlikely that it comes from the martyrs or the enemies.54 This interpretation is suggested also because in this passage Jesus is portraited before the battle begins. On the contrary, Heinrich Kraft claims that this image is taken from Isaiah’s passage and thus it shows Jesus as victor.55 However, I think that it is possible to attribute the blood on Jesus’ garments to the martyrs. If we look for example at the Latin tradition of this verse, we found a relevant interpretation in Tyconius who said: Vestimentum Christi ecclesia est, quam induit; haec est passionum sanguine variata.56 The robe of Jesus is the Church which changed colour because of the blood of the passions of the martyrs.57 Moreover, one must also notice that the verb ῥαίνω is present in the OT as a technical term in a context of ritual sacrifice (Exod. 29:21; Lev. 4:6.17; 5:9; 6:27; 8:11.30; 14:7.16.27.51; 16:14-5.19; Num. 19:4.18-9.21; 2Kgs. 9:33). 51

See n. 41. For the Latin tradition, it has to be supposed a version not derived from the LXX. Unfortunately, there not seems to be any attestation of Isa. 63:3 in the Latin tradition prior to the Vulgate. 53 NKJV. 54 C.R. Koester, Revelation (2014), 756. 55 Heinrich Kraft, Die Offenbarung des Johannes, Handbuch zum Neuen Testament 16A (Tübingen, 1974), 249. 56 Tyconius. Expositio Apocalypseos (textus reconstructus), ed. Roger Gryson, CChr.SL 107A (Turnhout, 2011), 215. 57 Kraft claims that ἐρραμμένον is to be considered an improvement of an original ῥεραμμένον and βεβαμμένον is another improvement of the same error (Die Offenbarung des Johannes [1974], 249). Thus, the change from ρεραμμενον to βεβαμμενον could probably be explained as a scribal error or, to promote the allusion not to the blood of the enemies, or the martyrs (if the interpretation proposed is correct) but to Jesus’ own blood. It could also be possible to explain this change in favour of an allusion to the sacramental function that could be present in the verb βάπτω (in this case, the baptism of blood which recalls Jesus’ sacrifice). Another reason is offered by Elliott: ‘Forms of ραινω or ραντιζω are more appropriate in the context because αιματι lacks εν – but this may be what later copyists thought’ (J.K. Elliott, ‘A Short Textual Commentary’ [2014], 98). 52

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The case examined here allow us to notice how the Latin tradition, in particular the North African one, could give us a chance to make some hypotheses about the possible earliest text of these chapters. In this regard, I think it is necessary to spend a few words on the so-called ‘Western text’. As reported by R. Gryson, scholars claim that there is no Western Text of Revelation.58 This communis opinio is based on the fact that since the Apocalypse has played a different role in the canon, then its transmission history could have been different in respect of that of the other books of the New Testament.59 R. Gryson, in fact, suggests that the Western text could be the AC Oec text-type, which is generally considered to support the Urtext, according to J. Schmid.60 Further, the concept of text-types itself has been recently put into question. D.C. Parker, in fact, claims that: ‘It is now possible to move on, abandoning the concept of the text-type and, with the new tools and methods now available, retelling the history of the text’.61 Considering the difficulty of this situation, especially in the light of Parker’s statement, it seems though possible to offer some observations which could lead to the possibility of tracing the so-called ‘Western readings’. In a study dated back to the beginning of the 20th century, John Chapman conducted a palaeographical and codicological examination of Codex Bezae, concluding that the missing part most probably contained the Book of Revelation.62 Besides, it has to be noticed that the so-called Western Text was used by early Latin authors such as Cyprian: Codex Bobbiensis and the Fleury Palimpsest in fact, which retain an Old African text close to the one of Codex Bezae, have the same text of Cyprian.63 The last relevant statement in this direction is offered by J. Hernández who reports that Codex Sinaiticus has been recognised as a manuscript with both Alexandrian and Western readings. However, in a recent study, it has been demonstrated that, in the case of the Gospel of John, chapters 1-8 retain a Western form of text, whereas the remaining chapters have an Alexandrian text. He suggests that ‘such statistical analyses have to be applied to the Apocalypse’s text in Sinaiticus’.64 58

R. Gryson, Apocalypsis (2000), 94. However, Schmid observes: ‘Must we assume that the Apocalypse’s textual history developed differently than that of the other New Testament writings? In any case, this cannot be connected with concerns over the Apocalypse’s place in the canon because the fight against it only begins after Origen’, J. Schmid, Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (2018), 13 n. 42. M.J. Kruger has the same opinion (M.J. Kruger, ‘The Reception of the Book of Revelation’ [2016], 173). 60 Ibid. and J. Schmid, Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (2018), 155. 61 D.C. Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts (2008), 174. 62 John Chapman, ‘The Original Contents of Codex Bezae’, ExpT 12 (1905), 339-46. ‘Chapman’s case remains the most scientifically argued and acceptable that we have’, D.C. Parker, Codex Bezae. An early Christian manuscript and its text (Cambridge, 1992), 9. Consider also J. Schmid, Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (2018), 15 n. 44. 63 See M. Geigenfeind, ‘Die Vetus Latina Apocalypsis Iohannis’ (2020), 131, 245. 64 J. Hernández Jr., Scribal Habits (2006), 6, n. 26. 59

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While recognizing the need to weigh these observations very carefully, it is possible to rethink the problem of the ‘western’ readings of Revelation, which the future ECM would like to address.65 Although only one case study has been here evaluated, it will be interesting to deepen whether the Latin tradition supported by Codex Sinaiticus, as in this case, could be useful in the re-evaluation of the witnesses of Revelation (at least, regarding chapters 19–21)66.

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U. Schmid, ‘Die neue Edition der Johannesapocalypse’ (2015), 9-10. ‘Is it far-fetched to regard his type P47 Sin as a stage on the way from the second-century types to the “better” Beta text-type of AC Oec? As such a stage P47 ‫ א‬Orig would contain a number of readings which earlier nomenclature would have labelled as “Western,” meaning early non-Neutral. Schmid, by his separation of P47 ‫ א‬Orig from the “Neutral” AC Oec, is saying the same thing. He will not call them ‘Western’ in a geographical sense because of the absence of Latin support. But Western has long since ceased to be a geographical term’, Ernest C. Colwell, Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament (Leiden, 1969), 54. However, in this case both Origen and ‫ א‬support the Latin tradition. 66

JUDAICA

Eschatological Laughter: Tertullian and the Rabbis Jenny R. LABENDZ, St Francis College, Brooklyn, NY, USA

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of laughter in the eschatological discourse of Tertullian and the rabbis of Talmud. While the laughter in the biblical verses that inspire some of these later texts appears to reflect merely the release of cathartic anger or scorn at those whom God will punish, along with delight at their downfall, the rabbinic and patristic texts are more complex. Laughter in these sources is connected to dramatic irony, relief, and the fulfillment of delayed laughter. The narrative contexts in which the laughter appears in these sources helps shed light on its significance in and of itself and its relevance to other messages about both this world and the next. Laughter and entertainment have been insufficiently explored in the broader literature on eschatology in ancient sources, and this paper contributes to a larger project to problematize the standard categories of analysis we apply to early Jewish and Christian eschatology.

The spark for the investigation that this article will summarize was one line from Tertullian’s De spectaculis and one line from a Talmudic text from the 5th century in Babylonia. I do not posit any organic connection between these two early Jewish and early Christian texts, but taking them together, along with other rabbinic and patristic eschatological texts, can shed light on both. Both texts mention eschatological laughter, and in both the apparent meaning is that the enemies of God, or those who have not earned salvation, are laughed at, and the laughter is about derision and Schadenfreude. I will argue instead that the laughter in these texts symbolizes confidence in the transition to the next world through the release of pent up laughter. Laughter has been described as the very symbol of salvation.1 But what exactly does it symbolize? Psalm 126 states regarding the return to Zion: ‘Then our mouths will be full of laughter’. While in the context of Psalms this is not necessarily eschatological, in Jewish tradition this dream, at least in its total fulfillment, is relegated to the 1 Gabriel Torretta, ‘Preaching on Laughter: The Theology of Laughter in Augustine’s Sermons’, Theological Studies 76 (2015), 742-64, 744, referring to Augustine: ‘In its fullest sense, laughter expresses the dynamic of salvation, as a symbol of the temporal convergence and eternal divergence of the way of the wicked and the way of the just’.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 115-121. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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eschaton.2 This Psalm is echoed in Luke 6:21: ‘Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh’.3 A few centuries later Jerome built on this when he wrote: ‘Now is the time for weeping, and the future for laughing’.4 As in rabbinic literature, ‘the future’ refers to the eschatological future. The laughter in these verses and statements is far from derisive. It is joyous, and it exists because death, exile, and persecution have been wiped out. Tertullian expresses this when he says in De spectaculis 28: ‘Our banquets, our nuptial joys, are yet to come’.5 Thus in both Jewish and Christian tradition, laughter in this world is restricted, either by choice or by force as a result of the sorry state of humanity. And eschatological laughter is the release of pent up laughter. Tertullian emphasizes the pent up nature of laughter in this world multiple times as a matter of pre-ordained necessity. He says in De spectaculis as he decries the supposed pleasure people derive from Roman theaters: You are too dainty, O Christian, if you long for pleasure in this world as well as the other – a bit of a fool into the bargain, if you think this pleasure.6

In other words, pleasure is simply not truly to be found in this world; it’s all an illusion.7 The pleasure of a Christian must wait until the next world. Augustine likewise states: ‘The time for laughter is saved up for the future’.8 In the same vein, the Babylonian Talmud, the magnum opus of the rabbis of Late Antiquity, records the following early Palestinian tradition: ‘It is forbidden for a person to fill his mouth with laughter in this world, as it is written (Ps. 126:2), ‘Then our mouths will be full of laughter and our tongues of joy’. When? At the time when ‘The nations shall say: the Lord has done great things with them’ 2 The hermeneutical key for the rabbis is the word ‘then’. See Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael Beshalach Shirah 1. 3 See Joost Van Neer, ‘Some Observations on Augustine on Laughter’, Augustiniana 56 (2006), 81-92, 83-4, and Marius J. Nel, ‘He Who Laughs Last: Jesus and Laughter in the Synoptic and Gnostic Traditions’, Hervormde Teologiese Studies 70 (2014), 1-8, 4. 4 Jerome, In Ecc. 3.4 (PL 23, 1035), quoted in G. Toretta, ‘Preaching on Laughter’ (2015), 149-50. 5 Translations of Tertullian are from Tertullian, De Spectaculis, trans. T.R. Glover, LCL 250 (Cambridge, 1998). 6 De spec. 28. 7 This is quite the opposite of the opposition to Roman theater found in a near-contemporaneous rabbinic text, which states that besides the problem of idolatry at the Roman theaters, Jews should not attend them because of a prohibition of ‘sitting with scorners’ (tAZ 2:2-5), see Loren R. Spielman, ‘Competing for the Competitors’, in Nathaniel P. DesRosiers and Lily C. Vuong (eds), Religious Competition in the Greco-Roman World (Atlanta, 2016), 188-9. This is based explicitly on Ps. 1:1-2: ‘Happy is the man who has not followed the counsel of the wicked, or taken the path of sinners, or sat in the seat of scorners. Rather the teaching of the Lord is his delight’. In other words, there is pleasure in this world, but it is not to be found at the theaters. 8 En. Ps. 51.13 (CChr.SL 39, 632-3), Boulding, WSA III/17, 25-6, quoted in G. Toretta, ‘Preaching on Laughter’ (2015), 149. See also J. Van Neer, ‘Observations on Augustine’ (2006), 81-92.

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(ibid.). It was said about Reish Lakish that once he heard this teaching from his teacher Rabbi Yochanan, never in his days did he fill his mouth with laughter.9

The specific focus here is on restraining oneself from laughter because it is reserved for the next world.10 Only if we understand laughter and joy as a repressed force in this world can we appreciate its release in the eschatological future. But this is not only a matter of purposely saving up our laughter until later. This-worldly laughter is, as Tertullian had argued, an illusion. Or as the Talmud explains, is futile. Even God’s own laughter in this world is futile, and fundamentally different from the laughter of the next world. The Talmud expresses this in the context of a problem with a verse from Proverbs: What is the meaning of Prov. 29:9, ‘When a wise man enters into litigation with a fool, whether he rages or laughs, there is no pleasure’?

The text explains the ‘wise man’ as God, who laughs in celebration of a loyal Judean king, Amaziah, but for naught: The holy One, blessed be He, said… I laughed for11 Amaziah and handed over to him the kings of Edom, and he brought their gods and bowed down to them! As it is written (2Chr. 25:14): ‘After Amaziah returned from defeating the Edomites, he had the gods of the men of Seir brought, and installed them as his gods; he bowed down before them and made sacrifice to them’.12

In other words, the delight God took in Amaziah, a loyal king, which God had expressed through laughter, was either misplaced or ineffective (depending on whether it was celebratory or goal oriented), since Amaziah worshipped foreign gods anyway.

9

bBer 31a. All rabbinic translations are my own and are based on the choice manuscript of the Ma’agarim database of the Historical Dictionary Project of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. I cite the manuscript itself only when there are meaningful variants from the printed edition. 10 The pursuit of suffering or the embrace of persecution is a closely related theme, but not to be confused with restraining one’s joy or, in other contexts, properly contextualizing one’s thisworldly joy in contrast to one’s greater next-worldly joy. Thus, John Chrysostom’s statement that this world ‘is not the theatre of laughter; we have come together not to burst out into guffaws but to groan with grief’ (In Mt. 6.6-8 [PG 57, 69-72], quoted and trans. in Stephen Halliwell, Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity [New York, 2008], 504; see G. Toretta, ‘Preaching on Laughter’ [2015], 150) is specifically focused on eschewing laughter in this world in favor of grief in this world, as are numerous similar statements in rabbinic literature (see Eliezer Diamond, Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture [New York, 2004], 59-74). Tertullian too includes this in the last few chapters of de Spectaculis, but it’s only part of the picture. 11 The printed edition reads ‘with Amaziah,’ but the choice manuscript of the Maagarim database, MS Jerusalem, Yad Harav Herzog, reads ‫ – לאמציה‬for Amaziah. 12 bSan 103b, based on MS Jerusalem, Yad Harav Herzog.

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The hierarchy of laughter and enjoyment in this world as opposed to the next comes up in a variety of ways in rabbinic literature. Most straightforwardly, the Mishnah states: ‘Greater is one moment of bliss in the next world than all the life of this world’.13 A Palestinian rabbinic text14 commenting on Ps. 126:2, ‘Then our mouths will be full of laughter’, expands on the nature of that eschatological laughter and joy: When a person is happy in this world, his happiness is not complete. How so? In this world, a person has a child, and he worries about him: will it live or not? And therefore he suffers. But in the coming future, the holy One, blessed be He, will swallow up death, as it is said (Isaiah 25:8), ‘He will swallow up death forever’. That moment will be complete happiness, as it is said (Ps. 126:2), ‘Then our mouths will be full of laughter and our tongues of joy’.15

Again, the eschatological laughter here is not derisive, vindictive, or outwardly directed. It is celebratory, freed from death, and a release from the incomplete joy of this world. A second aspect of eschatological laughter that appears in both rabbinic16 and patristic texts is laughter of eschatological confidence. The narrowest form of this laughter is that of an individual at the time of his death, expressing confidence in his approaching personal judgment by God. One particular such case also serves to show that what seems like derisive laughter may in fact be something quite different. The following story is told about the famous rabbi, Rav Yehudah, and it appears in the Talmud immediately after a story in which Rav Yehudah makes the difficult decision to excommunicate a prominent but problematic Torah scholar: Eventually, Rav Yehudah became ill (and was near death). The other rabbis came to check on him, and he (the one Rav Yehudah had excommunicated) came along with them. When Rav Yehudah saw him, he (Rav Yehudah), laughed. He (the excommunicated rabbi) said, ‘It’s not enough for you that you excommunicated me? You also have to laugh at me?!’ He (Rav Yehudah) said to him: ‘I’m not laughing at you. I am happy that I’m going to the next world, having not flattered even a man such as you’.17

Rav Yehudah’s laughter here is spurred on at the sight of a person who symbolizes Rav Yehudah’s integrity as a communal leader. This sparks joy to the point of laughter, because he realizes that he will be rewarded for this in the world to come. Of course, on the surface, it looks like he is laughing at the 13

mAvot 4:17. This passage is an apparent addition to Pesikta d’Rav Kahana found only in MS Safed but cited as Pesiqta in Yalkut Shimoni. See Mandelbaum, Pesikta de Rav Kahana 2:452. 15 Pesikta d’Rav Kahana Appendix 2, Parashah Acheret, Mandelbaum 2:452. 16 Chaim W. Reines, ‘Laughter in Biblical and Rabbinic Literature’, Judaism 21 (1972), 17683. 17 bMQ 17a. 14

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rabbi he had excommunicated, when in actuality his laughter reflects the sudden onset of eschatological confidence. There are numerous other Talmudic narratives that include laughter of eschatological confidence that is misunderstood and has to be explained.18 Laughter of eschatological confidence is perplexing and misleading. It seems incongruous, as it always comes at surprising moments. The authors of the Talmud understood this, which we know because they wrote multiple narratives that express it clearly. This should therefore inform the way we read other instances of eschatological laughter. This brings us to the texts to which I referred at the beginning. A long talmudic passage19 describes a trial that takes place at the end of days, when the nations of the world – besides Israel – contend for their right to the rewards of salvation. There are ups and downs during the several-pages-long trial,20 but at the end, the nations fail God’s final test, and they are condemned. Immediately after that, the text states: ‘The holy One, blessed be He, sits and laughs at them, as it says (Ps. 2:4): ‘He who sits in heaven laughs’.’21

Looked at in isolation, and all the more so in connection with the biblical verse cited alongside it, which continues, ‘The Lord derides them’, God is laughing at the nations for their foolishness and self-destructiveness, delighting in their condemnation. But we need to zoom out to see a fuller picture. Immediately after God’s laughter, a third-century Palestinian sage, Rabbi Isaac notes: ‘The holy One, blessed be He, never laughed except for that day alone’.22 God’s laughter was restricted to an eschatological context. In fact, the laughter was preserved for that moment of transition, when the trials and decisions about who will enjoy or suffer what fate in the eschaton have finally been decided. 23 Throughout the trial narrative, the nations actually hold their own, and it is reasonable to imagine the audience – or God in the narrative – experiencing 18

See bYoma 38a and tYoma 2:7; ySheq 49a 5:1; bMak 24a-b. bAZ 2a-3b. 20 See Jenny R. Labendz, ‘Rabbinic Eschatology: Complexity, Ambiguity, and Radical SelfReflection’, JQR 107 (2017), 269-96. 21 bAZ 3b. 22 bAZ 3b. 23 Following this statement in the Talmud at the end of the trial narrative, there is a discrepancy among slightly later rabbis as to which day, connected with which story, Rabbi Isaac was actually referring to when he said, ‘The holy One, blessed be He, never laughed except for that day alone’. The alternative possibility suggested is that this was a post-script to a shorter narrative in which the nations seem to convert to Judaism at the eschaton, affixing ritual fringes on their clothes and mezuzahs on their doorposts, and donning phylacteries on their arms and foreheads. But when they see the eschatological battle of God and Magog, they immediately flee and leave the divine commandments behind, leading to God’s laughter and evoking Psalm 2:4, ‘The one who sits in heaven laughs’. Whichever story Rabbi Isaac was referring to, the same point still holds about what it means for eschatological laughter. 19

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some anxiety over the nations potentially prevailing and earning salvation despite all the rabbinic theology that would otherwise condemn them. But finally, they fail. The laughter need not be read as derisive, but as the sudden experience of long pent-up confidence that the next world order will proceed as expected. This is laughter both of sudden confidence and the release of longpent up joy. Likewise, at the conclusion of De spectaculis, Tertullian says that the Day of Judgment will inspire ‘wonder, joy, exultation, and laughter (rideam)’24 in Tertullian himself as he watches it unfold. Tertullian doesn’t specify what sight or what aspect of that Day will inspire this reaction in him. The graphic descriptions that immediately follow his mention of these emotions and this laughter are of the fiery eschatological punishment of kings, poets, philosophers, actors, athletes, and those who persecuted Christians: ‘as I see all those kings, those great kings, welcomed (we were told) in heaven, along with Jove, along with those who told of their ascent, groaning in the depths of darkness!’ Is he looking forward to deriding them? I suggest that he is not, for two reasons. First, Tertullian uses the word derisus – derision – a few line prior when he refers to how the Gentiles used to laugh at the Day of Judgment, not believing it would actually come. He does not use that word in his descriptions of his own attitude towards the Judgment Day spectacles of punishment.25 Second, it may be that we should read his reference to laughter, especially since it is not the word for derision, in connection not with the spectacular punishments of the wicked that follow it, but with the lines that come before it. The final chapter of de Spectaculis begins: But what a spectacle is already at hand – the return of the Lord, now no object of doubt, now exalted, now triumphant! What exultation will that be of angels, what glory of the saints as they rise again! What the reign of the righteous thereafter! What a city, the New Jerusalem! Yes, and there are still to come other spectacles – that last, that eternal Day of Judgment, that Day which the Gentiles never believed would come, that Day they laughed at (derisus), when this old world and all its generations shall be consumed in one fire. How vast the spectacle of that Day, and how wide! What sight shall wake my wonder (admirer), what my laughter (rideam), my joy and exultation? as I see all those kings, those great kings, welcomed (we were told) in heaven, along with Jove, along with those who told of their ascent, groaning in the depths of darkness!

There are numerous aspects of the eschaton that Tertullian refers to in this passage: the rise of the saints, the reign of the righteous, the establishment of the New Jerusalem, the consumption of ‘this old world and all its generations’ 24

De spec. 30. The translation of Glover uses the word ‘laughter’ for both instances, and the translation of Thelwall uses ‘derision’ for both. 25

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in fire, the Day of Judgment. All of these are then summarized as a ‘vast’ (latitudo) spectacle. Only then does he talk about the range of his reactions that all this will evoke, including laughter: ‘What sight shall wake my wonder (admirer), what my laughter (rideam), my joy and exultation?’ After this transition sentence about his reactions to it all, he begins to detail the gruesome punishment of the wicked, beginning with the Gentile kings. (This carries him almost to the end of the chapter.) After detailing those who will suffer on that day, he concludes: ‘Such sights, such exultation’, not mentioning laughter or joy again. This shores up my suggestion that the laughter he mentions in the middle of this paragraph is not that of derision or Schadenfreude but of delighted surprise at the actual arrival of the Day of Judgment, ‘now no object of doubt’, as he says at the start of the paragraph. His laughter represents the release of that repressed laughter that he discussed in the two prior chapters of de Spectaculis, and the sudden elimination of all doubt. That is, it is the laughter of suddenly experienced confidence, and of pent up joy that had been repressed in this world. Thus, in both De spectaculis and the Talmud laughter ushers in the next world. It heralds the conclusion of the transition period. It does not look backwards – at the nations being crushed by divine judgment – but forwards at the new world. Why does this all matter? This examination of eschatological laughter has shown that the place of retribution and Schadenfreude in eschatology should not be taken for granted. It behooves us to consider laughter and other aspects of eschatology both because they elucidate the specific texts in question, and because of their consequences for the whole concept of eschatology. This is not the only feature of eschatology that has been obscured by a narrow view of its Schadenfreude, catharsis, or angry vengeance. For example, the rabbis of the Talmud occasionally use end-times discourse as a rhetorical safe-space, in which they allow themselves to give voice to their more daring ideas, pushing theological envelopes under cover of eschatology.26 Another example is the violent fantasies of eschatological punishment, which may be more concerned with shoring up rabbinic authority in this world, especially in the context of the rabbis’ Roman political and judicial context, than about eschatological hope for cathartic revenge.27 There are simple truths involved in eschatology, to be sure: everyone wants to hope for a better future, and we all wish to escape death and grief. But the complexity and richness of the Jewish and Christian literatures that express those feelings deserve a deeper examination as well. 26

See J.R. Labendz, ‘Rabbinic Eschatology’ (2017), 280-90. See for comparison Beth Berkowitz’s analysis of violent criminal punishment in rabbinic literature, Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures (Oxford, 2006). 27

The Typology of the Patriarchs Jacob and Joseph in Early Christian Tradition Marius A. VAN WILLIGEN, TUA, Apeldoorn, he Netherlands

ABSTRACT The exegesis of the patriarchs has a rich history. Not only has the history of Abraham been widely explained in Judaism, Early Christianity and Islam, so have the other two patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob.1 The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are explained in Jewish exegetical tradition by Philo of Alexandria as three that belong together.2 In his works Philo treats these three patriarchs as an important triad that can be explained on different levels.3 The question I want to ask here is whether this triad is also adopted in the same way in Christian exegesis, especially when it comes to the typology of the individual persons.4 The allegorical and typological interpretations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Philo do seem to be adopted in part in Early Christian exegesis. Ambrose clearly shows this in his treatises on the patriarchs. On the other hand, attention to the triad, which is so important to Philo, seems to fade into the background on behalf of a double typology, especially the typology of the Divine persons.

Introduction In Christianity, typology more than once leads to a linked typology of the Father and the Son. In comparison with the Jewish exegetical tradition, this 1 For a recent study on the exegesis of Abraham in Islamic and Jewish traditions, see Shari L. Lowin, ‘Abraham in Islamitic and Jewish Exegesis’, Religion Compass 5 (2011), 224-35. This study deals with four different categories in the history of Abraham, namely: Abraham and his sacrifice of his son, Abraham and his relationship with Sarah, Abraham and his later visit to Ishmael, and narratives to Abraham’s birth and early life. 2 See the General Introduction in F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker (eds), Philo, VI, LCL 289 (London, Cambridge, MA, 1966), ix-xviii. 3 Philo was planning to write six tracts. In the first three tracts, about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of which the last two have been lost, he wanted to show that Moses represented the history of the soul in two triads. The first triad, Enos, Enoch and Noah, represented respectively Hope, Repentance or Improvement, and Justice. The first triad, according to Philo, is not wise in the true sense of the word. The second triad, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, represent Wisdom or Virtue, acquired through teaching, nature and practice. See F.H. Colson, Philo, VI (1966), x-xi. 4 All three patriarchs are explained typologically in Christianity. The question is how this is done. In the present investigation this point is further elaborated and linked to the question whether this typological explanation breaks through the triad or leaves it intact.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 123-140. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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linked typology is a new development that we want to elaborate in this paper.5 Most strongly, this linked typology seems to be present in the representation of Abraham as a type of God the Father, who is willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, as a type of God the Son.6 But in addition, this linked father-son typology also appears to be applicable in the Early Christian exegesis of other patriarchs.7 The question I want to answer here is how exactly this linked typology then takes shape in the exegesis of the history of the patriarch Joseph. A related question is the question of the exclusivity of the Christological interpretations themselves, in which an Old Testament person – in this case a patriarch – is interpreted as a type of Christ. Is a Christological typology, such as that of Isaac, also applicable to other persons within the triad, for example to Jacob? Another question is whether a Christological typology can also be applied outside the triad to a patriarch other than the patriarch Joseph, for example the patriarch Judah. After all, in addition to the triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, will there also be fixed and predetermined persons – in the next generation of patriarchs – to whom the Christological typology is applied for a special reason as well? The triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and typological explanations of Jacob and Joseph An important preliminary question is how the triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is explained allegorically and typologically by Philo, and then whether this Jewish exegesis is adopted in a similar way in Early Christianity. In answering the last question, we would like to focus on some key passages from the NT where the triad is mentioned, and also on Ambrose of Milan. This church father wrote seven books about the patriarchs and was inspired by Philo. Ambrose 5 In the Jewish exegesis of Philo Abraham’s (intended) sacrifice of Isaac is variously explained, but Isaac is not typologically linked to Abraham: ‘It is, of course, no human being, but the fruit of a rich and fertile soul which is offered (Mig. 142, Leg. All. iii. 209); the sum offering of the mind that has reached the summit (ib. 139, cf. Abr. 172); a fitting thank-offering, which illustrates what it is not to beget for oneself (Quod Deus 4): a perfect, undivided, whole burnt-offering (cf. Som. i.194), because Isaac had no passion which breeds corruption (Sac. 110); the sacrifice of the good emotion of the understanding, that is, joy, showing that rejoicing is most clearly associated with God alone (Abr. 202, Leg. All. iii.209).’ See F.H. Colson and J.W, Earp (eds), Philo, X, LCL 379 (London, Cambridge, MA, 1971), 328. 6 Jean Daniélou, Sacramentum Futuri. Études sur les Origines de la Typologie Biblique (Paris, 1950), 97-111. 7 Thus, Ambrose gives the same linked typology in his explanation of the patriarch Joseph sent by Jacob to Dothan. Jacob stands here for the Father, Joseph stands here for the Son. The exact locations where these explanations of Jacob and Joseph can be found are treated in the passage about the linked typology of Jacob-Joseph.

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is therefore an important starting point for our research and also an important link between Jewish and Christian exegesis. Next, we want to look at the effect of the Early Christian typological explanation of the patriarchs Jacob and Joseph on the triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The typology of Joseph seems to be linked more than once to the typology of Jacob in Christian exegesis. We want to investigate the Early Christian typology of Joseph and Jacob in the Greek, Latin and Syrian traditions on the basis of Hippolyte of Rome, Chrysostom, Tertullian, Ambrose and Ephrem the Syrian. Finally, we want to compare the similarities in this typological explanation of the story of Joseph, in which thus a double typology occurs, with the Early Christian typological explanation of Isaac’s sacrificial story. Finally, we would like to investigate whether the linked typological explanation of Jacob and Joseph breaks through the triad indicated by Philo, and how this happens. Philo Alexandrinus’ exegesis of the patriarchs Philo’s real goal with his books on Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was to show us that Moses wanted to present the history of the soul in two triads. The first triad consisted of Enos, Enoch and Noah. This triad represented hope, repentance/ improvement and justice. They are three sages who are wise but in an imperfect way. This triad is followed by a triad in which the three sages are really wise: the triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the exegesis Philo gives of these patriarchs he wants to characterize them as representatives of Wisdom and Virtue. Philo sees the patriarchs as extraordinarily important representatives of this Wisdom and Virtue acquired through education, nature and practice.8 In this threefold the three patriarchs each have their own position, and this is also reflected in their names. Before we go into more detail, we would like to briefly point out that Joseph, about whom Philo wrote an extensive exegesis, falls completely outside this triad.9 Philo explains the name of Abraham in different ways. Here we mention the most striking interpretations and expressions.10 He calls him πατὴρ ἐκλεκτὸς 8

F.H. Colson (ed.), Philo, VI (1966), x. F.H. Colson (ed.), Philo, VI (1966), xii: ‘The qualities of the ideal “politician” or “statesmen” might serve as an effective supplement to those of the contemplative and philosophical life, but they do not bear much relation to the three types of Teaching, Nature and Practice, and when Philo in the De praemiis gives a sort of recapitulatory survey of the historical part of the law-book, while Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses are all discussed again, there is no word of Joseph.’ 10 Within the framework of this study there are too many names and designations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to mention them individually. For this reason, I have focused on a few very characteristic designations that are especially helpful in better illustrating the different interpretations of these patriarchs’ names made by Philo and Ambrose. For further information, including the name and personal attributes of Joseph, I would like to refer to the well elaborated index of 9

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ἡχοῦς, elect father of sound,11 and typifies him as σύμβολον διδασκαλικῆς ἀρετῆς, a symbol of virtue acquired by teaching. In addition, Abraham is also described as a wise man and as the one who loves God: σοϕός and ϕιλόθεος. Philo also calls him the perfect one, ὁ τελείος and the reliable one, ὁ πιστός.12 The designation πατὴρ ἐκλεκτὸς ἡχοῦς for Abraham clearly shows that Abraham has a special position as a father, but that this position is not specially linked to his son Isaac. Philo links the name Isaac to laughter and gladness, γέλως and χαρά and to happiness, ἡ εὐδαιμονία, but in a number of Isaac’s other characterizations a striking resemblance to Abraham’s ones is seen. Isaac, like Abraham, is perfect in the virtues, ὁ ἐν ἀρεταῖς τέλειος, he is also the type of the wise one, ὁ σοϕός or the all-wise one, ὁ πάνσοϕος. While Abraham is a σύμβολον διδασκαλικῆς ἀρετῆς, Isaac is a ϕυσικῆς ἀρετῆς σύμβολον, a symbol of virtue acquired by nature, and a τελειότητος σύμβολον, a symbol of perfection, as well.13 Finally, Abraham is referred to as the reliable one, ὁ πιστός. Philo speaks of the trustworthiness of God when He swears an oath, when he refers in another place to the person of Moses, who is also called trustworthy (Num. 12:7) πιστὸς ἐν παντὶ τῷ οἴκῳ.14 Philo, however, does not refer to Isaac here in the same way as to Abraham, so not as πιστὸς, but he calls him ἀστεῖος good, noble, honorable.15 Philo also uses this characterization for the person of Moses in his work De confusione linguarum, par. 106.16 In the descriptions that Philo attaches to Isaac it is striking that Isaac develops independently. Isaac is ὁ αὐτομαθὴς καὶ αὐτοδίδακτος,17 who learns from no teacher but himself, as well as τῆς αὐτομαθοῦς σοϕίας εἰκὼν ἐναργεστάτη,18 that clearest image of selflearned wisdom. Finally, Philo also typifies him as the immanent son of God, ὁ ἐνδιάθετος υἱὸς θεοῦ.19 Philo typifies Isaac also as κεκωλυμένος τῆς σαρκὸς ἐντυγχάνειν δελεαζούσαις ἡδοναῖς, which means a person immune to the temptations of names in the Loeb edition of F.H. Colson. See F.H. Colson and J.W. Earp (eds), Philo, X (1971), 271-357. 11 See Clemens Alexandrinus who uses the same interpretation of Abraham, in Clem., Str. 5.1 (p. 331.9, v.l. ἤχους M.9.20A). 12 See for the exact locations where these explanations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are given: L. Cohn and P. Wendland (eds), Philonis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt (Berlin, 1926), vol. VII, p. 3, s.v. Abraham, IV 20,5; IV 13,4; IV 137,15; IV 251,9; I 171,19; I 158,12; II 38,19. 13 Cohn, VII pp. 12-13 s.v. Isaac, I 162,1; I 106,26; II 216,24; III 153,3; I 181,15, I 219,11; IV 13,5, III 158,13. 14 Cohn, I 158,21 (Num. 12:7). 15 Franco Montanari, Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder (eds), The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (Leiden, Boston, 2015), 320. 16 Cohn, II 249,10. In Hebr. 11:23 this term also appears as a characterization of the young Moses, ἀστεῖον τὸ παιδἱον. 17 Cohn, III 261,2. 18 Cohn, II 57,4. 19 Cohn, III 179,5.

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the flesh20 and as ὁλοκαυτωμάτων ἐναργὲς παράδειγμα,21 a clear example of burnt-offerings. Philo’s explanation of the name Isaac is richly variegated. However, the same can be said about the explanation of the names of Abraham and Jacob. These are also richly variegated. The explanation of Jacob’s name is centered around a number of characteristic terms. Jacob is first of all ὁ ἀσκητής, which originally means someone who practices fighting. There is a lot of variation on this term. Jacob is also referred to as ὁ ἀρετῆς ἀσκητής, the one who practices virtue and also as a ἀσκητὴς τῶν καλῶν, one who practices the good things. In addition, he is even characterized as ὁ τελειωθεὶς ἐξ ἀσκήσεως, he who became perfect because of his training, next he is also called ὁ ἀθλητής, the athlete and ὁ τὴν πρὸς πάθη πάλην γεγυμνασμένος, he who has been trained to fight the passions. When Philo calls his father Isaac ὁ ἀστεῖος, good, noble, honorable, Jacob is also described in the same manner, a designation which Philo used for Moses too. Jacob is also ἀσκήσεως σύμβολον, a symbol of training, as well as ἀσκητικῆς ἀρετῆς σύμβολον, a symbol of the virtue of training and πόνου καὶ προκοπῆς σύμβολον, a symbol of effort and progress.22 Jacob is also referred to by Philo as ἄρχων, ἡγεμών and δεσπότης, ruler, and as ὁ πτερνιστής, the victor.23 The latter term is further developed by Philo and is also used in Early Christian exegesis by Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea and Nilus.24 Another variant of this term in Philo is ὁ πτερνιστής τῶν παθῶν καὶ ἀσκητὴς ἀρετῆς, the victor of passions and someone who practices virtue.25 A special gift that Isaac shares with Jacob is his ability to prophesy.26 The triad of the patriarchs in the NT The triad of the three Patriarchs appears in the New Testament in an eschatological prophecy uttered by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: “But I say to you that many will come from east and west, and they will go to table with 20

Cohn, II 274,19. Cohn, I 247,5. 22 See s.v. Iakob, Cohn III 262,15; I 268,20; II 298,14; II 103,19; II 228,2; I 155,23; III 158,13; IV 13,6; I 250,13. 23 Cohn I 132,20 and III 171,4. 24 Origen. Fragm. in Proverbia, Psalm 80:2, … ἀλαλάξεις τῷ θεῷ ὡς μιμητὴς τοῦ πτερνιστοῦ ’Ιακώβ. See Eusebii Caesariensis Praeparatio evangelica, lib. XI (PG 21, 860D) Πτερνιστὴς γὰρ ό ’Ιακὼβ ἑρμηνεύεται, ὡς τὸν ἀρετῆς ἐναθλῶν ἀγῶνα and Nilus, Epp. 3.112 (PG 79, 436C). 25 Cohn, I 134,2. 26 Philo, Quis rerum divinarum heres sit 261: What of Isaac? What op Jacob? They too are confessed as prophets by many other evidences, but particularly by their speeches addressed to their children. See F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker (eds), Philo, IV, LCL 261 (London, Cambridge, MA, 1932), 416-7. 21

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Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.27 Another related prophetic statement of Jesus which also mentions the triad is found in Luke: ‘There will be wailing and teeth grinding, when you will see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God, but you will be cast out’.28 Luke speaks several times about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the book of Acts.29 Paul uses the triad in a doctrinal passage in the letter to the Romans.30 In Hebrews 11 the triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is again extensively discussed, after the other triad mentioned by Philo. The person of Enos is missing here, however, although Enoch and Noah are mentioned, while Sarah is also added to the triad of the patriarchs.31 The distinction made by Philo between the first and second triad is also not recognized in Hebrews 11. The whole chapter is about life through faith. In it the given examples are equivalent to each other, although one believer is highlighted more than the other. The faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Joseph gets the requisite attention, within the framework of a haggadah.32 It is noteworthy that the actions of Abraham, and especially his faith, are highlighted in great detail in the letter to the Hebrews and also in other places in the New Testament.33 The faith of Isaac, Jacob and Joseph is much less extensively discussed in Hebrews 11, in contrast to the faith of Abraham.34 The faith of each of these patriarchs is described very succinctly in only one verse.35 In Hebrews 11 we do not find an explicit reference to the typological Christological exegesis in the sacrifice made by Abraham. Abraham’s obedience to God’s command to sacrifice Isaac is an example of faith. In the epistle to the Hebrews, therefore, the sacrifice and redemption of Isaac is not yet typologically associated with the sacrifice and resurrection of 27

Matt. 8:11. Lk. 11:28. 29 Acts 3:13; 7:32. 30 Rom. 9:6-16. 31 The addition of Sarah to Abraham and Isaac is also applied by Ambrose in his work De Isaac uel anima, 1,1, where he also gives a beautiful typology to Sarah and Isaac, CSEL 32.2 (Vienna, 1897), 641-2, De Isaac uel anima 1,1: neque uero istud mirabile, cum in eo dominicae generationis et passionis figura praecesserit, siquidem et sterilis anus ex promissione dei peperit eum, ut crederemus quod potens est deus facere, ut possit et uirgo generare, et oblatus unicus ad inmolandum, qui et patri non periret et inpleret sacrificium. 32 J. Daniélou, Sacramentum Futuri (1950), 98. 33 Hebr. 11:8-19 and Rom. 5:3-5. 34 The explanation given in Hebrews 11 could be called exemplary. In this chapter the patriarchs are presented to the readers as an example of faith. However, in the Early Christian explanation of the patriarchs we often find a much more elaborate exegesis and exegetical differentiation. The faith of the patriarchs is seen in Early Christian exegesis as an established fact and assumed to be characteristic of these patriarchs, without this being further elaborated in the exegesis of the text. In the case of Abraham, who is also called ‘the father of all believers’, however, the emphasis on Abraham’s faith in the Early Christian exegesis is often present. 35 Hebr. 11:20-2. 28

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Christ.36 In James 2:21, where the sacrifice of Isaac is mentioned again, there is no typological connection with the sacrifice of Christ either. In the first century, however, Christian exegesis at an early stage regarded the sacrifice of Isaac as a prelude to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. This exegesis already appears in the first century in the Epistle of Barnabas, a letter that also occurs in the oldest Bible manuscripts and was widely read in the Early Church by catechumens.

The triad of the patriarchs in Ambrose’s works Ambrose adopted the triad of the patriarchs as it originally appears in Philo in his books about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with requisite adaptations. However, the structure of the triad is still clearly recognizable in the structure of the works that Ambrose wrote about the three patriarchs. 37 Ambrose’s emphasis on the virtues of the patriarchs is typical; in this Ambrose follows Philo. For Ambrose the patriarchs are also important representatives of Wisdom and Virtue. In the design of these works Ambrose, like Philo, has taken the three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as a starting point, and they form a sort of overarching theme for the content. In the expression De Isaac uel anima Ambrose shows that he basically adopts the original treatment of the patriarchs proposed by Philo, namely as different phases in the history of the soul’s development, at least as far as its grand structure is concerned. Ambrose actually wrote two books about each patriarch. In the first book about each patriarch, essentially different aspects often come to the fore than those in the second one. The character of both books can also be very different.38 Ambrose wrote an extensive exegesis on Abraham in two books, De Abraham I and II. In this book it becomes clear that Ambrose chooses his own exegetical approach, which deviates from that of Philo. In his first book about Abraham, Ambrose declares that he wants to reflect on the actions of this 36

Hebr. 11:17-9. Although the oldest Ambrose manuscripts do not represent the seven books about the Patriarchs indicated by Cassiodorus in this order, the later handwriting tradition shows that we may assume this. See. G. Nauroy, Ambroise de Milan, Jacob et la vie heureuse, SC 534 (Paris, 2010), 8-9. In the second book Ambrose always refers to the exegesis of the same patriarch he gave in the first book. Assuming the indicated coherence, there are then seven books about the Patriarchs: De Abraham I, II, De Isaac uel anima, De bono mortis, De Iacob et uita beata I, II and finally De Ioseph and De Patriarchis, combined as one book. See also Marius A. van Willigen, Ambrosii Episcopi Mediolanensis De Ioseph, Vertaling en filologisch commentaar (thesis) (Zoetermeer, 2008), 26. The classification of the seven books about the Patriarchs mentioned in this footnote can apply as the most recent one. 38 A. di Berardino (ed.), Patrology. Vol. IV: The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicea to the Council of Chalcedon (Westminster, MD), 156-9. 37

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patriarch according to the sensus moralis.39 In the second book about Abraham, however, Ambrose indicates that he also wants to explore the deeper meaning of the Bible text about Abraham. He explains the name of Abraham in the second book as transitus and then indicates how the spirit of man, who in Adam had surrendered entirely to amusement and physical temptation, can fundamentally change by focusing on virtue (transitus in formam uirtutis speciemque). This can be done by following the example of wise Abraham.40 Ambrose also wrote a work about Isaac in two parts, De Isaac uel anima and De bono mortis, in which he examines the soul of man and gives his vision of life and death.41 Finally Ambrose wrote a work in two parts about Jacob: De Iacob et uita beata. So, Ambrose certainly adopted the original design of Philo’s triad in three separate books. But in the characterization of the patriarchs we see a clear Christianization. Philo’s philosophical approach has largely been replaced by an approach more focused on Christian behaviour. Also, in the exegesis of the patriarchs’ deeds in the separate books, Ambrose has clearly Christianized the character of the patriarchs typified by Philo.42 In his introduction to the treatise on Joseph, Ambrose summarizes the virtues of the patriarchs as follows: With Abraham there is an impigra fidei deuotio, with Isaac a sincerae mentis puritas and with Jacob there is a singularis animi laborumque patientia. These characterizations deviate greatly from the expressions given by Philo for the patriarchs. In the explanation of the name Abraham Ambrose seems to link up especially with the Christian vision of fides as expressed in Hebr. 11, with the term puritas of Isaac Ambrose links up very clearly with the Christian ideal of virginity, and with the term patientia of Jacob he makes a Christian translation of the Greek term ὑπομόνη.43 The linked typology of Jacob and Joseph in the exegesis of the history of the patriarch Joseph The question I want to answer here is how exactly this linked typology takes shape in the Early Christian exegesis of the patriarch Joseph’s history. We would like to focus on some passages from the Early Christian exegesis of Joseph’s story by Hippolytus of Rome, Tertullian, Ambrose, Chrysostom and Ephrem the Syrian. 39 Ambr., De Abr. I 1: Abraham libri huius titulus est, quoniam per ordinem huius quoque patriarchae gesta considerare animum subiit. De quo nobis moralis primo erit tractatus et simplex. 40 Philo’s influence is unmistakable here. See Ambr., De Abr. II, I 1. Also the indication ‘wise’ is clearly derived from Philo. 41 The first part focuses on the soul. In the second part Ambrose discusses what life and death mean. 42 See Ambr., De Ios. 1,1: Iustum est igitur ut, cum in Abraham dediceritis inpigram fidei deuotionem, in Isaac sincerae mentis puritatem, in Iacob singularem animi laborumque patientiam, ex illa generalitate uirtutum in ipsas species disciplinarum intendatis animum. 43 Rom. 5:3-5.

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Hippolytus of Rome The double typology of Jacob and Joseph already occurs in the writing of Hippolytus of Rome. In the explanation of Joseph’s blessing (Gen. 49:21-6) Hippolytus shows that the son who grew up and was hated is ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’. He was persecuted by those who wanted to hate him, He endured the cross, but He came back to life as God and was invited by His Father to sit with Him. To Him God and His Father said: ‘Sit at My right hand’.44 Hippolytus actually works out the next part of the blessing here: ‘Turn to me again’, words which the father, Jacob, also said to his son, Joseph, in blessing him. Although Hippolytus does not explicitly repeat this part of the text, it is clear that the invitation ‘Sit at My right hand’ is a further elaboration of this. We encounter the explicit reference to this text a little further on in the exegesis of Hippolytus. In the further explanation of the words of the blessing, the statement ‘their bows are broken and the muscles of their arms are made limp by the hand of the mighty Jacob’ is also directly associated with God the Father: ‘Of the mighty Jacob, that is, of God and of the Father of powers, who made the Son to be praised in heaven and on earth’.45 The extraordinary exaltation of Joseph, about which Jacob speaks extensively in his fatherly blessing, is then directly linked by Hippolytus to the glorification of the Son by the Father. On the one hand He took the form of a slave and became obedient to God and the Father until death, and on the other hand He prayed: ‘Father glorify me with the glory I had’.46 The double typology of Jacob as God the Father and of Joseph as His Son glorified by the Father is thus underlined here by Hippolytus with a quote from the Gospel of John.47 The words: ‘Turn to Me again’ are directly connected by Hippolytus to Christ’s being received (ἀνάληψις) into heaven by God the Father. Also the text: ‘And my God has helped you’ clearly shows, according to Hippolytus, ‘that the help and support to the Son came from none other than God and the Father who is in heaven’. Through the wording ‘my God’ it is made clear, according to Hippolytus, that the Spirit speaks through Jacob (διὰ τοῦ Ἰακώβ).48 Tertullian In Tertullian we come across an exegesis of the Joseph story in two different works.49 This is actually a duplication with marginal changes. Perhaps it is even an older text that Tertullian copied from an earlier Christian exegete. In both 44 45 46 47 48 49

Hippol., Exegetica, Fragmenta Hippol., Exegetica, Fragmenta Joh. 17:5. Hippol., Exegetica, Fragmenta Hippol., Exegetica, Fragmenta Tert., Adv. Marc. III 18.

in Genesim (PG 10, 595-7). in Genesim (PG 10, 597-8). in Genesim (PG 10, 599-600). in Genesim (PG 10, 601-2).

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passages Tertullian has a fundamental discussion about the question whether one should believe that the Creator has surrendered His Son to the death on the cross, all the more because ‘everyone who has hung on the wood is cursed’. Tertullian gives two examples as evidence that this was God’s intention: the example of Isaac, who was handed over as a sacrifice by his father, Abraham, who carried the wood himself, with which he then already indicated the end of Christ, who was handed over as a victim by the Father and who himself had to bear the wood of his own suffering.50 The second example is Joseph who, because of God’s grace, had to suffer the persecution of his own brothers, just as Christ had to suffer in his body at the hands of the Jews. After all, Joseph was blessed by the father with these words: tauri decor eius, cornua unicornis cornua eius, in eis nationes uentilabit pariter ad summum usque terrae. Here, too, there is a double typology, which – if one analyses the passage better – is actually very cleverly constructed. The one who pronounces the blessing and is referred to as a father in the Latin text is not Jacob, but Moses. The blessing is pronounced on Joseph: this is undisputed, but really by Moses. Tertullian here seems to need the double connected typology for his argumentation. The Latin text gives no variants on this point and there is therefore no reason to doubt the authenticity of this passage. The elaboration of the text is fully Christological.51 Ambrose Ambrose also gives a double typology relating to Jacob’s blessing of Joseph, in response to Gen. 49:22-6. First of all, Ambrose deals with this passage in the treatise on the patriarch Joseph.52 In his interpretation, the blessing placed on Joseph is explained as a praise of the merits of Christ, which far exceed the merits of all. In this brief exposition Ambrose does not speak about the return of the Son who is called back by the Father. However, he does do so in explaining the same passage in his work De Patriarchis.53 In the extensive explanation of the blessing in De Patriarchis, Ambrose first wonders why Jacob in this blessing so greatly surpasses the brothers’ one: the blessing Joseph receives is, after all, much richer than that of his brothers. As an explanation for this he 50 Tert., Adv. Marc. III 18,2: Itaque imprimis Isaac, cum a patre in hostiam deditus lignum sibi portaret ipse, Christi exitum iam tunc denotabat. In victimam concessi a patre et lignum passionis suae baiulantis. 51 Tert., Adv. Marc. III 18,3-4 : … non utique rhinoceros destinabatur unicornis nec minotaurus bicornis, sed Christus in illo significabatur, taurus ob utramque dispositionem, aliis ferus ut iudex, aliis mansuetus ut saluator, cuius cornua essent crucis extima. Nam et in antemna, quae crucis pars est, extremitates cornua uocantur, unicornis autem mediae stipitis palus. Hac denique uirtute crucis et hoc more cornutus uniuersas gentes et nunc uentilat per fidem, auferens a terra in caelum, et tunc per iudicium uentilabit, deiciens de caelo in terram. 52 Ambr., De Ios. 3,13. 53 Ambr., De Patr. 11,46-52. In De Patr. 11,49 Ambrose speaks as follows about the return of Christ to God the Father: unde dicit ad eum pater: ad me reuertere, euocans eum ad caelum de terris quem propter nostram salutem miserat.

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indicates that Joseph’s father, Jacob, already foresaw the future mysteries of Christ. ‘Becoming great’, which occupies such an important place in the blessing, relates to Christ’s glorification. Ambrose also gives a double typology to the text ‘and my God has helped you’: ‘Who is it who made Israel strong and assisted the Son other than God the Father alone…?’ The sequel of the blessing et benedixit te benedictione caeli a summo et benedictione terrae habentis omnia is involved by Ambrose in the reign of the Son given to Him by the Father, both on earth and in heaven.54 The second place where a blessing is pronounced on Joseph is Deut. 33:13-7. This blessing is also discussed by Ambrose in his work De Patriarchis. It is striking that even before quoting the blessing Ambrose indicates that Moses did not pronounce this blessing on Joseph but on Christ.55 Although the explanation does not contain a double connected typology of the father and the son, the characterization of Joseph as hostia and victima is very striking. It is a typology that is directly related to Christ. Here in the explanation Joseph gets almost the same image as Isaac.56 In Ambrose’s exegesis of the story of Joseph (De Ioseph),57 the linked typology of Jacob-Joseph also appears to occupy an important place in crucial narrative episodes. We show that here. Ambrose notes that, in his reaction to Joseph’s dreams, a reaction that is first reprimanding and then accepting, Jacob represented both the person of the people of Israel and the person of a righteous one. So, in this double typology Jacob does not represent the person of God the Father, but in both his reactions he does represent the person of a righteous individual and the person of an ungodly one. However, Joseph is implicitly referred to by Ambrose in the same sentence as the Son of God.58 Ambrose typifies Jacob as someone who by his two-sided reaction (geminum oraculum) indicates in advance, i.e. as a prophet indicates, what will happen to the coming Son of God in the future.59 After all, this Son of God will be rejected by the wicked and will be loved by the faithful. 54 Ambr., De Patr. 11,50: omnia enim subiecit ei, caelestia sicut benedictionem caeli et terrena sicut benedictionem terrae, ut et hominibus et angelis dominaretur. 55 Ambr., De Patr. 11,53: Denique et Moyses completurus uitae istius cursum, cum benediceret tribum Ioseph, non illum utique iam defunctum Ioseph, sed Christum benedicebat… 56 Ambr., De Patr. 11,55: Primogenitus tauri decus eius habens cornua unicornui, in quibus gentes uentilabit. Et bonus taurus quasi hostia pro delictis et totius mundi uictima, ut pacificaret omnia. Cuius decus sanctum; omne enim sanctum primogenitum. 57 For the way in which the writings of Ambrosius came about see also Gérard Nauroy, Exégèse et création littéraire chez Ambroise de Milan, Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 181 (Paris, 2007). 58 Ambr., De Ios. 3,9: Non ergo tanto somnio patriarcha non credidit, qui utrumque pariter gemino prophetabat oraculo, ut et personam iusti repraesentaret et populi, quod Dei filius uenturus esset in terras, qui et diligeretur a iustis et negaretur a perfidis. 59 This element of exegesis, that Jacob is a prophet, is already present in Philo and has a comeback here in Ambrose, when he provides Jacob’s commentary on Joseph’s dreams with an explanation and designates Jacob as a prophet.

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Ambrose expresses in his explanation what was going on in Jacob: ‘So he saw the hidden portrayals of the future incarnation, he who sent his son to his brethren to see if the sheep were in good health’.60 That this sending of Joseph by Jacob has an even richer and deeper meaning is expressed by Ambrose directly afterwards. When Jacob sends Joseph to Dothan, for Ambrose this is unmistakably a double typology of God the Father who did not spare his own son, but handed him over for all of us.61 For Ambrose, Jacob is the Father, of Whom it is written: Who sent His own Son in equality with the flesh of sin. The rhetorical structure of this explanation, which in the original text is actually given twice in a row, underlines the importance Ambrose attaches to this double typology. He even typifies Jacob as a ‘major father’, a superior father, namely as God the Father.62 A remarkable point in Ambrose’s explanation of the story of Joseph is that at the crucial moment of the self-revelation, when Joseph says, weeping: ‘I am Joseph, is my father still alive?’, these words are linked by Ambrose to the affirmative answer given by Jesus to the members of the Sanhedrin: ‘I am Jesus’ to the question: ‘Are you the Son of God?’63 When Joseph allowed his brothers to return to their land, he reassured them by speaking of God’s special guidance: ‘So do not be sad now, and do not let it seem hard to you that you have sold me here, for God has sent me to live for you’. Ambrose links these words of Joseph to the prayer for forgiveness that Christ utters on the cross to God the Father when He asks forgiveness for the sins of his people.64 Finally, we find a double typology in the words of God to Jacob in the dream: ‘Joseph will put his hand on top of your eyes’. The mystery of these words is, according to Ambrose, that the one who could not see before is now seeing. By this he means to indicate the Jewish people that are at first blind but will later see salvation, and he refers to the healing that Christ performs on the blind man by placing His hand on his eyes. Joseph is here again a type of Christ, and Jacob stands here for the people of Israel.65 60

Ambr., De Ios. 3,9: Videbat igitur futurae incarnationis mysteria, qui filium mittebat ad fratres, ut uideret si recte sunt oues. 61 Ambrose’s addition from Romans 8:32 is also important here: who didn’t spare his own son, a passage from the New Testament, the language of which is related of Isaac in Gen. 22:12. 62 Ambr., De Ios. 3,9: Ergo Ioseph est missus ad fratres, ab illo magis patre, qui filio proprio non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit eum, ab illo patre, de quo scriptum est: Deus filium suum mittens in similitudinem carnis peccati. 63 Ambr., De Ios. 12,67: Quid igitur aliud tunc clamauit nisi: Ego sum Iesus, cum a principibus Iudaeorum interrogantibus: Tu es filius Dei? responderet: Vos dicitis quod ego sum, cum Pilato diceret: tu dicis quia rex sum; Ego hoc natus sum, cum principi sacerdotum dicenti: Adiuro te per Deum uiuum, ut dicis nobis si tu es Christus Filius Dei, referret: Tu dixisti. 64 Ambr., De Ios. 12,69: Pater dimitte illis; non enim sciunt quid faciunt. 65 Ambr., De Ios. 14,83: Hoc est enim mysterium, quod uerus Ioseph imminet manus super oculos eius, ut qui non uidebat ante iam uideat. Veni ad euangelium, lege quemadmodum caecus ille sanatus sit; cui Iesus manum imposuit et eius abstulit caecitatem.

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Chrysostom Chrysostom explains the history of Joseph in five sermons. His exegesis is much more extensive in comparison with Ambrose’s one. In the exegesis of Gen. 37:13-4 about sending Joseph to Dothan, Chrysostom, rather unexpectedly, also gives a typological explanation. He says the following there about Joseph’s arrival in Dothan: ‘All this was done so that Joseph’s benevolence towards his brothers and the murderous mentality of the brothers would be crystal clear. Thus, Joseph became a type of what was to happen in the future, and thus the salvific facts of truth in the shadows were described in advance’. In this exegesis there is no link between the typology of the father and the son. However, as in the Early Christian exegesis of Ambrose, there is a typological connection between Joseph and Christ, and between the brothers of Joseph and the people of Israel, connections that will be further elaborated in the remainder of the sermon. The rejection of Joseph by the brothers is also seen by both exegeses as a prelude to the later rejection of Christ by the Jewish people. Chrysostom certainly seems to be aware of the great prefigurative value of the above passage from the story of Joseph. In his further explanation, he addresses this fact a number of times and also mentions this prefiguration explicitly. In comparison with Ambrose, however, the emphasis is not on the deity of Christ, and certainly not on the deity of the Father, but much more on the human love of Christ that is prefigured by Joseph in the history of Joseph.66 In Chrysostom’s exegesis the practical explanation of the Bible text is always central, with the relational aspects of Joseph’s dealings with his brothers being worked out in detail in an original and convincing way. For the listener, the sermons are a litmus test for the question of how things actually stand with one’s own family relationships and can certainly bring the listener to reflection. In the exegesis of these five sermons, the Joseph-Christ typology is only touched upon very briefly and indeed almost not at all. After he reveals himself to his brothers, Joseph urges them in passing not to be angry, an exhortation which evokes for Ambrose an association with Christ who prays to his Father on the cross that He would forgive the sins of the people, and this leads in Chrysostom’s exegesis to the call to be kind to one another. He then wonders whether we can admire the virtue of the righteous person in the New Testament in a proper (literally: meritorious) way, of Him Who more than abundantly fulfilled the love of wisdom in the New Covenant.67 It is clear from the sequel 66 Chrysostom expresses this as follows in his exegesis of Gen. 37:13-4: ‘Just as Joseph went away to see his brothers, and they had no respect for the fact that he was their brother, nor for the cause of his appearance, but first deliberated to remove him by force, and then sold him to the barbarians, so our Lord, following his own love of man, joined the tribe of men to see this, and took the same flesh as us; so He came to [us], and deigned to become a brother to us’. See Johannis Chrysostomi, Opera Omnia quae exstant. In Genesim Homiliae LXI (PG 54). 67 Johannis Chrysostomi, Opera Omnia quae exstant. In Genesim Homiliae LXIV (PG 54).

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that Christ is indicated here, but the reference to Christ is very carefully and subtly constructed. If the typology is already present, as is the case here, it is actually very much covert, and this typology is by no means as emphatically present as it is in Ambrose. Ephrem of Syria However, the explanation of Joseph’s history by Ephrem of Syria (also known as Ephrem Syrus) is – typologically speaking – much more closely related to Ambrose’s explanation.68 Ephrem’s explanation is formalized in a hymn, in which the typological connections are explicitly stated: For just as our Lord was sent to us from the Father’s womb in order to make us all blessed, so Joseph was also sent as a child from Jacob’s womb in order to seek out his own brothers again.69 Although Ephrem does not speak about God the Father here, we can deduce from the comparison that he certainly meant this. In any case, there is also a double typology here. Although the double typology is less often applied by Ephrem in the further explanation of the story of Joseph than it is by Ambrose, we can trace it in a number of cases in Ephrem as well. These double typologies also arise at crucial junctures in the salvation history of Christ on earth. We would like to briefly describe the places where Ephrem applies these double typologies. Joseph came to his brothers to intimate peace from the father to them and was cruelly received by them. As soon as the Jews see their Saviour, because their heart is hard, they say: Look, there comes the heir, let us kill him and everything will be for us.70 This last statement comes from the gospel, namely from the parable of the royal vineyard. The father sends his son, and he is eventually killed by the tenants of the vineyard in order to acquire the inheritance. So, the father-son typology is certainly present here as well, albeit in a somewhat veiled form. When Joseph is brought out of prison by order of Pharaoh, he is supposedly the type of a believer who is willing to obey. But he is also the type of a dream interpreter and a predictor of the future abundance of fruit. The typological counterparts are found in our Lord who rose from the dead by his own power. 68 See for the Latin text of this edition: Gerardus Vossius (ed.), Sancti Ephraem Syri patris et scriptoris ecclesiae antiquissimi et dignissimi operum tomus tertius et ultimus (Cologne, 1603). 69 Ephrem Syrus, De Laudibus Patriarcharum: Nam sicut Dominus noster ad nos de sinu Patris, ut nos omnes saluaret, missus est: ita et puer Ioseph ex sinu Iacob ad proprios reuisendos fratres ablegatus est. 70 Ephrem Syrus, De Laudibus Patriarcharum: Et quemadmodum saeui fratres illi Ioseph, simulatque ipsum conspexerunt appropinquantem, coeperunt aduersus eum excogitare nequitiam, cum tamen ipse pacem a patre eis deferret; sic quoque Iudaei duro semper corde cum essent, mox ut Saluatorem uiderunt, dicebant intra se: Hic est reuera haeres: uenite, occidamus eum et nostra erunt omnia.

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However, because He has taken His spoils from the kingdom of the dead, He can make our atonement, as well as eternal life, known to His Father.71 For Ephrem, Joseph’s exaltation, which involves sitting in the chariot with Pharaoh, is a typological reference to the ascension of Christ and His sitting at the right hand of the Father, with majesty and glory, above the cherubim, as the Only Begotten Son.72 Both in this explanation and the previous one we see a double typology, linked to two persons of the divine Trinity: Joseph-Christ and Pharaoh-God the Father. In the continuation of his exegesis, Ephrem links some crucial events in the history of Joseph to important eschatological salvific facts. Joseph’s completely unexpected revelation of himself is typologically explained by Ephrem as the totally unexpected coming of Christ in the last days. He will therefore be recognized by those who have crucified Him. Ephrem typologically elaborates the effect of surprise on the basis of Joseph’s brothers. They thought that Joseph was no longer alive because they had sold him, until they suddenly discovered with a shock that he reigned over them. In the same way, the Jews thought they had crucified a man who was going to die, but on the day of Christ’s return they discover to their horror that He was God, who had come to earth for the salvation of the human race, ‘to save our souls’.73 They will then realize that the Son of God has been crucified by them, while the cross is also recognised by them. Ephrem concludes this hymn with the question ‘Do you see how accurately Joseph expressed the true form of his own Lord within himself?’74 We will now return to the questions that were asked. We set ourselves the goal of examining the effect of the Early Christian typological explanation of the patriarchs Jacob and Joseph on the triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Is this an addition to the triad and does it expand the triad, or does this explanation 71

Ephrem Syrus, De Laudibus Patriarcharum: Ioseph ex carcere, iussu Pharaonis placide educitur, tamquam uerus typus et facilis fidelisque; somniorum interpres, ac futurae frugum ubertatis uaticinator: At Dominus noster propria uirtute ex mortuis surrexit; direptisque inferni spoliis, nostram Patri suo reconciliationem et uitam aeternam praedicans. 72 Ephrem Syrus, De Laudibus Patriarcharum: Ioseph, accepta potestate super omnem Aegyptum in curru Pharaonis sedebat: Rex uero noster ante saecula et Saluator, in nube lucida in caelum ascendens, sedet ad dexteram Patris cum maiestate ac gloria super Cherubim, ut filius Unigenitus. 73 Ephrem Syrus, De Laudibus Patriarcharum: Existimarant infelices illi, qua eum hora uendiderant, ipsum iam fuisse mortuum; at qui ab eis putatus est neci traditus apud inferos, repente super ipsos regnare deprehensus est; ita et in die illa tremenda, quando uenerit Dominus in nubibus aeris sedens super thronum regni sui, adducentur uincti ab Angelis illis horribilibus coram ipsius tribunali omnes inimici eius, quicumque ipsum regnare super se noluerunt. Putauerant enim tunc impii Iudaei, illum, si crucifixus esset, tamquam hominem fore moriturum; non credentes atque intelligentes miseri, ipsum esse Deum, qui ob salutem generis humani, ut nostras saluaret animas, aduenerat. 74 Ephrem Syrus, De Laudibus Patriarcharum: Cernitis quam accurate Ioseph ueram Domini sui figuram in se expresserit?

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break the triad? Careful analysis of the typological explanation makes clear that the latter is the case. The dominant feature in this interconnected Christian typological exegesis is, after all, the father-son relationship, which falls within and outside the triad. Jacob falls within the triad. Joseph falls outside. The triad itself no longer plays a role in the typological Christological explanation of Jacob and Joseph. The same can be seen in the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. Although Abraham and Isaac are formally within the triad, no thematic or genealogical link is made between them. After all, the father-son relationship, which now attracts all the attention, is not characteristic of the triad in itself. The thematic link with the sacrifice of Christ made by God the Father breaks through the original triad. This thematic connection also appears to have had a major impact in early Christian art. In a glass bowl in Cologne, the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham is depicted as a reference to Christ’s later sacrifice on the cross. The same scene is also depicted on frescoes and sarcophagi; it is striking that the images show great similarities in terms of the theme.75 The fresco shows Abraham standing with a sacrificial knife, and Isaac bound and seated, with his arms on his back. A stone altar is placed next to Abraham. At the side of the altar is a ram. On the altar itself a fire is burning. On the sarcophagus we find exactly the same theme that can be seen on the fresco in the sarcophagus sculptures. So, there is a great homogeneity here, and this homogeneity in theme can also be found in early Christian literature. We will briefly elaborate on the other questions we asked ourselves in this research. Is a Christological typology, such as that of Isaac, also applicable to other persons within the triad, for example Jacob? The answer is in the affirmative. Jacob can also represent the person of Christ.76 The connecting link here is Jacob, who had to serve as Laban’s servant for many years before he was allowed to marry Laban’s daughters. This makes him a type of the Servant of the Lord.77 A related question is whether a Christological typology can also be applied outside the triad to a patriarch other than the patriarch Joseph, for example to the patriarch Judah. The answer to this question is also affirmative. As a guarantor, Judah is also typified by Ambrose as a type of Christ. Moreover, besides the triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the next generation, are there perhaps also fixed and predetermined persons to whom the Christological typology is applied for a special reason? This is indeed the case. Apart from the triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, two patriarchs in particular are frequently set forth in Early Christian exegesis: Judah and Joseph. Judah because of his responsibility for Joseph, i.e. as guarantor; Joseph, in addition to the double typology in which he is linked to Jacob, also frequently because of the 75 See the marble sarcophagus for Iunius Bassus (359) and the fresco of the sacrifice of Isaac in the catacomb of the Via Latina in Rome. 76 J. Daniélou, Sacramentum Futuri (1950), 99. 77 Isaiah 52:13 and 53:11.

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suffering he had to endure from his brothers, so that he is also recognizable as a type of Christ. This typology, which we have only briefly discussed in this investigation, is widespread in Early Christianity and can already be found in Cyprian in Ep. 59,2.78 Conclusion The double typology of the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham that is so clearly present in the Christian exegesis in the new, specifically Christian, interpretation of the sacrificial story shows a new development within the original triad. If a carefully constructed and coherent triad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has been developed in the Jewish interpretation of Philo, having the deeper purpose of understanding and legitimizing the internal structure and construction of the Torah, then in Christian exegesis the double typology of the Father and the Son transcends this Jewish interpretation and shifts the accent of the individual persons to two inside or outside the triad. The Christian interpretation of Isaac’s sacrifice involves a sacrifice in which the Son makes himself available, as well as a sacrifice desired and facilitated by the Father. In this interpretation in Early Christian tradition, it is also the Son who shows his willingness to serve as a sacrifice. The same applies mutatis mutandis to the double typological interpretation of Jacob and Joseph. Here, too, we see that the triad as such is not at issue, but that it no longer plays a significant role in early Christian exegesis. After all, Jacob falls within the triad and Joseph falls outside it, but this plays no role in the exegesis. In the exegesis, the genealogical line with Isaac and Abraham, or the philosophical interpretation of the triad given by Philo, is completely ignored. The Early Christian exegesis is about the higher dimension of the father-son relationship, which refers to what God does, in particular to the actions of God the Father in relation to God the Son and vice versa. The typological double interpretation of Jacob as God the Father and Joseph as God the Son does not apply in all cases, as we saw with Ambrose. In typology, when Jacob speaks, he is also interpreted by the church father as a prophet or as the people of Israel. His relationship as a father is not explained then, but certainly the prophetic view he has and in which Joseph emerges as a type of Christ. As a typus of the people of Israel, he typifies their rejection of the acceptance of Christ. 78 See CSEL III 2,667-8: … neque enim solas gentilium uel Iudaeorum minas cogitare et spectare debemus, cum uideamus ipsum Dominum a fratribus detentum et ab eo quem inter apostolos ipse delegerat proditum, inter initia quoque mundi Abel iustum non nisi frater occiderit et Iacob fugientem persecutes sit frater infestus et Ioseph puer uenierit uendentibus fratribus, in euangelio etiam legamus esse praedictum magis domesticos inimicos futuros et qui prius copulati sacramento unanimitatis fuerint ipsos inuicem tradituros.

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What effect does the Early Christian double typology of the patriarchs have on the classical triad division as represented by Philo? Is it adopted and expanded, or is it actually completely broken by an interlinked and specifically Christian typology of the Divine persons, something which is completely detached from its original patriarchal context? As we saw in this study, the latter is the case. The father-son relationship is seen in the case of Abraham and Isaac, as well as in Jacob and Joseph, as legitimating a double typology, whether or not it is within the triad. It is striking that the Father-Son typology of Abraham-Isaac and Jacob-Joseph are widely accepted in Early Christian exegesis. It is no longer a question of whether or not these persons belong within the triad, the new question Christian exegetes ask themselves is how the father, Abraham or Jacob, and the son, Isaac or Joseph, represent and depict the divine persons of God the Father and God the Son. This is a new dimension that breaks through the traditional Jewish-philosophical framework of the triad. And in this one observes a great deal of creativity and freedom in Early Christian exegesis. The same persons can even serve as a typus of different persons of the divine Trinity.79

79

See Ambrose, De Ioseph 3,9 where Jacob is explained as God the Father: Ergo Ioseph a patre est missus ad fratres, ab illo magis patre, qui filio proprio non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit eum, ab illo patre, de quo scriptum est: Deus filium suum mittens in similitudinem carnis peccati. J. Daniélou shows that the name of the patriarch Jacob is also an indication of Christ. See Justin, Dial. 14: ‘Christ is called Wisdom, Day, Rising Sun, Sword, Stone, Stick, Israel, Jacob and other names in the statements of the prophets’. Daniélou goes on to show that, in his interpretation of Jacob’s name, Origen points out that Jacob saw God the Father: ‘Because he has grasped the heel of hostile power and is the only one who sees the Father, He is also as He becomes man, Jacob and Israel’. See Origen, Commentary on John I 35,260. Not only the name, but also Jacob’s servitude is a typological reference to the servitude of Christ, a reference already found in Irenaeus, but also used by Hilary of Poitiers. The typological interpretation of Jacob as Christ thus appears in the Early Christian exegetical tradition alongside the interpretation of Jacob as God the Father. See J. Daniélou, Sacramentum Futuri (1950), 99.

Portrayal of Jews in Syriac and Early Byzantine Mystical Literature Serafim SEPPÄLÄ, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

ABSTRACT In spite of abundant amount of studies on Christian-Jewish relations, one of the most relevant fields of Early Christian literature has been neglected in these discussions. Mystical and ascetical texts represent the most spiritual and probably the most widely read literature of patristic times. This article analyses the remarks on Jews made by four Greek and Syriac mystical authors who are among the most authoritative and influential representatives of the spirituality of the Eastern Christianity in late antiquity, in addition to a few other texts of the same genre. Pseudo-Macarius, Barsanuphius and John, John of Sinai (Climacus) and Isaac of Nineveh do not reveal anti-Jewish attitudes against actual Jews as persons, even though they may be more or less critical against some aspects of Jewish religion, as portrayed in the Gospels. Instead, they urge their fellow Christians to show forth love for Jews and even encourage co-operating with them in every-day matters.

The history of Christian approaches to Judaism is well known and much studied, including the anti-Jewish rhetoric of certain Church fathers. Some fathers, such as John Chrysostom, unfortunately have an established place in the history of European antisemitism.1 However, one of the most interesting fields of Christian literature ‒ for many, the most relevant Christian literature, indeed ‒ is absent from the discussions on Christian approach to Jews: the spiritual and mystical discourses.2 In the following, I bring together a reading of Greek and Syriac works of spirituality and mysticism from the Christian East from the fourth to seventh centuries. The question is precisely about Jews as contemporary people; Jewish and Christian approaches to biblical interpretation must be excluded from the discussion. The lack of studies is somewhat understandable, given that most of the Syriac mystics and many of the Greek ones do not mention Jews at all in their works. 1 For a recent Orthodox view on this problem, see Serafim Seppälä, ‘Forsaken or not? Patristic argumentation on the forsakenness of Jews revisited’, Review of Ecumenical Studies 11 (2019), 180-98. 2 For example, the influential work of James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and Synagogue: A Study in the Origins of Antisemitism (New York, 1969), omitted the authors of this genre completely, in spite of the meticulous character of the work.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 141-150. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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This applies to many Syriac works such as Mingana’s collection of East Syrian mystics (Simeon Taibutheh, Dadisho Qatraya, John Hazzaya and Abdisho Hazzaya) and John of Dalyatha’s letters.3 A similar silence prevails in various Greek works, such as Dorotheos of Gaza’s Discourses. The argument from silence already suggests that the spiritual authors were not interested in an anti-Jewish discourse, not even in the basic apologetic sense, unlike many patristic authors. The most fruitful sources for the present study turned out to be the Syriac corpus of Isaac of Nineveh, the homilies of Pseudo-Macarius, and the letters of Barsanuphius and John. Even these, however, mention Jews rather seldom: Author

‘Jews’ in Biblical contexts

contemporary Jews

Isaac of Nineveh

2

2 (+1)

Pseudo-Macarius

5

2

Barsanuphius and John

2

3

John Climacus

0

2

Pseudo-Macarius Pseudo-Macarian homilies mention Jews in seven occasions. One is a rather irrelevant brief allusion to Paul,4 and another one occurs in discussion on the bronze serpent and the cross as a stumbling block for the Jews and as foolishness for the Greeks, again a Pauline allusion.5 The third case is found in a discussion about the human soul violating the will of God and arousing His anger, referring to Psalm 106:41, in which God left his people to the hands of their enemies, and thus ‘became angry with the Jews’.6 This is a rather basic reading of the Old Testament, and does not say much about attitudes to Jews as such. Among the references to Jews in a biblical context, there is one noteworthy case. Namely, Pseudo-Macarius presents the Jews of the Maccabean era as positive examples, but the reason is somewhat extraordinary: When the Jews possessed the priesthood, those of that race surely suffered persecution; they were grievously afflicted because they persisted in the truth, namely Eleazar and 3 There is also the case of Abraham bar Dashandad, whose writing appears in the same volume. The Syriac catalogue of Abdisho contains a work against the Jews in his name, but this is most controversial, and Baumstark left it out from his list of Abraham’s works ‒ ‘inadvertently’, according to Mingana. See the discussion in Alphonse Mingana, Early Christian Mystics, Woodbrooke Studies 7 (Cambridge, 1927), 185. 4 ‘Jews were unable to look steadfastly upon the face of Moses’, Pseudo-Macarius, Hom. 47:1 (PG 34), referring to 2Cor. 3:7. 5 Pseudo-Macarius, Hom. 11:10. 6 Ibid. 28:1.

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the Maccabees. […] From the Jewish nation some were oppressed by persecution and affliction, as martyrs, to witness to the truth. For how will the truth appear unless it encounter adversaries who are liars and attack it?7

Being subject to persecution is here presented as an inevitable consequence and indicator of retaining the truth. Pseudo-Macarius is convinced that the ‘truth must be persecuted’ (ἀνάγκη διώκεσθαι τὴν ἀλήθειαν), and therefore the Jews suffered persecution in biblical times; in the apostolic times, Christians were subjected to the cross and ‘no Jew was persecuted’ anymore.8 Persecution as a criterion for the truth provides a rather original way to view the history of religions in general. The argument is all the more interesting if applied to the later phases of history with all the massacres and genocides of Jews, in addition to all varieties of persecuted Christians. To see God on the side of those who suffer is certainly not contrary to the spirit of the Gospels, but as a characteristic of truth it is an interesting one, to say the least. However, the most relevant cases of Pseudo-Macarius are those two in which the Jews mentioned are not those of the biblical era, but contemporary ones. The author makes a universalistic observation that ‘all men, whether Jews or Greeks, eagerly desire purity, even should they be unable to attain it’.9 In other words, the author includes Jews to the essential spiritual aspiration and yearning that constitutes the most profound aspect of man. There is no intention to exclude, downgrade or set conditions to Jews in this context. In the eighth homily, the author presents a somewhat unusual self-scrutiny in which he defines his own spiritual state in bold terms. After having reached participation in grace acting in him, his inner faculties and heart are quiet, his soul being guileless and full of joy. In this hesychastic state, he solemnly declares: No longer am I a man that condemns Greek or Jew or sinner or worlding. Truly, the interior man (ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος) looks on all human beings with pure eyes and finds joy in the whole world. He really wishes to reverence and love all Greeks and Jews (πάντας θέλει προσκυνεῖν καὶ ἀγαπᾶν, Ἕλληνας, Ἰουδαίους).10

The statement is remarkable, and the repetition seems to underline its honesty and literalness: Greeks and Jews are mentioned not only because of a Pauline 7 Ibid. 17:14. Translations according to George A. Maloney in Pseudo-Macarius: The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York, 1992). In the same context, however, the author states that later the Spirit left them and works in Christians. This is merely the basic Christian view on the history of the two religions. 8 Pseudo-Macarius, Hom. 15:12. Here the translation has that the Lord ‘suffered persecution and was crucified by his own tribe of Israel’ (ὑπο τῆς ἰδίας φυλῆς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ), PG 34, 584B, but curiously, the new Greek edition (Makarios ho Aigyptos, Filokalia 7 [Thessaloniki, 2012]) lacks this particular expression. 9 Pseudo-Macarius, Hom. 17:15. 10 Ibid. 8:6.

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allusion but because of the need to underline the all-embracing character and practical functions of love. In other words, the spiritual state that Christians should aspire, is one in which Jews are revered and loved. Basically, there is no even indirect negativity present, for Jews are represented with Greeks and not in connection with evil-doers or alike. Isaac of Nineveh Isaac of Nineveh mentions Jews on four occasions in his 122 Syriac homilies published by Bedjan and Brock. Two of these are references to biblical events. Firstly, in teaching about trust in God, Isaac goes through a long list of biblical cases of divine protection, and in this context, the divine presence is said to have been with Paul ‘in synagogues of the Jews’ (ba-knūšātā d-īhūdāyē).11 Furthermore, Isaac describes how ‘the people’ (i.e. Jews) revered the ark of covenant, gazing at it in awe as if gazing at God.12 Such remarks are neutral in their relation to Jews and Judaism, which is worth mentioning, given that elsewhere in Christendom there was also another line of thought; sources such as Epistle of Barnabas seem to have supposed that Jews had never been the people of God in the full sense.13 However, to recognise the Jews of biblical times as people of God, or to make positive remarks on them, does not yet reveal much about attitudes towards the contemporary Jews. Therefore, those two cases in which Isaac speaks of Jews outside the biblical events have definitive relevance in revealing his attitude on the Jews of his time. In teaching on spiritual virtue, Isaac mentions Jews in a way that is both apparently and ultimately friendly, tolerating and loving in itself, but at the same time, it is also indirectly connected with antiJewish attitudes among Christians. Referring to Christ who shared his table with the poor and prostitutes without making distinctions between people, and in this way employed external togetherness to create union in Spirit, Isaac urges: Therefore, consider everyone worth of goodness and honour, whether he was a Jew (īhūdāyā), disbeliever (kāfōrā) or murderer (qāṭōlā); and especially if he is your own 11 Isaac of Nineveh, Hom. 3, in Paul Bedjan (ed.), De perfectione religiosa (Paris, 1909), 38. In the same same context, Isaac mentions Maccabees in a similar manner. 12 ‘The limitless power of God dwells in the Cross, just as it resided in an incomprehensible way in the Ark (qībōtā) which was venerated amidst great honour and awe by the (Jewish) People (ꜥammā)…’ Isaac of Nineveh, Second Part, ed. and trans. Sebastian Brock, CSCO 554-5 (Louvain, 1995), XI:4, referring to 1Sam. 4:7. 13 According to Mark Edwards, Religions of the Constantian State (Oxford, 2015), 174-5, Eusebius thought likewise, but unfortunately Edwards does not give details on how he reached the conclusion. It is clear that Eusebius, as many other patristic authors, emphasised the local character of Judaism: it was a religion in the area of the Holy Land and of Jerusalem, and not intended to be universal – but this is a different claim than to say that Jews were not a people of God.

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brother and of the same kin (bar kyānākh) with you but because of ignorance gone astray from the Truth.14

Here Isaac argues for the need to have respect for Jews, which is exactly what one may suppose spiritual teachers should do. On the other hand, the fact that Jews are mentioned alongside with unbelievers and robbers, appears negative and reveals the disrespect of Jews prevailing among Christians. But in order to deal with the this very problem, what else could Isaac do in order to make his point? It seems that it would be unfair to read this as a negative remark about Jews. On the contrary, an appeal to show love for people of another religion is rare in any religious discourse of late antiquity and early medieval times. (For the sake of comparison, one might also ask whether there is any witness for urge to respect Christians or Samaritans in the Rabbinic sources from Isaac’s era.) However that may be, Isaac did make some references to biblical events and topics in which one may distinguish a modest anti-Judaic bias. Nonetheless, the reference here is not to Jews as a people, but to a Jewish-like way of theologising, with a plain allusion to the Gospel: The constant limitation of hope which (is a feature) of merely an outward ministery belongs to the immature and Jewish way of thinking (of) those who boast their fasts, their tithes and the length of their prayers, as our Lord says, not possessing inwardly any thought of (spiritual) awareness or right reflection on God to adorn their interior state with an increase of hope.15

Here the ‘anti-Jewish’ content is actually from Christ himself; in fact, it represents originally an intra-Jewish discussion that in later Christian usage may appear in a bit different light. Killers of Christ? The claim that Jews crucified Christ is of course problematic at the outset, since in the Gospels, after all, it was the Romans who determined the judgement and performed the execution. In any case, the claim occurs frequently in several ‒ certainly not all ‒ Church fathers, Byzantine hymnography and so on. In a way, the claim seems to function as a symbolical way to express the rejection of Christ. On many occasions, the mystics discuss the crucifixion of Christ and his life-giving sufferings on the Cross, but it appears that in these contexts they do not make remarks about those who killed Christ. This silence is very relevant. 14

Isaac of Nineveh, Hom. 3, in P. Bedjan, De perfectione religiosa (1909), 55. Translation mine. Isaac of Nineveh, Second Part (CSCO 554-5), XXIV:5. Translation according to Sebastian Brock. 15

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Do they really not refer to Jews as crucifiers or killers, even not by passing? Indeed, it seems to be the case in almost all the works that I have studied. It is perhaps telling that Dorotheos of Gaza leaves Jews unmentioned, even in his commentary of the Easter hymn in which he repeatedly reflects upon the passion of Christ in the light of the Old Testament. Having said this, one may read in the English translation of Isaac of Nineveh (1984) that the holy hands of Christ were ‘nailed to the Cross by the unbelieving Jews’. Yet, this derives from a homily that is not present in the Syriac corpus but originates probably from another Syrian author and survives only in a Greek version and other translations made from the Greek into other languages.16 However, even here the word ‘Jews’ is an addition by the translator, for the Greek text has only Αἱ πανάγιαί σου ξεῖρες αἱ καθηλωθεῖσαι ὑπο ἀπίστων ἐν τῶ σταυρῶ (‘Your most holy hands, nailed to the cross by unbelievers’).17 This case is interesting, for it shows that readers and translators could see the presence of ‘Jews’ in a place where the original author did not intend to point at them. If this happens in a modern publication, one can wonder what may have happened in various manuscript traditions. This question, however, I leave for other scholars to respond.18 A spiritual perspective to this very problem is actually provided in the Greek Life of the holy Evagrius, a less known text originating from Egypt. In this text, the Jews are indeed mentioned as crucifiers, but the perspective is immediately turned against the Christians themselves: […] you find yourselves in agreement with the Jews who crucified Christ. They, perhaps, may be pardoned, having killed according to the flesh (κατὰ σάρκα ἀνελόντες), but you, through your impiety (ἀσεβείᾳ), have killed him just as thoroughly according to the spirit.19 16 The Greek text: Isaak episkopou Nineui tou Syrou, Eurethenta askētika (Thessaloniki, 1770, reprinted Thessaloniki, 1985). The Greek text translated into English: The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian (Boston, 1984). The quotation on p. 92. There is also a French translation of the Greek text by J. Touraille: Isaac le Syrien, Œuvres spirituelles. Les 86 Discours ascétiques. Les Lettres (Paris, 1981). 17 Translation mine, based on the Greek edition (1985, p. 10). Due to the confusing history of the editions, the homily in question is number 17 in the oldest Greek numbering, number 2 in the Greek edition of 1770/1985, number 16 in the English translation of the Greek text, number 68 in the Russian translation, and number 84 in my Finnish translation. 18 István Perczel has recently expressed his ‘feeling’ that some of the anti-Jewish fireworks in John Chrysostom’s (in)famous Adv. Jud. homilies may indeed be due to later Byzantine interpolation, for the basic views on Jews seem to differ substantially from what he says in his other works such as his Commentary on Romans, István Perczel, ‘Is Saint John Chrysostom the Father of Byzantine anti-Semitism?’, abstract and paper for the conference ‘Byzantine Liturgy and the Jews’ in Sibiu 2019; publication forthcoming in the Aschendorf Series of Society of Oriental Liturgy. 19 Ed. J.-B. Cotelerius, Ecclesiae graecae monumenta III (Paris, 1686), 119. Translation by Tim Vivian in Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt and Macarius of Alexandria (New York, 2004), 179. The Coptic version of the vita has not been preserved at this point.

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This is actually an anti-anti-Jewish remark for it seems to say that one should not blame the Jews, not even for having crucified Christ, but one should concentrate on one’s own shortcomings instead. Moreover, the tune is even sharper: the author does not speak of himself, or ‘of ourselves’, as is regular the case in such exhortations, but he turns the perspective to Christians and addresses his audience, dissociating himself from those who blame the Jews. This turn underlines the author’s disagreement with those who directed themselves against the Jews: he does not want to place himself into their group by using the first person plural, even though the ascetic authors very often use the rhetorical device of counting themselves among the sinners. John of Sinai Another remarkable eastern mystic and spiritual giant of the seventh century, John of Sinai (Climacus) refers to Judaism twice in his Ladder. The first case is typical for the metaphorical logic he employs in his narration: he customarily begins with giving a statement of some apparently random fact from the natural world, and then proceeds to present a parallel in the inner life. The Jew rejoices on Sabbaths and feast days (Χαίρει Ἰουδαοῖος Σαββάτω καὶ ἑορτῇ); and a monk who is a glutton on Saturdays and Sundays. He counts beforehand the days till Easter, and he prepares the food for it several days in advance. The slave of his belly calculates with what dishes he will celebrate the feast, but the servant of God considers with what graces he may be enriched.20

The ability to utilise such a metaphoric parallel may suggest that John had earlier lived in a place where a noticeable Jewish community existed. The main point, however, is that he implies that in the case of many monks, the spiritual life is constituted in a rather Jewish fashion, for better or worse. It is not necessary to read this as a rude condemnation of those monks and Jews, but it can also be taken as a mature, realistic observation and confession that there is something akin to both. As a Christian, he naturally believed that the spirituality based on the teaching of Christ is higher than the Jewish one, but still many failed to realise the difference in their lives. This must have been evident in a monastic setting, where regulations were not few. John’s second remark is even more polarised, indicating that the Jewish fashion of praying is outward and empty: For one and the same fire is called both the fire which consumes and the light which illuminates. That is why some people come from prayer as if they were marching out of a fiery furnace and feel relief as from some defilement and from all that is material, 20 John of Sinai (Climacus), Ladder 14:7 (PG 88, 864D). Engl. trans. by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore in St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent (New York, 1959).

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while others are as if illumined with light and clothed in a garment of joy and humility. But those who come from prayer without experiencing either of these two effects have prayed bodily, not to say after the Jewish fashion (ἵνα μὴ εἴπω, Ἰουδαϊκῶς προσηύξαντο), and not spiritually.21

This may be said as an allusion to the teachings of Christ on prayer; John in his cell in Sinai was almost certainly not thinking about synagogues’ practices here. Nonetheless, the whole idea of Jewish spirituality being literal, outward and legalistic, and Christianity being spiritual, is a rhetorical construction and in a closer scrutiny would prove to be thoroughly problematic. As a rhetorical construction, however, it has its functions inside the Christian discourse and does not even aim to evaluate Jews as such. In any case, John was not negative about Judaism as a practical phenomenon, for he presented the Mother of Christ as perfection of the Synagogue, again with his metaphorical parallelism: ‘The daughter perfects the mother, as Mary perfects the Synagogue’.22 An actual hater of Jews would never use such an expression, which sums up the role of Mary from an unusual perspective in a beautiful way, but it also reveals a rather positive attitude towards the ‘synagogue’, which is used here as Jewish equivalent to ‘Church’. Laymen asking holy elders about dealing with Jews Finally, we may turn to read some answers in most explicit terms. Many desert fathers were in constant interaction with people from the world, and therefore it is evident that at times, they had to answer questions dealing with Jews in one way or another. Very little of this remains in the sources, but there is a telling case in the letters of Barsanuphius and John, two mysterious elders from the first half of sixth century Gaza. The elder has to respond to a question by a ‘Christ-loving layman’: is it a sin to press ‘Jewish wine’ in his presser? The answer is a clever one ‒ a bit sarcastic towards the one who asked, but a kind one with regards the Jews: If, when God let it rain, and it rains in your field but not in that of the Jew, then do not press his wine. If He is loving-kind to all and let it rain upon the just and the unjust, then why do you want to be inhumane (ἀπάνθρωπος) and not compassionate, rather, as He says: ‘Be merciful, even as your Father in heaven in merciful’.23

The answer as such might be readable in two ways. The negative reading is: the Jews are what they are, but let us be good. This, however, does not seem 21 John of Sinai, Ladder 28:51 (PG 88, 1137). Engl. trans. by L. Moore in St. John Climacus, The Ladder (1959), 28:51. 22 τελειοῖ δὲ ἡ θυγάτηρ τὴν μητέρα, ὡς Μαρία τὴν συναγωγήν, John of Sinai, Ladder 4:64 (PG 88, 709D). The verse is number 73 in Latin, and 71 in Moore’s English translation. 23 Barsanuphius and John, Letter 686 (SC 468), referring to Lk. 6:36. Cf. Matt. 5:45.

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to be what is intended. Given that a most negative prejudice is embedded in the question, the elder cannot leave it remain uncommented. In fact, the answer is quite sharp. The elder does not resort to Christian morality or Christian spirituality but to universal human morality, implying that one does not have even to be a Christian in order to understand that to make wine out of Jewish grapes does not harm anyone. The result is an urge, universalistic in tone, to be humane, compassionate and merciful towards the Jews. Moreover, this is expressed with wordings from the Gospels and connected with the character of God. However, there is also a more difficult question in the same collection. Can one participate in meals at the feasts of Jews or pagans? The difficulty behind the question is that in antiquity, both Jewish and pagan feasts were more or less religious by nature. In this case, the elder answers extremely briefly to another layperson in the negative, resorting to the ‘canons of the holy church’. The same applies to the question on receiving gifts during the season, as this would give the impression of participating to the feast and its content.24 This case reveals something essential about the clear-cut boundaries between the religious groups. One may speculate about exceptions, but this was the rule, literally. One was supposed to love the other, but not by participating in feasts of non-Christian character.25 A more cynical reading is that Barsanuphius and John simply tried to avoid conflicts with canons in order to prevent disputes. This is what they did in other contexts, too.26 In this case, the setting would imply that they were more tolerant than the canons they referred to. How to interpret silence? Finally, we should estimate why is it that Jews occur in this genre so seldom, in many writings not at all, usually not even in the kind of contexts in which many Church fathers would readily throw a stone against Jewish literal understanding, Jews’ outward orientation or their rejection of Christ. The exceptions are rare, but what is even more important, they represent reminiscences of polemics in the New Testament rather than actual positions regarding contemporary Jews. 24 Barsanuphius and John, Letter 775 (SC 468). The canons referred to are those of the Apostolic Canon 70 and the Canons of Laodicea 37 and 38. 25 In addition to these cases, the Letters of Barsanuphius and John mention Jews in a few biblical allusions only, and in passing. There is a free quotation of John 6:42 in Letter 14 (FC 113, 33), a quotation of 1Cor. 9:20 in Letter 25, and a reference to 1Cor. 10:32 in Letter 584. 26 For instance, in the discussion on the anathemas on Nestorians, Barsanuphius and John (Letters 699-701) try with all means to dissociate themselves of condemning other Christians, though they also refuse to say anything against the canons of the Church. For discussion, see Serafim Seppälä, ‘Anathematized Church Fathers: a Gateway to Ecumenism’, Review of Ecumenical Studies 11 (2019), 21-3.

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One may differentiate practical and spiritual reasons for the silence. Firstly, the life in the desert or caves or monasteries did not involve encounters with Jews; there was no evident practical need to comment on them or estimate them. Most likely, what they encountered was the attitudes towards Jews of visiting Christians, and if these were negative, they could raise their voices to correct them. Secondly, the spiritual orientation of the ascetic and mystical works made it impossible to distribute offensive remarks against anyone. Humility, self-scrutiny, refusal to condemn others and the demand to love everyone were the central forces and aims of spiritual life and thinking in general, and in this context remarks against Jews would not have been appropriate. Of course, this arouses the question whether or not certain bishops and patristic authors fully shared these aims. However that may be, the result is clear: the ascetic and mystical authors do not present explicitly negative remarks against the Jews, but they do represent a number of positive ones. These they particularly directed towards their fellow Christians who were urged to show love for the Jews, as for all humans. Perhaps the most illustrative example of the ethos in the desert, however, is the remark in the Greek Life of Evagrius, in which even the accusation of killing of Christ is turned against one’s own self: while the Jews may be pardoned, I may not.

PHILOSOPHICA, THEOLOGICA, ETHICA

On the Theology of the Anonymous Hymn to god György GERÉBY, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

ABSTRACT The anonymous Hymn to god has been attributed traditionally to three authors: Gregory Nazianzen, Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Scholarship has argued for all three authorships, while refuting the other two. Gregory’s authorship, however, has been largely rejected, similarly to that of Proclus. Martin Sicherl’s attribution to PseudoDionysius has gained popularity, though not without criticism. Most analyses, however, relied on the manuscript tradition, textual variants and certain lexical and conceptual parallels. These latter attempts, however, remained on rather general level. This article argues that the Hymn has to be considered as being by an anonymous author, since there can be serious objections raised against the attribution to Pseud-Dionysius, primarily on detailed theological grounds.

For a pseudo-Cappadocian text,1 I am going to analyse the well-known philosophical Hymn to god printed earlier among the poetry of Gregory Nazianzen, but causing nowadays much headache concerning its true provenience and nature. This captivating theological hymn about the absolute transcendence of the supreme divinity and the impossibility of addressing it appropriately presents a notorious problem about its origin and authorship. Since it is anonymous, and undatable on external grounds, the only hints that can be gleaned from the hymn are stylistic and pertaining to content. Both of these aspects offer, however, rather moot guidance. The debate about the authorship has been going on for more than a hundred and fifty years, and important contributions, while adding details after detail to its understanding, arrived to diametrically opposed conclusions.2 While in most manuscripts the hymn is listed among the poetry of Gregory Nazianzen, some manuscripts of the Corpus Dionysiacum also include it, and 1 In what follows I will write ‘god’ without capital G. The main claim of the hymn is that the divinity is unnameable, hence the capitalisation would not only be misleading but would imply a contradiction. See: καὶ τοῦτο τὸ πρῶτον οὐδὲ ὀνόματος ἔτυχεν, τὰ γὰρ ὀνόματα ἰδιοτήτων τινῶν εἰσὶ σημαντικά· εἰ δὲ ἐπὶ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν ἰδιότης (ὑπὲρ ἰδιότητα γάρ ἐστιν), οὐδὲ ὄνομα ᾧ προσαγορεύεται. Olympiodorus, In Platonis Gorgiam commentaria, ed. Leendert G. Westerink, (Leipzig, 1970), 4, 3.17-20. ‘God’ as a word only shows up in the title probably attached much later. 2 See a summary of the scholarship in chronological order in the Appendix.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 153-163. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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finally, in one manuscript it precedes Proclus’ philosophical works.3 However, none of these manuscripts is earlier than the thirteenth century.4 In the indirect tradition a few lines of the hymn were quoted four times in the sixth century by Olympiodorus (early sixth c.)5 in his commentary on Plato’s Gorgias,6 and then in the same period twice by Asclepius (around the middle of the sixth c.),7 and finally, an epigram in the Anthologia Palatina included the first three lines of it as an address to Christ the Son of God.8 The scholarship has been sharply divided about the authorship. As mentioned above, there are three likely candidates for authorship on the basis of the manuscript tradition: Gregory Nazianzen, Proclus and most recently PseudoDionysius. In the scholarship all three attributions have been defended, while the other attributions have been rejected. The latest attribution to Pseudo-Dionysius was proposed by Martin Sicherl in 1988. After re-examining the earlier arguments, and concentrating especially on the textual transmission of the hymn he concluded with the strong claim that ‘everything speaks for Ps.-Dionysius as the author and nothing against it’.9 While Sicherl’s proposal has been widely accepted, it didn’t go unchallenged. In the most recent study of the hymn, Pietro Podolak (2007), after a careful reassessment of Sicherl’s arguments, which were partly based on the manuscript tradition and partly on comparisons of vocabulary, rejected Sicherl’s suggestion of associating the Hymn with Dionysius. While Podolak admits that the lexical and conceptual elements are those of contemporary Neoplatonism, these similarities expressed by the shared terms remain too vague and general to justify a more precise conclusion. Podolak therefore argued for retaining the Hymn as anonymous.10

3 This is the famous Neoplatonic collection of Cardinal Bessarion, Monacensis gr. 547 (15th c.), f. 1 v. 4 The mss. list has been collected by H.M. Werhahn and M. Sicherl. Heinrich M. Werhahn, ‘Dubia und Spuria unter den Gedichten Gregors von Nazianz’, SP 7.1 (1966), 337-47; Martin Sicherl, ‘Ein neuplatonischer Hymnus unter den Gedichten Gregors von Nazianz’, in John Duffy and John Peradotto (eds), Gonimos. Neoplatonic and Byzantine Studies presented to L.G. Westerink at 75 (Buffalo, NY, 1988), 61-83. 5 Leendert G. Westerink, The Greek Commentaries on Plato’s Phaedo, vol. I, Olympiodorus, (Amsterdam, Oxford, New York, 1976), 21. 6 Olympiodorus, In Platonis Gorgiam Commentaria, ed. L.G. Westerink, Proem. 8 (7.12-5); 4,3 (32.15-20), 16,1 (93.5-11) and 47,2 (243.16-25). 7 Asclepius, In Aristotelis Metaphysicam, ed. Michael Hayduck (Berlin, 1888), 20.25-8; 123.13-7. 8 Anthologia Palatina, vol. 1, ed. Johann F. Dübner (Paris, 1864), 1, 102 (12a). 9 ‘Es scheint also alles dafür zu sprechen, dass Ps.-Dionysius Areopagites der Verfasser des Hymnus ist, und so gut wie nichts dagegen’, M. Sicherl, ‘Ein neuplatonischer Hymnus’ (1988), 82. 10 ‘Il componimento – rassegnamoci – rimane anonimo’, Pietro Podolak, ‘Un inno dello ps. Dionigi l’Areopagita? Alcune osservazioni sul carme i,1,29 attribuito a Gregorio di Nazianzo’, Auctores nostri 5 (2007), 187-202, 202.

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In what follows, I will support Podolak’s position, but with somewhat different arguments. I accept his criticism of Sicherl’s attribution, but further arguments can be added beyond the primary philological points. In my view, the hymn was a widely known summary of the fundamental and popular Platonist position about the unknowability of the supreme divinity. While it represents the standard Neoplatonic views, it’s intellectual content thoroughly misses Christian elements. To start with, a certain difficulty is presented by the genre of the text. It is a philosophical hymn, beginning with an invocation, then followed by the main section detailing the titles and exploits of the deity, and closing with a final prayer.11 As the genre required, it is written in heroic verse, like for example the hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes, and many similar ones. The requirement of imitating the Homeric language implies that the terminology cannot be as precise and dogmatically direct as in a theological treatise, even if clearly there are ideas that justify the adopted formulae. Since the literary language of the hymn remains in many respects underdetermined, it allows for a wide range of interpretations. If nothing else, this suggests methodological caution in identifying the specific doctrines underlying the hymn. The flexibility in the interpretation of the Hymn is attested by the fact that the first three line of the Hymn was adopted into the poetry of the Palatine collection.12 The Christian epigram shows that even the Christ can be called transcendent, obviously alluding to the mystery of His Incarnation, His two natures, or His sitting on the right hand of the Father. Having said that, what can be stated is that the hymn clearly stresses the absolute unknowability of the transcendent deity. This supreme deity of the hymn, however is never addressed as ‘god’ – except in some of the titles found in the manuscripts. The unknowability of god, however, was not a specific doctrine. While it was undoubtedly characteristic of the contemporary Neoplatonic-Hellenistic theologies, it was also a Christian position, especially after the Eunomian debates, but also before. The transcendence of the deity meant, however, different things in different schools of thought. The transcendence of the One over the Many, or that of the Ineffable over the One is not the same as the transcendence of the Trinity, and especially not as of the Godhead. The transcendence of the Biblical divinity, and especially in the New Testament is not a deity totally apart from the creation. The Scriptures presented a god who is present in the life of His people, in the Ark, or in the Holy of Holies, or in His Spirit. For Christianity this presence 11

Studied by Éduard des Places, ‘Hymnes grecs au seuil de l’ère chrétienne’, Biblica 38 (1957), 113-29. 12 See fn. 8.

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takes the extreme human form in the sacrifice of the Incarnation, and then in the presence of the Paraclete. Our hymn, however, speaks about transcendence very much in purely Platonic terms. So much so, that its formulae suggest a kind of summary of Plato’s theology. The collection of directly Platonic motifs starts with the very first line. The phrase πάντων ἐπέκεινα alludes to Plato’s famous ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας from the Republic,13 which became a commonplace formula expressing the transcendence of the divine in Late Antiquity. The phrase occures in all forms of theology. It can be found in Celsus,14 Plotinus,15 Julian,16 Basil,17 or John Damascene,18 just to mention a few of its adaptations. Hence this phrase does not yet express a specific understanding of transcendence. That the divinity is different from the creation, is a basic Jewish and Christian tenet, and in this sense it is correct to claim that He is ‘beyond everthing’. If this is applied in the ontological sense, it leaves the possibility of immanence and nameability open. The total unapproacheability and unnameability, however, are a different matter. The formulation of the really strong unknowability of the divine hearkens back to a famous and often quoted line of the Timaeus: ‘But the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible’.19 The spurious and probably Hellenistic Seventh Letter goes in the same vein, which is just one of the many instances where Hellenistic philosophers formulated the absolute hiddenness of the supreme deity.20 The absolute hiddenness implies unknowability which affects the possibilities of poetry, too. A passage to this effect, that is, which also mentions the problem of ‘how to chant a hymn to the transcendent’ can be found in the Phaedrus: But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will chant a hymn worthily? … I must dare to speak the truth … There abides the very being with which true knowledge is concerned; the colourless, formless, intangible essence, visible only by the mind, the pilot of the soul.21 13

Plato, Resp. 509b9. Celsus, Der Ἀληθὴς λόγος des Kelsos, ed. Robert Bader (Stuttgart, 1940), ch. 7, 45, 11. 15 Plotinus, Enneades 5,3,11,28; 5,4,2,40. 16 L’empereur Julien. Œuvres complètes, vol. 2.2, ed. Christian Lacombrade (Paris, 1964), c. 11, 14. 17 Basil, Adversus Eunomium libri V, PG 29, 556, 37; 601, 20. 18 Johannes Damascenus, Expositio fidei, in Bonifatius Kotter (ed.), Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, 2 vol., Patristische Texte und Studien 12 (Berlin, 1973), 8, 239. 19 τὸν μὲν οὖν ποιητὴν καὶ πατέρα τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς εὑρεῖν τε ἔργον καὶ εὑρόντα εἰς πάντας ἀδύνατον λέγειν· τόδε δ’ οὖν πάλιν ἐπισκεπτέον περὶ αὐτοῦ, Plato, Timaeus 28c3-5. 20 Plato, Epistulae, 342b, often referred to in the period. E.g. by Damascius, De principiis, ed. Leendert G. Westerink (Paris, 1986), I 8 (I 10, 4-6). 21 Τὸν δὲ ὑπερουράνιον τόπον οὔτε τις ὕμνησέ πω τῶν τῇδε ποιητὴς οὔτε ποτὲ ὑμνήσει κατ’ ἀξίαν. ἔχει δὲ ὧδε – τολμητέον γὰρ οὖν τό γε ἀληθὲς εἰπεῖν, ἄλλως τε καὶ περὶ ἀληθείας λέγοντα – ἡ γὰρ ἀχρώματός τε καὶ ἀσχημάτιστος καὶ ἀναφὴς οὐσία ὄντως οὖσα, ψυχῆς 14

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A further aspect is the abundance of the oxymora in the Hymn which seem to allude to the contradictory conclusions of Plato’s Parmenides, as the first two hypotheses, for example, conclude that ‘if the one is one, it does not exist, and if it exists, it is not one’. These hints seem to indicate a Neoplatonic author. Considering that the first known reference to the Hymn was made by the Alexandrian Neoplatonic philosopher Olympiodorus, the likely candidate was identified by H.A. Jahn and L. Rosán as Proclus.22 It has been shown by Sicherl, however, that Proclus cannot be the author either. He indeed used the phrase πάντων ἐπέκεινα or the term ἄγνωστος profusely. Again, one reads such passages in the Platonic theology that the first cause is ‘inexpressible by any language and unutterable, unknoweable for every knowledge and incomprehensible, bringing to light everything from itself, incomprehensibly preceding everything, and converting everything back to itself, being the best final fulfilment of everything’.23 It can be added that Proclus’ views on the hymns to the supreme deity are far from being consistent. On the one hand, an argument could be gathered that he refused the possibility of addressing the transcendent in a hymn at all. In his Chaldean philosophy, Proclus seems to argue against offering hymns to the supreme god: The hymn addressed to the Father does not consist of words put together or a construct of actions. Being alone unperishable, he does not accept a perishable hymn; we shouldn’t expect him to be persuaded by a torrent of empty words, him, the ruler of true words, nor by the imagination of beautified things produced by art.24

On the other hand, Proclus in other places seems to talk about hymns directed to the transcendent one. For example, in his Commentary on the Parmenides: κυβερνήτῃ μόνῳ θεατὴ νῷ, περὶ ἣν τὸ τῆς ἀληθοῦς ἐπιστήμης γένος, τοῦτον ἔχει τὸν τόπον. Plato, Phaedrus 247c3-7. 22 Heinrich Albert Jahn, Eclogae e Proclo de philosophia chaldaica. Accedit hymnus in Deum platonicus vulgo s. Gregorio Nazianzeno adscriptus, nunc Proclo platonico vindicatus (Halis Saxonum, 1891). Laurence J. Rosán, The Philosophy of Proclus. The Final Phase of Ancient Thought (New York, 1949), 53-4. 23 ἄρρητος μὲν παντὶ λόγῳ καὶ ἄφραστος, ἄγνωστος δὲ πάσῃ γνώσει καὶ ἄληπτος, πάντα μὲν ἀφ’ ἑαυτῆς ἐκφαίνουσα, πάντων δὲ ἀρρήτως προϋπάρχουσα, καὶ πάντα μὲν πρὸς ἑαυτὴν ἐπιστρέφουσα, πάντων δὲ οὖσα τέλος τὸ ἄριστον. Proclus, Théologie Platonicienne, texte établi et traduit par Henri D. Saffrey et Leendert G. Westerink (Paris, 1968-1981), vol. 3, 29, lines 11-6. 24 Ὕμνος δὲ τοῦ Πατρὸς οὐ λόγοι σύνθετοι, οὐκ ἔργων κατασκευή· μόνος γὰρ ἄφθαρτος ὤν, φθαρτὸν ὕμνον οὐ δέχεται· μὴ οὖν κενῇ ῥημάτων καταιγίδι πείσειν ἐλπίζωμεν τὸν λόγων ἀληθῶν δεσπότην μηδὲ ἔργων φαντασίᾳ μετὰ τέχνης κεκαλλωπισμένων· ἀκαλλώπιστον εὐμορφίαν θεὸς φιλεῖ. Ὕμνον οὖν τῷ θεῷ τοῦτον ἀναθῶμεν· καταλίπωμεν τὴν ῥέουσαν οὐσίαν· ἔλθωμεν ἐπὶ τὸν ἀληθῆ σκοπόν, τὴν εἰς αὐτὸν ἐξομοίωσιν· γνωρίσωμεν τὸν δεσπότην, ἀγαπήσωμεν τὸν Πατέρα· καλοῦντι πεισθῶμεν· τῷ θερμῷ προσδράμωμεν, τὸ ψυχρὸν ἐκφυγόντες· πῦρ γενώμεθα, διὰ πυρὸς ὁδεύσωμεν, Proclus, Eclogae e Proclo De philosophia Chaldaica ; sive, De doctrina oracvlorvm Chaldaicorvm, ed. Heinrich Albert Jahn (Halis Saxonum, 1891), frg. 2, lines 13-23.

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‘But the first god which is sung by the first hypothesis is not even father since he is more than every fatherly divinity’.25 The ‘beyond being’ is sung in hymns,26 and ‘everything prays except the One’. Or as he says in the Timaeus Commentary:27 ‘Everything prays according to its own rank and they praise in hymns the leaders of the whole chain intellectually, or according to reason, or according to nature, or by perception’.28 Finally one could add – and indeed it has been observed – that the corpus of genuine Proclean hymns contain only hymns directed to the ‘young gods’ of the Timaeus, or to the ‘inner-cosmic gods’, as they came to be called in the later imperial period.29 These hymns seem to support the first position quoted above, namely that the supreme deity cannot be addressed in hymns. The anonymous Hymn is just too unique addressing the supreme metaphysical deity and it employs a radical language quite at variance with Proclus’ other hymns.30 There is no room here to list all the instances that have been collated from Proclus by Jahn and others, showing congenial formulations or doctrinal elements to the Hymn, but while these cases show the similarity of the tenor and even the obvious parallelisms of the expression, in general the attribution, they are not sufficient to justify a precise assigment. Hence despite the parallels, Sicherl was not satisfied. He claimed that all these elements are not specific enough for the attribution, and this can be conceded. As he says ‘the parallels are decisively against the authorship of Gregory, but they are not sufficient to decide for Proclus, because others could have also used the language of Proclus’.31 Sicherl then identifies Pseudo-Dionysius as the candidate for this ‘other’ who used the same language as Proclus. The first argument of Sicherl points out that the πάντων ἐπέκεινα phrase indeed occurs in the Corpus many times. Sicherl does note that in most cases it happens with the definite article and in a clause, as ἡ τῆς πάντων ἐπέκεινα θεότητος ἀγαθότης,32 or ἡ πάσης οὐσίας ἐπέκεινα33 – but he does not attribute 25 ὁ δὲ πρῶτος θεὸς διὰ τῆς πρώτης ὑποθέσεως ὑμνούμενος οὔτε πατὴρ, ἀλλὰ κρείττων καὶ πάσης τῆς πατρικῆς θεότητος, Proclus, In Platonis Parmenidem, in Victor Cousin (ed.), Procli philosophi Platonici opera inedita, pt. 3 (Paris, 1864 = repr. Hildesheim, 1961), 1070.23. 26 οὐσίας ὑμνούμενον ἐπέκεινα, Proclus, In Rempublicam commentarii, ed. Wilhelm Kroll, 2 vol. (Leipzig, 1899), I 295.4 27 πάντα γὰρ εὔχεται πλὴν τοῦ πρώτου, Proclus, In Timaeum commentaria, ed. Ernst Diehl, 3 vol. (Leipzig, 1903-1906), I 213.2. 28 Εὔχεται γὰρ πάντα κατὰ τὴν οἰκείαν τάξιν καὶ ὑμνεῖ τοὺς ἡγεμόνας τῶν σειρῶν ὅλων ἢ νοερῶς ἢ λογικῶς ἢ φυσικῶς ἢ αἰσθητῶς, Proclus, De sacrificio et magia, ed. Joseph Bidez, (Brussels, 1928), 148.13. 29 Sallustius, De deis et mundo 6; Hermias, In Phaedrum scholia 161,24; Simplicius, De caelo 117,16; Syrianus, Proclus, Damascius, Olympiodorus passim. 30 Henri D. Saffrey, Proclus: Hymnes et prières (Paris, 1996). 31 M. Sicherl, ‘Ein neuplatonischer Hymnus’ (1968), 75. 32 Corpus Dionysiacum I: Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita. De divinis nominibus, ed. Beate Regina Suchla (Berlin, 1990), 147,5. Henceforth: DN. 33 DN 115,17.

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any real significance to the personal use instead of the impersonal, like in the clause ἡ ἐκ τοῦ πάντων ἐπέκεινα παντὸς ἔρωτος ἄσχετος αἰτία34 or ὁ πάντων αἴτιος ἐπέκεινα ᾖ πάντων.35 Sicherl then puts forward as second point by calling attention to the verses 14/5. Here his main argument relies on an emendation in line 14. ‘Which heavenly mind could possibly penetrate thy beyond-heavenly shroud?’ Sicherl prefers the variant reading ὑπερφανέας δὲ καλύπτρας, ‘more than clearly visible shrouds’ – over the ὑπερνεφέας δὲ καλύπτρας version of the majority text (both terms are hapax legomena, unique occurrences). Sicherl’s somewhat circuitous reasoning is that ὑπερφανέας corresponds better to the style of the Dionysiac corpus, which revels in oxymora. Indeed, in the first chapter of the Mystical theology does apply the term ἐν τῷ σκοτεινοτάτῳ ὑπερφανέστατον ὑπερλάμποντα, ‘making [God] supremely visible by overcharged light in the utter darkness’.36 Unfortunately, this argument is not convincing. First, it can be turned around. The ὑπερνεφέας version is not necessarily the emendation of an ignorant scribe who did not understand the Dionysian oxymoron but could be the improvement of a wiseacre theologian, who did not understand the original phrase and assimilated it therefore to Dionysius whom he probably knew better. Second, there is no need for the emendation even in the case that PseudDionysius is the author. The ὑπερνεφὴς καλύπτρα is a perfectly meaningful theological term. What is more, the beyond-the-clouds shroud is an idea which is shared by both the Hellenes and the Christians. As Porphyry said, ‘the heavens are a shroud of the gods cast around them’.37 In defence of the Dionysiac authorship one could argue that the image of the shroud or curtain surrounding the throne of God is a Jewish and Christian idea, too.38 Already Philo and Josephus interpreted the inner curtain of the Holy of Holies, the καταπέτασμα as an image of the metaphysical wall of separation between the divine transcendence and the created realm.39 The Neoplatonic use notwithstanding there is a Scriptural use of the ‘separating cloud’ as well. The dark cloud surrounding God is a well-known image. What is more, the event of the ‘dark cloud’ is in fact described in Exodus as ἐκάλυψεν ἡ νεφέλη τὸ ὄρος (Ex. 24:16) and καὶ ἔθετο σκότος ἀποκρυφὴν 34

DN 161,15. DN 223,12 and Mystical Theology (MT), Corpus Dionysiacum II: Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, De coelesti hierarchia, De ecclesiastica hierarchia, De mystica theologia, Epistulae, ed. Günter Heil and Adolf M. Ritter (Berlin, 2012), 143,17; 144,13. 36 τῆς ὑπὲρ νοῦν ἑνώσεως ἐν ταῖς τῶν ὑπερφανῶν ἀκτίνων ἀγνώστοις καὶ μακαρίαις ἐπιβολαῖς, DN 115,2. 37 τῶν παλαιῶν καὶ τὸν οὐρανὸν πέπλον εἰρηκότων οἷον θεῶν οὐρανίων περίβλημα. Porphyry, De antro nympharum in: Porphyrii Philosophy Platonici Opuscula Selecta, ed. August Nauck (Leipzig, 1886), 14, 15. 38 Otto Hofius, Der Vorhang vor dem Thron Gottes (Tübingen, 1972). 39 Philon, De vita Mosis 2, 87; 95; De spec. legg. 2, 231; Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae 14, 107. 35

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αὐτοῦ· κύκλῳ αὐτοῦ ἡ σκηνὴ αὐτοῦ, σκοτεινὸν ὕδωρ ἐν νεφέλαις ἀέρων (Ps. 17:12 (LXX) – texts which might directly justify the use of the phrase, since over and above the direct verbal analogy the clouds hiding God should certainly be ‘beyond’ the ordinary. Hence no emendation is needed even in the case if Pseudo-Dionysius is the author. The Scriptural background, however, is not a decisive argument for the authorship, only against the emendation. Retaining the ὑπερνεφέας reading could equally well point to the vision of the transcendent deity granted to the souls in the Phaedrus quoted above, if indeed the author was a Neoplatonist. So far the evidence is ambiguous. The interpretations of the veil, or the ‘cloud’ hasn’t offered a sufficiently sharp distinction between Christians and Platonists. There is a difference, however, with respect to the access to the Transcendent. According to the Hymn, the transcendent, the ‘beyond being’ cannot be approached even by the heavenly minds (line 15). For Pseudo-Dionysius, on the other hand, the whole third chapter of the Mystical Theology is about this possibility. ‘Enter into the darkness where truly dwells, as say the Divine Oracles, that One which is beyond all things’.40 And having said this in the abstract, Dionysius immediately points out the example of Moses ‘who went into the midst of the cloud’ (Ex. 24:18). I suspect, therefore, that the association of the Hymn with Pseudo-Dionysius only indicates to what extent he is identified with ‘negative theology’ and Neoplatonism. In my view, however, the author of the corpus should not be placed into the Neoplatonist corner, since Dionysius does not represent such a purely negative theology as it is the case with the Hymn. As I argued in an earlier article of mine, modern scholarship centres far too much on the apophatic character of the Dionysian theology. For PseudoDionysius, the apophatic method goes hand-in-hand with the cataphatic, and the symbolic, and finally with the rarely mentioned ‘clear theology’. All those who hear a manifest theology (σαφής θεολογία) without symbols weave in themselves a sort of model, which guides them to an understanding of such a θεολογία.41 40 ‘εἰς τὸν γνόφον’ εἰσδυομένοις, ‘οὗ’ ὄντως ἐστίν, ὡς τὰ λόγιά φησιν, ὁ πάντων ἐπέκεινα, Pseudo-Dionysius Areapagita, De mystica theologia, ed. A.M. Ritter, 3. 41 Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, Epistula 9,1 ed. A.M. Ritter. … τὸ δὲ παθητικὸν αὐτῆς συμφυῶς θεραπεύειν ἅμα καὶ ἀνατείνειν ἐπὶ τὰ θειότατα τοῖς προμεμηχανημένοις τῶν τυπωτικῶν συμβόλων ἀναπλασμοῖς, ὡς συγγενῆ τὰ τοιαῦτα πέφυκε παραπετάσματα καὶ δηλοῦσιν, ὅσοι καὶ προκαλυμμάτων ἐκτὸς θεολογίας σαφοῦς ἀκηκοότες ἐν ἑαυτοῖς ἀναπλάττουσι τύπον τινὰ πρὸς τὴν νόησιν αὐτοὺς τῆς εἰρημένης θεολογίας χειραγωγοῦντα. Hathaway translates it as ‘… the impassive part of the soul should define the simple, more inward meanings of godlike images, but that its passive part should naturally serve and strive towards the most divine things through the shapes of the typical symbols which have already been contrived, since these coverings are akin by nature to it, a thing which is proved by the fact that those who have heard clear theological teachings

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This ‘simple theology’ is just a hint which Dionysius does not explain in detail. However, one can arrive to an explanation by paying attention to the markers in this short passage. Dionysius explains the nature of this ‘manifest theology’ with the help of the Ark of the Covenant. For this interpretation the markers are the two terms παραπετάσματα and προκαλύμματα, which are the outer and the inner curtains of the Ark. The προκαλυμμάτων ἐκτὸς θεολογία is the one attainable for those who stand outside the outer curtain of the Tent. This theology is ‘simple’ since it is not the most direct form of knowing the divine, similar to how the people participate in services of the Ark or the Temple. It seems that to these four forms of theology, simple, symbolic, cataphatic and apophatic one might associate the four courts of the Temple, that of the gentiles, then that of the women’s, the Israelites (ritually pure Jewish men), and finally that of the priests which contained the unapproachable Holy of Holies. If this interpretation of the four levels of theology in the Corpus Dionysiacum is correct, it shows that the kind of absolute ineffability of the divine in all respects which is the main point of the Hymn, is not characteristic of the theology of the Corpus. In fact, Pseudo-Dionysius seems to allow a certain knowledge of God based on God’s self-revelation which goes far beyond the Neoplatonic apophaticism. I leave now aside the non-negligible problem that there is no reference to Christian doctrinal elements in the Hymn. In fact, what I wanted to show was that even if certain terms seem to coincide with Neoplatonic usage, si duo dicunt idem non est idem. The qualified apophaticism of Pseud-Dionysius is a different cup of tea than the unqualified version of the Hymn. In sum, in this short contribution I wanted to show that while it might well be the case that the Hymn cannot be attributed to Gregory Nazianzen,42 neither does the Areopagite qualify for the authorship. The Hymn to god lacks any reference to specific doctrinal elements which are characteristic and essential for both Christian authors. While there is nothing specifically Christian in the Hymn, it shows characteristic Neoplatonic ideas. without such coverings shape in themselves a certain form which leads them to the idea of such a theology’, Ronald F. Hathaway, Hierarchy and the Definition of Order in the Letters of PseudoDionysius (The Hague, 1969), 155. – Hathaway did not notice that the image implied by PseudoDionysius refers to the Ark of the Covenant (or the Temple of Jerusalem) and its curtains, by using the terms ‘the outer curtain’ and the ‘inner curtain’ (παραπετάσματα - προκαλύμματα). The people had to stay outside the curtains, of which the inner one separated the Divine Presence from the rest of the world. Its metaphysical interpretation is already present in Philo and Josephus. According to the Epistle to the Hebrews the new Holy of Holies is the Body of Christ. 42 Although this attribution has been forcefully defended by Natalio Fernandez Marcos, ‘Observaciones sobre los himnos de Gregorio Nacianceno’, Emerita 35 (1968), 231-45 and then in less detail by Vassiliki Frangescou, ‘Observations on the Disputed Hymnus ad Deum’, SP 18.2 (1989), 9-13. In this article I could not consider in detail the attribution to Gregory, but I am of the opinion that this case is closed.

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It can be granted to Sicherl and others, though, that considering the widely used similar concepts and phrases in the contemporary philosophical koine, the author might not be Proclus, either. Therefore the hymn, its beauty and appeal notwithstanding is best considered as an outstanding anonymous summary of the standard Platonising theology, formulated in terms of the conceptual koine. Its clear stress on the absolute transcendence of the deity makes it belong to the mainstream ‘Neoplatonic’, or rather Hellenising theology of the period. What is more, the variability of the text in Olympiodorus might indicate that he was quoting from memory, since then consistency was not important. Hence it might not have been a sanctioned text. The presence of the hymn in Asclepius, and then its inclusion in the Anthology indicate its wide proliferation, and freedom in text formation. My conclusion is, therefore, that this Hymn can be best considered as a kind of popular philosophical hymn, originally arising from a non-Christian environment. At a much later point, however, when the sharp differences between a different types of theology dulled, it was included first in the works of Gregory ‘the Theologian’ and then in the corpus of the Pseudo-Areopagite, the greatest masters of Byzantine theology. Appendix: Past scholarship Heinrich Albert Jahn in his 1891 study – following Victor Cousin of 183243 and his own teacher, Friedrich Creuzer, from 183844 – argued in great detail against the ascription of the Hymn to Gregory Nazianzen, and suggested instead that it should be attributed to Proclus.45 The same attribution was proposed later by Johannes Dräseke in 189646 and Laurence Jay Rosán in his 1949 book on the Philosophy of Proclus.47 The issue didn’t get settled with the arguments of Jahn. While there was growing agreement that Gregory should not be considered to be the author, the attribution to Gregory found new support in the learned article of Natalio Fernandez Marcos (1968),48 an expert on Gregory Nazianzen, and again by the 1989 paper of Vassiliki Frangescou.49 Then Martin Sicherl wrote his comprehensive article 43 Victor Cousin, Diarium eruditorum (1832), 752, quoted by M. Sicherl, ‘Ein neuplatonischer Hymnus’ (1968), 61, n. 1. 44 Friedrich Creuzer, Luther u. Grotius: oder Glaube und Wissenschaft (Heidelberg, 1810), 31. 45 See n. 22. 46 Johannes Dräseke, ‘Zu Proklos’ „Hymnus auf Gott”’, Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftliche Theologie 39 (1896), 293-303. 47 See n. 22. 48 See n. 42. 49 See n. 42.

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of 1994 (against his student Frangescou). The result of Sicherl’s article was then accepted – tentatively – by Saffrey in his volume of Proclus’ hymns,50 and also by Van den Berg in his study of Proclus’ hymns (2001),51 and recently by Robert K. Clark (2012)52 and Andrei Timontin (2018).53 The great Proclus scholar Werner Beierwaltes, while initially he had accepted the attribution to Proclus, later expressed his concerns and leaned towards the Corpus Dionysiacum.54 As it was mentioned above, the most recent study of the Hymn by Pietro Podolak (2007) rejected Sicherl’s suggestion of associating the Hymn with the Corpus Dionysiacum and argued for retaining the Hymn as anonymous.

50

See n. 30. Robbert M. van den Berg, Proclus’ Hymns. Essays, Translations, Commentary (Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2001), 7 and n. 7. 52 Robert K. Clark, ‘Words Cannot Name Thee: A Hymn to God and Its Author’, 2012. http:// fintrytrustresources.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/7/5/11759884/words_cannot_name_thee.pdf (accessed 10 January 2020). 53 Andrei Timotin, ‘A Hymn to God Assigned to Gregory of Nazianzus and Its Neoplatonic Context’, The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 12 (2018), 39-50. 54 Werner Beierwaltes, Proclo e i fondamenti della sua metafisica, tr. it. (Milano, 1992), 384, 384 n. 66; id., Denken des Einen. Studien zur Neuplatonischen Philosophie und ihrer Wirkungsgeschichte (Frankfurt, 1985), 313-7. 51

The Figure of Socrates in the Early Patristic Culture Wars Cyril HOVORUN, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA

ABSTRACT The figure of Socrates was central to the intellectual culture of Antiquity, and his trial turned to the key reference point in the ancient literature. Church Fathers also referred to him on different occasions. The article argues that different attitudes they expressed to Socrates, his trial and death, his daemonium, and the sources of inspiration for his philosophy, became criteria in the culture wars that often broke out in the patristic era. These wars in some sense were similar to ours, with a more closed attitude to the ‘external’ culture and paideia contesting the more open one. The attitude to Socrates became a litmus test that revealed various ideological preferences in the patristic ‘culture wars’: ‘liberal’, ‘moderate’, and ‘conservative’ ones.

This article is based on the hypothesis that the Christian church in its historical evolution followed the dialectics of openness and closedness. The thesis and antithesis of this dialectics sometimes resolved in a synthesis, but more often they continued opposing one another in different forms. I would call their opposition ‘culture wars’. By ‘culture wars’ I mean confrontation on what we today call ideological grounds. Although in the patristic era there were no ideologies in the modern sense (as secular blueprints for what they believe to be a better society), we can observe in that era a clash of the perceptions of world similar to today’s conservative and liberal ideological programmes. Ideological programmes are only projections of more fundamental attitudes, which are deeper than political preferences. These fundamental attitudes, which I identify as open / inclusive and closed / exclusive, can have both secular projections (such as liberal or conservative ideologies) and religious ones. Projections, thus, should not be confused with their source: openness and closedness can cast shades on different screens, which can be either secular or religious, but the antagonism is not between the shades, but between the figures behind them, i.e. between inclusive and exclusive attitudes. I think I made myself clear that I apply the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ to the patristic debates only as a convenient analogy that helps us better understand ‘ideological’ motivations behind many theological arguments. That is another hypothesis that this article argues for: in the patristic era, theological debates were not only about theology; they were also underpinned by ‘ideological’ preferences of theologians: open or closed ones. Classical theological controversies, thus, sometimes were also ‘culture wars’.

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As I just said, liberal and conservative ideologies can be interpreted as secular projections of either inclusive or exclusive takes on the world, which can also have religious projections. Present-day churches manifest these takes by receiving or rejecting secularity, among other issues. The churches in the period of Antiquity faced similar dilemmas regarding the Gentile culture, which was not secular. In other words, what for the church in the Late Antiquity was Gentile culture, is now secular society. In both cases we are dealing with ‘culture wars’ understood as debates about whether to receive or reject ideas and discourses stemming from heterogeneous cultures. The dialectics of openness and closedness, which inspired premodern Christian culture wars, goes back to the apostolic era. One of its earliest projections was a dispute that involved Paul, Peter, Barnabas, and possibly some other apostles. It took place in Antioch and was reflected in Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (2:11-4), as well as in the Book of Acts, chapter 15. The dispute was effectively about whether the Jewish community that received Jesus Christ as God’s Messiah, should remain confined within Judaism or could open up to the Gentile world. In other words: should it be closed or open, exclusive or inclusive? Fortunately for us, the early Judeo-Christian community chose the latter option. After Christianity merged with the Greco-Roman world, it lived through the dialectics of openness and closedness again and again. Major theological crises in the history of the Christian church can be interpreted as projections of the same dialectics. Thus, the Arian crisis, among other things, was a collision between a traditionalist and more innovative approaches to monotheism. Arius and his followers were traditionalists in the sense of using traditional imagery and languages to describe one God. In contrast to them, the Nicaean theologians dramatically broadened descriptive language for the Trinity, by borrowing from external sources of non-Christian wisdom. Another major crisis in the church, which evolved around the council of Chalcedon, can also be interpreted as embodying the dialectics of openness versus closedness. This was a controversy between the dialectically opposed factions of the followers of Cyril of Alexandria. Some followers interpreted Cyril’s theological language in a literal and exclusivist manner. Others offered a more creative interpretation that included the western Christological language, which emphasised duality in Christ. This interpretation was eventually adopted by the council of Chalcedon. Even more inclusive was the take of the so-called neo-Chalcedonians, who tried to reconcile the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian readings of Cyril. At some stage, ‘liberal’ neo-Chalcedonians differentiated from the ‘conservative’ non-Chalcedonians and some strictly Chalcedonian groups, which also became conservative. This differentiation was probably one of the reasons why the neo-Chalcedonian ecumenical project, which was launched to bridge the divides between various theological groups, did not succeed. At the same period of time, the so-called Origenist controversy developed around the same dialectical pair of openness and closedness. Those who were

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called ‘Origenists’ demonstrated appreciation to intellectual culture, including the one deriving from Gentile antiquity, while their opponents detested it. The name (and not necessarily the original teaching, as we all know well) of Origen was in the focus of what we could identify as an Origenistic ‘culture war’. The Origenistic controversy was probably one of the clearest instances of a premodern ‘culture war’ in the Christian church, where the debates were not so much about theology, as about ‘ideological’ standpoints that ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ could not agree upon. Discussions on Socrates in the second and third centuries can be seen as ‘culture wars’ not as clearly as the discussions on Origen in the sixth century, but they constitute one of the earliest instances of the ‘patristic culture wars’. Mark Edwards is right when he says that ‘for early Christians Socrates was either a broken reed in the enemy’s hands or a sword in theirs’.1 I would add here that this enemy was not only outside the church, but also inside it. The first Christian author who made explicit references to Socrates was Justin.2 His reasoning was the following. In the period of the Greco-Roman Antiquity, Socrates enjoyed ‘the status of a cultural icon’.3 His death sentence by the council of the Athenians in 399 BC was among the most remembered and most formative events for the posterior Antiquity. There was a consensus among the literati that he was accused on wrong grounds; they often mentioned his death as an example of ultimate injustice. In the time when Justin composed his apologies, the trial and death of Socrates were still widely discussed among the learned Greeks and Romans, such as, for instance, Albinus of Smyrna4 or Favorinus of Arelate.5 Justin invented a sophisticated apologetical argument, to employ such a wholehearted reception of Socrates by the opponents of Christianity, and thus to demonstrate that Christians were also accused on wrong grounds and experienced the same injustice. Justin was even more sophisticated than that. His argument of Socrates worked in two ways: not only against his Gentile interlocutors, but also against 1 Mark Edwards, ‘Socrates and the Early Church’, in Michael B. Trapp (ed.), Socrates from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (Aldershot, 2007), 125-42, 133. 2 There are also references in the works ascribed to Clement of Rome, who lived earlier, but those references are in the non-authentic homilies. The author of these homilies, by the way, appreciates the figure of Socrates as ‘the wisest among all men’, Homiliae 5.18-9, in Clement of Alexandria, Die Pseudoklementinen, ed. Bernhard Rehm, 2nd ed., vol. 1, Homilien (Berlin, 1969), 23-281. 3 Nikolaos Charalabopoulos, ‘Two Images of Sokrates in the Art of the Greek East’, in Michael B. Trapp (ed.), Socrates from antiquity to the Enlightenment (Aldershot, 2007), 105-26, 105. 4 Albinus, Introductio in Platonem, in Karl Friedrich Hermann and Martin Wohlrab (eds), Platonis Dialogi secundum Thrasylli tetralogias dispositi, vol. 6 (Leipzig, 1890), 147-51. See on Albinus: Karl-Ludwig Elvers et al., ‘Albinus’, in Hubert Cancik et al. (eds), Brill’s New Pauly (2006). 5 Favorinus of Arelate, fragments 34 and 96, in Opere, ed. Adelmo Barigazzi (Firenze, 1966). See about Favorinus: Peter L. Schmidt, ‘Favorinus’, in Hubert Cancik et al. (eds), Brill’s New Pauly (2006).

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Christian ‘conservatives’. Justin wanted to convince the latter that there is a big value in the Gentile culture, and the ‘conservatives’ are wrong in rejecting it in wholesale. Justin argued that such figures as Socrates had in themselves sparks of God’s wisdom. He called these sparks ‘a part of the seminal word’ (σπερματικοῦ λόγου μέρος).6 Christians, who believe in the Word of God, should appreciate those who bear in themselves God’s words. Justin drafted a list of Greek philosophers and Jewish prophets, who he believed were participants in the divine seminal word: Socrates, Heraclitus, Abraham, Elias, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, and ‘many others whose deeds or names we now forbear to enumerate’.7 Justin thus addressed the closedmindedness in his church from more inclusive positions: he was like a Christian ‘liberal’ arguing with ‘conservatives’. As in our days a dialogue between the people from the opposite trenches of the culture wars is not always easy, so it was in the days of Justin. Even his disciple Tatian, who was a ‘conservative’, did not accept his argumentation. In his Oratio ad Graecos, he rejected the Greek paideia in wholesale8 and mocked practically every philosophical authority, who is not Christian.9 The only person he spared his mockery was Socrates. It seems though that Tatian made this dispensation not because he liked Socrates, but as a tribute to his teacher Justin. Thus, Tatian repeats after Justin that Socrates, Heracles, and some others are only a few exceptions among the corrupted minds of antiquity. It is noteworthy that he changes the name Heraclitus to Heracles (Σωκράτους ἑνὸς καὶ Ἡρακλέους καί τινων ἄλλων τοιούτων) and in the same passage applies to ‘Heraclitus’ very unkind words.10 There were Tatian’s confederates who did not have anyone for whose sake to spare the memory of Socrates. One of them was Tertullian. He, on the one 6 Apologia II 7; 13. English translation in Justin Martyr, The First Apology, The Second Apology, Dialogue with Trypho, Exhortation to the Greeks, Discourse to the Greeks, The Monarchy, or the Rule of God, trans. Thomas B. Falls (Washington, 1965), 128, 33. Hereafter cited in brackets. Justin presents ‘a part of the seminal word’ of God in counterposition of the ‘whole word’ (τοῦ παντὸς λόγου: Apologia II 7). It should be noted that Justin speaks not about the entire ‘seminal word’ as different from the ‘whole word’, but only a part (μέρος) of it. He thus preserves the integrity of the ‘seminal’ and ‘whole’ words of Christ. 7 Apologia I 46 [83-4]. 8 See Peter Gemeinhardt et al., Gegen falsche Götter und falsche Bildung: Tatian, Rede an die Griechen, Sapere 28 (Tübingen, 2016). 9 Oratio ad Graecos, 2-3. English translation in Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments, ed. and trans. Molly Whittaker (Oxford, 1982), 5-9. 10 ‘I have no use for Heraclitus and his boast ‘educated myself’, because he was self-taught and arrogant, nor do I think much of his trick in hiding his work in the temple of Artemis, in order to achieve publication later in a mysterious way. For the pundits say that the tragedian Euripides went down and read it, and from memory revealed the obscurity of Heraclitus to the devotees piecemeal. His manner of death showed up his ignorance, for he was stricken with dropsy, and being a practitioner of medicine on the same lines as his philosophy he smeared himself all over with excrement; when it hardened it caused cramp all over his body, and after convulsions he died’, Oratio ad Graecos 3.2.5-6, in Edgar J. Goodspeed, Die ältesten Apologeten: Texte mit kurzen Einleitungen (Göttingen, 1914). English translation in Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments (1982), 5-9.

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hand, acknowledged that Socrates was condemned to death, because ‘truth is hated’ and because ‘he was destroying the gods’. On the other hand, ‘to mock the gods’, Socrates ‘would swear by the oak, the goat and the dog’.11 In the end of his life, as Tertullian sarcastically remarks, Socrates ‘ordered a cock to be sacrificed to Aesculapius – I suppose, out of compliment to Aesculapius’s father; for Apollo declared Socrates to be the wisest of men’.12 For Tertullian, Socrates cannot be a model for Christians, because he was under the spell of his daemonium,13 which the African apologist identified with demons. Another African, Clement, offered a different interpretation of Socrates’s daemonium. For him, this spirit (τὸ δαιμόνιον) was more like a personal guardian angel, who ‘was responsible’ for the philosopher ‘by turning him aside from wrong action even if it never worked positively’.14 In other words, Socrates was not possessed by this spirit; he and his daemonium had synergy not dissimilar with the one between Prospero and Ariel in The Tempest. The interpretation of Socrates’s daemonium thus became a token that clearly identified two opposite ‘ideological’ standpoints among early Christians. In contrast to Tertullian, Clement also finds nicer words to describe the motivation of Socrates to die. The philosopher chooses poison because he ‘puts good life (τὸ εὖ ζῆν) before life and death, and hopes for another life after the end’.15 Clement’s take on Socrates differed not only from ‘conservative’ Tertullian’s, but also from ‘liberal’ Justin’s. In contrast to the latter, Clement does not put Socrates on the same scale with the prophets of the Jewish Law. He suggests instead that philosophers like Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato obtained true knowledge not directly from God, but from Moses.16 Clement thus downgrades the level of Socrates’s access to the divine knowledge from direct to indirect: from the seminal word of God to the prophetic word of Moses. Judged against the criterion of Socrates, Clement thus can be placed between the more ‘liberal’ Justin and more ‘conservative’ Tertullian. Origen seemingly had the same position. On the one hand, he remarks that Socrates lived a good life.17 Origen also acknowledges that the philosopher died 11 Apologeticus 14 [76-7]. Cited here and hereafter according to the edition and translation of T.R. Glover, in Marcus Minucius Felix and Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus, Tertullian, Apology, De Spectaculis. Minucius Felix, Octavius, trans. and ed. T.R. Glover and Gerald H. Rendall, LCL 250 (Cambridge, MA, 1931). Pages of the edition are shown in brackets. 12 Apologeticus 46 [200-1]. 13 Ibid. 14 Stromata I 17.83.4. Text cited here and hereafter according to edition Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, ed. Ludwig Früchtel, Otto Stählin and Ursula Treu, GCS 2, 3 (Berlin, 1960, 1970). English translation: Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, Books One to Three, trans. John Ferguson (Washington, DC, 1991), 87. 15 Stromata V 2.4.4-6. Translation is mine. 16 Stromata V 14.99.3. 17 ‘For we learn both from every sect of philosophy and from the divine word that there are people who have undergone so great a change that they have manifested an example of the best life. Some say this of Heracles and Odysseus among the heroes, and of Socrates among those of

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because he decided that death would be better than life under the present circumstances.18 On the other hand, Origen does not idealize Socrates. For instance, he makes a remark in his polemics with Celsus that the teaching of the Athenian philosopher was dividing for his followers: ‘Anyone who criticizes Christianity on account of the sects might also criticise the teaching of Socrates; for from his instruction many schools have come into being, whose adherents do not hold the same opinions’.19 At the same time, Origen avoids direct invectives against Socrates ad personam, something that Tertullian enjoyed doing. While Origen tried to do justice to Socrates and be more inclusive of the Gentile wisdom that the philosopher represented, his opponent Celsus converted Socrates to a weapon to attack Christians. For instance, he counterposes Christians, who meet in secret to avoid persecutions, to Socrates, who openly accepted trial against him.20 In another remark Celsus accuses Jesus of something opposite to his previous argument, namely that he did not avoid death even though he could.21 In response to this, Origen returns to Celsus his own argument about Socrates – that the philosopher also knew that he would die and nevertheless freely accepted this. It is noteworthy that when emperor Julian launched the restoration of paganism, he seems also to recruit Socrates against Christians. That is how scholars explain Socrates’s depiction in Syrian Apameia.22 In this mosaic, which was produced in the period that include the years of Julian’s restoration of paganism, Socrates dominates the scene. This scene also features other philosophers, and Socrates’s name is the only one inscribed above their heads. He stares from the mosaic as Lord Kitchener from the famous WWI poster. Celsus used Socrates for the same propaganda purposes. In the terms of ‘culture wars’, the figure of Socrates is like a litmus test that helps us locate the positions of different Fathers of the church on the ‘ideological’ axis of openness and closedness. From this point of view, Justin was an open ‘liberal’ mind. He differed from many unnamed ‘conservative’ Christians whom he implicitly addressed in his apologies, while advocating for Socrates. Even more conservative were Tatian and Tertullian. One could place them on the far-right margin of the ideological axis. Probably because of rather extreme a later age’, Contra Celsum III 66, according to edition Origen, Contre Celse, ed. Marcel Borret, 4 vol., SC 132, 136, 147, 150 (Paris, 1967-1969). English translation: Origen, Contra Celsum, trans. Henry Chadwick, reprint, with additions and corrections (Cambridge, 1980), 172. Hereafter pages of translation cited in brackets. 18 ‘He chose the course that seemed to him reasonable, thinking that it was better for him to die in accordance with the principles of his philosophy (φιλοσόφως) than to live in contradiction to them (ἀφιλοσόφως)’. Contra Celsum II 17 [83]. 19 Contra Celsum III 13 [136]. 20 See Ἀληθὴς λόγος 1.4. Cited according to edition Celsus, Der Ἀληθὴς λόγος des Kelsos, ed. Robert Bader, Tübinger Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1940). 21 ‘Who, whether god or daemon, or sensible man, if he foreknew that such things would happen to him, would not avoid them if at least he could do so’, Contra Celsum II 17 [83]. 22 N. Charalabopoulos, ‘Two Images of Sokrates in the Art of the Greek East’ (2007), 107.

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ideological preferences, they ended up in schismatic movements, which often take spin from radical ideological positions. Clement and Origen were rather centrists. They managed to develop a synthesis between liberal and conservative thesis and antithesis. In their synthetic centrist position, they cautiously and without excessive enthusiasm tried to be realistic about what is useful and what is useless in the figure and philosophy of Socrates. From this point of view, even the dialogue between Origen and Celsus can be interpreted not only as religious polemics, but also as an ideological debate between a ‘moderate’ Christian and a ‘conservative’ polytheist. The study of the case of Socrates leads us to an important conclusion that in addition to theological positions, the Fathers of the church often had ‘ideological’ ones. Sometimes their ‘ideological’ predispositions influenced their theology. Sometimes it was the other way around, and theological findings shaped their ‘ideological’ preferences. Sometimes ‘culture wars’ waged by ‘ideological’ disagreements led to serious theological controversies and even schisms in the church. Despite their innate antagonism, however, open / inclusive and closed / exclusive attitudes do not necessarily cause destruction in the church. Their dialectical opposition can produce a constructive momentum, which would drive the evolution of the church. The church is more than the thesis of ‘liberalism’ or the antithesis of ‘conservatism’, and can be benefitted if they resolve in moderate syntheses.

Creation out of Nothing or out of Really Nothing? Uses of μὴ ὄν and oὐκ ὄν in Pre-Nicene Theology Jussi JUNNI, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

ABSTRACT The Platonic distinction between being and becoming was a crucial notion even in Christian theology of the very first centuries. The demiurge of Plato, a lower-class deity who shaped the unformed matter by looking at the eternal ideas, was promoted to the Highest Being, God the Father in Christianity. For Plato, also the matter was eternal, not only the immutable ideas. The Platonists knew the concept of non-being (μὴ ὄν), by which they meant unformed matter that had potential to be formed according to the intelligible and thus becoming into the state of being. Since the matter was eternal according to their thought, there was no room for the concept of true non-existence (οὐκ ὄν) of the matter. The first Christian authors adopted this Platonic view of the preexistent matter, but the later theological development led to notion of the creatio ex nihilo, God creating the world out of really nothing, without anything pre-existent but himself. This article challenges the traditional view that creation by shaping the formless matter is characterised as ἐκ μὴ ὄντος and creation out of non-existence is characterised as ἐξ οὐκ ὄντος. A selection of pre-Nicene theologians, e.g. Philo, Justin, Theophilus, and Clement, are treated as regards to their uses of these formulas when expressing their notions on creation of matter. This article thus contributes to the discussion about the appearance of the creatio ex nihilo in Christian theology.

Introduction It is said that the creatio ex nihilo, that God has created the world ‘out of nothing’ was one of the great doctrinal innovations of the first Christian centuries.1 We know that in the pre-Nicene period, there was a remarkable variety of notions about the origin of matter. For example, Justin the Martyr, who wrote in the middle of the second century, hold a classic Platonic notion2 that God acts as a demiurge forming shapeless matter – relative non-being – into being. Theophilus of Antioch, his contemporary, thought instead that there was 1

See, e.g., Joseph Torchia, Creation and Consistency in Early Patristic Thought (New York, London, 2019), xxi. 2 See Plato, Timaeus, 27d-28c.

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no primeval matter, but that God created the world from absolute non-being, ex nihilo, as the classic formulation states.3 The fundamentality of the question about ‘nothingness’ and ‘coming into being’ is expressed in another classic philosophic formulation, ex nihilo nihil fit, ‘from nothing comes nothing’. Coming into being ‘out of nothing’ was inconceivable for Greek philosophers, but it seems that the earliest Christians were against that.4 The roots of this thought reach as far as to the writings of Parmenides (5th century BC), where he states that ‘nor will I let you to say or think that it is from not-being (ἐκ μὴ ἐόντος). For it is not to be said or to be thought it is not (ὅπως οὐκ ἔστιν)’5. It was no wonder that for Plato (427-347 BC), everything was eternal; there were ‘that what always is’ (τὸ ὂν ἀεί), the unchanging ideas, on the one hand, and ‘that what always becomes’ (τὸ γιγνόμενον ἀεί), on the other, ‘being’ and ‘becoming’, respectively.6 Plato would not have written about ‘coming into being’, since for him, the intelligible was always ‘being’ and the sensible always ‘becoming.7 In Greek, there is no unequivocal phrase for the Latin idiom of ex nihilo, but two competing alternatives with slight differences in their meaning. Both ἐκ μὴ ὄντος and ἐξ οὐκ ὄντος can be translated as ‘out of nothing’ (or, more properly, ‘from non-being’). In a former article of mine, I was writing an introduction about crucial issues concerning early Christian theologies of creation,8 and had without further questioning adopted a distinction between creation ἐκ μὴ ὄντος, ‘out of relatively non-being’, and ἐξ οὐκ ὄντος, ‘out of absolutely non-being’, which Henry Chadwick had used in his famous Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition. Chadwick writes that only the use of the phrase ἐκ μὴ ὄντος in Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-ca. 215) suggests that Clement believed in the pre-existence of matter, a second eternal principle besides God: But the question remains: is the matter of which this world is made something that existed ‘prior to’ the act of Creation? Three times Clement declares that the world is made ‘out of nothing’, but in each case the phrase he employs is ek me ontos, not ex ouk ontos; that is to say, it is made not from that which is absolutely non-existent, 3

Gerhard May, Schöpfung aus dem Nichts: Die Entstehung der Lehre von der Creatio ex nihilo (Berlin, New York, 1978), 2, 124-5, 159-61. 4 Frances Young, ‘“Creatio ex nihilo”: A Context for the Emergence of the Christian Doctrine of Creation’, Scottish Journal of Theology 44 (1991), 139-51. 5 Parmenides, fr. 8 (Simplicius of Cilicia, On Aristotle Physics, 145). Translation: Pamela Huby and C.C.W. Taylor, Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 1.3-4 (London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney, 2011). 6 Plato, ibid. 7 Francis M. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato (Indianapolis, Cambridge, 1937), 24-6. 8 Jussi Junni, ‘Johdatus varhaiskristillisten luomiskäsitysten keskeisiin kysymyksiin’, Luominen varhaiskristillisessä teologiassa: Suomen patristisen seuran vuosikirja, Studia Patristica Fennica 5 (Helsinki, 2016), 7-30.

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but from relative non-being or unformed matter, so shadowy and vague that it cannot be said to have the status of ‘being’, which is imparted to it by the shaping had of the Creator. 9

One of my colleagues in Finland, Sami Yli-Karjanmaa, made some critical comments concerning my use of this framework, which even Chadwick had adopted without further references. His main point of criticism towards me was that I should not assume that this theory can be straightforwardly applied to every single early Christian author.10 I am now going to prove that he was right. I found out that the theory that Chadwick had used was suggested as early as in 1920s in Herbert Weir Smyth’s Greek Grammar for Colleges, where he wrote the following: τὰ οὐκ ὄντα is that which does not exist independently of any opinion of the writer: τὰ οὐκ ὄντα λογοποιεῖν to fabricate what does not actually exist. τὰ μὴ ὄντα is that which is regarded as not existing, that which is dependent on the opinion of the writer, the whole sum of things that are outside of actual knowledge.11

Since Smyth, the theory of the distinction between μὴ ὄν and οὐκ ὄν has been repeated numerous times in patristic research. Smyth and Chadwick are only some few examples. It has been adopted by Georg S. Hendry,12 and also Frances Young seems to support it.13 My most recent discovery of its appliance was in Joseph Torchia’s Creation and Consistency in Early Patristic Thought, a book that was published in no earlier than 2019.14 On the other hand, some scholars have not bothered themselves with the deeper meaning of the negation particle. For example, Gerhard May, in his elaborate Schöpfung aus dem Nichts, bypasses the philological question and terminological distinction between these two types of nothingness. May seems – at least to some extent – to regard these phrases as synonymous.15 It must be kept in mind that the Greeks knew the distinction between relative and absolute non-being. In his De generatione et corruptione, Aristotle (384322 BC) stated the distinction between becoming out of non-being and out of simply non-being: For if there is to be simply coming-to-be (γένεσις), something must simply come to be (γίνοιτο) out of non-being (ἐκ μὴ ὄντος), so that it would be true to say that not-being 9

Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition (Oxford, 1966), 46-7. Sami Yli-Karjanmaa, ‘Filonisia reunamerkintöjä’, Luominen varhaiskristillisessä teologiassa (Helsinki, 2016), 58-62. 11 Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges (New York a.o., 1920), § 2688. 12 Georg S. Hendry, ‘Nothing’, Theology Today 39 (1982), 274-89, 276, 281-2. 13 F. Young, ‘“Creatio ex nihilo”’ (1991), 142-3. 14 J. Torchia, Creation and Consistency in Early Patristic Thought (2019), xxiii, 80. Torchia does not give a citation about the origin of the distinction. 15 G. May, Schöpfung aus dem Nichts (1978), 15-8, 159-67. 10

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(τὸ μὴ ὄν) is an attribute of some things. For becoming (γένεσις) something is out of not-something (ἐκ μὴ ὄντος τινός), e.g. out of not-white or not-beautiful, but simply coming-to-be is out of simply nothing (ἐξ ἅπλῶς μὴ ὄντος).16

Aristotle here stated that there is a difference between becoming out of relatively non-being and absolutely (simply) non-being. But can it be said that also in the first Christian centuries – and in every single author –, ἐκ μὴ ὄντος denoted ‘out of relatively non-being’ and ἐξ οὐκ ὄντος ‘out of absolutely non-being’? This paper is about the interpreting these two phrases that were used as regards to creation of matter in the earliest Christian centuries. I am not going to discuss the notions of creatio ex nihilo as such in those particular authors, but the theory of Smyth, Chadwick, and most recently, Torchia, instead. The question of this article is thus the following: Do pre-Nicene Christian authors use phrases μὴ ὄν and οὐκ ὄν consistently meaning relatively nonbeing for the former and absolutely non-being for the latter or do these phrasal meanings vary among the authors and to what extent? Obviously, no other than Greek sources are scrutinised in this paper. One circumscription must also be made: The meaning of οὐκ ὄν in the context of Arianism and of the origin of the Son is not scrutinised in this article. At least Arius (256-336) and some of his descendants wrote that the Son was created ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, thus denying his consubstantiality with the Father.17 Biblical sources There are not many biblical sources that contain precise description of the creation in philosophical terms. The story about God creating the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1ff.) does not state explicitly whether or not God created matter. As described below, the story has been interpreted in various ways. Some definitions can, however, be found in deuterocanonical scriptures. In the Wisdom of Solomon (11:17), for example, the author praises God of creating the world ‘from the unformed matter’ (ἐξ ἀμόρφου ὕλης, cf. Gen. 2:7,19), thus indicating that the matter pre-existed the creation.18 This passage, however, does not mention either kind of ‘nothingness’ (μὴ ὄν or οὐκ ὄν), and thus does not suggest anything on the origin of matter. 16

Aristotle, De generatione et corruptione, 1.3. See, e.g., R.P.C. Hanson, ‘Who Taught ΕΞ ΟΥΚ ΟΝΤΩΝ?’, Arianism: Historical and Theological Reassessments, Papers of the Ninth International Conference on Patristic Studies, ed. Robert C. Gregg (Philadelphia, 1985), 79ff., or Christopher Stead, ‘The Word “From Nothing”’, Journal of Theological Studies 36 (1998), 671-84. 18 David Winston, ‘The Book of Wisdom’s Theory of Cosmogony’, History of Religions 11 (1971), 185-202, 191-4. 17

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One ‘possibly significant’19 mention is in the Second Book of Maccabees, 7:28, where the following is read: I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed (οὐκ ἐξ ὄντων ἐποίησεν). And in the same way the human race came into being.20

Scholars have debated much about the meaning of the sentence. There are several references to this passage saying that this is the origin of creatio ex nihilo, God has created things ‘out of nothing’. And so are plenty also its opponents. There is a comprehensive list in Torchia’s work, but there is no need to replicate it here.21 As regards the exact phrase in its Greek form, there is a philological issue that many of the scholars have either neglected or overlooked. The phrase about ‘nothingness’ in 2Macc. 7:28 is not ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, meaning ‘out of non-beings’, but οὐκ ἐξ ὄντων, which actually does not stand for ‘out of non-being(s)’ but ‘not out of beings’ instead. There are also textual variants saying ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, but their originality must be questioned on the basis of lesser ambiguity.22 Goldstein argues that ‘nothingness’, in Greek, is always singular, thus implying that the plural form τὰ ὄντα denotes individual beings.23 That would imply that the God’s creative action in 2Macc. 7:28 should be understood as not exploiting already existent beings. It seems that 2Macc. 7:28 does not discuss ‘nothingness’ or creatio ex nihilo at all, but compares creation of the world with creation of humanity. We must focus on the end of the verse, which equates the method of creation of the world and creation of the human beings. We know from Gen. 2:7 that God ‘formed man from dust of the ground’, and it is not plausible that the author of 2Maccabees would have had some other kind of process of creation when writing 7:28.24 Another interpretation would be that of Goldstein, namely that the matter of the world came from God as the matter of an embryo comes from 19 Peter C. Bouteneff, Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives (Grand Rapids, 2008), 17 n. 46. 20 2Macc. 7:28. 21 J. Torchia, Creation and Consistency in Early Patristic Thought (2019), 98-100. 22 See Jonathan A. Goldstein, II Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Bible (New York, a.o., 1984), 310-1, and Robert Doran, 2 Maccabees: A Critical Commentary (Minneapolis, 2012), 161. Compare with J.C. O’Neill, ‘How Early Is the Doctrine of Creatio ex Nihilo?’, Journal of Theological Studies 53 (2002), 449-65, 451. 23 J.A. Goldstein, II Maccabees (1984). See also The Oxford Bible Commentary, ed. John Barton and John Muddiman (Oxford 2001), 742. 24 Copan sees that creatio ex nihilo is present in this passage, see Paul Copan, ‘Is Creatio Ex Nihilo a Post-Biblical Invention? An Examination of Gerhard May’s Proposal’, Trinity Journal NS 17 (1996), 77-93, 85-7, but he has omitted the question of the lack of ‘nothingness’ because of the word order, thus making his and May’s, G. May, Schöpfung aus dem Nichts (1978), 6-8 opposition insignificant.

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its mother, but God acting as a demiurge (see 7:22-3).25 We should, thus, conclude that we find here no support for the Smyth’s and Chadwick’s theory of ἐξ οὐκ ὄντος denoting creation without primeval matter.26 In New Testament, Paul writes about non-existing beings in two of his letters. First, in the Epistle to Romans 4:17, he has written the following: As it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations.’ Abraham acted in faith when he stood in God’s presence, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that don’t even exist (τὰ μὴ ὄντα ὡς ὄντα).27

The context of the verse is Paul’s interpretation of Abraham and his faith (see Gen. 15:5-6). It must be questioned whether Paul links God’s attributes of life-giving and calling-into-existence to Abraham’s heir, thus implying that God’s creative act hear denotes multiplying the seed of Abraham. Copan and Craig have quoted a large sample of research and argue for creatio ex nihilo here.28 Torchia even regards it as an ‘explicit suggestion of creation ex nihilo’.29 Worthington has treated the question about ὡς ὄντα, ‘as existing’, since it is not necessarily identified with εἰς τὸ εἶναι, ‘into existence’, thus implying that God would call ‘non-existing as existing’.30 We must also note that τὰ μὴ ὄντα here is plural, which was regarded meaning individual not-yet-beings rather than primordial matter (see above). Thus, it seems to me that this verse cannot be read so that there were pre-existent, not-yet-being nations of people just waiting for God to shape them. The forthcoming nations in the seed of Abraham simply did not exist in the time of God’s promise to him. But as Bouteneff has noted, Paul’s interest here is more to make a sharp distinction between God and creation rather than defining the origin of matter.31 On the basis of this verse, we cannot say anything precise about Paul’s relation between μὴ ὄν and the origin of matter.32 The other passage is in the First Epistle to Corinthians 1:28: And God chose what is insignificant in the world, what is despised, what is nothing (τὰ μὴ ὄντα), in order to destroy what is something (τὰ ὄντα).33

Here, Paul is referring to God’s decision to choose not the wise and the mighty, but foolish and insignificant people instead. The despised are classified as τὰ μὴ ὄντα, as opposed to τὰ ὄντα, who are the noble and the rich. Both 25

J.A. Goldstein, II Maccabees (1984). See also F. Young, ‘“Creatio ex nihilo”’ (1991), 144. 27 Rom. 4:17. 28 P. Copan and W.L. Craig, Creation out of Nothing (Grand Rapids, 2004), 76-8. 29 J. Torchia, Creation and Consistency in Early Patristic Thought (2019), 22. 30 Jonathan Worthington, ‘Creatio ex Nihilo and Romans 4.17 in Context’, New Testament Studies 62 (2016), 49-59, 56. 31 P.C. Bouteneff, Beginnings (2008), 37. 32 See also G. May, Schöpfung aus dem Nichts (1978), 26-8. 33 1Cor. 1:28. 26

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groups are contemporary beings, living and in existence so that even here Paul does not refer to the origin of matter with τὰ μὴ ὄντα. We may conclude, thus, that the question of the distinction between the phrases of μὴ ὄν and οὐκ ὄν as regards to primordial matter is absent from the Bible. There simply are not occurrences of these phrases referring to the origin of matter. Philo Philo (ca. 20 BC-ca. 40 AD), a Jewish philosopher, who wrote in the first half of the first century, is known of combining Jewish theology with MiddlePlatonic philosophy. He intertwined the myths of the biblical Genesis and Platonic Timaeus in a way which is called the double creation:34 First, God created a model of the world, inside his own mind.35 These are the eternal ideas of the intelligible realm of Timaeus, on which the demiurge looked when he began to shape the world.36 After this intelligible model, God proceeded with creation of the sensible world according to his model.37 There are some of passages in Philo where he wrote about non-beings. The first two are of his De vita Mosis. The first extract is from 2.100: For he, being the only true living God, is also really the Creator of the world; since he brought the non-beings into being (τὰ μὴ ὄντα ἤγαγεν εἰς τὸ εἶναι).38

Here Philo wrote τὰ μὴ ὄντα denoting things that did not exist yet but were to be brought into existence by the creating acts of God. It is obvious that Philo speaks about individual beings here, using the plural form. The usage is similar to that of Paul in Rom. 4:17 and 1Cor. 1:28 above. The second extract is later in De vita Mosis, in 2.267: For as he [God] produced that most perfect work, the world, bringing it out of non-being into existence (ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος εἴς τὸ εἶναι), so in the same manner did he produce plenty in the wilderness.39

In this passage, Philo uses the singular form of μὴ ὄν when describing the world coming into existence out of non-being. The number of the phrase seems to indicate a view of a single non-being (not many) that God created the world from as opposed to the previous quote where was a question of several nonbeings. 34 Jaroslav Pelikan, What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem? Timaeus and Genesis in Counterpoint (Michigan, 1997), 32-4; P.C. Bouteneff, Beginnings (2008), 29-30. 35 Philo, De opificio mundi 26-9. 36 Plato, Timaeus, 28c-29a, 30c-31a. 37 Philo, De opificio mundi 36. 38 Philo, De vita Mosis, 2.100. 39 Philo, De vita Mosis, 2.267.

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There is a slightly different tone in Legum allegoriae 3.10: How must it not be impossible to recompense or to praise as He deserves Him who brought the universe (τὸν τὰ ὅλα συστησάμενον) out of non-beings (ἐκ μὴ ὄντων)?

Here we have again a plural form, thus implying that Philo denotes individual, non-existing beings. It thus does not have much difference when compared to, e.g., De vita Mosis 2.100. Bearing in the mind what Goldstein writes about the correlation between the notion of individual beings and the plural form in the phrase,40 we perhaps should not focus on the difference between singular and plural forms too strongly. The very context of the Leg. 3.10 is to praise God of his overwhelming deeds in contrast to the wickedness of human beings. It must also be noted that Philo uses definite form (e.g., ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος, ‘out of that not-being’) in previous passages. Also, this should not be given too strong emphasis. We can hear the words of Plato and Aristotle in Philo’s text.41 Philo clearly says here that God has produced the most perfect work bringing it out of the non-being into being. The vast amount of cosmogonical writings of Philo makes it clear that he believed in the primeval, non-existent matter which was used as the material in the formative process of creation by God. In De plantatione 3, Philo describes how God reduced the substance, which was ‘in its own nature destitute of order and regularity’, into ‘a state of order from disorder” (εἰς τάξιν ἐκ τῆς ἀταξίας) – by using the very words of Plato in Timaeus 30a –, and ‘bringing it from a condition of confusion into a distinct system’. Philo differs here from Plato, however, since for him, the primordial matter is not independent of and thus been created by God – however before the creation of time.42 This is demonstrated in De somniis 1.76, where Philo characterises God not only as the demiurge but also as the creator (κτίστης) – in the sense of the city-founder.43 The two-phase-understanding of the material creation thus leads to the conclusion that the phrase ‘out of non-being’ (ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος) must be understood as moulding the previously unformed matter in Philo. He is thus consistent with the theory of Smyth and Chadwick. Shepherd of Hermas The Shepherd of Hermas (Ποιμὴν τοῦ Ἑρμᾶ) is an anonymous text written in the late first half of the second century, most probably in Rome.44 Wolfson 40

J.A. Goldstein, II Maccabees (1984), 742. Plato, Symposium 205b; Aristotle, De generatione animalium, 778b28. 42 S. Yli-Karjanmaa, ‘Filonisia reunamerkintöjä’ (2016), 60-2. 43 See also G. May, Schöpfung aus dem Nichts (1978), 12. 44 The Fathers of the Church: Volume I, ed. Hermigild Dressler, Robert P. Russell, Thomas P. Halton, Robert Sider, M. Josephine Brennan, and Richard Talaska (Washington, DC, 1947), 227-8. 41

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has proposed that the origin of creatio ex nihilo is found in the visions of the Shepherd.45 The text is indeed an interesting case as regards the creation out of non-existence. In the Shepherd, we have two passages about bringing non-existent to existence. First, in 1.6, the following is stated: God, who dwells in the heavens, and made out of nothing the things that exist (κτίσας ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος τὰ ὄντα).46

In 1.6, focus must be put on the verb (κτίσας) used. We found above with Philo that κτίζειν is associated with founding or building the city, even though Philo seemed to make a distinction between the founder and the demiurge. It is not clear here whether the author of the Shepherd denoted creatio ex nihilo with κτίζειν or more a Philonic understanding of the creation as moulding. The second passage of the Shepherd concerning creation out of non-being is the 26.1: First of all, believe that there is one God who created and finished all things, and made all things out of nothing (ποιήσας ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος εἰς τὸ εἶναι).47

This latter passage is especially interesting since the author of the Shepherd is using here exactly the same phrase as Philo did in the De vita Mosis 2.267 above: ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος εἴς τὸ εἶναι. The verb (ποιήσας), however, is different here and converges with Gen. 1:1 in the Septuagint. In the Platonic tradition, ποιέω is associated with poetry (ποίησις), and poets (ποιητής), who compose their verses out of not-yet-existent pieces of thought.48 The semantic field of the verb as ‘making’, however, is such a wide that no conclusions about the understanding of nothingness in Shepherd can be made in the light of this narrow evidence. The Shepherd thus does not give us an unequivocal answer to the question of the pre-existent matter. On the basis of the extant text, we cannot conclude whether or not the author of the Shepherd believed creatio ex nihilo.49 I thus somewhat diverge from O’Neill who has concluded that the Shepherd provides evidence of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.50 2Clement The Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians dates to the beginning of the second century. It is traditionally attributed to Clement of Rome (d. 99) but 45

Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam (Harvard, 1976), 355. Shepherd of Hermas 1.6. 47 Shepherd of Hermas 26.1. 48 Cf. Plato’s Republic X (600e-601a), where Plato compares a poet to a painter who paints a painting with different colors. 49 See also G. May, Schöpfung aus dem Nichts (1978), 27. 50 J.C. O’Neill, ‘How Early Is the Doctrine of Creatio ex Nihilo?’ (2002), 455-6, 463. 46

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is probably written by someone else some decades later. In the Coptic Orthodox Church, 2Clem. is considered canonical. The passage of 2Clem. 1.8 is especially interesting, since both μὴ ὄν and οὐκ ὄν are used there: For He called us when we were not (οὐκ ὄντας), and willed that out of nothing (ἐκ μὴ ὄντος) we should come into being (εἶναι).51

In the passage, people are characterised as non-beings (οὐκ ὄντας), but God willed that they should come into being (εἶναι) out of nothing (ἐκ μὴ ὄντος). According to the theory of Smyth and Chadwick, we could read this as people absolutely not existing but coming into existence out of relatively non-being matter. This would, however, be oversimplifying. The passage quoted does not treat creation at all. The context of this passage is about salvation, God’s calling from the sinful life to repentance. Again, as in Paul in the 1Corinthians, this does not suggest that these οὐκ ὄντα are absolutely non-beings, since they are existing people, however living in the sin. Thus, 2Clement seems not to make α distinction between μὴ ὄν and οὐκ ὄν. There are not any other passages that could explain the terminology more profoundly. It is, however, interesting that the author of 2Clement has used οὐκ ὄντας when referring to existing people living in the sin. This can be regarded as an evidence against the theory of sharp distinction between μὴ ὄν and οὐκ ὄν as regards non-existent. Justin the Martyr Justin the Martyr (ca. 100-165) was a Christian apologist in the second century. In his two apologies as well as in his fictional Dialogue with Trypho, he presents his defence of Christian faith. He has been regarded first a philosopher and secondly a theologian; he is deeply involved in Platonism.52 In modern research, Justin is seen as philosophising Christianity; he, however, seems to have thought vice versa regarding himself as a Christianising philosopher.53 There is one passage in Justin’s writings that treats creation out of non-being. In his Apologia prima 10, Justin writes the following: He in the beginning did of His goodness, for man’s sake, created (δημιουργῆσαι) all things (πάντα ὄντα) out of unformed matter (ἐξ ἀμόρφου ὕλης); – – For as in the beginning He created (ἐποίησε) those that did not exist (οὐκ ὄντας).54 51

2Clem. 1.8. See, e.g., G. May, Schöpfung aus dem Nichts (1978), 122-3. 53 Matti Myllykoski, ‘Justinos Marttyyrin maailma’, in Justinos Marttyyri: Apologiat & Dialogi Tryfonin kanssa (Helsinki, 2008), 27-8. 54 Justin, Apologia prima, 10. 52

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In this account of creation, Justin points explicitly out that he is writing about unformed matter. He even uses classical words associated with shaping the primeval matter, namely δημιουργέω, and the poetic verb of making (ποιέω). In 1Apol. 59, he states that ‘the whole world (τὸν πάντα κόσμον) was born (γεγενῆσθαι) by the power of God’s word out of the elements’ (earth, water, and light). This indicates the traditional Greek distinction between the unordered χάος and the organised, ‘created’, κόσμος. Justin indeed thinks that all the creation is shaped out of relatively non-being unformed matter. But when discussing the creatures, he characterises the notyet-created beings as οὐκ ὄντας, which, according to the theory of Smyth and Chadwick, should mean something absolutely non-existent. Of course, it would be said that the earth, for example, as an entity would not exist although all its particles would in the form of chaotic matter. Thus, it seems conceivable that Justin regarded not-yet-created beings as absolutely non-existent, although they were created out of relatively non-being matter. Therefore, his writings do not provide evidence to appraise the theory. Theophilus of Antioch Theophilus of Antioch (d. ca. 183-185) has been regarded to be one of the first Christian authors, who has adopted the expression creatio ex nihilo, implying that there has not been any pre-existent matter.55 Scholars have been quite unanimous of that, and it is this the view that is justified by the exceptionally clear phrasings of Theophilus. The only remarkable extant text of Theophilus is Ad Autolycum. There are four passages where Theophilus writes about nothingness. The first is in 1.4, where he writes the following: And God has made (ἐποίησεν) all things out of things that were not (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων) into being (εἰς τὸ εἶναι), so that His greatness may be known and understood through His works.56

Here, Theophilus uses the verb (ἐποίησεν) used also in Gen. 1:1, which was regarded not as creating out of absolutely nothing but more like composing out of smaller elements. On the other hand, he uses the phrase associated with the absolutely non-being according to the theory of Smyth and Chadwick, particularly in the plural form. The second passage is in 1.8, where he writes that He made (ἐποίησέν) you out of non-being (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντος) into being (εἰς τὸ εἶναι), for if your father was not, nor your mother, much more did you yourself at one time 55 See, e.g., G. May, Schöpfung aus dem Nichts (1978), 159-60, or P.C. Bouteneff, Beginnings (2008), 69. 56 Theophilus, Ad Autolycum, 1.4.

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not exist (οὐδὲ σὺ ἦς ποτε), and formed (ἔπλασεν) you out of a small and moist substance (ἐξ ὑγρᾶς οὐσίας μικρᾶς), even out of the least drop, which at one time did itself not exist (οὐδὲ αὐτὴ ἦν ποτε).57

The setting is similar to that in 1.4, at least according to the verb (ἐποίησεν). The phrase treating non-begin (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντος) is here in singular. Theophilus presents here the formative process of ‘moulding’, but in the very end also affirms that even the matter has not always existed. This is treated in the third passage, which is in 2.10, he continues: They taught us with one consent that God made all things out of nothing (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων); for nothing was coeval (συνήκμασεν) with God: but He being His own place, and wanting nothing, and existing before the ages.58 Here, Theophilus writes that nothing has been coeval with God, thus implying that creation out of non-being truly denotes denial of primeval matter. This can be confirmed with the last passage in 2.4: But Plato and those of his school acknowledge indeed that God is uncreated (ἀγένητον), and the Father and Maker (ποιητήν) of all things; but then they maintain that matter (ὕλην) as well as God is uncreated, and claim that it is coeval with God. But if God is uncreated and matter uncreated, God is no longer, according to the Platonists, the Maker of all things, nor, so far as their opinions hold, is the monarchy of God established. And further, as God, because He is uncreated, is also unalterable; so if matter, too, was uncreated, it also would be unalterable, and equal to God; for that which is created is mutable and alterable, but that which is uncreated is immutable and unalterable. And what great thing is it if God made the world out of existent materials (ἐξ ὑποκειμένης ὕλης)? For even a human artist, when he gets material from someone, makes of it what he pleases. But the power of God is manifested in this, that out of things that are not (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων) He makes (ποιῇ) whatever pleases Him; just as the bestowal of life and motion is the prerogative of no other than God alone. For even man makes indeed an image, but reason and breath, or feeling, he cannot give to what he has made. But God has this property in excess of what man can do, in that He makes a work, endowed with reason, life, sensation. As, therefore, in all these respects God is more powerful than man, so also in this; that out of things that are not (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων) He creates and has created things that are.59

In this rather long quote, Theophilus clearly affirms that matter is not coeval with God and thus not uncreated. He thus denies the possibility of primordial, pre-existent matter. Therefore, his phrases of ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων denote that God has created the world out of absolutely non-being, meaning that he has not used any pre-existent matter as the material of ‘moulding’. So, the language of Theophilus seems to be in accordance with the theory.

57 58 59

Theophilus, Ad Autolycum, 1.8. Theophilus, Ad Autolycum, 2.10. Theophilus, Ad Autolycum, 2.4.

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Clement of Alexandria The very last author treated here is Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-ca. 215), Chadwick’s main source behind the theory. Clement has much in common with Philo, for example his notion of the sensible world as an image of the intelligible world.60 The first passage treated here is an extract from his Stromateis 5.14.89. What is called matter (ὕλην) by them, is said by them to be without quality (ἄποιον), and without form (ἀσχημάτιστον), and more daringly said by Plato to be non-existent (μὴ ὄν).61

Here, Clement explicitly treats matter. He says that that ‘what is called matter by them’, i.e. philosophers, is said to be characterised by classical adjectives of the unformed matter, namely without quality and without form. He refers to Plato who had classified the primordial matter to be non-existent (μὴ ὄν). This very passage, of course, does not provide us Clement’s own opinion but his interpretation of his predecessors instead. It does, however, point us the philosophical context of the question of the non-existent matter i.e. matter without qualities. Another extract is a bit later in Stromateis (5.14.92): He [Plato] not only showed that the universe was created (γενητόν), but points out that it was generated by him as a son, and that he is called its father, as deriving its being from him alone, and springing (ὑποστάντος) from non-existent (ἐκ μὴ ὄντος).62

In this second passage, Clement says that the world was created out of nothing (ἐκ μὴ ὄντος). If only looking at the book 5 of the Stromateis, it would be easy to conclude that Clement is in accordance with the theory that creation ἐκ μὴ ὄντος would mean forming the shapeless matter. These are, however, Clement’s regardings of Greek philosophers, especially Plato. A slightly differing view is offered in the second book of Stromateis (2.16.74): But God has no natural relation to us, as the authors of the heresies will have it; neither on the supposition of His having made us of nothing (ἐκ μὴ ὄντων ποιοίη), nor on that of having formed us from matter (ἐξ ὕλης δημιουργοίη); since the former did not exist at all (οὐδ’ ὅλως ὄν), and the latter is totally distinct from God unless we shall dare to say that we are a part of Him, and of the same essence as God.63

In this passage, Clement seems both to reveal his own theological thinking and to give an opposite meaning for the phrase τὰ μὴ ὄντα. Regardless of the 60 Salvatore R.C. Lilla, Clement of Alexandria: A Study in Christian Platonism and Gnosticism (Oxford, 1971), 192-2. See also Clement, Stromateis 5.14.93. 61 Clement, Stromateis 5.14.89. 62 Clement, Stromateis 5.14.92. 63 Clement, Stromateis 2.16.74.

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fact that Clement uses the plural form, ‘out of non-beings’, here, implying that he would not be discussing the non-existence (μὴ ὄν) but individual non-beings, he opposes creation out of non-beings by forming them using pre-existent matter. This, in turn, suggests that creation ‘out of non-beings’, ἐκ μὴ ὄντων, would be out of absolutely non-being, although the subjunctive negation, μὴ, is used here. Yli-Karjanmaa has demonstrated that Clement has to strengthen οὐ with ὅλως in order to equate it with μή.64 Therefore, it seems that Clement is contrary to the theory, or at least he is ambiguous in the precise meanings of these phrases. Conclusions In this article, I have discussed the theory of the clear distinction between μὴ ὄν and οὐκ ὄν types of non-being, i.e. relative non-being, that is, forming out of unformed matter, and absolute non-being, that is, respectively, creating without any pre-existent material. The theory that was proposed by Smyth, Chadwick, and Torchia among others, was discussed in the light of eight different texts of the biblical, Jewish and earliest Christian authors, Philo among them. The analysis reveals that of eight Jewish and early Christian authors scrutinised in the article, only two, namely Philo and Theophilus, would give any support to the theory. Philo supported the view that the world was created of preexistent matter which itself was not-being (μὴ ὄν), then Theophilus, in turn, emphasised that the world was not created out of any such matter but of absolute non-being (οὐκ ὄν). Justin and Clement, in turn, provided contrary evidence in that Justin was in favour of the Platonist idea of primeval matter but writes of οὐκ ὄν, when Clement, who denied the pre-existence of matter, uses the phrase μὴ ὄν. Other writings – 2Maccabees, Paul’s, Shepherd of Hermas and 2Clement – either did not consider the pre-existence of matter or did not provide enough material for conceptual analysis of either μὴ ὄν or οὐκ ὄν. We may thus conclude that the theory of μὴ ὄν denoting relative non-being, i.e. creation of pre-existent matter, and of οὐκ ὄν denoting absolute non-being, i.e. denying the pre-existence of matter, is not supported in the light of this evidence. Such terminological consistency is not found. Therefore, we should be careful when reading cosmogonical texts of the pre-Nicene period, so that our presuppositions of the phrasal meanings would not distort our observations and lead to misconceptions and mistheorising.

64

S. Yli-Karjanmaa, ‘Filonisia reunamerkintöjä’ (2016), 58.

Qu’est-ce qu’une ἄλογος πίστις ? Étude des emplois de ce grief en dehors de la polémique antichrétienne antique Gianluca PISCINI, Université de Tours, Tours, France

ABSTRACT The idea that Christianity demands an ἄλογος πίστις is attested by the first anti-Christian polemicist, Celsus, and in two texts long attributed to Porphyry’s Against the Christians. Some Christian writers seem also to defend their faith from this accusation. But how should we understand the expression ἄλογος πίστις? To answer this question, I will start by introducing the three occurrences of the expression ἄλογος πίστις in pagan texts non linked to anti-Christian polemics: one in Cassius Dio and two in Porphyry. The latter is particularly important: the study of his works will show that an anti-Christian polemicist could speak of ἄλογος πίστις in different polemical contexts. Then I will focus on the three texts, in order to better understand what is an ἄλογος πίστις for Cassius Dio and Porphyry. In the end, I will stress some features of the texts of my corpus, that are likely to explain why this argument was so soon and widely used against Christians. My analysis will show that this charge, although often used against Christians, probably belonged to the philosophical, polemical arsenal: different views on religion or different philosophical teachings could be dismissed as ‘irrational opinions’.

Introduction « Ne pas agir raisonnablement est étranger à Dieu » (τὸ μὴ σὺν λόγῳ ποιεῖν ἀλλότριον Θεοῦ)1 : en écrivant cela dans le septième de ses vingt-six Entretiens avec un musulman, Manuel II Paléologue se souvenait-il que la religion chrétienne avait était accusée autrefois de demander une ἄλογος πίστις2 ? Ce grief est déjà attesté au IIe siècle : après avoir exhorté ses lecteurs 1 Dialogues VII 3, 7, éd. et trad. Théodore Khoury. Cf. sur cette affirmation la note ad locum et les pages 119-20 de l’Introduction de l’édition Khoury. 2 La question était d’ailleurs encore d’actualité au Moyen Âge : dans le Dialogue d’un philosophe avec un juif et un chrétien de Pierre Abélard, le « philosophe » critique le hiatus entre la foi et la raison dans le judaïsme et le christianisme (cf. Dial. 7-9 Marenbon – Orlandi). Puisque Manuel II s’adresse à un musulman, il est curieux de constater que le « philosophe » d’Abélard est un descendant d’Ismaël circoncis (ibid. 39), autrement dit un Arabe grandi dans un pays de culture musulmane… Cf. John Marenbon et Giovanni Orlandi, Peter Abelard. Collationes. Edited and translated by John Marenbon and Giovanni Orlandi, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2001), l-li.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 187-199. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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à « n’accepter de doctrines que sous la conduite de la raison et d’un guide raisonnable », Celse, premier polémiste antichrétien, rapproche les chrétiens de « ceux qui croient sans raison (τοὺς ἀλόγως πιστεύοντας) » à toutes sortes de prodiges3. La persistance de cette opinion auprès des païens est témoignée par plusieurs Pères du IIIe et IVe siècle4, dont Eusèbe : ce dernier, dans des passages qui contiennent peut-être des traces des objections du Contre les chrétiens de Porphyre, parle d’ἄλογος πίστις5. Rien d’étonnant, donc, à ce que l’accusation d’irrationalité soit souvent mentionnée et commentée par les chercheurs qui s’intéressent aux rapports entre le christianisme antique et le monde gréco-romain : elle est notamment au centre de la monographie de Fabio Ruggiero, La follia dei cristiani, qui la définit comme « un aspetto significativo della polemica cristiana antica » et souligne la fréquence de cette critique (« ricorrente »)6. En revanche, ses emplois en dehors de la polémique antichrétienne ont reçu beaucoup moins d’attention : nous nous proposons de les analyser ici, pour voir ce qu’ils peuvent nous dire sur l’origine et la valeur de ce grief.

3 Μετὰ ταῦτα προτρέπει ἐπὶ τὸ λόγῳ ἀκολουθοῦντας καὶ λογικῷ ὁδηγῷ παραδέχεσθαι δόγματα […]· καὶ ἐξομοιοῖ τοὺς ἀλόγως πιστεύοντας μητραγύρταις καὶ τερατοσκόποις, Μίθραις τε καὶ Σαβαδίοις, καὶ ὅτῳ τις προσέτυχεν, Ἑκάτης ἢ ἄλλης δαίμονος ἢ δαιμόνων φάσμασιν. Orig., CCels. I 9,1-2.4-6, éd. et trad. Marcel Borret. Sur l’emploi de ce grief dans l’Antiquité, on se reportera à Fabio Ruggiero, La follia dei cristiani. Su un aspetto della « reazione pagana » tra I e V secolo, La Cultura (Milano, 1992). 4 Cf. Orig., ComJn V 7,8 ; Eus., PE XII 2,5 (mais aussi XIII 14,11, où c’est la πίστις païenne qui est ἄλογος) ; Athan., Gent. 1,17-22. L’emploi d’ἀλόγως πιστεύειν chez Némésius, Nat. hom. 13,69,22-4 Morani (ἀναγκαῖόν ἐστιν ἐπιδεῖξαι, εἰ ταῦτα τοῦτον ἔχει τὸν τρόπον, ἵνα μὴ δόξωμεν ἀλόγως πιστεύειν τοῖς λεγομένοις) serait-il un écho de ces controverses ? Le contexte n’est pas polémique, mais il n’est pas à exclure que dans ce même ouvrage, Némésius ait répondu à une objection antichrétienne de Porphyre (cf. Porph., CChr., fr. 94 D Becker = Nat. hom. 38,310-1 Morani). D’ailleurs, il connaît son œuvre et l’exploite volontiers : cf. Pier Franco Beatrice, ‘L’union de l’âme et du corps : Némésius d’Émèse lecteur de Porphyre’, dans Véronique BoudonMillot et Bernard Pouderon (eds), Les Pères de l’Église face à la science médicale de leur temps, Théologie historique 117 (Paris, 2005), 253-85. 5 Cf. Porph., Chr., fragments 85 et surtout 88 D Becker. Adolf von Harnack, suivant une suggestion de Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, attribuait ce dernier au prologue du Contre les chrétiens ; mais sa paternité porphyrienne a été profondément remise en question par Sébastien Morlet, La Démonstration évangélique d’Eusèbe de Césarée. Étude sur l’apologétique chrétienne à l’époque de Constantin, Collection des études augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 187 (Paris, 2009), 41-8 et Aaron P. Johnson, ‘Rethinking the Authenticity of Porphyry, c. Christ. fr. 1’, SP 46 (2010), 53-8. John G. Cook, ‘Research on the Bible among the Pagans since Rinaldi’s Biblia Gentium’, Henoch 37 (2015), 167-90, 177-82 a exprimé quelques réserves sur les objections des deux savants – mais il nous paraît impossible de considérer ce texte comme une citation de Porphyre. Sur le fragment 85 D cf. S. Morlet, ‘La Démonstration Évangélique d’Eusèbe de Césarée contientelle des fragments du Contra Christianos de Porphyre ? À propos du fr. 73 Harnack’, SP 46 (2010), 59-64. 6 Cf. F. Ruggiero, La follia (1992), 5.

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Dans un premier temps, nous présenterons les textes que nous allons étudier. Puisque l’un d’entre eux a été soupçonné de véhiculer une polémique antichrétienne (ce qui l’exclurait d’emblée du corpus), il faudra s’y pencher pour en comprendre les cibles. Ensuite, nous étudierons la signification (ou plutôt les significations) de l’expression ἄλογος πίστις dans ces extraits. Enfin, nous essayerons d’expliquer pourquoi ce grief était si souvent utilisé contre les chrétiens : nous soulignerons différentes affinités entre les textes de notre corpus et les arguments typiques de la polémique antichrétienne. I. Le corpus Nous nous proposons d’étudier des textes qui n’appartiennent pas à la polémique antichrétienne ; on laissera de côté aussi la littérature chrétienne, qui pourrait en être influencée. Or le Thesaurus Linguae Graecae7 ne recense aucune occurrence de la locution ἀλόγως πιστεύειν qui corresponde à ces critères ; il signale en revanche trois emplois d’ἄλογος πίστις susceptibles de nous intéresser. Le premier texte à prendre en considération est un passage du livre 42 de l’Histoire romaine de Dion Cassius. Ce tome couvre une partie de la guerre civile entre César et Pompée (nous sommes précisément en 47 av. J.-C.). Dans les chapitres 57-8, l’historien rapporte quelques anecdotes liées au début des opérations militaires en Afrique, et notamment l’effet suscité par l’appartenance du commandant désigné par Caton à la famille des Scipions8. Le souvenir des guerres puniques était si fort que César dut appeler à son tour un membre de la même famille (Scipion dit Salatto) pour rassurer ses soldats. Mais la réaction des troupes de Caton est, selon l’historien, le résultat d’une ἄλογος πίστις : Τῶν δὲ ἄλλων ὁ Σκιπίων αὐτοκράτωρ ἦρχε. Καὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ ὄνομα πολὺ πάντας τοὺς ὁμογνωμονοῦντάς οἱ ἐπερρώννυε, νομίζοντας οὐκ οἶδ’ ὅπως ἀλόγῳ τινὶ πίστει μηδένα ἂν Σκιπίωνα ἐν τῇ Ἀφρικῇ κακῶς πρᾶξαι. Sur le reste, c’était Scipion qui avait le commandement suprême. Son nom seul inspirait une grande confiance à tous ses partisans, qui pensaient par je ne sais quelle opinion irrationnelle qu’il était impossible qu’un Scipion fût vaincu en Afrique9.

Les deux autres occurrences de la locution qui nous intéresse sont chez un polémiste antichrétien, Porphyre de Tyr. Commençons par un fragment transmis par Eusèbe de Césarée dans sa Préparation Évangélique et tiré d’un ouvrage perdu du néoplatonicien, le traité en cinq livres De l’âme, contre 7 8 9

Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu [consulté le 02/07/2019]. Il s’agit de Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica. CD XLII 57,5 Freyburger-Galland (trad. Hinard – Cordier modifiée).

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Boéthos10. Dans cette œuvre, Porphyre critiquait les propos du philosophe Boéthos, sans doute un péripatéticien11. Mais pour des raisons difficiles à préciser12, le disciple de Plotin y discutait aussi la conception de la divinité professée par les stoïciens, qu’il qualifie d’ἄλογος πίστις : Πρὸς δὲ τὴν περὶ θεοῦ τῶν Στωϊκῶν δόξαν ἀπαρκεῖ παραθέσθαι τὰς Πορφυρίου λέξεις ἐν τοῖς πρὸς Βόηθον ἀντιγραφεῖσιν αὐτῷ Περὶ ψυχῆς τοῦτον ἐχούσας τὸν τρόπον· « Τὸν δὲ θεὸν οὐκ ὀκνοῦσι πῦρ νοερὸν εἰπόντες ἀΐδιον καταλείπειν καὶ φθείρειν μὲν πάντα λέγειν καὶ ἐπινέμεσθαι, ὡς τοιοῦτον ὂν πῦρ οἷον τὸ ἡμῖν συνεγνωσμένον, ἀντιλέγειν τε τῷ Ἀριστοτέλει παραιτουμένῳ τὸν αἰθέρα ἐκ πυρὸς λέγειν τοιούτου. Ἀπαιτούμενοι δὲ πῶς τὸ τοιοῦτον ἐπιδιαμένει πῦρ, ἀλλοῖον μὲν πῦρ οὐ λέγουσιν εἶναι, τὸ τοιοῦτον δ’ εἰπόντες καὶ πιστεύειν αὐτοῖς ἀξιώσαντες εἰποῦσι τῇ ἀλόγῳ πίστει ταύτῃ ἐπισυνάπτουσιν, ὅτι καὶ ἀΐδιόν ἐστι, καίπερ ἐκ μέρους καὶ τὸ αἰθέριον σβέννυσθαι καὶ ἀνάπτεσθαι τιθέντες· ἀλλὰ τὴν τούτων πρὸς μὲν τὰ αὑτῶν ἀβλεψίαν, πρὸς δὲ τὰ τῶν παλαιῶν ῥᾳθυμίαν τε καὶ καταφρόνησιν τί ἄν τις ἐπιὼν ἐπὶ πλέον μηκύνοι ; » Quant à l’opinion des stoïciens sur Dieu, il suffit de lui opposer ce que dit Porphyre dans son traité De l’âme, contre Boéthos, où il s’exprime ainsi : « Après avoir dit que Dieu est un feu intellectuel, ils n’hésitent pas à lui laisser l’éternité, à affirmer que ce feu détruit et dévore tout (comme s’il était pareil à celui que nous connaissons), et à s’opposer à Aristote parce qu’il se défend de faire venir l’éther d’un pareil feu. Si on leur demande comment un pareil feu peut exister toujours, ils affirment que ce n’est pas un feu différent ; mais après l’avoir ainsi défini et avoir exigé qu’on les croie sur parole, ils ajoutent à cette opinion irrationnelle que le feu est aussi éternel, bien que d’après eux le corps éthéré s’éteigne et se rallume par parties. Mais pourquoi nous attarder davantage à attaquer leur aveuglement sur leur propre système et leur indifférence méprisante pour la doctrine des anciens13 ? » 10 Mais P.Fr. Beatrice, ‘L’union de l’âme’ (2005), 271, n. 57 estime que le πρός du titre de l’ouvrage est à traduire par « à » : le disciple de Plotin s’adresserait non pas à un adversaire, mais à un autre platonicien, le Boéthos qui selon Énée de Gaza proposa une interprétation de la doctrine de la métempsychose contestée par Porphyre. Dans ce cas, il faudrait sans doute l’identifier avec le lexicographe platonicien connu par ailleurs : cf. Richard Goulet, ‘Boéthos’, dans id. (dir.), Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques II – Babélyca d’Argos à Dyscolius (Paris, 1994), 123. 11 Bien que d’autres hypothèses aient été avancées (un stoïcien, ou un académicien) : cf. la note précédente et Jean-Pierre Schneider, ‘Boéthos de Sidon’, dans R. Goulet (dir.), Dictionnaire II (1994), 126-30, 130, qui estime que l’adversaire de Porphyre est bien le péripatéticien Boéthos de Sidon, tout comme John Dillon, ‘Boéthos’, dans R. Goulet (dir.), Dictionnaire II (1994), 122. Angelo R. Sodano, Porfirio. Vangelo di un pagano. Lettera a Marcella – Contro Boeto sull’anima – Sul ‘conosci te stesso’, seguito da Vita di Porfirio di Eunapio. Introduzione, traduzione, note a apparati di Angelo Raffaele Sodano, Il pensiero occidentale (Milano, 2006), 137-64 présente le contenu et les implications philosophiques des fragments conservés de ce traité, dont il donne ensuite le texte grec et une traduction italienne (166-77). 12 Cf. A.R. Sodano, Vangelo (2006), 156. 13 Porph., Ad Boeth., fr. 250 Smith = Eus., PE XV 15,9-16,2 des Places (trad. des Places modifiée).

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Venons au dernier passage qui nous intéresse, le plus problématique. Il s’agit du chapitre 23 de la Lettre à Marcella de Porphyre, où l’expression ἄλογος πίστις intervient dans le cadre d’un développement très polémique qui a attiré l’attention de plusieurs chercheurs. Comme le signale Philippe Hoffmann, le thème de la πίστις parcourt les chapitres 22-4 du texte14, dans lesquels Porphyre critique différentes attitudes face au divin. Remarquons que si l’expression n’est utilisée qu’au chapitre 23, des formulations très proches apparaissent déjà aux chapitres précédents : après avoir loué la βεβαία πίστις de ceux qui croient aux dieux et à la Providence et mènent donc une vie sereine (chapitre 21), le philosophe critique ceux qui, poussés par une impulsion irrationnelle (ἀλόγῳ ὁρμῇ), nient l’existence des dieux et de la Providence divine (οἱ δὲ μήτε εἶναι θεοὺς πιστεύσαντες μήτε προνοίᾳ θεοῦ διοικεῖσθαι τὰ ὅλα), estimant que c’est un « mouvent dépourvu de raison » qui régit l’univers (ἀλόγῳ φορᾷ διοικεῖται τὰ πάντα). Après avoir rappelé le destin amer qui les attend (ils conduisent une vie malheureuse et errante, et la justice divine va les frapper : βίον δὲ κακοδαίμονα καὶ πλανήτην ἑλόμενοι ἀγνοοῦντες θεοὺς γινώσκονται θεοῖς καὶ τῇ δίκῃ τῇ παρὰ θεῶν15), le philosophe mentionne ceux qui, tout en croyant à l’existence des dieux, négligent la pratique de la vertu et la recherche de la sagesse (κἂν θεοὺς τιμᾶν οἴωνται καὶ πεπεῖσθαι εἶναι θεούς, ἀρετῆς δὲ ἀμελῶσι καὶ σοφίας…). Son jugement est péremptoire : Οὔτε γὰρ ἄλογος πίστις δίχα τοῦ ὀρθῶς ἐπιτυχὴς θεοῦ, οὔτε μὴν τὸ τιμᾶν θεοσεβὲς ἄνευ τοῦ μεμαθηκέναι ὅτῳ τρόπῳ χαίρει τὸ θεῖον τιμώμενον. En effet, ni une foi irrationnelle sans la rectitude ne peut atteindre Dieu, ni non plus le culte n’est religieux si l’on n’a pas appris quelle sorte de service agrée à la divinité16.

Les trois occurrences de l’adjectif ἄλογος en quelques lignes confirment que les attitudes critiquées dans les chapitres 22 et 23 sont étroitement liées : l’une est due à une ἄλογος ὁρμή, qui finit pour rendre irrationnel (ἄλογος) même l’ordre de l’univers ; l’autre est une ἄλογος πίστις. Pour apprécier l’usage de ce dernier grief dans la Lettre à Marcella, il conviendra donc de prendre en compte les deux chapitres, notamment pour identifier les cibles de Porphyre. Car l’objet de cette étude sont les occurrences de la locution ἄλογος πίστις en dehors de la polémique antichrétienne : mais n’aurait-on pas dans l’un de ces 14 Cf. Philippe Hoffmann, ‘Erôs, Alètheia, Pistis… et Elpis. Tétrade chaldaïque, triade néoplatonicienne (Fr. 46 des Places, p. 26 Kroll)’, dans Mariano Delgado, Charles Méla et Frédéric Möri (éd.), Orient-Occident. Racines spirituelles de l’Europe. Enjeux et implications de la translatio studiorum dans le judaïsme, le christianisme et l’islam de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance. Actes du colloque scientifique international, 16-19 novembre 2009 (Paris, 2014), 63-136, 79 (et l’ensemble des pp. 76-89 pour une étude détaillée de ces chapitres de la Lettre). Cf. aussi Arnaud Perrot, Porphyre. Lettre à Marcella. Texte établi par Édouard des Places, traduit par Arnaud Perrot. Introduction et notes par Arnaud Perrot, Classiques en poche 122 (Paris, 2019), xxiv. 15 Marc. 22 (119,8-10 des Places). 16 Marc. 23 (119,12-5 éd. et trad. des Places).

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deux passages précisément une forme de polémique antichrétienne ? Il faut avouer que dans sa Préparation Évangélique, Eusèbe défend le Christ d’une manière qui semble répondre à la Lettre à Marcella17. Ainsi Hélène Whittaker voit-elle des traces de polémique antichrétienne aussi bien dans le chapitre 22 de la Lettre que dans le suivant18 ; Angelo Sodano, Alain-Philippe Segonds, Matthias Becker et (de manière plus prudente) Philippe Hoffmann et Marco Zambon estiment quant à eux que le chapitre 23 viserait, au moins implicitement, les chrétiens19. Examinons donc ces deux passages, pour essayer d’identifier les adversaires du philosophe. Dans le chapitre 22, les cibles du néoplatonicien font l’objet de deux reproches, que déjà Platon liait à l’impiété20 : le refus d’accepter l’existence des dieux et la négation de la Providence. Soit Porphyre songe ici à des athées plus ou moins célèbres (comme Diagoras), soit il fait allusion à une doctrine précise. Car dans l’Antiquité, au moins un de ces grief était souvent adressé aux chrétiens, aux péripatéticiens, aux cyniques et aux épicuriens21. 17

Cf. PE XII 2,5. Cf. Helene Whittaker, ‘The Purpose of Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella’, SO 76 (2001), 15068, 160. Whittaker voit d’ailleurs dans la Lettre un texte « specifically directed to those women who were either attracted to Christianity or in danger of being so » (Ead., ‘A Philosophical Marriage : Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella’, dans Lena Larsson Lovén et Agneta Strömberg [éd.], Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality [Newcastle upon Tyne, 2010], 43-54, 49). A.R. Sodano, Vangelo (2006), 24-42 attribue à l’ensemble de la Lettre une visée antichrétienne. Sur ce genre d’interprétations cf. les réserves d’A. Perrot, Lettre (2019), xxix-xli. 19 Cf. A.R. Sodano, Vangelo (2006), 97 n. 62 : « Alla fede irrazionale dei Cristiani, Porfirio contrappone una fede razionale, fondata sulla ἀρετή e la σοφία… » ; Matthias Becker, Porphyrios. Contra Christianos. Neue Sammlung der Fragmente, Testimonien und Dubia mit Einleitung, Übersetzung und Anmerkungen, Texte und Kommentare 52 (Berlin, 2015), 448. Segonds se borne à remarquer que l’expression ἄλογος πίστις est utilisée dans le passage d’Eusèbe qui constitue le fr. 88 D Becker (= fr. 1 Harnack) et qu’il rattache au Contre les chrétiens (Édouard des Places, Porphyre. Vie de Pythagore. Lettre à Marcella. Texte établi et traduit par É. des Places avec une appendice d’A.-Ph. Segonds, C.U.F. [Paris, 1982], note ad locum, 159-60). Selon Ph. Hoffmann, ‘Erôs, Alètheia, Pistis’ (2014), 85 n. 3, le chapitre 23 vise à la fois des païens et (implicitement) des chrétiens. Cf. aussi M. Zambon, « Nessun dio è mai sceso quaggiù ». La polemica anticristiana dei filosofi antichi (Roma, 2019), 174, qui estime que le chapitre 23, bien qu’il ne s’en prenne pas « en premier lieu » (« primariamente » : mais en deuxième lieu ?) aux chrétiens, peut nous aider à comprendre les critiques contre leur irrationalisme. Aucun de ces savants ne se prononce sur l’identité des « mécréants » critiqués par Porphyre en Lettre 22. 20 Comme remarqué par A. Perrot, Lettre (2019), 41, n. 132 : cf. Leg. X 885b. 21 Beaucoup moins probable une polémique contre les sceptiques : ni Pyrrhon, ni ses disciples n’apparaissent dans la longue liste dressée par Marek Winiarczyk, ‘Wer galt im Altertum als Atheist ?’, Philologus 128 (1984), 157-83, à compléter avec id., ‘Wer galt im Altertum als Atheist ? 2. Teil’, Philologus 136 (1992), 306-31. Car les sceptiques n’ont jamais nié l’existence des dieux (et par conséquent d’une Providence), se bornant à souligner la faiblesse des arguments qui étaient censés la prouver, auxquels on pouvait en opposer d’autres tout aussi valables. Cf. Anthony A. Long, ‘Scepticism About gods’, dans id., From Epicurus to Epictetus. Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy (Oxford, 2006), 114-27, 116 ; Simo Knuuttila et Juha Sihvola, ‘Ancient scepticism and philosophy of religion’, dans Juha Sihvola (éd.), Ancient scepticism and the sceptical tradition, Acta philosophica Fennica 66 (Helsinki, 2000), 125-44, 136-41. 18

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On pouvait accuser les chrétiens d’athéisme22, mais pas de nier la Providence : Celse et Plotin leur reprochent seulement d’en limiter l’action au seul genre humain23. Les deux griefs qui nous intéressent sont attestés pour les péripatéticiens et les cyniques, mais sont loin d’être systématiques. Les péripatéticiens pouvaient être accusés moins de nier l’existence des dieux, que de refuser l’idée d’une intervention divine dans le monde24. Quant aux cyniques, leurs opinions sur la religion étaient très variées25. Bion de Borysthène, Démonax et Diogène sont les seuls philosophes de ce courant qui figurent dans la liste d’athées antiques dressée par Marek Winiarczyk26, et dans le cas de Démonax, notre source laisse entendre que cette accusation n’eut pas de suite27. En revanche, la doctrine épicurienne correspond parfaitement à celle qui est critiquée par Porphyre en Lettre 22 : de nombreux auteurs antiques reprochent aux membres de cette école philosophique de refuser l’idée d’une Providence divine, et les accusent aussi (à tort) de nier l’existence des dieux28. De plus, c’est précisément la première position philosophique qui serait à l’origine de l’accusation d’athéisme contre les épicuriens29. Certes, la suite du texte de Porphyre, avec les allusions à un « danger indicible », à des transgressions religieuses et à une « vie malheureuse et errante », semblerait mal s’accorder avec la critique des épicuriens. Cependant, la description des conséquences de l’athéisme qui clôt le chapitre 22 de la Lettre à Marcella est un morceau rhétorique soigneusement construit. Les constructions parallèles30, la personnification de la Justice31 et l’insistance sur 22 Cf. Xavier Levieils, Contra Christianos. La critique sociale et religieuse du christianisme des origines au concile de Nicée (45-325), Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 146 (Berlin, New York, 2007), 331-91. 23 Cf. Orig., CCels. IV 74-99 ; Plot., Enn. II 9, 16. 24 Cf. les témoignages sur « Aristote » en M. Winiarczyk, ‘Wer galt’ (1984), 161, et id., ‘Wer galt. 2. Teil’ (1992), 306. 25 Cf. Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, ‘Les premiers cyniques et la religion’, dans ead. et Richard Goulet (éd.), Le cynisme ancien et ses prolongements. Actes du colloque international du CNRS (Paris, 22-25 juillet 1991) (Paris, 1993) 117-58 = ead., Le cynisme, une philosophie antique, Textes et traditions 29 (Paris, 2017), 421-55. 26 Cf. les articles cités supra, n. 21. 27 Cf. Luc., Demon. 11. 28 Cf. les témoignages sur « Damis », « Épicure et les épicuriens », « Métrodore » et « Polyen » en M. Winiarczyk, ‘Wer galt’ (1984), 163, 168-70, 175, 177 et id., ‘Wer galt. 2. Teil’ (1992), 307. 29 Cf. Dirk D. Obbink, ‘The Atheism of Epicurus’, GRBS 30 (1989), 187-223, 188 et passim. Il faut signaler cependant que Marc. 22 n’est cité ni dans cette étude, ni parmi les témoignages anciens sur l’athéisme épicurien en M. Winiarczyk, ‘Wer galt’ (1984) et ‘Wer galt. 2. Teil’ (1992). 30 Marc. 22 (119,5-10 des Places) : Καὶ δὴ τούτους μὲν ἀγνοίας ἕνεκα καὶ ἀπιστίας θεοὶ διαφεύγουσιν· αὐτοὶ δὲ θεοὺς καὶ τὴν ὀπαδὸν τῶν θεῶν δίκην οὔτε φυγεῖν οὔτε λαθεῖν δύνανται. Βίον δὲ κακοδαίμονα καὶ πλανήτην ἑλόμενοι ἀγνοοῦντες θεοὺς γινώσκονται θεοῖς καὶ τῇ δίκῃ τῇ παρὰ θεῶν. 31 Ibid.

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le danger couru par les athées32, ont pour but d’impressionner le lecteur (qui ne doit pas tomber dans la même erreur) et d’opposer les malheurs des athées à la vie bienheureuse de ceux qui croient aux dieux et à la Providence, décrite à la fin du chapitre 2133. Aussi ne saurait-on s’appuyer sur ce texte pour identifier les cibles du néoplatonicien34. Pour résumer : en Lettre 22, Porphyre ne vise sans doute pas les chrétiens. Il s’en prend soit à des personnages qui, sans être rattachés à une école philosophique particulière, niaient l’existence des dieux et de la Providence, soit aux épicuriens. Mais les premiers sont très peu nombreux dans l’Antiquité, tandis que les philosophes du Jardin font souvent l’objet de ces deux griefs : aussi la deuxième hypothèse nous semble-t-elle bien plus vraisemblable35. S’il est impossible de voir des chrétiens dans les « athées » du chapitre 22, il est encore plus difficile de penser que Porphyre parle des chrétiens comme de « ceux qui croient aux dieux », comme il le fait au chapitre 23, d’autant que la suite du discours laisse entendre que ces mêmes croyants, qui négligent la pratique de la sagesse, accomplissent en revanche des sacrifices et des libations36. Puisque le philosophe souligne aussi l’insuffisance de ces pratiques, on peut conclure qu’il vise ceux qui honorent les dieux – ou plutôt, comme il l’écrit, qui « pensent honorer les dieux » (θεοὺς τιμᾶν οἴωνται) – seulement par des manifestations extérieures de foi. La cible de ses reproches sont les simples, les « mauvais païens37 », et non pas les chrétiens38. Quant à la possibilité que ces derniers soient une cible implicite39, les arguments évoqués à l’appui de cette hypothèse ne paraissent pas concluants40 ; d’ailleurs, il faudrait supposer chez le destinataire du texte (Marcella) une connaissance exceptionnelle de l’Écriture, faute de quoi les allusions parsemées dans le texte passeraient inaperçues. Or aucun indice n’invite à attribuer une telle culture à la femme de Porphyre41. Le κίνδυνον ἄφατον lié à la punition divine, évoquée à deux reprises. En Marc. 21 (118,25-6 des Places) on lit : εὐγνώμονα δὲ βίον κτησάμενοι μανθάνουσι θεοὺς γινώσκονταί τε γινωσκομένοις θεοῖς. Que l’on compare à Marc. 22 (119,8-10 des Places) : Βίον δὲ κακοδαίμονα καὶ πλανήτην ἑλόμενοι ἀγνοοῦντες θεοὺς γινώσκονται θεοῖς καὶ τῇ δίκῃ τῇ παρὰ θεῶν. 34 On pourrait se demander d’ailleurs jusqu’à quel point cette description, prise au pied de la lettre, serait compatible avec d’autres groupes religieux ou philosophiques. 35 Du même avis Kathleen O’Brien Wicker, Porphyry the Philosopher, To Marcella. Text and Translation with Introduction and Notes by Kathleen O’Brien Wicker. Index Verborum by Lee E. Klosinski, Texts and Translations 28 / Graeco-Roman Religion Series 10 (Atlanta, GA, 1987), 109, note à Marc. 22.350-2 ; A. Perrot, Lettre (2019), xxxvi. 36 Cf. Marc. 23 (119,6-9 des Places). 37 Selon la définition efficace d’A. Perrot, Lettre (2019), xxxvi. 38 On remarquera que la critique du rapport entre foi e dévotion n’est jamais abordée par les polémistes antichrétiens. 39 Cf. Ph. Hoffmann, ‘Erôs, Alètheia, Pistis’ (2014), 83-6 et 85, n. 3. 40 Cf. A. Perrot, Lettre (2019), xxix-xli. 41 Cette hypothèse se heurte aussi à d’autres difficultés, liées à la structure du texte : nous les discuterons dans une étude que nous consacrerons à l’athéisme chez Porphyre. 32 33

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Ainsi, les chapitres 22-3 de la Lettre à Marcella ne contiennent-ils pas une polémique antichrétienne. Ils constituent au contraire une deuxième attestation de l’emploi, chez Porphyre, du grief d’irrationalité en dehors de la critique de la religion chrétienne : on peut donc les étudier à côté du fragment du Contre Boéthos et de l’extrait de Dion Cassius. II. Que nous disent ces textes sur l’ἄλογος πίστις ? Partons de Dion Cassius. Si le choix d’un Scipion rassure les troupes de Caton et inquiète celles de César, c’est que ces soldats pensent en Romains. L’homonymie, détail anodin pour nous, est un fait extrêmement significatif pour eux. Nomen omen : l’identité de nom est un présage favorable, au point d’avoir parfois constitué un véritable critère de choix dans le domaine militaire, comme l’a montré Mario Lentano dans un ouvrage récent, consacré à la valeur du nom propre dans la culture romaine42. Le savant italien souligne que la logique typiquement romaine qui est à l’œuvre dans cet épisode a suscité quelque perplexité chez les Grecs : outre le passage de Dion Cassius, Lentano rappelle les doutes de Plutarque43. Pour notre propos, il importe de souligner que chez Dion Cassius, l’expression ἄλογος πίστις définit une croyance qui, puisqu’elle n’appartient pas aux codes culturels de l’observateur, apparaît incompréhensible, voire naïve. Le chapitre 23 de la Lettre à Marcella critique aussi une conception religieuse. Mais cette fois-ci, la pratique condamnée n’appartient pas à une culture autre que celle de l’auteur. C’est bien à des païens comme lui que Porphyre s’en prend, en leur reprochant une compréhension imparfaite de la tradition religieuse et philosophique grecque, qui seule enseigne la vérité sur la divinité, et qui est donc pour lui le seul gage d’une foi correcte – celle qu’il appelle βεβαία πίστις44. Cette critique (portant sur le rapport entre foi et actes de piété) se rattache à une réflexion philosophique qui remonte au moins aux Lois de Platon et au Second Alcibiade45. La critique porphyrienne reflète en effet les réserves sur le rôle et l’utilité de la πίστις exprimées par Platon46. Comme l’a montré Angelica Taglia, le fondateur de l’Académie reconnaissait certes à la πίστις une certaine importance : premier degré de la connaissance, elle était vite dépassée par les philosophes, 42 Mario Lentano, Nomen. Il nome proprio nella cultura romana, Antropologia del mondo antico 9 (Bologna, 2018), 53-67. 43 Qui se demande si César croyait vraiment aux présages, ou s’il voulait au contraire se moquer de Scipion. Cf. Plut., Caes. 52,4 et M. Lentano, Nomen (2018), 60-1. 44 En Marc. 21 (118,19 des Places). Cf. aussi Ignacio Yarza, ‘La fede di Porfirio’, dans Maria Vittoria Cerutti (éd.), Auctoritas : mondo tardoantico e riflessi contemporanei (Siena, 2012), 67-91, 70-80. 45 Cf. supra, n. 20 et Plato (?), 2o Alcib., 138ad.143c-150b. 46 Cf. aussi certains griefs de Celse en Orig., CCels. VI 10-1.

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mais suffisait pour d’autres47. Cependant, il soulignait aussi les risques d’une πίστις qui ne serait pas guidée par la raison48 et qui, de première étape vers l’acquisition de la connaissance, pourrait se transformer en un obstacle pour la progression intellectuelle. Car une fois en possession de cette connaissance superficielle, l’homme pourrait se persuader d’avoir achevé sa formation et refuser donc tout autre enseignement49. C’est dans cette perspective qu’il faut comprendre la critique de l’ἄλογος πίστις dans la Lettre à Marcella50. Mais le même arrière-plan platonicien est présent aussi dans la polémique contre les stoïciens du Contre Boéthos. Déjà dans la Lettre, Porphyre critique une école philosophique (l’épicurisme) en des termes qui rappellent de près le grief d’ἄλογος πίστις, puisqu’il leur attribue une ἄλογος ὁρμή. Et de fait, on constate que dans le Contre Boéthos, l’accusation d’ἄλογος πίστις, interprétée à la lumière de la réflexion platonicienne, est un outil de polémique philosophique. Bien qu’il soit question de la nature de Dieu, on n’a pas affaire ici à une « foi irrationnelle », mais à une « opinion », une « conviction » qui est « irrationnelle » parce qu’elle n’est pas démontrée et qu’elle présente des contradictions manifestes. Les mots employés par le néoplatonicien sont révélateurs : les stoïciens « affirment » (εἰπόντες [× 2] ; λέγειν ; λέγουσιν), « exigent qu’on les croie sur parole » (πιστεύειν αὐτοῖς ἀξιώσαντες εἰποῦσι) ou « ajoutent » (ἐπισυνάπτουσιν) des corollaires à leurs affirmations, mais ils ne « démontrent » et n’« expliquent » rien. Leurs propos s’enchaînent, mais seulement pour répéter l’identité du feu intellectuel avec « le feu que nous connaissons » (τὸ ἡμῖν συνεγνωσμένον) : le mot « feu » (πῦρ) revient cinq fois en quelques lignes, accompagné pour trois fois de « pareil » (τοιοῦτον) ; la même idée est reprise une quatrième fois par une litote (ἀλλοῖον μὲν πῦρ οὐ λέγουσιν εἶναι). Les stoïciens ne semblent capables de répondre aux critiques qu’en réaffirmant leurs positions et en demandant à leurs interlocuteurs une confiance aveugle : l’ἄλογος πίστις les empêche de comprendre et corriger leurs erreurs. III. Ἄλογος πίστις et polémique antichrétienne Nous avons analysé des textes qui, tout en étant dépourvus de liens avec le christianisme, parlent d’ἄλογος πίστις. Pourtant, en dehors de la polémique antichrétienne, on ne trouve cette expression que trois fois, tandis que ses occurrences chez Celse et le témoignage des Pères montrent qu’elle était souvent 47 Cf. Angelica Taglia, Il concetto di pistis in Platone, Storia della filosofia e del pensiero scientifico 6 (Firenze, 1998), 116-28. 48 Ibid. 45-56, 79-88. 49 Ibid. 141-59. 50 Cf. Ph. Hoffmann, ‘Erôs, Alètheia, Pistis’ (2014), 79-80, 86 ; A. Perrot, Lettre (2019), xxiv.

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utilisée contre les chrétiens. Or quelques traits de notre corpus peuvent expliquer pourquoi elle s’adaptait si bien à la critique de la nouvelle religion. On peut remarquer que Dion Cassius et Porphyre voient une ἄλογος πίστις dans une forme de religiosité qui est soit étrangère à leur système de pensée, soit trop simple et naïve. Aux yeux des auteurs anciens, le christianisme répondait aux deux critères : une foi nouvelle, inconnue, qui se condamnait elle-même à ne jamais pouvoir atteindre le divin par son refus obstiné de la tradition grecque51. Par ailleurs, les deux textes de Porphyre montrent que ce grief pouvait être employé dans la polémique philosophique. Or le christianisme antique présentait des traits qui, aux yeux d’observateurs extérieurs, pouvaient rappeler une école philosophique52, et de Celse à Julien, les polémistes antichrétiens n’hésitent pas à exploiter la longue tradition de débats entre philosophes. Bien qu’elle soit plus rare que, par exemple, le grief de γοητεία53, on peut voir dans l’accusation d’ἄλογος πίστις un argument codifié de la polémique antique, comme le confirme notamment le texte le plus virulent de notre corpus. Car si l’on cherche des parallèles plus précis, il faut se tourner vers le fragment du Contre Boéthos, dont les griefs ne vont pas sans rappeler ceux qu’on pouvait adresser aux chrétiens : 1) affirmation de thèses contradictoires : les stoïciens décrivent Dieu à la fois comme un feu « intellectuel » et comme un feu « pareil à celui que nous connaissons » ; ils le proclament éternel, en contraste avec leur notion des corps éthérés. Cela rappelle la critique des διαφωνίαι dans l’Écriture menée, entre autres, par Porphyre lui-même54. 2) incapacité ou refus de voir ses propres contradictions : les stoïciens sont « aveugles sur leur propre système ». Celse est tout aussi pessimiste sur la possibilité de discuter avec les chrétiens55. 3) incapacité ou refus de justifier ses affirmations : face à une demande d’éclaircissements, les stoïciens exigent une ἄλογος πίστις. Même reproche aux chrétiens chez Celse56. 51 I. Yarza, ‘La fede di Porfirio’ (2012), 78 rapproche Marc. 23 de la polémique antichrétienne de Porphyre. 52 Cf. Francesco Massa, ‘Nommer et classer les religions aux IIe-IVe siècles : la taxinomie « paganisme, judaïsme, christianisme »’, RHR 234 (2017), 689-715, 689-700. 53 Pour citer une accusation présente dans la polémique antichrétienne (chez Celse : cf. Orig., CCels. I 6.26.28 ; VI 38-40), mais fréquente aussi dans d’autres contextes polémiques (chez Platon, Lucien, Galien…). 54 Cf. les frr. 52.54.61.62 T Becker. Le grief revient aussi dans les objections païennes du Monogénès de Macarios de Magnésie, dont l’origine porphyrienne a été soutenue par Harnack et acceptée par la plupart des chercheurs, mais refusée par Becker : cf. par exemple Monog. II 23 = Porph., C. Chr., fr. 15 Harnack. 55 Cf. Orig., CCels. I 9 et Gianluca Piscini, ‘Le dialogue avec les chrétiens dans le Discours véritable de Celse’, Adamantius 22 (2016), 139-52. 56 Cf. Orig., CCels. I 9.12.

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4) mépris de la tradition. Même reproche chez Celse, mais aussi dans la réponse de Plotin à des chrétiens gnostiques en Ennéades II 9 [33]57. Conclusion Conduite à partir d’un corpus très restreint, l’étude des occurrences de la locution ἄλογος πίστις permet néanmoins de tirer des conclusions importantes. Commençons par un constat : à la lumière de notre analyse, aucun des trois emplois ne concerne le christianisme, malgré les thèses contraires parfois soutenues. Ce n’est donc pas qu’aux chrétiens qu’on pouvait reprocher d’ἀλόγως πιστεύειν ou de demander une ἄλογος πίστις. Les textes de Porphyre nous permettent d’aller plus loin dans cette direction. On a affaire à un polémiste antichrétien, qui a peut-être accusé le christianisme de promouvoir une ἄλογος πίστις. Pourtant, on a vu qu’il n’hésite pas à utiliser ce même grief contre d’autres écoles philosophiques ou contre des dévots païens. Cela prouve que l’ἄλογος πίστις n’est pas non plus un défaut propre aux simples et aux ignorants, puisqu’on le trouve même chez des hommes formés à la philosophie. De ce point de vue, le sens précis de l’expression est intéressant. Πίστις est un mot complexe, qui connaît différentes traductions selon le contexte58. Or nous avons vu que c’est dans le fragment du Contre Boéthos qu’on trouve le plus grand nombre d’affinités avec la polémique antichrétienne : c’est donc à partir de l’emploi le plus philosophique du mot qu’il faut comprendre l’utilisation de cette expression chez les polémistes antichrétiens. Par ailleurs, les griefs adressés aux stoïciens reprennent souvent des arguments codifiés de la polémique philosophique : les contradictions internes à une doctrine, sa rupture avec la tradition59… Ce caractère conventionnel rend encore plus difficile d’exploiter la présence de cette expression pour attribuer un passage à Porphyre60, car on a ici un texte certainement porphyrien, mais qui présente des points de contact significatifs avec la polémique antichrétienne 57

Ibid. III 72 ; VI 10.12 ; Plot., Enn. II 9,6. Il n’est pas inutile de rappeler que c’est Porphyre qui a édité les Ennéades. 58 Sa traduction dans nos trois textes a été d’ailleurs assez délicate. Nous avons pris le parti de choisir à chaque fois le mot qui nous semblait être le plus cohérent avec le contexte. Sur la complexité de la notion de πίστις et sur les difficultés que pose la traduction de ce mot cf. Françoise Frazier, ‘Philosophie et religion dans la pensée de Plutarque : quelques réflexions autour des emplois du mot πίστις’, EPlaton 5 (2008), 41-61 ; Teresa Morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith. Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches (Oxford, 2015). 59 Cf. Dominic O’Meara, ‘Polemical Strategies in the Conflict over Plato’s Legacy in the Platonist Schools of the Second and Third Century’, dans Irmgard Männlein-Robert (éd.), Die Christen als Bedrohung? Text, Kontext und Wirkung von Porphyrios’ Contra Christianos, Roma Aeterna: Beiträge zu Spätantike und Frühmittelalter 5 (Stuttgart, 2017), 19-30. 60 Comme le fr. 88 D Becker du Contre les chrétiens : cf. supra, n. 5.

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de Celse. Cela invite aussi à voir dans l’ἄλογος πίστις moins le symbole du refus, de la part de la rationalité grecque, du christianisme irrationnel, que le signe de l’entrée des chrétiens dans le débat philosophique d’époque impériale et tardive61.

61

Cette étude est, en partie, issue d’un travail de thèse sur la polémique antichrétienne antique ; dans sa forme finale, elle a bénéficié des conseils du professeur Aaron P. Johnson, que nous tenons à remercier.

The Case for Considering Theological Language as a Special Linguistic System Tina DOLIDZE, Tbilisi, Georgia

ABSTRACT The intention of this outline is to collect the experiences of reading Greek ecclesiastical authors to identify essential regular type linguistic peculiarities of their work that reflect, in my view, a distinct linguistic phenomenon. Therefore, I will try to sketch out the semantic content and structure of the language employed by Greek Fathers, referring to some illustrative texts and using various perspectives to treat the integral subject in a discrete way. As the first theoretician of the Biblical language, Origen distinguished two separate, specific languages – the logical-discursive language of Greek intellectualism and the Biblical narrative. In fact, the combination of these distinct linguistic models created the integral linguistic system of Patristic theology, which takes on a referential function towards a theological way of thinking, its inherent referent. This novel linguistic product of Christian theologizing reveals specific semantic principles and constitutive elements that call for deeper exploration. This contribution will present an overview of the main peculiarities of a regular type, first that of the semantic aspect of Patristic theological language, and subsequently the delineation of its structural elements. Two theoretical premises are proposed for analysis: (a) linguistic action in Patristic texts reproduces the statements of a Patristic theory of language; and (b) both theory and practice of theological language in Patristics point to language as an ontological entity. In the framework of the above postulates, essential semantic traits of theological language will be proposed, such as (a) the equivocality of language; (b) the inclusive nature of silence in religious diction; (c) overlapping denotations and (d) theological articulation as a mimetic sign. The introductory analysis of the structure of theological language will trace the micro- and macro-constitutive linguistic units in theological discourse with the aim of outlining the structure’s specific content.

When Origen initiated the systematic corroboration of the records of the Holy Scripture, together with the first scholarly doctrine of the Biblical exegesis he also constructed the theory of Biblical language. Following Paul (1Cor. 2:4-7), he distinguished two kinds of articulation referring to two ontological registers – the Biblical narrative, endowed with Divine power, and the logical-discursive language of Greek philosophy. This latter, he argued, belongs to a mere human mentality.1 However, the Alexandrian theologian strongly upheld the relevance 1 Orig., De princ. IV 1. 6-7 (Origenes, Vier Bücher von den Prinzipien, hrsg., übers. und erläut. von Herwig Görgemanns und Heinrich Karpp [Darmstadt, 1976], 686-94); Comm. in

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of intellectual argument for his scholarly method. He maintained that an interpreter of the Bible should reflect Biblical dictions in his own logical reasoning. To this aim, he took faith as a precondition for initiating logical discourse in which scriptural pronouncements constituted the premise, the supporting evidence and the last instance of proof.2 In fact, the combination of the two different cognitive and linguistic models – symbolic and logical – created the integral language of Patristic theology.3

The equivocality of Biblical and theological language The key point of Origen’s hermeneutics is the concept of the equivocality4 of the Biblical language, albeit, like later scholars of the Church, he refers to the term homonyma and respective lexical formatives only occasionally. Whether the reason is a Platonic background or a common Patristic disregard for technical terminology, the problem of equivocality, as Psellos attests, had already been a topical cognitive problem before his time.5 Origen could have inherited the idea both from Platonism and from Paul. His great Biblical mentor formerly opposed spiritual and physical in this old grammatical and logical device, whereas its ‘vertical understanding’ in the division of ‘idea’ in Platonism stressed more the similarity between intelligible and sensible domains.6 Rom. 2.14 (Origenes. Commentarii in Epistulam ad Romanos, hrsg., eingel. und übers. von Theresia Heither, Fontes Christiani 2/1 [Freiburg, 1990], 318.21-2.13). Origen’s ontological understanding of religious language essentially differs from that of Judaism. He interprets the relation between sacred signified and verbal signifier in terms of Paul’s ‘treasure in earthen vessels’ (2Cor. 4:7). A topical issue also in subsequent ecclesiastical theology was that the Biblical Word can impact and transform through its being a realm of divine power. 2 De princ. I praef. 10 (Görgemanns, Karpp, 16.9-15). The novel model of reasoning projected by Origen became fundamental practice of theologizing. 3 Theoretical reflection on the over synthesis is attested as early as Stromata (see Marguerite Harl, ‘Le langage de l’expérience religieuse chez les Pères grecs’, in ead., Le Déchiffrement du Sens. Études sur l’herméneutique chrétienne d’Origène à Grégoire de Nysse, Collection des Études Augustiniennes. Serie Antiquité 135 [Paris, 1993], 29-58, 33-6). In Exhortatio Clement testifies to the novel reasoning in a short metaphorical statement: ‘The gates of the Word are gates of reason, opened by the key of faith’ (Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, ed. and trans. G.W. Butterworth [Cambridge, 1999], 27). 4 On the theological importance of the term in Origen see: Marguerite Harl, ‘Origène et la sémantique du langage biblique’, in ead., Le Déchiffrement du Sens. Études sur l’herméneutique chrétienne d’Origène à Grégoire de Nysse (1993), 61-88, 64-72; see also Rolf Gögler, Zur Theologie des Biblischen Wortes bei Origenes (Düsseldorf, 1963), 326-31; Riemer Roukema, The Diversity of Laws in Origen’s Commentary on Romans (Amsterdam, 1988); Tina Dolidze, ‘The Equivocality of Biblical Language in Origen’, SP 56 (2013), 65-72; Róbert Somos, ‘Homonymy as a Logical Term in Origen’, Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 53 (2013), 409-21. 5 Michael Psellus. Philosophica minora, opusc. 6, I, ed. John M. Duffy (Lipsiae, 1992), 17-22. 6 See the impact of both lines: T. Dolidze, ‘The Equivocality’ (2013).

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In his hermeneutics Origen largely considered both facets, but apparently tended more towards the Platonic heritage, as it fit more closely with his anagogical exegesis and the mystical speculations about inspired utterances of the Scriptures. Later on, faced with Eunomius’ positivistic theory of equivocal designation, the Cappadocian thinkers had placed a greater emphasis on the perspective of difference between signifier and signified in religious articulations in general.7 This implied that equivocal analogy which compares sensible with intelligible was considered appropriate but limited – actually apophatic in its nature – designation,8 grounded on the human conceptual thought (epinoia) about the ‘incomprehensible’. Within this very challenge the Cappadocians transparently articulated the extension of the equivocality of the Biblical language on the whole corpus of Patristic theology.9 In their consideration, the correct approach to equivocal language of Christian theologizing should be based on both intrinsic facets of equivocality – divergence and congruence – to enable flexible movement of intelligence between two poles of religious naming. In Origen’s hermeneutical project one discerns two different procedures for disclosing metaphors through their equivocal understanding, commonly employed by later authors as well. The first procedure resembles a division according to the similarity of a generic idea into eidetic ones in the Platonic mode. In this case, Origen considers it important to distinguish between the energetic and dynamic facets in equivocality. Origen sometimes illustrates this in a simple manner. For example: Every virtue, which is present in Christ can be expressed in plural, as Christ can be found in every Christian, and through one Christ, many Christs come into being, in likeness to him.10 Parallel to this, the generic division can 7 In that case, their point of view coincides with Aristotle’s understanding of homonyma (Arist., Cat. 1a1), and the same connotation of the term to ‘unessential’ became commonplace in ecclesiastical authors. As to Eunomius, he comprehended the equivocality in terms of positivistic denotation; see Tina Dolidze, ‘The Cognitive Function of Epinoia in Contra Eunomium II and its Meaning for St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Theory of Theological Language’, in Lenka Karfíková, Scot Douglass and Johannes Zachhuber (eds), Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium II. An English Version with Supporting Studies. Proceedings of the 10th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa in Olomouc (15th-18th September 2004) (Leiden, 2007), 445-59, 456-7. 8 In reference to Gregory of Nyssa: Mariette Canévet, Grégoire de Nysse et l’herméneutique biblique (Paris, 1983), 50-64. Frequently articulated by Gregory Nazianzen, especially, in Or. 31. 9 Nyssen gives following definition: … ὁμωνυμία τίς ἐστι πρὸς τὰ θεῖα τῶν ἡμετέρων πραγμάτων, ἐν τῇ ταυτότητι τῶν ὀνομάτων πολὺ τὸ διάφορον τῶν σημαινομένων ἐνδεικνυμένη, CE I 622 (Gregorii Nysseni Contra Eunomium (= CE), ed. Werner Jaeger, GNO I [Leiden, 1960], 205.20; CE II 577-80 (GNO I, 394.27-395.29); CE II 130-47 (GNO I, 263.21-268.18); CE III, V 43-5 (GNO II, ed. Werner Jaeger [Leiden, 1960], 175.23-177.4); CE III, II 9-10 (GNO II, 55.3-19); Basil, ContrEun. (PG 29, 748C-761B); Gr. Naz., Or. 29, 13-4 (Gregor von Nazianz, Die Fünf Theologischen Reden, Text und Übesetzung mit Einleitung und Kommentar von Joseph Barbel [Düsseldorf, 1963], 150). 10 Origenes 4, Der Johanneskommentar, GCS 10, ed. Erwin Preuschen (Leipzig, 1903), 114.20-115.19; see Gregory of Nyssa’s De professione Christiana, ed. Werner Jaeger, GNO VIII/1, 135.1-21.

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be exposed, through quite complicated maneuvers, as in a comment to John 1:5: ‘And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not’. The discourse deals with a self-concealing and, from Christ on, self-revealing character of the Biblical Word. At the beginning Origen distinguishes between negative and positive meanings of the metaphor ‘darkness’. Nevertheless, as he is specifically interested in the positive sense of the metaphor, he immediately proceeds to the depth of its positive semantics. As a matter of fact, the passage endows with positive meaning not only the Divine darkness, but also paradoxically enough darkness in terms of human ignorance. The Alexandrian stresses the cooperation of divine and the human in ‘darkness’ and ‘light’, and differentiates the energetic and dynamic facets of each equivocal metaphor. From Origen’s interpretation one can infer that the Divine light is darkness just for men (energetic status of the Divine), whereas relative meaning (dynamic status) of the same notions pertain to the anthropological perspective, particularly, it implies human darkness that strives to participate in the Divine light.11 Elsewhere Origen, when distinguishing between the absolute (energetic) and relative (dynamic) meanings in equivocal metaphors, says that one of them is articulated properly (κυρίως); another loosely (καταχρηστικῶς), for the second just endeavours to be the former.12 The second procedure examines the division according to the difference in equivocality. This is usually when Origen classifies things according to two opposing extremes – good and evil. In this case, symbolic word(s) can generate a chain of other symbols, closely linked to previous one(s) as in an enigmatic saying from the Homilies on Jeremiah. Origen has to comment on Jer. 13:12: ‘Every wineskin should be filled with wine’. In this long analysis of the equivocal meanings of the ‘wineskin’ and ‘wine’ we encounter the chains of interwoven equivocal metaphors. The interpretation amounts to the following: The good wineskin (i.e. human) is filled with good wine; the bad wineskin is filled with bad wine; the good wine is wine mixed by Wisdom. Thereafter Origen distinguishes two kinds of vine – good vine is named Sorek, and is planted by Wisdom; the bad vine, on the other hand, is the vine of Egypt and Sodom; the holy man (i.e. believer) is filled with wine, which is mixed by Wisdom. Who drinks unmixed wine, deserves unmixed punishment, however, there are people, who do drink the punishment in a mixed way. Yet, equivocal to the pejorative meaning of unmixed wine there is another meaning, related to the cup that Christ handed to the Apostles as a token of blessing and unmixed 11 Orig., Comm. in Joh. (Preuschen, 84.8-85.25). This discourse is one more argument to support the point that in Origen’s mysticism soul ‘pursues a path of increasing light’ (Andrew Louth, The Origines of the Christian Mystical Tradition, 2nd ed. [Oxford, 2007], 81). 12 Orig., Comm. in Joh. (Preuschen, 450.15-28); Gr. Nyss., In Inscr. (In Inscriptiones psalmorum, ed. Jacobus MC Donough, GNO V, 25.11-26.29); Gr. Nyss., Prof. (ed. Jaeger, GNO VIII/1, 125.1138.23).

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joy promised in the ‘new testament’. Then Origen proceeds with the interpretation of the symbol of cup. There are punishments in the cup of unmixed wine, however, there are other type of punishments in a cup of mixed wine; those who accomplished better acts along with contradictory ones, and, therefore, drank from both cups in turn, do not deserve the cup of the New Testament either. Origen accomplishes his analysis by turning back to the pericope as the inference of the whole discourse.13 In the first procedure of division according to similarity sometimes a peculiarity of the physical is transferred to as metaphysical, that is, from ‘peculiar for us’ (τὰ καθ’ ἡμᾶς) to ‘peculiar for things above us’ (τὰ ὑπὲρ ἡμᾶς) like ‘darkness’ in Origen’s commentary on John 1:5, or any anthropomorphism enunciated about God,14 or to the contrary, when, for example, Divine light or blessedness is transferred to an anthropological register. The latter can be illustrated also when the ecclesiastic authors account that to be ‘father’ and ‘son’ are proper designations for Trinity persons, and is besides equivocally said about a similar human relationship.15 Therefore, the meaning of the term ‘equivocality’ in Fathers is that if equivocality is characterized through its semantic obscurity in the nature of theological language, then it could be neutralized through the same equivocality as a long-standing scholarly tool. The decisive role in the standard process of ‘unpacking’ the equivocal ambiguity was played by producing fitting analytical deductions. St Maximus in Ad Thalassium calls on the activation of intelligence when facing this dangerous phenomenon of the Biblical diction.16 The ambiguity was indeed discerned in the affirmative form. However, finally, negative formatives were understood as grammatical derivatives from affirmative ones, resulting from the addition of negative and superlative prefixes.17 It was Pseudo-Dionysius, who initially turned to systematic apophatic designations to overcome the equivocal ambiguity of affirmation, and then to enrich his apophatic language with antithetic and paradox modes of expression.18 13 In Jer. 13:12 (Origenes Werke 3. Jeremiahomilien, ed. Erich Klostermann, GCS 6 [Leipzig, 1901], 86.10-89.7). 14 See e.g. Ps-Dion., Div. Nom. I 8 (Corpus Dionysiacum I: Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, De Divinis Nominibus, ed. Beate Regina Suchla [Berlin, 1990], 120.9-121.3; for further references see note 9. 15 Gr. Naz., Or. 30, 8 (Barbel 188); Cyril. Alex., Thesaurus de sancta et consubstantiali trinitate, PG 75, 477B; Ps-Dion., Div. Nom. I 4 (Suchla 113.2); Joann. Damasc., Ex. fid. 8, 142-4 (Johannes von Damaskos, Expositio Fidei. Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, ed. Bonifatius Kotter [Berlin, 1973], 24). 16 Max. Thal. 43. 62-72 (Maximi Confessoris Questiones ad Thalassium I-LV, ed. Carl Laga and Carlos Steel, CChr.SG 7 [Turnhout, 1980], 295-7). 17 Gr. Naz., Or. 28, 9 (Barbel 82); Gr. Nyss., CE II 192-4 (GNO I, 280.22-281.21). 18 E.g. Ps-Dion., Div. Nom. I 5-8 (Suchla, 115.19-121.18); III 1 (Suchla, 138.1-139.11); Ps-Dion., Myst. Theol. I 143.5-7; II 145.7-14; III 147.7-14 (Corpus Dionysiacum II, ed. Günter

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Sacred Silence I would like to recall here Douglass’ research on the Cappadocian language theory, where he discusses the phenomenon of silence, acting within the poles of theological articulation in the sense of a permanent linguistic limit that ‘a (non)place’ becomes man’s ‘asymptotic encounter’ with the ‘Totally Other’.19 In agreement with this, I propose that silence in Patristic theology calls for incorporating it with the general construct of equivocality in theological language, in the wide sense of the term, as terminus technicus for any theological designation that experiences a permanent linguistic limit to expressing the Divine truth. Indeed the concept of silence in consideration of the Fathers was rooted not only within the limits of man’s linguistic ability, but primarily in his agnostic status towards the mystery of Divine truth, conditioned by God Himself, who acts through Scriptures. The Biblical scholars considered the scriptural text as a space of deliberate Divine silencing in a twofold – absolute and relative – sense: On one hand, the Word poses limits to human reason while concealing the cardinal Divine mysteries, and on the other hand He encourages man’s mind to grasp spiritual reality that can be attained within the limits of his grasping potential.20 The epistemic chasm caused the prohibition of the human enquiry into the things that are beyond that chasm including Patristic theologizing: οὐδὲν περαιτέρῳ τούτων ἐπιζητοῦντες – claims John of Damascus after the common Patristic stance. Gregory of Nyssa seems to be the first to take a methodically thematic approach towards that ‘domain’ as an informative silence of the unspoken Word.21 In Heil and Adolf M. Ritter, 2nd ed., Patristische Texte und Studien 67 [Berlin, 2012]). The NeoPlatonic influence on that way of Divine predication is a common point in Pseudo-Dionysian research. 19 Scot Douglass, Theology of the Gap. Cappadocian Language Theory and the Trinitarian Controversy, American University Studies. Series VII: Theology and Religion 235 (New York, 2005), 164-7. Douglass examines several other themes concerning the Cappadocian theory of language (limitations of language, perigraphy, deconstractive strategies, epinoetic-metanoetic phenomenon in language) touched upon in the present research, however, we take different directions as his discourse is more committed to the theoretical speculations on theological language in the dialogue with contemporary concerns on language, while what I am trying to provide here is an orientation on the practical status of theological language. With his bold speculations on the peculiarities of the Cappadocian linguistic theory, Douglass actually productively develops some focal concepts as delineated by Mosshammer; see Alden A. Mosshammer, ‘Disclosing but not disclosed: Gregory of Nyssa as deconstructionalist’, in H. Drobner and Chr. Klock (eds), Studien zu Gregor von Nyssa und der christlichen Spätantike, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae (Leiden, 1990), 99-123. 20 Perrone illustrates how particularly Origen responds to this cognitive challenge; Lorenzo Perrone, ‘Origen’s “Confessions”: Recovering the traces of a Self-Portraits’, SP 56 (2013), 3-27, 10-3, 25-7. 21 As for the concept of silence itself, it occurs already in Clement of Alexandria; see M. Harl, ‘Le langage de l’expérience’ (1993), 36.

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Contra Eunomium and elsewhere he elevates the status of silence to the highest form of adoration (σιωπῇ τιμᾶσθαι).22 It needs closer examination to understand how mystical silence, in particular, is reproduced in the Church Father’s practice of language. I will limit myself to one example – the most mystical language of Nyssen’s In Canticum Canticorum, where he upholds his speculation about sacred silence with the help of specific exegetic devices: (a) the whole ascent language is counterbalanced and somehow retarded by the reiterative accounts that, although a certain encounter with God is attained, He remains infinitely transcendent; (b) the adduced analogies are frequently limited by linguistic skepticism, which disclaims them as appropriate designations before or/and after they are proponed;23 and (d) he virtually ends the commentary with the praise to silence, which is ‘ever greater and more admirable than the pronounced words’.24 Overall, the examination of Nyssen’s language reveals him to be an impressive mystic of silence. Further on the concept of silence was drastically raised by Pseudo-Dionysius, who applied another strategy in his insistent pursuit of the idea. He, in particular, in accord with hypotheses I and II of Parmenides provides the equilibrium between word and silence through the negations, on one hand, and through a series of exchanging connotative affirmations and negations in the form of extended antitheses, on the other. In that way, he strives to lead his reader by silencing his own intellect to silent encounter with the Ineffable.25 Multiplicity of Denotations and Overlapping Perigraphy The stoic-platonic term ἐπίνοια borrowed by Origen more immediately from the contemporary Platonic school denotes the main faculty of the human intellect and language that provides appropriate but discrete designations of the integral subject. In regard to theology, such operation signifies that although our comprehensive and reference faculties are incapable of grasping holistically the simplicity and fullness of God, or the entirety of Divine providence, we can, nevertheless, think of and articulate the mystery of God in a mode of multiple partial depictions. Origen understood the peculiarity of discrete perception of integrated 22 CE II 105 (GNO, I 257.22); In Cant. Hom. II (Gregor von Nyssa. In Canticum Canticorum, I-III, ed. Franz Dünzl, Fontes Christiani 16/1-3 [Freiburg, 1994], 422.7-14); In Cant. Hom (Dünzl III 806.9-22; II 372.12-6); see also CE I 307-8, 314-5 (GNO I, 117.17-118.11; 120.1-12); CE II 97-101 (GNO I, 255.1-256.15). 23 See e.g. commentary on Cant. 1:3: ‘thy name is as ointment poured forth’ (Dünzl 148.5-25). 24 See In Cant. Hom. XV (Dünzl 806.9-22). 25 Ps-Dion., Div. Nom. I 3 (Suchla 111.6); Div. Nom. I 4-5 (Suchla 115.6-118.1); Div. Nom. II 3-5 (Suchla 125.13-129.11); Ps-Dion., Myst. Theol. I (Heil, Ritter 141.1-142.4); Myst. Theol. III (Heil, Ritter 144.13-5; 147.7-14; Myst. Theol. V (Heil, Ritter 149.9-150.9).

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objects in positive terms. The Commentary on John provide long lists of such conceptions of Christ as his incomplete, but appropriate designations.26 All these titles in Origen’s commentary correlate with each other in order to describe jointly in manifold denotations the various aspects of Christ in the entire act of salvation. The model of verbal cumulation was legitimized by a mere fact that, as ecclesiastical theologians believed, there does not exist any word that can express the fullness of God. John Chrysostom explicitly inferred an assertion from that fact of human linguistic inability: ‘It is not enough to use one, two or more names, to learn something about God, but it is preferable to grasp Him, even though obscurely, through many appropriate names’.27 Already Origen, in the same Commentary on John, made a programmatic statement that distances any cumulating of semantic language units from verbiage: ‘All Word of God, which is at the beginning by God, is not verbiage, because He is not words, but He is just one Word, which is introduced by various contemplations, each of them being a part of the whole Word’28. The reader and listener of Christian discourse indeed draws attention to the multiplicity of words, which through the act of naming strains to imitate the fulness of God. The lists of such qualifying perigraphies were marked περὶ τὴν φύσιν29 and were believed to be exceedingly important for spiritual, epistemological and contemplative aims, as equally, it could have been a long series of dogmatic attributes (concepts, metaphors, phrases) as in John of Damascus’ Expositio Fidei, the sacred connotative metaphors and phrases as in the Akathist Hymn (specifically cheretisms) or overlapping typoi as in the Andrew of Crete’s The Great Canon. It is important to notice that the technical maneuver of overlapping perigraphy is represented in a special mode in allegorical and typological exegesis. It emerges, in particular, as interrelated polysemantic images binding up the events and personalities of the Old and New Testaments,30 which are all facets of equivocality of the Biblical language. The subjective moment played an important role in these exegetical challenges. Let us consider, for instance, three typologically similar commentaries on the Song of Songs by Hippolytus, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. They illustrate different use of overlapping denotations with the aim of uncovering epoptic 26 They are: ‘word’, ‘love’, ‘wisdom’, ‘truth’, ‘life’, ‘light’, ‘road’, ‘wine’, ‘bread’, ‘door’, ‘resurrection’, ‘power’, ‘beginning’, ‘justice’, ‘healing’, ‘redemption’ and plenty of other interconnected metaphors and discursive notions, which Origen discusses in his commentary; see Orig., Comm. in Joh. (Preuschen 14.12-16.20). 27 Ioannis Chrysostomi In Ioannem homiliae, PG 59, 34; see Gr. Nys., CE II 144-6 (GNO I, 267.18-28), CE II 577 (GNO I, 394.27-395.3). 28 Orig., Comm. in Io. (Preuschen 102.28-31). I read the passage without the inserted word [λόγος] (see in Preuschen’s text comm. to 28). 29 Joh. Damasc., Ex. fid. 4 (Kotter 13.34). 30 See Frances M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge, MA, 2002), 140-61.

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mystery. The first Patristic commentary on this treatise was written by Hippolytus.31 This fascinating, relatively short text, is no less mystic in utilizing metaphors and types than later ones by Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. The common features of all three commentaries form a complex figurative language that inextricably entwines metaphors, types and images and shows how these matrices intend to unpack perigraphically the genuine sense of Solomon’s text. Hippolytus reproduces the perigraphy using the rhetorical device of repetition of the central types and metaphors at different levels in his text. Origen illustrates the principle of perigraphical connotation more by synthesizing levels of ecclesiastical and pneumatic interpretation, including the combination of Biblical quotations and by ending with a return to pericope. In short, he accomplishes his own request for exegetical clarity: ‘expanding by fuller teaching things that are said briefly and in an enigmatic way’32. As for Gregory of Nyssa, he enacts intricate images through his long exegetical text, frequently inviting them to interplay in a semi-enigmatic, semi-exegetic way. Mimesis First of all, it should be mentioned that mimesis is found throughout all linguistic features being examined. As discussed in the previous section, the positive result of multiple denotations is bringing them together in a semiotic synthesis that leads to a possibly comprehensive description of ‘inconceivable’, while rotating around it and imitating it in verbal multitude. While concerned with typoi as prophetic signs in the Epistle of Barabas, Young states: ‘the element of mimesis makes the types’. A further valuable remark she makes for the present research is that she refers to evocative language, allusion and quotation as ‘mimicking’ the scriptural narrative.33 From the perspective of language semantics, to typological and tropological (metaphors, analogies, antithesis, paradoxes, etc.), as well as over mimetic clues listed by Young one can add the interpretative-linguistic practices I have outlined above – such as equivocal distribution and connection, intensification of denotation by means of connotative words and phrases, exploiting silence and silencing as meta-linguistic reference – thus admitting that the whole patristic text functions as a mimesis. 31 First published with investigation by Niko Marr (Тексты и разыскания по армяногрузинской филологии, III, [С-Петербург, 1901]). The commentary is fully preserved in Old Georgian translation. 32 Origen, The Song of Songs. Commentary and Homilies trans. and annotated by R.P. Lawson (London, 1957), 43; see also Orig., In Cant. (Origenes Werke 8, ed. W.A. Baehrens, GCS 33 [Leipzig, 1925], 77.25-6) 33 F.M. Young, Biblical Exegesis (2002), 232-3.

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To revert to three commentaries on the Canticum Canticorum, the intention of their authors is to stay as close as possible to the metaphoric level of dictions of the original text. Origen puts it emphatically: the commentator has ‘to use such terms as would be in harmony with the language of the Sacred Scripture’.34 The result is that he, like Hippolytus and Gregory of Nyssa, builds a more complicated semiotic system than Solomon does. This is actually an authentic theological discourse grounded in the wording of the commented text. As stated in the special research on Gregory of Nyssa,35 at the heart of Nyssen’s theological project lays the idea of the twofold infinity – the infinity of God and the potential infinity of man’s spiritual progress (epektasis) that correlates with and is conditioned by God’s infinity. That basic ontological construct is topical throughout Nyssen’s theological output. I have briefly illustrated its anthropological facet in the section ‘Silence’ with the example of Gregory’s commentary on the Song of Songs. The techniques Nyssen exploits to reproduce his authentic theologizing is – from the perspective of rhetorically skilled articulation – nothing but a mimic of the infinity of the Divine mystery by means of linguistic tools. The word ‘silence’, specifically, occurring in the closing homily in the function of a pinnacle sign, acts not so much to imitate man’s agnostic status towards God’s infinity, but stands more resolutely for ‘Something’ that is beyond all applied articulations being a sign of a sacred promise given by the incarnated Word, which is the only object of imitation for every Christian.36 Therefore, the mixture of ‘authoritative’ and ‘individual’, results in Nyssen’s commentary in the mimetic performance of the Biblical mystery on the Patristic plane. The Aristotelian use of mimesis involved creative improvisation aiming at moral and epistemic evolution. In the context of Christian hermeneutics, the concept fit the idea of writing in the likeness of the Divine Word incarnated in the Bible.37 It was a part of the substantially novel dimension of a promised Christian prospect – the undergoing of a transformation of the old man into the likeness of the new Man. Closing the semantic analysis I will pass on to a short introductory diagram of the syntactic structure of theological language, stressing in advance that this construct needs further in-depth consideration. Primarily, I would suggest to single out discrete micro- and macro-constitutive theological units, and propose language of ancient scholarship as separate structural segment.

34

Origen. The Song of Songs (Lawson 26); Orig., In Cant. (Baehrens 64.24). See Lenka Karfiková, ‘Infinity’, in Lucas Francisco Mateo-Seco and Giulio Maspero (eds), The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa (Leiden, 2010), 422-6. 36 Gr. Nyss., Prof. 136.7-8; 138.19-23. See its hermeneutic and language aspect in Cant. Hom. (Dünzl I 102.16-104.2). 37 To intertextuality of incarnated Logos in Origen see Ilaria Ramelli, ‘Origene: la Scrittura come incarnazione di Cristo-Logos e la sua interpretazione’, in Ennio Innocenti and Salvatore Scuro (eds), Rivelazione e Storia. Atti del v convegno, Roma 1-8 marzo 2014 (Rome, 2014), 154-72. 35

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The micro-and macro-constitutive units. The division is based on the elementary grammatic shape: word as minimal semanteme and all other forms as extended semantemes. Theological and specific dogmatic function are here dependent on context. Micro-semanteme. This term implies a word as a part of theological discourse in its various syntactic functions. Here I propose distinguishing: 1. Word: a) concepts – nouns, and other parts of speech like trinitarian (e.g. ὁμοούσιος, γέννησις, κτλ.), Christological (e.g.σαρκωθείς, ἐνανθρώπησας); pneumatological (προερχόμενον, συμπαρομαρτεῖ, κτλ.), mariological (θεοτόκος, σύλληψις, κτλ.) terminology, including heretic terms (e.g. Nestorian χριστοτόκος versus θεοτόκος); b) metaphors and types (names, things, numbers, verbs). 2. Prepositional word – for example, ἐν ἀρχῇ; it is equivocal, if one considers its meaning in commentaries on John and the Hexaemeron, or its polysemantism within the text of In Hexaemeron.38 Macro-semanteme may present itself as phrase, sentence/statement (proposition), analogy, logical argument, interrogation, hypothetical sentences, semantic parallels, discourse of ancient scholarship as distinctive theological units. This generic division can be subdivided into: 1. Phrase. It implies a necessary verbal conjunction (συζυγῖαι ἀναγκαῖαι) like Origenian Θεὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ and φῶς ἐκ φωτός taken in the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds; Origenian-Cappadocian formula μία οὐσία, τρεῖς ὑποστάσεις,39 Cappadocian ἡ μία ἐν τρισὶ Θεότης, οὐσιώδης ἕνωσις, οὐσιώδης διαφορά; Christological ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως, which after the Counsel of Chalcedon represent a dogmatic unit; metaphoric paradox (oxymoron) like Θεοῦ ἀχωρήτου χώρα referring to St Mary; here are to be included heretic versus ecclesiastical phrases like the Arian ἦν ποτε ὅτε οὐκ ἦν, or e.g. an equivocal phrase, being on the verge of ecclesiastical (Cyril) and extra-ecclesiastical (Appolinarius) phraseology such as μία φύσις τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου σεσαρκωμένη. 2. Sentence and statement (proposition): a) Sentence. Following Arist., Int. 17a4, by ‘sentence’ I mean any account of thought or event with specific Christian content without semantics of affirmation or negation. This can be conveyed in a single sentence as a minimal form, or narrative as an extended form; b) Statement or proposition is an assertive sentence that conveys some religious truth: e.g. κένωσις τοῦ σταυροῦ τὸ τοῦ λόγου κόμψον ἀναδείκνυται.40 A true proposition can be attained only by the correct combination of words and phrases: 38

See e.g. Ioann. Chrys., In Io. (PG 59, 33-54); Basil, In Hex., I, 2-8 (PG 29, 8B-21C). See Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Origen’s Anti-Subordinationism and its Heritage in the Nicene and Cappadocian Line’, VC 64 (2010), 1-29, 5-9. 40 Gr. Naz., Or. 29, 21 (Barbel; see 1Cor. 1:17). See Arist., Interp. 17a5-24. 39

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e.g. in Nyssen’s insistence ἐπέμφθη παρὰ τοῦ πατρός and ὁ πέμπψας μετ’ αὐτοῦ ἐστιν should be considered a semantic whole.41 3. Analogy. The analogical argument form mostly functions as a standard cognitive device to connect ‘sensible’ with ‘intelligible’ and ‘comprehensible’ with ‘incomprehensible’. It is homonymic and apophatic, insofar as it is based on the confidence in limitations of reason and language.42 4. Logical argument. The term involves: (a) analytic deduction and (b) logical demonstration in support of some Biblical truth. This mode of reasoning always appears in combination with the Biblical evidence.43 Leaving out logical demonstration, which is indeed a constitutive element of every polemic and dogmatic discourse, I will limit myself to one example to show what I mean with the notion ‘logical deduction’ by reverting to John Chrysostom’s commentary on John 1:1. As Chrysostomos argues, the verse is an indivisible semantic unit, since neglecting any of its constitutive parts results in blasphemy. He singles out the following semantic segments: λόγος signifies unpassionate generation of the Only-Begotten Son; ὁ λόγος denotes hypostatic existence of the Word, ἐν ἀρχῇ – the eternity of the Word, ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν – supports the same argument with the discussion of the copula ἦν, the proposition καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν means that the Word, being God Itself is unpassionately begotten in eternity by God the Father, and καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος – is a confirmation of consubstantiality of the Word, expressed in the previous proposition.44 5. Critical and agnostic interrogations. Both are widely employed e.g. by the Cappadocians. The old polemic device of critical interrogations as a method of demolishing an opponent’s fallacies, cover e.g. the dogmatic treatises of the Cappadocian brothers against Eunomius. On the other hand, long sets of questions occur in a novel function, especially, in Cappadocians, when expressing their agnostic stance towards grasping God’s substance, Divine dispensation, the mystery of creation or construction of the universe. 6. Hypothetical sentences. This exegetical strategy has two subjective facets: a) it puts forward various interpretations in a non-apodictic way aimed at showing an exegete’s pious attitude towards the veil of the inspired dictions, and b) it is simultaneously a preparation for disclosing, to the extent possible, the sense of such dictions. 7. Semantic parallels adhere to the synthetic hermeneutical vision of a text (intratextuality) or texts (intertextuality) according to Origen’s request of finding similar words (ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμοίων φωνῶν) in various contexts in order to reveal the genuine semantic range of a diction.45 41 Gr. Nys., Deit. Fil. 125.12-9 (De Deitate Filii et Spiritus Sancti, ed. Ernestus Rhein, GNO X/2; see John 8:29). 42 See references in notes 8 and 15. 43 See note 2. 44 Ioann. Chrys., In Io., PG 59, 33-54. 45 De princ. IV 3, 5 (Görgemanns, Karpp 331.5-8 [746]); the whole context: De princ. IV 3,1-5 (Görgemanns, Karpp 323.3-331.15 [730-46]); IV 2, 9 (Görgemanns, Karpp 321.3-323.2 [726-30]);

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8. Discourse of ancient scholarship can be singled out as an extra-theological segment. It includes philosophical, astronomical, grammatical, etc. passages from an ancient text, e.g. astronomical passages from Timaios commonly quoted in commentaries on the Hexaemeron. Closing the above short and rough overview, I would like to underscore that theological language strongly tends to be placed in the framework of the Aristotelian understanding of conventional sign. In line with Platonic dialectic, and especially Aristotelian and Stoic logic, the value of truth – as considered by Biblical scholars – lies primarily on the level of a sentence.46 Nevertheless, the correct construction of a statement and the establishment of accurate logical links between propositions were believed to be maintained by correctly formed smaller syntactic units. The logical construct of this linguistic model was worked out by the outpouring of various dogmatic polemics, and was conditioned by the doctrinal requests to prevent legitimized symbolic signs from inaccurate combinations that could lead to cognitive fallacies.47

Comm. in Joh. X 5 (Preuschen 175.4-176.2). Compare with the concept of ‘semantic domains’ by Louw and Nida: Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York, 1988). 46 See links to Stoic logic of language in Ada Bronowski, The Stoic Lekta (Oxford, 2019), specifically in this reference 84-5. 47 The intimacy of Patristic authors with the sacred Word incarnated in the Bible, and theological language based on it, is echoed by the modern orthodox interpretation of the Christian word as presented in Averintsev’s sophiological writings. He, like the Church Fathers, experiences it as ‘Divine-human’ that is, cenotic in its status and revelatory in its salvific perspective (Sergei Averintsev, Verbo di Dio e parola dell’uomo. Discorsi Romani, a cura di Pierluca Azzaro. Сергей Аверинцев, Римские речи. Слово Божие и слово человеческое, составитель Пьерлука Адзаро [Moscow, 2013]). One can observe how current Patristic research dwells on the urgency of the dialogue between the old ecclesiastical and modern understanding of the Biblical Word from different perspectives. See e.g. Morwenna Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa: ancient and [post] modern (Oxford, 2007); Ilaria Ramelli, ‘Patristic Exegesis. Relevance to Contemporary Biblical Hermeneutics’, Religion and Theology 22 (2015), 100-32 (with further bibliographic references).

The Schema isagogicum apud Patres Ecclesiae* Manea Erna SHIRINIAN, Yerevan, Armenia

ABSTRACT The aim of this research is to show that the so called schema isagogicum was widely used not only in Late Antiquity and among the late Platonist commentators, but was actively applied for the study of the Bible and biblical exegesis, especially by the Fathers of the Church. Experts use to speak only about few authors – mainly Origen and Proclus – exercising isagogical structures while there exist sources, which can prove that the prolegomena – introductory studies or questions, particular preliminary questions, prefatory matters, having a propaedeutic character are present in the works of many other authors who dealt with the commentaries on the books of the Bible; for example the prolegomena by such authorities like Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, Ephrem the Syrian, John Chrysostom et al. The main witness to this statement is found in the Armenian translations of such prolegomena called generally ‘causes’ (patčaŕk’). Moreover, in the Armenian manuscript tradition there exist even a collections of these ‘causes’. One of them is a yet unpublished isagogical manual, composed in the early 13th century in Armenia, by the abbot of Sanahin Monastery Grigor, the son of Abas. As a handbook on Biblical Introduction this writing was used at the mediaeval Armenian universities. This literary composition of materials on the books of the Bible resemble the same style of writings such as Synopses by [Athanasius], [John Chrysostom], Introductions by Adrianus, Cassiodorus et al., but they are quite different. The original collection is known under the provisional title of the Book of Causes, fuller title reads: ‘The Causes of wide and subtle writings taken from [the works] of the holy fathers and vardapets (doctors of theology) gathered together and provided by the great rabunapet Grigor, the son of Abas’. Being an amazing witness of the Armenian reception of the Greek philosophical and patristic theological heritage, this book has an interesting structure: isagogical, introductory notes 1. on the Old Testament; 2. on so-called ‘subtle’ writings; 3. on the New Testament. These ‘causes’ are in the main translations of the prolegomena written by Church fathers (as it stated in the title: ‘taken from [the works] of the holy fathers’), where almost all ‘main points’ of the schema isagogicum used by Neoplatonist commentators are present. This textbook contains the original prolegomena composed by Armenian authors, which makes us think that it as a quite unique collection that reflects common Christian tradition. Perhaps one can suppose that these biblical prolegomena were a sort of paratexts, auxiliary patterns, sketches or abstracts both within and outside writing for working at the class. * This study is supported by the RA MES State Committee of Science, in the frames of the research project N 18T-6D342.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 215-226. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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The schema isagogicum1 or ‘introductory scheme’ was widely used in late antiquity and among late Platonist commentators, and could be determined as an ‘ordo and specific arrangement of the topics investigated’2. It could be also defined as a ‘systematic form’, applied prior to the ‘interpretation of individual Aristotelian treatises’, i.e. ‘a set of preliminary particular questions called ‘headings’ or ‘main points’,3 which were largely exercised in the philosophical schools of Late Antiquity and among Hellenistic authors. The main goal of those introductory chapters or prolegomena was to facilitate the reading, understanding and commenting the text in form of questions and answers, viz. they were used sort of ad auxilium legentibus. Later on, especially at the beginning of the Christian thought, this introductory formula in questions was applied for the study of the Bible and Biblical exegesis. Experts mainly speak about Origen and Proclus exercising these questions or isagogical structures.4 Today this expression is not considered to be a theological area per se. As to the terminus technicus ‘prolegomena’ – in modern scholarship it is generally addressed to Systematic Theology and as a rule, it is considered that the phrasing ‘theological prolegomena’, deals with 1. the Nature of Theology; 2. the Method of Theology and 3. Cultural Contextualization. My intent is to show that: 1. Schema isagogicum composed from ‘main points’ used by Neoplatonist commentators, was quite largely practiced by early Christian authors (especially by the Fathers of the Church, e.g. Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Theologian, Basil of Caesarea, Ephrem the Syrian, John Chrysostom, Evagrius Ponticus et al.) to designate particular preliminary questions or issues to the commentaries of Biblical books. 2. This goal could be achieved mostly thanks to data preserved in the Armenian tradition. 3. Information provided by Armenian sources (mainly translations) can prove that those prolegomena, which have a propaedeutic character, before delving into the commentaries existed as a separate genre and were not just introductory parts. 4. Many originals of these introductory studies or prefatory remarks are lost in Greek, but preserved in Armenian translations; in some cases, in the Greek 1

About this term for the first time I learned from the crucial research by Jaap Mansfeld, see J. Mansfeld, Prolegomena: Questions to be Settled before the Study of an Author, or a Text, Philosophia antiqua 61 (Leiden, 1994). 2 A. Motta, ‘Introducing Plato’s System through σχήματα: Isagogical Aspects of Platonism in Late Antiquity’, Incontri di filologia classica 16 (2018), 113-27, 113. 3 J. Mansfeld, Prolegomena (1994), 10. 4 Exept J. Mansfeld, who has very interesting observations concerning this topic, see ibid. 12-9.

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texts these prolegomena are present in the opening sections that precede this or that commentary on the books of the Bible. 5. Examination of this material has a great importance for the construction of the mediaeval development of Biblical isagogics (Introduction to the Bible) since there is a big gap in this field because of the absence of enough sources in Greek, Latin and Syriac. Speaking about the subject of Biblical isagogics it should be noted that not much scholarship has been done on it; the few writings which have reached us with data are not properly investigated.5 For the first time the title Isagogics amongst Christians was used by the monk Adrianus (or Hadrianus, ca. 440) in his ‘Introduction to Holy Scripture’ (Εἰσαγωγὴ εἰς τὰς θείας γραφάς6) to designate rhetorical, archaeological, geographical, historical and other matters, which might be helpful in Bible exegesis; in this writing he expounds the hermeneutical rules too. Although in the Christian tradition other titles were used for the works on Biblical introduction, the name given by Adrian to his book (perhaps, he was following pagan tradition developed by philosophers) was preserved during the centuries and still is in dominant use by Christian theologians. Closer to the subject and content of Isagogics are the works ascribed to Athanasius of Alexandria and John Chrysostom. Both of them bear the same title:7 Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae. These two Synopses, although they are disputed with regards their authorship, are of great importance for the questions concerning Isagogics. In these works the content of the Holy Books are mainly discussed, but they also deal with some ‘main points’ of the isagogic scheme. Of particular interest is the Synopsis8 by St Athanasius. In the beginning of his treatise he gives a list of canonical books of Scriptures, which, in fact, is concerned with the ‘position’ and ‘order of studying’ them (i.e. τάξις or ordo lecturae): §8. Τὸ δὲ ἐντεῦθεν διαληπτέον πάλιν περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν βιβλίων πλατύτερον, παρὰ τίνος τε συνεγράφη ἕκαστον τούτων, καὶ πόθεν, ἣν ἔλαχεν, ὀνομασίαν ἔχει, καὶ τί περιέχει, κεφαλαιωδῶς καὶ συνοπτικῶς, κατὰ τὴν προεκτεθεῖσαν τάξιν τοῦ καθ’ ἓν βιβλίου διαγραφομένου μετὰ τῆς οἰκείας ὀνομασίας.9 [‘Now the same books should 5 See for example an interesting electronic article ‘What the heck is the ‘Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae’ of ps. Athanasius??’ posted by Roger Pearse: https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2018/ 09/18/what-the-heck-is-the-synopsis-scripturae-sacrae-of-ps-athanasius/#what-the-heck-is-thesynopsis-scripturae-sacrae-of-ps-athanasius-n-3. 6 PG 98, 1273-312. 7 It is possible that the title ‘synopsis’ in both these cases were added later alia manu, for it is well known how the names of the writings were determined in the Christian era. 8 The work Σύνοψις ἐπίτομος τῆς θεῖας Γραφῆς traditionally ascribed to Athanasius by most scholars is consider now to be composed in the 6th century by an anonymous Greek churchman. There are experts who consider it to be created in the beginning of the 5th century (Π. Χρήστου, ῾Ελληνικὴ πατρολογία, Τ. 3, 518). 9 Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae (PG 28, 433).

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be considered in detail, that is, who entitled each of them under its special name, to take each in separate chapters and the whole together in the supposed order, to review who wrote which book, where it got its name from?’]

This passage deals with a few isagogical patterns (which we will treat in more detail below) and we notice the description of ‘cause of the title’ (ἡ αἰτία τῆς ἐπιγραφῆς) being used here. The isagogical material is reported too in the writing called On Christian Doctrine or On Christian Teaching (De doctrina Christiana) by Augustine, in four books of which he discussed the questions of interpreting and teaching the Bible. Almost at the same time two treatises appeared dealing with isagogical matters. One of them is the work Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum by Senator Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus and the other Instituta regularia divinae legis,10 written by the high-ranking Iunilius Africanus. In these textbooks the questions deal with content and origin of the Scriptures, some information about their text and doctrine, as well as some hermeneutical rules. Another later manual, which appeared after – the Postilla super totam Bibliam by the African bishop Nicolaus Lyranus (1270-1349), starts, after a short Preface, with Notitia de libris canonicis et non canonicis and has more or less the same style with these previous ones, pays more attention to the Bible canon and enumerates biblical books in Jerome’s way. There is again a gap in the field of Isagogics until the 16th century, when after the emergence of protestantism many theological disputes were raised and among other theological issues the attention returned to Isagogics. Many books on the topic in question appeared as from representatives of Catholics as well as Protestant scholarship. In particular one could mention the treatise by Santes Pagninus (or Pagnini, Pagnino), Isagoge ad sacras litteras (1536), which starts with a description of the Hebrew language; the work is enriched with a very detailed index of religious expressions, and, in fact, the chapters of this book deal with the explanation of each phrase of this index. Interestingly starting from the 16th century, many writings of isagogical character bear the title of Isagoge or Prolegomena, e.g. Palladius, Isagoge in libros prophetarum et apostolorum (1557); Isagoge ad Scripturam sacram (1627); B. Walton, Prolegomena in Bibliam Polyglottam (Lond. 1657); Ellies Du-Pin, Dissertation preliminaire ou Prolegomenes sur la Bible (Paris, 1701) and others. That many of these works are based on earlier hermeneutical methods and in most of these works attention is paid to some Isagogic questions known from before (like the canon of the Bible or the titles of the Psalms), it seems that the continuity of the mediaeval exegetical tradition is somehow missed. By this I mean that there is not so much reflection of what was done in this field in 10 It is interesting to note that both these writings have similar titles as it was the case with Athanasius and John Chrysostom.

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earlier centuries; no specific link is made with the early mediaeval tradition (for example with the famous formula ‘commentary on commentaries’ which one could have expected). All these isagogical writings are the works of separate and individual researchers, and one wonders whether something important was overlooked during these ages. Perhaps handbooks in Greek or Latin existed on this topic, which had the character of compilations, and thanks to which earlier hermeneutical methods and the medieval exegetical tradition were reflected, but beside these mentioned ones and other poor testimonies concerning the works of earlier authors, no complete textbook that includes the polegomena written by earlier authors has reached us. What makes me think that such textbooks were extant in the Christian Schools is the preserved Armenian material, which is mostly translated from Greek since in many cases the names of the Greek authors are indicated or the described topics are certainly not of Armenian origin. Interestingly in Armenian sources not only do we find a large number of prolegomena or isagogical chapters on the Bible (as well as on other writings), but they differ in types and are called by various names. One can find more than 20 combinations of technical terms or expressions; the most used ones are as follows: ‘cause’ (պատճառ; cf. Greek αἰτία or ὑπόθεσις); ‘principle’ (or ‘beginning’ – սկիզբն; cf. Greek ἀρχή); ‘commentary’ (or: ‘exposition’ – մեկնութիւն; cf. Greek ὑπόμνημα, σχόλιον, ἑρμηνεία, έξήγησις); ‘contemplation’ (տեսութիւն cf. Greek θεωρία), or ‘concerning the contemplation’ (ի տեսութիւն), or ‘contemplation of the cause’ (տեսութիւն պատճառի), or ‘cause of the contemplation’ (պատճառ տեսութեան), or ‘principle, cause and contemplation’ (սկիզբն, պատճառ եւ տեսութիւն); ‘contemplation of argumentation’ (or: ‘argument’ - տեսութիւն փաստաբանութեան); ‘prologue’ (առաջաբան; cf. Greek πρόλογος); ‘causes and exhortations or address’ (պատճառք եւ թելադրութիւնք, cf. the latter word with Gr. προσφώνηση); ‘prooemium’ (նախադրութիւն; cf. Greek πρόθεσις or προέκθεσις) a.o.11 From these terms the most used ones are ‘causes’12 and because of that one can say that all those introductory explanations are combined in one aetiological genre. Moreover, in the Armenian manuscript tradition there exist even collections of ‘causes’, which are mainly unpublished. One of them is of special interest, 11 For more details see M.E. Shirinian, ‘The Liber Causarum: A Mediaeval Armenian Isagogical Collection’, Le Muséon 130 (2017), 139-76, 168-9; see also ibid. 169, n. 176 for sort of propaedeutic or preparatory types of commentaries too found in Armenian texts: ‘solutions’ – լուծմունք (λύσεις), ‘questions and answers’ – հարցմունք եւ պատասխանիք (ζητήματα καὶ λύσεις, ἔλεγχοι καὶ λύσεις, ἐρωτήσεις καὶ ἀποκρίσεις), ‘analysis’ – վերլուծութիւն, վերլուծումն (ἀνάλυσις), etc. 12 In the second place comes the ‘principle’ and, of course, along with the term ‘cause’ they have specific philosophical explanations, see M.E. Shirinian, ‘The Liber Causarum: A Mediaeval Armenian Isagogical Collection’ (2017), 170, n. 177. All these names seem to be not just occasionally used (as in the case of previous ones), they seem to be borrowings from some earlier tradition; in this case I believe that it is taken from an Alexandrian tradition.

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since it is the most complete of these collections.13 The writing is known under the provisional name the Book of Causes; the fuller title reads: ‘The Causes of wide and subtle writings taken from [the works] of the holy fathers and vardapets (doctors of theology) gathered together and provided by the great rabunapet Grigor, the son of Abas’. It is an unpublished handbook on the introduction to the Bible, i.e an isagogical manual, composed in the early 13th century in Armenia, by the abbot of Sanahin Monastery, Grigor the son of Abas. As it noted above – the chapters of this collection (or better to say, the isagogical, introductory notes, generally called ‘causes’) are mostly compiled from Armenian translations of prolegomena and interpretations ascribed to the teachers and fathers of the œcumenical Church (as it stated in the title itself: ‘taken from [the works] of the holy fathers’). Some of these prolegomena consist of parts of existing commentaries, but some of them are preserved only in the Armenian translation (‘Concerning the contemplation on the prophet Ezekiel said by Origen’14, which is considered to be an authentic passage from Origen’s commentary and which seems to be lost. Another one is: ‘Commentary and principle on the Job by St Ephrem’15, which has reached us neither in Greek, nor in Syriac). This manual contains the prolegomena composed by Armenian authors too, so one can say that it is a unique collection that reflects the common Christian tradition. As to the names of the prolegomena’s authors, in some cases they are indicated in the title, but in others they are absent. Being an amazing witness of the Armenian reception of the philosophical and patristic theological heritage, this book has also an interesting tripartite structure: 1. prolegomena on the Old Testament; 2. on so-called ‘subtle’ writings; 3. on the New Testament. Such an arrangement of the content seems not to be random, but might go back to Origen’s conception on the trifold sense of the Holy Bible.16 The section ‘wide and subtle writings’ of the book is intriguing in title and content, as I have shown in a series of articles.17 13 This collection reached us in three mss, from which the oldest one is kept in Erevan, Mashtots Matenadaran (MM1879); this manuscript is impressive in terms of its volume too, since it is amounting to ca. 376 folios; unfortunately some folios towards the end are missing. 14 MM1879, fol. 136v-138v. 15 Ibid. 67v-74v. 16 M.E. Shirinian, ‘Origen’s conception of the threefold sense of the Holy Bible and its reception in Armenian sources’, in The 350th Anniversary of the Voskanian Bible Publication (1666-2018), (Echmiadzin, 2018), 104-11 (in Arm.). 17 E.g. M.E. Shirinian, ‘“External” and “Subtle” Writings’, Ashtanak. Armenological Periodical 2 (1998), 15-45 (in Arm.); ead., ‘Translations from Greek in Armenian Literature’, Eikasmos 12 (2001), 229-40; ead., ‘Reflections of the “Sons and Daughters of the Covenant” in the Armenian Sources’, Revue des Études Arméniennes, N.S. 28 (2001-2002), 261-85; ead., ‘Armenian Translation of [Aristotle’s] “De Vitiis et Virtutibus”’, Verbum 6 (2002), 166-71; ead., Antique and Hellenistic Elements in the Christian Teaching, with a Comparison of Armenian and classical and Byzantine Greek Sources (Erevan, 2005), 132-285, 304-9 (in Arm.); ead., ‘Philo and the Book of

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Interestingly, the prolegomena presented in the Book of Causes among other questions examine isagogical patterns of each book in the Scriptures or their Commentaries; i.e. here the schema isagogicum is used and the following points of it are presented: date, author, title, sources, contents, reasons (aim, cause, purpose subject) of writing, authencity, obscurity, order of the study, arrangement of the works, utility etc. The schema isagogicum presented here consists of large points, almost similar to those that were discussed at the outset of the study of a philosophical text, namely those that are known from isagogical questions of Late Platonist commentators of Aristotle. For example, the explanation or ‘cause of the title’ (ἡ αἰτία τῆς ἐπιγραφῆς, attitulatio) is discussed in the chapter called ‘Contemplation by John Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles’ (‘Յոհաննու Ոսկեբերանի տեսութիւն վասն Գործոցն Առաքելոցն’), where the author, according to the title of the chapter, discusses in details why this book was called ‘Acts’ and not ‘Signs’ or ‘Wonders’: ‘Acts (works, deeds) begin in our eagerness and the signs are the mark of God’s grace…’18 The chapter reflects St John Chrysostom’s Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, but there is no discussion concerning the title. This prolegomenon contains an interesting and logistic information and it is important, since until nowadays some researchers are wondering why this biblical book was called Acts: ‘In fact, the name, Acts of the Apostles, does not precisely convey the idea of the contents of the book; and such a title would scarcely be given to the work by the author himself…’ and that is why it is suggested: ‘We see therefore that a more proper title of this book would be “The Beginnings of the Christian Religion”’.19 By the way in this same prolegomenon the author points out the utility or usefulness (χρήσιμον) of this writing: ‘But acts (deeds) and virtues, being less than the signs, are more useful and profitable, since they are the reward for their labor, so you should learn that the deeds are more useful than the signs’.20 Another sample dealing with isagogical questions of order of study in this Book deals with the Epistle to the Romans and the question concerning why this epistle should be placed first in the collection. This question is examined not in one, but even in three chapters. In one of them, in the prolegomenon Causes by Grigor Abasean’, in Studies on the Ancient Armenian Version of Philo’s Works, Studies in Philo of Alexandria 6 (Leiden, 2010), 155-89; ead., ‘The Liber Causarum: A Mediaeval Armenian Isagogical Collection’ (2017); ead., ‘“Vitae Homeri”, Pseudo-Nonnos’ Commentary on Sermon 4 by Gregory of Nazianzus and the Armenian Book of Causes’, in Armenian, Hittite, and Indo-European Studies. A Commemoration Volume for Jos J.S. Weitenberg, Hebrew University Armenian Studies 15 (Leuven, 2019), 323-45. 18 MM 1879, 358v: ‘Գործք ի մեր յաւժարութենէս սկիզբն առնու, նշանքն յԱստուծոյ շնորհէն…’. 19 https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/acts-of-the-apostles. 20 MM 1879, 358v: ‘Իսկ գործք եւ առաքինութիւնք՝ նուազք քան զնշանս, այլ պիտանացուք եւ շահաւորք, քանզի աշխատութեանց են հատուցմունք, եւ ուսցի[ս], թէ գործք քան զնշանս առաւել պիտանացու է’.

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ascribed to Ephrem the Syrian, called ‘Again why the Epistle to the Romans should be the first (by order – M.E.S.)’21 the author gives more than thirteen reasons why this Epistle is designed to be in the first place among the other ones. Especially interesting is a conceptual system in which Solomon’s three main writings with didactic and exegetic isagogical patterns are presented. Here are brought forward the explanations concerning the Solomonic corpus (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticum Canticorum) and the questions of the ‘position’ (τάξις or ordo lecturae) are discussed, i.e. which writing by Solomon should be read first and which one last, and why this is so. It is noted that such an order is connected with the individual aim (σκοπός) of each book of this triad; the passing from one of these three books to another is compared with ascending steps. The discussion and explanation of the titles of these three writings are given as well (by the way the Song of Songs is called Blessing of blessings22). As to the authorship, in the Book of Causes this famous trilogy ascribed to the wise Solomon are presented in three chapters as follows: ‘Principle and cause of the three books by Solomon, which we gathered and addressed to the “children of Church”’;23 ‘Principle and cause separately of Ecclesiastes by Gregory of Nyssa’;24 ‘Principle and cause of the third writing by Solomon, which is called Song of Songs’.25 Besides these points talked over in the manual in question, an interesting story is how this Solomonic corpus survived. More samples dealing with the pattern of the ‘cause of the title’, with an explanation or discussion of the heading can be brought forward here, but let us just limit these examples with two more that are presented in the two chapters and called: ‘Concerning the titles’26 and ‘Concerning the differentiation of the titles’,27 where the reasons for the different titles are given. Those two chapters are from the set of seven ‘causes’, which are dealing with Psalms: 1. ‘Prologue on the prophecy of David [Psalms] by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria; found and demonstrated obviously [clearly] to the others prevalent thoughts of all the Psalms by David’.28 In fact, here is presented an Armenian translation of the Letter to Marcellinum by Athanasius of Alexandria29); let us remember that the Ibid. 323r: ‘Դարձեալ, թէ զի՞նչ է առաջին լինել Թղթին Հռոմայեցւոց’. Ibid. 63r: ‘… Երգոյ երգիւ, այսինքն` աւրհնութեանց աւրհնութեամբ’. 23 Ibid. 55r-60v: ‘Սկիզբն եւ պատճառ երիս գրոցն Սողոմոնի, զոր ժողովեալ եդաք վասն մանկանց եկեղեցւոյ’; on the latter term in bold see M.E. Shirinian, ‘A Comparative Analysis of Some Technical Terms in Armenian Sources’, Xristianskij Vostok 4 (X) (2006), 268-316 [in Russian]; ead., Antique and Hellenistic Elements (2005), 297-302. 24 Ibid. 60v-62v: ‘Սկիզբն եւ պատճառ Ժողովողին գրոց առանձին Գրիգորի Նիւս[ացւոյ]’ = Gregory of Nyssa, In Ecclesiasten (homiliae 8), CPG 3157. 25 Ibid. 62v-65v: ‘Սկիզբն եւ պատճառ երրորդ գրոցն Սողոմոնի, որ կոչի Երգոյ Երգ’. 26 Ibid. 42v-43v: ‘Վասն վերնագրացն’. 27 Ibid. 43v-45v: ‘Վասն զանազանել վերնագրացն’. 28 Ibid. 30v-39v: ‘Յառաջաբան Դաւթի մարգարէութեանն, Աթանասի եպիսկոպոսի Աղեքսանդրացւոյ: Ամենայն Սաղմոսացն Դաւթի զներունակ միտսն գտեալ եւ այլոց յայտնի ցուցեալ’. 29 Athanasius of Alexandria, Epistula ad Marcellinum, CPG 2097. 21 22

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‘cause of the title’ was present also in the above mentioned Synopsis by [Athanasius]. 2. ‘Prologues preordained to the Psalms by David30 the Philosopher’.31 3. ‘Concerning the singers’.32 4. ‘Concerning the titles’.33 5. ‘Concerning the differentiation of the titles’.34 6. ‘Concerning the Psalms, which are said of the sons of Korah. By David the Philosopher’.35 7. ‘Prologues on the Psalms by Epiphanius of Cyprus’.36 It should be noted that in the second part of the Book of Causes, where prolegomena on the so called ‘subtle writings’ are presented, there are causes written on the Homilies on the Psalms by St Basil and there is resemblance between these causes: ‘Cause on the eleventh oration, which is said on the first Psalm’;37 ‘Cause of the twelfth oration, which is on the fifty-ninth Psalm’;38 ‘Cause on the thirteenth homily, which is on the sixty-first Psalm’;39 ‘Cause on the fourteenth homily, which is on the hundred and fourth Psalm’.40 Another intriguing ‘cause’ is the chapter about Mosaic authorship and here one can find a combination of some patterns of the schema isagogicum (e.g. authority, authencity, attitulatio). In particular it is said: We shall also know why Moses did not write his name in the beginning of his homilies (viz. books - M.E.S.). The first reason (cause) is that he wrote it not for far away living nations, but for those among whom he lived constantly/always. Second: so that it would 30

I.e. David the Invincible. MM 1879, 39v-42r: ‘Դաւթի փիլիսոփայի նախակարգեալ առաջաբանք Սաղմոսաց’. 32 Ibid. 42r-42v: ‘Վասն երգչացն’. 33 Ibid. 42v-43v: ‘Վասն վերնագրացն’. This and the following two prolegomena deal with the basic question of the Psalms’ authors; many early authors like Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, St Basil or Eusebius have written about the titles of the Psalms, but this is too broad a topic to discuss here. 34 Ibid. 43v-45v: ‘Վասն զանազանել վերնագրացն’. 35 Ibid. 45v-50r: ‘Վասն Սաղմոսաց, որ ասին որդ[ւ]ոցն Կորխա. Դաւթի փիլիսոփայի ասացեալ’. 36 Ibid. 50r-55r: ‘Եպիփանու Կիպրացւոյ առաջաբանք Սաղմոսաց’. 37 Ibid. 250v-251r: ‘Պատճառ մետասան[*երորդ] ճառին, որ ի Սաղմոսն առաջին ասացեալ է’; cf. Bas. Caes., Homiliae super Psalmos; CPG 2836; PG 29, 209-28. For more details concerning this interesting prolegomenon see in M.E. Shirinian, ‘The Liber Causarum: A Mediaeval Armenian Isagogical Collection’ (2017), 158, n. 117. 38 MM 1879, 251r-252v: ‘Պատճառ երկոտասաներորդ ճառին, որ առ ի Սաղմոսն յիսներորդ իններորդ’ = Bas. Caes., Homiliae super Psalmos; CPG 2836. 39 MM 1879, 252v-253r: ‘Պատճառ երեք տասան[*երորդ] ճառին, որ վաթսուն եւ ի մի Սաղմոսն’ = Bas. Caes., Homiliae super Psalmos; CPG 2836. 40 MM 1879, 253r-254r: ‘Պատճառ չորեքտասան[*երորդ] ճառին, որ ի հարիւր եւ ի չորս Սաղմոսն’ = Bas. Caes., Homiliae super Psalmos; CPG 2836. In this title instead of 114 it is written 104 by mistake, more detailed explanation see M.E. Shirinian, ‘The Liber Causarum: A Mediaeval Armenian Isagogical Collection’ (2017), 158, n. 120. 31

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not seem that after his death His commandments will disappear too. Third: do not let the sons of Israel think that those Tables of the Law are from Moses: they are from the God. Fourth: because this honor was to our Lord – the Messenger of good news, for the title to be written/posted on a genuine pillar41 and not on this copy (i.e. the Pentateuch – M.E.S.). Fifth: since ten commandments are written with the finger of God and not by hands of Moses.42

The Book of causes, as is noted, besides being a translation of the works of Church fathers contains also prolegomena composed by Armenian authors, where the patterns of the schema isagogicum are used too. Such are the chapters concerning David the Invincible, especially two of them, entitled as follows: ‘Principle and cause on the sermon Lift up43 and contemplation’44 and ‘Principle and cause on the writing Definitions of Philosophy, yoked in the theory by David Vardapet45 that can easily be found’.46 Here the points concerning the theme, aim, purpose of the work (operis intentio), authenticity, discussion of the titles, explanations on the date and authorship of these writings are discussed in details too. It seems that the examples brought here, many of which reached us thanks to the preserved Armenian translations, are adding confidence that the schemata isagogica were more widely used by the Church Fathers. Then, due to some reasons, it was given up. Perhaps the end could be linked to the prosecution of philosophy (especially after 529 when Emperor Justinian closed the Neoplatonic school of Athens). Few more reasons could be pointed out why these schemata isagogica disappeared from Christian literature. Firstly, and perhaps the important reason, could be that it was the intention to eliminate pagan elements of which there were so many in them. Secondly, it seems that they were more working, didactic units, meant to be propaedeutic, for the reading of difficult and important texts, hence, they were written for the help to study material and not as an opus to be left for generations.47 One can think that for this same reason, many prolegomena or textbooks containing them just did not reach us. Another reason for not finding 41 Literally ‘should be written on a column’, cf. the term στηλιτευτικός, more about this term see M.E. Shirinian, ‘The Liber Causarum: A Mediaeval Armenian Isagogical Collection’ (2017), 154, n. 93. 42 MM 1879, 7r-7v (I.1.36). 43 Encomium on Holy Cross (= ’Ներբողեան ի սուրբ խաչն աստուածնկալ’), ascribed to David the Invincible, which is better known under the title ‘Lift up’ (‘Բարձրացուցէք’). 44 MM 1879, 281v-284v: ‘Սկիզբն եւ պատճառ Բարձրացուցեացն ճառի եւ տեսութիւն’. 45 David Vardapet Kobayrec’i, who wrote this ‘cause’, should not be confused with David the Invincible, who wrote the Definitions of Philosophy and who, in the Book of Causes, as a rule is called the Philosopher. 46 MM 1879, 284v-286r: ‘Սկիզբն եւ պատճառ Սահմանաց գրոցն՝ Դաւթի վարդապետի զուգեալ ի տեսութիւն դիւրագիւտ’. 47 Perhaps one can compare them with the sketches that famous master painters are doing before they start a real painting on canvas; and we know how valuable they too are today.

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these introductory texts separately could be that many of them were simply attached, as sort of preface, to the beginning of a commentary. The practice of the schema isagogicum by Armenian authors could be explained firstly by the fact that the translations of philosophical writings and commentaries were prospering and flourishing in Armenia which did not stopped even after the closure of the Neoplatonic school. The answer seems simple: firstly, because the reconciliation of philosophy (especially logic, ontology and metaphysics) was needed for the Armenian Church to an extreme degree to defend its position. The Armenian Church was quite ‘open minded’ to philosophy because during the centuries there was a desideratum to guard and prove that its confessional point of view is traditional and righteous. Secondly, the fact should be taken into account that Hellenic education, especially the trivium and quadrivium subjects were included in the curriculum of Armenian school, starting from the 5th century. These liberal arts, which were sometimes prohibited in Byzantium during the so called Dark Ages, flourished in Armenia later on too, especially from the 7th century thanks to the activity of Anania Shirakatsi. There is also a strong tradition in Armenia, which presents not only the Alexandrian second (Christian) school but also the Alexandrian first school: and to me, the schema isagogicum, as well as different types of prolegomena48 that reached Armenian, seems to be closely connected with both these schools. Moreover, thanks to a sort of traditionalism reflected in the attitudes or methods of Armenian authors – do not change anything important in the source – one can often find some genres, types of writings or approaches in the Armenian tradition, which are of old descend and common for the Greco-Roman world, but were lost or forgotten in it, but preserved here. Those reflections started to flourish especially from the end of the 10th-11th centuries (which are considered as an epoch of Armenian Renaissance). All questions discussed here are closely connected with the existence of the Armenian translation of prologues or supplements to the Acts of Apostles, Pauline and the Catholic Epistles by Euthalius from the 5th century. In fact, one can say that what Euthalius (and before him Pamphilius) did, was very similar to the schema isagogicum. The Euthalian apparatus, as well the schema isagogicum, is a systematic ordering of texts. In the Book of causes the name of Euthalius occurs three times: twice in the prolegomenon concerning Pauline letters: ‘Principle and cause of the Apostle’s Fourteen epistles of Paul’,49 and then in ‘The Cause on the Epistle to the Hebrews by Saint Euthalius’.50 48 For more details on this question see M.E. Shirinian, Antique and Hellenistic Elements (2005), 46-67; 205-317; M.E. Shirinian, ‘The Liber Causarum: A Mediaeval Armenian Isagogical Collection’ (2017), 169. 49 MM 1879, 312r-314r: ‘Սկիզբն եւ պատճառ Առաքելոյն Չորեքտասան թղթոյն Պաւղոսի’. 50 Ibid. 343r: ‘Սրբոյն Եւթաղեա պատճառ Եբրաեցւոց թղթոյն’, see Euthalius diaconus, CPG 3642.

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Though topic concerning the data preserved in Armenian on Euthalius and his activity is interesting, it is too large to confer about it here. I will refer only to one point: the existence of the Euthalian apparatus, as well the reception of Aristotle’s Categories and its commentaries in Armenian (where the schema isagogicum is also used), can serve as a proof that the aetiological genre or prolegomena (‘causes’) existed in Armenia from quite early times on, perhaps already from the 5th century, and did not originate at the time of Cilician Kingdom, as some experts in Armenian Studies used to think.51 From all the aforesaid one can conclude that the idea of the schema isagogicum was borrowed from philosophy and the main aim of those prefatory remarks, introductory matters or chapters, i.e. prolegomena, were the same, as in the case of philosophical writings – to facilitate the reading, understanding and commenting the texts in question. In the beginning they were perhaps not separate pieces, not written to be left for generations, and are rather a sort of paratexts,52 auxiliary patterns, sketches or abstracts only for working in classrooms. One can also presume that they served as supporting conspectuses for the lecturer to not forget what he was to tell the students in class. It seems that it would be quite useful if researche on isagogics could be placed in the context of the East Churches’ traditions, i.e. Syriac, Coptic, and possibly Arabic. At least it should become a disederatum to involve the data preserved in all these traditions, including Armenian (which is often overlooked), when editing or publishing Greek texts. And again, it is quite intriguing and useful to compare how these topics are reflected in the Syriac tradition, since, as far as I know, there are many common features: suffice to bring forward the translations of philosophical writings, and the use of them for scriptural or theological exegesis (especially, when the study of philosophy was given up in the Greco-Roman world).

51 Another proof that these ‘causes’ existed in Armenia before the Cilician time are the prolegomena ascribed to Nonnus, on this topic see M.E. Shirinian, ‘“Vitae Homeri”, Pseudo-Nonnos’ Commentary on Sermon 4 by Gregory of Nazianzus and the Armenian Book of Causes’ (2019). The Armenian translations of all those commentaries of the famous Fathers of the Church like Origen, the Cappadocian fathers, Ephrem the Syrian and others, translated long before the Cilician epoch also make it impossible to think that the ‘causes’ by these same authors were chosen and translated later (of course some particular cases could be rendered later). We may also remember that many of these ‘causes’ already disappeared in their originals or were already attached to the commentary, to which it relates. 52 Very interesting researches on paratexts, which became currently fashionable can gain, a lot from the presented material, since there are cases when the writings did not reached us and only the title of such a work is preserved.

Divine Origin or Divine Becoming: The Concept of διπλοῦς in Pseudo-Macarius’ Homilies and Plotinus’ Enneads Dean GEORCHESKI, Durham University, Durham, UK

ABSTRACT The notion of the twofold man, διπλοῦς, emanates from the tendency to interiorize the divine experience, which is central in both Pseudo-Macarius’ Homilies and Plotinus’ Enneads. Macarius’ work is characterized by his interiorization of God’s glorious presence within the depths of the human soul, whereas Plotinus’ most particular philosophical contribution is his interiorization of the cosmic trinitarian hypostasis within the self. Both Macarius and Plotinus hold that the union with the divine within the depths of the ‘inner human being’ is the ultimate goal of man’s spiritual ascent. The premises upon which they build their philosophical systems as well as their conclusions, however, are entirely different. By juxtaposing their essential anthropological, cosmological, and soteriological viewpoints, this study investigates the traces of possible conceptual influence.

Pseudo-Macarius1 The conceptions behind the idea of the double man are evident throughout the Macarian corpus.2 The word διπλοῦς specifically, appears only three times in the Macarian Homilies, two of which are identical.3 Macarius, however, is 1

In this study simply referred to as Macarius. The Macarian corpus consists of three main collections written towards the end of the 4th century in Syro-Mesopotamia. Collection I (B) was edited by Heinz Berthold in two volumes, Makarios/Symeon: Reden und Briefe. Die Sammlung I des Vaticanus Graecus 694 (B), 2 vol. (Berlin, 1973). Collection II (H), which is the most popular and widely translated, was edited in 1964 by Hermann Dörries, Erich Klostermann and Matthias Kroeger, Die 50 Geistlichen Homilien des Makarios, Patristische Texte und Studien 6 (Berlin, 1964). The third collection was edited by E. Klostermann and H. Berthold, Neue Homilien des Makarios/Symeon aus Typus III, Texte und Untersuchungen (Berlin, 1961), and most recently by Vincent Desprez, Pseudo-Macaire, Œuvres Spirituelles I: Homélies propres à la Collection III, Sources Chrétiennes 275 (Paris, 1980). Besides these, there exists a fourth collection that has not been separately edited since its entire content overlaps with sections of the 3 main collections, and an additional set of seven homilies (HA) parts of which are also contained in the main collections. 3 Homilies III.10.3.4, II.15.22 and I.32.8.7. The last two verses are contained in an overlapping material of the first and the third collection. 2

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 227-235. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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not unique in attempting to explicate the twofold spiritual reality experienced by Christian believers. The apostle Paul who first introduced the metaphor of the ‘inner man’ in Christianity,4 provided the framework for further theological discussions distinguishing the inner spiritual struggle from the outward practice. Building upon the apostle Paul’s heritage, Origen, too, in his Dialogue with Heraclides, addresses the complexity of such spiritual dichotomy.5 Further on, Ephrem the Syrian in his Rhythm The Eightieth6 (a passage that resembles Macarius’ notion of the twofold man),7 discusses the acquisition of a second soul, which, points to the fact that other Christian authors within the Syriac milieu were also familiar with the concept of the double soul. The concept of acquiring a second soul, however, was later deemed heretical.8 The passage of particular importance to our study is found in the third collection of the Homilies, You will discover that those who have renounced the world [entered monastery] have a sick soul and a sick intelligence... Their mind (νοῦς) and their inner man (ἔσω ἄνθρωπος) must be strengthened, so that they have a courageous heart, courageous thought 4 The metaphor of the ‘inner man’ was first coined or at least used by Plato in his Republic IX.588b-589d (ὁ ἐντὸς ἄνθρωπος). In the Christian tradition it was introduced by the apostle Paul, 2Cor. 4:16 and Rom. 7:22-5 (ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος). It was later commented upon by various authors including Origen, and used extensively by both Macarius, for whom the inner man equals the soul, and Plotinus, who explicitly quotes Plato’s text. See note 28. 5 Even though Origen did not use the actual word διπλοῦς, he writes of the two different human beings and two different spiritual realities. “Scripture says that the human being is two human beings” (Δύο ἀνθρώπους ἡ γραφὴ λέγει εἶναι τὸν ἄνθρωπον). Dialogue with Heraclides, 11. See also, Dialogue with Heraclides, 16: “There are, therefore, two human beings in each of us” (Δύο οὖν καθ’ ἕκαστον ἡμῶν εἰσιν ἄνθρωποι), in Origen, Treatise on the Passover and Dialogue of Origen with Heraclides and his fellow Bishops on the Father, the Son, and the Soul, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation 54, translated and annotated by Robert J. Daly, edited by Walter J. Burghardt, Thomas Comerford Lawler and John J. Dillon (Mahwah, NJ, 1992); See Homilies I.2.3.2-3. 6 In Ephrem’s quotation, one’s faith is a second soul. “Inquire and hearken discriminatingly that faith is a second soul; and as the body standeth by the soul, the life of the soul also hangeth on faith, and if it deny it or be divided, it becometh a corpse. That mortal body then dependeth upon the soul, and the soul is dependent upon faith, and faith also itself dependeth upon the Godhead…” Rhythm 80.1; Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Rhythms, translated by the Rev. J.B. Morris, M.A. (Oxford, 1847), 360. 7 See Homilies II.15.22 and I.32.8.7. 8 In his list of Messalian heresies, among the others, St John of Damascus numbers “the acquiring of the two souls” as one of their key heretical teachings. He informs us that the Messalians preached “that a man must acquire two souls, one which is common to people, and one which is heavenly.” See St John of Damascus (PG 94, 732); for translation in English see Appendix 2 in Columba Stewart, Working the Earth of the Heart: The Messalian Controversy in History, Texts, and Language to AD 431 (Oxford, 1991), 244-79. There exist several Anti-Messalian lists, but the condemnation of the teaching on the two souls appears only in John of Damascus’ list. According to Stewart and Desprez, this accusation it is based on text from the Macarian Homilies, more precisely, III.10.3.4 and H.52.5. See Stewart, Working the Earth of the Heart, 67 and note 138 on p. 196-7. See also Vincent Desprez, Pseudo-Macarie, Œuvres Spirituelles I: Homélies propres à la Collection III (Paris, 1980), 162-3.

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and be willing to enter into struggle. All of this is achieved in the inner man; in the movements of the soul, so that we have a living heart (ζῶσαν καρδίαν). There are many who have the outward appearance, but their mind is soft, aimlessly wondering. They should acquire a new heart (καρδίαν καινήν), a heavenly mind in their inner man (νοῦν ἐπουράνιον ἐν τῷ ἔσω ἄνθρώπῳ), a heavenly soul in their soul (ψυχὴν θείαν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ), a body in the body (σῶμα ἐν σώματι), so that man can become double (διπλοῦς) … This is because man, besides his own nature, has something that is foreign (ξένα τινὰ τῆς φύσεως αὐτοῦ), a heavenly gift (ἐπουράνια) and becomes double (διπλοῦς).9

Macarius is a monastic writer, and as a spiritual director, he urges his monks for a genuine and substantial transformation within their inner man as opposed to a superficial change in the outward appearance. This substantial transformation involves acquiring of a new heart, a heavenly mind in the inner man, a heavenly soul in our soul, and a [heavenly] body in our body so that man can become double (διπλοῦς). In the process of becoming twofold, then, not only one’s soul becomes twofold, but all the elements that constitute the human being are being ‘doubled’, or, as it were, empowered by the energy of the members of the New Heavenly Man. Most importantly, these heavenly properties do not belong to our being naturally, says Macarius, but are foreign and divine addition to our nature. Macarius’ concept of διπλοῦς is essentially soteriological and profoundly existential in the sense of one’s ontological need for a conscious experience of, and a continuous coexistence with, the presence of the glory of God. It is conditioned by the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, Who, by mingling with human nature, has become the New, Heavenly Man and the perfect Image of God’s glory. Macarius says, In the same way God, who transcends all limitations and far exceeds the grasp of our human understanding, through his goodness has diminished himself and has taken the members of our human body. He withdrew himself from the inaccessible glory. And through his compassion and love for mankind he transformed his nature (Phil. 2:6), taking upon himself a body. He mingled (ἀναμίγνυται) himself totally with the body and thus he takes to himself holy souls acceptable and faithful. He becomes “one Spirit” (1Cor. 6:17) with them according to Paul’s statement – a soul, if I may so put it, in a soul, substance in substance, so that the soul may live in newness of immortal life and become a participator of eternal glory…10

It is important to carefully distinguish between two very different mingling processes that occur. The first one is the initial mingling of God with the human nature in the person of Jesus Christ by which God became Man, acquiring not only the members of a full human being but also a unique soul (ψυχή) and a unique substance (ὑπόστασις). The second mingling is particular to each and every soul that is willing to participate in the eternal glory, in the process by which the perfect and heavenly Soul of Jesus Christ, becomes our soul, and His 9 10

Homilies III.10.3.4. Homilies II.4.10 (same I.49.2.9).

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heavenly Substance becomes our substance (ψυχὴ ὡς εἰπεῖν εἰς ψυχὴν καὶ ὑπόστασις εἰς ὑπόστασιν). In other words, the long-lost image and likeness of God in us, together with our fallen members, both bodily and those of the soul, are being blended with, and thus empowered by the grace of the perfect Heavenly Image of God.11 The ability to mix with Christ as a second soul with our soul appears to be intrinsic to human nature. It is primordial. According to Macarius, Adam and Eve were originally gifted with a continuous presence of the divine ‘driving substance’ (κινητικὴν ὑπόστασιν). They were not only created according to the ‘image and likeness’ of God; in the depths of their inner being, Adam and Eve were gifted with an indwelling of the Heavenly Soul (ψυχὴν δὲ ἐπουράνιον) and the Divine Image (εἰκόνα θεϊκὴν).12 After the transgression, however, this indwelling presence was lost. Although Adam and Eve maintained a somewhat distorted form of the original image according to which they were created, without the driving force of the Heavenly Soul and Image dwelling in them, they had become lifeless and dead to God. As they were drifting away from God, emptied of His divine presence, Macarius says ‘… the serpent entered and became master of the house and became like a second soul with the real soul (ὡς ψυχὴ ἑτέρα μετὰ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐστι)’.13 Through the original sin of the ancestors, the serpent took advantage and usurped the position of a second soul, which was intended for the Heavenly Soul and the Perfect Image of God before all ages. We have received into ourselves something that is foreign to our nature, namely, the corruption of our passions through the disobedience of the first man, which has strongly taken over in us, as though it were a certain part of our nature by custom and long habit. This must be expelled again by that which is also foreign to our nature, namely, the heavenly gift of the Spirit, and so the original purity must be restored.14

By dwelling in disobedience, the entire human race continues to allow this foreign entity to be master of our lives and an enslaving soul within our real soul. The only proper solution, according to Macarius, is to expel the serpent by allowing the Heavenly Soul and Perfect Image of God, Jesus Christ, also foreign to our nature, to once again mingle with our souls and restore the previous glory in us. Another way of unfolding the concept of διπλοῦς is Macarius’ usage of the imagery of clothing. The imagery of clothing is not particular to the Homilies. It is referenced in both the Old and the New Testaments, and widely utilized in the Syriac theological thought to which Macarius belongs.15 In the traditional See Homilies I.4.30.8. ἡ ἐπουράνιος εἰκὼν τοῦ Χριστοῦ κερασθῇ μετὰ τῆς ψυχῆς. Ibid. I.4.30.5-8. 13 Ibid. II.15.35. 14 Homilies II.4.8. 15 The Syriac tradition has made use of the clothing imagery to express both the incarnation of Christ and the union with Him, especially putting the robe of glory (re-clothing of Adam) so 11 12

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Old Testament exegetical interpretation of Genesis 3, Adam and Eve are pictured to have lived in a state of naked innocence, clothed only with the Image of God’s glory,16 which they lost with the transgression, as previously discussed.17 In the New Testament, the apostle Paul advocates for the necessity of re-clothing by using the metaphor of putting on Christ (Gal. 3:27; Rom. 13:14).18 To use S. Brock’s words, ‘[i]n the biblical literature, and in the ancient Near East in general, clothing is an expression of identity, and nakedness represents the loss of identity’.19 To be clothed with a power from above means to have a heavenly identity and to put on Christ suggests establishing identification with Him. In that context, Macarius says that … all who have put off the old and earthly man and from whom Jesus has removed the clothing of the kingdom of darkness have put on the new and heavenly man, Jesus Christ, so that once again the eyes are joined to new eyes, ears to ears, head to head, to be completely pure and bearing the heavenly image.20

By putting on Jesus Christ, we are blending with Him as the perfect Heavenly Icon of glory (τῇ αὐτῇ ἐπουρανίῳ τῆς δόξης εἰκόνι)21 so that with His presence in our inner man, which in turn overflows to the members of the outer man, He can restore and refashion the previous image of glory in us.22 In Macarius’ theological system, this process of revitalization is largely interiorized.23 Almost the entire conscious spiritual experience is placed within the depths of the inner man. It is dependent on the continuous transformational presence of the Heavenly Icon on the throne of our hearts. Macarius’ concept that man can once again regain his primordial and ever since lost glorious state of being. See Sebastian Brock, ‘The Robe of Glory: A Biblical Image in the Syriac Tradition’, The Way 39 (1999), 247-59; See also Sebastian Brock, ‘Clothing Metaphors as a means of Theological expression in Syriac tradition’, in Margot Schmidt (ed.), Typus Symbol, Allegorie bei den östlichen Vätern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter, Eichstatter Beiträge 4 (Regensburg, 1982), 11-40; See Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns of Nativity 23:12-3, Kathleen E. McVey (Mahwah, NJ, 1989), 189-90. 16 Although the word clothing is not mentioned in the Genesis creation account, it is a part of the Jewish exegetical traditions. See S. Brock, ‘The Robe of Glory’ (1999), 248. See Homilies I.3.5.2. 17 Homilies I.53.1.8. This resulted with the need for covering of their shortcomings. The initial substitute for the divine cover was temporary – the leaves to cover their nakedness – which was later replaced with the more permanent garments of skin provided by God (Gen. 3:7, 21). 18 In Luke 24:49, Jesus Christ Himself commands the disciples to wait and ‘be clothed in power from above’. 19 S. Brock, ‘The Robe of Glory’ (1999), 247-59. 20 Homilies II.2.4. 21 Ibid. I.53.1.5-8 and I.53.2.4; see also I.10.3.1. 22 Through the presence of the Perfect Image – Jesus Christ – The Lord forms a heavenly image in the soul. See Homilies III.20.1.3-6; I.53.1.5. 23 ‘Previously, before the mystery of the Spirit of Christ was revealed, before His coming and appearance, all the adornment of [the] justice, the Law, the circumcision, the purification, the sacrifices, the offerings and worship were external. Since the saving word of Christ emerged – the Word that was not inscribed [written] in ink – and the Holy Spirit was given to the hearts of men, everything is found internally (πάντα ἔσωθεν εὑρίσκεται)’. Homilies III.8.1.5.

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of the double man, so to speak, is his way of laying out the classical orthodox doctrine of theosis. Finally, although we mingle with the Heavenly Icon of glory on an ontological level, it is important to note that we never lose our human properties. While being perfectly united with God, man remains a mere creation in eternity. “There is nothing common to God’s nature (φῦσις) and that of the soul,” says Macarius.24 The soul is a beautiful and intellectual creature, a place chosen for His own habitation, a throne for His Glory, His Bride and His Temple, but nothing more than a simple creation. Plotinus The notion of διπλοῦς is also present in Plotinus’ work, The Enneads.25 Plotinus’ and Macarius’ cosmology and anthropology, however, are radically different. Macarius holds that the soul is mere creation, whereas for Plotinus, individual souls are divine. Although Plotinus builds his thought upon Plato’s philosophy, in many ways he is genuinely innovative and original.26 ‘There must be, within us’, says Plotinus, ‘the intellect that does not reason discursively but eternally has the right, and there is also [within us], the principle and the cause and god’.27 The individual soul contains in itself not mere imprints, but an actual presence of the divine. This divine presence is not a foreign and imported element, rather an intrinsic constituent of our very own being. He says, Just as these three [principles: soul, nous, the One] of which we have spoken exist in nature, so also one must think that these things are in us. I am not speaking about things in the perceptible world – for they are separate – but about those outside of the perceptible, and the sense of ‘outside’ is just like that which also outside the entire heaven; so also are those [faculties] of human being, similar to what Plato calls the ‘inner human being’. Therefore, our own soul is something divine, and of another nature, like all nature of soul.28

The human soul then, is a ‘macrocosmic analogue’ of the eternal cosmic principle (the One, Nous, and Soul).29 Within its depths, the human soul contains 24 ‘Listen. This is God; the soul is not God. This is the Lord; that is servant. This is Creator; that is creature. This is Maker; that the thing made. There is nothing common to God’s nature and that of the soul’. Homilies II.49.4. See also Homilies III.26.8.1-2. 25 Plotinus’ disciple, Porphyry, edited Plotinus’ writings in six books, each one divided in nine treatises. He also wrote the Life of Plotinus, usually contained in any edition of the Enneads. 26 See Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys (Oxford, 1989), 37. 27 Enneads 5.1.11. 28 Ibid. 5.1.10. 29 Zeke Mazur, ‘“To Try to Bring the Divine in Us Back Up to the Divine in the All”: The Gnostic Background of Plotinus’ Last Words’, JECS 25 (2017), 561-80, 569.

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the same divine trinitarian principle: the individual soul, the mind (i.e., the undescended apex of the soul), and the (image of) The One.30 Plotinus’ conception of the soul, however, appears to be somewhat ambiguous.31 Although he is clear that the individual soul contains the actual forms of the cosmic divine Soul and Nous rather than their τύποι, regarding the indwelling of The One, he seems to suggest that it only abides in us as an imprint, a trace or an indwelling image.32 This indwelling image of The One is an emanation of, but not identical to, its archetype. It is through contemplation that the human soul unites with it and ultimately, in the final phase of the spiritual ascent, moves from “image to archetype”, losing itself entirely in the eternal divine principle. There is thus a converse in virtue of which the essential man outgrows Being, becomes identical with the Transcendent of Being. The self thus lifted, we are in the likeness of the Supreme: if from that heightened self we pass still higher – from image to archetype – (ὡς εἰκὼν πρὸς ἀρχέτυπον) we have reached the end of our journey.33

According to Zeke Mazur, in his later mystical passages, Plotinus disregards the ‘image to archetype’ language and focuses almost exclusively on the mystical union within the depths of the self.34 The method leading to the ultimate goal, however, remains unchanged, removing everything (Ἄφελε πάντα), including the soul (ψυχή) and the intellect (νοῦς) and completely uniting with the One.35 Plotinus’ interiorization of the cosmic trinitarian hypostasis within the self is likely his most unique philosophical contribution.36 More than anyone before him, Plotinus implores us to look inwardly for divine guidance. ‘Withdraw into yourself and look’, says Plotinus.37 His suggestion to turn to the inner human being seems to be a product of his tendency to apply the interiorized divine experience within his pantheistic philosophical framework. Although the individual soul shares in the divine, Plotinus does allow the inclusion of an element of imperfection. The human soul is divine and perfect, but also in need of transformation. In its present condition, the soul possesses a consciousness of itself that ‘tends to thwart the activities upon which it is exercised…’,38 and which the soul needs to be freed from. Therefore, the soul is not simply god (θεὸς μόνον) but a twofold spirit (δαίμων διπλοῦς).39 30

See A. Louth, The Origins (1989), 38-41. See Z. Mazur, ‘To Try to Bring the Divine’ (2017), 571. 32 See Enneads 5.5.1.9-2.24; see also 2.9.1.34-63. 33 Enneads 6.9.11. See Z. Mazur, ‘To Try to Bring the Divine’ (2017), 570. 34 Ibid. 571. 35 Enneads 5.3.17. 36 See A. Louth, The Origins (1999), 40-1; See Z. Mazur, ‘To Try to Bring the Divine’ (2017), 567. 37 Ἴτω δὴ καὶ συνεπέσθω εἰς τὸ εἴσω…, Enneads 1.6.8; see also 5.8.11; 6.9.7. 38 Ibid. 1.4.10. 39 See George H. van Kooten, Paul’s Anthropology in Context: The Image of God, Assimilation to God and Tripartite Man in Ancient Judaism, Ancient Philosophy and Early Christianity (Tübingen, 2008), 347; See also A. Louth, Origins (1999), 43. 31

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In all this there is no sin – there is only matter of discipline—but our concern is not merely to be sinless but to be God. As long as there is any such involuntary action, the nature is twofold (δαίμων διπλοῦς), God and demi-god, or rather God in association with a nature of a lower power: When all the involuntary is suppressed, there is God unmingled, a divine being of those that follow on the first. For, at this height, the man is the very being that came from the supreme. The primal excellence restored, the essential man is there: Entering this sphere, he has associated himself with the reasoning phase of his nature and this he will lead up into likeness with his highest self, as far as earthly mind is capable, so that if possible it shall never be inclined to, and at the least never adopt, any course displeasing to its overlord.40

Plotinus’ concept of διπλοῦς is proposed as a solution to the tension to justify the divine nature of the individual soul with its shortcomings as it advances from lower to higher nature.41 The union with The One, however, is to be achieved by the soul alone. No external aid is necessary. In his philosophical system, Plotinus does not allow the presence of an extra-noetic salvific element.42 Human souls already possess the capacity required for such struggle; they already possess the actual forms of the cosmic divine Soul and Nous and to a certain extent, through its Image, the real presence of the One. Concluding remarks Macarius’ and Plotinus’ works are characterized by their tendency to internalize the spiritual experience within the inner human being. The introduction of the concept of διπλοῦς by both authors appears to be a partial solution to their struggle to explicate the divine presence within. In doing that, both writers deploy common platonic, stoic or Christian vocabulary of the time, such as: participation, union, mingling with the divine, image, icon, imprints, etc. However, their starting presuppositions, the reasons behind employing the concept of διπλοῦς, as well as the eschatological outcomes, prove to be quite different. • For Macarius, the human soul is pure and perfect creation and entirely distinct from the divine realm; its mind, although positioned on the top of the 40

Enneads 1.2.6. Ibid. 3.9.7: ‘The Primal is a potentiality of Movement and of Repose – and so is above and beyond both – its next subsequent has rest and movement about the Primal. Now this subsequent is the Intellectual Principle so characterized by having intellection of something not identical with itself whereas the Primal is without intellection. A knowing principle has duality (that entailed by being the knower of something) and, moreover, it knows itself as deficient since its virtue consists in this knowing and not in its own bare Being’ (Διπλοῦν δὲ τὸ νοοῦν, κἂν αὐτὸν νοῇ, καὶ ἐλλιπές, ὅτι ἐν τῷ νοεῖν ἔχει τὸ εὖ, οὐκ ἐν τῇ ὑποστάσει). 42 Z. Mazur suggests that Plotinus partially develops this concept in his anti-gnostic tractate Zostrianos, in which he refutes the idea of extra-noetic intelligibles. He writes against salvific spiritual ascent ‘through the assistance of certain luminous tupoi’. See Z. Mazur, ‘To Try to Bring the Divine’ (2017), 568. 41

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noetic hierarchy, does not share a kinship with God. For Plotinus, on the other hand, man is divine; his mind and soul are the actual forms of the cosmic trinity. • Further on, the reason behind Macarius’ utilization of διπλοῦς seems to originate in man’s ontological and eschatological necessity for a mediator, a foreign and divine salvific element – the perfect Icon of God, Jesus Christ. By contrast, Plotinus does not allow an extra noetic foreign element for we are the actual forms of the cosmic mind and cosmic soul. His reasons behind διπλοῦς stem from the need to justify the tension between ‘we are god’, and ‘we need to become god through contemplation’. • Finally, regarding the ultimate goal of the spiritual struggle, Macarius holds that human beings, even though they participate in the eternal glory and through mingling with the divine Heavenly Icon of glory become deified, will always remain mere human beings. Plotinus’ eschatological vision, on the other hand, is an utter removal of one’s individual properties and losing itself in the eternal cosmic principle of the One (Ἄφελε πάντα). It is not likely that Macarius borrowed the concept of διπλοῦς directly from Plotinus’ writings. Macarius’ utilization of the ‘twofold man’ does not show particular conceptual dependence as we witnessed by investigating their respective anthropological, cosmological, and soteriological viewpoints. Their common tendency to interiorize the divine presence, in itself, is not sufficient for us to draw a direct line of influence. Macarius’ incorporation of διπλοῦς into his theological platform points only to the fact that both Plotinus and Macarius, although about a century apart, belong to the same world of thought, and to a common world of discourse, struggling to answer similar questions, and in doing so, often utilizing same or similar vocabulary. On the one hand, Macarius proves to be proficient in handling key theological/philosophical concepts of his time, while keeping to the core theological doctrines of his Christian faith. On the other hand, for authors such as Gregory of Nyssa, who benefited from the exposure to Plotinian ideas and language, Macarius was a bridge and a comprehensible author whose conceptions he willingly promoted.

‘Modalism’ – A Critical Assessment of a Modern Interpretative Paradigm Xavier MORALES, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

ABSTRACT The article tracks the use of ‘modalism’ as a heresiological label back to the context of the Trinitarian debates of the seventeenth century, when it designated the classic scholastic model of three ‘modes of subsisting’ of the one divine substance. This origin suggests that the transfer of the label, in the nineteenth century, to designate the theology of Noetus, Praxeas or Sabellius, is anachronistic. The paradigm of a monarchianist tendency subdivided into two versions, adoptianism and modalism, imposed by Harnack’s Dogmengeschichte, cannot stand anymore if one is to study the so-called ‘modalists’ for their own sake. Moreover, the ‘modalists’ could eventually be their adversaries, the theologians of the Logos.

Introduction Historians of ideas1 pretend to show the continuities and discontinuities between various ideological positions, and to propose interpretative paradigms uniting or opposing these positions, in order to deduce relationships such as inheritance or innovation, convergence or opposition. The result is the invention of labels that never existed in the Patristic era. This practice is justified by the very purpose of history as a science, but is also very dangerous, since any error in labelling has an impact in understanding each particular theological position. As the most famous historian of Christian doctrine himself reproached his ancient predecessors for, regrouping of various theological forms ‘under one and the same label’ not only silenced the differences, but also went with a habit of extrapolating that led to ‘describing doctrinal positions that, most probably, did never exist in this form’.2 In this article, I will present the case of ‘modalism’, the label used by the modern and contemporary scholars for a theological tendency which had its 1 The elaboration of this paper is part of the FONDECYT Regular 2019 research project 1190035 financed by CONICYT. 2 Adolf Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte. I. Die Entstehung des kirchlichen Dogmas (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1886), 627.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 237-248. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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first climax in the third century CE. One would expect to find Greek terms like tropismos or tropikos, the Greek retroversions of ‘modalism’ and ‘modalist’, in our sources. Actually, these terms were never used during the Patristic era, at least not with the meaning given to them by the modern history of dogmas. Is anyone deontologically entitled to collect the various theological positions of Noetus, Praxeas, Sabellius and others, merge them into one theological trend or ‘lineage’, and synthetize its core thesis under the term ‘modalism’? In order to answer this question, the first task must be to identify the circumstances which led historians, first, to coin the term ‘modalism’ and, secondly, to apply it to several theological positions in the Patristic era. The second task must be to bring to light the classical interpretative paradigm these decisions underlie. A third task remains to be achieved: the thorough study of each particular theological position labelled as ‘modalist’ for its own sake, without the bias imposed by a global interpretative paradigm. Only then, would it be possible to assess the classical paradigm and eventually propose to amend it.

I. In search of ‘modalism’ The first question to answer is: When was ‘modalism’ first used as a term for a theological position, and for what position? Theological polemists in the Patristic age dubbed theological positions they fought against by the name of the individuals they considered as the creators of the supposedly innovative, and hence erroneous, positions. Describing their direct adversaries as the disciples or inheritors of these arch-heretics3 was a rhetorical device. Alain Le Boulluec, in his ground-breaking study on heresiology, finds it already present in Justin Martyr and calls it ‘assimilation’.4 This device produced enough theological imprecision to allow the use of personal attacks and recycled argumentations.

3 Hippolytus of Rome, Refutation of all heresies IX 10, 9, l. 44, ed. M. Marcovich, PTS 25 (Berlin, New York, 1986), 347: ‘the inheritors of Noetus’. I do not wish to enter the controversy about the identity of the author(s) of the Refutation and the book Against Noetus, although I am prone to follow Manlio Simonetti and others and make a distinction between a Roman Hippolytus, author of the Refutation, and an Asian Hippolytus, author of the book Against Noetus. 4 A. Le Boulluec, La notion d’hérésie dans la littérature grecque IIe-IIIe siècles (Paris, 1985), I 82: ‘Le rapport de disciple à maître […] permettait, de proche en proche, par la puissance de la simple juxtaposition à l’intérieur d’un même catalogue, de frapper des mêmes accusations et de noircir des mêmes soupçons les hérétiques pour lesquels une relation précise avec Simon [le Mage] était dénuée de toute ombre de vraisemblance’. See also I 88 and I 163, and the development of this argument in Irenaeus, Against the heretics I 27, 4.

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The Treatise against Noetus speaks of Noetians,5 named after Noetus, the Refutation of all Heresies speaks of Callixtians,6 named after Pope Callixtus. The case of Sabellius is somewhat unclear. The name of the individual appears in the Refutation, but as a marginal character inside the section on the Roman disciples of Noetus.7 Novatian speaks of ‘the temerity of Sabellius’8 and the ‘sacrilegious Sabellian heresy’.9 Nevertheless, according to the sources available, no section in any heresiological writing was dedicated to Sabellius as such, until the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, at the end of the fourth century.10 However, Sabellius became a stock character often used in the theological debates after the council of Nicaea: Eusebius of Caesarea calls Marcellus of Ancyra ‘the new Sabellius’11 (ὁ νέος Σαβέλλιος), and provides the first recorded instances in Greek of the labels ‘Sabellian’12 (σαβελλιανός) and ‘to Sabellize’13 (σαβελλίζειν). There are only two exceptions to this polemic strategy. Tertullian calls Praxeas and his followers ‘monarchians’14 and Cyprian called them ‘patripassians’.15 In the first case, the label does not mean that Tertullian himself rejects the concept of μοναρχία, but that Praxeas and his disciples stuck unilaterally to a concept they did not understand correctly.16 In the case of the ‘patripassians’, Hippolytus actually attributes to Noetus the affirmation that the Father himself suffered on the cross,17 but this is only a consequence, and an upsetting one, of the main affirmation of the identity between Christ and the one God. The first modern historian to dedicate a monograph to the theological positions under study, Christian Worm, consistently chose the title of Historia 5 Hippolytus, Against Noetus 7, 3, ed. M. Simonetti (Bolonia, 2000), 166; Refutation of all heresies VIII 19, 3, l. 16, PTS 25, 338; X 26, 1, l. 1, PTS 25, 402. 6 Hippolytus, Refutation IX 12, 26, l. 144, PTS 25, 356. 7 Hippolytus, Refutation IX 15, 1 etc. Hippolytus never uses the adjective ‘Sabellian’. 8 Novatian, The Trinity 12, 66, Fuentes Patrísticas 8 (Madrid, 1996), 138, l. 9. 9 Novatian, The Trinity 12, 62, Fuentes Patrísticas 8, 136, l. 19. 10 Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion II 62, 1-8. 11 Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical theology I 20, 14; I 20, 96. 12 If one accepts the editorial conjectures of E. Klostermann in Ecclesiastical theology I 20, 45; II 2, 5, GCS 14 (Leipzig, 11906), 88 and 101, where the manuscript reads Σαβέλλιος. The label also appears in the Ekthesis Makrostikhos of the synod of Antioch of 344, preserved in Athanasius, Letter on the synods 26, VII, 1. 13 Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical theology I 15, 2; II 14, 19; see σαβελλιάζειν, I 20, 91. We can read the term σαβελλισμός as an accusation of Basil of Cesarea against Atarbius of Neocesarea (Letters 210, 3) and in Gregory of Nazianzus (Orations 21, 35). 14 Tertullian, Against Praxeas X 1: uanissimi isti monarchiani. The term has no entry in the Patristic Greek Lexikon of G.W.H. Lampe (Oxford, 1964). 15 Cyprian, Letters 73, 4; also in the Ekthesis Makrostikhos (in Athanasius, Letter on the synods 26, VII, 1): ‘those called patripassians by the Romans, and Sabellians by us’. 16 A point acknowledged by Harnack himself in his Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (1886), I 565, n. 1: ‘Übrigens ist der Ausdruck “Monarchianer” insofern unzweckmässig…’ 17 Hippolytus, Against Noetus 1, 2, ed. Manlio Simonetti, 150.

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Sabelliana,18 although he notes that the sabelliani were also called patripassiani19 or monarchiani.20 He never calls them ‘modalists’. Meanwhile, a modalist terminology emerged in the context of the Reformation. The Franco-Spaniard Miguel Servet, famous victim of John Calvin, compiled and expanded his principal theological writings in his Christianismi restitutio (1553). The first of six treatises deals with ‘the divine Trinity, that in it is found, not the deceiving three invisible things, but the real manifestation of God’s substance in the Word, and communication in the Spirit’.21 In fact, according to Servet, God communicates himself to the world through an infinity of modes, of which the three persons of the Trinity are just the first and the only complete ones. Thus, they are defined as ‘modes of manifestation’,22 without any ‘metaphysical distinction’. Nevertheless, Servet explicitly criticizes Sabellius for ignoring these modes by insisting on the identity between the Father and the Son.23 The term ‘modalist’ and its cognate ‘modalism’ seem to have emerged in the seventeenth century. The context is that of the debates on the Trinity aroused in England24 by the diffusion of the doctrine of Lelio (1525-1562) and Fausto Sozzini (1539-1604). The Unitarians or Socinians affirmed that ‘God is only one Person, not three’,25 namely ‘the God and Father of our Lord Christ’,26 whereas Christ is ‘the Messenger, Minister, Servant and Creature of God’.27 In a first phase of the debates, supporters of the Trinitarian orthodoxy already invoked the concept of ‘mode’ to define divine persons: ‘When we speak of the Formality of a Person, we say it is a substantial mode, and the most perfect 18

Christian Worm, Historia Sabelliana, Hoc est De Origine et Incrementis Haereseos Sabellianae usque ad initium seculi quinti deductae ex Antiquitate Ecclesiastica Observationes (Francfort, Leipzig, 1696). 19 Summary of c. I, § xi, p. 2. 20 Summary of c. I, § xiv, p. 2. 21 De trinitate divina, quod in ea non sit invisibilium trium rerum illusio, sed vera substantiae Dei manifestatio in verbo, et communicatio in spiritu. Libri septem, in [Miguel Servet], Christianismi restitutio (s.l., 1553). 22 M. Servet, Christianismi restitutio (1553), De trinitate divina, lib. I 24: Tres sunt manifestationis modi, seu personae, non metaphysica illa rerum incorporearum in Deo distinctione, sed sacramenti exhibitione, per Dei oikonomian. 23 M. Servet, Christianismi restitutio (1553), De trinitate divina, lib. I 37: Sabellius unitatem Dei tenens, communicationis et dispensationis modum ignorauit. Ipsummet patrem dixit esse filium, et ipsummet patrem esse mortuum. 24 For the context of the English Trinitarian debate, see the bibliography in the review article by Diego Lucci, ‘Reassessing the Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England: Recent Studies by Jason Vickers, Sarah Mortimer, Paul Lim and others’, Cyber Review of Modern Historiography 19 (2014), 153-63. See also D. Bianchi, ‘Some Sources for a History of English Socinianism. A Bibliography of 17th Century English Socinian Writings’, Topoi 4 (1985), 91-120. 25 [Stephen Nye], A brief history of the Unitarians, called also Socinians in four letters, written to a friend (s.l., 1687), 3. 26 S. Nye, A brief history of the Unitarians (1687), 33. 27 Ibid. 4.

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manner of subsisting’.28 As a matter of fact, this definition was a common good of Protestant orthodoxy,29 inherited from scholasticism.30 A second phase of the debates took place in the last decade of the seventeenth century. In his attempt to vindicate the faith on the Trinity against the Socinians, the Anglican William Sherlock31 appeals to ‘the different Modi subsistendi, of which the Schools speak’, emphasizing that the scholastic metaphysicians ‘did not mean (as some mistake them) that the Three Divine Persons are Three Modes of the Deity, or only modally distinguished’ but only that ‘the same numerical Essence is whole and entire in each Divine Person, but in a different manner’.32 Refuting Sherlock’s notion of ‘Three distinct infinite Minds […] mutually conscious to each other’,33 suspected of leading to tritheism, Robert South invokes again the scholastic concept and use of ‘modes of subsistence’.34 The Unitarian Stephen Nye, refuting both Sherlock and South, refers to those who use the concept of ‘mode of subsistence’, the ‘Schoolmen’, that is to say, the scholastics, invoked by Sherlock and South, as ‘Modalists’.35 Thus, this first appearance of the term is paradoxically referred to supposed Trinitarian theologians by an anti-Trinitarian who accuses them of being ‘nominal Trinitarians’.36 28

Francis Cheynell, The Divine Trinunity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… (London, 1650),

75. 29 Girolamo Zanchi, De Tribus Elohim, Aeterno Patre, Filio, Et Spiritu Sancto, Vno Eodemque Iehova, Pars altera (Francfort, 1573), l. II, ch. 7, 45b: Pater enim, Filius, et Spiritus sanctus, dicuntur esse tria distincta ὑφιστάμενα, non simpliciter, sed secundum quid, hoc est, secundum tres diversos subsistendi modos, non autem secundum essentiam; Zacharias Ursinus, Corpus doctrinae orthodoxae sive catecheticarum explicationum… (Heidelberg, 1612), 146: Persona est modus, quo illud Dei esse seu essentia divina in singulis horum trium subsistit; Johann-Heinrich Alsted, Compendium Theologicum (Hanover, 1624), 208: Distinctio personarum SS. Trinitatis cernitur in proprietatibus personalibus, sive in τρόπῳ ὑπάρξεως, hoc est, in modo subsistendi; Francis Turrettini, Institutio theologiae elencticae, Pars prior (Geneva, 1679), loc. 3, q. 27, X, p. 295. 30 See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae Ia, q. 29, a. 1, ad 3. 31 W. Sherlock, A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity, and the Incarnation of the Son of God, occasioned by the Brief Notes on the Creed of St. Athanasius, and the Brief History of the Unitarians, or Socinians, and containing an Answer to both (London, 1690). 32 Ibid. 83 and 84. 33 Ibid. 81. 34 [R. South], Animadversions upon Dr. Sherlock’s Book entituled A Vindication… (London, 1693), 240-2. 35 [St. Nye], Considerations on the Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity, by Dr. Wallis, Dr. Sherlock, Dr. S–th, Dr. Cudworth, and Mr. Hooker; as also on the Account given by those that say, the Trinity is an Unconceivable and Inexplicable Mystery (London, 1693), 23a. Matthew Tindal likewise stresses ‘how absurd it is to say a Divine Person is a Mode, an Attribute, a Property, or a Somewhat, &c.’, with a transparent allusion to John Wallis (see below), in A letter To the Reverend the Clergy of both Universities, Concerning the Trinity and the Athanasian Creed… (s.l., 1694), 6. 36 S. Nye, Considerations on the Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity (1693), 11.

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According to Peter Walter,37 another of the first appearances of the term is found in the Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae of Johannes Buddeus, in 1723. The English debates were not unknown in Germany: the famous philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz himself published remarks and reflexions on the subject. Buddeus probably had these debates in mind. After mentioning Sabellianos, veteres pariter ac recentiores, who affirm that the three divine persons are ‘only three names’, the famous protestant theologian declares: We must also mention those that consider that Father, Son and Holy Spirit only refer to modes of thought (cogitandi modos). In our time, they usually are called modalistae.38

Buddeus gives a list of examples,39 the first of which is Miguel Servet, ‘accused by some of Sabellianism’,40 followed by several authors of the end of the seventeenth century: Jean Le Clerc, a Remonstrant pastor, André Lortie, a French refugee in England, Hermann Deusing,41 an excommunicated Dutch theologian, John Wallis, a famous Oxonian mathematician, and Herman Alexander Röell,42 a Dutch theologian. Actually, this list is not very accurate and not all the authors mentioned use the concept of ‘mode’. The comment by Buddeus on ‘modes of thought’ only concerns the first of them. Jean Le Clerc, alias Liberius de Sancto Amore,43 inspired by the philosophy of René Descartes, states that the divine nature is a spirit, a ‘thinking substance’,44 whereas each divine person is ‘the divine nature, thinking in a certain manner’. Therefore, there is ‘only one divine nature, but various modes of thought’.45 As a matter of fact, Le Clerc had been accused by 37 P. Walter, ‘Modalismus’, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 7 (1998), 356. P. Walter also mentions Ramón Llull, Arbor scientiae VIII v 2, 7, CChr.CM 180B, 412, who speaks of various modu[s] secundum quem personae divinae sunt in essentia (l. 524-5) and vice versa of the essentia quae est per unum modum Pater, et per alium Filius, et per alium Spiritus Sanctus (l. 528-9). To my knowledge, this passage has no parallel is Llull’s published works. 38 Johann Friedrich Buddeus, Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae II xlviii (Leipzig, 1724), 266b267: Notanda haec sunt contra Sabellianos, veteres pariter ac recentiores, qui non nisi tria nomina, virtutes, qualitates, potentias, in Deo admittentes, negant, quod scriptura tam diserte dicit, alium esse patrem, alium filium, alium spiritum sanctum. In eundem ordinem referendi sunt, qui per patrem, filium, et spiritum sanctum tres saltem cogitandi modos intellegunt, et notras aetate modalistae vocari solent. See also p. 305b: Sunt vero et alibi plures hodie, qui in eadem versantur sententia, quiue modalistarum nomine veniunt, quod pro tribus personis tres tantum modos in diuinitate statuunt. 39 J.F. Buddeus, Institutiones II liv (1724), 303-6. 40 Ibid. 303b. 41 Hermann Deusing, Revelatio Mysterii S.S. Triados quod allegoriae sacrae Fundamentum est, tribus dissertationibus comprehensa, in Demonstrationes allegoriae historicae, seu historiae allegoricae veteris et noui testamenti, I (Franeker, 1701). 42 Herman Alexander Röell, Dissertatio theologica de generatione filii, et morte fidelium temporali (Franeker, 1689-1690). See p. 40 et 71. 43 Liberius de Sancto Amore [Jean Le Clerc], Epistolae theologicae (Saumur, 1679). 44 Ibid. I 6. 45 Ibid. II 18-9: in Deo potest concipi pater, sive natura divina, certo quodam modo cogitans, Filius et Spiritus Sanctus, seu eadem natura duobus aliis modis cogitationes efformans. Sic recte concipi potest unicus Deus, hoc est unica natura Divina, sed varii cogitandi modi…

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South of being the source of Sherlock’s doctrine of the Trinity.46 Wallis, involved in the English debates, does not use the term ‘mode’, but vindicates the Trinity against the Unitarians by appealing to the meaning of ‘person’ as social role. A same human individual can actually display various social roles at the same time, say, king and father. If there is ‘nothing absurd or strange in it for the same man to sustain divers persons’, ‘what hinders but that the same God, distinguished according to these considerations, may fitly be said to be three persons?’47 Stephen Nye accuses him of affirming that ‘a Divine Person is only a Mode’,48 therefore professing ‘a disguised Sabellianism’.49 Lortie,50 who mentions favourably Le Clerc,51 actually uses the term ‘modalistes’52 in exactly the same context as Nye does, that is to say, referred to those Trinitarians who use the scholastic concept of modus subsistendi.53 Let us summarize the result of these first investigations. In its first context of occurrence, the term ‘modalist’ was derogatively projected by the Unitarians onto some Trinitarians, accused of professing only a ‘nominal’ Trinity, to the paradoxical consequence of assimilating them to Sabellians. Buddeus consecrated this equivalence. From now on, every theological system that threatens the reality of the distinction between the persons of the Trinity is assimilated, not only to ‘Sabellianism’, as it was the case in the Patristic era, but to ‘modalism’, and vice versa, ‘modalism’ is supposed to negate the ‘hypostatical distinction’ of each person in favour of a distinction lacking any ontological weight.

II. Modalism in patristics When was the label ‘modalism’ directly applied to ‘Sabellianism’ and finally substituted to it? Not until the nineteenth century. 46

[R. South], Tritheism Charged upon Dr Sherlock’s New Notion of the Trinity (London, 1695),

82-6. 47 J. Wallis, Three Sermons Concerning the Sacred Trinity (London, 1691), second sermon (April 26, 1691), 60 and 61. 48 S. Nye, Considerations on the Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity (1693), 7a. 49 Ibid. 8b. 50 [André Lortie], Les raisons des scripturaires Par lesquelles ils font voir que les Termes de l’Ecriture suffisent pour expliquer le Dogme de la Trinité: Traduit De L’Anglois (Hamburg [Rotterdam], 1706). 51 André Lortie, Les raisons des scripturaires (1706), 10. 52 Ibid. 7. 53 Another example would be ‘The Consequences of the Modalists [sic] System’, the second part of the anonymous Unitarian tract entitled A Consideration of the Damnatory Clauses in the Athanasian Creed; and the several Senses they are taken in (1705?) which often mentions Nye as its source. See also Thomas Stackhouse, A Complete Body of Speculative and Practical Divinity (London, 1729), 136, who directly attributes to Sabellius the doctrine of ‘several modes belonging to the same hypostasis’.

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In his much read Entwurf einer vollständigen Historie der Kezereien54, published in 1762, Christian Wilhelm Franz Walch follows the paradigm developed by Buddeus. Walch still characterizes the ancient doctrine, in this case, that of Praxeas, as ‘sabellianische(r) Lehrbegriff’.55 Then, Walch compares it to the doctrine of modern theologians, which he calls ‘die neuern Modalisten’.56 Likewise, when the Dominican Tommaso Cerboni declares that the Sabellians are called both patripassiani and modalistae ‘because they explained the number of the divine persons according to various modes of thought (diversum modum cogitandi)’,57 the context alluding to Servet and the Socinians, as sabellianismi restauratores,58 makes clear that the label ‘modalism’ refers primarily to the doctrine of modern theologians, and not directly to Praxeas, Noetus and Sabellius. Finally, Friedrich Adolph Heinichen, who would become famous as the editor of Eusebius of Cesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, dedicated his doctoral dissertation to the Alogi, the two Theodotus and Artemon, which he clearly distinguishes from eos qui vulgo Modalistae vocantur,59 that is, Praxeas, Noetus, Beryllus of Bostra, Sabellius and Paul of Samosate. To my knowledge, this is the first occurrence of the label ‘modalist’ directly applied to ancient theologians. Two years later, Lobegott Lange, in his own monography on ante-Nicaean Unitarians, altogether acknowledges that, ‘in neueren Zeiten’, ancient theologians are ‘frequently (vorzüglich)’ called ‘modalists’, and objects that the denomination is ‘less appropriate’ and ‘is based on a false conception of the essence of their doctrine’.60 I would like to underline the distinction that Heinichen makes between two groups of theologians, the second of which being called ‘modalism’. This distinction is not completely original. The author of the Refutation of all heresies concludes a summary of Callixtus’ doctrine by accusing him of falling alternatively into Sabellius’ and Theodotus’ opinions.61 Novatian, in a development 54 Christian Wilhelm Franz Walch, Entwurf einer vollständigen Historie der Kezereien, Spaltungen und Religionsstreitigkeiten, bis auf die Zeiten der Reformation, I (Leipzig, 1762). 55 Section on Praxeas: Ibid. I 537-46, 542. 56 Ibid. I 542: ‘Es ist ein Gott, der nur in Absicht auf verschiedne Handlungen die drey Nahmen führet’. 57 Tommaso Maria Cerboni, Institutiones theologicae III (Rome, 1797), Disp. V, lib. V, p. 111. 58 Ibid. III 110. 59 Friedrich Adolph Heinichen, De Alogis Theodotianis atque artemonitis (Leipzig, 1829), 35. 60 Lobegott Lange, Geschichte und Lehrbegriff der Unitarier vor der nicänischen Synode (Leipzig, 1831), 33. The identity of names and order in Heinichen’s and Lange’s lists of ancient theologians suggests Lange is alluding to Heinichen’s book. Same characterization of ‘the Sabellian orientation’ as ‘modalism’ in Isaak August Dorner, Entwicklungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi (Stuttgart, 1839), 41 = ‘Über Entwicklungsgeschichte der Christologie, besonders in den neuern Zeiten. Eine historisch-kritische Abhandlung’, Tübinger Zeitschrift für Theologie 7 (1835), 81-204, 97. 61 Hippolytus of Rome, Refutation of all heresies IX 12, 19, l. 97-8, ed. M. Marcovich, PTS 25 (Berlin, New York, 1986), 354.

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against unnamed heretics that sustain that Christ is ‘a bare and simple man’,62 imagines that, on being forced to acknowledge Christ’s divinity, they ‘fall into a second heresy’, ‘the sacrilegious Sabellian heresy’, and confess that ‘he is the Father’.63 Nonetheless, in ancient Historians of the Church, Sabellianism used to be opposed to Arianism. Indeed, a few years after Heinichen’s monograph, Heinrich Klee’s Lehrbuch der Dogmen-Geschichte opposes ‘Modalismus’ and ‘Subordinatianismus’.64 Heinichen’s distinction will eventually become classical. Although without the term ‘modalism’, it occurs in the very influential history of dogmas of Ferdinand Christian Baur.65 This time, the two groups are clearly subsumed under a common genus, the ‘Monarchianer’. One group includes Praxeas, Callixtus, Noetus and Sabellius, for which the identification between God and Christ must be understood on the basis of a philosophical Pantheismus.66 The other group includes the two Theodotus and Artemon, Beryllus of Bostra, and Paul of Samosata, professing ‘einen Christus κάτωθεν’.67 Slowly but steadily, the paradigm imposes itself. In the first edition of the Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, there is no entry for ‘modalism’. The entry ‘Monarchianer’ sends back to ‘Antitrinitarier’, where Friedrich Trechsel, a specialist of modern Anti-Trinitarians like Servet or Ochino, reproduces Baur’s division of ancient Monarchianer into two groups: the ascendant Christology of Theodotus and Artemon, and the descendant Christology of Praxeas, Noetus and Sabellius.68 Finally, Adolf Harnack, in his article ‘Monarchianismus’ for the second edition of the Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche,69 published in 1882, both consecrates Baur’s paradigm, and uses the term ‘modalism’, as did Heinichen, to refer to one of the two groups.

62 Novatian, On the Trinity 11, 56, Fuentes Patrísticas 8, 126, l. 7-8: hominem illum nudum et solitarium. 63 Novatian, On the Trinity 12, 64, 136, l. 2.3-4: in alteram haeresim ruentes […] Patrem illum esse confitebuntur. 64 Heinrich Klee, Lehrbuch der Dogmen-Geschichte, I (Mainz, 1837), 174-7. P. Walter, ‘Modalismus’ (1998), 356, cites Klee as the first in using ‘modalism’ for the patristic era. 65 Ferdinand Christian Baur, Das Christenthum und die christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte (Tübingen, 1853). In the subsequent editions, the title was changed to Kirchengeschichte der drei ersten Jahrhunderte. 66 F.C. Baur, Das Christenthum (1853), 310-6. Baur depends on the comparison between Noetus and Heraclitus presented in the Refutation of all heresies, adding a Hegelian touch when he speaks of ‘der trinitarische Process’ as ‘Weltentwicklungsprocess’ (313). 67 F.C. Baur, Das Christenthum (1853), 316-37, 316. 68 Friedrich Trechsel, ‘Anti-Trinitarier’, Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche 1 (11854), 396-410, respectively 393-6 and 396-8. 69 A. Harnack, ‘Monarchianismus’, Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche 10 (21882), 178-213.

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Four years later, the article is inserted into the Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte,70 and remains the prevalent paradigm in all subsequent histories of dogmas up to the important studies by Manlio Simonetti included in his Studi sulla cristologia del II e III secolo (1993).71 The first characteristic of this paradigm is the elimination of labels referring to individuals, in favour of conceptual labels. From now on, ‘Modalism’ stands for ‘Sabellianism’. The second characteristic is the construction of a theological genus with two contrasted species. The label ‘Monarchianism’, coming from Tertullian’s hapax legomenon, monarchiani, refers to the genus. ‘Modalism’ and ‘adoptianism’, or ‘modalistic’ and ‘dynamistic monarchianism’ refer to the species (DG, 567). The third characteristic of the classical paradigm is the following dialectical sequence: 1. Harnack supposes that a ‘naiver Modalismus’ (DG, 567, n. 2) pre-existed, as a doctrine held by ‘the vast majority (die grosse Menge) of Christians’ (DG, 604). Friedrich Loofs, Harnack’s contemporary, seems to trace it back before the time of the Apologists,72 while Harnack cautiously warns that ‘we have no sure evidence that the later so-called modalism (monarchianism) had representatives before the last third of the second century’,73 but alludes to passages in Ignatius of Antioch, the author of the Second Epistle of Clement and Melito of Sardis as witnessing ‘the old, religious and naïve modalism’ (DG, 614). 2. During the second century, the Logoschristologie emerges as an ‘Hellenization of the traditional doctrines’ (DG, 558). This philosophical theology is centred on the Platonic-Stoic figure of the Logos, mediating between God and the world, and states that this Logos is Christ pre-existing in a particular hypostasis.74 3. An ‘exclusive modalist doctrine’ (DG, 603, n. 1), professed by ‘scientific witnesses’ (DG, 604), only appears in ‘the last third of the second century’ (DG, 604), in reaction to Gnosticism and to the Logoschristologie (DG, 603).75 70 A. Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte. I. Die Entstehung des kirchlichen Dogmas (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1886), 556-634, hereafter DG. 71 See for example M. Simonetti, ‘Sabellio e il sabellianismo’, in Studi sulla cristologia del II e III secolo (Roma, 1993), 217-38, in particular 217, n. 1, distinguishing, ‘com’è noto’, inside ‘il monarchianismo’, two directions, ‘modalismo’ and ‘adozionismo’. 72 Fr. Loofs, ‘Christologie – Kirchenlehre’, Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche IV (Leipzig, 31898), 16-56, 27. Reinhard M. Hübner recently states that Monarchianism was ‘der erste und allgemein rezipierte Glaubensausdruck der Christen’ (‘Εἷς θεὸς Ἰησοῦς Χριστός’, in R.M Hübner, Der paradox Eine. Antignostischer Monarchianismus im zweiten Jahrhundert, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 50 [Leiden, 1999], 210). 73 DG, 140, n. 1; 537, n. 2. 74 See for example DG, 556. 75 This thesis of a reaction against the Logoschristologie became classical. Georg Kretschmar considers that ‘die monarchianische Form der Trinitätslehre ist sekundär’ (Studien zur frühchristlichen Trinitätstheologie [Tübingen, 1956], 61); M. Simonetti speaks of theologies ‘sorte per

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According to Harnack, this doctrine emerged as a ‘theological fixation’ of ‘the formulas of a naïve modalism’ (DG, 603), on behalf not so much of a strict monotheism, than of ‘the evangelical (synoptical) image of Christ’ (DG, 563), ‘the historical Christ’ (DG, 564), threatened by the pre-existent Logos of the philosophical theology. Behind this dialectical sequence looms the fundamental concern of Harnack’s Dogmengeschichte, ‘the development of Christianism into Catholicism’ (DG, 45). Modalism is one of the major surges of a primitive Christianism (Urchristentum) against its Hellenization, which, as a matter of fact, was forced to abandon its naivety and take over a conceptual framework borrowed from Stoicism (DG, 605, n. 1) to counter the Platonic Logoschristologie. The classical paradigm implies what is perhaps its most dangerous consequence, namely, the general assumption that there is a genealogical or, at least, a logical link between several theological positions. Actually, it is simply an avatar of the rhetorical device of ‘transmission’ at work in the ancient heresiology. Eusebius of Caesarea already considered that the Ebionites, Sabellius, Paul of Samosata and Marcellus of Ancyra formed the same theological lineage.76 In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, John the Evangelist, Ignatius of Antioch, Marcion, Melito of Sardis, Irenaeus of Lyons, the Montanists and, at the other end of the genealogy, Eustathius of Antioch, not to speak of Noetus of Smyrna and Praxeas of Asia, were added, to form a ‘theological tradition from Asia Minor’,77 an ‘Oriental Monarchian tradition’,78 or a ‘miahypostatic tradition’.79

III. Conclusion: The real modalists The conclusion of this historiographical quest will seem quite frustrating. The term ‘modalism’, systematically used in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to characterize a series of theological propositions from the patristic era, only emerged in the Trinitarian debates of the Post-Reformation. Moreover, in that context, it characterized the most common Trinitarian model, the scholastic distinction between substantial and relative differences, which has nothing to do with the stances of a Noetus, a Praxeas or a Sabellius. Indeed, when riaffermare le esigenze di un rigido monoteismo in opposizione alla Logostheologie’ (‘sabellio e il sabellianismo’, in Studi sulla cristologia del II e III secolo [1993], 217). 76 Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical theology I 14; I 20, 42-3 etc. 77 F. Loofs, ‘Christologie – Kirchenlehre’ (1898), 29-30, speaks of a ‘Traditionslinie’ which runs from the Gospel of John to Noetus, Epigonus and Cleomenes. 78 M. Simonetti, ‘Il problema dell’unità di Dio in Oriente dopo Origene’, in Studi sulla cristología del II e III secolo (1993), 327. 79 Joseph T. Lienhard, Contra Marcellum: Marcellus of Ancyra and Fourth-Century Theology (Washington, 1999), passim.

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Harnack states that ‘the terms Father and Son, visible and invisible, etc., have to be understood as such relative, accidental properties’,80 the formula could almost describe the theology of Basil of Caesarea, more properly than that of the above mentioned ‘modalists’. These theologians deserve a reassessment of the scarce information remaining about them, freed from the labels and frames that the classical paradigm imposed on them. This article has only achieved the first two of the tasks it listed at its beginning. Nevertheless, there is already one paradoxical result. In most modern definitions of it, ‘modalism’ consists in conceiving of the divine persons as ‘modes of appearing’ or ‘modes of being perceived’, opposed to real existence. Two examples will suffice. In 1830, Lobegott Lange, although conceding that calling Noetus, Praxeas etc. ‘modalists’ ‘is based on a false perception of the essence of their doctrine’, adds that ‘they made a distinction between Father, Son and Spirit, only according to the name, only according to the manner of their appearing (Erscheinung) or operating (Wirksamkeit)’.81 In 1986, Leonardo Boff states that according to the modalist heresy, ‘the Trinity constitutes only three human modes of seeing the one and same God, or also three modes (masks) of self-manifestation of the one and same God to the human beings’.82 As a matter of fact, an opposition between the invisibility of God the Father and his manifestation through his Word83 cannot be found in the ancient authors usually labelled ‘modalists’. On the contrary, it is found in their opponents, the theologians of the Logos. Tertullian, for example, affirms that Christ showed himself in place of the Father, in order that, through him, the Father could be seen in his deeds, heard, in his words, that in the Son transmitting the deeds and words of the Father, be known that the Father is invisible.84

Nevertheless, I do not suppose anyone would accuse Tertullian of modalism.

80

A. Harnack, DG, 605, n.1. L. Lange, Geschichte und Lehrbegriff (1831), 33. 82 Leonardo Boff, La Trinidad, la Sociedad y la Liberación, Spanish trans. (Madrid, 1987), 298. 83 I cannot enter the controversy about the authenticity of the antitheses that the author of the Refutation attributes to the Roman disciples of Noetus (Ref. IX 10, 9-10 and X 27, 1-2). These antitheses include invisible/visible. Against R.M. Hübner, ‘Melito von Sardes und Noët von Smyrna’, in Der paradox Eine. Antignostischer Monarchianismus im zweiten Jahrhundert, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 50 [Leiden, 1999], 1-37, particularly p. 9-15; M. Decker, Die Monarchianer. Frühchristliche Theologie im Spannungsfeld zwischen Rom und Kleinasien, diss. (Hamburg, 1987), 143-51, argues that the author of the Refutation cast the Noetian doctrine into the frame of Heraclitus’ system, evidently characterized by antithesis (cf. Ref. IX 9, 1; 10, 8). 84 Tertullian, Contra Praxeas xxiv 5: uicarium se Patris ostenderat, per quem Pater et uideretur in factis et audiretur in uerbis et cognosceretur in Filio facta et uerba Patris administrante, quia inuisibilis Pater. Cf. Apologeticum 17, 2. 81

Variegated Unity: On the Discrepancy and Overlapping of the Semantic Fields of the Terms ‘Atom’ and ‘Hypostasis’ in Patristic Thought Hieromonk METHODY (ZINKOVSKIY), Russian Christian Academy of the Humanities, St Petersburg, Russia

ABSTRACT The author argues that patristic thought has gradually developed an innovative approach to resolving the dilemma of the continuity and discontinuity of existence and whether there is a basic unit, or an ‘atom’, of existence and, if so, what it might be. Having studied various patristic texts from the standpoint of what the terms ‘atom’ and ‘hypostasis’ denote, we have come to the conclusion that their semantic fields do overlap, especially in the sense of ‘wholeness’, while they can in no way be considered synonyms. The notion of hypostasis in patristic theology and anthropology has acquired many new connotations including integrity and synthesis, life and dispensation, free personal will and self-moved activity. An overview of patristic thought leads us to the stunning revelation that the ‘atoms’ of created reality are not the indivisibles of Democritus but in fact the synthesis of human hypostases bearing the image of the Three-Hypostatic Creator. In the author’s view, the patristic understanding of these terms enables us to resolve the antinomy of continuity and discontinuity of being by notionally separating these concepts into two spheres of a single ontology. Discontinuity is to be attributed to the hypostatic sphere whereas continuity to the natural one. This approach allows us to maintain the unity of ontology and to consider the complementarity of the principles of continuity and discontinuity in a more valid and generally applicable fashion than has been done by Leibniz or by some of the scientists of our day.

We should start by noting that in certain contexts the terms ‘atom’ and ‘hypostasis’ are used in patristic texts synonymously. But this does not mean that their semantic fields fully overlap, in fact in their contents they are more discontiguous than they are contiguous. New meanings attributed to the term hypostasis allow us not only to speak about a revolutionary understanding of what it is to be a person, but also to analyse the implications of this semantic development with respect to the dilemma of continuity and discontinuity linked directly to the antinomy of unity and plurality of existence. A number of ancient thinkers, perhaps the most notable among them being Aristotle,1 abandoned the principle of discontinuity (atomicity) in favour of the 1

See R. Harris, The Semantics of Science (London, 2007), 6-8.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 249-257. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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integrity/continuity of the foundations of being. Each of the two concepts though has its supporters to this day. Although there have been attempts, incomplete from our point of view, to synthesize both theses, such as, for example, in so called ‘finitism’,2 patristic thought permits resolving the opposition of atomicity and continuity by relating them to different poles of a single ontology and arrive at a conception of their mutual complementarity.3 As we shall argue below, Christian theology prompts us to attribute atomicity to the hypostatic aspect of ontology and continuity to the natural one. The continuity of nature is also innovative in the light of modern scientific assumptions on the discontinuity of all types of matter, conceived as Fractal Cosmology. We personally consider that the hierarchic structure of matter does not imply its discontinuity but reflects its multilevel unity. But this, strictly speaking, is a topic for another article. We would also like to stress a qualitative advantage of the patristic approach to the antinomy of discontinuity and continuity over Leibniz’s later philosophical proposal to separate ‘continuity and discontinuity into different ontological spheres’ of real and a possible being.4 Now, how may one describe the manner in which the difference between the natural and hypostatic can be understood with respect to the indivisibility or integrity of the alleged ‘a-tom’ or ‘in-dividual’? Within created nature indivisibility/integrity would mean that, if we theoretically allow some kind of ‘separation’ of an atom/individual, it should cease to possess its atomic existence, cease to be as such, come to its end. Thus, there is a tension, observed already in ancient philosophy and mathematics, between separate qualities inherent in an entity and its indivisibility and simplicity.5 Even from a purely linguistic viewpoint, the term hypostasis may designate a composite object, while ‘atom’ does not bear such semantic meaning. According to St John of Damascus, contrary to ideas of the indivisibility of atomic existence, the integrity of a human hypostasis is not eliminated even after the real separation of the soul and the body at death. In mysterious fashion, the hypostasis of each person, having a two-natured (fractal) structure, does not shed or lose its unity because the soul and the body, which make up a person’s synthetic hypostasis, forever retain a single connecting hypostatic principle in each of them.6 2 Finitism asserts that there is no space between atoms and thus reality is made up of a continuum of atoms. See Ibrahim Tawfik, ‘Muslim Atomism as Strict Finitism’, Questions of Philosophy 6 (2014), 142-53. 3 See V.N. Katasonov, ‘Continuity and Discontinuity’, New Philosophical Encyclopedia, http:// iphras.ru/elib/2059.html (accessed 10 Oct. 2019). 4 V.N. Katasonov, ‘Continuity and Discontinuity’. 5 P.S. Hasper, ‘Aristotle’s Diagnosis of Atomism’, Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science 39 (2006), 121-55. 6 Μένει οὖν τό τε σῶμα καὶ ἡ ψυχή, ἀεὶ μίαν τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς ἑαυτῶν ἔχοντα ὑπάρξεώς τε καὶ ὑποστάσεως, Dialectica, PG 94, 668A.

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Moreover, the concept of hypostasis, in contrast to the indivisible atoms, is intended to reflect the synthetic integrity of an individualized human nature with the incoming, uncreated life-giving force. In this connection, St Gregory of Nyssa asserts, in particular, that human nature has a hypostasis composed of the rational soul and body that is enlivened by divine power.7 The concept of hypostasis, aside from its possible meaning of integrity and unity (a meaning absent from the concept of atom), also conveys an existential connotation, since we see that the holistic, hypostatic being of an object is something more than the sum of all its conceivable characteristics. The being of an object as a hypostasis is gathered together from the plan that God has ordained for it and the realization of this plan by His own hypostatic power in a creative act which brings together all the individual conceivable properties of the created hypostasis.8 Reflecting, for instance, on the futility of a multitude of human aspirations, St Gregory proclaims earthly fame, wealth, origin, etc., as destitute of hypostases.9 Obviously, these are the concepts which refer to quite concrete earthly phenomena, yet they are recognized as non-hypostatic because they are unstable and do not correspond to the eternal purpose of God with respect to genuine human glory, wealth, etc. A little earlier St Gregory says that being which is not immersed in God is essentially non-being.10 Indeed, the concept of created hypostases, in particular, is intended to reflect the genesis and degree of rootedness of created beings in the Divine plan.11 In this way, for example, the essence of sin, which does not come from God Who truly exists, has a hypostasis which is rooted not in goodness and is not co-hypostatic to creation.12 The hypostasis of evil means instability and the separation from good.13 And at creation each 7 ὅτι ἡ ἀνθρωπίνη φύσις ἐκ νοερᾶς ψυχῆς, σώματι συνδραμούσης, τὴν ὑπόστασιν ἔχει; ὕλη ἐκείνη θείᾳ δυνάμει ζωοπλαστηθεῖσα, ἄνθρωπος γίνεται, Adversus Apollinarem, PG 45, 1256A. 8 τῆς μὲν νοητῆς φύσεως τὰς νοητὰς ὑφιστώσης δυνάμεις, τῆς δὲ τούτων πρὸς ἄλληλα συνδρομῆς τὴν ὑλώδη φύσιν παραγούσης εἰς γένεσιν, De Hominis Opificio, PG 44, 213B. 9 οἴησίς ἐστι, καὶ οὐχ ὑπόστασις, In Psalmos, PG 44, 464A. 10 ‘Not to be in You means not to be at all’ (τὸ γὰρ ἐν σοὶ μὴ εἶναι, οὐδὲ ἔστιν ὅλως εἶναι), In Psalmos, PG 44, 461C. 11 ἡ πρώτη γένεσίς τε καὶ ὑπόστασις παρ’ αὐτοῦ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔσχε, Oratio catechetica, PG 45, 49C. St Gregory of Nyssa says that because of the distance from God, the hypostasis of our nature is insignificant, and it cannot withstand the well-deserved anger of the Lord, οὐτιδανὴ δὲ τῆς φύσεως ἡ ὑπόστασις, In Psalmos, PG 44, 464B. Later (PG 44, 564A), he speaks of mixed beings who, like mules, were not created by God but, like sin, arose as a result of misuse of nature. Therefore, having become what they are, they are sterile and not empowered to preserve their own hypostasis: διαρκεῖ τῇ ὑποστάσει πρὸς τὸ ἴδιον. 12 In Psalmos, PG 44, 585A: οὔτε κατὰ τὸ πρῶτον συνυποστᾶσα τῇ κτίσει; PG 44, 585B: εἰ δέ τι ἔξω τοῦ ὄντος ἐστὶν, οὗ οὐσία οὐκ ἐν τῷ εἶναι, ἀλλ’ ἐν τῷ ἀγαθὸν μὴ εἶναι τὴν ὑπόστασιν ἔχει; In Ecclesiasten. Homilia I, PG 44, 637C: Τὸ γὰρ κακὸν ἀνυπόστατον, ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος τὴν ὑπόστασιν ἔχει, also: PG 44, 740C; PG 45, 59A and 412C. 13 οὐδὲ γάρ ἐστιν ἄλλη τις κακοῦ ὑπόστασις, εἰ μὴ ὁ χωρισμὸς τοῦ βελτίονος, In Cantica canticorum. Homilia II, PG 44, 797A, also: PG 46, 371Α.

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of the created things in its own particular fashion received a hypostasis through the Logos.14 In addition, St Gregory of Nyssa in the Great Catechism intertwines the hypostasis of the Word with the concepts of life and free will: A) The Word of God – ‘has the power of the free will (προαιρετικὴν δύναμιν ἔχει πάντως), because any creature without free will is not counted among the living’.15 B) ‘If it is separated from life, then, no doubt, it is no longer a hypostasis’ verbatim ‘Not in a hypostasis’.16 Here St Gregory uses the expression ‘ἐν ὑποστάσει’ with regard to the Logos not in the context of inter-Trinitarian relationship but in terms of its personal existence in the Holy Trinity: if (the Word) is separated from life, then it certainly does not exist (not in a hypostasis).17 We witness here a direct connection between the concepts of hypostasis and life, which is in turn inextricably linked with the concept of free will. The Word is not just a participated Life, ‘but Life Itself and of course has Its selective power’.18 And of course ‘it is unrighteous to identify God’s Word as non-hypostatic’!19 And the Spirit ‘like the Word of God, possesses hypostatic existence, which is free, self-moved, efficient, always selecting good’.20 Thus, the Nyssen theologian draws our attention to the fact that the Word and the Spirit have a selective, willing power (προαιρετικὴν δύναμιν)21 corresponding to each. However, this willing power of the Word and the Spirit’s hypostases do not dissect the simplicity and unity of the Divine nature and action, since this free willing power is consistent with the properties of the single divine nature22 and is expressed through it’.23 Therefore we 14 μίαν αἰτίαν ἔχει τῆς ὑποστάσεως, S. Gregorius Nyssenus, De Perfecta Christiani Forma, PG 46, 265C; τὴν ὑπόστασιν ἔσχεν, In Ecclesiasten. Homilia I, PG 44, 632B; see also: PG 45, 984D-985A; 988BD; 1004C; 1005A. 15 PG 45, 13D. 16 S. Gregorius Nyssenus, Oratio catechetica, PG 45, 17C. ‘Chapter 1. The Son of God’s Being’. 17 εἰ δὲ τοῦ ζῇν κεχώρισται, οὐδὲ ἐν ὑποστάσει πάντως ἐστίν, ibid., PG 45, 13C. 18 αὐτοζωὴν εἶναι τὸν Λόγον […] προαιρετικὴν δύναμιν ἔχει πάντως, ibid., PG 45, 13D. 19 ἀλλὰ μὴν ἀσεβὲς ἀπεδείχθη τὸν τοῦ θεοῦ Λόγον ἀνυπόστατον εἶναι, ibid., PG 45, 13C. 20 ἀλλὰ καθ᾽ ὁμοιότητα τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου καθ᾽ ὑπόστασιν οὖσαν προαιρετικὴν, αὐτοκίνητον, ἐνεργὸν, πάντοτε τὸ ἀγαθὸν αἱρουμένην, ibid., PG 45, 17C. 21 αὐτοζωὴν εἶναι τὸν Λόγον … προαιρετικὴν δύναμιν ἔχει πάντως, ibid., PG 45, 13D; see also: PG 45, 16B, 21A; 17C: ‘The Spirit always chooses the good and has the power associated with the free will’ (πάντοτε τὸ ἀγαθὸν αἰρουμένην, καὶ πρὸς πᾶσαν πρόθεσιν σύνδρομον ἔχουσαν τῇ βουλήσει τὴν δύναμιν). 22 PG 45, 16A. 23 Didymus of Alexandria expresses the same idea when he speaks of the symphony and synergy of the Triune hypostases in speech and creation: τρεῖς ὑποστάσεις, καὶ ἑκάστη Θεὸν

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may assert that ‘προαίρεσις’ in St Gregory of Nyssa can be described as a hypostatic concept which expresses at the same time a hypostatically determined direction of action and development, and a qualitative state of nature through which the personal free will of the hypostases is harmoniously expressed. Similar to St Gregory of Nyssa, St John Damascene endows each hypostasis with selective (προαιρετικὴν) and self-moved (αὐτοκίνητον) abilities, coordinated with those of the others. At this, the object of free will and the realization of this personal will are the same for the three Hypostases of the Trinity due to their absolute consubstantiality.24 St John Damascene also states that the relations between hypostases25 are irreducible to the natural principle (οὐ φυσική) and depend on their free will. He argues that προαίρεσις does not occur in individuals who do not have autonomous (αὐθέδραστον) existence26 or, in modern language, do not possess the energy that governs them. And although God, more than any of His creations, is an autonomous Being acting in the world, St Damascene in the second book of De fide orthodoxa, in fact, denies ‘προαίρεσις’ in the Absolute and in Christ, indicating that God is not limited in the expression of His will since he has the fullness of knowledge27 inherent in any result. That is to say, God’s will is not merely restricted to making choices as if they were presented before Him by some other being or circumstance. However, we would note that St Gregory of Nyssa held it possible to consider selective potency a faculty of the Word and the Spirit (προαιρετικὴν δύναμιν).28 And St Maximus in his early writings speaks of the inherence of προαίρεσις in Christ. Actually, St Damascene elsewhere, emphasizing the Hypostases of the Son and the Spirit, characterizes Them as possessing selective action.29 And St Gregory of Nyssa speaks of God’s creation of the world according to His preordination.30 And when St John Damascene reflects on the hypostatic reality of the Persons of the Trinity, he cannot, following the Nyssen hierarch, deprive Them of προαιρετικὴν

ὀνομάζει, καὶ τὴν συμφωνίαν καὶ τὴν συνεργίαν δείκνυσι τοῦ εἰπόντος καὶ τοῦ ποιήσαντος, Didymus Alexandrinus, De Trinitate. Liber I, PG 39, 344A, also: PG 39, 441A; 440C; 689D. 24 De Haeresibus Liber, PG 94, 792D-793A; προαιρετικὴν, αὐτοκίνητον, ἐνεργόν, De Fide Orthodoxa. Liber I, PG 94, 805B; see also PG 94, 828C: τῆς γνώμης σύμπνοιαν; Liber II, PG 94, 860C; 948B: μία κίνησις τῶν τριῶν ὑποστάσεων; see also: PG 95, 153C; 156A. 25 That is, the relations determined by a non-natural principle, in contrast, for example, to the coexistence of the hypostases of one kind. 26 ἡ σχέσις […] οὐ φυσικὴ […] ἢ προαιρετική, ὡς φίλος καὶ φίλος, ἐχθρὸς καὶ ἐχθρός, προαίρεσις ἐν τοῖς οὐκ αὐθεδράστοις χώραν οὐκ ἔχουσιν, Dialectica. PG 94, 632B. 27 PG 94, 945C; 948A; 1044C. 28 Oratio catechetica, PG 45, 13D; 16B; 21A; 17C. 29 προαιρετικόν, De Fide Orthodoxa. Liber I, PG 94, 805AB. 30 τοῦ Λόγου ἔργον τὸν κόσμον εἶναι, τοῦ τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ αἰρουμένου, καὶ δυναμένου, Oratio catechetica, PG 45, 16B.

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δύναμιν as a reflection of their mutual internal freedom which is inexplicable via our logic.31 The subjectivity of the hypostatic action enables St Maximus to reflect the word αὐτουργός (autonomous) which is almost unused by St Damascene in the theological context. Thus, he considers, for example, the autonomous kenosis of the Son performed by Him via human flesh.32 We certainly should remember here that St Maximus constantly insists on the fact that energy and will belong to nature and distinguishes them from the hypostatic subject (αὐτός) acting through them.33 He nevertheless elsewhere states that the incarnation of the Logos cannot be considered involuntary, and in his earlier works he recognizes free will (προαίρεσις) in Christ34 and identifies προαίρεσις in Christ as unyielding to sin35 precisely because it is associated with His divine hypostasis. Despite a number of peculiarities of terminological use, the term προαίρεσις in St Maximus and St John, as well as in St Gregory of Nyssa, can be interpreted as a hypostatical or personal, self-moved (αὐτοκινήτοις) or autonomous (αὐτουργός) mode of using natural faculties, natural will and energy’.36 Indeed προαίρεσις in each human individual is considered as a synthetic concept being compared by St Maximus with the hypostatic synthesis of soul and body in man.37 As Giorgy Kapriev argues: ‘The difference between the “individual” and “hypostasis” is not determined by the categories of “closedness”/“openness” and even less by “egoism”/“love” […] It is even less possible that the individual should be regarded as a hypostasis which did not succeed in expressing himself personally’, and that ‘individuality should be regarded as the “decay of hypostasis”’.38 Ἀρετὴ δὲ ἐκ προαιρέσεως, καὶ οὐκ ἀνάγκης γίνεται, Sacra Parallela, PG 95, 1096B. διὰ σαρκὸς γέγονεν αὐτουργὸς κενωθεὶς ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγος, Orationis Dominicae expositio, PG 90, 876A; διὰ σαρκὸς αὐτουργήσας μυστηρίου, Opuscula Theologica et Polemica, PG 91, 68D; see also: PG 90, 876D; PG 91, 1049D; 1385D. 33 ἐνέργεια πρὸς τὸν ἐνεργοῦντα, καὶ πρὸς τὸν ὑφεστῶτα πάλιν ἡ φύσις ἀνάγεται, Opuscula Theologica et Polemica, PG 91, 200D; διὰ τὸ διπλοῦν τῆς φύσεις ὁ αὐτὸς ἐνήργει, ἢ ἐνικῶς διὰ τὸ μοναδικὸν τῆς ὑποστάσεως, Disputatio cum Pyrrho, PG 91, 340B; ὁ αὐτὸς ὑπόστασις ἦν, Ambiguorum liber, PG 91, 1037A; see also: PG 91, 560D; 565B; 581B; 585C; 592C; 1044D; 1049D; 1052C; 1289C. 34 ἀπροαίρετον, Epistolae, PG 91, 517A; κατὰ προαίρεσιν ἐν αὐτῷ, Capitum Theologiae et Oeconomiae. Centuria II, PG 90, 1164C. 35 ἡ ἀτρεψία τῆς προαιρέσεως, Questiones ad Thalassium PG 90, 405D; 408BC. 36 πρὸς ἂ βουλήσει […] κατὰ προαίρεσιν κινεῖται ὁ ἄνθρωπος, S. Maximus Confessor, Epistolae, PG 91, 445C; προαιρούμεθα … καὶ κεχρήμεθα, Disputatio cum Pyrrho, PG 91, 293C; κατὰ προαίρεσιν αὐτοῖς ὡς αὐτοκινήτοις, Ambiguorum liber, PG 91, 1392A; ἡ τοῦ λαβόντος προαίρεσις […] αὐτουργός, S. Maximus Confessor, Orationis Dominicae expositio, PG 90, 901A; προαίρεσιν τῶν ἐργαζομένων, S. Joannes Damascenus, In Epistolam I ad Corinthios, PG 95, 593C; see also: PG 90, 1052A; PG 91, 676A; 1084A; 1160A; 1209B; 1237C; 1249C; 1301A; 1389A. 37 PG 91, 16C. 38 G. Kapriev, ‘Hypostasis and the Energies’, Proceedings of the Kiev Theological Academy 20 (2014), 113-36, 120. 31

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Thus, for example, the famous Greek theologian Christos Yannaras contrasts the person with the individual, terming the latter a mode of natural being and linking this latter with death, ‘immobilizing of life’, and ‘negation of relationships’.39 Nevertheless, patristic thought did not divide the existence of intelligent beings into natural and hypostatic ones, but it professed the unity of ontology. The human nature, not limited to the individual essence, is capable of maintaining and preserving the free and god-like aspiration that leads man to God. The created hypostases gradually attain freedom as they follow the logoi of their nature. Thus, we may arrive at the following points: 1. Relativity is fundamental to the existence of the human person-hypostasis. But, ‘by definition, it does not receive its being from relation or relationships. In both being and existence, it is primarily πρᾶγμα αὐθύπαρκτον.40 2. In the full sense, only the ‘hypostases of rational nature: man, Angel, God’,41 may be termed as ‘persons’. 3. This is why, according to St John Damascene, in the created world the indivisible accidental properties enable one to distinguish an individual from another individual – one hypostasis from another hypostasis.42 Though the personal hypostasis as a concept is built upon the same logical principle as the hypostasis in the Trinity, the uncreated hypostasis in Christ cannot be identified with the concept of individual nature.43 4. While the hypostasis and the individual ‘are understood in a numerically singular aspect, suggesting common features’, they actually ‘designate the same thing. However, this does not mean that they are synonyms (and not only in relation to the Trinity)’. The concepts of the hypostasis and the individual are also ‘heterogeneous in the natural and hypostatic conceptual sense’.44 There is an area of intersection of the semantic meanings of the terms ‘hypostasis’ and ‘atom’ as both concepts denote a real and, to a certain extent, integral existence. Accordingly, as St Gregory of Nyssa discusses the difference between essence and hypostasis, he uses the term ‘atom’ synonymously with ‘hypostasis’.45 Finally, indeed it was ‘hypostasis’ and ‘prosopon’ that Nicene tradition brought together in their semantics, but not ‘atom’ and ‘prosopon’. 39 Ch. Yannaras, ‘Variations on the Song of Songs’, in Person and Eros, trans. G.V. Vdovina (Moskow, 2005), 40-464, 447. 40 G. Kapriev, ‘Hypostasis and Energies’ (2014), 125. 41 Ibid. 123. 42 Κατὰ ταῦτα οὖν τὰ ἀχώριστα συμβεβηκότα, ἄτομον ἀτόμου, τουτέστιν ὑπόστασις ὑποστάσεως διαφέρει, S. Joannes Damascenus, Dialectica, PG 94, 576C. 43 The concept of human ‘hypostasis’ is not identified with the concept of ‘individual nature’ either in St Gregory of Nyssa or in St John Damascene, or in St Maximus the Confessor. 44 G. Kapriev, ‘Hypostasis and Energies’ (2014), 119. 45 See Ad Graecos ex communibus notionibus, ed. F. Mueller, Gregorii Nyssenus Opera III/1 (Leiden, 1958).

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We should affirm that, for the fathers, the concept of hypostasis is not meant so much to account for an entity’s atomic or individual nature, especially in our modern understanding of it with its attendant emphasis on the autonomy of being. Hypostasis indeed does imply the idea of indivisibility and internal integrity, and not just on account of uniqueness, but it also implies that this uniqueness is unified in both the internal and external planes. If we turn to the internal hypostatic plane, this unity of the components in a particular hypostasis of the human race (the natural body and soul, and their components) can by no means be reduced to their indivisibility (atomicity). Moreover, it does not imply their indistinguishability and primitiveness (we may recall here the ancient idea of simplicity – the atom as an elementary, basic unit of matter is qualitatively homogeneous and does not have an internal structure). This aspect of the concept of hypostasis implies a much deeper idea of indivisibility as a fundamental perichoresis of its components, which do not discontinue completely even in the case of temporary bodily dissolution in death (St John of Damascus). It must be further recognized that when the Fathers put the concepts of hypostasis and atom together, they do not identify them at all, but point to a completely different solution to the problem of the atomic foundations of being. Ancient as well as modern concepts of atoms view them as primitive components of existence, be they Democritic bricks46 of the universe, microparticles, energy clumps, and so forth. Yet the fathers, in frequently startling fashion, treat the complex, composite and active human hypostases created in the image of the Three-Hypostatic Creator as ‘atoms’ of creation. The external aspect of the idea of unity, implied by the concept of ‘hypostasis’ involves two aspects: nominally external and ontologically external. The nominally external aspect of hypostatic unity or hypostatic indivisibility should designate a generic unity of any hypostasis with those of the same nature. While the idea of the atom implies the existence of a multitude of the same kind which make up the universe, the idea of hypostasis suggests not only the existence of those of the same nature, but their actual consubstantiality. Such hypostatic consubstantiality is qualitatively distinct from the atomic similarity as it implies an hypostases’ natural and energetic perichoresis. Thus, Christian philosophy may boast the unexpected resolution of the still relevant antinomy of the atomicity/discontinuity and integrity/continuity of existence. A number of ancient thinkers denied the principle of discontinuity (atomicity) in favour of continuity/integrity of the foundations of being. Each 46 ‘Concerning Democritus, it is a demonstrated fact that Democritus’ leading idea lies in the individualization principle, since, in his view, atoms are indivisible, invariable and eternal principles of individual being, and any material plurality and variety are only possible within this or other, but always specific combination of them’, A.F. Losev, Ancient Philosophy of History (Moscow, 1977), 141. See also P.S. Hasper, ‘Aristotle’s Diagnosis of Atomism’ (2006), 122-3.

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of the two concepts has its supporters up to our day. Although, from our viewpoint, there exist inadequate attempts to synthesize both theses, such as, for instance, in finitism that recognizes a certain continuum of atoms.47 Rather, patristic thought offers to resolve the opposition between atomicity and continuity by attributing them to distinct poles of a single ontology, and arriving at an understanding of their complementarity. Christian theology allows us to refer atomicity to the hypostatic aspect of ontology and continuity to the natural one. This latter, by the way, is also innovative in the light of modern scientific assumptions on the discontinuity of all kinds of matter. We would like to stress the qualitative advantage of the patristic resolution of the antinomy of discontinuity/continuity over Leibniz’s later philosophical proposal to separate continuity and discontinuity into distinct ontological spheres – of the real and of a possible being.48 The patristic resolution provides for the unity of the ontological sphere owing to the simultaneous unity and difference of the concepts of hypostasis and nature, whereas Leibniz’s resolution ignores the unity of ontology since it does not refer continuity to real being. The ontologically external aspect of hypostatic unity lies in the synthetic inclusion of the Creator’s uncreated energies into the being of created hypostases.

47 48

See, for example, I. Tawfik, ‘Muslim Atomism’ (2014). V.N. Katasonov, ‘Continuity and Discontinuity’.

The Exegesis of Filiation from Origen to Didymus: A Rewritten Heritage Meredith DANEZAN, Sorbonne University, Paris, France

ABSTRACT In a short polemical work, the Contra Manichæos, in order to refute what he considers to be an ethical consequence of Manichaean metaphysics, in order to fight against the idea that there are beings who are evil by nature, Didymus launches into an explanation which aims to show that evil is a consequence of free will, and attempts to answer, or prevent, a Manichaean reading of the Pauline text: ‘We were by nature (φύσει) children of wrath, just as all the others too (ὡς καὶ οἱ λοιποί)’ (Eph. 2:3). In order to do so, Didymus spends most of his refutation proposing a complete spiritual reading of several biblical cases of human filiation as affiliations to good or evil. On this matter, he is found to be both an heir of Origen’s exegesis, but also one who renews his thought, by updating the meaning of φύσις in a new context.

What kind of heir to Origen is Didymus? The monographs concerning Didymus of Alexandria have often insisted on his indebtedness to Origenian hermeneutics.1 This indebtedness, as also that of Basil and later of Evagrius, offers us 1 After a first global laudatory study about Didymus’ life and works by Johannes Leipoldt, who already described in detail Didymus’ indebtedness to Origen, Didymus der Blinde von Alexandria, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur NF 24/3 (Leipzig, 1905), 52-74, the originality of Didymus’ theology and exegesis in relation to those of Origen has been deeply questioned by Gustave Bardy (except for the necessary aggiornamento of his Trinitarian doctrine), and the depth of his knowledge and culture seriously reconsidered: Didyme l’Aveugle (Paris, 1910), 218-42. But, according to G. Bardy, if Didymus busies himself with everything and if no part of his thought is deep, if his knowledge is filtered through a ‘scholastic’ culture and through his predecessors’ works, he is consequently, so to speak, the ‘spokesman’ of his master, thinking in the same way as Origen and writing down his ideas in much the same terms. On this judgment, see also the conclusions of G. Bardy’s short dictionary entry about Didymus: ‘Didyme d’Alexandrie’, in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité ascétique et mystique. Doctrine et histoire. Tome III (Paris, 1957), 868-971. See also another dictionary entry about Didymus by Pierre Godet, who sees globally in this author an Origenist, despite some slight doctrinal divergencies: ‘Didyme l’Aveugle’, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique. Tome IV (Paris, 1920), 748-55. Yet pointing out this lack of originality without paying attention to his literary personality seems to have been deeply confusing. We can observe this in the conclusions reached by Byard John Bennett in The Origin of Evil: Didymus the Blind’s Contra Manichæos and its Debt to Origen’s Theology and Exegesis (Toronto, 1997). Another example of the illegitimate confusion between these two authors can be found in the so-called ‘Scholia on the Apocalypse’ for a long time attributed to

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 259-269. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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every right to count Didymus among the Fathers of what has been called the ‘Alexandrian tradition’. Useful as it may be, however, this collective denomination runs the risk of obscuring some significant differences. In this paper, my point will be to show what kind of an exegete Didymus is, taken in himself and as compared with the father of the Alexandrian tradition, Origen. To do so, I will look into a set of verses, all dealing with the theme of filiation, which both Didymus, in the Contra Manichæos I am editing, and Origen have commented on, in anti-dualistic contexts or not. Origen’s exegesis of the ‘sons’ In Origen’s exegesis, the Scriptural mentions of filiation have received a collective and repetitive treatment. Some excerpts from the Commentary on John, among many others, demonstrate that they are understood as a symbol of the existential and moral orientations that one chooses for oneself: And it is nothing strange for the saint to be thus a ‘son of well’, since in many passages he is named ‘son’ after his good deeds (ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνδραγαθημάτων): son ‘of light’ (John 12:36; 1Thess. 5:5), because ‘his works shine before men’ (Matt. 5:16); son ‘of peace’ (Luke 10:6), because he has ‘the peace of God that surpasses all understanding’ (Phil. 4:7); and also child ‘of wisdom’, because of the benefit that comes from wisdom, for it is said that ‘wisdom has been justified by his children’ (Luke 7:35).2 Concerning all the ‘children of the devil’ (John 8:44), it is much better to say that they are assimilating themselves to him by performing his works (ὡς ὁμοιουμένων αὐτῷ τῷ ποιεῖν τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ), and that they are not named ‘children of the devil’ after their substance and their constitution considered independently from their works (οὐ διὰ τὴν οὐσίαν καὶ τὴν κατασκευὴν τὴν χωρὶς ἔργων τέκνων).3 Therefore, these texts are proof, in my opinion, that in the past (Jesus) was right to have confidence in (Judas), for if he had never been a ‘son of peace’ (Luke 10:5), he would not have sent him with the other apostles and would not have told him too – for he was speaking to the twelve, according to what is written: ‘Say, “Peace to this house”. And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, your peace will return to you’ (Luke 10:5-6).4

However, among these Scriptural mentions of filiation, the ‘sons of wrath’ from Eph. 2:3 in Origen’s exegesis are given a special status. When debating with the Gnostic Heracleon, who divides humanity between sons of the devil Origen (in his later, weakened state, as said or suggested by many critics), and now partly ascribed back to Didymus: see Éric Junod, ‘À propos des soi-disant scolies sur l’Apocalypse d’Origène’, RSLR 20 (1984), 112-21. 2 Origenes Werke IV. Der Johanneskommentar, ed. Erwin Preuschen, GCS 10 (Leipzig, 1903), II 1, 5. 3 Ibid. XX 24, 219. 4 Ibid. XXXII 14, 159.

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by nature (the terrestrials), those who become such by will (the psychics) and those who cannot be such by nature (the spirituals), Origen had specially to exclude Gnostic pretentions to impeccability. To do so, he referred to Eph. 2:3: ‘We were by nature (φύσει) children of wrath, just as all the others too (ὡς καὶ οἱ λοιποί)’, insisting on the fact that perfects do not represent an ontological category of human beings, since, if even Paul declares himself a sinner, all men are sinners: For that absolutely no man is from the beginning ‘son of God’, it is clear if one considers what is said by Paul about himself too: ‘We were by nature children of wrath’ (Eph. 2:3). It is also obvious from the word: ‘But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven’ (Matt. 5:44-5). For if Paul is ‘by nature son of wrath’, who is superior to Paul, so that by constitution he may not be a ‘son of wrath’ and, in addition, he may receive the power to become ‘child of God’ and may become indeed ‘child of God’? And if there is no other way to become ‘son of the Father in heaven’ than to ‘love your enemies’ and to ‘pray for those who persecute you’, it is clear that no one ‘listens to God’s words’ because he is by nature ‘of God’: he has become ‘son of the Father in heaven’ because he has received the power to become ‘child of God’ and to properly exercise his power, and because he has ‘loved his enemies and prayed for those who mistreat him’ (Luke 6:28). In this sense, precisely, he is ‘of God’ and he ‘listens to God’s words’, because he understands them and receives the comprehension of them. Yet, those things are proper not to slaves, but to ‘children’ of God, who have dismissed any other birth and have received the one that comes from God through the ‘spirit of filiation’ (Rom. 8:15).5

The same interpretation is to be found in Origen’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, where Origen explicitly identifies the ‘sons of wrath by nature’ with all of humanity, without any distinction, even as far as age is concerned: If we consider the word ‘we were by nature children of wrath, just as all the others too’ (Eph. 2:3), we do not know what those who introduce the doctrine of natures that would be spiritual from the outset could say about it. For how can it be said that the one who is by nature son of God is ‘by nature son of wrath’? To this question, let them answer! As for us, we think that we are ‘by nature children of wrath’ because of the ‘body of humility’ (Phil. 3:21), since ‘our mind applied itself to evil things from youth’ (Gen. 8:21). For, according to Solomon, ‘there is not a just man on earth who will do good and will not sin’ (Eccl. 7:20).6

As to where the ‘security flaw’ in human nature is located, this is quite clear as far as mind is concerned (radical liberty), but it is perhaps less clear as 5 Origenes Werke IV. Der Johanneskommentar, ed. E. Preuschen (1903), XX 33, 290-3. A third term seems to be very important in Origen’ exegesis: the holy grace which allows the ‘son of wrath’ to carry out virtuous deeds (see the occurrences of λαμβάνω and ἀναλαμβάνω). 6 ‘The commentary of Origen upon the Epistle to the Ephesians: part II’, ed. John A.F. Gregg, JThS 3 (1902), fragment IX, 398-420.

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regards the ‘body of humility’ (Phil. 3:21). Yet, a similar association of Eph. 2:3 with Phil. 3:21 is also made by Origen in a non-polemical context, in the Homilies on Jeremiah where the Alexandrian also refers to the ‘foreskin of the heart’ (Jer. 4:4): Therefore, ‘be circumcised to your God, and remove the foreskin of your heart’ (Jer. 4:4). Who will not fly over these words, thinking that they are clear? Well, there is a foreskin of the heart and it must be removed. He who has acquired the precision in reasoning, when seeking what such words mean, will conclude here: uncircumcision is innate, circumcision is acquired, and what is held from birth, circumcision removes it. So, if the word orders to remove the uncircumcision of the heart, it means that something has been generated with the heart, which is called ‘uncircumcision’, something that must be removed so that we can be circumcised of the heart. If one considers that ‘we were by nature sons of wrath, just as all the others too’ (Eph. 2:3), if one considers the ‘body of humility’ (Phil. 3:21) in which we were born, if one considers that ‘none is pure from filth, even if his life is only one day (yet his months are numerous)’ (Job 14:4-5), he will see in what sense we have been born with ‘filth’ and a ‘foreskin’ over our heart.7

The association of Eph. 2:3 with the innate ‘foreskin of the heart’ from Jer. 4:4, that must be removed, and with the ‘body of humility’ from Phil. 3:21, within which we are born, indicates a natural security flaw in all men as men. And the reference to Job 14:4-5 clearly puts all of humanity – childhood included – under the dominion of sin, precisely because they have a body of ‘humility’ and a mind able to apply and actually applying itself to evil. So, the idea implied is that free will for men expresses itself at first negatively, through sin. But these texts give no explicit reason as far as the ‘body of humility’ is concerned: why such a weak body? So for the ‘foreskin of the heart’: why such an innate ‘uncircumcision’ that man has to remove, even though nature is good? Scholarly tradition has an answer. Indeed, for some commentators, these associations of verses mean that Origen’s doctrine of a pre-mundane sin of the souls burdened with sin (the ‘foreskin of the heart’), punished and educated by God through bodies of ‘humiliation’,8 is the protological background explaining 7

Origenes Werke III. Jeremiahomilien, Klageliederkommentar, Erklärung der Samuel- und Königsbücher, ed. Erich Klostermann and Pierre Nautin, GCS 6 (Berlin, 1983), V 14, 160. 8 When specifically commenting on God’s wrath, identified with divine retribution, Origen also refers several times to Eph. 2:3. In this case, the doctrine of a pre-mundane sin of the souls may also lie in the background, but Origen systematically refrains from commenting on the lemma. See Origenes Werke I. Die Schrift vom Martyrium. Buch I-IV gegen Celsus, ed. Paul Koetschau, GCS 2 (Leipzig, 1899), IV 72: ‘And if one reads in the Second Book of Kings that “God’s anger” urged David to number the people (see 2Kgs. 24:1), and in the First Book of Paralipomenon that the “devil” is said to have done this (see 1Chr. 21:1), and if he compares the passages with one another, he will see in what sense the word “wrath” has been used, this “wrath” of which Paul declares that all men are precisely “children”: “We were by nature children of wrath, just as all the others too” (Eph. 2:3).’ See also Origenes Werke XIII. Die neuen Psalmenhomilien. Eine kritische Edition des Codex Monacensis Graecus 314, ed. Lorenzo Perrone,

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the articulation of these biblical references.9 The matter is controversial and a recent study has radically questioned the existence of this kind of protological developments in Origen’s thought (no evidence of it in extant texts).10 For sure, in these passages, as well as in the rest of Origen’s extant works, for whatever reason,11 a doctrine of the pre-mundane fall of the souls remains untold. But only by way of such a doctrine can it be explained that Origen’s interpretation of Eph. 2:3 is always related to a statement of the ‘peccability’ of humanity often linked to Jer. 4:4 and Phil. 3:2. This interpretation also explains why, in the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, when commenting on Eph. 2:3, human condition is explicitly described as a second state coming after a fall from a first divine state (Ps. 81:6), a first state that elsewhere Origen calls a ‘state before creation’ (τὰ πρὸ γενέσεως, In John XX 2, 6). It also explains in what sense a mutilated, but corroborating Greek excerpt from this commentary associating Eph. 2:3 with 1Cor. 15:28, announces the final restoration of absolutely all men, without exception, into the first state, which is not simply a moral one: It is therefore justly said that wrath has been inflicted by God (see Rom. 3:5) upon all men. For those in whom wrath does not have a place no longer ought to be called men (homines), but supermen (supra homines). And that is perhaps the reason why the same Apostle Paul declares concerning all men that ‘we were by nature sons of wrath, just as all the others too’ (Eph. 2:3). For he did not say: ‘We were sons of wrath’, but he GCS 19 (Berlin, 2015), 22, 3: ‘And look for the nature of this “wrath” that is “sent” (Exod. 15:7), of which it is also said by the Apostle to those who are not able to understand, that “we were by nature children of wrath, just as all the others too” (Eph. 2:3)’. See finally ibid. 24, 7: ‘For if it is true that what is “sent” and the one who “sent” (Ps. 77:49) it are two separate things, and if it is true that it has been “sent”, wrath and the one who feels wrath are also two separate things: perhaps, then, that “wrath” that has been “sent” is a living thing, and may it stay far away from us all! But we must say that there is a “wrath” of which we are “children” according to the Apostle: “We were by nature children of wrath, just as all the others too” (Eph. 2:3), and: “God’s wrath has come upon them at last” (1Thess. 2:16).’ 9 See, for example, the prudent statements of Joannes Mehlmann in Natura Filii Irae. Historia interpretationis Eph. 2, 3 ejusque cum doctrina de Peccato Originali nexus (Rome, 1957), 21 and 32; and, far more cautious, Luc Brésard, Origène. Commentaire sur l’Épître aux Romains. Tome II, SC 539 (Paris, 2010), 46-7; see also the more affirmative ones of Pierre Nautin, Origène. Homélies sur Jérémie, SC 232 (Paris, 1976), 318-9, José Ramón Díaz Sánchez-Cid, Justicia, pecado y filiación: sobre el Comentario de Orígenes a los Romanos (Toledo, 1991), 89 and Panayiotis Tzamalikos, Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 77 (Leiden, 2006), 65-6. 10 See Mark Edwards, Origen against Plato, Ashgate Studies in Philosophy & Theology in Late Antiquity (Aldershot, 2002), 89-93. 11 According to Gunnar af Hällström, Fides Simpliciorum according to Origen of Alexandria, Commentationes Humanarum Literrerarum 76 (Helsinki, 1984), 29 and 59-60, the concealment of explanations is deliberate in Origen’s works, since, according to his personal theology, the principial reasons are not to be exposed to an unselected audience; according to P. Tzamalikos, Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time (2006), 66-70, Origen feared that his thought might be misunderstood.

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specified: ‘We were by nature sons of wrath, just as all the others too’. Indeed, all men, from ‘gods’ and ‘sons of the Most High’ (Ps. 81:6) that they were, have become ‘by nature sons of wrath’, and for this reason have been called men.12 For all men are ‘by nature children of wrath’ (Eph. 2:3), from ‘gods’ and ‘sons of the Most High’ (Ps. 81:6) that they were, but after […]. And I would even dare to say that when God will become ‘all in all’ (1Cor. 15:28), then there will be no longer men, for all will have become gods.13

Any reader can make an ethico-spiritual interpretation of these passages, but a number of elements in Origen’s discourse, although incomplete, seem to converge towards a protological speculation. At any rate, it is very important for Origen in this context to understand φύσις as what all men have in common, namely their human nature. This is not the way Didymus interpreted φύσις from Eph. 2:3 in a different context, i.e. the anti-Manichaean controversy. Didymus’ exegesis of filiation The meaning of filiation is of decisive importance in Didymus’ short work entitled Contra Manichæos. Indeed, Didymus aims to dispel the idea that there could be a substantial evil, and states that evil is only a result of will. In this context, the Origenian motif of filiation is only developed in a spiritual sense: Holy Scripture calls men ‘sons’ and ‘offspring’ of their actions and morals. And indeed, Scripture calls those who are irascible and engage in all the others sins so that they are thereby submitted to wrath as their punishment sons of wrath, inasmuch as Paul declares: ‘We were in fact (φύσει) children of wrath, just as all the others too’ (Eph. 2:3). These men are likely to change so that they may no longer be in fact (φύσει) ‘children of wrath’. And indeed, Paul declares about himself and about those who had become saints in much the same way: ‘We were in fact (φύσει) children of wrath, just as all the other men who at that time were still in sin’. The adjunct ‘in fact’ (φύσει) does not mean ‘by nature’ (κατὰ φύσιν), but ‘in reality’ (ἀληθείᾳ). For he says: ‘We were in fact (φύσει) children of wrath’ in order to show that those who sin are ‘in reality’ (ἀληθείᾳ) submitted to wrath. And just as one becomes in his being ‘child of wrath’ for the reason that vice is inside him, so in changing he becomes child of truth and virtue. This is what the Savior says of some people: ‘Wisdom has been justified by her children’ (Luke 7:35), calling ‘children of wisdom’ the wise persons. For as those who are ‘children’ of such or such a person draw their being from the one who has engendered them, and as also those who have such a quality draw their being from the quality which is attached to them, so it is normal that those who have such a quality should be called ‘children’ and ‘sons’ of this quality. For just as some are called by the Savior ‘children of wisdom’ – we are talking of wise people –, he also called others ‘sons 12

Origène. Commentaire sur l’Épître aux Romains. Tome II (Livres III-V), ed. Caroline P. Hammond Bammel, SC 539 (Paris, 2010), III 1, 8. 13 Le commentaire d’Origène sur Rom. III.5-V.7, ed. Jacques Scherer (Le Caire, 1957), 128.12-6.

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of peace’, when he said to his disciples: ‘If you enter a city or a house and if a son of peace is there, your peace – the one which is given to the city or the house – will rest on the son of peace who is there’ (Luke 10:5-6). Again, the same Savior declares: ‘The sons of this world are more careful than the children of light in their generation’ (Luke 16:8), calling ‘children of light’ those who are enlightened by the knowledge of the truth and by deeds of virtue. And to those who have become light precisely because they are ‘sons of light’ he says: ‘You are the light of the world’ (Matt. 5:14). But those who love the present life and bring everything they do back to this, he called them ‘sons of world’. But although he said that these are ‘more careful than the sons of light’, he has not called them ‘more careful’ in absolute terms, but ‘in their generation’. In other words, they are ‘more careful than the sons of light’ in those matters which are proper to this world. For ‘they are wise in doing evil, but they have not understood how to do good’ (Jer. 4:22). Concerning Judas also it is written that he is a ‘son of perdition’. For the Lord said about him: ‘None of my disciples has been lost, except the son of perdition’ (John 17:12). And he called him ‘son of perdition’ because he had accomplished deeds of perdition. For he was not such when he was one of the apostles and together with them served the Savior, but he became such when he betrayed the Son of God and Master, since he cherished the silver-pieces of perdition. And because he was not evil ‘by nature’, while he was together with the disciples, he heard: ‘Behold, I send you out as sheep among the wolves’ (Matt. 10:16). And if he calls sinners ‘wolves’ and those who act virtuously ‘sheep’, if really Judas was evil ‘by nature’ (φύσει), he would not have been Christ’s sheep, since the one who is evil ‘by nature’ (κατὰ φύσιν) does no act virtuously. However, not even the Devil himself is evil ‘by nature’ (κατὰ φύσιν), but he is so as a result of the orientation of his free will.14 14 Didymus, Against Manichaeans, cod. Firenze, BML, Plut. 09.23, 176r-v. On Eph. 2:3, see also Didymus in Pauluskommentar aus der griechischen Kirche aus Katenenhandschriften gesammelt, ed. Karl Staab (Münster, 1933), 2.17-20: ‘But (Paul) was no such man, no, he was not, “clearly not!” For he who was formerly a “child of wrath” (Eph. 2:3) and a “vessel of wrath” (Rom. 9:22) changed his character, not his nature, and became a precious “chosen vessel” (Acts 9:15).’ On other ‘sons’, see also Didymos der Blinde. Kommentar zum Ecclesiastes. Teil III (Kap. 5-6), ed. Johannes Kramer, Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen 13 (Bonn, 1970), 159.1-6: ‘I say that wisdom is mother of the wise, since “wisdom has been justified by her children” (Luke 7:35). And the wise are “children” of wisdom. “And your mother will guide you” (see Cant. 8:5 and Sir. 4:10): wisdom. Again, the states of the mind, the worst as well as the best, are said to be the mothers of those whose characters are modeled after them. Thus, we speak both of “son of perdition” (John 17:12), of “son of vipers” (Matt. 3:7) and “of death” (2Kgdms. 12:5), of “son of light” (Luke 16:8) and also of “son of peace” (Luke 10:6).’ See also Didymus in Psalmenkommentare aus der Katenenüberlieferung. Band II, ed. Ekkehard Mühlenberg, Patristische Texte und Studien 16 (Berlin, New York, 1977), fragment 921.16-7: ‘It is precisely after (the perdition) that Judas is named “son of perdition”, since he has become son of Satan’; Didymus, Fragments on the Proverbs, cod. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barocci 195, 198v-199r: ‘Every man is and is called a “son” and a “child” either of virtue or of vice. And indeed, it is said in the Gospels that “wisdom has been justified by her children” (Luke 7:35), because those who partake of her and are named after her are called her “children”. Elsewhere the wise is also told: “Your mother will love you” (see Sir. 4:10): probably wisdom. The same is true in the opposite case, because those who are familiar with perdition and with everything else that deserves to be blamed are referred to as the “sons” and “children” of “crime” (Ps. 88:23), “perdition” (John 17:12) and “death” (2Kgs. 12:5). And indeed, in Isaiah, the following text is addressed to some of them: “Are you

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In many respects, Didymus’ argument is indebted to the Alexandrian master. To emphasize only one example, when dealing with Judas’ case and the meaning of the phrase ‘son of perdition’, Didymus borrows the structure of his interpretation from Origen’s Commentary on John.15 But by comparison with Origen, who gave it a special status as a definition of humanity in this world, Didymus considers the ‘sons of wrath’ as a simple case of moral filiation, in other words as a result of free will indulging in a virtue or a vice. In the Contra Manichæos, a son of wrath is someone who has chosen to be sinful as far as irascibility is concerned. From a literal point of view, this exegesis is expressed through the lexical network of ‘quality’ (ποιητής), as matrix (ποιεῖν) of a specific character (ποιός). Therefore, according to Didymus, being a son of wrath is not a special case of ethico-spiritual filiation. And this assimilation of Eph. 2:3 with the rest of the Scriptural network references to filiation can be interpreted as Didymus’ special reception of Origen’s hermeneutics of filiation. But this assimilation is only made possible through a close grammatical discussion. Indeed, Didymus avoids the obvious meaning of φύσει by giving it a merely descriptive sense (‘truly, in reality, in fact’) so as to exclude its identification to κατὰ φύσιν (‘by nature’), which was the interpretation Origen needed, in a context where he had specially to exclude Gnostic claims to ‘innate’ impeccability. On this passage, Didymus’ interpretation of φύσις is perhaps less expected, and he might be the first to propose this interpretative solution for a passage which in later authors obviously remains controversial. Thus, for Cyril of Alexandria, close to Didymus as far as the interpretation of φύσει is concerned, the problem is to add the testimony of Eph. 2:3 to the dossier of the scriptural uses of φύσις supporting his interpretation of the union of the two natures in Christ, namely a true union without confusion of natures, moreover with reference to the use of this passage in Manichean context (sinners as substantial sons of substantial wrath).16 The not children of perdition, you, offspring of adulterers and of a whore?” (see Isa. 57:3-4). And concerning Judas the traitor, it is written that he has become a “son of perdition”: “And none of them has been lost, except the son of perdition” (John 17:12).’ 15 See Origen, Commentary on John, XXXII 14, 159 quoted above. 16 Cyril of Alexandria, Duodecim capitum defensio adversus orientales episcopos, ACO I 1,7, ed. Eduard Schwartz (Berlin, 1929) 40.20-30: ‘Furthermore, if we say that the union is “natural” (φυσικήν), we are saying that it is “true” (ἀληθῆ), since divinely inspired Scripture usually employs the word in this sense. Indeed, the inspired Paul wrote somewhere to some people: “And we were children of wrath naturally (φύσει), just as all the others too” (Eph. 2:3). And of course, one cannot say that divine wrath exists “by nature” (κατὰ φύσιν) so as to imagine that sinners are also its offspring, otherwise we will embrace in all possible ways and completely the views of those who are suffering from the madness of the Manicheans. But the expression “naturally” (φύσει) means “in truth” (κατὰ ἀλήθειαν). So, without confusing natures or even mixing them with each other, what our adversaries do, we say that the union is “natural” (φυσικήν), but we insist absolutely on the fact that the only Christ and Son and Lord exists from two dissimilar realities, divinity and humanity. As for the doctrines of Apollinaris, we have absolutely no relation

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same line of argument is thereafter found in Anastasius Sinaita.17 Some authors, however, consider that, in this passage, φύσις keeps its ontological meaning, or almost so. This is the case of Theodore of Rhaitu who is still embarrassed by the term: though he refuses to consider φύσις as nature as it was created by God, he admits that it is a second nature in which sin transmitted from father to son has ‘taken root’.18 Didymus assumes the convertibility of the terms with them, because those who were condemned only once because they counterfeit the truth, it is necessary to turn away from them’ and id., Explicatio duodecim capitum, ACO I 1, 5, ed. Eduard Schwartz (Berlin, 1927), 18.25-19.4: ‘Since we are entirely preoccupied by the mystery of the Monogene’s Economy according to the flesh, we say that only the Logos from God the Father has been united, in a paradoxical and ineffable manner, to a holy body which has a rational soul, and this is how we conceive the Son, insofar as, of course, it is possible for us to know that the soul is of a different nature from the body, but the one and the other assembled to form a single being. But it is not in this way that some suppose that things happen, and, standing against us one after the other and each in a particular way, they say that a man has been united to the Logos born from God the Father according to dignity or power alone, not according to natural (φυσικήν) union, that is to say “true” (ἀληθῆ) union, as we believe it. Indeed, this is the way divine Scripture also says it somewhere: “And we were naturally (φύσει) children of wrath, just as all the others too” (Eph. 2:3), the expression “naturally” (φύσει) being understood for “truly” (ἀληθῶς).’ 17 Anastasius Sinaita. Viae dux, ed. Karl-Heinz Uthemann, CChr.SG 8 (Turnhout, 1981), 2, 3.15-49: ‘The word “nature” is used in four senses, as I said before, that of essence, nature, gender and form. Scholion. About the phrase “naturally” (φύσει) in the Old and New Testaments, that “Christ is naturally (φύσει) God and naturally (φύσει) human” means nothing but “he is true (ἐν ἀληθείᾳ) God and he the same has become without change true (ἐν ἀληθείᾳ) man”. It is therefore said by the wise Solomon concerning impious men that “all men are vain, who ignore God” (Wis. 13:1). Furthermore, it is said by the divine Apostle about us, the nations, that “we were once naturally (φύσει) children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). Therefore, if the “impious” are “vain” “by nature” (φυσικῶς), that is to say “by constitution” (αὐτοφυῶς), they are blameless, because what is in us “naturally” “by nature” (ἐκ φύσεως φυσικῶς) cannot be blamed and condemned, because it was created “by nature” (φυσικῶς) in us by God, like breathing, eating and sleeping. And furthermore, we will find that God created “by nature” (φυσικῶς) vanity in men. In the same way, if we are “naturally (φύσει) children of wrath”, the cause falls on God who created us “naturally (φύσει) children of anger”, because it is said that what is in substance is thus “naturally” (φύσει), just as “naturally” (φύσει) the “nature” of light came to illuminate, that fire was created to burn and that the earth was shaped to produce germs. So, heretics have the choice between one of these two things: either God created the “natures” of “vanity” and “wrath”, or the phrase “naturally” (φύσει) means nothing else than what is “in truth” (ἐν ἀληθείᾳ), and therefore we are blameless when we say that “Christ is naturally (φύσει) God and naturally (φύσει) man”, that is to say “true (κατὰ ἀλήθειαν) God and true (κατὰ ἀλήθειαν) man”. And this tradition and this definition of the word “nature” (φύσεως), which today we have produced from the Old and New Testaments, neither a master nor an angel from heaven can change it or transform it forever and ever.’ and 8, 2.7-15: ‘“All men are naturally (φύσει) vain, who ignore God” (Wis. 13:1) What does “naturally” (φύσει) mean? It means “in truth” (ἐν ἀληθείᾳ). Indeed, nature is, as the divinely inspired Scriptures preach, the “truth” of things (ἡ τῶν πραγμάτων ἀλήθεια). I say the opposite proposition, because of the fools, to the word of Solomon and I say: “All men are vain in appearance (προσώπῳ), who ignore God”, but saying “vain in appearance (προσώπῳ)” is not at all appropriate: “naturally (φύσει, i.e. in truth) vain” only is appropriate. So, nature and appearance are not the same thing.’ 18 Theodore of Rhaitu, Praeparatio (= De incarnatione liber) 11, Analecta Patristica, ed. Franz Diekamp, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 117 (Rome, 1938), 203.5-25: ‘And when he says

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φύσις and ἀλήθεια which are regularly associated in theological expressions in which, however, φύσις seems to keep an ontological dimension.19 Nevertheless, the word φύσει could have an adverbial meaning and indicate the speaker’s irony towards an expected situation (‘actually’)20 or be used as a confirmation lemma of a statement (‘really, indeed’).21 The distinction made by Didymus between φύσει and κατὰ φύσιν is therefore linguistically possible, but it is worth noting that Cyril, although following the same interpretation as Didymus in two different texts, is however found using equivalently the expression he was carefully distinguishing from the other in another passage.22 This confirms that the precision of grammatical analysis is governed by controversy and remains a lectio difficilior. in the Epistle to the Ephesians: “And we were naturally (φύσει) children of wrath, just as all the others too” (Eph. 2:3), it is not according to the following sense, “nature” (φύσεως), that he says “we were naturally (φύσει) children of wrath” (because we are not such by nature and in substance [φύσει καὶ οὐσίᾳ]), since the fault would fall on the Creator, but it is the disposition of mind in which we persevere, the worst and lasting disposition that is communicated from father to son and transformed, so to speak, into “nature” for having taken root in us (οἷον εἰπεῖν διὰ τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν ῥιζωθῆναι εἰς φύσιν μεταποιηθεῖσαν) that the Apostle here probably has called “nature” (φύσιν). And it is in this sense that we also understand what is said in the Wisdom: “Indeed, all men are naturally (φύσει) vain, in whom is the ignorance of God” (Wis. 13:1). And in this book of Wisdom we find the proper meaning of “nature” (φύσεως), where he says: “Indeed, the universal Craftsman, Wisdom, taught me so that I know the constitution of the world and the activity of the elements, the natures (φύσεις) of animals and the tempers of wild beasts” (Wis. 7:21.17.20); but also in the Catholic Epistle of Saint James: “All natures (πᾶσα φύσις), he says, of irrational beings are being tamed by human nature (τῇ φύσει τῇ ἀνθρωπίνῃ)” (Jas. 3:7). And it is still in the coryphaeus of the holy Apostles that we find the proper meaning of “nature” (φύσεως). And we find this: “So that, escaping all the lust and corruption in the world, you may enter into communion with the divine nature (φύσεως)” (2Pet. 1:4); and again: “But these people, as irrational beasts naturally (φυσικά) made to be taken and destroyed” (2Pet. 2:12). So much for the meaning of these two terms, nature and substance.’ 19 See Pseudo-Athanasius, De incarnatione contra Apollinarem, ACO II 2, 8, ed. Rudolf Riedinger (Berlin, 1990), 238.16-24; Apollinaris, Fides secundum partem, Dossier grec de l’Union de Lyon (1273-1277), ed. Jean Darrouzès and Vitalien Laurent, Archives de l’Orient Chrétien 16 (Paris, 1976), 339.17-22; and also De Trinitate, Didymus der Blinde. De Trinitate, Buch 2, Kapitel 1-7, ed. Ingrid Seiler, Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 52 (Meisenheim am Glan, 1975), 190.1-3. 20 See Epiphanius I. Ancoratus und Panarion, ed. Karl Holl, GCS 25 (Leipzig, 1915), 96.23-7 and Epiphanius II. Panarion on haer. 34-64, ed. Karl Holl, GCS 31 (Leipzig, 1922), 251.1-6; 380.13-5; 409.19-22. 21 See Apophtegmata Patrum, Les Apophtegmes des Pères. Collection systématique, chapitres I-IX, ed. Jean-Claude Guy, SC 387 (Paris, 1993), 136-28 and ibid., PG 65, 124C. 22 Cyril of Alexandria, De recta fide ad Arcadiam et Marinam, ACO I 1, 5, ed. Eduard Schwartz (1927), 69.23-5: ‘Indeed, they pay no heed to the union in nature and truth (ἑνώσεως […] τῆς κατὰ φύσιν καὶ ἀληθοῦς), although this is the straight and surest way of mystery (of the Incarnation), and the reason they give is not authentic: on the contrary, it is filled with bitterness and deception.’ So does Didymus himself at the end of the passage of the Contra Manichæos quoted above where, right after having distinguished φύσει (‘in fact’) from κατὰ φύσιν (‘by nature’), he uses φύσει in the sense of ‘by nature’.

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Why such a reading of the ‘sons of wrath’ through a grammatical debate? A first answer could be that it is an expression of Didymus’ literary personality, as we can see in many other cases.23 He has a taste for reduction, binary systems, oppositions, and in general a certain tendency to harmonize Origen’s thought. But let us be more kind. A second answer might run as follows: Didymus’ assimilation could be a consequence of the polemical context against the Manichaeans. Indeed, Origen assumes that all men are by nature ‘sons of wrath’: every living man, whatever his age, has a potential for sin and is actually a sinner, as demonstrated by the previous quotations. But, to stress the difference between his positions and the one of the dualists postulating an evil independent from will, a substantial evil, Didymus has reduced Origen’s heritage to the free orientation of will towards good or evil, that is to say Origen’s interpretation when talking about filiation apart from Eph. 2:3. On the one hand, Origen admits that one is son of God or son of the Devil by will in accomplishing God’s or Satan’s deeds, but on the other hand, according to Eph. 2:3, he seems to admit that men come into the world with a natural ‘security flaw’: ‘sons of wrath by nature’. In an anti-Manichaean context, this position would have been perceived as a boon to the adversary who believes that every man has a part of evil in his nature and may have read this passage from the Apostle, one of their favorite authors, as a confirmation of the Manichaean doctrine. That is why Didymus exhibits a double simplification in his way of being Origenian. First, Eph. 2:3 is regarded just like all the other cases of filiation, whatever his protological speculation may be: a result of free will indulging in a specific vice, anger in this case; second, Origen’s doctrine is reduced to an opposition between those who consider that evil exists by nature and those who profess radical freedom, that is to say the orthodox Christians believing that evil is a privation of good and a freely accepted, perverted orientation of will. In a modern sense, Didymus is more Manichaean than Origen. His world is painted in black and white. But when reducing Origen’s thought, he manages to preserve human nature from a possible identification with sin. And this aggiornamento may have been worth the price.

23

See, for another characteristic example, our work on Didymus’ exegesis of death by comparison with Origen in ‘Quand une pensée vivante devient scolaire : l’exégèse origénienne du θάνατος relue par Didyme’ (forthcoming).

La traduction de παράκλητος dans les citations bibliques des Pères de l’Église latins : Paracletus, aduocatus ou consolator ? Marie FREY RÉBEILLÉ-BORGELLA – HiSoMA - UMR 5129, Institut des Sources Chrétiennes, Lyon, France

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the different ways the Latin Fathers dealt with the translation of the Greek word παράκλητος in their quotations of the Gospel of John and the First Letter of John. Since the beginning of the Christian era, παράκλητος has been known to be an ambiguous word, with two different meanings: ‘advocate’ or ‘helper’, but also ‘comforter’. There has been no unanimity on the matter neither among the Greek Fathers nor among the Latin. How was this ambiguity dealt with when it came to the Latin translations of the Greek New Testament and the quotation of these translations? We first present the long-time debate on the precise meaning of παράκλητος. Then we explore the patristic uses of quotations from the Johannic corpus. Thirdly, we make a comparison between the patristical quotations of the John verses on the Paraclete and the textual tradition of the Biblical texts, the Old Latin and the translation known as the Vulgate. In the beginning of the Latin Patristic era, there doesn’t seem to be much link between the Biblical translations used in the Latin Christian world, whereas in the end of the era, the Latin Fathers and the Latin translations of the Bible are using the same pattern to translate the different uses of παράκλητος.

Le grec παράκλητος est attesté cinq fois dans le Nouveau Testament : quatre fois dans le discours d’adieu du Christ de l’Évangile de Jean (Jn 14:16 ; Jn 14:26 ; Jn 15:26 ; Jn 16:7) et une fois dans la Première lettre de Jean (1Jn 2:1). La signification exacte de ce terme dans les discours d’adieu du Christ a été l’objet de nombreux débats, depuis les débuts de l’ère patristique jusqu’à nos jours. L’objectif de cette étude est d’étudier les traductions des pères de l’Église latins quand ils citent ces versets1 : s’agit-il d’un choix volontaire ou reprennentils le texte biblique qu’ils ont sous la main ? Ceux qui emploient une traduction qui leur est personnelle tranchent-ils entre les différentes interprétations possibles du grec ? Distinguent-ils lexicalement le Paraclet des Évangiles et celui de l’épître johannique ? Ou bien choisissent-ils de ne pas traduire et de translittérer le grec en Paracletus / Paraclitus ? Les citations johanniques qui ne procèdent 1 Le présent article exclut donc de son champ d’étude les commentaires bibliques de la patristique latine sur les cinq versets johanniques étudiés.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 271-288. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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pas d’une traduction personnelle de l’auteur sont quant à elle susceptibles de compléter les données fournies par les Vieilles Latines, ce qui est particulièrement important dans le cas de la première épître dont très peu de manuscrits vieux-latins sont conservés. 1. Παράκλητος dans le Nouveau Testament Cinq versets du Nouveau Testament emploient le terme παράκλητος2. Texte grec κἀγὼ ἐρωτήσω τὸν πατέρα καὶ ἄλλον παράκλητον δώσει ὑμῖν, ἵνα μεθ’ ὑμῶν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα ᾖ (‘Et je prierai le Père et il vous donnera un autre Paraclet, pour qu’il soit à jamais avec vous’3, Jn 14:16) Vulgate et ego rogabo Patrem et alium paracletum dabit uobis ut maneat uobiscum in aeternum Texte grec ὁ δὲ παράκλητος, τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, ὃ πέμψει ὁ πατὴρ ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου, ἐκεῖνος ὑμᾶς διδάξει πάντα καὶ ὑπομνήσει ὑμᾶς πάντα ἃ εἶπον ὑμῖν [ἐγώ] (‘Mais le Paraclet, l’Esprit Saint, que le Père enverra en mon nom, lui, vous enseignera tout et vous rappellera tout ce que je vous ai dit’, Jn 14:26) Vulgate Paracletus autem Spiritus Sanctus quem mittet Pater in nomine me ille uos docebit omnia et suggeret uobis omnia quaecumque dixero uobis Texte grec ὅταν ἔλθῃ ὁ παράκλητος ὃν ἐγὼ πέμψω ὑμῖν παρὰ τοῦ πατρός, τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας ὃ παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται, ἐκεῖνος μαρτυρήσει περὶ ἐμοῦ (‘Lorsque viendra le Paraclet, que je vous enverrai d’auprès du Père, l’Esprit de vérité, qui vient du Père, me rendra témoignage’, Jn 15:26) Vulgate cum autem uenerit Paracletus quem ego mittam uobis a Patre Spiritum ueritatis qui a Patre procedit ille testimonium perhiberbit de me Texte grec ἐὰν γὰρ μὴ ἀπέλθω, ὁ παράκλητος οὐκ ἐλεύσεται πρὸς ὑμᾶς. ἐὰν δὲ πορευθῶ, πέμψω αὐτὸν πρὸς ὑμᾶς (‘Car si je ne pars pas, le Paraclet ne viendra pas vers vous ; mais si je pars, je vous l’enverrai’, Jn 16:7) Vulgate si non abiero Paracletus non ueniet ad uos si autem abiero mittam eum ad eos Texte grec καὶ ἐάν τις ἁμάρτῃ, παράκλητον ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν δίκαιον (‘Mais si quelqu’un vient à pécher, nous avons comme avocat auprès du Père Jésus Chris, le Juste’, 1Jn 2:1) Vulgate sed si quid peccauerit aduocatum habemus apud Patrem Iesum Christum iustum

La différence de traduction entre l’évangile et l’épître dans la Vulgate pourrait s’expliquer par le fait que les traductions des deux textes n’ont très probablement pas été révisées par les mêmes personnes. 2 Eberhard Nestle, Barbara Aland et Kurt Aland (éd.), Novum Testamentum Graece, 28e éd. (Stuttgart, 2012). 3 La traduction française citée est celle de La Bible de Jérusalem, nouvelle édition entièrement revue et augmentée (Paris, 2000).

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2. La signification de παράκλητος : un débat ancien Avant d’entrer dans l’étude détaillée des traductions, il est important d’exposer les difficulétés d’interprétation de παράκλητος. Selon D. Pastorelli, ‘la signification du terme παράκλητος s’avère insaisissable et le nombre de tentatives pour l’expliquer est proportionnel à la difficulté à résoudre’4. La perspective de l’étude de D. Pastorelli est théologique et sémantique : l’auteur s’essaye, à son tour, à une tentative d’élucidation du sens du terme grec. Pour ce faire, il commence par un état des lieux des interprétations et exégèses passées auxquels le mot a donné lieu, puis étudie les différents signifiés attribués au terme dans la littérature antique. L’objet de notre propre étude étant traductologique et non théologique, c’est sur ce point du travail de D. Pastorelli que nous voudrions insister pour asseoir notre réflexion. Les dictionnaires et études sémantiques, rappelle-t-il, qu’il s’agisse des ouvrages généralistes comme celui de LiddellScott-Jones5 ou de ceux consacrés spécifiquement au grec du Nouveau Testament et des Pères de l’Église, comme ceux de W. Bauer6 et J.H. Moulton et G. Milligan7, ont longtemps analysé παράκλητος comme un terme appartenant à l’idiolecte judiciaire, désignant un avocat. W. Bauer fait remarquer que le sens analysé, ‘celui qui est appelé à l’aide de quelqu’un’, a conduit les auteurs latins à le traduire généralement par aduocatus, sans entrer dans le détail des traductions latines du terme8. Cette spécialisation juridique est remise en question en 1981 par K. Grayston, qui propose de voir dans le mot un terme plus général désignant un appui, un garant, un protecteur, ce qui conduit parfois à un usage juridique du terme9. Cependant, les études modernes sur παράκλητος sont dans leur ensemble influencées par l’article de J. Behm dans le Theological Dictionary of the New Testament10. Or, à la suite de J. Barr11, D. Pastorelli reproche à ‘l’ensemble des études lexicales qui s’inscrivent dans son sillage [d’adopter] deux postulats de base implicites : d’une part, l’identification entre un mot et un concept, et d’autre part, le recours systématique à l’étymologie’. 4

David Pastorelli, Le Paraclet dans le corpus johannique (Berlin, 2012), 40-104. Henry Liddell, Robert Scott et Henry Stuart Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon with a revised supplement, 9e éd. révisée (Oxford, 1996). 6 Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature: a translation and adaptation of Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur, 4e éd. révisée et augmentée traduite par William F. Arndt et Felix W. Gingrich (Chicago, 1957). 7 James Hope Moulton et George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (Londres, 1914-29). 8 Walter Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon (1957), “παράκλητος”, 623. 9 Kenneth Grayston, ‘The Meaning of PARAKLETOS’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 13 (1981), 67-82. 10 Gerhard Kittel (éd.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, traduit par Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 10 vol. (Grand Rapids, 1964-74). 11 James Barr, Sémantique du langage biblique (Paris, 1971). 5

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Autrement dit, ces études postulent que παράκλητος désigne toujours une même fonction et recouvre toujours une seule et unique réalité. Cette remarque est d’importance pour l’appréhension des mécanismes de traduction du terme chez les traducteurs des Bibles latines : associaient-ils eux aussi toutes les occurrences johanniques de παράκλητος à un seul et même concept ou bien était-il nécessaire pour eux de distinguer les deux et de marquer lexicalement une éventuelle différence conceptuelle ? De la lecture des études sémantiques de παράκλητος, on pourrait déduire que l’interprétation du terme en ‘défenseur, avocat’ a dominé dans l’exégèse grecque et latine. Or D. Pastorelli12 fait remarquer que, même si ‘la plupart des Pères de l’Église qui se réfèrent au terme παράκλητος le font à travers le prisme du NT qui l’emploie pour le Christ (1Jn 2:1) et surtout pour l’Esprit Saint (Jn 14:16.26; 15:26; 16:7) […] la sémantique patristique connait une diversité remarquable, preuve de la divergence des interprétations des occurrences johanniques’. Il ajoute que ‘les Pères grecs et latins comprennent παράκλητος selon deux sens principaux : celui d’‘intercesseur, [d’]‘avocat’ (aduocatus) et celui de ‘consolateur’ (consolator)’. C’est précisément la distinction dans les traductions latines entre ces deux sens qui est au cœur de notre enquête. Or, en rapport avec le sens actif de παρακαλέω dans la Septante (‘consoler’), Origène voit dans le παράκλητος un consolateur13. Cette interprétation, mêlée à celle d’‘intercesseur’, a été reprise par Cyrille de Jérusalem et Didyme. L’enquête menée par D. Pastorelli montre donc que, dès les origines du christianisme, les lecteurs et locuteurs chrétiens, qu’ils soient de langue grecque ou de langue latine, ont compris que παράκλητος n’était pas du tout un terme univoque. 3. Les traductions vieilles-latines de παράκλητος dans l’évangile de Jean Si une partie des choix de traduction de παράκλητος dans le corpus johannique peut être expliquée par la visée – exégétique ou polémique – de l’œuvre citant ces versets, beaucoup ne sont pas justifiés par ceux qui les ont opérés, bien que certains d’entre eux expriment leur conscience des difficultés d’interprétation du terme grec qu’ils traduisent. La comparaison avec la tradition textuelle des Vieilles Latines et de la Vulgate permet-elle d’y voir plus clair ? L’édition du discours d’adieu de l’évangile de Jean dans la Vetus Latina n’a pas encore été publiée. Cependant, l’édition électronique des principaux manuscrits retenus par P.H. Burton, H.A.G. Houghton, R.F. Maclachlan et D.C. Parker pour l’édition imprimée à venir, Vetus Latina Johannes. The Verbum Project. The Old 12 13

D. Pastorelli, Le Paraclet (2012), 91. Ibid. 93-4.

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Latin Manuscripts of John’s Gospel, incluant une base de données synoptique de tous les versets de l’évangile14, nous a permis d’étudier les variantes de la tradition textuelle. Elles sont représentées dans le tableau suivant. Manuscrit

Jn 14:16

Jn 14:26

Jn 15:26

Jn 16:7

VL 2

aduocatum

paracletus

aduocatus

aduocatus

VL 3

ad uocatum

paracletus

paracletus

[paracle] [tus]

VL 4

paracletum

paracletus

[parac]le tus

paracletus

VL 5

paracletum

paracletus

paracletus

paracletus

VL 6

aduocatum

paraclitus

paraclitus

paraclitus

VL 7

paracletum

c

paracli(e )tus

paracletus

paracletus

VL 8

paraclitum

paraclitus

pa Raclitus

paraclitus

VL 9

paracletum paracli(ec)tus

paracli(ec)tus

paracli(ec)tus

paracletus

paracletus

VL 9A VL 10

paracletum

paracletus

VL 10A

paracletum

paracletus

VL 11

*

paraclitus

paraclitus

paraclitus

VL 11A

paraclitum

paraclitus

paraclitus

paraclitus

VL 13

aduocatum

aduocatus

aduocatus

aduocatus

VL 14

consolatorem

con[s][o][l]ator aduo [c]atus

consolatu(oc)r paracletus

VL 15

paracletum

paracletus

paracletus

VL 16

*

*

paracletus

VL 18

*

*

*

*

VL 20

*

*

*

*

VL 22

*

*

*

*

VL 22A

*

*

*

*

VL 23

*

*

*

*

VL 24

*

*

*

*

VL 25

*

*

*

*

VL 27

para κ letum

paracletus

paracletus

paracletus

VL 28

*

*

paracletus

*

VL 29

paraclytum

paraclytus

paraclitus

paraclytus

14

Voir http://www.iohannes.com/vetuslatina/edition/index.html

M. FREY RÉBEILLÉ-BORGELLA

276 VL 30

paraclitum

paraclitus

paraclitus

paraclitus

VL 32

[pa]r[aclitum]

*

[paracli] [tus]

[paracletus]

VL 33

paracletum

paracletus

paracletus

paracletus

VL 34

*

*

*

*

VL 35

paraclietum

paracletus

paraclietus

paraclietus

VL 39

*

*

*

*

VL 40

*

*

*

*

VL 46

paraclytum

paraclitus

*

VL 47

paraclitum

paracli tus

paraclitus

paraclitus

VL 48

paracletum

paracletus

paracletus

paracletus

VL 49

*

*

*

*

La synthèse des données montre que la très grande majorité des manuscrits – dont aucun ne transmet la Première lettre de Jean15 – contient paracletus ou paracletus dans les quatre versets évangéliques et harmonise la traduction des quatre versets. Seuls deux manuscrits utilise aduocatus pour les quatre versets. Il s’agit de VL 2, le plus ancien témoin africain de l’évangile de Jean, et de VL 13, un manuscrit copié en Illyrie ou en Italie du Nord au VIe ou VIIe siècle16. 4. La traduction de παράκλητος dans le corpus patristique La consultation croisée des bases de données Biblindex17 et The Library of Latin Texts – A18 nous a permis d’effectuer un relevé se voulant le plus complet possible des emplois de leur traduction dans le corpus patristique latin. Le tableau suivant, qui classe les occurrences par auteur selon l’ordre chronologique, présente une synthèse des données obtenues. Auteurs

Siècle e

e

Jn 14:16

Tertullien

II -III

aduocatus

Novatien

IIIe

aduocatus

15

Jn 14:26

Jn 15:26

Jn 16:7

1Jn 2:1

aduocatus aduocatus

La liste des manuscrits vieux-latins contenant le texte de la Première lettre de Jean est donnée dans l’édition de la Vetus Latina, Walther Thiele (éd.), Vetus Latina: die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel, 26/1, Epistulae catholicae (Beuron, 1956-69). 16 Pour une étude détaillée des manuscrits vieux-latins du Nouveau Testament, voir Hugh A.G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament: A Guide to its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts (Oxford, 2016). 17 http://www.biblindex.mom.fr/ [consulté le 8 janvier 2020]. 18 http://clt.brepolis.net/llta/pages/QuickSearch.aspx [consulté le 8 janvier 2020].

La traduction de παράκλητος dans les citations bibliques

Novatien Marius Victorinus Marius Victorinus

IIIe

paraclitus paraclitus

e

paraclitus

IV IV

e

CPL 0105

IV

IVe

Lucifer de Cagliari Ambroise de Milan

aduocatus

e

CPL 0105

IV

paraclitus paraclitus aduocatus paraclitus

e

aduocatus

e

paraclitus Paracletus

e

paracletus

IV

paraclitus paraclitus paraclitus aduocatus

Ambrosiaster

IV

Isaac

IVe

Hilaire de Poitiers (De Trinitate)

IVe

paracletus

Hilaire de Poitiers (De Trinitate)

IVe

aduocatus

aduocatus aduocatus

Grégoire d’Elvire

IVe

aduocatus

aduocatus

Rufin (traductions de)

IVe-Ve

paracletus paracletus

paracletus

paracletus

e

IV -V

e

paracletus

e

IV -V

e

paracletus paracletus

Augustin (Contra sermonem Arrianorum)

e

IV -V

e

paracletus

Augustin (Conlatio cum Maximino)

IVe-Ve

aduocatus

Maxime de Turin Augustin

Augustin (De Trinitate) IVe-Ve Augustin (Lettres)

e

IV -V

277

paracletus

paracletus paracletus aduocatus aduocatus

aduocatus aduocatus

aduocatus

e

aduocatus

Augustin (De Trinitate) IVe-Ve

paraclitus

Consultationes Zacchaei Apollonii

IVe-Ve

paraclitus

Ps.-Vigile de Thapse

IVe-Ve

Ps.-Vigile de Thapse

e

IV -V

e

Ps.-Vigile de Thapse

e

IV -V

e

paracletus

e

e

aduocatus

aduocatus

aduocatus consolator paraclitus

Victrice de Rouen

IV -V

Jérôme (Commentaire sur Isaïe)

IVe-Ve

consolator consolator

consolator consolator

Jérôme (Commentaire sur Isaïe)

IVe-Ve

paracletus

paracletus paracletus

Jérôme (Contre Jovinien)

IVe-Ve

aduocatus

M. FREY RÉBEILLÉ-BORGELLA

278 Jérôme (traduction de Didyme)

IVe-Ve

Jérôme (traduction de Didyme)

IVe-Ve

consolator

Eucher de Lyon

IVe-Ve

paracletus

paracletus paracletus

paracletus paracletus

V

e

Fauste de Riez

V

e

Vincent de Lérins

Ve

paracletus

V

e

consolator

V

e

Victor de Vita

V

e

Eugène de Carthage

Ve-VIe

Fulgence de Ruspe

Ve-VIe

Quodvultdeus

Orose Vigile de Thapse

Césaire d’Arles Victor de Cartenna

paraclitus paracletus cité avec omission de paracletus

paracletus paracletus

e

e

e

e

e

e

Cassiodore

Ve-VIe e

paracletus

paracletus

aduocatus

paracletus paracletus aduocatus consolator paracletus paracletus

e

Clément d’Alexandrie (trad. latine)

V -VI

Grégoire de Tours

Ve-VIe

Grégoire le Grand

Ve-VIe

Rusticus

Ve-VIe

Bède

paracletus

V -VI V -VI

Isidore de Séville

paracletus

paracletus

V -VI

Historia tripartita (Cassiodore)

Eusèbe Gallican

paracletus paracletus

e

consolator paracletus paracletus paracletus paracletus e

V ou VI e

paracletus paracletus

VII

e

paracletus paracletus aduocatus

e

VII -VIII

paracletus paracletus

paracletus paracletus paracletus aduocatus

Ce tableau appelle cinq remarques. 1) Les citations du verset de la Première lettre de Jean sont plus rares que celle de l’Évangile : elles se trouvent chez quinze auteurs, soit moins de la moitié du total des auteurs du corpus. 2) La translittération de παράκλητος en Paracletus ou Paraclitus est attestée pendant presque toute la durée de l’Antiquité tardive, depuis Marius Victorinus jusqu’à Bède le Vénérable.

La traduction de παράκλητος dans les citations bibliques

279

3) Dans le corpus retenu, sur plus de trente-cinq auteurs, seuls cinq auteurs citent les cinq versets étudiés dans cette communication ; Ambroise, Jérôme, Augustin, Grégoire le Grand et Bède le vénérable. 4) La traduction de παράκλητος par consolator dans une citation des versets johanniques n’apparaît que quatre fois : chez le pseudo-Vigile de Thapse, dans le Commentaire sur Isaïe de Jérôme, chez Paul Orose et dans une traduction du VIe siècle de Clément d’Alexandrie. La grande majorité de notre corpus choisit donc entre le calque phonétique (ou la translittération) en Paracletus / Paraclitus et la traduction par calque morphologique en aduocatus. 5) À la fin de la période chronologique considérée, le choix de la translittération Paracletus / Paraclitus semble s’être imposé dans la latinité chrétienne. Plusieurs cas de figures se présentent : soit les auteurs de notre corpus ont recours au même terme latin pour traduire παράκλητος dans leurs citations des versets de l’Évangile et de la Première Lettre de Jean, soit ils marquent une différence entre la traduction de παράκλητος dans l’Évangile et dans la Première lettre de Jean, soit – c’est plus rare – ils citent les versets de l’Évangile avec plusieurs traductions différentes. 4.1. Les traductions personnelles de la Bible 4.1.1. Un même terme latin traduit παράκλητος Parmi tous les Pères latins citant le corpus johannique sur le Paraclet, les citations de traduction de Tertullien19, Marius Victorinus20 et Ambroise de Milan21 nous intéressent particulièrement. En effet, ces auteurs ont recours à des traductions personnelles de la Bible qui peuvent diverger de celles qu’ils ont sous les yeux. Tertullien cite Jn 14:1622 et 1Jn 2:123 en employant dans les deux cas aduocatus. Ce choix de traduction est expliqué dans le traité Sur la monogamie: In hoc quoque paracletum agnoscere debes aduocatum, quod a tota continentia infirmitatem tuam excusat.24 Dans ce Paraclet aussi tu dois reconnaître le défenseur, parce qu’il excuse l’infirmité qui t’éloigne de la continence totale. 19

Cf. H.A.G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament (2016), 6-7. Ibid. 23-4. 21 Cf. Camille Gerzaguet, ‘Ambroise de Milan et le texte des Écritures. Citer, comparer et traduire’, dans Smaranda Marculescu Badilita et Laurence Mellerin (éd.), Le Miel des Écritures, Cahiers de BIBLINDEX 1 (Turnhout, 2015), 249-67 et H.A.G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament (2016), 30. 22 Tertullien, Contre Praxeas, 9. 23 Tertullien, Sur la pudeur, 19. 24 Tertullien, Sur la monogamie, 3. 20

M. FREY RÉBEILLÉ-BORGELLA

280

Marius Victorinus choisit de rendre παράκλητος par paraclitus, jamais par aduocatus. Toutes ses citations des versets johanniques de notre corpus se trouvent dans le Contre Arius25. Contrairement à ce que fera Augustin dans son œuvre polémique, Marius Victorinus préfère expliquer le sens du terme plutôt que d’avoir recours à un terme latin antérieur à l’époque chrétienne dans ses citations bibliques. Manifestum ex his, quod in Christo Deus et in sancto spiritu Christus; primum Paraclitus Christus, Paraclitus Sanctus Spiritus; deinde misit Christum Deus.26 Il apparaît de là que Dieu est dans le Christ, que le Christ est dans l’Esprit-Saint ; d’abord le Christ est Paraclet et l’Esprit Saint est Paraclet ; ensuite, Dieu a envoyé le Christ.

Comme Marius Victorinus, Ambroise de Milan, qui cite aussi l’épître en plus des versets évangéliques, n’emploie que paraclitus pour traduire notre texte grec. Il est le seul auteur de notre corpus à faire ce choix en citant la totalité des versets sur le Paraclet. Sur les quinze occurrences des versets johanniques, dix sont dans le seul Traité sur l’Esprit saint. – Jn 14:16 : Traité sur l’évangile de saint Luc. II (deux citations) ; Sur la foi II, 9 ; Traité sur l’Esprit Saint I, 4 ; I, 14 ; II, 3 – Jn 14:26 : Traité sur l’Esprit Saint I, 13 ; III, 1 – Jn 15:26 : Explications sur les Psaumes LXI, 9, 1 ; Sur la foi II, 9 ; Traité sur l’Esprit Saint I, 1 ; I, 11 ; III, 1 – Jn 16:7 : Sur la foi IV, 2 ; Traité sur l’Esprit Saint III, 6 1Jn 2:1 : Traité sur l’Esprit Saint I, 13. Selon C. Gerzaguet, ‘Ambroise accorde, de fait, une très grande importance au choix du mot juste ou de l’expression exacte. Aussi, faire la part entre traductions disponibles et traductions personnelles sans un contexte clair permettant de trancher la question demeure une entreprise malaisée.’27

Il n’est pas impossible que le choix du terme dans la traduction de l’Évangile de Jean relève d’un attachement aux traductions disponibles, lesquelles le conduisent à une retraduction personnelle dans la Première lettre de Jean pour souligner la continuité entre la mission de l’Esprit et du Christ dans le corpus johannique. 25

26 27

Jn 14:16 : Marius Victorinus, Contre Arius, 1A, 11 ; 3, 14 ; Jn 14:26 : Marius Victorinus, Ar., 1A, 12 ; 3, 14 ; Jn 15:26 : Marius Victorinus, Ar., 1A, 13 ; Jn 16:7 : Marius Victorinus, Ar., 1A, 13. Marius Victorinus, Contre Arius, I, 12, trad. P. Hadot, SC 68 (Paris, 1960), 213. C. Gerzaguet, ‘Ambroise de Milan et le texte des Écritures’ (2015), 249-67.

La traduction de παράκλητος dans les citations bibliques

281

Les choix de traduction d’Augustin d’Hippone méritent aussi notre attention. En effet, ce dernier semble avoir préféré à la retraduction personnelle des textes qu’il citait des corrections à partir des manuscrits bibliques sur lesquels il se basait28. Alors qu’il emploie aussi bien paracletus qu’aduocatus dans ses citations de l’Évangile de Jean, il a toujours recours à aduocatus dans ses citations de la Première Épître29 : – Jn 14:16 (paracletus) : Sur la Trinité I, 8 – Jn 14:16 (paracletus) : Lettres. CXLVIII, 6 ; Homélies sur l’Évangile de saint Jean LXXIV, 1 – Jn 14:26 (aduocatus) : Sur la Trinité I, 12 ; Conférence avec Maximin XII – Jn 14:26 (paracletus) : Sermons populaires CCLXVA – Jn 15:26 (paracletus) : Homélies sur l’Évangile de saint Jean XCII, 1 – Jn 15:26 (aduocatus) : Sur la Trinité II, 3 – Jn 16:7 (aduocatus) : Sur la Trinité I, 8 ; Contre les sermons ariens XIX, 9 – Jn 16:7 (paracletus) : Homélies sur l’Évangile de saint Jean LXXIV, 4 – 1Jn 2:1 (aduocatus): Lettres CXLIX, 14 ; Spec. XLVII ; Homélies sur l’Évangile de saint Jean LII, 9 ; Homélies sur la première épître de saint Jean I, 1983 ; Psalm. XXXVI, 2, 20 ; Contre les sermons ariens XIX, 9 L’évêque d’Hippone emploie majoritairement paracletus ou paraclitus. Aduocatus en traduction de παράκλητος n’apparaît que dans trois œuvres. Dans le Traité sur l’évangile de Jean, le choix est toujours fait de la translittération, paracletus. Le recours à aduocatus est d’autant plus remarquable que, quand il apparaît, c’est toujours dans des œuvres à visée polémiques : le Traité sur la trinité, la Conférence avec Maximin, et le Contre la doctrine des Ariens30. Cependant, dans ce dernier texte, il emploie aussi paracletus pour citer Jn 14:16. Le fait de réserver aduocatus à un contexte spécifique peut s’interpréter ainsi : en contexte exégétique, Augustin ne ressent pas le besoin de trancher la question de la signification exacte de παράκλητος, avocat ou consolateur. En revanche, quand il s’agit de promouvoir l’égale importance des trois personnes de la Trinité, l’évêque d’Hippone fait le choix de mettre l’accent sur la fonction de la troisième hypostase trinitaire. Les citations hiéronymiennes semblent elles aussi procéder d’un choix traductologique réfléchi. Jérôme n’emploie en effet aduocatus que dans le seul 28

Cf. Hugh A.G. Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John. Patristic Citations and Latin Gospel Manuscripts (Oxford, 2008), 16. 29 En raison du nombre important de citations de notre corpus chez Augustin et des contraintes de la présente édition, nous ne pouvons pas en donner la liste exhaustive ici, mais nous avons choisi de citer les plus représentatives, celles qui permettent de déterminer les principes des choix traductologiques d’Augustin. 30 Remarquons cependant que dans le Contre Faustus et le Contre Félix, la traduction des versets étudiés cités par Augustin emploie aduocatus.

282

M. FREY RÉBEILLÉ-BORGELLA

passage où il cite la Première Lettre, et utilise aussi bien paracletus que consolator dans ses citations de l’Évangile de Jean : – – – – – – – –

Jn 14:16 (paracletus) : Sur Isaïe XVII, 63, 8 Jn 14:16 (consolator) : Sur Isaïe XI, 40, 1 Jn 14:26 (consolator, citation concaténée avec Jn 15:26) : Sur Isaïe XI, 40, 1 Jn 15:26 (paracletus) : Sur Isaïe XVI, 57, 16 Jn 15:26 (consolator) : Sur Isaïe XI, 40, 1 Jn 16:7 (paracletus) : Sur Isaïe XVI, 57, 16 Jn 16:7 (consolator) : Sur Isaïe XI, 40, 1 1Jn 2:1 (aduocatus) : Contre Jovinien II, 2 (quatre occurrences)

De manière plus générale, la forme aduocatus, qu’elle soit adjectivale, participiale ou substantivée, est quasiment absente de l’œuvre hiéronymienne : la consultation de The Library of Latin Texts ne fait ressortir que six occurrences, dont quatre dans le seul Contre Jovinien. Quant à ses citations de notre corpus, elles se trouvent uniquement dans son Commentaire sur Isaïe, et il traduit παράκλητος aussi bien par paracletus que par consolator. Le choix de rendre παράκλητος par consolator se trouve également, en concomitance avec paracletus, dans sa traduction du Traité du Saint-Esprit de Didyme l’Aveugle31. Or le traité de Didyme consacre une section entière à une exégèse de la consolation de Jn 15:26. Le développement sur la mission consolatrice du Père et de l’Esprit Saint, dans l’Ancien et dans le Nouveau Testament, est développé en s’appuyant, entre autres, sur des versets des Psaumes (Ps 4:8) et du livre d’Isaïe (Is. 48:16 et 57:16). Ces rapprochements scripturaires à des fins exégétiques font écho aux traductions de Jérôme de παράκλητος par consolator et aux emplois par Jérôme de ces mêmes versets dans ses propres œuvres. Nous venons de voir que ceux-ci se trouvent uniquement dans le Commentaire sur Isaïe, et plus précisément dans une section consacrée au commentaire d’Is. 40:1. Le texte du verset que cite Jérôme est le même que celui de sa révision de la traduction latine du livre biblique : Consolamini, consolamini, populus meus, dicit Deus uester Consolez, consolez, mon peuple, dit votre Dieu.

Or le terme grec employé par les Septante pour traduire l’hébreu ‫( נָ ַחם‬nāḥam) dans ce verset – que traduit le consolari de Jérôme – est παρακαλεῖν, dont παράκλητος est l’adjectif verbal. Comme nous l’avons exposé au début de cet article, ce rapprochement sémantique et exégétique apparaît peu dans les citations des Pères de l’Église latine des versets bibliques sur le Paraclet. On le trouve néanmoins sous d’autres formes que la citation de versets bibliques où 31 Didyme l’Aveugle, Traité du Saint-Esprit, CX, l. 7-8, éd. Louis Doutreleau, SC 386 (Paris, 1992).

La traduction de παράκλητος dans les citations bibliques

283

consolator traduirait παράκλητος, notamment chez Augustin32, Jérôme33, Victor de Vita34, Eugène de Carthage35, Fulgence de Ruspe36, dans la collection attribuée à un Eugène Gallican37, chez Isidore de Séville38 et Bède le Vénérable39. Mais le volume que représentent ces citations et les versets johanniques comprenant consolator est faible, ce qui fait que le rapprochement exégétique entre la fonction du Paraclet et la consolation divine reste marginal chez les Pères latins, et qu’il a dans la tradition latine une importance bien moindre que dans la tradition grecque. Jérôme n’est pas le seul auteur à employer consolator pour rendre παράκλητος. Cette traduction se trouve également chez Paul Orose40, le pseudo-Vigile de Thapse41 et dans la traduction latine de Clément d’Alexandrie – où elle figure dans la traduction de l’épître42, ce qui ne fait écho à aucun autre témoin de la tradition textuelle biblique latine ni à aucune autre citation patristique latine. En ce qui concerne la tradition manuscrite vieille-latine, seul un manuscrit irlandais du VIe si-siècle, le Codex Usserianus Primus (VL 14), qui porte un texte typiquement gallo-irlandais43, l’atteste. Les manuscrits irlandais ont beaucoup circulé en Europe pendant les missions évangélisatrices des moines. L’emploi de consolator par Jérôme s’expliquait par des motifs exégétiques. Orose, le pseudo-Vigile et le traducteur de Clément d’Alexandrie (proche de Cassiodore) ont-ils été en contact avec des manuscrits ou des copies de manuscrits de Vieilles Latines originaires d’Irlande ou ont-ils choisi de suivre les leçons de Jérôme par fidélité à son exégèse ? Nous ne pouvons ni prouver ni exclure ces deux hypothèses. Le cas de Rufin d’Aquilée est plus délicat. En effet, il a l’habitude de traduire directement sur la version grecque de l’auteur qu’il traduit44. Mais il cite et les versets évangéliques et celui de l’épître avec le latin paracletus / paraclitus45, 32

Voir notamment Homélies sur l’Évangile de saint Jean XCIV, 2 et Contre Faustus XIII, 17. Jérôme de Stridon, Lettres CXX, 55, 9. 34 Victor de Vita, Histoire des persécutions de la province d’Afrique II, 93. 35 Eugène de Carthage, Libelles, XCIII, 66. 36 Fulgence de Ruspe, Fragments contre Fabianus II, 6. 37 CChr.SL 101, IX, l. 210. 38 Isidore de Séville, Etymologies VII, 3, 10. 39 Cf. supra. 40 Jn 16:7 : Paul Orose, Apologie contre les pélagiens, X, 5. 41 Jn 15:26 : Ps-Vigile de Thapse, Contre Varimadus l’Arien, III, 28. 42 1Jn 2:1 : Clément d’Alexandrie (traduction latine), Sur les lettres canoniques. Sur la première lettre de Jean, 2, 1. 43 H.A.G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament (2016), 218. 44 Cf. ibid., 35-6. 45 Jn 14:16 : Rufin d’Aquilée, Règle de saint Basile, CXXIV, 1 ; Jn 14:26 : Origène traduit par Rufin, Commentaire sur l’épître aux Romains, IX, 36 ; Jn 15:26 : Origène traduit par Rufin, Traité des principes. I, 3, 4 ; 1Jn 2:1 : Origène traduit par Rufin, Traité des principes, II, 7, 4. 33

284

M. FREY RÉBEILLÉ-BORGELLA

ce qui laisse ouverte l’interprétation de sa traduction de 1Jn 2:1 : est-elle un choix délibérée ou bien reproduit-elle la traduction d’autrui ? 4.1.2. La traduction de παράκλητος varie entre les versets cités Hilaire de Poitiers est le seul auteur traduisant probablement lui-même les textes bibliques qu’il cite46 à varier les traductions de παράκλητος. Le Traité sur la trinité d’Hilaire de Poitiers ne cite que des versets de l’Évangile de Jean, jamais celui de la Première Lettre47. À trois reprises, il traduit παράκλητος par calque morphologique, mais, de manière surprenante, il emploie également la translittération paraclitus en citant Jn 14:16 dans un paragraphe où il cite ce même verset avec aduocatus : Les deux citations de Jn 14:16 sont présentées par Hilaire comme si elles étaient deux citations distinctes, alors qu’il s’agit en réalité de la même, mais citée dans deux traductions différentes : Si iero, mittam uobis aduocatum. Et rursum: Ego rogabo Patrem, et alium aduocatum mittet uobis Spiritum paraclytum. Ipse me clarificabit. Et rursum: Rogabo, inquit, Patrem meum et alium aduocatum mittet uobis ut uobis cum sit in aeternum, Spiritum ueritatis. (Trin. II, 33)

La première citation du verset propose une double traduction dans laquelle παράκλητος est d’abord traduit par aduocatus avant d’être glosé par sa translittération latine. Le choix est quelque peu surprenant : les difficultés d’interprétation du terme grec nous feraient attendre l’inverse, une première traduction par simple translittération puis une glose par traduction avec un terme latin préexistant aux traductions bibliques, tel que aduocatus. Semblable variation se trouve dans un Traité sur la trinité du IVe siècle (CPL 015) dont l’attribution à Eusèbe de Verceil est discutée48 cite deux des versets de l’Évangile de Jean et varie dans ses traductions de παράκλητος.49 Contrairement à Hilaire de Poitiers, la variation de traduction n’est ici pas interne à la citation d’un même verset mais se produit entre deux versets différents. 46

Cf. H.A.G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament (2016), 24-5. Jn 14:16 (aduocatus) : Hilaire de Poitiers, Sur la trinité, II, 33 ; Jn 14:16 (paraclitus) : Hilaire de Poitiers, Sur la trinité, II, 33 ; Jn 15:26 (aduocatus) : Hilaire de Poitiers, Sur la trinité, VIII, 19 ; Jn 16:7 (aduocatus) : Hilaire de Poitiers, Sur la trinité, II, 33. 48 Paul Mattei, ‘Recherches sur la Bible à Rome vers le milieu du IIIe s. Novatien et la Vetus Latina’, RBen (105), 255-79. Sur l’attribution du De Trinitate, voir Manlio Simonetti, ‘Qualche osservazione sul De Trinitate attributo a Eusebio di Vercelli’, Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medioevale 5 (1963), 38693. 49 Jn 15:26 (aduocatus) : Ps.-Eusèbe de Verceil, Sur la Trinité, IV, l. 66 et IV, l. 224 ; Jn 16 :7 (paraclitus) : Ps.-Eusèbe de Verceil, Sur la Trinité, III, 1. 796. 47

La traduction de παράκλητος dans les citations bibliques

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4.2. Les citations de versions existantes Quand les Pères latins ne traduisent pas eux-mêmes les versets sur le Paraclet qu’ils citent et qu’ils citent et l’évangile et l’épître, les deux cas – soit un même terme traduit παράκλητος dans l’évangile et l’épître, soit les versions qu’ils citent comportent deux termes différents – sont attestés. 4.2.1. Un même terme latin traduit παράκλητος dans l’Évangile et dans la Première épître de Jean Ce cas se produit chez trois auteurs : Fauste de Riez, Rufin d’Aquilée et Victor de Vita. Fauste de Riez cite dans ses Deux livres sur l’Esprit saint50 deux des quatre versets de l’Évangile51 et le verset de la Première lettre, en ayant toujours recours au calque phonétique du grec. Les traductions latines de l’ouvrage sont empruntées à la traduction hiéronymienne de Didyme52. Cependant, celle-ci ne cite pas 1Jn 2:1. Si Fauste harmonise la traduction latine des occurrences, il est conscient que le mot grec n’a pas une seule et même signification dans tous ses emplois. Il écrit en effet, toujours dans les Deux livres sur l’Esprit saint : paracletum, id est aduocatum, quod ad personam filii respicit, siue etiam consolatorem, quod ad sanctum spiritum pertinet, una Graeci sermonis enuntiatio utrumque significat53 Au sujet du Paraclet, c’est-à-dire le défenseur, parce qu’il concerne la personne du Fils, ou bien le consolateur, parce qu’il s’agit de l’Esprit Saint, un unique énoncé de la langue grecque contient les deux sens.

Victor de Vita, qui cite lui aussi l’Évangile de Jean et la Première lettre dans son Histoire de la persécution dans la province d’Afrique, cite aussi toujours les versets sur le Paraclet en translittérant en latin le texte grec54. Comme Fauste de Riez, bien qu’il harmonise la traduction de παράκλητος dans les deux livres bibliques, il explicite les deux sens possibles du terme : Paracletus enim aduocatus est uel potius consolator secundum Latinam linguam; quae appellatio etiam filio dei communis est, sicut dicit Iohannes: haec, inquit, scribo uobis,

50

L’édition de référence est celle d’Augustee Engelbrecht, CSEL 21 (Vienne, 1891). Jn 14:16 : Fauste de Riez, Spirit. I, p. 119 ; II, p. 151 ; Jn 16:7 : Fauste de Riez, Spirit. I, p. 118 ; 1Jn 2:1 : Fauste de Riez, Spirit. I, p. 119. 52 Cf. H.A.G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament (2016), 64. 53 ‘Le Paraclet, c’est-à-dire le défenseur, quand il concerne la personne du Fils, ou même le consolateur, quand il se rapporte à l’Esprit : un même terme de la langue grecque signifie chacune de ces choses’ (I, p. 118). 54 Jn 14:16, Victor de Vita, Hist. Prou., II, 93 ; Jn 15:26 : Hist. Prou., II, 90 ; 1Jn 2:1 : Hist. Prou., II, 93. 51

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ne peccetis; sed si quis peccauerit, paracletum habemus apud patrem Iesum Christum. (II, 93) Le Paraclet est en effet l’avocat, ou plutôt le consolateur, selon la langue latine. Cette appellation est même commune avec le fils de Dieu, ainsi que le dit Jean : ‘Je vous écris ceci, dit-il, afin que vous ne péchiez pas ; mais, si l’un de vous venait à pécher, nous avons un Paraclet auprès du Père, Jésus Christ.’

Au total, sur les quinze auteurs et traducteurs chez qui on trouve 1Jn 2:1, seuls quatre – qu’ils traduisent eux-mêmes le texte biblique ou s’appuient sur une version existante – citent des versions bibliques harmonisant la traduction de παράκλητος dans ce verset et dans les citations des Évangiles. L’harmonisation se fait toujours dans le sens du choix du calque phonétique paracletus. Aucun auteur ne donne un texte biblique rendant παράκλητος uniquement par aduocatus ou consolator. 4.2.2. Des termes différents traduisent παράκλητος dans l’Évangile et dans l’Épitre. Les Pères de l’Église latins qui citent aussi bien l’évangile que la première lettre de Jean font majoritairement le choix de différencier dans la traduction le παράκλητος de l’évangile et celui de l’épître. Quels choix lexicaux font ceux qui marquent lexicalement la différence ? Grégoire le Grand55 et Bède le Vénérable56 emploient toujours paracletus/ paraclitus dans leurs citations de l’Évangile de Jean, mais ils ont recours à aduocatus quand ils citent le verset de l’Épître. Cet usage est celui de la Vulgate, qu’ils suivent dans leurs citations bibliques. Il est à noter que, dans les Homélies sur l’Évangile, Grégoire fait suivre immédiatement la citation de Jn 14:26 d’une explication étymologique du terme, dans laquelle il ne tranche pas entre ses deux significations possibles, bien qu’il en privilégie une dans la traduction de la première épître : Nostis plurimi, fratres mei, quod graeca locutione paraclitus latina aduocatus dicitur uel consolator. (Homélies sur l’Évangile II, 30, 3) 55

 Jn 14:16 (paraclitus) : Morales sur Job, V, 28 ; Jn 14:26 (paraclitus) : Homélies sur l’Évangile. II, 30, 3 ; Jn 15:26 (paraclitus) : Homélies sur l’Évangile. II, 26, 2 ; Jn 16:7 (paraclitus) : Morales sur Job, VIII, 24 ; Dialogues, II, 38 ; 1Jn 2:1 (aduocatus) : Morales sur Job, XXII, 17 ; Sur Ezechiel. I, 7. 56  Jn 14:16 (paracletus) : Sur Ezras et Néhémie, III, l. 5 ; Homélies sur l’Évangile, I, 15 ; Homélies sur l’Évangile, I, 19 ; Homélies sur l’Évangile, I, 17 ; Jn 14:26 (paracletus) : Eu. I, 15 ; Jn 15:26 (paracletus) : Révisions sur les Actes des apôtres, V, l. 31 ; Homélies sur l’Évangile, I, 20 ; Homélies sur l’Évangile, II, 15 ; Jn 16:7 (paracletus) : Homélies sur l’Évangile, II, 11 ; 1Jn 2:1 (aduocatus) : Lettres, IV, 2:13.

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Vous savez pour la plupart, mes frères, que ce qui est dit en grec paraclitus se dit en latin ‘défenseur’ ou ‘consolateur’.

4.2.3. Les auteurs citant seulement les versets de l’évangile Reste enfin le cas des auteurs qui ne citent que les versets évangéliques sur le Paraclet. C’est le cas de Novatien, dont les citations se concentrent sur une seule œuvre, le Traité sur la Trinité. Celui-ci fait le choix, rare, de toujours traduire παράκλητος par aduocatus. Cette traduction n’est attesté que dans deux manuscrit vieux-latins, VL 2, qui transmet un texte africain datant au plus tard du IVe siècle, et VL 13, un manuscrit plus tardif mais portant un texte ancien s’éloignant du texte italique57. Or les citations évangéliques de Novatien sont la plupart du temps proches de VL 3, un manuscrit appartenant à la famille de la Vetus Itala58. Les versets johanniques sur le Paraclet semblent donc constituer une exception par rapport à la pratique habituelle de l’auteur. La question des sources bibliques de ce dernier a longtemps fait débat. S’appuyait-il sur un florilège ou sur un manuscrit indépendant ? Dans le deuxième cas, ce manuscrit est-il proche des versions africaines contemporaines de Novatien ou contient-il des versions révisées et améliorées du texte africain ? Paul Mattei, reprenant le dossier dans un article de 199559, conclut qu’il faut faire droit à l’hypothèse selon laquelle Novatien a été en contact avec des versions non-africaines, ou africaines suffisamment révisées pour s’éloigner des modèles africains. Quatre versets constituent un échantillon bien insuffisant pour confirmer ou infirmer cet avis. Nous nous contentons de relever, pour un même mot de l’évangile de Jean, l’existence de concordances entre un manuscrit témoin du texte africain et un manuscrit européen au texte éloigné du texte de la Vetus Itala, tous deux porteurs de leçons également citées par Novatien et éloignées de l’usage habituel des Pères latins utilisant des Vieilles latines européennes. Conclusion L’étude des citations patristiques latines des versets bibliques dont le texte original contient παράκλητος montre des attitudes différentes des Pères de l’Église face à ce terme grec dont la signification exacte fait toujours débat. La présence de plusieurs termes latins différents pour traduire le mot grec n’est pas déterminée par la dépendance du texte biblique des Pères à une version vieille-latine ou par le choix d’une retraduction personnelle : on en trouve des exemples aussi bien chez ceux qui citent une traduction vieille-latine connue 57

H.A.G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament (2016), 165. Ibid. 15. 59 Paul Mattei, ‘Recherches sur la Bible à Rome vers le milieu du IIIe s. Novatien et la Vetus Latina’, RBen (105), 255-79. 58

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ou identifiée que chez ceux qui retraduisent eux-mêmes sur le grec les versets qu’ils citent. La comparaison du corpus patristique et de la tradition textuelle des Bibles latines – Vieilles Latines comme Vulgate – révèle, en outre, un écart ponctuel entre les manuscrits des traductions bibliques et leur usage patristique : alors que les manuscrits bibliques latins que nous connaissons harmonisent très majoritairement la traduction du grec en une translittération latine Paracletus dans l’Évangile de Jean, ce choix n’est pas partagé par tous les auteurs de notre corpus, l’emploi d’aduocatus subsistant jusqu’au Ve siècle, que ce soit chez Novatien, dont le texte est très proche de deux manuscrits vieux-latins, ou chez Augustin et Jérôme, chez qui ce choix est délibéré. Cependant, les usages dans les citations bibliques chez les Pères s’alignent progressivement sur le texte transmis par les manuscrits bibliques, les révisions de Jérôme ou de ses disciples n’étant pas revenues sur les usages vieux-latins. Avant ou après la diffusion des révisions hiéronymiennes, le recours à une traduction latine existante n’est pas pour autant le signe d’une absence de réflexion sur l’ambiguïté du mot παράκλητος. On trouve en effet chez plusieurs de ceux qui citent une traduction biblique usitée à leur époque des réflexions exposant toute l’ambiguïté du terme grec.

The Fourth-Century Controversies. Reevaluating the Evidence towards the Next Centenary of Nicaea (325-2025)* Samuel FERNÁNDEZ, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile

ABSTRACT The theological controversy of the fourth century has been described as the fight between heresy and orthodoxy. However, this black-and-white picture gives rise to many problems. Although eminent scholars have criticised this interpretation, some elements of the uncritical narrative are still present, and not only in Handbooks. This one-sided picture depends on Athanasius. He is the principal chronicler of the controversy, yet he not only transmitted but also ‘filtered’ the evidence. Fortunately, the bishop of Alexandria and the ancient historians, along with their narratives, have transmitted a vast number of contemporary documents. The aim of this article is to provide the hermeneutical criteria to study these documents. By doing so, it would be possible to reexamine the theological controversy of the fourth century on the road to the next centenary of the great Council of Nicaea (325-2025).

1. The problem a. The traditional picture of the so-called Arian crisis is problematic The so-called Arian crisis is one of the most studied theological debates. This controversy has been described as the fight between detractors and supporters of Christ’s divinity, that is, between heresy and orthodoxy. This description gives no room for nuances: one group is entirely wrong and the other, completely right. According to this narrative, while Arius managed to corrupt the faith of almost all bishops, Athanasius, despite persecutions, remained faithful to Nicaea, and because of his endurance, Nicaean orthodoxy was confirmed by the Council of Constantinople (381). Consequently, for many centuries, the traditional Christian historiography has portrayed Arius as the Anti-Christ, and Athanasius as the paramount of orthodoxy.1 * This essay is part of the results of the Fondecyt 1190025 research project (2019-2021). 1 Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (Cambridge, 2001), 1-25; David M. Gwynn, The Eusebians. The Polemic of Athanasius of Alexandria and the Construction of the ‘Arian Controversy’ (Oxford, 2007).

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 289-302. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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A simple consideration of this narrative gives rise to many problems.2 According to this picture, almost all eastern bishops were Arians, but in fact, no bishop declared himself to be a follower of Arius. Athanasius accused all his opponents of heresy, yet none of them accused him of heresy. Almost all eastern bishops signed the Nicean Creed, but a few years later the same bishops rejected the same Creed. Besides, it is difficult to understand why so many bishops denied such a traditional statement as the divinity of Christ. These and other problems show that this black-and-white picture is not plausible. In the past two centuries, eminent scholars have criticised this narrative, like John H. Newman, Hans G. Opitz, Eduard Schwartz, Gustave Bardy, Manlio Simonetti, Richard P.C. Hanson, Hans Ch. Brennecke, Rowan Williams, David T. Gwyn and others.3 These scholars have shown that this description is a polemical construction by Athanasius. However, some elements of the uncritical narrative are still present, and not only in Handbooks. How did this narrative become established? b. The narrative and its hermeneutic challenges Historical records, in the patristic era, are always biased. Actually, every historical record is biased because no witness can escape his own perspective. Moreover, the 4th-century controversy presents some particular hermeneutic challenges. The narrative by Athanasius is one-sided Athanasius was not only a central character of the controversy but also its principal chronicler. In Annick Martin’s words, Athanasius was ‘at the same time subject and object’ of his own narrative.4 Therefore, the bishop of Alexandria 2

Joseph T. Lienhard, ‘The “Arian” Controversy: Some Categories Reconsidered’, ThS 48 (1987), 415-37. 3 See John H. Newman, The Arians of the Fourth Century (London, 1876); Hans G. Opitz, Urkunden zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites, Athanasius Werke 3.1.1-2 (Berlin, 1934); id., ‘Die Zeitfolge des arianischen Streites von den Anfangen bis zum Jahr 328’, ZNW 33 (1934), 131-59; Eduard Schwartz, Gesammelte Schriften. Dritter Band. Zur Geschichte des Athanasius (Berlin, 1959); Gustave Bardy, Histoire de l’Église depuis les origines jusqu’à nos jours, vol. 3, De la paix constantinienne à la mort de Théodose (Paris, 1947); Manlio Simonetti, Studi sull’arianesimo (Roma, 1965); id., La crisi ariana nel IV secolo (Roma, 1975); Richard P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318–381 (Edinburgh, 1988); Hans Ch. Brennecke, Hilarius von Poitiers und die Bischofsopposition gegen Konstantius II: Untersuchungen zur dritten Phase des arianischen Streites (337–361) (Berlin, 1984); id., Dokumente zur Geschichte des ariansiches Streits, Athanasius Werke 3.1.3-4 (Berlin, 2007-2014); Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (Cambridge, 2001); David T. Gwyn, The Eusebians. The Polemic of Athanasius of Alexandria and the Construction of the ‘Arian Controversy’ (Oxford, 2007). 4 Annick Martin, ‘Figures du “Je” et jeux de figures dans les Apologies d’Athanase: aux antipodes de l’autobiographie’, in Marie-Françoise Baslez, Philippe Hoffmann and Laurent Pernot (eds), L’invention de l’autobiographie: d’Hésiode à Saint Augustin. Actes du deuxième colloque de l’Équipe de recherche sur l’hellénisme postclassique, 14-16 juin 1990 (Paris, 1993), 147-54.

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was far from being a ‘neutral witness’. He indeed reported the whole history according to his strong agenda. And his narrative was one-sided for three reasons. a) Athanasius decided to transmit certain documents, entirely or partially, and to omit others. For example, on the one hand, he transmitted a huge number of so-called ‘Arian’ documents, but, on the other, he quoted only some insignificant lines of Eusebius of Nicomedia, the one whom he called the head of Arian heresy.5 b) The bishop of Alexandria decided to record some historical facts and to neglect others. For instance, when he described the synods posterior to Nicaea, he did not mention the so-called second session of Rimini. Athanasius, then, not only transmitted but also ‘filtered’ the evidence. c) Finally, the account is one-sided because he provided the hermeneutic framework in which the data was placed. Eventually, the narrative by Athanasius, as transmitted by the historians of the 5th century, became the ‘master narrative’.6 The lasting influence of the Master narrative Why has this narrative had such a lasting influence on Christian historiography? On the one hand, from the fourth century on, the writings of Athanasius have not only been the primary historical source for this period but, because of his reputation, during many centuries, Athanasius has been considered an extremely trustworthy witness. For a long time, his account was not to be questioned.7 On the other hand, although there are many other literary sources to reconstruct the controversies, almost all ancient historians have been heavily influenced by Athanasius.8 There are indeed many accounts of the period, namely Epiphanius, Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoretus and Cizicenus, yet all of them somehow transmitted the picture forged by Athanasius. In general terms, the many historical accounts did not compensate for Athanasius’ bias, but, on the contrary, they strengthened it. It would also be possible to say something similar regarding Eusebius of Caesarea about the very first years of the controversy. Nevertheless, it has been Athanasius who has had an almost irreversible influence on Christian historiography. This situation gives rise to a hermeneutic challenge, that is, to use Athanasius’ writings without assuming his interpretation. Roughly speaking, scholars who want to reconstruct the controversy are in a trap. On the one hand, they need Athanasius as a source; on the other hand, they need to be free from Athanasius’ polemical interpretation. 5

See Athanasius, Ap. c. arianos, 59,4. ‘A meta-narrative or a master narrative is a grand schema for organizing the interpretation and writing of history’, Joyce Appleby, Telling the Truth about History (New York, London, 2011), 232. 7 Thomas C. Ferguson, The Past is Prologue: The Revolution of Nicene Historiography (Leiden, 2005). 8 David M. Gwynn, The Eusebians (2007), 229-44. 6

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2. The nature and hierarchy of the sources Fortunately, there is a way-out: Athanasius and the ecclesiastical historians, along with their narratives, have transmitted a vast number of contemporary documents, namely, episcopal letters, creeds, canons, theological fragments and imperial statements.9 These documents, in themselves, have an exceptional value, yet their interpretation is not easy, because they are controversial documents transmitted in a polemical context. Indeed, most of them have been misunderstood because they have not been interpreted in their original context. It is necessary to distinguish the nature and hierarchy of the ancient testimonies in order to study them. There are three kinds of sources: 1) the contemporary document transmitted by ancient writers; 2) the retrospective and interpretative accounts of the participants in the controversy, namely Eusebius, Athanasius, Hilary and others, and, finally, 3) the narratives of the historians. Regarding their hierarchy, the more reliable sources are the contemporary documents, then the accounts of the participants in the conflict, and finally, the narratives of the historians. In general terms, the narratives by the historians transmitted the Athanasian bias; nevertheless, sometimes they depended on other sources, like Sabinus, and could transmit valuable data. Moreover, each participant in the controversy has his own bias, not only Athanasius. For instance, Vita Constantini, by Eusebius of Caesarea, which is the primary historical source for the beginning of the controversy, systematically omitted the name of Ossius of Cordoba and did not record at all the council of Antioch of 325. In fact, narrating the opening session of Nicaea, Eusebius gave a detailed description of the hall, the seats, Constantine’s aspect and clothing, yet, referring to the one who delivered the opening speech, he wrote : The bishop who was first in the row on the right, then stood up and delivered a rhythmical speech, addressing the Emperor.10

The historian bishop recorded every detail, but oddly omitted the name of the speaker, possibly, that of Ossius. These and other omissions were not by chance: Ossius had condemned Eusebius in the synod of Antioch. Therefore, the historian bishop decided to silence the name of Ossius and the synod of Antioch.

9 See Hans G. Opitz (ed.), Urkunden zur Geschichte des Arianischen Streites 318-328, Athanasius Werke 3.1.1-2 (Berlin, 1934-1935); Hanns Ch. Brennecke et al. (eds), Dokumente zur Geschichte des arianischen Streits, Athanasius Werke 3.1.3-4 (Berlin, 2007-2014). 10 Eusebius, Vita Constantini, 3,11. Eusebius Werke 1.1, ed. Friedhelm Winkelmann, GCS 7.1 (Berlin, 1991), 86-7.

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3. The contemporary documents In this article, we focus our attention on the most reliable sources: on the contemporary documents. To study these texts, one should take three steps: a) Identify the documents transmitted by indirect tradition. b) Free these documents from their current polemical context. c) Relocate these documents in their original context. This process aims to interpret the contemporary documents no longer according to a hostile perspective, but according to their original context. a. Identify contemporary documents Eusebius, Athanasius, Hilary, Epiphanius, Gelasius, Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoretus and Cizicenus have preserved many documents in their works. The first step is identifying these texts. For example, Athanasius transmitted nearly 30 documents, in De synodis, a work written in 359. Thus, its narrative describing the beginning of the controversy is anachronistic. However, some documents quoted verbatim in this book are contemporary to the first stages of the controversy and, in themselves, are free from anachronisms. For instance, one page of De synodis transmitted a fragment of Eusebius of Caesarea and another of Athanasius of Anazarbus. In addition, the last fragment, in turn, quoted some significant words of the group around Arius. The narrative, then, dates from 359; but, the transmitted fragments date back to the first stage of the controversy, that is to say, a few years before Nicaea. However, is it sensible to rely upon documents transmitted for polemical reasons? This question is a crucial one. One would say: the more polemic the transmission of the documents, the more deformed the documents will be. Though, paradoxically, the polemic context tended to control the exactness of the textual transmission, because there was an adversary ready to denounce every modification. Besides, many times the narrative announces that the documents contain concepts which they actually do not contain. This gap shows that, generally speaking, the texts have not been modified. The documents, indeed, have been chosen and cut according to Athanasius’ criteria, yet their very text is reliable. According to my on-going research project, the ancient sources transmitted more than four hundred documents contemporary to Nicaea and its reception up to the Council of Constantinople (381). Most of them transmitted by Athanasius. Among them, 13 documents have a contemporary translation. These versions are extremely significant because they show the way the technical terms were understood during the controversy. A good example is an expression of Nicaea. The canon condemned those who declared that the Son comes ‘from a different hypostasis or ousia’. This Greek expression

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was translated into Latin by Hilary during the conflict, and by Rufinus, after Constantinople: ἐξ ἑτέρας ὑποστάσεως ἢ οὐσίας (Nicaea, canon). ex alia substantia aut essentia (Hilary, De synodis 84). ex alia subsistentia vel substantia (Rufinus, HE X 6).

Rufinus’ translation seems to be exact, yet it is anachronistic, because he understood the canon of 325 in the light of the Cappadocian theology, settled about fifty years later. Instead, Hilary’s version, which seems to be theologically wrong, historically is more authentic, because it reflects the contemporary equivalence between hypostasis and ousia. b. Free the documents from their current polemical context Many of these documents have been transmitted and interpreted in a polemical context. The narrative, the titles, the old translations and, sometimes, the modern editions have deformed the meaning of the documents. The narrative in which the documents are framed constrains their interpretation. For instance, Athanasius often advised his readers that Arians were hypocrites.11 By doing so, Athanasius induced his readers to distrust the words of his adversaries. This distrust, for centuries, has been the key to interpretation of the Anti-Nicean documents. Sometimes the titles force the interpretation of the documents. One example can be found in the oldest manuscript of Hilary’s Fragmenta historica, the Parisinus Armamentarii 483. The titles distort the interpretation of the quoted documents. For example, introducing the synodal letter from Sardica, the title says: Incipit decretum sinodi orientalium apud Serdiciam episcoporum a parte arrianorum, quod misserunt ad Africam (f. 78v) Here begins the decree of the synod of Eastern bishops on the Arian side at Sardica, sent by them to Africa.12

This title, which did not belong to the letter, labelled its signatories as ‘Arians’, yet the text has no Arian statements. Although the signatories would have rejected the expression ‘episcopi a parte arrianorum’ (‘bishops on the Arian side’), ancient and modern readers have wrongly taken for granted that they were Arians. The same manuscript presents the Letter of Rimini with the following title: Incipit exemplum fidei epistulae missae ad Constantium imperatorum a perfidis episcopis (ff. 90r-90v). Actually, the word πρόφασις appears more than two hundred times in his polemic works, most of them in the sense of ‘pretext, alleged reason or excuse’. 12 Hilary, Fragmanta historica, A IV,1, ed. Alfredus Feder, CSEL 65 (Vienna, 1916), 48. 11

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Here begins a copy of the creed of the letter sent to the Emperor Constantius by the perfidious bishops.13

The expression ‘a perfidis episcopis’ (‘by the perfidious bishops’) obviously did not belong to the letter. Again, the title misleads the interpretation of the letter: ancient and modern scholars have read this document with suspicion as a key to interpretation. In addition, in this case, there is something more: the modern critical edition, in a marginal note, indicates that this is an Arian document. This editorial comment imposes a one-sided interpretation on the document. c. Relocate the documents in their original context The third step is to relocate the documents in their original context. This process implies two aspects: their chronological context and their cultural context. Relocate the documents in their chronological context A frequent error of scholars has been firstly to establish a historical framework based on the narratives of ancient historians, and, only then, to integrate the documents into this already settled historical framework. By doing so, they have interpreted the documents in an anachronistic manner, because they have understood them in the light of a narrative subsequently settled. Consequently, to some extent, they have been victims, so to say, of Athanasius’ hermeneutic Tyranny, because they have reproduced his ‘master narrative’. Therefore, careful attention to the chronology of the sources is crucial to reconstruct the period free from Athanasian bias. Unfortunately, dating these documents is not at all easy. Although many eminent scholars have attempted to give a definitive answer to this problem, the matter is still disputable.14 Since the documents provide very little external evidence, the dating depends on internal evidence. This process implies a hermeneutic circle, because the reconstruction of the controversy depends on the dating of the documents; but this dating depends, in turn, on this reconstruction. 13

Hilary, Fragmanta historica, A VI,1, ed. Alfredus Feder, CSEL 65 (Vienna, 1916), 87. See Eduard Schwartz, ‘Die Dokumente des arianischen Streits bis 325’, in id., Gesammelte Schriften. Dritter Band. Zur Geschichte des Athanasius (Berlin, 1959), 117-68; Hans G. Opitz, ‘Die Zeitfolge des arianischen Streits von den Anfängen bis zum Jahre 328’, ZNW 33 (1934), 131-59 (Markus Vinzent plans to publish, with a small commentary, Opitz’ typed introduction to his Urkunden, which Opitz drafted but could not publish); Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ‘Zur Chronologie des arianischen Streites’, ThLZ 79 (1954), 393-400; Manlio Simonetti, ‘Ancora sulla datazione della Thalia di Ario’, Studi storico religiosi 4 (1980), 349-54; Uta Loose, ‘Zur Chronologie des arianischen Streites’, ZKG 101 (1990), 88-92; R. Williams, Arius. Heresy and Tradition (2001), 40-82; Winrich Löhr, ‘Arius Reconsidered (Part 1)’, ZAC 9 (2006), 524-69; H.Ch. Brennecke et al. (eds), Dokumente zur Geschichte des ariansiches Streits (2007-2014), xix-xxxviii. 14

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Nevertheless, in this interaction, that is, in this dialogue between dating and reconstruction, the internal evidence stemming from the documents must have the first and the final word. Relocate the documents in their cultural context Although the second philological coordinate is space, for our period, the cultural setting of a document is more critical than its geographic location.15 For instance, in fourth-century theology, the expressions ‘Alexandrian’ and ‘Antiochene’ no longer had a geographic meaning, but a cultural one. For example, a central character like Lucian of Antioch represented Alexandrian tradition. Moreover, the bishops of Antioch, Philogonius, Paulinus, Eustathius and Eulalius, belonged to alternate theological traditions.16 Placing a document in its cultural setting is a difficult task. Once again, because the traditional picture comes from Athanasius. Actually, in De decretis, he declared: He who does not hold the doctrine of Arius necessarily holds the doctrine of the Synod of Nicaea.17

Today, scholars take for granted that this black-and-white view is a polemical construction. Although it is easy to reject this framework, it is much more challenging to provide a new one. Actually, theological mapping could be one of the most complex tasks in reconstructing the controversy. Moreover, there is no agreement on who the actors of this drama were. Ancient and modern scholars have provided many sets of categories describing the actors, namely heretics and orthodox, Lucianists and Eusebians, homoousians, homoiousians, homoians, Anhomoians, heterousians, ex-ouk-ontios, Arians and Anti-Arians, Nicean and Anti-Nicean, Alexandrian and Antiochene, Western and Eastern, radical and moderate Origenists, Miahypostatic and Dyahypostatic theologies, and others, yet none of these sets of categories fits perfectly.18 Actually, some scholars write these names between inverted commas, other scholars, although they apologise for using these names, still use them. In addition, not even the nature of the actors is evident for scholars: were they groups, schools, traditions, trajectories, parties or alliances?19 Here lies a challenging hermeneutic problem: every classification is not just a description, but rather a construction of reality. 15 See Manlio Simonetti, ‘Teologia alessandrina e teologia asiatica al concilio di Nicea’, Augustinianum 13 (1973), 369-98. 16 See Richard W. Burgess, Studies in Eusebian and Post-Eusebian Chronography (Stuttgart, 1999), 184-91. 17 Athanasius, De decretis, 20,6, ed. Hans G. Opitz, Athanasius Werke 2 (Berlin, 1934), 17. 18 See J.T. Lienhard, ‘The “Arian” Controversy: Some Categories Reconsidered’ (1987), 41537. 19 See Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford, 2004), 41-84.

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The categories of classification are not neutral. Not only ancient writers, but also modern specialists can not escape their own perspective. As Martin Hengel beautifully stated, critical scholars are not always self-critical enough. Roughly speaking, there is general agreement on the deconstruction of the controversy, yet is still there no agreement on its reconstruction. 4. Some results of the on-going research My on-going research project does not yet have a complete interpretation of the controversy. However, some partial results have already been achieved. In this Lecture, I will present two of them and a general conclusion. The first point deals with the very beginning of the conflict, and the second one, presents its conceptual framework. a. How did the controversy break out? Athanasius, in De synodis, described the beginning of the conflict in the following manner: Arius and those with him were expelled from the Church by the blessed Alexander because they professed: ‘God made the Son out of nothing’.20

This narrative states that the conflict began because of the heretical teaching of Arius. This description became the master narrative and was repeated by almost all ancient historians,21 and is still the pattern of modern reconstructions of the ‘Arian crisis’. However, a close examination of the contemporary documents shows that the beginning of the controversy was quite different. The letter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia attested that it was not Alexander who accused Arius of heresy, but it was Arius and others who criticised the public teaching of Alexander.22 Possibly, the bishop tried to fix some doctrinal points that, according to Origen, were the arena of open investigation. De principiis stated that the apostles clearly transmitted only that Christ was born of the Father before all creatures.23 However, Alexander wanted to clarify, officially, how the Son was born of the Father before all creatures.24 By doing so, the bishop was limiting the freedom of investigation. The issue at stake, then, was not only a crucial doctrinal point, but also the freedom of investigation. 20

Athanasius, De synodis, 15.1, ed. Hans G. Opitz, Athanasius Werke 2 (Berlin, 1934), 242. See Socrates, HE, I,5,2; Theodoretus, HE, I,1,10. 22 See Arius, Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, 1-2. According to my reconstruction, the letter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia and the letter of Alexander to the bishop of Byzantium belong to the very first stage of the controversy. 23 Origen, De principiis, 1, praef. 4. 24 See Arius, Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, 1-2, ed. Hans G. Opitz, Urkunden, 1.1-2, 1-2. 21

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That is, the relationship between theological research and episcopal authority. This conflict between freedom and authority explains why Arius and his companions reacted in such a strong way against their bishop. Alexander himself, in his letter to the bishop of Byzantium, told about accusations against his orthodoxy (εὐσέβεια), and he copiously defended and justified his teaching.25 That means that his own teaching was called into question. This reconstruction provides some insights into the problematic identity of the so-called ‘group of Arius’. Who were they? What did they have in common? The master narrative, as transmitted by most historians of the 5th century, says that they were followers of Arius;26 yet according to ancient sources, no one declared himself to be a disciple of Arius.27 Nevertheless, if the conflict started because Arius accused Alexander, then it is possible to affirm that what ‘the group of Arius’ had in common was not a particular theology, but the rejection of Alexander’s method and teaching. They were united, because all of them were against the bishop, yet they could profess different versions of the same theological tradition. This reconstruction sheds light on two problems: a) The nature of the first group around Arius. b) The doctrinal differences within ‘Arianism’. Regarding the nature of the first group around Arius, a careful examination of all documents predating Nicaea reveals two hints. The documents never spoke of Arius alone: he was always mentioned together with others. Besides, these documents did not present the group of Arius as his followers. The master narrative as passed on by most historians presents all the Anti-Nicean bishops as disciples of Arius. However, according to the contemporary documents, it is possible to say that Arius was not a particularly original thinker who taught a new captivating doctrine, but the representative of a broad tendency and the leader of the group that accused Alexander. Possibly, Arius did not convince anyone. He indeed had adherents and supporters, but not disciples. Arius did not start a theological movement, but he clustered together different factions of the same theological tradition. Thus, more than a theologian, Arius was a representative, a spokesman, a charismatic leader who gathered around himself a group of people who shared the rejection of the bishop Alexander and professed different versions of a common theological tradition.

25 See Alexander, Letter to Alexander of Byzantium, 14.5-7.40-41.44-54.59, ed. Hans G. Opitz, Urkunden, 14.5-7.40-41.44-54.59, 19-28. 26 For example, although Athanasius himself said that Arius learned from Asterius (De decretis, 8; 20), the narrative by Socrates presented Asterius as one who transmitted the dogma of Arius, cf. Socrates, HE, I,36,2; Mark DelCogliano, ‘How Did Arius Learn from Asterius? On the Relationship between the Thalia and the Syntagmation’, Journal of Ecclesiastica History 69 (2018), 477-92. 27 See Richard P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318–381 (Edinburgh, 1988), 123-8.

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This last statement illuminates another problem, namely the doctrinal differences within the so-called ‘Arianism’. For example, according to his own writings, Arius affirmed that the Logos was unchangeable (ἄτρεπτος), and this assertion was confirmed by Eustathius of Antioch.28 However, from the very beginning of the conflict, Arians were accused by Alexander of professing that the Logos was changeable (τρεπτός).29 How to solve this gap? Athanasius resolved the problem by saying that Arians were hypocrites: they believed one doctrine, yet they declared another. Some modern scholars have tried to solve the contradiction by figuring out different versions of an original Arian doctrine: a radical Arianism and a soft one. However, if it is right that Arius was not an original thinker, but the leader of the opponents of Alexander, then ‘Arianism’ was not initially defined by a uniform doctrine. On this basis, ‘Arianism’ could be understood as the group of people who were hostile to Alexander and who professed different versions of a broad theological tradition. Among them, some declared that the Logos was unchangeable, and others affirmed that the Logos was changeable. Consequently, it is not possible to unify all Arian statements in a single doctrinal body. This kind of theological pluralism was a distinctive note of Origenian tradition. According to it, an essential doctrinal unity gave room to free investigation and theological diversity. Therefore, a basic doctrinal agreement alone was enough to give unity to this group. After his official condemnation in Nicaea, Arius was regarded as a heresiarch, that is, the founder of a school that corrupted the faith of many people. The topos of the genealogy of heretics was applied to him, and, his companions were then wrongly labelled as his followers. For that reason, in 341, the bishops who gathered at Antioch and were accused of Arianism, rightly claimed: ‘We have not been followers of Arius’.30 b. The conceptual framework of the controversy The master narrative declares that the Arian crisis was the conflict between orthodoxy and heresy. Revisionist scholars have shown that things were more complex. Some of them have proved that the, so to say, Sabellian interpretation of the ὁμοούσιος moved many eastern bishops to reject Nicaea. The conflict, then, was not between orthodoxy and heresy, but between Monarchianism and Subordinationism. However, this last interpretation demands that, from the beginning, Alexander somehow supported Monarchian theology, which is not 28 See Arius, Letter to Alexander, 2, ed. Hans G. Opitz, Urkunden, 6.2, 12; Eustathius, Fr. 6; 79, ed. José H. Declerck, CCh.SG 51 (Turnhout, 2002), 67, 149-50. 29 See Alexander, Letter to Alexander of Byzantium, 14.11-3, ed. Hans G. Opitz, Urkunden, 14.11-3, 21. 30 First Creed of Antioch (apud Athanasius, De synodis, 22.3, ed. Hans G. Opitz, Athanasius Werke 2 [Berlin, 1934], 248).

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plausible, because, according to the contemporary evidence, he was not accused of confusing the Son with the Father, as Sabellius, but of stating two unbegotten Beings.31 Once again, a strict chronological analysis of the contemporary documents shows a different picture. What were the conceptual parameters of this initial struggle? According to Arius, the bishop Alexander taught that: ‘the Son exists alongside the Father without generation (ἀγεννήτως)’.32 On this basis, Arius affirmed that the bishop declared the Son to be ungenerated (ἀγέννητος). This statement seems to be a Monarchian expression. Actually, Marcellus of Ancyra declared that the Logos was an ungenerated faculty of God. However, Arius did not accuse his bishop of Monarchianism, but of Ditheism. Alexander’s letter confirmed this assertion: he was accused of ‘teaching two ungenerated (ἀγέννητα διδάσκειν δύο)’,33 that is, two Gods, which is precisely the opposite of Monarchianism.34 What, then, was the conceptual framework of the initial struggle? Pamphilus, at the beginning of the Fourth-century, listed the charges against Origen’s theology: Prima illa est quod dicunt eum innatum dicere Filium Dei.35 The first is that they claim that [Origen] says the Son of God was not born.

The Latin word innatus possibly was the translation of ἀγέννητος. Consequently, the alleged teaching of Alexander did not represent Monarchian doctrine, but one tendency within Origen’s tradition. Therefore, Arius was not more Origenian than Alexander, but both represented two competing versions of Origenian teaching. The initial conflict, then, was not between Alexandria and Antioch, but within Alexandrian tradition. More specifically, the clash was about the authentic interpretation of a key concept of Origen’s trinitarian theology, namely, the ‘eternal generation’. While Alexander emphasised that the Son’s generation was eternal, Arius highlighted that the Son was generated, and therefore not coeternal with the Father.36 Nevertheless, both of them were Anti-Monarchian, and both of them declared, like Origen, that the Son was a subsistent being. Thus, at the beginning of the controversy, it was not Origen versus Sabellius, but Origen versus Origen. 31 Cf. Alexander, apud Arius, Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, 2, ed. Hans G. Opitz, Urkunden, 1.2, 1-2; Alexander, Letter to Alexander of Byzantium, 14.44, ed. Hans G. Opitz, Urkunden, 14.44, 26. 32 Alexander, apud Arius, Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, 2, ed. Hans G. Opitz, Urkunden, 1.2, 1-2. 33 Alexander, Letter to Alexander of Byzantium, 14.44, ed. Hans G. Opitz, Urkunden, 14.44, 26. 34 In addition, in the years around Nicaea, some so-called Arians were not accused of denying the divinity of Christ, but of professing two Gods. 35 Pamphilus, Apologia, 87, ed. René Amacker, SC 464 (Paris, 2002), 154. 36 Since the bishop was accused of declaring two Gods, Arius affirmed that the Son was a creature.

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Later on, when the conflict went beyond Egypt, Arius polemically associated Alexander with bishops of Monarchian theology, whereas Alexander strategically aligned with Eustathius and Marcellus, who belonged to the Monarchian tradition. Afterwards, the parameters of the controversy did change at the time of the intervention of Constantine. Ossius of Cordova, a Spanish bishop, went to Alexandria and Antioch, and the Monarchian tradition started to be a key factor within the conceptual framework. From this time on, two different theological conflicts overlapped, namely, the dispute between competing interpretations of Origen, and the opposition between Logos and Monarchian theology. The overlapping of these two controversies was a crucial factor of confusion. Then, during the decades following Nicaea, the early controversy was understood, or rather misunderstood, in the light of the later controversy. Because of this confusion, some western bishops associated Origen with Arius, whereas some eastern bishops associated Nicaea with Sabellius. For instance, when eastern bishops declared that Christ was not ‘the only true God’, according to John 17:3, western bishops understood that their eastern colleagues were denying Christ’s divinity.37 An Anti-Sabellian declaration (Christ is not the Father) was understood as an Arian statement (Christ is not divine). Thus, on reconstructing the controversy, the conceptual framework is as important as the evidence itself. Western theology, which emphasised the unity of God, plus the propaganda of Athanasius and Marcellus in the West gave, as a result, a black-and-white picture of the problem. With this set of categories, western bishops were unable to understand the Anti-Sabellian orientation of eastern bishops, and they condemned them as Arians. Possibly the one who better understood the overlapping of categories was Hilary of Poitiers. He realised that western bishops were trying to understand eastern theology with unsuitable categories. Hence, Hilary wrote De synodis in order to demonstrate that the pattern of orthodoxy used in the West was unable to understand the complexity and richness of eastern theology. 5. Some conclusions One of the main obstacles to reach a coherent understanding of the controversies has been the pretention of explaining the whole Fourth-century debate with one single set of categories, as if it were one single conflict. Consequently, it is necessary to renounce to this aspiration of trying to frame all the evidence in one single axis. On the one hand, to reach a coherent understanding, one must accept that between Nicaea and Constantinople there were various 37 Eastern Council of Serdica, 1, apud Theodoret, HE, 2.8.37, ed. Günther Ch. Hansen, GCS NF 5 (Berlin, 1998), 112.

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overlapping theological and political conflicts, which need different sets of categories to be understood. On the other hand, the intellectual passion and the violence of the debates demand an explanation. Therefore, a cogent interpretation of each controversy has to be able to answer: What was at stake? What explains such a strong reaction attested by the sources? Scholars today rely upon trustworthy texts for studying the controversies. The group of Athanasius Werke, the editors of Gelasius of Caesarea and others, have improved so much the textual basis for the study of fourth-century. The evidence is there! However, as we have insisted, the meaning of the evidence depends on the setting in which the data is framed. The polemical construction by Athanasius still affects the ratio interpretandi of the period. Therefore, there is room for substantial hermeneutic work on the controversies. Fourth-century debates made a profound impact on western culture, since the idea of God has a deep influence on human life and society. The traumatic controversies around Arius provoked, in our culture, a one-sided attraction towards unity and resistance towards diversity. New studies on Nicaea could provide clues to reconcile unity and diversity in western society. In summary, modern editors have provided us with reliable texts, and the hermeneutic philosophy prompts us to rethink the frame in which the evidence is to be placed. Besides, the year 2025, that is, the next Centenary of Nicaea gives us the opportunity, that is, the καιρός, to attempt a new global interpretation of the controversies. This new interpretation is possible and needed.

The Philosophical Dimension of the Christological Controversy Johannes ZACHHUBER, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

ABSTRACT The Christological controversy began in the fifth century and continued for the remainder of late antiquity. It led to the first permanent confessional division in the history of Christianity. In my article, I show that this doctrinal debate was also of profound significance for Patristic philosophy. I begin with reflections on the conceptual problems engendered by the notion of Patristic philosophy. In a second part, I sketch the philosophy underlying the thought of the so-called Cappadocian theologians of the late fourth century. I then show how this theory, which was developed to address the trinitarian controversy, was applied to Christology. My argument is twofold. On the one hand, I show the fundamental problems inherent in all attempts to adapt the Cappadocian theory to Christology. On the other hand, I propose that careful attention to the diversity of views emerging in the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon explains the different approaches that were taken in the process. I therefore examine separately the philosophy of the miaphysites and the attempts by Chalcedonian authors to develop a philosophy that underwrites the formula of two natures in one hypostasis. I conclude by emphasising the conceptual novelty of the ontological conceptions emerging in the process and suggest that these had long-term consequences for later philosophical and theological thought.

1. What is Patristic Philosophy? In recent years, Patristic philosophy has attracted an increasing share of scholarly attention.1 The long-standing alternative according to which the Fathers either had to be epigonal Platonists or anti-philosophical zealots is finally giving way to a more nuanced perception of the genuinely philosophical dimension of Patristic thought in its own right. Inevitably, much of the research that has been done in this field has been focussed on questions that were of equal interest to Christian and non-Christian 1 George Karamanolis, The Philosophy of Early Christianity (London, 2014); Mark Edwards, Aristotle and Early Christian Thought (London, 2019). The recently released massive overview of Christoph Riedweg, Christoph Horn and Dietmar Wyrwa (eds), Philosophie der Kaiserzeit und der Spätantike. Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: Die Philosophie der Antike 5, 3 vol. (Basle, 2018) includes a full treatment of Christian thinkers.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 303-326. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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thinkers in late antiquity, notably cosmology and psychology but arguably also metaphysics and ethics.2 This approach has the advantage of being methodologically manageable, especially in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. By comparison, it seems more difficult to read in a philosophical key the fathers’ contributions to the major doctrinal debates of their age, in particular the trinitarian and Christological controversies. In those texts, we may think, Christian writers developed arguments based on premises that would not be shared by anyone who was not bound by the dogmatic decisions of the Church. What is more, while the problems under discussion were obviously of vital significance for Christians, they do not necessarily appear to be of interest, then or now, to those outside this faith community. I would nevertheless contend that any study of Patristic philosophy that does not ultimately include an examination of the major doctrinal debates is insufficient insofar as it fails to explain why this philosophy existed in the first instance. Christian thought, I would argue, has an inherently philosophical character, but this can only be brought to light by engaging the doctrinal issues with which the Fathers were concerned for the better part of the first millennium. It would, of course, be wrong to claim that the major Patristic dogmas have never been read as part of the history of philosophy. No less a thinker than G.W.F. Hegel assigned an important place to the dogmas of the Christian Church in his account of the evolution of absolute knowledge.3 More recently, theologians such as John Zizioulas have attributed an ontological revolution to the Cappadocians’ trinitarian settlement,4 whereas others – one might mention Sarah Coakley and, in a different key, John Milbank – have hailed these fathers for their preservation of an essentially Platonic outlook.5 It seems to me significant that these recent interpretations have, for the most part, been focussed on fourth-century fathers, notably the Cappadocians. 2 See e.g. Charlotte Köckert, Christliche Kosmologie und kaiserzeitliche Philosophie (Tübingen, 2009); Gerhard May, Creatio ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Christian Thought (Edinburgh, 1994); Ilaria Ramelli (ed.), Gregorio di Nisa: Sull’anima e la resurrezione (Milan, 2007); G. Karamanolis, Philosophy (2014), 181-213; Runar M. Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A comparative study of Ancient morality (Oxford, 2010); Hubert Merki, ΩΜΟΙΩΣΙΣ ΘΕΩΙ: Von der platonischen Angleichung an Gott zur Gottähnlichkeit bei Gregor von Nyssa (Freiburg, 1952). 3 See Peter Hodgson, Hegel and Christian Theology: A Reading of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford, 2005). 4 John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY, 2004), 36. 5 Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (Cambridge, 2013); John Milbank, ‘Christianity and Platonism in East and West’, in Justin A. Mihoc and Leo Aldea (eds), A Celebration of Living Theology: A Festschrift in Honour of Andrew Louth (London, 2014), 107-60; id., ‘Radical Orthodoxy and Protestantism Today: John Milbank in Conversation’, Acta Theologica Suppl. 25 (2017), 43-72, 49-54.

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Consequently, the assessment of Patristic philosophy advanced by these thinkers has largely been based on intellectual insights gained in the context of the trinitarian controversy. This is not without legitimacy as the conceptual solution to the trinitarian controversy worked out by the Cappadocians became paradigmatic for all later Patristic thought in the East. Nevertheless, an adjudication of Patristic philosophy based primarily on Cappadocian insights incurs a risk comparable to that of the theatre critic who writes their review having left the performance after the first act. Doctrinal developments continued apace for several centuries as the Christological debate increasingly turned into a vast war of attrition between competing ecclesiastical communities each advancing their own intellectual as well as theological agenda. Anticipating the results of the analysis which I am going to present in what follows, I would propose that Zizioulas and others were right to identify an ontological revolution in Patristic thought, but wrong to locate it in the fourth century. I therefore agree – to an extent – with those who find broad continuity with traditional philosophical assumptions in the Cappadocians; but I disagree that this is the end or even the culmination of the Patristic tradition. My claim, in other words, is that by extending our philosophical analysis to the Christological debate as it played out between the fifth and the eighth century, we discover truly revolutionary philosophical ideas in the writings of the fathers albeit not necessarily those we may expect. 2. The Cappadocians and their Trinitarian Philosophy While in this article, I shall focus on the philosophical dimension of the Christological debate, my account nevertheless has to start with the Cappadocian theologians of the late fourth century. Alongside their settlement of the trinitarian controversy, these fathers, and I am thinking here especially of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa,6 also inaugurated a set of philosophical assumptions, a basic theory of being. This Cappadocian philosophy was adopted with astonishing promptness by practically the entire East. Only a few decades after its eventual codification in the 370s and 380s, we find its principal tenets presupposed without further discussions by major discussants on all sides of the early Christological controversy. Cyril7 takes it for granted as much as does 6

More recent research has rightly emphasised the distinctive voices of the three theologians. For Nazianzen cf. esp. Christopher A. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and Knowledge of God: In Your Light We Shall See Light (New York, 2008). For Basil and Nyssen, the observations made by Karl Holl a century ago are still valid: Amphilochius von Ikonium in seinem Verhältnis zu den großen Kappadoziern (Tübingen, 1904), 197-200, 209-10. 7 For the philosophical basis of Cyril’s thought cf. Ruth M. Siddals, ‘Logic and Christology in Cyril of Alexandria’, JTS 38 (1987), 341-67; Marie-Odile Boulnois, Le paradoxe trinitaire chez Cyrille d’Alexandrie: Herméneutique, analyses philosophiques et argumentation théologique

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Theodoret.8 I therefore call it the classical theory of Patristic philosophy – it never seems to have been connected with a particular school or party; instead it assumed universally recognised status almost immediately after its creation. In order to grasp its character, it may help distinguishing between an abstract and a concrete aspect of this Cappadocian philosophy. The former was introduced by Basil and subsequently accepted, at least in principle, by both Nazianzen and Nyssen. The latter was specifically Gregory of Nyssa’s contribution. In its entirety, Cappadocian philosophy must be understood from its purpose; it was meant to underwrite a particular solution to the Trinitarian controversy which had divided the East for most of the century. This solution was primarily meant to establish ontological equality between the trinitarian persons against the radical subordinationism that came to the fore in the teaching of Aëtius and Eunomius. This emphasis on three equal divine Persons subsequently led to the suspicion that the unity of the hypostases could not be adequately conceptualised and expressed.9 The most consequential innovation in Basil of Caesarea’s original trinitarian intervention in the early 360s was his practice of describing the divinity shared by the trinitarian persons on the basis of common predicates. An early example for this practice is found in his first book Against Eunomius, written probably in 364:10 But if one were to conceive of the community of ousia so that one and the same formula of being (τὸν τοῦ εἶναι λόγον) is seen in both so that, if by hypothesis the Father is in his substrate thought to be light, the ousia of the only-begotten would be confessed to be light too, and whatever account one could give of the Father’s being, the very same one would have to give of the Son: if the community of substance be conceived thus, we accept it and say that this is our teaching too.11 (Paris, 1994). For his use of the Cappadocian theory see Johannes Zachhuber, The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics (Oxford, 2020), 75-83. 8 For the dependence of Theodoret’s trinitarian thought on the Cappadocians cf. Silke-Petra Bergjan, Theodoret von Cyrus und der Neunizänismus: Aspekte der altkirchlichen Trinitätslehre (Berlin, New York, 1994). For his overall dependency on Basil and Gregory of Nyssa see Vasilje Vranic, The Constancy and Development in the Christology of Theodoret of Cyrrhus (Leiden, 2015), 93-111. Also J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 83-9. 9 I have given a full account of this in my Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa: Philosophical Background and Theological Significance (Leiden, 1999), ch. 2. 10 For the date cf. St Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, trans. Mark delCogliano and Andrew Radde-Gallwitz (Washington, DC, 2011), 33. 11 Basil, Adversus Eunomium I 19, ed. Louis Doutreleau, George-Matthieu de Durand and Bernard Sesbouë, SC 305 (Paris, 1982-3), vol. 1, 240.27-30: εἰ δὲ οὕτω τις ἐκλαμβάνοι τὸ τῆς οὐσίας κοινὸν, ὡς τὸν τοῦ εἶναι λόγον ἕνα καὶ τὸν αὐτὸν ἐπ’ἀμφοῖν θεωρεῖσθαι, ὥστε καὶ εἰ καθ’ ὑπόθεσιν φῶς ὁ Πατὴρ τῷ ὑποκειμένῳ νοοῖτο, φῶς καὶ τὴν τοῦ Μονογενοῦς οὐσίαν ὁμολογεῖσθαι, καὶ ὅνπερ ἄν τις ἀποδῷ ἐπὶ τοῦ Πατρὸς τὸν τοῦ εἶναι λόγον, τὸν αὐτὸν τοῦτον καὶ τῷ Υἱῷ ἐφαρμόζειν· εἰ οὕτω τὸ κοινὸν τῆς οὐσίας λαμβάνοιτο, δεχόμεθα· καὶ ἡμέτερον εἶναι τὸ δόγμα φήσομεν.

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As I have argued previously,12 it is important to perceive the contrast Basil intends to draw to a view according to which the community of ousia is guaranteed by the derivation of the Son’s divinity from that of the Father. This derivation theory was widely shared by Christian thinkers since Origen had influentially endorsed it in the early third century.13 A corollary of the derivation theory was a limited yet decisive notion of ontological gradation between God, the Father, and the Son.14 It is still common to accuse the Origenist tradition of ‘subordinationism’, but this term is unhelpful insofar as it suggests a particular emphasis on the degradation of the Son thus connecting the broad mainstream of Eastern trinitarianism in the third and fourth centuries with the teaching of Arius and Eunomius for whom the latter tenet was indeed important. It is clear that Eunomius, at least, rejected the derivation theory.15 Be this as it may, Basil’s account was intentionally pitched against the ontological inequality built into the derivation theory as much as it was meant directly to oppose Eunomius’ teaching. This is particularly clear from his frequent claim that the predicates shared by the divine persons jointly amount to a common ‘formula of being’ reiterated also in the above quotation.16 The phrase was borrowed from Aristotle’s Categories;17 in the late ancient commentary tradition there was full agreement that it connoted a generic relationship implying ontological co-ordination. That Basil was conscious of this notion is evident from the fact that his references to a shared formula of being in the Trinity often occur together with the protestation that they are ‘neither more nor less’ in substance, which once again evokes the language of the Categories.18 Over the years, this conceptual nucleus was refined and expanded. In its fullest version, it appears in the so-called Epistle 38, a text which under this title was contained in the edition of Basil’s letter corpus but today is widely 12 J. Zachhuber, Human Nature (1999), 43–55; id., ‘Basil and the Three-Hypostases-Tradition: Reconsidering the origins of Cappadocian theology’, ZAC 5 (2001), 65-85. 13 The single most important text is Origen’s interpretation of John 1:3 (‘and the Word was god’) in Origen, In evangelium Joannis II 1-2 [12-18], ed. Erwin Preuschen, GCS 10 (Leipzig, 1903), 54.6-55.8. 14 J. Zachhuber, ‘Basil and the Three-Hypostases-Tradition’ (2001), 67-9. 15 J. Zachhuber, Human Nature (1999), 44-8. 16 Cf. also Basil, Ep. 214, 4, ed. Yves Courtonne, 3 vol. (Paris, 1957-1966), vol. 2, 205.10; Ep. 236, 6 (vol. 3, 53.4 Courtonne). 17 Aristotle, Categories 1 (1a 6-12): συνώνυμα δὲ λέγεται ὧν τό τε ὄνομα κοινὸν καὶ ὁ κατὰ τοὔνομα λόγος τῆς οὐσίας ὁ αὐτός, οἷον ζῷον ὅ τε ἄνθρωπος καὶ ὁ βοῦς· τούτων γὰρ ἑκάτερον κοινῷ ὀνόματι προσαγορεύεται ζῷον, καὶ ὁ λόγος δὲ τῆς οὐσίας ὁ αὐτός· ἐὰν γὰρ ἀποδιδῷ τις τὸν ἑκατέρου λόγον τί ἐστιν αὐτῶν ἑκατέρῳ τὸ ζῴῳ εἶναι, τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον ἀποδώσει. 18 Aristotle, Categories 4 (3b33-4): Δοκεῖ δὲ ἡ οὐσία οὐκ ἐπιδέχεσθαι τὸ μᾶλλον καὶ τὸ ἧττον.

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seen as authored by Gregory of Nyssa.19 There, the ‘abstract’ account consists of the following tenets: 1. Community of ousia is expressed through shared predicates.20 2. Particularity of hypostases is likewise expressed through predicates which, in their combination, are unique to each hypostasis.21 3. Both observations can be made with regard to the Godhead and to humankind.22 It is, of course, the last of these points that became fundamental for the development of the trinitarian argument into a broader philosophical theory. The difference of universal and particular in the created realm was explicitly and implicitly compared to the trinitarian divinity in several of Basil’s mature texts.23 Yet it is important to see that Basil’s abstract account of ousia and hypostasis made few explicit metaphysical claims and can certainly be read in a much more conceptually restrained manner that is, as simply stipulating a rule for speaking about the trinitarian God in a way that permits both his unity and the plurality of hypostases. Specifically, I do not think the abstract account in Basil yields a clearly defined theory of universal and particular being. Throughout his works, the bishop remained non-committal with regard to this kind of question. The situation in the Epistle 38, however, is different which in itself may be a reason to suspect its author to have been Basil’s more speculatively minded 19 There has been a protracted debate on this question throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. For an overview, see now Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, Gregory of Nyssa’s Doctrinal Works: A Literary Study (Oxford, 2018), 116. 20 Cf. [Basil], Ep. 38, 2 (vol. 1, 82.19-26 Courtonne): Ὅταν οὖν δύο ἢ καὶ πλειόνων κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ ὄντων, οἷον Παύλου καὶ Σιλουανοῦ καὶ Τιμοθέου, περὶ τῆς οὐσίας τῶν ἀνθρώπων ζητεῖται λόγος, οὐκ ἄλλον τις ἀποδώσει τῆς οὐσίας ἐπὶ τοῦ Παύλου λόγον, ἕτερον δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦ Σιλουανοῦ καὶ ἄλλον ἐπὶ τοῦ Τιμοθέου, ἀλλὰ δι’ ὧν ἂν λόγων ἡ οὐσία τοῦ Παύλου δειχθῇ οὗτοι καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἐφαρμόσουσι, καί εἰσιν ἀλλήλοις ὁμοούσιοι οἱ τῷ αὐτῷ λόγῳ τῆς οὐσίας ὑπογραφόμενοι. To be exact, the author of the Epistle 38 identifies ousia in the first instance as the designation of a common generic term, for example anthropos: [Basil], Ep. 38, 2 (vol. 1, 81.1-11 Courtonne). This novel emphasis on names and their denotation, however, is thoroughly interwoven with the conceptual level. Universal terms are thus said to be used by the speaker both to refer to the common nature (τὴν κοινὴν φύσιν […] δείξας) and, at the same time, to have a ‘comprehensive’ but also ‘indefinite’ meaning (καθολικωτέρα σημασία: ibid. 2, 2-3; ἀόριστος σημασία: ibid. 3, 3). 21 Cf. [Basil], Ep. 38, 3 (vol. 1, 82.1-2 Courtonne): Τοῦτο τοίνυν φαμέν· τὸ ἰδίως λεγόμενον τῷ τῆς ὑποστάσεως δηλοῦσθαι ῥήματι. Ibid. (vol. 1, 82.8-83.12 Courtonne): Τοῦτο οὖν ἐστιν ἡ ὑπόστασις, οὐχ ἡ ἀόριστος τῆς οὐσίας ἔννοια μηδεμίαν ἐκ τῆς κοινότητος τοῦ σημαινομένου στάσιν εὑρίσκουσα, ἀλλ’ ἡ τὸ κοινόν τε καὶ ἀπερίγραπτον ἐν τῷ τινὶ πράγματι διὰ τῶν ἐπιφαινομένων ἰδιωμάτων παριστῶσα καὶ περιγράφουσα. 22 [Basil], Ep. 38, 3 (vol. 1, 83.30-3 Courtonne): Ὃν τοίνυν ἐν τοῖς καθ’ ἡμᾶς ἔγνως διαφορᾶς λόγον ἐπί τε τῆς οὐσίας καὶ τῆς ὑποστάσεως τοῦτον μετατιθεὶς καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν θείων δογμάτων οὐχ ἁμαρτήσει. 23 E.g. Basil, Ep. 214, 4 (vol. 2, 205.9-15 Courtonne); 236, 6 (vol. 3, 53.1-3 Courtonne).

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younger brother. Especially from a comparison with Gregory’s cosmological works, it becomes apparent that a whole new layer is now added to Basil’s original theory which I will here refer to as the ‘concrete’ aspect of Cappadocian philosophy.24 The following are its most important tenets: 1. Hypostases are individuals and, as such, the existential basis of all being.25 2. Universal substance (ousia) or nature only subsists in these hypostases, not separately from them. As such, it is the totality of individuals when considered as one.26 3. At the same time, however, individual hypostases are nothing but concrete realisations of universal natures.27 The Cappadocian theory that was passed on to subsequent generations of Eastern theologians treated the abstract and concrete accounts as one; and there is, indeed, every reason to believe that they were intended as such by Gregory of Nyssa and, possibly, by the other Cappadocians as well. There is no contradiction between the view that hypostasis is the bundle of properties characteristic of an individual and the identification of hypostasis with that individual. Likewise, speaking of universal nature in terms of shared properties is compatible with the notion that all individuals jointly make up ‘the whole nature’ as it was created in the beginning and will be perfected in the eschaton.28 While the two accounts were not, then, incompatible, there existed a tension between them. Most notably, the abstract account emphasised the distinction between ousia and hypostasis whereas the concrete account stressed their mutual relationship. Focussing on properties, the notions of ousia – containing only shared idiomata – and hypostasis – collecting particular ones – seem clearly 24

Cf. J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 54-66. The transition to the concrete notion of hypostasis occurs where Gregory emphasises the role of proper and universal names, as in [Basil], Ep. 38, 2 (vol. 1, 81-2 Courtonne); Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Ablabium, ed. Friedrich Mueller, GNO III/1 (Leiden, 1958), 40.9-15. For the cosmological context see Gregory, Apologia in Hexaëmeron, ed. Hubertus Drobner, GNO IV/1 (Leiden, 2009), 18.12-9. Note however that Gregory usually does not adopt the term hypostasis in this context. For Gregory’s cosmology as a whole cf. C. Köckert, Christliche Kosmologie (2009), 400-526. 26 The evidence for this is contested, cf. the different conclusions in Richard Cross, ‘Gregory of Nyssa on Universals’, VC 56 (2002), 372-410 and in Johannes Zachhuber, ‘Once Again: Gregory of Nyssa on Universals’, JTS 56 (2005), 75-98. The most impressive – and arguably most influential – evidence for the collective interpretation is Gregory’s De hominis opificio 16 (PG 44, 185BC): Εἰπὼν ὁ λόγος ὅτι ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον, τῷ ἀορίστῳ τῆς σημασίας ἅπαν ἐνδείκνυται τὸ ἀνθρώπινον. Οὐ γὰρ συνωνομάσθη τῷ κτίσματι νῦν ὁ Ἀδὰμ, καθὼς ἐν τοῖς ἐφεξῆς ἡ ἱστορία φησίν· ἀλλ’ ὄνομα τῷ κτισθέντι ἀνθρώπῳ οὐχ ὁ τὶς, ἀλλ’ ὁ καθόλου ἐστίν. 27 This is the implication of Gregory’s theory of ‘simultaneous creation’, which is described in Gregory of Nyssa, In Hexaëmeron 9 (18.7-19.4 Drobner) and applied to the creation of humanity in De hominis opificio 16. See J. Zachhuber, Human Nature (1999), 148-54. 28 See Johannes Zachhuber, ‘Plêrôma’, in Lucas F. Mateo-Seco and Giulio Maspero (eds), The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa (Leiden, 2010), 626-8. 25

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distinguished and nearly unconnected. By comparison, the perception of natures constituted by their many individuals when taken together as one reduces the difference between the two almost to a matter of perspective; and it is indeed noticeable that Gregory of Nyssa is content, in his cosmological writings, to treat this duality as two different dimensions of physis.29 3. Christology as the Crisis of Cappadocian Philosophy This tension came to the fore when the Cappadocian theory was applied to Christology. This happened later than one might have thought. Although there is wide-spread evidence throughout the fifth century that fathers across the East took the Cappadocian paradigm for granted and liberally used it in the context of their accounts of the Trinity, creation, soteriology, and eschatology,30 little suggests at the time that its application to Christology was to become universally practiced in subsequent centuries. One would assume that such an application was suggested by the increasing acceptance of the so-called double homoousion, i.e. the convention to describe the dual relationship of the Incarnate to the Father and to humanity by calling him consubstantial with the Father according to his divinity and consubstantial with us according to his humanity.31 This formula, which proved acceptable to Cyril as well as his Oriental opponents and was therefore included in the Formula or Reunion32 before finding its way into the Chalcedonian confession of faith,33 seems to suggest a strict analogy between the unity of divine nature and the community of human nature in which Christ partook in the Incarnation. As a matter of fact, the double homoousion was instrumental for the eventual application of the Cappadocian theory to Christology, but this does not seem to have happened until the early sixth century. Why was there reluctance, as far as we can tell, to apply the Cappadocian theory to Christology, despite the enormous authority it commanded and despite the centrality of Christology for theological debate from the 430s? The answer is that we do not know, but if the reason should have been that the leading lights among the Church’s thinkers at the time knew or intuited that Christology was ultimately the crux of the Cappadocian theory, they would certainly not have been entirely off the mark. 29 Throughout the In Hexaëmeron, Gregory avoids using the term hypostasis. Intriguingly, where he does refer to the concrete individual, he employs the Aristotelian τόδε τι: In Hexaëmeron 9 (19.1 Drobner); see Aristotle, Categories 5 (3b10). 30 For detailed references see J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 75-89. 31 For the history of the double homousion see Joseph Lebon, ‘Le sort de “consubstantial” nicéen’, RHE 47 (1952), 485-529; 48 (1953), 632-82; Maurice Wiles, ‘ΟΜΟΟΥΣΙΟΣ ΗΜΙΝ’, JTS 16 (1965), 545-61; J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 103-10. 32 ACO 1,1,7, 70.15-20. 33 ACO 2,1,1, 108.31-109.3.

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The problem was not that there existed no common ground between the emerging conceptual frame of the Christological dogma and Cappadocian philosophy – the reverse, quite obviously, was the case. Yet while the similarity of the language of ousia/physis and hypostasis had to make the establishment of a single theory tempting, any such attempt was, in fact, beset with major conceptual difficulties. This was a lesson, the earliest enthusiasts for such a unified theory had to learn the hard way. As it happens, they seem to have been Chalcedonians. While our evidence is inevitably sketchy, the earliest straightforward attempt to present Christology in the conceptual framework of Cappadocian philosophy seems to have been undertaken by a certain John of Caesarea who was known as the Grammarian, evidently an indication that he was not himself a cleric but a teacher of grammar and rhetoric.34 He authored an Apology of the Council of Chalcedon during the early years of the sixth century and thus at a time when the political pendulum in Byzantium had decidedly swung towards the miaphysite opponents of the Council of 451.35 Most of our knowledge about John’s writing is derived from its extensive rebuttal by Severus of Antioch, the great father of the miaphysite church.36 34 On John of Caesarea see Lorenzo Perrone, La chiesa di Palestina e le controversie cristologiche: Dal concilio di Efeso (431) al secondo concilio di Constantinopoli (553) (Brescia, 1980), 249-60; Alois Grillmeier, Theresia Hainthaler et al., Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 2: From the Council of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great (590–604), Part II: The Church of Constantinople in the Sixth Century, trans. J. Cawte and P. Allen (London, 1995), 52-67; Karl-Heinz Uthemann, ‘Definitionen und Rezeption des Dogmas von Chalkedon bis in die Zeit Kaiser Justinians’, in Johannes Roldanus and Johannes van Oort (eds), Chalkedon: Geschichte und Aktualität: Studien zur Rezeption der christologischen Formel von Chalkedon (Leuven, 1997), 54-122, 60-94; Carlo dell’Osso, Cristo e Logos (Rome, 2012), 88-111; Benjamin Gleede, The Development of the Term ΕΝΗΥΠΟΣΤΑΤΟΣ from Origen to John of Damascus (Leiden, 2012), 50-61. 35 The fragments have been collected and published in John the Grammarian, Apologia concilii Chalcedonensis, ed. Marcel Richard, Johannis Caesariensis presbyteri et grammatici, Opera quae supersunt (Leuven, 1977), 49-58. The date of the treatise and indeed the identity of John’s Caesarea depend on its relationship with a Synod at Alexandretta in Cilicia about which we know from a letter by Philoxenus of Mabbug to a certain Maron. If John’s treatise is identical with the apology for Chalcedon mentioned in this text, it can be dated to the second decade of the sixth century and John would probably hail from Caesarea in Cappadocia. For different views on this question see M. Richard, ibid. viii-xii; Charles Moeller, ‘Le chalcédonisme et le néo-chalcédonisme en Orient de 451 à la fin du VIème siècle’, in Aloys Grillmeier and Heinrich Bacht (eds), Das Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3 vol. (Würzburg, 1951-54), I 637-720, 672; André de Halleux, ‘Le “synode néochalcedonienne” d’Alexandrette (ca 515) et l’“Apologie pour Chalcédoine” de Jean le Grammarien’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 72 (1977), 593-600. 36 Severus of Antioch, Liber contra impium Grammaticum, ed. Joseph Lebon, 6 vol., CSCO 111/92/101 [112/94/102] (Louvain, 1929-52). Henceforth: C. imp. Gramm. It is important to recall that this work was virtually unknown in the West until the pioneering work of Lebon made it accessible. By consequence, scholarly awareness of the Grammarian’s significance also emerged only during the latter half of the last century.

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From the indignation Severus expresses in the face of the Grammarian’s attempt to couch Chalcedonian Christology in Cappadocian language,37 it appears that this was not, at the time, a conventional angle, although this was soon to change not only among Chalcedonians but among the followers of Severus as well. The Grammarian’s argument seems to have been as simple as it was powerful. The two natures in the Incarnate, which the Formula of Chalcedon stipulated, were universal divinity and humanity precisely in the sense in which they had been defined by the Cappadocians. Provocatively, John referred to them as ousiai: while this term had no Christological pedigree to speak of38 – and did not become currency in later Christological writing either – it allowed him to emphasise the intended relevance of the Cappadocian theory for the settlement of the Christological problem. The conceptual vehicle which the Grammarian utilised in this connection was the double homoousion: They [the fathers] knew that he [Christ] was in different ways homoousios both with the Father and with us.39

Severus could not reject the double homoousion, so John thought, because it had been affirmed by Cyril before being inserted into the Chalcedonian formula. From it followed the affirmation of Christ’s two natures or substances as universals: In two natures, that is substances, then, the Incarnate Word of God is recognized because in him there is the substance of divinity and the substance of humanity.40

In justifying this construction, John was quick to point to the Cappadocians. Human nature is universal precisely in the sense in which Basil spoke of the difference between the universal and the particular in his Epistle to Amphilochius.41 According to this account of commonality (τὸν τῆς κοινότητος λόγον) we say that humanity is of one ousia because it is common to all individual human beings who equally have their being as ‘rational, mortal animals capable of mind and knowledge’. For this is the definition of humanity.42

There was, then, no problem in affirming two natures together with a commitment to a single hypostasis, as mandated by the controversial Council of 451. 37

See A. Grillmeier and T. Hainthaler, Christ in Christian Tradition II/2 (1995), 54-61. Cf. however the opponent cited in Cyril’s Second Letter to Succensus: Ep. 46, 4, ed. Eduard Schwartz, ACO 1,1,6 (Berlin, 1928), 160.13-7. 39 Severus of Antioch, C. imp. Gramm. II 17 (145.21-2 [113.19-21] Lebon). The claim is also discussed in detail at II 33 (251-69 [196-210] Lebon). 40 Severus of Antioch, C. imp. Gramm. II 17 (146.4-6 [113.32-5] Lebon). 41 Basil, Ep. 236, 6, 22-8 (vol. 3, 54 Courtonne). 42 John the Grammarian, Apologia concilii Chalcedonensis 2 (49.22-5 Richard): Κατὰ τοῦτον οὖν τὸν τῆς κοινότητος λόγον μιᾶς οὐσίας φαμὲν τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα, ὅτι κοινῶς ἐν πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις τοῖς καθέκαστον καὶ ἐξ ἴσου ὑπάρχει τὸ εἶναι ζῷον λογικὸν θνητὸν νοῦ καὶ ἐπιστήμης δεκτικόν. 38

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After all, the Cappadocians had taught to distinguish between ousia and hypostasis, and it was the latter that signified the individual. It was therefore as plausible to call the Incarnate one hypostasis, i.e. one individual or one person, as it was appropriate to ascribe to him participation in two natures. The proposal put forward in the Grammarian’s Apology was indeed a stroke of genius. While the work and its author seem to have been all but forgotten by later Chalcedonians,43 his ideas became formative. Yet they also display the deep-seated problems inherent in the strategy chosen by this thinker. These difficulties do not come into view if the Cappadocian account is reduced to its abstract dimension as is often done. From this perspective, all that matters is the distinction between ousia and hypostasis on the basis of different properties. Yet, as I have argued earlier, the abstract dimension was only one part of the Cappadocian theory. As soon as its concrete dimension comes into view, the conceptual aporiae in the Grammarian’s proposal become strikingly apparent. I name two of them in particular which were to haunt later Chalcedonians for generations: 1. The Cappadocian theory was specifically meant to exclude ‘free-floating’ universals. It therefore conceptualised natures in such a way that they only and exclusively existed in and through hypostases.44 There was therefore, to cite a popular principle of later Patristic philosophy, ‘no nature without hypostasis’.45 The claim that Christ’s single hypostasis could simply participate in two natures vitiated against this principle. 2. A second problem was closely related. How exactly would the two natures be present in the Incarnate? Cappadocian philosophy seemed to operate with a binary: ousia was common to all hypostases, while hypostasis was the particular being. If God’s Incarnation in humanity was said of natures, therefore, it should apply equally to the whole Trinity and to all human beings. But this was patently absurd as the Incarnation was said of the Logos, not the Father or the Spirit. And its object is Jesus’ humanity not Peter’s or Paul’s. 43 It has so far been impossible to prove that any of the later, major Chalcedonian authors used the Grammarian’s Apology. The speedy eclipse of his fame may have been the result of the apparently devastating success of Severus’ polemic against him. According to one of Severus’ biographers, even the most ignorant were afterwards united in their mockery of the Grammarian’s theological incompetence: Joseph Lebon, Le monophysisme sévérien: Étude historique, littéraire et théologique (Louvain, 1909), 151. 44 The suspicion that the common ousia of Nicene trinitarianism would have to exist separate from, and in addition to, the three hypostases was a staple of fourth-century, anti-Nicene polemic which it was incumbent on the Cappadocians to exclude. See Rowan Williams, ‘The Logic of Arianism’, JTS 34 (1983), 56-81, 66. 45 References for this principle in Uwe M. Lang, John Philoponus and the Controversies over Chalcedon in the Sixth Century (Leuven, 2001), 63. All the opponents of Chalcedon made use of this axiom in their case against the language of the Council. It is therefore all the more remarkable that Chalcedonians accepted it as well, even if they disagreed with the conclusions drawn from it by their foes.

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We find these two objections mostly raised by the opponents of the Chalcedonian settlement to indicate the absurdity of the formula of two natures in one hypostasis.46 According to the principles of Cappadocian philosophy, the opponents would urge, there could only ever be one nature realised in one hypostasis; or, if there are two natures, there also have to be two hypostases. Furthermore, the claim that the Incarnate partakes of universal natures leaves their individuation unexplained. Did this mean that the anti-Chalcedonians had a conceptual silver bullet to solve the problems raised by the application of Cappadocian philosophy to Christology? The answer, of course, is no, but it will be important to consider their philosophical responses before returning to the conceptual work done by later Chalcedonians in their attempts to justify the language adopted by the Council of 451. 4. The Case against Chalcedon For any comprehensive understanding of the philosophical consequences of the Christological controversy, it is necessary to consider the doctrines of the rival communities emerging at the time in their own right and on their own terms. While a full presentation of these different intellectual trajectories is inevitably beyond the scope of the present paper (and perhaps beyond the abilities of any individual scholar), I would nevertheless indicate that, in my view, only such an account will ultimately lead to a satisfactory understanding of the dynamics of Patristic philosophy including its various reception histories in later thought. As a token towards such a fuller presentation, let me here offer a few comments on the transformation of Cappadocian philosophy in the thought of leading miaphysite opponents of the Council of Chalcedon. In his landmark study on Severus of Antioch, published over a century ago but still indispensable, Joseph Lebon ascribed to Severus and his fellow miaphysites a philosophy (‘si on peut en parler’47) that was radically different from the one inherited from the Cappadocians which dominated the thought of their Chalcedonian foes. Its basis was a novel understanding of physis. Nature, Lebon held, was understood by all the miaphysites as simply identical with hypostasis and thus signifying the concrete individual:48 The word φύσις signifies the individual, the subject. It is employed in perfect synonymy with ὑπόστασις and πρόσωπον.49 46 See J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 193-6 for a detailed analysis of these two anti-Chalcedonian arguments. 47 J. Lebon, Le miaphysisme (1909), 510. 48 Ibid. 242 ff. 49 Ibid. 274.

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This view has often been repeated since; it therefore bears saying that it is wrong.50 I suspect Lebon would not have been so unequivocal in his judgment had he known at the time the important second book of Severus’ work against John the Grammarian in which the sometime Patriarch of Antioch defined his terms in some detail. A careful analysis of these sections in particular yields a more nuanced picture. Severus closely engages with the major Cappadocian texts in developing his own philosophical concepts.51 He distinguishes ousia and hypostasis and defines the former, in line with all fifth-century readers of the Cappadocians as the totality of individuals belonging to the same species52 while resorting for the latter to the notion of individuating properties.53 Yet he insists that physis stands between the two extremes; while it often represents the universal, it can also indicate the level of the individual.54 This duality, Severus observes, is illustrated by the use of the term ‘humanity’. The term can either indicate the totality of human beings as in Psalm 103:15 (102 LXX: ἄνθρωπος, ὡσεὶ χόρτος αἱ ἡμέραι αὐτοῦ). The same word can also, however, signify a human individual, as the miaphysite patriarch goes on to illustrate with several scriptural quotations, among them Psalm 52:7 (51:9 LXX: Ἰδοὺ ἄνθρωπος, ὃς οὐκ ἔθετο τὸν θεὸν βοηθὸν αὐτοῦ, ἀλλ’ ἐπήλπισεν ἐπὶ τὸ πλῆθος τοῦ πλούτου αὐτοῦ). ‘Man’ (ἄνθρωπος) here clearly refers to one individual, one hypostasis, as Severus point out. More specifically, as he explains, it refers to Doeg, the Edomite, who is mentioned in the Psalm’s title (cf. 1Samuel 21 f.): ‘the word “man” here is indicative of just one person’.55 This last claim may easily appear as special pleading; after all, Severus was theologically committed to the view that the Incarnate was both one hypostasis and one nature;56 he therefore had a vested interest in defending their terminological identity as valid. While such motives may have played a role in Severus’ philosophical definitions, however, it would be rash to reduce his account of nature and hypostasis to this kind of intellectual opportunism. We need to recall again the two dimensions of Cappadocian philosophy. We have already seen that the intuitive application of this theory by the Chalcedonian John the Grammarian relied heavily on its abstract dimension. What we can see in Severus, by contrast, is a stronger reliance on the concrete aspect 50

See J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 120-2. Severus’ definition of ousia and hypostasis in his Homily 125 (ed. Maurice Brière, Les Homiliae Cathedrales de Sévère d’Antioche: Homélies CXX à CXXV, PO 138 [Paris, 1960], 236) is practically a melange of extracts from Basil’s Adversus Eunomium II 4 and [Basil], Ep. 38, 3: cf. J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 123-4. 52 E.g. Severus of Antioch, C. imp. Gramm. II 17 (161.6-29 [125.32-126.18] Lebon). 53 E.g. Severus of Antioch, Hom. 125 (236 Brière). 54 See Severus of Antioch, C. imp. Gramm. I 9 where the argument is put forth in great detail. 55 Severus of Antioch, C. imp. Gramm. I 9 (47.18-9 Lebon). 56 For a full discussion of Severus’ use of the mia-physis formula in its historical context see J. Lebon, Le miaphysisme (1909), 303-19. 51

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of the Cappadocians’ system. According to this part of their theory, universal and particular being were closely tied together; the individual was the existential expression of a universal nature, its only one to be precise. While nature was universal, it could only be encountered in its individual instantiations. Unlike the Grammarian, Severus was a conservative thinker for whom theology meant thinking with the fathers. He was not, therefore, keen to apply Cappadocian terms to Christology simply because there was little precedent for doing so. Yet when challenged to the task, it turned out that he was perfectly capable of foisting his own doctrinal interpretation on the received philosophy. The basis of his account was the ontological continuity between hypostatic existence and physical or substantial determination in the Cappadocian theory. The individual human being was human, after all. In fact, human nature could only be encountered and comprehended in and through human individuals. This appropriation of the Cappadocian theory through its concrete dimension became the hallmark of the miaphysite tradition. Its most distinctive feature, however, does not seem to be explicitly present in Severus yet. We have seen him claim that physis possessed a dual meaning and could stand for the universal but also for the particular. This clearly called for terminological clarification and we soon enough find a distinction along these lines taken for granted by miaphysite authors who from the mid-sixth century routinely differentiate universal and particular natures. Particular natures were the great novelty in Patristic philosophy of the sixth century. Their introduction was perhaps the first visible sign that the conceptual needs of the Christological controversy were beginning to transform the Cappadocian tradition. A benign interpretation would say that particular natures were forgotten in the Cappadocian theory which cannot account for statements that are true for only some members of the universal class. When a human being is born or dies, this does not mean that the whole race comes into existence or disappears, but it does not only apply to the individual as individual either. The statement refers, we might say, to humanity insofar as it is embodied in one individual, in other words to the human nature particular to this person. Introducing particular natures could, then, explain how in Jesus Christ God could be said to have become human without implying that the whole Trinity became incarnate in the whole of humanity. Along those lines, the introduction of particular natures was justified in clear and precise language by one of the most incisive Christian philosophers of the sixth century and beyond, John Philoponus:57 57 There is now a considerable amount of literature on Philoponus although his specific contribution to Patristic philosophy remains neglected: Most comprehensive is Richard Sorabji (ed.), Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science (London, 2010). Reliable on Philoponus’ Christology: U. Lang, John Philoponus (2001). T. Hermann, ‘Johannes Philoponus als Monophysit’,

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Therefore each nature is called what it is not in a single but in a twofold manner: in one way, when we look at the common logos of each nature on its own, such as the nature of man or of a horse, which does not exist in any of the individuals; in another way when we look at the same common nature which exists in the individuals and assumes a particular existence in each of them, and does not fit with anything else except with this alone. For the rational and mortal living being in me is not common to any other man. And the nature of living being which is in this horse is not in any other, as we have now shown.58

It is important to read Philoponus’ argument in his Diaitetes or Arbiter in conjunction with the earlier work by Severus (and in the context of the Christological debate) to perceive it in continuity with the concrete dimension of Cappadocian philosophy. Particular natures were more than a conceptual device to explain the logic of the Incarnation. They expressed the insight, held in principle by the Cappadocians and vital for the miaphysites, that individuals were the privileged locus in and through which being could be encountered. As such, they became important in protest against a tendency beginning to emerge in Chalcedonian philosophy at the time of separating the concrete hypostasis from its substantial or physical content. I shall have to come back to this point. While the miaphysites could therefore claim to preserve an important aspect of Cappadocian philosophy in the face of novel challenges, their conceptual innovation opened up serious tensions in another regard. Ultimately, the absence of particular natures or substances from the Cappadocian theory had not at all been an oversight or an accident. The notion of nature as individuated or ‘particularised’ in its hypostases made it difficult or impossible to maintain that universal nature, nevertheless, remained entirely one and undivided, but the latter was a major tenet of Cappadocian philosophy.59 ZNW 29 (1930), 209-64 has important material but is outdated in its interpretation. For an excellent overview see Alois Grillmeier, Theresia Hainthaler et al., Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 2: From the Council of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great (590–604), Part IV: The Church of Alexandria with Nubia and Ethiopia, trans. O.C. Dean (London, 1996), 107-46. 58 Philoponus, Arbiter 7 (22), ed. Bonifatius Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol. 4, PTS 22 (Berlin, New York, 1981), 52.59-68: Οὐκοῦν ἑκάστη φύσις οὐ μοναχῶς λέγεται τοῦθ’ ὅπερ ἐστίν, ἀλλὰ διχῶς. Καθ’ ἕνα μὲν τρόπον, ὅταν τὸν κοινὸν ἑκάστης φύσεως λόγον αὐτὸν ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῦ θεωρῶμεν, οἷον τὴν ἀνθρώπου φύσιν ἢ τὴν ἵππου ἐν οὐδενὶ τῶν ἀτόμων γινομένην, καθ’ ἕτερον δέ, ὅταν αὐτὴν δὴ ταύτην τὴν κοινὴν φύσιν ἐν τοῖς ἀτόμοις γινομένην κατίδωμεν καὶ μερικωτάτην ἐν ἑκάστῳ αὐτῶν λαμβάνουσαν ὕπαρξιν, οὐδενὶ ἄλλῳ πλὴν ἐκείνῳ καὶ μόνῳ λοιπὸν ἐφαρμόζουσαν. Τὸ γὰρ ἐν ἐμοὶ ζῷον λογικὸν θνητὸν οὐδενὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων ἐστὶ κοινὸν οὐδὲ ἡ ἐν τῷδε τῷ ἵππῳ τοῦ ζῴου φύσις ἐν ἄλλῳ τινὶ γένοιτ’ ἄν, ὡς ἀρτίως δεδείχαμεν. ET: U. Lang, John Philoponus (2001), 191. 59 For an explicit rejection of particular natures on the basis of Cappadocian philosophy, cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Graecos, ed. Friedrich Mueller, GNO III/1 (Leiden, 1958), 23.4-13. Andrew Radde-Gallwitz has recently made a strong case against the authenticity of this writing (Gregory of Nyssa’s Doctrinal Works: A Literary Study [Oxford, 2018], 123-6), but whatever its justification, the sentiment expressed in these lines genuinely reflects the incompatibility of particular natures with Gregory’s philosophy.

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For this strong emphasis on the indivisibility of the universal item they had an excellent reason: Nicene trinitarianism. In fact, the Cappadocian account of the universal was advanced at least partly in response to the charge that the Cappadocian reconstruction of Nicene trinitarianism would lead to tritheism.60 The emphatic affirmation of the unity of nature and hypostasis by sixth-century miaphysites therefore led directly to renewed trinitarian debate, known as the tritheistic controversy.61 At the root of this controversy was the tension between the notion of particular natures, introduced in the interest of Christology, and the trinitarian need to affirm God’s unity without qualification. To the extent that there existed three particular natures in the Godhead, the conclusion seemed inescapable to many that they could be counted as three; the attempt by the stalwarts of Severan orthodoxy to deny this consequence appeared utterly feeble by comparison.62 This fascinating development over the course of only a few decades gives a first glimpse of the momentous impact the shift of the doctrinal focus to Christology had on the tradition of Cappadocian philosophy. While trinitarian theology had mandated a philosophy based on the unity of universal ousia albeit concretely realised in a plurality of hypostases, Christology brought the problem of the individual to the centre of intellectual reflection. Faithful to their Cyriline affirmation of a single nature in the Incarnate, the miaphysites emphatically insisted on the indivisibility of the nature and its hypostatic realisation. While for this they could draw on the concrete dimension of the Cappadocian theory, their philosophy severed the bond through which the Cappadocians had established ontological unity between individuals. 5. Chalcedonian Philosophy The miaphysite anti-Chalcedonians, then, were not fundamentally detached from the tradition of Cappadocian philosophy, but they certainly did not possess a miraculous cure for the tensions that arose from its application to Christology either. We have already seen that their Chalcedonian rivals intuitively chose an appropriation of the Cappadocian theory that was almost exactly the opposite of what the miaphysites attempted. John of Caesarea and those who followed his lead adopted the abstract dimension of the Cappadocian account. With the Christological focus strictly on the philosophical understanding of the 60

See Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Ablabium (38.8-18 Mueller). On this controversy see Rifaat Ebied, Lionel Wickham and Albert van Roey, Peter of Callinicum: Anti-Tritheist Dossier (Leuven, 1981), 34-43; Alois Grillmeier, Theresia Hainthaler et al., Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 2: From the Council of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great (590–604), Part III: The Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch, trans. Marianne Erhardt (Oxford, 2013), 268-80. 62 J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 157-9. 61

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individual, their challenge was to explain the precise relationship between the substantial or physical ‘component’ in the individual and its concrete hypostatic reality. Closer analysis shows that Chalcedonian authors between the early sixth and the eighth century proposed various theories in their defence of the doctrine of two natures in one hypostasis. There was no single ‘Chalcedonian’ answer to the conceptual challenges that were relentlessly pressed against them by their doctrinal opponents. With only slight simplification, however, we can say that these authors pursued two major strategies each of them characteristically different from the other: one took as its starting point the substance or nature as present in the individual; the other by contrast fastened on the hypostasis as the concrete foundation of all being.63 The former of these approaches was adumbrated in Leontius of Byzantium, the most influential Chalcedonian theologian of the sixth century,64 and developed further by his disciple Pamphilus who flourished around the middle of the sixth century.65 The same approach is then also encountered in Theodore of 63 J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 189-310. There, I also include a full discussion of the contribution of Maximus the Confessor to these debates (ibid. 275-87). Maximus arguably was the most important Greek Patristic philosopher in the latter half of the first millennium but his position in the present narrative is complicated. As I show, he was unique in his time in his relative independence of the prevailing strictures of the Christological controversy. Rather than let the objections to Chalcedon determine the shape of his thought, he reached back to the Cappadocians and appropriated their thought in light of the more recent – but purportedly much more ancient! – writings by the Ps.-Dionysius into an innovative and original synthesis. On this basis, he developed a strongly mereological ontology radicalising ideas in the Cappadocians. He applied this scheme to Christology drawing selectively on Leontius of Byzantium but otherwise bypassing most of the earlier Chalcedonian literature. In this approach he anticipates the part-whole Christology of Thomas Aquinas and the Thomist tradition, while John of Damascus despite his evident debt to the Confessor in other regards constructed his own Christological argument in conversation with the two strands of Chalcedonian philosophy which will be present in what follows. It is therefore tempting to find in Maximus’ thought a reflexion of his political decision to turn away from the East and towards the West. For this larger context, cf. the excellent account in Phil Booth, Crisis of Empire: Doctrine and Dissent at the End of Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 2014). 64 Modern research on Leontius was initiated by Friedrich Loofs’ brilliant but flawed study: Leontius von Byzanz und die gleichnamigen Schriftsteller der griechischen Kirche (Leipzig, 1888). Loofs’ conclusions were subsequently largely dismantled by Johann Peter Junglas, Leontius von Byzanz: Studien zu seinen Schriften, Quellen und Anschauungen (Paderborn, 1908); Marcel Richard, ‘Léonce de Jérusalem et Léonce de Byzance’, MSR 1 (1944), 35-88; and Brian Daley, ‘A Richer Union: Leontius of Byzantium and the Relationship of Human and Divine in Christ’, SP 24 (1993), 239-65. On Leontius see also A. Grillmeier and T. Hainthaler, Christ in Christian Tradition II/2 (1995), 181-229; C. dell’Osso, Cristo e Logos (2012), 111-56; B. Gleede, ΕΝΗΥΠΟΣΤΑΤΟΣ (2012), 61-9; K.-H. Uthemann, ‘Definitionen’ (1997), 94-105. 65 The personality is obscure; see José Declerck, ‘Encore une fois Léonce et Pamphile’, in Philohistôr: Miscellanea in honorem Caroli Laga septuagenarii, ed. Antoon Schoors and Peter Van Deun (Leuven, 1994), 190-216, esp. 210-6 for the most recent attempt to identify the author. See A. Grillmeier and T. Hainthaler, Christ in Christian Tradition II/3 (2013), 129-30 for an overall sceptical assessment of the various theories that have been proposed. For recent discussions of

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Raïthu at the turn of the seventh century.66 Its fundamental intuition was expressed in a celebrated passage in Leontius of Byzantium’s Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos.67 While it was true, Leontius argued there, that there could be no nature that was ‘anhypostatic’, this only meant that there had to be an entity called ‘enhypostaton’ for each nature, not a hypostasis: Hypostasis, gentlemen, and the enhypostaton are not the same thing, just as ousia and enousion are different. For the hypostasis signifies the individual, but the enhypostaton the ousia; and the hypostasis defines the person by means of peculiar characteristics, while the enhypostaton signifies that something is not an accident which has its being in another and is not perceived by itself. Such are all qualities, those called essential and those called non-essential; neither of them is a substance, which is a subsistent thing – but is perceived always around a substance, as with colour in a body or knowledge in a soul.68

What was this mysterious ‘enhypostaton’? Perhaps surprisingly, Leontius’ reply is that it is the ousia (ἡ μὲν γὰρ ὑπόστασις τὸν τινὰ δηλοῖ, τὸ δὲ ἐνυπόστατον τὴν οὐσίαν). It is not, however, ousia as a universal; instead it is, so to speak, the substantial component in the individual as distinct from its accidental parts. The enhypostaton, then, is the individuated universal; it is, for example, ‘humanity’ as it can be found in Peter or Paul which is, in them, distinguished from their accidental components.69 Abstractly, we can say that individuation is here distinguished from hypostatisation or concrete realisation; Pamphilus’ thought see ibid. 129-50; C. dell’Osso, Cristo e Logos (2012), 373-94; B. Gleede, ΕΝΗΥΠΟΣΤΑΤΟΣ (2012), 104-13. 66 The date is based in the identification of the author with Theodore of Pharan. See Werner Elert, ‘Theodor von Pharan und Theodor von Raithu’, ThLZ 76 (1951), 67-76. Most recent scholarship has followed Elert’s argument including A. Grillmeier and T. Hainthaler, Christ in Christian Tradition II/3 (2013), 113. Recently, C. dell’Osso rejected this identification and consequently treated Theodore among the authors writing prior to the Council of 553: Cristo e Logos (2012), 157. 67 B. Gleede, ΕΝΗΥΠΟΣΤΑΤΟΣ (2012), 64-7 provides an informed overview of this debate. See also Dirk Krausmüller, ‘Making Sense of the Formula of Chalcedon: The Cappadocians and Aristotle in Leontius of Byzantium’s Contra Nestorios et Eutychianos’, VC 65 (2011), 484-513. 68 Leontius of Byzantium, Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos (henceforth: CNE) 1, ed. Brian Daley, Leontius of Byzantium: Complete Works (Oxford, 2017), 132.19-26: Οὐ ταὐτόν, ὦ οὗτοι, ὑπόστασις καὶ ἐνυπόστατον, ὥσπερ ἕτερον οὐσία καὶ ἐνούσιον· ἡ μὲν γὰρ ὑπόστασις τὸν τινὰ δηλοῖ, τὸ δὲ ἐνυπόστατον τὴν οὐσίαν· καὶ ἡ μὲν ὑπόστασις, πρόσωπον ἀφορίζει τοῖς χαρακτηριστικοῖς ἰδιώμασι· τὸ δὲ ἐνυπόστατον, τὸ μὴ εἶναι αὐτὸ συμβεβηκὸς δηλοῖ, ὃ ἐν ἑτέρῳ ἔχει τὸ εἶναι, καὶ οὐκ ἐν ἑαυτῷ θεωρεῖται. Τοιαῦται δὲ πᾶσαι αἱ ποιότητες, αἵ τε οὐσιώδεις καὶ ἐπουσιώδεις καλούμεναι, ὧν οὐδετέρα ἐστὶν οὐσία, τουτέστι πρᾶγμα ὑφεστώς, ἀλλ’ ὃ ἀεὶ περὶ τὴν οὐσίαν θεωρεῖται, ὡς χρῶμα ἐν σώματι, καὶ ὡς ἐπιστήμη ἐν ψυχῇ. ET: Ibid. 133 (with changes). 69 Interpretations of this aspect of Leontius’ teaching differ. For a rather sceptical reading of the conceptual potential of Leontius’ thought see A. Grillmeier and T. Hainthaler, Christ in Christian Tradition II/2 (1995), 193. Richard Cross, while agreeing with Grillmeier/Hainthaler on the problems in the CNE, argues that a better theory is forthcoming in Leontius’ later Epilyseis: ‘Individual Natures in the Christology of Leontius of Byzantium’, JECS 10 (2002), 245-65, 247. I agree with Cross’ analysis of the Epilyseis but think the same ideas are already present in the earlier work.

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Christ can therefore exist in two natures individuated as two enhypostata, but this does not imply the existence of two hypostases. At first sight, Leontius’ proposal might appear rather similar to the concurrent introduction of particular substances by his miaphysite rivals. Yet it would be wrong to equate the two.70 Both conceptual innovations, admittedly, respond to the novel needs created by Christology; both testify to the ‘turn to the individual’ that was the result of this doctrinal development. Beyond this parallel, however, their differences are stark. Particular substances or natures were introduced, as we have seen, to keep intact the ontological unity of the individual hypostasis with its own nature in the interest of miaphysite Christology. Leontius’ enhypostaton, by contrast, attempts to dislodge the two. By fastening on the distinction, within the individual, of a substantial and a non-substantial (accidental) component, he attempts to drive a wedge between the nature in its individuated state on the one hand and its concrete realisation on the other. One consequence of this is the innovative idea that hypostasis, as distinguished not only from universal but also individual properties, is reduced to the notion of existence pure and simple.71 At the same time, Leontius has fewer difficulties than his miaphysite opponents retaining the notion of ousia or physis as universal being. When he is prompted, in his Epilyseis, to affirm an individual human nature in the Incarnate, he insists that this ‘individual nature’ is the same as the universal (τὴν αὐτὴν οὖσαν τῷ εἴδει).72 I think he does so in good faith. Strong affirmations of the realistic universal in the Cappadocian tradition are also encountered in other writers of the time who share a similar approach.73 As these observations underline, the philosophical transformations of the Cappadocian theory in the sixth century were aligned with the different Christological options around which distinct communities increasingly consolidated in the wake of the Council of Chalcedon. Miaphysites tended to adopt the concrete dimension of the classical theory, defend the integrity of individual nature and hypostasis, but found it difficult to maintain the ontological link between individual and universal nature. Chalcedonians, by contrast, fastened on the abstract aspect of the Cappadocian tradition; maintained the unity of universal and individual nature but salvaged the identity between individual nature and its concrete instantiation in the hypostasis in order to justify the co-existence of two natures in one hypostasis. 70

So rightly: R. Cross (ibid. 252). In CNE, Leontius argued for a distinction between the ‘the nature of the Logos’, which he glosses as ‘a phrase which signifies both the common property and the individual property of the hypostasis’, and the hypostasis: CNE 4 (144.21-2 Daley). The Incarnate had two universal and two individual natures but existed in only one hypostasis. 72 Leontius of Byzantium, Epilyseis 1, ed. Brian Daley, Leontius of Byzantium: Complete Works (Oxford, 2017), 272.7. 73 See e.g. Pamphilus, Solutio 1, ed. José H. Declerck, Diversorum postchalcedonensium auctorum collectanea I: Pamphili theologi opus, CChr.SG 9 (Turnhout, 1989), 129.40-1; Theodore of Raïthu, Praeparatio 15, ed. Franz Diekamp (Rome, 1938), 210.3-11. 71

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Leontius of Byzantium’s approach was not, however, the only influential philosophical strategy pursued by Chalcedonians during the final centuries of late antiquity. While he tackled the conceptual problems created by dyophysite Christology through a conceptual emphasis on the individuated ousia or nature, others attempted to solve the same problem by reworking the concept of hypostasis. This line of thought was initially advanced by John the Grammarian but was developed more consistently in Leontius of Jerusalem, writing probably at the beginning of the seventh century;74 it ultimately shaped the influential synthesis of John of Damascus. Its doctrinal starting point was the celebrated notion that Christ’s humanity did not need a hypostasis of its own because it existed only within the hypostasis of the Logos. This principle was sanctioned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553, and we therefore find it affirmed by all Chalcedonian authors writing after the mid-sixth century. Yet their affirmation was often limited to the claim that Christ’s humanity did not pre-exist his Incarnation.75 Only some authors went further using it as the basis of their own brand of Chalcedonian philosophy. The most distinctive property of this approach is that it considers hypostasis, the concrete individual, ontologically foundational. All other being, by contrast, exists merely by inhering in hypostases. In other words, the special case of the Incarnation here becomes a universal metaphysical paradigm. Leontius of Jerusalem in particular insisted that it was, in fact, perfectly normal for more than one nature to inhere in one and the same hypostasis. In one place, he offers a definition of the term that places special emphasis on this tenet: Hypostasis is called the stable constitution (στάσις ἢ σύστασις) conceived in one particular object of the particular properties [united into] the common property in either one simple nature or in a composite one, or in a particular one, or in a universal one (such as divine nature), either in one nature alone or in many that are united – always though in one existent (ἐν ὑπάρξει).76

At first sight, this philosophical outlook appears far removed from the Cappadocian account of being, and major scholars have indeed concluded that Leontius of Jerusalem broke radically with the older Patristic tradition.77 Yet as in all other cases we have considered so far, such an assessment is too categorical. The ‘philosophy of the hypostasis’, as I would call it,78 is clearly beholden 74 This date has been established by Dirk Krausmüller, ‘Leontius of Jerusalem: A Theologian of the Seventh Century’, JTS 52 (2001), 637-57 and affirmed by C. dell’Osso, ‘Leonzio di Bisanzio e Leonzio di Gerusalemme: una ciara distinzione’, Augustinianum 46 (2006), 231-59; id., Cristo e Logos (2012), 348-9. Critical: Patrick Gray (ed.), Leontius of Jerusalem: Against the Monophysites: Testimonies of the Saints and Aporiae (Oxford, 2006), 38-40. 75 E.g. Pamphilus, Solutio 7 (176.77-80 Declerck); Theodore, Praeparatio 8 (192.9-25 Diekamp). 76 Leontius of Jerusalem, Adversus Nestorianos (henceforth: AN) II 1 (PG 86/1, 1529C-D). 77 For this assessment see M. Richard, ‘Léonce de Jérusalem’ (1944), 61: ‘Léonce de Jérusalem […] dès le principe rompt carrément avec la tradition cappadocienne’. 78 See J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 257.

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to major insights found in Cappadocian texts, not least the notion of hypostasis as the existential basis of all being.79 Yet it abandons the notion that a hypostasis is necessarily the concrete realisation of one universal nature in favour of a much loser ontological relationship according to which natures simply exist or ‘inhere’ in hypostases. The idea that natures or substances have their being merely due to their inherence in hypostases, however, is rather extraordinary. Ever since Aristotle’s Categories, the difference between something that was ‘in a subject’ and something that was not had been considered as the basic ontological watershed, the distinction between substance and accident.80 The Chalcedonian philosophy of the hypostasis boldly and without apology blurs this traditional philosophical binary. For Peter to be human, then, is not in principle different from his being tall, or courageous, or in his fishing boat. Along these lines, Leontius of Jerusalem insists that human beings receive a new, spiritual nature in the eschaton but remain the same person.81 Similarly, he was willing to compare the insertion of human nature into the divine hypostasis in the Incarnation to the dying of wool in red,82 the coating of wood in gold,83 or to a man who put on his armour.84 All these examples speak a clear language indicating that to Leontius of Jerusalem ousia was little more than a qualitative modifier not dissimilar from other accidents.85 When we come to John of Damascus, the two strands of Chalcedonian philosophy are to an extent united.86 Ultimately, the Damascene is, I think, beholden to the philosophy of the hypostasis, dividing being into independently existing hypostases on the one hand and all remaining entities on the other:87 [The word hypostasis] indicates the thing that exists by itself and in independent, concrete realisation (ἰδιοσύστατον) by which is signified the individual, which is different in number, for example Peter, Paul, this particular horse. For it is necessary to know 79

See at n. 26 above. Cf. Aristotle, Categories 2 (1a20-1b5). On the complications of this distinction in the later commentary tradition cf. B. Gleede, ΕΝΗΥΠΟΣΤΑΤΟΣ (2012), 69-100. 81 Leontius of Jerusalem, AN II 35 (PG 86/1, 1593C). 82 Leontius of Jerusalem, AN I 30 (PG 86/1, 1593C-D). 83 Ibid. 84 Leontius of Jerusalem, AN IV 36 (PG 86/1, 1704D). 85 The notion that Christ’s human nature resembles an accident is taken up by some medieval theologians, e.g. William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea III, tr. 1, q. 3, ed. Jean Ribaillier, 5 vol. (Paris, 1980-87), vol. 5, 20. For the context see Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus (Oxford, 2002), chs. 3 and 4. 86 On John of Damascus see the full treatments in Andrew Louth, St. John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford, 2012) and Smilen Markov, Die metaphysische Synthese des Johannes von Damaskus: Historische Zusammenhänge und Strukturtransformationen (Leiden, 2015). Also: Christophe Erismann, ‘A World of Hypostases: John of Damascus’ Rethinking of Aristotle’s Categorical Ontology’, SP 50 (2011), 269-87; Anna Zhyrkova, ‘John Damascene’s Notion of Being: Essence vs. Hypostatical Existence’, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 54 (2010), 87-107. 87 See J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 290-3. 80

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that neither undetermined ousia, nor the substantial difference, nor the species, nor the accident subsist by themselves, but only hypostases or individuals. In them are seen substances, substantive differences, species, and accidents.88

Yet he also adopted the Leontian term enhypostatos. In fact, he is responsible for a novel twist to its understanding which was to be of the utmost consequence to later, Western theology: Properly, enhypostatos is either that which does not subsist on its own but is only seen in the hypostases. In this way, the species, or nature, of human being is not seen in a hypostasis of its own but in Peter, Paul, and the other hypostases of men. Or it [sc. the enhypostaton] is that which is joined together with something else that is different in substance to produce one whole and to perfect one composite hypostasis. In this way, the human being is joined together from soul and body. Neither the soul alone is called hypostasis nor the body, but they are enhypostata, whereas that which is perfected from them both is the hypostasis of them both.89

The interpretation of enhypostatos as ‘exisiting within’ must appear natural to those familiar with later, Western theology but, as we have seen, it was not how Leontius of Byzantium and his followers understood it.90 By reinterpreting the term as ‘existing within’, therefore, the Damascene aligned the Leontian concept to the philosophy of the hypostasis specifically designed to underwrite insubsistence Christology. At the same time, John borrowed from Leontius of Byzantium the notion of the hypostasis as existence per se.91 This enables a conceptually powerful 88

John of Damascus, Dialectica 43, ed. Bonifatius Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol. 1, PTS 7 (Berlin, 1969), 108.4-11: Τὸ τῆς ὑποστάσεως ὄνομα […] σημαίνει· […] τὴν καθ’ αὑτὸ καὶ ἰδιοσύστατον ὕπαρξιν, καθ’ ὃ σημαινόμενον τὸ ἄτομον δηλοῖ τῷ ἀριθμῷ διαφέρον ἤγουν τὸν Πέτρον, τὸν Παῦλον, τὸν τινὰ ἵππον. Χρὴ γὰρ γινώσκειν, ὡς οὔτε οὐσία ἀνείδεος ὑφέστηκε καθ’ ἑαυτὴν οὐδὲ διαφορὰ οὐσιώδης οὔτε εἶδος οὔτε συμβεβηκός, ἀλλὰ μόναι αἱ ὑποστάσεις ἤτοι τὰ ἄτομα καὶ ἐν αὐτοῖς αἵ τε οὐσίαι καὶ αἱ οὐσιώδεις διαφοραί, τά τε εἴδη καὶ τὰ συμβεβηκότα θεωροῦνται. 89 John of Damascus, Dialectica 45 (110.7-15 Kotter): Κυρίως δὲ ἐνυπόστατόν ἐστιν ἢ τὸ καθ’ ἑαυτὸ μὲν μὴ ὑφιστάμενον ἀλλ’ ἐν ταῖς ὑποστάσεσι θεωρούμενον, ὥσπερ τὸ εἶδος ἤγουν ἡ φύσις τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐν ἰδίᾳ ὑποστάσει οὐ θεωρεῖται ἀλλ’ ἐν Πέτρῳ καὶ Παύλῳ καὶ ταῖς λοιπαῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὑποστάσεσιν, ἢ τὸ σὺν ἄλλῳ διαφόρῳ κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν εἰς ὅλου τινὸς γένεσιν συντιθέμενον καὶ μίαν ἀποτελοῦν ὑπόστασιν σύνθετον, οἷον ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐκ ψυχῆς ἐστι καὶ σώματος συντεθειμένος· οὔτε ἡ ψυχὴ μόνη λέγεται ὑπόστασις οὔτε τὸ σῶμα ἀλλ’ ἐνυπόστατα, τὸ δὲ ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων ἀποτελούμενον ὑπόστασις ἀμφοτέρων. 90 The Damascene’s importance in this development was rightly recognised by Uwe M. Lang, ‘Anhypostatos–Enhypostatos: Church Fathers, Protestant Orthodoxy and Karl Barth’, JTS 49 (1998), 630-57, 651. 91 See above at n. 76. The crucial passage in John of Damascus is Expositio fidei 55 (III 11), ed. Bonifatius Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol. 2, PTS 12 (Berlin, New York, 1973), 131.4-12, where he argues for the existence of an ‘individual nature’ which encompasses universal and particular properties (ἡ αὐτὴ [sc. φύσις] ἐν προσλήψει συμβεβηκότων ἐν μιᾷ ὑποστάσει καὶ λέγεται ἐν ἀτόμῳ θεωρουμένη φύσις): this, according to the Damascene, is the nature the saviour assumed in the Incarnation. As in Leontius, then, the necessity for human

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justification of Chalcedonian Christology: two natures, consisting of both universal and particular properties, can coexist in one hypostasis which gives to them existential reality, unity, and identity without adding properties to their qualitative determination. Thus far, the natures are enhypostatoi; this now means that they exist ‘in’ the hypostasis. As in Leontius of Jerusalem, the Damascene’s philosophy retains from the Cappadocian theory primarily the notion of hypostasis as the existential basis of all being. He is committed to ousia as universal being drawing on Leontius of Byzantium in this connection, but the near-total absence of Cappadocian terminology in the trinitarian section of his influential Exposition of Faith92 indicates quite clearly how completely the tradition of Patristic philosophy had by then been honed towards the Christological problem. What had started as a theory underwriting Nicene trinitarianism, had become a philosophy in the service of Chalcedonian Christology.

6. Conclusion The Christological controversy, then, had a profound impact on Patristic philosophy and, ultimately, on the history of philosophy more generally. For the first time, it put the individual at the centre of philosophical attention. Contrary to some students of Patristic thought, I do not believe that notions of individuality let alone personality were foundational for the philosophy of the Cappadocian Fathers. Rather, their thought was geared towards unity and the oneness of being. While, according to them, ousia could only exist concretely realised in hypostases, their separate existence was almost the only thing worth saying about the latter. They were only hypostases of the one ousia. The paradigm case was, after all, the Trinity, one God existing in three Persons identical in nearly everything except their mode of origin, as John of Damascus rightly observed.93 This radically changed with Christology which put an individual person who by definition represented a unique ontological reality at the centre of theological reflection. As we have seen, major thinkers across the confessional divides, found it necessary to transform the Cappadocian theory into a philosophy of the individual. Depending on their different doctrinal commitments, their assumptions about what criteria an individual had to fulfil varied dramatically, and this led to the different philosophies that were developed and adopted by hypostasis is avoided on the grounds that the latter would merely add concrete existence to the compound of universal and particular properties making up the full human nature. See J. Zachhuber, Rise of Christian Theology (2020), 296-8. 92 The main authority in these sections is the Ps.-Dionysius. 93 John of Damascus, Expositio fidei 8 (I 8) (29, 247-50 Kotter).

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representatives of different faith communities. Yet this should not occlude the fact that the amount of philosophical reflection devoted to the problem of the individual and to individuality was rather unprecedented, not only in previous Patristic philosophy but also in ancient philosophy more widely. Yet these later fathers did not break new ground only in their innovative attention to the problem of individuality as such. As part of their exploration of the complexities of Christology, they also broached innovative avenues in ontology more generally. This is particularly distinct in the vision encountered in John of Damascus at the end of the Patristic period. Here, the Cappadocian duality of universal and particular being has largely given way to a binary of existence, hypostasis, and essence, individual nature. It is well known that the Damascene was a major authority for later Western theology. It is also known how crucial the duality of essence and existence became in later Western philosophy. How far these later transformations were influenced by the vicissitudes of the late ancient Christological controversy, however, remains largely unknown. It will be the task of a future, more careful investigation of this history to investigate the long-term effects of the ontological revolution that was begun when the Eastern Church Fathers sought to work out the intellectual consequences of the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ. Yet whatever the ultimate result of these historical studies may be, theologians as well as philosophers will do well to reflect on the significance of the insight that such a fundamental philosophical transition was occasioned by attempts to address the single most central aspect of the Christian faith, the unique importance of a single individual, Jesus of Nazareth. It indicates that the philosophical significance of Christianity cannot be studied and assessed in abstraction from this theological tenet but only by accepting its centrality and by engaging with it.94

94 I have developed these insights further in my Père Marquette lecture, published as Luther’s Christological Legacy: Christocentrism and the Chalcedonian Tradition (Milwaukee, WI, 2017).

Righteous-ed by Faith: Justification as Factitive in the Pre-Augustinian Tradition Matthew J. THOMAS, Berkeley, CA, USA

ABSTRACT It is a popular notion that the patristic understanding of justification as factitive – being ‘made righteous’ – originates with Augustine’s Latin misreading of the underlying Greek verb. This article examines the conception of justification in Greek and Latin patristic sources prior to Augustine, and shows that this notion appears to be ill-founded, with the factitive understanding being widely found in earlier centuries. Having demonstrated the widespread presence of justification-as-factitive, this article concludes with brief reflections on how such an understanding relates to forensic conceptions of justification in patristic theology.

There exists a popular notion among biblical scholars and theologians that St Augustine introduces into Christian theology the novel conception of ‘justification’ as factitive. This is to say, rather than justification simply being forensic, and entailing only the forgiveness of sins, Augustine misunderstands justification in a transformative sense, so that the sinner is actually ‘made righteous’.1 The idea that this conception begins with Augustine – which is often attributed to his poor understanding of Greek – can be found across contemporary Pauline studies, and on both sides of the divide between ‘old’ and ‘new’ perspectives on Paul. For example, the ‘old’ perspective proponent Tom Schreiner writes that ‘[i]n the history of interpretation Augustine argued that the term [justify] meant “make righteous”’,2 and contrasts the Latin-bound Augustine with those whose ‘knowledge of Greek’ led them to a ‘recognition of justification’s forensic character’.3 On the other side, in his book on justification, the ‘new’ perspective exegete N.T. Wright laments on four occasions what he calls ‘the 1 These category distinctions between ‘forensic’ and ‘factitive’ justification are not found in Augustine’s writings, or in the patristic sources that precede him. Rather, the terms are drawn from sixteenth-century debates, which provide the framework for modern discussions on the topic, into which earlier sources (such as Augustine) are made to fit. While the approach is anachronistic – patristic theologians are obviously not writing to engage sixteenth-century disputes – analysis of the sources can usually determine how they relate to these later categories. 2 Thomas Schreiner, 40 Questions about Christians and Biblical Law (Grand Rapids, 2010), 117. 3 Id., Faith Alone: The Doctrine of Justification (Grand Rapids, 2015), 30.

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age-old problem’ of ‘Augustine’s interpretation of “justify” as “make righteous”’.4 As Wright asserts, ‘the church has indeed taken off at an oblique angle from what Paul had said, so that, yes, ever since the time of Augustine, the discussions about what has been called “justification” have borne a tangled, but ultimately only tangential, relation to what Paul was talking about’.5 Pauline scholars, in turn, have largely inherited this narrative from historical theologians. Wright, for example, cites as his authority Alister McGrath’s Iustitia Dei, in which McGrath outlines how Augustine was reliant on a Latin translation of the Bible when he encountered the post-classical term iustificare, and ‘was thus obliged to interpret the term himself’.6 Noting the common derision of Augustine’s etymological speculations, McGrath comments that his interpretation of iustificare as iustum facere (make righteous) ‘is not an acceptable interpretation of the verb considered as the Latin equivalent of δικαιοῦν’, but nevertheless ‘was universally accepted during the medieval period’.7 (I should add here that McGrath has revised this narrative in the upcoming edition of his book.) Similarly, Gerald Bray writes that ‘Augustine chose the word iustificare … to convey the idea of “transforming someone into a righteous person”, which dikaioun does not (and cannot) mean’, and ‘this usage passed into the Western tradition’ and ‘caused trouble and misunderstanding later on’.8 Finally, Michael Horton identifies Augustine as ‘the progenitor of the medieval view of justification as a process of renewal (i.e., sanctification)’, and states that Augustine ‘interprets justification as making righteous’ due to his reliance on Jerome’s Vulgate translation.9 The following article will show that the common narrative regarding Augustine and factitive justification is untenable, and can only be sustained by a failure to seriously consider patristic sources prior to Augustine. In light of constraints of space, I have limited this article to five examples from pre-Augustinian sources: Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and Chrysostom. Each example will show how the strictly forensic sense insisted upon by Augustine’s critics cannot be maintained, as the context of each passage shows that a factitive sense of dikaioō or iustitificare appears to be understood, rather than a forensic one. These examples will show that rather than making him an innovator, Augustine’s interpretation of justification as a process of ‘making just’ simply shows his dependence upon the Christian tradition that precedes him. We will conclude with a brief reflection on what early usage 4

N.T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove, 2009), 91 (italics original); cf. also 80, 83, 102. 5 Ibid. 80 (italics original). 6 Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 2005), 47. 7 Ibid. 20, 59 (italics original). 8 Gerald Bray, God Has Spoken: A History of Christian Theology (Wheaton, 2014), 513. 9 Michael Horton, Justification: Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, 2018), 88-9 (italics original).

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of this verb suggests about the theological relation between forensic and factitive conceptions of justification. We begin with Ignatius of Antioch, who writes to the Philadelphian church en route to his martyrdom ca. 110 AD.10 In discussing the priority of Christ over the archives of the Old Testament, Ignatius writes the following: But for me, the ‘archives’ are Jesus Christ, the unalterable archives are his cross and death and his resurrection and the faith that comes through him; by these things I want, through your prayers, to be justified (ἐν τῇ προσευχῇ ὑμῶν δικαιωθῆναι). (Ign., Phil. 8.2)

In this passage, it is difficult to see how a strictly forensic sense of acquittal can account for what Ignatius means by ‘justify’, as there is no easy theological explanation for how the prayers of the Philadelphians would contribute to Ignatius receiving the forgiveness of sins. Conversely, the passage is easily intelligible if Ignatius is referring to a process of being made righteous, one that is rooted in Christ and still contributed to by the intercession of fellow believers. T.F. Torrance, though he laments what he believes to be an un-Pauline usage of the verb, comes to a similar conclusion: ‘The word δικαιοῦμαι is only twice used in [Ignatius’] epistles, and in neither case is it used in the Pauline sense … when we enquire what the positive meaning of justification is, we find it to be that of becoming just. In other words, justification is a process…’11 Fifty years following Paul’s death and nearly three hundred prior to Augustine’s writings, we find the factitive understanding of justification already present in a Greek writer. Second, we turn to the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria, written around 208 AD. In the first chapter, Clement discusses the role that Greek philosophy has providentially played in the course of humanity’s development prior to Christ, noting the points of analogy it holds with the Hebrew Scriptures. Clement writes: For to those who have been justified by philosophy (ὑπὸ φιλοσοφίας δεδικαιωμένοις), the knowledge which leads to piety is laid up as a help. Accordingly, before the advent of the Lord, philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness … For this was a schoolmaster to bring the Hellenic mind, as the law, the Hebrews, to Christ (cf. Gal. 3:24). (Strom. 1.4-5)

Later on, Clement elaborates on this preparatory role of philosophy: … at one time philosophy justified the Greeks (ἐδικαίου ποτέ), not conducting them to that entire righteousness to which it is ascertained to cooperate, as the first and second flight of steps help you in your ascent to the upper room, and the grammarian helps the philosopher. (Strom. 1.20) 10 For recent debate on the dating of Ignatius’ epistles, see Mark J. Edwards, ‘Ignatius and the Second Century: An Answer to R. Hübner’, ZAC 2 (1998), 214-26; Markus Vinzent, Writing the History of Early Christianity (Cambridge, 2019), 266-464. 11 T.F. Torrance, The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers (Eugene, 1996 [1948]), 67.

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Here as well, a strictly forensic interpretation of ‘justify’ cannot explain Clement’s intention, as if philosophy served as the Greeks’ means of forgiveness before God. Rather, Clement quite clearly means that Greek philosophy, however imperfectly, played a role in making the Greeks just. For Clement, this imperfect amelioration reaches its climax in Christ, similarly to how the shadows of the Mosaic law find their full reality with Christ’s incarnation. Here as well, the Greek dikaioō is interpreted as a factitive process centuries before Augustine. Our third example is Tertullian, writing Against Marcion around 210 AD. In book 5 of this work, Tertullian writes short summaries of the Pauline epistles to show how Paul’s meaning differs from the assertions of Marcion. In explaining Paul’s appeal to Abraham’s justification in Galatians 3, Tertullian writes the following: For if Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned for righteousness, and thenceforth he had the right to be called the father of many nations: and if we by believing God are the more thereby justified (magis proinde iustificamur), as Abraham was, and the more obtain life … so it comes about that … he pronounced us sons of Abraham. (Marc. 5.3)

The key word in this passage is ‘more’, magis, which makes a forensic reading of justification seemingly unintelligible, as it is not clear how one who has been acquitted can increase in acquittal. Instead, Tertullian here understands the Pauline verb in a factitive sense, so that as Abraham became righteous by faith, we by believing in God are the more thereby made righteous. Pairing with his contemporary Clement’s usage of the Greek dikaioō as making righteous, Tertullian here provides an interpretation of the Latin counterpart iustificare as transformative, nearly two entire centuries prior to Augustine. Fourth is Origen, whose Commentary on Romans represents our earliest extant commentary on Paul’s epistle.12 In this lengthy exposition, Origen discusses the nature of justification at many points, such as his observations on Romans 3:20 (‘no flesh will be justified by works of the law’). Here Origen interprets justification in an explicitly factitive sense, writing that Christ is: … the righteousness through which all become righteous (justitia ex qua omnes justi fiunt), and he is the truth through which all stand firm in the truth; and he himself is the life through which all live… (Comm. Rom. 3.6.5)

In this passage, Origen pairs nouns with cognate verbs to show how Christ, not the law, creates each quality in the believer. Just as he is the truth that makes men true, and the life whereby they live, so too is he the righteousness by which they are justified – that is, made righteous. This passage corresponds 12 Origen’s commentary is preserved in Rufinus’ Latin translation, which (like Rufinus’ other translations) cannot be guaranteed to be free from interpolation. For Augustine’s ostensible reliance upon Origen’s Romans commentary, see Thomas Scheck, Origen and the History of Justification: The Legacy of Origen’s Commentary on Romans (Notre Dame, 2008), 88-90.

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with Origen’s conception of justification elsewhere in his writings; as Thomas Scheck observes: ‘Origen understands justification as the reception of the righteousness of God, which he identifies with Jesus Christ … This righteousness makes human beings just, beings in whom the justice of God dwells’.13 As with Tertullian, the factitive, transformative nature of justification is basic to Origen’s Pauline exegesis. Finally, factitive justification is explicitly taught by Chrysostom, Augustine’s Greek predecessor and the Eastern church’s Pauline commentator par excellence. In his Homilies on Romans from 391 AD, Chrysostom comments as follows on Romans 3:26 (‘to declare his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus’): What is declaring of righteousness? Like the declaring of His riches, not only for Him to be rich Himself, but also to make others rich, or of life, not only that He is Himself living, but also that He makes the dead to live; and of His power, not only that He is Himself powerful, but also that He makes the feeble powerful. So also is the declaring of His righteousness not only that He is Himself righteous, but that He does also make them that are filled with the putrefying sores of sin suddenly righteous (δικαίους ποιεῖν). (Hom. Rom. 7.3.26)

In this passage, Chrysostom explicitly identifies justification as a ‘making righteous’, rather than a simple legal pronouncement. Such a transformative interpretation of justification is found throughout Chrysostom’s writings; as Robert Eno comments, Chrysostom ‘has a great deal to say about justification by faith as opposed to the works of the Law. The “Justice of God” means a quality of God but also that by which God makes sinners just…’14 Here as well, Chrysostom shows the impossibility of Augustine either generating the factitive interpretation, or it being due to his faulty Greek, since Chrysostom himself writes in Greek and predates Augustine by half a generation! Such examples prior to Augustine can be multiplied, and four sources from the second century alone – Epistle to Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus – have been left on today’s cutting room floor due to the constraints of time.15 Nevertheless, the five patristic sources we have surveyed demonstrate that the popular narrative regarding Augustine’s invention of factitive justification is simply untenable. In summary, then, whatever estimations one holds regarding Augustine’s proficiency with the Greek language, the preAugustinian tradition shows that Augustine is simply following the Greek and Latin interpretative streams that precede him when he writes on in On the Spirit and the Letter: ‘For what else does the phrase “being justified” signify than 13 Thomas Scheck, Origen’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Books 1-5 (Washington, DC, 2001), 25. 14 Robert B. Eno, ‘Some Patristic Views on the Relationship of Faith and Works in Justification’, Recherches Augustiniennes et Patristiques 19 (1984), 3-27, 13. 15 See Barn. 15.7; Shep. 17.1; Justin, Dial. 23, 92; Irenaeus, Haer. 4.16.2; Epid. 35.

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being made righteous – by Him, of course, who justifies the ungodly man, that he may become a godly one instead?” (Spir. et litt. 45; cf. Rom. 3:24). Finally, and more broadly theologically, without denying the forensic quality of justification, these pre-Augustinian sources would suggest that the verdict of acquittal in justification corresponds with a real transformation God produces in the life of the believer, so that those who are forgiven are those whom he truly makes righteous by faith.

‘Sacrifice of a Broken Spirit’: The Prayer of the Sinner in Ancient Christianity* Lorenzo PERRONE, «Alma Mater Studiorum» – Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Italianistica, Bologna, Italy

ABSTRACT In the Old and the New Testament (and also in post-biblical writings), some of the most influential prayers are placed on the mouth of sinners. For the sake of clarity, we should distinguish the ‘sinful prayer’ from the ‘prayer of the sinner’, which then becomes properly a ‘penitential prayer’. A ‘sinful prayer’ is the one which perverts the demand addressed to God because of a mistaken spiritual attitude or of its content. The ‘prayer of the sinner’ can be regarded as initially distinct from the ‘penitential prayer’, insofar as, on the one hand, the experience of sin still permeates the address to God in terms of a confession; on the other hand, it appears essentially as a personal process of avowal and amendment, not yet accompanied by the performance of some penitential rites. Beyond the evidence at our disposal in early Christian literature, the paradigm of the sinner’s prayer occupies an important place in the patristic discourse on prayer. Even the recommended physical gestures become fully meaningful, insofar as they are seen as different from the way a sinner should pray. Notwithstanding that, the patristic explanation of the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer in the long run promotes the awareness that ours is, in principle, always a ‘sinner’s prayer’. While the ecclesiastical rites develop the different forms of the penitential discipline for the faithful who have sinned after baptism, the rise of monasticism sharpens the consciousness of the sinfulness of those who pray. This development emerges in an impressive way in the Fifth Step of John Climacus’ Spiritual Ascent, through the prayers in the prison for the monks who have sinned.

A prelude: Prayers of saints and sinners Scholars looking for patristic echoes in modern literatures will have no difficulty finding them in Dostoevsky’s masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov. Not only does the spiritual guidance of Alyosha, the youngest of them, under * I would like to thank Dr. Cristian Gaşpar (Central European University, Budapest) and Prof. Aryeh Kosfky (University of Haifa) for the careful reading of my English text. With their patient revision they substantially improved it and helped me to better formulate my thoughts, while increasing my debt of gratitude towards them as long-standing and extremely generous friends. Among those who have expressed reactions or comments on my paper, I am especially grateful to Paolo Bettiolo, Domenico Pazzini, Marco Rizzi, Guy Stroumsa and Andrea Villani.

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the starets Zosima betray the imprint of the early monastic tradition, but this heritage is made explicit in the text by the mention of the Sermons and Sayings of the ‘God-fearing Father’ Isaac the Syrian. Also the frequent recourse to prayer by some of the characters in that novel could be traced back to the same patristic and monastic sources: for example, in the evening prayer of Alyosha, which usually consisted of ‘praise and adoration’ leading for him to a ‘joyous emotion’;1 or in the farewell speech of Zosima who exhorted his fellow monks to pray for the salvation of humankind, also on behalf of those who do not want to pray, though without ever forgetting to add the words: ‘I am lower than all men’.2 Yet perhaps the most impressive instances of prayers come out of the mouths of those who are not used to pray or are not expected to do it. This is the case with the moving appeal to God of the suffering child harrassed by her parents (in the dreadful story told by Ivan in a dialogue with Alyosha),3 and especially with the passionate prayers of Dmitri, the eldest, wildest and most impulsive of the three brothers, who considers himself a ‘sinner’, an ‘evildoer’. In one of his outbursts Mitya, while accusing again himself, professes his indefectible love to God: Lord, receive me, with all my lawlessness, and do not condemn me. Let me pass by Thy judgment … do not condemn me, for I have condemned myself, do not condemn me, for I love Thee, O Lord. I am a wretch, but I love Thee. If Thou sendest me to hell, I shall love Thee there, and from there I shall cry out that I love Thee for ever and ever.

It is not surprising that the repentant Dmitri, at the prospect of his deportation and the hard labor in the mines, comes to envisage for himself a life of prayer in terms that recall the great monastic ideal of oratio continua in Christian antiquity: ‘Ah, man should be dissolved in prayer! What should I be underground there without God?’4. In contrast with Dmitri Karamazov, the ‘whisky priest’ of Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory under the burden of his sinfulness is not able to pray anymore. Hence he seems at first to resemble Macbeth, who listening to two men praying confesses his moral impossibility to join them: ‘I could not say: 1

The Brothers Karamazov, Part I, Book III, Ch. XI, trans. Constance Garnett (New York, 1912), 173. 2 Ibid., Part II, Book IV, Ch. I, 177: ‘Remember them in your prayers thus: “Save, O Lord, all those who have none to pray for them, save too all those who will not pray”. And add: “It is not in pride that I make this prayer, O Lord, for I am lower than all men”’. See also the special teaching on prayer in Zosima’s ‘Conversations and Exhortations’: ‘Young man, be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education. Remember, too, every day, and whenever you can, repeat to yourself, “Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee to-day”’ (Part II, Book VI, Ch. III, 354). 3 Ibid., Part II, Book V, Ch. IV, 265: ‘The whole world of knowledge is not worth that child’s prayer to “dear, kind God”!’. 4 Ibid., Part IV, Book XI, Ch. IV, 668.

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Amen!’.5 Nevertheless a yearning for prayer constantly accompanies Greene’s priest in his fugitive existence during the persecution of the Roman Catholic church in early twentieth century Mexico. Thrown into jail, he confesses to his companions: ‘I don’t know how to repent’, and Greene explains: ‘He couldn’t say to himself that he wished his sin had never existed, because the sin seemed to him now so unimportant and he loved the fruit of it. He needed a confessor to draw his mind slowly down the drab passages which led to grief and repentance’.6 Not even before his execution does the priest apparently succeed in showing some contrition, though the discomfort for his useless life leads him to a new awareness, and this again takes the form of a self-accusation: ‘He knew now that at the end there was only one thing that counted – to be a saint’.7

The prayer of the sinner: Between sinful and penitential prayer As shown by these vivid figures of world literature, the prayer of a sinner is not the same thing as the prayer of a saint, even if the euchological discourse and also the ecclesiastical practice of ancient Christianity ultimately reveal a connection or, to put it better, a dialectics between them. In fact prayer, primarily conceived not so much as ‘conversation’ (ὁμιλία) with God but rather as a ‘demand’ (αἴτησις) to Him, despite the objections raised against it from a philosophical viewpoint in antiquity and in modern times, is for man the most common and immediate expression of a relation to the deity.8 As such, it is not simply an ‘act of liberty’,9 but often enough, especially in the presence of an urgent need, an ‘act of necessity’. No wonder then that prayer is not reserved 5 See Macbeth, Act II, Scene II, and the words that follow: ‘But wherefore could not I pronounce “Amen”? / I had most need of blessing, and “Amen” / Stuck in my throat’. I. Hausherr, ‘La prière chez S. Thomas d’Aquin’ (Panégyrique prononcé à Enghien le 7 mars 1923), Orientalia Christiana Periodica 70 (2004), 9-16, 12 has noted this passage, while commenting so on the impossibility to pray for the evil sinner: ‘Voilà en raccourci l’état du réprouvé … l’attraction infinie du souverain Bien, et la répulsion de la souveraine Justice; et entre les deux mâchoires de cet infrangible étau toute espérance est étouffée, et avec elle toute possibilité de prière. Au lieu de son vers fameux: “Vous qui entrez ici, laissez toute espérance”, Dante aurait donc pu nous donner le même frisson d’horreur en inscrivant sur la porte de l’enfer: “C’est ici le lieu où le malheur ne prie pas”’. 6 Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory, with an introduction by J. Updike (London, 2004 [1940]), 126. As a chance to confess seems to approach, he is once more in trouble: ‘What was the good of confession when you loved the result of your crime?’ (ibid. 173). 7 Ibid. 209. 8 See, for example, R. Hirsch-Luipold, ‘Würdigkeit versus Hartnäckigkeit. Gebetstheorie und -praxis bei Maximos von Tyros im Vergleich mit Lukas, Joseph und Aseneth und Plutarch’, in id. and M. Trapp (eds), Ist Beten sinnvoll? Die 5. Rede des Maximos von Tyros (Tübingen, 2019), 93-116 contrasting the view of Maximus of Tyre and Luke. 9 A. Fürst, ‘Beten als Akt der Freiheit. Zu den philosophischen Aspekten der Gebetsschrift des Origenes’, in R. Hirsch-Luipold and M. Trapp (eds), Ist Beten sinnvoll? (2019), 117-46.

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to the righteous or the saint alone; also the impious and the sinner can be led to address God for help. Contemporary studies on prayer, focused very much on biblical or postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity, seem with few exceptions to have been less interested in patristic antiquity after the glorious age of Franz Josef Dölger and Adalbert Hamman (without forgetting other illustrious names such as Fernand Cabrol, Henri Leclercq or Marcel Viller).10 A recent History of Prayer from the first to the fifteenth century presents quite a selective overview, restricted to a few figures and to several issues of theology and spirituality, but does not pay attention to the prayer of the sinner.11 On the contrary, the situation is better, if we turn to current research on the Bible and intertestamental Judaism. Three important volumes under the title Seeking the Favor of God have retraced the origins, development and impact of penitential prayer in Second Temple Judaism.12 Thanks to them we may hope to acquire a suitable frame for reconstructing the prayer of the sinner in ancient Christianity. But the notion of ‘penitential prayer’ is not entirely satisfying for my purpose. Not incidentally, the debate over its exact definition has not yet come to an end,13 as it seems still to be the case also for the biblical and post-biblical idea of ‘repentance’ and the processes that led to the emergence of the discourse on penitence between Judaism and Christianity.14 Taking into account the rich complexity of forms and phenomena which play a role in the expressions of prayer, we may distinguish for the sake of convenience three interrelated notions: 1) the sinful prayer, 2) the prayer of the sinner, and 3) the penitential prayer. As I shall try to analyze in what follows, 10 For bibliography and the state of research see C. Claussen, ‘Repentance and Prayer in the Didache’, in M.J. Boda, D.K. Falk and R.A. Werline (eds), Seeking the favor of God. Vol. 3: The Impact of Penitential Prayer beyond Second Temple Judaism (Atlanta, 2008), 197-212, 197 n. 1 and S.C. Reif, ‘The Place of Prayer in Early Judaism’, in id. and R. Egger-Wenzel (eds), Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions. Emotions associated with Jewish prayer in and around the Second Temple period (Berlin, Boston, 2015), 1-17. 11 R. Hammerling (ed.), A History of Prayer. The First to the Fifteenth Century (Leiden, Boston, 2008). In fact, many of the contributions for the patristic age deal with the interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer. 12 M.J. Boda, D.K. Falk and R.A. Werline (eds), Seeking the favor of God. Vol. 1-3 (1: The Origins of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism; 2: The Development of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism; 3: The Impact of Penitential Prayer beyond Second Temple Judaism (Atlanta, 2006, 2007, 2008). 13 A.K. Harkins, ‘A Phenomenological Study of Penitential Elements and Their Strategic Arousal of Emotion in the Qumran Hodayot (1QHa cols. 1[?]-8)’, in S.C. Reif and R. EggerWenzel (eds), Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions (2015), 297-316, 299. 14 D.A. Lambert, How Repentance Became Biblical. Judaism, Christianity and the Interpretation of Scripture (Oxford, 2016), 3: ‘Where is repentance understood, then, to be at play in the Hebrew Bible? At first glance, it is most conspicuous by its absence. Sacrifice would seem to be the main form of expiation. The prophets speak mostly of Israel’s doom. Biblical Hebrew has no actual word, “repentance”, and biblical texts few examples of anything quite like it’.

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the prayer of the sinner in its narrow sense emerges, so to say, in the interplay between sinful and penitential prayer, the latter prefiguring already a more or less advanced process of repentance.15 A sinful prayer is the perverted or inappropriate prayer, as far as its addressee, form, content or the spiritual condition of the praying person are concerned. Warning against unworthy and impious prayer occurs now and then in the Bible, for instance in the Prophets, or in a passage of the book of Wisdom directed against the way idolaters use to pray (Wis. 13:17-14:1).16 But impious prayer is also a theme of ancient philosophy, which since Pythagoras and Plato had worked out a model for praying that excluded demands incompatible with the nature of the deity and the moral code implied by the relationship with it. For Plato only the virtuous can pray to the gods, whereas the impure should not expect to be heard on account of sacrifices made in their own interest and to obtain in this way purification from one’s faults.17 Later philosophers, too, continued to criticize the way most of men pray and to impart instructions on how they should do it. For Maximus of Tyre prayers consisting of demands for futile things and so-called ‘goods’, even if not amounting to requests for evils to be inflicted on others, deserve to be punished by the divinity.18 In this philosophical view, which aims at the elaboration of an ideal model, the rejection of sinful prayer apparently does not make any room for the prayer of the sinner. It goes without saying that the early Christian discourse on prayer shares the biblical and philosophical rejection of the sinful prayer. Yet, unlike the 15 Methodologically, I could point to the classification of ‘repentance’ as a historical ‘discourse’ in D.A. Lambert, How Repentance Became Biblical (2016), 9: ‘By “repentance” in this study, I do not intend a discrete, stable entity, a specific word with a single meaning, but rather a dynamic series of historical processes that are seen to have a certain unity, to be continuous with one another, for bringing into being a shared notion of the human. Together, these processes form what might be called a “discourse”, a mode of organizing thought and experience that is rooted in the development of linguistic terms – a new penitential terminology – but that also involves performative, nonlinguistic elements as well’. 16 According to M. Witte, ‘Emotions in the Prayers of the Wisdom of Solomon’, in S.C. Reif and R. Egger-Wenzel (eds), Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions (2015), 161-76, 172, ‘these petitions are not criticized by pseudo-Solomon on account of what is requested, but rather because they are addressed to the wrong addressee; they do not petition the living God but self-made idols’. For the prophetic critique of perverted prayer see A.F. Wilke, Die Gebete der Propheten. Anrufungen Gottes im corpus propheticum der Hebräischen Bibel (Berlin, 2014), 36-229 (‘Gebete von Sündern’) and O. Pettigiani, Dio verrà certamente: La preghiera perversa alla luce di Os 6,3 (Assisi, 2017). 17 A. Timotin, La prière dans la tradition platonicienne, de Platon à Proclus (Turnhout, 2017), 22. Plato rejects private prayers, brought forth for personal interest outside the framework of public cult, on account of one’s φιλαυτία. See also p. 36: ‘Oui, en effet, le méchant (κακός) est impur (ἀκάθαρτος) en son âme alors que l’homme de bien est pur (καθαρός), et pour un homme de bien comme pour un dieu, recevoir des présents de mains souillées ne saurait être droit. Toute la peine que se donnent les impies (ἀνόσιοι) pour mettre les dieux de leur côté est donc vaine, alors que c’est une chose des plus opportunes pour les hommes pieux (ὅσιοι)’. 18 A. Timotin, La prière dans la tradition platonicienne, de Platon à Proclus (2017), 85.

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philosophers, patristic authors from Tertullian to Augustine fully recognize the legitimacy of prayer as demand and, on the whole, are less demanding as far as its contents are concerned. They admit at least that the request for material things can to some extent be legitimate, beginning with the petition of ‘daily bread’ in the Lord’s Prayer. Nevertheless, at the pastoral level, they must further face expressions of sinful or perverted prayers, as Augustine famously witnesses.19 He often complains about a situation that he vividly describes with the following words in one of his sermons: I know that every day people come, kneel, touch the body with their forehead, sometimes wet their face with tears, and in such deep humility and affliction say: ‘O Lord, take my vengeance! Kill my enemy!’20

These are the cases to which one may apply Ps. 108(109):7: ‘and let his prayer become sin’ (καὶ ἡ προσευχὴ αὐτοῦ γενέσθω εἰς ἁμαρτίαν), though such demands at first sight could find support in some of the imprecatory Psalms.21 Augustine adopting here the passage from Ps. 108(109):7 depends on the patristic interpretation of the psalm as a prophecy of Judas the Traitor, an exegesis that essentially goes back to Origen, but was inspired by the use of verse 8 in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:20).22 While the psalm itself is, of course, not a ‘sinful prayer’, it points to the prayer of the sinner as sinful and perverted. Nevertheless this is not always so: as precisely the case of Judas himself proves, at least according to Origen’s interpretation, a sinner can repent 19 G. Antoni, La prière chez Saint Augustin. D’une philosophie du langage à la théologie du Verbe (Paris, 1997), 104. 20 Aug., Serm. 211, 6: Scio quotidie uenire homines, genua figere, frontem terrae concutere, aliquando uultum suum lacrymis rigare, et in ista tanta humilitate ac perturbatione dicere: «Domine uindica me, occide inimicum meum» (PL 38, 1057-8). See also En. in Ps. 39, 4: Quando enim inuocas Deum, ut premat inimicum tuum, quando de malo alieno gaudere uis, et ad hoc malum inuocas Deum, participem eum facis malitiae tuae (S. Aurelii Augustini Enarrationes in Psalmos I-L, ed. E. Dekkers and J. Fraipont, CChr.SL 38, pars X,1 [Turnhout, 1956], 427.12-4. 21 On Ps. 108(109) see A. Wénin, Psaumes censurés. Quand la prière a des accents violents (Paris, 2017), 97-121. 22 L. Perrone, La preghiera secondo Origene: l’impossibilità donata (Brescia, 2011), 449-51. For Augustine’s critique of Judas’ prayer, see En. in Ps. 108, 9: Quoniam non est iusta oratio, nisi per Christum, quem uendidit immanitate peccati: oratio autem quae non fit per Christum, non solum non potest delere peccatum, sed etiam ipsa fit in peccatum. Quando autem Iudas ita orare potuerit, ut oratio eius fieret in peccatum, quaeri potest. Credo, antequam Dominum traderet, et de illo tradendo iam cogitaret: non enim iam poterat orare per Christum. Nam posteaquam illum tradidit, eumque poenituit, si per Christum oraret, indulgentiam rogaret; si indulgentiam rogaret, spem haberet; si spem haberet, misericordiam speraret; si misericordiam speraret, non sibi desperatione collum ligaret. Proinde cum dixisset: Cum iudicatur, exeat condemnatus (Ps. 108[109]: 7a); ne ab imminente condemnatione putaretur se potuisse oratione liberare, quam didicerat cum condiscipulis suis, ubi dicitur: Dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris (Matt. 6:12): Et oratio eius, inquit, fiat in peccatum (Ps. 108[109]:7b); quia non fit per Christum, quem noluit sequi, sed persequi (S. Aurelii Augustini Enarrationes in Psalmos CI-CL, ed. E. Dekkers and J. Fraipont, CChr.SL 40, pars X,3 [Turnhout, 1956], 1590.4-21.

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even in the last minute, and prayer in fact supports this process of repentance. In this occurrence the sinner’s prayer is generally called a ‘penitential prayer’. Much effort has been done to retrace the essential characteristics of penitential prayer, its literary tradition and historical evolution from biblical Judaism to Christian origins, after which it seems somehow to disappear, at least insofar as we trust the picture transmitted by the sources at our disposal. A definition of the penitential prayer, as suggested by Rodney Werline in the opening of the three volumes series Seeking the Favor of God, presents it as ‘a direct address to God in which an individual, group, or an individual on behalf of a group confesses sins and petitions for forgiveness as an act of repentance’.23 This definition stresses three constitutive aspects: address to God, confession of sins and demand of pardon. They aptly resume the main features of the corpus of biblical and postbiblical texts on penitential prayers. However, the definition does not include further elements which should be taken into consideration as, for instance, the possible presence of a ritual and institutional context of penitential prayer. Nor does it appreciate the non-verbal or non-textual expressions of prayer consisting of the physical gestures and the emotional states connected with it, two aspects to which recent studies have made us more attentive24. Bearing in mind this approach, what is the use of the above definition in the case of the repentant young man who buries himself in a tomb in the story narrated by the Historia monachorum in Aegypto? There was a young man who had committed many evil deeds in the city and was responsible for great trespasses. Through the inspiration of the Lord he repented of his sins and went to live in a tomb. There he wept over his past life always bowing down his head, without taking courage to pronounce a word or to invoke the name of God and beg him, because he felt himself unworthy even to live. Shutting himself into the tomb, he renounced to life even before he died, whereas he did nothing else but to moan with a deeply contrite heart.25

This is, indeed, an extreme instance of a penitential attitude, to the point of refraining from a vocal expression. Notwithstanding that, it is in fact a form of constant avowal of sinfulness and a visible display of contrition, whereas the physical gestures and the tears that characterize such conduct are more generally distinctive elements of the sinner’s prayer engaging a penitential process. 23 R.A. Werline, ‘Defining Penitential Prayer’, in M.J. Boda, D.K. Falk and R.A. Werline (eds), Seeking the favor of God (2006), xiii-xvii, xv. On the merits of the definition see S.E. Balentine, ‘“I Was Ready to Be Sought Out by Those Who Did Not Ask”’, in M.J. Boda, D.K. Falk and R.A. Werline (eds), Seeking the favor of God (2006), 1-20, 11. 24 See e.g. S.C. Reif and R. Egger-Wenzel (eds), Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions (2015); M. Patzelt, Über das Beten der Römer. Gebete im antiken Rom als Ausdruck gelebter Religion (Berlin, 2018). 25 Hist. Mon. in Aegypto (John of Lycopolis 37), in Historia monachorum in Aegypto, ed. A.-J. Festugière (Bruxelles, 1971).

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As we know from the history of biblical and ecclesiastical penance, this process carries with it, in particular, mourning and fasting besides other possible manifestations of one’s repentance.26 From the Scripture to ancient Christianity confession of sins is thus at the core of the sinners’ prayer at the moment they repents, though such confession can take more or less explicit forms and varying degrees of intensity as regards self-accusation. On this point very few can compete with the dramatic violence of self-reproach in the Book of Lamentantions by Gregory of Narek. The wonderful Armenian poet of the eleventh century lays the emphasis, so to say, more on the guilt and self-accusation of the sinner than on the process of repentance and redemption in which (s)he is indeed engaged and through which (s)he is finally saved. What we have here is the passionate intensification of a disposition of mind whose roots and stimuli essentially go back to the penitential practice and spiritual heritage of ancient monasticism as summed up in the notions of πένθος (‘sorrow’) and κατάνυξις (‘compunction’), yet to the effect that the sinner’s prayer is more clearly distinguishable from a penitential prayer tout court.27 In fact, personal immediacy and urgency seldom transpire in the expressions of penitential prayers, both scriptural and postscriptural, since they mirror institutionalization and ritual uniformity. Moreover, the interactive aspect of the sinner’s prayer should be taken into account, inasmuch as in addition to God the confession of sins involves heavenly actors and human intermediaries, positing by the way an audience of collective or individual nature.28 As it seems to happen in Qumran, the confession of sins may even enhance the religious status of the community performing it, inasmuch as it contributes to distinguish it from ‘others’.29 26 See, for instance, Origen, Hom. in Lev. II, 4, who lists seven forms of repentance, and the comment of A.C. Torrance, Repentance in Late Antiquity: Eastern Asceticism and the Framing of the Christian Life c. 400-650 CE (Oxford, 2012), 72. 27 Grégoire de Narek, Le livre de prières, intr., trad. de l’arménien et notes par I. Kéchichian, SC 78 (Paris, 1961); Paroles à Dieu de Grégoire de Narek, intr., trad. et notes par A. et J.-P. Mahé (Leuven, 2007). According to the introductory summary on ‘the tenets of prayers’ in Gregory’s Book of Lamentations, he writes ‘on repentance, on counsel for the benefit of the soul, on selfdiscipline, on the rules of contrite living, on dedication and commitment, on exposing the unseen, on confession of sins, on disclosure of secrets, on laying open of the covered up, on reproach for the hidden, powerful salves for incurable wounds, effective medicines for invisible pains, multi-symptom remedies for the pangs of turmoil, for the passions of all temperaments, occasions for tears, impulses to prayer, prepared in response to the request of the hermit fathers and the multitude in the desert’. On the patristic background see C. Gugerotti, ‘Peccato del mondo, compunzione, redenzione’, in J.-P. Mahé and B.L. Zekiyan (eds), Saint Grégoire de Narek théologien et mystique (Roma, 2006), 255-78. 28 As noted by D.A. Lambert, How Repentance Became Biblical (2016), 55: ‘Confession in biblical texts tends to occur in dialogue, assuming the form: “I have sinned against you”, and not as the private murmurings of an overwhelmed conscience’. 29 See S.E. Balentine, ‘“I Was Ready to Be Sought Out by Those Who Did Not Ask”’ (2006), 16 on D.K. Falk, Daily, Sabbath, and Festival Prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden, 1998):

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In biblical studies penitential prayer, as a recognizable genre with a partly formulaic configuration, historically emerges from the lament to God over the personal or collective destiny leading, in the post-exilic period, to a transfer of responsibility from God to Israel, the people elect being punished by Him as a consequence of its infidelity.30 On the other hand, the catalogue of what may be considered penitential prayers is not so rich as one would imagine. Generally, it comprises a rather tiny sample of representative texts of the ‘genre’ such as, for instance, 1Kgs. 8:22-53; Ezra 9:6-15; Neh. 1:5-11; 9:637; Bar. 1:15-3.8; and Dan. 9:4-19.31 What is more important here is to recall the paradigmatic value of scriptural prayers from the Old and the New Testament for the early Christian discourse on the sinner’s prayer and for penance in the ancient Church. The biblical mirror (with its postbiblical complements) will help us to better delineate the sinner’s prayer as ideally distinct from the penitential prayer under these points of view: on the one hand, the experience of sin still permeates the address to God in terms of confession; on the other hand, it appears essentially as a personal process of avowal and amendment, not yet accompanied by the performance of some penitential rites. This distinction will become further understandable later, when we will look at Origen’s view of the sinner’s prayer.

‘The confession of sin functions as a self-conscious affirmation of the community’s status as God’s elect. As a “priestly-oriented society”, they regard themselves as the faithful remnant that is justified in invoking the covenant curses of Deuteronomy on its opponents’. 30 S.E. Balentine, ‘“I Was Ready to Be Sought Out by Those Who Did Not Ask”’ (2006), 5: ‘The content of prayer shifts from lament and complaint that raise questions about God’s justice to confession of sin that exonerates God by acknowledging human guilt’. See further on this shift J. van Oorschot, ‘Strukturen des Gebetes’, in R. Egger-Wenzel and J. Corley (eds), Prayer from Tobit to Qumran (Berlin, New York, 2004), 17-39, 32: ‘So verstummt unter dem Einfluss deuteronomistischen Geschichts- und Sündentheologie die Anklage Gottes. An ihre Stelle tritt das Sündenbekenntnis und die Rechtfertigung Gottes’. P. Ricœur, ‘La plainte comme prière’, in A. LaCocque and P. Ricœur, Penser la Bible (Paris, 1998), 287-313, 306 stresses the fact that ‘les psaumes de plainte sont là à leur place dans le psautier; or ils ne portent aucune trace apparente d’aveu de culpabilité, ni d’ailleurs d’innocence. On y entend la seule clameur de la souffrance pure’. Cf. also D. Konstan, Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea (Cambridge, New York, 2010), 104. 31 C. Claussen, ‘Repentance and Prayer in the Didache’ (2008), 197: ‘There is a consensus now that these are the first fully developed penitential prayers in the Judeo-Christian tradition. However, as one proceeds into the intertestamental, early Christian, and early rabbinic literature, it becomes more difficult to trace this genre’. A.K. Harkins, ‘A Phenomenological Study of Penitential Elements and Their Strategic Arousal of Emotion in the Qumran Hodayot (1QHa cols. 1[?]-8)’ (2015), 299 includes also the Prayer of Azariah; Tob. 3:1-6:3; Macc. 2:1-10, and 4 QS 504 (Dibrei ha-me’orot). On Baruch’s confession of sins see R. Feuerstein, ‘“Nicht im Vertrauen auf die Verdienste unserer Väter und Könige legen wir dir unsere Bitte um Erbarmen vor” (Bar 2, 19)’, in R. Egger-Wenzel and J. Corley (eds), Prayer from Tobit to Qumran (Berlin, New York, 2004), 255-91, 274.

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Icons of guilt and repentance: The ‘scripturalization’ of the sinner’s prayer Studies on prayer in Second Temple Judaism have stressed the idea of a ‘scripturalization’ of prayer, a phenomenon that led to biblical texts of prayers providing ‘scripts’ likely to be repeated and appropriated by the pious.32 This was the case, in particular, with the book of Psalms and the penitential prayers.33 A similar process took place also in ancient Christianity, since the ‘paradigms of salvation’ (Rettungsparadigmen) of the great orantes of the Old Testament played an important role in the catechesis on prayer, in liturgy and in iconography, joining with and supporting the New Testament developments, first and foremost through some Gospel figures and also through the Lord’s Prayer.34 As one might expect, the Psalter enjoys a place of preeminence, even though its triumphal success as the Christian book of prayer par excellence was not immediate. According to Paul Bradshaw, it seems that the Psalter, being held as a prophetic book, was originally used for teaching and reading more than for praying, albeit it was the best known book of the Old Testamente for early Christians, as proven by the many references to it in the New Testament.35 Apparently, it was only with the spread of monasticism and the creation of the monastic office that the Psalter effectively superseded the other euchological creations for personal and/or liturgical prayer. However, this picture probably demands to be revised and nuanced, considering – as Bradshaw himself recognizes – not only the development of the hours of prayer beginning with the end of the second century, but also the early Church homiletics as exemplified by 32 J.H. Newman, Praying by the Book. The Scripturalization of Prayer in Second Temple Judaism (Atlanta, 1999). See also H. Graf Reventlow, ‘Das Gebet im Alten Testament’, in R. EggerWenzel and J. Corley (eds), Prayer from Tobit to Qumran (2004), 1-15, 7 and H.W.M. van Grol, ‘Psalm, Psalter, and Prayer’, in R. Egger-Wenzel and J. Corley (eds), Prayer from Tobit to Qumran (2004), 41-70, 61 on the book of Psalms as a ‘meditation book’ for the chasidim. 33 S.C. Reif, ‘The Place of Prayer in Early Judaism’ (2015), 12-3: ‘These penitential prayers were written at greater length and with more formality than the texts dating from earlier periods and they contrasted God’s power with Israel’s failures. In an atmosphere of contrition, humility and entreaty, the worshippers acknowledged their guilt and promised to improve their behaviour so that further divine punishment might be avoided. The prayer included historical and didactic elements but they did not yet constitute any form of fixed ritual to challenge that of the Temple’. 34 L. Perrone, ‘I paradigmi biblici della preghiera nel Peri euchês di Origene. Aspetti formali e problematiche ermeneutiche’, in Ricerche patristiche in onore di Dom Basil Studer = Augustinianum 33 (1993), 339-68. For the lists of the saved Jews in the Bible and Judaeo-Hellenism see M. Harl, Voix de louange. Les cantiques bibliques dans la liturgie chrétienne (Paris, 2014), 191-223. 35 P. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church. A Study of the Origin and Early Development of the Divine Office (Eugene, OR, 2008; orig. ed. 1981), 45: ‘Thus the original use of the Psalter may possibly have been in the formal services of the word and alongside non-canonical compositions at the agape, but there is nothing to suggest that it found a place in the daily hours of prayers themselves, and in view of the extremely small number of psalms which are found in the cathedral office in the fourth century, we may conjecture that at the most individual verses from psalms were incorporated into Christian hymns and prayers’.

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Origen’s Homilies on the Psalms, in which the Psalter is not simply commented upon by the preacher but, at least on one occasion, also used as a common prayer by him together with his audience at Caesarea.36 Within the scriptural horizon of the sinner’s prayer, one expects to find a significant presence of Ps. 50(51), the Miserere of Latin Christendom, but the beginnings of its use as the principal penitential prayer of the Christian liturgy both in the East and the West can only be presumed behind Tertullian’s remark on kneeling in the morning prayer37, whereas explicit references to the adoption of Ps. 50(51) as ‘the psalm of confession’ occur only later, that is in the fourth century:38 as attested in the Apostolic Constitutions, the faithful should receive the repentant sinners, ‘because God does not only receive those who repent, but he establishes them again in their primitive dignity’, whereby such a plea is based on Ps. 50(51):11.13-4.39 Without retracing here the patristic reception of the most famous of the psalms ascribed to David as the paradigmatic depiction of an event of repentance, confession of sins and pardon, suffice it to remind to what extent its occurrence contributed to confer a strong penitential note to the varieties of monastic and liturgical prayer: used either in the morning (as also later in the Book of Common Prayer) or in the night, Ps. 50(51) inculcated a fundamental recognition of the constitutive sinfulness of man, albeit pardoned and reconciled with God.40 As is well known, the Miserere together with Ps. 129(130), the equally famous De profundis, is at the core of the seven psalms traditionally (though 36

See H67Ps I, 1, where Origen invites to pray by using Ps. 69(70), Origenes Werke XIII. Die Neuen Psalmenhomilien, ed. L. Perrone, GCS.NF 19 (Berlin, 2015), 173-4. 37 Tertullian, de orat. 23 (Tertullian, De baptismo, De oratione. Von der Taufe, Vom Gebet, ed. and trans. D. Schleyer, Fontes Christiani 76 [Turnhout, 2006]). Cf. P. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church (2008; 1981), 65: ‘The reference for kneeling for the first prayer of the day is interesting, because it implies that this prayer was already relatively fixed and always had a penitential character, and in the fourth century we find that this place in the morning office was occupied by the penitential psalm 51, which may even be what is meant here’. 38 Basil, Ep. 207; P. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church (2008; 1981), 84. See also (Ps.?) Athanasius, De virginitate, who instead of the morning recommends the use of Ps. 50(51) in the midnight service. Later on D. Krueger, ‘Kanon of Andrew of Crete, the Penitential Bible, and the Liturgical Formation of the Self in the Byzantine Dark Age’, in B. Bitton-Ashkelony and L. Perrone (eds), Between Personal and Institutional Religion. Self, Doctrine, and Practice in Late Antique Eastern Christianity (Turnhout, 2013), 57-91, 80 states that ‘by the late sixth century Psalm 51 preceded the nine Odes in the monastic communities of Palestine and Syria and quite likely preceded the original performance of Andrew’s kanons’. 39 Const. Apost. II 41, 4; D. Garrone, Il Miserere. Salmo 51 (Genova, 1992), 53. 40 In continuity, on the other hand, with the original paradigmatic value of Ps. 50(51), as stated by P. Garuti, ‘La cohérence des images physiques dans le Miserere (Ps 51 et Ml 2,15)’, Revue Biblique 123 (2016), 5-28, 10: ‘Il est indéniable que l’anthropologie du psaume s’exprime par des termes à tel point “physiques” que, même s’ils n’étaient que des métaphores, il faudrait se demander quel aspect de l’être humain ils décrivent. La réponse “éthique” à cette question est: la nature pècheresse de l’homme nécessite une transformation opérée par la divinité’.

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somehow arbitrarily) referred to as ‘penitential’.41 Yet it took a long time before this series was advocated as such by Cassiodorus in his Commentary on the Psalms (Expositio psalmorum), in the middle of the sixth century, presumably developing the premises set by Augustine.42 It was then the task of the Latin Middle Ages up until Luther to further elaborate on the significance of the seven penitential psalms for the spiritual life of the faithful and for theological thought. In fact, another collection basically comprising texts of Old Testament prayers seems to have exerted a greater influence on Christian piety in antiquity, assembling in a handy corpus some of the most noted hymns and canticles of the Bible, namely the ‘Odes’ (Ὠιδαί) appended to the Septuagint Psalter, fourteen in number according to the fifth-century codex Alexandrinus, but only nine in the canonical series used in the Byzantine Church.43 Only some of these canticles have an openly penitential character (though penitential traits appear now and then),44 as the Prayer of Jonas (Jon. 2:3-10)45 and the postbiblical Prayer of Manasseh, a text originating in the period between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. The Jewish legend about the conversion of the impious king Manasseh was popular among Christians. His example occurs in the series of paradigms of repentant sinners from the Old Testament that the bishop, 41 Ps. 6; 31(32); 37(38); 50(51); 101(102); 129(130); 142(143). On the arbitrarity of the collection see D. Garrone, Il Miserere. Salmo 51 (1992), 36. As regards Ps. 129(130), see H.W.M. van Grol, ‘Psalm, Psalter, and Prayer’ (2004), 51-3; S. Coakley, ‘On the Forgetfulness of Forgiveness: Psalm 130:4 and Its Theological Implications’, in A. Andreopoulos, A. Casiday and C. Harrison (eds), Meditations of the Heart: The Psalms in Early Christian Thought and Practice. Essays in Honour of Andrew Louth (Turnhout, 2011), 33-51, 46-7; and D.A. Lambert, How Repentance Became Biblical (2016), 38. 42 S.E. Balentine, ‘“I Was Ready to Be Sought Out by Those Who Did Not Ask”’ (2006), 2: ‘The sixth century Latin father Cassiodorus (Expositio Psalmorum) may have the distinction of being the first to treat these psalms as a distinct group focused on repentance, but he appears to have relied on a previously established tradition, most likely originating with Augustine. The reasons why these psalms first attained this label are elusive, but it is reasonable to suggest that a connection (largely confessional in nature) was made between the references to the wrath of God in certain of these salms and Paul’s use of these psalms in Romans to support the argument that God’s wrath is occasioned by a failure to repent of sin’. 43 M. Harl, Voix de louange (2014). 44 D. Krueger, ‘Kanon of Andrew of Crete, the Penitential Bible, and the Liturgical Formation of the Self in the Byzantine Dark Age’ (2013), 71: ‘the original cycle of biblical canticles is not particularly or primarily penitential. The word katanyxis, penthos, and metanoia do not occur in any of the cantlicles. In places the canonical cycle does address themes of sin. The Second Song of Moses (Cant. 2) contrasts God’s faithfulness with Israel’s faithlessness and recounts some biblical history, while the Prayer of Azariah (Cant. 7) includes a collection of collective sin’. 45 Yet D.A. Lambert, How Repentance Became Biblical (2016), 38 stresses its lack of an explicit penitential character: ‘It is striking that most psalms do not allude to sinfulness since so many narrative representations of suffering place sin at its root. This would seem to suggest that for some who could have conceived of themselves as culpable, it was possible to recite a psalm that included no mention of sin at all. This is certainly true of the psalm embedded in the book of Jonah. Though the narrative makes it clear that wrongdoing is the underlying cause of his unusual confinement, the psalm-like prayer that he utters lacks any mention of sinfulness, contrition, or a change of mind regarding his refusal to act as YHWH’s prophet’.

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according to the third-century Teaching of the Apostles, should recall when dealing with the repentant faithful, and including king David, Jonas, king Ezekiah and his son Manasseh.46 Though the Prayer of Manasseh is another instance typical of the Old Testament penitential prayers,47 according to Marguerite Harl its spread was presumably facilitated by the rise of early monasticism with its penitential spirituality.48 Despite the lack of properly penitential prayers in the New Testament,49 for the ancient Christians scripturalization with regard to the praying sinners was further enriched by some exemplary figures in the Gospels as well as by the penitential implications of the Lord’s Prayer. Three paradigms of penitents deserve especially to be mentioned among those who most frequently supported the early Christian discourse on prayer:50 the sinful woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk. 7:36-50); the tax-collector praying in the Temple, contrasted by Jesus in the parable to the self-righteous Pharisee (Lk. 18:9-14); and the repenting thief on the cross to whom Jesus promises paradise (Lk. 23:39-43). Though the sinful woman does not address an explicit prayer to Jesus, through her behaviour she is the best instance of a confession and demand of pardon in actu. By displaying an inner attitude of repentance and love toward the Saviour through the gestures of her body, she vividly personifies the prayer of the tears, so important in the ascetical practice of ancient monasticism. This explains the popularity of the the sinful woman among the Syrians and the Byzantines, that is in those Christian traditions which were most influenced by the monastic 46 Its insertion in the Didasc. Apost. is known to us through the Constitut. Apostol. II, 22. Cf. M. Harl, Voix de louange (2014), 289: ‘Le groupe formé par les deux rois ensemble, père et fils, se justifie par un aspect de leur vie qu’ils ont en commun: Ézéchias, comme son fils, même si c’est à un moindre degré, a été un roi pécheur: la tradition juive le range parmi les célèbres repentis qui ont prié et ont été sauvés’. 47 M. Harl, Voix de louange (2014), 289: ‘C’est une vraie prière de pénitence, écrite selon le schéma des prières juives hellénistiques d’intercession, avec la transition marquée au v. 11 par l’expression καὶ νῦν, ‘et maintenant’, pour introduire de façon insistante, après le rappel longuement répété des péchés, le geste de la pénitence (la génuflexion) et la demande de pardon’. 48 M. Harl, Voix de louange (2014), 293: ‘Même si les deux prières d’Ézéchias et de Manassé appartiennent depuis longtemps au fonds hérité du judaïsme, leur introduction dans la liste de cantiques du Ve siècle peut être interprétée en relation avec le développement de la spiritualité monastique’. On the presence of the Prayer of Manasseh in Byzantine euchologia, see R.R. Phenix Jr. and C.B. Horn, ‘Prayer and Penance in Early and Middle Byzantine Christianity: Some Trajectories from the Greek- and Syriac-speaking Realms’, in M.J. Boda, D.K. Falk and R.A. Werline (eds), Seeking the favor of God (2008), 225-54, 230-3; D. Krueger, ‘Kanon of Andrew of Crete, the Penitential Bible, and the Liturgical Formation of the Self in the Byzantine Dark Age’ (2013), 65-6. 49 R.A. Werline, ‘The Impact of the Penitential Prayer Tradition on New Testament Theology’, in M.J. Boda, D.K. Falk and R.A. Werline (eds), Seeking the favor of God (2008), 149-83, 149: ‘The New Testament contains no penitential prayers like those in Ezra 9:5-15; Neh 1:4-11; 9:6-37; Dan 9:3-19; Bar 1:15-3:8; the Prayer of Azariah; Tob 3:1-6; 3 Macc 2:1-10; and ‘The Words of the Heavenly Lights’ (4Q504)’. 50 We may add the prodigal son, Zacchaeus, the repentant Peter after his denial, and Paul as a former persecutor of the Christians (see, for instance, their occurrence in Aphrahat, Dem. VII: On Penitents).

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experience, as witnessed by the famous penitential Canon of St Andrew of Crete (660-740).51 After him, it is thanks to the inspiration of such a Gospel figure that we have the Hymn of Kassiane on the sinful woman, a unique feminine creation of hymnography in ninth-century Byzantium.52 Lord, the woman who had fallen into many sins, / perceiving your divinity, took up the role of myrrh-bearer, / and with lamentation brings sweet myrrh to you before your burial. / ‘Alas!’ she says, ‘for night is for me a frenzy of lust, / a dark and moonless love of sin. / Accept the fountains of my tears, / you who from the clouds draw out the water of the sea; / bow yourself down to the groanings of my heart, / you who bowed the heavens by your ineffable self-emptying. / I shall kiss your immaculate feet, / and wipe them again with the locks of my hair, / those feet whose sound Eve heard at dusk in Paradise, / and hid herself in fear. / Who can search out the multitude of my sins and the depths of your judgments, / my Savior, savior of souls? / Do not despise me, your servant, for you have mercy without measure’.

As for the parable of the publican and the Pharisee (Lk. 18:9-14), there is no need to underline its exemplary value. In fact, it has been perceived as a compendium of the attitudes, both interior and exterior, expected from a praying sinner. Sometimes the physical aspects appear to be even more emphasized than the inner ones, as we may observe in the sixth-century Poem on Performing Penitence (Carmen de satisfactione paenitentiae) by the African bishop Verecundus of Junca, who exhorts ‘to follow the examples of the publican’ (publicani exempla secutus) by means of the physical posture of the penitent.53 However, the pairing of the ‘impious’ (the publican) and the ‘pious’ (the Pharisee) more generally inspires an instruction on the right way to pray for all those who want to be faithful to Christ and approach God conscious of their own sinfulness.54 At the same time, as recalled among others by Augustine, the humbly praying publican functions as a warrant that the repenting sinner has a 51 D. Krueger, ‘Kanon of Andrew of Crete, the Penitential Bible, and the Liturgical Formation of the Self in the Byzantine Dark Age’ (2013), 84: ‘As Susan Ashbrook Harvey has shown, the sinful woman was especially popular with the authors of dialogue hymns. Extensive poetic explorations of her tale survive in Syriac by Ephrem and Jacob of Serug, and in Greek in the corpus known as Greek Ephrem and by Romanos the Melodist’. See also M.G. Bilby, As the Bandit will I confess you. Luke 23, 39-43 in early Christian Interpretation (Strasbourg, 2013), 127-28, 258; and O. Clément, Le chant des larmes. Essai sur le repentir (Paris, 2011), 113. 52 As noted by R.R. Phenix Jr. and C.B. Horn, ‘Prayer and Penance in Early and Middle Byzantine Christianity: Some Trajectories from the Greek- and Syriac-speaking Realms’ (2008), 248: ‘it is the only example of a detailed account of the anthropology of a female penitential subject, composed by a gifted woman hymnographer’. 53 Verecundus, Carmen 34-5: Sit tibi detritus prostrato corpore uultus / nec caelum aspicias, publicani exempla secutus. 54 See R. Hirsch-Luipold, ‘Würdigkeit versus Hartnäckigkeit. Gebetstheorie und -praxis bei Maximos von Tyros im Vergleich mit Lukas, Joseph und Aseneth und Plutarch’ (2019), 105, also with reference to Jesus’ teaching on prayer in Lk. 11:13: ‘Im Horizont des Gebetes als eines Gesprächs mit dem guten Gott erscheint schlechterdings kein Mensch als gut’.

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hope of salvation: ‘by humbling himself’, says the bishop of Hippo, ‘he comes closer to the Most High (Humiliatus propinquat Excelso)’.55 In his turn, the good thief (Lk. 23:39-43) can certainly compete with the publican, or even surpass him as an iconic representation of guilt and repentance, as indicated by the innumerable variations on this theme to be found in early Christian authors.56 Henri de Lubac resting on Origen’s explanation rightly declares that the good thief may be taken as ‘the symbol of all the sinners who in the end turn to Christ’.57 Once again the Gospel figure operates as a ‘script’ of sorts, which draws the faithful into a process of self-identification, shaping a new understanding of the self. Let us recall the beautiful prayer of the Byzantine mass that the participants still recite before receiving communion (and that I discovered in my frequentation of the Greek Catholic service in Jerusalem): O Lord, I believe and profess that you are truly Christ, The Son of the living God, who came into the world To save sinners of whom I am the first. Accept me today as a partaker of your mystical supper, O Son of God, For I will not reveal your mystery to your enemies, Nor will I give you a kiss as did Judas, But like the thief I profess to you: ‘Remember me, O Lord, when you come in your kingdom’ (Lk. 23:42).58

A long interpretive tradition going back to Ephrem the Syrian (4th c.) and running through the Christian East and Byzantium supports the idea of the good thief as a model for penitential prayer.59 In West, Augustine brilliantly resumes 55 Augustine, Serm. 136/A, 2: Certe peccatores Deus non exaudit. Quando pectus suum tundebat, sua peccata puniebat; quando peccata sua puniebat, Deo iudici propinquabat. Odit enim Deus peccata: si oderis et tu, incipis iungi Deo, ut dicas ei: Auerte faciem tuam a peccatis meis (Ps. 50:11). Auerte faciem tuam: sed unde? A peccatis meis; non auertas faciem tuam a me. Quid est autem: faciem tuam a peccatis meis? Noli ea uidere, noli ea agnoscere, ut mihi possis ignoscere. Ergo spes est et peccatori; roget Deum, non desperet, tundat pectus, in se ipse uindicet paenitendo, ne ille uindicet iudicando. Humiliatus propinquat Excelso (PLS 2, 521). 56 For a detailed reconstruction of its reception history, cf. M.G. Bilby, As the Bandit will I confess you (2013). 57 H. de Lubac, Histoire et Esprit. L’intelligence de l’Écriture d’après Origène (Paris, 1950; repr. 2002), 201 on CMtS 133 (p. 271), Origen, Commentariorum Series in Matthaeum: Origenes Werke XI, Origenes Matthäuserklärung II, Die lateinische Übersetzung der Commentariorum Series, ed. E. Klostermann and E. Benz, GCS 38 (Leipzig, 1933; 2nd rev. ed. U. Treu [Berlin, 1976]). For M.G. Bilby, As the Bandit will I confess you (2013), 18, ‘the model criminal lends a face and voice to sympathetic hearers who identify with and vicariously participate in the confession of wrongdoing as well as the declaration of Jesus’ innocence’. 58 Cf. M.G. Bilby, As the Bandit will I confess you (2013), 130. 59 See, for instance, Hymn. de par. 8, 1: ‘It gave comfort to my soul amidst the multitude of its vices, / telling how he had compassion on the bandit. Oh may he / bring me too / into the garden at the sound of whose name I am / overwhelmed by joy’ (cit. M.G. Bilby, As the Bandit

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its significance in the sentence: ‘Thus, self-accusation in a confession is a praise of God’ (Ergo in confessione sui accusatio, Dei laudatio est).60 Finally, we should not forget that the Lord’s Prayer also came to serve as a ‘sinner’s prayer’ because of its fifth request: ‘And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us’ (Matt. 6:12; Lk. 11:4). The presence of such a request for the remission of sins in the ‘manifesto’ of God’s adoptive sonship and vocation to sanctity for every Christian, as the ‘Our Father’ was usually explained by the Church Fathers,61 could not but function as a permanent reminder of a person’s past and present sinfulness.62 Early monasticism with its acute penitential ethos was especially sensitive to this aspect. Therefore, it comes as no surprise, that in the letters of Barsanuphius and John of Gaza (first half of the sixth century) we read the following question of a monk: ‘Could it be that the ‘Our Father’… was only given for the perfect to say?’. Barsanuphius’ answer, at first rejecting this idea and advocating the Lord’s Prayer for the perfect and the sinner alike, in the end shifts its aim from the perfect to the sinners: The ‘Our Father’ was prescribed both for the perfect and for sinners; for the first, in order that being perfect they might know whose sons they have become and therefore strive not to fall from Him; and for sinners in order that, being ashamed to address him as Father, when they so frequently insult Him, they might also be embarrassed and turn to repentance. As I consider it further, however, this prayer is more appropriate for sinners. For to say: ‘Forgive us our debts’ belongs to sinners.63

In this way the Great Old Man of Gaza, in the context of a flourishing monasticism with its ideals of penitential asceticism, aligns himself with those will I confess you [2013], 124). Further, cf. ibid., 260: ‘In sum, though penitence is sometimes considered a Western, Latin obsession, the most emphatic and profound penitential interpretations of the Lucan bandit were cultivated in Syria and popularized in the Greek-speaking East before spreading West. The Lucan criminal first became the proverbial “penitent thief” in Syria’. 60 Augustine, Serm. 67,2: Et ibi latro quid meruit, nisi quia illam uiam tenuit, ubi ostendit salutare suum? A qua tibi pes non exeat. In eo enim quod se accusauit, Deum laudauit, et uitam suam beatam fecit. Praesumpsit quidem a Domino, et ait illi: Domine, memento mei, cum ueneris in regnum tuum (Lk. 23:42). Considerabat enim facinora sua, et pro magno habebat, si ei uel in fine parceretur. Dominus autem continuo, cum ille diceret: Memento mei; sed quando? Cum ueneris in regnum tuum: Amen, inquit, dico tibi, hodie mecum eris in paradiso (Lk. 23:43). Misericordia obtulit quod miseria distulit. 61 See, for example, the explanation of Origen in De oratione: L. Perrone, La preghiera secondo Origene: l’impossibilità donata (2011), 195-239 (‘La ‘Preghiera del Signore’ vita del cristiano: l’interpretazione del Padrenostro’). 62 L. Mellerin, ‘Interprétations pénitentielles de la demande sur le pardon des offenses du Notre Père dans les écrits patristiques (Ier-Ve siècles)’, in D. Vigne (éd.), Lire le Notre Père avec les Pères (Paris, 2009), 237-60, 239: ‘Les Pères sont unanimes sur un préalable: si Jésus demande la répétition quotidienne de la prière “pardonne-nous nos péchés”, c’est parce que tous les hommes sont débiteurs du péché et ont absolument besoin de la miséricorde du Seigneur pour accéder au salut’. 63 Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, Letters 140 (tr. Chryssavgis, I, [Washington, DC, 2006], 164).

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early Christian authors who were inclined to appreciate the ‘Our Father’ as a prayer for penitents.64 Augustine’s manifest preference for the fifth request in the second group of petitions of the Lord’s Prayer is eloquent enough in this regard. Actually, for the bishop of Hippo the fifth request implies an essential requisite in order to be able to pray, whereas its absence hinders it. As he explains, following Cyprian, in his instruction of the catechumens for baptism, it is the request for a ‘daily purification’ (quotidiana mundatio) from the sins that the faithful commit day by day.65 Even after the baptismal cleansing nobody is free from sin during one’s earthly existence, so that all should purge themselves daily from the trespasses they accumulate in their soul like the sailors who empty the bilge of a ship.66 As a result, by regarding the ‘Our Father’ as a sort of baptism which is renewed daily, not only does Augustine corroborate the scriptural perspective of the sinner’s prayer, but at the same time he identifies the Church constitutively as a ‘community of sinners’.67 The praying sinner versus the saint: The dialectics of two associated paradigms in Origen Long before the bishop of Hippo, Origen had been the first to elaborate the idea of the ‘Church of the sinners’, if we are to follow Karl Rahner in his celebrated essay on the Alexandrian’s doctrine of penance.68 This view has left 64 B. Bitton-Ashkelony, ‘Penitence in Late Antique Monastic Literature’, in J. Assmann and G.G. Stroumsa (eds), Transformation of the Inner Self in Ancient Religions (Leiden, 1999), 179-94. 65 Cf. Cyprian, De dom. or. 12 (CChr.SL 3A, 96.199-202): Et hoc cotidie deprecamur. Opus est enim nobis cotidiana sanctificatio, ut qui cotidie delinquimus delicta nostra sanctificatione assidua repurgemus. 66 Augustine, Serm. 56, 11 (CChr.SL 41Aa, 162.222-6): qui autem baptizantur et tenentur in hac uita, de fragilitate mortali contrahunt aliquid, unde, etsi non naufragatur, tamen oportet ut sentinetur, quia, si non sentinatur, paulatim ingreditur unde tota nauis mergatur. Et hoc orare sentinare est. Non tantum autem debemus orare, sed et eleemosynam facere, quia, quando sentinatur ne nauis mergatur, et vocibus agitur et manibus. See also Serm. 213, 9 (PLS 2, 542): Sed quoniam uiuituri sumus in isto saeculo, ubi quis non uiuit sine peccato, ideo remissio peccatorum non est in sola ablutione sacri baptismatis, sed etiam in oratione dominica et quotidiana, quam post octo dies accepturi estis. In illa inuenietis quasi quotidianum baptismum uestrum. On the interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer in Augustine, see L. Perrone, La preghiera secondo Origene: l’impossibilità donata (2011), 619-30. 67 L. Mellerin, ‘Interprétations pénitentielles de la demande sur le pardon des offenses du Notre Père dans les écrits patristiques (Ier-Ve siècles)’ (2009), 240 rightly notes: ‘Ce point mérite d’être souligné, car c’était loin d’être une évidence, dans le cadre d’une catéchèse qui insistait sur la remise complète des péchés par le baptême, et d’une théologie pénitentielle qui ne permettait pour les fautes graves qu’une pénitence non renouvelable, de rejeter la revendication d’une Église de purs telle que décrite en Éph 5, 27’. 68 K. Rahner, ‘La doctrine d’Origène sur la pénitence’, Recherches de Science Religieuse 37 (1950), 47-97, 252-86, 422-56 (reprint. in id., Sämtliche Werke. Bd. 11: Mensch und Sünde. Schriften zur Geschichte und Theologie der Buße, ed. D. Sattler [Freiburg i.Br., 2005], 80-190), 253:

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a profound mark also on Origen’s discourse on prayer. Although the euchological thought of early Christian authors, from Tertullian to Augustine, substantially converges with Origen’s ideas on the necessity to foster the model of ‘spiritual prayer’, that is a prayer inhabited by the Spirit of Christ and addressing God primarily for the sake of the soul’s salvation, perhaps no one else has paid so great attention to the prayer of the sinner as did the Alexandrian.69 His deep grounding in the Scriptures certainly influenced him, though at first look the Treatise on Prayer (Περὶ εὐχῆς), unquestionably the masterpiece of patristic literature on the topic, is surprisingly silent on repentant and praying sinners: there is no mention, for instance, of the parable of the publican (Lk. 18:9-14). This derives from the fact that the treatise has first and foremost a praying saint in mind, since Origen considers prayer an essential way to sanctity (as shown, in particular, by his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer). Yet he is too well aware of the propensity of mankind to sin and evil, due to its inherent ‘fragility’ (ἀσθένεια) as a consequence of the fall, so that human life proves to be a constant challenge and fight in order to realize man’s spiritual destiny. Accordingly, the prayer of the saint arises from within such ‘agonistic’ existence; even the righteous, conscious of the general condition of sinfulness, engages in repeating the fifth request of the ‘Our Father’, at least for the past trespasses if not for the present spiritual condition.70 Origen contrasts the righteous with the sinner, when he wants to exploit the antagonistic dialectics resulting from the juxtaposition of the two paradigms as he does, for instance, in light of Judas’ prayer according to his interpretation of Ps. 108(109):7.71 Like Judas, the sinner ‘burns the incense’ (Jr. 18:15) of his prayer to God ‘in vain’, openly contradicting the symbolic meaning of the well-known image for prayer in Ps. 140(141):2 (‘Let my prayer succeed as incense before you’): due to sin, the prayer turns into a ‘bad smell’.72 On the other hand, when commenting on the prayer of Jesus to the Father before the resurrection of Lazarus (Jn. 11:41), which he interprets as the model of the saint’s prayer par excellence, Origen significantly allows room for the prayer of a repentant sinner. Now the publican of the Gospel parable provides the ‘l’Église est une Église de pécheurs. Elle ne l’est pas seulement en ce sens que l’humanité … fut accueillie par le Christ alors qu’elle était pécheresse, et fut libérée par lui du péché, mais aussi en ce sens que la qualité de pécheresse est (en ce monde) un attribut permanent de l’Église, sur laquelle le Seigneur verse des pleurs comme sur Jérusalem. Elle n’en est pas moins pour Origène la sainte Église’. 69 On ‘spiritual prayer’ as a common denominator for the manifold approaches to prayer among Church Fathers, see L. Perrone, La preghiera secondo Origene: l’impossibilità donata (2011), 511-644. 70 Ibid. 156-7. As for the complements to the treatise in the homilies, see ibid. 403-10. 71 See above p. 338 and n. 22. 72 HIer XVIII 10, Origenes Werke III. Jeremiashomilien, Klageliederkommentar, Erklärung der Samuel- und Königsbücher, ed. E. Klostermann, 2nd rev. ed. P. Nautin, GCS 6 (Berlin, 1983), 164.22-4.

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scriptural basis for drawing a sympathetic picture of the praying sinner and the spiritual attitudes demanded from him: contrary to Jesus, the publican does not lift up his eyes towards heaven but bows his head to the ground in humility. Nor does he enjoy the ‘freedom of speech’ (παρρησία) with God that pertains to the righteous as His ‘son’, but by confessing his sins, he enters into a dialogue with Him. As further shown by Origen in the homilies on Ps 37(38), one of the future ‘seven penitential psalms’, God reckons with the prayer of the sinner, who in turn, by praying with the words of the psalm, transforms himself, so to say, into a ‘good’ or even ‘the best sinner’;73 as such, he can hope for the cure of God, the heavenly Doctor.74 Remarkably, Origen not only recommends the confession of sins, but also inculcates their commemoration after confessing them as a means of preventig future trespasses through a sorrowful heart.75 By so doing, he anticipates the motif of πένθος, the ‘grief’ or ‘sorrow’ of the future monastic spirituality, while he contemplates the penitential ‘fire’ of God’s presence in the heart of the sinner together with the grace of tears so dear to early monks: indeed, the sinner ought to pray God for receiving himself this fire of punishment and purification.76 Nevertheless, for Origen the ‘grief’ (λύπη) of repentance should be kept under some control, even if it is a sorrow ‘according to God’ which in the long run leads to joy. A sinner should never suffer beyond necessity through one’s personal depression and/or exclusion from the community, whereas a saint 73 H37Ps II 5: haec uox boni et optimi, ut ita dixerim, peccatoris. Origene, Omelie sui Salmi, Homiliae in Psalmos XXXVI-XXXVII-XXXVIII, ed. E. Prinzivalli (Firenze, 1991), 308.2. 74 H37Ps I 1 (ed. Prinzivalli [1991], 248.31-2): non uult Deus noster mortem peccatoris, sed paenitentiam et orationem eius exspectat. Denique et iste psalmus qui nunc lectus est, nobis ostendit ut si forte aliquando praeuenimur in delictis qualiter nos et cum quo affectu orare oporteat et medico supplicari pro doloribus uel infirmitatibus nostris. 75 H37Ps I 1 (ed. Prinzivalli [1991], 248.36-250.43): Si quando ergo praeoccupauerit nos inimicus et ignitis iaculis suis uulnerauerit animam nostram, primo hoc nos docet hic psalmus quod conuenit post peccatum confiteri peccatum et in memoria recordari delictum ut, per recordationem culpae stimulatum cor et cruciatum pro delicto suo, interim refrenet ac reuocet ne quid tale ultra committat. By the way Origen thus exploits the indication in the title of Ps. 37 LXX: εἰς ἀνάμνησιν. On the rememorating and repenting conscience see Prin II 10, 4 (Origenes Werke V. De principiis (Peri archon), ed. P. Koetschau, GCS 22 [Leipzig, 1913], 177.15-178.9). For the gift of tears, cf. HIud III, 6 (Origenes Werke VII. Homilien zum Hexateuch in Rufins Übersetzung. II. Teil: Die Homilien zu Numeri, Josua und Judices, ed. W.A. Baehrens, GCS 30 [Leipzig, 1921], 487.4-12) referring to Ps. 6:7; H38Ps II 10 (ed. Prinzivalli [1991], 398.1-12). 76 HIer XX, 9: ἕκαστος ἡμῶν ἐξετασάτω τὴν συνείδησιν ἑαυτοῦ, καὶ ἰδέτω τί ἥμαρτεν· ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὸν κολασθῆναι. Εὐχέσθω τῷ θεῷ τοῦτο τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἐν τῷ Ἱερεμίᾳ ἥκειν ἐπ῾αὐτόν, εἶτα τὸ ἐπὶ Σίμωνα καὶ Κλεόπαν ἐληλυθός, ἵνα μὴ τηρηθῇ τῷ ἄλλῳ πυρί (Origenes Werke III. Jeremiahomilien, Klageliederkommentar, Erklärung der Samuel- und Königsbücher, ed. E. Klostermann, 2nd rev. ed. P. Nautin, GCS 6 [Berlin, 1983], 192.10-3). See K. Rahner, ‘La doctrine d’Origène sur la pénitence’ (1950), 83: ‘Ce Feu intérieur du Jugement doit être pour le pécheur un objet de prière; il doit demander de devenir digne de le recevoir en son cœur. Ce Feu dévorant est le Logos du Seigneur lui-même. Pour apprécier cela exactement, il faut penser à la doctrine origénienne de l’habitation inamissible du Logos dans les esprits créés’.

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should not behave in turn like a sinner when praying.77 So far we have caught but a glimpse of the penitential system of the ancient Church as a frame for the sinner’s prayer, but this system comes into view with Origen, in spite of the fact that it still represents a relatively early stage in its development. The Alexandrian is concerned with several aspects related to the penitential discipline that also have to do with prayer. On the one hand, the faithful should avoid to pray together with the evil, as Origen himself allegedly did in his youth in Alexandria when, according to Eusebius of Caesarea, he refrained from joining with heretics in prayer.78 For the Commentary on Matthew, Jesus’ choice of only three of his disciples as the companions and witnesses of his prayer in Gethsemani should move Christian communities to separate themselves from sinners in prayer in order to make it fully concordant and effective.79 While referring here, in particular, to those sinners who were guilty of greater trespasses, Origen nevertheless endeavors to reject the pretentions and self-righteousness of the faithful. They should abstain from contempt towards the ‘impure’, and from sharing the arrogance of the Pharisee.80 It is no coincidence that the third Homily on Psalm 73, one of the 29 sermons in the recently discovered Munich codex, while exhorting the faithful who have committed sins to confess them, first to God, and then to valid ‘doctors’, either bishops or priests, recalls a pastorally sensitive treatment of the repentant sinners that Origen had observed in other churches:81 when their wrongdoings are yet 77 CIo XXVIII 4, 26-7 (Origenes Werke IV. Der Johanneskommentar, ed. E. Preuschen, GCS 10 [Leipzig, 1903], 393); L. Perrone, La preghiera secondo Origene: l’impossibilità donata (2011), 298-9. 78 Eusebius of Caesarea, HE VI 2, 14 (Eusebius, Die Kirchengeschichte, ed. E. Schwartz and Th. Mommsen, 2nd ed. F. Winkelmann, GCS.NF 1 [Berlin, 1999], 522). 79 CMtS 89 (GCS 38, 204.30-205.2): Propter hoc enim et in ecclesiis Christi consuetudo tenuit talis, ut qui manifesti sunt in magnis delictis, eiciantur ab oratione communi ut ne modicum fermentum (cf. 1Cor. 5:6) non ex corde mundo (cf. 2Tim. 2:22) orantium totam unitatis consparsionem et consensus corrumpat (p. 109). 80 CMtS 89 (GCS 38, 205.7-11): Mensurate ergo facere hoc debemus, ut nec cum indignis oremus propter honorem orationis (secundum eum qui dixit: Si duo in uobis conuenerint in idipsum, de omni re quacumque petierint, fiet eis [Matt. 18:19]), nec inferiores spernamus nos praeponentes propter iactantiae casum. 81 H73Ps III, 8 (GCS.NF 19, 264.11-6): Τὸν δὲ ἐξομολογούμενον προηγουμένως μὲν θεῷ ἐξομολογεῖσθαι δεῖ· εἰ δὲ μὴ ἀπέγνωκε καὶ ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ εἶναι ἰατρούς, οἷς δείξας ἑαυτοῦ τὰ τραύματα, θεραπευθήσεται, μὴ ὀκνησάτω ἀναθέσθαι περὶ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ ἁμαρτημάτων καὶ ἀνακαλύψαι τὴν αἰσχύνην αὐτοῦ τῆς ψυχῆς πεπονθυίας ἰατροῖς· ἰατροῖς δὲ ἐπισκόποις ἀγαθοῖς, πρεσβυτέροις ἀγαθοῖς καὶ ἐκλεκτοῖς, καλῶς δυναμένοις θεραπεύειν τὸν ἐξομολογούμενον. A slightly different approach appears in H37Ps II, 1 (ed. Prinzivalli [1991], 292.27-36), where the preacher exhorts the sinners to make a public confession, even despite the exclusion they are going to experiment according to Ps. 37(38):12: si ergo sit aliquis ita fidelis ut si quid conscius sit sibi, procedat in medium et ipse sui accusator exsistat. Hi autem qui futurum Dei iudicium non metuunt, haec audientes cum infirmantibus quidem non infirmentur, cum scandalizantibus non urantur, cum lapsis non iaceant sed dicant: longe te fac a me neque accedas ad me, quoniam mundus sum, et detestari incipiant eum quem ante admirabantur et ab amicitiis

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unknown, since they have not been the object of a public denunciation, the bishop should deal privately with these sinners, heal their wounds and convert them, provided that they initiate and support this process of conversion and repentance with their own prayer.82 In the end, the intense dialectics between the sinner’s and the saint’s prayer in Origen’s thought structurally comes to the fore in the model of exemplary prayer delineated by the Alexandrian in the conclusion of his Treatise.83 Resorting again to ἐξομολόγησις, the terminus technicus for the ‘confession’ of sins already known to Tertullian, he applies it as a constitutive element in the fully developed ‘rhetorics’ of an ideal prayer in five steps: after the initial ‘praise’ of God (δοξολογία) and then the ‘thanksgiving’ (εὐχαριστία) to Him, both of them in a trinitarian form, and before the proper ‘request’ (αἴτησις) followed by a second and final doxology (δοξολογία), the personal confession of sin represents, as it were, the middle, if not the actual core, of the recommended way of praying. After thanksgiving it seems to me that one ought to be a bitter accuser of one’s own sins before God, and to ask first for healing so as to be delivered from the state that leads to sin, and secondly for remission of what is past.84

If such confession opens the path for Origen to the ‘petition for the great and heavenly gifts for ourselves, and for people in general, and also for our families and friends’, the scriptural foundations provided for every single item in his model prayer further insist on the perspective of sin. While the Alexandrian quotes as examples of confession Ps. 38(39):9 (‘Deliver me from all my transgressions’) and Ps. 37(38):6-7 (‘My wound stink and are corrupt because of recedant eius qui delictum noluit occultare. However, also this homily reserves to the bishop the decision whether or not to bring the sinner to a public confession, if this course of action should prove helpful for the community (H37Ps II, 6 [ed. Prinzivalli (1991), 312.21-6]). 82 H37Ps III, 8 (GCS.NF 19, 265.8-16): Μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων θαυμασίων ὧν εἶδον ἐν ταῖς ἄλλαις ἐκκλησίαις καὶ τοῦτο ἑώρακα, ὃ καὶ ὑμῖν παραθήσομαι. Τινὲς τῶν ἁμαρτανόντων, μὴ ἔχοντες κατήγορον ἄνθρωπον, μηδὲ γινωσκόμενοι ἐφ’ οἷς ἥμαρτον, εὔχονται καὶ παρατίθενται τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ τὰ ἁμαρτήματα· ὁ δὲ ὡς ἰατρὸς δακρύει καὶ οὐκ ἐξάγει οὐδὲ φέρει εἰς μέσον τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ ἡμαρτηκότος, ἀλλ’ ὡς καλὸς πατὴρ θρηνήσας τὸν ἐξομολογούμενον, ἐμπλάστρους προσάγει λογικούς, ἐμβροχὰς πνευματικάς. Θεραπεύει καὶ ἐπιστρέφει ἑαυτοῦ τὸν υἱὸν κατὰ θεόν, ἵνα καιρῷ ὑγιασθεὶς καὶ τὰ τραύματα ἀποθέμενος δυνηθῇ μὴ – συριγγῶδες ἔχων κεκρυμμένον, διὰ τὸ μὴ ἐξομολογεῖσθαι τὸ ἁμάρτημα – ὁ λαὸς ἀπόληται. 83 Orat XXXIII (Origenes Werke II. Buch V-VIII Gegen Celsus. Die Schrift vom Gebet, ed. P. Koetschau, GCS 2-3 [Leipzig, 1899], 401.10-402.35). 84 Orat XXXIII 1 (GCS 2-3, 401.18-22): μετὰ δὲ τὴν εὐχαριστίαν φαίνεταί μοι πικρόν τινα δεῖν γινόμενον τῶν ἰδίων ἁμαρτημάτων κατήγορον ἐπὶ θεοῦ αἰτεῖν πρῶτον μὲν ἴασιν πρὸς τὸ ἀπαλλαγῆναι τῆς τὸ ἁμαρτάνειν ἐπιφερούσης ἕξεως, δεύτερον ἄφεσιν τῶν παρεληλυθότων. See also H74Ps 1 with the interpretation of Jl. 3:5 (confession of sins precedes the invocation of God). Origen’s Treatise on Prayer, Translation and Notes with an Account of the Practice and Doctrine of Prayer from New Testament Times to Origen by E.G. Jay (London, 1954), 217.

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my foolishness. I am troubled and bowed down to the uttermost; I go mourning all the day long’), he surprisingly points to Ps. 27(28):3 as the example of a ‘petition for the great and heavenly things’. Now this verse reads: ‘Draw me not away with the sinners, and with the workers of iniquity, lest Thou destroy me with them’.85 Once more the praying righteous has to face the frightening possibility that he may fall himself among the sinners and so asks for God’s help, who alone can fully preserve him from such eventuality.

Penitential practice: From the words of the praying sinner to the repentant body Origen’s many-sided perspective on the sinner’s prayer, in light of the Scriptures and the life of the Christian communities, would prompt one to inquire about the impact the penitential system of the ancient Church and the creation of Lent as a period of penance for all the faithful might have had on it.86 Leaving such investigation aside for another occasion, let me at least note that the obligation of confessing one’s sins found a more or less ritualized expression almost from the beginnings, its earliest witness presumably being the summon in the Didachè: ‘Confess your transgressions (τὰ παραπτώματά σου) in church, and do not come to your prayer (ἐπὶ προσευχήν σου) with an evil conscience. This is the path of life’.87 Nevertheless, the initial institutionalization of public confession was not yet accompanied by an ad hoc prayer, unless we should detect this in the repetition of the ‘Our Father’ thrice a day, on account of its penitential implications. In fact, the 1st Letter of Clement, the earliest instance of a ‘Christian’ text of prayer, includes a short confession of sins after the praise of God and before the requests addressed to him, prefiguring thus the euchological pattern subsequently suggested by Origen.88 Much livelier and 85

Orat XXXIII 4-5 (GCS 2-3, 402.24-31). For the consequences of the Lenten period on the development of the penitential prayer, see P. Bradshaw, ‘The Emergence of Penitential Prayer in Early Christianity’, in M.J. Boda, D.K. Falk and R.A. Werline (eds), Seeking the favor of God (2008), 185-96, 194. 87 Didache 4, 14 (p. 10), in Die apostolischen Väter. Griechisch-deutsche Parallelausgabe von F.X. Funk, K. Bihlmeyer u. M. Whittaker, neu übers. und hrsg. von A. Lindemann u. H. Paulsen (Tübingen, 1992); C. Claussen, ‘Repentance and Prayer in the Didache’ (2008), 203. See also Did. 14, 1-3 (p. 18) and Claussen’s remarks: ‘the institutionalization has not yet reached a stage where a specific penitential prayer has been formulated (…). On a daily basis, the petition for forgiveness of sins takes place by praying the Lord’s Prayer thrice every day (8:2–3)’ (pp. 210-1). 88 1Clement 60, 1-2 (1 Clement: Die apostolischen Väter. Griechisch-deutsche Parallelausgabe von F.X. Funk, K. Bihlmeyer u. M. Whittaker, neu übs. und hrsg. von A. Lindemann u. H. Paulsen [Tübingen, 1992], 144-6). Cf. H. Löhr, Studien zum frühchristlichen und frühjüdischen Gebet. Eine Untersuchung zu 1 Clem 59 bis 61 (Tübingen, 2003); V. Lombino, ‘La preghiera nei Padri dei primi secoli’, in Preghiera nei Padri dei primi secoli = Dizionario di spiritualità biblico-patristica 52 (Roma, 2009), 11-198, 32. A.C. Torrance, Repentance in Late Antiquity (2012), 70 emphasizes 86

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warmer, however, is the exhortation to repent and confess one’s sins to God put forth by Hermas, though within the limits of the second penance, the only one admitted after the baptismal cleansing. As the sign of the ‘repentance’ and ‘conversion’, summed up in the crucial scriptural term of μετάνοια, for the Shepherd prayer largely consists in the ‘confession’ of sins (ἐξομολόγησις).89 Once the possibility of penance and remission of sins after baptism was accepted by the ancient Church (without this leading otherwise to a too uniform practice),90 we can observe rites for the admittance of the repentant sinners. Actually, these contain not so much the prayers of the sinners as those over the sinners, performed by church ministers, as we see for instance in the Constitutions of the Apostles, towards the end of the fourth century, or in later euchological documents.91 The rite prescribed by the Constitutions of the Apostles outlines for the repenting sinner a process of exclusion from the community and successive reintegration into it during which the burden of the penitential exercises expected from the body is more prominent than personal words of prayer: after a preliminary inquiry into the individual case, the bishop will reproach the sinner, judge and exclude him from the church in order to preserve it as ‘pure’ (though not to the full satisfaction of ‘hardliners’ among the faithful, owing to the conviction that only the Incarnate Lord is without sin).92 The sinner then will shed tears of mourning and compunction and accompany his repentance with a period of fasting, as long as the bishop will prescribe it in relation to one’s trespasses, until the bishop is ready to readmit him again to church by the absence of ‘a structured form of church penance’: ‘The subsequent equation of repentance with ‘bending the knees of the heart’ is enough to seriously question this theory. This phrase is in fact a combined reference to the Hellenistic Jewish Prayer of Manasseh and 1 Paralipomenon (1 Chron) 29.20. It thus illustrates, moreover, the rootedness of Clement’s understanding of repentance in Jewish precedents, something clear also in his and countless others’ use of Old Testament exemplars of repentance (David being the most prominent)’. 89 V. Lombino, ‘La preghiera nei Padri dei primi secoli’ (2009), 75. A.C. Torrance, Repentance in Late Antiquity (2012), 72 tends to reduce the significance of the ‘second repentance’ and its uniqueness for Hermas. 90 A.C. Torrance, Repentance in Late Antiquity (2012), 67 briefly resumes the ‘traditional narrative’ about the history of penitence in the ancient Church. 91 See, for example, the two earliest penitential prayers in the Byzantine Euchologion: one ἐπὶ τῶν μετανοούντων (‘For those who are repenting’) and the other ἐπὶ τῶν ἐξομολογουμένων (‘For those who are confessing’). Cf. R.R. Phenix Jr. and C.B. Horn, ‘Prayer and Penance in Early and Middle Byzantine Christianity: Some Trajectories from the Greek- and Syriac-speaking Realms’ (2008), 229-32; D. Krueger, ‘Kanon of Andrew of Crete, the Penitential Bible, and the Liturgical Formation of the Self in the Byzantine Dark Age’ (2013), 65-6. 92 Const. Ap. II 18, 4: Ἀναμάρτητος μὲν γὰρ ἀνθρώπων οὐδεὶς πάρεξ τοῦ γενομένου δι’ ἡμᾶς ἀνθρώπου (with a quotation of Job 14:4-5: ‘For who can be pure from filth? None, not one! Even if his life on the earth be but one day’) (Les constitutions apostoliques, Tome I, ed. M. Metzger, SC 320 [Paris, 1985], 192). See also VIII 8 with reference to Ps. 129(130):3-4 (‘If you mark lawlessness, O Lord, Lord, who shall stand? – because with you there is atonement’): ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ὃς οὐκ ἁμαρτήσεταί σοι (Les constitutions apostoliques, Tome III, ed. M. Metzger, SC 336 [Paris, 1987], 164).

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laying the hands on him and saying a prayer on ‘those who bow the neck of the soul and of the body’.93 As shown by this pair of words (‘soul’ and ‘body’), and contrary to the perception of many western Christians nowadays, who are liable to consider prayer essentially as a spiritual or verbal performance, the euchological discourse of ancient Christianity always involved the body as the famous figure of the orans with outstretched hands manifestly illustrates in early Christian iconography. For that reason we cannot ignore it also regarding the prayer of the sinner, and not only because we have already hinted at it several times, but especially since ancient monasticism immensely contributed to further develop the role of the body in prayer. When looking at the physical posture of the praying sinner, we cannot but first of all point to the scripturally recommended gestures of bowing the head and beating the breast, the outer display of contrition and humiliation exemplarily shown by the publican (Lk 18:13).94 The beating of the chest, that would become especially popular in the image of Jerome as a penitent monk in the Syrian desert (with the addition of a vexing stone!), still persists in the Roman Catholic rite of the mass; but today’s nearly evanescent performance is merely a pale reflection of the collective practice which once drew Augustine’s attention in a sermon. The assistance, hearing Jesus’ words in Matt. 11:25 ‘Confiteor tibi, Pater’, reacted by beating their chests with much noise as if for a confession of sins. They misunderstood this Confiteor, consisting in a praise of God, and took it as an avowal of trespasses: for the bishop of Hippo a good opportunity to deal with the semantics of confessio!

93 Const. Ap. II 9, 2 enjoins the bishop to treat sinners with benevolence, yet without acting so due to a bribe. The sinner in turn, as soon as the bishop reproaches him, would feel shame and shed tears (II, 10, 4): αἰσχυνθεὶς μετὰ αἰδοῦς καὶ πολλῶν δακρύων ἐξελεύσεται εἰρηνικῶς κατανενυγμένος, καὶ μενεῖ κεκαθαρισμένον τὸ ποίμνιον, προσκλαύσει τε τῷ θεῷ καὶ μετανοήσει ἐφ῾οἷς ἥμαρτεν, καὶ ἔξει ἐλπίδα (SC 320, 166). It is the task of the bishop to receive the penitents and exhort them (II 15, 1): μὴ καταλιπὼν τόπον ὑπονοίας τοῖς ἀπηνῶς βουλομένοις κρίνειν καὶ τέλεον ἀποστρέφεσθαι τοὺς ἁμαρτάνοντας καὶ μὴ κοινωνεῖν αὐτοῖς λόγων παρακλητικῶν πρὸς μετάνοιαν ἐπαναγαγεῖν δυναμένων (SC 320, 172). The proper penitential rite (II 16, 1-2) recommends first to let the sinner outside the church; after that the deacons should question him and then beg the bishop on behalf of the sinner: Τότε σὺ κελεύσεις εἰσελθεῖν αὐτόν, καὶ ἀνακρίνας, εἰ μετανοεῖ καὶ ἄξιός ἐστιν εἰς ἐκκλησίαν ὅλως παραδεχθῆναι, στιβώσας αὐτὸν ἡμέραις νηστειῶν κατὰ τὸ ἁμάρτημα, ἑβδομάδας δύο ἢ τρεῖς ἢ πέντε ἢ ἑπτά, οὕτως ἀπόλυσον, εἴπας αὐτῷ ὅσα ἁρμόζει εἰς νουθεσίαν ἡμαρτηκότι (with quotation of Ps. 129[130]:3-4) (SC 320, 186). Yet confession of sins will assure remission of them by the Spirit (II 18, 2): ἅμα γὰρ τῷ εἰπεῖν τινα τῶν πλημμελησάντων γνησίᾳ διαθέσει· ἡμάρτηκα τῷ Κυρίῳ, ἀποκρίνεται τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον· Καὶ Κύριος ἀφῆκέν σοι τὴν ἁμαρτίαν· θάρσει, οὐ μὴ ἀποθάνῃς (SC 320, 190). For the prayer accompanying the imposition of hands see VIII 9,8: ἔπιδε ἐπὶ τοὺς κεκλικότας σοι αὐχένα ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος, ὅτι οὐ βούλει τὸν θάνατον τοῦ ἁμαρτωλοῦ ἀλλὰ τὴν μετάνοιαν, ὥστε ἀποστρέψαι αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τῆς ὁδοῦ αὐτοῦ τῆς πονηρᾶς καὶ ζῆν (SC 336, 164). 94 As described in the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (Lk. 18:13).

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As soon as the words ‘I confess’ resonated, you have beaten your breast. Now, what else means to beat one’s breast but to accuse what is concealed inside and to chastise the hidden sin with a manifest hit? Why did you do so? Because you heard the words: ‘I confess to you, Father’ (Matt. 11:25). You heard: ‘I confess’, but you did not pay attention to whom confesses. So, now pay attention! If Christ, who stands far away from every sin, said ‘I confess’, these words are not only the words of a sinner, but occasionally of one who praises (God). Let’s therefore confess, either by praising God or by accusing ourselves.95

As for the practice of kneeling,96 genuflection and prostration are likewise a legacy of the Bible and intertestamental Judaism,97 as witnessed, among others, by the Prayer of Manasseh,98 or the memorable portrait of James, the brother of the Lord, drawn by Hegesippus and preserved in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius: He alone was allowed to enter into the sanctuary, for he did not wear wool but linen, and he used to enter alone into the temple and be found kneeling (κείμενος ἐπὶ τοῖς γόνασιν) and praying for forgiveness (ἄφεσιν) for the people, so that his knees grew hard like a camel’s because of his constant worship of God, kneeling and asking forgiveness for the people.99

Notwithstanding that biblical custom, Origen complained that many in his time did not understand the meaning of genuflection together with other ritual observances.100 Therefore he, and Tertullian before him, provided explanations for an appropriate practice, though genuflection would still require a canonical regulation at the council of Nicaea (325), in addition to the ruling for the penitents to be reckoned among the prostrati during the church service.101 In fact, 95 Augustine, Serm. 67, 1. See also supra (n. 55) the reference to Serm. 136/A 2. In En. in Ps. 38, 14 the beating of the breast accompanies the recitation of the fifth request of the Lord’s Prayer: adhuc tundo pectus, et dico: Dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris (Matt. 6:12) (CChr.SL 38, 416.4-6). 96 G. Radle, ‘Embodied Eschatology. The Council of Nicaea’s Regulation of Kneeling and Its Reception Across Liturgical Traditions, Part 1’, Worship 90 (2016), 345-71; P. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church (2008; 1981), 64. 97 See A.K. Harkins, ‘A Phenomenological Study of Penitential Elements and Their Strategic Arousal of Emotion in the Qumran Hodayot (1QHa cols. 1[?]-8)’ (2015), 305 on the Hymns of Qumran, in which ‘one significant penitential element, the confession of sins … appears in CH I, where it is joined to the act of prostration, the physical act of humbling oneself’. 98 Prayer of Manasseh 10-11; M. Harl, Voix de louange (2014), 78-80. 99 Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist. Eccl. II 23, 6 (Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, trans. K. Lake [Cambridge, London, 1926], 171). 100 HNm V 1, 4 (GCS 30, 26.14-23): Sed et in ecclesiasticis obseruationibus sunt nonnulla huiusmodi, quae omnibus quidem facere necesse est, nec tamen ratio eorum omnibus patet. Nam quod, uerbi gratia, genua flectimus orantes et quod ex omnibus caeli plagis ad solam Orientis partem conuersi orationem fundimus, non facile cuiquam puto ratione compertum. 101 See respectively Can. 20 and 11-2 (Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Generaliumque Decreta, ed. G. Alberigo et al. [Turnhout, 2006], I 25-6).

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kneeling does not always stand for a penitential gesture; it can express an attitude of humility (as in Phil. 2:10 and Eph. 3:14), although this state of mind is certainly also expected from the penitent.102 So, Hermas bends his knees for prayer to confess his sins, but once he does it to glorify God who has remitted them.103 Tertullian, in turn, testifies to an early debate on the issue among Christians, some of whom abstained from kneeling on Saturday. For him traditional usage recommended to avoid genuflection only on Sunday and in the period between Easter and Pentecost.104 In any case, one should always begin the day by prostrating oneself before God. This morning genuflection clearly confers on prayer a penitential significance, as emphasized by the fact that Tertullian additionally mentions the same gesture for the days of fasting and Station celebrations.105 Moreover, he points out the necessity of genuflection for catechumens preparing themselves for baptism through prayer, fasting, vigils and the confession of sins.106 Conforming to this, Origen regards genuflection principally as the physical gesture of those who are going to confess their trespasses and manifest their submission to God.107 The latter happens with the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemany (Matt. 26:39; Mk. 14:35; Lk. 22:41): evidently, Jesus prostrating himself does not assume a penitential 102 R. Hvalvik, ‘Praying with Outstreched Hands: Nonverbal Aspects of Early Christian Prayer and the Question of Identity’, in id. and K.O. Sandnes (eds), Early Christian Prayer and Identity Formation (Tübingen, 2014), 57-90, 78: ‘Based on texts like Ezra 9:5 (introducing a penitential prayer) and 3 Macc 2:1 (introducing a prayer with penitential elements in a most critical situation; cf. vv. 17-18), it seems likely to think that genuflection is a sign of repentance, being linked with a consciousness of sin and guilt. Such an interpretation also fits the occurrences of the expression in The Shepherd of Hermas: In two of the three cases kneeling down is connected with confession of sin (Herm. Vis. 1.1.3 [1.3] … also in Vis. 3.1.5 [9.5], but not in Vis. 2.1.2 [5.2])’. 103 See respectively Herm., Vis. 1, 1, 3 (Die apostolischen Väter, ed. F.X. Funk et al. [1992], 330): καὶ τιθῶ τὰ γόνατα καὶ ἠρξάμην προσεύχεσθαι τῷ Κυρίῳ καὶ ἐξομολογεῖσθαί μου τὰς ἁμαρτίας; Vis. 3, 1, 5 (ibid. 344): ἐν ἐμαυτῷ οὖν γενόμενος καὶ μνησθεὶς τῆς δόξας τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ λαβὼν θάρσος, θεὶς τὰ γόνατα ἐξομολογούμην τῷ κυρίῳ πάλιν τὰς ἁμαρτίας μου ὡς καὶ πρότερον; and Vis. 2, 1, 2 (ibid. 338): τιθῶ τὰ γόνατα καὶ ἠρξάμην προσεύχεσθαι τῷ κυρίῳ καὶ δοξάζειν αὐτοῦ τὸ ὄνομα, ὅτι με ἄξιον ἡγήσατο καὶ ἐγνώρισέν μοι τὰς ἁμαρτίας μου τὰς πρότερον. 104 Tertullian, De orat. 23, 1-2. 105 Ibid. 23, 3-4 (ed. Schleyer [2006], 266): Ceterum omni die quis dubitet prosternere se Deo uel prima saltem oratione, qua lucem ingredimur? Ieiuniis autem et stationibus nulla oratio sine genu et reliquo humilitatis more celebranda est. Non enim oramus tantum, sed et deprecamur et satisfacimus Deo Domino nostro. See P. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church (2008; 1981), 65; R. Hvalvik, ‘Praying with Outstreched Hands: Nonverbal Aspects of Early Christian Prayer and the Question of Identity’ (2014), 80. 106 Tertullian, De bapt. 20, 1 (ed. Schleyer [2006], 212): Ingressuros baptismum orationibus crebris, ieiuniis at geniculationibus et peruigiliis orare oportet cum confessione omnium retro delictorum. 107 Origen, Orat XXXI 3 (GCS 2-3, 396.21-4): καὶ ἡ γονυκλισία δὲ ὅτι ἀναγκαία ἐστίν, ὅτε τις μέλλει τῶν ἰδίων ἐπὶ θεοῦ ἁμαρτημάτων κατηγορεῖν, ἱκετεύων περὶ τῆς ἐπὶ τούτοις ἱάσεως καὶ τῆς ἀφέσεως αὐτῶν, εἰδέναι χρὴ ὅτι σύμβολον τυγχάνει τοῦ ὑποπεπτωκότος καὶ ὑποτεταγμένου.

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meaning; but the Saviour conveys through it a model of humility for those who are too self-confident, as was the apostle Peter, who would soon deny him.108 With these remarks we are still far from the monastic practice of ‘prostration’, but we may nevertheless surmise a substantial continuity, as far as the essential meaning of genuflection is concerned, as it oscillates mainly between the self-accusing and penitential aspects and, to a lesser extent, the intercessory and worshipping dimensions.109 After James, the brother of the Lord, Eusebius of Caesarea has painted for us another mighty icon of a kneeling orans in the person of Emperor Constantine (who wished himself to be depicted in a praying attitude in his official portraits, with eyes facing upwards and outstretched hands).110 According to the Life of Constantine, the emperor used to seclude himself every day in the imperial recesses and kneel to address to God his entreaties and requests.111 Unlike Alcuin of York, who wrote a remarkable Confession of sins for Emperor Charlemagne, Eusebius does not not focus on the avowal of trespasses or the penitential aspects.112 However, the image of 108 Origen, CMtS 90 (GCS 38, 206.8-10): timor autem infirmitatis ad auxilium Dei confugere adhortatur, sicut et Dominum ipsum paululum progredi et cadere in faciem et orare; 91 (GCS 38, 207.21-6): Ad hoc autem adduxit eos, maxime Petrum magna de se confitentem, ut uideant et audiant, ubi est posse hominis et quomodo impetratur. Videant quidem cadentem in faciem suam (Matt. 26:39), audiant autem dicentem: Pater, si possibile est, transeat calix iste a me, et discant non magna de se sapere sed humilia aestimare, nec ueloces esse ad promittendum sed solliciti ad orandum; 92 (GCS 38, 207.32-208.3): Qui dixit: Discite a me, quia mitis sum et humilis corde (Matt. 11:29), laudabiliter se humilians, et nunc cadit in faciem orans (Matt. 26:39) et adhuc amplius postmodum humiliat se factus oboediens usque ad mortem (Phil. 2:8). See L. Perrone, ‘L’esempio di Gesù orante: la preghiera al Getsemani nell’interpretazione di Origene’, La Sapienza della Croce 31 (2016), 257-79. 109 Basil, De Spiritu sancto 27, 66 distinguishes the meaning of kneeling and standing as follows: Καὶ καθ’ ἑκάστην δὲ γονυκλισίαν καὶ διανάστασιν, ἔργῳ δείκνυμεν ὅτι διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας εἰς γῆν κατερρύημεν, καὶ διὰ τῆς φιλανθρωπίας τοῦ κτίσαντος ἡμᾶς εἰς οὐρανὸν ἀνεκλήθημεν (Basile de Césarée, Traité du Saint Esprit, ed. B. Pruche, SC 17bis [Paris, 1968], 486.92-5). 110 Eusebius of Caesarea, V. Const. IV 15, 2-16: Ἐν αὐτοῖς δὲ βασιλείοις κατά τινας πόλεις ἐν ταῖς εἰς τὸ μετέωρον τῶν προπύλων ἀνακειμέναις εἰκόσιν ἑστὼς ὄρθιος ἐγράφετο, ἄνω μὲν εἰς οὐρανὸν ἐμβλέπων, τῶ χεῖρε δ῾ἐκτεταμένος εὐχομένου σχήματι. Ὧδε μὲν οὖν αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν κἀν ἐν ταῖς γραφαῖς εὐχόμενον ἀνίστη (Eusebius, Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantin, ed. F. Winkelmann, GCS [Berlin, 1991], 125.23-126.2). 111 Ibid. IV 22, 1: Αὐτὸς δ’ οἷά τις μέτοχος ἱερῶν ὀργίων ἐν ἀπορρήτοις εἴσω τοῖς αὐτοῦ βασιλικοῖς ταμείοις καιροῖς ἑκάστης ἡμέρας τακτοῖς ἑαυτὸν ἐγκλείων, μόνος μόνῳ τῷ αὐτοῦ προσωμίλει θεῷ, ἱκετικαῖς τε δεήσεσι γονυπετῶν κατεδυσώπει ὧν ἐδεῖτο τυχεῖν (ibid. 128.1-4). See also IV 61, 3. 112 Alcuin’s Confessio for Charlemagne begins with the address to a merciful God and the request for a pure confession and the appropriate penitence. The accusation details the sins in thoughts and deeds, by reviewing the trespasses according to the five senses. The sinner avows that he has not made use of his own limbs for the purpose of salvation, so that the genuflection served sinful purposes: Genua mea ad fornicationem potius quam ad orationem flexi (PL 101, 525A).

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the kneeling Constantine, still waiting for his baptism, closely resembles the figure of a penitent. Towards the end of the fourth century we observe a phenomenon typical of the growing monasticism: prayer is coupled more and more with a prostration (or a bow), so that this gesture, besides the usual expressions for ‘genuflection’ (as γονυκλισία), would eventually receive in our sources the same name as ‘repentance’, that is μετάνοια.113 Early monastic texts have preserved the records of the virtuosi of asceticism, whose prostrations and prayers were deemed worthy to be counted and committed to writing. For instance, Porphyry, a former monk and the bishop of Gaza at the turn of the fourth and the fifth centuries, spends a vigil in the church ‘making thirty prayers and thirty genuflections’.114 Around the same time, according to the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto, Apollo, a monk living in Hermopolis, a city of the Thebaid, used to do much more than Porphyry: every day and every night he said a hundred prayers and genuflected as many times.115 In the fifth century Life of Alexander, the founder of the monastery of the ‘Sleepless Monks’ (Akoimetai) near Constantinople, so called because they devoted themselves to a twenty-four hours oratio continua, its anonymous author justifies the connection between remission of sins, genuflection and prayer in this way: Our Saviour exhorts us to pardon to our fellow slaves the trespasses we do one another seventy-seven times (Matt. 18:22). Thus, because of these trespasses, let us present to the good God our requests (δεήσεις) kneeling seventy-seven times.116

The habit of kneeling to confess one’s sins to God and ask him for forgiveness occurs frequently also in the letters of Barsanuphius and John of Gaza. Questioned by a hesychast, who complained about his ‘night warfare’ against phantasies, John enjoins him to combine prostrations and prayers in a demand for forgiveness. So, when the temptation of such a warfare occurs to you, do seven sets of seven prostrations, that is, forty-nine prostrations, saying with each: ‘Lord, I have sinned; forgive me for the sake of your holy name’. If you happen to be ill, or else if it is Sunday, when 113

See PGL 858 s.v.: ‘prostration; made as sign of penitence, esp. in religious life for moral faults…; for faults against rule…; before confession; in exorcism…; as sign of respect, esp. in religious life…; as a sign of worship … hence as synonym for prayer’. 114 Mark the Deacon, V. Porph. Gaz. 20 (Marc le Diacre. Vie de Porphyre, évêque de Gaza, ed. H. Grégoire and M.-A. Kugener [Paris, 1930]). 115 Hist. Mon. 8, 38-41: τὸ δὲ ἔργον αὐτοῦ ἦν τὸ πανημέριον εὐχὰς τῷ θεῷ ἀποδιδόναι, ἑκατοντάκις μὲν ἐν νυκτί, τοσαυτάκις δὲ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ κάμπτων τὰ γόνατα. Cf. also 168-70 (prayer and genuflection): κάμψας τὰ γόνατα καὶ προσευξάμενος τῷ σωτῆρι πάντας ἐξαίφνης τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἀκινήτους ἐποίησεν. 116 V. Alex.: Ὁ σωτὴρ ἡμῶν παρακελεύεται ἀφιέναι τοῖς συνδούλοις ἡμῶν τὰς εἰς ἀλλήλους ἁμαρτίας ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά· καὶ ἡμεῖς οὖν ὑπὲρ τούτων, ἑβδομήκοντα ἑπτὰ γονυκλισίας ποιοῦντες, τὰς δεήσεις ἀναπέμψωμεν τῷ ἀγαθῷ θεῷ, ed. E. de Stoop, Vie d’Alexandre l’Acémète, PO 6/5 (Paris, 1911; repr. 1971), 658-701, 680.

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it is not appropriate to perform prostrations, then pray this phrase seventy times instead of the forty-nine prostrations.117

In the same way Barsanuphius, after forgiving a monk for the thought of ‘blasphemy’ that he had confessed to him, ordered him to perform at once kneeling and praying for the sake of confession and remission of sins: Repent for forty days before God over your sins of yesterday, by making three prostrations (μετανοίας!) and saying: ‘Forgive me, for I have blasphemed against you, my God’, and confess to him with the same mouth that blasphemed, saying three times each day: ‘Glory to you, my God, and blessed are you to the ages. Amen’.118

The nexus between genuflection and short formulaic prayers in the correspondence of the two Old Men of Gaza should make us aware of the spread of the ‘Jesus prayer’ from Egypt to Palestine and further on to Byzantium.119 The frequent coupling with kneeling gives evidence of the strong penitential character of this brief prayer, in spite of its variety of forms.120 Not incidentally, among them the Kyrie eleison is especially recommended,121 and Dorotheus of Gaza, faithfully following the teaching of his two spiritual masters, would similarly behave with his disciple Dositheus. The anonymous Life of that young monk, a hero of obedience, praises him for his fidelity to the Jesus’ Prayer, almost until his last breath, as a way to implement the oratio continua with an uninterrupted remembrance of God: he always kept the memory of God. In fact (Dorotheus) had instructed him to say always: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy!’, and in between: ‘Son of God, help me’. So he made always this prayer.122

As vividly illustrated by the spirituality of the Gaza monks, ancient monasticism kept alive the deep awareness of fundamentally being sinners before God and, accordingly, of being necessarily led to constantly rememorize this condition and ask for God’s help. For those ascetics, who engaged themselves on the 117

Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, Letters, 168 (trans. Chryssavgis, I [2006], 184). Ibid. 229 (trans. Chryssavgis, I [2006], 234). 119 A. Grillmeier, ‘Das «Gebet zu Jesus» und das «Jesus-Gebet»: Eine neue Quelle zum «Jesus-Gebet» aus dem Weissen Kloster’, in C. Laga (ed.), After Chalcedon. Studies in Theology and Church History (Leuven, 1985), 187-202, repr. in id., Fragmente zur Christologie. Studien zum altkirchlichen Christusbild, ed. T. Hainthaler (Freiburg i.Br., 1997), 357-71. 120 L. Perrone, ‘L’oratio continua in Barsanufio e Giovanni di Gaza’, in Per respirare a due polmoni. Chiese e culture cristiane tra Oriente e Occidente. Studi in onore di Enrico Morini, ed. M. Caroli, A.M. Mazzanti and R. Savigni (Bologna, 2019), 155-78. 121 Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, Letters, 87: Τὴν εὐχαριστίαν δὲ καὶ τὸ ‘Κύριε, ἐλέησον’ κράτει κατὰ τὴν δύναμίν σου (Barsanuphe et Jean de Gaza, Correspondance, ed. F. Neyt and P. de Angelis-Noah, trans. L. Regnault, SC 426-7, 450-1, 468 [Paris, 1997-2002]; trans. J. Chryssavgis, I [2006], 109). 122 V. Dosithei 10 (Dorotheus von Gaza, Doctrinae diversae. Die geistliche Lehre, ed. J. Pauli [Freiburg, Basel, Wien, 2000], 112-4). 118

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road to sanctity, the humble prayer of the publican still represented a source of inspiration, while this spiritual core practically converged with the recognition of one’s sinfulness, generally shared by the Church Fathers, and the necessity of divine support.

A conclusion: The redeeming ‘hell’ of prayer in John Climacus In the end, one may recall the dialectics between the two paradigms of orantes in Origen, the saint and the sinner, and conclude that the prayer of the ‘saint’ cannot be wholly dissociated from that of the ‘sinner’. In patristic discourse, the ‘righteous’ or the ‘saint’ still remains, in principle, a sinner who has repented and converted but is never sure not to relapse. The idea of a juxtaposition between the sinner and the saint does not seem to be out of place even when looking at the most distressing images of praying sinners in ancient Christianity. We meet them in the seventh century Ladder of Divine Ascent by John Climacus, a classic of monastic and Byzantine spirituality. The Fifth Step to the ‘Paradise’ of perfection precisely concerns μετάνοια, ‘repentance’, but quite soon John moves from the ascetic teaching on this ‘practical’ virtue to the narrative of an extreme penitential experience: an oppressing prison for monks who have sinned in various ways. John avoided recording the faults for which these monks underwent such harsh punishment, in his own words a true ‘hell of penance’.123 Yet we could define it also as a ‘hell of prayer’, inasmuch as the penance performed in this prison essentially consists of various forms of penitential prayer, even when the monks do not have recourse to verbal expressions but, so to say, silently pray with their body.124 Indeed, their body shows the consequences of the physical and spiritual tribulations it suffers. Suffice it here to mention the monks whose breasts ‘were livid from blows; and from their frequent beating of the chest, they spat blood’.125 As the description progresses, however, the prisoner-monks come more and more to unveil, through their self-inflicted penitential exercises, what they really are in the eyes of Climacus: not only aspirants to holiness, but rather ‘guilty yet guiltless men’, and finally ‘holy convicts’, insofar as they represent a model of repentance.126 Their deeds and words of prayer are so effective that they succeed in forcefully swaying God himself and ‘bending Him down’ out 123 Ladder 5, 5n (PG 88, 769B): ἐν τῷ ἅδῃ τῆς μετανοίας, John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, trans. Archimandrite L. Moore (New York, 1959). 124 Ladder 5, 5d (PG 88, 765A-B). 125 Ladder 5, 5q (PG 88, 772A). 126 See Ladder 5, 5c (PG 88, 765A): τῶν ὑπευθύνων ἐκείνων τῶν ἀνευθύνων; 5, 30 (PG 88, 780D): Ὅρος σοι, καὶ τύπος, καὶ ὑπογραμμὸς καὶ εἰκὼν πρὸς μετάνοιαν ἔστωσαν οἱ προμνημονευθέντες ἅγιοι κατάδικοι.

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of his love for humankind.127 As shown by the use of the verb κατακάμπτω (‘to bend down’), the crude physicality of penance on the part of those ‘prostrated’ monks effects a metaphorical ‘prostration’ in their favor on the part of God. This is fundamentally a result achieved by the virtue of πένθος, the ‘grief’ or ‘mourning’ that supports the hardships of the prisoners, so that Climacus after his visit to the prison can comment: I consider those fallen mourners more blessed than those who have not fallen and are not mourning over themselves; because, as a result of their fall, they have risen by a sure resurrection.128

John Climacus draws a lesson from his picture of the prisoner-monks that corroborates once more the value one should attribute to the sinner’s prayer, though in passing he surprisingly criticizes Origen for his doctrine of apocatastasis, regarded by him as an easy way out from sin and suffering. For Climacus, instead of instrumentally relying on God’s merciful love as the Alexandrian did, monks should kindle in themselves the fire of prayer. Ironically enough, this is a reminiscence of Ps. 38(39):4 (‘My heart grew hot within me, and a fire would kindle in my meditation’), a psalm that Origen had explained as the voice of the ‘good sinner’ of Ps. 37(38) now successfully advancing on the way to sanctity thanks to the tormenting and purifying fire that the Logos had kindled in his heart.129

127 Ladder 5, 5b (PG 88, 765A): πράγματα καὶ ῥήματα τὸν θεὸν δυνάμενα βιάσασθαι, ἐπιτηδεύματά τε καὶ σχήματα τὴν αὐτοῦ φιλανθρωπίαν συντόμως κατακάμπτοντα. 128 Ladder 5, 5x (PG 88, 776B). 129 H38Ps I, 6 (ed. Prinzivalli [1991], 342): In consequentibus uero adhuc amplius passionem describit eius qui proficit. Cf. O. Clément, Le chant des larmes (2011), 61: ‘Car l’enfer, disait Origène, c’est justement la brûlure de la conscience (De principiis II, 10, 4)’.

Virtue Ethics, Scripture, and Early Christianity: Patristic Sacred Reading as a Transformative Struggle Stephen M. MEAWAD, Caldwell University, Caldwell, NJ, USA

ABSTRACT There exists a latent potentiality in Scripture that can be recovered through an ancient Christian practice of Patristic sacred reading. As a solution to the contemporary divide between Scripture and ethics, this practice can be located within a broader virtue ethical context and consists of a number of methodological techniques that have recently begun receiving due attention, including reading Scripture Christocentrically, typologically, allegorically, holistically, virtuously, and communally. Beyond these methodological suggestions, the early Church observed a practice of reading that profoundly transformed its practitioners. This practice can be organized best using St Gregory of Nyssa’s tripartite framework of epektasis, or perpetual ascent, that envisions the spiritual life as a progression beginning with detachment from bodily desires, continuing through the strengthening of the soul as it grows in virtue, and perpetually progressing in unity with the infinite God. Placing ancient Christian techniques of sacred reading into this general framework can help recover a spiritually transformative practice verified by centuries of Christians but seemingly absent among most modern readers of Scripture.

1. Introduction The oft-cited exhortation from Vatican II to utilize Scripture more seriously in moral theology has since spurred many theologians, ethicists, and biblical scholars to consider potential ways to adhere to this directive.1 The transformative power of Scripture remains largely untapped in methodological discourse and tapping into this transformative depth would allow Scripture to become a good guide to a Christian ethic. In this article, I will offer a solution to the problem of the divorce of Scripture and ethics grounded in: 1) Patristic Scriptural methodologies, including the centrality of Christ as the interpretive key to Scripture; the importance of holistic, typological, allegorical, and spiritual readings of Scripture; and the need for openness, purity, and community; and in 2) St Gregory of Nyssa’s tripartite epektatic framework of detachment, strengthening, and union. What will begin to emerge is a pragmatic virtue ethical suggestion for 1

Pope Paul VI, Decree on Priestly Training: Optatam Totius (Vatican City, 1965).

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 365-383. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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a Patristic exegetical methodology that allows for the direct formation and transformation of Christians in community in which Scripture serves as an ethos, a former of character, and a portal to unity with God. 1.1. Unity and Holism In attempting to reconstruct what may be a Patristic exegetical methodology, the task to present any monolithic or harmonious consensus patrum with regards to Scripture, even if possible, is not only outside the scope of this article but also counterproductive to the pluralities that decorated early Christian thought and that continue to characterize our time.2 However, there exist elements of transformative sacred reading that have been acclaimed since the early Christian era and continue to be reinforced by many today. One such element – cited by Allen Verhey as a methodological necessity – is approaching Scripture as a whole.3 It is what Frank Matera’s popular twentieth century work refers to as a synchronic method of reading Scripture as a unity, and it is a sense of wholeness on at least two accounts.4 First, what is meant by wholeness is that the Old and New Testaments are to be taken as a united canon. The Scriptural canon was formed against a false theology that saw a dualism between the Old Testament and the New 2 I do not mean that the plurality of Christian reality in the modern world is similar to that in the ancient world. In fact, I praise the latter and denounce the former. The ancient pluralism to which I am referring is that which existed within the bounds of the one Christian Church. An example of this pluralism would be a variety of interpretations on a given Scriptural parable through use of allegorical exegesis. However, when pluralism is discussed contemporarily, it usually implies a difference of fundamental faith and doctrine. While I am not overlooking this glaring difference, my only point is that since neither era can be characterized as entirely monolithic, presenting a monolithic Patristic voice would not only be inaccurate but counterproductive. Further, regarding the notion of a consensus patrum, this article falls in Hilarion Alfeyev’s camp when he writes: ‘How is the so-called consensus patrum, the “accord of the Fathers”, to be understood? This concept, borrowed from Western theology, is questionable. Some understand the consensus patrum as a kind of “theological summa” or “common denominator” of patristic thought produced by cutting away the individual traits of every author. Others consider that the “accord of the Fathers” presupposes their consent on essential matters, with possible disagreement on isolated issues. Personally, I support the second point of view. I believe, as I have said on other occasions, that the many private opinions of the fathers, the fruits of the spiritual quest of men of faith illuminated by God, may not be artificially pruned in order to produce some simplified theological system or “summa”.’ Hilarion H. Alfeyev, ‘The Patristic Heritage and Modernity’, The Ecumenical Review 54 (2002). Hans Boersma agrees that though distinctions certainly exist between the fathers and different patristic schools of thought, there still exist shared sensibilities. See Hans Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church (Ada, MI, 2017), 13. 3 Allen Verhey, ‘The Use of Scripture in Ethics’, in Charles Curran and Richard McCormick (eds), The Use of Scripture in Moral Theology (New York, 1984), 213-41, 228. 4 Frank J. Matera, New Testament Ethics: The Legacies of Jesus and Paul, 1st ed. (Louisville, 1996), 5-6.

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Testament.5 It is not uncommon to promote this false dichotomy today by emphasizing the importance of one testament at the neglect of the other or by imagining a tyrannical Old Testament God in contradistinction to a beneficent New Testament God. The latter, instead, is unlocked by the former and is insufficient and incoherent on its own.6 The opposite – that the Old Testament can only be fully understood in light of the New Testament – holds true for Christians, an assertion not without its complications in the face of the Old Testament historical and contextual particularities. Part of a premodern, Patristic approach to Scripture was understanding Jesus Christ Himself as the interpretive key to the entire canon still solidifying in the early Church. The church fathers, as John O’Keefe and Russell Reno point out, saw a coherence in the Bible that was a ‘Christ-centered unity of Scripture’.7 According to Ignatius of Antioch, Christ is the ‘archives’ (ἀρχεῖα),8 the ‘original documents’.9 According to Irenaeus, it is the economy of the Son of God – Jesus Christ – that provides the logic (λόγος) and framework through which Scripture should be interpreted.10 In this way, the Old Testament cannot be interpreted outside of the logic of Christ applied to the text. To put it another way, to understand Genesis’ ‘In the beginning’ (ἐν ἀρχῇ), one must first understand John’s ‘In the beginning was the Word’ (ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος), not as supercessionism but as a a key feature in an ancient Christian hermeneutic. To understand Christ as the interpretive key to the entirety of Scripture’s canon is to give Jesus Christ centrality in all domains of life as λόγος. ‘The notion that the church fathers were smug and complacent, using their doctrinal commitments to oppress open-minded and liberal adversaries, is a lamentable anachronism.’11 Scriptural and doctrinal commitments, instead, were a matter of adherence to the rule of faith lived out dynamically. Allowing Scripture to take a position of preeminence at the same time calls attention for doctrinal commitments that naturally develop therefrom. The church fathers wanted to achieve a total reading of the Bible by exposing the implications and depths 5 Allen Verhey, Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life (Grand Rapids, 2002), 58-9. 6 Stephen E. Fowl and L. Gregory Jones, Reading in Communion: Scripture and Ethics in Christian Life (Grand Rapids, 1991), 157. 7 John J. O’Keefe and Russell R. Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Baltimore, 2005), 25. 8 For a commentary on the scholarly debates surrounding what Ignatius of Antioch may have meant by ἀρχεῖά in Ignatius, Philadelphians VIII 2 (SC 10bis, 116), see William R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letter of Ignatius of Antioch (Philadelphia, 1985), 207. In ANF I 84, the translations offered are: ‘Jesus Christ is in the place of all that is ancient’, and ‘my archives are Jesus Christ’. Scholarly consensus seems to understand his use of ἀρχεῖά to refer generally to the Old Testament. 9 J.J. O’Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision (2005), 28. 10 Ibid. 37-42. 11 Ibid. 43.

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behind every single word. They read intensively, looking out for any signs and clues amidst the most minute of details and for contradictions, which when resolved, would result in deeper understanding of the God of Scripture. In asserting Christ to be the interpretive key of the whole corpus of Scripture, the early Church also relied heavily on its typological interpretation.12 Typology is a connection between Scriptural texts, not on the basis of particular images or words, but with larger, unifying patterns therein. Typology transcends the particularities of time and space, connecting characters to Christ, the ‘Master type’ in which all other types, before and after, are fulfilled.13 Any sense of participation between the reader and Jesus Christ requires typology, thereby rendering Christ’s actions authoritative. Moreover, to understand the Old Testament readings in light of Christ is to read typologically, or as Bogdan Bucur would suggest, as ‘Christophanic exegesis’.14 Without typology, few connections, and thus little sense, can be made intrabiblically. This leads to the second sense of the wholeness of Scripture in which Scripture unlocks Scripture. An obscure pericope is elucidated by another less obscure pericope, elucidating both (or several) portions concomitantly. In this sense, one text cannot be understood apart from the rest of the cohesive canon. 12 A great deal of effort has been made by modern scholars in determining whether the contemporary use of typology and allegory are accurate representations of the way the church fathers, especially Clement of Alexandria and Origen, used these same terms (τύπος and ἀλληγορία). I tend to agree with the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (TIS) movement on its conceptual premises but not in its collapsing the distinction between typology and allegory into the category of ‘figural’, upheld by some in this loosely defined movement. David Dawson uses ‘figural’ and ‘figurative’, though this use has not become standardized. See David Dawson, Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity (Berkeley, 2002) and Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (New York, 2006), 34-8. The modern distinctions between typology and allegory are useful, though not entirely concordant with their ancient analogues. These contemporary debates are in response to Jean Daniélou’s influential and overemphasized delineation between typology and allegory. Peter W. Martens identified a broad consensus among scholars concluding that most understand typology as a better (successful and proper) nonliteral exegetical methodology than allegory, while for Origen allegory is in contradistinction to literal exegesis. One might also choose to adopt Bogdan Bucur’s helpful language of Christophanic exegesis in this discussion. See Bogdan G. Bucur, ‘Christophanic Exegesis and the Problem of Symbolization: Daniel 3 (the Fiery Furnace) as a Test Case’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 10 (2016), 227-43. Ultimately, I maintain O’Keefe and Reno’s use of typology and allegory because, in my estimation, their use stays true to the spirit of Patristic exegesis developed and described in this article, while acknowledging that the terminology differs from ancient use to promote modern theological agendas. See J.J. O’Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision (2005), 19-20. It seems that Marten’s suggestion for new terminology so as not to conflate ancient and modern definitions of these terms has not been convincingly heeded and thus are unavailable. Consequently, I acknowledge that in maintaining the language of typology and allegory, I am not suggesting that the ancient fathers necessarily used them identically but that the descriptions of the exegetical practices themselves in this paper are accurate and respectful of their broader sacred endeavors. 13 J.J. O’Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision (2005), 69-84. 14 B. Bucur, ‘Christophanic Exegesis’ (2016), 227-43.

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This is not only to say that the Old and New testaments cannot be separated, but that inner biblical exegesis, even within the same testament, is necessary for an accurate and transformative reading of Scripture. This intertextuality, for someone like Origen – a third-century scholar whose influence on the Patristic corpus cannot be overstated – could be summed up aphoristically: ‘Scripture unlocks Scripture’.15 John Breck labels this intertextuality as a Patristic exegetical method: Scripture, according to the patristic vision, is uniformly and integrally inspired by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it can be interpreted according to the rule of exegetical reciprocity. This holds that any obscure biblical passage can be interpreted in light of another biblical passage which is more clear, irrespective of the author, date of composition or historical circumstances represented by the writing(s) in question.16

He goes on to cite St. John Chrysostom’s homily on Rom. 16:3 in which he identifies partial readings of Scripture, i.e. proof-texting, as a reason for the weakening of faith: This is why we have become so tepid in our faith: we no longer read the Scriptures as a whole. Rather, we select certain passages as being more clear and useful, and we say not a word about the rest. This is just how heresies are introduced: we have refused to read the entire Bible; we have declared certain parts to be essential and others secondary.17

Brian Brock articulates a concept similar to that of Origen. He writes, ‘Christian biblical exegesis as meditation on Scripture is grounded in learning the unique connections between passages of Scripture, thereby discovering the biblical topography.’18 He continues by making a loose reference to premodern biblical exegesis that would not exclude Patristic methods: [U]ntil the intervention of modern concepts of reading, biblical interpretation was defined as a very particular facility of enriching the understanding of a given passage by making connections, and quite often novel connections, with other passages in a way that brings added theological density and explanatory power to both.19

The use of metaphors in Scripture informs our understanding of God. Scripture offers many metaphors to describe God. Metaphors such as Shepherd, 15 Origen, Exeg. in Psalm. I 3 (PG 12, 1080C). In his commentary on the first Psalm, Origen analogizes Scripture with a house that has many locked rooms, whose keys are not near their own doors but dispersed throughout the house. The keys are the interpretations of different, ‘distant’ passages, dispersed throughout the entire Scriptural corpus for intra-biblical interpretation. 16 John Breck, Scripture in Tradition: The Bible and Its Interpretation in the Orthodox Church (Crestwood, 2001), 46. 17 John Chrysostom, Salutate Priscillam (PG 51, 187); translation J. Breck, Scripture in Tradition (2001), 76. 18 Brian Brock, Singing the Ethos of God: On the Place of Christian Ethics in Scripture (Grand Rapids, 2007), 258. 19 Ibid. 259.

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Eagle, Rock, Fire, Mother Hen, Groom, Lover, Friend (Deut. 32:4, 6; 1Sam. 2:2; 2Sam. 22:2; Ps. 28:9, 62:2, 78:35, 80:1; Cant. 1-8, Isa. 64:8; Ezek. 34:11-16, Mal. 2:10; Eph. 4:6), and others all aim to name characteristics and experiences of God. Each description pushes against the other, adjusting and adding to the insufficiency of each. No single metaphor offers a comprehensive understanding of God, and the paradigmatic assimilation of one will necessarily be detrimental because all metaphors must work in congruence if the most satisfactory, accurate description is to be attained. But if one of the metaphors is missing, a less accurate depiction will be deduced and the center to which all of these metaphors should point will be unsatisfactorily shifted. Despite the inability to ever describe God in a comprehensive manner, this analogy helps communicate the limitations that result from incomplete knowledge and use of Scripture. Each piece of Scripture pushes and adjusts all other related pieces to pinpoint clearer images. The more a portion of Scripture is held in isolation, the less faithful the interpretation and the less apt the moral implications deduced. Another early Christian hermeneutic is the allegorical reading of Scripture, wherein it is presumed that there often lies a deeper, hidden, spiritual sense under the immediately obvious understanding of the text.20 There can exist multiple layers and multiple spiritual senses, each underscoring truths that the author of the text is conveying. These different meanings are not different or opposing truths, but, according to John Breck, certain layers are fuller or higher senses of the truth. That Scripture is inundated with allegorical potential implies a requisite serious, struggle-laden, attentive study. Historically, Origen and the Alexandrian school he so clearly impacted have been credited with propagating the allegorical approach to Scripture.21 At first glance, it might seem that allegory should be discounted as ‘exegetical heresy’ or ‘allegorical fantasy’ in the face of modern, scholastic academia, since the former seems to bypass a post-Enlightenment emphasis on historicity.22 Understanding the historical backdrop of any text is indispensable in accurately interpreting that text. Yet, allegory urges the reader not to stop at that initial interpretation but to dig deeper and ask what might be meant by the text not just what the text means. That is, a reader ought to take each word seriously, examining what the author of the text intends to communicate beyond what the text seems to 20 See footnote 11 on contemporary discussions about the use of ‘typology’ and ‘allegory’ in modern scholarship in contra-distinction to their use in the Patristic corpus. While my use of ‘allegory’ here might differ from, for example, Origen’s use, the concept described here is nonetheless helpful in describing a function of ancient Patristic exegesis, though one might benefit from identifying a term that does not conflate with ancient terms used in various manners. 21 John Breck, God with Us: Critical Issues in Christian Life and Faith (Crestwood, 2003), 126-9. 22 Ibid. 129.

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immediately convey. Thus, it is not necessary that the literal be pinned up against the allegorical. Modern readers who find the allegorical method of reading Scripture distasteful and unsophisticated likely carry fundamentally disparate beliefs from premodern authors. The first is that premodern readers really believed in God as Creator of all things, in His Son, and that God is the author and inspirer of Scripture.23 To believe that Scripture is inspired by the breath of God is to believe that there exists a message that promotes human flourishing universally and fundamentally, at a person’s core, not just through intellectual consistency or historical accuracy.24 A presupposed disbelief in God and His authorship often leaves a person with few options besides historical and literal readings of a text, and this ought to be recognized clearly when analyzing Patristic exegetical methodology.25 The early fathers are insistent that (literally) every sentence carries a profound, spiritual, and transformative message, and allegory helps uncover this message. Allegorical reading requires a Christocentric orientation shrouded in humility. One must submit oneself to an encounter with the text, interpreting the text – even historically distant texts – in light of the incarnate, crucified, and risen Christ.26 This is how, for example, Origen was able to interpret the Song of Songs as a spiritual relationship of love with God, not an erotic relationship between sensual lovers.27 This exegetical suggestion does not encourage inaccurate readings by any means but a struggle for spiritual enlightenment, acquisition of virtue, and character formation, detailed in the following section. Through a Patristic lens, exegesis ought to be an encounter of the text in order to attune its reader to God’s voice, to unite its reader with God, and to move its reader towards closer semblance of God, thereby transforming persons and communities, locally and globally. 1.2. Scripture and Virtue The second suggestion for moving forward methodologically is to read Scripture virtuously, that is, as a virtuous person and for the acquisition of virtue. In attempting for the past four or five decades to reconnect Scripture and ethics in the modern world, scholars have not always turned to virtue ethics as the 23

J.J. O’Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision (2005), 108, 113. J. Breck, God with Us (2003), 129. 25 See id., Scripture in Tradition (2001), for a helpful discussion of early Patristic exegesis in relation to modern hermeneutical approaches to the Bible. He writes, ‘Whether or not they [the fathers] found a “spiritual” sense in every phrase of the text, they were convinced that every word was inspired by God for the purpose of guiding the faithful along the way toward life in the Kingdom of Heaven. To their mind, exegesis has one purpose only: to enable the people of God to hear his Word and to receive it for their salvation’ (3). 26 J.J. O’Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision (2005), 105. 27 Origen, Hom. in Cant. (SC 37bis, 65-149; PG 13, 37-196). 24

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most obvious solution. As William Mattison points out, ‘it is even assumed that a virtue-centered approach to morality is actually non-scriptural.’28 Yet, virtue ethicists like Mattison put forward convincing cases for the appropriateness of approaching Scripture with a focus on character formation. Of the significant and recent interventions in the field of biblical ethics is Lucas Chan’s Biblical Ethics in the 21st Century, in which he offers a hermeneutical proposal for Scripture grounded in virtue ethics. Chan identifies virtue language in Scripture, signaling four fundamental dimensions of virtue ethics: dispositions and character formation; practices and habits; exemplars; and community and community identity.29 The first and fourth of these dimensions are especially helpful in illuminating aspects of the overarching, though covert, consensus found in scholarship surrounding Scripture and ethics. Character formation and the centrality of community have been pivotal in the practice of sacred reading since Christianity’s inception, and they have recently begun their slow reemergence into a more prominent contemporary light. The character formation detailed in this section, however, will not focus on virtue theory generally or various virtues specifically as laid out in Scripture, though these are edifying endeavors on their own. Instead, when Scripture is read with attention to and desire for moral formation, the practice becomes innately transformative. Chan notes that Christ and conformity to Him are the ends (τέλοι) in the teleological, grace-filled process of sanctification.30 This process of sanctification is similar to, though more general than, the schematics of Gregory of Nyssa’s epektatic process. Just how the practice of sacred reading is transformative and how it fits into Gregory’s model will be detailed below. At this point, however, the importance of sanctification is reflected in its necessity for a ‘good’, wise, or virtuous reading of Scripture. For many church fathers, the virtue par excellence that promoted a wise reading of Scripture was the pursuit of purity grounded in spiritual struggle. The interpretation of Scripture for many of the fathers required focused exertion to reach a level of sanctified vision by which one would think in and through the Scriptures. Not only did they know the Scriptures inside and out, but they also maintained that a certain way of life was requisite to properly interpreting Scripture. Even with all of these strategies in place, purity held potentially the place of highest prominence in the practice of sacred reading.31 28

William C. Mattison, The Sermon on the Mount and Moral Theology: A Virtue Perspective (New York, 2017), 1. 29 Yiu Sing Lúcás Chan, Biblical Ethics in the 21st Century: Developments, Emerging Consensus, and Future Directions (New York, 2013), 84-92, 107-12. 30 Ibid. 94. 31 This is more a modern rendering, with emphasis on strategy and methodology. It is my contention that in ancient Christians were less concerned with methods as intellectual strategies and more concerned with holistic means of life from which certain tendencies developed in relation

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Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the three heralded fourth-century Cappadocians (along with Gregory of Nyssa and Basil), held that a pure mind was necessary to understand the pure matters of Scripture. As Scripture is pivotal in discerning theological matters, regarding the discussion of theology, he writes: It is not for all people, but only for those who have been tested and have found a sound footing in study, and, more importantly, have undergone, or at the very least are undergoing, purification of body and soul (ψυχήν καὶ σῶμα κεκαθαρμένων). For one who is not pure (καθαρῷ) to lay hold of pure (καθαροῦ) things is dangerous, just as it is for weak eyes to look at the sun’s brightness.32

Thus, it is ‘dangerous’ for the impure to study what is pure. Purity and exegetical prowess are positively correlated. Without the virtue of purity, one could rely only on intellect and conjecture, each important in their own right, yet at the risk of rendering a plethora of opinions and hermeneutical impasses, a reality not uncommon today. Basil similarly highlights the necessity of ‘cleansing the eye of the soul’ when reading Scripture. He writes, ‘Just as the power of seeing is in the healthy eye, so is the activity of the Spirit in the purified soul’ (Καὶ ώς ἡ δύναμις τοῦ ὁρᾷν ἐν τῷ ὑγιαίνοντι ὀφθαλμῷ, οὔτως ἡ ἐνέργεια τοῦ Πνεύματος ἐν τῇ κεκαθαρμένῃ ψυχῇ).33 The Spirit, that is, the presumed Author of Scripture, is enlivened in the person who has a purified soul. That person is more apt for Scriptural interpretation, not at the neglect of, but in combination with, other necessary hermeneutical tools. Purity is a virtue inculcated through the Holy Spirit, who purifies all creation. Through this unitive harmony a person pursues a transformative interpretation of Scripture, not passively but through a sort of moral asceticism. In fact, Origen believed that the very difficulty of intepreting Scriptures points a reader towards the need for this moral asceticism exegetically. He writes, [T]he aim of the Spirit … was pre-eminently concerned with the unspeakable mysteries (ἀπορρήτων μυστηρίων) regarding the affairs of human beings … in order that one who is capable of being taught may, by searching out and devoting himself to the deep things of the sense of the words, become a participant in all the doctrines (δογμάτων) of the Spirit’s counsel.34

to their circumstances. In other words, as noted in the introduction to this section above, method was not method because it was (only) logically sound but because it is that to which experience in community attested. 32 Gregory Nazianzen, Oratio XXVII 3 (SC 250, 76; PG 36, 13D-16A); trans. Frederick Williams Gregory and Lionel R. Wickham, On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius (Crestwood, 2002), 27. 33 Basil, De Spiritu Sancto XXVI 61 (SC 17bis, 468; PG 32, 180C). 34 Origen, De Princ. IV 2.7 (SC 268, 328; PG 11, 372A-B); trans. John Behr, Origen: On First Principles (Oxford, 2018), 509-11.

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He continues by describing sacred reading as an intentionally laborious task that requires attentive harmony with God. Scripture cannot be interpreted superficially, but one must struggle with the text wholeheartedly.35 [T]he Word of God has arranged that certain stumbling blocks, as it were, and obstacles and impossibilities be inserted into the midst of the Law and the narrative, in order that we may not be drawn away completely by the sheer attractiveness of the language and so we either completely reject the teachings, learning nothing worthy of God, or, not moving away from the letter, we learn nothing more divine.36

O’Keefe and Reno make a similar observation of Origen’s commentary on Scriptural methodology, writing: ‘Divine wisdom, he [Origen] argues, has made the scriptures difficult to interpret for the same reason that the world is set up according to an ascetic logic – so that the project of interpretation might be a properly disciplining exercise of every fiber of the reader’s being.’37 Reading is in fact an arduous task so that the reader may enter into a transformative practice, suffering ‘the dry desserts of incomprehension as so many days of interpretive fasting. Thus disciplined by the body of scripture, our vision is sanctified prepared for us to enter into the narrow footpath.’38 Virtue, in this way, serves both as a prerequisite for and a consequence of sacred reading. The ability to read well relies significantly on inculcated virtue, and yet, to be purified in unity with the Holy Spirit serves to further inculcate virtue in that person. 1.3. Scripture and Community The final emerging commonality among ethicists and biblical scholars is the need for Scriptural interpretation and embodiment within community, emphasizing the centrality of the community in biblical interpretation.39 Accurate and transformative biblical interpretation is incumbent on the practice of reading within community.40 Reading with good character is insufficient on its own. 35

Ibid. 376. Origen, De Princ. IV 2.9 (SC 268, 334-6; PG 11, 373B-376A); trans. John Behr, Origen: On First Principles (Oxford, 2018), 515. 37 J.J. O’Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision (2005), 137. 38 Ibid. 139. 39 See Brian J. Wright, Communal Reading in the Time of Jesus: A Window into Early Christian Reading Practices (Minneapolis, 2017). 40 John Breck does well to summarize the communal nature of Orthodox religious experience when he writes: ‘From an Orthodox perspective, every aspect of what can be termed “spiritual experience” is essentially ecclesial. This is because our very identity is defined by our participation, our “membership”, in the Body of Christ. Any “personal” reading of Scripture, then, takes place within the Church, as a function of the life of the Church. Like prayer, it draws us into a living communion with the universal Body of Christian believers. Our quest will lead to a lectio divina faithful to Orthodox tradition, therefore, only to the extent that it confirms and deepens our commitment to the ecclesial Body of both the living and the dead who constitute the communion of saints’ (J. Breck, Scripture in Tradition [2001], 68). 36

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One’s own ‘individual righteousness’ must never be seen as separate or distinct from the larger Christian community – the Church. Situating ‘individual moral agency within a community of formation’, was a mark of Patristic exegesis.41 Origen, for example, in his interpretation of Lev. 7:9 describes the Church as graced with the gift of interpretation through the Holy Spirit. He writes, ‘Rather, [let it be] according to the spiritual sense (spiritalem sensum), which the Spirit gives to the Church’.42 It is the careful cultivation of this ‘spiritual sense’ (αἴσθησις πνευματική) that is at the heart of transformative exegesis, not the technical application of exegetical strategies, be it allegory, typology, or otherwise. For Origen, the Holy Spirit that aids the community of believers in acquiring the spiritual sense of Scripture at the same time gives the priests the flesh of Christ – the word of God. ‘The flesh, set aside for the priests of the sacrifices, is the word of God that they teach in the Church.’43 The flesh of Christ in the Eucharist is the locus for biblical interpretation and dissemination in the early Church. Justin Martyr, a second-century apologist and martyr, provides an early example of the communal nature of reading and hearing Scripture communally in the Eucharistic assembly: On the so-called “Day of the Sun”, there is an assembly of all who live in the towns or country, and the Memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. When the Reader (ἀναγινώσκοντος44) has finished, the presider speaks, admonishing and urging us to imitate these fine examples.45

The liturgy was the place for Christians to gather, read, and be attentive to the word of God communally, expositing homiletically the riches therein. The Church understood its task as one of embodiment, not mere recitation. The presider’s, i.e. the bishop’s, exhortation and admonition were for the imitation and realization of the words of Scripture by the entire Christian community. 2. Placing Exegetical Methods within Gregory’s Epektatic Framework In this final section, the comments on methodology above will be arranged into a tripartite structure of St Gregory of Nyssa’s epektatic framework for Christian spirituality: 1) detachment from desires of the flesh, 2) strengthening of the soul, 3) and union with God. Epektasis describes a journey in which the human soul grows perpetually through an orientation toward God, in desire of 41 Lisa Sowle Cahill, ‘Christian Character, Biblical Community, and Human Values’, in William Brown (ed.), Character and Scripture: Moral Formation, Community, and Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids, 2002), 4-5. 42 Origen, Hom. in Lev. V 5 (SC 286, 228; PG 12, 454D). 43 Origen, Hom. in Lev. V 8 (SC 286, 242; PG 12, 459A). 44 A liturgical order. 45 Justin, 1Apol. 67.3-4 (SC 507, 308).

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God, and toward likeness of God. It is a journey in which the soul is always filled as it progresses but simultaneously always desires more because of God’s infinitude – the basis of the eternality of the journey. Guiding Gregory’s theory are the principles that the body can be transformed through the Holy Spirit and union with Christ,46 that ‘cognition, ethics and ascetics’ work as one in Gregory’s thinking,47 that the ‘eye of the soul’ is the constant that can be dragged down by the body or undisturbed through purification from passions,48 and that ‘progression of sensuality [proceeds] from baseness to Christlikeness’.49 The writings of Gregory that include his theory of epektasis – his most sophisticated expansion of the spiritual life – are often dated as the latest of his writings, coming after his De anima et resurrection.50 These writings include his treatise entitled De Perfectione, his commentaries on the Beatitudes, the Psalms, the Songs of Songs, and his De Vita Moysis. For brevity, we turn only to his commentary on the Song of Songs. 2.1. Commentary on the Song of Songs Gregory’s commentary In Canticum Canticorum, or on the Song of Songs, is a main source for his theory of epektasis, arguably second only to De Vita Moysis. In Homily 5 of his commentary, he speaks of the bride’s ascent: first, she hears his voice, after which she continually draws nearer to Him in a variety of obfuscated and changing images.51 The bride’s journey is any person’s journey in this ascent. Similarly, he understands the command of Christ to the paralytic to take up his bed and walk as a command to move toward greater perfection.52 A person must, according to Gregory, voluntarily begin the journey toward virtue and God by first getting rid of the little foxes in one’s life, that is, of all vice in pursuit of the pure life.53 After ridding oneself of vice, Gregory points to the positive component of this journey. ‘“It is not enough for you,” 46 Sarah Coakley, ‘Gregory of Nyssa’, in Paul L. Gavrilyuk and Sarah Coakley (eds), The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity (Cambridge, 2011), 51. 47 Ibid. 52. 48 Ibid. 53. 49 Ibid. 54. 50 See Gregory, On the Soul and the Resurrection (Crestwood, 2002). Gregory admits that humans are led to God by desire in a process that is inherently dynamic (77). However, the soul can be satiated; it can stop desiring, though this satiety does not cut off the attachment to love (77-81). There is no limit to the love and beauty experienced by the soul when it detaches from the flesh and attains the heavenly (81). Gregory’s ambivalence regarding the notion of satiety or lack thereof, which eventually becomes central to his theory of epektasis, could be the reason Sarah Coakley sees Gregory of Nyssa’s De anima et resurrectione as a break or shift in Gregory’s writings. See S. Coakley, Gregory of Nyssa (2011), 52. 51 Gregory of Nyssa, In Cant. V (GNO VI, 137-71; PG 44, 858-84). 52 GNO VI, 149; PG 44, 868B-D. 53 GNO VI, 164-8; PG 44, 880CB-884D.

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he [the bridegroom] says, “to get back up from your lapse alone, but advance also through progress in good things, concluding the race in virtue.”’54 As noted in his commentary on the Psalms, Gregory does indeed speak of an end to virtue, but ultimately it seems that Gregory is talking about some sort of relative end or feeling that one has acquired virtue at least partially, without compromising his assertion that the road to perfection is perpetual. It is the soul that is constantly transformed as is it progressively drawn into a higher beauty of the Divine nature that remains immutably in infinite good. The soul ‘is being led by the hand to the heights in an incremental ascent through the upward paths of virtue’ (ἐν βαθμῶν ἀναβάσει χειραγωγουμένην διὰ τῶν τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀνόδων ἐπὶ τὰ ὕψη).55 In this way, virtue is the means and the marker toward an end never fully attained. No matter how magnificent one may deem a certain glory, there is always a greater glory beyond it, which ever-inflames one’s desire toward God. Gregory delves deeper into this theory in Homily 8, and this is where it is especially clear that the limit of virtue is unbounded. The soul journeys continually to loftier levels of glory in a progression toward God who remains unchanged, infinite, and ineffable. He cites the example of Paul who kept ascending toward God, never standing still, but always striving onward toward the unbounded. The person who tastes a little of the Lord by partaking of the good will continue to grow in this participation for eternity, as previous experience incites a desire for more of this experience. Each new arrival of the sojourner immediately becomes a new departure, a continuous crescendo in which human mutability works as an ally of the soul, established immovably in the good. Gregory writes: Consequently, the Word wills that we, mutable as we are according to nature, not decline toward evil through change, but rather to have change as a coworker in the upward path of higher states through the ever-unfolding growth toward the better, with the actual result that we are made to succeed in the unchangeability toward evil through the mutability of our nature; to this end, the Word has evoked the memory of beasts that were once dominant as a kind of teacher and guardian for the estrangement from evils, so we may succeed in both steadfastness and inerrancy in good states by turning away from the worse, neither coming to a halt in change for the better nor being altered toward evil.56 54

GNO VI, 149; PG 44, 868B. GNO VI, 158; PG 44, 876C. 56 GNO VI, 252; PG 44, 945. ἐπειδὴ γὰρ βούλεται ἡμᾶς ὁ λόγος τρεπτοὺς ὄντας κατὰ τὴν φύσιν μὴ πρὸς τὸ κακὸν διὰ τῆς τροπῆς ἀπορρέειν, ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς ἀεὶ πρὸς τὸ κρεῖττον γινομένης αὐξήσεως συνεργὸν τὴν τροπὴν πρὸς τὴν τῶν ὑψηλοτέρων ἄνοδον ἔχειν, ὥστε κατορθωθῆναι διὰ τοῦ τρεπτοῦ τῆς φύσεως ἡμῶν τὸ πρὸς τὸ κακὸν ἀναλλοίωτον, τούτου χάριν ὥσπερ τινὰ παιδαγωγὸν καὶ φύλακα πρὸς τὴν τῶν κακῶν ἀλλοτρίωσιν τὴν μνήμην τῶν ποτε κατακρατησάντων θηρίων ὁ λόγος προήνεγκεν, ἵνα τῇ ἀποστροφῇ τῶν χειρόνων τὸ ἀκλινές τε καὶ ἀπαράτρεπτον ἐν τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς κατορθώσωμεν οὔτε ἱστάμενοι τῆς ἐπὶ τὸ κρεῖττον τροπῆς οὔτε πρὸς τὸ κακὸν ἀλλοιούμενοι. 55

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Thus, one’s joy is compounded in a number of ways: from one’s satisfaction in deeper participation with God, from one’s progress in virtue, from the potential for new growth, and from the recollection of previous, less-desirable levels of joy and goodness. In order to embark on this journey, one must turn from evil and orient oneself with one’s entire being with a singularity of purpose. This latter condition is a meditation on Cant. 4:9, to which Gregory highlights the need for one eye and one soul looking to the One God in the Trinity.57 In Homily 12, Gregory asserts that the perpetual ascent toward God is simultaneous with the process of purification through bodily senses.58 In Homily 10, Gregory draws on this same point – it is through sensory experience, or more accurately through detachment from bodily passions, that one’s soul is able to draw closer to God.59 The epektatic journey is a movement of the soul – the dwelling place of God – and the disposition of the soul is dependent on a person’s interaction with material.60 In order for God to dwell within a person, she must first be purified through a voluntary mortification of the body, in which the death of passion enables the ascent of the soul.61 Between material attachment, which for Gregory weighs the soul downward, and material detachment, which enables ascent, lies free choice. No one can participate in the latter without experiencing the death of fleshly desires. The soul ‘never ceases moving forward nor standing still but is always entering into what lies beyond through progress’ (οὐδέποτε οὔτε τοῦ εἰσιέναι λήγων οὔτε τοῦ ἐξιέναι παυόμενος, ἀλλὰ πάντοτε διὰ προκοπῆς εἰς τὰ ὑπερκείμενα) through this purgative mortification of bodily passions coupled with a perpetual orientation of the soul toward its unattainable end – God.62 These two elements comprise the heart of Gregory’s epektatic stages, which can then function to frame the three stages of sacred reading. 2.1.1. First Stage: Struggle, Vulnerability, Trust, Humility At the heart of the thesis presented in this article is the transformative rendering of any methodology or practice, including those identified above, placed into Gregory’s three epektatic stages and coupled with exertive spiritual struggle. When considering Scripture specifically, there exists an exercise of trust in the first stage that what is being read is indeed Scripture and not just a historical document.63 To be formed by Scripture requires a trust in and vulnerability to 57

GNO VI, 258; PG 44, 952. GNO VI, 340-70; PG 44, 1013-37. 59 GNO VI, 294-301; PG 44, 980-4. 60 GNO VI, 345; PG 44, 1017. 61 GNO VI, 343; PG 44, 1016. 62 GNO VI, 354; PG 44, 1025. 63 See Stephen E. Fowl and L. Gregory Jones, ‘Scripture, Exegesis, and Discernment in Christian Ethics’, in Nancey C. Murphy, Brad J. Kallenberg and Mark Nation (eds), Virtues & Practices in the Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics after MacIntyre (Harrisburg, 1997), 112. 58

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the text as the word of God in the context of the Church community. To let one’s guard down in the face of a text that may often challenge given assumptions, conceptions, and ways of life is essential to sacred reading. In this stage, the use of allegory and typology become important when engaging the text seriously and closely. Further, this stage requires detachment from a postEnlightenment approach to Scripture that often honors reason as the sole arbiter in the interpretation of Scripture.64 One must detach from a notion that limits Scripture to a singular interpretation whose accuracy hinges only on an accurate understanding of the Bible’s historicity.65 This is not to denigrate the importance and possible preeminence of reason and historicity when reading Scripture, but it is a caution not to resist other modes of interpretation that are necessary for transformative readings of Scripture, whose implementations have been practiced and validated by Christians for centuries. The first stage requires a person to detach from absolute self-trust when practicing sacred reading. At the same time, this pre-modern exegesis challenges a post-modern reading of Scripture that might accept all interpretations as equally valid. To be sure, in this stage, Scripture can be used for direct instruction. The words of Scripture are taken seriously, are grappled with, and are read slowly, carefully, and meditatively.66 The emphasis on vulnerability and an expectation of transformation 64 John Breck points to the need, in patristic exegesis, of submission to the text for proper interpretation of that text: ‘St John Chrysostom and other Church Fathers insisted that no one can truly interpret Scripture who does not willingly submit to it’ (J. Breck, Scripture in Tradition [2001], 44). 65 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s (Pope Benedict XVI) assessment of the historical-critical method is helpful here. Although it is not beneficial to get rid of historical-criticism because of all the strides forward it has produced, especially regarding Biblical history, it has at the same time created much confusion. With an increasing concern over ‘what really happened’ in opposition to what the text says and what it is trying to convey, there has been a methodological bracketing out of faith. See Joseph Ratzinger, Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: The Ratzinger Conference on Bible and Church (Grand Rapids, 1989). As scholars have noted, the rule of faith is an important criterion by which to assess the proper interpretation of Scripture (Peter W. Martens, ‘Revisiting the Allegory/Typology Distinction: The Case of Origen’, JECS 16 [2008], 311, 314; J.J. O’Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision [2005], 119-28). It seems most needful need to get into the conceptual architecture of modern exegesis with the goals of synthesis and philosophical and theological renovation. A recent ‘movement’, though not monolithic, is the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (TIS) that is driving a response to the overly historical, critical, ideological, post-Enlightenment, and post-modern exegetical movement noted. See Brent E. Parker, ‘Typology and Allegory: Is There a Distinction? A Brief Examination of Figural Reading’, Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 21 (2017), 57-83. 66 The centrality of spiritual struggle to the experience of God is celebrated in Orthodox Christian circles, as demonstrated in this excerpt from Orthodox theologian John Breck: ‘A final hermeneutic principle or presupposition adopted by the Holy Fathers, then, is the need for ascetic effort, for an ongoing inner struggle, to attain an attitude of repentance and humble obedience before God. This is indispensable if we are to hear God’s Word and to acquire the ability to interpret it fully and properly. For those who accept such a struggle, who willingly engage in spiritual warfare, the difficult task of interpreting and proclaiming the Word of God can be transformed into an act of love and a service of praise’ (J. Breck, Scripture in Tradition [2001], 44).

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should by no means interfere with the rigor of deep biblical study. Scripture should function theologically and ethically, each informing the other; one’s thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and worldviews should shape one’s actions and ethics. In the same vein, attempts to unveil the ethics of Scripture through the Decalogue, the Sermon on the Mount, Pauline list-ethics, and other passages of clear ethical instruction fall into this stage. In fact, the majority of contemporary biblical and ethical scholarship falls into this category in which the text is studied in order either to unveil historical accuracies, to suggest models for direct application of a text or group of texts, or to develop themes from the text for their subsequent applications. These attempts are not unwarranted; they certainly provide meaningful insights. They are necessary yet insufficient on their own. It is in this first stage that many biblical ethicists have begun and ended their attempts to marry Scripture and contemporary ethics. The further stages that will be suggested rely on this first stage, but it is in the latter two stages that sacred reading becomes a true ethic or ethos, exposing the untapped transformative potential in Scripture, thereby creating an avenue for embodiment. 2.1.2. Second Stage: Struggle, Purity, Embodiment, Prayer This second stage – one that emphasizes more the positive strengthening of the soul in virtue and less on shedding that which is negative – consists of the pursuit of purity, prayerful reading, and a continued grace-enabled spiritual struggle. Sacred reading in this stage becomes an essential component of one’s daily life, a source of spiritual nourishment, a haven of solace and refreshment, and becomes formative of a cohesive worldview. Scripture thus affects its reader at a more fundamental level, shaping her as a person grounded in and accountable to the words of Divine revelation. The interpretive key in this revelation, as noted above, is Christ whose self-sacrificing love calls a person to love God and neighbor – a clear manifestation of ethics proper. While love is the central command of Christian life, the practice of sacred reading and its formative effects are not reducible to love. Instead, the whole of Scripture (trans)forms a sincere and persistent reader, inculcating virtues like justice, mercy, peace, wisdom, and patience, among others. Furthermore, formation through sacred reading entails more than the development of virtues, shaping a person’s worldview in the fullest sense through storied contexts, actions, characters, and ways of life which feature diverse practices and experiences, including asceticism, feasting, dedications, punishments, rewards, and so on. Scripture contains a breadth of transformative power and guides its reader into a new paradigm that reaches different persons at different times in different places with different experiences and in different ways, all towards the same goal of union with God. Scripture is unity in diversity, as a single-minded focus on God as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ and in a diversity that extends to all contexts of life.

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2.1.3. Third Stage: Full Immersion and a New Creation The third stage of epektasis – union with God – when applied to sacred reading includes those who have not only seriously grappled with Scripture vulnerably (first stage), nor those who have only embodied its words in purity and prayerfully (second stage), but also those who become subsumed in the words of Scripture. In this stage, a person references the words of God constantly, either directly or indirectly, through association or application. Such people cannot help but view the world through a lens crafted by a comprehensive, sincere, and faithful reading of Scripture, exuding a calmness and fortitude that results from their intimacy with the λόγος. They breathe the breath of God, that is, His inspired words. In a synergy of divine grace and years of close, frequent reading, meditative nights, prayerful days, embodiment, vulnerability, transformation, and struggling for worldly detachment and inner purity, a person makes progress towards this dynamic state. Jesus Christ Himself is the example par excellence. When tempted by the adversary, He replies with Scripture at every turn, His very words are the Gospel and ‘the law and the prophets’, in the unitive sense detailed above.67 He quotes the book of Deuteronomy three times, overcoming Satan with the power of the words that flow from who He is: ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’68 Food alone sustains the body, but the word of God sustains the soul, and how powerful it is to encounter one whose soul is sustained by the word of God! Interestingly, Satan himself twisted the words of Scripture to tempt Christ and further his own cause, yet his misuse of Scripture supports the thesis presented here in the three epektatic stages. It would be anachronistic to convict Satan of prooftexting, but there remains a fundamental difference between mere knowledge of Scripture and entering into a transformative relationship with Scripture. The former remains solely cerebral, often encouraging a posture of defense, antagonism, and skepticism. The latter requires all of the steps mentioned above – struggle, vulnerability, trust humility, allegory, purity, implementation, prayer, and unity. To read Scripture without these necessary steps is to misread or to intentionally misconstrue Scripture, as did Satan. To play on a passage in Jas. 2:19, even the demons read! Reading alone grants no access to the transformative power latent in Scripture. A good example is St Antony the Great, the father of Christian monasticism, whose transformational relationship with Scripture affected generations of Christians until this day. From the very beginning of his journey, Antony allowed himself to be transformed by the word of God. He immediately surrendered his livelihood upon hearing the command in Matt. 19:21 to be perfect by selling all possessions, giving them to the poor, and following Christ, thereafter 67 68

Matt. 22:40 (New Revised Standard Version). Matt. 4:4 (NRSV).

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committing himself to the Scriptures. St Athanasius offers a glimpse of St Antony’s intimacy with Scripture: ‘He was so attentive to [Scripture] reading that he lost nothing [of what he read]; he retained them all, and so his memory took the place of books’.69 His memory of Scripture was so sharp that when monks would visit him for advice, it would be difficult to decipher his own words from those of Scripture. To this point, Mary Jane Kreidler writes that ‘[i]n his short admonition, Antony quotes Scripture no less than fifty-nine times’ from memory, stating that Scripture is sufficient for the monk’s instruction.70 Similarly, though a lesser feat than Antony’s, monks would eventually build habits of memorizing the Psalter – a practice that would propagate, especially among monastics, for dozens of centuries.71 Interestingly and similar to the example of Christ, Antony describes hearing demons ‘oftentimes pretend to chant Psalms without appearing, and to recite passages from Scripture … repeating over and again, as though echoing, what has been read’.72 This misuse of Scripture by the demons again serves to emphasize the importance of sacred reading as a means by which not only to prevent Scripture’s debased misuse but to tap into its ultimate transformative power – intimacy and unity with God. The life and works of St Antony attest to the power of this transformation to the extent that his body, and not just his soul, was markedly affected, despite his austere asceticism. He was described as a man of beauty, calmness, grace, virtue, and strength of soul and body, even until his death at the age of 105.73 3. Conclusion Though only an outline has been presented, the suggestions developed in this article included reading Scripture Christocentrically, typologically, allegorically, holistically, with a focus on character formation, and in community. These methods were then integrated into a struggle-laden practice and placed into Gregory of Nyssa’s three-stage model of epektasis in order to demonstrate one affective approach in recovering the transformative power of sacred reading. The first stage consisted of vulnerability, trust, humility, and the use of typology and allegory. This stage includes, but does not end with, the majority 69

Athanasius, Vita S. Antonii III (SC 400, 138; PG 26, 854A). Mary Jane Kreidler, ‘Montanism and Monasticism: Charism and the Authority in the Early Church’, SP 18 (1983), 229-34, 231. 71 Mary Kay Duggan, ‘The Psalter on the Way to the Reformation: The Fifteenth-Century Printed Psalter in the North’, in Nancy Elizabeth Van Deusen (ed.), The Place of the Psalms in the Intellectual Culture of the Middle Ages (Albany, 1999), 153-89, 177; Timothy J. Johnson, Franciscans at Prayer (Leiden, 2007), 398. 72 Athanasius, Vita S. Antonii III (SC 400, 204-6; PG 26, 900C). 73 Vita S. Antonii III (SC 400, 362-4). 70

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of modern scholarship that aids in better understanding Scripture historically and with an emphasis on reason. In this first stage, however, the reader is urged to go beyond the academic rigor of studying Scripture to a relationship with Scripture as the transformative λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ. The second stage consists of purity, embodiment, and prayerful, meditative, and struggle-laden reading, in which a person by God’s grace struggles for inner purity in order to open oneself up for further and deeper interpretation. One continues on the perpetual epektatic ascent towards God marked by the acquisition of virtue. The final stage of sacred reading is complete submersion into God’s word so extensive that a person cannot envision her thoughts or actions apart from her formation in and through Scripture. In this stage, Scripture is not only reserved in one’s memory, and its embodied application causes a person to exude an illuminative presence. Transformation on the epektatic ascent has no end or bounds according to the Cappadocian, rendering the sojourner a new creation, undeniably different than he was prior to engaging wholeheartedly with Scripture. In the end, Gregory’s theory enables a framework by which to effectively envision a symbiotic and dependent relationship between Scripture and ethics. To approach Scripture as a perpetual, synergistic journey of gracefilled spiritual struggle is to reintegrate Scripture and ethics for the contemporary Christian, reorienting a person to God and others through a transformative and recovered Patristic sacred reading.

Satan between the Sages and the Fathers Thea GOMELAURI, Oxford, UK

ABSTRACT This article discusses the exegetical change of the concept of ‘Satan’ from the Hebraic thought to Christian theology, and its impact on Biblical interpretation. Christian doctrine refers to ‘Satan’ as one individual figure who is God’s cosmic archenemy and the source of evil, while the Hebrew Bible employs a diverse terminology to describe the demonic evil. I shall present an analysis of the term ‘Satan’, highlighting points of convergence and difference in the formation of the concept of demonic beings in both traditions. The first section of the paper will: a) review the references where the word ‘Satan’ appears in the Hebrew Bible; b) provide respective translations of this term in the Septuagint, the Vulgate and the NRSV; c) identify the departure from the original Hebraic thought by juxtaposing the technical translation and the theological meaning of the context pointing out various inconsistencies. In the second section of the article, I will examine the birth of the Doctrine of Satan in early Christianity. My particular focus falls on the narrative of the Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness according to the Gospel of Mark. Patristic commentary on this passage demonstrates a lack of familiarity with the Hebraic references and allusions. I will explore how this factor diminished the Church Fathers’ interpretive abilities and misdirected their identification of the main characters in Jesus’ Temptation. Catena Aurea on the Temptation Narrative laid a theologically unsound foundation for Christian exegesis leading to the misinterpretation of one of the most pivotal episodes of Jesus’ life. I propose that the Patristic formulation of Jesus’ encounter with ‘Satan’ in the Judean wilderness significantly differs from what would have been an obvious interpretation from a Hebraic point of view, and which the original author of the Gospel of Mark would have implied by his careful choice of words. I suggest that it is necessary to re-consider the soundness of the exegesis of the Temptation Narrative by presenting a new and radically different reading from the existing one which was formulated by Church Fathers and has been adopted by all biblical commentaries.

1. Satan in the Hebrew Bible The word ‘Satan’ in the Hebrew Bible refers to terrestrial enemies more often than celestial beings.1 Jewish thought never questions the existence of 1

Victor P. Hamilton, ‘Satan’, in David Noel Freedman (ed.), Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 5 (New York, 1992), 989; Cilliers Breytenbach and Peggy L. Day, ‘Satan’, in Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter W. van der Horst (eds), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 385-398. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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demonic evil, but it does not consider the term ‘Satan’ as referring to the archetypal opposer to God, nor the powerful enemy of humankind.2 The Hebrew Scripture employs not one but several terms which have closer connotations to the Christian concept of ‘Satan’.3 I suggest that an acknowledgement of the multiplicity in the terminology referring to the archetypal evil in the Hebrew Bible could help to shed light on Christian understanding of the term ‘Satan’.4 In order to grasp the linguistic ambiguity of the term Satan, I analyse all references and their contexts in the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, the Vulgate and the NRSV (Table 1). I. Satan in the Pentateuch The most sacred part of the Hebrew Scriptures mentions the word ‘Satan’ only once in the Book of Numbers, in a narrative of Balaam, the Donkey and the Angel (Num. 22:21-35). The story relates how the Angel of God blocks the road of donkey-riding Balaam. ‘The angel of the LORD took his stand in the road as his [Balaam’s] adversary (‫ … )לשטן‬The angel of the LORD said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? I have come out as an adversary, because your way is perverse before me”’ (Num. 22:22). This angel, described as ‘an adversary’, is subordinate to God, following his instructions and commands. The term ‘Satan’ in this passage does not mean the enemy of God. C. Breytenbach notes that ‘the heavenly being in Numbers 22 has very little in common with later conceptualization of Satan’.5 The Septuagint renders the Hebrew ‫ לשטן‬as Ενδιαβάλλειν, and the Vulgate translates it as contra. However, ten verses later, the translator of the Septuagint uses διαβολήν for same Hebrew word in the same passage, and the Vulgate puts it as adversarer6 (see the table below). II. Satan in the Prophets In the second section of the Hebrew Scriptures, the word ‘Satan’ refers to both terrestrial enemies and celestial beings. (Leiden, 1999), 726-32; Johannes G. Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren and Heinz-Josef Fabry, Theological Dictionary of Old Testament, Vol. 9, trans. Douglas W. Stott (Grand Rapids, MI, 1974), 74; Derek R. Brown, ‘The Devil in the Details: A Survey of Research on Satan in Biblical Studies’, CBR 9.2 (2011), 200-27. 2 T.J. Wray and Gregory Mobley, The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil’s Biblical Roots (New York, 2005). 3 Chad T. Pierce, ‘Satan and Related Figures’, in John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow (eds), The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI, 2010), 1196-200. 4 For discussion on the shift in meaning that occurs when ‘Satan’ is translated with the Greek diabolos in the Septuagint, see G.J. Riley, ‘Devil’, in K. van der Toorn, B. Becking and P.W. van der Horst (eds), Dictionary of Deities and Demons (1999), 245-9. 5 C. Breytenbach and P.L. Day, ‘Satan’ (1999), 727. 6 Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmino and Clement, Biblia Sacra Vulgata (Romae, 1592).

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The references in the Books of Samuel show that the author applies the word ‘Satan’ to mortal human adversaries. The first reference concerns David, son of Jesse, described as ‘Satan’ whom the Philistines fear that will become an adversary (‫ )לשטן‬in the battle against them (1Sam. 29:4). The second reference addresses Abishai as ‘Satan’ to King David (2Sam. 19:23). There is no celestial sense to the word ‘Satan’ in these narratives. An interesting translation variation can be observed in the translation of ‫ לשטן‬in the Books of Samuel. While the Septuagint renders both references as ἐπίβουλον, the Vulgate translator uses two distinct words. In the first instance, the Vulgate translates ‘Satan’ as adversarius in reference to the King David, but in the second passage, it keeps the Hebraic term ‘Satan’ when referring to David’s adversary Abishai.7 The translation of the same Hebrew term referring to King David and Abishai into the Latin by two different words points to the exegetical departure from the Hebraic thought. ‘Satan’ is mentioned in the Books of Kings by King Solomon, who informs King Hiram of Tyre that he has no adversaries (‫( )שטן‬1Kgs. 5:18). Later when God raises enemies against Solomon, they are introduced as Hadad (1Kgs. 11:14), and Rezon (1Kgs. 11:23, 25). The Books of Kings employs the word ‘Satan’ for referring to human enemies only. The Greek translation corresponds to the Vulgate in rendering ‘Satan’ as a ἐπίβουλος in 1Kgs. 5:4, and σατάν 1Kgs. 11:14, but has the reversed order – the Latin version uses the word ‘Satan’ in the first, and ‘adversarium’ in the second case. The first time ‘Satan’ as a celestial being appears in the Book of Zechariah, where he acts as a prosecuting attorney of the High-Priest Joshua. This text spells out ‘Satan’ with the definite article ‘the Satan’ (‫)השטן‬, and it cannot be translated as a proper name. The context makes it clear that ‘Satan’ is not this angel’s name, but his function as an accuser (Zech. 3:1-3).8 Thus, ‘Satan’ in Prophetic section of the Hebrew Bible appears as terrestrial enemy, as well as celestial being who cannot be linked with God’s cosmic archenemy. III. Satan in the Writings The final section of the Hebrew Bible mentions ‘Satan’ more frequently than the two other sections taken together. The Psalter, as the Books of Samuel and Kings, designates the word ‘Satan’ to human enemies only, and introduces ‘Satan’ in plural form with the possessive pronoun ‘my adversaries’ (‫)שטני‬.

7

Peggy L. Day, ‘Abishai the Satan in 2 Samuel 19:17-24’, CBQ 49 (1987), 543-7. There is a word-play in this passage, which uses both the noun, and the verbal forms of ‘Satan’ as ‫לשטנו השטן‬, which literally translates ‘accuser to accuse him’. 8

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The Book of Job, similarly to the Book of Zechariah, features ‘Satan’ as a spiritual entity, who holds the office of the prosecutor and takes part in divine council. ‘Satan’ in this narrative acts within the limits of his ‘job description’. Here, like in the Book of Zechariah, ‘Satan’ is written with the article, which makes it impossible to translate it as a personal name. The final book of the Hebrew Canon, the Chronicles provides the only exception in the Hebrew Scripture where ‘Satan’ appears without the definite article, and offers the opportunity of interpreting this word as a proper name (1Chr. 21:1-17). This reference offers a perfect theological frame for identifying ‘Satan’ as someone who incites King David into sinning. However, building Christian notion of ‘Satan’ based on this passage is problematic, because the same episode is recorded in 2Sam. 24:1, and this narrative, instead of ‘Satan’ refers to an angel of the Lord. So, the argument as to who incited David into sinning is inconclusive because of the variations in those narratives.9 The review of the term ‘Satan’ in the Hebrew Bible shows that this word was used to describe Angels of the Lord, celestial beings acting as prosecutors, and human enemies. The above Hebrew Bible references do not offer a sound theological framework for interpreting the word ‘Satan’ as an archetypal enemy of God, and the origin of evil. If so, which term represents the source of all evil in Hebraic thought?

2. Various Biblical Terms Describing Demonic Evil The Hebrew Scripture employs multiple terms10 for describing demonic beings. Amalek,11 Azazel,12 Leviathan,13 Lilith,14 Satyrs,15 Tannin16 – all these words have a connotation of demonic evil in Hebrew Bible. Below I will explore how the Hebrew Bible employs two such terms: Amalek and Tannin. The term ‘Amalek’ refers to the first unprovoked attack against the nation of Israel, and is charged with supernatural meaning. The notion of ‘Amalek’ as an eternal enemy of God emerges much earlier than we encounter any reference to ‘Satan’. The Amalekites attack the people of Israel, when they are travelling through the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt (Exod. 17:8-16). During this attack, ‘Amalek’ targets and kills the most vulnerable people of the newly 9 C. Breytenbach and P.L. Day, ‘Satan’ (1999), 729; J.G. Botterweck et al., Theological Dictionary (1974), 77. 10 K. van der Toorn, B. Becking and P.W. van der Horst (eds), Dictionary of Deities and Demons (1999). 11 Ibid. 26. 12 Ibid. 128-31. 13 Ibid. 511-5. 14 Ibid. 520-1. 15 Ibid. 732-3. 16 Ibid. 834.

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emerging Israel. This story has a greater significance than is at first apparent. The reader senses this significance firstly by Moses’s role in the battle, and secondly, by God’s response to ‘Amalek’. The first hint of this supernatural opposition is given by the unusual posture of Moses, who does not participate in the combat himself. The text affirms that it is not a military response of the Israelites that determines the outcome, but the position of Moses’ hands. Moses stands at the top of a hill, and Israel only prevails whilst Moses is holding his hands up. When his hands grow weary, others support his hands at either side to ensure that Israel does not lose the battle. The second indication is that God commands Moses to write down a memorial in a book that God Himself will utterly blot out the remembrance of ‘Amalek’ from under heaven. Moses follows the instruction by erecting and naming an altar ‘the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation’ (Exod. 17:16). These details suggest that the battle between ‘Amalek’ and Israel has a strong spiritual significance. The narrative makes it clear that the battle is not just between the particular people of Israel and ‘Amalek’, but between the Lord and His enemy. This animosity will last from generation to generation until the Lord Himself ends it. Israel’s war against ‘Amalek’ is the embodiment of a metaphysical struggle that takes place in the divine world. The mention of the phrase ‘throne of God’ in this context is also significant, since it does not appear in relation to an earthly battle anywhere else in the Bible. Furthermore, the manner of writing ‘throne of God’ is unusual. The word for ‘throne’ lacks the final letter aleph - kissei has become kes. The name of God also lacks the final two consonants. The missing letters in the phrase mirror the incomplete state of God’s reign so long as ‘Amalek’ exists.17 Thus, ‘Amalek’ in the Hebrew Bible epitomises the evil which opposes a divine purpose for the people of God. Another term associated with demonic powers, in the Hebrew Bible, is ‘Tannin’ (‫)תנין‬.18 This ambiguous term presents a translation challenge, which is reflected by using various words in the English language to convey the meaning in specific contexts. ‘Tannin’ is translated as ‘a monster, ‘a snake’, ‘a dragon’, ‘a whale’, ‘a beast’, ‘a sea monster’, etc.19 The first clue that there is a special theological meaning to the term ‘tannin’ appears in the Book of Exodus, which narrates the interaction between God, Moses, Aaron and the Pharaoh (Exod. 7:9-12). When Moses shows his reluctance to take 17 Joel Hecker, Mystical Bodies, Mystical Meals: Eating and Embodiment in Medieval Kabbalah (Wayne, 2005), 166. 18 K. van der Toorn, B. Becking and P.W. van der Horst (eds), Dictionary of Deities and Demons (1999), 834. 19 Gen. 1:21; Exod. 7:9,10,12; Deut. 32:33; Ps. 74:13; 91:13; 148:7; Job 7:12; Isa. 27:1; 51:9. Jer. 51:34; Neh. 2:13.

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up the mission of going back to Egypt and free the Israelites from Pharaoh’s oppression, God assures him by equipping him with miracle-working power. In order to demonstrate this, God tells him to throw his staff on the ground, and it suddenly becomes a snake (‫)נחש‬, a generic Hebrew word for a reptile, but when Moses and his brother Aaron re-enact the miracle before the Pharaoh, Aaron’s staff turns into ‘a Tannin’, not ‘a snake’. When the Pharaoh’s wise men demonstrate their magical powers, they also turn their staffs into ‘Tanninim’.20 This narrative makes a clear theological distinction between ‘a snake’ and ‘Tannin’. However, as shown in the table below, while the Septuagint follows the Hebrew Bible terminology and its dynamics by translating a snake as ὄφις, and ‘tannin’ as δράκων, the Latin Bible diverts from the original source, and thus it completely loses significant spiritual nuances. Biblical reference Hebrew Bible Septuagint

Vulgate

NRSV

ὄφις

colubrum

A snake

δράκων

colubrum

A snake

‫תנין‬

δράκων

colubrum

A snake

‫תנינם‬

δράκοντες

dracones

Snakes

Exodus 4:2-3

‫נחש‬

Exodus 7:9

‫תנין‬

Exodus 7:10 Exodus 7:12

Another clue that the word ‘Tannin’ refers to an eternal enemy of God and His people, appears in Moses’ final speech addressed to the Israelites. Here, when Moses speaks about ‘the enemies’, he warns the Israelites that ‘their [enemies’] grapes are grapes of poison, their cluster are bitter; their wine is the poison of serpents (‫ )תנינם‬the cruel venom of asps’ (Deut. 32:31-3). Yet another textual evidence for considering the word ‘tannin’ an embodiment of the ultimate evil, is found in the Book of Isaiah where the prophet declares: ‘On that day the Lord with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon [‫ ]תנין‬that is in the sea’ (Isa. 27:1). It is significant, that the Book of Isaiah, which concerns the various eschatological events, and describes the Messianic era,21 never mentions the word ‘Satan’. The Qumran Exorcism Scroll features the word ‘Tannin’ twice, but the word ‘Satan’ does not appear in it even once. Below Figure 1 and Figure 2 display the word ‘Tannin’ in the fragments of the Qumran Scroll.22 The review of Hebraic references demonstrates that the biblical authors use a diverse terminology for referring to demonic evil. 20

Plural form of ‘Tannin’. The Revelation of John contains strong allusions to the Book of Isaiah. 22 Florentino Garcia Martinez, Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, Adam S. van der Woude, Discoveries in the Judean Dessert XXIII (Oxford, 1997), 181-205. 21

ἐνδιαβάλλειν διαβολήν ἐπίβουλος ἐπίβουλον ἐπίβουλος σατάν _______ _______ διάβολος, αντικείσθαι Διάβολον ἐνδιέβαλλόν ἐνδιαβάλλοντες ἐνδιέβαλλόν Διάβολος ἐνδιαβαλλόντων ἐνδιαβάλλοντές Διάβολος Διάβολος

‫לשטן‬

‫לשטן‬

‫לשטן‬

‫לשטן‬

‫שטן‬

‫שטן‬

‫שטן‬

‫שטן‬

‫השטן‬, ‫לשטנו‬

‫השטן‬

‫ישטנוני‬

‫שטני‬

‫ישטנוני‬

‫שטן‬

‫שטני‬

‫שוטני‬

‫השטן‬

‫שטן‬

Num. 22:22

Num. 22:32

1Sam. 29:4

2Sam. 19:22

1Kgs. 5:4

1Kgs. 11:14

1Kgs. 11:23

1Kgs. 11:25

Zech. 3:1

Zech. 3:2

Ps. 38:20/37:21

Ps. 71:13/70:13

Ps. 109:4/108:4

Ps. 109:6/108:6

Ps. 109:20/108:20

Ps. 109:29/108:29

Job (chs. 1-2)

1Chr. 21:1

a) Satan b) Diabolos

Satan

a) adversarii b) detrahunt

a) Adversantur b) detrahunt

a) Satan b) Diabulus

a) adversabantur b) detrahebant

a) adversarii b) detrahentes

a) Adversabantur b) detrahebant

Satan

Satan, adversareturei

Adversaries

Adversarium

Adversarium

Satan

Satan

Adversaries

Adversaries

Contra

The Vulgate

Satan

Satan

(my) accusers

(my) accusers

An accuser

(they) accuse (me)

Accusers

Adversaries

Satan

Satan, to accuse

An adversary

adversary

An adversary

adversary

An adversary

An adversary

An adversary

An adversary

The NRSV

* The chronology of the Biblical Books appears as it is arranged in the Hebrew Canon.

The Septuagint

The Hebrew Bible

The Biblical Books*

Angel of the Lord

Angel of a divine council

Human beings

Human beings

Human being

Human beings

Human beings

Human beings

Angel of a divine council

Angel of a divine Council

A human being (Rezon)

A human being (Rezon)

A human being (Hadad)

humans

A human being (Abishai)

A human being (David)

Angel of the Lord

Angel of the Lord

The word refers to:

Satan between the Sages and the Fathers

391

392

T. GOMELAURI

Figure 1. (11QApocrPs. Frg. A, lines 2-11). 1 ‫תנין‬ 2 ‫השדים‬

Figure 2. (11QApochPs. 6:4-14) = Ps. 91:1-16. ‫תנין‬

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393

What importance does this study have for Patristic Studies? And what impact does it make on the Christian interpretation of the Scripture? In order to answer this question, we have to turn now to the Patristic exegesis of the New Testament. The references to the word ‘Satan’ ‫ שטן‬in the Hebrew Bible, and its respective translation into the Greek, the Latin, and the English languages. The root word of ‫ שטן‬appears in Gen. 26:21 translated as Εχθρία in the Septuagint, inimicitias in the Vulgate, and enmity in the NRSV.

3. Satan in the New Testament The Doctrine of Satan, formulated by the Roman Catholic Church, granted Satan a prominent place in Christian theology23 and the liturgical life of Church.24 In fact, there are more references to Satan in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, than in all the New Testament Books and Epistles taken together.25 In the New Testament, the character of Satan becomes a unique personification of the ultimate evil. He, as the Archetypal enemy of God acquires various names and titles: ‘Evil One’ (John 17:15), ‘Adversary’ (1Peter 5:8.), ‘Enemy’ (Matt. 13:39), ‘Angel of Light’ (2Cor. 11:14), ‘Deceiver of the Whole World’ and ‘Man of Lawlessness’ (2Thess. 2:3-4), Murderer’ (John 8:44), etc. Patristic exegesis focused on the single person of Satan often overlooks the diversity of the terminology referring to demonic evil in the Hebrew Bible.26 Such a one-sided outlook led to an exegetical misinterpretation, in relation to Jesus’ Temptation Narrative according to the Gospel of Mark.27 a) Satan in Temptation Narrative Satan first appears in the New Testament in the narrative of Jesus’ Temptation in the Wilderness, where he takes centre stage. The theological significance 23 Armin Lange, Hermann Lichtenberger and K.F. Diethard Römheld (eds), Demons: The Demonology of Israelite-Jewish and Early Christian Literature in Context of Their Environment (Tübingen, 2003). 24 The references to denouncement of Satan three times are part of the Sacred Ritual of Baptismal vows. The Book of Common Prayer: 1662 Version Includes Appendices from the 1549 Version and Other Commemorations (London, 1979), 302-4; Henry Ansgar Kelly, The Devil at Baptism: Ritual, Theology and Drama (New York, 1985), 51, 90. 25 The Catechism of Catholic Church mentions Satan more than 70 times, twice more than all the references in the New Testament. The Catechism of the Catholic Church Popular Revised Edition (Bloomsbury, 1992). 26 Reinhard Achenbach, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, David E. Aune, Joseph Dan, Annelies Felber, Manfred Hutter et al., ‘Devil’, in Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning, Bernd Janowski and Eberhard Jüngel (eds), Religion Past and Present 4 (Leiden, 2008), 6-16. 27 M. Eugene Boring, Mark: A Commentary (Louisville, 2006), 47-8.

394

T. GOMELAURI

of this narrative cannot be exaggerated – it is an integral part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.28 The Marcan account of Jesus’ Temptation in the Wilderness, where the main actors are Jesus, Satan, the Wild Beasts and Angels, stands out because of its brevity.29 Satan is a prominent character in Matthew (4:1-11) and Luke’s (4:1-13) Temptation Narratives, where he is a well-articulated mobile figure, who even quotes the Hebrew Bible. But in the Temptation Narrative according to the Gospel of Mark, Satan neither speaks, nor are his actions detectable in any conceivable way. On the surface, the Marcan account of the Temptation Narrative seems so scant that it hardly commands any exegetical attention. Mark seems to fail to mention the challenges, which Satan throws at Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. But it would be a grave theological error to mistake Marcan brevity for scantiness. A.B. Caneday remarks that ‘the style of Mark’s Gospel is to use the Hebrew Bible in a cryptic, enigmatic, and allusive manner that provokes the reader’s imagination to uncover intertextual connections with the Scriptures’.30 I would like to employ this statement as our precursor for a critical examination of the Marcan narrative of Jesus’ Temptation in the Wilderness vis-à-vis patristic exegesis of this passage. Mark 1:12-3 records: ‘And the Spirit immediately drove him [Jesus] out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels were ministering him’. From this concise account, the phrase ‘he was with the wild beasts’ captures the reader’s attention as a seemingly trivial and awkward insertion. Below we shall see the details as to how the Church Fathers have interpreted this phrase, but generally speaking, Catena Aurea31 on Mark 1:12-3, followed by all subsequent biblical commentaries,32 represents a perfect example of an obvious misinterpretation of a biblical narrative. I suggest that the root of such a mistake was the Church Fathers’ lack of familiarity with the terminology of the Hebrew Bible and its subtle nuances. This important subject requires more detailed analysis, which I offer elsewhere.33 Catena Aurea on Mark 1:12 quotes the following three sources:34 28

Catechism (1992), 121-2. Mark sums up Jesus’ Temptation in twenty-one words, while Matthew uses 145, and Luke 155 words. 30 A.B. Caneday, ‘Mark’s provocative use of Scripture in Narration “He was with the Wild Animals and Angels Ministered to Him”’, Bulletin for Biblical Research 9 (1999), 19-36, 19. 31 St Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels collected Out of The Works of the Fathers: Vol. II, St. Mark (London, 1842). 32 Dan O. Via Jr., The Ethics of Mark’s Gospel: In the Middle of Time (Philadelphia, 1985), 47-9. 33 T. Gomelauri, The Missing Link: Re-framing the Temptation Narrative According to the Marcan Gospel (Manuscript in preparation). 34 St Thomas Aquinas, Catena (1842), 17-9. 29

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395

Pseudo-Chrysostom (Vict. Ant. in the Cat. in Marc.): But He [Mark] says this to shew of what nature was the wilderness, for it was impassable by man and full of wild beasts. Bede (ubi sup): Consider also that Christ dwells among the wild beasts as man, but, as God, uses the ministry of Angels. Thus, when in the solitude of a holy life we bear with unpolluted mind the bestial manners of men, we merit to have the ministry of Angels, by whom, when freed from the body, we shall be transferred to everlasting happiness. Pseudo-Jerome: the beasts dwell with us in peace, as in the ark clean animals with the unclean, when the flesh lusts not against the spirit. After this, ministering Angels are sent to us, that they may give answers and comforts to hearts that watch.

To summarise, Pseudo-Chrysostom understands the phrase ‘he was with wild animals’ as a reference to a natural world, setting a background scene to Jesus’ temptation. Bede changes the word ‘was’ to ‘dwell’. From the linguistic point of view these two words have completely different connotations. The word ‘dwell’ appears in the Vulgate in Deut. 12:12,35 and refers to the Levites’ peaceful residence in Israel’s towns. It does not imply an extremely hostile environment, where Jesus was in a need of angelic assistance. Pseudo-Jerome links his commentary with the Flood Narrative on Noah’s experience of being with the animals in the Ark. The above Patristic sources miss the crucial link of this phrase with the other biblical passages, as they fail to pick up Mark’s clues. We shall see below that because of such shortcoming, Christian theology ended up with a picture of Jesus’ Temptation Narrative, which radically differs from the original intention of the biblical author. In Christian theology, two main theories have been developed concerning the interpretation of the phrase καὶ ἦν μετὰ τῶν θηρίων, based on the Patristic exegesis of Mark 1:12-3. The first theory proposes that Mark intended to describe the geographical landscape of the wilderness, where Jesus’ temptation took place, and θηρίων are part of an ecological background; Chrysostom’s statement that ‘the wilderness was deserted, in as much as it was also full of wild animals’,36 fosters such interpretation. The second and more popular theory suggests that Jesus’ co-existence with the wild beasts points to his role as the Eschatological Adam. Because of its clear Messianic implication, this theory has commanded greater support. Consequently, a fully-fledged theory of Adam/Christ typology emerged regarding Mark 1:12-3.37 According to this interpretation, Jesus’ being with the wild beasts in the wilderness was the re-enactment of the Garden of Eden before Adam’s fall, and served as a sign of his Messiahship.38 35

This word also appears in Latin version in the Book of Job 38:26; 39:28. Chrysostom, Homiliae in Matthaem 13:1, PG 57, 230. 37 Adela Yarbro Collins and Harold W. Attridge, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis, 2007), 151-2. 38 Jaap Doedens, ‘Literary Wormholes: Wild Animals and Angels in Mark 1:13’, Sárospataki füzetek 20 (2016), 53-65, 64. 36

396

T. GOMELAURI

But several scholars have identified the following shortcomings of this interpretation.39 Firstly, Mark never mentions neither develops an Adam/Christ typology anywhere in his Gospel. Secondly, the landscape of the Judean desert, and its ecological setting is incomparable with the Garden of Eden. Thirdly, if Jesus is surrounded by animals, like Adam was, why would he need the Angelic service διακονέω? There are no references in the Bible to the angels ministering to Adam in the Garden of Eden. And finally, the most important question to ask is – why would Mark mention Jesus’ Temptation, if his description of this episode is so devoid of any specifics that it barely sounds like a temptation at all? If Mark depicts Jesus as the Second Adam, enjoying ‘peaceful companionship’ with the animal world, then where is any element of Temptation?40 The key for unravelling the mystery of the Temptation Narrative lies in the allusive Marcan use of the terminology of the Hebrew Bible. Mark’s choice of words is curious. In the opening sentence, he uses the strongest word possible to describe Jesus’ casting out into the wilderness.41 And then Mark withholds any details of the temptation, except the mention of Jesus’ ‘associates’ θηρίων. What was Mark’s intention when he described Jesus καὶ ἦν μετὰ τῶν θηρίων? What is the meaning of the word θηρίων? What Hebrew word might Mark have used if he were writing this narrative in the Hebrew language? How do the other (Jewish) authors of the New Testament use θηρίων? A survey of the word θηρίον (beast), which appears in the Christian Canon forty-six times, leads to surprising results. Eighty-three percent of all the references to this word are concentrated in a single book – the Book of the Revelation of John. For the author of Revelation, θηρίον, and not Satan, represents the ultimate enemy who rages apocalyptic war with God and His saints.42 Mark, in his depiction of Jesus with θηρίων in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, is referring to a mythical creature and not an animal. Mark relies on the insight of his readers, who were supposed to immediately recognise the link between Jesus’s Temptation and the events described in the Book of Revelation in more dramatic terms. The author of Revelation employs the word θηρίον to refer to the utmost evil. He describes three different beasts of an apocalyptic era as θηρίον.43 39 Jeffrey B. Gibson, ‘Jesus’ Wilderness Temptation according to Mark’, JNTS 53 (1994), 3-34, 31; John Paul Heil, ‘Jesus with the Wild Animals in Mark 1:13’, CBQ 68 (2006), 63-78, 65. 40 As Richard Bauckham suggest in ‘Jesus and the Wild Animals (Mark 1:13): A Christological Image for an Ecological Age’, in J.B. Green and M. Turner (eds), Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ: Essays on the Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology (Grand Rapids, 1994), 3-21, 20. 41 ἐκβάλλει is used for describing the exorcisms cases (Mark 1:34, 39) and driving the merchants from the Temple (Mark 11:15). 42 The Book of Revelation uses the word θηρίων thirty-eight times, σατανάς – eight times, διάβολος – five times, δαιμόνῐον – three times. 43 ‘One that rises from the bottomless pit, one from the sea, and one from the land’, Rev. 11:7; 13:1-10; 12:1-7, 16:13, 17:8; 19:20, 20:1-2, 10.

Satan between the Sages and the Fathers

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Considering the long and difficult history of the Book of Revelation, before it made its way into the Christian Canon,44 it is not surprising to see how and why the Church Fathers could have overlooked this crucial link with θηρίον, but the puzzle as to how another reference to θηρίον used by St Paul went unnoticed remains unsolved. Another instance when θηρίων refers to demonic evil, is recorded in the Epistles of Paul. Paul uses the word θηρίον to describe his own struggles in Ephesus: ‘If with merely human hopes I fought with wild animals at Ephesus, what would I have gained by it? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”’.45 Paul introduces here the word θηριομαχέω, which is a New Testament hapax legomenon. It is a compound of θηρίον (beast) and μάχομαι (to engage in battle). This word expresses the brutal hostile encounter with the enemy and provides a strong link with Mark 1:12-3. Reading the Marcan account of Jesus’ Temptation Narrative with the lens of these two New Testament authors suggests that neither of the two theories put forward by the Church Fathers, can be considered as a scripturally sound interpretation. Pierson Parker, who accepts the Patristic exegesis on Mark 1:12-3 at face value, concludes that because of Jesus’ depiction with wild beasts in the Judean desert, ‘the author of Mark is ignorant. He does not know Palestinian geography’.46 Parker rightly notes that anyone, even remotely familiar with a landscape of an Ancient Israel would have realised the improbability of such exegesis. To put it simply, wild beasts could not have been ‘with’ Jesus.47 It is not only the word θηρίον that provides crucial hints, but the proposition μετά preceding the word θηρίων sheds further light in the context. Neither the widely-held opinion that the proposition μετά signifies ‘peaceful encounter’, nor Gibson’s suggestion that ‘μετά is consistently employed to designate a type of accompaniment in which there is subordination of one to another’,48 is supported by the authors of other New Testament books. For example, Revelation uses μετά to describe the apocalyptic war between the Beast and the Saints. μετά in this context is translated as ‘on’: ‘the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit will make war on [μετά] them [the saints] and conquer them and kill them’.49 Yet another piece of scriptural evidence, which supports my proposal of a new reading of the Marcan Temptation Narrative, is found in Psalm 91 cited 44 Synod of Laodicea, Canon of Cyril of Jerusalem, Apostolic Canons, Canon of Gregory of Nazianzus, Canon of Amphilochius of Iconium, Catalogue of the 60 Canonical books, the Syrian Catalogue by Ebedjesu – all have rejected the Book of Revelation as spurious. B.F. Westcott, A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament (London, 1889), 445-6. 45 1Cor. 15:32. 46 Pierson Parker, ‘The Posterity of Mark’, in W.R. Farmer (ed.), New Synoptic Studies: The Cambridge Gospel Conference and Beyond (Macon, 1983), 68-73, 68. 47 P. Parker, Posterity (1983), 68. 48 J.B. Gibson, ‘Jesus’ Wilderness Temptation’ (1994), 31. 49 See Rev. 11:7; 13:7.

T. GOMELAURI

398

in both Matthew and Luke’s narratives of Jesus’ Temptation. This textual evidence is also overlooked in Patristic exegesis. The quotation of ‘for He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone’ (Ps. 91:11-2), is immediately followed by the mention of ‘Wild Animals’ in verse 13: ‘You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent50 you will trample under foot’. This reference links the Temptation Narrative with the word ‘tannin’ representing demonic evil, as discussed in the first part of the article. Caneday’s suggestion that the identity, role, and function of wild beasts in the Temptation Narrative should be viewed in the prism of Psalm 91, has been overlooked.51 Summary The purpose of this article has been to show the Patristic departure from a varied Hebraic understanding of evil into a portrayal of ‘Satan’ as the single, archetypal enemy of God. This is particularly evident in the Patristic sources commenting on the Temptation Narrative of Mark’s Gospel. I have highlighted the variety of references for evil in the Hebrew Bible, demonstrating the broad range of terms and translations. The understanding of these terms from the Hebrew Bible is vital for any commentary on the New Testament. However, in Patristic commentaries, I have shown how the lack of familiarity with Hebraic theology and terminology has impoverished the Church Fathers’ exegetical abilities and led to a mistaken interpretation of the Temptation Narrative. Having misinterpreted the meaning of the word θηρίον, and its links with other biblical passages, Patristic exegetes have introduced a reading of the Temptation Narrative which is radically different from its author’s intention. The comparative analysis of the passages from the Gospel of Mark, the Book of Revelation, St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, and Psalm 91 sheds new light on the nature of Jesus’ Temptation in the Judean Wilderness. According to this new interpretation the role of ‘wild beasts’ change from peaceful companions into hostile enemies signifying ultimate demonic evil. My proposal considers the wide range of biblical references in their contexts, and expands on the accounts of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Furthermore, this methodology gives the reader a deeper appreciation of the exegetical harmony of the Scripture and follows the continuous chain of biblical interpretation from the sages to the Fathers.

50 51

The Hebrew word translated as ‘the serpent’ is Tannin (‫)תנין‬. A.B. Caneday, ‘Mark’s provocative use of Scripture’ (1999), 19.

Reconsidering the Filioque from Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine of Hippo Chungman LEE, Korea Theological Seminary, Cheonan-si, South Korea

ABSTRACT In the long history of the filioque controversy, East and West have managed to reach remarkable agreement. Nevertheless, they have still failed to achieve rapprochement on several crucial remaining points, leaving the controversy unresolved. This article examines the trinitarian theology of Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine of Hippo on two points in particular – namely, the precise definition of monopatrism and the definition of the Son’s role in the Spirit’s procession. Regarding the first point, I argue that Augustine’s application of the term principium to the Son did not contradict his monopatrism, according to which the Father is the only cause for the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit in eternity. As such, I propose that Augustine approaches the monopatristic view of Gregory, who emphasized the causal relationship between the Father (αἰτία) and the other hypostases (αἰτιατά). Regarding the second point of the Son’s role in the Spirit’s procession, I argue that Gregory used the notion of the Son’s mediation (μεσιτεία) in order to distinguish the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit from that of the Son more clearly and to express the Spirit’s personal property as Spirit of the Father and the Son. The role Gregory assigned to the Son by the notion of mediation in turn finds echoes in Augustine’s thought when he applied the term principium also to the Son. The convergence between Gregory and Augustine on these points challenges the common assumption that they stand at the head of two opposing traditions in the filioque controversy.

1. Introduction The term filioque, which was probably interpolated in the Symbolum Nicaenum Constantinopolitanum (381 AD; hereafter cited as Symb. Nicaen.) at the third council of Toledo in Spain (589 AD),1 is one of the dogmatical issues at the very center of discussions between East and West. The crucial position this topic 1 John N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed. (New York, 1971), 361. Between the third and fifth centuries, phrases and ideas similar to the filioque were found in the trinitarian works of Latin fathers such as Tertullian, Novatian, and Ambrose: Tertullian’s phrase ‘a patre per filium’ in Aduersus Praxean 5.1 (CChr.SL 2, 1162); Ambrose’s expression ‘spiritus procedit a patre et filio’ in De spiritu sancto 1.11 (CSEL 79, 67). Quicumque (DH 75-6) in the fifth century included a similar expression: ‘a patre et filio’.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 399-410. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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occupies is readily demonstrated by the harsh nature of the criticism on the filioque voiced by Photios, which went on to become also the theological basis for the critique launched by later Byzantine theologians. In fact, ‘although the filioque may not have been the direct cause of the schism of 1054’, it has undeniably ‘become the epitome of West-East alienation’.2 In the long history of the controversy,3 remarkable agreement between East and West has nevertheless been reached on two points in particular, especially over the course of the past 150 years of ecumenical engagement.4 First, the original Greek text of the Symb. Nicaen. has come to be recognized unanimously as the only creed for reconciliation; second, the monarchy of the Father within the Trinity has been accepted as the two churches’ common patristic tradition. In spite of the agreement on these two important points, however, East and West have failed to reach a satisfying rapprochement on several other crucial points, leaving the controversy unresolved. Two of the remaining problems will be discussed in this article – namely, the precise definition of monopatrism and the definition of the Son’s role in the Spirit’s procession. Eastern theologians have been persistent in their charge against western theology that it makes itself guilty of two confusions: confusion between hypostatic and essential properties, and confusion among the proprieties of each divine hypostasis.5 This article seeks to open the way for greater rapprochement by examining the patristic ground for the development of the doctrine of the Trinity in the East and the West. More precisely, it will compare the trinitarian theologies of 2

Bernd Oberdorfer, ‘Filioque’, in Hans Dieter Betz et al. (eds), RGG4 (Tübingen, 2000), 3:119; id., Filioque: Geschichte und Theologie eines ökumenischen Problems, Forschungen zur systematischen und ökumenischen Theologie 96 (Göttingen, 2001), 163. See also A. Edward Siecienski, ‘The Filioque: A Brief History’, in Myk Habets (ed.), Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the 21st Century (London, 2014), 7-19, 12. 3 For a historical and theological overview and detailed bibliographies of the history of the controversy, see B. Oberdorfer, Filioque (2001); A. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (New York, 2010). 4 For the ecumenical progress achieved since the late nineteenth century, see Brian E. Daley, ‘Revisiting the “Filioque”: Part Two: Contemporary Catholic Approaches’, Pro Ecclesia 10 (2001), 195-212; B. Oberdorfer, Filioque (2001), 296-506; Peter Gemeinhardt, Die Filioque-Kontroverse zwischen Ost- und Westkirche im Frühmittelalter, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 82 (Berlin, 2002), 1-38; A.E. Siecienski, The Filioque (2010), 193-214; Reinhard Flogaus, ‘Wurzel allen theologischen Übels oder soteriologischer Notwendigkeit? Zum Verständnis des Filioque in der orthodoxen, römisch-Katholischen und evangelischen Theologie des 20. Jahrhunderts’, in Michael Böhnke, Assaad E. Kattan and Bernd Oberdorfer (eds), Die Filioque-Kontroverse: Historische, ökumenische und dogmatische Perspektiven 1200 Jahre nach der Aachener Synode, Quaestiones Disputatae 245 (Freiburg, 2011), 134-79; Johannes Oeldermann, ‘Das Filioque im ökumenischen Dialog: Die Ergebnisse der bisherigen Dialog im Überblick’, in ibid., 201-24. 5 Two other issues that are still at stake concern the definition of the relationship between οἰκονομία and θεολογία and the definition of the hypostatic property of the Holy Spirit. These issues are closely interwoven with the confusion of οὐσία and ἐνέργεια and of οἰκονομία and θεολογία.

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Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine of Hippo – who serve as the most important foundation for the eastern and western tradition, respectively – on the two remaining points of discussions identified above. At the same time, this comparative study will provide new insights for scholarship on the trinitarianism of the two Church Fathers. As such, it will offer an explicitly monopatristic interpretation of Augustine’s use of such terms as principium, principaliter, and communiter, and supply a more concrete account of the Son’s role in the procession of the Spirit in the trinitarianism of both Augustine and Gregory.6 2. Monopatrism and the Role of the Son in the Procession While the recognition of monopatrism – i.e., the position that the Father is the only cause for the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit in eternity – as the common patristic tradition between East and West represents one of the major ecumenical achievements of the past centuries, even now the two sides have failed to reach a precise, mutually satisfying definition of monopatrism. In particular, eastern theologians charge that western theology, which follows Augustine in applying the term principium to both the Father and the Son, confuses essential and hypostatic properties as well as the hypostatic properties of the individual divine persons. As such, so the East alleges, the Augustinian tradition denies monopatrism and sees in the Son a cause for the procession similar to the Father. An in-depth study of Augustine’s monopatrism, his use of the term principium, and his view on the role of the Son in the procession of the Holy Spirit, however, will reveal that he was neither an exception to the monopatristic tradition nor the main culprit who broke down the hypostatic distinction between the Father and the Son. Augustine gave explicit expression to his monopatrism when he argued, against the trinitarian heresies of his time, that the Son is ‘not only God but also true God’ (non tantum deus sed et uerus deus).7 After summarizing the catholic faith (fides catholica) against several erroneous notions of the mystery of the Trinity in the beginning of De trinitate,8 he went on to explain how the Son is uerus deus at the hand of an interpretation of John 1:1-3. Augustine 6

See notes 17, 44, 45, and 56 below. Trin. 1.9 (CChr.SL 50, 38); Ambrose, De fide 3.2.11-3, 5.2.29-32; Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge, 2010), 100-3. 8 Trin. 1.1, 1.7 (CChr.SL 50, 28, 34-5). Augustine calls the faith ‘tabernacle’ in trin. 1.31 and ‘rock’ in trin. 2.28. As the faith distinguished the three hypostases so clearly that it was forced to defend the confession of the one God against suspicions of tritheism (trin. 1.8), Augustine’s trinitarian theology, which attempted to explain the catholic faith in the Trinity, cannot simply be said to begin with the unity of the divine essence or substance. It did not ignore the clear distinction among the three hypostases. For a criticism of ‘de Regnon’s paradigm’ on this point, see Nello 7

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gives clear expression to his position when he writes: ‘He is of the one and the same substance with the Father, and consequently he is not only God but also the true God’ (emphasis added).9 Given Augustine’s view on the causal relationship within the Trinity, the preposition ‘with’ must here be understood as ‘from’. This emerges when he comes back to the interpretation of 1Cor. 1:24, seeking to solve a problem that ‘our adherents’10 had left unresolved when they used a traditional argument taken from this verse to defend the Son’s consubstantiality against Arius. If their argument11 is not formulated more carefully, so Augustine indicates, it will incur criticism on two accounts: First, the Father would become just the Father of wisdom, not wisdom itself, and so too he would not be wise without his wisdom which is born from him.12 As such, the proponents of this view would find themselves deviating from the church’s confession of deus de deo in the Symb. Nicaen, which confesses the Son to be wise in that He is Wise from Wise. Second, the Father’s being ends up becoming dependent on the Son’s being.13 This second criticism is based on the notion of God’s simplicity, according to which there are no accidents in the divine being, as all God’s attributes are substantial. In relation to wisdom this would mean that if the Father is only wise when he begets the Son who is his wisdom, the Father’s being becomes dependent on the being of the Son. As such, the Son would become the cause not only of the Father’s wisdom, but also of his being. This interpretation, so Augustine continues, is simply insanus.14 In order Cipriani, La teologia di Sant’Agostino: Introduzione generale e riflessione trinitarian, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 143 (Rome, 2015), 158. 9 Trin. 1.9 (CChr.SL 50, 38): unius igiturque eiusdem cum patre substantiae est. et ideo non tantum deus sed et uerus deus. English translations from trin. are taken from Stephen McKenna, trans., St. Augustine: The Trinity, FC 45 (Washington, DC, 1988). 10 According to Nello Cipriani, ‘our adherents’ are to be identified as Marius Victorinus (Adversus Arium 1.13.11-20, 1.20.23), Pseudo-Athanasius (De trinitate 5.17, 11.24-5), Gregory of Elvira (De fide Nicaena 27), Ambrose (De fide 2.16.143, 4.8.79-80, 9.111), and even the younger Augustine as a presbyter (diu. qu. 23; retr. 1.26). See Nello Cipriani, ‘La presenza di Mario Vittorino nella riflessione trinitaria di S. Agostino’, Aug 42 (2002), 261-313, 285-8; id., ‘La teologia trinitaria di S. Agostino con particolare riguardo allo Spirito Santo’, in Luca Bianchi (ed.), Sant’Agostino nella tradizione cristiana occidentale e orientale (Padua, 2011), 73-96, 86-7; id., La teologia di Sant’ Agostino (2015), 186, 191-3. In particular, Victorinus thought of the Neoplatonic idea of the automanifestation or auto-definition of God the Father as the first principium: God the Father is beyond esse, vivere, and intelligere which exist potentially in him, and he himself is manifested and represented by the generation of the Son signifying the activity of the three. See Victorinus, Adversus Arium 1.47.36-41 (SC 69, 795). 11 Trin. 6.1 (CChr.SL 50, 228): sed inter disputationes quas habebant nostri aduersus eos qui dicebant: erat tempus quando non erat filius, hanc etiam nonnulli ratiocinationem inserebant: si dei filius uirtus et sapientia dei est nec umquam deus sine uirtute et sapientia fuit, coaeternus est deo patri filius. 12 Trin. 6.2 (CChr.SL 50, 229). 13 Trin. 7.2 (CChr.SL 50, 246). 14 Trin. 7.2 (CChr.SL 50, 249).

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to meet this twofold criticism, Augustine emphasizes that the Son is uerus deus in that he is from the Father who is uerus deus, and that the Son is from the Father who is not from the Son.15 The Father, who is ‘from no one’ (a nullo) and ‘from no father’ (de nullo patre), is the cause of the Son, who is from the Father (a patre) and in regard to the Father (propter patrem).16 It is important to note here that Augustine affirmed his monopatrism in spite of his attribution of the term principium in the procession of the Holy Spirit also to the Son. This comes to particular expression in the argument he formulated to refute Marius Victorinus’s view on the relationship between Father and Spirit (which he himself had once championed as well) and to extend the definition of the term principium.17 In book 5 of De trinitate, Augustine presents a non-extended definition of the term which he will later subject to criticism: ‘Whatever remains in itself and either begets something or works, is a principle to that thing which it begets or works’.18 In his earlier works, Augustine, following Victorinus,19 had himself applied this definition to the relationship between the Father and the Spirit. But if the Father is principium of the Spirit, so Augustine now argues, this would imply that the Spirit is begotten and therefore a Son, making the Father the Father of the Spirit.20 Augustine corrected Victorinus’s erroneous conception as he himself had once subscribed to it by extending the definition of the term principium.21 To 15

Trin. 2.2, 4.27 (CChr.SL 50, 82, 195). Io. eu. tr. 19.13 (CChr.SL 36, 196). Augustine’s anti-Arian interpretation of John 5:19 in Io. eu. tr. 18, 19, and 23 reflects the same relationship between Father and Son in the monarchy of the Father. See Basil Studer, ‘Johannes 5,19 f. in der Trinitätslehre der Kirchenväter’, in Jeremy Driscoll (ed.), Imaginer la théologie catholique: Permanence et transformations de la foi en attendant Jésus-Christ. Mélanges offerts à Ghislain Lafont (Rome, 2000), 515-42; N. Cipriani, ‘La teologia trinitaria di S. Agostino’ (2011), 87-8; L. Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (2010), 233-50. 17 In recent scholarship on Augustine’s trinitarianism, scholars such as Lewis Ayres and Nello Cipriani have shed light on the development of Augustine’s trinitarianism from the influence of Victorinus in his earlier works. Their investigations, however, have failed to notice Augustine’s extension of the definition of the term principium in that development. This extension was likewise overlooked by Christian Tornau in his account of the term, even though he did rightly acknowledge Augustine’s use of it as a relative term in the context of the intra-trinitarian relations. See Christian Tornau, ‘Principium’, in Robert Dodaro, Cornelius Mayer and Christof Müller (eds), Auglex 4 (2012-8), 914-21. 18 Trin. 5.14 (CChr.SL 50, 221): quidquid in se manet et gignit aliquid uel operatur principium est. 19 Victorinus, Adversus Arium 4.33.24; Ad Candidum Arrianum 31; N. Cipriani, La teologia di Sant’Agostino (2015), 183. 20 See Augustine’s identification of the Father as pater pignoris in sol. 1.2 (CSEL 89, 5); Nello Cipriani, ‘La Retractatio agostiniana sulla processione: Generazione dello Spirito Santo (Trin. 5,12,13)’, Aug 37 (1997), 431-9; id., ‘La presenza di Mario Vittorino’ (2002), 261-313; id., La teologia di Sant’ Agostino (2015), 159. This erroneous understanding was recalled as a problem in trin. 1.8 and 2.5 (CChr.SL 50, 36, 86). 21 Augustine had probably already attempted to revise the weakness of Victorinus’s trinitarian thought in its misunderstanding of the Spirit as another Son in f. et symb. 19; N. Cipriani, ‘La teologia trinitaria di S. Agostino’ (2011), 78-9. 16

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do so, he first distinguished between the verbs attributed to the procession of the Son and the Spirit from the Father: the Son is said to be ‘generated’, but the Holy Spirit is said to proceed or to be given from the Father.22 Augustine used this distinction to express that the Spirit is not ‘generated’ like the Son, and that he is therefore not another Son of the Father. From there, he went on to correct Victorinus and his earlier self as follows: ‘For we speak of the Holy Spirit of the Father, but on the other hand we do not speak of the Father of the Holy Spirit, lest the Holy Spirit be understood to be his Son. We likewise speak of the Holy Spirit of the Son, but we do not speak of the Son of the Holy Spirit lest the Holy Spirit be understood to be his Father’.23 Augustine therefore extended the definition of the term principium in the Trinity so as to indicate that the Holy Spirit is not generated, but is rather given from the Father or proceeds from him.24 The extended definition of the term principium clearly expresses the notion that the Father is the principium for the Spirit’s consubstantiality with the Father. Augustine understood this to correspond with the revelation of the Logos himself in John 15:26: The Father alone is the principle of the entire Godhead (totius diuinitatis uel si melius dicitur deitatis principium pater est), and the procession of the Spirit is referred back to the Father of whom the Son was born.25 This reading of Augustine brings his view rather close to that of Gregory of Nyssa. The obvious foundation of Gregory’s trinitarianism is his commitment to monopatrism: The Father is cause (αἰτία or αἴτιον) and the other persons in the Trinity are caused (αἰτιατά).26 In the controversy against Eunomius and the Pneumatomachi, Gregory used this statement to defend the one divinity of the Son and the Spirit which they share with the Father.27 22 Trin. 4.29 (CChr.SL 50, 199). According to trin. 5.12 (CChr.SL 50, 219), procession is synonymous with gift: donum enim est patris et filii quia et a patre procedit, sicut dominus dicit, et quod apostolus ait: qui spiritum Christi non habet hic non est eius, de ipso utique spiritu sancto ait. 23 Trin. 5.13 (CChr.SL 50, 220). 24 Trin. 5.15 (CChr.SL 50, 222): ad se autem inuicem in trinitate si gignens ad id quod gignit principium est, pater ad filium principium est quia genuit eum. utrum autem et ad spiritum sanctum principium sit pater quoniam dictum est: de patre procedit, non parua quaestio est. quia si ita est, non iam principium ei tantum rei erit quam gignit aut facit sed etiam ei quam dat. 25 Trin. 4.29 (CChr.SL 50, 200). 26 Abl (GNO III/1, 55.21-56.4). 27 Gregory uses κοινωνεῖν for the community of the one nature in the Triune God. Even μεταχεῖν is used. However, these terms admit no notion of temporal or participatory διάστημα in the Trinity. See Eun 1.168-9, 233-4, 270, 282-93, 345, 670-2 (GNO I, 77, 95, 105, 109-10, 129, 218-9). Created beings, on the contrary, are restricted to διάστημα (Eun 1.275 [GNO I, 1067]). Gregory’s distinction between the divine nature and his creatures (Cant 6 [GNO VI, 174.1-6]) is therefore fundamentally explained in terms of διάστημα. This distinction between Creator and creatures is fundamental to the difference between Gregory and Eunomius. See David L. Balás, ‘Eternity and Time in Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra Eunomium’, in Heinrich Dörrie, Margarete Altenburger and Uta Schramm (eds), Gregor von Nyssa und die Philosophie: Zweites internationales Kolloquium über Gregor von Nyssa (Leiden, 1976), 128-53.

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Eunomius had sought to subordinate the second hypostasis of the Trinity to the true divinity of the Father by coining new names for the three hypostases28 – names that probably had their origin in a new Arian baptismal formula.29 Eunomius argued that if the Father, called the ‘Highest and most authentic being’ and ‘unbegotten’, is the true God, the Son cannot the true God in the strict sense of the term, since he is called ‘one which exists because of that being [the Father] and after that being has supremacy over the rest’, as well as ‘begotten’ or ‘created’.30 Gregory countered by emphasizing that the revealed names ‘father’ and ‘son’ connote their natural affinity (τὸ κατὰ τὴν φύσιν οἰκεῖον) as well as the causal relationship between them.31 In this light, he insisted that the catholic faith of the Council of Nicaea (325 AD)32 confesses the Son to be ‘from the Father’ as ‘eternal from eternal’.33 The Son is ‘light from light, life from life, good from good, wise, just and mighty and in every other attribute similarly derived as like from like.’34 In this series, the preposition ‘from’ does not signify the Son’s natural subordination to the Father, but rather expresses their natural affinity and causal relationship. The Son is God from God the Father,35 and the Father is explicitly defined as αἰτία for the Son’s generation in that same divinity.36 28 Eun 1.155, 552 (GNO I, 73.20-6, 186.3-12). For the philosophical background to Eunomius’s invention of the names, see Jean Daniélou, ‘Eunome l’Arien et l’exégèse néo-platonicienne du Cratyle’, REG 69 (1956), 412-32; John. M. Rist, ‘Basil’s Neoplatonism: Its Background and Nature’, in Paul J. Fedewick (ed.), Basil of Caesarea, Christian, Humanist, Ascetic (Toronto, 1981), 137-220; Lionel R. Wickham, ‘The Syntagmation of Aetius the Anomean’, JTS 19 (1978), 532-69. Guilio Maspero recently examined Gregory’s quotation (Eun 1.151-4) of Eunomius’s new names and his comprehension of the relationship within the Trinity, and insisted that Eunomius placed Basil of Caesarea’s expression ‘reciprocal relation’ (ἡ σχέσις πρὸς ἄλληλα) in a Neoplatonic metaphysical framework, and interpreted the reciprocal relationship among the three hypostases as a necessarily hierarchical one according to their ontological differences. See Giulio Maspero, Essere e relazione: L’ontologia trinitaria di Gregorio di Nissa, Collana di Teologia 79 (Rome, 2013), 142-3. For a useful analysis of the logical sequence implied by Eunomius’s argument quoted in Eun 1.1514, see id., ‘Trinitarian Theology in Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra Eunomium I’, in Miguel Brugaloras (ed.), Gregory of Nyssa: Contra Eunomium I, VCSup 148 (Leiden, 2018), 441-93, 445. 29 Eun 1.54, 3.9.61 (GNO I, 40.16-23; II, 287.12-7); Epiphanius, Panarion 76.54.32-3; Richard P. Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2000), 330-45; Claudio Moreschini, trans., Gregorio di Nyssa: Opere dogmatiche, Il pensiero occidentale (Milan, 2014), 711 (n. 68). 30 Eun 1.155, 552 (GNO I, 73.20-6, 186.3-10). 31 Eun 1.159, 298, 498, 628, 650 (GNO I, 75.1-7, 114.11-7, 170.13-7, 207.17-20, 213.13-9); 3.1.92-3, 138 (GNO II, 35.16-22, 49.27-50.2). 32 Eun 1.158 (GNO I, 74.16-23). Gregory referred to the council as κοινὸν συνέδριον. 33 Eun 1.688 (GNO I, 224.4-5). 34 Eun 1.688 (GNO I, 224.2-5). The English translation is taken from Stuart G. Hall’s translation in M. Brugaloras (ed.), Gregory of Nyssa: Contra Eunomium I (2018), 73-195. 35 Eun 1.689 (GNO I, 224.9-10). 36 Eun 1.628 (GNO I, 207.17-20). While Eunomius demanded an absolute definition of the term ‘unbegotten’ and insisted that only the Father, who is called unbegotten, is the true God (Eun 1.552 [GNO I, 186.3-10]), Gregory emphasized the relational connotation of this term when applied to the Son within the Trinity. For Gregory, the word ‘unbegotten’ is a negative form of the term

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Against the Pneumatomachi, Gregory used the same approach in order to establish the same divinity which the Holy Spirit has together with the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is not subordinated to the divinity that is common to the Father and the Son. Rather, the Holy Spirit as God proceeds from God the Father: The Holy Spirit is caused, not created as an angelic entity, and the Father is cause.37 3. The Role of the Son It has thus been shown that Augustine and Gregory shared a similar monopatristic understanding, holding the Father to be the only cause of the two other hypostases. But how did they recognize a specific role or place for the Son in the procession of the Holy Spirit? Gregory’s trinitarianism required a role for the Son in his monopatrism so as to be able to distinguish the second and third hypostases more clearly. When the Father is called αἰτία of the Son and the Spirit, the latter two are not clearly distinguished from each other, given that both are equally called αἰτιατά without any explicit distinction between them.38 While the two hypostases may have been distinguished in Gregory’s monopatrism by his respective use of the terms ‘only-begotten’ and ‘procession’ for the Son and the Spirit, he also sought to offer a clearer distinction between them. It was for this distinction that his ‘begotten’, which is ascribed to the Son in relation to his begetter, the Father. A negative form of a relative word only has a relative connotation, and is not absolute (Eun 1.650 [GNO I, 213.13-9]). And even if the term ‘unbegotten’ is used in an absolute and unrelated sense, so Gregory argued, it then refers to the divine nature which exists from no other (Eun 1.552 [GNO I, 186.7, 12]). Consequently, this term is to be attributed also to the Son (Eun 1.645 [GNO I, 211.27-212.8]). 37 Eun 1.280, 378, 532-4 (GNO I, 108.11-109.1, 138.5-15, 180.10-181.11). The clause καὶ ἐν τῷ τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς ὑπάρξεως ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ τῶν ὅλων ἔχειν in Eun 1.280 (GNO I, 108.11-109.1) involves a text-critical problem. GNO I editor Werner Jaeger placed the clause between brackets and commented that it probably represents a later interpolation, given that Gregory was still far removed from the ardent filioque debates of the late medieval period (GNO I, 108). Following Jaeger, the English translator Stuart G. Hall first (1988) omitted this clause, and later (2018) did translate it but still placed it in brackets. The omitted phrase can, however, stand if the passage is read in connection with Eun 1.378. The two passages express themselves in similar ways on the natural affinity within the Trinity and on the relationship between the three hypostases in terms of diastema. Moreover, similar expressions are used in both for describing the relationship among the three hypostases. Thus, when Eun 1.378 explicitly expresses that the Holy Spirit has the aitia of his existence (ὕπαρξις) from the Father and that the Father is the cause for both the Son and the Holy Spirit, Jaeger probably went too far when he decided to omit the disputed passage. See Raymond Winling, trans., Grégoire de Nysse, Contre Eunome I 147-691, SC 524, 165 (n. 1); Elias D. Moutsoulas, ‘La Pneumatologie du Contra Eunomium I’, in M. Brugarolas (ed.), Gregory of Nyssa: Contra Eunomium I (2018), 557-68, 563. With his ‘sun-sunray-light’ analogy for the causal relationship between the Father and the Spirit, Gregory obviously intends monopatrism. See Eun 1.532-3, 3.6.11-4 (GNO I, 180.10-20; II, 189.23-190.27). 38 Or dom (GNO VII/2, 42.21-5).

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theology required a role for the Son: the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. The role of the Son here is one of mediation (μεσιτεία) and serves to affirm the hypostatic distinction between the Son and the Spirit within a monopatristic framework.39 This mediation does not mean that the Son is another aitia for the procession of the Holy Spirit:40 Gregory was careful enough to attribute the preposition ἐκ to the Father alone, while reserving the preposition διά for the Son.41 Rather, he used the mediation of the Son to define the hypostatic property of the Spirit 39 Abl (GNO III/1, 56.4-10): … τὸ μὲν γὰρ προσεχῶς ἐκ τοῦ πρώτου, τὸ δὲ διὰ τοῦ προσεχῶς ἐκ τοῦ πρώτου… See Giulio Maspero, Trinity and Man: Gregory of Nyssa’s Ad Ablabium, VCSup 86 (Leiden, 2007), 153. Giulio Maspero recognized that the Son occupies the central place for the distinction with reference to the same passage and that this corresponds with Gregory’s trinitarian structure for oikonomia: ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς διὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ πρὸς τὸ πνεῦμα (Abl. [GNO III/1, 48.23-4]). See id., ‘La processione dello Spirito Santo da Origene a Gregorio di Nazianzo: La tensione ermeneutica nella discussione sul Filioque’, in Alessandra Bucossi and Anna Calia (eds), Contra Latinos et Adversus Graecos: The Separation Between Rome and Constantinople From the Ninth to the Fifteenth Century (Leuven, 2020), 49-50. Moreover, G. Maspero commented that Gregory overcame the weakness of Athanasius’s explanation of the two processions using the theme of image. In Athanasius’s account, the two processions of the Son and the Spirit from the Father were not clearly distinguished from each other, such that the Father could be considered the Spirit’s grandfather. Hence, Gregory required the role of the Son in the procession of the Holy Spirit so as to overcome that weakness. See id., ‘The Fire, the Kingdom and the Glory: The Creator Spirit and the Intra-Trinitarian Processions in the Adversus Macedonianos of Gregory of Nyssa’, in Volker H. Drecoll and Margitta Berghaus (eds), Gregory of Nyssa: The Minor Treatises on Trinitarian Theology and Apollinarism, VCSup 106 (Leiden, 2011), 229-76, 244-6, 256-7. For Athanasius, see Epistula ad Serapionem 1.15, 2.14, 3.1 (Athanasius Werke I, ed. Kyriakos Savvidis et al., 1/4 [Berlin, 1996], 489.1491.27, 558.1-553.29, 567.1-568.19). 40 Karl Holl accurately denied that the filioque could be found in Gregory, but emphasized that he did use the mediation of the Son to distinguish the second and third hypostases against the Pneumatomachi, who had accused him of turning the Holy Spirit into a brother of the Son. See Karl Holl, Amphilochius von Ikonium in seinem Verhältnis zu den grossen Kappadoziern (Tübingen, 1904), 213-5. E.D. Moutsoulas has recently sided with Holl in his ‘La Pneumatologie du Contra Eunomium I’ (2018), 566-8. See also Claudio Moreschini, ‘Osservazioni sulla Pneumatologia dei Cappadoci: Preannunci del Filioque’, in Mauro Gagliardi (ed.), Il Filioque: A mille anni dal suo inserimento nel credo a Roma (1014-2014) (Vatican City, 2015), 117-46, 127. When Manlio Simonetti called the Father the causa prima and the Son the causa strumentale for Gregory’s trinitarian thought, he duly recognized Gregory’s emphasis on the mediation of the Son in terms of the monarchy of the Father and rightly criticized Aurelio Palmieri for his attempt to read the Greek patristic tradition in the line of the Latin filioque after Augustine. See Manlio Simonetti, La crisi ariana nel IV secolo, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 11 (Rome, 1975), 499-500; id., ‘La processione dello Spirito Santo secondo i padri greci’, Aevum 26 (1952), 33-41, 39; for A. Palmieri, see Aurelio Palmieri, ‘Esprit-Saint’, in Dictionaire de théologie catholique (Paris, 1924), 5:784-88. 41 See Epistula 38 (LCL 190, 204-7); Eun 1.532-533 (GNO I, 180.10-181.5). For a useful bibliography on the debates over the authorship of Epistula 38, see Lenka Karfíková, ‘Ad Ablabium, Quod Non Sint Tres Dei’, in V.H. Drecoll and M. Berghaus (eds), Gregory of Nyssa: The Minor Treatises (2011), 131-68, 131 (n. 6). See also Giulio Maspero, Mirko D. Espositi and Dario Benedetto, ‘Who Wrote Basil’s Epistula 38? A Possible Answer Through Quantitative Analysis’,

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as Spirit of the Father and of the Son. In Gregory’s trinitarianism, who the hypostasis is in the Trinity depends on how he exists. Thus, when the Spirit proceeds from the Father who is the only cause, the Spirit is ‘Spirit of God the Father’. At the same time, since the Spirit exists through the Son from the Father, this signifies that the Spirit is not only ‘Spirit of the Father’ but also ‘Spirit of the Son’. Hence, the Holy Spirit, whose procession is mediated through the Son, is the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9; 1Cor. 12:3),42 the Kingship and anointment of the Son,43 and the Glory of the Son.44 As such, the taxis of Matt. 28:19 (Father, Son, Spirit) is not reversed.45 Like Gregory, Augustine’s firm commitment to monopatrism required him to offer a clearer account of the distinction between the Son and the Spirit. The distinction between Son and Spirit in terms of ‘how the Spirit exists’, so Augustine pointed out, is one of the three questions that the catholic faith elicits.46 Noting that this faith confesses the hypostatic property of the Spirit to be Spirit of and communis to the Father and the Son and that the title ‘Holy Spirit’ itself

in Johan Leemans and Matthieu Cassin (eds), Gregory of Nyssa: Contra Eunomium III, VCSup 124 (Leiden, 2014), 579-94. 42 Or dom (GNO VII/2, 42.26-43.4); Maced (GNO III/1, 89.21-90.5, 98.21-8, 113.24-114.5); Epistula 38 (LCL 190, 206-7); Eun 1.531 (GNO I, 180.4-6); Cant 4 (GNO VI, 106.5-10). 43 Eust (GNO III/1, 15.15-16.21); Maced (GNO III/1, 102.17-103.13); Or dom (GNO VII/2, 39.18-9, 39.22-40.8). 44 Eun 1.385 (GNO I, 139.22-140.2); Antirrh (GNO III/1, 222.11-9); Maced (GNO III/1, 107.9-13, 108.18-109.15); Tunc et ipse (GNO III/2, 21.22-22.16); Cant 15 (GNO VI, 467.2-468.4). Given the present reading of Gregory’s trinitarian thinking on the procession of the Holy Spirit, the following assessment from Christopher A. Beeley probably requires revision: ‘… like his brother, and in contrast with Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa pays little attention to the definition of the Spirit’s procession.’ See Christopher A. Beeley, ‘The Holy Spirit in the Cappadocians: Past and Present’, Modern Theology 26 (2010), 90-119, 106. Rather, Gregory’s reflection on the causal relationship between the Father and the Spirit as mediated through the Son draws deeply on the hypostatic properties of the Spirit. For a similar evaluation, see Miguel Brugarolas, ‘La procesión del Espíritu Santo en Gregorio de Nisa’, Scripta Theologica 44 (2012), 45-70, 48, 66. 45 The taxis in the intra-trinitarian relations cannot be reversed in Gregory’s trinitarianism. Although Miguel Brugarolas acknowledged that for Gregory the hypostatic property of the Spirit is defined as ‘Spirit of Christ’, he failed to devote significant attention to the non-inverted taxis and the resulting order in the oikonomia. After quoting a passage from Maced (GNO III/1, 108.18-109.15), he remarks: ‘The Holy Spirit is understood as the glory of the Word, which proceeds from the Father, is received by the Son, and returns to the Father’. See Miguel Brugarolas, ‘The Holy Spirit as the “Glory” of Christ: Gregory of Nyssa on John 17:22’, in Nicu Dumitrașcu (ed.), The Ecumenical Legacy of the Cappadocians (New York, 2016), 254. This article suggests that M. Brugarolas was thinking of a taxis Father-Spirit-Son, which cannot be found in Gregory’s trinitarian thinking and also seems not to be reflected in the quoted passage. Cf. id., ‘Anointing and Kingdom: Some Aspects of Gregory of Nyssa’s Pneumatology’, SP 67 (2013), 119. 46 Trin. 1.8 (CChr.SL 50, 36).

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signifies the property of being communis,47 Augustine attempted to explain how the Spirit exists as being communis to the Father and the Son.48 To this end, Augustine first articulated the Spirit’s property in more relational terms. he thus paraphrased the concept of the Spirit’s being communis as his being donum of them both.49 The name donum expresses the property of the Spirit in more relational terms in that he as donum is given by the givers – i.e., Father and Son – to whom he is communis. Second, he pointed out that this more relational definition of the Spirit as donum shows more clearly what it means ‘to exist as being communis’: the Spirit as donum and communio exists by being given from both the Father and the Son. Third, he argued that the term principium had to be attributed to the Son to express this relationship between the Spirit and the other two persons. For Augustine, there was no other term or concept for expressing the relationship among the three hypostases than principium.50 Consequently, he stated that the Spirit, as being communis to the Father and the Son, proceeds from both of them to whom the term principium is applied, and that the Spirit’s procession from both signifies his hypostatic property as being communis to them.51

47 Trin. 1.7, 5.12 (CChr.SL 50, 35, 219); f. et symb. 20; Basil Studer, ‘Oikonomia und Theologia in Augustins De Trinitate’, in Johannes Brachtendorf (ed.), Gott und sein Bild: Augustins De Trinitate im Spiegel gegenwärtiger Forschung (Paderborn, 2000), 39-52, 41. L. Ayres has emphasized this property of being communis in particular as ‘a key plank of his [Augustine’s] increasingly subtle mature treatments of the Spirit.’ See L. Ayres, ‘“Spiritus Amborum”: Augustine and pro-Nicene Pneumatology’, AugSt 39 (2008), 207-21; id., ‘Sempiterne Spiritus Donum: Augustine’s Pneumatology and the Metaphysics of Spirit’, in George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (eds), Orthodox Readings of Augustine (Crestwood, 2008), 127-52; id., Augustine and the Trinity (2010), 251, 255. 48 To Augustine’s mind, this question remained unresolved at the time he was writing trin., and would only be fully resolved at the time of the eternal contemplation of the Trinity. See trin. 15.45 (CChr.SL 50A, 523-4); c. Max. 2.14.1 (CChr.SL 87A, 569). 49 Trin. 5.12 (CChr.SL 50, 219-20). 50 Trin. 15.47 (CChr.SL 50A, 529). 51 In regard to the Son’s role for determining the hypostatic property of the Holy Spirit in the procession, Augustine’s view on the Spirit’s procession from the Father and the Son in dispensatio contributed to his view on the procession and on the distinction among the three hypostases in eternity. In other words, the dispensatio of the incarnated Son, including the sending of his Spirit after the resurrection and ascension, was fundamental for Augustine in the formation of his doctrine of the Trinity. In this regard, Olivier du Roy’s criticism that Augustine followed Porphyry’s Neo-Platonism in constructing his Trinitarian thought and failed to give serious consideration to the dispensatio of the incarnation seems to be invalid for trin. See Olivier du Roy, L’intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon saint Augustin: Genèse de sa théologie trinitaire jusqu’en 391 (Paris, 1966), 103. For a similar criticism of du Roy, see Goulven Madec, ‘Notes sur l’intelligence augustinienne de la foi’, RÉAug 17 (1971), 119-42; Nello Cipriani, ‘Rivelazione cristiana e verità in S. Agostino: A proposito di un recente saggio’, Aug 41 (2001), 477-508; id., ‘La rivelazione dell’amore trinitario nell’incarnazione e morte di Cristo’, in Fernando Taccone (ed.), Croce e identità cristiana di Dio nei primi secoli, Appunti di teologia 18 (Rome, 2009), 161-71; id., La teologia di Sant’Agostino (2015), 141-3.

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In spite of his application of the term principium to the Son, Augustine did not consider the Son to be the same principium as the Father and he did not undermine his commitment to monopatrism. The Son is rather principium for the Spirit only as generated from the Father. Augustine emphasizes that the Father himself, who can be called the principium sine principio,52 allows the term to be attributed to the Son.53 When Augustine says that the Spirit proceeds principaliter from the Father and communiter from the Son,54 the term principaliter serves to safeguard his monopatrism55 while the word communiter gives expression to his requirement of the Son’s role for a complete definition of how the Spirit exists as being communis.56 4. Conclusion Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine of Hippo therefore seem to have shared a similar notion of monopatrism and of the Son’s role in the procession of the Holy Spirit: The Father is the only aitia or principium for the other two hypostases in the Trinity, while the role of the Son is required for a more explicit definition of the hypostatic property of the Spirit from the perspective of how the Spirit exists. As such, Augustine seems to succeed in escaping the charge of the two confusions: confusion of the hypostatic and essential properties, and confusion among the proprieties of each divine hypostasis.

52

Trin. 15.47 (CChr.SL 50A, 528). Trin. 15.29 (CChr.SL 50A, 503-4), 15.47 (CChr.SL 50A, 528); see also trin. 4.29 (CChr. SL 50, 199-200). In eternity, the Father does not give his Spirit to the Son, but gives to him that the Spirit proceeds also from him. 54 Trin. 15.47 (CChr.SL 50A, 528-9). 55 Trin. 15.29 (CChr.SL 50A, 503-4). 56 L. Ayres in following Gerald Bonner accurately distinguished the role of the Father from that of the Son in Augustine’s notion of the Spirit’s procession. He underscored the monarchy of the Father in Augustine’s trinitarianism in which the Father as principium gives the Son that the Spirit proceeds also from him. See L. Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (2010), 265; and Gerald Bonner, ‘St Augustine’s Doctrine of the Holy Spirit’, Sobornost 4 (1960), 51-66. However, L. Ayres did not offer a precise and concrete definition of the term communiter in Augustine’s monopatrism in regard to the Son’s specific role in the procession. 53

Patristic Theologies of Holy Orders and the Issue of Homosexual Ordination Today Jason R. RADCLIFF, The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, NY, USA

ABSTRACT The article explores patristic theologies of Holy Orders and how they might speak into the issue of the ordination of homosexuals today. The article focuses upon the incarnational and sacramental theology of the Fathers as a uniquely Christological approach to ordination. The article does not seek to provide an answer to the question ‘what should Christianity believe about homosexuality?’ but rather offers a critique of the traditional Liberal vs. Biblicist dichotomy of approaching the issue from either the standpoint of culture or the Bible and theologically explores a via media in the form of the incarnational, sacramental, and Christological approach of the Church Fathers. The article ultimately seeks to ask: how might we remove this important debate from such a false dichotomy and place it in the realm of incarnational theology, answering not from the basis of a cultural or Biblicist framework but from the basis of God’s economy and self-revelation in Jesus Christ as understood by the patristic tradition? Highlighting recent discussions such as that at the Theological Forum at the Church of Scotland General Assembly, this article primarily aims to offer a reconstruction of the Church Fathers and their theology of ordination around the Person of Jesus Christ in light of the questions raised by homosexual debate in the church today.

1. Intro: The Scope of the Issue Today and Why the Fathers Are Relevant To It The issue of the ordination of homosexuals is incredibly divisive in mainline churches today. The exodus led by conservative Christians out of these denominations echoes the issue of the ordination of women at the end of the last century. Conservative Christians cry that the mainline churches disregard the words of the Bible and progressive Christians cry that conservatives are literalists in their reading of Scripture. However, these two poles are unnecessarily extreme and, in reality, everyone stands rather somewhere on the spectrum of what has been labeled ‘Traditionalists’ and ‘Revisionists’ by the 2017 Church of Scotland Theological Forum from the General Assembly, an insightful report on the issue.1 The report consolidated the issue into three types of arguments: 1

‘Report of the Theological Forum’, 22/2.

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human rights, analogical arguments, and fully theological arguments. 2 The Theological Forum argued forcefully in their report that the human rights argument is not a thoughtful one for the church at least in this debate.3 However, they argued, the analogical and, even more so, fully theological arguments (as they called them) are much more convincing. The analogical argument, namely that the Christian understanding of marriage can be extended from what we see in nature and society (rather than the other way around) they argue is slightly more convincing,4 but not as much as the fully theological, or perhaps bettertermed, incarnational argument. The Theological Forum argued that for the so-called ‘fully theological’ argument, just as the church has learned that a person does not have to be a male to represent Jesus at the Eucharist, neither should differences in sexual orientation matter because, they argue, the incarnation of Christ has done away with the Genesis prerogative to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ and thus eradicated the need for heterosexuality in marriage.5 In light of all of this, the present article explores patristic theologies of Holy Orders and how they might speak into the issue of the ordination of homosexuals today. Aiming to build upon the good work of the Forum, the article focuses upon the incarnational and sacramental theology of the Fathers as a uniquely Christological approach to ordination. Not seeking to answer the question ‘what should Christianity believe about homosexuality?’, the article rather offers a critique of the traditional Liberal vs. Biblicist dichotomy of culture vs. Bible and theologically explores a via media in the form of the incarnational, sacramental, and Christological approach of the Church Fathers. The article ultimately seeks to ask: how might we remove this important debate from such a false dichotomy and place it instead in the realm of incarnational theology, answering not from the basis of a cultural or Biblicist framework but from the basis of God’s economy and self-revelation in Jesus Christ as understood by the patristic tradition? The challenge with an article such as this is that, largely, the Fathers’ understanding of ordination is embedded in their writings on Christology and virtue; however, St Cyril of Alexandria’s text, ‘On Adoration in Spirit and Truth’ is, perhaps, the most robust patristic text on ordination. Focusing, therefore, upon St Cyril’s text, as well as drawing upon a handful of other important selections from St John Chrysostom, St Maximus the Confessor, and Nicholas Cabasilas, therefore, this article primarily aims to reconstruct the Church Fathers and their theology of ordination around the incarnate Person of Jesus Christ in light of the questions raised by homosexual debate in the church today, arguing that, theologically, there is every reason why a homosexual can be a priest because Christ is our Great High Priest in whose priesthood they 2 3 4 5

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

22/4. 22/4-5. 22/5-8. 22/8-11.

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sacramentally share; however, the issue of whether their iconographical representation of Christ is a clear one is where the Fathers might offer their critique; and not just of homosexuals in the priesthood but a critique of today’s hypsersexualized culture more generally. To conclude, the article draws upon further incarnational and patristic arguments from Karl Barth and Gregory of Nyssa, concluding that a theology of Holy Orders informed by the Fathers must be rooted in the theological point that the incarnation of the Son of God offers a judgement upon all human sexuality and indeed anything that obscures the priest from being a clear mirror to Christ the Great High Priest. 2. Christ Is Our True Great High Priest: The Sacramental Aspect of the Archetype of the Icon Arguably, the heart of any patristic theology of Holy Orders is St John Chrysostom’s understanding of Christ the Great High Priest enabling the priesthood of all believers, to use Reformational terminology. Chrysostom says that Christ is an anchor hauling humanity up to heaven with him.6 What Chrysostom means here is that, where Christ is, there the rest of humanity is going because of the incarnation. However, according to Chrysostom humanity is not only going there in the future, they are, in fact, already there in Christ. As he puts it, ‘while we are still in the world, and not yet departed from this life, we are already among the promises. For through hope we are already in heaven’7 and, every believer is ‘himself the priest’8 because there is ‘no great interval between forerunner and those who follow’.9 Therefore, by the very nature of being human and being in Jesus Christ, humanity is in heaven (in Christ) in and with the Great High Priest, sharing in Christ’s priesthood in this general manner. 3. Priests of the Church as Sharing in Christ’s Priesthood: The Moral/Ethical Aspect of being an Icon Whereas Chrysostom offers the grounding of any general patristic theology of the priesthood, St Cyril’s ‘On Adoration in Spirit and in Truth’ is arguably a more deeply theological account of the relationship between Christ as the Great High Priest and those in Holy Orders who share specially in this High Priesthood in what may be called an ‘iconographic’ way. Whereas with Chrysostom it is important to start with the general sharing in Christ’s priesthood by 6 7 8 9

John Chrysostom, Homilies on Hebrews, 11.3; 11.4. Ibid. 11.3. Ibid. 11.5. The Greek here could also be translated simply ‘priest’. See PG 63, 92. Ibid. 11.4.

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all Christians, Cyril takes the patristic theology of Holy Orders as a special, sacramental sharing in Christ’s priesthood to the forefront. Complementing Cyril’s approach are Maximus the Confessor and Nicholas Cabasilas, both of whom carry this tradition forward. For Cyril, as with Chrysostom, the heart of the Christian priesthood is Christ the Great High Priest. In his words, ‘the priesthood, which was in type and according to the Law, points to the true Priesthood, which is in Christ and through Christ… ’10 Cyril spends the bulk of his early discussion of the priesthood examining the various Old Testament descriptions of the priesthood and High Priesthood, examining how they are fulfilled in Christ and symbolized by the Christian Priesthood.11 However, for Cyril there are particular ways in which Christian priests do not properly or accurately symbolize the priesthood that is in Christ. Primarily, a priest must, as an icon of Christ the Great High Priest, accurately mirror the archetype to which it refers. In other words, in the phraseology of Thomas Torrance defending the ordination of women using St Augustine, ‘if the notion of image is retained, it must be a diaphanous image through which the reality to which the image is directed can show itself unhindered and unobscured’,12 because the priest acts iconographically as an image of Christ the High Priest, the archetype of that icon. According to Cyril (and as shall be seen, Maximus the Confessor and Nicholas Cabasilas), if the image is obscured, then the archetype does not shine through. St Maximus the Confessor provides further basic framing of the concept in his understanding of the Church and its various people and functions as an icon of God. Maximus’ theology in this regard is most poignant in his Ecclesiastical Mystagogy. Here Maximus says: ‘The holy Church bears the representation and image of God’, ‘the holy Church of God works the same things and in the same way as God does around us, as an image relates to its archetype’, and ‘the holy Church is the image of God … because she works the same oneness around the faithful as God does’.13 Elsewhere Maximus argues that Melchizedek images to Christ and Christian priests image to Christ, both iconographically, as if Christ is the microcosm of both priesthoods and fulcrum of their typological and sacramental effectivity, respectively.14 Similarly, Nicholas Cabasilas in The Life in Christ emphasizes on the one hand that Christ is the mediator between God and man as Great High Priest15 but that it is important for image of Christ 10

Cyril of Alexandria, De adoratione 1, PG 68, 725B. See Cyril, De adoratione 11, PG 68, 725ff. See also Gerritt Scott Dawson, Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ’s Continuing Incarnation (London, 2004) for further discussion of this approach. See especially pp. 122-5. 12 Thomas F. Torrance, Gospel, Church, Ministry (Eugene, 2012), 214. 13 Maximus the Confessor, Ecclesiastical Mystagogy 1. 14 Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum 10.20b. 15 See Thomas F. Torrance, ‘The Mind of Christ in Worship: The Problem of Apollinarianism in the Liturgy’, in Theology in Reconciliation: Essays towards Evangelical and Catholic Unity 11

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namely the priest or celebrant to mirror the archetype in an accurate fashion. To articulate this, Cabasilas uses the image of a painter and a sculptor and suggests that the Christian priest is akin to the model. He says: ‘It is the practice of painters to depict according to an exemplar, in that they produce their art from preliminary sketches, even when they use their memory for such things and look to the soul for a model … were it possible to see the artifer’s soul with the eye, one would see the (original) house or statue or other work, apart from the material’.16 To this, Cabasilas adds in The Divine Liturgy (a book in which he explains how every aspect of the liturgy images to realities in Christ) that the offering of the church is always accepted by God because of the mediation of Christ but that this is contingent upon a faithful and virtuous priest as a mirror to this reality; if the priest-icon does not accurately reflect the archetype, says Cabasilas, the image is obscured.17 So, how might the image be obscured? St Cyril provides a helpful answer in ‘On Adoration’, and it is here that we come to the heart of the issue. In his discussion of the connection between the Levitical priesthood and the Christian priesthood, Cyril says that on the one hand the Old Testament priesthood is completely fulfilled in Christ. For example, in his discussion of the self-purification of the Levitical priests, Cyril says that Christ is the purification, cleansing, and giver of sanctification, thus fulfilling the Levitical imperative with a Christological indicative.18 However, Cyril goes on to interpret the various details of the Old Testament regulations, interpreting them both allegorically and Christologically. For example, the Levitical shaving of their heads denotes mortification19 the washing of their clothes denotes cleanliness in ways of life, etc.20 In Book 12 of ‘On Adoration’ Cyril goes on to examine the physical stipulations surrounding the Levitical priesthood, namely the physical blemishes that would prohibit a Levite from serving. Cyril states at the outset, that after the healing of the incarnation, God would not accuse anyone for physical blemishes like he did in the Old Testament and therefore surmises that the Levitical precepts of this type must instead be allegories for spiritual truths regarding impediments to the Christian priesthood, and he argues, in the words of George Dragas, ‘bodily concerns are used as types that lead people’s minds to more refined thoughts, thoughts that pertain to the soul’.21 Examining each in East and West (London, 1975), 139-214 for a discussion of Cabasilas on this point as well as more generally Jungmann’s The Place of Christ in Liturgical Prayer for this more generally in the eastern tradition. 16 See Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ (Yonkers, 1997), 151-2. 17 See Nicholas Cabasilas, The Divine Liturgy (Yonkers, 1997), 102ff. 18 Cyril of Alexandria, De adoratione 11, PG 68, 776B, 776D. 19 Ibid. 777BC. 20 Ibid. 777D. 21 See G. Dragas, St. Cyril of Alexandria’s Teaching on the Priesthood (Rollinsford, 2003), 28 citing Cyril, De adoratione 12, PG 68, 784B.

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physical requirement and prohibition in turn, Cyril examines which virtues and vices they correspond to respectively.22 For example, blindness refers to mindlessness,23 lameness refers to lack of virtue,24 mutilated noses and ears refers to inability to use sense correctly,25 a person with a broken leg is one who cannot walk blamelessly,26 a hunchback refers to uselessness,27 an eye blemish denotes theological heresy,28 an itching disease refers to uncontrollable bodily passions,29 and crushed testacles refers to sexual problems, specifically homosexuality.30 These issues, argues St Cyril, impede a priest as icon from accurately or diaphanously imaging to the archetype of Christ the Great High Priest. Does it undo the ontology of the sacrament of their ordination? No, says St Cyril, but it does mean it is ineffective at iconographically pointing to the archetype of Christ the Great High Priest. 4. Conclusions: No Answers, just a re-aligning of the debate/conversation! By way of conclusion, this essay will offer some comments on the ways in which the Fathers’ incarnational theology of ordination might be relevant to the issue of homosexual ordination today. The conclusion – and the article more generally – in no way seeks to offer anything close to a definitive answer to the homosexual issue nor does it aim to assess the sinfulness or lack of sinfulness of homosexuality. Rather, the essay’s aim is simply to inject the theology of the Fathers into the conversation by way of a recentering or relocating of the argument. The main point the Fathers bring to this conversation is, therefore, that the issue is not one of social rights (as the liberals say) or morality (as the conservatives say) but an issue of the theology of ordination. The Theological Commission of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (where this article began) commendably addressed the issue in these terms, however it is this article’s contention that the Fathers would say that the Theological Commission did not take the theological argument far enough in their rooting the issue in the incarnation of Christ. Ultimately, the Fathers’ incarnational theology offers two points of critique concerning how the issue has been approached thus far in the debate: namely, a (1) critique of human sexuality and (2) a critique of emphasizing anything but Christ. 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

784Cff. 785C. 788A. 788BCD. 788D-789A. 789BC. 789D-792A. 792BC. 793A.

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First, the incarnational theology of the Fathers on ordination critiques the more generally hypersexualized culture that exists in the world today. As Karl Barth points out, the Virgin Birth of Jesus by grace alone, without any sort of sexual union at all, contains in it a judgement upon humankind and a judgement upon sexuality.31 Here Barth – with the Fathers – does not suggest that sexuality itself is bad but simply that the way in which it developed is sinful. Similarly, Gregory of Nyssa, thinking in light of the incarnation, says that: now the resurrection promises us nothing else than the restoration of the fallen to their ancient state; for the grace we look for is a certain return to the first life, bringing back again to Paradise him who was cast out from it. If then the life of those restored is closely related to that of the angels, it is clear that the life before the transgression was a kind of angelic life, and hence also our return to the ancient condition of our life is compared to the angels. Yet while, as has been said, there is no marriage among them, the armies of the angels are in countless myriads … so, in the same way, if there had not come upon us as the result of sin a change for the worse, and removal from equality with the angels, neither should we have needed marriage that we might multiply…32

Thus, for Gregory, marriage and sexuality – while blessed by God and therefore indeed good – were not a part of the original creation and will not be a part of humanity’s restored state in paradise. The incarnation of Christ by a Virgin and the celibate life of Christ himself all reconstruct and reconcile humankind’s sexuality and ultimately state definitively that sexuality is not an inherent part of being human; in fact, Gregory is really saying that celibacy is the more human state of existence. Thus, for the Fathers, thinking post-incarnation and indeed Christologically, to ask homosexuals to deny themselves marriage is not asking them to be less than human but an opportunity to be more human! Second, building off the concept of diaphanously imaging to Christ found in the Fathers, Maximus argues that the heart of the Christian priest’s iconographical imaging to Christ is their ‘spiritual crucifixion with Christ’, or in other words, the ascetic life.33 Therefore, the Fathers would say that to emphasize anything other than the Cross of Christ as a priest whether from the pulpit or otherwise is to avoid this essential heart of the Christian priesthood as an icon to Christ’s priesthood. Put otherwise (to use the Thomistic concept): ‘being precedes acting’ or ‘doing follows being’34 which is to say, being a priest is the heart of priesthood not acting. Therefore, the Fathers would ultimately ask homosexual priests today: what are you? Are you a priest who is homosexual or a homosexual who is a priest? If the latter, the Fathers would say the icon needs repainting, but if the former, they would rejoice that the archetype of 31 32 33 34

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.2 (London, 2010). Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 2. Maximus the Confessor, Aimbiguum 47. The Latin is: agere sequiter esse.

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Christ the Great High Priest lies at the heart of such a priest’s being, whether or not such a priest is indeed doing or acting in according with their being. It is ultimately perhaps best to end with the hopeful word of St Maximus who says that ‘all present goods are in comparison to the ones to come only mirror images of their logoi. They are therefore only icons of their true Archetype, still not having their own image fully realized…’35 All of this means that priests – homosexual or heterosexual – mirror their logoi which mirror Christ; but those logoi are only a reality eschatalogically36 and thus the priest as icon imaging to Christ is only possible through Christ and by the Spirit and is only true in the Kingdom Come. So, whether or not a priest (who is a priest in Christ) is acting according to their being, eschatologically speaking, through Christ, their priesthood’s logoi mirrors Christ perfectly by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the end, this article suggests a changing of the terms of the discussion to patristically incarnational. In may be that figures such as Hugh St. Victor and, closer to contemporary times, Karl Barth and Charles Gore who changed the terms of the debate over theological issues in their own day to incarnational – using the Church Fathers – and in so doing set in motion new theological streams inspired by the Fathers ready to address the issues of their own times; and it may be that figures such as Barth and Gore can set the possible terms for the debate in the church today, not least in the Anglican context.37 Ultimately, this article might end with a statement about what all of this means. In short, as Thomas Torrance says in his essay on the ordination of women, ordination has been (reasonably) limited to men for canonical and, even more so, ecclesiastical reasons which can be traced to cultural contexts,38 to say there is a theological reason to limit ordination by reason of gender is theologically problematic as Christ is the true Great High Priest, a priesthood in which those ordained share sacramentally. The Fathers might extend this same point to the issue of homosexual ordination: theologically, limiting ordination based on sexuality is problematic; canonically/culturally, limiting ordination based on sexuality is reasonable.

35

Maximus the Confessor, Questiones ad Thalassium 46, PG 90, 420B. See further Aleksander Djakovak, ‘Iconical Ontology of St. Maximus the Confessor’, in Dumitru A. Vanca, Mark J. Cherry and Alin Albu (eds), Ars Liturgica: From the Image of Glory to the Images of the Idols of Modernity (Alba Iulia, 2017), 57-68. 37 See further my Grace and Incarnation: The Oxford Movement’s Shaping of Modern Anglicanism (co-authored with Bruce Griffith) (Eugene, 2020). 38 T.F. Torrance, Gospel, Church, Ministry (2012), 205. 36

¿Vino nuevo en odres viejos? Sexualidad y matrimonio en la literatura patrística de Hermas a Clemente de Alejandría Miguel Ángel Ramírez BATALLA, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, México

ABSTRACT The objective of this article is to show the roots of certain notions about sexuality and marriage in some Church Fathers from Hermas to Clement of Alexandria. A central idea of the work is that the Christian authors adopted classic ideas on these subjects as a way of adapting to their environment and responding to the criticism that was made of them for not adapting to imperial society. However, the Fathers stressed that Christian paradigms had a divine origin and had a higher concept of the human being, so they were superior to the ideas of ancient intellectuals in this regard. In addition, simultaneously, the appropriation of certain Greco-Roman values served to distance themselves from the negative views on these topics that other thinkers and groups had, to whom they blamed the excesses and depravities of which all Christians were accused as nothing but popular rumors. Thus the Fathers’ vision of sexuality and marriage, exposed as original and new, combined Biblical and classical elements, and was designed as a means of distinguishing itself from Greco-Roman society and from other Christians.

El autor de la Carta a Diogneto escribía que los cristianos no se distinguían de los demás hombres por signos externos, puesto que adoptaban los usos locales y regionales, sino por su conducta ejemplar que superaba toda convención social.1 Dos temas que los cristianos mostraron como parte de su comportamiento óptimo fueron la sexualidad y el matrimonio. El objetivo de este trabajo es señalar algunas formas en que los cristianos – del tiempo que va de Hermas a Clemente de Alejandría – expusieron sus visiones sobre esos dos aspectos como superiores a las vigentes en la sociedad clásica de su tiempo. Los cristianos dijeron que la razón de esa superioridad era el origen divino de sus conceptos sobre la sexualidad y el matrimonio. Sin embargo, se expondrá que muchas opiniones cristianas sobre esos dos campos, especialmente de los Padres de la Iglesia, habían sido influidas por las reflexiones de los filósofos y moralistas de su época, por lo que coincidían en varios puntos. Empero, algunos cristianos marginaban tales influjos para realzar la naturaleza divina de su 1

Ad Diog. 5.7.

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 419-429. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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moral y oponerla al pretendido carácter decadente de la sociedad romana imperial y a las conductas inmorales – según los parámetros de ese periodo – que adjudicaban a otros cristianos con la finalidad de ostentarse como los legítimos seguidores de Cristo y negarles este estatus a los demás. En ambos casos el interés cristiano fue demostrar que la moralidad característica de sus grupos era original y mejor que cualquiera otra conocida hasta entonces. El punto de arranque de las meditaciones cristianas acerca de la sexualidad y el matrimonio fueron las ideas de Pablo. Al centrarse en el consejo paulino – mas no orden – de que era mejor casarse que abrasarse en la pasión, las nupcias fueron concebidas por algunos principalmente como una defensa contra el deseo, lo que se alejaba de las posturas positivas del medio romano y judío que buscaban socializar el instinto sexual y animar las muestras cariñosas entre cónyuges.2 La continencia resultante, encomiada desde tal perspectiva, era marginal en el medio romano y en el judío, puesto que ambos aplaudían la inserción del hombre en su ambiente y parte de ello era el matrimonio y la procreación. En cambio, para ciertos cristianos, la sexualidad mostraba un impulso corporal que revelaba la lucha entre espíritu y carne como eco de la resistencia humana a la voluntad divina. El cuerpo estaba a la sombra de la carne, fuerza enfrentada al espíritu, y propensa al pecado. Para algunos, en tanto que carne “las debilidades y las tentaciones del cuerpo son el eco de un estado de desamparo e incluso de rebelión contra Dios, mucho más importante que el cuerpo en sí”.3 Esto explica que, si bien varios autores no marcaron la castidad como requisito forzoso para tener una buena vida cristiana, sí la definieron como un modelo superior que proveía mejores galardones frente a las nupcias. Éstas se volvían la opción inferior y necesaria para los incapaces de refrenar el deseo sexual y buscar una vida más pura, para quienes no ponían como prioridad el reino divino, cuya inminente llegada se esperaba con Cristo a la cabeza. Aunque no era algo negativo, sí había un desdén al estado marital.4 La virginidad 2 Peter Brown, El cuerpo y la sociedad. Los hombres, las mujeres y la renuncia sexual en el cristianismo primitivo, tr. Antonio Juan Desmonts (Barcelona, 1993), 87-8. Christoph Markschies, Estructuras del cristianismo antiguo. Un viaje entre dos mundos, tr. José Antonio Padilla Viñate (Madrid, 2001), 142-3. Eliezer Diamond, ‘And Jacob Remained Alone: The Jewish Struggle With Celibacy’, en Carl Olson (ed.), Celibacy and Religious Traditions (New York, 2008), 41-64, 50. Kyle Harper, From Shame to Sin. The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, London, 2016), 92. 3 P. Brown, El cuerpo y la sociedad (1993), 79. Para la ruptura de esta postura con el mundo grecorromano, véase K. Harper, From Shame to Sin (2016), 85. 4 Aline Rouselle, Porneia. Del dominio del cuerpo a la privación sensorial del siglo II al IV de la era cristiana, tr. Jorge Vigil (Barcelona, 1989), 219-20. Jean-Noel Robert, Eros romano. Sexo y moral en la antigua Roma, tr. Eduardo Bajo Álvarez (Madrid, 1999), 282-4. Helen Rhee, Early Christian Literature. Christ and Culture in the Second and Third Centuries (New York, 2005), 115-6. P. Brown, El cuerpo y la sociedad (1993), 88. El autodominio sexual mostraba una capacidad espiritual superior de quien preservaba su virginidad. Glenn Holland, ‘Celibacy in the Early Christian Church’, en Carl Olson (ed.), Celibacy and Religious Traditions (New York, 2008), 65-83, 72.

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significaba la ruptura de la idea clásica sobre la familia y el matrimonio, fundamentales para la preservación del Estado, lo que causaba fisuras entre cristianos y sus parientes que no lo eran. A pesar de que la adopción de la continencia no fue masiva en el cristianismo, fue mayor que en otros círculos religiosos y lo bastante visible como para ser objeto de debate en las ciudades romanas, sobre todo cuando los notables locales dejaban de lado sus responsabilidades comunitarias para tomar el celibato, moralmente mejor que las nupcias según la óptica cristiana.5 Como en otros tópicos, la reacción cristiana ante los patrones sociales y morales clásicos no fue uniforme. Ello obedeció a las diversas interpretaciones de las escrituras que eran consideradas sagradas y divinamente inspiradas, la imagen que los cristianos tenían de sí mismos y su medio, y su visión del cosmos. Estos factores condicionaron sus posturas frente a las prácticas comunitarias que daban sentido y cohesión a las ciudades romanas, lo que provocaba diversos desafíos e inquietudes a los dirigentes cristianos. El matrimonio y la procreación fueron temas álgidos. Ciertos pensadores sostenían concepciones negativas sobre el creador del mundo, la materia y el cuerpo, por lo que todo lo ligado a ellos era malo, incompleto e imperfecto por naturaleza, un mero remedo de la auténtica realidad, el Pleroma. La sexualidad formaba parte del mundo material y defectiva del Demiurgo, condenada a la destrucción. Las uniones sexuales perpetuaban la estructura hílica e inconclusa del cosmos, definida por el sufrimiento, la muerte, la procreación y el placer.6 Su origen no era la divinidad trascendente, ya que, según una versión, la serpiente no enseñó a Adán a comer del árbol del conocimiento, sino el acto sexual, repelido como “el vicio de la generación y la apetencia de la corrupción”; atribuía la violación de Eva por un arconte, lo que ocasionó que ella sintiera deseo sexual y mediante “la copulación suscitó la generación de los cuerpos y los gobernó por medio de su espíritu contrahecho”.7 En los dos pasajes la sexualidad era denostada como una acción surgida de las potencias inferiores que sometían a los hombres mediante ella, como débil e imperfecto reflejo de los pares del Pleroma. El coito imitaba el orden cósmico nacido de la soberbia y el error del Demiurgo, trampa que apelaba a lo irracional y lo animal de los humanos. Era calificado como “un frotamiento impuro, o sea, desde el fuego terrible que proviene de lo carnal en ellos”.8 El deseo sexual era visto en algunos círculos como evidencia del alejamiento del verdadero conocimiento y de la caída en la muerte iniciada por el creador del mundo: 5 Averil Cameron, El mundo mediterráneo en la Antigüedad tardía (395-600), tr. Teófilo de Lozoya (Barcelona, 1998), 91-2. Debido a esos conflictos con las convenciones clásicas, Celso y Porfirio criticaron el entusiasmo cristiano de algunos por la virginidad. 6 Evangelio de la Verdad 17. Evangelio de María 8.1-10. Testimonio de la Verdad 30.1-20; 38-39.1-10. Para ahondar en el tema: Bart D. Ehrman, Cristianismos perdidos. Los credos proscritos del Nuevo Testamento, tr. Luis Noriega (Barcelona, 2009), 184-9. 7 Apócrifo de Juan 22.10, 24.30. Véase 30.10. 8 Sabiduría de Jesucristo 108.10-1.

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“Yo [Adán] experimenté un dulce deseo de tu madre, y entonces la fuerza de nuestro conocimiento eterno se desvaneció dentro de nosotros, y la debilidad nos invadió. Por eso se abreviaron los días de nuestra vida y supe que había caído bajo el poder de la muerte”.9 Como fin inexorable del ser humano, la muerte seguiría en este mundo pálido y reflejo deforme del Pleroma mientras que el coito y la procreación continuaran. Una forma de acabar con ese ciclo negativo era llevar una vida continente como Cristo, cuya llegada marcaba el fin de la vida sometida a la materia. Según esta visión, Jesús dijo a Salomé que “habrá muerte tanto tiempo cuanto sea, el que las mujeres engendren”.10 Esas expresiones condenaban la reproducción y exhortaban a reprimir la sexualidad para alcanzar un estado similar a los ángeles. Piñero aclara las implicaciones de la muerte en el medio gnóstico cristiano: “es sobre todo símbolo del dominio de lo carnal, de la materia, de la obra del pecado y la concupiscencia, que conduce a la ignorancia de la verdadera sabiduría”.11 Debido a su origen imperfecto, se debía abandonar todo hábito sexual para mostrar el cariz espiritual cristiano y romper el ciclo de muerte y corrupción. Las nupcias eran parte del dolor y la confusión derivados del mundo material: “La mujer siguió a la tierra; entonces el matrimonio ha seguido a la mujer y la generación ha seguido al matrimonio; la disolución siguió a la generación”. Se decía que, cuando tuvo a su hija, Pedro vio que Cristo le advertía que había nacido una gran tentación a los hombres y un enorme daño para muchas almas si su cuerpo estaba sano. A los diez años, alguien llamado Ptolomeo ordenó que se la llevaran para casarse con ella, pero quedó paralítica. El apóstol agradeció que fuera librada de esa “mancha” y “vergüenza”, y el Señor se apareció a Ptolomeo para decir que, refiriéndose a la doncella, “los vasos de Dios no han sido dados para la ruina y corrupción”.12 Frente a los que aceptaban las nupcias como medio de frenar los instintos sexuales, opción secundaria o a regañadientes, con distintos tonos Saturnilo, Marción, Basílides, Taciano y otros 9

Apocalipsis de Adán 67.1-12. Exc. Teod. 67.2. 11 Antonio Piñero, Los cristianismos derrotados (Madrid, 2007), 128. Para tal tema en los textos gnósticos, véase Tomás el Atleta 141-2; Tratado Tripartito 118-9; Interpretación del Conocimiento 14.25. 12 Hija de Pedro. 135.1-10; 137.1-10. Peter Brown defiende que la sexualidad fue un tema secundario para cristianos como Valentín al insistir en la superación de lo masculino y lo femenino en los espirituales, y en el uso de imágenes conyugales para exhibir sus ideas. P. Brown, El cuerpo y la sociedad (1993), 160-6. Su cosmogonía alineaba los eones en parejas y practicaban el rito de la apolutrosis, unión que conectaba a la persona con la divinidad. Iren., Adv. Haer. I.21.3. Elaine Pagels, Más allá de la fe. El evangelio secreto de Tomás, tr. Mercedes García Garmilla (Barcelona, 2004), 161-2. Empero, Brown no aprecia que el empleo neutro – a veces positivo – de las nupcias por Valentín y sus alumnos era analógico y metafórico, no un aprecio a la institución conyugal. Tratado del Gran Set 57.15-20; 66-7; Evangelio de Felipe 65.20. Un tratado gnóstico censuraba a los simonianos por tomar esposas y tener hijos. Testimonio de la Verdad 58.1-10. 10

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las creían fundación diabólica o del dios inferior para la continuidad del mundo material y la caída del hombre; por lo tanto concluían que “la unión de una mujer y un hombre es algo muy malo y contrario a la doctrina”.13 Para los cristianos encratitas Adán y Eva poseían el espíritu divino que los apartaba de los animales. Al alejarse del espíritu, se condenaron a morir y ligarse entre ellos de forma no planeada por Dios y que lo excluía continuamente. Se atribuyó la pérdida del espíritu al acto sexual, lo que degradó a Adán y Eva a la animalidad al compartir con las bestias el consumo de carne y la sexualidad. El matrimonio no era natural, sino secuela de la caída humana a la condición similar a la animal, lo que se reforzaba cada que uno se casaba y reproducía. Ante quienes incluían las nupcias en el plan de Dios, otros decían que el matrimonio y el sexo “bajo cualquier forma, lícita o ilícita, hace presente la separación actual en que se halla la humanidad con respecto al Espíritu de Dios”.14 Por su parte, aunque no constituían un bloque homogéneo, los Padres de la Iglesia tenían la castidad, el autocontrol y la fidelidad conyugal en alta estima. Hermas confesaba haber deseado a su ama por su hermosura y poco tiempo después fue acusado por ella, en una visión, de pecar por esas malas inclinaciones. Asimilaba la virginidad a la inocencia y pureza de los niños, mientras que la crítica al deseo de una mujer que no fuera la esposa, basada en un dicho de Jesús, le hizo tachar de pecado pensar sexualmente en una mujer: “Te mando que guardes la castidad y no suba a tu corazón deseo alguno de mujer ajena ni de fornicación alguna ni de otras semejantes maldades. Porque si eso hicieres, cometerás un gran pecado; mas si en todo momento te acordares de tu mujer, jamás pecarás”.15 Afecto a la cultura clásica, Justino enfatizó que los cristianos eran un dechado de virtudes por su elevada vida sexual y moral al rechazar la pederastia y la prostitución, toleradas en el orbe clásico. Decía que sus correligionarios se casaban con el único objetivo de tener hijos, no exponían a sus vástagos y, en caso de no casarse, eran castos toda la vida.16 Atenágoras hacía gala del ejercicio rígido de la sexualidad, la adhesión a la entidad marital y el fomento de la castidad como rasgos ejemplares de su religión. El desprecio del placer y su elevado código moral eran claros “teniendo cada uno 13 Hipp., Ref. V.7.14. VII.28.7; 30.3; VIII.16; 20.1-2. Iren., Adv. Haer. I.24.2; 28.1. Clem., Strom. III.1.1-13. Euseb., HE. IV.29. Para este tema, véase H. Rhee, Early Christian Literature (2005), 128-31; A. Piñero, Los cristianismos derrotados (2007), 129-31. 14 P. Brown, El cuerpo y la sociedad (1993), 141. 15 Herm., Mand. IV.1.1. Cf. Vis. I1.2-8. Aten., Leg. 32. El dicho de Jesús se encuentra en Mat. 5:28. Hermas aceptaba que los viudos volvieran a casarse aunque declaraba que era mejor permanecer solo. Mand. IV.2.2. En cambio, consideraba pecado casarse de nuevo si se repudiaba al cónyuge infiel. Mand. IV.1.8-10. Hizo tal aseveración en contra de otro dicho atribuido a Jesús en que señalaba que el único motivo válido para un divorcio era la infidelidad del otro cónyuge. Mat. 5:32. Para el contexto de Hermas, véase P. Brown, El cuerpo y la sociedad (1993), 106-9. 16 Just., Apol. I.27.1-4; 29.1. Véase Teoph., Ad Aut. I.2.

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de nosotros por mujer la que tomó conforme a las leyes que por nosotros han sido establecidas y ésta con miras a la procreación de los hijos. Porque al modo del labrador, echada la semilla en la tierra, espera a la siega y no sigue sembrando, así, para nosotros, la medida del deseo es la procreación de los hijos. Y hasta es fácil hallar muchos entre nosotros, hombres y mujeres, que han llegado célibes a la vejez, con la esperanza de más íntimo trato con Dios”.17 Al igual que Hermas, creía ilícito desear a quien no fuera la esposa. Rebasaba la convención social al marcar un solo matrimonio y la virginidad como las únicas opciones legítimas porque las segundas nupcias, incluso provocadas por la muerte del cónyuge, eran adulterio disimulado según su glosa de citas bíblicas. Además, reprobaba la homosexualidad, la exposición de infantes y el aborto, éste porque era homicidio.18 Tertuliano reprobaba el aborto y decía: “un cristiano tampoco cambia de mujer para satisfacer el sexo […] el cristiano nace varón sólo para su esposa […] conservando los ojos, no ve a las mujeres; su ánimo está ciego a la pasión”, e inquiría “¿Qué asesino, qué ratero, qué sacrílego, o seductor o saqueador de bañistas está allí registrado que sea también cristiano?”19 Clemente de Alejandría reiteradamente afirmaba que las relaciones sexuales debían ceñirse al matrimonio y solamente con objetivos reproductivos; además, prohibía el aborto y el abandono de niños. Descalificaba la pederastia y la sexualidad fuera de las nupcias: con esclavos, prostitutas y gente del mismo sexo.20 Su insistencia en estos tópicos se plasma en que el coito no debía ser una vorágine de placer y deseo, sino ejemplo de mesura y control, propio del cristiano que no vive para la propia complacencia. Decía que la dignidad debía exponerse con todos, pero “mucho más debemos mostrarla con nuestra esposa, evitando abrazos indecentes […] porque no es posible ser considerado casto por la esposa, a la que no se da testimonio de castidad en medio de aquellos placeres picantes”.21 Remarcaba que el cristiano debía ser mesurado en el ejercicio sexual matrimonial, por lo que el coito tenía el objetivo esencial de la procreación: “No es justo abandonarse a los placeres amorosos, ni estar ávido por los deseos sensuales […] Sólo le está permitido al hombre casado sembrar, como a un labrador, cuando la semilla pueda ser recibida con oportunidad”.22 Por otro lado, censuraba el arreglo centrado en las joyas y el maquillaje, gusto común en prostitutas y hetairas que usaban su sexo como arma, y alentaba el cultivo de cualidades religiosas y morales. Para ello recomendaba las tareas habituales femeninas como el hilado, el cuidado de la casa y la atención de los 17

Aten., Leg. 33. Aten., Leg. 33-5. La opinión sobre las segundas nupcias sería compartida después por Tertuliano. 19 Tert., Apol. 44.2, 46.10-12. 39.11-13; Anima, 25.4. Véase también Tac., Or. 32-3. 20 Clem., Paed. III.30.2. II.102.1. 21 Clem., Paed. II.97.2-3. Y tomaba el código moral del Decálogo como propio del cristianismo. III.89.1. 22 Clem., Paed. II.83-92. Véase la igualdad de términos con Atenágoras, nota 17. 18

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hijos. Esta idea de lo femenino conllevaba la admisión de su rango inferior y voluble frente al talante masculino superior, pues “se deduce la necesidad de retener a las mujeres en una vida ordenada y de atarlas a un recatado pudor, a fin de que, por su vanidad, no se desvíen de la verdad”.23 La postura de estos intelectuales cristianos ante los temas expuestos revela actitudes ambivalentes frente a su medio. El ejercicio sexual regulado entre dos personas casadas, la reproducción y crianza de hijos como objetivo primordial del matrimonio, la censura de las relaciones extramaritales, y el consejo a las féminas de centrarse en las labores domésticas y sujetarse al varón eran parte del código moral y social de las élites romanas, influido por el ideario estoico.24 Las imágenes cristianas del lazo y la armonía conyugal y la insistencia en la procreación como fin primario de las nupcias, no el placer en las relaciones sexuales, no distaban de las grecorromanas. De este modo, Epicteto tenía opiniones similares sobre la práctica sexual acorde a la dignidad de un hombre: “En lo relativo a los placeres amorosos mantente puro, en la medida de lo posible, antes del matrimonio. Y si te acercas a ello, que sea en la medida de lo legal, pero no te hagas pesado a quienes los practican ni los censures y no andes por todas partes contando que tú no los practicas”.25 Asimismo, el filósofo estoico recordaba que la lealtad con el cónyuge era una piedra fundamental del matrimonio: “El hombre ha nacido para la fidelidad y el que subvierte esto subvierte lo propio del hombre”.26 En el siglo I d.C., Musonio Rufo decía a su selecto grupo de discípulos que era preciso que los hombres honestos y cabales practicaran los placeres amorosos solamente en el matrimonio y cuando tuvieran la procreación como fin, puesto que era lo legítimo, y que censuraran todo acto sexual que pretendiera únicamente el placer, incluso con la esposa.27 23 Clem., Paed. III.58.1. Véase III.5-8; 49.6; 66-7. “La barba, por la que se muestra hombre, es más antigua que Eva y es el símbolo de una naturaleza superior”. III.19.1. La misma convención era compartida en el medio clásico y en el judío. 24 El influjo estoico en paradigmas sociales y sexuales cristianos en Paul Veyne, Sexo y poder en Roma, tr. María José Furió (Barcelona, 2010), 130-6. Paul Veyne, La società romana, tr. Carlo Di Nonno, Economica Laterza 66 (Roma, Bari, 2004), 157-65. H. Rhee, Early Christian Literature (2005), 109-13. G. Holland, ‘Celibacy in the Early Christian Church’ (2008), 68. J.-N. Robert, Eros romano (1999), 243-50. De modo parecido, las opiniones sobre el autodominio, las convenciones sexuales y la formación de una familia para el cumplimiento de los deberes cívicos como el objetivo del matrimonio eran compartidas por el medio judío. Esto ha llevado a sostener que no existe una ética sexual que pueda calificarse de exclusivamente judía en este periodo. Michael L. Satlow, ‘Rabbinic Views on Marriage, Sexuality and Family’, en Steven T. Katz (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism 4. The Late Roman Rabbinic Period (Cambridge, 2006), 612-26, 612-7. 25 Epict., Ench. 33.8. 26 Epict., Disert. II.4.1. 27 Muson., Disert. XIII.64.1-4. Véase XIIIa.67. Por ello, Apuleyo dijo que su esposa estaba en edad fértil al casarse para probar que no habían infringido las leyes de Augusto que prohibían el matrimonio a las mujeres mayores de cincuenta años porque no podían procrear. Apul., Apol. 89. Véase también Ps. Luc., Am. 20; Plut., Mor. 754C.

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Estos consejos no eran dados solamente a los hombres de reconocida estirpe, también las mujeres eran empujadas a casarse y tener hijos, tal era el fin del sexo y del matrimonio. Plutarco opinaba que las relaciones sexuales debían perseguir la reproducción, criticaba las acciones extramaritales y sostenía que no podía tener relaciones con su mujer como esposa y amante a la vez. Por ende, la esposa debía ser una compañera, no amante.28 Aun sin renunciar a razones políticas, los filósofos y pensadores de la edad imperial, defendían que la elección de una esposa no debía hacerse únicamente por motivos políticos ni recaer en el aspecto sexual, puesto que la esposa estaba para tener a los hijos y cuidar la casa, no para la satisfacción y el gozo. Plutarco recordaba que el ardor de los recién casados por los cuerpos hermosos no duraba a menos que se basara en la moral y la razón.29 El control racional se ejercía sobre la sexualidad: gradualmente se consideró intolerable dejarse llevar por el deseo, y ser esclavo de los impulsos y del gusto por las mujeres o los hombres. El deseo sexual no era criticable en sí, pues se consideraba parte de la naturaleza humana y normal el deseo de concretar tal apetito; lo inaceptable era el descontrol que llevaba a perderse en la vorágine irracional. Por ende, en el encuentro sexual debía haber la adecuada dosis de pasión con la tranquilidad y serenidad para generar una descendencia digna. Al igual que el varón, la mujer estaba sometida a una disciplina necesaria para la correcta reproducción.30 Se controlaba su actitud, talante y disposición en el coito, y sugería una dieta y ciertos hábitos para producir hijos legítimos y sanos. Debido a esto, Plutarco censuraba que la mujer tomara la iniciativa sexual, lo cual era de hetairas, o que se negara a tener relaciones sexuales cuando se le acercaba el marido, pues era una conducta arrogante. El queronense recordaba a su interlocutor masculino que el hombre debía tener presente que el lecho también era una escuela de moderación o desenfreno para la esposa, por lo cual debía vigilar su conducta en ese lugar.31 28 Plut., Praec. Conj. 142C. Véase para estos tópicos: Paul Veyne, La vita privata nell’Impero romano, tr. María Garin, Economica Laterza 187 (Roma, Bari, 2006), 41-3. P. Brown, El cuerpo y la sociedad (1993), 42. 29 Plut., Praec. Conj. 138F. 30 P. Brown, El cuerpo y la sociedad (1993), 37-8. A. Rousselle, Porneia (1989), 20-5, 56-8. Visitar los prostíbulos y masturbarse eran prácticas aceptadas si no eran una necesidad irrenunciable. Hor., Sat. I.II.30-5. 31 Plut., Praec. Conj. 140C, 145A. El pudor del marido y la disciplina necesaria para la reproducción de ambos cónyuges en A. Rouselle, Porneia (1989), 20-5. Pierre Grimal, El amor en la antigua Roma, tr. Javier Palacio (Barcelona, 2000), 115-8. La censura de la porneia – vista como toda práctica sexual extramarital – es el zócalo de la sexualidad cristiana desde Pablo, según Kyle Harper, ‘Porneia. The Making of a Christian Sexual Norm’, JBL 131 (2012), 363-83, 379-82. K. Harper, From Shame to Sin (2016), 88-93. Empero, se ha sostenido que Pablo, al igual que los judíos de su tiempo, no incluía el uso sexual de esclavos en porneia. La inclusión de la utilización sexual de los esclavos en la porneia judía y cristiana ocurriría hasta el siglo II, según Jennifer A. Glancy, ‘The Sexual Use of Slaves: A Response to Kyle Harper on Jewish and Christian Porneia’, JBL 134 (2015), 215-29, 226-9.

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A veces la influencia es tal que, a no ser por los pasajes bíblicos intercalados en los tratados y cartas cristianos, y la mención de Dios como hacedor del matrimonio, que tomaba el lugar de Juno o Hera como deidad favorable a las nupcias, no habría diferencia entre los libros cristianos y los clásicos. Esto ha revelado que la rígida sexualidad y la unión marital para la procreación defendidas por los cristianos debe más a los moralistas estoicos y platónicos que a las ideas de Jesús o Pablo.32 La convicción de la pronta vuelta de Cristo a la Tierra con el reino de Dios motivó a unos a preferir la soltería. Por el contrario, la prédica de Pablo y otros buscaban acercarse a los modelos sociales antiguos. Las cartas paulinas y pseudopaulinas defendían el papel de los sexos en el orbe clásico y judío que validaban el dominio varonil sobre los miembros de la casa y las estructuras de poder como atención afectuosa y la subordinación como arreglo solidario. Las ideas de Atenágoras y Clemente sobre la volubilidad femenina y la mesura sexual incluso con la esposa como formas de templarla y educarla eran las mismas de Plutarco. Clemente sugería vigilar a las mujeres para que no cayeran en deseos ni fueran torpes, pues las ricas tendían a someter a sus maridos y las pobres a entregarse a cualquiera. Los dos abogaban por educar a las parejas para limitar su apetito irracional e instruir a los hijos. La sexualidad disciplinada como mezcla de pautas bíblicas y estoicas tuvo su punto más alto con Clemente.33 La coincidencia de términos y nociones en la literatura cristiana con los letrados clásicos no es casual y es posible hablar de adopción – calca a veces – de sus valores, lo que apunta a su consciente deseo de relacionarse con el mundo antiguo al tomar parte de sus convenciones sociales y morales.34 Esto era importante no solamente porque permitía rebatir la denuncia intelectual de la subversión cristiana de los valores antiguos, sino también remarcar la pureza sexual cristiana ante lo que presentaban como la depravada sociedad imperial. Ahora bien, lo que exhibían como típico de su religión era la adaptación del código moral y social de su época, pero usando pasajes bíblicos para brindarle una base divina. 32 Para el código sexual de los dos primeros siglos de la era cristiana, véase H. Rhee, Early Christian Literature (2005), 117-23. P. Brown, El cuerpo y la sociedad (1993), 183-7. C. Markschies, Estructuras del cristianismo antiguo (2001), 139-41. Michel Foucault, Historia de la sexualidad. La voluntad de normar, tr. Ulíses Guiñazú (Madrid, 1987), 38-68. P. Veyne, La vita privata nell’Impero romano (2006), 38-43. Pierre Grimal, El siglo de Augusto, tr. Manuel Pereira (Barcelona, 2011), 116. Además de estas influencias, debe recordarse el influjo judío en estos tópicos según K. Harper, ‘Porneia’ (2012), 371-6. 33 C. Markschies, Estructuras del cristianismo antiguo (2001), 144-5. P. Brown, El cuerpo y la sociedad (1993), 188-90. H. Rhee, Early Christian Literature (2005), 119-20. En cambio, Harper subestima los influjos filosóficos de Clemente al afirmar que su ideario sexual es puramente cristiano y dependiente de Pablo. K. Harper, From Shame to Sin (2016), 104, 107-17. Parece ignorar que las ideas del apóstol contenían nociones sociales clásicas. 34 Deborah F. Sawyer, Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries (London, 1996), 107-14, 151-2. Carolyn Osiek, Margaret Y. MacDonald y Janet H. Tulloch, El lugar de la mujer en la Iglesia primitiva, tr. Pedro J. Tosaus, Biblioteca de Estudios Bíblicos 122 (Salamanca, 2007), 198-204. C. Markschies, Estructuras del cristianismo antiguo (2001), 138-9.

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Tal ideario no solamente se utilizó para contraponer el virtuosismo cristiano frente a la pretendida inmoralidad de la sociedad imperial, sino también contra sus correligionarios que supuestamente realizaban prácticas impúdicas y criticadas en esa época. Por ejemplo, Ireneo acusó a los discípulos de Valentín de sostener que los espirituales se salvaban por su esencia, no por conducta, por lo que los psíquicos – o sea, quienes tenían ideas similares a Ireneo – necesitaban buenas obras para la salvación. Entre otras cosas, tal convicción los hizo quitar mujeres a sus maridos para cohabitar con ellas.35 Señaló su desorden sexual al afirmar que el rito de la cámara nupcial era una careta para poseer a féminas sin empacho alguno, aunque arguyeran que era parte de su experiencia espiritual y signo de su talante pneumático. Ireneo atribuyó la seducción lasciva de mujeres a Marcos, y la provisión de filtros y afrodisiacos para exaltar la unión carnal, llegando al abuso sexual. Ligó el uso de pócimas amorosas con los adeptos de Simón Mago y a los de Menandro con conductas voluptuosas porque, aducían, las obras de la carne eran indiferentes al cristiano. Culpó a los alumnos de Carpócrates y Nicolás de ser lujuriosos porque defendían que el alma debía hacer toda clase de actos en las transmigraciones para liberarse del cuerpo. El ejercicio de la sexualidad era indiferente debido a que no había cosas malas por naturaleza.36 En la misma línea, en su diatriba contra quienes consideraba herejes y en su afán de denostar su nula calidad moral, Tertuliano inculpó a Apeles de incontinente, a su profetisa Filomena de prostituta y a los seguidores de Nicolás de fornicar.37 Estos autores pretendían imputar delitos y prácticas denostados en la sociedad imperial a quienes llamaban herejes con el objetivo de zaherir a estos últimos con los crímenes con que las masas culpaban a todos los cristianos. Ello fue una estrategia retórica para tomar en exclusiva el título de cristianos y negarlo a otros.38 En tales imputaciones estos cristianos acusaban a otros de un proceder sexual indigno partiendo básicamente del mismo código moral que los pensadores y filósofos de su tiempo para descalificar a sus correligionarios con ideas diferentes y presentarse a sí mismos como los únicos que seguían una moralidad apegada al Evangelio y superior a cualquier otra. Paradójicamente realizaban esas acusaciones a otros grupos, mismas que se hacían a todos los cristianos en lo referente a las orgías y restantes actos escandalosos para la moral prevaleciente en la sociedad romana imperial de los siglos II y III. El que 35 Iren., Adv. Haer. I.6.3. Hipólito repetiría textualmente esas acusaciones. Hipp., Ref. VI.20.1, VII.30.5-8; 36.3. Para el sentido gnóstico de la cámara nupcial, véase E. Pagels, Más allá de la fe (2004), 162. 36 Iren., Adv. Haer. I.13.3-5. Véase I.6.3; 21.3; 23.4; 24.5; 25.4-5; 26.3. 37 Tert., Praes. 30.5-6. 38 James B. Rives, ‘The Blood Libel Against the Montanist’, Vigilae Christianae 50 (1996), 117-24, 119-20. Aunque el autor hace tal apunte respecto a la adjudicación del consumo ritual de niños entre los montanistas, aplica cabalmente para las imputaciones sexuales y morales analizadas en este trabajo.

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ciertos cristianos tomaran ese patrón como suyo para separarse de su medio pretendidamente decadente y de otros colectivos cristianos demuestra su interés de tomarlo y exhibirlo como propio, de origen divino, y parte esencial de su identidad. Brown afirma que la moral cristiana favorable al ejercicio sexual equilibrado fue expuesta más para defender opiniones moderadas contra las más radicales que contra la presunta inmoralidad gentil, oponiéndose códigos morales diferentes que se reflejaban en identidades diversas.39 Sin embargo, todas las intenciones envueltas fueron relevantes en la discusión. La visión adversa al matrimonio y al sexo era cardinal para la identidad cristiana de los defensores de que la Iglesia debía formarse por personas que domaran sus impulsos carnales: la estricta supresión sexual y la castidad eran claves para la salvación. Tal actitud los enfrentó con quienes admitían las nupcias, como los líderes de los grupos verticales formados por gente casada y respetable. Así chocaron visiones opuestas sobre la dirección de las iglesias, y lo que significaba ser cristiano y vivir como tal. Los cristianos declaraban que sus posturas sobre la sexualidad y el matrimonio eran las óptimas porque habían sido reveladas por Dios mediante los profetas, Cristo y los apóstoles. El origen divino de su moralidad los colocaba por encima de su entorno social y ayudaba a distinguir a los verdaderos seguidores de Cristo de los falsos. Empero, se ha visto que la moral cristiana había integrado muchas directrices acerca de esos temas que eran vigentes en esa época y compartidos por gentiles y judíos. No obstante, la imagen resultante fue crucial para configurar un sentido grupal de pertenencia que exaltara ciertos aspectos que los hacían mejores que quienes no formaban parte de sus congregaciones. El vino nuevo de la moral cristiana en los antiguos odres comunitarios no era tan nuevo como querían sus defensores, pero sí fue útil para presentar códigos ideales de conducta y crear contornos identitarios por parte de los intelectuales cristianos.

39

P. Brown, El cuerpo y la sociedad (1993), 288.

A Gold-Glass Medallion’s Participation in Early Christian Discourse on Marriage Mark D. ELLISON, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

ABSTRACT A gold-glass medallion in the Ashmolean Museum, together with other material and literary evidence, demonstrates how images and objects commissioned and used by ordinary Christians participated in early Christian discourses – in this case, on the religious merit of marriage. Opponents of extreme encratism appealed to the biblical creation story to argue for the good of marriage, and viewed married Christians as fulfillment of the divine blessing spoken to Adam and Eve, ‘increase and multiply’. The Ashmolean medallion depicts a married couple at its center amid biblical scenes, the largest of which is Christ with Adam and Eve. Eve’s resemblance to the commemorated wife strengthens connection between the two pairs. Uniquely, Christ extends his wonder-working staff toward Eve and Adam. This iconographic program acts as visual rhetoric, claiming for the commemorated pair a place in salvation history among other recipients of divine favor, and resonating with early Christian texts, rites, and images that positively associate married Christians with Adam and Eve.

In the Ashmolean Museum, a gold-glass medallion from fourth-century Rome depicts at its center a married couple, surrounded by biblical scenes (fig. 1).1 Like hundreds of similar roundels discovered in the catacombs of Rome or other cemeterial contexts, mostly during the seventeenth-nineteenth centuries, it was made of excised gold foil sandwiched between two layers of glass. Originally, it formed the base of a shallow glass serving dish that was perhaps a gift to the couple depicted at its center, or commissioned by the couple. Medallions like this were carefully clipped from their surrounding material and placed in mortar over loculus burials or within graves. Some medallions appear to have been purpose-made for funerary use, while others may have been used initially in domestic contexts, for dining or display, before being put to secondary use as grave markers or grave goods.2 1 AN 2007.13; Charles Rufus Morey, The Gold-Glass Collection of the Vatican Library with Additional Catalogues of Other Gold-Glass Collections, ed. Guy Ferrari (Vatican City, 1959), no. 366; Susan Walker, Saints and Salvation: The Wilshere Collection of Gold-Glass, Sarcophagi and Inscriptions from Rome and Southern Italy (Oxford, 2017), 131-3, cat. no. 3. 2 Recent discussions of the still-debated purposes and functions of gold-glass medallions include Vincenzo Fiocchi Nicolai, Fabrizio Bisconti and Danilo Mazzoleni, The Christian Catacombs of Rome: History, Decorations, Inscriptions (Regensburg, 2002), 80-2; Daniel Thomas

Studia Patristica CXXIII, 431-446. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Around the heads of the vessel’s owners on the Ashmolean medallion appears the Latinized Greek inscription, PIE ZESES, ‘Drink! May you live!’, a commonplace on gold-glasses. Encircling the portrait are five radiating vignettes – from the top, clockwise: the healing of the paralytic; the raising of Lazarus; Adam and Eve with Christ (the largest vignette); Abraham and Isaac; and Moses striking water from a rock. The composition is unique in its particular selection of biblical images and the iconography of its Adam and Eve scene, though the basic program of radiating figures surrounding a central portrait is not uncommon.3 Recent publications have described the medallion’s physical characteristics and images, and have identified pieces with comparable decoration.4 Mindful that the medallion had probably decorated the covering of a catacomb burial visited by the deceased’s friends and relatives, Susan Walker interprets the Ashmolean piece as ‘a funerary commemoration of married life, engaging the mourners, … combined … with scenes of personal salvation’. The second person singular PIE ZESES suggests that the glass vessel was intended as a gift or commemoration for one of the two spouses portrayed; therefore, in its cemeterial context, ‘the inscription addressed to a single individual exhorts the deceased to celebrate his or her future eternal life in heaven’.5 Accepting this commemorative, soteriological, and eschatological interpretation as a starting point, this paper expands upon it by exploring how the images on this medallion, and other iconographic programs like it, function as visual rhetoric and attest the participation of rank-and-file Christians in a distinctive strand of early Christian discourse that sought to construct a sense of religious merit in marriage, in opposition to radical encratism. Like the double-portraits of Christian spouses that appear prominently on so many fourth-century sarcophagi and other gold-glass medallions, surrounded by biblical imagery, this piece illustrates how late antique Christians used images to assert their socio-religious identity and theological commitments. Following a discussion of historical context, this paper will take a closer look at the medallion and comparanda, endeavoring to articulate its voice in a larger early Christian conversation. Howells, A Catalogue of the Late Antique Gold Glass in the British Museum (London, 2015), 60-5; Hallie G. Meredith, ‘Engaging Mourners and Maintaining Unity: Third and Fourth Century Gold-Glass Roundels from Roman Catacombs’, Religion in the Roman Empire 1 (2015), 219-41; S. Walker, Saints and Salvation (2017), 75-8; and Susan Walker, ‘Gold-Glass in Late Antiquity’, in Robin M. Jensen and Mark D. Ellison (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art (London, 2018), 124-40. 3 See D.T. Howells, Late Antique Gold Glass (2015), 94-5, Plates 65, 68; C.R. Morey, GoldGlass Collection of the Vatican Library (1959), no. 240. 4 D.T. Howells, Late Antique Gold Glass (2015), 93-5; S. Walker, Saints and Salvation (2017), 131-3 (note that Metropolitan Museum of Art gold-glass no. 16.174.2 portrays a single male, not a married couple as stated on 132). 5 S. Walker, Saints and Salvation (2017), 131-2. On the likelihood that the medallion addressed the woman portrayed at center, see Mark D. Ellison, ‘Reimagining and Reimaging Eve in Early Christianity’, in Material Culture and Women’s Religious Experience in Antiquity (Lexington, forthcoming).

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A Current of Early Christian Thought Affirming of Marriage and Sexuality Early Christian thought was divided on whether marriage and sexuality expressed the Creator’s purposes for humanity, or were now (in anticipation of the eschaton) a concession to weakness less meritorious than celibacy, or a sin altogether.6 Throughout Christianity’s early centuries, and particularly in fourthcentury Rome, world-renouncing expressions of the faith came into conflict with long-held convictions about a good creation. Rebecca Krawiec observes that the enthusiasm for sexual renunciation found in many of our written sources can give the impression ‘that asceticism was an ideal embraced by all Christians in late antiquity’, but the authors of this literature, ‘primarily elite, male ascetics’, constituted a ‘small group’ that may not represent ‘the “norm” of Christianity in this time period’.7 Jerome and Ambrose, earnest promoters of virginity, obliquely acknowledged that relatively few Christians chose to pursue celibate lives: virginity was ‘rare, because it is difficult’, wrote Jerome; the way of marriage was ‘the way most take’, according to Ambrose.8 Thus ‘the silent majority’, as Peter Brown and other historians have called it, was that great mass of ordinary believers whose lives were relatively traditional as they married, reproduced society, and engaged in secular pursuits.9 One of the less-examined developments in early Christianity is how it gradually constructed a theory of blessedness in marriage for this segment of its population, affirming its valued place in the church and resisting ascetic extremes.10 A consistent strategy in this project was to appeal to the biblical creation story in Genesis 1-3. Early Christian reception of Adam and Eve dealt 6 See David G. Hunter, Marriage and Sexuality in Early Christianity (Minneapolis, 2018); id., ‘Sexuality, Marriage, and the Family’, in Augustine Casiday and Frederick W. Norris (eds), The Cambridge History of Christianity: vol. 2 Constantine to c. 600 (Cambridge, 2008), 585-600. 7 Rebecca Krawiec, ‘Asceticism’, in Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2008), 768. 8 Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum 1.36, PL 23, 271: difficilis res est virginitatis, et ideo rara, quia difficilis (my trans.; see also NPNF2 6, 373); Ambrose, Epistula 14.40 (Maur. 63.40), CSEL 82.3, 256: Bona etiam [via] matrimonii, plana et directa longiore circuitu ad castra sanctorum pervenit, ea plurimos recipit; ‘Good also is [the way] of marriage; level and direct it arrives by a longer course at the camp of the saints. It [is the way] most take’ (my trans.). 9 Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 2008), 206, 401, see also 44, 429; David G. Hunter, ‘“On the Sin of Adam and Eve”: A Little-Known Defense of Marriage and Childbearing by Ambrosiaster’, Harvard Theological Review 82 (1989), 283-99, 283; id., Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy (Oxford, 2007), 113; Carol Harrison, ‘The Silent Majority: The Family in Patristic Thought’, in Stephen C. Barton (ed.), The Family in Theological Perspective (Edinburgh, 1996), 87-105; Kyle Harper, ‘Marriage and Family’, in Scott Fitzgerald Johnson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2012), 680; see also Paul Corby Finney, The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art (Oxford, 1994), 110. 10 See Kate Cooper, The Fall of the Roman Household (Cambridge, 2007); D.G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy (2017); Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley, 2000), 508-13; R.A. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, 1991), 45-62.

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not only with their roles as the introducers of sin, the parents of humanity, or the counterparts of Christ and Mary in a typology of salvation,11 but also with how they might serve the religious conceptualization of marriage and procreation. For both ascetic and moderate thinkers, the first parents were tools for early Christians to think with on the subject of marriage and sexuality. This utility is evident from the time of Christianity’s origins in Second Temple Judaism: in the deuterocanonical book of Tobit, a prayer marking the occasion of Tobias and Sarah’s wedding connects their marriage to that of the first parents: ‘You made Adam, and for him you made his wife Eve as a helper and support. From the two of them the human race has sprung. You said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; let us make a helper for him like himself”’ (Tob. 8:6 NRSV). Similarly, Jesus’ answer to the question about divorce cites lines from Genesis: ‘Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning “made them male and female” [Gen. 1:27], and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” [Gen. 2:24]? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate’ (Matt. 19:4-6 NRSV; compare Mk. 10:6-9). In both these passages, the figures of Adam and Eve serve as a means of locating marriage and procreation within the divine plan for humanity.12 Accordingly, the author of the Pastoral epistles could point to the goodness of God’s creation to argue against ascetics who taught renunciation of marriage: ‘They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good’ (1Tim. 4:3-4).13 In the second and third centuries, apologetic writings of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria followed the lead of the pastorals in opposing radical ascetic sects by invoking the creation story. Irenaeus wrote: ‘Those who are called Encratites preached against marriage, thus setting aside the original creation of God … who made the male and female for the propagation of the human race … thus proving themselves ungrateful to God, who formed all things’.14 In his treatise against Marcion, Tertullian stated: ‘We earnestly vindicate marriage, whenever hostile attacks are made against it as a polluted thing, to the disparagement of the Creator. For He bestowed His blessing on 11 See Peter C. Bouteneff, ‘Adam and Eve’, in Paul M. Blowers and Peter W. Martens (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation (Oxford, 2019), 525-34. 12 For a sampling of texts appealing to Gen. 1-3 in various arguments regarding marriage and women, see Elizabeth A. Clark, Women in the Early Church (Collegeville, MN, 1983), 27-76. 13 Compare 1Tim. 3:2-13; 5:14; Tit. 2:4-5, for the author’s interest in well-ordered households and monogamous marriage. 14 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.28.1, SC 264, 354: … qui uocantur Continentes abstinentiam a nuptiis adnuntiauerunt, frustrantes antiquam plasmationem Dei et oblique accusantes eum qui et masculum et feminam ad generationem hominum fecit … ingrati exsistentes ei qui omnia fecit Deus; cf. 4.11.1; trans. ANF 1, 353.

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matrimony … as on an honourable estate, for the increase of the human race’.15 Clement of Alexandria wrote of ‘those who blaspheme both the creation and the holy Creator, the almighty and only God, through their supposedly sacred continence, and who teach that marriage and childbearing should be rejected’.16 Not only the creation of the first parents, but also their salvation, became a theological marker of differentiation between radical encratism and a more moderate piety affirming of marriage and procreation. Irenaeus claimed that it was Tatian who ‘first introduced the blasphemy’ of encratite teaching, ‘declared that marriage was nothing else than corruption and fornication’, and ‘denied Adam’s salvation’.17 By contrast, the oral traditions that came to be collected in the Life of Adam and Eve seem to provide a glimpse at more mainstream views; both the Greek (ca. 100-300 AD) and Latin versions (pre-400 AD) describe the salvation of Adam and Eve within the context of a narrative in which the two manifest forms of spousal devotion, domestic concordia, and familial piety lauded in late antique society.18 In the latter half of the fourth century, the Roman cleric ‘Ambrosiaster’ wrote a defense of marriage arguing (among other points) that God’s response to the sin of Adam and Eve involved a restoration to their original state and the prospect of resurrection.19 15 Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem 1.29.2, CChr.SL 1, 473: tunc denique coniugium exerte defendentes cum inimice accusatur spurcitiae nomine in destructionem creatoris, qui proinde coniugium pro rei honestate benedixit in crementum generis humani; trans. ANF 3, 294, altered. 16 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 3.6.45; GCS 15, 216-7: Τοῖς δὲ εὐφήμως δι’ ἐγκρατείας ἀσεβοῦσιν εἴς τε τὴν κτίσιν καὶ τὸν ἅγιον δημιουργὸν τὸν παντοκράτορα μόνον θεὸν καὶ διδάσκουσι μὴ δεῖν παραδέχεσθαι γάμον καὶ παιδοποιίαν μηδὲ ἀντεισά γειν τῷ κόσμῳ δυστυχήσοντας ἑτέρους μηδὲ ἐπιχορηγεῖν τῷ θανάτῳ τροφὴν ἐκεῖνα λεκτέον…; trans. D.G. Hunter, Marriage and Sexuality in Early Christianity (2018), 72. On the ambivalence and contradictions in Clement’s thought on marriage and sexuality, see Henry Chadwick, Alexandrian Christianity (Philadelphia, 1954), 33-9. 17 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.28.1; SC 264, 354, 356: Tatiano quodam primo hanc introducente blasphemiam … nuptias autem corruptelas et fornicationes … Adae autem saluti ex se contradictionem faciens; trans. ANF 1, 353, altered. 18 Themes of repentance and redemption: Vitae Adae et Evae 4-8; 25-8; 36.2; 40-3; 47; Apocalypse of Moses 9.3; 13; 27-37; 41; salvation of Adam and portrayals of spousal devotion: Vitae Adae et Evae 35.2-3; 40.1-3; 46.1-3; Apoc. Mos. 9.2; 10.9.2-3; 13.1; 42-3. Oral traditions: Johannes Tromp, ‘The Story of our Lives: The qz-Text of the Life of Adam and Eve, the Apostle Paul, and the Jewish-Christian Oral Tradition concerning Adam and Eve’, New Testament Studies 50 (2004), 205-23, 218-9; Vita Daphna Arbel, Forming Femininity in Antiquity: Eve, Gender, and Ideologies in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve (Oxford, 2012), 72 (this source also discusses spousal devotion and domestic virtues). Dating: Johannes Tromp, The Life of Adam and Eve in Greek: A Critical Edition (Leiden, 2005), 28; V.D. Arbel, Forming Femininity, 3; M.D. Johnson, ‘Life of Adam and Eve’, in James H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2 (Garden City, NY, 1985), 252. The salvation of Adam and Eve (and all the righteous of the pre-Christian era) received further development in the fifth century ‘harrowing of hell’ additions to the Acts of Pilate (Gospel of Nicodemus). 19 Ambrosiaster, Quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti 127.23, 29-30; CSEL 50, 408-9, 411-2; see D.G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy (2017), 159-70; id., ‘On the Sin of Adam and Eve’ (1989), 283-99.

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Theophilus of Antioch cited Genesis 2:24 (‘Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh’) and pointed to the practice of marriage among Christians as its realization – ‘This is actually fulfilled among us’20 – a concept that seems to have found affirming reception among Christians in fourth-century Rome. By the mid fourth century (approximately when the Ashmolean medallion was made), clergy in Rome were quoting the words of Genesis 1:28, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’, in nuptial blessings pronounced upon marrying couples.21 Our earliest unambiguous source for this practice, Ambrosiaster, held that the blessing of Genesis 1:28 was still valid, and that sexual relations neither caused the sin of Adam and Eve nor were impugned by it.22 Helvidius and Jovinian were also writers whose works opposed the idealization of virginity in the latter years of the fourth century. Though their views were opposed vigorously by Jerome, Siricius, and Ambrose, the popular reception at Rome of such moderate ideas attests to an alternate piety that resisted ascetic extremes and sought to create a place of honor for married Christians.23 So, too, does the mid-fourth-century poet Proba, who seems to push back against the ascetic ideal and provide a glimpse at the familial piety of aristocratic Roman Christians. Proba’s Virgilian cento De laudibus Christi stresses Mary’s maternity, praises familial devotion, omits New Testament calls for renunciation of wealth, and describes the marriage of Adam and Eve with joyful, conjugal imagery.24 20 Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum 2.28; PG 6, 1096-7: “Τούτου ἕνεκεν καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν”· ὃ δὴ καὶ αὐτὸ δείκνυται τελειούμενον ἐν ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς…; trans. Robert M. Grant, Theophilus of Antioch: Ad Autolycum (Oxford, 1970), 70-3. 21 Ambrosiaster, Quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti 127, 2-3; Commentarius in 1 Cor 7:40; Commentarius in 1 Tim 3:12; Filastrius of Brescia, Diversarum haereson liber 120.6-7; Innocent I, Epistula 4.6.9; Korbinian Ritzer, Le mariage dans les églises chrétiennes du Ier au XIe siècles (Paris, 1970), 222-66; Thomas Fisch and David G. Hunter, ‘Echoes of the Early Roman Nuptial Blessing: Ambrosiaster, De peccato Adae et Evae’, Ecclesia Orans 11 (1994), 225-44. 22 Ambrosiaster, Quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti 127.1-3, 33-4, 23-4, 29-30; D.G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy (2017), 163-4. 23 Ibid. 51-83. 24 Proba, Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi 126-35, 372-9, 415, 518-30; Elizabeth A. Clark and Diane F. Hatch, The Golden Bough, the Oaken Cross: The Virgilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba (Chico, CA, 1981), 109-21; D.G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy (2017), 68-72. The continuing influence of these fourth-century developments can be seen in Paulinus of Nola’s early fifth-century hymn celebrating the wedding of Julian and Titia, which pointed to Adam and Eve as ‘the original model for the holy alliance now being sealed’, and exhorted the newlyweds to imitate the first parents, and in the nuptial prayers of the Verona Sacramentary, which ritually induct marrying couples into their roles as Adam and Eve’s successors in the propagation of humanity: Paulinus, Carmen 25.27, 101-5, CSEL 30, 239, 241; Sacramentarium Veronese, 31.1109-10; trans. Mark Searle and Kenneth W. Stevenson, Documents of the Marriage Liturgy (Collegeville, MN, 1992), 32, 42-3. See also Asterius of Amasea, Homilia Matt. 19:3. In 401 AD, Augustine’s treatises De bono coniugali and De sancta virginitate brought some resolution to the marriage-celibacy controversies by charting a middle way forward; see D.G. Hunter, ‘Sexuality,

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Thus, when the Ashmolean gold-glass medallion was made for a married couple in fourth-century Rome, it was within a tradition of associating married Christians positively with Adam and Eve, blessing their unions using the words of Genesis 1:28, and opposing encratic extremes by appealing to the biblical creation story. The imagery of the Ashmolean medallion and similar artifacts suggests that lay Christians participated with their bishops and moderate theologians in this project of constructing an affirming place for marriage, married believers, and traditional households. In this respect, the artifacts and images ordinary Christians commissioned and used attest the contribution of the laity in early Christian developments, as Lisa Kaaren Bailey has described: Lay people [played] a pivotal role in the development and transformation of Christianity … Christianity was not spread by force. It was not a worked-out system imposed from above upon a population below. On the contrary, lay Christians helped to shape Christianity. They made their own decisions about what being Christian meant in their daily lives. They were responsible, in part, for the formation of beliefs, institutions, rituals, and environments.25

To more fully appreciate this, let us return to the iconography of the Ashmolean medallion as a case study. A Closer Look at the Images on the Ashmolean Medallion The double-portrait at the center of the Ashmolean medallion portrays the couple in a conventional pose emphasizing marital affectio and concordia. Yet it is not this portrait alone that makes a statement about married life, but also its association with the surrounding vignettes, particularly the Adam and Eve scene. The image of Adam and Eve standing to either side of a tree is among the most common biblical motifs in early Christian art.26 A unique element in the Ashmolean medallion’s iconography, however, is the presence of Christ as miracle-worker with Adam and Eve (fig. 2). The figure of Christ or the preincarnate Logos sometimes appears in scenes of Adam and Eve on sarcophagi, but (so far as I have found) the Ashmolean glass is the only instance in early Christian art in which Christ extends the virga, or wand-like staff, toward the first parents.27 Marriage, and the Family’ (2008), 596-8; Philip L. Reynolds, ‘De bono coniugali’, in K. Pollmann and W. Otten (eds), The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (Oxford, 2013), I 243-6. 25 Lisa Kaaren Bailey, The Religious Worlds of the Laity in Late Antique Gaul (London, 2016), 3. 26 Paul Corby Finney, The Eerdmans Encyclopedia of Early Christian Art and Archaeology (Grand Rapids, 2017), I 10-2; Robin M. Jensen, ‘The Fall and Rise of Adam and Eve in Early Christian Art and Literature’, in Heidi J. Hornik and Mikeal C. Parsons (eds), Interpreting Christian Art: Reflections on Christian Art (Macon, GA, 2003), 25-52. 27 D.T. Howells, Late Antique Gold Glass (2015), 93-4, argues for another instance in separate roundels (one lost and only hypothetical) in the ‘St Severin bowl’ in the British Museum, but this

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This unusual detail may reflect the agency of whoever commissioned the vessel. The figure of Christ with the virga appears most often in scenes of raising the dead or certain kinds of wonders (such as the multiplication of loaves and changing water to wine).28 The staff, evocative of the rod of Moses, was an iconographic element depicting Jesus as the new Moses and symbolizing the extension of his divine power to work transforming and restorative miracles.29 The Ashmolean medallion applies this transformation and restoration to the first parents. On one level, this image would seem to invite a soteriological interpretation, reflecting Paul’s Adam-Christ typology wherein Christ, the ‘second Adam’, overcomes the death and sin Adam brought upon humanity.30 However, as we have seen, the subject of the first parents’ salvation and restoration was also a marker of differentiation from radical encratism and an element in discourse affirming a religious merit in marriage. Therefore, viewers of this image may have discerned in it, additionally, a statement of the commemorated couple’s sympathies (or the sympathies of whoever gave them the vessel) and their socioreligious location in the fourth-century debates on marriage and sexuality. Adam and Eve’s right hands touch as they reach for the fruit. The artist might have more symmetrically rendered Adam reaching with his left hand, but has somewhat awkwardly portrayed the extension of his right arm. This raises the possibility of an intention to suggest a subtle allusion to the traditional image of the dextrarum iunctio, the joining of right hands, an element in Roman marriage ceremonies and a popular visual symbol of marital concordia (fig. 3).31 A fourth-century funerary plaque in Velletri portrays Adam and Eve with right hands joined and Adam’s arm over Eve’s shoulder (fig. 4), highlighting their marriage more than their sin (while the Ashmolean image might allude to both simultaneously).32 Proba’s description of the ‘marriage’ of Adam and Eve also depicts them joining right hands: Woman, a virgin she, unparalleled In figure and in comely breasts, now ready seems doubtful; see Mark D. Ellison, ‘Visualizing Christian Marriage in the Roman World’ (PhD diss., Vanderbilt University, 2017), 150. 28 Robin M. Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art (London, 2000), 120-4; Lee M. Jefferson, Christ the Miracle Worker in Early Christian Art (Minneapolis, 2014), 13-4, 145-75 (esp 153-4, n 26). 29 L.M. Jefferson, Christ the Miracle Worker (2014), 145-75; see also Thomas F. Mathews, The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art (Princeton, 1999), 54-91. 30 Rom. 5:14-21; 1Cor. 15:21-2, 45-9. 31 The gesture could symbolize other close interpersonal bonds besides marriage, such as political alliances or parent-child relationships; Louis Reekmans, ‘La “dextrarum iunctio” dans l’iconographie romaine et paléochrétienne’, Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 31 (1958), 23-95; Glenys Davies, ‘The Significance of the Handshake Motif in Classical Funerary Art’, American Journal of Archaeology 89 (1985), 627-40; Karen K. Hersch, The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity (New York, 2010), 190-212. 32 Jutta Dresken-Weiland, Repertorium der christlich-antiken Sarkophage, zweiter Band: Italien mit einem Nachtrag Rom und Ostia, Dalmatien, Museen der Welt (Mainz am Rhein, 1998), no. 242.

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For a husband, ready now for wedlock. … He calls his bones and limbs his wedded wife. Dazed by the Will divine he took and clasped Her hand (dextram) in his, folded his arms around her.33

However, most dextrarum iunctio images (though not all) portray arms extended comfortably at waist level, rather than reaching upward, so it may be a stretch (figuratively and literally) to see a hint of the dextrarum iunctio here.34 Whatever the postures of Adam and Eve might have suggested to viewers of the Ashmolean medallion, the idea that the first parents were in some ways emblematic of marriage was clearly on the minds of fourth-century Christians at Rome. The very placement of Adam and Eve next to the spousal portrait at the center of this medallion could have invited viewers to consider associations between the two pairs. Further encouraging this connection is a resemblance between the woman and Eve – as Charles Morey noted in his catalogue of early Christian gold glass, Eve has a hairstyle similar to the woman’s.35 Norbert Zimmermann observes that when funerary art gave biblical figures contemporary hairstyles and clothing, it ‘suggested that the deceased was participating in these salvific events’.36 This medallion’s iconographic program locates the vessel’s owners among biblical recipients of divine favor and deliverance; it expresses hope that this couple will receive Christ’s salvation, as did the paralytic, Lazarus, and the first parents – a redemption foreshadowed by Abraham and Isaac, and received in the transforming waters of baptism (to which the water miracle alluded).37 33 Proba, De Laudibus Christi 127-35: insignis facie et pulchro pectore uirgo, / iam matura uiro, iam plenis nubilis annis. / olli somnum ingens rumpit pauor: ossaque et artus / coniugium uocat ac stupefactus numine pressit / excepitque manu dextramque amplexus inhaesit; trans. E.A. Clark and D.F. Hatch, The Golden Bough (1981), 28-9. 34 Exceptions include the Augustan-era limestone relief portraits of Fonteia Eleusis and Fonteia Helena, British Museum no. 1973,0109.1; portrait busts of Gratidia Chrite and Marcus Gratidius Libanus, Museo Pio Clementino; the late fourth-century portrait of Catervius and Severina on their sarcophagus at Tolentino, J. Dresken-Weiland, Repertorium II (1998), no. 148. 35 C.R. Morey, Gold-Glass Collection of the Vatican Library (1959), 62. 36 Norbert Zimmermann, ‘Catacombs and the Beginnings of Christian Tomb Decoration’, in Barbara E. Borg (ed.), A Companion to Roman Art (Malden, MA, 2015), 461-2. 37 Compare Sean V. Leatherbury, ‘Picturing Prayers’, in S. Walker, Saints and Salvation (2017), 114: ‘The narrative scenes around the edge frame the deceased couple’s hope of salvation. … Just as God had redeemed Adam and Eve and saved Isaac from Abraham’s knife, and as Christ had healed the lame man and brought Lazarus back from the dead, so too will the heavenly Father and Son save this pair’. Leatherbury sees the Moses vignette as a type of Christ; I agree, but also suspect the water miracle alludes to the couple’s baptism, strengthening their claim to salvation. See Robin M. Jensen, Living Water: Images, Symbols, and Settings of Early Christian Baptism (Leiden, 2011), 76-8. Compare the portraits of a married couple with the water miracle scene, the raising of Lazarus, and the Good Shepherd in a fourth-century catacomb fresco: Josef Wilpert, Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms (Freiburg, 1903), Taf. 190, 192; Norbert Zimmermann,

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The program also has a rhetorical edge, in its fourth-century context, as it asserts a claim of divine blessing for the portrayed couple, by their association with the first parents and Christ as miracle-worker, along with other recipients of divine benefaction. In the debates of the time regarding marriage and celibacy, the images make a visual statement comparable to ideas found in that strand of discourse opposed to extreme encratism. Comparable Images The corpus of early Christian art gives evidence of similar efforts by fourthcentury patrons to visually express convictions about a religious merit in marriage, employing conventions of the moderate, traditionalist piety that stood in tension with extreme encratism. For example, portraits of spouses appear in a variety of forms on gold glasses and sarcophagi, often with figural, symbolic, or inscriptional reference to divine benefaction (such as the figure of Christ placing crowns of life on the heads of spouses, fig. 5, the christogram between spouses, and inscriptions such as VIVATIS IN DEO, ‘May you two live in God’).38 The association of married couples with Adam and Eve is also evident: on early Christian sarcophagi that are sufficiently intact to make some general identification of the grave owner(s) (via portraits or inscriptions), reliefs of Adam and Eve most often occur (about 70% of the time) in the context of the commemoration of a married couple.39 In such instances, an image of the archetypal first couple could advance a self-representation by association, making certain theological or paradigmatic claims for the commemorated spouses. Space permits only brief examination of one example. On a large, doublefrieze sarcophagus in Arles likely made for the burial of a woman (fig. 6), reliefs at the center of the lid depict Christ speaking with Eve and Adam, at left and right, directly above a shell portrait of the deceased woman and her husband, also left and right, in the casket’s upper register (fig. 7).40 Mourners might have ‘The Healing Christ in Early Christian Funeral Art: The Example of the Frescoes at Domitilla Catacomb/Rome’, in Stefan Alkier and Annette Weissenrieder (eds), Miracles Revisited: New Testament Miracle Stories and their Concepts of Reality (Berlin, 2016), 264-5, fig. 8; and a goldglass portraying a couple praying next to a rock gushing water, identified as a symbol of baptism, S. Walker, Saints and Salvation (2017), 155-7, cat. no. 21. 38 See C.R. Morey, Gold-Glass Collection of the Vatican Library (1959), nos. 29, 50, 98, 109, 240, 259, 278, 315, 397, 440, 441, 447; P.C. Finney, Encyclopedia of Early Christian Art and Archaeology (2017), II 109-11; Mark D. Ellison, ‘“Secular” Portraits, Identity, and the Christianization of the Roman Household’, in R.M. Jensen and M.D. Ellison (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art (2018), 326-46. 39 M.D. Ellison, ‘Visualizing Christian Marriage’ (2017), 142-3, table 304-6. 40 Brigitte Christern-Briesenick, Repertorium der christlich-antiken Sarkophage, dritter Band: Frankreich, Algerien, Tunesien (Mainz am Rhein, 2003), no. 38. For the argument that doubleportrait sarcophagi were made primarily for the burial of women and reflect a ‘woman’s theme’,

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seen in this alignment an implied association between the commemorated couple and the first parents, and in the figures of Christ, a reference to individualized blessing and the promise of salvation.41 To the left of the shell portrait, a second depiction of Adam and Eve appears in a creation scene (fig. 8). The pre-incarnate Christ-Logos rests his hand upon the head of the newly-created Eve in a gesture of blessing, as the apostle Paul places his hand on Adam’s shoulder, perhaps alluding to Paul’s Adam-Christ typology.42 The representation of divine blessing upon the first parents, and the emphasis placed not on their sin but on their creation and salvation, have important implications for the self-representation of the married couple commemorated on this tomb. The biblical vignettes project their theological valences upon the pair; the visual program carves out a connection between the fourth-century believers and the biblical past, affirming this couple’s place in the larger story of salvation. In the process, it cultivates a eulogizing, hopeful memory of the commemorated pair, and locates them within the strand of Christian tradition affirming of a religious merit in married life. Though the shell portrait and Adam and Eve vignettes are only a few elements in what is obviously a complex and multifaceted visual program, they indicate an effort similar to that of the patrons of the Ashmolean gold-glass to associate married Christians with the first parents, to express hopes of salvation, and to claim a sense of religious merit on behalf of the deceased. Conclusion The Ashmolean medallion and comparable objects give evidence of the participation of rank-and-file Christians in the long conversations of the faith community, and their use of images as visual rhetoric that could assert their socio-religious position and advance their theological commitments. These images cast valuable light on a moment of contestation and creativity in the early church’s development of thought on marriage and sexuality. The glass’ visual program and others like it illustrate what visual culture theorist David Morgan has described as ‘the cultural work that images do in constructing and maintaining (as well as challenging, destroying, and replacing) a sense of order in a particular place and time’.43 Images can ‘collaborate with see Jutta Dresken-Weiland, Sarkophagbestattungen des 4.–6. Jahrhunderts im Westen des römischen Reiches (Rome, 2003), 211-2. 41 Manuel Sotomayor, Sarcófagos Romano-Cristianos de España: Estudio Iconográfico (Granada, 1975), 161. 42 Rom. 5:12-21; 1Cor. 15:21-2, 45-9; Robin M. Jensen, ‘The Economy of the Trinity at the Creation of Adam and Eve’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 7 (1999), 527-46. 43 David Morgan, The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice (Berkeley, 2005), 29.

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other forms of representation, influence thought and behavior’, and ‘displace rival images and ideologies’.44 Along with texts and their authors, objects and their patrons participated in debates of the religious community, objecting, affirming, challenging, reining in perceived excesses, and seeking ways forward. Once made and put on display, an object such as this medallion acquired a kind of agency by which it could continue to voice a perspective long after its commissioners were absent. Such iconographic programs are visual examples of what Andrew S. Jacobs and Rebecca Krawiec called ‘family discourses’ that, ‘like ascetic discourses, could effectively construct Christian reality in antiquity’.45 Examining this particular medallion’s mode of discourse suggests how materialist approaches in early Christian studies can enable us to glimpse a view – ‘through a glass’, as it were – of a part of the early Christian population that is not always visible in our texts, and to hear the voices of the relatively silent.

44 Ibid. 55; see also Robin M. Jensen, ‘Visuality’, in Barbette Stanley Spaeth (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions (New York, 2013), 309-43. 45 Andrew S. Jacobs and Rebecca Krawiec, ‘Fathers Know Best? Christian Families in the Age of Asceticism’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 11 (2003), 257-63, 262.

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Fig. 1. Gold-glass medallion with double portrait and biblical scenes. Ashmolean Museum.

Fig. 2. Adam and Eve with Christ as miracle-worker.

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Fig. 3. Marble funerary niche with relief of a married couple, right hands joined (dextrarum iunctio). Ostia Antica. Second half of second century AD. Photo: Mark D. Ellison.

Fig. 4. Adam and Eve dextrarum iunctio, funerary plaque, ca. 300 AD. Museo Civico Archaeologico, Velletri, Italy. Photo: Mark D. Ellison.

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Fig. 5. Drawing of a gold-glass medallion depicting a married couple with a diminutive figure of Christ (CRISTVS) placing wreath-crowns upon their heads. Raffaele Garrucci, Vetri ornati di figure in oro trovanti nei cimiteri dei cristiani primitivi di Roma (Rome, 1858), Tav. 29.3.

Fig. 6. Arles ‘Trinity’ sarcophagus, ca. 325 AD. Musée départemental Arles Antique. Photo: Mark D. Ellison.

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Fig. 7. Eve and Adam with Christ (represented twice). Musée départemental Arles Antique. Photo: Mark D. Ellison.

Fig. 8. The creation of Eve and Adam. Musée départemental Arles Antique. Photo: Mark D. Ellison.

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