The Bible in Christian North Africa. Volume 1 The Bible in Christian North Africa: Part I: Commencement to the Confessiones of Augustine (ca. 180 to 400 CE) 9781614516491, 9781614517566

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The Bible in Christian North Africa

Handbooks of the Bible and Its Reception

Volume 4.1

The Bible in Christian North Africa Part I: Commencement to the Confessiones of Augustine (ca. 180 to 400 CE) Edited by Jonathan P. Yates and Anthony Dupont

ISBN 978-1-61451-756-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-61451-649-1 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-61451-926-3 ISSN 2330-6270 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020931435 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Contents List of Abbreviations

VII

Map of Early Christian North Africa

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Jonathan P. Yates, Anthony Dupont, and David L. Riggs Part One: A General Introduction and Overview 1 H. A. G. Houghton 1 Scripture and Latin Christian Manuscripts from North Africa David L. Riggs 2 Scripture in the Martyr Acta et Passiones

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Geoffrey D. Dunn 3 Scripture in Tertullian’s Polemical and Apologetic Treatises Carly Daniel-Hughes 4 Scripture in Tertullian’s Moral and Ascetical Treatises

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Edwina Murphy 5 Scripture in the Letters of and Councils under Cyprian of Carthage Laetitia Ciccolini 6 Scripture in the North African Treatises of Pseudo-Cyprian

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Mark Edwards 7 Scripture in the North African Apologists Arnobius and Lactantius Alden Bass 8 Scripture in Optatus of Milevis

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Gerald P. Boersma 9 Scripture in Augustine’s Earliest Treatises Volker Henning Drecoll 10 Paul as Scripture in the Young Augustine

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239

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Contents

Jason David BeDuhn 11 Scripture in Augustine’s Early Anti-Manichaean Treatises Jesse A. Hoover 12 Scripture in Tyconius

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Tarmo Toom 13 Scripture in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana Annemaré Kotzé 14 Scripture in Augustine’s Confessiones Subject Index

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Ancient Sources Index

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321

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List of Abbreviations Act. sanct. Scill. ACW Adim. Adv. Jud. Adv. nat. Aen. AGLB

Agon. AJBI AJP Aleat. ANF ANTF Apol. Aug AugStud BA BAC Bapt.(T) Bapt.(A) Bell. intest. Ben. BETL BFCT BHL BHT BibInt BIOSCS BJRL BJS BnF BTS C. litt. Petil. CAG Carn. Chr. CBQMS CCCM CCSL Cent. CH Civ.

Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum Ancient Christian Writers Contra Adimantum Adversus Judaeos Adversus nationes Aeneid Aus der Geschichte der lateinischen Bibel (= Vetus Latina: Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel: Aus der Geschichte der lateinischen Bibel). Freiburg: Herder, 1957– De agone christiano Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute American Journal of Philology De aleatoribus Ante-Nicene Fathers. Rev. ed. 10 vols. 1885–97. Reprt. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994. Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung Apologeticus Augustinianum Augustinian Studies Bibliothèque Augustinienne Biblioteca de autores cristianos De baptismo (Tertullianus) De baptismo contra Donatistas (Augustinus) De bello intestino De beneficiis Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium Beiträge zur Förderung christlicher Theologie Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis. 2 vols. Brussels, 1898–1901. Beiträge zur historischen Theologie Biblical Interpretation Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester Brown Judaic Studies Bibliothèque nationale de France Biblical Tools and Studies Contra litteras Petiliani Corpus Augustinianum Gissense De carne Christi Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis. Turnhout: Brepols, 1969– Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina De centesima, sexagesima, tricesima Church History De civitate Dei

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-203

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List of Abbreviations

CLA ClAnt ClQ CMC Comm. Apoc. Conf. Cons. Cor. CP CPL CSEL Cult. fem. CW De schism. Dial. Div. quaest. LXXXIII Div. quaest. Simpl. Doctr. chr. Dom. or. DRev EAA ECF Enarrat. Ps. Ep. Epid. ETL Exh. cast. Exhort. paen. Exp. Apoc. Exp. div. caus. Exp. Gal. Exp. quaest. Rom. Faust. FC Fel. Fort. Fort. Fug. Gen. Man. Greg Hab. virg. HBT Herm. HeyJ HLL HSCP HTB HTR

Codices Latini Antiquiores Classical Antiquity Classical Quarterly Cologne Mani-Codex Commentarii in Apocalypsin Confessiones De consensu evangelistarum De corona militis Classical Philology Clavis Patrum Latinorum. Edited by Eligius Dekkers. 2nd ed. Steenbrugis: Abbatia Sancti Petri, 1961. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum De cultu feminarum Classical World De schismate Donatistarum adversus Parmenianum Dialogus cum Tryphone De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum De doctrina christiana De dominica oration Downside Review Collection des Études augustiniennes. Série Antiquité Early Church Fathers Enarrationes in Psalmos Epistulae Epideixis tou apostolikou kērygmatos Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses De exhortatione castitatis Exhortatio de paenitentia Expositio Apocalypseos Expositiones diversarum causarum Expositio in epistulam ad Galatas Expositio quarumdam quaestionum in epistula ad Romanos Contra Faustum Manichaeum Fathers of the Church Contra Felicem Ad Fortunatum Contra Fortunatum De fuga in persecutione De Genesi contra Manichaeos Gregorianum De habitu virginum Horizons in Biblical Theology Adversus Hermogenem Heythrop Journal Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike. Munich: Beck, 1989. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology Histoire du texte biblique. Lausanne, Éditions du Zèbre, 1996– Harvard Theological Review

List of Abbreviations

Idol. Inst. Inst. Inv. JBL JECS JEH Jejun. JQR JRS JTS Jud. incred. Laps. Laud. mart. LCL LNTS LOO Mag. Marc. Metam. Mon. Mont. Mor. eccl. et mor. Manich. Mort. Mort. NASB NIV Novat. NRSV NTS NTTSD OECS OECT Or. OSHT P.Oxy. Parm. Pasch. Pass. Perp. Fel. Pat. PG PL Pleb. PLS Praescr. ProEccl

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De idololatria Divinae institutiones Institutio oratoria De inventione rhetorica Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Early Christian Studies Journal of Ecclesiastical History De jejunio adversus psychicos Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Roman Studies Journal of Theological Studies Ad Vigilium episcopum de Judaica incredulitate De lapsis De laude martyrii Loeb Classical Library The Library of New Testament Studies Lactantii Opera Omnia. 2 vols. Leipzig: Tempsky, 1890–1894 De magistro Adversus Marcionem Metamorphoses De monogamia De duobus montibus Sina et Sion De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum De mortalitate De mortibus persecutorum New American Standard Bible New International Version Ad Novatianum New Revised Standard Version New Testament Studies New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents Oxford Early Christian Studies Oxford Early Christian Texts De oratione Oxford Studies in Historical Theology Oxyrhynchus papyri Contra epistulam Parmeniani De pascha computus Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis De bono patientiae Patrologia Graeca [= Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca]. Edited by Jacques-Paul Migne. 162 vols. Paris, 1857–1886. Patrologia Latina [= Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina]. Edited by Jacques-Paul Migne. 217 vols. Paris, 1844–1864. Ad Plebem Carthaginis Patrologia Latina Supplementum De praescriptione haereticorum Pro Ecclesia

X

List of Abbreviations

PRSt Pud. Pudic. RBén REAug Rebapt. Reg. Res. Retract. RevPhil RevScRel RHE RivB RSPT RSR RTL SacEr SBLTT SC Scap. Scorp. SEAug SecCent Serm. Serm. Dom. Serm. nat. SMSR SO Spect. SSL ST StBibLit StPatr Test. Thf TP TQ Tract. Ev. Jo. TRev Trin. TS TS TU TUGAL USQR Util. cred. Ux. VC Ver. rel.

Perspectives in Religious Studies De pudicitia De bono pudicitiae Revue bénédictine Revue des études augustiniennes De rebaptismate Tyconius, Liber regularum De resurrectione carnis Retractationes Revue de philologie, de litterature et d’histoire anciennes Revue des sciences religieuses Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique Rivista biblica italiana Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques Recherches de science religieuse Revue théologique de Louvain Sacris erudiri: Jaarboek voor Godsdienstwetenschappen Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations Sources chrétiennes. Paris: Cerf, 1943– Ad Scapulam Scorpiace Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum Second Century Sermones De sermone Domini in monte Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni Symbolae Osloenses De spectaculis Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense: Études et documents Studia Theologica Studies in Biblical Literature (Lang). Studia Patristica Ad Quirinum testimonia adversus Judaeos Theoforum Theologie und Philosophie Theologische Quartalschrift In Evangelium Johannis tractatus Theologische Revue De Trinitate Theological Studies Texts and Studies Texte und Untersuchungen Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur Union Seminary Quarterly Review De utilitate credendi Ad uxorem Vigiliae Christianae De vera religione

List of Abbreviations

Vir. ill. Virg. Vit. Cypr. VL VL Vulg. WGRW WSA ZAC ZKT ZNW

De viris illustribus De virginibus velandis Vita Cypriani Vetus Latina manuscripts Vetus Latina: Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel. Freiburg: Herder, 1949– (Beuron Edition) Vulg. Writings from the Greco-Roman World The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1990– Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum/Journal of Ancient Christianity Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche

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Map of Early Christian

North Africa

Jonathan P. Yates, Anthony Dupont, and David L. Riggs

Part One: A General Introduction and Overview Introduction There is no question that the Christians of North Africa, both individually and via the communities that they formed and constituted, made more than their fair share of contributions to the history and the thought of the Western Christian tradition. Figures such as Tertullian and Cyprian, both of whom were Carthaginians, and, above all, Augustine, who, while spending almost all of his seventy-five-plus years in North Africa, managed to do more than anyone to influence both the shape and the contents of Western Christian thought, have – for good or for ill – never been far from the mainstream of what it means to live and to think as a Christian within Western culture. And, while scholarly interest in particular eras and/or particular places usually ebbs and flows over the course of time, both the last few decades in general and the last few years in particular have witnessed a definite “flow” in terms of scientific and scholarly interest in North African Christianity.1 It is our sincere hope that, by focusing on a crucial yet often understudied aspect of the lives of ancient North African Christians – i.e., their exegetical, doctrinal, and material relationship to what would eventually be recognized as the Christian Bible – these two volumes will make a

1 A claim that is particularly true of Anglophone circles: see, e.g., the recent handbooks of J. P. Burns Jr. and R. M. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of Its Practices and Beliefs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), which comprehensively surveys doctrine, praxis, and visual/ material culture; and D. Wilhite, Ancient African Christianity: An Introduction to a Unique Context and Tradition (New York: Routledge, 2017), which, inter alia, offers both an excellent foundation for and methodological reflections on studying North African Christianity. Spanning beyond the aforementioned Anglophone circles, it is also notable how Augustine’s enormous influence is marked by the following: (1) the existence and maintenance of electronic databases and bibliographic tools such as “Finding Augustine,” which is underwritten and maintained by a cooperative effort between Villanova University and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (http://findingaugustine.org/), and the Corpus Augustinianum Gissense or CAG (https://www.augustinus.de/); (2) the landmark, multivolume, and multilingual Augustinus-Lexikon, which, as a genuinely international project, draws consistenly upon the knowledge of many of the best scholars of Augustine and the various worlds he inhabited, has been in production since 1986; (3) the no less than five international scholarly journals that are all (largely) dedicated to Augustine’s life, thought, and legacy: Augustiniana (1951–present), Revue des études augustiniennes et patristiques (1955–present), Augustinus (1956–present), Augustinianum (1961–present), and Augustinian Studies (1970–present). *Jonathan P. Yates, Villanova University, Villanova, USA Anthony Dupont, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium David L. Riggs, Indiana Wesleyan University, Marion, Indiana, USA https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-001

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contribution to understanding this unquestionably crucial era, geographical space, and (collection of) Christian culture(s). Both collections are oriented more or less chronologically, with this volume taking the reader from the late second-century world of the martyrological acta through to what is arguably the best known of all North African Christian texts: Augustine’s Confessiones.2 Specifically, by proceeding more or less chronologically, we hope to shed further light or, in some cases, offer new answers to questions such as: If viewed diachronically, what patterns emerge within the story of these ancient Christians’ relationship to their sacred texts? Are there particular thinkers and writers from within the North African Christian tradition whose exegetical import or influence remains underappreciated? And, where might the boundaries of the influence of the North African Christian tradition have been inaccurately drawn, either to that tradition’s benefit or to its detriment? Of course, in order to begin pursuing these and related questions, this volume, insofar as the extant sources will permit, begins by laying at least a brief theological and historical foundation for the studies it includes.

“Behold, I tell you a mystery”: The Origins of North African Christianity’s Relationship to the Bible It is often noted that both the origins and the fundamental nature of Christianity in Roman North Africa are obscure. Jesus of Nazareth was executed in 30 (or 33) CE. For the next century and a half, however, the annals that would record the arrival, the presence, and the growth of Christianity in the four Roman provinces to Libya’s west are blank.3 The oldest unquestionable evidence, the brief Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum,4

2 The second volume, The Bible in Christian North Africa, Part II (Handbooks of the Bible and Its Reception 4.2), will pick up immediately after Augustine’s Confessiones and tell the story of the presence and use of the Bible in North Africa up to ca. 650 CE and the arrival of Islam in the region. 3 Both of these volumes make liberal use of the phrase “North African Christianity.” By this we refer only to those Christian communities that were planted, grew, and flourished in western and (predominantly) Latin-speaking North Africa. In neither volume will an attempt be made to incorporate directly or substantially the reception of the Bible by the Christian communities of eastern North Africa, whether Greek, Coptic, or Ethiopic in orientation. 4 For a readily available Latin and English edition see H. Musurillo, ed. and trans., Acts of the Christian Martyrs, OECT (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 2:86–89. For critiques of Musurillo’s efforts, see T. D. Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography and Roman History, Tria Corda 5 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 352–53 nn. 11–12. For a critical text and apparatus, see F. Ruggiero, Atti dei martiri scilitani: introduzione, testo, traduzione, testimonianze e commento, Memorie 9:1.2 (Rome: Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, 1991), 71–74.

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emerges only in the late-second century, presumably having been written soon after July 17, 180 CE.5 Its brevity contributes to the fact that this text tells us far less about these Christians and their faith community than we would like it to. For example, while the text’s title tells us that these Christians were transported to Carthage from Scilli, it says nothing else about the latter, a town or village that is otherwise unknown and that, to this day, remains of uncertain location.6 We also remain uncertain about the precise circumstances that brought this group before Saturninus, the presiding proconsul, though the proconsul’s commentary on his verdict does tell us that the defendants were charged with “living in the manner of Christians” (Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum 14). At the same time, one certainty is how the story ends: because these Christians refused to give homage to the emperor by swearing an oath to his genius and supplicating the gods for his well-being, they were beheaded.7 Most interestingly for this volume’s purposes, however, is the fact that this oldest unquestionable evidence for the presence of Christianity in Roman North Africa is also the oldest extant evidence of North African Christianity’s sophisticated relationship to (at least) some of the texts that would eventually comprise the Christian New Testament. Near the end of the text and just before rendering his verdict, the proconsul Saturninus asks what the martyrs have in their capsa – that is, their “satchel,” 5 This relatively precise dating of the acta is largely made possible by the fact that they purport to be the transcript of an imperial interrogation of a small group of Christians held in the proconsul’s council chamber at Carthage on the above-mentioned date. T. D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 2005), 263, speculates that the text ultimately derives from an “official,” as opposed to a Christian source. For a recent discussion, see V. Hunink, “Worlds drifting apart: Notes on the Acta Martyrum Scillitanorum,” Commentaria Classica 3 (2016): 93–112. 6 See D. Eastman, Paul the Martyr: The Cult of the Apostle in the Latin West (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2011), 156; and Musurillo, Acts, xxii. A common conclusion is that Scilli must have been near Carthage and within the civil boundaries of Africa Proconsularis since the martyrs were taken to Carthage for their hearing. Barnes, Tertullian, 63, for example, judges that “the Scillitan martyrs ought to come from a small town or village close to the African Metropolis.” For similar opinions see A. Birley, “Persecutors and Martyrs in Tertullian’s Africa,” in The Later Roman Empire Today, eds. D. Clark et al. (London: Institute of Archaeology, 1993): 37–68, esp. 39 n. 15; W. H. C. Frend, Martydom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965), 232; and N. Thomas, Defending Christ: The Latin Apologists before Augustine, Studia Traditionis Theologiae 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 97. Notable, if more tenuous, is the view in B. Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 589, where Shaw, basing himself on a note authored by S. Lancel in SC 373: 1456–57, asserts that Scilli lay “about 150 miles up the Bagrada Valley from Carthage.” Even if Lancel and Shaw are correct, an interval of 100 to 150 miles would still not necessarily have left Scilli outside the thick urbanized network that constituted Carthage’s sphere of influence. 7 A detail that compels Birley, “Persecutors and Martyrs,” 38–39 nn. 16–17, to observe that the Christians’ social standing was presumably high enough to make them Roman citizens.

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“case,” or “(book) box”8 – to which Speratus famously responds, “books and letters of Paul, a just man” (libri et epistulae Pauli viri justi; Act. sanct. Scill. 12–13).9 Scholars have recently recognized that this reference forms part of a chiastic structure that is intended to accentuate the passage as a climatic point in the narrative and, by extension, to convey the significance of the Pauline tradition for these martyrs and their community.10 That the plural epistulae indicates just two letters is very unlikely. On the contrary, it seems certain that Paul’s letters circulated in collections of ten or more by the end of the first century.11 Some scholars draw yet more from this phrase by claiming that the “libri” must have been codices, not scrolls, and must have contained “parts of the Old Testament and the Gospels, or . . . at least the Gospels, alone.”12 Not surprisingly, more restrictive readings have been proposed: several English translations, by leaning toward literalness, judiciously leave the exact nature of the libri open.13

8 H. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 81, notes that it was a “‘(book) bucket’ . . . made of wood or canvas” that was “normally a container for rolls”; cf. 150. 9 The translation used throughout is that of Barnes, Tertullian, 60–62. It seems likely that the significant textual variants, e.g., by inserting “legis divinae” (“of [the] divine law”) between “libri” and “et” are attempts to specify Speratus’s answer; cf. Ruggiero, Atti dei martiri scilitani, 73. 10 See Eastman, Paul the Martyr, 156–59, where, inter alia, he argues that the redactor carefully constructed the narrative to elevate Paul as the “model martyr” for North Africa because he had brought the martyrs of Scilli “comfort and encouragement in their time of distress”; and C. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 125–29. Nevertheless, it seems that this view overlooks what may be the most important function of these words – namely, to leverage the apostle’s status in order to stress the justice or righteousness of the martyrs: after all, their cause is called “a matter so righteous (justa), [that] there is no need for deliberation” (Act. sanct. Scill. 11). 11 See Gamble, Books and Readers, 58–65, 95–101, and the accompanying footnotes, where he highlights how 2 Pet 3:16 (ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ἐπιστολαῖς) seems to presume that 2 Peter’s author knew a “comprehensive collection.” Also relevant here is the Muratorian Fragment. If recent arguments for a second-century date, e.g., J. Verheyden, “The Canon Muratori: A Matter of Dispute,” in The Biblical Canons, eds. J.-M. Auwers and H. de Jonge, BETL 163 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003): 487–556, are correct, then its Roman provenance and its list of thirteen of Paul’s letters increase the probability that the martyrs possessed a (nearly) complete collection of them. 12 B. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 156–57 n. 20; cf. G. Bonner, “The Scillitan Saints and the Pauline Epistles,” JEH 7.2 (1956): 141–46, 144–45: “There is no doubt that the Gospels were meant [by the use of the term libri]” and that “nor can there be any reasonable doubt” that they were written in Latin. For the claim that the martyrs’ texts were in scroll (“un rouleau”) and not codex form, see V. Saxer, Bible et hagiographie. Textes et thèmes bibliques dans les Actes des martyrs authentiques des premiers siècles (Bern: Lang, 1986), 73. 13 Barnes, Tertullian, 61: “Books and letters of Paul, a just man”; Birley, “Persecutors and Martyrs,” 40: “Books and letters of Paulus, a just man”; Musurillo, Acts, 89: “Books and letters of a just man named Paul”; D. Eastman, Paul the Martyr: The Cult of the Apostle in the Latin West (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 157, for whom this line “functions as the turning point in the narrative,” translates this as “Books and epistles of Paul, a just man.” Gamble, Books and Readers, 150–51,

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Still, given that these Christians were captured with sacred texts in their possession, it should not at all surprise us that, as faithful martyrs and as imitators of Jesus’s own sufferings, these sacred texts formed the basis of their verbal interactions with their enemies and persecutors. For example, in response to Saturninus’s opening invitation to return to a good disposition and the favor of the emperor, Speratus contests the proconsul’s characterizations of the group as ungrateful wrongdoers. He is keen to establish that, as Christians, they have “never done anything evil” . . . “nor spoken evil of anyone” (numquam malefecimus . . . malediximus). On the contrary, in spite of the “wicked treatment they receive” (male accepti), they continually “render grace for grace” (gratias egimus) because this is how they “pay homage to our emperor” (imperatorem nostrum observamus; Act. sanct. Scill. 12). Here, Speratus seems likely to have been inspired by Rom 12:1–21, where “not speaking evil” (nolite maledicere) of those who persecute you and “not rendering evil for evil” (nulli malum . . . reddentes) are included among the “service of faithfulness” (obsequium; cf. Rom 12:1) i.e. Christians are to render thanks and praise to God for his divine favor.14 Equally important is that, in paragraph 6, the text includes a “direct biblical quotation” from a Latin translation of 1 Timothy.15 Here, Speratus answers Saturninus’s reminder that all they need to do is to demonstrate “simple devotion” (simplex . . . religio) and Saturninus’s subsequent request to “please swear by the genius of our lord the emperor” with an offer to teach the proconsul about the true “sacred mystery of simplicity” (mysterium simplicitatis) and with an assertion that “I do not recognize the empire of this world; I serve instead the God ‘whom no man has seen or can see with mortal eyes.’”16 According to Barnes, the inclusion of “with mortal eyes” (his oculis)17 offers important support for his broader thesis that a

acknowledges that libri may simply mean “books, that is, letters of Paul” before mentioning emendations proposed by others. For his discussion of the proposed emendation of the “books of epistles of Paul,” see 299 n. 15. 14 For obsequium, cf. Phil 2:17. 15 Barnes, Tertullian, 276–78, esp. 277. To be precise, it is seen as a reference to 1 Tim 6:16, which, in the relatively literal NASB translation, reads: “[He] who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.” Eastman, Paul the Martyr, 157, without referencing Barnes, labels this a paraphrase; cf. also Saxer, Bible et hagiographie, 73, who sees this as a reference to John 1:18 (NASB): “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” 16 Barnes, Tertullian, 61. 17 Barnes does not elaborate on his choice to add “mortal” here. It is perhaps connected to the only significant variant for this phrase in the manuscripts, namely, the addition of the adjective “carnalibus” after “oculis.” Cf. both Ruggiero, Atti dei martiri scilitani, 72 and line 21; and J.A. Robinson, The Passion of S. Perpetua (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891), 112–13 and line 20. Eastman, Paul the Martyr, 157, opts for the literal “these eyes.”

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“Latin translation of at least parts of the Bible can be discerned behind the earliest texts which could reasonably be supposed to show knowledge of one.”18 Relatively clear though this reference may be, it is far from all that is going on in this passage in terms of biblical references, a claim that requires a fuller quotation of Speratus’s response in order to be supported.19 He says: I do not acknowledge (non cognosco) the empire of this age (imperium hujus saeculi); but rather I serve that God, whom no human has seen, nor can see with these eyes (quem nemo hominum vidit nec videre his oculis potest). I have committed no theft; but if I have bought anything I pay the tax precisely because I acknowledge my Lord (quia cognosco Dominum meum), the emperor of kings and of all peoples (imperatorem regum et omnium gentium). (Act. sanct. Scill. 6)

Arguably, Speratus’s declaration draws first on the logic of 1 Cor 2:1–9, where Paul writes about the “mystery” (mysterium) of God: a cruciform wisdom that is “not of this age” (non hujus saeculi) and that “rulers of this age do not acknowledge” (nemo principium hujus saeculi cognovit).20 There also seem to be debts to 1 Tim 3:22, albeit with adjustments to that text having been made in light of the present dialogue. In 1 Tim 3:22, Paul describes God as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rex regum et Dominus dominantium). Given Saturninus’s previous cunning usage of “our lord the emperor” (domini nostri imperatoris), Speratus’s alteration of the divine title to “emperor of kings” (imperatorem regum) here makes sense. In a similar vein, his addition of “with these eyes” may indicate an intentional conflation with 1 Cor 2:9, a text in which, via a quotation of Isa 64:4, Paul describes the aforementioned mystery as “that which no eye has seen.”21 We should also probably read the martyrs’ crowns at the end of the account as an allusion to Paul’s “crown of righteousness” (corona justitiae) in 2 Tim 4:6–8. Finally, considering their indebtedness to the Pauline epistles as illustrated above, we may reasonably assume that, when the martyrs replied to Saturninus’s guilty verdict and sentence of death with “Deo gratias” or “Thanks be to God,” they could well have had in mind either 1 Cor 15:57 (“but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” [NASB]), or 2 Cor 2:14a (“but thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ” [NASB]), or both. Despite their brevity, these acta attest to a lively and nuanced scriptural imagination within (at least one community within) North Africa Christianity. Whether this significant familiarity is owing to catechetical instruction, editorial crafting, or both,

18 Barnes, Tertullian, 278. 19 Saxer, Bible et hagiographie, 73, claims that the acta “comportent . . . sans doute, plusieurs allusions bibliques” at least some of which are “très clair.” 20 Based on Augustine’s citations of this passage (e.g., Sermones 160.12), Speratus’s Latin translation likely included mysterium in 1 Cor 2:1, whereas the Vulgate opts for testimonium. 21 Alternatively, Speratus may just be following his Vetus Latina translation (cf. Quodvultdeus, De symbolo 3.2.22).

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is more difficult to say. What seems clear is that Speratus and his fellow martyrs repeatedly exhibit logic, language, and images that they drew from a reasonably large, if not complete, collection of Paul’s letters in their (sometimes polemical) responses to Saturninus’s interrogation, verdict, and death sentence.22 And, even if they do not tell us all that we would truly like to know about the origins and growth of Christianity in Roman North Africa’s western provinces, these brief acta do bear witness to a deep and, as we shall see, abiding relationship between the Christians who lived in these provinces and the texts that they regarded as sacred. To that extent, the brief Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum, lay an excellent foundation for the fifteen chapters that comprise this volume – chapters to which we now turn.

Light on the Mystery: North African Christianity’s Relationship to the Bible ca. 180 to ca. 400 CE This volume’s account of Roman North Africa’s relationship to the Bible begins with a consideration of the Bible itself. In chapter 1, H. A. G. Houghton surveys the (earliest) history of Scripture and and Latin Christian Manuscripts from North Africa. First, he considers the material aspect, namely, the earliest extant documents (whether in the form of papyri or codices). He then reconstructs the complex history of the Vetus Latina tradition: its initial impetus – i.e., the North African Christians’ need of a Latin translation, the sources available for reconstructing the Vetus Latina today, and the characteristic aspects of the African biblical text, such as harmonization, omission, and distinct vocabulary. Next, he provides an extensive overview of African Latin manuscripts of the Bible and of biblical passages that may be reconstructed on the basis of extant Patristic compositions by, e.g., Cyprian, Lactantius, and Augustine. Houghton concludes by elucidating the vibrant Christian book culture of Roman North Africa. As he makes clear, the translation of the Bible into Latin and the practice of using half-uncial script played a preponderant role in the development of Latin Christian literary culture and, moreover, may even have been African innovations. While persecution was not a personal experience for most pre-Constantinian Christians, the threat of martyrdom, both as an idea and as a lived experience, was, nevertheless, constitutive for their identity formation. Hagiographical literature thus played a crucial role in early Christianity generally. As a genre, it also proved to be very popular in Roman North Africa. Despite its importance – to say nothing of the interest it has recently generated among scholars – much remains to be done with regard to explaining the role that Scripture plays in these texts and in the

22 Not discussed in detail here are several probable allusions to the Gospels (or, at least, Matthew) in the acta.

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messages they would have sent to their readers. David Riggs has begun to fill in this lacuna by describing the ways that scriptural imagination influenced two of these hagiographies: the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas [Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis] and the Life of Cyprian [Vita Cypriani]. As Riggs shows, the Bible helped the authors and editors of these works to conceptualize martyrdom as a divine gift of grace and as a gift to which the martyrs, in turn, felt compelled to respond via various expressions of gratitude for their divine patron. In order to fully grasp the scriptural leitmotif of grace and patronage, Riggs highlights the specific role played by the Latin biblical translations in these African martyr stories, while paying particular attention to the theological terminology (e.g., gratia, virtus, dignatio, gloria, claritas) that appears with such frequency in (and near) these texts’ quotations and allusions to Scripture. Tertullian provides us with one of the earliest Christian witnesses to the process of translating the Bible into Latin. The essay by Carly Daniel-Hughes offers an overview of his material use of biblical, apocryphal, and pseudepigraphical literature. Tertullian was a rigorist with high moral standards who only grew more extreme as he aged. All members of the Christ assembly – which he believed ought to be a rigid and highly selective group – were expected to live according to strict ascetic and moral norms. Christians must submit themselves to God’s regula fidei absolutely. Both the source for this rule and the necessary disciplinary assistance for adhering to it were drawn from the Bible, which, according to Tertullian, offered a coherent ethical road map for understanding both the divine will and Christianity’s derivative moral precepts. As Daniel-Hughes explains “such an assertion demanded exegetical gymnastics on [Tertullian’s] part.” Since Tertullian viewed Scripture as the unique source of moral truth, his moral and ascetical treatises consistently argue about the best ways to ground his exigent ethical program in the text of Scripture. To do this, Tertullian himself freely used allegory, typology, and contextually sensitive literal readings. One of his favorite strategies was to use biblical figures as either moral role models or as moral shaming devices. Paul, in particular, served as a rich source for Tertullian’s stringent teachings on issues such as sexuality, (re-)marriage, and gender roles. Geoffrey Dunn documents an “instrumental” use of the Bible in Tertullian’s polemical and apologetic treatises. The Bible provided him ample ammunition for refuting his opponents. When addressing non-Christians, he rarely invokes Scripture. The main exception to this is his anti-Jewish apologetics, texts, and passages in which he exhorts his audience to recognize that Christ uniquely fulfilled Old Testament promises. When rebuking heterodox Christian claims, he considers the Bible to be both the sole source for the authentic and pure Christian faith and the only reliable means for accessing the regula fidei, which, in Tertullian’s view, encompasses both Christian morality and Christian doctrine. Dunn also demonstrates that Tertullian approached the Bible more as a rhetor than as an exegete. Tertullian’s usual objective is not to explain Scripture per se, but to read it as a collection of arguments germane to internal Christian debates. As such, Dunn notes that in these compositions Tertullian does

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not practice a preferred method of biblical exegesis – whether figurative or literal – since he generally opted for whatever interpretive approach best allowed him to rebut the position of a particular opponent in a particular case at a particular point in time. In support of this analysis, Dunn provides the reader with telling examples of very similar biblical texts that received very divergent interpretations depending on the very different circumstances in which they were employed. This essay also offers an instructive characterization of the rhetorical context in which Tertullian wrote as well as a thorough status quaestionis regarding the source of the text of Tertullian’s Latin Bible: Did he consult an existing translation, did he quote from memory, or did he himself translate directly from the Greek original? Edwina Murphy answers the call of Charles Kannengiesser to explore the presence of the Bible in Cyprian of Carthage’s oeuvre, with a special focus on his Epistulae. Her chapter is the first systematic study of this largely unexplored field to appear in English. She starts by demonstrating that Cyprian’s letters provide evidence for a limited biblical canon. In this context, she observes both the consistency with which he quotes Scripture and his preference for paraenesis. Studying Cyprian’s epistolary corpus reveals six hermeneutical approaches routinely employed by the bishop of Carthage: (1) biblical role models; (2) biblical images (e.g., the church as bride or mother); (3) maxims and catch phrases (most often with a moralizing message); (4) contextualization (explaining a biblical reference by situating it in its larger scriptural context); (5) re-contextualization (i.e., applying Scripture directly to a current situation); (6) arguing that an event mentioned in the New Testament fulfills a biblical prophecy. On a hermeneutical and methodological level, Murphy demonstrates that Cyprian rhetorically “frames” (i.e., modifies and combines) biblical texts, which he then explains via a combination of literal and typological exegesis, which, in turn, both express and are grounded in his fundamental belief in the unity of the church and her Scripture. Several of the so-called Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises rank among the oldest extant literary expressions of North African Christianity and the most ancient examples of Latin biblical exegesis. The two methodological concerns that all scholars studying these erroneously attributed texts must take into account are their vast diversity of content and the uncertainty that surrounds their provenances and dates of composition. Laetitia Ciccolini discusses the entire Pseudo-Cyprianic corpus, describing its complex collection history as well as its process of transmission, via both manuscripts and print editions. Analyzing the way in which the Bible is approached and quoted in a particular Pseudo-Cyprianic text can help situate it either chronologically (i.e., as prior to, contemporary with, or subsequent to Cyprian himself) or geographically (i.e., the probability of its African origin), or both. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that this rich and diverse collection of texts clearly showcases a variety of exegetical approaches and practices: anti-Semitism, Christian identity (vis-à-vis pagan society), the fate of the lapsi, re-baptism, typological exegesis, and the unity/coherence of Scripture. Because these texts were regarded as having been

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penned by the popular and authoritative martyr-bishop Cyprian, many PseudoCyprianic treatises and, by extension, their approach to the Bible became immensely influential in Roman North Africa in subsequent centuries. Ciccolini illustrates their legacy by studying their reception in the oeuvre of that other great North African Christian, Augustine of Hippo. The early fourth-century apologies authored by Arnobius and Lactantius are important witnesses to the state of the African Latin Bible prior to the introduction and the stabilization of what would become known as the Vulgate. Mark Edwards inventories the reception and the use of both biblical and extra-biblical quotations in these two apologists. Arnobius seldom cites Scripture in his apologetic defenses of the Bible and Christ. Lactantius, by contrast, more often resorts to the Bible – and to both the Old and New Testaments – especially in his Divinae institutiones. In addition to direct quotations, for which he seems to have consulted the same Latin translation as did Cyprian, Lactantius frequently alludes to or otherwise echoes Scripture. For apologetic reasons, he is particularly interested in Old Testament prophecies about the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Edwards shows how Lactantius’s recourse to the Bible, though conditioned by the specific objectives of the apologetic genre, is also driven by his pedagogic purposes. Scripture played a crucial role in the Donatist controversy. Donatists were keenly interested in Christian sacred texts and made important contributions to early Christian biblical scholarship. Donatist bishops based their puritan ecclesiological claims on a prophetic/charismatic reading of the Bible. Optatus thus realized that, in many ways, the meaning and application of Scripture lay at the root of this most African of theological conflicts. Optatus’s attempted solution to this broad dilemma involved creating distance between the biblical text and its interpreters – i.e., the bishops. Not prophetic hermeneutics, but the ratio catholica – the universal reason or method – ought to guide our interpretation of God’s word. Parallel to his proposal of a “rational” exegesis is his “anti-Donatist” sacramental theology, via which he also attempts to create distance between the minister and the sacrament: it is not the holiness of the individual minister but the intention of the person receiving the sacrament and the sanctifying name of the Trinity that determine sacramental validity. As such, lapsi and traditores among the clergy do not, as the Donatists contend, break the sacramental chain that ties the church to the apostles. Optatus’s approach to Scripture went hand in hand with a creative use of Cyprian, whom the Donatists appropriated as their auctoritas, in order to plead for a more expansive understanding of ecclesial unity (that included the Donatists), in contrast to both the Donatists’ exclusivist – and even regionalist – notion of the church and their rejection of church-state collaboration. Alden Bass concludes that Optatus’s exegetical method did not fundamentally differ from that of Cyprian and Donatist thinkers such as Parmenian, but that it did serve a very different objective. In short, Optatus intended to construct a catholic context in which Scripture could be understood. Stressing the ratio of Scripture, he argued for a broad, universal, and inclusive

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vision of the church, a symbiosis between the church and the state, and a new sacramentology grounded in the principle ex opera operato Christi. Tyconius endeavored to find hidden messages in the Bible. His seven spiritual rules for exegesis – and especially for Revelation – revolutionized biblical interpretation in the Latin West. After concisely surveying his biography, oeuvre, and education, Jesse A. Hoover addresses the difficult question of the nature of the biblical text employed by Tyconius. The shorter references that appear in his works were probably quoted from memory; for longer passages he relied on an Old Latin version that was part of the Donatist tradition; for Revelation in particular he probably relied on a common, but not widely circulated, version of that book. Tyconius conceived of his seven rules as a coherent hermeneutical system. He did not see them as merely generalized exegetical guidelines. For him, they were more fundamental, serving as “conduits” for his theological agenda, one which clearly included ecclesiology. Tyconius wrote for a Donatist readership; however, he opposed an internal isolationist faction that rejected the legitimacy of most extra-African ecclesial communities. He pleaded for a universal ecclesial model, which regarded the earthly church as a “mixed body.” Although his position was not incorporated into the Donatist/Parmenian mainstream (a fact that could explain Tyconius’s possible excommunication), he was not the “proto-Caecilianist” that Augustine attempted to portray him as. Gerald Boersma offers a reflection upon Augustine’s early biblical theology by looking closely at the years between his baptism (387 CE) and his priestly ordination (391 CE). Boersma first provides a concise overview of the recently converted Augustine’s scriptural preferences. Next, he tackles the question of how Augustine perceived Scripture theologically in the period marked by his initial explorations of Christian theology and the biblical foundation upon which it was built. Augustine’s method at this stage is a form of “spiritual exegesis” inspired by the sermons of Ambrose of Milan, which had proven so instrumental for his own (re-)conversion to Christianity. Boersma focuses on De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum, De vera religione, and De utilitate credendi. He observes three antiManichaean strategies at work in these early treatises, all of which constitute the backbone of Augustine’s spiritualizing biblical hermeneutics: (1) to demonstrate Scripture’s objective unity – i.e., the idea that the whole Bible compels us toward one goal: caritas; (2) to demonstrate that both the Old and New Testaments are expressions of divine pedagogy; (3) to demonstrate how his preference for figurative exegesis – by infusing both meaning and unity – actually enhances the Bible’s literal meaning. Manichaean biblical exegesis served and supported that group’s dualistic cosmology and anthropology. Jason David BeDuhn gives an overview of the (textual) rationale that Manichaean authors employed in order to reject the Old Testament and to renounce the human body. In his anti-Manichaean treatises, Augustine defended the Old Testament and explained the necessary relationship between the two Testaments at some length. His original exegetical preference for allegorical

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exegesis evolved into a nuanced approach that combined the allegorical method with a historical reading of the Old Testament (and, in particular, the two creation accounts of Genesis). Next to his own exegesis of the Old Testament, many distinctive aspects of which were compelled by Manichaean polemics, Augustine needed to refute Manichaean attempts to appropriate Paul. At the outset of his debates with them, Augustine had yet to begin an in-depth study of the Pauline corpus. Once he engaged the Manichaean leadership, however, his interest in Paul evolved into a preference, which, in turn, expanded into a lifelong appreciation that included particular positions on the law, on humanity’s sinful habitude, and on divine grace. Processing ideas provided by the Donatist Tyconius and the Manichaeans Fortunatus and Faustus, Augustine developed his own personal (and highly influential) exegesis of Rom 7 and 9, ideas elaborated most fundamentally and forcefully in his De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum. His reflections on Paul’s inner conflict described there formed the basis of his own views on human sinfulness. Like the Manichaeans, Augustine accepted both Paul’s description of human sinfulness and his corresponding exaltation of divine grace; unlike the Manichaeans, however, he became convinced, on the basis of his belief in God’s radical righteousness, that the reason for human sinfulness is not our evil physical body and material existence per se (all of which, according to the Manichaeans, were created by an evil demiurge) but is rooted in our solidarity with Adam’s fall, an act that renders all naturally born human beings culpable before God and in need of his mercy. Volker Henning Drecoll investigates Augustine’s initial encounters with the Pauline epistles and his early exegesis of Paul. Attending liturgical services with his mother as a child, Augustine would have heard Paul’s letters being read in church. And, given that the Manicheans intensively studied Paul, Augustine, as a Manichean auditor, would have learned their approach to and exegesis of the Apostle while in their community. The Conf. indicate that a codex of Paul played a cathartic role during his (re-)conversion to Christianity. The Expositio quarundam quaestionum in epistula ad Romanos contain Augustine’s first elaboration of the four stages of salvation history (ante legem, sub lege, sub gratia, in pace), which is drawn from Paul. And, although Augustine was already reflecting upon the impact of Adam’s transgression and (evil) concupiscentia on humanity, at this stage, he was teaching that the transition from “under the law” to “under grace” is made via human free will. Reflecting on the fates of the patriarch Jacob and the pharaoh of Egypt, he becomes convinced that God, thanks to his foreknowledge of Jacob’s future belief, elected him, while, thanks to his foreknowledge of the pharaoh’s faithlessness, hardened his heart. De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII betrays an increased emphasis on God’s electing grace. One finds this same stress in Augustine’s Galatians commentary, but in it the stages “under the law” and “under grace” are presented as two opposing orientations, rather than as a sequential transition. De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum signals the end of Augustine’s earliest attempts to interpret Paul. In it he explicitly corrects some of his previous readings. God does not elect on the basis of

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his foreknowledge of future faith: true faith and the calling to it are God’s gift; they definitely are not a function of human merit. Since all humans belong to the “mass of sin,” they only deserve punishment. From this point forward, for Augustine, the gift of faith is simply and totally the fruit of God’s mercy. De doctrina christiana exemplifies how, to its very core, Augustine’s thought is biblically inspired. Tarmo Toom’s chapter explains both the two stages of the redaction history of this handbook for preachers and its multilayered internal structure. On a textual level, De doctrina christiana is helpful for reconstructing Augustine’s use of Latin scriptural variants, his preference for the Vetus Latina, and his views on the biblical canon. The content of this exegetical companion is straightforward: it explains how to read and understand the Bible, as well as how to convey gleaned insights to others. On a meta-level, Toom distinguishes two hermeneutical uses of the Bible within De doctrina christiana: the micro and the macro. Micro usage entails Augustine’s “local” application of a biblical reference to explain a specific point or to support a particular argument. Macro usage entails Augustine’s “global” application of a biblical reference to illuminate the significance of the treatise as a whole. Examples of micro usage include the scriptural images Augustine uses in book 1 to typify the church (Eph 1:23; 5:22, 27; Rom 12:4). Macro usage references Scripture in order to formulate a fundamental idea that has conceptual relevance for the entire work. In fact, five verses operate at the macro level by presenting the reader with a theme that both runs through and structures the entire treatise: John 1:29 (the res-signa distinction: John the Baptist points to Jesus just as signs point to other/higher realities); John 1:14 (the necessity of a Christological epistemology); Matt 22:37–40 (the centrality of the double love commandment); Isa 11:2–3 (the necessity for exegetical humility); and 2 Cor 3:6 (“letter” vs. “spirit” as a ground for figurative readings). Confessiones (397–400/401 CE) tells the story of how Augustine became a passionate reader of the Bible. Annemaré Kotzé demonstrates this on many levels: (1) Conf. shows how Augustine “discovered” the Christian Bible; (2) Conf. occupies a distinctive place in Augustine’s life, oeuvre, and exegetical endeavors; (3) Augustine’s claims about how to read Scripture reveal, in turn, how he wants Conf. to be read; (4) Conf. demonstrates the myriad ways that Augustine was capable of creatively and inventively incorporating Scripture into his autobiography. According to Kotzé, the latter intertextuality is the key to understanding the unicity of the genre of Conf., a work that some scholars continue to regard as sui generis. Augustine used the language of Scripture to weave together the work’s autobiographical and protreptic strands. For example, he uses the Psalms to meditate on his own life situation, which, in turn, flows into an intimate, lyrical prayer to God and, at the same time, exhorts readers to convert to (orthodox) Christianity. Kotzé also observes that, in Conf., Augustine, no longer a novice at reading Scripture, breaks new exegetical ground. Scripture is variously echoed in this monumental work, from long verbatim quotes to shorter altered references to “cumulative” allusions (which sometimes consist of just a single word), all of

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which increase the probability that, in it, Augustine frequently quoted Scripture from memory. The exegetical principles that underscore Augustine’s confessional approach to the Bible are threefold: (1) Scripture is absolutely truthful (with a truthfulness that encompasses the literal as well as all deeper meanings); (2) the humility expressed by the Bible (e.g., Matthew’s Christ is “humble in heart”; cf. 11:29) should propel readers to shun the prideful assumption that one possesses the only correct interpretation of a given passage (indeed, many interpretations of a given passage are possible provided they are fueled love by [caritas]); (3) an all-surpassing and consistent caritas for both Christ and neighbor must guide all scriptural interpretation (since, in the end, the Bible, both in whole and in part, always exhorts readers to caritas). Kotzé distinguishes two techniques that are sometimes merged together – indirect allusions and explicit exegeses – and illustrates them by discussing Augustine’s reflections on Matt 7:7; Luke 15:11–32 (the parable of the prodigal son); Gen 1; and Ps 4. The young bishop infuses Conf. with biblical language in the hope that his autobiography will assist readers in finding God, just as Scripture had assisted him.

H. A. G. Houghton

1 Scripture and Latin Christian Manuscripts from North Africa Introduction: Early Documents and Materials The oldest surviving manuscripts of the Christian Bible have been found in the northeastern part of Africa, written on pages made from the leaves of the papyrus plant and preserved in the dry conditions of the Egyptian desert. One of the principal centers for these archaeological discoveries was the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus, whose rubbish heaps were excavated around the beginning of the twentieth century. In addition to literary papyri, containing both New Testament and extracanonical writings, there was also a rich find of documentary papyri shedding light on the daily life of Christians in the third and fourth centuries.1 The majority of these papyrus manuscripts are written in Greek (such as Figure 1), although there are also texts in dialects of Coptic (the indigenous language of Egypt) and a few in Latin. While documentary items such as letters or tax returns sometimes include the date on which they were written, literary papyri can only be dated from the style of the handwriting (paleography). The dates assigned to New Testament papyri are therefore approximate: certain fragments may have been copied as early as the second quarter of the second century, but the more substantial surviving codices (books of pages bound in codex form rather than scrolls) were probably produced during the third century or later. These include more-or-less complete Greek copies of the Gospel according to John and the collected Pauline Epistles as well as a single manuscript that contained all four canonical Gospels and Acts.2 The Latin biblical texts found in Egypt are restricted to tiny fragments, written in the fourth or fifth centuries: at least some of them may not have been copied locally but were rather imported from overseas. Papyrus continued to be used as a writing material until at least the seventh century, but manuscripts made of parchment (sometimes known as vellum, as they were made from the prepared skins of animals) are preserved from the fourth century onwards. Early preparation techniques made it possible to create codices containing the whole Greek Bible in a single volume (or pandect), consisting of the

1 An extensive collection of texts and translations is available in L. H. Blumell and T. A. Wayment, eds., Christian Oxyrhynchus: Texts, Documents, and Sources (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2015). 2 For more on the early history of the transmission of the New Testament, see D. C. Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and their Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). This volume also includes an explanation of the Gregory-Aland (GA) numbering system that is used for Greek New Testament manuscripts. *H. A. G. Houghton, University of Birmingham (U.K.) https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-002

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Figure 1: A papyrus manuscript with the first page of the Gospel according to Matthew in Greek, copied around the middle of the third century and excavated at Oxyrhynchus. (P.Oxy I 2; P1; University of Pennsylvania. Courtesy of Penn Museum, image #250068.)

Septuagint (the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures produced in Egypt in the third and second centuries before Christ) and the New Testament.3 Although it is impossible to be sure where the surviving early manuscripts of this sort were copied,

3 A good introduction to the Septuagint is provided by T. M. Law, When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

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Alexandria was undoubtedly a center of book production: famed in antiquity for the quality of its library, it was also home to the third-century Greek Christian scholar Origen whose works included an edition of the Hebrew Scriptures in six columns (the Hexapla) and who had a scriptorium with multiple copyists, including “girls skilled in penmanship.”4 Despite the survival of four Greek pandects from the fourth and fifth centuries, New Testament writings normally circulated in smaller collections, such as the four Gospels or the Pauline Epistles, or even as individual texts. The size of manuscripts also varied considerably, from tiny folded pieces of papyrus with biblical verses that served as amulets to expansive parchment codices for scholarly use or reading during Christian liturgy.5

The Old Latin Tradition of the Bible The Initial Context Greek was the original language of all the New Testament writings and the early church throughout the Mediterranean, including Italy and Gaul. The first examples of Christian texts in Latin date from around the end of the second century. Most of these are associated in some way with North Africa, specifically the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis, the closest part of the continent to Italy. Victor I, pope in the final decade of the second century, was Berber in origin, and Jerome identifies him as “one of the Latins,” suggesting that he may have written in this language rather than Greek.6 Tertullian, the earliest Christian author whose Latin works survive, was bilingual.7 Based in Carthage at the beginning of the third century, he also wrote in Greek. The variety of forms in which he quotes the Bible have led scholars to conclude that he normally used Greek biblical codices from which he made his own translation on the spur of the moment, rather than using an existing Latin version. Nevertheless, there are also certain details that suggest that he was familiar with at least one translation of the New Testament into Latin. For example, in a discussion of 1 Cor 7:39 in De monogamia, he contrasts an omissive

4 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 6.23 (J. E. L. Oulton, LCL 265:68–69): “κόραις ἐπὶ τὸ καλλιγραφεῖν ἠσκημέναις.” For a fuller description, see H. Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 120–21. 5 One Latin biblical amulet has been excavated from Egypt: written on papyrus between the fifth and seventh centuries, it contains the Lord’s Prayer (Vienna: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, L 91; CLA X 1533). 6 Jerome, De viris illustribus 53 (E. Richardson, TUGAL 14 [1896], 31): “Tertullianus presbyter nunc demum primus post Victorem et Apollonium Latinorum ponitur.” 7 On Tertullian, see further the chapters by Dunn and Daniel-Hughes in the present volume.

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Latin text with “the authentic Greek,”8 while he twice refers to scriptural translations made by others in Adversus Marcionem.9 This implies that, by 200 CE, there were Christian communities in North Africa that used Latin rather than Greek, and at least one written translation had been made of some (if not all) of the Bible.10 It seems probable that the production of a written Latin version was preceded by a period of informal oral rendering of the Greek: during Christian worship, for instance, readings from the Greek Scriptures may have been followed by an impromptu Latin summary for the benefit of those who did not understand, especially if the preacher was to speak in Latin. In such a context, memory and paraphrase would have played a large part in mediating episodes from the Bible. The creation of a written translation, however, based on a Greek manuscript, is a more formal activity. Philip Burton has suggested on linguistic grounds that a Latin version of the passion narrative from Matthew may have preceded the first complete translation of the Gospels.11 A connection could plausibly be made between this and the solemnity of the liturgical celebration of Holy Week: if the entire passion narrative was read on Palm Sunday, immediate oral translation may have been impracticable due to the length of the passage and the amount of detail. The earliest Latin tradition of the Bible is known in scholarship as the Vetus Latina (“Old Latin”), which contrasts with the revision of the text around the end of the fourth century by Jerome and others later called the Vulgata (or “common version”).12 There has long been debate as to whether there were multiple initial translations, which might account for the variety in the surviving evidence for the Old Latin Bible. Earlier editors sometimes divided the tradition into two or three strands, based on an observation by Augustine in De doctrina christiana that “the Italian translation is preferable to the rest; for it keeps more closely to the words and gives the sense with clarity.”13 As a result, the term Itala (“Italian translation”)

8 Tertullian, De monogamia 11.11 (CCSL 2:1246): “in Graeco authentico.” Trans. is my own. 9 Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem 2.9.2 (CCSL 1:484): “quidam enim de Graeco interpretantes,” 5.4.8 (CCSL 1:673): “sicut invenimus interpretatum.” In his engagement with Marcion’s Bible, Tertullian also provides important evidence for different forms of the Greek New Testament text. See, most recently, D. T. Roth, The Text of Marcion’s Gospel, NTTSD 49 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), which includes a detailed investigation of Tertullian’s citation technique. 10 For the reference to biblical manuscripts in the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs (Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum), set at the end of the second century, see the section below on Christian book culture and the introductory chapter to the present volume by Yates, Dupont, and Riggs. 11 P. Burton, The Old Latin Gospels: A Study of their Texts and Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 40–44. 12 This is the term from which we derive “Vulgate.” For more on these terms, as well as the details discussed in the rest of the present paragraph, see H. A. G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament: A Guide to its Early History, Texts and Manuscripts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 13 Augustine, De doctrina christiana 2.15.22 (CCSL 32:47): “Itala ceteris praeferatur; nam est verborum tenacior cum perspicuitate sententiae.” Trans. is my own.

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was used for the most ancient Latin text, in contrast to the Afra (“African translation”), while a slightly later form was identified as “European.” More recent research, however, proposes that the surviving Old Latin texts of both the Old and New Testaments all derive from single initial translations, which – at least for the majority of books – are likely to have arisen in North Africa.14 This is not to say that all Latin biblical translations share the same origin; further investigation of their translation technique would be required to confirm this. The differences between surviving manuscripts can be explained as arising from the revision of the text in different ways each time it was copied, with some editors making internal improvements to the style or wording of the Latin and others introducing alterations based on a comparison with a different Greek manuscript. The amount of effort required to produce a written version also favors fewer original independent translations. It is much simpler to copy and revise an existing manuscript than to create a completely new version from scratch. As indicated by the presence of an African pope in Rome in the second century, there was considerable mobility of people around the Mediterranean area at this time: news of translations and copies of texts could easily be disseminated through the same networks. There are also strong textual arguments for the interrelationship of all surviving Old Latin versions of the Gospels, such as similar patterns of different Latin renderings for the same underlying Greek word, identical translations of rare Greek terms, and shared dependence on unusual forms of text: this evidence is too distinctive to be coincidental, even if in places it may have been obscured by subsequent revisions.15 The situation with regard to other biblical books is less clear because of the much smaller amount of surviving material, although it appears to be comparable.16 It has been suggested that Jewish communities may have played a part in the earliest Latin translations of the books of the Hebrew Scriptures. This cannot be ruled out, but there is little evidence to support it. The Old Latin version of these books is based on the Septuagint, for which it is an important witness: this shows that it originated in circumstances where, as in the case of the New Testament, the translation of Greek writings was required. In a Jewish context, recourse might (plausibly) have been made to Hebrew texts rather than using one translation as the source for another. The few surviving manuscript witnesses of Old Latin versions match the presentation of other Christian manuscripts, rather than conforming to Jewish practice in terms of the treatment of the divine name. Nevertheless, certain linguistic features may indicate the influence of Jewish Christians or contact with Jewish communities, in particular the use of the technical term cena pura rather than praeparatio for the

14 See Houghton, Latin New Testament, 12–14. 15 Examples of all these are given in Houghton, Latin New Testament, 12–13. 16 See, for instance, A. V. Billen, The Old Latin Texts of the Heptateuch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1927), 161–65.

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“Day of Preparation” (paraskeuē).17 One of the particular claims of Jerome’s new translation at the end of the fourth century was that he was the first to rely on the Hebrew text and to consult Jewish scholars. It is worth noting that, when Jerome’s version appeared, it was the Old Latin translation from the Septuagint that was referred to as the Vulgata: Jerome’s text was only identified as the Vulgate from a much later point in history. Punic was widely used in North Africa, especially outside the cities. Augustine and others provide evidence that it featured in the context of Christian worship, especially in preaching.18 There are, however, no traces of a formal translation of biblical books into Punic: instead, scriptural readings were paraphrased from Latin by the lector. The Punic material that does survive is largely in the form of inscriptions, most notably from a Christian catacomb at Sirte where fifty-three grave inscriptions from the fourth century are written in Latin, Greek, and Punic (the latter sometimes using Latin script).19 However, these very brief, formulaic inscriptions contain no biblical references.

Sources for the African Biblical Text Since the twentieth century, editorial work on the text of the Old Latin Bible has been led by the Vetus Latina-Institut, based in Beuron, Germany.20 The extensive editions in the Vetus Latina series are based on biblical manuscripts and quotations in Latin authors up to around the eighth century. With the exception of the Gospels, very few manuscripts with a consistently Old Latin text have been preserved. Editors therefore reconstruct a series of hypothetical text types based on the geographical location and chronology of authors who quote the early Latin Bible. Very few of these are present throughout an entire biblical book, since most are only attested in short quotations of a single verse or less. Of the text types, Type X is a special indication for sources where the Latin biblical text appears to be an ad hoc translation of a Greek source, as in the case of Tertullian or the Latin version of Irenaeus. Two text types are particularly relevant to Africa. Type K is the earliest recoverable Latin version, which corresponds in large part to the text of Cyprian and his corpus and which can therefore be located in North Africa in the first half of the third century.21 Type C is a later revision

17 See further H. F. D. Sparks, “The Latin Bible,” in The Bible in its Ancient and English Versions, ed. H. W. Robinson (Oxford: Clarendon, 1940; repr., Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1970): 100–27, esp. 102–3. 18 The material is presented by T. Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons (Erlangen: Deichert, 1888), 1:40–44. 19 On the evidence for Punic and Berber inscriptions and their relationship to Latin, see most recently J. N. Adams, Bilingualism and the Latin Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 200–47, esp. 234–40, which cover the catacomb inscriptions and Christianity more broadly. 20 For more on the history of the institute and how to use its editions, see Houghton, Latin New Testament, 115–25. 21 See below, as well as the contributions to this volume by Murphy and Ciccolini.

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of this text found in African authors from the next two centuries, such as Optatus of Milevis, Quodvultdeus, and Vigilius of Thapsus. In addition, some of the less prevalent text types may preserve African elements. Although Augustine stated a preference for the northern Italian text he encountered in Milan (represented by the Vetus Latina Type I, the best preserved Old Latin version), and although he later adopted Jerome’s revision of the Gospels (Type V), certain forms of text unique to him, especially in his earlier writings, may preserve African readings from codices belonging to the churches around Hippo (Type A).22 Similarly, while Type S is predominantly attested in Spanish authors, it seems to have its roots in Africa as it is also found in the works of Tyconius.23 Authors active in Africa are the best sources for the texts circulating in this region. Cyprian quotes the Bible with a consistency that indicates that he is relying on a written Latin version rather than translating a Greek source. His two collections of testimonia, thematically arranged assemblies of biblical quotations, offer extensive evidence for the text known to him.24 Given the rarity of pandects, it is likely that these were taken from several codices, each containing a selection of biblical books, so the affiliation of the texts may not be entirely uniform. In fact, although Cyprian is normally the earliest witness to Type K, there are a few indications that the Latin biblical text had already been in circulation for some time before him. These include earlier readings preserved in other sources and internal Latin copying errors. Differences between the language of Cyprian’s own writing and his biblical quotations may also indicate a certain stylistic peculiarity in the Bible even at this early stage: for example, Cyprian prefers the term gloria where biblical quotations have claritas, and he prefers caritas over the biblical amor.25 It should also be noted that several manuscripts of Ad Quirinum testimonia adversus Judaeos and Ad Fortunatum, as well as Cyprian’s other works, were updated to bring their biblical quotations into agreement with later forms of text, and this may have been the case for other African works such as the versions of Tyconius’s Expositio Apocalypseos. Pseudo-Cyprianic works such as De singularitate clericorum or De duobus montibus Sina et Sion are also useful evidence for Type K, provided that there is good support for their African provenance and early date: although there is a slight circularity to the argument, confirmation may be provided by the text of the biblical references.26 22 An account of Augustine’s textual affiliation is given in H. A. G. Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John: Patristic Citations and Latin Gospel Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), as well as in later chapters in this volume. 23 See the contribution by Hoover to the present volume. 24 On biblical testimonia more generally, see M. C. Albl, “And Scripture Cannot Be Broken”: The Form and Function of the Early Christian Testimonia Collections (Leiden: Brill, 1999). 25 See also H. J. Frede, “Die Zitate des Neuen Testaments bei den lateinischen Kirchenväter,” in Die alten Übersetzungen des Neuen Testaments, die Kirchenväterzitate und Lektionare, ed. K. Aland, ANTF 5 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1972): 455–78, esp. 464. 26 See the contribution by Ciccolini to the present volume.

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By the time of Augustine, at the end of the fourth century, the textual situation in North Africa was much more diverse. It is likely that Augustine brought scriptural codices to Hippo from northern Italy; we know that he corresponded repeatedly with Jerome in Bethlehem, requesting copies of his revised versions of biblical books. Nevertheless, he continued to encounter and use manuscripts with earlier forms of text. For example, in his Retractationes, he corrects an earlier work in which he accused Donatus of tampering with the text of Sir 34:30, since he later discovered that “very many manuscripts, especially African ones, had it in this form.”27 One feature of Augustine’s polemical works is that he preserves lengthy extracts from the writers whom he seeks to refute, including the Donatists Gaudentius, Parmenian, and Petilianus. This includes their biblical quotations, which, in contrast to Augustine’s own text, correspond to Type K. He also quotes earlier African writers in his De baptismo contra Donatistas. In certain sermons preached while he was away from Hippo, Augustine was reliant on the biblical codices belonging to the local church, which may have had an African affiliation. Similarly, in the transcript of his debate with Felix the Manichaean, long passages are read out from copies of Luke and Acts that appear to have been transmitted verbatim. Unfortunately, in most of Augustine’s exegetical works and the testimonia collection known as Speculum, he relies on later forms of biblical text. Even so, subsequent writers based in Africa continued to use distinctive local texts for a century or more. One intriguing work is the anonymous Libellus adversus Fulgentium Donatistam from the middle of the fifth century, in which the quotations of the catholic author correspond to the Vulgate but those of his Donatist opponent are Old Latin in their affiliation. Very few surviving Latin biblical manuscripts are thought to have been copied in North Africa. Of the fragments excavated at Oxyrhynchus and other Egyptian sites, none have been assigned to North Africa on the basis of their script, although some may have been written in Egypt.28 There are five more substantial witnesses, as well as two leaves from a lectionary, for which an African origin has been proposed: these are described under the section “Biblical Manuscripts” below. Nevertheless, it is possible that several of these were actually copied in Italy despite the primitive elements in their biblical text. A Latin text of the Pentateuch, with a strong African affiliation in parts of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, is found in the palimpsest Codex Monacensis (VL 104), copied in Italy or France around the end of the fifth

27 Augustine, Retractationes 1.21 (CCSL 57:63): “Sic habuisse codices plurimos verumtamen Afros.” 28 These comprise scraps of parchment all produced around the fourth or fifth century with text from John (P. Aberdeen 1; VL 23; CLA II 118), Genesis (P.Oxy. VIII. 1073; CLA XI 1651), Exodus (PSI XII. 1272; CLA III 294), Ephesians (PSI XIII. 1306; VL 85; CLA Suppl. 1694), a copy of Ps 20 on papyrus (Heidelberg P. Lat. 5; CLA VIII 1222; now lost), and a fifth-century Greco-Latin glossary of certain Pauline Epistles on papyrus (Chester Beatty Ac. 1499; P99; CLA Suppl. 1683).

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century.29 The contemporary Würzburg palimpsest (VL 103), originally from Italy, combines African features with later revisions. The continued transmission of early Latin forms of the biblical text in France is seen as late as the twelfth century: the text of the Gospels in Codex Colbertinus (VL 6) features multiple textual layers, with African characteristics particularly pronounced in Mark and Luke. The varying textual affiliations within even the oldest Latin biblical manuscripts demonstrate the key role of quotations in Christian writers for identifying and locating the different types of text. For example, the text of Leviticus and Numbers seems to have much earlier characteristics than the rest of the Pentateuch. Finally, it may be noted that biblical verses with an Old Latin affiliation continued to be inscribed on Christian tombstones in Libya as late as the tenth century, as found, for example, in the cemetery of En Ngila.30

Characteristics of the African Biblical Text There are three features that characterize the earliest text of the Latin Bible. Insofar as later texts (especially in the New Testament) were successive revisions of this initial form, these characteristics were only gradually displaced from the textual tradition and were not always eliminated completely. The first two elements, harmonization and omission, are related and have no claim to be distinctively African. Instead, they reflect a broader movement in biblical translation from a periphrastic early text towards one with a close literal correspondence to its Greek source.31 Similarities between biblical passages, especially the Gospels, often led to the incorporation of additional material or exchange of wording even in the transmission of the Greek text. In Latin tradition, especially if the principal means of encountering the text was an oral paraphrase, it is to be expected that early translations would feature harmonizations between similar episodes. This extends to the inclusion of apparently missing information: translators who worked with manuscripts and were familiar with a whole range of scribal errors could easily have added material that they suspected had been overlooked by a copyist. For example, the earliest Old Latin sources include an extra saying of Jesus after Matt 20:28 that broadly corresponds to Luke 14:8–10. Likewise at John 13:38, instead of the Johannine version of the prediction of Peter’s denial, Codex Palatinus (VL 2) has the wording found at Matt 26:34. As harmonization

29 Further details of the VL (i.e., the Vetus Latina manuscripts) numbering system are given in Houghton, Latin New Testament, 117. The official Register of the Vetus Latina-Institut is R. Gryson, ed., Altlateinische Handschriften = Manuscrits Vieux Latins. Répertoire descriptif, VL 1/2A (Freiburg: Herder, 1999). For more on the affiliation of Codex Monacensis, see Billen, Old Latin Texts, 23–35. 30 R. Bartoccini and D. Mazzoleni, “Le inscrizioni del cimitero di En Ngila,” Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 53 (1977): 175–97. 31 This is most pronounced in the Syriac tradition. See P. J. Williams, Early Syriac Translation Technique and the Textual Criticism of the Greek Gospels, TS 3.2 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2004).

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is also common in Greek tradition, it is often impossible to tell whether it was introduced by the Latin translator (or a later copyist) or was present in the source manuscript used as the exemplar for the translation. Despite the existence of single-volume gospel harmonies in early Greek and Syriac tradition (e.g., the Diatessaron), there is no firm evidence for this type of work in Latin until the middle of the sixth century. Although omission can arise from scribal negligence, there are also occasions in which a translator may have deliberately passed over particular words or phrases. Augustine’s example from Sir 34:30, which he describes as characteristic of African manuscripts, has already been mentioned in the previous section. There are numerous such instances in the early African text of the Gospels. For example, the explanation that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans is missing from the initial Latin version of John 4:9, perhaps because it was considered to be redundant. Similarly, Codex Bobiensis (VL 1) has omissions in Matt 5:44, 47; and 12:47, which could all be explained as stemming from a desire to avoid repetition, although inadvertent omission through “eye-skip” always remains a possibility. Such gaps, however, tended to be quickly filled once comparison with other witnesses was made. The third characteristic, which is the most likely to be connected with the origin of the initial translation, is the choice of vocabulary.32 There are numerous Latin renderings in the earliest surviving biblical text, which, although consistently translating the same Greek word, were replaced by a different Latin term in later Old Latin tradition. For example, the word for “blessed” (Greek makarios) in the Beatitudes (Matt 5:3–11) is rendered by felix in Cyprian but by beatus in other sources. Other examples may be found in the list on the folllowing page, which is neither prescriptive nor exhaustive.33 Some of these differing renderings, such as words for “disciple,” “parable,” or “paraclete,” reflect a period of fluidity in the formation of technical Christian vocabulary. Burton observes that the earliest African sources generally avoid direct borrowing from Greek in this domain, even though loan-words such as evangelizare and parabola later became the standard form.34 Interplay between Greek and Latin can be seen, however, in non-technical words such as cata, eremus, and agape. There have been attempts to use these differences between the translations to identify an African dialect of Latin (Africitas) or a distinctive Christian language (an idiolect, or Sondersprache).35

32 Burton, Old Latin Gospels, offers a valuable investigation and analysis of the activity of the earliest Latin biblical translators. 33 Most of these feature in the list provided in the appendix of T. A. Bergren, A Latin-Greek Index of the Vulgate New Testament (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 175–205, to which Burton, Old Latin Gospels, provides valuable nuances and corrections. For the Old Testament, see also the lexicon in Billen, Old Latin Texts, 185–222. 34 Burton, Old Latin Gospels, 19, 137–48. 35 For dialectal variation in Latin, see J. N. Adams, The Regional Diversification of Latin 200BC–AD 600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). The most recent survey of Christian Latin is P. H. Burton, “Christian Latin,” in A Companion to the Latin Language, ed. J. P. T. Clackson (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011): 485–501.

1 Scripture and Latin Christian Manuscripts from North Africa

English (Greek)

Earlier term(s)

Later term(s)

according to (kata)

cata

secundum

announce (euangelizō)

benenuntiare, adnuntiare

evangelizare

approve (eudokeō)

bene sentire

complacere

because, that (hoti)

quoniam

quod, quia

both (amphoteroi)

ambo

uterque

command (entolē)

mandatum

praeceptum

deacon (diakonos)

diaconus

minister

desert (erēmos)

eremus, solitudo

desertum

disciple (mathētēs)

discens

discipulus

eat (esthiō)

edere

manducare

evil (ponēros)

nequam

malus

glory (doxa)

claritas

majestas, gloria

immediately (euthys)

continuo

statim

know (ginōskō)

cognoscere

scire

light (phōs)

lumen

lux

love (agapē)

agape

caritas, dilectio

parable (parabolē)

similitudo

parabola

paraclete (paraklētos)

advocatus

paracletus

people (laos)

plebs

populus

pity (splanchnizomai)

contristari

misereri

secretly (lathra)

latenter

clam, occulte

thank (eucharisteō)

benedicere

gratias agere

weeping (klauthmos)

ploratio

fletus

word (logos)

sermo

verbum

25

Yet while there were undoubtedly terms peculiar to each linguistic community (as in Tertullian’s references to “our speech,” [sermo noster]), biblical texts are of limited value in isolating these because of the constraints of the translation and the influence of the source. The systematic replacement of certain Latin terms by later editors most likely indicates that the rejected vocabulary was perceived as archaic or in some way inadequate: for example, the use of edere for “eat” becomes less common in Latin

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sources during the course of the third century.36 Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that the original translation was understood by its initial audience and may, therefore, reflect some features of the context in which it was produced. The attestation of certain words predominantly in African writers, both Christian and non-Christian, offers suggestive evidence in this regard. Furthermore, if there were a linguistic conservatism among Latin speakers in North Africa, this might also explain why the need for a translation of the Bible was first felt in this region.

African Editions of the Bible In addition to the distinctive character of the Latin translation of the biblical text, the content and layout of biblical codices are also important aspects of early African tradition. Debates over the canon of Scripture were common in Christian discourse from the second to the fourth centuries. In some codices, additional texts were included alongside the New Testament writings, such as the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas, whereas there was doubt about the status of certain books, such as Hebrews and Revelation.37 Tertullian quotes from all the books of the New Testament with the exception of some of the Catholic Epistles (James, 2 Peter, and 2–3 John); these, along with Philemon and Jude, are also missing from Cyprian’s quotations, although, given that these are short letters, the lack of references may be coincidental. Nevertheless, the absence of quotations of Hebrews in Cyprian suggests that he did not regard this as part of the canon; even Augustine, despite accepting this epistle, came to the conclusion that it was not by Paul.38 The anonymous De aleatoribus, a text possibly written in Africa at the end of the third century, not only cites a number of New Testament books, including Revelation, but it also refers to the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas as “divine Scripture.”39 Full lists of the scriptural canon are found in a number of documents from the fourth century.40 One of the most famous Greek sources is the Festal Letter 39 of Athanasius of Alexandria, dating from 367 CE, which sets out the contents of the entire Bible and makes a clear distinction between canonical and apocryphal books in both Testaments. In Latin tradition, the Breviarium Hipponense records the

36 See Burton, Old Latin Gospels, 162–64. 37 See B. M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). 38 Metzger, Canon of the New Testament, 160–63, 237. 39 De aleatoribus 2 (CSEL 3/3:93–94): “Dicit enim Scriptura divina: vae erit pastoribus . . . et alia Scriptura dicit: rectorem te petierunt, noli extolli.” See further Metzger, Canon of the New Testament, 164. 40 See now E. L. Gallagher and J. D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

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scriptural canon promoted by the Council of Carthage in 397, although this list is likely to go back to the Synod of Hippo in 393. The sequence of biblical books often varies in early Latin sources. Prior to Jerome’s revision of the Gospels, when he put them in the same order as Greek tradition, they were often found in the order Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. There are also differences in both the Pauline and Catholic Epistles, with Colossians sometimes coming before Philippians or after 2 Thessalonians, and James following 2 Peter or 3 John.41 One significant piece of evidence regarding the canon of Scripture in North Africa is the so-called Cheltenham Canon, discovered in a tenth-century manuscript by Theodor Mommsen. The list, which Mommsen dated to the year 359 CE, includes 1–2 Maccabees in the Old Testament, while the New Testament has the Gospels in the order Matthew, Mark, John, Luke, only has thirteen Pauline Epistles (presumably omitting Hebrews), and does not feature the letters of James or Jude.42 The biblical canon, which features a quotation of Revelation with a characteristically African form of text, is followed by a list of the works of Cyprian. Next to each entry is an indication of the total number of lines in each book, measured in stichoi (Latin versus). As these were the units that determined the price of books in antiquity, this stichometric list appears to be for the use of copyists engaged to copy Christian writings.43 Indications of stichometry are found in a number of biblical manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, copied between the fifth and the ninth centuries. In the Freising Fragments, a sixth-century codex of the Pauline Epistles that may have been produced in North Africa (see the section “Biblical Manuscripts” below), the number of stichoi is given at the end of 1 John. Another aspect of book production consists of the inclusion of paratextual material, such as prefaces, headings, and systems of reference. This became very common in later Latin Bibles, with prefaces by Jerome and the other revisers, lists of numbered chapters, and the inclusion of the Eusebian Apparatus for identifying material shared between the Gospels but is lacking from the earliest surviving Latin biblical codices. The earliest set of numbered chapter titles (capitula or tituli) for the Gospels, however, originates in a third-century African context. Even though, like the Cheltenham Canon, they are only preserved in much later biblical codices, the affiliation of the extensive biblical quotations in their Latin text proves that they were assembled

41 See Houghton, Latin New Testament, 195–96. 42 In another copy of the list, discovered later in an eighth-century manuscript in St. Gall (Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 133, 488–92), the Gospels are in the standard Old Latin order and there are fourteen Pauline Epistles. 43 Most recently see R. H. Rouse and C. McNelis, “North African Literary Activity: A Cyprian Fragment, The Stichometric Lists and a Donatist Compendium,” Revue d’histoire des textes 30 (2000): 189–233; and P.-M. Bogaert, “Aux origines de la fixation du Canon: Scriptoria, listes et titres. Le Vaticanus et la Stichométrie de Mommsen,” in The Biblical Canons, ed. J.-M. Auwers and H. J. de Jonge (Leuven, Peeters, 2003): 153–76.

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around the time of Cyprian.44 What is more, series of capitula for several other biblical books were clearly composed in a Donatist context, as they refer to the key concerns of this movement, such as rebaptism and worldly compromise, as well as exhibiting African features in the biblical text.45 The implication of these surviving summaries is that a complete edition of the Latin Bible was produced in Donatist circles, including these numbered chapter titles as an aid to reading and locating particular passages. This is consistent with the Donatist focus on exegetical activity, such as what we find in the Tyconius’s works Liber regularum and Expositio Apocalypseos.46 A further Donatist collection is the Compendium, a biblical handbook consisting of the Liber generationis, the Liber genealogus, and numerous other short texts, including the Cheltenham Canon. The collection was originally assembled in the fourth century and revised and updated several times in the fifth century: several of the works deal with the interpretation of names in the Bible and its chronology.47 It should be emphasized that there is no evidence for specific “Donatist” forms of the biblical text featuring variant readings: the influence of the movement is rather to be seen in the paratextual material produced to accompany the canonical books, which bears witness to an interest in editorial activity and organized scriptoria.

Latin Manuscripts from Christian North Africa The vast majority of manuscripts produced in antiquity have perished, mostly through deterioration due to age and use, although some were deliberately or accidentally destroyed. The Vandal invasion of North Africa in the fifth century may have contributed to the loss of earlier artifacts, but ongoing religious turbulence and normal obsolescence are sufficient in themselves to account for the dispersal of libraries and the very small number of surviving manuscripts. As noted above, copies of literary works usually have no indication of their time or place of production, so this has to be reconstructed on the basis of their style of writing or other codicological details. For this reason, there is considerable uncertainty as to whether the manuscripts sometimes attributed to North Africa (or, indeed, any of the other Roman provinces on the African continent) were actually copied there: copyists, as well as books, could easily travel round the Mediterranean seaboard.

44 D. de Bruyne, “Quelques documents nouveaux pour l’histoire du texte africain des Évangiles,” RBén 27 (1910): 273–324, 433–46. 45 P.-M. Bogaert, “Les particularités éditoriales des Bibles comme exégèse implicite ou proposée. Les sommaires ou capitula donatistes,” in Lectures bibliques. Colloque du 11 novembre 1980 Bruxelles, Publications de l’Institutum Iudaicum (Brussels: Institutum Iudaicum, 1982): 7–21. 46 See further M. A. Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1997), 115–28, and the contribution by Hoover to the present volume. 47 Rouse and McNelis, “North African Literary Activity,” 210ff.

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In the preface to the last volume of his extensive catalogue of Latin manuscripts copied before the year 800, Codices Latini Antiquiores (CLA), Elias Avery Lowe listed nineteen manuscripts that he believed may have been copied in North Africa, five of which he considered questionable (although several of the others may also be challenged).48 A further seven possible African witnesses can be identified in the online database of this catalogue (three of which feature classical texts; one is unidentified); in addition, there is one tenth-century Old Latin manuscript (outside the scope of the catalogue) for which an African origin has been proposed.49 These twenty-three Christian manuscripts are treated in the following sections, grouped by genre or author.

Biblical Manuscripts – Codex Bobiensis (VL 1). Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria 1163. An incomplete fourth-century parchment codex with parts of Mark and Matthew. [CLA IV 465] – Codex Vindobonensis (VL 115). Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, lat. 1. Palimpsest pages from a fifth-century parchment codex of the Books of Kingdoms (1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings). [CLA III 389] – Codex Palatinus (VL 2). Trent, Museo Nazionale (Castello del Buon Consiglio), s.n.; single pages in London and Dublin. A fifth-century purple parchment codex of the four Gospels in the order Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark. Numerous leaves are now missing. [CLA IV 437] – Fleury Palimpsest (VL 55). Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, latin 6400 G. Pages of a fifth-century parchment codex of Revelation, Acts, and the Catholic Epistles. [CLA V 565] – Freising Fragments (VL 64). Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 6436; also a portion in Göttweig, Stiftsbibliothek. Parts of a sixth-century parchment codex of the Pauline Epistles (including Hebrews) with later supplements. [CLA IX 1286a]

48 E. A. Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores. A Palaeographical Guide to Latin Manuscripts Prior to the Ninth Century, Supplement (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), vii–x. An online version of this list is found in the Galway Earlier Latin Manuscripts database at https://elmss.nuigalway.ie/corpus/15 (last consulted September 21, 2017). 49 The three classical witnesses are two small fragments of Livy (P.Oxy. IV. 668; PSI XII 1291; CLA II 208 and Suppl. **208; Naqlun 15/86; CLA Suppl. II 1867) and one of Lucan (P. Lond. Lit. 42; CLA II 175); the unidentified text is P. Bon. 5 (CLA Suppl. 1677), which shows no sign of being a Christian work. All were excavated in Egypt, but their place of origin is very uncertain; CLA II 208 was initially assigned by Lowe to Egypt.

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– Lectionary fragments (VL 74); Sinai, St. Catherine’s Monastery, Arab. 455. Two folios from a tenth-century Latin lectionary with readings from Acts and Revelation.50 Despite the differences between them, these manuscripts share several features typical of early Latin biblical codices. Apart from the late lectionary fragments they are all written in uncial script (capital letters), a style of writing common to most North African manuscripts.51 They employ nomina sacra, abbreviations for a set of key Christian terms (“God,” “Jesus,” “Christ,” “Lord,” “Holy,” and “Spirit”) that are also found in Greek witnesses. Apart from these, there are very few abbreviations and little punctuation.52 There is also minimal paratextual material: prefaces, chapter numbers and titles, and marginal reference systems appear to be almost entirely absent. Most are of a similar size with roughly square pages, ranging from approximately 26 × 24 cm (Fleury Palimpsest) down to 19 × 14 cm (Lectionary fragments); the exception is Codex Palatinus (35.5 × 26 cm), which, as will be discussed below, is the least likely to be of African origin. Four of the manuscripts are written in a single column; Codex Vindobonensis and Codex Palatinus have two columns. Although most contain between twenty and twentyfive lines on each page, Codex Bobiensis has only fourteen while the Freising Fragments have thirty-two. The biblical text in each has African connections, although this varies from manuscript to manuscript as will be discussed below. Codex Bobiensis has the strongest claim to have been written in North Africa and is used as a paleographical standard for assessing other potential African productions. As can be seen in Figure 2, it is written continuously in black ink in a single column; sense breaks are marked by spaces of around two characters. Although copied in the fourth century, the biblical text corresponds to the African tradition of the early-third century, either matching or predating the quotations in Cyprian: there are a number of omissions and readings not paralleled elsewhere. The last twelve verses of Mark are absent, as in the most ancient Greek witnesses, and this manuscript is unique in having only the shorter ending at Mark 16:8. In the running title at the top of each page, the word cata rather than secundum is used, a feature of African practice (see the section “Characteristics of the African Biblical Text” above). The spelling of the manuscript is often bizarre, which Lowe attributes to “a defective exemplar on papyrus”; there are a large number of nonsense readings.53 Although the

50 Although this witness falls outside the chronological scope of CLA, Lowe himself was responsible for the editio princeps: E. A. Lowe, “Two New Latin Liturgical Fragments on Mount Sinai,” RBén 74 (1964): 284–97. 51 Lowe also observes the use of uncial script on African tombstones at Timgad and Makter from the third and fourth centuries (CLA Suppl. vii, with illustrations). 52 The use of a superscript dash for “m” (and later “n”) at the end of a line is an early feature that goes back to Greek practice (compare line 11 of Figure 2). See E. A. Lowe, “More Facts About Our Oldest Latin Manuscripts,” ClQ 22 (1928): 43–62, esp. 57–58. 53 Lowe, CLA IV 465.

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Figure 2: Codex Bobiensis, folio 77r, featuring Matt 10:41–11:3. Copied in Africa in the fourth century. (Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, Ms. G. VII. 15 [1163]; reproduced from C. Cipolla, Il codice evangelico k della Biblioteca Universitaria Nazionale di Torino [Turin: Molfese, 1913]). © Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino; reproduction forbidden.)

abbreviation dom for Dominus (rather than dns) is found in other early Latin manuscripts, the form of other nomina sacra is peculiar to this manuscript: Jesus is written as his rather than ihs (see the last word of line 8 in Figure 2), while for Christus a chi-

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rho symbol is used in place of xps (compare the first word of line 13 in Figure 2). The word Deus is written in full with a superline rather than abbreviated. The order of the Gospels is unusual, with Matthew following Mark: it is probable that this was originally a copy of all four Gospels. Codex Vindobonensis, like Codex Bobiensis, was in the library of the monastery at Bobbio (possibly as a group of books from Africa) although it was palimpsested and reused in the eighth century.54 This palimpsest also includes leaves from a different Old Latin manuscript containing the Pentateuch (VL 101), which was copied in Italy. VL 115 consists of twenty-eight surviving pages, eight of which are illegible. In his initial assessment of the manuscript, Lowe described this manuscript as “written most likely in Italy,” yet he later included it in his list of North African witnesses without question.55 An African origin is accepted in both the Vetus Latina Register and the edition by Fischer.56 Fischer posits that the manuscript included an initial table of contents and pictures in the text, like the contemporary Quedlinburg Itala (VL 116), although these have not been preserved. Nomina sacra are present, with both dom and dms for Dominus; Deus is sometimes abbreviated and sometimes not; the one occurrence of Christus may have been written in red ink (1 Sam 2:10b). A few other standard abbreviations are also used. Although there are features of vulgar Latin, the orthography is much better than that of Codex Bobiensis. Like the latter, Codex Vindobonensis also uses long spaces for sense breaks but indicates paragraphs by starting a new line, which is projected into the left margin (ekthesis). The first letter in a column is sometimes enlarged, even if it appears in the middle of a word: this is a function of antique book production.57 Codex Palatinus contains an African Old Latin text of the four Gospels. It tends to be closer to Cyprian than Codex Bobiensis, corresponding very closely to the quotations in his testimonia collections, although there are also some passages with a later, European affiliation, such as the story of the woman caught in adultery as found in John 7:53–8:11. There are omissions and harmonizations typical of African witnesses. Codicologically, the manuscript shares several features with Codex Vindobonensis, being written in two columns with ekthesis for each paragraph and outsized letters at the beginning of each column. Strikingly, however, it is written in gold and silver ink on purple parchment, like a number of northern Italian gospel books. For this reason, an Italian origin tends to be preferred although Lowe, despite his initial uncertainty, included it in his list as the only purple codex from North Africa: in an earlier article in

54 It is known as Codex Vindobonensis because it was held in Vienna (Hofbibliothek 17) before being moved to Naples. 55 Lowe, CLA III 389; contrast CLA Suppl. ix. 56 B. Fischer, “Palimpsestus Vindobonensis: A Revised Edition of L115 for Samuel-Kings,” BIOSCS 16 (1983): 13–87, reprinted in B. Fischer, Beiträge zur Geschichte der lateinischen Bibeltexte, AGLB 12 (Freiburg: Herder, 1986), 308–81. 57 E. A. Lowe, “Some Facts about our Oldest Latin Manuscripts,” ClQ 19 (1925): 197–208.

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which he rebutted certain paleographical suggestions that the copyist was African, he observed that the letters were written slightly below the ruled lines, a feature of Codex Bobiensis and the Turin manuscript of Cyprian, which favored Africa as its place of production.58 The Fleury Palimpsest consists of eighteen pages from a fifth-century manuscript that seems to have featured the unusual sequence of Revelation, Acts, and Catholic Epistles. It was palimpsested in France in the late-seventh or early-eighth century. The text of Revelation and Acts is African, slightly postdating Cyprian, but the portions of 1–2 Peter and 1 John (the only epistles extant) have similarities to later Italian tradition (Type T). Standard nomina sacra are used throughout, including dns consistently for Dominus. Each page begins consistently with a large capital, even in the middle of a word, and sense breaks are marked by extended spaces. Lowe was at first uncertain about its origin, suggesting Italy, which is still accepted in the Vetus Latina Register; nevertheless, Africa remains a possibility, not least because the Orléans leaf of Cyprian’s epistles was also at Fleury. (See the subsection “Manuscripts of Cyprian” below.) The Freising Fragments are a sixth-century uncial copy of the Pauline Epistles to which replacement pages and the Catholic Epistles were added, probably in Spain, in the first half of the seventh century. In keeping with its later date, the manuscript has large decorated initials at the beginning of each epistle, with the first three lines written in red. Sense breaks are indicated by large spaces, although there is also some ekthesis. The standard nomina sacra are used. The text of the Pauline Epistles is practically identical to that used by Augustine, although this represents a revised form of an Italian text that was therefore presumably among the books brought by him to Hippo from Milan.59 For this reason, the production of the earlier part of the manuscript is often located in North Africa, although Lowe is still unsure whether this too may have been copied in Spain: the close geography of these two regions is matched by similarities in manuscript production and an affiliation of the biblical text. As noted above, a stichometric number is visible at the end of 1 John. There was probably an initial table of contents, but there are no prefaces or capitula.60 Two leaves from a tenth-century Latin lectionary were published in 1964 by Lowe, following their discovery in the binding of an Arabic homily manuscript in

58 E. A. Lowe, “On the African Origin of Codex Palatinus of the Gospels (e),” JTS 23 (1922): 401–4. 59 See H. J. Frede, Altlateinische Paulus-Handschriften, AGLB 4 (Freiburg: Herder, 1964), 102–20, as well as his editions of the Pauline Epistles in the Vetus Latina series: in Ephesians, Frede characterizes this manuscript as a variant of Type I (the northern Italian text), whereas in Hebrews it is presented under Type A (the biblical text of Augustine). 60 See D. de Bruyne, Les Fragments de Freising, Collectanea Biblica Latina 5 (Rome: Vatican Library, 1921), xiii.

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St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai.61 Lowe himself assigned their slanting minuscule script to the Near East, and possibly Sinai itself; Fischer, however, proposed a North African origin. The text of these short passages from Acts and Revelation is close to African sources, with the latter resembling the quotations in Augustine. The nomen sacrum for Jesum in Acts 13:26, him, is comparable to the unusual abbreviation in Codex Bobiensis, but elsewhere the standard forms are used, including dns. A number of other abbreviations are used, and there are also non-standard orthographic features including b for u. Whatever its origin, this document, along with two other liturgical manuscripts discovered in Sinai, offers evidence for the ongoing use of Latin in this region, which continued up to the twelfth century.62

Patristic Manuscripts Manuscripts of Cyprian – London, British Library, Add. MS 40165 A 1. Five pages from a late fourthcentury parchment codex of Cyprian’s epistles. [CLA II 178] – Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, F.IV.27; also leaves in Vatican Library and Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana. Thirty-three leaves from a parchment codex of Cyprian’s epistles copied in the fourth or fifth century. [CLA IV 458] – Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale 192 (169), fol. 1. A page from a fifth-century parchment codex of Cyprian’s epistles. [CLA VI 804] – Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, G.V.37. Thirty pages from a fifthcentury parchment codex with De opere et eleemosynis and De sacramento calicis. [CLA IV 464] – Marburg, Staatsarchiv Hr. 1, 1; Fragment of De opere et eleemosynis copied at the beginning of the fifth century. [CLA Suppl. 1728] These five manuscripts share a number of features: all were written in an early form of uncial between the late-fourth century and the end of the fifth century. Most were preserved by being reused in the binding of books at a later period (the three shorter fragments and the Milan leaf of the epistles). Very few abbreviations are used, apart from nomina sacra: the first four manuscripts all have the earlier form of dms for Dominus, while the Orléans and second Turin manuscript have Deo written in full with an overline. The two nomina sacra in the Marburg leaf are written in red: do for Deo and xi (rather than xpi) for Christi.63 In all five manuscripts,

61 Lowe, “Two New Latin Liturgical Fragments,” 280–83; and E. A. Lowe, “Two Other Unknown Latin Liturgical Fragments on Mount Sinai,” Scriptorium 19 (1965): 3–29. 62 See also the description in Gryson, Altlateinische Handschriften, 115. 63 For a detailed discussion of the Marburg leaf, see Rouse and McNelis, “North African Literary Activity,” which also features a reproduction.

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paragraphs begin on a new line with ekthesis, and, with the exception of the London fragments, which will be described below, they are written in two columns of twenty to twenty-six lines. In each case, the African origin is a presumption based on the codicological uniformity of the manuscripts, the similarity of the script to Codex Bobiensis and the contents.64 Both of the Turin items were originally in the library at Bobbio, suggesting that they might have formed a group of African books; similarly, the Orléans fragment was at Fleury, like the Fleury Palimpsest and the Optatus fragment. (See the section “Biblical Manuscripts” above and subsection “Manuscripts of Other Christian Writers” below.) The Marburg leaf was probably once present in the library at Fulda, founded in the eighth century: in addition to the use of ekthesis for new paragraphs, quotations are indicated by the indentation of each line.65 The London manuscript, containing parts of Ep. 55, 69, and 74, is the earliest and most remarkable of these witnesses to Cyprian’s writings. Very unusually it is written with four columns to a page, with thirty-three lines in each column. The margins are large, indicating that this is a luxury production, and the biblical quotations are not only indented but written in red ink throughout (as shown in the two right-hand columns of Figure 3; the red ink is much better preserved than the normal black/brown ink). The addressee of the letter is written as the running title at the top of the page, demonstrating that this was a collection: this is also the case in the pages of the Turin, Milan, and Vatican manuscript, where the first four lines of each letter are written in red. The standard abbreviations are employed for Jesus and Christus (as in the far righthand column in Figure 3). The catalogue entry on the British Library website suggests that this codex may even have been copied in Carthage, perhaps as part of an official collection of Cyprian’s works: it could have been brought to England by Theodore of Tarsus and Hadrian in the seventh century.66 It served as the exemplar for all English copies of Cyprian from the eighth century onwards but was dismembered and reused in the twelfth century for the binding of a manuscript of biblical commentaries. Manuscripts of Augustine – St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Lat. Q.v.I.3. Parchment codex of Libri II ad interrogata Simplicii, Contra epistulam Manichaei quam vocant Fundamenti, De agone christiano, and De doctrina christiana (1–2) copied between 396 and 426. [CLA XI 1613]

64 Like Codex Bobiensis and Codex Palatinus, the fragments of the epistles in Turin, Milan, and the Vatican have the letter forms crossing below the ruling lines, a symptom Lowe believed was African. (See the section “Biblical Manuscripts” above.) 65 On the differing treatment of quotations in early Latin manuscripts, see P. McGurk, “Citation Marks in Early Latin Manuscripts,” Scriptorium 15 (1961): 3–13; and H. A. G. Houghton, “The Layout of Early Latin Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles and Their Oldest Manuscripts,” StPatr 91 (2017): 71–112. 66 http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref-Add_MS_40165_A (last consulted September 21, 2017).

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Figure 3: Cyprian, Epistula 74, probably copied in Africa in the fourth century. (London, British Library MS Add. 40165A, fol. 2r. © British Library Board [Add. MS 40165A f2r]; reproduced by kind permission.)

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– Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare XXVIII (26). Parchment codex of De civitate Dei 11–16, copied between 421 and 450. [CLA IV 491] – Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana M. 77 Sup. Fragment of De doctrina christiana written on parchment in the latter part of the sixth century. [CLA III 356] – San Lorenzo, El Escorial s.n. Parchment codex of De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum, copied in the early-seventh century. [CLA XI 1629] The St. Petersburg manuscript of Augustine is possibly one of the most extraordinary manuscripts from antiquity. Containing the two books of Augustine’s response to Simplicianus, the shorter works Contra epistulam Manichaei quam vocant Fundamenti and De agone christiano, and the first two books of Doctr. chr., William M. Green suggested that this codex was produced at Hippo during Augustine’s lifetime. Each of the items it contains was written between 395 and the end of 396, and Green proposed that the volume was planned as a presentation copy for Simplicianus of Milan, the addressee of the first work, while also including a handful of other contemporary writings for his interest, as Augustine describes in letters to his other correspondents.67 This identification has been accepted and is chronologically consistent with the paleography of the manuscript. Among the features that support this early date are the description of Augustine as “a bishop of the catholic church” in the subscriptions, and the conclusion of Doctr. chr. at the end of book 2: books 3–4 were not completed until 426 or 427, and, as can be seen in Figure 4, a later hand has qualified the closing title by adding secundus after liber.68 The suggestion that Augustine himself wrote some of the annotations is harder to maintain, as the corrections are generally from a much later period: there is also a colophon by “Augustinus” on the final page, whose authenticity continues to be contested.69 Two scribes worked on the manuscript: the first 137 pages are copied in an uncial script with African features, while in the final sixteen pages the uncial has more of an Italian influence. The text is written in two columns of twenty-eight lines. Some pages have an outsized capital as the first letter of each column, as described above, although this is not consistent; new paragraphs are sometimes marked with ekthesis. Red ink is used in the titles at the beginning and end of each item. There are very few abbreviations apart from the nomina sacra, in which the earlier form dms is used for Dominus, although it may be noted that some of the

67 W. M. Green, “A Fourth Century Manuscript of Saint Augustine?,” RBén 69 (1959): 191–97; see also K. B. Steinhauser, “From Russia with Love: Deciphering Augustine’s Code,” JECS 22.1 (2014): 1–20 (with illustrations). 68 In addition, the text of Doctr. chr. in this manuscript is the only witness to an earlier, unrevised version. For more on Doctr. chr., see the contribution by Toom to the present volume. 69 See Steinhauser, “From Russia with Love,” 18–19; it may be seen faintly at the bottom of the right hand page in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Conclusion of De doctrina christiana, book 2, in a manuscript produced at Hippo between 396 and 426. (St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Lat. Q.v.I.3, foll. 151v–152r. © National Library of Russia; reproduced by kind permission.)

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nomina sacra are written without abbreviation. The African scribe sometimes uses indentation for biblical citations, as in the British Library leaves of Cyprian, but this is not found in the latter part of the codex. The Verona manuscript of part of De civitate Dei is another substantial codex possibly copied during Augustine’s lifetime. Lowe initially located it “doubtless in Italy,” but had changed his mind when compiling his list of North African manuscripts.70 There are 253 folios, written in a single column of thirty lines. Each column begins with an outsized capital, and sense breaks are marked with spaces. Nomina sacra are present, along with a few standard abbreviations. The manuscript was in Verona by the eighth century. The other two manuscripts of Augustine, both produced a century or more later, do not feature in Lowe’s list. The two-page Milan fragment of book 2 of Doct. chr. is written not in uncial but half-uncial, a style of writing that seems to have been known in medieval times as “African script” (litterae africanae; compare Figure 5 and 6 below).71 It is written in a single column of thirty-one lines, with the letters projecting slightly below the ruling lines: Lowe locates it “presumably in Italy or possibly in Africa.”72 This manuscript appears to have been part of a multiple volume set of Doctr. chr., which was once in the library of Bobbio: a page from a contemporary uncial copy of book 3 of a similar size and annotated by the same hand is also preserved in a Milan binding.73 The Escorial copy of De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum is a codex of 172 pages, written in one column of twenty-six lines. Lowe suggests that it may have come from the same place as a fragment of Eutropius with which it is bound (see subsection “Manuscripts of Other Christian Writers” below): initially assigned to Africa or Spain, he includes the latter as a questionable member of his list of North African manuscripts which means that, by extension, the De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum could fall into this category, although it seems unlikely. From the sixteenth century onwards, this codex was erroneously believed to have been written by Augustine himself, presumably because of its uncial script. Manuscripts of Other Christian Writers – St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 213. Palimpsest pages from a fifth-century parchment codex of Lactantius, Divinae institutiones. [CLA VII 923]

70 Lowe, CLA IV 491; contrast CLA Suppl. ix. 71 See the passage from B. Bischoff, Mittelalterliche Studien (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1966), 1:2, quoted in Lowe, CLA Suppl. viii. 72 Lowe, CLA III 356. For the projection of the letters, compare Codex Palatinus above and the San Lorenzo Eutropius below. 73 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana G 58 sup. foll. 74–75, which Lowe, CLA III 343, locates “most probably in Italy.”

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– Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria 701, foll. 153–189. Part of a parchment codex of Lactantius, Divinae institutiones, copied in the latter half of the fifth century. [CLA III 280] – San Lorenzo, El Escorial s.n. Four parchment leaves with Eutropius, De vera circumcisione, copied in the fifth or sixth century. [CLA XI 1628a] – Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale 192 (169), foll. 4–6. Fragments of Optatus, Contra Donatistas, from the end of the sixth century. [CLA VI 806] – Basilican Hilary. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro D.182. Parchment codex with several works of Hilary of Poitiers, copied in 501–508. [CLA I 1a–b] The St. Gall palimpsest of Lactantius has the best claim of this group of manuscripts to have been written in North Africa. Some seventy-seven pages of the codex were palimpsested in the eighth century, probably at St. Gall itself. The script of the undertext is early uncial from the beginning of the fifth century, written in a single column with thirty-one lines per page. Most pages begin with an outsized initial letter, typical of early books. There are few abbreviations: nomina sacra are generally used, although some of the reflexes of Deus are written in full. Sense breaks are marked by spaces. Lowe initially assigned the manuscript to Italy but later became confident of its African origin.74 The Bologna Lactantius, Eutropius, and Optatus manuscripts are included in italics in Lowe’s list of North African manuscripts, indicating that their place of production is doubtful. The Lactantius leaves are written in an excellent uncial from a calligraphic center, which Lowe first located “doubtless in North or Central Italy.”75 The layout consists of two columns of thirty-three lines; paragraphs are marked by ekthesis and quotations are indented. Red ink is used in the colophon at the end of the book. There are extensive marginalia in cursive script from users between the fifth and seventh centuries. The four leaves of Eutropius (sometimes described as Pseudo-Jerome) are written in a less accomplished uncial, in a single column with twenty-six lines. As noted above, they have long been bound with a later copy of Augustine’s De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum and could have been produced in Spain or Africa. The letters project slightly below the ruling lines, which Lowe considered an African feature.76 The Optatus fragment is written in half-uncial, in a single column of twenty-nine lines. The manuscript was at Fleury, and Lowe notes resemblances with African and Spanish half-uncial. The Basilican Hilary (Figure 5) is an interloper in Lowe’s list, as its time and place of production can be fairly confidently established: a scriptorium corrector of

74 Lowe, CLA VII 923; contrast CLA Suppl. ix. 75 Lowe, CLA III 280; contrast CLA Suppl. ix. 76 Compare Codex Palatinus and the Milan fragment of Doctr. chr. described above, although the provenance of both is questionable.

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Figure 5: Part of the half-uncial portion of the Basilican Hilary, produced by African copyists in Cagliari around 509 CE. (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro D.182, fol. 24r. © 2018 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Reproduced by permission of Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved.)

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the manuscript noted on fol. 288r that he had completed his work at Cagliari in the fourteenth year of the Vandal king Thrasamund (i.e., 509–510 CE). Cagliari, in Sardinia, was the place where Thrasamund banished Fulgentius of Ruspe and numerous other anti-Arian African bishops at the beginning of the sixth century. The manuscript has therefore been considered the work of African copyists in exile. The majority is written in half-uncial, a script associated with Africa (see subsection “Manuscripts of Augustine” above); the last twenty-four pages are in uncial. Both parts of the manuscript consist of a single column with thirty lines; paragraphs are marked by ekthesis, and other sense breaks are sometimes indicated by spaces. The titles and first line of each work are written in red ink. Abbreviations are relatively few: the standard nomina sacra are supplemented by isrl for the noun Israel, which later became common. Other Manuscripts – P. Ryl. Gr. 3 472. Manchester, John Rylands Library, Gr. 472. Liturgical fragment copied on papyrus in the fourth century. [CLA Suppl. 1720] – Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, L.87. Fragment of an unknown text copied on parchment in the fourth or fifth century. [CLA X 1530] – Codex Thevestinus. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouv. acq. lat. 1114. Fifth- or sixth-century parchment fragment of a treatise on the Manichaeans. [CLA V 680] The first two of these items are single-page fragments of unidentified works. The Rylands Papyrus (Figure 6) is written in an early form of half-uncial and is not included in Lowe’s list even though he observes African features in the script and a similar size and layout to Codex Bobiensis. It is a liturgical fragment, translated from Greek, in a single column. There are no abbreviations, despite the presence of the words sanctum and Dominus, which would normally be treated as nomina sacra. The Vienna fragment is much smaller, consisting of around five words on each side. Although found in Egypt, Lowe is uncertain of its place of production. The script is uncial, with African features, and there is ekthesis, but it is not clear whether or not the text is Christian. Codex Thevestinus, as the name indicates, was found in a cave near Tebessa in Algeria in 1918. It consists of portions of twenty-six folios in a small half-uncial script, with two columns of over thirty lines per page. The contents are a treatise on the Manicheans. A few standard abbreviations are used, along with regular nomina sacra (dni for Domini, do for Deo, xpi for Christi). Sense breaks are marked by spaces, as well as ekthesis (sometimes with an outsized capital) at the beginning of sections.

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Figure 6: A Latin liturgical text copied on papyrus in the fourth century. (Manchester, John Rylands Library, Greek P 472 [P. Ryl. gr. 472] recto. © The University of Manchester; reproduced by permission.)

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Christian Book Culture in Roman North Africa Despite only constituting a tiny proportion of surviving Latin manuscripts, the examples of possible North African productions considered in the previous section suggest that there was extensive scribal activity, sometimes at a very accomplished level, in this region from the third to the sixth centuries.77 This is confirmed by the indications of editorial involvement described in the section “African Editions of the Bible” above, as well as numerous observations by authors writing during this period. While the initial use of Latin in Christian contexts is likely to have been oral, by the early-third century, this was accompanied by a vibrant book culture that went on to rival that of Italy.78 Possibly the earliest Latin reference to Christian writings in Africa is in the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, an account of court proceedings involving a group of Christians in the year 180 CE. They had brought with them a box (capsa), which contained “books and letters of Paul, a righteous man.”79 At the time of (or, at least, soon after) this trial, each church possessed its own collection of books, which were normally the responsibility of those who were appointed to the office of reader (lector). This role is first attested in Latin by Tertullian and was widespread by the middle of the third century.80 An account of the confiscation of church property as part of the Diocletianic persecution in 303 CE in Cirta, the capital of Roman Numidia, is preserved in the Gesta apud Zenophilum. A number of items in gold, silver, and brass, as well as clothing, were taken from the Christian meeting place itself, but only “one very large codex.”81 The search then continued around the houses of the six lectors, who each handed over between four and eight manuscripts, giving a total of thirty-two codices and four unbound fascicles. Another indication of each church’s possession of its own biblical codices is given in extant sermons that Augustine delivered outside Hippo, where the variations in the affiliation of the scriptural text indicate that he relied on the local copies of Scripture used for the liturgical lections when preaching.82 In addition, when describing the

77 A total of 1,811 manuscripts are featured in CLA, so the twenty-two manuscripts from Christian North Africa before the ninth century (a figure that does not include the tenth-century lectionary fragments from Sinai) make up just over 1% of the total. 78 In CLA Suppl. viii, Lowe observes that “by the year 509/510, African calligraphy had reached a very high level of development, in fact a level not yet attained in the mother land [i.e., Italy].” 79 Act. sanct. Scill. 12 (H. Musurillo, ed. and trans., The Acts of the Christian Marytyrs, OECT [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972], 88): “Libri et epistulae Pauli, viri justi.” For more on the account and its significance, see the introductory chapter to the present volume by Yates, Dupont, and Riggs. For more on acta in general, see the contribution by Riggs to the present volume. 80 See Gamble, Books and Readers, 218. 81 CSEL 26:186–88: “codicem unum pernimium majorem.” 82 See Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John, 36–37, 120–35.

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variety of New Testament manuscripts, he suggests that certain churches were known for the quality of their scriptural texts.83 The abundance of books in the North African church in the latter part of the fourth century is vividly described by Optatus of Milevis: The libraries are stuffed with books; the church lacks nothing; throughout each locality the sacred message resounds everywhere; the mouths of the readers are not silent; the hands of all are full of manuscripts; nothing is lacking for the crowds who wish to be instructed.84

While there may be an element of exaggeration in this rhetorical claim, it nevertheless illustrates the book culture of North African Christianity despite relatively low levels of literacy in the population as a whole. Appeals to the congregation to read the Bible at home are made by preachers in both Greek- and Latin-speaking churches during the first Christian centuries: Origen proposed a gradated sequence of books, increasing in difficulty, while John Chrysostom preached a whole sermon on the private reading of Scripture.85 There was also interest in patristic writings. Preaching in Carthage around the end of the fourth century, Augustine observed that many people owned copies of the works of Cyprian: the stichometric list in the Cheltenham Canon described in the section “African Editions of the Bible” above suggests that these writings could be obtained on the open market.86 At Hippo, Augustine’s own library formed the basis of the church’s collection, comprising a large number of biblical, patristic, and classical texts; it is likely that other collections were formed and augmented in a similar way. The initial production of manuscripts of Cyprian’s writings is likely to have centered on the church in Carthage. The bishop himself kept copies of his own correspondence, as was customary, but also assembled and circulated collections of his own letters. Shortly after his death, his biographer, Pontius, included a full list of all Cyprian’s works that seems to reproduce an official sequence deriving from a complete published edition.87 The many references to scribal activity in his letters indicate that Cyprian had a team of copyists at his disposal. Exactly the same

83 Doctr. chr. 2.15.22 (CCSL 32:48): “et maxime qui apud ecclesias doctiores et diligentiores reperiuntur” (“and especially those which are found in more learned and responsible churches”; trans. is my own.). 84 Optatus, Contra Donatistas 7.1 (M. Labrousse, ed. and trans., Traité contre les Donatistes, SC 413 [Paris: Cerf, 1996], 200, trans. is my own): “Bibliothecae refertae sunt libris; nihil deest ecclesiae; per loca singula divinum sonat ubique praeconium; non silent ora lectorum; manus omnium codicibus plenae sunt; nihil deest populis doceri cupientibus.” For more on Optatus, see the contribution by Bass to the present volume. 85 Origen, Homiliae in Numeros 27.1; Chrysostom, In principium Actorum. See further Gamble, Texts and Readers, 231–33. 86 Serm. 313C.2 (G. Morin, Miscellanea Agostiniana, 1:531): “Multi usquequaque habent magnum corpus librorum ejus” (“Many people all around have the great body of his writings.”). 87 See Gamble, Books and Readers, 128–30, with references.

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situation pertains in the case of Augustine, a century and a half later: his list of his own writings in his Retractationes was taken over by his biographer Possidius, whose Indiculum indicated that a fair copy of each work (including Augustine’s letters) formed part of the collection of the church in Hippo.88 In Ep. 169, Augustine invites Evodius to send a scribe to Hippo to make copies of his most recent works, while other letters chart Augustine’s own attempts to procure books from both near and far: writing from Bethlehem, Jerome complains that the lack of Latin copyists in the region prohibits him from supplying Augustine with a copy of his translation of the Septuagint.89 The standard model of publication in antiquity seems to have been for authors to deposit copies with key individuals who could arrange for copies to be made on demand, over and above the level of production associated with the authors themselves. The unauthorized diffusion of some of Augustine’s writings, most famously the incomplete manuscript of De Trinitate, shows that there was a ready market for books in addition to formal procedures of publication.90 Tertullian had also experienced this with regard to a revised edition of his Adversus Marcionem, as he describes in the introduction to his third and final edition: I lost this too while it was not yet supplied with copies, through the deception of a fellow Christian, later an apostate, who happened to have copied some parts very badly and released them to the public.91

Comments both by Tertullian and in the sermons of Augustine indicate that copies of biblical books were available to non-believers as well as members of the church: it is worth recalling that Firmus, to whom Augustine gives detailed instructions about the copying of De civitate Dei, was a catechumen in Carthage.92 Sermons and debates, usually held in churches, were popular events that usually attracted large numbers of people. The Roman legal system in the province of North Africa meant that there was no shortage of trained secretaries and stenographers who could also be employed for ecclesiastical purposes. Possidius, in his biography of Augustine, described how “the heretics themselves, too, would gather with the catholics, matching their great zeal: whoever desired and could afford it

88 See Gamble, Books and Readers, 138, 165–68. 89 Jerome, Ep. 134.2 (CSEL 56/1:263 = Augustine, Ep. 172.2). See also Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John, 24–26. 90 This episode is described in the prologue to Augustine, De Trinitate (CCSL 50:25–26) and Retract. 2.15.1 (CCSL 57:101); see also Gamble, Books and Readers, 133–34. 91 Marc. 1.1 (CCSL 1:441): “Hanc quoque nondum exemplariis suffectam fraude tunc fratris, dehinc apostatae, amisi, qui forte descripserat quaedam mendosissime et exhibuit frequentiae.” Trans. is my own. 92 Some of these are quoted in Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John, 23–24; on Firmus, see Gamble, Books and Readers, 134–35.

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engaged secretaries to take down a record of what was being said.”93 Shorthand copies of Augustine’s homiletic compositions (including some that became part of his Enarrationes in Psalmos, In Evangelium Johannis tractatus, and Sermones ad populum collections) appear to have formed the basis for the published versions. That some of these were barely (if at all) revised by the author prior to their circulation is made clear from incidental details, such as complaints about talking in the congregation or a reminder to attend hymn practice the following week.94 Augustine’s public discussions with Felix the Manichaean and Maximinus the Arian were taken down by a stenographer (exceptor), and both parties signed the minutes at the end: during the debate with Maximinus, when Augustine queried the exact words of his opponent, the secretary (notarius) went back over the transcript and read the passage aloud.95 One of the most famous debates during Augustine’s episcopate was the Conference of Carthage between Catholics and Donatists in 411 CE. Each side brought a team of six secretaries to create a record of the discussions upon which both sides could agree. The interlocutors were supposed to sign next to their own words in the official copies to acknowledge their contributions, but the bishops complained that they were unable to read the shorthand of the minutes. Each day of debate was therefore intercalated with a rest day during which the transcripts were written up in longhand that each side compared against their records.96 Augustine used these to produce his own summary of each of the three days of the debate, the Breviculus collationis cum Donatistis, which could both be used as a numbered key to the full proceedings and easily copied and disseminated, thus capitalizing on the public interest. Books were not just used for reading. The presence of biblical texts on amulets has already been mentioned, even though there are few surviving Latin examples.97 Augustine even suggests that placing a copy of the gospel on the head was a possible cure for a headache and, at any rate, preferable to pagan incantations.98 Biblical verses were sometimes found on seals for storage jars and wine amphorae, invoking divine protection of the contents: one such example with a Christian monogram

93 Possidius, Vita Augustini 7.3 (H. T. Weiskotten, ed., Sancti Augustini Vita Scripta a Possidio Episcopo [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1919], 54; trans. is my own): “Ipsi quoque haeretici concurrentes, cum catholicis ingenti ardore audiebant, et quisquis, ut voluit, et potuit, notarios adhibentes, ea quae dicebantur excepta describentes.” 94 Serm. 23.8 (CCSL 41:313–14), 272B (augm.).9 (REAug 44 [1998]: 202); see further R. J. Deferrari, “St. Augustine’s Method of Composing and Delivering Sermons,” AJP 43 (1922): 97–123, 193–219; as well as Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John, 29–36. 95 Augustine, Collatio cum Maximino Arianorum episcopo 10 (PL 42:713). 96 S. Lancel, ed. and trans., Actes de la conférence de Carthage en 411, SC 194–195 (Paris: Cerf, 1972), 224. 97 See the “Introduction” and n. 5 above, esp. the details about the papyrus amulet containing the Latin text of the Lord’s Prayer (CLA X 1533) and Gamble, Books and Readers, 238. 98 Augustine, In Evangelium Johannis tractatus 7.12 (CCSL 36:89–90).

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and quotation from Song 2:1 was brought to light in an excavation in Carthage, showing that this practice also occurred in North Africa.99 Biblical books were also used for divination. One practice was to open a page at random, seeking an answer to a specific question and believing that it was somehow addressed in the first words that came to the reader’s attention. Augustine’s description of his own conversion, when he took up a copy of Romans and read the command to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” may be an example of this.100 Another system was known as sortes (hermēneiai in Greek): generic statements such as “an unexpected event will happen,” “if you lie they will condemn you” or “the matter is complete” were written in the margin of the page and would supply an answer to a question when opened at random.101 It is possible that each of the sortes was loosely connected to a particular word in the biblical text, as the series is normally found in manuscripts of the Gospel according to John. The sortes appear in a few early Latin gospel manuscripts, including the fifth-century bilingual Codex Bezae (VL 5) and the ninth-century Codex Sangermanensis (VL 7; probably copied from a fifth-century exemplar), as well as Greek sources. Nevertheless, the practice was not approved by Augustine, who explicitly criticizes “those who draw lots from the pages of the Gospel.”102 The presence of Latin biblical quotations on North African tombstones, which also provide evidence for the style of uncial script practiced in the region, has already been mentioned in the section “Sources for the African Biblical Text” above. The ongoing activity of Latin writers in North Africa in the fifth and sixth centuries shows that the region continued to occupy an important place in Christian literary culture. Quodvultdeus and Fulgentius of Ruspe both spent extended periods of time away from Africa because of the turbulent political situation but were nonetheless formed in the province. The standing of Vigilius, Bishop of Thapsus at the end of the fifth century, was such that two substantial works were pseudonymously attributed to him: a composite work on the Trinity in twelve books and the threevolume Contra Varimadum, both of which feature quotations of an African version of the biblical text. In the following century, Primasius of Hadrumetum produced a commentary on Revelation that included among its sources Tyconius’s lost commentary and Jerome’s version of Victorinus of Poetovio. Primasius’s contemporary Cassiodorus, in a catalogue of Christian commentaries, instructed monks at his monastery in southern Italy that it was necessary to send an emissary to Africa to acquire certain books, such as Peter of Tripoli’s extracts on the Pauline Epistles

99 F. J. Dölger, “Heidnische und christliche Brotstempel mit religiösen Zeichen?,” Antike und Christentum 1 (1929): 1–46, esp. 20–21. 100 Augustine, Confessiones 8.12.29 (CCSL 27:131). 101 See J. R. Harris, The Annotators of the Codex Bezae (With Some Notes on Sortes Sanctorum) (London: Clay, 1901). 102 Augustine, Ep. 55.20 (CSEL 34/2:212): “hi vero qui de paginis evangelicis sortes legunt”; see further Gamble, Books and Readers, 239–40.

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from the works of Augustine.103 The connection of Africa with Spain is shown in the story of a certain Donatus, recorded by Ildefonsus of Toledo, who crossed over by boat “with almost seventy monks and numerous manuscripts of books” and established a monastic order at the monastery of Servitan near Valencia in the middle of the sixth century.104

Conclusion Roman North Africa thus played a key role in the development of Latin Christianity, its literary culture, and its language. The province’s coastal location, combined with efficient imperial administrative and trade routes, meant that it was in constant contact with nearby Italy, in particular, as well as other centers around the Mediterranean. Africans occupied important positions in church life in Rome from the end of the second century, and influential ecclesiastical figures from Africa as well as their associates (including copyists) spent extended periods in Italy. This often makes it difficult to identify distinctively African characteristics, as is shown by the dispersal of Latin manuscripts that may have been copied in Christian North Africa. In addition, African innovations, including in all probability developments such as half-uncial script and the translation of the Bible into Latin, spread quickly around the empire where they enjoyed a long afterlife and became firmly integrated into Western culture more generally. Nevertheless, the literary record – including the sermons and writings of some of the most significant theologians in early Christianity – testifies to the vibrant book culture in the region. Churches were well supplied with a variety of manuscripts, especially biblical ones; there was extensive editorial and scribal activity; and a ready market for both Christians and non-Christians to acquire books. While only a small fraction of this may be reflected in the surviving evidence, it still provides fascinating insights into the early Latin church and its books.

For Further Reading Primary Sources Cipolla, Carlo. Il codice evangelico k della Biblioteca Universitaria Nazionale di Torino. Turin: Molfese, 1913.

103 Cassiodorus, Institutiones 1.8.9 (R. A. B. Mynors [Oxford: Clarendon, 1961], 30): “Qui vobis inter alios codices divina gratia suffragante de Africana parte mittendus est” (“This work, along with other manuscripts, has to be sent from the region of Africa, by the grace of God.”). 104 Ildefonsus of Toledo, De viris illustribus 4 (PL 96:200): “Ferme cum septuaginta monachis copiosisque librorum codicibus navali vehiculo in Hispaniam commeavit.” Trans. is my own.

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Edwards, Mark, trans. Optatus: Against the Donatists. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998. Evans, Ernest, ed. and trans. Tertullian: Adversus Marcionem. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972. Green, R. P. H., ed. and trans. Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana. OECT. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995. Simonetti, Manlio, and Claudio Moreschini. Cypriani Carthaginensi Opera II. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 3A. Turnhout: Brepols, 1976. Vetus Latina. Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel. Freiburg: Herder, 1949–. Wallis, Robert Ernest, trans. The Writings of Cyprian. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1868–1869. Weber, Robert, and Maurice Bévenot. Cypriani Carthaginensi Opera I. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 1972.

Secondary Sources Bogaert, Pierre-Maurice. “The Latin Bible.” In From the Beginnings to 600, edited by James Carleton Paget and Joachim Schaper, 505–26. Vol. 1, The New Cambridge History of the Bible. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Burton, Philip H. The Old Latin Gospels: A Study of their Texts and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Capelle, Paul. Le texte du psautier latin en Afrique. Collectanea Biblica Latina 4. Rome: Pustet, 1913. Ehrman, Bart D., and Michael W. Holmes, eds. The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis. 2nd ed. New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents 42. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Fontaine, Jacques, and Charles Pietri, eds. Le monde latin antique et la Bible. Bible de tous les temps 2. Paris: Beauchesne, 1985. Gamble, Harry Y. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Houghton, H. A. G. The Latin New Testament: A Guide to its Early History, Texts and Manuscripts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. La Bonnardière, Anne-Marie, ed. Saint Augustin et la Bible. Bible de tous les temps 3. Paris: Beauchesne, 1986.

David L. Riggs

2 Scripture in the Martyr Acta et Passiones Introduction The theology of Christ’s passion holds a central place in what ranks today as the most influential religion in the world. The cross is also a persistent reminder, of course, that Christianity emerged into the ancient Mediterranean as a religious movement whose divine patron had died the tortuous death of a criminal at the hands of the Roman state. When the Roman historian Tacitus offered one of the earliest external testimonies to the new faith, he highlighted the fact that members of this “pernicious superstition” took their name from a man “who was executed during the rule of Tiberius.”1 That Christians embraced Jesus’s crucifixion by Roman authorities as integral to their belief in a heavenly vision of salvation contributed in no small part to the movement’s reputation as anti-social. Accordingly, early Christians could find themselves likewise in the cross hairs of imperial authority. To be clear, historians have long established that persecution was not an everpresent reality for the early church. Aside from short-lived imperial actions under the emperors Decius (250–251 CE), Valerian (257–258 CE), and the Tetrarchs (303–307 CE), the Roman state made no sustained effort to persecute Christians throughout the empire. During most of Christianity’s early history, persecutions were infrequent, local, and privately initiated phenomena.2 Nevertheless, the threat of persecution – whether real or self-perceived – preoccupied Christians; and instances that did occur profoundly affected the life and memory of local communities of believers. Indeed, commemorating the suffering and fate of their “martyrs” became one of the most important ways churches reinforced their communal identities and inspired zeal for the faith. The historical record shows that, by the latter half of the second century (at the latest), this commitment to commemoration sometimes included the composition of hagiographical accounts intended to interpret and publicize the exploits of Christian martyrs and integrate them into local liturgies.3

1 Tacitus, Annals 15.44 (J. Jackson, LCL 322:283–85). 2 For North Africa, see P. Burns and R. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of Its Practices and Beliefs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 6–26. 3 For a recent overview of early Christian martyr acts, see C. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012). Note: I am grateful to Phillip Quinn for his enthusiastic assistance with the research for this essay. *David L. Riggs, Indiana Wesleyan University, Marion, Indiana, USA https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-003

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Patristic scholars and ancient historians have long ranked these martyr acta et passiones among the most intriguing and controversial of ancient Christian sources. Evolving redactional histories and the proliferation of fictitious hagiography in the waning centuries of antiquity bequeathed to posterity a very complex and unwieldy assortment of martyrdom accounts. Historians owe an enduring debt to the seventeenth-century Jesuit Jean Bolland, who established the critical study of hagiography, and to his “Bollandist” successors, who, over the centuries, have devoted tireless attention to developing methodological foundations and critical compilations of martyr acts.4 Their work has provided the impetus for a burgeoning scholarship on early Christian hagiography that has become increasingly attentive to manuscript traditions, dating of compositions, redactional layers, and historical contexts. Such efforts have often suffered from unreflective notions of historical “authenticity,” but, ultimately, the fruit of this labor has yielded some relatively dependable collections of early Christian martyr narratives. This progress in critical hagiography has benefitted students of North African Christianity in particular. In his recent assessment of “hagiographical documents from the period 150–313 CE,” Timothy Barnes includes ten texts from North Africa among the nineteen documents that scholarly consensus has deemed “authentic and/or contemporary either wholly or in significant part.”5 In recent decades, the “cultural turn” in late antique studies has likewise enriched the study of early Christian hagiography by focusing scholarly attention on how these compositions functioned rhetorically within local communities. By exploring their discursive representations of matters such as identity, agency, and power, such work has breathed fresh life into the study of martyrdom accounts. The attempts to situate these texts within the patterns of socio-religious discourses that shaped early Christian congregations have helped to redefine and broaden questions of historical significance.6 In spite of the importance of intertextuality in these

4 T. D. Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography and Roman History, Tria Corda 5 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 285–300. 5 Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography, 343–59. These ten are: Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs (Acta Martyrum Scillitanorum), Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas (Passio Perpetua et Felicitatis), Acts of Cyprian (Acta Cypriani), Life of Cyprian (Vita Cypriani), Passion of Marian and James (Passio sanctorum Mariani et Iacobi), Passion of Montanus and Lucius (Passio Montani et Lucii), Acts of Marcellus (Acta Marcelli), Acts of Felix (Acta Felicis), Acts of Gallonius (Acta Gallonii), and Acts of Crispina (Acta Crispinae). English translations for all these texts, apart from Life of Cyprian (see n. 78 infra) and Acts of Gallonius, are available in H. Musurillo, ed., The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, OECT (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972). A translation of Acts of Gallonius has yet to be published in English. For a French translation, see S. Lancel, “Actes de Gallonius: texte critique, traduction et notes,” REAug 52.2 (2006): 243–59. 6 For examples of this approach, see E. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004) and S. Cobb, Dying to Be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).

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efforts, this vein of scholarship has thus far failed to increase interest in the reception and interpretation of scripture in early Christian hagiography. Unfortunately, aside from a few notable exceptions reviewed below, analyses of biblical themes and exegesis within early Christian martyr Acts and Passions remain surprisingly rare. Scholars no doubt are aware of the fundamental role scripture played in shaping the imaginations of those who composed and utilized these compositions; but scholarship on the literature of early Christian martyrdom has only devoted cursory attention to scriptural intertextuality.7 The most significant study of the Bible’s role in early Christian hagiography remains Victor Saxer’s 1986 work, Bible et Hagiographie.8 Noting the need to broaden investigation beyond the obvious citations identified in critical editions, Saxer searches for scriptural influences within an eclectic grouping of twelve Greek and Latin martyrdom texts from various parts of the empire, which range in date from the second century through the “Great Persecution.”9 Based on his analysis, he observes five prominent biblically inspired themes: (1) martyrdom as faithful witness to the truth of the gospel; (2) martyrdom as a confession of faith and critique of traditional cults; (3) martyrdom as a combat against the devil; (4) martyrdom as mystical communion with God; (5) martyrdom as eschatological triumph.10 While Saxer succeeds in demonstrating the profound influence of biblical allusions and rhetoric on early Christian hagiography, his wide-ranging aspirations and diverse group of texts preclude any in-depth examination of the scriptural complexion of particular narratives – including the three African accounts he includes (Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs [Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum], Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas [Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis], and Acts of Cyprian [Acta Cypriani]). Another noteworthy study of biblical reception in early Martyr Acts is Candida Moss’s 2010 analysis of the scriptural intertextuality underlying characterizations of martyrs as imitators of Christ’s passion.11 Moss is particularly interested in what this intertextuality reveals about the earliest interpretations of the gospels and the diverse ways such hermeneutics shaped Christological depictions of martyrs and their mimetic suffering. Like Saxer, she employs a variety of Greek and Latin texts from throughout the pre-Constantinian Empire, drawing on a total of thirty-four

7 C. Moss, The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 5. 8 V. Saxer, Bible et Hagiographie: Textes et thèmes bibliques dans les Actes des martyrs authentiques des premiers siècles (Bern: Lang, 1986). For an English summary of his book’s conclusions, see V. Saxer, “The Influence of the Bible in Early Christian Martyrology,” in The Bible in Greek Christian Antiquity, ed. P. M. Blowers (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 1997): 342–74. 9 Saxer, Bible et Hagiographie, 11–14. 10 Saxer, Bible et Hagiographie, 195–246. 11 Moss, Other Christs.

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texts to construct her arguments.12 Although Moss’s penetrating line of inquiry yields tremendous interpretive light and many persuasive conclusions, the sweeping nature of her investigation often prevents her from doing justice to the depth and complexities of biblical influences that pervade her texts. This is especially true for African works, such as Pass. Perp. Fel. and Passion of Marian and James, both of which require careful attention to how the vocabulary, metaphors, and exegesis of Latin Scripture in particular have shaped narratives, sometimes in very subtle ways. Studies devoted exclusively to scriptural reception in North Africa’s early Christian hagiography are especially rare. As part of her pioneering work on the biblically constructed “world” of Donatist North Africa, the late Maureen Tilley focused attention on various African martyr acts.13 It is also worth mentioning Heffernan’s splendid commentary on the Pass. Perp. Fel., which identifies and comments briefly on many – if not all – of this influential text’s scriptural citations and allusions.14 His work does not constitute a sustained analysis, but his identifications and remarks provide helpful touchstones for those interested in undertaking such work. Ultimately, however, the role of the Bible in North African martyr acts remains a sorely neglected area of scholarship. To encourage scholarly interest in this under-developed area of study, this chapter will highlight the importance of biblical intertextuality for understanding the formative logic at play in North Africa’s earliest Christian hagiography. It will be necessary to limit the scope of the analysis in two ways. The chapter’s sustained attention will be limited to two representative texts: Pass. Perp. Fel. and Life of Cyprian [Vita Cypriani]. This inquiry will also be limited to the influence of scriptural narrations of grace and divine patronage on these African martyrdom accounts. As will become clear, this biblical theme pervades and dictates the plot and logic of these early hagiographical works. Yet, because it often does so through subtle applications of biblical exegesis, vocabulary, concepts, and intertextuality, it can easily escape the notice of readers – whether ancient or modern – who are not familiar with early Latin versions of Scripture. By devoting careful attention to how authors’ Latin Bibles shaped their imaginations and inspired peculiar, countercultural conceptions of persecution and martyrdom, the chapter will demonstrate how these texts are persistently preoccupied with divine patronage, a prominent feature that scholars have heretofore almost entirely

12 Moss, Other Christs, 177–202, provides an appendix with basic information and bibliography for each of the thirty-four texts. 13 M. Tilley, “Scripture as an Element of Social Control: Two Martyr Stories of Christian North Africa,” HTR 83.4 (1990): 383–97; see also M. Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997): 41–50, 53–76. 14 T. Heffernan, ed. and trans., The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012): 136–368.

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overlooked.15 Ultimately, this line of inquiry will reveal that these African Christians conceived of martyrdom as much more than merely an imitation of Christ or a cosmic struggle with Satan. Rather, they understood martyrdom through the lens of a robust biblical theology of grace in which the martyrs’ suffering represented both a deifying gift that God bestowed on them to empower tangible participation in the heavenly realities of Christ’s resurrected humanity and a faithful response of gratitude for this extraordinary divine favor. In order to set the stage for the present analysis, it will be helpful to review briefly what most Africans took for granted when it came to matters of power and patronage. Modern scholars view ancient Christianity from a vantage point in which much of the biblical vocabulary and theological concepts that were so innovative and disorienting within Greco-Roman milieux have instead become domesticated and hollow. In order to recover the potent countercultural logic and semantic richness of the scriptural imagination that pervades our hagiographical texts, it is necessary first to rehearse a little of the context within which they emerged.

Power and Patronage in Roman Africa When the inhabitants of Roman Africa conceived of power, their relationship to it, and its intersection with their daily needs and concerns, they generally did so according to an ethos of benefaction and reciprocity that, with some caution, may be described as patronage.16 As elsewhere in the empire, overlapping networks of civic, personal, and divine patronage pervaded and shaped everyday life in African society by providing the conduits through which everyone negotiated, accessed, and/or wielded social, economic, and political power. These networks of mutually reinforcing patronage relationships cut across class, kin, and occupation, as well as public/private and urban/rural domains. North Africans experienced the

15 For more on the presence and production of the Latin Bible in North Africa, see the contribution of Houghton in the present volume. When they are available, the Vetus Latina traditions of the biblical text are utilized since they provide the best window into the forms of the Bible that were familiar to these texts’ authors. Otherwise, the analysis relies on the (much later) Vulgate. The Vulgate text cited in what follows is R. Weber et al., eds., Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, 5th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007). Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations of biblical and patristic texts are my own. 16 For personal patronage, see R. Saller, Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). For civic patronage, see J. Nicols, Civic Patronage in the Roman Empire (Leiden: Brill, 2014). These studies demonstrate the value of applying a concept of patronage to the general ethos of benefaction and reciprocity in Roman society.

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dynamics of power (civic, imperial, divine) through the bonds of patronage and reciprocity their status and circumstances made possible.17 Patronage relationships were asymmetrical bonds of reciprocal obligation. These relationships thrived on the consistent exchange of gifts: with patrons and dependents naturally bringing very different types of gifts to the relationship. Unlike commercial transactions, the exchange of gifts between patrons and dependents took on a more interpersonal character and were supposed to be expressions of the favor, affection, and willing mutual obligation shared by the parties. Ideally, the patronage bond was a long-term commitment, typically enduring from one generation to the next. Moreover, personal patronage was never merely a matter of individual patrons and dependents. All such relationships emerged and persisted as expressions of broader networks. Moreover, most North Africans enjoyed the benefits of patronage through ties their communities enjoyed with patrons (e.g., municipality, cultic association, household, or fellowship of artisans). The essence of a patronage relationship was a mutual sharing in goodwill and favor; the gift exchanges were to operate merely as the ongoing embodiment of this common affection. Chief among the vocabulary that Romans used to describe this shared goodwill and favor was “grace” (gratia). The usage of gratia usually reflected one of four overlapping meanings. First and foremost, gratia designated the bond of goodwill that existed between patron and dependent(s). Secondly, gratia could refer to the favor a patron bestowed upon a dependent. Thirdly, gratia was employed more concretely to describe the gifts themselves that manifest the patron’s favor. Fourthly, gratia could denote the dependent’s grateful reception of the patron’s favor through the return of tangible offerings of gratitude that pleased the patron.18 A patronage relationship was, in short, a sharing in gratia, and this bond of grace was supposed to deepen over time as patron and dependent(s) devoted themselves to an active and conspicuous reciprocity of favor and gratitude. Any breach in faithfulness (fides) – i.e., any failure to return grace for grace – obviously jeopardized the bond of goodwill that sustained a patronage relationship. Indeed, Romans ranked failure to reciprocate grace among humanity’s chief sins, and, accordingly, instances of such “ingratitude” (ingratia) called for sharp rebuke.19

17 Seneca, De beneficiis 1.4.2 described this reciprocity as “the chief bond of human society.” His sentiments are echoed for Roman Africa in the works of Apuleius (e.g., Florida 16, 25–48; Metamorphoses 11.6, passim), Fronto (see Saller, Personal Patronage, passim), and votive inscriptions (e.g., L’Année épigraphique [1909]: 172; [1912]: 24; [1929]: 7; and Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VIII: 21724). 18 For a fuller discussion, see D. Riggs, “The Apologetics of Grace in Tertullian and Early African Martyr Acts,” StPatr 65 (2013): 397–99. 19 See, e.g., Ben. 2.35.4.

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If the reciprocity of grace was the glue that held Roman society together and provided for its prosperity and well-being, no bonds of grace were more important to Romans than those they cultivated with their heavenly patrons. For most inhabitants of Roman Africa, access to divine grace came through longstanding patronage affiliations connected to citizenship, familial ties, and occupation. Citizens of Carthage, for example, enjoyed a grace relationship with Caelestis because she was one of the city’s chief patron deities.20 This means that Carthaginians, both individually and collectively, sought out everyday ways to return grace for grace, participating in a wide variety of cultic activities intended to demonstrate their faithful gratitude for the goddess’s special favor and benefits. The essence of pagan worship was, accordingly, to share in the gratia of one’s god by devoting oneself to an agenda of sacrificial gratitude that the divine patron found pleasing. In recent years, biblical scholars have begun to demonstrate the significance of this context of heavenly patronage for making proper sense of New Testament characterizations of divine grace (charis/gratia).21

Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas Passio Perpetua et Felicitas is the second oldest and most famous surviving martyrdom account from North Africa. It memorializes the martyrdoms at Carthage of three male (Revocatus, Saturninus, and Secundulus) and two female catechumens (Perpetua and Felicitas), as well as their catechist (Saturus) in 203 CE.22 Composed sometime between 203 and 209 CE, the text survives as a complex composition that includes at least three distinct voices: the two first-person descriptions of the martyrs’ experience of prison, trials, and visions attributed to Perpetua and to Saturus respectively, along with the voice of the narrator who integrated these descriptions into a broader account that culminates in the state’s execution of the martyrs in the arena.23 Exceedingly popular among African Christians throughout antiquity, Pass.

20 J. Rives, Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 65–72, and passim. 21 E.g., D. DeSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 95–156. 22 Heffernan’s Passion of Perpetua offers a new critical edition, English translation, and commentary. I utilize his Latin text here, but, again, all translations are my own. For a window onto the breadth of recent scholarship on Pass. Perp. Fel., see J. N. Bremmer and M. Formisano, Perpetua’s Passions: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); and P. Kitzler, From Passio Perpetuae to Acta Perpetuae: Recontextualizing a Martyr Story in the Literature of the Early Church, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 127 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015). 23 Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 60–78; Kitzler, From Passio Perpetuae to Acta Perpetuae, 7–9.

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Perp. Fel. has received a wealth of scholarly attention in recent years, especially among social historians. Amid its precious witness to the socio-cultural history of the church at Carthage, Pass. Perp. Fel. offers wide-ranging testimony to the scriptural imagination of early African Christians. The text includes dozens of biblical references and allusions, ranging from Genesis to Revelation.24 Scriptural conceptions of grace and divine patronage are at the center of this testimony. The editor’s introduction and closing narrative, the autobiographical reflections ascribed to Perpetua, and the accounts of the visions attributed to Perpetua and Saturus collectively develop a picture in which martyrdom entails a faithful and deifying participation in God’s gratia. The editor of Pass. Perp. Fel. makes clear from the outset that Christian martyrdom should be understood within the context of the divine patronage the church enjoys. He shares the martyrs’ experiences as “new examples” of “faithfulness” (fides) that testify to “God’s favor” (Dei gratiam).25 While Paul’s conceptions of grace pervade Pass. Perp. Fel., the editor’s opening remarks highlight a slightly paraphrased form of Acts 2:17–18 in order to emphasize the significance of the Holy Spirit to the Christians’ special participation in God’s favor during the age of the church.26 He contends that the martyrs’ experience of God’s grace exceeded the magnitude of ancient examples of faithfulness because Perpetua and her companions live in the wake of Pentecost and the Lord’s promise to “pour out His Spirit upon all flesh” (cf. Acts 2:17, Joel 2:28). The martyrs pursued God’s glory “in accordance with the overflowing of divine favor (exuperationem gratiae) decreed for the final expanse of time.”27 Accordingly, while Pass. Perp. Fel. consistently portrays its martyrs as people of gratitude who offer up their faithfulness and perseverance as grace for grace to their divine patron, the text devotes particular attention to how the gifts of divine favor empowered, sustained, and brought such efforts to fruition.28

24 The index for Heffernan’s critical text of Pass. Perp. Fel. (cf. 527–28) includes over sixty scriptural references and allusions from twenty-four different biblical books. A closer reading of the text makes it clear that the actual number of allusions is significantly higher. 25 Pass. Perp. Fel. 1.1 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 104). 26 Pass. Perp. Fel. 1.3–4 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 104). 27 Pass. Perp. Fel. 1.3–4 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 104). In addition to the Acts account of Pentecost, the editor also seems to have in mind Pauline passages such as: Rom 5:17–20, where the apostle describes Christ’s salvific work as the “abundance of favor” (abundantiam gratiae) and “the favor that abounded all the more” (superabundavit gratia), and 1 Tim 1:14, where he expresses gratitude because the “favor of our Lord overflowed for me” (superabundavit autem gratia Domini nostri); cf. Eph 2:7. 28 For explicit expressions of gratitude, see Pass. Perp. Fel. 3.4 (“I render gratitude [gratia] to my Lord” [Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 105]), 12.7 (“Thanks [gratia] be to God” [Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 115]).

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Key to the text’s description of the martyrs’ spiritual empowerment is the peculiarly Christian reconception of virtus, which Carthaginian believers had learned from their Latin translation of Scripture. Rather than connoting familiar Roman notions of manly virtue like courage and bravery, the Africans’ Bible employed virtus as a translation of the Greek dynamis to identify divine “power.”29 The Pass. Perp. Fel. editor emphasizes that the Holy Spirit’s virtus that was at work in the recent martyrdoms is the same as that which had empowered the apostles. He makes this point both when setting the stage for the narrative and in his closing rhetorical flourish: “These new deeds of empowerment (virtutes) testify to the one and always the same Holy Spirit, who is working among us even now.”30 Filled with the virtus of the Holy Spirit, the martyrs faithfully endure prison, torture, and the beasts of the arena, triumphing over all the devil’s schemes against them. As a young woman full of the Holy Spirit’s virtus, Perpetua resists her angry father, twice shames the tribune into treating the martyrs more properly, stares down the pagan crowd at the games, and goes to her death with a confidence inspired by spiritual visions in which she had twice already experienced the joy of defeating the devil.31 As with the apostles portrayed in Acts, bystanders acknowledge that a “great power” (magnam virtutem) dwells within the martyrs at Carthage32; and, via an allusion to Rom 8:26, their collective prayers rise successfully to the Lord with the “groaning” (gemitu) of the Spirit.33 Summarizing portions of 1 Cor 12, the editor likewise contextualizes these hagiographical virtutes among the spiritual gifts the Lord distributes to believers for the edification of the church.34 In order to elucidate the nature of their spiritual power, Pass. Perp. Fel. also applies another term to the martyrs’ experience that was borrowed from the realm of Roman aristocratic values: dignatio. In his introductory remarks, the editor presents Pass. Perp. Fel. as evidence that present-day Christians continue to share in the “gift of divinity” (gratiam divinitatis), illustrating his claim by pointing in particular

29 For the Roman meaning of virtus, see M. McDonnell, Roman Manliness: Virtus and the Roman Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). For biblical examples of virtus denoting “divine power” across the Trinity, see Acts 1:8 (re: the Holy Spirit): “you will receive power [virtus] when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,” 2 Cor 12:9 (re: Christ): “so that the power [virtus] of Christ may dwell within me,” and 2 Cor 4:7: “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it is clear that this sublime power [virtus] does not come from us.” 30 Pass. Perp. Fel. 21.11 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 124), 1.3–4 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 104). 31 Pass. Perp. Fel. 3.1–3, 4.6–10, 5.2–6, 10.6–13, 16.2–4, 18.6 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 105, 107–8, 112–13, 118, 120). 32 Pass. Perp. Fel. 9.1 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 111); cf. Acts 4:33: “virtute magna.” 33 Pass. Perp. Fel. 15.4 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 117). 34 Pass. Perp. Fel. 1.5 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 104).

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to the dignatio of the recent martyrdoms and revelations.35 Additionally, in light of indications that Perpetua had begun to possess magna dignatio, she was encouraged to ask the Lord for a “vision” to determine whether she and her companions would indeed have the opportunity to suffer for Christ.36 She successfully sought such a vision, “knowing that she was able to speak personally (fabulari) with the Lord,” having already “shared in so many of his benefits” (beneficia tanta).37 In these instances, dignatio seems somehow to convey a very intimate experience of divinity and to suggest that the path to martyrdom and corresponding visions were understood as heavenly gifts that intensified a martyr’s participation in divine favor. But why would Pass. Perp. Fel. utilize this specific term to help define the martyrs’ experience of divine patronage? In customary Roman usage, dignatio denoted the “dignity” associated with notable aristocrats – i.e., social prominence and personal prestige. The term was occasionally employed within the context of civic patronage in touting how a municipality had benefited from a patron’s status and influence.38 At least one African author, Apuleius, uses dignatio to describe the “tangible favor” of a divine patron when composing his fictional account of Lucius’s restoration by the goddess Isis.39 Considering how Latin Scripture employed peculiarly Christian notions of gratia and virtus – words closely associated with dignatio – it is reasonable to suspect that Pass. Perp. Fel. utilizes the latter term according to the logic of biblical precedents. However, proving such an assumption is not straightforward. Indeed, the prospect is hampered by the fact that, unlike gratia and virtus, dignatio is never used in the Latin Vulgate. Nevertheless, the prevalence and use of the term in the writings of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine provide sufficient evidence to corroborate the notion that dignatio held a significant place in the African church’s scriptural reconceptions of divine patronage. Cyprian’s collections of scriptural citations, for instance, attest that translation(s) of the Latin Bible circulating among African Christians employed dignatio. In rendering Luke 20:34–36, Cyprian’s biblical text describes the angelic “children of the resurrection,” who will neither marry nor be given in marriage, as “those who

35 Pass. Perp. Fel. 1.5 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 104): “Et ad gloriam Dei lectione celebramus, ut ne qua aut imbecillitas aut desperatio fidei apud veteres tantum aestimet gratiam divinitatis conversatam, sive [in] martyrum sive in revelationum dignatione, cum semper Deus operetur quae repromisit, non credentibus in testimonium, credentibus in beneficium.” For reasons that will become increasingly clear, the available English translations of gratiam divinitatis such as “supernatural grace” (Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 107) and “divine grace” (Heffernan) blunt the author’s seemingly clear intent here. 36 Pass. Perp. Fel. 4.1 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 106). 37 Pass. Perp. Fel. 4.2 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 106). 38 E. Forbis, Municipal Virtues in the Roman Empire (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996), 79–81. 39 Metam. 11.21, 11.29 (J. A. Hanson, LCL 453:274, 292).

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possess the dignatio of that age” – i.e., of the heavenly age to come.40 Similarly, in Ad Fortunatum, Cyprian’s compendium of biblical passages intended to prepare confessors to “adhere to Christ” and “bear the garments of Christ robed by the sanctification of heavenly favor,” dignatio appears in a paraphrase of 2 Cor 12:2–5.41 The bishop asserts that, because of his possession of dignatio divina, the apostle Paul “was caught up into the third heaven and into paradise” where he saw Jesus with the “eyes of faith” and heard “unspeakable truths.”42 Cyprian here was in the midst of concluding his emphasis on Paul’s declarations in Rom 8 that for the “children of God,” who have become “co-heirs of Christ,” the “sufferings” of the present age pale in comparison to the “coming glory which shall be revealed in us.”43 The apostle’s possession of dignatio confirms his status as a mouthpiece of divine truth. In these instances, then, the usage of dignatio conveys somehow the divinely gifted embodiment of Christ’s heavenly glory operating within a believer. Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine regularly employ dignatio to describe God’s favor as a divine condescension that enables creatures to partake in God’s life and majesty. In most cases, they use the term in particular to specify the incarnational character of the divine patronage Christians enjoy. In other words, Christians experience divine gratia as a sanctifying participation in the condescending gift of Christ’s deified humanity.44 Indebted to Paul’s baptismal theology of adoption (cf. Rom 8:16–17, Gal 3:28–29), these African writers use dignatio to articulate both the status conferred on believers in baptism as co-heirs with Christ and the increasingly intimate experience of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection that this status

40 Cyprian, Ad Quirinum testimonia adversus Judaeos 3.32 (CCSL 3.1:126): “filii saeculi hujus generant et generantur. Qui autem habverint dignationem saeculi illius et resurrectionis a mortuis, non nubunt neque nubuntur: neque enim incipient mori: aequales enim sunt angelis Dei, cum sint filii resurrectionis.” This rendering of the passage with dignatio is also cited in Cyprian, De habitu virginum 22 (CSEL 3/1: 203). 41 Cyprian, Ad Fortunatum, Praefatio 2–3 (CCSL 3.1:183–84): “Christo adhaerens . . . perferant omnes indumenta Christi caelestis gratiae sanctificatione vestiti.” 42 Cyprian, Fort. 13 (CCSL 3.1:214): “Probat beatus apostolus Paulus qui dignatione divina usque in tertium caelum adque in paradisum raptus audisse se inenarrabilia testatur, qui oculata fide Jesum Dominum vidisse se gloriatur, qui id quod et didicit et vidit majoris conscientiae veritate profitetur.” 43 Cyprian highlights Rom 8:16–17 in Fort. 8 (CCSL 3.1:197); in Fort. 13 (CCSL 3.1:214) he cites Rom 8:18 as he brings his reflections on this Pauline chapter to a close: “Non sunt, inquit, condignae passiones hujus temporis ad superventuram claritatem quae revelabitur in nobis.” 44 E.g., in De catholicae ecclesia unitate 22 (CCSL 3.1:265), Cyprian praises confessors “who remember they have obtained gratia in the church from the dignatio Dei.”

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should endow.45 In this light, African Christians interpreted martyrdom and visions as powerfully tangible manifestations of this dignatio, or “deifying favor.” Visions enhanced a Christian’s capacity to discern in this age the heavenly realities they would enjoy in the age of the resurrection. At the same time, the path to martyrdom intensified the believers’ share in the deification that Christ imparted to humanity, a gift which empowered them to hasten faithfully toward their consummation in Christ’s resurrected glory.46 The presence of dignatio in African Bibles and its exegetical significance for how African Christians made sense of Paul’s baptismal theology of adoption helps to contextualize its use in Pass. Perp. Fel. Since the editor highlights martyrdom as a manifestation of dignatio and, accordingly, as confirmation that Christians continue to share in the “gift of divinity,” scholars should read Pass. Perp. Fel. attentive to how the text presents the martyrs’ experience of suffering and death as a sanctifying culmination of their baptismal status as co-heirs with Christ. Returning to the narration of Perpetua’s and Felicitas’s experiences, one finds the editor clearly portraying their progress to martyrdom as a path of intimate participation in Christ’s deifying favor that is closely associated with their baptisms. Shortly before Perpetua sought a vision because of her possession of magna dignatio, she and her fellow catechumens had received baptism. Via clear allusions to 1 Cor 12:13, Perpetua describes how the Spirit had informed her during her baptism that she would be gifted with “endurance of the flesh.”47 Her subsequent

45 E.g., Cyprian, Ep. 73.12.1 (CCSL 3C:542): “ . . . from (baptism) the whole of faithfulness takes its rise and origin; from it the path of salvation toward the hope of eternal life and from it the condescending gift of divinity (divina dignatio) for purifying and vivifying (purificandis ac vivificandis) the servants of God.” Likewise, in relation to 1 Cor 6:11, Cyprian, De dominica oratione 12 (CCSL 3A:96), describes “sanctification in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” as something “conferred upon us by the dignatio Dei”; cf. Tertullian, De baptismo 3.1–2 (CCSL 1:278) on baptismal waters as the font of dignatio. In addition, see (among numerous such passages) Augustine, Expositio in epistulam ad Galatas 30.6 (CSEL 84:96): “for we are ourselves children of God by means of (God’s) beneficium and dignatio” (commenting on Gal 4:5) and from Serm. 265F.2–3 (PLS 2:288–89): “(Christ), who is Lord by nature condescended to become our brother by deifying favor (dignatio) . . . And this is the deifying favor (dignatio), which the apostle declares: ‘Heirs indeed of God, but fellow heirs of Christ’ (Rom 8:17). We have found a Father in the heavens, we all belong to one big family.” 46 For examples beyond these passages in Pass. Perp. Fel., see Cyprian, Ep. 6.1.2 (CCSL 3B:30), where he congratulates confessors for having “entered the path of the Lord’s deifying favor” (ingressi viam Dominicae dignationis) and urges them to continue toward their crown “in the empowerment of the Spirit” (spiritali virtute); cf. Cyprian, Ep. 28.1.1, 43.1.1 (CCSL 3B:133, 200); Cyprian, De mortalitate 17 (CCSL 3A:26); Cyprian, De lapsis 10 (CCSL 3.1:226). For the association of dignatio with visions, see C. Robeck, Prophecy in Carthage: Perpetua, Tertullian, and Cyprian (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1992), 166–68; 171–76. 47 Pass. Perp. Fel. 3.5 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 105–6): “Baptizati sumus; et mihi spiritus dictavit nihil aliud petendum ab aqua nisi sufferentiam carnis.” For sufferentia as a gift of Christ’s gratia and virtus, cf. Tertullian, De oratione 4 and 29 (CCSL 1:259, 273–74).

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vision reiterated this promise. She saw a bronze ladder reaching to the sky representing the path to martyrdom and an immense “snake” (draco) coiled ominously at the foot of it.48 Perpetua found herself reaffirming the scriptural language of her recent baptismal confession, declaring that “in the name of Jesus Christ, (the snake) will not harm me” (non me nocebit, in nomine Jesu Christi).49 She proceeded to tread upon (calcare) the head of the suddenly cowering snake and climbed to the top of the ladder where Jesus greeted her, as the good shepherd, addressing her warmly as “child” (tegnon). Surrounded by a multitude of saints, he offered her a mouthful of recently milked curds that turned sweet in her mouth as the shouts of “amen” startled her awake.50 In imagery closely resonating with her baptism, Perpetua’s vision convinced her that her identification with Christ would successfully culminate in her sharing in his suffering and resurrection.51 On the day before the martyrs were to face the beasts, Perpetua received another vision intended to inspire confidence in the “deifying favor” (dignatio) she now enjoyed. Pomponius, a deacon who had helped tend to the martyrs’ needs, appeared at the prison dressed as a Christly figure to summon her to the amphitheater.52 Having escorted her to the middle of the arena, Christ spoke to Perpetua (through the deacon) the words that he had previously spoken both to Paul in a vision and to his disciples in post-resurrection appearances, together with a promise expressed in distinctly Pauline language: “Don’t be afraid. I am here with you; and I will suffer with you.”53 Pomponius then immediately vanished and Perpetua quickly learned the true nature of her upcoming struggle. Although sentenced to the beasts, her combat in the arena would actually be against the devil, personified in her vision as a fearsome Egyptian.54 In preparation for the fight, Perpetua was

48 Pass. Perp. Fel. 4.3–4 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 106–7). 49 Pass. Perp. Fel. 4.6 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 107). Perpetua’s declaration resonates closely with the language of baptism in Acts 2:38, 10:48, and 1 Cor 6:11. This passage also shows the influences of Luke 10:19, where Jesus empowers Christians to “tread upon” (calcare) snakes, assured that nothing will hurt them (nocebit), and Rev 12:9, where Satan, the great draco, is defeated; cf. Gen 3:15. 50 Perp. Pass. Fel. 4.8–10 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 107). 51 For the baptized as a child and the post-baptismal ritual of milk and honey, see Tertullian, De corona militis 3.2–3 (CCSL 2:1042). This vision also resonates with Mark 16:17–18, John 10:1–18, and Rev 10:9–10. 52 Pass. Perp. Fel. 10.1–2 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 111). 53 Pass. Perp. Fel. 10.4 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 112): “Noli expavescere: hic sum tecum et conlaboro tecum.” For Paul’s vision, see Acts 18:9–10, which in the Vulgate reads: “Noli timere . . . sum tecum”; cf. Luke 24:36. conlaboro tecum is a peculiarly Christian usage indebted to Latin translations of Paul’s letters; cf., e.g., the Vulgate of 2 Tim 1:8 and Phil 1:27 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 260). In light of Tertullian, De paenitentia 10.5–6 (CCSL 1:337), however, the Pass. Perp. Fel. is likely drawing again from 1 Cor 12, where the editor’s Latin New Testament probably employed conlaborare in v. 26: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it.” 54 Pass. Perp. Fel. 10.6–14 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 112–13).

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joined by heavenly attendants and suddenly realized that she “had become male” (facta . . . masculus). When the stager of the contest emerged to begin the proceedings, he was an immense, Christly figure who towered over the amphitheater.55 In her struggle with the Egyptian, Perpetua soundly defeated her opponent thanks to divine intervention, trampling his head with her heel.56 Amid the singing of psalms of praise, the Christly president declared her the victor, kissing Perpetua and saying, “Daughter, peace be with you,” before sending her through the “Gate of Life, covered with glory.”57 This final exchange resonates with both the risen Jesus’s confirmation to his disciples that he was truly present in their midst and the Pauline emphasis on sharing “the peace” (pax) as fundamental to the body of Christ’s communal participation in the gratia of their Savior.58 This vision encouraged Perpetua to anticipate the games as a liturgical fulfillment of her intensifying experience of intimate union with Christ’s deifying glory by revealing the central role her Lord would play in orchestrating and empowering her faithful consummation of grace for grace. Through his deacon, Christ again assures her that he will continue to be present and will suffer with her. Her Lord will not only take on her suffering, but he will also preside at her martyrdom as the true orchestrator of her fate. Her martyrdom may look to outsiders like a state execution, but for one now being transformed by the dignatio of the heavenly age, Perpetua is permitted to see that Christ will be the one actually staging and ensuring the martyrs’ path to heavenly glory. Perhaps the most striking way the vision communicates Perpetua’s intensifying union with Christ, however, is her realization that she had “become male” on the cusp of her struggle with the devil. Many helpful analyses have contextualized this passage in terms of ancient gender stereotypes. Yet, the most straightforward reading of Perpetua’s transformation into a male, within the context of this study, is that she was developing a consciousness of Christ’s active presence within her as she entered the struggle. Such an interpretation would also make sense of Christ’s promise to remain and struggle with her through the lips of a deacon who immediately disappeared. Perpetua disrobed and discovered she had become male almost immediately after Pomponius vanished. It is evident from Cyprian that Phil 3:21 was a popular text in Carthage for reflecting on martyrdom: “(Christ) will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed

55 Pass. Perp. Fel. 10.8–15 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 112–13). 56 Pass. Perp. Fel. 10.10–11 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 112–13). There are clear allusions to Gen 3:15 here too; cf. n. 50 supra. 57 Pass. Perp. Fel. 10.12–13 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 113). 58 Luke 24:36; John 20:19, 26. For the “kiss of peace” as a liturgical sign of fellowship within the “body of Christ” and participation in the gratia of Christ, see Rom 16:16, 1 Cor 16:20, 2 Cor 13:12, and 1 Thess 5:26. Likewise, for examples of the close connection between pax and the gratia experienced in Christ, see Rom 1:7, 1 Cor 1:3, and 2 Cor 1:2.

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to the body of his glory.”59 It is not difficult to imagine a vision embodying this Pauline promise taking the form of a female martyr becoming “masculine” (masculus) in the midst of Christ striving in her. This would also explain why, even after Perpetua became masculus, the text continues to apply feminine pronouns and adjectives to her throughout the vision. No doubt inspired by the confidence Perpetua’s vision engendered, Felicitas offers perhaps the most explicit testimony to the deifying grace associated with martyrdom when “she was touched by her Lord’s favor” (gratia Domini . . . contigit).60 When this pregnant martyr received pre-term childbirth as a divine gift so she could share in the approaching games with her fellow confessors, Felicitas suffered mightily in her premature labor.61 In response to a jailer who mocked her travails in light of her upcoming bout with ferocious beasts, she stated: “Right now I myself suffer what I suffer; but at that time, there will be another inside me, who will suffer for me, since I likewise will suffer for him.”62 This declaration resonates, of course, with any number of Pauline passages that articulate his theology of mystical union with Christ and his glory.63 Like Perpetua’s final vision, Felicitas’s remarks attest to the scripturally conceived conviction that the path to martyrdom was a divine gift that intensified its recipients’ experience of the vivifying power of Christ’s deified humanity. Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis includes a vision from the catechist martyr, Saturus, which also draws deeply from biblical conceptions of divine patronage and deifying favor. He saw the martyrs ascend into heaven and enjoy a liturgically rich reception into God’s throne room, the description of which is indebted to concepts and imagery borrowed from Revelation.64 As the martyrs entered to “pay their respects” (salutate) to their Lord, angels raised them up so that they could kiss the enthroned Christ, who appeared to them as a white-haired youth, and their divine patron affectionately stroked their faces with his hand.65 The martyrs then shared

59 Test. 3.11 (CCSL 3.1:101–2): “Christum qui transformavit corpus humilitatis nostrae conformatum corpori claritatis suae.” Cited also in Cyprian, Mort. 22 (CCSL 3A:29); Cyprian, Ep. 76.2.4 (CCSL 3C:611). 60 Pass. Perp. Fel. 15.1 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 116). 61 Pass. Perp. Fel. 15.5 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 117). 62 Pass. Perp. Fel. 15.5–6 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 117): “Modo ego patior quod patior; illic autem alius erit in me qui patietur pro me, quia et ego pro illo passura sum.” 63 E.g., Col 1:27b: “the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory,” Gal 2:19b–20a: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” 2 Cor 12:9: “my grace is sufficient for you, for power is made complete in weakness. So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me”; cf. Rom 8:10, 2 Cor 3:18, 13:5, Gal 4:19. 64 Pass. Perp. Fel. 11.1–12.7 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 113–15). 65 Pass. Perp. Fel. 11.10–12.5 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 114–15). The rendering of salutationes to patrons was the most prevalent ritual of returning grace for grace in the Roman Empire.

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together in this intimacy of divine favor with the assembled elders, giving to one another the kiss of peace before resting from their labors.66 In the face of promises fulfilled, Perpetua rendered gratitude, and the vision eventually closes with a Pauline characterization of the martyrs’ glorified union with Christ: “and we were all nourished on the ineffable aroma which filled us to the full.”67 This conflation of 2 Cor 2:14–15 and 9:15 presents the joyous Perpetua and her companions as utterly replete now with the ineffable gift of Christ’s pleasing aroma – satiated by their Lord’s deifying grace.68 In his narration of their final suffering in the arena, the Pass. Perp. Fel. editor further reinforces the deifying character of the dignatio of martyrdom by highlighting the intensifying sanctification embodied in the martyrs as they navigated their last steps. When the games came, the martyrs’ were poised for the “day of their victory” already embodying signs of Christ’s glorification.69 They “proceeded from prison to the amphitheater as if marching into heaven” as “cheerful” people (hilares), their “faces radiating beauty” (vultu decori), Perpetua’s face “shining brightly” (lucido vultu), and everyone “seized with a powerful joy” (forte gaudio paventes). In light of the editor’s earlier allusions to 2 Cor 9, hilares likely signifies the martyrs’ eagerness to render grace for grace as the sort of “cheerful givers” God loves. “Decor” signals Christ’s empowering presence within the martyrs as they embark on their path of suffering. African Christians associated decor with Christ’s glorified humanity based on their Christological reading of Ps 44:3 (45:2 LXX).70 Perpetua’s description conveys her intimate experience of deifying favor, reminiscent of Matt 17:5, where lucidus is utilized to describe the disciples’ first-hand experience of Christ’s transfiguration. The description is also suggestive of the shining countenance possessed by Moses after his close encounter with God on Mt. Sinai.71 Finally, in light of the editor’s citation of John 16:24, when noting that Christ

66 Pass. Perp. Fel. 12.6 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 115). 67 Pass. Perp. Fel. 12.7 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 115): “Deo gratias,” 13.8 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 116): “Universi odore inerrabili alebamur, qui nos satiabat.” 68 Second Corinthians 2:14–15: “Deo autem gratias qui semper triumphat nos in Christo Jesu et odorem notitiae suae manifestat per nos in omni loco quia Christi bonus odor sumus Deo,” 9:4: “ . . . gratias Deo super inenarrabili dono ejus.” The passage also resonates with Phil 4:18–20. Although he is writing much later, it is notable that in, e.g., Contra Fabianum fragmenta 10.10 (CCSL 91A: 776), the African Fulgentius employs inenarrabilis as an adjective for the salvific gift of deified humanity that Christ bestows on believers. 69 Pass. Perp. Fel. 18.1–2 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 119). 70 See, e.g., Tertullian, Adversus Judaeos 9.17, 14.5 (CCSL 2:1369, 1392–93); Test. 2.29 (CCSL 3.1:69). Unlike the Vulgate, which employs speciosus in this passage, the Latin translation(s) current at Carthage during this period used decor. 71 Sources for the Vetus Latina suggest that, unlike the Vulgate, the editor’s Latin Bible may have employed lucidus to describe the face of Moses in Exod 34:29–30. See, e.g., Gregory, Regum 4.195 (CCSL 144: 403): “Moyses quando lucidissimo vultu a monte descendit.”

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granted his martyrs the type of death each had asked for,72 the reference to the martyrs’ “powerful joy” likely has in view Jesus’s assurances to his disciples that as they increasingly share in his glory, their pain will turn into a complete and irrevocable joy (gaudium).73 The Christian audience of Pass. Perp. Fel., of course, is supposed to see these tangible foretastes of the martyrs’ share in Christ’s heavenly glory as confirmation of their biblical conceptions of grace and divine patronage. As mentioned previously, the editor presents Pass. Perp. Fel. as proof that present-day Christians continued to share in the “gift of divinity” (gratiam divinitatis).74 To this end, he employed scriptural vocabulary such as virtus and dignatio to highlight that the martyrs’ experience was not merely charismatic – it was deifying. Perpetua and her companions rendered gratitude to their divine patron through an experience of martyrdom that set them on an intensifying path of sanctifying favor that, in turn, drew them ever more intimately into a Spirit-empowered participation in Christ’s deified humanity.

Life of Cyprian If the influence of Pass. Perp. Fel. on hagiographical traditions in Carthage was profound, no martyr became more renowned than the episcopal martyr Cyprian. After leading his ecclesial community from a place of hiding during the Decian persecution, the bishop was sentenced to exile and then, on September 14, 258, was executed during the emperor Valerian’s offensive against the church. The basic details of these latter developments have come down to us in Act. Cypr., which include an edited transcript of Cyprian’s first proconsular hearing and a brief account of his recall from exile, final trial, and execution.75 The influence of biblical conceptions of divine patronage are clearly evident in Act. Cypr. For instance, Cyprian’s primary concern throughout his interrogations is to rebut charges of ingratitude by demonstrating his faithfulness to the one true divine patron. To accomplish this, he draws deeply from the scriptural compilations included in his exhortation to martyrdom (Fort.). In the immediate wake of his sentencing, the bishop also expresses gratitude – much as

72 Pass. Perp. Fel. 19.1 (Heffernan, Passion of Perpetua, 120). 73 Cf. John 16:20–24. 74 It is perhaps no coincidence that this expression resonates with Col 2:6–15, where Paul exhorts believers to live into their baptismal identity as replete sharers in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ “in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells bodily” (in ipso inhabitat omnis plenitudo divinitatis corporaliter). 75 Critical editions of Acta Cypriani: CSEL 3/3:cx–cxiv (Hartel); A. A. R. Bastiaensen et al., eds., Atti e passioni dei martiri, 3rd ed. (Milan: Mondadori, 1995): 193–231. For an English translation, see Musurillo, Acts, 169–75.

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the Scillitan martyrs and Perpetua had done before him – for his imminent martyrdom, declaring the words of 2 Cor 2:14: “thanks (gratias) be to God”!76 Ultimately, however, the text is sparse in detail and commentary. Fortunately, in addition to these Act. Cypr., a hagiographical sermon survives that was composed at Carthage in the years immediately following the bishop’s martyrdom. Commonly called the Life of Cyprian, this sermon gives us a fuller picture of how scriptural imaginations might shape interpretations of Cyprian’s martyrdom.77 According to Jerome, Pontius, one of Cyprian’s deacons, wrote a “Life of Cyprian.”78 Most scholars accept this as a reference to this text and, accordingly, credit this deacon with authorship.79 Because Pontius was keen to refute any lingering criticisms about Cyprian’s conduct as bishop during the Decian persecution, Vit. Cypr. is particularly helpful for elucidating how Christians might fit martyrdom into broader conceptions of faithful participation in divine grace. Indeed, although scholars commonly divide this text into two parts (pars. 1–10 on Cyprian’s “life” and pars. 11–19 devoted to the bishop’s passion), the analysis here will reveal the unifying threads of divine patronage that defy any such distinction. In order to give a sense of how important biblical narrations of divine patronage are for Vit. Cypr., this section will focus on two of its most prominent features. First, it will consider how Pontius structures the narrative around a grace-for-grace rhythm that accentuates Cyprian’s way of life as a model of “grateful faithfulness” that is “pleasing to God” and, therefore, is divinely favored. Secondly, it will describe some noteworthy ways in which Pontius leveraged his Latin Bible to depict Cyprian’s experience of God’s favor as a deifying and divinely orchestrated embodiment of Christ’s resurrected glory. Vita Cypriani presents Cyprian as an exemplary partaker of God’s gratia. Mirroring his bishop’s fondness for exploiting Pauline and Johannine passages to describe Christian salvation in terms of “heavenly” and “spiritual” adoption, Pontius begins his account of Cyprian’s participation in divine favor from the “heavenly birth” (nativitate caelesti) through which he was “born of God” (Deo natus est).80 Vita

76 Acta Cypriani 4.9–10 (CSEL 3/3:cxiii). The editor reinforces the connection to 2 Cor 2:14 here by describing his funeral procession with language from this passage. 77 Critical Latin text: C. Mohrmann and A. A. R. Bastiaensen, eds., Vita di Cipriano, Vita di Ambrogio, Vita di Agostino, 5th ed. (Milan: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, 2012), 4–48. For an English translation, see R. Deferrari, Early Christian Biographies, FC 15 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1964), 5–25. 78 Jerome, Vir. ill. 68 (E. C. Richardson, ed., Hieronymus liber De viris inlustribus; Gennadius liber De viris inlustribus, TUGAL 14 [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1896], 38). 79 For the text’s “authenticity,” see Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography, 82–85. For a history of the scholarly debates regarding genre and authorship of the Vit. Cypr., see H. Montgomery, “Pontius’ Vita Cypriani and the Making of a Saint,” SO 71 (1996): 195–215. 80 Pontius, Vita Cypriani 2.1 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 6); cf. Cyprian, De zelo et livore 13–15 (CCSL 3A:82–84); Cyprian, De bono patientia 5 (CCSL 3A:120–21); Dom. or. 10–12 (CCSL 3A:96–97). For Deo natus est, see 1 John 3:9, 4:7.

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Cypriani likewise underscores at various points that Cyprian’s merits as a martyr emerged out of his cultivation of the grace relationship first established in the baptismal font.81 Having been “born of God,” Vit. Cypr. depicts Cyprian as immediately pursuing a life of “chastity” (continentia) as the most fruitful response to God’s favor.82 While the allusions to 1 John in this section are obvious, the foregrounding of continentia here reflects Cyprian’s conviction that the “gift of chastity” (munus continentiae; gratia continentiae) was a chief sign that someone bore the image of the “heavenly man.”83 He based this conviction on texts such as Matt 19:11–12 and Rev 4:14. But Luke 22:34–36, which attracted our attention previously because of the employment of dignatio in the African Bible’s version of this text, held a particular prominence in his thinking.84 To preserve the spiritual gift of continentia was to participate in the “deifying favor” (dignatio) of the coming age of the resurrection, where God’s glorified children will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In other words, just as the path to martyrdom ranked as a special experience of divine dignatio, so too a holy life of chastity constituted a similar dignatio. Both experiences anointed believers with deifying favor that conformed them prematurely to the glory of Christ’s resurrected humanity as a tangible reality in the present age. Noting his passion for reading scripture, Vit. Cypr. also underscores Cyprian’s exemplary cultivation of divine favor through his embrace of God’s biblical preference for “compassion” (misericordia) toward the poor. In fact, the “precocious swiftness” of his “devotion” was such that, unlike the rich young ruler, he did sell all that he had to follow Christ and, thus, he “nearly began to be perfect before he had fully learned how to be.”85 His devotion to “works of compassion” as a divinely ordained way to return grace for grace recurs throughout Vit. Cypr. as a basis for the divine favor he enjoys.86 Cyprian is likewise shown “pleasing God” (Deo placere) through his care for widows, the disabled, and those oppressed by elites.87

81 E.g., 2.5, 9.9, 19.2. (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 8, 24, 48). 82 Vit. Cypr. 2.4 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 8). 83 Hab. Virg. 4, 22–23 (CCSL 3F:289, 315–19). Cyprian reinforces his point here by associating continentia with 1 Cor 15:47–49. 84 Cyprian cites this Lukan passage twice in his works: he includes it among the biblical selections in Test. 3.32 (CCSL 3.1:125–26) under the heading, “Regarding the Benefit of Virginity and Chastity” (continentiae) and in his praise of the “divine empowerment of chastity” (virtus continentiae) in Hab. virg. 22 (CCSL 3F:315). The Spirit-empowered character of continentia is also emphasized at Vit. Cypr. 11.4 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 28). 85 Vit. Cypr. 2.6–7 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 8): “Statim rapuit quod invenit promerendo Domino profuturum . . . praepropera velocitate pietatis paene ante coepit perfectus esse quam disceret”; cf. Matt 9:13, 19:16–22. Cyprian includes these passages in Test. 3.1 (CCSL 3.1:80) under the heading, “Regarding the Benefit of Works and Compassion (misericordiae).” 86 Vit. Cypr. 6.1, 7.8, 9.6, 11.8 (Mohrmann, Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 16, 20, 24, 30). 87 Vit. Cypr. 3.9 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 12).

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Pontius stresses that Cyprian carefully consulted scriptural precedents to determine the character of proper participation in divine patronage. For instance, he imitates the examples set by the Bible’s “righteous,” such as Job’s “grateful faithfulness” (fide grata), to ensure he offered “homage” (obsequium) that was “pleasing to God” (placuisset) and “well-deserving of divine favor” ( promerendo Deo).88 Likewise, Cyprian took to heart his Lord’s precepts in the Sermon on the Mount for “children of God.” He is shown teaching and modelling a faithfulness that – in imitation of the heavenly Father’s “benevolence” (bonitas) – rendered pleasing homage to God by extending benevolence to enemies, praying for persecutors, and overcoming evil with good.89 God’s increasing bestowal of favor for Cyprian’s faithfulness regularly punctuates Pontius’s depiction of the bishop’s grateful homage. The Lord wasted no time in granting additional gratia to Cyprian after his baptism in light of his immediate progress in continentia and misericordia: blessing him with priestly office.90 Similarly, in response to his burgeoning “good works” and “generous disposition” as priest, God favored him with the episcopate, though he was still early in his faith.91 As Pontius narrates his bishop’s controversial retreat into hiding during the Decian persecution, this reciprocal rhythm of grace continues. Owing to Cyprian’s “merits” (merita) as bishop, the Lord gifted him with the “gloria of proscription.”92 Drawing in particular on the logic of 2 Cor 3–4, Vit. Cypr. sets forth the rhetorical claim that this imperial proscription represented the beginning of Cyprian’s path to martyrdom and, accordingly, the beginning of his special experience of the sanctifying presence of divine “glory” that came to rest upon believers granted this path. Pontius emphasizes that, considering the rapidity with which he had previously attained divine favor, Cyprian could have expected to hasten immediately to his appointed crown. But because the church needed an exemplary guide and defender to navigate such treacherous times, the bishop was divinely compelled to withdraw and “pass through all the grades of glory” (per omnes ordines gloriarum transeundum) before eventually receiving the full “deifying favor of martyrdom” (dignatio martyrii).93 God held Cyprian back from the full experience of glory he deserved so that

88 Vit. Cypr. 3.4–8 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 10–12). 89 Vit. Cypr. 9.7–9 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 24), paraphrasing Matt 5:43–48, supplemented by Rom 12:21. 90 Vit. Cypr. 3.3 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 10). 91 Vit. Cypr. 5.1 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 14). 92 Vit. Cypr. 7.1 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 18). 93 Vit. Cypr. 7.2–3 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 18). Pontius is clearly alluding here to 2 Cor 3:18: “contemplantes Christum eadem imagine transfigurari a gloria in gloriam” (Vetus Latina: Marc. 5.11.8 [CCSL 1:697]). The Vulgate, however, employs claritas here: “a claritate in claritatem.”

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African believers could witness the “benefit of God’s favor advancing steadily through the bishop’s faithfulness” (emolumentum gratiae per fidem proficientis).94 At this point, it will be helpful to consider briefly the meaning of gloria as used by Pontius (and previously in Pass. Perp. Fel.). Like gratia, virtus, and dignatio, gloria was a common word in the vocabulary of the Roman world. It denoted a competitive sense of renown, fame, and honor; and like virtus and dignatio, the term was bound up with aristocratic Roman values. With the advent of the Principate, Romans increasingly reserved gloria for the aristocrat of highest renown, the emperor, and thus clarus/claritas emerged as a synonym to describe “brilliant” men more broadly.95 However, for African Christians, gloria and claritas took on distinctive meaning as they became familiar with their Latin Bibles, which employed these otherwise common terms as equivalents for doxa.96 Accordingly, rather than signifying “fame,” “renown,” or “human brilliance,” gloria and claritas were used in the scriptural imagination to convey the presence of God’s transcendent, eternal power in creation. In particular, African Christians homed in on the Latin New Testament’s frequent use of these terms to convey the vivifying presence of divine majesty that animated Christ’s deified humanity and, through his bodily resurrection, empowered his co-heirs to become partakers of his divinity. Phil 3:21, cited in the works of Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, Quodvultdeus, and Fulgentius, provides a prime example: “(Christ) will transform our body of humiliation, conforming it to the body of his glory” (conformale/conforme corpori gloriae/claritatis).97 Another significant biblical text is 2 Cor 3–4, which is the extended passage inspiring Pontius here. Unlike the divine glory manifest through the old covenant, which had illuminated Moses’s face with a gloria that prevented the Israelites from gazing upon the lawgiver, the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the righteousness of Christ abound with a greater gloria (2 Cor 3:7–11). Consequently, Christians now, with “unveiled faces,” “are being transformed by the image (of Christ) from one degree of glory to another

94 Vit. Cypr. 7.3–10.5 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 18–26). It is worth noting that at Luke 2:52 Latin Bibles used proficio to convey the young Jesus’s advancing in gratia. 95 T. Habinek, “Seneca’s Renown: ‘Gloria, Claritudo,’ and the Replication of the Roman Elite,” ClAnt 19.2 (2000): 264–300. 96 A. J. Vermeulen, The Semantic Development of Gloria in Early-Christian Latin (Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1956) remains the primary study of biblical gloria, but it requires updating at several points. For example, Vermeulen’s claim that no early Christian writer used gloria in the doxological sense of “God’s splendor” before 313 CE flies in the face of testimony offered by Tertullian, Cyprian, and Pontius. 97 Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis 55 (CCSL 2:1001–3); Marc. 5.20.7 (CCSL 1:725); Augustine, Trin. 1.8.15, 4.3.6 (CCSL 50:48, 169); Quodvultdeus, Liber promissionum et praedicatorum Dei 2.31 (CCSL 60:134); Fulgentius, Ad Trasamundum 2.18.1 (CCSL 91:143); Fulgentius, Ep. 18.8 (CCSL 91A:623). Tertullian, Augustine, and Quodvultdeus cite the verse with gloriae; Cyprian and Fulgentius use claritatis; cf. n. 59 supra.

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(a gloria in gloriam)” (2 Cor 3:18).98 Because he is the “image of God,” 2 Cor 4 describes the “person of Christ” as the bearer of “divine gloria” that “illuminates the hearts” of Christians, places a “sublimity of divine power” (sublimitas . . . virtutis Dei) within them, and generates the “life of Jesus in their mortal bodies” (2 Cor 4:4–7).99 In the midst of temporal afflictions, this divine empowerment is creating within believers an “eternal weight of gloria that exceeds all exalted measure” (cf. 2 Cor 4: 16–17: “supra modum in sublimitatem aeternum gloriae pondus operatur nobis.”). Like virtus and dignatio, then, scriptural conceptions of gloria (and its synonym claritas) contribute in Vit. Cypr. to characterizations of the martyr’s path as a gift of divine favor that invigorated the recipient with an intensifying share in Christ’s deified humanity. While the divine gloria of Christ’s bodily resurrection would eventually transform all faithful recipients of God’s gratia in the age to come, the dignatio of martyrdom bestowed a precocious and extraordinary experience of such heavenly realities in the present age. Of course, this means that when Pontius describes Cyprian’s proscription in terms of gloria, he is not emphasizing his public renown as a Christian; rather, he is depicting his proscription as a gift of divine favor that indicated that, during his period of hiding, the bishop had already entered upon the martyr’s special deifying path “from glory to glory.” Consequently, after modelling faithfulness and addressing various pressing needs of the church, God continued to impart this gloria through Cyprian’s imperial exile (during the Valerian persecution). Although most saw this sentence as a punishment, Pontius stresses that Cyprian’s exile further enhanced his gloria because he “experienced it as a refinement of divine empowerment” (ad probandae virtutis experimenta).100 The biblical logic at play here resonates with the scriptural texts that Cyprian gathers in both Fort. and Ad Quirinum testimonia adversus Judaeos in order to demonstrate that the righteous endure trials and persecutions in order “to be refined” by God (probantur/probemur).101 Likewise, this logic corresponds to Tertullian’s contentions in De fuga in persecutione and Scorpiace that God uses persecutions to “refine” the faithfulness of martyrs with divine power and glory.102 Two passages are particularly important in such works. First, Rom 5:2–5, where Paul offers the following progression towards attaining the “hope of God’s glory” (claritas): glorifying in “tribulations” (praessura) “produces endurance” (tolerantiam operatur); endurance produces “refinement” (probationem); and refinement produces “hope” (spem). Second Corinthians 12:9 is also significant in these contexts for stressing that the process of refinement is the product of divine favor

98 See n. 93 supra. 99 Reconstructed from the Vulgate and Res. 44.3 (CCSL 2:980). 100 Vit. Cypr. 11.5 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 28). 101 Fort. 9 (CCSL 3.1:198); Test. 3.6 (CCSL 3.1:94–95). 102 Tertullian, Scorpiace 13 (CCSL 2:1094–96); Tertullian, De fuga in persecutione 1.3, 1.5, 2.1–2, 2.7, 3.1 (CCSL 2:1135–39).

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(gratia) and essentially consists of the “perfecting” of Christ’s “power” (virtus) that dwells within the otherwise “weak” martyrs. Because Cyprian experienced his punishment as a refinement of Christ’s virtus within him, Pontius characterizes his exile as a “place of divine favor” (loci gratiam) that inspired “offerings of gratitude” to God (cum gratiarum actione).103 Among this divine favor was the dignatio of a heavenly vision, which inspired the bishop’s confidence that he would soon succeed in winning the martyr’s crown.104 As his day of martyrdom grew near, Cyprian’s companions basked in his “sublime glory” (sublimis gloria). In the midst of an intensifying persecution he inspired future martyrs with his homiletic exhortations to tread underfoot the sufferings of the present age by the “contemplation of the coming glory” (contemplatione superventurae claritatis).105 When the time came for his trial, Cyprian proceeded with a “roused character of sublimity” (animo sublimis erecto) and “divine empowerment in his heart” (corde virtutem).106 His contest with authorities was a “glorious” and “sublime” spectacle and his day of execution “radiated like a brilliant sun” breaking through the clouds of the world.107 The intent of Pontius here, of course, is to highlight Cyprian’s intensifying experience of deifying favor as he progressed “from glory to glory.” When the bishop awaited the fatal sword stroke and, accordingly, had reached the “mature hour of his glorification” (clarificationis hora matura), the radiance of his divine glory was such that his congregation yearned to “suffer with him” in order to “share in such gloria.”108 While Pontius employs biblical notions of gloria and claritas to help characterize martyrdom as an exceptional path of deifying favor, his particular concerns (as noted previously) inspired him to situate his hagiographical narration squarely within broader conceptions of divine patronage and the sanctifying “grace for grace” relationship that emerged from baptism. Taking his cues from Scripture’s pervasive metaphorical usages of light, Pontius reinforced his contention that Cyprian’s martyriological advance from divine glory to glory merely intensified and brought to an extraordinary consummation a sanctifying participation in baptismal gratia that pre-existed his experiences as a martyr. For instance, when describing his immediate flourishing in the faith, Pontius marvels that: (Cyprian’s) second birth (secunda nativitas) had not yet enlightened the new man with the full splendor of the divine light (splendore toto divinae lucis), yet he was already

103 Vit. Cypr. 11.7–12.1 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 28–30). 104 Vit. Cypr. 12.2–13.1 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 30–34). 105 Vit. Cypr. 14.5–6 (Mohrmann, Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 38), referencing Rom 8:18. 106 Vit. Cypr. 15.2 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 40). Cyprian’s “face” also “manifest cheerfulness” (cf. 2 Cor 9:7). 107 Vit. Cypr. 15.4: “spectaculum . . . gloriosum,” 16.1: “claro sole radiates,” 18.2: “sublime spectaculum” (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 40, 42, 46). 108 Vit. Cypr. 18.4–6 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 46).

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overcoming the ancient and pristine darkness by the mere dawning of the light (lucis paratura).109

On the eve of receiving the “glory of proscription,” Vit. Cypr. again uses resplendent imagery to articulate the depths of Cyprian’s sanctifying participation in divine favor: How great his piety; his vigor; his compassion; his judgment! So much sanctity (sanctitas) and divine favor (gratia) shone forth from him (ex eo relucebat) that it confounded (confunderet) the minds of those who beheld him.110

Similar to gloria and claritas, Scripture commonly uses metaphors of light to express God’s transcendent presence in creation and its effects on creaturely existence. In particular, images of light and splendor become synonymous with the divinity of the incarnation and the imparting of Christ’s deified humanity to believers.111 This is obviously the inspiration and context for Pontius’s depiction here of the “full splendor of divine light” that had begun to fill the baptized Cyprian and the conspicuously sanctifying radiance with which “divine favor” illuminated him. Pontius’s New Testament, for instance, likely employed splendor exclusively to describe Christ’s divine presence: whether in his transfiguration, his appearance to Paul on the road to Damascus, or the Son’s designation as the “splendor” of the Father’s gloria in Heb 1:3.112 Likewise, North African exegetes generally read Old Testament instances of splendor through Christological lenses and often associated them with Pauline articulations of sanctification.113 Moreover, the verbal form of splendor appears in 2 Cor 4:6 amid the light metaphors Paul uses in his reflections on believers’ participation in the sublimity of Christ’s gloria and virtus, which influences Pontius elsewhere in Vit. Cypr.114 Ultimately, the resplendent imagery of these passages confirms once again the conviction that the deifying favor of baptismal grace provided the foundation upon which the divine gift of martyrdom rests.

109 Vit. Cypr. 2.5 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 8); cf. 5.1 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 14). 110 Vit. Cypr. 6.1 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 16). 111 See, e.g., Matt 5:14–16, John 1:1–18, 3:19–21, 8:12, Acts 26:12–18, Rom 13:11–14, 2 Cor 4:3–18, Eph 5:8–14, Col 1:12–27, 1 Thess 5:4–5, Heb 1:3, 1 John 1:5–7. 112 Matthew 17:2 (where the Vetus Latina includes sicut splendorem solis; cf. Augustine, De agone christiano 24.26 [CSEL 41:127]), Acts 26:13, Heb 1:3. The Vulgate also uses splendor in Mark 13:24; Pontius’s translation most likely did not, probably reading either lumen or fulgorem. 113 For example, Cyprian includes Hab 3:3b–4, which, in his Latin text, articulates God’s transcendent presence in terms of splendor and the “power of His glory” (virtus gloriae), in a grouping of passages intended to express the “power” of Christ’s passion (Test. 2.21 [CCSL 3.1:59]). Cyprian, Ep. 76.2.4–5 (CCSL 3C:611) also applies splendor to Phil 3:21. In addition, see Marc. 4.22 (CCSL 1:601); Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 92.6 (CCSL 39:1296); and Augustine, Ep. 147.18 (CSEL 44:320). 114 It is also worth noting that in Enarrat. Ps. 64.6 (CCSL 39:829) Augustine would later apply Heb 1:3 (splendor gloriae) to his exegesis of 2 Cor 3.

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Finally, Vit. Cypr.’s characterizations of martyrdom as a gift of deifying favor is also evident from the importance of divine orchestration to the narrative.115 Cyprian’s divine patron not only bestowed sanctifying empowerment that permitted him to persevere faithfully from one degree of glory to the next, but his Lord also guided each step on his path to martyrdom and actively ensured its successful outcome. Exemplifying New Testament representations of Christ as ruler and judge of the world, Pontius presents Cyprian’s divine patron – not the Roman authorities – as utterly determining the course of events. So, for example, the executioner is unable to perform his duty until the bishop’s “mature hour of glorification” arrives, and, accordingly, his hand is finally permitted the strength necessary to behead the martyr, with “power granted from above.”116 For ultimately, it is “God the judge who crowns” Cyprian.117 In order to illustrate the depths of divine orchestrations in Pontius’s depiction of martyrdom, however, it is necessary to focus on his final chapter where he stresses that Christ himself is the agent who both actively undertakes and consummates Cyprian’s suffering. In describing his hero’s special status as an episcopal martyr, he writes: In this way his (course) was perfected by consummated suffering such that Cyprian, who had been an example of all good things, should also be the first to imbue his example of the priestly crown (with martyr’s blood). Since the time of the apostles, he was the first to undertake such a thing. For, from the time the episcopal order began to be enumerated at Carthage, never has anyone from among its priests, however virtuous, come to such suffering. And, although it is conceded that, for consecrated men, devotion surrendered to God should always be reckoned before martyrdom, Cyprian also advanced to the perfection of his (priestly) crown by means of his Lord’s consummation!118

115 The breadth of this divine orchestration, which included – but also extended well beyond – granting the martyr heavenly visions and prescient direction, cannot be pursued in this study. It is, however, an important topic for further research. 116 Vit. Cypr. 18.4 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 46): “Clarificationis hora matura centurionis manum concesso desuper vigore firmatam.” 117 Vit. Cypr. 18.5 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 46): “Deo judice coronatus est” (with a clear allusion to 2 Tim 4:8; cf. Test. 3.16 [CCSL 3.1:111]). 118 Vit. Cypr. 19.1–2 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 46–48): “Sic consummata passione perfectum est, ut Cyprianus, qui bonorum omnium fuerat exemplum, exemplum etiam sacerdotalis coronae in Africa primus inbueret, quia et talis esse post apostolos prior coeperat. Ex quo enim Carthagini episcopatus ordo numeratur, numquam aliquis quamuis et bonus et ex sacerdotibus ad passionem venisse memoratur. Licet semper Deo mancipata devotio dicatis hominibus pro martyrio deputetur, Cyprianus tamen etiam ad perfectam coronam Domino consummante profecit”; cf. Vit. Cypr. 7.12 (Mohrmann and Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, 20): “A martyrii consummatione dilatus est.”

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Of particular interest here is Pontius’s use of “consummation” (consummare; consummatio). Twice the “consummation” of Cyprian’s “perfection” is cast as something for which he is not the primary agent; the second of these instances specifies that “his Lord” is the one who has “consummated” the bishop’s martyrial crown. This passage finds resonance with one of Cyprian’s letters, which helps to clarify the logic animating Pontius’s emphasis. Writing to Carthaginian confessors during the Decian persecution, Cyprian reassures them that they anticipate a “sublime spectacle” (spectaculum sublime) in which Christ will be present in “his struggle,” conquering on their behalf because “he who was once victorious over death for our sake, is now ever victorious over it within us.” In sum, he stresses that they receive the martyr’s crown “through the consummation of Christ’s power” (consummatione virtutis), which means that “Christ simultaneously bestows and wins the crown” (et coronat pariter et coronatur).119 This understanding of Christ’s role as the active “consummator” of martyrdoms is undoubtedly what Pontius is emphasizing when he describes the perfected crown that emerged from Cyprian’s own “sublime spectacle” as the achievement of his “Lord’s consummation.” As with Cyprian’s letter, numerous Pauline and Johannine passages lent substance to such thinking. However, the soteriological articulations of Hebrews seem to be particularly important for the vocabulary used here. Hebrews employs the language of consummation in describing the deifying implications of Christ’s passion more pervasively than anywhere else in the New Testament. In brief, Hebrews asserts that Christ was “crowned with glory,” became the “author of salvation,” and “brought many brothers and sisters into his gloria” through the consummation of his suffering (per passiones consummare). “Having been made complete” (consummatus factus) through what he suffered, the Son became the “source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” “For by a single offering Christ has perpetually consummated (consummavit) those who are sanctified.” Lastly, believers run the race set before them with perseverance, relying on “Jesus the author and consummator of their faithfulness.”120 It is debatable whether Hebrews enjoyed much popularity in the third-century Carthaginian church. Tertullian and Cyprian relied on the text occasionally and the possible influence of Heb 1:3 on Pontius’s use of splendor is noted above.121 At any rate, it seems extremely likely that Hebrews inspired Pontius here as he emphasizes Christ’s active and decisive role in bringing Cyprian’s path of deifying favor to its full fruition.

119 Cyprian, Ep. 10.2.2–4.4 (CCSL 3B:48–53). 120 See Heb 2:9–10, 5:9, 10:14, 12:1–2. 121 For Tertullian’s use of Hebrews, see M. A. Frisius, Tertullian’s Use of the Pastoral Epistles, Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude, StBibLit 143 (New York: Lang, 2011), 9, 19, 55–58. For allusions to Hebrews in Cyprian, see Ep. 63.4.1 (CCSL 3C:392); Laps. 7 (CCSL 3.1:224); Pat. 7 (CCSL 3A:122); and Dom. or. 1 (CCSL 3A:90).

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Conclusion The significance of the Bible’s influence on early Christian experiences of martyrdom is indisputable. It is therefore disappointing that, in spite of all the fruitful socio-historical and literary-rhetorical research devoted in recent years to early Christian hagiography, scholars have paid so little attention to how scriptural imaginations influenced such texts. Although our exploration of this influence in Pass. Perp. Fel. and Vit. Cypr. has not been exhaustive, the analysis has demonstrated sufficiently that biblical narrations of grace and divine patronage were fundamental to how the authors of these compositions made sense of martyrdom. In particular, this chapter has shown that the logic of these narrations, and the exegesis they encouraged among Africans, inspired the authors of Pass. Perp. Fel. and Vit. Cypr. to envision the martyrs’ experience as more than merely an “imitation of Christ” or apocalyptic struggle against the devil. Rather, they were most intent on characterizing martyrdom as a divinely orchestrated gift of deifying favor. More precisely, they considered martyrdom to be a sanctifying gift that empowered and refined the martyrs’ faithfulness to God, precociously conformed them to the heavenly glories of the age of the resurrection, and endowed them with an extraordinary consummation of their share in the realities of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. To discern and appreciate this theology of grace and deification pervading North Africa’s early Christian hagiography, one must devote careful attention to the Latin renderings of Scripture circulating among African Christians and the local traditions of exegesis that determined how biblical narrations of reality might shape theologies of martyrdom. This is why even scholars such as Saxer and Moss, although including various African texts in their explorations of the scriptural character of martyr acts, fail to notice the significance of grace and deification. Both analyses work either from the New Testament generally or according to its Greek text. Without a close engagement of the Africans’ Latin Bible and their exegetical traditions, neither scholar is able to detect and properly account for the subtle – yet decisive – ways the region’s martyrdom accounts employed theologically laden biblical vocabulary such as gratia, virtus, dignatio, gloria, and claritas. Finally, it is important to emphasize that what this chapter has brought to light in Pass. Perp. Fel. and Vit. Cypr. is representative of North Africa’s earliest Christian hagiography more broadly. Cyprian’s scriptural compendium on martyrdom, for instance, describes it as a “baptism grander in divine favor” (baptisma in gratia majus) that “consummates the growth of our faithfulness” (fidei nostrae incrementa consummat), “immediately unites us with God” (statim Deo copulat), and “crowns divine empowerments” (corona virtutum).122 Similarly, the earliest African Acta the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, begin with martyrs stressing their heavenly gratia

122 Fort., Praefatio 4 (CCSL 3.1:184–85).

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against charges of ingratitude and ends with them declaring gratitude to God (Deo gratias). Additionally, the Passion of Montanus and Lucius and Passion of Marian and James, narrating martyrdoms shortly after Cyprian’s execution, both foreground biblical conceptions of divine patronage and deification with even greater breadth and detail than the texts studied here. To illustrate, it seems fitting to end the chapter with the latter’s closing rhetorical flourish: Truly immeasurable is the compassion of the omnipotent God and His Christ towards His dear ones. He not only strengthens those who are faithful to his name by the deifying favor of his patronage (gratiae dignatione . . . confortat) but he also vivifies by the redemption of Christ’s blood. For who can measure with worthy estimation his benefactions? He who in this matter always works by means of fatherly favor (paterna indulgentia) such that this very thing, which we believe is rendered back in our blood (i.e., faithfulness), should be conferred within us by God almighty.123

For Further Reading Primary Sources Heffernan, Thomas J., ed. and trans. The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Life of St. Cyprian. Translated by Roy Deferrari. In Early Christian Biographies. Fathers of the Church 15. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1964, 5–25. The Acts of Saint Cyprian. Translated by Herbert Musurillo. In The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972, 169–175. The Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs. Translated by Herbert Musurillo. In The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972, 86–89. The Martyrdom of Saints Marian and James. Translated by Herbert Musurillo. In The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972, 194–213. The Martyrdom of Saints Montanus and Lucius. Translated by Herbert Musurillo. In The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972, 214–239. Weber, Robert, Roger Gryson, eds. Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem. 5th ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007.

Secondary Sources Barnes, Timothy. Early Christian Hagiography and Roman History. Tria Corda 5. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010.

123 Passio sanctorum Mariani et Iacobi 13.4 (Musurillo, Acts, 212): “Inaestimabilis vere dei omnipotentis et Christi ejus in suos misericordia, qui fidentes in suum nomen non solum gratiae dignatione confortat sed et sanguinis redemptione vivificat. Nam quis digna aestimatione possit ejus beneficia metiri? Qui in hoc quoque paterna indulgentia semper operatur ut in nos et hoc ipsum, quod in nostro sanguine rependi credimus, conferatur ab omnipotente Deo.”

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Dunn, Geoffrey. “The Reception of the Martyrdom of Cyprian of Carthage in Early Christian Literature.” In Martyrdom and Persecution in Late Antique Christianity: Festschrift Boudewijn Dehandschutter, edited by Johan Leeman, 65–86. Leuven: Peeters Publishing, 2010. Grig, Lucy. Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity. London: Duckworth & Co., 2004. Montgomery, Hugo. “Pontius’ Vita Cypriani and the Making of a Saint.” Symbolae Osloenses 71 (1996): 195–215. Moss, Candida. Ancient Christian Martyrdom. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Moss, Candida. The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Saxer, Victor. “The Influence of the Bible in Early Christian Martyrology.” In The Bible in Greek Christian Antiquity, edited by Paul M. Blowers, 342–74. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997. Saxer, Victor. Bible et Hagiographie: Textes et thèmes bibliques dans les Actes des martyrs authentiques des premiers siècles. Bern: Lang, 1986.

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3 Scripture in Tertullian’s Polemical and Apologetic Treatises Introduction This chapter argues that Tertullian approached Scripture not as an exegete but as an orator, one who was engaged in the classical rhetorical activity of persuasion. He did not so much seek to expound and elucidate the meaning of scriptural passages – indeed, he never wrote a commentary on any scriptural book – as he did to use those passages in the construction of arguments with which to prove that his opponents’ use and understanding of Scripture was invalid and incorrect, while his own was valid and correct.1 Given the extensiveness of his literary output, particularly in works attacking those whom he considered to be heretics, Tertullian is a particularly significant early player in the interpretation and reception of the Bible. In what follows, we shall first place Tertullian within his North African context and highlight some of his distinctive characteristics. Then, we shall consider the question of Tertullian and the canon of Scripture before turning attention to the matter of Tertullian’s interpretation of Scripture.

Tertullian’s Context It is this rhetorical outlook that provides the most appropriate context in which to appreciate Tertullian.2 His rhetorical training also abetted his abilities as a polemicist, if by that we understand polemics to be an argument, generally strident or even bitter, directed against an opponent’s point of view. In that sense, everything Tertullian wrote was polemical and the title of this chapter is somewhat misleading: there is no extant pamphlet by Tertullian that is not polemical.3 The relationship between polemics and apologetics has attracted attention recently, with the editors 1 In this I agree with F. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 82. 2 See R. D. Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian, Oxford Theological Monographs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); and J.-C. Fredouille, Tertullien et la conversion de la culture antique, EAA 47 (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1972). 3 My preference is for pamphlet, in the seventeenth – or eighteenth-century sense of the term, as an argumentative and occasional piece, rather than for treatise, which conveys more of the idea of a comprehensive and systematic treatment. Tertullian only dealt with the disputed elements of a *Geoffrey D. Dunn, FAHA, University of Pretoria and John Paul II Catholic Univeristy of Lublin https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-004

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of one volume of essays noting that apologetics included an element of defense, while in polemics there need not have been any previous attack to warrant the writer’s own.4 Simon Price offers his own clarification of that point, with Tertullian particularly in mind: “polemics attack rivals without necessarily advancing any positive views of their own; apologetics address outsiders, and must deal with the view of their own group and others’ misconceptions of them. However, the alleged distinction does not seem to apply in practice.”5 His last sentence provides a warning about trying to make individual writings fit into a particular literary genre. Tertullian really only had one strategy, which was to persuade his readers that he was right and his opponent wrong. Rather than classify Tertullian’s work by form,6 I have divided them by opponent: those where the opponent was never a Christian (corresponding to apology that could be both defensive and offensive); those where the opponent was no longer a Christian (i.e., heretics as Tertullian conceived them); and those where the opponent was a misinformed Christian.7 This chapter is concerned with the first two groups. In all of these works, to varying degrees, Tertullian not only attacks the opposing view (or individual) as erroneous, but he also defends his own interpretation. This was standard procedure with forensic, deliberative, and epideictic rhetoric (the latter at least in its Aristotelian form).8 Further, good orators knew that to win arguments they had not only to defend but also attack.9 Thus, the idea that some of Tertullian’s works are polemical and some apologetic (and others to be classified in other forms) is not at all helpful, for there is some of both in all his works. Everywhere he looked, Tertullian saw attitudes and behaviors that he thought were wrong and that needed to be confronted, rejected, and corrected. Tertullian’s African context may help explain, at least partially, why he was such a cantankerous and belligerent individual, for his personality seems to have been one of

topic. Even Tertullian’s moral and disciplinary works are polemical in that he was always writing against some opponent. 4 M. Edwards et al., “Introduction: Apologetics in the Roman World,” in Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians, eds. M. Edwards et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999): 1–13, esp. 1. 5 S. Price, “Latin Christian Apologetics: Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and Cyprian,” in Edwards et al., Apologetics in the Roman Empire, 105–29, esp. 106–7. 6 J. Quasten, The Ante-Nicene Literature after Irenaeus, vol. 2, Patrology (Utrecht: Spectrum, 1952), 255–317, grouped them into three as apologetic, controversial, and disciplinary/moral/ascetic. 7 G. D. Dunn, “Tertullian,” in The Early Christian World, ed. P. F. Esler, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2017): 959–75; and G. D. Dunn, “Tertullian,” in The Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, eds. P. J. J. van Geest, B. J. L. Peerbolte, and D. G. Hunter (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). This is an almost identical match for the division employed in A. Neander, Antignostikus: Geist des Tertullians, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Dümmler, 1849), 1–9. 8 Aristotle, Rhetorica 1.3.3 1358b, 1.3.5 1358b. 9 Rh. 3.13.4 1414b.

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those that always felt compelled to prove itself right. He identified himself as Roman when it suited him or as African if that were more supportive of his objective.10 One of the few things we can know about Tertullian himself is that he was attracted to a version of Christianity he knew as New Prophecy, often known today as Montanism.11 Tertullian’s rigor and extremism is legendary. In part this aligns with Montanism. However, we can be sure neither of the extent to which Montanism influenced him nor of how much the hardening of his own views over the years aligned him with and, in turn, shaped the understanding of Montanism that he presented to his readers.12 On topics like the possibility of remarriage after the death of a spouse and the possibility of forgiveness of serious sin after baptism, his increasingly hard line and intolerant pronouncements are patent, but it is too simplistic to assert that his engagement with Montanism was responsible for this.13 Of course, the idea that Tertullian’s membership of the Montanist group in Carthage (if he indeed joined one) meant that he had left the church or, perhaps, had even been expelled from it, is one that now has been definitively refuted.14 Questions arise even if Tertullian’s thought

10 On Tertullian’s African identity see D. E. Wilhite, Tertullian the African, Millennium Studies 14 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007); and J. Lagouanère and S. Fialon, eds., Tertullianus Afer: Tertullien et la littérature chrétienne d’Afrique, Instrumenta patristica et mediaevalia 70 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015). 11 T. D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study, rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 3–29; and G. D. Dunn, Tertullian, ECF (London: Routledge, 2004), 3–11. On Montanism see C. Trevett, Montanism: Gender, Authority and the New Prophecy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); W. Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions and Testimonia: Epigraphic Sources Illustrating the History of Montanism, North American Patristic Society Patristic Monograph Series 16 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1997); A. Wypustek, “Magic, Montanism, Perpetua, and the Severan Persecution,” VC 51 (1997): 276–97; W. Tabbernee, “To Pardon or not to Pardon? North African Montanism and the Forgiveness of Sins,” StPatr 36 (2001): 375–86; W. Tabbernee, Fake Prophecy and Polluted Sacraments: Ecclesiastical and Imperial Reactions to Montanism (Leiden: Brill, 2007); W. Tabbernee, Prophets and Gravestones: An Imaginative History of Montanists and Other Early Christians (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009); and C. Trevett, “Montanism,” in Esler, Early Christian World, 867–84. 12 H. J. Lawlor, “The Heresy of the Phrygians,” JTS 9 (1908): 481–99, emphasized the latter. 13 See R. D. Tomsick, “Structure and Exegesis in Tertullian’s Ad Uxorem and De Exhortatione Castitatis,” StPatr 46 (2010): 9–15. See also C. Markschies, “The Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis and Montanism?,” in Perpetua’s Passions: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis, eds. J. N. Bremmer and M. Formisano (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012): 277–90. 14 D. I. Rankin, Tertullian and the Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 27–51. Some, like L. J. Van der Lof, “The Plebs of the Psychi: Are the Psychi of De Monogamia Fellow-Catholics of Tertullian?,” in Eulogia: Mélanges offerts à Antoon A.R. Bastiaensen à l’occasion de son soixante-cinqui ème anniversaire, eds. G. J. M. Bartelink, A. Hilhorst, and C. H. Kneepkens, Instrumenta Patristica 24 (The Hague: Nijhoff International, 1991): 353–63; and D. E. Wilhite, “Identity, Psychology, and the Psychi: Tertullian’s ‘Bishop of Bishops,’” Interdisciplinary Journal for Research on Religion 5 (2009): 1–26, think that Tertullian never joined a Montanist group in Carthage.

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did become more uncompromising over the years.15 This uncompromising view of Christian purity and commitment is typical of African Christianity and can be traced through the rigorists at the time of Cyprian in the middle of the third century and the Donatists throughout the fourth and into the early-fifth centuries. Clear boundaries between belonging and not belonging were very important to the Africans. As Patout Burns and Robin Jensen point out, “[t]he Greeks studied the interaction of divine and human in the Savior; the Latins attempted to discern the standards which would guarantee divine operation in the rituals of the church.”16 In accord with Tertullian’s Montanist leanings, authority within the church was more charismatic than institutional, and he felt free to criticize leaders who failed to abide by what he called the regula fidei, the rule of faith.17

Tertullian’s Bible The regula fidei was the fixed point in Tertullian’s theological universe around which everything else orbited. This primitive creedal-like formula was the one by which any claim to Christian belief, including what counted as (canonical) Scripture 15 D. E. Wilhite, “The Spirit of Prophecy: Tertullian’s Pauline Pneumatology,” in Tertullian and Paul, eds. T. D. Still and D. E. Wilhite, Pauline and Patristic Scholars in Debate 1 (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013): 45–71, esp. 49. While it may be true that we cannot attribute any hardening of views to an exposure to Montanism, it remains true, nonetheless, that we do seem to witness a hardening of attitudes over time, unless we could find a reason to suggest that Tertullian modulated his views with different readerships, as we find asserted regarding some of Tertullian’s apologetic works in R. F. Evans, “On the Problem of Church and Empire in Tertullian’s Apologeticum,” StPatr 14 (1976): 21–36. 16 J. P. Burns and R. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of its Practices and Beliefs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), xlvii. 17 See B. Hägglund, “Die Bedeutung der regula fidei als Grundlage theologischer Aussagen,” ST 12 (1958): 1–44; R. Uglione, “Regula-Disciplina apud Tertullianum,” Latinitas 25 (1977): 260–65; L. W. Countryman, “Tertullian and the Regula Fidei,” SecCent 2 (1982): 208–27; W. R. Farmer, “Galatians and the Second-Century Development of the Regula Fidei,” SecCent 4 (1984): 143–70; E. F. Osborn, “Reason and the Rule of Faith in the Second Century AD,” in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick, ed. R. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989): 40–61; W. M. Gessel, “Der Ternar. Glaubensregel, Tradition und Sukzession nach De praescriptione haereticorum Tertullians,” in Sendung und Dienst im bischöflichen Amt: Festschrift für Bischof Josef Stimple, ed. A. Ziegenaus (St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 1991): 139–54; P. Blowers, “The Regula Fidei and the Narrative Character of Early Christian Faith,” ProEccl 6 (1997): 199–228; and E. Ferguson, “Tertullian, Scripture, Rule of Faith, and Paul,” in Still and Wilhite, Tertullian and Paul, 22–33. The argument of F. Cardman, “Tertullian on Doctrine and the Development of Discipline,” StPatr 16 (1985): 136–42, that, as Tertullian became more Montanist, he was less interested in the regula and more interested in discipline, fails to appreciate that, for Tertullian, belief and action were not separable; correct action flowed from and depended upon correct belief. Indeed, this is established by the fact that Tertullian argued for correct action based on the correct belief found in a true interpretation of Scripture.

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and what amounted to orthodox interpretation of scriptural texts, was to be measured and evaluated. In De praescriptione haereticorum, one of the most important of his pamphlets for this chapter, Tertullian summarized the regula’s contents: a belief in one God who creates through the Word, operates throughout history, was made flesh through the Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, preached the new law, was crucified, rose on the third day, and ascended into heaven, sending the Spirit in his place to lead believers to heavenly promise and unbelievers to eternal punishment after their own resurrection of the flesh.18 This rule was preached by Christ to the apostles, which they transmitted completely by word of mouth or in writing to the churches they founded and which is preserved completely in those churches and the ones founded from them.19 The regula is logically prior to Scripture.20 Thus, for Tertullian, any book that claims to be part of Scripture can be assessed for its veracity by its conformity with the revelation preached by Jesus and transmitted by the apostles. What books did Tertullian consider to be scriptural? According to the scriptural index of the Corpus Christianorum volumes and the relevant volume of Biblia Patristica, Tertullian made use of or referred to most of the (ultimately) canonized books of the Bible, with the following exceptions: Ruth, 1 Chronicles, Nehemiah, Judith, Esther, Obadiah, Haggai, 2 Maccabees as well as 2–3 John.21 Mark Frisius has argued recently that these scriptural indices are not without error and that a close examination of the supposed instances where Tertullian made use of James (Adv. Jud. 2.7 [CCSL 2:1342]; Marc. 5.11.1 [CCSL 1:695; not listed in CCSL index]; Bapt.(T) 20.2 [CCSL 1:294]; Cor. 15.1 [CCSL 2:1064; listed in the CCSL index, but not in the text’s biblical apparatus]; De cultu feminarum 2.3.1 [CCSL 1:356]; De exhortatione castitatis 12.3 [CCSL 2:1032]; De idololatria 11.1 [CCSL 2:1031; not listed in CCSL index]; De jejunio adversus psychicos 6.6 [CCSL 2:1262; not listed

18 Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum 13.2–5 (CCSL 1:197–98). 19 Praescr. 20–28 (CCSL 1:201–9). See Tertullian, Apologeticus 47.10 (CCSL 1:164). 20 See J. Quasten, “Tertullian and Tradition,” Traditio 2 (1944): 451–84; and E. Ferguson, “Paradosis and Traditio: A Word Study,” in Tradition and the Rule of Faith in the Early Church: Essays in Honor of Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., eds. R. J. Rombs and A. Y. Hwang (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010): 3–29. I am aware of the criticism of Ferguson, “Tertullian, Scripture, Rule of Faith, and Paul,” 30, that my statement “that the regula preceded Scripture is not precise.” In his own day, Tertullian could only derive the regula from written Scripture, but he sought to use the regula as the criterion by which to assess the claims that certain texts were in fact scriptural (and never admitting to the possibility of circular arguments where one is deciding what is scriptural from what is already accepted as scriptural). Indeed, the fact that Tertullian says that the regula was taught by Christ means that, both logically and chronologically, the regula precedes Scripture, even though, by Tertullian’s day, the regula could only be discerned from Scripture. 21 J. Allenbach et al., Des origins à Clément d’Alexandrie et Tertullien, vol. 1, Biblia Patristica. Index des citations et allusions bibliques dans la literature patristique (Paris: CNRS, 1975). See also J. F. Jansen, “Tertullian and the New Testament,” SecCent 2 (1982): 191–207.

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in the CCSL index]) reveals that James was not used by Tertullian and that he was merely making use of an Old Testament passage upon which James relied.22 He also argues that the same is true regarding 2 Peter.23 Jude is known to Tertullian, although he did not make use of it.24 Frisius’s explanation for this in Tertullian is limited to two choices: “[h]e does not display any knowledge of 2 Peter or James, although it is unclear if this is because he rejected these works or simply has never come into contact with them.”25 In fairness, a third option needs to be considered, namely, that Tertullian did know these two New Testament letters but never had a compelling reason to cite them.26 This would give these two books the same status in Tertullian’s eyes as the above-mentioned Old Testament texts. One could hardly argue that Tertullian rejected Judith, Esther, or 2 Maccabees or that he did not know them; it must, therefore, be that he just had no use for them in any of the arguments he constructed. While it is true that Tertullian did not quote from Judith, Esther, 2 Maccabees, or Dan 14 (Bel and the Dragon),27 he did reference Tobit, 1 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, Dan 3:24–90 (Prayer of Azariah), and Dan 13 (Susanna). Frisius also raises the question of whether or not Tertullian had a closed canon of Scripture, or, in other words, whether additional books might still be brought into the canon. He concludes that this must remain something of an open question.28 Yet, we can point to Tertullian’s statement in Praescr. that the Bible consists of the Law and Prophets along with writings of the evangelists and apostles.29

22 M. A. Frisius, Tertullian’s Use of the Pastoral Epistles, Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude, StBibLit 143 (New York: Lang, 2011), 10–13. 23 Frisius, Tertullian’s Use, 13–15. 24 Cf. Cult. fem. 1.3.3 (CCSL 1:347). Frisius, Tertullian’s Use, 15–16, claims that Tertullian knew about Jude but never read it, which seems to be too strong an assertion. Even though elements of Jude would have been helpful in attacking false teachers, there were better passages to which he could to turn. 25 Frisius, Tertullian’s Use, 17. On p. 20 and with regard to James and 2 Peter, Frisius claims: “[t]his silence suggests that these books are not a part of Tertullian’s scripture . . . ” I consider this conclusion unwarranted. 26 However, D. Nienhuis and R. W. Wall, Reading the Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude as Scripture: The Shaping & Shape of a Canonical Collection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 15–16, argue that because James (along with Peter and John) operate as a counterbalance to Paul (at least in the anti-Marcion context, I would add), it would appear unlikely that Tertullian knew James since, if he had known it, he would have cited it. 27 Daniel 14 is in Theodotion, whose Greek translation Tertullian certainly knew. From Idol. 18.2 (CCSL 2:118) and Jejun. 7.8 (CCSL 2:1264), we know that Tertullian knew of the story of Bel and the Dragon. 28 Frisius, Tertullian’s Use, 17–19. 29 Praescr. 36.5 (CCSL 1:217): “legem et prophetas cum evangelicis et apostolicis litteris.” See E. Ferguson, “Factors Leading to the Selection and Closure of the New Testament Canon,” in The

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Since there were no more evangelists and apostles, it follows that there could be no room for new additions. Thus, a work like Hebrews is acceptable because, even though written by Barnabas – and not to be confused with Epistle of Barnabas, a work Tertullian also knew30 – the author was sufficiently close to Paul for the work to be scriptural.31 The fact that Tertullian had to argue for its inclusion would suggest that it was not universally accepted. Indeed, at one point, Tertullian seems to speak of a closed canon from which Shepherd of Hermas was excluded because every church council had decided that it had not “deserved to be listed with the divine documents.”32 Tertullian was aware of other works that were claimed by some to be scriptural. For example, he rejected the Acts of Paul and Thecla,33 since he knew that the presbyter in Asia Minor who had composed it had been exposed as a Pauline faker (hence, those who derived their arguments for the rights of women to teach and baptize had no ground for their stance). Shepherd of Hermas was a work known to Tertullian, but it was rejected by him as scriptural because it did not conform to the regula with regard to the forgiveness of adultery, even though he knew it was received as Scripture by some churches.34 He knew Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah and referred to it but does not comment on its scriptural status.35 He quotes from 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras.36 1 Enoch was accepted as scriptural, especially as it supported Tertullian’s stance against idols and immodestly dressed women.37 He was aware that some rejected it as Scripture since it is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures and because some say that it could not have been written by Enoch, since it could not possibly have survived the flood. Tertullian had an answer to the second charge: Noah, the great-grandson

Canon Debate, eds. L. M. McDonald and J. A. Sanders (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002): 295–320, esp. 306–8. 30 See G. D. Dunn, “Two Goats, Two Advents and Tertullian’s Adversus Iudaeos,” Aug 39 (1999): 245–64. 31 Tertullian, De pudicitia 20.2 (CCSL 2:1324). See E. A. de Boer, “Tertullian on ‘Barnabas’ Letter to the Hebrews’ in De pudicitia 20.1–5,” VC 68 (2014): 243–63. 32 Pud. 10.12 (CCSL 2:1301): “divino instrumento meruisset incidi.” In places where Shepherd of Hermas could be helpful to his argument, such as Or. 16.1 (CCSL 1:266), Tertullian was not so negative in his assessment of its worth. 33 Tertullian, Bapt. 17.5 (CCSL 1:292). For a recent study of these acta, see P.-B. Smit, “St. Thecla: Remembering Paul and Being Remembered through Paul,” VC 68 (2014): 551–63. 34 Pud. 10.12, 20.2 (CCSL 2:1301, 1324). 35 Tertullian, De patientia 14.1 (CCSL 1:315). 36 Marc. 4.16.1 (CCSL 1:580); Praescr. 3.7 (CCSL 1:189), although the latter may actually be a reference to 1 Sam 16:7. 37 Cult. fem. 2.10.3 (CCSL 1:365); Idol. 4.2 (CCSL 2:1103); Res. 32.1 (CCSL 2:961). On 1 Enoch see L. Van Beek, “1 Enoch among Jews and Christians: A Fringe Connection?,” in Christian-Jewish Relations through the Centuries, eds. S. E. Porter and B. W. R. Pearson, LNTS 192 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000): 93–115.

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of Enoch, would have known its contents and could have re-recorded them following the deluge. His answer to the first is that, since the work points to Christ, it is little wonder the Jews rejected it. The fact that Jude refers to 1 Enoch is further proof of its scriptural claims.38 What version of Scripture did Tertullian use? Did he himself translate directly from the Greek, as we find argued by Zahn and Aalders, or did he make use of existing Latin translations, as we find argued by Neander, Rönsch, Stummer, Botte, and Tenney?39 We know Tertullian read and wrote in Greek,40 even though nothing he wrote in Greek survives. The possibility that Tertullian was translating directly from the Greek arises from the following facts: (1) he often displays great variety in word choice in quoting the same passage from Scripture in different pamphlets; (2) his word choice for translating a particular Greek words sometimes differs from other versions of the Vetus Latina, the name given to all the Latin versions of the surviving portions of the Bible that were produced before the Vulgate.41 The trouble is that the Vetus Latina often has to be reconstructed from patristic quotations, and it

38 Cult. fem. 1.3.1–3 (CCSL 1:346–47). The flaw in the second argument is that the Jews accepted as Scripture many passages and texts that Tertullian would regard as pointing to Christ. 39 For the Greek option, see T. Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, 2 vols. (Erlangen: Deichert, 1889–1892); and G. J. D. Aalders, “Tertullianus’ Citaten uit de Evangeliën en de oudLatijnsche bijbelvertalingen” (PhD diss., Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1932), 196 (but note that Aalders admits that Tertullian might have been influenced by existing Latin versions and that Tertullian often translated from memory); and G. J. D. Aalders, “Tertullian’s Quotations from St Luke,” Mnemosyne 3/5 (1937): 241–82. For the Latin option see Neander, Antignostikus, 228 n. 2; H. Rönsch, Des neue Testament Tertullian’s. Aus dem Schriften des Letzteren möglichst vollständig reconstruirt (Leipzig: Fues, 1871), 43; F. Stummer, Einführung in die lateinische Bibel. Ein Handbuch für Vorlesungen und Selbstunterricht (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1928), 11–14; B. Botte, “(Versions) latines antérieurs à S. Jérôme,” in Dictionnaire de la Bible, eds. A. Feuillet et al., Supplément V (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1957): 334–47; and M. C. Tenney, “The Quotations from Luke in Tertullian as Related to the Texts of the Second and Third Centuries,” HSCP 56–57 (1947): 257–60. 40 Cor. 6.3 (CCSL 2:1047), referring to a Greek version of Tertullian, De spectaculis; Tertullian, Adversus Praxean 3.2 (CCSL 2:1161); Tertullian, Bapt. 15.2 (CCSL 1:290), suggesting that there was an earlier version of this pamphlet in Greek; Tertullian, De virginibus velandis 1.1 (CCSL 2:1209). In Tertullian, Adversus Valentinianos 6.1–2 (CCSL 2:757), Tertullian indicates that he will use the Greek names of the Valentinian eons, since they are more familiar, explaining them in Latin in the margins and with Latin translations above the Greek. 41 On the complexities of relating early Christian citations of Latin versions of Scripture with Old Latin codices, see H. A. G. Houghton, “Patristic Evidence in the New Edition of the Vetus Latina Iohannes,” StPatr 54 (2013): 69–85; H. A. G. Houghton, “The Use of the Latin Fathers for New Testament Textual Criticism,” in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis, eds. B. D. Ehrman and M. W. Holmes, NTTSD 42 (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 375–405; and A. M. Donaldson, “Explicit References to New Testament Textual Variants by the Church Fathers: Their Value and Limitations,” StPatr 54 (2013): 87–97. Most recently, H. A. G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament: A Guide to its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 12–14, has even raised questions about the extent to which there were different versions of the Vetus Latina, as opposed to various revisions of the Latin

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is not always clear when early Christian writers were quoting an existing Latin version or altering one either in light of Greek versions that they knew or in accordance with their own inclinations, or simply mistakenly quoting from memory. Monceaux and de Labriolle argued that Tertullian knew a Latin translation for some books of the Bible but not others42; O’Malley and Houghton support them.43 Barnes goes as far as to state that “[a]lthough he sometimes chose to provide his own spontaneous translation of scriptural texts, he more often employed an already existing translation.”44 As examples of how the argument is conducted, O’Malley points to amartia used in Bapt.(T) 18.1, where Tertullian is quoting 1 Tim 5:22. This is a very rare word in Latin. Elsewhere, when Tertullian referred to the passage he used the word delictum, which is what is found in Vetus Latina evidence.45 Although Kilpatrick argued that this is evidence that Tertullian was using a Latin translation, O’Malley points out that we cannot be so definitive.46 In Adversus Praxean (and in particular Prax. 3.2),47 Tertullian equates the Greek logos of John 1:1 with the Latin ratio and sermo rather than verbum,48 even though he does use verbum on occasion, although not directly in relation to the opening of John’s Gospel.49 This has led some to suggest that sermo was preferred in Africa and that Tertullian used verbum when quoting his opponents’ texts, although O’Malley wisely urges caution.50 We could look also

version to make it align more with the Greek, thereby eliminating the division between African and European or Italian forms. 42 P. Monceaux, Tertullien et les origines, vol. 1, Histoire littéraire de l’Afrique chrétienne depuis les origines jusqu’à l’invasion arabe (Paris: Leroux, 1901), 106–18; P. de Labriolle, “Tertullien a-t-il connu une version latine de la Bible?,” Bulletin d’ancienne littérature et d’archéologie chrétiennes 4 (1914): 201–13; and M. Stenzel, “Zur Frühgeschichte der lateinischen Bibel,” TRev 49 (1953): 98–103. 43 T. P. O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible: Language – Imagery – Exegesis, Latinitas Christianorum Primaeva 21 (Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1967), 4–41; and Houghton, “Use of the Latin Fathers,” 376. 44 Barnes, Tertullian, 63. He cites O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 63, in support of this position, but O’Malley does not go so far as to say that Tertullian “more often” used an existing (Latin) text. 45 Tertullian, Bapt. 18.1 (CCSL 1:292); Pud. 18.9 (CCSL 2:1318). 46 G. D. Kilpatrick, “I Tim. V. 22 and Tertullian De Baptismo XVIII.I,” JTS, NS 16 (1965): 127–28; and O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 8–9. 47 Prax. 3.2 (CCSL 2:1161–62). 48 Tertullian, Adversus Hermogenem 18.6, 20.4, 45.1 (CCSL 1:412, 414, 434); Or. 1.1 (CCSL 1:257); Prax. 2.1, 7.3, 7.8, 8.4, 12.5–6, 13.3, 16.1, 19.3, 19.6, 21.1 (CCSL 2:1160, 1166, 1167, 1173–74, 1180, 1185–86); Marc. 5.19.4 (CCSL 1:721); Res. 5.6 (CCSL 2:927). 49 Apol. 21.10, 21.17 (CCSL 1:124–25), where λόγος is translated by sermo. But Tertullian shows a preference for verbum: see, e.g., Praescr. 31.2 (CCSL 1:212); Pud. 7.10 (CCSL 2:1293); Marc. 4.19.12 (CCSL 1:594); and Tertullian, De carne Christi 18.3–4 (CCSL 2:906), quoting John 3:6. See also R. Braun, Deus Christianorum. Recherches sur le vocabulaire doctrinal de Tertullien, 2nd ed., EAA 70 (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1977), 267–68. 50 O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 17–20.

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at De resurrectione carnis where Tertullian quotes from Rev 7:17, saying ab oculis eorum, and then offers his own comment, while referencing ex isdem oculis. According to Vogels, if Tertullian had translated from the Greek himself using ab, then he would not have used ex. Therefore, this demonstrates that he was quoting a Latin version before paraphrasing using his preferred preposition.51 When Frisius looks at Tertullian’s scriptural texts from some of the shorter New Testament books, he finds evidence to suggest that Tertullian relied mainly upon the Greek, though he also used both the Latin and his own memory.52 To complicate matters further, it is possible that Tertullian, on occasion at least, was working from memory of a scriptural verse, in either Greek or Latin, and that this could explain some variation in his translations from Greek or his copying from a Latin version. Furthermore, he could have been using a Latin translation for a verse but, in any given instance, could have inserted an alternative Latin word because it worked better in the argumentative context of that particular composition. Given that there seems to have been a sense that there was not a fixed Latin version, one suspects that Tertullian might have had little hesitation to vary a Latin translation as it suited him. Thus, deviation in Tertullian from a known Vetus Latina version need not necessarily suggest that he was translating from Greek. A consensus on this has yet to be established, given the complexity of comparing all the Vetus Latina versions and Greek variations with Tertullian’s use of Scripture. Even further complications are introduced when one considers Tertullian and Marcion.53 An Asian Christian of the middle of the second century who came to Rome, Marcion was a dualist, arguing that there were two gods: a harsh creator god revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures and the loving Father of Jesus revealed in the

51 H. J. Vogels, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der lateinischen Apokalypse-Übersetzung (Düsseldorf: L. Schwann, 1920), 125. 52 Frisius, Tertullian’s Use, 22–37. 53 For recent and helpful studies and bibliography on Marcion, see K. Tsutsui, “Das Evangelium Marcions: Eine neuer Versuch der Textekonstruktion,” AJBI 18 (1992): 76–132; U. Schmid, Marcion und sein Apostolos. Rekonstruktion und historische Einordnung der marcionitischen Paulusbriefausgabe, ANTF 25 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995); U. B. Schmid, “How Can We Access Second Century Gospel Texts? The Cases of Marcion and Tatian,” in The New Testament Text in Early Christianity, eds. C.-B. Amphoux and J. K. Elliott, HTB 6 (Lausanne: Editions du Zebre, 2003): 151–93; J. BeDuhn, The First New Testament: Marcion’s Scriptural Canon (Salem, OR: Polebridge Press, 2013); M. Vinzent, Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels, Studia Patristica Supplements 2 (Leuven: Peeters, 2014); M. Klinghardt, Das älteste Evangelium und die Entstehung der kanonischen Evangelien, 2 vols., Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter 60/1–2 (Tübingen: Francke, 2015); D. T. Roth, The Text of Marcion’s Gospel, NTTSD 49 (Leiden: Brill, 2015); J. M. Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); and D. Roth, “The Link between Luke and Marcion’s Gospel: Prolegomena and Initial Considerations,” in Luke on Jesus, Paul, and Early Christianity: What Did He Really Know?, eds. J. S. Kloppenborg and J. Verheyden, BTS 29 (Leuven: Peeters, 2017): 59–80.

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New Testament. For Marcion the Hebrew Scriptures were superseded by the New Testament and even the New Testament needed to be (or had already been, if what Marcion worked with was something he inherited rather than created himself) purged of Jewish influence, leaving him with a gospel, drawn largely from Luke (Evangelikon), and ten Pauline letters (Apostolikon).54 It has even been argued that Tertullian replies to Marcion from Matthew rather than Luke and that, therefore, Tertullian knew a harmonized gospel, at least of Matthew and Luke.55 The latter claim has been disputed by Dieter Roth.56 Did Tertullian read Marcion’s texts in Greek or in a Latin translation? Von Harnack believed that Tertullian knew Marcion, especially Apostolikon, in Latin because, when Tertullian quotes them from Marcion, the text of the Pauline letters differs from that he used in other works and explains some of the words he found in Marcion.57 The Latin shows closer similarities to the European versions of Vetus Latina than the African. This conclusion has been followed by von Soden, Higgins, Braun, O’Malley, and Lang.58 The argument advanced is that a Latin version of Marcion was produced in Rome and exported to Africa and this is what Tertullian read (along with other Latin versions of Scripture). Ephesians 3:9 in Marc. 5.18.1 is taken as a clear example of Tertullian criticising Marcion’s Latin text: the deletion of the preposition in changes Deo from an ablative of agency or location into one of separation, which suited Marcion, and only works in Latin.59 The argument in Quispel, on the other hand, is that Tertullian read Marcion in Greek, translating 54 For a recent assessment of the textual reconstruction of Marcion’s writings, see D. T. Roth, “Marcion’s Gospel and Luke: The History of Research in Current Debate,” JBL 127 (2008): 513–27; J. BeDuhn, “New Studies of Marcion’s Evangelion,” ZAC 21 (2017): 8–24; D. T. Roth, “Marcion’s Gospel and the History of Early Christianity: The Devil is in the (Reconstructed) Details,” ZAC 21 (2017): 25–40; D. A. Smith, “Marcion’s Gospel and the Resurrected Jesus of Canonical Luke 24,” ZAC 21 (2017): 41–62; U. Schmid, “Das marcionitische Evangelium und die (Text-)Überlieferung der Evangelien,” ZAC 21 (2017): 90–109; and J. M. Lieu, “Marcion and the Corruption of Paul’s Gospel,” ZAC 21 (2017): 121–39. Most interestingly, Klinghardt and BeDuhn argue for the priority of Marcion’s Evangelikon (a document he inherited rather than authored) over that of the Gospel of Luke as we have it today. 55 D. S. Williams, “Tertullian’s Text of Luke,” SecCent 8 (1991): 193–99. 56 D. T. Roth, “Matthean Texts and Tertullian’s Accusations in Adversus Marcionem,” JTS, NS 59 (2008): 580–97. 57 A. von Harnack, Marcion. Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott. Eine Monographie zur Geschichte der Grundlegung der katholischen Kirche, 2nd ed., TU 45 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1924). 58 H. von Soden, “Der lateinische Paulustext bei Marcion und Tertullian,” in Festgabe für Adolf Jülicher zum 70. Geburtstag 26. Januar 1927, eds. A. Jülicher, R. Bultmann, and H. von Soden (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1927): 229–81; A. J. B. Higgins, “The Latin Text of Luke in Marcion and Tertullian,” VC 5 (1951): 1–42; Braun, Deus Christianorum, 21; O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 41–62; and, tentatively, T. J. Lang, “Did Tertullian Read Marcion in Latin? Grammatical Evidence from the Greek of Ephesians 3:9 in Marcion’s Apostolikon as Presented in the Latin of Tertullian’s Adversus Marcionem,” ZAC 21 (2017): 63–72. 59 See Lang, “Did Tertullian Read Marcion in Latin?”

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Marcion’s words into Latin himself, even as Tertullian was being influenced by other Latin translations of Scripture that he knew.60 Despite some recent rehabilitation of von Harnack, Quispel’s is now the dominant view.61 Of course, regardless of the language in which Tertullian read Marcion, he had at his disposal other versions of the scriptural texts (in Latin and/or Greek). Indeed, with any of his pamphlets, perhaps the quest to find whether Tertullian used a Latin Bible or a Greek Bible (and the related question of whether he read Marcion’s Scripture in Latin or Greek) is doomed to frustration. I would hazard a guess that, given the way he argued, as illustrated by the examples cited by numerous scholars both for and against, it is quite likely that Tertullian had before him one or more versions in Latin as well as the Greek and that he felt free to choose any one of those translations or provide his own, moving between them at will, selecting the word that best countered the position of his opponent. This is the best way to explain the seemingly contradictory pieces of evidence that have been discovered by scholars. Therefore, even if he was translating from the Greek, it is conceivable that he took a Latin word from a version he knew; likewise, it is just as conceivable that, even if he was using a Latin version, he could substitute another Latin word (with or without reference back to the Greek) if that better helped his cause.62 There is no need to imagine that Tertullian consistently cited from only one version rather than another. He would use whatever version or translation best suited his purpose. Given that there was no standardized text for Scripture, this somewhat free-and-easy or mix-and-match approach to the text is not that surprising. In other words, rather than being an either-or question, it may turn out to be a both-and solution: Tertullian used Scripture in both Latin and Greek, maybe even within the one phrase or clause he was quoting, depending upon what best suited his argument. It may turn out to be not so much a question of Tertullian’s faulty memory in quoting Scripture as it is one of his many tactics for maximizing the helpfulness of his evidence.

60 G. Quispel, De Bronnen van Tertullianus’ Adversus Marcionem (Leiden: Burgersdijk & Niermans, 1943). 61 Schmid, Marcion und sein Apostolos; J. J. Clabeaux, A Lost Edition of the Letters of Paul: A Reassessment of the Text of the Pauline Corpus Attested by Marcion, CBQMS 21 (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1998); G. Quispel, “Marcion and the Text of the New Testament,” VC 52 (1998): 349–60; D. T. Roth, “Did Tertullian Possess a Greek Copy or Latin Translation of Marcion’s Gospel?” VC 63 (2009): 429–67; Roth, Text of Marcion’s Gospel; and T. J. Bauer, “Das Evengelium des Markion und die Vetus Latina,” ZAC 21 (2017): 73–89. Houghton, “Patristic Evidence in the New Editions,” 81–82, notes that, “[t]he number of occasions when he [Tertullian] is independent of the entire Latin tradition in these [first] four chapters of John, however, is surprisingly high.” Houghton, Latin New Testament, 6, accepts that Marcion circulated only in Greek. 62 Mon. 11.11 (CCSL 2:1246) and Marc. 5.4.8 (CCSL 1:673) suggest both that he could go back to the Greek when he felt the need to do so and that he knew a Latin version.

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Tertullian’s Interpretation of Scripture There have been a number of studies devoted to the ways in which Tertullian interpreted Scripture. They have mainly focused on the question of whether he preferred to read them literally or allegorically/figuratively. Thus, we find Hanson observing that sometimes Tertullian engaged in an allegorical reading and at other times in a literal reading of Scripture.63 On the whole, according to Joseph Trigg, Tertullian was not keen on allegory.64 While others have noted this variation in Tertullian’s approach to Scripture, with Waszink noting that Tertullian had no single method,65 they seem to have taken Tertullian’s words in Marc. – that a literal interpretation should be followed unless it were nonsensical66 – at face value, rather than realize that this in itself was an opportunistic statement, relevant for his argument against Marcion’s literal reading of the Prophets, which, in turn, had provided Marcion with a basis from which to reject the Hebrew Scriptures, by noting that Paul himself, in 1 Cor 9:9, 10:4, Gal 4:22–24, and Eph 5:31–32, turned to allegory to interpret the Hebrew Scriptures.67 My own argument, influenced by that of Heinrich Karpp, has been that Tertullian had no preferred method of interpreting Scripture.68 He was engaged in combat with his opponents, seeking to persuade his readers that he was right and they were wrong. His interpretation of a passage of Scripture was in reaction to a contrary position. His method was much like the well-trained orator who knew how to speak in support of the letter of the law if his opponent argued from the spirit of the law and to argue for the spirit of the law if his opponent upheld the letter of the law.69 In other words, Tertullian used whatever method best counted the arguments employed and positions adopted by his opponents. For example, as I have pointed out elsewhere,

63 R. P. C. Hanson, “Notes on Tertullian’s Interpretation of Scripture,” JTS, NS 12 (1961): 273–79. 64 J. W. Trigg, Biblical Interpretation, Message of the Fathers of the Church 9 (Wilmington, DE: Galzier, 1988), 40. 65 J. H. Waszink, “Tertullian’s Principles and Methods of Exegesis,” in Early Christian Literature and the Classical Intellectual Tradition: In Honorem Robert M. Grant, eds. W. R. Schoedel and R. L. Wilken (Paris: Beauchesne, 1979): 17–31, esp. 17. 66 Marc. 3.5.3 (CCSL 1:513); Res. 20.1–9 (CCSL 2:945–46). 67 Hanson, “Notes on Tertullian’s Interpretation,” 275–76; E. Osborn, Tertullian: First Theologian of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 161; and O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 145–58. 68 H. Karpp, Schrift und Geist bei Tertullian, BFCT 47 (Güttersloh: Bertelsmann, 1955), 21–29; and G. D. Dunn, “Tertullian’s Scriptural Exegesis in de praescriptione haereticorum,” JECS 14 (2006): 141–55. 69 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 3.6.6, regarded the quaestio legalis not as a status but as closely related to the three grounds for arguing. The species of this legal question is investigated in 7.5–9, with the letter and spirit being discussed in 7.6. See 7.6.9 (LCL 126:268): “Sed ut qui voluntate nitetur scriptum, quotiens poterit, infirmare debebit, ita, qui scriptum tuebitur, adiuvare se etiam voluntate temptabit.”

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Tertullian could turn to Matt 7:7 // Luke 11:9 in Praescr. to indicate that it applied only to non-Christians, while in De baptismo he could argue that it applied to newly baptized Christians.70 He could argue that Lev 16:5–29 must be understood typologically, while Matt 7:7 // Luke 11:9 must be read in its historical context.71 If Tertullian turned more to a literal reading over an allegorical, it was not because he distrusted the allegorical, but because his opponents, particularly his Gnostic opponents, favored it so strongly. This opinion has been tested recently by Frisius and confirmed with regard to the non-Pauline New Testament letters examined in his work.72 This does, however, raise the question of whether or not Tertullian was a relativist. Was he so caught up in winning an argument that he had no fixed opinions or core beliefs? I would argue that he was not.73 One has to distinguish between Tertullian’s overall position in defending the regula fidei and the tactics he employed (including particular, sometimes varying and even contradictory, scriptural interpretations) in order to defend his position.

Scripture in Tertullian’s Works Dealing with Non-Christians In works ostensibly addressed to a non-Christian readership, it would not be surprising to see that Scripture does not feature heavily in Tertullian’s argumentation. This is the case with all his works addressed to or dealing with the non-Christian world in which he lived, particularly the political world. The only exception is his Adv. Jud. Given that it was about the replacement of the old covenant that God had made with the Jews with the new covenant introduced by Jesus, it is not surprising that it is laden with scriptural references. In the others, that is, in Ad nationes, Apologeticum, Ad Scapulam, and De testimonio animae, we find relatively few references to Scripture. Coming to terms with these works would normally lead us to the question of readership. Are the imagined (non-Christian) readers envisaged by the text as its addressees really the text’s intended readers, or were these works actually meant to be read by Christians? To a large extent that question may be left aside here except to say that the fact that scriptural references are kept to a minimum would support the notion that the non-Christian imagined reader was also the intended reader. However, as I have argued in connection with Adv. Jud., the fact that the intended readers might have been fellow Christians does not mean that we ought to conclude

70 Praescr. 8.4 (CCSL 1:193); Tertullian, Bapt. 20.5 (CCSL 1:295). 71 Tertullian, Adv. Jud. 14.9 (CCSL 2:1394). See Dunn, Tertullian, 22, for further examples. 72 Frisius, Tertullian’s Use, 43–62. 73 G. D. Dunn, “Rhetoric and Tertullian: A Response,” StPatr 65 (2013), 349–56.

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that Tertullian excluded the imagined readers from the intended audience. In a sense, Tertullian’s pamphlets were a template for his fellow Christians to use in their own encounters with non-Christians, whether Jews or polytheists.74 A reading of Apol. will reveal few scriptural references. When he does use Scripture, Tertullian refers to the condemnation of the Jews by a fellow Jew (Isa 6:10),75 or to show that the Christians’ own rules, recorded in their sacred books and which he invites imperial authorities to inspect for themselves, demand that they support the empire (cf. Heb 10:22, Matt 5:44, 1 Tim 2:2).76 It is also not surprising that Scripture plays a minimal role given that one cannot pull persuasive evidence from sources that one’s opponent regards as inadmissible to the debate.77 Instead, there are more allusions and references to the canon of classical literature. The same is true of Ad nationes, the earlier work that served as a first draft of the Apol. In a still later apologetic work, Tertullian assures the proconsul Scapula that Christians are commanded to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them – points obviously taken from Matt 5:44 // Luke 6:28 – but he never states that this command is found in the Christians’ sacred writings.78 On several other occasions Tertullian sought to explain Christian belief to Scapula. And these beliefs are taken, however indirectly, from Scripture, without indicating to the proconsul that this was the case.79 De testimonio animae seems to have no scriptural references or allusions at all. Adversus Judaeos was also addressed to non-Christians, albeit Jews rather than pagans. Tertullian wanted to show that there were many passages of the Hebrew Scriptures pointing to the coming of a messiah and to the promises of a new law, a new circumcision, a new Sabbath, and a new sacrifice. In order to do this, in his early chapters he turned to numerous passages of the Hebrew Scriptures in order to remind Jewish readers (and to equip Christian readers with ammunition for their own encounters with Jews) that they did believe in promises such as these.80 In

74 G. D. Dunn, Tertullian’s Aduersus Iudaeos: A Rhetorical Analysis, North American Patristics Society Patristic Monograph Series 19 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 31–57. 75 Apol. 21.16 (CCSL 1:125). 76 Apol. 30.5, 31.1–3 (CCSL 1:141–42). 77 Quintilian, Inst. 5.7.8 (LCL 125:388), stated that this is “quia sic quisque dictis movetur, ut est ad credendum vel non credendum ante formatus.” See also 4.1.17–18, 5.12.11. 78 Tertullian, Ad Scapulam 1.3 (CCSL 2:1127). On this pamphlet see G. D. Dunn, “Rhetorical Structure in Tertullian’s ad Scapulam,” VC 56 (2002): 47–55. 79 Scap. 2.3 (CCSL 2:1128) from Matt 5:45; Scap. 2.6 (CCSL 2:1128) from Rom 13:1, Tit. 3:1, 1 Pet 2:13; Scap. 4.1 (CCSL 2:1130) from Acts 5:39. 80 See G. D. Dunn, “Pro Temporum Condicione: Jews and Christians as God’s People in Tertullian’s Adversus Iudaeos,” in Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church, eds. P. Allen, W. Mayer, and L. Cross (Brisbane: Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University, 1999), 2: 315–41; and Dunn, Tertullian’s Aduersus Iudaeos.

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the second half of the work he attempted to show how Jesus was the one who fulfilled those promises, thereby rendering the Hebrew Scriptures superfluous insofar as those things that they had promised had been fulfilled. Their usefulness in this age was to show, against the Jews (as well as Marcion, against whom much of this material was re-used; cf. book 4 of Marc.), that a messiah of such a type that Jesus had proved to be had indeed been promised and was not at all unexpected. The Hebrew Scriptures were historically important to show that the promises that had been made (directed against Marcion) had been fulfilled in the New Testament (directed against the Jews). It is perhaps one of the most unrelenting examples of supersessionism in early Christian literature, which, at the same time, sought to defend the necessity and importance of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Scripture in Tertullian’s Works Dealing with Heretics Here we may consider Praescr., Marc., Adversus Hermogenem, Adversus Valentinianos, Adversus Praxean, Scorpiace, De carne Christi, De resurrectione carnis, and De anima. We turn to Praescr. first, since it was composed before he wrote his individual works against heretics.81 For Tertullian, heresy was an unacceptable deviation from a pristine faith.82 To the heretics who on the basis of “seek, and you shall find” (Matt 7:7 // Luke 11:9) claimed that they had the right to speculate on faith, Tertullian replied that these words were valid only in their historical context as addressed to unbelieving Jews: one was to seek until one found Christian faith and, having found it, one was to stop seeking.83 Here is an example of a hermeneutical principle – Scripture must be understood in its historical context – that we must not universalize. Rather, we must realize that Tertullian offered it here because it worked for him in this particular instance to counter his opponent. For Tertullian, heretics were not Christians and, therefore, had no right to offer arguments based on biblical passages.84 Scripture belong to people of faith and, since the heretics do not have faith, they do not have any right to Scripture. This is the basis of his praescriptio – his opponents’ case was invalid, and they had no standing from which to

81 Praescr. 44.14 (CCSL 1:224). 82 Praescr. 1–7 (CCSL 1:187–93). He offered the classical formulation against which W. Bauer, Orthodoxy & Heresy in Earliest Christianity, eds. R. A. Kraft and G. Krodel (Mifflintown, PA: Sigler Press, 1971) would argue. On Tertullian and heresy see G. D. Dunn, “Heresy and Schism according to Cyprian of Carthage,” JTS, NS 55 (2004): 551–74, esp. 554–57. 83 Praescr. 8–14 (CCSL 1:193–99), esp. 8.3 (CCSL 1:193). 84 Praescr. 15–19 (CCSL 1:199–201). This is Tertullian’s partitio, the very heart of his argument. See Dunn, “Tertullian’s Scriptural Exegesis,” 144.

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plead. Therefore, their case should be dismissed rather than decided.85 Even to engage heretics in debate was to give them equal standing in the argument.86 Of course, to argue that heretics did not have faith and that only true Christians did, and, as a result, the former did not have any right to Scripture, Tertullian needed to offer an interpretation of the regula as apostolic transmission, something that was to be found in Scripture itself.87 The heretical denial of the resurrection, as put forward by Marcion, Apelles, and Valentinus, the pre-existence of matter (and denial of God’s creation), as put forward by Hermogenes, the claim that there were two gods, as put forward by Marcion and Apelles, and the assertion of the existence of countless intermediaries between God and the Word, as put forward by Valentinus, was contradicted by the very same passages of Scripture that these heretics wished to claim as their own authoritative texts.88 The deviation of heretical thinking from a pristine Christian faith, and hence, its novelty, was a topic to which Tertullian returned in later pamphlets against individual heresies, such as we find in the opening chapter of Adversus Hermogenem.89 His tactics here are to show that heretical belief, like the pre-existence of matter, contradicts the teaching of Scripture (in this instance, Isa 41:4; 44:6, 24; 45:23; 48:12).90 Scripture is not the only tool Tertullian utilizes against heretics; he uses every form of argumentation available to him as a well-trained orator, with Scripture providing some of the evidence that needed to be crafted into an argument along with logic, philosophy, and relevant data from the natural world. If matter were both eternal and evil, as Hermogenes asserted, there is a contradiction, for what is eternal cannot be evil and vice versa. Thus, either matter cannot be eternal or it cannot be evil or matter can be neither eternal nor evil (the view that Tertullian would ultimately defend). In arguing this, Tertullian made use of Rom 8:19–20.91 Since Hermogenes interpreted passages about the end of the world only figuratively and not literally,92 Tertullian asserted that all figures of speech, if they are to communicate effectively, must have a literal basis precisely because they are drawn from reality.93

85 Praescr. 21–22 (CCSL 1:202–4). 86 Praescr. 18 (CCSL 1:200–1). 87 Praescr. 20–37 (CCSL 1:201–18). See 37.2–3 (CCSL 1:217): “Si enim haeretici sunt, Christiani esse non possunt, non a Christo habendo quod de sua electione sectati haereticorum nomine admittunt. Ita non Christiani nullum jus capiunt christianarum litterarum.” 88 Praescr. 33–4 (CCSL 1:213–15). 89 Herm. 1 (CCSL 1:397). For the dating of Tertullian’s works, see Fredouille, Tertullien et la conversion; Braun, Deus Christianorum, 567–77; and Barnes, Tertullian, 30–56, 325–29. 90 Herm. 6.1–2 (CCSL 1:401–2). 91 Herm. 11.3 (CCSL 1:406). 92 See, e.g., Ps 96[97]:5, 101[102]:25–26, Isa 2:19, 34:4, 41:17, 42:15, Matt 24:35, Rev 6:13, 20:11, 21:1. 93 Herm. 34.1–3 (CCSL 1:426).

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Turning to the Valentinian cosmological system, according to Tertullian, it was so fantastical that it hardly needed to be refuted by reference to Scripture.94 In both De carne Christi and its companion pamphlet De resurrectione carnis,95 when he attacks the understanding of Marcion, Apelles, and Valentinus on the reality of Jesus being born and having flesh – and, hence, on the possibility of there being a resurrection of the flesh – Tertullian had to counter the spiritualizing arguments of his opponents by asserting the literal sense of many scriptural passages.96 The assertion against Marcion was that he did not believe the things that Christians are required to believe, and, having rejected those things, it follows that he could not be a Christian.97 What had been handed to Marcion – and precisely what he had rejected – was the truth, since it was handed on by the apostles.98 Tertullian constructed a rhetorical argument from advantage, honor, necessity, and other topics, using Scripture as his evidence to counter the heretics. That his opponents were docetic in these pamphlets explains his turning to a more literal reading of Scripture, but we should not be led to believe that this was necessarily his preferred method of exegesis: it was simply the appropriate one in this particular context. If his opponents could point to scriptural passages that denigrated the flesh, Tertullian could point to other passages that praised it. Thus, Isa 40:7 could be countered by Isa 40:5, Gen 6:3 by Joel 3:1, Rom 7:18, 8:8, and Gal 5:17 by Gal 6:17 and 1 Cor 3:16; 6:15, and 20.99 It is in Marc., Tertullian’s largest work, that he comes closest to offering a commentary on Scripture. Although Marcion’s dualist belief in two gods came supposedly from his reading of Scripture and contrasting the Old and New Testaments, according to Tertullian, he could only reach this conclusion by misreading Scripture. Indeed, Tertullian’s strongest point against Marcion was that he excised from his canon whole books of Scripture that he found inconvenient, including all of the Hebrew Scriptures. While Marcion argued that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures was vengeful and unjust, Tertullian showed God’s goodness throughout that period of history, explaining that punishment can serve as a correction.100 In book 3 Tertullian sets out to explain how the Christ who appeared was the one foretold by the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures and, therefore, was the Son of the Creator, not some other god. It is here that Tertullian reused much of the

94 On the Valentinians see E. Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the ‘Valentinians’, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 60 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). 95 For recent rhetorical readings of this pamphlet see W. Otten, “Christ’s Birth of a Virgin who Became a Wife: Flesh and Speech in Tertullian’s De carne Christi,” VC 51 (1997): 247–60; and G. D. Dunn, “Mary’s Virginity in partu and Tertullian’s Anti-Docetism in De carne Christi Reconsidered,” JTS, NS 58 (2007): 467–84. 96 Carn. Chr. 3.9 (CCSL 2:878): “Non potest non fuisse quod scriptum est.” 97 Carn. Chr. 2.4 (CCSL 2:875). 98 Carn. Chr. 2.5 (CCSL 2:875). 99 Res. 10.2–4 (CCSL 2:933). 100 Marc. 2.17–27 (CCSL 2:494–507).

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material from the second half of Adv. Jud. In that work, he had wanted to show that, since Christ fulfilled the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures, the old covenant had been superseded. Here, however, he wanted to show that, since Christ fulfilled the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures, the old covenant was important for Jesus’s identity as the Son of the Creator.101 In book 4 Tertullian looks at Marcion’s truncated gospel (derived from Luke, but, according to Tertullian, in an adulterated or mutilated form) and points out that even in the passages he retains it is clear that Jesus was the Son announced by the Creator revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures, even though, as he admits at the start of the book, there are differences in tone between the two Testaments.102 Why, to take but the first example Tertullian offered, would Jesus have gone to Capernaum (cf. Luke 4:31) unless he had a connection with the Jews and therefore with the Jewish God?103 The same continues in book 5 where Tertullian sought to refute Marcion’s notion that Paul, in Galatians (Marc. 5.2–4), 1 Corinthians (Marc. 5.5–10), 2 Corinthians (Marc. 5.11–12), Romans (Marc. 5.13–14), 1 Thessalonians (Marc. 5.15), 2 Thessalonians (Marc. 5.16), Ephesians (Marc. 5.17–18), Colossians (Marc. 5.19), Philippians (Marc. 5.20), and on (Marc. 5.21), preached an entirely different God from that revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Conclusion For Tertullian Christian faith was a rule (regula) preached by Jesus, transmitted by his apostles and their successors, and recorded in Scripture. One comes to know the regula through Scripture and one can assess the claim of a written work to be scriptural by its adherence to the thrust of the regula. It would seem that, when he came to make use of Scripture in his writings, Tertullian was able to translate from the Greek into Latin, make use of a Latin translation, and quote the Latin from memory, although freely altering words here and there to suit his purpose. Tertullian’s purpose in all of the works reviewed here is simple: he set out to defeat his opponents. He used Scripture as one of several forms of evidence in constructing his arguments. Obviously, as a tool, Scripture was of more use in works addressed to Christians (and Jews), or those who claimed to be Christian, than it was in works addressed to non-Christians. In combatting his opponents, Tertullian’s interpretation of a scriptural passage was guided by his adversaries in the sense that

101 See D. P. Efroymson, “Tertullian’s Anti-Jewish Rhetoric: Guilt by Association,” USQR 36 (1980): 25–37; and Dunn, Tertullian’s Aduersus Iudaeos, 116–39. 102 Marc. 4.1.3 (CCSL 1:545). 103 Marc. 4.7.3 (CCSL 1:553).

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he would argue for exactly the opposite of whatever position it was that they had advocated for. Thus, he has no single method of interpretation and could employ either a literal or figurative reading depending on what was necessary in order to win an argument and/or to defend the regula. In this he was doing what his rhetorical training had prepared him to do. The strictness, severity, harshness, and inflexible demands of Tertullian’s Christianity would be reflected in much of the African tradition that followed him.

For Further Reading Primary Sources Roberts, Alexander, and James Donaldson, eds. Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian. Vol. 3, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, revised by A. Cleveland Coxe. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1885. Roberts, Alexander, and James Donaldson, eds. Tertullian, Part Fourth. Vol. 4, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, revised by A. Cleveland Coxe. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1885. Tertullian. Tertulliani Opera: Pars I: Opera Catholica; Adversus Marcionem, edited by Eligius Dekkers, Janus Guilielmus Philippus Borleffs, Radbodus Willems, Raymond François Refoulé, Gerardus Frederik Diercks, and Aemilianus Kroymann. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 1. Turnhout: Brepols, 1954. Terullian. Tertulliani Opera: Pars II: Opera Montanistica, edited by Alois Gerlo, Aemilianus Kroymann, Jan Hendrik Waszink, Jan William Philip Borleffs, August Reifferscheid, Georg Wissowa, Eligius Dekkers, Ernest Evans, Adolf von Harnack, and Radbodus Willems. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latinorum 2. Turnhout: Brepols, 1954.

Secondary Sources Barnes, Timothy David. Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985. Dunn, Geoffrey D. Tertullian. Early Church Fathers. London: Routledge, 2004. Dunn, Geoffrey D. “Tertullian’s Scriptural Exegesis in de praescriptione haereticorum.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 14 (2006): 141–55. Hanson, Richard Patrick Crosland “Notes on Tertullian’s Interpretation of Scripture.” Journal of Theological Studies, NS 12 (1961): 273–79. Lieu, Judith M. Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. O’Malley, Thomas P. Tertullian and the Bible: Language Imagery Exegesis. Latinitas Christinaorum Primaeva 21. Nijmegen and Utrecht: Dekker and Van de Vegt, 1967. Roth, Dieter T. The Text of Marcion’s Gospel. New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents 49. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015. Still, Todd D., and David E. Wilhite, eds. Tertullian and Paul. Pauline and Patristic Scholars in Debate 1. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. Waszink, Jan Hendrik “Tertullian’s Principles and Methods of Exegesis.” In Early Christian Literature and the Classical Intellectual Tradition: In Honorem Robert M. Grant, edited by William R. Schoedel and Robert L. Wilken, 17–31. Paris: Beauchesne, 1979. Wilhite, David E. Tertullian the African. Millennium Studies 14. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007.

Carly Daniel-Hughes

4 Scripture in Tertullian’s Moral and Ascetical Treatises Introduction: Tertullian’s Ethical Vision in Broad View God is jealous and is one who is not contemptuously derided . . ., who, albeit patient, yet threatens, through Isaiah, an end of [his] patience. ‘I have held my peace; shall I thereby always hold my peace and endure? I have been quiet (as a woman) in birth-pangs; I will arise, and will make (them) grow arid’ (Isa 47:14). For ‘a fire shall proceed before his face and shall utterly burn his enemies’ (Ps 97:3) striking down not the body only, but the souls too into hell.1

Tertullian’s ethical vision was rigid and uncompromising. True, his God was both merciful and just,2 but in matters of Christian morality he emphasized the second term in that equation. Tertullian routinely reminded his audience of the withering power of God’s omnipresent censorial gaze.3 In De pudicitia, he cites Isaiah and the Psalms to remind his audience of God’s wrath. This God pursues moral order and demands it of his faithful. Over the course of his career, Tertullian continued to raise the bar of moral standards required of Christians. Where a young Tertullian would permit Christians to marry (another Christian) after the death of a spouse or to be forgiven of sins committed after baptism,4 an older, more determined Tertullian would reject both possibilities and associate them with lax Christians whom he deemed psychici.5 1 Pud. 2.7 (CCSL 2:1284; ANF 4:76 [trans. altered]): “Deus enim zelotes, et qui naso non deridetur . . . et qui licet patiens, tamen per Esaiam comminatur patientiae finem: ‘Tacui, numquid et semper tacebo et sustinebo? Quievi velut parturiens, exsurgam et arescere faciam.’ ‘Ignis enim procedet ante faciem ipsius, et exuret inimicos ejus, non solum corpus, verum et animas occidens in Gehennam.’” 2 Marc. 2.11.1–13.5 (CCSL 1:488–91). 3 Apol. 45.7 (CCSL 1:160); Tertullian, De spectaculis 20.5 (CCSL 1:245); Virg. 15.2 (CCSL 2:1224). 4 On permissible remarriage, see Tertullian, Ad uxorem 2; on forgiveness of sin, see De paenitentia. Tertullian’s changing views have often been attributed to his “Montanism.” Yet he never uses the term. In fact, “Montanist” did not emerge in Christian discourse until the fourth century. See L. Nasrallah, ‘An Ecstasy of Folly’: Prophecy and Authority in Early Christianity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 155–62. Scholars, however, have largely rejected the idea that Tertullian’s familiarity with testimonia (or sayings) of the New Prophecy implies a break from his earlier “orthodoxy.” See, for instance, D. E. Wilhite, “Identity, Psychology, and Psychici: Tertullian’s Bishop of Bishops,” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 5 (2009): 2–26, esp. 5–6. 5 Tertullian names this group as his adversaries in three treatises, all of which are generally considered to be late and roughly contemporaneous: De monogamia, De jejunio psychicos, and De pudicitia. See T. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 135–36, 139–42. *Carly Daniel-Hughes, Concordia University, Montréal https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-005

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Disciplina was Tertullian’s preferred term to describe the demands of Christian living,6 the demands of salvation, and few, it seemed, who would call themselves Christian had the capacity to maintain its rigors.7 Tertullian’s disciplina had a militaristic feel, notes Carlin Barton. It entailed a set of rules, or guidelines, that oriented the Christian community and ensured absolute submission to God and his regula fidei. This “rule” held Scripture (both the Old and New Testaments) to be univocal, revealing one God and testifying clearly to his plan for salvation through Christ.8 Tertullian’s soteriology relied on a Stoic notion of the convergence of opposites.9 In his cosmology, God is alpha and omega, both creator and judge, who stands at the beginning and end of all things.10 A gendered hierarchy of male over female was impressed deeply into that order; Tertullian insisted that in creation human souls obtained gender along with bodies.11 While in the resurrection sexual desire would disappear, sexual difference would not – a point that had important implications for Tertullian’s moral exhortations on sexuality and gender.12 Yet God’s order had been distorted by the onset of sin, leaving the discerning Christian to rely on tools, like disciplina, to find his or her way back. Fasting, sexual chastity, austere dress, abstention from idolatry (a rather large category of potential practices for Tertullian),13 and avoidance of entertainment prepared a Christian to go to his or her own death to showcase commitment to God, if that was what he demanded.14 God will “test flesh and soul for their constancy and tolerance,” Tertullian writes, just as the judge of vaunted Pythian Games rewards athletes bloodied and bruised from the contest. He then continues, “and it will be permissible for God to

6 C. A. Barton and D. Boyarin, Imagine No Religion: How Modern Abstractions Hide Ancient Realities (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 72–104; V. Morel, “Le développement de la ‘disciplina’ sous l’action de Saint-Espirit chez Tertullien,” RHE 35 (1939): 243–65. 7 Barton and Boyarin, Imagine No Religion, 57, notes that the church operates in his writings as “imaginary, transcendent, longed for unity and harmony of Christians.” 8 E.g., Praescr. 13.1–6 (CCSL 1:197–98). Tertullian may have received the notion of a regula fidei from Irenaeus of Lyons. See J. A. Harrill, Paul the Apostle: His Life and Legacy in Their Roman Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 130. 9 E. Osborn, Tertullian: First Theologian of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 67. 10 Apol. 48.11 (CCSL 1:167). 11 Tertullian, De anima 36.4 (CCSL 2:839). 12 See C. Daniel-Hughes, “We Are Called to Monogamy: Marriage, Virginity, and the Resurrection of the Fleshly Body in Tertullian of Carthage,” in Coming Back to Life: The Permeability of Past and Present, Mortality and Immortality, Death and Life in the Ancient Mediterranean, eds. F. Tappenden and C. Daniel-Hughes (Montreal: McGill University Library, 2017): 239–65. 13 See C. Daniel-Hughes, “The Perils of Idolatrous Garb: Tertullian and Christian Belonging in Roman Carthage,” in Religious Competition in Greco-Roman World, eds. N. P. DesRosiers and L. C. Vuong (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016): 15–26; and J. C. M. Van Winden, “Idolum and Idolatria in Tertullian,” VC 36 (1982): 108–14. 14 Fug. 1.5–6 (CCSL 2:2136); Scorp. 5.3–6.10 (CCSL 2:1077–80); see also Barton and Boyarin, Imagine No Religion, 92.

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administer eternal life through fires and swords and anything sharp.”15 A Christian needed to perform subordination, if he or she hoped for salvation. Thus, he explains with a warning why a Christian woman should avoid luxurious garb: “I know not whether the wrist that has been wont to be surrounded with the palmleaf-like bracelet will endure until it grows into the numb hardness of its own chain.”16 Tertullian makes a similar appeal for zealous fasting. It produces a lighter, airy flesh, making one capable of slipping neatly through the gates of God’s heavenly kingdom.17 Scripture, as well as reason and nature, coincided with, and complemented, disciplina. “Scripture establishes the law, nature is called to witness [to it], [ecclesiastical] teaching (disciplina) carries [it] out,” Tertullian writes.18 Together these three sources of truth provided a moral roadmap for Christian life. Tertullian insisted on Scripture’s simplicity and that an authentic reading of it would always uphold the regula fidei and sustain the rigors that disciplina demanded.19 In his moral and ascetical treatises, Tertullian represents Scripture as certain, harmonious, and consistent: an unambiguous guide for right living. Yet such an assertion demanded exegetical gymnastics on his part. Tertullian did not write commentaries or homilies on Scripture; rather, he used it as a persuasive tool. Scholarly consensus is that Tertullian was not a member of the clergy. If we look for ancient categories into which to slot Tertullian, philosopher and rhetorician fit best. In these guises, he wielded Scripture as a tool to convict and convince his audience of the certainty of his ethics. He did so in a multiethnic Roman colony, Carthage, where participation in Christ assemblies took varied and indistinct forms.20 Ambiguity alarmed Tertullian, and he used Scripture to reveal a divine order, defined by moral absolutes.

Scripture as a Source of Truth in Tertullian’s Moral Arguments For Tertullian Scripture included writings that would become part of the Old and New Testaments. (Most, though not all books are cited by him.21) He also includes

15 Scorp. 5.7, 7.5 (CCSL 2:1077–78, 1081–82; G. D. Dunn, Tertullian, ECF [London: Routledge, 2004], 115, 119). 16 Cult. fem. 2.13 (CCSL 1:369; ANF 4:25 [trans. altered]): “Ceterum nescio an manus spatalio circumdair solita in duritiam catenae stupescere sustineat.” 17 Jejun. 17.6–7 (CCSL 2:1276–77). 18 Virg. 16.1 (CCSL 2:1225; Dunn, Tertullian, 159): “Scriptura legem condit, natura contestatur, disciplina exigit.” 19 T. P. O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible: Language, Imagery, Exegesis (Utrecht: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1967), 133. 20 On the ecclesia as assembly, see Barton and Boyarin, Imagine No Religion, 115; cf. infra. 21 Dunn, Tertullian, 19. For yet more on Tertullian’s approach to the canon of Scripture, see Dunn’s chapter in this same volume.

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discussion of apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings that would not earn a place in the canon. The books of Enoch, Acts of Paul and Thecla, Shepherd of Hermas, and the Epistle of Barnabas feature in his moral and ascetical writings. In his day Christians were collecting and utilizing various books as authoritative Scripture, rather than operating with a notion of canon as closed list of writings.22 Both what constituted Scripture and what Scripture had to say about Christian living are debated points for him. For instance, in De cultu feminarum, Tertullian defends the authenticity of the books of Enoch. The tale of the watcher angels who brought humanity knowledge of various arts, metallurgy, medicinal herbs, astrology, and, of course, beautification cemented his warning that adornment belongs to a second, and demonic, act of creation that can only destroy God’s design.23 We likewise find moments when Tertullian undermines the veracity of writings that sustain the practices of his opponents. In De baptismo, he insists that the Acts of Paul and Thecla is a forgery – an argument intended to stop short any woman who, in imitation of Paul’s companion, Thecla, would dare teach and baptize.24 Likewise, in De pudicitia, Tertullian dismisses the authority of Shepherd of Hermas because one of its mandates indicates that repentant adulterers should be readmitted to the ecclesia.25 Tertullian’s biblical citations are distinctive as the earliest witness to Latin translations of Scripture.26 Yet determining the nature of his scriptural sources is a complicated and uncertain task. It may be that he managed to collect existing Latin translations of particular texts. It also seems likely that he constructed his own translations from available Greek sources, even as he incorporated citations of texts known to him from memory.27 Scripture provided the most consistent and widely cited source material for Tertullian. His deployment of it, however, was not exceptional. They were part of his larger practice of collecting literary sources

22 See D. Brakke, “Scriptural Practices in Early Christianity: Towards a New History of the New Testament Canon,” in Invention, Rewriting, Usurpation: Discursive Fights over Religious Traditions in Antiquity, eds. J. Rupke, A.-C. Jacobsen, and D. Brakke, Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity 11 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2012): 263–80; and H. Y. Gamble, The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 17–18. 23 Cult. fem. 1.1–3 (CCSL 1:343–44). 24 Tertullian, Bapt. 17.5 (CCSL 1:291–92). See E. A. Clark, “Status Feminae: Tertullian and the Uses of Paul,” in Tertullian and Paul, eds. T. D. Still and D. E. Wilhite, Pauline and Patristic Scholars in Debate 1 (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013): 127–55, esp. 150. 25 See Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1. See also O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 25. 26 Pud. 10.12 (CCSL 2:1301; Dunn, Tertullian, 20). 27 For a survey of opinions, see O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 4–8. See also H. Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 131, who articulates the view that no Latin translations of Scripture were extant before Cyprian’s time.

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to populate his rhetorical arguments.28 Like any number of Roman educated elites,29 Tertullian was a collector of books, and he used these materials to construct his arguments, whether from classical authors, such as Cicero, Pliny the Elder, Soranus, or Seneca, as well as from early Christian writings, such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, sayings of the Phrygian prophets, the writings of Marcion, or Scripture.30 Tertullian’s accumulation of literary sources and demonstrated deftness in rhetorical argumentation was a form of social capital for many Roman elites. This intellectual environment helps us best understand the nature of Tertullian’s textual production and employment of Scripture in his writings. Rather than reading Tertullian for evidence of social conflicts in early Christ assemblies, we might better see his treatment of moral issues as rhetorical exercises, as acts of persuasion that organized a fluid population into factions, thereby clearly demarcating group boundaries and propping up his own authority and expertise.31 On moral issues, his adversaries were manifold. At times, he addresses arguments to men and women affiliated with Christ assemblies in Carthage. But at other points, he populates his treatises with diverse adversaries, “heretics,” “Judeans,” “gentiles,” or the “psychici,” who are much harder to locate sociologically. He appears to construct rather than describe real opponents, in line with the ancient rhetorical techniques that he employed.32 The distinctions he draws, between authentic Christians and “heretical” outsiders, or between himself and any number of opponents, obscures a social landscape that was considerably more uncertain. Tertullian’s home province, Africa Proconsularis, boasted wealthy cites, like Carthage, a rich countryside, and diverse populations of Africans (Libyans), Phoenicians, Greeks,

28 R. D. Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian, Oxford Theological Monograph (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 8–9. Sider’s analysis of Tertullian’s rhetoric shows how seamlessly the North African writer utilized Scripture as part of his argumentative strategies. 29 For instance, see the study of “reading communities” by W. A. Johnson, Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) and the study of Roman libraries by G. W. Houston, Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014). For the circulation of texts amongst Christians, see Gamble, Books and Readers, 82–143; and K. Haines-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 30 Some of his sources may have contained excerpts of materials, so D. Rankin, From Clement to Origen: The Social and Historical Context of the Church Fathers, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2016), 57; and Gamble, Books and Readers, 113, 152. It is unclear whether Tertullian’s literary sources came from libraries, his own private collection, items shared amongst a group of local elites, or some combination of these venues. Additionally, Tertullian also circulated and published his own works, likely using these same channels to do so. See Gamble, Books and Reader, 118–19. 31 For further discussion of this dynamic, see Daniel-Hughes, “Perils of Idolatrous Garb.” 32 For example, on Marcionites, see D. E. Wilhite, “Marcionites in Africa: What Did Tertullian Know and When Did He Invent It?,” PRSt 4 (2016): 437–52.

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(perhaps) Judeans, and, of course, Romans.33 Those who attended Christ assemblies lived alongside and were drawn from the many peoples who inhabited this Roman territory.34 Moreover, affiliating with a Christ assembly took a contingent form because inhabitants of Carthage held multiple allegiances. Work on Greco-Roman associations more generally, in which any given group in the ancient world which fits the broad mold of “associations” (including synagogues, ekklēsia/ecclesia, thiasoi, and collegia) could have contained multiple and overlapping affiliations – family, profession, cult, neighborhood, or ethnic/national.35 Reading against the grain of Tertullian’s rhetoric, it appears that those affiliating with Christ groups did not understand their participation in the absolute terms that Tertullian implies they should. In his study, Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, Éric Rebillard argues that partaking in a Christ assembly did not prohibit people from involvement in civic life (observing civic festivals, attending naming ceremonies, holding civic office, wearing fashionable dress, attending the games and theatre, or remarrying and establishing households), or, critically, from holding other group affiliations.36 While Tertullian argues that people in Christ assemblies should comply fully with the demands of disciplina, notes Rebillard, his writings betray a social landscape in which people understood belonging to Christ assemblies to be more occasional. In other words, they did not see themselves as a distinctive group as such. We might note, for instance, that those attending these assemblies were not identifiable by unique names or by the language they spoke. (Tertullian himself wrote in both Latin and Greek.) They occupied a variety of social and economic positions in the city. Ultimately, keeping in mind Tertullian’s fluid social milieu has important implications for how we understand his use of Scripture in his moral and ascetical treatises. It asks us to think carefully about Tertullian’s audience (both real and implied)

33 See J. B. Rives, Religion and Authority: From Augustus to Constantine (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 17–28; F. Millar, “Local Cultures in the Roman Empire: Libyan, Punic, and Latin in Roman Africa,” JRS 58 (1968): 126–34; D. E. Wilhite, Tertullian the African: An Anthropological Reading of Tertullian’s Context and Identities (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007), 27–31; and L. Dossey, Peasant and Empire in Christian North Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), esp. 11–16. 34 See Wilhite, Tertullian, the African, 29–30; and Dossey, Peasant and Empire, 12–13. For example, our earliest source for Christians in this region, the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, features martyrs with Latinized Punic names. 35 See P. A. Harland, Dynamics of Identity in the World of the Early Christians (New York: Continuum, 2009). I use the term “Christ assemblies,” “Christ groups,” and “Christ-believers” as opposed to “Christians” in order to stress similarities with other associations in antiquity, and particularly to highlight the fluid and contingent nature of people’s affiliation with such communities in Tertullian’s lifetime. Moreover, I want to indicate that the content of the term Christian is contentious in this period and that it is idealized in Tertullian’s writing in such a way that it cannot easily be understood as descriptive of a community on the ground; cf. n. 7 above. 36 See the study by É. Rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity: North Africa, 200–450 CE (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012).

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and about the complicated relationship between his textual practice and social life on the ground. It also points to a more occasional, and rather flexible, set of hermeneutical strategies on his part.

Arguing from Scripture in Moral and Ascetical Treatises Whoever Tertullian’s opponents might have been, he presumes that Scripture rightly interpreted would convict his audience and advance his moral vision. His interpretative approach is occasional and situational, determined by his argumentative needs rather than by a larger hermeneutical principle.37 Allegory and typology feature in his corpus alongside more literal and contextual readings. Examples of this pattern can be found in De pudicitia when he takes on a series of Lukan parables. His goal in this treatise is to combat the idea that God forgives baptized sinners for adultery and fornication. In so doing, Tertullian denies that the parables showcase God’s mercy to his faithful. The parable of the lost sheep, he argues, cannot be interpreted as a narrative about God’s joy at a repentant Christian. It’s not the case that “sheep” figure in the Christian community and “God” is represented as the shepherd who seeks one of his lost flock. Rather, sheep stand in for all of humanity, and the stray one who returns and becomes the source of God’s joy represents a “gentile,” an outsider. Tertullian insists on this reading by appeal to the narrative context in Luke. The context in which Jesus recounts the story determines its meaning. Tertullian reminds his audience that Jesus spoke this particular parable not to Christians but to “Judeans,” Pharisees, who were rattled at the notion that repentance was unavailable to them but given to outsiders.38 Likewise, Tertullian claims that the two brothers in Luke’s prodigal son parable (cf. 15:11–32) have been incorrectly interpreted as figures of the Jew and Christian. Does not the elder son represent the Christian, and the younger son, who upon his return is greeted with a new cloak, ring, and the meal of a fatted calf, represent the gentile idolater? This is the person who newly recognizes his true creator and, thereby, is rewarded: He [the younger son] remembers his Father, God; he returns to him when he has been satisfied; he receives again the pristine “garment” – the condition, of course, which Adam lost by way of transgression. The “ring” also he can receive for the first time – after having being

37 Dunn, Tertullian, 23. 38 Pud. 7.8–9 (CCSL 2:1292–93). For a consideration of how Tertullian’s treatment of the parables fit ancient rhetorical conventions, see Sider, Ancient Rhetoric, 91.

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interrogated – he then publicly seals the agreement of faith, and thus from that point on feeds upon the “fatness” of the Lord’s body, the Eucharist.39

On Tertullian’s reading, the garment signifies a return to sinless state; the ring, the seal of baptism; the calf, the Eucharistic meal in which the newly converted partake. Thus, Tertullian interprets the parable by constraining its meaning so as to no longer challenge his uncompromising view on repentance. A key concern for Tertullian is to show that a rigorous moral program is readily located in Scripture. In particular, he works hard to maintain symmetry between the two Testaments when it comes to moral teaching. In De jejunio adversus psychicos, when Tertullian responds to those Christians who reject robust fasting as a holdover from the “law,” that is as empty “Jewish” observances, he treats fasting, including xerophagies (a diet of vegetables and water), as a practice that can be traced across Scripture.40 At points, establishing continuity between the two Testaments leaves him struggling with passages that do not conform to his ascetic agenda. In his treatises against second marriage, for example, he notes that, while the patriarchs may have engaged in plural marriage, Moses or Aaron did not.41 He also insists that Levitical requirements for the priesthood ought to apply to all Christians. If Christ “fulfills the Law,” then should not his followers embody it?42 Another example comes from Tertullian’s treatment of Abraham’s polygamy. The patriarch seems to give licence to those Christians who would engage in a second marriage after the death of a spouse. In his effort to clamp down on this interpretive possibility, Tertullian turns to other Scriptures, in particular Paul’s letter to the Galatians. He seizes on Paul’s rhetoric where the apostle insists that gentiles in Christ are heirs to Abraham’s righteousness and are not required to be circumcised to obtain that status (cf. Gal 3:15–29). Tertullian applies this logic to the issue of remarriage, pointing out that Abraham was circumcised when he had two wives. He challenges those who would disagree with his view on remarriage: “If you reject his [Abraham’s] circumcision, it follows that you will refuse his digamy too.”43 But, as we shall see, Paul’s letters do not always serve Tertullian’s rhetorical agendas. Tertullian often faced the problem that Scripture did not obviously confirm his moral positions. In De spectaculis, he admits that there is no clear commandment against attending the theatre or circus.44 A similar statement begins his treatise De

39 Pud. 9.16 (CCSL 2:1298; ANF 4:83 [trans. altered]): “Recordatur partis Dei, satisfacto redit, vestem pristinam recipit, statum scilicet eum, quem Adam transgressus amiserat. Anulum quoque accipit tunc primum, quo fidei pactionem interrogatus obsignat, atque ita exinde opimitate Dominici corporis vescitur, eucharistia scilicet.” 40 Jejun. 9.1–6 (CCSL 2:1265–66). 41 Mon. 6.4 (CCSL 2:1236–37). 42 Exh. cast. 7.1–3 (CCSL 2:1224–25). 43 Mon. 6.2 (CCSL 2:1236; ANF 4:63): “Si reicis circumcisum, ergo recusabis et digamum.” 44 Tertullian, Spect. 3.1–5 (CCSL 1:230).

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corona militis – where he admits that no scriptural citation definitively rejects the wearing of laurel crowns.45 But the absence of explicit condemnations of common Roman social practices, such as donning wreaths, watching comedies, and cheering on charioteers or gladiators, does not interrupt Tertullian’s broader point that Scripture carefully examined will ultimately support disciplina. Tertullian explains his argument by stating: “Divine Scripture admits always a broader interpretation wherever a passage, after its actual sense has been exhausted, serves to strengthen discipline.”46 A principle, in other words, can be extracted from Scripture, allowing a reader to extend a passage and its relevance to a context beyond its original narrative setting. David’s cry that opens the psalms, notes Tertullian – “Happy is the man who has not gone to the gathering of the ungodly” (Ps 1:1) – is actually a prophecy that pertains to Joseph of Arimathea, a man who refused to participate in the plot to crucify Christ (Luke 20:50–52). It is critically also a warning against Christian attendance at entertainments, which should be seen as “gatherings of the ungodly,” that is idolaters. One of Tertullian’s most common exegetical strategies in his moral and ascetical works is to utilize biblical figures as shaming devices and moral exemplars.47 This tendency finds him offering alternative readings of the same passage or perhaps emphasizing different elements in a passage to articulate his point. In De cultu feminarum, it is Eve’s cunning in having Adam eat the forbidden fruit that reveals the dangers of women’s sexuality even as it also calls for Christian women to adopt humble and even dower garments, rejecting jewelry and other accoutrements.48 And in Jejun., it is Adam’s gluttony that is on display in the Genesis story. His fault serves as a rationale for repeated fasting as a prerequisite to salvation: “[B]y renewed interdiction of food and observation of precept the primordial sin might now be expiated, in order that man may make satisfaction to God through the self-same causative material through which he had offended, that is through the interdiction of food,” Tertullian writes.49 As we saw above with Abraham, biblical figures often serve Tertullian as testimony to Scripture’s harmonious moral program and as a justification for his moral vision for the present.

45 Cor. 4.1 (CCSL 2:1043). 46 Tertullian, Spect. 3.4 (CCSL 1:230; R. D. Sider, ed., Christian and Pagan in the Roman Empire [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001], 87): “Late tamen semper Scriptura divina dividitur ubicumque secundum praesentis rei sensu, etiam discipline munitur.” 47 For a discussion of this rhetorical strategy as it relates to Tertullian’s use of Paul as a figure, see R. D. Sider, “Literary Artifice and the Figure of Paul in the Writings of Tertullian,” in Paul and the Legacies of Paul, ed. W. S. Babock (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1990): 99–120. 48 Cult. fem. 1.1.1–3 (CCSL 1:343–44). 49 Jejun. 3.4 (CCSL 2:1260; ANF 4:104 [trans. altered]): “Qua rursus interdictio cibo ut observato praecepto primordiale jam delictum expiaretur, ut homo per eandem materiam causae satis Deo faciat per quam offenderat id est per cibi interdictionem.”

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It is also in Jejun. that Tertullian highlights how Moses, Elijah, and Daniel benefitted from the focusing power of abstaining from food, just as Jesus’s prescribed fasts should be undertaken without complaint (Matthew 6:16–18).50 Biblical characters also serve him as moral cautions, as we saw in the examples of Adam and Eve above. In Cult. fem. 1, the whore of Babylon, clad in “purple, and scarlet, and gold and precious stone” (Rev 17:4) stands alongside Tamar, who adorned herself as a prostitute in order to seduce her stubborn father-in-law, Judah (Gen 28:12–30). Both figures are shaming devices used to demonstrate the larger point of Tertullian’s sartorial advice: clothing announces character.51 Modesty, that virtue most becoming a Christian, should be advertised and conspicuously demonstrated: “It is not enough for Christian modesty (pudicitia) to simply be; rather, it must also be seen, if it is to be true,” he insists.52

Interpreting the Apostle on Sexuality and Gender: Ad uxorem and De virginibus velandis While Tertullian’s writings are rich with scriptural citations and allusions, in some of his moral and ascetical treatises, Paul’s letters are central to his exegesis. It is important to note that Tertullian’s own collection of Paul’s writings included the authentic Pauline Epistles as well as Deutero-Pauline and Pastoral Epistles, all of which to varying degrees served his rigorist arguments regarding gender roles. Tertullian did not cite Paul’s writings more than the other Scriptures that were at his disposal, but they do figure prominently in his corpus alongside Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah, and of course, the four Gospels.53 Moreover, Tertullian certainly read Paul synchronically, always complementing his reading of the epistles with reference to other Scriptures. In Ad uxorem and De virginibus velandis, the two treatises under consideration in this section, however, the exegesis of Paul’s writings stands at the foreground of his interpretive efforts. Ad uxorem examines the subject of widowhood and remarriage, and Virg. is directed to the issue of whether virgins should wear a veil. Below I trace out key instances in these treatises in which we see Tertullian engaged in a (fictive) hermeneutical battle over Paul and how best to apply the Pauline corpus to the marital practices and clothing of women in his ecclesia. Above all, Paul’s letters recommended themselves to Tertullian in his debates about women’s marital habits and their dress due to their relevance to these moral

50 Jejun. 6.5–6, 9.1–4 (CCSL 2:1262–63). 51 Cult. fem. 2.12.3 (CCSL 1:368). 52 Cult. fem. 2.13.3 (CCSL 1:369; trans. is my own): “Pudicitiae christianae satis non est esse, verum et videri.” 53 See CCSL 2:1457–96 for an index of scriptural citations in Tertullian’s corpus.

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and practical concerns. Paul, too, wrestled with questions about marriage and chastity, just as he grappled with those questions in view of his eschatology. These interpretive issues extended to the reception of his writings as well. Benjamin Dunning has shown how early Christian writers, including Tertullian, struggled to articulate their own views of sexual difference in light of Paul’s typology of Christ as the New Adam.54 Tertullian also appreciated both the rhetorical complexity of Paul’s letters, including the Deutero-Paulines and Pastoral Epistles, and the wide circulation they had experienced in his North African context.55 Ad uxorem and Virg., like other of his moral and ascetical works, are directed to intercommunal debates, particularly against other Christ-believers whose views Tertullian found suspect. Taking up Paul’s letters, Tertullian could bolster his own arguments and preemptively undermine alternative views, precisely because he might assume that others in his community would have access to the apostle’s corpus.56 Thus Tertullian not only presented himself as a deft reader of Scripture but as a deft interpreter of the apostle Paul’s writings. Tertullian was keen to appropriate Paul in order to give structure and authority to a strident moral vision, one rooted in a strict gender hierarchy and thoroughly cemented gender roles. When it came to matters of sexuality and gender, Tertullian not only advanced his own reading of “the apostle,” but he also responded to readings of Paul’s letters that could undermine his arguments. In Ux., Tertullian outlines a case against second marriage after the death of a spouse. De virginibus velandis takes up the issue of mixed marriage in particular – i.e., whether a Christian can marry a non-Christian. Though addressed to his wife, the deliberative style of these letters indicates that

54 B. Dunning, Specters of Paul: Sexual Difference in Early Christian Thought (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 1–13. 55 On Tertullian’s use of the Pastoral Epistles in his arguments about gender roles and re-marriage, see respectively Clark, “Status Feminae,” 128, 148; as well as D. E. Wilhite, “Tertullian on Widows: A North African Appropriation of Pauline Household Economics,” in Engaging Economics: New Testament Scenarios and Early Christian Reception, eds. B. W. Longenecker and K. D. Liebengood (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009): 222–42. Evidence for a collection of Pauline epistles that includes the Pastorals in the second century is supported by manuscript evidence. See H. Y. Gamble, “The Pauline Corpus and the Early Christian Book,” in Babock, Paul and the Legacies of Paul, 265–80, 272; and M. Y. MacDonald, “A Response to Elizabeth A. Clark’s Essay, ‘Status Feminae: Tertullian and the Uses of Paul,’” in Still and Wilhite, Tertullian and Paul, 156–64. 56 Scholars have long attended to the symbolic power of the figure of Paul and his corpus in early Christian contexts. My argument participates in this larger conversation. See, for example, Harrill, Paul the Apostle; Still and Wilhite, eds., Tertullian and Paul; and B. L. White, Remembering the Apostle: Ancient and Modern Contests over the Image of the Apostle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). On the circulation of Paul’s letters in North Africa, see Gamble, Books and Readers, 131. For a brief review and discussion of the significance of the martyrs’ possession of “letters of Paul” in the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, see “A General Introduction and Overview” in this volume; and Wilhite, “Marcionites in Africa,” 440.

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Tertullian’s desired audience is more expansive.57 Directing letters to his wife provides opportunity for moral reflections on remarriage as such. Paul’s treatment of marriage in 1 Cor 7 dominates much of Tertullian’s exegetical efforts. Paul’s own rhetoric in this chapter has proven the source of considerable debate among contemporary biblical scholars: does he advocate chastity or is he attempting to minimize the ascetic impulse of some in Corinth? Is he proposing that marriage, and even sex in marriage, is advisable? Is he advertising virginity, or is he craftily urging the Corinthian virgins to get married? It is precisely the ambiguities of Paul’s own rhetoric, the possibility that one could argue both for marriage and for celibacy from it (indeed we know that early Christians did just this),58 that makes interpreting the apostle such a compelling exercise for Tertullian. Tertullian applies Paul’s discussion to a social context that differed from the apostle’s own.59 For Tertullian, the issue is not marriage but remarriage, a common practice for social elites in the Roman Empire. While Roman writers championed the univira – i.e., the “one-husband wife” – in practice, women regularly remarried. Divorce could be easily obtained, and a woman might be encouraged by her natal family to use it to seek a more socially advantageous union. Wars, disease, and the harsh realities of childbearing also meant that both women and men were often widowed. Since women commonly married men older than themselves, they tended to remarry once their spouses died. Tertullian’s argument against remarriage in Ux. (and in De exhortatione castitas and De monogamia) conceives of chaste marriage as a social practice that distinguishes Christ-believers from others.60 Widowhood is a sign of a woman’s allegiance to God’s order, her strivings toward salvation, and her willingness to forego social norms and expectations to demonstrate utter devotion to these ends. Female widows, he insists, are wedded to God: “[O]n earth, by abstaining from marriage, [they] are already counted as belonging to the angelic family.”61 Of additional concern for Tertullian in Ux. 2 is mixed marriages. Such unions posed great challenges to his ideal of strict boundaries demarcating Christ-believers from non-Christ-believers. In Ux. 2.6.1–2,62 Tertullian asks how can a Christ-believing woman, a “servant of God,” possibly find herself married to a husband who would

57 Ux. 1.1.6 (CCSL 1:374). 58 D. Martin, “Familiar Idolatry and the Christian Case against Marriage,” in Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006): 103–24. 59 See the chapter by Wilhite, “Tertullian on Widows,” which addresses the differing views of widows and wealth informing 1 Timothy and Tertullian and, thus, Tertullian’s creative, selective appropriation of “Pauline” writings in Ux. 60 For a consideration of these treatises as they relate to Tertullian’s soteriology more generally, see Daniel-Hughes, “We are Called to Monogamy.” 61 Ux. 1.4.4 (CCSL 1:377; ANF 4:42): “Jam in terries non nubendo de familiar angelica depuntantur.” 62 CCSL 1:390–91.

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demand social obligations that put her in the company of profanity and idolatry: taverns, theatres, and the observation of civic festivities? Evoking the Sermon on the Mount, he asks: is this not “casting pearls before swine?” (Matt 7:6). Tertullian goes on to explain to his implied female audience: “your pearls are the distinctive marks of your daily conversation.”63 When filling out the rationale of his putative opponents – i.e., Christian women who remarry – Tertullian engages in a thought experiment that implies Paul’s argument in 1 Cor 7:12–14 might actually support mixed marriage64: “I wonder,” said I, “whether they flatter themselves on the ground of that passage of the first (Epistle) to the Corinthians, where it is written: ‘If any of the brethren has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to the matrimony, let him not dismiss her; similarly, let not a believing woman, married to an unbeliever, if she finds her husband agreeable (to their continued union), dismiss him: for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife by the believing husband; else were your children unclean.’”65

Tertullian’s rhetorical goal, at this point in his letter, is to undermine this interpretation. He begins by addressing the context of Paul’s statement. In these verses, Paul is rejecting divorce, not giving permission for a new union. Tertullian continues that while Paul does not actually reject marriage, he advises against it, preferring continence. Focusing on 1 Cor 7:9 (“it is better to marry than to burn”), Tertullian notes that Paul sees marriage as permissible but certainly not as a good thing. Indeed, in later writings, Tertullian will go further with this passage and call marriage an indulgence, permitted only once.66 Monogamy is a law established at the beginning – Adam had but one wife, Christ but one bride, the church. Even the animals proceeded onto the ark in pairs!67 Arguably the most challenging verse to Tertullian’s argument against mixed marriage, however, is 1 Cor 7:39. What does Paul mean when he says: “The woman, when her husband is dead, is free: let her marry whomever she wishes only in the Lord”?68 Tertullian emphasizes the last part of this verse and asserts that “only in the

63 Ux. 2.5.2 (CCSL 1:389; ANF 4:42): “Margaritae vestrae sunt etiam quotidianae conversationis insignia.” 64 A position he rejects later, see Exh. cast. 11.1 (CCSL 2:1030–31). Clark, “Status Feminae,” 147. 65 Ux. 2.2.1 (CCSL 1:384–85; ANF 4:44): “‘Numquid,’ inquam, ‘de illo capitulo sibi blandiuntur primae ad Corinthios, ubi scriptum est:’ Si quis fratrum infidelem habet uxorem et illa matrimonio consentit, ne dimittat eam; similiter mulier fidelis infideli nupta, si consentaneum maritum experitur, ne dimiserit eum; sanctificatur enim infidelis vir a fideli uxore et infidelis uxor a fideli marito; ceterum immundi essent filii vestri?” 66 Exh. cast. 4.4 (CCSL 2:1021). 67 Mon. 4.5 (CCSL 2:1233–34). 68 Ux. 2.2.3 (CCSL 1:385–86; ANF 4:46): “Mulier defuncto viro libera est: cui vult nubat, tantum in Domino.”

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Lord” (tantum in Domino) means only to another Christian.69 Tertullian strengthens his argument, saying: “[B]elievers contracting marriages with gentiles are guilty of fornication and are to be excluded from all communion of the brotherhood in accordance with the letter of the apostle, who says: ‘with persons of that kind there is to be no taking of food even’ (1 Cor 5:11).”70 Tertullian reaches to an earlier part of Paul’s letter, where Paul chastises the Corinthians for allowing the man who lives with his stepmother to remain inside the community. Paul warns that sexually immoral people (pornoi) should be expelled from the assembly (1 Cor 5:9–13). Tertullian jumps on Paul’s concerns about purity in 1 Corinthians in order to frame remarriage to an outsider as sexual immortality (stuprum). What is important to note here is that Tertullian has to make these exegetical links precisely because it is not obvious that “only in the Lord” designates marriage only to a Christian. Read together with 1 Cor 7:12–14 (above), the argument for marriage to a non-believer could even be strengthened. We see a similar pattern with Tertullian’s use of Paul’s letters in Virg. Here, Tertullian challenges female virgins who do not veil themselves in the assembly, and he again imagines how these female opponents might defend their practice from 1 Cor 11:2–16. In fact, Tertullian outlines his argument on two other occasions, briefly in De oratione and initially in a lost treatise composed in Greek.71 His argument is that these virgins no longer count themselves women and understand their virginity to place them above other women within the community.72 Behind Tertullian’s rhetoric lies a porous configuration of the vocations of virginity and widowhood, as well as a variety of head-covering and uncovering practices by women in Christ assemblies. Some women draped a palla, a woolen mantle worn over an underlying tunic, over their heads, while other (chaste and virginal women) did not. The cultural association of the palla as the marker of a married woman in the Roman Empire likely informed some chaste women’s rationale to stop wearing it.73 Tertullian sees this group’s uncovering as generating confusion of roles and categories. When unveiled and taking prominent positions in the assembly, chaste women signify their exaltation, not subordination. Indeed, in acquiring honors and differentiating themselves from other women through their dress, virgins suggested that their chastity somehow improved their spiritual status even in the present.

69 Ux. 2.2.4 (CCSL 1:386; ANF 4:46): “‘Tantum in Domino,’ id est in nomine Domini, quod est indubitate Christiano.” 70 Ux. 2.3.1 (CCSL 1:387; ANF 4:45): “Fideles gentilium matrimonia subeuntes stupri reos constat esse et arcendos ab omni communicatione fraternitatis, ex litteris apostoli dicentis cum ejusmodi ne cibum quidem sumendum.” 71 Dunn, Tertullian, 135–36. 72 Virg. 9.3, 10.1 (CCSL 2:1219). 73 See C. Daniel-Hughes, The Salvation of the Flesh in Tertullian of Carthage: Dressing for the Resurrection (New York: Palgrave, 2011), 93–114.

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Whether intentionally or not, unveiling unsettled the link between female flesh and shame, upon which Tertullian built his soteriology in writings like De carne Christi or Adversus Marcionem. To state this point bluntly: in the flesh, Tertullian argued, Christians are both proximate to, and deeply divided from their Creator. The flesh was both made and saved by God (through Christ). Christ’s willingness to be born and die in it is a brazen act of divine love, the center of the redemptive act. In Tertullian’s writing, this link between flesh and shame is often elaborated by rendering women’s bodies as indicators of this corruption. This theological impulse informs his view that with heads uncovered these chaste women appeared no different than the men in the assembly, implying that the gendered hierarchy of male over female was not intractable. The first third of Virg. is occupied with the exegesis of 1 Cor 11:2–16.74 In these verses, Paul addresses whether men and women in the Corinthian assembly should cover their heads when praying or prophesying. Paul concludes that a man (anēr), “made in the image and likeness of God,” is not required to cover, while a woman (gynē), “made in the glory of God,” should cover her head (1 Cor 11:6). Tertullian once again constructs the voice of his opponent with whom he can get into an exegetical sparing match. How might, he asks, unveiled women, or their supporters, defend their practice from these verses? The answer lies in taking into careful account the fluid meaning of the Greek terms that Paul uses. (Indeed, Tertullian’s attention to the Greek helps explain why he initially addressed this issue in that language.75) In 1 Cor 11, Tertullian notes, Paul uses the term “gynē,” one that can mean women generally, or more specifically, wife, whereas in other parts of his letter he speaks specifically to virgins (parthenoi, see 1 Cor 7:25). Thus, the argument of his opponents would be that these passages support virgins’ unveiling: [I]mmediately it is put to us that no mention of virgins has been made by the apostle [Paul in the place] where he makes a ruling about the veil, but that only women are named. And thus [it is said by my opponents that] those [virgins] are not included in the law about this veiling of the head [in the former passage] as they have not been named in this law . . .76

Tertullian entertains this reading ultimately to set up his own careful parsing of these enigmatic verses. “But we too can throw the same argument back,” he muses. “[Paul] not making a distinction [between women and virgins] reveals their shared constitution.”77 At this point in his argument, Tertullian effectively collapses distinctions

74 On the rhetorical structure of the treatise, see Dunn, Tertullian, 135–42. 75 Virg. 1.1 (CCSL 2:1209). 76 Virg. 4.1 (CCSL 2:1212; Dunn, Tertullian, 145–46): “Statim opponitur nobis nullam mentionem virginum ab apostolo factam ubi de velamine praefinit, sed tantum mulieres nominatas . . . quo modo illic, inquit, ubi de nuptiis tractat, quid observandum sit etiam de virginibus declarant.” 77 Virg. 4.2 (CCSL 2:1212; Dunn, Tertullian [trans. altered], 146): “Sed et nos eandem argumentationem retorquemus, non faciens distinctionem ostendit condicionis communionem.”

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between categories of women: a virgin, like a wife or widow, is but a species of the larger genus, woman. Tertullian facilitates this move of identifying virgins with married women by jumping from 1 Cor 11 to Gen 2. This hermeneutical door was left open by Paul who maintains that men’s uncovered heads and women’s covered heads reflect the hierarchal order of creation, where women fall below men because they are made in man’s image, while men are in the image of God (1 Cor 11:7–10). Tertullian mobilizes Paul’s reading of the Adam and Eve story in order to naturalize a hierarchy of creation. His appeal to Genesis introduces the categories of “natural” and “unnatural” into this debate. With a deft citation of 1 Cor 11:3, Tertullian offers this harsh condemnation of unveiled women as having transgressed God’s order: If “man is the head of woman,” (1 Cor. 11:3) then [he is the head] of the virgin. From where does the woman who is married come? Unless the virgin is some third type (tertium genus), a monstrosity (monstruosum) with a head of its own?78

Particularly loathsome to Tertullian is that unveiled women undercut a notion of a woman’s “natural” subordination in creation. Tertullian insists that humility is the natural state of all women: “[T]he necessity of humility (necessitas humilitatis) is adjudged the same as for a woman.”79 Tertullian’s argument also establishes veiling for women by means of a related point: unveiling is properly the privilege of Christian men.80 In De corona militis, again by appeal to Paul’s discussion of head covering in 1 Cor 11, Tertullian insists that men – made in the image of Christ – are “free,” thus they are not beholden to their military leaders or the emperor. This point leads Tertullian to maintain that Christian men must reject the laurel crown as a sign of military victory.81 Tertullian insists that head coverings of any kind are dangerously blasphemous. When a man wears one, he throws into question his allegiance to God and traffics in idolatry. A Christian man, he argues, has no need to humble himself. Reborn in the image of the virginal Christ, his free head indicates the promise of future glory in the kingdom of heaven. That a man’s dress should indicate liberty in Christ naturalizes women’s subordination to men – that point is easy to recognize. More interesting, however, is how Tertullian’s signification of men’s uncovering lends women’s head covering a negative valence. In other words, men’s veiling comes up in Virg. not only in response to 1 Cor 11:4, where Paul considered and rejected head covering for men, but also in order to clarify that men’s flesh does not have the same

78 Virg. 7.1 (CCSL 2:1216; ANF 4:31): “Si capit mulieris vir est, utique et virginis, de qua fit mulier illa quae nupsit, nisi si virgo tertium genus est monstruosum.” 79 Virg. 9.1 (CCSL 2:1219; Dunn, Tertullian, 153): “In omnibus eadem condicione subicitur, et necessitas humilitatis cum muliere censetur.” 80 Virg. 8.1 (CCSL 2:1217). 81 Cor. 14.1–2 (CCSL 2:1063).

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negative soteriological meaning attached to it that women’s does. By asserting that men should enact the freedom that accrues to them as a result of their Christian status by uncovering, he renders women’s veiling a means to indicate her shamefulness. Sexual difference, configured in a hierarchical mode, is highlighted and maintained through this sartorial marker.

Conclusion In De spectaculis, Tertullian dreams up a Christian who enjoys visiting the theatre. The play enthusiast, impressed with his own wit, muses: “‘The sun . . . indeed, even God himself, looks on from heaven [at the theatre] and is not defiled.’”82 An arrogance to which Tertullian responds: “[G]ood fellow, you are putting the defendant on the same footing as the judge: the defendant who is a defendant because he is seen, and the judge who, because he sees, is judge? . . . [N]owhere and never is there any exemption from what God condemns.”83 There was no space in a Christian’s daily life in which God’s juridical gaze could be avoided, Tertullian warned. That penetrating gaze calculated the sum of a Christian’s action and measured it against order and truth. God would save and damn accordingly. While that fact should inspire fear, it could also provide a great deal of assurance in Tertullian’s view. For if God only ever acted in accordance with reason, then he staved off an even greater existential threat: a capricious God who applied different sorts of justice: sometimes clemency, sometimes punishment. That kind of God, writes Barton, “blurred the boundaries between oneself and others that Tertullian was desperate to draw.”84 Scripture served Tertullian as a witness to the intractability of God’s order. It harmoniously coincided with nature and discipline to reveal that order and to provide a guide for the faithful to follow. He seized on passages of Scripture – notably his collection of Paul’s letters – in order to draw firm boundaries between Christians and all other groups. His argumentative powers were channeled into challenging any reading of Scripture that would undermine God’s regula fidei and/or potentially undermine the rigorous moral standards it demanded. Austerity of dress, sexual chastity (in general) and perseverance in chaste widowhood (in particular), avoidance of luxuries and entertainments, and the refusal to partake in civic festivities, coupled with

82 Tertullian, Spect. 20.2 (CCSL 1:244–45; Sider, Christian and Pagan, 101): “Novam proxime defensionem suaviludii cujusdam audivi. ‘Sol,’ inquit, ‘immo ipse etiam Deus de caelo spectat nec contaminator.’ Plane, sole et in cloacam radios suos defert ne inquinatur.” 83 Tertullian, Spect. 20.4 (CCSL 1:245; Sider, Christian and Pagan, 101;): “Comparas, homo, reum et judicem, reum, qui, quia videtur, reus est, judicem, qui, quia videt, judex est.” 84 Barton and Boyarin, Imagine No Religion, 99.

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fasting and prayer were all demanded of those in the Christ assembly. This ecclesia (more a fantastical aspiration than real institution in Tertullian’s lifetime) was called to be pure.85 In Tertullian’s estimation, the “true church” was a marginalized one, comprised of only a select few. Quoting Matt 7:14 in De fuga in persecutione, he writes: “It is not asked who is prepared to follow the wide road, but the narrow path.”86 It would have to be. On close scrutiny, Tertullian’s ethics might have been unrealizable; certainly they were hard to live. Did he manage to persuade his readers to follow them? If early Christ assemblies were defined by fluid and occasional affiliations of people, we might ask a preceding question: who read them? Who would be motivated to make their way through Tertullian’s treatises? Who preserved them for posterity so that they would fall into the hands of Cyprian or, later, Jerome or Augustine?87 Whoever took pains to collect and circulate them must have taken pleasure in deft argumentation and bombastic rhetoric.

For Further Reading Primary Sources For a list of Primary Sources for Tertullian, please see the “For Further Reading” list provided at the end of the chapter by Dunn in this volume.

Secondary Sources Barnes, Timothy. Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971. Daniel-Hughes, Carly. The Salvation of the Flesh in Tertullian of Carthage: Dressing for the Resurrection. New York: Palgrave, 2011. Dunn, Geoffrey D. Tertullian. Early Church Fathers. London: Routledge, 2004. O’Malley, Thomas P. Tertullian and the Bible: Language, Imagery, Exegesis. Utrecht: Dekker & Van de Veght, 1967. Osborn, Eric. Tertullian: First Theologian of the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Rankin, David. From Clement to Origen: The Social and Historical Context of the Church Fathers. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2016. Rebillard, Éric. Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity: North Africa, 200–450 CE. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012.

85 Osborn, Tertullian, 173–75. 86 Fug. 14.2 (CCSL 2:1155; Sider, Christian and Pagan, 151): “Non quaeritur qui latam viam sequi paratus sit, sed qui angustam.” 87 On the reception of Tertullian’s writings in North Africa, see the study by J. Lagouanère and S. Fialon, Tertullianus Afer: Tertullian et la littérature chrétienne d’Afrique, Instrumenta patristica et mediaevalia 70 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015).

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Sider, Robert D. Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian. Oxford Theological Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. Sider, Robert D., ed. Christian and Pagan in the Roman Empire: The Witness of Tertullian. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001. Sider, Robert D. “Literary Artifice and the Figure of Paul in the Writings of Tertullian.” In Paul and the Legacies of Paul, edited by William S. Babock, 99–120. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1990. Still, Todd D., and David E. Wilhite, eds. Tertullian and Paul. Pauline and Patristic Scholars in Debate 1. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013. Wilhite, David E. Tertullian, the African: An Anthropological Reading of Tertullian’s Context and Identities. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007.

Edwina Murphy

5 Scripture in the Letters of and Councils under Cyprian of Carthage Introduction Cyprian was bishop of Carthage for ten turbulent years in the mid-third century. Not long after the beginning of his episcopate, the church was faced with the Decian persecution, and from then until his own death by martyrdom in 258 CE, the African church also experienced schism, plague, and barbarian raids. Unity and perseverance in the faith were therefore central to his exhortation, and for this he relied heavily on Scripture. Yet despite Cyprian’s importance in the Latin tradition, and despite his being a man of one book, eschewing the classical allusions on which he was bred, little attention has been paid to his exegesis. Accordingly, Charles Kannengiesser has called for more work to be done on the use of Scripture in Cyprian’s letters.1 If anything, Kannengiesser understates the case: more work needs to be done on Cyprian’s use of Scripture as a whole, as the only comprehensive volume is Michael Fahey’s Cyprian and the Bible.2 Nevertheless, in what follows the focus will be on the letters and, specifically, on the reading strategies and rhetorical techniques Cyprian applies in his appropriation of Scripture in that corpus. First, however, I will consider how Cyprian thinks about Scripture, and then I will assess the nature of his letters.

Cyprian and Scripture For Cyprian, truth is found in God’s word.3 While he was certainly shaped by his classical education and while his rhetorical expertise is apparent, he consistently renounces Greco-Roman authors and models in his writing and restricts himself to Scripture,4

1 C. Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 626. 2 M. A. Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible: A Study in Third-Century Exegesis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1971). See also my The Bishop and the Apostle: Cyprian’s Pastoral Exegesis of Paul (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018). 3 For a discussion of Cyprian’s terminology for and attitude towards Scripture, see Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 29–56. 4 For the use of exempla by other Latin Christian writers, see M. L. Carlson, “Pagan Examples of Fortitude in the Latin Christian Apologists,” CP 43 (1948): 93–104, esp. 93–94. *Edwina Murphy, Morling College, Sydney, Australia https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-006

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even in his apologetic writings.5 Any mention he makes of philosophy carries negative connotations.6 Tradition is valuable but only if it is aligned with Scripture: If in any respect the truth has grown faltering or shaky, we must go back to the Lord as our source, and to the tradition of the Gospels and the apostles. Let our conduct draw its rules from the same source from which our beginnings and our precepts took their rise.7

Cyprian understands himself as having been formed by Scripture,8 as one whose role as bishop is to instruct his congregation in its truths and ensure their compliance with them.9 This intent is evident both in Ad Quirinum testimonia adversus Judaeos,10 compiled so that his flock might memorize and live in accordance with Scripture,11 and in his letters and treatises, which are filled with divine precepts. The books that Cyprian cites as scriptural largely, but not entirely, overlap with modern canons. He does not cite some books because they are not germane to his concerns or because they are brief; thus, his lack of reference to them does not necessarily give us information regarding his opinion of their status.12 But it is a different case with James and Hebrews. The themes of James – particularly the close connection between faith and works as well as the correct attitude towards the poor – are so closely aligned with those of Cyprian that its absence strongly suggests that he either did not know this epistle or, somewhat less likely, he knew it

5 At Divinae institutiones 5.4 (CSEL 19:412), Lactantius criticises him for this, claiming Demetrian should instead have been refuted by his own authorities – philosophers and historians. 6 There are similarities, however. E.g., Cyprian’s discussion of slavery in Ad Demetrianum 8 (CCSL 3A:39) has some correspondence with Seneca, Ep. 47 (LCL 75:300–13). Pace H. Koch, Cyprianische Untersuchungen (Bonn: Marcus & Weber, 1926), 312, Cyprian is not overly dependent on Stoic thought. 7 Cyprian, Ep. 74.10.3 (CCSL 3C:578; G. W. Clarke, trans., Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 47 [New York: Newman, 1989]:77): “ . . . ut si in aliquo nutaverit et vacillaverit veritas, ad originem dominicam et ad evangelicam atque aposolicam traditionem revertamur et inde surgat actus nostri ratio unde et ordo et origo surrexit.” All English translations of Cyprian’s letters in what follows are those of Clarke. See n. 35 infra for the full bibliographical information. 8 Pontius, Vita Cypriani 2 (CSEL 3/1:xci–xciii). 9 D. E. Wilhite, “Cyprian’s Scriptural Hermeneutic of Identity: The Laxist ‘Heresy,’” HBT 32 (2010): 58–98, esp. 81. See also M. Réveillaud, Saint Cyprien: L’oraison dominicale (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964), 53. 10 For discussion, see E. Murphy, “‘As Far as My Poor Memory Suggested’: Cyprian’s Compilation of Ad Quirinum,” VC 68 (2014): 533–50. 11 Test. 1. Praefatio, Test. 3. Praefatio (CCSL 3:3–4, 73). For Test. as a catechetical document, see E. Ferguson, “Catechesis and Initiation,” in The Origins of Christendom in the West, ed. A. Kreider (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001): 229–68, esp. 239–42; and A. Alexis-Baker, “Ad Quirinum Book Three and Cyprian’s Catechumenate,” JECS 17 (2009): 357–80. 12 E.g., Cyprian recognises there are twelve minor prophets (Ep. 59.5.3 [CCSL 3C:346]), even though he never cites Obadiah, Jonah, or Nahum. For a list of books cited by Cyprian, see Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 42–43.

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but did not regard it as scriptural.13 Hebrews is cited just once by Tertullian14 and not at all by Cyprian,15 which, given its length, would be a surprising omission if he did consider it authoritative. Since Cyprian’s Latin translation is based on the Septuagint, he uses scriptural formulae for the deuterocanonical books.16 He also cites 1 Esdras as scriptural.17 Unsurprisingly, he regards all the works attributed to Paul as written by the apostle himself, and the only Pauline epistle that he does not cite is Philemon.18 For Cyprian, as for Tertullian before him, Paul is the Apostle,19 a fact that demonstrates Paul’s importance in the West well before the commentaries of the fourth century. And, while Cyprian sometimes particularly highlights the authority of Paul,20 or of Peter,21 or of Christ himself,22 ultimately, it is the Holy Spirit who speaks through Scripture.23 Cyprian is very consistent in his citations of Scripture, especially when compared with Tertullian: he clearly used an existing Latin text instead of making his own translations from the Greek.24 Intentional variants, whether for effect,25 or substituting a Latin word for a Greek one,26 often consist of a single synonym, leading many scholars to conclude that he relies on a codex.27 However, there is some

13 The first explicit citation in the West is by Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate 4.8 (CCSL 62:108). 14 Pud. 20.1–5 (CCSL 2:1324). 15 Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 40. 16 See also C. D. Allert, A High View of Scripture?: The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 181–82. 17 Cyprian, Ep. 74.9 (CCSL 3C:575–76), citing 1 Esd 4:38–40. 18 He mentions that Paul wrote to seven churches (Test. 1.20 [CCSL 3.1:19–20]) and refers to Paul as the writer of 1–2 Timothy and Titus. See, e.g., Cyprian, Ep. 3.3.3 (CCSL 3B:15), 67.5.4 (CCSL 3C:456). 19 See, e.g., Cyprian, Ep. 76.3.2 (CCSL 3C:611–12). 20 Cyprian, Ep. 27.3.3 (CCSL 3B:131). 21 Cyprian, Ep. 59.7.3 (CCSL 3C:348). 22 Cyprian, Ep. 73.19.2 (CCSL 3C:553). Christ also speaks in the Song of Songs at Cyprian, Ep. 74.11.2 (CCSL 3C:578). 23 For a discussion of one of the treatises in this regard, see D. J. Downs, “Prosopological Exegesis in Cyprian’s De opere et eleemosynis,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 6 (2012): 279–94. 24 This is what Tertullian probably does, although he also shows familiarity with a number of Old Latin versions. See the chapters by Dunn and Daniel-Hughes in this volume as well as H. A. G. Houghton, “The Use of the Latin Fathers for New Testament Textual Criticism,” in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis, eds. B. D. Ehrman and M. W. Holmes, 2nd ed., NTTSD 42 (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 375–405, esp. 377–78. 25 For a list, see Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 637 n. 24. 26 See H. F. von Soden, Das lateinische Neue Testament in Afrika zur Zeit Cyprian nach Bibelhandschriften und Väterzeugnissen (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909), 62–64. 27 C. H. Turner, “Prolegomena to the Testimonia and Ad Fortunatum of St Cyprian, IV,” JTS 31 (1930): 225–46, esp. 225; and Houghton, “Use of the Latin Fathers,” 378.

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evidence that Cyprian occasionally quotes from memory28 and that he even did so while compiling his testimonia collections.29 This is less surprising if we recognize that he was part of what remained a largely oral culture.30 Ad Quirinum testimonia adversus Judaeos, then, most closely represents the fixed Old Latin text on which Cyprian draws, although it may not replicate it in every detail.31

Cyprian and His Letters As Geoffrey Dunn has noted, Cyprian’s letters differ from his treatises more by length than by genre, insofar as both are focused on pastoral concerns.32 This similarity is evidenced by a lack of consistency in their classification: Augustine, for example, refers to the treatise De zelo et livore as a letter33; Ad Donatum has, in the past, been grouped with the letters rather than the treatises.34 In modern times, however, a standard division, reflected in Graeme Clarke’s work, has been accepted. His volumes include eighty-two letters of which sixty are by Cyprian and an additional six are written in council with other bishops.35 Not included in Clarke’s work, but to be discussed here, are the proceedings of the third council of African bishops on rebaptism.36 Although a collection of treatises came together early, Cyprian’s letters have been preserved in a variety of manuscripts that differ in both the number of letters they contain and the order in which those letters are presented.37 Bringing together these disparate collections has resulted in a numbering system that does not reflect the chronology of the letters, though this has been tentatively reconstructed by Clarke.38

28 Of course, citing from memory can also be a source of textual variants, a detail noted by A. d’Alès, La théologie de Saint Cyprien, 2nd ed. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1922), 47. 29 Test. 3.11 (CCSL 3:100). For further examples, see Murphy, “‘As Far as My Poor Memory Suggested,’” 544. 30 W. J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Routledge, 2002), 2. 31 Of course, Cyprian also cites texts in his letters and treatises that do not appear in Test. at all. 32 G. D. Dunn, “Infected Sheep and Diseased Cattle, or the Pure and Holy Flock: Cyprian’s Pastoral Care of Virgins,” JECS 11 (2003): 1–20, esp. 19. 33 Augustine, De baptismo contra Donatistas 4.8 (CSEL 51:234). 34 Cf., e.g., ANF, vol. 5. 35 G. W. Clarke, trans., The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, ACW 43–44, 46–47 (New York: Newman, 1984–1989), 1:7. These six do not include Cyprian, Ep. 61, written with colleagues who happened to be in Carthage at the time. 36 G. F. Diercks, ed., Sententiae episcoporum numero LXXXVII de haereticis baptizandis, CCSL 3E (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004). 37 Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 43:8. 38 G. W. Clarke, “Chronology of the Letters,” in CCSL 3D:691–705. I prefer Clarke’s dating to that of L. Duquenne, Chronologie des lettres de S. Cyprien: Le dossier de la persécution de Dèce (Brussels:

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These letters’ contents reveal that Cyprian and his correspondents wrote others that are no longer extant; the fate of ancient documents in general supports the surmise that still others may have been suppressed, accidentally lost, or deemed insufficiently interesting to justify the effort required to copy and/or to preserve them.39 We can only work with what we have rather than what we do not, so our conclusions, particularly with regard to Cyprian’s use (or not) of any given verse, must always be provisional. Still, with a corpus of over sixty letters, we have the opportunity to make some observations about the way in which Cyprian uses Scripture.

Reading Strategies As Fahey notes, Cyprian “never develops a consistent theory of hermeneutics.”40 Perhaps it is this, along with his lack of commentaries, that has led to only a cursory mention of his exegesis in works on early biblical interpretation.41 But what Cyprian lacks in theory, he makes up for in practice. Cyprian’s governing strategy, which applies to almost all his writing, is paraenesis.42 Within this framework, he employs a number of strategies to appropriate Scripture in his pastoral care and in his engagement with other bishops and his opponents. Here I will consider a handful of the most prominent of them: model, image, maxim, contextual exegesis, direct application, and prophetic fulfilment.43

Société des Bolandistes, 1972), 159–61. See also S. Deléani, Saint Cyprien: Lettres 1–20 (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2007), 11. 39 Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 43:7–11. 40 Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 625. This lack of explicit principles means he does not appear in T. Toom, ed., Patristic Theories of Biblical Interpretation: The Latin Fathers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 41 E.g., there is only one sentence devoted to him in M. Simonetti, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis, trans. J. A. Hughes (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 87. D’Alès, Théologie, 37–72, devotes a chapter of his work to Scripture in Cyprian’s thought, but its main focus is the Latin Bible and its text; only the final paragraph mentions his exegesis. 42 S. K. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 23, writes “[Paraenesis] includes not only precepts but also such things as advice, supporting argumentation, various modes of encouragement and dissuasion, the use of examples, models of conduct, and so on.” For this strategy in Cyprian’s work as a whole, see R. Noormann, Ad salutem consulere: Die Paränese Cyprians im Kontext antiken und frühchristliche Denkens (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009). 43 For reading strategies that relate to the early church’s appropriation of Scripture in its entirety, see F. M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 212–13.

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Models Through his use of models, Cyprian presents a biblical character as someone to be emulated or repudiated.44 Jean Daniélou sees this form of “moral exegesis” as particularly Latin in nature,45 although it is not absent from the Greek tradition.46 I include in this category people who are presented as types of Christ, as there is usually a mimetic component in their use.47 Cyprian’s models do not include only ethical exhortation; for him, Christ serves as a model for the future state of believers.48 A rich example of Cyprian’s use of such models is Ep. 59, his letter to Cornelius regarding Felicissimus and others who have separated themselves from the church. He uses a cluster of examples – Jesus, who was seized by his own brethren and betrayed by one of the apostles he had chosen, Abel, who was slain by his brother, Jacob, who was pursued by his brother, and Joseph, who was sold by his brothers – to encourage Cornelius not to be disheartened by opposition. One who suffers at the hands of his brethren is like Christ, whereas those who betray their bishop are acting like Judas.49 The arrogant do not imitate the humility of Christ but, rather, the spirit of Antichrist.50 Dives, who neglected Lazarus at his gate, is a model of the suffering that the proud will undergo.51 Cyprian then continues on the theme of respecting priests. As was the case with Samuel, it is not the priest who is being despised but God.52 The Lord himself models respect for priests: not only does he direct the healed leper to show himself to the priest, but he himself also does not reproach the high priest, even as the priest

44 Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 618, notes Cyprian’s use of the term exemplum in his excursus on Cyprian’s typology. Usually, however, Cyprian presents biblical characters as positive or negative models without using this designation. As Wilhite, “Cyprian’s Scriptural Hermeneutic,” 70–71, observes, Cyprian uses these exempla in constructing social identities, both “us” and “them.” 45 J. Daniélou, A History of Early Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicaea, trans. D. Smith and J. A. Baker, ed. J. A. Baker, vol. 3, The Origins of Latin Christianity (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1977), 321. 46 See, e.g., M. M. Mitchell, The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002). Aristotle, Rhetorica 1.9 and Quintilian, Inst. 5.11 both discuss the use of exempla in rhetoric, although they are more interested in how to promote a person or argument by such means than in providing material for imitation. 47 Young, Biblical Exegesis, 209. E.g., Abel in Cyprian, Ep. 58.5.1 (CCSL 3C:325); Dom. or. 24 (CCSL 3A:105). 48 See, e.g., Phil 3:21 in Cyprian, Ep. 76.2.4 (CCSL 3C:610–11). 49 Cyprian, Ep. 59.2.4 (CCSL 3C:339). 50 Cyprian, Ep. 59.3.2 (CCSL 3C:341). 51 Cyprian, Ep. 59.3.3 (CCSL 3C:342), alluding to Luke 16:19–25. 52 Cyprian, Ep. 59.4.2 (CCSL 3C:343); cf. 1 Sam 8:7.

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is condemning him.53 Paul, too, is an example, apologizing for responding abruptly to the high priest, whom he did not recognize.54 Furthermore, bishops should not be perturbed if they are opposed or deserted, since the same thing happened to their master.55 But Peter, on whom the Lord built the church, is a model for the church that refuses to depart from Christ.56 So anyone who withdraws from Christ only has himself or herself to blame. Later in the letter, Cyprian uses Paul’s thanksgiving in Rom 1:8 as a model for his Roman correspondents in order to praise and subtly direct them.57 With “a skilful blend of indignant expostulation and knowing flattery,”58 Cyprian decries the audacity of heretics in setting up a pseudo-bishop and sending letters “even to the chair of Peter, to the primordial church, the very source of episcopal unity59; and they do not stop to consider that they are carrying them to those same Romans whose faith was so praised and proclaimed by the Apostle, into whose company men without faith can, therefore, find no entry.”60 Cyprian is neither framing a doctrine on the primacy of Rome here nor outlining a practice of appealing to Rome, as the following paragraph makes clear.61 Instead, he is setting a standard for Cornelius and the Roman church: to admit Cyprian’s opponents would be to disown the faith for which their forefathers were praised. Bishops, then, should stand firm against “threats and intimidation” as Zechariah, the final model in the letter, demonstrates. He foretold what awaits those who forsake the Lord, even as he was stoned.62 A priest who follows his example cannot be overtaken, even if he is killed.

53 Cyprian, Ep. 59.4.2 (CCSL 3C:343), citing Matt 8:4 (Jesus’s exchange with the leper) and John 18: 19–24 (Jesus’s appearance before the high priest). Jesus is questioned about reproaching the high priest in John 18:22. 54 Cyprian, Ep. 59.4.3 (CCSL 3C:343–44), citing Acts 23:4–5. See also Cyprian, Ep. 3.2.1–2 (CCSL 3B: 12–13), 66.3.2–3 (3C:436–38). 55 Cyprian, Ep. 59.7.2 (CCSL 3C:348), citing John 6:6–7. 56 Cyprian, Ep. 59.7.3 (CCSL 3C:348), alluding first to Matt 16:18 and then citing John 6:68–69. 57 In Cyprian, Ep. 30.2 (CCSL 3B:141), the Roman clergy had previously applied this statement to themselves. Cyprian also uses it in Ep. 60.2.1 (CCSL 3C:375). 58 Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 46:258 n. 70. 59 For Cyprian’s use of Peter in the context of unity and the role of bishops, see G. D. Dunn, Cyprian and the Bishops of Rome: Questions of Papal Primacy in the Early Church (Sydney: St Pauls, 2007), 71–90. 60 Cyprian, Ep. 59.14.1 (CCSL 3C:361–62; Clarke, ACW 46:82): “ . . . et ad Petri cathedram atque ad ecclesiam principalem unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est a schismaticis et profanis litteras ferre nec cogitare eos esse Romanos quorum fides apostolo praedicante laudata est, ad quos perfidia habere non possit accessum”; cf. Rom 1:8. 61 Cyprian, Ep. 59.14.2 (CCSL 3C:362). Contra L. Bayard, Saint Cyprien. Correspondance, 2nd ed. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1962), 1:xlix. 62 Cyprian, Ep. 59.17.1 (CCSL 3C:368; Clarke, ACW 46:85), citing 2 Chr 24:20.

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Images Another of Cyprian’s strategies is the use of images from Scripture to support his argument. I am using images in a broad sense to include both metaphor and type.63 Sometimes Cyprian simply refers to a single image in passing, whereas at other times he develops it extensively. Nienke Vos, for example, demonstrates how central the image of a soldier in battle is to Cyprian in Ep. 58, a letter written to the laity in Thibaris who are anticipating severe persecution. There he quotes Eph 6: 12–1764 in full before applying the key terms of the text to the present situation.65 Another important image for Cyprian is that of the church as the bride of Christ, drawn from Eph 5:31–32: “Now the Apostle Paul says: ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and they will be two in one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.’”66 There is, therefore, an indissoluble unity between Christ and his bride, the church. The image appears in a number of his letters,67 but a particularly interesting example is in Ep. 74. Here Cyprian combines it with other images of putting off the old man, the washing of rebirth, and Christians as sons of God, to create an indivisible whole: Moreover, how can they possibly assert and maintain that one may become a son of God68 without having been born within the Church? For it is in baptism that the old man dies and the new man is born,69 as the blessed Apostle makes manifestly clear and proves when he says: “He has saved us through the washing of rebirth.”70 Now if rebirth is in this washing, that is to say, in baptism, how can heresy, which is not the bride of Christ, give birth to sons, through Christ, to God? It is the Church alone, being joined and united to Christ, who spiritually gives birth to sons, as the same Apostle once again says: “Christ loved the Church and He

63 For typological terms used by Cyprian, see Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 612–18. See also B. Proksch, Christus in den Schriften Cyprians von Karthago (Vienna: LIT, 2007), 41–54. 64 J. Strawbridge, The Pauline Effect: The Use of the Pauline Epistles by Early Christian Writers (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), identifies the four most significant Pauline passages for early Christian writers. Of these, Eph 6:12–17 is the only one that Cyprian discusses at length. 65 N. Vos, “A Universe of Meaning: Cyprian’s Use of Scripture in Letter 58,” in Cyprian of Carthage: Studies in His Life, Language and Thought, eds. H. Bakker, P. van Geest, and H. van Loon (Leuven: Peeters, 2010): 65–93. On pp. 76–81, Vos examines the importance of biblical exempla in this work. 66 Cyprian, Ep. 52.1.3 (CCSL 3B:244–45; Clarke, ACW 44:83): “Nam cum Paulus apostolus dicat: ‘Propter hoc relinquet homo patrem et matrem, et erunt duo in carne una. Sacramentum istud magnum est, ego autem dico in Christum et in ecclesiam.’” As Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 491, 665 n. 42, observes, Cyprian omits “and be joined to his wife” (NRSV), as does Tertullian in Marc. 5.18.9 (CCSL 1:719). 67 Cyprian, Ep. 59.1.1, 69.2.1–3 (CCSL 3C:337, 471–73), citing Song 6:8; 4:12, 15; 1 Pet 3:20–21; Eph 5:25–26. 68 An allusion to Rom 8:14–17, not noted by Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 429–30. 69 An allusion to Eph 4:22–24 or Rom 6:6; cf. Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 429. 70 Titus 3:5b.

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gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, washing and cleansing her by water.”71 And so, if she is His beloved, the bride who alone is sanctified by Christ and alone is cleansed by His washing, then obviously heresy, being no bride of Christ and incapable of being cleansed or sanctified by His washing, is also incapable of giving birth to sons to God.72

Having demonstrated that only the church is able to bear sons of God, Cyprian concludes with his well-known statement: “If a man is to have God for Father, he must first have the Church for mother.”73 By using Pauline images of sons, brides, and the washing of rebirth, the bishop skillfully develops the controlling image of the mater ecclesia.74

Maxims Maxims are pithy phrases from Scripture that can be applied to a range of situations75; Cyprian particularly likes to use them in relation to discipline. One of his favorites is drawn from Gal 1:10: “If I pleased people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” The opposition between the two had become commonplace in the early church, as Deléani attests.76 In two letters, Cyprian uses it to encourage bishops to maintain discipline: they must not be dissuaded from their divine mission of proclaiming life-giving truth by the threat of abuse.77 They themselves should please Christ, even if they are unable to persuade others to do so. Cyprian uses the verse

71 Ephesians 5:25b–26. Both here and in Ep. 69.2.3 (CCSL 3C:473), Cyprian omits 5:26’s final phrase “in the word” (Vulg.: in verbo vitae), presumably because its presence would distract from his emphasis on baptism. 72 Cyprian, Ep. 74.6.1–2 (CCSL 3C:570–71; Clarke, ACW 47:73): “Quale est autem adserere et contendere quod esse possint filii Dei qui non sint in ecclesia nati? Baptisma enim esse in quo homo vetus moritur et novus nascitur manifestat et probat beatus apostolus dicens: Servavit nos per lavacrum regenerationis. Si autem in lavacro id est in baptismo est regeneratio, quomodo generare filios Deo haeresis per Christum potest quae Christi sponsa non est? Ecclesia est enim sola quae Christo conjuncta et adunata spiritaliter filios generat eodem apostolo rursus dicente: Christus dilexit ecclesiam et se ipsum tradidit pro ea ut eam sanctificaret, purgans eam lavacro aquae. Si igitur haec est dilecta et sponsa quae sola a Christo sanctificatur et lavacro ejus sola purgatur, manifestum est haeresim, quae sponsa Christi non sit nec purgari nec sanctificari lavacro ejus possit, filios Deo generare non posse.” 73 Cyprian, Ep. 74.7.2 (CCSL 3C:572; Clarke, ACW 47:74): “ . . . ut habere quis possit Deum patrem, habeat ante ecclesiam matrem.” 74 The image of the church as mother is found in Tertullian, Or. 2 (CCSL 1:258). For a discussion of the term in Cyprian, see J. C. Plumpe, Mater Ecclesia: An Inquiry into the Concept of the Church as Mother (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1943), 81–106. 75 R. D. Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian, Oxford Theological Monographs (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 15, discusses the utility of such maxims in developing an argument. 76 Deléani, Saint Cyprien, 121. 77 Cyprian, Ep. 4.5.2, 59.8.2 (CCSL 3B:26, 350).

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again in Ep. 63 to overcome the objections of those who hesitate to drink wine in the morning.78 Since they are ashamed of the blood that Christ has shed for them, says Cyprian, they will be unwilling to shed their own blood for him in times of persecution: “Whereas we have to remember the words of the Lord in the Gospel: ‘If any man is ashamed of me, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him.’79 And the Apostle likewise says: ‘If I were wanting to please men, I should not be the servant of Christ.’”80 Scriptural texts on the necessity of heeding Christ are common in this letter as Cyprian seeks to counter the tradition of his opponents with what has been handed down in the gospel. It is not only in the area of discipline that Cyprian uses maxims, however. Another example is in the letter of the council to Fidus, who thought a newborn baby was not clean and therefore should not be baptized. The bishops advise that infants should not be deprived of heavenly grace, “For it is written: ‘To the clean all things are clean.’”81

Contextual Exegesis Contextual exegesis is an approach in which Cyprian examines the original context of a passage in order to understand its meaning correctly.82 He only resorts to this method in order to respond to the use of a text by his opponents; he is not usually so careful to preserve the context of his quotations.83 One of the few occasions in

78 Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 46:297 n. 36, thinks it is because the smell of wine on their breath in the morning may give them away as Christians. A. McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 206, however, believes it may be because “there is here at least a remnant of a conscientious objection of sorts: a refusal to participate in what seems to be a sacrificial ritual, or to share in a cup that is identified as the blood of Christ and thus also in guilt for Christ’s death.” For his comment on the correct time for drinking, see McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, 208–9. 79 Cyprian, Ep. 63.15.2–3 (CCSL 3C:411; Clarke, ACW 46:106–7), quoting Mark 8:38 or Luke 9:26 with omissions: “Porro autem Dominus in evangelio dicit: qui confusus me fuerit, confundetur eum filius hominis.” See Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 343–44. 80 Cyprian, Ep. 63.15.3 (CCSL 3C:411–12; Clarke, ACW 46:107). Clarke’s translation here follows Hartel’s text. CCSL 3C:412 notes the variant reading of placere vellem. The verse is also found, in conjunction with Ps 53:5 (52:6 Vulg.), in support of the testimony, “We must not please people, but God” (Test. 3.55 [CCSL 3.1:142]; Trans. is my own) and in Hab. virg. 5 (CCSL 3F:289–90). 81 Titus 1:15a. Cyprian, Ep. 64.4.1 (CCSL 3C:421–22; Clarke, ACW 46:111). 82 This approach goes beyond what Wilhite, “Cyprian’s Scriptural Hermeneutic,” 67, terms “elucidative reference,” a technique in which Cyprian uses introductory phrases such as, “For the Lord our God says in Deuteronomy . . . ” Cyprian, Ep. 4.4.2 (CCSL 3B:23; ACW 43:61). 83 Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 47:230. Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 496. Note that here Cyprian is not so much opposing “the exegesis of the heretics” themselves (as Fahey states), but rather those within the church who are willing to accept heretical baptism.

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which he employs it is in Ep. 73,84 a letter he wrote responding to Jubaianus on the issue of heretical baptism. That he employs this method several times in the letter reveals how high the stakes of this debate are.85 The first instance relates to the events of Acts 8:14–17: “Now some raise in objection the case of those who were baptized in Samaria. They claim that when the apostles Peter and John came, only hands were laid upon them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit; they were not rebaptized. In our view, dearly beloved brother, this passage is entirely irrelevant to the present situation.”86 Cyprian goes on to explain that they had, in fact, been validly baptized within the church by Philip the deacon. Peter and John then prayed and laid hands on them to confer the Holy Spirit, the very same practice now observed by the church.87 After providing a number of proofs to support his position that there is no baptism outside the church, Cyprian then addresses those who make use of a maxim drawn from Phil 1:8: “Some also repeat the words of the apostle Paul as if they were relevant support for heretics: ‘Nevertheless, in every way, whether in pretence or in truth, let Christ be proclaimed.’ But in these words, too, we can find nothing that can assist the advocacy of those who are supporters and partisans of heretics.”88 He then goes on to give the verse’s context – Paul was not speaking about heretics but rather disorderly brethren.89 In his detailed treatment of this passage, Cyprian uses rhetorical techniques from the law court regarding “ambiguity in the document” to make his case.90 As part of his strategy, he references a number of texts to

84 M. A. Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1997), 34–35, uses this letter as an example of Cyprian’s standard procedure in noting the original audience and intent behind the verses. In fact, it is an exception. 85 This letter also includes another strategy, that of qualification, in which Cyprian places some caveats on his teaching. At Cyprian, Ep. 73.21.1 (CCSL 3C:554–55), e.g., he uses 1 Cor 13:3 to demonstrate that those outside the church cannot be crowned as martyrs. 86 Cyprian, Ep. 73.9.1 (CCSL 3C:538–39; Clarke, ACW 47:58–59): “Quod autem quidam dicunt eis qui in Samaria baptizati fuerant advenientibus apostolis Petro et Johanne tantum super eos manum inpositam esse, ut acciperent spiritum sanctum, rebaptizatos tamen eos non esse, locum istum, frater carissime, ad praesentem causam videmus omnino non pertinere.” 87 Cyprian, Ep. 73.9.1–2 (CCSL 3C:538–39). 88 Cyprian, Ep. 73.14.1 (CCSL 3C:544; Clarke, ACW 47:61): “Quod enim quidam dicunt, quasi ad haereticorum suffragium pertineat quod dixerit apostolus Paulus: Verumtamen omni modo, sive per occasionem sive per veritatem Christus adnuntiatur, invenimus hoc quoque ad eorum patrocinium qui haereticis suffragantur et plaudunt nihil posse proficere.” 89 At Bapt.(A) 4.7–10 (CSEL 51:232–41), Augustine combines Cyprian’s argument here with citations from De zelo et livore in order to demonstrate that the church is a “corpus mixtum.” 90 Cicero, De inventione rhetorica 2.40 (H. M. Hubbell, LCL 386:284). Sider, Ancient Rhetoric, 86–87, summarizes the most important of these techniques from Inv. 2.40–41. For a more detailed analysis, see E. Murphy, “Cyprian’s Use of Philippians: To Live Is Christ and To Die Is Gain,” Aug 56 (2016): 35–56, esp. 40–43.

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show that the apostles nowhere approve of heretics; rather “they execrate and revile their sacrilegious perversion.”91 A little later in this same letter, he explains why Peter only mentioned being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, quoting Acts 2:38–39. This is because he is addressing himself to Jews who had already been baptized according to the Law of Moses: “Peter mentions Jesus Christ, not so that the Father should be omitted but so that to the Father should be added the Son.”92 But when it comes to Gentiles, Christ himself directed that “Gentiles are to be baptized in the full and united Trinity.”93 A final example of contextual exegesis in this letter regards John 3:5, “Unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Since baptism, as already demonstrated, cannot be common to the church and to heretics, those who come from heresy to the church must be baptized. Some then object that this interpretation of the text would mean that catechumens who were martyred before being baptized would lose their salvation and reward.94 Cyprian answers: obviously not. Firstly, “catechumens do hold the faith and truth of the Church complete.”95 Secondly, they are in fact baptized “with the greatest and most glorious baptism of all, that of blood.”96 He supports this with allusions to Jesus’s words regarding another baptism and the thief on the cross to whom Jesus gave the promise of being with him in paradise.97 When his position is challenged by an opponent’s use of specific texts, Cyprian considers the original context of the passages and demonstrates why they are irrelevant to the case in question or how they have been misunderstood. He does this by drawing on techniques from the law courts, particularly by providing corroborating evidence from other biblical texts. But, as noted above, Cyprian only uses this strategy under duress; he is generally satisfied with a much lower level of congruence between the original circumstances and those now facing his congregation, as the following strategy makes clear.

91 Cyprian, Ep. 73.15.1 (CCSL 3C:546; Clarke, ACW 47:62), alluding to 2 Tim 2:17, 2 Cor 6:14, 1 John 4:3: “. . . execrari et detestari haereticorum sacrilegam pravitatem.” 92 Cyprian, Ep. 73.17.2 (CCSL 3C:549–50; Clarke, ACW 47:64): “Jesu Christi mentionem facit Petrus, non quasi Pater omitteretur, sed ut Patri Filius quoque adjungeretur.” 93 At Cyprian, Ep. 73.18.1 (CCSL 3C:550; Clarke, ACW 47:64): “. . . gentes baptizari jubeat in plena et adunata Trinitate.” Cyprian, alluding to Matt 28:19, also refers to the command to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 94 Cyprian, Ep. 73.21.3–22.1 (CCSL 3C:555–56; Clarke, ACW 47:66). 95 Cyprian, Ep. 73.22.2 (CCSL 3C:556; Clarke, ACW 47:67): “ . . . catecuminos illos primo integram fidem et ecclesiae veritatem tenere.” 96 Cyprian, Ep. 73.22.2 (CCSL 3C:557; Clarke, ACW 47:67): “ . . . utpote qui baptizentur gloriosissimo et maximo sanguinis baptismo.” 97 Cyprian, Ep. 73.22.2 (CCSL 3C:557), alluding to Luke 12:50, 23:43.

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Direct Application Direct application refers to instances in which Cyprian takes a text and directly applies it to a current situation, whether or not it is similar to the one originally addressed by the author.98 This very common strategy expresses, as Vos notes, a fusion between “the biblical context and the context of Cyprian’s day.”99 Through scripture, God speaks to the present.100 Many of these uses are straightforward, like the three texts Cyprian groups together in Ep. 59 to demonstrate that we should not fear the wicked because ultimately they will fall.101 Similarly, in Ep. 13, he forbids quarrelling and rivalry: “For the Lord has left His peace to us, and it is also written: ‘You should love your neighbour as yourself. But if you carp at and find fault with each other, you run the risk of destroying each other.’ You, too, I beg you, should refrain from wrangling and back-biting, for those who back-bite will not obtain the kingdom of God.”102 He advises the bishop Pomponius in Ep. 4 that the virgins who had shared their bed with men, but maintained they were still virgins, should separate from them and “persevere in their modesty and chastity without giving rise to any sort of gossip,” patiently awaiting the reward of their virginity.103 But he also provides another option based on two Pauline texts: If, on the other hand, they are unwilling or unable to persevere, then it is better that they should marry than fall into the fire by their sins. Clearly they must avoid causing any scandal for their brothers and sisters, since it is written: “If the food scandalizes my brother, I will not eat meat while this world lasts, for fear I may cause him scandal.”104

98 I have removed the distinction between direct and indirect application that I made in an earlier publication. See E. Murphy, “Divine Ordinances and Life-Giving Remedies: Galatians in the Writings of Cyprian of Carthage,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 8 (2014): 81–101, esp. 95–96. 99 Vos, “Universe of Meaning,” 65–93. 100 Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 49. 101 Cyprian, Ep. 59.3.1 (CCSL 3C:340–41); citing Hab 2:5, 1 Macc 1:62–63, Ps 37:35–36 (36:35–36 Vulg.). This is another an example of a deuterocanonical work cited as Scripture; cf. supra. 102 Cyprian, Ep. 13.5.2 (CCSL 3B:77; Clarke, ACW 43:85): “ . . . cum pacem suam nobis dimiserit Dominus et scriptum sit: diliges proximum tuum tamquam te. Si autem mordetis et incusatis invicem, videte ne consumamini ab invicem. Conuiciis etiam et maledictis quaeso vos abstinete, quia neque maledici regnum Dei consequentur,” alluding to John 14:27, quoting Gal 5:14b–15, and alluding to 1 Cor 6:10. 103 Cyprian, Ep. 4.2.3 (CCSL 3B:20; Clarke, ACW 43:59): “ . . . pudicae et castae sine ulla fabula perseverent.” 104 Cyprian, Ep. 4.2.3 (CCSL 3B:20; Clarke, ACW 43:59): “ . . . Si autem perseverare nolunt vel non possunt, melius est nubant quam in ignem delictis suis cadant. Certe nullum fratribus aut sororibus scandalum faciant, cum scriptum sit: Si cibus scandalizat fratrem, non manducabo carnem in saeculo ne fratrem scandalizem,” alluding to 1 Cor 7:9b (marrying) and quoting 1 Cor 8:13 (eating). Although they were formally recognized as a distinct group, this indicates that, at least in this

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On the other hand, some direct applications of passages are more unexpected. One of these is in Ep. 63 where Cyprian quotes Gal 1:6–9, warning against following another gospel,105 before applying it to those who only use water in the cup: And so, since neither the Apostle himself nor an angel from heaven is at liberty to proclaim any doctrine different from that which Christ once taught and His apostles have proclaimed, I am truly astonished how this practice can have arisen whereby, contrary to the prescriptions of the gospel and the apostles, in some places water, which by itself is incapable of signifying the blood of Christ, is offered in the Lord’s cup.106

To depart in any way from what Jesus taught and did – even in what some might regard as minor details – is to follow another gospel and, therefore, must not be tolerated.107

Prophetic Fulfilment Sometimes Cyprian uses Scripture in relation to the fulfilment of a prophecy. This also includes those types that do not fit comfortably into the categories of models or images. In the letters, predictions of opposition come to the fore. In Ep. 59, for example, Cyprian alludes to Matt 10:36: “In the Gospel, too, we read it foretold that it will chiefly be from our own household that our enemies will come.”108 And again: “No man of faith . . . should feel perturbed if in these days at the end of the world there appear certain headstrong and stiff-necked men who are hostile to God’s bishops, who forsake the Church or work against the Church; for the Lord and His apostles have already foretold that such men would come in these days.”109

context, virgins did not take perpetual vows; cf. Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 43:176 n. 22. That they also did not adopt poverty is made plain throughout De habitu virginum. 105 Cyprian, Ep. 63.10.3 (CCSL 3C:402–3). 106 Cyprian, Ep. 63.11.1 (CCSL 3C:403; Clarke, ACW 46:103): “Cum ergo neque ipse apostolus neque angelus de caelo adnuntiare possit aliter aut docere praeterquam quod semel Christus docuit et apostoli ejus adnuntiaverunt, miror satis unde hoc usurpatum sit ut contra evangelicam et apostolicam disciplinam quibusdam in locis aqua offeratur in Dominico calice, quae sola Christi sanguinem non possit exprimere.” 107 At other times, however, Cyprian is willing to accept diversity of opinion among bishops in order to maintain the unity of the church. See, e.g., Cyprian, Ep. 55.21.1 (CCSL 3B:280) on the differing episcopal treatments accorded to adulterers. 108 Cyprian, Ep. 59.2.4 (CCSL 3C:339; Clarke, ACW 46:70): “ . . . in evangelio etiam legamus esse praedictum magis domesticos inimicos futuros.” 109 Cyprian, Ep. 59.7.1 (CCSL 3C:347; Clarke, ACW 46:74): “Nec quemquam fidelem et evangelii memorem atque apostoli praemonentis mandata retinentem movere debet, frater carissime, si quidam in extremis temporibus superbi et contumaces et sacerdotum dei hostes aut de ecclesia recedunt aut contra ecclesiam faciunt, quando tales nunc futuros et Dominus et apostoli ejus ante praedixerint,” alluding to John 16:2–4, 2 Tim 3:1–5.

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Prophecy is not limited to verbal prediction, however, as we see in the symbolladen Ep. 63.110 Actions also speak: Now Christ has taught and revealed that the Jews are to be succeeded by the multitude of the Gentiles and that through the merits of our faith we are to take over that place which the Jews had forfeited. For He turned water into wine, that is, He revealed that upon the desertion of the Jews the peoples of the Gentiles should rather come flocking in together in their crowds at the wedding between Christ and His Church.111

This same letter addresses the correct time for the use of the cup, via two quotations that foretold the time of Christ’s sacrifice towards the evening of the day, signifying the evening of the world: “As it is written in Exodus: ‘And all the people, the assembly of the children of Israel, shall put him to death towards evening.’112 And again in the Psalms: ‘Let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice.’”113 Promises and events in the Hebrew Scriptures, then, are fulfilled in the life of Christ and of the church, as are the words and actions of Christ and the apostles.

Rhetorical Techniques Given his prior career, it is not surprising that Cyprian is influenced by the rhetorical – rather than the philosophical – schools in his exegesis. Well grounded in the methods of his day, Cyprian expertly uses the evidence (that is, Scripture) in order to prove his case. Space will not permit an examination of every rhetorical tech-

110 Via an allusion to Gen 9:20–23, Cyprian, Ep. 63.3 (CCSL 3C:391–92; Clarke, ACW 46:99) also includes the “prophetic anticipation” of wine in the cup: Noah is “a type presaging the Lord’s passion . . . in drinking not water but wine Noah exhibited a symbol of the truth to come and thus prefigured the Lord’s passion” (“Noe hoc idem praecucurrisse et figuram Dominicae passionis . . . Noe typum futurae veritatis ostendens non aquam sed vinum biberit et sic imaginem Dominicae passionis expresserit.”). 111 Cyprian, Ep. 63.12.2 (CCSL 3C:405–6; Clarke, ACW 46:104): “Christus autem docens et ostendens gentium populum succedere et in locum quem Judaei perdiderant nos postmodum merito fidei pervenire, de aqua vinum fecit, id est quod ad nuptias Christi et ecclesiae Judaeis cessantibus plebs magis gentium conflueret et conveniret ostendit.” The image of the waters signifying the nations is found in Rev 17:15. For Cyprian’s attitude towards the Jews, see C. A. Bobertz, “‘For the Vineyard of the Lord of Hosts was the House of Israel’: Cyprian of Carthage and the Jews,” JQR 82 (1991): 1–15. 112 Exod 12:6. 113 Psalm 141:2 (140:2 Vulg.). Ep. 63.16.2 (CCSL 3C:412–13; Clarke, ACW 46:107): “sicut in Exodo scriptum est: et occident illum omne uulgus synagogae filiorum Israel ad uesperam. Et iterum in psalmis: adleuatio manuum mearum sacrificium uespertinum.” Christians, by contrast, celebrate the resurrection in the morning.

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nique that Cyprian employs.114 Therefore, what follows will provide a series of examples chosen to illustrate those that are most significant for his application of Scripture. Whereas the above section on reading strategies considered the variety of ways in which Cyprian might appropriate a given text, this section focuses on how he integrates Scripture into his work: framing, combining, and modifying the texts in order to develop his argument.

Significance of Key Words Given the importance of memory in late antiquity, specific words take on particular importance as a method of categorization.115 Cyprian often groups together a series of texts that have a key word in common. In the introduction to Ep. 4, for example, Cyprian emphasizes the role of the bishops in adhering to the “precepts handed down by the evangelists and the apostles” in upholding the discipline of the church.116 He follows with three quotations, all of which include the word “discipline”: For our Lord Himself declares: “And I will give you shepherds according to my heart’s desire, and they will pasture you with discipline.” And again it is written: “Wretched is he who rejects discipline.” In the Psalms, too, the Holy Spirit instructs us as follows: “Keep discipline lest God chance to be wrath and you perish from the right way beneath the sudden blast of His anger.”117

Modifying the Text Cyprian’s citation of Wis 3:11’s assertion that “Wretched is he who rejects discipline” (disciplinam qui abicit infelix est), omits the original’s reference to “wisdom”

114 One of these is his use of “quanto magis” (i.e., “how much more”) in his inductive reasoning. See Wilhite, “Cyprian’s Scriptural Hermeneutic,” 67. For a clear example, see Cyprian’s use of 1 Cor 6:10b and Matt 5:22 in Ep. 59.4.1 (CCSL 3C:342–43). 115 For a discussion of associative strategies in patristic exegesis, see J. J. O’Keefe and R. R. Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 63–68. 116 Cyprian, Ep. 4.1.2 (CCSL 3B:18; Clarke, ACW 43:57–58): “ab evangelicis et apostolicis traditionibus non recedere.” 117 Cyprian, Ep. 4.1.2 (CCSL 3B:18; Clarke, ACW 43:58), quoting Jer 3:15, Wis 3:11, Ps 2:12: “Cum Dominus loquatur et dicat: Et dabo vobis pastores secundum cor meum, et pascent vos pascentes cum disciplina. Et iterum scriptum est: Disciplinam qui abicit infelix est, et in psalmis quoque Spiritus Sanctus admonet et instruit dicens: Continete disciplinam, ne forte irascatur Dominus, et pereatis a via recta, cum exarserit cito ira ejus super vos.” Note that in this case Cyprian’s text of Ps 2 reads “continente disciplinam”; cf. the Vulgate’s “adprehendite disciplinam,” the NRSV’s “Kiss his feet,” and the NIV’s “Kiss his son.”

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(sapientiam).118 This demonstrates another of Cyprian’s techniques: textual abbreviation.119 In this case, it may be, as Clarke hypothesizes, to avoid “possible overtones of suspect pagan philosophy.”120 But it may simply be to keep the focus on the point he wishes to make. In another instance of such abbreviation, Cyprian has received a vision reproaching the community for their lack of prayer: “We must, therefore, cast off and burst the bonds of sleep and pray with urgency and watchfulness, as the Apostle Paul enjoins us: ‘Be urgent and watchful in prayer.’”121 The quotation of Col 4:2 omits the direction to be thankful, to which, presumably, he is not opposed, but which is less than central to his concern in his use of the maxim.122 Cyprian’s high respect for Scripture, then, does not prevent him from adapting it to better suit his purposes. Another means of doing this is to put the texts in reverse order. In Ep. 4, following his famous declaration that “no one can find salvation except within the church,” Cyprian provides scriptural support by citing Prov 15:12 and 15:10: That the unruly perish when they do not heed or obey the saving precepts, the sacred scriptures confirm with these words: “The unruly loves not the one who rebukes him but those who hate reproaches will meet a shameful death.” Accordingly, our dearest brother, you must ensure that the unruly do not die or perish.123

This, as Clarke suggests, has the benefit of “placing the threat consumentur turpiter in the final and emphatic position.”124 It also has another advantage that will be explored below.

118 Cf. the Vulgate: “Sapientiam enim et disciplinam qui abicit infelix est.” 119 See also the omissions of “and be joined to his wife” from Eph 5:31–32 in Cyprian, Ep. 52.1.3 (CCSL 3B:244–45) and of “in the word” from Eph 5:25b–26 in Cyprian, Ep. 69.2.3 and 74.6.2 (CCSL 3C:473, 571), both of which are discussed supra. 120 Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 43:175–76 n. 10; cf. the section “Cyprian and Scripture” supra. 121 Cyprian, Ep. 11.5.1 (CCSL 3B:61–62; Clarke, ACW 43, 78): “Excutiamus itaque et abrumpamus somni uincula et instanter ac uigilanter oremus, sicut Paulus apostolus praecipit dicens: instate orationi vigilantes in ea”; cf. the Vulgate: “orationi instate, vigilantes in ea in gratiarum actione.” 122 The same abbreviated text is used in Test. 3.120 (CCSL 3:179) and Dom. or. 31 (CCSL 3A:109). 123 Cyprian, Ep. 4.4.3–5.1 (CCSL 3B:24–25; Clarke, ACW 43:61): “Indisciplinatos autem perire, dum non audiunt nec obtemperant salubribus praeceptis, testatur scriptura divina quae dicit: Non diligit indisciplinatus castigantem se. Qui autem oderunt correptiones, consumentur turpiter. Ergo ne indisciplinati consumantur et pereant da operam, frater carissime.” 124 Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 43:180 n. 38, responding to Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 164.

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Incorporating Words from Scripture into the Surrounding Text In the immediately preceding instance, Cyprian’s rearrangement of the verses gives him the opportunity to highlight the word “unruly,” which he then uses before and after the quotation in order to connect it to his argument. This is sometimes used as part of a technique, identified by Maureen Tilley, which might be called reverse exegesis: Cyprian describes (or exegetes) the current situation by the use of Scripture, then issues directives using quotations from, or echoes of, Scripture.125 Here he identifies those who do not heed advice as unruly, uses Scripture to announce their fate, and then directs bishops regarding how to return to the “strait and narrow” way of salvation.126 An extended example of framing quotations with words drawn from the text is found in Ep. 63 on the necessity of wine in the cup. In introducing Gal 3:6–9, Cyprian almost paraphrases the entire passage before quoting it: And that preceding blessing bestowed upon Abraham [by Melchizedek] extended to our people likewise. For if Abraham believed in God and that belief was credited to him as justice, then clearly everyone who believes in God and lives by faith will be found [to be] a just man and is revealed to have been long since blessed and justified in the person of the faithful Abraham. This is proved by the words of the blessed apostle Paul: [the quotation of Gal 3:6–9 follows].127

Stringing Multiple Quotations Together Cyprian often cites three texts together, demonstrating his “instinctive rhetorical habits – the rules demanding triple illustration.”128 So, for example, in Ep. 13, Cyprian provides three texts on the importance of obedience that glorifies God: As the Lord spoke in warning in these words of scripture: “Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” And the Apostle Paul says: “Shine like beacons in the world.” Likewise Peter urges: “Like pilgrims and strangers refrain from carnal desires which war against the soul, maintaining good conduct among

125 Tilley, Bible in Christian North Africa, 34–35. 126 Cyprian, Ep. 4.5.1 (CCSL 3B:25), alluding to Matt 7:14. 127 Cyprian, Ep. 63.4.2 (CCSL 3C:393–94; Clarke, ACW 46:99): “Et circa Abraham benedictio illa praecedens ad nostrum populum pertinebat. Nam si Abraham Deo credidit et deputatum est ei ad justitiam, utique quisque Deo credit et fide vivit justus invenitur et jam pridem in Abraham fideli benedictus et justificatus ostenditur, sicut beatus apostolus Paulus probat dicens: [Cites Gal 3:6–9] Cyprian, quoting Luke 19:9, follows with a reference to Zacchaeus, “son of Abraham.” 128 Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 43:256–57. In his Ep. 2.20.9 (LCL 55:152–53), Pliny the Younger calls this technique the “scholastica lex” and he provides three examples – rather than two – in order to satisfy the imagined request of his friend, Calvisius.

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the Gentiles, so that whilst they disparage you as evil-doers they may see your good works and glorify the Lord.”129

Cyprian here combines the authoritative words of Jesus with those of Paul and Peter. Such combinations of two or three verses are particularly useful in cases where Cyprian is seeking to counter the tradition of his opponents with “the tradition of the Gospel and the apostles.”130 While three proofs are rhetorically pleasing, Cyprian does not limit himself to this number.131 In Ep. 11, for example, he brings together four texts on unity from Psalms, Acts, John, and Matthew.132 This use of texts from different parts of Scripture also reflects Cyprian’s conviction that Scripture is a unified whole.133

Rewriting for Rhetorical Effect Three times in his extant letters, Cyprian rewrites texts for rhetorical effect, intending, as Clarke says, to be “arrestingly emphatic.”134 In each case he first quotes the verse in question. In Ep. 3, Cyprian is advising his colleague Rogantius on how to deal with a disobedient deacon. A rewrite of 1 Tim 4:12 proves useful: “The Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, said: ‘Let no man despise you for your youth.’135 Your colleagues have, accordingly, all the more reason for saying to you: ‘Let no man despise you for your age.’”136 Attempting to discipline confessors in Ep. 13, a letter to

129 Cyprian, Ep. 13.3.2 (CCSL 3B:74; Clarke, ACW 43:84), quoting Matt 5:16, Phil 2:15, 1 Pet 2:11–12: “sicut scriptum est domino praemonente et dicente: luceat lumen uestrum coram hominibus, ut uideant bona opera uestra et clarificent patrem uestrum qui in caelis est. Et Paulus apostolus dicit: Lucete sicut luminaria in mundo. Et Petrus similiter hortatur: Sicut hospites, inquit, et peregrini abstinete vos a carnalibus desideriis, quae militant adversus animam, conversationem habentes inter gentiles bonam, ut dum retractant de vobis quasi de malignis, bona opera vestra aspicientes magnificent Dominum.” 130 Cyprian, Ep. 74.10.3 (CCSL 3C:578; Clarke, ACW 47:77): “ . . . evangelicam atque apostolicam traditonem.” See also the combination of Jesus and Paul that appears in Cyprian, Ep. 63.15.3 (CCSL 3C:411–12) and that is discussed supra. 131 Similarly, Quintilian, Inst. 4.5.3 (LCL 125: 298–99) disagrees with those who claim that “tris propositiones” is the maximum number permitted. 132 Cyprian, Ep. 11.3.1 (CCSL 3B:59–60), citing Ps 68:6 (67:7 Vulg.), Acts 4:32, John 15:12, Matt 18:19. 133 Cf. Réveillaud, L’oraison dominicale, 56: “La Bible est traitée comme un tout indivisible. Ceci reste vrai pour l’ensemble de l’exégèse cyprienne.” 134 Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 43:256 n. 5. 135 Cf. 1 Tim 4:12. 136 Cyprian, Ep. 3.3.3 (CCSL 3B:15; Clarke, ACW 43:57): “Nam si apostolus Paulus ad Timotheum scribens dixit: ‘Juventutem tuam nemo despiciat,’ quanto magis tibi a collegis tuis dicendum est: ‘Senectutem tuam nemo despiciat’?”

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Rogantius and his companions, Cyprian quotes and rewrites John 5:14.137 After beginning with a general admonition that new life does not consist merely in receiving saving birth but in persevering to the end, he continues: “This is a lesson which the Lord has taught us on His own authority with these words: ‘Look, you have been made whole. Sin no more lest something worse befall you.’ Imagine the Lord now saying this also to His confessor: ‘Look, you have been made a confessor. Sin no more lest something worse befall you.’”138 Solomon and Saul are illustrations of what happens to those who depart from the ways of the Lord – they lose his grace.139 Finally, in Ep. 62, Cyprian recasts Christ’s words, “I was sick and you visited me . . . . I was in prison, and you visited me,”140 promising a greater reward to those to whom he will say, “I was captive, and you redeemed me.”141

Combining Various Reading Strategies Epistula 62 also serves as an example of the way Cyprian uses a range of strategies to make his point. In this case it is particularly important as he is dealing with an issue that Scripture does not directly address: the ransom of captives. Nevertheless, he creates an argument grounded in the authority of Paul and Christ. He first presents Paul as a model of how to relate to those in need by citing 2 Cor 11:29: “Who is weak and I am not weak?”142 In this and the subsequent section he constructs a series of Pauline images of increasing intensity – members of one body,143 temples of God,144 and being clothed with Christ145 – to demonstrate the necessity of sacrificial action on behalf of the captives. Ultimately, it is Christ who is present in the captive brethren,146 as his rewriting of Matt 25:36 that was discussed above confirms.

137 For the variety of ways Cyprian uses this text, see E. Murphy, “Sin No More: Healing, Wholeness, and the Absent Adulteress in Cyprian’s Use of John,” REAug 64.1 (2018): 1–15. 138 Cyprian, Ep. 13.2. 2 (CCSL 3B:72–73; Clarke, ACW 43:83): “Dominus hoc magisterio suo docuit dicens: ecce sanus es, iam noli peccare, ne quid tibi deterius fiat. Puta hoc illum et confessori suo dicere: ecce confessor factus es, iam noli peccare, ne quid tibi deterius fiat.” He also alludes to Matt 24:13. 139 On discipline and grace, see S. Hübner, “Kirchenbuße und Exkommunikation bei Cyprian,” ZKT 84 (1962): 49–84, esp. 60. 140 Matthew 25:36. 141 Cyprian, Ep. 62.3.1 (CCSL 3C:387; Clarke, ACW 46:96): “captiuus fui, et redemistis me.” 142 Cyprian, Ep. 62.1.1 (CCSL 3C:385). 143 Cf. 1 Cor 12:26. 144 Cf. 1 Cor 3:16. 145 Cf. Gal 3:27. 146 Cyprian, Ep. 62.2.2 (CCSL 3C:386).

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Likewise, in a single paragraph in Ep. 59, Cyprian follows the image of speech that spreads “like a cancer”147 with the maxim: “evil talk corrupts good characters.”148 He then directly quotes Titus 3:10–11 on admonishing heretics just once.149 The title “perverse and self-condemned” drawn from this same passage is used several times elsewhere by Cyprian.150 He follows this with the direct application of three verses, which the Holy Spirit speaks through Solomon, all of which are linked by reference to the mouth, tongue and lips.151

Literal and Typological, Old and New As Tilley notes, in Cyprian’s use of Scripture there is an interplay between the literal and typological,152 and Cyprian considers them equally useful to salvation.153 A good example of this is Ep. 63 on the cup, where the evidence marshalled in order to demonstrate that wine, not water, must be used ranges from Jesus’s words, “I am the true vine,”154 to Noah’s drunkenness,155 to the Lord’s words of institution and Paul’s handing on of the tradition.156 Another interesting element is the use of verses regarding “water.” Those who use water in the cup claim that their practice is supported by these texts. Cyprian demonstrates, however, that they relate to baptism instead.157 Both sides agree in their use of typology; they disagree over what constitutes the reference.158 The Hebrew Scriptures, then, speak to the church, but they must be rightly interpreted: readings that contradict the testimony of Jesus and the apostles are clearly wrong. Cyprian freely applies quotations from the Old Testament, especially notable are those which equate, as Clarke says, the “OT pontifex, iudex, and sacerdos and the NT bishop.”159 Yet Cyprian does make a distinction between the

147 Second Timothy 2:17. Cyprian, Ep. 59.20.1 (CCSL 3C:372; Clarke, ACW 46:87). 148 First Corinthians 15:33. Cyprian, Ep. 59.20.1 (CCSL 3C:372; Clarke, ACW 46:87). 149 Cyprian, Ep. 59.20.1 (CCSL 3C:372). Cyprian also cites this text in Test. 3.78 (CCSL 3.1:161). On both occasions he omits “or twice,” from his quote, as do Augustine and Ambrosiaster. See Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 518. 150 Cyprian, Ep. 69.4.2, 73.10.3, 74.2.3 (CCSL 3C:475, 541, 566). Using a scriptural phrase as a title is occasionally one of Cyprian’s reading strategies. 151 Cyprian, Ep. 59.20.1 (CCSL 3C:372), citing Prov 16:27, Eccl 28:24, Prov 17:4. 152 For discussion, see Tilley, Bible in Christian North Africa, 35–41. 153 Réveillaud, L’oraison dominicale, 55. 154 Cyprian, Ep. 63.2.1 (CCSL 3C:391), quoting John 15:5. 155 Cyprian, Ep. 63.3 (CCSL 3C:391–92), alluding to Gen 9:20–23, as discussed supra. 156 Cyprian, Ep. 63.9.2–10.1 (CCSL 3C:400–2), alluding to Matt 26:27–29, 1 Cor 11:23–26. 157 Cyprian, Ep. 63.8.1–9.1 (CCSL 3C:397–400). 158 Cf. Young, Biblical Exegesis, 120–21. 159 Clarke, Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 46:242–43 n. 17. See also M. F. Wiles, “The Theological Legacy of St. Cyprian,” JEH 14 (1963): 139–49, esp. 149.

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physical and the spiritual. In Ep. 4, for example, he cites Deut 17:12–13 on the application of the death penalty to those who do not obey the priest or judge.160 But just as now circumcision is spiritual,161 so too is the sword; the “insolent and arrogant” are cast out of the church rather than slain. This is the context for Cyprian’s famous statement: “For they cannot find life outside the Church, since there is only one house of God and no-one can find salvation except within the Church.”162

Conclusion If the unity of Scripture is important in Cyprian’s exegesis, so too is unity as an interpretative principle. Although Cyprian holds to the rule of faith, he has no need to assert it against his opponents, as did Irenaeus and Tertullian. Neither does he share their emphasis on the traditional interpretation of Scripture as guaranteed by the succession of bishops; rather, he simply takes it for granted. In fact, as we have seen, Cyprian sometimes opposes Scripture to tradition, contrasting what has been authoritatively handed down by Christ or Paul to subsequent practice in the church. What Cyprian does need to maintain, in the face of multiple schisms, is the unity of the church.163 Although there is no novelty in Cyprian’s belief that the church is one, his elevation of that belief to a guiding theme is distinctive. If, for Augustine, correct interpretation of Scripture must promote love of God and neighbor,164 for Cyprian, it must promote unity, which, for him, is an expression of that love. The oneness of the church controls his exegesis.165 Indeed, in many of Cyprian’s citations discussed above, the explicit concern is to counter schism. Within this paradigm, Cyprian weaves together a wide range of reading strategies and rhetorical techniques, creating a biblical framework for understanding and overcoming the challenges faced by his congregation.

160 Cyprian, Ep. 4.4.2 (CCSL 3B:23–24). 161 On the similarities and differences between circumcision and baptism, see also Cyprian, Ep. 64 (CCSL 3C:418–25). 162 Cyprian, Ep. 4.4.2 (CCSL 3B:24; Clarke, ACW 43:61): “Neque enim vivere foris possunt, cum domus dei una sit et nemini salus esse nisi in ecclesia possit.” 163 For the social context of Cyprian’s formulation, see J. P. Burns, Cyprian the Bishop (London: Routledge, 2002). 164 Doctr. chr. 1.36 (CCSL 32:29–30). 165 This accounts for his disproportionate use of Ephesians. According to Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 485, Cyprian alludes to Eph 4:5 twelve times. Chapter 4 is also appealed to by the bishops in the third baptismal council, as noted by E. Contreras, “Sententiae Episcoporum Numero LXXXVII de Haereticus Baptizandis,” Aug 27 (1987): 407–21, esp. 411–13.

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For Further Reading Primary Sources Clarke, Graeme W., trans. The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, 5 vols. Ancient Christian Writers 43–44, 46–47. New York: Newman, 1984, 1984, 1986, 1989. Cyprian. Epistulae 1–57, edited by Gerardus Frederik Diercks. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 3B. Turnhout: Brepols, 1994. Cyprian. Epistulae 58–81, edited by Gerardus Frederik Diercks. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 3C. Turnhout: Brepols, 1996. Deléani, Simone, trans. Saint Cyprien: Lettres 1–20. Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2007. Réveillaud, Michel, trans. Saint Cyprien: L’oraison dominicale. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964.

Secondary Sources Burns, J. Patout. Cyprian the Bishop. London: Routledge, 2002. Daniélou, Jean. A History of Early Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicaea, translated by David Smith and John Austin Baker, edited by John Austin Baker. Vol. 3, The Origins of Latin Christianity. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1977. Dunn, Geoffrey D. Cyprian and the Bishops of Rome: Questions of Papal Primacy in the Early Church. Sydney: St Pauls, 2007. Fahey, Michael Andrew. Cyprian and the Bible: A Study in Third-Century Exegesis. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1971. Houghton, Hugh A. G. “The Use of the Latin Fathers for New Testament Textual Criticism.” In The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis, edited by Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes, 375–405. 2nd ed. New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents 42. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Murphy, Edwina. The Bishop and the Apostle: Cyprian’s Pastoral Exegesis of Paul. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018. Noormann, Rolf. Ad salutem consulere: Die Paränese Cyprians im Kontext antiken und frühchristliche Denkens. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009. Tilley, Maureen A. The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1997. Vos, Nienke. “A Universe of Meaning: Cyprian’s Use of Scripture in Letter 58.” In Cyprian of Carthage: Studies in His Life, Language and Thought, edited by Henk Bakker, Paul van Geest, and Hans van Loon, 65–93. Leuven: Peeters, 2010. Wilhite, David E. “Cyprian’s Scriptural Hermeneutic of Identity: The Laxist ‘Heresy.’” Horizons in Biblical Theology 32 (2010): 58–98.

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6 Scripture in the North African Treatises of Pseudo-Cyprian Introduction Several of the extant texts that have been erroneously ascribed to Cyprian in both the manuscript tradition and in printed editions not only are by other (anonymous) authors but also are witnesses to the first wave of Christian Latin literature. These texts also provide insight into the reception of the Bible in and around Carthage by ancient readers at the time of Tertullian and Cyprian. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has thus far been paid to the Pseudo-Cyprianic writings as a whole. The corpus is heterogeneous and difficult to handle because of critical questions concerning the date and provenance of many of these texts. This chapter will offer a broad overview of the ways in which this corpus has contributed to our knowledge of exegetical practices in Christian North Africa, while also highlighting the methodological problems that inevitably arise when they are studied en bloc. After an overview of the corpus on the basis of the manuscript tradition, each individual work that can certainly – or at least with some probability – be assigned to North Africa will be briefly discussed in chronological order. To deal with the controversial questions concerning the date and origin of each text, particular attention will be paid to the scriptural material since this is often a primary criterion used in arguments in favor of a North African provenance. The role that the Bible plays within these texts and the different genres and contexts in which this exegesis took place will then be examined. In the final section the impact of these texts and the methodological implications of this type of research will be reviewed – although one cannot always be sure whether there has been either direct borrowing or a shared tradition, a few examples will suggest that some authors may well have been dependent on Pseudo-Cyprianic literature.

The Pseudo-Cyprianic Treatises: An Overview The texts that were unduly included in manuscripts and printed editions under the name of Cyprian are usually classified as “Pseudo-Cyprianic.”1 This designation 1 The most comprehensive list of Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises was given by dom Pitra in his edition of the works of Cyprian of Carthage for the Patrologia Latina: Prolegomena de scriptis sancti Cypriani *Laetitia Ciccolini, Sorbonne Université (UMR 8584) https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-007

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should not, however, be taken to imply a common transmission history. Evidence from the manuscript tradition suggests that the texts thus labeled can be divided into several categories. We must recognize the importance of a group of writings that survived only because they were copied at a very early stage along with the letters of Cyprian. They became “fossilized” in the corpus of Cyprian’s works when small, early collections were assembled to form larger and coherent compilations.2 Such a phenomenon can be illustrated by the stichometric list of Cyprian’s work discovered by Mommsen. The manuscript described in the list dates from before 365 CE,3 and includes two Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises: Adversus Judaeos and De laude martyrii. These two treatises belong to a group of texts that seem to owe their very survival to their association from an early date with Cyprian’s works: On the Glory of Martyrdom On Rebaptism On Gamblers On the Two Mountains Sinai and Zion On the Hundredfold, the Sixtyfold and the Thirtyfold Reward To Bishop Vigilius, Concerning Jewish Unbelief On the Benefit of Purity On the Public Shows Against the Jews To Novatian To the People of Carthage

De laude martyrii (Laud. mart.) De rebaptismate (Rebapt.) De aleatoribus (Aleat.) De duobus montibus Sina et Sion (Mont.) De centesima, sexagesima, tricesima (Cent.)

CPL  CPL  CPL  CPL  CPL 

Ad Vigilium episcopum de Judaica incredulitate (Jud. incred.) De bono pudicitiae (Pudic.) De spectaculis (Spect.) Adversus Judaeos (Adv. Jud.) Ad Novatianum (Novat.) Ad Plebem Carthaginis (Pleb.)

CPL ° CPL  CPL  CPL  CPL  CPL 

The process by which spurious texts infiltrated the collection of Cyprian’s letters is too complex to be rehearsed in detail. It seems that Spect. and Pudic. now attributed to Novatian, had been deliberately inserted among Cyprian’s letters.4 Ad Plebem Carthaginis is generally considered to be a Donatist falsification. The other treatises described as Pseudo-Cyprianic were often misattributed because they were included

operibus dubiis, deperditis, atque eidem suppositis, PL 4:803–20. Only a few additional textual discoveries have been made in the intervening years, a prime example being the treatise De centesima, sexagesima, tricesima (CPL 67). 2 For the compilation and the subsequent transmission of Cyprian’s letters, see H. von Soden, Die Cyprianische Briefsammlung. Geschichte ihrer Entstehung und Überlieferung, TU 25/3 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1904). 3 For dating and previous bibliography, see R. Rouse and C. McNelis, “North African Literary Activity: a Cyprian Fragment, the Stichometric Lists and a Donatist Compendium,” Revue d’histoire des textes 30 (2000): 189–238. 4 For the transmission of Spect. and Pudic. see P. Petitmengin, “Une nouvelle édition et un ancien manuscrit de Novatien,” REAug 21 (1975): 256–72.

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in small collections of Cyprian’s genuine works. Once they began circulating with Cyprian’s letters, they took on Cyprian’s name. Naturally, this process occurred even more easily when a writer dealt with matters related to those that Cyprian treats or imitates Cyprian’s style or thought in his own composition. It would be going too far to assume that the ascription of these works to Cyprian was intentionally deceptive. The number of surviving witnesses can vary greatly depending on the immediate manuscript context of each Pseudo-Cyprianic treatise. At one extremity, Laud. mart., transmitted with a group of letters on martyrdom, has survived in 110 manuscripts spanning from late antiquity (Paris, BnF, lat. 10592, fifth/sixth century) to the sixteenth century; at the other extremity, Pleb. has survived in a single witness (Paris, BnF, lat. 1658, late-fourteenth century), which goes back to a late antique archetype that has a specific arrangement of the letters and that included other rare texts.5 The second group consists of late antique texts that were transmitted outside the collection of letters. Of particular interest to us are the treatise De pascha computus and the brief florilegium Exhortatio de paenitentia. The remaining PseudoCyprianic texts fall outside the parameters of the present volume, either due to their genre, date, or provenance: Exhortation to Repentance Prayer I and II Cyprian’s Feast Poem to a Senator Hymn on the Pascha or On the Cross of the Lord Poem to Flavius Felix on the Resurrection of the Dead On Computing the Paschal Feast

Exhortatio de paenitentia (Exhort. paen.) Oratio I–II Cena Cypriani Carmen ad quendam Senatorem Hymnus de Pascha vel De cruce Domini

CPL  CPL ° CPL  CPL  CPL 

Carmen ad Flavium Felicem de resurrectione CPL  mortuorum De pascha computus (Pasch.) CPL 

A third group includes texts that were attributed to Cyprian at a later date: – The letter Ad Turasium (CPL 64, 633, 769), usually ascribed to Jerome (and sometimes to Augustine) in the manuscripts, was occasionally attributed to Cyprian: its

5 For a survey of the transmission of the Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises, see von Soden, Die Cyprianische Briefsammlung, 204–32. 6 For a careful study of the medieval manuscript tradition of this text, see L. Doležalová, Reception and its Varieties. Reading, Rewriting, and Understanding Cena Cypriani in the Middle Ages, Bochumer Altertumswissenschaftliches Colloquium 75 (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2007). 7 Three other poems have often been included in Cyprian’s editions, although they are not transmitted with Cyprian’s works: Genesis is the first poem of the Heptateuchos, a hexameter version of the first seven books of the Bible (CPL 1423) ascribed to a “Cyprian” who cannot be identified with the bishop of Carthage. The two poems De Sodoma (CPL 1425) and De Jona (CPL 1426) are transmitted under the name of Tertullian, but the former is sometimes ascribed to “Cyprian” when it is transmitted with the Heptateuchos.

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first appearance under the name of Cyprian is in a now-lost eleventh-century manuscript from Pomposa.8 – De singularitate clericorum (CPL 62) was introduced to Cyprian’s manuscripts in the twelfth century in the Paris region, in the place of his Ep. 4.9 – Rufinus of Aquileia’s Expositio symboli (CPL 196) is included in a few twelfthcentury manuscripts of Cyprian’s works and, thus, is sometimes ascribed to him. – De duodecim abusivis saeculi (CPL 1106) is a seventh-century Irish composition transmitted in a huge number of manuscripts ascribed to either Cyprian or Augustine, though it also circulated anonymously. It seems that the text was given an attribution to Cyprian at an early stage in its (extensive) continental diffusion via the Carolingian schools.10 The wide diffusion of the De duodecum abusivis saeculi under the name of Cyprian and the fact that the De singularitate clericorum was deliberately assigned to his authorship suffice to show the high esteem in which Cyprian was held in the Middle Ages. We can add two more examples. The sermon De voluntate Dei (CPL 66) is preserved in a single witness. It is a compilation from Cyprian and other patristic authors.11 The letter Ad sanctum Cyprianum (CPL 63), attributed in the manuscripts to Cornelius, the bishop of Rome, is a deliberate forgery of the eleventh century.12 With the arrival of the printed book, other spurious texts came to be included among the works of Cyprian, including: – The Revelatio capitis beati Johannis Baptistae (BHL 4294) is a hagiographic text, which was printed in the first edition of Cyprian’s works (Rome, 1471). Its misattribution to Cyprian may have arisen from its contiguity with Ad Quirinum (testimonia adversus Judaeos) in the manuscript used by the editor, Giovanni Andrea Bussi (Paris, BnF, lat. 14460, second half of the twelfth century).13

8 See C. M. Monti, “Il Cipriano di Pomposa. 1. La famiglia pomposiana di Cipriano,” in Pomposia monasterium modo in Italia primum. La biblioteca di Pomposa, ed. G. Billanovich (Padua: Antenore, 1994): 233–71. 9 See A. von Harnack, Der pseudocyprianische Traktat De singularitate clericorum. Ein Werk des donatistischen Bischofs Macrobius in Rom, TU 24/3 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1903), 3–7. This text circulated anonymously as well as under the names of both Augustine and Origen. 10 See A. Breen, “De XII Abusiuis: Text and Transmission,” in Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages, eds. P. Ní Chatháin and M. Richter (Dublin: Four Courts, 2002): 78–94. 11 First published by C. P. Caspari, “En kort Cyprian tillagt Tale om det christelige Liv. Efter cod. Einsiedl. s. VIII eller IX. Sermo sancti Cypriani episcopi de voluntate dei,” Theologisk Tidsskrift, NS 10 (1885): 278–80; reprinted in PLS 1:51–53. 12 See P. Petitmengin, “Notes sur des manuscrits patristiques latins II. Un «Cyprien» de Cluny et la lettre apocryphe du pape Corneille (Clauis, n° 63),” REAug 20 (1974): 27–35. 13 See CCSL 3F:239–40.

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– For commercial reasons, several treatises of Arnold of Bonneval (twelfth century) were published under the name of Cyprian and were eventually included in his opera omnia.14 – The Pseudo-Cyprianic Ad Fortunatum, de duplici martyrio was actually written by the great patristic scholar, Erasmus. The treatise was published in his fourth edition of the works of Cyprian (1530). To enhance the credibility of his forgery, Erasmus claimed he had discovered the text in an ancient library.15 Alongside his skills as a forger, Erasmus possessed an aptitude for identifying spurious works. He used stylistic and doctrinal arguments to distinguish the genuine works from the spurious ones. In the following centuries, authenticity continued to be a major scholarly preoccupation. By the end of the nineteenth century, a list of genuine and spurious works had begun to take shape, and we can now circumscribe the treatises that are certainly genuine. The authenticity of two texts remains disputed: – The treatise Quod idola dii non sint (CPL 57) is generally classified among the spuria; however, it is possible that it was penned by Cyprian.16 – The letter Ad Silvanum is a short personal note of greetings. It is listed by the CPL among the genuine works, but a few scholars remain unconvinced.17 The first critical edition of the opera omnia of Cyprian was produced in 1868–1871 by Wilhelm Hartel. The third volume was devoted to the spurious works, and it remains an important point of reference for many of them.18 A new edition is in progress for the Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina: three treatises (Laud. mart., Jud. incred., and Rebapt.) were published in 2016.19 Various other works are extant in separate critical editions (see below for information on each work).

14 See CSEL 3/3: lxxv–lxxvi. 15 See F. Lezius, “Der Verfasser des pseudocyprianischen Tractates De duplici martyrio. Ein Beitrag zur Charakteristik des Erasmus,” Neue Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie 4 (1895): 95–110, 184–243; and S. Seidel-Menchi, “Un’opera misconosciuta di Erasmo? Il trattato pseudo-ciprianico ‘De duplici martyrio,’” Rivista storica italiana 90 (1978): 709–43. 16 For a recent (and suggestive) defense of Cyprianic authorship, see H. Van Loon, “Cyprian’s Christology and the Authenticity of Quod idola dii non sint,” in Cyprian of Carthage: Studies in His Life, Language, and Thought, eds. H. Bakker, P. Van Geest, and H. Van Loon (Leuven: Peeters, 2010): 127–42. For my review, see L. Ciccolini, “Chronica Tertullianea et Cyprianea 2010,” REAug 57 (2011): 417. 17 According to its first editor, M. Bévenot, “A New Cyprianic Fragment,” BJRL 28 (1944): 76–82, nothing in the letter excludes it from being the work of Cyprian. See also G. W. Clarke, trans., The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, ACW 47 (New York: Newman, 1989), 319–21. Diercks, the most recent editor, printed it in an appendix (cf. CCSL 3C:657–60). 18 CSEL 3.1–3, S. Thasci Caecili Cypriani opera omnia. 19 CCSL 3F.

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Six treatises (Spect., Laud. mart., De bono pudicitiae, Exhortatio de paenitentia, Novat., and Rebapt.) were translated into English by Robert Ernest Wallis and included as an appendix to the works of Cyprian and Novatian in the thirteenth volume of the Ante-Nicene Christian Library Series.20 The Pseudo-Cyprianic writings that can be dated from the third and the fourth centuries have recently been translated into Italian by Carlo Dell’Osso.21 The volume includes a helpful introduction and a bibliography for each individual treatise. The Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises are heterogeneous in many respects including dating, context of composition, and literary genre. As a result, they have only rarely been the subject of comprehensive studies (beyond the juxtaposition of individual records).22 Jean Daniélou’s overview of the origins of Latin Christianity, published in 1978, is a landmark in the history of research. In it, several Pseudo-Cyprianic texts (Adv. Jud., Mont., Cent., Aleat. and Pasch.) were studied as vestiges of a popular Christian faith, still anchored to its Jewish roots.23 Given the limits of this chapter, we cannot analyze each of these works in detail. A thorough examination of each treatise can be found in the Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike (hereafter referred to as HLL).24 A current (and critical) bibliography is provided by the Chronica Tertullianea et Cyprianea, which appears annually in the Revue d’études augustiniennes et patristiques.

The Biblical Text as a Location and Dating Criterion Preliminary Considerations Along with stylistic and doctrinal considerations, the biblical text has been an important criterion for rejecting these texts as genuinely Cyprianic. It remains crucial for dating and localizing them.25 To establish that the authors were active in Africa,

20 R. E. Wallis, trans., Containing the Remainder of the Treatises, vol. 2, The Writings of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, Ante-Nicene Christian Library Series 13 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1869); reprinted in the revised American edition, A. C. Coxe, ed., ANF, vol. 5 (Buffalo: Christian Literature Pub. Co., 1886). 21 Pseudo-Cyprian, Trattati, trans. C. Dell’Osso, Collana di Testi patristici 231 (Rome: Città Nuova, 2013). 22 See, for example, P. Monceaux, “Études critiques sur l’Appendix de Saint Cyprien,” RevPhil 26 (1902): 63–98. 23 J. Daniélou, Les origines du christianisme latin, vol. 3, Histoire des doctrines chrétiennes avant Nicée (Paris: Cerf, 1978). 24 K. Sallmann, ed., Die Literatur des Umbruchs. Von der römischen zur christlichen Literatur, 117 bis 284 n. Chr., vol. 4, Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike, eds. R. Herzog and P. L. Schmidt (Munich: Beck, 1997); and R. Herzog, ed., Restauration und Erneuerung. Die lateinische Literatur von 284 bis 374 n. Chr., vol. 5, Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike (Munich: Beck, 1989). 25 For a critical evaluation of this approach, see F. Dolbeau, “Sermons ‘Africains’: critères de localisation et exemple des sermons pour l’Ascension,” in Praedicatio Patrum. Studies on Preaching in

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we are dependent upon the presence of readings transmitted in African writers (especially Cyprian) or in biblical manuscripts that retained, according to specialists, ancient and idiosyncratic African readings. The most significant manuscripts for the New Testament are VL 1 and VL 2.26 The text reconstructed from quotations in early Christian writers and from biblical manuscripts is given the siglum K in the Vetus Latina edition published by the Archabbey of Beuron.27 Before presenting the texts, a caveat is in order: the conclusions based on the study of biblical citations vary – sometimes widely – depending on the texts under scrutiny; sometimes they remain provisional. They depend upon the reliability of the critical editions of Latin patristic texts, the status of research on the Bible’s reception history, and the Vetus Latina editions. It is not always possible to link the citations in Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises to a precise type of text. Many of the biblical citations are freely rendered. For example, the Isaiah quotations in Mont. and in Adv. Jud., along with Tertullian’s text, are classified by Roger Gryson under the siglum X which “refers to a sort of primitive nebula.”28 In most cases the presence of such free quotations signal an early date. Moreover, several of these authors – such as the author of Mont. – often combined selections from disparate biblical books into one idiosyncratic quotation.29 It is likely that some of these combined quotations or significantly adumbrated citations stemmed from anterior sources, such as testimonia collections.30 The study of citations is therefore clearly linked to the way in which the biblical text was accessed. Another distinguishing feature lies in the paraphrases of the Bible, which may reflect particular preaching practices. The fact that these paraphrases could be presented as quotations shows the liberties that could be taken by these authors when citing the biblical text.

Late Antique North Africa, vol. 3, Ministerium Sermonis, eds. G. Partoens, A. Dupont, and S. Boodts (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017): 9–35. 26 These manuscripts are described in R. Gryson, Première partie: Mss 1–275, d’après un manuscrit inachevé de Hermann Joseph Frede, vol. 1, Altlateinische Handschiften = Manuscrits vieux latins. Répertoire descriptif (Freiburg: Herder, 1999), 19–22; see also H. A. G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament: A Guide to its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 210–11. 27 Vetus Latina: Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel nach Petrus Sabatier neu gesammelt und herausgegeben von der Erzabtei Beuron (Freiburg: Herder, 1949–). For more on the VL project, see the contribution by Houghton in this volume. 28 R. Gryson, ed., Esaias, VL 12 (Freiburg: Herder, 1997), 1654: “le sigle X . . . renvoie à une sorte de nébuleuse primitive.” 29 For Mont., see A. M. Laato, Jews and Christians in De duobus montibus Sina et Sion: An Approach to Early Latin Adversus Iudaeos Literature (Åbo: Åbo akademis förlag, 1998), 182–87. 30 The hypothesis also applies to dossiers that include unidentified citations: see M. Marin, “Citazioni bibliche e parabibliche nel De aleatoribus pseudociprianeo,” Annali di storia dell’esegesi 5 (1988): 169–84, esp. 176.

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Several of these authors differ from Cyprian on an important point, namely, their broad understanding of what constitutes Scripture. For example, the author of Cent. cited words inspired by the Didache (Cent. 14) and the Acts of Paul (Cent. 21) as Scripture. Sources are sometimes unclear or are not identified. In De duobus montibus Sina et et Sion 13, for example, the author quoted a “letter of John [Christ’s] disciple to Paul” or, less likely, “to the people”31: “See me in yourselves like any of you sees himself in water or a mirror.”32 The quotation was probably taken from a lost Johannine source.33 Such examples could easily be multiplied.34

African Texts Preceding Cyprian De pascha computus (CPL 2276; HLL 4, §477.2). The author engages in setting the date of Easter by basing his calculations on the Bible. The date of 243 CE is deduced from chapter 22: “to the fifth year of Gordian and the consulate of Arrianus and Papus.”35 Two arguments advocate for an African origin.36 First, the biblical text presents certain affinities with African sources. For example, the reading facta in John 8:39 (Pasch. 10: “do the works of your father” [facta patris vestri facite]) instead of the more common opera corresponds to the earliest Latin form, which appears only in VL 2. Also notable is that, in chapter 16, the author refers to the “first book of Esdras,” that is the Latin version of A’ Esdras, which is of African origin.37 Such conclusions are strengthened by the indirect tradition. This text, which did not circulate widely, was used by two authors active in Africa: Hilarianus, in his De ratione Paschae et mensis (CPL 2279), which dates from 397 CE, and the author of the Computus of 455, De ratione Paschae (CPL 2296).

31 Mont. 13 (Pseudo-Cyprian, I due monti Sinai et Sion, ed. and trans., C. Burini, Biblioteca Patristica 25 [Fiesole: Nardini, 1994], 180): “in epistula Johannis discipuli sui ad Paulum”; or (CSEL 3/3:117): “ad populum.” 32 Mont. 13 (Laato, Jews and Christians, 180): “Ita me in vobis videte, quomodo quis vestrum se videt in aquam aut in speculo.” 33 For a summary of the hypotheses, see Pseudo-Cyprian, I due monti, 279–81; and D. Cerbelaud, “Thèmes de la polémique chrétienne contre le judaïsme au IIIe siècle: le De montibus Sina et Sion,” RSPT 91 (2007): 723–25. 34 For a list, see A. Resch, Agrapha. Aussercanonische Schriftfragmente, 2nd ed., TU 30/3–4 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1906). 35 De pascha computus 22 (CSEL 3/3:268; George Ogg [London: SPCK, 1955], 19): “usque ad annum quintum Gordiani Arriano et Papo consulibus.” 36 R. Gryson, Répertoire général des auteurs ecclésiastiques latins de l’antiquité et du haut Moyen Âge (Freiburg: Herder, 2007), 1:438, finds this origin dubious. On this point, Gryson is following H. J. Frede, Kirchenschriftsteller. Verzeichnis und Sigel, 4th ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 1995), 424. 37 Pasch. 16 (CSEL 3/3:264): “Quod ipsum quidem in primo libro Esdrae manifeste demonstratur, quod sexto anno Darii templum Dei per omnia sit consummatum.”

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De duobus montibus Sina et Sion (CPL 61; HLL 4, §477.3). The author compares and opposes the significance of Mount Sinai and Mount Zion in Scripture. Its date is unsettled: was it written before Tertullian, as Daniélou believed,38 or was it written at the end of the third century (or even early in the fourth), as the text’s most recent editor, Clara Burini, has argued?39 The most probable solution is the one offered by Anni Maria Laato and Dominique Cerbelaud: given the similarities with Alexandrian sources and with Tertullian, and in view of its primitive Christology, the work would seem to be from the first half of the third century.40 Indeed, Pasch., which as noted above dates from 243 CE, seems to depend upon Mont. Both authors associate the name of Adam to the number forty-six, based on a calculation of the Greek letters (α = 1 + δ = 4 + α = 1 + μ = 40). This number is interpreted as referring to the number of years that were needed to build the temple. De duobus montibus Sina et Sion 4 refers to the Temple of Solomon, whereas Pasch. 16 refers to the Second Temple and could, on this point, be actively trying to correct its source.41 The text’s provenance is unanimously regarded as African. Like Cyprian, the author uses an ancient way of numbering the Psalms, counting Pss 1–2 as one (Mont. 2). Moreover, there are strong points of contact with texts cited in Africa. For example, Isa 42:3–4 (Mont. 15) is influenced by the VL 1 text for Matt 12:20 with the readings conlocabit and in contentione42; and its quotation of John 7:7 (Mont. 2: “mala facta sunt facta illius”), although loose, has significant common readings with VL 2 (“facta ejus mala sunt”). However, Mont. 4 presents a relatively different text for John 2:19–21, using fanum instead of templum.

African Texts Written in Cyprian’s Floruit (ca. 248/249–258 CE) De laude martyrii (CPL 58; HLL 4, §480.1). The author of this commendation of martyrdom was influenced by the works of Cyprian.43 When a comparison is possible, it seems clear that there were explicit points of contact with Cyprian’s writings. The clearest example is found in Rom 8:18 (Laud. mart. 18), with the reading ad superventuram claritatem instead of the widespread reading ad futuram gloriam.

38 Daniélou, Les origines du christianisme, 47–59. 39 Pseudo-Cyprian, I due monti, 21–27. Burini is not the first to argue for a later date. 40 Laato, Jews and Christians, 19–22; and Cerbelaud, “Thèmes de la polémique chrétienne contre le judaïsme au IIIe siècle,” 725–26. 41 See Daniélou, Les origines du christianisme, 50, 112. See also D. Cerbelaud, “Le nom d’Adam et les points cardinaux. Recherches sur un thème patristique,” VC 38 (1984): 285–301, esp. 292–94. 42 Gryson, Esaias, 973, 976. 43 See the introduction to CCSL 3F, esp. 323–31.

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Cyprian cites the verse in exactly the same form in Test. 3.17, in Ad Fortunatum 13, and in his letters (Ep. 6.2.1, 58.10.2, 76.7.1). De rebaptismate (CPL 59; HLL 4, §480.3). This text was most likely composed in the summer or fall of 256 CE by one of Cyprian’s opponents. The text denounces the practice of re-baptizing Christians who had been baptized in the schism or in heresy. As is demonstrated by Paul Mattei, the author’s ecclesiology and theological views plead in favor of an African provenance.44 As one might expect, the author mainly bases his arguments on Acts and on the Gospels. These citations were studied by Hans von Soden.45 As an example, it is worth highlighting that the beginning of Matt 28:19, ite, docete gentes, tinguite eos (Rebapt. 7.1), is very similar to the way that this verse is quoted by Vincentius, bishop of Thibaris, in Sententiae episcoporum 37 (ite et docete gentes tinguentes eas) and by Cyprian in his letters, Ep. 28.2.2, 63.18.3, 73.5.2 (ite ergo et docete gentes omnes, tinguentes).

African Texts Written in or after Cyprian’s Floruit (ca. 250–300 CE) De aleatoribus (CPL 60; HLL 5, §591.2). The author is an African bishop railing against gambling and games of chance,46 which he regards as idolatrous practices and traps set by the devil. The pastor’s duty is to turn the faithful away from such habits. The most recent studies,47 and especially those of Marcello Marin, insist on the author’s dependence on Cyprian, especially in light of the way he clusters biblical quotations. When a comparison can be made, the text cited is often similar either to Cyprian’s version or to that of his contemporaries, such as when he cites Isa 52:11 and Rev 18:4 (Aleat. 8; Laps. 10). Comparisons, however, cannot always be made since the author often cites freely, abbreviates (Gal 4:1–2 in Aleat. 3), or expands the quotations (for example, in chapter 9, Rom 12:2 is complemented by a phrase of baptismal renunciation), or combines several passages. The latter trait appears clearly in chapter 4, where several extracts of 1–2 Timothy as well as Titus form a single quotation introduced by “apostolus idem Paulus commemorat . . . ” The Pauline dossier in chapter 4 contains a quotation taken from the doctrinae apostolorum and is identified as a paraphrase that combines several passages from 44 See CCSL 3F:520–27. 45 H. von Soden, Das lateinische Neue Testament in Afrika zur Zeit Cyprians nach Bibelhandschriften und Väterzeugnissen, TU 33/3 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909), 272–93. 46 The first lines refer to the episcopal function in general and do not imply that the author is a Roman bishop. See M. Marin, “Alle origini di un dibattito: la questione del primato nel De aleatoribus (1, 3–2, 4),” in Nuovi studi sul De aleatoribus pseudociprianeo, ed. M. Marin and M. Bellifemine, Auctores nostri 6 (2008): 121–32. 47 See Marin, “Citazioni bibliche e parabibliche,” 169–84, who reverts to an older view on this point. See also Pseudo-Cyprian, Il gioco dei dadi, ed. and trans. C. Nucci, Biblioteca Patristica 43 (Bologna: Dehoniane, 2006), as well as the studies compiled in Marin, ed., De aleatoribus pseudociprianeo.

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the Didache.48 In chapter 2, a quotation from The Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.31.5–6, is introduced as “Scriptura divina.” Most importantly, the author cites several unidentifiable texts as scriptural texts. Some can partially be linked to known texts,49 but many resist identification.50 Ad Vigilium episcopum de Judaica incredulitate (CPL 67°; HLL 4, §481.2). Addressed by a certain Celsus to the bishop Vigilius, the letter accompanied a (lost) Latin translation of the (lost) Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus. A range of evidence (Cyprian’s possible influence, the mention of Vigilius’s impending martyrdom, the archaisms of the Christology) compels situating this text in the second part of the third century or at the beginning of the fourth century.51 The analysis of the biblical quotations provides us with additional arguments. Several quotations present remarkable similarities with the text used in Africa at the time: in John 8:12 (Jud. incred. 1.3), the reading ego sum lumen saeculi is transmitted only in VL 2 and in Cyprian, Ep. 63.18.3. At 5.2, this text has a version of Ps 117:23–24 that corresponds almost exactly to that of Cyprian (Test. 2.16; Dom. or. 35). In other cases, the author’s text is devoid of parallels, such as the reading accepto latum in Gal 3:6 (Jud. incred. 7.4). Since this author was clearly of Greek origin, in these cases he may have made his own translations directly from Greek manuscripts.52 Ad Plebem Carthaginis (CPL 722; HLL 5, §591.4). This short letter, written against the traditores, is generally considered to be a Donatist forgery,53 but the possibility that the attribution to Cyprian may have arisen from its contiguity with other texts by him should not be excluded.54 Ad Plebem Carthaginis is preserved in a single witness (Paris, BnF, lat. 1658; end of the fourteenth century), a manuscript that

48 Pseudo-Cyprian, Il gioco dei dadi, 123–24. 49 For example, the citation in Aleat. 3 (Pseudo-Cyprian, Il gioco dei dadi, 82): “Nolite contristare Spiritum Sanctum qui in vobis est, et nolite extinguere lumen, quod in vobis effulsit” can be interpreted as the free adaptation of several Pauline expressions. See Marin, “Citazioni bibliche e parabibliche,” 173. 50 For the research status quaestionis, see Pseudo-Cyprian, Il gioco dei dadi, 118 (Aleat. 2), 122–23 (Aleat. 4), 132 (Aleat. 8); and Marin, “Citazioni bibliche e parabibliche,” 169–84. 51 See CCSL 3F:445–48. 52 See von Soden, Das lateinische Neue Testament in Afrika zur Zeit Cyprians, 263–72. 53 See G. Mercati, “Un falso donatistico nelle opere di S. Cipriano,” Rendiconti del Reale Istituto Lombardo di scienze e lettere 2/32 (1899): 986–97 (reprinted in Opere minori, ed. G. Mercati, Studi e testi 77 [Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1937], 2:268–78). Diercks, the text’s most recent editor, followed Mercati in dating Pleb. from the end of the fourth century (cf. CCSL 3C:640); J.-L. Maier, ed., de Julien l’Apostat à Saint Jean Damascène (361–750), vol. 2, Le dossier du donatisme, TU 135 (Berlin: Akademie, 1989), 194–98, dates the letter to the early-fifth century. 54 See J. de Ghellink and G. Lebacqz, Les anténicéens, vol. 1, Pour l’histoire du mot sacramentum, SSL 3 (Louvain: Édouard Champion, 1924), 300 and J. Hoover, “Cyprianus Plebi Cartagini Consistenti and the Origins of Donatism”, Journal of Early Christian Studies 26 (2018): 433–61.

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derives from a late antique archetype that circulated in North Africa.55 The text itself is poorly transmitted, with at least one lacuna. It contains a quotation attributed to John (cata Johannem), the source for which is unclear, though it may possibly be linked to Isa 1:11–13 or, even more likely, to Mal 1:10–11. Ad Novatianum (CPL 76; HLL 4, §480.2). The author strongly opposes the view of the schismatic Novatian and his supporters regarding how to deal with the lapsi. The text’s date and origin have been the subject of the most divergent views: was it written in the third century or later? Was it written in Africa or in Rome?56 The New Testament citations provide helpful insights, since some share clear connections with VL 1, VL 2, or Cyprian. For example, the particular reading stabilire in Rom 14:4 is found in Novat. 12 and in Cyprian’s Ep. 55.18.1. In the case of the Old Testament citations, the analysis proves to be more delicate due to the relatively few patristic statements that could have served as points of reference. In the absence of Cyprian, we notice that there are points of convergence with later African authors, such as in its use of Mic 7:857 and its links with Quodvultdeus.58 Such data, both fragmentary and provisional, point toward an African origin. And this, in turn, has implications when interpreting the passages of the text on which the dating is based. The author claims to be writing during a persecution (Novat. 5) during which Christians who had previously apostatized at the Decian persecution demonstrated courage (Novat. 6). If the author wrote in Africa, he must be referring to the Valerian persecution of 257/258 CE. Hugo Koch thought that the text might be a stylistic exercise that used a previous situation from the life of the church as a reference. Nevertheless, as Koch himself acknowledges, the opponents’ arguments, as they are presented by the anonymous author, correspond to what is known of the first phase of the controversy.59 The author’s goal is to establish that his adversaries, whom he criticizes at both Novat. 7 and 12 for basing their thoughts on a single text – namely, Matt 10:33: “whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven” (NRSV) – do not teach an image of God that conforms with the one in the Bible. He does not address the matter of the power of the keys conceded to the church, a question that became central in the fourth century. This last point would seem to rule out a late date for this text and makes it probable that it was written in Africa during the Valerian persecution or its immediate aftermath. 55 See CCSL 3D:816–18. The manuscript has striking parallels with the lost Veronensis and with the Italian group μ, two collections that are of African origin. 56 See CCSL 4:134–35; and, more recently, G. D. Dunn, Cyprian and the Bishops of Rome: Questions of Papal Primacy in the Early Church, Early Christian Studies 11 (Strathfield, Australia: St Pauls, 2007), 104–5, who places Novat. in Italy and dates it to 253 CE. 57 Cf. Novat. 12 (CCSL 4:146): “Noli gratulari, inimica mea, mihi, quoniam si cecidi, et exsurgam; et si in tenebris ambulavero, Dominus lumen est mihi.” 58 Cf. Quodvultdeus, Sermones 9.12.10 (CCSL 60:469): “Noli gratulari mihi, inimica mea, quoniam cecidi; exurgam; quoniam si ambulavero in tenebris, Dominus lumen est mihi.” 59 H. Koch, Cyprianische Untersuchungen (Bonn: Marcus & Weber, 1926), 416–17, 419–20.

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De centesima, sexagesima, tricesima (CPL 67; HLL 5, §575.1). This text bases itself on Matt 13:3–8 and describes the three levels of rewards that its author views as having been promised to martyrs, to virgins, and to continent spouses respectively. It is unanimously seen as African by the handbooks and other references works, but it poses several delicate interpretative issues. It was poorly transmitted (in just two partial witnesses), and its current title is a reconstruction based on manuscript evidence. The fact that it was transmitted along with a recension of the Acta Cypriani that is generally considered as Donatist (BHL 2039c) and a few letters by Cyprian that seemed to have been revised, make an African origin likely. Richard Reitzenstein and Karl Mengis thought that the collection in which Cent. was included had been compiled in a Donatist environment at the beginning of the fourth century, but there is little concrete evidence to support this hypothesis.60 The biblical citations in Cent. are not easy to analyze. The investigation is further complicated by the poor state of the text and the absence of a recent edition. Certain quotations show marked affinities with Cyprian. For example, in Isa 10:23 and Rom 9:28 (cf. Cent. 14), the reading sermonem breviatum is otherwise attested only in Cyprian (cf. Test. 2.3; Dom. or. 28). Most of the time, linking the quotations to a precise text type proves to be difficult. This is partially explained by the author’s tendency to quote freely. Finally, the fact that some adjustments to the biblical data, such as to the number of servants in the parable of the ten minas, may be a result of the author’s own interpretative framework, cannot be excluded.61 Experts do not agree on either the original location or its date of production.62 The debate centers on the text’s connection with Cyprian and with his De habitu virginum in particular. Is Cyprian dependent upon this anonymous author?63 Or did they perhaps draw on a common source?64 Is the extant version the result of a revision of an older text by an author who knew Cyprian?65 Had the author of Cent. 60 See R. Reitzenstein, “Ein donatistisches Corpus cyprianischer Schriften,” Nachrichten von der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 2.4 (1914): 85–92. K. Mengis, Ein donatistisches Corpus Cyprianischer Briefe (Freiburg im Brisgau: Caritas-Druckerei, 1916), draws on the reading tangunt in Hos 9:4 (Ep. 67.3.1), which he then links to the text cited by Habetdeus during the Conference of Carthage in 411 (cf. Gesta collationis Carthaginiensis 3.258). For a discussion of the Donatist origin of the collection, see A. Bass, “The Passion of Cyprian in the So-Called ‘Donatist Dossier’ of Würzburg M. p. th. F. 33,” in The Use of Textual Criticism for the Interpretation of Patristic Texts: Seventeen Case Studies, eds. K. B. Steinhauser and S. Dermer (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2013): 209–31. Note, however, that Bass does not take into account the evidence generated by the biblical texts. 61 R. Gounelle, “La parabole des mines (Lc 19, 12–27) dans le De centesima pseudo-cyprianique,” Annali di scienze religiose, NS 3 (2010): 127–60, esp. 141–46. 62 Should ascetic preoccupations lead us to locate the text in a rigorist or even heretical environment? For a brief assessment, see J. Doignon’s article in HLL 5, §575.1. 63 Daniélou, Les origines du christianisme, 64–87. 64 P. Sellew, “The Hundredfold Reward for Martyrs and Ascetics: Ps.-Cyprian, De centesima, sexagesima, tricesima,” StPatr 36 (2001): 94–98. 65 Reitzenstein, “Ein donatistisches Corpus,” 91–92.

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read Cyprian?66 This last question can very likely be answered in the affirmative given the widespread circulation of Cyprian’s works in antiquity.67

Texts of Possibly African Provenance Adversus Judaeos (CPL 75; HLL 4, §481.1). The author posits that the Jews were stripped of their heritage because of their infidelity, which led God to establish a new alliance. The Jewish people nevertheless have the option of converting. Attempts to determine the date of the text depend on the ways in which the analogies detected between Adv. Jud. and other, more securely dated texts are interpreted. The author used Melito of Sardis, De Pascha,68 but was he writing before or after Tertullian? According to Dirk Van Damme, whom Daniélou follows, Tertullian depended upon this text, whereas Arpád Peter Orbán, whom Norma Boncompagni follows, thinks the opposite. It is also possible that both authors had a common source, as William Horbury has posited. We cannot say anything definitive concerning the author’s origin. For a long time, the text was seen as Roman: Van Damme conducted the most accomplished demonstration of this hypothesis. However, Orbán highlighted the fragility of Van Damme’s linguistic arguments. The latest editor, Boncompagni, followed by dell’Osso, has expressed a preference for an African origin but does not present any conclusive arguments.69 In this debate, the author’s use of biblical text does not provide us with significant help. Indeed, the text’s most striking feature is the freedom with which the author cites the biblical text. Exhortatio de paenitentia (CPL 65) is made up of forty-five quotations on the theme of penance, organized by the author according to the order of the books in his Bible. It was probably part of a larger florilegium. Manuals and source repertories locate the text in Africa and mirror the work done on the Latin Bible at the end of the nineteenth century, the period in which the first critical editions were produced. In reality, the biblical text is heterogeneous and reflects the compiler’s sources: for Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Revelation, the texts are close to the revision found in later African writers; for the Minor Prophets, Jeremiah, the Acts of the Apostles, and 66 H. Koch, “Die ps.-cyprianische Schrift De centesima, sexagesima, tricesima in ihrer Abhängigkeit von Cyprian,” ZNW 31 (1932): 248–72. 67 CCSL 3F:206. 68 See Pseudo-Cyprian, Contro I giudei, ed. and trans. N. Boncompagni, Biblioteca Patristica 45 (Bologna: Dehoniane, 2008), 27–28, 31–37. 69 Pseudo-Cyprian, Adversus Judaeos. Gegen die Judenchristen. Die älteste lateinische Predigt, ed. and trans. D. Van Damme, Paradosis 22 (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1969), 74–91; Daniélou, Les origines du christianisme, 45–46; A. P. Orbán, “Die Frage der ersten Zeugnisse des Christenlateins,” VC 30 (1976): 214–38, esp. 215–23; W. Horbury, “The purpose of Pseudo-Cyprian, Adversus Iudaeos,” StPatr 18.3 (1989): 291–317, esp. 294. For an overview, see Pseudo-Cyprian, Contro i giudei, 17–29, and PseudoCyprian, Trattati, 184.

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the Pauline Epistles, the texts are similar to those used by Italian authors in the fourth and fifth centuries.70 It is therefore difficult to infer the text’s provenance. Regarding its date, patristic parallels can be made for certain quotations as late as the seventh century, and prudence suggests a chronological range from the fifth to the seventh centuries. However, given the scarcity of old Latin quotations of Isaiah after the end of the fifth century, it is probable that these citations were collected before the sixth century.71 The biblical text in Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises is more than a tool for establishing the texts’ date and provenance. It is also of interest for the study of the Latin Bible in Africa, and its significance in that regard has long been recognized. The best illustration of this is still von Soden’s book, which added the testimony of Mont., Pasch., Jud. incred., and Rebapt. to the VL 1 and VL 2 biblical manuscripts, to the authentic works of Cyprian, and to the Sententiae episcoporum.72 The present chapter has demonstrated that such a list can be extended. However, to utilize the data from these texts, one must remember that several of them are difficult to situate precisely within the literary production of their time. There is a risk of marring the analysis by assuming that the texts are either of African origin or of Roman origin. In this way, Adv. Jud. and Pasch. exemplify two opposite cases. Since the provenance of Adv. Jud. is uncertain, it is prudent to avoid analyzing the particular variants of its citations as representing a precise form of the biblical text. In other words, Adv. Jud. does not seem particularly useful for tracing the transmission history of the biblical books that it cites. Conversely, Pasch. is most assuredly of African origin, and its contents include long and literal quotations that its author uses to support calculations that are made on the basis of data drawn from Scripture for polemical purposes. It therefore provides more solid ground for research. It is particularly valuable for the biblical texts that are not substantiated by Cyprian or that are rarely quoted, such as Ezek 12:13 and Jer 24: 8–10 (Pasch. 11).

The Bible and Exegetical Practices A current scholarly desiderium is a better understanding of the framework in and the circumstances under which Laud. mart., Aleat., Cent., Pasch., Novat., and Adv. Jud., all of which were directed toward (a) particular audience(s),73 were produced. Should 70 L. Ciccolini, “Un florilège biblique mis sous le nom de Cyprien de Carthage: l’Exhortatio de paenitentia (CPL 65),” Recherches augustiniennes et patristiques 36 (2011): 89–138. 71 R. Gryson, e-mail message to the author, May 10, 2011. See also P.-M. Bogaert, “Bulletin de la Bible latine VII. Dixième série,” RBén 121 (2011): 456–73, esp. 461. 72 Von Soden, Das lateinische Neue Testament in Afrika zur Zeit Cyprians. 73 That the author presumed his audience(s) to be members of his community is indicated by his mode of address: Laud. mart. has “fratres carissimi”; Cent., Novat., and Pasch. have “fratres

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some of them be considered homilies in the technical sense? Van Damme assumed this for Adv. Jud., which may reflect a homily that followed a public reading of both Matt 21:33–46 and 22:1–14.74 Likewise, Cent. has sometimes been viewed as a homily based on Matt 13:3–8 since this pericope is cited in chapter 9 and is used to structure the text’s content. Philipp Sellew, on the other hand, hypothesized that Cent. followed the public reading of Mark 10:28–30, but he did not contribute compelling arguments to the debate.75 In both cases, the arguments put forward are very general and, hence, not decisive. When all of the available evidence is taken into account, other explanations, such as that these texts may have been originally intended to be read publicly, cannot be excluded.76 The discussions surrounding these two texts as well as the broader fluidity of the generic denominations applied to Pseudo-Cyprianic writings highlight the fact that situating these writings within the life of the various churches is difficult. Information concerning the place(s) occupied by the authors in their respective communities is also lacking. Nevertheless, using internal evidence, it seems that Pleb. probably stemmed from a council and that the author of Aleat. was a bishop. However, little, if anything, can be asserted regarding the other authors. Although we lack important pieces of tangible data concerning the genesis of these works, we can nevertheless outline the intellectual environment to which their authors contributed. The corpus centers around three major preoccupations, all of which also appear in genuine works of both Tertullian and Cyprian.

The Polemic against Judaism Beyond the diversity of genres, Adv. Jud., Jud. incred., Pasch., and Mont. all engage – either completely or partially – in the polemic against Judaism. The interpretation of Scripture, and of the Old Testament in particular, lies at the heart of the controversy. The authors highlight this by formulating the interpretative rules that they intend to follow. The clearest formulation is found at the beginning of Mont.: “That which was written figuratively in the Old Testament, must be understood spiritually through the New Testament, since it has been fulfilled in reality through Christ. Through Jesus

dilectissimi”; and Aleat. has “fideles.” Also noteworthy is that Pseudo-Cyprian, Adv. Jud. 1 has multiple verbs in the imperative. 74 Pseudo-Cyprian, Adversus Judaeos, 7–10. 75 Sellew, “The Hundredfold Reward for Martyrs and Ascetics,” 94–95. 76 For Cent., see Gounelle, “La parabole des mines (Lc 19, 12–27),” 131–32.

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Christ we are granted a spiritual understanding.”77 Christians, unlike the Jews who failed to understand their Scripture, work towards uncovering the announcement of the coming of Christ and of Christians, a truth that lies beneath the literal meaning. To explain Scripture, the author of Mont. uses the vocabulary of typological interpretation.78 The author of Adv. Jud. also highlights this issue.79 As for the author of Pasch., he scrutinizes attentively the chronological information provided by the Bible in order to set himself apart from those who follow the Jews in their calculations (Pasch. 4) and to detect announcements of both Christ (Pasch. 10, 18) and the church (Pasch. 16). Lastly, Jud. incred. features a passage on Christ (chs. 3–6) in which the author gathers citations that attest to the incarnation’s visibility. The same quotations often appear (and reappear) in different anti-Jewish texts. The authors had access to some of these citations through testimonia collections in which the passages announcing the coming of Christ and the events accomplished by Jesus were gathered together and classified into sections. Some of the scriptural dossiers within the texts under consideration in this chapter certainly stem from these types of compilations or from texts that used them. In Mont. 9, Ps 95:10 is followed by the Christian addition “from a tree” (de ligno), a strong indication that it was borrowed from a previously constituted collection.80 Such a way of reading Scripture works to the benefit of traditional arguments. In Jud. incred., two rubrics that structure the anti-Jewish polemic are exploited: the dossier on Christ is followed by a passage on the expression “Sons of Abraham,” which shifts its application from the Jews to the Christians (ch. 7). The rejection of Jews and the call of the nations are at the very heart of Adv. Jud., which is itself very similar to the arguments found in the first book of Test.81 This theme is also present in Mont., a composition in which the Jewish and Christian peoples are systematically set in opposition. It appears more allusively in Pasch. 10, a passage in which John 8:39b (“Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did’” [NRSV]) is commented upon. The recurrence of certain themes and biblical citations should not mask the accents unique to each text when it treats a classic theme. In Jud. incred., the insistence on the possibility of conversion leads Celsus to mitigate the opposition between the two peoples. In Mont. and Adv. Jud., the opposition is stronger, but it is expressed differently. De duobus montibus Sina et Sion highlights the opposition between the two mountains by referring to other pairs in a dualistic logic (for

77 Mont. 1 (CSEL 3/3:104; Laato, Jews and Christians, 170): “Quae in vetere testamento figuraliter scripta sunt, per novo testamento spiritaliter intellegenda sunt, quae per Christum in veritate adinpleta sunt. Nobis enim per Jesum Christum spiritalis intellectus datus est.” 78 See Laato, Jews and Christians, 58–61. 79 Pseudo-Cyprian, Adv. Jud. 1, 10; see Pseudo-Cyprian, Contro i giudei, 44–47. 80 Laato, Jews and Christians, 47, 51–52, 101–17. 81 Horbury, “The purpose of Pseudo-Cyprian,” 297–306.

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example, two tables, two peoples, the two sons of Rebecca, the two thieves, and the two Testaments). And Adv. Jud. plays on the double meaning of testamentum: its author notes that it is both an “alliance” and a “testamentary disposition,” while insisting on applying the legal paradigm.82

Defining a Specifically Christian Discipline within Pagan Society Several texts focus on defining a specifically Christian way of life in a generally hostile environment. This starts with the renunciation of practices that are seen as forms of idolatry. The author of Aleat. quotes clusters of passages from the Bible in order to highlight two key aspects of his argument: one series of citations condemns negligent pastors and reminds them of their duties (chs. 2–4), while a second series condemns idolatry (chs. 8–10). The latter series is especially relevant in that the author associates games of chance with practices inspired by the devil, despite the absence of direct scriptural support for such a claim. After chapter 10, the author subsumes gambling under the prohibition of sacrifices. Tertullian used the same approach to condemn public shows in his treatise Spect. Each biblical quotation is taken out of its context and is assigned its meaning on the basis of its association with the other quotations with which it is clustered. The grouping of citations is obviously centered around key words: for example, in chapter 8, exite allows the author to link Rev 18:4 and Isa 52:11.83 The authors of these texts also tried to promote norms of conduct based on Scripture. Yet again, this was attempted through clusters of biblical quotations that were presented as morally binding. In Laud. mart., for example, the dossiers serve to highlight crucial aspects of a given argument, such as chapter 28’s exhortation to martyrdom. Here, 1 Cor 9:24, Rom 8:17, Col 2:20, Gal 6:14, a combination of John 12:25 and Matt 10:19, 1 Cor 11:1, and a second combination of 1 Cor 7:7 and 4:16 are all employed.

Scripture and the Great Third-Century Debates It is also clear that controversies among Christians led to debates about the interpretation of Scripture. Two Pseudo-Cyprianic texts were produced during two great crises in Cyprian’s episcopate.

82 See the study by C. Burini De Lorenzi, “Pseudo Cipriano, De duobus montibus e Adversus Iudaeos: il paradigma esegetico della polemica antigiudaica,” in Temi e forme della polemica in età cristiana (III–V secolo), ed. M. Veronese and M. Marin, Auctores nostri 6 (2008): 187–98. 83 On the exegesis of the Anonymous, see C. Burini De Lorenzi, “De aleatoribus: una esegesi taciuta ma visibile,” in Nuovi studi sul De aleatoribus pseudociprianeo, ed. M. Marin, Auctores nostri 6 (2008): 99–119. Note that an identical grouping may be found in Cyprian at both Laps. 10 (CCSL 3.1:226) and Test. 3.34 (CCSL 3.1:129).

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In Ep. 55, Cyprian indicates that solving the question of the lapsi led to a deeper examination of the Bible.84 Ad Novatianum is a good illustration of this in that the author broaches the issue of scriptural interpretation and, specifically, the need to interpret it well: “Hear, therefore, O Novatians, among whom the heavenly scriptures are read rather than understood; well, if they are not interpolated.”85 He criticizes his opponents for having a biased interpretation of the Bible (Novat. 9) and for basing their disciplinary doctrine on a single verse, namely, Matt 10:33 (Novat. 12). The author therefore collects texts that are intended to show that the Novatians do not present an image of God as it appears in the Bible. For example, in chapter 10, the author includes a dossier taken from the Psalms and the Prophets, and, in chapter 11, another dossier based on Luke is presented. The author of Rebapt. collects texts that are relevant to the question of admitting Christians who have been baptized in schism and to reconcile the texts he invokes with one another, even though he knows that some of them seem contradictory: “And therefore we shall, as is needful, collect into one mass whatever passages of the Holy Scriptures are pertinent to this subject. And we shall manifestly harmonize, as far as possible, those which seem to be differing or of various meaning.”86

Diverse Intellectual Profiles Like those of Tertullian and Cyprian, the texts attributed to Cyprian mirror the general orientations of early Christian Latin literature. The hermeneutic principals at work here are not original: notable, for example, is a typological reading of the scriptural texts in which Christ is the antitype. The authors rely on biblical dossiers based on these principles: (1) scriptural texts do not contradict themselves; (2) their overall impact may be enriched through the accumulation of quotations. The recurrence of certain groupings (in, for example, anti-Jewish literature, and in Aleat.) leads us to suppose that they were not necessarily written by the authors themselves. This highlights a selective reading of Scripture, in which the role played by a particular word is essential. Such a practice is highly Cyprianic, as the Test. and Ad Fortunatum attest. Beyond these common trends, special considerations must be made for the authors who were either contemporary with or who came after Cyprian – to what extent was their biblical culture influenced by the bishop of Carthage’s writings? Victor Saxer

84 Cyprian, Ep. 55.6.1 (CCSL 3B:261–62). 85 Novat. 2 (CCSL 4:139; Wallis, ANF1 5:658): “Audite igitur, Novatiani, apud quos Scripturae caelestes leguntur potius quam intelleguntur, parum si non et interpoliantur”; see also Novat. 8 (CCSL 4:143). 86 De rebaptismate 1, 6 (CCSL 3F:549; Wallis, ANF1 5:668, trans. slightly modified): “Et ideo quaecumque Sanctarum Scripturarum ad hanc partem pertinentia sunt capitula necessario in unum congeremus, et quae videntur esse diversa aut varia quantum poterit manifeste inter se conglutinabimus.”

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focused his attention on the degree of the African episcopate’s cultural development, and, based on the Sententiae episcoporum and the letters of Cyprian’s correspondents, concluded that the culture of Cyprian’s African colleagues was at least partly dependent on the great Cathaginian bishop himself.87 Saxer encouraged future research to include the Pseudo-Cyprianic corpus. What follows offers brief remarks on those texts that are most similar to Cyprian’s works – namely, Cent., Aleat., Laud. mart., and Novat. As noted above, Cent. and Aleat. both cite texts that were ultimately excluded from the canon as well as texts that otherwise remain unidentified as scriptural. This marks a clear difference with Cyprian’s method. This implies that the biblical culture of these authors was not based solely on the works of Cyprian. The author of Laud. mart., for example, undoubtedly read Cyprian’s work, but he did not use the Bible with great frequency. In fact, he seemed to have more of an interest in poetry, as can be seen in the descriptions of paradise, hell, or the climax of Christ’s passion, which are all filled with poetry.88 Furthermore, his biblical dossier on martyrdom does not match that of Cyprian’s. The author uses Matt 16:26 (ch. 17) and John 12:35 (ch. 27), which Cyprian never cites. Furthermore, Col 2:20 and 1 Cor 7:7 (ch. 28) do appear in Cyprian’s writings, but not in connection with martyrdom. The author of Novat. may turn out to be the one most closely related to Cyprian. Both authors support the reintegration of lapsi and rely on large biblical dossiers to support their claims.89 Nevertheless, the pervasiveness of Cyprianic views in Novat. does not mean that the author did not develop his own personal method for refutation or, at least, a method that was independent from Cyprian’s and that could have relied on sources no longer extant. The author of Novat. appreciated long quotations: he cites Ezek 34:2–16 (Novat. 14) when Cyprian only cites a few verses from this passage (for example, in Ep. 57.4.4, he refers to only Ezek 34:3–6, 10, 16). Moreover, some of the verses used in Novat. do not appear in Cyprian’s works at all. Examples here include Ezek 36:17–23, Isa 57:16–18, Jer 10:24 (ch. 10), and Luke 7:39–47a (ch. 11).

The Legacy of the Pseudo-Cyprianic Treatises A Methodological Issue An important yet delicate question concerns the exegetical legacy of the PseudoCyprianic treatises, one which, in turn, depends on these works’ transmission history. A

87 V. Saxer, “Reflets de la culture des évêques africains dans l’œuvre de Saint Cyprien. Problèmes et certitudes,” RBén 94 (1984): 257–84, esp. 276; reprinted in Pères saints et culte chrétien dans l’Eglise des premiers siècles (Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1994): 257–84. 88 Laud. mart. 20–21, 29 cf. CCSL 3F:323–24, where the importance of poetry for the author is discussed. 89 Cf. Novat. 10–11 (CCSL 4:144–46), with Cyprian, Ep. 55.22–23 (CCSL 3B:281–85).

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reference to “Cyprian” in late antiquity or in the Middle Ages was likely to designate his authentic works but did not necessarily exclude references to pseudepigraphical works. Two case studies will serve to illustrate this point. The first one is well known: Adv. Jud. and Laud. mart. were both included in the mid-fourth century stichometric list of Cyprian’s works and were considered to be genuine. In the ninth century, Hincmar of Reims and Florus of Lyon still considered both texts to be Cyprianic. In the De praedestinatione Dei et libero arbitrio, Hincmar of Reims cited several excerpts by Cyprian, including passages from Adv. Jud. relating to the salvation provided by Christ and to the possibility of forgiveness for those who sincerely repent.90 In his compilation of excerpts from Cyprian’s compositions in which the bishop comments on Paul, Florus of Lyon retained three excerpts from Laud. mart., which were culled from chapters 14–15 (on Phil 1:21), 18 (on Rom 8:18), and 28–29 (on Col 2:20).91 The second case concerns Mont. The Testimonia divinae scripturae et patrum 2.11 (CPL 385), which has been dated to the seventh century, cites the beginning of chapter 4, a passage in which the name of Adam is noted to be an acrostic of the cardinal points. The excerpt is taken from a text entitled De libro Cicili Cibriani, which itself is a part of a testimonia patrum collection.92 In the medieval examples cited above, the borrowed passages were easy to detect since they were literal citations and explicitly attributed to Cyprian. Other situations are less clear. The main difficulty is the lack of certainty regarding the dating of some of the Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises. Research is often seriously compromised when the main criterion used to date a text is its relationship with another author or text. The history of research on the treatises that contain anti-Jewish polemics is filled with these types of debates. For example, discussions took place concerning Mont. 9 and Tertullian’s De anima 43.10, two passages which view the water and the blood that flowed from Christ’s side as signs of the imminent birth of the church.93 In such a case, a link between the two texts seems certain, but what is the link’s nature? Is one dependent on the other and, if so, in which way does it run? Or, is the connection more plausibly explained by a common source? Even when the relative chronology of two texts appears solid, we should not necessarily assume that similar excerpts were borrowed without mediation. Martine Dulaey detected several images or exegeses that linked Victorinus of Pettau to Mont., Pasch., and Adv. Jud. The ties with Mont. and Pasch. are too vague to think that Victorinus drew directly from them. It seems better to explain these

90 Hincmar of Reims, De praedestinatione Dei et libero arbitrio posterior dissertatio 25 (PL 125:227); see Pseudo-Cyprian, Contro i giudei, 71–72. 91 Florus of Lyon, Collectio ex dictis XII Patrum. I. Cyprianus Carthaginensis (CCCM 193:69, 12, 73). 92 CCSL 108D:125. 93 According to Daniélou, Les origines du christianisme, 53, Mont. was written before the De anima, whereas J. H. Waszink, Quinti Septimi Florentis Tertulliani De Anima, 2nd ed., Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 100 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 469, believes that both texts were written in the same period.

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connections through common sources and/or through the fact that these authors had similar exegetical preoccupations.94

Rare Variants in the Biblical Text Dependence between two texts can often be established by the presence of rare biblical variants in both texts. This, for example, is what allows us to presume that Hilarianus used Pasch. for his De ratione Paschae et mensis (CPL 2279). Both authors cite Exod 12: 2–3 in the same form and use the quotation as the starting point for their demonstration (Pasch. 1 cites Exod 12:2–11). They also cite Gen 1:1–5 in the same form (Pasch. 3).95 The author of the Computus of 455, De ratione Paschae (CPL 2296), uses material from both Hilarianus and Pasch. The passages are easier to identify since the borrowed excerpts are cited verbatim: expressions from Pasch. 6–7 can be found in chapter 6 of De ratione Paschae.96 To the passages that Bruno Krusch highlighted can be added another borrowed from Pasch. 5. In this case, the readings initium diei and initium noctis in a citation of Gen 1:16 are crucial indicators. The main difference between the two authors’ use of Gen 1: 14–16 is the presence of solidamento (in place of firmamento) in Pasch., even though firmamento is the reading in the second witness of Pasch. (London, British Libr., Cotton Caligula A XV, second half of the eighth century [fol. 99r]).

Unusual Interpretations When two texts include a rare and characteristic detail, strong similarities in the exegesis of a biblical passage can suggest a connection between them.97 Although not exhaustive, a few examples culled from Augustine follow.

94 M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio. Premier exégète latin (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1993), 1:305–7. The links are, however, clearer with Adv. Jud. First, for both authors, the unveiling of spiritual meaning is presented as the opening of the Testament of the Father, an opening that can only occur at the death of Christ. Second, both authors mention the seal of the seven spirits. In the case of Pseudo-Cyprian, Adv. Jud. 5, it is applied to the new covenant; in the case of Victorinus, it is applied to the Old Testament (cf. Explanatio in Apocalypsin 3 [CCSL 5:198–99]). 95 An observation first made by J. Regnault-Larrieu, “Le De cursu temporum d’Hilarianus et sa réfutation (CPL 2280 et 2281). Une querelle chronologique à la fin de l’Antiquité,” Recherches augustiniennes et patristiques 37 (2013): 131–267, esp. 167. 96 B. Krusch, Studien zur christlich-mittelalterlichen Chronologie: der 84 jährige Ostercyclus und seine Quellen (Leipzig: Veit, 1880), 282–83. 97 On this principle, see M. Dulaey, “Recherches sur les sources exégétiques d’Augustin dans les trente-deux premières Enarrationes in Psalmos,” in L’esegesi dei padri latini dalle origini a Gregorio Magno. XXVIII Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità cristiana, Roma, 6–8 maggio 1999, SEAug 68 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2000), 1:253–92, esp. 254 n. 7.

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Much speculation has surrounded the influence of the Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus and its Latin translation upon the subsequent Adv. Jud. literature. But what about Jud. incred., a letter that accompanied and circulated along with it? The latter does not seem to have sparked many echoes, but one that has been identified concerns the exegesis of Ps 18:5 “he pitched his tent in the sun” (in sole posuit tabernaculum suum). Celsus explained “in the sun” by adding “conspicuously, in the open light, in the sight of all” (in manifesto, in luce, palam; Jud. incred. 4.1) to insist on the visibility of Christ’s first advent. This interpretation also appears in Augustine’s first commentary on Ps 18 (in tempore vel in manifestione), and prevails in subsequent works.98 For Dulaey, what makes Augustine’s dependence probable is the fact that, whenever earlier authors commented on the verse, they understood it differently.99 Numerological speculations can also suggest connections. In the first enarratio on Ps 32, Augustine establishes a link between the Decalogue and the ten-stringed psaltery that is mentioned in Ps 32:2. In De doctrina christiana, he relates discussions “between scholars” (inter doctos) that link the number of strings with the Ten Commandments.100 This interpretation was already known to the author of Cent.101 Should we therefore conclude that Augustine had read Cent.? Or was he inspired by a common exegetical tradition that, given the poor state of documentation and the enormous amount of contemporary Latin Christian literature that was lost, is no longer accessible except through Cent.? The connection between the two authors is suggestive, but, without more data, we must regard it as inconclusive. Firmer ground surrounds Mont. As previously noted, the speculations in chapter 4 garnered a certain amount of notoriety. The author sees in the name “Adam” an acrostic of the Greek words that designate the cardinal points. He also attributes the numerical value of forty-six to Adam’s name and provides us with the first extant record of its demonstration. In one exegesis, he links this number with the forty-six years that John 2:20 records as necessary for building the temple. Augustine reuses this explanation in his commentary on John 2:18–20, explicitly noting that it was not new and, in fact, had

98 Enarrat. Ps. 18, s. 1.6 (CCSL 38:102); Enarrat. Ps. 90; s. 2.5 (CCSL 39:1270); Augustine, In epistulam Johannis ad Parthos tractatus 2.3 (PL 35:1991–92). 99 M. Dulaey, “Recherches sur les sources exégétiques d’Augustin,” 258. For the history of the verse’s exegesis, see R. Gounelle, “Il a placé sa tente dans le soleil (Ps. 18(19), 5c(6a)) chez les écrivains ecclésiastiques des cinq premiers siècles,” in Le Psautier chez les Pères, Cahiers de Biblia Patristica 4 (Strasbourg: CADP, 1994): 197–220; and J. Wolinski, “‘Il a planté sa tente dans le soleil’ (Ps. 18, 6),” in Saint Augustin et la Bible, ed. A.-M. La Bonnardière (Paris: Beauchesne, 1986): 99–115 (translated and reprinted as “‘He Pitched His Tent in the Sun’. Ps 18:6 (LXX),” in Augustine and the Bible, ed. and trans. P. Bright, The Bible through the Ages 2 [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999], 252–68). 100 Doctr. chr. 2.16.26 (CCSL 32:51–52). 101 De centesima, sexagesima, tricesima 20. See Augustine, Les commentaires des Psaumes. Ps 32–36, eds. M. Dulaey et al., Bibliothèque augustinienne 58/B (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2014), 574–76.

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been offered “in earlier times by our ancestors” (ab anterioribus majoribus nostris).102 Augustine was probably referring to Mont., but it is impossible to know whether he accessed it under Cyprian’s name, as part of a collection of Cyprian’s works, or by some other means. This conclusion is reinforced by Anne-Marie La Bonnardière’s study of the use of Wis 2:12–21 in Augustine. De duobus montibus Sina et Sion 7–8 is indeed the only known text that presents strong similarities with Augustine’s exegesis. In her argument, La Bonnardière highlights the order of the verses, the presence of verse 18, the shared links to Matt 27, and the sketch of what would become Augustine’s preferred interpretation – namely, that the text prophesies the test of strength to which the Jews subjected Christ.103 Prudently, La Bonnardière does not gloss over the possibility that Augustine may have been influenced by a source that is no longer extant. However, if one also takes into account the aforementioned link regarding Adam, it inclines one to the conclusion that Augustine did indeed read Mont.104

Conclusion These remains of early Latin Christian literature have been preserved thanks (in part) to the complex process through which Cyprian’s works were transmitted. Scripture is at the heart of this literature, which is further characterized by traditional themes as well as by great diversity in detail. One can ponder the extent to which these works are representative of what has been lost or, to phrase things differently, the extent to which Cyprian’s (authentic) works contributed to the preservation and survival of the pseudo-cyprianic treatises. It is logical to think that the works of Cyprian attracted texts that seemed to be natural complements, texts that treated themes such as martyrdom, penance, the Novatian crisis, and the (re-)baptism of heretics and schismatics.105 Cyprian did not write anti-Jewish polemical texts in the

102 Tract. Ev. Jo. 10.12 (CCSL 36:108; Hill, WSA I/12:209). This dossier was thoroughly studied by D. Cerbelaud, “Le nom d’Adam et les points cardinaux: recherches sur un thème patristique,” VC 38 (1984): 285–301; and by S. J. Voicu, “Adamo, acrostico del mondo,” Apocrypha 18 (2007): 205–29. 103 A.-M. La Bonnardière, “Le «juste» défié par les impies (Sap. 2, 12–21) dans la tradition patristique africaine,” in La Bible et les Pères. Colloque de Strasbourg (1er-3 octobre 1969), eds. A. Benoît and P. Prigent, Bibliothèque des Centres d’Études supérieures spécialisés (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1971): 161–86, esp. 177, 181, 186. 104 See A. A. R. Bastiaensen, “Augustin et ses prédécesseurs latins chrétiens,” in Augustiniana Traiectina. Communications présentées au Colloque International d’Utrecht, 13–14 novembre 1986, eds. J. den Boeft and J. van Oort (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1987): 25–57, esp. 36–37. 105 Although Rebapt. defends a view that opposes that of Cyprian, it was nevertheless transcribed in the lost Remigianus after Cyprian, Ep. 74 in a dossier dedicated to this issue. See P. Petitmengin,

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strict sense, but the first two books of Test., which have clear catechetical ambitions, can certainly be read as such. The intellectual landscape drawn by the Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises can be compared to Jerome’s On Illustrious Men (De viris illustribus), which claimed to present all the authors “who have published any memorable writing on the Holy Scriptures.”106 What stands out is a circumstantial collection in which polemics take center stage. In regard to the Novatian schism, for example, Jerome mentions the writings of Cornelius (ch. 66), Dionysius of Alexandria (ch. 69), Reticius of Autun (ch. 82), and Eusebius of Emesa (ch. 91). One can measure a level of complementarity between, on the one hand, the testimonia on lost texts or on texts that were preserved only fragmentarily and/or through the indirect tradition, and, on the other hand, minor texts that have come to us under a false attribution. These facts compel us to recognize two means by which we may understand the literary activity of a time for which our sources are incomplete. Given all of this, the scholarly approach to these texts has necessarily evolved. In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, critical attribution prevailed: Adolf von Harnack, for example, attributed Laud. mart. to Novatian, Aleat. to Victor, and Novat. to Sixtus. These and similar attempts at attribution generated animated discussions.107 Contemporary scholars are much more comfortable with having anonymous authors for these texts and are spending more energy on attempts to situate them in the debates of their era. Regarding provenance, it is striking to notice an upheaval in the positions of the literary commentators, who now locate many of these texts in Africa rather than in Rome. Slowly but surely we are gaining a better understanding of the Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises within the context of late antique literary productions by following two main paths: (1) creating solid critical editions for texts that previous lacked a critical framework (for example, Cent.); (2) working on both the intra- and intertextual exegesis of specific biblical verses. These allow an increasing appreciation for the originality of the various interpretations that were offered and the detection of potential exegetical and theological dependencies between authors, both known and unknown.

“Un monument controversé, le ‘Saint Cyprien’ de Baluze et dom Maran (1726),” Revue d’histoire des textes 5 (1975): 97–136, esp. 125–26. 106 Jerome, Vir. ill., Praefatio (A. Ceresa-Gastaldo, Biblioteca Patristica 12 [Firenze: Nardini, 1988], 56; E. C. Richardson, NPNF2 3 [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1892], 359): “qui de Scripturis sanctis memoriae aliquid prodiderunt.” 107 See A. von Harnack, Der pseudocyprianische Traktat De aleatoribus. Die älteste lateinische christliche Schrift: ein Werk des römischen Bischofs Victor I. (saec. II), TU 5/1 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1888); A. von Harnack, Eine bisher nicht erkannte Schrift des Papstes Sixtus II. vom Jahre 257/8, TU 13/1 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1895); and A. von Harnack, Eine bisher nicht erkannte Schrift Novatian’s vom Jahre 249/50 (‘Cyprian’, De laude martyrii), TU 13/4b (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1895).

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For Further Reading Primary Sources Ciccolini, Laetitia, and Paul Mattei, eds. Sancti Cypriani episcopi opera, pars IV. Opera pseudo-cypriana, pars I. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 3F. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016. Diercks, Gerardus Frederik, ed. Auctoris ignoti Ad Nouatianum, Auctoris ignoti Aduersus Iudaeos. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 4. Turnhout: Brepols, 1972. Diercks, Gerardus Frederik, ed. Cyprianus, Epistulae 58–81 et appendix epistulas complectus quaum II dubiae sunt, III suppositiciae. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 3C. Turnhout: Brepols, 1996. Hartel, Wilhelm, ed. Opera spuria, indices, prefatio. Vol. 3, S. Thasci Caecili Cypriani opera omnia. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 3/3. Vienna: C. Geroldi Filium Bibliopolam Academiae, 1871. Migne, Jacques-Paul, ed. Sancti Thascii Caecilii Cypriani episcopi Carthaginensis et martyris opera omnia. Patrologia Latina 4. Paris: Migne, 1844. Pseudo-Cyprian. Trattati, translated by Carlo Dell’Osso. Collana di Testi partistici 231. Rome: Città Nuova, 2013. Wallis, Robert Ernest, trans. Containing the Remainder of the Treatises. Vol. 2, The Writings of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage. Ante-Nicene Christian Library 13. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1869 (= ANF 5. Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1886).

Secondary Sources Daniélou, Jean. The Origins of Latin Christianity, translated by David Smith and John Austin Baker, edited by John Austin Baker. Vol. 3, A History of Early Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicea. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1977: 31–57, 63–98, 126–29 (= Les Origines du christianisme latin. Vol. 3, Histoire des doctrines chrétiennes avant Nicée. Paris: Cerf, 1978). Herzog, Reinhart, ed. Restauration und Erneuerung. Die lateinische Literatur von 284 bis 374 n. Chr. Vol. 5, Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike, edited by Reinhart Herzog and Peter Lebrecht Schmidt. Munich: Beck, 1989: §575.1, 591.2, 591.4. Koch, Hugo. Cyprianische Untersuchungen. Bonn: Marcus & Weber, 1926. Monceaux, Paul. “Études critiques sur l’Appendix de Saint Cyprien.” Revue de philologie, de litterature et d’histoire anciennes 26 (1902): 63–98. Monceaux, Paul. Saint Cyprien et son temps. Vol. 2, Histoire littéraire de l’Afrique chrétienne depuis les origines jusqu’à l’invasion arabe. Paris: Leroux, 1902. Orbán, Arpád Peter. “Die Frage der ersten Zeugnisse des Christenlateins.” Vigiliae Christianae 30.3 (1976): 214–38. Sallmann, Klaus, et al., eds. Die Literatur des Umbruchs. Von der römischen zur christlichen Literatur, 117 bis 284 n. Chr. Vol. 4, Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike, edited by Reinhart Herzog and Peter Lebrecht Schmidt. Munich: Beck, 1997: §477.2, 477.3, 480.1, 480.2, 480.3, 481.1, 481.2. Soden, Hans von. Das lateinsche Neue Testament in Afrika zur Zeit Cyprians nach Bibelhandschriften und Väterzeugnissen. Texte und Untersuchungen 33/3. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909. Soden, Hans von. Die Cyprianische Briefsammlung. Geschichte ihrer Entstehung und Überlieferung. Texte und Untersuchungen 25/3. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1904.

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7 Scripture in the North African Apologists Arnobius and Lactantius Introduction On the one hand, in length, scope, and learning the apologies of Arnobius and Lactantius, both written early in the fourth century, easily surpass those of their Latin predecessors. On the other hand, scholars hoping to reconstruct the text of a Latin Bible before the Vulgate will find that both fall well short of Tertullian and Cyprian, while Arnobius will prove to be almost as barren a quarry as Minucius Felix. Lactantius, by virtue of copious citations from the Old Testament and the Gospels in the fourth book of his Divine Institutes (Divinae institutiones), will dominate this chapter; yet, were it not for this book, he too would scarcely merit a place in a volume devoted to biblical reception. The aim of this chapter must therefore be not only to make an inventory of scriptural citations in these authors but to explain why they are not more plentiful. We shall also have occasion to note – though we cannot always resolve – the problems raised by supplementary allusions and citations that do not fall within the canon as it may have been delineated at that time in any other part of the Christian world.

Biographical Notice For all our external information on both writers, we rely on Jerome, a polymathic though tendentious writer who reached his prime half a century after both were dead. In his continuation of the Chronicle (Chronicon) of Eusebius, by the year 326, he records that Arnobius was converted to Christianity by a dream after having been an assiduous critic of this religion throughout his life; uncertain of his sincerity, the leaders of the church refused to baptize him until he had written a palinode, a condition that he fulfilled by producing the work Against the Nations (Adversus nationes).1 In Jerome’s later book On Illustrious Men, however, he appears to contradict the date in his Chronicle, stating only that Arnobius taught rhetoric with great distinction in Sicca under Diocletian (who abdicated in 305) and wrote volumes “against the nations” which are still extant.2 The subject of the next entry is Firmianus 1 R. Helm, ed., Die Chronik des Hieronymus, vol. 7, Eusebius’ Werke (Berlin: Akademie, 1956), 231. 2 Jerome, Vir. ill. 79. It is from this that we derive the Latin title Adversus nationes. *Mark Edwards, Christ Church, Oxford https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-008

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Lactantius, introduced as a “pupil of the former,” who was summoned to Nicomedia by Diocletian but who was unable to pursue his calling as a rhetorician for want of pupils and, therefore, turned to writing.3 Jerome lists not only Lactantius’s extant works but also a number which are now lost, including a Symposium that he wrote in his adolescence, a metrical account of his journey from Africa to Bithynia, a treatise on grammar, and a number of letters. He adds that in extreme old age he resided in Gaul and was tutor to Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, who was later put to death. From this we can infer that, like Arnobius, Lactantius reached the twilight of his years around 325. Neither mentions the other in his extant works, and neither gives any account of his conversion; indeed the only evidence that Lactantius was ever a pagan is his association with a pagan emperor (who was not yet a persecutor) and with a teacher who at that time was an enemy of the church. It is frequently, yet unfairly, assumed that the only test of a Christian education in youth is copious reference to Scripture in the writings of one’s maturity. By this criterion Arnobius proves to have been a lifelong pagan and Lactantius no more than an advancing neophyte. Yet, even though we know that the first conjecture is true, we should hesitate to accept the second until a closer scrutiny of both men’s works enables us to judge how far a more regular use of Scripture would have been conducive to their goal of disarming pagan critics, none of whom acknowledged the Bible as a sacred or even a classic text.

Arnobius Jerome, as we saw above, implies, if he does not quite state, that Arnobius wrote under Diocletian.4 The statement at Adv. nat. 2.71 that Rome has existed for 1500 years would bring us to 297 on the Varronian chronology that he seems to endorse at Adv. Nat. 5.8. This would be only a date for the inception of the work, which refers pervasively to the sufferings of the church under Diocletian between 303 and 305. On the other hand, he estimates that Christianity has been in the world for about 300 years (1.13.2), which is more consistent with the date of 326 in Jerome’s Chronicle. A date of 326 would obviate some other difficulties5 and would spare us

3 Jerome, Vir. ill. 80, in most manuscripts, including those followed by W. Herding, ed., Hieronymi de viris illustribus (Leipzig: Teubner, 1879). 4 The most recent critical text is that of C. Tommasi, Arnobio, Contro I pagani (Rome: Città Nuova, 2017). 5 Chiefly the allusion to a victory over the Goths and to Christianity among the Alamanni, both of which imply a date after 320. See M. Edwards, “Dating Arnobius: Why Ignore the Evidence of Jerome?,” Antiquité Tardive 12 (2004): 263–71, esp. 269. For a reply, see M. B. Simmons, Universal Salvation in Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 56–57. See also M. Edwards, “Some Theories on the Dating of Arnobius”, ETL 92 (2016): 671–84 esp. 679.

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the necessity of explaining how Jerome could have been so mistaken in his Chronicle when dating an event not very distant from his own time. In light of these considerations, we may surmise that the work passed through two editions, the first of which commenced in 297 with what is now book 2, while the second was completed in 326.6 The work has some of the features that we might expect if it were designed primarily to advertise the talents of the author. The atrocities of which it complains are not all contemporary, and its parade of erudition seems more calculated to dazzle rather than to foster a sense of moral and intellectual unanimity with its pagan addressees. Arnobius in fact departs not only from Roman but also from Christian practice in refusing to defend the antiquity of his own religion. The Romans were happy to tolerate, and even to subsidize, the religions of their conquered subjects when they believed them to be ancestral. One of the principal charges against Christianity was its novelty, and it was usual for apologists to respond that, on the contrary, the coming of Christ was prefigured not only in prophecies contemporary with Homer but also in the histories of the patriarchs which were written long before the Trojan War.7 Also contrary is Arnobius’s assertion that, if Christianity is indeed a new religion, then the Romans have all the more reason to subscribe to it because their own cults have been subject to perpetual innovation. The argument that the new is sometimes better than the old was not unknown as a humorous trope in Latin literature,8 but to hint that this principle might be applied to religion was a calculated affront to a people who prided themselves on their loyalty to the mos majorum, the “custom of the fathers.”9 Diocletian professed to uphold this, yet Arnobius accuses him of contriving new tortures for Christians: the great persecutor is therefore true to his predecessors only in betraying the very traditions that he professes to uphold.10 Arnobius has no reason to cite the Old Testament as it is not his aim to prove the antiquity of Christianity. Frequent citation of the New Testament would have been equally foreign to his purpose,11 as it did not provide materials for the unmasking of Roman pretensions to antiquity. There is occasion for citing it, however, when the new truth that it has brought into the world is impugned by authors

6 Edwards, “Some Theories,” 683–84. 7 See A. J. Droge, Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989). 8 Cf. Cicero, Academica 2.4–5 (LCL 268:476–86). Except where otherwise stated, Greek and Latin authors are cited from the editions in the LCL (= Loeb Classical Library). 9 Cicero, De natura deorum 3.17.43 (H. Rackham, LCL 268:326); Minucius Felix, Octavius 7 (B. Kytzler, [Leipzig: Teubner, 1982], 5–6). 10 Arnobius, Adversus nationes 6.11.5–6 (Tommasi, Contro I pagani, 490); cf. Cyprian, Ad Demetrianum 12 (CCSL 3A:42). 11 Echoes may be detectable, esp. in book 2: John 10:2 at 2.4.1, 1 Cor 1:25 at 2.6.5, and John 14:6 and 10:9 at 2.65.6.

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whose obduracy blinds them to the historical evidence. These authors not only deny the truth of the Gospels, but they also contend that, if the miracles occurred, then they were inferior to those of pagan sorcerers – the most famous of whom, Apollonius of Tyana, had recently emerged with honor from just such a comparison in a tract by Sossianus Hierocles.12 It is only after adducing his own short catalogue of miracles as proof of Christ’s divinity that Arnobius addresses these objections. He had given sight to the blind, raised the dead (1.50.7), restored the strength of atrophied members, made lepers whole, and driven out demons, not once or twice as the gods of old were said to have done, but each and every time he was asked to; he had even been able to communicate his powers to mortal acolytes. No miracle is described in a manner circumstantial enough to reveal the use of any one gospel as a source, and even the known apocrypha will not explain the allusions in the following passage: With a word he quelled the torment of worm-ridden members, and with a word they [his disciples] quelled the worms of infuriated passion. . . . He commanded entrails swollen by fluid to resume their native dryness, and his servants in the same way commanded errant waters to be still, and sent them along their own paths to prevent fatal harm to bodies. He checked the avidity of a gaping ulcer, which refused healing,13 in as long as it took to utter a single word; and not otherwise did they curb the eruptions of a savage and resistant cancer, forcing it to yield to surgery.14

In answer to those who question the veracity of the biblical texts, Arnobius retorts that Christians have an equal right to doubt what the pagans say of their own forefathers (1.54.1). The Gospels were not written so long ago that the men of that age can be supposed to have been more credulous or to have entertained different views of the laws of nature (1.54.2–3). Suspicion would fall more justly on those narratives whose antiquity is offered as their certificate of truth: in fact, the longer the interval between the event and the present time, the greater the possibility of deception (1.57.4). The very sophistication of the pagan writings gives us all the more reason to distrust their veracity and to put our faith in the simplicity of the 12 Denounced as an intellectual sponsor of persecution in Institutes (Epitome divinarum institutionum) 5.2.13–17. For the Christian retort, attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea, see C. P. Jones, ed., Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana: Letters of Apollonius, Ancient Testimonia, Eusebius’s Reply to Hierocles, 3 vols., LCL 458 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006). 13 A similar healing of persistent sores is ascribed to the apostle Andrew at Acts of Andrew 15 (CCSA 6:601, 603). 14 Adv. nat. 1.50.3–5 (Tommasi, Contro I pagani, 134, 136; trans. is my own): “Verbo ille compescuit verminantium membrorum cruces, et illi verbo compescuerunt furialium vermina passionum. . . . Uliginosa ille et turgentia viscera siccitatem jussit reciperare nativam, et famuli ejus hoc modo statuerunt errantes aquas et a pernicie corporum suos labi jussere per tramites. Ille ulcera oris inmensi et recusantia perpeti sanitatem intra unius verbi moram continuato frenavit a pastu, et illi haud aliter contumaciam canceris saevi ad subeundam cicatricem circumscriptis evaginationibus compulerunt.”

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apostles: the canons of elegance are mere conventions, but it is not convention that determines truth (1.58). As for the argument that a god cannot die, this forgets that God assumed a real man when he put on the flesh of Jesus. It was not God himself who suffered on the Cross, but the mortal being whom he had assumed (1.62.1). This is the man whose death was attended by a quaking of the elements and whose resurrection, like his miracles, is corroborated by witnesses who had no disposition to lie.15 The Christology of Arnobius, which would now be described as Antiochene, would not have escaped the judgment of an ecumenical council in the fifth century. His teaching on the resurrection, so far as it goes, is orthodox, but he may be the only Christian of antiquity who makes no appeal to any of the personal affidavits that are collected in the New Testament. In book 2 he makes sport of certain “new men” (novi viri), who belie their name by experimenting in obsolete religions.16 Modern scholars are apt to regard them as disciples of Porphyry, the bugbear of the church in the early-fourth century, who is known to have regarded Christ as a righteous man mistaken for a god.17 He himself is a new man of a different stock, maintaining a creed so genuinely new that he cannot rest it on any written testimonial, since, in his mind, books are always associated with the worship of the old.18

Lactantius: Introductory Lactantius is the author of two short works The Wrath of God (De ira Dei) and On the Making of the World (De opificio Dei), a vituperative treatise The Death of the Persecutors (De mortibus persecutorum) and a seven-book vindication of Christianity, the Divine Institutes (Divinae institutiones), together with an epitome of this containing some additional matter.19 The history of persecution was completed after the death of Maximinus Daia in 313 and before the breach between Constantine and his eastern

15 Adv. nat. 1.54.3 (Tommasi, Contro I pagani, 142). Interestingly, the phenomena attested in Matt 27:45–51 here appear to follow, not precede, the resurrection. 16 Adv. nat. 2.13–52 (Tommasi, Contro I pagani, 184–238). M. Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995) argues persuasively that the whole of the work is conceived as a rejoinder to Porphyry. 17 Augustine, De civitate Dei 19.23 (CCSL 48:691–93). See P. Courcelle, “Les sages de Porphyre et les viri novi d’Arnobe,” Revue des Études Latines 31 (1953): 257–71. 18 Cf. Ignatius of Antioch, To the Philadelphians 8.2 (critical edition by M. W. Holmes, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, 3rd ed). (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 243: “ . . . the ‘archives’ are Jesus Christ.” 19 The edition of Lactantius used here is that of F. Brandt and G. Laurman, Lactantii Opera Omnia (= LOO), 2 vols. (Leipzig: Tempsky, 1890, 1894), in which vol. 1, edited by Brandt alone, contains the Divine Institutes. The Sources chrétiennes (= SC) edition of the Institutes has yet to be completed, but book 4 was edited by P. Monat and published as vol. 377 of that series in 1992.

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colleague Licinius in 316. Book 5 of Inst. recalls the outbreak of the persecution in 303, when Lactantius witnessed the first atrocities in Bithynia; his apostrophes to Constantine were evidently written at a time when the latter was seen as a possible savior of the church (if not yet as a convert), and some scholars have also purported to find allusions to the final judgment of God having been placed on the persecutors. There is no agreement, however, on the history of its redaction, and proposed dates of completion range from 311 to 325. At any rate, it is clear that all his writings are in some sense apologetic; it is also clear that the common leitmotif of the four expository works is that even pagan literature, which the critics and tormentors of the church set up in pride against the revelation of God, bears ample witness to the futility of practicing either religion without philosophy or philosophy without divine assistance. The philosophers, says Lactantius, have always known that God is one, and they have reasoned well enough about the nature of truth and the principles of virtue, if not so well as their ancient preceptors Hermes Trismegistus and the Sibyl. If they have failed to arrest the fall of society into moral turpitude and religious error, the reason is that they were seldom able to marry high principles with the spiritual fortitude that is exhibited every day by Christian martyrs. Just as the persecutors have passed judgment on themselves by their ignoble manner of dying, so the detractors of Christianity are to be refuted, in the Socratic manner, from their own professed beliefs and principles. It is therefore no surprise that The Death of the Persecutors should contain only passing, if numerous, allusions to the Maccabean histories,20 or that the necessity of positing wrath as an attribute of God should be proved from the teachings of accredited philosophers whose disciples were apt to denounce this as a puerile and barbarous notion when they encountered it in Scripture. Although the book of Genesis had some reputation in the pagan world, Lactantius rather hints than asserts that the pagan myth of Prometheus was indebted to its account of the creation of the first man from the clay of the earth; the doctrine that humanity was also made in the image of God is underwritten by an exact quotation from the Sibyl, not by one from Gen 1:27.21 Again the celebration of divine handiwork in The Workmanship of God (De opificio Dei) is a tissue of pagan commonplaces on the 20 J. Rougé, “Le de mortibus persecutorum: 5e livre des Macchabées,” StPatr 12 (1975 ): 135–43. The description of the illness that killed Galerius (Lactantius, De mortibus persecutione 33) contains verbal echoes of 2 Macc 9:5–28 on the death of Antiochus. Rougé notes that both characterize the persecutors as tyrants (Lactantius, Mort. 1.3, 2.7, 3.1, 4.1, 9.2, 16.1; cf. 2 Macc 4:2), both commend the fortitude of the righteous under torture (Lactantius, Mort. 13.3; 2 Macc 7:5), both represent the deliverer as a man commissioned by God (Lactantius, Mort. 44 on Constantine; cf. 2 Macc 15 on Judas Maccabeus), both ascribe the victory of the deliverer to prayer (Lactantius, Mort. 46; cf. 2 Macc. 12:8, 13:10–17), and both offer a pious rationale for their work in the peroration (Lactantius, Mort. 52; cf. 2 Macc. 15:37–39). 21 Lactantius, Inst. 2.10.3–4 (LOO, 167), quoting Sibylline Oracles 8.402, with echoes of Gen 1:27; 2:7; Cicero, De legibus 1.8.25; Plato, Respublica 501b.

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sublimity of reason, the uniqueness of our erect posture, and the subtle cooperation of the human bodily organs. So long as his aims are merely apologetic, the Christian Cicero strikes no note that would have marred the eloquence of his predecessor. Even in Inst., pagans are indispensable witnesses to the truth of Christianity and the current decadence of paganism; we are given to understand that they fall short of the teaching of Christ, yet there is no exact comparison with the Gospels. Thus, when he is contending in book 6 that benevolence asks for no reward, Lactantius concludes that Cicero was right to praise the hospitality of a Roman noble but wrong to imply that such a man should restrict his bounty to members of his own class.22 The rich hold their wealth in trust for those who cannot repay them, the needy and the humble; true treasure is laid up not on earth but in heaven, where it need fear neither rust nor thieves nor the depredations of a tyrant.23 There is no exact quotation, as the Sermon on the Mount was neither a prophecy nor the fulfilment of a prophecy, and the New Testament did not command the esteem that pagans accorded to the Septuagint as the ancient patrimony of the Jews. A sally of direct speech, attributed to God himself, commends the extension of benevolence that we call mercy: “If you have heard the prayers of your suppliant, I also will hear yours; if you have been merciful to those who labor, I shall have mercy on your labor. But if you have not respected or succored them, I shall turn back your own mind against you and judge you by your own laws.”24 No biblical text corresponds to this, and thus we may deduce either that Lactantius is citing another apocryphal text or that he is engaging (and not for the first time) in the device of prosopopeia, the composition of a speech in the voice of some other person.25 A similar question arises when a chapter of exhortations to sexual purity is crowned by an unattributed pledge that “those who do this will receive an incomparable reward.”26 Here commentators can only observe that Paul considered it good for a man not to touch a woman, while Jesus speaks with seeming approval of those who are eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven.27 There is in fact only one

22 Lactantius, Inst. 6.12.13–25 (LOO, 527–29); cf. Cicero, De officiis, 2.18.63 (LCL 30:234, 236). 23 Lactantius, Inst. 6.12.35 (LOO, 531); cf. Matt 6:19, Luke 12:33. 24 Lactantius, Inst. 6.12.41 (LOO, 53 2; trans. is my own): “Si audieris inquit preces supplicis tui, et ego audiam tuas: si misertus laborantium fueris, et ego in tuo labore miserebor. Si autem non respexeris nec adiuveris, et ego animum tuum contra te geram tuis que te legibus judicabo.” 25 Brandt, Lactantii Opera, 1:532, suggests an amplification of Luke 6:36; contrast P. Monat, Lactance et la Bibl e: Une propédeutique latine à la lecture de la Bible dans l’Occident constantinien (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1982), 1:124–26, who regards this as another agraphon. 26 Lactantius, Inst. 6.23.38 (LOO, 570; trans. is my own): “Si quis hoc inquit facere potuerit, habebit eximiam inconparabilem que mercedem.” 27 See Brandt, Lactantii Opera, 1:570, citing 1 Cor 7:7, Matt 19:12.

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certain echo of Scripture in the sixth book – “we are not to let the sun go down on our anger”28 – and even this is not assigned to Paul by name. Otherwise, there is no text in the sixth book that professes to be a direct quotation from either the Old Testament or from the New.29 The same is true of book 5: although we read that “the wisdom of humans is foolishness to God” and that “he who abases himself will be exalted,” it is left to the Christian reader to detect these echoes of 1 Cor 3:19 and Matt 23:12.30 In the first three books, even this vestigial evidence of scriptural knowledge is wanting; Lactantius has concentrated almost all his direct quotations of Christian Scripture in book 4, in which he undertakes to justify the church’s devotion to her founder.

Divine Institutes 4: A Commentary By way of preface, the limits of our inquiry must be acknowledged. We cannot reconstruct any Latin Bible before the Vulgate. The so-called Vetus Latina, or Old Latin, beyond a handful of manuscripts that reflect pre-Vulgate textual traditions, is merely our own compilation of citations and allusions to Scripture in Latin authors of the first four centuries.31 We cannot even be sure that Lactantius always consulted the Latin and not the Greek. But in reviewing his use of Scripture in book 4 of Inst., we shall notice so many parallels with the wording of the same passages in Cyprian’s To Quirinius: Testimonies against the Jews (Ad Quirinum testimonia adversus Judaeos) as to leave no doubt that they were employing the same translation.32 They also leave no doubt that Test. was both a model and a source for Lactantius, who frequently reproduces a cluster of texts from this compilation with little or no variation in order. At the same time, the presence of texts that are lacking in Cyprian and of occasional discrepancies in his citation of the same texts, proves that he also had independent knowledge of Scripture. We may add that even coincidence between his citations and those of Cyprian need not always be proof of his dependence on Cyprian, since the passages most likely to appear in a florilegium are those that already enjoy the greatest currency in the circles for which it is written. The footnotes to this discussion will show that Lactantius is often anticipated

28 Lactantius, Inst. 6.18.33 (LOO, 552–53); cf. Eph 4:26. 29 Pace Brandt, Lactantii Opera, 1:579, “Deus verbum est” at Inst. 6.25.12 (LOO, 579) does not seem to me to be a quotation of John 1:1. 30 Lactantius, Inst. 5.15.8–9 (LOO, 448–49). In 1 Cor. 3:19, Paul in fact writes about “the wisdom of the world.” 31 For further details on the Vetus Latina textual tradition and its remnants, see the chapter by Houghton in this volume. 32 Cyprian, Ad Quirinum (Testimoniorum Libri Tres), ed. R. Weber, CCSL 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1972), 3–179.

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in his use of Scripture by Tertullian,33 an author whom he had certainly read and about whose apologetic labors he speaks a little unkindly in the self-aggrandizing prologue to book 5. The coincidences, however, are too sporadic to warrant the inference that Lactantius had methodically culled these texts from his predecessor. In contrast to these resemblances, which betoken nothing more than a common milieu, we shall also observe a number of modifications or conflations of biblical texts for which Justin Martyr, the second-century Greek apologist, supplies the only surviving precedent. In the present state of our knowledge, direct acquaintance with Justin seems to be neither more nor less probable than their common use of another source that is otherwise unattested in early Christian literature. Even when these three precursors – Cyprian, Tertullian, and Justin (or Justin’s source) – are taken into account, there remains a handful of texts, purporting to be canonical, which may reveal an acquaintance with writings that we now call apocryphal; in at least one instance, however, the text may have come to him through an intermediary whom we would now deem orthodox. Because of the special interest that attaches to them, both the conflated passages and those of doubtful provenance will be treated in their own section of this chapter. For the most part, however, the plan of book 4 will be followed in order to illustrate the methods and intention of Lactantius in his drafts on the scriptural evidence for the divinity, incarnation, and salvific work of Christ. It follows that no rigorous separation of the Old Testament from the New Testament will be possible; the result, however, will not be wholly anarchic, as the narrative constructed by Lactantius himself will often require him to group together passages of the same import. Indeed, we shall commonly find that all passages in any one group are derived from writings of a similar character – historical, legal, or prophetic – that are therefore already adjacent in the canon. Finally, we should note that, in this book of Inst., Lactantius sometimes evokes a passage that he does not quote. The preamble to book 4 of Inst., for example, seems to paraphrase Paul’s narrative of the turning away of humanity from the unseen God to the pleasures and illusions of the visible world, with the consequence that idolatry took the place of that inward devotion that is the only true form of worship.34 True worship involves both the outer and the inner man, the former as servant, the latter as son. Lactantius is surely alluding to the contrast drawn between servants and sons at Gal 4:1–7: he goes on to denounce the pagan priests as faithless servants who truckle to a mob of demonic overlords, while philosophers who give the name “father” to more than one power in heaven are not true sons.35 Further evidence of his unavowed knowledge of the apostle can be gleaned from his history of the decline of Israel, which is at once too circumstantial and too

33 Tertullian, Opera, ed. A. Gerlo, CCSL 1–2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954). 34 Lactantius, Inst. 4.1.2–8 (LOO, 274–75); cf. Rom 1:18–32, Wis 13:1–9. 35 Lactantius, Inst. 4.4.5 (LOO, 282).

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selective to be a paraphrase or epitome of any precursor other than the Old Testament itself. Like his Greek contemporary Eusebius, Lactantius claims that the ancient Hebrews were the ancestors of the church. The interval of 430 years from Abraham to Moses is a commonplace of Jewish and Christian historiography, but Lactantius lays a stress on it, a feature redolent of Gal 3:17.36 Equally tantalizing are brief allusions to an Orphic deity who combines both sexes and to a Hermetic god who is at once his own father and his own mother.37 The (uncited) scriptural cognate is Heb 7:3, where Melchizedek, the harbinger of Christ, is said to have been “without father or mother.”38 In another passage, Lactantius collects the prophecies that Christ would seal a new covenant (testamentum) and argues that this testamentum could not have taken effect without the death of the testator.39 In the Latin – as in the original Greek of Heb 9:16–17 – this argument plays on the fact that the same word means both “covenant” and “will.” Why not quote Paul directly? Perhaps because he lacks both the antiquity of the prophets and the authority of Jesus. In any case, an immediate appeal to Scripture would have been premature since, as he contends, it was not God’s will in former times to share his revelation with the Greeks who had availed themselves so liberally of the wisdom of other peoples. He has in fact revealed to them, through Hermes and the Sibyl,40 the existence of that second god, the architect of the world, who assumes the character of Wisdom in the eighth chapter of Proverbs.41 This first creature of God is the one whom the Sibyl calls a symboulos or fellow-counsellor, and Hermes the demiurge or second cause, whose own cause is the will of the higher deity. His name in our world is Jesus, Christos being the Greek for “anointed one,” though the nations (as Justin Martyr remarked) mistakenly spell this as “Chrestus.”42 Only after creating a predisposition to hear does the Christian apologist introduce his audience to the words of Scripture. He commences with the prophets because, in contrast to Arnobius, he subscribes to the Roman assumption that the most primitive religion is the most likely to be true.

36 Lactantius, Inst. 4.10.6 (LOO, 302). 37 Lactantius, Inst. 4.8.4–5 (LOO, 295–96). 38 See further Monat, Lactance et la Bible, 1:188. 39 Lactantius, Inst. 4.20.2 (LOO, 364); cf. Heb 9:16–17. 40 Lactantius, Inst. 4.6.4–5 (LOO, 286–90), citing the Greek of Asclepius 8 and otherwise unknown fragments of Sibylline verse. A. Wlosok, Laktanz und die philosophische Gnosis: Untersuchungen zu Geschichte und Terminologie der gnostischen Erlösungsvorstellung (Heidelberg: Winter, 1960) assumes the Hermetic element to be foreign to Christianity. On the other hand, J. R. Harris, Testimonies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916), 1:77, proposes that the Sibylline quotations may already have figured in Christian florilegia. 41 Proverbs 8:22 at Lactantius, Inst. 4.6.6–9 (LOO, 290–91); cf. Test. 2.1 (CCSL 3.1:29). 42 Lactantius, Inst. 4.7.5–6 (LOO, 293–294.); cf. Justin Martyr, First Apology (Apologia i) 4.1 in D. Minns and P. Parvis, eds., Justin Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 86.

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Old Testament Prophecies of the Birth of Jesus The first of these auguries might have escaped Lactantius were it not already a recognized testimonium, for the saying “before you were formed in the womb I knew you” was in fact addressed to the prophet Jeremiah.43 The latter is credited also with the uncanonical dictum “blessed is he who was before he was born,” of which more will be said below. The biblical verses that follow afford no parallel but characterize the second god of the church as the word of God, through whom all things were made (Ps 32:6), the word disgorged from the Father’s heart (Ps 44:2),44 the wisdom that issued from the mouth of God before all creation (Sir 24:5) and the Word who was with God in the beginning (John 1:1).45 Then follows a catena of divine maledictions on Israel, from which Lactantius cites Jer 25:4–6, 2 Ezra 9:26, 1 Kgs 19:19, Mal 1:10,46 Ps 17:44, Isa 66:18, and 1:247; and, for his peroration, Jer 8:7–9, which charges the apostates with reviling the word of the Lord.48 The ubiquity of sin being proved, the “remedy” of Isa 7:14, which Lactantius reads, in agreement with both the Septuagint and Cyprian, is then proclaimed: “behold, a virgin shall conceive,” before explaining, when he comes to the name Emmanuel, that this name signifies “God with us.”49 The interpretation of Ps 84:12’s “truth has risen from the earth” as meaning that God has assumed a human body may be original to Lactantius, and we know of no florilegium that could anticipate his quotations from Isa 63:10 and 45:8.50 Isaiah 9:651 and Dan 7:1352 could hardly be overlooked, and Lactantius sees in Daniel’s title “Son of Man” a prefiguration of the Word’s advent in the flesh. After some further excerpts from Isaiah,

43 Jeremiah 1:5 at Lactantius, Inst. 4.8.1 (LOO, 295); cf. Test. 1.21 (CCSL 3.1:22). 44 The numeration of Psalms throughout is that of the Septuagint, which Lactantius follows. 45 Lactantius, Inst. 4.8.14–16 (LOO, 298–300); cf. Test. 2.3 (CCSL 3.1:31), where, however, the term representing λόγος is always sermo as in Tertullian, Adversus Praxean 5.3 (CCSL 2:1164), not verbum as in Lactantius. See further Monat, Lactance et la Bible, 1:175–77. 46 Declaring that God will not receive sacrifice from Israel; cf. Tertullian, Adv. Jud. 5.6 (CCSL 2:1351). 47 Cf. Tertullian, Adv. Jud. 3 (CCSL 2:1346). 48 Lactantius, Inst. 4.11.4–13 (LOO, 305–9); cf. Test. 1.2, 1.3, 1.16, 1.21 (CCSL 3.1:7, 17, 22). Citing Isa 1:2 in Test. 1.3 (CCSL 3.1:7), Cyprian has “praebe aures” where Lactantius has “percipe auribus,” and “reprobaverunt” where Lactantius has “spreverunt.” At 4.11.12 (LOO, 308), Lactantius alludes to the death of Isaiah: on his likely sources see Monat, Lactance et la Bible, 1:179. 49 Lactantius, Inst. 4.12.4 (LOO, 310); cf. Test. 2.8 (CCSL 3.1:41), which has no annotation but includes the narrative preamble at Isa 7:13; cf. also Tertullian, Adv. Jud. 9.2–3 (CCSL 2:1365.14–30). 50 Lactantius, Inst. 4.12.7–9 (LOO, 311–12). 51 Lactantius, Inst. 4.12.10 (LOO, 312). Test. 2.21 (CCSL 3.1:59) and Tertullian, Adv. Jud. 10.11 (CCSL 2:1378) have “a son is given to us” where Lactantius has “a son is given to you,” and the title “herald of great thought,” where Lactantius has “herald of great counsel.” 52 Lactantius, Inst. 4.12.12 (LOO, 312–13). Test. 2.26 (CCSL 3.1:63) has “quasi filius hominis,” where Lactantius has “ut filius hominis”; and he has “veterem dierum,” where Lactantius has “vetustum dierum.” However, at 4.12.16 (LOO, 313), he has “anticum”; and “all the kings of the earth by race and every rank,” where Lactantius has “all peoples, tribes, and tongues.”

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Ps 109:1 is invoked, as Jesus himself had invoked it, namely, to show that David foresaw a Messiah who was to be not his son but his Lord.53 The acclamation “king of kings and lord of lords” is a rare (and perhaps unconscious) quotation from the Pauline corpus,54 and additional prayers are drawn from Isa 45:1–355 and 45:14–16.56 Lactantius now proceeds to gather evidence of the royal stock and future enthronement of Christ from Bar 3:36–38; Jer 17:957; Isa 19:20; Num 24:758; Ps 27:459; Isa 11:10,60 1–361; 2 Sam 7; and Ps 126:1.62 These verses are interlarded with another Hermetic testimony to the god without father and mother, again with no discernible allusion to Hebrews. Corroborative oracles from the Sibyl are augmented by one that may be derived from Porphyry, the notorious enemy of Christendom.63 Citations of Ps 109:1 and 1 Sam 2:3564 prepare us for a much longer excerpt from Zechariah’s account of the vindication of the priest Joshua.65 Quoted more fully than its antecedent in Cyprian’s Test., this text requires a gloss, which takes the customary form of showing that no other Joshua satisfies the most literal exegesis.

Old Testament Prophecies of the Passion and Resurrection An encomium on Christ’s healings at Isa 35:3–6,66 reinforced by a Sibylline oracle, introduces a catena on the passion. This event, which Jews and pagans alike have

53 Lactantius, Inst. 4.12.17 (LOO, 313–14); cf. Test. 2.26 (CCSL 3.1:63), with Mark 12:36, Matt 22:44. 54 Lactantius, Inst. 4.12.17 (LOO, 314), citing 1 Tim 6:15. 55 Lactantius, Inst. 4.12.18 (LOO, 314–15); cf. Test. 1.21 (CCSL 3.1:23) and Tertullian, Adv. Jud. 7.2 (CCSL 2:1354), both citing only the opening words, which in the Latin (following the Septuagint) are “thus says the Lord to Christ my Lord.” 56 Lactantius, Inst. 4.13.7 (LOO, 317); cf. Test. 2.6 (CCSL 3.1:35). 57 Lactantius, Inst. 4.13.9 (LOO, 318), naming both Baruch and Jeremiah, as do Test. 2.6 (CCSL 3.1:35) and Irenaeus, Epideixis tou apostolikou kērygmatos 97 (J. A. Robinson, The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching [London: SPCK, 1920], 148–49). 58 Lactantius, Inst. 4.13.10 (LOO, 318–19); Num 24:7–9 also appears in Test. 2.10 (CCSL 3.1:42). Jereremiah 17:9 (In the Greek: “He is a man and who shall know him?”) is also cited by Tertullian, Adv. Jud. 14.6 (CCSL 2:193). 59 Lactantius, Inst. 4.13.18 (LOO, 321). 60 Lactantius, Inst. 4.13.19 (LOO, 321), which reads “his rest is honor,” where Test. 1.21 (CCSL 3.1:23) has “his rest will be honor.” 61 Lactantius, Inst. 4.13.20 (LOO, 321–22); cf. Test. 2.11 (CCSL 3.1:43). 62 Lactantius, Inst. 4.13.22, 4.13.27 (LOO, 322–23, 324). Only the first is anticipated in Test. 2.11 (CCSL 3.1:43). 63 Lactantius, Inst. 4.13.11 (LOO, 319), citing three verses which were incorporated into G. Wolff, De Philosophia ex Oraculis Haurienda Librorum Reliquiae (Berlin: Impensis Iulii Springeri, 1856), 184. 64 Lactantius, Inst. 4.14.4–5 (LOO, 325). For both, cf. Test. 1.17 (CCSL 3.1:18). 65 Zechariah 3:1–5 at Lactantius, Inst. 4.14.6–10 (LOO, 325–27). Notably v. 2 is omitted in Test. 2.4 (CCSL 3.1:46). 66 Lactantius, Inst. 4.15.3 (LOO, 329–30); cf. Test. 2.7 (CCSL 3.1:38).

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pronounced unworthy of God, must be shown to be not only a fulfilment of biblical prophecy but also a perfect exhibition of divine justice and wisdom. There is of course no want of biblical passages (already collected by Cyprian and others) that foreshadow the conspiracy of the wicked against the righteous man (Wis 2:12–17), who will descend as rain that his justice may rise as the dawn (Ps 71:6), having undergone mortifications that the world mistakes for signals of divine wrath (Isa 53: 1–6).67 Through his prophets, God has foretold the giving of a new law (Mic 4:2, Jer 4:3)68 and the rise of a prophet greater than Moses (Deut 18:17–19).69 The second circumcision performed by Joshua (Josh 5:2)70 is a type of the true circumcision of the heart,71 which will be effected when the temple of old gives way to the house “not made with hands” into which Christ calls us by his resurrection.72 The sufferings that he underwent before his death were revealed not only to the seers of Israel (Isa 50:5, Ps 34:15,73 Isa 53:7, Ps 68:2274) but also to the Sibyl. Cyprian supplies precedents for the texts that follow: Isa 53:8–19 on the suffering servant; Ps 93:21 on the unjust chastisement of the righteous; Jer 11:18 on the lamb led to the slaughter75; Deut 28:66 and Num 23:19 on the hanging of the Lord76; Zech 12:10 and Ps 21: 17–19 on the laceration of his body77; and 1 Kgs 9:6–9 on Israel’s desertion of her king.78 Again, Lactantius urges that these texts, in their most literal construction, can speak only of Jesus Christ. The Sibyl too is a witness to the afflictions of the

67 Lactantius, Inst. 4.16.6 (LOO, 338–39; but not in Cyprian); 4.16.7–10 (LOO, 339–40); cf. Test. 2.14 (CCSL 3.1:47–48); 4.16.12 (LOO, 341; cf. Test. 2.13 [CCSL 3.1:46], which continues up to “and he opened not his mouth”). 68 Lactantius, Inst. 4.17 (LOO, 343–44); cf. Test. 1.8, 1.10 (CCSL 3.1:12–13). 69 Lactantius, Inst. 4.17.6 (LOO, 345); cf. Test. 1.18 (CCSL 3.1:18). 70 Lactantius, Inst. 4.17.9 (LOO, 346); cf. Test. 1.8 (CCSL 3.1:12). A preliminary citation of Deut 30:6 occurs in both texts. 71 See Rom 2:29, with Deut 30:6, Jer 4:4. 72 Monat, Lactance et la Bible, 1:118–24, believes this to be an existing agraphon, rather than a conflation of John 2:19 with Mark 14:58. The word ἀχειροποίητον also occurs in Col 2:11, 2 Cor 5:1, etc. 73 Lactantius, Inst. 4.18.13–14 (LOO, 351). Only Isa 50:5 appears in Cyprian, Test. 2.13 (CCSL 3.1:6), which continues to “and God was my help” in Isa 50:7. 74 Lactantius, Inst. 4.18.16, 4.18.18 (LOO, 353–54). Only Isa 53:7 appears in Cyprian, who has the servant led “as a victim” rather than “to sacrifice” as in Lactantius; we may suspect assimilation to Jer 11:18; cf. infra. 75 Lactantius, Inst. 4.18.2, 4.18.26–27 (LOO, 356–58); cf. Test. 2.15 (CCSL 3.1:48–50) for all. 76 Reading non quasi homo Deus suspenditur (“God is not suspended as a man”), not “God is not a man that he should lie” as is found in the Vulgate and other versions. 77 Lactantius, Inst. 4.18.29–30 (LOO, 358–79). For all four, cf. Test. 2.20 (CCSL 3.1:57–59). 78 Lactantius, Inst. 4.18.32–33 (LOO, 359–60), not in Cyprian. This citation adds the following words to the standard text: “they persecuted their king, most dear as he was to God.” Harris, Testimonies, 1:82, opines that this interpolation belongs to the “earliest strata” of the testimonial tradition.

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savior and to the delinquencies of Israel, which are castigated at Amos 8:9 and Jer 15:379; she also joins David (Ps 15:10, 3:6)80 and Hosea (13:13, 6:3)81 in prophesying Christ’s deliverance from the underworld. Lactantius adduces proofs from Jer 31:31,82 12:17,83 and Isa 42:684 that the resurrection will institute a new covenant (testamentum). Yet even when all that Christ endured is found to have been consonant with the will of a prescient God, the objector still asks why this was a fitting means of redemption. The apologist’s answer is twofold. In the first place, it was necessary to set forth the pattern of a sinless life to confute the argument that perfect obedience to the law is impossible for a creature of flesh and blood. In the second place, it was necessary that God should assume a passible body so that he could exemplify the virtues of forbearance in adversity and resistance to temptation. We may think that Lactantius has failed to grasp the Pauline critique of legal righteousness, but, in his own mind, he is interpreting the title mesitēs (mediator) at 1 Tim 2:585; it would seem that he has also learned from Heb 2:10 that the captain of our salvation must be tempted as we are in order to be made perfect through his suffering. He goes on to explain the necessity of each of Christ’s afflictions: the vinegar is his final draught of bitterness,86 the crown of thorns that encircles his head is a symbol of the nations who stand around Israel awaiting salvation,87 while the crucifixion itself not only carries him into the depths of human suffering but also ensures that his death will be undeniable while his body escapes mutilation.88 As his execution is the true Passover, so it puts an end to false sacrifice, completing the rout of the demons whom he has overthrown repeatedly in his ministry of healing and exorcism (4.26.37–42). Lactantius concludes that the difference between superstition and religion is not, as Cicero thought, that one is the excess and the other the mean, but that one addresses itself to false gods and the other to the one creator and savior of the world.89 Lest it be supposed that the church has fallen into polytheism by adding the cult of the Son to that of the Father, Lactantius urges that, since neither of these

79 Lactantius, Inst. 4.19.3–4 (LOO, 360–61); cf. Test. 2.23 (CCSL 3.1:61). 80 Lactantius, Inst. 4.19.8 (LOO, 362–63); cf. Test. 2.24 (CCSL 3.1:62). 81 Lactantius, Inst. 4.19.9 (LOO, 363); cf. Test. 2.25 (CCSL 3.1:62) for Hos 6:3 only. 82 Lactantius, Inst. 4.20.6 (LOO, 365), quoted at greater length in Test. 1.11 (CCSL 3.1:13–14). 83 Lactantius, Inst. 4.20.7 (LOO, 365); this text is not in Cyprian. 84 Lactantius, Inst. 4.20.12 (LOO, 366–67); cf. Test. 2.7 (CCSL 3.1:39). 85 Lactantius, Inst. 4.25.5 (LOO, 376). 86 Lactantius, Inst. 4.26.18 (LOO, 380); cf. Matt 27:48, Mark 15:36, Luke 23:36, John 19:29. But it is Tertullian, Adv. Jud. 10.4 (CCSL 2:1375), who quotes Ps 68:5 (according to the Septuagint). 87 Lactantius, Inst. 4.26.22–23 (LOO, 380–381), playing on the use of the Latin corona to mean a crowd or circle of people; cf. Matt 27:29, Mark 15:17, John 19:2, 5. 88 Lactantius, Inst. 4.26.32 (LOO, 382); cf. John 19:36, Exod 12.46, Ps 34:20. 89 Lactantius, Inst. 1.28.3–9 (LOO, 389–90), citing Cicero, De natura deorum 2.28.71 (cf. LCL 268:192).

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can be named without the other, they are no more distinct than a stream and its water or the sun and its ray.90 They are one in mind, spirit, and substance, and the unity of the Godhead is proclaimed with one voice by their own prophets Isaiah, Hosea, and Jeremiah.91 He adds the rider that many of those who call themselves Christian also find it impossible to bear the teaching of Scripture, either because they fear the world more than God or because they cannot fathom the divine humility (4.30.4–7). It is these false prophets who father the Valentinians, the Montanists, the Novatianists, the Marcionites, and an otherwise unknown sect, the Anthropians.92 This understanding of Scripture, which is at once comprehensive and literal, is offered only by the Catholic Church and accepted only by those who are lowly and pure of heart.

Uncanonical Testimonies The application of these prophetic texts to the life of Jesus is seldom, if ever, verified by a distinct quotation from the canonical gospels. It is therefore still less probable that Lactantius was acquainted with uncanonical texts, purporting to be scriptural, which are poorly attested elsewhere in Christian literature. The following apocryphal citations are most likely to be derived from a florilegium more eclectic than Cyprian’s testimonia: 1. We have already noted a spurious citation from Jeremiah: “At the outset, therefore, we proclaim that he was born twice, first in spirit, then in flesh. Hence it is said in Jeremiah, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you’; and again in the same author, ‘Blessed is he who was before he was born.’”93 The second adage, reputable enough to be cited as Scripture by Irenaeus,94 is attributed to Jesus in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas.95 Sayings that appear in this

90 Lactantius, Inst. 4.29.3–5 (LOO, 392); cf. Apol. 21.11 (CCSL 1:124). 91 Isaiah 45:14, 44:6 at Lactantius, Inst. 4.29.10 (LOO, 393), Hos 13:6 at 4.29.11 (LOO, 393), Jer 2:13 at 4.30.1 (LOO, 394). The last three do not appear in Cyprian. 92 Lactantius, Inst. 4.30.10 (LOO, 396). The Anthropiani are most probably “psilanthropians,” who held, along with Paul of Samosata, that Christ was a mere man quickened from above by the Spirit of God. 93 Lactantius, Inst. 4.8.1 (LOO, 295; trans. is my own): “In primis enim testificamur illum bis esse natum, primum in spiritu, postea in carne. Unde aput Hieremiam ita dicitur: ‘Priusquam te formarem in utero, novi te.’ Item: ‘Beatus qui erat, antequam nasceretur.’” 94 Irenaeus, Epideixis tou apostolikou kērygmatos 43 (Robinson, Demonstration, 108). 95 Gospel of Thomas 19, in M. Meyer, ed., The Nag Hammadi Scriptures (San Francisco: Harper, 2007), 142; also Gos. Phil. 57 in Meyer, Nag Hammadi Scriptures, 171. See also Monat, Lactance et la Bible, 1:112–13.

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gospel are attested in the sermon known as 2 Clement and even in Paul96; in no case, however, can we be sure that our witnesses knew this gospel in its present form. The fact that the saying “Blessed is he who was before he was born” is attributed by both Lactantius and Irenaeus to Jeremiah suggests that it was one of those texts, preserved in Christian collections of testimonia, which the Jews were thought to have expunged from their copies of this prophet.97 In a passage not found in other Christian writings, the virgin birth is said to have been foretold by Solomon. It is now known to come from the nineteenth of the Odes of Solomon ascribed to that monarch: “the womb of a virgin was afflicted, she conceived, was gravid, and in much travail the virgin became a mother.”98 Rendel Harris argues that this citation is evidence, not of a Latin translation of the Odes of Solomon, but, rather, of the adaptation by Latin authors of a Greek book of testimonies from which Cyprian omitted the apocryphal quotation.99 At Inst. 4.15.3, the words of God at Ps 2:7 (“you are my Son; today I have begotten you”) are said to have been addressed to Christ at his baptism, though the second half of the verse is wanting in the three canonical accounts of this event.100 Here too Lactantius follows a precedent, though not that of Cyprian. Rather, he follows Justin Martyr, who ascribes it to the “memoirs of the apostles.”101 We have no reason to think that he knew the Gospel of the Ebionites to which it is ascribed by Epiphanius in his Panarion of 376.102

96 Compare logion 114 with 2 Clement 12.2 and logion 17 with 1 Cor 2:9. For the Greek of the former, see Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, 152. 97 In Irenaeus it is preceded by a tendentious variation on Gen 1:1 and a composite citation from Pss 109:3 and 71:17, which is also attributed to Jeremiah. A citation of John 1:1 follows. At Irenaeus, Epid. 78 (Robinson, Demonstration, 136), we find another apocryphal quotation from this prophet, which Justin accuses the Jews of excising from their Scriptures (cf. Dialogue with Trypho [Dialogus cum Tryphone] 72). Robinson, Demonstration, 20, suggests a comparison with Dial. 76. For these references see P. Bobichon, ed., Justin Martyr, Dialogue avec Tryphon (Fribourg: Academic Press, 2003), 380, 392–94. On other false citations from Jeremiah see Harris, Testimonies, 1:53–60. 98 Lactantius, Inst. 4.12.3 (LOO, 310): “Infirmatus est uterus virginis et accepit fetum, et gravata est et facta est in multa miseratione mater virgo.” H. F. D. Sparks, The Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 709, translates: “The womb of the Virgin embraced [or ‘caught’] it, and she conceived and bore; and the Virgin became a mother with great compassion.” On pp. 683–86, Sparks notes that five of the odes are quoted in the Gnostic text entitled Pistis Sophia, while numerous parallels have been detected in Ignatius of Antioch – he proposes an origin in the Syrian (if not Syriac) world between 100 and 200 CE. 99 Harris, Testimonies, 1:84. 100 Cf. Matt 3:17; Mark 1:15; and Luke 3:22. 101 Dial. 88.8, 103.6 (Bobichon, Justin Martyr, 428, 464). Test. 2.8 (CCSL 3.1:40) juxtaposes Ps 2:7 with Luke 1:43. 102 Epiphanius, Panarion 30.13 (K. Holl, Ancoratus und Panarion haer. 1–33, vol. 1, Epiphanius (Ancoratus und Panarion), Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte 25 [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1915], 350.17).

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4. Lactantius professes to know of a text in Ezra that foretells the institution of a new Passover through the self-emptying and humiliation of an unnamed savior: “And Ezra said, ‘This Passover is our savior and our refuge. Be mindful, and let it rise into your hearts, that we have him in lowliness under a sign, and hereafter we shall hope in him, that this place will not be desolate for ever. So says the Lord of powers: if you do not believe him or hear his annunciation, the nations will have you in derision.’”103 A precedent is found in Justin but not in Cyprian, who once again must be supposed, on Rendel Harris’s theory, to have purposely omitted a quotation from an older florilegium because he knew it to be apocryphal. 5. The return of this savior at the end of time is anticipated not only at Dan 7:13 but also in a prophecy ascribed to Peter and Paul that is not attested in any other Christian writer: He revealed to them all those future events which Peter and Paul proclaimed in Rome, and that proclamation remained after being written down as a memorial. Among many other marvels, they said that this also would come to pass, that after a short time God would send a king to drive out the Jews and level their cities to the ground, and would lay siege to them as they perished of hunger and thirst.104

This apocalyptic strain is somewhat anomalous in the fourth book, but it dominates the seventh, to which we will now briefly turn.

Divine Institutes 7 and the Book of Revelation As we might have guessed, the foregoing survey of book 4 of Inst. has revealed that the use of Scripture in Lactantius is conditioned by the aims and methods of his apologetic. For once, his aim is not to confute the Romans from their own books but to demonstrate the authority of the Old Testament by extracting prophecies from it that are corroborated by Hermes and the Sibyl and which are also fulfilled by the ministry of Jesus Christ as this is recorded in the Gospels. Since the Sibyl is 103 Lactantius, Inst. 4.18.22 (LOO, 355): “Et dixit Hesdras ad populum: ‘Hoc pascha salvator noster est et refugium nostrum. Cogitate et ascendat in cor vestrum, quoniam habemus humiliare eum in signo: et post haec sperabimus in eum, ne deseratur hic locus in aeternum tempus,’ Dicit Dominus Deus virtutum. ‘Si non credideritis ei neque exaudieritis adnuntiationem ejus, eritis derisio in gentibus.’” Notably, this reference is preceded in 4.18.18 (LOO, 354) by a quotation of Ps 68:22, a verse which is also absent from Cyprian. 104 Lactantius, Inst. 4.21.3 (LOO, 367; trans. is my own): “Sed et futura illis aperuit omnia: quae Petrus et Paulus Romae praedicaverunt et ea praedicatio in memoriam scripta permansit. In qua cum multa alia mira tum etiam hoc futurum esse dixerunt, ut post breve tempus inmitteret Deus regem, qui expugnaret Judaeos et civitates eorum solo adaequaret, ipsos autem fame siti que confectos obsideret.”

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cited as an authority for the Romans, we cannot say whether Lactantius himself accorded to her a status comparable to that of Scripture. However, of Hermes we can at least say that, as he is seldom quoted in pagan literature, the use of him here is evidence either of a passing vogue or of a fundamentally high regard for him on the part of the Christian apologist. The only book, apart from the fourth, that contains more than a handful of allusions to biblical passages is the seventh, and even here we must speak of allusions, not quotations. This is the book in which Lactantius warns his pagan readers that, on the last day, those who persecute the church will be brought to judgment; only an oracle will convince them of this, and the oracles to which they subscribe are those of the Sibyl, Hystaspes, and Hermes, not Isaiah or the Revelation of John. It may be that Lactantius fails to cite the latter because he was living in Bithynia, where its authority was not acknowledged even by the majority of churchmen.105 It is more probable, however, that he judged that it would carry little weight with his pagan readers because, unlike those of the Old Testament, its prophecies had yet to be fulfilled. He was not afraid to menace these pagan readers with the prospect of the last judgment, but he allows that event to be painted by the Sibyl, whose inspiration he assumes to be incontrovertible. At the same time, his silence cannot be attributed to ignorance, for it frequently seems that his own descriptions of the future catastrophe presuppose the Johannine text rather than the uncanonical verses to which he appeals. Thus, his description of the antichrist, though plainly indebted to Revelation and 2 Thessalonians, does not reproduce the language of either writing106; moreover, the future in which a multitude of the just will live again and the lion will lie down with lamb is adumbrated in other words than those of Isaiah.107 Even the prediction that the Messiah will reign for a thousand years before the consummation is not supported by an appeal to Rev 20:5.108 In a single chapter the plagues, the famine, and the earthquake of John’s Revelation are all foretold, but the existence of that work is not acknowledged.109 Likewise, a succession of ten kings,110 the fall of mountains,111 the darkening of the sun and moon,112 and the

105 In this it resembles Hebrews, another text that, as we have seen, is more often present in Lactantius by allusion than by quotation. 106 Lactantius, Inst. 7.17.3 (LOO, 638); cf. Rev 13:4–8, 2 Thess 2:3. In the same chapter echoes of Rev 9:15–18 and 11:3–9 are detectable. 107 Lactantius, Inst. 7.24.3–8 (LOO, 658–59; cf. Isa 6:12, 30:26, 11:6). 108 Lactantius, Inst. 7.24.2 (LOO, 658). 109 Lactantius, Inst. 7.16.5–7 (LOO, 635–36); cf. Rev 6:6, 12; 8:7–11; etc. 110 Lactantius, Inst. 7.16.1–5 (LOO, 635), drawing above all on Dan 7. 111 Lactantius, Inst. 7.16.11 (LOO, 636–37); cf. Isa 40:4, Zech 4:7. 112 Lactantius, Inst. 7.16.8–9 (LOO, 636 ); cf. Matt 2 4:29, Joel 2:31, etc.

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shortening of the days113 are all predicted in the same chapter without any verbal attestation from Scripture. Again it is the Sibyl, rather than Luke or John the Divine, who can say with authority that the Day of the Lord will strike the world like sudden fire from heaven.114 We cannot be sure that Matt 11:5 was in the author’s mind – it is certainly not quickly brought into the mind of the reader – when we hear that in the kingdom the dumb will speak, the deaf will hear, and the lame will walk.115 The only biblical prophecy whose provenance is admitted is “the unrighteous will not see the resurrection,” which is the Septuagintal reading of Ps 1:5.116

Theology and the Bible in Lactantius Our inventory of scriptural passages cited or adapted in the writings of Lactantius thus includes texts from every book of the Pentateuch but Exodus, from Joshua and the books of Kings, from almost twenty Psalms, from all five of the Solomonic writings, from all four of the major prophets, and from half of the minor prophets. On the other hand, it appears that the Gospels, the Pauline corpus and the Revelation of John are quarried more often than they are quoted – a fact that is thrown into relief by the frequent occurrence of texts from Revelation in Cyprian’s Test., a collection that Lactantius appears to follow on many occasions in his combination and ordering of texts. We may infer that, while he availed himself of this resource, he did not blindly transcribe what he found there but, rather, restricted himself to matter that would be inoffensive to Catholic readers of his own generation. We should also note that he makes no use of Cyprian’s third book and is more apt to concur with the second than with the first in his ordering of the testimonia. This is no doubt because the structure of this second book is largely determined by that of the gospel narrative from which it would be perverse to deviate. Most of the canonical texts used by Lactantius that cannot be shown to have been derived from Cyprian are Psalms, which may have been known to him through congregational recitation.117 At the same time, he expects his readers to digest quotations from the nineteenth ode of Solomon, a saying of Jesus now known only from the Gospel of

113 Lactantius, Inst. 7.16.10 (LOO, 636); cf. Matt 24:22. 114 Lactantius, Inst. 7.19.2 (LOO, 644–45), citing an otherwise unknown fragment from the Sibyl. Notably, Lactantius does not cite Luke 12:49 or Rev 19:11–21. 115 See, Brandt, Lactantii Opera, 1:671 on Lactantius, Inst. 7.27.13 (LOO, 671). 116 Lactantius, Inst. 7.20.5 (LOO, 64 9; trans. is my own): “Sanctis litteris contestantibus non resurrecturos esse inpios in judicium.” 117 Harris, Testimonies, 2:82–84, lists the following texts as having no antecedent in Cyprian: Ps 83:11 (also in a fragment of Irenaeus), Pss 71:6–7, 34:15–16, 68:21, 113:21–22, Jer 12:7–8, Isa 63: 10–11, and Hos 13:13.

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Thomas, a portion of Esdras not found elsewhere in Latin, and a revelation ascribed to Peter and Paul. Both the passage from Esdras, and a conflation of Ps 2:7 with the words spoken to Christ at his baptism, invite comparison with Justin Martyr. If we postulate use of a common florilegium, we may cite Irenaeus as evidence that this will have included the saying from Thomas, “blessed is he who was before he was born.” If Lactantius is neither an Athanasius nor an Augustine, that is not to say that he is no theologian. In his formidable study of Lactantius and the Bible, Pierre Monat finds that he innovates on his Latin predecessors by deploying the scriptural repertory for a purpose that is neither apologetic nor polemical but, as we might guess from his statements in the fifth book, pedagogic. Familiar as he seems to have been with Cyprian’s collection of testimonia, he deviates from its readings even where they coincide and also makes use of much material that Cyrpian had omitted.118 Eschewing the diffuse and repetitive manner of Justin Martyr and Cyprian’s florilegium, Lactantius guides the reader verse by verse from the generation of the Son as Wisdom, through his creation of the world, to his incarnation as Messiah, his crucifixion, and his rising again to strip the veil from prophecy and institute the new cult in which he himself is the temple and the law. If his Christology seems to lack a technical vocabulary, a psychology of the man Jesus, and a theory of the atonement, it is also difficult to name other Christian writers before Nicaea – except, perhaps, for Origen and Tertullian – who can meet such expectations. His doctrine of the person of Christ is systematic and biblical, and it would not be reasonable to ask for more in a work that addresses itself to neophytes and to those outside the church.

For Further Reading Primary Sources Bowen, Anthony, and Peter Garnsey, trans. Lactantius: Divine Institutes. Translated Texts for Historians, vol. 40. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003. Brandt, Samuel, and Georg Laubman, eds. Lactantii Opera Omnia, 2 vols. Leipzig: Tempsky, 1890, 1894. Harris, J. Rendell. Testimonies. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916. Heck, Eberhard, and Antonie Wlosok, eds. Divinarum Institutionum Libri Septem, 4 fasciculi. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Munich: Saur; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005–2011. Holl, Karl, ed. Ancoratus und Panarion haer. 1–33. Vol. 1, Epiphanius (Ancoratus und Panarion). Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte 25. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1915.

118 P. McGuckin, “The Non-Cyprianic Scripture Texts in Lactantius’ Divine Institutes,” VC 36 (1982): 145–63, finds that these increments include all of his quotations from Ezekiel, Daniel, and the apocryphal writings, together with a third of his texts from Isaiah and half of those from the Psalms. On p. 160, he argues that an eastern source is sometimes indicated, and his general conclusion is that the majority of the additions are anti-Jewish.

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McDonald, Mary Francis, trans. The Divine Institutes: Books I–VII. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1964. McGinn, Bernard, trans. Apocalyptic Spirituality: Treatises and Letters of Lactantius, Adso of Monteir-en-Der, Joachim of Fiore, the Franciscan Spirituals, Savonarola. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1979. Monat, Pierre, ed. and trans. Institutions Divines. Sources chrétiennes 204, 326, 337, 377, and 509. Paris: Cerf, 1973. Tertullian. Tertulliani Opera: Pars I: Opera Catholica; Adversus Marcionem, edited by Eligius Dekkers, Janus Guilielmus Philippus Borleffs, Radbodus Willems, Raymond François Refoulé, Gerardus Frederik Diercks, and Aemilianus Kroymann. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 1. Turnhout: Brepols, 1954. Terullian. Tertulliani Opera: Pars II: Opera Montanistica, edited by Alois Gerlo, Aemilianus Kroymann, Jan Hendrik Waszink, Jan William Philip Borleffs, August Reifferscheid, Georg Wissowa, Eligius Dekkers, Ernest Evans, Adolf von Harnack, and Radbodus Willems. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latinorum 2. Turnhout: Brepols, 1954. Weber, R. ed. Ad Quirinum (Testimoniorum Libri Tres). Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 1972.

Secondary Sources Abbot, Edwin A. Light on the Gospel from an Ancient Poet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912. Bryce, Jackson. The Library of Lactantius. New York: Garland, 1990. Colot, Blandine. Lactance: Penser la conversion de Rome au temps de Constantin. Florence: Olschki, 2016. Colot, Blandine. “L’écriture de la Bible dans les Institutions divines de Lactance (250–325): Un apologiste face aux païens lettrés n’ayant que dédain pour le Texte sacré.” In L’apologétique chrétienne: Expressions de la pensée religieuse de l’Antiquité à nos jours, edited by Didier Boisson and Élisabeth Pinto-Mathieu, 61–78. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2012. McGuckin, Paul. “Lactantius as Theologian: An Angelic Christology on the Eve of Nicaea.” Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 22 (1986): 492–97. McGuckin, Paul. “The Non-Cyprianic Scripture Texts in Lactantius’ Divine Institutes.” Vigiliae Christianae 36 (1982): 145–63. Monat, Pierre. Lactance et la Bible: Une propédeutique latine à la lecture de la Bible dans l’Occident constantinien. 2 vols. Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1982. Nicholson, Oliver. “Flight from Persecution as Imitation of Christ: Lactantius’ Divine Institutes IV.18,1–2.” Journal of Theological Studies 40 (1989): 48–65. Ogilvie, Robert Maxwell. The Library of Lactantius. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978. Wlosok, Antonie. Laktanz und die philosophische Gnosis: Untersuchungen zu Geschichte und Terminologie der gnostischen Erlösungsvorstellung. Heidelberg: Winter, 1960.

Alden Bass

8 Scripture in Optatus of Milevis Introduction Hailing from the hill town of Milevis in rural Numidia, Optatus stands as the sole defender of African Catholicism in the fourth century. Almost nothing is known about the bishop except that he wrote a single polemical treatise against the Donatists. Likely a convert from paganism, Optatus was remembered by his fellow Afri for his eloquence and moral courage. Both Augustine and, later, Fulgentius name him alongside Cyprian, Lactantius, Hilary, and Ambrose as a champion of the faith.1 Though dead before Augustine took office in Hippo, Optatus’s theological response to the great African schism did more than anything else to shape Augustine’s lifelong campaign against the dissidents. To this day Optatus is known for his pivotal role in the development of post-Constantinian ecclesiology, his redefinition of schism, and his innovative sacramental theology. He is not known, however, for his exegetical accomplishments. Rather, Optatus is generally held to be little more than a stepping stone in the African tradition between Cyprian and the later work of Augustine. Charles Kannengiesser, in his Handbook of Patristic Exegesis, dismisses his use of Scripture as “unsophisticated,” devoting only two pages to its analysis.2 Nevertheless, the pressures placed on him as a minority bishop during the Donatist resurgence of the 360s produced a new interpretive framework that would eventually prevail across the Latin west. Optatus was the first writer to address the African schism theologically, and Scripture, both its essence and interpretation, are central to his critique. As Paul Monceaux noted in an early study of the bishop: “In all his arguments, as in his refutations, the quotations of Scripture play a preponderant part: everywhere they are the basis of reasoning, they mark the stages, they control his conclusions.”3

1 Doctr. chr. 2.40.61 (CCSL 32:74); cath. fr. 19.50 (CSEL 52:297); Fulgentius, Ad Monimus 2.13.3 (CCSL 91:49). The fullest study of Optatus’s life is P. Monceaux, Saint Optat et les premiers éscrivains donatistes, vol. 5, Histoire littéraire de l’Afrique chrétienne depuis les origines jusqu’à l’invasion arabe (Paris: Leroux, 1920), 241–306. See also C. Mazzucco, Ottato di Milevi in un secolo di studi: problemi e prospettive (Bologna: Pàtron Editione, 1994); and J. Merdinger, “Optatus Reconsidered,” StPatr 22 (1989): 294–99. The most recent study of Optatus, which has been immensely helpful in preparing this essay, is P. Marone, L’esegesis biblica di Ottato di Milevi, Collana Studi e Proposte 5 (Rome: Casa Editrice Università La Sapienza, 2008). 2 C. Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 1:1173. 3 Monceaux, Saint Optat, 291–92 (trans. is my own). *Alden Bass, Oklahoma Christian University https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-009

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This chapter will examine the preponderant part played by Scripture in the writing of Optatus of Milevis, both the redaction of the biblical text and its interpretation. The key to understanding Optatus’s use of Scripture is his theology of its interpreters, the bishops, whose conflicting claims to spiritual authority had divided the African church. As we will see, an interpretive habit manifests across his work, congruent with the movement of his sacramental theology. In both the reading of Scripture and the administration of baptism, Optatus displaces human agency with divine, creating distance between minister and text in order to loosen the grip that Donatist bishops held on biblical interpretation in North Africa during this period. Against the local “prophetic” reading of the Donatists, Optatus upholds ratio catholica, or universal reason, shared by Christian authorities across the empire.4

The Bible in Roman Africa Scripture lay at the heart of the African schism. During the Great Persecution of 302–303, which was particularly severe in Africa, certain bishops acquiesced to imperial demands and surrendered various paraphernalia and biblical codices to the magistrates to be burnt. Others, such as a bishop named Felix, preferred torture to giving over the holy books. “It is better for me to be burned in the fire,” he confessed, “than the sacred scriptures.”5 In the aftermath of the persecution, parties formed around these two responses, each with its own claimant to the primatial see. The charismatic Numidian bishop Donatus represented the rigorist faction and a Carthaginian deacon named Caecilian the accommodationists. An appeal for judgement was made to Constantine, who ruled in favor of the Caecilianists, later simply called “Catholics.” Despite their judicial loss, the Donatists retained the people’s support in many parts of Africa, particularly in Numidia. Donatist partisans carried on the African tradition of devotion to the Bible, manifested in their unwillingness to surrender codices during the persecution, and, over the course of the fourth century, Donatist scholars produced important biblical commentaries, biblical study aids, textual apparatus, and the first handbook of biblical interpretation written in Latin.6 To confront them, Optatus likewise had to take up the book. 4 Optatus is no philosopher, and this “universal reason” might better be understood as “imperial reason,” since he makes an important distinction between “empire” and “other.” His main objective is to discredit the Donatists by branding them parochialists and casting doubt on their imperial loyalties. 5 M. Tilley, trans., Donatist Martyr Stories (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996), 9. 6 As observed in passing in H. A. G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament: A Guide to its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 20–21, “Donatists made significant contributions to biblical scholarship.” On biblical study aids, see, R. Rouse and C. McNelis, “North African Literary Activity: A Cyprian Fragment, the Stichometric Lists and a Donatist Compendium,” Revue d’histoire des textes 30 (2001): 189–238. On textual apparatus, see P.-M. Bogaert, “Les particularités

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Optatus’s (Only) Surviving Work Optatus’s only surviving work is an apology for African Catholicism written in the heat of the Donatist controversy.7 Yet as a pastor in rural Numidia, Optatus’s primary responsibility would have been preaching and ministering to his Catholic flock.8 He would have preached at the weekly Sunday assembly, as well as on feast days and special occasions. He may have preached on weekdays during certain seasons.9 Optatus’s interpretative method would have been most clearly discernable in these homiletic explications of Scripture to the people. Unfortunately, the few sermons that have survived under the name Optatus of Milevis have all been shown to be pseudonymous. The best known is a homily for the Feast of the Holy Innocents based on Matt 2 and described by André Wilmart.10 Alberto Pincherle, observing the distinct Donatist themes of martyrdom and separatism, concluded that the sermon likely was written by a dissident bishop, perhaps Optatus of Thamugadi.11 Francesco Scorza Barcellona questioned Pincherle’s specific attribution but agreed

éditoriales des Bibles comme exégèse implicite ou proposée. Les sommaires ou capitula donatistes,” in Lectures bibliques. Colloque du 11 novembre 1980 Bruxelles, Publications de l’Instititum Iudaicum (Brussels: Instititum Iudaicum, 1982): 7–21. 7 Optatus’s text is taken from M. Labrousse, ed. and trans., Optat de Milève: Traité contre les Donatistes, 2 vols., SC 412–413 (Paris: Cerf, 1996). The work was translated into English first by O. R. Vassall-Phillips, The Work of St. Optatus, Bishop of Milevis, against the Donatists, with Appendix (London: Longmans, Green, 1917) and later by M. Edwards, trans., Optatus: Against the Donatists, Translated Texts for Historians 27 (Liverpool: Liverpool University, 1997). Translations here are my own unless otherwise noted. The most recent edition is H.-J. Sieben, Contra Parmenianum Donatistam – Gegen den Donatisten Parmenianus, Fontes Christiani 56 (Freiburg: Herder, 2013). The work goes by several titles; following the CSEL, I use De schismate Donatistarum adversus Parmenianum, abbreviated here De schism. 8 He identified preaching (tractare) as the bishop’s defining duty. See De schism. 4.5.1 (SC 413:88). 9 We can only extrapolate from Augustine’s better-documented example. G. Lawless, “Augustine of Hippo as Preacher,” in Saint Augustine the Bishop: A Book of Essays, eds. F. LeMoine and C. Kleinhenz (New York: Garland, 1994): 13–37; F. van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop (London: Sheed & Ward, 1961), 405–67. M. Pellegrino’s “Introduction” provides a concise overview; see E. Hill (translator), Sermons III/1: Sermons, (1–19) on the Old Testament (Brooklyn: New City Press, 1990), 13–137. For a broader look at African preaching, see J. Leclercq, “Prédication et rhétorique au temps de Saint Augustin,” RBén 57 (1947): 117–31. 10 Optatus, Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium (PLS 1:288–94; CPL 245). A. Wilmart, “Un sermon de saint Optat pour la fête de Noël,” RevScRel 2 (1922): 271–302. Wilmart’s edition is based on G. Morin, Sancti Aureli Augustini tractatus sive sermones ineditit ex codici Guelferbytano 4096 (Kempten: Kösel, 1917), 170–78. 11 A. Pincherle, “Un sermone donatista attributo a S. Ottato di Milevi,” Bilychnis 22 (1923): 134–48. See also A. Pincherle “Noterelle ottazianee,” Ricerche Religiose 3 (1927): 440–45; and A. Pincherle “Due postille sul donatismo,” Ricerche Religiose 18 (1947): 160–64.

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that the sermon is likely Donatist.12 Similarly, three Pseudo-Augustinian Epiphany sermons were attributed to Optatus by Germaine Morin, but Hubert Silvestre has rejected this attribution.13 Most recently, Victor Saxer has assigned to Optatus a Pseudo-Chrysostomian pascal homily on Mary Magdalene (John 20:11–18) because of its discussion of baptism using the Song of Songs.14 This, too, has met with skepticism. After examining the evidence for the sermons attributed to Optatus, Alexandre Olivar concedes that “we are not really able to formulate anything other than a provisional judgment concerning Optatus of Milevis as a preacher.”15 Lacking authentic sermons or other treaties, the evidence for Optatus’s handling of Scripture is limited to his one surviving work against the Donatists. Any evaluation of Optatus the biblical exegete will be distorted by the polemical rhetoric of this treatise, and conclusions regarding his interpretation can, at best, be only tentative. Against the Donatist Schism (De schismate Donatistarum adversus Parmenianum) is a treatise in six books published between 364 and 367.16 A revised second edition, which added a seventh book and a dossier of historical documents pertaining to the schism, was published around 385.17 The work was a response to Parmenian’s Against the Church of the Traitors (Adversus ecclesiam traditorum), a foundational document written around 363, which became the cornerstone upon which half a century of Donatist theology was structured. After Donatus, Parmenian was perhaps the greatest African bishop-theologian of the fourth century – for a time the dissident Christians were known as the pars Parmeniani. Unlike Optatus, he was not a native African. Born in Gaul or Spain and converted by exiled bishops, he was groomed by Donatus himself to lead the dissident church after his death. Parmenian took office around 362, the year the emperor Julian, known to Christians as “The Apostate,” invited the dissident bishops to return to Africa. The dissidents had been banished

12 A history of scholarship on the identity of the sermon’s author is provided in F. S. Barcellona, “L’interpretazione dei doni dei Magi nel sermone natalizio di [Pseudo] Ottato di Milevi,” Studi Storico-Religiosi 2 (1978): 129–49. For an argument that the sermon belongs to Tyconius, see E. R. Pose “Ticonio y el sermón «in natali sanctorum innocentium» (Exégesis de Mt. 2),” Greg 60.3 (1979): 513–44. 13 PL 39:2005–8; PLS 1:297–300; CPL 247–49. See H. Silvestre, “Trois sermons à retirer définitivement de l’héritage d’Optat de Milève,” The Proceedings of the African Classical Associations 7 (1964): 61–62. 14 Maria veniens ad Christi Domini monumentum (PLS 4:665–67). V. Saxer, “Un sermon médiéval sur la Madelein e: reprise d’une homélie antique pour Pâques, attribuable à Optat de Milève,” RBén 80 (1970 ): 49–50. 15 A. Olivar, La predicación Cristiana antingua (Barcelona: Herder, 1991), 330. One of the best summaries of the homiletic evidence is offered in Marone, L’esegesis biblica, 33. She concludes that “the issue of paternity is now closed in the negative.” 16 The book is alternatively called Against Parmenian and Against the Donatist Church. The original title has been lost. 17 For more on the dating, see Labrousse, Optat de Milève, 1:12–14.

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fifteen years earlier by the emperor Constans.18 The dissident church flourished during Parmenian’s thirty years of leadership; in the second edition of his work, Optatus lamented that the Donatists far outnumbered the Catholics. Parmenian’s writings, most of which have been preserved fragmentarily in the writings of his opponents, formed the intellectual platform for the mid-century Donatist revival. Popular and incisive, his sermons, psalms, and tracts were “in the hands and mouths of many.”19 The bishop carries the distinction of being refuted by both Optatus and Augustine.20

Donatist Biblical Interpretation Parmenian’s book and the events of his early episcopacy reveal some of the very concrete concerns Optatus faced as a Catholic bishop. David Wilhite has demonstrated that Adversus ecclesiam traditorum celebrated the Donatist reclamation of their former basilicas after Julian’s restoration, using the traditional allegory of the church as bride of Christ from Song of Songs.21 Surveying the building with a sweep of the hand as he preached to the re-formed congregation in Carthage, Parmenian identified the surrounding objects as various “bridal gifts” (dotes) given by Christ to his Beloved as tokens of favor. The dowry included the primatial throne in Carthage, the relics of the martyrs, the altar, and the chalice, the very artifacts used by the great martyr-bishop Cyprian. Now, after fifteen years, a Donatist was once again sitting in Cyprian’s episcopal seat. Donatist priests were celebrating mass at his altar. They may even have had control of the martyrial shrine which contained his bodily remains. To anyone with eyes, the same Holy Spirit that filled Saint Cyprian appeared to animate the church led by Parmenian. The proof was in the pudding. Parmenian and his bishops grounded their authority in the gift of the Holy Spirit, handed down through the laying on of sanctified hands in a line of episcopal succession unbroken by the sin of betrayal. Those bishops who had given up the Scripture in 302 were reviled as traditores and classed as apostates guilty of mortal sin. By their transgression they had forfeited the gift of the Spirit and with it their

18 Emperor Constans (337–350) had exiled the Donatist bishops after the failed unification led by the imperial notaries Paul and Macarius. Julian (361–363) hoped to destabilize the Christians by promoting paganism and reintroducing heretics and schismatics. Ammianus Marcellinus observed that Julian “knew that toleration would intensify [the Christians’] divisions and that henceforth he would no longer have to fear unanimous public opinion,” so W. Hamilton, trans., The Later Roman Empire (London: Penguin, 1986), 22.5. 19 De schism. 1.4.4 (SC 412:178; Edwards, Optatus, 4). 20 In Augustine, Contra epistulam Parmeniani (BA 28:208–431). 21 D. Wilhite, “True Church of True Basilica?: The Song of Songs and Parmenian’s Ecclesiology Revisited,” JECS 22.3 (2014): 399–436.

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spiritual power.22 A favorite image for the disgraced bishops was the dead branches that had been pruned from the “true vine” of John 15; the traditores were “bastard vines” destined for the fire.23 Without the Spirit, Parmenian reasoned, Catholic bishops were no different from heretics such as Marcion, Sabellius, and Valentinus who taught and acted in the name of God but without effect.24 Only those who possessed the gift could give it to others. Only Donatist bishops were Givers.25 Whether heretic, schismatic, or betrayer, any cleric who had become disconnected from the life of the Spirit could no longer ordain, absolve sin, administer the sacrament, or – most significantly for our purposes – rightly interpret the Bible. The Donatists inherited this last idea from Cyprian, the patron saint of North Africa.26 Cyprian’s theology and churchmanship provided the template for Donatist dissidents, and his words rivaled inspired Scripture in authority.27 Donatists insisted on holding to his version of the Bible, a form of the Vetus Latina, even after newer translations became available.28 Yet Cyprian was an exemplar for all African Christians, both Catholics and Donatists, and in his polemic against the schismatics Optatus constantly confronted the specter of the old bishop. Scholars are ambivalent

22 Parmenian claimed that Donatists alone possessed the Spirit (De schism. 2.7.1 [SC 412:256]). Donatist bishops were “givers” because they had the power to bestow the gift of the Spirit; of Catholic clergy Parmenian asked, “How can the one who has nothing give anything?” (De schism. 5.6.1 [SC 413:140]); trans. is my own. 23 Quoting Wis 4:3; De schism. 4.8.1 (SC 413:104). 24 De schism. 1.9.2 (SC 412:188, 190). 25 De schism. 5.7.1 (SC 413:142). 26 Cyprian, Ep. 4 [61].4.3 (CCSL 3B:24), 73 [74].21.2 (CCSL 3C:555–56). In fact, Cyprian gleaned this idea from Tertullian who, in Praescr. 15–19, asserted that “heretics have no right to handle scripture.” The Donatist Council of Zertei, held in 414, and cited against Gaudentius by Augustine, prohibited Catholic clergy from celebrating Eucharist and preaching (Augustine, Contra Gaudentium Donatistarum episcopum 1.37.48 [BA 32:622]). 27 The same stichometric list that Donatists scholars used to monitor Scripture contained a list for the works of Cyprian. See Rouse and McNelis, “North African Literary Activity,” 206 as well as W. Sanday, “The Cheltenham List of the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament and of the Writings of Cyprian,” in Essays Chiefly in Biblical and Patristic Criticism, vol. 3, Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica (Oxford: Clarendon, 1891): 261–303. On Cyprian’s influence on the Donatist schism, see J. P. Burns, Cyprian the Bishop (New York: Routledge, 2002), 166–69. See also G. Dunn, “Optatus and Parmenian on the Authority of Cyprian,” in The Uniquely African Controversy: Studies on Donatist Christianity, eds. A. Dupont, M. Gaumer, and M. Lamberigts, Late Antique History and Religion 9 (Leuven: Peeters, 2015): 179–96. 28 H. A. G. Houghton, “The Use of Latin Fathers for New Testament Criticism,” in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis, eds. B. Ehrman and M. W. Holmes, 2nd ed., NTTSD 42 (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 375–405. See also J. Gribomont, “Les plus anciennes traductions latines,” in Le monde latin antique et la Bible, eds. J. Fontain and C. Pietri, Bible de tous les temps 2 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1985): 43–66, esp. 50; and B. Quinot, “Remarques textuelles sur les citations scripturaires de Petilianus,” in BA 30:773–76.

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about their relationship. James Alexander viewed Optatus as “an innovator” moving away from Cyprian, while Jane Merdinger cast him as “a traditional African churchman taking his cue from Cyprian.”29 Much scholarship on Optatus focuses on aspects of that fraught association. To speak of Optatus’s dependence on Cyprian is to speak of Optatus’s loyalty to Africa and to Rome. Optatus’s party, the Catholics, enjoyed imperial recognition in the form of curial exemptions, military protection, and access to the imperial fiscus. Though imperial recognition brought many advantages, it meant ceding some African practices to the Roman tradition.30 Moreover, African hostility toward the empire made Optatus defensive about his reliance on Rome. He was particularly sensitive about the accusation that Catholics instigated the violent suppression of Donatists during the Unification Campaign led by the imperial notaries Paul and Macarius in 347. Some Donatists resisted and were killed in that affair. With characteristic flair, Parmenian announced that such violence proved the Catholics false: “The thing cannot rightly be called a church which is fed with bloody morsels and which grows fat on the blood and flesh of martyrs.”31 Three of Optatus’s original six books were dedicated to refuting Parmenian’s charge of collusion. Though there is no evidence that Catholics were actively involved in the suppression, it is true that the beleaguered Catholics depended on Roman recognition; imperial favor, however, was a fickle thing. Optatus worried that his party might lose their privilege, and for good reason. De schismate Donatistarum adversus Parmenianum was published in the immediate aftermath of Julian’s restoration of Donatist leaders, and the second edition of his book came out during the time of Flavianus, the vicar of Africa whose refusal to enforce anti-Donatist legislation sparked a second Donatist revival in the 380s.32 Optatus read Scripture tensed between the poles of African autonomy and dependence on the empire, the martyrs’ legacy, and the expediency of state support. Optatus’s aim in De schism. was to protect and extend Catholic privilege. Given the relative weakness of their position, a strategy of unification with the majority party was pragmatic. Without directly contradicting the Cyprianic tradition or yielding to Donatist claims, Optatus had to find a way to change the terms of the debate. The sheer diversity of Optatus’s interpretive tactics testifies to his rhetorical abilities. Chief among them was his attempt to redefine the boundaries of the church such that 29 J. Alexander, “Donatism,” in The Early Christian World, ed. P. F. Esler (New York: Routledge, 2000), 2:964. J. Merdinger, Rome and the African Church in the Time of Augustine (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 59. 30 Burns, Cyprian, 169. 31 De schism. 2.14.1 (SC 412:268). This argument is repeated later at the Conference of Carthage in 411: “Episcopi veritatis Catholicae quae persecutionem patitur, non quae facit,” so S. Lancel, ed. and trans., Texte et traduction des actes de la deuxième et de la troisième séance, vol. 3, Actes de la Conférence de Carthage en 411 (Paris: Cerf, 1975), 251 (= SC 22 4:1188). 32 Augustine (wrongly) believed Flavianus to be a Donatist (cf. Ep. 87.8 [CSEL 34/2:403–4]).

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schism did not automatically exclude one from the body of Christ. Borrowing a phrase from Cyprian, Optatus repeatedly stressed the unitas ecclesiae, in which he generously included the Donatists. “One mother church has born us,” he reminded Parmenian, whom he insisted on calling his “brother.”33 And, even though they were currently estranged, siblings who have passed through the same womb of baptism cannot ultimately be separated.34 In a line of attack perfected by Augustine a generation later, Optatus suggested that the Donatists were the true “traitors” because they had not exercised charity by returning their brother’s love. Nevertheless, Optatus was not able to deny the holiness of the Donatist clergy outright, which was widely respected. Instead, he developed a theology of the sacrament in which the validity of the rite depended not on the status of the minister but on the sanctifying name of the Trinity. Donatists should “acknowledge that the Lord is the Giver,” not the bishop.35 His novel sacramental theology and ecclesiology – both rooted in a distinctive pneumatology – had implications for his reading of Scripture.

Previous Scholarship on Optatus Optatus’s Biblical Text: Intentional Revisions or Later Emendations Scholarship on Optatus’s use of the Bible has clustered in two areas: textual issues surrounding Optatus’s biblical version and the interpretation of Scripture. The Milevian’s biblical citations have long been recognized as idiosyncratic. Words and phrases are inserted or rearranged, seemingly willy-nilly. The same passage is quoted differently in different sections, even in the same paragraph.36 He sometimes stitched together verses using phrases from different passages.37 Some citations are not even identifiably canonical.38 Sixteen biblical quotations show variations such as the addition or elimination of some words. Some of the changes are relatively minor, such as the use of synonyms (dic and loquere in Ezek 28:2) or changes of grammatical number (scandalum and scandala in Ps 49:20) or case (tui and te in Isa 22:2). Others

33 De schism. 4.5.1 (SC 413:90). 34 De schism. 4.2.4 (SC 413:82). 35 De schism. 5.4.7 (SC 413:130). 36 Quoting Ps 49:20 in De schism. 4.5.3 (SC 413:90). 37 E.g., John 4:4, 3:8 in De schism. 2.6.1 (SC 412:256), as well as Matt 26:31, 45 in De schism. 7.3.8 (SC 413:224). 38 In De schism. 1.5.2 (SC 412:180) he attributes a passage to Peter, though nothing close to it appears in either 1 or 2 Peter. Labrousse, the text’s editor, speculates that Optatus is quoting Jas 4:11 from memory and misattributes it.

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are more substantial, as in the verbal mood changes of Matt 28:19 (Ite, baptizate omnes gentes in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti).39 The Latin text of Optatus’s day was fluid, and contested readings often sprang up around partisan prooftexts. Optatus reports that biblical manuscripts were numerous and “in the hands of all”; this multitude of texts undoubtedly contributed to the plurality of textual variants.40 In the polarized atmosphere of the schism, even minor textual differences could carry significant weight. The number of the word “seat” (cathedra or cathedrae), for instance, in Ps 1:1 sparked at least a half century of debate (and some bizarre behavior at the Conference of Carthage in 411).41 From an early date, the Donatists settled on Cyprian’s version as the orthodox standard (though they had proprietary readings of their own).42 Donatists copied their own biblical manuscripts and developed their own lectionary cycle, the latter detail evidenced by distinctive capitula, or chapter headings, inserted into the Latin text.43 The stichometric lists of the Cheltenham canon (dated 359) attests to the fear that the biblical text might be tampered with.44 The complexity of Optatus’s biblical text is plain from the very first verse that he cited, John 14:27: pacem meam do vobis, pacem meam vobis relinquo.45 The order of the clauses follows that of Cyprian in his Testimonium but is a reversal of the Vulgate.46 Optatus departed from Cyprian, however, in his use of relinquo rather than

39 P. Marone, “Optatus and the African Old Latin,” TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 13 (2008): 1–11, esp. 8 (= P. Marone, “Ottato e la revisione del testo biblico dell’Afra,” RivB 55 [2007]: 335–44). 40 De schism. 5.3.8 (SC 413:124); a few paragraphs later, in De schism. 5.5.4 (SC 413:136), he uses participles in citing this same text. Other examples of substantial changes include his modification of 2 Tim 2:2 and John 13:10; cf. infra. 41 Augustine mentions Petilian’s contested citation of Ps 1:1 (Contra litteras Petiliani 2.46.107 [BA 30:366–68]). See S. Lunn-Rockliffe, “Bishops on the Chair of Pestilence: Ambrosiaster’s Polemical Exegesis of Psalm 1.1,” JECS 19.1 (2011): 79–99. For the practical implications of this passage, see M. Tilley, “Dilatory Donatists or Procrastinating Catholics: The Trial at the Conference of Carthage,” CH 60 (1991): 7–19, esp. 12. 42 See Augustine’s remark on the “African” version in Retractiones 1.21.3 (CCSL 57:63). Even though the greatest number of corrections to the biblical text by Augustine are found in his antiDonatist works, according to H. Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 20, he never accuses the Donatists of amending the text for ideological reasons. For an example of Donatists modifying the text for their own purposes, see J. Alexander, “A Note on the Identity of the ‘Man of God’ of I Kgs. xiii in Gesta Coll. Carthag. 3.258,” JTS, NS 28.1 (1977): 109–12. 43 See n. 5 supra. 44 R. Gryson “Les citations scripturaires des œuvres attribuées à l’évêque arien Maximinus,” RBén 88 (1978): 45–80, discusses an intriguing parallel: Arian Christians in Africa were also active in partisan biblical production during this period. 45 De schism. 1.1.2 (SC 412:172, 174). 46 A comparison of these versions was made by P. Monceaux, Tertullien et les origines, vol. 1, Histoire littéraire de l’afrique chrétienne depuis les origines jusqu’à l’invasion arabe (Paris: Leroux, 1901), 135.

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demitto. The text of the Gesta apud Zenophilium, purportedly quoting a Donatist text, matches Optatus’s reading.47 He thus shares characteristics of Cyprianic, Donatist, and Hieronymian versions. Early scholars believed that the text was simply too inconsistent to draw any definite conclusions. In a short article from 1916, Ernesto Buonaiuti examined two of Optatus’s more eccentric quotations (1 Tim 2:2, Luke 9:62) and ruled that Optatus’s free citations are not subject to philological analysis.48 Nevertheless, scholars have attempted just such an analysis. O. R. Vassall-Phillips, who made the first English translation of the text, believed Optatus used a “pre-Hieronymian version,” African in form but less typically so than that of Cyprian; he speculated that Optatus would have valued the inspiration of the text too highly to modify it willfully.49 In one of the first critical studies of his biblical text, Paul Monceaux concluded that Optatus was directly reliant on Cyprian for his text, with some exceptions in the Gospel of Matthew.50 Two broad explanations have emerged for the variations that are present in his text: (1) Optatus revised the Old Latin text himself, either to combat the Donatists or to conform to more cosmopolitan recensions; (2) the discrepancies are the result of scribal emendations and errors of transmission. Paul Capelle was the first to develop the thesis that Optatus intentionally altered the text. Focusing on the Psalms most frequently cited by African writers, Capelle noted that a major shift occurred in the text of Optatus.51 He concluded that Optatus strategically modified the biblical texts that figured most prominently in the Donatist debate. Umberto Moricca, in his survey of Christian Latin literature, also attributed the irregularities in Optatus’s text to the author, though without giving specific examples.52 Pincherle pointed out that Optatus’s version of 1 Tim 2:2 seemed to have an imperial bias.53 Also, in the specific context of the controversy over re-baptism, Optatus inserted the word “again” (iterum) into John 13:10 (qui semel lotus est non habet necessitatem iterum lavandi), diverging from the version of Cyprian and the Donatist Petilian.54 Berthold Altaner, in his suggestion that the imperative non facies

47 Optatus, Gesta apud Zenophilium 9 (J.-L. Maier, ed., Des Origines à la mort de Constance II (303–361), vol. 1, Le dossier du Donatisme, TU 134 [Berlin: Akademie, 1987], 226). 48 E. Buonaiuti, “Le citazioni bibliche in Ottato di Milevi,” Rivista di Scienza delle Religioni 1 (1916): 145–46. 49 Vassall-Phillips, Work of St. Optatus, xxv–vi. 50 Monceaux, Tertullien, 134–35. 51 “La transformation est PROFONDE” (caps. in orig.), in P. Capelle, Le texte du Psautier latin en Afrique Collectanea biblica latina, 4 (Rome: Pustet, 1913), 78–81, 80. 52 U. Moricca, Dalle origini fino al tempo di Constantino, vol. 1, Storia della letteratura latina cristiana (Torino: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1925), 42. 53 A. Pincherle, “L’ecclesiologia nella controversia donatista,” Ricerche Religiose 1 (1925): 35–46, esp. 44. 54 De schism. 5.3.8 (SC 413:124); cf. Test. 3.39 (CCL 3:132) and Petilian in C. litt. Petil. 2.22.49 (CSEL 52:48). Augustine follows Optatus. For further textual analysis, see Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John, 304–5.

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schisma may have followed the Greek text of the Didache rather than the text of 1 Cor 1:10, acknowledged that Optatus’s changes may not have been totally arbitrary, but based on scholarly prerogative.55 In a series of studies culminating in L’esegesi biblica di Ottato di Milevi, Paola Marone has argued that Optatus produced a new text of Scripture to distance himself from the Cyprianic legacy of the Old Latin textual tradition that was used by the Donatists.56 “Therefore we can say that Optatus . . . decided to modify the African Old Latin. Just as he was delineating an ecclesiological and sacramental theology in contrast with the thought of Cyprian, the bishop of Milevis gave up the African Old Latin.”57 Marone’s position is a revision of the scholarly consensus established by Sven Blomgren, who disagreed with Capelle, asserting instead that the irregularities are best explained as copyist errors and interpolations by later editors.58 Labrousse, in her critical edition, extended Blomgren’s argument by observing that the two editions of Optatus’s work, separated by two decades, likely absorbed some of the instability of the Latin text in the period as it moved from the Vetus Latina to the Vulgate.59 Hugh Houghton has urged caution in accepting Marone’s stronger claims.60 Nevertheless, her thesis remains compelling.

Biblical Interpretation: Traditional or Innovative As with the study of his biblical text, most investigations of Optatus’s exegesis have compared him to his African predecessors and to his Donatist rivals. In his study of Cyprian’s reception in early Christian literature, Hugo Koch traced the interpretation of several passages widely attested in North African literature in the third and fourth centuries. He noted that several of Optatus’s arguments were derived from Cyprian, such as the allegory of the garden and the church from Song 4:12, the identification of schismatics with Korahite rebels in Num 16, and comparison of schismatics to weeds in Wis 4:3. In fact, the biblical texts he used most – the Psalms, the Prophets (especially Ezekiel and Isaiah), the Gospel of Matthew, and the Pauline

55 De schism. 1.21.3 (SC 412:218), perhaps referencing Didache 4.3 (SC 248:158); cf. B. Altaner, Patrology. Trans. H. C. Graef (New York: Herder, 1966), 80. 56 P. Marone, “Ottato e la Scrittura,” SMSR 70 (2004): 27–49; P. Marone, “Note sul testo biblico di Ottato,” SMSR 71 (2005): 309–36. 57 Marone, “Optatus and the African Old Latin,” 8 (= Marone, “Ottato e la revisione del testo biblico dell’Afra,” 335–44). At least some of Optatus’s modifications correspond to the Greek New Testament and the LXX; Marone says direct consultation of the Greek texts “cannot be ruled out.” For specific examples, see Marone, L’esegesi biblica, 99–101. 58 S. Blomgren, “Ad Optatum Milevitanum adnotationes,” Eranos 37 (1939): 85–120; also, S. Blomgren, Eine Echtheitsfrage bei Optatus von Mileve (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1959), 43. 59 Labrousse, Optat de Milève, 1:138. 60 Houghton, “Use of the Latin Fathers,” 5 n. 28.

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Epistles – were standard North African sources.61 Optatus, wrote Koch, moved “in the language and thought of Cyprian, as in his own home.”62 Karl Adam, in an analysis of the reception of Matt 16:18, likewise concluded that Optatus relied heavily on Cyprian’s On the Unity of the Catholic Church (De catholicae ecclesiae unitate) for his interpretation of Peter as “the rock” on which Roman ecclesial priority was built.63 More recently, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe has argued in a study of Ps 1:1 that Optatus’s exegesis was an attempt to reclaim Cyprian from the Donatists.64 While the parallels between Cyprian and Optatus are undeniable, it is significant that nearly all the Cyprianic images he employed were used first by Parmenian. Other studies of his exegesis have examined the similarities between Optatine and Donatist interpretations. Jean-Paul Brisson assembled a list of Cyprianic texts quoted by Donatist writers and compared them with Optatus’s deployments. Brisson, who understood the Donatists as a group which had organized themselves into a religious front for purposes that were fundamentally political, believed that the interpretations of Optatus and the Donatists contained significant affinities.65 Though sympathetic to his general thesis, Pincherle challenged the specific scriptural contiguities between the theologians sketched by Brisson.66 Wilhite also found parallels between Optatus and his rivals, noting that their disagreement did not lie in their interpretative method but in the respective applications of their allegorical readings.67 In her study of Donatist biblical interpretation, The Bible in Christian North Africa, Maureen Tilley assessed Optatus’s exegesis as reactionary rather than constructive.68

61 The Psalms are cited forty times, Isaiah and Ezekiel combined receive twenty-nine citations, the Gospel of Matthew twenty-seven, and the Pauline Epistles combined receive thirty-nine citations. For a table with all the biblical citations in Optatus, see Marone, “Ottato e la Scrittura,” 36. 62 H. Koch, “La sopravvivenza di Cipriano nell’antica letteratura cristiana: Cipriano ed Ottato,” Ricerche Religiose 7 (1931): 321–35. Note the concluding remarks on Cyprian’s exegesis in M. Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible: a Study in Third-Century Exegesis, Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Hermeneutik 9 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1971), 625, which is characterized by “a naive optimism and a disconcerting confidence, convinced that its orthodox meaning would be clear simply by the exercise of common sense (ratio).” 63 K. Adam, “Cyprians Kommentar zu Mt. 16,18 in dogmengeschichtlicher Beleuchtung,” Tübinger Theologische Quartalschrift 94 (1912): 99–120, 203–44, esp. 215–17. 64 Lunn-Rockliffe, “Bishops on the Chair of Pestilence,” 79–99. 65 J.-P. Brisson, Autonomisme et christianisme dans l’Afrique romaine de Sévère à l’invasion vandal (Paris: de Boccard, 1958), 144–50, 234–36. For a critical review of his method, see A. Mandouze, “Encore le donatisme. Problèmes de méthode posés par la thèse de J.-P. Brisson,” L’antiquité classique 29 (1960): 61–107. 66 A. Pincherle, “Note sul donatismo. A proposito di un libro recente,” SMSR 33 (1962): 155–69. 67 Wilhite, “True Church or True Basilica,” 402. 68 M. Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 98–99.

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The most sustained treatment of Optatus’s biblical interpretation to date is Paola Marone’s L’esegesi biblica di Ottato di Milevi.69 She considers several major themes in his use of Scripture, including Scripture as lex and testamentum, his exegetical terminology, and his application of argumentation and rhetoric. Building on her thesis that Optatus personally modified Cyprian’s Old Latin text, she argues that Optatus “distances himself” from Cyprian. Donatist veneration of Cyprian prompted Optatus to “seek new paths” theologically and exegetically in order to heal the schism.70 His commitment to the Roman church, more than the African tradition, guided his biblical readings. If there are specific traces of Cyprian to be found in Optatus, they have seeped in through Parmenian.

Optatus’s Imperial Reading of Scripture Ratio, not Spiritus Optatus’s use of the Bible in De schism. is inconsistent, dictated by the exigencies of the controversy at hand. In this regard, he does not differ much from Tertullian, Cyprian, or Parmenian, none of whom had a well-defined hermeneutical method. Nevertheless, despite the seemingly ad hoc nature of his use of Scripture, Optatus maintained that true interpretation is rational.71 Long-standing African tradition held that the reading and understanding of Scripture were spiritual activities open only to spiritual persons. Donatus was received by the people as a Spirit-filled prophet, much to Optatus’s consternation.72 Though perhaps especially charismatic, Donatus was not unique among African clergy. Even the men who read the Scripture publicly, the

69 Cf. n. 1 supra. Her earlier studies include “Alcune riflessioni sull’esegesi biblica di Ottato,” Aug 46 (2006): 389–410; and “L’esegesi biblica di Ottato di Milevi come veicolo della trasformazione della teologia africana,” Annali di storia dell’esegesi 23 (2006): 215–22. 70 Marone, L’esegesi biblica, 134. 71 Marone argues that Optatus interprets “Catholic” in De schism. 2.1.4 (SC 412:238) as “harmony with the truth.” There is a textual issue here that obscures the meaning. Labrousse has “Cum inde dicta sit Catholica quod sit rationalibis et ubique diffusa.” Ziwsa, however, emends “rationabilis” to “non nationalis” in his apparatus (CSEL 26:33 n. 14), a reading accepted by Edwards in his translation (cf. Optatus, 29). O. R. Vassall-Phillips, The Work of St. Optatus (London: Longmans, 1917), 59 n. 3, writes “The Church is Catholic or rationabilis (according to right reason) in contradistinction to heretics who have strayed from the truth.” Marone, L’esegesis biblica, 126, writes: “Dunque per Ottato la sua Chiesa oltre che’ καθ’ὅλον universale, era κατὰ λόγον, conforme alla ragione in quanto sede della verità, perché a differenza delle Chiese degli eretici non si era allontanata dalla verità.” Though Ziwsa’s emendation is a stretch, the context supports Edwards’s reading. 72 De schism. 3.3.14 (SC 413:28). Optatus is critical of Donatus’s popularity, accusing him of blasphemous superbia.

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lectores, were thought to be inspired.73 Donatists believed that those without the Spirit – the unbaptized as well as heretics and apostates – belonged to an ontologically different category, one that was defined by the sacraments.74 Optatus insisted, however, that sanctity was not the key to interpretation; rather, the key was ratio. To his mind, the difference between the parties was intellectual, a matter of differing scriptural interpretations that could be resolved through reason. “Even if the thoughts of men are in dispute,” he says, “the sacraments are not in dispute.”75 The truth of the interpretations offered by the parties had little to do with the presence of the Spirit but with historical grievances and malignant wresting of Scripture. “In your zeal to incriminate Catholics you have attempted to turn many things to your own will by reconstructing everything.”76 To arbitrate the conflict, Optatus appealed to the law of Scripture, which he believed they held in common.77 A personal judge would have been preferable, but the Christians were all partisan, the Jews were “enemies of baptism,” and pagan magistrates were ignorant of the disciplina arcani. Christ alone, the lex vivendi, could judge the schism fairly. Though no longer present in body, he left the gospel as a last will and testamentum. “If any quarrel arises between brothers . . . they seek the testament. . . . Therefore, let [the Father’s] will be sought in the gospel, as in a testament.”78 Here Optatus drew on the Roman legal process for determining a legal heir after the father’s death, the testamentum calatis comitis.79 Catholics were the filii pacis, the true heirs, even though Donatists also remained sons, albeit adopted. If the adopted sons continued to disregard the “discipline of the testament,” which is unity, they would forfeit their sonship.80 This forensic approach to Scripture was common in North Africa, where Scripture was regularly called the lex divina.81

73 Cyprian, Ep. 38 [32].2 (CCSL 3B:184–85). Here the lector is the confessor Aurelius, an illiterate man (cf. Ep. 27 [22].1.2; CCSL 3B:128). Another lector, Celerinus, received night visions (Ep. 39 [33].1.2 [CCSL 3B:186–87]). Both men are qualified by their steadfastness in persecution. 74 Recall the story of the unbaptized infant who was mistakenly fed the host recounted in Laps. 25 (CSEL 3.1:255). 75 De schism. 3.9.4 (SC 413:64). 76 De schism. 4.9.1 (SC 413:104). 77 De schism. 5.1.11 (SC 413:116). 78 De schism. 5.3.5 (SC 413:122). 79 Marone, L’esegesi biblica, 121. For the legal background of testamentum calatis comitis, see A. Watson, The Spirit of Roman Law (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2008), 181. Heirs not only succeeded the deceased’s liabilities and assets – in this case, the basilica and its accoutrements – but also were expected to continue his religious duties (sacra), here, the ministry of the sacraments. The concept of testamentum is used in Heb 9:15–19 as well as in Marc. 4.1.1 (CCSL 1: 544–45). Petilian also spoke of Scripture as a testament (C. litt. Petil. 2.8.20). 80 De Schism. 4.4.1 (SC 413:88). 81 For more on the concept of Scripture as law in this period, see A. Bass, “Justus sibi lex est: Donatist Interpretation of Romans 2:14 and Roman Civil Law,” in Secular Struggles and Sacred Scripture, ed. D. Meconi (Leiden: Brill, 2015): 162–78. Optatus retained a sense of the distinction

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Reason must be used to discern the voice of Christ speaking in the testamentum. For instance, Parmenian cited Ps 140:5 (“Let not the oil of the wicked anoint my head”) as evidence that clergy cannot be ordained by fallen bishops.82 Optatus countered that “these are prayers, not precepts.” Appealing to the traditional practice of prosopography, he identified the speaker of Ps 140:5 as Christ. Early Christian writers were preoccupied with determining the precise speaker of any given text, distinguishing between human speakers and God as well as between the persons of the Trinity.83 Parmenian assumed the speaker to be the psalmist David and applied the text to any anointed man of God; Optatus, on the other hand, explained that Jesus is praying to the Father that he not be anointed by a human being (which would be “indecent”) but only by the Father himself. This anointing occurred when the Spirit descended on Jesus after his baptism in the Jordan. The Psalm thus has no bearing on current affairs. “Late though it is,” Optatus counsels, “learn the true reasoning” (rationem veritatis).84 Optatus came close to defining an exegetical principle in the fourth book, where he charged Parmenian with abusing figurative exegesis. “Wherever you have found ‘water’ written, you use devilry to apply it deviously,” he accused, referring to allegories of baptism in the Old Testament. Optatus was not opposed to figurative readings – circumcision is undoubtedly a “type” (figura) of baptism – but he held that a given passage can have only one meaning, either literal or figurative. In Parmenian’s multivalent reading, circumcision could signify both true (Donatist) baptism and false (Catholic) baptism, depending on the context. Optatus balked. “Why then, brother Parmenian, does it please you to propose a single thing [i.e., circumcision] and contradictorily liken it to two different baptisms, one true and one false?”85 Similarly, Parmenian could argue that the Genesis flood, a narrative type of baptism, both saved Noah and destroyed the wicked; the same baptismal water brings life when applied by righteous ministers, pollution when given by false. Optatus objected that the flood occurred only once; there would have to have been two arks to validate Parmenian’s conclusion. For any given text of Scripture there could be only one referent, and the historic one is to be preferred. His appeal to interpretation simpliciter is reminiscent of Tertullian’s attack on heretical allegory, but in most cases it still sounds like special pleading.86

between Roman law and Scripture – lex publica and lex divina (De schism. 6.5.2 [SC 413:180]) – but his was nowhere near as sharp as was that of the Donatists. 82 De schism. 4.7.1 (SC 413:100). 83 D. Downs, “Prosopological Exegesis in Cyprian’s De opere et eleemosynis,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 6 (2012): 279–94. 84 De schism. 4.7.6 (SC 413:102). 85 De schism. 5.1.7 (SC 413:114). 86 De schism. 4.8.1 (SC 413:104). For background on simplicter intellegendum and spiritaliter, see R. P. C. Hanson, “Notes on Tertullian’s Interpretation of Scripture,” JTS NS 22 (1961): 273–79.

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Yet even in this instance, Optatus’s primary goal was not to establish a set of coherent principles for reading Scripture. His aim was to challenge the charismatic authority of the Donatist bishops who used Scripture in a prophetic, almost oracular fashion to condemn Catholics. “You think that everything said through the prophets applies to our own time.”87 Donatists held that there was a temporal immediacy to the words of Scripture, which transcended historical interpretation, such that Donatist ministers were less rational interpreters than they were mouthpieces for the living Spirit. While trying to delegitimize his practice, Optatus continued to indulge in the same form of prophetic exegesis when it suited his purposes. In an original reading of Ezek 28 without parallel in Tertullian or Augustine, Optatus pegged Donatus the Great as “the prince of Tyre,” a figure universally associated with Satan.88 In classical literature and the Old Latin of Isa 23, Tyre was linked with Carthage, and Optatus noted correspondences between Ezek 28 and Donatus’s biography. Just as the prince would “die at sea,” so Donatus was said to have died while crossing the Mediterranean (though Optatus added that “sea” was also a figure for “the world,” indicating his excommunicated status). Most significantly, Donatus, like “the prince,” exalted himself above God – and would be judged accordingly. The very thing that Optatus condemns – Donatus’s alleged declaration “ego sum Deus” – closely resembles the ecstatic prophecy of the Phrygians.89 To Optatus, however, it was simply damnable pride. Compelled by circumstances to abandon the traditional hermeneutical framework held by the Donatists, Optatus sometimes forced readings to justify his theological positions. One of Parmenian’s most effective critiques of the Catholics was their involvement with the Macarian persecution in which some Donatists had lost their lives. Without admitting complicity, Optatus justified the persecution with several examples of divinely approved judicial executions in the Old Testament: Phineas killed the fornicating couple in Num 25, Moses oversaw the massacre of the 3,000 rebels in Num 16, and Elijah slaughtered the 450 prophets of Baal in 1 Kgs 18. Optatus acknowledged the ambiguity of the law, which also commanded “Do not kill.” But rather than reconcile the contradiction, he simply stated that sometimes God speaks with “two divergent voices,” only one of which can be obeyed.90 In killing the sinful couple, for instance, Phineas chose “the better sin,” “better” glossed as that which fulfills his duty to the law. This explanation would be tautologous, except that Optatus seems to be moving toward an understanding of lex that

87 De schism. 4.9.2 (SC 413:106). 88 De schism. 3.3.10–12 (SC 413:24, 26). See H. Patmore, Adam, Satan and the King of Tyre (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 41–50. 89 There is, however, no established historical connection between the Donatists and the New Prophecy. On Christian prophets speaking in the name of God, see C. Trevett, Monatanism: Gender, Authority, and the New Prophecy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 86–95. 90 De schism. 3.5.2 (SC 413:48).

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incorporates Roman law. The lex which mattered most for Optatus was the precept of pax et unitas, code language for church unification. In defying imperial (and Catholic) efforts to establish “peace,” the dissidents merited capital punishment. Worth noting is the Donatist hermeneutic opposed by Optatus, wherein the judicial killings of the Old Testament were read through a christological ethic of nonretaliation. “I see that here you distinguish the times,” Optatus wrote, “so that, since the times before the Gospel are one thing and those after it another, you can say, as it is written, that Peter already put away the sword with which he had cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave. Thus, Peter could have made a show of devotion in killing this slave, but Christ came to suffer, not to be defended.”91 Donatists held that intramural killing had ceased with the coming of Christ; following his example, Christians were called to suffer persecution, not enact it.92 God could still use state coercion to discipline the church via persecution, but Christians were forbidden to kill one another. For Optatus, however, Jesus’s biography no longer served as an interpretive touchstone for reading the Old Testament, at least with regard to the exercise of violence.93

91 De schism. 3.7.8 (SC 413:54). For more on Donatist dispensationalism, see A. Schindler, “Quelques remarques sur l’attitude des donatistes envers le temps,” in Le temps chrétien de la fin de l’ Antiquité au Moyen Âge: IIIe-XIIIe siècles: Paris, 1–12 mars 1981 (Paris: CNRS, 1984): 143–47. 92 In 398, Augustine recycled Optatus’s arguments in a friendly debate with the Donatist bishop Fortunius of Tubursi. Fortunius “affirmed that even a bad man should not be killed by Christians and righteous men.” When Augustine offered Optatus’s example of Elijah as a man led by the Spirit to execute pagans, Fortunius replied that no righteous person in the New Testament ever killed another, even a wicked person (Augustine, Ep. 44.4.9 [CSEL 34/2:116]). 93 This may be part of a larger trend in fourth-century interpretation. Due in part to the Arians’ reliance on the stories and example of Jesus, Nicene Christians began substituting saints in his place. See R. L. Wilken, Remembering the Christian Past (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 126–27, 133. Appeals to Old Testament figures in order to justify violence are attested in Tertullian, who likewise rejected Christian coercion. Note the similarities between Parmenian’s argument and this passage from De idololatria: “There is no agreement between the divine oath and the human, the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness. One soul cannot be owed to two masters – God and Caesar. And yet, to play the devil’s advocate, Moses carried a rod, and Aaron wore a warrior’s clasp, John the Baptist wore leather, Joshua the son of Nun led an army, and the people went to war. But how will a Christian serve in war or even in peace without a sword, which the Lord has taken away? For even though soldiers came to John and received orders, and even though a centurion believed, nevertheless the Lord disarmed every soldier when he disarmed Peter” (Idol. 19 [CSEL 19:53; trans. is my own]: “Non convenit sacramento divino et humano, signo Christi et signo diaboli, castris lucis et castris tenebrarum; non potest una anima duobus deberi, Deo et Caesari. Et virgam portavit Moyses, fibulam et Aaron, cingitur loro et Johannes, agmen agit et Jesus nave, bellavit et populus, si placet ludere. Quomodo autem bellabit, immo quomodo etiam in pace militabit sine gladio, quem Dominus abstulit? Nam etsi adierant milites ad Johannem et formam observationis acceperant, si etiam centurio crediderat, omnem postea militem Dominus in Petro exarmando discinxit.”).

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Constructing a (Roman) Catholic World Optatus’s rejection of Parmenian’s dispensational reading of the Old Testament indicated that Catholics and Donatists were moving into divergent epistemic cultures. While Optatus’s expositions were not consistent or particularly innovative in themselves, he represents a transition between Donatist apocalypticism and the emerging Catholic imperial perspective. There was original hermeneutical work being done in Optatus’s day – in the period between the first and second editions of De schism., the Donatist theologian Tyconius published the Book of Rules (Liber regularum), the first systematic work of biblical interpretation in the west.94 Tyconius’s regulae are less hermeneutical principles, however, than theological declarations regarding the church and the world, human history, and Scripture itself – it was a narrative hermeneutic. Maureen Tilley dubbed this interpretive framework “the Donatist world.”95 Though lacking the defined form of Tyconius, Optatus was constructing a “Catholic world” within which Scripture could be interpreted.96 Optatus read Scripture as a Roman Christian. Catholics in Africa enjoyed imperial recognition, and this new alliance altered the hermeneutical horizons. Though not legally Christian yet, Optatus believed the empire had already been sanctified by the Divine Name through the rule of Christian emperors. Under Constantine, “the [devil’s] idols were deserted and he was like a prisoner hiding in temples.”97 Christian martyrs no longer struggled against a diabolical empire; to resist imperial agents as the Donatists in Bagai had done was to “wage war” against “the Name.”98 Christians ought to live peaceably with the imperial powers, he urged, holding up Paul’s injunction to pray for those in power. Intentionally or not, he misquoted 1 Tim 2:2 as “pray for the rulers and powers so that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life with them” (cum ipsis rather than cum omni).99 Erich Dinkler dubbed Optatus the “first theologian and apologist for the State Church.”100 De schismate Donatistarum adversus Parmenianum reflects the redefinition of social and theological boundaries underway in the fourth century. Whereas the Donatists continued to draw a bright line between the ecclesia and the empire,

94 For more on Tyconius, see the chapter by Hoover in this volume. 95 Tilley, Bible in Christian North Africa, 7. 96 This methodology is similar to David Wilhite’s revisioning of Cyprian’s exegesis in light of his social identity in “Cyprian’s Scriptural Hermeneutic of Identity: The Laxist ‘Heresy,’” HBT 32 (2010): 58–98. 97 De schism. 2.15.3 (SC 412:270). 98 De schism. 3.8.4 (SC 413:58). 99 De schism. 3.3.4 (SC 413:22). Also, see Buonaiuti, “Le citazioni bibliche,” 146; and Pincherele, “L’ecclesiologia,” 44. 100 E. Dinkler, “Optatus Afer,” in Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, eds. A. Pauly and G. Wissowa (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1939), 18.1:765–71.

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Optatus was easing into a “Catholic world” centered in Rome.101 He affirmed that the “the state is not in the church, but the church is in the state, that is, the Roman empire.” The symbiosis was natural, because Roman civilization was the source of “holy priesthoods and modesty and virginity which do not exist among the barbaric peoples.”102 This denigration of “barbarians” is a departure from the stance of early apologists such as Justin. Indeed, Optatus blames the schism, at least in part, on the heathen act of a Carthaginian matron named Lucilla, who turned against Caecilian after he censured her for venerating a martyr’s bone. As Robert Wiśniewski has shown, the story is anachronistic and likely fabricated; her veneration of a corporeal relic would have been offensive to cultured Roman tastes in the mid-fourth century.103 Likewise, Optatus called Donatist canonization of the Macarian martyrs “vain and superstitious,” insinuating that superstitio deserved sanction under Roman law.104 Tellingly, although Christian interpreters had long understood “Come with me from Lebanon” in Song 4:8 as a call to separate from the empire, Lebanon being a historical reference to the wicked kingdom of Assyria,105 Optatus ignored this interpretation (and the internal logic of the text), asserting that the empire was the source of good. Both Donatists and Catholics claimed to be the true “catholic” church. Donatists staked their claim on their fidelity to the “whole law” of Scripture manifest in their sanctified lives.106 Optatus understood catholicus geographically to mean “international,” spread through the “whole world,” and co-terminus with the empire.107 In a passage that continued to be the subject of dispute for decades, Optatus reinterpreted the field in Jesus’s parable of the wheat and tares as the church in order to prove that the church does, contra Donatistas, contain “sinners.”108 Parmenian, following the logic of the text, exegeted the weedy field as the “world” in which the Christians lived as wheat; there were no (visible) sinners in the church.109 Donatists

101 On the tensions between the older and newer views, see R. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augsutine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 22–71. 102 De schism. 3.3.5 (SC 413:22). 103 R. Wiśniewski, “Lucilla and the Bone: Remarks on an Early Testimony to the Cult of Relics,” Journal of Late Antiquity 4.1 (2011): 157–61. See also J. Eyl, “Optatus’ Account of Lucilla in Against the Donatists, or, Women Are Good to Undermine With,” in A Most Reliable Witness: Essays in Honor of Ross Shepard Kraemer, eds. S. A. Harvey et al., BJS 358 (Providence: Brown University Press, 2015): 155–64. 104 De schism. 3.8.7 (SC 413:60). 105 This was Tertullian’s understanding as expressed in Marc. 4.11 (CCSL 1:565–68); cf. Rev 18:4: “Come out, my people, so that you will not share in her sins.” 106 See Augustine, Ep. 93.7.23 (CSEL 34/2: 468): “ . . . ex observatione praeceptorum omnium divinorum . . . ” 107 De schism. 1.26.2 (SC 412:228); on this point, see R. Eno, “The Work of Optatus as a Turning Point in the African Ecclesiology,” The Thomist 37 (1973): 668–85. 108 De schism. 7.2.4–8 (SC 413:218, 220). 109 See R. Eno, “Some Nuances in the Ecclesiology of the Donatists,” REAug 18 (1972): 46–50.

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believed that the discipline of sinners was the duty of Christian ministers and that this discipline had to be applied consistently, even if that meant that most of the Christian world was excommunicated for their support of the traditores. Following Cyprian’s reading of John 20:23, Donatists held that the entire college of bishops held the sacramental power of absolution signified by the “keys of the kingdom.” Optatus countered that the church was a mixed body of sinners and saints that could not be controlled by bishops. Only Peter’s successor in Rome, the true keeper of the keys, had the power to define the ecclesial body (cf. Matt 16:18).110 Interpretation of a second parable, the parable of the wedding banquet or wedding garment (Matt 22:1–14, esp. 11–14), reflects the same tension. Parmenian believed the wedding feast in the parable referred to the gathered church. The bishops exercised discipline so that all members would be “properly clothed,” or sanctified, for the eucharistic banquet.111 Thus disciplined, the church could be the bride of Christ, “without spot or blemish,” a visible witness to the world of God’s holy kingdom.112 Donatist ecclesiology implied an inaugurated eschatology, so that divine judgment was an ongoing process meted out through the bishops. Optatus, on the other hand, read the parable as a reference to a future judgement that Christ alone would oversee. He accused Parmenian of “cutting off hope of future things, placing everything in the present time” so that “there is nothing more to expect in heaven.”113 Optatus objected to the policing of the boundaries between church and world by the bishops, relegating this work to God. It mattered less to Optatus what the “world” perceived than what God the righteous judge sees; whether consciously

110 De schism. 2.4.6 (SC 412:250). As he was wont to do, Optatus manipulated the reading of Matt 16:18: “Tibi dabo claves regni caelorum et portae inferorum non vincent eas.” He quoted the passage differently in book 7, adding the clause “et claves regni caelorum communicandas ceteris solus accepit” (7.3.3 [SC 413:222]). On the Donatist interpretation of the “keys,” which emphasized John 20:23 and the local collegium, see Augustine, Bapt. 1.11.15 (CSEL 51:160–61). Cyprian’s reading is found in Ep. 73 [74].7.2 (CCSL 3C:537). For the later theological significance of this controversy, see Vassall-Phillips, Work of St. Optatus, 284 n. 3. 111 Donatist ecclesial discipline could be incredibly harsh, as Optatus reported, but it was primarily administered internally. See B. Pottier, “Circumcelliones, Rural Society and Communal Violence in Late Antique North Africa,” in The Donatist Schism: Controversy and Contexts, ed. R. Miles (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016): 150–57. 112 De schism. 2.18.6 (SC 412:278). Ephesians 5:26–27, which was usually read alongside Song 6:8, was a key text in the later phase of the controversy; cf., e.g., Augustine, Ep. 185.9.38–40 (CSEL 57: 33–35); Augustine, Bapt. 4.4.5 (CSEL 51:226). The Donatist bishop Habetdeum cites it in Gesta Collationis Carthaginiensis 3.58 (SC 224:1198). For further context, see P. Langa, “Eph 5,27 en la disputa católico-donatista,” in Obras completas de San Agustín, Escritos antidonatistas, BAC 34 (Madrid: Biblioteca de autores cristianos, 1994), 3:768–69. For a view of the Donatist reading of Eph 5:26–28 that challenges the charge of perfectionism, see P. I. Kaufmann, “Augustine, Evil, and Donatism: Sin and Sanctity before the Pelagian Controversy,” TS 51 (1990): 115–26, esp. 117; and Eno, “Some Nuances in the Ecclesiology of the Donatists,” 50. 113 De schism. 5.10.1–2 (SC 413:156).

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or subconsciously, Optatus changed the subject of John 13:35 from the world to Christ: “By this I will know you that are my disciples, if you love one another.”114

New Sacramentology, New Hermeneutic Optatus’s mode of interpretation in these parables paralleled his famous revision of Catholic sacramentology – ex opere operato Christi.115 The Donatists held that their clergy were spiritually authorized to administer the sacraments because they alone possessed the Spirit. This was the logical extension of the African tradition that heretics had no power to baptize. Rather than argue over who was sanctified enough to perform the rites, Optatus moved the locus of spiritual power away from the minister to the ritual process itself. “It is not the agent of the rite who bestows these things to each believer, but the faith of the believer and the Trinity.”116 Agency is shifted away from the local and embodied toward the distant and heavenly – “for touch cannot have the same power as the invocation of the Divine Name.”117 This revisioning of sacramental power disarmed dissident bishops and simultaneously absolved the imperial agents Paul and Macarius of their violence. “It is the Name which sanctifies, not the action.”118 They too were only instruments of God’s will, fulfilling their duty in the “Divine Name.”119 The spiritual power that Parmenian located from the “bottom-up” in the local congregation, the collecta, Optatus assumed to be present from the “top-down” with Christ in heaven or with Christ’s agent in Rome. Recall that Optatus was moved to write against Parmenian in part because Catholics had lost the basilica in Carthage, along with all its furniture, vessels, and relics. To counter their claims, Optatus abstracted the ecclesia from the brick-and-mortar basilica in Carthage to Peter’s primatial see in Rome. The dotes were not physical objects in a specific place, he protested, but universal and intangible attributes of the ecclesia. Thus they were still accessible to Catholic bishops who could no longer enter the physical space of the basilica. The social body of the church is itself no longer distinctly visible but dissolved into the empire. He allegorized the “holy mountain of Zion” as the church, consonant with all early Christian interpreters, but he qualified this not as a local assembly of the saints but, rather, as the universal church, “spread

114 De schism. 4.4.3 (SC 413:88): “Inde scio quia discipuli mei estis, si vos invicem diligatis.” 115 The phrase is a later formulation, not Optatus’s. 116 De schism. 5.1.11 (SC 413:116): “Has res unicuique credenti non ejusdem rei operarius, sed credentis fides et Trinitas praestat.” 117 De schism. 6.3.9 (SC 413:172, 174): “Non enim tantam vim potest habere tactus, quantam habet divini nominis invocatio.” 118 De schism. 5.7.7 (SC 413:144): “Ergo nomen est quod sanctificat, non opus.” 119 De schism. 7.6.6 (SC 413:240).

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throughout the whole Roman world.”120 Optatus dematerialized the referent: the prophet “is not speaking of that physical mountain . . . [but] the spiritual Zion,” that is, heaven. As Wilhite points out, Optatus moves from “this church to the church.”121 Though they undoubtedly accepted the allegory, Donatists affirmed the physicality of the local assembly. The congregation was the holy mountain: elsewhere Isa 2:1–5 was used by Donatists to justify political separatism and eschatological nonviolence.122 God’s Spirit was thought to be embodied not only in the gathered church and her bishops, in the martyrs and the ascetics, but also in the material elements of the sacraments – bread, baptismal water, and chrism. Material things communicate God’s Spirit. Conversely, they can also transmit the demonic, which may explain the unusual purification rites performed by those Donatists who reclaimed basilicas after the Restoration.123 Bishops destroyed Catholic altars, poured out consecrated oil, and washed the walls of the basilicas with salt. Parmenian cited Hag 2:14: “Those things that the polluted one has touched are polluted.”124 Optatus countered once again by deprioritizing the material: “you have set out the gifts (dotes) so that they seem to generate something from themselves rather than from the inner life (viscera), which is understood to be in the sacraments more than in the superficialities.”125 The Spirit was also present in the volumes of Scripture, which is one reason why their surrender during the Diocletianic persecution provoked the schism in the first place. Indeed, the betrayal of the codices was viewed as handing over the Spirit, parallel to Judas’s betrayal of Jesus. So closely did the dissidents associate the Word and the codex that Optatus accused them of idolatry: “the Law and God are not one” (Non est unum lex et Deus), he exclaimed.126 Using Old Testament examples such as Moses’s breaking of the tablets of the law and Baruch’s handing over the scroll to be burned, he asserted that the physical vehicle of Scripture is less important than the words themselves – “the paper is in second place” (secundo loco membranae).127 True Catholics, he argued, know that the law is written on the heart by God himself.

120 De schism. 3.2.7–12 (SC 413:16, 18, 20): cf. 3.2.7 “ . . . in monte sancto qui est ecclesia, qui per omnem orbem Romanum . . . ” 121 Wilhite, “True Church of True Basilica,” 412; cf. De schism. 3.2.8 (SC 413:16): “Non illius corporalis montis, . . . est ergo spiritalis Sion ecclesia.” 122 See Petilian’s claims in C. litt. Petil. 2.92.202 (CSEL 52:123–26). This passage, which was central to early Christian eschatological expectations, almost completely falls out of use after Optatus: Augustine, e.g., never cites it. See G. Lohfink, “‘Schwertzer zu Pflugscharen’: Die Rezeption von Jes 2, 1–5 par. Mi 4,1–5 in der Alten Kirche und im Neuen Testament,” TQ 166 (1986): 190–95. 123 De schism. 6.1.11 (SC 413:166). 124 De schism. 6.3.1 (SC 413:168): “Quae tetigerit pollutus, polluta sunt.” 125 De schism. 2.10.3 (SC 412:264): “ . . . ordinasti dotes quasi ipsae videantur generare, non viscera quae intelleguntur plus posita in sacramentis quam in ornamentis.” 126 De schism. 7.1.36 (SC 413:210). 127 De schism. 7.1.22 (SC 413:204).

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Handing over copies of Scripture is not the same thing as betraying God, because “what has been written in heaven is more than what has been written on earth.”128 The Spirit is internalized, invisible, and no longer subject to the scrutiny of Donatist officials.

Conclusion It is regrettable that Optatus’s handling of Scripture is known only from his polemical work. Had any of his sermons survived, his quotidian use of Scripture in preaching and apologetic would have shed light on the form of interpretation in the time between Cyprian and Augustine. As it stands, Optatus is frozen in a defensive posture against the Donatists. His treatise was written and later revised during a period of Donatist ascendancy in North Africa, and his interpretative work can only be understood with reference to his Donatist rivals, particularly Parmenian, the bishop addressed in his work. Though Optatus contested specific Donatists interpretations, his larger goal was to undermine the authority of Donatist bishops, who claimed exclusive authority in the area of biblical exegesis. The Donatist claim was grounded in their belief that Catholic bishops had lost the presence of Holy Spirit because of their alleged betrayal of scriptural codices during the Diocletianic persecution. For them, the biblical manuscripts contained the real presence of the Divine. Optatus countered that the intangible words of Scripture rank above the inked letters. Briefly put, over the course of De schism., a hermeneutical pattern emerges in which spiritual authority is distanced from the local, the present, and the embodied. Donatist reverence for Scripture resulted in a thriving culture of biblical scholarship, including their own version of Scripture which they had inherited from Cyprian. The biblical text in De schism. often diverges from Cyprian’s text. While it may have been altered in response to certain Donatist readings, the variants may also be the result of later scribal emendations. Scholars have also debated Cyprian’s influence on Optatus’s exegetical method. Either Optatus embraced Cyprian and the African theological tradition and tried to reinterpret him to fit his own ideas or he tried to distance himself from the Donatist hero. In either case, it is clear that his method of interpretation – broadly figurative and ad hoc – does not differ radically either from Cyprian or from his Donatist rivals. The most significant innovation in the work of Optatus is his construction of a post-Constantinian Catholic “world” centered in Rome. The Donatist retained the apocalyptic distinction between the visible church and the powers of the world, best represented by the Roman Empire. As a bishop of the imperially sponsored sect in North Africa, Optatus redefined these political boundaries such that the 128 De schism. 7.1.9 (SC 413:196): “ . . . plus est quod scriptum est in caelo quam quod in terra.”

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interests of the church more closely aligned to those of the empire. The power to read Scripture did not come from sanctity (defined as the presence of the Spirit), but, rather, from unity with the universal church. Unification, or “peace,” was a hallmark of imperial religious policy. Likewise, Optatus promoted a “rational” reading over the Donatist “charismatic” reading, which had been justified by the Donatists’ willingness to suffer persecution and martyrdom. Optatus is a pivotal theological figure whose work on sacraments and ecclesiology has been recognized as significant for many years. Less apparent is the way in which his theological framework impacted the North African tradition of scriptural interpretation: this occurred only subtly in his own work, but it occurred much more overtly in the works of those who followed him.

For Further Reading Primary Sources Finaert, Guy, trans. Traités anti-donatistes, introduction and notes by Yves M.-J. Congar. Series 4, vol. 1, Œuvres de Saint Augustin. Bibliothèque Augustinienne 28. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1963. Optatus. Optatus: Against the Donatists, translated by Mark Edwards. Translated Texts for Historians 27. Liverpool: Liverpool University, 1997. Optatus. Optat de Milève: Traité contre les Donatistes, edited and translated by Mireille Labrousse. 2 vols. Sources chrétiennes 412–13. Paris: Cerf, 1996. Optatus. S. Optati Milevitani Libri VII: Accedunt decem monumenta vetera ad Donatistarum historiam pertentia, edited by Karl Ziwsa. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 26. Vienna: Tempsky, 1893.

Secondary Sources Eno, Robert. “The Work of Optatus as a Turning Point in the African Ecclesiology.” The Thomist 37 (1973): 668–85. Marone, Paola. L’esegesis biblica di Ottato di Milevi. Collana Studi e Proposte 5. Rome: Casa Editrice Università La Sapienza, 2008. Mazzucco, Clementina. Ottato di Milevi in un secolo di studi: problemi e prospettive. Bologna: Pàtron Editione, 1994. Merdinger, Jane. “Optatus Reconsidered.” Studia Patristica 22 (1989): 294–99. Monceaux, Paul. Saint Optat et les premiers éscrivains donatistes. Vol. 5, Histoire littéraire de l’afrique chrétienne depuis les origines jusqu’à l’invasion arabe. Paris: Leroux, 1920. Scorza Barcellona, Francesco. “L’interpretazione dei doni dei Magi nel sermone natalizio di (Pseudo) Ottato di Milevi.” Studi Storico-Religiosi 2 (1978): 129–49. Tilley, Maureen A. The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997.

Gerald P. Boersma

9 Scripture in Augustine’s Earliest Treatises In all ages of the Church, her teachers have shown a disinclination to confine themselves to the mere literal interpretation of Scripture. . . . It may almost be laid down as an historical fact, that the mystical interpretation and orthodoxy will stand or fall together. John Henry Newman1 Faustus said: Do you accept the Old Testament? If it contains my inheritance, I accept it; if it does not, I do not accept it. For it is certainly extreme perversity to claim for oneself the documents that testify to one’s being disinherited. Or are you unaware that the Old Testament promises the land of the Canaanites but promises it to the Jews, that is, to the circumcised, to those who offer sacrifices and abstain from pork and the other meats that Moses calls unclean, to those who observe Sabbath, the feasts of unleavened bread, and the other things of this sort which, as a lawgiver, Moses commanded them to observe? No Christian has approved of these, nor does any one of us observe them. Hence, it is fitting that we give back the documents of the law along with the inheritance we have been denied. That is the reason, I think, we should reject the Old Testament, unless you teach me something that is wiser (nisi tu me prudentius aliquid doceas). But the second reason is that its inheritance is so miserable and bodily and remote from the advantage of the soul that, after that blessed promise of the New Testament, which promises me the kingdom of heaven and eternal life, I would turn my nose up at it even if its lawgiver thrust it upon me at no cost.2

1 J. H. Newman, The Arians of the Fourth Century (London: Rivington, 1833), 104–5. 2 Augustine, Contra Faustum Manichaeum 4.1 (CSEL 25/1:268; R. Teske, trans., Answer to Faustus: A Manichean, part I, vol. 20, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. B. Ramsey (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2007), 82): “Faustus dixit: Accipis testamentum vetus? Si est mihi in eo hereditas, accipio; si non est, non accipio. Inprobitas enim haec quidem nimia est usurpare tabulas, quae testentur exheredatum. an ignoras testamentum vetus Chananaeorum terram repromittere, sed eam tamen Judaeis, id est circumcisis et sacrificantibus et abstinentibus a porcina ac reliquis carnibus, quas inmundas Moyses appellat, sabbata observantibus et azymorum sollemnitatem ac reliqua hujusmodi, quae ejus ipse testator eis observanda mandavit? Quae quia Christianorum placuere nemini – neque enim quisquam nostrorum ea custodit – dignum est, ut cum refusa hereditate reddamus et tabulas. Haec ergo causa est, cur ego testamentum vetus abiciendum puto, nisi tu me prudentius aliquid doceas. Secunda vero causa est, quod tam etiam misera ejus et corporalis ac longe ab animae commodis hereditas est, ut post beatam illam novi testamenti pollicitationem, quae caelorum mihi regnum et vitam perpetuam repromittit, etiam si gratis eam mihi testator suus ingereret, fastidissem.” Note: I wrote the main lines of this essay during the summer of 2017 at the bucolic campus of Nashotah House Thedogical Seminary in southern Wisconsin. I am grateful to Nashotah House for extending an invitation to teach at the Seminary and to make use of their library. I am also grateful to Hans Boersma and Corine Milad for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. My thanks also to the editors of this volume for their invitation to contribute as well as for their wise counsel and indefatigable patience. *Gerald P. Boersma, Ave Maria University https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-010

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With rhetorical prowess Faustus of Milevis, Augustine’s Manichean antagonist, delineates the standard Manichean objections to the Christian appropriation of the Old Testament. He cloaks his censure of the Jewish Scriptures in the forensic discourse of a disputed last will and testament. Faustus compares his disavowal of the Old Testament to the formal repudiation of an inheritance. First, he holds that he has no legal right to the inheritance. It does not belong to him. Faustus neither keeps the Mosaic code nor expects the rewards belonging to those who abide by it. Faustus envisions the Christian faith to be completely shorn of any elements of the Jewish religion, having nothing in common with its earthly laws and temporal promises. As such, Faustus refuses the inheritance (refusa hereditate) and returns the paperwork (reddamus et tabulas). Then, as the coup de grâce, Faustus points out that even if he did have a legal right to the inheritance, he would reject it out of hand on account of its tawdry earthly nature, which is unbecoming of a spiritual faith. For nine years as a Manichean “hearer,” Augustine shared this hostile posture to the Old Testament. His conversion to Catholic Christianity entailed a fundamental reorientation towards the Old Testament. That is to say, unlike Faustus, Augustine came to accept as his own the inheritance of the Law and the Prophets. For the Manicheans, the Old Testament and its God were corporeal, violent, and perverse. They were, in Paula Fredriksen’s term, a “radical Paulinist sect,” which exaggerated the Apostle Paul’s distinctions (e.g., grace vs. law, spirit vs. flesh, and works vs. faith) into an unbridgeable opposition. Positive Pauline statements about the Jewish law, the temple, or Israel’s history were explained as subsequent Judaizing textual interpolations.3 What the Manicheans considered the authentic parts of the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles had nothing in common with the Old Testament: Its unelevating stories of bodily theophanies, bloody battles and sexual couplings were, literally, too carnal to be believed. If the Catholics in their confusion and hypocrisy chose to keep the Jews’ book while themselves not keeping the Law, that was their business. The Manicheans, harkening to the Apostle, knew that the flesh and all its works were evil, that the law brought sin and death; they knew that they had been called in the Spirit to newness of life.4

In short, Manichean rejection of the Old Testament fit into a larger radically dualistic worldview. In the Cathedral of Milan Augustine repeatedly heard Ambrose preach. The result was a profound theological breakthrough. Ambrose taught Augustine how to read the Old Testament as Christian Scripture – that is, as a proclamation of Christ containing the mystery of the economy of salvation. It is no exaggeration to assert

3 P. Fredriksen, “Allegory and Reading God’s Book: Paul and Augustine on the Destiny of Israel,” in Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period, ed. J. Whitman (Leiden: Brill, 2000): 125–49, esp. 139. 4 Fredriksen, “Allegory and Reading God’s Book,” 139–40.

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that Augustine’s conversion was predicated on his ability to recognize the unity of Scripture. In the Confessions (Confessiones) Augustine recalls his encounter with Ambrose: I was also pleased that when the old writings of the Law and the Prophets came before me, they were no longer read with an eye to which they had previously looked absurd, when I used to attack your saints as if they thought what in fact they did not think at all. And I was delighted to hear Ambrose in his sermons to the people saying, as if he were most carefully enunciating a principle of exegesis (regulam): ‘The letter kills, the spirit gives life’ (cf. 2 Cor. 3:6). Those texts which, taken literally (ad litteram), seemed to contain perverse teaching he would expound spiritually (spiritaliter), removing the mystical veil (mystico velamento).5

Spiritual interpretation, figurative exegesis, opened new vistas previously closed to Augustine. Interpreting the Old Testament secundum spiritum, with Christ as the hermeneutical key, gave back to Augustine the “religion that had been instilled in me as a child.”6 The aim of this essay is to give an account of the theological framing that allowed for Augustine’s reorientation towards Scripture. When Augustine went to hear Ambrose expound Scripture “spiritually” (spiritaliter), what did this involve? I will limit my focus to Augustine’s early theology of Scripture – that is, the critical period after his conversion and baptism (387) up until shortly after his ordination in the winter of 391. It is no surprise that Augustine’s theology of Scripture during this time was the outworking of intensely polemical rejoinders to his former co-religionists, the Manicheans. Three early texts are essential to considering how Augustine thought about Scripture and its authority, unity, and interpretation: (1) De moribus ecclesiae Catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum (The Way of Life of the Catholic Church and The Way of Life of the Manichaeans, written in 387) contains one of Augustine’s earliest presentations of Catholic hermeneutics. The two books that comprise this work serve to contrast the moral life and interpretive practice of Manicheans and Catholics. (2) De vera religione (True Religion, written in 390) is Augustine’s first systematic presentation of the Catholic faith, structured within a Christian-Platonist theology of ascent. Augustine addressed this work to his former patron, Romanianus, perhaps hoping this treatise would undo the damage he had done by enticing Romanianus into the Manichean fold. (3) De utilitate credendi (The Usefulness of Believing, written in 391) is another poignant personal appeal to a friend, Honoratus, who had followed Augustine into the Manichean sect. Here Augustine’s scriptural hermeneutics are presented within an overture that contends for the necessity of faith

5 Conf. 6.4.6. (CCSL 27:77; Chadwick, trans., Confessions, Oxford World’s Classics [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991], 94). 6 Augustine, De utilitate credendi 1.2 (CSEL 25/1:4; R. Kearney, trans., “Advantage of Believing,” in On Christian Belief, WSA I/8:107–48, 117); cf. Augustine, Contra Academicos 2.2.5 (CCSL 29:20–21); Augustine, De duabus animabus 1 (CSEL 25/1:51); and Conf. 1.11.17 (CCSL 27:9–10).

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and trust in authority in order to arrive at knowledge of religious matters. The main lines of Augustine’s early theology of Scripture emerge in broad strokes within these three texts. Drawing on these three texts and after briefly identifying and considering the passages of Scripture to which Augustine most readily referred in them, this essay will explore three central hermeneutical strategies that form Augustine’s response to Manichean vilification of the Old Testament. These three strategies form the basic structure of Augustine’s early theology of Scripture that allowed him to affirm the unity of Scripture. First, Augustine contends that Scripture has a unity of purpose; all of Scripture aims to build up love and teaches how this end is to be achieved. Second, Augustine develops the metaphor of God as a teacher and Scripture as a divine pedagogy. Although the two Testaments are distinct, this is a distinction that serves the best interest of the student who needs first to be instructed by temporal and material images and stories in order then to ascend to eternal, spiritual truth. Third, the unity of Scripture is readily perceived when the exegete avails himself of figurative exegesis. Old Testament stories, laws, and prophecy that might on the surface seem material and crass need to be turned over to see how they glisten with spiritual truth. Augustine’s mature corpus fills out this incipient hermeneutical paradigm with greater distinction (particularly in De doctrina christiana), and he would have opportunity to apply this hermeneutic with precision after a sabbatical that he took immediately after his ordination in 391. During that sabbatical he devoted himself to a detailed study of Scripture. Nevertheless, the essential features of Augustine’s hermeneutics are already clearly defined in these three early texts.

Augustine’s Early Use of Scripture Of the three early texts in which Augustine most explicitly develops a theology of Scripture, Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. contains the most direct engagement of Scripture, both by quotation and reference. The vast majority of the references to Scripture in Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. occur in book 1. Here, Augustine explains how Scripture is to be read as a unity. Augustine aims to demonstrate that the Gospels, the Apostle Paul, and the Old Testament are in harmony. As such, he triangulates passages from these parts of Scripture. The commandment to love God with one’s whole heart, soul, and mind is the goal (finis) of all of Scripture and is clearly taught in Matt 22:37–40, Rom 8:28–39, and Deut 6:5.7 These three texts take pride of place in Mor. eccl. mor. Manich., and Augustine frequently refers to them as articulating the purpose of Scripture.

7 Augustine, De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum 1.11.18 (CSEL 90:14).

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De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum establishes a pattern that Augustine follows in his other early works: Matthew is the gospel most frequently quoted and, among the New Testament letters, Paul’s Romans as well as 1–2 Corinthians are the most referenced. Wisdom features prominently, but Augustine also quotes from other texts in the wisdom tradition.8 The Old Testament, the Gospels, and the Pauline Epistles equally uphold the necessity of the four cardinal virtues that lead to charity (see infra). The value of temperance is taught by the Apostle Paul in 1 Tim 6:10, where he warns against covetousness.9 Temperance is also the distinguishing mark in the Pauline antithesis between the old man and the new man (cf. Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22–24; Col 3:9–11).10 Augustine quotes from 1 Cor 15:47–49 and 2 Cor 4:16 at some length to explain how the transformation from the old man to the new man involves the acquisition of temperance. In the same vein, Augustine quotes the Pauline injunction to set one’s eyes on things above (2 Cor 4:18)11 and not to be conformed to this world (Rom 12:2).12 However, according to Augustine, the contemptus mundi proper to temperance is also taught in the Old Testament. In this regard, Augustine refers to the refrain of Eccl 1:2–3’s “vanity of vanities.”13 Fortitude is urged in Rom 5:3–4, which Augustine quotes,14 but also by the examples offered in the books of Job and Maccabees, examples to which Augustine refers at length.15 Justice is taught by Christ who warns against serving two masters (Matt 26:24), by the apostle Paul who censures those who serve a creature rather than the creator (Rom 1:25), and by Moses who commanded, “You shall adore the Lord your God and serve him alone” (Deut 6:1; 10:20).16 Finally, prudence is counseled in Christ’s repeated injunction, “Be on guard” (Matt 24:42; 25:13; 26:38, 41); in Paul’s admonition that a little yeast leavens the whole lump (1 Cor 5:6; Gal 5:9),

8 See, for example, the extensive quotation of Wis 6:12–20 in Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.17.32 (CSEL 90:21). 9 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.19.35 (CSEL 90:40). 10 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.19.36 (CSEL 90:41). Paul’s distinction between the “old” and the “new” man is referenced a number of times by Augustine in compositions penned before his ordination. In addition to the discussion in Augustine, De vera religone, infra, Augustine draws on the Pauline antithesis in Augustine, De musica 5.10 (PL 21:1152) and Augustine, De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.23.40 (CSEL 91:108). 11 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.20.37 (CSEL 90:42). 12 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.21.39 (CSEL 90:44). 13 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.21.39 (CSEL 90:44). Ecclesiastes 1:2–3 is a passage that Augustine references a number of times in his early works; cf. Augustine, De quantitate animae 33 (CSEL 89: 172–73); Ver. rel. 21.41, 33.61 (CCSL 32:212, 227). 14 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.23.42 (CSEL 90:47). 15 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.23.42–43 (CSEL 90:47–9). Quoting Sir 27:4–6, Augustine asserts that the heroic mother’s fortitude in 2 Macc 7 must have derived from her reading of Sirach, (Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.23.43 [CSEL 90:48–9]). 16 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.24.44 (CSEL 90:49).

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and, finally, in Sirach’s exhortation, “One who scorns little things falls little by little” (Sir 19:1).17 A constant refrain in Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. is Christ’s teaching that the two-fold love of God and neighbor is the consummation of the Law and the Prophets (Matt 22: 37–40).18 Augustine sees the same teaching enunciated in the apostle Paul’s insisting that “Love does no harm to one’s neighbor” (Rom 13:10) and “We know that for those who love God all things move toward the good” (Rom 8:28).19 Twice in Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. Augustine offers lengthy quotations from the apostle Paul to demonstrate how Manichean moral rigidity differs from Catholic self-denial, which does not require austerity beyond that of which each individual is capable. First, with regard to fasting, Augustine quotes extensively from Paul’s teaching about eating in a way that does not cause scandal (Rom 14; 1 Cor 8).20 Second, concerning the permissibility of marital life, Augustine quotes a lengthy passage from 1 Cor 6:12–7:7.21 Book 2 of Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. is more stinting in its engagement with Scripture. After all, the intention of the second book is to expose the hypocritical practices of the Manicheans. Nevertheless, when explaining the difference between Catholic temperance and Manichean teetotalism and vegetarianism, Augustine quotes all of Rom 14 (in fact through to 15:3) as well as 1 Cor 8:4–13; 10:19–25; 10:28–11:1.22 De vera religione evinces a selective use of the Gospels and Pauline Epistles. As in Mor. eccl. mor. Manich., by far the most quoted texts from Paul are Romans and 1 Corinthians. Among the Gospels, Augustine most readily quotes Matthew and John. (He does not quote Mark even once.) I note the four most significant uses of the New Testament in Ver. rel. First, the incarnational motif, which functions as the linchpin to the treatise, includes three quotations of John 1:9: “The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.”23 Second, 1 John 2:15–16 features prominently with three references.24 Augustine maintains that Christ demonstrates his victory over the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life in his own triple temptation described in Matt 3.25 Third, Paul’s contrast between the old man and the new man (cf. Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22–24; Col 3:9–11) receives sustained

17 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.24.45 (CSEL 90:50). 18 Cf. Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.28.57, 1.29.59, 1.30.62 (CSEL 90:60, 62, 65). 19 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.25.50, 1.28.57 (CSEL 90:55, 60). 20 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.33.71 (CSEL 90:76). 21 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.34.78 (CSEL 90:83–84). 22 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 2.14.32–34 (CSEL 90:36–9). 23 Ver. rel. 39.73, 42.79, 52.101 (CCSL 32:235, 239, 253). In the same vein, Augustine uses John 1:14 in Ver. rel. 16.30. 24 Ver. rel. 3.4, 38.70, 55.107 (CCSL 32:191, 233, 256). 25 Ver. rel. 38.71 (CCSL 32:233–34).

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treatment.26 Finally, Augustine comments at length on Matt 25:1–30.27 Here he simultaneously remarks on both the parable of the ten virgins and the parable of the talents. De vera religione demonstrates sparing use of the Old Testament. Apart from the Psalter (which is quoted the most), Augustine references Wisdom of Solomon three times.28 There is one reference to the disclosure of the divine name (Exod 3:14)29 and two references to the refrain “vanity of vanities” from Ecclesiastes.30 Surprisingly, Util. cred. has very little direct engagement with Scripture: in fact, no verse or passage from the Old Testament is ever quoted. It is principally in 3.5–9 that Augustine quotes Scripture. In these paragraphs, Augustine explains the four senses of Scripture (historiam, aetiologiam, analogiam, and allegoriam) and draws on scriptural examples for each sense. However, he only uses the Gospel of Matthew as well as Paul’s letter to the Galatians and his two to the Corinthians to illustrate his schema.31 Augustine’s physical access to the texts of Scripture during this period was almost certainly from manuscripts of individual books or collections of books. Given the foregoing analysis, Augustine clearly had manuscripts of the Pauline epistles, the gospel of Matthew, and (part of) the wisdom tradition at his disposal. During this period, Augustine worked with manuscripts that are now part of the Vetus Latina tradition since, at the end of the fourth century, an “authorized version” of Scripture as such did not yet exist. This complexity also makes it difficult to be conclusive regarding those version(s) of the various component parts of the canon to which Augustine was privy.32

Love as the End of Scripture In 387, following his baptism in Milan and while in Rome waiting to return to Africa, Augustine wrote Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. The very structure of this book was meant to juxtapose Catholic and Manichean theology and praxis and, thus, it consists

26 Ver. rel. 5.9, 26.48–49, 27.50, 52.101 (CCSL 32:194, 217–18, 220, 253). 27 Ver. rel. 54.104–106 (CCSL 32:254–55). 28 Wis 8:1 is referenced in Ver. rel. 39.72, 51.100 (CCSL 32:234, 252); Wis 9:15 is referenced in Ver. rel. 21.41 (CCSL 32:213). 29 Ver. rel. 49.97 (CCSL 32:250). 30 Ver. rel. 21.41, 33.61 (CCSL 32:212, 227). 31 There are lone quotations of Matt 7:7 in Util. cred. 14.30 (CSEL 25/1:37) and John 14:1 in Util. cred. 14.32 (CSEL 25/1:41). 32 Cf. J. J. O’Donnell, “Bible,” in Augustine through the Ages, ed. A. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999): 99–103; and A.-M. La Bonnardière, Biblia Augustiniana. (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1960–75). For more on the Vetus Latina tradition in North Africa, see the chapter by Houghton in this volume.

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of two books. The first gives a spirited defense of Catholic theology and practice, and the second exposes the contradictory claims and hypocritical practices of the Manicheans. This work is significant for this essay due to the emphasis it places on the unity of the Old and New Testaments. In book 1 of Mor. eccl. mor. Manich., Augustine lays down a foundational principle that undergirds his understanding of the unity of the two Testaments – namely, that all of Scripture shares a common aim, which is the building up of love.33 Both Testaments have one author and one purpose, insists Augustine at the outset of Mor. eccl. mor. Manich.: the goal (finis) at which Scripture aims is that its readers might advance in charity: “Let us, then, hear what the goal is of good persons that you, Christ, set for us. There is no doubt that it will be the goal to which you command that we make our way with the highest love. He says, ‘You shall love the Lord your God’ (Matt 22:37).”34 Augustine continues, “Towards that goal we must by all means make our way; to it we must direct all our plans.”35 The central objective of the rest of Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. book 1 is to illustrate the shared teleology animating both Testaments. Augustine delineates a long list of New Testament teachings that he sees equally present, although perhaps more obliquely, in the Old Testament. He concludes, “There is one God of the two Testaments. For, just as those testimonies that we quoted from the two Testaments are in harmony (congruent) with one another, so the others are as well.”36 Love forms the leitmotif sounding throughout the diversity of Scripture. 33 The “hermeneutics of charity” is more famously associated with Doctr. chr. 1.36.40 (395/396); cf. On Christian Doctrine, trans. D. W. Robertson, Jr. (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1958), 30: “Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all. Whoever finds a lesson there useful to the building of charity, even though he has not said what the author may be shown to have intended in that place, has not been deceived.” Nevertheless, the lineaments of this interpretive principle are already at play in Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. G. Bruns, “The Problem of Figuration in Antiquity,” in Hermeneutics: Questions and Prospects, eds. G. Shapiro and A. Sica (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984): 147–64, esp. 160–61, notes that for Augustine the doctrine of charity is “not so much the goal of scriptural understanding as its point of departure, because the doctrine defines the spirit in which the Scriptures are to be taken; that is, what the doctrine of charity defines is just the presupposition of a Christian reading of the Scriptures. Augustine’s attitude is, once more, hermeneutical rather than analytical. The question is not what Scripture means in itself (as if on a presuppositionless reading) but how it is to be understood – and the point is that, granting the presupposition of charity, it is capable of being taken in diverse senses.” 34 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.8.13 (CSEL 90:15; R. Teske, trans., The Manichean Debate, WSA I/ 19:36): “Audiamus ergo quem finem bonorum nobis, Christe, praescribas; nec dubium est quin is erit finis, quo nos summo amore tendere jubes. ‘Diliges,’ inquit, ‘Dominum Deum tuum.’” 35 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.8.13 (CSEL 90:15; Teske, WSA I/19:37): “Eo est omnino tendendum, ad id omnia consilia nostra referenda.” 36 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.17.30 (CSEL 90:34; Teske, WSA I/19:45): “Utriusque Testamenti Deus unus est. Nam ut ista sibi congruunt, quae de utroque posuimus, ita etiam cetera.” M. Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustine’s Early Figural Exegesis, OSHT (New York: Oxford University

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The revelation of divine love is the common theme of Scripture and grounds its unity, but this unifying principle is not always immediately apparent – it must be sought: “Love asks; love seeks; love knocks; love reveals; love, finally, remains in what has been revealed. The Old Testament does not deter us from this love of wisdom and from diligence in seeking it, as you constantly say with your lies; rather, it most vigorously urges us on to this.”37 Augustine enjoins the Manicheans, I beg you, pay a little attention; see the harmony (concordiam) of the two Testaments that sufficiently discloses and teaches the manner of our way of life and the end to which all things are to be directed. The gospels stir up the love of God when they say: Ask, seek, and knock (cf. Matthew 7:7–8). Paul stirs up love when he says, “in order that, rooted and grounded in love, you may be able to grasp” (Ephesians 3:17–18) The prophet also stirs up love when he says that wisdom can be easily known by those who love it, seek it, desire it, keep watch for it, think of it, and are concerned about it [cf. Wis 6:13–21]. The salvation of the soul and the path to happiness are revealed by the harmony of the two books of scripture.38

Scripture forms a unity in its aim of building up love. Further, it teaches how love is to be cultivated – namely, through growth in virtue. Augustine proceeds to exhibit how the four cardinal virtues, which form a “rule of life,” are taught not only in the Gospels and the letters of Paul, but also by the prophets of the Old Testament. Temperance, which checks earthly appetites and quiets carnal desires, is ordered to the “integrity and incorruptibility of the love by which we are united to God.”39 Augustine points out that Paul’s exhortation to strip off the old man and to put on the new man (1 Cor 15:47–49), his call to strive for that which is eternal (2 Cor 4:18), and his warning not to be conformed to this world (Rom 12:2) all receive hearty endorsement in the Old Testament, such as in the repeated refrain of Eccl 1: 2–3 not to seek permanence in that which is finite: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” The prophets of the Old Testament provide unambiguous teaching for those “who

Press, 2012), 83–84, writes, “[Mor. eccl. mor. Manich.] conducts a show-and-tell of biblical quotes that juxtapose partly obscure testimonies of the Old with fully open testimonies in the New. Augustine stresses their unity by deploying a wealth of verbs with the prefix con – (‘together’): the Testaments ‘come together’ (convenire; 1.9.15), ‘sing together’ (concinere; 1.14.27), ‘sound together’ (consonare; 1.16.28), and ‘fit together’ (congruere; 1.17.30), and many passages display a unique kind of ‘harmony’ (concordia, 1.18.34).” 37 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.17.31 (CSEL 90:36; Teske, WSA I/19:46). 38 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.18.34 (CSEL 90:38–39; Teske, WSA I/19:47): “Obsecro, vigilate paululum, videte testamenti utriusque concordiam, qui sit in moribus vitae modus et quo sint referenda omnia, satis aperientem et docentem. Amorem Dei concitant evangelia, cum dicitur: petite, quaerite, pulsate; concitat Paulus dicendo: ut in caritate radicati et fundati possitis comprehendere; concitat etiam propheta, cum dicit, facile sapientiam ab his qui eam diligunt, quaerunt, concupiscunt, vigilant, cogitant, curant, posse cognosci. Salus animi et via beatitudinis utrarumque Scripturarum pace monstratur.” 39 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.19.35 (CSEL 90:39; Teske, WSA I/19:47).

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desire to flee this world.” Augustine summarizes, “A man who is temperate in such mortal and passing things, then, has a rule of life supported by both Testaments.”40 Fortitude must contend especially with the challenges of the body, which in this mortal coil are the “heaviest chain.”41 Paul teaches the value of fortitude for the perfection of charity when he writes, “Tribulation produces patience, but patience produces testing, and testing produces hope (Romans 5:3–4).”42 This value of fortitude is equally attested to in the Old Testament by such characters as Job and the mother of seven sons whose martyrdom is recounted in 2 Maccabees. Job lost all his wealth and then “amid great torments of the body and a terrible wasting away of his members not only endured human woes but even discussed divine things.”43 Scripture is filled with such injunctions to “fortitude that the one Holy Spirit had written in those books of the Old Testament.”44 Justice is above all rightly ordered love towards God. Christ taught justice when he said: “You cannot serve two Masters” (cf. Matt 6:24 and Luke 16:13). Paul taught justice when he rebuked those who serve “a creature rather than the creator” (Rom 1:25). Furthermore, justice was at the heart of the Jewish Law: “You shall adore the Lord your God and serve him alone” (Deut 6:13; 10:20). Justice, Augustine concludes, “is confirmed by the authority of both Testaments.”45 Prudence, “the discernment of what we should seek and what we should avoid,” is, likewise, counseled in both Testaments.46 Christ warns his disciples, “Be on guard” (Matt 24:42), John writes, “Walk so that the darkness does not overtake you” (John 12:35), and Sirach teaches, “One who scorns little things falls little by little” (Sir 19:1).47 The highest good to be sought, Augustine concludes, is to love God with one’s whole heart, soul, and mind. Growth in the cardinal virtues directs one towards this end: God brings it about that this love is preserved whole and entire, which is a mark of temperance; that it is crushed by no difficulties, which is a mark of fortitude; that it serves no one else, which is a mark of justice; and that it is watchful in discernment, so that falsity or deceit does not overtake it little by little, which is a mark of prudence. This is the one perfection of a

40 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.21.39 (CSEL 90:45; Teske, WSA I/19:50): “Habet igitur vir temperans in hujuscemodi rebus mortalibus et fluentibus, vitae regulam utroque testamento firmatam.” 41 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.22.40 (CSEL 90:45; Teske, WSA I/19:50). 42 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.23.42 (CSEL 90:47; Teske, WSA I/19:51). 43 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.23.42 (CSEL 90:47; Teske, WSA I/19:51). 44 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.23.43 (CSEL 90:49; Teske, WSA I/19:51–52): “Immo vero et haec et alia plura perceperat, quae uno Sancto Dei Spiritu ut in istis novi testamenti sic in illis, qui soli adhuc erant, libris divina fortitudinis praecepta conscripta sunt.” 45 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.24.44 (CSEL 90:49; Teske, WSA I/19:52): “Quae norma vivendi, ut docuimus, utriusque Testamenti auctoritate roboratur.” 46 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.24.45 (CSEL 90:50; Teske, WSA I/19:52). 47 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.24.45 (CSEL 90:50; Teske, WSA I/19:52).

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human being, and by it alone one comes to enjoy the purity of truth. This perfection sings out to us (concinitur) from both Testaments; we are urged to this perfection by each of them.48

The unity of Scripture is evident, suggests Augustine, when its underlying ratio is understood: the sole purpose of Holy Writ is to lead the soul to perfection in charity.49 Augustine takes Christ’s own words as the culmination of the argument that love is the aim of both Testaments: “Listen to Christ himself; listen, I repeat, to ‘Christ’ listen to ‘the wisdom of God’ (1 Cor. 1:24). He says, ‘The whole law and all the prophets depend on these two commandments.’”50 Nevertheless, this architectonic unity contains a distinction. Augustine develops the analogy of God as a doctor. The divine physician provides a regimen to restore the soul to health. The discipline (disciplina) God gives the ailing is Scripture, which is a “medicine of the soul” (animi medicina). But the prescribed medicine is divided into two parts: first a dose of deterrence (coercitionem), followed by a dose of instruction (instructionem).51 “Deterrence is produced by fear, but instruction by love.”52 God desires only to help his patients; he has only love for them. But the gravity of the patients’ ailments requires the more bitter initial treatment of deterrence, so the patients can subsequently benefit from instruction. The “rule of discipline” (disciplinae regulam) is expressed differently by the two Testaments, and, while there is some deterrence and some instruction in both Testaments, it is fear that dominates in the first and love that dominates in the second. To support this distinction Augustine points to Paul’s description of the servitude of the law and

48 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.25.46 (CSEL 90:51; Teske, WSA I/19:52–53): “Deum, a quo existit, ut incorruptus in eo amor atque integer custodiatur, quod est temperantiae, ut nullis frangatur incommodis, quod est fortitudinis, nulli alii serujat, quod est justitiae, vigilet in discernendis rebus, ne fallacia paulatim dolusue subrepat, quod est prudentiae. haec est hominis una perfectio, qua sola impetrat ut veritatis sinceritate perfruatur, haec nobis Testamento utroque concinitur; haec nobis hinc atque inde suadetur.” 49 How this principle underwrites Augustine’s understanding of the unity of Scripture is captured in Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 84: “The Bible’s complex unity spins on the axis of love. . . . Anyone who claims to be Christ’s disciple must agree with Christ about loving God and neighbor, and simultaneously commits both to Christ and to the Old Testament. Both spiritual reason and biblical authority converge upon this point: love binds the Testaments together and opens up their meaning.” 50 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.29.59 (CSEL 90:62; Teske, WSA I/19:57–58). 51 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.28.56 (CSEL 90:58–59; Teske, WSA I/19:56). One finds the same claim in Ver. rel. 17.33 (CCSL 32:207; E. Hill, trans., “True Religion,” in On Christian Belief, WSA I/8: 15–104, 49): “Since piety begins in fear and is perfected in charity, the people that was restrained by fear in the time of slavery was burdened in the old law with many sacraments.” 52 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.28.56 (CSEL 90:59; Teske, WSA I/19:56): “Coercitio timore, instructio vero amore perficitur.”

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the freedom of grace.53 The difference between the divine physician’s methods is situated within a unity of purpose – namely, the convalescence of the patient. The analogy of Scripture as the medicine of the soul that contains distinct dosages allows the “wonderful order and divine harmony of those Testaments” to be clearly seen.54 The heart of Scripture is the command to love God and neighbor.55 All of Scripture converges on this end, so that “the scripture that they tear to shreds is the scripture of Christ.”56

The Divine Pedagogy of Scripture Scripture’s unity entails that its divine author has a master plan, a grand vision for the entire sequence of salvation history. While isolated incidents, characters, and rites on their own may seem incongruous (even scandalous), they find a fitting place within this greater cosmic drama. The dominant rhetorical trope that Augustine develops in his early writings (and retains throughout his mature corpus), is the image of a wise teacher who gradually leads his pupils to new understanding by building on previous instruction. Revelation itself is a divine pedagogy, by which God guides humanity to eternal, spiritual understanding through the use of temporal and material signs. De utilitate credendi, Augustine’s first work after being ordained in 391, addressed his friend Honoratus, who, along with Augustine, had been enticed into Manicheanism. In common with Augustine’s other early anti-Manichean works, Util. cred. counsels the priority of authority over reason in the path of coming to know eternal truth. Honoratus was deeply suspicious of the Catholic Church’s retention of the Old Testament and was also critical of the Catholic insistence that faith is the epistemological starting point in matters of religion. As such, the first half of Util. cred. defends the value of the Old Testament, while the second half argues for the place of faith in all matters of knowing and, a fortiori, in matters of coming to know eternal truth. In this work Augustine maintains that the unfolding of salvation history within the narrative, laws, and prophesy of the Old Testament serves a pedagogical role in leading the believer from the temporal to the eternal and from the perceptible to the spiritual.

53 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.28.56 (CSEL 90:59; Teske, WSA I/19:56): “Quanquam enim utrumque in utroque sit, praevalet tamen in vetere timor, amor in novo: quae ibi servitus, hic libertas ab apostolis praedicatur.” 54 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.28.56 (CSEL 90:59; Teske, WSA I/19:56): “de quorum Testamentorum admirabili quodam ordine divinoque concentu.” 55 Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 13, comments, “Figurative reading released a kind of centripetal spiritual force that unified Scriptures’ many far-flung images, sayings, rites, events, and characters and drove readers back to its central load-bearing (i.e., its ‘end’) of love for God and neighbor.” 56 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.1.2 (CSEL 90:5; Teske, WSA I/19:32).

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A preferred image in the anti-Manichean writings is that of the Old Testament as food suited to spiritual infants who are not yet able to take in the pure milk of truth. The Manicheans tear apart the Old Testament, not aware of its vital role (utiliter): “They clearly do not appreciate how necessary it is to accept these [Scriptures] and how beneficial it is for souls that are still crying babies, as it were, to drink from them and absorb them into the marrow of their bones.”57 The materiality and temporality of Old Testament narratives, rites, and promises contain hidden but essential spiritual nutrients, albeit in a mode accessible to those whose preoccupation is still the perceptible. The metaphor of the Old Testament as an element of divine pedagogy has particular valance for Augustine because the apostle Paul similarly describes the law in pedagogical terms: “The Law was our tutor in Christ” (Gal 3:24). Indeed, it was particularly the Mosaic law that the Manicheans found reprehensible. Invariably, the Manicheans would quote Paul against the Catholics: “You who are justified in the law are emptied of Christ; you have fallen from grace” (Gal 5:4). The law, Augustine retorts, came from God and had value in its time. Humanity needed to be constrained from sin by the fear of punishment lurking behind the Law. While Christ sets humanity free from such fear, he does not thereby condemn the law: “But the time comes when he invites us to submit to his love and not be slaves to the law from fear.”58 Augustine continues, “So the one who later gave men and women a teacher to love first gave them a tutor to fear.”59 The apostle Paul explains this principle elsewhere, notes Augustine, when he writes that the veil covering the Old Testament is taken away in Christ (2 Cor 3:14). Notice, insists Augustine, that Paul does not say that the Old Testament is taken away but only that the veil that covers the Old Testament is taken away: “The cover that hides the good things there has been taken away.”60 He continues: This is what happens for those who are earnest and devout in searching for the meaning of those writings, and not undisciplined and ill-intentioned. They are shown how things are related to each other, and the reason (ordo) behind what was said and done, and the harmony (tanta congruentia) of the Old Testament and the New, which is so complete that there remains no point of disharmony (non consonet), and the deep secrets of the figurative meaning (figurarum tanta secreta).61

57 Util. cred. 2.4 (CSEL 25/1:6; Kearney, WSA I/8:118): “Qui profecto nesciunt, quatenus sint accipienda illa et quemadmodum hausta utiliter in venas quasi vagientium adhuc animarum medullas que descendant.” 58 Util. cred. 3.9 (CSEL 25/1:12;, Kearney, WSA I/8:122). 59 Util. cred. 3.9 (CSEL 25/1:12–13; Kearney, WSA I/8, 123). 60 Util. cred. 3.9 (CSEL 25/1:13; Kearney, WSA I/8:123). See also Ver. rel. 17.33. 61 Util. cred. 3.9 (CSEL 25/1:13; Kearney, WSA I/8:123): “Hoc modo agitur cum jis, qui studiose ac pie, non turbide atque inprobe scripturarum illarum sensum requirunt, demonstratur que sedulo et ordo rerum et causae factorum atque dictorum et veteris testamenti ad novum tanta congruentia, ut apex nullus, qui non consonet, relinquatur, et figurarum tanta secreta.”

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Learning to see the warp and woof of the whole tapestry of Scripture allows one to make sense of particularities that in isolation seem unbecoming of God and contrary to the Christian faith. The temporal law with its earthly commands, promises, and punishments finds completion and intelligibility in Christ. From this vantage point, God’s pedagogical purpose is understood.62 Augustine was convinced that the Old Testament authors “were great and divinely inspired, and that the law was established and promulgated at God’s command.”63 The challenge for the spiritually mature reader of Scripture is to recognize the pattern of divine teaching that holds the whole of Scripture together. To recognize this pattern is immediately to see that “there is nothing wiser or purer or more sacred than all those writings that the Catholic Church preserves under the name of the Old Testament.”64 Scripture, because it is from God, contains the truth in its entirety (omnino veritas) and yet is given in a mode that is well adapted to the student (adcomodatissima disciplina): “Believe me, everything in scripture is profound and from God. The truth is there in its entirety, and teaching finely adapted to the renewal and restoration of souls and clearly presented in such a way that there is no one who cannot draw from it.”65 The divine author arranges within the diversity of Scripture a coherent and ordered plan that is well suited to the state of the student. Scripture and the incarnation run along parallel theological tracks, according to Augustine: both function under the rubric of divine pedagogy; both attest to the

62 Fredriksen, “Allegory and Reading God’s book,” 142–43, suggests that Augustine’s understanding of Christ as the end of the law resulted in a less supersessionist theology than that of either his Catholic predecessors or his Manichean opponents: “Against the anti-Judaism both of his dualist opponents and of Catholic tradition itself, Augustine lifts up the positive things Paul has to say about the Law, and maintains that the Law, because God-given, is and always has been the means to salvation whose finis is Christ (Rom 10:4). . . . His view of the Law as constant, God-given and good both before and after the coming of Christ affects the tone of his typologies: if the Old Testament is a concealed form of the New and vice versa, then they are each alike in dignity and positive religious value.” While Frederiksen’s comment contains valuable insight, it is not clear that the signatory and sacramental quality of the Old Testament, which finds its fulfillment in Christ, can lead to the conclusion that the two Testaments are “each alike in dignity and positive religious value.” Rather, T. Toom, “Augustine on Scripture,” in T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology, eds. C. C. Pecknold and T. Toom (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013): 75–86, seems closer to Augustine’s conception of the relation between the Testaments: Augustine “gives certain hermeneutical priority to the New Testament as the revelation of the meaning of the Old.” 63 Util. cred. 5.12 (CSEL 25/1:17; Kearney, WSA I/8:125–26): “Ego quidem illos viros et omnia utiliter memoriae mandasse et magnos ac divinos fuisse et illam legem Dei jussu ac voluntate promulgatam esse et conditam credo.” 64 Util. cred. 6.13 (CSEL 25/1:17; Kearney, WSA I/8:126): “Nihil me existimare prudentius, castius, religiosius, quam sunt illae scripturae omnes, quas testamenti veteris nomine Catholica Ecclesia retinet.” 65 Util. cred. 6.13 (CSEL 25/1:18; Kearney, WSA I/8:127 [trans. altered]): “Quicquid est, mihi crede, in Scripturis illis altum et divinum est: Inest omnino veritas et reficiendis instaurandis que animis adcomodatissima disciplina et plane ita modificata, ut nemo inde haurire non possit.”

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divine “accommodation” that comes to meet humanity in its weakness and spiritual immaturity. Scripture and the incarnation are linked in God’s providential design, which deigns to accommodate those who are as yet unable to rise up to drink in the pure light of truth.66 Speaking in the charged (and autobiographical) cadence that reminds one of the mystical ascent passages of the Confessions, Augustine writes, “But when it comes to divine realities, [reason] turns away; it cannot see; it gropes, is set afire, gasps with love, is struck by the light of the truth, and turns back, not by choice but out of fatigue, to its own familiar darkness” (tenebrarum).67 However, it is precisely in this darkness, in this realm of shadows – when reason lags behind, unable to ascend to divine realties – that God comes to aid the soul by leading it to himself through the authority of Scripture: Hence, when we desire to take refuge in the darkness (tenebrosa), that shadiness of authority (opacitas auctoritatis) comes to meet us and charms us (blandiatur) through the providential plan of ineffable wisdom (per dispensationem ineffabilis sapientiae) both by miraculous events and by words of the holy books, as if by the gentler signs (signis temperatioribus) and by shadows of the truth.68

In the Old Testament the bright light of truth assumes the modality of “shadows,” so that by these “gentler signs” the soul may be enticed (blandiatur) to ascend from what is perceptible and flee towards what is intelligible and eternal.69 The temporal commands, punishments, and promises of the law, as well as the earthly and sometimes even scandalous behavior of the patriarchs and prophets, have an anagogical purpose: God “uses” them to pull the fleshly minded student from the temporal to the eternal. The grand dispensation of wisdom (dispensationem sapientiae) invites a larger perspective; that is to say, a hermeneutic attuned to divine pedagogy will recognize the grand arc of salvation history within the sometimes strange stories of the Old Testament.70 With generosity (liberalius) the divine

66 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.7.11 (CSEL 90:13–14; Teske, WSA I/19:36). 67 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. (CSEL 90:14; Teske, WSA I/19:36): “At ubi ad divina perventum est, avertit sese: intueri non potest, palpitat, aestuat, inhiat amore, reverberatur luce veritatis, et ad familiaritatem tenebrarum suarum, non electione, sed fatigatione convertitur.” 68 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. (CSEL 90:13–14; Teske, WSA I/19:36): “Ergo refugere in tenebrosa cupientibus per dispensationem ineffabilis sapientiae, nobis illa opacitas auctoritatis occurrat, et mirabilibus rerum, vocibusque librorum veluti signis temperatioribus veritatis umbrisque blandiatur.” 69 Cf. Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.2.3 (CSEL 90:5; Teske, WSA I/19:32): “But the minds of human beings obscured by their familiarity with the darkness, by which they are veiled in the night of sins and vices, cannot direct a suitable gaze toward the clarity and purity of reason. Hence, it has been most salutarily arranged that authority, shaded as it were by the branches of humanity, leads the wavering eye into the light of the truth.” 70 Augustine’s attention to the historical character of the economy of salvation as well as his commitment to the ad litteram interpretation of Scripture became more pronounced as he matured. This is evident in the trajectory of the commentaries on Genesis. The heavily allegorical interpretation of Gen. Man., which dates from 389, slowly gave way to the more literal focus of De Genesi ad

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teacher deigns to accommodate the student “in marvelous and incomprehensible ways (miris et incomprehensibilibus modis), through certain most hidden sequences (secretissimas successiones) of things.”71 The “shadows” of the Old Testament have their place in the mystery of the divine economy; they “meet us” and “charm us” in order that humanity may ascend, even within the “familiar darkness” in which it finds itself. Augustine continues, “We shall never be able to understand how beautiful, how great, how worthy of God, how – finally – true is that which we seek unless we begin from things that are human and close by.”72 God deigns to use the “lowly manner” of Scripture’s images, figures, and shadows in order to reach minds that still “creep along the ground:” But many things are said in a rather lowly manner and in a way better suited (accommodatius) to minds that creep along the ground in order that they may rise through what is human to what is divine (per humana in divina consurgant), and many things are also said in a symbolic (figurate) manner in order that a studious mind may have more useful exercise in the questions it asks and may have richer delight in the answers it finds.73

Here Augustine articulates a mainstay of his early theology in its most epigrammatic form: to “rise through what is human to what is divine.” Most immediately this principle animates Augustine’s theology of the incarnation, but it equally serves to inform his understanding of the pedagogical purpose of Scripture within the divine plan of salvation. Scripture serves in God’s “marvelous providential plan” (mirifica dispositio) as divine accommodation to the weakness and flesh-bound way of human thinking.74

litteram imperfectus liber of 393 and, finally, to the twelve books of De Genesi ad litteram, which were finished in the late 410s. G. Bonner, “Augustine as Biblical Scholar,” in From the Beginnings to Jerome, eds. P. R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans, vol. 1., The Cambridge History of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970): 541–63, 553, comments, “History, for [Augustine], is the record of human and divine actions. Divine history is res gesta, the action of God in the past, and this is contained in the Bible in the historical books of the Old Testament and the writings of the New.” 71 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.7.12 (CSEL 90:14; Teske, WSA I/19:36). 72 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.7.12 (CSEL 90:14; Teske, WSA I/19:36): “Quod quidem quam sit pulchrum, quam magnum, quam Deo dignum, quam postremo id quod quaeritur verum, nequaquam intelligere poterimus, nisi ab humanis et proximis incipientes.” 73 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.17.30 (CSEL 90:34–35; Teske, WSA I/19:45): “Sed quia multa dicuntur submissius, et humi repentibus animis accommodatius, ut per humana in divina consurgant; multa etiam figurate, ut studiosa mens et quaesitis exerceatur utilius, et uberius laetetur inventis.” 74 A principle found in Augustine’s early works, namely, that Scripture (and the incarnation) are of penultimate and pedagogical use, and are things through which we witness God’s condescending speech reaching down through earthly and temporal means in order to invite a transposition of desire towards heavenly and eternal realities, logically culminates in Doctr. chr. 1.39.43 (CCSL 32:31). Here Augustine advances the thesis that one perfected in faith, hope, and love has no need of Scripture, except to instruct others. I. Bochet, Le Firmament de l’Écriture. L’herméneutique augustinienne (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2004), 52–53, writes, “Dans l’optique augustinienne, on va à l’éternel

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In Augustine’s early works, this principle – per humana in divina consurgant – finds its most sophisticated articulation in Ver. rel. God uses all manner of ways (omnibus modis) to draw people to himself, but such ways are calibrated in a mode appropriate to the time (temporum opportunitatibus).75 In Ver. rel., Augustine begins to articulate the mirifica dispositio of the divine plan by using the phrase dispensatio temporalis to account for how the divine teacher instructs in different modes as befits the time and limitations of the student.76 So, while the two Testaments each have their own sacramenta (the many sacramenta of the law and the few of the New Testament), it is still within the prerogative of the same head of a household to give arduous burdens to his servants and lighter ones to his sons.77 Similarly, a doctor will administer different medicines to different patients, depending on their condition, while the art of medicine on which he draws and the health for which he aims remain the same: “Because our state of health is variable, so too divine providence, while being in itself absolutely unchanging, nonetheless comes to the aid of changeable creatures in varying ways, and in accordance with the diversity of diseases commands or forbids different regimes.”78 Augustine carefully distinguishes between the divine will for humanity’s health and convalescence, which is unchanging, and the gradual amelioration of human state, which is changing. The divine medicine required for the healing of the soul is “applied step by distinct step” (geritur gradatim distincte).79 Earth-bound and time-bound loves, explains Augustine in Ver. rel., have injured the soul, and so the divine physician applies “a certain time-bound method of healing” (quaedam temporalis medicina). This “temporal medicine” is administered “through history and through prophecy” (per historiam et per prophetiam).80 In this manner, God cures the patient through

par la temporel, plus qu’on ne trouve l’éternel dans la temporel. . . . L’Écriture n’est qu’une médiation, nécessaire, il est vrai, mais provisoire.” 75 Ver. rel. 16.30 (CCSL 32:205; Hill, WSA I/8:47). 76 Augustine uses the phrase dispensatio temporalis repeatedly in Ver. rel.: cf. 7.13, 10.19, 26.48, 55.110 (CCSL 32:196, 199, 217, 257–58). This phrase is largely limited to Augustine’s writings before 400; cf. Cameron, Christ meets me Everywhere, 87. 77 Ver. rel. 17.34 (CCSL 32:208; Hill, WSA I/8:49–50). The image of the governance of a household is compelling precisely because dispensatio and the related to dispositio originally referred to such domestic governance. See K.-H. Schwarte, “Dispositio,” in Augustinus-Lexikon, ed. C. Mayer (Basel: Schwabe, 1999), 2.3–4:498–504; cf. Augustine, De gratia et libero arbitrio 3.9.27 (CCSL 29:291): “Et utrumque horum, id est turpitudo servi et mundatio cloacae, jam conjunctum et redactum in quandam sui generis unitatem ita dispositae domui coaptatur atque subtexitur ut ejus universitati ordinatissimo decore conveniat.” 78 Ver. rel. 17.34 (CCSL 32:208; Hill, WSA I/8:50): “Ut enim ars medicinae, cum eadem maneat neque ullo pacto ipsa mutetur, mutat tamen praecepta languentibus, quia mutabilis est nostra valetudo, ita divina providentia, cum sit ipsa omnino incommutabilis, mutabili tamen creaturae varie subvenit et pro diversitate morborum alias alia jubet aut vetat.” 79 Ver. rel. 24.45 (CCSL 32:215; Hill, WSA I/8:58). 80 Ver. rel. 25.46 (CCSL 32:216; Hill, WSA I/8:59).

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the very matter that caused the illness in the first place: “We have to try and make use of the flesh-bound shapes, by which we are being held back, to come to a knowledge of those which the flesh does not present us with.”81 The developed analogy of the divine physician in Ver. rel. functions rhetorically in the same manner as the divine pedagogue in Mor. eccl. mor. Manich.: God gives healing and instruction through the very materiality and temporality that once hindered health and understanding. In both cases the operative principle is: per humana in divina consurgant. Both Scripture and the incarnation serve to aid the soul in its ascent to eternity. The earth-bound promises and punishments of the patriarchs and prophets as well as the flesh of the eternal Word serve to instruct the “fleshly minded” (carnalibus), those “incapable of gazing directly at Truth with the mind and given over to the sensations of the body.”82 If we cannot cling to God in his eternity, writes Augustine, “let us make use of the steps which divine providence has been good enough to construct for us.”83 Scripture and the incarnation are perceptible, material, and temporal steps; they are the dispensatio temporalis by which ascent is made possible: “But then, through sounds and letters, smoke, a column of fire and cloud, like visible words (verba visibilia) as it were, the inexpressible mercy of God did not disdain to play with us in our childhood after a fashion with parables and similes, and to cure our inner eyes with this sort of mud (cf. John 9:5).”84 The reference to the story of Christ healing the blind man by applying mud to his eyes is, for Augustine, a rich metaphor of God’s accommodation to meet the “fleshly minded” through earthly means. In the incarnation and in Scripture, God applies mud to spiritual children not yet capable of gazing directly on truth. Augustine connects the manner in which God led his people through the wilderness (“smoke, a column of fire, and cloud”) with how he now guides his people in the new dispensation (“through sounds and letters”). Both are signs – “visible words” – that occur within the temporal and function as “steps” to the eternal. There is no hermeneutical principle more profound or more significant, insists Augustine, than rightly discerning the mystery of the dispensatio temporalis: “And there is the question that has above all to be asked: What advantage is it to the

81 Ver. rel. 24.45 (CCSL 32:215; Hill, WSA I/8:58–59): “Ergo ipsis carnalibus formis, quibus detinemur, nitendum est ad eas cognoscendas, quas caro non nuntiat.” 82 Ver. rel. 16.30 (CCSL 32:205; Hill, WSA I/8:47): “Ita enim demonstravit carnalibus et non valentibus intueri mente veritatem corporeis que sensibus deditis.” 83 Ver. rel. 50.98 (CCSL 32:250; Hill, WSA I/8:94): “Utamur gradibus quos nobis di vina pro videntia fabricare dignata est.” 84 Ver. rel. (CCSL 32:250; Hill, WSA I/8:94): “Per sonos ac litteras, ignem, fumum, nubem, columnam, quasi quaedam verba visibilia, cum infantia nostra parabolis ac similitudinibus quodam modo ludere et interiores oculos nostros luto hujusce modi curare non aspernata est ineffabilis misericordia Dei.”

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human race that divine providence should have spoken to us through creatures (per creaturam) both rational and reproductive and merely material, which are at his service and disposal?”85 To understand this divine plan is to perceive the divine intention that unites all of Scripture. The pride of the Manicheans refuses to admit the divine pedagogy that accommodates itself to humanity – an accommodation by which God communicates his Word through the weakness and vulnerability of human words. It remains the case, however, that “once this single matter is definitively cleared up, all childish impudence is excluded from our minds, and sacred and holy religion is allowed entry.”86 The hermeneutical principle of the dispensatio temporalis is for Augustine a master key with which one might access all of Scripture.

Allegory: From the Letter to the Spirit Augustine’s repeated charge is that the Manicheans simply do not understand how to read Scripture: “Are those scriptures of the law, that they attack so foolishly and so ineffectually as though they were open to all (planissimae), entirely transparent?”87 Scripture needs to be handled with a degree of subtlety and sophistication that the Manicheans lack. Their flat-footed literalism leads them to “a massive onslaught of speeches and curses [as] they tear at things they do not understand.”88 No doubt speaking from the experience of his earlier theological misperceptions, Augustine upbraids the Manicheans: We certainly interpret the law and the prophets far, far differently than you suppose. Give up your error. We do not worship a God who is repentant, jealous, needy, or cruel; we do not worship a God who seeks pleasure from the blood of human beings or animals, nor a God who takes pleasure in sins and crimes, nor a God who limits his ownership of the earth to a certain small piece of it. For you are accustomed to inveigh violently and at length against these silly ideas and other similar ones. Hence, your attack does not touch us. Rather, you tear into certain opinions of old wives or even of children with language that is more inept the more violent it is. If anyone is moved by it and crosses over to you, he does not condemn the teaching of our Church but shows that he is ignorant of it.89

85 Ver. rel. 50.99 (CCSL 32:251; Hill, WSA I/8:95): “Et quod maxime quaerendum est: quid prosit generi humano, quod sic nobis cum per rationalem et genitalem et corporalem creaturam sibi servientem divina providentia locuta est.” 86 Ver. rel. (CCSL 32:251; Hill, WSA I/8:95): “Quo uno cognito omnis ab animis protervitas puerilis excluditur et introducitur sacrosancta religio.” 87 Util. cred. 6.13 (CSEL 25/1:17; Kearney, WSA I/8:126): “An istae Scripturae legis planissimae sunt, in quas isti quasi vulgo expositas inpetum faciunt frustra et inaniter?” 88 Util. cred. 6.13 (CSEL 25/1:18; Kearney, WSA I/8:126): “magno inpetu orationis maledictisque lacerantes, quia eis inperiti plaudunt, aliquid se proficere existimant.” 89 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.10.16 (CSEL 90:19–20; Teske, WSA I/19:38–39): “Longe prorsus aliter longe quam putatis lex et prophetae intelliguntur a nobis. Desinite errare; non colimus poenitentem

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The inability of the Manicheans to conceive of the divine presence as spiritual and transcendent also befogs their approach to Scripture, which, Augustine complains, they always interpret in the “literal sense” (littera sonat), so that they do not “pass beyond the childhood of the mind” (mentis pueritiam).90 Ultimately, Manichean literalism is childish, insists Augustine: God is neither contained in place nor diffused through space; the divine substance likewise does not change. It is childish to contend that the analogies and metaphors of Scripture are literal descriptions of God moving and changing, turning his eyes, repenting, or delighting in sacrifices. Scripture does not teach things unfitting of God. Rather, a mature reader ought to seek with “diligence and piety” the true sense intended by the letter of Scripture.91 Augustine admits that the vast majority of those who read Scripture are uninformed and lack sophistication with texts; they are particularly susceptible to the wiles of popular Manichean attacks and are frequently left scandalized by sacred writ: “There are not many, however, who are able to defend [Scripture] in a popular way on account of the mysteries (mysteria) they contain.”92 Drawing out the “mysteries” of Scripture requires an awareness of the different senses operative in the text. Augustine enumerates four senses: Scripture can be interpreted according to history (historiam), explanation (aetiologiam), analogy (analogiam), and allegory (allegoriam).93 History concerns “what happened,” either in reality or in a narrative (gestum sit). Explanation concerns the reason why something is written (de causa). Analogy demonstrates the congruity of the two Testaments. Finally, allegory invites one to understand the text not in a literal way (ad litteram) but in a figurative sense (figurate intellegenda).94

Deum, non invidum, non indigum, non crudelem, non quaerentem de hominum vel pecorum sanguine voluptatem, non cui flagitia et scelera placeant, non possessionem suam terrae quadam particula terminantem. In has enim atque hujusmodi nugas graviter copioseque invehi soletis. Quare nos invectio vestra non tangit; sed aniles quasdam vel etiam pueriles opiniones eo ineptiore quo vehementiore oratione pervellitis. Qua quisquis movetur et ad vos transit, non ecclesiae nostrae damnat disciplinam, sed eam se ignorare demonstrat.” 90 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.10.17 (CSEL 90:20; Teske, WSA I/19:39). 91 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 1.10.17 (CSEL 90:20; Teske, WSA I/19:39): “quaerite potius diligenter et pie quomodo illa icantur.” 92 Util. cred. 2.4 (CSEL 25/1:6; Kearney, WSA I/8:119 [trans. altered]): “Defendi autem populariter, propter mysteria quae his continentur, non a multis admodum possunt.” 93 Cf. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber 2.5–3.6 (CSEL 28/1:461–62). 94 Util. cred. 3.5 (CSEL 25/1:8; Kearney, WSA I/8:120). Like most ancient authors, Augustine does not typically (or consistently) distinguish between varying kinds of figurative exegesis (typological, moral, anagogical, or allegorical). Allegory and figuration function synonymously as they do in Util. cred. 3.5, where they are used interchangeably. To put it simply, figurative exegesis is to read Scripture in the light of Christ, and so the basic distinction Augustine draws is between the literal and the figurative or between the historical and the spiritual. C. Harrison, “Augustine,” in From the Beginnings to 600, eds. J. C. Paget and J. Schaper, vol. 1, The New Cambridge History of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): 676–96, 693, notes, “Augustine’s own terminology

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It is the fourth way of interpreting Scripture, the figurative, that does the heavy lifting in Augustine’s response to the Manicheans. Christ himself warranted the use of allegory by teaching the Paschal Mystery through the sign of the prophet Jonah (Matt 12:39–40).95 But the two key texts to which Augustine nearly invariably refers are 1 Cor 10:1–11 and Gal 4:22–26.96 In 1 Cor 10, Paul contends that Christ was sacramentally present to the people of Israel in the desert, providing spiritual food and drink. As such, the very history of the Exodus becomes an allegory pointing to the future Christian people.97 Galatians 4 contains an extended analogy regarding Abraham’s two sons, one born of a free woman (Sarah) and the other of a slave (Hagar). And Paul explains, “These things are said as an allegory” (Gal 4:23); the two women represent two covenants, that of the law and that of grace. For Augustine, Paul’s developed use of allegory models how the Christian exegete should handle the Old Testament. While Christians no longer ritualistically observe the Old Testament law, a figurative reading of the law reveals profound mysteries (tanta mysteria continentur).98 In fact, such mysteries are the actual end (finis) of the law, such that it is allegory that allows one to discern the true meaning of the text. Augustine’s understanding of figurative exegesis is markedly different from common contemporary treatments of it. The contemporary distinction between “literal” and “figurative” typically functions as a distinction between “what the text really means” (that is, authorial intent) and subsequent creative adaptions of the text added to (and perhaps even opposed to) the literal sense. Here, literal exegesis is regarded as objective and (in theory) scientifically accessible, while figurative exegesis is subjective and artistic. As such, for post-Enlightenment hermeneutics, a degree of tension necessarily animates the relationship between the “literal” and the “figurative.” However, for Augustine (and other ancient exegetes), the “literal” is simply what we might call the plain meaning of the text. (When I read the three letters C-A-T on a page, my mind conjures up a four-legged feline.) Augustine uses the word proprius when speaking of the “literal” sense; proprius is that which is one’s own or that which is proper to itself. The literal, then, is the plain meaning that is proper to the word itself. Of course, words often do not function in such linear fashion. (A “catty lady” is unintelligible in terms of Augustine’s literal sense.) Figurative exegesis, then, tries to make sense of what cannot be made intelligible is fluid: he uses a variety of terms such as allegoria, figura, typus, similitudo, sacramentum, imago, mysteria, umbra and so on to refer to the way in which the words of scripture function as signs which should be read so as to discover the meaning or res which they not only point to, but also contain.” 95 Util. cred. 3.8 (CSEL 25/1:10; Kearney, WSA I/8:121). 96 For a broader introduction to Paul’s use of allegory as a means of theologically articulating the new Christian community’s relation to Israel, see Fredriksen, “Allegory and Reading God’s Book.” 97 Util. cred. 3.8 (CSEL 25/1:11; Kearney, WSA I/8:122): “Qui etiam ipsam Exodi historiam futurae christianae plebis allegoriam fuisse significat.” 98 Util. cred. 3.9 (CSEL 25/1:13; Kearney, WSA I/8:123).

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from the littera.99 Figurative exegesis is not a subsequent addition to the literal, but an attempt to find meaning in the literal. Figuration for the ancients is not a movement away from the letter of the text but an attempt to bring meaning to the text. Gerald Bruns explains how figuration for the ancients does not draw one away from the letter of the text but enlarges upon what is written, “reinscribing what is written – in order to make sense of it.”100 If the literal meaning of a passage is strange and scandalous, figurative exegesis allows one to turn the text around in order to make sense of it.101 Augustine’s claim that figurative exegesis discloses the true meaning and end (finis) of the law may strike a modern reader as a violent imposition on the text. We assume a disjunction between the “literal” and the “figurative;” the true meaning (“literal”) of the law is its historical character (discovered with the appropriate historical-critical methodology), and if we choose subsequently to interpret the law’s meaning christologically (“figuratively”), we need at least to be intellectually honest and admit that we are importing a “spiritual” meaning to the text. But this is not a distinction Augustine makes. The “spiritual” meaning is the true meaning, not a subsequent addendum. Meaning is not principally a historical category but an intelligible category. This entails an a priori attention to the nature and purpose of Scripture, which is to lead the reader to Christ. To discern the presence of Christ in all of Scripture is to come to a recognition of its depth and divinity (altum et divinum).102 Again, Augustine does not understand allegory as importing a foreign meaning to the littera; rather, allegory is coming to understand the littera in their deeper sense. It is to understand what Paul meant when he said that God’s deliverance of Israel through the sea, the nourishment of his people on manna, and the

99 Figuration – the use of allegory and metaphor – is, for the ancients, inherent to human thought and speech. C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), 45, writes, “Allegory, in some sense, belongs not to medieval man but to man, or even to mind, in general. It is of the very nature of thought and language to represent what is immaterial in picturable terms.” 100 Bruns, “Figuration in Antiquity,” 147. 101 Here the modern exegete is immediately concerned with “importing” a meaning that is foreign to the text. But this imagines the text to be a dead object; a cadaver that can be subjected to critical analytic interrogation. It presupposes that “meaning” is somehow embedded deep within the text and that the right “tools” and “method” can force out its secrets. But this not the relationship ancients had with their texts. According to them, meaning does not lie within the text but with the interpreter who comes to understand the text. That is to say, their primary mode of engagement was hermeneutical not analytical. The ancient does not imagine that there is an objective meaning in a text (synonymous, perhaps, with authorial intent); rather, without an interpreter the text stands mute. The interpreter serves the text, giving it a voice, as Bruns, “Figuration in Antiquity,” 151–52, explains: “The interpreter stands with the text in a relation that is more phenomenal than logical. To interpret what is written is to speak for it. . . . To be an interpreter of the text is to be answerable for it; it is to say what the text does not say and perhaps is not able to say.” 102 Util. cred. 6.13 (CSEL 25/1:18; Kearney, WSA I/8:126).

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gift of water from the rock were “written down for our instruction” (1 Cor 10:11). These narratives, explains Paul, serve “as types” (Greek “typikōs”; Augustine’s Latin translation read in figura) whose meaning is illuminated in Christ. Augustine (and the broader tradition of patristic exegesis) extends this Pauline interpretive principle: “Any devout person, therefore, understands that there is nothing more harmful than to take everything there according to the literal meaning (ad litteram) of the words but that there is nothing more beneficial than to have it unveiled by the Spirit. So it is that ‘the letter kills but the spirit gives life’ (littera occidit, spiritus vivificat; 2 Cor 3:6).”103 Augustine frequently deploys this Paulinism in his early engagement with Scripture. After all, it is 2 Cor 3:6, wielded so effectively by Ambrose, that allowed Scripture to become available once more to Augustine. Allegory, as a movement from the letter to the spirit, correlates neatly with Augustine’s broader conception of ascent as a movement from the perceptible to the intelligible and from the temporal to the eternal. Augustine distinguishes the faith to be had in Scripture’s historical narratives (historiae) from the faith to be had in the intelligible reality (intellegentiae) to which the historical narratives point.104 Just as in the spiritual life one ought to ascend from the temporal and perceptible to the eternal and intelligible, so too with exegesis, one ought to ascend from the historical narrative to the eternal realities of wisdom at which they aim. Allegory is for Augustine an anagogical exercise. Nevertheless, Augustine is keenly aware that the ascent proper to allegory is neither simple nor linear. After all, the definition of “allegory” is a reference to something by means of something else. (Allegoria is etymologically derived from the Greek words allos, meaning “other,” and agoreuein meaning “to speak.”) The character of this allegorical reference can be complex: What is the correct way of interpreting an allegory, which we believe Wisdom spoke in the Holy Spirit? Does it suffice to lead us (perducere) from ancient visible realities to a more recent visible reality? Or apply them even further, to the affection and nature of the soul? Or even to unchanging eternity? That is to say, do some allegories signify visible deeds, others the motions of souls, and others the laws of eternity? And are there even some to be found in which all these can be traced?105

103 Util. cred. 3.9 (CSEL 25/1:13; Kearney, WSA I/8:123): “Omnis pius intellegat nihil esse perniciosius, quam quidquid ibi est accipi ad litteram, id est, ad verbum; nihil autem salubrius, quam spiritu revelari. Inde est: littera occidit, spiritus autem vi vificat.” 104 Ver. rel. 50.99 (CCSL 32:251; Hill, WSA I/8:94): “Distinguamus ergo quam fidem debeamus historiae, quam fidem debeamus. intellegentiae.” It is important to remember that Augustine’s distinction between faith in the historical narrative and faith in the eternal intelligible realities are species of the same faith; cf. Cameron, Christ Meets me Everywhere, 93. 105 Ver. rel. 50.99 (CCSL 32:251; Hill, WSA I/8:95 [trans. altered]): “Qui sit modus interpretandae allegoriae, quae per sapientiam dicta creditur in Spiritu Sancto: utrum a visibilibus antiquioribus ad visibilia recentiora eam perducere sufficiat; an usque ad animae affectiones atque naturam, an usque ad

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Allegory, as a movement from historiae to intellegentiae, is not straightforward, and Augustine seems to have more questions than answers. Allegory is not a grid that one can neatly place over a historical narrative to give it new meaning; rather, it requires a subtle and spiritually mature interpreter. While the general character of allegory entails an ascent from the temporal to the eternal, Scripture evinces many different types of allegory; allegory is discovered in historical narratives, events, sayings, and sacraments. Additionally, allegory is couched in the language and idiom of the biblical languages, which only adds to the complexity.106 The sinuosity involved in transferring meaning from the literal to the figurative is, nevertheless, an essential and unavoidable task in making sense of any text. For Augustine, allegory serves a further purpose in disclosing a unified vision of Scripture; figurative exegesis offers a hermeneutic to account for obscure and unseemly passages in Scripture. Once such texts are “turned over” and interpreted christologically, their place within the dispensatio temporalis of God’s creative and redemptive plan is made apparent.

Conclusion Augustine’s early theology of Scripture is multifaceted and polemically occasioned. Nevertheless, broad, but consistent, rules for handling Scripture emerge, which are expanded and repeatedly deployed in Augustine’s long episcopal career devoted to expositing and preaching the Bible. The central concern animating Augustine’s early theology of Scripture was to insist on the unity of Scripture. The same God who gave the law and spoke through the prophets revealed himself in Christ Jesus. Three hermeneutical strategies converge in Augustine’s early theology of Scripture, underwriting his defense of Scripture’s unity against the Manicheans. First, the aim of all of Scripture is that the believer may grow in charity. The “harmony” of Scripture is recognized by those who hear the organizing melody of love by which all of Scripture “sings together.” Second, Scripture, when read as a unified whole, reveals a divine plan – the dispensatio temporalis – by which God accommodates himself to the limitation of human weakness. The “lowly manner” of Scripture, like the incarnation, meets the fleshly minded – those who still creep along the ground – where they are. Those who are, as yet, incapable of looking directly at the brilliance of truth, are invited to find the divine Word in the shadows of the Old Testament and are, thereby, offered the means to ascend “through what is human to what is divine.” Third, allegory, or figurative exegesis, puts the Old Testament at the disposal

incommutabilem aeternitatem: an aliae significent gesta visibilia, aliae motus animorum, aliae legem aeternitatis; an aliquae inveniantur, in quibus haec omnia vestiganda sint.” 106 Ver. rel. 50.99 (CCSL 32:251; Hill, WSA I/8:95).

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of the Christian faith. It was hearing Ambrose exposit Scripture with the guiding principle that “the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” that presented Augustine the possibility of claiming the Old Testament as his own. For Augustine, the “literal” is not opposed to the “figurative;” rather, figurative exegesis infuses meaning, unity, and purpose into the literal text. Far from drawing one away from the literal, figuration attempts to bring understanding to the littera. Taking his cue from the Apostle Paul, Augustine contends for the indispensable role of allegory in maintaining the unity of Scripture.

For Further Reading Primary Sources Augustine. “Advantage of Believing.” In On Christian Belief, translated by Ray Kearney, 107–48. Part I, vol. 8, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, edited by Boniface Ramsey. Hyde Park: New City Press, 2005. Augustine. Answer to Faustus: A Manichean, translated by R. Teske. Part I, vol. 20, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, edited by Boniface Ramsey. Hyde Park: New City Press, 2007. Augustine. On Christian Doctrine, translated by D. W. Robertson, Jr. New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1958. Augustine. S. Aureli Augustini: De utilitate credenda, De duabus animabus, Contra Fortunatum, Contra Adimantum, Contra epistulam fundamenti, Contra Faustum, edited by Josef Zycha. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 25/1. Vienna: Tempsky, 1891. Augustine. S. Aureli Augustini: Sect. VI; pars VII: De moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum libri duo, edited by Pius Knöll. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 90. Vienna: Tempsky, 1992. Augustine. S. Aurelii Augustini Opera: Pars IV, I: De doctrina christiana; De vera religione, edited by Joseph Martin and K.-D. Daur. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 32. Turnhout: Brepols, 1962. Augustine. Confessions, translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Augustine. Sancti Augustini Opera: Confessionum Libri XIII, edited by Luc Verheijen. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 27. Turnhout: Brepols, 1990. Augustine. The Manichean Debate, translated by Roland Teske. Part I, vol. 19, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, edited by Boniface Ramsey. Hyde Park: New City Press, 2007. Augustine. “True Religion.” In On Christian Belief, translated by Edmund Hill, 15–104. Part I, vol. 8, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, edited by Boniface Ramsey. Hyde Park: New City Press, 2005.

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Secondary Sources Bonner, Gerald. “Augustine as Biblical Scholar.” In From the Beginnings to Jerome, edited by Peter R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans, 541–63. Vol. 1, The Cambridge History of the Bible. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Bruns, Gerald. “The Problem of Figuration in Antiquity.” In Hermeneutics: Questions and Prospects, edited by Gary Shapiro and Alan Sica, 147–64. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984. Cameron, Michael. Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustine’s Early Figural Exegesis. Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Dawson, John David. Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Fredriksen, Paula. “Allegory and Reading God’s Book: Paul and Augustine on the Destiny of Israel.” In Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period, edited by Jon Whitman, 125–49. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Fredriksen, Paula. “‘Secundum Carnem’: History and Israel in the Theology of St. Augustine.” In The Limits of Ancient Christianity, edited by William E. Klingshirn and Mark Vessey, 26–41. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. Harrison, Carol. “Augustine.” In From the Beginnings to 600, edited by James Carleton Paget and Joachim Schaper, 676–97. Vol. 1, The New Cambridge History of the Bible. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. La Bonnardière, Anne-Marie. Biblia Augustiniana. Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1960–1975. Lubac, Henri de. The Four Senses of Scripture, trans. Mark Sebanc. Vol. 1, Medieval Exegesis. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. Margerie, Bertrand de. St. Augustine, trans. Pierre de Fontnouvelle. Vol. 3, An Introduction to the History of Exegesis. Petersham: St. Bede’s Publications, 1999. O’Donnell, James J. “Bible.” In Augustine through the Ages, edited by Allan D. Fitzgerald, 99–103. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999. Toom, Tarmo. “Augustine on Scripture.” In T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology, edited by Chad Pecknold and Tarmo Toom, 75–90. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.

Volker Henning Drecoll

10 Paul as Scripture in the Young Augustine Introduction: Augustine’s Text of Paul Since his early childhood Augustine was familiar with Paul. Given that he was registered as a catechumen at an early point in his life, it is to be assumed he attended church services along with his mother, services in which Paul’s letters would have regularly appeared as part of the liturgy. The form of the Pauline text that he encountered there is less certain, but it is reasonable to assume that something close to the text of the Vetus Latina was in use. An early type of this text is attested by Cyprian and is rather imprecisely referred to as the “North African text.”1 In the second half of the fourth century, this version seems to have been increasingly displaced by a newer text that was in circulation in Italy and that, for this reason (though not entirely fittingly), had been designated the “Itala.” This version is found in the Pauline commentaries of Marius Victorinus and in the anonymous commentary on all of Paul’s letters that has been transmitted under the name “Hilary” (and known since Erasmus as “Ambrosiaster”). It has also survived in several biblical manuscripts (notably in the famous Codex Claromontanus).2 In many of these it has either influenced or become intermingled with the Vulgate text.3 Augustine was probably not the first to import the Itala into North Africa when he returned to his homeland via Ostia in 388 CE. Indeed, the Itala may even have supplanted the older translation in North Africa prior to Augustine’s conversion. In any case, there was, in Augustine’s time, no single recognized Latin text of Paul. Augustine himself knew a large number of Latin versions, among which, in his later assessment, the Itala stood out for its quality.4 Gradually Augustine came to know and to use the Vulgate. The origins of the Vulgate for Paul’s letters are obscure; unlike the Vulgate for the Gospels, the text cannot be traced directly back to Jerome.5 However the Vulgate version of Paul was produced, we know that Jerome

1 H. F. von Soden, Das lateinische Neue Testament in Afrika zur Zeit Cyprians, TU 33/3 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909), passim. See also the chapter by Houghton in this volume. 2 H. A. G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament: A Guide to its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 23–31. 3 Cf. R. Gryson, Altlateinische Handschriften = Manuscrits vieux latins. Répertoire descriptif (Freiburg: Herder, 1999). 4 Doctr. chr. 2.15.22 (CCSL 32:56). 5 Houghton, Latin New Testament, 34, 41. Note: Translated by Adam Trettel. English version edited by Jonathan P. Yates. *Volker Henning Drecoll, Tübingen University https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-011

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had engaged with several Pauline letters (e.g., Philemon, Galatians, Ephesians, and Titus) early in his ecclesiastical career, and that Augustine had taken special notice of the monk’s commentary on Galatians. Augustine may have initially become acquainted with the Itala through biblical manuscripts. The extent of his knowledge of its two most important literary witnesses, Marius Victorinus and Ambrosiaster, is a subject of scholarly debate. Although plausible, Victorinus remains controversial as a potential source for Augustine. Even if Augustine never explicitly cites Victorinus, and even if he never offers biblical interpretations that clearly draw on Victorinus’s works, there is nevertheless a range of similarities that lead us to suspect some degree of familiarity on Augustine’s part.6 Moreover, given that Victorinus is named in Confessiones as an important role model and that Augustine probably also knew his writings on the Trinity, it is reasonable to assume that Augustine also made use of his Pauline commentaries and, in doing so, became acquainted with the text of Paul upon which Victorinus had commented. Only three of Victorinus’s Pauline commentaries are extant: one on Ephesians (the manuscript tradition contains a gap at 5:33–6:1), one on Galatians (with gaps at 3:10–20; 5: 17–6:1), and one on Philippians (with a gap at 1:1–17). Presumably, Victorinus also wrote commentaries on (at least) Romans as well as 1–2 Corinthians; but, if he did, nothing from any of them survives. Still, we cannot exclude the possibility that we have lost what may have been a very important source for Augustine’s interpretation of Romans. The commentary of “Ambrosiaster” covers all of Paul’s letters except for Hebrews (the Pauline authorship of which Augustine came to doubt).7 It appears, however, that Augustine did not become acquainted with Ambrosiaster’s text until after 400 CE. These two witnesses to the Itala, Victorinus and Ambrosiaster, should probably not be classified as part of what has been described as a “Pauline-renaissance” in the Latin west.8 This is due to the fact that neither of their commentaries differs substantially from what appeared in the Greek Christian tradition that was developing at the same time.9 The notion that a rediscovery of Paul produced a certain conception of sin and grace, as well as an idea of the redemption of the individual, which then became

6 E. Plumer, trans., Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Notes, OECS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 27–33; cf. S. A. Cooper, Marius Victorinus’ Commentary on Galatians, OECS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 203–14, 241. 7 Augustine, Epistulae ad Romanos inchoata expositio liber unus 11.4 (CSEL 84:159). The Breviarium Hipponense also does not clearly mark out Hebrews as belonging to Paul’s letters; cf. Canon 36 (CCSL 149:43) and also the critical apparatus on line 203. 8 For a contrasting view, see B. Lohse, “Beobachtungen zum Paulus-Kommentar des Marius Victorinus und zur Wiederentdeckung des Paulus in der lateinischen Theologie des vierten Jahrhunderts,” in Kerygma und Logos, ed. A. M. Ritter (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979): 351–66. 9 M. G. Mara, Agostino interprete di Paolo, Letture cristiane del primo millennio 16 (Turin: Edizioni Paoline, 1993), 14–17.

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uniquely characteristic of the Western tradition, is implausible. A quick glance at Origen’s commentary on Romans, which appeared in a Latin translation by Rufinus around 400 CE, shows that such themes are in no way unique to the “Western” tradition. The surviving Pauline commentaries from the Greek realm, e.g., that of Theodore of Mopsuestia, also do not differ in any significant particulars from what was being written contemporaneously in Latin. In any case, there is no reason to take a “Pauline renaissance” as a given when investigating Augustine’s early interpretation of Paul. Rather, there are two important influences to consider: first, the Manichaeans’ early interpretation of Paul (precisely because Augustine probably developed significant familiarity with their tradition during his years as a Manichaean auditor) and, second, Augustine’s engagement with Paul in Milan in 385/386 CE.

Paul in North-African Manichaeism In North Africa, in addition to the two churches that both claimed to be the Catholic Church (the Caecilianist church, of which Augustine was a member, and the Donatist church),10 there was the elitist church of the Manichaeans, which boldly claimed to represent not only a better but also the true form of Christianity. The Manichaean bishop Faustus could even denounce non-Manichaean Christians as “half Christians” (semichristiani).11 Manichaeism made frequent recourse to Paul – both within and beyond North Africa.12 This is made particularly clear by the Cologne Mani-Codex, which portrays Mani’s ministry as being analogous to Paul’s.13 Mani is presented as one who, having been the recipient of unmediated divine revelations (i.e., signs and visions), opted to turn away from a religion of law, and to proclaim the revelation he has received during his missionary journeys as an “apostle of Jesus Christ.”14

10 On the use of Paul by the Donatists, and especially by Petilian, see W. H. C. Frend, “The Donatist Church and St. Paul,” in Le epistole paoline nei Manichei, i Donatisti e il primo Agostino, eds. J. Ries et al., Sussidi Patristici 5 (Rome: Istituto Patristico Augustinianum, 1989): 85–123, esp. 102–8, and the instructive “Appendix II” (cf. 121f). 11 Cf. Faustus, in Faust. 1.2 (CSEL 25/1:251). 12 See also the chapter by BeDuhn in this volume. 13 J. Ries, “Saint Paul dans la formation de Mani,” in Ries et al., Le epistole paoline nei Manichei, 7–27, esp. 12–20; and H. D. Betz, “Paul in the Mani Biography (Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis),” in Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis. Atti del Simposio Internazionale (Rende-Amantea 3–7 settembre 1984), ed. L. Cirillo (Cosenza: Marra, 1986): 215–34. 14 CMC (Cologne Mani-Codex) 66.4–6 (L. Koenen and C. Römer, eds., Der Kölner Mani-Kodex. Über das Werden seines Leibes, Abhandlungen der Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia 27 [Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1988], 44). See also CMC 60.12–62.9 (Koenen and Römer, Kölner Mani-Kodex, 40–42), where Paul’s being caught up to the third heaven is appropriated as a model.

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Additional evidence makes it seem that it was particularly in North Africa where Manichaeism made intensive use of the New Testament, and especially of Paul’s letters.15 This use is very apparent when we consider the Tebessa Codex, which was found in Algeria in 1918. This rare find of an ancient manuscript from the Latin-speaking region of North Africa (i.e., from the Roman provinces of Africa Proconsularis and Numidia) contains a large portion of an original Manichaean work entitled On the Two Ranks (De duobus gradibus). “Ranks” here refer to the two classes into which the Manichaeans divided their followers: the elect (electi, also called the perfect or perfecti), and the hearers (auditores, also called catechumens or catechumeni). The first part of the work deals with the accusation against the elect that their abstention from work and other activities (such as the preparation of food) contradicts Pauline theology, specifically 2 Thess 3:10. The second part then gives more precise information about the common life and duties of the two ranks. The text frequently references Paul, and it is noteworthy that his expressions involving “working” (operari) or “laboring” (laborare) are interpreted figuratively. Such passages, the treatise states, are not to be interpreted “carnally” (carnaliter); rather, they are meant to communicate metaphorically the special activities of the elect, i.e., their preaching, prayer, and teaching.16 Indeed, the text states, Paul’s expressions involving “work” or “labor” should either be read as referring to such special activities, or as totally irrelevant to duties of the elect.17 In the De duobus gradibus, Paul functions as a pre-eminent authority figure; in fact, it is his authority that grounds the spiritual reading that is crucial for the Manichaeans. He plays the same role in the early debates between the presbyter Augustine and the Manichaeans.18 For Faustus, Paul’s authority is also directly linked to his letters. Faustus believed that (except for several interpolations that must be recognized and, as such, excluded from consideration, and Hebrews) they represent the genuine epistles of an apostle, whereas the Gospels, by contrast, represent an anonymous compilation in which authentic stories concerning Jesus are jumbled together along with all types of rumor and invention. In other words, for Faustus, Paul’s letters attest to Jesus’s revelation in a less corrupted form than do the Gospels. Faustus thought that when dealing with the Gospels we must begin by searching out and

15 On this, see F. Decret, “L’utilisation des épîtres de Paul chez les Manichéens d’Afrique,” in Ries et al., Le epistole paoline nei Manichei, 29–83. 16 Cf. Codex Thevestinus, A col. 15 (M. Stein, Codex Thevestinus, Abhandlungen der NordrheinWestfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia 27 [Paderborn: Schöningh, 2004], 3/1:18), and A cols. 22–23 (Stein, Codex Thevestinus, 24–26); cf. the persuasive reconstruction of the train of thought in Stein, Codex Thevestinus, 126–31. 17 Cf. Codex Thevestinus, A col. 31 (Stein, Codex Thevestinus, 34). 18 A process that begins with Augustine’s debate with Fortunatus. See also the contribution of BeDuhn in this volume.

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extracting Jesus’s authentic message from the mass of extraneous and/or falsified material.19 We possess no records regarding Augustine that are contemporary with his time as a Manichaean. This means that we are wholly reliant on his own later reports and recollections. According to these, it was in 373 CE that he became a Manichaean catechumen/hearer.20 This may not necessarily have included a turning away from Christianity. When we take the Christian character of North African Manichaeism into account, it makes sense to think that, at this time, Augustine was only changing from one form of Christianity to another – i.e., from being a Caecilianist catechumen to a Manichaean one.21 In the process, Paul may have remained just as important an authority as before.22 Among the motives that led Augustine to Manichaeism – along with the efficiency of Manichaean theology (e.g., in addressing questions concerning cosmology and the “whence evil?” problem) and the Manichaeans’ exemplary asceticism – we can also include their biblical exegesis. Their extensive critique of the Old Testament (and in particular of the stories of the patriarchs), together with their allegorical interpretation of anthropomorphizing passages, contributed to Augustine’s acceptance of an explicitly Christian and biblically grounded theology in which Paul played a central role.23 The Manichaean connection to Paul may also have helped Augustine, in terms of both vocabulary and content, to better articulate his own inner turmoil, for instance, via Rom 7 or Gal 5:17.24 Both passages are cited by Fortunatus and appear in the Epistula ad Menoch, although, in the latter, it is unclear whether we are dealing with an authentic Manichaean work or a forgery (possibly stemming from Pelagian circles). Whoever was responsible, they did quite a good job of capturing the Manichaean approach to Paul.25 In any case, the Manichaeans’ frequent recourse to

19 A. Hoffmann, “Verfälschung der Jesus-Tradition. Neutestamentliche Texte in der manichäischaugustinischen Kontroverse,” in Atti del terzo Congresso Internazional di studi “Manicheismo e Oriente Cristiano”: Arcavacata di Rende – Amantea, 31 agosto – 5 settembre 1993, eds. L. Cirillo and A. van Tongerloo, Manichaean Studies 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997): 149–82, esp. 169f. 20 V. H. Drecoll and M. Kudella, Augustin und der Manichäismus, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 73f. 21 That as a Manichaean Augustine simply remained a Caecilianist catechumen is assumed by L. C. Ferrari, “Young Augustine: Both Catholic and Manichee,” AugStud 26 (1995): 109–28, esp. 112–15. 22 T. F. Martin, Rhetoric and Exegesis in Augustine’s Interpretation of Romans 7:24–25A, Studies in Bible and Early Christianity 47 (Lampeter: Edwin Mellen, 2001), 9–14. 23 Drecoll and Kudella, Augustin und der Manichäismus, 69–73. 24 V. H. Drecoll, Die Entstehung der Gnadenlehre Augustins, BHT 109 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 187–92. 25 For this text’s authorship, see M. Stein, Manichaica Latina, Abhandlungen der Nordrhein-Westf älischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia 27 (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1998), 1:28–43.

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Paul must have made an especially strong impression on the young Augustine and should be regarded as an important influence on his own later interpretation of Paul.26

Was There a “Trial by Books” in 386 CE in the Garden in Milan? Paul also played an important role for Augustine while he was in Milan. Here the newly appointed rhetorician, who had by now distanced himself from Manichaeism and who was in search of a more persuasive theology, encountered Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. Heretofore Ambrose had not particularly distinguished himself as an interpreter of Paul. Nevertheless, his allegorical method of interpreting the Bible,27 which, among other verses, was grounded in 2 Cor 3:6, proved interesting to Augustine – perhaps even because of the ways his method for reading Paul had already been shaped by Manichaeism.28 It is indeed fitting that an act of reading Paul plays a central role in Augustine’s description of his own conversion in Conf. It is true that his choice to depict his inner constitution before his conversion via recourse to Rom 7 may have been due both to later reflection and to considerations of style, but it is also true that its portrayal of Augustine’s pre-conversion condition of inner turmoil is strongly marked by this passage, even though Conf. book 8 contains only a handful of explicit citations of Rom 7.29 It is noteworthy in this context that the correct knowledge of the concept of God – namely, as a spiritual and transcendent being that is in no way material or identical with the soul, which is everywhere present and which can actively intervene in human affairs – in no way removes Augustine’s condition of inner turmoil. Indeed, his own pre-conversion condition is connected (in this text) to the struggle in Rom 7 in a way that makes it clear that his condition represents the stage of being “under the law” (sub lege).30 This assumes, of course, the differentiation between the four stages that Augustine developed in his early interpretation of Paul, in particular between “under the law” and “under grace” (for more on this, see below). Hence, one can with good cause doubt whether as early as 386 CE Augustine had employed Pauline exegesis in

26 P. Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews. A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 155. 27 C. Markschies, trans., Ambrosius von Mailand: De fide [ad Gratianum]. Über den Glauben [an Gratian], Fontes Christiani 47/1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 1:29–34; and Mara, Agostino interprete, 50. 28 Martin, Rhetoric and Exegesis, 14–16; and M. G. Mara, “L’influsso di Paolo in Agostino,” in Ries et al., Le epistole paoline nei Manichei, 125–62, esp. 141f. 29 See esp. Augustine, Confessiones 8.5.11–12 (CCSL 27:120–21). 30 Drecoll, Entstehung der Gnadenlehre, 313–19; and Martin, Rhetoric and Exegesis, 81.

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order to grapple with the theological significance of his own condition. Regardless of what one might assume on this point, it remains true that Paul is present in two crucial passages of Conf., not only as an aid for interpreting events theologically, but also within the narrative itself. Among the events recorded in book 8 that shaped Augustine’s path is the encounter with the imperial official Ponticianus, who unexpectedly comes across a codex of Paul when visiting Augustine and praises him for having such interests. This incident then becomes the occasion of a longer conversation during the course of which Ponticianus makes it known that he is a Christian. He subsequently tells Augustine about the conversion of Anthony, the existence of ascetic communities in Milan, and the conversion of two imperial officials in Trier.31 The attentive reader also encounters echoes of this conversation in the so-called garden scene of Book 8, when the example of Anthony comes to Augustine’s mind – in particular, how Anthony was moved to act when he unexpectedly came across a specific passage of Scripture. This recollection then leads in Augustine’s own conversion narrative to the decision to pick up a codex of Paul, flip through it, and read the first verse on which his finger falls as applying directly to his present situation. This self-inflicted “trial by books” is carried out explicitly with a codex of Paul (codex apostoli) and yields Rom 13:13–14 as the crucial result. Augustine interprets the passage as speaking directly to him and, in hindsight, describes this moment as an attainment of a new certainty, which, in turn, led him to make certain decisions, including: (1) to give up his career as a rhetorician in the imperial court; (2) to cancel his plans to marry into the Roman nobility; (3) to be baptized by Ambrose.32 Romans 13:13–14 does not show up in any prominent way in Augustine’s early writings, and the report of Conf. is, while crafted as an autobiographical account written considerably later, naturally suspect as a source. For this reason, researchers have been right to stress how little tangible information Augustine actually gives us in Conf. regarding the events of his life up to 388 CE (not to mention the fact that the period between 388 and the composition of Conf. is also completely omitted).33 It is also clear that Conf. is a stylized piece of writing that interprets past events from a certain theological point of view. We should admit that what we are dealing with is not an autobiography in any normal sense, but a work of theology, 31 Conf. 8.6.14–15 (CCSL 27:121–23). 32 Conf. 8.12.29 (CCSL 27:131). 33 See esp. J. O’Donnell, Augustine. A New Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 2005). For his reading of Paul in particular, see L. C. Ferrari, “Augustine’s ‘Discovery’ of Paul (Confessions 7.21.27),” AugStud 22 (1991): 37–61, esp. 53f. In addition to the commentary of J. O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), there is the five-volume commentary of the Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, Sant’Agostino. Confessioni, eds. M. Simonetti et al. (Verona: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1992–1997) and the extensive commentary on all thirteen books in Die Confessiones des Augustinus von Hippo. Einführung und Interpretationen zu den 13 Büchern, eds. Norbert Fischer and Cornelius Mayer (Freiburg: Herder, 1998 [repr. 2004]).

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which picks out certain important moments from Augustine’s own life story and uses these for wider literary and theological aims.34 The way in which Augustine does this, however, seems to owe more to choices of style (such as withholding of information, emphasis, and ordering of material) than it does to pure fiction and invention. Even the garden scene, it should be noted, contains nothing that could not be explained as following an ordinary course of events: a distraught and desperate orator, racked by inner turmoil, hears the voice of a child and interprets this as a divine command to carry out a “trial by books” with a codex of Paul. The vividness of the scene speaks for, rather than against, its authenticity.35 Alypius, a contemporary of Augustine, is also brought in as an eyewitness, who then reads Rom 14:1 as referring to himself and decides to be baptized along with Augustine. It is important to note that, at the time Conf. was first published, Alypius could still be approached as a witness regarding these events (even if he may not be counted as an unbiased one).36 If one persists in doubting the historicity of the “trial by books” that the two young men carried out on themselves, it remains reasonable to assume that Augustine’s recourse to the Bible in Milan – after he had been influenced by Ambrose’s preaching and had read the “books of the Platonists” (and especially those of Plotinus) – was also connected to a renewed reading of Paul.37 This period in Milan provides a second, and biographically more important, backdrop that one must keep in mind when investigating Augustine’s attempts to interpret Paul.

The Expositio quarundam quaestionum in epistula ad Romanos As a young presbyter in Hippo, who was nonetheless soon given preaching responsibilities by his bishop, Augustine founded a religious community whose ascetic ideal would make its way into the later “Rule of Augustine”. Even if the

34 E. Feldmann, “Confessiones,” in Mayer, Augustinus-Lexikon, 1:1134–94, esp. 1166f. 35 B. Delaroche, Saint Augustin lecteur et interprète de saint Paul dans le De peccatorum meritis et remissione (hiver 411–412), EAA 146 (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1996), 89f. Those who are skeptical may, inter alia, consult L. C. Ferrari, “Paul at the Conversion of Augustine (Conf. VIII, 12, 29–30),” AugStud 11 (1980): 5–20, esp. 17; and A. van Hooff, “Confessiones 8. Die Dialektik der Umkehr,” in Die Confessiones des Augustinus von Hippo. Einführung und Interpretationen zu den dreizehn Büchern, eds. N. Fischer and C. Mayer (Freiburg: Herder, 1998): 343–88, esp. 378f. An interpreter who seems to assume that Augustine first encountered Rom 13 in 386 CE is L. F. Pizzolato, “Libro ottavo,” in Fondazione Lorenzo Valla and Arnoldo Mondadori, Sant’Agostino. Confessioni, 3: 129–292, esp. 288–90. 36 Drecoll, Entstehung der Gnadenlehre, 319–22. 37 Delaroche, Augustin lecteur, 83.

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authenticity of the definitive text of this rule, known as the “praeceptum” (Regula 3), is disputed, we can still discern traces of Augustine’s influence in its contents.38 A strong emphasis on love is connected in many ways to concepts drawn from Pauline theology. The monks, for instance, should love spiritual beauty “not like slaves who are under the law, but like free men, who are under grace” (non sicut servi sub lege, sed sicut liberi sub gratia constituti).39 In any event, the communal reading of Scripture and the discussion of questions that arose from it may very well have been the immediate social context in which Augustine first grappled deeply with Paul’s letters.40 If we are to trust the chronology provided by the Retractationes, then the struggle with Manichaeism was by this time well underway. It is plausible to hypothesize that, in this period, Augustine, in his interpretation of Paul, was trying to make his own use of the biblical author who was so crucial for the Manichaeans, and to develop a hermeneutical approach that could be clearly differentiated from theirs. In a word, Augustine is reclaiming Paul for his own theology and church.41 We know the specific origins of the Expositio quarundam quaestionum in epistula ad Romanos from a remark in Retract. There, Augustine mentions that, while he was still a presbyter, he read Romans together with “brothers” in Carthage and that they asked him to write down his answers to their questions.42 This should call to mind a monastic setting, complete with a group of “brothers” and the communal reading of Scripture. It is not possible to date Augustine’s stay in Carthage with much precision, but his statement that he was “still” a presbyter probably suggests that this stems from the year 394 (or 395).43 At any rate, Exp. quaest. Rom. do not constitute an actual commentary on Romans; rather, they intend to provide answers to a select set of questions regarding individual verses (hence the title). The choice of which verses are commented upon and which are not is due not to any exegetical or hermeneutical plan, but simply to the fact that certain questions were raised in the course of the communal reading. For the most part, Augustine’s answers are short, but for several central passages they are considerably longer. Taken as a whole, they give us a good picture of Augustine’s grasp of Romans at this time.

38 U. Köpf, “Die Regula Augustini (Augustinregel),” in Augustin Handbuch, ed. V. H. Drecoll (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007): 565–70, esp. 570. 39 Augustine, Regula 3, 8.1 (L. M. J. Verheijen, trans., La Régle de saint Augustin 1–2 [Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1967], 1:417–37). 40 T. G. Ring, “Einführung,” in Schriften gegen die Pelagianer. Prolegomena, vol. 2, Aurelius Augustinus (Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1997), 25–85, esp. 39f. 41 P. L. Fredriksen, “Augustine’s Early Interpretation of Paul” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1979); cf. also P. L. Fredriksen, “Die frühe Paulusauslegung,” in Drecoll, Augustin Handbuch, 279–94, esp. 279. 42 Augustine, Retractationes 1.23.1 (CCSL 57:66–67). 43 T. G. Ring, “Expositio quarundam propositionum ex epistula apostoli ad Romanos,” in Mayer, Augustinus-Lexikon, 1:1209–18, esp. 1210.

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Just before the consideration of the first question, Augustine, as a central theme, states that Romans deals with the problem of the works of the law and grace.44 In explaining this, the four-stage teaching that he develops out of Rom 3:20 becomes key.45 The four “stages of man” (gradus hominis) are stages in the salvation history of the whole human race as well as in the lives of individual persons: in other words, universal and individual redemption run in parallel. The four stages are: (1) before the law (ante legem); (2) under the law (sub lege); (3) under grace (sub gratia); (4) in peace (in pace).46 The concepts “under the law” and “under grace” are taken directly from Paul (Rom 6:14), while the condition of being “before the law” has Rom 4:15 and 5:20 in view. The formulation of a fourth stage – i.e., of being “in peace” – is not something found explicitly in Paul’s text, but Augustine sees it as implicit in Rom 8:10–11.47 The existence of this last stage makes it clear that there is an eschatological orientation both for this four-stage teaching and for Augustine’s thought as a whole. The stage “under grace,” it should be noted, is a condition in which redemption is still not totally complete for an individual human being. Augustine’s four-stage teaching is intended to counter two groups: those who use Paul’s theology as a means to denigrate the law, and those who use it to deny the freedom of the will.48 Augustine’s desire to challenge both groups reveals an explicitly anti-Manichaean dimension in his early Pauline exegesis.49 This makes sense, considering the chronological proximity between Exp. quaest. Rom. and the anti-Manichaean treatises of the 390s. In Exp. quaest. Rom., the four stages are differentiated from one another: in each there is a different relation to sin and desire. Before the law, the human being simply follows his desire and, as a result, sins. Under the law, he knows that what he does is not good and would like to act otherwise, but he is always overcome and does the wrong thing. It is through the law that he knows just how low he has fallen; but the harder he tries to lift himself up, the harder he falls. It is only under (or through) grace that a person gains the ability to carry out the good that he recognises as good. Certainly, desire – i.e., an addiction to sin – remains in this condition, but it is continually beaten back. Desire nevertheless continues to be an ongoing burden for the human being living under grace; the person who has received grace continues to struggle, just as before. It is only in the condition of redemption – i.e., in peace – that this struggle ceases.50

44 Augustine, Expositio quarundam quaestionum in epistula ad Romanos (CSEL 84:3), praef. 45 K. Janssen, Die Entstehung der Gnadenlehre Augustins (Rostock: Carl Hinstorffs, 1936), 110f. 46 Exp. quaest. Rom. 12.2 (CSEL 84:6). 47 For more on the derivation of this four-stage teaching from the text of Paul, see Mara, “L’influsso di Paolo,” 147. 48 Exp. quaest. Rom. 12.1 (CSEL 84:6). 49 M. G. Mara, “Agostino e la polemica antimanichea. Il ruolo di Paolo e del suo epistolario,” Aug 32 (1992): 119–43, esp. 126–32; and Drecoll, Entstehung der Gnadenlehre, 187. 50 Exp. quaest. Rom. 12.3–11 (CSEL 84:7–8).

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In the interpretation of Rom 4–8 that follows in Exp. quaest. Rom., Augustine draws on the four-stage theory in many ways. There is an underlying ambivalence here in at least two respects. The first is that the condition that precedes grace (i.e., the condition of being “under the law”) is not simply a state of being separated from God in which sin and wickedness reign. Instead, in this stage, the law also proves itself to be good in that it forbids what is bad and commands what is good. The second ambivalence is that the condition of being “under grace” is not one of complete redemption; rather, it remains shaped by ongoing conflict and inner struggle. Indeed, both the conditions of being “under the law” and “under grace” come very close to one another in that both are a condition of struggle and perpetual inner conflict. However, both are also diametrically opposed to one another in that desire wins out when one is “under the law,” while the orientation towards God wins out when one is “under grace.” Sin and righteousness stand in opposition to one another. For Augustine, free will is also preserved here because, in his view, it is through free will that a person elects to flee to grace and to stop trying to suppress desire through his own efforts. The transition from the stage of being “under the law” to that of being “under grace” comes about by an act of the free will; it is the result of a decision. Augustine sees this transition as being described with particular clarity in Rom 7:24–25.51 To describe the stage of being “under the law,” Augustine highlights two features from Rom 5–7. The first is the close link between desire and the Pauline concept of “flesh” (caro).52 “Flesh” here does not simply mean the materiality of the body but a kind of sinful momentum of desire within a person, which does not direct itself towards the law – i.e., towards God’s will. In an aside, Augustine says that this condition is the result of Adam’s transgression.53 The second feature is that Rom 5–7 also demonstrates that, though we are aware that desire is stoked by the fact of its being forbidden, we still desire the forbidden thing. Desire (concupiscentia) is thus stirred up by the law. Despite this, it remains true that each sin is also an open transgression of the law, a trespass.54 As for the stage “under grace,” in Exp. quaest. Rom., on the one hand, Augustine stresses a close link to Christ. Through his decision to freely lay down his life, Christ showed us that death is not something to be feared. In this way, he destroyed our fear of our own transitoriness, which is fundamental to the desire of the flesh. On the other hand, Augustine says that grace exists in the giving of the Holy Spirit, which enables the fulfilling of the law as love.55 Prudentia carnis is replaced by prudentia spiritus; this is a new orientation towards God’s will, which is brought about directly

51 52 53 54 55

Exp. quaest. Rom. 37.3 (CSEL 84:19). Exp. quaest. Rom. 27 (CSEL 84:14). Exp. quaest. Rom. 38.7 (CSEL 84:20). Exp. quaest. Rom. 24.2 (CSEL 84:13). Exp. quaest. Rom. 40.4–9 (CSEL 84:21–22).

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by the Holy Spirit. This new cleaving to God occurs through faith.56 Important to note here is that the groaning of creation that is described in Rom 8:23 does not refer to a cosmological drama (as the Manichaeans suggested); rather, it refers to a human being who is “under grace” – one who is still trapped in a transitory body and has already been redeemed in spirit but who, nevertheless, groans because of the burden of lust that remains. It is only “in peace” that this condition of groaning will be brought to an end; likewise, it is only “in peace” that an eternal rest without any transitoriness whatsoever will begin.57 In his interpretation of Rom 9 – which is extensive in comparison with his treatment of other passages – Augustine again takes up the task of interpreting Paul in a way that does not eliminate the freedom of the will. In examining Paul’s discussion of Jacob and Esau, Augustine inquires about the election that Paul says is the foundation of God’s choice to hate Esau and to love Jacob. The election takes place, Augustine says, as a result of God’s providence. This providence, however, cannot be connected to man’s works, because this would go against the Pauline maxim that election does not occur through works. Thus, Augustine says, the election is very probably connected to the human faith that God foresees.58 To the one (like Jacob) whose faith God foresees, God gives the Holy Spirit, so that, having received grace, the person can accomplish good works through love. In other words, God elects a person in the foreknowledge of his future belief.59 In this interpretation, God’s initiative, without which good human works are impossible, is made compatible with human free choice of the will.60 Augustine explicitly says that it depends on the free choice of the individual whether he will follow God’s calling or not.61 At the same time, however, no one can attribute his own acting well to his own exertions, because acting well is only possible because he has received the Holy Spirit as a gift from God. In other words, he must always attribute it to God when he has acted well. It is the human being who believes and wills, Augustine argues, but it is because of God’s grace that the humans accomplish good works.62 The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart works the other way around: it is a just punishment that is meted out because of the providence of God. In his hardened state, Pharaoh is completely unable to hear God’s calling, but this inability comes about only because God foresaw Pharaoh’s faithlessness, which preceded the hardening of his heart.63

56 Exp. quaest. Rom. 41.3–6 (CSEL 84:22–23). 57 Exp. quaest. Rom. 45.2–53.18–21 (CSEL 84:26–29). 58 C. Harrison, Rethinking Augustine’s Early Theology. An Argument for Continuity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 138–40. 59 Exp. quaest. Rom. 52.2–11 (CSEL 84:33–35). 60 Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews, 166–69. 61 Exp. quaest. Rom. 52.14–15 (CSEL 84:35). 62 Exp. quaest. Rom. 53.4–7 (CSEL 84:36). 63 Exp. quaest. Rom. 54.6–9 (CSEL 84:37).

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Even if Exp. quaest. Rom. continue to discuss other questions (e.g., the emphasis on the interiority of faith and, with regard to Rom 13:1, on submission to worldly authorities), it is the four-stage teaching, and the remarks on election and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in Rom 9, that, taken together, form the core of this first attempt by Augustine to understand and to explicate Romans. His wider explorations in Exp. quaest. Rom. are connected to these dominant concerns.

The Questions regarding Paul in the De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII In the collected work De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII, Augustine compiled various tractates of different lengths on a number of separate questions, including treatments of exegetical problems. Quaestiones 66–75 contain explorations of passages from Paul’s letters; these should probably be dated to 395 CE.64 In quaestiones 66–68, Augustine picks up his earlier exegesis of Romans. Taking as his starting point the example given in Rom 7:2–3 of the woman who is bound to her husband through the law, Augustine elucidates his own teaching about the law, which he develops in four stages, repeating his interpretation from Exp. quaest. Rom.65 The woman, he says, is the soul that is bound to sin through the law. While, in the biblical image, the woman is freed from the law only when her husband dies, Augustine says that, in the case of the soul, it is the soul itself that dies to sin. With this interpretation, Augustine makes it clear that the law remains effective even though it no longer functions as a “law of sin” (lex peccati). The latter does not cancel out sin, it only reveals it and further incites it. By contrast, once the law becomes the “law of the spirit of life” (lex spiritus vitae), it helps in the struggle because the Spirit that is given through grace is also love. It is with this love that the precepts of the law are now joyfully fulfilled.66 Augustine cites support from Romans for each of the four stages, which, in turn, are all labelled an “action” or “way of life” (actio)67; in so doing, he is closely reminiscent of his explanation found in Exp. quaest. Rom. In quaestio 67 he provides a lengthy interpretation of the groaning of creation in Rom 8:18–24. Here, it is even more perceptible than it is in Exp. quaest. Rom. that he is fending off a Manichaean interpretation, according to which these verses are taken to describe the groaning – i.e., suffering – of angels and higher powers.68 By contrast, Augustine interprets the passage as describing a human being because, he

64 65 66 67 68

Ring, “Einführung,” 62f. Drecoll, Entstehung der Gnadenlehre, 183. Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII 66.1 (CCSL 44A:151–52). Div. quaest. LXXXIII 66.3 (CCSL 44A:154). Div. quaest LXXXIII 67.7 (CCSL 44A:172–73).

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says, in a human being, all levels of creation are present. The human being is a creation in spirit, soul, and body, and hence is what is referred to by the expression “all creation” (omnis creatura).69 More precisely, he argues that the verses describe the sons of God at the end of time, when what the faithful now only possess in hope will be fully realized.70 In his interpretation of Rom 9 in quaestio 68, Augustine does not again take up the solution about God’s foreknowledge that was developed in Exp. quaest. Rom. Interestingly, here, he stresses the idea that all human beings belong to the mass of sin (massa peccati) and that this condition is handed on through procreation.71 He points out that a human being obtains merit through faith.72 However, he does not connect this to God’s foreknowledge so as to suggest that man’s future belief plays a decisive role in God’s election. Rather, he attributes God’s election to “most hidden merits” (de occultissimis meritis), without making it clear what precisely is to be understood by this.73 In Augustine’s argument, God’s elective activity remains something that is impenetrable, far removed from human perception. This exegesis fits well with Rom 9:20, which is the starting point of quaestio 68.74 Here, Augustine more strongly emphasizes the sovereignty of God’s elective activity than he did in Exp. quaest. Rom.75 He argues that God’s mercy consists in a specific calling; in fact, the human will is small in comparison with God’s calling, and the latter calling actually precedes the will. Indeed, it is the calling that first triggers it to act.76 Augustine’s interpretation of Rom 9 in quaestio 68 shows that he is not simply continuing his hermeneutics from Exp. quaest. Rom.; rather, he is trying to formulate the themes of God’s sovereignty and his mercy in a more consistent way than he did before. Another Pauline passage that Augustine comments on in De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII is 1 Cor 15, which features there on two occasions. Augustine defends the statement in 1 Cor 15:28 about the subjection of the Son against a reading that would take the verse as proof that there is an ontological difference between the Son and the Father. In doing so, he appropriates anti-Homoian arguments that had been made earlier by Ambrose.77 From the letter to the Galatians, Augustine interprets the mutual bearing of burdens mentioned in 6:2 as a function of the love of Christ, which, he argues, is a disposition that only becomes possible because,

69 Div. quaest. LXXXIII 67.5 (CCSL 44A:168–70). 70 Div. quaest. LXXXIII 67.2 (CCSL 44A:166). 71 A. Zeoli, La teologia agostiniana della Grazia fino alle Quaest. ad Simpl. (396) (Naples: Liquori, 1963), 60–63. 72 Div. quaest. LXXXIII 68.3 (CCSL 44A:177). 73 Div. quaest. LXXXIII 68.4 (CCSL 44A:180). 74 Div. quaest. LXXXIII 68.1 (CCSL 44A:174–75). 75 Drecoll, Entstehung der Gnadenlehre, 213–18. 76 Div. quaest. LXXXIII 68.5 (CCSL 44A:181); cf. D. Marafioti, “Il problema dell’ ‘Initium fidei’ in sant’Agostino fino al 397,” Aug 21 (1981): 541–65, esp. 554f. 77 Ambrose, De fide 5.12.148–16.192 (Fontes Christiani 47/3:698–736).

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during the course of life, strengths and weaknesses ebb and flow, and because a stronger person can always lend support to a weaker one.78 Moreover, we must take into account the facts that every one of us is prone to weakness at least some of the time, and that even a weak person is stronger than others at least occasionally and/ or in at least some respects.79 The human mode of appearance (habitus) in Phil 2:7 becomes an occasion for Augustine to develop a Christological train of argument.80 Augustine says that this habitus implies the change in what is put on (just as a dress is formed by the person wearing it): thus, in the case of Christ, his divine nature remains unchanging and is not altered in the Incarnation; on the contrary, the divine nature has an impact on human nature by leading it into immortality and eternity.81 Finally, Augustine interprets the statement in Heb 9:17 that death guarantees an inheritance in two ways: either this refers to the death of Christ, in that it makes the faithful co-heirs with Christ in the eschaton (at which point everything that was previously obscure in the faithful’s vision of God the Father will be resolved), or it is to be connected to Christ in that his death made us into co-heirs in some other sense (i.e., with respect either to the human weakness of the Incarnated One, or to his divine side as the head of the church).82 In addition to De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII, the work Epistulae ad Romanos inchoata expositio liber unus also supports the conclusion that Augustine devoted himself intensively to the study of Paul in this period. This work consists of the incomplete beginning of what was envisioned as an extensive Romans commentary.83 Had Augustine brought this work to completion, it would probably have been comparable in its scope and significance to De Genesi ad litteram. In marked contrast to his Genesis exegesis, however, Augustine’s exegesis of Romans remained confined to the treatment of individual problems and to this aborted attempt at a commentary.

Augustine’s Interpretation of Galatians The only one of Paul’s letters upon which Augustine actually wrote a continuous commentary is Galatians, which, along with Romans, should be regarded as the

78 Div. quaest. LXXXIII 71.2 (CCSL 44A:202). 79 Div. quaest. LXXXIII 71.4–5 (CCSL 44A:203–5). 80 I. Bochet, “Augustin disciple de Paul,” RSR 94 (2006): 357–80, esp. 362f. 81 Div. quaest. LXXXIII 73.2 (CCSL 44A:211–12); cf. A. Viciano, “Aspects Christologiques du ‘Corpus Paulinum’ dans la controverse antimanichénne de saint Augustin,” in Manichaica Selecta. Studies presented to Professor Julien Ries on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, eds. A. van Tongerloo and S. Giversen, Manichaean Studies 1 (Leuven: International Association of Manichaean Studies, 1991): 379–89. 82 Div. quaest. LXXXIII 75.1–3 (CCSL 44A:215–17). 83 Cf. Mara, Agostino interprete, 72–80. Augustine’s comments only extend as far as Rom 1:7.

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two most important of Paul’s letters for Augustine’s thought. This is because, like Romans, Galatians also deals with the theme of the law and grace, and because it fits especially well with the anti-Manichaean orientation of his early interpretation of Paul. At the beginning of his Galatians commentary, Augustine says that the letter is directed to the Galatians and is meant to make it clear to them that grace has made it so that they are no longer “under the law” (sub lege), which is then demonstrated to be true in the cases of circumcision and dietary laws.84 Two aspects are especially noteworthy regarding Augustine’s interpretation: one is his reading of the “Antiochene Incident” recorded in Gal 2, and the other is his description of the life of faith based on Gal 5. At an early stage, Augustine learned of Jerome’s interpretation of Gal 2 and responds to it with his own reading of the “Antiochene Incident” that he entitles “without any deception” (in nulla simulatione).85 With it, he overtly counters Jerome’s “deception” (simulatio) approach to Gal 2:13.86 He also explicitly highlights this difference in two early letters to Jerome, which, due to various circumstances, did not reach their addressee, or, at least, only did so considerably later than they were supposed to.87 In these letters, we see that Augustine has a negative understanding of simulatio, and that he interprets it as equivalent to “lying” or “deceit” (mendacium). Peter’s behavior of separating himself from gentile Christians in Antioch and following the dietary rules of the Jewish Christians is, Augustine claims, not to be taken as indicative of a deception on the part of Peter and Paul. If this were true, one would have to assume that lies were consciously implanted into Scripture in order to mollify those who held a different opinion.88 If this were the case, Augustine argues, the Bible’s overtly ethical statements might also contain deceit. For example, Paul’s assertions that marriage is something good in se could also be classified as “deceit.”89 This is a cleverly chosen example by Augustine, not only with respect to Jerome, given that Jerome had distinguished himself as a proponent of askēsis, but also because it could constitute an anti-Manichaean position. The Manichaeans had claimed that there were passages in Paul’s letters that had been interpolated, even as they also viewed sexual intercourse negatively and claimed that procreative sex compounded

84 Exp. Gal. 1 (CSEL 84:55). 85 Exp. Gal. 15.1 (CSEL 84:69). 86 N. Cipriani, “La Expositio epistolae ad Galatas di S. Agostino,” in Agostino. Lettore e interprete di Paolo, Lectio Augustini 20, SEAug 107 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2008): 43–70, esp. 55. 87 Cf. Augustine, Ep. 28.3 (CSEL 34/1:107); the same issues were taken up again in Augustine, Ep. 40.3 (CSEL 34/2:71–72). 88 A. Städele, “Inhaltliche Einführung [zu De mendacio],” in Augustinus. Die Lügenschriften. De mendacio/Die Lüge und Ad Consentium. Contra Mendacium/An Consentius. Gegen die Lüge, Augustinus. Opera – Werke, eds. J. Brachtendorf and V. H. Drecoll (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2013): 16–57, esp. 23–27. 89 Augustine, Ep. 28.4 (CSEL 34/1:108–9).

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the problem of the mixing of the elements of light and darkness. Augustine rejects both Jerome’s hypothesis of simulatio and the Manichaean view of false interpolations. For him, the question of whether the Antiochene incident constitutes “deception” is actually a question about the unconditional validity and truthfulness of Scripture. Along these lines, he sees it as exemplary that Paul called Peter to account, and that Peter accepted this rebuke in humility.90 Augustine singles out Paul not only as an apostle to the gentiles,91 but also as one who is directly instructed by God and, as the “last apostle” (novissimus apostolus), is a truthful (verax) speaker who stands up as an advocate for God’s gospel.92 Basing himself on Gal 5, Augustine’s description of the life of faith distinguishes faith from the condition of being “under the law” and, thus, once again draws on the four-stage teaching. In his interpretation of Gal 2:19, it becomes clear that the stage of being “under the law” is to be connected to the works of the law, within which one can distinguish between religious laws (sacramenta) and ethical rules (mores). Obedience in the keeping of religious laws corresponds to love for God; obedience to ethical rules corresponds to love for neighbor.93 Both ultimately have the love of God as their goal, Augustine argues, but there is an important difference: love for God was established through an obedience connected with fear when one was “under the law,” while love for God is established very differently through or when one is “under grace,” namely, as the freely willed love of faith. In fact, the love of faith should itself be described as grace. It is also in this context that Augustine develops the important concept of the “grace of faith” (gratia fidei). He interprets Gal 4:19’s assertion that Christ “takes form” (formatur) in the Galatians as a reference to their faith. Thus, faithful persons no longer make reference to the good works they have done; rather, they humbly subject themselves to Christ, because they know that it is only thanks to God’s grace that they have the love of faith in the first place. It is this that establishes the grounds for merit with God; but the faithful person does not attribute their faith to themselves, since they know that it is Christ who takes form in the one who clings to him in spiritual love.94 Here, Augustine’s reading becomes the foundation for his interpretation of Gal 5. Because of Gal 5:14, he reads the “love” named in Gal 5:6 in connection with the fulfilment of the law, even as he also cites Rom 13:10’s claim that the fulfilment of the law is love (plenitudo legis caritas). Basing himself on Rom 5:5, he argues that love should be understood as given by the Holy Spirit and as actively generating a love both for God and for neighbor.95 Augustine’s interpretation of Gal 5:17 builds

90 Exp. Gal. 15.9–11 (CSEL 84:70). 91 Cf. Exp. Gal. 12.4 (CSEL 84:66). 92 Exp. Gal. 2.2–4, 6.2 (CSEL 84:57, 61). 93 Exp. Gal. 19.2–10 (CSEL 84:76–77). 94 Exp. Gal. 38.3–4 (CSEL 84:106–7). 95 Exp. Gal. 44.2–4 (CSEL 84:118).

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upon the contrast between the fulfilling of the law through obedience and fear and the fulfilling of the law through love for God and neighbor. According to him, the struggle described between the flesh and spirit signifies the opposition between a striving for earthly goods in order to preserve oneself, and love for God, which makes a believer like Christ.96 Augustine explicitly states that there is an antiManichaean intent in this interpretation. He argues that the antagonism Paul describes between the flesh and the spirit is in no way meant to communicate that the free choice of the will (liberum arbitrium) is taken away; rather, Paul means to describe the state of those who are already “under grace” and who nevertheless backslide into an outward keeping of the law that is shaped by fear, thus coming again under the sway of the law.97 This interpretation makes it clear that an eschatological orientation is crucial for the four-stage teaching. Even grace does not bring the struggle within a person to a halt98; indeed, this struggle persists so long as the person is not yet redeemed along with his mortal body.99 The opposition between the stages “under the law” and “under grace” should not be seen as a one-way street, as a transition from one stage to another. Rather, it is an opposition between two orientations: on the one hand, a fleshly orientation towards the self and its temporal well-being and, on the other, a spiritual orientation towards God’s will. The former is linked to fear and obedience, the latter to freedom and love.100 It is also true that the condition of being “under grace” is not the same as being free from sin, even if one does not actually commit sinful actions. In this interpretation, Augustine has integrated a considerable sense of ambivalence into his description of faith.101 Not only is it true that mere knowledge of God’s will is insufficient for genuine faith, but it is also the case that grace, which generates love and leads the faithful person to perform good works, does not free them from deep inner turmoil. Just as before, even genuine believers continue to struggle against their sinful tendencies.

96 Exp. Gal. 46.4–6 (CSEL 84:121). 97 Exp. Gal. 46.1–2 (CSEL 84:120–21). 98 Exp. Gal. 46.6–9 (CSEL 84:121–22). 99 Exp. Gal. 47.2–3 (CSEL 84:123). 100 Cf. M. Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustine’s Early Figurative Exegesis, OSHT (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 151f., who argues that this interpretation also signals changes in Augustine’s Christology. 101 For a similar observation on quaestio 67, cf. Harrison, Rethinking Augustine’s Early Theology, 132. The notion that supposedly follows, i.e., that such an ambivalence was first formulated during the Pelagian controversy as part of a new interpretation of Rom 7 and that chapter’s description of the self as claimed, e.g., by M.-F. Berrouard, “L’exégèse augustinienne de Rom., 7,7–25 entre 396 et 418 avec des remarques sur les deux premières périodes de la crise ‘pélagienne,’” Recherches augustiniennes et patristiques 16 (1981): 101–96, is untenable. See P. Platz, Der Römerbrief in der Gnadenlehre Augustins, Cassiciacum 5 (Würzburg: Rita-Verlag, 1938), 147–50; and cf. Drecoll, “Paulus,” in Mayer, Augustinus-Lexikon, 4:548–60, esp. 553.

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De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum The last work produced during Augustine’s early attempts to interpret Paul, which, according to the Retract., is also the first work he wrote after his episcopal consecration, is a small collection of responses to questions posed to him by Simplician, the successor to Ambrose as bishop of Milan. Augustine knew Simplician in the mid-380s while he was in Milan; then, around 396 or 397, Simplician sent him several exegetical questions. Two of these deal with passages from Romans – one with the problem of the law in Rom 7 (or more precisely Rom 7:7–25a), and another with Rom 9:10–29 – while others deal with passages from the Old Testament.102 Before Augustine answers Simplician’s questions based on Romans, he states that, although he has already expressed himself in writing on both of the passages in question, he would nevertheless like to interpret these passages anew, so as to be sure that he has not overlooked anything important. From the perspective of the elderly Augustine who penned both the Retract. and De praedestinatione sanctorum, it was in the interpretation of Rom 9 that he generated for De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum that Augustine came to a new understanding of God’s grace and corrected his early interpretation on a specific point. At that stage, Augustine even went so far as to speak of an “error” (error) in his earlier exegesis.103 The earlier interpretation of Rom 7 foregrounds the good law, to which the human being inwardly assents. The question then arises whether Paul consistently referred to the same law throughout Rom 7. Augustine begins by opining that the evaluation of the law found in Rom 7 is negative,104 and concludes that Paul was speaking of another law in Rom 7:22, namely God’s or Christ’s law, which is different than the law that was given to the Jews.105 Prior to Augustine, Ambrose was aware of a similar exegetical issue that needed to be addressed. Ambrose’s De Jacob et vita beata explores the problem of the unity of the law as described by Paul.106 Given that he differentiates between the law given in the Old Testament and the law given to human nature, which grows inwardly as one accumulates wisdom and knowledge, Jerome must also have been aware of the issue.107 That a negative evaluation of the law given to the Jews, or the law of the Old Testament, ought to be connected to Manichaean exegesis is corroborated by Fortunatus’s use of Rom 7. He differentiates between the good soul and the soul which is not subjected to the law of God (lex Dei); he also contrasts this law of

102 A. Mutzenbecher, “Einleitung,” in CCSL 44:ix–lxxiv, esp. ix–xi. 103 Cf. Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum 7–8 (CSEL 105:183–186), with recourse to Retract. 1.23.2–4, 2.1.1 (CCSL 57:68–70, 89–90). 104 Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum 1.1.2 (CCSL 44:8). 105 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.1.16 (CCSL 44:19). 106 Ambrose, De Jacob et vita beata 1.4.13–16 (CSEL 32:13–15). 107 Jerome, Ep. 121.8 (CSEL 56/1:31–34).

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God with the law of sin (lex peccati).108 Against the Manichaean interpretation, Augustine maintains that there is a unity in the way Paul speaks of the law in Rom 7. The law of God and the law of sin are not two laws but one and the same law, which in and of itself is good and holy (cf. Rom 7:12). For those who are “under the law,” it both reveals and incites sin in such a way as to bring about death. For the one who is saved through grace, what the law commands becomes the goal of his life through interior love. This differentiation between separate functions of the law, drawing on the four-stage teaching, thus takes the place of the differentiation between separate laws (under which terms it would be possible to reject the Old Testament altogether). The anti-Manichaean intent behind the interpretation of Rom 7 in Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.1 is made especially clear when Augustine, in addition to rejecting a negative evaluation of the law, mentions but then rejects the opinion that, in Rom 7, Paul denies the freedom of the will.109 That a person does not do what they want, Augustine says, is a consequence (meritum) of original sin (originale peccatum). Thus, to be in the condition “under the law,” which Paul mentions in Rom 7, is to not be in the “first nature” (prima natura) – i.e., the condition of creation – but to be already in a condition of punishment (delicti poena), a condition in which mortality has become “like a second nature” (quasi secunda natura).110 This condition of punishment is one of weakness, and it consists both of a mortality that is given by nature and a practice of habitual concupiscence. Both of these elements only further stir up desire (concupiscentia); grace alone can free a person from this condition.111 Here, it becomes clear that Augustine is drawing a strong link between being “under the law” and the results of original sin. It is not human ignorance (ignorantia) but human weakness (infirmitas) that is the actual problem in the sinful condition of human beings. However, this weakness cannot be taken away by the law since the law only reveals sin and further enflames a desire to sin.112 It can only be removed through grace, which, in turn, makes a person spiritually minded (spiritalis)113 and renders love possible through the gift of the Holy Spirit.114 The inner

108 Augustine, Contra Fortunatum 21 (CSEL 25/1:103). 109 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.1.11 (CCSL 44:15). 110 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.1.11 (CCSL 44:16). 111 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.1.10 (CCSL 44:15). 112 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.1.2–3 (CCSL 44:8–9). 113 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.1.7 (CCSL 44:12). 114 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.1.17 (CCSL 44:23). The quaestio ends with a combined citation of Rom 13:10 and 5:5. In his interpretation, Augustine counters all the details in the text that could possibly be taken as suggesting that the law ought to be negatively evaluated. As a result, he can claim that the law is a “ministry of death” (ministratio mortis), but only as the external law that comes to human beings and which is not fulfilled through love. The law is also the “power of sin” (virtus peccati), but only because sin becomes stronger from the awareness that it is a transgression of the law. One dies to the law, but only insofar as the law reigns over them; the law becomes

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motivation and orientation of the will thus becomes the essential component in faith. This theme of inner orientation continues in the interpretation of Rom 9 that comprises Augustine’s response to the second of Simplician’s two questions that were rooted in Romans. The interpretation of Rom 9:10–29 proceeds in the manner of a line-by-line exegesis. Nevertheless, the result is not a systematic treatise; indeed, the full weight of the argument is only revealed slowly and in a piecemeal fashion.115 Augustine begins with the contrast between works and the grace of faith, a phrase which Augustine discussed in an earlier attempt to interpret Paul (cf. supra). For Augustine, it is crucial that the grace of faith precedes works, not the other way around. He maintains that Paul’s primary intent in Romans is to show that a human being cannot boast (gloriari) before God regarding his works,116 since it is not due to his own good works (non ex operibus; cf. Rom 9:12) that a human being is accepted by God, called to faith, and receives grace. Rather, faith must first be present in a person, and it is always from faith that (genuine) good works originate.117 This leads to the question of what is meant by the “purpose” (propositum) mentioned in Rom 9:11 and which is said to be “in accordance with God’s election” (secundum electionem). In this context, Augustine asks who is called to faith. He delves into this question by examining Paul’s example of Jacob and Esau. Proceeding much like an inquisitor, he sets out and rejects various possibilities of interpretation, until only one solution remains, the consequences of which are then further examined. For Augustine, Jacob and Esau offer an especially apt case study for exploring the issue of election. The biblical text explicitly says that, as twins, they both stemmed from the same act of procreation and, thus, the statement in Rom 9:13 (which is actually citing Mal 1:2–3), “Jacob have I loved, Esau I hated,”118 can be explained neither from a difference in the time of their conception(s) (which would also generate an astrological difference between them),119 nor from a difference in their natures. The extremes to which Augustine goes in order to show that the distinction between one being loved and the other hated cannot be attributed to a difference in their natures makes it clear that his interpretation is directed against the

“grace and truth” if it is transformed into the object of love through Christ; cf. Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.1.17 (CCSL 44:21–22). 115 K. Flasch, ed., Logik des Schreckens. De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum I 2, Excerpta classica 8 (Mainz: Dieterich, 1990), 259, argues that this interpretation is a new theory not developed from Romans and that it constitutes a break with Augustine’s earlier teaching of grace. This, in turn, becomes a point of departure for an extensive critique of Augustine by Flasch, similar to that found in Zeoli, La teologia agostiniana, 75. The significance of detailed scriptural exegesis for Augustine is here assessed in a fundamentally inaccurate manner. 116 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.2 (CCSL 44:24). 117 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.3 (CCSL 44:27). 118 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.4 (CCSL 44:29). 119 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.3 (CCSL 44:26).

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Manichaeans, and confirms that the anti-Manichaean orientation of his early interpretation of Paul is continued in Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.120 The next solution that Augustine takes up is one that he himself had proposed in Exp. quaest. Rom. – namely, whether it could be the case that God foresaw the faith of Jacob and, basing himself on this foreknowledge, loved Jacob and bestowed grace on him. Augustine now rejects this interpretation; and it is precisely here that, in hindsight, he spots the “error” of his earlier interpretation of Paul, which he is now attempting to correct.121 The decisive argument against the earlier foreknowledge solution runs as follows: if it were true that God foresaw Jacob’s good faith and made him righteous via the bestowal of a corresponding grace, then, by analogy, the same should hold true for Jacob’s good works, which follow as a consequence of his being made righteous. God in his foreknowledge then would not only foresee Jacob’s good faith but also his good works. If this were so, however, then it would also follow that what Augustine had said was Paul’s main intent in Romans, namely to show that a person could boast “not on account of works” (non ex operibus), would no longer hold.122 Faith and works are treated analogously in this argument; even faith comes to be seen as a human behavior that cannot, as merit (meritum), serve as the reason for Jacob being loved and Esau hated.123 In a second step of the argument, Augustine goes even deeper into the cause of faith. Here he picks up his interpretation from quaestio 68, in that he emphasizes the distinction between faith and calling (vocatio). This model of calling allows him to emphasize the character of faith as volition: whoever is called and responds to God’s call, he says, does so willingly. The issue about the origin of faith thus has two aspects: the will as such, which responds to the calling, is proper to both God and man; but God takes the initiative, and man follows. It is also clear that the content of the faith has to be attributed entirely to God.124 However, this cannot be understood as suggesting that it first depends on human volition whether God’s mercy and his calling actually achieve their goal. In that case, the statement in Rom 9:16

120 Drecoll, Entstehung der Gnadenlehre, 245f. 121 Platz, Römerbrief, 194f. 122 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.5 (CCSL 44:29–30). For the connection between 1 Cor 1:31 and 4:7 as the primary point of origin for Augustine’s doctrine of grace, see P.-M. Hombert, Gloria Gratiae. Se glorifier en Dieu, principe et fin de la théologie augustinienne de la grâce, EAA 148 (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1996), 103–6; and W. S. Babcock, “Augustine and Paul. The Case of Romans IX,” StPatr 16 (1985): 473–79. Babcock regards Tyconius, Liber regularum 3 (cf. SC 488: 166–216) as an important source for Augustine’s interpretation of Romans prior to the composition of De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum; cf. W. S. Babcock, “Augustine’s Interpretation of Romans (A.D. 394–396),” AugStud 10 (1979): 55–74, esp. 73–74. A dependence on Cyprian, Test. 3.4 (CCSL 3.1:92) is also discussed by Babcock; for more on this, see Drecoll, Entstehung der Gnadenlehre, 228f. esp. n. 194. 123 Drecoll, Entstehung der Gnadenlehre, 224f. 124 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.10 (CCSL 44:35).

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that it does not depend on the individual’s will or effort, but on the mercy of God would no longer hold. If faith were understood as an autonomous act of assent that became the basis for whether someone believed and acted righteously, then it would depend on a human being whether he was righteous or not.125 If it depends on God’s mercy whether or not someone comes to faith, then his calling must be described more precisely. His calling, Augustine argues, is not a general offer that comes to all persons, but an activity of God that is tailored to specific individuals, which then activates a good will in this or that person because God’s calling is fitting (congruere) for this person.126 Here Augustine cites Matt 22:14: “For many are called, but few are chosen” (NRSV). It is only for those who are chosen that God calls in a way that is fitting for this or that person; the chosen person then also wills and comes to faith. This suitable calling then brings about faith in the person in whom God wills it to exist. This solution by Augustine still leaves open the question of who is so fittingly called that they also come to believe, which, in turn, brings the justice of God into question. Augustine, however, refuses to allow this question to be raised. In his view, as God’s creature, the human being has absolutely no right to question the justice of the Creator. Augustine does not content himself with this solution, however; more precisely, he goes on to assert that the justice of God involves a condition of punishment that was transferred onto all of humankind soon after the origin of the human race.127 Hence, for Augustine, it becomes clear how all human beings are inherently deserving of punishment. The fact that some are called and then believe thus should not be taken to imply that God is rewarding some (for their future belief, for their willingness to accept God’s calling, for actually following his calling, etc.), but as simply revealing that God does not require that all people receive the just punishment that they deserve. Mercy (misericordia), the central term of Rom 9, gains a concrete meaning in this context as a compassionate release from punishment. Those who should be punished cannot complain that their punishment is unjust; rather, they can only grumble that the same punishment was not imposed on everyone.128 It thus becomes plausible for Augustine to think that even those who are not called are neither allowed to rebel against God, nor to call his righteousness into question. The notions that the whole of humanity constitutes a “mass of sin” that earns punishment and that God then selects certain persons out of the mass, releases them from this punishment, and calls them in such a way that they cannot resist his calling follows implicitly from the foregoing argument.129 Or, to put the issue

125 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.12 (CCSL 44:36–37). 126 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.13 (CCSL 44:37–38). 127 Cf. Platz, Römerbrief, 228f. 128 Div. qaest. Simpl. 1.2.16 (CCSL 44:42). 129 Drecoll, Entstehung der Gnadenlehre, 235–37; cf. T. Salgueiro, La doctrine de saint Augustin sur la grâce d’après le traité à Simplicien (Porto: Tipografia Porto Medico, 1925), 57–67.

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more simply: Augustine’s doctrine of grace means that God alone gives faith and that, through his suitable calling of those on whom he wants to have mercy, he activates their will, which then leads to their faith and good works, and that all of this happens without them being able to escape or even to resist God’s calling. This, in turn, shows that Augustine’s teaching concerning original sin follows from – rather than precedes – his doctrine of grace. It is also here that Augustine reaches the ultimate goal of his argument in De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum. The antithesis between love and hate applied to Jacob and Esau in Rom 9 does not imply an antithesis between natures or differences in human conduct, both of which merit either mercy or punishment from God as a consequence. Rather, Rom 9 describes a choice or election by God to unleash a judgment of condemnation on the one (God’s hatred for Esau is thus interpreted as righteous punishment) and to love his own gift of grace in the other (which entails God’s choice to forego righteous punishment). For Augustine, God is the one who grounds this difference between love and hate in his inscrutable judgments, against which no human being may rebel.130 Augustine highlights this theme once more in a kind of epilogue, in which he connects it closely to the concept of election.131 Here it becomes clear that Augustine upholds the free choice of the will (liberum arbitrium), but, at the same time, greatly curtails its potential, precisely because of the condition of punishment in which humanity finds itself. The doing of justice and faith are compulsory, he argues, but a person can do neither purely out of their own volition; rather, God must first establish a willingness that brings about one’s turning to him in genuine faith. Augustine describes this event as a divine influencing of human affections. One’s decision to have faith is not the result of a rational consideration of alternatives, or of a choice that one self-consciously arrives at; rather, it is the result of God’s suitable calling, which moves a person inwardly, delights him, and, finally, motivates him to act well.132 The decisive feature here is that this suitable calling takes place in the interior part (mens) of a human being, the place that no one can fully control, the place where no one is able to cause something delightful to come to their mind, or to cause something to delight him if and when it comes to mind. In any case, it is not one’s own assent, efforts, or merits that establish one’s faith; indeed, all of these, Augustine claims, are already the outworking of God’s activity of grace.133 In this particular discussion, Augustine teases out an important implication from his description of the “under the law” stage that he had first developed in an earlier interpretation of Rom 7: it is not

130 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.18 (CCSL 44:45). 131 Drecoll, “Paulus,” 554. 132 Cf. Harrison, Rethinking Augustine’s Early Theology, 148; and E. Katayanagi, “The Last Congruous Vocation,” Augustiniana 41 (1991): 645–57, esp. 650f., where he criticizes the analysis of J. P. Burns, The Development of Augustine’s Doctrine of Operative Grace (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1980), 25. 133 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.22 (CCSL 44:53–54).

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due to a fault in one’s knowledge or ability to assess the situation accurately that prevents one from carrying out what one knows to be right – i.e., from believing and acting righteously; rather, he argues that it is the interior weakness and limitations that have derived from the condition of punishment in which one finds oneself that is the problem. The reason why God chooses to call one person and then to move them inwardly and not to call or to move another is something that ultimately remains obscured from human knowledge. For Augustine, it is so thoroughly obscure that humans are unable to assert that God is unjust. Augustine argues that God selects certain people – i.e., he selects their wills (voluntates) and influences them in the way he wishes. Paul himself is offered as an example of this process: when he was still Saul, his will was full of hatred and of the evil intent to persecute Christians; but God reached out to him and moved him inwardly in such a way as to transform a known persecutor into a herald of the gospel.134 For Augustine, this shows clearly that one’s will to faith is established by God, and that this can even run counter to one’s earlier orientation of will. And this is precisely what is meant by the “choice of grace” that one reads about in Rom 11:5.135 This choosing by God remains hidden from human beings; indeed, nothing remains for the human being to do except to confess his weakness in identifying the grounds for this choice of grace, to hold fast to the righteousness of God, and to praise him for his grace and mercy.

Conclusion Although Augustine’s explicitly exegetical works on Paul’s letters are confined to just a few years of his first decade as a baptized Christian (i.e., to 394–397 CE), the story of his fuller engagement with Paul is substantially longer. First as a child, then as a Manichaean, then during his time in Milan, and perhaps even at the very moment of his decision to be baptized by Ambrose, Augustine was preoccupied with Paul. His early efforts to interpret Paul must therefore be considered in light of a personal background in which Paul held a special significance for his own understanding of what it meant to be a Christian, as well as in light of an anti-Manichaean effort to reclaim Paul as an advocate for his still-developing post-conversion theology. This antiManichaean drive became the grounds for an especially intensive study of Paul, during the course of which Augustine increasingly came to see redemption as something that does not come in response to human merits, but which is itself the direct result of God’s grace. As a result, the notion of God’s mercy would become the linchpin in Augustine’s doctrine of grace. For Augustine, God acts and accomplishes his will

134 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.22 (CCSL 44:55). 135 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.22 (CCSL 44:54).

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through election and calling, and this holds true not just with respect to a person’s good works but also with respect to a person’s faith. Likewise, although, in the traditional manner, he had initially attempted to connect God’s elective activity to human beings’ future behavior (and thus to stress the importance of the readiness of humans to respond positively to God’s calling), Augustine’s interpretation of Rom 9 in Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2 ultimately took on an entirely new emphasis. Here, he says that God’s choice is not made with respect to the future behavior of human beings, nor with respect to their future readiness to respond to God’s calling; rather, he claims that God’s choice is the very thing that establishes even the first stirrings of human faith. This takes place, he argues, through a direct reaching-in by God into the inner part of a human person, which establishes an affective stirring of their will, and, as a result, permits the person to believe. This interpretation of Rom 9, which Augustine himself later classified as the correction of an error, would lead him to contemplate God’s initiative and activity as being of decisive importance on every level of human existence. Indeed, during both the Donatist and Pelagian controversies, the reality of God’s activity would become the foundation for Augustine’s ecclesiology as well as for his mature doctrines of both grace and the Spirit.

For Further Reading Primary Sources Augustinus. Confessionum Libri XIII, edited by Martin H. Skutella and Luc Verheijen. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 27. Turnhout, Brepols, 1981. Augustinus. De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus, in Sancti Aurelii Augustini. De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus. De octo Dulcitii quaestionibus, edited by Almut Mutzenbecher, 1–249. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 44A. Turnhout, Brepols, 1975. Augustinus. De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum, edited by Almut Mutzenbecher. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 44. Turnhout, Brepols, 1970. Augustinus. Epistolae ad Galatas expositionis liber unus, in Sancti Aureli Augustini opera, edited by Johannes Divjak, 53–141. Section IV, part I, Expositio quarundam propositionum ex epistola ad Romanos. Epistolae ad Galatas expositionis liber unus. Epistolae ad Romanos inchoata expositio. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 84. Vienna: Tempsky, 1971. Augustinus. Expositio quarundam propositionum ex epistola ad Romanos, in I. Divjak (ed.), Sancti Aureli Augustini opera, edited by Johannes Divjak, 1–52. Section IV, part I: Expositio quarundam propositionum ex epistola ad Romanos. Epistolae ad Galatas expositionis liber unus. Epistolae ad Romanos inchoata expositio. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 84. Vienna: Tempsky, 1971. Plumer, Eric, trans. Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Notes. OECS. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

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Secondary Sources Babcock, William S. “Augustine’s Interpretation of Romans (A.D. 394–96).” Augustinian Studies 10 (1979): 55–74. Drecoll, Volker Henning. Die Entstehung der Gnadenlehre Augustins. Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 109. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999. Drecoll, Volker Henning, and Mirjam Kudella. Augustin und der Manichäismus. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011. Ferrari, Leo C. “Augustine’s ‘Discovery’ of Paul (Confessions 7.21.27).” Augustinian Studies 22 (1991): 37–61, Mara, Maria Grazia. Agostino interprete di Paolo. Letture cristiane del primo millennio 16. Turin: Edizioni Paoline, 1993. Platz, Philipp. Der Römerbrief in der Gnadenlehre Augustins. Cassiciacum 5. Würzburg: Rita-Verlag, 1938. Ries, Julien, François Decret, William H. C. Frend, and Maria Grazia Mara, eds. Le epistole paoline nei Manichei, i Donatisti e il primo Agostino. Sussidi Patristici 5. Rome: Istituto Patristico Augustinianum, 1989.

Jason David BeDuhn

11 Scripture in Augustine’s Early Anti-Manichaean Treatises Introduction As a former Manichaean, Augustine sought to refute both the premises and conclusions of Manichaean biblical interpretation in a series of works early in his career. The prominent place of Christian Scripture in Augustine’s anti-Manichaean tracts attests to the role Scripture had in the identity of North African Manichaeans as rival claimants to the Christian tradition. Augustine had both a personal and a public need to defend his conversion to catholic Christianity by challenging Manichaean scriptural interpretation as much as he did its metaphysics and mythology. Since the Bible – and in particular the New Testament – constituted the ground on which Manichaeans and Catholics met in their religious discourse, the potential existed for Manichaean influence on Augustine’s scriptural exegesis, and it was in his interpretation of Paul particularly that such influence seems to have occurred.

North African Manichaeism The Manichaean church had emerged in Mesopotamia and Iran in the 240s CE and quickly spread into the Roman Empire. Its founder, Mani (216–ca. 274 CE), was seen as either the Paraclete or authorized by it in the work of completing and correcting the Christian tradition. Through his encounters with other religious communities, Mani discovered the traces of a common revelation, sent by God through a succession of regional messengers: Zarathustra, Buddha, Jesus, and many others. He accounted for the differences among these traditions by the fact that none of these messengers wrote down their teachings but trusted in oral transmission. Mani’s own visionary experiences guided the reconstruction of an original myth of salvation history that entailed a dualistic conflict between good and evil, light and darkness. These two primordial essences had become entangled and vied against each other for dominance. The world serves as the arena in which this entanglement will be resolved, beginning with a centuries-long process of separating light from darkness through a variety of natural and ritual processes, culminating in an eschatological conflagration. Manichaeans justified the myth, along with the ascetic and ritual practices of the community, by reference

*Jason David BeDuhn, Northern Arizona University https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-012

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to dualistic themes pervading early Christian discourse as well as parallels found in other traditions of the region.1 Mani did not know or recognize the Bible as we now think of it; he lived before the fixing of a Christian canon and was exposed to a broader, more fluid Christian movement with a variety of written and unwritten authoritative traditions. Only in its mission to the Roman Empire did Manichaeism directly engage with the developing Christian Bible. The terms of this engagement were set by the first leader of the Manichaean mission to the west, Adda or Adimantus. He appears to have adapted Marcion’s antitheses between the Old and New Testaments, updating it to take account of other gospels besides the one known to Marcion2; Augustine wrote a refutation of this work of Adda’s, Contra Adimantum, more than a century later.3 By the end of the third century, Manichaeans had reached North Africa, as attested by the emperor Diocletian’s rescript to Julianus, the Proconsul of the African province, regarding the danger of this new sect of foreign origin.4 There, Manichaean interpretation of Christian Scripture reached its pinnacle, as preserved for us largely through the works of Augustine.5 Although it remained small in numbers, and even wore that fact as a badge of honor, the group attracted educated and prominent figures as members – including, of course, Augustine himself. In the exegesis of his late fourth-century contemporaries, the Manichaean bishop Faustus and the presbyter Fortunatus, one finds sophisticated, insightful readings of scripture that proved challenging to Augustine and his catholic peers.6 1 For general introductions to Manichaeism, see M. Tardieu, Manichaeism, trans. P. Mirecki (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997); and N. J. Baker-Brian, Manichaeism: An Ancient Faith Rediscovered (London: T&T Clark, 2011); for the history of Manichaeism, see S. N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992); for a representative set of western Manichaean texts in translation, see I. Gardner and S. N. C. Lieu, Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 2 J. D. BeDuhn, “Biblical Antitheses, Adda, and the Acts of Archelaus,” in Frontiers of Faith: The Christian Encounter with Manichaeism in the Acts of Archelaus, eds. J. BeDuhn and P. Mirecki (Leiden: Brill, 2007): 131–47. 3 See J. A. van den Berg, Biblical Argument in Manichaean Missionary Practice: The Case of Adimantus and Augustine (Leiden: Brill, 2010). 4 P. Krüger and T. Mommsen, eds., Fragmenta Vaticana, mosaicarum et romanarum legum collatio. Consultatio ueteris cuiusdam iurisconsulti, codices Gregorianus et Hermogenianus, alla minora / Fragmenta Vaticana, mosaicarum . . . collatio / recognovit Theodorus Mommsen. Consulatatio veteros cuiusdam iurisconsulti . . . alia minora, Collectio librorum juris antejustiniani in usum scholarum 3 (Berolini: Apud Weidmannos, 1890), 187. See also L. D. Bruce, “Diocletian, the Proconsul Iulianus, and the Manichaeans,” in Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, ed. C. Deroux (Brussels: Latomus, 1983), 3:336–47. 5 See J. K. Coyle, “Characteristics of Manichaeism in Roman Africa,” in New Light on Manichaeism: Papers from the Sixth International Congress on Manichaeism, ed. J. BeDuhn (Leiden: Brill, 2009): 101–14. 6 See R. Teske, trans., Answer to Faustus: A Manichean, part I, vol. 20, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. B. Ramsey (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2007); and

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North African Manichaean Biblical Interpretation The premises of Manichaean biblical interpretation include an antithetical contrast between the Old and New Testaments, valuing the words of Jesus alone while critiquing the framing narratives of the Gospels, vesting special authority in the Pauline Epistles, and believing that Mani possessed the authority of the Paraclete in directing the dualistic hermeneutic by which Scripture was to be understood.7 Although Manichaeism formed prior to, and independent of, the determination of a fixed Christian biblical canon, Manichaeans proselytizing among other Christians in the Roman Empire came to terms with the orthodox canon as the battlefield on which to carry out their apologetic and polemical efforts to prove Manichaeism to be the true Christian faith. Against this background, North African Manichaeans developed a mature tradition of scriptural exegesis, finding scriptural support for their dualistic interpretation of the world, their ascetical ethic, and an incisive critique of the beliefs and practices of other Christians. The prooftexts for Manichaean dualism include Matt 7:17–18 on the two trees, Matt 13:24–30 on the enemy who sows weeds among the wheat, John 1:5 on the blindness of darkness to the light sent into the world, and 2 Cor 4:4 on the god of this world who blinds people’s minds.8 Manichaeans noted that the bad tree is said explicitly by Jesus to be “not planted by my heavenly Father,” and to be destined to be rooted up and cast into the fire (Matt 3:10, 15:13).9 Paul’s expressions of interior conflict (e.g., Rom 7–8, Gal 5:17, Eph 2:1–6) were taken as confirmations of the dualistic underpinnings of human nature.10 Paul supplied the Manichaeans with the terminology for and characterization of their dualistic anthropology (“flesh” vs. “spirit,” “old man” vs. “new man”) in such passages as Rom 6–7, Eph 3–4, 1 Cor 15, 2 Cor 4:16, and Col 3:9–10.11 Paul’s rhetoric of moral disability in such passages as Rom 7 set the terms for the distinctive Manichaean position on grace.12 In the pre-Augustinian period, the Manichaeans confronted an orthodox Christianity that emphasized free will. By comparison, the Manichaeans were charged with denying the freedom of the will and falling into a kind of determinism. A more careful reading of the Manichaean position reveals that it stressed the necessity of divine grace to overcome the inherent moral deficits of human R. Teske, trans., “A Debate with Fortunatus, a Manichean,” in The Manichean Debate, WSA I/19: 137–62. 7 Augustine, Contra epistulam Manichaei quam vocant Fundamenti 23–25 (CSEL 25/1:219–24); Augustine, Contra Felicem 1.2 (CSEL 25/2:802); Faust. 32.1 (CSEL 25/1:760–61). 8 Fel. 2.2 (CSEL 25/2:829–30); Faust. 18.1–3, 21.1, 21.9 (CSEL 25/1:490–92, 568–69, 578–80). 9 Augustine, Fort. 14 (CSEL 25/1:91). 10 Augustine, Fort. 16–17, 21 (CSEL 25/1:92–95, 100–3); Fel. 2.2 (CSEL 25/2:829–30). 11 See A. Böhlig, Die Bibel bei den Manichäern und verwandte Studien, eds. P. Nagel and S. G. Richter, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 80 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 45–46. 12 Böhlig, Bibel bei den Manichäern, 44–45.

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nature, stemming from its “mixed” pedigree from both good and evil.13 The Manichaeans cited Paul to this effect and found correlations to other scriptural texts, such as John 15:22.14 The Manichaean critique of the Old Testament rested upon a literal reading of the text, which yielded both logical and moral criticisms as well as points of contradiction to positions taken by Jesus and other New Testament authorities. Manichaeans cited New Testament passages critical of Old Testament principles, values, or doctrines (e.g., Luke 16:16, Rom 2:27–29, 3:20, 4:1–2, 7:6, 1 Cor 15:46–50, 2 Cor 3:6–11, Gal 2:18, 3:13, 4:9, Phil 3:8, Eph 2:15) as well as Old Testament passages incongruent with New Testament principles, values, or doctrines – especially the conduct of the deity portrayed there as well as that of the biblical heroes.15 The Old Testament, for instance, reports that God spoke with, and appeared to, various beings, whereas the New Testament calls him invisible (1 Tim 1:17)16 and declares, “No one has ever seen God” (John 1:18).17 Jesus says that the world has not known his Father (John 17:25),18 and he told the Jews, “You have never followed his voice, nor viewed his face” (John 5:37–38).19 The Manichaeans also objected to the Old Testament depiction of God as jealous, as exacting vengeance down to the third and fourth generations of those who commit sin (Exod 20:5), as a “devouring flame” (Deut 4:23–24), who desiccates breasts and sterilizes seed (Hos 9:14).20 When it is said, “Can evil come to a town without God being its author?” (Amos 2:3–6),21 how can this be reconciled with Jesus’s teachings that “[e]very good tree yields good fruits and every evil tree evil fruits” (Matt 7:17–19),22 and that God is good (Mark 10:17–18), making the sun shine on both the good and the wicked, and commanding forgiveness seventy times seven times (Matt 5:45; 18:22)?23 The commands of the god of the Old Testament also stand at odds with those of Christ, Manichaeans asserted. They contrasted Exod 21:24 (“an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”) with Matt 5:38–40 // Luke 6:29 (“turn the other cheek”),24 Num 15: 32–36 (prohibits work on the Sabbath) with Luke 5:24 (a paralytic is told to take up his

13 E.g., Augustine, Fort. 11, 16, 21 (CSEL 25/1:89–90, 92–95, 100–3); Augustine, De natura boni contra Manichaeos 41 (CSEL 25/2:874–76). 14 Augustine, Fort. 21 (CSEL 25/1:100–3). 15 Augustine, Fort. 16 (CSEL 25/1:92–95); Faust. 8.1, 14.1, 32.1 (CSEL 25/1:305–6, 401–4, 760–61); Fel. 2.10 (CSEL 25/2:838–39). 16 Augustine, Contra Adimantum 28 (CSEL 25/1:187–90); cf. Gen. Man. 1.17.27 (CSEL 91:94–95) 17 Adim. 11 (CSEL 25/1:135–38). 18 Adim. 11 (CSEL 25/:135–38). 19 Adim. 9 (CSEL 25/1:131–34). 20 Adim. 7, 13, 25 (CSEL 25/1:127, 144, 183). 21 Adim. 26 (CSEL 25/1:184–86). 22 Adim. 26 (CSEL 25/1:184–186); Fel. 2.2 (CSEL 25/2:829–30). 23 Adim. 13, 7.1 (CSEL 25/1:144–46, 127); cf. Faust. 33.1 (CSEL 25/1:707). 24 Adim. 8 (CSEL 25/1:130–31); Faust. 19.3 (CSEL 25/1:491–92).

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pallet on the Sabbath), and Luke 6:1–5 (defends plucking grain on the Sabbath),25 Prov 22:2 (“I make the rich and the poor”) with Luke 6:20 (“Blessed are you poor”), 6:24 (“Woe to you rich”), and 14:33 (“Whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple”).26 Manichaeans pointed out that the law itself curses Jesus, both in his death on a cross, as Paul noted (Gal 3:13, referring to Deut 21:23), and through his failure to have offspring (Deut 25:5–10).27 By juxtaposing passages of the Old and New Testaments in this way to illustrate antithetical positions, Manichaeans continued a method of analysis initiated by Marcion in the second century. The Manichaeans granted, however, that the Old Testament could contain some accurate information about creation or human history, albeit from a distorted perspective antagonistic to the true God.28 Contending that a good God would not create an evidently flawed world entirely on his own initiative, the Manichaeans argued that creation must be some sort of necessary response to an external stimulus that presented an even less satisfactory alternative. Such an external stimulus to creation explained why God, after an immeasurable eternity, suddenly created the world at a specific point in time,29 as well as the presence of other things besides God at the beginning of the Genesis narrative.30

Augustine’s Defense of the Old Testament On display in De Genesi contra Manichaeos is Augustine’s response to Manichaean criticisms that are based upon their literal readings of the Old Testament. The latter approach is rejected by Augustine in favor of the allegorical approach he had observed Ambrose use in Milan. It was through Ambrose’s learned demonstration of allegorical interpretation that Augustine “came to regard those passages which had previously struck me as absurd, and therefore repelled me, as holy and profound mysteries.”31 Even as a Catholic, Augustine did not disagree that, when read literally,

25 Adim. 22 (CSEL 25/1:181); Faust. 32.5 (CSEL 25/1:594–95). 26 Adim. 19 (CSEL 25/1:175–76). For a recounting of Mani’s debates with Bishop Archelaus over the divergences between the Old and New Testaments, see Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis Sexta: De uno Deo 27–29 (PG 33:583–90). For an English translation, see L. McCauley and A. A. Stephenson, trans., The Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, FC 61 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1969), 1:163–65. 27 Adim. 21 (CSEL 25/1:179–81); Faust. 14.1, 16.5, 32.5 (CSEL 25/1:401–4, 443–44, 594–95); Fel. 2.10 (CSEL 25/2:838–39). 28 Gen. Man. 2.26.39 (CSEL 91:164–65). 29 Gen. Man. 1.2.3 (CSEL 91:68–70); cf. Conf. 11.12.14 (CCSL 27:201). 30 Gen. Man. 1.3.5–5.9 (CSEL 91:71–76). 31 Conf. 6.5.8 (CCSL 27:78–79; M. Boulding, trans., The Confessions, WSA I/1:142): “Jam enim absurditatem, quae me in illis litteris solebat offendere . . . ad sacramentorum altitudinem referebam eo que mihi illa venerabilior et sacrosancta fide dignior apparebat auctoritas.”

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the Old Testament taught many things at odds with the Christian outlook and value system, as asserted by the Manichaeans. For that reason “there is nothing more pernicious than to take whatever is there literally, that is, by the words, and nothing more wholesome than (to take it) as revealed by the Spirit.”32 The evident problem with the literal meaning of Scripture only pointed out that the true meaning must lie elsewhere. For Manichaeans, the text meant what it said in its surface meaning; if that meaning was unworthy of God, then the text was to be rejected as unauthoritative. For Augustine as a member of the Catholic Church, conversely, the text was authoritative first, and therefore it had to mean what would be worthy of God. If this could not be obtained by a literal reading, then one must resort to figurative or symbolic reading. This position disposed of such things as crude anthropomorphisms that were easy targets of criticism: We do not worship a God who is repentant, jealous, needy, or cruel; we do not worship a God who seeks pleasure from the blood of human beings or animals, nor a God who takes pleasure in sins and crimes, nor a God who limits his ownership of the earth to a certain small piece of it. For you are accustomed to inveigh violently and at length against these silly ideas and other similar ones. Hence, your attack does not touch us. . . . For we very strongly and at great length denounce such a faith as would believe something unsuitable about God. For, when some people understand those passages that were mentioned in their literal sense, we correct their simplicity and mock their stubbornness.33

Coming from a classical education where allegorical interpretations of myth were taken for granted, Augustine did not at first see his exegetical method as specifically allegorical in distinction from some other equally valid method of reading mythic narrative. He considered his interpretations simply as the correct way of reading a mythic text, in place of a naïve, almost grammar-school approach that could not see past the sound of the letters.34 At least at this point, the literal or historical meaning of Scripture was comparatively unimportant; its actual historical occurrence could be a matter of uncertainty and relative indifference.35 Augustine, in fact, was quite certain that some of the described figures, objects, and events 32 Util. cred. 3.9 (CSEL 25/1:12–13, trans. is my own): “Nihil esse perniciosius, quam quidquid ibi est accipi ad litteram, id est, ad verbum; nihil autem salubrius, quam Spiritu revelari.” 33 Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 10.16–17 (CSEL 90:19–20; R. Teske, WSA I/19:38–39): “Non colimus poenitentem Deum, non invidum, non indigum, non crudelem, non quaerentem de hominum vel pecorum sanguine voluptatem, non cui flagitia et scelera placeant, non possessionem suam terrae quadam particula terminantem. In has enim atque hujusmodi nugas graviter copiose que invehi soletis. Quare nos invectio vestra non tangit . . . quaerite, miseri: nam talem fidem, qua Deo inconveniens aliquid creditur, nos vehementius et uberius accusamus; nam et in illis quae dicta sunt, cum sic intelliguntur ut littera sonat, et simplicitatem corrigimus, et pertinaciam deridemus.” 34 Gen. Man. 2.2.3 (CSEL 91:120–21). 35 As noted by R. Teske in FC 84:27, “When Augustine speaks of treating a text as history, he means treating it as a narrative of events – as a story with a beginning, middle and end. It is quite another question whether the events narrated occurred or not.”

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mentioned in the Bible did not actually exist or happen as described – for instance, he did not think there were actual trees in Eden36 – while some events may have happened simply in order to provide signifying material for later (allegorical) understanding. To concern oneself with the literal account of events in the Bible was to fixate on “theatrical and poetic trifling” and miss the spiritual truth to which the words pointed.37 In his early writings, therefore, Augustine did not give particular significance to past events in themselves, even the great moments recorded in biblical narratives; they had importance only in how they affected the individual mind exposed to the story and in how they pointed to a higher, timeless reality beyond themselves. The details of Augustine’s interpretation of the creation story make for a fascinating case study in exegetical imagination.38 Indeed, he did not insist that his interpretations were correct; rather, he simply asserted that allegorical interpretation of this kind was the true way to understand Scripture, contrary to the naïve literal approach of the Manichaeans. Augustine went so far as to question whether it is ever necessary to know the original intention behind Scripture, since it may have value or take on meaning for a reader completely unrelated to that intention.39 Nevertheless, Augustine emphatically denied that Genesis recounts the actual creation process; it takes the form it does, he insisted, to provide a set of symbolic references. “Words can in no sense express in what way God made and established heaven and earth and every creature that he established; but this exposition by order of days recounts it as though (tamquam) it were a history of works he did, so that it may have special regard for the prediction of the future”40 – that is, as either a prediction of the millennia of world history culminating in the “rest” of salvation or as a charter of the individual’s progress toward salvation. In defending the details of that narrative against Manichaean criticism, Augustine saw himself defending not the factuality of actual events as described, but the worthiness of the narrative in how it characterized God, as it went about its business of signaling truths figuratively. In defense of the catholic notion of creation ex nihilo, Augustine merely posited that God created these things prior to the beginning of the narrative in Genesis. He

36 Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 8.4 (CSEL 28/1:235–37). 37 Ver. rel. 51.100 (PL 34:166; J. H. S. Burleigh, trans., Earlier Writings, LCC 6 [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953], 276). 38 R. J. O’Connell, “The Plotinian Fall of the Soul in St. Augustine,” Traditio 19 (1963): 1–35, 11: “Here, Augustine’s ‘spiritual exegesis’ permits him to take extraordinary liberties with what is often the most obvious meaning of the scriptural text.” 39 Util. Cred. 5.10–11 (CSEL 25/1:13–16). 40 Gen. Man. 1.23.41 (CSEL 91:110–11; trans. is my own): “Nullo modo ergo verbis dici potest, quemadmodum Deus fecerit et condiderit caelum et terram et omnem creaturem quam condidit, sed ista expositio per ordinem dierum sic indicat tamquam historiam rerum factarum, ut praedicationem futurorum maxime observet.”

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did not so much find creatio ex nihilo in the Genesis account, therefore, as he presupposed it as a backstory against which to read that account.41 He treated the Genesis narrative as beginning in medias res, in a way that would permit the prefacing of almost any metaphysical scenario. He took most of the terms as references to the primordial matter God had created from which to make specific things. But Augustine could not afford to say the same of “darkness” for fear of playing into the hands of the dualist views of the Manichaeans. “Darkness,” he maintained, refers to the literal absence of light. Against the dualistic premise of an external stimulus to God’s creation of the world, Augustine rejected any necessity that would impinge on God’s will. He found in the silence of Genesis on a cause or inducement or motive for God’s creative act a confirmation that questions of “why?” can go no farther than the will of God.42 God must be conceived in terms of omnipotence and immunity from any inducement to act; for Augustine, any other way of thinking about God is sacrilege.43 He also dismisses the existence of harmful plants and animals as proof of a contrary, evil force operating in creation. Instead, he contends that they must be the result of sin, added to creation as a punishment or trial for humankind.44 Yet Augustine also suggested that the thorns and thistles mentioned in Scripture were not the actual plants placed on earth to cause physical pain, but symbolic references to “the prickings of torturous questions or thoughts concerned with providing for this life.”45 When it came to God’s creation of human beings in his likeness, Augustine had to respond to Manichaean accusations that Catholics imagined “nose and teeth and a beard and also inner organs” – that is, a physical likeness between humans and God46 – as well as that Catholics took literally God’s formation of Adam from mud.47 Augustine agreed with the Manichaeans that the interior human, not the human body, bears the image of God. Therefore, like many exegetes before him, both Jewish and Christian, he took the reference to Adam and Eve being clothed after their transgression in “garments of skin” to mean that they entered into physical bodies for the first time. For Augustine, this mortal, physical embodiment was the true meaning of the “death” God threatened to those who transgressed.48 The fallen condition involved humans not only in the evident evils of violence and 41 See N. J. Torchia, Creatio ex nihilo and the Theology of St. Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Polemic and Beyond (New York: Lang, 1999). 42 Gen. Man. 1.2.4 (CSEL 91:70–71). 43 Gen. Man. 1.2.4 (CSEL 91:70–71): “Quod sacrilegium est credere.” 44 Gen. Man. 1.13.19, 1.16.25 (CSEL 91:85–86, 91–92). 45 Gen. Man. 2.20.30 (CSEL 91:152–53; R. Teske, trans., On Genesis, FC 84 [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1991], 125). 46 Gen. Man. 1.17.27 (CSEL 91:94–95; Teske, FC 84:75); cf. Adim. 5 (CSEL 25/1:124–25). 47 Gen. Man. 2.7.8 (CSEL 91:127–28). 48 Gen. Man. 2.21.32 (CSEL 91:154–56).

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destruction, but also in sexual reproduction, which, with complete consistency, Augustine connected to fallen embodiment, not to the original state of disembodied souls.49 Behind the dispute over the worthiness of the Genesis account of anthropogenesis stood differing views between Manichaeans and Catholics on the cause and reason of human sinfulness and suffering. Manichaeans considered the Adam and Eve story unworthy of the true God, especially because of its outcome in sin,50 while Augustine defended that outcome by the necessity of giving humans free will to choose whether to sin or not. Even though Augustine’s defense of Genesis against Manichaean criticism thus drew him toward defending a logic even on the literal or historical level of narrative they attacked, he preferred to see Adam, Eve, and the serpent primarily as symbolic characters in a myth. At this early stage of his exegetical career, this myth held greater significance as a perennial truth about the individual fall of each soul from the oneness of the intelligible world into the multiplicity of temporal and material engagement than it did as a “history” of a primordial sin: “The whole narrative unfolds, not clearly, but in figures (non aperte, sed figurate), so that it might exercise the minds of those seeking the truth and call them from carnal labors” – that is, attempts to read it literally – “to the spiritual labor” of reading it allegorically.51 Hence one cannot treat the terms of the narrative as though they meant the same thing as they do in non-mythic, literal discourse: “For a proper expression is one thing, and a figurative expression, such as the one we are now considering, is quite another.”52 He repeatedly expressed doubt over the reality of the scenario, entertaining the possibility only to defend it against Manichaean critiques.53 He left open the possibility that the narrative somehow might be explained literally but made it clear that he did not see how.54 Accordingly, Augustine’s exegesis unfolded in a manner fundamentally incompatible with a literal meaning of the story. The single day of creation in Gen 2:4 represents “the whole of time,”55 just as do the seven days of creation in Gen 156; “the green things of the field” are not plants but represent the soul before it sins,

49 Gen. Man. 1.19.30 (CSEL 91:97–98). 50 Gen. Man. 2.28.42 (CSEL 91:168–70). 51 Gen. Man. 2.1.1 (CSEL 91:115; Teske, FC 84:91): “Quae omnis narratio non aperte, sed figurate explicatur, ut exerceat mentes quaerentium veritatem, et spirituali negotio a negotiis carnalibus avocet.” 52 Gen. Man. 2.12.17 (CSEL 91:139; Teske, FC 84:113): “Aliud est quippe propria locutio, aliud figurata, qualis ista est quam tractamus modo.” 53 Gen. Man. 2.14.20 (CSEL 91:141; Teske, FC 84:116): “aut etiamsi locus est talis qui paradisus vocetur, in quo corporaliter Adam et mulier habitabant” (“or, even if there is such a place which is called paradise in which Adam and Eve dwelled corporeally.”). 54 Gen. Man. 2.2.3 (CSEL 91:120–21). 55 Gen. Man. 2.3.4; cf. 2.6.7 (CSEL 91:121–22; cf. 126–27). 56 Gen. Man. 1.23.35–41 (CSEL 91:104–11).

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“watered . . . by an interior spring, speaking to its intellect . . . the truth flowing from its interior.”57 The garden symbolizes “happiness,” Augustine’s code-word for the intelligible realm where the soul experiences its full liberty of being.58 The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, correspondingly, represent orientations of the soul,59 just as the four rivers stand for virtues of the soul.60 Adam and Eve represent the soul and the body, or alternatively “virile reason” and the soul’s “appetite,” “by the help of which it governs the body.” “The woman was made as an illustration (exemplum) of this, for the order of things makes her subject to man.”61 If the story recounts actual events, which, for Augustine, it may or may not, those events happened in a particular way in order to create a symbolic signification for the mind exposed to the narrative: “Whether these things were said figuratively or were also done figuratively, they were not said or done this way without a purpose, but are clearly mysteries and sacraments.”62 Augustine likewise scoffs at a literal reading of the curses that follow in the story as incoherent and nonsensical, pointing towards a symbolic meaning.63 He assumes that physical bodies appear in the narrative only with the “garments of skin” given to Adam and Eve after they sin.64 When he turns to explain the union of Adam and Eve in marriage, he can cite the authority of Paul for understanding this as an allegory for the relationship of Christ and the church (cf. Eph 5:25–33).65 Augustine never again employed such a thoroughgoing allegorical method in his exegetical endeavors, adopting instead a more flexible, eclectic approach that could find worthy meaning on other levels, including what we would call the historical. His first attempt to apply this more eclectic exegetical method to the creation story, De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber, which dates from 393, however, proved unsuccessful, as “my inexperience in scriptural exegesis collapsed under

57 Gen. Man. 2.4.5 (CSEL 91:123–24; Teske, FC 84:99): “irrigabat eam fonte interiore, loquens in intellectum ejus . . . de intimis suis manante veritate.” 58 Gen. Man. 2.14.20, 2.22.34 (CSEL 91:141–42, 156–58). 59 Gen. Man. 2.9.12 (CSEL 91:131–33). 60 Gen. Man. 2.10.13 (CSEL 91:133–34). 61 Gen. Man. 2.11.15 (CSEL 91:136; Teske, FC 84:111): “Corpus servilem locum obtinet, sed etiam virilis ratio subjugaret sibi animalem partem suam, per quod adjutorium imperaret corpori. Ad hujus rei exemplum femina facta est, quam rerum ordo subjugat viro.” 62 Gen. Man. 2.12.17 (CSEL 91:139; Teske, FC 84:114): “Sive ergo ista figurate dicta sint, sive etiam figurate facta sint, non frustra hoc modo dicta vel facta sunt; sed sunt plane mysteria et sacramenta.” 63 Gen. Man. 2.18.28–19.29 (CSEL 91:149–51). 64 Gen. Man. 2.21.32 (CSEL 91:154–56). 65 Gen. Man. 2.13.19, 2.24.37 (CSEL 91:140, 160–62).

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the weight of the burden.”66 He abandoned it after covering a mere twenty-six verses in a manner still dominated by symbolic interpretations. His controlling premise was the authority of the Catholic Church, whose “possession” the Bible was; when it came to a confrontation between the dogmas of the church and the evident meaning of the Bible, the latter must not only yield to but also be made to yield that which the church taught. While he preferred the richness of allegory, he was willing to employ whatever figurative or literal interpretation established a consistency of the Bible with itself and with Nicene belief – and safeguarded the biblical text from either Manichaean critique or appropriation. He took as his overriding exegetical rule that the authority of the church and its creed limited what the biblical text could mean. Augustine put his eclectic approach of scriptural interpretation to good use in Contra Adimantum, wherein he seeks to demonstrate the harmony of the two Testaments against Manichaean arguments that they are at odds with one another. Augustine argued that differences in the depiction of God in the Old and New Testaments reflect nuances of emphasis, not radical disjunction. While the Manichaeans set up an opposition between two passages that can be taken as contradictory, they have overlooked other passages that show the two Testaments to have common ideas.67 Declarations of God’s goodness stand side by side with the jealous and angry God of the Old Testament,68 just as the God of the New Testament’s generous attributes appear along with threats of his wrath.69 To the discerning eye, Augustine asserted, all that the Manichaeans condemn in the Old Testament can be found in the New and all that they praise in the New Testament can be found in the Old. Augustine argued for the necessarily imperfect way figurative expressions are used in Scripture to convey things that are beyond language. The New Testament quotes such language from the Old Testament approvingly (e.g., John 2:17, quoting Ps 68:10),70 and the Manichaeans readily took such expressions figuratively when they found them in the New Testament (e.g., John 7:38, 1 Cor 3:2, 1 Thess 2:7).71 Augustine held that references to God’s jealousy, for example, were mere figures of speech for that aspect of God’s will toward human beings that is concerned with their proper conduct, as when Paul says in 2 Cor 11:2: “I have conceived for you a jealousy of God, because I have engaged you to a unique spouse, for you to be

66 Augusitne, Retractationes 1.18 (CCSL 57:54–55; trans. is my own): “In scripturis exponendis tirocinium meum sub tanta sarcinae mole succubuit.” 67 Adim. 10 (CSEL 25/1:134–35). 68 Adim. 13 (CSEL 25/1:144–47). 69 Adim. 27 (CSEL 25/1:186–87). 70 Adim. 11 (CSEL 25/1:135–38). 71 Adim. 25 (CSEL 25/1:183–84).

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presented to Christ as a pure virgin.”72 Likewise, Augustine maintained that whenever the Bible associates God with something “evil,” it means not sinful evil but the justice of punishment that the one punished experiences as an “evil,” even though it actually involves the good of God’s justice.73 Even Adimantus cited Matt 3:10: “Every tree that does not yield good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” Such is the “evil” that God does, Augustine insisted, namely, as chastisement of sinners. The punishment of sin is not an evil fruit, he argued, but the good fruit of justice.74 Why should God not be an inflictor of just punishment when Jesus himself declared, “away to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt 25:41)75 and said that he came to bring fire on the earth (Luke 12:49)?76 The Manichaeans insisted that Jesus meant something else here than the apparent punitive meaning. But if it meant something else here, why could it not mean something else in the Old Testament? Indeed, Augustine offered, this is the same fire as that mentioned in Luke 24:32, burning the hearts of Christ’s disciples – namely, the love of God that consumes the old man and replaces it with the new. Augustine considered all language of worldly victory over one’s enemies as intended only as a metaphorical prefiguration of spiritual triumph over evil.77 The undeniable differences between the law of justice in the Old Testament and the ethic of forgiveness and non-retaliation in the New Testament (especially the Sermon on the Mount) pushed Augustine beyond his preferred allegorical readings to a historical, dispensationalist interpretation of the Bible in such works as Contra Adimantum and De sermone Domini in monte, a method that would reach full development in Contra Faustum Manichaeum. While acknowledging the differences in the two ethical codes, he insisted that they were both given by the same God. The law was meant to rein revenge in within just limits, and Christ’s command extended rather than contradicted this restraint.78 The command to love one’s enemies applied to having patience with those who may be converted, he suggested, while the command to kill one’s enemies suited the treatment of those who are hopelessly carnal. He observed that even Paul delivered a man to Satan (1 Cor 5:3–5).79 Such killing is only a killing of the flesh, in order to save the soul, he argued, as Paul expressly stated. He also suggested that such apparent curses and invocation of harm, found in both the Old and New Testaments, actually functioned as prophecies of what would happen according to God’s justice, rather than as prayers asking

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

Adim. 7 (CSEL 25/1:127–30). Adim. 26 (CSEL 25/1:184–86). Adim. (CSEL 25/1:184–86). Adim. 7 (CSEL 25/1:127–30). Adim. 13 (CSEL 25/1:144–47). Adim. 20 (CSEL 25/1:176–79). Adim. 8 (CSEL 25/1:130–31). Adim. 17 (CSEL 25/1:164–72); Augustine, De sermone Domini in monte 1.20.65 (CCSL 35:74–75).

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God to make them happen.80 God remains just and a distributor of justice, no matter how much the rules of human conduct change from the law to the gospel. The law and the sermon, therefore, represent stages of instruction according to a progressive dispensation of the one God. The Old Testament represents the pedagogy of fear, Augustine explained, while the New Testament brings the era of love. Because Augustine placed the locus of morality in the will of the individual rather than in his or her deeds, he considered rules of external conduct merely as temporary, disposable conditioners of the soul, disciplining its wayward inclination toward material things and preparing it for its ascent back to God.81 This was a radical stance for a man charged with the duties of a Catholic priest to adopt. In books 11–13 of Confessiones, it would take him as far as questioning the ultimate importance of particular meanings of the biblical text. Having explored many possible meanings of the Genesis creation account without concluding that any one meaning was necessarily correct, he argued that all believers were obliged only to assent to the truth of the Bible, while retaining the liberty to discern in what way and at what register of meaning it was true. “Since, then, so rich a variety of highly plausible interpretations can be culled from those words, consider how foolish it is to rashly assert that Moses intended one particular meaning rather than any of the others.”82 The Bible’s ultimate value lay not in its discursive sense but in its effect on the soul. Was not the Bible merely a disposable instrument for the soul’s perfection? Was there a Bible, or even a need for one, in heaven?83

Augustine’s Manichaean Paul While the diametrically opposed assessments of the Old Testament kept Augustine’s reading of it in sharp opposition to the Manichaean one, matters stood quite differently when it came to the New Testament. Here, common respect for the words of Jesus and Paul made it hard at times to differentiate sufficiently Augustine’s understanding of the text from insights into it already achieved by his Manichaean interlocutors. This exegetical dilemma found dramatic demonstration in his debate with the Manichaean Fortunatus, wherein the latter proved a skillful and sophisticated

80 Serm. Dom. 1.21.71–72 (CCSL 35:79–81); Adim. 25 (CSEL 25/1:183–84). 81 Serm. Dom. 1.12.34 (CCSL 35:36–38). 82 Conf. 12.25.35 (CCSL 27:236; Boulding, WSA I/1:334): “Jam vide, quam stultum sit in tanta copia verissimarum sententiarum, quae de illis verbis ervi possunt, temere affirmare, quam earum Moyses potissimum senserit.” 83 Conf. 13.15.18, 13.23.34 (CCSL 27:251–52, 262); cf. Enarrat. Ps. 93.6 (CCSL 39:1305–7). For more see J. D. BeDuhn, Making a “Catholic” Self, 388–401 C.E., vol. 2, Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 389–402; and I. Bochet, “Le firmament de l’Écriture”: L’herméneutique augustinienne (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2004).

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interpreter of Paul’s thought, especially when compared to Augustine’s stumbling efforts to make the Apostle support a free-will position with regard to human sinfulness.84 Augustine’s sudden, intensive interest in Paul immediately after the debate came as a direct response to Fortunatus’s effective exegesis of the apostle. In the words of Paula Fredriksen, “There, before the watching eyes of his own church and its schismatic rival, the Donatists, Augustine had to confront publicly a wellorganized Manichaean sect that based much of its dualistic and deterministic doctrine on the Pauline Epistles. To proceed against the Manichees, Augustine had to reclaim Paul.”85 Two centuries of Christian exegetes had read Paul quite comfortably in line with a free-will view, and Augustine’s discovery of a different Paul, different from the one even he initially knew, owed a great deal to Fortunatus’s Manichaean understanding of Paul as revealed during their debate. In gradually yielding to this reading of Paul, with stress on grace rather than free will, Augustine faced fierce opposition from within his own religious community, some of whom argued that his exegesis entailed innovation and the introduction of Manichaean readings of Paul. On the question of sin and free will, Fortunatus quoted passages of Paul that seemed to point to a lack of free will, enslavement to sin, and a need for divine grace, while Augustine attempted to uphold a free-will position. And at Contra Fortunatum 21, Fortunatus was able to cite a catena of Pauline verses in support of his argument that the human person passes through a period of moral disability, dominated by an alien force (Rom 7:23–25; 8:7; Gal 5:17). Fortunatus demonstrated how Paul described people as “dead” in their sins and “doing the will of the counsel of the flesh” (facientes voluntates consiliorum carnis), which he attributed to a “power” and “spirit” opposed to God (Eph 2:1–3).86 This condition was reversed not by people choosing to be good and serve God, but when God “revived” them in an act of grace (Eph 2:5).87 When Augustine attempted to give Paul’s language a freewill reading, he glossed over the very expressions Fortunatus emphasized and contended that people are saved when, instead of yielding to sin, they are “reconciled to God by holding to the precepts of Christ, so that we who were dead in sins may be made alive by keeping his precepts.”88 If we compare these two understandings of Paul to the one Augustine would develop later, as the “Doctor of Grace,” it is Fortunatus and the later Augustine who agree, over against the earlier Augustine

84 See J. D. BeDuhn, “Did Augustine Win His Debate with Fortunatus?,” in ‘In Search of Truth’: Augustine, Manichaeism and other Gnosticism; Studies for Johannes van Oort at Sixty, eds. J. A. van den Berg et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2011): 463–79. 85 P. Fredriksen, “Paul and Augustine: Conversion Narratives, Orthodox Traditions, and the Retrospective Self,” JTS, NS 37 (1986): 3–34, 22. 86 Augustine, Fort. 16 (CSEL 25/1:92–93; trans. is my own). 87 Adim. 17 (CSEL 25/1:93–95). 88 Adim. 17 (CSEL 25/1:93–95; trans. is my own): “tenendo autem praecepta Christi reconciliamur Deo, ut qui in peccatis mortui eramus, servantes praecepta ejus vivificemur.”

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and the Pelagians, who both represent the standard orthodox line up to that time. Augustine, by changing his mind and embracing Fortunatus’s understanding of Paul, would revolutionize not only the interpretation of the Pauline Epistles but also the Christian doctrine of salvation. Responding to the arguments of Fortunatus, Augustine ultimately conceded that the will is constrained – albeit by habit (consuetudo), not by an independent force of evil. This was the leading edge of a series of shifts he would make in the next few years toward a reading of Paul that was much closer to Fortunatus’s and that was based upon the very same passages the latter had brought to Augustine’s attention.89 Augustine expressly accepted the Manichaean coordination of these passages as mutually informing, embracing the intertextual relationship put forward by the Manichaeans and, what is more, accepting the meaning Manichaeans found in them. Therefore, if it is true that “[o]nly in his Pauline commentaries did the characteristically Augustinian themes begin to appear,”90 then it is of great significance that Augustine produced these commentaries in engagement with Manichaean interpretations.91 Although Augustine set out in his studies of the Pauline Epistles with an anti-Manichaean agenda, namely, to read them “so that the Apostle seems neither to condemn the Law nor to take away the free exercise of human will,”92 he was forced to yield on the latter point and never look back. As part of his shifting understanding of will and grace through Paul, however, Augustine arrived at a new defense of the law that salvaged its place in the Christian path to salvation from the attacks of the Manichaeans. Building particularly on foundations laid by the Donatist Tyconius in his third rule of exegesis,93 Augustine developed his famous four-stage scheme of the individual’s path from

89 See Exp. quaest. Rom. 45–46 (P. Fredriksen-Landes, trans., Augustine on Romans [Chico: Scholars Press, 1982], 16–19); Exp. Gal. 46.1–47.5 (E. Plumer, trans., Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians, OECS [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003], 208–13); and Augustine, De libero arbitrio 3.18.51 (CCSL 29:305). 90 P. Burns, The Development of Augustine’s Doctrine of Operative Grace (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1980), 49. 91 Following a detailed analysis of how the selection of verses and principal themes of Augustine’s exegesis reflects engagement with the Manichaean use of Paul, V. Drecoll, Die Entstehung der Gnadenlehre Augustins (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 198, concludes that his “exegesis of Paul cannot be classified as principally unpolemical. The exegesis of Paul and the linked elaboration of the concept of grace in close dependence on Pauline terminology are thus not to be seen as a more or less ‘chance product of his ordination to the priesthood,’ but are motivated in regard to its content by Augustine’s continuing engagement [Auseinandersetzung] with Manichaeism on the basis of the Manichaean employment of Paul” (trans. is my own). 92 Exp. quaest. Rom. 13–18.1 (Fredriksen-Landes, Augustine on Romans, 4–5): “ut neque lex improbata ab apostolo videatur neque homini arbitrium liberum sit ablatum.” 93 On the crucial influence of Tyconius’s model of salvation history on Augustine’s four-stage construct of salvation, see P. Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 157–63; W. S. Babcock, “Augustine and Tyconius: A Study in the Latin Appropriation of

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being dead in sin to ultimate salvation. These four stages are: (1) prior to the law (ante legem); (2) under the law (sub lege); (3) under grace (sub gratia); (4) in peace (in pace). “Prior to the Law, we pursue fleshly concupiscence; under the Law, we are pulled by it; under grace, we neither pursue nor are pulled by it; in peace, there is no concupiscence of the flesh.”94 An original unquestioning assent to the body’s demands develops into a habit by the time one learns the sinfulness of being oriented primarily to the body in this way. As habit tightens its grip on the person, it becomes petrified to the extent that the person feels incapable of resisting. Augustine explicitly applied this construct to explaining the Pauline language that Fortunatus had cited in support of Manichaean views of the human condition.95 When Paul spoke of sin being “dead” without the law (Rom 7:8) and of being alive once apart from the law (Rom 7:9), with the possible implication that the law was the cause of sin, this had to mean that sin merely was hidden, unknown for what it was, so that it seemed dead and the person appeared (falsely) to be alive.96 To ignorant sinners in their benighted condition, the law arrives as a source of education in which they have awareness of moral distinctions and aspire to be good, even though they lack the capacity actually to obey the law and do what is good.97 Echoing the exposition of Tyconius, Augustine explained that God “had given a righteous law to unrighteous people to point out their sins, not take them away.”98 In saying, “I do not understand my own actions” (Rom 7:15), Paul meant only that he does not approve of them, not that they are inexplicable to his conscious intellect.99 In seeking to understand Paul’s declaration that “I do not want to do what I do; but what I hate, this I do” (Rom 7:15), Augustine warned, One must take care lest he think that these words deny our free will, for it is not so. The man described here is under the Law, prior to grace; sin overcomes him when by his own strength he

Paul,” StPatr 17 (1982): 1209–15; and A. Pincherle, “Da Ticonio a Sant’Agostino,” Richerche religiose 1 (1925): 443–66. For more on Tyconius’s approach to Scripture, see the chapter by Hoover in this volume. 94 Exp. quaest. Rom. 13–18.2 (Fredriksen-Landes, Augustine on Romans, 45): “Ante legem sequimur concupiscentiam carnis, sub lege trahimur ab ea, sub gratia nec sequimur eam nec trahimur ab ea, in pace nulla est concupiscentia carnis”; cf. Div. quaest. LXXXIII 66.3 (CCSL 44A:154–55); Exp. Gal. 46.4–9 (Plumer, Augustine’s Commentary, 210–11). 95 E.g., Exp. quaest. Rom. 45–46 (Fredriksen-Landes, Augustine on Romans, 16, 18). 96 Exp. quaest. Rom. 37–38 (Fredriksen-Landes, Augustine on Romans, 14); Div. quaest. LXXXIII 66.4 (CCSL 44A:155). 97 Exp. quaest. Rom. 13–18.4 (Fredriksen-Landes, Augustine on Romans, 4). 98 Exp. Gal. 1.2 (Plumer, Augustine’s Commentary, 124–25): “Justam scilicet legem injustis hominibus dando ad demonstranda peccata eorum non auferenda”; cf. Exp. Gal. 24.15–16 (Plumer, Augustine’s Commentary, 166–69). 99 Exp. quaest. Rom. 43 (Fredriksen-Landes, Augustine on Romans, 16).

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attempts to live righteously without the aid of God’s liberating grace. For by his free will man has a means to believe in the Liberator and to receive grace so that . . . he might cease to sin.100

The condition of being aware of sin but unable to resist it under the law “serves the purpose of making the soul aware that it is not sufficient in itself to extricate itself from enslavement to sin, so that in this way, with the subsiding and extinction of all pride, it might become subject to its Deliverer,”101 “so that they might seek grace and not assume they could be saved by their own merits – which is pride – and so that they might be righteous not by their own power and strength, but by the hand of a mediator who justifies the impious.”102 The anguish of finding oneself unable to fulfill the demands of the law forces the individual to believe in God’s saving grace.103 This act of faith is what “obtains” God’s grace104; “belief is our work”105; it is the criterion by which God “chooses” whom to save106; it is the only “merit” that distinguishes between the elect and damned.107 By highlighting Paul’s own analogy between an historical era of the law and the experience of every individual struggling to meet moral demands, Augustine moved beyond Tyconius’s scheme of salvation history in a way that reinforced the continuing role of the Old Testament law in Christianity in the face of Manichaean efforts to remove it. Manichaeans such as Fortunatus discerned only two phases of the soul’s time in this world: before grace and under grace. Before grace, the soul is fragmented and somnambulant; with grace and enlightenment this condition of subjection by evil transforms instantaneously into a “free faculty of living,”108 even if this latter condition contends with continuing opposition from “the flesh.” Between the servitude to sin and the empowerment of grace marked by these two phases in the Manichaean model, Augustine added an intervening step involving

100 Exp. quaest. Rom. 44.1–3 (Fredriksen-Landes, Augustine on Romans, 16–17): “Sed cavendum, ne quis arbitretur his verbis auferri nobis liberum voluntatis arbitrium, quod non ita est. Nunc enim homo describitur sub lege positus ante gratiam, tunc enim peccatis vincitur, dum viribus suis juste vivere conatur sine adjutorio liberantis gratiae Dei. Libero autem arbitrio habet, ut credat liberatori et . . . accipiat gratiam, ut jam . . . non peccet.” 101 Div. quaest. LXXXIII 66.1 (CCSL 44A:151; D. Mosher, FC 70:139): “Sentiat anima se ipsam non sufficere ad extrahendum se de servitute peccati, atque hoc modo detumescente atque extincta omni superbia subdatur liberatori suo.” 102 Exp. Gal. 24.14 (Plumer, Augustine’s Commentary, 166–67): “ut quaereret gratiam nec se suis meritis salvum fieri, quod superbum est, opinaretur, ut esset non in sua potestate et viribus justus, sed in manu mediatoris justificantis impium.” 103 Exp. quaest. Rom. 13–18.7, 45–46.2 (Fredriksen-Landes, Augustine on Romans, 6, 16). 104 Exp. Gal. 44.4 (Plumer, Augustine’s Commentary, 206–7). 105 Exp. quaest. Rom. 60.12 (Fredriksen-Landes, Augustine on Romans, 32–33): “Quod ergo credimus, nostrum est.” 106 Exp. quaest. Rom. 60.8–10 (Fredriksen-Landes, Augustine on Romans, 30–33). 107 Exp. quaest. Rom. 62.9 (Fredriksen-Landes, Augustine on Romans, 34–35). 108 Augustine, Fort. 16 (CSEL 25/1:92–93; trans. is my own): “libera facultas vivendi.”

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the law in a positive role that he had learned how to articulate from Tyconius. Whereas predecessors such as Ambrosiaster (and even Tyconius) had circumscribed the role of the law in a negative way – it only provides awareness of sin, not any effective solution to it 109 – Augustine accentuated the positive aspect of this role in a pointedly anti-Manichaean reaffirmation of the law’s value. By treating the law not in its specifics, but as the general call to moral conduct, Augustine found a role for it within individual progress toward salvation and, thus, another way to retain the value of the Old Testament against Manichaean criticism of it.110 Yet, Augustine was not finished with Paul. Simplician, bishop of Milan, sent him a set of problematic passages from the Old and New Testaments, asking for his interpretation of them. The particular selection appears to represent verses cited by Manichaeans against Catholic positions; Simplician evidently turned to Augustine for help because he was the best-informed critic of, and respondent to, Manichaeism. But, far from reinforcing his carefully crafted preservation of a place for the human will in the economy of salvation, Augustine’s fresh exploration of Paul’s language yielded further concessions to the Manichaeans’ understanding of the apostle. While the first question of the work on Rom 7 largely restated the position Augustine had worked out in the previous few years, with the second question of De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum, Augustine entered exegetical waters uncharted by any previous Catholic commentator and passed out of the Christian mainstream. In his own characterization of what happened, “I in fact strove on behalf of the free choice of the human will, but God’s grace conquered.”111 Of course, one should not imagine that Augustine intended to accommodate the Manichaean reading of Paul; rather, he yielded ground to their interpretation on certain points in order to find a more strongly defensible position from which to continue to oppose their use of Paul in support of their overall doctrine. The underlying weakness of Augustine’s previous position was its failure to solve a problem Fortunatus had raised – namely, the ability of the recalcitrant soul to say, “No,” to God’s desire to save it. If that were the case, Fortunatus suggested, Augustine’s God was no more master of the universe than was the Manichaean God in the face of an opposing force of evil. That remaining challenge finally pushed Augustine to take

109 Tyconius, Reg. 3 (W. S. Babcock, trans., Tyconius: The Book of Rules, SBLTT 31 [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989], 28); Ambrosiaster, Commentarius in epistulas Paulinas (ad Romanos) 8.2 (gamma recension; CSEL 81/1:251, 253). For a new English trans. Of the gamma recension of this passage, see T. S. de Bruyn, D. G. Hunter, and S. A. Cooper, eds. and trans., Ambrosiaster’s Commentary On the Pauline Epistles: Romans, WGRW (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017), 143–45. 110 On the radical shift entailed in Augustine’s reading of Paul on the law, see K. Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” HTR 56 (1963): 199–215, esp. 206–7. 111 Retract. 2.1.3 (CCSL 57:89–90; B. Ramsey, trans., Revisions, WSA I/2:110): “In cujus quaestionis solutione laboratum est quidem pro libero arbitrio voluntatis humanae, sed vicit Dei gratia.”

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away the last vestige of free will from human beings in order to safeguard a nondualist universe and an omnipotent God. Augustine could not afford to make his move in an interpretation of Rom 7, a favorite passage of the Manichaeans; rather, he took the opportunity to do so in responding to Simplician’s second question, which was based upon Rom 9, a passage that the Manichaeans neglected or faulted rather than claimed. Even though it depicted human powerlessness and the role of grace very similarly to Rom 7, it did so in terms of an all-powerful, arbitrary, and even evil-producing God that the Manichaeans could never accept. In Rom 9, then, Augustine did not face a rival positive use of Paul, but a critique of the passage’s portrayal of God. In defending that image of God, therefore, Augustine could let go of free will within a larger theological context that was safely anti-Manichaean. Fortunatus had contended that Paul, properly read, expounded the idea of a divine call that did more than elicit a response of faith from a free will – a call that actually introduced awareness, agency, selfhood, and responsibility for the first time.112 Now Augustine began to ponder how he could resist such a view in light of Paul’s own assertion, “It is God who works in you both to will and to do” (Phil 2:13). It would seem that with such a statement Paul “shows clearly that even a good will itself comes about in us through God’s working.”113 If that is the case, then what Paul says in Rom 9:16 (“It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that has mercy”) was not “said because without his aid we cannot attain to what we will, but, rather, because without his call we do not will.”114 Such words could have been uttered by any Manichaean. Yet, Augustine qualifies this statement in a crucial, anti-Manichaean way. For Manichaeans, especially in light of Rom 7, this is a declaration of ultimate innocence: the human soul is effectively comatose before God’s grace and cannot will; it is another evil force within the individual that wills and carries out evil. Augustine will have none of any such dualism; any will within an individual is that individual’s, that soul’s, will. So it is not the case that we do not will at all without the aid of God, but that we cannot will the good without such aid. Human beings, prior to God’s grace, can will, but only will evil, not good. Augustine posed, therefore, a very one-sided and disadvantageous sort of freedom. But he could only do so by overlooking key statements of Paul: in Rom 7, where Paul said it was not he who committed sin but the sin that dwelt in his flesh, and in Rom 9, where Paul said

112 Augustine, Fort. 21 (CSEL 25/1:100–3). 113 Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum 1.2.12 (CCSL 44:36; B. Ramsey, trans., Responses to Miscellaneous Questions, WSA I/12:194): “Ubi satis ostendit etiam ipsam bonam voluntatem in nobis operante Deo fieri.” 114 Div. Quaest. Simpl. 1.2.12 (CCSL 44:37; Ramsey, WSA I/12:194): “Non igitur ideo dictum putandum est . . . quia nisi ejus adjutorio non possumus adipisci quod volumus, sed ideo potius quia nisi ejus vocatione non volumus.”

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that God caused certain people to will evil. Yet as a result of this selective reading of Paul, Augustine could hold God blameless for human sinfulness, while at the same time making him omnipotent in the determination of who is saved and who is damned, independent of any free response on the part of the human individual. “For the effectiveness of God’s mercy cannot be in man’s power.”115 God, therefore, determines who will respond with faith to his call, by sending them and only them a “congruent” call, one that is “suited to them” in such a way that it invariably elicits the desired response.116 Until now Augustine had held that God calls universally and that every soul has the opportunity to respond to that call. Augustine had not previously suggested that a positive response necessarily follows. On the contrary, he had based the entire economy of both salvation and damnation on the open-endedness of the soul’s response to the call. Now, however, he suggested that the call automatically produces a response – a positive one in the case of the congruent call and a negative one in the case of the non-congruent call. It is impossible for the soul not to consent to the congruent call, just as it is impossible for the soul that receives a non-congruent call to have faith. One might say that, with the idea of the congruent call, the human will still has a role to play, but it is not a free role. Augustine makes the new scenario perfectly clear through the example of Paul himself, who was effectively called even though his will was turned completely against God.117 Gone is the actively yearning will under the law of Augustine’s previous reading of Rom 7, which understands grace as an empowerment of a will already rightly oriented. Instead, the call initiates the very existence of a conscious good will, collapsing his under-law/under-grace distinction. For if God gives the congruent call to which the soul responds, what necessary instructional or disciplinary role is there for the law? Thus, Augustine had discarded one of his most important anti-Manichaean arguments, the very one by which he had sought to

115 Div. Quaest. Simpl. 1.2.13 (CCSL 44:38; Ramsey, WSA I/12:195): “Non potest effectus misericordiae Dei esse in hominis poteste.” 116 Div. Quaest. Simpl. 1.2.13 (CCSL 44:38). 117 Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.22 (CCSL 44:54–56). P. Fredriksen, “Beyond the Body/Soul Dichotomy: Augustine on Paul Against the Manichaeans and the Pelagians,” Recherches augustiniennes et patristiques 23 (1988): 87–114, esp. 102, suggests it was Paul’s biography in Acts and autobiographical statements in his epistles that provided the scriptural key to Augustine’s discovery of the congruent call. The Acts narrative’s depiction of Saul as intent on evil up to the very moment that God intervened in his life on the road to Damascus is cited in Div. quaest. Simpl. 1.2.22 (CCSL 44:54–56). On the prominence of this detail in Augustine’s works at this time, see L. C. Ferrari, “Saint Augustine on the Road to Damascus,” AugStud 13 (1982): 151–70. W. S. Babcock, “Comment: Augustine, Paul, and the Question of Moral Evil,” in Paul and the Legacies of Paul, ed. W. S. Babcock (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1990): 251–61, esp. 256, is dubious; he sees Augustine’s use of the Saul episode as illustrative of a position he came to on other grounds, not as something that induced him to take that position.

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justify Catholic retention of the Old Testament. For all intents and purposes, he had shifted how he read Paul in the direction of the existing Manichaean exegesis, by which the presence of a good will within Paul struggling against contrary impulses indicated that he is already in receipt of grace. In the words of William Babcock, “Augustine stands alone among the Latin interpreters of Paul in his discovery of a Pauline theology which cut the nerve of every human effort to achieve the good by striving for conformity with God.”118 We should qualify Babcock’s remark with “alone among the catholic Latin interpreters of Paul,” since it is precisely among the North African Manichaean interpreters like Fortunatus and Faustus that we find a similar declaration of human dependence on grace that Augustine, for all his intention to counteract the Manichaean Paul, increasingly adopted. Augustine struggled with the ramifications of his logic. He still insisted that God must be just in all that he does.119 Therefore, there had to be something in the person by which God decided on whom to have mercy. It could not be purely arbitrary. As a result, he insisted, one must believe that this pertains “to a kind of justice that is hidden from that which is sought and must be observed in our human affairs and earthly agreements.”120 It is only human pride that tries to scrutinize God’s mercy and ask on what grounds he chooses whom he will forgive. “But to those to whom he is not merciful he judges, with a most secret justice that is far removed from human understanding, that mercy must not be shown. For ‘Inscrutable are his judgments, and unfathomable his ways’ (Rom 11:33).”121 Yet, even if there were no such distinction between the saved and the damned, and God were completely arbitrary, he would still be just, because everyone has sinned, and none deserve to be saved. In saying, “all die in Adam” (1 Cor 15:22), Paul made it clear that all human beings “are a kind of single mass of sin owing a debt of punishment to the divine and loftiest justice,” because from Adam “the origin of the offense against God spread throughout the whole human race.” Therefore, regardless of “whether it be exacted or forgiven, there is no injustice.”122 Since God is under no obligation to save anybody, he cannot be decried as unjust for letting some, or even many, be damned, while choosing to save some as a completely unmerited act of graciousness.

118 Babcock, “Augustine and Tyconius,” 1210. 119 Div. Quaest. Simpl. 1.2.16 (CCSL 44:41). 120 Div. Quaest. Simpl. 1.2.16 (CCSL 44:41; Ramsey, WSA I/2:197): “esse alicujus occultae atque ab humano modulo investigabilis aequitatis.” 121 Div. Quaest. Simpl. 1.2.16 (CCSL 44:42; Ramsey, WSA I/2:198): “Eorum autem non miseretur, quibus misericordiam non esse praebendam aequitate occultissima et ab humanis sensibus remotissima judicat; ‘Inscrutabilia enim sunt judicia ejus et investigabiles viae ipsius.’” 122 Div. Quaest. Simpl. 1.2.16 (CCSL 44:41–42; Ramsey, WSA I/2:198): “Sunt igitur omnes homines – quando quidem, ut apostolus ait, ‘In Adam omnes moriuntur,’ a quo in universum genus humanum origo ducitur offensionis Dei – una quaedam massa peccati supplicium debens divinae summae que justitiae, quod sive exigatur sive donetur, nulla est iniquitas.”

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Augustine confronted this daunting logic of God’s relationship to human beings through Paul’s own exploration of this difficult theological terrain in Rom 9. It safeguarded Augustine’s theology from any resemblance to Manichaeism and, in doing so, created a secure ideological space in which to accommodate Manichaean insights into Paul’s distinctive ideas of human incapacity and God’s grace. Augustine could afford to enrich his interpretation of Paul with such Manichaean readings once they were stripped of dualistic ramifications and fitted to a defense of God’s omnipotence and the righteousness of his justice. Augustine’s earlier attempts to claim Paul for free will and habit had not proved sustainable. The Manichaeans had highlighted elements actually present in Paul’s language that had heretofore been downplayed in the Nicene exegetical tradition. Only now, within a view of the divided and disabled self that had been the hallmark of Manichaean anthropology, did those Pauline texts, which were initially brought to his attention by his Manichaean opponents, stop resisting his reading. By taking responsibility for both sides of the internal division, Augustine moved beyond the Manichaean position as he described his own – and every person’s – experience of inner conflict. “It was a story,” in William Babcock’s judgment, “that he could not (and would not) have told as he did without his own lengthy dalliance in the Manichaean camp and his own penetrating efforts to construe, in alternate fashion, the very type of human experience that lay at the core of the Manichaean view.”123

For Further Reading Primary Sources Augustine. Augustine on Romans, edited and translated by Paula Fredriksen-Landes. Chico: Scholars Press, 1982. Augustine. Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians, edited and translated by Eric Plumer. OECS. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Augustine. De Genesi Contra Manichaeos, edited by Dorothea Weber. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 91. Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1998. Augustine. Earlier Writings, translated by John H. S. Burleigh. Library of Christian Classics 6. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1953. Augustine. On Genesis, translated by Roland Teske. Fathers of the Church 84. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1991. Augustine. S. Aureli Augustini: Contra Felicem, De Natura Boni, Epistula Secundini, Contra Secundinum, edited by Josef Zycha. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 25/2. Vienna: Tempsky, 1892.

123 W. S. Babcock, “Augustine and the Spirituality of Desire,” AugStud 25 (1994): 179–99, 186–87.

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Augustine. S. Aureli Augustini: De moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum libri duo, edited by Pius Knöll. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 90. Vienna: Tempsky, 1992. Augustine. S. Aureli Augustini: De utilitate credendi, De duabus animabus, Contra Fortunatum, Contra Adimantum, Contra epistulam fundamenti, Contra Faustum, edited by Josef Zycha. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 25/1. Vienna: Tempsky, 1891. Augustine. The Manichaean Debate, translated by Roland Teske. Part I, vol. 19, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, edited by Boniface Ramsey. Hyde Park: New City Press, 2006.

Secondary Sources Babcock, William S. “Augustine’s Interpretation of Romans (A.D. 394–96),” Augustinian Studies 10 (1979): 55–74. BeDuhn, Jason David. “Did Augustine Win His Debate with Fortunatus?” In ‘In Search of Truth’: Augustine, Manichaeism and Other Gnosticism; Studies for Johannes van Oort at Sixty, edited by Jacob Albert van den Berg, Annemaré Kotzé, Tobias Nicklas, and Madeleine Scopello, 463–79. Leiden: Brill, 2011. BeDuhn, Jason David. Making a “Catholic” Self, 388–401 C.E. Vol. 2, Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. Böhlig, Alexander. Die Bibel bei den Manichäern und verwandte Studien, edited by Peter Nagel and Siegfried G. Richter. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 80. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Gardner, Iain, and Samuel N. C. Lieu. Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Lieu, Samuel N. C. Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China. 2nd ed. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992.

Jesse A. Hoover

12 Scripture in Tyconius Introduction There are certain mystical rules that preserve the hidden chambers within the whole law and serve to obscure the treasures of truth from some people. If the method undergirding these rules, as we relate them, is willingly accepted, doors now closed will be opened and shadows will be lifted – and anyone who walks with these rules as an escort through the vast forest of prophecy will follow, so to speak, paths of light, and will be protected from error.1

With these eloquent words, the North African Donatist theologian Tyconius initiated something of a revolution in the Western hermeneutical tradition. Through his elaboration of seven “spiritual” rules for understanding the hidden meanings of the biblical text and his practical application of their insights to the exegetical thickets of one of the Bible’s most difficult books, the Revelation to Saint John, Tyconius stands at the beginning of an exegetical trajectory that proved irresistible to the wider Latin church. On the one hand, the popularity of the Donatist author’s hermeneutical system was undoubtedly aided by its guarded appropriation – and substantial reinterpretation – by Augustine of Hippo in the third book of Christian Instruction (De doctrina christiana).2 On the other hand, despite the bishop of Hippo’s casual dismissal of its merit in the same book, Tyconius’s Commentary on the Apocalypse (Expositio Apocalypseos) achieved near-total dominance over the Latin apocalyptic tradition during the early medieval period, reminding us that, however suspicious his background may have been in the eyes of his Catholic contemporaries, Tyconius was a strikingly influential theologian in his own right.3

1 Tyconius, Reg., Prooemion (SC 488:130, 132; trans. is my own): “Sunt enim quaedam regulae mysticae quae universae legis recessus obtinent et veritatis thesauros aliquibus invisibiles faciunt; quarum si ratio regularum sine invidia ut communicamus accepta fuerit, clausa quaeque patefient et obscura dilucidabuntur, ut quis prophetiae inmensam silvam perambulans his regulis quodam modo lucis tramitibus deductus ab errore defendatur.” 2 For a discussion of the ways in which Augustine adapted Tyconius’s rules for his own purposes, see P. Bright, “‘The Prepondering Influence of Augustine’: A Study of the Epitomes of the Book of Rules of the Donatist Tyconius,” in Augustine and The Bible, ed. P. Bright (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999): 103–18. 3 See Doctr. chr. 3.30.42 (R. P. H. Green, ed. and trans, Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, OECT [Oxford: Clarendon, 1995], 172, 174). Late antique and early medieval writers who were directly influenced by the Expositio Apocalypseos include Jerome, Primasius of Hadrumetum, Gennadius, Cassiodorus, Bede, Beatus of Liébana, and Ambrose Autpert. *Jesse A. Hoover, Baylor University https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-013

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Tyconius’s Background Despite the enduring effect of his hermeneutical system, we actually know very little about Tyconius himself. The few biographical details known to us with any degree of certainty are contingent on the witness of two ancient sources, each with their own particular agenda: Augustine of Hippo, his near contemporary, and Gennadius of Marseilles, who lived a century after the Donatist theologian’s death. Tyconius appears in Gennadius’s On Illustrious Men as the founder of an amillennial tradition that “explained the whole Apocalypse of John, interpreting none of it according to the flesh, but all according to the spirit.”4 This is important to Gennadius, for as we find out in his own bibliography, he himself had written “treatises on the thousand years and on the Apocalypse of Saint John.”5 Tyconius, Gennadius informs us, wrote four books: On the Internal War (De bello intestino), Explanations of Diverse Causes (Expositiones diversarum causarum), Liber regularum, and Exposition of the Apocalypse (Expositio Apocalypseos).6 The first two, which are now lost, were written “for the defense of his own” and clearly identified their author as a Donatist.7 Furthermore, Gennadius says that Tyconius was a contemporary of Rufinus (the previous entry in his list) and wrote “while Theodosius and his sons were reigning.”8 As Theodosius I ruled from 379 to 395, while his sons were made Augusti in 383 and 393, respectively, this implies that Tyconius wrote during the 380s – though such dates are necessarily approximate.9 Augustine, by contrast, envisions Tyconius as a nervous proto-Catholic who, “crushed by the voice of every sacred page, awoke and saw that the church of God was spread throughout the whole circle of the earth.”10 As such, his writings proved

4 Gennadius, De viris illustribus 18 (E. C. Richardson, ed., Hieronymus liber De viris inlustribus; Gennadius liber De viris inlustribus, TUGAL 14 [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1896], 68): “Exposuit et Apocalypsin Johannis ex integro, nihil in ea carnale, sed totum intelligens spiritale.” 5 Gennadius, Vir. Ill. 101 (Richardson, De viris inlustribus, 97): “Scripsi . . . tractatus ‘De mille annis,’ ‘De apocalypsi beati Johannis.’” 6 Gennadius in fact claims that Reg. included eight rules (“Regulas . . . octo”) instead of seven. While we may therefore assume that Gennadius did not have a copy of Reg. in his collection, his source for the erroneous number is not known. 7 Gennadius, Vir. Ill. 18 (Richardson, De viris inlustribus, 68): “ob suorum defensionem.” 8 Gennadius, Vir. Ill. 18 (Richardson, De viris inlustribus, 69): “Floruit . . . aetate qua et ante memoratus Rufinus, Theodosio et filiis ejus regnantibus.” 9 Bede, for instance, claims that Exp. Apoc. Was written in response to “the persecutions that [the Donatists] suffered as heretics at the hand of the religious emperor Valentinian.” See his Epistola ad Eusebium de Expositione Apocalypsis (CCSL 121A:231; W. C. Weinrich, ed. and trans., Latin Commentaries on Revelation [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011], 113): “Nisus persecutiones quas ipse a religioso Valentiniano principe,” likely referring to Tyconius, Expositio Apocalypseos 3.35. If Bede is correct, this would indicate a date of composition sometime in the mid – to late 370s. 10 Parm. 1.1 (BA 28:208): “Omnibus sanctarum paginarum vocibus circumtunsus evigilavit et vidit ecclesiam Dei toto terrarum orbe diffusam.”

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a valuable polemical weapon against Augustine’s Donatist opponents, though the effect was somewhat spoiled by Tyconius’s refusal to “see what follows from this (which he really ought to have seen), that clearly those Christians in Africa who belong to the church spread throughout the world are not those who are separated from the communion and unity of that world” – Tyconius, in other words, never converted to Augustine’s own Caecilianist church.11 Despite his much closer proximity both in time and space to Tyconius, Augustine does not appear to have personally encountered the Donatist theologian.12 He is, however, aware that Tyconius’s theological claims were not well received within his home communion. In Contra epistulam Parmeniani, itself framed as the refutation of an admonitory letter once sent by the Donatist leader to his wayward theologian, Augustine tells us that “At first, Parmenian thought that he might be set straight by a letter; later on, so it is claimed, he was condemned in one of their councils.”13 These are welcome biographical details, but we must treat them with caution: while the fragmentary contents of Parmenian’s letter preserved by Augustine do provide evidence of a substantial rift between the Donatist church, Tyconius’s rumored condemnation at a later council is mentioned only here, in noticeably vague language.14 Such is the biographical portrait, sparse as it is, that has been preserved for us by our two sources. Other incidental details, however, may be marshalled to provide a slightly fuller picture. For instance, we can narrow down the date that Tyconius’s two surviving works, Reg. and Exp. Apoc., were written by noting that both texts ascribe chronological significance to the recurring prophecy of “time, times, and half a time” that appears in the book of Revelation and interpreted by Tyconius as a period of 350 years. As we shall see later on, Tyconius believed these prophecies had

11 Parm. 1.1 (BA 28:210): “Non vidit quod consequentur videndum fuit, illos videlicet in Africa Christianos pertinere ad ecclesiam toto orbe diffusam, qui utique non istis ab ejusdem orbis communione atque unitate sejunctis.” I use the term “Caecilianist” in this article as a neutral way to refer to the rival church in North Africa that was supported by the Roman state. When referring to the church outside of North Africa, however, I will use the traditional term “Catholic.” 12 Augustine briefly alludes to Tyconius in a letter written ca. 395 (Ep. 41.2), a request to bishop Aurelius of Carthage for more information about Reg. When he is next mentioned in Contra epistulam Parmeniani, which dates from ca. 403, Augustine’s reluctant admission that Tyconius never joined the Caecilianist church despite his alleged condemnation by a Donatist council assumes that he has died. 13 Parm. 1.1.1 (BA 28:210): “Parmenianus quidem primo eum per epistulam velut corrigendum putavit; postea vero etiam concilio eorum perhibent esse damnatum.” 14 Note, for instance, the skeptical assessment in J.-M. Vercruysse, Le livre des règles, SC 488 (Paris: Cerf, 2004), 24: “Augustin est le seul à indiquer cette excommunication qu’il rapporte par ouï-dire et uniquement en cet endroit. Gennade ne la mentionne pas et l’on peut s’étonner qu’il ait négligé un tel fait . . . Tyconius s’est-il simplement éloigné du mouvement donatiste sans pour autant en avoir été rejeté officiellement ? Une telle attitude expliquerait un silence par omission de la part des schismatiques et l’amplification d’une rumeur que les catholiques se seraient plu à entretenir.”

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immediate relevance for the church of his own day. Both Traugott Hahn and Paula Fredriksen have noted that in the chronological system utilized by African Christians, 350 years after Christ’s death would fall somewhere around 379/380.15 We thus have a strong reason to suspect that both books were written some time before this date, likely in the mid-370s – a period slightly earlier than the chronology given by Gennadius. We can also venture an educated guess as to the contents of the two Tyconian works that have not survived. Gennadius’s description is terse: “He wrote books on The Internal War and Explanations of Various Causes, in which for the defense of his own he recalled bygone councils, by which it is clear that he belonged to the Donatist party.”16 Two points of interest stand out from this laconic description. First, the term “internal war” (bello intestino) is used twice in Exp. Apoc. To refer to the internal struggle that rages between the righteous and the “false brothers” within the church.17 Second, in a letter to the leader of a Donatist splinter-group, Augustine actually quotes from one of Tyconius’s lost writings: Tychonius, a man, as I said, of your communion, writes that a council of two hundred and seventy bishops was celebrated at Carthage and that in that council for seventy-five days, after having put aside all past norms, the position was worked out and decreed that they should be in communion with the traditores guilty of a grave sin, as if they were innocent, if they refused to be baptized again.18

When we compare this quote with Gennadius’s description of the two books above, it becomes clear that the “bygone councils” Tyconius cites were likely early Donatist councils and that at least Exp. div. caus. (and quite likely Bell. Intest.), were

15 For details, see T. Hahn, Tyconius-Studien: Ein Beitrag zur Kirchen – und Dogmengeschichte des vierten Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1900), 5–6; and P. Fredriksen, “Tyconius and the End of the World,” REaug 28 (1982): 59–75, esp. 73 n. 69. In contrast to the position expressed in this article, Fredriksen does not believe that the prediction was apocalyptic in nature; nevertheless, she agrees that the 350-year figure does refer to an actual date; cf. P. Fredriksen, “Apocalypse and Redemption in Early Christianity: From John of Patmos to Augustine of Hippo,” VC 45 (1991): 151–83, esp. 177 n. 48. 16 Gennadius, Vir. Ill. 18 (Richardson, De viris inlustribus, 68): “Scripsit De bello intestino libros et Expositiones diversarum causarum, in quibus ob suorum defensionem antiquarum meminit synodorum. E quibus omnibus agnoscitur Donatianae partis fuisse.” 17 See Exp. Apoc. 1.5, 1.11 (CCSL 107A:108, 113). 18 Augustine, Ep. 93.10.43 (CCSL 31A:198; R. Teske, trans., Letters 1–99, part II, vol. 1, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. J. E. Rotelle [Hyde Park: New City Press, 2001], 403): “Scribit enim ille Tyconius homo, ut dixi, vestrae communionis a ducentis et septuaginta episcopis vestris concilium Carthagini celebratum, in quo concilio per septuaginta et quinque dies postpositis omnibus praeteritis limatam esse sententiam atque decretam, ut traditoribus immensi criminis reis, si baptizari nollent, pro integris communicaretur.”

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concerned with the controversy that would lead to his censure.19 Indeed, Augustine explicitly tells us that Parmenian’s admonitory letter was written in response to the book associated with these conciliar descriptions: “But you say, ‘who is this Tychonius to me?’ He is that Tychonius whom Parmenian silences when he writes back and threatens him not to write such things.”20 The close link between these two works and Tyconius’s censure may also call into question the traditional chronology of his literary corpus. Gennadius, as we have seen, places Bell. Intest. And Exp. div. caus. first, followed by Reg. and Exp. Apoc. – an order that most modern assessments have taken as chronological.21 However, it may be the case that Gennadius has instead organized the books thematically, as he often does elsewhere.22 It is worth noting that while Tyconius is critical of an emerging isolationist tendency within Donatism in Reg. and Exp. Apoc., he gives no indication that he has been censured by its leadership. Furthermore, both surviving works were, as we have seen, likely written before 380, meaning that if Gennadius’s claim that Tyconius wrote “during the reign of Theodosius and his sons” has any merit, he must be referring to the more directly polemical Bell. Intest. and Exp. div. caus.23 To sum up, only the barest outline of Tyconius’s life can be known for certain. We know from Gennadius that he wrote four books, of which two are lost (Bell. Intest. and Exp. div. caus.), one has survived intact (Reg.), and one has been recently reconstructed (Exp. Apoc.). Because internal evidence indicates that he wrote his two 19 See also Parm. 2.22.42 (BA 28:380; trans. is my own), in which Augustine claims that “Tyconius declared many things which were known to anyone within the communion during those times” (“Tyconius quidem multa dixit, per quae illis temporibus et, sicut interior noverat.”). 20 Augustine, Ep. 93.10.44 (CCSL 31A:199; Teske, WSA II/1:403): “Sed dicis: ‘Quis mihi est iste Tyconius?’ Ille est Tyconius quem Parmenianus rescribendo compescit, et eum deterret ne talia scribat.” 21 Following P. Monceaux, Saint Optat et les premiers écrivains Donatistes, vol. 5, Histoire littéraire de l’Afrique chrétienne depuis les origines jusqu’à l’invasion arabe (Paris: Leroux, 1920), 169–70. Monceaux’s influential chronological arrangement assumes Tyconius wrote Bell. Intest. Ca. 370, Exp. Div. Caus. Ca. 375, was condemned in council in 380, and composed Reg. and Exp. Apoc. Ca. 382 and 385, respectively, before dying ca. 390. As J. Van Oort, Jerusalem and Babylon: A Study into Augustine’s City of God and the Sources of his Doctrine of the Two Cities (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 255, notes, however, “The rather precise dates for his life and writings in Monceaux are based mainly on suppositions. Some have followed his example, others have justly expressed their doubts.” 22 For instance, the book-lists of both the chapter preceding Tyconius (Rufinus, ch. 17) and succeeding him (Sulpicius Severus, ch. 19) are organized by theme rather than date of composition. 23 The likelihood that Exp. Apoc. Was written after Reg., however, is buttressed by Tyconius’s note in Rev 9:14 that “we have already spoken about [the apocalyptic significance of] the north” (Exp. Apoc. 3.38 [CCSL 107A:160; F. Gumerlock, trans., Exposition of the Apocalypse, FC 134 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2017), 101]: “De aquilone autem jam diximus.”). As Gumerlock, FC 134:101 n. 71, Tyconius has not discussed the significance of the “north” earlier in Exp. Apoc., meaning that the passage likely refers instead to the extended treatment it is given in Reg. 7.4.2 (SC 488:332, 334, 336).

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surviving texts sometime during the 370s, I have argued that Tyconius wrote the Bell. Intest. and Exp. div. caus. later, during the 380s, and that it was the publication of these texts that likely resulted in his censure by Parmenian and possible excommunication from the Donatist church. While we do not know the exact year of his death, Augustine’s lament that Tyconius never joined the Caecilianist communion in Contra epistulam Parmeniani, which is dated to 400, indicates that Tyconius probably died sometime between the late 380s and early 390s.24

Tyconius’s Education Moving beyond his biographical details, what can we discover about Tyconius’s educational background and literary influences? Gennadius observes that the Donatist author was “not unfamiliar with secular literature,”25 and indeed, there is evidence from his surviving works that Tyconius likely received formal rhetorical training. Reg. in particular is heavily dependent on the Roman rhetorical tradition, especially Quintilian. Indeed, as Charles Kannengiesser notes, “the very notion of regula, far from being an arbitrary invention, regains in the libellus [Reg.] the distinctive strength of its older occurrencies [sic] in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria.”26 Other elements of Quintilian and the broader Latin rhetorical tradition identified by Kannengiesser include the rhetorical principles of synecdoche and ratio, the former explicitly identified by Tyconius as a “tropus,”27 and the distinction between species and genus found in his fourth Rule.28 Even Tyconius’s vociferous denial at the beginning of Rule IV that he is “not referring to species and genus as they are used in the rhetorical art

24 See Parm. 1.1 (BA 28:210): “He did not see . . . that obviously those Christians in Africa who belong to the church spread throughout the world are not those who are separated from the communion and unity of that world” (“Non vidit . . . illos videlicet in Africa Christianos pertinere ad ecclesiam toto orbe diffusam, qui utique non istis ab ejusdem orbis communione atque unitate seiunctis.”). 25 Gennadius, De Vir. Ill. 18 (Richardson, De viris inlustribus, 68): “in saecularibus [litteris] non ignarus.” 26 C. Kannengiesser, “Tyconius of Carthage, the Earliest Latin Theoretician of Biblical Hermeneutics. The Current Debate,” in Historiam perscrutari: Miscellanea di studi offerti al prof. Ottorino Pasquato, ed. M. Maritano, Biblioteca di Scienze Religiose 180 (Rome: LAS, 2002): 297–311, 306. 27 Tyconius, Reg. 5.1 (SC 488:274; W. S. Babcock, trans., Tyconius: The Book of Rules, SBLTT 31 [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989], 89): “Temporal quantity in scripture often has mystic significance through the rhetorical figure of synecdoche” (“Temporis quantitas in Scripturis frequenter mystica est tropo synecdoche.”). 28 For a detailed examination of Tyconius’s likely debt to Quintilian, see C. Kannengiesser, “Augustine and Tyconius: A Conflict of Christian Hermeneutics in Roman Africa,” in Augustine and the Bible, ed. P. Bright (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999): 149–76; and C. Kannengiesser, “Quintilian, Tyconius and Augustine,” Illinois Classical Studies 19 (1994): 239–52.

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devised by human wisdom” implicitly assumes that the author is familiar enough with such “human wisdom” to appreciate the difference.29 Further evidence of a formal classical education may be seen in a likely literary allusion to the Aeneid in the opening lines of Reg. Tyconius describes the biblical canon as a “vast forest of prophecy” (prophetiae immensam silvam) that can be successfully traversed only by making use of the mystical rules. Similarly, in book 6 of the Aeneid, Aeneas’s search for the Golden Bough is blocked by a “silvam immensam;” upon praying to Venus for aid, two doves are sent to guide him.30 The literary reference is fleeting but significant: in both cases divine guidance is needed in order to successfully cross an imposing wilderness, whether physical or metaphorical, and reach the treasure beyond.31 It is also worth noting that Tyconius appears to have had at least some proficiency in Greek. As we shall see in the next section, Tyconius appeals to the Greek text of Revelation on multiple occasions in order to solve grammatical problems posed by Latin translations of the book.32 Whether such familiarity with Greek is due to a classical education, as per Augustine,33 or indicates an ancestral background, as Kenneth Steinhauser has proposed, is unclear.34

Tyconius’s Biblical Text Gennadius also describes Tyconius as “well-informed in sacred literature,” which presumably includes both the biblical text itself and the Christian literary tradition that grew up around it.35 Tyconius often quotes from the Bible in his surviving corpus; indeed, Reg. might be fairly characterized as a series of biblical passages linked together by theme. It is therefore unsurprising to find that Tyconius references the Old Testament over 450 times in this text, with another 260 citations from the New

29 Tyconius, Reg. 4.1 (SC 488:218; Babcock, Book of Rules, 55): “De specie et genere loquimur, non secundum artem rhetoricam humanae sapientiae.” 30 Virgil, Aeneid 6.183–192 (LCL 63:544–47). Significantly, the only other occurrence of this phrase in Christian writings of late antiquity comes from Conf. 10.35.56 (CCSL 27:185). 31 See P. Bright, The Book of Rules of Tyconius: Its Purpose and Inner Logic (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 134; and, more recently, S. M. Ryan, “Praising God in Adversity: Tyconius’s Ecclesiological Exegesis of the Celestial Liturgy (Rev. 4–5),” in The Book of Revelation and its Interpreters, eds. I. Boxall and R. Tresley (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016): 27–51, esp. 33. 32 See Exp. Apoc. 1.11, 3.38, 5.18 (CCSL 107A:112, 160, 192). 33 Cf. Augustine’s memories of (reluctantly) learning Greek in grammar school in Conf. 1.13.20 and 1.14.23 (CCSL 27:11–13). 34 See K. Steinhauser, “Tyconius: Was he Greek?,” StPatr 27 (1993): 394–99, esp. 396, who argues that the Donatist author’s command of Greek as well as his name, a unique Latinization of the Greek word τύχη (“fortunate”), implies a Greek familial background. 35 Gennadius, Vir. ill. 18 (Richardson, De viris inlustribus, 68): “in divinis littteris eruditus.”

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Testament.36 There are clearly some genres he prefers more than others: historical writings, such as the books of the Kings or the Chronicles, are rarely cited (indeed, 1 Samuel and 2 Chronicles are not referenced at all), while books like Genesis, the Psalms, and the prophetic literature are common: according to Pamela Bright, over 350 of Tyconius’s quotations are from the Prophets, particularly Ezekiel (143 quotes) and Isaiah (124).37 Tyconius is also noticeably dependent on the Gospel of Matthew, citing it over forty times (compared to just twenty-eight passages from the other three gospels combined), and his strong attention to Pauline literature, particularly Romans, which he quotes over eighty times. The latter data place him alongside Ambrosiaster as one of the earliest participants in the Pauline renaissance of late antiquity.38 He does not, however, ever allude to the book of Hebrews, an odd omission given its obvious relevance to his project. This is likely due to the unsettled place of Hebrews within the North African canon: it is not found in the writings of Tertullian or Cyprian either, and a Donatist stichometric list of the New Testament dating the mid-360s does not include the book.39 Both Reg. and Exp. Apoc. were written prior to Jerome’s earliest translation efforts that would result in the Vulgate.40 Tyconius’s numerous scriptural citations and the entire text of the book of Revelation therefore derive from the Old Latin textual tradition. But which form of the Old Latin text do they most closely resemble? We should be careful: as Burkitt noted, Tyconius seems to have quoted many of his shorter citations in Reg. from memory, resulting in verses that often “have no real connection with the text of any Latin version.”41 Longer quotes, however, reveal an Old Latin text very close to the one that Cyprian himself had used a century before.42 It also seems to have been part of the same textual tradition that was in common use within the Donatist church: while Tyconius’s longer biblical quotations do not often overlap with other Donatist sources, Burkitt points out that his citation of Isa 14:19–21 in Rule VII is very close to the form of the passage found in the Donatist Mandatum produced at the Council of Carthage in 411.43

36 Bright, Book of Rules, 39–42. 37 Bright, Book of Rules, 40. 38 See P. Fredriksen, “The Body/Soul Dichotomy: Augustine on Paul against the Manichees and the Pelagians,” Recherches augustiniennes et patristiques 23 (1988): 87–114, esp. 99–101. 39 See Vercruysse, SC 488:87 n. 2. On the stichometric list and its likely date, see R. Rouse and C. McNelis, “North African Literary Activity: A Cyprian Fragment, the Stichometric Lists and a Donatist Compendium,” Revue d’histoire des textes 30 (2000): 189–238, esp. 208. The list itself may be found in T. Mommsen, “Zur Lateinischen Stichometrie,” Hermes 21 (1886): 142–56, esp. 144–48. 40 Vercruysse, SC 488:82. 41 F. Burkitt, The Book of Rules of Tyconius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1894), xli. 42 Burkitt, Book of Rules, liii, confirmed by Vercruysse, SC 488:82. 43 Cf. Burkitt, Book of Rules, lxi. The two passages are here given side by side with variations marked in italics. First, Tyconius, Reg. 7.7 (SC 488:344): “Sicut vestimentum sanguine consparsum non est mundum, ita nec tu eris mundus, quia terram meam perdidisti et plebem meam occidisti.

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The evidence is more difficult to interpret, however, when we come to Exp. Apoc. The Latin text that Tyconius uses often differs from that of Cyprian and, indeed, sometimes from his own previous citations in Reg.44 Comparing it to the fragmentary passages from Revelation found in other Donatist writings also reveals clear divergence. For a concrete example, note that the text of Rev 17:15 as it appears in Tyconius’s Exp. Apoc. reads as follows: “And he says to me: Do you see these things, where the woman is sitting? They are people and multitudes and languages and tongues.” When the same text is quoted by a fifth-century Donatist polemicist named Fulgentius, however, it is noticeably different: “And the angel said to me, the waters which you saw, above which that whore is seated, are people and multitudes and nations.”45 Nevertheless, it appears that Tyconius’s text was known in at least some circles: both recensions of the Donatist Genealogy Book (Liber genealogus) agree

Non eris in aeternum tempus semen nequam; para filios tuos interfici peccatis patris tui, ut non resurgant.” Second, Augustine, Gesta conlationis Carthaginiensis 3.258 (SC 224:1210): “Quomodo vestimentum conspersum in sanguine non erit mundum, ita nec tu eris mundus, quia terram meam perdidisti, et plebem meam occidisti: non manebis in aeternum tempus, semen nequam. Para filios tuos interfici peccatis patris sui, ut non exsurgant.” As Vercruysse notes in SC 488:82, “Le texte biblique que Tyconius a sous les yeux appartient à la branche africaine (K) de la Vetus latina, qui apparaît à Carthage avant 250 . . . La comparaison des passages empruntés à Isaïe montre que le texte de Tyconius est assez proche de celui de Cyprien.” 44 Compare, for instance, Rev 17:4 as cited in Test., Exp. Apoc., and Reg. (variations marked in italics, similarities common to two of the texts underlined): “Et mulier illa amicta erat pallium purpureum et coccineum, et adornata erat auro et lapidibus pretiosis et margaritis, tenens poculum aureum in manu sua plenum execrationum et immunditiae et fornicationis totius terrae.” (Test. 3.36 [CCSL 3.1:130]): “Et mulier erat circumdata purpura et cocco et adornata auro et lapide pretioso et margaritis, habens calicem aureum in manu sua, plenum exsecrationum et immunditiarum fornicationis ejus” (Exp. Apoc. 6.4 [CCSL 107A:204]): “Purpura cocco et auro et argento lapidibusque pretiosis ornatur, habens poculum aureum in manu plenum execrationum et immunditiarum totius terrae” (Tyconius, Reg. 7.14.2 [SC 488:362]). While it is likely that Tyconius is citing Rev 17:3–4 from memory in Reg. (notice the addition “ex argento”), there are several verbal similarities between the citation in Reg. and Cyprian (underlined) that do not appear in Exp. Apoc. 45 Notice the differences between the two texts in Latin (divergences noted in italics): “Et dixit mihi angelus: aquas quas vidisti, super quas sedet fornicaria illa, populi, turbae et nationes sunt” (Fulgentius, Contra Fulgentium Donatistam 1.12; Maier 2:252); “Et dicit mihi: haec vides, ubi mulier sedet? Populae et turbae sunt et gentes et linguae” (Exp. Apoc. 6.17 [CCSL 107A:208]). While again such differences may be partly explained by the fact that Fulgentius is probably quoting from memory, the words “aquas quas vidisti” are in fact paralleled by the Vulgate, indicating that his underlying text differed from Tyconius’s. Similarly, the text of Rev 22:18 cited by the Donatist commentary Prophetiae ex omnibus libris collectae (PLS 1:178): “Testor hominibus qui audiunt verba libri prophetiae hujus” differs noticeably from Tyconius’s reading: “Testo ego omnem audientem sermones prophetiae libri hujus” (Exp. Apoc. 7.58 [CCSL 107A:228]). In particular, the Prophetiae ex omnibus libris collectae’s use of “verba” rather than the “sermones” of Exp. Apoc. parallels the Vulgate.

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with Tyconius – in opposition to almost all other contemporary Latin manuscripts – that the number of the beast in Rev 13:18 is 616.46 Tyconius, therefore, seems to have used a revised form of the Old Latin text of Revelation that differed from the versions most often utilized by his communion, though the witness of the Liber genealogus suggests that it was not unknown within Donatism. We also know, however, that he was certainly aware of other Latin editions of the text and even consulted them at critical junctures. “Some codices,” he observes when commenting on Rev 9:13, “have ‘I heard from the four horns of the altar,’ but others have ‘I heard one from the four horns of the altar.’”47 Interestingly, he turns to a Greek text in order to resolve the conundrum: “In a Greek version also, in which the book itself was written, it is put more expressly: ‘one angel from the four horns of the altar.’”48 He returns to this Greek variant on multiple occasions to shed light on grammatical difficulties that crop up in the text. “In the Greek,” he notes in another instance when commenting on whether the phrase “angelō ekklēsiai” in Rev 1:20 (2:1 in modern editions) is in the genitive or dative case, “it is obvious that he did not say ‘to the angel of this church’ but ‘to the angel, to this church’ . . . saying ‘to angelō te en Epheso ekklēsiai grapson,’ which is in Latin, ‘to the angel, that is, to the church which is at Ephesus, write.’”49 As Roger Gryson notes, however, the precise form of the Greek passage Tyconius is citing here does not exist in any currently known manuscript, leaving the exact nature of the Greek text Tyconius had before him an open question.50 Given his knowledge of both Latin and Greek variant readings, it is tempting to speculate that Tyconius himself is responsible for the revised version of the text

46 Compare Exp. Apoc. 4.46 (CCSL 107A:187) with Liber genealogus (Sangallensis, Florentini), 615. Interestingly, the later Florentini edition, updated just prior to the Vandal conquest of Carthage in 439, notices that the number “616” differs from Victorinus’s more conventional “666” and therefore feels compelled to offer an explanation. Further correlations between Tyconius’s text and a Donatist text of Revelation comes from the Indiculum veteris et novi testamenti, contained in the Donatist Compendium of 427: the short citation of Rev 4:10 cited in the Indiculum (“mittentes coronas suas ante thronum”; Rouse and McNelis, “North African Literary Activity,” 204) is identical to Tyconius’s text (Exp. Apoc. 2.13 [CCSL 107A:133]), and the use of the word “mittentes” in this passage is unknown outside of these two documents (Rouse and McNelis, “North African Literary Activity,” 204). 47 Exp. Apoc. 3.38 (CCSL 107A:160; Gumerlock FC 134:99): “Alii codices habent ‘Audivi ex quattuor cornibus arae,’ alii vero habent ‘Audivi unum ex quattuor cornibus arae.’” 48 Exp. Apoc. 3.38 (CCSL 107A:160; Gumerlock FC 134:99): “Quod etiam in Graeco eloquio, ubi res ipsa gesta est, expressius positum est ‘Unum ex quattuor cornibus angelum arae.’” 49 Exp. Apoc. 1.11 (CCSL 107A:112; Gumerlock, FC 134:37): “In Graeco autem manifestum est quoniam non ‘Angelo hujus ecclesiae’ dixit, sed ‘Angelo, huic ecclesiae’ . . . dicens: ‘To angelo te en Epheso ecclesiae grapson,’ quod est latine ‘Angelo, id est ecclesiae quae est Ephesi, scribe.’” In addition to these examples, Tyconius also appeals to the Greek text in Rev 14:19 to help decide whether declensional endings left unclear in the Latin are masculine or feminine. 50 CCSL 107A:241, ed. R. Gryson: “Cette forme du texte ne se trouve en grec dans aucun manuscrit conservé.”

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used in his Exp. Apoc. Its presence, however, while not common in North Africa, is known to have been used by contemporary writers such as Ambrosiaster and is also found in interpolations of Cyprian’s Ad Quirinum testimonoia adversus Judaeos, which date from the fifth century.51 We are left, then, with the impression that, while Tyconius generally adhered to the Old Latin text commonly used within the Donatist church, his version of Revelation appears to have been a revised form of the Old Latin that, though not unknown within North Africa, does not seem to have been prevalent.

Tyconius and the Christian Literary Tradition Tyconius’s knowledge of the Christian literary tradition that preceded him is notoriously difficult to pin down, primarily because he does not mention any non-biblical author by name. Early assessments of the Donatist theologian tended to emphasize his originality: Burkitt, for instance, maintained that “the work of Tyconius seems entirely original; there are hardly any traces of influence of previous writers in it.”52 As we will see, Tyconius’s hermeneutical strategy is indeed innovative; but he is also more dependent upon previous exegetical traditions, particularly those stemming from his own North African and Donatist milieu, than Burkitt assumed. In this section, we will focus on three issues in particular: first, whether Tyconius’s theological system was influenced by Greek writers; second, his relation to the broader Latin exegetical tradition that preceded him; and third, to what extent his hermeneutical method parallels other Donatist writings. His multiple appeals to the Greek text of Revelation in Exp. Apoc. make it clear that Tyconius was able to read Greek. Given his access to at least one Greek manuscript of the Bible, is it possible that he was also influenced by the broader Greek exegetical tradition that had grown up around it, in particular the writings of Origen? Some scholars have noted, for instance, that Tyconius’s interpretation of the biblical narrative as a wellspring of hidden meaning sounds very similar to Origen’s assertion that “the scriptures were composed through the Spirit of God, and they have not only that meaning which is obvious, but another which is hidden from the majority of readers.”53 Such congruence, however, is not necessarily

51 See Gryson, CCSL 107A:86: “On pourrait penser qu’il s’agit d’un texte ad hoc, mis au point par Tyconius lui-même, si des traces ne s’en trouvaient pas chez l’Ambrosiaster, dans les sections interpolées des Testimonia de Cyprien, dans les textes liturgiques mozarabes, dans le Book of Armagh (VL 1), et dans un manuscrit du commentaire de Bède sur l’Apocalypse.” 52 Burkitt, Book of Rules, vii. See also the more recent assessment in Bright, Book of Rules, 175, “attempts to trace the influences of his Latin contemporaries upon Tyconius’ thought remain inconclusive.” 53 Origen, De principiis, Praefatio 8 in G. Butterworth, Origen: On First Principles (New York: Harper & Row, 1936), 5 (P. Koetschau, Origenes werke 5 [Leipzig: Hinrischs, 1913], 14 [preserved in

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evidence of direct contact. The belief that the Bible had multiple levels of meaning was widespread throughout the early Christian world, and North Africa was no exception.54 Even Tertullian, for all his alleged antipathy towards “allegory,” would assert that the law “has secret and sacred meanings . . . it is both spiritual and prophetic, and in almost all its concepts has a figurative significance.”55 Further evidence of contact between Origen and Tyconius is lacking. Despite their shared quest for the “spiritual” sense of Scripture, Tyconius’s interpretations of biblical passages that are common to both of them do not appear to overlap with Origen’s. Both authors are, for instance, convinced that the prophetic oracles condemning pagan nations such as Egypt, Babylon, or Tyre have a deeper meaning than their immediate referent. Yet as Jean-Marc Vercruysse observes, “their interpretation is fundamentally different”56: Origen believes that these condemned nations represent different classes of souls who fell away from the contemplation of God prior to the creation of the world,57 while Tyconius interprets them as references to the Devil’s body that exists both outside of the church and, more insidiously, within it.58 In other words, if Tyconius was aware of Origen’s writings, he does not appear to have incorporated them into his own hermeneutical system. More readily recoverable, on the other hand, are traces of a broader Latin exegetical tradition in Tyconius’s writings. Pamela Bright finds evidence that Tyconius had read Novatian’s De Trinitate in the christological distinction he makes between “you are at one” (unum estis) and “you are one” (unus estis) in the course of his assessment of John 10:30.59 We can also be reasonably sure that Tyconius had read

Latin]: “Per Spiritum Dei Scripturae conscriptae sint et sensum habeant non eum solum, qui in manifesto est, sed et alium quendam latentem quam plurimos.”). For scholars who note the possible connection implied by this correspondence, see Steinhauser, “Tyconius: Was he Greek?,” 398; and Bright, Book of Rules, 132. 54 For a particularly spectacular example of pre-Tyconian typological exegesis, see the anonymous third-century tract De duobus montibus Sina et Sion, available in English in A. M. Laato, Jews and Christians in De duobus montibus Sina et Sion: An Approach to Early Latin Adversus Iudaeos Literature (Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press, 1998). For more on this and the rest of the so-called Pseudo-Cyprianic corpus, see the chapter by Ciccolini in this volume. 55 Marc. 2.19 (CSEL 47:360; E. Evans, trans., Tertullian: Adversus Marcionem, 2 vols. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972], 1:140): “Arcanis . . . significantiis legis, spiritalis scilicet et propheticae, et in omnibus paene argumentis figuratae.” 56 J.-M. Vercruysse, “Tyconius a-t-il Origène?” StPatr 46 (2010): 155–60, 158. 57 See Princ. 4.3.9–10 (Butterworth, On First Principles, 301–5). 58 See Tyconius’s extended discussion of the figurative significance of these nations in Reg. 4.14.1–2 (Egypt; SC 488:246, 248); 4.15.2–3 (Tyre; SC 488:254, 256, 258); 4.18 (Babylon; SC 488:262, 264, 266). 59 Bright, Book of Rules, 177. Compare Novatian, De Trinitate 27.3 (CCSL 4:64; DeSimone, FC 67, 92): “I and the Father are one (unum) . . . He did not say one (unus). For ‘one’ in the neuter gender denotes harmony of fellowship, not unity of persons” (“Ego et Pater unum sumus . . . non dixit ‘unus.’ Unum enim neutraliter positum societatis concordiam, non unitatem personae.”) with Tyconius, Reg. 1.12.2 (SC 488:150; Babcock, Book of Rules, 13): “Moreover there is a difference between ‘you are at one’

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Victorinus of Pettau’s commentary on Revelation (Commentarii in Apocalypsin) prior to writing his own, which in fact seems to have been substantially influenced by his predecessor’s work.60 Tyconius’s distinctive division of Revelation into ten recapitulations, for instance, is simply an expansion of Victorinus’s own belief that interpreters ought not “pay too much attention to the order of what is said, for the sevenfold Holy Spirit, when he has passed in revue the events to the last time, to the very end, returns again to the same times and supplements what he had said incompletely.”61 Furthermore, though his ecclesiological interpretations often differ radically from Victorinus, Tyconius follows the bishop of Poetovio’s exegetical lead on a number of occasions, as well as critiquing at least one interpretation he finds lacking.62 Tyconius also exhibits a number of thematic similarities with earlier North African writers, though evidence of direct dependence is scarce. Tertullian, for instance, nowhere explicitly provides a hermeneutic for decoding the hidden treasures of Scripture, but his interpretive methods often parallel aspects of Tyconius’s regulae quite closely. As David Robinson notes, it was Tertullian who first applied the rhetorical principles of species and genus to the biblical text in his work De spectaculis: Some things that are said with special intent have also a general meaning. When God reminds the Israelites of discipline and upbraids them, his words apply undoubtedly to all men; and when he threatens destruction to Egypt and Ethiopia, he certainly cautions every sinful nation against judgment to come. Thus, if we reason from a special case to the general type (a specie ad genus) that every sinful nation is an Egypt and Ethiopia, in the same manner we reason from the general class to a special case (a genere ad speciem) that every spectacle is a gathering of the ungodly.63

(unum estis) and ‘you are one’ (unus estis). When one person is united to another by a common will, they are ‘at one,’ as the Lord says, ‘I and my father are at one.’ But when they are also united in body and the two are compacted into one flesh, they are ‘one’” (“Distat autem inter ‘unum estis’ et ‘unus estis.’ Quotienscumque alter alteri voluntate miscetur unum sunt, sicut Dominus dicit: Ego et Pater unum sumus. Quotiens autem et corporaliter miscentur et in unam carnem duo solidantur unus sunt.”). 60 See M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio, premier exégète latin (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1993), 1:339. 61 Victorinus, Commentarii in Apocalypsin 8.2 in (SC 423:88; Weinrich, Latin Commentaries, 12): “Nec aspiciendus ordo dictorum, quoniam septiformis spiritus sanctus, ubi ad novissimum temporis finemque percucurrit, redit rursus ad eandem tempora et supplet quae minus dixit.” 62 Tyconius is dependent on Victorinus for his interpretation of Christ’s two “breasts” as the Old and New Testaments (Exp. Apoc. 1.2; [CCSL 107A:106–7]; cf. Comm. Apoc. 1.4 [SC 423:48, 50]), the four living creatures as the four Gospels (4.5; cf. Comm. Apoc. 4.3, 5 [SC 423:48, 52]), and the idea that the “mighty angel” who comes down from heaven is Christ (10.1; cf. Comm. Apoc. 10.1 [SC 423:48:88, 90]), among others. Tyconius also clarifies Victorinus’s statement that Paul wrote seven apostolic letters in 1.20 (cf. Comm. Apoc. 1.7 [SC 423:52, 54]) and pushes back on Victorinus’s claim (along with most of the Latin apocalyptic tradition) that the Two Witnesses are actual people (11.12; cf. Comm. Apoc. 11.3 [SC 423:94, 96]: “Elijah and Jeremiah”). See also Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio, 339–42. 63 Tertullian, Spect. 3.7–8 (CCSL 2:231; Arbesmann, FC 40:55–56): “Nam et specialiter quaedam pronuntiata generaliter sapiunt. Cum Deus Israhelitas admonet disciplinae vel objurgat, utique ad

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Furthermore, in Adversus Marcionem Tertullian argues that God has kept the deeper wisdom of Scripture “hidden under figures, both allegories and enigmas, but was afterwards to be revealed in Christ who was set for a light of the gentiles by that Creator, who, by the voice of Isaiah, promises that he will open up invisible and secret treasures”64 – a passage that closely parallels Tyconius’s introduction to Reg. and is perhaps the source for his claim that those who follow the rules will be led by “paths of light” to the “treasures of truth.”65 While Cyprian’s focus on ecclesiological typologies in his writings broadly prefigures the central exegetical concerns of both Tyconius and the Donatist communion in general,66 more direct evidence of his influence on Tyconius is difficult to find. Like Tyconius, Cyprian interprets the seven lampstands that surround the risen Christ in Rev 1:12 as a reference to the church,67 but this explanation is also found in Victorinus.68 Likewise, Tyconius may be reacting against Cyprian’s claim that only martyrs are being addressed in Rev 7:14 when he argues that “They are not, as some think, only martyrs, but the entire church. For he did not say that they washed their robes in their own blood, but in the blood of the Lamb,”69 but such a view is also forcefully argued by Tertullian in Scorpiace.70 An odd affinity, however, is found in Tyconius’s citation of an extracanonical saying of the Lord in his

omnes habet; cum Aegypto et Aethiopiae exitium comminatur, utique in omnem gentem peccatricem praejudicat. Sic omnis gens peccatrix Aegyptus et Aethiopia a specie ad genus, quemadmodum etiam omne spectaculum concilium impiorum a genere ad speciem.” See D. Robinson, “The Mystic Rules of Scripture: Tyconius of Carthage’s Keys and Windows to the Apocalypse” (PhD diss., University of St. Michael’s College, 2010), 15. 64 Marc. 5.6.1 (CSEL 47:588; Evans, Adversus Marcionem, 2:543): “Latuerit etiam sub figures, allegoriis et aenigmatibus, revelanda postmodum in Christo, posito in lumen nationum a creatore promittente per Esaiae vocem patefacturum se thesauros invisibiles et occultos.” 65 Tyconius references Isa 45:1–4 and its epistemological implications in Reg. 1.7 (SC 488:140). Another direct parallel with Tyconian exegesis is Tertullian’s insistence that Egypt should be understood typologically as in Adv. Jud. 9.15–16 (CSEL 70:292; G. Dunn, Tertullian [London: Routledge, 2004], 60): “the whole world, when charged by him [God] with superstition and abomination” (“Aegyptus . . . totus orbis intellegitur apud illum superstitionis et maledictionis elogio.”); cf. Rule IV at 4.14.2 (SC 488:248; Babcock, Book of Rules, 73): “Ezekiel shows us more plainly that Egypt represents the whole world” (“Ezechiel vero apertius ostendit totum mundum esse Aegyptum.”). 66 See M. Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 41. 67 Test. 1.20 (CCSL 3.1:19–20); Exp. Apoc. 1.1 (CCSL 107A:105). 68 Comm. Apoc. 1.2 (SC 423:48). 69 Exp. Apoc. 2.51 (CCSL 107A:150; Gumerlock, FC 134:87): “Non, ut aliqui putant, martyres soli sunt, sed omnis ecclesia. Non enim in sanguine suo lavisse dixit stolas, sed ‘in sanguine agni.’” 70 See Cyprian, Fort. 11 (CCSL 3.1:210–11) and Scorp. 12 (CCSL 2:1093), both of which explicitly reference Rev 7:14. Victorinus does not mention this passage in his commentary.

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commentary on Rev 14:5 (“such as the Lord finds a person when he calls, such also he judges”), which is previously attested in Latin only by Cyprian.71 More promising, both for assessing Cyprianic influence and that of the broader Christian literary corpus in general, is Tyconius’s use of the Christian anti-Jewish polemical tradition that preceded him. As Joseph Mueller has recently demonstrated, Tyconius often deliberately reapplies verses used by earlier writers to show the superiority of Christianity over Judaism to illustrate the bipartite nature of the church, as he admits near the end of Rule II: “Accordingly, it is by this mystery that we must interpret, throughout Scripture, any passage where God says that Israel will perish as it deserves or that his own inheritance is accursed.”72 Tyconius, therefore, cites verses like Gen 25:23 and Hos 12:2–4, which were utilized by Cyprian and other Christian writers to typologically associate Christianity with Jacob and Judaism with Esau, to instead demonstrate the presence of the righteous and the wicked within the church.73 Similarly, Isa 1:19 and 45:1, which were used by Cyprian to demonstrate the fate of the Jews vis-à-vis the gentiles, are now reclaimed as markers that distinguish when the text is speaking of Christ, his church, or its bipartite nature.74 Though this does not necessarily prove that Tyconius was directly responding to Cyprian himself, it at least shows that the Donatist author was aware of the earlier anti-Jewish polemical tradition and deliberately modified it for his own purposes.75 Perhaps the clearest connections between Tyconius and other Christian sources, however, are found among his Donatist contemporaries. Tyconius’s relationship with other members of the schismatic North African church is notoriously conflicted, a fact that has often been used to claim that his innovative hermeneutic owes nothing to them.76 Instead, I would like to suggest that, however fraught Tyconius’s connection

71 Cf. Exp. Apoc. 4.49 (CCSL 107A:188): “Qualem enim invenerit Dominus, cum vocat, talem et judicat” with Cyprian, Mort. 17 (CSEL 3/1:308): “Qualem te invenit Dominus cum vocat talem pariter et judicat.” As Gryson, CCSL 107A:311, notes, this agraphon is only mentioned prior to Tyconius in Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Cyprian, making Cyprian the only Latin witness to the extracanonical saying prior to Tyconius. See also A. Resch, Agrapha. Aussercanonische Schriftfragmente, TUGAL 30/3–4 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1906), 102, 322–25. 72 Tyconius, Reg. 2.13 (SC 488:162; Babcock, Book of Rules, 21): “Hoc itaque mysterio accipiendum est per omnes Scripturas sicubi Deus dicit ad merita Israhel periturum aut hereditatem suam execrabilem”; see J. Mueller, “Christian and Jewish Tradition behind Tyconius’s Doctrine of the Church as Corpus Bipertitum,” TS 73 (2012): 286–317, esp. 292. 73 Cf. Test. 1.19 (CCSL 3.1:19), with Tyconius, Reg. 3.25 (SC 488:208, 210). 74 Cf. Test. 1.24, 1.21 (CCSL 3.1:26, 23), respectively, with Tyconius, Reg. 1.7, 3.20.1, 3.21 (SC 488:140, 198, 200, 202). 75 Mueller, “Christian and Jewish Tradition,” 296. 76 Note, for example, Fredriksen, “Tyconius and the End of the World,” 72: “Tyconius’ accomplishment is yet more striking, for he stands apart from both the earlier Western apocalyptic tradition and from the predisposition of his own party”; or C. Kannengiesser, A Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 1140: “Tyconius wrote the heavily theological Liber regularum not as a sectarian Donatist, but as a genuinely African theologian.”

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might have been with his Donatist contemporaries, it was also symbiotic. As Maureen Tilley observed: “Although excommunicated by the Donatists as a disciplinary tactic, Tyconius never rejected his roots by joining the flock of their adversaries. He could not, for his theology was thoroughly Donatist.”77 Tyconius, in other words, wrote not as an opponent of the dissident communion, but as an advocate of a genuinely Donatist theological system. To quote the title of one of his books, the conflict that would ultimately lead to his censure is evidence of an “internal war” within the movement rather than a betrayal of Donatist beliefs. We shall have more to say about this faction and Tyconius’s response to it later on. It is quite possible, however, that Tyconius’s hermeneutical system is more representative of traditional Donatist exegesis than has often been supposed. Our evidence comes from a sermon likely written during or soon after the Macarian repression of 347–361, during which the Donatist church was driven underground, its leaders exiled, and its churches reclaimed by the Caecilianists.78 Accordingly, the Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium is concerned with the need to stay faithful under persecution. Such a theme is exemplified in the homily by the fate of the children of Bethlehem, who function typologically as symbols for the “innocence which has been oppressed for the truth in the present age, because from the very beginning of the world it has been the object of enmity by the devil lying in ambush.”79 The crucial passage for our purposes occurs near the middle of the Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium, when the preacher begins to expound upon the contemporary relevance of this historical event: What a mystical principle, applying to the whole of time, is contained in this lesson! Even though only the persecutor Herod alone had fallen, many are said to have perished in his death: ‘They are dead,’ he said, ‘who sought the life of the child.’ What is it that the plural number reveals to us, unless it is the case that in the persecutor Herod all persecutors in all future times are destroyed? For just as in the Lord may be found the figure of the whole church, in Herod the wickedness of all persecutors is condemned.80

77 Tilley, Bible in Christian North Africa, 114. 78 See the detailed discussion in K. Steinhauser, The Apocalypse Commentary of Tyconius: A History of its Reception and Influence, European University Studies 301 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1987), 226–34; and more recently D. Robinson, “The Anonymous Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium: An Antecedent Witness to Tyconian Exegesis,” Thf 42 (2011): 99–117. 79 Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium 5 (PLS 1:290; trans. is my own): “innocentia pro veritate in saeculo laboravit, quia inter ipsa initia mundi inimicitias cum diabulo insidiatore suscepit.” 80 Serm. nat. 7 (PLS 1:291; trans. is my own): “O ratio mystica totius temporis continens documenta. Cum solus Herodes persecutor obierit, plurimos dixit in ejus morte perisse: Mortui sunt, inquid, qui quaerebant animam pueri. Quid est quod plurimos detegit, nisi quia in Herode persecutore omnes omnino posterioris temporis persecutores extinxit? In Domino enim totius ecclesiae figura versatur, et in Herode omnium persecutorum iniquitas condemnatur.”

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Even a surface reading of this passage is enough to demonstrate clear Tyconian parallels. The reference to a “mystical principle” (ratio mystica), for instance, sounds very similar to Tyconius’s promise that close attention to the “ratio” that undergirds his own “mystical rules” (“regulae mysticae”) will reveal hidden insights into Scripture.81 Even more compelling is the way in which the Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium deploys this “mystical principle”: by paying careful attention to grammatical irregularities in the text (in this case, the plural tense of the “persecutors”), the preacher believes that one can move from species to genus – here, from Herod to all persecutors or from the Christ-child to the church. As we shall see later on, such an exegetical move is a hallmark of Tyconius’s own hermeneutical system, encapsulated above all in Rule IV, “On Species and Genus.” Perhaps most striking, however, is the fact that Tyconius exploits the exact same grammatical oddity to connect Herod and the persecutors in his Exp. Apoc.: “For in the person of Herod he shows the whole body of internal foes. Also in the death of Herod alone all are designated, as the angel said: “Those who are seeking the life of the boy have died.”82 What are we to make of the striking similarities between this anonymous Donatist sermon and Tyconius’s own project? Given that the homily likely predates Tyconius’s known writings,83 three avenues seem possible: either Tyconius himself wrote the sermon, he knew of it and directly incorporated it into his system,84 or both Tyconius and the anonymous author of the sermon are dependent on a common Donatist tradition. The first option has been cautiously advanced by Eugenio Romero Pose and is perhaps more tenable than Kenneth Steinhauser’s forceful rebuttal allows.85 At the same time, it would strongly imply that Tyconius was either a bishop or a priest, a biographical detail not found in either Gennadius or Augustine. The prospect that Tyconius directly incorporated the sermon’s insights into his own exegetical system, on the other hand, raises more questions than it answers. Is it really plausible that the genesis of Tyconius’s “mystical rules” comes directly from this one sermon? The most likely possibility, therefore, is that both Tyconius and the anonymous author are dependent on an earlier Donatist exegetical tradition that would reach its apogee

81 Tyconius, Reg., Prooemion (SC 488:130, 132). 82 Exp. Apoc. 4.12 (CCSL 107A:176; Gumerlock, FC 134:124): “In Herode namque omne intestinorum hostium corpus ostendit, qui solo Herode mortuo omnes etiam nominavit: ‘Mortui sunt,’ inquit, ‘qui quaerebunt animam pueri.’” 83 Following Steinhauser, Apocalypse Commentary, 238–39; and Robinson, “Anonymous Sermo in natali,” 103, but cf. F. S. Barcellona, “L’interpretazione dei doni dei Magi nel sermone natalizio de [Pseudo] Ottato di Milevi,” Studi Storico-Religiosi 2 (1978): 129–40, esp. 147–49, who concludes that the author is dependent on Tyconius. 84 As defended by Steinhauser, Apocalypse Commentary, 233–39. 85 See E. R. Pose, “Ticonio y el sermón «in natali sanctorum innocentium» (Exégesis de Mt. 2),” Greg 60.3 (1979): 513–44, esp. 542. Steinhauser’s response can be found in Apocalypse Commentary, 229–30.

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in Reg., though the absence of other Donatist sermonic materials dating to this period makes it impossible to know how widespread this tradition may have been.86

Tyconius’s Hermeneutic Dependent though it may have been on an earlier Donatist exegetical tradition, Tyconian exegesis nevertheless requires special consideration as a coherent hermeneutical system of its own. At its core, Tyconian hermeneutics rests on a pneumatological basis. That is, for Tyconius, the Holy Spirit is the real author of the Bible. While human writers and their original audience do play a role,87 it is the Spirit who inspires the exact wording of the biblical text. Accordingly, like the broader Christian tradition that preceded him, Tyconius believed that the Bible contains more profound insights than are discernable at first glance: the Spirit has intentionally concealed “treasures of truth,” – i.e., the deeper mysteries of Scripture – from those outside the Christian community.88 These mysteries may be illumined, however, by carefully observing the exact syntax and logic of the biblical text. Wherever the Spirit has encoded a deeper meaning into Scripture, it has left tell-tale clues in the form of grammatical or logical inconsistencies that alert the perceptive reader to its presence.89 In his first exegetical foray in Reg., for instance, Tyconius examines Isa 53:4–11 and concludes that it must refer to both the Lord and his body – i.e., the church. That this passage looks forward to Christ’s coming is, for Tyconius, easily discernable from the text: “‘He bears our sins and knows sorrow on our behalf; he was wounded for our iniquities and God delivered him up for our sins,’ and so forth” – such prophecies, Tyconius tells us, “the voice of the church universally ascribes to the Lord.”90 The following verses, however, seem to clash with this premise: if God willingly “delivers up” the Son to his death in verses 4–6, why does he also “wish to free him from

86 Robinson, “Anonymous Sermo in natali,” 116. 87 Notice Tyconius’s focus on the original audience in Exp. Apoc. 4.46 (CCSL 107A:187) and the author’s physical location in 4.15 (CCSL 107A:177–78). 88 See Kannengiesser, “Augustine and Tyconius,” 141: “These normative principles of a mystic nature regulat[e] the whole scripture by securing the needed secrecy of its message in preserving the ‘treasures of truth’ dispensed by this message from all profane curiosity.” Tyconius explicitly identifies those unworthy of the “treasures of truth” as the “wicked and sinners” in Exp. Apoc. 3.56 (CCSL 107A:165). 89 Unlike Origen, however, Tyconius does not usually offer alleged moral inconsistencies as reasons to search for a deeper meaning. 90 Tyconius, Reg. 1.3 (SC 488:134; Babcock, Book of Rules, 3): “‘Hic,’ inquit, ‘peccata nostra feret et pro nobis dolet; ipse vulneratus est propter facinora nostra . . . Et Deus tradidit eum pro peccatis nostris,’ et cetera quae in Dominum convenire omnis ecclesiae ore celebratur.”

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affliction . . . to take away his sorrow, to show him the light and form him with prudence” in verses 10–11?91 Such a seeming inconsistency is proof, for Tyconius, that a deeper meaning undergirds the text: Does God “wish to show the light” to the same one whom “he delivered up for our sins” or wish “to form him with prudence,” especially when that one is himself the very light and wisdom of God? Do not these phrases apply rather to his body? From this it is clear that only reason can tell when there is a transition from the head to the body.92

Tyconius believes that close engagement with these textual anomalies will ultimately reveal the presence of hermeneutical patterns within Scripture, seven organizational

91 Tyconius, Reg. 1.3 (SC 488:136; Babcock, Book of Rules, 3): “Vult purgare illum a plaga . . . a dolore auferre animam ejus, ostendere illi lucem et formare illum prudentia.” 92 Tyconius, Reg. 1.3 (SC 488:136; Babcock, Book of Rule, 3): “Numquid ei quem ‘tradidit pro peccatis nostris vult ostendere lucem,’ et eum ‘formare prudentia,’ cum ipse sit lux et sapientia Dei, et non corpori ejus? Qua re manifestum est sola ratione videri posse quando a capite ad corpus transitum facit.” As an aside, it is important to recognize the importance of the concept of “transition” (transitum), as mentioned in the above quote, within Tyconian hermeneutics. While at times a selected text can have both a historical and a spiritual meaning, in practice Tyconius will usually separate scriptural passages into distinct components. Deciphering when the “particular” historical sense of the text ends and the “general” deeper meaning begins is precisely the job of the skilled exegete, as Tyconius makes clear in his explanation of Rule IV. “While relating the particular,” Tyconius, Reg. 4.2.1 (SC 488:220; Babcock, Book of Rules, 57), tells us, the Spirit “passes over into the general in such a way that the transition is not immediately clear. Rather, in making the transition, he uses words that are appropriate to both until, little by little, he exceeds the mode of the particular, and the transition becomes plain to see. What had begun with the particular now fits only the general. And when he returns to the particular, he moves away from the general in the same manner” (“Dum enim speciem narrat ita in genus transit ut transitus non statim liquido appareat, sed talia transiens ponit verba quae in utrumque conveniant, donec paulatim speciei modum excedat et transitus dilucidetur, cum quae ab specie coeperant non nisi in genus convenerint. Et eodem modo genus relinquit in speciem rediens.”). To illustrate this, Tyconius gives the example of Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning the return of the Jews from exile in Ezek 36:16–36. While the first six verses (1–22) apply only to the particular context of the historical event, Tyconius discerns a transition to a more general theme in vv. 23–24, when the Lord states that the return from exile will cause “all nations” to know his name. The transition is completed in vv. 25–29a, in which the Lord promises to sprinkle clean water upon the Israelites and give them a new heart, which will enable them to keep the commandments, a statement which Tyconius, Reg. 4.3.1–4 (SC 488:222, 224) claims could only apply to the church. Such a clean distinction does not always happen, however. At Tyconius, Reg. 4.2.2 (SC 488:220; Babcock, Book of Rules, 57), we read that “Sometimes,” the Spirit “does not altogether turn from the one to the other, and the whole narrative neither exceeds the particular nor omits the general but pertains to both. This variety of transition and order is what exacts the faith that seeks God’s grace” (“Aliquando redit ex hoc in illud non semel, et omnis narratio nec speciem excedit nec genus praeterit in utrumque conveniens. Haec varietas translationis et ordinis exigit fidem quae gratiam Dei quaerat.”). The remainder of the passage from Ezek 36 (29b–36), for instance, is believed by Tyconius to apply to both the original return from captivity and the church.

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principles or rules that together guard its deeper message. As Kannengiesser has cautioned, they are not, at least in Tyconius’s mind, rhetorical strategies extrinsic to the biblical narrative, as Augustine appears to have believed.93 Rather, they arise out of the text itself, and their primary purpose is protective: they “obscure (invisibiles faciunt) the treasures of truth from some people.”94 To those who through patient study have learned to follow them, however, they serve as “keys and lamps, as it were, to the secrets of the law.”95 Tyconius likely derived the concept of seven rules from the seven seals that bind the apocalyptic book opened by the Lamb in Rev 5.96 Evidence for this comes from Exp. Apoc. itself, which describes the contents of this book as “each testament; on the outside the Old, on the inside the New which is hidden by the Old” and the seals as “the fullness of the mysteries hidden.”97 Indeed, Rule VI is explicitly described as a “seal of recapitulation” (recapitulationis sigillum).98 Tyconius therefore seems to view this biblical text itself as the source of the seven rules, and their location in the last book of the Bible is likely a factor behind his decision to write Exp. Apoc. These seven rules form the basis of Tyconius’s hermeneutical system, which is never formally named; at most, he simply calls it a “spiritual” interpretation.99 The term itself is not unique to the Donatist theologian: near-contemporaries like Hilary, Ambrose or Augustine would use the term as well.100 Tyconius’s “spiritual” system is not, however, simply reducible to traditional categories like “allegory” or “typology/ figura,” though both of them play supporting roles within his hermeneutic.101 Instead, his rules function at a more basic level: they are the deeper theological insights that the Spirit has encoded into Scripture. Allegory and figura – the terms are

93 Kannengiesser, “Augustine and Tyconius,” 141: “Because Augustine had, quite innocently . . . identified ‘book’ and ‘rules,’ ‘rules’ and ‘keys,’ it never crossed his mind that the Donatist theologian was explaining a coherent pattern which would structure scripture itself, in other words, a system of revelatory procedures woven into the very texture of the ‘universal Law.’” See also Bright, Book of Rules, 124: “For Augustine, hermeneutical rules tend to be extrinsic to the text, whereas, for Tyconius, they are intrinsic to the text of Scripture. They are ‘mystical’ in that they are discovered in Scripture, and they are active in Scripture.” 94 Tyconius, Reg., Prooemion (SC 488:130): “Veritatis thesauros aliquibus invisibiles faciunt.” 95 Tyconius, Reg., Prooemion (SC 488:130; Babcock, Book of Rules, 3): “secretorum legis veluti claves et luminaria.” 96 See Kannengiesser, “Augustine and Tyconius,” 145–46. 97 Exp. Apoc. 2.15 (CCSL 107A:133; Gumerlock, FC 134:66–67): “utrumque testamentum, a foris vetus, ab intus novum, quod intra vetus latebat . . . omni mysteriorum plenitudine obscuratum.” 98 Tyconius, Reg. 6.1 (SC 488:310). 99 See Tyconius, Reg. 4.15.4 (SC 488:258): “omnia spiritalia sunt,” 4.19.1 (SC 488:266): “Omnia spiritaliter,” or Exp. Apoc. 5.13 (CCSL 107A:191): “Utique spiritaliter dicit.” For further discussion of the term’s significance within Tyconian hermeneutics, see P. Bright, “‘The Spiritual World, Which is the Church’: Hermeneutical Theory in the Book of Rules of Tyconius,” StPatr 22 (1989): 213–18. 100 Bright, “The Spiritual World,” 214. 101 See Bright, Book of Rules, 151.

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likely synonymous within Tyconian hermeneutics102 – are useful within this system as methods for encountering these themes, but they cannot stand on their own: their functions are governed by the rules.

The Seven Rules Augustine famously argued that Tyconius’s rules were too restrictive: “Of course not everything that is written in a way that makes it difficult to understand can be clarified by these rules,” he complains, noting that “there are numerous other methods not included in his seven.”103 While the bishop of Hippo’s ensuing discussion of the rules often distorts their original meaning,104 his opening criticism does in fact have some merit: we mistake the nature of the rules if we assume that their purpose is to provide a comprehensive guide to biblical interpretation. Rather like the mysteries of the biblical text that they serve to protect, Tyconius’s rules are themselves capable of both surface and deeper meanings. As Pamela Bright notes, “while at one level, the Liber regularum remains what it purports to be, a guide for scriptural interpretation, at another level, this theory of scriptural interpretation is integrally related to his theology of the Church.”105 The rules, in other words, are not merely generalized hermeneutical principles: they are the conduits of Tyconius’s theological agenda. Tyconian theology, as we shall see, is dominated by a very Donatist concern: the question of the true church. Above all, he is obsessed with the “mystery of iniquity” (mysterium facinoris), the hidden presence of evil within the church, and the eschatological “separation” (discessio) that will take place once it is revealed.106 A brief

102 Note, for instance, Vercruysse’s assessment in SC 488:314–15 n. 2, “L’allégorie est synonyme pour lui de la typologie”; and Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible, 49, who claims that there was no distinction between typology and allegory among early North African writers. In Exp. Apoc. 1.11 (CCSL 107A:111; Gumerlock, FC 134:36), Tyconius simply defines allegory as “the significance of some particular thing, so that one thing sounds forth in the words and you understand another thing in mysteries” (“significantia cujuscumque rei, ut aliud sonet in verbis, aliud intellegas in mysteriis.”). A similar definition is given in Tyconius, Reg. 6.4.1 (SC 488:314, 316). 103 Doctr. chr. 3.30.42 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 172–75): “Nec tamen omnia, quae ita scripta sunt, ut non facile intellegantur, possunt his regulis inveniri, sed aliis modis pluribus, quos hoc numero septenario.” 104 For a detailed discussion, see R. Kugler, “Tyconius’s Mystic Rules and the Rule of Augustine,” in Augustine and the Bible, ed. P. Bright (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999): 129–48; along with C. Kannengiesser, “Augustine and Tyconius,” in Bright, Augustine and the Bible, 149–76; and M. Tilley, “Understanding Augustine Misunderstanding Tyconius,” StPatr 27 (1993): 405–8. 105 Bright, Book of Rules, 32. 106 Bright, Book of Rules, 86: “The double purpose of the Book of Rules as an investigation into the obscurities of the prophetic texts and into the ‘great question’ of the presence of evil in the Church, is inextricably linked together.”

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synopsis of the seven rules and their application in Exp. Apoc. will help illustrate these points more clearly. Rule I concerns “The Lord and his Body” and serves as a basic introduction to the idea that biblical passages are not always what they seem: “In some cases, the subject is a single person; and yet the different functions of the two teach us that the one person is actually twofold.”107 Texts that on the surface seem to speak of Christ, we discover, may often apply rather to his body, the church. In Exp. Apoc., for instance, the “Son of man clothed with a garment” in the midst of the seven lampstands is not merely a portrait of the risen Christ, but also of his church.108 Rule I, however, ends with a warning: Christ’s church, “the temple of God,” “is bipartite: and its other side, although it is being constructed with great blocks of stone, will be destroyed.” “Against the continuous coming of that temple,” Tyconius warns, “we must remain on guard until the church shall depart (discedat) ‘from the midst’ of it.”109 This warning anticipates Rule II: “The Lord’s Bipartite Body.” The church is not uniform, Tyconius insists; rather, it is composed of both good and wicked members. To prove this hidden principle of Scripture, Tyconius appeals to texts that had served earlier generations of anti-Jewish polemicists. “I formed you as my servant, you are mine, Israel,” the Lord says in one particular example: “Turn to me, and I will redeem you.” “Is the one whose sins he has swept away, to whom he says, ‘you are mine,’” Tyconius asks, “the same one to whom he says, ‘turn to me’?”110 The implied answer is negative: rather, the Lord is addressing two different parts of the church, its right and left sides. Such an observation is crucial to the Donatist author’s distinctive theology. The left side of the church is the “false brothers,” defined in Exp. Apoc. as people “who while they think they are holding a scale of justice, harm their companions through works of darkness.”111 Their presence within the church does not “invalidate the

107 Tyconius, Reg. 1.2 (SC 488:134; Babcock, Book of Rules, 3): “Alias una persona convenitur quam duplicem esse diversa duorum officia edocent.” 108 Exp. Apoc. 1.1 (CCSL 107A:105; Gumerlock, FC 134:27): “‘In the midst of the candlesticks one like the Son of Man clothed with a garment,’ that is, Christ clothed with these seven candlesticks. But whether the Son of Man, or the seven candlesticks, or the seven stars, it is the church” (“‘In medio candelabrorum similem filio hominis vestitum podere,’ id est Christum indutum ipsa septem candelabra. Sive autem filius hominis, sive septem candelabra, sive septem stellae, ecclesia est.”). 109 Tyconius, Reg. 1.13 (SC 488:152; Babcock, Book of Rules, 15): “Templum enim bipertitum est, cujus pars altera quamuis lapidibus magnis extruatur, destruitur . . . Istius nobis jugis adventus cavendus est, donec de medio ejus discedat ecclesia.” 110 Tyconius, Reg. 2.6 (SC 488:158; Babcock, Book of Rules, 17): “‘Finxi te puerum meum, meus est tu Israhel . . . Convertere ad me et redimam te.’ Numquid ejus peccata delevit, cui dicit: ‘Meus es tu,’ et ne sui obliviscatur commemorat, eidem dicit ‘Convertere ad me’?” 111 Exp. Apoc. 2.34 (CCSL 107A:138; Gumerlock, FC 134:72): “qui, dum se fingunt justitiae libram tenere, socios laedunt per opera tenebrarum.”

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power of the sacraments either in themselves on account of others, or in others,”112 but they will one day be revealed for what they are at the dawn of the final persecution under Antichrist: the promised “separation” of the true church from the false.113 At present, however, “the church never comes for blessing without concomitant deceit, i.e., without false brethren.”114 Rule III, “On the Promises and the Law,” proved unintelligible for Augustine, “an important problem in itself rather than a rule to be applied to solving problems.”115 Tyconius’s intent becomes clearer, however, if we view this rule as an application of the principle first proposed in Rule II to an ongoing debate within the Donatist communion. If, as an emerging faction insisted, the divine promises to Abraham that his descendants – i.e., the church – would fill the whole world were contingent on their faithful observance of the Law, then perhaps it is possible that the rest of the world subsequently fell away from the faith, leaving only the Donatist remnant as the prophesied elect. “We are forced to say things which we cannot hear without a burning sorrow,” Tyconius laments midway through Rule III: “for there are some who . . . because they want to preserve free will, claim that God did indeed promise all the nations to Abraham, but only if the nations were to keep the law.”116 To counter this position, Tyconius argues that the tension between the promises and the law in the Bible is better explained by appealing to the bipartite nature of the church.117 The promises, in other words, were directed to that part of the church that faithfully obeyed the Lord, while “the condition, i.e. the law, was only given to the impious and to sinners” – the “false brothers” within the church.118 Yet since both sides are contained within the one body of Christ, both are addressed under one banner. Rule III ends with another hint about the coming eschatological

112 Exp. Apoc. 2.34 (CCSL 107A:138; Gumerlock, FC 134:72–73): “Non permittitur neque in se propter alios neque in aliis vim sacramentorum violare.” 113 Exp. Apoc. 2.40 (CCSL 107A:143; Gumerlock, FC 134:78): “‘And every mountain and island was moved from its place.’ What heaven signifies, that the mountains signify, and that the islands signify, that is, that when the last persecution has occurred, the whole church receded from its place. But one is able to apply this to each part, since the good part, fleeing, will be moved from its place; and the bad part, leaving, will be moved from its place” (“‘Et omnis mons et insula de locis suis mota sunt.’ Quod caelum, hoc montes, hoc insulae significant, id est ecclesiam facta novissima persecutione omnem de loco suo recessisse. Sed potest in utramque partem convenire, quia bona pars movebitur de loco suo fugiens, et mala pars movebitur de loco suo cedens.”). 114 Tyconius, Reg. 3.26 (SC 488:210; Babcock, Book of Rules, 51): “Numquam . . . ecclesia venit ad benedictionem non comitante dolo, id est falsis fratribus.” 115 Doctr. chr. 3.33.46 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 178–79): “Magna quaestio quam regula quae solvendis quaestionibus adhibenda est.” 116 Tyconius, Reg. 3.17 (SC 488:192; Babcock, Book of Rules, 39): “Dicunt enim quidam, qui . . . promisisse quidem Deum Abrahae omnes gentes sed, salvo libero arbitrio, si legem custodissent.” 117 See Bright, Book of Rules, 69. 118 Tyconius, Reg. 3.20.1 (SC 488:198; Babcock, Book of Rules, 43–45): “Non est data conditio, id est lex, nisi ‘impiis et peccatoribus.’”

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separation of the church from the false brothers: “There is a time when these things may be said not in riddles but openly, as that ‘departure’ (discessione) approaches which is the revelation of the ‘man of sin.’”119 Rule IV (“On Species and Genus”), is concerned with more broadly applicable exegetical principles, and this trend continues in Rules V (“On Times”) and VI (“On Recapitulation”). Nevertheless, the bipartite nature of the church and the coming apocalyptic separation are deeply integrated into Tyconius’s exposition of these rules. Rule IV, for example, is ostensibly concerned with determining when typological explanations of a text may be properly invoked: as demonstrated above, Tyconius believes that the presence of grammatical oddities or logical contradictions within a given text indicate the presence of a hidden “spiritual” interpretation. Nevertheless, in practice, this method serves to further illustrate the bipartite nature of the church. “Every one of the cities or provinces of Israel and of the nations that Scripture mentions or in which it reports some event,” Tyconius claims, “is a figure of the church. Some are figures of the evil part, some of the good, and some of both.”120 Cities that represent only the evil part within the church include Babylon and Sodom, which occasions yet another allusion to the future separation: “From this Sodom Lot will go forth: and that is the ‘departure’ (discessio) so that ‘the man of sin may be revealed.’”121 Rule V, on the other hand, focuses on the question of biblical numbers, of which there are three types. The first, called “synecdochal” numbers, are real times or quantities that have been rounded either up or down; to illustrate them, Tyconius gives the example of Israel’s slavery in Egypt, which was counted as 400 years in Gen 15:13 but only 350 when actually calculated: “From this, it is plain that the (extra) hundred is a whole representing a part: for the years following the first 300 years are part of another hundred, and that is why he spoke of 400 years.”122 Tyconius also applies synecdoche to explain Christ’s three days and nights in the tomb: “the first day and the last, therefore, are parts representing the whole. Only the middle was a full day.”123 “Perfect” numbers, on the other hand, including seven, ten, or twelve as well as their multiples, are often symbolic in nature. Both Reg. and Exp. Apoc.,

119 Tyconius, Reg. 3.29 (SC 488:216; Babcock, Book of Rules, 55): “Tempus est enim quo haec non in mysteriis sed aperte dicantur, inminente ‘discessione’ quod est revelatio ‘hominis peccati.’” 120 Tyconius, Reg. 4.11 (SC 488:238; Babcock, Book of Rules, 69): “Omnes omnino civitates Israhel et gentium vel provincias, quas Scriptura alloquitur aut in quibus aliquid gestum refert, figuram esse ecclesiae: aliquas quidem partis malae, aliquas bonae, aliquas vero utrusque.” 121 Tyconius, Reg. 4.16 (SC 488:262; Babcock, Book of Rules, 83): “Ex his Sodomis exiet Loth, quod est, ‘Discessio, ut reveletur homo peccati.’” 122 Tyconius, Reg. 5.2.1 (SC 488:276; Babcock, Book of Rules, 91): “Quo manifestum est centum a toto partem esse, nam post CCC annos pars aliorum centum anni sunt: propterea dixit CCCC annos.” 123 Tyconius, Reg. 5.3.4 (SC 488:282; Babcock, Book of Rules, 93): “Dies ergo primus et novissimus a toto pars est. Solus medius plenius fuit.”

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for instance, interpret the “ten days” of tribulation that the church at Smyrna will undergo as a representation of the entire time of trouble that the church will endure until the end.124 Finally there are “abbreviated” numbers in which shorter time periods such as hours, days, or months represent longer quantities of time. It is here that Tyconius returns once again to the theme of eschatological separation in order to address a burning question: when will the prophesied “departure” finally take place? An answer is provided in the enigmatic number riddles of Revelation: Sometimes, in virtue of the number ten, a day represents 100 days, as in the Apocalypse: “1260 days.” For 1260 days times 100 equals 126,000 days, which makes 350 years. . . . In the same place, by the number ten, one month represents 100 months, as in: “they will trample on the holy city for 42 months.” For 42 hundreds equals 4200 months, which makes 350 years. A time is either a year or a hundred years, as in “for a time and times and half a time,” which is either three and a half years or 350 years. Likewise a day sometimes represents a hundred years, as when it is written of the church that “for three and a half days,” it will be left for dead “in the city where its Lord, too, was crucified.”125

Armed with this 350-year figure, Tyconius then returns to synecdochal numbers in order to make a startling claim: “the number four in particular represents the time from the Lord’s passion to the end . . . whether it appears in full or as part of a fourth after three, for example, 350 or three and a half.”126 A period of 350 years, in other words, appears to mark the length of time between the Lord’s first and second comings. In Exp. Apoc., we find further confirmation that of these calculations. In Rev 11:3, for instance, the 1,260 days that the Two Witnesses preach stand for “the whole time from the passion of the Lord,”127 while in Rev 12:6, the 1,260 days of the apocalyptic Woman’s nourishment in the desert are equated with the church’s sojourn on earth “from the birth of Christ up to the end of the world when she is freed

124 Cf. Tyconius, Reg. 5.4.3 (SC 488:290); Exp. Apoc. 1.21 (CCSL 107A:118). 125 Tyconius, Reg. 5.6.2–4 (SC 488:292; Babcock, Book of Rules, 99): “Aliquando dies denario numero C dies sunt, sicut in Apocalypsei: ‘Dies MCCLX,’ nam milies ducenties centies et sexagies centeni centum viginti sex milia dies sunt, qui fiunt anni CCCL . . . Ibidem, unus mensis denario numero centum menses sunt, ut ‘Civitatem sanctam calcabunt mensibus XLII,’ nam XLII centeni IIII et CC menses sunt, qui sunt anni CCCL. Tempus aut annus est aut centum anni, sicut ‘Tempus et tempora et dimidium temporis,’ quod est aut tres anni et dimidius aut CCCL. Item unus dies aliquando centum anni sunt, sicut de Ecclesia scriptum est jacere ‘in civitate ubi et Dominus ejus cruci fixus est tres dies et dimidium.’” The reference to “three and a half years” signifies the time of the final tribulation under the Antichrist, which Tyconius, following the logic of recapitulation, understands as a concentrated version of the church’s ongoing struggle throughout its existence. (For the latter, see Exp. Apoc. 3.64 [CCSL 107A:167].) 126 Tyconius, Reg. 5.8.2 (SC 488:302, 304; Babcock, Book of Rules, 107): “Quaternarius numerus specialiter tempus est a Domini passione usque in finem . . . aut post tertium pars quarti ut CCCL aut tres et dimidium.” 127 Exp. Apoc. 3.64 (CCSL 107A:167; Gumerlock, FC 134:110): “totius temporis a Domini passione.”

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from wicked people.”128 As was mentioned earlier, 350 years from Christ’s passion in the North African calendrical system comes to approximately 379/380. Given the nearness of the predicted date to Tyconius’s own time, it seems clear that the Donatist author believed that the eschatological separation between the righteous and the false brothers within the church was fast approaching. Unlike Augustine, therefore, who pushed the date of the separation far into the unforeseeable future, Tyconius appears to have expected an imminent apocalypse.129 Further evidence of an apocalyptic strain within Tyconian thought appears in Rule VI, “On Recapitulation.” Recapitulations, Tyconius warns, are subtle130: and indeed, there are several ways they can be defined. The first occurs when properly eschatological references are nevertheless ethically relevant for the present. Christ’s warning to the church to “remember Lot’s wife,” for example, should be applied not only at his future coming but throughout the church’s sojourn in the world.131 Such observances will find their ultimate context in the apocalyptic future, but retain their applicability in the present. A different type of recapitulation occurs when past events foreshadow future ones. Tyconius offers the example of the return of the exiles from Babylon as a prophetic type that would be fulfilled in the spread of the gospel to all nations.132 Significantly, he also believes that the contemporary situation in North Africa typologically foreshadows the prophesied time of tribulation foretold by the prophet Daniel: “But what Daniel mentioned is happening now in Africa, and not at the time of the end. But because this was going to happen, although not at the time of the end, yet under the same heading, he said, ‘then,’ i.e., when similar things happen throughout the world, which is the ‘departure’ (discessio) and the

128 Exp. Apoc. 4.16 (CCSL 107A:178; Gumerlock, FC 134:127): “a nativitate Christi usque ad finem mundi, donec ab iniquis liberetur.” I do not know why this particular example dates the period “from the birth of Christ” rather than his passion, as do all other allusions to the 350-year period in Tyconius’s writings. See also 4.21 (CCSL 107A:180; Gumerlock, FC 134:130), which equates the “time, times, and half a time” that the woman is nourished with the period from “the passion of the Lord up to the end of the world” (“a passione Domini . . . usque ad finem mundi.”). 129 See, for instance, Ep. 199 (CSEL 57:243–92). The apocalyptic nature of the 350-year date was assumed by Burkitt, Book of Rules, xvii; Hahn, Tyconius-Studien, 5–6; and G. Bonner, St. Bede in the Tradition of Western Apocalyptic Commentary (Newcastle upon Tyne: J. & P. Bealls, 1966), 5, but strongly disputed in Fredriksen, “Tyconius and the End of the World.” Fredriksen’s influential article, however, failed to assess the evidence from Exp. Apoc., which, in my view, settles the question in favor of an apocalyptic interpretation. 130 See Tyconius, Reg. 6.1 (SC 488:310; Babcock, Book of Rules, 109): “The seal of recapitulation guards some things with such subtlety that it seems more a continuation than a recapitulation of the narrative” (“Custodit recapitulationis sigillum ea subtilitate, ut continuatio magis narrationis quam recapitulatio videatur.”). 131 Tyconius, Reg. 6.1 (SC 488:310). 132 Tyconius, Reg. 6.3.2 (SC 488:314).

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‘revelation of the man of sin.’”133 Finally, as David Robinson notes, recapitulation can function ecclesiologically as yet another reference to the bipartite church. The right side of the church is “recapitulated” in the left, the false brothers who, as the apostle Paul said, “have the appearance of religion, but deny its power” (cf. 2 Tim 3:5).134 Interestingly, the version of recapitulation utilized by Exp. Apoc., in which biblical passages reveal the same events from different perspectives, is not mentioned. Tyconius’s cryptic reference to the present time of trouble in Africa, however, is worth a closer look. It has been interpreted by Paula Fredriksen as simply a general example of “the life of the church in the world” – “like the fire from heaven at Lot’s departure and the Day of the Son of Man,” it is devoid of eschatological relevance.135 Fredriksen, however, appears to have conflated the first and second definitions of recapitulation in order to arrive at this conclusion. Tyconius explicitly differentiates the reference to Africa from the example of Lot (“often, too, recapitulations are not of this sort, but appear as a likeness of what is to come”),136 indicating that what is “happening now in Africa” is an actual event with typological parallels to the coming end. A more detailed portrait of this event and how it fits into Tyconius’s eschatology is found in Exp. Apoc. For Tyconius, the opening of the fourth seal (Rev 6:7) is not a future prediction but a contemporary reality. While there were initially three factions in the world – the true church, the false brothers within it, and the pagans without, the opening of the Fourth Seal reveals a new category: “now a fourth is manifested. For, the church will not spew out every evil person, but only some, for the purpose of showing to the world what the last persecution will be like.”137 This new “fourth” faction is comprised of “those in schism,” and their identity is clearly stated: “In Africa . . . they were revealed already a short time ago when they were expelled from the church.”138 Tyconius, in other words, believes that the opening of the Fourth Seal corresponds to the expulsion of the traditores by the true church in North Africa, the Donatist communion. The Fifth Seal, on the other hand, signifies

133 Tyconius, Reg. 6.3.1 (SC 488:312; Babcock, Book of Rules, 111): “Quod autem Danihel dixit in Africa geritur, neque in eodem tempore finis. Sed quoniam, licet non in eo tempore finis, in eo tamen titulo futurum est, propterea ‘Tunc,” dixit, id est cum similiter factum fuerit per orbem, quod est ‘discessio et revelatio hominis peccati.’” 134 Tyconius, Reg. 6.4.4; see Robinson’s discussion in FC 134:14. 135 Fredriksen, “Tyconius and the End of the World,” 66. 136 Tyconius, Reg. 6.3.1 (SC 488:312; Babcock, Book Rules, 111): “Aliquotiens autem non sunt recapitulationes hujus modi sed futurae similitudines.” 137 Exp. Apoc. 2.35 (CCSL 107A:140; Gumerlock, FC 134:75): “Ubi tres partes videbantur, jam quarta manifestata est. Non enim omnem malum vomet ecclesia, sed aliquos ad ostendendum orbi genus novissimae persecutionis.” 138 Exp. Apoc. 2.35 (CCSL 107A:141; Gumerlock, FC 134:76): “In Africa . . . jam dudum, cum ecclesia pellerentur, revelati sunt.”

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the persecution of the Donatist church by the traditores.139 Not only a prophesied historical event in its own right, it also functions as a typological foreshadowing of the final persecution under Antichrist, as detailed in a later recapitulation narrative: “It is necessary for you to preach again.” When did the church cease from preaching that she should hear: It is necessary for you to preach again? But he said “again” because he describes the time which will come after the African persecutions, that he might show that the last preaching and refreshment from the contest will be like this one. And because afterward the church will preach not only to this same people in Africa, but will preach in the whole world, he added: “unto many peoples and languages and nations and kings.” The church is one in the whole world; the things which she preaches in Africa are the things that she will similarly preach everywhere. Because it will be like the situation in Africa, for this reason he said: “It is necessary for you to preach again.140

“Just as was done in Africa,” Tyconius states in another place, “So it is necessary that Antichrist is to be revealed in the whole world, and in the same way to be overcome everywhere by the church as he was overcome by her in part for the purpose of showing the way that the last struggle will happen.”141 The Donatist experience, in other words, mirrors on a small scale what would soon take place throughout the worldwide church. That is, its separation from the traditores is a legitimate “recapitulation” as defined by Rule VI in the sense that it foreshadows the coming apocalyptic “separation” and the persecution of the worldwide church by Antichrist. The rules conclude with Rule VII, “On the Devil’s Body” – a dark antithesis of Rule I that provides rhetorical symmetry to the book as a whole. Similar to the first rule, it claims that what can be said of the devil can also be applied to his body, the “people of the left.”142 Almost all of Tyconius’s interaction with this rule is concentrated on just two passages: Isa 14:4–21, an oracle concerning the downfall of 139 Exp. Apoc. 2.36 (CCSL 107A:141; Gumerlock, FC 134:77): “In the fifth seal he shows that the souls, both in the fourth part as well as in the whole world, of those slain for God, pray for vindication” (“Quinto autem signo inducit animas tam in quarta parte quam in toto mundo occisorum secundum deum postulare vindictam.”). 140 Exp. Apoc. 3.60 (CCSL 107A:166; Gumerlock, FC 134:108): “‘Oportet te iterum praedicare.’ Numquid ecclesia aliquando cessavit a praedicatione, ut ‘Iterum oportet te praedicare’ audiret? Sed quia tempus describit quod post africanas persecutiones futurum est, ut ostenderet ejusmodi esse novissimam praedicationem et reparationem certaminis, propterea dixit ‘iterum.’ Et quia postea non in Africa tantum eidem generi, sed in toto mundo praedicabit ecclesia, propterea adiecit ‘in populis et linguis et gentibus et regibus multis.’ Una est ecclesia in toto orbe; quae praedicat in Africa, ipsa ubique similiter praedicabit; propterea velut africanae dixit ‘Oportet te iterum praedicare.’” 141 Exp. Apoc. 1.41 (CCSL 107A:126; Gumerlock, FC 134:56): “Sicut enim in Africa factum est, ita oportet in toto mundo revelari antichristum et eodem modo ab ecclesia ubique superari, quo ab ea in parte superatus est ad ostendendum novissimi certaminis modum.” 142 This is Tyconius’s overarching term for the devil’s body both within the church (i.e., “false brethren”) and without (i.e., pagans and heretics). See Tyconius, Reg. 2.10, 4.17 (SC 488:160, 162, 262); Exp. Apoc. 2.33 (CCSL 107A:138).

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the Daystar from heaven, and Ezek 28:1–19, a lamentation over the anointed cherub who walked among the stones of fire in Eden. Both passages have historical referents in the kings of Babylon and Tyre, yet, according to Tyconius, they each signify something more: the devil and his body. Shortly before the end of the book, Tyconius once again returns to the subject of the coming “departure,” but this time it is from the perspective of the “people of the left.” In his assessment of Ezek 28:18, “I will bring fire from your midst, and it will consume you,” Tyconius comments: “The fire is the church; and when it departs from the midst ‘of the mystery of iniquity,’ then the Lord will rain fire from the Lord down from the church . . . But this is a prophecy of the departure (discessionis) to come.”143 Liber regularum ends abruptly, but appropriately, with a quote from Ezek 28:19 regarding the apocalyptic fate of the fallen cherub and, by extension, the whole people of the left: “You are ruined, gone forever.”144

Conclusion: Reevaluating Tyconius We can thus see that a deeper current runs through Tyconius’s distinctive hermeneutical system. Tyconius is not the proto-Caecilianist that Augustine wishes him to be. Rather, he is first and foremost a Donatist theologian writing to members of his own communion. By comparing the cryptic allusions in Reg. with his more explicit statements in Exp. Apoc., we can discover Tyconius’s target audience: an emerging Donatist faction that denied the legitimacy of the overseas churches and seems to have viewed itself as the final remnant of the true church. Evidence for the existence of this group and Tyconius’s own opposition to it appears multiple times in his extant writings. As we have seen, Rule III is likely directed primarily against this more isolationist theology, which insisted that “God did indeed promise all the

143 Tyconius, Reg. 7.18.2 (SC 488:370, 372; Babcock, Book of Rules, 143–45): “‘Educam ignem de medio tui, hic te devorabit.’ Ignis ecclesia est, quae cum discesserit e medio ‘mysterii facinoris’ tunc pluet ignem Dominus a Domino de ecclesia . . . Sed prophetia est futurae discessionis.” 144 Tyconius, Reg. 7.19 (SC 488:372; Babcock, Book of Rules, 145): “‘Perditio facta es, et non eris in aeternum.’” There is some controversy over the abrupt ending. Babcock, Book of Rules, xl, argues that Reg. is missing a final section. For Bright, Book of Rules, 114–15, however, Ezek 28:19 formed a fitting conclusion to the work as a whole: “An analysis of the argument from Rule I to Rule VII suggests that there is a strong case for arguing that the Book of Rules is complete as it has been transmitted. As it now stands, the final sentence of the Book of Rules marks the conclusion of the last verse of the second of the two exegetical passages treated in Rule VII; not only is it the formal conclusion in the exegesis, but the solemn tones of the final passage . . . make for a fitting conclusion to the theme that has threaded its way through the whole work – the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the ‘midst’ of the church.”

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nations to Abraham, but only if the nations were to keep the law,”145 and this is paralleled in Rule I by the opposing party’s claim that “The Lord filled the whole earth with his power rather than with the fullness of his body.” “Some make this claim,” Tyconius informs us, “which I do not report without sorrow,” “to the dishonor of God’s kingdom and of Christ’s unvanquished inheritance.”146 Expositio Apocalypseos is, as usual, more explicit: here, Tyconius directly engages his opponents’ claim “that the church is dwindling and is able to be reduced to the number of the household of Noah, with many losing their crown because the Lord said, ‘Hold on to what you have, lest another take your crown.’”147 This is why ecclesiology is so important to Tyconius. The church, he insists, is a mixed body: it cannot be tainted by the presence of “false brothers” within it, nor are the divine promises annulled by the “mystery of iniquity.” Very soon it will decisively separate from the people of the left as Lot did from Sodom, but that prophesied “departure” will be worldwide in scope rather than confined to North Africa. Arguments like these would later result in his condemnation in an ecclesiastical council. But it is important to remember that Tyconius does not see his theology as repudiating “Donatism.” He agrees with his opponents that Donatists, not Caecilianists, constitute the true church in North Africa. Indeed, as we have seen, he believes that the schism and resulting persecutions were prophesied in the book of Revelation. The traditores exposed in North Africa are merely outlying slivers of a much larger fraternity that remains submerged within the church; their recent manifestation and expulsion from the North African communion prefigures the apocalyptic “departure” that will shortly take place throughout the world. Donatism, in Tyconius’s vision, is, therefore, both a warning and a typological model for the rest of the church to follow when the final persecution breaks out under Antichrist. Whatever else they are, then, Tyconius’s surviving writings are not the triumphant vindications of Caecilianist theology that Augustine imagined them to be.148 Instead, they offer us a window into a legitimate Donatist exegetical trajectory that ultimately lost out to the rival theology represented by Parmenian, a loss underscored by his apparent condemnation in a Donatist council. Even Augustine would

145 Tyconius, Reg. 3.17 (SC 488:192; Babcock, Book of Rules, 39): “Promisisse quidem Deum Abrahae omnes gentes sed, salvo libero arbitrio, si legem custodissent.” 146 Tyconius, Reg. 1.4.1 (SC 488:136; Babcock, Book of Rules, 5): “Non enim – sicut quidam dicunt in contumeliam regni Dei invictaeque hereditatis Christi, quod non sine dolore dico – Dominus totum mundum potestate et non sui corporis plenitudine occupat.” 147 Exp. Apoc. 1.42 (CCSL 107A:126; Gumerlock, FC 134:57): “Dicunt ecclesiam deficere et ad numerum domus Noe multis coronam perdentibus posse deduci, quod dixerit Dominus ‘Tene quod habes, ne alius coronam tuam accipiat.’” 148 As noted supra, Augustine characterized Tyconius as a proto-Catholic who (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 172–73): “wrote against the Donatists with irresistible power” despite the fact that he “was unwilling to make a clean break with them” (“Tyconius quidam, qui contra Donatistas invictissime scripsit . . . eos non omni ex parte relinquere voluit.”).

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reluctantly admit that Tyconius refused to see what “he really ought to have seen, that clearly those Christians in Africa who belong to the church spread throughout the world are not those who are separated from the communion and unity of that world.”149 Such a refusal, however, is not a deficiency of Tyconius’s theological system; rather, it is its very foundation. In hindsight, it is easy to see why Tyconius was able to transcend his Donatist background in the eyes of later Catholic writers. While they consistently censure his Donatist sympathies, they prefer to describe him and his literary output as “a rose among thorns” (Bede) or more earthily, “a precious gem embedded in dung” (Primasius of Hadrumetum).150 Through such authors, Tyconius achieved posthumous fame for his opposition to millennialism, for his seven useful exegetical rules – now divested of their original context – and, above all, for his view, safely revised by Augustine, that the Catholic church was necessarily comprised of both saints and sinners. The task of the historical theologian, however, is to recover the original context of Tyconius’s innovative hermeneutic. Tyconius is both strikingly original and yet not as idiosyncratic as he first appears – or, rather, his unique approach to the biblical text is inextricably tied to his involvement in an intraDonatist debate over the nature of the church. Tyconius was first and foremost a Donatist theologian, and without such an ecclesial background he would never have developed the exegetical system that warrants him a place among the great biblical interpreters of the Christian tradition.

For Further Reading Primary Sources Augustine. Augustine: De doctrina christiana, edited and translated by Roger P. H. Green. OECT. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995. Hamman, Adalberto, ed. Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium. Patrologia Latina Supplementum 1. Paris: Éditions Garnier Frère, 1958. Richardson, Ernest Cushing, ed. Hieronymus liber De viris inlustribus; Gennadius liber De viris inlustribus. Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 14. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1896. Richardson, Ernest Cushing, trans. “Lives of Illustrious Men.” In Theodoret, Jerome, Gennadius, and Rufinus: Historical Writings, 385–402. Vol. 3, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Series 2. New York: Christian Literature Company, 1892.

149 Parm. 1.1 (BA 28:210): “Consequentur videndum fuit, illos videlicet in Africa Christianos pertinere ad ecclesiam toto orbe diffusam, qui utique non istis ab ejusdem orbis communione atque unitate sejunctis.” 150 See Bede, Epistola ad Eusebium de Expositione Apocalypsis (CCSL 121A:223, 233): “rosa in spinis” and Primasius of Hadrumetum, Commentarius in Apocalypsin, Prologue (CCSL 92:1–2): “pretiosa in stercore gemma.”

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Tyconius. Expositio Apocalypseos, edited by Roger Gryson. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 107A. Turnhout: Brepols, 1997. Tyconius. Exposition of the Apocalypse, translated by Francis Gumerlock. Fathers of the Church 134. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2017. Tyconius. Liber regularum, introduced and translated by Jean-Marc Vercruysse. Sources chrétiennens 488. Paris: Cerf, 2004. Tyconius. Tyconius: The Book of Rules, translated by William S. Babcock. Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations 31. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989.

Secondary Sources Bright, Pamela. The Book of Rules of Tyconius: Its Purpose and Inner Logic. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. Bright, Pamela. “‘The Spiritual World, Which Is the Church’: Hermeneutical Theory in the Book of Rules of Tyconius.” Studia Patristica 22 (1989): 213–18. Fredriksen, Paula. “Tyconius and the End of the World.” Revue des études augustiniennes 28 (1982): 59–75. Hahn, Traugott. Tyconius-Studien: Ein Beitrag zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte des vierten Jahrhunderts. Leipzig: Dietrich, 1900. Kannengiesser, Charles. “Quintilian, Tyconius and Augustine.” Illinois Classical Studies 19 (1994): 239–52. Kannengiesser, Charles. “Tyconius of Carthage, the Earliest Latin Theoretician of Biblical Hermeneutics: The Current Debate.” In Historiam perscrutari: Miscellanea dis studi offerti al prof. Ottorino Pasquato, edited by Mario Maritano, 297–311. Biblioteca di Scienze Religiose. Rome: LAS, 2002. Robinson, David. “The Anonymous Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium: An Antecedent Witness to Tyconian Exegesis.” Theoforum 42 (2011): 99–117. Ryan, Sean Michael. “Praising God in Adversity: Tyconius’s Ecclesiological Exegesis of the Celestial Liturgy (Rev. 4–5).” In The Book of Revelation and Its Interpreters, edited by Ian Boxall and Richard Tresley, 27–51. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. Steinhauser, Kenneth. The Apocalypse Commentary of Tyconius: A History of Its Reception and Influence. European University Studies 301. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1987. Vercruysse, Jean-Marc. “Tyconius a-t-il Origène?” Studia Patristica 46 (2010): 155–60.

Tarmo Toom

13 Scripture in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana Introduction There is a delightful story about a legendary tenth-century Syrian figure al-Ma’arrī.1 One day, he was discussing the Qur’ān with his opponents. Al-Ma’arrī provocatively declared that the Qur’ān was not such an amazing piece of literature after all. As a matter of fact, he could easily compose something like it. His opponents dared him to take on the seemingly impossible task and al-Ma’arrī accepted the challenge. Soon his collection of poems was ready. His opponents studied these and, to their delight, found the poems to be rather mediocre. They announced to al-Ma’arrī victoriously: “We read your poems and found them to be just average. They don’t even come close to the great Qur’ān!” But al-Ma’arrī responded: “Oh, come on! The poems are not complete unless you give them 300 years of your faithfulness!” Approximately 300 years after both the canonization of the Old Testament and the composition of the New Testament writings, Augustine wrote his De doctrina christiana.2 This treatise was about Scripture and was intended for those “whom we desire to be educated for the good of the church” (quos utilitati ecclesiasticae cupimus erudiri; 4.3.4).3 The exact time when Augustine started writing Doctr. chr. is unknown, but 396 has been the commonly suggested date.4 It was one of the first works that he composed after becoming a coadjutor bishop of Hippo. Although Augustine still mentioned “the remarkable humility of the scriptures” (Scripturarum . . . mirabili humilitate) in Doctr. chr. 2.42.63,5 by the end of the fourth century, canonical Scripture had gained its “most beneficial authority” (saluberrima auctoritas; 4.6.9).

1 This bit of oral tradition was included by A.-L. Tolonen at the beginning of her paper, “‘What is Biblical’ and ‘What is Reception’?,” (Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the AAR/SBL, San Antonio, TX, 21 November 2016). The narrative form of the story has been modified. 2 The bilingual edition of Doctr. chr. used in this essay is R. P. H. Green, ed. and trans, Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, OECT (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995). Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations of Doctr. chr. provided in this chapter are Green’s. 3 Cf. Augustine, Ep. 41.2 (CSEL 34/2:83); this is Aurelius’s request to Augustine. 4 At Retractiones 2.4.1 (CCSL 57:92), a work that presents Augustine’s works in chronological order, Doctr. chr. is listed after De agone christiano, which was written in 396. 5 Augustine’s early but famous disappointment with the artistic level of the biblical discourse is expressed in Conf. 3.5.9 (CCSL 27:30–31). *Tarmo Toom, Georgetown University and Leland Center https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-014

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Augustine also tells us that the first phase of the composition of Doctr. chr. ended at 3.25.35,6 and that he purposefully resumed at this same point about thirty years later – that is, in 426/427.7 As its title indicates, this essay investigates Augustine’s use and reception of Scripture in a treatise about interpretation of Scripture. The particular subject matter of Doctr. chr. largely determines how Scripture is handled in it. In order to offer his readers some interpretative guidance, Augustine focuses on the difficulties/ problems in understanding the text (words, translations, obscurities, ambiguity, figures of speech, etc.), the examples of which are mostly taken from Scripture. In Doctr. chr. 4.8.22, Augustine states explicitly that he is providing “numerous examples” (nonnulla . . . exempla) from the canonical writings. Altogether, in Doctr. chr., Augustine cites the Old Testament about ninety times and he cites the New Testament just over 200 times. As one would expect, the books of Genesis and Psalms make up the lion’s share of the Old Testament citations. Of the New Testament writings, Augustine cites the Gospels about sixty times and the letters of Paul (including the Pastoral Epistles) more than a hundred times.8 To consider all these citations one by one would result in a mere piling up and/or cataloguing of various scriptural references without a particular analytical focus.9 Here a different approach is adopted. However, before discussing Augustine’s citations of Scripture, a more fundamental level of his relation to Scripture has to be appraised. In a real sense, Augustine “lived, moved, and had his being” (cf. Acts 17:28) in Scripture. His thinking and imagination were deeply “formatted” by the biblical discourse; he had a Bible-saturated mind. For example, the entirety of Doctr. chr. 4.16.33 consists of fourteen scriptural

6 Retract. 2.4.1 (CCSL 57:92). In the oldest extant manuscript of Doctr. chr. – Codex Leningradensis (fifth century) – the words explicit liber de doctrina christiana in scriptio continua and in a larger font as well as ornamental border in red and black indicate that the text has come to an end. K. B. Steinhauser, “From Russia with Love: Deciphering Augustine’s Code,” JECS 22 (2014): 1–20, esp. 4, and fol. 152r at 9. 7 Augustine, in fact, started the reception of “Augustine,” as his later writings were simultaneously both something “received” and “original.” Both the completed Doctr. chr., and Retract. are examples of this very phenomenon. See J. Brachtendorf, “Augustine’s Reception of Himself,” in Augustine in Context, ed. T. Toom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017): 221–29. 8 This is stated on the basis of the index in CSEL 80:170–73 (ed. G. M. Green, 1963). Since there is an endless discussion about what exactly constitutes a paraphrase, adaptation, allusion, and direct quotation, the lists in various indices differ significantly. For reception history, however, and unlike for textual criticism, the particular classification of references by type does not make much difference. 9 For this criticism, see S. Gillingham, “Biblical Studies on Holiday? A Personal View of Reception History,” in Reception History and Biblical Studies: Theory and Practice, eds. E. England and W. J. Lyons, Scriptural Traces 6 (London: Bloomsbury, 2015): 17–30, 24.

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phrases, sewn together by Augustine’s short comments.10 Furthermore, Augustine wrote in scriptio continua. The convenient quotation marks and references added to his texts in modern editions provide clarity missing in the “originals” – no reader in antiquity would have automatically perceived the neat difference between the words of Augustine and the words of Scripture. In fact, this very distinction threatens to introduce a misleading dichotomy. Again, Scripture provides Augustine the language, images, stories, and teachings with which and by which he deliberates and speaks. “The books of scripture are the implied supertext in relation to which Augustine’s own text acquires its meaning.”11 This brings up another important point – to speak about reception of Scripture tends to presuppose a fixed entity that is then received. In other words, it suggests a sequential procedure – a postulation of an “original” to be received in later times.12 However, a clear separation between a text and its reception might be an impossible task,13 because there is no one thing to be received, no set point of origin, no fixed entity of Urtext.14 The selection, arrangement, writing, and editing of the material have, in fact, already started the process of interpretation and reception.15 Therefore, Scripture itself should be understood as basically text plus its reception/commentary – at least up to the point at which it was canonized.16 Once the canon was formalized, the texts of the various canonical books became

10 Other good examples would be Doctr. chr. 2.3.4, 2.7.11, 3.21.30–31, and 3.37.55 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 58, 64, 66, 162, 164, 192). 11 M. Vessey, Introduction to Confessions: Saint Augustine (New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2007), xxxv. 12 The title of this essay (“Scripture in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana”) may give the same impression. 13 J. E. Harding, “What Is Reception History, and What Happens to You If You Do It?” in England and Lyons, Reception History and Biblical Studies, 31–44, esp. 37–40. The unfortunate concept of a borderline, which is often employed for separating the “original text” from its subsequent “reception,” has been forcefully criticized by B. W. Breed, Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History, Indiana Series in Biblical Literature (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2014). 14 T. Beal, “Reception History and Beyond: Toward the Cultural History of Scriptures,” BibInt 19 (2011): 357–72, esp. 367. 15 In fact, the New Testament is itself a “stage” in reception history, as it is, according to C. Kannengiesser, “Scripture as a Legacy of the Fathers,” in The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiquity: Proceedings of the Montréal Colloquium in Honor of Charles Kannengiesser, 11–13 October 2006, eds. L. DiTommaso and L. Turcescu, Bible in Ancient Christianity 6 (Leiden: Brill, 2008): 529–41, 531, “essentially a midrashic extension of ancient prophecies and a testimony to the Yahwist experience of faith inherited from ancient traditions by the first Christians.” 16 This was eloquently demonstrated by K. Schmid in his paper “Where Does the History of Biblical Interpretation Begin? How Innerbiblical Interpretation Moved on to Postbiblical Interpretation” (Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the AAR/SBL, San Antonio, TX, 19 November 2016). Before canonization, interpretations in the form of redactions and additions became part of the text. Certain “original” material (Vorlage) was adapted and shaped until it took the form of a deeply theological text.

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relatively stable.17 However, due to the basic fact that biblical manuscripts were copied by hand (and often on the basis of aural comprehension), the text of the books never achieved real uniformity before the invention of printing. In other words, rather than slowly becoming one, clearly defined item to be received, Scripture took ever more diverse (linguistic) forms.

Canonical Scripture in Latin De doctrina christiana sheds some light on the question of what Scripture had become by the end of the fourth century – after approximately three centuries of Christian faithfulness to it.18 In Doctr. chr. 2.8.12, Augustine recommended reading the whole Scripture (totas), but there was no universal consensus yet about exactly what the whole Scripture was. Indeed, Augustine never had a one-volume codex of the whole Bible (both Old and New Testaments) – something that one could find in the Latin West only at the time of Cassiodorus.19 Therefore, in Augustine’s time, “the Bible” often meant various partial collections.20 Nevertheless, Augustine explained that by the “whole Scripture” he meant only “those pronounced canonical” (quae appellantur canonicae) – despite the fact that individual churches had their own final canonical lists which did not always agree with one other (2.8.12).21 He suggested leaving “the other writings” (ceteras scripturas) to those who were already “equipped with a belief in the truth” (fide veritatis instructus; 2.8.12).22 Although it included the

17 For the main textual variants, see E. Würthwein and A. A. Fischer, The Text of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Biblia Hebraica (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 172–83; and B. M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: United Bible Society, 1971). 18 For a concise account of the issues involved in the developement of the Latin canon, see I. Bochet and G. Madec, “Le Canon des Écritures, la Septante et l’Itala,” in La doctrine chrétienne/ De doctrina Christiana, Oeuvres de Saint Augustin 11/2, Bibliothéque Augustinienne (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1997): 506–23. 19 Saint-Germain-des-Prés Bible (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 11553) is an early pandect of “all the canonical Scriptures,” as the “Esther’s colophon” states; see P.-M. Bogaert, “The Latin Bible,” in From the Beginnings to 600, eds. J. C. Paget and J. Schaper, vol. 1, The New Cambridge History of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): 505–26, esp. 521–22. 20 P.-M. Bogaert, “Les bibles d’Augustin,” RTL 37.4 (2006): 513–31, esp. 517. 21 For the Old Testament canon in patristic writings, see G. Dorival, “L’apport des Pères de l’Église à la question de la clôture du canon de l’Ancien Testament,” in The Biblical Canons, eds. J.-M. Auwers and H. J. De Jonge, BETL 163 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003): 81–110; and E. L. Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 114 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 85–104. For Augustine’s knowledge of canon and its formation, see A.-M. La Bonnardière, “Le Canon des divines Écritures,” in Saint Augustin et la Bible, Bible de tous les temps 3 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1986): 287–301. 22 Cf. Doctr. chr. 4.3.4 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 198, 200). However, one should not be too quick in identifying the ceteras scripturas with apocryphal texts. Beatrice has persuasively argued

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deuterocanonical books, the canonical list that Augustine provided in Doctr. chr. 2.8.1323 differs from the modern lists by the order in which it lists (some of) the writings.24 Augustine read Scripture in Latin and was very much aware of the “infinite variety of Latin translations” (latinorum interpretum infinita varietas) that had been done both by experts and amateurs (2.16.16). Consequently, even if Augustine was not always right about the variant readings (2.12.18), he knew that different textual versions existed in his native language. He was also aware of the fact that certain features and nuances got lost in translation(s). For example, in Doctr. chr. 4.20.21, he complains that “the stylistic embellishment that derives from rhythmical clausulae is missing in the Latin Scriptures.”25 The synchronic pluriformity and fluidity of the text of Scripture posited, of course, a particular set of problems for an interpreter, even though various nonidentical versions were still somehow one and the same Scripture. One has to keep in mind that Augustine took the words of Scripture, regardless of the language, as the given/intentional signs (signa data; 2.2.3) that communicated the will of God (2.5.6). Because of the existence of multiple textual forms in various languages, “an important antidote to the ignorance of literal signs [i.e., words in Scripture] is the knowledge of languages” (contra ignota signa propria magnum remedium est linguarum cognition; 2.11.16; cf. 2.13.19). That is, knowing Hebrew and Greek would make

that sacred “pagan” writings are meant instead. P. F. Beatrice, “Canonical and Non-Canonical Books in Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana,” Warszawskie Studia Teologiczne 20.2 (2007): 23–35. 23 Having been exposed to the Manichean “canon” in his youth (Faust. 8.1–2, 19.31 [CSEL 25/1: 305–7, 534–35]; Augustine, Ep. 82.2.6 [CSEL 34/2:356]; Util. cred. 3.7 [CSEL 25/1:9–10]), Augustine had nevertheless accepted the emerging catholic consensus that followed the Greek canon. What complicated matters, however, was that the copies of the Septuagint did not circulate with identical contents and sequence of books. M. Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon, trans. M. E. Biddle (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2002), 57–74. Yet, in the Septuagint, one could find the books of Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (see Retract. 2.4.2), Tobit (cited in Doctr. chr. 3.14.22, 3.18.27 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 154, 158, 160]), Judith, Maccabees (referred to in Doctr. chr. 4.18.37), and Esdras, as well as the Greek additions to Daniel and Esther. With minor variances, the Greek canon received official confirmation in the Breviarium Hipponense at the Council of Carthage in 397. See CCSL 149:43; and C. Munier, “La tradition manuscrite de l’Abrégé d’Hippone et le canon des Écritures des églises africaines,” SacEr 21 (1972–1973): 43–55, esp. 48. 24 The order of the Gospels in Augustine’s list (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) may indicate awareness of Jerome’s revision of gospels in 382–84, because the oldest extant manuscripts of Vetus Latina preferred the order Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark. H. A. G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament: A Guide to Its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 210–12. Augustine, De consensu evangelistarum 2.3–4, written after 400, likewise uses Jerome’s Greek order of the gospels as well as his revised text; cf. H. A. G. Houghton, “Augustine’s Adoption of the Vulgate Gospels,” NTS 54.3 (2008): 450–64, esp. 456–58. 25 Thus reads the “amplified” translation of Green, which adds the words “Latin Scriptures” for the sake of clarity. On the other hand, at times Vetus Latina translations grasped certain nuances in the Greek text that even Jerome missed. See P. Burton, The Old Latin Gospels. A Study of Their Texts and Language, OECS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 192–99.

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possible the comparison of the biblical manuscripts with Latin translations and a critical assessment of their adequacy (2.14.21).26 In other words, prior to attempting any exegesis, the correct text had to be established.27 The bishop himself, however, could not boast of a thorough knowledge of Hebrew or Greek, although he certainly had some ability to compare the Latin translations with Greek texts (and with a few Hebrew words).28 For example, in Ep. 261.5, he noted that, although he did not have Jerome’s translation of the Psalter at hand, he corrected the faulty Latin translations on the basis of Greek manuscripts. In the case of the New Testament, it was paramount for Augustine that the Latin text conformed to the Greek text in various manuscripts “especially those found in the more learned and diligent churches” (maxime qui apud ecclesias doctiores et diligentiores reperiuntur; 2.15.22).29 Although various translations of Scripture differed, Augustine suggested that this very fact needed to be taken as something beneficial rather than as a deterrent (2.12.17). He mentioned Isa 58:7 and 7:9 as examples,30 and contended that different versions of the same text complemented one other (2.12.17).31

26 In Doctr. chr. 2.14.21, Green (cf. De Doctrina Christiana, 79–81) translates the verb conferre (collatis) as “to collect,” but the procedure Augustine seems to have in mind is collating or comparing the manuscripts. 27 Emendatio or textual criticism is explicitly brought up in Doctr. chr. 3.1.1 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 132). 28 E.g., Doctr. chr. 2.12.18, 3.3.7, 4.8 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 74, 76, 138, 222). As early as 394/395, Augustine worked with “Greek copies” (graeca exemplaria; Expostio in epistulam ad Galatas 9.4 [CSEL 84:63]; cf. Faust. 11.2 [CSEL 25/1:314–16]). Later, and despite what he said in Conf. 1.14.23, Augustine was able to translate substantial sections from Basil of Caesarea and Epiphanius from Greek to Latin. See P. Burton, “Augustine and Language,” in A Companion to Augustine, ed. M. Vessey (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012): 113–24; and J. Clackson, “Language,” in Toom, Augustine in Context, 61–67. 29 In Serm. 114B.14 (REAug 39 [1993]:85), Augustine advised, “The Lord’s manuscripts (codices Dominici) are daily on sale . . . buy one for yourself and read it when you have time.” However, he also knew that “certain faulty [or lying] manuscripts” (in quibusdam mendosis codicibus; Enchiridion de fide, spe, et caritate 13.41 [CCSL 46:73]) were in circulation. Hence, the need for “truthful manuscripts” (codicum veritate; Doctr. chr. 3.1.1 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 132])! For the existing textual variety, see D. C. Parker, “The New Testament Text and Versions,” in Paget and Schaper, From the Beginnings to 600, 412–54, esp. 414, 432–52. 30 Initially, it may seem that, while citing Isa 7:9, Augustine had at least some knowledge of the Hebrew text (Doctr. chr. 2.11.16 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 72]). However, in the following section it becomes clear that he learned the original wording of this verse through some literal Greek translations: “[it is] rendered by one translator [interpres] as . . . but by another as . . . ” (cf. Doctr. chr. 2.12.17 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 72, 74]). Later, he also explicitly acknowledged the possibility that one could find a discrepancy between Hebrew and Greek texts (Doctr. chr. 2.15.22 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 80, 82]). 31 For a thorough account of what Augustine says about translation in Doctr. chr. 2.1.1–10.15, see R. S. Schirner, Inspice diligenter codices: Philologische Studien zu Augustins Umgang mit Bibelhandschriften und – übersetzungen, Millennium-Studien 49 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 24–45.

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His own theoretical preference, which is quite consistent with his practice of quoting Scripture, was for the Vetus Latina translation. “Among actual translations the Itala32 should be preferred to all others” (in ipsis autem interpretationibus Itala ceteris praeferatur; 2.15.22). However, as noted above, Augustine was well aware that the pre-Vulgate Latin texts were not uniform.33 Thus, in order to make sure that a given Latin translation was adequate, he suggested that, in the case of the Old Testament, it should be compared to the Greek Septuagint (rather than to any of the Hebrew versions) (2.15.22). Accepting the miraculous story of the unanimous translation of the Septuagint,34 Augustine argued that when the Greek text differed from that of Hebrew, it should be taken as a “fuller meaning” of the scriptural text.35 He believed that it was the Holy Spirit who was inspiring the Greek translators so that all of them understood the text in the same way (2.15.22).36

32 Vetus Latina was known in (still largely bilingual) Italy before Jerome’s attempts at revising the existing Latin translations. Thus, some early Latin versions in northern Italy (including Milan) were known as Itala, and Augustine might have brought some of these with him when he returned to Africa. See Schirner, Inspice diligenter codices, 46–53; and J. Schildenberger, “Die Itala des heiligen Augustinus,” in Colligere Fragmenta: Festschrift Alban Dold zum 70. Geburtstag am 7.7.1952, eds. B. Fischer and V. Fiala, Texte und Arbeiten 1 (Beuron: Kunstverlag, 1952), 84–102, esp. 100–2. However, to use the designation Itala for the whole tradition of pre-Vulgate texts is to fail to acknowledge the existence of other types of texts. See Houghton, Latin New Testament, 16. 33 Augustine, Ep. 71.6 (CSEL 34/2:254–55); Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus 23.41 (CCSL 46: 165–66); cf. Jerome, Ep. 27.2.1–3.1 (CSEL 88:131–33); E. Schulz-Flügel, “Der lateinische Bibeltext im 4. Jahrhundert,” in Augustin Handbuch, ed. V. H. Drecoll (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007): 109–14, esp. 110–11. In fact, even the revisions under Alcuin and Theodulf did not standardize the Latin text of the Vulgate, especially since versions of the Vetus Latina continued to circulate. See R. E. McNally, The Bible in the Early Middle Ages (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1959; repr., Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 22. The remark in Doctr. chr. 2.11.16 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 72) about everyone attempting to make his/her own translation seems to be a rhetorical exaggeration that does not fit well with the manuscript evidence. At Commentarius in epistulas Paulinas (ad Romanos) 5.14 (CSEL 81/1:176), which was written a few years before Doctr. chr., Ambrosiaster noted that “the things which are criticized in Latin manuscripts (in Latinis . . . codicibus) today are found expressed in the same way by the early authors Tertullian, Victorinus, and Cyprian.” 34 This is told in the Letter of Aristeas; for which see R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 2:83–122. 35 In Cons. 2.66.128 (CSEL 43:230), which was written ca. 400, Augustine stated the apparent problem: “It is manifest that the translation which bears the name of the Septuagint differs in some particulars from the text which is found in the Hebrew tongue”; cf. Civ. 15.14, 15.23, 17.20, 18.26, 18.36 (CCSL 48:473–74, 488–92, 586–89, 617, 631–32); Augustine, Contra Gaudentium Donatistarum episcopum 1.31.38 (CSEL 53:237–38); Augustine, Speculum 21 (CSEL 12:112–13). But in Civ. 18.44 (CCSL 48:641), he pointed out that this was really not a problem, because “both [i.e., the Hebrew and Greek versions] being the utterance of one and the same Spirit (unus atque idem spiritus dixit) . . . both are one, and both divine . . . ” (utraque una atque divina est). 36 In Doctr. chr., Augustine did not consider the fact that, in the fourth century, “Septuagint” designated a loose collection of books that were translated over a period of almost four centuries and contained translations from Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as original Greek compositions.

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It seems impossible to ascertain the form of the scriptural text that Augustine used, because it constantly varied.37 In other words, while citing Scripture, Augustine never drew on a particular codex, manuscript, or Latin text.38 Occasionally, he offered free renderings from his memory as well. A further complication is the “Vulgatization” of Augustine’s works. At least some late manuscripts have updated the scriptural citations that are found in Augustine’s writings.39 Curious but noteworthy is that, in Doctr. chr., Augustine tends not to repeat a scriptural citation once he has used it. Exceptions here are 1 Cor 1:25 (Doctr. chr. 1.11.11, 2.13.20) and Titus 1:9 (Doctr. chr. 4.16.33, 4.28.61), which are cited in identical wording and length.40 A significantly more interesting case is 1 Cor 3:7, which is cited both in book 1 (396) and in book 4 (426/427). The wording slightly differs: Doctr. chr. 1.33.36 has neque qui plantat et aliquid neque qui rigat, sed qui incrementum dat Deus; and 4.16.33 neque qui plantat et aliquid neque qui rigat, sed Deus qui incrementum dat. Yet, because the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate are identical here, these citations only tell us either that Augustine changed the word order – either deliberately or because he was citing from memory – or that he used a different codex after a roughly thirty-year hiatus. It is evident that, even after completing the earlier part of Doctr. chr., Augustine remained unaware of Jerome’s translation/revision projects.41 He certainly wanted to have Jerome’s new translation “in order that we may be free, as much as possible, from the ignorance of the Latin translation” (ut et tanta latinorum interpretum, qui qualescumque hoc ausi sunt, quantum possumus imperitia careamus),42 but Jerome complained about the lack of qualified clerks as “the reason why we are not

37 E. Schulz-Flügel, “The Latin Old Testament Tradition,” in From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until 1300), vol. 1, part 1, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, ed. M. Sæbø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996): 642–62, esp. 648. 38 See Bogaert, “Les bibles d’Augustin,” 523; and Burton, Old Latin Gospels, 6. 39 Houghton, “Augustine’s Adoption,” 425. 40 In Doctr. chr. 1.37.41, 2 Cor 5:7 is cited with the conjunction enim but in 2.12.17 it is cited without it (cf. Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 74). Exactly the same things happens with Eph 5:29: Doctr. chr. 1.24.24 includes enim but 1.24.25 does not (cf. Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 32, 34, respectively). The wording and length of Eph 5:27 also differ in Doctr. chr. 1.16.15 and 3.34.49 (cf. Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 26, 184). Since Deut 6:5 is quoted in Rom 13:9–10 (Doctr. chr. 1.30.32 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 42]), Matt 22:37–40 is only cited in its entirety once (cf. Doctr. chr. 1.26.27 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 36]); cf. Doctr. chr. 1.22.21 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 30), which cites 22:37 and 39. 41 For example, in 404/405, Augustine admitted that he did not know about Jerome’s publication of his new translation of the Old Testament (Ep. 82.5.34 [CSEL 34/2:385]). On the other hand, Ep. 27*.2.3 (Jerome’s letter to Aurelius; CSEL 88:132) claims that Jerome’s Quaestionum hebraicarum liber in Genesim had been available in Carthage since 393 – i.e., three or four years before Augustine began Doctr. chr. See C. T. R. Hayward, Saint Jerome’s Hebrew Questions on Genesis, OECS (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 26–27. 42 Augustine, Ep. 82.5.35 (CSEL 34/2:386).

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able to comply with your instructions, especially in regard to that version of the Septuagint which is furnished with distinctive asterisks and obelisks.”43 However, when Augustine finished his Doctr. chr., he explicitly acknowledged the use of Jerome’s translation of the Prophets: “My text [Amos 6:1–6] is not that of the Septuagint . . . but that of the translation from Hebrew into Latin made by the priest Jerome, an expert in both languages” (Non autem secundum Septuaginta interpretes . . . sed sicut ex Hebraeo in Latinum eloquium presbytero Hieronymo utriusque linguae perito interpretante translata sunt; 4.7.15; cf. 4.20.41).

“Macro” and “Micro” Usages of Scripture To assess Augustine’s reception and use of Scripture in Doctr. chr. further, it might be beneficial to introduce a distinction between “macro” and “micro” usages of Scripture. “Macro” usage is citing or alluding to Scripture in order to present a key idea, which has conceptual significance for the whole treatise. The importance of the socalled “macro” usage of Scripture (or a scriptural image) does not have to come from the fact that a certain verse is alluded to, or even explicitly quoted more frequently, but, rather, from its relevance for the entire work. I have identified five “macro” usages of Scripture in Doctr. chr.: John 1:29, John 1:14, Matt 22:37–40, Isa 11:2–3, and 2 Cor 3:6, which are like the five ancient Sees that had to be consulted about important religious matters (2.8.13). “Micro” usage, on the other hand, is citing or alluding to Scripture in order to substantiate a particular argument, illustrate a point, or discourse on a topic. The distinction between “macro” and “micro” usages, or broad and narrow usages, seems to be operative already in the Prologue.44 There is an allegedly scriptural image of a fundamental significance as well as a set of scriptural examples that illustrate specific points. Namely, in Praef. 5, Augustine invoked an image of his pointing finger. Whether it is a vague reference to John the Baptist, who pointed to Christ (John 1:29), is disputable.45 Regardless, a pointing finger – i.e., ostension – is indeed a fundamental concept for Augustine’s scientia signorum in the first three books of Doctr. chr. – the linguistic signa (i.e., the words of Scripture) are pointing to the res (1.2.4–5).46

43 Jerome, Ep. 134.2 (postscript; CSEL 56/1:263). 44 As far as we know, the Praefatio has always been part of Doctr. chr. although, in manuscripts, it sometimes appears as part of book 1. 45 What comes to mind are the teacher’s finger-pointing gestures in Augustine, De magistro 10.34 (CCSL 29:193), his imaginative paraphrase of John 1:29, “John stretched out his finger” (Tract. Ev. Jo. 4.10 [CCSL 36:36]), as well as the long ostensive finger of John the Baptist at the Isenheim Altarpiece by Niclaus of Haguenau and Matthias Grünewald. 46 In Mag. 7.19 (CCSL 29:178), Augustine observes that “gestures themselves are signs” (gestus signa esse).

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An example of the “micro” usage of Scripture in the prologue is found in Augustine’s handling of the insinuatio.47 In order to substantiate his point against various objectors that human teaching (including Augustine’s own interpretative suggestions and guidelines) was indeed beneficial, he used scriptural examples of men who were willing to learn from other humans: Paul (Acts 9:3–8), Cornelius (Acts 10: 23–43), the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26–35), and Moses (Exod 18).48 The list culminates in a citation of 1 Cor 4:7: “What do we possess that we have not received from another?” (Praef. 8).49 The given passages have a “local” significance for the particular point made, vis-à-vis the “macro” usage of passages that have a “global” significance for the whole treatise.

Book 1 Next to ostension (John 1:29), another “macro” usage of Scripture in Doctr. chr. concerns Christology. However, in order to detect the fundamental significance of John 1:14, a few words need to be said about Doctr. chr. in general. The opening sentence of book 1 explains the overall plan of Doctr. chr. The treatise has a twofold purpose – “reading and preaching” (aut legentem praedicantemque; Praef. 5); figuring out the “what” of Scripture and the “how” of communicating the “what” of Scripture. Doctr. chr. 1.1.1, in turn, distinguishes between modus inveniendi and modus proferendi,50 between a “mode of discovering what is to be understood . . . and [a] mode of expressing what has been understood.”51 47 Cf. Cicero, De inventione rhetorica 1.17.23. 48 Praef. 6–7 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 6, 8). In Util. cred. 17.35 (CSEL 25/1:46; R. Kearney, trans., “Advantage of Believing,” in On Christian Belief, part I, vol. 8, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. B. Ramsey [Hyde Park: New City Press, 2005], 107–48, 146–47), Augustine wrote, “If any subject, however lowly and easy to understand, requires a teacher or tutor (doctorem aut magistrum requirit), could there be anything more proud and reckless than to refuse to learn about the books of the divine mysteries from their interpreters (quam divinorum sacramentorum libros, et ab interpretibus suis nolle cognoscere) and then to dare to condemn them without knowing anything about them?” 49 In Augustine’s anti-Pelagian writings, 1 Cor 4:7 is invoked in a theological sense as the “mantra” for highlighting God’s prevenient grace. In Doctr. chr., however, this verse (Quid enim habemus quod non acceptimus? Quod si acceptimus, quid gloriamur quasi non acceperimus?) is employed in a nontheological sense in Praef. 8, which is arguably more in sync with the verse’s original literary context. 50 Cf. Doctr. chr. 2.37.55, 3.37.56, 4.1.1, 4.12.27 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 118, 120, 192, 194, 196, 228, 230). 51 W. S. Babcock, “Caritas and Signification in De doctrina Christiana 1–3,” in De doctrina christiana: A Classic of Western Culture, eds. D. W. H. Arnold and P. Bright, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 9 (Note Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1995): 145–63, 145. Such twofold division is at least partially responsible for the fact that later in history, books 1–3 and book 4 lived separate lives. Eugippius’s Excerpta 246–274 ignored book 4 of Doctr. chr. altogether, and, in the fifteenth

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Another important structural explanation is given in Doctr. chr. 1.2.4–5. It concerns the division between book 1 as well as books 2–3, about “things” (res) and “signs” (signa). In Doctr. chr. 1.2.6, Augustine said that he “will treat things first and signs later” (prius de rebus, postea de signis disseremus). In other words, book 1 is about the res of Scripture,52 and books 2–3 are about the scriptural words as signs.53 Augustine’s reason for such an order of discussion was that signs meant something only when the res they signified was known. That is, the words of Scripture made sense only when that which they pointed to was ascertained and recognized. After introducing his overall plan, Augustine provides an elaborate excursus on the uti/frui distinction (1.3.7–22.39),54 which reinforces, in its own ways, the res/signa scheme. It is an elaborate, multi-level discussion in which Augustine both identifies the main articles of Christian faith55 and makes a christological case for the purpose of Scripture.56 To explicate the notion of “use” (uti), Augustine employs an image of a “transport” (vehiculum) that takes a traveler to his/her destination. As a means, it is for use and not for enjoyment. Analogously, the sensible, created reality – in fact, the whole dispensatio temporalis – is to be “used” (1.35.39) in order to arrive at the “enjoyment” of the ultimate intelligible reality. In Augustine’s words, the task is “to ascertain what is eternal and spiritual from corporeal and temporal things” (ut de corporalibus temporalibusque rebus aeterna et spiritalia capjamus; 1.4.4). The operative scriptural verse here is 1 Cor 7:31, which speaks about “those who use (qui utuntur) the things of the world.” Augustine’s trend of thought is left hanging for a few paragraphs that introduce the res of Scripture. A brief analysis of the articles of the creed / regula fidei extends from Doctr. chr. 1.5.5 to 1.21.19. Augustine began with some remarks about the

century, it was still printed separately under the title De arte praedicandi. See F. Van Fleteren, “De doctrina christiana,” in The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, eds. K. Pollmann and W. Otten (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1:287a–b. 52 H.-J. Sieben, “Die «res» der Bibel: Eine Analyse von Augustinus, De doctr. christ. I-III,” REAug 21 (1975): 72–90. 53 B. D. Jackson, “Semantics and Hermeneutics in Saint Augustine’s De doctrina christiana” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1967), 87–152. 54 These terms are defined in Doctr. chr. 1.4.4 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 14, 16), and they constitute a key conceptual device for the work as a whole. 55 That is, “the things which are objects of our faith” (de rebus continentibus fidem; Doctr. chr. 1.40.44 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 52, 54]). He mentions the Trinity, the incarnation, Christ’s resurrection and ascension, his coming again as a judge, the church, forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection of the body. 56 M. Cameron, “The Christological Substructure of Augustine’s Figurative Exegesis,” in Augustine and the Bible, ed. P. Bright, The Bible Through the Ages 2 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1986): 74–103.

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Trinity.57 Being rather unhappy with what he managed to say about the Trinity, Augustine launched a brief discussion of apophaticism.58 However, next to assuring the readers that the Triune God was indeed transcendent and ineffable, introducing the idea that finite language was inadequate for capturing the Infinite had arguably a secondary function in Doctr. chr. Namely, Scripture is a linguistic entity; that is, it exists in language. But language is a created finite reality, which proves wholly insufficient when used to think or speak about the intelligible and infinite Reality. Just like the other created things, language is for “use.” In fact, everything besides the Creator God is for “use” (1.31.34). Consequently, Scripture is a “vehicle” that takes the readers to the “homeland.”59 It is not something to be “enjoyed” but, rather, something to be used until its utility is exhausted and that which is to be enjoyed is gained (1.22.20).60 All this prepares the ground for a fundamental analogy in Doctr. chr. Augustine focused on the fact that the “Word became flesh” (John 1:14).61 The idea is introduced in Doctr. chr. 1.11.11, and John 1:14 is explicitly quoted in Doctr. chr. 1.13.12: “verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis.” Just as Wisdom appeared in the form of “foolishness,” so too the Son of God appeared “to mortals in a mortal flesh” (in carne mortali mortalibus apparendo; 1.12.12). To explicate, according to his divinity, Christ is the “homeland” to be enjoyed; according to his humanity, Christ “has also made himself the road to our homeland” (viam se quoque nobis fecit ad patriam).62

57 It is significant that the codex that Augustine used evidently included the Johannine Comma at 1 John 5:7–8 (et hi tres unum sunt); cf. Doctr. chr. 1.5.5 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 16). Augustine, Trin. 4.29 and 9.18 (CCSL 50:199, 310) have slightly different wordings of the same clause that was characteristic to some Vetus Latina versions. For the occurrence of the comma Joanneum in the Latin versions of the Bible and in Priscillian’s works, see K. Künstle, Das Comma Johanneum. Auf seine Herkunft Untersucht (Freiburg: Herder, 1905), 30–61. 58 In fact, the topic of apophaticism is introduced already in Praef. 5 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 4, 6). For more on this, see, P. van Geest, The Incomprehensibility of God: Augustine as a Negative Theologian, Late Antique History and Religion (Leuven: Peters, 2011), 58–61. 59 Cf. Plotinus, Enneades 1.6.8 (LCL 440/1:254–59). 60 Doctr. chr. 1.39.43 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 52; citing 1 Cor 13:8, 13 as prooftexts); Tract. Ev. Jo. 35.9 (CCSL 36:322–23); T. Toom, “Augustine on Scripture,” in Augustine and Modern Theology, eds. C. C. Pecknold and T. Toom (London: Bloomsbury, 2013): 75–90, esp. 82–83. By contrast, God is to be enjoyed (1.10.10 and emphatically so in 1.33.37 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 20, 22, 46]). 61 By the time of writing the first books of Doctr. chr., Augustine’s christological views were “orthodox.” B. Dobell, Augustine’s Intellectual Conversion: The Journey from Platonism to Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 75–107. 62 In Civ. 11.2 (CCSL 48:322), Augustine explained that Christ became incarnate so “that man might find a way to man’s God through God made man (ut ad hominis Deum iter esset homini per hominem Deum). . . . For it is as man that He is the Mediator and the Way (1 Tim 2:50)”; cf. Tract. Ev. Jo. 13.4 (CCSL 36:132): “per Christum hominem ad Christum Deum.”

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Christ is “the way by which we could return” (via . . . qui se ipsum nobis qua rediremus; 1.17.16).63 And here is how this translates into Augustine’s project of showing how “things are learnt through signs” (res per signa discuntur; 1.2.2): When we speak, the word which we hold in mind may pass through ears of flesh into the listener’s mind: this is called speech. Our thought, however, is not converted into the same sound, but remains intact in its own home, suffering no diminution from its change as it takes on the form of a word in order to make its way into ears. In the same way the Word of God suffered no change although it became flesh in order to live in us.64

Augustine employed here an ancient distinction between logos endiathetos and logos prophorikos.65 In order to communicate, the hidden mental word had to assume a sensible form (i.e., a sound or a text). This is precisely what the Word accomplished in his incarnation. The invisible and intelligible God became visible and sensible (John 1:14).66 That is, the flesh of Christ became a signifying sensible sign.67 Just as the flesh of Christ was something sensible (and as such can function as a sign), so was Scripture a sensible (visible or audible) phenomenon that functioned as a sign of the intelligible res.68 Thus, the fact of the Word “becoming flesh” enabled Augustine to launch his scientia signorum in the first place. In other words, John 1:14 is the pillar which holds up Augustine’s scientia signorum.

63 John 14:6 is cited in Doctr. chr. 1.34.38 and partially in Praef. 8 (see Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 46, 48, 8). 64 Doctr. chr. 1.13.12 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 22, 24): “Sicuti cum loquimur, ut id quod animo gerimus in audientis animum per aures carneas illabatur, fit sonus verbum quod corde gestamus, et locutio vocatur, nec tamen in eundem sonum cogitatio nostra convertitur, sed apud se manens integra formam vocis qua se insinuet auribus sine aliqua labe suae mutationis assumit, ita verbum Dei non commutatum caro tamen factum est ut habitaret in nobis.” 65 Cf. Augustine, De fide et symbolo 3.4 (CSEL 41:7–8); Trin. 15.20 (CCSL 50A:486–89). See also T. Toom, “The Potential of a Condemned Analogy: Augustine on λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and λόγος προφορικός,” HeyJ 48 (2007): 205–13. 66 Luke 1:2 contends that its account rests on the authority of the “eyewitnesses” of the incarnate God. 67 C. Mayer, Die Zeichen in der geistigen Entwicklung und in der Theologie Augustins. II. Teil: Die antimanichäische Epoche, Cassiciacum 2 (Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1974), 286–93. For a critical assessment of the notion of Christ’s humanity as a sign, see M. Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustine’s Early Figurative Exegesis, OSHT (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 228–31. 68 The incarnation and Scripture are both “a kenosis of the Word.” See I. Bochet and G. Madec, “Écriture et Incarnation,” in La doctrine chrétienne = De doctrina Christiana: Texte critique du CCL, revu et corrigé, Oeuvres de Saint Augustin 11/2, Bibliothèque augustinienne (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1997): 476–77.

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The third “macro” usage of Scripture in Doctr. chr. is arguably the double commandment to love God and one’s neighbor (Matt 22:37–40),69 which is first cited in Doctr. chr. 1.22.21.70 The discussion of this topic extends to 1.30.33.71 The discussion of the double commandment of love – yet another “rule,” regula dilectionis – is sandwiched between the repeated discussions of the uti/frui distinction (1.22.20, 1.32.35–33.37), thereby forming an inclusio. It should also be carefully noted that the double command of love occurs in a larger section that attempts to figure out what Scripture is all about. Determining the overall reference, or the skopos of Scripture, is of utmost importance because parts should always be interpreted in the light of the whole. If love (caritas) is what Scripture is all about, then everything that it says is understood adequately only when a given interpretation promotes the double commandment of love72 – or, as Augustine says, when one’s interpretation “builds up love” (aedificet caritatem; 1.36.41)73: So anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures (Scripturas divinas) or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up double love of God and neighbor (geminam caritatem Dei et proximi), has not yet succeeded in understanding them (1.36.40).

Therefore, Augustine could contend that Scripture taught “nothing but love (non autem praecipit scriptura nisi caritatem) . . . and [the] catholic faith” (catholicam fidem; 3.10.15). In Doctr. chr. 1.34.38, there comes a recapitulation where Augustine tied the passages with “macro” significance together. John 1:14 (“The Word became flesh”) is connected to John 14:6 (“I am the Way”) (both verses being explicitly quoted). It is followed in 1.35.39–36.40 by a repetition of the double commandment of love (Matt 22:37–40). Augustine summarized all of this by observing, “The chief purpose

69 Cf. Rom 13:9–10 (Doctr. chr. 1.30.32, 1.35.39 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 42, 48]), 1 Tim 1:5 (Doctr. chr. 1.26.27, 1.35.39, 1.40.44, 4.28.61 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 36, 48, 52, 54, 278, 280]). 70 Cf. Doctr. chr. 1.26.27 (for a textual variant, see Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 36 n. 53); see also 1.30.32, 2.6.7, 2.7.10, 3.12.20, 3.14.22 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 42, 60, 62, 64, 152, 154). 71 Augustine investigates how comprehensive the double commandment of love really is. Does it include loving one’s body, all kinds of people, angels, and enemies (cf. 1.25.26–30.32; Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42)? 72 Babcock, “Caritas and Signification,” 145–63. 73 Cf. Doctr. chr. 3.10.14–16 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 146, 148); Enchir. 32.121 (CCSL 46: 113–14); Enarrat. Ps. 140.1 (CCSL 40:2025–26); and Augustine, In epistulam Johannis ad Parthos tractatus 10.7 (PL 35:2059). In Doctr. chr. 3.17.25 (cf. Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 156, 158), Augustine considered a more specific case and argued that ambiguous texts should have been given careful consideration “until [their] interpretation can be connected with the realm of love” (donec ad regnum caritatis interpretatio perducatur). The introduction to the double commandment of love in book 1 also has a more “local” significance in Doctr. chr., namely, to try to guarantee that the previous talk about “using” one’s neighbor is not twisted into a questionable teaching. Instead, it should be understood as “using (someone) with love” (cum dilectione uti; 1.33.37 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 46]).

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of all that we have been saying in our discussion of things (de rebus tractamus) is to make it understood that the fulfillment and end of the law and all the divine scriptures is to love the thing which must be enjoyed.”74 Book 1 provides several examples of the “micro” usage of Scripture as well. Suffice it to mention an example of how Augustine conducts his discourse with the help of a set of scriptural images.75 In Doctr. chr. 1.16.15, the church is said to be the body of Christ (Eph 1:23), the bride (Eph 5:22), which consists of different members (Rom 12:4) and yet is “without spot or wrinkle” (Eph 5:27). Markus notes that Augustine’s discussion “reads like a string of digressions . . . held together only by the sequence of the scriptural texts they are strung on.”76 Again, it is Augustine’s deep embeddedness in the “divine discourse” that produced such scripturally seasoned speech.

Books 2–3 Books 2–3 focus on signification, on the scientia signorum.77 Again, the “macro” texts – John the Baptist’s pointing finger (John 1:29) and the flesh of Christ as the Way (John 1:14; 14:6) – function as paradigms for the scriptural words that signify the divine realities. The double commandment of love (Matt 22:37–40), in turn, identifies the overall reference of Scripture (i.e., that to which the words are pointing). Augustine’s more technical discourse on semiotics and hermeneutics continues to appeal to Scripture. I suggest that at least one text in book 2, Isa 11:2–3, has “macro” significance for the whole Doctr. chr.78 Isaiah 11:2–3 addresses the overall disposition of an exegete towards understanding Scripture as well as the idea that whoever teaches Scripture to others should do so “without pride or jealousy” (sine superbia et sine invidia; Praef. 5).79

74 Doctr. chr. 1.35.39 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 48): “Omnium divinarum scripturarum plenitudo et finis esse dilectio rei qua fruendum est.” 75 In fact, the authors of the New Testament had done precisely that – using a set of scriptural images to make their point; cf., e.g., Heb 11. 76 R. Markus, Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996), 36. 77 I have recently explicated his semiotic theory in T. Toom, “Augustine’s Hermeneutics: The Science of the Divinely Given Signs,” in Patristic Theories of Biblical Interpretation: The Latin Fathers, ed. T. Toom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016): 92–107. 78 For a thorough analysis of this passage, see C. van Lierde, “The Teaching of St. Augustine on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit from the Text of Isaiah 11:2–3,” in Augustine: Mystic and Mystagogue, eds. F. Van Fleteren, J. C. Schnaubelt, and J. Reino, Collectanea Augustiniana (New York: Lang, 1994): 5–110. 79 According to the LXX Greek translation, Prov 3:34 (“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble”) is quoted twice in the New Testament (1 Pet 5:5, Jas 4:6) and once in Doctr. chr. 3.23.33.

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“Because human beings fell through pride” (per superbiam), writes Augustine, “[God] used humility (humilitatem) in healing them” (1.14.13). The incarnation of the Son of God functions as the ultimate example of humility that is also paradigmatic for the interpreters of the Word of God.80 Just like his contemporaries, Augustine understood the task of discerning God’s will in Scripture as a moral quest.81 In one of his earlier works, he wrote, “Whoever fancies he can have an insight into truth, while he is yet living a wicked life, is mistaken.”82 Thus, in Doctr. chr. 2.7.9–11, Augustine combined both Judeo-Christian and Neoplatonic ideas of spiritual progress into seven steps – starting from a right disposition and leading to the beatific vision – as he intertwined Isa 11:2–3 (LXX) with a Platonic understanding of conversion from temporal and sensible to eternal and intelligible. On the first step, which is the “fear of God” (timor Dei),83 an exegete is reminded of being merely an ignorant creature who attempts to understand the will of the Creator. This is precisely the reason why an interpreter of Scripture who wants to understand anything should have a disposition of humility (humilitas).84 In his De sermone Domini in monte, Augustine established an epexegetical link between “fear of God” and “humility”: “With good reason, therefore, can the poor in spirit be understood as those who are humble and fear God.”85 Fear of God and/or humility, as the first gift of the Holy Spirit, is the foundation that enables the possession of all the other gifts.86 It “crucifies all our presumptuous impulses” (superbiae motus; 2.7.9). Interestingly, the motive of fear of God / humility is used as an inclusio for the material in (or the rhetorical unit of) Doctr. chr. 2.7.10–9.14, which includes the

80 W. Geerlings, “Christologie 2.1: Christus als exemplum,” in Drecoll, Augustin Handbuch, 434–38; V. H. Drecoll, “Christologie 2.2: Der Christus Humilis,” in Drecoll, Augustin Handbuch, 438–45; and A. Verwilghen, “Jesus Christ: Source of Christian Humility,” in Bright, Augustine and the Bible, 301–12. 81 Cf. Cassian, Institutiones 5.34 (CSEL 17:107). 82 Agon. 13.14 (CSEL 41:118): “Errat autem quisquis putat veritatem se posse cognoscere, cum adhuc nequiter vivat.” 83 As Doctr. chr. 2.7.11 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 64, 66) indicates, the reversal of Isaiah’s list is due to Ps 111:10: “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” 84 This reminder emerges from the personal experience of his youth: “I was not in any state to be able to enter into [Scripture], or to bow my head to climb its steps” (Conf. 3.5.9 [CCSL 27:31]). That is, he was not yet humble enough to understand anything. 85 Serm. Dom. 1.1.3 (CCSL 35:4): “Quapropter recte hic intelleguntur pauperes spiritu humiles et timentes Deum.” 86 There is a reason why Augustine focused on the third step, which is “knowledge” (scientia; Doctr. chr. 2.7.10 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 64]). Knowledge concerns understanding the res of Scripture, the double commandment of love. Exegetes of Scripture are reminded yet again of the overall criterion of interpretation, which was identified in book 1 and was reiterated in Doctr. chr. 2.6.7 and 2.7.10 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 60, 62, 64).

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seven steps of Isa 11:2–3, as well as Augustine’s presentation of the canon of Scripture.87 The frame-texts of inclusio have important implications for that which is said within the frames. In addition, in the form of Matt 11:28–30, and especially verse 29’s “I am gentle and humble in heart,” the humility topos concludes book 2 (2.41.62). It also starts book 3 and, thus, forms another link for the discussion of literal and ambiguous figurative signs. As Augustine moved from assessing the unknown literal signs to assessing the unknown figurative signs in Doctr. chr. 2.16.23, he focused on the knowledge of things (notitia rerum); that is, on the sensible things that could be used for further signification (cf. 3.9.13). His reason for considering the knowledge of things was that “ignorance of things makes figurative expressions unclear” (rerum autem ignorantia facit obscuras figuratas locutions; 2.16.24). As a result, this passage is followed by one of the longest excursuses in Doctr. chr. – a discourse of the usefulness of “secular” learning (2.17.27–42.63), of “all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (cf. Acts 7:22). As a rule, Augustine takes his illustrations from Scripture (e.g., herbs, numbers, musical instruments, superstitions, history, topography, logic, and figures of speech). In other words, in this section, one can find numerous examples of Augustine’s “micro” usage of Scripture. As noted above, Doctr. chr. 2.9.14 and 2.41.62 mention humility and thus, frame the whole discussion of “secular” knowledge via this same concept. Assessing the literal and figurative ambiguous signs in book 3,88 Augustine’s first recommendation for disambiguation is to “punctuate or articulate” (distinxerimus aut pronuntiaverimus; 3.2.2) the passage correctly. This step was necessary, because the text of Scripture – whether in Greek or Latin – was not fixed and lacked reliable punctuation.89 Additional scriptural examples in Doctr. chr. 3.3.6–4.8 concern the cases of determining whether a sentence is a question (e.g., Rom 8:33, 9:30), which intonation is to be used (e.g., John 1:46), what should be the length of a syllable (e.g., Ps 139:15, Gal 5:21), what should be the case of a particular word (accusative or vocative; cf. 1 Thess 3:7), and whether a Latin word/particle should be added if the Greek text does not have it (1 Cor 15:31). In another example, Augustine rejected the “heretical punctuation” (haeretica distinctio; 3.2.3) of John 1:1–2 on the basis of the regula fidei. The “correct” punctuation of Phil 1:22–24, in turn, was determined with the help of a literary context. Both remedies were also applied to public articulation of texts; that is, to the public liturgical reading of Scripture (3.3.6). As Augustine began to consider the figurative ambiguous signs, he cited yet another “macro” text, one which had captured his attention many years before when he heard Ambrose preach on it in Milan: 2 Cor 3:6 (littera occidit, spiritus autem

87 For Augustine, the third stage, “knowledge,” also comprised the knowledge of which books were canonical; cf. Doctr. chr. 2.8.12–13 (Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 66, 68, 70). 88 See T. Toom, “Augustine on Ambiguity,” AugStud 38.2 (2008): 419–33. 89 For punctuation, see E. G. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 9–12; and Houghton, Latin New Testament, 193–94.

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vivificate; 3.5.9).90 This text is relatively easy to misconstrue, but Augustine took it to mean that figurative statements should not be literalized, that is, that they should not to be taken in a “carnal way” (carnaliter; 3.5.9). The “death of the soul” (mors animae; 3.5.9) designates a situation in which an interpreter misses the figurative sense of a given statement as well as the fact that signified things can themselves be signs (cf. 3.6.10–11.13, 2.10.15). Next, Augustine attempted to offer some guidance about how exactly to discern between literal and figurative signs. It is at least arguable that this knotty problem was one of the reasons why he came back to Doctr. chr. and completed it approximately thirty years later.91 After a long break, in 426/427 and in Doctr. chr. 3.25.36, Augustine returned to addressing the issue of how to distinguish between literal and figurative statements. Here emerges another set of issues that affect one’s understanding of Scripture. First, the same word can be used in different senses. Augustine’s examples are all scriptural (e.g., Rev 5:5, 1 Pet 5:8, Matt 10:16, 2 Cor 11:3, John 6:51, Prov 9:17, Rev 17:15, John 7:38). Second, the meanings of the same polysemous word can be determined with their contexts as well as with a principle Scriptura Sacra sui ipsius interpres (3.26.37–27.38). Again, his examples are taken from Scripture, as when he determines the possible meanings of the word “shield” (scutum) with the help of a medley of scriptural texts (Pss 35:2, 5:12, Eph 6:16, 1 Thess 5:8). Third, an exegete of Scripture also needs to pay attention to its figures of speech (3.39.40–41; e.g. Gal 4:24, 1 Cor 13:12), which complicate one’s understanding of what exactly is said and meant. Thus, the section before a critical recommendation of Tyconius’s Liber Regularum or Book of Rules (3.30.42–37.56),92 which ends book 3, adds to one’s impression that Scripture is not at all an unambiguous entity to be received,

90 Cf. Conf. 6.4.6 (CCSL 27:77). Perhaps it would be more correct to call this text a “semi-macro” text since it does not govern the whole of Doctr. chr., but, rather, governs only the lengthy section in which Augustine deliberates on the most difficult case of signs – i.e., on ambiguous figurative ones. 91 Several good solutions have been offered to explain this interruption including: (1) Augustine’s health; (2) his clerical duties; (3) his decision to begin composing Conf.; (4) his hesitation about overtly using Tyconius’s Reg. Although there is no reason to assume that the reason for the stoppage was monocausal, I suggest that Augustine had reached a most complicated hermeneutical problem in Doctr. chr. 3.5.9–24.34 – namely, that he could not state a convincing criterion for distinguishing literal and figurative expressions. This problem might have given him a pause before he eventually decided to affirm a solution that holds good even today: the absurdity criterion (cf. Doctr. chr. 3.29.41 [Green, De Doctrina Christiana, 170, 172]). For the absurdity criterion as such, see G. R. Evans, “Absurditas in Augustine’s Scriptural Commentary,” DRev 99 (1981): 109–18; and R. J. Teske, “Criteria for Figurative Interpretation in St. Augustine,” in Arnold and Bright, De doctrina christiana, 109–22, esp. 111–14. 92 In his Reg., Tyconius cites a great variety of scriptural texts with great frequency. Augustine also cites a great variety and does so with great frequency when he presents his seven rules. However, Augustine does not always follow Tyconius’s choice of scriptural examples; he often inserts his own. It is not without significance that this section includes some of the lengthiest

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but, rather, a complex and relatively vague “thing” that takes a lot of prayerful effort in order to be understood adequately. Augustine wraps up his discussion by saying, “Students of our revered scriptures must be taught to recognize the various kinds of expression (genera locutionum sciant) in the holy scripture” (3.37.56).

Book 4 As Augustine set out in book 4 “to present the rhetorical rules” (rhetorica . . . praecepta) that he “learnt and taught in pagan schools” (in scholis saecularibus; 4.1.2), no discernible new “macro” usages of Scripture stand out. In fact, the first scriptural reference appears only in Doctr. chr. 4.5.7. Moreover, entire topical sections (e.g., 4.12.27–13.29) can proceed without any citation of Scripture at all. However, some of the passages – together with their keywords – that have been identified as “macro” usages also show up in book 4. For example, the humility/pride topos occurs in Doctr. chr. 4.7.16, and the love of God and neighbor topos in 4.15.32 and 4.28.61. Thus, in book 4 Augustine’s handling of Scripture seems to be limited primarily to the “micro” usage – to substantiate his points and provide scriptural examples of various rhetorical tasks (officia) and styles. In other words, in book 4, Scripture functions somewhat differently than in the first three books, for the task is different. It is no longer about discovering the meaning(s) of Scripture but communicating the wisdom it provides (4.5.7). It is as if Augustine the hermeneut has also taken on a role of a “biblical retailer.”93 Now it’s all about sharing and proclaiming! At the end of book 3, Augustine had already announced that, in the next book, he would talk about “presenting (de proferendis) our thoughts to others” (3.37.56). Likewise, Doctr. chr. 4.26.56 sheds light on his procedure: “And when we teach what we have to say with the help of the divine testimonies . . . ” (quid autem agimus divinis testimoniis docendo quod dicimus . . . ). Augustine begins by asking whether the authors of Scripture were eloquent. This time, instead of dismissing the “style(s)” of fishermen, tax-collector, tentmaker, shepherd (Amos), and others as he used to do, Augustine argued that Scripture had, in fact, its own particular style. Scriptural authors had “a rather different eloquence of their own” (per alteram quondam eloquentiam suam; 4.6.9–10).94 In the next paragraph (4.7.11), he provides a Pauline example – drawn from Rom 5:3–5 – which

citations of Scripture in all of Doctr. chr.; cf., e.g., 3.34.48. For more on Tyconius, see the chapter by Hoover in this volume. 93 Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 215–16. 94 In Conf. 9.5.13 (CCSL 27:140), Augustine admitted that, by that time, he had had more practice “in the Lord’s style of language” (in Dominico eloquio).

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demonstrated the eloquent style of Scripture, the wisdom of its author(s), and the way in which the given passage functions as a “micro” usage of a scriptural text in book 4. This is followed by the longest quotation of Scripture in all of Doctr. chr.: 4.7.12 quotes all 225 Latin words of 2 Cor 11:16–30! Having such a lengthy quotation is obviously significant for textual studies since “in all of the Old Latin tradition except for Gospels, far more information is available from citations than it is from manuscripts.”95 Indeed, this long quotation says something important about the Latin versions that Augustine used. Although book 4 was composed late in his life – i.e., in 426 and/or 427 – one of its few Old Testament citations, that of Jer 5:30–31 (cf. 4.14.30), is cited in a version that is largely consistent with the Vetus Latina, but both the Psalms (cf. 4.10.24, 4.14.31) and Amos (cf. 4.7.16) are cited according to the Vulgate.96 Thus, book 4 of Doctr. chr. is like the “mixed text” of several Latin manuscripts in that it combines the readings of both the Vulgate and Vetus Latina. Most interesting, however, is that Augustine’s longer citations of the New Testament are not completely identical with either the Vetus Latina or the Vulgate traditions. Sullivan points out that, since Augustine provides examples of style (where exact wording certainly matters and, thus, citing from memory seems to be ruled out) and since (part of) one of these texts, that of 2 Cor 6:1–9, appears in an identical form in Contra Cresconium Donatistam 1.16.20 (cf. CSEL 52:342–43), the bishop of Hippo evidently quoted from a particular codex which he had at his disposal.97 Augustine’s assessment of rhetorical styles, which begins in Doctr. chr. 4.17.34, continues his methodology of employing scriptural illustrations. Examples of a “restrained” (genus summissum), “mixed” (genus temperatum), and “grand” (genus grande) style are taken from Scripture98: for “restrained,” see Gal 4:21–26; 3:15–18, and 3:19–22; for “mixed,” see 1 Tim 5:1–2; Rom 12:1, 6–16; 13:6–8, and 12–14; and for “grand,” see 1 Cor 6:1–9, 2 Cor 6:2–11, Rom 8:28–39, and Gal 4:10–20. As evident from these quotations, in book 4, the letters of Paul are the portions of Scripture that are cited most often. References to the Old Testament were far more prominent in the

95 Parker, “The New Testament Text and Versions,” 422. 96 T. Sullivan, S. Aureli Augustini Hipponiensis episcopi de doctrina Christiana liber quartus: A Commentary, with a Revised Text, Introduction, and Translation, Catholic University of America Patristic Studies 23 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1930), 14–15, 17. 97 Sullivan, S. Aureli Augustini, 15–16. D. C. Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 110–13, has provided five criteria for evaluating patristic citations of Scripture, one of which is citing a passage more than once in an identical form. 98 A. Primmer, “The Function of the genera docendi in De doctrina Christiana 4,” in Arnold and Bright, De doctrina christiana, 68–86. For classical references, see H. Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study, eds. D. E. Orton and R. D. Anderson (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pars. 1078–82; and Sullivan, S. Aureli Augustini, 8–13.

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earlier part of Doctr. chr. This can be explained – at least partially – by the specific subject matter that is under consideration.

Conclusion In Doctr. chr., Augustine maintained Christian faithfulness to the Christian scriptures in several ways. First, he regarded Scripture as the ultimate authority on faith, morals, and salvation (2.9.14). Second, Scripture was a constant presence in his life and always hovered behind his utterances, even as it continually molded his thinking, speaking, and writing. Third, Augustine structured his treatise with the help of at least five key verses that allowed him to conceptualize the whole and which, in turn, informed every part of the whole. Fourth, Augustine took his illustrations and examples from Scripture and consistently managed to say what he had to say about Scripture with the help of Scripture itself.

For Further Reading Primary Sources Augustine. Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, edited and translated by Roger P. H. Green. OECT. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995. Sullivan, Thérèse. S. Aureli Augustini Hipponiensis episcopi de doctrina christiana liber quartus: A Commentary, with a Revised Text, Introduction, and Translation. Catholic University of America Patristic Studies 23. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1930.

Secondary Sources Bogaert, Pierre-Marie. “Les bibles d’Augustin.” Revue théologique de Louvain 37.4 (2006): 513–31. Breed, Brennan. W. Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History. Indiana Series in Biblical Literature. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2014. Cameron, Michael. “Augustine and Scripture.” In A Companion to Augustine, edited by Mark Vessey, 200–14. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Cameron, Michael. “The Christological Substructure of Augustine’s Figurative Exegesis.” In Augustine and the Bible, edited by Pamela Bright, 74–103. The Bible Through the Ages 2. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1986. Houghton, Hugh A. G. The Latin New Testament: A Guide to Its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. La Bonnardière, Anne-Marie. “Le Canon des divines Écritures.” In Saint Augustin et la Bible, edited by Anne-Marie La Bonnardière, 287–301. Bible de tous les temps 3. Paris: Beauchesne, 1986. Polman, Andries D. R. The Word of God According to St. Augustine. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961.

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Schildenberger, Johannes. “Die Itala des heiligen Augustinus.” In Colligere Fragmenta: Festschrift Alban Dold zum 70. Geburtstag am 7. 7.1952, edited by Bonifatius Fischer and Virgil Fiala, 84–102. Texte und Arbeiten 1. Beuron: Kunstverlag, 1952. Schirner, Rebekka S. Inspice diligenter codices: Philologische Studien zu Augustins Umgang mit Bibelhandschriften und -übersetzungen. Millennium-Studien 49. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015. Schulz-Flügel, Eva. “Der lateinische Bibeltext im 4. Jahrhundert.” In Augustin Handbuch, edited by Volker Henning Drecoll, 109–14. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007. Toom, Tarmo. “Augustine’s Hermeneutics: The Science of the Divinely Given Signs.” In Patristic Theories of Biblical Interpretation: The Latin Fathers, edited by Tarmo Toom, 77–108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Van Fleteren, Frederick, and Joseph C. Schnaubelt, eds. Augustine: Biblical Exegete. Collectanea Augustiniana. New York: Lang, 2004.

Annemaré Kotzé

14 Scripture in Augustine’s Confessiones Introduction Augustine’s Confessiones is a unique work representing a great innovation in ancient literature and defying generic categorization. The uniqueness of Conf. is in no small measure due to Augustine’s inventive use of Scripture within it. The techniques Augustine uses for incorporating scriptural language into his narrative constitute a use of intertextuality that rivals the best of his classical predecessors and contributes to making Conf. a highly complex polyphonic work that deserves a place in any list of the world’s best literature. A careful reading of Conf. in terms of what it says about, and how it employs and interprets, Scripture, furthermore, serves to bring home forcefully a number of characteristics of the reception of the Bible in early Christianity. This chapter argues that references to Scripture in Conf., whether by citation or allusion, remain disappointingly under-researched while also offering indications of the extent to which a more nuanced appreciation of Augustine’s multi-faceted use of Scripture could generate new insights into the work as a whole. In order to do this, the place of Conf. in the trajectory of Augustine’s development is traced in the first section. Then the form (or genre) of the work and the terminological problems associated with attempts to describe Augustine’s techniques of allusion are discussed in that order, before the final section focuses on selected examples from Conf. in order to illuminate the wide variety of ways and the ingenuity with which Augustine incorporates Scripture into his prose. The topic of the reception and use of Scripture in Conf. is rendered doubly interesting not only because Augustine structures the work as a whole so that it culminates in extended exegeses of Scripture in the last three books (here called his explicitly interpretive use of Scripture), but also because he intersperses his own language with scriptural words and phrases in a multitude of ways and to such a degree that it is often difficult to determine where such an allusion begins and where it ends (here called the indirect allusive use of Scripture). In his Augustine the Reader,1 Brian Stock makes a convincing argument that what Augustine presents in Conf. is, from beginning to end, the story of how he was gradually shaped to become a reader of Scripture.

1 B. Stock, Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge and the Ethics of Interpretation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). *Annemaré Kotzé, Stellenbosch University https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-015

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The use of Scripture in Conf. is a subject that for decades has been regularly treated in scholarship,2 even though it is yet to be treated exhaustively. This is due in part to the fact that the majority of research on Conf. still concerns theological, philosophical, and historical issues, while studies from a literary perspective represent only a small percentage of publications in the field. In addition, new developments in the field of intertextuality have provided new frameworks and terminology that are particularly suited to describing the complicated webs of meaning created by the intertextual relationship between Conf. and antecedent literature, of which Scripture is by far the most prominent. More work needs to be done in this area. In fact, because the potential of many of the features of scriptural usage in Conf. to contribute significantly to our understanding of the work still remains unexplored, in many instances this chapter can only point to the possibilities and offer some examples of how a focus on the use of Scripture in Conf. may enhance the reader’s understanding. It is hoped that this may provide the impetus for further research on one of the most fascinating dimensions of what is arguably Augustine’s most popular work.

Confessions’ Place within the Trajectory of Augustine’s Development A quick look at the place of Conf. within the trajectory of Augustine’s career helps to put his use of Scripture in this work into perspective. Confessiones is habitually characterized as one of Augustine’s early works, and keeping in mind the fact that it holds a place near the beginning of Augustine’s illustrious career as a professional Catholic reader and exegete of the Bible may aid efforts to explore how he quotes and interprets Scripture here. An overview of other matters that occupied Augustine’s

2 See, e.g., G. N. Knauer, Psalmenzitate in Augustins Konfessionen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1955); G. N. Knauer, “Peregrinatio Animae,” Hermes 85 (1957): 216–48; K. Grotz, “Warum bringt Augustin in den letzten Büchern seiner Confessiones eine Auslegung der Genesis?” (PhD diss., Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, 1970); L. Ferrari, “The Theme of the Prodigal Son in Augustine’s Confessions,” Recherches augustiniennes et patristiques 12 (1977): 105–18; H.-J. Sieben, “Der Psalter und die Bekehrung der VOCES und AFFECTUS: Zu Augustinus, Conf. IX, 4.6 und X, 33,” TP 52 (1977): 481–97; K. Kienzler, “Der Aufbau der ‘Confessiones’ des Augustinus im Spiegel der Bibelzitate,” Recherches augustiniennes et patristiques 24 (1989): 123–64; I. Bochet, “Interprétation scriptuaire et comprehension de soi: Du ‘De doctrina christiana’ aux ‘Confessions’ de saint Augustin,” in Comprendre et interpreter: La paradigme herméneutique de la raison, ed. J. Greisch (Paris: Beauchesne, 1993): 21–50; P. Burns, “Augustine’s Distinctive Use of the Psalms in the Confessions: The Role of Music and Recitation,” AugStud 24 (1993): 133–46; M. C. McCarthy, “Augustine’s Mixed Feelings: Vergil’s Aeneid and the Psalms of David in the Confessions,” HTR 102 (2009): 453–79; and J. S. Lehman “‘As I read, I was set on fire’: On the Psalms in Augustine’s Confessions,” Logos 16 (2013): 160–84.

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mind in the years before and during the writing of Conf. can also help create a more nuanced understanding of his reception and use of Scripture in this work. First, it would be good to remember that Augustine must have already come to know at least certain sections of the New Testament quite well during the decade or so that he was a Manichaean “hearer” (i.e., between 373 and 386 CE). He was probably sharing enthusiastically, for example, in Manichaean admiration for Paul and in furthering their arguments against the Old Testament.3 Yet, by 392, after an additional six years of serious engagement with Scripture as a devoted Catholic, presumably including a sabbatical period granted for the express purpose of studying Scripture (and formally requested by Augustine in 391),4 we see the Manichaean Fortunatus – in the public debate preserved as Augustine’s Contra Fortunatum – almost getting the better of Augustine by the deftness with which he quotes and interprets Paul against Augustine’s Catholic stance.5 This was followed by a period of regular use of Scripture in the course of his liturgical duties in the see of Hippo. Thus, when Augustine starts work on Conf. he has behind him at least twenty years of experience with Scripture, including some intellectually advanced projects involving systematic exegesis. But before saying more about Augustine’s projects of interpreting Scripture, it bears repetition that the writing of Conf. largely overlaps with a period of intense anti-Manichaean writing and certainly a period of urgent desire to break through to an audience of former Manichaean friends, a preoccupation that, as I have elsewhere argued, also features prominently in Conf.6 This is reflected, for example, in the prominent use in Conf. of Matt 7:7 (“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”), a verse the Manichaeans were fond of quoting, as Augustine explicitly remarks in Mor. eccl. mor. Manich. 17.31. The verse further plays an important role throughout Conf., appearing in the opening paragraph and concluding the work, while allusion to the various elements of the verse form the backbone of the prolonged description of Augustine’s search for God in the first eight books of Conf. (see below). The sustained efforts in Conf. to show the harmony between the Old and New Testaments was also a central tenet of his efforts to dissuade Manichaeans from rejecting the Old Testament. Likewise, the focus on issues concerning the nature of God and Christ as well as on the nature of evil in Conf. reflects Augustine’s ongoing quest to show up the errors of Manichaean (materialistic) ways of thinking. In

3 For more on Augustine’s exposure to Paul while among the Manichaeans, see the contribution of Drecoll in this volume. 4 See Augustine, Ep. 21 (CSEL 34/1:49–54). 5 M. J. Coombes, “Augustine’s Contra Fortunatum: Perspectives from Critical Discourse Analysis and Argumentation Theory,” (PhD diss., Stellenbosch University, 2014). 6 A. Kotzé, Augustine’s Confessions: Communicative Purpose and Audience (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 88–94 et passim.

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addition, the choice of the creation story in Gen 1 as the text Augustine explores in the last three books of Conf. was probably determined to a great extent by his desire to show that the Manichaean creation story is far surpassed by that in Gen 1 if the latter is interpreted in the way he demonstrates. The protracted commentary on the opening words of Genesis (“in the beginning”) is also largely prompted by the question, “What did your God do before he created heaven and earth?,” one which the Manichaeans used effectively in their efforts to unsettle Catholics. A look at Augustine’s exegetical endeavors in the period preceding the writing of Conf. may, as said before, illuminate some of his concerns in Conf. As scholars like Burns point out,7 the prominent place of references to the Psalms in Conf. must be read against the background of Augustine’s efforts to systematically interpret the Psalms in the homilies of the Enarrationes in Psalmos, a project that he started more or less in the same period as when he began Conf. Further, Fredriksen,8 in her valuable assessment of Augustine’s thought and compositional activity in the period immediately preceding the writing of Conf., highlights his repeated efforts to interpret Genesis. At this stage, Augustine wrangled consciously with a spectrum of interpretive models, ranging from a fully allegorical reading in De Genesi contra Manichaeos in 388 towards efforts at reading more literally in his De Genesi ad litteram inperfectus of 393, and a growing commitment to reading Scripture secundum historicam proprietatem.9 These concerns are also explicitly on the table in the long discussion of the problems of interpretation in book 12 and Augustine’s distinction between figural and literal interpretations in book 13. Another significant development flowing from Augustine’s commitment to reading Scripture within its historical context that Fredriksen highlights is his growing preoccupation with Paul’s biography (a feature that runs parallel to his exploration of Paul’s theology). In all probability, he develops this in the course of his engagement with the Pauline letters, particularly his commentaries on Romans and Galatians, during the period of “intense exegetical activity” preceding the writing of Conf.10 Augustine’s interest in the historical Paul, as Fredriksen points out, transformed his thinking on grace and free will.11 Concern with these two issues runs like a leitmotif through Augustine’s presentation of his life story in Conf., from the constant reiteration of how God sought him even when he was not searching for God, to some probing explorations of the human will in book 8. Fredriksen’s discussion of Augustine’s developing thought on the problems besetting the interpretation of Scripture and his awareness of the difficulties inherent

7 Burns, “Augustine’s Distinctive Use of the Psalms,” 134. 8 P. Fredriksen, “The Confessions as Autobiography,” in A Companion to Augustine, ed. M. Vessey (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012): 87–98, esp. 92. 9 Fredriksen, “Confessions as Autobiography,” 93. 10 Fredriksen, “Confessions as Autobiography,” 93. 11 Fredriksen, “Confessions as Autobiography,” 93.

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in the nature of language,12 which he ascribes to the fall of man and also treats in De doctrina christiana (Doctr. chr.), further serves to demonstrate how Conf. is intertwined with other concerns of the period. In Conf., as in Doctr. chr., Augustine shows a constant awareness of the problems of communication, expressed explicitly, for example, in Conf. 10.3.3. In a consideration of the place of Conf. within the trajectory of Augustine’s development, the timing and the duration of its composition are also relevant. Most scholars assume that Conf. was written over a number of years between 397 and 400 or 401 CE; the complexity and depth of the nuances as well as the challenges the work has posed to scholarship over the ages certainly make an extended period of composition intuitively plausible for the modern reader. Yet, Lane Fox’s recent arguments to the effect that Conf. may have been written in one creative surge over a relatively small number of weeks offers an attractive new way of viewing Conf.13 Lane Fox bases his arguments on a careful consideration of both the historical circumstances under which the work may have been written (perhaps during a period when Augustine suffered from hemorrhoids and was temporarily exempt from his normal duties as a pastor), as well as the particular conditions of composition – including the cultural – within which an author steeped in rhetorical traditions operated. This type of hypothesis has implications also for how the omnipresence of words from Scripture in Conf. is viewed, for it complements assumptions that Augustine quoted from memory rather than via careful referencing to and cross-referencing of the texts of the various biblical books.14 And as far as quoting by heart is concerned, Burns has presented convincing arguments regarding the memorizing and singing of the Psalms as part of the liturgy,15 a practice that certainly would have enabled Augustine to quote at least the Psalms from memory. The Augustine embarking on his Conf. was a man who for some time had been deeply involved with Scripture. Still, both his appropriation of scriptural language and the interpretation of Scripture presented in Conf. shows us an Augustine breaking new ground in his exploitation of the challenges and opportunities encountered when reading Scripture.

12 Fredriksen, “Confessions as Autobiography,” 93–94. 13 R. L. Fox, Augustine: Conversions to Confessions (New York: Penguin, 2015), 522–39. This argument was hinted at by G. Wills, Augustine’s Confessions: A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 10. 14 M. Cameron, “Enarrationes in Psalmos,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. A. D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999): 290–96, 290, noted that Augustine possessed “a mind with an astonishing command of the Scriptures, one that held together a dense intertextual latticework wherein a single work might hide the secret passage to half a dozen others.” 15 Burns, “Augustine’s Distinctive Use of the Psalms.”

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The Form of Confessions While many scholars are content to call Conf. sui generis and to not concern themselves further with its genre, Augustine’s creative manipulation of the conventions of genre means, in fact, that a careful consideration of issues related to genre could constitute an essential element of the background against which this complex work may be viewed. In spite of the fact that genre as a category and, specifically, the genre of Conf. are so problematic – Conybeare asserts categorically that “to read the Confessions through the lens of genre – any genre – is a mistake”16 – the work did not originate in a literary vacuum, and some consideration of its generic features may be useful. However, describing the genre of Conf. remains exceedingly difficult. The way in which scriptural language is woven into the fabric of the prose arguably makes one of the biggest contributions to the generic uniqueness of the work, and an analysis of the use of Scripture in Conf. may have important perspectives to offer on the genre of the work and, by implication, on how it should or, at least, may, be read. Several different generic labels are commonly attached to Conf. Of these the most frequently used are autobiography (for books 1–10) and exegesis (for books 11–13). But it is important to read the autobiographical section within a tradition of first-person narratives that have apologetic, protreptic, and paraenetical communicative purposes. My research to date has focused on the intersection between autobiographical writing and protreptic, which was associated with first-person narration as early as Plato’s Apology of Socrates (Apologia) and afterwards in works as diverse as Isocrates’s Antidosis, Plato’s Seventh Letter, and Dio Chrysostom’s Banishment (De exilio), or Christian works like Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (Dialogus cum Tryphone) and Cyprian of Carthage’s Ad Donatum.17 Insights like these illuminate the intersection of the conventions of autobiographical narrative and the aim to convert readers to a Catholic point of view in Conf. from a different angle. The exegesis at the end of Conf. does comprise interpretations of the creation story in Gen 1, but it is much more. The last books might be more aptly described as prayerful confession or meditation. For example, in 11.2.2, Augustine uses the verbs meditari and confiteri to say to God: “I have long burned to meditate about your law, and there confess to you.”18 With Lane Fox’s arguments in mind, the last three books may perhaps even be read as an extended report of one occasion of inspired

16 C. Conybeare, “Reading the Confessions,” in Vessey, Companion to Augustine, 99–110, 99. 17 See A. Kotzé, “Perspectives on Three Instances of Greek Autobiographical Writing from the Fourth Century BCE,” CW 109 (2015): 39–67. 18 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of Conf. are those of M. Boulding as published in The Confessions, ed. J. E. Rotelle. part I, vol. 1, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1997). For this quotation, see 285.

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meditative reading. The truly unique quality of both parts of Conf. and the cohesion between the parts are largely due to the fact that Augustine is able to sustain the prayer-like feel throughout, a feature that, in turn, is derived to a great extent from the sustained “biblical register” of the work as a whole.19 To return to descriptions of Conf.’s genre: Fredriksen, for example, evocatively describes Conf. as “a brilliant and profoundly original work of creative theology [which] combines biblical interpretation, late Platonism, and anti-Manichaean polemic with haunting autobiographical narrative.”20 Rigby’s formulation offers us a different perspective on the multifaceted nature of Conf. and highlights the difficulty of pinpointing exactly what the work is, despite the fact that, like Fredriksen, he uses the term genre in a wide and general sense: Augustine’s confessio draws on several genres: praise, hymn, lyric, lamentation, and repentance. It unites speculation with scriptural exegesis and exhortation with testimony, soliloquy with wisdom. Confessio culminates in the self-portrait of Augustine the bishop, seeker after wisdom, exegete, philosopher-theologian, seated in his study at Hippo Regius, immersed in these diverse genres as he writes his Confessions within the narrative of salvation history.21

What is more, as Lehman argues, it is the use of the language of the Psalms in Conf. that contributes significantly to the “literary and theological integrity” as well as the generic distinctiveness of the work.22 The tone set by the interweaving of quotations from the Psalms in the opening lines of the first paragraph is significant. Lehman points out how carefully Augustine, the trained rhetorician, would have considered these opening words. It is exactly the Psalm-like quality of these words that makes clear from the outset that Conf. is offered as an intimate, lyrical prayer to God and that much of its meaning depends on reading it in the way the Psalter would be read (or sung) within the early church. Here too the quotation from Enarrat. Ps. 30[2].3.1, with which Lehman starts his article, provides a window onto Augustine’s possible objectives with saturating Conf. with words from the Psalms: “if the psalm prays, you pray, if it laments, you lament, if it exults, you rejoice; if it hopes, you hope; if it fears, you fear. Everything written here is a mirror for us.”23 This provides an indirect key to what scholars mean when they describe Conf. as a protreptic work: like reading the Psalms, reading Conf. cannot be a passive endeavor; it forces the reader to either pray with Augustine and be strengthened in the faith or imitate his trajectory and convert to Catholic Christianity.24

19 P. Burton, Language in the Confessions of Augustine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 131. 20 Fredriksen, “Confessions as Autobiography,” 87. 21 P. Rigby, The Theology of Augustine’s Confessions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 6. 22 Lehman “‘As I read, I was set on fire,’” 160. 23 Lehman “‘As I read, I was set on fire,’” 160. 24 On the genre of Conf. see also F. Young, “The Confessions of St Augustine: What Is the Genre of This Work?,” AugStud 30 (1999): 1–16.

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Nevertheless, it remains true that it is almost impossible to describe the genre of Conf. in one word or phrase.25 Yet, when one takes into account the scriptural register that unifies Conf., calling the work a sustained hymn, or as Sieben does, a “biographically amplified Psalterium,”26 one comes closer to providing a phrase that does its genre more justice than do most other labels. Although there are sections of Conf. where the prose becomes more straightforwardly narrative or argumentative and the number of scriptural allusions declines sharply, even in these sections the prayer-like tone established from the outset is easily sustained through the use of vocatives addressing God and single words echoing scriptural contexts. In other words, the scriptural color that a majority of passages acquires through the use of longer or shorter, direct and indirect quotations from Scripture facilitates the recognition of single words or modified phrases from Scripture as quotations or allusions in many other places, even where the footnotes or indices of editions and/ or translations of Conf. may not indicate them. In spite of her aversion to assigning a genre to Conf., even Conybeare seems close to a judgement much like that of Sieben when she uses the term “song” to describe Conf., saying that “Confessions is, quite simply, a song” and “singing is its natural mode.”27 She argues, convincingly, that the intertwined quotations of the Psalms in the work’s opening and the presence of the Psalms throughout it is what contributes most significantly to the song-like quality of the work.

Problems Inherent in Describing Augustine’s Use of Scripture An issue related to both the generic expectations and the reception of Conf. by its first audiences is the extent to which such readers would have recognized the allusions to Scripture and how such recognition would have influenced their reading. Philip Burton creates an illuminating picture of the intricate trail of allusions readers would have had to follow (in a specific instance) and emphasizes that not all readers may have registered the allusions equally well.28 While it remains difficult for scholars to determine the way in which the scriptural echoes in Conf. may have functioned for Augustine’s first readers, the exigencies of an oral culture where writing materials and books were relatively expensive and scarce must be kept in mind. As with all ancient literary works, it is of course

25 Fredriksen, “Confessions as Autobiography,” 91, observes that “the very structure of his book complicates any single attempt to define it.” 26 Sieben, “Der Psalter und die Bekehrung,” 484. 27 Conybeare, “Reading the Confessions,” 101. 28 Burton, Language in the Confessions, 123.

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true that not every reader or hearer would “get” all the allusions, but it is reasonable to assume that a considerable number of people in Augustine’s immediate sphere, and even some of those in the wider circle of his congregation would have known large sections of Scripture by heart and would have been able to recognize the scriptural allusions instantly. As noted previously, above and beyond the explicit discussions and interpretations of Scripture in Conf., the presence of words from a broad spectrum of biblical books pervades its language from the beginning to the end. It is, however, very difficult to describe with exactness the intricate and varied ways in which Augustine employs words from Scripture to construct his sentences. The issue is complicated by the lack of consensus in scholarship around the terminology for describing the feature that is frequently referred to by various names, including: reference, citation, quotation, borrowing, allusion, echo, and intertextual links. Sorting out the terminological conundrum or presenting a complete picture of the various ways in which Conf. echoes Scripture would exceed the scope of this chapter. The compromise made here is to use the terms interchangeably to some extent but to veer towards allusion or echo in the case of the more oblique references and towards quotation or citation in the case of verbatim reproductions of words from Scripture. But such clear distinctions are often simply not possible and this use of the terminology constitutes an imperfect compromise. While much work remains to be done on Augustine’s use of Scripture in Conf. and while this chapter cannot aspire to be an exhaustive treatment of the subject, the following pages will include a selection of the most striking techniques that Augustine uses, all of which will be illustrated via select examples. Augustine’s quotation of, or allusion to, Scripture varies from verbatim long quotations on one end of the spectrum, through verbatim shorter quotations and transformed quotations of various length, to the use of single words on the other end of the spectrum. This is a technique that often makes it difficult to ascertain whether the use of a specific word ought to be regarded as an allusion at all. In addition to these variations, there are many instances of what is here called cumulative allusion, that is, repeated reference to a specific scriptural passage in a way that allows each new use of the word or words in question to evoke previous uses of the same passage and, in this way, to become cumulatively laden with meaning. (See, e.g., the discussion of allusions to Matt 7:7 in Conf. below.) The difficulty of precisely pinpointing many of the allusions in Conf. is visible in editions and translations that try to indicate where Scripture is referenced. For example, the Skutella edition frequently uses the abbreviation “cf.” to indicate that, although no direct quotation takes place, an echo of a specific verse does occur. In Boulding’s translation, the word “see” is used in the majority of instances of references to the Bible in order to indicate this phenomenon. This reflects the perception that references to Scripture in Conf. predominantly lean towards being more indirect and are most frequently not verbatim full quotations.

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Another problem besetting the identification of quotations and allusions and determining to what extent they are verbatim arises from the fact that, in the majority of instances, we do not have a dependable record of the Latin translations Augustine would have used before the Vulgate became available to him. Also relevant here is the fact that, even when it became available, it did not meet with his immediate approval.29 Although there are places where scholars debate the presence or absence of an allusion to Scripture – not to mention the presence or absence of faint echoes of Scripture – agreement regarding many of the allusions predominates. Moreover, it is relatively easy to find texts or translations that the contemporary reader can use as guides for locating the allusions. Before transitioning to selected examples of Augustine’s use of Scripture, the salient characteristics of Augustine’s attitude and approach to the divine writings as it emerges from Conf. should be mentioned. Augustine firmly believed that Scripture is true and its authority is absolute (see, e.g., Conf. 6.5.8, 12.18.27, 12.20.29); he believed that Scripture has various levels of meaning that are accessible to different types of readers (see, e.g., Conf. 6.5.8, 12.26.36) and emphasizes the humility that must characterize the reader (see, e.g., Conf. 3.5.9) as well as the humility of the discourse of Scripture itself (see, e.g., Conf. 12.27.37). Crucially, in Conf., as in the first three books of Doctr. chr., Augustine is emphatic that interpretation must be guided by the principle of caritas (cf., e.g., Conf. 12.18.27, 12.25.35, 12.30.41).

Selected Examples of the Use of Scripture in Confessions The rest of this chapter is structured around the two distinct ways in which Augustine makes use of Scripture in Conf.: via indirect allusions and via direct citations and interpretations. On the one hand, he infuses his own language throughout with the language of Scripture, very often so subtly that the allusions are easy to miss; on the other hand, he presents an analysis of the creation story in Gen 1 as well as of a number of other passages. Significantly enough, the indirect allusive use of Scripture continues in the same manner in the explicit interpretive sections and there are passages in which the two types of use overlap and merge to an even greater extent, as the discussion below will demonstrate. As far as the first technique is concerned, a cursory examination of the content and locations of Augustine’s allusions is given before an attempt is made to

29 See the discussion by J. J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 1:101, as well as the chapter by Houghton in this volume.

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demonstrate the various techniques that he employs to incorporate scriptural language into the fiber of the narrative. The latter modus operandi requires the selection of passages in which these techniques are exemplified. First a discussion of allusions to Matt 7:7 and a brief reference to Romans are provided. After this follow a look at the way in which Augustine uses the words of Scripture in order to render the contents of Neoplatonic teachings in book 7 and a short discussion of Augustine’s use of the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15 to structure his own story. The next section then takes a cursory look at the reading of Ps 4 that Augustine presents in book 9. The techniques in this latter instance seem to function somewhere between the indirect allusive and the explicit interpretive uses of Scripture. In order to highlight the second main technique of using Scripture in Conf., namely the explicit interpretive use, the last part of the chapter examines the way in which Augustine interprets the creation story in Gen 1.

Examples of the Indirect Allusive Use An exhaustive overview and analysis of the various scriptural passages that Augustine alludes to in Conf. is not possible within the confines of one chapter. The type of systematic research that Knauer did on the citations of the Psalms in Conf. merits being repeated also for other biblical books and in terms of both quotations and allusions.30 It is, however, possible to give a very short and impressionistic overview of what Augustine quotes where he quotes it. Even a cursory investigation of references to Scripture in Conf. makes clear that, while some sections or books appear to be favored and are cited more frequently, the majority of the biblical books that Augustine lists in Doctr. chr. (cf. 2.8.13) as canonical are in fact quoted, either intermittently or repeatedly, in the course of the work. The only notable exceptions seem to be the books of the minor prophets (of which only Hosea, Joel, Habakkuk, and Malachi are cited even a few times) as well as Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and Nehemiah (all of which Augustine regarded as part of the historical books). Furthermore, it is rare to find a long passage in Conf. in which no scriptural allusions occur. One notable exception is 10.8.12–19.28, when Augustine describes himself as “looking for God in himself,” that is, “in the fields of memory,”31 and where only one biblical allusion (along with a handful to classical texts) is indicated in the Skutella text. More generally, the rest of book 10 is close on the heels of book 13 in terms of the frequency of scriptural allusion. Apart from the Psalms, there are a number of scriptural passages that Augustine seems to favor. A rough

30 Knauer, Psalmenzitate. 31 These are headings used by Boulding; cf. WSA I/1:244.

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survey points towards Matthew, Luke, John, Romans, as well as both 1–2 Corinthians as among the most quoted biblical books. More research is bound to yield even more valuable insights along these same lines. I will now turn to selected instances of allusion in Conf. in order to demonstrate some of Augustine’s most striking techniques. Any such discussion has to start with the Psalms. The fact that Conf. constitutes some of the most beautiful lyrical and poetic prose composed in Latin depends to a large extent on the ways words from the Psalms are used, as well as its imitation of the tone and atmosphere of an intimate address to God that predominates in the Psalms (which were, after all, originally composed as poetry). As already noted, the opening of Conf., which strings together words from three different psalms, is significant not only for setting the tone of the work as a whole but also for the way in which it presages the extent to which Augustine’s language will be suffused with words evoking the contents and the spirit of the Psalms throughout. References to the Psalms occur much more frequently than references to other texts from the Old Testament or to texts from the New Testament.32 Burns also points out that Psalm citations are more dominant in the first ten books of Conf. than they are in the last three, a feature which is partly explained by the fact that, in the last three books, the text of Gen 1 is the main object of discussion. Knauer already demonstrated that the Psalm citations in Conf. do more than lend Augustine’s language a lyrical and poetic feel.33 Intensified evocation of Psalm texts at specific moments in the narrative also mark these as moments of special import. Yet, it is the sustained presence of the language of the Psalms that contributes most to maintaining the prayerful and lyrical tone of Conf. Even in the last three books, where allusion to the Psalms is less frequent, there never occurs a lengthy passage that lacks references to the Psalms, a detail which a perusal of Boulding’s translation or Skutella’s text will confirm. Before moving on to allusions to Matt 7:7 as an instance of the cumulative use of a section of Scripture in a way that rivals Vergil’s cumulative references to wounding, fire, and madness in book 4 of the Aeneid, a short digression on an obvious but important fact about the intertextual relationship between Conf. and Scripture may be useful. In his use of words and phrases from the biblical canon, Augustine contends with his great Latin predecessors like Cicero and Vergil in their use of allusion to, among other authors, Plato and Homer. Augustine’s big innovation, however, is to make Scripture his main source. And just as Cicero uses allusion to place specific writings in the tradition of the philosophical dialogue or just as Vergil uses clear references to the Iliad and the Odyssey in the opening lines of the Aeneid to place himself in the great tradition of classical epic, so perhaps both

32 Burns, “Augustine’s Distinctive Use of the Psalms,” 133, which includes a statistical analysis. 33 Knauer, Psalmenzitate, 133–61.

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Augustine’s opening use of Psalm quotations and the predominance of his allusion to Scripture throughout Conf. contain important indications for how he may have wanted Conf. to be read. As he implies in Conf. 10.3.3, the reader should not be following the story of his life out of mere curiosity but, rather, to turn inwards and to examine her own life in the light of what she reads. This is an appropriate juncture to return to the use of Matt 7:7. Although this verse is also quoted verbatim and in full in book 12, the first occurrence of the notion of seeking and finding in Conf. 1.1.1 (which is flagged as an allusion to Matt 7:7 in the Skutella text, by O’Donnell, and in Boulding’s translation) is much abbreviated. It is oblique, with changed verb forms, and it is intertwined with other biblical phrases (from Ps 21:27, Rom 10:14) that complement and expand the meaning of Matt 7:7: “those who seek the Lord will praise him, for as they seek they find him, and finding him they will praise him.” Augustine frequently uses this technique: he simultaneously weaves portions of more than one scriptural section into a sentence, so that the context of each of the original sections is pulled into his utterance but, at the same time, is modified by the addition of words from other scriptural loci. The cumulative use of Matt 7:7 in Conf. is seen as the work progresses and as the verbs quaerere and invenire (from the first of the three sets of action and counter-action that are represented in the verse) are consistently associated with the quest for God represented in the work. The result is that the presence of the contents of Matt 7:7 is far more pervasive than a survey of quotations or allusions as indicated by editors or translators can show.34 A comparison between the relatively limited list of allusions to Matt 7:7 in O’Donnell on the one hand,35 and my own discussion of many more oblique allusions on the other hand,36 points to the way in which single words (e.g., forms of quaerere) or word pairs (e.g., forms of quaerere and invenire) become cumulatively laden with meaning as the narrative progresses. O’Donnell correctly indicates the quotations of Matt 7:7 that occur in book 1 (1.1.1), book 6 (6.4.5, 6.11.18, 6.11.20), book 11 (11.2.3, 11.22.28), book 12 (12.1.1, 12.12.15, 12.15.22, 12.24.33), and book 13 (13.38.53, which are, by the way, the last words of Conf.). But, if the many other occurrences of isolated words or phrases are taken into account, it becomes clear that the power of Matt 7:7 and the imagery associated with it are in fact far more prevalent throughout Conf. than reliance on O’Donnell’s list may indicate.37 The use of Matt 7:7 in the last three books is different from its use in the preceding books in a number of respects. On the one hand, in the first ten books it is used

34 For a more in-depth analysis see Kotzé, Augustine’s Confessions, 134–47. 35 O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, 2:15–16. 36 Kotzé, Augustine’s Confessions, 134–47. 37 A list of additional places where forms of quaerere and/or invenire occur in the first eight books of Conf. confirm the ubiquity of the verse in the work. See Conf. 1.6.10, 2.2.4, 3.6.11, 4.12.18, 5.3.4–5, 6.1.1, 6.5.8, 7.5.7, 8.1.2 (CCSL 27:5, 19, 33, 50, 58–59, 73, 78, 96, 113).

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as a framing device, and longer and more explicit quotations occur in combination with the one-word allusions that serve to conjure up verse 7. On the other hand, in the last three books, the object of Augustine’s quest, what he is searching, asking, or knocking for, is no longer presented as finding God. It now becomes finding the meaning of Scripture: “the deeper meanings of your words.”38 One very interesting aspect of Augustine’s use of Matt 7:7 in Conf. is the direct association he establishes between the third pair of actions in the verse (knocking and opening) and reading Scripture. The verb pulsare is used to denote various aspects of God’s actions to reach out to human beings (e.g., in 10.31.46 where God is described as “one who knocks on my ears,”39 or humans searching for God (e.g., in 6.11.20, “if I had beaten upon your ears with my inward groans”), as well as the effect of Scripture on the reader (e.g., in 12.1.1, “the words of your holy scripture have knocked at the door of my heart”), but it is primarily used to describe Augustine’s efforts to understand Scripture, as these are presented in books 11–13. Thus, in Conf. 11.2.2 Augustine affirms his desire to meditate upon Scripture, his need to serve his brethren, and his desire to understand Scripture. It is in expressing the last of these that he uses the image of the hand knocking at a door, first in 11.2.3 where he prays for an understanding of Scripture, saying, “shut it not against us as we knock,” and then in 11.2.4 where it again forms part of an appeal “that the inner meaning of your words may be opened to me as I knock at their door.”40 In book 7 of Conf., Augustine uses Scripture in a striking manner to represent the contents of pagan philosophical literature. After starting with relatively few references to Scripture in the first paragraphs, from 7.7.11 onwards the narrative becomes exceptionally dense with echoes and allusions (as a perusal of Skutella’s text demonstrates). In what follows only two paragraphs, namely Conf. 7.9.13–14, will be discussed. In Conf. 7.9.13 Augustine reports on having read “some Platonic books” but then proceeds to render the contents of what he read there via the words of John 1:1–12 and 14. He acknowledges that the Platonic books did not use exactly the words he provides, but he nevertheless claims that, in essence, they communicated the same message: “precisely the same doctrine was taught, buttressed by many and various arguments.”41 This is followed by further quotation from the same section of John 1 but with the stipulation that he did not find this part of the contents in the Platonic books at all. In 7.9.14 he continues in this manner, now using the words from John 1:13–14 and 16, together with the words of Phil 2:6–11, to indicate once again what he found in the Platonic books as well as what part of the Christian message those books lacked.

38 Conf. 11.2.3 (CCSL 27:196; trans. is my own): “interiora sermonum tuorum.” 39 CCSL 27:180 (trans. is my own): “pulsator aurium mearum.” 40 For the translations provided in this paragraph, see Boulding, WSA I/1:152, 312, 286, 287, respectively. 41 CCSL 27:101 (Boulding, WSA I/1:170): “Hoc idem omnino multis et multiplicibus suaderi rationibus.”

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This section of Conf. is elegantly structured around antithetical assertions about which parts of Neoplatonic teaching were in harmony with Catholic belief and which parts lacked the necessary substance, and this structure is marked by the repetition of arrangements of the words ibi legi and ibi non legi, most often used chiastically (“I read there A but B I did not read there”). The phrase ibi legi and its negative are also alternated with variants like non habent illi libri (“these books do not contain”) or est ibi (“it is there”) and non est ibi (“it is not there”).42 In the last part of 7.9.14, Augustine provides an explanation for why the Neoplatonists were unable to access the whole truth in spite of the excellent insights that they did have. He now uses quotations from Matt 11, intertwined with words from Rom 5, 8, Ps 24, and Rom 1, to say, essentially, that the Neoplatonists did not have access to Christ and his healing words. In Augustine’s view, this was mostly due to their pride – i.e., their thinking themselves wise while in fact they were not. The richly allusive prose creates an overwhelming impression of the unity of the message of the whole of Scripture. The technique of seamlessly stitching together phrases from such a wide variety of biblical books in order to construe meaningful utterances is impressive: But that “at the time of our weakness he died for the wicked” (Rom. 5:6), and that you did not spare even your only Son but delivered him up for us all (Rom. 8:32), these things are not to be found there. For you “have hidden these matters from the sagacious and shrewd, and revealed them to little ones” (Matt. 11:25) so that those who toil under heavy burdens may come to him and he may give them relief, because he is gentle and humble of heart (Matt. 11:28). He will guide the gentle aright and teach the unassuming his ways (Ps. 24:9), for he sees our lowly estate and our labor, and forgives all our sins (Ps. 24:18).43

Augustine’s use of the story of the prodigal son, first mentioned in Conf. 1.18.28 where Augustine, in order to scaffold the description of his own prodigal journey away from and back to God, writes, “I was far away from your countenance,” before comparing himself with “that younger son of yours in the gospel . . . when he journeyed to that far country,”44 was analyzed in masterly fashion by Knauer.45 As with references to Matt 7:7, echoes of elements of the story of the prodigal son are used repeatedly, with the result that often a single word acquires the power to evoke the

42 CCSL 27:101 (trans. is my own). 43 CCSL 27:102 (Boulding, WSA I/1:171): “Quod autem ‘secundum tempus pro impiis mortuus est’ (Rom. 5:6) et ‘ilio tuo unico non pepercisti, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidisti eum’ (Rom. 8:32), non est ibi. ‘Abscondisti’ enim ‘haec a sapientibus et revelasti ea parvulis’ (Matt. 11:25), ut venirent ‘ad’ eum ‘laborantes et onerati et reficeret eos, quoniam mitis est et humilis corde’ (Matt. 11:28), et ‘diriget mites in judicio et docet mansuetos vias suas’ (Ps. 24:9) videns ‘humilitatem’ nostram ‘et laborem nostrum et dimittens omnia peccata’ (Ps 24:18) nostra.” 44 Boulding, WSA I/1:58. 45 Knauer, “Peregrinatio” 216–48. Knauer demonstrates strikingly how the image of the way is communicated by quotations from the prodigal story. See also Ferrari, “Theme of the Prodigal Son,” 105–18.

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full implications of willfully journeying away from the father or of realizing the mistake and getting up to return, the latter poignantly present in Conf. 3.4.7 and his description of the effects of reading Cicero’s Hortensius when he says, “I began to rise up to return to you.” Thus, the repeated reference to “wandering away from” God in 2.2.2,46 not indicated as allusion in Boulding’s translation or the Skutella text, does conjure up the story of the prodigal son as much as the words “how far was I exiled from the joys of your house” in 2.2.4, which both Boulding and Skutella mark as an allusion. A discussion of Augustine’s use of Scripture in Conf. would not be complete without reference to the way in which he (shortly after narrating his conversion) reports his reading of Ps 4 in book 9 (cf. 9.4.7–12). This section of the narrative occupies a place between the indirect allusive use of Scripture (where Augustine speaks through the words of Scripture) and the explicit interpretation of the creation story in the last three books. Augustine reports his reading of Ps 4 and comments on the individual verses consecutively, interpreting it similarly to the way he interprets Genesis in the last three books of Conf.47 In addition, however, he uses the language of Ps 4 to express his overpowering feelings towards the Manichaeans, while at the same time also suffusing his language with words and phrases from other parts of Scripture. In the report of his reading of Ps 4, he uses strong emotive language, reconstructing the Psalm as an impassioned plea designed to reach out to people like Manichaeans (whose attitudes and thoughts he knows intimately and with whom he identifies sympathetically in this passage). He reports speaking his realizations out loud, wishing that his erstwhile Manichaean friends could hear him and, by implication, also hear the Psalm. In this way, he would be able to speak to them without knowing whether they were nearby or not. The passage in 9.4.8–12 has a dense texture created by the abundance of scriptural quotations, a detail that makes the passage important. This is indeed an instance of what Knauer refers to as the use of Zitatennester,48 a phenomenon that occurs at important or pivotal passages in Conf.49

Scripture in the Last Three Books of Confessions This section looks at the use of Scripture in the last three books of Conf., where the indirect allusive use of Scripture continues even as Augustine embarks on an explicit interpretation of the creation story in Genesis. Scholars have suggested many reasons

46 CCSL 27:18 (Boulding, WSA I/1:79, 63). 47 See Burns, “Augustine’s Distinctive Use of the Psalms,” for a discussion of how the procedure in Conf. 9.4.7–12 agrees with Augustine’s procedure in his other exegetical works, including his commentaries on Genesis. 48 Knauer, Psalmenzitate, 114–17. 49 Knauer, Psalmenzitate does not analyze Conf. 9.4.8–11 in any depth.

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why Augustine may have chosen this portion of Scripture to exemplify his burning passion for and engagement with Scripture as the conclusion to his Conf.50 I remain convinced that the choice has much to do with Augustine’s ongoing efforts to convince Manichaean readers of the errors of their ways, as well as with the broader socio-cultural milieu that must also have played a role in his decision. In late antiquity, Christianity began to take a keen, if general, interest in the creation story. This ought to be juxtaposed against the background of a heightened interest in cosmology, which was also manifested in the popularity of Plato’s account of creation in the Timaeus, the prominence of the Neo-Platonist contention that the world was uncreated,51 and the circulation of Manichaean creation myths, which claimed that God, as the ruler of the kingdom of light, had created the world as part of a plan for the redemption of divine light particles from captivity in the realm of dark matter. As noted above, it is significant that Augustine calls the reading of Scripture he offers in books 11–13 a meditation and a confession. It certainly resembles a stream of consciousness type of prayer more than it does a systematic commentary. This is true of the musings on time in book 11, which interprets only the opening words of Genesis, “in the beginning.” It is also true of the presentation of the reading of “heaven and earth” and the thoughts about interpretation in book 12, but it is especially true of the allegorical interpretation presented in book 13. It also bears repeating that, even though Augustine writes three long books on the creation story at the beginning of Genesis, the major part of his interpretation is presented only in book 13 where he moves through the various days of creation relatively quickly. Book 11, in its focus on the words “in the beginning,” contains a lengthy philosophical exploration of time, which Augustine insists did not exist before God created it together with the rest of creation. One of the primary objectives of book 11 is Augustine’s refutation of Manichaean critiques. The latter argued that the statement in the creation story that God created “in the beginning” indicated a change in God’s being and belied Catholic belief in an eternal and unchangeable God. Noteworthy in the opening paragraphs of book 11 is the burning passion for Scripture that Augustine emphasizes repeatedly, for example, in 11.2.2, “I have long burned with desire to meditate on your law,” and in 11.2.4 “that law is what stirs my longing.”52 The urgent prayer in 11.2.3 constitutes a powerful rhetorical device

50 Grotz, “Warum bringt Augustin,” attempts a systematic explanation. See also M. Fiedrowicz, “General Introduction,” in On Genesis, WSA I/13:13–35, esp. 15–16; and R. McMahon, “Book 13: The Creation of the Church as the Paradigm for the Confessions,” in A Reader’s Companion to Augustine’s Confessions, eds. K. Paffenroth and R. P. Kennedy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003): 207–24. 51 See the discussion of these issues in A. Cameron, “Remaking the Past,” in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World, eds. G. W. Bowersock, P. Brown, and O. Grabar (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999): 1–20, esp. 3–4. 52 CCSL 27:196 (Boulding, WSA I/1:285, 287).

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that lends authority to the interpretations that follow. Within the narrative situation Augustine has created from the opening of Conf., the narrator speaks intimately to an all-knowing God. Here (as elsewhere) it means that he cannot lie because this makes no sense in the presence of an all-knowing God. The subtle implication is also that God will not forsake him but, instead, will provide the inspiration and guidance he pleads for and, by extension, will guarantee that the inspired interpretations he offers in the following books carry the stamp of divine approval. Yet, the prayer also demonstrates the trepidation at the difficulties inherent in reading and interpreting the scriptural texts with which Augustine approaches his task. He prays that he will not be deceived by Scripture or deceive others through it. He also does not pretend to understand everything: in 11.2.2, for example, he writes, “I may confess to you both what I know and what I still find baffling.”53 The same humble attitude is also displayed in book 12. In 12.10.10 (with a reference to the “hidden meaning” of Scripture) Augustine emphasizes his struggle to understand.54 He also explicitly condemns any form of pride in the interpretation of Scripture, especially the pride of claiming to have made the only right interpretation of any given passage (cf. e.g., 12.25.34). On the other hand, Augustine does repeatedly assert that specific interpretations are suggested to him by God himself: in 12.11.12 he says, “Loud and clear have you spoken to me once more in my inward ear,” and, in 12.15.18 (speaking to those who were advancing differing interpretations of Genesis), “You will certainly not claim that everything Truth told me so loudly in my inward ear . . . was false?”55 Further, book 12 still does not progress past the first two verses of Gen 1. The majority of the book is, in fact, taken up with Augustine’s contention that the words “heaven and earth” in Gen 1:1 refer respectively to a spiritual creation (heaven’s heaven) and a carnal creation (the unformed matter out of which the world as we know it was formed). The book also contains his discussion of various other interpretations of these words, a section about his views on the way in which Scripture was written by various human authors, and his explanation of his accommodating attitude to variant interpretations. Augustine’s views on authorial intention provide important perspectives on his reception of Scripture. For example, in 12.18.27 he states his belief that it is possible for a reader to find meanings in a text that were not intended by the author. He also hypothesizes that the human authors of Scripture would have desired the same impact for their writings as he does for his, namely, that they should be accessible to a wide audience, while also not being unduly simplistic for the more sophisticated reader (cf. 12.26.36).

53 CCSL 27:194 (Boulding, WSA I/1:285). 54 CCSL 27:221 (Boulding, WSA I/1:318). 55 CCSL 27:224 (Boulding, WSA I/1:318, 321). See also 12.16.23, 12.25.34.

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In book 12 he is, on the one hand, very critical of those (especially the Manichaeans) who attack Scripture, while, on the other hand, he expounds on how the principle of charity, discussed at length in Doctr. chr.,56 should govern all scriptural interpretation. For Augustine, it is a foundational principle of interpretation that it should serve caritas, the love of God and the love of neighbor. By 12.32.43 – i.e., the end of book 12 – however, Augustine has not made much progress in his interpretation of the creation story and exclaims, “Mark how much we have written about so few words!,”57 before stating his intention to complete the work in a briefer fashion. This he then proceeds to do in book 13. Here he offers a fast-moving allegorical interpretation of the rest of Gen 1 and the first three verses of Gen 2, ending with the seventh day, the day of rest. In comparison to the in-depth and wide-ranging analysis of the first two verses, the interpretation of the rest of the creation story skims lightly and quickly over the surface. In fact, the interpretation of Phil 4:4–13 that is included in 13.26.39–27.42 is more probing than the interpretation of the creation story that is offered in book 13. A further feature of book 13 that sheds light on the way in which Augustine engages with Scripture is the juxtaposition of what he deems a literal interpretation and an allegorical or figurative interpretation. The distinction becomes clear especially in the summaries of literal interpretation in 13.32.47 and figural interpretation in 13.34.49, which, here, is explicitly labelled figuratio. The summary of the literal explanation refers to the various created elements in the creation story (heaven and earth, light and darkness, the vault of heaven, spiritual waters above the heavens and the lower waters, the sun and the moon, animals, and the creation of human beings in the likeness of God). The summary of the figurative interpretation points, for example, to heaven and earth as symbolizing the “the spiritual and the carnal members of the Church,”58 or to the lights in heaven as symbolizing the “spiritual children,” those who have “the gift of speaking with wisdom” or “gifts of healing,” or “miraculous powers,” and so on that is offered in Conf. 13.18.22–23.59 A final interesting test case that exemplifies both Augustine’s approach and his methods is his evident unease with the command to human beings to increase and multiply in Gen 1:28. In 13.24.35, he passionately addresses his struggle to God via a series of questions: “What sort of mystery have we here? Are you giving us some kind of hint here? Do you not mean us to understand something?”60 More questions and an answer to himself follow in 13.24.36:

56 For more on Doctr. chr., see the chapter by Toom in this volume. 57 CCSL 27:241 (Boulding, WSA I/1:341). 58 Conf. 13.12.13 (CCSL 27:248; Boulding, WSA I/1:350). 59 CCSL 27L 253–255 (Boulding, WSA I/1:357–58). 60 CCSL 27:262; Boulding, WSA I/1:368.

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What am I to say, then O my Light, O Truth? That this is without significance, and idly so expressed? That is unthinkable . . . far be it from a servant of your word to say such a thing. If I do not understand what you mean to convey by this saying, let better men make better use of it – people more intelligent than I.61

Nevertheless, this is followed by a confident interpretation: But may my confession too be pleasing in your sight when I confess that I do not believe, Lord, that you spoke in these terms to no purpose. I will not pass over in silence the meaning that comes to my mind when this passage is read, for it is true in itself, and I do not see what is to stop me responding sensitively to figurative expressions (dicta figurate) in your books.62

Many of the general principles that Augustine applies when reading Scripture are present here: Scripture must be assumed to be true and correct; it must have a deeper meaning in addition to its literal meaning; Augustine’s interpretation is not necessarily the only one possible; and his commentary is often more of a probing and a questioning confession, the report of a moment of inspiration, than it is an intellectual claim to superior insight. Another interesting technique used in book 13 is the juxtaposition of concepts from Gen with concepts from the New Testament, implicitly demonstrating the harmony between the Old and New Testaments. One striking example occurs where Augustine interprets God’s words “let there be light” in Gen 1:3. After quoting these words, he proceeds to draw into his narrative various references to light from the New Testament (as well as to other passages, including several from Psalms not discussed here). In 13.10.11, after introducing the words “let there be light,” he quotes Eph 5:8: “for we were darkness once, and then we became light.”63 In 13.12.13 he juxtaposes texts from Matthew with Gen 1:3 by seamlessly stitching together words from these two sources in order to construe speech placed in the mouth of God: “and you said, Let there be light (Gen 1:3); repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near, repent (cf. Matt 3:2 and 4:17), and let there be light” (Gen 1:3). At the end of this paragraph he returns to Eph 5:8, saying, “See now, we who once were darkness are now light in the Lord,” and at the end of the next paragraph he asks, “What then is this fair light?” before answering it with a reference to 1 John 3:2: “a light by which we shall see him as he is.”64

61 CCSL 27:263 (Boulding, WSA I/1:368): “Quid igitur dicam, lumen meum, veritas? Quia vacat hoc, quia inaniter ita dictum est? Nequaquam, pater pietatis, absit, ut hoc dicat servus verbi tui. Et si ego non intellego, quid hoc eloquio significes, utantur eo melius meliores, id est intellegentiores quam ego sum.” 62 CCSL 27:263 (Boulding, WSA I/1:368): “Placeat autem et confessio mea ‘coram oculis’ (Ps. 78:10; Isa. 49:16) tuis, qua tibi confiteor credere me, domine, non incassum te ita locutum, neque silebo, quod mihi lectionis hujus occasio suggerit. verum est enim, nec video, quid impediat ita me sentire dicta figurata librorum tuorum.” 63 CCSL 27:247 (Boulding, WSA I/1:349). 64 CCSL 27:248 (Boulding, WSA I/1:350–51).

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It is clear that the indirect allusive use of Scripture continues in the last three books of explicit interpretation. The technique here is the same as in the preceding books: Augustine expresses his own thoughts by appropriating words and phrases from a variety of biblical loci. Book 13 is especially densely packed with allusions, and these are often strung together in long chains consisting of elements from very diverse contexts.65 Two consecutive sentences from 13.18.22 where Augustine is interpreting Gen 1:14–18 may sufficiently demonstrate this technique. After the statement that “[now] your spiritual children too . . . may shine upon the earth,” Augustine explains: This is because “old things have passed away now and all is made new” (2 Cor. 5:17); “our salvation is nearer now that when we first believed”; “night is far gone and day is breaking” (Rom. 13:11–12). “You crown the year with your blessing” (Ps. 64:12), sending “laborers into your harvest” (Matt. 9:38) where “others have toiled” (John 4:38) over the sowing. Different workers you send to sow new crops, which will be reaped at the end (cf. Matt. 13:39).66

This section continues Augustine’s line of thought regarding the third day of creation, a line which ends with the equation of the fruits brought forth from the earth and good works. Throughout 13.18.22, Augustine intertwines the allegorical interpretations of the third and the fourth days: those who bear fruit are the luminaries of the fourth day. His seamless joining of the Old and New Testaments makes a persuasive, if subtle, point about the harmony between the two.

Conclusion It seems fitting to conclude with a short discussion of some of the images Augustine uses to describe Scripture, images that – together with the explicit remarks about Scripture throughout Conf. – bring home forcefully his deep reverence and burning passion for the divine word. An awareness of this attitude provides a crucial perspective on how scholars should view his reception and use of Scripture in this and other works. In the prayer recorded in Conf. 11.2.3, Augustine compares Scripture to a forest where the shadows symbolize the difficulties of interpretation, even as the trees also provide shelter and support for those who dwell among them, that is, those

65 Young, “The Confessions of St Augustine,” 12 et passim, speaks of the “remarkable collage of scriptural texts” that occurs with frequency and in various places. 66 CCSL 27:254 (Boulding, WSA I/1:357): “Quia ‘vetera transierunt, ecce facta sunt nova’ (2 Cor 5:17), et quia ‘propior est nostra salus, quam cum credidimus’ (Rom. 13:11), et quia ‘nox praecessit, dies autem appropinquavit’ (Rom. 13:12) et quia ‘benedicis coronam anni tui’ (Ps. 64:12), mittens ‘operarios in messem’ (Matt. 9:38) tuam, in qua seminanda ‘alii laboraverunt’ (John 4:38), mittens etiam in aliam sementem, cujus messis in fine est.”

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who attempt to read and interpret Scripture faithfully. At the opening of book 12, Scripture is personified and portrayed, in the imagery of Matt 7:7, as knocking at the door of Augustine’s heart. In Conf. 12.27.37, the working of Scripture is compared to a small spring that spreads its beneficial influence over a large area: the narrative of Scripture “is a spring whence rivers of limpid truth gush forth.”67 In 12.28.38, the image of a forest is repeated and Augustine draws a picture of advanced readers flitting through the forest joyfully, finding hidden fruits. Finally, in Conf. 13.15.16, Scripture is likened to a protective tent stretched out over humankind. The foundation on which Augustine’s interpretative efforts rest comprises a great reverence for Scripture and an unshakeable belief in its authority. Additionally, the full realization of Augustine’s extremely high expectations of Scripture that emerges from images like those presented in the quotations above forcefully brings home how natural it is for him to find the complete history of the church in the creation story during the inspired reading he reports on in Conf. book 13. This understanding also sheds valuable light on Augustine’s ambitious endeavor to infuse Conf. with scriptural language, not to mention how he may have imagined Conf. functioning for readers, namely, by lifting their hearts and souls up to God, just as Scripture had done (and continued to do) for him.

For Further Reading Primary Sources Augustine. Confessions, translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Augustine. Confessions, edited by James J. O’Donnell. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Augustine. S. Aureli Augustini Confessionum libri XIII, edited by Martin H. Skutella, corrected by H. Juergens and W. Schaub. Stuttgart: Teubner, 1996. Augustine. The Confessions, translated by Maria Boulding, edited by John E. Rotelle. Part I, vol. 1, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. Hyde Park: New City Press, 1997.

Secondary Sources Burns, Paul. “Augustine’s Distinctive Use of the Psalms in the Confessions: The Role of Music and Recitation.” Augustinian Studies 24 (1993): 133–46. Burton, Philip. “Augustine and Language.” In A Companion to Augustine, edited by Mark Vessey, 113–24. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

67 CCSL 27:237 (Boulding, WSA I/1:335).

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Conybeare, Catherine. “Reading the Confessions.” In A Companion to Augustine, edited by Mark Vessey, 99–110. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Fredriksen, Paula. “The Confessions as Autobiography.” In A Companion to Augustine, edited by Mark Vessey, 87–98. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Kotzé, Annemaré. Augustine’s Confessions: Communicative Purpose and Audience. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Lane Fox, Robin. Augustine: Conversions to Confessions. New York: Penguin, 2015. Lehman, Jeffrey S. ‘“As I read, I was set on fire’: On the Psalms in Augustine’s Confessions.” Logos 16 (2013): 160–184. McMahon, Robert. Augustine’s Prayerful Ascent: An Essay on the Literary Form of the Confessions. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1989. O’Donnell, James J. “Bible.” In Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, edited by Allan D. Fitzgerald, 99–103. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999. Stock, Brian. Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge and the Ethics of Interpretation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. Young, Frances. “The Confessions of St Augustine: What Is the Genre of This Work?” Augustinian Studies 30 (1999): 1–16.

Subject Index Note: Page numbers in italics indicate illustrative material Aalders, G. J. D. 87 Acta Cypriani 67–68 Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum 2–7, 44, 77–78 Acts of Paul and Thecla / Acta Pauli et Theclae 86, 103, 149 Adam, K. 200 Adda (Adimantus) 267, 277 adoption theology 61–63, 68–69 Alexander, J. 195 Alexandria 17 see also Athanasius of; Dionysius of allegory see also typology – Augustine’s understanding and use of 231–236, 271–277, 337–339, 361 – Cyprian’s use of 126–127, 302 – Donatist use of 203 – in Pauline Epistles 92, 234–235 – Tertullian’s use of 92, 300, 301–302 – Tyconius’s use of 308–309 Altaner, B. 198–199 Alypius 246 Ambrose of Milan 214–215, 244, 270 – De Jacob et vita beata 257 Ambrosiaster 240, 283, 296, 327n32 Ammianus Marcellinus 193n18 amulets 17, 47 Apelles 96, 97 apocalyptic prophecy 184–186, 310–317 Apollonius of Tyana 171 apologetics vs. polemics 80–81 Apuleius 60 Aquileia see Rufinus of Aquileia Aristotle 124n46 Arnobius – Adversus nationes 168, 169–172 Arnold of Bonneval 146 Athanasius of Alexandria – Festal Letter 39 / Epistula festalis XXXIX 26 Augustine of Hippo – on allegory of Scripture 231–236, 271–277, 337–339, 361 – on Antiochene Incident 254–255 – and the biblical canon 26, 323–325 – conversion of 48, 244–246

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-016

– on dignatio 60, 61 – on dispensatio temporalis 229–231 – on divine pedagogy of Scripture 224–228 – four-stage teaching on salvation 248–251, 255, 280–281 – on free will and grace 249, 250, 252–253, 258, 259–263, 274, 279–280, 283–287 – on law and grace 248–250, 251–252, 254, 255–259, 277–278, 281–283 – on Manichaean literalism and Old Testament rejection 224–225, 231–232, 270–278 – manuscripts and transcriptions of 35–39, 46, 47 – on mixed church 129n89 – Optatus’s influence on 205n92 – and Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises 164–165 – scholarship on 1n1 – scriptural interpretation in earliest treatises, overview 216–219 – on Tyconius 290–291, 292–293, 309, 318–319 – Tyconius’s influence on 280, 281, 283, 289, 292, 338 – on unity of Scripture 216, 220–224, 276–278 – and Vetus Latina 18, 21, 22, 44–45, 219, 239–240, 325–329, 340 – works see also Confessiones; De doctrina christiana – Breviculus collationis cum Donatistis 47 – Contra Adimantum 267, 276, 277 – Contra epistulam Parmeniani 291 – Contra Faustum Manichaeum 277, 345 – De baptismo contra Donatistas 22 – De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum 257–263, 283–286 – De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII 251–253 – De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber 275–276, 346 – De Genesi contra Manichaeos 270, 346 – De moribus ecclesiae Catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum 215, 216–218, 219–220, 345 – De sermone Domini in monte 277 – De Trinitate 46

368

Subject Index

– De utilitate credendi 215–216, 219, 224 – De vera religione 215, 218–219, 229 – Enarrationes in Psalmos 47, 346 – Epistulae ad Romanos inchoata expositio liber unus 253 – In Evangelium Johannis tractatus 47 – Expositio in epistulam ad Galatas 253–256 – Expositio quarundam quaestionum in epistula ad Romanos 247–251 – Speculum (quis ignorat) 22 – Regula 3 247 – Retractationes 22 – Sermones ad populum 47 Autpert Ambrose / Autpertus Ambrosius 289n3 Autun see Reticius of Autun Babcock, W. S. 260n122, 285n117, 286 baptism – and adoption theology 61–63, 68–69 – in allegorical exegesis 203 – in contextual exegesis 129–130 – as sanctifying participation in divine favor 73–74 – and unity between Christ and the church 126–127 Barcellona, F. S. 191–192 Barnes, T. D. 3n5, 5–6, 52, 88 Barton, C. 101 Basilican Hilary. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro D.182 40–42, 41 Beatus of Liébana 289n3 Bede 289n3, 290n9, 319 Bévenot, M. 146n17 biblical text see canon; Greek biblical tradition; Latin Bible manuscript tradition; Vetus Latina bilingualism 17–18, 87, 299 bishops see also church – authority of 193–194, 208, 209 – disciplinary role 127, 134 – hermeneutical role 201–202, 204 – models for 125 Blomgren, S. 199 Bolland, J. 52 Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria 701, foll. 40, 153–189 Boncompagni, N. 155 Bonner, G. 228n70

book culture 44–49, 210–211 Botte, B. 87 Boyarin, D. 101n7 Braun, R. 90 Breviarium Hipponense 26–27 Bright, P. 296, 300, 309, 317n144 Brisson, J.-P. 200 Bruns, G. 234 Buonaiuti, E. 198 Burini, C. 150 Burkitt, F. 296, 299 Burns, P. 346, 347, 354 Burton, P. 18, 24, 350 Bussi, G. A. 145 Caecilian 190 Cameron, M. 223n49, 224n55, 256n100, 347n14 canon – in Augustine’s works 26, 323–325 – in Cyprian’s works 26, 120–121, 184 – in Lactantius’s works 182–184 – and regula fidei 83–84 – in Tertullian’s works 26, 84–87, 102–103, 121 – in Vetus Latina 26–27 Capelle, P. 198, 199 Cardman, F. 83n17 Carthage 3, 45, 82, 102, 104–105, 193, 204, 209, 247 see also Cyprian of; Passio Perpetuae et – Felicitatis; Tyconius Carthage, Council of (397) 27 Carthage, Council of (411) 47, 195n31, 296 Cassiodorus 48–49, 289n3 Cerbelaud, D. 150 charity see love chastity 69, 111, 113–114, 131 Cheltenham Canon 27, 28, 197 Christ – church as bride and body of 126–127, 310, 335 – death of 249, 253 – deifying favor of 61–67, 69, 74–76 – divine glory of 64–65, 70–73 – divinity, proof of 171–172 – and dualism 97–98, 269–270 – incarnation of 74, 226–228, 230, 253, 332–333 – as model 124 – and prophetic fulfillment 133, 177–182, 310, 312

Subject Index

– relationship to God the Father 252 – and supersessionism 95 Christ assemblies 104–105 church see also bishops – authority of 276 – bipartite nature of 310–312, 315–317, 318 – book culture 44–47, 210–211 – as bride and body of Christ 126–127, 310, 335 – and imperial recognition 206–209 – physicality of 209–210 – salvation in 139–140 Cicero 174, 181, 354 – Hortensius 358 Clarke, G. W. 122, 128n78, 135, 137 2 Clement 183 Codex Bezae (VL 5) 48 Codex Bobiensis (VL 1) 24, 30–32, 31, 33, 35 Codex Colbertinus (VL 6) 23 Codex Monacensis (VL 104) 22–23 Codex Palatinus (VL 2) 30, 32–33 Codex Sangermanensis (VL 7) 48 Codex Thevestinus. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouv. acq. lat. 1114 42 Codex Vindobonensis (VL 115) 30, 32 codices, production of 15–17 codicological layout 27, 32, 33, 34–35, 37, 39, 40, 42 see also paleography Cologne Mani-Codex 241 compassion (misericordia) 69 Compendium (Donatist biblical handbook) 28, 297–298 Computus of 455, De ratione Paschae 149, 163 Confessions / Confessiones (Augustine) – challenges in analyzing 350–352 – in context of Augustine’s developing thought 344–347 – conversion narrative 215, 244–246 – direct citations and interpretations of Scripture in 358–362 – genre 348–350 – indirect allusions to Scripture in 353–358, 363 Constans, Emperor 193 Constantine, Emperor 190, 206 contextual exegesis 128–130 Contra Varimadum 48 Conybeare, C. 348, 350 Coptic language 15

369

Cornelius 166 Councils see also Synod – Carthage (397) 27 – Carthage (411) 47, 195n31 – Hippo (393) 27 creation narrative 173, 272–275, 359, 361–363 cultural turn 52–53 culture, book 44–49, 210–211 Cyprian of Carthage – anti-Jewish polemic 303 – and biblical canon 26, 120–121, 184 – on dignatio 60–61 – Donatists’s dependence on 194 – Lactantius’s dependence on 175, 186 – letters, overview 122–123 – letters, contextual exegesis in 128–130 – letters, direct application in 131–132 – letters, images in 126–127, 302 – letters, maxims in 127–128 – letters, models in 124–125 – letters, prophetic fulfillment in 132–133 – manuscripts of 34–35, 36, 45 – martyrdom 67–68 see also Vita Cypriani – Optatus’s dependence on 194–195, 197–198, 199–200, 201 – rhetorical strategies 133–140 – scriptural interpretation, overview 119–122 – and Vetus Latina 20, 296 – works see also Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises – Ad Donatum 348 – Ad Fortunatum 21, 61, 72 – Ad Quirinum testimonia adversus Judaeos 21, 72, 120, 122, 145, 175 – De catholicae ecclesiae unitate 200 Daniélou, J. 124, 147, 150, 155, 162n93 De aleatoribus 26 De doctrina christiana (Augustine) – overview 330–331 – composition date 321–322 – and Confessiones 347 – on incarnation 332–333 – on love 220n33, 334–335 – “macro” vs. “micro” usages of Scripture, as concept 329–330 – scriptural citations in 322–324, 328, 340–341 – on signification and disambiguation 333, 335–339

370

Subject Index

– on “use” of Scripture 331–332 De duobus gradibus 242 De schismate Donatistarum adversus Parmenianum (Optatus) – context 192–193, 195–196 – biblical text 196–199 – on imperial recognition 206–209 – on reason vs. sanctity 201–205 – sacramentology 209–211 – scriptural interpretation, overview 199–201 Decius, Emperor 51 Deléani, S. 127 Dell’Osso, C. 147, 155 Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus / Altercatio Jasonis et Papisci 152, 164 Didache 26, 149, 199 Diercks, G. F. 152n53 dignatio (deifying favor) 59–67, 69 Dinkler, E. 206 Dio Chrysostom – De exilio 348 Dionysius of Alexandria 166 dispensatio temporalis 229–231 divination 48 Divine Institutes (Lactantius) – on apocalyptic prophecy 184–186 – biblical text 175–177, 186–187 – criticism of Cyprian 120n5 – on prophetic fulfillment 177–182 – uncanonical sources 182–184 divine patronage see grace and divine patronage divine protection 17, 47 docetism 97 Donatists see also De schismate Donatistarum adversus Parmenianum – biblical interpretation 193–194, 200, 201–205 – Cyprian’s influence 194 – debates at Carthage (411) 47 – ecclesiastical views 201–202, 206–210 – Parmenian’s influence 192–193 – and Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises 143, 152, 154 – schism, overview 190 – Tyconius’s literary connection to 303–306 see also Tyconius – and Vetus Latina 22, 28 – works – Adversus ecclesiam traditorum 192, 193–194 – Compendium 28, 297–298

– Mandatum 296 – Prophetiae ex omnibus libris collectae 297n45 – Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium 304–306 Donatus 22, 190, 201–202, 204 Drecoll, V. H. 280n91 dualism 89–90, 97–98, 214, 266–270, 273, 276–278 Dulaey, M. 164 Dunn, G. 122 Dunning, B. 110 Eastman, D. 4n10 ecclesiology see bishops; church Edwards, M. 201n71 election, and free will 252–253, 259–263, 285–286 Emesa see Eusebius of Emesa entertainment, and morality 101–102, 107–108, 116, 159 Epiphanius 183 episcopacy see bishops Epistle of Barnabas 26, 86, 103 Epistula ad Menoch 243 Erasmus, Ad Fortunatum, de duplici martyrio 146 ethics see morality Eusebius of Emesa 166 Eutropius 40 Fahey, M. 119, 124n44, 140, 309n102 faith, grace of 255, 259–263 fasting 102, 107, 108–109 Faustus of Milevis 213–214, 241, 242–243, 267 fear, and humility 336–337 Ferguson, E. 84n20 Firmus 46 Fischer, B. 32, 34 Flasch, K. 259n115 Flavianus, vicar of Africa 195 flesh, and shame 114 Fleury Palimpsest (VL 55) 30, 33, 35 Florus of Lyon 162 Fortunatus 243, 257, 267, 278–280, 283–284 Fortunius of Tubursi 205n92 Frede, H. J. 33n59 Fredriksen, P. 214, 226n62, 279, 285n117, 292, 303n76, 314n129, 315, 346, 349, 350n25

Subject Index

free will 249, 250, 252–253, 258, 259–263, 268–269, 274, 279–280, 283–287 Freising Fragments (VL 64) 27, 33 Frisius, M. 84–85, 89, 93 Fulgentius (Donatist polemicist) 297, 297n45 Fulgentius of Ruspe 42, 48, 66n68, 71, 71n97, 189, 189n1 Gamble, H. 4n8 gender and sexuality – and morality 101, 108, 109–116 – in Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis 64–65 Gennadius 289n3, 290, 292, 293, 294, 295 Gesta apud Zenophilium 44, 198 glory, divine 64–65, 70–73 God – Christ’s relationship to 252 – and dualism 89–90, 97, 214, 269–270, 273, 276–278 – fear of 336–337 – and grace vs. free will 249–250, 252, 255, 259–263, 279, 283–287 Gospel of the Ebionites 183 Gospel of Thomas 182 Gospels, order of 27, 32, 325n24 grace and divine patronage – Christ’s role, deifying favor 59–67, 69, 74–76 – Christ’s role, divine glory 64–65, 70–73 – and free will 249, 250, 252–253, 258, 259–263, 274, 279–280, 283–287 – Holy Spirit’s role 58–59 – and law 248–250, 251–252, 254, 255–259, 277–278, 281–283 – and patronage relationships in North Africa 55–57 – reciprocal participation in 68–70 – through baptism 61–63, 68–69, 73–74 Greek biblical tradition – and bilingualism 17–18, 87, 299 – in early Christian manuscripts 15–17, 16 – Septuagint 16, 19, 20, 325n23, 327 – and Vetus Latina 19, 20, 23, 24–25, 87–91, 325–326, 327 Green, W. M. 37 Gryson, R. 148, 298 Hadrumetum see Primasius of Hadrumetum hagiography see also Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis; Vita Cypriani

371

– genre, martyr acta et passiones 51–52 – scholarship on 52–54 – Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum 2–7, 44, 77–78 – Passion of Marian and James / Passio Marini et Jacobi 78 – Passion of Montanus and Lucius / Passio Montani, Lucii et aliorum 78 – Revelatio capitis beati Johannis Baptistae 145 Hahn, T. 292 half-uncial script 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 Hanson, R. P. C. 92 harmonization, biblical 23–24 Harnack, A. von 90, 91, 166 Harris, J. R. 177n40, 183, 184 Hartel, W. 146 Hebrew Scriptures see Old Testament Heffernan, T. 54, 57n22 heretics see also Donatists; Manichaeans – in contextual exegesis 129–130 – Tertullian’s scriptural interpretation against 95–98 Hermes Trismegistus 173, 177, 184–185 Hermogenes 96 Hierocles, Sossianus 171 Higgins, A. J. B. 90 Hilarianus – De ratione Paschae et mensis 149, 163 Hincmar of Reims – De praedestinatione Dei et libero arbitrio 162 Hippo 21, 22, 45, 46 see also Augustine of; Synod of Holy Spirit – and episcopal authority 193–194, 209 – and gift of grace 249–250, 255 – physical presence 210–211 – scriptural interpretation role 201–202, 204, 306 Homer 354 Horbury, W. 155 Houghton, H. A. G. 87n41, 88, 91n61, 199 humility, and fear 336–337 Hystaspes 185 Ignatius of Antioch 183n98 – To the Philadelphians / Ad Philadelphenos 171n18 Ildefonsus of Toledo 49 Irenaeus of Lyons 20, 101n8, 182 Isocrates – Antidosis 348

372

Subject Index

Jerome – and Antiochene Incident 254–255 – biblical translation 20, 46, 239–240, 325n25, 328–329 – on Lactantius 169 – on Pope Victor I 17 – Tyconius’s influence on 289n3 – works – Chronicle / Chronicon 168 – On Illustrious Men / De viris illustribus 166, 168–169 Jewish community see also Old Testament – biblical translation 19–20 – Christian polemic against 93–95, 157–159, 303 John Chrysostom 45 Julian, Emperor 192–193 Justin Martyr 176, 183, 184, 187 – Dialogus cum Tryphone 348 Kannengiesser, Ch. 119, 189, 294, 306n88, 308 Karpp, H. 92 Kilpatrick, G. D. 88 Knauer, G. N. 353, 354, 357, 358 Koch, H. 153, 199 Krusch, B. 163 La Bonnardière, A.-M. 165 Laato, A. M. 150 Labriolle, P. de 88 Labrousse, M. 196n38, 199 Lactantius see also Divine Institutes / Divinae Institutiones – criticism of Cyprian 120n5 – manuscripts of 40 – The Death of the Persecutors / De moribus persecutorum 172–173 Lancel, S. 3n5 Lane Fox, R. 347 Lang, T. J. 90 language see also Greek biblical tradition; Latin Bible manuscript tradition – Coptic 15 – Punic 20 Latin Bible manuscripts – Basilican Hilary. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro D.182 40–42, 41 – Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria 701, foll. 40, 153–189

– Codex Thevestinus. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouv. acq. lat. 1114 42 – Fleury Palimpsest (VL 55) 30, 33, 35 – Freising Fragments (VL 64) 27, 33 – Lectionary fragments (VL 74) 30, 33–34 – London, British Library, Add. MS 40165 A 1 34–35, 36, 39 – Marburg, Staatsarchiv Hr. 1, 1 34–35 – Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana M. 77 Sup. 39 – Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale 192 (169), fol. 1 34–35 – P. Ryl. Gr. 3 472. Manchester, John Rylands Library, Gr. 472 42, 43 – Quedlinburg Itala (VL 116) 32 – San Lorenzo, El Escorial s.n. 39 – St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 213 40 – St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Lat. Q.v.I.3 37–39, 38 – Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, F.IV.27 34–35 – Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, G.V.37 34–35 – Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare XXVIII (26) 39 – Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, L.87 42 – Würzburg palimpsest (VL 103) 23 Latin Bible manuscript tradition see also Vetus Latina – and bilingualism 17–18 – and book culture in North Africa 44–49, 210–211 – manuscript materials and preparation 15–17, 16 – and Scillitan martyrs 5–6, 44 law – and bipartite nature of the church 311 – fulfillment of 255–256, 277–278, 335 – vs. grace 248–250, 251, 255–259, 277–278, 281–283 Lectionary fragments (VL 74) 30, 33–34 Lehman, J. S. 349 Lewis, C. S. 234n99 Libellus adversus Fulgentium Donatistam 22 Liébana see Beatus of Liébana Life of Cyprian see Vita Cypriani literal interpretation – Augustine’s understanding of 232, 233, 270–272, 337–339, 361

Subject Index

– and contextual exegesis 128–130 – Manichaean use of 231–232, 269, 270–275 – Tertullian’s use of 92 London, British Library, Add. MS 40165 A 1 34–35, 36, 39 love – and fulfillment of law 255–256, 277–278, 335 – as unifying theme of Scripture 220–224, 334–335 Lowe, E. A. 29, 30, 32–34, 39, 40, 44n78 Lunn-Rockliffe, S. 200 Lyons see Irenaeus of Lyons al-Ma’arrī 321 Mandatum 296 Mani 241, 266–267, 268 Manichaeans – and Antiochene Incident 254–255 – beliefs, overview 266–267 – biblical interpretation, overview 268–270 – in Confessiones 358, 359 – negative evaluation of the law 257–258, 277–278, 282–283 – Old Testament, interpretation of 224–225, 231–232, 270–278 – Paul, interpretation of 214, 225, 241–244, 268, 278–287 – works – De duobus gradibus 242 – Epistula ad Menoch 243 manuscripts see Latin Bible manuscript tradition; Vetus Latina; specific manuscripts and fragments Marburg, Staatsarchiv Hr. 1, 1 34–35 Marcion 89–91, 92, 95, 96, 97–98, 267 Marin, M. 151 Marone, P. 199, 201 marriage 107, 110–113 martyr narratives see hagiography Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah 86 masculinity 64–65 Mattei, P. 151 McGowan, A. 128n78 McGuckin, P. 187n118 Melito of Sardis – De Pascha 155 men – and masculinity 64–65 – and sexual morality 115–116

373

Merdinger, J. 195 Milan 21, 244–246, 257, 327n32 see also Ambrose of; Simplicianus of Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana M. 77 Sup. 39 Milevis 189 see also Optatus of Milevis Mommsen, Th. 27, 143 Monat, P. 187 Monceaux, P. 88, 189, 198, 293n21 Montanism 82–83 morality – and entertainment 101–102, 107–108, 116, 159 – and sexuality 101, 108, 109–116 – and Tertullian’s use of Scripture 106–109 – Tertullian’s vision, overview 100–102 Moricca, U. 198 Morin, G. 192 Moss, C. 53–54, 77 Neander, A. 87 Neoplatonists 357, 359 New Prophecy (Montanism) 82–83 Newman, J. H. 213 Nienhuis, D. 85n26 nomina sacra 30, 31–32, 33, 34, 35, 37–39, 40, 42 Novatian 143, 147, 153, 166 – De Trinitate 300 Novatian schism 153, 160, 166 Odes of Solomon 183 Old Latin Bible see Vetus Latina Old Testament – in Augustine’s earliest treatises, overview 216–217, 219 – Cyprian’s interpretation of 139–140 – as divine pedagogy 224–228 – and dualism 89–90, 97–98, 267, 276–278 – earliest Latin translations 19–20 – Lactantius’s interpretation of 177–184 – Manichaean rejection of 213–214, 224–225, 267, 269–270, 276–278 – Optatus’s interpretation of 204–205 – Septuagint 16, 19, 20, 325n23, 327 – Tertullian’s interpretation of 94–95, 107 – and unity of Scripture 216, 220–224, 276–278 Olivar, A. 192 O’Malley, T. P. 88, 90 omission, biblical 23, 24, 134–135

374

Subject Index

Optatus of Milevis see also De schismate Donatistarum adversus Parmenianum – on church libraries 45 – Cyprian’s influence on 194–195, 197–198, 199–200, 201 – legacy 189 – manuscripts of 35, 40 – sermons attributed to 191–192 – and Vetus Latina 21, 196–199 Optatus of Thamugadi 191 Orbán, A. P. 155 Origen 17, 45, 241, 300, 306n89 Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale 192 (169), fol. 1 34–35 Oxyrhynchus 15, 22 P. Ryl. Gr. 3 472. Manchester, John Rylands Library, Gr. 472 42, 43 pagans 173–174 paleography – abbreviations (nomina sacra) 30, 31–32, 33, 34, 35, 37–39, 40, 42 – and codicological layout 27, 32, 33, 34–35, 37, 39, 40, 42 – and dating 15 – half-uncial script 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 – uncial script 30, 31, 34, 37, 39, 40 papyrus, as writing material 15, 16 parchment codices, production of 15–17 Parmenian 192–193, 195, 200, 201, 203, 204, 207–208, 209, 291 – Adversus ecclesiam traditorum 192, 193–194 Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis – overview 57–58 – dignatio in 59–67 – Holy Spirit in 58–59 – scholarship on 53, 54 Passion of Marian and James / Passio Marini et Jacobi 78 Passion of Montanus and Lucius / Passio Montani, Lucii et aliorum 78 patronage relationships 55–57 see also grace and divine patronage Paul and Pauline Epistles – allegorical interpretation in 92, 234–235 – and Augustine on free will and grace 249, 250, 252–253, 258, 259–263, 274, 279–280, 283–287

– and Augustine on law and grace 248–250, 251–252, 254, 255–259, 277–278, 281–283 – in Augustine’s conversion narrative 244–246 – in Augustine’s earliest treatises, overview 217, 218 – and Augustine’s four-stage teaching on salvation 248–251, 255, 280–281 – and biblical canon 26, 121 – on grace 58 – Lactantius’s interpretation of 176–177 – Manichaean interpretation of 214, 225, 241–244, 268, 278–287 – as model 125 – and Scillitan martyrs 4, 6–7 – Tertullian’s interpretation of 109–116 – on union with Christ 61–62, 65, 66, 67n74 – in Vetus Latina 239–240 persecutions 51, 153, 172–173, 190, 204 see also hagiography Peter, Apostle 125 Peter of Tripoli 48 Petilian 198 Pettau see Victorinus of Pettau Pincherle, A. 191, 198, 200 Plato 354 – Apologia 348 – Seventh Letter 348 Pliny the Younger 136n128 Poetovio see Victorinus of Pettau polemics vs. apologetics 80–81 Pontius 45, 68 see also Vita Cypriani Porphyry 179 Pose, E. R. 305 Possidius 46–47 power relationships 55–57 see also grace and divine patronage Price, S. 81 Primasius of Hadrumetum 48, 289n3, 319 Prophetiae ex omnibus libris collectae 297n45 prophetic fulfillment 132–133, 177–182, 184–186, 310–318 Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises – overview 142–147 – dating, overview 147–149 – dating, pre-Cyprian 149–150 – dating, during Cyprian 150–151 – dating, post-Cyprian 151–155 – exegetical practices 156–161

Subject Index

– legacy and methodological implications 161–166 – provenance, possibly African 155–156 – Ad Fortunatum, de duplici martyrio 146 – Ad Novatianum 147, 153, 156–157, 160, 161 – Ad Plebem Carthaginis 143, 144, 152–153, 157 – Ad sanctum Cyprianum 145 – Ad Silvanum 146 – Ad Turasium 144–145 – Ad Vigilium episcopum de Judaica incredulitate 146, 152, 158, 164 – Adversus Judaeos 143, 147, 148, 155, 156–157, 158, 159, 162, 163n94 – De aleatoribus 147, 151–152, 156–157, 159, 161 – De bono pudicitiae 143, 147 – De centesima, sexagesima, tricesima 147, 149, 154–155, 156–157, 161, 164 – De duobus montibus Sina et Sion 21, 147, 148, 149, 150, 157–159, 162, 164–165 – De duodecim abusivis saeculi 145 – De laude martyrii 143, 144, 146, 147, 150–151, 156–157, 159, 161, 162 – De pascha computus 144, 147, 149, 150, 156–157, 158, 163 – De rebaptismate 146, 147, 151, 160, 165n105 – De singularitate clericorum 21, 145 – De spectaculis 143, 147, 159 – De voluntate Dei 145 – Exhortatio de paenitentia 144, 147, 155–156 – Expositio symboli 145 – Quod idola dii non sint 146 – Revelatio capitis beati Johannis Baptistae 145 Punic language 20 Quedlinburg Itala (VL 116) 32 Quintilian 92n69, 124n46 – Institutio Oratoria 294 Quispel, G. 90–91 Quodvultdeus 21, 48 reason vs. sanctity 201–205 Rebillard, É. 105 recapitulation 314–315 redemption see salvation regula fidei 83–84, 101 Reims see Hincmar of Reims Reitzenstein, R. 154 Reticius of Autun 166 Rigby, P. 349

375

Robinson, D. 301, 315 Rönsch, H. 87 Roth, D. 90 Rougé, J. 173n20 Rufinus of Aquileia – Expositio symboli 145 Ruspe see Fulgentius of Ruspe sacramentology 209–211 salvation see also grace and divine patronage – Augustine’s four-stage teaching on 248–251, 255, 280–281 – in the church 139–140 – unfolding as divine pedagogy 224–228 San Lorenzo, El Escorial s.n. 39 sanctity vs. reason 201–205 Sardis see Melito of Sardis Saturninus (proconsul) 3–4, 5, 6 Saxer, V. 6n19, 53, 77, 160–161 Scillitan martyrs 3–7, 44, 77–78 script see paleography scriptural text see canon; Greek biblical tradition; Latin Bible manuscript tradition; Vetus Latina secretaries and stenographers 46–47 Sellew, P. 157 Seneca 56n17 Septuagint 16, 19, 20, 325n23, 327 Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium 304–306 sexuality see gender and sexuality shame, and flesh 114 Shaw, B. 3n5 Shepherd of Hermas / Hermae Pastor 26, 86, 103, 152 Sibylline Oracles / Oracula Sibyllina 173, 177, 179, 180–181, 184–185, 186 Sider, R. D. 104n28 Sieben, H.-J. 350 Silvestre, H. 192 Simplicianus of Milan 37, 257, 283 sin see law Sirach 85, 325n23 Sixtus II, Pope 166 Soden, H. von 90, 151, 156 sortes (divination) 48 Sparks, H. F. D. 183n98 Speratus (Scillitan martyr) 4–7 St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 213 40

376

Subject Index

St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Lat. Q.v.I.3 37–39, 38 state, and church 206–209 Steinhauser, K. 295, 305 stenographers and secretaries 46–47 stichometry 27, 33 Stock, B. 343 Stowers, S. K. 123n42 Stummer, F. 87 Sullivan, T. 340 supersessionism 95 Synod of Hippo (393) 27 Tacitus 51 – Annals / Annales 51 Tebessa Codex 242 Tenney, M. C. 87 Tertullian – and biblical canon 26, 84–87, 102–103, 121 – as bilingual 17–18, 87 – Cyprian’s dependence on 194n26 – on dignatio 60, 61 – Lactantius’s dependence on 176 – Marcion, reading of 89–91 – moral vision, overview 100–102 – moral vision, gender and sexuality 101, 108, 109–116 – moral vision, use of Scripture in 106–109 – and regula fidei 83–84, 101 – rhetorical strategy 80–81, 104 – scriptural interpretation, overview 92–93, 300, 301–302 – scriptural interpretation against heretics 95–98 – scriptural interpretation against nonChristians 93–95 – social context 82–83, 104–106 – and Vetus Latina 20, 87–91 – works – Ad nationes 93, 94 – Ad Scapulam 93 – Ad uxorem 109–113 – Adversus Hermogenem 96 – Adversus Judaeos 93, 94–95, 98 – Adversus Marcionem 46, 97–98, 302 – Apologeticum 93, 94 – De carne Christi 97 – De fuga in persecutione 72 – De praescriptione haereticorum 84, 95–96

– De resurrectione carnis 97 – De spectaculis 301 – De testimonio animae 93, 94 – De virginibus velandis 109–111, 113–116 – Scorpiace 72, 302 Teske, R. 271n35 Testimonia divinae scripturae et patrum 162 Tetrarchy 51 Thamugadi see Optatus of Thamugadi Thibaris 126 see also Vincentius of Tilley, M. 54, 129n84, 136, 139, 200, 206, 304 Toledo see Ildefonsus of Toledo Toom, T. 226n62 Trigg, J. 92 Tripoli see Peter of Tripoli Tubursi see Fortunius of Tubursi Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, F.IV.27 34–35 Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, G.V.37 34–35 Tyana see Apollonius of Tyana Tyconius – Augustine’s dependence on 280, 281, 283, 289, 292, 338 – biographical sketch 290–294 – on bipartite nature of the church 310–312, 315–317, 318 – Christian literary tradition, knowledge of 299–306 – educational background 294–295 – reevaluation of 317–319 – scriptural interpretation, overview 306–309 – on time of tribulation 312–315 – and Vetus Latina 295–299 – works – Expositio Apocalypseos 21, 28, 289, 297–299 – Liber regularum 28, 206, 260n122, 296, 309–317 typology see also allegory – Cyprian’s use of 124–125, 139–140 – Tertullian’s use of 106–109 uncial script 30, 31, 34, 37, 39, 40 unity, of Scripture 137, 216, 220–224, 276–278 Valentinus 96, 97 Valerian, Emperor 51 Van Damme, D. 155, 157

Subject Index

Van Oort, J. 293n21 Vassall-Phillips, O. R. 198, 201n71 veiled vs. unveiled women 113–115 Vercruysse, J.-M. 291n14, 297n43, 300 Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare XXVIII (26) 39 Vetus Latina – canon in 26–27 – characteristics 23–26 – and dating Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises 148 – layout 27–28 – reconstruction, overview 28–29 – reconstruction, from biblical manuscripts 29–34 – reconstruction, from patristic manuscripts 34–42, 87–88, 175 – sources 20–23 – translations 18–20, 87–91, 196–199, 239–240, 296–299, 325–329, 340 Victor I, Pope 17, 166 Victorinus, Marius 240 Victorinus of Pettau (Poetovio) 48 – Commentarii in Apocalypsin 301 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, L.87 42 Vigilius of Thapsus 21, 48 Vincentius of Thibaris – Sententiae episcoporum 151 violence, justification of 195, 204–205 Virgil – Aeneid 295, 354 virtus (divine power) 59

377

Vita Cypriani (Pontius) – and Acta Cypriani 67–68 – Christ’s deifying favor in 74–76 – divine glory in 64–65, 70–73 – reciprocal participation in divine patronage 68–70 vocabulary, biblical 24–26 Vogels, H. J. 89 Vos, N. 126, 131 Vulgata 18, 20, 239–240, 328–329 see also Vetus Latina Wall, R. W. 85n26 Wallis, R. E. 147 Waszink, J. H. 92, 162n93 widowhood 111 Wilhite, D. E. 128n82, 193, 200, 210 Wilmart, A. 191 Wiśniewski, R. 207 women – and masculinity 64–65 – and sexual morality 101, 108, 109–116 works, vs. faith 259, 260 Würzburg palimpsest (VL 103) 23 Young, F. 363n65 Zahn, T. 87 Ziwsa, K. 201n71

Ancient Sources Index Early Christian Literature Acta Cypriani 53, 67–68 4.9–10 68n76 Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum 6 6 11 4n10 12 5, 44n79 12–13 4 13.4 78n123 14 3

2–7, 53

Ambrose of Milan De fide 5.12.148–16.192 252n77 De Jacob et vita beata 1.4.13–16 257n106 Ambrosiaster Commentarius in epistulas Paulinas (ad Romanos) 5.14 327n33 Arnobius Adversus nationes 1.50.3–5 171n14 1.50.7 171 1.54.1 171 1.54.2–3 171 1.54.3 172n15 1.54.4 171 1.58 172 1.62.1 172 2.13–52 172n16 2.71 169 5.8 169 6.11.5–6 170n10

169–172

Athanasius of Alexandria Festal Letters / Epistulae festalis 39 / XXXIX 26 Augustine of Hippo Breviculus collationis cum Donatistis

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516491-017

47

Confessions / Confessiones 227, 343–364 1.1.1 355 1.6.10 355n37 1.13.20 295n33 1.14.23 295n33 1.18.28 357 2.2.2 358 2.2.4 355n37, 358 3.5.9 321n5, 336n84, 352 3.6.11 355n37 4.12.18 355n37 5.3.4–5 355n37 6.1.1 355n37 6.4.5 355 6.4.6 215n5, 338n90 6.5.8 270n31, 352, 355n37 6.11.18 355 6.11.20 355, 356 7.5.7 355n37 7.7.11 356 7.9.13 356 7.9.13–14 356 7.9.14 356–357 8.1.2 355n37 8.5.11–12 244n29 8.6.14–15 245n31 8.12.29 48n100, 245n32 9.4.7–12 358 9.4.8–12 358 9.5.13 339n94 10.3.3 347, 355 10.8.12–19.28 353 10.31.46 356 11.2.2 348, 356, 359, 360 11.2.3 355, 356n38, 359, 363 11.2.4 356, 359 11.12.14 270n29 11.22.28 355 12.1.1 355, 356 12.10.10 360 12.11.12 360 12.12.15 355 12.15.22 355

380

Ancient Sources Index

12.16.23 360n55 12.18.27 352 12.20.29 352 12.24.33 355 12.25.34 360 12.25.35 278n82, 352 12.26.36 352, 360 12.27.37 352, 364 12.28.38 364 12.30.41 352 12.32.43 361 13.10.11 362 13.12.13 362 13.15.16 364 13.15.18 278n83 13.18.22 363 13.18.22–23 361 13.23.34 278n83 13.24.35 361 13.24.36 361–362 13.26.39–27.42 361 13.32.47 361 13.34.49 361 13.38.53 355 Contra Academicos 2.2.5 215n6 Contra Adimantum 267 5 273n46 7 269n20, 277n72, 277n75 7.1 269n23 8 269n24, 277n78 9 269n19 10 276n67 11 269nn17–18, 276n70 13 269n20, 269n23, 276n68, 277n76 17 277n79 19 270n26 20 277n77 21 270n27 22 270n25 25 269n20, 276n25, 278n80 26 269nn21–22, 277nn73–74 27 276n69 28 269n16 Contra Cresconium Donatistam 1.16.20 340 Contra epistulam Manichaei quam vocant Fundamenti

23–25 268n7 Contra epistulam Parmeniani 193n20 1.1 290–291nn10–11, 294n24, 319n149 1.1.1 291n13 2.22.42 293n19 Contra Faustum Manichaeum 277 1.2 241n11 4.1 213n2 8.1 269n15 8.1–2 325n23 11.2 326n28 14.1 269n15, 270n27 16.5 270n27 18.1–3 268n8 19.3 269n24 19.31 325n23 21.1 268n8 21.9 268n8 32.1 268n7, 269n15 32.5 270n25, 270n27 33.1 269n23 Contra Felicem 1.2 268n7 2.2 268n8, 269n22 2.10 269n15, 270n27 Contra Fortunatum 11 269n13 14 268n9 16 269n13, 269n15, 279n86, 282n108 16–17 268n10 17 279nn87–88 21 258n108, 268n10, 269nn13–14, 279, 284n112 Contra Gaudentium Donatistarum episcopum 1.31.38 327n35 1.37.48 194n26 Contra litteras Petiliani 2.8.20 202n79 2.22.49 198n54 2.46.107 197n41 2.92.202 210n122 De agone christiano 13.14 336n82 24.26 74n112 De baptismo contra Donatistas 22 1.11.15 208n110 4.4.5 208n112 4.7–10 129n89

Ancient Sources Index

4.8 122n33 De catechizandis rudibus 23.41 327n33 De civitate Dei 11.2 332n62 15.14 327n35 15.23 327n35 17.20 327n35 18.26 327n35 18.36 327n35 18.44 327n35 19.23 172n17 De consensu evangelistarum 2.3–4 325n24 2.66.128 327n35 De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum 257–263 1.1.2 257n104 1.1.2–3 258n112 1.1.7 258n113 1.1.10 258n111 1.1.11 258nn109–110 1.1.16 257n105 1.1.17 258n114 1.2.2 259n116 1.2.3 259n117, 259n119 1.2.4 259n118 1.2.5 260n122 1.2.10 260n124 1.2.12 261n125, 284nn113–114 1.2.13 261n126, 285nn115–116 1.2.16 261n128, 286nn119–122 1.2.18 262n130 1.2.22 262–263nn133–135, 285n117 De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII 251–253 66.1 251n66, 282n101 66.3 251n67 67.2 252n70 67.5 252n69 67.7 251n68 68.1 252n74 68.3 252n72 68.4 252n73 68.5 252n76 71.2 253n78 71.4–5 253n79 73.2 253n81 75.1–3 253n82 De doctrina christiana 321–341, 347

Praefatio 5 329, 330, 332n58, 335 Praefatio 6–7 330n48 Praefatio 8 330, 333n63 1.1.1 330 1.2.2 333 1.2.4–5 329, 331 1.2.6 331 1.3.7–22.39 331 1.4.4 331 1.5.5 331 1.10.10 332n60 1.11.11 328 1.12.12 332 1.13.12 332, 333n64 1.14.13 336 1.16.15 328n40, 335 1.17.16 333 1.21.19 331 1.22.20 332, 334 1.22.21 328n40, 334 1.24.24 328n40 1.24.25 328n40 1.25.26–30.32 334n71 1.26.27 328n40, 334nn69–70 1.30.32 328n40, 334nn69–70 1.30.33 334 1.30.42 309n103 1.31.34 332 1.32.35–33.37 334 1.33.36 328 1.33.37 332n60, 334n73 1.34.38 333n63, 334 1.35.39 331, 334n69, 335n74 1.35.39–36.40 334 1.36 140n164 1.36.40 220n33, 334 1.36.41 334 1.37.41 328n40 1.39.43 228n74, 332n60 1.40.44 331n55, 334n69 2.2.3 325 2.3.4 323n10 2.5.6 325 2.6.7 334n70, 336n86 2.7.9–11 336 2.7.10 334n70, 336n86 2.7.10–9.14 336 2.7.11 323n10, 336n83 2.8.12 324

381

382

Ancient Sources Index

2.8.12–13 337n87 2.8.13 325, 329, 353 2.9.14 337, 341 2.10.16 338 2.11.16 325, 326n30, 327n33 2.12.17 326, 328n40 2.12.18 325, 326n28 2.13.19 325 2.13.20 328 2.14.21 326 2.15.22 18n13, 45n83, 239n4, 326, 327 2.16.16 325 2.16.23 337 2.16.24 337 2.16.26 164n100 2.17.27–42.63 337 2.37.55 330n50 2.40.61 189n1 2.41.62 337 2.42.63 321 3.1.1 326n27, 326n29 3.2.2 337 3.2.3 337 3.3.6 337 3.3.6–4.8 337 3.3.7 326n28 3.5.9 338 3.5.9–24.34 338n91 3.6.10–11.3 338 3.9.13 337 3.10.14–16 334n73 3.10.15 334 3.12.20 334n70 3.14.22 325n23, 334n70 3.17.25 334n73 3.18.27 325n23 3.21.30–31 323n10 3.23.33 335n79 3.25.35 322 3.25.36 338 3.26.37–27.38 338 3.29.41 338n91 3.30.42 289n3 3.30.42–37.56 338 3.33.46 311n115 3.34.48 339n92 3.34.49 328n40 3.37.56 330n50, 339

3.39.40–41 338 4.1.1 330n50 4.1.2 339 4.3.4 321, 324n22 4.5.7 339 4.6.9 321 4.6.9–10 339 4.7.11 339 4.7.12 340 4.7.15 329 4.7.16 339 4.8 326n28 4.8.22 322 4.10.24 340 4.12.27 330n50 4.12.27–13.29 339 4.14.30 340 4.14.31 340 4.15.32 339 4.16.33 322–323, 328 4.17.34 340 4.18.37 325n23 4.20.21 325 4.20.41 329 4.26.56 339 4.28.61 328, 334n69, 339 De duabus animabus 1 215n6 De fide et symbolo 3.4 333n65 De Genesi ad litteram 228n70 8.4 272n36 De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber 227–228n70, 275–276 2.5–3.6 232n93 De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.2.3 270n29 1.2.4 273nn42–43 1.3.5–5.9 270n30 1.13.19 273n44 1.16.25 273n44 1.17.27 269n16, 273n46 1.19.30 274n49 1.23.35–41 274n56 1.23.40 217n10 1.23.41 272n40 2.1.1 274n51 2.2.3 271n34, 274n54

Ancient Sources Index

2.3.4 274n55 2.4.5 275n57 2.6.7 274n55 2.7.8 273n47 2.9.12 275n59 2.10.13 275n60 2.11.15 275n61 2.12.17 274n52, 275n62 2.13.19 275n65 2.14.20 274n53, 275n58 2.18.28–19.29 275n63 2.20.30 273n45 2.21.32 273n48, 275n64 2.22.34 275n58 2.24.37 275n65 2.26.39 270n28 2.28.42 274n50 De libero arbitrio 3.18.51 280n89 De magistro 7.19 329n46 10.34 329n45 De moribus ecclesiae Catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum 215 1.1.2 224n56 1.2.3 227n69 1.7.11 227nn66–68 1.7.12 228nn71–72 1.8.13 220nn34–35 1.9.15 221n36 1.10.16 231n89 1.10.17 232nn90–91 1.11.18 216n7 1.14.27 221n36 1.16.28 221n36 1.17.30 220n36, 221n36, 228n73 1.17.31 221n37 1.17.32 217n8 1.18.34 221n36, 221n38 1.19.35 217n9, 221n39 1.19.36 217n10 1.20.37 217n11 1.21.39 217nn12–13, 222n40 1.22.40 222n41 1.23.42 217n14, 222n42 1.23.42–43 217n15 1.23.43 222n44 1.24.44 217n16, 222n45 1.24.45 218n17, 222nn46–47

383

1.25.46 223n48 1.25.50 218n19 1.28.56 223–224nn51–54 1.28.57 218nn18–19 1.29.59 218n18, 223n50 1.30.62 218n18 1.33.71 218n20 1.34.78 218n21 2.14.32–34 218n22 10.16–17 271n33 De musica 5.10 217n10 De natura boni contra Manichaeos 41 269n13 De praedestinatione sanctorum 7–8 257n103 De quantitate animae 33 217n13 De sermone Domini in monte 1.1.3 336n85 1.12.34 278n81 1.20.65 277n79 1.21.71–72 278n80 De Trinitate prologue 46n90 1.8.15 71n97 4.3.6 71n97 4.29 332n57 9.18 332n57 15.20 333n65 De utilitate credendi 215 1.2 215n6 2.4 225n57, 232n92 3.5 232n94 3.7 325n23 3.8 233n95, 233n97 3.9 225nn57–61, 232n98, 235n103, 271n32 5.10–11 272n39 5.12 226n63 6.13 226nn64–65, 231nn87–88, 234n102 14.30 219n31 14.32 219n31 17.35 330n48 50.99 235–236nn104–106 De vera religione 215 3.4 218n24 5.9 219n26 7.13 229n76 10.19 229n76

384

Ancient Sources Index

16.30 218n23, 229n75, 230n82 17.33 223n51, 225n60 17.34 229nn77–78 21.41 217n13, 219n28, 219n30 24.45 229n79, 230n81 25.46 229n80 26.48 229n76 26.48–49 219n26 27.50 219n26 33.61 217n13, 219n30 38.70 218n24 38.71 218n25 39.72 219n28 39.73 218n23 42.79 218n23 49.97 219n29 50.98 230nn83–84 50.99 231nn85–86 51.100 219n28, 272n37 52.101 218n23, 219n26 54.104–106 219n27 55.107 218n24 55.110 229n76 Enarrationes in Psalmos 47 18.1.6 164n98 30[2].3.1 349 64.6 74n114 90.2.5 164n98 92.6 74n113 93.6 278n83 140.1 334n73 Enchiridion de fide, spe, et caritate 13.41 326n29 32.121 334n73 Epistula ad catholicos de secta Dontatistarum 19.50 189n1 Epistulae 21 345n4 28.3 254n87 28.4 254n89 40.3 254n87 41.2 291n12, 321n3 44.4.9 205n92 55.20 48n102 71.6 327n33 82.2.6 325n23 82.5.35 328n42

87.8 195n32 93.7.23 207n106 93.10.43 292n18 93.10.44 293n20 147.18 74n113 169 46 172.2 46n89 185.9.38–40 208n112 199 314n129 261.5 326 Epistulae ad Romanos inchoata expositio liber unus 253 11.4 240n7 In epistulam Johannis ad Parthos tractatus 10.7 334n73 In Evangelium Johannis tractatus 47 4.10 329n45 7.12 47n98 10.12 165n102 13.4 332n62 35.9 332n60 Expositio in epistulam ad Galatas 253–256 1 254n84 1.2 281n98 2.2–4 255n92 6.2 255n92 9.4 326n28 12.4 255n91 15.1 254n85 15.9–11 255n90 19.2–10 255n93 24.14 282n102 30.6 62n45 38.3–4 255n94 44.2–4 255n95 44.4 282n104 46.1–2 256n97 46.1–47.5 280n89 46.4–6 256n96 46.6–9 256n98 47.2–3 256n99 Expositio quarundam quaestionum in epistula ad Romanos 247–251 Praefatio 248n44 12.1 248n48 12.2 248n46 12.3–11 248n50 13–18.1 280n92

385

Ancient Sources Index

13–18.2 281n94 13–18.4 281n97 13–18.7 282n103 24.2 249n54 27 249n52 37–38 281n96 37.3 249n51 38.7 249n53 40.4–9 249n55 41.3–6 250n56 43 281n99 44.1–3 282n100 45–46 280n89, 281n95 45–46.2 282n103 45.2–53.18–21 250n57 52.2–11 250n59 52.14–15 250n61 53.4–7 250n62 54.6–9 250n63 60.8–10 282n106 60.12 282n105 62.9 282n107 Gesta conlationis Carthaginiensis 3.258 297n43 Regula 3 247 Retractationes 1.18 276n66 1.21 22n27 1.21.3 197n42 1.23.1 247n42 1.23.2–4 257n103 2.1.1 257n103 2.1.3 283n111 2.4.1 321n4, 322n6 2.15.1 46n90 Sermones 47 23.8 47n94 114B.14 326n29 160.12 6n20 265F.2–3 62n45 272B (augm.).9 47n94 313C.2 45n86 Speculum (quis ignorat) 21 327n35 Breviarium Hipponense 26–27 Canon 36 240n7

Cassian Institutiones 5.34 336n81 Cassiodorus Institutiones 1.8.9 49n103 2 Clement 12.2 183n96 Compendium Indiculum veteris et novi testament Liber genealogus 28, 297–298 Liber generationis 28

298n46

Computus of 455, De ratione Paschae 163

149,

Contra Fulgentium Donatistam 1.12 297n45 Cyprian of Carthage Ad Demetrianum 8 120n6 Ad Donatum 122 Ad Fortunatum 21 Praefatio 2–3 61n41 Praefatio 4 77n122 8 61n43 9 72n101 11 302n70 13 61nn42–43, 151 Ad Quirinum testimonia adversus Judaeos 21, 299 1 158 1.Praefatio 120n11 1.2 178n48 1.3 178n48 1.8 180n68, 180n70 1.10 180n68 1.11 181n82 1.16 178n48 1.17 179n64 1.18 180n69 1.19 303n73 1.20 121n18, 302n67

386

Ancient Sources Index

1.21 178n43, 178n48, 179n55, 179n58, 303n74 1.24 303n74 2.1 177n41 2.3 154, 178n45 2.4 179n65 2.6 179nn56–57 2.7 179n66, 181n84 2.8 178n49, 183n101 2.10 179n58 2.11 179nn61–62 2.13 180n67, 180n73 2.14 180n67 2.15 180n75 2.16 152 2.20 180n77 2.21 74n113, 178n49 2.23 181n79 2.24 181n80 2.25 181n81 2.26 178n52, 179n53 3.Praefatio 120n11 3.1 69n85 3.6 72n101 3.11 65n59, 122n29 3.17 151 3.32 61n40, 69n84 3.34 159n83 3.36 297n44 3.39 198n54 3.55 128n80 3.78 139n149 3.120 135n122 De bono patientia 5 68n80 7 76n121 De catholicae ecclesiae unitate 200 22 61n44 De dominica oratione 1 76n121 10–12 68n80 12 62n45 24 124n47 28 154 31 135n122 35 152 De habitu virginum 154 4 69n82 5 128n80 22 69n84

22–23 69n82 De lapsis 7 76n121 10 62n46, 151, 159n83 25 202n74 De mortalitate 17 62n46, 303n71 22 65n59 De zelo et livore 122, 129n89 13–15 68n80 Epistulae 3.3.3 121n18, 137n136 4 145 4.1.2 134nn116–117 4.2.3 131n103 4.4.2 128n82, 140n160, 140n162 4 [61].4.3 194n26 4.5.1 136n126 4.5.2 127n77 6.1.2 62n46 6.2.1 151 10.2.2–4–4 76n119 11.3.1 137n132 11.5.1 135n121 13.2.2 138n138 13.3.2 137n129 13.5.2 131n102 27 [22].1.2 202n73 27.3.2 121n19 27.3.3 121n20 28.1.1 62n46 28.2.2 151 30.2 125n57 38 [32].2 202n73 39 [33].1.2 202n73 43.1.1 62n46 52.1.3 135n119 55.6.1 160n84 55.18.1 153 55.21.1 132n107 55.22–23 161n89 57.4.4 161 58 126 58.5.1 124n47 58.10.2 151 59.1.1 126n67 59.2.4 124n49, 132n108 59.3.1 131n101 59.3.2 124n50

Ancient Sources Index

59.3.3 124n51 59.4.1 134n114 59.4.2 124n52, 125n53 59.4.3 125n54 59.5.3 120n12 59.7.1 132n108 59.7.2 125n55 59.7.3 121n21, 125n56 59.8.2 127n77 59.14.1 125n60 59.14.2 125n61 59.17.1 125n62 59.20.1 139nn147–149, 139n151 60.2.1 125n57 61 122n35 62.1.1 138n142 62.2.2 138n146 62.3.1 138n141 63 128 63.2.1 139n154 63.3 133n110, 139n155 63.4.1 76n121 63.4.2 136n127 63.8.1–9.1 139n157 63.9.2–10.1 139n156 63.10.3 132n105 63.11.1 132n106 63.12.2 133n111 63.15.3 128n80, 137n130 63.16.2 133n113 63.18.3 151, 152 64 140n161 64.4.1 128n81 67.5.4 121n18 69.2.1–3 126n67 69.2.3 127n71, 135n119 69.4.2 139n150 73 129 73.5.2 151 73.9.1 129n86 73.9.1–2 129n87 73.10.3 139n150 73.12.1 62n45 73.14.1 129n88 73.15.1 130n91 73.17.2 130n92 73.18.1 130n93 73.19.2 121n22

73.21.1 129n85 73 [74].21.2 194n26 73.21.3–22.1 130n94 73.22.2 130nn95–97 74 165n105 74.2.3 139n150 74.6.1–2 127n72 74.6.2 135n119 74.7.2 127n73 74.9 121n17 74.10.3 120n7, 137n130 74.11.2 121n22 76.2.4 65n59, 124n48 76.2.4–5 74n113 76.7.1 151 De aleatoribus 2 26 De duobus gradibus 242 Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus / Altercatio Jasonis et Papisci 152, 164 Didache 26 4.3 199n55 Epiphanius Panarion 30.13 183n102 Epistle of Barnabas 26, 86, 103 Epistula ad Menoch 243 Eugippius Excerpta 246–274 330n51 Eusebius Historia Ecclesiastica 6.23 17n4 Fulgentius of Ruspe Ad Monimus 2.13.3 189n1 Ad Trasamundum

387

388

Ancient Sources Index

2.18.1 71n97 Contra Fabianum fragmenta 10.10 66n68 Epistulae 18.8 71n97 Gennadius De viris illustribus 18 290n4, 290nn7–8, 292n16, 294n25, 295n35 101 290n5 Gesta apud Zenophilium 9 198n47

44

Gregory the Great In librum primum regum 4.195 66n71

John Chrysostom In principium Actorum

Habetdeum Gesta Collationis Carthaginiensis 3.58 208n112 Hilarianus De ratione Paschae et mensis

149, 163

Hilary of Poitiers De Trinitate 4.8 121n13 Ignatius of Antioch To the Philadelphians / Ad Philadelphenos 8.2 172n18 Ildefonsus of Toledo De viris illustribus 4 49n104 Irenaeus of Lyons Epideixis tou apostolikou kērygmatos 43 182n94 78 183n97 97 179n57 Jerome Chronicle / Chronicon 1.13.2 169 De viris illustribus

53 17n6 66 166 68 68n78 69 166 80 169n3 82 166 91 166 Epistulae 27.2.1–3.1 327n33 27*.2.3 328n41 82.5.34 328n41 121.8 257n107 134.2 46n89, 329n43 Quaestionum hebraicarum liber in Genesim 328n41

45n85

Justin Martyr Apologia 4.1 177n42 Dialogus cum Tryphone 72 183n97 88.8 183n101 103.6 183n101 Lactantius De mortibus persecutorum 1.3 173n20 2.7 173n20 3.1 173n20 4.1 173n20 9.2 173n20 13.3 173n20 16.1 173n20 44 173n20 46 173n20 52 173n20 Divinae institutiones 175–187 1.28.3–9 181n89 2.10.3–4 173n21 4.1.2–8 176n34 4.4.5 176n35 4.6.4–5 177n40 4.6.6–9 177n41 4.7.5–6 177n42 4.8.1 178n43, 182n93

Ancient Sources Index

4.8.4–5 177n37 4.8.14–16 178n45 4.10.6 177n36 4.11.4–13 178n48 4.11.12 178n48 4.12.3 183n98 4.12.4 178n49 4.12.7–9 178n50 4.12.10 178n51 4.12.12 178n52 4.12.16 178n52 4.12.17 179nn53–54 4.12.18 179n55 4.13.7 179n56 4.13.9 179n57 4.13.10 179n58 4.13.11 179n63 4.13.18 179n59 4.13.19 179n60 4.13.20 179n61 4.13.22 179n62 4.13.27 179n62 4.14.4–5 179n64 4.14.6–10 179n65 4.15.3 179n66 4.16.6 180n67 4.16.7–10 180n67 4.16.12 180n67 4.17 180n68 4.17.6 180n69 4.17.9 180n70 4.18.2 180n75 4.18.13–14 180n73 4.18.16 180n74 4.18.18 180n74, 184n103 4.18.22 184n103 4.18.26–27 180n75 4.18.29–30 180n77 4.18.32–33 180n78 4.19.3–4 181n79 4.19.8 181n80 4.19.9 181n81 4.20.2 177n39 4.20.6 181n82 4.20.7 181n83 4.20.12 181n84 4.21.3 184n104 4.25.5 181n85 4.26.18 181n86

389

4.26.22–23 181n87 4.26.32 181n88 4.26.37–42 181 4.29.3–5 182n90 4.29.10 182n91 4.29.11 182n91 4.30.1 182n91 4.30.4–7 182 4.30.10 182n92 5 173 5.2.13–17 171n12 5.4 120n5 5.15.8–9 175n30 6.12.13–25 174n22 6.12.35 174n23 6.12.41 174n24 6.18.33 175n28 6.23.38 174n26 6.25.12 175n29 7.16.1–5 185n110 7.16.5–7 185n109 7.16.8–9 185n112 7.16.10 186n113 7.16.11 185n111 7.17.3 185n106 7.19.2 186n114 7.20.5 186n116 7.24.2 185n108 7.24.3–8 185n107 7.27.13 186n115 Libellus adversus Fulgentium Donatistam 22 Melito of Sardis De Pascha 155 Novatian De Trinitate 27.3 300n59 Optatus of Milevis De schismate Donatistarum adversus Parmenianum 192–212 1.1.2 197n45 1.4.4 193n19 1.5.2 196n38 1.9.2 194n24 1.21.3 199n55 1.26.2 207n107

390

Ancient Sources Index

2.1.4 201n71 2.4.6 208n110 2.6.1 196n37 2.7.1 194n22 2.10.3 210n125 2.14.1 195n31 2.15.3 206n97 2.18.6 208n112 3.2.7–12 210n120 3.2.8 210n121 3.3.4 206n99 3.3.5 207n102 3.3.10–12 204n88 3.3.14 201n72 3.5.2 204n90 3.7.8 205n91 3.8.4 206n98 3.8.7 207n104 3.9.4 202n75 4.2.4 196n34 4.4.1 202n80 4.4.3 209n114 4.5.1 191n8, 196n33 4.5.3 196n36 4.7.1 203n82 4.7.6 203n84 4.8.1 194n23, 203n86 4.9.1 202n76 4.9.2 204n87 5.1.7 203n85 5.1.11 202n77, 209n116 5.3.5 202n78 5.3.8 197n40, 198n54 5.4.7 196n35 5.5.4 197n40 5.6.1 194n22 5.7.1 194n25 5.7.7 209n118 5.10.1–2 208n113 6.1.11 210n123 6.3.1 210n124 6.3.9 209n117 6.5.2 203n81 7.1 45n84 7.1.9 211n128 7.1.22 210n127 7.1.36 210n126 7.2.4–8 207n108

7.3.3 208n110 7.3.8 196n37 7.6.6 209n119 Origen De principiis Praefatio 8 299n53 4.3.9–10 300n57 Homiliae in Numeros 27.1 45n85 Passion of Marian and James / Passio Marini et Jacobi 54 Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis 53, 54, 57–67 1.1 58n25 1.3–4 58nn26–27, 59n30 1.5 59n34, 60n35 3.1–3 59n31 3.4 58n28 3.5 62n47 4.1 60n36 4.2 60n37 4.3–4 63n48 4.6 63n49 4.6–10 59n31 4.8–10 63n50 5.2–6 59n31 9.1 59n32 10.1–2 63n52 10.4 63n53 10.6–13 59n31 10.8–15 64n55 10.10–11 64n56 10.12–13 64n57 11.1–12.7 65n64 11.10–12.5 65n65 12.6 66n66 12.7 58n28, 66n67 13.8 66n67 15.1 65n60 15.4 59n33 15.5 65n61 15.5–6 65n62 18.1–2 66n69 18.6 59n31 19.1 67n72 21.11 59n30

Ancient Sources Index

Pistis Sophia

183n98

Pontius Vita Cypriani 67–76 2 120n8 2.1 68n80 2.4 69n82 2.5 69n81, 74n109 2.6–7 69n85 3.3 70n90 3.4–8 70n88 3.9 69n87 5.1 70n91, 74n109 6.1 69n86, 74n110 7.1 70n92 7.2–3 70n93 7.3–10.5 71n94 7.8 69n86 7.12 75n118 9.6 69n86 9.7–9 70n89 9.9 69n81 11.4 69n84 11.5 72n100 11.7–12.1 73n103 11.8 69n86 12.2–3.1 73n104 14.5–6 73n105 15.2 73n106 15.4 73n107 16.1 73n107 18.2 73n107 18.4 75n116 18.4–6 73n107 18.5 75n117 19.1–2 75n118 19.2 69n81 Possidius Vita Augustini 7.3 47n93 Pseudo–Cyprianic treatises Ad Fortunatum, de duplici martyrio Ad Novatianum 147, 156–157 2 160n85 5 153

146

391

6 153 7 153 8 160n85 9 160 10–11 161n89 12 153, 160 Ad Plebem Carthaginis 143, 144, 152–153 Ad sanctum Cyprianum 145 Ad Silvanum 146 Ad Turasium 144–145 Adversus Judaeos 143, 147, 148, 155, 156–157, 162 1 157n73, 158n79 5 163n94 10 158n79 Ad Vigilium episcopum de Judaica incredulitate 146, 152 1.3 152 3–6 158 4.1 164 5.2 152 7 158 7.4 152 De aleatoribus 147, 156–157, 161 2 152 2–4 159 3 151 8 151 8–10 159 De bono pudicitiae 143, 147 De centesima, sexagesima, tricesima 143n1, 147, 156–157, 161 9 157 14 149, 154 20 164n101 21 149 De duobus montibus Sina et Sion 21, 147, 148, 150 1 158n77 2 150 4 150, 162 7–8 165 9 158, 162 13 149 15 150 De duodecim abusivis saeculi 145

392

Ancient Sources Index

De laude martyrii 143, 144, 146, 147, 156–157 10 161 11 161 14 161 14–15 162 17 161 18 150, 162 20–21 161n88 27 161 28 159, 161 28–29 162 29 161n88 De pascha computus 144, 147, 156–157, 162 1 163 3 163 4 158 5 163 6–7 163 10 149, 158 11 156 16 149, 150, 158 18 158 22 149 De rebaptismate 146, 147, 165n105 1 160n86 6 160n86 7.1 151 De singularitate clericorum 21, 145 De spectaculis 143, 147 De voluntate Dei 145 Exhortatio de paenitentia 144, 147, 155–156 Expositio symboli 145 Quod idola dii non sint 146 Revelatio capitis beati Johannis Baptistae 145 Quodvultdeus De symbolo 3.2.22 6n21 Liber promissionum et praedicatorum Dei 2.31 71n97 Sermones 9.12.10 153n58 Rufinus of Aquileia Expositio symboli 145

Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium 5 304n79 7 304n80 Shepherd of Hermas / Hermae Pastor 26, 86, 103, 152 Tertullian Ad nationes 93, 94 Ad Scapulam 93 1.3 94n78 2.3 94n79 2.6 94n79 4.1 94n79 Ad uxorem 109–113 1.4.4 111n61 2 100n4 2.2.1 112n65 2.2.3 112n68 2.2.4 113n69 2.3.1 113n70 2.5.2 112n63 2.6.1–2 111 Adversus Hermogenem 96 1 96n89 6.1–2 96n90 11.3 96n91 18.6 88n48 20.4 88n48 34.1–3 96n93 45.1 88n48 Adversus Judaeos 93, 94–95 2.7 84 3 178n47 5.6 178n46 7.2 179n55 9.2–3 178n49 9.15–16 302n65 9.17 66n70 10.4 181n86 10.11 178n51 14.5 66n70 14.6 179n58 14.9 93n71 Adversus Marcionem 97–98, 114 1.1 46n91 2.9.2 18n9 2.11.1–13.5 100n2

Ancient Sources Index

2.17–27 97n100 2.19 300n55 3.5.3 92n66 4.1.1 202n79 4.1.3 98n102 4.7.3 98n103 4.11 207n105 4.16.1 86n36 4.19.12 88n49 4.22 74n113 5.2–4 98 5.4.8 91n62 5.5–10 98 5.6.1 302n64 5.11–12 98 5.11.11 84 5.13–14 98 5.15 98 5.16 98 5.17–18 98 5.18.1 90 5.18.9 126n66 5.19 98 5.19.4 88n48 5.20 98 5.20.7 71n97 5.21 98 Adversus Praxean 2.1 88n48 3.2 87n40, 88 5.3 178n45 7.3 88n48 8.4 88n48 12.5–6 88n48 13.3 88n48 16.1 88n48 19.3 88n48 19.6 88n48 21.1 88n48 Adversus Valentinianos 6.1–2 87n40 Apologeticus 93, 94 21.10 88n49 21.11 182n90 21.16 94n75 21.17 88n49 30.5 94n76 31.1–3 94n76 45.7 100n3

47.10 84n19 48.11 101n10 De anima 36.4 101 43.10 162 De baptismo 3.1–2 62n45 15.2 87n40 17.5 86n33, 103n24 18.1 88 20.2 84 20.5 93n70 De carne Christi 97, 114 2.4 97n97 2.5 97n98 3.9 97n96 18.3–4 88n49 De corona militis 3.2–3 63n51 4.1 108n45 6.3 87n40 14.1–2 115n81 15.1 84 De cultu feminarum 1 109 1.1–3 103n23 1.1.1–3 108n48 1.3.1–3 87n38 1.3.3 85n24 2.3.1 84 2.10.3 86n37 2.12.3 109n51 2.13 102n16 2.13.3 109n52 De exhortatione castitatis 4.4 112n66 7.1–3 107n42 11.1 112n64 12.3 84 De fuga in persecutione 1.3 72n102 1.5 72n102 1.5–6 101n14 2.1–2 72n102 2.7 72n102 3.1 72n102 14.2 117n86 De idololatria 4.2 86n37

393

394

Ancient Sources Index

11.1 84 18.2 85n27 19 205n93 De jejunio adversus psychicos 100n5 3.4 108n49 6.5–6 109n50 6.6 84 7.8 85n27 9.1–4 109n50 9.1–6 107n40 17.6–7 102n17 De monogamia 100n5 4.5 112n67 6.2 107n43 6.4 107n41 11.11 18n8, 91n62 De oratione 113 1.1 88n48 2 127n74 4 62n47 16.1 86n32 29 62n47 De paenitentia 100n4 10.5–6 63n53 14.1 86n35 De praescriptione haereticorum 95–96 1–7 95n82 3.7 86n36 8–14 95n83 8.3 95n83 8.4 93n70 13.1–6 101n8 13.2–5 84n18 15–19 95n84, 194n26 18 96n86 20–28 84n19 20–37 96n87 21–22 96n85 31.2 88n49 33–34 96n88 36.5 85n29 44.14 95n81 De pudicitia 100n5 2.7 100n1 7.8–9 106n38 7.10 88n49 9.16 107n39 10.12 86n32, 103n26

18.9 88n45 20.1–5 121n14 20.2 86n31 De resurrectione carnis 89, 97 5.6 88n48 10.2–4 97n99 20.1–9 92n66 32.1 86n37 44.3 72n99 55 71n97 De spectaculis 87n40, 159 3.1–5 107n44 3.4 108n46 3.7–8 301n63 20.2 116n82 20.4 116n83 20.5 100n3 De testimonio animae 93, 94 2.29 66n70 De virginibus velandis 109, 110–111, 113–116 1.1 87n40, 114n75 4.1 114n76 4.2 114n77 7.1 115n78 8.1 115n80 9.1 115n79 9.3 113n72 10.1 113n72 15.2 100n3 16.1 102n18 Scorpiace 5.3–6.10 101n14 5.7 102n15 7.5 102n15 12 302n70 13 72n102 Testimonia divinae scripturae et patrum Tyconius Expositio Apocalypseos 21, 28 1.1 302n67, 310n108 1.2 301n62 1.5 292n17 1.11 292n17, 295n32, 298nn49–50, 309n102 1.20 301n62 1.21 313n124

162

Ancient Sources Index

1.41 1.42 2.13 2.15 2.33 2.34 2.35 2.36 2.40 2.51 3.35 3.38

316n141 318n147 298n46 308n97 316n142 310–311nn111–112 315nn137–138 316n139 311n113 302n69 290n9 293n23, 295n32, 298nn47–48 3.60 316n140 3.64 313n125, 313n127 4.5 301n62 4.12 305n82 4.16 314n128 4.21 314n128 4.46 298n46, 306n87 4.49 303n71 5.13 308n99 5.18 295n32 6.4 297n44 6.17 297n45 7.58 297n45 10.1 301n62 11.12 301n62 Liber regularum 28, 206, 309–317 Prooemion 289n1, 305n81, 308nn94–95 1.2 310n107 1.3 306n90, 307nn91–92 1.4.1 318n146 1.7 302n65, 303n74 1.12.2 300n59 1.13 310n109 2.6 310n110 2.10 316n142 2.13 303n72 3 283n109 3.17 311n116, 318n145 3.20.1 303n74, 311n118 3.21 303n74 3.25 303n73 3.26 311n114

3.29 312n119 4.1 295n29 4.2.1 307n92 4.2.2 307n92 4.3.1–4 307n92 4.11 312n120 4.14.1–2 300n58 4.14.2 302n65 4.15.2–3 300n58 4.15.4 308n99 4.16 312n121 4.17 316n142 4.18 300n58 4.19.1 308n99 5.1 294n27 5.2.1 312n122 5.3.4 312n123 5.4.3 313n124 5.6.2–4 313n125 5.8.2 313n126 6.1 308n98, 314nn130–131 6.3.1 315n133, 315n136 6.3.2 314n132 6.4.1 309n102 6.4.4 315n134 7.4.2 293n23 7.7 296n43 7.14.2 297n44 7.18.2 317n143 7.19 317n144 Victorinus Commentarii in Apocalypsin 1.2 302n68 1.4 301n62 1.7 301n62 4.3 301n62 5 301n62 8.2 301n61 10.1 301n62 11.3 301n62 Vincentius of Thibaris Sententiae episcoporum 37 151

395

396

Ancient Sources Index

Greco-Roman Literature Apuleius Florida 16 56n17 25–48 56n17 Metamorphoses 11.6 56n17 11.21 60n39 11.29 60n39 Aristotle Rhetorica 1.3.3 1358b 81n8 1.3.5 1358b 81n8 1.9 124n46 3.13.4 1414b 81n9 Cicero Academica 2.4–5 170n8 De inventione rhetorica 1.17.23 330n47 2.40 129n90 2.40–41 129n90 De legibus 1.8.25 173n21 De natura deorum 2.28.71 181n89 3.17.43 170n9 De officiis 2.18.63 174n22 Hortensius 358 Hermes Trismegistus Asclepius 8 177n40 Plato Respublica 501b 173n21

Pliny the Younger Epistulae 2.20.9 136n128 Quintilian Institutio oratoria 3.6.6 92n69 4.1.17–18 94n77 4.5.3 137n131 5.7.8 94n77 5.11 124n46 5.12.11 94n77 7.5–9 92n69 7.6 92n69 7.6.9 92n69 Seneca De beneficiis 1.4.2 56n17 Epistulae 47 120n6 Sibylline Oracles / Oracula Sibyllina 177, 179, 180–181, 184–185, 186 8.402 173n21 Tacitus Annals / Annales 15.44 51n1 Virgil Aeneid 354 6.183–192 295n30