Studies in the History of Exegesis (History of Biblical Exegesis, 2) 9783161611018, 9783161611612, 3161611012

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History of Biblical Exegesis Editors Mark W. Elliott (Glasgow) Jennie Grillo (Notre Dame, IN) David Lincicum (Notre Dame, IN) Benjamin Schliesser (Bern, CH)

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Studies in the History of Exegesis Edited by

Mark W. Elliott, Raleigh C. Heth, and Angela Zautcke

Mohr Siebeck

Mark W. Elliott is Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at Glasgow University and Professorial Fellow at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto. Raleigh C. Heth is Presidential Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, pursing a PhD in the university’s Theology Department. orcid.org/0000-0002-7235-6749 Angela Zautcke is pursuing a dual degree program at the University of Notre Dame that includes a PhD in Theology and an MA in Classics.

ISBN 978-3-16-161101-8 / eISBN 978-3-16-161161-2 DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-161161-2 ISSN 2748-0313 / eISSN 2748-0321 (History of Biblical Exegesis) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany. www.mohrsiebeck.com

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset by Martin Fischer in Tübingen using Minion typeface, printed on nonaging paper by Laupp & Göbel in Gomaringen, and bound by Buchbinderei Nädele in Nehren. Printed in Germany.

Preface The vision of this volume and the series History of Biblical Exegesis (HBE) as a whole is not quite new. The Mohr Siebeck Verlag published the Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese, which ran from 1959 (when the first volume appeared) to 1998, amounting to 34 volumes. The long hiatus means that this new series is not simply reviving the former things. BGBE was a series of monographs, and this HBE is more open in genre (such as multi-authored volumes like the present one, editions, etc.). So while being mindful of that history, we are also thankful that the last generation has seen an upsurge of interest in the history of the bible and its interpretation. Just like the BGBE, however, the operative word for this new series remains ‘Exegesis’. More recent initiatives have attempted to show how ideological standpoints have determined particular readings of the bible or at least how biblical interpretation and theological or ideological parti pris work together. Quite often in these recent studies of ‘reception,’ attention to the text and the attempt of historical exegetes to understand it in its range of plausible meanings gets lost. Of course, not every historical exegete or exegetical movement will act any differently, thus with bias, whatever their best intentions. Nevertheless, even where claims to false objectivity redound, one can find the historical exegetes attempting to show how the text says what these interpreters think it says. A close inspection calls into question the too-ready claim that all exegetical results are “foregone conclusions.” (The present writer recalls his interest in Byzantine readings of James 4:13–17 being dismissed at another SBL session on the grounds that people who were ‘in power’ could have no spiritual insight into New Testament texts.) If recent books, which as biblical theologies purport to build on exegetical work can be called AFTER Exegesis (Feminist Biblical Theology in Honor of Carol A. Newsom, eds. Patricia K. Tull and Jacqueline E. Lapsley [Waco: Baylor University Press, 2015]), the idea is that feminist bible scholars should move beyond exegesis (as something which the editors say can be done with a variety of tools), towards the goal of a biblical theology. Yet all the chapters stick with creative feminist readings of discrete biblical texts: one might just about speak of a patchwork biblical theology made from the various chapters, yet little more. However, in the historical tradition of exegesis (a ‘tradition of interpretation’ implies a continuous yet developing hermeneutic applied to the textual meaning), there is a dialectical relationship between biblical theology and the exegesis of a text, especially as the latter discourse moves into proclamation and more broadly performance (e. g. sacred art and music, canon law) in churches.

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So, history of exegesis it is. Also, a brief word in defence of a charge of ‘elitism’. Most writers in the previous centuries (and to some extent still today) belonged to an elite, by virtue of being literate and lettered. It should not be thought that this was a disadvantage, not least when they are famous for being in the forefront (or the engine room) of the reform of church and society, as many of the betterknown exegetes were. Yet they also represented the families, towns and societies which spawned them and to a large degree felt themselves accountable and under authority to the church of their people as well as to scripture. They taught lay people or at least taught their teachers. Those others who painted, versified and composed were arguably more ‘elite’ – was Bach less elite than Calov whose bible commentary he used? – just as is the case with the university academic today, who reads the standard accounts of the meaning of biblical and theological texts and feels called to go further, to work interstitially, to work the frontiers, to be creative. Of course, good exegesis is fresh exegesis, in whatever generation. Yet it often has power to go on inspiring and (almost, sometimes) persuade beyond its own time where it is somewhat ‘faithful’ to text and tradition. This multi-authored volume expresses many projects in the history of exegesis. Some will be more small-scale, others a broader sweep or comparison. Exegesis is not to be found only in commentaries, although those will often be where the biblical theologian does his or her most careful work, anxious to keep the supply line to the historical sources as taut as possible. What follows comes out of SBL Annual Meeting “History of Interpretation” sessions between 2016 and 2018. The first two essays, namely DAVID LINCICUM (with MARK W. ELLIOTT and MICHAEL LEGASPI), “Does the Present Threaten the Past? Historiographical Reflections on the Problem of Teleology in Writing the History of Exegesis” and ERIC COVINGTON, “Wirkungsgeschichte and Trilateration: A Methodological Analogy for Understanding the Role of Reception-History in New Testament Exegesis,” both offer a theoretical and methodological perspective born out of reflection on the state of our understanding of the nature and purpose of the study of Scripture (HB-OΤ and NT) throughout history. That by LINCICUM comes out of some years of reflection on how Histories of Exegesis have offered much and sometimes delivered, but otherwise often have not. In some ways this is a ‘literature’ review which sets the stage for an implicit manifesto, viz, that history of exegesis (as distinct from reception-history) needs to be done more, more carefully, but also done with more confidence. For his part, Covington offers the interesting theory of text, history of interpretation, and current reader as a way to a rounded, careful yet theologically meaningful and instructive interpretation which is actually more likely to be ‘accurate’. Exegesis includes interpretation but cares to follow the biblical text as it does so. What then follows appears in some sort of chronological sequence. Arising out of a SBL “History of Interpretation” session that focused on the ongoing spur of Jewish exegesis to both Jewish, Christian, and other readings, BETH

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A. BERKOWITZ, “Interpretation in the Anthropocene: Reading the Animal Family Laws of the Pentateuch Temple Scroll Mishnah,” offers something that seems pleasingly familiar even in what might seem unfamiliar to the non-Jewish reader. This essay moves, after a consideration of a network of texts, especially Leviticus 22 and Exodus 22, to an account of their reception in the Temple scroll and Mishnah, and it gives one a flavour of the indispensability of understanding the trajectories and turning points in Late Antique Jewish interpretative history. Some of the treatments that follow focus in on one scriptural passage. SIMEON R. BURKE, “The Hermeneutical Benefits of Wirkungsgeschichte: Patristic Applications of the Command to ‘Render to Caesar and to God’ as Case Study,” relates how patristic, especially early patristic interpretations, can be privileged in that the interpreters breathe similar air or were party to traditions which complemented the biblical writing in question – here Matthew 22:20–22. Again a ‘manageable’ text is dealt with in ATHANASIOS DESPOTIS, “A Neglected Perspective on Matthew 28:18–20.” This has been a key text for ‘world mission’, but it mattered for the Eastern Patristic interpreters in a distinctively different way. The Greek tradition of interpretation emphasised the mysteriousness of mission in that the content of it is initiation into a nuptial mystery. Taking a single text, Jn 9:34 and its reference to blood and water, STEFANO SALEMI, “The Wounded Christ of the Fourth Gospel: New Testament Interpretation in Alexandrian Tradition,” specifically allows space for the interpretation of Clement, Origen and the Pistis Sophia as well as the later, Armenian Elissh, for whom there was symbolic value in giving the observer of the sacramental re-presentation of that which offers saving knowledge. For DAN BATOVICI, “Reception and Marginal Texts: Notes on the Reception of 1 Peter 5:1–4,” arising out of his work for the Novum Testamentum Patristicum series, these few verses seem very appropriate to the job description of church leaders, but their employment is rather scarce: usually to emphasise the humility that should go with the office. They are important in and through what they represent, not least Christ’s priesthood in the eucharist. The volume then ‘jumps’ to the Reformation, due to a need in 2017 to honour Luther in the year of his Jubilee. ODA WISCHMEYER, “Luther’s Prefaces to the New Testament in Their Hermeneutical and Philological Dimension, Read from an Exegetical Perspective,” usefully pays attention to what Luther said he thought he was doing as an exegete. Luther was consistently philological in his theology of the gospel (evaggelion). He was determined to evaluate texts strictly in terms of textual evidence rather than dogmatic principle. This meant inter alia that not all texts proposed Christ, nor should they be forced to. Accordingly, MARK W. ELLIOTT, “Behind the Bible in the Reformation: Luther and Biblical Revelation,” observes that there is a reflection on interpreting Luther interpreting Scripture in light of what concerned him in terms of the Christian life. Rather than decide whether Luther had some sort of ‘Wordontology’ to put

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in place of a ‘being-ontology’, it is his actualism combined with his scholarship that aimed to stress the moments of reception of the external Word, in a way that ensured that the believer continues to be a ‘debtor’. Moving into the Early Modern period, PAUL K.-K. CHO, “Biblical Samson, Milton’s Samson Agonistes, and Modern Terrorism,” offers a fascinating attempt to criticize the critique. Milton’s presentation of Samson was to privilege the action of his final hours as the work of a freedom fighter. Cheryl Exum has seen Samson’s ‘suicide attack’ as a disproportionate act of terrorism. However, Judges 16 viewed in Milton’s way can be read as showing how the audience provoked the Lord’s Anointed and how these were not innocent people but the worst of the tyrannical elite, while the leitmotif of ‘peg’ links Delilah to Jael, as Milton helps us see in his even-handed account. In terms of influence of philosophical thinkers on biblical hermeneutics, JEFFREY L. MORROW, “Methods of Interpreting Scripture and Nature: The Influence of the Baconian Method on Spinoza’s Biblical Criticism,” argues for the debt of Spinoza to the late Elizabethan natural philosopher, Francis Bacon. Just as the history of Nature became valued as a way into natural scientific study, the history of Scripture became crucial for understanding Scriptural texts, and this was indebted to Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum. This is as important an influence on Spinoza, the father of biblical criticism, as those of Hobbes and Descartes. The aim was to interpret Scripture on its own terms and not impose foreign concepts on it, even though the Bible ended up looking even more like a political work in the image of its interpreter. Almost a counterpoint to Spinoza can be found in BRANDON D. CROWE, “Reading the Acts of the Apostles with Francis Turretin: Continuity and Discontinuity.” Here is an attempt to describe and analyse in its intellectual historical setting the exegetical work of a doctrinal theologian but also to move beyond this to dialogue with modern critical commentaries. The elder Turretin brings a continuity of law and Holy Spirit across the testaments, but Trinitarian theology also provides a challenge to modern emphasis on ‘narrative’ and action. An attempt to cultivate a neglected area of study is essayed in KEITH D. STANGLIN, “Dutch Contributions to Modern Exegesis: The Case of the Remonstrants.” A fusion of Erasmian humanism and Reformed theology with a lively interest in culture made the Arminian tradition not necessarily just a conduit to rationalistic interpretation of the Eighteenth Century but a thoughtful method that mixed principle with appreciation of linguistic nuance. Likewise a fascinating comingtogether of general Reformed orthodoxy with humanist philosophical leanings is to be found in STEVEN EDWARD HARRIS, “Locke Reads the Bible for Himself – With Others: The Influence of Socinian Exegesis on Locke’s Interpretation of Resurrection.” Drawing on the Socinian Crell, albeit without acknowledgement, Locke was able to promote a doctrine of the resurrection that would be more philosophically than theologically orthodox. This is in the sense that what is risen is in many ways discontinuous with Jesus’s lived-in body.

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It was a delight to attend, chair, and participate in these SBL “History of Interpretation” sessions from 2016–18. We tried to engage a selection of younger and older scholars, with a representation of a number of traditions. We do not feel that the air of these sessions nor their final form as written articles in this volume has anything of the antiquarian or recondite. The pathway is an inductive one. More could be learned from a variety of sources, the better to prevent the sweeping ‘The Catholic Reformation view of the Old Testament prophets was x’, but also to afford a way of how to ‘reverently hear’ texts, even while seeing them as gateways into insight and truth that allows Scripture to be itself. In this light we very much look forward to going forward (in partnership with the delightfully helpful Mohr Siebeck Verlag, namely Elena Müller), towards a series of works which will expand this moving tent or tabernacle. Mark W. Elliott

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

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Matters of Approach DAVID LINCICUM (with MARK W. ELLIOTT and MICHAEL LEGASPI) Does the Present Threaten the Past? Historiographical Reflections on the Problem of Teleology in Writing the History of Exegesis . . . . . . . . . . . ERIC COVINGTON Wirkungsgeschichte and Trilateration: A Methodological Analogy for Understanding the Role of Reception-History in New Testament Exegesis

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Exegetical Cases BETH A. BERKOWITZ Interpretation in the Anthropocene: Reading the Animal Family Laws of the Pentateuch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 SIMEON R. BURKE The Hermeneutical Benefits of Wirkungsgeschichte: Patristic Applications of the Command to ‘Render to Caesar and to God’ as Case Study . . . . . . . . . 53 ATHANASIOS DESPOTIS A Neglected Perspective on Matthew 28:18–20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 STEFANO SALEMI The Wounded Christ of the Fourth Gospel: New Testament Interpretation in Alexandrian Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 DAN BATOVICI Reception and Marginal Texts: Notes on the Reception of 1 Peter 5:1–4 . . . . 95

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Luther’s Exegesis 500 Years On ODA WISCHMEYER Luther’s Prefaces to the New Testament in Their Hermeneutical and Philological Dimension, Read from an Exegetical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 MARK W. ELLIOT Behind the Bible in the Reformation: Luther and Biblical Revelation . . . . . . 123 Early Modern Concurrences and Tensions in Exegesis PAUL K.-K. CHO Biblical Samson, Milton’s Samson Agonistes, and Modern Terrorism . . . . . . 141 JEFFREY L. MORROW Methods of Interpreting Scripture and Nature: The Influence of the Baconian Method on Spinoza’s Biblical Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 BRANDON D. CROWE Reading the Acts of the Apostles with Francis Turretin: Continuity and Discontinuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 KEITH D. STANGLIN Dutch Contributions to Modern Exegesis: The Case of the Remonstrants

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STEVEN EDWARD HARRIS Locke Reads the Bible for Himself – With Others: The Influence of Socinian Exegesis on Locke’s Interpretation of Resurrection . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Index of References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Index of Modern Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Matters of Approach

Does the Present Threaten the Past? Historiographical Reflections on the Problem of Teleology in Writing the History of Exegesis David Lincicum (with Mark W. Elliott and Michael Legaspi)

Can the history of biblical interpretation be written? Is there some kind of unity to the discipline of the history of interpretation? Or does it fragment endlessly into local case studies unable to be combined into some greater whole? This is a historiographical question that itself bundles together a number of subsidiary questions that need to be addressed by anyone undertaking a large-scale work in the history of interpretation. What should be the scope of such a history? Should it include Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, New Testament, or both? Undertaken by a single author with a unified perspective, or by a team of experts in various epochs and figures, but with the attendant threat to coherence? And what constitutes “interpretation” to begin with? Is the subject of the “history of interpretation”, the substantive of which a narrative account is to be rendered, a consistent activity over time, or simply a loose assemblage of reading strategies with no perduring identity through the centuries? What does Tübingen have to do with Alexandria? The question about what is under the microscope opens out into the task of this introductory essay. I hope to pose a question about the degree to which ideas about what constitutes “interpretation” have exercised a determinative influence in structuring some large-scale histories of interpretation. Those works on which I will comment have been selected precisely because they are excellent, and any criticisms I might make will, I hope, be understood as an act of critical gratitude, which is, after all, the most sincere type of academic thanksgiving. In the past few decades, we have learned to draw a distinction between Auslegungsgeschichte and Wirkungsgeschichte, the history of interpretation and the history of effects. I understand the former to be a subset of the latter, but the line between an Auslegung and a Wirkung is not always easy to determine. It is, properly speaking, the former of these that is the concern of the history of interpretation, but the range of genres and texts that involve interpretation is much broader than, say, lemmatized philological commentaries or critical academic

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monographs. Sermons, popular devotional writings, constructive theological or philosophical treatises, all arguably involve sustained acts of interpretation that would render them possible candidates for the history of interpretation. But as a general rule, as histories of interpretation move toward the present, the focus becomes more and more narrowly centered on the historical critical method and its roots, to the exclusion of other forms of interpretation now judged insufficiently scientific to be included. This suggests, at least to me, that histories of interpretation tend to operate with a conception of what valid interpretation is, and then seek precursors to that in the tradition. Historians of interpretation will differ, as we shall see, on how explicitly this comes to the fore, but this suggests there is a major concern to be addressed here: what historiographers and historians of science have referred to as the problem of “presentist” or Whig history. The most famous treatment of this historiographical thorn is Herbert Butterfield’s. “It is part and parcel of the whig interpretation of history,” he argued, “that it studies the past with reference to the present; and though there may be a sense in which this is unobjectionable if its implications are carefully considered, and there may be a sense in which it is inescapable, it has often been an obstruction to historical understanding because it has been taken to mean the study of the past with direct and perpetual reference to the present.”1 It is a theory whose utility is evident: after all, inquiry into the past without any reference to the present threatens to resolve into a fruitless antiquarianism. As Butterfield points out, this view “is really introduced for the purpose of facilitating the abridgment of history; and its effect is to provide us with a handy rule of thumb by which we can easily discover what was important in the past, for the simple reason that, by definition, we mean what is important ‘from our point of view’.”2 Histories of interpretation are very evidently abridging in character, attempting to reduce the vast and diffuse traces of a sprawling exegetical past to some manageable narrative journey. But as Butterfield cautions: “There is a danger that abridgements may be based more or less consciously upon some selective principle.”3 Butterfield spawned a long series of historiographers in his wake who decried the presentism of anachronistic judgments and pointed to the ideologically freighted teleology inherent in certain tendentious histories of everything from politics to science. But not all critics have been happy with the proliferation of accusations of Whiggism. In particular, some historians of science have noted that to proceed in a Rankean fashion in attempting to describe, say, geological investigations in England in the 1830s with no evaluative judgment or description 1 Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (New York: Norton, 1965 [orig. 1931]), 11. 2 Butterfield, Whig Interpretation, 24. 3 Butterfield, Whig Interpretation, 101.

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of the significance of such investigations in the progress of the discipline of geology, will only fail to supply answers to the questions that motivate historians of science in the first place. Ernst Mayr, for example, has contended “that Butterfield was ill advised in his literal transfer of the whig label from political history to history of science. It was based on the erroneous assumption that a sequence of theory changes in science is of the same nature as a sequence of political changes.”4 Or as David Alvargonzález suggests: “history in the field of techniques and technologies will always have an essentially Whig component because the achievements of the past are inevitably included  in a  progressive succession which continues up to the present.”5 If we step back from this debate and ask about its application to the history of exegesis, we are faced with the question: is this history more like a series of shifting political views, which may come and go depending on societal circumstances, or more like a developing tradition of scientific inquiry, in which one discovery or theory may serve as the foundation for the next? Closely related to this is the question of whether there is progress in the history of exegesis, or indeed in history more generally. Mandell Creighton had famously opined that, “we are bound to assume, as the scientific hypothesis on which history is to be written, a progress in human affairs.”6 On the other hand, R. G. Collingwood remarked that, “The idea of historical progress, then, if it refers to anything, refers to the coming into existence not merely of new actions or thoughts or situations belonging to the same specific type, but of new specific types. It therefore presupposes such specific novelties, and consists in the conception of these as improvements …. But from whose point of view is it an improvement?”7 The heady optimism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has naturally long faded, but the native conviction of a teleological progression in history, of which we stand at the provisional end, is difficult to escape. There are evidently different ways in which one’s status as future from the vantage points of the subjects of one’s historical research may play into the writing of a history of exegesis. To adopt and modify a typology first proposed by my colleague, the historian of science Evan Ragland,8 one might speak of at least four stances:

4 Ernst Mayr, “When is Historiography Whiggish?” Journal of the History of Ideas 51 (1990): 301–309, here 302. 5 David Alvargonzález, “Is the History of Science Essentially Whiggish?,” History of Science 51 (2013): 85–99, here 91. 6 Mandell Creighton, “Introductory Note,” in The Cambridge Modern History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902), 1:4, quoted in E. H. Carr, What Is History? (London: Penguin, 1964 [1961]), 111, but erroneously ascribed to Lord Acton. 7 R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956 [1946]), 324–325. 8 My thanks are due to Dr. Raglund for sharing his unpublished paper with me. See also

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1. Future Presentism. Because we live later in time than the exegetes on whose work we reflect, we have unreflective access to information, discoveries, and historical circumstances unavailable to them. It is virtually impossible to think ourselves out of our historically effected consciousness but we can become aware of it and so think about the ways in which our futurity may impinge on the categories of interpretation and judgments we bring to bear in the historiographical task. 2. Unavoidable Teleology of Abridgment. All historical writing involves critical abridgement, which includes selecting topics or examples judged most relevant to a developing argument or line of research, while excluding all others. Because of the vastness of the exegetical tradition and the limitations of the individual historian, the problem of abridgement is particularly severe for the history of exegesis, and so we should pay careful attention to the architectural judgments involved in how histories of interpretation are structured, including what they include and what they pass over, and what role this may play in prejudicing the results in one direction or another. 3. Genealogical Self-Understanding. Histories of technical disciplines like science or historical criticism may take as their specific questions how the regnant approaches in their own day came to arise in the history of the discipline. This approach asks a genealogical question of the exegetical tradition and so is naturally invested in discovering precursors to current practice, though the risks of distorting positions or judging them according to standards inoperative in their own day begins to increase in genealogical approaches. 4. Progressive Teleology. Finally, we find a stronger form in which the exegetical tradition is depicted as tending ineluctably toward some telos, which is, usually after much struggle with traditional orthodoxies, triumphantly achieved. This strongly teleological approach takes a partisan view of the tradition by depicting it as the march of a progress in knowledge in particular. With these rough sensitivities to the varieties of presentist or teleological concern in place, we turn now to consider briefly in turn a number of significant histories of biblical interpretation to gauge how they negotiate these matters. It is worth stressing that I am only attempting to call attention to the stances in play on this question, rather than passing judgment on the projects as a whole.

Hasok Chang, “We Have Never Been Whiggish (About Phlogiston),” Centaurus 51 (2009): 239–264.

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1. Stephen Neill’s Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–19619 Bishop Stephen Neill’s lively account of the interpretation of the New Testament over the course of a fateful hundred years proceeds from the threat to orthodoxy in the early nineteenth century to the establishment of a sane, British criticism by the middle of the twentieth. In his telling, figures in the history of New Testament exegesis spring to life, but his account throughout is marked by a strongly evaluative presentist tone. In speaking of Michaelis, Neill writes, “His own views were generally conservative; but, as we shall see again and again in this study, what matters is not so much the particular views that any scholar holds as the validity of the methods which he uses, and the integrity of his devotion to them.”10 The language chosen is striking: it is the “validity” of the methods used, and the “integrity” of the scholar’s devotion to them, qualities that Neill no doubt finds himself adept at judging. But he goes further than this. In the concluding chapter to the original edition (understandably replaced by Tom Wright in his 1986 revision), Neill posed a series of questions: Is there any real progress? Is there any solid ground underfoot at all, or is all nothing more than the fruit of misplaced human ingenuity? Physical science goes on from strength to strength, through its endlessly cautious checking of data, its constant use of the principle of verifiability, its building on established results as the starting-point for progress in the future. Is there anything comparable in theology? Has it any claim at all to be regarded as scientific in method and achievement?11

He went on to enumerate twelve assured results, as marks of progress – which included, among other less objectionable matters, the view that “it is universally agreed that New Testament study must begin with the Epistles of Paul,” that “there is no valid reason for thinking that [the Gospel of Mark] was written later than A.D. 70,” and that Matthew and Luke used a written collection of the sayings of Jesus, i. e., Q, in addition to Mark. The fact that he could point to an assured minimum of critical results as proof of progress in the 1960s that today seem no longer so assured, arguably highlights elements of a progressive teleology in his presentation. Which is to say that the story Neill tells arrives with some muted tones of triumph at the results of his British contemporaries.

 9 Stephen Neill, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1961 (London: Oxford University Press, 1964). A revised edition was produced by Tom Wright: Stephen Neill and Tom Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1986, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). 10 Interpretation of the New Testament, original ed., p. 6, and rev. ed., p. 6. Cf. Neill’s prefatory statement: “I have tried to feel the movement of thought over a century, to concentrate on a small number of writers rather than to expatiate over many, and at the risk of over-simplification to draw attention to what seems to me to be of permanent significance” (original ed., p. v). 11 Interpretation of the New Testament (orig. ed.), 336.

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2. W. G. Kümmel’s The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of its Problems12 Kümmel’s work, a monument of erudition and a gateway for many to the history of interpretation, may serve as a prime example of the unavoidable teleology of abridgement in service of a genealogical self-understanding. Although the title of his work might indicate a broader scope, he speaks explicitly of ancient and medieval interpretation as Vorgeschichte (“prehistory”), noting in the first sentence of the book that “It is impossible to speak of a scientific view of the New Testament until the New Testament became the object of investigation as an independent body of literature with historical interest, as a collection of writings that could be considered apart from the Old Testament and without dogmatic or creedal basis.”13 Kümmel’s interests are admittedly in the “scientific” understanding of the New Testament, and it is the critical historical science of the late Enlightenment that supplies his points of orientation. With a few notable exceptions – particularly C. H. Dodd, Maurice Goguel, Edwin Hatch, J. B. Lightfoot, and a handful of others – the cast of characters is significantly Germanspeaking and Protestant in character. The organization of the story also proceeds in a self-consciously genealogical manner: the subtitle specifies that this treats “the history of the investigation of [the New Testament’s] problems,” and Kümmel’s preface is remarkably clear about the aims of the book: it “does not present the entire history of New Testament study, but limits itself deliberately to the delineation of the lines of inquiry and the methods which have proved to be of permanent significance or to anticipate future developments.”14 While one might reasonably ask how one should determine “permanent significance,” it is certainly fair for Kümmel to approach the history of critical questions arising in the study of the New Testament in a selective and genealogical manner (focusing on what “anticipate[s] future developments”).

3. Henning Graf Reventlow’s History of Biblical Interpretation15 The German title of Reventlow’s work, Epochen der Bibelauslegung, is a nearer indication of his approach than the broader English title. His work, however, for all its striking erudition and fascinating introduction of figures not usually 12 London: SCM, 1973; ET of Das neue Testament: Geschichte der Erforschung seiner Probleme trans. S. McLean Gilmour and Howard C. Kee (Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1970). 13 New Testament, 13. 14 New Testament, 7. 15 The History of Biblical Interpretation, 4 vols., trans. Leo G. Purdue and James O. Duke (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2009–2010).

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featuring in histories of exegesis, presents another example of a highly selective abridgement of the historical tradition. Indeed, he does admit that the chronological periodization he chooses is only applicable in a limited sense.16 But there is a telling trajectory as his history proceeds. He excludes not just the Eastern traditions in Coptic, Syriac, Armenian and other such languages, but even the Byzantine Greek tradition, citing as justification the fact that “advances of knowledge in understanding the Bible took place chiefly in the western part of the former Roman Empire from the early Middle Ages on.”17 After the Middle Ages, the figures become increasingly Germanic. In fact, the most recent Anglophone interpreter treated at any length is the Deist John Toland, born 1670. This may in part be due to the biographical nature of his presentation, but it is hard to escape the impression that he is privileging the Western, and particularly the German, tradition by an a priori judgment about the strength of its accomplishment which teleologically shapes his presentation to that end. Even more clearly than in Kümmel, we find the strong influence of genealogical self-understanding, where the “self ” is here understood as modern German academic biblical interpretation, whose roots are then sought by traversing the tradition from back to front.

4. William Baird’s History of New Testament Research18 Baird’s monumental account of the history and development of research on the New Testament is staggeringly well-researched. He proceeds mostly biographically but occasionally thematically to present and briefly evaluate the major movements and contributions of New Testament Wissenschaft from the late eighteenth century to Hans Dieter Betz. The periodization is self-consciously chosen. He writes in the introduction to his first volume that he will focus on the “study of the New Testament from the period of the Enlightenment through the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. This historical segment has an integrity of its own. It encompasses the era of the modern world – the era in which the scientific method of inquiry has been applied to all fields of learning.”19 The brief survey of the early church, the Middle Ages, and the Reformation that follows, seeks for evidence of precursorship, adumbrations in embryonic form of the historical critical consciousness. He focuses in his project on “research”, 16

See, e. g., History of Biblical Interpretation, 2:1–2. Ibid., 2:1–2. 18 Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992–2013. 19 History of New Testament Research, 1:xiii. In the preface to the final volume of the series, however, we do find this acknowledgement: “The title History of New Testament Research is an overstatement. This is a history of NT research in some places by some scholars” (3:2, italics original). 17

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though it is conceived in “broad terms, that is, as the whole field of the study of the NT,”20 focusing particularly on “those scholars whose work is most influential in the ongoing development of NT research.”21 In contradistinction to Kümmel, Baird wants not simply to offer a problem-oriented approach, but to offer a broader coverage of the field. So, this seems to be motivated, in part at least, by genealogical self-understanding. Baird does present some evaluation, though he is up-front about this. For example, he suggests of some conservative scholars, that “presuppositions determine their results.”22 In this sense, Baird is explicitly and in a chastened fashion attempting to apply present sensibilities to the evaluation of historical work, as a means of assessing the permanent gain from past scholarship. While there is necessarily significant abridgment, the scope of Baird’s work allows him to offer a broad selection of interpreters whom he judges to be important for the development of New Testament research.

5. Magne Sæbø’s Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation23 The major project that is probably least susceptible to the charge of anachronism or presentism is Sæbø’s massive three volumes in five parts surveying the long history of interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Even here, with 4,000 dense pages, one can point to victims of abridgment: the volumes curiously miss “Gnostic” exegesis, the reception of the Bible among “pagan” authors, Byzantine study of the Bible, and developments within Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, the contributors respect the particularities of each given figure or movement, and so the volumes as a whole have a strongly non-teleological feel to them. Conversely, one sometimes feels a lack of coherence, or at least the reader is left to sketch the lines of development between the various learned sketches – though Sæbø himself traces briefly some such lines at the beginning and end of some of the volumes. His introductory essay identifies various historiographical challenges facing the historian of exegesis, showing himself aware of various historiographical choices that confront the historian of exegesis, including the distinction between the impact of the Bible in broad terms and the history of exegesis in particular, the relationship between part and whole, the rationale for periodizations, and the 20

History of New Testament Research 1:xix. History of New Testament Research 1:xx. 22 History of New Testament Research 2:395. 23 5 parts in 3 vols.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996–2014. The other major multivolume recent treatment which could be considered is the four-volume New Cambridge History of the Bible, which includes more treatment of versions and the Bible as text rather than only as interpreted – apart from the question of the scope of the volumes (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament vs. the entire Christian canon). 21

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relationship between individual interpreters and broader currents of interpretation.24 A multi-author approach to writing the history of biblical interpretation diffuses the risk of an overly-determined presentist approach in a strongly teleological manner, but the heuristic value for those interested in the project of genealogical self-understanding arises in a more oblique manner in such a project.

6. Conclusion As we write history we necessarily write from our present, and we approach the past retrospectively. This fundamental stance of retrospection invites and tempts us to certain kinds of foreshortening or epitomizing, as we attempt to reduce the vast exegetical past to some kind of order, and to fashion a cohesive narrative from the scattered traces of the past that we now have at our disposal. The historian of biblical interpretation must therefore make several crucial architectural choices for structuring their work. In the implementation of those choices, every decision will necessarily distort the primary evidence, and different types of distortion are productive in different ways. We cannot escape the shaping or distortion of the past as we narrate versions of it in our writing of history, and so make it present. But we must be critically self-aware of the ways in which our own biases and situatedness affect the presentation of past interpreters. In this brief essay, I have sketched a typology of the varieties of retrospection in play in our histories of interpretation: future presentism, the unavoidable teleology of abridgement, genealogical self-understanding, and progressive teleology. To name each of these stances is not necessarily to criticize them, and arguably some presentist concern or a desire for retrieval will animate the narratives we craft and make them meaningful to us in the present. The five major histories of biblical interpretation we have examined provide a representative sample of approaches to structuring and selection, and together offer us some sense of the dynamics of presentist concern that operate, sometimes subtly, in writing the history of biblical interpretation. Arguably, this enables us to consider how our presupposed definitions of what interpretation is or should be may determine our presentations of the tradition. Most crassly, we might be tempted to approach the past with a concern only for precursorship, seeking to find their dim approximations of our own sensibilities and approaches. More often, we interrogate the past in an exercise of genealogical self-understanding, but here we must guard against the possibility that our renarration of the past will elide into narrowly teleological anachronism. Why must we guard 24

For many of these, see M. Sæbø in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament I:1.

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against such a temptation? It remains possible that we are screening out genuine insights, connections, and significant exegetical observations simply because we have failed to recognize them as such, and so impoverishing ourselves in the face of the abundant and multi-faceted largesse of the interpretative tradition. To adapt Jauss, exegetical history remains a challenge to exegetical theory, and it would be a pity to miss that challenge because we had taken our starting point in theory.

Supplement (Mark W. Elliott and Michael Legaspi) In addition, a few comments on the volumes by Sæbø and those by Duane Watson and Alan J. Hauser are appropriate.25 In the volumes edited by Sæbø there are clear heroes: Nicolas of Lyra is one. “Nicolas’ Hebrew focus means that he neglects passages that most Christian commentators feel obliged to address.” He lays out a number of a range of interpretations and the reasoning behind them and allows the reader to make up his or her own mind. He thinks he can turn the letter against the Jews. (II/1, 61) The rise of a moderately critical approach is traced from Lyra-Tostado-AbarnabelSimon-Grotius, who is another hero. “Grotius … stressed the peculiar character of the Old Testament in comparison with the New … in this respect he was clearly influenced by Socinian exegesis.” (813) Just like Socinus he “dismantles the exegetical authority of the New Testament over the Old Testament.” My sense is that this is far too radical a version of Grotius and in fact Reventlow’s account of things in his Epochen is much more nuanced. There is an alternative tradition of independent, quizzical scholarship, working as a constant gadfly on the hind of a complacent ecclesia. Spinoza is yet another favourite. Each radical provokes his conservative opponent (Denys the Carthusian, Calov, Huet) but there is no doubting who the geniuses are. For the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament volumes the tendency is to glorify the rise of the literal method, since that is more “ecumenical” with respect to Judaism. One soon becomes aware that these are volumes written for biblical scholars by biblical (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) scholars, with an informed love for the history of their discipline, rather than by historians  – of the church, hermeneutics or exegesis, with some empathy, if not love, for the Christian past. This means that at times there is arguably insufficient contextualizing of the historical figures. Alternatively, in other chapters there is sometimes too much contextualizing and hence little idea of the distinctive contribution of any historical interpretation to its own period is offered. Moreover, what is most apparent in 25

A History of Biblical Interpretation, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008-2014).

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the penultimate (nineteenth century) volume, although it had been evident in some of the earlier ones, is that the contributions work like genealogies for the status quaestionis in the present: there is a sense of working from what is known in the present to the more obscure features of a century or so ago. Overall that penultimate volume is referential and even deferential towards the consensus of biblical studies in the present. The result it that discussion of the early twentieth century material is pulled forward to “now” issues without really enough of a distance from them in order to evaluate well. This would be fine, except that this project intends to be taken seriously as a history and presents itself as such. Another curiosity is that while in the earlier volumes Jewish interpretation was accorded some amount of “positive discrimination” in the telling of the story, in this last volume which might as well be sub-titled “The twentieth century in the shadow of the 19th,” the history of Jewish scholarship and interpretation is given a chapter, a small one at that, and rather bracketed off as one of the “main regional and confessional areas.” There is, I am sure, no intention at segregation, but there is something of that kind of effect. One wonders whether the editors felt that at least after World War II the best of a chastened (now philosemitic) Gentile scholarship did not need Jewish scholarship in order to have integrity and that it was in the coverage of the bad old pre-enlightenment period with its “antisemitic” discourse that required the Jewish story to be told as a counterweight. Among other things, this is to miss the point that relegating the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible to Oriental Studies made the Jewish religion seem like a culture that looked eastwards while New Testament religion faced west. By the early decades of the twentieth century Israelite and Jewish religious culture was increasingly viewed as not a part of the European patrimony. Somehow this is all downplayed. Something that might have been more obviously said about the “nineteenth century” volume (III/1) is asserted explicitly in the editor’s preface to the last volume (III/2), serving as a conclusion to the whole: “that in the twentieth century scholars of various disciplines and traditions have been particularly concerned with the phenomenon of history and its great challenge.” (21). Would it not be more accurate to say that history as a friendly tool was during the twentieth century replaced by historicism that meant history became a problem? He then presents the second issue: the burgeoning of methodologies in the twentieth century, yet only Source-Criticism and Form-Criticism are mentioned (24). Nevertheless, the key question is: Does knowledge of history serve the message of the biblical book, or is it the other way round, as when one concludes (with Hagedorn) that Social-scientific studies of “covenant” suggest it was not primarily a theological idea. In the section “3. Karl Barth and the Canonical Approach,” he emphasizes that Barth wanted to trace connections between Old Testament texts, much as a preacher would, wanting to see the unity of Old Testament texts, even where none existed. A burning passion to see coherence is

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faulted. By contrast, the long-serving and ever fruitful (critical) method “sees a text rooted in the circumstances of its composition and development” (123). Barth is a whipping-boy for a number of contributors to the last volume, as one who cast a spell on some (Eichrodt, von Rad, Childs) who might otherwise have been fine scholars. A case of the hyper-contextualizing mentioned above is apparent when J.L. Ska insinuates that the opposition (between Geschichte and Heilsgeschichte) was “to be understood in the context of the Second World War, and of the contraposition between Aryan and Jewish cultures,” meaning that von Rad saw a biblical theology subverting Nazi “history” culture. However, when von Rad writes (“Der Anfang der Geschichtsschreibung”), “history is under God’s management,” then this is theological not historical study (412), and perhaps understandably the Heidelberg Alttestamentler got carried away by his good intentions. One might demur: yet how can history that looks at the history of beliefs stop being history when it tries to describe and explain confessional writing? Ska’s answer is found in the less theologically aligned Martin Noth, who thought quite differently about war and conquest. For he was “long opposed to what had been the dominant ideology of this country, that of the national-socialist party, and because he lost his library in East Prussia must have had little sympathy for a theory postulating a military conquest of the promised Land.” (414) This feels very much like overly contextualizing. Likewise, how was it relevant to the fact that Rendtorff ’s überlieferungsgeschichtliche approach took a long time to gain interntional recognition that his German colleagues had a “perception of him as a sympathizer with student revolutionaries” (so David Carr, 443) Carr’s essay, with its references to his having solicited emails from the pupils of these great men, seems impaired, not enhanced, by a desire to know the personalities of the scholars better than they knew themselves. For Joachim Schaper, in any case Historicism’s triumph made all theological systems unworkable. There took place a purgation through historical reasoning (650). J. T. Beck earns his respect for having fought an intelligent rearguard action: a Begriffsorganismus that was “able to express the whole of God’s revelation,” which in turn is “the Realorganismus of the biblical teaching” (647). Schaper challenges Bernd Janowski’s idea of Denken in Zusammenhang as key to forming an Old Testament Theology: “Is it valid, though, if insights of historicism are taken seriously and theology is perceived as a historische Kulturwissenschaft?” (636). Now if there is a unity – and here he draws on Zimmerli and Spieckermann – it is an invisible one: the unity of divine action behind the diversity of witnesses, even a centre beyond the horizon, although he also borrows from R. Smend in order to give a place to human response, as in the worked example of Deuteronomy 26:1–11 (“not a discourse about God, but as a confession of his turning towards them” (666)). For Janowski, perhaps offering a minority report to this project, the history of the Old Testament is clearly “summierende

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Geschichtsschreibung”: one should look descriptively at the religious symbols but then move forward to theology by seeing what the texts have in common, and that then provides the horizon for the everyday and the religious (in Israel it all seeps in together). This last volume seems in thrall to the penultimate to the extent that the whole work never really leaves the nineteenth century: Wellhausen remains the hero for the core authors of these volumes. “Poststructuralism” is hardly mentioned, let alone spelled out as to its implications for the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. One wonders whether asking the questions New Historicism asks actually undermines much of what is sacred. Auslegungsgeschichte is where at least part of the aim was to allow the text to speak rather than be spoken to and that extends into historical critical times. That is somewhat undermined from the beginning if one makes too much of the term Reventlow uses in his title, and is implicit in other projects: Epochen with it connotation of steps and “paradigm shifts” or evolution if not development (Herder not Lessing) lends itself to “intellectual history”. This means genealogies of different types running along parallel lines. Now genealogical work is often critical and corrective as well as self-reinforcing (as in Kümmel or Reventlow), but it rarely allows the detail of textual or biblical theological themes to be centerstage. Kümmel’s Das Neue Testament. Geschichte der Erforschung seiner Probleme (1958) is all about how biblical interpretation came to raise critical questions (problem-oriented). Let history speak, not the texts with or without any sensus plenior. The N. T. Wright edition of Stephen Neill’s book26 is polemical and impressionistic in places and not a helpful mirror to that which it wants to critique. But that could have a positive and constructive side. Studer here is helpful: “When the res are the starting point of further reflection, we may speak of biblical theology in two senses of the term. On the one hand, the data which are presupposed themselves come more or less directly from the Bible … or at least are regarded as conformed to the Bible … On the other hand, these res, which are either biblical or at least not contrary to the Bible, are rethought and developed by means of biblical testimonia.”27 In the second phase of Studer’s own project, the Novum Testamentum Patristicum, we might compare the “mission statement” a decade on by the editors.28 In this they start by asking: how did this diverse collection of 27 books come to be treated as a unity? What they find useful is that what binds them together is some sort of “net” of resonances, which the Church Fathers/Early Christian writers understood: “Sein Neues Testament hat keinen Anfang und kein Ende, sondern nur einen Referenzrahmen, innerhalb dessen man endlos von einem Text zum nächsten surfen kann” (579). Variants arose due 26

The Interpretation of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). Historia della Theologia (Casale Monferrato: Piemme, 1993), 1:347. 28 Andreas Merkt with Tobias Nicklas and Joseph Verheyden, “Das Novum Testamentum Patristicum (NTP): Ein Projekt zur Erforschung von Rezeption und Auslegung des Neuen Testamentes in frühchristlicher und spätantiker Zeit,” Early Christianity 6.4 (2015): 573–595. 27

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to that mutual influencing and today one should not forget the less well-known interpretations, which were very popular in the early centuries. The authors provide a little apology for the slowness of production of volumes. To be aware of all this makes a commentary on a book each time hard. It is not as simple as “linear” verse by verse commentary and one has to find other, more interesting ways of slicing the pie of reception. For that reason, there are planned 42 commentary volumes but also 5 Sonderbände. These latter seem to be programmatic for the former. One, that on the Apocrypha, has already appeared;29 there will be ones on Manicheism and Gnosticism. Fourth, a supplementary volume on Oriental exegesis; and fifth, one on pagan, Jewish, and also early Islamic reception of the New Testament. It seems there is more detail about these essay volumes than about the commentaries. The other thing to remember is that these commentaries will be meta-commentaries in that what will feature is not only detail and exhaustive coverage of the patristic interpretation but also a critical evaluation of those.30 The Lyon-based BiblIndex (formerly Biblica Patristica) is not wissenschaftlich enough: “Den Stellenregistern fehlt eine kommentierende Forschungsarbeit, die auch eine historische und theologische Einordnung der Rezeptionen erlaubt. Stattdessen experimentiert man mit einer komplexen formalen Kategorisierung der Bezugnahmen, deren heuristischer Wert nicht erkennbar ist.”31 A faithful – perhaps too faithful  – tradent of the patristic exegetical wisdom was Dom A. Calmet, with his Commentarius litteralis in omnes libros Novi Testamenti latinis litteris traditus. Editio Novissima, Würzburg 1788, who offers a costfree help to the commentators of the new series. The goal of NTP is to present the interpretations as in their original connection with special emphasis on the theological, genre, liturgical and historical context in which any verse was received.32 To be truthful, this is not really saying very much. What they are im-

29 NTP 29: Jean-Michel Roessli and Tobias Nicklas, eds., Christian Apocrypha: Receptions of the New Testament in Ancient Christian Apocrypha (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014). 30 “Von scheinbar vergleichbaren Kommentarwerken (s. u. 3.3.) unterscheidet sich das NTP durch seine Vollständigkeit, Detailgenauigkeit und Wissenschaftlichkeit (vor allem im Sinne eines historisch-kritischen Umgangs mit den patristischen Auslegungen).” (Merkt et al., 582) 31 Reference is made to an essay by L. Mellerin, “Methodological Issues in Biblindex. An Online Index of Biblical Quotations in Early Christian Literature,” in M. Vinzent, L. Mellerin, H. A. G. Houghton, eds., Papers Presented at the Sixteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2011 Volume Two: Biblical Quotations in Patristic Texts (StPatr 54; Leuven/Paris/Walpole, 2013), 11–32. 32 “Vielmehr sollen die patristischen Auslegungen so präsentiert werden, dass ihr ursprünglicher Zusammenhang sichtbar wird. Besonderes Gewicht wird deshalb auf die theologischen, gattungsmäßigen, liturgischen und historischen Kontexte gelegt, in denen ein Vers besonders rezipiert wurde, um so auch einen wissenschaftlich verantwortbaren und hermeneutisch sensiblen Umgang mit diesen Auslegungen zu ermöglichen,” (591).

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plicitly objecting to is a tradition of interpretation which snowballs and then is seen to be the original interpretation. In D. Watson and A. Hauser (eds.), A History of Biblical Interpretation, vol. 2: The Medieval Through the Reformation Periods33, the introductory essay is quite long and cannot resist the odd Whiggish conclusion: “By the end of the Reformation era, many of the primary factors were already in place which would lay the groundwork for the rise of the modern biblical interpretation.” One hears of “the proliferation of translations of the Bible … enabling each reader to call into question the interpretation of authority figures in the churches” in contrast to the staid medieval consensus: “during the Middle Ages, church councils, and the authority of the Roman Church in the West, had considerably narrowed the options available to biblical interpreters. All that changed during the Renaissance and the Reformation” (79). However, there is much to commend. There is a table of “Byzantine” exegetes (Blowers, 174–175) which is arranged in no discernible order. The problem is that the volume is called The Medieval Through the Reformation Period and Blowers’ essay deals mostly with Nyssa, Cyril and Maximus. Romanos the Melodist is arguably “Byzantine” as is Maximus, and it is nice to see his imaginative style of theologizing given some space, but why only one paragraph on Symeon the New Theologian before concluding with twentieth century theologians who belong to this chapter neither as exegetes nor as Byzantine? Nevertheless, a trail is being blazed that did not appear in other projects. On the Western later Middle Ages, there is a fabulous essay by Robbie Harris on Rashi and others. Here and in the Christian exegesis of a century or two later there was “a decidedly theological orientation to the meaning of biblical literature, rather than a philological or historical focus.” (Christopher Ocker, 270) So Lyra was atypical, pace Saebø et al. After all, unclear scriptural places needed theologians to help clarify them. G. R. Evans is helpful here: “The distinction between literal and spiritual was eroded by an increasingly logical approach to language and textual meaning in Scholasticism” (262). Here, there is comparatively more sense of a project that has room for the history of theology as intertwined with the history of exegesis. In volume three of A History of Biblical Interpretation, The Enlightenment Through the Nineteenth Century,34 Hauser and Watson continue to chart a trajectory whose early stages are marked in the first two volumes. Arriving at the eighteenth century, their History reaches a critical and dramatic disjuncture in the story of biblical interpretation. Despite the great range and internal diversity of Jewish and Christian scholarship in the medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation periods, Hauser and Watson characterize pre-Enlightenment inter33 34

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014.

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pretation, philosophically, as a unitary enterprise: “what remained unquestioned in all this was the assumption that God, and God alone, from outside the human sphere, was ultimately the only dependable and accurate source of truth” (2). The task of volume three is to mark the ways in which this fundamental assumption, challenged on several fronts, ultimately gave way to modes of biblical interpretation that reflected a new intellectual orientation: truth comes not from revelation but through empirical science and autonomous human reason. As Hauser and Watson make clear in their extensive “Introduction and Overview,” the key issue was a revolution in attitudes toward knowledge, specifically its sources, focus, extent, dissemination, diversification, and historicization. What they describe as a profound “epistemological shift” (3) that has come to define modern culture also became, correspondingly, a touchstone for new ways of understanding the Bible. This strategy of telling the story of biblical interpretation by marking a philosophical rupture between the sacralized worldview of the pre-modern and the secularizing attitude of the modern is, of course, a familiar one. “History,” perennially linked to its verbal cousin “story,” seeks to identify the shape, direction, and meaning of the past. The history traced in volume three offers readers a clear and intelligible narrative. Once a larger cultural shift based on new philosophical understandings made itself felt, biblical scholarship came into its own as a modern enterprise: “transformative social and economic forces afoot in the world unavoidably altered the way in which biblical interpretation was done” (7). Yet it was not merely an instance of inevitable change. It has been, instead, a tale of conflict, a story of the triumph of one worldview over another. As the editors put it: “we see the victory of reason over revelation, of science over tradition, and of individual interpretation over church authority.” (14) To a significant degree, the essays gathered by Hauser and Watson in volume three follow the outlines of this narrative, filling it in with careful studies of figures typically recognized as precursors, pioneers, and paragons of modern biblical criticism. Thirteen chapters, ranging from a general essay on Enlightenment-era biblical scholarship (Michael Legaspi) to one chronicling the adoption of higher criticism in North America in the nineteenth century (Thomas Olbricht), make up the volume. There are contributions from noted historians of scholarship, for example, William Baird on historical criticism, Travis Frampton on Spinoza, and J. W. Rogerson on De Wette. Darrell Jodock writes about F. C. Baur and the Tübingen School; Jeffrey Keuss examines Strauss and Feuerbach; and Bill Arnold and David Schreiner contribute a chapter on Wellhausen and his legacy. There are also chapters oriented toward the development of particular sub-disciplines in biblical scholarship: textual criticism (James Sanders), biblical lexicography (Dirk Jongkind), the quest for the historical Jesus (J. D. G. Dunn). The choice of topics for this volume may be described as largely conventional. Contributors “cover” scholarly developments and individual scholars who figure importantly

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in the genealogical self-understanding of modern biblical criticism. Two chapters venture slightly outside this genealogy by examining theological perspectives on the Bible in this period: Christine Helmer’s essay on Schleiermacher and Carter Lindberg’s article on Pietism. Even here, though, emphasis is placed on connections between theology and biblical scholarship. In sum, the third volume in the series of Hauser and Watson may be described as a careful and responsible documentation of the ways in which academic study of the Bible, chiefly among Germanophone scholars, came into its own in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The conventional and familiar story told in this volume, which features the triumph of modern critical scholarship over traditional, confessional interpretation, is selective, teleological, and Whiggish. Yet the editors hint that the next volume in the series may offer a different perspective. They ask whether “a Bible uncoupled from spiritual reading” is ultimately worth studying. Does the Bible “in a strictly academic environment” become “a cultural dead letter”? This question, they write, “is a topic for volume 4 of HBI.” (14) We shall see.

Bibliography Alvargonzález, David. “Is the History of Science Essentially Whiggish?” History of Science 51 (2013): 85–99. Baird, William. History of New Testament Research. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992–2013. Butterfield, Herbert. The Whig Interpretation of History. New York: Norton, 1965 [orig. 1931]. Carr, E. H. What Is History? London: Penguin, 1964 [1961]. Chang, Hasok. “We Have Never Been Whiggish (About Phlogiston).” Centaurus 51 (2009): 239–264. Collingwood, R. G. The Idea of History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956 [1946]. Creighton, Mandell. “Introductory Note.” In The Cambridge Modern History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902. Hauser, Alan J. and Duane Watson, eds. A History of Biblical Interpretation. 3 Vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009–2014. Kümmel, W. G. The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of Its Problems. London: SCM, 1973. ET of Das neue Testament: Geschichte der Erforschung seiner Probleme. Translated by S. McLean Gilmour and Howard C. Kee. Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1970. Mayr, Ernst. “When is Historiography Whiggish?” Journal of the History of Ideas 51 (1990): 301–309. Mellerin, L. “Methodological Issues in Biblindex: An Online Index of Biblical Quotations in Early Christian Literature.” Pages 11–32 in Papers Presented at the Sixteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2011 Volume Two: Biblical Quotations in Patristic Texts. Edited by M. Vinzent, L. Mellerin and H. A. G. Houghton. StPatr 54. Leuven/Paris/Walpole, MA, 2013.

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Merkt, Andreas, Tobias Nicklas and Joseph Verheyden. “Das Novum Testamentum Patristicum (NTP): Ein Projekt zur Erforschung von Rezeption und Auslegung des Neuen Testamentes in frühchristlicher und spätantiker Zeit.” Early Christianity 6.4 (2015): 573–595. Neill, Stephen. The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1961. London: Oxford University Press, 1964. – and Tom Wright. The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1986. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Reventlow, Henning Graf. The History of Biblical Interpretation. Translated by Leo G. Purdue and James O. Duke. 4 Vols. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2009–2010. Roessli, Jean-Michel and Tobias Nicklas, eds. Christian Apocrypha: Receptions of the New Testament in Ancient Christian Apocrypha. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014. Saebo, Magne. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation. 3 Vols. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996–2014. Studer, B. Historia della Theologia. Casale Monferrato: Piemme, 1993.

Wirkungsgeschichte and Trilateration A Methodological Analogy for Understanding the Role of Reception-History in New Testament Exegesis Eric Covington

Even with the recent proliferation of interest in the intersection of “reception” studies and New Testament exegesis,1 the extent to which Wirkungsgeschichte should affect the field and method of New Testament biblical studies remains a matter of some debate. While some practitioners see the future of biblical scholarship lying in the adoption of reception-sensitive approaches,2 the question remains: how essential is Wirkungsgeschichte for the task of New Testament exegesis? Does a “reception” approach to New Testament exegesis betray the historical-grammatical study of the early Christian texts or is there some way in 1 Exemplary of the recent interest in the Bible and its reception is the expansive encyclopedic project Christine Helmer, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, 30 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009). A number of other studies examining the theory and application of the relationship between reception history and biblical studies have recently been published in the previous decade, including David P. Parris, Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics (PTMS 107; Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2009); Michael Lieb, Emma Mason, and Jonathan Roberts, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Robert Evans, Reception History, Tradition and Biblical Interpretation: Gadamer and Jauss in Current Practice (LNTS 510; STr 4; London: Bloomsbury, 2014); Emma England and William John Lyons, eds., Reception History and Biblical Studies: Theory and Practice (LHBOTS 615; STr 6; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015); Jennifer R. Strawbridge, The Pauline Effect: The Use of the Pauline Epistles by Early Christian Writers (SBR 5; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015). 2 See, for example, the perspective of William John Lyons, “Hope for a Troubled Discipline? Contributions to New Testament Studies from Reception History,” JSNT 33.2 (2010): 207–220, who concludes that “adopting reception history’s terminology offers real hope for New Testament studies, a discipline whose days at its current level may well otherwise be numbered” (p. 217). Markus Bockmuehl, Seeing the Word: Refocusing New Testament Study, Studies in Theological Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 66, sees a possible future of New Testament studies similarly situated around Wirkungsgeschichte: “‘Effective history’ (Wirkungsgeschichte) could offer a shared and focusing interest for subdisciplines ranging all the way from textual criticism to narrative criticism, from biblical theology to liberationist deconstruction. In the process it would enrich and cross-pollinate a great deal of insular academic discussion – providing a broader and less ephemeral base by reviving long-forgotten insights of exegesis and application, but without being forced to give hostages to either a one-dimensional ‘history of the victors’ or a revisionist veneration of all that was supposedly suppressed.”

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which Wirkungsgeschichte and exegesis can both be applied to the task of New Testament interpretation? In consonance with such questions, this contribution suggests that the geometric principle of trilateration, which undergirds modern Global Positioning Systems (GPS), can provide a helpful analogy for understanding the way in which studying the Wirkungsgeschichte of the New Testament texts is an indispensable component of neutestamentliche Wissenschaft.

1. Gadamer and Jauss: Hermeneutical Concepts and Terminology of Reception History The hermeneutical basis for much of the recent interest in reception approaches to New Testament interpretation can be traced back to the pioneering work of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Hans Robert Jauss.3 Gadamer’s work focuses particularly on the way in which human understanding works in relation to the arts and humanities – fields which lie beyond the more objective scientific methodologies of understanding.4 Within this sphere, Gadamer seeks to promote a principle for how human-knowing and understanding is able to occur in the non-scientific fields.5 Gadamer suggests that understanding is a “historically effected” (wirkungsgeschichtliches) event that requires a “historically effected consciousness” (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein).6 According to Gadamer, the phrasing of this consciousness has an intentional ambiguity; “it is,” he says, “used to mean at once the consciousness effected in the course of history and 3 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, 2nd rev. ed. (London: Sheed & Ward, 1989) is the pinnacle of Gadamer’s work. The standard work for Jauss’ contributions is Hans Robert Jauss, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Timothy Bahti (Theory and History of Literature 2; Brighton: Harvester, 1982). 4 Cf. Gadamer, Truth and Method, xxii: “The human sciences are connected to modes of experience that lie outside science: with the experiences of philosophy, of art, and of history itself. These are all modes of experience in which a truth is communicated that cannot be verified by the methodological means proper to science.” 5 Evans, Reception History, 8. Cf. Gadamer, Truth and Method, xxiii: “The hermeneutics developed here is not, therefore, a methodology of the human sciences, but an attempt to understand what the human sciences truly are, beyond their methodological self-consciousness, and what connects them with the totality of our experience of world.” 6 Defining these technical terms is a notorious problem for English translators of Gadamer’s work, with different editions of Truth and Method featuring different translations of this important phrase. The translations used above correspond with the Second Revised Edition cited throughout. Other translations of and interactions with Gadamer’s work have used different translations of this phrase. In the translator’s preface of the Second Revised Edition of Truth and Method, Weinsheimer and Marshall highlight that the phrase was originally translated as “effective-historical consciousness,” while also noting that Paul Ricoeur translated the phrase as “consciousness open to the effects of history” (xv). For more on the terms and their associations with biblical studies see Mark Knight, “Wirkungsgeschichte, Reception History, Reception Theory,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.2 (2010): 137–146.

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determined by history, and the very consciousness of being thus effected and determined.”7 To clarify his approach, Gadamer borrows the language of horizons from earlier philosophers including Nietzsche, Husserl, and Heidegger to describe how such historical-consciousness effects interpretation of historical texts. A horizon represents the limitations of the finite present; that is, “the horizon is the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point.”8 Just as the horizon acts as the boundary of the world beyond which our eyes cannot see, so does the hermeneutical horizon act as the boundary of the world beyond which we cannot experience or know. As such, the horizon of the interpreter is in constant motion with the ever-changing movements of life.9 The hermeneutical horizon is subject to grow and expand as an individual learns and experiences things throughout their life. New knowledge and experience can be understood as “broadening our horizons” – that is, stretching the boundary of the finite limits of an individual’s understanding. Gadamer’s understanding of Wirkungsgeschichte maintains that every historical object – whether individual or text – has a particular historical horizon within which it is located. In the field of New Testament, this approach maintains that the biblical texts themselves (as definitively historical texts) have a historical horizon of their own. That is, they are written in a specific language in a specific historical period by a particular author, and they retain elements of their own particular historical horizon in their writings. On their own, the New Testament texts and the modern interpreter inhabit different horizons that have no direct historical overlap. The New Testament was composed and originally circulated in Koine Greek in the first-century Mediterranean world by authors who were steeped in Jewish traditions and expectations and yet who were living under the dominion of the Roman empire. The modern interpreter is inevitably located within a different hermeneutical horizon that is impacted by their own linguistic, cultural, and historical context. As historically independent realities, both the New Testament texts and the modern exegete occupy distinct and separate hermeneutical horizons. According to Gadamer, when the modern interpreter reads a historically distant text (like the New Testament), they experience a Horizontverschmelzung – a “fusion of horizons,” which allows the interpreter “to see the past in its own terms, not in terms of our contemporary criteria and prejudices but within its own historical horizon.”10 As Robert Evans well notes, a key component of this understanding of the New Testament texts is that their historical horizon  7

Gadamer, Truth and Method, xxxiv. Ibid., 302.  9 Ibid., 304–306. 10 Ibid., 302–303.  8

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can only be experienced as a projection by the modern interpreter.11 Gadamer suggests that this “fusion” of horizons for the interpretation of historical texts is a dialogical process – one in which the horizon of the reader engages with the horizon of the historical text.12 Thus, in order for historical understanding to take place, the interpreter must acquire “the right horizon of inquiry for the questions evoked by the encounter with tradition.”13 Gadamer’s emphasis on the fusion of horizons cuts across the grain of theories that create a stark division between reason and tradition. Against the Enlightenment preference for pure reason over against authority and tradition, Gadamer maintains that the two must be held together. Part of the horizon of the interpreter is the recognition that Vorurteil (pre-judgment) is necessary for any act of understanding. For Gadamer, “prejudice is the pre-conscious cumulative effect of all the judgments we have made and inherited from our tradition that we may not be aware of, but which constitute our horizon of understanding.”14 Thus, the tradition of interpretation is integral for any act of interpretation because it represents that out of which understanding comes. As Gadamer says, “Our usual relationship to the past is not characterized by distancing and freeing ourselves from tradition. Rather, we are always situated within traditions […]. We do not conceive of what tradition says as something other, something alien. It is always part of us.”15 One of Gadamer’s pupils at Heidelberg, Hans Robert Jauss, focused particularly on the implications of Wirkungsgeschichte for the fields of literary theory and textual interpretation. Jauss introduced the concept of Erwartungshorizont (“horizon of expectation”) to Gadamer’s theory of hermeneutical “horizons,”16 maintaining that “each generation interacts with the text in terms of a different framework of expectations” which are “built up from earlier encounters with texts.”17 In response to what he considered an overly passive connotation of Gadamer’s “fusion of horizons,” Jauss describes historical understanding as the “mediation of horizons.”18 Jauss saw this mediation of horizons happening within the dialogical process of question and answer, a process, he believes, that encour11

Evans, Reception History, 5. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 303 extends the conversation metaphor for historical understanding even further: “In a conversation, when we have discovered the other person’s standpoint and horizon, his ideas become intelligible without our necessarily having to agree with him; so also when someone thinks historically, he comes to understand the meaning of what has been handed down without necessarily agreeing with it or seeing himself in it.” 13 Ibid., 302. 14 Parris, Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics, 4. 15 Gadamer, Truth and Method, 282. 16 Parris, Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics, 148 even suggests “the concept of the horizon of expectations stands at the centre of Jauss’s theory.” 17 Evans, Reception History, 10. 18 Parris, Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics, 152–153. 12

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ages a more active role for the interpreter. Jauss understood interpretation as presupposing “a relation of work, audience and new work which takes the form of a dialogue as well as a process, and which can be understood in the relationship of message and receiver as well as in the relationship of question and answer, problem and solution.”19 The heart of Jauss’ contribution is the idea that it is the process of asking questions that a historical text may answer that allows for the present horizon of the interpreter to mediate with the historically distant horizon of the text. Bringing Gadamer’s emphasis on the hermeneutical need for wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein (“historically effected consciousness”) to bear on the task of textual interpretation, Jauss articulates that the task of textual interpretation should not be understood in terms of a two-way hermeneutical model, which understands textual interpretation as a dialogue between text and interpreter. Rather, the fact that history is a wirkungsgeschichtliches event requires that textual interpretation be recognized as a three-way dialogue: between text, history of reception, and interpreter.20 This three-way dialogue recognizes that “any new understanding of a text in the light of another one is anchored to past understandings and misunderstandings of texts, and that, with Gadamer, we are never the first to join in the questioning and answering that have taken place around texts for centuries.”21 Further, the model of a three-way dialogue leads Jauss to note that interpretation of historical texts “appears exactly at the intersection of the diachronic and synchronic approaches.”22 For Jauss particularly, the inclusion of a third voice in the dialogue, that of the text’s reception, allows the interpreter to not only ask questions of the historical text (which, by necessity, are confined to the interpreter’s own interpretive horizon) but also to study the questions and answers attained by interpreters of previous generations and other interpretive horizons.

2. Trilateration and Modern Satellite Navigation Services While these aspects of Gadamer and Jauss’ hermeneutics have spurred renewed interest in some circles of biblical interpretation concerning the significance of the history of biblical interpretation, their implications for New Testament exegesis and interpretation (which so often operates with a similar two-dimen19 Hans Robert Jauss, “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory,” trans. Elizabeth Benzinger, New Literary History 2 (1970): 8. 20 Cf. Parris, Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics, 301. 21 Mark W. Elliott, The Heart of Biblical Theology: Providence Experienced (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 59. 22 Jauss, “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory,” 29.

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sional hermeneutical model as that challenged by Jauss) remain a matter of some dispute. The geometric principle of trilateration – mediated through the popular application within modern satellite navigation services – can serve as a helpful means of exploring how the inclusion of a third voice within the interpretive dialogue between interpreter and text is an indispensable component of the interpretive task.23 Most global positioning system (or GPS) navigation services depend on a baseline system of twenty-four different satellites run by the United States Depart of Defense, which orbit the earth in six different orbital rotations – four in each orbit.24 The six orbit patterns are designed to be spaced evenly around the earth – every 60° – and the 24 different satellites rotate in a 12-hour orbit “in planes that are inclined at 55° from the equator” at an altitude of 20,200 kilometers above the Earth.25 Each satellite transmits two different frequencies (1227.60 MHz and 1575.42 MHz) giving consistent information regarding the position of the satellite within the orbit system and the exact times at which it transmits a signal.26 Individual GPS devices receive the signal sent from the satellites and record the difference in the time from when the signal was transmitted and when it was received. Using the time difference between the sending satellite and the receiver, GPS makes a calculation to determine the distance of the receiver from the satellite.27 That is, GPS systems measure the radial distance between the receiver and the transmitter, based on the time that the signal was sent and the location of the satellite within its orbit. Using one satellite, then, based on the time discrepancy between the transmitter and the receiver, one could determine the location of the receiver as being any potential point on the particular radial distance from the satellite in any direction. This is the first step in determining a geographical position, but the possible location of the receiver can still only be determined as lying on any point 23 According to Pablo Cotera, et al., “Indoor Robot Positioning Using an Enhanced Trilateration Algorithm,” International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems 13.3 (2016): 2, trilateration is a process “in which the location of a point in space is calculated using the distances from such a point to a series of known geometrical entities.” Trilateration is not to be confused with triangulation. Triangulation is a similar process of measurement and location, but it measures the degrees of known angles. Trilateration, on the other hand, uses known distances as the basis for its measurements. 24 Richard B. Thompson, “Global Positioning System: The Mathematics of GPS Receivers,” Mathematics Magazine 71.4 (1998): 260. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the Global Positioning System satellite orbits are able to support a maximum of 30 satellites in orbit (“GNSS Frequently Asked Questions – GPS,” template, Federal Aviation Administration Website, 20 December 2016. Online at: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/ service_units/techops/navservices/gnss/faq/gps/#4. Accessed 12 Oct 2018.) 25 Thompson, “Global Positioning System,” 260–261. 26 Ibid., 261. 27 These calculations are based on the basic formula Distance = Speed x Time, where the speed of the satellite signal is calculated as C (speed of light).

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Fig. 1

Fig. 2

in the identified radial distance from the satellite. When error probabilities are calculated for, a range of any single point within the calculated radial distance would be a theoretically accurate location of the receiver. That is, using Fig. 1 as an example, the location of a GPS receiver could be said to be accurately identified if it lies at any point in the shaded circle around the satellite. More precise directional information is not available with information from only one satellite. If a second satellite’s signal is detected, the receiver can compute the distance measurements between both satellites (based on the time differences of both satellites) and sufficiently narrow down the possible location of the receiver to the positions where the error ranges for both satellites overlap. This second satellite significantly narrows down the possible locations of the receiver, but, again there remain a number of possible locations within the areas of overlap where the receiver may be located. According to Fig. 2, the location of the GPS receiver could be accurately stated to be at any single point within either of the unshaded circles where the radial distances overlap. This provides a much narrower range of locative possibilities than the information from a single satellite, but it is still insufficient to give a more plausible range of locative possibility. The addition of a third satellite signal, though, allows for a plausible range of location. The location of the receiver may now be narrowed down to any point within the unshaded circle that indicates the overlapping radial distances from all three satellites [see Fig. 3]. In an error-free, two-dimensional plane, the calculations based on three satellites would be able to provide an exact location based on the geometric principle of trilateration. However, in the three-dimensional world of reality, there are anomalies (anything from elevation to weather to signal obstructions) that cause a range of error.28 The reality of error-probability means that determining an exact and precise location is unfeasible. What the information from the three satellites accomplishes is to allow the GPS device to provide a sufficiently limited range of locative possibility that can be placed 28 It should also be noted that GPS systems operating in the three-dimensional world of reality utilize a convergence of four satellites to account for the effects of elevation.

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Fig. 3

on a map and used to determine relative location. Using these methods, modern GPS devices typically can be accurate to within a range of 16 feet under open sky conditions.29

3. Wirkungsgeschichte and Trilateration: Toward a Reception-Hermeneutic for New Testament Exegesis The mathematical principle of trilateration as evidenced in modern GPS provides, I suggest, a helpful analogy for understanding the role of Wirkungsgeschichte within New Testament interpretation via Gadamer and Jauss. Trilateration, as expressed in modern location services, is based on the simple but profound idea that three satellites provide a more plausible range of locative possibility than two. If the radial distances of the satellites may be compared to the hermeneutical horizons suggested by Gadamer and Jauss, GPS trilateration provides an analogy for the significance of adding a third hermeneutical horizon. Seeking the interpretation of an ancient text can be likened to the task of satellite location. The task of New Testament exegesis is to locate the interpretation of specific texts on a broad plane of possible interpretive significance. In particular, the discipline 29 Federal Aviation Administration, “GNSS Frequently Asked Questions  – GPS” indicates that current accuracy for the Standard Position Service (SPS), which is the service covering all general civil use, without Selective Availability (SA)  – a technique originally initiated by the DOD to intentionally degrade the accuracy of the GPS satellite system but which was discontinued following an executive order of President Bill Clinton on May 1, 2000 – is within 25m (approx. 82 feet) on the horizontal plane and 43m (approx. 141 feet) in the vertical plane. The time accuracy of the signal is to within 200 nanoseconds.

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seeks to limit the impossibilities of potential interpretations through a process of historical and linguistic examination. Or, to put it another way, the task of New Testament interpretation is to identify a range of interpretive plausibility.30 As historically rooted realities, the biblical text and the interpreter constitute two points of contact, which are represented by satellites in this extended analogy. Modern interpreters are one immovable location point/satellite – though with the potential to broaden their horizons. Each interpreter is born in a particular time and location with no potential of changing the historical circumstances in which they are located. Likewise, the biblical texts – as historical documents – are rooted in the historical context from which they emerged. The texts cannot be divorced from the hermeneutical horizon in which they were produced. These two historical poles (or satellites in the GPS analogy) are given and they represent, in the reception terminology of Gadamer and Jauss, two different “horizons” of interpretation. Modern interpreters seek to create a fusion between their historical horizon and the historical horizon of the ancient biblical texts. The overlap of these two horizons provides the range of historical, biblical interpretation. Yet what GPS and reception-hermeneutics help us better understand is that the introduction of a third “horizon” can help provide a more focused range of interpretative possibility within which the New Testament exegete can work. This brief account of Wirkungsgeschichte – and the analogy of trilateration – suggests that textual interpretation can best be understood as a three-way dialogue between text, reception, and interpreter. Based on this fundamental understanding of the act of interpretation, the introduction of Wirkungsgeschichte as a third dialogue partner (or hermeneutical horizon/satellite in our extended analogy) does not change the essential task of New Testament exegesis. It remains focused on the close study and interpretation of the biblical texts. Rather, the presence of a third voice in the conversation helps further enhance the way in which exegetes approach that task. Neither does the introduction of Wirkungsgeschichte necessarily require an overhaul of the historical and exegetical methods traditionally associated with New Testament studies; indeed, they remain a fundamental component of the interpretive act. An important part of Gadamer and Jauss’ explanation of the horizon of historical texts is that they are ultimately a projection of the interpreter’s own understanding of that historical horizon, and the more historical and exegetical work that can be done, the more accurate the projection of that historical horizon may be. This aspect of interpretation is equally true for biblical studies and is consistent with the aims of much of the historical scholarship of the

30 As William John Lyons, Joseph of Arimathea: A Study in Reception History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 2 has it: interpretative studies in the biblical texts are “exercises in plausibility.”

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New Testament: an attempt to better understand the text and the first-century world from which it originated.31 Historic-linguistic exegetical methods remain imperative for seeking to determine “the questions to which the text originally answered and thereby to discover how the reader of that day viewed and understood the work.”32 In addition to literary, lexical, and socio-historical methods, comparative studies fit within this desire to more appropriately construct the horizon of the text as well.33 Jauss notes that particularly for historical texts of unknown provenance or purpose, comparative studies are important for this reconstruction of the text’s horizon: ‘Whenever the writer of a work is unknown, his intent not recorded, or his relationship to sources and models only indirectly accessible, the philological question of how the text is “properly” to be understood – that is according to its intention and its time – can best be answered if the text is considered in contrast to the background of the works which the author could expect his contemporary public to know either explicitly or implicitly.’34 A good amount of the New Testament material falls into this category of literature in which the author and/ or specific purpose of the text is not explicitly stated or is historically disputed. Thus, a robust historical-literary examination is an important aspect of the dialogue that exists between interpreter and text in the process of interpretation. As Jauss notes, “The reconstruction of the horizon of expectations, on the basis of which a work in the past was created and received, enables us to find the questions to which the text originally answered and thereby to discover how the reader of that day viewed and understood the work.”35 Methods of study associated with reception history stand firmly with the more traditional approaches to New Testament studies of historical, grammatical, and comparative approaches in the task of questioning the New Testament texts. However, what the model of Wirkungsgeschichte demonstrates is that the historical exegetical reconstruction of the original horizon by a single interpreter, limited by her or his finite horizon, is not exhaustive of the significance of the New Testament text.36 The questions and answers asked of the text by previous interpreters help focus the interpretive dialogue, either illuminating questions that stand in consonance with the horizon of the interpreter or revealing ques31 This is also consistent with approaches that seek to understand the text as an “implied reader” of the historical text. For more on the “implied reader” in New Testament studies, see Bockmuehl, Seeing the Word, 68–74. 32 Jauss, “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory,” 19. 33 Genre (Chapter 3), lexis (Chapter 4), and socio-historical setting (Chapter 5) are the three tools of the historical-critical method highlighted by Evans, Reception History, Tradition and Biblical Interpretation as being coherent with reception history. 34 Jauss, “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory,” 19. 35 Ibid., 18–19. 36 Or, as Elliott, The Heart of Biblical Theology, 78 says: “Scripture is never old in the way that we can say we know it well.”

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tions that may otherwise fall beyond the confines of the interpreter’s horizon. For Jauss, the full meaning of a text could not be exhaustively delineated by one set of questions from one particular horizon. Instead, he suggests that meaning is revealed in what he calls the “judgment of the centuries.”37 This judgment “is the successive development of the potential meaning which is present in a work and which is gradually realized in its historical reception by knowledgeable criticism.”38 That is, textual interpretation (including that of the New Testament) is a corporate endeavor that depends on the mediation of horizons to determine a range of interpretive possibility. The determination of what voices to include in the third horizon of reception, then, becomes a key issue in this interpretive process.39 There are a number of ways in which a text’s reception may be conceived – whether it be an early textual recension or a twenty-first century artistic representation – and, indeed, the vast possibilities of reception studies (and the new questions that they can engender for biblical interpretation) make the practice an exciting, if daunting, undertaking.40 Such choices need to be made intentionally, recognizing the benefits and limitations of the third “horizon” introduced to the conversation. Using only recently published academic work as the “third” horizon in interpretation, for example, comes with the inherent benefit of being a part of the relevant, ongoing discussions at the cutting edge of the field based on the latest discoveries and knowledge  – a necessary and significant task for the Neutestamentler. The inherent risk, though, is that there is a greater overlap of hermeneutical horizons, owing to greater similarities in historical context, that does not challenge the hermeneutical horizon of the interpreter. The significance of a Wirkungsgeschichtliches approach in New Testament studies is that it requires interpreters to engage with voices and perspectives that occupy a different hermeneutical horizon and challenge the interpreter to recognize and engage with the blind spots that occur as a result of their own finite horizon. This also has, it should be noted, significant hermeneutical significance for understanding the necessity of intentionally engaging scholarship that originates beyond one’s own denominational, national, ethnic, and gender boundaries in the interpretive conversation. 37 Ibid., 9 summarizes this point as the “progressive process of reception”: “The meaning of a work … is extracted only during the progressive process of its reception.” 38 Jauss, “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory,” 21. 39 Indeed, the question of the boundaries between “text” and “reception” itself is quite complicated. For a further discussion of the difficulties of this question, see Brennan W. Breed, Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014), who questions the separation of an “original” text with its later “reception.” Though Breed’s primary focus is on the texts of the Hebrew Bible, many of the same concerns hold for New Testament studies. 40 Indeed, any reference to a secondary source can be understood as an act of introducing a third hermeneutical horizon within the task of interpretation.

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One methodological approach that may have particular significance for New Testament exegetes is the study of a particular text’s Auslegungsgeschichte. Auslegungsgeschichte is the specification of the Wirkungsgeschichte of a text that focuses particularly on the way that the text has been interpreted historically.41 While Wirkungsgeschichte can include studies of the reception of texts within diverse areas including art, music and literature, the nature of New Testament exegesis may be particularly benefitted by a reception approach that engages with the direct exegetical interpretation of the biblical passage under study. While further engagement with the reception of specific aspects of biblical books in broader areas would certainly be valuable, occasionally such study can require significant work beyond the discipline-boundaries of traditional biblical interpretation and may not include observations of specific grammatical or linguistic nuances of the text, which are so often at the heart of the New Testament exegete’s work. In his discussion of the concept, Robert Evans suggests, “Auslegungsgeschichte [history of interpretation or exegesis-history] should be seen as in fact one expression of Wirkungsgeschichte – one that valorizes a particular range of sources within a particular tradition or traditions.”42 The other expression of Wirkungsgeschichte that he notes is an engagement with reception from outside of the tradition that can help critique traditional interpretations and positions.43 However, such a dichotomous “either/or” relationship between Auslegungsgeschichte, which can only serve to valorize an already existent interpretive tradition, as opposed to a Wirkungsgeschichte which can critique interpretive traditions, fails to fully account for the interpretive value of Auslegungsgeschichte. Auslegungsgeschichte can provide far more than a valorization of traditional interpretations; indeed, one of its most significant benefits is that it can raise new questions of the text that can offer progress and critique within the interpretive task.44 Ultimately, Auslegungsgeschichte is valuable for “finding the right questions to ask” of the text, be those questions that affirm or question the tradition of interpretation.45 41 Markus Bockmuehl, “A Commentator’s Approach to the ‘Effective History’ of Philippians,” JSNT 60 (1995): 62. 42 Evans, Reception History, 124. 43 Ibid., 115: “On the one hand, there is discourse and practice that valorize trajectories of interpretive tradition, which may be seen as significant, exemplary or normative within an ecclesial or theological tradition. […] On the other hand, there is discourse and practice that sees in reception history a method of recovering neglected aspects of the interpretation of a text, and/ or a method of challenging conservative traditions.” 44 See, for example, Tobias Nicklas, “Die ersten Neutestamentlichen Bände der ‘Blackwell Bible Commentaries’ (John, Revelation): Rezeptionsgeschichte und Exegese,” Annali di Storia dell’esegesi 24 (2007): 256–257: “Demgegenüber besteht die Möglichkeit, aus der Geschichte der Rezeption biblischer Texte Impulse zu erhalten, die helfen können, die Stellung der Exegese innerhalb des Gebäudes theologischer Forschung neu zu definieren, festgefahrene Fragestellungen aus neuen Perspektiven zu formulieren und verlorene Dimensionen des Arbeitens an der Bibel neu zu entdecken.” 45 Elliott, The Heart of Biblical Theology, 47. Emphasis original.

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4. Conclusions By incorporating the history of exegesis of a text as a third hermeneutical horizon within the task of New Testament exegesis, modern interpretation can be “more creatively obedient in its own responses to the text for being informed by those who have gone before.”46 In seeking to understand aspects of the Wirkungsgeschichte of particular books and/or passages, the Neutestamentler seeks not merely to hear what another has said about the text, but rather to engage in “the successive unfolding of a sense-potential set in a work and actualized in its stages of reception that discloses itself to the understanding judgment.”47 That is, they participate in the question and answer dialogue that has surrounded the biblical texts since their composition to determine a range of interpretive possibility. The recognition of the role of the text’s reception in the interpretive process allows the Neutestamentler to engage with the questions and answers that successive generations of interpreters have found in the biblical texts. The recognition that New Testament interpretation is a trilateral dialogue between text, reception, and interpreter has at least four methodological results for the task of New Testament interpretation. When the modern interpreter uses their own interpretive horizon to critically analyze the interpretive questions and answers of the text’s Wirkungsgeschichte, there are two potential results. First, the Neutestamentler may conclude that the interpretive answers discovered in the text’s reception fall beyond the plausible range of the text’s interpretative significance. The interpreter may determine that such answers found in the text’s reception occur at the intersection of two horizons – that of the text and its reception – but not at the intersection of all three interpretive horizons. As such, these previous answers will not be considered as a plausible interpretive possibility. Second, answers found in the text’s reception may function to broaden the horizon of the interpreter. Though the interpreter may not have considered such an interpretive answer as a possibility before engaging with the text’s Wirkungsgeschichte, having done so may now allow the interpreter to recognize the plausibility of the interpretive answer. When the modern interpreter uses the horizon of the text’s Wirkungsgeschichte to critically analyze their own, new interpretive questions and answers of the text, there are two further potential results. The text’s reception may either provide evidence that causes the interpreter to conclude that their answers may not be considered interpretively plausible because they only occur at the intersection of two horizons – that of the text and the interpreter, rather than all three interpretive horizons – or, the text’s reception may provide further evidence that allows 46

Mark W. Elliott, “Effective-History and the Hermeneutics of Ulrich Luz,” JSNT 33 (2010):

80. 47

Elliott, The Heart of Biblical Theology, 50.

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Eric Covington

Fig. 4

the interpreter to affirm that their answer is an interpretive possibility that occurs in the plausible interpretive range of the overlap of the interpretive horizons of the text, the interpreter, and the text’s reception. There is, then, essential interpretive value in engaging the questions of the text’s reception within the task of New Testament exegesis. The addition of the text’s reception as a third-voice in the interpretive dialogue allows the Neutestamentler to learn from the interpretive answers of the past, to recognize the limitations of those past interpretations, and to recognize the limitations of their own interpretive horizons. In this way, the three-way dialogue is essential for determining a range of plausible interpretive possibility as it mediates the horizon of the single interpreter with the historical horizons of the text and its reception [see Fig. 4]. Engaging the Wirkungsgeschichte of the text is not an optional methodological addition that is distinct from the task of New Testament interpretation; rather, it is an indispensable component of the interpretive task. New Testament interpretation exists within the range of interpretive plausibility that emerges from the corporate practice of question-and-answer dialogue that occurs at the intersection of the hermeneutical horizons of the New Testament text, the interpreter, and the text’s reception. Just as trilateration seeks to identify and move beyond implausible locations that do not occur at the convergence of the three satellites’ horizons, so also does a three-way interpretive dialogue seek to identify and move beyond implausible interpretive possibilities that do not meet at the convergence of these three interpretive horizons. Yet, whereas the range of locative possibilities using trilateration is relatively small, the range of plausible interpretive significance of the New Testament texts is significantly larger. In a text that has engendered thousands of years’ worth of interpretation and reflection  – and which has long been held to be the word of the infinite

Wirkungsgeschichte and Trilateration

35

God – there remains a vast possible range of plausible interpretive conclusions to be discovered in the communal interpretive dialogue. The continuing task of question and answer which incorporates the perspectives of new hermeneutical horizons means that the task of New Testament exegesis and interpretation will continually remain unfinished.48

Bibliography Bockmuehl, Markus. “A Commentator’s Approach to the ‘Effective History’ of Philippians.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 60 (1995): 57–88. –. Seeing the Word: Refocusing New Testament Study. Studies in Theological Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006. Elliott, Mark W. “Effective-History and the Hermeneutics of Ulrich Luz.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33 (2010): 161–173. –. The Heart of Biblical Theology: Providence Experienced. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. England, Emma, and William John Lyons, eds. Reception History and Biblical Studies: Theory and Practice. Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 615; Scriptural Traces: Critical Perspectives on the Reception and Influence of the Bible 6. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015. Evans, Robert. Reception History, Tradition and Biblical Interpretation: Gadamer and Jauss in Current Practice. Library of New Testament Studies 510; Scriptural Traces: Critical Perspectives on the Reception and Influence of the Bible 4. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Translated by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. 2nd rev. ed. London: Sheed & Ward, 1989. Helmer, Christine, Steven L. McKenzie, Thomas Römer, Jens Schröter, Barry Dov Walfish, and Eric Ziolkowski, eds. Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. 30 Vols. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009. Jauss, Hans Robert. “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory.” Translated by Elizabeth Benzinger. New Literary History 2 (1970): 7–37. –. Question and Answer: Forms of Dialogic Understanding. Edited and translated by Michael Hays. Theory and History of Literature 68. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. –. Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. Translated by Timothy Bahti. Theory and History of Literature 2. Brighton: Harvester, 1982. Knight, Mark. “Wirkungsgeschichte, Reception History, Reception Theory.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.2 (2010): 137–146. Lieb, Michael, Emma Mason, and Jonathan Roberts, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Lyons, William John. “Hope for a Troubled Discipline? Contributions to New Testament Studies from Reception History.” JSNT 33.2 (2010): 207–220.

48 See Parris, Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics, x: “Not only will church history always remain an unfinished exercise, but biblical exegesis will as well.”

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–. Joseph of Arimathea: A Study in Reception History. 1st ed. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Nicklas, Tobias. “Die ersten Neutestamentlichen Bände der ‘Blackwell Bible Commentaries’ (John, Revelation): Rezeptionsgeschichte und Exegese.” Annali Di Storia Dell’esegesi 24 (2007): 525–534. Pablo Cotera, Miguel Velazquez, David Cruz, Luis Medina, and Manuel Bandala. “Indoor Robot Positioning Using an Enhanced Trilateration Algorithm.” International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems 13.3 (2016): 1–8. Parris, David P. Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics. Princeton Theological Monograph Series 107. Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2009. Strawbridge, Jennifer R. The Pauline Effect: The Use of the Pauline Epistles by Early Christian Writers. Studies of the Bible and Its Reception 5. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015. Thompson, Richard B. “Global Positioning System: The Mathematics of GPS Receivers.” Mathematics Magazine 71.4 (1998): 260–269. “GNSS Frequently Asked Questions – GPS.” Template. Federal Aviation Administration, 20 December 2016. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/ service_units/techops/navservices/gnss/faq/gps/#4.

Early Exegetical Cases

Interpretation in the Anthropocene Reading the Animal Family Laws of the Pentateuch Beth A . Berkowitz

1. The Animal Family Laws of the Pentateuch Four laws in the Pentateuch feature the parent-child bond among animals. One is the thrice-repeated prohibition against boiling a kid in his mother’s milk (Exod 23:19, 34:26; Deut 14:21). Another is the requirement to leave an infant animal with their mother for the first seven days of life (Exod 22:29; Lev 22:27). A third is the prohibition against slaughtering an animal and their child on the same day (Lev 22:28). The fourth requires sending off the mother bird before taking her chicks from the nest (Deut 22:6–7). These four laws are scattered throughout the Pentateuch but have been recognized as thematically related since antiquity. All four focus on the parent-child dyad. All presume a disruption of that dyad through separation or slaughter. What fascinates me and many readers before me about these laws is a paradox within them. The laws seem to show respect for the parent-child bond among animals at the same time that they condone traumas to that bond. A standard approach to the “animal family” laws is to see in them a humanitarian rationale. Jeffrey Tigay describes Exod 22:29’s requirement to keep a newborn animal with the mother as “a humane law, respecting the motherchild relationship among animals.”1 Baruch Schwartz says of Lev 22:28’s prohibition against same-day slaughter that the “humane concern seems to be the only plausible explanation.”2 Baruch Levine writes that “this prohibition has been explained as expressing compassion for living creatures.”3 Jacob Milgrom 1 Jeffrey H. Tigay, “Exodus: Introduction and Annotations,” in The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, ed. Marc Zvi Brettler and Adele Berlin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 157. 2 Baruch J. Schwartz, “Leviticus: Introduction and Annotations,” in The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, ed. Marc Zvi Brettler and Adele Berlin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 261. 3 Baruch A. Levine, Leviticus = Ṿa-Yiḳra: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 152. That compassion receives different inflections, some interpreters predicating it on an inherent value for animals, others seeing it as essential virtue training for intra-human ethics.

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lays out a “humanitarian theory” for all four laws, as does Menahem Haran.4 The humanitarian approach is ancient, with Philo as its touchstone, but it runs through the medieval Bible commentators and, as we see, continues into contemporary scholarship.5 I resist several features of this approach. First is use of the word humanitarian or humane, privileging the human, to account for empathy with animals.6 Second is the conventional use of the neuter to translate animal-related pronouns – do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk; do not slaughter an animal on the same day with its child – even though the Hebrew language has no distinctive neuter option and the “thingification” effected by the neuter goes against the grain of the humanitarian approach.7 The main problem I see in the humanitarian theory is that it makes the paradox in the laws more acute, not less. As Milgrom observes, echoing Maimonides: if the rationale of the laws were mercy, God should not have permitted animal slaughter to begin with. Milgrom concludes: “a completely satisfying rationale has yet to be supplied.”8 I cannot claim to have found the completely satisfying rationale that Milgrom seeks. My aim in this essay is, less ambitiously, to find a somewhat more satisfying way to talk about these laws than the humanitarian rationale offers. I begin with the two laws in Lev 22:27–28: the command to keep the baby animal with the mother for the first week of life, and the prohibition against slaughtering parent and child animals on the same day. I will offer some exegetical observations about the Leviticus passage and then look at ancient Jewish readings from Qumran and the Rabbis. I will take up two trends in the reception history: one, a 4 Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 739; Menahem Haran, “Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” Journal of Jewish Studies 30.1 (1979): 23–35. This is Haran, p. 29: “All these commandments are based on humane considerations.” 5 On Philo’s humanitarian approach, see Katell Berthelot, “Philo and Kindness towards Animals (De Virtutibus 125–147),” The Studia Philonica Annual 14 (2002): 48–65. On the medieval commentators, see Haran, “Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” 29–30; Lawrence H. Schiffman, “‘Miqsat Ma’seh Ha-Torah’ and the ‘Temple Scroll,’” Revue de Qumrân 14.3 (1990): 451; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 3A; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1883. As the ethical rationale relates to the prohibition on boiling a kid in his mother’s milk, see Alan Cooper, “Once Again Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” Jewish Studies An Internet Journal 10 (2012): 120–124. For general discussion of the ethical rationale, see Jordan D. Rosenblum, The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 21–25, and passim. The ethical explanation was borrowed from Philo by Clement and adopted later by Calvin; see Haran, “Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” 29, n. 18 and 19. 6 The naming of these biblical laws as humanitarian is suggestive for Talal Asad’s case that humanitarianism is bound up with violence and asymmetrical power. See Talal Asad, “Reflections on Violence, Law, and Humanitarianism,” Critical Inquiry 41.2 (Jan 2015): 390–427, and responses in that issue. 7 On pronouns for animals see Carol J. Adams, Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (20th Anniversary Edition) (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014), 102–104. 8 Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1883.

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thematizing of animal families and, two, a concern with the gender of the animal parent. These interpretive trends, I suggest, can help us to see the stakes of these laws and to refocus the conversation about them. I will close with reflection on what it means to read this Leviticus passage in light of family separations today, both human and animal. What are the politics of family bonds, which family bonds are recognized, which protected, and which violated, and how might those politics inform our understanding of the Bible’s animal family laws?

2. Exegetical Observations Located within the Holiness Legislation, Lev 22:17–25 lists a series of bodily conditions that disqualify an animal from sacrifice. Lev 22:27–28 is an addendum to that list: When an ox or a sheep or a goat is born, he shall stay seven days under his mother, and from the eighth day on he shall be acceptable as an offering by fire to the Lord. But an ox or flock animal, him and his child, you shall not slaughter on the same day.9 .‫עז ִּכי יִ ָ ּולֵ ד וְ ָהיָ ה ׁ ִש ְב ַעת יָ ִמים ּ ַת ַחת ִא ּמוֹ וּ ִמ ּיוֹ ם ַה ּׁ ְש ִמינִ י וָ ָהלְ ָאה יֵ ָר ֶצה לְ ָק ְר ַּבן ִא ּׁ ֶשה לַ יהוָ ה‬ֵ ֹ‫כֶ ֶ ׂשב או‬- ֹ‫כז ׁשוֹ ר או‬ .‫בנוֹ ֹלא ִת ׁ ְש ֲחטוּ ְּביוֹ ם ֶא ָחד‬-‫ת‬ ְּ ‫שה אֹתוֹ וְ ֶא‬ׂ ֶ ֹ‫כח וְ ׁשוֹ ר או‬

The passage features two laws, the first formulated as a positive command, the second negative. The first law requires a newborn ox, sheep, or goat to be left with their mother for a week. Only after that time may they be offered as a sacrifice. The second law prohibits slaughtering an animal and their child on the same day. Verses 27 and 28 are the only animal family laws that appear in the same passage, their pairing no doubt a product of their shared animal family theme. The differences between the two laws are nevertheless striking. One difference lies in the specification of animals. Verse 27 speaks of “ox or sheep or goat” while Verse 28 uses the language of “ox or flock animal.”10 This difference will raise questions for interpreters about which animal species fall under the scope of which verses. Another difference relates to the use of the animals. Verse 27 speaks of  9

NJPS translation here and elsewhere, sometimes with my own modifications. According to HALOT, seh in Lev 22:28 “serves as a collective noun for tson” and is a generic term for a single “small livestock beast.” The other terms in the verse refer to specific livestock breeds. S.v. seh, Ludwig Köhler and Walter Baumgartner, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, trans. M. E. J. Richardson, 3rd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2017). Shor, translated above as ox, works similarly as a generic term for a single bovid, usually without defining age or sex or particular species, though sometimes it can refer either to a mature animal only or a young animal only, and either to male only or female only. In Verse 27 the term must refer to an infant, while in Verse 28 it must refer to a mature animal who has already reproduced. See the section on nomenclature in Nicole J. Ruane, Sacrifice and Gender in Biblical Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 43–45. 10

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the animal becoming an “offering by fire to the Lord,” while Verse 28 speaks of slaughter, using the root sh-h-t. The precise meaning of “offering by fire” in Verse 27 is unclear given that it is a hapax within the Bible. The contrast between that expression in Verse 27 and the verb for slaughter in Verse 28 will generate much discussion among interpreters about whether the referent of Verse 28 is sacrificial or profane slaughter.11 A third difference lies in the presentation of the family bond. Verse 27 frames the rule in terms of the child (“he shall stay seven days under his mother”), while Verse 28 frames it from the perspective of the parent (“him and his child”). The difference that interests me most relates to gender, and specifically the gender of the parent (one could also consider the gender of the child). Verse 27 refers explicitly to the mother, while Verse 28 refers to the parent using male grammatical gender, “him and his child” (oto ve-et beno), which would seem to imply the father. The reality that male animals were slaughtered more frequently than females – males do not provide milk or babies and so are more of a net drain on resources – also points to the father.12 So too does the tendency of the biblical text to specify female animals when it has them in mind.13 The other possibility, however, the one adopted by the vast majority of interpreters, is that the form of et in Verse 28, oto, is inflected with masculine grammar only because the Hebrew words for cattle and sheep to which oto refers are grammatically masculine. In this reading, even though oto has a masculine suffix, the word refers to the female parent, the mother. A mother and child may not be slaughtered on the same day. Tipping the scale towards this reading is the explicit focus on the mother in the other three animal family laws – the mother bird, the mother’s milk, staying with the mother. If Verse 28 is speaking of the father, it would be the only one of the animal family laws to do so. That crux – the gender of the animal parent in the same-day slaughter prohibition – will occupy subsequent readers and the remainder of this essay, but before moving on I want to address the parallel to Lev 22:27 found in Exod 22:29: You shall not put off the skimming of the first yield of your vats. You shall give Me the first‐born among your sons. You shall do the same with your cattle and your flocks: seven days he shall remain with his mother; on the eighth day you shall give him to Me. ָ ֶ‫כח ְמלֵ ָא ְת ָך וְ ִד ְמ ֲע ָך ֹלא ְת ַא ֵחר ְּבכוֹ ר ָּבנ‬ ‫א ּמוֹ ַּב ּיוֹ ם‬-‫ם‬ ִ ‫ת ֲע ֶ ׂשה לְ ׁש ְֹר ָך לְ צֹאנֶ ָך ׁ ִש ְב ַעת יָ ִמים יִ ְהיֶ ה ִע‬-‫ן‬ ַ ּ ‫ כט ֵּכ‬.‫לִ י‬-‫יך ּ ִת ּ ֶתן‬ .‫לִ י‬- ֹ‫ַה ּׁ ְש ִמינִ י ּ ִת ּ ְתנו‬

This passage appears towards the end of the Book of the Covenant. The overlap between Exod 22:29 and Lev 22:27 is unmistakable: both verses command that a baby animal be left with their mother for the first seven days of life. A 11

See Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1884. See the section on gender and animal husbandry in Ruane, Sacrifice and Gender in Biblical Law, 56–62. 13 On this point see Ibid., 45. 12

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major difference, however, is context. The discussion in Exodus is of first fruits and first-born animals and people, while in Leviticus it is the qualifications of animals for sacrifice. Another difference is the status of the eighth day. For Exodus, the animal must be given to God on the eighth day, while for Leviticus the animal becomes acceptable as an offering as of the eighth day but one need not do anything with the animal on that day, or ever. There are many small variations in language: Exodus directs the baby to be left “with his mother” (im imo) while Leviticus describes the baby being left “under his mother” (tahat imo); Exodus speaks of “cattle and flocks” while Leviticus speaks of the “ox, sheep, or goat”; Exodus is formulated in the first person, with God as speaker, while Leviticus is in third; Leviticus begins with the birth of the animal, while Exodus speaks of an infant already born.

3. Animal Families in the Temple Scroll The Exodus intertext is essential background for the Temple Scroll, to which I now turn. As is typical for the Temple Scroll, its presentation of the animal family laws is a mash-up of those in the Pentateuch: And you shall not sacrifice to me an ox or a sheep in whom is any serious blemish, for they are an abomination to me. And you shall not sacrifice to me a cow, or ewe, or she-goat who is pregnant, for they are an abomination to me. And you shall not slaughter a cow or a ewe, him and his child, on the same day, and you shall not kill a mother with the young. Every firstborn born to your cattle and sheep, the males, you shall consecrate to me … ‫ לי ולוא תזבח לי שור ושה ועז והמה‬5 ‫ תזבח לי שור ושה אשר יהיה בו כול מום רע כי תועבה המה‬4 ‫ולוא‬ vacat ‫ על בנים‬7 ‫ ושור ושה אותו ואת בנו לוא תזבח ביום אחד ולוא תכה אם‬6 ‫מלאות כי תועבה המה לי‬ 14 ‫ הזכרים תקדיש לי‬8 ‫כול הבכור אשר יולד בבקריכה ובצואנכה‬

The Temple Scroll passage starts with the Leviticus theme of animal blemishes and closes with the Exodus theme of first-born animals. In between, it features the same-day slaughter prohibition that appears in both Exodus and Leviticus, along with some new material. Let me try to capture the Temple Scroll’s permutation of additions, omissions, substitutions, and paraphrases. First, the Temple Scroll adds pregnant animals to the list of animals disqualified from sacrifice. Miqsat Ma’aseh Torah and Philo do the same thing, as we will shortly see.15 Second, the Temple Scroll adds a 14 Temple Scroll 11QTa Column 52; F. Garcia Martinez and E. J. C. Tigchelaar, eds., Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 1270–1272. 15 MMT B 30–33; Philo, On the Virtues, trans. F. H. Colson, vol. 8 (LCL 341; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939), 246–247. And see also Damascus Document 4Q270 fragment 9, column 2:13–15. On the disqualification of pregnant animals from sacrifice in these texts, see Schiffman, “‘Miqsat Ma’seh Ha-Torah’ and the ‘Temple Scroll,’” 448–451; James L. Kugel,

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prohibition against killing an animal mother with her children, paraphrasing Deuteronomy’s prohibition against taking the chicks from the nest without first chasing away the mother. Instead of Deuteronomy’s “do not take the mother together with the young” (lo tiqah ha-em al ha-banim), the Temple Scroll has “do not kill a mother with the young” (lo takeh em al banim), substituting the verb “take” with the verb “kill.” Third, the Temple Scroll omits the command to keep the newborn animal with the mother for seven days. The Temple Scroll’s two new prohibitions against sacrificing pregnant animals and killing animal mothers with children would seem to be related to the seven-day rule but whether they are intended to interpret or replace that rule is difficult to say. Fourth, the Temple Scroll recapitulates the rule against killing an animal and his child on the same day but uses the root z-v-h rather than sh-h-t, making clear that sacrificial slaughter is intended. The similarities of this passage to one in Miqsat Ma’aseh Torah have been noted: 1 [ … ] they do [no]t slaughter in the temple. 2 [And concerning pregnant animals: we think that one should not sacrifice t]he mother and the fetus on the same day 3 [ … And concerning the eating: w]e think that one can eat the fetus 4 [ … ] so and that the word is written: {a pregnant animal} ‫ ]ועל העברות אנחנו חושבים שאין לזבוח א[ת האם ואת הולד ביום אחד‬2 ‫ ]אי…[נם שוחטים במקדש‬1 16 ‫ ]…[א כן והדבר כתוב עברה‬4 ‫ ]… ועל האוכל אנח[נו חושבים שאיאכל את הולד‬3

If the reconstruction is accurate, then MMT appears to be reformulating the Leviticus prohibition against same-day slaughter so that it applies only to the mother/child dyad and replaces the child with the fetus.17 According to Lawrence Schiffman, the Temple Scroll and MMT both represent a riff on Lev 22:28 that links its prohibition on same-day slaughter with a taboo against slaughtering Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1998), 695–698; Robert A Kugler, “Rethinking the Notion of ‘Scripture’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Leviticus as a Test Case,” in The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception, ed. Rolf Rendtorff, Robert A Kugler, and Sarah Smith Bartel (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003), 353–355; Moshe J. Bernstein, “The Employment and Interpretation of Scripture in 4QMMT: Preliminary Observations,” in Reading and Re-Reading Scripture at Qumran, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 564–565; Ian C. Werrett, Ritual Purity and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Boston: Brill, 2007), 269–270; Ian C. Werrett, “The Reconstruction of 4QMMT: A Methodological Critique,” in Northern Lights on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Nordic Qumran Network 2003–2006, ed. Anders Klostergaard Petersen (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 80; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2009), 210–212. 16 Miqsat Ma’aseh Torah 4QMMTc Column 1; Martinez and Tigchelaar, Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 794–795. See the alternative reconstruction in Bernstein, “Employment and Interpretation of Scripture,” 564. 17 The second part is understood by scholars to be saying that the fetus if found alive must be ritually slaughtered if it is to be eaten. See Joseph M. Baumgarten, “The ‘Halakha’ in Miqsat Maase Ha-Torah (MMT),” Journal of the American Oriental Society 116.3 (1996): 514; Bernstein, “Employment and Interpretation of Scripture,” 564.

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pregnant animals.18 As is typical of MMT, it boldly claims that its innovation is explicit in scripture (“that the word is written”) and uses polemical language to introduce it (“we think that …”).19 The Temple Scroll’s language around this taboo is polemical too, though in a different way, denouncing it as an abomination (“And you shall not sacrifice to me a cow, or ewe, or she-goat who is pregnant, for they are an abomination to me”). Both texts, in short, the one from the Temple Scroll and the other from MMT, use strong rhetoric to prohibit the sacrifice of pregnant mothers. The Temple Scroll passage features three laws in a row that relate to the parentchild bond among animals, and it synthesizes relevant Pentateuchal passages. I would argue that three paradigms of animal parent-child bonds emerge from the Temple Scroll: the pregnant mother; the father and child, and the mother and child.20 Let us hypothesize that the composer of the Temple Scroll used Deuteronomy’s mother bird formulation to balance out the father’s appearance in the same-day slaughter law from Leviticus and added the pregnant mother into the trio. When compared with the Pentateuch, then, the Temple Scroll crystallizes and intensifies the theme of animal families, juxtaposing several animal parent-child paradigms.

4. Gender Trouble in the Sifra The early rabbis are relentless with their technical questions when they treat the laws of Lev 22:27–28, as is their wont. Does the eight-day proviso still apply if the animal mother dies in childbirth? Does the proviso apply also to chickens? Does the eight-day qualification apply also to the scapegoat sent forth on the day of atonement? Does the prohibition on same-day slaughter apply if the child is slaughtered first (the formulation puts the parent first)? If a person slaughters five sibling animals and then the parent, are they liable for five violations or just one? May one slaughter an animal and their grandchild on the same day? How is a single day defined? If one slaughters the parent animal close to sundown, may one slaughter the child animal as soon as the sun sets? These questions are raised by the Sifra, the corpus of legal midrash on Leviticus, along with a question about the gender of the animal parent: 18

On whether MMT refers to sacred or profane slaughter, see Ibid., 564, n. 25. See Ibid., 565, on the anchoring of the prohibition in scripture, and see Schiffman on the polemical vocabulary. 20 A structurally similar reading of the passage can be found in Schiffman, “‘Miqsat Ma’seh Ha-Torah’ and the ‘Temple Scroll,’” 449–450. In Schiffman’s view, the first legislation features the pregnant mother; the second is intended to include the father (in my reading, the father is the focus, not merely included), while the third legislation imitating Deuteronomy is intended to include non-sacral slaughter (in my reading, it includes the mother). 19

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Could it be that “him and his child” applies to males as it does to females (i. e., to fathers as well as to mothers)? Logic pertains: one is liable here, and one is liable with respect to “the mother with her children” (Deut. 22:6). Just as with “the mother with her children,” he did not make males like females, so too here males were not made like females. ‫יכול יהא אתו ואת בנו נוהיג בזכרין כנקיבות ודין הוא חייב כן וחייב באם על הבן מה האם על הבן לא עשה‬ 21 ‫בו את הזכרין כנקיבות אף כן לא נעשה בו את הזכרים כנקיבות‬

The Sifra claims that Leviticus’s prohibition on same-day slaughter applies only to a mother animal and her child and not to a father, based on an analogy with Deuteronomy’s mother bird. Just as Deuteronomy’s command relates only to mother birds, so too must Leviticus’s command apply only to mothers. The claim flies in the face of the masculine language of the Leviticus verse – oto ve-et beno, “him and his son.” Perhaps for this reason, the Sifra offers an alternative derivation for the same conclusion: If you wish to say, “him and his child” – the one to whom the child clings. The male, to whom the child does not cling, is excluded. 22

‫אם נפשך לומר אתו ואת בנו את שבנו כרוך אחריו יצא זכר שאין בנו כרוך אחריו‬

This alternative derivation is rooted in the wording of the Leviticus passage itself rather than in an intertextual analogy of the sort featured in the first hermeneutical exercise. The expression “him and his child” (oto ve-et beno) in the Leviticus verse is said to be pointing readers only to the parent to whom the child clings, that is to say, the mother. What precisely in the expression hints at “clinginess” is left unexplained – the literary repetition of the word et suggests itself as one possibility. This Sifra passage points to some gender trouble in the Pentateuch as well as among its readers. The Sifra does not tolerate a reading that recognizes the fatherchild bond, even if the Pentateuch’s grammar proves unruly. The Babylonian Talmud tackles the gender trouble when it challenges the Sifra tradition, saying: “‘Him’ – that implies masculine!”23 The Talmud presents another position that includes both mother and father and declares that position to be definitive law.

21 Sifra Emor Parashah 8, Pereq 1, from the Vatican manuscript, Biblioteca Apostolica ebr., 66, found on Ma’agarim, the Historical Dictionary Project of the Academy of Hebrew Language. 22 Sifra Emor Parashah 8, Pereq 2, also from Ma’agarim. 23 B. Hullin 78b.

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5. Mothers, Fathers, Sons, and Daughters in the Mishnah and Beyond Unlike the Sifra, the Mishnah addresses the gender of the parent animal only indirectly. The locus classicus in the Mishnah for the prohibition on same-day slaughter is Mishnah Hullin Chapter Five. The chapter begins with masculine language for the animals (m. Hullin 5:1–2) but then presents a series of cases in which the gender shifts back and forth from female to male to female (m. Hullin 5:3: the red cow, the ox punished with stoning for homicide or bestiality, the “decapitated calf ” of Deut 21).24 The Mishnah features the female when it moves on to consider a case in which one person purchases a parent animal and another person purchases the child: “Two who purchased a cow and her son” (5:3).25 The presumption of a female parent remains throughout the rest of the chapter. When the Mishnah requires periodic announcements of animal sales in order to avoid inadvertent violation of the prohibition, it formulates the announcement in terms of a mother-daughter animal pair: “I sold her mother to slaughter; I sold her daughter to slaughter.”26 One other mishnah merits attention for these purposes. Mishnah Bekhorot 7:7 presents the following puzzling teaching: “These are valid for a person but invalid for an animal: ‘him and his son,’ etc …” This section of the Mishnah compares disqualifications for animals from sacrifice with disqualifications for priests from sacrificial service.27 What might the Mishnah mean, though, that the Leviticus prohibition against same-day slaughter (i. e., “him and his son”) applies to animals but not to people, given that people are not slaughtered? Probably this: while a parent and child animal must not be sacrificed on the same day, a parent and child priest may work together in performing the sacrificial service. For the analogy to hold, we should observe, the figures would all be male, since priests are men. If so, then this mishnah would appear to have a father-son animal pair in mind when it mentions the same-day slaughter prohibition. The Mishnah, in sum, leans towards an understanding of the Leviticus prohibition as referring to animal mothers yet it does not entirely exclude animal fathers from consideration nor does it show any explicit interest in the question of gender. Broadening the exegetical scope further, we find Philo handling the gender question by simply changing the formulation to refer specifically to the mother.28 The Targums, like Philo, understand the prohibition to refer ex24

The Sifra treats those cases as well (Emor Parashah 8, Pereq 2). Tosefta Hullin 5:6 also speaks of the cow (parah) and her son. 26 Mishnah Hullin 5:3. Tosefta Hullin 5:6–9 similarly features mother-daughter pairings. 27 See on this chapter of Mishnah, Ishay Rosen-Zvi, “Temple of the Body: The List of Priestly Blemishes in Mishna Bekhorot and the Place of the Temple in Tannaitic Discourse,” Jewish Studies 43 (2006): 49–87. 28 See reference above. 25

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clusively to the mother.29 Josephus, by contrast, keeps the prohibition masculine in his Greek recapitulation.30 The medieval Jewish Bible commentators – Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Nahmanides, Maimonides  – are divided on whether fathers are included.31 Surprising to me is that modern interpreters follow in the footsteps of Philo, the Targums, the Sifra, and the Mishnah, either cutting out the father completely, or at most, like the alternative position in the Babylonian Talmud, including him with the mother. Commenting on the verse, Jacob Milgrom says that “it should be obvious that both sexes are included in shor and beno, which should be rendered ‘ox’ and ‘its young.32’” But the gendering seems less than obvious, as indicated by the diversity of approaches displayed within the early readings.

6. Conclusions: Family as a Discursive Formation The ancient texts taken together suggest a different set of questions than that offered by the humanitarian approach. Instead of asking whether a moral rationale motivates these animal family laws, we might ask: What sort of discursive formation is the family within these laws?33 What epistemes – about biological filiation and affective attachment – inform the discourse? Which families are considered of interest, and which relationships within the family? How are those relationships configured? How do the Bible’s animal family laws contribute to a genealogy of the family and to a history of the present? Let me draw, in closing, on the work of legal scholar Kerry Abrams’s on family relationships as they are defined by immigration and citizenship law. She and her co-author R. Kent Piacenti point out that “determining who counts as a ‘parent’ or ‘child’ for immigration and citizenship purposes … can have life-changing consequences for an individual.”34 Abrams and Piacenti observe that “every area of law that relies on definitions of ‘parent’ and ‘child’ must ultimately grapple with the questions of which parent-child relationships to recognize and how these relationships must be proven.”35 I suggest that we pay attention to how the Bible and its generations of readers grapple with these questions. What is recognized as a family, is, as Abrams and 29 See the discussion of the Targums in Schiffman, “‘Miqsat Ma’seh Ha-Torah’ and the ‘Temple Scroll,’” 451. 30 Antiquities Book 3, 9:4, lines 236–237; Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, trans. H. St. J. Thackeray, vol. 1: Books 1–3 (LCL 242; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930), 430–431. 31 See Schiffman, “‘Miqsat Ma’seh Ha-Torah’ and the ‘Temple Scroll,’” 451. 32 Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1884. 33 On discursive formations see Part II in Michel Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Routledge, 2002). 34 Kerry Abrams and R. Kent Piacenti, “Immigration’s Family Values,” Virginia Law Review 100.4 (2014): 631. 35 Ibid., 631.

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Piacenti show, rife with inconsistency and controversy, as are the legal protections offered or withheld. Contemporary examples of the selective definition and protection of family are to be found in the work of Alex Chávez on Latinos crossing the U. S.-Mexico border and of Francesca della Puppa on Moroccan and Bangladeshi families in Italy. These scholars show that when the law protects families it also tends to nuclearize them, discounting elderly parents, extended family, and “chosen families.”36 They show also that protests against the separation of families often rely on a strictly biological notion of family that privileges the maternal bond. In protecting the family, legal and political discourse at the same time polices it, determining which relationships do and do not count as part of it. Discourse about the separation of animal families in particular has a long history. An ancient Egyptian relief shows a calf held captive, looking longingly at their mother, while a person sits beside the mother milking her.37 Another relief depicts the mother cow with a tear falling from her eye as a person milks her. Her calf stands beside her, tied with a rope to her leg. The Bible features its own scene of this type in 1 Sam 6:7–14, when the Philistines are instructed to separate two nursing cows from their calves and to harness the cows to a cart that will carry the ark back to the Israelites. The two cows are described as “lowing as they went” (1 Sam 6:12).38 Robert Alter writes of the cows’ cries: The last thing one would expect in a biblical story, where there is scant report of the gestures of the human actors, is a specification of sounds made by draft animals. The point, however, is that the milch cows … are going strenuously against nature: their udders full of milk for the calves they have been forced to leave behind, they mark with maternal lowing their distress over the journey they cannot resist.39

36 Alex E. Chávez, “Intimacy at Stake: Transnational Migration and the Separation of Family,” Latino Studies 15.1 (April 2017): 50–72; Francesco Della Puppa, “Ambivalent Mobilities and Survival Strategies of Moroccan and Bangladeshi Families in Italy in Times of Crisis,” Sociology 52.3 (June 2018): 464–479. On chosen families see Kath Weston, Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). 37 See Othmar Keel, Das Böcklein in der Milch seiner Mutter und Verwandtes: Im Lichte eines altorientalischen Bildmotivs (OBO 33; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), 49. 38 1 Sam 6:12: The cows went straight ahead along the road to Beth‐Shemesh. They went along a single highroad, lowing as they went, and turning off neither to the right nor to the left; and the lords of the Philistines walked behind them as far as the border of Beth‐Shemesh. ְ ‫ד ֶר ְך ֵּבית ׁ ֶש ֶמ ׁש ִּב ְמ ִס ּ ָלה ַא ַחת ָהלְ כוּ ָה‬-‫ל‬ ‫סרוּ יָ ִמין וּ ְ ׂשמֹאול וְ ַס ְרנֵ י ְפלִ ׁ ְש ּ ִתים הֹלְ כִ ים‬-‫ֹלא‬ ָ ְ‫ֹלך וְ גָ עוֹ ו‬ ּ ֶ ‫וַ ִ ּי ּׁ ַש ְרנָ ה ַה ּ ָפרוֹ ת ַּב ֶ ּד ֶר ְך ַע‬ .‫גבוּ ל ֵּבית ׁ ָש ֶמ ׁש‬-‫ד‬ ּ ְ ‫יהם ַע‬ ֶ ‫ַא ֲח ֵר‬ 39 Robert Alter, The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel (New York: Norton, 1999), 32–33. Or, as Shimon Bar-Efrat writes: “This seemingly unimportant fact is mentioned in order to show the distress of the cows at being unable to follow their instinctive urge and return to their calves.” See Shimon Bar-Efrat, “First Samuel: Introduction and Annotations,” in The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, ed. Marc Zvi Brettler and Adele Berlin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 572.

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Recent scientific work reveals the heavy emotional and physical toll on both parent and child animals of early separation, which in the agricultural industry is abrupt and permanent.40 The animal family laws of the Bible invite us to consider animal family bonds as belonging to the genealogy of the family and the politics and traumas associated with it. The Bible’s ancient readers grasped this better than we have.

Bibliography Abrams, Kerry, and R. Kent Piacenti. “Immigration’s Family Values.” Virginia Law Review 100.4 (2014): 629–709. Adams, Carol J. Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (20th Anniversary Edition). New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. Alter, Robert. The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel. New York: Norton, 1999. Asad, Talal. “Reflections on Violence, Law, and Humanitarianism.” Critical Inquiry 41.2 (January 2015): 390–427. Bar-Efrat, Shimon. “First Samuel: Introduction and Annotations.” Pages 558–615 in The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. Edited by Marc Zvi Brettler and Adele Berlin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Baumgarten, Joseph M. The ‘Halakha’ in Miqsat Maase Ha-Torah (MMT).” Journal of the American Oriental Society 116.3 (1996): 512–516. Bernstein, Moshe J. “The Employment and Interpretation of Scripture in 4QMMT: Preliminary Observations.” In Reading and Re-Reading Scripture at Qumran, 2:554–574. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Berthelot, Katell. “Philo and Kindness towards Animals (De Virtutibus 125–147).” The Studia Philonica Annual 14 (2002): 48–65. Chávez, Alex E. “Intimacy at Stake: Transnational Migration and the Separation of Family.” Latino Studies 15.1 (April 2017): 50–72. Cooper, Alan. “Once Again Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk.” Jewish Studies An Internet Journal 10 (2012): 109–143. Della Puppa, Francesco. “Ambivalent Mobilities and Survival Strategies of Moroccan and Bangladeshi Families in Italy in Times of Crisis.” Sociology 52.3 (June 2018): 464–479. Foucault, Michel. Archaeology of Knowledge. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Routledge, 2002. Haran, Menahem. “Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk.” Journal of Jewish Studies 30.1 (1979): 23–35. Josephus, Flavius. Jewish Antiquities. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray. Vol. 1: Books 1–3. Loeb Classical Library 242. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930.

40 See, for example, Ruth C. Newberry and Janice C. Swanson, “Implications of Breaking Mother–Young Social Bonds,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 110.1–2 (2008): 3–23, and other articles in that issue.

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Keel, Othmar. Das Böcklein in der Milch seiner Mutter und Verwandtes: Im Lichte eines altorientalischen Bildmotivs. OBO 33. Freiburg: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980. Köhler, Ludwig, and Walter Baumgartner. Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Translated by M. E. J. Richardson. 3rd ed. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Kugel, James L. Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It Was at the Start of the Common Era. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. Kugler, Robert A. “Rethinking the Notion of ‘Scripture’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Leviticus as a Test Case.” Pages 342–357 in The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception. Edited by Rolf Rendtorff, Robert A Kugler, and Sarah Smith Bartel. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003. Levine, Baruch A. Leviticus = Ṿa-Yiḳra: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989. Martinez, F. Garcia, and E. J. C. Tigchelaar, eds. Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999. Milgrom, Jacob. Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 3. The Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 1991. –. Leviticus 17–22: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 3A. The Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 2000. Newberry, Ruth C., and Janice C. Swanson. “Implications of Breaking Mother–Young Social Bonds.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 110.1–2 (2008): 3–23. Philo. On the Virtues. Translated by F. H. Colson. Vol. 8. Loeb Classical Library 341. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939. Rosenblum, Jordan. The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Rosen-Zvi, Ishay. “Temple of the Body: The List of Priestly Blemishes in Mishna Bekhorot and the Place of the Temple in Tannaitic Discourse.” Jewish Studies 43 (2006): 49–87. Ruane, Nicole J. Sacrifice and Gender in Biblical Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Schiffman, Lawrence H. “‘Miqsat Ma’seh Ha-Torah’ and the ‘Temple Scroll.’” Revue de Qumrân 14.3 (1990): 435–457. Schwartz, Baruch J. “Leviticus: Introduction and Annotations.” Pages 203–280 in The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. Edited by Marc Zvi Brettler and Adele Berlin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Tigay, Jeffrey H. “Exodus: Introduction and Annotations.” Pages 102–202 in The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. Edited by Marc Zvi Brettler and Adele Berlin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Werrett, Ian C. Ritual Purity and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Boston: Brill, 2007. –. “The Reconstruction of 4QMMT: A Methodological Critique.” Pages 205–216 in Northern Lights on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Nordic Qumran Network 2003– 2006. Edited by Anders Klostergaard Petersen. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 80. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2009. Weston, Kath. Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

The Hermeneutical Benefits of Wirkungsgeschichte Patristic Applications of the Command to ‘Render to Caesar and to God’ as Case Study1 Simeon R. Burke

To what extent is Wirkungsgeschichte, or the study of the history of the afterlife of a text, essential to New Testament exegesis?2 In this essay, I seek to contribute to the discussion surrounding this question by introducing an important, and yet largely overlooked distinction. I argue that to properly assess the importance or necessity of effective-historical investigation for New Testament exegesis, we must distinguish between two priorities: first, the exegetical usefulness of subsequent readings, on the one hand, and second, the hermeneutical benefits of effective-historical work, on the other. The exegetical task, at least as narrowly defined in contemporary historical-critical research, seeks to locate the meaning of a text in a variety of historical and literary contexts.3 While there are, of course, a variety of concerns that readers wish to (or indeed, unconsciously) bring to the interpretive task, this basic definition is one that most will agree on, even if some will want to go beyond it. I contend that the subsequent effects and receptions of a text are of mixed value to the New Testament exegete seeking to understand a particular New Testament text in the context in which it was composed. Later readings might be of use in the pursuit of that specific goal – then and again, some of them will be of less use and others no use at all.4 More profound and 1 I would like to acknowledge the Wolfson Foundation for their financial support which aided this research. 2 For an introduction to terms like effective-history and reception-history terms, which are defined and used in various ways by scholars, see the 2010 issue of Journal for the Study of the New Testament which is devoted to such matters. See, in particular, Mark Knight, “Wirkungsgeschichte, Reception History, Reception Theory,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.2 (2010): 137–146 and Mark W. Elliott, “Effective-History and the Hermeneutics of Ulrich Luz,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.2 (2010): 161–173. Although I use the term Wirkungsgeschichte (effective-history), in fact, I explore only one aspect of this endeavour  – namely, the history of interpretation found in texts, rather than in other media (art, film, literature, popular culture etc.). 3 See for an historical introduction, David R. Law, The Historical-Critical Method: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2012) 38–52. 4 My view here aligns with the comments of Mark W. Elliott, “The Promise and Threat of ‘Reception’, with Reference to Patristic Interpretation of Texts in Hebrews and Ephesians,” in

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fundamental, I suggest, are the hermeneutical benefits of studying a text’s impact. I contend that examining the reception of a New Testament text can lead to deep reflection on the methods and motivations which readers – both modern and ancient – bring to the interpretive task. This hermeneutical self-reflection can, in turn, advance the study of the New Testament by causing the modern exegete to re-think presuppositions and ask fresh questions of the text, of the self and of the purpose of New Testament exegesis itself. I seek to establish this distinction between exegetical and hermeneutical benefits through close examination of a single case-study: the patristic interpretation of Jesus’s command to “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” as recorded in the tribute passage of the Synoptic Gospels (hereafter referred to as the “render” command).5 In the first part of this essay, I very briefly focus on the limited exegetical benefits of the interpretations offered by two patristic readers – Tertullian of Carthage (ca. 155–220 CE) and Origen of Alexandria (ca. 180–250 CE).6 In the second part, I demonstrate that Tertullian and Origen’s interpretations can more profitably provoke sustained reflection on the methods and motives of reading communities, ancient and modern. To this end, I observe a curious divergence between patristic and modern interpreters. Tertullian and Origen apply the “render” command to a range of pressing topics in their own day, including martyrdom and asceticism. Contemporary commentators, by contrast, deliberately limit the significance of the command to its first-century context.7 I suggest that the multiplicity of Tertullian and Origen’s applications of the “render” command emerges, in part, from the assumption that as an authoritative word, Jesus’s saying speaks to a variety of issues in their contemporary Authoritative Texts and Reception History: Aspects and Approaches, ed. Dan Batovici and Kristin De Troyer (Biblical Interpretation Series; Leiden: Brill, 2017), 227–242 (242), who rightly concludes that “The early church should not be given undue respect for a conservation of biblical meaning when it comes to its interpretation of key texts in the NT.” After all, writers like Irenaeus, or indeed Tertullian and Origen, were also attending to their own pressing, readerly and communal concerns. Their interpretation of scriptural texts was caught up in applying these texts to various urgent pastoral needs and polemical debates. 5 Mark 12.13–17; Matthew 22.15–22; Luke 20.19–26; see also Gospel of Thomas 100. For a comprehensive study of this pericope, see Niclas Förster, Jesus und die Steuerfrage: Die Zinsgroschenperikope auf dem religiösen und politischen Hintergrund ihrer Zeit: Mit einer Edition von Pseudo-Hieronymus, ‘De haeresibus Judaeorum’ (WUNT 294; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012). 6 For a fuller discussion of early Christian/patristic reception, see Ibid., 226–281 and 173–175 (on the “image of God”); Pier Cesare Bori, “‘Date a Cesare quel che è di Cesare’ (Mt. 22.21). Linee di storia dell ’interpretazione antica,” Cristianesimo Nella Storia 7 (1986): 451–464. See also the more recent discussion in Marco Rizzi, Cesare e Dio: Potere Spirituale e Potere Secolare in Occidente (Saggi 712; Bologna: Il mulino, 2009) and Ulrich Luz, Matthew: A Commentary. 3. Chapters 21–28 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2005) 63–65. 7 See my discussion of the exegetical options in Simeon R. Burke, “‘Render to Caesar the Things of Caesar and to God the Things of God’: Recent Perspectives on a Puzzling Command (1945–Present),” Currents in Biblical Research 16.2 (2018): 157–190.

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contexts.8 Yet such interpretive variety does not entail that these two authors decontextualize Jesus’s saying. On the contrary, I demonstrate that while there are some differences, Tertullian and Origen, like their modern counterparts, often hold to the importance of reading Jesus’s saying in its literary context. The difference between Tertullian and Origen, on the one hand, and modern readers, on the other, has less to do with the different methods they employ, and more to do with the ends to which those methods are put. In other words, both sets of readers think differently about the perceived purpose of the exegetical endeavour. Tertullian and Origen’s interpretations might not always be of exegetical use, then, but their assumption that Jesus’s saying speaks to their own contexts raises serious questions about the nature and purpose of New Testament exegesis and the fundamental task of the New Testament exegete.

1. Effective History and Exegesis: A Mixed Bag of Interpretive Options First, then, a brief glance at Tertullian and Origen’s readings of the “render” command demonstrates the varying degrees of usefulness of such interpretations at the exegetical level. I focus, here, purely on the exegetical results of Tertullian and Origen’s interpretive activity which I draw from three examples found in their works. First, in his Flight from Persecution (De Fuga in Persecutione, ca. 203–206 CE), the Latin writer Tertullian defines “the things of God” as the human person (homo) and as blood (sanguis). To “render” to God, in this context, entails offering one’s own body in martyrdom. The context for Tertullian’s use of the “render” saying is his concern with Christians fleeing persecution either through bribery or by physically removing themselves from danger. Tertullian represents his opponents as using the command to “render to Caesar” to defend flight from persecution. In response, Tertullian writes, But what do I owe God … but the blood which his own Son shed for me? Now if I owe God, indeed a human being (homo) and my own blood (hominem et sanguinem) I am surely guilty of cheating God if I do my best to withhold my payment. I have well kept the commandment if, rendering to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, I refuse to God the things which are God’s!9 8 This is not to say that the “render” command held an infinite variety of applications. My own doctoral work examines this question in relation to patristic re-use of the sayings of Jesus. See the helpfully cautious remarks of Teresa Morgan, Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 20 on inherent limits to the use of moral sayings. 9 All references are from Eligius Dekkers, et al., eds., Tertulliani Opera, Pars II: Opera Montanistica, (CCSL 2; Turnhout: Brepols, 1954) (hereafter CCSL 2). De Fuga 12.10–13 (CCSL 2:1153):

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Tertullian’s use of the “render” command to support martyrdom might strike modern readers as an extreme and arbitrary interpretation of the “render” command – and indeed, it is a highly idiosyncratic reading in the saying’s history of interpretation.10 I have noted elsewhere that this martyrological strain characterises each of Tertullian’s re-uses of the command, although it is most explicit here in De Fuga.11 Several decades later, Origen, in his Commentary on Matthew, uses the command for rather different ends. In his spiritual reading of the tribute passage, Origen employs Jesus’s saying to defend a moderate form of asceticism. For some act analogously to those who advise not to pay tax to Caesar, by mistreating the body as much as possible with fasts, vigils, and abstinence from everything related to the body and its necessary actions. But there are others besides these who grasp the words in the passage in a muddled way and imagine that one must give the body its dues. But our Saviour, ‘the Logos of God’, clearly distinguishing the debts reasonably owed the body from the spiritual dues to the soul, says ‘Give to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar, and to God the things that belong to God’, for the tribute, which constitutes the totality of what is owed to the body, bears the image of Caesar and of physical things.12

Origen creatively employs the characters of the tribute passage to support his ascetic application of the “render” command.13 Although he does not explicitly name either group in this section, it is clear that Origen intends to refer to the Pharisees’ insistence on zealous following of the Law and the Herodians’ licentiousness towards that selfsame Law.14 Both groups  – the Pharisees and Quid autem Deo debeo … nisi sanguinem, quem pro me filius fudit ipsius? Quodsi Deo quidem hominem et sanguinem meum debeo … 10 For more detail here, see my own discussion Burke, “‘Render to Caesar,’” 157–190 as well as Luz, Matthew, 63–65. 11 Simeon R. Burke, “Tertullian’s Martyrological Maxim: A Case Study for the Multiple Rhetorical Functions of the Command to ‘Render to Caesar the Things of Caesar and to God the Things of God’ in the Writings of Tertullian” Studia Patristica vol. C, ed. Hugh Houghton, et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2020) 71–83. 12 Ernst Benz and Ernst Klostermann, eds., Origenes Matthäuserklärung 1: Die Griechisch erhaltenen tomoi (Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der Ersten Drei Jahrhunderte 40; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1935) 659. For English translation of the Greek, see R. E. Heine, ed., The Commentary of Origen on the Gospel of St Matthew, 2 vols. (Oxford Early Christian Texts; Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2018) I:302–303. 13 CommMt 17.27. See Benz and Klostermann, Origenes Matthäuserklärung, 660. 14 Although he does not explicitly name either group in this section, it is clear that Origen intends to refer to the Pharisees’ insistence on zealous asceticism and the Herodians’ licentiousness. His earlier discussion of the literal significance of the passage provides extended comments on these two groups and clearly shows that he has them in mind in this later section. See Benz and Klostermann, Origenes Matthäuserklärung, 669 (CommMt 17.25–26). See for instance, Origen’s comment: “For it is likely that among the people at that time those who taught to pay the tax to Caesar were called Herodians by those who did not want to do this, and the Pharisees who, in the fantasy of freedom, prevented paying the tax to Caesar.” The later Latin text of CommMt 17.26 is even more explicit: “for perhaps among the people at that time those who thought it necessary to pay the tribute were called Herodians … The Pharisees appeared to be

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Herodians – become the foils for Origen’s version of ascetic activity. With the help of “the Logos of God”, Origen charts a reasonable and clear (τρανῶς), middle passage of measured asceticism which allows for giving the body what is due to it, since the body, just like the tribute, “bears the image of Caesar and of physical things” (ἔχει Καίσαρος καὶ σωματικῶν πραγμάτων).15 At the same time, one must “‘give to God the things of God’, by attending to the spiritual dues to the soul.”16 In other words, one is to make concessions to the body (“Caesar”) that do not diminish virtue, while pursuing purity (“God”) in such a way that does not burden the flesh.17 In a third example, drawn from an earlier section of Origen’s Commentary on Matthew, Origen establishes what most historical-critical commentators would today consider to be the basic literal meaning of the command – “pay your taxes while maintaining your duties to God.”18 It soon becomes clear that in his discussion of the “literal” significance of the tribute passage, Origen takes up the polemical task of refuting erroneous readings. And at the same time, we are also taught by our Saviour not to pay attention to things the multitudes say and which, therefore, appear wonderful in their pretext of piety towards God, but to pay attention to things proven by careful examination and the sequence of argument. For, give attention to the fact that when it was being investigated if one must pay tax to Caesar or not, Jesus did not respond simply with his own opinion, but said, ‘Show me the coin for the tax,’ and asked, ‘Whose image and superscription is it?’ They said that it was Caesar’s, and he replied that one must give to Caesar his own things when he asks and not defraud him of his own things in the fantasy of piety. And one must not, I presume, give the things of Caesar to Caesar and not give the things of God to God, and

observing the minuteness of the Jewish disciplines very carefully.” See also the Latin translation of CommMt 17.27: “Those therefore who teach the law of God beyond the ordinary and command to have no concern about physical things and the needs of the body are the Pharisees… There are others, however, who think it necessary to indulge bodies beyond the ordinary and to satisfy the ruler of bodies in all ways. These are in the likeness ‘of the Herodians.’” See Heine, Commentary on St Matthew II, 285. 15 Benz and Klostermann, Origenes Matthäuserklärung, 660. 16 Ibid., 659. 17 This distinction becomes more elaborate and explicit in the later Latin translation: “But our Saviour, ‘the word of God’, distinctly separating the rational debts of the body from the spiritual debts of the soul, says: ‘Give back to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and the things which are God’s to God’, for every physical thing bears the image of Caesar, and every virtue bears the image of God.” Ibid., 659. 18 Origen devotes two out of four sections to the literal significance of the command (CommMt 17.25 and 17.26). See also Origen’s exegesis in his Homily on Luke 39 (Homiliam in Lucam). For the text, see Henri Crouzel, François Fournier, and Pierre Périchon, eds., Homélies sur S. Luc: Texte Latin et Fragments Grecs (SC 87; Paris: Cerf, 1962), 454. There, Origen notes that while this literal interpretation is correct, it fails to engage with the “secret and mystical” (secreti atque mystici) significance of the passage as a whole, and the command in particular.

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someone who gives the things of Caesar to Caesar is not prevented from giving the things of God to God.19

In response to those who consider the saying to justify not paying the tax, Origen counters that the opposite is the case. One must not withhold from God his dues when giving to Caesar. At the same time, no-one is precluded from giving to God by giving to Caesar. Having all too briefly discussed these three readings, we can now return to the main question at hand. What, if anything, do these subsequent effects actually contribute to the task of New Testament exegesis? Are they essential reading for the New Testament exegete? At the basic level of arithmetic, these cases expand the interpretive options for the New Testament student and scholar. In my view, however, the extent to which these interpretations illuminate the significance of the command in the contexts in which it was composed varies greatly. NT scholars will justifiably want to judge which of these patristic readings has exegetical pay-off. The third example, Origen’s literal reading of the command in his Commentary on Matthew, will perhaps appear to be the most useful for modern exegetes, perhaps precisely because it broadly aligns with the results of modern study – Jesus is presented as talking about taxation and the relationship of Christians to the Roman empire. As I have demonstrated elsewhere, the interpretive options for the “render” command in the post-1945 period mostly echo Origen’s exegesis here by centering on the religio-political significance of the command.20 For interpreters, Jesus’s saying prioritises the power of God over the empire in such a way that undermines the authority of the latter (“seditious readings”); alternatively, his words hold the two, respective powers in an equal relationship (“complementarian readings”); or, finally, his climactic pronouncement upholds both parties as worthy of obedience while prioritising obedience to God, especially at points where that obedience is challenged by imperial authority (“subordinationist readings”). 21 Even those readings that seek to do away with the “religio-political” import of the command (a range of interpretations which I group under the heading of “ambiguous readings”), react against the prevailing method and are thereby defined in relation to it.22 This all too brief summary of contemporary approaches to the command shows that Origen’s literal-sense reading will therefore appear as common-sense to modern

19 Origen, CommMt 17.26. Benz and Klostermann, Origenes Matthäuserklärung 658; Heine, Commentary on St Matthew I, 302. The Latin translation reproduces the full passage on two occasions in CommMt 17.26. See Heine, Commentary on St Matthew II, 527–528 for both retellings. 20 See Burke, “‘Render.’” 21 Ibid., 160. 22 Ibid., 176–177.

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commentators for whom the “enduring importance of the political framework for the command” persists.23 At the same time, the exegete seeking to interpret these texts in their original literary contexts might rightly question the usefulness of the other two readings (Origen’s ascetic and Tertullian’s martyrological interpretation). For instance, was the historical Jesus, or the Synoptic Evangelists, really calling for the Pharisees and Herodians to offer their own blood in martyrdom, as Tertullian suggests? Similarly, one could take issue with Origen’s ascetic reading on the basis that it spiritualises the various parties discussed in the passage, making them ciphers for Christians in Origen’s day. Was Jesus and/or the Evangelists intending to provide a blue print for ascetic activity? If the task of exegesis is to elucidate the meaning of Jesus’s words within the context of composition, then these three examples show that subsequent readings vary in their interpretive usefulness. In light of this discussion, I would propose that Tertullian and Origen’s exegetical results might reveal more about their own concerns as early Christian writers. As such, the study of their interpretive endeavours contributes more to the history of ideas, or the history of interpretation of a particular text. Yet this is quite different, I would maintain, from New Testament exegesis proper. In the case of the “render” command, a deep awareness of its subsequent readings can help to challenge inaccurate portrayals of its reception. For instance, Ulrich Luz speaks for most contemporary scholarship when he writes that “the issue in this text [Matthew 22.15–22] is precisely not a determination of the relationship of Jesus or of his followers to the state. To that degree the most important concern with the text in the history of interpretation completely misses its intention.”24 Yet the examples provided above problematise Luz’s understanding of the history of interpretation since the command clearly speaks to issues that lie far beyond the standard dichotomy of religious and political power. Again though, this helpful nugget of exegetical data – patristic interpreters transcend the exegetical focus on the relationship between “religious” and “political” power – is of most relevance to the history of interpretation, and not New Testament exegesis.25 To the extent that effective-history aids New Testament exegesis, it does so, I would suggest, only indirectly. Effective-historical investigation does not itself constitute exegesis of the New Testament texts. As John Barclay, notes, having studied the reception

23

Ibid., 176. Luz, Matthew, 67. 25 For two recent examples of the use of the effective history for the purposes of intellectual history and interpretation-history, see Michael G. Azar, Exegeting the Jews: The Early Reception of the Johannine Jews (Bible in Ancient Christianity 10; Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2016) and Karl Shuve, The Song of Songs and the Fashioning of Identity in Early Latin Christianity (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 24

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of Pauline grace in great detail, “It is time to get to the text themselves …”.26 To put this more positively, effective-history forms the preliminary task of the New Testament exegete who must then go on to perform his/her own exegesis of the New Testament text. As I have shown above, the extent to which later readings aid in this task varies on a case-by-case basis.

2. Effective History and Hermeneutics: The Methods and Motives of Readerly Communities If effective-history is of mixed value for the exegesis of the “render” command, I now want to suggest that it can more meaningful contribute to deeper and more fundamental hermeneutical questions. A text’s subsequent effects expose – sometimes rather uncomfortably – the methods and assumptions one brings to the exegetical endeavour. As John Barclay observes following his examination of the Pauline gift in the history of interpretation, “without a long perspective, one can hardly comprehend, let alone contribute to, contemporary debates on such historically charged topics … History teaches hermeneutical self-consciousness.”27 In our case, one way of understanding the hermeneutical contribution of effective-history to New Testament exegesis is by pausing to reflect on the following question – why do we see such diverse results in the patristic interpretations of the “render” command? Why do Origen and Tertullian apply the command to discussions of martyrdom and asceticism? And why, conversely, have recent commentators remained preoccupied with strictly religio-political readings of this saying (that is, relating the saying to discussions of religious and political power)?28 In answering these questions, I suggest that it is worth comparing the methods and motives that modern and patristic authors exhibit when interpreting this 26 John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015) 188. Barclay does so in the full awareness that the effective-historical work establishes the questions to ask (or not ask) of the texts. Effective historical work therefore establishes new ways of thinking about old debates. Another highly stimulating example of this kind of preliminary, reception-historical digging in recent NT scholarship can be found in Grant Macaskill, Union with Christ in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Macaskill uses the history of exegesis to inform his own exegesis of NT texts – but, to reiterate my point, he still performs that necessary exegetical task using the tools of historical-criticism. 27 Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 186–188 (italics added). 28 One could easily point to a range of different issues that help to explain the diversity within early Christian exegesis (including genre; historical context; assumptions about the way texts are read); while fascinating, providing an account of such explanations would go beyond the scope of this piece. On Origen’s hermeneutics, and the role of genre in his interpretive variety, see Anna Tzvetkova-Glaser, “Origenes. De principiis” in Handbuch der Bibelhermeneutiken: Von Origenes bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Oda Wischmeyer (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2016), 13–22.

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saying of Jesus. Such a comparison will, I think, helpfully address the potential hermeneutical contributions effective-historical research can make to New Testament exegesis. Tertullian and Origen’s assumption that the “render” command speaks beyond their own context raises interesting questions surrounding both (1) the methods and (2) the motivations of modern and ancient reading communities. By methods, I refer to the set of skills that readers bring to the exegetical task. By the motives of modern and ancient reading communities, I refer to the various ways in which reading communities perceive the purpose/s of their exegetical activity.29 First, then, what are the methods of these respective readers? For comparison, I have selected the Hermeneia commentary on Mark by Adela Yarbro Collins. My reason here is simply that Yarbro Collins constitutes a representative example of the methods and motivations that characterise contemporary scholarship on this command. That is, Yarbro Collins employs the common set of historical-critical methods used by contemporary scholars, and is alive to the same, or similar, ethical concerns when interpreting this command.30 With this in mind, we can turn to examining Yarbro Collins’s commentary on the “render” command. The importance of her comments warrants their full citation. The saying is too general to provide a practical guide for conduct. It is characterised by wit rather than serious argument … It is inappropriate to derive an ethical teaching or social policy from this saying. The main point is that Jesus was clever and witty enough to respond to the question without saying anything that would provide grounds for a charge against him before the Roman governor.31

Yarbro Collins’s exegesis of the “render” command relies heavily on an interpretation of the rhetorical and literary context presented by the Gospel of Mark. Thus, Yarbro Collins notes that the immediate literary context of Jesus’s saying – which Mark presents as a dangerous, life and death situation  – subsequently entails that Jesus could not possibly be offering substantive teaching.32 Mark’s Jesus merely seeks to avoid a charge being made against him. Yarbro Collins’s reticence to form a social or political policy out of this verse arises, in part, from a desire to attend to its literary context. As Yarbro Collins observes at the outset 29 I define motives in terms of “purposes”, then, rather than intentions. I therefore hope that I avoid claiming to know the psychology or intentions of the authors discussed! 30 Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007). Note the foreword in which the vision for the Hermeneia series is laid out as follows: “The series is designed to be a critical and historical commentary to the Bible … It will utilize the full range of philological and historical tools, including textual criticism … the methods of the history of tradition … and the history of religion.” 31 Ibid., 552, 557. 32 Luke’s Gospel presents this danger in even more emphatic terms when it presents the motives of Jesus’s interlocutors. They came to him “so as (ὥστε) to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor” (Luke 20.20).

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of her comments, the command appears within a “controversy-dialogue” (to use Bultmann’s term) or a “testing inquiry” (to use Tannehill’s).33 Characteristic of such stories is the dramatic tension that escalates through a series of verbal and actional exchanges.34 Yarbro Collins’s conclusion that the saying is simply a rhetorical ruse therefore emerges from engagement with the immediate literary context of the tribute passage. The narratival and rhetorical context constrain the significance of Jesus’s statement so that it bears little meaningful substance. Tertullian and Origen, for their part, also read the saying in light of its rhetorical and literary contexts. Rather than fragmenting the saying from the larger pronouncement story, both authors draw on the textual contexts of Jesus’ saying while also applying this statement to a wealth of ethical issues. In Tertullian’s case, it is the text of scripture – mediated through the literary context of Jesus’s words – that helps shape his interpretation of the command. He links the text of Genesis 1.27 – the human person made in God’s image – with the tribute passage through the catchword “image” (“whose image and inscription is this?” and “let us make mankind in our image”). The logic here is that just as Caesar has his coin with his image (imago) on it, so also God has his coin – the human person (homo) – who bears his image. Since the human person belongs to God, she must “render” herself, indeed her very life, to God in martyrdom.35 While Tertullian fashions this interpretation through a scriptural text external to the immediate literary context (i. e. Genesis 1.27), he clearly draws on this text because of its catchword associations with the immediate context of Jesus’s saying. Origen’s ascetic interpretation of the saying, our second example, is similarly shaped by the immediate literary context, or co-text, of Jesus’s saying. Origen’s reading emerges from the two sets of figures that appear in the episode, the Herodians and Pharisees. At least part of Origen’s interpretive point of departure, then, is still the immediate literary context. In the third example, Origen arrives at the “literal” interpretation through a familiar blend of historical groundwork and literary-criticism. Origen asserts that those who take the command to mean “do not pay your taxes” hastily draw this conclusion and fail to carefully “examine” the entire passage.36 Significantly, the antidote that Origen offers is found in the basic principles of literary criticism and grammar (γραμματική).37 Το begin with, one is to follow the “sequence of the argument,” a clear reference 33

Yarbro Collins, Mark, 552. Ibid., 552. 35 Tertullian, De Fuga (see above for discussion). Tertullian uses the imago catchword to other ends. See my discussion in “Tertullian’s Martyrological Maxim.” 36 Benz and Klostermann, Origenes Matthäuserklärung, 658. 37 See on literary criticism, or philology, and Origen, P. Martens, Origen and Scripture: The Contours of the Exegetical Life (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 54–62; B. Neuschäfer, Origines als Philologe, vol. 2 (Schweizerische Beiträge zur alterumswissenschaft 18.1–2; Basel: Reinhardt, 1987), 139–246. 34

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to reading the saying in light of the context of the passage.38 Origen reasons that if Jesus had made it clear that he was against the payment of the tax, then “‘the Pharisees’, who wished to ensnare him ‘in his speech’, would have had no occasion when they sent their ‘disciples with the Herodians’ to ask Jesus whether ‘it was right to pay tax to Caesar or not.’”39 In Origen’s eyes, an awareness of the wider literary context of the passage, and the two sets of interlocutors posing the question, undermines the logic of the anti-taxation reading. In addition to literary critical work, historical investigations – in which Origen draws heavily on the historian Josephus – establish the importance of the issue of Jewish tax uprisings, which, Origen remarks, Jesus deals with directly in his concluding pronouncement.40 What these three examples demonstrate is that Tertullian and Origen draw on the immediate literary context of Jesus’s saying, regardless of whether they interpret the pronouncement in a literal or non-literal fashion. Indeed, the basis for Origen’s non-literal, ascetic interpretation of the “render” saying is the text itself. Close attention to the literary context is not a purely “modern” concern, therefore, as recent work by classicists Francesca Schironi, René Nünlist, and Maren Niehoff has amply demonstrated.41 Hard and fast distinctions between “precritical”, pre-modern reading strategies and modern “critical” ones are therefore lazy and unfounded and should be avoided.42 While Tertullian, Origen and Yarbro Collins agree that the literary context should shape one’s interpretation of Jesus’s saying, precisely how the literary context shapes their respective readings varies. For Yarbro Collins, the literary context is to be considered in a narrow manner – that is, the controversy story provides the literary boundaries within which to draw out the significance of Jesus’s words. For her, the danger-fraught situation of the immediate pericope 38 Benz and Klostermann, Origenes Matthäuserklärung, 658: ὐπο τῆς ἐξεστάσεως καὶ τῆς ἀκολουθίας τοῦ λόγου παρισταμένοις (Gk.); secundum ordinem rationis dicuntur (Lat). 39 Ibid., 656; Heine, Commentary on St Matthew I, 301 (CommMt 17.25). 40 Benz and Klostermann, Origenes Matthäuserklärung, 655. Origen notes that such work involves a set of skills that one is trained in. The “anti-taxation” reading, by contrast, arises from hastily drawn conclusions. “Now such things are not obvious in the text of the Gospel that is before us, but the saying to be expounded proves that these things are so to the person who can see with intense scrutiny” (CommMt 17.25). 41 On Homeric commentaries, see René Nünlist, “Kontext und Kontextualisierung als Kategorien antiker Literaturerklärung,” in Text, Kontext, Kontextualisierung: Moderne Kontextkonzepte und antike Literatur, U. Tischer, A. Forst and U. Gärtner, eds. (Spudasmata 179; Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2018), 101–118; idem., The Ancient Critic at Work: Terms and Concepts of Literary Criticism in Greek Scholia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Francesca Schironi, “Greek Commentaries,” Dead Sea Discoveries 19.3 (2012): 399–441; idem., The Best of Grammarians: Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018). On literary contextualisation in Jewish commentaries and writings, see Maren Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014) (esp. 49–51). 42 I owe this point to conversation with Benjamin Petroelje.

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entails that Jesus’ saying should be read as a contained, witty response containing very little, if any, substance. It is important to note that for Tertullian and Origen, the literary context does, at points, function in a similarly restrictive fashion. For instance, Origen rules out revolutionary readings on the basis of the “sequence” of the text, by which he means the logical flow of the pronouncement story. Examples of this kind of polemical use of the scriptural context also abound in Tertullian’s work.43 Yet, as we have also seen, the literary context also involves the re-use of finer details from the passage – words, themes and figures which Tertullian and Origen consider to be pregnant with meaning. Thus, Tertullian draws on a single word from the co-text  – the imago on Caesar’s coin  – and connects this with the text from Genesis. Origen and Tertullian employ the literary context in a similarly conservative manner to Yarbro Collins, but also transcend her view of the textual context of Jesus’s words. It is also worth noting that the literary context is much broader for Tertullian and Origen, than it is for Yarbro Collins; indeed, it seems to consist of all of scripture itself. While Tertullian draws on the text of Genesis, Origen, in his other non-literal uses of the command, also draws heavily on a variety of biblical texts to interpret Jesus’s saying.44 I should hasten to add that these scriptural readings are not constructed on a whim. Tertullian and Origen are careful to make inner-biblical connections through catchword associations and/or thematic links. The text surrounding Jesus’s words is the platform for making inner-biblical links which, when combined, elucidate the significance of Jesus’s pronouncement. Modern readers will, by and large, be more sympathetic to Yarbro Collins’s desire to ensure that the interpretation of the saying fits with its immediate literary context. Even if they disagree with the results of Yarbro Collins’s exegesis, they will probably nod their heads in agreement at her attempts to constrain the saying’s significance by limiting it to its original literary context. What I hope to have raised with the discussion above is that it is worth reflecting on why this is the case. That is, why might we not consider the biblical context as a whole to inform a particular verse or saying? This question is especially pressing given the fact that Tertullian and Origen also attend to the literary context of Jesus’s sayings. For them, the literary context forms the basis for drawing on other biblical texts. The contrast between Yarbro Collins and Tertullian and Origen, at this point, seems to have less to do with the methods used and more with the ends to which each reading community puts them.

43 See R. D. Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian (OTM; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971) 86–100 who rightly notes the influence of Latin rhetorical treatises and especially of Cicero. 44 See for instance his use in his Homilies on Luke (Hom. In Luc. 39) where he glosses Jesus’s command with 1 Cor. 15.49 (the heavenly and earthly image) again on the basis of the catchword “image” from the co-text. See Crouzel, Fournier, and Périchon, Homélies sur S. Luc, 454.

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This leads us nicely in to our second question – how does each reading group conceive of the purpose of the exegetical task? There are fascinating divergences in the purposes driving the exegesis of Tertullian and Origen, on the one hand, and Yarbro Collins on the other. For her part, Yarbro Collins insists that the historical Jesus could not have intended for his pithy saying to be applied beyond his lifetime (and certainly not so neatly to church-state discussions). In support of this view, Yarbro Collins characterizes the saying as a vague, general remark, a clever ruse that allowed Jesus to escape the clutches of those seeking to put him to death. As such, the teaching cannot provide any guidance for future conduct.45 Yet Tertullian and Origen draw significance from the very fact that this saying did speak beyond the text in which the saying was recorded, addressing their own times with a memorable and authoritative word. It is important to note that both sets of readers, moderns like Yarbro Collins, and ancients like Origen and Tertullian, are motivated by ethical concerns. Luz, for instance, notes that the deep suspicion with which many scholars have come to look upon readings of the command that deal with church–state relations can be attributed to the growing suspicion, at least in certain quarters, towards the misuse of power by both state and church.46 Might this partly explain why commentators attempt to hermetically seal the command so that it speaks only to its first century context, and no further? In stark contrast to this approach, Origen and Tertullian assume that Jesus’s command solves certain ethical dilemmas in their own day and age. In their view, the text functions less as a lock, requiring a key (the interpreter) to open it. Rather, the command itself becomes a key that unlocks ethical insights. To borrow Karl Shuve’s useful distinction, the “render” command for Tertullian and Origen is not so much an explanandum, a thing requiring explanation, as an explanans, a thing that explains.47 For them, Jesus’s saying represents a statement filled to the brim with meaning that makes sense of one’s situation in the present. In other words, the task of New Testament exegesis for Tertullian and Origen does not stop at issues of grammar, text-criticism and philology – that is, unlocking the meaning of a text. Rather, the New Testament exegete, as Origen and Tertullian conceive of him, cannot help but progress onwards to consider what the text does in unlocking the interpreter and his world. So, then, how does any of this comparative reflection on methods and motives benefit NT exegesis? Far from being “drudgery divine”, to borrow Jonathan Z Smith’s iconic phrase, comparing methods and motives across time aids the exegetical task precisely by broadening the reader’s hermeneutical horizons and

45

Yarbro Collins, Mark, 552. Luz, Matthew, 64. 47 See Shuve, Song of Songs, 3. 46

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raising questions of the reader and her task.48 Why, for instance, does Yarbro Collins limit the significance of Jesus’s command to its immediate context (the literary unit immediately surrounding the climactic saying)? Why do Tertullian and Origen apply Jesus’s saying to their own respective contexts? How do they conceive of Jesus’s saying? To what extent do they draw on the literary context of Jesus’s saying when doing so? How do they conceive of the literary context? To what extent does their conception of the textual context overlap with modern conceptions of literary context? How does each set of readers conceive of the purpose of reading and interpreting Jesus’s words? It should now be clear that if Tertullian, Origen and Yarbro Collins each maintain that the literary context of Jesus’s saying is significant for its interpretation, they nevertheless think differently about whether it should be applied to one’s contemporary setting. Tertullian and Origen introduce provocative questions about the applicability of Jesus’s saying beyond its context of composition. For instance, should New Testament exegetes consider it essential to their task to discuss the question of whether the “render” command can, or perhaps even should, be applied beyond the first century context in which it first was recorded? To ask these questions raises all sorts of additional issues concerning the status of authoritative texts and religious communities. But what it also does is problematise the definition of the task of New Testament exegesis I offered at the beginning of this essay. Is there more to the task of New Testament exegesis than discovering the significance of an individual text in its historical setting?49

3. Conclusion In this piece, I have sought to contribute to the question posed in this volume by offering what I hope is a useful distinction between the exegetical and hermeneutical benefits of Wirkungsgeschichte for New Testament exegesis. At the exegetical level, I have suggested that the readings of previous interpreters are 48 J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). 49 The comments of Mark W. Elliott deserve further reflection on this score: “Despite its image as historicist and even obscurantist at times, ‘historical critical’ biblical studies at its best offers ancient texts which have given inspiration and guidance for centuries the chance to do the same for the present age … To put things more positively, a preferable approach to biblical studies is not only one which demands linguistic and historical competence for understanding the original documents, but one that also relates this discourse across both testaments and then, further, to the discourses of historical theology and modern thought. This is not in order to muffle the voice of the ancient texts, or to compress them into doctrinal uniformity. It means setting the texts free to contribute to issues of today, that is the application of texts, not least through learning from the reception of yesteryear how texts can be well interpreted as well as excavated.” See Elliott, “Promise and Threat”, 227.

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of varying usefulness to the exegete. As such, I would advise a case-by-case approach to the study of subsequent effects of a New Testament text. When it comes to the hermeneutical benefits of effective-history, these, I have suggested, are often less considered. Yet I have argued that they are even richer since they probe more fundamentally at the deep assumptions of readers and reading communities. Attending to subsequent readings has the potential to raise fresh questions about the ways in which modern and ancient reading communities approach texts and the purpose/s for which they do so. I have deliberately left some of these questions unanswered since the purpose of this contribution is to provoke further discussion surrounding the way the diverse guild of NT studies operates, rather than promulgate prescriptive rules. Although, if I was to break my word and suggest just one, it would be to say that part of the task of New Testament exegesis should be personal, in the sense that it should involve the person of the exegete. After all, New Testament exegesis, as with all interpretation, is not only about “exegetical results” but involves real, flesh-and-blood people, living in time and space – and this, of course, includes the interpreter. If effective-history is to remain essential to New Testament exegesis, then surely part of its importance is to remind us of this.

Bibliography Azar, Michael G. Exegeting the Jews: The Early Reception of the Johannine Jews. Bible in Ancient Christianity 10. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016. Barclay, John M. G. Paul and the Gift. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015. Benz, Ernst and Ernst Klostermann, eds. Origenes Matthäuserklärung 1: Die Griechisch erhaltenen tomoi. Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 40. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1935. Bori, Pier Cesare. “‘Date a Cesare quel che è di Cesare’ (Mt. 22. 21). Linee di storia dell’ interpretazione antica.” Cristianesimo Nella Storia 7 (1986): 451–464. Burke, Simeon R. “‘Render to Caesar the Things of Caesar and to God the Things of God’: Recent Perspectives on a Puzzling Command (1945–Present).” Currents in Biblical Research 16.2 (2018): 157–190. –. “Tertullian’s Martyrological Maxim: A Case Study for the Multiple Rhetorical Functions of the Command to ‘Render to Caesar the Things of Caesar and to God the Things of God’ in the Writings of Tertullian.” Pages 71–82 in Studia Patristica Vol. C. Edited by Hugh Houghton, et al. Leuven: Peeters, 2020. Crouzel, Henri, François Fournier, and Pierre Périchon, eds. Homélies sur S. Luc: Texte Latin et Fragments Grecs. Sources chrétiennes 87. Paris: Cerf, 1962. Dekkers, Eligius, et al., eds. Tertulliani Opera, Pars II: Opera Montanistica. CCSL 2. Turnhout: Brepols, 1954. Elliott, Mark W. “The Promise and Threat of ‘Reception’, with Reference to Patristic Interpretation of Texts in Hebrews and Ephesians.” Pages 227–242 in Authoritative Texts

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and Reception History: Aspects and Approaches. Edited by Dan Batovici and Kristin De Troyer. Biblical Interpretation Series. Leiden: Brill, 2017. –. “Effective-History and the Hermeneutics of Ulrich Luz.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.2 (2010): 161–173. Förster, Niclas. Jesus und die Steuerfrage: Die Zinsgroschenperikope auf dem religiösen und politischen Hintergrund ihrer Zeit: Mit einer Edition von Pseudo-Hieronymus, ‘De haeresibus Judaeorum’. WUNT 294. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012. Heine, Roland E., ed. The Commentary of Origen on the Gospel of St Matthew. 2 Vols. Oxford Early Christian Texts. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Knight, Mark. “Wirkungsgeschichte, Reception History, Reception Theory.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.2 (2010): 137–146. Luz, Ulrich. Matthew: A Commentary. 3. Chapters 21–28. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2005. Macaskill, Grant. Union with Christ in the New Testament. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Martens, Peter W. Origen and Scripture: The Contours of the Exegetical Life. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Morgan, Teresa. Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Neuschäfer, Bernhard. Origines als Philologe. Vol. 1. Schweizerische Beiträge zur Alterumswissenschaft 18.1. Basel: Reinhardt, 1987. Niehoff, Maren. Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Nünlist, René. “Kontext und Kontextualisierung als Kategorien antiker Literaturerklärung.” Pages 101–118 in Text, Kontext, Kontextualisierung: Moderne Kontextkonzepte und antike Literatur. Edited by Ute Tischer, Alexandra Forst and Ursula Gärtner. Spudasmata 179. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2018. –. The Ancient Critic at Work: Terms and Concepts of Literary Criticism in Greek Scholia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Rizzi, Marco. Cesare e Dio: Potere Spirituale e Potere Secolare in Occidente. Saggi 712. Bologna: Il mulino, 2009. Schironi, Francesca. “Greek Commentaries.” Dead Sea Discoveries 19.3 (2012): 399–441. –. The Best of Grammarians: Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018. Shuve, Karl. The Song of Songs and the Fashioning of Identity in Early Latin Christianity. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Sider, Robert D. Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian. OTM. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. Smith, Jonathan Z. Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Tzvetkova-Glaser, Anna. “Origenes. De principiis.” Pages 13–22 in Handbuch der Bibelhermeneutiken: Von Origenes bis zur Gegenwart. Edited by Oda Wischmeyer. Berlin/ Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. Yarbro Collins, Adela. Mark: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.

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Few texts have played as crucial a role in the formation both of the doctrines and the rituals of early Christianity as the Great Commission in Matt 28:16–20. As a result, the secondary literature on this text is extensive. In this paper, I intend to refer to a more or less neglected way of understanding the Matthean epilogue: the mystagogical perspective, which, in my view, is very helpful for shedding new light on the entire Gospel of Matthew. A short research survey on the Great Commission: Two dissertations written by Lange1 and Hubbard2 in the 1970s summarise the findings of prior research. Lange highlights the apocalyptic features of the Matthean epilogue, while Hubbard shows us the similarities between Matt 28 and the passages regarding prophetic calls in the Hebrew Bible. Diachronic research has shown that the pericope under discussion belongs to a group of texts that link Jesus’s rising from the dead to his missionary call (Mark 16:15, Luke 24:46–48, John 20:21 cf. Acts 26:16–18, Gal 1:16, 1 Cor 9:1).3 Similarly, the text-critical issue present in modern research resulting from Eusebius of Caesarea’s exchanging the Trinitarian formula for the expression “baptise in my name” (βαπτίζοντες ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου) cannot challenge the unanimous testimony of all ancient manuscripts, because even Eusebius himself cites Matt 28:16 with the Trinitarian formula in his later works. From the perspective of synchronous analysis, a key problem that has been present in research for decades is whether the commission of the eleven4 to all nations is compatible with the sending of the twelve to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 10:6). Does the Matthean epilogue include an attempt to extend Jesus’s original mandate for mission to Israel or has the mission to Israel stopped? The 1 Joachim Lange, Das Erscheinen des Auferstandenen im Evangelium nach Matthäus (FB 11; Würzburg: Echter, 1973). 2 Benjamin Hubbard, The Matthean Redaction of a Primitive Apostolic Commissioning: An Exegesis of Matthew 28:16–20 (SBLDS 19; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1974). 3 Klaus Berger, Die Auferstehung des Propheten und die Erhöhung des Menschensohnes: Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Deutung des Geschickes Jesu in frühchristlichen Texten (SUNT; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 225 and Klaus Berger, Formen und Gattungen im Neuen Testament (UTB 2532; Tübingen: Francke, 2005), 341. 4 Regarding Acts 1:18–19 and the differences between Matthew and Luke on the traditions about Judas’s death see Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 758–765.

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answers given to these questions are not only a result of historical and philological research but also of the influence of cultural factors. This explains the effort of current exegetes who, due to the pluralist tendencies of our time, try to interpret the epilogue not as a mandate for mission but as the opening of dialogue with the nations.5 Another issue of intertextuality that occupies current Matthean exegetes is whether the Great Commission indirectly criticises Paul’s circumcision-free Gospel. The reason for this is that Jesus demands that the Mosaic Law be fully respected in Matthew, while Paul allegedly proclaims the opposite. However, the authors6 who adopt this view draw on an anachronistic understanding of Paul and Matthew’s relationship to Judaism and the Mosaic law.7 Given the central position of the command to baptise in the Great Commission, it is striking that a growing number of authors focus on the reflections of rituals in the New Testament and especially on the importance of baptism. Risto Uro’s study from 2016, Ritual and Christian Beginnings, as well as his edited volume, Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Rituals published in 2018, explain how the ritual innovations of early Christian communities played a catalytic role in the transmission of “embedded and embodied” religious knowledge in the ancient Mediterranean.8 I would like to contribute to this scholarly dialogue not by conducting ritual criticism but by reflecting on the way authors of ancient mystagogies understood rituals in Matthew.9 It is not a coincidence that Hans Joachim Schulz has convincingly shown that the Matthean epilogue must be understood as a theological and mystagogical interpretation of a long liturgical praxis. Schulz writes about the difficulties of modern exegesis as follows: Thus also the interpretation of Mt 28:19 offers a telling example of how short-sighted the usual exegesis is when it at the very best considers liturgical references in the Gospels as mere allusions to ritual circumstances at the time of writing, but does not realise, that the text itself can be properly grasped only from a much broader liturgical perspective, with which the evangelist was familiar due to the intensive liturgical life of his community, that was partially in continuity with Jewish piety, long before the final revision of his text.10  5 Cf. Wolfgang Reinbold, “‘Gehet hin und machet zu Jüngern alle Völker’?: Zur Übersetzung und Interpretation von Mt 28,19f,” ZThK 109 (2012), 176–205.  6 Benjamin L. White, “The Eschatological Conversion of ‘All the Nations’ in Matthew 28:19– 20: (Mis)reading Matthew through Paul,” JSNTS 36 (2014): 353–382.  7 David A. Kaden, Matthew, Paul, and the Anthropology of Law (WUNT II 424; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016) discusses the question about the function of the Mosaic law in Matthew from the perspective of the function of the laws in Greco-Roman societies.  8 Similarly, the monumental work of Everett Ferguson delivers a survey of all practical and theological aspects of the baptismal rite in the first five centuries. Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).  9 See the bibliography on early Christian liturgical NT interpretation in Wendy Mayer, “Catecheses and Homilies,” in The Oxford Handbook on Early Christian Biblical Interpretation, ed. Paul M. Blowers and Peter W. Martens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 243–254. 10 Hans-Joachim Schulz, “Die Spiegelung urkirchlicher Taufmystagogie und Taufpraxis in

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On this point, I think patristic exegesis proves to be essential for the understanding of the ecclesial, liturgical, and (to some extent) mystical dimensions of the relevant text.

1. Mystagogy? It calls attention that the Alexandrian exegete Origen is the first among early Christian exegetes to characterise Matthew’s epilogue as a mystagogy. In Origen’s view, the text under discussion is a mystagogy because it reveals the magnitude and power of baptism (ἐπιστήσας τῇ γενομένῃ παρὰ τοῦ σωτῆρος τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ μυσταγωγίᾳ). Baptism is a divine saving action for both the human soul and body (εἶτ’ ἐπεὶ μὴ μόνη ἡ ψυχὴ ἐπὶ σωτηρίαν καλεῖται, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ σῶμα … οὐκέτι μὲν ψιλὸν ὕδωρ· ἁγιάζεται γὰρ μυστικῇ τινὶ ἐπικλήσει). The body is sanctified by water carrying in it the power of the Holy Trinity (ὕδωρ, μετεσχηκὸς ὡς οἷόν τε τῆς δυνάμεως τῆς ἁγίας τριάδος).11 From this point of view, Matt 28:19 primarily refers to the importance not of Christian mission but of baptism as a means of participating in the power that emanates from the Father, appears in the Son, and is communicated by the Spirit. There are also other Fathers who characterise this text as the revelation of a mystery and understand the disciples of Jesus as mystagogues. Therefore, it would be reasonable to research how this text is received in the ancient catechetical or mystagogical homilies of the fourth and fifth centuries. To this end, we consider four different corpora of the 4th cent.: the homilies of Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, Theodor of Mopsuestia, and John of Jerusalem.

2. Baptise and Teach It is striking that the term μυσταγωγία does not generally refer to the revelation of a divine mystery (as in the case of Origen) but has a narrower sense in the mystagogical homilies. It refers instead to the neophyte’s introduction to the meaning of the rituals of Baptism and Eucharist. Ambrose and John of Jerusalem, however, Joh 3,3–21 und Mt 28,19,” in Crossroad of Cultures: Studies in Liturgy and Patristics in Honor of Gabriele Winkler, ed. Hans-Jürgen Feulner, Elena Velkovska and Robert F. Taft (OrChrAn 260; Rome: Pontificio Instituto Orientale, 2000), 657–674. 11 Origen, Fragm. in Evang. Joannis (in catenis), 36 GCS 10 [IV ], 51213–23: Kαὶ ὅρα γε οἵου μεγέθους καὶ δυνάμεως ἐστὶν ἐπιστήσας τῇ γενομένῃ παρὰ τοῦ σωτῆρος τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ μυσταγωγίᾳ. φησὶ γάρ· «Πορευθέντες «μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ «πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος, διδάσκοντες αὐτοὺς «τηρεῖν» καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς … πῶς ἔτι ψιλὸν εἶναι δύναται τὸ ἅμα τούτοις παραλαμβανόμενον ὕδωρ, μετεσχηκὸς ὡς οἷόν τε τῆς δυνάμεως τῆς ἁγίας τριάδος.

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explain the mysteries of both Baptism and Eucharist after the illumination of their converts, while John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia introduce the believers to the meaning of the baptismal rite before their initiation. The reason for this is that according to the tradition of the churches of Milan and Jerusalem, the human soul and mind remain metaphorically blind before experiencing illumination by baptism. Therefore, the mystery was explained after the experience of baptism. In the text under discussion, this tradition can be seen where the participle βαπτίζοντες (baptising) precedes the participle διδάσκοντες (teaching). The participles are not accidentally put in this order. In this context, the author of Matthew distinguishes the participles and the relevant actions in a very sophisticated manner. He has carefully chosen to put the first participle πορευθέντες before the main verb μαθητεύσατε because it naturally precedes the command to evangelise in time: “Go and make disciples of all nations.”12 The second and third participles follow the main verb but as imperfectives13 that overlap in time with the main verb “make disciples.” They are participles of means,14 defining how the action of the main verb is accomplished. It is remarkable that, in Matthew’s view, baptising must precede teaching. In another case, Matthew emphasises that teaching must follow and not precede human conduct (ὃς δ᾽ ἂν ποιήσῃ καὶ διδάξῃ 5:19). This latter text, however, refers to the function of the teacher as a moral example and not to the priority of baptism. For our investigation, it is more reasonable to consider other NT texts that articulate a similar tradition: According to the testimony of Acts – for example, in the case of the Ethiopian official’s baptism (8:37) or the baptism of the first converts after Pentecost 2:38–42 (ἐβαπτίσθησαν … Ἦσαν δὲ προσκαρτεροῦντες τῇ διδαχῇ τῶν ἀποστόλων) – conversion baptism occurred relatively quickly without a catechetical or trial period. This is probably the case with Hebr 6:3 where διδαχὴ follows rather than precedes βαπτισμός. No long preparation or catechism was required for two reasons: First, baptism was a radical and eschatological initiation rite of a messianic community feeling that the Parousia was very near and interpreting its presence as “a partially realised 12 Randal Buth, “Participles as a Pragmatic Choice: Where Semantics Meet Pragmatics,” in The Greek Verb Revisited: A Fresh Approach for Biblical Exegesis, ed. Steven E. Runge and Christopher J. Fresch (Oak Harbor: Lexham Press, 2016), 281. Πορευθέντες remains, however, a participle of attendant circumstance. See Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 640: “The attendant circumstance participle is used to communicate an action that, in some sense, is coordinate with the finite verb. In this respect it is not dependent, for it is translated like a verb. Yet it is still dependent semantically, because it cannot exist without the main verb. It is translated as a finite verb connected to the main verb by and. The participle then, in effect, ‘piggy-backs’ on the mood of the main verb.” See also ibid, 642–643. 13 Ibid., 625. 14 This is due to the fact that these participles satisfy the following criteria: (1) they are used in the present tense after an imperative and (2) the main verb is vague, almost begging to be defined. See further criteria ibid.

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eschatology.”15 Second, baptism was a prerequisite for the eschatological gift of the Spirit. Jesus himself, the model of baptism in Matthew’s Gospel, received the Spirit at His baptism (3:16). There are also other texts testifying to the idea that spiritual enlightenment by baptism was a requirement for understanding the Kingdom’s teaching. This idea is most palpable in 1 Cor 2 where Paul uses the word mystery16 and highlights that spiritual truths can be understood only by spiritual men or in John’s Gospel (3:3): The one who is not “born from above”, that is, who is not ontologically changed by water and Spirit, cannot “see”, that is, understand the Kingdom of God. This reading presupposes baptismal allusions in John 3:33 but the text itself remains open for different interpretations.17 Though John Chrysostom does not adopt the customs of the churches in Milan and Jerusalem, he characterises baptism as φώτισμα and comments on John 3:3 thus: “Unless you are born again, unless you receive the Spirit by the laver of regeneration, you cannot conceive the proper idea of Me. For this idea you have is not spiritual but carnal.”18 This demonstrates that he accepts diverse traditions regarding the relationship between teaching, faith, and baptism. Given that neither Matthew nor John nor early Christian exegetes view the mystery of the divine revelation in Christ from a systematic perspective, they adopt both models: that faith leads to baptism and that comprehension of the Church’s teaching is a gift of baptism.19 We should now return to Matthew. By receiving baptism, converts were supposed to be able to participate in the life of the messianic community and comprehend the teachings of Jesus already included in Matthew’s Gospel. Thus, Jesus claims that one firstly has to accept him as Messiah, to voluntarily take on his yoke,20 and then learn from Him (11:29). Similarly, at the beginning of the

15 André Villeneuve, Nuptial Symbolism in Second Temple Writings, the New Testament, and Rabbinic Literature: Divine Marriage at Key Moments of Salvation History (AJEC 92; Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2016), 125 Fn 60. 16 Laurence Welborn has shown in his paper “‘Belonging to Christ’ at Corinth: Challenging the Assumption of Exclusive Allegiance” (presented at the SBL Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, 2018) that Paul uses many terms in 1 Cor 2 that can be attested in Greco-Roman texts regarding initiation in the mysteries (μυστήριον, τέλειος, νοῦς, σοφία, ὁρᾶν, ἀποκρύπτειν, ἀποκαλύπτειν, ἀπόδειξις, δύναμις, πνεῦμα). 17 See a summary of the many and diverse interpretations of John 3:3.5, D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1991), 191–195; Charles Kingsley Barrett, Das Evangelium nach Johannes (Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 230; William C. Weinrich, John 1:1–7:1 (Concordia Commentary; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2015), 413–424. 18 Hom. Jo. 24, 2, FC 33, 237. 19 See in detail Josef Knupp, Das Mystagogieverständnis des Johannes Chrysostomus (Benediktbeurer Studien 4; München: Don-Bosco-Verlag, 1995), 290–293. 20 Matthias Konradt, “‘Nehmt auf euch mein Joch und lernt von mir!’ (Mt 11,29) Mt 11,28–30 und die christologische Dimension der matthäischen Ethik,” ZNW 109 (2018): 16. It is not a coincidence that the mystagogue Fathers understand this Matthean text not only on behalf of

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Sermon on the Mount the Matthean Jesus declares that only the pure in heart will “see” God (5:8). From this perspective, a first point regarding the importance of some of the ancient mystagogies for our text is evident. They show in a practical way that the author of the Great Commission prioritises the sensually perceptible experience of ritual baptism as a kind of divine intervention, transforming the convert and enabling him or her to conform with Jesus’s conduct and comprehend the teaching of the community.

3. The Magi and Jesus’s Baptism Against this backdrop, we can look to the macro-context of the Matthean Great Commission. I intend now to reflect on the mystical aspect of Matthew as a whole and not only on Matt 28. In this discussion, I use mysticism as an etic term referring to a direct experience of a divine reality that transcends normal cultural conventions and rational perception.21 Most exegetes view the commandment to make disciples by baptising and teaching as the climax of a long narrative that, from its very beginning, prepares the reader for the eschatological conversion of the nations. However, most interpreters fail to consider that Matthew points to the mystical and extraordinary character of this process. The Magi are a symbol of the repenting nations, but they recognise the Messiah, not through conventional teaching, but by the intervention of God through a vision – namely, the phenomenon of the star. To my knowledge, there are very few authors who have worked on the mystical aspect of this narrative and other similar Matthean texts. Christopher Rowland and Christopher Morray-Jones are exceptions. In one chapter of their book, The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament, they link the worship of the Magi with Jewish apocalyptic and mystic traditions, that is, merkava mysticism. However, the research on the mystical background of Matthew can be very fruitful because it brings us nearer to his historical context and shows patterns of continuity and discontinuity between Jewish and Hellenistic mysticism and the Matthean reception by the mystagogue Fathers. This is also the case with the other important moment that anticipates the command to make disciples by baptising – namely, Jesus’s baptism. It has already been mentioned that Jesus’s baptism functions as a model for the baptism of Jewish and non-Jewish converts in the Gospel of Matthew.22 This Jesus’s wisdom or messianic identity but also as an allusion to baptism. See Chrysostom, Cat. 2/1.3 Sc 366, 1181–8. 21 See Peter Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 1–9. 22 John’s baptism of repentance is being discussed in Matt 3:1–12; 21,25. See an analysis from the perspective of reader-response criticism in Kirsten M. Hartvigsen, “Matthew 28:9–20 and Mark 16:9–20: Different Ways of Relating Baptism to the Joint Mission of God, John the

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is strongly emphasised by the authors of the catechetical homilies,23 who claim that Jesus’s baptism is the archetype of converts’ baptism in the Holy Spirit.24 Obviously, to draw a parallel between the baptism of believers with that of Christ is not to imply that Christ undergoes the same process of repentance and renewal as the converts. For all mystagogues, except Theodore of Mopsuestia, the reason is obvious: Christ is already, prior to His baptism, “from the Holy Spirit” because the virgin “was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit” (1:18). What actually links the two baptisms is the revelation of a common action of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the case of Jesus’s baptism, this synergy reveals Jesus’s messiahship, while, in the initiation of Gentile converts, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit transform the believers in a dynamic way. The only author who differentiates himself from this view is Theodore of Mopsuestia, who understands the transformation of the believers as a future hope that cannot be realised while humans are in this mortal body.25 It is not a coincidence that Theodore also adopts a so-called dyophisitic Christology – that is, he divides the two natures of Jesus and therefore sharply differentiates between the future and the present state (κατάστασις26) of converts. One already detects a second point that makes ancient mystagogies so significant for the interpretation of Matthew: They show that the interpretation of the exact meaning of ritual life in Matthew is deeply influenced by the exegete’s Christological perspectives.

4. Baptism as a Sacred Marriage and Bridegroom Christology27 The synoptic narrative of Jesus’s baptism also perhaps includes elements from mystical apocalyptic traditions. The declaration of the voice from heaven that immediately follows Jesus’s baptism: “this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” as well as the dove, suggest a further set of allusions to a relationship of love. According to Roberts Alastair: “In Song of Songs, the dove is associated

Baptist, Jesus and Their Adherents,” in Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, ed. David Hellholm, et al. (ΒΖΝW 176; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 676–685. 23 Cf. John of Jerusalem, 3,1 Sc 126, 120–122, Chrysostom, Cat. 2/3,3, Sc 366, 22225–33, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Hom. 14,23 FonChr 17, 381–382. 24 Schulz, “Die Spiegelung urkirchlicher Taufmystagogie und Taufpraxis in Joh 3,3–21 und Mt 28,19,” 658 Fn3. Jean Daniélou, Liturgie und Bibel (München: Kösel, 1963), 75–80. 25 The original mortality of Adam, not sin, is the equal problem of human beings according to Theodore. See Nathan Witkamp, Tradition and Ιnnovation: Baptismal Rite and Mystagogy in Theodore of Mopsuestia and Narsai of Nisibis (SupVC 149; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2018), 366. 26 Theodore of Mopsuestia, Hom. 3,9 FonChr 17, 109–110. 27 I have borrowed the term “bridegroom Christology” from Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003), 136.

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with love, with the time of love (2:12) with the lover and the beloved person.”28 Therefore, the narrative of Jesus’s baptism can be seen as having nuptial overtones, preparing the reader for a bridegroom Christology that is progressively revealed in Matthew’s Gospel.29 I am not assuming that we have an allegory of marriage between Jesus and the Father or the church in the baptism narrative. However, the Evangelist reveals that Jesus is in an intimate relationship with the Father and at the end of his Gospel calls new converts to participate and share in this relationship through baptism. If Jesus’s baptism anticipates the baptism of conversion in the Holy Spirit and reveals an intimate relationship, the authors of the mystagogies30 are justified in understanding Christian baptism with nuptial symbolism31 and linking it to an allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs.32 Besides, they do not speak in mere symbolical language by using this common human image but construct a narrative of continuity and discontinuity with mystical and liturgical traditions of Second Temple Judaism. It is well known that the Hebrew Bible has plenty of texts describing YHWH’s relationship to his people as a sacred marriage (Hos 1–3; Jes 54; 62; Jer 2–3; 31; Ez 16; 23). The idea of a mystical marriage bond of the human soul and “lady Wisdom” in Wisdom literature is also relevant here. But the most representative tradition is the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs as used in Jewish mystical and liturgical literature. The Song of Songs was also used as a hymn in the Jewish feast of Passover,33 demonstrating YHWHs 28 Roberts Alastair, “The Red Sea Crossing and Christian Baptism: A Study in Typology and Liturgy” (PhD thesis, Durham University, 2015), 92. The interpretation of the dove on behalf of allusions to a love relationship is also supported by Ambrose, Myst. 7, 37; (FonChr 3, 2321–15). However, the dove can have many other symbolical meanings and allusions e. g. to the story of the flood (Gen 8:8–12). 29 In his first relevant reference, Matthew follows Mark and delivers the tradition about the “sons of the bridal chamber” (3:15) – that is, the disciples are linked to the friends of the “bridegroom” Christ. The second representative text in Matt 22, i. e. the “wedding banquet”, clearly shows that the nuptial motive is of special importance for Matthew because Luke omits it in the parallel narrative of the great supper (14:15–24). In this case, the believers are understood as guests. The climax of the nuptial symbolism is Matt 25, where the community is symbolically described as the bride of Christ. 30 Cf. representatively John Chrysostom Cat. 1, PG 49, 234: Εἰς γάμον ἐκλήθης, ἀγαπητέ· μὴ εἰσέλθῃς ῥυπαρὰ ἐνδεδυμένος ἱμάτια, ἀλλὰ τῷ γάμῳ κατάλληλον λαβὲ στολήν. Similarly 2/3, Sc 266, 2121–5: Ἐσχάτη τῆς κατηχήσεως ἡ σήμερον ἡμέρα· διὸ καὶ ὁ πάντων ἔσχατος εἰς τὴν ἐσχάτην ἀφῖγμαι· ἀφῖγμαι δὲ ἔσχατος ἀπαγγέλλων ὑμῖν, ὅτι μετὰ δύο ἡμέρας ὁ νυμφίος ἔρχεται. ἀλλὰ διανάστητε καὶ τὰς λαμπάδας ἀνάψατε καὶ φαιδρῷ τῷ φωτὶ τὸν βασιλέα τῶν οὐρανῶν ὑποδέξασθε. John of Jerusalem, 4,2 Sc 126,13610–12; Ambrose, Sacr. 5,3.17, FonChr 3, 167. 31 John the Baptist is explicitly called the “friend of the bridegroom” (3:29) in the Fourth Gospel. See further on the Fourth Gospel’s nuptial motifs: Villeneuve, Nuptial Symbolism in Second Temple Writings, the New Testament, and Rabbinic Literature, 120–189. 32 John of Jerusalem, 2,2 Sc 12613–14, 106; Ambrose, Myst. 7,35–41, FonChr 3, 230–236. 33 Tremper Longman and Peter Enns, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2008), 459.

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sacred marriage with his people. Thus, the Jewish Passover feast and the liturgy in the Temple re-enacted the mystical marital bond. In the mystagogical homilies, we detect that baptism was understood as the climax of a holy marriage process, and the baptismal ceremony was normally celebrated during the Christian feast of Passover on the night of Easter. Thus, the early Christian baptismal Easter liturgy transformed in an embodied way the Jewish mystical speculation about the Passover Feast. The text is also understood this way in the baptismal instructions of Ambrose of Milan, John of Jerusalem, and John Chrysostom (but again, not Theodore34). It is remarkable that these Church Fathers, especially Chrysostom, use the Matthean nuptial motifs, particularly the images of the “sons of the bride-chamber” (Matt 9:15–17), the wedding banquet (Matt 22:1–13), as well as the Matthean parable of the ten virgins (25:1–13), to interpret baptism as “spiritual marriage” and union with the Bridegroom Christ.35 A similar reception of these Matthean texts is also attested in earlier texts, such as the Gospel of Philip, that do not represent mainstream Christianity.36 It should be mentioned here that the Matthean description of Jesus’s demanding unconditional love (10:36), coming as bridegroom in the middle of the night, and inviting the beloved ones to his banquet to share his body and blood, has similarities with the language of the Song of Songs.37 Furthermore, the bridegroom Christology is also linked to the idea of liturgical worship because Matthew juxtaposes the nuptial coming of the bridegroom to the destruction of the temple in ch. 24. Similarly, according to 26:61, Jesus’s body is understood as the Temple renewed.38 It also must be mentioned that Jews considered the Temple and the Holy of Holies to be the mystical chamber where YHWH unites himself with the bride Israel.39 Thus, we can already detect a third point that makes palpable the importance of the mystagogical homilies for understanding the importance of baptism in Matthew. Together, they show how the liturgical traditions in the Churches of Milan, Antioch, and Jerusalem linked converts’ baptism with Jesus’s baptism and simultaneously transformed Jewish mystical speculation and liturgical heritage.

34

See discussion in Witkamp, Tradition and Ιnnovation, 365. See in more detail Jean-Pierre Cattenoz, Le baptême, mystère nuptial: Théologie de Saint Jean Chrysostome (Théologie 5; Venasque: Editions du Carmel, 1993) 36 See Hugo Lundhaug, Images of Rebirth: Cognitive Poetics and Transformational Soteriology in the “Gospel of Philip” and the “Exegesis on the Soul” (NHMS 73; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 291–303. 37 Cf. 5:2–8; 8:2. Note also the anointing oils in Matt 26:6–7; Song 1:3–4; 4:14. 38 On Matthew’s Temple theology, see the SBL paper of Nicholas Piotrowski, “New David Means New Temple: Matthew’s Full Narrative among Second Temple Jewish Expectations” (presented at the SBL Annual Meeting in Denver, CO, 2018). 39 Cf. 4 Ezra 10:45–48. See also Villeneuve, Nuptial Symbolism in Second Temple Writings, the New Testament, and Rabbinic Literature, 302, 315, 337. 35

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5. Reading the Gospel of Matthew from a New Perspective From this point of view, one can read the entire Gospel of Matthew in a new light. Jesus’s promise at the Great Commission “to be with the believers to the end of ages,” creating an inclusio with the beginning of the Gospel and especially the interpretation of Immanuel’s name that means “God is with us” (1:18), presupposes the eschatological union or “covenant” between the community of believers and their bridegroom, Jesus Christ. Jesus has a privilege that only YHWH has, to be everywhere and make His presence perceptible “where two or three are gathered together in His name” (18:20). The nuptial covenant between believers and Jesus has been established through Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, an event commemorated on the Good Friday before the Easter baptism ceremony. Furthermore, the authors of the ancient mystagogies understood the Matthean wedding banquet parable as an allusion to the Lord’s Supper (cf. Matt 22:1–14). The Eucharist was inseparably linked to the ancient rite of baptism and has also been interpreted as the completion of the sacred marriage with Jesus – that is, becoming one flesh with the Lord.40 The union with Christ in the Eucharist is a reason to rejoice, not only because man frees himself from sin and is reconciled with God, but because one is united in Christ with the fullness of life and love. From this point of view, it is obvious that Matthew’s words of introduction to the Eucharist in 26:26, λάβετε φάγετε, would be linked to the Song of Songs in the ancient mystagogies, the words of the Song of Songs φάγετε πλησίοι καὶ πίετε καὶ μεθύσθητε ἀδελφοί (5:1) being understood in the context of nuptial symbolism.41

6. Conclusion To conclude, the mystagogical homilies of John Chrysostom, Ambrose of Milan, and Cyrill or John of Jerusalem help us understand the Matthean Great Commission, not in a religious-imperialistic sense, but as God’s call to all human beings to a union with Him. Theodore of Mopsuestia is an exception due to his Christological and anthropological presuppositions.42 According to the other interpreters, the command to baptise is an interpretation of baptism as a divine action and call to a relationship with a self-emptying but life-giving love. This conjugal

40

John of Jerusalem, 4,3; Sc 126, 1361–8; Ambrose, Sacr. 5, 25, FonChr 3, 158–160. Ambrose, Sacr. 5,15, FonChr 3, 165; Myst. 9, 57–58, FonChr 3, 2521–21 Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Hom. in Cant. 10 (Gregorii Nysseni opera, vol. 6, Leiden: Brill, 1960, 31122–23). 42 Instead, Theodore prefers the concept of filial adoption (υἱοθεσία Hom. 3,9 FonChr 17, 110). See discussion in Witkamp, Tradition and Ιnnovation, 369–372. 41

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situation began with the marriage between Israel and YHWH but is now transformed in Christ by transcending national, social, and cultural boundaries. By putting the Matthean references to baptism against the background of the mystical love communion, we link the Matthean text not only to other passages of the same Gospel that explicitly or implicitly refer to the concept of a nuptial covenant that was established through Jesus’ paschal sacrifice on the cross, but also to Jewish mystical and apocalyptic thought. Jewish mystics understood devotion to God or His Wisdom with similar language.43 The approach offered in this essay also links the Matthean text with the prophetic books that described the time of Exodus as the moment of the wedding between God and Israel. Thus, Christian mission and baptism expand a salvation history that began in Exodus. In our academic contexts, we mostly try to analyse traditions by using conventional methods of communicating knowledge. However, mystagogies remind us that we should give priority rather to the liturgical aspects of these traditions. It is not a coincidence that the participle βαπτίζοντες is mentioned before the participle διδάσκοντες. Baptism and other rituals are not described as mere symbolic actions but as divine actions that lead to a deep relation to God. Through baptism, the congregation communicates an embodied and embedded knowledge to the neophytes. Thus, the apocalyptic character of the Kingdom’s preaching remains, and the ontological dichotomies between present and future, body and soul, earthly and heavenly realms are bridged.

Bibliography Alastair, Roberts. “The Red Sea Crossing and Christian Baptism: A Study in Typology and Liturgy.” PhD thesis, Durham University, 2015. Berger, Klaus. Die Auferstehung des Propheten und die Erhöhung des Menschensohnes: Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Deutung des Geschickes Jesu in frühchristlichen Texten. SUNT. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975. –. Formen und Gattungen im Neuen Testament. UTB 2532. Tübingen: Francke, 2005. Buth, Randal. “Participles as a Pragmatic Choice: Where Semantics Meet Pragmatics.” Pages 273–306 in The Greek Verb Revisited: A Fresh Approach for Biblical Exegesis. Edited by Steven E. Runge and Christopher J. Fresch. Oak Harbor: Lexham Press, 2016. Cattenoz, Jean-Pierre. Le baptême, mystère nuptial: Théologie de Saint Jean Chrysostome. Théologie 5. Venasque: Editions du Carmel, 1993. Daniélou, Jean. Liturgie und Bibel. München: Kösel, 1963. Ferguson, Everett. Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009. Hartvigsen, Kirsten M. “Matthew 28:9–20 and Mark 16:9–20: Different Ways of Relating Baptism to the Joint Mission of God, John the Baptist, Jesus and Their Adherents.” 43 See further Villeneuve, Nuptial Symbolism in Second Temple Writings, the New Testament, and Rabbinic Literature, 93–108.

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Pages 655–715 in Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity. Edited by David Hellholm, et al. ΒΖΝW 176. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011. Hubbard, Benjamin. The Matthean Redaction of a Primitive Apostolic Commissioning: An Exegesis of Matthew 28:16–20. SBLDS 19. Missoula: Scholars Press, 1974. Kaden, David A. Matthew, Paul, and the Anthropology of Law. WUNT II 424. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. Keener, Craig S. Acts: An Exegetical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012. –. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003. Knupp, Josef. Das Mystagogieverständnis des Johannes Chrysostomus. Benediktbeurer Studien 4. München: Don-Bosco-Verlag, 1995. Konradt, Matthias. “‘Nehmt auf euch mein Joch und lernt von mir!’ (Mt 11,29): Mt 11,28– 30 und die christologische Dimension der matthäischen Ethik.” ZNW 109 (2018): 1–31. Lange, Joachim. Das Erscheinen des Auferstandenen im Evangelium nach Matthäus. FB 11. Würzburg: Echter, 1973. Longman, Tremper, and Peter Enns. Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2008. Lundhaug, Hugo. Images of Rebirth: Cognitive Poetics and Transformational Soteriology in the “Gospel of Philip” and the “Exegesis on the Soul.” NHMS 73. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Mayer, Wendy. “Catecheses and Homilies.” Pages 243–254 in The Oxford Handbook on Early Christian Biblical Interpretation. Edited by Paul M. Blowers and Peter W. Martens. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Piotrowski, Nicholas. “New David Means New Temple: Matthew’s Full Narrative among Second Temple Jewish Expectations.” Paper presented at the SBL Annual Meeting in Denver, CO, 2018. Reinbold, Wolfgang. “‘Gehet hin und machet zu Jüngern alle Völker?’: Zur Übersetzung und Interpretation von Mt 28,19 f.” ZThK 109 (2012): 176–205. Schäfer, Peter. The Origins of Jewish Mysticism. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Schulz, Hans-Joachim. “Die Spiegelung urkirchlicher Taufmystagogie und Taufpraxis in Joh 3,3–21 und Mt 28,19.” Pages 657–674 in Crossroad of Cultures: Studies in Liturgy and Patristics in Honor of Gabriele Winkler. Edited by Hans-Jürgen Feulner, Elena Velkovska and Robert F. Taft. OrChrAn 260. Rome: Pontificio Instituto Orientale, 2000. Villeneuve, André. Nuptial Symbolism in Second Temple Writings, the New Testament, and Rabbinic Literature: Divine Marriage at Key Moments of Salvation History. AJEC 92. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016. Wallace, Daniel B. Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996. Weinrich, William C. John 1:1–7:1. Concordia Commentary. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2015. Welborn, Laurence. “‘Belonging to Christ’ at Corinth: Challenging the Assumption of Exclusive Allegiance.” Paper presented at the SBL Annual Meeting in Denver, CO, 2018. White, Benjamin L. “The Eschatological Conversion of ‘All the Nations’ in Matthew 28.19–20: (Mis)reading Matthew through Paul.” JSNTS 36 (2014): 353–382. Witkamp, Nathan. Tradition and Ιnnovation: Baptismal Rite and Mystagogy in Theodore of Mopsuestia and Narsai of Nisibis. SupVC 149. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2018.

The Wounded Christ of the Fourth Gospel New Testament Interpretation in Alexandrian Tradition Stefano Salemi

1. Framework “Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.” (John 19:34 NRSV1)

The focus of this study is to investigate how the scene of blood and water flowing from the wounded side of Christ on the cross (John 19:34), in the Gospel of John, has been interpreted within the specific frame of selected early Christian writings of Alexandrian tradition, and how this may have influenced the perception of the soteriological “ground” of the Fourth Gospel, and the meaning of the death of Christ. It makes sense to delimit this research to a theological period closer to New Testament composition, in order to try to understand the earliest interpretation of John 19:34. For this case study, the Alexandrian tradition has offered a soteriological interpretation of blood and water in four important texts, extant in two ecclesiastical writers, Clement and Origen, a Gnostic Gospel, Pistis Sophia, and the later writings (fifth century) of the Armenian historian Elishe, perfect for a comparison of the perception of Jesus’ death in early Christian theology. These testimonies are actually the main soteriological reflections on John 19:34 (seemingly the only ones available) about blood and water imagery in the mentioned period of time and tradition. The episode, reported only by John, has been generally considered by early writers as well as by modern New Testament scholars, rich of intentionally “mysterious” meaning and a very emblematic and representative episode of the Death of Christ in John’s Passion narrative. John presents this event in a unique way, stating that its first inner interpretation and true purpose is that of the fulfilment of Scriptures. The Death of Christ is surely a subject that has always been of great interest, but the scene found in John 19:34 has been often at the margins of the 1 All Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, 1989), unless otherwise noted.

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wider theological understanding of the book in modern scholarship. On the other hand, the ancient proof-texting methodology characterized by allegory, figural reading and a rich engagement with Scriptural references, offers a deep and diversified reflection, which places the scene of the pierced side of Jesus into a central theological-Christological position in the Gospel of John.

2. General Interpretations Usually, the hermeneutical views of the scene of blood and water range from the idea that the episode simply wants to reiterate an assurance that Jesus truly died, perhaps against heresy such as Docetism, to theological interpretations that see the wounded side as the place of origin for the church, or as a vivifying and purifying stream for the sins of humanity, or even as the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, and more2. While early Christian exegetes dedicated themselves to it with great interest, elaborating different meanings, the framework of this examination will pay specific attention mainly to the history of interpretation focused on the soteriological exegesis of the text of John, and marginally referring to possible ecclesiological and sacramental approaches. This choice is due to three main reasons: 1. for the previous assertion that soteriological understanding has been the first and main reading of this text; 2. because, as previously mentioned, the Alexandrian writers who offered a soteriological reading of the text were among the earliest and most important interpreters; 3. because it constitutes a perfect case study for a research whose aim is not only to recover ancient hermeneutical approaches to Bible reading but also to confront these early writers with gnostic literature coming from a close theological period and tradition.

3. Alexandrian Exegesis 3.1. Clement Titus Flavius Clemens, known also as Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215 CE), was certainly one of the most important mediators between Christianity and Hellenistic culture towards the end of the second century and the beginning of 2 For further study see Stefano Salemi, “Sacramenti tra anamnesi e pictura verbi,” in O ̔ Odigos (Bari: Centro P. Salvatore Manna, 2012): 15–18; Idem, “Aspetti Sacramentali e Aspetti Soteriologici,” in Il Sangue della Redenzione (X.n.1; ed. Michele Colagiovanni; Roma: Sanguis Editrice, 2012): 21–115; Idem, “Esegesi Ecclesiologica della morte di Cristo,” in Il Sangue della Redenzione (XII.n.2; ed. Michele Colagiovanni; Roma: Sanguis Editrice, 2014): 23–59.

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the third. His work, Paedagogus (c. 190) forms the basis of Christian education. Clement deals much in the Paedagogus with questions related to practical and daily moral life (courteous behaviour, drinking, etc.). The focus of this writing on ethical behaviour is the ground to develop his exegesis of John 19:34. Clement urges Christians to keep all kinds of appetite under control, seeming to argue for a form of detachment (a Platonic one). In fact, he writes to people who highly regarded the practice of eating, and gives pragmatic counsels to rich Christians. Clement knows that Christians must live in a world that is not theirs, therefore he refuses the idea of some philosophers (e. g. Stoics) who withdrew from the world. The true teacher is Christ who illuminates every detail of life, including food aspects. In Book II, he deals with the theme of sobriety, based on the famous Pauline advice to Timothy “No longer drink only water, but take a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments” (1 Tim 5:23). The addition of water to wine leads him to the following development: Ἀναλόγως τοίνυν κίρναται ὁ μὲν οἶνος τῷ ὕδατι, τῷ δὲ ἀνθρώπῳ τὸ πνεῦμα, καὶ τὸ μὲν εἰς πίστιν εὐωχεῖ, τὸ κρᾶμα, τὸ δὲ εἰς ἀφθαρσίαν ὁδηγεῖ, τὸ πνεῦμα, ἡ δὲ ἀμφοῖν αὖθις κρᾶσις ποτοῦ τε καὶ λόγου εὐχαριστία κέκληται, χάρις ἐπαινουμένη καὶ καλή, ἧς οἱ κατὰ πίστιν μεταλαμβάνοντες ἁγιάζονται καὶ σῶμα καὶ ψυχήν, τὸ θεῖον κρᾶμα τὸν ἄνθρωπον τοῦ πατρικοῦ βουλήματος πνεύματι καὶ λόγῳ συγκιρνάντος μυστικῶς· καὶ γὰρ ὡς ἀληθῶς μὲν τὸ πνεῦμα ᾠκείωται τῇ ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ φερομένῃ ψυχῇ, ἡ δὲ σὰρξ τῷ λόγῳ, δι’ ἣν ὁ λόγος γέγονεν σάρξ.3

The Logos is described as a large bunch of grapes. This image is linked to that of blood and water and strongly oriented towards salvific imagery, noting that the mixture of these elements leads to immortality, by virtue of the binomial Spirit-Logos. Clement does not unpack the real significance of the sacraments, but as it often happens with Alexandrian writers, he suddenly raises the theme of salvation towards eternal and immortal horizons. Then, Clement goes back to a soteriological principle that consists of the Spirit-Logos binomial combination. Another short passage leads to a clearer understanding of the thought of Clement: Ἔπειτα ἡ ἄμπελος ἡ ἁγία τὸν βότρυν ἐβλάστησεν τὸν προφητικόν. Τοῦτο σημεῖον τοῖς εἰς ἀνάπαυσιν ἐκ τῆς πλάνης πεπαιδαγωγημένοις, ὁ μέγας βότρυς, ὁ λόγος ὁ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν θλιβείς, τὸ αἷμα τῆς σταφυλῆς ὕδατι κίρνασθαι ἐθελήσαντος τοῦ λόγου, ὡς καὶ τὸ αἷμα αὐτοῦ σωτηρίᾳ κίρναται. ∆ιττὸν δὲ τὸ αἷμα τοῦ κυρίου· τὸ μέν ἐστιν αὐτοῦ σαρκικόν, ᾧ 3 Clement, Paedagogus, PG 8, II, 2, 409B: “The same way, therefore, wine is indeed mixed with water, so it is the spirit with man; as the mixture, nourishes faith, so the Spirit leads into immortality (incorruptibility), and the drink of the blended mixture is called Eucharist, called laudable and good grace, and those who partake in faith are sanctified body and soul, that is in the divine mixture, which is man, and that the Father wanted mystically united to the Spirit and the Logos, and verily the spirit is joined to the soul, but the flesh to the Logos, for that the Logos became flesh.” See also Clément d’Alexandrie: Le Pédagogue, Livre II (SC 108; ed. Henri-I. Marrou; trans. Claude Mondésert; Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1965), Paed., 2.20.1–2. (all translations into English, when necessary, are personal and intended to offer an easy reading, otherwise noted).

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τῆς φθορᾶς λελυτρώμεθα, τὸ δὲ πνευματικόν, τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ᾧ κεχρίσμεθα. Καὶ τοῦτ’ ἔστι πιεῖν τὸ αἷμα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, τῆς κυριακῆς μεταλαβεῖν ἀφθαρσίας· ἰσχὺς δὲ τοῦ λόγου τὸ πνεῦμα, ὡς αἷμα σαρκός.4

Starting from a general consideration, Clement sees water as a healthy and necessary element, drawing the reader’s attention to the history of the people of Israel. Brief references are made to the episode of the rock from which water sprang when Moses struck it twice (Num 20); then the prophetic bunch of grapes is presented as that brought by Joshua and Caleb (Num 13:23–24) returning from the exploration of the promised land, and thus a representation of the greater bunch which is Christ, the Logos, from which it sprang, like grape juice, blood mixed with water-salvation. Clement articulates his interpretation of John by weaving in more ideas. He speaks of dual blood: carnal and spiritual. The carnal one frees from corruption, the spiritual one anoints. To partake of Christ means to drink the blood. The binomial Spirit-Logos is joined to that of flesh-blood, to indicate that the Spirit is what brings strength and gives life. From the same Alexandria, even Philo,5 in De Somniis,6 years before, traces a thesis that considers the binomial water and blood somehow related to each other, even if not exactly as a paired-terms image but as opposite realities. Talking about the change of the water of the Nile River in the biblical story of Moses, he likened a praiseworthy speech (logos) to a good river, and a blamable lifeless speech (apsuchos logos) to the water turned into the blood, which cannot afford sustenance. There is no reference to John 19:34, but it is important to consider this author for the very early testimony of re-reading – in a figurative way – the terms of water and blood, and at the same time relating them to the semantic field of the Logos,7 which will play an important role in later Alexandrian writers.

4 Ibid., “Then the holy vine brought for the prophetic cluster. This is a sign for those who are trained from error to rest, the great cluster, the Logos, bruised for us, the blood of grapes, the Logos, wanted to be mixed with water, as his blood is mixed with salvation. The blood of the Lord is twofold, for there is his carnal blood that redeems us from destruction, and the spiritual one that anoint us. And to drink the blood of Jesus we partake of the Lord’s incorruptibility, this is for the Logos to the Spirit as blood to flesh.” 5 See David T. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature (Assen: Van Gorcu/Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993). 6 Philo, De Somniis II.259, vol. 19 of Les oeuvres de Philon d’Alexandrie, eds. Roger Arnaldez, Jean Pouilloux, Claude Mondésert Claude, trans. Pierre Savinel (Paris: Cerf, 1962); See also: David M. Scholer, ed., The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged, trans. Charles Duke Yonge (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1993). 7 For the purpose of this research, I do not enter into the question of the meaning of Logos in Philo, nor into concepts of salvation, or the Greek influence on the Gospel of John. Specific works may be found in Ronald Nasch, The Gospel and the Greeks (Richardson: Probe Books, 1992); Ronald Williamson, Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews (Leiden: Brill, 1970).

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It is quite unexpected that Clement does not dig into the background of the Alexandrian culture to develop a theology of water as a cleansing bath from sin.8 Alexandria was a center for commerce and for all kinds of cultures; therefore, living standards were very high. In the Paedagogus Clement deals with the problem of Christian appearance and behaviour, as for example with what a Christian should wear in public baths, but he never connects the water of Jesus’ side with this issue of morality in Alexandria, and therefore there is not a sacramentalbaptismal interpretation of any sort. Origen, instead, will see this connection in his hermeneutical elaborations. 3.2. Origen Another and fundamental author of Alexandria was Origen (185–253 CE). From the great “shipwreck” suffered by his works, a considerable number of homilies were “saved,” thanks mainly to the Latin translation made by Rufinus and Jerome. Today, scholarship gives ample space to this homiletic production.9 In his homilies on Leviticus, written while presbyter of the church of Caesarea of Palestine (238–245 CE),10 Origen comments on the purification ritual for leprosy.11 In general, all the elements of the ritual are interpreted typologically in relation both to Christ and his Passion and to the life of the church as a place of salvation. In particular, the use of cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet, finds a brilliant Christological application: Still this one who is cleansed is in need to be purified (purificetur) also through “cedar wood.” For it is impossible for a leper to be cleansed from sin without “the wood” of the cross, unless he also has recourse to “the wood” on which the Savior, as the Apostle Paul says, “despoiled the principalities and powers, triumphing over them on the wood.” Next, for the purification of this leprosy “a scarlet cord” (coccus tortus) is also added (jungitur) and “hyssop” (hyssopus) is added. “The scarlet cord” contains a figure of the sacred blood 8 See George Christopher Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).  9 His homilies are public discourses on biblical texts. Today the interest of some scholars has moved from the theological content of these homilies to their linguistic aspects. In this area, see Umberto Rapallo, “Il discorso parabolico (Māšāl) nella versione rufiniana delle ‘Omelie sul Levitico’ di Origene,” in Storia ed Esegesi di Rufino di Concordia (Antichità Altoadriatiche 39; Udine: Arti Grafiche Friulane, 1992), 221–305; Antonio Grappone, Omelie Origeniane nella traduzione di Rufino (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2007). 10 For a chronology of the writings of Origen, see Pierre Nautin, Origène, sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977). 11 The question of the Hebrew term zara’at in Leviticus 14 rendered as leprosy, scale disease, or other forms of chronic or infectious skin diseases, has been widely discussed among biblical scholars. As lepra is the term used by the LXX (though it seems that other Greek terms would better address Hansen’s disease), I will continue using the term “leprosy” as a conventional word to address the sickness of Leviticus 14 as done by many translations and scholarly commentaries (though aware that others have moved away from this term). I do it, void of any specific medical definition or standpoint, indeed not relevant for this study.

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(sunguinnis continent figuram) which was forced from his side by the wound of the spear. “And hyssop.” This kind of herb, doctors say, has a nature to wash and purify, if any uncleannesses of the human breast should become entrenched from the corruption of a noxious humor (noxii humoris).12

As often, Origen establishes a precise parallel between the Old Testament ritual and Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. He proceeds to justify each of the elements of this parallelism: 1. the cedar wood matches the wood of the cross; 2. the scarlet is the sacred blood, which came out from the side of Christ; 3. hyssop is used to dissolve and purify the impurities that are formed as a result of corruption, placed in parallel with the water. The next quote only serves to deepen this timely series of types: Whence also by necessity the figure of this kind of grass was received in the cleansing of sins […] that the water also is taken for purification and the fullness of the mystery (plenitudo mysterii) is completed in “water and blood” which is said “to have flowed from the side” of the Savior; and John, no less, sets this forth in his epistle and says purification occurs “in water and blood and spirit.” Whence, I see all this to be fulfilled here. For “the spirit” (spiritus) is of this hen which is killed; the “living water,” what is in the vessel; and “the blood,” what was poured over it; not that through this we think the grace of baptism (baptismi gratiam) to be repeated but that every purification of sin (purificatio peccatourm), like this, which is sought through repentance (poenitentiam), is in need of assistance of the one from whose side “water and blood” came forth (processit). See, therefore, how “the living hen and the cedar wood and the scarlet cord and the hyssop are dyed in the blood of the hen, and living water,” that from this one who is cleansed, having been sprinkled and purified from “the water and the blood” with which this “hen,” which is sent into the field, was colored, and sprinkled “seven times before the Lord, is made clean from all uncleannesses (inmunditia) which he had contracted from the infection of leprosy.13

At last two main aspects of this text are worth noticing: 1. the three elements of the type are not isolated issues, but constitute a crescendo that, when the image of water and blood is presented, then the fullness of mystery is reached (plenitudo mysterii); 2. there is a completion of pneumatological nature operated on the basis of 1 John 5:6, 8 – where water is added to blood and spirit – and of a further element of the Levitical ritual – the bird sprinkled with blood and water. At this point the type extends from the plane Christological-soteriological level to a sacramental one, whereby the final purification of leprosy, as it was accomplished in the Mosaic legislation (Lev 14:1–8), becomes the “figure” of the salvation brought about by Christ, who died on the cross, and eventually realized in the sacraments of the church. 12 Origen, Homélies sur le Lévitique II, Homélies VIII–XVII, ed. Marcel Borret, SC 287 (Paris: Cerf, 1981), VIII, 10, 287, 48; see also Origen: Homilies on Leviticus 1–16, trans. Gary Wayne Barkley (FC 83; Washington DC: Catholic University of America, 1990). 13 Ibid.

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What is striking is the ability of the Alexandrian exegete to establish precise links between the Old and New Testament, respectively seen as figure and reality. Origen explicitly recalls the image of the grace of baptism while pointing out that the source of purification is the side from which water and blood flowed. This mystery, in the water and in the blood, according to his words, is revealed on the cross for the salvation of those who are affected by the infection of leprosy (sin). His exegesis is in fact quite general, mainly devoted to re-reading the ceremony of leprosy in a Christological sense for the sake of clarifying a deeper value in the Passion and specifically in John 19:34. Nevertheless, numerous points of interest are open for reflection as well as a challenging intertwinement of several lines of interpretation expanding the comprehension of John’s testimony. Once consolidated this cluster of allusions and articulated the discourse around the scene of John 19:34, it must be considered that as early as the first half of the third century, in the Alexandrian world, the soteriological lines of interpretation have already extended their “roots” into the Old Testament, referring in particular to the books of Genesis and Leviticus, and to paschal sacrifice imagery and purification rituals. In his comment on the Gospel of John, Origen writes: Οὐ γυμνὸς δὲ τῷ Ἰωάννῃ ὁρᾶται τῷ ἵππῳ ὀχούμενος ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος· περιβέβληται γὰρ ἱμάτιον ῥεραμμένον αἵματι, ἐπείπερ ἴχνη περίκειται ὁ γενόμενος λόγος σάρξ, καὶ διὰ τὸ γεγονέναι σὰρξ ἀποθανών, ὡς προχυθῆναι αὐτοῦ καὶ αἷμα ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν νύξαντος τοῦ στρατιώτου τὴν πλευρὰν αὐτοῦ, ἐκείνου τοῦ πάθους. Τάχα γὰρ κἂν ὁπωσποτὲ ἐν τῇ τοῦ λόγου ὑψηλοτάτῃ καὶ ἀνωτάτῃ θεωρίᾳ γενώμεθα καὶ τῆς ἀληθείας, οὐ πάντη ἐπιλησόμεθα τῆς ἐν σώματι ἡμῶν γενομένης δι’ αὐτοῦ εἰσαγωγῆς.14

Several ecclesiastical writers have supported the idea that John somehow wanted to show the actual death of Christ against heresies present in his days, but Origen is more interested in the eschatological development that the text may offer. His sight is not on a “retrospective” need of the text such as to confirm the “past” – the actual birth and death of Christ – but mostly to affirm the “future”, that is a proleptic anticipation of a vision of the “winner-Logos” who rides in the Apocalypse with a robe dipped in blood. The interpretation of Origen can be seen as a kind of “prophetic view”, for he sees now what will be seen tomorrow (“already but not yet”), on the great day of the victory of the Logos. He does not dwell on the streams of blood and water, but on the general scene of the piercing. That sign, 14 Origen, Comment in Joannem, PG 14, II, 58D (II, 8, 61 in Origène: Commentarie sur S. Jean I: Livres I–V, ed. Cécile Blanc, 2nd ed., SC 120 (Paris: Cerf, 1996). “Nevertheless, in John’s vision, the Word of God is not naked, as He rides on the white horse, he is encircled with a garment sprinkled with blood, for surrounded with marks the Word became flesh, and through becoming flesh he died and poured out blood upon the earth, when the soldier pierced His side, that of passion. Forthwith, although we would reach the highest and supreme contemplation of the Logos and of the truth, we shall not forget at all that our commencing was brought to be in his body.”

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which the victorious Christ brings on himself, makes concrete the incarnation of the Lord, and visible and tangible – in a proleptic form – his future glory. The blood overflowing on the earth is the emblem of victory, a sign of physicality that corresponds to the truth and allows to reach the highest point of contemplation of the Logos, with an “already but not yet” perspective. The nature of the image is also very strong as the red of the blood in which his apocalyptic chief clothing is soaked, is placed in antithetical parallelism with his riding on a white horse; this contrast in colours is at the same time complementary to the kingly imagery. This form of hermeneutic highlights the saving value of the Lord’s death with the revelatory image of Christus Victor mixing sacrificial and royal imageries. The transfixion bears witness to the soteriological value of the scene, which reaches its summit with the judgment of the rider drenched in blood. The piercing of Christ’s side and the flow of blood and water are unique to John’s Gospel. The author presents the fact as full of significance. Three times, he attests the importance of the scene as it follows: “He who has seen has borne witness,” “and his witness is true,” “and he knows that he is telling the truth” (John 19:35). Though, the interpretations presented so far may have shed light on the meaning of the scene, from another point of view, in his summary “so that you also may believe,” John seems to foreshadow the very purpose of “his remembrance” of blood and water. Therefore, I would like to try to further the understanding of how Alexandria could forge a “field” of common interpretation, with a comparative look at a gnostic text from a close theological context and period, a gnostic gospel called “Pistis Sophia.” This kind of text of Christian style and content enjoyed widespread popularity among Christian believers in the first centuries. 3.3. Pistis Sophia Pistis Sophia is a Coptic text discovered in 1773, structured as a gospel and usually considered gnostic. It is one of the most extensive gnostic texts before the discovery of Nag Hammadi (1945). There is not a precise account regarding the exact period of composition and its authorship, but it is commonly dated between the 3rd and 4th centuries CE15 and often attributed to Valentinian tradition, therefore, connected with Alexandria and the period of the previous authors.16

15 See Birger A. Pearson, Gnosticism and Christianity: In Roman and Coptic Egypt (New York/London: Continuum, 2005); Giuliana Iacopini, “Il vangelo di Giovanni nei testi gnostici copti,” in Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 49 (Rome: Istitutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1995): 141–185. 16 For further information about authorship, redaction history, see Carl Schmidt and Violet MacDermot, eds., Pistis Sophia in NHS 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1978); James J. Hurtak and Desiree Hurtak, eds., Pistis Sophia Text and Commentary (Los Gatos: Academy for Future Science, 1999); George Robert Stow Mead, Pistis Sophia (Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 1992).

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Some scholars are relating the text of Pistis Sophia to those writings that go under the common denominator of “Sethians”: a stream that leads back vaguely to the figure of Seth, son of Adam, as a symbol of those who are saved. It contains a long treatise of the Passion of Christ, and a story of Jesus teaching for eleven years to his disciples, after the resurrection. The content relates to secret teaching especially framed in the events related to Jesus’ death and resurrection. As in much of the gnostic literature, there is a very complicated mythological background in which texts, especially from the New Testament, are inserted.17 The selected lines find Jesus recalling his first encounter with the Samaritan woman. The living water that communicates grace evokes the cup that communicates a “vital sap”. This interpretation has been restated later by modern theologians such as De la Potterie, Mateos and Barreto, generally talking about the blood and water as a source of life in the same context of the Samaritan episode. This is important to confirm how modern theological hermeneutics may still be influenced by early interpretations and even gnostic texts. Here, the selected lines of Pistis Sophia: Jesus, who is Aberamentho, said to his disciples: “Truly, I say to you, when I came I brought nothing to the world except this fire and this water and this wine and this blood. I have brought the water and the fire from the place of the lights of the Treasury of the Light. I have brought the wine and the blood from the place of the Barbelo. And after a little time my Father sent to me the Holy Spirit in the type of dove. But the fire, the water and the wine have come into existence to purify all the sins of the world. On the other hand, the blood was for me a sign concerning the body of mankind, which I received in the place of the Barbelo, the great power of the Invisible God. Furthermore the Spirit draws all souls together and takes them to the Place of the light. Because of this, I have said unto you: ‘I have come to cast fire upon the earth. This is, I have come to purify the sins of the whole world with fire.’ And because of this I said the Samaritan woman: ‘If thou hadst known the gift of God, and who it is who says to thee: give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked him and he would have given thee living water and it would have been a source of water in thee springing up to eternal life.’ And also because of this I took a cup of wine, I blessed it, I gave it to you, saying: ‘This is the blood of the covenant which will be shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.’ And also because of this the spear was thrust into my side, and there came forth water and blood. These moreover are the mysteries of the light which forgive sins, which are the invocations and the names of the light.”18

In the initial part of this example, with the four-terms argumentation, in reality a couple of binomials, fire-water and wine-blood, there is an unmistakable allusion to several of Jesus’ words which may be read in the canonical Gospels. For example, the antithetical binomial fire-water is found Luke 12:49, 50 (“I came to cast fire upon the earth,” “But I have a baptism to be baptized with”), but at the same time in Matt 3:16 where Jesus came out of the water of baptism and the 17 In this case, reference is made to John 4:19 and the Synoptic accounts of the institution of the Last Supper. 18 Carl Schmidt and Violet MacDermot, eds., Pistis Sophia, book IV, ch.141, 735–39.

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Holy Spirit, often associated with fire, came upon him in form of a dove sent by the Father. The second pair of symbols, wine-blood, may be found in several verses of the Gospel of John related to the Last Supper, which clearly point to the death of Christ. Pistis Sophia continues mixing the different four terms with several renewed symbolical meanings and presents the Treasury of the Light and the Barbelo19 as the origin of them. The text seems to present a new way of dealing with sins, a “purification” through fire-water-wine and not through blood. Blood is first seen as a sign of humanity, perhaps in contraposition to a non-clear idea of divinity that could result from the other three terms. At the end, the text uses the interconnected term Holy Spirit-fire as a means for purification from sins. Then, it follows a reminding of the Samaritan woman and the experience of the living water (John 4), probably as an example of the importance of water in the process of conversion, but without a clear explanation. Then, the cup of wine is a symbol of Christ’s blood presented as the forgiveness from sins, but this raises up a question about what may be intended, in this gnostic text, with the terms “purification” and “forgiveness”. Commonly, in Gnosticism, a concept such as salvation does not require forgiveness, nor any tangible sacrament, but on the contrary, its main interest is to acquire gnosis.20 Nevertheless, Pistis Sophia seems to be “bent” to the uncontestable soteriological “power” of the verse of John, and although of a gnostic character, the strong canonical gospel “nuance” is evident. Finally, the text gets to its core and to its “true” gnostic nature while reading the pierced side of Jesus and the flow of blood-water as mysteries of the light. With the Alexandrian ecclesiastical writers, the scenery changes but the soteriological background is placed in horizons not far from the gnostic thought here analyzed.21 3.4. Elishe I may briefly consider, in order to conclude and to reaffirm the presence of noncanonical writings of Alexandrian tradition that dealt with John’s scene, the later work of the Armenian historian Elishe (410–475 CE) who spent some years in Alexandria (434–441 CE) to study Greek and Syriac: 19 Barbelo is a term related to gnostic cosmogony, as the first  emanation  of  “god” often depicted as a supreme female principle. In Pistis Sophia, the term is not clearly defined, but is usually referring to a female god, a great power of god, or a part of a particular from of thricepowerful deities. She gives to Jesus his heavenly body and garment of light. For further reading, see Jonas Hans, The Gnostic Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001); Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). 20 David W. Bercot, A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1998), s. v. “Gnostics, Gnosticism.” 21 See Frances M. Young, “A Reconsideration of Alexandrian Christology,” JEH 22 (1971): 103–114.

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Behold a new and wonderful sight! Who ever saw one of mankind that after his death his ribs were pierced on his corpse, and blood and water came forth? Before this it had not happened; and after this it will not happen, save only to the body of Jesus Christ. And this (did not occur) outside the prophecy, but through the soul of that same wounded one. “They will turn and see whom they wounded.” […] and as medicine blood (for) blood and water (for) water. If you wish, receive (the interpretation) truly. For water is the essence on all living things, and blood (is the essence) of the life of all bodily things. With the blood is mingled a part of the effusion of warmth and with the water is mixed the great power of the earth, and with both kinds are united all the elements, and they demonstrate the essence of the body of God the Word, which he took truly – the nature of our essence which he himself fashioned in certain creation. So there came forth water for the washing of the holy font, and blood, the cup of the new covenant. For by water we cleanse ourselves of sin, and by the blood we become participants in the passion of his death on the cross. 22

The question of blood and water is here developed in a multiform exegetical horizon. It reads unclear references to a possible will of attesting the true bodily form of Jesus, as done by Clement and others against heresies such as Docetism. Then, the author mixes various interpretations, spanning from vague sacramental readings, which see blood as “the cup of the covenant” and water as the “washing of the holy font” but without ever directly using terms such as “Baptism” or “Eucharist,” to an only implied doctrine of the Logos (“God the Word”) so dear to Alexandrian theologians, but here not clarified. Furthermore, there is an allusion to a theme that is common to the Armenian tradition (although not exclusive to it) of the four elements: fire, water, air, earth, which are also interpreted as warm and cold, light and heavy. For sure, this testimony, similar to the previous ones, is an elaborated articulation of the always-inspiring text of John 19:34, somehow so “rich” as to become paradoxically unclear in its purpose. For John, this event is a unique, new and unrepeatable “wonderful sight.” At the same time, it is certainly a confirmation of the potential of this sacrificial imagery of the fourth Gospel to produce new interpretations.

4. Conclusion This particular text of John could seem, at first sight, to be addressing a marginal theological question compared to other major fourth Gospel themes, but this impression has been contradicted by the interest that exegetes of past and present have dedicated to it. After some exegetical foundations, which have shown the multiform interpretability of John 19:34, and allowed this investigation to insert and understand the episode of blood and water in the wider context of the 22 Robert W. Thomson, A Homily of the Passion of Christ Attributed to Elishe (Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 86–87.

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theology of John’s Gospel, the study needs to draw at least four important and necessary conclusions: 1. Blood and water from Jesus’ side have been generally considered both by early writers and modern scholars, rich of mysterious and symbolical meaning. Moreover, the exegesis of John 19:34, its first interpretation, begins in the same Gospel with the attempt of John to inscribe what he sees in a Paschal horizon (broken bones, Num 9:12; Exod 12:46) and in prophecies of Israel’s restoration (Zech 12:10; 13:1; 14:8, 9; Ezek 47:1–2, 9). This makes the verse a fulfilment of a set of prophecies and not only a limited testimony of Jesus’s death. 2. The soteriological line of interpretation has developed symbolisms relating mainly to blood and only secondarily to water. 3. In general, the theologians of Alexandria have shown a preference for Pentateuchal imagery, and Origen and Clement have developed an exegesis with closer attention to the text. Alexandrianism after Origen and post-Nicene will see a shift toward views of blood and water as referring to martyrdom and based on episodes from the life of Moses. 4. These specific cases, here studied, may show how gnostic texts, and early Christian and historical writings, may draw from the same well of logic and culture in formulating their exegesis. Furthermore, both Clement and Origen show, as Pistis Sophia and Elishe do, that blood and water are clearly symbols of salvation and “quite intentionally” presented in the fourth Gospel so that the reader could think of the new covenant of the Last Supper. All these interpretations are identical in their core, and far deeper rooted in the Old Testament than modern exegetical readings. In conclusion, scholars today continue to be interested in the proper interpretation of what John 19:34 tells about the meaning of Christ’s death. The following words of Ernest Martinez show that modern scholars are just as interested in discerning the meaning of this verse as ancient interpreters were: “The reference in John to Jesus’ physical blood after his death is the only one to be found in any of the Gospel accounts of his passion and death. […] The pouring out of his blood here, however, has nothing at all to do with his physical death since John clearly says that Jesus at that time was already dead (v. 33) – but it has very much to do with the meaning of his death …”23 The interpretation and significance of the death of Christ, foreseen in John 19:34, is exactly what the “ancient” interpreters – here presented – have tried to (re)discover.

23 Ernesto R. Martinez, The Gospel Accounts of the Death of Jesus (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Gregoriana, 2008), 268; see also 435–438 for a summary of some of the main interpretations of blood and water, and for a discussion around the idea of a life-giving death.

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Bibliography Bentley, Layton. The Gnostic Scriptures. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Bercot, David W. A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1998. Clement of Alexandria. Paedagogus. Patrologia Graeca 8. Edited by J.-P. Migne. 162 Vols. Paris, 1857–1886. Grappone, Antonio. Omelie Origeniane nella traduzione di Rufino. Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2007. Hans, Jonas. The Gnostic Religion. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001. Hurtak, James J. and Desiree Hurtak, eds. Pistis Sophia Text and Commentary. Los Gatos: Academy for Future Science, 1999. Iacopini, Giuliana. “Il vangelo di Giovanni nei testi gnostici copti.” Pages 141–185 in Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 49. Rome: Istitutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1995. Marrou, Henri-I., ed. Clément d’Alexandrie: Le Pédagogue, Livre II. SC 108. Translated by Claude Mondésert. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1965. Martinez, Ernesto R. The Gospel Accounts of the Death of Jesus. Rome: Editrice Pontificia Gregoriana, 2008. Nasch, Ronald. The Gospel and the Greeks. Richardson: Probe Books, 1992. Nautin, Pierre. Origène, sa vie et son oeuvre. Paris: Beauchesne, 1977. Origen. Comment in Joannem. Patrologia Graeca 14. Edited by J.-P. Migne. 162 Vols. Paris, 1857–1886. –. Homélies sur le Lévitique II. Edited by Marcel Borret. SC 287. Paris: Cerf, 1981. –. Homilies on Leviticus 1–16. Translated by Gary Wayne Barkley. FC 83. Washington: Catholic University of America, 1990. –. Commentarie sur S. Jean I: Livres I–V. Edited by Cécile Blanc. 2nd ed. SC 120. Paris: Cerf, 1996. Pearson, Birger A. Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt. New York/ London: Continuum, 2005. Philo. De somnis I–II. Vol. 19 of Les oeuvres de Philon d’Alexandrie. Edited by Roger Arnaldez, Jean Pouilloux, and Claude Mondésert. Translated by Pierre Savinel. Paris: Cerf, 1962. Rapallo, Umberto. “Il discorso parabolico (Māšāl) nella versione rufiniana delle ‘Omelie sul Levitico’ di Origene.” Pages 221–305 in Storia ed Esegesi di Rufino di Concordia. Antichità Altoadriatiche 39. Udine: Arti Grafiche Friulane, 1992. Runia, David T. Philo in Early Christian Literature. Assen: Van Gorcu/Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993. Stefano Salemi. “Sacramenti tra anamnesi e pictura verbi,” in O ̔ Odigos. Bari: Centro P. Salvatore Manna, 2012): 15–18. –. “Aspetti Sacramentali e Aspetti Soteriologici,” in Il Sangue della Redenzione X.n.1. Edited by Michele Colagiovanni. Roma: Sanguis Editrice (2012): 21–115. –. “Esegesi Ecclesiologica della morte di Cristo,” in Il Sangue della Redenzione XII.n.2. Edited by Michele Colagiovanni. Roma: Sanguis Editrice (2014): 23–59. Schmidt, Carl and Violet MacDermot, eds. Pistis Sophia. NHS 9. Leiden: Brill, 1978. Scholer, David M., ed. The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged. Translated by Charles Duke Yonge. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1993. Stead, George Christopher. Philosophy in Christian Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

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Stow Mead, George R. Pistis Sophia. Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 1992. Thomson, Robert W. A Homily of the Passion of Christ Attributed to Elishe. Leuven: Peeters, 2000. Williamson, Ronald. Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews. Leiden: Brill, 1970. Young, Frances M. “A Reconsideration of Alexandrian Christology.” JEH 22 (1971): 103–114.

Reception and Marginal Texts Notes on the Reception of 1 Peter 5:1–4 Dan Batovici

The purpose of this contribution is to offer provisional considerations on the patristic reception of 1 Peter 5:1–4. First, however, it briefly contextualizes the notion of biblical reception history against the background of other receptionoriented approaches in more or less connected fields and draws attention to the issues involved in the reception of what can be construed as ‘marginal’ texts.

1. Reception and Receptions Giving due attention to reception-historical approaches beyond biblical studies, not only potentially leads to the methodological enrichment that can come from interdisciplinarity, but it also fits with the initial call of Wirkungsgeschichte to exegetical self-awareness. Indeed, to briefly recall what is well known – and others will discuss in more detail in this volume  – the notion of Wirkungsgeschichte as conceived of by H.-G. Gadamer involves the requirement that every time “a work of art or an aspect of the tradition” is studied, the history of effect on the historical act itself should be taken into account, pointing therefore to the “historical consciousness” of the historian, given that “understanding is, essentially, a historical effected event.”1 As it were, to Gadamer, Wirkungsgeschichte is not a method – and even less a field of study – but a call to methodological awareness: we too, as researchers, belong to our historical context, just as much as the historical eventor biblical text we are trying to understand. Nevertheless, reception studies are now well established in biblical studies as well as in a number of

1 Hans-Georg Gadamer, “The Principle of History of Effect (Wirkungsgeschichte),” in Truth and Method (London, New York: Continuum, 2004, translation by J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall), 299–306, at 299. On this see Mark Knight, “Wirkungsgeschichte, Reception History, Reception Theory,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.2 (2010): 137–146, esp. 137–139, and Martin O’Kane, “Wirkungsgeschichte and Visual Exegesis: The Contribution of Hans-Georg Gadamer,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.2 (2010): 147–159.

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other fields. Well-developed, for instance, is the field of Classical reception, with studies on the use and misuse of classical literature in various literary contexts.2 Closer to biblical studies, reception-historical questions have been applied to apocryphal literature. Although the focus on apocryphal literature tends to be placed on the earliest apocrypha and their reception in Early Christianity, often in view of their relevance for the history of the formation of the canon, there are by now extensive contributions and projects devoted to the study of the reception of apocrypha well beyond Early Christianity.3 Such studies have yielded very interesting results for instance with regard to understanding the use of apocryphal Acts in later liturgical traditions.4 Reception-historical approaches can also be applied to another corpus of early Christian writings, the Apostolic Fathers. This seems to be a particularly fruitful venue, both for ancient and modern contexts. Since the Apostolic Fathers as a collection is a modern construct, there are important landmarks in its modern reception that have recently attracted scholarly attention.5 The early reception of the Apostolic Fathers is interesting in view of their potential relevance for the history of the formation of the New Testament canon.6 Yet other reception strands are also up for inquiry, beyond patristic literature and canonical lists, from the use of the Apostolic Fathers in iconography, archeology, and hagiography to their presence in church orders, canonical collections, and manuscripts of the various languages in which they were translated in early and late antique Christianity. 2 See, for reference, the contributions gathered in Edmund Richardson, ed., Classics in Extremis: The Edges of Classical Reception (London: Bloomsbury, 2018); Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray, eds., A Companion to Classical Receptions (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), or the three volumes of the Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature: Rita Copeland, ed., Volume I: 800–1558 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Patrick Cheney and Philip Hardie, eds., Volume 2: 1558–1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); David Hopkins and Charles Martindale, eds., Volume 3: 1660–1790 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 3 See, for instance, Pierluigi Piovanelli, “Scriptural Trajectories through Early Christianity, Late Antiquity and Beyond: Christian Memorial Traditions in the longue durée,” in Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha in North American Perspective, ed. Tony Burke (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015), 95–110, or Simon Gathercole, “Named Testimonia to the Gospel of Thomas: An Expanded Inventory and Analysis,” Harvard Theological Review 105.1 (2012), 53–89, who discusses references to this apocryphal gospel well into the Middle Ages. 4 An important book-size treatment is available in Els Rose, Ritual Memory: The Apocryphal Acts and Liturgical Commemoration in the Early Medieval West (c. 500–1215) (Mittellateinische Studien und Texte 40; Leiden: Brill, 2009). For another example, see Marijana Vuković, “The Early Christian Martyrdom: Narrative Features, Intertextuality and the Authoritative Texts Behind,” in Authoritative Texts and Reception History: Aspects and Approaches, ed. Dan Batovici and Kristin De Troyer (Biblical Interpretation Series 151; Leiden: Brill, 2017), 278–295. 5 See, for instance, David Lincicum, “The Paratextual Invention of the Term ‘Apostolic Fathers,’” Journal of Theological Studies 66.1 (2015), 139–148, and more recently and complementarily to Lincicum, Clare K. Rothschild, “On the Invention of Patres Apostolici,” in New Essays on the Apostolic Fathers (WUNT I 375; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 7–33. 6 An example would be Dan Batovici, “The Shepherd of Hermas in Recent Scholarship on the Canon,” Annali di storia dell’Esegesi 34.1 (2017), 89–105.

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A peculiar approach to reception  – applied to biblical and non-biblical literature alike  – considers manuscripts as artefacts of reception. Starting from the 80’s of the last century, a shift was attempted from considering the text of a manuscript as the main focus of research toward giving due attention to the manuscript as a complex artefact with clues to the contexts in which it was copied and used,7 under the title of ‘new philology.’ However, many will probably find the alternative title, ‘material philology’ – particularly when used to describe an approach which “does take into account the material and social context in which texts were produced, but does not attack the principle that there exists such a thing as the authentic text of the author”8 – more palatable and in a sense more considerate especially for reception-historical investigations that aim to also inform future critical editions. Material philological approaches have now been applied to various non-biblical sources in several manuscript cultures,9 with interesting results. An akin approach is, for instance, the study of ‘scribal habits’ in New Testament textual criticism which itself has seen considerable development across the last two decades, keeping with the ever so quoted statement of Westcott and Hort that “The first step towards obtaining a sure foundation is a consistent application of the principle that knowledge of documents should precede final judgement upon readings.”10 Some contributions are now much discussed classics,11 and the stream of ongoing publications is a simple indicator of how productive and diverse this approach can be both for biblical12 and nonbiblical texts.13  7 A recent survey is available in Liv Ingeborg Lied and Hugo Lundhaug, eds., Snapshots of Evolving Traditions: Jewish and Christian Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology (TU 175; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 3–10.  8 Marc Van Der Poel, ed., Neo-Latin Philology: Old Tradition, New Approaches (Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia 35; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2014), 8.  9 For examples in Latin see the volume edited by Van Der Poel, Neo-Latin Philology; for Coptic see, for example, J. Gregory Given, “Utility and Variance in Late Antique Witnesses to the Abgar-Jesus Correspondence,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 17 (2016), 187–222; for Syriac see, for instance, Liv Ingeborg Lied, “2 Baruch and the Syriac Codex Ambrosianus (7a1): Studying Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in Their Manuscript Context,” Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha 26.2 (2016), 67–107 and Aaron Butts, “Manuscript Transmission as Reception History: The Case of Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373),” Journal of Early Christian Studies 25.2 (2017), 281–306. 10 Brooke F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, II: Introduction, Appendix, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1896), 31, emphasis original, in all-caps. 11 See, for instance, David C. Parker, The Living Text of the Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), and Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2006). 12 See, for instance Peter Malik, P.Beatty III (P47): The Codex, Its Scribe, and Its Text (NTTSD 52; Leiden: Brill, 2017), and in particular Peter Malik, “The Greek Text of Revelation in Late Antique Egypt: Materials, Texts, and Social History,” ZAC 22.3 (2018), 400–421. 13 For a recent example see Lorne R. Zelyck, The Egerton Gospel (Egerton Papyrus 2 + Papyrus Köln VI 255): Introduction, Critical Edition, and Commentary (TENTS 13; Leiden: Brill, 2019).

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2. Marginal Texts and Reception From a reception-historical point of view  – when compared to other more prominent texts like the Gospel of John or Matthew, or Romans  – an epistle like 1 Peter can be construed as ‘marginal’ together with other ‘smaller’ New Testament books. Much like the Gospel of Mark, 1 Peter seems to have received comparatively less attention in subsequent patristic literature.14 From a material perspective 1 Peter is similarly less represented among the extant Greek papyri than the Gospel of Matthew or John, with only a handful of fragments. As it were, on both counts, on a quantitative spectrum of reception, 1 Peter – much like other smaller epistles in the New Testament, as well as the Gospel of Mark – comes at the lower end. This can be set in contrast with parabiblical texts. There are only three Greek papyri of, for instance, the Gospel of Thomas, therefore a comparable number. But there are, at the other end, 23 ‘continuous’ papyri of the Shepherd of Hermas. The latter is therefore preserved on a scale similar only to the best represented New Testament texts, topped only by John (30) and Matthew (24), followed at some distance by Acts (15), and Romans (11) and Luke (10). It is, however, not necessarily clear what to make of these numbers. They seem to suggest perhaps different degrees of popularity but the assessment is 14 There are only a handful of patristic commentaries devoted to 1 Peter; some are fragmentary, others tend to deal with all catholic epistles, rather than with 1 Peter alone: Clement of Alexandria, Adumbrationes in epistolas catholicas, in O. Stählin, L. Früchtel, U. Treu, eds., Clemens Alexandrinus Werke. 3 (GCS 217; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1970), 203–215; Didymus the Blind, In epistola Petri prima catholica brevis enarratio, in F. Zoepfl, ed., Didymi Alexandrini in epistolas canonicas brevis enarratio, (Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagbuchhandlung, 1914), 9–35, which survives mainly in Latin; Pseudo-Oecumenius, Commentarium in epistulam priorem Petri (PG 119), 512–577; Cassiodorus, Complexiones in Epistulas Apostolorum (PL 70), 1321–1422; the Venerable Bede, In epistolam Petri primam, in M. L. W. Laistner and D. Hurst, eds., Beda Venerabilis opera, Pars II.4: Opera exegetica. Expositio Actuum apostolorum. Retractatio in Actus apostolorum. Nomina regionum atque locorum de Actibus apostolorum. In epistulas VII catholicas (CCL 121; Turnhout: Brepols, 1983), 225–260; Anonymus Scottus, Commentarius in epistolam Petri primam, in R. E. McNally, ed., Scriptores Hiberniae minores I: Commentarius in epistolas catholicas; Tractatus in septem epistolas canonicas; Quaestiones vel glosae in evangelio nomine. Questiones evangelii; Prebiarium de multorium exemplaribus; Dies dominica; Quaestiones tam de novo quam de vetere testamento (CCL 108B; Turnhout: Brepols, 1973), 28–35; Pseudo-Hilarius, In epistolam Petri primam, in McNally, Scriptores Hiberniae minores I, 77–98. There are the Greek and the Armenian Catenae, compiled from various works of various authors: J. A. Cramer, ed., Catenae graecorum patrum in Novum Testamentum, tomus 8: In Epistolas Catholicas et Apocalypsin (Oxford: University Press, 1844), 41–83 (1 Peter), and C. Renoux, ed., La chaîne arménienne sur les épîtres catholiques II: La chaîne sur les épitres de Pierre (PO 44/2; Turnhout: Brepols, 1987), 66–172. From the catenae scholars have extracted, for instance, the Fragmenta in epistula catholicas of Cyril of Alexandria (PG 74), 1007–1024. Most recently published is P. Van Deun, Le commentaire de Métrophane de Smyrne sur la première épître de Pierre (chapitre 1, versets 1–23), in B. Flusin and J.-C. Cheynet, eds., Autour du Premier humanisme byzantin & des Cinq études sur le XIe siècle, quarante ans après Paul Lemerle (Travaux et mémoires, 21/2; Paris: AACHCB, 2017), 389–415.

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complicated by recent trends in early Christian manuscript studies where, for instance, it is sometimes considered that if we can establish that a papyrus was read, or meant for being read, publicly in the community, liturgical in some sense, these features might indicate canonical status for the text on it.15 There are therefore scholars who argue that the papyri of apocryphal gospels are smaller, more irregular and with fewer reading aids, which would make it less likely to have been meant for public reading,16 just as there are scholars that show that lectional signs appear in apocryphal papyri as well, pointing therefore in the opposite direction.17 The papyri numbers can point overall to some degree of popularity, and the authority that comes with it. But even if we get some range between books – two or three papyri for a book versus twenty for another – these numbers are in fact too small for any meaningful statistical approach. Much of it can simply be attributed to chance, as the nature of authority, especially of a marginal text, based on papyri remains unclear. Perhaps the quantitative differences in patristic quotations could be more telling. A recent contribution on the reception of the Gospel of Thomas discusses about 65 references up to the ninth century, in clear as well as possible named testimonia and references to its contents.18 The patristic quotations from, and references to the Shepherd of Hermas are found in similar numbers.19 By contrast, a search for references to 1 Peter in Biblindex up to the ninth century yields more than two thousand hits. Even taking into account the presuppositions on which the Biblindex is build – i. e. registering all possible, rather than verified, references and allusions to the biblical text – the difference is big enough to be significant. The most obvious observation would be that this quantitative difference does not match the image gathered from the papyri, where the Shepherd is far better represented than 1 Peter. The numbers in the papyri can be regarded as matching the patristic data, in a sense: the Shepherd has more papyri than the Gospel of Thomas and at the same time it is far better 15 A recent example of this presuposition is Scott D. Charlesworth, Early Christian Gospels: Their Production and Transmission (Papyrologica Florentina 47; Firenze: Edizioni Gonnelli, 2016). 16 See for instance Larry Hurtado, “The Greek Fragments of the Gospel of Thomas as Artefacts: Papyrological Observations on Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 654 and Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 655,” in Das Thomasevangelium: Entstehung – Rezeption – Theologie, ed. J. Frey, E. E. Popkes and Jens Schröter (BZNW 157; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), 19–32. 17 AnneMarie Luijendijk, “Reading the Gospel of Thomas in the Third Century: Three Oxyrhynchus Papyri and Origen’s Homilies,” in Reading New Testament Papyri in Context/Lire les papyrus du Nouveau Testament dans leur contexte, ed. C. Clivaz and J. Zumstein (BETL 242; Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 241–267. 18 Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary (TENTS 11; Leiden: Brill, 2014), 35–47, 55–59, and 65–88. 19 An extended survey of testimonies up to the sixth century on Hermas, including patristic authors, can be found in Norbert Brox, Der Hirt des Hermas (KAV 7; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 55–71.

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received by patristic authors than the latter. On the other side, there are far more papyri of John than of Mark or 1 Peter, and that is reflected in their patristic reception accordingly. However, when focusing on the margins of the biblical canon, however conceived, the comparison is lopsided. Overall, these data point again to the fact that what seems to be a high number among the papyri still constitutes a very small sample of witnesses.

3. Peter the συμπρεσβύτερος and the Reception of 1 Peter 5:1–4 For the remainder of this contribution I turn to the reception of 1 Peter 5:1–4, which is the exhortation to the presbyters. Having addressed the community as a whole, Peter turns to the presbyters to whom he presents himself as a fellow presbyter (συμπρεσβύτερος) and asks of them to shepherd with care rather than constraint, freely and by being models rather than dominating the flock, in view of the ‘crown of glory.’ The first example is drawn from the catena. The Greek Catena in epistolas catholicas was published in 1844 by J. A. Cramer.20 When the Armenian catena was published in 1987,21 it became apparent that it differs from the Greek both with regard to the text of the exegetical excerpts as well as with regard to their attributions and therefore that, while translated from Greek, the Armenian Catena is in fact a translation of a different recension of the Greek catena than that to which we have access today as edited by Cramer. A difference is the fact that the Greek has at this point a misplaced fragment from John Chrysostom that deals with a different verse altogether,22 whereas the Armenian contains an exegetical fragment on 1 Peter 5:1, which is an anonymous scholion.23 The anonymous catenist starts by noting that up to this point Peter offered teachings with a general character that are aimed to the whole community, and that now towards the end of the letter he added things which are not indiscriminately for all. To the catenist, Peter invites the elders to consider themselves a separate group from the others, and to consider themselves his equals. As such, they are to do the same works as Peter. To present his view on the matter, the catenist paraphrases 1 Peter 5:1–4, explaining that at this point Peter does not ask of the presbyters to strengthen the flock but themselves. The paraphrase goes as follows: in view of Christ’s suffering, the elders should not just equip the others but themselves with belief. 20 J. A. Cramer, ed., Catenae graecorum patrum in Novum Testamentum, tomus 8: In Epistolas Catholicas et Apocalypsin (Oxford: University Press, 1844), with 1 Peter on pp. 41–83. 21 C. Renoux, ed., La chaîne arménienne sur les épîtres catholiques II: La chaîne sur les épitres de Pierre (PO 44/2; Turnhout: Brepols, 1987), with 1 Peter on pp. 66–172. 22 Cramer, In Epistolas Catholicas, 80. 23 Renoux, La chaîne arménienne sur les épitres de Pierre, 164–167.

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They have to be examples in what they say and what they do. This is precisely why they became elders, more honoured than the others, heads of the community, and equals in apostolate, not only in this world, but also in the glory to come. As presbyters, they have become colleagues with Peter in apostolate, so they must be colleagues in their works. As it were, the catenist’s reading of 1 Peter 5:1–4 has more to do with the requirement for the presbyters to be models in their community than with the practicalities on how to shepherd communities. One could imagine that in the context of the catenist there were concerns related to the quality of the presbyters, rather than to the severity of their rule. Didymus the Blind too deals with 1 Peter 5:1, albeit not in the exegetical work devoted to the catholic epistles that is attributed to him.24 We find a number of references to the first few verses of 1 Peter 5 in his commentary on Zachariah.25 In his discussion of Zachariah 8:4–5, for instance, Didymus brings 1 Peter 5 in a discussion on the elders. First discussed are some elders of the old covenant (as the father of Isaac, or those implied in Joel 2:16 and Proverbs 20:29), then those of the new covenant, which are presented as equal in status and authority to those of the old. 1 Peter 5:1 is then brought in to indicate how they should lead the flock – ‘not under compulsion, but willingly.’ Here and elsewhere in the commentary to Zechariah, Didymus’ concern with presbyters in relation to 1 Peter 5:1 is therefore twofold: that this office has the same status and authority as the presbyters of the Old Testament, and that they should be light handed, all in view of the ‘crown of glory’ to come. One might expect that this verse of 1 Peter, which sets presbyters apart as rulers of the community, to appear in discussions that have to do with the development of the offices in the church, in arguments over the authority of its various parts. Indeed, in his letter 146 ad Euangelum presbyterum26 Jerome argues against the notion that the deacons might be more important than the presbyters.27 He does so on the one hand by rhetorically lowering the status of the deacons to ‘mere server of tables and of widows’ (quid patitur mensarum et uiduarum minister) and on the other by equating the office of the presbyter with that of the bishop: how can a deacon, a ‘mere server of tables and widows,’ be so arrogant as to see himself bigger than a bishop who prepares the eucharist? To gather grounds for his argument, Jerome quotes New Testament verses in which, in his view, the deacon is described as different from the bishop, and others in which the bishop 24 Zoepfl, Didymi in epistolas canonicas brevis enarratio, 9–35. Since this is extracted from the Greek catena and, as we have seen, the later does not contain anything for this verse, nor does the Brevis enarratio. 25 Louis Doutreleau, ed., Didyme L’Aveugle: Sur Zacharie, texte inédit d’après un papyrus de Toura, tome II (Sources chretiénnes 84; Paris: Cerf, 1962), 550–551. 26 Text in I. Hilberg, ed., Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi epistulae, pars III (CSEL 56; Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1918), 308–312. 27 For an analysis of the context of the Letter and debate see David G. Hunter, “Rivalry Between Presbyters and Deacons in the Roman Church,” Vigiliae Christianae 71 (2017), 495–510.

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is equated with the presbyter. The way in which Jerome understands here the difference between a bishop and a presbyter is that a bishop is chosen by presbyters form among themselves. In his own words, the name ‘presbyter’ points to age, and ‘bishop’ to rank. This is the reason for which Jerome finds scandalous the fact, which he reports from hearsay, that in Rome there might be in place at that time the practice that a presbyter is only ordained on the recommendation of a deacon.28 In this context Jerome quotes 1 Peter 5:1, pointing to the fact that when referring to what presbyters do, Peter uses the verb ἐπισκοπέω, which Jerome considers also as to be the origin of the name of the bishop. 1 Peter 5 is therefore used not to illustrate the status and functions of presbyters in a community, but rather in order to elevate the status of the presbyter by bringing it closer to the bishop. Later authors are using 1 Peter 5:1–4 in contexts that are less polemical. PseudoOecumenius, for instance, considers this is an appeal to modesty: if Peter did not mind calling himself a presbyter – which he takes to indicate either age or the office of the bishop as, with Acts 20:17 and 28, ‘bishop’ is a name for ‘presbyter’ – so should the other presbyters not exalt themselves in front of others.29 The Venerable Bede, takes 5:1 to indicate either that Peter was present at Jesus’ suffering, or to imply Peter’s own suffering as described in Acts, and 5:2–3 as Peter’s exhortation to the presbyters to protect the flock and to preserve humility, in connexion with Mk 10:42–44 and 2 Cor 4:5.30 To conclude, the exhortation to the presbyters is therefore used for pastoral ends, for establishing the status of the presbyters, and in conflicts involved in the history of the development of the church offices. 1 Peter 5:1–4 is an interesting passage, potentially with some interest for understanding of the development of the office of presbyters. However, as seen, it is rather rarely that these verses are brought on to weigh in on such matters. Overall, in the reception of this ‘marginal’ text, verses 1–4 are taken due to its moralizing content to better prepare those in office for dealing with and taking care of the flock.

28

On this practice see Ibid., 503–505. Pseudo-Oecumenius, Commentarium in epistulam priorem Petri, 569–572. 30 Laistner and Hurst, Beda: In epistula prima Petri, 256–257. 29

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Bibliography Batovici, Dan. “The Shepherd of Hermas in Recent Scholarship on the Canon.” Annali di storia dell’Esegesi 34.1 (2017): 89–105. Brox, Norbert. Der Hirt des Hermas. KAV 7. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991. Butts, Aaron. “Manuscript Transmission as Reception History: The Case of Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373).” Journal of Early Christian Studies 25.2 (2017): 281–306. Cassiodorus. Complexiones in Epistulas Apostolorum (PL 70), 1321–1422. Charlesworth, Scott D. Early Christian Gospels: Their Production and Transmission. Papyrologica Florentina 47. Firenze: Edizioni Gonnelli, 2016. Cheney, Patrick and Philip Hardie, eds. Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature. Volume 2: 1558–1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Copeland, Rita, ed. Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature. Volume I: 800–1558. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Cramer, J. A., ed. Catenae graecorum patrum in Novum Testamentum, tomus 8: In Epistolas Catholicas et Apocalypsin. Oxford: University Press, 1844. Cyril of Alexandria. Fragmenta in epistula catholicas (PG 74), 1007–1024. Deun, P. Van. Le commentaire de Métrophane de Smyrne sur la première épître de Pierre (chapitre 1, versets 1–23). Pages 389–415 in Autour du Premier humanisme byzantin & des Cinq études sur le XIe siècle, quarante ans après Paul Lemerle. Edited by B. Flusin and J.-C. Cheynet. Travaux et mémoires, 21.2. Paris: AACHCB, 2017. Doutreleau, Louis, ed. Didyme L’Aveugle: Sur Zacharie, Texte inédit d’après un papyrus de Toura, tome II. Sources chretiénnes 84. Paris: Cerf, 1962. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. London/New York: Continuum, 2004. Translation by J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Gesammelte Werke, Band I. Hermeneutik: Warheit und Methode. 1. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986. Gathercole, Simon. The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary. TENTS 11. Leiden: Brill, 2014. –. “Named Testimonia to the Gospel of Thomas: An Expanded Inventory and Analysis.” Harvard Theological Review 105.1 (2012): 53–89. Given, J. Gregory. “Utility and Variance in Late Antique Witnesses to the Abgar-Jesus Correspondence.” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 17 (2016): 187–222. Hardwick, Lorna and Christopher Stray, eds. A Companion to Classical Receptions. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Hilberg, I., ed. Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi epistulae, pars III. CSEL 56. Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1918. Hopkins, David and Charles Martindale, eds. Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature. Volume 3: 1660–1790. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Hunter, David G. “Rivalry Between Presbyters and Deacons in the Roman Church.” Vigiliae Christianae 71 (2017): 495–510. Hurtado, Larry W. The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins. Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2006. –. “The Greek Fragments of the Gospel of Thomas as Artefacts: Papyrological Observations on Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 654 and Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 655.” Pages 19–32 in Das Thomasevangelium: Entstehung – Rezeption – Theologie. Edited by J. Frey, E. E. Popkes and Jens Schröter. BZNW 157. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008.

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Knight, Mark. “Wirkungsgeschichte, Reception History, Reception Theory.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.2 (2010): 137–146. Laistner, M. L. W. and D. Hurst, eds. Beda Venerabilis opera, Pars II.4: Opera exegetica. Expositio Actuum apostolorum. Retractatio in Actus apostolorum. Nomina regionum atque locorum de Actibus apostolorum. In epistulas VII catholicas. CCL 121. Turnhout: Brepols, 1983. Lied, Liv Ingeborg. “2 Baruch and the Syriac Codex Ambrosianus (7a1): Studying Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in Their Manuscript Context.” Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha 26.2 (2016) 67–107. Lied, Liv Ingeborg and Hugo Lundhaug, eds. Snapshots of Evolving Traditions: Jewish and Christian Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology. TU 175. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. Lincicum, David. “The Paratextual Invention of the Term ‘Apostolic Fathers.’” Journal of Theological Studies 66.1 (2015): 139–148. Luijendijk, AnneMarie. “Reading the Gospel of Thomas in the Third Century: Three Oxyrhynchus Papyri and Origen’s Homilies.” Pages 241–267 in Reading New Testament Papyri in Context/Lire les papyrus du Nouveau Testament dans leur contexte. Edited by C. Clivaz and J. Zumstein. BETL 242. Leuven: Peeters, 2011. Malik, Peter. P.Beatty III (P47): The Codex, Its Scribe, and Its Text. NTTSD 52. Leiden: Brill, 2017. –. “The Greek Text of Revelation in Late Antique Egypt: Materials, Texts, and Social History.” ZAC 22.3 (2018): 400–421. McNally, R. E., ed. Scriptores Hiberniae minores I: Commentarius in epistolas catholicas; Tractatus in septem epistolas canonicas; Quaestiones vel glosae in evangelio nomine. Questiones evangelii; Prebiarium de multorium exemplaribus; Dies dominica; Quaestiones tam de novo quam de vetere testamento. CCL 108B. Turnhout: Brepols, 1973. O’Kane, Martin. “Wirkungsgeschichte and Visual Exegesis: The Contribution of HansGeorg Gadamer.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.2 (2010): 147–159. Parker, David C. The Living Text of the Gospels. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Piovanelli, Pierluigi. “Scriptural Trajectories through Early Christianity, Late Antiquity and Beyond: Christian Memorial Traditions in the longue durée.” Pages 95–110 in Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha in North American Perspective. Edited by Tony Burke. Eugene: Cascade, 2015. Poel, Marc Van Der, ed. Neo-Latin Philology: Old Tradition, New Approaches. Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia 35. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2014. Pseudo-Oecumenius. Commentarium in epistulam priorem Petri (PG 119), 512–577. Renoux, C., ed. La chaîne arménienne sur les épîtres catholiques II: La chaîne sur les épitres de Pierre. PO 44/2. Turnhout: Brepols, 1987. Richardson, Edmund, ed. Classics in Extremis: The Edges of Classical Reception. London: Bloomsbury, 2018. Rose, Els. Ritual Memory: The Apocryphal Acts and Liturgical Commemoration in the Early Medieval West (c. 500–1215). Mittellateinische Studien und Texte 40. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Rothschild, Clare K. New Essays on the Apostolic Fathers. WUNT I 375. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Stählin, O., L. Früchtel, and U. Treu, eds. Clemens Alexandrinus Werke. 3. GCS 217. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1970.

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Vuković, Marijana. “The Early Christian Martyrdom: Narrative Features, Intertextuality and the Authoritative Texts Behind.” Pages 278–295 in Authoritative Texts and Reception History: Aspects and Approaches. Edited by Dan Batovici and Kristin De Troyer. Biblical Interpretation Series 151. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Westcott, B. F. and F. J. A. Hort. The New Testament in the Original Greek, II: Introduction, Appendix. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 1896. Zelyck, Lorne R. The Egerton Gospel (Egerton Papyrus 2 + Papyrus Köln VI 255): Introduction, Critical Edition, and Commentary. TENTS 13. Leiden: Brill, 2019. Zoepfl, F., ed. Didymi Alexandrini in epistolas canonicas brevis enarratio. Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagbuchhandlung, 1914.

Luther’s Exegesis 500 Years On

Luther’s Prefaces to the New Testament in Their Hermeneutical and Philological Dimension, Read from an Exegetical Perspective Oda Wischmeyer

In advance I want to launch a clarifying distinction: in this essay I shall distinguish between Schrifttheologie1 respectively theology of Scripture on the one hand and Bible-hermeneutics2 on the other. While Schrifttheologie is a doctrinal topic – de sacra scriptura – belonging to the system of dogmatic theology, Biblehermeneutics concerns the issue of how to read and interpret Scripture. Though both topics are not un-interrelated, they are by no means identical. What I shall discuss here is not Luther’s Schrifttheologie, but one aspect of Luther’s Biblehermeneutics, namely his concept of interpreting the New Testament. The best conceptual texts in regard to Luther’s Bible-hermeneutics are the prefaces to the books of the Old and the New Testament and the Apocrypha Luther placed before the corpora or the individual biblical books of his translation.3 In my contribution, I aim to give an analysis of the “Vorreden zum Neuen Testament” in two regards: first, I shall point to the texts themselves as to important contributions to New Testament hermeneutics and, second, I shall reconsider Luther’s statement on the Epistle of James from an exegetical perspective. I 1 See A. Beutel, “Theologie als Schriftauslegung,” in Luther Handbuch, ed. A. Beutel (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 493–499; Reinhard Schwarz, Martin Luther: Lehrer der christlichen Religion (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), 2016, 27–74; Stefan Alkier, Eckart Reinmuth, and Manuel Vogel, eds., Zeitschrift für Neues Testament 39/40 (2017). 2 I prefer Bible-hermeneutics instead of biblical hermeneutics which can be understood either as hermeneutics that is applied to the Bible or as hermeneutics that is taught by the Bible. Bible-hermeneutics is concerned with the different ways of reading and understanding the Bible. 3 For the principles of Luther’s Bible-hermeneutics, see Thomas Kaufmann, “Luthers Bibelhermeneutik anhand seiner Vorrede auf das Neue Testament und De servo arbitrio,” in Handbuch der Bibelhermeneutiken, ed. O. Wischmeyer (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2016), 313–322. Kaufmann refers to the “Vorreden.” It would be convenient to add the two prefaces to Luther’s Kirchenpostille to the NT prefaces: Sämtliche Vorreden und Zuschriften der ersten Editionen der Kirchenpostille Lutheri: “Zuschrift an den Kurfürsten Friedrich” und “Luthers Zuschrift des Wintherteils seiner Kirchenpostille oder der Auslegung der Episteln und Evangelien vom ersten Advent bis Epiphanias, an Herrn Albrecht, Grafen zu Mansfeld, vom Jahre 1521. Samt einem kleinen Unterricht, was man in den Evangelien suchen und erwarten soll.” See Walch 11, XXXI–XLV.

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shall focus my contribution exclusively on the New Testament part of Luther’s prefaces, but not without pointing to the importance of the topic of the promise of Christ in the Old Testament as Luther already states in his New Testament preface from 1522.4 It is only in passing that I can point to a second essential distinction. We have to distinguish also between the Christological (respectively typological) method of his interpretation of those Old Testament texts that prophesy or forecast a savior or messiah on the one hand and between his Christological reading or perspective on the New Testament that is the fundament of his New Testament-hermeneutics on the other – my theme in this essay. Since I am neither a Church Historian nor a scholar of Christian dogmatic theology, but a New Testament scholar, I will re-read the New Testament prefaces from my exegetical experience with the Letter of James. I will argue that it is exactly Luther’s Christological perspective that dispenses him from demonstrating Christology everywhere in the Corpus of the New Testament. It is this overall Christological perspective that opens up the insight into the fact that some of the New Testament texts either suffer from a more or less important shortcoming of Christology or argue against the prevailing role of faith. By this criterion Luther is protected from constrained interpretative attempts of finding Christology everywhere and harmonizing. At the same time  – this is my argument  – this has allowed for practicing a better philological understanding of especially the Letter of James.5 In brief: it is Luther’s Christological perspective that gives way to philology. Luther’s Vorreden can be read in line with a couple of other remarks on biblical books (especially in the Tischreden) which show Luther’s philological and hermeneutical diligence and his as open-minded as critical dealing with the concept of Holy Scripture in a canonical and scriptural sense. My point of view is taken from a particular outcome of my recent exegetical work on a commentary on James. It was an essay on the history of exegesis of James in Meyer’s Critical Commentary on the NT since 1830 that led me to the result that Luther’s interpretation of James which is often rebuked by scholars – from the Catholic side as well as from the evangelical or generally more conservative wing and also from the Anabaptists as Alicia Batten just underlined – proves itself as clear-sighted reading from a Christological perspective.6 The philological standard and outcome of Luther’s reading of James is not re-attained until Martin Dibelius’ commentary.7 However, neither the Lutherans nor Dibe4 For Luther’s exegesis and hermeneutics of the OT see: Siefried Hermle, “Luther, Martin (AT),” in: WiBiLex (http://www.bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/25188/). 5 See Jacqueline Assaël and Élian Cuvillier, L’Épître de Jacques (CNT XIIIa Deuxième Série; Genève: Labor et Fides, 2013), 68–93. 6 Alicia J. Batten, “Early Anabaptist Interpretation of the Letter of James,” Annali di storia dell’esegesi 34.2 (2017): 537–551. 7 This was already observed by Julius Holtzmann, Historisch-kritische Einleitung in das Neue Testament (Freiburg, 1885), 484. According to Holtzmann, the contemporary exegesis of James falls behind Luther (see Gustav Kawerau, “Die Schicksale des Jakobusbriefes im

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lius appreciated Luther’s remarks as what they were: the result of Luther’s Christological hermeneutics. Ironically enough, the firm Lutheran New Testament scholars of the nineteenth century Huther and Beyschlag,8 who contributed to the KEK by commenting on James ignored Luther’s philological remarks on James. Instead, they argued in favor of the voice of the historical Jesus as echoed by James. Especially Beyschlag heard Jesus’ voice in the letter, and both exegetes esteemed the dogmatic criteria of the canonical status, the traditional apostolic authorship and the unity of Scripture more than the critical-philological observations Luther himself had made in regard to James.9 So, Lutherans did not care about Luther. In the following essay, I shall open with some remarks on the genre of Biblical prefaces. Subsequently, in a first round I shall give a short introduction into Luther’s prefaces, focusing upon his statements on theology and philology in regard to the New Testament, followed by a second round on his appraisal of the Letter of James.

1. The Genre of Prefaces to Biblical Books The distinct and effective history of the prefaces to the Biblical books begins with Jerome’s new Latin translation first of the New Testament (383, only the four Gospels),10 followed after 386 by his revision of the Psalms according to the text of the Hexapla and finally by his translation of the Hebrew Bible on which he worked for more than a decade (390/1–404/5). It is exactly the translation that is the reason for his prefaces:11 Jerome needs to defend both, his way of translating respectively revising and of defining the canonical or apocryphal status of the Old Testament books on the basis of the Hebrew canon. The most famous example of the latter is the preface to the Book of Kings (prologus galeatus) from 391 where he defends the Hebrew canon. Beside his commentaries, learned epistles, homilies, philological tools and his De viris illustribus,12 it was the amount of his 16. Jahrhundert,” in Zeitschrift für kirchliche Wissenschaft und kirchliches Leben 10 [1889]: 359– 370). Dibelius appraises the text differently.  8 See O. Wischmeyer, “Der Jakobusbrief,” in “Der Kritisch-exegetische Kommentar” in seiner Geschichte: H. A. W. Meyers KEK von seiner Gründung 1829 bis heute – herausgegeben von Eve-Marie Becker, Friedrich W. Horn und Dietrich-Alex Koch (KEK Sonderband; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 436–453.  9 In contrast, see Walch TR 22, Cap. 59 § 4 (1410). 10 For other prefaces from the ancient church see Maurice E. Schild, Abendländische Bibelvorreden bis zur Lutherbibel (QFRG 39; Heidelberg: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1970), 71–106. 11 Ibid., 13–41 gives an overview over Jerome’s prefaces. 12 Ibid., 61: chapters of de viris illustribus (on Paul, James, Peter, Jude) are to be found among the prefaces of many Vulgate manuscripts.

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prefaces that made a long-lasting impact on the understanding of the Bible right up to that copy or copies of the printed Vulgate Luther used.13 Jerome, anxious to be understood and esteemed by the reading audience of his time, revised the Vetus Latina according to that type of classical respectively neo-classical Latin that he and various persons from his closer circle of educated acquaintances wanted to read. Due to the cultural context of the late Antiquity, the intended audience was a small and a well-educated one. Jerome used to dedicate his prefaces to certain noble persons so that his prefaces to a certain degree worked like letters. We have one particularly high-ranking dedicated document that came to function as one of the Vulgate-prefaces only since the ninth century:14 his epistula 53, a lengthy and artificial writing to noble and wealthy Paulinus of Nola, in which Jerome gives an introduction especially to the Old Testament books and thereby sets the standard for later Biblical interpretation. In addition, Jerome provided his readers with historical, biographical and geographical information about the particular books, their authors and their setting, also adding remarks about the books’ authenticity or apocryphal status – to some degree a forerunner of our “Introductions” today. What Jerome avoided, however, was a theological introduction to the biblical texts. Scholars have catalogued the bulk of prefaces to the particular books of the Vulgate during the middle Ages,15 some of which are authored by Jerome, while others were written by anonymous heretics of the ancient church who pursued their own intentions – intentions that fell into oblivion and were regarded as orthodox during the middle Ages.16 Since the Wiclif Bible and during the wake of humanism and reformation, new own introductions were prepended to the biblical books and their traditional Vulgate-prefaces.17 Even Erasmus in his Greek New Testament from 1516 replaced the Vulgate-prefaces with own Latin prologues.18 These prefaces covered a range of several interrelated purposes: defending 13

We don’t know about the particular edition in which he was educated. See footnote 17. Samuel Berger, Les Préfaces jointes aux livres de la Bible dans les manuscrits de la Vulgata (Paris, Impr. Nationale, 1902). See Schild, Abendländische, 42 n. 1. 15 Schild, Bibelvorreden, 105 points to Fridericus Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblium Medii Aevi, Tom I: Initia Biblica, Apocrypha, Prologi, 2nd ed. (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas), 1981 (1950). Stegmüller counts 842 mediaeval prefaces to the Vulgate. 16 Donatien de Bruyne, Prefaces to the Latin Bible: Introductions by Pierre-Maurice Bogaert and Thomas O’Loughlin (Studia Traditionis Theologiae 19; Turnhout: Brepols, 2015). At the end of the middle Ages, the prefaces were mostly regarded as authored by Jerome. 17 Schild, Bibelvorreden, 111–165, 111–131 about the Wiclif translation and its prefaces. The history of the Wiclif Bible prefaces is complicated. The manuscripts alternate between the rendering of the Vulgate prefaces and the addition of new substitutes. Schild demonstrates that the OT prefaces were left out after the inclusion of the “General Prologue.” For Wiclifs Biblehermeneutics, see Ian Christopher Levy, “John Wiclif. The Hermeneutics,” in Handbuch der Bibelhermeneutiken, ed. O. Wischmeyer (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2016), 255–270. 18 Paraclesis ad lectorem pium, Methodus, Apolgia (apológia of his translation), prefaces to the New Testament books, argumenta. See Jürgen Quack, Evangelische Bibelvorreden von der 14

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the translation into the vernacular in general, the respective translation in particular, arguing against other translations or editions, explaining the right way of reading and of giving historical and linguistic information.19 During the seventeenth and eighteenth century, topics of inner-denominational polemics and of defending the Bible against anti-biblical Enlightenment polemics gave raise to new prefaces.

2. Luther’s Prefaces: Introduction It is here that Luther shows up. Luther’s prefaces ought to be interpreted in connection with the long-standing tradition of Vulgate prefaces as well as with the new prefaces since the Wychlif Bible (1380/1388).20 He was acquainted to study a Bible – whether written or printed – that encompassed different general prefaces and particular ones to single books of the Old and the New Testament. 21 And in a certain way he found himself in the same situation Jerome had been in: he felt that for explaining the reasons for his fresh attempt of translating he should replace the classical prefaces by own ones. So, the Vulgate prefaces were no longer part of Luther’s Bible. But, in his first prefaces to the September-Testament from 1522 and subsequently in the first Old Testament preface from 1523 on the Pentateuch, he neither cared about defending his translation nor about referring to his translational work from the Greek version of Erasmus, but set out for explaining the central message of the Gospel for the ordinary reader. Reflections on his translational work are to be found only in his later prefaces to Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus/Ben Sira.22 During his life-long translational and exegetical work on the Bible, Luther continued to write prefaces, mainly to the Old Testament books, especially in 1532, but also to some NT books: a preface to 1 Corinthians and a second preface to revelation in 1530 and a preface to Acts in 1533.

Reformation bis zur Aufklärung (QFGR XLIII; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus G. Mohn, 1975), 138–165. 19 He also treats the famous catholic prefaces by Emser, Dietenberger and Eck (29–37). Quack’s focus is on the prefaces in German language but includes French Calvinistic prefaces. He does not mention the substantial preface to the King James Bible from 1611. 20 O. Albrecht, “Introduction,” WADB 7 (1931), IX–XLIV, XXXI–XXXIV: overview over Luther’s prefaces. 21 Editions Luther perhaps used: Basel (Froben) and Lyon from 1509 (E. Nestle, WADB 5: XVII ff.; O. Albrecht, WADB 6: 537). Schild, Bibelvorreden, 135, thinks of the Vulgate of Lyon of 1512 (not testified) and points to the various additions of that edition. 22 See Heinz Blancke, “Bibelübersetzungen,” in Luther Handbuch, 3rd ed., ed. A. Beutel (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 298–305.

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Interestingly, in the first sentence of his famous general preface to the New Testament from 1522 Luther admitted that it would be the best to edit the translation without any remark and not in the name of the translator, an idea that if practiced actually would have been some kind of revolution in regard to the long tradition of prefaces.23 But – he continues – a preface is necessary in order to point to the Gospel as to the hermeneutic clue of the New Testament and to make the ordinary reader familiar with this eminent hermeneutical principle. The apologetic and at the same time polemical impact of Luther’s new type of prefaces is not directed against poor translations,24 but it aims at interpreting the whole of the New Testament as the expression of the one euaggelion of Jesus Christ and as a book that is about the good message of salvation which he labels ‘Gospel’. The preface teaches the distinction between Law and Gospel in the sense that NT texts are neither a code of law nor a textbook – this is said against Jerome – but a loud and distinct message about salvation. What Luther intends to give is a hermeneutical gateway to the New Testament as a whole and, in some sense one, could understand his preface as superordinate to the following texts of the New Testament books because it determines the basic rule of how to read and understand the whole collection of books. This perhaps rather unexpected perspective on the September-preface will become more evident when also applied to the second short additional preface from 1522, entitled “Welches die rechten und edelsten Bücher des Neuen Testaments sind” (about the most noble books of the New Testament) – a passage that was not to be reprinted in the editions from the years of 1534 and 1539. The famous as brave as disastrous phrase of the “epistle of straw”25 is part of the argument of this early text in which Luther tries to rank the New Testament books according to the Gospel, and that means to how clear and distinct they show Jesus Christ as savior. We may suggest that Luther removed the second general preface from the later Bible-editions because this kind of ranking may serve as pedagogical instruction and fits better in the context of a catechism than of the theologically based preface to the whole of the New Testament – a New Testament that still included James.26 This observation leads me to the issue of the theological impact of the New Testament prefaces.

23 The first edition of the “Zürcher Bibel” (1530) had no prefaces at all. Prefaces however were added since 1531 (Quack, Bibelvorreden, 60 with footnotes 102 and 103). 24 Elsewhere Luther argued sharply against other German translations. 25 “Darum ist Sankt Jakobs Epistel eine recht stroherne Epistel gegen sie [sc. against the other NT epistles], denn sie doch keine evangelische Art an sich hat” (Martin Luther, Vorreden zur Bibel, 4th ed., ed. Heinrich Bornkamm [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005], 174). 26 Luther did not really alter the canon and it is not the question for James’ canonical status that is in the focus of his preface on James, though scholars often argue in that line.

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3. Luther’s New Testament Prefaces and Their Theology When we compare the hermeneutical approaches to Scripture as introduced by Jerome – the high estimation of the text that launches a lot of philology and translational effort, but also the veneration of the mysteries of the texts and the necessity of allegorical interpretation as well as meditation and a specific kind of conduct of life – with Luther’s approach we will find one main difference:27 Jerome does not teach theology, but Luther does, and I want to spell briefly out what kind of theology is to be found in his NT prefaces by following the argument of the general NT preface. Luther begins with two definitions that are likewise distinctions: (1) the New Testament is a book that contains euaggelion and God’s promise, whilst the Old Testament is the book of law. (2) There is only ONE euaggelion, God’s good news, instead of four euaggelia, though there are four written gospels.28 In what follows Luther points to several basic theological insights that arise from the two definitions. The euaggelion is Christ’s testament for the whole world. It may be preached in a short or a long way, by narrating Jesus’ words and doings or by only reciting the kerygma, the message of his death, resurrection and salvation of the humankind. Accordingly, the way of addressing the audience of the New Testament is, to kindly request or to beg instead of commanding. The short text about the “most noble books of the New Testament” deepens the statement on the kērygma: Luther argues that those books are the best that deal with Christ’s work of salvation, not with his deeds and words. This Christological criterion leads Luther to judging that the Gospel of John is the main gospel and that Paul’s and Peter’s letters rank before the synoptic gospels. Finally, he sharpens the argument by assessing that the Gospel of John and the first Letter of John together with Romans, Galatians, Ephesians and 1 Peter “will show you Christ and teach you all you need for your salvation even if you would not know any other (NT) book or doctrine.” And – this is the final sentence of the general preface – therefore the Epistle of James is an epistle of straw since it lacks evangelic quality. This chain of theological reasoning demonstrates that Luther does not develop a theology of Scripture, but a theology of euaggelion. It is not Scripture that is in the focus of his concern, but the Gospel, the gospel of salvation. The New Testament books are the stores of the message and at the same time the means of communicating salvation. They are stores and containers of the message of 27 Many of Jerome’s themes are to be found elsewhere in Luther, especially in his table-talks where he refers to his monastic style of meditating Scripture and to his love of each text and each single word of Scripture, to his admiration of the Bible etc. The more interesting is that Luther does not mention these approaches to the Bible in the prefaces. 28 The same kind of christologically-based hermeneutics are to be found in Luther’s prefaces to his Kirchenpostille.

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salvation, not object of veneration or meditation or of demonstrating of scholarship and learned erudition. Eventually it is the Spirit and the preaching of God’s word that act as subjects of God’s justification and salvation of the humankind. There is no place for Schrifttheologie in Luther’s hermeneutical concept. In his New Testament prefaces Luther sketches a rather simple and basic theology: it is all about Jesus Christ and God’s ‘good news’. The ‘good news’ does not work as a code of law demanding obedience and works, but what the message needs is faith in the sense of assent that brings forth good works automatically. The only further theological principle is that of continuity between the Old and the New Testament in regard to the great promise of Christ since Adam and Abraham. Luther’s prefaces address the ordinary reader of his time: laymen, neither scholars, theologians, clergymen, clerics, nor monks. It is this intended – and real – audience that sets the agenda and the standards for Luther’s basic theology of the Gospel. Such a kind of theology makes only sense, however, if the New Testament books can be read and understood by everybody. Luther has a firm belief in that not only the Gospel, the euaggelion, is a message that can be easily understood when preached, but that the same is true also for its written shape, for the Bible-book. God’s message is not enshrined in a secret book, full of mysteries a lot of which remain dubious and defy any explanation and essentially can only be interpreted by scholarly experts or even only be venerated,29 but quite the contrary the biblical books are principally open for understanding and are not obscure but as bright as the light. This belief in the theological concept of the claritas Scripturae which is more than the methodological sensus literalis cannot be underestimated: actually, it was the motor and the hub of Luther’s intense and never weakening effort of improving his translation of the Bible. It is grammar, as Luther once said, that opens up Scripture, not a doctrine of a fourfold sense of Scripture. Grammar is the catchword that will take us one step further.

4. Luther’s Prefaces and the Function of Philology The New Testament prefaces make it very clear that the statement of the claritas Scripturae is one of the basic elements of Luther’s Bible-hermeneutics. He trusts in the philological skills that open up the sense of the text: it is the analyzing power of grammar, semantics, rhetoric, and textual argument that enables the reader to get to grips with the message of the text and that finally leads to understanding 29 See Luther’s statement regarding the “sophists who blaspheme Holy Scripture by pretending Scripture to be mysterious and unintelligible so that the fathers had to explain it.” Luther argues in contrast: “But such a kind of explanation is a kind of darkening Scripture.” Walch 22, TR Cap. 57 § 11 (1396 f.).

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and to translation. Both, the Hebrew and the Greek Bible is clear in itself. The Bible addresses everybody and can be understood by everybody. Philology and a good and clear translation are the instruments that make the message of the Bible available for the audience that does not know Hebrew or Greek. The topic of philology, put in short terms grammar, grammatica, is not explicitly addressed in the New Testament prefaces, but is obviously one hermeneutical basis of Luther’s deliberations. If we want to go a bit deeper into the issue of philology and its interrelation to the sensus literalis in Luther’s hermeneutics it is necessary to consider also situational texts from his table talks where he has conversations with learned theologians, not only with the audience of his services. I will give you only some examples. Luther says: Meine beste und erste Kunst ist, die Schrift im einfachen Sinn zu übersetzen/weiterzugeben (tradere); denn der Wortsinn (literalis sensus), der thut’s, da ist Leben, da ist Kraft, Lehre und Kunst innen. (“My first and best skill is to translate Scripture in a basic and simple way, since it is the sensus literalis that works and in which is power, instruction and knowledge”).30

And also very brief: Aber St. Augustinus hat eine Regel gegeben, quod Figura et Allegoria nihil probet, sed Historia, Verba et Grammatica, die thun’s. Figura die thut nichts überall. (“St. Augustin established the rule: figura and allegory don’t hold true. History, words, and grammar: they work, allegory does not”).31

My third quotation is somewhat longer and an example of that pointed and salted irony Luther often uses in his conversation: Es ist eine Gottlosigkeit, was … die Sophisten und einige von den Vätern für Frömmigkeit [in der Bibelauslegung] ausgegeben haben. [Sie lehren einen vierfachen Schriftsinn für alle biblischen Sätze: den einfachen Buchstabensinn sowie die christologische, moralische und eschatologische Bedeutung eines Satzes]: Der Buchstab lehrt, was geschehen ist, Allegorie (Übertragung), was zu glauben ist. Moralis lehrt, was man soll thun, Anagogie, wo es hinaus soll nun … Wenn ich von der Medicin so (allegorisch) reden wollte …, so würde ich sagen in Bezug auf den ersten Gedanken …, Medicin sei, daß das Fieber durch Rhabarber curiert werde; in Bezug auf den zweiten, das Fieber sei die Sünde, der Rhabarber Jesus Christus; in Bezug auf den dritten, das Fieber seien die Laster und der Rhabarber die Tugenden; in Bezug auf den vierten Gedanken, das Fieber sei die Verdammnis; die Auferstehung aber der Rhabarber.32 30

Walch 22 TR Cap. 52 § 8 (Sp. 1344). Walch 22 TR Cap. 52 § 9 (Sp. 1345). 32 Walch 22 TR 52 Cap. § 5 (Sp. 1341). 31

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(“It is a kind of godlessness what has been masqueraded as piety by the sophists and several of the fathers. They teach a fourfold sense of Scripture for each biblical sentence: the simple sensus literalis as well as the Christological, moral and eschatological sense of a sentence.”)

Luther quotes the famous verse of the four sensus and continues his critical deliberation by giving a rather absurd and offending example: (“If I would talk about a sentence from the field of medicine – for example if I would say: rhubarb is able to cure fever – in this fourfold allegorical way I would say in regard to the first sense: fever is cured by the medicine of rhubarb. The second sense would be: the fever is the sin, and the rhubarb is Jesus Christ. The third sense would be: the fever is the multitude of vices, and the rhubarb the multitude of virtues. The fourth sense would be: the fever is the perdition, and the rhubarb the resurrection.”)

What Luther wants to say here is: there is no specific ambiguity in the language of the New Testament and accordingly no need of a specific way of understanding and interpreting biblical sentences and texts. Words and sentences signify the same in the New Testament and in common discourse. Biblical interpretation does not need or generate particular interpretative methods, but in contrast underlies the same linguistic rules as sentences and texts from each academic discipline (artes) may it be medicine, philosophy or any other ars. The quotation also demonstrates that no special sensus allegoricus sive Christologicus is needed for the interpretation of the NT texts. Luther’s general Christological approach of New Testament hermeneutics is not the application of a sensus allegoricus respectively of a Christological sensus to single words and sentences of NT texts, but a theological judgement, based on an overall reading of the New Testament, combined with grammar: primo grammatica videamus, verum ea Theologica.33

5. The Case of the Letter of James34 5.1 Luther’s Assessment on James In his Epist. 53 that was addressed to Paulinus of Nola and since the nineth century served also as Vulgate preface Jerome claimed: “The apostles James, 33 WA 5, 27.8 (Operationes in Psalmos 1519–1521). See Stefan Felber, “‘Hoc est in Christo ad literam factum’ – realistische Schriftauslegung bei Luther,” in Auslegung und Hermeneutik der Bibel in der Reformationszeit, ed. Ch. Christ-von Wedel and S. Grosse (Historia Hermeneutica. Series Studia 14; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 69–110. 34 F. Mussner, Der Jakobusbrief (HThK XIII/1; Freiburg: Herder, 1964), 42–47: M. Luthers Urteil über den Jakobusbrief (Mussner collects Luther’s important statements on James). See also Dibelius, Jakobus, 80, n. 3 and 4. Among a multitude of contributions to the Theme “Luther and the Letter of James,” I point to J. D. Lane, “Luther’s Criticism of James as a Key to His Biblical Hermeneutic,” in Auslegung und Hermeneutik der Bibel in der Reformationszeit, ed. Ch. Christ-von Wedel and S. Grosse (Historia Hermeneutica. Series Studia 14; Berlin: de Gruyter,

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Peter, John and Jude wrote seven brief, but mysterious letters to the churches, letters that are likewise brief and long, brief in language and rich in substance. There will not be many readers who will not be puzzled at reading.”35 Luther’s theological observations on James in his preface from 1522 are very different.36 He counter-argues: (1) the letter does not teach Abraham’s justification sola fide but teaches his justification by works which is clearly against 1 Moses 15:6,37 (2) the letter does not teach about Jesus Christ, but only about God.38 These are the main reproaches which lead Luther to his verdict that the Letter of James “is not written by an apostle” which is a theological, not a historical statement. And the first observation is clearly part of Luther’s high estimation of Paul and of his interpreting Paul from the perspective of justification by faith, while the second observation is clearly drawn from the text. Besides, Luther annotates various stylistic and historical observations the importance of which has often been disregarded. According to Luther, the letter is concerned only with law and works, it lacks a clear disposition and Galatians and 1 Peter are quoted by “James” which means that the epistle must have been written later than these letters because the apostle James  – Luther thinks of Iacobus maior – was brought to death prior to Paul and Peter. The most important reproach, however, is the author’s lack of theological insight: “He did not have enough intelligence and linguistic power … and tries to achieve by law what the apostles achieved by love.” In sum: Luther stands aloof from the Epistle of James, but at least to a certain degree shows understanding for different appraisals because of the many good sentences in the text. The letter is not omitted but put unnumbered at the end of the “Wittenberg New Testament” – “my Bible”, as Luther says – together with Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation. From an exegetical perspective particular attention should be given to Luther’s observation on the lack of structure and of style39 and to the sentence on the authorship of James: “I think that he was a good and devout man who remembered some of the sayings of the disciples of the apostles and wrote them down. 2017), 111–124. Lane gives a kind of apology of Luther’s interpretation of James, but not from an exegetical perspective as it is done in my contribution. 35 Jerome, Epist. 53.9. 36 WADB 7:1–478 (the printed text of the translation of the New Testament, second part [1522/1546]), Vorrede auf die Epistel S. Jakobi und Judas 384–387 (versions of 1522 and 1546, some revisions and mitigations in the version of 1546). 37 Luther writes: “James’ mistake lies in applying 1 Moses 15 to works instead of faith.” 38 Luther writes: “He mentions Christ several times, but without teaching about him.” 39 WA 2:425/10ff (Resolutiones Lutheraniae super propositionibus suis Lipsiae disputatis von 1519): stilus epistulae illius longe est infra Apostolicam maiestatem nec cum Paulino ullo modo comparandus. Luther’s judgement is probably influenced by Erasmus who criticizes James’ style (“it lacks apostolic majesty and dignity”), see Johannes Leipoldt, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons. Zweiter Teil. Mittelalter und Neuzeit (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1908), 15. See also WATR 5:157: Luther mocks at 2:26. James makes the mistake to compare the belief with the body and the works with the soul – instead of doing the rather opposite.

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Maybe another man wrote down what ‘this James’ had preached.” Elsewhere he suggests that the author “was a Jew who had only some vague knowledge of Christ and had heard that the Christians pushed for the belief in Christ so that he in contrast decided to pursue the opera.”40 What we find here is the spirit of freedom from mere veneration of a canonical text and of a fine grasp of what a text is about. 5.2 Luther and Dibelius Eventually, let us compare Luther’s position with the commentary of Martin Dibelius from 1919, the first and leading historical-critical commentary on James which remained in force until the magisterial commentary of Dale Allison.41 Dibelius states that there is a lack of structure (gedanklicher Zusammenhang) and of argument in James, caused by the traditional paraenetic materials the author collected.42 The eminent role of the literary category of the sayings in Dibelius’ commentary is well known and the same is true for the issue of authorship. Dibelius speaks of the author as of “an unknown person among the many”, i. e. of a person with a low intellectual and literary profile. Though these statements are astonishingly close to Luther’s remarks Dibelius does not recognize any affinity to Luther, but in contrast harshly rejects any affiliation: “Especially historical criticism has to beware of any kind of becoming influenced by Luther’s fundamentally religious criticism of the apostolic status of James.” Anxiety of the liberal theologian Dibelius to be accused of “Lutherism” rules out his philological perception. I think I have demonstrated that in this point Dibelius is simply mistaken. By his rejection of Luther’s philological observations, he pins down Luther to the theological – Dibelius says religious – competence without acknowledging Luther’s philological qualities. Thereby he blocks the path of fair recognition of Luther as a philologist. Unfortunately, Dibelius’ belief in that the historicalcritical perspective was only an achievement of the nineteenth century and had to be defended painstakingly by his own commentary hindered him – a great philologist himself – to detect Luther as the philologist he was. Dibelius was also not able to understand that it was exactly Luther’s Christological reading of the New Testament that admitted Luther to observe certain peculiarities regarding style, argument and authorship already 400 years prior to Dibelius himself. So, Dibelius remained trapped in his liberal theology and its ideology of historical progress.

40

WATR 5:157. See Dale C. Allison, James. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary (ICC; London/New York, 2013). 42 Dibelius, Jakobusbrief, 14. 41

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In sum, Luther’s preface to the Letter of James is to be read in the context of the introductory preface to the New Testament that opens up a distinction between Christological texts on the one hand and such texts that lack the message of the euaggelion and the justification by faith on the other. According to Luther, the non-Christological texts can be read without any kind of Christological application by only using grammar, and he is as far from excluding and eliminating those texts from the canon as he avoids burdening these texts with a message they don’t have.

Bibliography Allison, Dale C. James. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary. ICC. London/New York: T&T Clark, 2013. Armbruster, Jörg. Luthers Bibelvorreden: Studien zu ihrer Theologie. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2016. Assaël, Jacqueline and Élian Cuvillier. L’Épître de Jacques. CNT XIIIa Deuxième Série. Genève: Labor et Fides, 2013. Batten, Alicia J. “Early Anabaptist Interpretation of the Letter of James.” Annali di storia dell’esegesi 34.2 (2017): 537–551. Berger, Samuel. Les Préfaces jointes aux livres de la Bible dans les manuscrits de la Vulgata. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1902. Beutel, A. “Theologie als Schriftauslegung.” Pages 493–499 in Luther Handbuch. 3rd ed. Edited by A. Beutel. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. –., ed. Luther Handbuch. 3rd ed. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Blancke, Heinz. “Bibelübersetzungen.” Pages 298–305 in Luther Handbuch. 3rd ed. Edited by A. Beutel. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Dibelius, Martin. Der Brief des Jakobus. 12th ed. KEK 15. Göttingen, 1984. de Bruyne, Donatien. Prefaces to the Latin Bible: Introductions by Pierre-Maurice Bogaert and Thomas O’Loughlin. Studia Traditionis Theologiae 19. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. Felber, Stefan. “‘Hoc est in Christo ad literam factum’ – realistische Schriftauslegung bei Luther.” Pages 69–110 in Auslegung und Hermeneutik der Bibel in der Reformationszeit. Edited by Ch. Christ-von Wedel and S. Grosse. Historia Hermeneutica. Series Studia 14. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. George, Timothy. “‘A Right Strawy Epistle’: Reformation Perspectives on James.” RevExp 83 (1986): 369–382. Hermle, Siefried. “Luther, Martin (AT).” WiBiLex. http://www.bibelwissenschaft.de/ stichwort/25188/. Holtzmann, Julius. Historisch-kritische Einleitung in das Neue Testament. Freiburg, 1885. Kaufmann, Thomas. “Luthers Bibelhermeneutik anhand seiner Vorrede auf das Neue Testament und De servo arbitrio.” Pages 313–322 in Handbuch der Bibelhermeneutiken. Edited by O. Wischmeyer. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2016. Kawerau, Gustav. “Die Schicksale des Jakobusbriefes im 16. Jahrhundert.” Zeitschrift für kirchliche Wissenschaft und kirchliches Leben 10 (1889): 359–370.

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Lane, J. D. “Luther’s Criticism of James as a Key to His Biblical Hermeneutic.” Pages 111–124 in Auslegung und Hermeneutik der Bibel in der Reformationszeit. Edited by Ch. Christ-von Wedel and S. Grosse. Historia Hermeneutica. Series Studia 14. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. Leipoldt, Johannes. Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons. Zweiter Teil. Mittelalter und Neuzeit. 2 Vols. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1907/1908. Levy, Ian Christopher. “John Wiclif. The Hermeneutics.” Pages 255–270 in Handbuch der Bibelhermeneutiken. Edited by O. Wischmeyer. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2016. Luther, Martin. Vorreden zur Bibel. 4th ed. Edited by Heinrich Bornkamm. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005. McNutt, Jennifer Powell. “James, ‘The Book of Straw,’ in Reformation Biblical Exegesis: A Comparison of Luther & the Radicals.” Pages 157–176 in Reconsidering the Relationship between Biblical and Systematic Theology in the New Testament: Essays by Theologians and New Testament Scholars. Edited by B. E. Reynolds, B. Lugioyo, and K. J. Vanhoozer. WUNT 2/369. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Mussner, F. Der Jakobusbrief. HThK XIII/1. Freiburg: Herder, 1964. Quack, Jürgen. Evangelische Bibelvorreden von der Reformation bis zur Aufklärung. QFGR 43. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus G. Mohn, 1975, Schild, Maurice E. Abendländische Bibelvorreden bis zur Lutherbibel. QFRG 39. Heidelberg: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1970. Schwarz, Reinhard. Martin Luther: Lehrer der christlichen Religion. 2nd ed. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. Stegmüller, Fridericus. Repertorium Biblium Medii Aevi, Tom I: Initia Biblica, Apocrypha, Prologi. 2nd ed. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas. 1981 (1950). Wischmeyer, Oda. “Sola scriptura, claritas scripturae und sacra scriptura sui ipsius interpres. Exegetische Überlegungen aus exegetischer und hermeneutischer Sicht.” ZNT 20.39/40 (2017): 229–242. –. “Der Jakobusbrief.” Pages 436–453 in “Der Kritisch-exegetische Kommentar” in seiner Geschichte: H. A. W. Meyers KEK von seiner Gründung 1829 bis heute – herausgegeben von Eve-Marie Becker, Friedrich W. Horn und Dietrich-Alex Koch. KEK Sonderband. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018.

Behind the Bible in the Reformation Luther and Biblical Revelation Mark W. Elliot

This contribution will attempt to illustrate how the combination of an interest in textual scholarship, a theory of interpretation as application and a strong Wordmysticism combined in Luther to be a redoubtable synthetic cord with which he could beat his opponents, including the devil. How did Luther stand over against the tradition of interpretation he was heir to? How much did he demand more from the texts than, say Erasmus? And without enquiring too hard as to its provenance, what was this Word of God rheology that seemed to be foundational for so much of what he thought, taught and did.

1. Approaching the Biblical Text for Spiritual Profit Some sort of theological exegesis could be said the late medieval norm, which meant that an Old Testament and New Testament read together wisely could allow for sufficient “spiritual interpretation,” without anything further1. Knowing the NT gave the OT a fuller meaning as one read it, as at Isa 48:16 (ex tempore antequam fieret ibi eram/et nunc Dominus misit me et spiritus eius). Although this verse is more likely to have been the prophet’s making a claim to authority for his oracles, it struck readers as mysterious enough to admit of full Trinitarian meaning. This accords with what Christopher Ocker has said in more general terms: “We should consider the ambition to abstract ideas from narrative as a predominant feature of late medieval scholarship (over against, for example, the historical ambition to reconstruct the past.”2 There is also an assumption that 1 Christopher Ocker, Biblical Poetics Before Humanism and Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 2 Ibid., 41. Also, Christopher Ocker and Kevin Madigan, “After Beryl Smalley: Thirty Years of Medieval Exegesis, 1984–2013,” Journal of the Bible and Its Reception 2.1 (2015): 87–130. Kevin Madigan, “Can Precritical Biblical Interpretation Cure the Ills of the Critical?” in Rethinking the Medieval Legacy for Contemporary Theology, ed. A. K. Min (Notre Dame: University Notre Dame Press, 2014), 71–90.

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the key terms in the bible (Vulgate) mean the same thing as they do in scholastic theology. So, there was a double “reading back into” the Old Testament, from the New Testament and Christian doctrine. There was no doubting the bible’s authority at any point. In the later Middle Ages one did not ask questions of the bible. What one did find in biblical study of that time are distinctiones – which are like short theological points to be made from a passage or a psalm. This allows the “empirical” knowledge from data of texts to be accepted from on high and turned into pointed, propositional theology. Yet the first step in this was to approach the bible in a receptive and indeed a meditative way. As Gilbert Dahan summed it up: “La théologie ira de l’homme à Dieu, l’exégèse biblique va de Dieu à l’homme.”3 Indeed Etienne (later, Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury) Langton saw biblical wisdom to be like manna from heaven. According to Lesley Smith, at the end of the Middle Ages Luther wiped the sacred page clean, cutting through and excising the accretions of marginal and interlinear explanatory notes. Yet for all his radical newness he himself was reliant on Nicholas of Lyra (d.1349) in terms of the “double literal sense”: first, what the words plainly mean, then, second their meaning according to their spiritual Christian sense.4 For Lyra, the Bible was too important to be regarded as a book, some merely historical artefact. The historical plain sense had to be established so as not to deflect the course of salvation history and its significance, but one had then to read theology on that foundation. What Franz van Liere observes about Nicholas of Lyra is apposite here: In his Postilla on Isaiah, even Nicholas of Lyra frowned on Andrew’s judaizing tendencies [on Is 53.1; cf Hugh of St V De emmanuele] In Nicholas’ view, Jewish exegetes were often mistaken about the literal sense of Scripture, since they were unable to see how Scripture alluded to the coming of Christ, deluded as they were by their own Talmudic exegetical tradition. Nicholas quoted the Targum Jonathan to show that, if only the Jews would understand their own exegetical tradition in the right way, they would see that the Messiah had already come in the person of Christ.

In other words with Jesus and the New Testament salvation-history has moved on, from promise to the goal of fulfilment. To be historical means to take the New Testament seriously as the account of the real action. And the OT as it points towards Christ is not the law but is itself the new covenant in promise mode. So much of the OT was history as prophecy. That history and the prophecy spoke still “today.” Luther famously inveighed against the four-fold sense, which gave opportunities to those with too much philosophy and too much imagination to make 3 Gilbert Dahan, L’Exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident medieval (Paris: Cerf, 1999), 446. 4 Lesley Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, The Making of a Medieval Bible Commentary (Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2009), 239.

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Scripture say what they liked and drift from the anchor of the revelation in Christ once for all. However, for Luther the “Lyran” two-fold sense was fine,5 and Augustine (in De Spiritu et littera) had reinforced Paul on that very matter (see Luther’s Vorrede zu Band 1. Lateinischen Schriften 1545; WA 54, 185–186). Under Augustine’s influence Luther gave it a horizontal, heilsgeschichtlich turn. Yet the “superiority of pre-critical exegesis” means more the Origenian meaning of 2 Cor 3:6, i. e. that the spirit means nothing other than the deeper theological meaning underneath the text’s literal sense. Whereas the Augustinian way, as the saintly bishop himself made clear, was to view the distinction between letter and spirit as one distinction between law and gospel, between demand and grace. The letter kills because it demands an obedience of the sinner that the sinner is powerless to render.6 Coming from the Augustinian starting-place Luther then adapted the fourfold sense of medieval exegesis in order to talk about the tropology of God and the anagogy of God, according to which judgement was both iustitia for the saved (anagogy) and iudicium for the damned (tropology). Like most medievals Luther let the bible speak more in its own terms in address to the hearer. Hence, as already mentioned, no quaestiones were to be put to it directly as the object of its questioning,7 and for the same reason he did not much like hermeneutical rules: “One starts with the letter and works on the form of the language, but the one prays for God to reveal the truth–which is a kind of engagement, an experience of meaning.”8 Perhaps inconsistently, Luther often used allegory in spite of his untiring warning, “Beware of allegories.” (Lectures on Isaiah: WA 31/2, 243:20), or his famous “Der Literalsinn, der tut’s, da ist Leben, Trost, Kraft, Lehre und Kunst drin. Das andere ist Narrenwerk, auch wenn es hoch glänzt” (Tischreden WA 5, 45, 10–17). How is this possible? Well, he considered allegory permissible if used according to the “analogy of faith” and directed to a goal which was clearly and unequivocally determined by the literal sense of other Scripture passages.9 “That one should not plow with both an ox and an ass together” (Deut 22:10) meant one should not teach both faith and works at the same time. This was in 1525 and after that he used such symbolic interpretation less (See WA 14, 561:20, on Deuteronomy). And in any case that is to use an allegory already patent in the biblical text. “Modified allegorizing” is probably the best description of Luther’s 5 Karlfried Froehlich, Sensing the Scriptures. Aminadab’s Chariot and the Predicament of Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 25. 6 See David C. Steinmetz, “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis,” Theology Today 37 (1980): 27–38. 7 Sed primo grammatica videamus, verum ea theologica (WA 5, 27). 8 Froehlich, Sensing 26; with reference to “infinite understandings” and other possibilities in Luther’s Scholae in Ps.118; WA 4:318:36–9. The parallel with Gadamer’s Wahrheit und Methode (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1960), e. g. at p. 170, is worth considering. 9 Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther and the Old Testament, ed. Victor I. Gruhn, trans. Eric W. and Ruth C. Gritsch (Mifflintown: Sigler Press, 1997), 92.

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approach, and the fourfold schema shines through at points.10 The warning in the work on Isaiah is a maturer reflection than is the practice in 1525, and it seems that Luther felt that allegory, where it encouraged an interpretation that gave priority to spiritual ascent (with detachment from “the real world”) and to the pretensions of the highest part of the soul, the synderesis, that stood closest to God, was at best redundant, at worst dangerous, as well as encouraging speculative doctrines. Karlfried Froehlich concludes that this is not a double literal sense as per Lyra, but that for Luther the literal and spiritual merge; yet it seems to be more and more that the literal is also the spiritual. Indeed Luther kept within the terminology of medieval exegesis, but he added in doctrinal content to the discussion of key words in the texts.11 He was no less concerned with the tropological sense than were medieval interpreters.12 For it was “the primary sense,” although to be combined with the “existenzbezogenchristologisch” sense, so as to become about life that included ethics, but was not restricted to the moral, what one might call “tropological actualization.”13 It is this sense of faith that makes all other understanding truly possible. The centre was “Christ and kingdom” leading to an “evangeliozentrischer Auslegung der Schrift” (as understood by Siegfried Raeder and Bernhard Lohse). In other words, true faith is to live in/by Christ, and that is true humility. Now this is somewhat different from the “upwards” vision encouraged by a “Dionysian” reading in the East, or an upward while also temporal journey since Cassian in the West.14 Luther’s translations were usually directed by his theological interests (as claimed by I. Nöther, and Bernhard Lohse). Albert Freitag and Heinz Bluhm highlight that the Christmas Postil (Weihnachtspostille  – sermons on newly translated Gospel texts) was produced just prior to the Septembertestament NT

10 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Reformation of the Bible, the Bible of the Reformation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 33. 11 Henning Graf Reventlow, Epochen der Bibelauslegung III: Renaissance, Reformation, Humanismus (München: C. H. Beck, 1997), 81: “Luther bewegt sich noch in den formalen Bahnen der ihm vorgegebenen Hermeneutik, wie dem Schema vom vierfachen Schriftsinn und, durch Lefèvre angeregt, vom doppelten Wortsinn. Die traditionelle Methode einer eng am Text entlanggehenden, die Begriffe und Wendungen einzeln auslegenden Deutung veranlaßt ihn außerdem, seine Erklärungen in an den jeweiligen Wortlaut angelehnten Formulierungen zu bringen, nicht selten mit Hilfe von Allegorisieren. Dabei leitet ihn eine eindeutige inhaltliche Vorgabe …”; cf. Birgit Stolt: “der Bibelübersetzer Luther ist stets an erster Stelle der verantwortliche Theologe,” from her “Luthers Übersetzungstheorie und Übersetzungspraxis,” in Leben und Werk Martin Luthers von 1526 bis 1546: Festgabe zu seinem 500. Geburtstag, ed. H. Junghaus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), I, 242. 12 See Froehlich, Sensing, 81 re. Luther, Scholae in Ps 76; (WA 3:531:33–35). 13 As coined by Gerhard Ebeling, “Die Anfänge von Luthers Hermeneutik,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 48 (1951): 172–230. 14 Froehlich, “Sensing,” 101. The issue between Froehlich and Denys Turner needs resolving as to how the Dionysian tradition evolved.

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translation.15 In it the recurring theme is that the New Testament provided a theological “entelechy” to the OT. The overarching theme of the message is to trust, as a people caught up in an ongoing salvation-history, not to give way to some blind yearning.16 That “Christ and his kingdom” includes OT saints is of prime significance. One moves from shadow to promise, as James L. Preuss titled his book.17

2. A Theology of Faithful and Experienced Theologian In his preface to the 1545 edition of his Latin works Luther wrote concerning his life back in 1518: In this year … I hated the word righteoussness of God because understood it as the active righteouenseess that God has when he punishes sinners and unrighteous. ..I realised that through the gospel righteousness of God that is the passive sort, through which through faith God justifies/makes righteousness … These words were like the gate to Paradise.

Yet we should consider the context of what he wrote a few paragraphs above this: Meanwhile in this year I had returned to the Psalms to interpret them again, and then the letters of Paul.

But which year is meant? Perhaps, with E.Bizer one may discern a change in 1515, when he returned to the Psalms, and not as late as 1519. Emmanuel Hirsch saw the change as much later, since 1525’s The Bondage of the Will is the first time that the term iustitia passiva really came into play. Whoever is right, one might best speak of “development” (O. H. Pesch) than “breakthrough” as appropriate to Luther’s theological course, even while “breakthrough” seems to have suited the content of his theology.18 Volker Leppin argues that what Luther did experience in 1518, as reported in a letter to Staupitz, was a new understanding of penance, one that was no longer bitter but sweet: “Dieses dein Wort haftete in mir ‘wie der scharfe Pfeil eines Starken’ (Ps 120:4).” It would seem that the question of when it first happened less important than what happened and went on happening, with penance not a “once and for all” event. So Luther thought in terms of a continuing breakthrough of the Word into his life, or “breakthrough” in the

15 15 Albert Freitag, Die Urschrift der Lutherbibel als Dokument für Luthers Benutzung der deutschen Bibel des Mittelalters (Oktav: 1929), 216–237. Heinz Bluhm, Martin Luther, Creative Translator (St. Louis: Concordia, 1965). 16 Froehlich, “Sensing,” 109, who dates the Song of Songs Commentary as late as 1539. 17 James Samuel Preuss, From Shadow to Promise. Old Testament Interpretation from Augustine to the Young Luther (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959). 18 Volker Leppin, Martin Luther (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2017), 111.

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sense of a chaging-point in his career, which he interpreted as a new experience of righteousness, when looking back in 1545.19 Luther believed that the Word of God was equally to be expressed in any language. Luther dissociated himself from Reuchlin and Johann Forster (and Augustine and Jerome) by his not valuing Hebrew as a “sacred language.”20 Instead, the Hebrew or Greek text was some sort of impression that the invisible Word created, and its shapes are to give us help in the re-shaping of our language. For example, coram comes from the Hebraism vor den Angesicht and was to play a large part in Luther’s theology, but it is not the Hebrew lpne that has exclusive rights to the “word” qua message, meaning that coram might convey a fuller sense of meaning.21 Although not an Ockhamist in matters of human contribution to salvation, Luther was a nominalist. Luther’s being formed by an Ockhamist theology and philosophy is “beyond dispute.”22 In his day Ockham had challenged Aristotelianism and had warned that theology had to be careful about using philosophical categories: “original sin” was less a substantial defect than it was a “something” in the mind of God, and grace was “merely” the removing of such a disposition towards the sinner. But for Luther, what made a difference was God’s change of mind with regard to a sinner and faith was a human being’s knowing this as revelation. “Doctrine directs us and shows the way to heaven.. We can be saved without love..but not without pure doctrine and faith” (Luther Works 27:41 on Galatians 5). The Bible tells us something different about God in his favourable Word-decision, not about humanity. Luther’s was a spirituality cum theology that made faith the centre of his theology (Hamm; Moeller), a concern which Melanchthon would defend, even as Luther followed Melanchthon in abandoning the Augustinian concept of grace. (Melanchthon would go further and in his 1532 Romans commentary he abandoned anything that 19 See here, Anne-Helene Kratzert, “… dass das ganze Leben Buße sei.” Fundamentaltheologische Überlegungen zu einer praktischen Theologie evangelischer Buße (ASTh 7; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2014). 20 S. Raeder, “Luther als Ausleger und Übersetzer der Heiligen Schrift” in Leben und Werk Martin Luthers von 1526 bis 1546, ed. H. Junghans (Berlin: Evangelische Verlaganstalt, 1983), 253–278, p. 277: “Luther teilte die Einschätzung des Hebräischen als heilige Ursprache der Menschheit nicht. Nicht die Sprache hatte für ihn die Qualität der Heiligkeit, sondern das Wort Gottes. Das Wort ist es, welches die Sprache heiligt. So ist auch die deutsche Sprache als Gefäß des Wortes Gottes durch die Übersetzung der Bibel geheiligt. Dieses neue Verständnis von der Heiligung der Sprache durch das Wort Gottes macht Luthers Freiheit im Dolmetschen, die sogar auf manche seiner Anhänger erschreckend wirkte, erst ganz verständlich.” 21 See Reventlow, Epochen der Bibelauslegung, Bd. II, 74. 22 Bernhard Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 118. We might do well to refrain from using “Ockhamism” pejoratively. In the late Middle Ages, Revelation was viewed as grounding reason: only with the former can the latter function to gain true knowledge. There was actually a relativising of Philosophy (See Eilert Herms, “Offenbarung V,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 25, ed. G. Müller, et al. [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995], 162).

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sounded like moral transformation in “justification”). Justification was now seen to include the totally free gift of faith which justifies.23 And faith is something eidetic, epistemological corresponding to the Word from the Mind of God; it is not ontological, let alone ontic. As Luther’s mentor Staupitz put it, in his Libellus de executione aeternae predestinationis: Die Rechtfertigung, sage ich, durch die die Übertretung in den wahren Gehorsam Gottes zurückgebracht wird. Das geschieht dann, wenn durch die Gnade Gottes seine Augen wieder geöffnet werden, auf dass er durch den Glauben den wahren Gott erkenne, sein Herz entflammt werde, auf dass Gott ihm wohl gefalle (“Justification, through which the trespassing is brought back into the true obedience of God. This happens then, when one’s eyes are re-opened through God’s grace in which one recognises the true God through faith, one’s heart becomes enflamed in that God is well disposed to him”).24 This was something supernatural and noetic as opposed to the “can do” of Aristotelian theology. It was not so much “how shall I find a gracious God?” as “how shall I find the true and effective God?”25 According to Jörg Lauster, Luther was the first to move from the medieval commonplace of Scripture as the authority among others (councils, Popes, etc.) to Scripture as principle, that from which all theology must be derived and itself without derivation.26 This became apparent against Eck at Leipzig in summer 1519. It works indirectly, first by the Word in and through Scripture creating faith, which then in turn can formulate doctrine. So in some way this is an experiential theology but only in a passive sense, with faith as mo more than a material cause. Scripture only gets its authority when Christ is understood as authority. Scripture has clarity in that it is self-interpreting.

23 On this, see John Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015). Also, Stephen Chester, Reading Paul with the Reformers: Reconciling Old and New Perspectives (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017) and my review in Renaissance and Reformation Review 20 (2018): 82–88. 24 J. Staupitz, Sämtliche Schriften Spätmittelalter und Reformation: Texte und Untersuchungen (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1979), II, 110–112. 25 All words in Christ receive a new meaning: concrete and not abstract, speculative (cf. Oswald Bayer, Theologie, 125) in His Disputatio de divintate et humanitae (1540) on Jn 1:1 (WA 39 II, 105, 4–5: “Creatura est in veteri lingua id quod creator creavit et a se separavit, sed haec significatio non habet locum in creatura Christo … Nos tamen non tantum facimus proportionem, sed unitatem finiti et infiniti.” (112, 119) This was not to hold to a double truth, that something could be true in philosophy and false in theology and vice versa. No, the same God operates even in the political world and in creation in general all things work with the godly for the good, even the devil, death and hell. But hence it does not occur that there is truth both in theology and in philosophy, but they will remain in different species and things (WA 39 I, I, 15: “omnes creaturae sunt pro Christo, ut sol, luna, et non contra Christum, quia omnia cooperantur piis in bonum, etiam ipse diabolus, mors, infernus. Sed inde tamen nondum fit verum et in theologia et philosophica, sed manebunt diversa specie et re”). 26 Jörg Lauster, Prinzip und Methode: die Transformation des protestantischen Schriftprinzips durch die historische Kritik von Schleiermacher bis zur Gegenwart (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004).

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The whole point is that Luther wanted a biblical theology, or in Heiko Oberman’s words: According to Luther (WAT 5 no 6419; 653, 118) – the Occamists say there is no such thing as “humanity,” just the term; but this means we must be even more accurate in our use of terms: the biblical hoc facite does NOT mean sacrifacite…. The only way he could get to the core of the New Testament was by cutting through the historico-philosophical and -legal tradition that had for centuries been linked with the Latin “spiritus”, “virtus,” or “poenitentia.”27

The Scriptures tell one what has to be known, and so they speak minimally about God, divine knowledge and e. g., what God cannot know. So in a certain sense the renewal of concepts and the reforming of definitions regarding soteriology is what the Reformation was about, more than just the attempt to get the clergy to be more conscientious and basically moral, or the State to back a national form of religion. Of course re-defintions had already taken place, but not so much in doctrine that directly impinged on the Christian life of salvation. This was doctrine for experience. Lorenzo Valla, in a tone that was premonitory of the Wittenberg humanism, had believed that the Greek and Latin terms had unfortunately changed in meaning through being modelled on the Aristotelian vocabulary. There was a need for new bible translation just as there was a rejection of Aristotelian concepts of “being” for defining divine substance. So it occurred to Melanchthon to add “scripture alone” to the two principles of “Christ alone” and “by grace alone.” Yet for Luther, again, the theological significance of Scripture was that of the Word of God behind Scripture, that awakes faith and feeds and finally mediates even Christ.” “Was macht die Bibel zur Heiligen Schrift?”28 if not the Word, and it might well be argued that Scripture is the Materialprinzip not just Formalprinzip (Materialprinzip was claimed for “sola fide” by August Twesten in 1826), in that the words of the bible are products of that material principle of faith and are the means of divine nourishment. Yet it was also formal, for without it, could there be faith for justification, and could “Christ” have meaning? 27 H. Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 170. Cf. Duns Scotus, Ordinatio I, 123 Ad tertium 1, Origenes in homilia De arca Noe: «In Scriptura super hoc opportunum videtur habitum silentium, de quo sufficienter consequentiae ipsius ratio doceret» 2a. Unde multae veritates necessariae non exprimuntur in sacra Scriptura, etsi ibi virtualiter contineantur, sicut conclusiones in principiis; circa quarum investigationem utilis fuit labor doctorum et expositorum. (To the third, 1 Origen in his homily On the Ark of Noah [says]: “In Scripture on this (point) there seems opportune the silence had, which the reason for what would follow afterwards would sufficiently bring out” 2a.Whence many necessary truths are not expressed in Sacred Scripture, even if they are virtually contained there, as conclusions in principles; in [circa] the investigation of which the labor of the doctors and expositors was useful). Here there is less about tradition in its own right and more about scripture as source of theology. 28 O. Bayer, Martin Luthers Theologie (2nd ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 62.

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There was something more existential-mystical about reading Scripture for Luther than for Valla or Melanchthon for that matter. Sola fide means a faith looking to Christ with the presence of Christ as a gift: already this “near grace” was a topos in the late Middle Ages.29 He is now to be found in the crib of Scripture: “the bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid” (WA X, I, 576, l12f ). In this rediscovery of immediate access to the bible, it was as if the bible was sending out “revelation” afresh. Luther did not define the concept of faith “narrowly,” as an the accepting of Christian doctrine, since true faith in Christ (not “about” Christ) is the unconditional trust in God and in Christ who justifies us. At some point during his lectures to students on the Psalms (1514–15) and its “literal prophetic sense” Luther seems to have become aware of a way of salvation that was somehow different from that assumed in the late medieval period. For the Bible outlines faith. The emphasis now is on the believer meeting with the Logos: it is not just the rather impersonal participation in the divine light as something which has come mostly to the scriptural writers and those picked out to issue sacra doctrina. This does seem like a personalizing of “faith.” For the term λόγος the translation verbum seems more appropriate than sermo, as Erasmus would have it in John 1:1 (Annotationes in Evangelium Ioannis LB6;335C; Apologia de “In principio erat sermo”; LB 9,114a). For Luther, it seems that the law worked to show that natural revelation through reason in the heart was closely related to the volatile affect – and accordingly needs saving. Moreover, to take the Vorrede to Volume 1 of his Opera Latina (WA 54, 19–87), God speaks “personally” to humans in the demands of the law and also through the promse that he himself will enable this fulfilling. The Holy Spirit tells us that the Father’s heart is revealed in Christ its mirror (cf. Luther’s Larger Catechism). One can speak here, according to Christoph Schwöbel of a Trinitarian sich-geben.30 And it is the communication of this truth that changes hearts via the written and preached external word. Hence Luther could comment: Faith is the inner content of the Christ story. Faith perfects divinity and, I might say, is the creator of divinity, although not in the divine substance, but in us. For without faith God in us loses his glory, wisdom, righteousness, truth, mercy. In sum, God has no majesty and divinity where there is no faith. (“Fides consummat divinitatem et, ut ita dicam, creatrix est divinitatis, non in substantia Dei, sed in nobis. Nam sine fide amittit Deus in nobis suam

29 B. Hamm, “Die Nahe Gnade – innovative Züge der spätmittelaterlichen Theologie und Frömmigkeit” in Herbst des Mittelters, ed. Jan A. Aertsen and M. Pickave (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2004), 541–557. For Zwingli see Volker Leppin, “Adams Wille und Gottes Provenienz: Die Bestreitung des freien Willens in Zwinglis ‘Commentarius’,” Zwingliana 22 (1995): 37–43. 30 Christoph Schwöbel, “Offenbarung,” in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, vol. 6, ed. H. D. Betz (4th ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008); V. Christentum, 1, 473–476.

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gloriam, sapientiam, iustitiam, veritatem, misericordiam etc. In summa: nihil maiestatis et divinitatis habet Deus, ubi fides non est.”31)

Dietrich Korsch sees this as an intensification of the God-faith connection in on Galatians 3: (“God gives his Spirit … by your believing what you heard”).32 God in us is no different from God in himself; for there to be faith God first has to be present. Here there is indeed a mystical element, although it hardly means divinisation, in that the accent is moral, and concerns obedience. As John Maxfield, has it, in relation to Luther’s famous Genesis Commentary: “Rather, ‘the true speculative life of the godly’ is a life in the world where faith is exercised rigorously and precisely through the trials (tentationes) of everyday existence, while the believer clings in prayer to the word and promises of God even when all seems hopeless.”33 “For Luther, the plight of the gospel in the world is therefore to bear with the continuous opposition and affliction that God himself bears in his self-revelation to the world in Jesus Christ. It is God’s purpose in history to gather a church, and for this reason alone the world stands and empires are preserved.”34 In other words degeneracy and renewal lay side by side, with God at work in his judgement to bring the latter out of the former. But it is always God’s doing as the fruit of his free grace. Thus Mickey L. Mattox’s charge concerning Luther’s “persistent exegetical effort to preserve the central characters of the biblical narrative from charges of serious wrongdoing” seems to miss the point.35 They are justifiable in the sense that to be forgiven allows them to become understandable. The reader who proceeds by faith will do well not to look down on them but keep listening for the address of the Word through these characters.

3. Word of God Theology His “spirituality” was one of the necessity of painful Anfechtung, removing our trust in earthly things. Luther was not Paul and more importantly did not see himself as such. For the latter it was as a Pharisee, that sin appeared as self-mastery and ultimately arrogance (Sünde als selbstherrliche Erfüllung, als Hochmut), 31

Luther on Galatians 3; WA 40.1, 328. D. Korsch, “Glaube und Rechtfertigung,” in Luther Handbuch, ed. Albrecht Beutel (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 372–381, 378. 33 John A. Maxfield, Luther’s Lectures on Genesis (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2008), 128. 34 Ibid., 198. 35 Mickey L. Maddox, Defender of the Most Holy Matriarchs: Martin Luther’s Interpretation of the Women of Genesis in the Enarrationes in Genesin, 1535–45 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 21. Cf. J. Pelikan, “Die Kirche nach Luthers Genesisvorlesungen,” in Lutherforschung Heute, ed. V. Vatja (Berlin: Lutherisches Verlaghaus, 1958), 102–110. 32

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while for Luther, he experienced Sünde als Verzweifelung, als Gotteshaß.36 Now obviously hatred of authority and pride are closer than second cousins, but what can be said is that, unlike Saul of Tarsus, the pre-conversion Luther did not get much satisfaction out of his religion. This difference has been well known ever since Krister Stendahl’s “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.”37 And yet disatisfaction arising out of tentatio is another way of saying Luther desired and hungered for the best for his congregations, not for himself: Let no-one suppose that he has sufficiently tasted of the Holy Scriptures unless, for a hundred years, he has – in the manner of the apostles Elijah and Elisha, of John the Baptist, of Christ and of the apostles– governed the congregations. Lay not your hand on this divine Aeneid but bow before it; adore its every trace! We are beggars, forsooth. (WA TR V 5677)

To live a prophetic life which is to be a channel for Revelation, says Luther, means spending much time warning of the dark times and the threat of judgement on civilisation, while pointing ahead to salvation at the end of life for those who are patient. According to George Tavard, “Luther streamlined the Scriptures to such a point that they became practically identical with one doctrine.”38 This is a caricature. Certainly Luther’s theology contained a theology of the Word as its basis. Scripture was more than just a principium cognoscendi but a fundamental doctrinal topic, to do with how God communicates with his people and witnesses to himself. The Church now became understood in somewhat actualist terms as an event where the Word preached, such that the church’s being is conditional on that preaching. But this is not some ersatz metaphysics of an actualist variety (contra Oswald Bayer), but rather it is a pragmatic approach in affecting consciences and dispositions. Luther’s insight was that the conscience should never testify to itself, but trust the testimony of the Word of God to it.39 Luther then seems to assume that our conscience will then be healthy and a good witness in turn. Let the Word do its work in the necessary internal iconoclasm in contradistinction to Karlstadt’s ‘external version’ of iconoclasm.40 The cross and the Word inspire trust. On Ps 17(18) Luther made it clear that God was hidden 36 Siegfried Kettling, Typisch evangelisch; Grundbegriffe des Glaubens (Giessen: Brunnen, 1992), 13–14. Kettling is helpful in emphasising how in Luther there is a strong link between justification (which is salvation, not its presupposition) and obedience which follows naturally from the gift of faith. Justification is “beyond good and evil” – our “shelter” is external to our inner moral state, but from the hill of salvation the believer descends into the valley to love. 37 Krister Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Harvard Theological Review 56 (1963): 199–215. 38 George H. Tavard, Holy Writ or Holy Church, The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959), 89. 39 Randall Zachmann, The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 5. 40 Cf. Luther, Vorlesung ueber 1.Mose 1535–45 WA 43.555. For Calvin it was less the cross and more the relationship with God which the Son had that mattered.

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in Christ in his lowly state, and yet through the cross and into resurrection He was then preached and revealed with confidence (WA 18,633; WA 56, 392). Here is the reason, why our theology is certain: because it snatches us from ourselves and places us out of ourselves (“Atque haec est ratio, cur nostra Theologia certa sit: Quia rapit nos a nobis et ponit nos extra nos”).41 True being comes to be outside ourselves and in him. The Word is the way we receive the gospel, joining us to the ‘saving act’. So it comes from outside to me. It promotes justification sola fide according to the Word’s chosen form of Gospel. But this is not a certainty that is free from temptation. It is not an easy securitas in the circumstances, but a certain trust in invisible yet concrete things like the Word and the Real Presence. The Spirit is bound to the external Word, who in turn bound to Christ’s humanity. It is only Christ’s humanity’s righteousness that matters. “This meant that it was no longer sufficient to speak of the divine Word that comes to us through the gospel and of the fact that this Word lives in us and makes us righteous. We must be clear that this gospel is always grounded in the person and work of Jesus Christ.”42 And yet the point is that God comes closer or into sharper focus in Christian preaching than in the Incarnation.43 Luther’s bible was re-printed and sometimes slyly corrected, as he himself had refused to be bound to the letter, as famously in Rom 3:28 λογιζόμεθα γὰρ δικαιοῦσθαι πίστει ἄνθρωπον χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου.: ‘So halten wir nun dafür, daß der Mensch gerecht werde ohne des Gesetzes Werke, allein durch den Glauben.’) It is possible that from 1546 a more irenic, synergistic version appeared, due to George Rohrer’s alterations. In 1577 the conservative Lutheran Duke Augustus ordered a revision which would correspond to the 1545 edition for which any alterations had been marked in Luther’s own hand. Panzer gives the examples of controversy over the translation of two verses which deal with the issue of synergy and monergy. First there is 2 Cor 3:5: “not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as from us” became “not that we are competent to find wisdom from ourselves alone.” Then there is the attempt by the Phillipist Georg Röhrer to change the sense of Philippians 2:13: “For God is he who works in you both his will and work for his good pleasure” (Denn Gott ist’s der in euch wirket (beide) beides das Wollen und das Wollbringen nach seinem Wohlgefallen), making the sense appear to be ‘God who in you works together – the will and the perfection 41 42

Luther, on Gal 2:20. F. Mildenburger, Theology of the Lutheran Confessions (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986),

77. 43 One had to admit that Luther produced the first new theory of revelation since the NT! (Jean-Yves Lacoste, Dictionnaire Critique de Théologie [Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2007], 1016): “Théologien du Dieu caché qui demeure caché jusque dans son incarnation (Deus in carne absconditus, WA 4,7,1 sq et alibi), théologien d’un Dieu qui se manifeste ‘sous son contraire’ dans le scandale de la croix … Dieu devient manifeste dans la parole prêchée, et elle seulement.”

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according to his good pleasure’. The point is that the Word for the occasion was greater than any fixed letters in the text. Luther’s 1539 treatment in the disputation on John 1:14 considered the impression which the invisible Word created helps in the re-shaping of our language.44 Bernard Lohse, following Bluhm as well as Raeder, has claimed that this means Luther saw himself as continuing the work of co-authoring of Scripture, but this is surely too strong. It is perhaps better with Hamann to see the divine Spirit as possessing the preacher.45 From the words on the page one was to arrive at the Word using Luther’s own words of translation as scaffolding to let the Word do its work of edification.46 This sounds like Word-mysticism, and Lohse claims that by 1522 Luther was having second-thoughts about such subjectivism and felt it necessary to give clear translation so as to avoid things which the Scriptures could not possibly mean.47 However there seems to have been at least as late as the Galatians commentary a health tension between the Word received and Christ preached. Oswald Bayer emphasises the Lutheran theological method as the three rules which are found throughout Psalm 119.48 Oratio, Meditatio, Tentatio: these Latin words stand out in the German text. Luther begins with praise of the bible, which frees our thinking from stupid wisdom of other books.49 In De servo arbitrio he combined 1 Cor 1:20 and Rom 1:22. The clarity of Scripture is twofold: one places externally in the ministry of the word and the other posited in the knowledge of the heart.50 Luther was soon to fall out with Erasmus about the latter, since noetic sin meant a need for Holy Spirit’s illumination which one receives through prayer. It was not just, as Erasmus thought, that texts contained difficulties. Against the spiritualists, Luther contends that meditation comes into play but changes the meaning of the term meditatio to mean: “spelling it out,” “interpreting” (auslegen). So unlike Schleiermacher, meditation does not go behind the 44 See Stefan Streiff, “Novis linguis loqui”: Martin Luthers Disputation über Joh 1,14 “verbum caro factum est” aus dem Jahr 1539 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1993). 45 Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther im Spiegel der deutschen Geistesgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 22: “Dadurch, daß er die Realität dieses Wortes erlebt hatte, wie er sie in der Bibel und bei Luther tausendfach beschrieben fand, ist Hamann zu seiner Philosophie der Sprache als etwas Realgeistigen (wie Ranke später sagt) und Dynamischen, als Präsenz eines Transzendenten im Individuellen (wie des Leibes und Blutes Christi in den Abendmahlselementen) geführt worden.” 46 WA 10/I, 728, 9–20. 47 Bernhard Lohse, “Entstehungsgeschichte und hermeneutische Prinzipien der Lutherbibel,” in Evangelium in der Geschichte. Studien zu Luther und der Reformation. Zum 60. Geburtstag des Autors, ed. B. Lohse, B. Moeller, and O. H. Pesch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988) 194–210, 200. 48 Oswald Bayer, Martin Luthers Theologie, 86: “Weit mehr als die Hälfte aller Belege des Wortes meditari/meditatio in der Vulgata findet sich in Psalm 119.” 49 Ibid, 72. 50 “Duplex est claritas Scripturae, sicut et duplex obscuritas. Una externa in verbi ministerio posita, altera in cordis cognitione sita.” (WA 18, 609, 4–7)

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text, for it is the external word that is needed. It is not a private matter of an inner word. Tentatio has also more to do with troubles in the public world for every Christian, part of the battle between the One Lord and many lords. However, the testing is the proving of the Word of God, not of faith.51 Of course Anfechtung teaches us to pay attention (Isa 28:19), yet it is not experience as such makes the theologian, but experience of Scripture as it proves tests all human words (WA 7, 98,11–13) In Von den Konziliis und Kirchen Luther has Wort-Gebet-Kreuz as equated to his meditatio-oratio-tentatio in the 1539 Vorrede to the Wittenberger Ausgabe of his German works.

4. Conclusion There was a priority of the noetic, as summed up in ‘in the beginning was the Word’. God is in communication as it were, whose Logos-logic outdoes ours and what we have lazily picked up. Of course, re-definitions of certain terms had already taken place, but not so much in teaching/doctrine that directly impinged on the Christian life. Luther opposed the ‘Augustinian’ consensus that humans were no longer sinners after baptism unless they willed to sin, or that indulgences were not needed in the New Testament era but were required in these more tepid times. The more positive side of this is the priority and centrality of the Word of God, in all the power of spoken act. The Word comes from outside mystically to the believer yet has substance and content of salvation history in what it brings. When Luther is recorded in the Table Talk that ‘the Word of God performed the operation while he sat drinking beer with Phillip and Amsdorf (WA 10/III, 18), this is what he meant. For all that it was not that he had a Word of God ontology. The Word’s entering into creation so as to be more fully present seems to require a different mode, one with a human face, such that the Word brings Christ’s humanity with him ‘supernaturally’. The Word as personal agent made things happen ‘now’, just as he had ‘then’, in the events and interpretative responses to those events to be found in the Scriptures. If this is existential then it is by no means ‘existentiell’: it is not the transcendental power of faith rising up, but rather the tuning in of faith to a clear outside signal, where and when the Word wishes to reach one.

51 “Die Anfechtung ist nicht etwa der Prüfstein der Echtheit des Glaubens als der Wahrhaftigkeit und Glaubwürdigkeit des glaubenden Menschen. Sie ist vielmehr der Prüfstein des Wortes Gottes, das in der Anfechtung und gegen sie seine Glaubwüurdigkeit und Macht erweist” (O. Bayer, “Theologie als Lebensform,” in Wahrheit und Erfahrung: Themenbuch zur Systematischen Theologie, vol. 1, ed. C. Herrmann [Tübingen: Brockhaus Verlag, 2004], 101).

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Bibliography Barclay, John. Paul and the Gift. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015. Bayer, Oswald. Martin Luthers Theologie. 2nd ed. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004. –. “Theologie als Lebensform.” Pages 186–195 in Wahrheit und Erfahrung: Themenbuch zur Systematischen Theologie, Vol. 1. Edited by C. Herrmann. Tübingen: Brockhaus Verlag, 2004. Bluhm, Heinz. Martin Luther, Creative Translator. St. Louis: Concordia, 1965. Bornkamm, Heinrich. Luther im Spiegel der deutschen Geistesgeschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970. –. Luther and the Old Testament. Edited by Victor I. Gruhn. Translated by Eric W. Gritsch and Ruth C. Gritsch. Mifflintown: Sigler Press, 1997. Chester, Stephen. Reading Paul with the Reformers: Reconciling Old and New Perspectives. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017. Dahan, Gilbert. L’Exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident medieval. Paris: Cerf, 1999. Ebeling, Gerhard. “Die Anfänge von Luthers Hermeneutik.” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 48 (1951): 172–230. Freitag, Albert. Die Urschrift der Lutherbibel als Dokument für Luthers Benutzung der deutschen Bibel des Mittelalters. Oktav: 1929. Froehlich, Karlfried. Sensing the Scriptures. Aminadab’s Chariot and the Predicament of Biblical Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014. Hamm, Berndt. “Die nahe Gnade – innovative Züge der spätmittelaterlichen Theologie und Frömmigkeit.” Pages 541–557 in Herbst des Mittelalters. Edited by Jan A. Aertsen and M. Pickave. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2004. Herms, Eilert. “Offenbarung V.” Page 162 in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 25. Edited by G. Müller, et al. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995. Kettling, Siegfried. Typisch evangelisch; Grundbegriffe des Glaubens. Giessen: Brunnen, 1992. Korsch, D. “Glaube und Rechtfertigung.” Pages 372–381 in Luther Handbuch. Edited by Albrecht Beutel. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005. Kratzert, Anne Helene. “… dass das ganze Leben Buße sei.” Fundamentaltheologische Überlegungen zu einer praktischen Theologie evangelischer Buße. Arbeiten zur Systematischen Theologie 7. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2014. Lacoste, Jean-Yves. Dictionnaire Critique de Théologie. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2007. Lauster, Jörg. Prinzip und Methode: Die Transformation des protestantischen Schriftprinzips durch die historische Kritik von Schleiermacher bis zur Gegenwart. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004. Leppin, Volker “Adams Wille und Gottes Provenienz: Die Bestreitung des freien Willens in Zwinglis ‘Commentarius’.” Zwingliana 22 (1995): 37–43. –. Martin Luther. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2017. Lohse, Bernhard. “Entstehungsgeschichte und hermeneutische Prinzipien der Lutherbibel.” Pages 194–210 in Evangelium in der Geschichte. Studien zu Luther und der Reformation. Zum 60. Geburtstag des Autors. Edited by B. Lohse, B. Moeller, O. H. Pesch. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988. –. Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.

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Maddox, Mickey L. Defender of the Most Holy Matriarchs. Martin Luther’s Interpretation of the Women of Genesis in the Enarrationes in Genesin, 1535–45. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Madigan, Kevin. “Can Precritical Biblical Interpretation Cure the Ills of the Critical?” Pages 71–90 in Rethinking the Medieval Legacy for Contemporary Theology. Edited by A. K. Min. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014. Maxfield, John A. Luther’s Lectures on Genesis. Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2008. Mildenburger, Friedrich. Theology of the Lutheran Confessions. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986. Oberman, Heiko. Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. Ocker, Christopher. Biblical Poetics Before Humanism and Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Ocker, Christopher and Kevin Madigan. “After Beryl Smalley: Thirty Years of Medieval Exegesis, 1984–2013.” Journal of the Bible and Its Reception 2.1 (2015): 87–130. Pelikan, Jaroslav. “Die Kirche nach Luthers Genesisvorlesungen.” Pages 102–110 in Lutherforschung Heute. Edited by V. Vatja. Berlin: Lutherisches Verlaghaus, 1958. –. The Reformation of the Bible, the Bible of the Reformation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Preuss, James Samuel. From Shadow to Promise. Old Testament Interpretation from Augustine to the Young Luther. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959. Raeder, Siegfried. “Luther als Ausleger und Übersetzer der Heiligen Schrift.” Pages 253– 278 in Leben und Werk Martin Luthers von 1526 bis 1546. Edited by H. Junghans. Berlin: Evangelische Verlaganstalt, 1983. Reventlow, H. G. von. Epochen der Bibelauslegung II Von der Spätantike bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters. München: C. H. Beck, 1994. Schwöbel, Chritoph. “Offenbarung.” In Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, Vol. 6. Edited by H. D. Betz. 4th ed. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Smith, Lesley. The Glossa Ordinaria, The Making of a Medieval Bible Commentary. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2009. Staupitz, Johann von. Sämtliche Schriften Spätmittelalter und Reformation: Texte und Untersuchungen. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1979. Stendahl, Krister. “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.” Harvard Theological Review 56 (1963): 199–215 Steinmetz, David C. “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis.” Theology Today 37 (1980): 27–38. Stolt, Birgit. “Luthers Übersetzungstheorie und Übersetzungspraxis.” Pages 241–252 in Leben und Werk Martin Luthers von 1526 bis 1546: Festgabe zu seinem 500. Geburtstag. Edited by H. Junghaus. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983. Streiff, Stefan. “Novis linguis loqui”: Martin Luthers Disputation über Joh 1,14 “verbum caro factum est” aus dem Jahr 1539. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993. Tavard, George H. Holy Writ or Holy Church: The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959. Zachmann, Randall. The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005.

Early Modern Concurrences and Tensions in Exegesis

Biblical Samson, Milton’s Samson Agonistes, and Modern Terrorism1 Paul K .-K . Cho

Samson is a hero – an Israelite hero, a biblical hero, a Jewish hero, a Christian hero, and a Miltonic hero – unless he is a terrorist. John Carey, with his provocative article, “A Work in Praise of Terrorism?: September 11 and Samson Agonistes,” launched a thousand pens to work out the relationship between Milton’s rewriting of the biblical story of Samson and terrorism.2 Carey, in that article, argues that Stanley Fish’s reading of Milton’s Samson Agonistes renders the heroic logic of Agonistes analogous to the reasoning of modern suicide terrorists: Samson, like the terrorists of September 11, “destroys many innocent victims, whose lives, hopes and loves are all quite unknown to him personally […] [and] believes that his massacre is an expression of God’s will.”3 While I think Carey misreads Fish’s subtle reading of Milton’s rewriting of the biblical story, a number of scholars, since Carey’s 2002 article, have argued that Samson Agonistes is indeed a work in praise of terrorism.4 The 1 I presented earlier versions of this article to the faculty of Wesley Theological Seminary on October 22, 2018 and at the History of Interpretation program unit at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Denver, CO on November 17, 2018 and thank those who were present for their critique and engagement. I also thank Jane E. Kim for her thoughtful, challenging, and expert comments on an earlier version of this contribution. I alone bear the responsibility for whatever mistakes and shortcomings that remain. The present project was in part funded by a grant from the Louisville Institute. 2 John Carey, “A Work in Praise of Terrorism?: September 11 and Samson Agonistes,” Times Literary Supplement (6 September 2002): 15–16. For insightful critiques of Carey’s article, see Feisal G. Mohamed, “Confronting Religious Violence: Milton’s Samson Agonsites,” PMLA 120 (2005): 327–340, esp. 327–329; Ryan Netzley, “Reading Events: The Value of Reading and the Possibilities of Political Action and Criticism in Samson Agonistes,” Criticism 48 (2006): 509–533; and Alan Rudrum, “Milton Scholarship and the Agon over Samson Agonistes,” HLQ 65 (2002): 465–488. 3 Carey, “Terrorism?,” 15; Stanley Fish, How Milton Works (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001). 4 See, for example, Warren Chernaik, “Tragic Freedom in Samson Agonistes,” The European Legacy 17 (2012): 197–211; Tobias Gregory, “The Political Messages of Samson Agonistes,” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 50 (2010): 175–203; and Mohamed, “Confronting Religious Violence.” For opposing opinions, see Angela Balla, “Wars of Evidence and Religious Toleration in Milton’s Samson Agonistes,” Milton Quarterly 46 (2012): 65–85; Dennis Brown, “Moral Dilemma and Tragic Affect in Samson Agonistes,” Literature and Religion 20 (2006): 91–106;

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expected claim that the biblical original is also a work in praise of terrorism has surfaced, which brings us to the questions: Are Milton’s Samson and the Samson of Judges 16 terrorists, and do the Miltonic poem and the biblical story justify terrorism?5 In this paper, I shall first propose a definition of terrorism that identifies the terrorist act and the terrorist ideology as two sides of the one phenomenon we call terrorism. Then, reserving the discussion of the ideological aspect of terrorism in Milton and the Hebrew Bible for another opportunity, I shall argue that the biblical Samson commits a terrorist act but that Milton develops details already present in the biblical account to transform Samson’s dying attack into an act of tyrannicide. In conclusion, I shall consider the ways in which Milton’s rewriting of the Samson story might retrospectively transform our initial reading of Judges 16.

1. Defining Terrorism The term “terrorism” came into usage only in the late eighteenth century in France, and hundreds of definitions are currently in use in a variety of fields of study.6 Thus, using the term and concept to analyze Samson Agonistes, let alone the biblical Samson, would not only constitute anachronism but also risk definitional confusion. In this regard, Timothy Howe and Lee L. Brice deserve our thanks, the two for editing Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, a volume that demonstrates the analytical value of examining ancient texts through the modern lens of terrorism, and the latter in particular for providing a thoughtful definition of terrorism, while acknowledging a host of conceptual and lexical objections and challenges.7 Brice wades through the definitional and conceptual morass that accompanies the study of terrorism, helpfully summarizes the literature, and retrieves defand Elizabeth Oldman, “Milton, Grotius, and the Law of War: A Reading of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes,” Studies in Philology 104 (2007): 340–375. 5 For an argument that the biblical Samson is a terrorist, see J. Cheryl Exum, “The Many Faces of Samson,” in Samson: Hero or Fool? The Many Faces of Samson, eds. Erik Eynikel and Tobias Nicklas (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 13–32. Norman Mailer (Why We Are at War [New York: Random, 2003], cited in Mohamed, “Confronting Religious Violence,” 327), for example, calls the suicidal terrorists of 9/11 “Muslim Samsons,” and Joseph R. Jeter, Jr. (Preaching Judges [St. Louis: Chalice, 2003], 116, cited in J. Cheryl Exum, “The Many Faces of Samson,” 17) writes, “Samson was a terrorist. At least he was if you were a Philistine.” 6 Lee L. Brice, “Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient World,” in Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, eds. Timothy Howe and Lee L. Brice (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 3–30, here 12. 7 Timothy Howe and Lee L. Brice, eds., Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean (Leiden: Brill, 2016); Brice, “Insurgency and Terrorism,” 18.

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initions of two types of terrorism. About terrorism in general, Brice notes that there are two sides of terrorism: the act and the ideology. Then, he first defines the terrorist act as the “calculated, demonstrative, direct violent action without legal or moral restraints, targeting mainly civilians and non-combatants, performed for its propagandistic and psychological effects on various audiences and conflict parties.”8 Second, he identifies two types of ideology that differentiate the two types of terrorism. Brice defines the first type, “state terrorism,” as “the intentional use or threat of violence by state agents or their proxies against individuals or groups who are victimized for the purpose of intimidating or frightening a broader audience”9; and “revolutionary terrorism,” the second type, as “the use of terror as an insurgent strategy with the goal of overthrowing the state.”10 In the rest of the paper, I will consider whether Samson’s dying attack on the Philistines in Judges 16 and Milton’s Samson Agonistes satisfies the definition of a terrorist act, deferring the discussion of terrorist ideology in these texts, thus also any conclusion about whether Samson is a terrorist.

2. The Act in Judges There can be little doubt that Samson’s final attack on the Philistines in both the biblical narrative and Milton’s play terrorizes. The “direct violent action” had significant “psychological effects on [the Philistine and Israelite] audiences.” The Philistines in Judges, even before the event at the temple, feared Samson as “our enemy […] the ravager of our country, who has multiplied our slain” (16:24), and the immensity of their fear underlies the ecstasy of their celebration of Samson’s capture and humiliation. And the biblical narrator, in a congratulatory tone, notes that “those [Samson] killed at his death were more than those he had killed during his life” (16:30), an act that would have further terrified the Philistines and emboldened the Israelites. Milton registers the terror of Samson’s act in describing it in the language of theophany: “As with the force of winds and waters pent / When Mountains tremble, those two massy Pillars / With horrible convulsion to and fro / […] down they came […] / […] with burst of thunder” (SA 1647–9, 1650, 1651; cf. Exodus 19).11 The narrator of Judges and Milton agree that Samson’s dying attack terrifies, but “[n]ot all terror is necessarily terrorism.”12  8

Brice, “Insurgency and Terrorism,”13. Ibid., 15. 10 Ibid., 14. 11 Unless otherwise noted, citations from Milton come from John Milton, Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1957). 12 Brice, “Insurgency and Terrorism,” 17.  9

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What remains to be determined before we can call Samson’s dying attack a terrorist act is whether it is an attack “without legal or moral restraint, targeting mainly civilians and non-combatants.” Let us first turn to the biblical narrative. The biblical narrator attempts to justify Samson’s attack on the Philistines by portraying an amorous and otherwise peaceful Samson as provoked to martial action by the Philistines, who are to blame for initiating the conflict. Read through the lens of modern terrorism, however, Samson’s dying attack satisfies the definition of a terrorist act. Judges 16, which recounts Samson’s journey to Gaza, the Delilah episode, and his dying attack at the Dagan temple, thematically returns to the episode of the Timnite woman and structurally repeats the core of the Samson story (Judges 14–15).13 Recall that the core of the Samson story (Judges 14–15) begins with his journey down to Timnah where he meets a Philistine woman whom he comes to desire. In brutish and short speech, and likewise poor and nasty, Samson repeatedly demands that his parents “Get her for me!” to remedy his solitary state (14:2, 3). Samson marries the Timnite woman and, during their wedding feast, engages the Philistine guests in a wager of thirty sets of clothing over a riddle: “Out of the eater came something to eat; and out of the strong came something sweet” (14:14). Samson’s unnamed bride, pressured by the guests, uncovers the secret of Samson’s riddle then reveals it to the Philistines, with the result that Samson enters into mortal conflict with the Philistines. Samson goes down to Ashkelon, murders thirty men, and steals their clothing to satisfy his debt to the wedding guests (14:19). In Judges 16,14 the harlot of Gaza in part but more so Delilah plays the parallel role as the Timnite woman.15 Samson goes to Gaza where he meets a prostitute, then comes to love Delilah. Delilah, working with the Philistine lords, uncovers the secret of Samson’s strength then reveals it to the Philistines, with the result that Samson enters into mortal conflict with the Philistines. Samson, bound and blinded, is brought down to Gaza where he kills more than 3,000 Philistines in an act of personal vengeance. The narrative intent of the thematic repetition and structural return at the beginning of Judges 16 to the beginning of Judges 14–15, it seems to me, is to restore Samson to a prior age of naivety, if not innocence, when Samson has yet to use his prodigious strength to commit violent murder and destruction against the Philis13 On the thematic and structural parallel between Judges 14–15 and Judges 16, see J. Cheryl Exum, “Aspects of Symmetry and Balance in the Samson Saga,” JSOT 19 (1981): 3–29. For a brief account of the compositional history of the Samson story, see Marc Zvi Brettler, The Book of Judges (London: Routledge, 2002), 41–4. Brettler argues that Judges 14–15 constitute the core of the Samson tradition to which were added a birth narrative (Judges 13) and the story of Samson’s death (Judges 16). 14 See Brettler, Judges, 54–58, for a succinct and insightful treatment of the chapter. 15 Exum, “Aspects of Symmetry,” 4–5.

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tines (14:19; 15:4–5, 8, 15). By means of the structural return, Samson is reborn, so to speak, as a young man who has fallen in love with a woman and, it might be plausibly argued, wants nothing better than to live out his days peacefully in Delilah’s embrace. Restoring Samson to innocence makes it possible for the narrator to reimagine the relational dynamic and, this time, to characterize the Philistines as the provocateur. Now, the sequence of violent events in Judges 14–15 are interrelated, and the narrative underlines the causal link among the various episodes. In Judges 14, we can trace the causal link from Samson’s initial journey to Timnah to the murder of thirty men of Ashkelon. In Judges 15, we can trace the causal link from Samson’s return to Timnah to the episode of foxes, fire, and fields of grain, the Philistine murder of Samson’s father-in-law and wife, Samson’s great slaughter, the Philistine siege on Judah, all the way to Samson’s slaughter at Lehi. In addition, the events of Judges 15 are connected to Judges 14 by virtue of the contiguity of time and space and the shared themes and characters. The beginning of Judges 16, however, severs the causal link and begins anew. The narrator makes no effort to connect what is about to happen to what has happened as if to deny all causality. The story begins anew with Samson going down to Gaza. And restoring Samson to innocence, if only thematically and structurally, makes it possible for the narrator to attribute the responsibility for the initial provocation, for throwing the proverbial first stone, to the Philistines, and to exonerate Samson. It also allows the narrator to assign to all the Philistines the guilt of a double crime. First, the biblical narrator presents all the Philistines as guilty of the crime of capturing the “innocent” Samson. The Philistine lords  – who are carefully distinguished from the common folk throughout the chapter – are represented as guilty of bribing and conspiring with Delilah against Samson (16:5, 8, 18). But they do not act alone. Rather, the narrative presents all the Philistines as participating in ambushing, binding, and blinding Samson. To be certain, the Philistine ambush in Delilah’s bedroom (16:9) consisted of a few men, not the entire Philistine population. However, both the narrator and Delilah repeatedly refer to the ambush as “the Philistines”: “The Philistines are upon you, Samson” (16: 9, 12, 14, 20). That is, the ambush metonymically embodies the will of the Philistines and acts on behalf of the entire group. The part stands for the whole. Second, the biblical narrator ascribes the sin of idolatry and cruelty to all the Philistines present at the Dagon Temple to celebrate Samson’s capture. The Philistine lords share the greater part of the sin of cruelty, for it is they who summon Samson to provide humiliating entertainment to the temple throng. But the narrator implicates the lords as well as the common folk in the sin of praising Dagon for the capture of the Lord’s Nazirite: “The people saw him and praised their god, for they said, ‘Our god has given our enemy into our hands, the ravager of our country, who has multiplied our slain’” (16:24) and of looking on Samson’s

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blind performance with cruel amusement: “And on the roof were three thousand men and women who looked on while Samson performed” (16:25, 27).16 To summarize, the biblical narrator depicts no Philistine as a non-combatant in relation to Samson.17 They all participate, in body or in will, in ambushing, binding, and blinding Samson who, it might be argued, initially entertained no antagonism against the Philistines. Furthermore, all those present at the Dagon temple are depicted as guilty of idolatry and of mocking the Lord’s Nazirite. The point is that the Philistines wrongly provoke an innocent Samson and push him to desperate violence – to their own peril. Exum challenges the biblical portrayal of Samson as innocent by raising the issue of proportionality and innocence. The blind and weak Samson, when he prays to God to strengthen him one last time, makes clear his motive for the attack: “so that by this one act of revenge I may avenge the Philistines for my two eyes” (16:28).18 The biblical story does not report that “the spirit of YHWH rushed on him” as before (14:19; 15:14).19 It remains silent on the connection between God and Samson’s dying attack. In any case, Exum argues that Samson’s retaliatory attack, which she describes as his “ultimate terrorist act,” is “vastly out of proportion” with the wrong done to him: “[Samson’s dying attack] is killing on a huge scale […] On what scale of justice can destruction of this extent qualify as ‘vindication for one of my two eyes’?”20 The mention of eyes makes us aware that the biblical text invites applying the lens of proportionality: Samson’s dying attack, which kills “more than those he killed in his life” (16:30), is precisely not “eye for an eye” and lacks proportionality (Lev. 24:20). From Samson’s perspective, his dying attack is revenge for only one of this two eyes. From the perspective of the Philistines and perhaps also biblical law, his attack exceeds what might be considered proportional revenge for his eyes. Or, in the language 16 This scene makes clear that, in the ancient world, in stark contrast to modern secular contexts, military action and religion were not only related but in fact intimately interwoven. That is to say, what Carey finds so offensive, that someone would engage in military action in the belief that it is “an expression of God’s will,” was part and parcel of cultural discourse. All wars, especially victorious ones, were holy. The offense of the Philistine celebration, from the perspective of the biblical writers, then is the typical one of idolatry: the worship of Dagon over YHWH. 17 Brice, “Insurgency and Terrorism,” 13, notes, “Another difficulty for the ancient world is that while most modern conceptions explicitly state that civilians are the victims, it is difficult in the ancient world to draw bright-line distinctions between civilians and non-civilians since most militaries were not fully professionalized and males of all ages past adolescence could be called upon (were expected) to defend the community.” Thus, Brice (ibid., 13 n 36) proposes to distinguish between “combatants and non-combatants, where non-combatants typically included women, children, the infirm, and the extremely elderly.” 18 In this sense, Samson cannot be said to act out of a terrorist ideology – not to say anything about the ideology of the narrator or the biblical writers. 19 Does this non-mention constitute a denial, on the part of the biblical writers, of a connection between Samson’s act and divine volition? 20 Exum, “Many Faces,” 17, 18.

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of Brice’s definition of a terrorist act, Samson’s attack is “violent action without legal or moral restraint.” In addition to the issue of proportional justice, Samson’s attack would qualify as a terrorist act only if the Philistines are “civilians and non-combatants” rather than guilty militants. In this regard, Exum challenges the biblical portrayal of all Philistines as participating in Samson’s capture, imprisonment, and blinding and states that those killed “surely would include many innocent people.”21 She questions whether all the Philistines are guilty, combatants in actuality or potential, and, in so doing, helps us to consider whether to depict an entire population as guilty and therefore deserving of violent death is not reflective of a terrorist ideology.22 In this light, note that the Philistines gathered at the temple, recalling earlier episodes in the Samson saga, characterize Samson as “our enemy […] the ravager of our country, who has multiplied our slain” (16:24). It turns out that the thematic and structural return to the beginning, to Timnah, cannot erase history. Samson may once again have fallen in love with a (Philistine) woman, but he cannot undo what he has already done (in Timnah, Ashkelon, and Lehi). The result is that the depiction of the Philistines as the initial provokers of Samson proves false. The Philistines may not be innocent when they capture Samson – his head shaven and asleep on Delilah’s knees (like an innocent babe) – but they were not unprovoked. They do not capture and blind a naïve lover but someone they can reasonably call “the ravager of our country, who has multiplied our slain.” In addition, there is likely to have been civilians and non-combatants among those who celebrated Samson’s capture at the temple: women and likely also children, family of those Samson killed in Ashkelon and Lehi, and victims of the burnt grain fields and olive groves who were unaware of Samson’s marriage, let alone his marital complications. Samson’s attack, it would seem, is indeed “violent action without legal or moral restraint, targeting mainly civilians and non-combatants.” It is, according to Brice’s definition, a terrorist act – even if we cannot yet call it terrorism.

3. The Act in Samson Agonistes Let us now turn to Milton’s Samson Agonistes and consider whether it is a work in praise of terrorism. Milton, while remaining faithful to the biblical account in writing Samson Agonistes, nevertheless reworks certain details and ambiguities of the original story to transform Samson’s dying attack into an act of legal and 21

Ibid., 17. I thank Sondra Wheeler for our conversations about the ethics of terrorism and other aspects of this paper. 22

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moral restraint that targets tyrants and spares the innocent. Milton’s Samson, in short, does not commit a terrorist act. First, Milton’s Samson does not target whom Milton would have considered civilian and non-combatants, namely the Philistine common folk. In the book of Judges, the narrator takes pain to distinguish the Philistine lords from the common people throughout the temple scene. The narrator writes, for example, that the temple “was full of men and women” and goes on to separate the lords and the common folk spatially: “all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were three thousand men and women” (16:27). The spatial separation, however, seems to serve no narrative or ideological purpose for the biblical writer. In the end, both the lords and the commoners die without distinction: “the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it” (16:30a). Milton takes advantage of the biblical distinction between the lords and the commoners as well as other spatial ambiguities of the biblical text, in an act of willful misreading, to reimagine the scene and to have Samson kill the lords but spare the common folk. He writes: As with the force of winds and waters pent When Mountains tremble, those two massy Pillars With horrible convulsion to and fro He tugg’d, he shook till down they came, and drew The whole roof after them with burst of thunder Upon the heads of all who sat beneath, Lords, Ladies, Captains, Counsellors, or Priests, Thir choice nobility and flower […] Samson, with these immixed, inevitably Pulled down the same destruction on himself; The vulgar only scap’d, who stood without. (1647–54, 1657–9)

Milton’s distinction between “thir choice nobility and flower” and “the vulgar” echo the biblical distinction between the Philistine lords and the common people. Novel in Milton is the idea that the vulgar escaped death because they “stood without,” outside the temple walls. Saving the Philistine folk required on the part of Milton an architectural innovation. Milton pictures the temple as a theater, “half round, on two main pillars vaulted high, / With seats where all the lords […] might sit […] / The other side was open, where the throng / On banks and scaffolds under sky might stand” (1606–10). Milton no doubt knew that his architectural renovation and staging of the scene contradict the biblical narrative, which places the common folk on the roof of the temple. However, he trades one spatial consistency for another, for placing the vulgar outdoors under the open sky allows him to save the common folk and honor the fact that Scripture says that only the people in the temple died (“the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it” [Judg. 16:30a]) but not those on the roof, so technically outside the temple. That is, through an act

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of willful misreading, Milton valorizes the biblical distinction between the lords and the common folk and kills the former and spares the latter who were denied access to the literal seats of power inside the temple. Now, that Milton should condemn the ruling class to death and spare the commoners corresponds to his political commitments we know from his prose writings. For example, in his “Defense of the People of England,” Milton references Ehud and Samson in defending the regicide of Charles I. None but a country’s foe thinks a tyrant is her king. It matters not whether Eglon was a foreigner and our man a native, since they were both enemies and tyrants. If it was right for Ehud to slay the one, it was right for us to punish the other. Even the heroic Samson, though his countrymen reproached him saying, Judges 15, “Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us?,” still made war single-handed on his masters, and, whether prompted by God or by his own valor, slew at one stroke not one but a host of his country’s tyrants, having first made prayer to God for his aid. Samson therefore thought it not impious but pious to kill those masters who were tyrants over his country, even though most of her citizens did not balk at slavery.23

The circumspect comment, “whether prompted by God or by his own valor,” is important to the discussion of Samson’s ideology. What bears noting for our purposes is that, insofar as the Israelites saw the Philistines as their masters, Milton considers the Philistines to have been tyrants over Israel. What Samson Agonistes clarifies for us is that Milton considered only the Philistine elites as guilty of tyranny but not the common folk. It is because the Philistine elites are tyrants, according to Milton, that their death can be justified. As for the Philistine folk, Milton believes that they deserve toleration, not violence, life, not death. As some scholars note, Milton praises toleration in his prose works.24 One such passage comes from Of Reformation, in which Milton states that individuals should be allowed to use “the ability of searching, trying, examining all things, and by the Spirit discerning that which is good.”25 Indeed, far from praising the use of religious violence, Milton laments its use: “How many persecutions then, imprisonments, banishments, penalties and stripes; how much bloodshed have the forcers of conscience to answer for, and protestants rather than papists.”26 Milton decries the use of violence to coerce inward conversion. In addition to the above and other prose writings that promote toleration, there is also Paradise Regained, in which “the Son’s toleration of Satan exemplifies how readers ought to behave toward those who contest their faith

23 John Milton, A Defense of the People of England, in Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. Don M. Wolfe, 8 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953–82), 4:285–307, here 302, cited in Gregory, “The Political Messages of Samson Agonistes,” 186. 24 Balla, “Wars of Evidence.” 25 Milton, Complete Prose, 1:5666; cited in ibid., 78. 26 Milton, Complete Prose, 7:253; cited in ibid., 79.

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and practice.”27 Recall that Jesus, after Satan’s temptations, speaks against Satan but takes no action against him. The dramatic center of Paradise Regained, for this reason, is Jesus’ refusal to act and Satan’s response: To whom thus Jesus. Also it is written, Tempt not the Lord thy God; he said and stood. But Satan smitten with amazement fell. (560–62).

“He said and stood.” Jesus does not lift hand or sword against even Satan. In short, according to Milton, common folk, even when they hold bad views, even if they are Philistines, even if they be the devil, deserve not violence but toleration, a chance to discern that which is good on their own, free from the violence of strongmen. Milton’s Samson, then, commits tyrannicide, not a “violent action without legal or moral restraints, targeting mainly civilians and non-combatants.” Samson punishes the Philistine lords who are tyrants, enemies to the freedom of conscience, and liberates not only Israelite but also Philistine commoners from tyranny. In short, Samson Agonistes is a work in praise of tyrannicide, not of terrorism. Milton remains true to his political commitments and, in reworking details found in the biblical account, transforms Samson into a hero whose dying attack evidences legal and moral restraint by targeting not civilians and noncombatants but tyrants. Milton’s Samson liberates the Israelites and the Philistine folk from tyranny.

4. Reading Judges with Milton The above discussion demonstrates that Milton was a creative genius but that, in rewriting biblical stories, he is a faithful interpreter of both the details and silences of the biblical text. This means that, when he seems to deviate from the source material, we can profitably look back at the Bible with Milton and often discover details, silences, and genuine ambiguities that he has reworked to great effect. Milton, in other words, can teach us how to read the Bible anew. One such deviation, related to the above question about Samson and terrorism, has to do with Milton’s portrayal of Delilah, whom Milton calls Dalila. Milton portrays Dalila as Samson’s wife. Samson’s conversation with Dalila, which lasts over 250 lines, centers on what motivated Dalila to break her conjugal duty to Samson and betray his secret to the Philistine lords. Many reasons are proffered but toward the end of the conversation, Dalila explains:

27

Ibid., 77.

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My name perhaps among the Circumcis’d In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering Tribes, To all posterity may stand defam’d, With malediction mention’d, and the blot Of falsehood most unconjugal traduc’d. But in my country where I most desire, In Ekron, Gaza, Asdod, and in Gath I shall be nam’d among the famousest Of Women, sung at solemn festivals, Living and dead recorded, who to save Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose Above the faith of wedlock bands, my tomb With odors visited and annual flowers. (975–87)

Dalila argues that her betrayal of Samson against “wedlock bands” will win her everlasting honor among the Philistines and that her self-sacrificial deed will be “sung at solemn festivals.” Dalila is no hero in Milton’s work, but she provides a convincing, dare I say, reasonable Philistine perspective on the Samson situation. Samson has terrified the Philistines, killing hundreds upon hundreds. Thus, to help bind him is to help stop an enemy of the state and to betray him to save many lives. Dalila argues that she will be praised for her betrayal, for conjugal betrayal in this instance is redemption for her country. Dalila continues her argument with remarkable sensitivity to Samson’s Hebrew background. Dalila advances the biblical example of Jael to defend her action: Not less renown’d than in Mount Ephraim, Jael, who with inhospitable guile Smote Sisera sleeping through the Temples nail’d. (988–90)

Dalila argues that her betrayal of Samson is analogous to Jael’s betrayal of her husband Heber, whose people, the Kenites, were allied to Sisera (Judg. 4:17). Jael becomes an Israelite heroine by betraying her husband. Furthermore, she kills an enemy of Israel (Judg. 4:9) and, for that heroic act, is memorialized in the ancient Song of Deborah: “Most blessed among women be Jael!” (Judg. 5:24). Returning to Samson Agonistes, just as Jael and her deed are “sung at solemn festivals” in Israel, Dalila imagines that she and her deed will be in Philistia. In short, Dalila conceives herself as a Philistine Jael and trades “faith of wedlock bands” for a “tomb  / With odors visited and annual flowers”; she trades fidelity to husband for patriotism to country, carnal happiness for eternal fame.28 These are heroic virtues that, as one scholar has argued, Samson himself will take up. Samson dismisses Dalila – as a false embodiment of Jael – but Jael whom Dalila invokes 28 See Paula Loscocco, “‘Not Less Renown’d than Jael’: Heroic Chastity in Samson Agonistes,” Milton Studies 40 (2001): 181–200.

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and imitates will serve as a spectral model for Samson himself.29 One might say that Dalila delivers Samson from self-pity and self-doubt by resurrecting from Hebrew lore the ghost of Jael and setting her before him for imitation. Samson outdoes Dalila in imitating Jael  – “Smote Philistia celebrating at the Temple crush’d” – but imitates Dalila in imitating Jael. Dalila saves Samson so that he might save Israel.30 Now, what prompted Milton to liken Dalila to Jael? Unsurprisingly, Milton’s remarkable defense of Dalila and his sympathy for the Philistine perspective likely stems ultimately from the biblical account, which Milton read in Hebrew. The Hebrew of Judg. 16:14, which recounts Delilah’s third attempt to discover Samson’s Nazirite secret, begins: […] ‫ותתקע ביתד‬ And she thrust with the peg […] (Judg. 16:14)

The Hebrew does not make sense in context. Samson has just finished telling Delilah that binding the locks of his head with a pin will weaken him (16:13). Then the narrative continues, “And she thrust with the peg. Then she said to him, ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson!’” This awkwardness has led many translators to conclude that the Hebrew text must be the result of scribal error. Thus, many translations follow the Greek (καὶ ἐκοίμισεν αὐτὸν Δαλιλα καὶ ἐδιάσατο τοὺς ἑπτὰ Βοστρύχους τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ μετὰ τῆς ἐκτάσεως καὶ κατέκρουσεν ἐν τοῖς τασσάλοις εἰς τὸν τοῖχον […]) and/or fill in the gaps with details from the previous verse. For example, the NRSV expands “And she thrust with the peg” into “So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web, and made them tight with the pin.” But is the Hebrew text really the result of an error? Here, Milton’s decision to portray Dalila as a (false) repetition of Jael is instructive, for the enigmatic Hebrew phrase: “And she thrust with the peg” repeats precisely the account of how Jael kills Sisera: […] ‫ותתקע את־היתד ברקתו‬ And she thrust the peg into his temple […] (Judg. 4:21)

Far from a scribal error, the Hebrew of Judg. 16:14 may be a deliberate allusion to Judg. 4:21, an intertextual link between the Hebrew hero Jael to the Philistine hero Delilah. This, it seems to me, is the textual detail that Milton, the master reader of the Bible that he was, worked out in having Dalila compare herself to Jael, mentioning precisely the scene in which “Jael … Smote Sisera 29

Ibid. Susan Ackerman (“What If Judges Had Been Written by a Philistine?” BibInt 8 [2000]: 33–41) examines these Miltonic verses in considering the Philistine perspective on Samson but does not discuss the possible biblical source of Milton’s inspiration, on which below. 30

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sleeping through the Temples nail’d.” In turn, Milton helps us to see that what we have in the Hebrew of Judg. 16:14 is a hidden record of a biblical writer considering, however tentatively through his allusive arts, the Philistine perspective on Delilah and so also on Samson. If Delilah’s deed is comparable to Jael’s, then Samson is the Philistine’s Sisera, the hated enemy God has ordained destroyed. Indeed, looking back to after Samson’s capture, this is exactly what the biblical narrator has the Philistines claim for themselves: “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand […] the ravager of our country, who has multiplied our slain” (16:23, 24). In conclusion, the presence of an intertextual and allusive possibility that the biblical writer may have been sympathetic to the Philistine perspective does not change our conclusion that the biblical Samson commits a terrorist act. But it does teach us that the biblical writers were not deaf to contrarian voices, even if they contradict the dominant, official opinion regarding the archetypal enemy of the Israelites, the uncircumcised Philistines. Reading Judges with Milton, in short, encourages us to consider anew precisely those enigmatic details and silences of the biblical text, to see if they lead to “way [that] leads on to way,” that opens on to “counter, original, spare, [and] strange” narrative landscapes, hidden just out of view in the biblical text itself.

5. Conclusion Milton’s Samson is no terrorist – and so may still serve as a heroic model. What kind of hero he is, whether he is a foil or a complement to the Jesus of Paradise Regained (which was first published with Samson Agonistes as the first work in a single volume: Paradise Regain’d. A Poem in IV Books. To which is added Samson Agonistes) – requires further discussion. What is clear is that Milton’s Samson, in willingly embracing death as a necessary cost to exact punishment on the Philistine tyrants, enacts a certain type of salvation for both Israel and Philistia.31 The biblical Samson’s heroic status within Jewish and Christian traditions is not in doubt.32 Though most traditional interpreters recognize Samson’s many faults, they also celebrate Samson as a hero, the Jews for his prodigious strength and Christians as a forerunner to Christ. The question that remains open, in light of September 11 and the judgment that he commits a terrorist act, is whether he deserves so to be celebrated. Does Samson espouse a terrorist ideology and so be-

31 See John Rogers, “Delivering Redemption in Samson Agonistes,” in Altering Eyes: New Perspectives on Samson Agonistes, eds., Mark R. Kelley and Jospeh Wittreich (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2002), 72–97. 32 See David M. Gunn, Judges through the Centuries (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 170–230.

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come for modern readers of the Bible a model for terrorism – to be condemned, not emulated? Is reading Judges 13–16 unsafe?33

Bibliography Ackerman, Susan. “What If Judges Had Been Written by a Philistine?” BibInt 8 (2000): 33–41. Balla, Angela. “Wars of Evidence and Religious Toleration in Milton’s Samson Agonistes.” Milton Quarterly 46 (2012): 65–85. Brettler, Marc Zvi. The Book of Judges. London: Routledge, 2002. Brice, Lee L. “Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient World.” Pages 3–30 in Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean. Edited by Timothy Howe and Lee L. Brice. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Brown, Dennis. “Moral Dilemma and Tragic Affect in Samson Agonistes.” Literature and Religion 20 (2006): 91–106. Carey, John. “A Work in Praise of Terrorism?: September 11 and Samson Agonistes.” Times Literary Supplement (6 September 2002): 15–16. Chernaik, Warren. “Tragic Freedom in Samson Agonistes.” The European Legacy 17 (2012): 197–211. Exum, J. Cheryl. “Aspects of Symmetry and Balance in the Samson Saga.” JSOT 19 (1981): 3–29. –. “The Many Faces of Samson.” Pages 13–32 in Samson: Hero or Fool? The Many Faces of Samson. Edited by Erik Eynikel and Tobias Nicklas. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Fish, Stanley. How Milton Works. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. Gregory, Tobias. “The Political Messages of Samson Agonistes.” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 50 (2010): 175–203. Gunn, David M. Judges through the Centuries. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Guttenplan, D. D. “THINK TANK; Is Reading Milton Unsafe at Any Speed?” New York Times December 28, 2002: B9. Print. Howe, Timothy and Lee L. Brice, eds. Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Jeter, Joseph R., Jr. Preaching Judges. St. Louis: Chalice, 2003. Loscocco, Paula. “‘Not Less Renown’d than Jael’: Heroic Chastity in Samson Agonistes.” Milton Studies 40 (2001): 181–200. Mailer, Norman. Why We Are at War. New York: Random, 2003. Milton, John. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Edited by Merritt Y. Hughes. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1957. –. A Defense of the People of England. Pages 285–307 in Complete Prose Works of John Milton, Vol. 4. Edited by Don M. Wolfe. 8 Vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953–1982.

33 I take this phrase from the article by D. D. Guttenplan, “THINK TANK; Is Reading Milton Unsafe at Any Speed?” New York Times December 28, 2002: B9. Print. For a full consideration of the relationship between the biblical Samson and terrorism, see my forthcoming book Willingness to Die: Suicide and Martyrdom in the Hebrew Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2022).

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Mohamed, Feisal G. “Confronting Religious Violence: Milton’s Samson Agonistes.” PMLA 120 (2005): 327–340. Ntezley, Ryan. “Reading Events: The Value of Reading and the Possibilities of Political Action and Criticism in Samson Agonistes.” Criticism 48 (2006): 509–533. Oldman, Elizabeth. “Milton, Grotius, and the Law of War: A Reading of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes.” Studies in Philology 104 (2007): 340–375. Rogers, John. “Delivering Redemption in Samson Agonistes.” Pages 72–97 in Altering Eyes: New Perspectives on Samson Agonistes. Edited by Mark R. Kelley and Jospeh Wittreich. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2002. Rudrum, Alan. “Milton Scholarship and the Agon over Samson Agonistes.” HLQ 65 (2002): 465–488.

Methods of Interpreting Scripture and Nature The Influence of the Baconian Method on Spinoza’s Biblical Criticism Jeffrey L. Morrow

In recent years it has become commonplace to identify the seventeenth century political philosopher Baruch Spinoza as an important figure within the early history of modern biblical scholarship.1 The now almost universal recognition of his pivotal place within this history can be gauged by the inclusion of entire chapters on Spinoza in the many recent volumes of histories of the history of biblical scholarship.2 Even if Spinoza’s exegesis would not be recognizable as modern biblical scholarship, it is now virtually undeniable that the method he constructed played a role in later developments in biblical exegesis that would lead to modern historical biblical criticism and resultant exegesis. Despite the reticence of our early modern intellectual forebears to cite every source of influence on their work, such influences always existed. Spinoza is no exception; his work did not emerge from a vacuum. In what follows I hope to shed a little light on what I think is one underappreciated influence on a key component of Spinoza’s work, namely the very model for the method he proposes for the interpretation of the Bible.3 I argue that Spinoza takes Francis Bacon’s method of constructing a history of nature as a model for his own proposal of compiling a history of Scripture. Bacon, however, desires his method to be used to understand the reality out there in 1 E. g., John J. Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), 51; and Jean-Louis Ska, Introduction à la lecture du Pentateuque: Clés pour l’interprétation des cinq premiers livres de la Bible (Brussels: Lessius, 2000), 146. 2 E. g., Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson, ed., A History of Biblical Interpretation Volume 3: The Enlightenment through the Nineteenth Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017); Pierre Gibert, L’invention critique de la Bible: XVe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 2010); Magne Sæbø, ed., The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation Volume II: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008); and Henning Graf Reventlow, Epochen der Bibelauslegung Band IV: Von der Aufklärung bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (Munich: Beck, 2001). 3 I discuss his method and its varied influences in more detail in Jeffrey L. Morrow, Three Skeptics and the Bible: La Peyrère, Hobbes, Spinoza, and the Reception of Modern Biblical Criticism (Eugene: Pickwick, 2016), 104–138.

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the natural world for the practical goal of increasing human technological control of the natural world. Spinoza, in some contrast, desires his method to be used, not so much to understand Scripture, let alone any purported real history behind the texts, despite his claims to the contrary, but rather to limit the permissible interpretations of Scripture. Spinoza’s allegedly scientific method would facilitate the governing of people while inhibiting political leaders from siding with particular religious communities, and thus facilitating peace. Thus, before exploring Spinoza’s use of Bacon, it is worthwhile exploring Spinoza’s biblical hermeneutic in the broader context of his project.

1. Spinoza’s Project: Political Exegesis in Search of a Method Standard retellings of the life of Spinoza are rooted in the anonymous hagiographic La vie de Monsieur Benoit de Spinoza.4 The story is well-known. Spinoza was the most advanced and intelligent student in the Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam. His erudition led him to question many of the core theological beliefs of Judaism. His learned skepticism, already at a young age, culminated in a famous battle of the wits between Spinoza and the leading Jewish intellectual of the community, the chief rabbi. After the intellectual joust in the religious court, Spinoza was excommunicated on account of heresy. Thus Spinoza spent the remainder of his days seeking for the freedom to engage in philosophy, for himself and for his circle of like-minded radical intellectuals. The problems with this standard story are many, perhaps the largest being that there is no evidence such events ever took place, apart from the excommunication itself. Travis Frampton’s important study, Spinoza and the Rise of Historical Criticism of the Bible, includes what is perhaps the most careful treatment of the story of La vie de Monsieur Benoit de Spinoza in the various forms in which it has come down to us.5 What he demonstrates is that the document is primarily fictional, written by Spinoza’s later supporters in defense of their own espousal of forms of Spinozism which were incredibly controversial at the time. Thus, their hagiographical account paints Spinoza as the ideal enlightened Jewish philosopher, with deep knowledge of and expert training in traditional Jewish theology and interpretation. Such a hagiographical foundational story was important during the eighteenth century because Spinoza’s thought, and philosophical currents understood to be Spinozist, exerted a tremendous in4 A number of contemporary biographies of Spinoza are far more careful, e. g., Richard H. Popkin, Spinoza (Oxford: Oneworld, 2004); and Steven Nadler, Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 5 Travis L. Frampton, Spinoza and the Rise of Historical Criticism of the Bible (New York: T&T Clark, 2006), especially 76–158.

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fluence throughout European intellectual life during this time, as the work of Jonathan Israel has shown.6 The available historical evidence depicts a very different picture of Spinoza from La vie de Monsieur Benoit de Spinoza. Spinoza does not appear in the records of any of the advanced classes at the synagogue, thus he may only have received formal Jewish education until he was thirteen years old. Much is made of the fact that the formal statement of excommunication used for Spinoza mentions “heresy.” What is clear, however, is that the actual text of excommunication used was not tailored to Spinoza’s specific case but was in fact from decades earlier from Venice.7 Moreover, Odette Vlessing’s studies of the archival evidence have demonstrated that another explanation for his excommunication is far more likely than the mature heretical views of Spinoza being already fully formed as a youth.8 Studies of the Sephardic Jewish community in Amsterdam during Spinoza’s time have indicated the relative autonomy the community was able to maintain, including in legal and economic matters; the Jewish community was able to try their own cases and handle civil matters in general without recourse to the secular courts of Amsterdam.9 The historical evidence indicates further that Spinoza, who had taken over his father’s business, owed a large debt to other members of the Jewish community in Amsterdam. He blamed his father, who had been a prominent and well-respected member of the synagogue, for the debt, and also went around the Jewish authorities who usually handled such matters 6 See, e. g., Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Jonathan I. Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1752 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 7 See, e. g., H. P. Salomon, “Le vrai excommunication de Spinoza,” in Forum Literarum, ed. H. Bots and M. Kerkhof, 181–199 (Amsterdam: Maarsen, 1984); and Israel S. Révah, “Aux origines de la rupture Spinozienne: nouveaux documents sur l’incroyance dans la communauté judéo-portugaise à Amsterdam à l’époque de l’excommunication de Spinoza,” Revue des études juives 123 (1964): 359–431. 8 Odette Vlessing, “The Excommunication of Baruch Spinoza: The Birth of a Philosopher,” in Dutch Jewry: Its History and Secular Culture (1500–2000), ed. Jonathan Israel and Reinier Salverda (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 141–172; Odette Vlessing, “The Excommunication of Baruch Spinoza: A Conflict Between Jewish and Dutch Law,” Studia Spinozana 13 (1997): 15–47; and Odette Vlessing, “The Jewish Community in Transition: From Acceptance to Emancipation,” Studia Rosenthaliana 30 (1996): 195–211. 9 See, e. g., Odette Vlessing, “New Light on the Earliest History of the Amsterdam Portuguese Jews,” in Dutch Jewish History Volume 3, ed. Jozeph Michman (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1993), 43–76; Yosef Kaplan, “The Portuguese Community in the Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam and the Ashkenazi World,” in Dutch Jewish History Volume 2, ed. Jozeph Michman (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1989), 23–45; Jonathan I. Israel, “The Economic Contribution of Dutch Sephardim in International Trade, 1595–1713,” Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis 96 (1983): 505–535; Yosef Kaplan, “The Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam: From Forced Conversion to a Return to Judaism,” Studia Rosenthaliana 15 (1981): 37–51; and E. M. Koen, “The Earliest Sources Relating to the Portuguese Jews in the Municipal Archives of Amsterdam up to 1620,” Studia Rosenthaliana 4 (1970): 25–42.

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to the secular Amsterdam authorities. He did this by requesting a legal guardian, which was granted to the twenty-three-year-old Spinoza, thus cancelling all of his debt to members of the Jewish community.10 This was a double blow to the Jewish community. At one and the same time, Spinoza brought shame to a deceased prominent member of the community – his own father – and also went outside of the community to handle the legal and economic matter of his debt. The evidence suggests this would have been viewed as a threat to the relative autonomy of the Amsterdam Jewish community and would have been sufficient grounds for his excommunication, and excommunication that was apparently irrevocable, unlike the normal excommunications on matters purely of heresy wherein alleged heretics were given opportunities to recant. Excommunications, even with language like “heresy,” were justified on such social grounds.11 Thus, instead of viewing Spinoza’s later work, which appears as an attack on traditional religious traditions, Judaism not least of which, in his Tractatus Theologico-politicus as some regurgitation of his earlier views, we can understand it at least in part as a response to his excommunication. If this is the case, then Jon Levenson would be justified in his comment that, after his excommunication, “Spinoza turned against the Jewish tradition and even against the Jews themselves with fury,”12 and that, furthermore, “History supplied Spinoza with the coffin into which he placed the Torah.”13 I think this is fundamentally correct. Although it may at first appear to be anachronistic to view Spinoza as evidencing a hermeneutic of suspicion, he did just that when it came to miracles in Scripture, or even traditional attributions of authorship and the history behind the texts. Spinoza understood miracles as explainable naturalistically.14 Spinoza did not, however, simply doubt the reality of miracles on some a priori philosophical grounds, but also viewed miracle accounts as political ploys for rulers to gain control. This was much like the approach of Niccolò Machiavelli before him.15 One need only compare Machiavelli’s account of Moses

10

See, e. g., Vlessing, “Birth of a Philosopher,” 141–172; and Vlessing, “Conflict,” 15–47. See, e. g., Vlessing, “Birth of a Philosopher,” 141–172; Vlessing, “Conflict,” 15–47; Vlessing, “Jewish Community,” 195–211; and Asa Kasher and Shlomo Biderman, “Why Was Baruch de Spinoza Excommunicated,” in Sceptics, Millenarians and Jews, ed. David S. Katz and Jonathan I. Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 98–141. 12 Jon D. Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 91. 13 Ibid., 95. 14 See, e. g., Michael A. Rosenthal, “Miracles, Wonder, and the State,” in Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise: A Critical Guide, ed. Yitzhak Y. Melamed amd Michael A. Rosenthal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 231–249; and J. Garrido Zaragoza, “La desmitificación de la Escritura en Spinoza,” Taula 9 (1988): 3–45. 15 On Machiavelli’s political biblical interpretation and the implications of his work for the future of biblical criticism, see Scott W. Hahn and Benjamin Wiker, Politicizing the Bible: The 11

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in Il principe with that of Spinoza in his Tractatus Theologico-politicus.16 A much earlier parallel to Spinoza’s quest for sources behind the text of Scripture, and particularly of the Pentateuch, which appears likewise to evidence what might be called a hermeneutic of suspicion, is the careful philological work of the Andalusian Muslim polymath Ibn Hazm.17 Steven Nadler sums up well Spinoza’s project: By showing that the Bible is not, in fact, the work of a supernatural God – “a message for mankind sent down by God from heaven,” as Spinoza mockingly puts it  – but a perfectly natural human document; that the author of the Pentateuch is not Moses; that Hebrew Scripture as a whole is but a compilation of writings composed by fallible and not particularly learned individuals under various historical and political circumstances; that most of these writings were transmitted over generations, to be finally redacted by a latter-day political and religious leader – in short, by naturalizing the Torah and the other books of the Bible and reducing them to ordinary (though morally valuable) works of literature, Spinoza hopes to undercut ecclesiastic influence in politics and other domains and weaken the sectarian dangers facing his beloved Republic.18

2. Influences on Spinoza Scholars who study Spinoza have identified numerous influences and sources for various aspects of Spinoza’s thought. This is unsurprising since Spinoza read widely, in a number of different languages, as is evidenced by his well-preserved library.19 Influences scholars have put forward include Spinoza’s contemporaries

Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture 1300–1700 (New York: Herder & Herder, 2013), 117–146. 16 For the former see Niccolò Machiavelli, Opere di Niccolò Machiavelli: De Principatibus, Discorso sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio (I–II): Volume I, Part I, ed. Rinaldo Rinaldi (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1999). More significant than his portrayal of Moses, however, is Machiavelli’s attempt at creating a modern critical history in his Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. 17 See especially Joshua Berman, “The Biblical Criticism of Ibn Hazm the Andalusian: A Medieval Control for Modern Diachronic Method,” Journal of Biblical Literature 138.2 (2019): 377–390; Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); R. David Freedman, “The Father of Modern Biblical Scholarship,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 19 (1989): 31–38; and Nurshif Rif ‘at, “Ibn Hazm on Jews and Judaism,” (Ph.D. Diss., Exeter University, 1988). 18 Steven Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 111. 19 J. Freudenthal, ed., Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza’s: In Quellenschriften, Urkunden und nichtamtlichen Nachrichten (Leipzig: Veit, 1899); and A. J. Servaas van Rooijen, Inventaire des livres formant la bibliothèque de Bénédict Spinoza. Publié d’après un document inédit, avec des notes biographiques et bibliographiques et une introduction (The Hague/Paris: Tengeler and Monnerat, 1888).

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from his inner intellectual circle like Lodewiijk Meyer and Samuel Fisher.20 Others have traced the evidence linking Spinoza with the thought of the specific Marrano intellectuals in the generation just senior to Spinoza, like Juan de Prado and Uriel da Costa.21 Still others, myself included, have focused on the probable influences of the seventeenth century English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, or their French contemporary polymath Isaac La Peyrère.22 Even Arabic philosophical and philological influences from Medieval Muslim intellectuals have been posited for Spinoza.23 By far, however, the most often cited influence on Spinoza in general has been René Descartes.24 Spinoza, however, is not a simple disciple of Descartes. Although his philosophy fits within the context of the broad reception of and engagement with Descartes in the seventeenth century Dutch Republic, Spinoza disagreed with Descartes on a number of points.25 There are a number of reasons Cartesian philosophy is probably so often identified as an influence on Spinoza’s biblical method. The first is that Spinoza’s first work, the only one he published with his own name as author, was an explanation of Descartes’ philosophy.26 20 See, e. g., Manfred Walther, “Biblische Hermeneutik und historische Erklärung: Lodewijk Meyer und Benedikt de Spinoza,” Studia Spinozana 11 (1995): 227–300; and Richard H. Popkin, “Spinoza and Samuel Fisher,” Philosophia 15 (1985): 219–236. 21 See, e. g., Gabriel Albiac, La sinagoga vacía: un estudio de las fuentes marranas del espinosismo (Madrid: Hiperión, 1987). 22 See, e. g., Jeffrey L. Morrow, Pretensions of Objectivity: Toward a Criticism of Biblical Criticism (Eugene: Pickwick, 2019), 48–54; Edwin Curley, “‘I Durst Not Write So Boldly’ or How to Read Hobbes’ Theologico-Political Treatise,” in Hobbes e Spinoza: Scienza e politica, ed. Daniela Bostrenghi (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1992), 497–593; and Richard H. Popkin, “Spinoza and La Peyrère,” Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 8 (1977): 177–195. 23 See, e. g., Morrow, Three Skeptics and the Bible, 39; Youcef Djedi, “Spinoza et l’islam: un état des lieux,” Philosophiques 37 (2010): 275–298; Carlos Fraenkel, “Spinoza on Philosophy and Religion: The Averroistic Sources,” in The Rationalists: Between Tradition and Innovation, ed. Carlos Fraenkel, Dario Perinetti, and Justin Smith (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), 58–81; Rafael Ramón Guerrero, “Filósofos hispano-musulmanes y Spinoza: Avempace y Abentofail,” in Spinoza y España: Actas del Congreso Internacional sobre «Relaciones entre Spinoza y España» (Almagro, 5–7 noviembre 1992), ed. Atilano Domínguez (Almagro: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 1994), 125–132; Roger Arnaldez, “Spinoza et la pensée arabe,” Revue de synthèse 99 (1978): 151–174; and Henry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the Latent Process of His Reasoning: Volume I (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934), 8–13, 30, 125–126, 157, 189–190, 197–199, and 284. 24 See, e. g., Susan James, Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics: The TheologicoPolitical Treatise (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 9–11 and 144–147; Michelle Beyssade, “Deux latinistes: Descartes et Spinoza,” in Spinoza to the Letter: Studies in Words, Texts and Books, ed. Fokke Akkerman and Piet Steenbakkers, (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 55–68; Michael Della Rocca, “Mental Content and Skepticism in Descartes and Spinoza,” Studia Spinozana 10 (1994): 19–42; Edwin Curley, Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza’s Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); and Edwin Curley, “Spinoza’s Geometrical Method,” Studia Spinozana 2 (1986): 151–169. 25 Wiep van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza: An Essay on Philosophy in the SeventeenthCentury Dutch Republic (Leiden: Brill, 2001). 26 Spinoza’s 1663 Principia philosophiae cartesianae.

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Moreover, Spinoza’s hermeneutic of suspicion as he approaches the biblical texts is often linked with Descartes’ methodic doubt. Spinoza’s very intent to come up with a method for biblical interpretation has been seen as part “of the ‘mania’ for method” Descartes catalyzed.27 2.1. Bacon’s Method for the Interpretation of Nature It is sometimes forgotten that Bacon too was intent on the creation of method, in his case, a scientific method for the disciplined investigation of the world. Sometimes Bacon is dismissed as an influence on Spinoza because Bacon was negative toward philosophy, and because Spinoza criticized Bacon in a 1661 letter he wrote to Henry Oldenburg.28 In a 1666 letter to Johannes Bouwmeester, however, Spinoza assumes the importance of Bacon’s method of natural history.29 In any case, Spinoza’s letters reveal that he had an intimate knowledge of Bacon’s works, especially his Novum Organum which will be the focus of our study. A number of other scholars have made passing reference to the likely influence of Bacon on Spinoza.30 The most thorough, as regards Spinoza’s biblical interpretation, has been the few pages in Sylvain Zac’s 1965 study.31 A brief look at some relevant portions of Bacon’s Novum Organum and the sections of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-politicus will helps us see how Spinoza seeks to model his scientific method of interpreting the Bible on Bacon’s scientific method of interpreting nature.

27

Hahn and Wiker, Politicizing the Bible, 258. Edwin Curley, ed. and trans., The Collected Works of Spinoza Volume I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 164–168. 29 Edwin Curley, ed. and trans., The Collected Works of Spinoza Volume II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 32–33. 30 See, e. g., Carlos Fraenkel, “Spinoza on Miracles and the Truth of the Bible,” Journal of the History of Ideas 74.4 (2013): 643–658; Juan Francisco Manrique Charry, “La herencia de Bacon en la doctrina spinocista del lenguaje,” Universitas Philosophica 54 (2010): 121–130; Adrien Klajnman, “Vraie Méthode et interprétation de l’Écriture chez Spinoza,”  Revue de métaphysique et de morale 62.2 (2009): 205–225; J. Samuel Preus, Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 38, 161–168, 181, and 195; Alan Gabbey, “Spinoza’s Natural Science and Methodology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed. Don Garrett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 142–191, esp. 170–172; Alan Donagan, “Spinoza’s Theology,” in Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed. Don Garret (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 343; Alan Donagan, Spinoza (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 16–17; and Sylvain Zac, Spinoza et l’interprétation de l’Écriture (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1965), 29–35. See also the especially helpful notes to the most recent critical edition of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-politicus in Spinoza, Œuvres III: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus/Traité théologico-politique, 2nd ed., ed. Pierre-François Moreau, text established by Fokke Akkerman, trans. and notes by Jacqueline Lagrée and Pierre-François Moreau (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2012), 734–735. 31 Zac, Spinoza, 29–32. 28

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Bacon’s 1620 Novum Organum charted a course to the development of a disciplined method for the scientific investigation of the world.32 One of the motivations inspiring Bacon to write Novum Organum was his frustration with the sciences in their lack of a consistent method and their overreliance on philosophy. His aim is to help create a disciplined method for interpreting nature correctly. He dangles the promise of engaging in natural philosophy before his readers, but adds his caveat: “Then we have a hope of natural philosophy when a natural history (which is its basis and foundation) has been compiled better, but not until then.”33 Bacon speaks of the collecting of data derived primarily through the work of experimentation so that the information can be placed into a natural history; natural history itself serves as the repository of data.34 Bacon remains wary of the fallibility of human understanding.35 His method requires the movement from the collection of particulars to the universals, never vice versa.36 He thus articulates a set of rules for the proper “interpretation of nature [Naturae Interpretationem].”37 He explains the import of what he is arguing when he states: But now it is time for the art of interpreting nature [Interpretandi Naturam]: we think that our precepts are the most true and are the most useful, although they are not of absolute necessity (as if nothing could be done without them), nor is there attributed any perfection to them. In fact, we are of the opinion that if men had available to them the right history of nature and experience, and would apply themselves steadily, and could bind themselves to two things: first, that they may lay aside received opinions and notions; as for the other, they could hold off, until the right time, generalization, they might, with the exercise of their minds, without the aid of any art, come around to our mode of interpretation.38

Turning from Bacon to Spinoza will show us how much Spinoza sounds like Bacon in his articulation of a method for the proper interpretation of Scripture.

32 In what follows, most of the English translations of Bacon are my own. In some cases, I have only slightly modified the English translations of Bacon’s Novum Organum found in Lord Bacon, Novum Organum, ed. Joseph Devey (New York: Collier & Son, 1902). The Latin text is taken from the 1878 Clarendon Press edition available online at the Latin Library: http:// www.thelatinlibrary.com/bacon.html. I will make reference to the Latin edition with Arabic numeral to part followed by Roman numeral sections identified from the text, with pagination in brackets to Devey’s English version. 33 Bacon, Novum Organum, 1.XCVIII [79]. 34 E. g., Ibid., 1.XCIX [80], “Then, indeed, the hope of further progress in the sciences will only be well founded, when many experiments are received and collected into the history of nature.” 35 E. g., Ibid., 1.CI [80] and 1.CXXIV [99]. 36 E. g., Ibid., 1.CIII [81]. 37 Ibid., 1.CXV [90]. 38 Ibid., 1.CXXX [106–107].

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2.2. Spinoza’s Use of Bacon’s Method as a Model for the Interpretation of Scripture Spinoza’s 1670 anonymously published Tractatus Theologico-politicus has increasingly been understood as programmatic for the development of modern biblical criticism. As we have seen Bacon arguing for the importance of method in developing a natural history of the world in order to understand it better, so too Spinoza lays down the foundations for creating a history of Scripture patterned on Bacon’s history of nature. Early in his seventh chapter, where he lays out his proposed method for biblical interpretation, in what appears to be a subtle allusion to the subtitle of Bacon’s work, Spinoza calls for just such an interpretation. Novum Organum’s subtitle is “Information on the Interpretation of Nature” [Indicia de Interpretatione Naturae]. Spinoza similarly entitles his seventh chapter, “On the Interpretation of Scripture” [De interpretatione Scripturae]; he replaces Bacon’s “nature” [naturae] with “Scripture” [Scripturae].39 Thus, at the very foundation of modern historical biblical criticism, in the seventeenth century, we find the historical method of Spinoza patterned on the methods of natural science. At the very outset, Spinoza explains what he proposes: the method of interpreting Scripture [methodum interpretandi Scripturam] does not differ from the method of interpreting nature [methodum interpretandi naturam], but completely accords with it. For just as the method of interpreting nature consists ultimately in compiling a history of nature, out of which from certain data [certis datis], we draw conclusions regarding the definitions of natural things, so too, in order to interpret Scripture it is necessary to construct a true history and to draw conclusions from it, as from certain data [certis datis] and principles, by legitimate deductions.40

Here Spinoza explicitly compares his proposed method for interpreting Scripture with the method for “compiling a history of nature,” which sounds remarkably like Bacon’s own words. The similarities between the project of Bacon’s Novum Organum and the hermeneutical proposal found in the seventh chapter of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-politicus goes beyond the simple observation that both speak of a “method of interpreting nature,”41 but rather lies especially in the specific methods they 39 In this article, all Latin quotations from Spinoza are taken from Akkerman’s critical edition, Spinoza, Œuvres III, ed. Moreau. All English translations of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologicopoliticus are my own or in some instances are modified from Curley, ed., Collected Works of Spinoza II, but will be cited as Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus, followed by the pagination to Moreau’s edited volume of the Latin text, with the pagination to Curley’s English edition in brackets. 40 Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus, 278 and 280 [171]. 41 E. g., Bacon, Novum Organum: the title of book one is, “On the Interpretation of Nature and the Reign of Man,” [compare with English ed., 11]; “the norm for the interpretation of nature,” 1.CXV [90]; the title of book two is, “On the Interpretation of Nature, or the Reign of

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propose. Just as Bacon seeks to describe what he calls “the art itself and norm for the interpretation of nature [Interpretandi Naturam],”42 so too Spinoza hopes to elucidate “the true method of interpreting Scripture.”43 It is here that Spinoza uses the method for the interpretation of nature as the analogy for the method of interpreting Scripture.44 In the first place, Spinoza maintains that, “almost all of the things, the things that are contained in Scripture, ought to be sought only from Scripture itself [ab ipsa Scriptura sola], just as the knowledge of nature from nature itself [ab ipsa natura].”45 This sola Scriptura language, more than derived from some Protestant hermeneutical principle, Spinoza links directly with the method of constructing a history of nature, albeit without naming Bacon directly.46 Although Spinoza is often depicted as focusing on reason as the primary tool for proper biblical interpretation, this is overly simplistic. In fact, Spinoza is quite critical of recourse to philosophy and reason alone. I think James Samuel Preus is correct in identifying Spinoza’s friend and disciple Lodewijk Meyer as standing behind Spinoza’s critique of Maimonides and purely philosophical interpretation.47 Meyer had already published his Philosophia S. Scripturae interpres, which was an attempt to create a purely rational philosophical hermeneutic, specifically Cartesian philosophy, for interpreting the Bible, which left it intact as inspired Scripture.48 For Spinoza, however, what is needed is a history of Scripture which would tie biblical interpretation to the facts or the data derived from that history and insulate it from the fallible notions of human thoughts on the matter. As he explains, “we must take the utmost care … lest our own reasoning prejudice

Man,” [compare with English ed., 108]; and Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus: “it accords with the method of interpreting nature [methodo interpretandi naturam],” 280 [171]. 42 Bacon, Novum Organum, 1.CXV [90]. 43 Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus, 310 [186]. 44 Ibid., 280 [171]. 45 Ibid., 280 [171]. 46 Spinoza will articulate this sola Scriptura principle throughout, e. g., Tractatus Theologicopoliticus: “So all knowledge of Scripture should be sought only from itself,” 282 [172]; and “Therefore, this method of ours (that is founded on the idea that knowledge Scripture is sought only from itself [eadem, ‘the same’]), is the only one [method] that is true,” 296 [180]. In the Latin text he even employs the phrase, “sola Scriptura” (282). 47 J. Samuel Preus, “A Hidden Opponent in Spinoza’s Tractatus,” Harvard Theological Review 88.3 (1995): 361–388. Elsewhere Preus suggests, “in a deliberate counter to Meyer, who had turned to the rationalist Descartes for the proper method, Spinoza turned to the more empirically oriented Bacon.” See Preus, Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority, 162– 163. Descartes and Meyer work from universals to the particulars, whereas Bacon and Spinoza worked from the particulars to the universals. 48 Lodewijk Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae interpres: Exercitatio paradoxa, in quia, verum philosophiam infallibilem S. Literas interpretandi normam esse, appodictice demonstrator, & discrepantes ab hac sententiae expenduntur, ac refelluntur (Eleutheropoli [Amsterdam]: n.p., 1666).

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us.”49 Later in his chapter he reiterates this point: “it is not licit for us to twist the meaning of Scripture by our reason and our prejudiced opinions, but all of our knowledge of the Bible should be sought only from itself [iisdem, the same].”50 This concern for the vagaries of human reason and understanding seems remarkably similar to Bacon’s own concerns as when he writes, “In fact we are we are founding a true model of the world in the human intellect; such as it is found, not such as someone’s own reason has dictated it.”51 Again, their methods are remarkably similar. They both seek to construct a particular type of history; for Bacon it is a history of nature, for Spinoza it is a history of Scripture patterned on the history of nature. They do this by collecting and tabulating the data, derived primarily from experimentation for Bacon, and from examination of the texts themselves for Spinoza. Bacon explains, “First we must prepare a sufficient and good natural and experimental history; this is the foundation of all. For we must not invent or design, but find out what nature does or of what it may be made.”52 Spinoza is in agreement here and he maintains that, “For just as the definitions of natural things are concluded from the diverse actions of nature, in the same way they should be drawn from the diverse narratives that are in the writings about them.”53 If the “universal rule” for Spinoza’s program of biblical interpretation is “to attribute nothing to Scripture as documented there that has not been apprehended as much as possible from its history,”54 then the question remains how this is to be done. Spinoza’s answer is to begin to “collect the sentences of every book and arrange them below their main topical headings.”55 When one recognizes that late medieval scholasticism exerted at least some influence on both Descartes and Spinoza, and also that this notion of collecting sentences was a classic part of the scholastic method, one might be tempted to look to scholastic method as an inspiration here; that was my first instinct.56 The phrases sententias and colligere are suggestive, especially in light of the fact that such “collections” and “sentences” (or perhaps “opinions”) were important in scholastic dialectics and in monastic biblical interpretation within the medieval tradition that preceded

49

Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus, 284 [173]. Ibid., 286 [174–175]. 51 Bacon, Novum Organum, 1.CXXIV [99]. 52 Ibid., 2.X [120]. 53 Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus, 282 [172]. 54 Ibid., 282 [172]. 55 Ibid., 282 [173]. 56 See Étienne Gilson, Index scolastico-cartésien (New York: Burt Franklin, 1912); and J. Feudenthal, “Spinoza und die Scholastik,” in Philosophische Aufsätze. Eduard Zeller zu seinem fünfzigjährigen Doctor-Jubiläum gewidmet (Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag, 1887), 84–138, which is an important work, despite Freudenthal’s strong anti-scholastic bias, apparent when he writes things like, “Die Kette der scholastischen Tradition ist nie gerissen” (85). 50

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Spinoza, of which he would have been aware.57 I think, however, that the more proximate background is Bacon’s own call for collecting a natural history. That is, Spinoza is not putting together a scholastic collection, but rather, compiling a history of Scripture, modelled on the nascent empirical method of the hard sciences. This is basically Bacon’s methodological project brought into the realm of biblical interpretation. Bacon writes: Then after collecting and preparing a supply of natural history and experience, we have the necessary requirements for the work of philosophy, but the understanding remains as incapable acting by itself on that material, aided only by memory; as anyone would be of computing and retaining a diary [ephemeridis] by memory alone.58

A little later, Bacon elaborates: In truth, after the collection of particulars properly and regularly placed before the eyes of the individuals, we must not pass at once to the investigation and discovery of new particulars or of new works; or, at least, if we do so, we must not stop there. I do not deny the experience of all the arts, that with applying the experiments of one art to others, after all had been collected and arranged, and brought within reach of one person’s knowledge and judgment, they may lead to many new useful things and discoveries benefiting human life in general and society, by that experience which we call literate.59

In short, this is the method Spinoza advocates. Moreover, this history must be complete, including all of the various steps and stages. The intentions of the writers will be “unearthed from the history of Scripture.”60 These are the main areas of commonality between Bacon and Spinoza.

57 In the Latin of Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus, 282, we find an interesting segment of Spinoza’s text which reads in part: “Sententias uniuscujusque libri colligere debet easque ad summa capita redigere.” Within the monastic tradition, as Jean Leclercq explains, setentiae were “brief texts that provide a summary or simply an outline, written by the author himself either before or after the sermon, or, more often, by hearers in the audience, during or after the sermon.” In a scholastic context, in the cathedral schools and later in the medieval universities, the sense was related, but was focused on dialectics. Again, Leclercq writes that, “In scholasticism, the sententia is the same text that is being discussed, or the result of the quaestio and of the disputatio … the sententia is the very exposition itself, reported in summary form.” The very point of such sententiae were to provide “points for meditation.” These were often found together as “collections of sentences [recueils de sentences].” See Jean Leclercq, L’Amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu: Initiation aux auteurs monastiques du moyen age, 3rd ed. (Paris: Cerf, 1990 [1957]), 162–163. 58 Bacon, Novum Organum, 1.CI [80]. 59 Ibid., 1.CIII [81]. 60 Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus, 294 [178].

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3. Conclusion Spinoza’s attempt to pattern biblical exegesis on the methodological principles of the hard sciences would have an enduring legacy. His motives, however, appear to have been other than what he put forward. He claimed to be attempting to create a scientific method for biblical interpretation, but in reality, he was forming a biblical hermeneutic to serve his political ends. Bringing the Baconian method into biblical exegesis was Spinoza’s attempt to limit the real meaning of the Bible to core moral principles, summed up in “love thy neighbor,” thereby de-fanging religious authorities.61 As “one of Machiavelli’s most perceptive readers,”62 Spinoza brought Machiavelli’s implicit hermeneutic of suspicion regarding the Bible into his Baconian exegetical framework.63 As Yirmiyahu Yovel explains, for Spinoza, “biblical hermeneutics is an aggressive activity, offering the philosopher a mode of involvement in the social and cultural processes of his time.”64 Brad Gregory argues that modern biblical criticism, as it was forged in the eighteenth century, represented “an ideological commitment to the construction of a black-hole historicism of the biblical past. Scholars would be the arbiters of what would be permitted to escape, and on whose terms . . . . No one would be permitted to cross the chasm between modern present and ancient past except on the terms of the guardians of the science of antiquity.”65 He maintains, moreover, that, “Functionally, this was just what Spinoza had sought to accomplish in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), only by different means.”66 This is one of the major enduring contributions Spinoza made to the history of modern biblical scholarship. He redeployed Bacon’s method of natural history in the realm of biblical interpretation for his political agenda. In so doing, Spinoza contributed as well to the dethronement of Scripture as a theological wellspring rendering it instead a document from antiquity, like any other. The Bible thus emerges as a cultural document suitable for redeployment for various political uses.67 61 See Yirmiyahu Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics II: The Adventures of Immanence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 14: “biblical interpretation reduces the message of Scripture to an embryonic doctrine of universal morality, denying the Bible any cognitive import.” 62 Graham Hammill, The Mosaic Constitution: Political Theology and Imagination from Machiavelli to Milton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 22. 63 For the way in which Machiavelli created a hermeneutic of suspicion regarding the Bible see the perceptive comments in Hahn and Wiker, Politicizing the Bible, 117–146. 64 Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics II, 11. 65 Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 345. 66 Ibid., 345. 67 See, e. g., the overarching arguments of Michael C. Legaspi, The Death of Scripture and the Rise of Biblical Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); and Jonathan Sheehan,

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–. “The Jewish Community in Transition: From Acceptance to Emancipation.” Studia Rosenthaliana 30 (1996): 195–211. –. “New Light on the Earliest History of the Amsterdam Portuguese Jews.” Pages 43–76 in Dutch Jewish History Volume 3. Edited by Jozeph Michman. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1993. Walther, Manfred. “Biblische Hermeneutik und historische Erklärung: Lodewijk Meyer und Benedikt de Spinoza.” Studia Spinozana 11 (1995): 227–300. Wolfson, Henry Austryn. The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the Latent Process of His Reasoning: Volume I. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934. Yovel, Yirmiyahu. Spinoza and Other Heretics II: The Adventures of Immanence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Zac, Sylvain. Spinoza et l’interprétation de l’Écriture. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1965. Zaragoza, J. Garrido. “La desmitificación de la Escritura en Spinoza.” Taula 9 (1988): 3–45.

Reading the Acts of the Apostles with Francis Turretin Continuity and Discontinuity Brandon D. Crowe

In his learned commentary on James, New Testament scholar Dale Allison devotes much attention to the history of interpretation, bemoaning its lack in many contemporary works of exegesis. Allison states: “Careful attention to older commentaries sometimes allows one to recover exegetical suggestions and profitable lines of inquiry that, from a historical-critical point of view, should never have dropped out of the commentary tradition.”1 Similarly, in a preface to his translation of Adolf Schlatter, Andreas Köstenberger opines that “Many of the best arguments in the history of interpretation have never been refuted, just forgotten or ignored.”2 I believe these observations are on target. In this essay I seek present-day insights into the Acts of the Apostles by looking backwards in the history of interpretation to the work of Swiss-Italian Reformer Francis Turretin (1623–87). There is much that is good in modern-day interpretations of Acts, with no shortage of cultural, rhetorical, social, textual, intertextual, ideological studies and so forth. We have learned much about the ancient world since the seventeenth century. And yet the history of interpretation reveals some exegetical and theological options that are not always engaged by contemporary New Testament scholarship. Modern-day exegesis of Acts will be enriched by considering some exegetical options from previous generations. More specifically, I want to consider what Turretin has to say about issues of continuity and discontinuity in salvation history from Acts. That is, how does Turretin lean upon Acts to speak about what is new with the coming of Christ? And how does Turretin lean upon Acts to speak about what does not change across covenant administrations? My primary source will be Turretin’s Institutes

1 Dale C. Allison, Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of James, ICC (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 2. 2 Andreas J. Köstenberger, “Translator’s Preface,” in Adolf Schlatter, The History of the Christ: The Foundation for New Testament Theology, trans. Andreas J. Köstenberger (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 14.

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of Elenctic Theology.3 Though it is not presented as a complete work of systematic theology, Turretin’s Institutes are remarkably thorough. Moreover, Turretin engages liberally with biblical texts throughout this work of polemical theology, which gives us ample material for the present investigation.4 I am particularly interested in what Turretin has to say about Acts, given his strong emphasis on continuity between the Old Covenant represented in the Old Testament, and the New Covenant in Christ.5 Acts illustrates the newness of the New Covenant era starkly. Turretin is quite willing to identify a multitude of ways that the New Covenant in Acts is truly new.6 Yet given his continental Reformed pedigree, it is no surprise that Turretin has much to say about the continuity of salvation.7 And he frequently draws upon Acts in the service of expositing this unity. My outline will be as follows. 1) First, I will consider what Turretin has to say about the newness of Acts and how it speaks to the discontinuity of covenant administrations. Here Turretin’s arguments sound quite contemporary. 2) Second, I will consider what Turretin has to say about what is not new in Acts, and how this reveals his understanding of a fundamental unity between the Old and New Covenants. Here Turretin’s voice stands in greater relief to much contemporary exegesis. 3) Third, I will bring Turretin into conversation with some present-day exegesis of Acts and consider what insights his approach may offer today.

3 This has been available in English since the mid-1990s: Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr., 3 vols. (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992–1997). The original (revised) edition is Institutio theologiae elencticae, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Geneva: Samuel de Tournes, 1688–1689). Where I utilize English translations and where I paraphrase, I happily acknowledge my debt to Giger (and Dennison). For ease of reference, I include the volume and page numbers of the Giger translation along with references to the specific paragraph of the Inst. I am not canvassing other works of Turretin in this essay, such as his De satisfactione Christi disputationes: cum indicibus necessariis. Adiectae sunt eiusdem duae disputationes; I. De circulo pontificio. II. De concordia Iacobi et Pauli in articulo Iustificationes (Leiden: Fredericum Haring; Urtrecht: Ernest Voskuyl, 1696), in which Turretin addresses a number of texts from Acts. 4 On the nature of Turretin’s task, see Dennison, “The Life and Career of Francis Turretin,” in Turretin, Inst. (3:647). 5 Where I refer to Old Covenant I basically equate this with the Old Testament, whereas I basically equate the New Covenant with the New Testament. The matter is not quite so simple, but will suffice for the present essay. For Turretin’s view, see 12.8.2–4 (2:233–34) where he speaks about the Old Covenant strictly (e. g., covenant of works) or broadly (“the whole dispensation under which the fathers lived form the beginning of the world until Christ”). Though note, e. g., 12.8.25 (2:240) where he equates the New Testament with the New Covenant, which he has been explaining throughout this section. See also Inst. 12.10–12 (2:247–69). 6 The key section on discontinuity is Inst. 12.8 (2:233–40). See also Calvin, Inst. 2.11. 7 The key section on continuity is Turretin, Inst. 12.7 (2:216–33). See also Calvin, Inst. 2.10.

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1. Acts and Covenant Discontinuity First to consider is Turretin’s perspective on Acts and covenant discontinuity.8 Turretin recognizes the newness of the New Covenant era, and he often turns to Acts to support this newness. I will focus particularly on the role of the Jerusalem Council (in Acts 15), the newness of Christ’s completed work, and the new work of the Holy Spirit. 1.1 Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) The Jerusalem Council is a good place to start to consider Turretin’s understanding of what changes in the New Covenant era, especially since he so frequently refers to this passage. Turretin understands the apostolic decree that arises out of the council to address a change with respect to how the law is applied. The prohibition against things strangled and from blood (Acts 15:20), far from being a perpetual ordinance, was designed to be a temporary directive to help wean the Jewish believers from a more ceremonial approach to the law.9 Turretin further argues that the apostles were absolving Gentiles from ceremonial aspects of the law.10 These changes in the law’s application were for a season, which is evident in a number of ways. For example, Paul shows that “all distinction of food was wholly abrogated under the New Testament.”11 The ceremonial provisions from the apostles are thus to be understood as a concession “until Christian liberty became better known.”12 For Turretin, Paul’s letters that address freedom in eating – and which were written after the Jerusalem Council – confirm that the Jerusalem Council’s teaching on food was only temporary. For Paul already understood at the Jerusalem Council itself that food laws were abrogated (or were about to be abrogated).13 At the Jerusalem Council Turretin brings the voice of James in concert with Paul to conclude that there are changes to some aspects of the law – in Acts we encounter a transitional moment that retains some elements, even if they have been abrogated in principle. Turretin returns to the Jerusalem Council in his discussion of baptism in order to refute the Socinian position that baptism is only a temporary rite.14  8 Turretin argues that the two covenants differ in eight ways. See 12.8.8–25 (2:237–40); see similarly 12.7.46–49 (2:232–33); 12.10 (2:247–57). Key for Turretin is appreciating that differences between the covenants are relative rather than absolute, accidental rather than essential.  9 Inst. 11.25.20 (2:164). 10 Inst. 11.25.20 (2:164); cf. 11.14.14 (2:95). 11 Inst. 11.25.20 (2:164). 12 Inst. 11.25.20 (2:164). 13 Still in Inst. 11.25.20 (2:164). The Pauline texts Turretin cites are Rom. 14:14; 1 Cor. 8:8; 10:27; Col. 2:21; 1 Tim. 4:3. 14 Inst. 19.12 (esp. 19.12.2, 11) (3:384–85).

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Here Turretin again emphasizes the temporary nature of the Jerusalem Council’s decree. This is contrasted with baptism, which is perpetual and is expressly commanded by Christ.15 1.2 Work of Christ A second aspect of discontinuity is the finished work of Christ in the New Covenant era. Whereas Christ was only anticipated in the Old Covenant era, New Covenant believers live in light of the past coming of Christ.16 As we read in Acts 2:36, after his resurrection Christ is made Lord in a new way.17 This is not for Turretin a new lordship of “essential dominion,” but it is nevertheless a new experience of lordship in “personal and economic dominion.”18 Something new happens in the economy of redemption, which is sealed through Christ’s death and resurrection. Elsewhere Turretin looks to the resurrection as the new manifestation and declaration of something that was already true, namely eternal sonship.19 The resurrection and ascension are also the means by which Jesus was inaugurated fully into his threefold office as Mediator (Acts 2:36).20 Consistent with this emphasis on the finished work of Christ is Turretin’s awareness that the gospel message that goes forth in Acts is a message about the finished work of Christ. It is only with the coming of Christ that sin is actually dealt with (cf. Acts 10:43).21 Drawing on Acts 17:30, Turretin notes that with the coming of the fullness in the New Covenant era, the call to repent goes forth to all nations (cf. Acts 10:35).22 No longer is the call specifically to Israel, but God calls all people everywhere to repent.23 This is a new development that follows on the completed work of Christ. This is also reflected in the ministry and baptism of John the Baptist, whose message did not clearly set forth Christ dead and risen (as Christian baptism does), but neither did it show that Christ was far absent. It was, instead, in a 15 Acts also provides Turretin plentiful material to defend infant baptism – a practice that is at once new (baptism is a New Covenant sign and seal) yet is consistent with the Old Covenant practice of circumcision. See Inst. 19.20 (3:414–20). Passages from Acts that Turretin uses here to support infant baptism include Acts 2:39; 10:28, 47; 16:15, 33; 18:8. 16 See, e. g., Inst. 12.10.23 (2:254). See also on Acts 13:39 in Inst. 12.7.40 (2:230); 12.10.21 (2:253). 17 See here Inst. 3.28.31 (1:290). For a brief history of interpretation on Acts 2:36, see C. Kavin Rowe, “Acts 2:36 and the Continuity of Lukan Christology,” NTS 53 (2007): 38–46. 18 Inst. 3.28.31 (1:290). 19 Inst. 3.29.8 (1:294). 20 Inst. 14.5.4 (2:391–92). For Turretin, inauguration “is that by which … he willed to be inaugurated into his office in a solemn manner (even as hereditary kings are accustomed by a solemn inauguration to be put in full possession of their kingdom in order that they may be acknowledged by all)” (14.5.4 [2:391]). 21 Inst. 14.10.29 (2:426). Though this is also a passage that speaks to continuity; I address continuity below. 22 See Inst. 18.6.5 (3:31). 23 See Inst. 4.17.24 (1:403); 12.6.25, 29 (2:214–15); cf. 1.4.5 (1:10–11); 12.10.19 (2:252–53).

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sort of middle ground that was different from either.24 And in John’s baptism the gifts were not as great; the Holy Spirit was “more sparingly communicated.”25 This is evident in Turretin’s treatment of the baptism of John’s disciples in Acts 19. Though John’s disciples did not need to be rebaptized, there was a difference in degree of what was communicated to them, since John ministered before the fullness of Christ’s completed work.26 The message that goes forth to all nations is therefore a message about the completed work of Christ in its specifics – not a more general offer of grace. For this message to go out, the details of Christ’s finished work must be included. This is why, according to Turretin, “the gospel is called ‘the doctrine of Christ’ (Acts 13:12).”27 1.3 Role of the Holy Spirit Discontinuity is also evident in Turretin’s emphasis on the new work of the Holy Spirit accompanying the coming of Christ. This is first of all seen in the ministry of Christ himself, who was anointed with the Spirit (as in Acts 10:38).28 He was anointed with the Spirit “beyond measure.”29 This is a permanent reality, which in turn also benefits his people.30 Whatever distinction Turretin attributes to the work of the Spirit in the New Covenant era must be tethered to this christological reality.31 Christ’s glorification precipitates this outpouring of the Spirit.32 Thus, when it comes to the ministry of the Spirit himself, Turretin sees a greater effusion of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant era.33 Though the Spirit’s work is not entirely new in the New Covenant, he is given much more freely and abundantly. This greater effusion includes both greater and more extraordinary gifts  – not limited to a few, but for the church as a whole34 – and it includes greater ordinary gifts.35 These are greater intensively (that is, in degree of light, trust, and consolation), and they are greater extensively (that is, he teaches all things and he teaches from the least to the greatest).36 And, as we have, seen, in the Old

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Inst. 19.16.4 (3:399). Inst. 19.16.4 (3:399). 26 Inst. 19.16.14–15 (3:402). 27 Inst. 14.7.10 (2:399–400). 28 Inst. 13.12.2 (2:347). 29 Inst. 13.12.2 (2:347); this is also the language of Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) 8.3; Westminster Larger Catechism 42; cf. John 3:34. 30 Inst. 13.12.3–4 (2:347–48). 31 Cf. Inst. 13.12.1, 3 (2:347). 32 Inst. 12.7.45(4) (2:231). 33 Inst. 12.7.47 (3:232) 34 This is my paraphrase of and expansion upon Inst. 12.7.47(3) (2:232). 35 See also Inst. 18.13.48 (3:116). 36 This is also from Inst. 12.7.47 (2:232). 25

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Covenant the Spirit’s work was much more limited to the sphere of the Jewish people, but in the New Covenant his work extends to the Gentiles as well.37 In sum, for Turretin in the New Covenant era the Spirit exercises his power “far more richly and with greater fulness.”38 1.4 Conclusion: Discontinuity Turretin understands the distinction between Old Covenant believers and New Covenant believers to be like that between infants and minors.39 Such differences are apparent in his treatment of Acts. This is not, however, all there is to say. For Turretin says even more about continuity, which is also evident in his use of Acts.

2. Acts and Covenant Continuity Despite his awareness of key lines of discontinuity in Acts (reflecting discontinuity among covenant administrations), Turretin also utilizes Acts to support a large measure of continuity between covenantal administrations.40 Here Turretin’s approach stands in sharper relief to many contemporary approaches to Acts. Interestingly, Turretin frequently invokes the same passages from Acts to speak of continuity as he did to speak of discontinuity.41 For Turretin any differences between the Old and the New are relative rather than absolute, accidental rather than essential.42 2.1 Jerusalem Council Despite the changes that Turretin appreciates with the Jerusalem Council, he also sees here a great deal of continuity across the covenants. This is evident in his view that the moral law of God is permanent, despite the concessions granted at the Jerusalem Council.43 Though ceremonial aspects of the law may be abrogated

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Inst. 19.16.4 (3:399). Turretin is commenting on John’s baptism in Acts 19. Inst. 12.8.21(4) (2:238–39). 39 Inst. 12.10.8 (2:249). 40 Turretin’s six elements of continuity between administrations (12.7.45 [2:231–32]) are instructive: 1. Remission of sins and justification; 2. Adoption; 3. Sanctification; 4. Gift of the Spirit; 5. Resurrection; 6. Eternal life. See also 12.10 (2:247–57) where he discusses the state of the fathers under the OT. 41 Frequently cited texts from Acts include: Acts 2:23, 38–39; 3:21; 4:12, 28; 10:43; 13:38–39; 14:16–17; 15:8–11; 17:28–31; 20:27–28; 22:16; 26:18. 42 See, e. g., Inst. 3.30.22 (1:308); 12.5.15 (2:197); 12.8.18 (2:237); 12.8.21 (2:238–39). Such statements could be multiplied. 43 See Inst. 11.23 (2:141–45). 38

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in the apostolic decree of Acts 15,44 the moral law remains; it is binding across covenant administrations. How, then, does Turretin take the “yoke of the law” in Acts 15:10? This refers either to the ceremonial aspects of the law, or to the moral aspects of the law used “with an undue end, as if Christians must seek from it life either wholly or at least partly.”45 In other words, the apostolic decree does not undermine the abiding perpetuity of God’s moral law in the New Covenant era. Additionally, Turretin sees in the Jerusalem Council ample evidence for the continuity of justification and the forgiveness of sins across the ages. Key here is Acts 15:11, which states that “we believe that we are saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are.”46 Most commentators today take the “they” to refer to the Gentiles. That is, Peter (who is speaking) believes that Jewish believers in Jesus will be saved in the same way as Gentile believers in Jesus – by the grace of the Lord Jesus.47 This makes a great deal of sense contextually.48 At the same time, rarely today is it considered whether the “they” could refer to the nearer antecedent of “our fathers.”49 Yet this is exactly Turretin’s point, which he defends at length.50 For Turretin, the comparison is to believers in his day 44 See Acts 15:28–29. On abrogation of ceremonial law, see Inst. 11.25 (2:158–65). On Acts 15 and the ceremonial law, see esp. Inst. 11.25.9 (2:161); 12.7.36 (2:228–29). See also his discussion in 17.2.16 (2:699). By this point Turretin has made it clear that the moral law of God is binding. On the relationship to fornication (porneia) in the apostolic decree and the moral law of God (Acts 15:20), see Inst. 11.25.21 (2:164–65); cf. 11.14.14 (2:95); 18.31.13 (3:289). 45 Inst. 11.23.10 (2:144). Turretin seems to prefer the latter, esp. in light of Acts 13:38–39. Cf. Inst. 11.24.14 (2:150); 18.31.13 (3:289). Turretin seems to say explicitly elsewhere that the yoke cannot be limited to the ceremonial law (Inst. 17.2.16 [2:699]). There he says Acts 15:10 shows “the impossibility of fulfilling the law.” He then asks, “For if it could not be borne, how could it be fulfilled by anyone?” He then says Bellarmine’s argument that it refers to the ceremonial and not the moral law is not convincing, for two reasons. “(1) If this could be said of the ceremonial, still more strongly could it be said of the moral law. (2) The ceremonial law of itself could not be called an unbearable (abastakton) yoke; yet this is properly referred to the moral, which could never be fulfilled by anyone and which places under a curse those who live under it … Peter … speaks of the whole law, showing its impossibility because it was a yoke, which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear.” It seems, then, that for Turretin the yoke of the law in Acts 15:10 must include both the ceremonial and the moral law. 46 My translation. 47 See, e.g, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 31 (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 548; Rudolf Pesch, Die Apostelgeschichte, 2 vols., EKK (Zürich: Benzinger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1986), 2:78; Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012–15), 3:2238–39; Peterson, Acts, 427; Darrell L. Bock, Acts, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 501. 48 Indeed, in 15:8 the “they” who receive the Holy Spirit is almost certainly the Gentiles, and it is the Gentiles whose hearts (no less than the Jews) who have been cleaned by faith in 15:9. 49 Though see the discussions in C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, 2 vols., ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994–98), 2:720; Guy Prentiss Waters, A Study Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, EP Study Commentary (Pistyll, Holywell [UK]: Evangelical Press, 2015), 357. 50 See Inst. 12.5.11 (2:195–96); cf. 11.23.10 (2:144); 11.24.14 (2:150); 12.5.9 (2:195); 12.7.36 (2:228–29); 17.2.16 (2:699). See also John Calvin, Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles,

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who are saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus and Old Testament believers who are saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus. This means that Peter is correlating the means of salvation in the New Testament with the means of salvation in the Old Testament.51 To be sure, Turretin admits that Gentiles are by implication included in the “we” as well.52 But the main focus is on the comparison between 15:10 and 15:11.53 Across the ages, it is faith in Christ that makes us acceptable before God (cf. 15:9).54 More on this in the next section. 2.2 Work of Christ Despite an appreciation for the newness of Christ’s work in history, Turretin understands the work of Christ as mediator to apply both to Old and New Covenant believers.55 Turretin emphasizes that there is only one name by which anyone must be saved, and that is the name of Jesus. Turretin sees this to be an emphasis in Acts even where it appears the apostles are preaching a new message. A common text is Acts 4:12, which Turretin understands to speak to continuity of salvation: Christ was not only predicted but also promised to the fathers and by his grace they were saved under the Old Testament no less than we are saved under the New; nor was any other name given under heaven even from the beginning from which salvation could be hoped for (Acts 4:12) and that too according to the inviolable promise of the gratuitous covenant.56

He continues, “since no salvation can be granted to the sinner without a mediator (and there is no mediator except Christ), it follows either that the fathers had no salvation or that they were saved by Christ.”57 Turretin’s own view is clear.

vol. 2, ed. Henry Beveridge (repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 58–60; idem, Inst. 3.5.4; Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, trans. Todd M. Rester, ed. Joel R. Beeke, 7 vols. (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2018–), 1.1.2 §XXXVI (1:158); Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003–8), 3:223; 4:105. 51 Cf. Ign. Magn. 8:2. 52 Inst. 12.5.11(4) (2:196). 53 Here again Turretin understands the yoke to refer to the ceremonial law (Inst. 12.5.11(2) [2:196]). 54 See Inst. 12.12.21(2) (2:268); cf. 16.7.12 (2:672); 16.8.24 (2:682). See also statements on sanctification in Inst. 15.7.2 (2:559); 15.15.9 (2:591); 17.3.11 (2:704–5). 55 Cf. Gyeongcheol Gwon, Christ and the Old Covenant: Francis Turretin (1623–1687) on Christ’s Suretyship under the Old Testament, Reformed Historical Theology 51 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019). 56 Inst. 12.5.6 (2:194). 57 Inst. 12.5.12 (2:196); cf. 2.1.5 (1:56); 12.5.9 (2:195); 18.7.18 (3:39). He also relates this to the merit of Christ, affirming that “Christ most fully merited life and salvation for us” (Inst. 16.5.18– 19 [2:715–16]; quote from 2:715), relating this to Acts 4:12 twice. See similarly Inst. 18.14.6 (3:122).

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A related passage is Acts 3:25–26, another favorite text for Turretin, which speaks of the continuity of God’s covenant promises across the ages.58 This text is specifically about the offer of forgiveness in the name of Christ. Here we could also add Turretin’s discussions of Acts 2:38–39.59 Similarly, Acts 10:43 is evidence that Old Testament prophets already bore witness to Christ and to forgiveness in his name.60 Turretin is adamant that this must be faith in Christ and not a more general belief in God.61 For there are no examples – whether in the Old or New Testament – of anyone being justified other than “by [God’s] grace and the merit of Christ through faith,” which Turretin supports from a variety of passages, including Acts 10:43 and 15:11.62 Turretin also finds support for this view in Paul’s sermon at Pisidian Antioch (esp. Acts 13:38–39).63 If Paul himself in Acts “taught nothing other than what Moses and the prophets had taught (Acts 26:22),”64 this must include Paul’s teaching on forgiveness and justification. Another way we see Turretin’s emphasis on Acts and continuity is in the baptism of John the Baptist. Earlier I noted that Turretin understands John’s baptism to be anticipatory; it does not represent the fullness of Christian baptism.65 Yet Turretin’s main concern is to highlight, in distinction from the Council of Trent, the fundamental unity between the baptisms of John and Jesus. These are not essentially different baptisms, but only different in degree. The baptism of John is in this way identical to Christian baptism.66 Even here, where Turretin sees a strong measure of discontinuity, continuity rules the roost. Turretin’s view requires that the benefits of Christ’s work were communicated to Old Covenant believers, who are saved in the same way as New Covenant believers; both live and move and have their being in the covenant of grace.67

58 Inst. 12.5.7 (2:194); 12.5.15 (2:197); 12.7.19 (2:222–23); cf. Inst. 12.1 (2:169–74). Compare Calvin, Inst. 2.10.23; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:223. 59 See Inst. 12.7.7 (2:218–19); 15.14.9, 14 (2:585–86); 19.9.10 (3:373); 19.12.3(1.c) (3:384). This is a particularly important text on the relationship of covenant and baptism. 60 Inst. 2.8.11, 20 (1:100–102); 12.5.9 (2:195); 12.5.14–16 (2:196–98); 12.8.18 (2:237, on Luke 10:23–24); 15.12.20 (2:580); cf. Inst. 12.10.16 (2:251); 14.10.29 (2:426). 61 Inst. 12.5.14 (2:196–97). He states: “Nor can it be objected that the faith of the ancients was general in God, not special in Christ (the Savior), because the opposite is evident from many considerations. (a) No faith can be saving unless founded upon Christ …(d) Not only a general but also a special command of faith in Christ is found in the Old Testament … If the faith of the ancients were not the same as ours, it would be improperly proposed to us for imitation” (2:197). 62 Inst. 16.10.2 (2:686). 63 Inst. 12.7.45 (2:231); 12.10.21 (2:253); 19.19.15 (3:412); cf. 16.1.6 (2:634–35). Recall that Turretin also uses Acts 13:39 to speak of the relative weakness of the Old Covenant era (12.7.40 [2:230]; 12.10.21 [2:253]). 64 Inst. 12.5.15 (2:197). 65 Inst. 19.16.4 (3:399). 66 Inst. 19.16 (3:398–403). 67 See Inst. 12.9 (2:240–47); cf. Inst. 12.10, esp. 12.10.23 (2:254); Inst. 13.9.5 (2:334). See also Calvin, Inst. 2.10.23, who gleans from Acts 3:25–26.

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2.3 Role of the Holy Spirit Despite his appreciation for the new work of the Holy Spirit in Acts, Turretin finds in Acts support for the Holy Spirit’s work prior to Pentecost. This is especially noteworthy given the relative lack of attention this point receives in many modern-day works on Acts. I outline Turretin’s logic in three steps. First, the Holy Spirit’s outpouring in Acts is the fulfillment of – and stands in continuity with – earlier covenantal promises. A key text here is Acts 3:25–26.68 This means, second, that what is true for believers in the New Covenant was already true for believers in the Old Covenant, though to a lesser degree. This includes the gift of the Spirit given to the people of God.69 Justification is the same across the ages, and Turretin understands the Spirit’s perpetual, sealing work to be necessary for justification.70 This means that the Spirit’s salvific role is not entirely a New Covenant idea; this was already true in the Old Covenant.71 For example, since Abraham was justified, he was thus a man to whom the Holy Spirit had been already been given.72 To be clear, Turretin appreciates that the experience of the Spirit was not entirely the same for Abraham, but that is a difference in degree rather than essence.73 Third, since the Spirit was already granted as a blessing of salvation in the Old Covenant, absolute statements about the Spirit’s newness in Acts (and other New Covenant passages) must therefore necessarily be statements of relative newness rather than statements of absolute newness.74 2.4 Conclusion: Continuity Turretin’s approach to Acts is consistent with what we find throughout his Institutes. He understands there to be points of newness and advance with the coming of Christ, but if we had to characterize his tendency, it would be for more continuity over discontinuity. This is true for the permanence of God’s law, the unity of salvation, and even the work of the Holy Spirit across the ages.

68

Inst. 12.5.15 (2:197). Inst. 12.5.15–16 (2:197–98); 12.7.45 (2:231). 70 See, e. g., Inst. 5.2.10 (1:436); 12.5.15 (2:197); 12.7.19 (2:222–23); 15.5.20 (2:546). 71 This is stated explicitly in Inst. 12.5.6 (2:194). Compare Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:277; 3:499–500. 72 Inst. 12.5.15 (2:197); 12.7.19 (2:222–23). He also includes Acts 10:43 in this discussion in 12.5.15. He would no doubt also include David here, as indicated in Inst. 12.7.45 (2:231). 73 The WCF, which preceded Turretin’s work by 30 years, also has a great deal to say about the role of the Spirit in the application of salvation across the ages. See, e. g., WCF 3.6; 7.3, 5; 8.6; 10.1–2; 11.4, 6; 13.1–3; 14.1; 16.3; 17.1–2; 26.1; cf. 20.1 74 See, e. g., Inst. 3.30.22 (1:308, commenting on John 7:38–39); 12.7.45 (2:231–32 – this may be the key passage); cf. 12.5.15 (2:197). 12.7.45 (2:231) also notes some differences, as I noted earlier. 69

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3. Turretin and Acts Scholarship Today As we conclude, I’d like to consider two ways that Turretin’s approach interfaces with – and perhaps challenges – Acts scholarship today. 3.1 Emphasis on Continuity First, though he does recognize elements of discontinuity, Turretin emphasizes continuity to a greater degree than many present-day works on Acts. For example, Turretin emphasizes the unity of salvation between Old Covenant and New Covenant believers in texts like Acts 4:12; 15:11 in a way that is rarely discussed in contemporary commentaries. Turretin’s emphasis on continuity is consistent with his covenantal, Reformed approach. It also may be due in part to his more polemical intent to set forth Reformed theology as superior to other groups such as the Anabaptists, Socinians, and Romanists, all of whom Turretin believed undermined the unity of biblical religion. This is especially pertinent for Acts, a book that has so often seemed to contradict the practice of infant baptism and promote too great a disjunction between the baptisms of John and Jesus.75 Despite the particularities of Turretin’s historical context, his approach is not entirely polemical and the stability of his biblical-theological system is apparent throughout. While there is no doubt that Acts emphasizes newness to a significant degree, Turretin’s approach provides a worthy conversation partner for modern-day exegesis, not least in challenging a possible overemphasis on newness in Acts. This may be true for discussions on the role of the Holy Spirit. Surely the work of the Spirit at Pentecost is a new thing, yet Luke also emphasizes continuity to a significant degree.76 For example, he speaks of the work of the Spirit even before the public ministry of Christ (e. g., Luke 1:15, 35, 41, 67, 80(?); 2:25–27; Acts 7:51).77 Such statements must be squared with the manifest newness of the work of the Spirit post-Pentecost. How do we reconcile the new with the old, without over- or underemphasizing either aspect? This requires a nuanced, even systematic approach. Finding equilibrium can be challenging since the discipline of biblical studies is typically doing something different than systematics, as biblical scholars pay close attention to the topographies of discrete writings and corpora. Even so, perhaps Turretin can help us consider more avenues for how to navigate continuity and discontinuity, for in Acts the New Covenant clearly arises out of the Old. His careful distinction between relative newness and absolute newness is worth preserving. 75 Inst. 15.14 (2:583–87); 19.13.10 (3:388); 19.16 (3:398–403); 19.20 (3:414–20); cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:501–2, 529–30; cf. 512. 76 See, e. g., the possible fulfillment inclusio in Luke (1:1–4 with 24:44–47), and Paul’s persistent pleas that his resurrection message did not contravene his ancestral traditions (e. g., Acts 23:6; 26:6–8; 28:20). 77 Note also the Spirit’s work inspiring Scripture; e. g., Acts 1:16; 4:25; 28:25.

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3.2 Hermeneutical Approach: Testing Narrative with Law Second, Turretin’s hermeneutical principles that guide his reading of Acts diverge from much Acts scholarship today. One of the challenges for exegesis of Acts is determining which narrative events are prescriptive and serve as patterns, and which accounts are not prescriptive and do not serve as patterns. While no consensus exists on these issues, in general there is the tendency in scholarship today to identify summary statements and repeated elements in Acts to be prescriptive for its readers.78 Turretin, however, offers a dissenting voice to an approach that relies too heavily on narrative precedents. He believes that we are on much firmer ground to look for guidance from explicit commands rather than from more nebulous examples.79 While I am quite comfortable using, with appropriate circumspection, summary statements and patterns in Acts for guidance in interpretation and application today  – especially given modern-day appreciation for narrative theology – Turretin would have us pause, since such examples need (at least) to be evaluated by explicit commands.80 To illustrate: How do we know whether it was wrong for Herod Agrippa I to put James the brother of John to death (Acts 12:2)? Narratively, Acts gives us many clues: Herod persecutes the church (12:1), opposes Christ’s apostles (12:2–5, 11; cf. 1:8, 21–22), and dies a horrible death because he did not give glory to God (12:23). Herod and his kingdom are contrasted with the kingdom of God, which continues to advance (12:24). Yet Acts does not comment explicitly on whether it was wrong for Herod to put James to death. Following Turretin’s advice, Herod’s elimination of James must be tested by the law of God, especially the Ten Commandments.81 Murder is contrary to God’s law; therefore it was wrong for Herod to put James to death. Admittedly, this is a rather straightforward example; others are trickier. But it illustrates the hermeneutical challenges of narratives, and the need for the law of God as a plumbline. Turretin observes that commands are generally clearer than narrative precedents, stating bluntly: “We must live by laws, not by examples.”82 78 Keener, Acts, 1:440, 509; cf. 161; Alan J. Thompson, The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus: Luke’s Account of God’s Unfolding Plan, NSBT 27 (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2011), 26–27. 79 Inst. 19.14.9 (3:395). See also on the laying on of hands in Acts 8, in Inst. 19.31.6 (3:550) as a temporary phenomenon. 80 See Inst. 19.14.9 (3:395). For a well-rounded contemporary approach, see Dennis E. Johnson, The Message of Acts in the History of Redemption (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1997), 5–13; see also Charles H. H. Scobie, The Ways of Our God: An Approach to Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 745–46, 768–70. 81 See Inst. 11.1–3, 17 (2:1–28, 112–20). 82 Inst. 19.14.9 (3:395). Turretin’s focus here is on Zipporah’s circumcision of her children, which he argues is not an example to follow. This is discussed in the context of what makes lawful baptism, on which Acts is quite relevant. Notably, Turretin does take counsel from the examples in Acts to make his point, for the baptisms in Acts are administered by duly appointed persons (Philip, Ananias, etc.). See Inst. 19.14.10–12 [3:395]).

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Here is an exhortation not to lean too heavily on narrative examples, but to test narratives by more explicit commands.83 This is also an exhortation not to isolate Acts from other portions of the canon.

4. Conclusion Turretin is not a man of our own day, and his voice is certainly not all that an exegete needs to interpret Acts responsibly today. Even so, by challenging some contemporary consensuses, he is a useful conversation partner. Indeed, it is sometimes striking how contemporary his exegesis is, and how thorough are the questions that he asks.84 Not only do his answers merit consideration, but the questions he asks are often questions we need to wrestle with today. I conclude with one final example, which illustrates both Turretin’s awareness of continuity and discontinuity, and the possibilities his approach holds out for today – the quotation of Psalm 2:7 in Acts 13:33 with respect to Christ.85 Turretin acknowledges that Paul invokes Psalm 2:7 to support Christ’s coming into the world, fulfilling the promise made to the fathers. Yet Turretin also argues that the “today” of Psalm 2:7 refers properly to the “day” of eternal generation. The manifestation and declaration of his sonship is a new thing that happens after the resurrection, but it is a manifestation and declaration of the Son’s prior “divinity and eternal filiation.”86 While Turretin’s awareness of the resurrection fits well with much contemporary scholarship on Acts, the eternal sonship of Christ is a topic that receives less attention.87 Turretin himself is scarcely giving us something new,88 yet his reading may sound novel to those who only know modern commentaries. Perhaps this is reason enough to embrace an exegetical method with room for voices like Turretin’s.

83

These might be found in the same text, or elsewhere in Scripture. See, e. g., on Romans 7 (Inst. 17.2.12–14 [2:697–99]) in addition to Acts 15 noted above (discussed in the same context as well: Inst. 17.2.16 [2:698]). 85 Inst. 3.29.8 (1:294–95). Compare Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:435, 442. 86 Inst. 3.29.8 (1:294–95). Turretin does not, however, see the resurrection in 13:33; that comes in texts like 13:35; Rom. 1:4. 87 Compare, e. g., Barrett, Acts, 2:lxxxvi; Peterson, Acts, 392. 88 See, e. g., the comments of Cyril of Alexandria and Bede in Ancient Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, vol. 5: Acts, ed. Francis Martin (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2006), 167; Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, 1.2.26 §II.B.2.b (2:542–43). 84

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Bibliography Allison, Dale C., Jr. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of James. ICC. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013. Barrett, C. K. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. 2 Vols. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994–1998. Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics. 4 Vols. Edited by John Bolt. Translated by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003–2008. Bock, Darrell L. Acts. BECNT. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007. Calvin, John. Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles. Vol. 2. Edited by Henry Beveridge. Repr., Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003. –. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. 2 Vols. LCC 20–21. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1960. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 31. New York: Doubleday, 1998. Gwon, Gyeongcheol. Christ and the Old Covenant: Francis Turretin (1623–1687) on Christ’s Suretyship under the Old Testament. Reformed Historical Theology 51. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019. Johnson, Dennis E. The Message of Acts in the History of Redemption. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1997. Keener, Craig S. Acts: An Exegetical Commentary. 4 Vols. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012–2015. Martin, Francis, ed. Acts. Vol. 5 of Ancient Commentary on Scripture: New Testament. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2006. Mastricht, Petrus van. Theoretical-Practical Theology. Translated by Todd M. Rester. Edited by Joel R. Beeke. 7 Vols. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2018–. Pesch, Rudolf. Die Apostelgeschichte. 2 Vols. EKKNT. Zürich: Benzinger; NeukirchenVlyun: Neukirchener, 1986. Peterson, David G. The Acts of the Apostles. PNTC. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009. Rowe, C. Kavin. “Acts 2:36 and the Continuity of Lukan Christology.” NTS 53 (2007): 37–56. Schlatter, Adolf. The History of the Christ: The Foundation for New Testament Theology. Translated by Andreas J. Köstenberger. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997. Scobie, Charles H. H. The Ways of Our God: An Approach to Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. Thompson, Alan J. The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus: Luke’s Account of God’s Unfolding Plan. NSBT 27. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2011. Turretin, Francis. Institutio theologiae elencticae. 2nd ed. 3 Vols. Geneva: Samuel de Tournes, 1688–1689. –. Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Translated by George Musgrave Giger. Edited by James T. Dennison, Jr. 3 Vols. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992–1997. Waters, Guy Prentiss. A Study Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. EP Study Commentary. Pistyll, Holywell (UK): Evangelical Press, 2015.

Dutch Contributions to Modern Exegesis The Case of the Remonstrants Keith D. Stanglin

The story of how and why European exegetes shifted from what can generally be called premodern to modern modes of reading Scripture is a long and complex one. It requires an analysis of what those different modes are, but one that is sensitive to the continuities that run especially from the late medieval period to the post-Enlightenment period. Such an account requires the patience to identify the gradual shifts that occur over a period of roughly three centuries and to pinpoint the figures whose work exemplifies these changing approaches. Given that Benedict de Spinoza deservedly stands out as a major figure in the history of modern biblical exegesis, it is instructive also to examine the state of biblical interpretation in the Netherlands before Spinoza, whose Theological-Political Treatise of 1670 is often taken to represent the beginning of the historical-critical method. The unique features of Spinoza’s approach should be understood as developments that were a long time coming and had precedent in the Low Countries. The transition toward what we now think of as historicalcritical exegesis was, before 1670, already well under way and part of the air breathed by the Dutch, regardless of their theological inclinations – non-orthodox and orthodox alike.1 In telling this complex story, historians and biblical scholars have largely bypassed the contributions of the Dutch Remonstrants, that is, the Dutch sympathizers of the Leiden theologian, Jacobus Arminius, who died in 1609. To be sure, the early modern Low Countries are usually acknowledged as one of the original founts of so-called “historical-critical exegesis,” and Dutch natives and 1 E. g., see Dirk van Miert, “The ‘Hairy War’ (1640–50): Historicizing the Bible in the Dutch Republic on the Eve of Spinoza,” Sixteenth Century Journal 49 (2018): 415–436; Kestutis Daugirdas, “The Biblical Hermeneutics of Socinians and Remonstrants in the Seventeenth Century,” in Arminius, Arminianism, and Europe: Jacobus Arminius (1559/60–1609), ed. Th. M. van Leeuwen, Keith D. Stanglin, and Marijke Tolsma (BSCH 39; Leiden: Brill, 2009), 89–113; idem, “The Biblical Hermeneutics of Philip van Limborch (1633–1712) and Its Intellectual Challenges,” in Scriptural Authority and Biblical Criticism in the Dutch Golden Age: God’s Word Questioned, ed. Dirk van Miert, et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 219–239; Keith D. Stanglin, “The Rise and Fall of Biblical Perspicuity: Remonstrants and the Transition toward Modern Exegesis,” CH 83 (2014): 38–59.

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sojourners such as Desiderius Erasmus, Joseph Scaliger, and Spinoza loom large in some histories of interpretation. The Remonstrants, moreover, are not always and everywhere neglected. On the front end of the seventeenth century, Hugo Grotius, the Dutch statesman and polymath who sided with the Remonstrants and produced voluminous annotations on Scripture, is often cited. From the decades around the turn of the eighteenth century, Jean Le Clerc (1657–1736) is at times mentioned for his denial of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and his theory of sources behind the synoptic Gospels,2 though his 47-year tenure (1684– 1731) as the professor of letters and philosophy at the Remonstrant Seminary is typically forgotten. Aside from these two notable exceptions of Grotius and Le Clerc, early modern Remonstrant theologians have been given scant attention in the historiography of exegesis.3 The influence of the Remonstrants on other figures, such as John Locke, and on early modern intellectual developments has been recognized, including, for instance, their contributions to the modern concept of religious toleration and their impact on Enlightenment-era theology and philosophy. Along with those fields of study, their approach to the Bible also deserves to be examined. An account of the seventeenth-century Remonstrant approach to Scripture will help illuminate the transition from premodern to modern attitudes toward the Bible, providing a clearer picture of what was gained and what was lost in the process. The present task is to summarize some of the most important principles of biblical interpretation reflected in the writings of the three most prominent Remonstrant theologians of the seventeenth century  – Simon Episcopius (1583–1643), Étienne de Courcelles (1586–1659), and Philip van Limborch (1633–1712). I will focus primarily on the treatments they each give to the doctrine of Scripture in their respective works on systematic theology. Episcopius’s handling of Scripture in his Institutiones sets the bar that de Courcelles and Limborch follow with their own minor variations. Because Episcopius’s and de Courcelles’s exegetical principles have been investigated in other recent publications, I will only briefly touch on their views here.4 This essay will spend more time summing up Limborch’s treatment, and it then will draw some broad conclusions about the Remonstrant approach and its place in the history of biblical interpretation. 2 E. g., Gerald Bray, Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Academic, 1996), 240, 370. 3 For recent attempts to correct this lacuna, see Daugirdas and Stanglin. Thanks to Google, the relevant primary sources are easily accessible. It does not help their cause, however, that they have never been translated from their Latin, excepting an eighteenth-century English abridgment and paraphrase of Limborch’s Theologia Christiana. 4 See Daugirdas, “Hermeneutics of Socinians and Remonstrants,” 101–113; Stanglin, “Rise and Fall,” 38–59; and idem, The Letter and Spirit of Biblical Interpretation: From the Early Church to Modern Practice (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), 156–160. For some of the observations about Episcopius and de Courcelles I have drawn from these latter two works.

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Kestutis Daugirdas has noted the Remonstrant emphasis on historical criticism and their basing Scripture’s authority on its historical reliability, particularly in the Gospel accounts.5 Alongside Daugirdas’s analysis, I emphasize here the prominence that the Remonstrants gave to two ideas that were important to all Protestant doctrines of Scripture, namely, biblical perspicuity and the priority of the literal sense. These two concepts became central to the Remonstrant doctrine of Scripture. Perspicuity means that, although there may be some obscure passages, Scripture is crystal clear about everything that is necessary to believe and to do. It is a typically Protestant doctrine that by and large was rejected by the Roman Catholic establishment. Perhaps no one in the seventeenth century emphasized this doctrine of perspicuity more than did the Remonstrants. Simon Episcopius was professor at Leiden and, after expulsion from and return to the United Provinces, the first professor of theology at the Remonstrant Seminary. That Episcopius’s view of perspicuity was controversial even among Protestants is evident in the opposition that he encountered against it.6 His Reformed opponents accused him of holding an optimistic anthropology that dismissed the inner illumination of the Holy Spirit. Already by 1616, Episcopius’s own faculty colleagues at Leiden had taken notice. Johannes Polyander (1568–1646) wrote an anonymous pamphlet criticizing Episcopius for teaching an optimistic anthropology in his early public disputation on Scripture. Polyander observed that the disciple of the anti-trinitarian Fausto Sozzini, Krzysztof Ostorodt (ca. 1560–1611), claimed in his Institutes that Scripture can be understood “without the inner illumination of the Holy Spirit,” an opinion contrary to that received among Reformed theologians, thereby linking Episcopius to the Socinians.7 In addition to this early pamphlet, Polyander and the other Leiden theologians later collaborated in publishing a lengthy Censure on this and other allegedly heterodox ideas in Episcopius’s Confession of the Remonstrants. In the Confession, Episcopius had insisted that “common sense” or “right reason (ratio recta)” is sufficient for understanding the Bible’s literal sense.8 Yes, the Holy Spirit’s illumination is needed for the supernatural work of faith and obedience, but nothing more than natural reason is necessary merely to comprehend the words

5 Daugirdas, “Hermeneutics of Socinians and Remonstrants,” 101–113; idem, “Hermeneutics of Limborch,” 219, 223–224, 226, 228, 236, 239. 6 This opposition and Episcopius’s responses are detailed in Stanglin, “Rise and Fall,” 41–46. 7 [Johannes Polyander,] Den staet vande voor-naemste quaestien ende gheschillen die ten huydighen dage gedisputeert worden (Amsterdam: for Marten Jansz. Brandt, 1616), 22. Daugirdas, “Hermeneutics of Socinians and Remonstrants,” 105, 109, links Episcopius’s exegetical tendencies directly to Sozzini’s writings. 8 See Simon Episcopius, Confessio, sive declaratio, sententiae pastorum, qui in foederato Belgio Remonstrantes vocantur 1.14, 16 (Harderwijk: Theodore Daniel, 1622), 6–7; ET, The Arminian Confession of 1621, trans. Mark A. Ellis (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2005), 41–43.

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of Scripture. To understand the words of Scripture, he claimed, is distinct from believing and obeying unto salvation. Episcopius addressed these issues further in the Apologia, his reply to the Censure.9 Here and in his Institutes one can find his mature thoughts on matters of biblical interpretation. Just as Scripture is sufficient and perfect in its revelation of necessary articles of the faith, so Scripture, he claims, is also perspicuous in matters necessary for salvation (ad salutem).10 Episcopius then enumerates all the things that are necessary to believe and to do.11 The Remonstrant emphasis on perspicuity is seen also in the suggestion that, for reason to function properly, it must remain unaffected by any other influence. In the task of interpretation, then, Scripture must be engaged without the interference of the affections or any presuppositions. Episcopius emphasized the need to cast off all hindrances when using reason to interpret Scripture.12 When it comes to the senses of Scripture, Episcopius insisted that knowledge of the Scripture’s meaning begins with accurate understanding of its phrases.13 He claimed that “the grammatical or literal sense” – which he used interchangeably (sensus S. Scripturae Grammaticus seu literalis) – is sufficient for doctrine. This literal sense is contrasted with mystical, allegorical, and anagogical senses. According to Episcopius, in agreement with his Protestant predecessors, these spiritual senses are not properly senses of Scripture at all.14 Étienne de Courcelles was Episcopius’s successor as Remonstrant professor of theology from 1643 until his death in 1659. De Courcelles’s perspective on perspicuity and reason is quite consistent with that of Episcopius; as might be expected, though, the successor seems to take the distinctive points a little further than his predecessor. For example, de Courcelles perhaps emphasizes even more the need for objectivity. De Courcelles warned against ignorance, prejudice, and affections clouding one’s interpretation, urging readers to “free ourselves from these impediments.”15 Here, de Courcelles, the friend of Descartes and prob 9 [Simon Episcopius,] Apologia pro confessione sive declaratione sententiae eorum, qui in foederato Belgio vocantur Remonstrantes (s.l., 1630). Daugirdas, “Hermeneutics of Socinians and Remonstrants,” 98–99, notes another attack against the Remonstrant Confession and reply by Episcopius. See Simon Episcopius, Bodecherus ineptiens, in Operum theologicorum, pars altera (Rotterdam: Arnold Leers, 1665), 2:48–58. 10 Simon Episcopius, Institutiones theologicae IV.i.9, IV.i.16, in Opera theologica, 2nd ed. (The Hague: Arnoldus Leers, 1678), 1:243–245, 264. 11 Episcopius, Institutiones IV.i.11, in Opera, 247–253. In Confessio, preface, fol. B4r; ET, 18, Episcopius claims there are only a “few” things necessary to know and believe for salvation. 12 See Simon Episcopius, Disputationes theologicae tripartitae, olim in Academia Leydensi, tum publice, tum privatim duobus Collegiis, habitae, part 1, III.3, in Operum, pars altera, 2:391; ibid., part 3, III.3, in Operum, pars altera, 2:445. 13 Simon Episcopius, Praefatio in Novi Testamenti brevem et succinctam interpretationem, in Operum, pars altera 1:595–596. 14 Episcopius, Apologia, fols. 33r–34r. 15 Étienne de Courcelles, Institutio religionis Christianae I.xiv.7, in Opera theologica (Amsterdam: Daniel Elsevier, 1675), 30.

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ably the translator of the Discourse on Method from French into Latin, sounds Cartesian. Descartes’s first epistemological rule in the Discourse on Method was similar: “Avoid precipitous judgment and prejudice.”16 Philip van Limborch was Remonstrant professor of theology from 1668 until his death in 1712. He first published his Theologia Christiana in 1686, the fifth edition of which is the basis for this discussion. For Limborch, perspicuity is one of the chief attributes of Scripture. By perspicuity, he means that Scripture perspicuously and clearly contains all things that “are necessary to believe, hope, and do for salvation,” so that it can be sufficiently and plainly understood by anyone endowed with sound reason.17 Limborch’s definition of perspicuity is typical in its rather limited claim that only necessary doctrines are clearly stated in Scripture. Much room remains yet for obscurity with regard to the many nonessential points and also with regard to necessary doctrines that are stated clearly elsewhere. Such a definition also assumes the categorical distinction between essential and non-essential doctrines – that is, in the words of Limborch, “either matters that are necessary for salvation, or matters that are merely useful (utiles),” some of which are more useful and others less useful.18 Thus far, his is a fairly standard definition of perspicuity, uncontroversial among Protestants. But, as with his Remonstrant forebears, it is Limborch’s subsequent emphasis on the use of sound reason that would catch the negative attention of some opponents, an issue he addresses later. Having defined it, Limborch then distinguished his affirmation of perspicuity from other prevalent views. In defense of perspicuity, Limborch first addresses Roman Catholics, who as a rule highlighted the obscurity of Scripture.19 He then goes on the offensive against his Reformed opponents. Although they seem to oppose the Roman Church and claim that Scripture is perspicuous, the Contra-Remonstrants (that is, the Reformed orthodox) insist that, since the fallen intellect is blind and corrupt, Scripture cannot be understood “without special illumination of the Holy Spirit.” In this way, the Roman Catholic and the Reformed are strange bedfellows in their insistence on special illumination. The only difference, says Limborch, is that, according to Roman Catholics, the special gift of illumination is given to the pope, whereas, for the Reformed, the gift of

16 René Descartes, Discourse on Method, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1980), 10. 17 Philip van Limborch, Theologia Christiana ad praxin pietatis ac promotionem pacis Christianae unice directa, 5th ed. (Amsterdam: Balthazar Lakeman, 1730), I.vi.1 (p. 21): “Haec [perspicuitas] eiusmodi attributum est, quo Scriptura omnia, quae omnibus ac singulis creditu, speratu ac factu ad salutem sunt necessaria, perspicue et clare continet; adeo ut a quovis sana ratione praedito et mentis suae compote, modo sibi ipsi propria sua culpa impedimento non sit, sufficienter et plene intelligi possit.” 18 Limborch, Theologia I.vi.2 (21). 19 Ibid., I.vi.10–19 (22–24).

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illumination is given to the elect.20 Both groups have a similar view of Scripture’s obscurity apart from a special grace. This is a restatement of the same basic controversy between Episcopius and the Leiden theologians. As a corollary to biblical perspicuity, Limborch suggests that, when explaining articles of the faith that are necessary to be believed, no one should use words and phrases that are not contained in Scripture but are merely from the thoughts of humans. After all, he says, since Scripture perspicuously contains all things necessary to salvation, then the words and phrases of Scripture ought to suffice for the explanation of those same saving truths. Humans cannot create more suitable terms and expressions than what the mind of God has already spoken. One may object: What about heretics who pervert the true and genuine sense of Scripture in the very words of Scripture? Limborch holds his ground: Those who dare to define some sense beyond its words and then enjoin it on others under the denunciation of heresy and penalty of anathema, they decide something that God leaves indeterminate in his word, “and thus they establish for others as a rule of faith not Scripture itself but their explanation of Scripture.” For this reason, Limborch concludes, we require that the dogmas of the faith necessary for salvation be expressed in the words of Scripture itself. 21 If this is not so, then perspicuity is undermined. Extraneous words and categories too often serve to obfuscate rather than illuminate Scripture’s plain meaning. From the emphasis on perspicuity, it follows that Scripture “ought to be read promiscuously (promiscue) by all without discrimination.” This recommendation is contrary to the practice of the Roman Church, which wishes the people to depend on the priesthood, but completely consistent with Protestant assumptions of perspicuity.22 Furthermore, if it is to be read promiscuously by all, as Limborch advocates, then it follows that Scripture should be translated into the vernacular languages of each nation. Translation, he admits, is not an absolute necessity; people could learn the Hebrew and Greek tongues. Since people are simply too lazy, however, to learn the original languages, translation is an accidental necessity, arising from “the sluggishness (socordiam) of men.”23 If read, then Scripture needs to be interpreted. Limborch defines the interpretation of Scripture as “the elucidation of its obscure sense.”24 Again, interpretation is not absolutely necessary in those places where it is prima facie clear, as it is in all matters essential to salvation. Simply to read those passages is to understand them. Interpretation is necessary, however, for understanding those 20

Ibid., I.vi.20 (25). Ibid., I.vi.25 (26–27). 22 Ibid., I.vii.2 (27): “Quod cum a Pontificiis negetur, qui plebem ab ore Sacerdotum suorum dependere volunt ….” Episcopius described three types of people who neglect Scripture. See Episcopius, Praefatio in Novi Testamenti brevem et succinctam interpretationem, in Operum, pars altera 1:594–595. 23 Ibid., I.viii.1 (28). 24 Ibid., I.ix.1 (30). 21

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passages of Scripture that are not immediately clear to all readers, due either to the inattention of the reader or to the difficulty of the subject being treated.25 The task of the interpreter is to elicit “the true sense of Scripture. But what is true is that which is in agreement with the mind or intention (menti sive intentioni) of God, who is the author of Scripture.”26 What is that true sense, and how is it discovered? Limborch begins his consideration of principles of interpretation by discussing the various senses of Scripture. The scholastics, he notes, distinguish two senses of Scripture – literal and mystical. “The literal is what the words immediately offer. The spiritual or mystical refers to something other than what the words immediately signify.” The spiritual sense is itself threefold: allegorical, tropological, and anagogical. Taken together, these are the four senses common to medieval exegesis.27 Limborch then declares that “the literal sense is the only genuine and proper (genuinus ac proprius) sense of Scripture,” and that the other three, which comprise the mystical sense, are merely an extension of the literal sense. He does not inquire further into the rationality for distinguishing the mystical sense into three,28 an indication that he does not necessarily embrace what he has simply described. Limborch does find support for a mystical sense that lies underneath the literal sense of many Old Testament prophecies. This mystical sense is one that has to do with Christ and his kingdom, not spoken of directly but adumbrated under a type.29 In this limited way, Limborch is willing to speak of a “twofold sense.” An example would be Hos 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called my son,” fulfilled, according to Matt 2:15, in the return of the holy family from their flight to Egypt.30 Other prophecies enjoy partial but imperfect fulfillment at the time, but, by the words themselves, lead to the more sublime and mystical sense, inviting also later fulfillment, as in the prophecy of Immanuel in Isa 7:14.31 Most rarely, a prophecy may begin with the original type and, as the prophecy progresses, it transitions to refer only to the later antitype. The example Limborch provides is from the Servant Song in Isaiah 52 and 53, which, he says, begins with a statement about the liberation of Judah from Babylonian captivity and progresses into a prophecy about liberation from spiritual captivity through Jesus Christ.32 25

Ibid., I.ix.1–2 (30–31). Ibid., I.ix.3 (31). 27 On the four senses or quadriga, see Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, 3 vols., Ressourcement (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998–2009); Stanglin, Letter and Spirit, 96–100. 28 Limborch, Theologia I.ix.4 (31): “An vero triplex illa mystici sensus distributio solida ratione nitatur, non inquiremus.” 29 Ibid., I.ix.5 (31). 30 Ibid., I.ix.6 (31–32). 31 Ibid., I.ix.7 (32). 32 Ibid., I.ix.9 (32). 26

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In all of these descriptions, Limborch only provides Old Testament examples that are explicitly cited in the New Testament. Any semblance of multiple senses, moreover, is reserved for prophecies, in terms of promise and fulfillment. At the end of the day, Limborch repeats that there is only a literal sense. He acknowledges that some teach that any sense or interpretation that contains truth is a true and genuine sense of Scripture. They are in error, Limborch adds, but theirs is a tolerable error.33 Limborch addresses the issue of the sovereign power (potestas) to interpret Scripture, which is in many ways at the heart of the early modern ecclesial differences. He notes that the Roman Catholic Church rests its interpretation on a public authority. Whether that power is embodied finally in the pope or in the council of bishops is undecided in their own church.34 Protestants, in contrast, yield ultimately to private authority, by which Limborch seems to mean individualistic power at the direction of one’s own conscience.35 He offers three arguments defending the right of private interpretation,36 after which he raises and answers various Roman Catholic arguments against private authority and in favor of public power. Is there a norm or rule outside of Scripture to which all interpretations of Scripture must be accommodated and by which we can and should distinguish between true and false interpretations? Roman Catholics affirm such an extrabiblical norm, but Protestants deny it.37 The writings of the church fathers are not a reliable norm, Limborch says, for they do not address specifically the matters controverted between the Roman and Protestant communions.38 Even if they had addressed the issues clearly, they are not infallible, and they did not want to be seen as infallible judges.39 The fathers, moreover, are not always in agreement with one another, and even the Roman Church sometimes charges them with error.40 For many of the same reasons, the decrees of councils are also not a reliable norm in controversies.41 Since there is no public judge to decide in controversies, Limborch asks who the judge should be. “Each one of the faithful” must be his own judge in interpreting Scripture, since each is answerable to God for his own faith and life.42 33

Ibid., I.ix.13 (34). Ibid., I.x.1–2 (35). 35 Ibid., I.x.1 (35): “Privatus est, qui sibi Scripturam interpretatur, ad propriae conscientiae directionem.” 36 Ibid., I.x.3 (35). 37 Ibid., I.xi.1 (38). 38 Ibid., I.xi.2 (38). 39 Ibid., I.xi.3 (38–39). 40 Ibid., I.xi.3 (39). 41 Ibid., I.xi.4 (39). 42 Ibid., I.xi.6 (39–40). Limborch goes on to explain the meaning of 2 Pet 1:20, that “Scripture is not of one’s own interpretation.” The biblical context makes clear that it is about the origin of the prophetic message, not its later reception by others. Ibid. I.xi.8 (40). 34

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Limborch proceeds to discuss certain qualifications that interpreters must possess for the task. The first set of conditions applies to the interpreter before the reading of Scripture. These preparatory qualifications include knowledge of original languages and an understanding of secular history, the latter of which is particularly helpful for the interpretation of the Old Testament, and especially of the prophets. This testifies to the increasing importance of historical contextualization in biblical study. Another qualification for the interpreter is freedom from all prejudices, so that he does not infer his own sense and opinion into Scripture. In other words, the interpreter should be as objective as possible. The interpreter should also have a humble and modest attitude that implores the help of the Holy Spirit.43 With this qualification, Limborch addresses a spiritual virtue that is necessary for effective interpretation, showing that he is no thoroughgoing modern or proto-Deist. Limborch then notes a second set of conditions for interpretation, namely, those that an interpreter must employ in the act of reading itself, that is, the set of principles with which the interpreter engages the biblical text. The interpreter should inquire accurately about the scope of the author and should attend to the surrounding context. Obscure passages should be explained by clear ones, not clear ones by obscure. The interpreter should also abide by the principle that Scripture is contrary neither to Scripture nor to right reason. No sense should be admitted that is repugnant to the analogy of faith taught in Scripture or from which an absurdity follows.44 Most of these principles are quite traditional and typical of premodern exegesis. Limborch seems to affirm the ancient principles of analogia scripturae and analogia fidei, the latter of which is taken to mean the summary of faith drawn from Scripture.45 It is not so clear, contra the claim of Daugirdas, that reason is paramount for Limborch in all of these conditions.46 Since Limborch has now mentioned reason, he proceeds naturally to a discussion of the role of reason in interpretation, a contested point that preceded him in debates between the Remonstrants and their Reformed opponents. The key to opening up the obscure sense of Scripture, he says, is “Scripture itself and right reason.” Scripture is in agreement with itself, a claim that assumes the grand unity of Scripture. Right reason is no less a gift from God than is Scripture. It is a light by which one can discern the true from the false. Since both are from God, divine revelation cannot be in conflict with right reason any more than God can 43 Ibid., I.xii.2 (42–43). In Daugirdas’s judgment, these qualifications aim at the interpreter being as objective as possible. See Daugirdas, “Hermeneutics of Limborch,” 227. This is true certainly of the concern about avoiding prejudice, though it is not so clear about the other conditions in this first set. 44 Limborch, Theologia I.xii.3 (43). 45 On the analogia scripturae and the analogia fidei, see Stanglin, Letter and Spirit, 35, 44, 86, 110, 141, 143–144, 206–208. 46 Daugirdas, “Hermeneutics of Limborch,” 227.

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be in conflict with himself. “Revelation does not destroy but perfects reason.”47 What reason does not apprehend, it clearly perceives by revelation.48 Limborch raises and responds to objections based on five passages of Scripture that seem to condemn human reason.49 He concludes that reason is a key to interpretation but is not the sole arbiter of divine things that are necessary for salvation. Like philosophy, reason cannot disclose the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. Reason alone cannot discover those things, so divine revelation is necessary.50 After surveying these Remonstrant theologians’ doctrine of Scripture and its interpretation, we see mostly standard accounts that are in line with Protestant approaches, exhibiting, as they all do, significant continuities with the approach of the medieval Western church. At the same time, however, some discontinuities are also apparent. These discontinuities involve taking Renaissance humanist methods and Protestant principles of engaging Scripture and then amplifying them. One of the chief Remonstrant contributions to early modern exegesis was their zealous endorsement of perspicuity through the use of reason. Their emphasis on perspicuity was pushed further in polemic against Roman Catholics but also against the Reformed, who still sought to retain the need for special divine illumination as a means to right understanding. The Remonstrants eschewed this Reformed requirement, which they saw as amounting to biblical obscurity. For the Remonstrants, because it is perspicuous and its necessary contents can be understood by anyone, reliance on the Bible alone is a sufficient basis for Christian faith, practice, and unity. At least this was their hope. The Remonstrant stress on perspicuity went hand in hand with an emphasis on right reason as the proper human faculty for understanding a clear text. Right reason should be free of all prejudice and free from any rule or norm external to Scripture, including Christian tradition mediated through church fathers and councils. Since doctrinal presuppositions are hindrances to the objective interpretation of authorial intent, they should be abandoned in exegesis. The new, cutting-edge exegesis would be one that expels tradition from any influence. What began as a radical position in the early seventeenth century would, by the end of the same century, begin to emerge as the mainstream Protestant position. 47 This is reminiscent of Thomas Aquinas’s statement that grace does not destroy nature but perfects it. Summa theologiae Ia.i.8 ad2. 48 Limborch, Theologia I.xii.4 (43): “Revelatio non destruit, sed perficit rationem, adeo ut, quod ratio sola non apprehendebat, id accedente revelatione clare percipiat.” 49 Ibid., I.xii.7–11 (44–45). 50 Ibid., I.xii.16 (46). These points are typical of orthodox theology, but they also anticipate the distinctions made by his friend, John Locke, regarding religious propositions: those according to reason, above reason, and against reason. See John Locke, An Essay concerning Humane Understanding, in Four Books (1690; repr., London: for Awnsham and John Churchil and Samuel Manship, 1700), IV.xvii.23 (404–417).

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Remonstrants also maintained the Protestant consensus that there is only one sense of Scripture – the literal. From the beginning, this focus implied the demotion of the threefold spiritual sense, which was further marginalized by the Remonstrants. Multivalence was limited to a double sense of Old Testament prophecy, and only to those instances that are taught in the New Testament. Human authorial intent took on a more central role, on its way to becoming the primary touchstone of meaning. For de Courcelles, this emphasis meant that the biblical text should be interpreted like any other text.51 As for other historical texts, so for the Bible, no spiritual or divine meaning is to be legitimately discovered beyond the literal sense. Eventually, these tendencies evident in the Remonstrants would lead to the authority of Scripture’s literal sense becoming increasingly associated with its historical reliability and, of course, with human authorial intent apart from any mystical interpretation.52 But once the intention of the human author took center stage and spiritual readings were marginalized and allegorical interpretations rejected, the process toward literalism would lead either to studying and accepting the fabulous and unintelligible or to studying it and rejecting it as absurd. Both sides of the debate employed the same textual, linguistic, and scientific tools in their literalistic interpretations. For one camp the Bible was literalistic truth; for the other it was literalistic untruth. The Remonstrant approach to Scripture is a very early example of what became commonplace in modern exegesis generally. The increasing focus on human reason’s ability to interpret a clear Scripture by seeking the original human author’s intent, without reference to the spiritual senses or traditional Christian doctrine, presages the full-orbed historical-critical method of the modern period. Some observations about its implications are in order. The ecclesiastical context of the Remonstrants was a factor in their understanding of biblical interpretation. Like other minority groups in the post-Reformation period, the Remonstrants felt the sting of religious intolerance. Their marginal status led them to interact with other marginal groups and opinions that they probably would not have otherwise encountered or so quickly entertained. It is fairly clear, for instance, that the Remonstrants’ historical approach to Scripture based on right reason was influenced in part by the writings of Fausto Sozzini (1539–1604).53 In addition, given the reality of post-Reformation ecclesial division and unprecedented war, religio-political unity – or at least toleration – was the goal. This goal of toleration was explicit in the work of the Remonstrant scholar, Hugo Grotius, who was also a celebrated commentator on Scripture and whose 51

de Courcelles, Institutio I.xiv.7, in Opera, 30. The two essays by Daugirdas highlight the Remonstrant emphasis on the historicity of the New Testament records and the adherence to the literal meaning of the texts. 53 Daugirdas, “Hermeneutics of Socinians and Remonstrants,” 89–113. 52

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approach was consistent with that of the Remonstrant theologians.54 Remonstrants emphasized the simplicity of perspicuity of the one literal sense in order to promote unity on the basis of Scripture, a unity that apparently could not be achieved on the basis of confessions or overwrought interpretations. The method was the way to peace. What the Leiden humanist, Joseph Scaliger, said ultimately applies to Scripture: “Theological disputes all stem from ignorance of grammar.”55 As Descartes wanted to apply his rationalist method to every academic discipline and philosophical question, in hopes of defeating skepticism and discord and finding certainty and unity, so a rational method of interpreting the Bible was intended to lead to unity and concord. However, the Remonstrant stress on perspicuity, following in the footsteps of their Protestant predecessors, did not lead to greater interpretive unity (much less religio-political unity). Instead, ironically, the exegetical methods of Renaissance philology, combined with Protestant doctrine, led to greater obscurity that could be adequately addressed only by scholars. As Erasmus and others had advocated, everyone should have access to Scripture, and Protestants usually noted the obligation of all Christians to read their Bibles, as Limborch said, “promiscuously.” But how were the people, who were obliged to read the Bible regularly, supposed to cope with the demands of correct interpretation? The perspicuous literal sense was accessed through research into the original languages. But, as Limborch suggested, the common people were too lazy to learn those. Luckily, there were experts who could translate for them. But this Renaissance impulse to the original source languages entailed the search for the authentic texts. De Courcelles sang the praises of contemporary discoveries among Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Syriac codices of the New Testament, proving that the text was mostly uniform, if not for the mistakes committed by ignorant scribes. He optimistically claimed that one “can easily discern the true reading from the false.”56 But that was not quite true. The same philologists who told the people to read the Bible could not produce a firmly established text. The vaunted private individual with the authority to interpret, at the end of the day, had to rely on a text, a translation, and an interpretation offered only by specialists. One magisterium had simply been replaced by another. That the study of the Bible was becoming primarily an academic enterprise, separate from and without reference to its continued churchly use, is implied when de Courcelles wrote: 54 The definitive study of Grotius is Henk J. M. Nellen, Hugo Grotius: A Lifelong Struggle for Peace in Church and State, 1583–1645, trans. J. C. Grayson (Leiden: Brill, 2014). For a summary of Grotius’s contributions to biblical interpretation, see Henning Graf Reventlow, History of Biblical Interpretation, Volume Three: Renaissance, Reformation, Humanism, trans. James O. Duke (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), 209–223. 55 Attributed in James Turner, Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 59. 56 de Courcelles, Institutio I.iii.6, in Opera, 7: “… non difficulter etiam vera lectio a falsa dignosci potest ….”

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The interpretation of Scripture is of two kinds. For the one interpretation merely and simply (nude et simpliciter) describes its true sense; but the other interpretation, in addition, elicits some doctrines from this sense, which doctrines it applies to the use of the hearers and readers. For the most part, professors in the schools are occupied with the former interpretation, but preachers (Concionatores) employ the latter in the church and for the people.57

He distinguishes and advocates two kinds of biblical interpretation. Exegesis as pure description yields the “true sense,” and it is reserved for the experts and scholars. Doctrines are for the church. The literal-historical sense alone would appear to have the impossible task of serving as a foundation for doctrinal meaning and a defense for traditional dogma.58 Remonstrants were in some ways harbingers of an exegetical program that would dominate throughout much of the modern period. They continued the Renaissance humanist attempt to mine the best philological and historical research of the day and apply it, as objectively as possible, as a key to discovering the literal sense of Scripture, increasingly defined as human authorial intent, but simultaneously combined with an optimistic assumption that the ultimate author of Scripture is God and that the unity of Scripture and the unity of orthodox Christian faith would be maintained. But the centuries had already proved and would continue to prove this last assumption to be mistaken. If authority of interpretation is granted to the private individual reader who is directly answerable to God, then there is no control over doctrinal outcome. As the Dutch before Spinoza were quick to observe, and from years of experience, “Geen ketter sonder letter”59 (no heretic without letter), loosely translated as, “Every heretic has his text.”

Bibliography Bray, Gerald. Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Academic, 1996. Courcelles, Étienne de. Institutio religionis Christianae. In Opera theologica. Amsterdam: Daniel Elsevier, 1675. Daugirdas, Kestutis. “The Biblical Hermeneutics of Philip van Limborch (1633–1712) and Its Intellectual Challenges.” Pages 219–239 in Scriptural Authority and Biblical Criticism

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Ibid., I.xiv.9, in Opera, 31. Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume Two: Holy Scripture, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 324, 330, 355, 443. 59 See Dirk van Miert, “Hairy War,” 436, who traces this sentiment most proximately to the so-called “hairy war.” This was repeated by Spinoza in Theological-Political Treatise, ed. Jonathan Israel, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 178. 58

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in the Dutch Golden Age: God’s Word Questioned. Edited by Dirk van Miert, et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. –. “The Biblical Hermeneutics of Socinians and Remonstrants in the Seventeenth Century.” Pages 89–113 in Arminius, Arminianism, and Europe: Jacobus Arminius (1559/ 60–1609). Edited by Th. M. van Leeuwen, Keith D. Stanglin, and Marijke Tolsma. BSCH 39. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Descartes, René. Discourse on Method. Translated by Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1980. Episcopius, Simon. Apologia pro confessione sive declaratione sententiae eorum, qui in foederato Belgio vocantur Remonstrantes. S.l., 1630. –. Bodecherus ineptiens. In Operum, pars altera. –. Confessio, sive declaratio, sententiae pastorum, qui in foederato Belgio Remonstrantes vocantur. Harderwijk: Theodore Daniel, 1622. ET, The Arminian Confession of 1621. Translated by Mark A. Ellis. Eugene: Pickwick, 2005. –. Disputationes theologicae tripartitae, olim in Academia Leydensi, tum publice, tum privatim duobus Collegiis, habitae. In Operum, pars altera. –. Institutiones theologicae. In Opera theologica. 2nd ed. The Hague: Arnoldus Leers, 1678. –. Operum theologicorum, pars altera. Rotterdam: Arnold Leers, 1665. –. Praefatio in Novi Testamenti brevem et succinctam interpretationem. In Operum, pars altera. Limborch, Philip van. Theologia Christiana ad praxin pietatis ac promotionem pacis Christianae unice directa. 5th ed. Amsterdam: Balthazar Lakeman, 1730. Locke, John. An Essay concerning Humane Understanding, in Four Books. 1690. Repr., London: for Awnsham and John Churchil and Samuel Manship, 1700. Lubac, Henri de. Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture. 3 Vols. Ressourcement. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998–2009. Miert, Dirk van. “The ‘Hairy War’ (1640–50): Historicizing the Bible in the Dutch Republic on the Eve of Spinoza.” Sixteenth Century Journal 49/2 (2018): 415–436. Muller, Richard A. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume Two: Holy Scripture. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003. Nellen, Henk J. M. Hugo Grotius: A Lifelong Struggle for Peace in Church and State, 1583– 1645. Translated by J. C. Grayson. Leiden: Brill, 2014. [Polyander, Johannes.] Den staet vande voor-naemste quaestien ende gheschillen die ten huydighen dage gedisputeert worden. Amsterdam: for Marten Jansz. Brandt, 1616. Reventlow, Henning Graf. History of Biblical Interpretation, Volume Three: Renaissance, Reformation, Humanism. Translated by James O. Duke. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010. Spinoza, Benedict de. Theological-Political Treatise. Edited by Jonathan Israel. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Stanglin, Keith D. The Letter and Spirit of Biblical Interpretation: From the Early Church to Modern Practice. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018. Stanglin, Keith D. “The Rise and Fall of Biblical Perspicuity: Remonstrants and the Transition toward Modern Exegesis.” CH 83 (2014): 38–59. Turner, James. Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.

Locke Reads the Bible for Himself – With Others The Influence of Socinian Exegesis on Locke’s Interpretation of Resurrection Steven Edward Harris

In the 1690s, the Essay Concerning Human Understanding by philosopher John Locke aroused significant discussion. In the later years of the decade, from 1697 to 1699, Locke carried on an extended controversy with Lord Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, on various theological topics. Among these, Stillingfleet argued, on the basis of well-established exegetical tradition, for the long-held contention that the gospel included the promise of being resurrected in one’s same body. This Locke denied, arguing on the basis of his own reading of the New Testament – or so he stated1 – that we are not given back the same body but, as he says explicitly in his Paraphrase and Notes on 1 Cor 15:35, “other Bodies.”2 For the New Testament, on Locke’s reading, does not “so much as mention” the resurrection of the body but only the resurrection of the dead.3 It is perfectly compatible, then, with resurrection into a new body. This article investigates the truthfulness of Locke’s explicit claim to read the New Testament for himself, and so, to the originality of his denial of resurrection of the same body on exegetical grounds.

1. Philosophy or Exegesis? Whence Locke’s View of Resurrection? Scholarly attention to the resurrection controversy with Stillingfleet has focused on Locke’s philosophical development of ideas of personal identity, particularly in the second edition of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1694).4 In 1 John Locke, “Mr. Locke’s Reply to the Bishop of Worcester’s Answer to His Second Letter,” in The Works of John Locke, vol. 4 (10 vols.; London, 1823), 4:303–304; hereafter, Works and “Second Reply.” 2 John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1706), 98. 3 Locke, “Second Reply,” in Works 4:304. 4 Dan Kaufman, “The Resurrection of the Same Body and the Ontological Status of Or-

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short, whereas previous presentations had lodged sameness of personal identity in some continuity of substance, Locke denied this and located it in continuity of memory instead. In the second edition of the Essay, Locke added a new section “Of Identity and Diversity” (2.27) in which the identity of one’s present self with one’s resurrected self was of explicit concern.5 Eighteenth-century editions of the Essay appended Locke’s second reply to Stillingfleet on resurrection after this section, showing the direct relevance of the debate about the resurrection of the same body to Locke’s philosophy of identity.6 Indeed, as Fernando Vidal has argued, debate over resurrection was “not epiphenomenal” to the putatively real philosophical question of personal identity; rather, it was “consubstantial to that interest itself.”7 A well-established tradition of Christian reflection had contended, on the basis of Scripture, for resurrection in one’s same body, the body in which one lived and died, and so, continuity of substance in some sense as integral to the doctrine. Despite the clear and explicit connection with the classical Christian doctrine of resurrection, scholarly interest has nevertheless focused in the main on the interaction and development of philosophical ideas in the course of the controversy. Yet the debate about resurrection, since undertaken in a Protestant Christian context, was inevitably a debate about the proper interpretation of Scripture rather than philosophy. Indeed, Locke himself pointed this out to Lord Stillingfleet with well-relished irony: “Give me leave, my lord, to say that the reason for believing any article of the Christian faith (such as your lordship is here speaking of ) to me and upon my grounds, is its being a part of divine revelation,” which means, for the philosopher, its being contained in so many words in Scripture.8 Maria-Cristina Pitassi has emphasized in her work how Locke’s biblical exegesis was part and parcel of his philosophical inventiveness in relation to perganisms: What Locke Should Have (and Could Have) Told Stillingfleet,” in Contemporary Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Vere Chappell, eds. Paul Hoffmann, David Owen and Gideon Yaffe (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2008), 191–214; Nicholas Jolley, Locke’s Touchy Subjects: Materialism and Immortality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 5 John Locke, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” in The Works of John Locke, vol. 2 (10 vols.; London, 1823), 2:47–71. John Marshall identifies the proximate historical impetus for the new chapter on identity as a request in 1693 from the Irish philosopher William Molyneux at Oxford for a discussion of the principium individuationis: John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 401–402. Joanna K. Forstrom shows that theological concerns surrounding the continuing identity of individuals through death, the intermediate state, and resurrection was part of the historical discussion of the principium individuationis in the seventeenth century: John Locke and Personal Identity: Immortality and Bodily Resurrection in 17th-Century Philosophy (London/New York: Continuum, 2010), 9–12. 6 Lucia Dacome, “Resurrecting by Numbers in 18th-Century England,” Past & Present 193 (2006): 73–110, at 85 n. 40. 7 Fernando Vidal, “Brains, Bodies, Selves, and Science: Anthropologies of Identity and the Resurrection of the Body,” Critical Inquiry 28 (Summer 2002): 930–974, at 972. 8 Locke, “Second Reply,” in Works 4:303.

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sonal identity.9 She has also hinted that his exegesis was not wholly original with himself but was traceable to certain sources – especially Socinian sources, such as Jan Crell (1590–1633).10 In a valuable footnote, Pitassi identifies the source of Locke’s claim that human beings receive “new bodies” in Crell’s commentary on 1 Cor 15:42. She also notes how one of Locke’s contemporaries, the theologian Daniel Whitby (1638–1726), had already perceived the similarity to Socinian stances on resurrection in his Essay,11 and crucially, that Locke owned a copy of Crell’s commentary.12 This claimed dependence runs counter, however, to his explicit hermeneutical commitments. In his An Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul’s Epistles, by Consulting St. Paul Himself, Locke claims that accretions to the biblical text, whether in the form of chapter and verse divisions or layers of traditional interpretation, are barriers to proper exegesis. The apostle Paul himself wrote comprehensibly, for the most part, and the best way to understand him was to read and re-read his letters as wholes to get at their “main Subject and Tendency,” in light of which the obscurer parts could be made clear.13 In short, what were important, for Locke, were the clear ideas found in Scripture, which could be understood by the impartial, rational individual interpreter.14 It is thus unsurprising he disavowed any interpretive aid in exegeting biblical passages having to do with resurrection. Yet though Locke explicitly disavowed the need for, or usefulness of, recourse to other commentators, it is clear that his evident, if obfuscated, use of Jan Crell, as we shall see, gives the lie to his stated hermeneutical principles. Locke himself mentioned having read other commentators on Paul’s letters, such as Theodore Beza (1519–1605) and Anglican cleric Henry Hammond (1605–

 9 Maria-Cristina Pitassi, “Une résurrection pour quel corps? et pour quelle humanité? La réponse Lockienne entre philosophie, exégèse et théologie,” Rivista di Storia della Filosofia 53 (1998): 45–61. 10 Martin Mulsow, Enlightenment Underground: Radical Germany, 1680–1720, trans. H. C. Erik Midelfort (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015), 67, also briefly notes the influence of Socinian exegesis on Locke in particular. 11 Leibniz had spotted the same similarity: see Marshall, John Locke, 399, citing Nicholas Jolley, Leibniz and Locke: A Study of the New Essays on Human Understanding (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), esp. chapters 2 and 5. 12 Pitassi, “Une résurrection pour quel corps?,” 55 n. 38, citing J. Harrison and P. Laslett, The Library of John Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 118 n. 876. 13 John Locke, An Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul’s Epistles, by Consulting St. Paul Himself (London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1707), xiv. Cf. Maria-Cristina Pitassi, Le philosophe et l’Écriture. John Locke exégète de saint Paul (Geneva/Lausanne/Neuchâtel: Cahiers de la Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie, 1990), 41–54. 14 Locke’s biblical hermeneutics thus have much in common with Remonstrant thinkers, such as Simon Episcopius (1583–1643), Étienne de Courcelles (1586–1659), and Locke’s friend and close intellectual associate, Philipp van Limborch (1633–1712). On Episcopius and de Courcelles, see Keith Stanglin, “The Rise and Fall of Biblical Perspicuity: Remonstrants and the Transition toward Modern Exegesis,” Church History 83 (2014): 38–59.

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1660), whom he found conflicted.15 Locke was also continually engaged with biblical scholarship, including the works of Erasmus (1466–1536), Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), Louis Cappel (1585–1658) and his contemporaries Robert Boyle (1627–1691) and Jean Le Clerc (1657–1736).16 The remainder of the article, then, will be given over to comparative historical exegesis, with a focus on one passage of Scripture central to the debate with Stillingfleet in Locke’s “Second Reply,” his most detailed denial of the resurrection of the same body. This passage is 1 Corinthians 15.17 After briefly surveying relevant exegesis of the above-mentioned scholars, we turn in more detail to Jan Crell, whose exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15 is found to be significant for Locke’s. We conclude with a brief consideration of the possible reasons, principled and expedient, why Locke obfuscated his relationship to the Socinian exegete.

2. First Corinthians 15 in the Early Modern Period Our survey proceeds not chronologically, but from least to most likely influence based on a consonance of ideas. Thus, we begin with Erasmus, whose use of the paraphrase genre contributed greatly to its popularity among Reformers and those later dependent on them, as Locke himself was, albeit at some distance.18 Though elsewhere Erasmus had a strong influence on Locke, it is not found here;19 his paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 15 states explicitly that the “same … body will live again” (corpus … idem reuiuiscet).20 Jean Leclerc similarly, in his short annotations in The New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ (published in any case in the year before Locke’s death), speaks expressly of the “resurrection of bodies.”21 To clarify which bodies these are, he interprets the “flesh and blood 15

Locke, An Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul’s Epistles, xii. Locke’s library had 61 works of Boyle, 33 of Le Clerc, 15 of Grotius, 5 of Erasmus, 4 of Cappel and, further, 2 each of Scaliger, Casaubon and Heinsius: Pitassi, Le philosophe et l’Écriture, 68 n. 42. See also Luisa Simonutti, “Religion, Philosophy, and Science: John Locke and Limborch’s Circle in Amsterdam,” in Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin: Essays in His Honor, eds. James E. Force and David S. Katz (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 293–324, at 306. 17 Locke, “Second Reply,” in Works 4:311–328. The whole discussion of resurrection runs 303–334; the exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15 thus consumes more than half of Locke’s reply. 18 Pitassi further notes that the paraphrase genre serves Locke’s hermeneutics very well: a paraphrase, “issuing from continuous reading, restores the coherence of the discourse and does away with its artificial divisions”: Le philosophe et l’Écriture, 54. 19 Peter G. Bietenholz, Encounters with a Radical Erasmus: Erasmus’ Work as a Source of Radical Thought in Early Modern Europe (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 179–181. 20 Erasmus, Paraphrasis in duas epistolas Pauli ad Corinthios (Basel, 1519), 152, on 1 Cor 15:42–43. 21 Jean Leclerc, Le Nouveau Testament de Nôtre Seigneur Jesus-Christ, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: Jean Louis de Lorme, 1703), 2:163, on 1 Cor 15:13. 16

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that cannot inherit the kingdom” (1 Cor 15:50) as “the body in the state it is in”, arguing that “our bodies will change from animal bodies into spiritual ones.”22 These are wholly traditional exegeses. Indeed, whereas John Marshall has argued that v. 50 (“flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom”) was the crux of the debate over resurrection of the same body, it is actually the interpretation of the seed metaphor in vv.36–38 that was crucial in this period.23 Locke’s paraphrase of v. 50, for instance, “we shall not at the resurrection have such bodys as we have now” could readily have belonged to orthodox commentators, with a distinction being made between (same) substance and (new) qualities.24 Next to be considered are transitional or mediating positions. Hugo Grotius, in his Annotations on the New Testament, is unclear about the identity of the present body with the resurrection body. On 1 Cor 15:35, “with what kind of body shall they come?” Grotius writes: “If they return in the same body, what purpose would that serve?… If in another [body], they would not be the same. Paul responds that it will be in some measure the same, in some measure not the same, and illustrates this by parallels”, namely, the seed, stars, and so forth.25 This ambiguity – aliquatenus idem, aliquatenus non idem – is, however, likely best interpreted in either an agnostic or, perhaps, an orthodox fashion: it will be the same body but now transformed. His comment, “the form (species) of the immortal body will be very different than that of the mortal body”, suggests the latter option.26 Robert Boyle’s position, in “Some Physico-theological Considerations about the Possibility of the Resurrection” (1675), is more pertinent. Indeed, his argumentation seems to influence Locke at key points.27 Boyle attempted to be wholly orthodox in this short treatise and was concerned with demonstrating the possibility of the material continuity of apparently destroyed bodies through

22 Leclerc, Le Nouveau Testament, 2:165, on 1 Cor 15:50, 51: “Le corps dans l’état, où il est …. Nos corps de corps animaux deviendront des corps spirituels.” 23 Marshall, John Locke, 399. 24 Locke, Paraphrase, 102. 25 Hugo Grotius, Annotationum in Novum Testamentum, 2 vols. (Paris: Apud Vidua Gulielmi Pele, 1646), 2:444–445, on 1 Cor 15:35: “Si in eodem corpore redibunt, quorsum hoc? Neque enim edent neque bibent, neque gignent. Si in alio, non iidem erunt. Respondet Paulus fore aliquatenus idem, aliquatenus non idem, idque per similitudines illustrat.” 26 Grotius, Annotationum in Novum Testamentum, 2:446, on 1 Cor 15:42: “tota illa quam attuli [ego, Paulus] comparatio huc tendit vt intelligatur longe alia esse species mortalis, alia immortalis corporis.” 27 For example, Robert Boyle, “Some Physico-theological Considerations about the Possibility of the Resurrection,” in The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle (6 vols.; London, 1772), 4:196 and Locke, “Second Reply,” in Works 4:308 about the identity of a person as embryo, adult and elderly; Boyle, “Some Physico-theological Considerations,” 194–195 and Locke, “Second Reply,” 313–314 on the addition of new particles of matter to make up the resurrection body (cf. n. 27 below). Cf. Forstrom, John Locke and Personal Identity, 112–115.

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scientific experiment.28 Nevertheless, his discussion of 1 Corinthians 15 in the short treatise does evidence a novel approach to Paul’s seed metaphor on the basis of the new science that can be seen as mediating the gap between orthodox and Socinian positions on resurrection. Boyle seizes on the material difference between the bare seed and the whole roots, stalk and chaff which grow out of it. Perhaps, he suggests, the material increase is as much as one hundred-fold, as in Jesus’ parable of the sower. Something similar may hold for resurrection: a mere part of the matter of a deceased body may have a “plastick power” that can be “divinely excited” to reproduce the whole human body. This may be compared to experiments in which the ashes of flowers were sown in a garden and soon new, larger flowers than before appeared. Nevertheless, Boyle reasons that an “omnipotent agent” does not need recourse even to this “plastick power” to accomplish this material reconstitution. Yet he does suppose that God will take a residual “part” of the deceased body, likely its bones, and add to it “a far greater quantity, either of newly created, or of pre-existent matter”, to make up the resurrected body. 29 While Boyle held to a persistent material part, Jan Crell would expound Paul’s seed metaphor in more radical fashion. The Socinian exegete Jan Crell (1590–1633), finally, breaks entirely with the classical concern for some kind of material continuity between this body and the resurrection body. Crell commented on much of the New Testament, though his work was left unfinished due to his early death. Some of his commentaries thus come down from his own hand, others by his dictation, and still others worked up by his followers from his notes. We thus possess a commentary on 1 Corinthians 1–10 written by Crell himself and a further commentary on 1 Corinthians 15 dictated by him.30 As with Boyle, Paul’s seed metaphor in 1 Cor 15:35–38 formed an interpretive crux for the relation of the resurrection body to the present one. Instead, however, of holding to some part of the deceased body that will be reincorporated into a new one, Crell contends for a body made up of absolutely new material. In doing so, he carries forward doubts about the resurrection of the same body that originated with the progenitor of his tradition, Lelio Sozzini (latinized, Laelius Socinus).31 28 Cf. Salvatore Ricciardo, “Robert Boyle on God’s ‘Experiments’: Resurrection, Immortality and Mechanical Philosophy,” Intellectual History Review 25 (2015): 97–113; Forstrom, John Locke and Personal Identity, 107–112. 29 Boyle, “Physico-theological Considerations,” in Works 4:194–196. The fixation on bones as relatively more durable than other parts of the body is already found in the Middle Ages: see Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), passim. 30 Jan Crell, Opera omnia exegetica, Sive ejus in plerosque Novi Testamenti libros Commentarii, 2 vols. (Eleutheropolis: Irenicus Philalethius, 1656). The commentary on 1 Corinthians 15 is found in Opera omnia exegetica, 1:310–371. 31 John Calvin, “Ep. 1212 to Laelius Socinus, July 1549,” in Ioannis Calvini opera quae super-

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The relevant comments come in his treatment of 1 Cor 15:36, “what you sow does not come to life unless it first dies.” For Crell, there is a very close correspondence (paritas quaedam) between the seed and the final resurrection that runs as follows. There is a certain spirit in seeds, which some call a vegetable spirit. This is transferred from the seed to the plant and animates the later, but this only happens, importantly, when the body of the seed rots and decays. Then the “natural heat” of the seed, once bound up in it, now escapes and, aided by the sun, draws material from the earth. In this way, the “spirit that was hidden within constructs a new body and prepares a more beautiful and fitting home for itself.” Now, when a human being dies a new body does not appear right away, as with the seed of a plant. Nevertheless, the seed metaphor teaches us that the human spirit does not cease to exist when the body decays, but “is the kind of thing or substance that can be transferred from one body to another and can again inhabit another home.” In the interim, then, until a “new body” (novum corpus) comes, “which will take place at last in the resurrection”, God, who has all power, “preserves the human spirit and keeps it whole, until it is clothed with another body” (alio corpore). This is the reason why, for example, Christ commended his spirit into God’s hands. “It is God, evidently, and Christ who keep the spirits of his faithful and make it that they do not perish.”32 Rather than the durable bones of Boyle, then, Crell commends human spirits to God’s safe-keeping until the final day of resurrection. At this point they will be resurrected, if such it may still be called, into other, new bodies.

3. Locke’s Dependence on, and Independence from, Boyle and Crell What relation does Locke have to his exegetical forebears on 1 Corinthians 15? Not much, it would seem, apart from Crell and Boyle. Even in the case of Robert Boyle, what Locke garners from him is more natural philosophical argument than exegesis.33 All he appears from take from Boyle’s treatment of Paul’s seed sunt omnia, eds. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss, 59 vols. (Corpus Reformatorum 29–87; Brunswick: Schwetschke, 1863–1900), 13:309. Cf. Marshall, John Locke, 399–402. 32 Crell, Opera omnia exegetica, 1:346–347. He immediately goes on to speak of experiments by which certain “chemical spirits”, drawn out from other things, can be contained in closed jars. In this he bears similarity to Boyle as well; cf. “Physico-theological Considerations,” 4:196–198. It is worth mentioning that Jonas Schlichting (1591–1661), who completed many of Crell’s unedited commentaries and whose works Locke also knew (Mulsow, Enlightenment Underground, 67), presents essentially the same exegesis of the passage: Commentaria posthuma, in plerosque Novi Testamenti libros, vol. 2 (Eleutheropolis: Irenicus Philalethius, 1656), 85. 33 Cf. n. 25 above. Forstrom, John Locke and Personal Identity, 112–115, takes Boyle as a chief influence on Locke, without awareness of the influence of Crell’s exegesis. With some hermeneutical naïveté, she states that Locke “focuses on what scripture says” (112); he “reads the

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metaphor is the connection with Jesus’ parable of the multiplication of the harvest twenty-, fifty- or one hundred-fold from the grain and the implication of significant material difference in the resurrection body.34 With Crell the case is more complex; there is clear evidence of borrowing but also of Locke’s own independent thought. As with Crell, Locke affirms that in the resurrection human beings receive back not their same bodies but “other Bodies.” There is no mention of Boyle’s bones at this point. Rather, he is content to jettison material continuity entirely, demonstrating his strong agreement with Crell in annotating 1 Cor 15:35. “And next”, Locke continues, “it is fit that Men should die, Death being no improper way to the attaining other Bodies”, as is clear from the parallel with a seed.35 It is certain that he has Crell’s extended exposition of the seed metaphor in mind here,36 yet Locke’s treatment is also more restrained in its detail. Boyle’s bones as a residue of the matter of the deceased are missing, but so too is Crell’s human spirit kept in the hand of God. Locke is simply more agnostic about the precise manner in which God will raise the dead, even though in his debate with Stillingfleet he sharply and repeatedly insists on accepting the teaching of scripture that God will in fact do so.37 One could say that Locke’s use of Crell is primarily negative, accepting the Socinian’s mildly rational interpretation as doing away with the need for any material continuity whatsoever but not necessarily accepting his positive explanation. Also important for Locke is one of Crell’s philological claims. In 1 Cor 15:53, Paul states that “this corruptible” (to phtharton touton) and “this mortal” (to thnēton touton) must put on incorruptibility and immortality. Crell asserts that these neuter terms are not adjectives modifying the understood but absent noun sōma (body); rather, they are substantive adjectives standing for the whole human person. Thus, instead of the body being sown corruptible and raised incorruptible, the corruptible person is sown, their present body dies, and the person is raised in another, new body. Locke borrows this argument wholesale.38 Such a reading strengthens his own claim against Stillingfleet that the subject of scriptures not as promising the same resurrection of the same body. Instead, he focuses on the passages and sees that they promise the resurrection of the dead” (113). She does note that in this Locke distances himself from Boyle (113), but without knowledge of Crell’s exegesis Forstrom assumes Locke’s reading is wholly his own. 34 Cf. Boyle, “Physico-theological Considerations,” 4:194 and Locke, “Second Reply,” in 4:317. 35 Locke, Paraphrase, 98; cf. Crell, Opera omnia exegetica, 1:346: “Nam id quod seminatur, non potest vitam recipere, ac in plantam excrescere, nisi prius moriatur, seu corpus ipsius putrescat ac corrumpatur. Quare nihil obstat hominibus mors, quo minus in vitam redeant.” 36 Rather than Stillingfleet’s, which holds to a material continuity of some part of the seed in the grain and of which Locke is highly critical (“Second Reply,” 4:317–323), or even Boyle’s, which maintains that some material part must persist. 37 Locke, “Second Reply,” 4:311–312, 324–325, 327, 328–329, 330, 334. 38 Crell, Opera omnia exegetica, 1:367; Locke, Paraphrase, 102–103. Cf. Pitassi, “Une résurrection pour quel corps?,” 54–55: “Avec plus ou moins de bonheur et de pertinence philologique…”

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the resurrection verbs (zōopoiēthēsontai, egerthēsontai) is not, again, body (sōma) but the persons themselves (nekroi, pantes, hoi).39 Without these philological arguments, Locke’s position crashes against the rocks of the clear and plain ideas found in the apostle’s text. Again, Crell becomes the key that allows Locke, negatively, to break with the classical exegetical tradition entirely, though in his positive exposition he makes his own contributions. One might, therefore, call Locke’s overall relationship to Crell’s exegesis one of independent use rather than simple dependence.

4. Why Locke’s Deception? Why, then, given Locke’s independent use of Crell’s exegesis, would he misleadingly disavow any use of commentators ardently and at length in his Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul’s Epistles? There are at least two reasons, one principled and one expedient. First, social and political expediency: Jan Crell was a Socinian theologian. The term Socinian was defamatory in the late seventeenth century, and bore with it associations of heresy, unbelief and, therefore, immorality.40 More to the point, various acts and ordinances in English law, one as recent as 1698, allowed for the punishment, including imprisonment and death, of those found to be publishing Socinian theological views or denying the resurrection.41 Hence it is not surprising that Locke put off publishing the Paraphrase, in which he at last unveiled his commitment to “new bodies” at the resurrection, “although”, in the words of one scholar, “even then anonymously, and, as it turned out, posthumously.”42 Second, Locke rejected bare dependence on other commentators on principle as obfuscating the clear and plain teaching of the articles of faith in divine revelation, that is, in scripture. In An Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul’s 39

Locke, “Second Reply,” 4:326. Daniela Bianchi, “Some Sources for a History of English Socinianism: A Bibliography of 17th Century English Socinian Writings,” Topoi 4 (1985): 91–120, at 93. Cf. Sarah Mortimer, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution: The Challenge of Socinianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), esp. chapter 7 for developments earlier in the century. 41 Specifically, the 1648 Ordinance for punishing blasphemies and heresies legislated capital punishment for denial of the resurrection of the body: Ricciardo, “Robert Boyle on God’s ‘experiments’,” 98; cf. Mortimer, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution, 179–183). The 1697/1698 Act for the more effectual suppressing of Blasphemy and Profaneness instituted punishments up to and including imprisonment for those convicted of publishing, teaching or even advisedly speaking Socinian theological views: “William III, 1697–8: An Act for the more effectual suppressing of Blasphemy and Profaneness. [Chapter XXXV. Rot. Parl. 9 Gul. III. p. 6.n. 4.],” in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 7, 1695–1701, ed. John Raithby (Great Britain Record Commission, 1820), 409, British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-realm/vol7/p409. Cf. Bianchi, “Some Sources for a History of English Socinianism,” 114. 42 Marshall, John Locke, 399. 40

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Epistles, he decries the “Mischief ” that arises from consulting commentators to understand Paul. Either a person reads only those commentators they consider orthodox, only confirming themselves in their pre-existing opinion and so failing to get at Paul’s true meaning, or they read any and all commentators “promiscuously” and so come away “with an hundred” meanings of Paul, which is to say, “none at all.”43 Locke does identify a way through the impasse, thankfully: this is the use of “a Rule” to determine whether the meaning ascertained is the apostle’s or not, a way of proceeding rationally, which involves reading and re-reading the letters themselves as wholes to get at the apostle’s train of thought. By following this rational procedure, Locke found that Paul’s writings were actually “calm strong coherent Reasonings.”44 Once an individual has practiced this technique, they will be in a better position to judge whether the comments of expositors do, in fact, make clearer the apostle’s meaning or no.

5. Evaluating Locke’s Interpretation of Resurrection As a final point of note, we may be permitted to inquire whether Locke’s exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15 is satisfactory. Is Locke, and Crell behind him, a sound interpreter of Paul’s letter here? I focus on one counter-argument, arising from traditional exegesis from the post-apostolic period onward and keenly felt by Lord Stillingfleet among others: to argue that human beings are not raised in this same body in which they now live and die, but in a new, other body, distinguishes the mode of their resurrection sharply from the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.45 Jesus, as the gospels portray in varying ways, rises from death in the same body in which he previously lived and died, albeit one now transformed in mysterious ways. Luke’s gospel, for instance, narrates Jesus emphasizing that he has a body, “flesh and bones,” in distinction from a ghost (24:39), though it 43

Locke, An Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul’s Epistles, xi–xiii. Ibid., xiii–xv. 45 See, e. g., the Epistle of the Apostles 25 [c.160]: “Then He spoke to us: ‘What is it that falls: the flesh or the spirit?’ And we spoke to Him: ‘The flesh.’ And He spoke to us: ‘That which has fallen will rise, and that which is ill will be healed, in order that by this My Father will be praised; as He did to me, so shall I do to you and to all who believe in Me,” emphasis added; quoted in A. H. C. van Eijk, “‘Only that can rise which has previously fallen’: The History of a Formula,” Journal of Theological Studies 22 (1971): 517–529, at 517. Origen, In Matth. fr. 478 [c.254] (GCS 41/1: 197) speaks of “the fall, according to [God’s] economy, of Jesus who fell in order to cause we who fell to stand”; quoted in van Eijk, 523 n. 2. Cf. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 2 [c.107]: “Now, He suffered all these things for our sakes, that we might be saved. And He suffered truly, even as also He truly raised up Himself, not, as certain unbelievers maintain, that He only seemed to suffer, as they themselves only seem to be. And as they believe, so shall it happen unto them, when they shall be divested of their bodies, and be mere evil spirits,” emphasis added. The negative implies the positive: those who truly believe, that Christ was raised in their flesh will likewise be raised as they believe, in their same bodies. 44

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is not readily recognized as his own body (24:31–32, 41; cf. John 20:14). John’s gospel narrates Jesus emphasizing that it is, indeed, his own body by pointing to the sites of the wounds received during his crucifixion: “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe” (20:27). Jesus is thus portrayed by the New Testament as being raised in the same body that was crucified, now made alive once more and transformed. The New Testament also consistently portrays Jesus’ resurrection as modelling or prefiguring humanity’s own future resurrection. As Paul writes, “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, God will in the same way also bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus” (1 Thess 4:14). The strongest and most extended statement of this relationship between Christ’s resurrection and that of believers comes in the very passage being contested. Paul, again, writes, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the first fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him” (1 Cor 15:20–23).46 What the apostle writes here suggests strongly, certainly for premodern interpreters, is that the mode of Christ’s resurrection prefigures humanity’s own. This would include resurrection in one’s same body. A formidable obstacle, then, for Locke’s unusual interpretation of resurrection appears not only in the philological detail and metaphors found in the latter half of 1 Corinthians 15, overcome with the help of Jan Crell, but in the explicit connection between Christ and believers Paul draws in the first half as well. Locke himself sees this difficulty but feels he has a response in hand.47 In line with his interpretation of the final resurrection of humanity, Locke must explicitly deny that Christ serves as the model for the resurrection of others, at least in this particular respect. Locke can “grant other dead, as certainly raised as Christ was; for else his resurrection would be of no use to mankind.”48 He denies, however, that they will rise in their same body, as Christ did. Locke’s reasoning is that Christ and others who are raised from the dead prior to the last day are raised in their same bodies for evidentiary reasons, not because this is the nature of resurrection as such. Thus, the “many bodies of sleeping saints” that rise at Jesus’ crucifixion do, in fact, rise in their same bodies, as Locke acknowledges the text suggests (Matt 27:52). Locke, however, insists that this was so they could be known to have been raised. “But this could not be known”, he argues, “unless they brought with them the evidence, that they were those who had been dead, whereof there were these 46

Cf. Locke, Paraphrase, 96, where Locke takes no account of the difficulty. It does not appear this comes from Crell, so far as I have been able to trace. 48 Locke, “Second Reply,” 4:312–313. 47

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two proofs; their graves were opened, and their bodies not only gone out of them, but appeared to be the same to those who had known them formerly alive, and knew them to be dead and buried.”49 The only function of resurrection in the same body, for Locke, is evidential, as visible proof to one’s former relations that resurrection had taken place. Precisely the same reasoning applies in relation to Christ himself. The particular “size, shape, figure, and lineaments” of Christ’s body, as well as the wounds of his crucifixion, were retained in his resurrected body in order “to be a conviction to his disciples, to whom he showed himself, and who were to be witnesses of his resurrection, that their master, the very same man, was crucified, dead, and buried, and raised again.” It was to prove “it was really he, the same, and not another, nor a spectre or apparition of him.”50 For Locke, such evidence is important because Christ’s resurrection is one “concomitant article” of faith in Jesus as God’s Messiah, which may stand in by metonymy for such messianic faith itself.51 By the same faith in the divine revelation that is the Scriptures, one understands that God will raise dead persons – but he will not raise bodies. It is this evidentiary function that is not needed at the final resurrection and marks the difference in mode of this latter event. As a consequence, human beings need not be resurrected at the end in the same body in which they previously lived and died. As Locke himself puts the matter, “But at the last day, when all men are raised there will be no need to be assured of any one particular man’s resurrection.”52 The mode of the raising of Christ (i. e., in his same body) does not need to be reflected in the mode of the raising of all humanity, for Locke. This reinterpretation of the mode of resurrection by Locke severs the traditional  – and biblical  – figural connection drawn between the raising of Christ (and others, such as Lazarus) in his same body as prototypical of the raising of all humanity at the last day. Such canonical and figural reading is, however, mostly closed to Locke, who restricts his understanding of the plain sense of the text to what is explicitly stated by a particular (human) author of Scripture. Only where Scripture expressly, and in the same train of thought, connected humanity’s future resurrection with Christ’s, and Christ’s with one’s same body, would Locke permit theological conclusions to follow. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, states that “in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the first fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him” (1 Cor 15:22–23). Since the apostle here, however, does not 49

Ibid., 4:304. Ibid., 4:314. 51 Maria-Cristina Pitassi, “Le Christ lockien à l’épreuve des textes: De la Reasonableness aux Paraphrase and Notes,” in Le Christ entre Orthodoxie et Lumières: Actes de colloque tenu à Genève en août 1993, ed. Maria-Cristina Pitassi (Geneva: Droz, 1994), 101–122, at 105, citing John Locke, “A Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity,” in The Works of John Locke, vol 7 (London: 1823), 341. 52 Locke, “Second Reply,” 4:314–315. 50

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expressly relate this to the raising of one’s same body, Locke is able to avoid the implications. Paul makes a more explicit connection between Christ’s body, resurrection of the same body, and believers’ bodies in 1 Cor 6:12–20. Yet this too is nimbly sidestepped by Locke. He can paraphrase Paul’s statements in vv.13–14, “The Body is for our Lord Christ, to be a Member of him …. So that as God has already raised him up, and given him all Power, so he will raise us up likewise who are his Members, to the partaking in the nature of his glorious Body.”53 Paul’s own language permits such evasion, barely; the apostle does not say, in so many words, the Lord will raise us in our same bodies but simply, “he will raise us also” (v. 14). Yet Paul’s argument here that these our bodies, which are joined to Christ and will be raised up by the Lord just as Christ was raised, should not, therefore, be united with prostitutes, is undone. What does it matter if we unite with a prostitute in this body now? On Locke’s interpretation, this body rots and we will be raised in another, new body joined to Christ the head. Indeed, Locke suggests, somewhat coyly, that “this Verse [14] seems to stand alone. For what Connection has the mention of the Resurrection in the ordinary Sense of this Verse, with what the Apostle is saying, but raising us up with Bodies” – not, of course, the same Bodies – “to be Members of his glorious Body” – the same Body, one notes, in which Christ lived and died?54 Locke’s unorthodox, Socinian interpretation of final resurrection forces upon him the necessity of making a distinction between Christ and Christians. The reason Locke adduces is that Christ and others are only raised in their same bodies as a matter of evidence; such evidence will be unnecessary in the eschaton, when all will be raised and see in their own new bodies the universal reality of what is only now attested in particular individuals, chiefly Christ himself. This differentiation allows Locke to disconnect personal identity from continuation of substance, locating it instead in continuity of memory, regardless of the physical constitution of the organism who exercises such memory. What Locke thus gains by way of cogency in philosophical ideas of identity he loses in exegetical and theological coherence.

6. Conclusion Locke, to conclude, was only telling a half-lie in stating to Lord Stillingfleet that he denied the resurrection of the same body simply upon the grounds of divine revelation.55 He did deny the resurrection of the same body based primarily on 53

Locke, Paraphrase, 37, emphasis added. Ibid., 38 n. y. 55 Locke, “Second Reply,” 4:303. 54

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exegetical considerations rather than philosophical ones, as Stillingfleet had thought. Yet these were not considerations he arrived at wholly by himself. He was much helped to them by the Socinian exegete Jan Crell, though it would have appeared to Locke, based on his hermeneutical commitments, that Crell’s exegesis was sound and rational and, therefore, what any clear-sighted individual interpreter should come to themselves by following the train of Paul’s rational epistolary discourse. That he thus appropriated Crell’s interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15 without attribution was both understandable, in light of Locke’s hermeneutics, and convenient, given the legal consequences to which such exegesis might have been found liable in the late seventeenth century. Whether Locke’s denial of dependence on exegetical tradition is credible today is a matter I leave to the individual reader to decide.

Bibliography Bianchi, Daniela. “Some Sources for a History of English Socinianism: A Bibliography of 17th Century English Socinian Writings.” Topoi 4 (1985): 91–120. Bietenholz, Peter G. Encounters with a Radical Erasmus: Erasmus’ Work as a Source of Radical Thought in Early Modern Europe. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. Boyle, Robert. “Some Physico-theological Considerations about the Possibility of the Resurrection.” Pages 191–202 in The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, Vol. 4. London, 1772. Bynum, Caroline Walker. The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Calvin, John. “Ep. 1212 to Laelius Socinus, July 1549.” Page 309 in Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, Vol. 13. Edited by G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss. 59 Vols. Corpus Reformatorum. Brunswick: Schwetschke, 1863–1900. Crell [Crellius], Jan [Johannes]. Opera omnia exegetica, Sive ejus in plerosque Novi Testamenti libros Commentarii. 2 Vols. Eleutheropolis: Irenicus Philalethius, 1656. Dacome, Lucia. “Resurrecting by Numbers in 18th-Century England.” Past & Present 193 (2006): 73–110. Eijk, A. H. C. van. “‘Only that can rise which has previously fallen’: The History of a Formula.” Journal of Theological Studies 22 (1971): 517–529. Erasmus [Desiderius]. Paraphrasis in duas epistolas Pauli ad Corinthios. Basel, 1519. Forstrom, Joanna K. John Locke and Personal Identity: Immortality and Bodily Resurrection in 17th-Century Philosophy. London/New York: Continuum, 2010. Grotius, Hugo. Annotationum in Novum Testamentum. 2 Vols. Paris: Apud Vidua Gulielmi Pele, 1646. Harrison J. and P. Laslett. The Library of John Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press Press, 1965. Jolley, Nicholas. Leibniz and Locke: A Study of the New Essays on Human Understanding. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984. –. Locke’s Touchy Subjects: Materialism and Immortality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

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Kaufman, Dan. “The Resurrection of the Same Body and the Ontological Status of Organisms: What Locke Should Have (and Could Have) Told Stillingfleet.” Pages 191–214 in Contemporary Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Vere Chappell. Edited by Paul Hoffmann, David Owen and Gideon Yaffe. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2008. Leclerc, Jean. Le Nouveau Testament de Nôtre Seigneur Jesus-Christ. 2 Vols. Amsterdam: Jean Louis de Lorme, 1703. Locke, John. An Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul’s Epistles, by Consulting St. Paul Himself. London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1707. –. A Paraphrase and Notes on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1706. –. “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” Pages 47–71 in The Works of John Locke, Vol. 2. 10 Vols. London, 1823. –. “Mr. Locke’s Reply to the Bishop of Worcester’s Answer to His Second Letter.” Pages 303–304 in The Works of John Locke, Vol. 4. 10 Vols. London, 1823. –. “A Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity.” Page 341 in The Works of John Locke, Vol. 7. 10 Vols. London, 1823. Marshall, John. John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Mortimer, Sarah. Reason and Religion in the English Revolution: The Challenge of Socinianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Mulsow, Martin. Enlightenment Underground: Radical Germany, 1680–1720. Translated by H. C. Erik Midelfort. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015. Pitassi, Maria-Cristina. Le philosophe et l’Écriture. John Locke exégète de saint Paul. Geneva/Lausanne/Neuchâtel: Cahiers de la Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie, 1990. –. “Une résurrection pour quel corps? et pour quelle humanité? La réponse Lockienne entre philosophie, exégèse et théologie.” Rivista di Storia della Filosofia 53.1 (1998): 45–61. –. “Le Christ lockien à l’épreuve des textes: De la Reasonableness aux Paraphrase and Notes.” Pages 101–122 in Le Christ entre Orthodoxie et Lumières: Actes de colloque tenu à Genève en août 1993. Edited by Maria-Cristina Pitassi. Geneva: Droz, 1994. Ricciardo, Salvatore. “Robert Boyle on God’s ‘Experiments’: Resurrection, Immortality and Mechanical Philosophy.” Intellectual History Review 25 (2015): 97–113. Schlichting, Jonas. Commentaria posthuma, in plerosque Novi Testamenti libros, Vol. 2. 2 Vols. Eleutheropolis: Irenicus Philalethius, 1656), 85. Simonutti, Luisa. “Religion, Philosophy, and Science: John Locke and Limborch’s Circle in Amsterdam.” Pages 293–324 in Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin: Essays in His Honor. Edited by James E. Force and David S. Katz. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Stanglin, Keith. “The Rise and Fall of Biblical Perspicuity: Remonstrants and the Transition toward Modern Exegesis.” Church History 83 (2014): 38–59. Vidal, Fernando. “Brains, Bodies, Selves, and Science: Anthropologies of Identity and the Resurrection of the Body.” Critical Inquiry 28 (Summer 2002): 930–974.

Index of References Hebrew Bible Genesis 1:27 8:8–12

62 76

Exodus 12:46 19 22 22:29 23:19 34:26

92 143 vii 39, 42 39 39

Leviticus 14 14:1–8 22 22:17–25 22:27 22:27–28 22:28 24:20

85 86 vii 41 39 40–42, 45 39, 41, 44 146

Numbers 9:12 13:23–24 20

92 84 84

Deuteronomy 14:21 21 22:6 22:10 22:6–7 26:1–22

39 47 46 125 39 14

Judges 4:9 4:17 4:21

151 151 151–152

5:24 13 13–16 14–15 14:2 14:3 14:14 14:19 15:4–5 15:8 15:14 15:15 16 16:5 16:8 16:9 16:12 16:13 16:14 16:18 16:20 16:23 16:24 16:25 16:27 16:28 16:30

151 144 154 144–145 144 144 144 144–146 145 145 146 145 142–145 145 145 145 145 152 145, 152–153 145 145 153 143, 145, 147, 153 146 146, 148 146 143, 146–148

1 Samuel 6:7–14 6:12

49 49

Isaiah 7:14 28:19 48:16 52–53 54 62

195 136 123 195 76 76

220

Index of References

Jeremiah 2–3 31

76 76

13:1 14:8 14:9

92 92 92

Ezekiel 16 23 47:1–2 47:9

76 76 92 92

Psalms 2:7 17 119 120:4

187 133 135 127

Hosea 1–3 11:1

76 195

Proverbs 20:29

101

Song of Songs 1:3–4 2:12 4:14 5:1 5:2–8 8:2

77 76 77 78 77 77

Joel 2:16

101

Zechariah 8:4–5 12:10

101 92

New Testament Matthew 1:18 2:15 2:38–42 3:1–12 3:3 3:16 5:8 5:19 6:3 8:37 9:15–17 10:6 10:36 11:29 18:20 22 22:1–13 22:1–14 22:15–22 22:20–22 24 25

75, 78 195 72 74 73 73, 89 74 72 72 72 77 69 77 73 78 76 77 78 54, 59 vii 77 76

25:1–13 26:6–7 26:26 26:61 27:52 28 28:16 28:16–20 28:19

77 77 78 77 213 69, 74 69 69 70–71

Mark 3:15 10:42–44 12:13–17 16:15

76 102 54 69

Luke 1:1–4 1:15 1:35 1:41 1:67 1:80

185 185 185 185 185 185

221

Index of References

2:25–27 10:23–24 12:49 12:50 14:15–24 20:19–26 20:20 20:27 24:31–32 24:39 24:41 24:44–47 24:46–48

185 183 89 89 76 54 61 213 213 212 213 185 69

John 1:1 1:14 3:33 3:34 4 4:19 19:33 19:34 19:35 20:14 20:21

131 135 73 179 90 89 92 81, 83–84, 87, 91–92 88 213 69

Acts 1:8 1:16 1:18–19 1:21–22 2:23 2:36 2:38–39 3:21 3:25–26 4:12 4:25 4:28 5:2–3 7:51 8 10:35 10:38 10:43 12:1 12:2

186 185 69 186 180 178 180, 183 180 183–184 180, 182, 185 185 180 102 185 186 178 179 178, 180, 183–184 186 186

12:2–5 12:11 12:23 12:24 13:12 13:33 13:38–39 13:39 14:16–17 15 15:8 15:8–11 15:9 15:10 15:11 15:28–29 15:20 17:28–31 17:30 19 20:17 20:27–28 20:28 22:16 23:6 26:6–8 26:16–18 26:18 26:22 28:20 28:25

186 186 186 186 179 187 180–181, 183 178, 183 180 177, 181, 187 181 180 181–182 181–182 181–183, 185 181 177, 181 180 178 180 102 180 102 180 185 185 69 180 183 185 185

Romans 1:4 1:22 3:28 7 14:14

187 135 134 187 177

1 Corinthians 1–10 1:20 2 6:12–20 6:13–14 8:8 9:1 10:27

2–8 135 73 215 215 177 69 177

222 15

Index of References

15:13 15:20–23 15:22–23 15:35 15:35–38 15:36 15:36–38 15:42 15:42–43 15:49 15:50 15:50–51 15:53

206, 208–209, 212–214, 216 206 213 214 203, 207, 210 208 209 207 205, 207 206 64 206–207 207 210

2 Corinthians 3:5 3:6 4:5

134 125 102

Galatians 1:16 2:20 3 5

69 134 132 128

Philippians 2:13

134

Colossians 2:21

177

1 Thessalonians 4:14

213

1 Timothy 4:3 5:23

177 83

James 4:13–17

v

1 Peter 5 5:1 5:1–4

101–102 100–102 95, 100–102

2 Peter 1:20

196

1 John 5:6 5:8

86 8

Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha 4 Ezra 10:45–48

77

Gospel of Thomas 100 54

Epistula Apostolorum 25 212

Qumran 4QMMT(B) 1 30–33

44 43

4Q270 (frag. 9) 2:13–15

43

11QTa 52

43

223

Index of References

Philo and Josephus Josephus Antiquities 3.9:4.236–237

Philo 48

De Somniis II.259

84

Rabbinic Texts m.Bekhorot 7:7

47

b.Hullin 78b

m.Hullin 5:1–2 5:3

47 47

Sifra Emor Parashah 1 46 2 46–47

t.Hullin 5:6 5:6–8

47 47

46

Early Christian Authors Ambrose of Milan

Gregory of Nyssa

FonChr 3.158–160 3.165 3.167 3.230–236 3.232 3.252

Hom. In Cant. 10

Myst. 7.35–41 7.37 9.57–58 Sacr. 5.15 5.3.17 5.25

78 78 76 76 76 78 76 76 78 78 76 78

Clement of Alexandria Paedagogus PG 8, II, 2 409B 83

78

Ignatius Epistle to the Magnesians 8:2 182 Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 2 212 Jerome Epistles 53.9

119

John Chrysostom Catecheses 1, PG 49, 234 2/1.3 Sc 366, 118 2/3, Sc 266, 212 2/3.3, Sc 366, 222

76 74 76 75

224

Index of References

Homilies on John 24.2 73

Homilies on Luke 39 57, 64

John of Jerusalem

Tertullian

2,2 Sc 126 3,1 Sc 126 4,2 Sc 126, 136 4,3 Sc 126, 136 Origin

76 75 76 78

Commentary on Matthew 17.25 63 17.25–26 56–57 17.26 58 17.27 56–57 Fragm. In Evang. Joannis 36 51212–23 71

De Fuga 12.10–13 Theodore of Mopsuestia FonChr 17.109–110 17.110 17.381–382

75 78 75

Homilies 3.9 14.23

78 75

Index of Modern Authors Abrams, K. 48 Ackerman, S. 152 Adams, C. J. 40 Alastair, R. 75–76 Albiac, G. 162 Albrecht, O. 113 Alkier, S. 109 Allison, D. C. 120, 175 Alter, R. 49 Alvargonzález, D. 5 Arnaldez, R. 162 Asad, T. 40 Assaël, J. 110 Azar, M. G. 59 Bacon, F. 164–168 Baird, W. 9–10 Balla, A. 141, 149 Bandala, M. 26 Bar-Efrat, S. 49 Barclay, J. M. G. 59–60, 129 Barkley, G. W. 86 Barrett, C. K. 73, 181, 187 Batovici, D. 96 Batten, A. J. 110 Baumgarten, J. M. 44–45 Baumgartner, W. 41 Bavinck, H. 182–185, 187 Bayer, O. 129–130, 135–136 Benz, E. 56–57, 62–63 Bercot, D. W. 90 Berger, K. 69 Berger, S. 112 Berman, J. 130, 161 Bernstein, M. J. 44 Berthelot, K. 40 Beutel, A. 109 Beyssade, M. 162 Bianchi, D. 211 Biderman, S. 160 Bietenholz, P. G. 206 Blancke, H. 113

Bluhm, H. 127 Bock, D. L. 181 Bockmuehl, M. 21, 30, 32 Bori, P. C. 54 Bornkamm, H. 125, 135 Boyle, R. 207–210 Bray, G. 190 Breed, B. W. 31 Brettler, M. Z. 144 Brice, L. L. 142–143, 146 Brown, D. B. 141 Brox, N. 99 Burke, S. R. 54, 56, 58–59 Buth, R. 72 Butterfield, H. 4 Butts, A. 97 Bynum, C. W. 208 Calvin, J. 176, 181–183, 208–209 Carey, J. 141, 146 Carr, E. H. 5 Cattenoz, J.-P. 77 Chang, H. 6 Charlesworth, S. D. 99 Chávez, A. E. 49 Cheney, P. 96 Chernaik, W. 141 Chester, S. 129 Cho, P. K.-K. 154 Collingwood, R. G. 5 Collins, A. Y. 61, 63, 65 Collins, J. J. 157 Colson, F. H. 43 Cooper, A. 4o Copeland, R. 96 Cotera, P. 26 Courcelles, É. de 192, 199–201 Cramer, J. A. 100 Creighton, M. 5 Crell, J. 208–210 Crouzel, H. 57, 64 Cruz, D. 26

226

Index of Modern Authors

Curley, E. 162–163, 165 Cuvillier, É. 110 Dacome, L. 204 Dahan, G. 124 Daniélou, J. 75 Daugirdas, K. 189–192, 197, 199 de Bruyne, D. 112 Dekkers, E. 55 Della Puppa, F. 49 Della Rocca, M. 162 Dennison, J. T. 176 Descartes, R. 193 Deun, P. van 98 Dibelius, M. 118, 120 Djedi, Y. 162 Donagan, A. 163 Doutreleau, L. 101 Ebeling, G. 126 Elliott, M. W. 25, 30–33, 53–54, 66, 129 Ellis, M. A. 191 England, E. 21 Enns, P. 76 Episcopius, S. 191–192, 194 Erasmus 206 Evans, R. 21–22, 24, 30, 32 Exum, C. J. 142, 144, 146–147 Felber, S. 118 Ferguson, E. 70 Feudenthal, J. 167 Fish, S. 141 Fitzmyer, J. A. 181 Förster, N. 54 Forstrom, J. K. 204, 207, 209–210 Foucault, M. 48 Fournier, F. 57, 64 Fraenkel, C. 162–163 Frampton, T. L. 158 Francisco, J. M. C. 163 Freedman, R. D. 161 Freitag, A. 127 Freudenthal, K. 161, 167 Froehlich, K. 125–127 Früchtel, L. 98

Gabbey, A. 163 Gadamer, H-.G. 22–24, 95 Gathercole, S. 96, 99 Gibert, P. 157 Gilson, É. 167 Given, J. G. 97 Grappone, A. 85 Gregory, B. S. 169 Gregory, T. 141, 149 Grotius, H. 207 Guerrero, R. R. 162 Gunn, D. M. 153 Guttenplan, D. D. 154 Gwon, G. 182 Hahn, S. W. 160–161, 163, 169 Hamm, B. 131 Hammill, G. 169 Hans, J. 90 Haran, M. 40 Hardie, P. 96 Hardwick, L. 96 Hartvigsen, K.M 74–75 Hauser, A. J. 12, 17, 157 Heine, R. E. 56–58, 63 Helmer, C. 21 Hermle, S. 110 Herms, E. 128 Hilberg, I. 101 Holtzmann, J. 110 Hopkins, D. 96 Hort, F. J. A. 97 Howe, T. 142–143 Hubbard, B. 69 Hughes, M. Y. 143 Hunter, D. G. 101 Hurst, D. 102 Hurtak, D. 88 Hurtak, J. J. 88 Hurtado, L. W. 97, 99 Iacopini, G. 88 Israel, J. I. 159 James, S. 162 Jauss, H. R. 22, 25, 30–31 Jeter, J. R. 142

Index of Modern Authors

Johnson, D. E. 186 Jolley, N. 204–205 Kaden, D. A. 70 Kaplan, Y. 159 Kasher, A. 160 Kaufman, D. 203–204 Kaufmann, T. 109 Kawerau, G. 110–111 Keel, O. 49 Keener, C. S. 69, 75, 181–186 Kettling, S. 133 Klajnman, A. 163 Klostermann, E. 56–57, 62–63 Koen, E. M. 159 Köhler, L. 41 Konradt, M. 73 Korsch, D. 132 Köstenberger, A. J. 175 Knight, M. 22, 53, 95 Knupp, J. 73 Kratzert, A. H. 128 Kugel, J. L. 43–44 Kugler, R. A. 44 Kümmel, W. G. 8–9 Lacoste, J.-Y. 134 Laistner, M. L. W. 102 Lane, J. D. 118–119 Lange, J. 69 Lauster, J. 129 Law, D. R. 53 Layton, B. 90 Lazarus-Yafeh, H. 161 Leclercq, J. 168, 206–207 Legaspi, M. C. 169 Leipoldt, J. 119 Leppin, V. 127, 131 Levenson, J. D. 160 Levine, B. 39 Levy, I. C. 112 Lieb, M. 21 Lied, L. I. 97 Limborch, P. van 190, 193–198 Lincicum, D. 96 Locke, J. 198, 203–207, 210–215 Lohse, B. 128, 135 Longman, T. 76

Loscocco, P. 151–152 Lubac, H. de 195 Luijendijk, A. 99 Lundhaug, H. 77, 97 Luther, M. 114, 126, 133–134 Luz, U. 54, 56, 59, 65 Lyons, W. J. 21, 29 Macaskill, G. 60 MacDermot, V. 88–89 Machiavelli, N. 161 Maddox, M. L. 132 Madigan, K. 123 Mailer, N. 142 Malik, P. 97 Marshall, D. G. 95 Marshall, J. 204–205, 207, 209, 211 Martens, P. W. 62 Martin, F. 187 Martindale, C. 96 Martinez, E. R. 92 Martinez, F. G. 43–44 Mason, E. 21 Mastricht, Petrus van 182, 187 Maxfield, J. 132 Mayer, W. 70 Mayr, E. 5 McNally, R. E. 98 Mead, G. R. S. 88 Mellerin, L. 16 Merkt, A. 15–16 Meyer, L. 166 Miert. D. van 189, 201 Mildenburger, F. 134 Milgrom, J. 40, 42 Milton, J. 48, 149–150 Mohamed, F. G. 141–142 Morgan, T. 55 Morrow, J. L. 157, 162 Mortimer, S. 211 Muller, R. A. 201 Mulsow, M. 205, 209 Nadler, S. 158, 161 Nasch, R. 84 Nautin, P. 85 Neill, S. 7 Nellen, H. J. M. 200

227

228

Index of Modern Authors

Neuschäfer, B. 62 Newberry, R. C. 50 Nicklas, T. 15–16, 32 Niehoff, M. 63 Ntezley, R. 141 Nünlist, R. 63

Rosenthal, M. A. 160 Rowe, C. Kavin 178 Rothschild, C. K. 96 Ruane, N. J. 41–42 Rudrum, A. 141 Runia, D. T. 84

O’Kane, M. 95 Oberman, H. 130 Ocker, C. 123 Oldman, E. O. 142

Sæbø, M. 10–12, 157 Salomon, H. P. 159 Savinel, P. 84 Schäfer, P. 74 Schiffman, L. H. 40, 43, 45, 48 Schild, M. E. 111–113 Schironi, F. 63 Schlatter, A. 175 Schmidt, C. 88 Scholer, D. M. 84 Schulz, H.-J. 70–71, 75 Schwartz, B. J. 39 Schwarz, R. 109 Schwöbel, C. 131 Scobie, C. H. H. 186 Scotus, D. 130 Sheehan, J. 169–170 Shuve, K. 59, 65 Sider, R. D. 64 Simonutti, L. 206 Ska, J.-L. 157 Smith, J. Z. 66 Smith, L. 124 Spinoza, B. de 165–168, 201 Stählin, O. 98 Stanglin, K. D. 189–191, 195, 197, 205 Staupitz, J. 129 Stead, G. C. 85 Stegmüller, F. 112 Steinmetz, D. C. 125 Stendahl, K. 133 Stolt, B. 126 Strawbridge, J. R. 21 Stray, C. 96 Streiff, S. 135 Swanson, J. C. 50

Parker, D. C. 97 Parris, D. P. 21, 24–25, 35 Pearson, B. A. 88 Pelikan, J. 126, 132 Périchon, P. 57, 64 Pesch, R. 181 Peterson, D. G. 181, 187 Piacenti, R. K. 48 Piotrowski, N. 77 Piovanelli, P. 96 Pitassi, M-.C. 205–206, 210, 214 Poel, M. van der 97 Polyander, J. 191 Popkin, R. H. 158, 162 Preus, J. S. 163, 166 Quack, J. 112–114 Raeder, S. 128 Rapallo, U. 85 Reinbold, W. 70 Reinmuth, E. 109 Renoux, C. 98, 100 Rester, T. M. 182 Reventlow, H. G. von 126, 128, 157, 200 Révah, I. S. 159 Ricciardo, S. 208, 211 Richardson, E. 96 Rif ‘at, N. 161 Rizzi, M. 54 Roberts, J. 21 Roessli, J.-M. 16 Rogers, J. 153 Rose, E. 96 Rosen-Zvi, I. 47 Rosenblum, J. 40

Tavard, G. H. 133 Thomson, R. W. 91 Thompson, A. J. 186 Thompson, R. B. 26

Index of Modern Authors

Tigay, J. H. 39 Tigchelaar, E. J. C. 43–44 Treu, U. 98 Turner, J. 200 Turretin, F. 176–184 Tzvetkova-Glaser, A. 60 van Bunge, W. 162 van Eijk, A. H. C. 212 van Rooijen, A. J. Servaas 161 Verheyden, J. 15 Vidal, F. 204 Villeneuve, A. 73, 76–77, 79 Vlessing, O. 159–160 Vuković, M. 96 Wallace, D. B. 72 Walther, M. 162 Waters, G. P. 181 Watson, D. F. 12, 17, 157 Weinrich, W. C. 73 Weinsheimer, J. 95

Welborn, L. 73 Werrett, I. C. 44 Westcott, B. F. 97 Weston, C. 49 White, B. L. 70 Wiker, B. 160–161, 163, 169 Williamson, R. 84 Wischmeyer, O. 111 Witkamp, N. 75, 77–78 Wolfe, D. N. 149 Wolfson, H. A. 162 Wright, T. 7 Young, F. M. 90 Yovel, Y. 169 Zac, S. 163 Zachmann, R. 133 Zaragoza, J. Garrido 160 Zelyck, L. R. 97 Zoepfl, F. 98, 101

229

Index of Subjects 1 Peter 98–102 Abrams, Kerry 48 Ad Euangelum presbyterum 101 Acts, Book of – Acts 15 177–178 – Scholarship on 175–176, 185–187 Alastair, Roberts 75–76 Alvargonzález, David 5 Allison, Dale 120, 175 Alter, Robert 49 Ambrose of Milan 71, 76–78 Anabaptist(s) 110, 185 Anagogy 125 Analysis, Synchronous 25, 69 Analysis, Diachronic 25, 69 Anfechtung 132, 136 animal, flock 41–43 Apocrypha see literature, apocryphal Apostolic Fathers 96 approaches, contemporary 40, 53–54, 58–61, 110, 175 approaches, genealogical 6, 8–11, 15 approaches, reception-historical 60, 95–98 Aristotelianism 128 Armenian Language 9, 91 Arminius, Jacobus 189 Arnold, Bill 18 Ascension 178, 198 Asceticism 54, 56–57, 60 Ashdod 151 Ashkelon 144–145, 147 atonement, day of 45 Augustine 117, 125, 128 Augustus, Duke 134 Auslegungsgeschichte 3, 15, 32 Bacon, Francis 157–158, 163–169 – Interpretation of Nature 163–164 – Interpretation of Scripture 165–168 Baird, William 9–10

Baptism 70–74, 77–79, 82, 85–87, 91, 136, 177–179, 183, 185 – of Christ 73–77, 89 – Rebaptism 179 Barbelo 89–90 Barclay, John 59–60 Batten, Alicia 110 Baur, F. C. 18 Bayer, Oswald 133, 135 Beck, J. T. 14 Bestiality 47 Betz, Hans Dieter 9 Beychlag 111 Beza, Theodore 205 Biblindex 16, 99 blemish, animal see imperfection, animal Bluhm, Heinz 126, 135 Bondage of the Will 127 bonds, family 41, 45, 50 border, U. S.–Mexico 49 Bouwmeester, Johannes 163 Boyle, Robert 206–211 Brice, Lee L. 142–143, 146–147 Bultmann, R. 62 Butterfield, Herbert 4–5 Caesar 53–58, 62–64 calf/calves 47–49 Cappel, Louis 206 Carey, John 141, 146 Carr, David 14 Cartesian Philosophy 162, 166 catena, Armenian 98, 100 catena, Greek 100–101 catchword(s) 62, 64, 116 Charles I 149 Chávez, Alex 49 Childs, Brevard, 14 Christianity, early 69, 96 Christology 110 – Bridegroom 75–77 – Dyophistic 75

Index of Subjects

Chrysostom, John 71–78, 100 Circumcision 70, 178, 186 Claritas scriptura 116, 135 Classics see Studies, Classical Clement of Alexandria 40, 81–85, 91–92, 98 Collingwood, R. G. 5 Collins, Adela Yarbro 61–66 commentators, medieval 40, 48 Community, Messianic 72–73 Confession of the Remonstrants 191 Continuity of Memory 204, 215 Converts, non-Jewish 72–77 Coptic Language 9 Covenant 13, 42, 78, 89, 175, 182, 184 – Discontinuity 177–178 – New 91–92, 101, 124, 176, 178–183, 185 – Nuptial 79 – Old 101, 176, 178–183, 185 cow(s) 43, 45, 47, 49 Cramer, J. A. 100 Creighton, Mandell 5 Crell, Jan 205–206, 208–213, 216 criticism, literary 62–63 criticism, text 65 Crown of glory 100–101 Crucifixion 213–214 da Costa, Uriel 162 Dagon 145–146 Dahan, Gilbert 124 Daugirdas, Kestutis 191–192, 197, 199 de Courcelles, Étienne 190, 192, 199, 200, 205 de Prado, Juan 162 De servo arbitrio 109, 135 De somniis 84 De viris illustribus 111 Deacons 101 Deborah, song of 151 Deist(s) 9, 197 Descartes, René 162–163, 167, 192–193, 200 Delilah 144–145, 147, 150–153 Della Puppa, F. 49 Department of Defense, U. S. 26 Dibelius, Martin 110–111, 120–121 Didymus the Blind 101

231

Discourse on Method 193 Docetism 82, 91 Dunn, J. D. G. 18 Ecclesiasticus 113 Eglon 149 Ehud 149 Ekron 151 Elijah 133 Elisha 133 Elishe, historian 81, 90–91 Empire, Roman 9, 23, 58 Ephraim, Mount 151 Episcopius, Simon 190–192, 194, 205 epistles, Catholic 98, 101, 111 epistles, Pauline 7, 205, 211–212 Erasmus 112–113, 119, 123, 131, 135, 190, 200, 206 Erwartungshorizont 24 Etienne, Saint see Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury Euangelum presbyterum 101 Eucharist 71–72, 78, 82–83, 91, 101 Eusebius 69 Evangelist, the 59, 70, 76 Evans, G. R. 17 Evans, Robert 23, 32 Exegesis 17, 59–60 – Gnostic 10 – Medieval 125–126, 195 – New Testament 7, 20–21, 25, 28–29, 32–35, 53–55, 58, 60–61, 65–67 – Oriental 16 – Socinian 12 – Theological 123 Exum, C. viii, 146 “eye for an eye” 146 firstborn, animal 43, 213–214 Fish, Stanley 141 Fisher, Samuel 162 Flight from Persecution 55, 183 Forgiveness 89–90, 181, 183 Formalprinzip 130 Formula, Trinitarian 69 Forster, Johann 128 four laws 39–40 Freitag, Albert 126

232

Index of Subjects

fruits, first see firstborn “Fusion of Horizons” 23–24

Hubbard, Benjamin 69 Husserl, Edmund 23

Gadamer, H.-G. 22–25, 28–29, 95, 125 Gaza 144–145, 151 gender, grammatical 42–43 Gentile(s) 75, 177, 180–192 Global Positioning Systems see GPS Gnosticism 16, 90 goat(s) 41, 43, 45 gospels, apocryphal 96, 99 gospels, synoptic 54, 115, 190 GPS 22, 25–28 grace – Augustinian 128 – baptism 86–87 – Pauline 59–60 Great Commission 69–70, 74, 78 Greek 90, 100, 112, 117, 128, 130, 152, 194, 200 – Byzantine 9 – Koine 23 Gregory of Nyssa 17 Grotius, Hugo 12, 190, 199–200, 206–207

Ibn Ezra 48 Ibn Hazm 161 Iconography 96 ideology, terrorist see terrorism Immigration 48 imperfection, animal 43 imperial authority 58 Institutes of Elenctic Theology 175–176 interpretive horizons 25, 33–34 Intertextuality 70 Irenaeus 54 Israelite(s) 13, 49, 142, 149–151, 153

habits, scribal 97 hagiography 96 Hamann 135 Hammond, Henry 205–206 Hansen’s Disease 85–87 Haran, Menahem 39–40 Harris, Robbie 17 Heidegger, Martin 23 Heidelberg 14, 24 Heilsgeschichtlich 125 Hermeneutics 12, 25, 29, 60–66, 89, 109–111, 116–118, 169 Herod Agrippa I 186 Herodians 56–57, 59, 62–63 Hexapla 111 Hirsch, Emmanuel 127 Historiography 4, 190 Holy Spirit 75–76, 89–90, 131, 135, 177, 179, 181, 184–185, 191, 193, 197 Horizontverschmelzung 23 Hort, F. J. A. 97 Howe, Timothy 142

Jael viii, 151–153 James, Brother of John 119, 177, 186 James, Epistle 109–121, 175 Janowski, Bernd 14 Jauss, H. R. 12, 22–26, 28–31 Jerome 85, 101–102, 111–115, 118, 128 Jerusalem Council 177–178, 180–182 John, Gospel 73, 81–82, 85–92, 98, 115, 118–119 John of Jerusalem 71, 77–78 John the Baptist 74, 76, 133, 178, 183 Jongkind, Dirk 18 Josephus 48, 63 Justification 9, 116, 119, 121, 129–130, 134, 181, 184 – Paul and 119, 183 Kenites 151 Kerygma 115 Keuss Jeffrey 18 Korsch, Dietrich 132 Köstenberger, Andreas 175 Kümmel, W. G. 8–10, 15 La Peyrère, Isaac 162 Lange, Joachim 69 Larger Catechism 131 Latinos 49 Lauster, Jörg 129 Law 56, 114–116, 119, 124–125, 131, 146, 184, 211 – Animal 39–50

Index of Subjects

– Ceremonial 177, 182 – moral 180–181 – Mosaic 70 – violation of 177 Lazarus 214 Le Clerc, Jean 190, 206 Legaspi, Michael 18 Legislation, Holiness 41, 45, 86 Leprosy see Hansen’s Disease Lehi 145, 147 Leiden Theologians 191, 194 Leppin, Volker 127 Leviticus 40–47, 85, 87 literature, apocryphal 96 literature, patristic 96, 98 Locke, John 190, 203–216 – and 1 Corinthians 15 206–209 – and contemporaries 209–211 – and Paul 211–215 – Hermeneutics 204–206 Logos 56–57, 83, 87–88, 91, 131, 136 Lohse, Bernard 126, 135 Luther, Martin 109–138 – and Aristotelianism 128 – and Dibelius 120–121 – and James 118–119 – and philology 116–118 – and prefaces 111–121 – and Ockham 128 – and Word of God Theology 132–136 Luz, Ulrich 59, 65 Lyra see Nicholas of Lyra

Method, Historical-Critical, 30, 53, 57, 61–62, 120, 175, 189, 199 methods, literary see criticism, literary Meyer, Lodewiijk 162, 166 Michaelis 7 midrash, legal see Sifra Milgrom, Jacob 39–40, 48 Milton, John 141–154 Mishnah 47–48 MMT 44–45 Morray-Jones, Christopher 74 Moses 84, 92, 160–161, 183 mother’s milk 39–40, 42 murder 144–145, 186 Mysticism 74, 123, 135 Mystagogy 71

Magi 74–75 Maimonides 40, 48, 166 Manicheism 16 manuscript(s) 69, 96–97, 99, 111–112 marginalia see text(s), marginal Marriage, Divine 75–79 Marshall, John 207 Martyrdom 54–56, 59–60, 62, 92 Materialprinzip 130 Mattox, Mickey L. 132 Maxfield, John 132 Mayr, Ernst 5 Melanchthon, Philip 128, 130–131 Metaphysics 133

Oberman, Heiko 130 Occamists 130 Ocker, Christopher 17, 123 Ockham 128 Of Reformation 149 offering, animal see sacrifice, animal Olbricht, Thomas 18 Oldenburg, Henry 163 Opera Latina 131 Origen 54–66, 71, 81, 85–88, 92, 125 – and asceticism 57, 62 – Commentary on Matthew 56–58 Ostorodt, Krysztof 191 Ox(en) 41, 43

Nadler, Steven 161 Nag Hammadi 88 Nahmanides 48 Naturae Interpretationem 164 Nazirite(s) 145–146, 152 Neill, Stephen 7, 15 New bodies 205, 209, 211, 215 Nicholas of Lyra 124 Niehoff, Maren 63 Nietzsche, F. 23 Noth, Martin 14 Nöther, I. Novum Organum 163–165 Nünlist, René 63

233

234

Index of Subjects

Paedagogus 83, 85 papyri, apocryphal 99 papyri, Greek 98 Paradise Regained 149–150, 153 Parousia 72–73 Passover 76–77 Paul, apostle 70, 73, 83, 85, 111, 115, 119, 132–136, 183, 185, 187, 205, 207–210, 212–216 Paulinus of Nola 112, 118 Pentecost 72, 184–185 Pentateuch 39–50, 92, 113, 161, 190 pericope(s) 54, 63–64, 69 persecution 55, 149 Pesch, O. H. 127 Peter, apostle 100–102, 181–182 Pharisee(s) 56–57, 59, 62–63, 132 Philip, Gospel of 77 Philistines 49, 143–153 Philo of Alexandria 40, 43, 47–48, 84 philology, material 97 philology, new 97 Philosophy of Identity 204 Piacenti, R. Kent 48–49 Pisidian Antioch 183 Pistis Sophia 81, 88–90 Pitassi, Maria-Cristina 204–205 Polyander, Johannes 191 Presbyters 100–102 Presentism 4, 6, 10–11 priest(s) 47, 148, 194 purity 57 Q, Gospel 7 Qumran 40 Rabbis 40, 45 Raeder, Siegfried 126, 135 Ragland, Evan 5 Rashi 17, 48 reception, Classical see Studies, Classical reception, modern 96 Reformation 9, 112, 123–136 – era 17, 199 “render” command 53–67 relations, church-state 65 relations, parent-child 39, 45, 48 Remonstrants 190–193, 197–201

Resurrection 89, 115, 118, 134, 178, 185, 187, 198, 203–216 Reuchlin, Johann 128 Reventlow, H. G. 8, 12, 15 Rogerson, J. W. 18 Röhrer, Georg 134 Romanist(s) 185 Romanos the Melodist 17 Romans, Book of 98, 115, 128 Rowland, Christopher 74 Rufinus 85 Sacrifice, animal 41–45, 47 Sæbø, Magne 10–12, 17 Salvation 79, 83–87, 90, 92, 114–116, 124, 127–128, 130–131, 133, 136, 153, 175–176, 182, 184, 185, 192–194, 198 Samson 141–154 Sanders, James 18 Satan 149–150 satellite(s) 25–30, 34 Schaper, Joachim 14 Schiffman, Lawrence 44 Schironi, Francesca 63 Schlatter, Adolf 175 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 19, 135 Scholion 100 Schreiner, David 18 Schrifttheologie 109, 116 Schulz, Hans Joachim 70 Schwartz, Baruch 39 Schwöbel, Christoph 131 Seed Metaphor 207–210 September 11th 141, 153 Sethians 89 seven-day rule 44 Shepherd of Hermas 98–99 Shuve, Karl 65 Sifra 45–47 signs, lectional 99 Sisera 151–153 slaughter, animal see sacrifice, animal slaughter, profane 42, 45 Smend, R. 14 Smith, Lesley 124 Smith, J. Z. 65–66 Spinoza, Baruch 12, 18, 157–169, 189, 201 – excommunication 158–160

Index of Subjects

– Influences 161–168 – and the Jewish Community 159–160 – and Political Exegesis 158–161 Socinian(ism) 177, 185, 191, 203, 205–206, 208–211, 215–216 Sola fide 119, 130–131, 134 Song of Songs 75–78 Sozzini, Lelio 191, 199, 208 Staupitz, Johann 127, 129 Stendahl, Krister 133 Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury 124 Stillingfleet, Lord Edward 203–204, 206, 210, 212, 215–216 Studies, Classical 96 suffering, Christ’s 100, 102 Synchrony see Analysis, Synchronus Synderesis 126 Talmud, Babylonian 46, 48, 124 Targum(s) 47–48 – Targum Jonathan 124 Tavard, George 133 tax(es) 56–58, 62–63 Teleology 4–7, 9–11, 19 Temple, Dagan 144–146 Temple, Jerusalem 77, 143, 147–149, 151–152 Temple Scroll 43–45 Ten Commandments 186 Terrorism 141–154 – revolutionary terrorism 143 – terrorist act 143–144, 146–148, 153 Tertullian 54–56, 59–66 Testimonia 15, 99 “testing inquiry” 62 text(s), para-biblical 98 text(s), marginal 95–102 text-criticism see criticism, text Theodore of Mopsuetia 71–72, 75, 77–78 Theology – Narrative 186 – Reformed 185 – Trinitarian viii – Word of God 133–136 theory, humanitarian 39–40 Thomas, Gospel of 98–99 Tigay, Jeffrey 39 Timnah/Timnite(s) 144–145, 147

235

Toland, John 9 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus 160–163, 165, 169, 189 transmitter(s), radio 26 Trent, Council of 183 Tropology 125 Trilateration 22, 25–33 Trinitarian Formula see Formula, Trinitarian Turretin, Francis 175–187 – and the Holy Spirit 184, 179–180 – and modern scholarship 185–187 – and the work of Christ 178–179, 182–183 Twesten, August 130 Tyranny 149–150 – Tyrannicide 150 uprisings, Jewish 63 Uro, Risto 70 Valentinian Tradition 88 Valla, Lorenzo 130–131 van Liere, Franz 124 van Limborch, Philip 190, 193 Venerable Bede 98, 102, 187 Vetus Latina 112 Vidal, Fernando 204 Violence 143, 146, 149–150 Vlessing, Odette 159 von Rad, Gerhard 14 Vorgeschichte 8 Vorurteil 24 Vulgate, the 111–113, 118, 124 Weihnachtspostille 126–127 Westcott, B. F. 97 Whiggism 4–5, 17, 19 Whitby, Daniel 205 Wirkungsgeschichte 21–35, 53, 66, 95 – wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein 22, 25 Wisdom 16, 73–74, 76, 79, 124, 131, 134–135 Wittenberg New Testament 119 Word-mysticism 135 Wychlif Bible 113 Zac, Sylvain 163