Uncovering Jewish Creativity in Book III of the Sibylline Oracles: Gender, Intertextuality, and Politics 9789004426078, 9004426078

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Uncovering Jewish Creativity in Book III of the Sibylline Oracles

Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism Editors René Bloch (Institut für Judaistik, Universität Bern) Karina Martin Hogan (Department of Theology, Fordham University) Associate Editors Hindy Najman (Theology & Religion Faculty, University of Oxford) Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven) Benjamin G. Wright, III (Department of Religion Studies, Lehigh University) Advisory Board A.M. Berlin – K. Berthelot – J.J. Collins – B. Eckhardt – Y. Furstenberg S. Kattan Gribetz – S. Mason – F. Mirguet – J.H. Newman A.K. Petersen – M. Popović – I. Rosen-Zvi – J.T.A.G.M. van Ruiten M. Segal – J. Sievers – W. Smelik – G. Stemberger – L.T. Stuckenbruck L. Teugels – J.C. de Vos

volume 194

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/jsjs

Uncovering Jewish Creativity in Book III of the Sibylline Oracles Gender, Intertextuality, and Politics By

Ashley L. Bacchi

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bacchi, Ashley L., author. Title: Uncovering Jewish creativity in Book III of the Sibylline oracles : gender, intertextuality, and politics / by Ashley L. Bacchi. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2020. | Series: Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism, 1384–2161 ; vol.194 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020003244 (print) | LCCN 2020003245 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004424340 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004426078 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Oracula sibyllina. Book 3. | Sibyls—Early works to 1800. | Women prophets in literature. | Prophecy—Judaism. | Jews—Civilization—Greek influences. Classification: LCC PA4253.O83 B33 2020 (print) | LCC PA4253.O83 (ebook) | DDC 888/.01—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020003244 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020003245

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1384-2161 ISBN 978-90-04-42434-0 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-42607-8 (e-book) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Foreword vii Acknowledgments x Introduction 1 1 Methodology: Deconstructing Binaries and a Hermeneutic of Suspicion 2 2 Dating and Provenance of Book III 13 3 Second Century BCE Political Context 20 4 Conclusion 26 1 Hellenistic Complexities and Cultural Hybridity 27 1 A Retrospective: (De)constructing the Hellenistic Period 29 2 Setting the Stage: Defining Boundaries amidst Debates 35 3 The Changing Shape of Hellenistic Religious Discourse: Crisis of Belief? 40 4 The Hellenistic Saddle Period: an Expansion of Religious Linguistic Discourse 44 5 Hellenistic Education: Establishing Authorship and Readership 48 6 Two Styles: Sibyllist and Sibyllists 54 7 Conclusion 55 2 Why the Sibyl? Reclaiming a Female Voice of Prophecy 56 1 The Archaic Greek Sibyl: a Unique Model? 57 2 Different Branches of a Fluid Sibylline Genre 62 3 Universal History as Marker of Innovation in Book III 65 4 Why the Sibyl? Context for a Female Voice 68 4.1 Context for a Female Voice: Queens 71 4.2 Context for a Female Voice: the Feminine Divine and Female Agency 74 4.3 Context for a Female Voice: Literature 77 5 Conclusion 84 3 Establishing Prophetic Authority and Challenging Gender Norms 86 1 A Credible and Illustrious Genealogy 86 2 The Authority of Noah 92 3 Enoch, Etiologies of Sin and Reconstructing a World View 99

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4 An Issue of Greed Not Sexuality: Male-Same-Sex Prohibitions 102 5 Jewish Prophetic Models: Challenging Gender Norms 111 6 Conclusion 121 4 The Sibyl in the Muses’ Bird Cage 123 1 Intertextuality and Ergänzungsspiel 124 2 The Sibyl and Odysseus 131 3 Reinterpreting the Sibyl’s Description of Homer 136 4 The Sibyl’s Homer and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo 142 5 Homer in Art and Cult 146 6 Grammatical Subversion 149 7 Conclusion 152 5 The Sibylline Titan Account as Multi-Layered Commentary 154 1 Traditional Reception of the Sibylline Titan Account 157 2 Hesiod, Callimachus, Genesis, and Jubilees 159 3 Euhemerus and Lactantius 163 4 Callimachus’s Hymn to Zeus 167 5 Depiction Variants, Resonance, and Allusions 170 5.1 Iapetus and His Sons 171 5.2 Aphrodite and the Eleusinian Mysteries 175 5.3 Crete versus Phrygia 176 5.4 Judaean Settlements on Crete 179 5.5 Euhemerus and Crete 181 5.6 Rome and Phrygia 184 6 Conclusion 190 Conclusion 192 Appendix 1: Content Overview of Book III 201 Appendix 2: Apotheosis of Homer Marble Relief 203 Bibliography 204 Index of Primary Sources 231 Index of People, Places and Subjects 239

Foreword The Sibylline Oracles constitute an enigmatic but fascinating collection. They contain concocted oracular pronouncements composed and compiled over a period of several centuries, from the 2nd century BCE to the 7th century CE, mostly by Jewish and Christian authors, advancing the interests of their own faiths. But they deployed as their pseudonymous source the celebrated Sibyl, the pagan Greek prophetess who issued divinely inspired forecasts. The extant texts, couched primarily in Homeric hexameters, have long been the subject of study, discussion, and dispute. The Third Sibyl, in particular, the longest of the texts, the richest, and the most controversial, has stimulated much scholarship. But there is more to be said, as Ashley Bacchi has decisively shown. She has engaged with and absorbed the extensive scholarly literature, but brings a fresh voice to the subject, and offers an original interpretation that sets the whole topic on a new footing. In a text that is predominantly Jewish, why should the authors choose the Hellenic Sibyl to deliver the authoritative pronouncements? That is the question that Bacchi puts in the forefront. Common notion has it that the Third Sibyl’s ostensibly anomalous allusions to polytheistic cultural references are drawn from various Greek Sibylline pronouncements that appear as fragmentary insertions in the otherwise chiefly Jewish text. On this view they represent an effort to fit together or interweave the Hellenic and the Jewish elements in some syncretistic fashion. For Bacchi, this undervalues the creativity of the work and misses the crucial point. The very choice of a female seer steeped in Greek tradition but proclaiming the word of God is the heart of the endeavor. Calling attention to the gender of the oracle allows Bacchi to reach striking conclusions. She shows that the Sibyl embodies the power of both the Jewish and the pagan traditions. The oracle emerges from the long convention of male Hebrew prophets but has the authority of the female seer that arises from Hellenic conceptualization. The prophetess could consequently convey not only forecasts of doom for the impious but messages of hope and redemption through exhortation. Bacchi finds a richness and roundness in the Sibyl that previous researchers have overlooked. The Sibyl does not simply belong in the line of female Hebrew prophetesses but possesses the role and the resonant voice normally ascribed to male prophets. She brings together the Hellenic and Hebraic traditions, but transcends them both. Described as the daughter-in-law of Noah and of his own bloodline, she precedes both cultures and embraces them both

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in her legacy. Although she speaks in Homeric hexameters, she is originator rather than imitator. No mere Greek seer, she comes from Babylon and brings her oracular wisdom to Greece. Homer’s verses derive from her rather than the other way around. She lived through the Trojan War as well as the dynasty of David. This complex and reimagined blend, as Bacchi argues, demonstrates the ingenuity of the Sibylline authors, who went well beyond the insertion of Greek fragments that afforded a Hellenic veneer and developed instead a wholly new and unified product of their own. The female prophetic voice stands at the center of this reconstruction. In order to elicit it, Bacchi draws on her reading in gender studies and feminist theory, thus adding a new dimension to our understanding of the female agency in delivering the message of the divine. But this book nowhere gets bogged down in theoretical speculation. Bacchi is fundamentally a historian. Her research locates the Third Sibyl firmly within the political and cultural context of the Hellenistic world, especially the world of Hellenistic Egypt. She presents in valuable fashion the background of the Ptolemaic kingdom in the late 2nd century BCE, the generally accepted setting of at least much of the text of the Third Sibyl. She surveys the principles and practices of Hellenistic education that lay behind the familiarity of some Jewish intellectuals (even perhaps some women) with Homer, Plato, and Greek mythology. She explores the role of Sibylline prophecy in Greek and Roman literature. She calls attention to the formidable queens in royal courts whose careers validated the authority of a female voice in Hellenistic society. She further brings to the fore the poetry of Hellenistic Alexandria, the intertextuality that linked writers like Callimachus to the Homeric and Hesiodic poems. She sees echoes in the Third Sibyl’s references to and criticisms of Homer and her account of the Titanomachy deriving from Hesiod but reconceived in Euhemeristic fashion that reckoned pagan divinities as mortal beings. Bacchi, however, does not limit herself to the Greek literary context. She points to a whole range of Jewish-Hellenistic texts that placed women like Judith, Greek Esther, and Susanna as central figures and conduits of divine power. She finds connection also with Enochic traditions, a significant strand in Jewish mythological imagery, as well as prophetic models in biblical literature and Second Temple texts. And she notes Jewish writers like Aristobulus and Artapanus who were thoroughly familiar with Greek philosophy and literature but subordinated them to their Jewish precursors, just as the Sibyl put Homer in his place as purveyor of polytheistic myths but plainly inferior to the monotheism of the true faith.

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The multifarious and multi-layered context intelligently sketched out by Bacchi illuminates the complex intertwinings of Jewish and Hellenic traditions. And her feminist perspective and interdisciplinary approach deepens and enriches our sensitivities to this captivating work. Erich S. Gruen

Professor of History and Classics, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

Acknowledgments This monograph is a revised and significantly expanded version of my doctoral dissertation submitted to the Graduate Theological Union in 2015. I will never forget the simultaneous excitement and trepidation I felt when I first read Book III of the Sibylline Oracles in my first year of my Master’s program at the GTU because so many connections and ideas were jumping out at me. For the first time I felt as if my commitment to interdisciplinary training had finally found the perfect field to exercise my skill set. I realized my academic home was Hellenistic Judaism. I wrote my Master’s thesis on these initial ideas and would like to thank my committee: Dr. Gabriella Lettini, Dr. Holger Zellentin, and Dr. John J. Collins. John had written his dissertation on the Sibylline Oracles and, with Holger’s encouragement, I asked John if he would be interested in serving on my committee. I will be forever grateful that John agreed and that he encouraged me to continue to pursue the project further in my doctoral work. Soon after the completion of my Master’s thesis, I shared it with Dr. Erich S. Gruen, whose work in Roman history had been a model for me since I was an undergraduate. When I first began to pursue Hellenistic Judaism, his work on Jewish literature and history again offered me a guide on how to bring a variety of sources into dialogue in a way that showcased the interconnected nature of ancient Mediterranean history. I am deeply grateful for the support and guidance of my dissertation committee: Dr. Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, Dr. John Endres, Dr. John J. Collins, and Dr. Erich S. Gruen. I benefitted significantly from each of their comments and several of the expansions to the arguments found in this book were first discussed as potential future pursuits during my dissertation defense. I would like to thank the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library at the GTU for their abundant resources and collections, as well as the U.C. Berkeley Library, collaboration between the two made my interdisciplinary research pursuits an achievable reality. I would like to thank Dr. Benjamin Wright and Dr. René Bloch for their guidance and encouragement through the publication process, especially for René’s attention to detail. I offer my thanks to all Brill staff and editors that were involved in making this book a tangible artifact. This book is stronger due to the feedback I received from the blind review process. I am indebted to those reviewers. I am immensely grateful for the keen eye of my copy editor and friend, Jennifer Bastin. A big heartfelt thank you to all my friends and colleagues that supported me throughout my academic journey. To my doctoral crew members: Phil Erwin, Beth Anderson, Dong Hyeon Jeong, Thomas Soden, and Diandra Erickson.

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I would not have been able to survive the ups and downs of doctoral life without your friendship. A special thanks to Phil, who read many versions of my work along the way and is always a good conversation partner with whom to bounce ideas. To Jennifer LaFleur, my inspiring friend and fellow classicist that never ignored my seemingly random Greek questions when I needed confirmation and reassurance, thank you. To my partner in life, Daniel DeForest London, thank you for having confidence in me and my work even when I did not, for accepting me as I am, and being fully supportive of my dreams, I love you. Lastly, I would like to thank the mentors that marked each stage of my academic journey: Dr. Peter Wallace, Dr. Emily Albu, Dr. Gabriella Lettini, and Dr. Erich S. Gruen. As an undergraduate, Peter modeled how to be an historian and he was the first to encourage me to pursue my academic dreams. As a post-baccalaureate student, Emily modeled how to be a Classicist and offered me open and honest guidance. As a Masters student, Gabriella modeled how to be a feminist scholar and activist. When others were advising me to narrow my academic focus, she advocated that I remain committed to interdisciplinary work and continue to develop my art history and archaeology skill set. As a doctoral student, Erich modeled how to integrate being an ancient historian of Greek and Roman History and Jewish History. He encouraged me to push boundaries while holding me accountable to the sources so that I could hone my techniques and develop my own academic voice. Thank you all for your guidance, support, and friendship as I moved from student to colleague. This book would not be what it is without your influence.

Introduction When time-hallowed assumptions and “beliefs” are set aside, the “old” evidence too speaks with a new and different voice and is heard with different ears. michael e. stone1

∵ The Sibylline Oracles reside in a liminal space within the pseudepigrapha, at the periphery of the non-canonical field that is composed of texts dating from the second century BCE to the second century CE attributed to famous figures from the distant past. Biblical characters (obscure or otherwise)2 were used to give authority to the contemporary concerns of anonymous Jewish and Christian authors by creating a corpus that was validated by its link to the Hebrew Scriptures.3 Although the majority of texts within the pseudepigrapha are affiliated with a figure from the Hebrew Bible, some Jewish— and later Christian—authors used the persona of the Sibyl as their prophetic voice. My investigation focuses on Book III, the oldest of the corpus, which is dated to the second century BCE. Prior scholarship on Book III has customarily approached the appeal of the Sibyl as a Jewish pseudonym as rooted in her Archaic Greek reputation, a persona that could easily function as a mouthpiece for Jewish eschatological oracles. Oracles within Book III that were interpreted as deeply rooted in Greek themes and imagery were relegated to the classification of scattered paraphrases of lost Archaic Greek Sibyls, incorporated to both validate the authenticity of the pseudepigraphal work within the larger Sibylline genre and to function effectively for missionary purposes and/ or act as an apologia.4 The result has been a bifurcation of identity within the 1  Michael E. Stone, Ancient Judaism: New Visions and Views (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 3. 2  Exceptions include pseudo-Orpheus and pseudo-Phocylides. 3  John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998); James C. VanderKam, An Introduction to Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001); Shaye J.D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, 1st ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987). 4  This will be discussed in more detail in the coming chapters, but here is a sampling: Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, trans. W.F. Stinespring (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 141–178, “The third book of the Sibylline Oracles is clearly a book of Jewish propaganda for the

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004426078_002

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Introduction

text, with sections included primarily to offer an illusion of genuine ‘Greek’ substance and thus viewed as holding an anomalous or nominal position within the overarching monotheistic call of Book III. My investigation stands apart from prior examinations because it questions foundational assumptions concerning the tradition and style of the Archaic Greek Sibyls, which in turn challenges the rationale behind the choice of the Sibyl as a Jewish pseudonym. I argue that there are new depths of creativity to be uncovered beneath the initial choice of the pseudonym which can be accessed by reorienting the discussion of appeal to a previously ignored aspect of the Sibyl’s identity in secondary scholarship: the Sibyl’s gender. I assert that the Sibyl was a desirable pseudonym because she could offer a female voice of prophecy that filled a gap in the male-dominated Jewish prophetic tradition which was desirable within the larger context of women and power in the Hellenistic Mediterranean. By reorienting the discussion around the desirability of the Jewish pseudonym to an issue of gender, the previous identification of paraphrased Greek oracles and their function within the text can be reexamined for new layers of intertextual references that address political, cultural, and religious dialogue. These new layers of reference allow sections previously seen as anomalous or nominal to move from the role of subterfuge to offering central and nuanced support to the larger monotheistic theme of Book III. 1

Methodology: Deconstructing Binaries and a Hermeneutic of Suspicion

In order to address the task of re-conceptualizing the rationale behind the choice of the Sibyl, I will use a post-modern feminist methodological framework to inform my historical-critical and literary approach. T. Drorah Setel articulates how Biblical Studies has traditionally been rooted in the perception that polarities are fundamental, which in turn led to a methodological focus

Gentiles,” 161; H.W. Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity (London: Routledge, 1988), esp. 7, 13; Albert-Marie Denis O.P., “Les Oracles Sibyllins” in Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique Tome II (Belgium: Brepols, 2000) 947–992, states “Des oracles païens insérés seraient: Sib., 3,97–154,” 978; Paul Ciholas, The Omphalos and the Cross: Pagans and Christians in Search of a Divine Center (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2003), Ciholas works from the assumption that the Jewish Sibylline Oracles are editing existing pagan oracles which shapes his presentation of their influence and function, see esp. 135, 146, 150, 156.

Introduction

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on dualities.5 Setel highlights that, from a feminist perspective, these dualities are coupled with oppression and dehumanizing objectification that supports the concept of separateness between the sexes and extends to other categories such as race, class, and ethnicity. Postmodern, third-wave feminist approaches focus on the diversity and fluidity of gender and identity system negotiations and center on the process of differentiation to gain insight into how boundaries take shape rather than on the resulting prohibitions or boundaries themselves.6 This distinction forms the foundation of a feminist approach 5  T. Drorah Setel, “Feminist Insights and the Question of Method” in Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship, ed. Adela Yarbro Collins (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 35–42. A traditional dualistic perspective is grounded in the idea that polarities are essential to existence. The first step in this process of breaking down a binary focus is to acknowledge the difference between reality and truth. Andrea Dworkin dismantles the difference between the changeable social construction of reality and that of inherent truth, stating that “while the system of gender polarity is real, it is not true.” Andrea Dworkin, Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), 110. See also M. Zimbalist Rosaldo, “The Use and Abuses of Anthropology: Reflections on Feminism and Cross-Cultural Understandings,” Signs 5 (1980): 400–402. Irene Silverblatt reviewed anthropological conceptions of natural gendered order and tracks the scholarly debate on origins of women’s oppression primarily in Western capitalist states in “Women in States,” Annual Review of Anthropology 17 (1988). For a discussion on patriarchal views of the natural through media, see Linda Nochlin Women, Art, and Power: And Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1988). Arlene Raven summarizes the postmodern conceptions of the body and its opposition to limitations: “Michael Foucault, whose work (along with Lacan, Barthes, Baudrillard, and other French thinkers) has been used to interpret and validate postmodernism, does not conceive of sexuality as a given or nature as a norm. Foucault, who wrote extensively about the revolutionary power of the body to overcome power over bodies, also disconnected sexuality from any natural order. With Nietzsche, he viewed nature as an invention of human subjectivity.” Arlene Raven, “The Last Essay on Feminist Criticism” in Feminist Art Criticism: An Anthology, ed. A. Raven, C.L. Langer, and J. Frueh (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1988), 235. 6  Generally speaking, first-wave feminism focused on critiquing patriarchal gender ideology and set out to draw women and other marginalized voices into the dominant narrative. Second-wave feminism used a structuralist model, analyzed the systems of patriarchy, and demonstrated how gender is culturally constructed to support gender inequalities. Third-wave feminism used postmodern hermeneutics to critique heterosexist dichotomies, such as accepting dominant gender binaries as a universal reality, that were still operative under a structuralist model. Feminism has its own history of oppression and, by the end of the second wave, it became clear that feminism was more reflective of white middle-class western/American women’s experience. Third wave feminism acknowledges the intersectionality of lived experience and opens space for discussions on how ethnicity, class, sexuality, disability, nationality, and religion are just some of the lenses that affect how we see and experience gender. This acknowledgment has witnessed the burgeoning of Womanist, Mujerista, Postcolonial, Queer, and Liberationist theologies. There are critiques to using ‘waves’ to describe these movements as every stage does not replace the other but reflects another set of complex questions that builds upon the work of the previous stage. Kimberlé

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Introduction

that can acknowledge a polarized social worldview at work while also offering alternative approaches that bring new insight into ancient sources as well as the development of Western kyriarchy.7 Ancient western conceptions of physiology worked under a one-sex model that viewed female reproductive organs as inversions of male reproductive organs and the difference resulting from varying measures of the elements and the cooler, wetter nature of women.8 This formulation maintained a kyriarchy between the sexes because women were seen as underdeveloped or “deformed” men.9 Nonetheless, the sexes were viewed as essentially sharing the same root, which allowed a spectrum of gender to be acknowledged, and it was thought that gender itself could be manipulated through diet and behavior.10 Thomas Laqueur tracked the shift in the 18th century from a one-sex model to a two-sex model.11 The two-sex model demarcated a clear   Crenshaw, a professor of law, was the first to frame the model of intersectionality in relation to axes of discrimination, see Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine,” UCLF 139 (1989): 139–67. This is a cursory overview of a complex methodological/hermeneutical and social/cultural movement. For further discussion, see Mary Eagleton, Feminist Literary Theory: A Reader, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996); Alessandra Tanesini, An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999); June Hannam, Feminism (London: Pearson Education Limited, 2007); Wendy K. Kolmar and Frances Bartkowski, eds., Feminist Theory: A Reader, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2013); Nyasha Junior, An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015); Carole McCann and Seung-kyung Kim, eds., Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives, 4th ed. (London: Routledge, 2016). 7  Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza offers ‘kyriarchy’ in lieu of ‘hierarchy’ to refer to a graduated system of domination from Greek kyrios for the master/lord/emperor and the verb archein—to rule/dominate/control. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Between Movement and the Academy: Feminist Biblical Studies in the Twentieth Century” in Feminist Biblical Studies in the Twentieth Century: Scholarship and Movement, ed. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 12. 8  Galen, Usu part. 14.6. 9  Aristotle, Gen. An. 737a26–30. 10  See Galen, De san. tuenda 1.2, 14.6–10; Hippocrates, Epid. 6.8.32; for debate on the difference of temperatures see Plutarch, Quaest. conviv. 3.4, 650f–651e. Teresa Shaw, The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998) demonstrates how in Late Antiquity the one-sex model allowed Christian female ascetics to challenge and sometimes transcend the assumed limits of their gender through a regime of fasting and abstinence. 11  Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). There have been numerous case studies tracking repercussions of the shift within different communities, for example: Felicity Nussbaum, The Limits of the Human: Fictions of Anomaly, Race, and Gender in the Long Eighteenth-Century

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physiological difference between the sexes in which women and men were opposites, not gradations of one. The two-sex model was used to endorse that women did not have the same capacities as men because they were designed by ‘nature’ to be a complement to men, created with different anatomical reproductive parts, and—by extension—different emotions, roles, and functions in society. The two-sex model reinforced gender performativity standards of the time that were being threatened by the rise of a women’s rights movement by using science to declare that women were created to have children. Women’s bodies were presented as physical testaments to their ‘natural’ role as wife and mother. Sex, gender, and sexuality are often collapsed in order to substantiate dominant cultural norms and established power structures. There is no ‘natural’ gender order outside of the one we perform as a society. Since there is no inherent truth in this performative action, the performance expectations will vary depending on the context of the community. In the preface to the 1999 edition of her ground-breaking work, Gender Trouble, Judith Butler states, “[gender] performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and a ritual, which achieves its effects through its naturalization in the context of a body, understood, in part, as a culturally sustained temporal duration.”12 Historians are then called to question assumptions of what constitutes the sex/gender system in any given community and time because gender roles are not monolithic but rather mutable.

(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Lisa Forman Cody, Birthing the Nation: Sex, Science, and the Conception of Eighteenth-Century Britons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Francois Soyer, Ambiguous Gender in Early Modern Spain and Portugal: Inquisitors, Doctors and the Transgression of Gender Norms (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Marta Vicente, Debating Sex and Gender in Eighteenth-Century Spain: The Innovation of the Sexes (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Rebecca Flemming critiques Laqueur’s restricted focus on naturalization and the physical body because it does not take into account the conceptual orders in which Aristotle and other ancient writers and practitioners also rooted their claims to a natural order, in Flemming, Medicine and the Making of Roman Women: Gender, Nature, and Authority from Celsus to Galen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). My investigation acknowledges that several intersecting systems of oppression are used to substantiate and maintain a culture’s gender roles that are not relegated solely to the physiological/biological sphere. 12  Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1999), xv. Butler clarifies the binary this concept deconstructs: “to claim that gender is constructed is not to assert its illusoriness or artificiality, where those terms are understood to reside within a binary that counterposes the ‘real’ and the ‘authentic’ as oppositional …” Gender Trouble, 45.

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Introduction

Emerging scholarship now questions and reassesses long held dualities in Classics, Art History, Jewish, and Christian history, expanding each field’s conceptions of gender as well as identity in the ancient Mediterranean world.13 My investigation fits within this larger discussion by demonstrating how the Sibyl as a pseudonym is not limited to what has been identified as the performativity of female prophets within Jewish prophetic tradition, but rather champions the stylistic and thematic roles designated to male Hebrew prophets. While resonances between the Hebrew prophets and Book III’s styles have previously been noted by some scholars, they have primarily followed H.W. Parke’s assessment that this was representative of a lost Archaic Sibylline style, and thus “the reason why the Sibyl would commend herself originally to the Jewish imitator as an appropriate model.”14 In the first two chapters, I critically re-examine the extant evidence of Archaic Sibylline style and demonstrate that the conclusion that a lost model supplies this parallel to the Hebrew prophetic model is rooted in outdated implicit biases. By freeing the Jewish authors from the limits set on the level of creativity they were capable of reimagining the Sibyl, as well as liberating them from the limitations of dualistic boundaries on gendered prophecy, I allow the question of ‘why the Sibyl’ to be answered from a different framework and thus open new possibilities for further exploration on the impact and reception of the Sibyl. Suzanne M. Spencer-Wood is one of the forerunners of feminist archaeology who critiqued binary/structuralist gender constructs with postmodern theories and utilizes an inclusive feminist model.15 Her description of identity 13  Examples of scholarship nuancing the question of gender as well as identity in the ancient world will be cited throughout this investigation. For a sampling see: Brooke Holmes, Gender: Antiquity and Its Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Froma Zeitlin, John Winkler, and David Halperin, eds. Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Donald Lateiner, Barbara Gold, and Judith Perkins, eds. Roman Literature, Gender and Reception: Domina Illustris (London: Routledge, 2013); Sarah M. Nelson, ed., Women in Antiquity: Theoretical Approaches to Gender and Archaeology (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2007); Daniel Boyarin, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Helena Zlotnick, Dinah’s Daughters: Gender and Judaism from the Hebrew Bible to Late Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). 14  Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy, 7. 15  Foundational articles by Suzanne M. Spencer-Wood include: “Toward an Historical Archaeology of Domestic Reform” in The Archaeology of Inequality, eds. Randall H. McGuire and Robert Paynter (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 231–86 and “Toward a Feminist Historical Archaeology of the Construction of Gender” in The Archaeology of Gender: Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Conference of the Archaeological Association of the University

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construction aligns with the perspective of this investigation into Book III of the Sibylline Oracles. She writes: The diversity of an individual’s identity can be represented as the intersection point of a number of continuum lines for different social dimensions. The situational fluidity of identity can be dynamically represented as the potential for movement along each continuum and the extent to which the intersection point between different continuums can move dynamically.16 I argue that the relegation of sections of Book III as paraphrases of lost Archaic Sibyls is rooted in a dualistic view of Hellenistic Judaism and does not reflect the intersectional and fluid nature of identity. This has averted focus from the text’s primary presentation of the Sibyl as a female prophetic voice, sent from Babylon to Greece. Book III incorporates the Sibyl into a Jewish historical axis by offering a genealogical account that sets her as the daughter-in-law of Noah, grounding her authority in direct communication with the One True God as well as validating her line of transmission through her connection with Noah.17 Later books of the Sibylline Oracles do not follow this initial interpretatio Judaica and instead promote her authority on her identity as an outsider, presenting her as a pagan prophetess who foretells the coming of Christ. The later books, which advocate for an outsider identity, have obscured the nuanced representation of the Sibyl in Book III. Scholars, such as Arnaldo Momigliano, Erich S. Gruen, John J. Collins, and Jane Lightfoot, have noted the complexity of ethnic lineage presented in Book III, but have not taken into consideration how the gender of the Sibyl functions within that identity construction and impacts the larger question of appeal to the pseudonym.18 Those initial of Calgary, eds. Dale Walde and Noreen D. Willows (Calgary: University of Calgary Archaeological Association, 1991), 234–44. 16   Suzanne M. Spencer-Wood, “Feminist Theory and Gender Research in Historical Archaeology” in Women in Antiquity: Theoretical Approaches to Gender and Archaeology, ed. Sarah M. Nelson (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2007), 47. 17  Sib. Or. 3.809–29. 18  Arnaldo Momigliano, “From the Pagan to the Christian Sibyl: Prophecy as History of Religion” in The Uses of Greek and Latin: Historical Essays, eds. A.C. Dionisotti, A. Grafton, and J. Kraye (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 3–18; Erich Gruen, “Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the Third Sibylline Oracle,” in M. Goodman, Jews in a Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 15–36; John J. Collins, Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy: On Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015) 251– 67; J.L. Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles: With Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on the First and Second Books (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), see esp. 5, 80.

8

Introduction

examinations will act as starting points from which I will expand and develop in order to demonstrate the level of creativity operative behind the choice and representation of the Sibyl in Book III. I approach the historical interpretation of Book III from a hermeneutic of suspicion (as developed by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza)19 expanded to encompass the uncovering of Jewish creativity as presented through the fusion of both Greek and Jewish referents as expressions of identity, and as vehicles for cultural commentary. A hermeneutic of suspicion critically analyzes the way in which women and other oppressed communities are further marginalized or even erased from the dominant historical narrative. The model signifies the need to be suspicious of the dominant (characteristically white, Christian, heterosexual) male-focused narrative and to question the ways in which gender is operative, regardless as to whether or not it has previously been acknowledged. Modern interpreters are called to not only be sensitive to the “otherness” of the text and their own potential prejudices,20 but should also question the interests of the interpreters within the text, including their role in cultural/ societal construction and/or resistance to race, class, and gender kyriarchies. The majority of surviving texts represent the views of the historical victor, but—if appropriately examined—they can be approached as witnesses to lost debates, testaments to one side of dialogue that may hold the shadow of its counterpart. There are several ways scholars have used a hermeneutic of suspicion to access the shadow of women in texts where they have been marginalized or erased. For example, Tal Ilan identifies eight techniques which both primary and secondary Jewish sources have used to silence women’s voices: subordination; the woman is a man; elimination and paling; the woman is a gentile; 19  Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983) first utilizes the Hermeneutic of Suspicion on page 56, expanding on the conceptualization of Paul Ricoeur, see Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), esp. p. 27. Schüssler Fiorenza discusses her model in Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), esp. 36–7. 20  Paul Ricoeur’s work on the hermeneutic of suspicion was in dialogue with Hans-Georg Gadamer’s less methodical approach. See Hans-Georg Gadamer, “The Hermeneutics of Suspicion,” in Hermeneutics: Questions and Prospects, eds. G. Shapiro and A. Sica (Amhurst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984), esp. 63. See also Paul Ricoeur, “Ethics and Culture: Habermas and Gadamer in Dialogue,” Philosophy Today 17 (1973): 153–65. For an introduction into modern hermeneutical debates, see Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. Rev. and expanded, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006) and Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992).

Introduction

9

the woman is a biblical heroine; the woman is an allegory; unification; and disparagement. These eight techniques are typically used in conjunction with one another and rarely in complete isolation.21 My use of the hermeneutic of

21  Tal Ilan, Silencing the Queen: The Literary Histories of Shelamzion and Other Jewish Women (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 4–42. Subordination can manifest itself in primary sources by the strategic placement of women in texts, i.e. buttressing an important woman between a description of two men who are discussed at greater length resulting in the impression that they have greater importance; in secondary sources, subordination is typically grounded in arguments of a natural, gendered order and the dismissal of women of power as ridiculous; therefore evidence to the contrary must be corrupted. There has been an assumption in scholarship that leadership titles must be honorific if attached to women’s names without proper evidence or justification for why this must be so. Bernadette J. Brooten offers an extensive investigation on this question in relation to women’s leadership in synagogues, which provides a foundation for reassessing these assumptions based on inscriptional evidence, see Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982). For other works with similar questions: Judith R. Baskin, “Approaches to the Representations of Women in Rabbinic Literature,” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues 9 (2005): 191–203; Emily A. Hemelrijk, “City Patronesses in the Roman Empire,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 53, no. 2 (2004): 209–45; Ross S. Kraemer, “Monastic Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Egypt: Philo Judaeus on the Therapeutrides,” Signs 14, no. 2 (1989) 342–70; Serena Zabin, “‘Iudeae Benemerenti’: Towards a Study of Jewish Women in the Western Roman Empire,” Phoenix 50, no. 3/4 (1996): 262–82. Secondary literature can also translate women’s names as men’s names when primary sources discuss women in leadership roles in movements which later decide this role is inappropriate. Translators, commentators, and redactors can completely eliminate women from texts. If the woman is prominent enough that elimination is unacceptable, the woman’s role can be ‘paled’ or marginalized. Secondary literature has interpreted significant women as outside of their tradition by assuming that the woman described in an earlier source must be a gentile or ‘other’ because her actions do not conform to contemporary gender roles that are assumed to have been operative in that earlier period. This is accomplished in primary and secondary sources by conflating important women with biblical heroines or other iconic women from their respective traditions. These strategies reflect a discomfort with ordinary contemporary women being influential. However, these characteristics are acceptable in foundational figures, since they are granted a special status. Secondary sources have interpreted what they characterize as problematic women as allegorical representations of abstract concepts, i.e. wisdom or desire, even if there is no basis for a sudden shift from tangible reality to the abstract in the context under discussion. The unification of noteworthy women to minimize what is seen as too great a number of women with power, and disparagement of their character (i.e. the addition of details to call into question the woman’s reputation) are also commonly found in primary and secondary sources. The need for numerous methods reflects the amount of influence of the woman in question and the level of difficulty that is required to silence her out of history. I will address secondary scholarship that silences the Sibyl as a female voice from Ilan’s categories of elimination, allegory, gentile as ‘other,’ and combinations of the three.

10

Introduction

suspicion primarily concerns the secondary literature’s reception of Book III of the Sibylline Oracles with gender as a non-category. When the gender of the Sibyl is briefly discussed in secondary scholarship, it is minimized or dismissed by 1) referring to the Sibyl as a disembodied voice, or 2) by presenting her as though there were no other feasible options that would fulfill the desired type of prophecy, thus making the Sibyl a necessity as the chosen Greek oracular vehicle. I will address how these rationalizations are insufficient and contradictory to existing primary source evidence, and show how they reflect a discomfort based on preconceptions of acceptable conduits for Jewish transmission, appropriation, and innovation. The assumptions upon which this rationale is based have continued to hold general consensus because they are rooted in outdated implicit biases that have not been critically re-examined and refuted in the context of this text. I will demonstrate how the Sibyl’s persona in Book III participated within a larger discussion taking place in prophetic discourse that challenges preconceived notions of gender performativity within the literature as well as politics of the Hellenistic period. My objective to acknowledge and integrate gender back into the profile of the Sibyl is complemented by my goal to demonstrate how the persona of the Sibyl in Book III offers an expression of the fluidity of Hellenistic Jewish identity from which depths of creativity remain to be uncovered. This expansion of the hermeneutic of suspicion to encompass both gender and Jewish creativity is necessary as my argument is not solely concerned with the importance of the Sibyl as a female prophetic voice, but also how a focus on gender engineers a shift in the broader discussion over the rationale behind the choice of the Sibyl, which then allows for a re-evaluation of sections of Book III customarily viewed as witnesses to something ‘other’ or nominal within the text. This refocusing frees the text to present a complex persona that fits the needs and creative capacity of Hellenistic Judaism as opposed to a fragmented persona that embodies a bifurcation of Greek and Jewish identity. In the spirit of Greek hermēneuō, this examination aspires to employ a number of interdisciplinary approaches in the quest to gain a more complex and integrated picture of the period. The techniques and questions implemented within this investigation are not new to Classics, Art History, Hebrew Bible, New Testament, or Second Temple and Hellenistic Judaism, but they are new to Book III of the Sibylline Oracles and I draw inspiration and guidance from each field. For example, Sian Jones has addressed the need for nuanced archaeological approaches in identifying ethnic markers within the material record. Jones views the appropriation of cultural symbols as a result of participating within a social environment:

Introduction

11

The processes involved in the construction of ethnic identities and the selection of particular cultural and linguistic characteristics as relevant symbols of identity take place in the context of social interaction, and involve the ascription of identity vis-à-vis others. In many instances, this active construction of identity is embedded in the negotiation of economic and political interests, or what can be broadly termed ‘power relations.’22 Authors chose the Sibyl to express themselves and an analysis of the interests manifested within Book III reveals an ease with Greek cultural symbols that cannot be relegated to superficial masking of biblical motifs. The result is a strong message and authoritative voice rooted in both Jewish and Greek traditions. Jones argues that “particular material culture styles may have been deliberately appropriated and redefined in the expression of group identity.”23 To a Ptolemaic Judaean, Greek modes of expression were just as accessible as Jewish ones, if not more.24 The Sibyl was reborn within a Jewish historical framework, and that rebirth reflects the inspirations and influences of a multicultural, intersectional identity. Jones makes the following differentiation between material and literary sources: Rather than the seemingly coherent ethnic categories which are produced at a discursive level, the praxis of ethnicity may be manifested in the archaeological record as a complex web of overlapping stylistic boundaries constituted by expressions of ethnic difference, expressions which were at once transient, but also subject to reproduction and transformation in the ongoing processes of social life.25 The problem is that too often the literary sources are taken at face value as offering “seemingly coherent ethnic markers” and when there is evidence to the contrary, scholarship has tended to try to explain the incoherency away. Book III is in its very nature and composition a “complex web of overlapping stylistic boundaries.”26 The nature of Sibylline prophecy in the Hellenistic period 22  Sian Jones, “Identities in Practice: Towards an Archaeological Perspective on Jewish Identity in Antiquity” in Jewish Local Patriotism and Self-Identification in the Graeco-Roman Period, eds. Sian Jones and Sarah Pearce (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 38. 23  Ibid., 40. 24  My oscillation between “Jewish” and “Judaean” as descriptors is clarified in Chapter One, p. 37. 25  Jones, “Identities in Practice,” 47. 26  Ibid., 47.

12

Introduction

was viewed with suspicion because it had become a conduit for political critique by the populous, which eventually resulted in government regulation and oversight of its dissemination. The Judaean authors who bore the mantle of the Sibyl were making more than one political statement. The nature of the pseudonym they formed was malleable enough to adapt to transforming needs and concerns. Although I have applied Jones’s discussion to literary sources, I do not wish to minimize the impact of the field for which it is intended: archaeology of material remains. Visual stimuli add another layer of suggestion to texts and help contextualize the choice of literary symbols, which will also be discussed in the chapters that follow. Historical art and archaeological evidence, such as artistic representations and dedicatory inscriptions, offer access points into identity construction in the world in which the Sibylline Oracles were produced. An example of the fluidity of identity expression that challenged perceived boundaries are dedicatory inscriptions of synagogues from Euergetes I to Cleopatra VII that used the same formula as the Greek temples in their dedications to the royal family.27 Besides the exchange of the word ‘synagogue’ for ‘shrine’ and the description of Jewish versus Greek ritual objects, the inscriptions are identical. P.M. Fraser stated that “the Hellenism of these dedications is therefore pronounced in all external respects, and the Judaism, whatever its nature, was largely concealed beneath the pagan exterior.”28 Rather than concealing their Judaism, from the standpoint of intersectionality, these dedications reveal that Judaeans did not find it taboo to evoke the same language used in neighboring temples within their own sacred spaces. Whether this was necessarily a conscious or intentional decision cannot be definitively argued, but it does provide an example of a natural extension of repeating common practice that extends across communities, underscoring that the Judaean community was a regular part of the Ptolemaic landscape. In the same way, I argue the authors of Book III did not find it taboo to have a female pseudonym use male prophetic topoi and styles. The fact that scholarship has identified a difference between the styles and content of male and female prophets in Jewish prophetic tradition does not mean that Hellenistic Jews were conscious of strict boundaries around ‘gendered’ prophecy. This makes the highlighting of the Sibyl’s embodied female voice of prophecy all the more important because it aligns with other studies that have destabilized notions regarding gender performance and expectation in the ancient Mediterranean.29 27  P.M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 283. 28  Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (1972), 283. 29  See fn. 13 above and Chapter Two for an extended discussion.

Introduction

2

13

Dating and Provenance of Book III

As layers of intertextual references to the cultural and political context of second century Ptolemaic Egypt act as the basis for the case studies in Chapters Four and Five, an overview of scholarly debates concerning the dating of Book III is warranted. There are two manuscript traditions of the Sibylline Oracles: the first is comprised of two groups referred to as Φ and Ψ and contains Books I–VIII; the second group is referred to as Ω and begins with Books IX and X (which are comprised of repeated material from other books in the corpus resulting in their omission from the collection) and continues with Books XI–XIV.30 Thus the twelve Jewish and Christian Sibylline books number from I to VIII and from XI to XIV.31 Scholarship on the Sibylline Oracles is complex and rife with debate because it is clear that the Sibylline corpus is diverse in both chronological and geographic contexts. The texts can be roughly dated according to references to contemporary events in the content of the oracles.32 There are references to various Sibylline books extant in other sources, such as fourth-century writer Lactantius who lists Varro’s ten Sibyls33 and discusses nine of their books, quoting much of the material that was later compiled in Books III through VIII of the corpus.34 Book III contains 829 verses and 30  For breakdown of the manuscript tradition see Rieuwerd Buitenwerf, Book III of the Sibylline Oracles and Its Social Setting (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 65–6. Greek manuscript tradition discussions can also be found in Johannes Geffcken, Die Oracula Sibyllina (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1902) and Aloisius Rzach, Oracula Sibyllina (Vindobonae: F. Tempsky, 1891). John J. Collins offers a complete English translation with introduction and notes for each book in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 317–472. Translations unless otherwise noted are from Collins and will be referred to as Collins, OTP. 31  A discussion of the history of the manuscript traditions can be found in John J. Collins, “The Development of the Sibylline Tradition” in Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (ANRW ): Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung, vol. II.20.1. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1987), 421–59. See also Rieuwerd Buitenwerf, Book III of the Sibylline Oracles, 65–72; Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 257–68. This investigation primarily uses the Geffcken edition; any textual variations of the passages discussed will be noted. 32  Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy, 1–22; Johannes Geffcken, Komposition und Entstehungszeit der Oracula Sibyllina (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1902); Valentin Nikiprowetzky, La Troisième Sibylle (Paris: Mouton, 1970). 33  Varro, Antiquities of Human and Divine Matters as preserved by Lactantius, Inst. 1.6.8– 12: Ten Sibyls as follows: the Babylonian Sibyl; the Libyan Sibyl; the Delphic Sibyl; the Cimmerian Sibyl; the Erythraean Sibyl; the Samian Sibyl; the Cumaean Sibyl; the Hellespontine Sibyl; the Phrygian Sibyl; and the Tiburtine Sibyl. 34  Lactantius Inst. 1.6.7 (Sib. Or. 3.110–55; 3.199–201); 2.16.1 (Sib. Or. 3.228–9); 4.6.4 (Sib. Or. 3.775); 4.15.29 (Sib. Or. 3.815–18); 7.18.7 (Sib. Or. 3.652–3); 7.19.9 (Sib. Or. 3.618); 7.20.1

14

Introduction

scholarly consensus marks it as the oldest in the Sibylline corpus.35 The first 96 verses, however, are accepted as an addition from a separate work and are not considered part of Book III.36 Since the nineteenth century, scholarship has offered several attempts at dating the verses of Book III.37 Johannes Geffcken dated vss. 97–154, 381–387 to c. 200 BCE including material he identifies as borrowed from the Babylonian and Persian Sibyls. He argues vss. 162–178, 190, 194–195, 211–336, 520–572, 608– 615, 732–740, 762–766 were added in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Geffcken identifies vss. 179–189, 337–380, 388–488, 492–519, 573–607, 616–637, 643–724, 741–761, 767–795 as paraphrases of Erythrean Sibyl fragments that were added between 146–84 BCE, and maintains that vss. 46–62 were added in the time of the second Triumvirate with the opening 45 lines added even later.38 Valentin Nikiprowetzky in his La Troisième Sibylle attempted to unify the book by dating the entirety to the time of the second Triumvirate and Cleopatra VII, while making a few exceptions for certain verses.39 John J. Collins divided Book III into two approximate periods: the middle of second century BCE (which is his dating for the main body of the text consisting of vss. 97–349, 489–829) and the

(Sib. Or. 3.741–3); 7.24.12 (Sib. Or. 3.619–23; 3.788–94) Cf. Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy, 19 n. 3. This will be discussed further in Chapter Two. 35  See Appendix 1 for a breakdown on the content sections of Book III. This overview is loosely based on the one offered by Collins in “Sibylline Oracles, Book 3” in OTP, p. 359–61, but the breakdown of passages differs from his section breaks. My divisions highlight shifts in focus to aid the reader with dating disputes and the themes addressed in this investigation. 36  Nikiprowetzky stands as the exception to the consensus. See La Troisième Sibylle p. 60–6 and 217–25. Three manuscripts in the ψ group insert “seek here the remnants of the second book and the beginning of the third” before verse 93. Verses 1–45 promote monotheism and offer a polemic against idolatry and could be dated to the late Hellenistic or early Roman periods. These verses correspond to fragments in Theophilus of Antioch [Ad Autolycum II.3; II.31] (2nd century CE), and it is unclear if they were originally connected with verses 46–96. Verses 46–96 appear to be the conclusion to a book rather than an introduction and consist of three oracles. Verses 46–62 make a reference to the second triumvirate in verse 52 and are dated to shortly after the battle of Actium in 31 BCE. Verses 63–74 discuss the coming of Beliar and his destruction and have been dated to after 70 CE due to the identification of Beliar with Nero. Verses 75–92 are dated alongside verses 46–62 and heavily feature Cleopatra VII as the disaster-bearing widow. For a discussion of verses 1–96, see Collins, “Sibylline Oracles, Book 3,” 359–61. 37  For a detailed discussion on scholarship on the Sibylline Oracles from the sixteenth to twentieth century see Rieuwerd Buitenwerf, Book III of the Sibylline Oracles, 5–64. 38  Geffcken, Komposition und Entstehungszeit, 1–17. 39  Nikiprowetzky, La Troisième Sibylle, 195–225.

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first century BCE (vss. 350–488).40 While Collins compiles larger sections of verses than Geffcken, he does not try to unify the text like Nikiprowetzky. This middle position allows Book III to be read with a certain fluidity and historical context while still accepting the composite nature of the text. The geographical origin of the text is generally placed in Egypt because of its prevalent role in the future of the world as well as the expectation of a seventh king from Egypt, who will initiate the coming of the final kingdom. Stewart Moore has argued that vss. 489–808 were likely composed by a single author around 145 BCE, vss. 162–349 sometime between 116–81 BCE, vss. 97–161 between 80–56 BCE, and vss. 350–488 and 809–829 “were added to produce a more convincingly sibylline text that would meet Greek (or Hellenized Judaean) expectations.”41 Moore also posits that vss. 350–380 and 401–488 may have been gentile in origin. Rieuwerd Buitenwerf offers an alternative chronological and geographical context to previous scholarship. He argues that a Jew in Asia Minor wrote Book III sometime between 80 and 40 BCE. While most scholars focus on the compositional context of passages in Book III, Buitenwerf focuses on its redacted context. Buitenwerf reads Book III as a literary whole finding it unnecessary to separate passages that might be based on earlier sources because the redactor created meaning from the final text.42 Buitenwerf’s arguments for the date and location of the redacted piece are plausible, but his adamancy that these observations negate a second century Egyptian origin is problematic because the redaction is not restricted to the same location as the original composition.43 These oracles were acknowledged in the ancient world as a compilation, which would allow for repetition and tension without affecting the perceived authenticity of the work. This would also allow other sibyllists the opportunity to use older verses as springboards for their own propaganda. For example, in Chapter Five, I argue that the Titan account in 3.110–155 functions as a foundation for later verses that allude to Rome through references 40  John J. Collins, The Sibylline Oracles of Egyptian Judaism (Atlanta: SBL, 1974), 21–22, 28. Collins slightly shortens the main body dated to the 2nd century BCE to 97–294 and 545– 808 in his article “The Sibyl and the Potter” in Seers, Sibyls, and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 201. See also Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora. 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 84–7. Note vss. 1–96 are envisioned as the conclusion to a different book, and verse 776 is recognized as a Christian interpolation. 41  Stewart Moore, Jewish Ethnic Identity and Relations in Hellenistic Egypt: With Walls of Iron? (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 199, overall discussion of Book III and dating p. 190–99. 42  Buitenwerf, Book III of the Sibylline Oracles, 124–34. 43  Collins gives a detailed response to Buitenwerf’s assertions in his article, “The Third Sibyl Revisited,” in Jewish Cult and Hellenistic Culture: Essays on the Jewish Encounter with Hellenism and Roman Rule (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 82–99.

16

Introduction

to the progeny of Kronos/Rhea and Phrygia—the larger territory in which Troy was located—as well as serving as a model for critiquing Hellenistic poetic trends. The composite nature of the Sibylline Oracles breeds conflict for researchers, which is evident by the range of interpretations it has elicited over the years. David Potter argues that Book III was changing continuously until an editor compiled it in the fifth or sixth century CE.44 Collins argues that if the tradition were fluid until that point, it is strange that Book III does not mention Christians or allude to the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 CE.45 Collins interprets the lack of concern for Antiochus Epiphanes as an indication that the oracles date to later in Philometor’s reign after the death of Epiphanes, when Judea was no longer controlled by Syria.46 Contra Collins, Jörg-Dieter Gauger argues against a second century BCE dating for Book III because he does not think Egyptian Jews would have an anti-Roman bias.47 The author of 1 Maccabees writes how Judas Maccabee and his sons also looked to Rome for help in their struggle against Antiochus Epiphanes. Mireille Hadas-Lebel argues that Rome supported Jewish independence because it weakened their enemy, the Seleucids: Since [Rome’s] victory over the Syrian king Antiochus III in 190 BCE, Rome had taken a close interest in Eastern Affairs. Masquerading as a Syrian ally, Rome indeed sought to weaken the rival kingdom, although calling it ally, and consequently viewed with secret satisfaction the uprising of the inhabitants of Judaea against their Seleucid sovereign, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. So the support Rome accorded the Jews in 161 BCE at the request of Judas Maccabee suited Roman political ambitions in the region.48

44  D.S. Potter, “Sibyls in the Greek and Roman World,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 3 (1990): 478; see also his book, Prophets and Emperors: Human and Divine Authority from Augustus to Theodosius (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994). 45  Collins, “The Jewish Transformation of Sibylline Oracles” in Seers, Sibyls, and Sages, 187. 46  Collins, “The Jewish Transformation of Sibylline Oracles,” 187, see also Collins, Sibylline Oracles, 37–44; Apocalyptic Imagination, 95–8. Erich Gruen argues against in Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 271–83; Gruen, “Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the Third Sibylline Oracle” in Jews in the Graeco-Roman World, ed. M. Goodman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 18–24. 47  Alfons Kurfess and Jörg-Dieter Gauger. Sibyllinische Weissagungen: Griechisch-Deutsch (Düsseldorf: Artemis & Winkler, 1998), 440–451. 48  Mireille Hadas-Lebel, Jerusalem Against Rome. trans. Robyn Frechet (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 7.

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The author of 1 Maccabees focuses on this support when it glorifies the prowess of Rome. 1 Maccabees 8 gives a description of Rome that idealizes the strength and structure of the developing empire. The senate and consulship appeared as an enlightened way of diversifying power when compared to empires that fought to control Coele-Syria and by whom it was most often abused due to the greed of kings. The Hasmoneans viewed Rome’s alliance as acknow­ ledgment of Judea as its own entity thus Rome represented a liberating force. From this perspective, Hadas-Lebel doubts a serious anti-Roman polemic existed in the second century BCE, so she dates Book III to between 48 BCE and 40 CE based on anti-Roman verses. Collins argues against those hesitant to accept that there would have been a polemic against Rome as early as the second century BCE. With regard to the first reference to the messianic figure of the seventh king (who is supposed to bring about the end of Rome) in Sib. Or. 3.193, Collins declares that Jews would have been influenced by Ptolemy Philometor’s opinion of the Romans.49 He states that “Rome is not accused here [i.e. verse 193] of any offence against Jews or Judea, but rather against Macedonia.”50 Macedonia became a province of Rome in 146 BCE, but according to Livy, the Battle of Pydna in 168 was well known for the devastating loss of Macedonian soldiers to Romans.51 In light of the Roman victory over Antiochus III at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BCE and the extreme reparations the Seleucid Empire had to pay due to the Treaty of Apamea in 188 BCE, it is clear that Rome was already solidified as an emerging power in the Mediterranean by the beginning of the second century.52 The fact that Ptolemy Philometor, Euergetes, and Antiochus IV Epiphanes looked to Rome for assistance is further acknowledgment that Rome had presence enough to be viewed as a threat. Hadas-Lebel makes the following observation on the possible motivations for the potential polemical tone in Book III of the Sibylline Oracles: The mention of the “seventh king” can only be a temporal milestone which allows us to date, from the Egyptian perspective, the Jewish Renaissance which followed the Maccabean war. It was a period of national renewal during what was a particularly optimistic moment in the life of the Egyptian Jews in the reign of Ptolemy Philometor. From that 49  Collins, The Sibylline Oracles of Egyptian Judaism, 31–2. See the rebuttal by Gruen in “Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the Third Sibylline Oracle,” 19–20, fn. 17. 50  Collins, “The Third Sibyl Revisited,” 91. 51  Livy, Hist. 44.42.7. 52  Polybius, Hist. 21.43; Livy, Hist. 38.38.11–17. Dov Gera, Judaea and Mediterranean Politics, 219–161 B.C.E. (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 90–99.

18

Introduction

perspective, it is quite natural that this “prediction” would follow the reminder of Macedonian calamities in 168 BCE…. The anti-Roman note of the preceding verses is understandable if we assume that the composing of the passage dates to a time when at least one segment of the Jewish opinion had already turned against the Romans.53 Hadas-Lebel thus makes an astute reminder that although 1 Maccabees represents Judaeans idealizing Rome’s power and viewing Rome as an ally, Judaeans elsewhere did not necessarily hold the same perception. Judaeans in Alexandria under Philometor were not in the same situation as the Judaeans under Seleucid rule. They did not need to turn to Rome for validation or protection because they were thriving in Egypt. My investigation follows Collins’s proposed dating of Book III, with vss. 97–349 and 489–829 as the oldest layer, composed in the mid-second century BCE in Ptolemaic Egypt and reflecting the changes present in the Mediterranean at that time. Rome’s victory at the battle of Pydna in 168 BCE ended the Third Macedonian War and shifted power dynamics in the Hellenistic world, which manifested itself in a host of different ways. Fraser remarks on the effect it had on Alexandria: From that date onwards Alexandria was overshadowed politically by Rome, and we find that numerous Romans appear in Alexandria on political errands. From about the same time the changed economic situation in the Mediterranean increased the importance of Italy as a market for Alexandria.54 The term “overshadowed” may be slightly excessive, but Rome was involved in Egyptian politics from nearly the beginning of Ptolemy Philometor’s reign. Based on Rome’s increasing power in the Mediterranean, I view anti-Roman sentiment in second century BCE Egypt to be highly plausible. Rome was new enough to the wider Mediterranean power structure that a pre-existing super power like the Ptolemaic Empire would not necessarily see them as an immediate risk, but definitely powerful enough to be acknowledged as a burgeoning force to keep an eye on. The Battle of Magnesia and the Battle of Pydna could have made politically aware elite citizens, such as the authors of Book III, cautious of Rome’s potential and viewed Rome’s presence in foreign disputes as a manipulative tactic to weaken all parties involved. This could manifest

53   Hadas-Lebel, Jerusalem Against Rome, 28. 54  Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 89.

Introduction

19

in writing as a tone of disparagement and a desire for a quick end to the potential threat.55 Erich Gruen cautions researchers that the “search for historical specificity may miss the essence of the Sibyl’s message, its apocalyptic character, and its significance for the interaction of Judaism and Hellenism.”56 I agree that the apocalyptic nature of the text adds multiple interpretive layers of significance that transcend a purely cultural historical approach, but I do not think this eclipses the benefit of discerning the cultural contexts of the sections that have retained chronological cues—either overt or subtle. I find that the significance of the interaction reveals itself through identifying the ways in which writers orchestrated the tone of Jewish and Greek themes in relation to their context. That said, the current consensus on what can be deemed a contextual clue is up for debate. Gruen argues that only a fraction of the verses can truly be tied to Egypt; the others could have easily been written by Palestinian Jews or may not even have a Jewish origin at all. Gruen states that “the very character of apocalyptic texts fosters ambiguity, their allusions deliberately designed for adaptability to diverse settings. Oracular voices resonate beyond the particular and give greater meaning to the whole text.”57 By demonstrating ambiguities in the chronological markers that have thus far been identified in the text, Gruen questions whether there even is a ‘main corpus.’ A central point of scholarly debate has been the identification of the seventh king from Egypt from the race of the Greeks (the Messianic hero of the text), as either Ptolemy VI Philometor, his son Ptolemy VII Philopator, or Ptolemy VIII Euergetes.58 Gruen points out that the Ptolemies were not identified by number then as they are now, and that the events predicted for the time of the seventh king are apocalyptic visions that would not make sense as ex-eventu prophecies for the second century BCE. Collins debates that there is no reason to view the oracles as ex-eventu, rather “the events associated with the reign of the seventh king are clearly in the future from the perspective of the author.”59 I agree that the reference to the seventh king should be seen as an unfulfilled prophecy. Even if Philometor is not envisioned as the seventh king, sections of the text still could have been written during or soon after his reign, which was favorable towards Judaeans. The seventh king is not mentioned in any of 55  In contrast to Book V which is written in a later Roman imperial context and has a more explicit anti-Roman sentiment. 56  Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism, 271. 57  Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism, 283. 58  Sib. Or. 3.193, 3.318, 3.608, 3.652–6. 59  J.J. Collins, “The Third Sibyl Revisited” in Jewish Cult and Hellenistic Culture: Essays on the Jewish Encounter with Hellenism and Roman Rule (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 88.

20

Introduction

the verses under examination in this investigation, but I argue there are textual allusions to the dynastic struggles between Philometor and Euergetes II in 3.110–55 (which is explored in Chapter Five). Based on my reading of Book III, I propose that Philometor and Cleopatra II’s son Neos Philopator, who was killed by Ptolemy Euergetes II (Physcon), is most likely the seventh king envisioned. Ptolemy Philometor and Cleopatra II were well-known for their beneficent relationship with Judaeans, so much so that they could have seen the child heir as ushering in a renewed strength not only for Egypt as a whole but for the Ptolemaic Judaean community in particular. This is attested by the widespread rumors concerning the child’s survival, which will be addressed in the next section, expanding the length of time that writers could have envisioned the coming of the lost heir as a savior figure representing the golden days of his parent’s reign. The mystery surrounding Ptolemy VII would support the unfulfilled yet hopeful expectation associated with the seventh king in Book III. 3

Second Century BCE Political Context

The second century BCE was witness to many transitions as political boundaries were being redrawn across the Mediterranean world. By 170, the Sixth Syrian War saw Egypt divided in an internal battle for the throne between Ptolemy VI Philometor and his brother younger Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II—while also fending off an external threat from the Seleucid Empire. This culminated with the famous ultimatum at Eleusis when the Roman Gaius Popillius Laenas drew a line in the sand around Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who was attempting to lay claim to Egypt and Cyprus.60 For Coele-Syria, the second century brought the Maccabean Revolt in 167; the Temple was rededicated in 164; Simon Maccabee established the Hasmonean Dynasty circa 140; and Judea gained the tenuous status of a semi-independent priestly state. Macedon became a Roman province; the Achaean League was dissolved; and Carthage was sacked, solidifying Rome as a Mediterranean super power by 146.61 The second century was a turning point, a time when the successor kingdoms of Alexander, the established monoliths of the Mediterranean, were seemingly vanquished by a young upstart from the periphery. Previously called upon to act as ally when convenient, Rome traded its supporting role to lead, as hero or villain depending on the 60  Polybius, Hist. 29.2; Livy, Hist. 44.19, 45.12; Dan 11:29–30. 61  For general resources to these topics: Günther Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire (London: Routledge, 2000); John M.G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark International, 1996).

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21

perspective. In the midst of all this upheaval and transition, Judaean authors in Ptolemaic Egypt recast the figure of the Greek Sibyl as the daughter-in-law of Noah, a Jewish prophetess crying out for moral reform in epic hexameter.62 The second century political context of Book III—specifically during and after the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor and Cleopatra II in Egypt—will be needed to understand various levels of the creativity of the sibyllists explored in the upcoming chapters.63 After many years of addressing competing claims to Philometor’s throne from Antiochus Epiphanes as well as his younger brother Euergetes II, Philometor turned his attention to Syria and supported Alexander Balas’s claim as the Syrian king and offered Balas his daughter, Cleopatra Thea, in marriage. Alexander Balas then made an unsuccessful attempt on Philometor’s life, leading Philometor to ally with Demetrius II the Younger, who then married Cleopatra Thea c. 147. In 145 BCE, Philometor defeated Alexander Balas in battle but was mortally wounded.64 Günther Hölbl sees this as a pivotal point in Ptolemaic history: If Philometor had not met his end at this juncture, Coele Syria would once again have been Ptolemaic. In one fell swoop, Demetrios II had been relieved of his rival to the throne, Alexander Balas, as well as his newly acquired protector. The Ptolemaic army returned home and Coele Syria remained Seleucid.65 From the perspective of Ptolemaic Judaeans, this would have been a critical time as the success of their king would affect their motherland. The relationship of Philometor and Cleopatra II with the Judaeans of Egypt is crucial to understanding how the author of Book III reflects allegiance to Egypt. It is during the reign of Philometor and Cleopatra II that the Jewish

62  Sibylline Oracles, Prologue 33, 1.289, 3.827. 63  This overview will be supplemented in Chapter Two and Five with further details as it relates to specific verses in Book III. For clarification on my reference to sibyllist versus sibyllists, see Chapter One, section 5 “Hellenistic Education: Establishing Authorship and Readership.” For sources on the early reign of Philometor and Cleopatra II, see Diodorus, 30–33; Josephus, A.J. 12.242; Polybius, Hist. 28.21, 29.2, 29.23, 31.17–18, 31.26–28, 33.1, 33.8; Livy, Hist. 44.19, 45.12; Dan 11:25–30. Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 142–8, 181–9, 192–4, 257–9. 64  Diodorus, 30, 31, and 33; Josephus A.J. 13.80–119; 1 Macc 11.1–13. See also Günther Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire; Charles Alberro, The Alexandrian Jews During the Ptolemaic Period (1977), 60–3; Aryeh Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: The Struggle for Equal Rights (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1985). 65  Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 194.

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Introduction

Temple in Leontopolis is believed to have been constructed.66 Papyrological evidence attests to Judaeans holding important military positions in the Ptolemaic army.67 After Philometor’s death, Cleopatra II fought to rule with their son—the child heir Ptolemy VII—but was unable to fend off Euergetes II militarily from claiming the kingship.68 Two statue bases made to support three life-size statues, with Greek and Demotic inscriptions dedicating the statues of “King Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra, mother-loving gods, and Ptolemy their son, [set up by] Isis and Horus” can be seen as preemptive attempts by Philometor and Cleopatra to legitimate the line of succession in order to exclude Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II.69 In addition, there has been debate about the motivation behind the unprecedented inclusion of Cleopatra III in the dynastic cult of her parents in 146, which (in this context) can be seen as an effort to further legitimize the lines of succession to promote both children as a future brother-sister dynasty.70 Ptolemy VIII Euergetes’s early reign is described by many ancient sources as rife with excess and brutality.71 Euergetes II married Cleopatra II in 144 and killed her son with Philometor, Ptolemy VII. Marcus Junianus Justinus’s second century CE Epitome retells sections of the first century BCE Philippic Histories by Pompeius Trogus, which includes the account that Euergetes killed the child heir Ptolemy VII in Cleopatra’s arms during the celebration of their wedding.72 Euergetes was said to have targeted the Jews of Alexandria for 66  Josephus does give two accounts concerning who founded the temple. In one he states it is Onias III, son of Simon, in B.J. 7.420 but in A.J. 13.62, he states it is Onias IV, son of Onias III. Josephus, A.J. 12.237, 13.58, 13.62–72; Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 190. 67  Josephus, C.Ap. 2.49–55; 3 Macc. A letter addressed to Onias in 164 BCE attests to his high rank; the papyrus can be found in Victor Tcherikover and Alexander Fuks. Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), I.132 and Paris Papyrus 63. See also Joseph Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt: From Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995), 121–33. 68  Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 197–201. 69  The provenance for the granite statue bases are Isis Temple on Philae and another found in Elephantine; see Paul Edmund Stanwick, Portraits of the Ptolemies: Greek Kings as Egyptian Pharaohs (Austin: University of Texas, 2002), 36, 41, 47, 108–9. 70  Michel Chauveau argues Cleopatra III was included because there was no male heir and succession needed to be legitimized, but this is contracted by the statue bases noted above as well as references to a son in the literary sources. Michel Chauveau, “Un été 145,” Le Bulletin de I’Institut français d’ archéologie orientale (BIFAO) 90 (1990): 135–68. See Martina Minas-Nerpel, “Cleopatra II and III: The queens of Ptolemy VI and VIII” in Ägypten zwischen innerem Zwist und äußerem Druck. Die Zeit Ptolemaios VI bis VIII. Internationales Symposium Heidelberg (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011), 58–76, esp. 65–66 for brief discussion of the debate. 71  Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 183, 188–9, 194–5. 72  Justinus, Epit. 38.8.4.

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supporting Cleopatra II after Philometor’s death. In addition, a contemporary named Menecles of Barca, preserved by Athenaeus in the second century CE, describes Euergetes as persecuting and expelling educators and the intellegentsia when he returned to Alexandria, earning him the nickname of Malefactor (kakergetēs). Athenaeus states that Ptolemy VIII Euergetes “put many Alexandrians to the sword and exiled no small number of those who had been ephēboi at the same time as his brother, filling the islands and cities with grammatikoi, philosophers, geometers, musicians, painters, paidotribai, doctors, and many others who were experts in their fields.”73 The intelligentsia and the Judaeans were held in favor during the reign of Philometor and Cleopatra II, and the sibyllists reflect knowledge of political strife between Philometor and Euergetes, as well as Euergetes’s temperament, which may have led them to view the son of Philometor and Cleopatra II—Ptolemy VII Philopator—as the seventh king savior figure mentioned in some of the oracles. Although Cleopatra II had agreed to marry Euergetes, she did not stop resisting him. Euergetes understood the power Cleopatra had with the people, so killing her was not an option without risk of widespread revolt. Cleopatra’s titles were elevated during this time, with references to her in dedicatory formulae and Greek temple inscriptions as showing equal status between the two rulers: “the pharaohs Ptolemy and Cleopatra”; “the two Horus”; and “the two sovereigns of Egypt.”74 Cleopatra bore Euergetes a son later that year in 144 during the coronation ceremony in Memphis, so he was known as Ptolemy Memphites and was named as the official successor to the king.75 In 140, Euergetes married Cleopatra III, the daughter of Cleopatra II and Philometor. On formulary papyri both were referred to as queen (βασίλισσα), but Cleopatra II was given the title of ‘sister-wife’ and inducted into the dynastic cult, and Cleopatra III was given the title of ‘wife.’ Around this time, Galaistes, an officer under Philometor and son of the king of the Athamanians, claimed to have been entrusted with a son of Philometor and Cleopatra II whom he was commissioned to raise in Greece and was the true successor to the Ptolemaic throne. Galaistes attempted to raise an army of mercenary soldiers but was unable to pay them. His uprising 73  Athenaeus, Sophists at Dinner 4.184b–c (FGrH 270 F 9). See also Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.11; Plutarch, Cor. 11.2; and Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 194–5. 74  Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 195; E. Lanciers, Die Alleinherrschaft des Ptolemaios VIII. Im Jahre 164/163 v.Chr. und der Name Euergetes, in Proceedings of the XVIII International Congress of Papyrology (Athens: Greek Papyrological Society, 1988), 423, 428; J.C. Grenier, “Ptolémée Evergète II et Cléopâtre II d’après les textes du temple de Tôd,” in Alessandria e il mondo ellenistico-romano I. (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 1983), 32–37. 75  Diodorus, 33.13; Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 195.

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Introduction

was unsuccessful.76 Cleopatra II rebelled against Euergetes in 132/131 and expelled him from Alexandria. She ruled alone as Cleopatra Philometor Soteira, identifying herself with her late husband and Ptolemy Soter. She appointed her own priests and began a new series of regnal years, an unprecedented act by a queen, officially ending the recorded time of Euergetes reign. Euergetes retaliated by killing their son Ptolemy Memphites and sending his mutilated body to Cleopatra II. She displayed Memphites body in Alexandria to gain the support of the people against the tyrannous behavior of Euergetes.77 When she lost her stronghold in Alexandria in 127, she went to Cleopatra Thea and husband Demetrius II in Syria. In 124 she reconciled with Ptolemy Euergetes II, ruling jointly again as the ‘theoi Euergetai’ until Euergetes died in 116. She died in 115.78 While Euergetes’s early reign was renowned for its cruelty to all that opposed his rule (especially the Greek intellegentsia and the Judaeans as noted above), he did focus attention on gaining support with the native Egyptians through opening opportunities in military service and advancement in ranks that were not previously available as well as a vigorous temple building program and support of the Egyptian priests. The reconciliation of the ‘theoi Euergetai’ was meant to bring together the divided Egypt: the native Egyptians supporting Euergetes and Cleopatra III and the Greeks and Judaeans supporting Cleopatra II. In 118, a general amnesty was declared through the Philanthropa decree which was meant to bring peace and stability to Egypt.79 The relevant portion of the Philanthropa decree that relates to this investigation is described by Egyptologist Martina Minas-Nerpel: Part of this reconciliation was the deification of Ptolemy Neos Philopator, who was added as Theos Neos Philopator to the title of the Alexander priest in the same year. Neos Philopator was the son of Cleopatra II and Ptolemy VI and is still numbered as Ptolemy VII by some scholars.80 76  Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 196; PP II.2155; PP IV.10070a; PP VI.14595; PP I.264; PP II.2163 [PP = W. Peremans and E. Van’t Dack, Prosopographia Ptolemaica, I–IX (Lovanii, 1950–81)]. 77  Diodorus, 33.13; Justinus, Epit. 38.8–13; Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 197–8. How this relates to the Sib. Or. 3.110–55 will be discussed in Chapter Five. 78  Livy Hist. 44.19–45.11; Justinus, Epit. 38.8–39.2; Diodorus 34, 35.14; Josephus A.J. 13.4.1 and C.Ap. 2.5; Pausanias, Descr. 1.9.1; Eusebius, Chron. 1.61. Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 194–204. 79  C.Ord.Ptol. no. 53, 53 bis, 53 ter. [C.Ord.Ptol = M.-Th. Lenger, Corpus des Ordonnances des Ptolémées, mit suppl. (Bruxelles, 1964–1988)] Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 201–3. 80   Minas-Nerpel, “Cleopatra II and III: The queens of Ptolemy VI and VIII” for discussion of loyalty of the priesthood see 65–68, quote p. 68. See also M. Minas, Die hieroglyphischen Ahnenreihen der ptolemäischen Könige. Ein Vergleich mit den Titeln der eponymen Priester

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The acknowledgment by the ‘theoi Euergetai’ of Ptolemy Neos Philopator as a royal ancestor in this decree is corroborated by the 2001 discovery of a bilingual stele at the underwater site of Herakleion-Thonis.81 There has been debate about whether Ptolemy Neos Philopator should be seen as the son of Philometor and Cleopatra II, or if the decree refers to Ptolemy Memphites the child of Cleopatra II and Euergetes, both of whom were brutally murdered by Euergetes. I see the deification of Ptolemy Neos Philopator in decrees marking the reconciliation of the ‘theoi Euergetai’ as a testament to the power of a missing heir on the imagination of the Ptolemaic kingdom during this period. Carol and Eric Meyers articulated a scholarly need for an “archaeologicalliterary approach for the study and reconstruction of ancient culture.”82 My framing of the archaeological and textual references to the lost Ptolemaic heir allows for additional layers of context behind the anticipated role of the seventh king to surface. Ptolemy Neos Philopator was a symbol of hope that extended beyond the Judaean community who looked to his parents, Ptolemy VI and Cleopatra II, as benefactors. Contextualized within the reign of Ptolemy VIII, Ptolemy VII emerges as a circulating symbol of defiance with rebellions fed by the rumors of an heir being hidden by Galaistes, as well as a symbol of reconciliation and renewal with the ultimate deification of Theos Neos Philopator.83 I argue that, for Judaean intellectuals living through this tumultuous dynastic rivalry, this would make Ptolemy VII a viable and strong candidate for the messianic seventh king references in Book III, during as well as after the reign of Ptolemy VI and Cleopatra II. I argue this second century context also provides the backdrop for other intertextual and cultural references that will be explored throughout this investigation.

in den griechischen und demotischen Papyri (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2000), 153–4. See also Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 196. 81  Christophe Thiers, La stèle de Ptolémée VIII Évergète II à Héracléion (Oxford: Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology, 2009), 1–8. Thiers thinks Ptolemy Neos Philopator is the son of Cleopatra III and Ptolemy Euergetes. 82   Carol and Eric Meyers proposed subsuming of Biblical archaeology with sociology and anthropology in the now classic article, “Expanding the Frontiers of Biblical Archaeology,” Eretz-Israel 20 (1989), 140–7, quote 143. See also Douglas Edwards and C. Thomas McCollough, eds. The Archaeology of Difference: Gender, Ethnicity, Class, and the “Other” in Antiquity: Studies in Honor of Eric M. Meyers (Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2007). 83  This background can also be seen as another contextual layer to the intertextual reference to the Oracle of the Potter proposed by John J. Collins, see “The Sibyl and the Potter: Political Propaganda in Ptolemaic Egypt” in John J. Collins, Seers, Sibyls and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 199–210.

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Introduction

4 Conclusion My guiding question—why the Sibyl?—has been introduced, a hermeneutic of suspicion that extends to both gender and Jewish creativity has been proposed, and Book III has been grounded within the context of second century BCE Egypt. With the preliminary foundation for this investigation set, Chapter One situates this study within a larger re-evaluation of Hellenistic Judaism, followed by an exploration of how changes in linguistic discourse as well as the educational models of the Hellenistic period shape my reconstruction of the authorship and readership of Book III. Chapter Two will reframe the appeal, function, and innovation of the Sibyl as a pseudonym and Chapter Three will demonstrate ways in which the sibyllists modeled as well as challenged gendered categories of prophetic agency, authority, and style. This is followed by two case studies in Chapters Four and Five on a selection of verses that showcase the dynamics of cultural discourse expressed through the intricate use of intertextual dialogue that reveals levels of engagement with contemporary debates in Homeric scholarship and Ptolemaic politics. Just as the issue of gender was introduced as a fluid concept to be approached from a socially constructed view of performativity, so too will the question of Hellenistic Jewish identity in Chapter One be approached as a malleable social construct that defies a fixed expression or definition.

chapter 1

Hellenistic Complexities and Cultural Hybridity The cultivation of historical sensitivity is not always all that is involved. It may happen, in a given line, that the knowledge of the present bears even more immediately upon the understanding of the past. Marc Bloch1

∵ Remarking on the waves of scholarly interest in the field, Daniel Ogden astutely observed that “the study of the Hellenistic world is forever, it seems, newly arriving, adventitious, like the god Dionysus.”2 While there have been numerous, ingenious investigations in the last three decades (works without which this particular investigation would be an impossible endeavor), the Hellenistic period is still predominately sidelined. A scan across various scholarly institutions and relevant academic departments reveals that the Hellenistic period is, at best, an elective or more typically the first/last lecture in survey courses on Greek and Roman history. Hellenistic Judaism has become a point of intersection for classicists, ancient historians, archaeologists, art historians, and biblical scholars, but this type of scholarship is still in its adolescence due to the previous marginalization of the Hellenistic period in these fields.3 For instance, Pieter van der Horst has stated that after his 1991 publication, Ancient Jewish Epigrams, Classical epigraphists started to become interested in Jewish material but much work still remains to be done.4 My goal is to offer a re-evaluation 1  Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft (New York: Vintage Books, 1953), 45. 2  Daniel Ogden, “Introduction: From Chaos to Cleopatra” in Daniel Ogden, ed., The Hellenistic World: New Perspectives (London: Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth, 2002), ix–xxv, quote p. x. 3  Arnaldo Momigliano and Elias Bickerman are foundational figures. Erich Gruen is one of the first scholars to truly champion both fields, approaching Jewish history from an established position in Roman history and Classics. More scholars are enriching the field with qualifications in both Classics and Jewish Studies, such as René Bloch and Jane L. Lightfoot. 4  Pieter W. van der Horst, Saxa Judaica loquuntur: Lessons from Early Jewish Inscriptions (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 2–4, and Ancient Jewish Epigrams: An Introductory Survey of a Millennium of Jewish Funerary Epigraphy (300 BCE–700 CE) (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1991).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004426078_003

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of Book III of the Sibylline Oracles that highlights the benefits to the fields of Classics and Jewish studies when the arbitrary classifications of what is/ is not relevant to one field or another are broken down.5 The Sibylline Oracles are particularly amenable for such an integrated, interdisciplinary approach because the traditional rationale behind the choice of the Sibyl as a pseudonym embodies the problem inherent in the bifurcation between Classics and Jewish studies. This chapter offers a critical retrospective of scholarship to create a “genealogical consciousness”6 of this work’s place within the ongoing and changing perceptions of the Hellenistic Mediterranean and Hellenistic Judaism. History is a composition of simultaneous events to which an individual or group assigns the relative importance so, depending on location, the events that make up “history” will vary. Periodizations are not a mere matter of semantics; they are meaningful because they offer different frames of reference for understanding the Hellenistic age, which can feature different players within politics, art, and culture of the Mediterranean world.7 As one of the goals of this investigation is to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue, this retrospective clarifies intersections and overlaps between Classics, Art History, and Biblical Studies by introducing the key figures who initially framed the Hellenistic period within these fields. The new frameworks that have taken hold since have radically impacted the way in which these fields approach Hellenistic identity constructions and act as the basis for approaching identity in this investigation. This is followed by an exploration of how changes in linguistic discourse during the Hellenistic period provide the wider context for the Sibyl to be an effective pseudonym for modifying both Greek and Jewish referents successfully. Lastly, 5  Classicists often feel the need to explain themselves when they work with texts that are outside of the fields’ accepted canon and fall under ‘Jewish Studies’ even if the text temporally and thematically is part of that conversation. For example, Teresa Morgan adds the following footnote to act as a disclaimer for her incorporation of Philo of Alexandria in her discussion on education: “Despite the complications of his position, however, I feel justified in including him among theorists of Graeco-Roman education because the content of mese paideia in his descriptions is wholly compatible with the descriptions of gentile writers.” T. Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 34, n. 114. In his article “The Letter of Aristeas,” Richard Hunter notes: “My purpose in allowing this paper to go further than the oral presentation is rather to prompt classicists, particularly the large number currently working on Hellenistic and later prose narratives, to pay it more attention than they have hitherto” in Creating a Hellenistic World, eds. A. Erskine and L. Llewellyn-Jones (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2011), 47–60, quote 57. 6  Fuchs, Jewish Feminism, viii. 7  The Hellenistic period overlaps with the Jewish chronological framework of the Second Temple period (typically from 539 BCE to 70 CE) and intersects with the Roman Republic (c. 509 BCE to 27 BCE).

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the educational curriculum of the Hellenistic period shapes my reconstruction of the authorship and readership of Book III and informs my framing of its two styles. This background enables the reorientation of my guiding question— Why the Sibyl?—to the issue of gender, and clarifies how this reorientation is rooted within Hellenistic Mediterranean discourse, not merely imposed upon the text. 1

A Retrospective: (De)constructing the Hellenistic Period

While hellēnismos was first coined in 2 Maccabees referring to Greek language and culture in contrast to ioudaismos, it was Johann-Gustav Droysen’s 1877 Geschichte des Hellenismus that created the “Hellenistic age.”8 Droysen, inspired by Hegel’s concept of aufheben, saw Christianity as the triumphant result of the synthesis of Greek and Jewish culture. The Hellenistic age thus took on the role of decadence and decline, a time that showcased the need for what was to come. This view influenced Classics as a discipline, which has traditionally focused on two bodies of literature: Archaic and Classical Greek texts (representative of a Golden Age of Greek literature) and Roman Imperial Latin literature. The Golden Age ended with Alexander the Great and Hellenistic literature was viewed as derivative and inconsequential in comparison. Roman Latin literature was seen as the next influential body of work that drew inspiration from Greek Golden Age writers while offering something innovative.9 This preconception of Hellenistic decadence was also dominant in Art History, primarily championed by J.J. Winkelmann, who asserted one-dimensional 8  Johann-Gustav Droysen, Geschichte des Hellenismus, 2 v. (Gotha: F.A. Perthes, 1877). For discussion of influence of Droysen, see A. Momigliano, “J.G. Droysen between Greeks and Jews” in Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography, ed. Silvia Berti, trans. Maura Masella-Gayley (Oxford: Blackwell, 1977); Ogden, The Hellenistic World, ix–xxv; Glenn R. Bugh, “Introduction” in Glenn R. Bugh, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 1–8; Robin Lane Fox, “The First Hellenistic Man” in Creating a Hellenistic World, eds. A. Erskine and L. Llewellyn-Jones (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2011), 1–29. 9  For discussions on the marginalization of the Hellenistic period in Classics, see Ogden, “Introduction: From Chaos to Cleopatra”; D. Graham and J. Shipley, “Recent Trends and New Directions” in The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World; Andrew Erskine, “Approaching the Hellenistic World” in Andrew Erskine, ed., A Companion to the Hellenistic World (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 1–15. George Grote is a 19th century example of scholarship which found the Hellenistic period of no interest; see A History of Greece: From the Earliest Period to the Close of the Generation Contemporary with Alexander the Great, 4 vols. (New York: American Book Exchange, 1881) v. 1, xi.

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interpretations of stylistic influence and agency that built a picture of unoriginal composition and rampant repetition.10 This marginalization of the Hellenistic age in Classics and Art History was mirrored by the marginalization of the period in Biblical Studies. Nineteenth-century German scholarship posited an ideological history that viewed Hellenism and Judaism as antithetical concepts that formed the basis for understanding the rise of Christianity. Hellenism was argued to have offered Christianity its universal applications in opposition to particularistic Judaism.11 This dualistic view suffused scholarship concerning the background of the New Testament. Studies on Hellenization and the Jews really began in the late 1930s with Elias Bickerman and Saul Lieberman.12 Victor Tcherikover took into consideration the larger Hellenistic and Roman historical developments and the Diaspora community in Egypt.13 This was followed by investigations such as E.R. Goodenough’s work on the presence of Greco-Roman imagery in Jewish symbolism in the 1950s.14 Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, many Hellenistic Jewish texts were dismissed in Jewish studies 10  J.J. Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (Vienna, Binz: 1764). This negative view of Hellenistic art is being re-evaluated, but statements such as the following by John Onians reflect the influence of Winckelmann: “The Hellenistic world was born in pride and soon moved from vanity to delusion.” John Onians, Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age: the Greek World View 350–50 BC (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979), 180. 11  Ferdinand Christian Bauer and the Tübingen School first propagated this conceptualization. For detailed overviews of 19th century formulation of Judaism/Hellenism dichotomy, see Maren Niehoff, “Alexandrian Judaism in 19th century Wissenschaft des Judentums: Between Christianity and Modernization” in Jüdische Geschichte in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit. Wege der Forschung: Vom alten zum neuen Schürer, ed. Aharon Oppenheimer (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1999), 9–28; Wayne A. Meeks, “Judaism, Hellenism, and the Birth of Christianity,” 17–28 and Dale B. Martin, “Paul and the Judaism/Hellenism Dichotomy: Towards a Social History of the Question,” 29–62 in Paul Beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide, ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001). 12  E  lias J. Bickerman, Der Gott der Makkabäer. Untersuchungen über Sinn und Ursprung der Makkabäischen Erhebung (Berlin: Schocken Verlag, 1937), English trans. The God of the Maccabees (Leiden: Brill, 1979). Saul Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Life and Manners of Jewish Palestine in the II–IV Centuries C.E. (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1942) and the companion volume Hellenism in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Literary Transmission, Beliefs and Manners of Palestine in the I Century B.C.E.–IV Century C.E. (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950). 13  Victor Tcherikover, ‫ חקירה היסטורית‬.‫( היהודים והיונים בתקופה ההלניסטית‬Tel Aviv: Devir, 1930) rev. and Engl. Ed. Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1959). 14   Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, 13 vols. Bollingen Series (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953).

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as marginal abnormalities of a contested nature between the pillars of the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic literature.15 After the Dead Sea Scrolls proved the antiquity of some of these texts and solidified the diverse nature of Second Temple Jewish literature, Hellenistic Judaism was reexamined for its role in the history of Judaism as well as nascent Christianity.16 Christian scholars looked to these texts as the precursor to New Testament messianic mentalities and the rise of apocalyptic imagery, eventually resulting in their classification as “Intertestamental Literature.”17 With Martin Hengel’s work in the early 1970s and Carl Holladay’s publication of fragments of Hellenistic Jewish authors in the 1980s,18 the previous assumption of a dichotomy between Palestinian and 15  For example, E.R. Goodenough discusses the resistance he encountered in arguing that the restrictions of Rabbinic Judaism were not operative earlier; see E.R. Goodenough, Jacob Neusner, and Ernest S. Frerichs, Goodenough on the History of Religion and on Judaism (Atlanta: SBL, 1986), esp. “The Rabbis and Jewish Art in the Greco-Roman Period.” 16  For a selection of edited volumes that represent some DSS work, see Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam, eds. The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (Leiden: Brill, 1998); Robert A. Kugler and Eileen M. Schuller, eds. The Dead Sea Scrolls at Fifty: Proceedings of the 1997 Society of Biblical Literature Qumran Section Meetings (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1999); Florentino García Martínez and Mladen Popović, eds. Defining Identities: We, You, and the Other in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fifth Meeting of the IOQS in Groningen (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Joseph A. Fitzmyer, A Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, Rev. and expanded ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). 17  The nomenclature “Intertestamental literature” comes from a standpoint that the writings of the Hellenistic and wider Second-Temple period can be studied as bridge texts between the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament and New Testament. While it is true that some of these texts have been shown to offer certain precedents for New Testament theology—which were previously framed as breaks from Jewish tradition—scholarship now acknowledges that this body of literature offers insights that far exceed its relationship to canonized sacred texts. See André Dupont-Sommer, Aperçus préliminaires sur les manuscrits de la Mer Morte (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1950) for the foundation of the DSS with the search for early Christian origins. For the history of reception of the DSS from different cultural perspectives see John J. Collins, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013); Devorah Dimant and Ingo Kottsieper, The Dead Sea Scrolls in Scholarly Perspective: A History of Research (Leiden: Brill, 2012). See also Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins, The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), esp. J. Frey’s article, “Critical Issues in the Investigation of the Scrolls and the New Testament.” See also Eileen Schuller, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Jewish-Christian Dialogue” in From Judaism to Christianity: Tradition and Transition: A Festschrift for Thomas H. Tobin, S.J., on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Patricia Walters (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 43–58. 18  Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period, trans. John Bowden (Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2003) the original Tübingen Habilitationsschrift of Judentum und Hellenismus was written in 1966

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Diaspora Judaism was becoming obsolete.19 The field has continued to develop and become more interdisciplinary over the years, establishing itself as more than an ‘Intertestamental period.’ Scholarship has largely moved beyond the linear historical/crisis perspective that was traditionally presented as the fall of the Greek world and the rise of the Roman Empire/Christianity. That rise and fall/crisis narrative emphasized discontinuity, tended to focus on predetermined cultural centers, assumed rapid change, and—while not explicitly stated—was rooted in a supersessionist mentality that presented a decadent Hellenistic age as leading up to a salvation point (whether that was seen as Christianity or the Roman empire). Recent years have seen a shift in scholarly focus from change/rupture to continuity/dialogue. For example, exploring ongoing trade relations from the Archaic to Roman periods in the periphery for a more nuanced understanding of local and trans-local interactions, or the re-dating of sculptures or other artifacts previously assigned to earlier or later periods based on 19th and 20th century scholarly bias.20 Hellenistic Jewish texts are now acknowledged to reflect a variety of expressions of identity and tradition, most of which did not survive the canonization of thought in either Jewish or Christian tradition. Accessing the multifaceted aspects of

and published in 1969; Carl R. Holladay, Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983). 19  For concise historiographies, see Lee I. Levine, Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity: Conflict or Confluence (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998), 3–32; Lester L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, vol. 2 The Coming of the Greeks: The Early Hellenistic Period (335–175 BCE) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2008), 125–65. 20  Peter Green, Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) works from the perspective that the Hellenistic age was a period of decadence. Counter examples include: T.A. Schmitz and N. Wiater, The Struggle for Identity: Greeks and their Past in the First Century BCE (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2011) offers essays that focus on Greek perspectives from the Roman Imperial period which were previously relegated to “the garbage heap of history” p. 15. Examples of focus on Hellenistic continuity/dialogue: J.R.W. Prag and J.C. Quinn, The Hellenistic West: Rethinking the Ancient Mediterranean (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013); John Ma, “Paradigms and Paradoxes in the Hellenistic World,” Studi Ellenistici v. 20 (2008): 371–386; Tim Whitmarsh, ed., Local Knowledge and Microidentities in the Imperial Greek World (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Bernard Legras, ed., Transferts culturels et droits dans le monde grec et hellénistique (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2012). On the changing perceptions of Hellenistic art: Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture II: The Styles of ca. 200–100 B.C. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), esp. 3–18; Lucilla Burn, Hellenistic Art: From Alexander the Great to Augustus (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2004), esp. 17; Andrew Stewart, “Hellenistic Art, AD 1500–2000,” in A Companion to the Hellenistic World, ed. Andrew Erskine (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 494–514.

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the Hellenistic age requires input from fields such as art history, archaeology,21 philosophy, sociology, political science, and feminist/post-colonial hermeneutics. Interdisciplinary approaches have exposed new depths of meaning within texts as well as artifacts.22 From this standpoint, it is just as relevant—if not more so—for Hellenistic Jewish literature to be examined by classicists and ancient historians as it is by scholars of Hebrew Bible, New Testament, or Rabbinics. By exploring the perspective of a minority group that participated and commented on the institution of empires, we have gained insight into the larger Mediterranean sociopolitical sphere as well as another access point into the intercultural dynamics of the wider Mediterranean.23 Michael Satlow has characterized the move away from syncretism as an analytical category for approaching Jews in Antiquity as a paradigm shift. The new paradigm is an organic integrative model of historiography which features the following: “1) it focuses on people and their agency rather than on abstractions; 2) it recognizes the fluid nature of identity and identity formation; 3) it assumes similarities and seeks to explain difference; 4) and it explicitly justifies the linking of different types of data, such as using archaeology to interpret texts and vice versa.”24 In this vein, Hellenistic Jewish identity has been 21  The ‘bottom-up’ or inductive archaeological approach—which focuses on the daily life of the everyday person rather than the art, architecture and lives of the elite—has been particularly helpful in raising new questions concerning the domestic sphere. This type of cultural archaeology has its roots in anthropological approaches and intersects with issues of post colonialism. For an introductory discussion of methods, see Lester Embree, “The structure of American theoretical archaeology: a preliminary report” in Valerie Pinsky and Alison Wylie, eds. Critical Traditions in Contemporary Archaeology: Essays in the Philosophy, History, and Socio-Politics of Archaeology New Directions in Archaeology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 28–37; Charles E. Orser, A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World (New York: Plenum, 1996). Regional studies have been particularly invaluable in highlighting the variety of continuity and change that was experienced in the various parts of the Hellenistic Mediterranean as well as the Roman empire; for example: A. Erlich, The Art of Hellenistic Palestine (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2009); R. Mairs, The Hellenistic Far East: Archaeology, Language, and Identity in Greek Central Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014). 22  See Graham Shipley, The Greek World after Alexander, 323–30 B.C. Routledge History of the Ancient World (London: Routledge, 2000); Andrew Erskine, ed., A Companion to the Hellenistic World (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003); Glenn Richard Bugh, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 23  See Anathea Portier-Young, Apocalypse Against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011); Richard A. Horsley, Scribes, Visionaries, and the Politics of Second Temple Judea (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) and Revolt of the Scribes: Resistance and Apocalyptic Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010). 24  Michael L. Satlow, “Beyond Influence: Toward a New Historiographic Paradigm,” in Jewish Literatures and Cultures: Context and Intertext, eds. Anita Norich and Yaron Z. Eliav

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explored through the lens of cultural hybridity and how a minority identity is expressed within larger structures of empire.25 Sylvie Honigman has argued that within the context of Ptolemaic Egypt, Judaeans were a part of a nested construction of Greek ethnicity, accepted as a sub-group of Greek and thus should not be viewed as ‘outsiders’ which the frame of cultural hybridity can sometimes imply. Honigman asserts that three concepts can help capture the subjective perspective or ‘social imaginary’ of Ptolemaic Judaean texts: cultural competition, appropriation and subversion, and mimetic behavior.26 These concepts move beyond influence, syncretism, apologetics, and dualistic models of assimilation and opposition that characterized 19th and 20th century scholarship and support the new historiographic paradigm outlined by Satlow. My investigation falls within the new historiographic paradigm by: focusing on the identity of the Sibyl as presented in Book III (which includes being a female prophetic voice); finding the fluid nature of identity expressed through the creative reimaging of the Sibyl (which draws inspiration from Greek and Jewish cultural/religious symbols); assuming the authors were well educated in Greek literature and myth so differences in narratives should be assessed as to whether or not they are examples of cultural competition, expropriation,27 (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2008), 37–53, quote p. 40. Satlow identifies the work of Shaye Cohen, Erich Gruen, Seth Schwartz, Peter Schäfer, Yaram Eliav, and Daniel Boyarin as emblematic of this new paradigm. 25  Some examples of this type of scholarship are: Maren Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001); Sara R. Johnson, Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity: Third Maccabees in Its Cultural Context (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Tessa Rajak, Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); John M.G. Barclay, ed., Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2004); Christian Frevel, Mixed Marriages: Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2011). 26  Sylvie Honigman, “‘Jews as the Best of All Greeks’: Cultural Competition in the Literary Works of Alexandrian Judaeans of the Hellenistic Period,” in Shifting Social Imaginaries in the Hellenistic Period: Narrations, Practices, and Images, ed. Eftychia Stavrianopoulou (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 208–32. Eftychia Stavrianopoulou offers an overview of the concept of social imaginary in the “Introduction,” 1–21 and “Hellenistic World(s) and the Elusive Concept of ‘Greekness,’” 177–205 in Shifting Social Imaginaries in the Hellenistic Period. For papyrological evidence of nested ethnicity model see papyrus P.Count 26 where Jews are categorized as Hellenes for tax purposes in Willy Clarysse and Dorothy Thompson, Counting the People in Hellenistic Egypt, 2 vols. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 1:357–77 discussion 2:145; Dorothy Thompson, “Hellenistic Hellenes: The Case of Ptolemaic Egypt,” in Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, ed. Irad Malkin (Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2001), 301–21. 27  I use the term expropriation to indicate the simultaneous representation of appropriation and subversion. Book III reflects a high level of confidence and when appropriating

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and/or mimetic behavior; utilizing insights from Classics and Archaeology in order to situate Book III within Ptolemaic Alexandrian as well as wider Hellenistic Mediterranean, dialogue. 2

Setting the Stage: Defining Boundaries amidst Debates

To complete the positioning of this investigation within a genealogical lineage of Hellenistic studies, I will define the scope of Hellenism, Hellenization, and Hellenistic Judaism within this investigation. The Hellenistic age as a chronological period is tied to a shift from localized kingdoms to a more integrated Mediterranean network precipitated by the conquests of Alexander and the Greco-Macedonian diaspora. For the purpose of this investigation, the parameters of the Hellenistic age are not as important as establishing a working understanding of the cultural concept of Hellenism. I work from the perspective that Hellenism is not strictly tied to a certain people, but is a cultural approach to education and societal mores that were accepted in greater or lesser degrees across the Mediterranean. I intentionally avoid over specification (as this will create unnecessary boundaries for the present study) and use the broad definition of the Hellenistic age as a chronologically delimited period and Hellenism as a cultural framework. Lee Levine defines Hellenism and Hellenization as two aspects of the same phenomenon, stating “Hellenism thus refers to the cultural milieu (largely Greek) of the Hellenistic, Roman, and—to a somewhat more limited extent—Byzantine periods, while Hellenization describes the process of adoption and adaptation of this culture on a local level.”28 The differentiation between the larger cultural environment and the process of enculturalization raises some problematic issues, foremost, the question of whether or not Hellenization was a deliberate process that was advocated and facilitated by political powers. My investigation does not pursue this question because by the second century BCE in Ptolemaic Egypt, Hellenization (by whatever processes that might have entailed) had already taken place and Hellenism was firmly rooted at a widespread local level. Thereby, for the purposes of this investigation, the process by which the Jewish authors were “hellenized” is not as critical as how they articulated a particular point of view on Greek and polytheistic Greek cultural/religious referents always does so in a manner which deliberately subverts the original power/authority of the ritual, place, deity or figure. For examples of Jewish cultural identity through examples of expropriation, see Erich Gruen Constructs of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism: Essays on Early Jewish Literature and History (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016). 28  Levine, Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity, 16–7.

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Jewish cultural or intellectual trends because these examples offer us insight into the diversity of identity expression within Hellenistic Judaism. There is debate concerning the proper terminology for the Hellenistic period as it pertains to the identity of Jewish communities. Benjamin Wright poses a question that will help frame how I use ethnic descriptors in this investigation: If the term “Hellenistic Jew” carries with it some inherent tension between the adjective and the noun, especially in terms of ethnic identity, we have to ask if there is indeed evident any perceptible tension between these two constructs in the text itself, and, if there is, what that tension might be and how any tension might play into the performance of ethnic identity in the work. By asking how this author performs his Jewishness, we might be able to bring different perspectives to these questions.29 The formation of boundaries does not need to be seen as inconsistent or in tension with an acknowledgment of the pervasive nature of a cultural structure; rather, specific groups may form boundaries “within a broadly uniform culture.”30 I, therefore, accept Hellenism as an overarching cultural structure of the Mediterranean in the second century BCE, with the understanding that levels of Hellenism varied depending on location, and each community had its own character of hellenistic identity because the process did not obliterate indigenous cultural practices but reframed them within the Mediterranean network. Levels of Hellenization were different across Jewish communities and were not necessarily tied to geographic proximity to Jerusalem, but to trade, educational resources, political and economic stability, and personal affinities such as attraction to certain philosophical and rhetorical models.31 Hellenistic Judaism in this investigation refers to Jews living within the chronological 29  Benjamin Wright III, “The Problem of the Hyphen and Jewish/Judean Ethnic Identity: The Letter of Aristeas, the Septuagint, and Cultural Interactions” in Strength to Strength: Essays in Appreciation of Shaye J.D. Cohen, ed. Michael L. Satlow (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2018), 115–136, quote 120. For discussion on the use of Jew versus Judaean see, Steve Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” JSJS 38 (2007): 457–512. Engberg-Pedersen, Paul Beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide, 11. 30   31  I concur with Lee Levine, who states: “Hellenization is not merely the impact of Greek culture on a non-Greek world, but rather the interplay of a wide range of cultural forces on an oikumene (the civilized world as then known) defined in large part—but not exclusively—by the Greek conquests of the fourth and third centuries BCE…. Such influences filtered through each Hellenistic center according to the dominant styles and ambience of each locale, and were often moderated or nuanced by assorted Eastern traditions.” Levine, Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity, 19.

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parameters of the Hellenistic age. It does not imply a judgment on the degree of Hellenization on Jews living across the Mediterranean or imply an overarching inherent tension between Hellenism and Judaism. Identity is accepted as a fluid social construct and what may be a tension for one individual or community, or one text/artifact may not be a source of tension in another. Book III, as a product of second century BCE Egypt, reflects a nested ethnic identity model in which Judaean writers were seen as a subcategory of Greeks, not as outsiders or ‘barbarians.’32 I agree that translating Ioudaioi as Judaeans is preferred in general because it reflects an ethnic group that had its own laws, traditions, customs, and God just as other ethnic groups of the time; however, Book III does not use the term Ioudaioi, but rather uses general descriptors for the genos such as pious, righteous, and just.33 As noted by Gruen, “genos serves here to designate a people distinguished for their piety and righteousness, and it lacks any suggestion of ethnicity.”34 I maintain that the only consistent identity boundary marker within Book III is monotheism, which provides Judaean figures, history, and tradition that act as general referents associated with that cultural/religious identity expression.35 Thus, in the course of this investigation, I typically use ‘Jewish’ as a descriptor when referring specifically to monotheism as the promoted marker of insider superiority which the sibyllists used as the platform for different expressions of cultural competition through diminutive references to polytheism (myth, cult, ritual, and the apotheosis of mortals to the divine). I use ‘Judaean’ when discussing the sibyllists outside of their representation within the text, e.g. when I am discussing the political context of the second century and its potential impact on Judaean communities. While monotheism is the primary performance of identity that functions as the point of boundary tension in Book III, it is not framed as a strict ethnic boundary, but as a mark of higher wisdom: 32  Honigman, “Jews as the Best of All Greeks,” 210–13. 33  See Sib. Or. 3.219: ἐξ ἧς δὴ γένος έστὶ διχαιοτάτων ἀνθρώπων and 3.573: εὐσεβέων ἀνδρῶν ἱερὸν γένος ἔσσεται αὖτις. Note: all Greek text is from Johannes Geffcken, Die Oracula Sibyllina (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1902). 34  Erich Gruen, “Did Ancient Identity Depend on Ethnicity? A Preliminary Probe,” Phoenix Vol. 67. no. 1/2, pp. 1–22, quote p. 14. 35  While there are some sections that promote certain behaviors, such as obeying the law and restrictions on male same-sex acts, as characteristic of the pious genos, these are not consistent identity markers, this will be discussed in detail in Chapter Three. My case studies in Chapters Four and Five offer nuanced examples of cultural competition that demonstrate how monotheism is the prevailing cultural marker consistently articulated throughout, even in verses previously seen as tangential.

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For to them alone did the great God give wise counsel and faith and excellent understanding in their breasts. They do not honor with empty deceits the works of men, either gold or bronze, or silver or ivory, or wooden, stone, or clay idols of dead gods, red-painted likenesses of beasts, such as mortals honor with empty-minded council. (3.584–90)36 The ‘foolish’ polytheistic Greeks are capable of overcoming this boundary if they so choose, and thus be a welcome part of this particular identity performance.37 In this way, I find that Book III frames polytheistic Greeks as lost kin which aligns with nested ethnic identity construction: Greece, why do you rely on mortal leaders who are not able to flee the end of death? To what purpose do you give vain gifts to the dead and sacrifice to idols? Who put error (πλάνον) in your heart that you should abandon the face of the Great God and do these things? (3.545–9)38 This evokes the exile retelling when the pious genos (Judaeans) were similarly led astray: Your whole land will be desolate; your fortified altar and temple of the great God and long walls will all fall to the ground, because you did not obey in your heart the holy law of the immortal God, but in error (πλανηθείς) you worshipped unseemly idols and you did not fear

36  Collins, OTP v.1.375. Sib. Or. 3.584–90: μούνοις γάρ σφιν δῶκε θεὸς μέγας εὔφρονα βουλήν καὶ πίστιν καὶ ἄριστον ἐνὶ στήθεσσι νόημα ⋅ οἵτινες οὐκ ἀπάτῃσι κεναῖς οὐδ᾽ ἔργ᾽ ἀνθρώπων χρύσεα καὶ χάλκεια καὶ ἀργύρου ἠδ᾽ ἐλέφαντος καὶ ξυλίνων λιθίνων τε θεῶν εἴδωλα καμόντων πήλινα μιλτόχριστα ζῳογραφίας τυποειδεῖς τιμῶσιν, ὅσα πέρ τε βροτοὶ κενεόφρονι βουλῇ. 37  For descriptions of the mindless or foolish worshipping idols see Sib. Or. 3.229, 3.590, 3.670, 3.721. 38  Collins, OTP v.1.364. Sib. Or. 3.545–9: Ἑλλὰς δή, τί πέποιθας ἐπ᾽ ἀνδράσιν ἡγεμόνεσσιν θνητοῖς, οἷς οὐχ ἔστι φυγεῖν θανάτοιο τελευτήν; πρὸς τί τε δῶρα μάταια καταφθιμένοισι πορίζεις θύεις τ᾽εἰδώλοις; τίς τοι πλάνον ἐν φρεσὶ θῆχεν ταῦτα τελεῖν προλιποῦσα θεοῦ μεγάλοιο πρόσωπον.

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the immortal Begetter of gods and of all men but were not willing to honor him. But you honored the idols of mortals. (3.273–9)39 Just as the pious genos once erred but found their way, so too can Greeks abandon their mortal false gods and return to the immortal Begetter. The potential return of polytheistic Greeks to God demonstrates their insider status and models a lost kinship relationship rather than a plea to outsiders: “But you, devious mortal, do not tarry in hesitation but turn back, converted, and propitiate God (3.624–5).”40 The sibyllists took for granted their insider status as Greeks and did not see it as in tension with their Judaean identity. By rooting the Sibyl’s genealogy in the pre-Flood era, she was open to authoritatively employ referents from both the monotheistic and polytheistic Greek spheres.41 While hybridity has developed a connotation of grafting or the forcing together of incompatible constructs, this is not self-evident within the theory.42 Homi K. Bhabha discussed the potential of the liminal aspects of hybridity: “This interstitial passage between fixed identifications opens up the possibility of a cultural hybridity that entertains difference without an assumed or imposed hierarchy.”43 I thereby find cultural hybridity within the nested ethnicity 39  Collins, OTP v.1.368. Sib. Or. 3.273–9: γαῖα δ᾽ἔρημος ἅπασα σέθεν ⋅ καὶ βωμὸς ἐρυμνός καὶ ναὸς μεγάλοιο θεοῦ καὶ τείχεα μαχρά πάντα χαμαὶ πεσέονται, ὅτι φρεσὶν οὐχ ἐπίθησας ἀθανάτοιο θεοῦ ἁγνῷ νόμῳ, ἀλλὰ πλανηθείς εἰδώλοις ἐλάτρευσας ἀειχέσιν οὐδὲ φοβηθείς ἀθάνατον γενετῆρα θεῶν πάντων τ᾽ ἀνθρώπων οὐχ ἔθελες τιμᾶν, θνητῶν εἴδωλα δ᾽ ἐτίμας. 40  Collins, OTP v.1.376. Sib. Or. 3.624–5: ἀλλὰ σὺ μὴ μέλλων, βροτὲ ποιχιλόμητι, βράδυνε, ἀλλὰ παλίμπλαγχτος στρέψας θεὸν ἱλάσχοιο. See also Sib. Or. 3.721–3. 41  Sib. Or. 3.809–29, the Sibyls genealogical lineage will be discussed in detail in Chapter Three. 42  Pnina Werbner and Tariq Modood argue against the seemingly ubiquitous assumption of separateness and fixed identities and succinctly articulate the need to return to the initial fluidity of hybridity as a model: “A major fallacy regarding hybridity theory that this book categorically rejects is the truism that the very notion ‘cultural hybridity’ implies a ‘mixture’ of two discrete, and hence bounded, ‘cultures.’ To refute this claim we draw in the book on a key distinction made by Mikhail Bakhtin between ‘organic’ and ‘intentional’ hybridities.” Pnina Werbner and Tariq Modood, eds., Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multicultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism 2nd edition (London: Zed Books, 2015), xiv. See Mikhail M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, edited by Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 358–61. 43  H  omi K. Bhabha, Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2004), 5. This extends to the concept of cultural translation: “Cultural translation desacralizes the transparent assumptions of cultural supremacy, and in that very act, demands a contextual specificity, a historical differentiation within minority positions.” Bhabha, Location of Culture, 327.

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model to be a useful heuristic frame in which to engage with the Jewish creativity of Book III. 3

The Changing Shape of Hellenistic Religious Discourse: Crisis of Belief?

Bhabha expressed the interconnected relationship between critique and hybridity in terms which resonate with the dynamic changes religious symbols were undergoing in the Hellenistic period: The language of critique is effective not because it keeps forever separate the terms of the master and the slave, the mercantilist and the Marxist, but to the extent to which it overcomes the given grounds of opposition and opens up a space of translation: a place of hybridity, figuratively speaking, where the construction of a political object that is new, neither the one nor the other, properly alienates our political expectations, and changes, as it must, the very forms of our recognition of the moment of politics.44 I maintain that the inspiration behind the Sibyl’s appeal and success as a Jewish pseudonym rests within Hellenistic cultural dialogues concerning gender, prophecy, politics, intellectual trends, and changing forms of religious expression—which were circulating in the Mediterranean and stimulating reactions regardless of an individual’s particular religious associations, a communal place of hybridity. The following will track the changing perceptions of Hellenistic myth and religion that were initially approached from an assumption of religious crisis, which maps onto the linear approach to the history of the Greek and Roman world discussed above. In this model, Alexander the Great’s conquests of the Greek world and his subsequent deification were seen as a crisis point. Peter Green views the shift in power structures after the conquest of Alexander the Great as the beginning of disenchantment with the mythos, which characterized the previous way of life: The sociohistorical crisis of the later Hellenistic period was all too real: political institutions had lost their stability, if not their titular autonomy; private disillusionment and disorientation were rampant; physis as might-is-right had, to all appearances, triumphed over reason and 44  Bhabha, Location of Culture, 37.

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nomos; the individual his old support system undermined, was adrift in a terrifying spiritual void. Euhemerus’s claim looked incontrovertible: gods had been kings, and now kings were gods. Idealism and principle were being swept away with all the other outmoded public detritus of the polis. Democracy, once taken for granted as an inalienable civic right (and yet always rare, exceptional, the maverick among Near Eastern systems), now seemed little more than a quaint historical memory amid the universal bureaucratic rule of autocratic monarch, oligarchic group, or business consortium.45 This pessimistic outlook focuses attention on the symbiotic relationship between changes in mythological perceptions and political shifts. Alexander the Great created an empire and his apotheosis broke down the barriers between the gods and men. Because of the political turmoil, some scholars have traditionally interpreted the deification of men as symptomatic of a feeling that the gods had abandoned the people. E.R. Dodds states that “when the old gods withdraw, the empty thrones cry out for a successor, and with good management, or even without management, almost any perishable bag of bones may be hoisted into the vacant seat.”46 The picture appears clear: Alexander’s deification sparked a re-evaluation of divinity, and myths were functioning more on a symbolic and theoretical level than they previously had. This framework underestimates the dynamic nature of religion and myth in the ancient world. While this perspective has become outdated in theory, it can still be found as an undercurrent in texts that address the previously proposed dichotomy between mythos and logos in philosophical and religious discourse in the Hellenistic age. Questions concerning the nature of the gods and their role in lived experience were not simply predicated upon the political upheaval caused by Alexander’s conquest, and the apotheosis of rulers was not a sudden shock to the Mediterranean. These questions were part of an ongoing dialogue that predated Alexander. Martin Nilsson discusses the use of myth in politics, focusing primarily on Athens in the pre-Persian War era, and the function of myth as perceived in early history and its role in the acquisition of territories. Of particular interest is the shift Nilsson describes in the role of myth once logographers began writing the history of Greece after the Persian War (c. 499–449 BCE):

45  Green, Alexander to Actium, 632. 46  E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), 242.

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The myths no longer depended on oral tradition, living in the minds of the common people; they became on one hand learned and on the other political fictions. The use of myths for political ends did not cease, for we have seen very many instances from later ages, but they appealed more to the educated people, less to the masses. There was another means of propaganda which was of the greatest importance and deeply impressed the man in the street, a means extensively used especially in civic politics, namely oracles.47 Writers such as Aristophanes reflect antagonism towards the emergence of oracular accounts as political propaganda in dialogues criticizing oraclemongers in the fifth century BCE. This was a time when men could vote in assembly and the educated elite saw oracles as taking advantage of the ordinary citizens’ fears and passions in order to encourage political strategies. Nilsson differentiates between the reputation of the Delphic oracle and those of unnamed oracles, in which he includes the Archaic Greek Sibyl, though he discusses the Sibyl very little. Nilsson argues that although the Delphic oracle was still imbued with some authority among the educated elite, the practice of tampering with oracles and their endorsement of war to ordinary citizens made literature concerning oracles suspect. Therefore, the trend Green identifies as ‘disillusionment’ beginning after the conquest of Alexander can just as easily be seen as emerging in fifth century dialogue. This concept of disillusionment should be seen within the history of interpretation of the Greek conception of belief. Henk Versnel examines the disappointment and subsequent whitewashing of evidence that Greeks worshipped mortals by early twentieth-century classicists, which ranged from blaming ‘Oriental influences’ to creative translations of the attestations of worship.48 The explanation that held sway classified the ruler cult as solely political in nature, devoid of religious feeling.49 Current scholarship has been dismantling this assumption—which is rooted in a 19th century Christian need for a strict dichotomy between human and divine—and the lasting effects of this

47  Martin P. Nilsson, Cults, Myths, Oracles, and Politics in Ancient Greece (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1951), 123. 48  H.S. Versnel, Coping with the Gods: Wayward Readings in Greek Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 456–7. 49  For work on the ruler cult as solely political see William Woodthorpe Tarn, Alexander the Great. 2 vols. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1948); Martin P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion (Munich: Beck, 1967), see vol. 2; Gilbert Murray, Five Stages of Greek Religion (New York: Doubleday, 1955).

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interpretation on the perception of Greek and Roman religion.50 Whether conscious or not, this type of sentiment led to an emphasis on the ritualistic nature of Greek religion and a minimization of Greek belief. Versnel discusses how the question regarding the definition of νομίζειν (which is typically translated as ‘to believe’) had two primary repercussions: One is that Greek religion was ritualistic to such a degree that in fact ritual was the essence of their religion, ‘belief’ (leave alone ‘faith’) was more or less negligible. The other is the near-paranoid fear of imposing Christianizing assumptions on foreign religions in general and on Greek religion in particular.51 Versnel argues that ritual is a crucial aspect of Greek religion and it would be logical to assume that on the basis of their practices the Greeks did believe in the gods.52 The scholarly search for mythological secularization is a modern concern and one that does not provide a useful format for Greek religious dialogue. Versnel offers a re-evaluation of what seems to be the paradox of Greek religion: its ability to hold two oppositional views of the divine without any apparent problem with the contradictions that they may produce, to make concepts that are mutually exclusive to the modern mind seem complementary. This interpretive trend of distancing the Greeks from ‘believing’ in the divinity of mortals is characteristic of the linear/crisis approach to Greek and Roman history because it supports the framework of a breaking point that accommodates the need for the rise of Christianity. Versnel proposes the concept of the ludic (play) to problematize apotheosis as the focal point of crisis, by demonstrating how underlying assumptions have been based on anachronistic definitions of belief. He defines ludic as follows: I adopt the definition of the ludic as the capacity to deal simultaneously and subjunctively with two or more ways of classifying reality. With regard to the ‘subjunctive’ I here follow Victor Turner who distinguishes between the ‘indicative mood,’ and the domain of the ‘as is,’ and the ‘subjunctive mood … used to express supposition, desire, hypothesis, or possibility,’ the domain of the ‘as if.’ Simultaneity is the other defining term. This concerns the ‘double awareness’ of the player.53 50  For example, see Simon R.F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Ittai Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 51  Versnel, Coping with the Gods, 541. 52  Ibid., 552. 53  Ibid., 537.

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The concept of the ludic is a useful framework because it accepts the malleability of belief and the range of beliefs that are possible simultaneously even when seemingly contradicting each other. Versnel stresses the simultaneity of ‘seriousness’ and ‘play’ in relation to the cult of the emperor. Interpreting the cult of the emperor as a strictly political enterprise is tied to the model that ritual practice is opposed to belief. Versnel argues that scholarly attempts to find unity and consistency are anachronistic and occlude upon the Greeks’ ability to hold disparate claims without viewing them as such. This occlusion is analogous to traditional approaches to Hellenistic Judaism—which attempt to find a unified concept of Jewish identity—when the evidence reflects diverse views and the ability to hold two worldviews simultaneously. By using Greek myth and ritual traditions to express monotheistic sensibilities, the sibyllists balanced both Jewish and Greek tradition through narratives that were initially viewed by scholarship as oppositional to one another. I propose that the Hellenistic age should be seen as the context for a broadening in dialogue concerning the nature of the divine, rather than as a reaction to crisis. This broadening in religious discourse resulted in a type of liberation through appropriation of the communicative elements already active in religious dialogue.54 Jews were a part of the Greek intellectual milieu and as such would have been influenced by developments in cultural linguistics. Thus, stylistic and vocabulary choices as well as thematic/mythological references in Book III should be seen as operating within this larger discourse. 4

The Hellenistic Saddle Period: an Expansion of Religious Linguistic Discourse

The Hellenistic age can be approached as witness to expanding linguistic experimentation, similar to Reinhart Koselleck’s theory of the “saddle period”: a time when vocabulary becomes denaturalized, or when words are used continuously but the political/social meaning of the words change. Koselleck advises that “earlier meanings of a taxonomy that is still in use must be grasped by the historical method and translated into our language.”55 While Koselleck 54   For a theoretical discussion on communicative elements, see Line Brandt, The Communicative Mind: A Linguistic Exploration of Conceptual Integration and Meaning Construction (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2013); Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn Ann Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity, Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 55  Reinhart Koselleck and Todd Samuel Presner, The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 5.

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is discussing the modern period, this concept can be applied to the shift in religious dialogue in the Hellenistic age because of its characterization as a time of heightened skepticism resulting in a reshaping of the traditional roles of the gods. Instead of framing this rise of skepticism as disillusionment or abandonment rooted in a modern conception of belief, one can attempt to understand how the language concerning the nature of the divine was simultaneously changing and remaining consistent without a perceived sense of contradiction. Shifting language associations reflect transitions in ongoing dialogue: a slow process that may be intensified by certain events with ripple effects that manifest themselves in varying degrees throughout different communities and contexts. Political change in the Hellenistic age and the subsequent increased trend of apotheosis of rulers pointed the conversation towards the malleability of the pantheon, which freed people to address the divine and the language of divine symbols in a variety of new ways. Rather than viewing challenges to traditional Greek religious codes as a sign of abandonment or rejection, this discourse development allows new attributes or roles of the divine to be seen as an expansion to pre-existing religious codes, even if those additions previously would have been deemed profane. The conventional associations of Greek religious language still held their primary status, but the Hellenistic age saw these associations create new connections by adding further layers of subtext in venues or on topics in which they had not previously appeared. In other words, it was acceptable for writers to use traditional styles, vocabulary, and narratives while adding new referents to those associations, thereby using them to act as subtext in an untraditional context without negating their previous meaning. Hellenistic Jewish authors were also a part of this linguistic trend. Scholars have noted that Hellenistic Jewish texts created new linguistic associations based on traditional formats, but they have interpreted this trend within a crisis framework. David C. Sim states that “the Hellenistic period was a time of serious crisis for Judaism as many Jews welcomed and embraced Greek thought and culture at the expense of their Jewish heritage.”56 Sim is referring 56  D  avid C. Sim, “Coping with the Present by Inventing the Future: Jewish Apocalyptic Texts as Crisis Management Literature” in David C. Sim and Pauline Allen, eds., Ancient Jewish and Christian Texts as Crisis Management Literature: Thematic Studies from the Centre for Early Christian Studies (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2012), 29–45, quote p. 41. This can also be seen in Armin Lange, Diethard Römheld, and Matthias Weigold, eds., Judaism and Crisis: Crisis as a Catalyst in Jewish Cultural History (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), esp. Beate Ego, “The Hellenistic Crisis as Reflected by the Animal Apocalypse: Aetiological and Eschatological Aspects,” 75–88, and George J. Brooke, “Crisis Without, Crisis Within: Changes and Developments within the Dead Sea Scrolls Movement,” 89–108.

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to the crisis associated with turmoil in Jerusalem (the religious reforms of the second century BCE and the Maccabean Revolt) and sees the incorporation of Greek frames of reference as abandonment rather than expropriation. The expropriation of Greek mythological themes, philosophical discourse, and the development of apocalyptic motifs can be seen within the broadening of linguistic dialogue concerning the divine realm within the wider Mediterranean. Appropriating new word associations in the expansion of religious discourse creates openings for expressing religious identity in a new context that allows for more in-depth analysis of how cultural hybridity can be expressed. One well-known example is how the author of 2 Maccabees adapted the term hellēnismos, which was previously used in reference to language, to indicate a system of Greek values and created the term Ioudaismos, in the writers attempt to polarize of the cultural mores of Greeks and Jews in a time of Jewish revolt. While 2 Maccabees calls for a renunciation of Hellenistic influence, it does so utilizing Greek writing conventions, illustrating that the author was aware of and participating in larger linguistic and rhetorical trends.57 The shifting nature of religious language for allegorical or other philosophical renderings of myth reflects the liberation of communicative elements that allowed for new interpretations on the nature of the divine. Euhemerus of Messene (fourth-century BCE) and the Roman poet Lucretius (first century BCE) are two writers who reshape classical narratives and associations. Euhemerus of Messene explained that the Olympian gods were mortal kings, not divine beings.58 P.M. Fraser explains the importance of Euhemerus’s innovation: ‘Atheism’ apart, attempts to reveal the human qualities of the gods, and to make fun of them, are as old as Homer, and the Olympians were always fair game in this respect. However, such jesting, … had little in common with the doctrine of Euhemerus, for such humor did not involve questioning the supremacy of the established divine order. Euhemerus, on the other hand, if he did not invent, at least was the first to elaborate, a new and coherent mythology to replace the old.59

57  Martha Himmelfarb, “Judaism and Hellenism in 2 Maccabees,” Poetics Today, Vol. 19, No. 1. Hellenism and Hebraism Reconsidered: The Poetics of Cultural Influence and Exchange I. (Spring, 1998) pp. 19–40. 58  Lactantius, Inst. 14.1–12., Euhemerus’s work will be discussed in detail in Chapter Five. 59  Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, vol. 1.293–4.

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This view results from the assumption that challenging the traditional function or roles of the divine meant that the author was attempting to dismantle those roles altogether. Did Euhemerus try to expel the gods from the world? If Euhemerus is read from the perspective that questioning the roles of the gods was an acceptable part of a continuous dialogue, then that inquisitiveness and the offering of new models for those roles need not be viewed as a radical attempt to eliminate that tradition. Euhemerus offers a new cosmology for the gods, but he still utilizes them. The gods are not expelled but reborn devoid of the ‘superstitions’ that he sees as hindering people by fear. This same attitude can be seen in the Roman poet Lucretius’s Latin poem De Rerum Natura, which offered the Epicurean view of physics and atom theory to explain the world in order to free his friend, Gaius Memmius, from the fear of death and the supernatural.60 Lucretius’s writing can be interpreted as restructuring divine associations reflective of the shift in language described by Koselleck’s concept of denaturalized vocabulary. Lucretius’s work has been viewed as “a poem designed to expel the gods from this world.”61 However, language relating to the gods was not abandoned or rendered meaningless; it was expanded upon to accommodate new conceptions of belief. De Rerum Natura re-appropriated the symbolic language of the gods and reflected a new range of meaning for these divine symbols in religious dialogue. Lucretius introduced Venus in an established style of invocation, flanked by her standard traits to create a familiar atmosphere for the reader. He successfully used Venus by exploiting her malleability to connect with the reader and to encapsulate large abstract ideas of generative powers; by book four, Venus is primarily used as a metonymy for sex. Just as Venus lulls Mars into sweet surrender, Lucretius weaves a safety blanket of reassuring sounds, ideas, and faces for his audience in order to soften them as much as possible toward his own ideas. Lucretius proves himself to be a gifted rhetorician as his audience is subconsciously led into new terrain via old roads. I set the Judaean sibyllists within this larger linguistic movement, which uses traditional topoi to introduce new concepts. In this context, references in Book III to Greek myth and geography reflect a creative reimagining of classical motifs for the purpose of cultural commentary. This type of creativity would have been fostered in the larger linguistic environment of Hellenistic Homeric scholarship, which actively engaged in redefining and transforming 60  See discussion on Lucretius’s shifting religious language in Ashley L. Bacchi, “The Changing Shape of Venus in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura” in Notanda Borea Newsletter Fall 2014/Winter 2015 (California Classical Association Northern Section), vol. X, no. 2. 61  Elizabeth Asmis, “Lucretius’ Venus and Stoic Zeus,” Hermes 110.4 (1982): 458.

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Archaic and Classical texts.62 The sibyllists used references to formative narratives in Greek religious tradition because they held meaning and represented religious concepts that the sibyllists wished to engage in order to produce a new narrative that suited their hybrid identity. Jean Pierre Vernant states in his discussion of the many versions of Greek myth: These many alternative versions show that, even when the myths of a culture appear to conflict with one another, they are in fact complimentary and their very divergences represent different aspects of a single mode of communication; they are all bounded by the same intellectual horizon and can only be deciphered within this general framework, each version acquiring meaning and emphasis from its relationship to all the others.63 The Judaean sibyllists cannot be isolated from their place within the intellectual horizon of the Mediterranean, and the meaning behind their references to Greek mythology in Book III can be found on that horizon. 5

Hellenistic Education: Establishing Authorship and Readership

Pieter Van der Horst states, “The burden of proof is on the shoulders of those scholars who want to maintain that Greek was not the lingua franca of many Palestinian Jews in the Hellenistic-Roman-Byzantine period in view of the fact that more than 50% of the inscriptions are in ‘the language of Japheth.’”64 As this would be even more so the case for Judaeans in Ptolemaic Egypt, the Hellenistic educational model sets the context for the sibyllists as authors and their potential audience. The traditional approach to education in the Hellenistic world has suffered from the recurring, biased assumption of decadence and decay. Nigel Kennell notes the counter-intuitive conclusions of the traditional approach to the evidence of the ephēbeia, Greek training which included physical/military as well as rhetoric:

62  See Chapter Four for a detailed discussion of Alexandrian Homeric scholarship. 63  Jean Pierre Vernant, Myth and Society in Ancient Greece, trans. Janet Lloyd (Brighton: Harvester Press Limited, 1980), 218. 64  van der Horst, Saxa Judaica loquuntur, 20.

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Can we trace the ephebeia’s development through the Hellenistic period? The long-accepted view is to regard the institution as falling inexorably into decadence after its apogee at Athens in the fourth century, visibly in the change of focus from physical education and active military service to the study of philosophy and literature with a gilding of military playacting—an odd conception of decline devised by librarybound academics.65 Kennell argues that the traditional belief that military deployment following the ephēbeia was standard practice outside of Attica is not actually supported by existing evidence. This lack of evidence allows for the rationale and function of the ephēbeia to be reconsidered.66 The reframing of the ephēbeia as one focused on diplomacy over military defense allows for a stronger emphasis on mind/strategy, and the concept that the city/state looked to rhetoric as an asset can also be seen in discourse on the benefits of education in Classical Athens. Aristotle discussed how the lawgiver should offer public education because it was the conduit for enforcing the virtue of the polis and asserts that reading and writing are πολύχρηστος—“very useful.”67 This attitude is supported by evidence from Athens that suggests that there was greater access to education across social classes because poorer families would have invested in classes with a grammarian over the physical lessons in the gymnasium. David Pritchard offers further insight into why education for a lower classed family would be made a priority: The fact that their sons would learn by heart stories of the heroes would have been another major motivation for Athenian fathers to send their sons to the classes of a grammatistēs. Indeed, for those humble Athenians who were not in the world of business, it might have been the only motivation. The solitary goal of education in the literature of classical Athens was the moral improvement of young males, while the chief mean to 65  N  igel M. Kennell, “The Ephebeia in the Hellenistic Period” in W.M. Bloomer, A Companion to Ancient Education (New York: Wiley & Sons, 2015), 181. 66  “Recently, a perceived change in the ephebic curriculum, at least in Asia Minor, has been rephrased as a transformation of the ephebate’s original function of producing good citizens to defend their city by force of arms into the training of good elite citizen diplomats to advance their city’s interests by the force of their rhetoric—a change perhaps precipitated by a lessening of the importance of local military defense after the province of Asia was created in 129 BCE.” Kennell, “The Ephebeia in the Hellenistic Period,” 181. 67  Aristotle, Pol. 8.1337a; 8.1337b, see also 1338a.

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achieve this was universally understood to be the memorization and the recall of epic poetry. Consequently, the fact that boys would be given extended introduction to the poetry of Homer made the letter school appear to poor fathers the surest and the easiest of ways to guarantee the rectitude of their sons. We can say with more certainty that the classes of the letter teachers did contain good numbers of Athenian boys from poor backgrounds.68 Recent studies have shown that more freeborn citizens were gaining access to entry level enkyklios paideia (general education) in the Hellenistic age than ever before. There is evidence of the rise of endowments by private citizens (euergeteis) to subsidize public education to be administered by the state in the Hellenistic age.69 As a result, there appears to be a higher semi-literate population referred to as “slow writers” (bradeōs graphontes) in the Hellenistic age than previously thought and more readers than writers.70 The attitude of the populous towards literacy and the availability of resources played an important part in why the Hellenistic age stands apart from other periods.71 While the majority of the population was still illiterate, access to donor subsidized, city administered education and the accessibility of accepted writing materials (papyri, pot shards, wax tablets) breaks down some of the previously held 68  D  avid M. Pritchard, “Athens” in Bloomer, A Companion to Ancient Education, 121. 69  S IG3578: Inscription dates to late 3rd century BCE Teos; SIG3577: Inscription dates to 200/199 BCE Miletus (coast of Asia Minor); SIG3672: Inscription dates to 160/59 BCE education endowment for Delphi by King Attalus II of Pergamon; P.Hal. 1.260–65: Ptolemy Philadelphos (3rd BCE) edict exempt status for Greek elementary teachers and their household from salt tax; MDAI (A) 1907:278, Pergamon 2nd century BCE; IG XII 9.235, Eretria, c. 100 BCE; Polybius, Hist. 31.31 states that King Eumenes of Pergamon offered grain to support for public education on Rhodes in 161/160 BCE; Diodorus, 12.12.4–13.4 attributes 6th century lawgiver Charondas with offering state-funded education to all sons of citizens, probably referring to the later practice in the Hellenistic city of Thurii which was founded in 445 BCE. See M. Joyal, J.C. Yardley and I. McDougall, eds., Greek and Roman Education: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2009), esp. 134–42. 70  Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 163–4, 177. 71  “The extemporaneous and casual quality of Greek and Roman writing technology successfully counterbalanced the limiting and intimidating factor that strongly characterized it in ancient Egyptian and medieval times and that created definite problems of access to writing…. The overall picture of literacy in Graeco-Roman Egypt is strikingly different. A taxpayer who needed a receipt for which he was supposed to provide the writing material simply picked up an ostracon and gave it to the official in charge to inscribe. A man or woman who hardly knew how to wield a pen did not shirk from signing a document or from attempting to write an epistle in quivering but somewhat empowering characters. These were habits acquired in school.” Cribiore, Gymnastics, 159.

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boundaries between the literate and illiterate, increasing the potential pool of readers. In addition, basic knowledge of Homeric hexameter across classes widens the potential readership of Sibylline Oracles which were also written in the same dactylic hexameter verse. Studies have also called for a reassessment of women’s access to education. In addition to the treatises discussing women and education in Plato and Plutarch,72 there is evidence of female writers in epigraphs, papyri, and letters—as well as depictions of women reading and writing on vases, terracotta statues, and funerary art—from as early as the fifth century BCE.73 The inscription from Teos concerning the donation by Polythrous, dating to the late third century BCE, gives information on pay rates for teachers, refers to the gymnasium as a place where teachers test students, and stipulates the funds to be used for state-sponsored education for both sexes, stating “each year after the registrars have been chosen and when the magisterial elections are held, three grammatodidaskaloi are to be appointed to give instruction to both boys and girls.”74 Inscriptions from Pergamon indicate that girls won contests for poetry, reading, and writing.75 Raffaella Cribiore takes this wide variety of sources as indicative of “authentic growth in female literacy starting from the Hellenistic period.”76 This is not to give the impression that most women were educated; the majority of the population, regardless of sex, was still illiterate. Education remains reflective of a certain level of social standing (full citizenship and middle to upper class) and—especially in the case of women—the openness and willingness of the patriarch of the family to allow 72  P  lato, Resp. 451c–452d, 456d–457b; Leg. 804d6–805b2; Plutarch, Mor. 145C [Praec. Coni. 48]; Musonius Rufus 4. 73  Woman Reading Scroll: Red-figure hydria, British Museum E190; Attic cup 8210, Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam. c. 460 BCE sitting woman with book roll listens to boy reciting and girls playing on the other side; Attic kylix Metropolitan Museum of Art 06.1021.167. c. 460–450 BCE girls with tablets; Mummy portrait of Hermione grammatikē, Girton College Cambridge. Dated to the early 1st century CE in Hawara Egypt, see Cribiore, Gymnastics, 79 and Joyal, Greek and Roman Education (2009), 189. Terracottas of girls with tablets or on their way to school; see Cribiore, Gymnastics, 84–5. 74  S IG3578. 75  M  DAI 35 (1910), 436, no. 20; 37 (1912), 277–78, no. 1; CIG 3185. Cribiore, Gymnastics, 84. 76  Cribiore, Gymnastics, 83. In addition, studies have shown that Italy, from the Etruscan period to Imperial Rome, is not devoid of evidence of highly educated women. Emily A. Hemelrijk states, “The ferocity with which some authors attacked, or defended, women’s education shows that educated women were a highly visible group, perhaps growing in numbers and visibility over the first centuries of the empire.” Emily A. Hemelrijk, “The Education of Women in Ancient Rome” in Bloomer, Companion to Ancient Education, 302; Laurie Churchill, Phyllis Brown, and Jane Jeffrey, eds. Women Writing Latin: From Roman Antiquity to Modern Europe, 3 vols. (London: Routledge, 2002).

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his wife/daughter to pursue education. It does, however, offer a corrective to long-standing interpretations that dismissed evidence of educated women as hypothetical, anomalous, and/or only relegated to the elitist of elite. There is enough evidence to put together a basic picture of what enkyklios paideia consisted of at its various levels.77 A primary characteristic is that, as students advanced, they were not necessarily expanding their corpus of works, but delving deeper into the texts where they first learned vocabulary and enunciation, principally Homer. Cribiore offers a useful image for the education process by highlighting that enkyklios means circular. She states: It is possible that it [enkyklios] also hinted at the multiplicity of the educational circles involved and at the cyclic revisiting of the same texts. When I mention circles of education in what follows, the reader should visualize a student in ancient times walking up a hill along circular paths.78 This is a much-needed corrective to the previously held assumptions on education. For example, Green argued that school education “offered nothing, in essence, but literary rote learning, elementary mathematics, music, athletics, and—most important—a rhetorical grab bag that would enable men at the top to talk their way into, or out of anything.”79 Enkyklios paideia would have begun with learning the alphabet, which would have been used as the foundation for reading, writing, and counting. After learning common/uncommon syllable combinations, word lists, and numerous exercises in copying texts before even understanding their content, a student would eventually read sections of Homer. (The first six books of The Iliad were particularly popular.) This curriculum constituted the foundation and would be the extent to which those free citizens with access to donor-funded and city-administered education would most likely participate. The next step was working with a grammarian who would give the students a deeper understanding of the poets and discuss phraseology, literary devices, and etymologies. From there, the next level was rhetoric. It is important to note that access to education was a privilege and that—while a wider base had access to the first level in the Hellenistic period than before—access to the level of grammar would be excessive for most people not in the upper class, and training in rhetoric would be a further subset

77  Bloomer, Companion to Ancient Education; Cribiore Gymnastics; Morgan, Literate Education. 78  Cribiore, Gymnastics, 129. 79  Green, Alexander to Actium, xix.

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of that educated population. Cribiore summarizes the difference between the stage of grammar and rhetoric: In the school of the grammarian, a student had learned to scrutinize the text of the author, isolating its most minute characteristics, often to the point of distorting its overall message and beauty. On the whole, however, the text and its authority were accepted without discussion and were incorporated into an immutable patrimony of knowledge through reading and memorization. Imitation of literary models was at the core of a program in rhetoric: through close reading of the texts, it became possible to assimilate vocabulary, style, and organization of the elements of discourse…. A text began to be only a point of departure, the image that a student’s exercise had to confront and mirror in a moment of fleeting illusion before it could surpass the model. The literary texts of the past were appropriated ever more intensely, but they were also transcended and seen in new perspectives, as students sought to force their way in with their exercises and vie with the originals.80 I place the Judaean sibyllists within this rhetorically trained elite group based on the use of original dactylic hexameter, subtle intertextual references, and confident reworking of source texts. The cyclical nature of enkyklios paideia adds to the desirability of the Sibyl as a pseudonym. The nature of the Sibylline Oracles as a collection of individual oracles means they could have been used as exercises in the changing of religious symbols because they allowed for experimentation within a set style of poetry—dactylic hexameter—that was the foundation of Greek education. While the intertextual and political references I discuss in Chapters Four and Five would have only been accessible to the academic elite, there are levels to comprehension, and the oracles worked on both basic and advanced reading levels. When envisioning Book III as individual oracles, the idea that some of them were circulated to a wider audience cannot be entirely dismissed. There were more readers than writers in this period and short oracles written in a popular verse style could have been accessible to those with basic reading skills. Likewise, female readership cannot be discounted, and the possibility of female authorship cannot be completely dismissed. I attest that Book III 80  Cribiore, Gymnastics, 225. See also Morgan, Literate Education, 220: “Stories from myth and epic are one of the staples of rhetorical education as they were of the reading stage of enkyklios paideia. The difference is that where pupils previously learned to read the famous passages of a few major authors, they now learn to articulate them for themselves.”

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offered a new voice of gendered prophecy but did so within a framework based on accepted models of male Jewish prophecy. I maintain that since the sibyllists did not feel it would be taboo to use a female voice for a traditionally male form of prophecy, the issue of gender becomes all the more important because it offers information about the perspective of the Judaean authors on female authority. 6

Two Styles: Sibyllist and Sibyllists

I identify two distinct stylistic voices in Book III and each style can be further delineated by content themes. The dominant style of oracles has biblical precedents either in thematic content or style, e.g. the oracles-against-nations model.81 The second style utilizes polytheistic Greek cultural references and their connection to Judaean tradition is not as apparent. This led scholars such as Geffcken and Parke to identify them as Erythraean or Chaldean/Babylonian Sibylline fragments.82 This investigation focuses primarily on the second style and argues that these are not merely ‘fragments’ or the result of ‘paraphrase/ borrowing,’ but are original creations of Judaean sibyllists that represent their nested ethnicity/hybrid identity by reshaping Greek religious referents and language to function within a monotheistic framework. Both styles reflect a Hellenistic Greek education, but one employs advanced Greek symbols for commentary while the other focuses on expressing the concepts, themes, and styles of the Hebrew prophets in a new oracular voice. Together these styles can be seen as a holistic approach to the appropriation of the Sibyl as a Jewish pseudonym. While the dominant style within Book III falls under the general yet clear inspiration of the Hebrew prophets and employs traditional tropes of moral exhortation. The other style exercises knowledge of Greek cultic and literary traditions in order to participate in the competitive style of Alexandrian scholarship that employed subtle intertextual references to 81  This will be discussed in Chapter Three. Note that Book III is accepted as a composite text and there is no way to definitively know how many authors contributed oracles with the manuscript traditions as they stand. Thus, my identification of two styles is not to be understood as making a claim to the number or character of the authors, but rather that at least one writer expressed comfort using more intricate polytheistic Greek cultural references, this does not discount the possibility that same writer also wrote other oracles within the collection that fall under a different style. 82  Geffcken, Komposition und Entstehungszeit der Oracula Sibyllina. 1–17; Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity, 11. See “Dating & Provenance of Book III” section 2 in the Introduction.

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elicit contemporary political and religious commentary, in addition to Archaic and contemporary Hellenistic literature. For the purpose of clarity in the current investigation, when I refer to the whole of Book III (which incorporates both styles), I refer to sibyllists in the plural to encompass these differences in stylistic focus. As my investigation is primarily centered on those oracles that have been seen as witness to something ‘other’ within the text, I refer to these verses as the product of the sibyllist because they reflect a distinct style within Book III.83 This is to move the dialogue away from referring to these sections of the text as paraphrases of lost Erythraean or Babylonian Archaic Sibyls, and reframe them as creative expressions of Judaean hybrid identity. 7 Conclusion Vernant discusses how poets drew from a common linguistic pool of mythological imagery, but “while creating literature out of mythological themes, they treat these themes with great freedom, adapting them to fit their needs and sometimes even attacking them in the name of some new ethical or religious ideal.”84 The flexibility of myths allowed the same characters and actions to be interpreted against various lenses. The ingenuity characteristic of the Hellenistic age is a result of the malleable nature of religious symbols which were being promoted through the acquisition of new meanings and referents. By accepting the complex nature of this Hellenistic context, especially in the literary and political spheres, we can conceptualize how the Judaean sibyllist struck a balance between two traditions in order to creatively express monotheistic ideals. The following chapter will assess the standard focus on ethnicity and literary style as the reason the Sibyl was chosen as a pseudonym. After revealing the roots of this assumption, I offer gender as an alternative motivation for the choice of pseudonym. With gender as a framework, the stylistic and motif choices of the sibyllist can be seen as examples of creativity in which Greek and Jewish referents are brought together as a literary expression of cultural hybridity.

83  The verses include: 3.105–155, 3.401–431, and 3.809–829. Once the Sibyl was used as a successful pseudonym in the second century BCE, it was deemed an appropriate conduit for other Judaean (and later Christian) authors. This attests to the pseudonym’s versatility regarding a variety of cultural and theological stances; thus, if discussing the whole corpus, the plural sibyllists with the clarifying reference to which Book(s) is being discussed. 84  Vernant, Myth and Society in Ancient Greece, 212.

chapter 2

Why the Sibyl? Reclaiming a Female Voice of Prophecy Seek not only to restore women to history and history to women but also to reconceptualize history and culture as the product and experience of both women and men. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza1

∵ When reviewing the Jewish pseudepigrapha, the Sibyl stands out as a unique choice for a pseudonym: she is a Greek prophetess, not referred to in the Hebrew Bible tradition. Yet, within the context of Hellenistic Judaism she offers an abundance of versatile resources for well-versed writers wanting a platform for cultural commentary. The Sibyl is presented as a liminal figure, part of a tradition older than the divide between cultures able to function in the past, present, and future, allowing sibyllists to speak from a place of authority in both Greek and Jewish traditions. This investigation operates with the understanding that Book III was written in the midst of the larger visual, political, and religious culture of second century Ptolemaic Egypt, which highlighted influential queens and where women of various social and economic levels were able to own and manage property, be educated, divorce, and remarry. While scholarship has tended to accept that the Sibyl was chosen as a pseudonym due to the style and content of her oracles, a survey of the extant sources on Archaic Greek Sibyls do not support this conclusion. The Sibyl’s voice helped fill the void for female representation in a male-dominated Hebrew prophetic tradition. Refocusing on gender as an operative factor in the rationale behind the choice of the pseudonym showcases the creativity of the Judaean sibyllists. This new framework allows for a re-evaluation of the content and purpose of sections of Book III customarily viewed as vestiges of 1  Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Remembering the Past in Creating the Future: HistoricalCritical Scholarship and Feminist Biblical Interpretation” in Adela Yarbro Collins, Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 58.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004426078_004

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lost Archaic Greek Sibyls and thus representing an ‘other’ within the text. The following will deconstruct the argument that prioritizes style as the answer to the appeal of the Sibyl and then reconstruct the rationale where the priorities behind the choice are in the following order: 1) female gender, and 2) a versatile tradition that could accommodate ambiguities. Once the appeal of the Sibyl is reframed, the next chapter will demonstrate how the sibyllists both modeled and challenged Hebrew prophetic tradition to create a pseudonym that fulfilled their needs and reflected their context. 1

The Archaic Greek Sibyl: a Unique Model?

The earliest reference to the Sibyl is found in a fragment of Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535–475 BCE). Plutarch (46–120 CE) quotes Heraclitus: “the sibyl, with frenzied lips, uttering words mirthless, unembellished, unperfumed yet reaches to a thousand years with her voice through the god.”2 Scholars have used this passage as evidence that the oracles of the Archaic Greek Sibyl were known to be exceptionally negative in nature. This negativity is highlighted as easily adaptable to Jewish eschatological themes, thus making the Sibyl a desirable pseudonym for a Judaean author.3 Not only is there debate concerning whether this quote is original to Heraclitus, it is also only one possible interpretation of its content.4 Plutarch quotes Heraclitus in the context of Sarapion discussing the danger that our eyes and ears have become accustomed to believing only that which is pleasing, stating that “before long we shall be finding fault with the prophetic priestess because she does not speak in purer tones than Glauke, who sings to the lyre….”5 This sentiment supports scholars (such as Lightfoot) who have interpreted Heraclitus’s quote as Plutarch’s critique of the poor quality of oracular verse in general, such as the practice of lengthening 2  Plutarch, Pyth. Orac. 397 A–B, Moralia V trans. Frank Cole Babbitt. LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936). 3  Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy, 13. See also Timothy A. Gabrielson, “A Pagan Prophetess of the Jewish God: Religious Identity and Hellenization in the Third Sibyl,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 24.3 (2015), 213–33, esp. 214: “The overall cast of the work is pessimistic, primarily envisioning destruction on pagan lands, in keeping with the wider Greco-Roman sibylline tradition. This mix of friendliness and antipathy for Hellenism is a jarring paradox.” 4  There is debate concerning the extent to which the quote is original to Heraclitus, see Charles H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 124–6 and footnotes for further sources on the debate; see also note in Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 4 n. 4 for further sources. 5  Plutarch, Pyth. Orac. 396.

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short syllables and the high proportion of spondees to dactyls.6 In fact, later Plutarch notes the prophetic writing style of both the Sibyl and Bakis as “words and phrases haphazard.”7 A similar argument can be found in pseudo-Justin who blames the deficits of oracular style on the fact that the Sibyl would forget exactly what she said after she completed the oracle, resulting in a degradation of inspired speech.8 Even if the Heraclitus quote is referring to the content of the Sibyl’s oracles, it is also important to note that Plutarch was writing in the late first century CE. His quote of the fifth century BCE philosopher should be approached cautiously as Plutarch may have been influenced by his observations of the nature of the Sibylline prophecy of his own day, which could have included Virgil’s Sibyl in the Aeneid as well as the Judaean Sibylline Oracles.9 H.W. Parke has long been used as the principal secondary source guide for information on the Sibyls of Classical Antiquity. He argues that the Archaic Greek Sibyl was unique from other oracles of the Classical period because other oracles functioned primarily as mediums revealing divine approval or disapproval of proposed actions that were requested through consultation. Parke claims that while other oracles offered guidance on how to control their future, the Sibyl offered oracles that were treated as “inevitable fate”10 and her writings were “not a tragedy but a horror film”:11 The Sibyls are more like the writers of apocalyptic visions than the Pythia or the Dove Priestesses of Dodona. This was the reason why the Sibyl would commend herself originally to the Jewish imitator as an appropriate model.12

6  Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 175. 7  Plutarch, Pyth. Orac. 399A. Σίβυλλαι δ᾽αὗται καὶ Βάκιδες ὥσπερ εἰς πόντον ἀτεκμάρτως εἰς τὸν χρόνον κατέβαλον καὶ διέσπειραν ὡς ἔτυχε παντοδαπῶν ὀνόματα καὶ ῥήματα παθῶν καὶ συμπτωμάτων: “These prophets of the type of Sibyl and Bakis toss forth and scatter into the gulf of time, as into the oceans depths with no chart to guide them, words and phrases haphazard, which deal with events and occurrences of all sorts …” 8  Plutarch, Pyth. Orac. 396c–397d; ps.-Justin, Cohort. Graec. 36a; Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 154. 9  Virgil’s Sibyl in the Aeneid 6.99 fits this description. There is no extant direct evidence that Plutarch quoted the Jewish Sibylline Oracles, but it is possible that Book III’s Greek motifs and hexameter verse facilitated its exposure to a wider audience since it has been argued by several scholars that Virgil was influenced by Sib. Or. Book III. Nicholas Horsfall, “Virgil and the Jews,” Vergilius 58 (2012): 67–80; C.W. MacLeod, “Horace and the Sibyl (Epode 16.2),” CQ 29 (1979): 220–21; Jan Bremmer, “Virgil and Jewish Literature,” Vergilius 59 (2013): 157–64. 10  Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy, 7. 11  Ibid., 13. 12  Ibid., 7.

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This proposed unique quality of the Archaic Sibyl amongst other oracles of the ancient world functions as Parke’s rationale for the appeal of the Sibyl as a Jewish pseudonym, and this conclusion has (for the most part) been accepted in subsequent analyses of the Sibyl. However, this conclusion proves to be problematic, since sources concerning the nature of the Sibyl that predate Book III do not support this constructed image of the unique Archaic Greek Sibyl. Herodotus (c. 484–425 BCE) offers an example of Delphic prophecy which speaks of the inevitable doom of the Milesians, an oracle that fits Parke’s description of the proposed unique nature of Sibylline prophecy: “Then, Miletus, contriver of evil deeds, for many will you become a banquet and glorious gifts; your wives will wash the feet of many long-haired men; other ministers will tend my Didyman shrine!” All this now came upon the Milesians, since most of their men were slain by the Persians, who wore long hair, and their women and children were accounted as slaves, and the temple at Didyma with its shrine and place of divination was plundered and burnt.13 Pausanias also offers two oracles from Boeotian oracle Bakis that would fall in characterization of inevitable ‘oracles of doom:’ “Then indeed shall the bright bloom of Sparta perish and Messene again shall be inhabited for all time”14 and “Beware then of no slight disaster threatening the city; for the harvest wastes away in it.”15 These oracles illustrate that the Sibyl did not hold a monopoly on Greek oracles offering distressing visions of the futures. The following will examine the extant sources on the Archaic and Classical Greek Sibyls and dismantle the foundational premise of their unique oracular nature. Once this premise is lifted, the creativity of the sibyllists can take precedence, and a female voice of prophecy representing the cultural hybridity of the Ptolemaic Judaean writers emerges. Aristophanes (446–386 BCE) mentions the Sibyl in two of his plays: Peace and Knights.16 Both references are in dialogues with oracle mongers who cite 13  Herodotus, Hist. 6.19.2–3, trans. A.D. Godley, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920). 14  Pausanias Descr. 4.27.4, trans. W.H.S. Jones and H.A. Ormerod, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966). 15  Pausanias Descr. 9.17.5, trans. W.H.S. Jones, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965). 16  Aristophanes, Pax 1045–1126. Aristophanes mentions the Sibyl in Knights (Eq. 61) in the context of Demos of Pnyx being manipulated by his slave who used oracles of the Sibyl to control him. Bakis is mentioned later in Knights (Eq. 997–1096, 1116).

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both the Sibyl and Bakis as oracular authorities. In both instances, the oracle mongers are looked down upon as false witnesses and their claims to authority are dismissed. The Sibyl and Bakis are both mentioned with no qualifiers concerning a shift in type of oracular announcement which demonstrates that the oracle mongers could use either interchangeably.17 The fact that the oracle mongers are dismissed is Aristophanes’s commentary on the contemporary abuse of oracular authority by some for financial gain, not necessarily a value judgment on the Sibyl or Bakis as oracular entities. Writing in the fourth century BCE, Plato presents Socrates remarking positively on the Sibyl in Phaedrus (244a–b) while discussing the prophetess at Delphi, the priestesses at Dodona, the Sibyl, and the many splendid gifts they have conferred to Greece. The Sibyl, according to Plato’s Socrates, is among those “who by prophetic inspiration have foretold many things to many persons and thereby made them fortunate afterwards.”18 Plato does not make mention of the Sibyl as being different in nature from other oracles, but rather uses her as emblematic of fortunate prophetic inspiration. In Plato’s Theages (124d), Socrates and Theages classify the oracle Bakis and the Sibyl as the same: χρησμῳδοί. There is no mention that the Sibyl offers a different style of prophetic oracle from those at Delphi, Dodona, or those of Bakis, and there is no mention that the oracles offer anything but good fortune to those who properly adhere to them. In fact, the close correlation and pairing of the Sibyl and Bakis continues to be represented in the 3rd century BCE Alexandrian poet Callimachus’s Iambus 5: “I am your Bakis and your Sibyl and your laurel and your oak. But interpret this riddle, and have no need of Pittheus.”19 In the introduction to Plutarch’s Bravery of Women, he challenges those that would say that the Sibyl and Bakis do not practice the same prophetic art.20 All of these references to the Sibyl make no mention of her having a distinct style in comparison to Bakis or other oracles of the Greek world.

17  Plutarch, Pyth. Orac. 399A. 18  Plato, Phaedrus 244 b, trans. Harold Fowler LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966). 19  Callimachus, Hymn. 5.31–3, Benjamin Acosta-Hughes, Polyeideia: The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 215. 20  Plutarch, Mulier. virt. 243 b.: τί δέ; ἐὰν ποιητικὴν πάλιν ἢ μαντικὴν ἀποφαίνοντες οὐχ ἑτέραν μὲν ἀνδρῶν ἑτέραν δὲ γυναικῶν οὖσαν, ἀλλὰ τὴν αὐτήν, τὰ Σαπφοῦς μέλη τοῖς Ἀνακρέοντος ἢ τὰ Σιβύλλης λόγια τοῖς Βάκιδος ἀντιπαραβάλλωμεν, ἕξει τις αἰτιάσασθαι δικαίως τὴν ἀπόδειξιν, ὅτι χαίροντα καὶ τερπόμενον ἐπάγει τῇ πίστει τὸν ἀκροατήν; οὐδὲ τοῦτ᾽ ἂν εἴποις.

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Beginning in fourth century BCE Greek sources, such as Heracleides Ponticus (390–310 BCE),21 transition the lone figure of the Sibyl into a multiplicity of sibyls connected with a range of communities.22 Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) discusses the discrepancy of Sibylline identity: The Sibylline books were not the product of one single Sibyl but were given the one title Sibylline, because all female prophets are called Sibyls by the ancients, either after the one Sibyl of Delphi or from their delivery of god’s advice.23 Varro offers a list of ten Sibyls who were influential to later Christian Sibylline traditions: Persian, Libyan, Delphic, Cimmerian, Erythrean, Samian, Cumean, Hellespontian, Phrygian, and Tiburtine. Varro’s remark that all female prophets were called Sibyls indicates that the unique and defining characteristic of the persona was, in fact, her gender. It is also noteworthy that just as sibyls could be used as a general term for female prophets, bakides the plural of the oracle Bakis was a term used for male prophets.24 Aristotle (384–322 BCE) refers to both sibyls and bakides as having excessive heat near the seat of their mind resulting in madness and frenzy.25 Cicero also describes Bakis of Boeotia, Epimenides of Crete, and the Sibyl of Erythraea as having the same style of prophecy.26 While the Sibyl has overshadowed Bakis in reception history, in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE Bakis is referred to just as frequently, if not more so than the Sibyl. For example, while Herodotus does not refer to the Sibyl, he does refer to oracles Bakis and quotes the following hexameter oracle:

21  Heracleides fragment preserved in Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.21. 22  For overviews see Erich S. Gruen, “Sibylline Oracles” in Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2016, http://classics.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore9780199381135-e-8134?print; David Potter, Prophets and Emperors: Human and Divine Authority from Augustus to Theodosius (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 71–83; Albert-Marie Denis O.P., Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique Tome II (Belgium: Brepols, 2000), 947–92; Ciholas, The Omphalos and the Cross, 127–72. 23  Lactantius, Inst. 1.6.8–12. Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey, Lactantius: Divine Institutes (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003), 70. 24  References to Bakis in Pausanias include Descr., 4.27.4; 9.17.5; 10.12.11; 10.14.6; 10.32.8ff. References to Bakis in Herodotus include Hist. 8.20, 77, 96; 9.43. 25  Aristotle, Probl. 954a: πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ διὰ τὸ ἐγγὺς εἶναι τοῦ νοεροῦ τόπου τὴν θερμότητα ταύτην νοσήμασιν ἁλίσκονται μανικοῖς ἢ ἐνθουσιαστικοῖς, ὅθεν Σίβυλλαι καὶ Βάκιδες καὶ οἱ ἔνθεοι γίνονται πάντες, ὅταν μὴ νοσήματι γένωται ἀλλὰ φυσικῇ κράσει. 26  Cicero, Div. 1.34.

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By Thermodon’s stream and the grass-grown banks of Asopus, will be a gathering of Greeks for fight and the ring of the barbarian’s war-cry; Many a Median archer, by death ultimately overtaken will fall There in the battle when the day of his doom is upon him.27 This attests to the fact that Bakis was connected with hexameter verse as well, thus the Archaic and Classical Sibyl did not have a unique claim on oracular verse.28 Additionally, Aristophanes refers to the oracle Bakis in The Birds without an accompanying reference to the Sibyl.29 This could be indicative that at that time Bakis was just as popular an oracular persona, if not more so than the Sibyl. Thus, if the Judaean sibyllists were primarily looking for an established oracular tradition that could foresee negative futures without encountering resistance and used hexameter verse, the extant evidence that predates the second century BCE shows that a number of oracles would qualify. The male oracle Bakis would have been a particularly suitable pseudonym. The fact that a suitable male oracular option was available, makes the sibyllists choice of a female prophetic figure all the more pronounced. 2

Different Branches of a Fluid Sibylline Genre

The Judaean Sibylline Oracles were not the first collection of written oracles within the sibylline genre. Rome had her own set of Libri Sibyllini which Livy, Strabo, Cicero, and others describe being consulted in times of crisis. According to legend, the Roman Libri Sibyllini were acquired during the kingship of Tarquinius Priscus (c. 616–579 BCE). Dionysius of Halicarnassus (60–7 BCE) and Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE) recount that the Archaic Sibyl offered to sell Tarquinius nine books of oracles and he refused because of the price. The Sibyl burned three books and offered to sell him the remaining six for the same price and he refused. She burned another three books and after consulting the augurs Tarquinius bought the remaining three books for the original price.30 Cicero (106–43 BCE) described two types of divination: one that uses deduction and is therefore an art; the other devoid of art because it is under the 27  Herodotus, Hist. 9.43, trans. A.D. Godley LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920): “τὴν δ᾽ ἐπὶ Θερμώδοντι καὶ βαρβαρόφωνον ἰυγήν, τῇ πολλοὶ πεσέονται ὑπὲρ λάχεσίν τε μόρον τε τοξοφόρων Μήδων, ὅταν αἴσιμον ἦμαρ ἐπέλθῃ.” 28  Herodotus also cites hexameter oracles from Amphilytus the Acarnanian, see Hist. 1.62–3. 29  Aristophanes, Av. 959–90. 30  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 4.62; Pliny, Nat. 13.88.

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influence of mental excitement. The Sibyl was placed in the latter category, but this assessment was disputed.31 Cicero noted there was a call to keep the Libri Sibyllini “under lock and key” with the Senate reserving the power to grant access to them because each had an acrostic, a sign of an author that was “painstaking, not crazy.”32 If this was the case, then acrostics would have been a unique feature of the Roman manifestation of Sibylline writings that is not present in descriptions of the Archaic and Classical Greek Sibyls or in the Judaean Sibylline Oracles.33 Cicero describes how Rome employed interpreters of the Libri Sibyllini and how their interpretations were used to prescribe actions to avert threats to Rome.34 Livy writes that Rome consulted the Libri Sibyllini in 218/217 BCE, and they eased the concerns of the populace. These books were revered because of their antiquity and the reputation of the Sibyl and thus were seen as still yielding insight, if interpreted by the right people. Rome turned to the decemviri sacris faciundis and their interpretations of the Libri Sibyllini to combat the conquests of Hannibal during the Macedonian War and later for assistance in the Second Punic War. They were consulted in 216, 205, and 187 BCE, prescribing actions such as the establishment of the cult of Cybele.35 When Sulla marched on Rome in 83 BCE, the Temple of Jupiter was burned down and the Roman Libri Sibyllini were lost. The Senate was commissioned in 76 BCE to re-establish the collection of oracles and messengers were sent to all prophetic centers.36 Roman silver denarius were issued during the Republic attesting to the status of the Sibyl.37 Due to the political nature of oracles, Augustus had thousands of oracles burned when he assumed the title of Pontifex Maximus (c. 13 BCE), leaving only selections of the Roman Libri Sibyllini that had been deemed genuine.38 We may have insight into one 31  Cicero, Div. 1.34, trans. William Armistead Falconer LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 263; for dispute, see Div. 2.112. 32  Cicero, Div. 2.111–112. 33  There are examples of acrostics in the later Christian books of the Sibylline Oracles; see Sib. Or. 8.217–50. 34  Cicero, Div. 1.4, 2.110. Originally, there were two interpreters assigned to the Roman Libri Sibyllini, the Duoviri, which increased to the Decemviri, and finally the Quindecemviri Sacris Faciundis. 35  Livy, Hist. 21.62.11–22.57.5; 38.45.3. 36  Tacitus, Ann. 6.12. 37  Roman silver denarius with a head of a Sibyl on the obverse and a seated winged sphinx on the reverse dated to 46 BCE issued under T. Carisius, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston accession number: 95.165. Roman silver denarius with a head of a Sibyl on the obverse and a tripod surmounted with amphora between two stars on the reverse dated to 65 BCE issued under L. Torquatus, American Numismatic Society type RRC 411/1b, see ANS numbers: 1948.19.180; 1944.100.2350; 1944.100.2351; 1937.158.181. 38  Suetonius, Aug. 31.1; Tacitus, Ann. 6.12.

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potential criticism that Augustus and later emperors may have been concerned about witnessed in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE). In Ovid’s account of Aeneas visiting the Cumean Sibyl for guidance, he offers to build the Sibyl a temple and the Sibyl responds in a manner that is not devoid of political implications: The prophetess gazed at [Aeneas] and drawing up sighs, “I am no goddess,” she replied, “nor is it well to honor any human head with tribute of the holy frankincense.”39 The Sibyl warns Aeneas that she should not be worshipped because she is not a goddess, which can be seen as a criticism directed towards the apotheosis of rulers and the cult of the Emperor. The Sibyl tells Aeneas that Apollo had offered her eternal life for her virginity and she had refused. Apollo then offered whatever she wanted in order to change her mind, and she asked to live as many years as there were grains in a nearby sand mound. Unfortunately, she forgot to ask for eternal youth as well. He granted her the wish but she then shriveled with old age. She tells Aeneas she was seven hundred years old and had another three hundred before she equaled the sand mound.40 The examples highlighted above demonstrate that the Archaic and Classical Sibyls were either sought out for direct consultation by an individual about a personal or regional situation, or the oracles are presented in the hands of emissaries (oracle mongers, if they are fake pronouncements) who wield prophesies concerning certain situations that are specific to a city or region. This procedure is not far from the Roman consultation of the Libri Sibyllini.41 This is not reflected in the Judaean pseudepigraphal Sibylline Oracles, where there is no indication that the oracles are the result of direct consultation; rather they are presented as motivated solely by the will of God to offer a warning of the coming eschaton. The Roman Libri Sibyllini can then be seen as one manifestation or branch of a fluid sibylline tradition, and the Judaean Sibylline Oracles represents another. In the case of the Roman Libri Sibyllini, their political function as prescriptive of actions to facilitate victory or protection as well as their use of acrostics, are also attributes not found in the Judaean Sibylline Oracles. 39  Ovid Met. 14.129–30. 40  Ovid. Met. 14.101–153. 41  Roman consultation of the Libri Sibyllini does not fit Parke’s description of the lack of guidance as a characteristic of sibylline tradition. Parke acknowledges this discrepancy by dismissing it as a product of the Hellenistic Age, implying that as such it is of lesser quality. Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy, 136–151, esp. 139. As discussed above, the extant sources contradict the proposal that the Archaic and Classical Greek Sibyl had unique oracular qualities, thus there is no inherent discrepancy.

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While the Roman Libri Sibyllini functioned in a different capacity from the Judaean Sibylline Oracles, they are both interpretations of an oracular persona that expose the overall malleability of the genre. 3

Universal History as Marker of Innovation in Book III

The final component in deconstructing the traditional assumption that style and content were the primary motivators for Judaean authors choosing the Sibyl as pseudonym rests in Book III’s presentation of history. The extant sources present the Archaic and Classical Greek Sibyls and the Roman Libri Sibyllini as comprising ritual prescriptions for local communities, which indicates a concern for conflict resolution in the contemporary situations of her audience. The Archaic and Classical Greek and Roman Sibylline oracles were consulted about specific situations, they were not known for making sweeping oracular pronouncements concerning the fate of the whole world.42 In contrast, the Judaean Sibylline Oracles are concerned with universal history, judgment, and salvation. The theme of universal history is first attested in Greek texts, such as Hesiod’s Theogony, which orders history through a series of ages. Book III presents universal history as a succession of kingdoms.43 Momigliano outlined the development of the use and practice of the universal history theme and points out that Greek historians primarily developed three variations of the succession of world empires depending on political motivations: different metals representing different races; the life cycle of childhood, youth, maturity, and old age; and evolution through technological advances from barbarism to civilization. The Judaean tradition of universal history expands the framework of time by providing past history as well as apocalyptic visions of the future. Momigliano observed that the writer of the Book of Daniel adopted the Greek notion of world-empires and made it the groundwork for a Messianic age: “While using the Greek notion of the succession of empires to illuminate the ways of God, he had also produced a quaint target for the destructive capacities of God.”44 No empire would be immune from the time of judgment; the kingdom of God would reign supreme. The Greek theme of universal history focused on the contemporary reflection of past history for the understanding of the present status of humankind. This theme was redirected 42  My gratitude to Erich S. Gruen for flushing out this distinction with me. 43  See Sib. Or. 3.156–217. 44  Arnaldo Momigliano, On Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1987), 51.

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to an anticipation of a final kingdom of God when it was appropriated by Hellenistic Judaean writers and is witnessed in Book III. The primary recurring message of the Judaean Sibylline Oracles is to warn the world of the coming final judgment and to announce that the Jewish Sibyl is able to offer a path to redemption for all through moral exhortation. Several scholars have noted this discrepancy between the Judaic and the Greek/ Roman sibylline traditions. For example, Sarolta Takacs points out that moral exhortations were a new facet of Jewish Sibylline prophecy: “In this matter he [i.e. the Jewish Sibyllist] stood in the tradition of the Hebrew prophet, not that of the pagan sibyl.”45 Gruen discusses how the Jewish Sibyl reached out to the Greeks to repent because “preparation for the Eschaton can unite Hebrew and Hellene.”46 Timothy Gabrielson concluded that while myth, ethics, and cult are dominant themes throughout Book III, ritual, experience, doctrine, and institution are downplayed, resulting in the overall impression that true religion for the sibyllists of Book III is flexible with monotheism and certain moral/ethical behaviors as its core distinctive traits, traits which are accessible to all if they so choose.47 The emphasis in the Judaean Sibylline tradition had shifted to future judgment, and although the Greeks and other nations are condemned for idolatry and other sins, there is also a call for repentance and promise of redemption. Therefore, the argument that the Sibyl was chosen as a pseudonym because, unlike other prophets from Greek tradition, she offered a universally grim message that was fit to be adapted to Jewish eschatological themes falls into circular reasoning and does not hold up to the extant references that pre-date Book III; or truly reflect the presentation of the oracles within Book III. As this primary assumption has gone unchallenged, it has fueled another underlying assumption that the Sibyl was chosen as a missionary tool and that Judaean sibyllists copied or paraphrased now lost Archaic Greek Sibylline fragments in order to mask their Jewish identity.48 Thus, sections of 45  Sarolta A. Takacs, “Magna Deum Mater Idaea, Cybele, and Catullus,” in Cybele, Attis, and Related Cults: Essays in Memory of M, eds. M.J. Vermaseren and Eugene Lane (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 190. 46  Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism, 290. 47  Gabrielson, “Pagan Prophetess of the Jewish God,” 229–30. He uses Ninian Smart’s seven characteristics of religion to identify what Book III presents as the essential markers of Judaism. Similarly, Joseph Klausner identified five important aspects of the Sibylline Oracles: First, the ethical-monotheistic attitude; second, the exhortation to conversion; third, prophecies of the last things; fourth, universalism; fifth, the mixing of Judaism and Hellenism. Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, trans. W.F. Stinespring (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 176–78. 48  Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, 141–78, “The third book of the Sibylline Oracles is clearly a book of Jewish propaganda for the Gentiles,” 161; Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy, 7, 13;

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Book III that are regarded as not clearly “Jewish” enough fall into the classification of being remnants of Archaic Greek material included for the purpose of attracting Gentiles, resulting in a fragmented persona of the Sibyl that is a superficial pseudonym, rather than a true conduit for creativity. The scholarly attempt to find a suitable rationale for the Judaean choice of a Sibyl for a pseudonym reflects a discomfort that is rooted in preconceived notions of acceptable conduits for Judaean transmission, expropriation, and innovation. The argument for the proselytizing or apologetic nature of Book III is rooted in the assumption that Judaeans would not have wanted or needed a figure such as the Sibyl for self-representation outside of their desire to present themselves as Greek. This places the primary incentive behind the appeal of the Sibyl in an external audience, which does not reflect the nested ethnicity model of Ptolemaic Egypt where Judaeans were a subset of Greeks and thus viewed themselves as insiders. This also leads to confusion regarding the effectiveness of the pseudepigraphal work for both Jewish and Greek audiences because it would then hold elements that would be potentially antithetical to both parties, creating a text that is in tension with itself. This confusion and fragmentation is diffused when we accept the differences in representation between the Archaic/Classical Greek Sibyl and the Roman Libri Sibyllini and acknowledge that the pseudepigraphal manifestation of the Sibylline Oracles is another branch of that versatile tradition. Book III then emerges as a successful interpretatio Judaica that stands on its own as a product of Hellenistic Jewish creativity. Collins noting points of difference between the Sibyl of Book III and other extant Greek and Roman sibyls, poses the following question: “The use of Greek hexameters, and even the choice of the Sibyl as a pseudonym, bespeaks a fairly high level of acculturation, and so the question arises why the author chose a genre that is usually identified with oracles of doom.”49 Collins answers this question later: “The appeal of the Sibyl for a Jewish author was that she was the preeminent prophetic voice in the Hellenistic world.” He goes on to state that Book III does in fact construct a “new persona for the Sibyl” based on the Ciholas, The Omphalos and the Cross works from the assumption that the Jewish Sibylline Oracles are editing existing pagan oracles, which shapes his presentation of their influence and function, see esp. 135, 150, 156, p. 146: “Diaspora Judaism recast existing pagan prophecies into missionary tools capable of meeting the challenges of the new cosmopolitan cultural atmosphere.”; Moore, Jewish Ethnic Identity and Relations in Hellenistic Egypt, 198; Albert-Marie Denis O.P., “Les Oracles Sibyllins,” in Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique, Tome II (Belgium: Brepols, 2000) 947–92, states “Des oracles païens insérés seraient: Sib, 97–154,” 978. 49  Collins, Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy, 259.

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length of oracles as well as their affinity to the Hebrew prophets.50 This reflects a more nuanced approach and slightly shifts the framework for addressing the appeal of the Sibyl beyond genre, but it ultimately does not see the Sibyl as a true expression of cultural hybridity, but rather as a mask. The author of the Third Sibyl, however, and arguably the authors of the fourth and first and second books, constructed a new persona for the Sibyl. While psychology of pseudonymous writing remains obscure to us, these Jewish authors were not honoring a founder, or modestly attributing their work to a teacher. The constant moral invective makes it unlikely that the composition of the Sibylline oracles was a playful literary exercise, as might be supposed in the composition of epics and tragedies by Jewish authors in the Hellenistic Diaspora. These works can reasonably be described as forgery, with an intent to deceive, however noble one deems their intent of boosting Jewish self-esteem in a Gentile environment.51 As there were other established authoritative oracular personas to choose from such as Bakis, this investigation takes Collins step away from genre as a starting point for discussion rather than as a conclusion. In addition, this investigation approaches the new persona of the Sibyl in Book III as the product of the cultural hybridity of Ptolemaic Judaeans who saw themselves as Greek. The confidence reflected in Book III is then seen as participation in Hellenistic poetic trends of competition52 as well as cultural and political movements, rather than as an attempt to deceive insiders from an outsider. We are then again left with the question: If the Judaean authors shifted the emphasis of the Sibyl’s oracular pronouncements with the result that they were effectively a new branch of the sibylline genre, why choose the Sibyl at all? 4

Why the Sibyl? Context for a Female Voice

Conceptions of what was and what was not acceptable concerning gender roles and the place of women in religious, political, social, and literary spheres 50  Collins, Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy, 267. This will be discussed further in Chapter Three. 51  Collins, Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy, 267. 52  Examples of Hellenistic poetic competition are central to the case studies in Chapters 4 and 5.

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were not static across the Hellenistic Mediterranean. While academia has been more actively exploring Hellenistic complexities, it still focuses heavily on the paradigms of Democratic Athens and Imperial Rome, leaving the rich assortment of evidence for the varied experience of women and power in the Hellenistic age often overlooked. For example, Mary Beard’s article in the London Review offers an insightful discussion on the way in which references to the Greco-Roman world are used today to denigrate female political leaders.53 While I agree with Beard’s points and praise how she has championed online platforms like Twitter to inform and educate popular audiences, I also see a missed opportunity. Why focus attention on the ways that women and power have traditionally been antithetical concepts, when the powerful Ptolemaic, Seleucid, and Attalid Queens can be used as models to destabilize this gender metanarrative?54 The implicit bias of nineteenth century assumptions persist in the frequent call for caution when Hellenistic material challenges the constructed hegemony of the periods before and after, or in the complete absence of the age from the discussion altogether. The following will place Book III within the context of female leadership in Ptolemaic Egypt, as well as the increased representation of women in literature and art across the Hellenistic Mediterranean. The implicit bias that a woman, or the characteristic of the feminine in general, would be viewed as a hindrance rather than a benefit to identity expression is the underlying assumption that has left the Sibyl as an embodied female voice and its role in the appeal of the pseudonym unaddressed. Daniel Boyarin promotes a hermeneutic of suspicion when he writes that “reading only the misogyny or androcentrism of the texts can itself be a misogynistic gesture, for it leads us to negate the possibility that women have in fact a much more active, creative role than the texts would have us believe.”55 In order to regain some of the picture, we must move away from 53  Mary Beard, “Women and Power: From Medusa to Merkel,” London Review of Books 39 (2017): no. 6, p. 41. This was reprinted in Mary Beard, Women & Power: A Manifesto (New York: Liveright, 2017). 54  For example, Suzanne Dixon, Cornelia: Mother of the Gracchi (London: Routledge, 2007); Elizabeth Donnelly Carney, Arsinoë of Egypt and Macedon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Dee L. Clayman, Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Branko F. van Oppen de Ruiter, Berenice II Euergetis: Essays in Early Hellenistic Queenship (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); Altay Coskun and Alex McAuley, eds., Seleukid Royal Women: Creation, Representation, and Distortion of Hellenistic Queenship in the Seleukid Empire (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2016). 55  Daniel Boyarin, “Reading Androcentrism against the Grain: Women, Sex, and Torah-Study,” Poetics Today 12, no. 1 (1991), 30. See also, Daniel Boyarin Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 167–70; Charlotte

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the dualist view that the feminine is ‘other’ by default. Gender is not a simple binary; it is a performance based on a complex host of negotiations between local and larger societal mores, concerning economic and religious locations.56 Suzanne M. Spencer-Wood described the development of feminist theory in classical archaeology as “peeling the androcentric onion,” stating: “androcentrism can be metaphorically understood as an onion with multiple layers of reinforcing biases, from the surface of supposedly ungendered discourse through binary gender stereotypes to deeper biases in methods, paradigms, concepts, and language.”57 The following is an exploration into the implications of the Sibyl’s gender, a topic that has not been previously addressed as a factor in the appeal of the pseudonym or even as a significant feature of the Sibyl’s identity. In a discussion concerning Plutarch’s quote of Heraclitus on the nature of Sibylline prophecy, Charles Kahn writes, “If her utterances are ‘mirthless’ or ‘gloomy’ (agelasta), that is not only because her typical vision is of a coming disaster, but because the Sibylline experience of enthousiasmos is itself a form of suffering, a kind of spiritual rape.”58 While Kahn’s interpretation might seem disconcerting at first, it highlights an aspect of the Sibyl that is rarely discussed: the fact that she is presented as a living person with a body that is affected by her prophecy. The Sibyl is thus not presented as a disembodied/abstract voice as described elsewhere in Plutarch;59 she is a woman who receives information directly from God and is physically drained by her role as a prophet. The physically demanding nature of prophecy is mentioned twice in Book III: I entreat you to give a little rest to me who have prophesied unfailing truth, for my heart is tired within. But why does my heart shake again? And why is my spirit lashed by a whip, compelled from within to proclaim an oracle to all? (3.2–6)60 Elisheva Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity: Rabbinic and Christian Reconstructions of Biblical Gender (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 160–209. 56  My interpretation of gender is informed by the work of feminist scholars such as Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Tal Ilan, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Esther Fuchs, and many others, refer to the Introduction for further discussion. 57  Suzanne M. Spencer-Wood, “Feminist Gender Research in Classical Archaeology” in Women in Antiquity: Theoretical Approaches to Gender and Archaeology, ed. Sarah M. Nelson (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2007), 265. 58  Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus, 125. 59  As described in Plutarch, Pyth. orac. 398 where Sarapion states that the Sibyl sang that she would prophesy even after her death as the face that appears in the moon and as her spirit mingled with the air. 60  Collins, OTP, v. 1.362. Note: The first ninety-six verses of Book III are accepted as an addition to the manuscript editions from a separate work and are not considered part of

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And I entreated the great Begetter that I might have respite from compulsion, the word of the great God rose again in my breast (3.296–7)61 While her physicality can be compared to Greek prophetic tradition (such as Cassandra in Aeschylus), it also evokes the prophet Jeremiah who discusses the draining effects of prophecy.62 This comparison sets the Sibyl’s bodily response to divine inspiration within the established discourse of male Jewish prophetic experience as well as within Greek tradition. This brings us to a feature of the Judaean Sibylline tradition within the pseudepigrapha that has not been given enough attention: the fact that the Sibyl is an embodied female prophetess. The Sibyl was a desirable Judaean pseudonym because she could offer a gendered voice of prophecy that reflect a Greek and Judaean hybrid identity. The prevalence of female divine figures and women of power in Egypt and the wider Mediterranean in the Hellenistic age were a fertile context for female representation to grow within Hellenistic Jewish tradition.63 4.1 Context for a Female Voice: Queens The Hellenistic world was home to powerful queens in the Ptolemaic, Attalid, and Seleucid dynasties who were visible to their people in coins, dedicatory inscriptions, temple art, and statues, creating a cultural milieu that would foster a call for feminine representation.64 One misconception of Hellenistic Book III. For the exception see Nikiprowetzky, La Troisième Sibylle 60–6 and 217–25. As there is another reference to the Sibyl’s need for rest, my argument is not contingent upon the first reference, but it has been included as it is more demonstrative. Olivia Stewart Lester views the reference to the whip as a metaphor for an act of divine violence in chapter four of her dissertation, Prophets and Their Rivals: Interpretation, Gender, and Economics in Revelation and Sibylline Oracles 4–5 (Yale University Dissertation, 2017). While Lester’s primary argument is focused on the themes of prophetic violence and passivity in Revelation and Sibylline Oracles 4 and 5, her use of Book III is methodologically problematic because the basis of analysis for the characterization of Book III rests on the interpretation of 3.2–6, which is accepted as a later interpolation into Book III. 61  Collins, OTP, v. 1.368. Sib. Or. 3.296–7: καὶ λιτόμην γενετῆρα μέγαν παύσασθαι ἀνάγκης, καὶ πάλι μοι μεγάλοιο θεοῦ φάτις ἐν στήθεσσιν ἵστατο. 62  Aeschylus, Ag. 1215; 1239–40. See Jer 20:9 on reluctance to prophesy doom but inability physically to stop the proclamation; in Jer 20:7, God overpowers Jeremiah; in Jer 23:9, Jeremiah’s heart is broken and he is overcome as a drunkard by the message of God. 63  The second century BCE also saw the Greek additions to Esther, the book of Judith, and Susanna in the Greek additions to Daniel, see discussion below. 64  For example, a Seleucid coin of Cleopatra Thea and a cornucopia coin dated to 126/125 BCE, the Cleopatra Thea and Alexander Balas coin, and the Cleopatra Thea and Antiochus VII coin; the second century BCE Egyptian Kom Ombo Temple featuring Cleopatra II (co-ruled with Ptolemy VI & VIII from 175–115 BCE) and Cleopatra III (co-ruled with Ptolemy VIII

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history is that there was no consistent leadership due to the political unrest following the dissolution of Alexander the Great’s empire. Looking at chronologies of kings shows rapid turnover and paints a picture of consistent instability, but this picture changes when queens are inserted into the chronology of power. Sarah Pomeroy discusses how modern scholarship has slowly started to acknowledge the power of Ptolemaic queens by incorporating them into “their most sacred totems: the chronological charts.”65 She mentions how Elias J. Bickerman, in his 1968 Chronology of the Ancient World,66 departed from the standard practice of listing only kings by listing queens when evidence showed that they wielded power, a practice that was not picked up again until the 1980s.67 Yet, the marginalization of queens in chronological charts persists as evidenced by the seven-page chronological guide in A Companion to the Hellenistic World first printed in 2003.68 That list features 209 chronological events, but queens are only mentioned in 11. It highlights the following: the murder of two queens: Olympias (315 BCE) and Roxana (310 BCE); two marriages: Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II (c. 275 BCE), Antiochus II and Berenike II (252 BCE); two joint-ruling announcements: Ptolemy VI, Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra II (169–164 BCE), Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XIII (51 BCE). The other five references relate to Cleopatra VII and reflect a disproportionate amount of attention given to dating her relationships with Caesar (48 BCE), Antony (41 BCE), the birth of her twins (40 BCE), even noting when Antony acknowledged paternity of the twins in 37/6 BCE. Meanwhile the dynastic struggles between Ptolemy VI Philometor and Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II are given in several entries, but there is no mention of the continued dynastic struggles with Cleopatra II or her lone reign from 132–127 BCE. Rather the chronology presents a seamless transition of succession from Philometor to Euergetes, who then appears to have ruled uncontested from 145 until his death in 116. Even when queens are acknowledged, these female leaders are typically marginalized in the secondary literature or described in negative terms such as “ruthless sister-queens”69 that propagate the belief that women and empire & IX 140–101 BCE); Marble bust of Arsinoe III (ruled 22–204 BCE) Harold A. Strickland Jr. Collection 1998.23.10. 65  Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt, viii. 66  Elias J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World (London: Thames and Hudson, 1968). 67  For example, Stanley M. Burstein, The Hellenistic Age from the Battle of Ipsos to the Death of Kleopatra VII (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985) and Alan K. Bowman, Egypt After the Pharaohs, 332 BC–AD 642 From Alexander to the Arab Conquest (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) include queens in their chronology. 68  Erskine, ed., A Companion to the Hellenistic World, 567–573. 69  Green, Alexander to Actium, 547.

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are disparate concepts. But queens often ruled alongside more than one husband and then ruled on behalf of their young sons, resulting in a reign that was three times longer than that of the typical king. This made queens the consistent figureheads for the people, a fact which contextualizes the evidence of temple dedications where queens are listed before kings and the literary accounts of unrest amongst the masses when queens were usurped or killed by their husbands/sons. Cleopatra Thea, for example, ruled in Syria from 150–121 BCE, was married to three kings of Syria, and co-ruled with her son Antiochus VIII from 125–121 until he killed her.70 Cleopatra III ruled in Egypt from 140–101 BCE. There are dedicatory papyri to her as the female Horus. She ruled with her son Ptolemy IX Soter II from 116–107 BCE and then had him expelled and replaced with her younger son Ptolemy X with whom she co-ruled until he killed her in 101.71 Berenike III was a beloved ruler from 101–80 BCE. She ruled with Ptolemy X from 101–88. When Ptolemy X died in 88, Berenike ruled with her father Ptolemy IX from 87–81. When her father died, she was the sole ruler of Egypt from 81–80 BCE. She then married Ptolemy XI in 80 and he murdered her shortly thereafter. She was loved by the people and riots ensued after her murder which resulted in the killing of Ptolemy XI.72 The influence and visibility of Ptolemaic queens manifested itself in first century Judea as the larger context behind the reign of Queen Shelamzion Alexandra. Josephus describes how Cleopatra III pursued Ptolemy IX because she did not want him to create a strong hold in Cyprus, allowing Alexander Janneaus to briefly gain control of Gadara and Amathus. Cleopatra III is depicted as an ally to Alexander Janneaus. They defeat Ptolemy IX together with two Jewish generals leading Cleopatra’s army.73 Alexander Janneaus, who encountered strong female leadership from Egypt first-hand, later left the semi-independent kingdom of Judea to his wife, the Hasmonean Queen Shelamzion Alexandra who then ruled successfully from 76–67 BCE.74 The political context of the second century BCE as the immediate context to Book III, featured Cleopatra II as a strong and consistent leader from 175–116 BCE, spanning both Ptolemy VI Philometor and Ptolemy VIII

70  Jos. A.J. 13.4.1–7, 13.10.1, 13.13.4; Justinus, Epit. 36.1, 39.1–2; Appian, Hist. rom. [Syriaca] 11.68; Eusebius, Chron. 1.257–9; 1 Macc 10:57–11:12; Diodorus, 32.9c. 71  Pausanias, Descr. 1.9.1–3, Justinus, Epit. 39.3–4. 72  Eusebius, Chron. 1.165; Appian, Bell. civ. 1.102. 73  Josephus, B.J., 1.86; A.J., 13.331–49. 74  Josephus, B.J., 1.107–117; A.J., 13.399–416. Tal Ilan, Silencing the Queen: The Literary Histories of Shelamzion and Other Jewish Women (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006).

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Euergetes II’s reigns, and ruling alone from 132–127 BCE.75 Even after Ptolemy VIII’s death, Cleopatra II continued to serve as co-regent alongside Cleopatra III and her grandson until her death in 116. Josephus states that Philometor and Cleopatra II put two Judaean generals, Onias and Dositheos, in charge of the army. After Philometor’s death, Onias led an army to defend Cleopatra II against Euergetes II but was defeated. Josephus then offers an account similar to that found in 3 Maccabees, where Ptolemy VIII Euergetes set drunk elephants on the Judaeans of Alexandria as punishment, but God redirected the elephants to trample Euergetes’s entourage. While there is debate concerning the historicity of the elephant episode in both 3 Maccabees and Josephus, papyrological evidence does attest to Judaeans holding important military positions in the Ptolemaic army.76 Based on Ptolemy VIII’s reputation among the intelligentsia and the Judaeans of Alexandria, it is likely that Judaeans would have supported Cleopatra II in the dynastic struggles after the death of Philometor. The evidence of strong female leadership in the Hellenistic Mediterranean has implications for how scholars should approach evidence of female representation and power at other levels of society. If the masses accepted and supported their queens, there is no reason automatically to assume that they would shun the concept of female leadership on smaller scales as alien to the prevailing mores. 4.2 Context for a Female Voice: the Feminine Divine and Female Agency The pantheon of deities was comprised of male and female figures, both of which were honored with temples, priests, priestesses, and sacrifices.77 Papyrological evidence from Ptolemaic Egypt has shown that upper-class women and priestesses wielded influence in the public as well as private spheres, and women of varied social status had access to education, the right

75  See detailed discussion of the dynastic struggles between Philometor, Cleopatra II, and Euergetes II in the Introduction. 76  Josephus, C. Ap. 2.49–55; 3 Macc.; A letter addressed to Onias in 164 BCE attests to his high rank, the papyrus can be found in Victor Tcherikover and Alexander Fuks, Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum. 3 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), I.132 and Paris Papyrus 63. See also Joseph Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt: From Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995), 121–133. 77  See Spencer-Wood, “Feminist Gender Research in Classical Archaeology”; Sarah B. Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopatra (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, rev. paperback ed. 1990); Dale Walde and Noreen D. Willows, The Archaeology of Gender: Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Conference of the Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary (Calgary: University of Calgary Archaeological Association, 1991).

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to divorce, and to retain and manage property.78 Judaeans living in secondcentury BCE Egypt would be accustomed to seeing a strong female presence in the political and religious world around them. Judaeans were not only witnesses to a strong female presence in the Gentile world, they had a history of participation in Egypt as well. According to Aramaic documents from the fifth century BCE, the Judaean military colony in Elephantine continued to sacrifice after the Josiah reforms had declared that sacrifice was to be limited to the Jerusalem Temple. Contra to the Josiah reforms and Jeremiah 7.18; 44:19, the financial records from Elephantine also attest to the veneration of a female figure, Anat-Yahu or Anat-Bethel (Goddess of Heaven), alongside God.79 Elephantine records also show that women were afforded inheritance rights as well as the right to initiate divorce and manage property without male supervision, practices which were contested in Palestinian sources.80 There are eleven 78  Maryline Parca, “The Women of Ptolemaic Egypt: The View from Papyrology” in A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, eds. Sharon James and Sheila Dillon (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012); Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt. See section on Hellenistic Education in Chapter One for discussion of women’s access to education. 79  See Bezalel Porten, The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 266–67. See also Bezalel Porten, Archives from Elephantine: the Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 165; Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt, 4 vols. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1986), C 3.15; Bezalel Porten, “Elephantine Papyri,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 2:445–55; Marleen Elizabeth Mondriaan, “Anat-Yahu and the Jews at Elephantine,” Journal for Semitics, 22.2 (2013): 537–52. The Elephantine temple was destroyed in 410 by Egyptian rebels and rebuilt with the corporation of the Persian government. Elephantine requested help from the Temple of Jerusalem with the rebuilding and after that point animal sacrifice stopped. [Porten-Yardeni A 4.9, 4.10] For an analysis of Jeremiah as witness to the tension between a Jeremiah/God perspective and a Queen of Heaven worship see Teresa Ann Ellis, “Jeremiah 44: What if ‘Queen of Heaven’ Is Yhwh?” JSOT 33 (2009): 265–88. See also William McKane, “Worship of the Queen of Heaven (Jer 44)” in “Wer ist wie du, Herr, unter den Göttern?” Studien zur Religionsgeschichte Israels für Otto Kaiser zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. I. Kottsieper (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 318–24. 80  For sources on Egyptian Jewish women’s rights of divorce, inheritance, and property management, see Eduard Sachau, Drei aramäische Papyrusurkunden aus Elephantine (Berlin: Königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Kommission bei Georg Reimer, 1908); Porten, The Elephantine Papyri, 177–83; Porten and Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents v. 2, Contracts, 60–3; later examples of Jewish female property owners can be found in Tal Ilan, Integrating Women into Second Temple History (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001), 217–33; Annalissa Azzoni, “Women of Elephantine and Women in the Land of Israel,” in In the Shadow of Bezalel: Aramaic, Biblical, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Bezalel Porten, ed. Alejandro F. Botta (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 3–12; Tcherikover and Fuks, Corpus Papyrorum, v. 2, 16–18, 246–7.

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pieces of Aramaic papyri from Elephantine that discuss the inheritance, property, and marriage of a woman named Mibtahiah. She had two brothers but her father gifted the property to her when she was married in order to circumvent the biblical ruling giving inheritance rights to his sons. She was married twice: first at 16 to a neighbor of her father’s plot, her husband dying shortly thereafter: second to an Egyptian named Eshor. They had a “document of wifehood” which listed the property each one was bringing into the marriage and stipulated that, in case of divorce, each would walk away with what they had when they entered the marriage.81 Judaean women of Elephantine were not unique in these rights, but were participating within the wider legal scope of Egyptian culture.82 Another wealth of sources can be found in the Judaean necropolis of Tell el-Yehudieh located in Lower Egypt in the nome of Heliopolis, also known as Leontopolis. Onias IV founded a temple in Leontopolis under Ptolemy VI Philometor and Cleopatra II, in whose reign the main corpus of Book III was written.83 The temple at Leontopolis was functional from the mid-second century BCE until Romans closed it circa 73 CE. The limestone inscriptions from Leontopolis date from c. 150 BCE–50 CE and are all written in Greek, some in hexameter verse.84 Pieter van der Horst notes that of approximately 81  “Tomorrow or the next day, should Eshor die not having a child, male or female, from Mibtahiah his wife, it is Mibtahiah who has the right to the house of Eshor and his goods and his property and all the he has on the face of the earth, all of it. Tomorrow or the next day, should Mibtahiah die not having a child, male or female, from Eshor her husband, it is Eshor who shall inherit from her goods and her property. Tomorrow or the next day, should Mibtahiah stand up in an assembly and say ‘I hated Eshor my husband,’ silver of hatred is on her head. She shall place upon the balance-scale and weigh out to Eshor silver … and all that she brought in her hand she shall take out, from string to string, and go away wherever she desires, without suit or without process. Tomorrow or the next day, should Eshor stand up in an assembly and say ‘I hated my wife Mibtahiah,’ her mohar will be lost and all that she brought in her hand she shall take out, from straw to string, on one day in one stroke, and go away wherever she desires, without suit or without process.” Porten, The Elephantine Papyri, 177–83, Doc. B28. 82  Uri Yiftach-Firanko offers an analysis of Greek marriage contracts in Egypt from 310 BCE to 363 CE and concludes that although women were not on equal footing, the legal marriage documents afforded protection for women’s property and interests. This reflects a larger cultural milieu that was legally active in the propagation of women’s rights to property. See Uri Yiftach-Firanko, Marriage and Marital Arrangements: A History of the Greek Marriage Document in Egypt, 4th Century BCE–4th Century CE (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2003). 83  See Introduction for dating. 84  See van der Horst, Saxa Judaica Loquuntur, 23–24 for brief overview, and “Jewish Poetical Tomb Inscriptions” in Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy, eds. Jan Willem van Henten and Pieter W. van der Horst (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 129–47. See also David Noy, “The Jewish

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2,000 ancient Jewish inscriptions, eighteen are metrical epitaphs and twelve come from Leontopolis. Of those twelve, seven are dedicated to men and five to women, so the meter was not gender specific.85 Of particular note is an epitaph dedicated to a Jewish ἱέρισα—translated as priestess or a woman of priestly lineage—named Marion who died c. 27 BCE.86 The evidence from Leontopolis demonstrates that Judaeans were flexible and did not see inherent tension in appropriating Greek/Ptolemaic modes of expression, even with regard to their dead. The reverence for a feminine divine figure, evidence for women’s property and marriage rights and religious leadership in multiple Egyptian Judaean communities across time attest to an openness to feminine authority. This evidence supports the reassessment of literary depictions that feature women with agency and authority which were previously relegated as only viable within the realm of fiction. For example, Barbara Schmitz and Lydia Lange have asserted that “the documents from Elephantine attest to the fact that the situation described in the Judith narrative is imaginable.”87 4.3 Context for a Female Voice: Literature Richard Hunter’s overview of Hellenistic literature acknowledges that women become a focal point in Hellenistic poetry, yet he warns against the dangers of over-interpretation. Despite the warning, he concludes his article stating, “nevertheless, the profusion of female voices in Hellenistic poetry and the exploration of female emotion and desire in a depth which is foreshadowed only sporadically in earlier poetry (Sappho, Euripides, Hippolytus etc.) perhaps reflects and certainly implies a heightened sense of female identity (in a broad

Communities of Leontopolis and Venosa,” in Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy, 162–82. William Horbury and David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt (JIGRE) (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 51–182. 85  van der Horst, “Jewish Poetical Tomb Inscriptions,” 129. According to my count of the twelve metrical epitaphs from Leontopolis found in CIJ ii: Male metrical epitaphs: 1451, 1489, 1490, 1511, 1512, 1522, 1530A; Female metrical epitaphs: 1508, 1509, 1510, 1513, and 1530. The popularity of hexameter verse was discussed in Chapter One and will be further discussed in Chapter Four. 86  Μάριν ἱέρισα χρηστὴ πασίφιλε καὶ ἄλυπε καὶ φιλογίτων χαῖρε, ὡς ἐτῶν ν´ ἔτους γ´ Καίσαρος Παῦνι γι´. (84, CIJ ii no. 1514), JIGRE p. 157. See also Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue, 75–99 for discussion of the translation as well as other examples of ἱέρισα in catacombs in Rome and Galilee: CIJ 315 Rome, 3rd/4th century CE; CIJ 1007 Beth Shearim, 4th century CE. 87  Barbara Schmitz and Lydia Lange, “Judith: Beautiful Wisdom Teacher or Pious Woman? Reflections on the Book of Judith,” translated by Richard Ratzlaff in Early Jewish Writings, eds. Eileen Schuller and Marie-Theres Wacker (Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 29–47, quote p. 40.

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sense).”88 Concerning the issue of gender and its role in Hellenistic models of Archaic poetry, Benjamin Acosta-Hughes argues, “The poetry of Sappho takes on a new light as a model when we consider the need of Alexandrian male poets to celebrate powerful women, queens were assimilated to Aphrodite and whose interests included contemporary Lesbos.”89 Two examples of votive dedicatory poetry to Ptolemaic queens in the third century highlight their valued position: Posidippus’s epigram dedicated the Archaic lyre of Arion to Queen Arsinoe, a symbol that passes the poetic inspiration from Greece to its new home in the queen’s shrine in Alexandria,90 and Callimachus’s poem Coma Berenices commemorating Berenike II’s dedication of a lock of hair for the safe return of Ptolemy III, which was swept up by the gods and found as a new constellation—the only one to be dedicated to a living person in the ancient world.91 Both of these dedications reflect how the queens were closely associated with the burgeoning of culture in Alexandria, acting as muses for new myth, science, and literature. Jewish Hellenistic texts such as Judith,92 the Greek Esther,93 and Susanna94 in the Additions to Daniel participated in this larger Hellenistic literary trend and answered a cultural call for female representation within Jewish tradition. While Judith offers an example of a strong female leader, Greek Esther and Susanna offer examples of proper moral behavior.95 All three texts use women 88  Richard Hunter, “Literature and its Contexts” in A Companion to the Hellenistic World, ed. Andrew Erskine (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 492. 89  Benjamin Acosta-Hughes, Arion’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 6. 90   Acosta-Hughes, Arion’s Lyre, 1–2. 91  B  ranko F. van Oppen de Ruiter, ed., Berenice II Euergetis: Essays in Early Hellenistic Queenship (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 71–130. 92  For commentaries see Morton Scott Enslin and Solomon Zeitlin, eds., The Book of Judith, Jewish Apocryphal Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1972); Deborah Levine Gera, Judith: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013); the case for Judith’s original composition in Greek, see Jan Joosten, “The Original Language and Historical Milieu of the Book of Judith” in Collected Studies on the Septuagint: From Language to Interpretation and Beyond (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 195–209. 93  For commentaries, see Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Women’s Bible Commentary 3rd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 201–7 and 396–403. See also discussion of Greek additions to Esther in Gruen’s Heritage and Hellenism, 177–86. 94  For commentaries, see Ellen Spolsky, The Judgment of Susanna: Authority and Witness, Early Judaism and Its Literature (Chico, CA: Scholars, 1996); C.A. Newsom, S.H. Ringe, and J.E. Lapsley, Women’s Bible Commentary, 293–98 and 426–35. 95  For an examination into Diaspora humor in these texts through the use of narrative reversals, subversions, and exaggeration, see Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews Amidst Greeks

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as the chosen conduit for God to enact action.96 André Lacocque discusses how these texts functioned as protest literature: Susanna was subversive by bringing up the case of the justice of a woman flouted by the lechery and hypocrisy of elders. Judith is subversive showing that a woman can take the lead and become the model of faith and martyrdom, while “elders” recoil in the holes of their complacency. Judith is not only a David redivivus of sorts, she is Judas Maccabee in the feminine.97 These female characters act as conduits for subversive commentary by questioning the authority and behavior of the elders. They represent the marginalized and those that are willing to sacrifice for the survival of their people.98 A brief examination of each of these texts sets the choice of the Sibyl as a pseudonym within a broader context for heightened feminine voice within Hellenistic Jewish tradition of the second to first centuries BCE. The Greek additions to Esther date to the Hellenistic period and scholars have demonstrated how the narrative of Esther functions as a commentary on empire and challenge gender performance expectations.99 The book opens with a woman asserting her own agency and power with Queen Vashti’s refusal to come when called (Esth 1.11–12). This sparks fear in the King’s council of male advisors and leads to an attempt to make an example of her as well as send out a decree reestablishing male hegemonic order within the household (Esth 1.16–20). Klara Butting writes, “Vashti’s opposition and the panic-like resistance of the wise men show that this is not a natural order, but an order and Romans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), MT Esther 137–48, Judith 158–70, and Susanna 170–4 (Gruen points out how Susanna’s narrative supports the patriarchal status quo). Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Humor, Turnabouts and Survival in the Book of Esther” in Are We Amused? Humour About Women in the Biblical Worlds, ed. Athalya Brenner (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2003), 52–64. 96  In the case of Susanna, she is used as an example of moral propriety, the danger of corrupt leaders, and offers an example of Daniel’s role as judge from his early life. 97  André Lacocque, The Feminine Unconventional: Four Subversive Figures in Israel’s Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 39. 98  These texts and their historical context have elicited an abundance of interpretations. Tal Ilan argues that Judith, Susanna, and Greek Esther can be seen as propaganda texts to support Queen Shelamzion. Integrating Women, 127–53. 99  See Meredith Stone, Empire and Gender in LXX Esther (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018); Susan Niditch, “Interpreting Esther: Categories, Contexts, and Creative Ambiguities” in The Writings and Later Wisdom Books eds. Christl Maier and Nuria Calduch-Benages, v. 1.3 of The Bible and Women: An Encyclopedia of Exegesis and Cultural History (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 255–273.

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established again and again by force.”100 As such, this can be seen as an example of Butler’s concept of gender performativity as a social construct that has to be continually enacted to create meaning and support established systems of order.101 Butting argues that Esther was most likely composed by women who were readers of the Joseph story and rewrote it: “Androcentric structures in Israel’s historiography are rejected, and the old story is told anew as a story of a woman.”102 Butting offers a concise analysis of how Esther uses the resistance started by Vashti to enact her own plan of resistance, that succeeds in saving her people yet ultimately does not offer a reversal of the sexist system it exposes.103 While the defiance of Queen Vashti is part of the Hebrew stratum of the text and thus pre-dates the second-century BCE, its retelling in the context of Ptolemaic Egypt and specifically the dynastic feuds between Cleopatra II and Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II would have added layers of contextual strength to that act of defiance. Cleopatra II had not only defied being anything other than an equal to Euergetes, she succeeded in banishing him from Alexandria in 132 BCE thus offering a historical reversal to the hegemonic male rule reflected in Esther. Thus, the LXX Esther read in light of the powerful Ptolemaic queens adds authority to both Queen Vashti and Esther as figures who can viably wield agency over the narrative. Like Esther, a correspondence between Susanna and Joseph has been noted, in this instance when he is vindicated of adultery with Potiphar’s wife.104 While Susanna is always referred to as pious, she is often framed as too passive a character within the narrative to be seen as a heroine, thus Daniel is looked to as the hero. But Susanna does exhibit agency when she cries out to stop the elders from raping her even though they have threatened that they 100  Klara Butting, “Esther: A New Interpretation of the Joseph Story in the Fight Against Anti-Semitism and Sexism” in A Feminist Companion to Ruth and Esther 2nd Series, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 239–248, quote 242. 101  Butler, Gender Trouble, xv. Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988): 519–531. 102  Butting, “Esther,” 243. Female authorship is also proposed by Hillel Millgram, Four Biblical Heroines and the Case for Female Authorship: An Analysis of the Women of Ruth, Esther, and Genesis 38 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 2008). See also Susan Niditch, “Esther: Folklore, Wisdom, Feminism, and Authority” in A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith, and Susanna, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 26–46. 103  Butting, “Esther,” 247–8. See also Bea Wyler, “Esther: The Incomplete Emancipation of a Queen” in A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith, and Susanna, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 111–135. 104   Amy-Jill Levine, “‘Hemmed in on Every Side’: Jews and Women in the Book of Susanna” in A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 303–323, see 316–7. LaCocque, Feminine Unconventional, 23.

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will accuse her of adultery, which will result in her execution if she does not comply (Sus 24). When she is accused, she prays and cries out as an act of agency because she knows that only God can intervene (Sus 35, 42–44), and God responds by stirring Daniel to cry out and cross-examine the elders (Sus 45). Daniel is God’s response to Susanna’s agency, it was her piety and her faith that gave her the strength and resolve to stand up to the elders and not yield to their threats. One reason why Susanna’s passivity often holds center stage is that, throughout the narrative, she is objectified and silenced. Jennifer Glancy argues that a default male gaze of the reader is activated, which has often led to a distortion in the reception of how the elders are viewed as seducers rather than as attempted rapists. Glancy looks to Daniel’s response as the key to correcting that distortion: He (Daniel) says, ‘This you (pl.) used to do to the daughters of Israel, and they, who were afraid, had sexual relations with you, but a daughter of Judah resisted your lawlessness’ (v. 57). An allusion to another story is embedded in Susanna’s narrative, a fiction within a fiction. What story can we imagine to make sense of Daniel’s accusation? The shadowy women who previously submitted to the elders did so out of fear. Again, this untold story embedded in a fuller narrative limns the elders as men who achieve their sexual ends not by playing on women’s desire, which is seduction, but by exploiting their fear, which we must learn to recognize as rape.105 This helps reorient Susanna as more active, she was scared but she defiantly and valiantly screamed in the garden. Her cry was a weapon, her defiance was not just a stand against unjust elders but a stand against predators. As Carey Moore states, “Daniel is not the hero of the Susanna story: Susanna is!”106 Isabel Gómez-Acebo highlights the theme of envy to frame a correspondence between Daniel and Susanna. Daniel is sent to the lion’s den because of the testimony of those that are jealous of him, and the two elders lust after Susanna and break the commandments: thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, and

105  Jennifer Glancy, “The Accused: Susanna and her Readers” in A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 288–302 quote 299. While Glancy acknowledges the two points discussed above as Susanna acting at the primary agent, Glancy ultimately finds that Susanna is ultimately a passive actor in the narrative, “pretext for Daniel’s ascendancy.” 302. 106  C  arey A. Moore, Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977) 90–1.

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thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife (Exod 20:17).107 Gómez-Acebo sees Susanna as a guiding light to the faithful to trust in their stance against corruption: “The image of the pleading Susanna allows us to see the ‘rest’ of Israel, this small group that knew how to stay faithful to its creed, even in difficult circumstances.”108 Judith can be viewed as featuring a blend of key strength elements when read alongside LXX Esther and Susanna. Judith, like Susanna, not only shows greater piety and faith than the male elders, she also put her life on the line by entering a foreign court/camp without an invitation like Esther, and steps beyond the strength of both when she acts as the warrior hand of God and kills Holofernes to save her people. The ethical implications of this act are a matter of debate109 but, for our purposes, the fact that the author of Judith did not find it taboo to allow her to be revered as wise council by the community as well as to seal the deal (as it were) without enlisting a male hero to perform the masculine task of execution, factors into our discussion of destabilized gender norms. Judith offers the piety and steadfast resolve of Susanna and the cunning strategy of Esther and combines it with military action. Ora Brison highlights the importance of Judith’s violent action intertextually: Judith and Jael are the only two women who are blessed for carrying out acts of violence: both, by their own hands, kill an enemy of Israel, an army leader. The killings facilitate victory and receive national acclaim. Judith is blessed in the same way a [male] war hero winning a battle would be blessed. The women of Israel welcome her and dance in front of her (Jdt. 15.12), echoing the reception for Saul and David after the killing Goliath and victory over the Philistines (1 Sam. 18.6–7). In the Vulgate, a line was added to Judith’s victory song declaring a holiday to mark her

107  Isabel Gómez-Acebo, “Susanna, Example of Virtue and Daniel’s Female Counterpart” in The Writings and Later Wisdom Books eds. Christl Maier and Nuria Calduch-Benages, v. 1.3 of The Bible and Women: An Encyclopedia of Exegesis and Cultural History (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 275–287. She explores connections between Joseph and both Daniel and Susanna, as well as an analogy between Susanna and David and Bathsheba 2 Sam 11:1–17 and the Greek novel Chaereas and Callirhoe, written by Chariton of Aphrodisias 1st century CE-story set in 4th century BCE Syracuse. 108   Gómez-Acebo, “Susanna, Example of Virtue and Daniel’s Female Counterpart,” 285. 109  Pamela Milne, “What Shall We Do With Judith? A Feminist Assessment of a Biblical ‘Heroine,’” 117–136 and “A Self-Response: What Would I do with Judith Now?” 137–140 in A Feminist Companion to Tobit and Judith 2nd Series, ed. Athalya Brenner-Idan and Helen Efthimiadis-Keith (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2015).

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heroism, similar to the Purim holiday announced in Esther to mark the salvation of the Jewish communities in the Kingdom of Persia.110 Judith also acts as prophet/oracle when she reprimands the leaders of the city (Jdt 8) by evoking Balaam’s second oracle (Num 23.19) as well as the song of Moses (Exod 15.3). While Judith has been viewed as a female Judas Maccabee, Jan Willem van Henten has shown how Judith can be seen as a rewritten Moses figure, just as Esther has been viewed as a Joseph figure.111 Ora Brison argues that Judith is a complex intermediary figure that encapsulates contradictory features in order to temporarily reverse the established social order. Brison summarizes the full expanse of authority that Judith wields through the course of the narrative: The leaders of Bethulia believe she can bring rain with her prayers; Holofernes believes in her abilities to bring him victory; the chief priest, the leaders of Jerusalem and all of Israel accept her as a spiritual leader; the soldiers bring her the spoils of war—all these things imply that she is an extraordinary female figure, with high status and influence, who can and does function as a religious intermediary. Judith’s words of reproof, speeches, prayers, and songs sound like the words of other prophets and prophetesses of Israel. Her actions are largely in the style of savior, judge, mediator, warrior and above all, God’s messenger.112 Judith does return home to an ascetic life at the end which has been seen as the text reestablishing the social order, but this does not negate any of the authority that she wielded during this time of crisis. This demonstrates that the author could viably conceive of a female hero who could stand up and take charge when Israel needed a leader. Pierre Johan Jordaan has argued that Judith and Susanna can be read as therapeutic narratives that challenged the dominant societal narratives with alternative problem solving that allowed women, foreigners, and slaves to rise

110  Ora Brison, “Judith: A Pious Widow Turned Femme Fatale, or More?” in A Feminist Companion to Tobit and Judith 2nd Series, ed. Athalya Brenner-Idan and Helen Efthimiadis-Keith (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2015), 175–199, quote 196. 111   Jan Willem van Henten, “Judith as a Female Moses: Judith 7–13 in Light of Exodus 17, Numbers 20 and Deuteronomy 33:8–11” in Reflections on Theology and Gender, eds. F. van Dijk-Hemmes and A. Brenner (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1994), 33–48. 112  Brison, “Judith,” 197.

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above their designated spheres.113 This can also be found in the Hebrew Bible; Jael in Judges is active in war for the sake of her nation, and Ruth the Moabite is an example of a foreigner who confesses faith in God and is included in the house of Israel. LXX Esther, Judith, and Susanna have been compared to Greek novellas and thus represent a different genre than Book III. Additionally, there is debate concerning the dating of these texts, so some may date to the first century BCE and therefore after Book III.114 Despite these differences, they reflect a larger cultural discourse on women and power within Jewish literary tradition that spans genres. The Jewish Sibyl offered a female oracular voice at the cusp of this burgeoning discourse on women, power, and representation. 5 Conclusion Women’s roles in the wider Mediterranean of the second century BCE reflect active feminine representation and participation in various levels of cultural discourse.115 What has been discussed here is a survey and is in no way exhaustive, but the more material that is discovered, the more evidence accumulates reflecting the diverse nature of the female agency and representation in the Hellenistic world. In truth, the burden of the argument should rest on those who attempt to argue that the gender of the Sibyl should not be seen as a constitutive factor in the choice of the pseudonym because it has heretofore rested on an implicit kyriarchal bias that has inundated the reception history. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza offers an important reminder that “ideas of men about women, therefore, do not reflect women’s historical reality since it can be shown that ideological polemics about women’s place, role, or nature increase whenever women’s actual emancipation and active participation in history become stronger.”116 Challenging the assumption that using a feminine 113  Pierre Johan Jordaan, “Reading Judith as Therapeutic Narrative” in Septuagint and Reception: Essays Prepared for the Association for the Study of the Septuagint in South Africa (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 335–46, and Jordaan, “Reading Susanna as Therapeutic Narrative” in Journal for Semitics 17/1 (2008): 114–28. 114  In addition to the previously cited sources that address dating, genre, content, G.J. Steyn, “‘Beautiful but Tough’ A Comparison of LXX Esther, Judith, and Susanna,” Journal for Semitics 17.1 (2008): 156–181, offers a comparison of elements between the three narratives that highlight their novelistic qualities. 115   For example, Richard Bauman highlights that individual Roman women’s names appear in relation to political discourse occurring in the second century BCE. See Richard A. Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 1992) esp. Chapters 4 and 5 which focus on the second century BCE. 116  Schüssler Fiorenza, “Remembering the Past in Creating the Future,” 57.

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voice would be viewed as inferior or taboo (and thus something to be overcome or dismissed) is a step in dismantling kyriarchal bias that obscures the complexity of the Hellenistic world. In this chapter, I have unraveled a predominate theory of genre copying to reveal the level of creativity operative in the Jewish manifestation or branch of the Sibylline tradition. Acknowledging this creativity allowed the question— Why the Sibyl?—to be refocused on why a gendered voice of prophecy would have been desirable and why the Sibyl in particular was well-suited for the Judaean pseudepigraphic writers. The next chapter will explore how the Sibyl was reborn as the daughter-in-law of Noah, and how her style models established male prophetic types thereby challenging gender norms in Hebrew prophecy. My analysis will demonstrate how the sibyllists addressed potential Greek and Jewish critiques of the Sibyl simultaneously, offering a unified persona with credentials in both Greek and Jewish traditions: a true Hellenistic Jewish prophetess.

chapter 3

Establishing Prophetic Authority and Challenging Gender Norms The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power. Toni Morrison1

∵ The question—Why the Sibyl?—was answered by contextualizing the appeal of a female voice of prophecy in the second century BCE. The following will explore the question—How did the sibyllists present the Sibyl?—by examining what models the sibyllists drew from to construct the Sibyl as an authoritative prophetic voice, how they engaged in broader ethical discourse, and how they reinforced and/or challenged traditional prophetic topoi. 1

A Credible and Illustrious Genealogy

As discussed in Chapter One, a multiplicity of traditions concerning the same deities, cult figures, etc. did not pose a problem to the belief system of the Greeks.2 While only a few lines remain of any of the Archaic Greek Sibylline oracles,3 Pausanias the Geographer (110–180 CE) preserved several dif1  Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 15. 2  See Chapter One, section 3 “The Changing Shape of Hellenistic Religious Discourse: Crisis of Belief?” See also Susan Guettel Cole, Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: The Ancient Greek Experience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide and Stefan Brink, Sacred Sites and Holy Places: Exploring the Sacralization of Landscape through Time and Space (Belgium: Brepols, 2013); Jan N. Bremmer, Greek Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 3  Plutarch, Sulla 2.7.6; Dion.Hal. 4.62.5–6; Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, gives a very concise history on the Sibyl in her introductory chapter; Nikiprowetzky, La Troisième Sibylle, 4–5. The claim for the Erythraean origin of sections of Book III will be discussed in Chapters Four and Five.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004426078_005

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ferent genealogical claims for Sibyls by different regions in his Description of Greece 10:12:1–9:4 There is a rock rising up above the ground. On it, say the Delphians, there stood and chanted the oracles a woman, by name Herophile and surnamed Sibyl. The former Sibyl I find was as ancient as any; the Greeks say that she was a daughter of Zeus by Lamia, daughter of Poseidon, that she was the first woman to chant oracles, and that the name Sibyl was given her by the Libyans. (10.12.1) It is typical for irregular geological features to be assigned significance either as a marker of a noteworthy act in myth, a site of a shrine, or associated with a noteworthy local persona (deity, hero, etc.). The Sibyl is given a notable divine lineage as a daughter of Zeus and granddaughter of Poseidon. Pausanias states that the Sibyl Herophile would also refer to herself as Artemis as well as the wife, sister, or daughter of Apollo, with appellations changing while she was in prophetic frenzy (10.12.2). Pausanias recites verses attributed to Herophile claiming another genealogy: I am by birth half mortal, half divine; An immortal nymph was my mother, my father an eater of corn; On my mother’s side of Idaean birth, by my father was red Marpessus, sacred to the Mother, and the river Aïdoneus. (10.12.3) Herophile’s lineage as the daughter of a mortal and a nymph in this account may appear less illustrious than the first account, but the references to Marpessus and Ida evoke a similar cast of characters in the excursus on the fury of Meleager to Achilles in Iliad 9.553–564. This Homeric excursus gives the genealogy of Cleopatra/Halcyone, Meleager’s wife, the daughter of Marpessa and the hero Idas. Idas, son of King Aphareus of Messenia, loved Marpessa daughter of Euenos/Evenus, son of Ares. Apollo also desired Marpessa and kidnapped her from Idas. Idas was not afraid to fight Apollo for Marpessa, so he brought his bow and they fought until Zeus asked Marpessa to choose between them. Marpessa chose the mortal Idas. Although Pausanias does not make the connection between Herophile’s genealogy and this reference, he does recount

4  The following quotes are from Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book X. trans. W.H.S. Jones, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935).

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the myth of Idas and Marpessa earlier in 5.18.2.5 As Homer was the basis for enkyklios paideia, it is likely that local genealogical traditions drew from the Iliad and Odyssey for allusions that would add depth and epic resonance without being tethered too tightly to the source material.6 The Erythraeans in Asia Minor use another version of this genealogy in their local claim to the Sibyl Herophile: The Erythraeans, who are more eager than any other Greeks to lay claim to Herophile, adduce as evidence a mountain called Mount Corycus with a cave in it, saying that Herophile was born in it, and that she was a daughter of Theodorus, a shepherd of the district, and of a nymph. They add that the surname Idaean was given to the nymph simply because the men of those days called idai places that were thickly wooded. The verse about Marpessus and the river Aidoneus is cut out of the oracles by the Erythraeans (10.12.7). Here Herophile is the daughter of a local shepherd and more directly related to the land and its people making the connection stronger and more personal. Pausanias also highlights a Hebrew sibyl: Later than Demo there grew up among the Hebrews above Palestine a woman who gave oracles and was named Sabbe. They say that the father of Sabbe was Berosus, and her mother Erymanthe. But some call her a Babylonian Sibyl, others an Egyptian (10.12.9). This bears witness that the Sibyl and the Judaeans were not disparate concepts. These varied descriptions demonstrate the fluidity of the traditions concerning the Sibyl that allows for the application of new attributes without encountering resistance or suspicion. The Sibyl lacked one consistent location, unlike more stable figures such as the Oracles of Delphi or the Dove priestesses of Dodona. This ambiguity is one of the reasons the Sibyl made an ideal candidate for pseudepigraphic writers.

5  Pausanias, Descr. 5.18.2; Apollodorus, Epit. 1.7.8–9. Walter Leaf offers the mythological background of the account in Il. 9.560 in note 18 of p. 178 in The Iliad of Homer trans. by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf, and Ernest Myers (New York: Macmillan, 1883), 512. 6  See Chapters Four and Five for in-depth discussion of intertextuality and Homeric allusion in the Hellenistic period.

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Later Christian manifestations of the Sibyl focused on her Greek origins to identify her as an outside witness to the legitimacy of Jesus as the Messiah,7 but Book III was not interested in validating itself as a remnant of a Greek prophetess who corroborates a Jewish view of the world. Book III does not keep her as an outsider but rather incorporates the Greek figure of the Sibyl into a Jewish axis of history, effectively subordinating her Greek persona as vocational rather than genealogical. As an acknowledgment of the plethora of traditions that were circulating, Book III clarifies her genealogy (3.809–829): (I say) these things to you, having left the long Babylonian walls of Assyria, frenzied, a fire sent to Greece,3.810 prophesying the disclosures of God to all mortals, so that I prophesy divine riddles to men. Throughout Greece mortals will say that I am of another country, a shameless one, born of Erythrae. Some will say that I am Sibylla born of Circe as mother and Gnostos as father,83.815 a crazy liar. But when everything comes to pass, then you will remember me and no longer will anyone say that I am crazy, I who am a prophetess of the great God. For he did not reveal to me what he had revealed before to my parents but what happened first, these things my father told me, 3.820 and God put all of the future in my mind so that I prophesy both future and former things and tell them to mortals. For when the world was deluged with waters, and a certain single approved man was left 3.825 floating on the waters in a house hewn wood with beasts, and birds, so that the world might be filled again, I was his daughter-in-law and I was of his blood. The first things happened to him and all the latter things have been revealed, so let all these things from my mouth be accounted true.9

7  Justin, 1 Apol. 16, 20, 44; Athenagoras, Leg. 30; Tertullian, Nat. 2.12; Theophilus, Autol. 2.3, 31, 36; Clement, Strom. 1.21, 3.3 and 5.14, Protr. 6.71.4. 8  This line will be discussed further in Chapter Four, section 2. 9  Collins, OTP v.1.380.

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ταῦτά σοι Ἀσσυρίης Βαβυλώνια τείχεα μακρά οἰστρομανὴς προλιποῦσα, ἐς Ἑλλάδα πεμπόμενον πῦρ πᾶσι προφητεύουσα θεοῦ μηνίματα θνητοῖς ὥστε προφητεῦσαί με βροτοῖς αἰνίγματα θεῖα. καὶ καλέσουσι βροτοί με καθ᾽ Ἑλλάδα πατρίδος ἄλλης, ἐξ Ἐρυθρῆς γεγαυῖαν ἀναιδέα ⋅ οἳ δέ με Κίρκης μητρὸς καὶ Γνωστοῖο πατρὸς φήσουσι Σίβυλλαν μαινομένην ψεύστειραν· ἐπὴν δὲ γένηται ἅπαντα, τηνίκα μου μνήμην ποιήσετε κοὐκέτι μ᾽οὐδείς μαινομένην φήσειε, θεοῦ μεγάλοιο προφῆτιν. οὐ γὰρ ἐμοὶ δήλωσεν, ἃ πρὶν γενετῆρσιν ἐμοῖσιν· ὅσσα δὲ πρῶτ᾽ἐγένοντο, τά μοι θεὸς κατέλεξε, τῶν μετέπειτα δὲ πάντα θεὸς νόῳ ἐγκατέθηκεν, ὥστε προφητεύειν με τά τ᾽ἐσσόμενα πρό τ᾽ἐόντα καὶ λέξαι θνητοῖς. ὅτε γὰρ κατεκλύζετο κόσμος ὕδασι, και τις ἀνὴρ μόνος εὐδοκίμητος ἐλείφθη ὑλοτόμῳ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ ἐπιπλώσας ὑδάτεσσιν σὺν θηρσὶν πτηνοῖσί θ᾽, ἵν᾽ἐμπλησθῇ πάλι κόσμος· τοῦ μὲν έγὼ νύμφη καὶ ἀφ᾽ αἵματος αὐτοῦ ἐτύχθην, τῷ τὰ πρῶτ᾽ ἐγένοντο· τὰ δ᾽ἔσχατα πάντ᾽ ἀπεδείχθη ὥστ᾽ἀπ᾽ἐμοῦ στόματος τάδ᾽ ἀληθινὰ πάντα λελέχθω.

3.810

3.815

3.820

3.825

After the Sibyl states she is not the Erythraean Sibyl, she claims her true identity as the daughter-in-law of Noah. She is a native of Babylon and she was sent to Greece, not the other way around. These lines have often been misread in general commentaries because perception of them is influenced by the Christian representations in the later books of the Sibylline Oracles that do not follow the interpretatio Judaica of Book III.10 The text clearly presents her as the prophetess of the One True God, and her words will prove to be true. She declares that God did not reveal everything to her, rather her father (Noah)

10  For example, George Nickelsburg states that “the book closed with prophetic formulas and an ascription of the work to the sibyl of Erythrae.” George W.E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 195. See also William Loader, The Pseudepigrapha on Sexuality: Attitudes towards Sexuality in Apocalypses, Testaments, Legends, Wisdom, and Relate Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 56: “… written in hexameter verse and attributed to a woman, the ancient pagan Erithrean sibyl.”

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told her about the beginnings of the world. God revealed the future to her. The Sibyl thus retains her Greek fame, while simultaneously we see the claim that Greeks have misunderstood her genealogy, history, and purpose. Lightfoot has noted this differentiation as well: In my view, the Jewish Sibyllina, across the pagan idiom, are aspiring to be real prophecy articulated from within Judaism. They may have incorporated pagan material, but there is no attempt to maintain a fiction that a voice is speaking from within paganism. This is, however, the case with the pseudo-pagan poetic fragments, for while the Sibyl’s prophetic voice can be modified so as to sound as if it emanated from within Judaism, an ascription to Euripides remains an ascription to Euripides.11 The Sibyl’s ambiguity resulted in a malleable persona that allowed the sibyllists to incorporate her into Jewish tradition in a creative way that validated the pseudonym within a Jewish historical axis without invalidating credentials that already circulated about her persona. In this context the declaration of an antediluvian origin (Sib. Or. 3.823–7) was an appropriate and reasonable possibility, because it would not have precluded her ability to have operated in a variety of Mediterranean circles and events, such as the Trojan War.12 The Sibyl afforded Judaean pseudepigraphal writers a female voice of flexible origin that they could creatively imbue with authority from both Greek and Jewish traditions. In a text where the mythological world is broken down and Ouranos and Gaia are declared a mortal king and queen, not gods (Sib. Or. 3.110–155), the Sibyl’s familial claim to Noah and her direct connection to God is quite an illustrious genealogy.13

11  Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 80. 12  Pausanias, Descr. 10.12.2 which mentions the Sibyl prophesying the Trojan War will be discussed in Chapter Four. 13  Contra Lester, Prophets and their Rivals, 277–79 who sees the association with Noah as a loss of status from when the Sibyl was said to be a daughter of a god in Pausanias. From the perspective of Book III, the Sibyl’s association with a pagan god would have been seen as the truly inferior genealogy.

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The Authority of Noah

Genealogies shape the world of the text by orienting the reader to the figures the text presents as foundational, anchoring the text’s characters to its chosen authorities.14 For example, Schmitz and Lange demonstrate how Judith was shaped through her genealogy: Judith is introduced via sixteen generations of her genealogy (Jdt 8:1). This is an unusually long family tree; it is the longest genealogy of any woman in the Bible. Judith is presented as a descendent of the patriarch Jacob, who is referred to by his honorary title “Israel” (see Gen 32:29; cf. Jdt 9:2). Through this genealogy the time of the narrative is connected to the origins of Israel, and Judith is portrayed as a woman of noble and authentic, “old Israelite” stock. The need to give an account of one’s origins was especially strong in the postexilic period (see Ezra 2:62; Neh 7:64).15 Similarly, Betsy Halpern-Amaru argues that Jubilees has a high regard for the women in biblical narratives which stems from the authors concern for purity and ritual and is expressed through genealogies: … rewriting the biblical story as a record of couples, the author of Jubilees significantly expands and enriches the depiction of the female characters. Their portraits are more fully developed; they are made more integral to the narrative; and they assume a particularly vital role in determining the unfolding of the history of Israel as God’s elected seed.16

14  For examples of how the choice of authority in pseudepigraphal works frames the wider discourse in which the text is operating see: Hindy Najman, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2003); Hindy Najman, Past Renewals: Interpretive Authority, Renewed Revelation and the Quest for Perfection in Jewish Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Annette Y. Reed, “Heavenly Ascent, Angelic Descent, and the Transmission of Knowledge in 1 Enoch 6–16,” in Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions, R.S. Boustan and A.Y. Reed, eds. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 47–66; Annette Y. Reed, “Pseudepigraphy and/ as Prophecy: Continuity and Transformation in the Formation and Reception of Early Enochic Writings,” in Revelation, Literature, and Community in Late Antiquity, P. Townsend and M. Vidas, eds. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 25–42. 15  Schmitz & Lange, “Judith: Beautiful Wisdom Teacher or Pious Woman?” 34. 16  Betsy Halpern-Amaru, “The First Woman, Wives, and Mothers in Jubilees,” JBL 113 (1994) 609–626, quote 609.

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Book III anchors the Sibyl as part of a tradition older than the divide between cultures through familial positioning. Noah was prominent in Genesis as well as Jubilees and the Genesis Apocryphon, and referred to as a model of righteousness in Genesis, Ezekiel and 4 Ezra. He was not a marginal figure to be dismissed: his name would attract attention and respect.17 Michael Stone discussed the importance of Noah in an attempt to contextualize the transmission of antediluvian teachings in Jubilees, Aramaic Levi, Testament of Qahat, and Visions of Amram from the Dead Sea Scrolls within a priestly-Noahahic tradition, stating: Noah is a second Adam and the founder of postdiluvian humanity. Conjunctions and disjunctions with the antediluvian period are stressed—the continuity of the tradition, the new order of the world and the shortened lives, as well as the origins of the demons from the giants. The sudden clustering of works around Noah indicates that he was seen as a pivotal figure in the history of humanity, as both an end and a beginning.18 The Sibyl as daughter-in-law of Noah plays into this cycle of the history of humanity, tying her to the beginning of the world while she prophesies its end. She speaks the truth about the whole world, not just the fate of the Jews or the Greeks, but the coming Judgment for all creation. Momigliano theorized that the placement of the Sibyl in the time of Noah afforded her message more credibility in a mixed audience because it placed her in a period before the division of pagans and Jews: Noah was not a Jew, but a respected ancestor to the Jews. His age was that of the Flood, an event recognized also by pagans. A non-Jewish daughterin-law of Noah … offered the best of two worlds and maintained, indeed increased, the Sibyl’s reputation of antiquity.19

17  1QapGen 1–12; Gen 6; Ezek 14:14, 20; 4 Ezra 3:11. See also Devorah Dimant, “Noah in Early Jewish Literature” in Biblical Figures Outside the Bible, eds. Michael Stone and Theodore Bergren (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1998), 123–150. 18  Michael Stone, “The Axis of History at Qumran,” 141. 19  Arnaldo Momigliano, “From the Pagan to the Christian Sibyl: Prophecy as History of Religion” in The Uses of Greek and Latin: Historical Essays, eds. A.C. Dionisotti, A. Grafton, and J. Kraye (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 11. Also referred in Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 23.

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Although Noah may not be considered Jewish in the same way as a patriarch such as Jacob, no one would contest that Noah is indicative of and instrumental in a Jewish conception of primeval history. Thus, the Sibyl is incorporated into Jewish history in a manner that validates her choice of God’s elect as well as her mission to prophesy on behalf of the One True God. She was part of the chosen who were saved from the flood that purified the world. Gruen notes the Sibyl’s lineage and acknowledges the complex negotiation that is made in presentation of her identity: She presents herself as daughter-in-law of Noah, hence a claim on the most distant antiquity and the hoariest biblical and Near-Eastern legacies. The Hellenic connection is a secondary one. The Sibyl moved from Babylon to Greece, there to be associated with Erythrae. But her memory stretches back to the Flood, a divine prescience, infallible as the gift of God. Here is appropriation indeed. The Sibyl’s origins precede even Babel. She thus asserts a universal heritage, embodying Hebrew traditions and later subsuming the authority of the Erythraean Sibyl, most venerated of the Hellenic prophetesses. Jewish identity stands in the forefront here. The keepers of the faith who had also absorbed pagan learning, literature, and legends claimed a place in both worlds but held firm to their core. The oracular voice promises a happy fate for the Chosen People— and also extends a compassionate embrace to those Greeks touched by their values and ideals.20 The Sibyl of Book III is afforded antiquity and an illustrious antediluvian origin. She becomes a liminal figure, a witness to the first time the world ended, part of its rebirth, an active participant in the unfolding of history, and God has granted her the vision of the next cycle of endings and beginnings. The Sibyl’s relationship with Noah makes her a vital part of the God’s new world, she acts as a divinely appointed reminder that Greeks are invited to be included in salvation. The Greeks are treated as lost siblings that have gone astray and as such need a prophetess to guide them back to the true path. The sibyllists intentionally framed the Sibyl’s authority with universal implications because at least one contingent of Ptolemaic Judaeans could not envision a world that would be completely cut off to their fellow Greeks. The sibyllist’s choice of Noahic

20  Gruen, “Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the Third Sibylline Oracle,” 35–6. For additional insights through case studies in various texts on Hellenistic Jewish identity, see Gruen, Constructs of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism.

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lineage is then contextualized as an indicator of the sibyllist’s worldview as a Ptolemaic Judaean. The liminal nature of the Sibyl and her message of repentance and salvation return us to an important characteristic of the Jewish Sibylline tradition: the focus on universal history and a time of judgment. Joseph Klausner viewed the universalism and proselytizing nature that characterizes Pauline Christianity as prefigured in Book III: Except for the Hellenistic Jewish author of the third Sibylline book, no Jewish apocalyptist reached the twin heights of Jewish nationalism and universalism as they had already been reached by Isaiah, First and Second. Thus Isaiah became “a light to the Gentiles” by means of an Alexandrian Jew, who styled himself “Assyro-Babylonian Sibyl” and “daughter-in-law of Noah.”21 Klausner identified an integral connection between Isaiah and the Sibyl in terms of a models for negotiating universal and particularistic views on access to salvation. Ronald H. van der Bergh has highlighted the tension in Isaiah 45:18–25 which offers a universal message of God’s salvation open to all nations as well as punishment if salvation is not chosen.22 While Isaiah does offer some universalistic traits, it tends more to the particularistic side, therefore 1 Enoch can be looked to as another model. Loren Stuckenbruck’s observation of 1 Enoch can be seen as a parallel to Book III: Nevertheless, in several respects the text traditions of 1 Enoch 10 differ from the antecedent traditions in Isaiah 65 and 66. First they place Isaianic eschatological expectation within a Noahic framework. Hope for a new cosmos that accompanies faithful Israel’s redemption is informed by a reading of tradition as preserved in Genesis 6 that addresses the cosmic dimension of evil. Second, and following from this, it also projects the activity of divine redemption onto the world stage. Therefore, whatever its 21  Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, 163. He discusses the relevant aspects of Book III to Pauline Christianity in 176–8. 22  Isa 45:25 shifts from a universal message to one addressed directly to the seed of Israel, achieved in the Hebrew through the use of a merism. For a concise introduction to the varied interpretations of these verses as well as a discussion of differences between the MT and LXX versions, see Ronald H. van der Bergh, “Differences Between the MT and LXX Contexts of Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament: Isaiah 45:18–25 As A Case Study” in Septuagint and Reception: Essays Prepared for the Association for the Study of the Septuagint in South Africa, ed. Johann Cook (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 156–76.

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precise status, “the plant of truth and righteousness” in 10:16 must of necessity be linked up with the entirety of humanity that has also been subjected to demonic power. Third, unlike Isaiah, the extant texts nowhere specify that the eschatological worship of God will take place in Jerusalem.23 1 Enoch and Book III are both expanding beyond the boundaries of Isaiah by using a Noahic framework which attests to a common discourse. The sibyllists genealogical and chronological ties to Noah reflect his reputation in the Second Temple period as the common nexus point and model par excellence for universal claims. Book III emphasizes this with a cyclical perspective on universal history by pairing references to the past with predictions of future judgment. Collins discusses the rationale behind the temporal placement of 1 Enoch in a similar light: But the choice of pseudonym and setting is not incidental. By choosing to attribute vital revelation to a figure who lived long before Moses, long before the emergence of Israel as a people, the authors of the Enoch literature chose to identify the core revelation, and the criteria for judgment, with creation, or the order of nature as they understood it, rather than with anything distinctively Israelite.24 Collins rationale for Enoch applies to the Sibyl’s connection with Noah as well, a motivation that illuminates the interconnected cycle of revelation, salvation, and creation. The heart of the history propagated by Book III is the identification of creation as tied to a concept of natural order. Book III is thematically consistent with the Sibyl’s identification with Noah by focusing on the three basic prohibitions of Noahide, or fundamental divine laws: fornication, murder, and idolatry. I argue that these are presented as the result of one evil: greed. This proclivity for Noahide law is also found in 1 Enoch of which VanderKam observes that “sin is not reckoned by failure to conform to Moses’s Torah which was meant for Israel; the sin involved disobedience to the fundamental divine laws of existence … the story in 1 Enoch applies to all nations, not just to the Jewish people.”25 The Sibyl of Book III oscillates between a universal and a fixed conception of salvation (e.g. Sib. Or. 3.555–634). She was present at 23  Emphasis is original to the text. Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels, 227. 24  John J. Collins, “Enochic Judaism: An Assessment” in The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture, eds. Adolfo D. Roitman, Lawrence H. Schiffman, and Shani Tzoref (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 225. 25  James C. VanderKam, “The Interpretation of Genesis in 1 Enoch,” in The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation, ed. Peter W. Flint (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 142.

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the very beginning of this post-flood world, she witnessed the Trojan War and countless other events across the Mediterranean over the course of her life, and she will be there at the end of it all. She directs warnings to the Greeks because she sees them as redeemable, capable of following Noahide law. Devorah Dimant provides insight into how Noah was seen as negotiating two types of covenant: He was also the first human partner to a divine covenant, later to be echoed by God’s covenant with the people of Israel. In this way Noah was not only the father of mankind and the ancestor of the Semite genealogy, but also the prototype of the patriarchs and people of Israel.26 Noah’s covenant with God resulted in salvation for the entire world, not just the Israelites, and without that covenant there could be no other. The Sibyl does not shy away from direct connection with Israelite history, which she demonstrates in the opening to an extended oracle praising the race of “righteous men,” i.e. the Judaeans (3.213–6): Evil will come upon the pious men who live around the great Temple of Solomon, and who are the offspring of righteous men. Nevertheless I will also proclaim the race 3.215 of these; the genealogy of their fathers, and the people of them all27 The Sibyl is given the authority to offer the genealogy, the power over the twelve tribes’ successive memory because God appointed her as prophetess. She then clarifies the essential element in the natural/universal law followed by a retelling of the reception of Mosaic law (3.234–260): But they (Judaeans) care for righteousness and virtue and not love of money, which begets innumerable evils for mortal men, war, and limitless famine. They have just measures in fields and cities and they do not carry out robberies at night against each other nor drive off herds of oxen, sheep, or goats, nor does neighbor move the boundaries of neighbor,

3.235

3.240

26  Dimant, “Noah in Early Jewish Literature,” 124. Dimant later discusses how Jubilees presents Noah’s covenant as a prototype to the Mosaic covenant, 137–40. 27  Collins, OTP v.1.367.

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nor does a very rich man grieve a lesser man nor oppress widows in any respect, but rather helps them, always going to their aid with corn, wine and oil. Always a prosperous man among the people gives a share of the harvest to those who have nothing, but are poor, 3.245 fulfilling the word of the great God, the hymn of the law, for the Heavenly One gave the earth in common to all. But when the people of the twelve tribes leaves Egypt and travels the path with leaders sent by God traveling along at night with a pillar of fire 3.250 and travels by day, every dawn, with a pillar of cloud, he will appoint a great man, as leader for this people, Moses, whom the queen found by the marsh, took home, reared, and called her son. But when he came leading this people, which God led from Egypt, 3.255 to the mountain, Sinai, God also gave forth the Law from heaven, having written all just ordinances on two tablets and enjoined them to perform it. And if anyone should disobey he would pay the penalty by law, whether at human hands or escaping men; he would be utterly destroyed in all justice.28 3.260 The framing of the law that is common to all is related to caring for the oppressed (widows, the poor), which aligns with the conception that the primary evil from which violations against the common law emanate is greed. The sibyllists frame the coming eschaton as a result of greed: 3.640–2: “men will come face to face in strife among themselves because of gold and silver. Love of gain will be shepherd of evils for cities.”29 The sibyllists were consistent in their criticism of greed which results in war and abuse of the vulnerable, and offer a representation of what just governance looks like in 3.234–247. The concern for and care of the oppressed is not only a marker of the genos of “righteous men” (3.215; 3.234) but it is part of the natural law for all humanity. The account shifts from this universal concern to the particular history of the twelve tribes and the specific ordinances they received. Moses is identified as a great leader, but is also framed as one leader among others whom God has appointed. This keeps the focus on God as the primary active agent: God sends, leads, and gives,

28  Collins, OTP v.1.367–8. 29  Collins, OTP v.1.376.

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while Moses and the people are the objects/recipients of these actions.30 The role of the queen in finding and caring for Moses (and lack of any reference to the hostilities that are featured in the Exodus account) results in a narrative that acknowledges the role of female leadership and shows that the relationship between mother and son symbolize the connected relationship between Ptolemaic Egypt and the Judaeans, a view consistent with the sibyllists second century BCE context. 3

Enoch, Etiologies of Sin and Reconstructing a World View

Noah in the Second Temple period played an important role in the worldview propagated by, what some have termed, “Enochic Judaism.”31 Lightfoot compared Enoch as a Jewish pseudonym to the Sibyl and highlights that they are both presented as ancient seers who offer predictions of a chaotic future. In addition, as witness to the beginnings of the world, they hold an intermediary position between God and humanity as they commune with divine forces and deliver ethical and moral teaching. She argues that the substance of their prophecy and, more importantly, the way in which they are imagined as seers attest to a common tradition.32 It is the presence of and participation in alternative worldviews and traditions that frame the sibyllists’ choice of Noah as the Sibyl’s father-in-law. In particular, rather than the focus on the Adam and Eve narrative as the point of entry for sin into the world,33 Enochic texts 30  See Ashley L. Bacchi, “God as Kingly Foil in III Maccabees,” Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture 11.1 (2014): 57–69 for another example of how mortal leadership is dispersed rather than centralized in Ptolemaic Jewish texts. 31  This is a large debate that will not be addressed in this investigation, but for more information see: David R. Jackson, Enochic Judaism: Three Defining Paradigm Exemplars (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2004); Gabriele Boccaccini and John J. Collins, eds., The Early Enoch Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2007); Mladen Popović, Authoritative Scriptures in Ancient Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2010). 32  Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 70–77. 33  Note that the Adam/Eve etiology of sin was also up for debate in the Second Temple period and did not become a common trope until the Roman period. See Magdalena Díaz Araujo’s survey of Hellenistic Jewish texts that extrapolate on the Adam/Eve narrative but do not assign blame to Eve, rather “In most of these texts, it is Adam who seems charged with the responsibility for transgression and mortality, and Eve is simply the other member of the protoplastic couple.” p. 91 in “The Sins of the First Woman: Eve Traditions in Second Temple Literature with Special Regard to the Life of Adam and Eve” in Early Jewish Writings, eds. Eileen Schuller and Marie-Theres Wacker, v. 3.1 of The Bible and Women: An Encyclopedia of Exegesis and Cultural History (Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 91–112.

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tend to focus on the Watcher incident as the background for evil’s presence. Michael Stone states: In this perspective, the axis from Enoch to the Flood and Noah, from the fall of the Watchers to the re-seeding of the earth by Noah, is the crucial axis for the creation of the present world state. The actions preceding, indeed precipitating, the Flood and the subsequent re-creation are mythical and play the role that Adam and Eve’s actions did in other contexts.34 Dimant notes that Noah completes Adam’s genealogy and, according to Genesis 5:1, is thus heir to the image of God. Dimant clearly articulates Noah’s status: “For he was righteous and blameless amid generations of wickedness (Gen 6:8–9), thus righteous by choice, whereas Adam was created blameless but sinned.”35 The absence of the etiology of sin focused on the actions of Eve in these texts allows for a worldview that does not place the blame for the fall of humanity on women, an interpretation that has acted as a stumbling block for female authority in many religious settings. Veronika Bachmann examines Hellenistic texts which expand or reference the account of the union between the sons of god and daughters of men in Gen 6:1–4 and concludes that “while certain versions of the story do indeed strongly ascribe blame, they do not in fact ascribe fault to the women with whom the heavenly beings have intercourse.”36 It is only in literature dating

See also John J. Collins, “Before the Fall: The Earliest Interpretations of Adam and Eve” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel, eds. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman, JSJSup 83 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 293–308 and Vita Daphna Arbel, Forming Femininity in Antiquity: Eve, Gender, and Ideologies in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 34  Michael Stone, “The Axis of History at Qumran” in Pseudepigraphic Perspectives, eds. Esther G. Chazon, Michael E. Stone, and Avital Pinnick (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 133–149, quote 147. 35  Dimant, “Noah in Early Jewish Literature,” 123–4. 36  Veronika Bachmann, “Illicit Male Desire or Illicit Female Seduction? A Comparison of the Ancient Retellings of the Account of the ‘Sons of God’ Mingling with the ‘Daughters of Men’ (Gen 6:1–4)” in Early Jewish Writings eds. Eileen Schuller and Marie-Theres Wacker, v. 3.1 of The Bible and Women: An Encyclopedia of Exegesis and Cultural History (Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 113–141, quote 117. Concerning those that argue for the guilt of women in The Book of the Watchers, Bachmann makes the following challenge: “Anyone who wishes to argue that there is in 1 En. 8.1 an ancient conception that the women are guilty has at least to acknowledge that very little weight was attached to that conception when in the third century BCE the narrative strands, of Enoch, Shemihasa, and Asael were woven together.” 130.

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from the first century on that some reinterpretations turn the focus of blame on women. Bachmann argues that the Book of the Watchers (1 En. 1–36) clearly identifies humans as the victims of the angels and as such they act as a warning against desiring the forbidden: As for ascertaining the gender-political orientation of the Book of the Watchers, it is important to recognize that sexual union is, together with the illegitimate transmission of knowledge, one of the two great sins of which the text accuses the angels. The message of the Book of Watchers builds on the implications of both of them. The sexual sin makes it possible to regard humans as victims of the angel’s deeds. Even if it remains unclear—as in Gen 6—what is implied for earthly women to be “taken,” the text uses unambiguous language for the suffering of humans on earth after the birth of the rapacious giants (I En. 7.3–6). Moreover, the giants, who end up in their physical existence fighting against each other and are said to have killed each other (1 En. 10.9; 15.8–16.1), live on as evil spirits who will continue to plague humans until the last judgment. The illegitimate sharing of knowledge makes it possible to understand humans as creatures who have the choice whether to follow the example of the angels or not to do so. All, both men and women, have to make a decision.37 Bachmann frames the Book of the Watchers as a call for humanity to choose to live modest god-fearing lives, a call which Book III also shows a penchant for as exhibited in the choice Greeks are offered to abandon false knowledge and idols that are leading them astray (3.229, 3.277, 3.548, 3.590, 3.670, 3.721) and the condemnation of greed and excess (3.235; 3.640–2). The Sibyl is not alone in her quest to bring truth, Book III frames the people of God (i.e., the Judaeans) as models whose trials and faith lead others to the truth (3.194–195; 3.701–731) and together with the Sibyl they will reveal that the Greeks have a choice. Book III presents a realm where myth, sin, redemption, destruction, and creation are all operating simultaneously. While the Watchers are not specifically mentioned, the Greek myth of the Titans has been closely associated with

37  Bachmann, “Illicit Male Desire or Illicit Female Seduction?” 124. For further discussion of the role of the Watchers and etiologies of sin see Loren Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels: Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014); Annette Yoshiko Reed, “Gendering Heavenly Secrets? Women, Angels, and the Problem of Misogyny and ‘Magic’” in Daughters of Hecate: Women & Magic in the Ancient World, eds. Kimberly Stratton and Dayna Kalleres (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 108–51.

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that account and Book III offers its own version of the Titanomachy.38 Book III utilizes both Jewish and Greek mythological imagery and—by placing the Sibyl in the context of Enochic writings—situates itself within a larger Second Temple dialogue concerning ways to navigate a universal as well as particular identity. Book III finds balance in a Sibyl who holds up the people of Israel as exemplars while offering a vision of the future that is open to all Greeks. 4

An Issue of Greed Not Sexuality: Male-Same-Sex Prohibitions

William Loader summarizes Book III’s ethical view on sexuality as follows: Specific ethical concerns in the work are somewhat limited. Apparently designed both to reassure and encourage Jews and to persuade sympathetic Gentiles also to espouse Jewish values, the work makes common cause in attacking what both would have recognized as evils present within their world: pederasty, male prostitution (and probably male same-sex acts generally), adultery, and infanticide. Grounds for these attacks are to be found primarily in Mosaic Law, but probably also in a shared notion of what is natural and natural law, alluded to in 3:758 as “a common law for men through the whole earth” (κοινόν τε νόμον κατὰ γαῖαν ἅπασαν) (similarly 3:248). Three aspects of male same-sex activity are potentially envisioned: sexual relations between men and boys, viewed from the perspective of condemning men’s actions; setting up houses of ill-fame, indicates development of male prostitution where the boys function as prostitutes; general condemnation of sexual intercourse between males, probably targeting any such intercourse, including between adult males. The other pertinent references relate primarily to adultery.39 This conclusion makes several assumptions concerning the rationale behind the prohibitions (to reassure Jews and persuade Gentiles) and how the prohibitions function (to attack a mutual concept of ‘evil’ acts). Pederasty in its many variations was not universally accepted across the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, but the literary and material sources also demonstrate that it was a ubiquitous practice. I argue that a closer reading of these prohibitions demonstrates that they are both consistent with and a reinforcement of how the sibyllists negotiated universal and particular concepts of salvation through its vision of ideal government. The prohibitions correlate to the broader 38  See Chapter Five. 39  Loader, The Pseudepigrapha on Sexuality, section on Book III 56–64, quote 61–2.

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concern for systemic abuse and the connection between power dynamics driven by greed and its role in ushering in the coming judgment which will mark the end of injustice. Sexuality in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean is still a much-debated topic as historians negotiate the line between acknowledging the distance between ancient mores and modern constructs, especially as the ‘modern’ approaches to sexuality studies are still relatively new and developing.40 As discussed in the Introduction, ancient conceptions of physiology and gender were operating within a one-sex model rather than the two-sex model which has implications not only for gender roles, but also for sexual/erotic world views. It is generally accepted that the Greco-Roman Mediterranean worked under an active/passive framework. Of course, this framework is more nuanced than the simplicity its name implies, which has led some critics to challenge its veracity, but I agree with David Halperin’s position: … the importance of the active/passive and dominant/submissive oppositions lies not in what they reveal about how real people in classical antiquity went about having sex, what such people thought about when they were having it, how they regarded the objects of their desire, or how they represented to themselves the nature of their erotic relations with their sexual partners. Those hierarchical dualisms are significant because of how they informed the organization of sexual taxonomies and the very definitions of gender, sex, and status—how, that is, they structured ancient sexual discourses and social practices (including erotic practices); thereby shaping “the social articulation of sexual categories and the public meanings attached to sex” (Halperin 1990: 32n). That hierarchical ordering of gender and of sexual relations was operative whether or not ancient subjects experienced it consciously as such.41 40  See Kirk Ormand and Ruby Blondell, “Introduction: One Hundred and Twenty-Five Years of Homosexuality” in Rudy Blondell and Kirk Ormand, Ancient Sex: New Essays (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2015), 1–22; David Halperin, How to Do the History of Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Peter Coviello, “World Enough: Sex and Time in Recent Queer Studies,” GLQ 13.2–3 (2007): 387–401; Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz & Lisa Auanger, eds., Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002); Valerie Traub, “The Present Future of Lesbian Historiography” in Gregory Haggerty and Molly McGarry, eds. Blackwell’s Companion to LGBTIQ Studies (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 124–43; Valerie Traub, “The New Unhistoricism in Queer Studies,” PMLA 128 (2013): 21–39; Valerie Traub, Making Sexual Knowledge: Thinking Sex with the Early Moderns (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2015). 41  D  avid M. Halperin, “Epilogue: Not Fade Away” in Rudy Blondell and Kirk Ormand, Ancient Sex: New Essays (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2015), 308–28, quote 318. Internal

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Taboo in this context focused on the issue of penetration and, in simplified terms, occurred when someone who was deemed to be the appropriate active partner took a passive position. For the purposes of our investigation, it is important to clarify that Roman pederasty was not between social equals. It was not the public courtship/mentorship system between two citizens as in Athenian Greek pederasty or part of the military bonding model of Sparta that were attested to in the Archaic and Classical periods.42 Roman pederastic relationships were typically between master and slaves or recently freed persons.43 Amy Richlin offers a rich analysis of Roman sources concerning pederasty and its intricately entwined relationship with slavery. While some sources may romanticize the relationships from the view of the master/pater familias, ultimately a slave has no choice and thus: “The consent of slave boys is unreal, their very agency obscured within the Schwarzchild radius of slavery, while the sexual agency of free boys, with whom sex was in any case off-limits by Roman custom, was obscured by the always-felt analogy with the sexual use of those enslaved.”44 It is within this context of Roman slavery and the sexual exploitation of children within that slave system that we should approach the references to same-sex acts in Book III. Two of the three references are specifically concerned with male children (3.185–6 and 3.596), and the third (3.764) qualifies the acts as “indiscriminate intercourse,” which I argue is also reflecting a primary concern for excess and the abuse of power dynamics. The following will place these three references in dialogue with other verses in Book III to illuminate how they operate as examples of the symptomatic repercussions

citation to David M. Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: And Other Essays on Greek Love (London: Routledge, 1990). 42  Martti Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998); K.J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality with Forewords by Stephen Halliwell, Mark Masterson, and James Robson (London: Bloomsbury, 2016); Andrew Lear, “Was Pederasty Problematized? A Diachronic View” in M. Masterson, N.S. Rabinowitz, and J. Robinson, eds., Sex in Antiquity: Exploring Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World (London: Routledge, 2015), 115–36. 43  Amy Richlin, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); C.A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality, second ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); David Fredrick, “Mapping Penetrability in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome,” in The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power, and the Body (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 236–64. 44   Amy Richlin, “Reading Boy-Love and Child-Love in the Greco-Roman World,” in M. Masterson, N.S. Rabinowitz, and J. Robinson, eds., Sex in Antiquity: Exploring Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World (London: Routledge, 2015), 352–73, quote 353.

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of greed and show how they are general observations on the type of unjust acts that happen under abusive regimes, rather than general statements concerning sex and sexuality. This will lead to a broader cultural discussion on the intersection of sexual violence/rape and calls for the overturning of leadership in both Greek and Jewish tradition. The first reference is made in the context of the Sibyl recounting the order of kingdoms and what would become of them. After the fall of Macedonian rule, the Roman Republic is described at length including Senate leadership, conquests, greed, and Rome’s immanent downfall (3.175–195): But then will be the beginning of another kingdom, 3.175 white and many-headed from the western sea. It will rule over much land and will shake many, and will thereafter cause fear to all kings. It will destroy much gold and silver from many cities. But there will again be gold 3.180 on the wonderous earth, and then silver also and ornament. They will also oppress mortals. But those men will have a great fall when they launch on a course of unjust haughtiness. Immediately compulsion to impiety will come upon these men. Male will have intercourse with male and they will set up boys 3.185 in houses of ill-fame and in those days there will be a great affliction among men and it will throw everything into confusion. It will cut up everything and fill everything with evils with disgraceful love of gain, ill-gotten wealth, 3.190 in many places, but especially in Macedonia. It will stir up hatred. Every kind of deceit will be found among them until the seventh reign, when a king of Egypt, who will be of the Greeks by race, will rule. And then the people of the great God will again be strong who will be guides in life for all mortals.45 3.195

45  Collins, OTP v.1.366.

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This section is dated to after the battle of Pydna in 168 BCE when Rome defeated Macedonia and was divided into parts.46 Loader does not devote much interpretation to this passage, but does note concerning line 187: “The ‘affliction’ belongs not specifically to same-sex acts or their possible consequences but more generically to what the author goes on to describe as great confusion, cutting up everything and filling everything with evil and love of ill-gotten wealth ‘in many places, but especially in Macedonia’ (3.187–190).” I agree the “affliction/θλῖψις” is not referring to same-sex acts, but is referring to Rome as an oppressor of humanity. It functions as a follow-up description to line 183: “when they launch on a course of unjust haughtiness/ὁπόταν ἄρξωνθ᾽ὑπερηφανίης ἀδίκοιο.” One element of that course of injustice and oppression is that “male will have intercourse with male and they will set up boys in houses of ill-fame/ἄρσην δ᾽ἄρσενι πλησιάσει στήσουσί τε παῖδας αἰσχροῖς ἐν τεγέεσσι (3.185–86).” This is not between male equals but, specifically within the context of the exploitation, of boys through prostitution. This is reinforced with the reiteration in line 189 of the root of cause of this affliction and the resulting evils: “disgraceful love of gain, ill-gotten wealth/αἰσχροβίῳ φιλοχρημοσύνῃ, κακοκερδέι πλούτῳ.” Greed is the root of the problem; the exploitation of boys is used as an example of the extent of that greed. This injustice will be defeated by the reign of the seventh king from Egypt, which will also usher in a time of renewed strength for the people of the great God, i.e. the Judaeans. Romans will “oppress mortals/θλίψουσι βροτούς (3.182)” while Judaeans “will be guides in life for all mortals/οἵ πάντεσσι βροτοῖσι βίου καθοδηγοὶ ἔσονται (3.195)” with the support of their champion “a king of Egypt, who will be of the Greeks by race/ Αἰγύπτου βασιλεύς, ὃς ἀφ᾽ Ἑλλήνων γένος ἔσται (3.193).” This creates a foil that represents the clearest articulation of Greeks as included within the tiered kinship model and the positioning of Romans as ‘other.’ The concern for the abuse of children and criticism of slavery is internally consistent within Book III. For instance, within the retelling of the Babylonian exile in 3.268–70: “You will be led to the Assyrians and you will see innocent children and wives in slavery to hostile men.” Loader points out that “this would have included sexual exploitation and abuse, though this goes unmentioned.”47 Concern for the slavery of women and children is not limited to the history of war and exile in Judaean history, but is acknowledged within the history of the Greeks as well:

46  Collins, OTP v.1.366, note x. 47  Loader, The Pseudepigrapha on Sexuality, 58.

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But when a vast barbarian people comes against the Greeks 3.520 it will destroy many heads of chosen men. They will ravage many fat flocks, which belong to mortal men, and herds of horses and mules, and loud-bellowing oxen. They will burn well-constructed houses lawlessly with fire and will take many slaves to another land by compulsion, 3.525 children and broad-girdled women, delicate ones from the chambers, falling forward to tender feet.48 This invasion reference is linked either with the Roman capture of Corinth in 146 BCE49 which would further support the casting of the Greeks as cohorts and Rome as ‘other.’ The second reference to male-same-sex acts is in an extended description of the “sacred race of pious men” (3.573–600). The relevant section is clarifying their privileged status as wise and righteous because they worship the great God rather than idols. This wisdom leads them to glorify God not only through drink and burnt offerings, but through their body as well (3.591–600). For on the contrary, at dawn they lift up holy arms toward heaven, from their beds, always sanctifying their flesh with water, and they honor only the Immortal who always rules, and then their parents. Greatly, surpassing all me, they are mindful of holy wedlock, 3.595 and they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children, as do the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Romans, spacious Greece and many nations of others, Persians and Galatians and all Asia, transgressing the holy law of immortal God, which they transgressed.50 3.600 Here adultery and pederasty are highlighted as the ubiquitous practices across the known world, acts that are transgressive to the law of God. The specification that “they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children/κοὐδὲ πρὸς ἀρσενικοὺς παῖδας μίγνυνται ἀνάγνως (3.596)” evokes the earlier reference which specifies the relationship with prostitution and exploitation with greed.

48  Collins, OTP v.1.373–4. 49  Collins, OTP v.1.373, note q3. 50  Collins, OTP v.1.375.

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Adultery should be seen within the context of envy and covetousness which are also symptomatic of excess and greed. The last reference is in the context of a short moral exhortation 3.762–6: But urge on your minds in your breasts and shun unlawful worship. Worship the Living One. Avoid adultery and indiscriminate intercourse with males. Rear your own offspring and do not kill it, for the Immortal is angry at whoever commits these sins.51

3.765

This is the only reference that does not explicitly mention that the male-samesex acts are with children, but it is still qualified as “indiscriminate intercourse with males/ἄρσενος ἄκριτον εὐνήν (3.764).” ἄκριτον can be translated as undistinguishable, confused, rash, as well as indiscreet, and want of judgment.52 This word choice evokes excess, which should be contextualized with the other two references as referring to sex with male children and prostitution. The prohibition on infanticide in the following line further supports the consistent theme of caring for those who cannot care for themselves. General sexual ethics are not the primary concern of these passages, rather adultery and pederasty are positioned as symptomatic of unjust rule/society. Elsewhere in Book III we see the pairing of unjust kings with envy and its relationship with war: “Second, the Greeks will have tyrannies and proud kings overbearing and impious, adulterous and wicked in all respects. There will no longer be respite from war for mortals/δεύτερον αὖθ᾽ Ἕλλησι τυραννίδες ἠδ᾽ ἀγέρωχοι ἔσσονται βασιλῆες, ὑπερφίαλοι καὶ ἄναγνοι, κλεψίγαμοι καὶ πάντα κακοί, καὶ οὐκέτι θνητοῖς ἄμπαυσις πολέμοιο” (3.202–5); “And kings will begin to be angry with each other, requiting evil with spirit. Envy is not good for wretched mortals/καὶ ἄρξονται βασιλῆες ἀλλήλοις κοτέειν ἐπαμύνοντες κακὰ θυμῷ· ὁ φθόνος οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πέλεται δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσιν.” (3.660–2). The workings of a just and righteous government that will be experienced after the final judgment are juxtaposed to the injustice that marks the current system again in 3.373–380:

51  Collins, OTP v.1.379. 52  See entry for ἄκριτος, ον and ἀκρισία, ἡ in LSJ = Henry Liddell and Robert Scott, A GreekEnglish Lexicon, revised and augmented by Sir Henry Stuart Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), 55–6.

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For all good order and righteous dealing will come upon men from starry heaven and with it temperate concord, best of all things for men and love, faithfulness and friendship even from strangers. Bad government, blame, envy, anger, folly poverty will flee from men, and constraint will flee. and murder, accursed strife, and grievous quarrels, night robberies, and every evil in those days.53

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The utopian picture of peace and friendship guaranteed even between strangers, and the concern for night robberies (which is also mentioned in 3.238) belies a concern for the violation of property and the vulnerability of people in the current unjust regimes. This concern evokes Genesis 19 and a wider dialogue on hospitality codes more so than it does Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. The ancient world acknowledged that being a traveler was vulnerable, if a Greek traveler or guest was mistreated by their host or vice versa they could pray to Zeus Xenios for retribution. Stories of disguised gods that test mortal piety by seeing if they are accepted or refused hospitality are referred to as theoxenia.54 Similarly, Lot’s guests in Genesis 19 were angels/messengers sent from God to Sodom and Gommorah to test them, they failed and their cities were destroyed. The threat of male-same-sex rape was not the primary focus of the account, rather it was emblematic of the ultimate transgression of hospitality codes. Ezekiel 16:49–50 clarifies the true nature of the transgression: Moreover this was the sin of your sister Sodom, pride, she and her daughters lived in pleasure, in fulness of bread and in abundance: this belonged to her and her daughters, and they helped not the hand of the poor and needy. (Ezek 16:49–50) πλὴν τοῦτο τὸ ἀνόμημα Σοδόμων τῆς ἀδελφῆς σου, ὑπερηφανία, ἐν πλησμονῇ ἄρτων καὶ ἐν εὐθηνίᾳ ἐσπατάλων αὕτη καὶ αἱ θυγατέρες αὐτῆς· τοῦτο ὑπῆρχεν αὐτῇ καὶ ταῖς θυγατράσιν αὐτῆς, καὶ χεῖρα πτωχοῦ καὶ πένητος οὐκ ἀντελαμβάνοντο.55 53  Collins, OTP v.1.370. 54  For example, the myth of Baucis and Philemon preserved in Ovid, Met. 8.612–727. 55  Translation and Greek text from Lancelot C. Brenton, The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English (London: Hendrickson, 1851), 998. See also Isa 1:10–17 where atonement for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah is framed a justice for the oppressed, i.e. widows and orphans.

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Similarly, ὑπερηφανία here translated as pride also means arrogance, and it is the same claim made against the Romans in 3.183: “when they launch on a course of unjust haughtiness (arrogance)/ὁπόταν ἄρξωνθ᾽ ὑπερηφανίης ἀδίκοιο.” Read in this wider context, the prohibitions in Book III are not concerned with general sexual ethics regarding same-sex acts, but rather the sibyllists are making a pointed attack on arrogance and greed which lead to war, slavery, and the abuse of children for the physical pleasure and/or financial gain of powerful unjust kingdoms. The sibyllists stance on sexual exploitation can be further analyzed through accounts of sexual violation/rape in Jewish and Greek tradition. For example, the juxtaposition of Genesis 19 and Judges 19 highlights the theme of sexual violence for the purpose of degradation, humiliation, and dehumanization. Just as Genesis 19 should be read within the context of violations of hospitality codes, Judges 19 should be read within the political context in which it is presented in Judges 17–21, namely that there are no kings ruling Israel at this time and lawlessness is widespread. Judges 19 can then be seen as a call for just leadership, an example of the level of depravity that has been allowed sway which acts as a tipping point that leads to a new stage of government.56 Similarly, in Roman tradition the end of the reign of kings and the start of the Republic was presented as the response to the rape of Lucretia in 510 BCE. Lucretia was an elite woman who was raped by the last king of Rome; she told her family what happened and then committed suicide. The elite families revolted against the king and instituted a Republic ruled by a senate that continued until the time of Augustus.57 This demonstrates sexual violation was a valid justification and motivation in narratives concerning changes in government in the ancient world. This analysis has contextualized the prohibitions on sexual acts with the wider ethical concerns of Book III to demonstrate how they function as examples of how a society fueled by greed will act, in contradiction to the focus of a just society which devotes resources to protecting the weak and marginalized (i.e. the poor, widows, orphans, children). Rather than a general concern and condemnation for male-same-sex acts, this wider context situates the sibyllists as commentators on war and its by-products, namely slavery and the exploitation of women and children.

56  Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World, 49–52. 57  Diodorus, 10.20–21; Livy, Hist. 1.57–9, 3.44; Cicero, Scaur. 1b.

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5

Jewish Prophetic Models: Challenging Gender Norms

Scholars traditionally approached Israelite/Jewish prophecy as reaching a peak in the Monarchic period, declining in the Post-Exilic period, and ending by the Second Temple period. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, this perspective was questioned and is now viewed as highly problematic.58 Michael Floyd describes the changes to the process of examination: We used to begin with a reconstruction of pre-exilic “classical” prophecy, based on a dubious quest for the original words of pre-exilic prophets, and then proceed to characterize post-exilic prophecy on the basis of developmental theories about how such phenomena evolve. It is increasingly evident that this process must be reversed. Now we must begin with what our corpus of prophetic books shows us about the practice of prophecy in post-exilic times, and then work back to whatever extent the evidence allows.59 This process parallels the quest to reconstruct the nature of the Archaic Greek Sibyl described in Chapter Two. The sibyllists presented a new voice of female prophecy, but did so within a framework rooted in what has been accepted as male Jewish prophetic models. It is logical for Judaean writers wishing to be accepted within an established prophetic tradition to model their work on conventional topoi as presented by prophetic figures such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or Zechariah. Parke acknowledged these biblical precedents but saw them as independent of one another, because he worked from the position that the Judaean author was limited to replicating the Archaic Greek Sibyl: The Hebrew prophets, as well as addressing the people of Judah or Israel, had also delivered messages of condemnation against their gentile neighbors. These foretold the disaster and destruction which the wrath of Yahweh would bring upon them, and the form and matter were sometimes strikingly similar to the Sibyl’s warnings. The resemblance is 58  For more on this development and new approaches to Second Temple prophecy see Michael H. Floyd and Robert D. Haak, Prophets, Prophecy, and Prophetic Texts in Second Temple Judaism (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2006); R.P. Gordon, “The Place Is Too Small for Us”: The Israelite Prophets in Recent Scholarship (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995); S.B. Reid, Prophets and Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Gene M. Tucker (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996); Odil Hannes Steck, The Prophetic Books and Their Theological Witness (St. Louis: Chalice, 2000). 59  Floyd, Prophets, Prophecy, and Prophetic Texts, 3.

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no doubt merely coincidental, as prophets such as Isaiah and Zephaniah can neither have known Greek oracles nor influenced them. But it will have made it all the more plausible for the Jewish Sibyllist, while modeling himself on the pagan prototype, to borrow various portions which would serve to reinforce the resemblance.60 (Emphasis mine) Parke approaches the Jewish Sibylline corpus as derivative of a style of which there is no extant evidence.61 However, this line of thinking was created by projecting the later Jewish Sibyl onto the past. Rather than viewing these corresponding eschatological models as “merely coincidental,” it is more likely that they are what they appear to be: traditional Jewish motifs coming from the mouth of a Jewish Sibyl. This moves us to another aspect of Jewish prophecy, the theme of hope and redemption. Descriptions of God’s judgment and the idyllic transformation of the end times in 3.601–23 correspond to those found in Isaiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah.62 Parke’s characterization of the Greek Sibyl’s message as “a horror film”63 is unable to support the message of redemption through moral exhortation also found in the text. This leads him to establish a point of departure for the Judaean sibyllist: But the Jewish Sibyllist did not solely deal in doom. It was part of his apocalyptic tradition to believe that after horror and destruction should come a Golden Age for the people of God. Isaiah, centuries previously, had given expression to this glorious hope in words which could never be bettered. The Sibyllist paraphrases him in Greek hexameters. (Or. Sib. 2.29ff; 3.619–23, 741–61, 785–96; 5.381ff. Cf. Isaiah 11:6–9) He probably 60  Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy (1988), 12–3. Some work has argued for the Ancient Near Eastern influence on Greek seers, see Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992) and M.L. West, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997). 61  Refer to Chapter Two for re-examination of extant sources that predate Book III to challenge Parke’s presentation. 62  See also the following allusions: Sib. Or. 3.80–4 (signs of judgment) and Isa 34:4; Sib. Or. 3.533–5 and Isa 30:17; Sib. Or. 3.680 and Isa 40:4; Sib. Or. 3.682–6 and Isa 30:25; Sib. Or. 3.689–92 (God’s judgment) and Isa 29:6, Isa 30:30, and Ezek 38:21–2; Sib. Or. 3.708–9 and Isa 41:10; Sib. Or. 3.716–20 and Isa 2:3; Sib. Or. 3.785–7 and Isa 12:6, and Zech 2:10; Sib. Or. 3.788–795 (idealic transformation in end times) and Isa 11:6–9 and 65:25. Armin Lange and Matthias Weigold found twenty-six references to the Hebrew Bible in Book III of the Sibylline Oracles, compared to one in Book I and three in Book VIII. See Armin Lange and Matthias Weigold. Biblical Quotations and Allusions in Second Temple Jewish Literature (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 249–50. 63  Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy, 13.

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could not have found a corresponding model in the pagan Sibyls.64 (Emphasis mine) As Parke had already acknowledged and dismissed the correspondence between Isaiah and the oracles-against-nations model, he again brings Isaiah in as a potential model in order to explain the hope that is also a functioning part of the motif. Yet Parke is only willing to posit Jewish ingenuity when it suits his vision of the limits of Greek influence. The tension that Parke’s model creates is diffused by reading the influence of the Hebrew prophets in the context of the author’s intention of framing the Sibyl within the established prophetic tradition. This supports the conclusions made in Chapter Two that Book III is an original interpretatio Judaica representing its own branch of a fluid sibylline genre. When assessed through this lens, the correspondence between 3.788– 795 and LXX Isaiah 11:6–8 is no longer framed diminutively as paraphrase, but rather as offering insight into what imagery the sibyllists were drawn to and deemed appropriate to their Sibyl’s vision: Wolves and lambs will eat grass together in the mountains. Leopards will feed together with kids. Roving bears will spend the night with calves. The flesh-eating lion will eat husks at the manger like an ox, and mere infant children will lead them with ropes. For he will make the beasts on earth harmless. Serpents and asps will sleep with babies and will not harm them, for the hand of God will be upon them.65 3.788–95

The wolf shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the young calf and bull and lion shall feed together; and their young shall be together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And an infant shall put his hand on the holes of asps, and on the nest of young asps.66 LXX Isaiah 11:6–8

64  Ibid., 12–3. 65  Collins, OTP v.1.379. ἠδὲ λύκοι τε καὶ ἄρνες ἐν οὔρεσιν ἄμμιγ᾽ ἔδονται χόρτον, παρδάλιές τ᾽ ἐρίφοις ἅμα βοσκήσονται· ἄρκτοι σὺν μόσχοις νομάδες αὐλισθήσονται· σαρκοβόρος τε λέων φάγεται ἄχυρον παρὰ φάτνῃ ὡς βοῦς· καὶ παῖδες μάλα νήπιοι ἐν δεσμοῖσιν ἄξουσιν· πηρὸν γὰρ ἐπὶ χθονὶ θῆρα ποίησει. σὺν βρέφεσίν τε δράκοντες ἅμ᾽ ἀσπίσι κοιμήσονται κοὐκ ἀδικήσουσιν· χεὶρ γὰρ θεοῦ ἔσσετ᾽ ἐπ᾽ αὐτούς. 66  Brenton, The Septuagint with Apocrypha, 847. Καὶ συμβοσκηθήσεται λύκος μετὰ ἀρνὸς, καὶ πάρδαλις συναναπαύσεται ἐρίφῳ, καὶ μοσχάριον καὶ ταῦρος καὶ λέων ἅμα βοσκηθήσονται, καὶ παιδίον μικρὸν ἄξει αὐτούς. Καὶ βοῦς καὶ ἄρκτος ἅμα βοσκηθήσονται, καὶ ἅμα τὰ παιδία αὐτῶν ἔσονται· καὶ λέων ὡς βοῦς φάγεται ἄχυρα. Καὶ παιδίον νήπιον ἐπὶ τρωγλῶν ἀσπίδων, καὶ ἐπὶ κοίτην ἐκγόνων ἀσπίδων τὴν χεῖρα ἐπιβαλεῖ. Note that Book III’s description of children as

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The sibyllists were so successful that gender has been a non-category in studies of the Sibylline Oracles, because her prophecy is not different from what we would expect a male prophet to write. This characteristic actually makes the issue of gender all the more important because it gives us information about the perspective of the Judaean author. The sibyllists did not think it taboo to have a female prophetic figure whose prophecy would evoke allusions to male prophets such as Isaiah, because if they did, they could have chosen the male Greek oracle Bakis. Recent scholarship challenges the previous categorizations of “prophecy” versus “divination” or “religion” versus “magic,” dichotomies which maintained a strict conception of gendered prophetic discourse, thus disrupting the equivocation of the feminine with forbidden/​false/​subordinate knowledge and male with sanctioned/​true/​divinely inspired knowledge.67 Book III adds further support to this paradigm shift by breaking down some of the observed differences between male and female Jewish prophetic activity. Martti Nissinen offers an apt reminder of the importance of wider cultural context in relation to gender and religious agency: The gender aspect of religious, or prophetic, agency is fundamentally dependent on the prevailing gender matrix in the given social context of prophetic activity; in other words, gender matrix precedes prophetic agency, not vice versa. Therefore, whatever observations are made concerning the significance of gender in prophetic goings-on, they must always be measured against the gendered structure of the given (usually patriarchal) society, paying attention to features in prophetic agency that deviate from the standard expectations of gender roles and their enacting.68 In the quest to create a strong prophetic pseudonym, the sibyllists chose a female figure from Greek tradition, incorporated her into a Jewish historical axis, and gave her a voice that resonated with male Jewish prophetic style.

leading or herding the animals which is not in the LXX Isaiah 11:6–8, but is preserved in the MT. 67  Reed, “Gendering Heavenly Secrets?” 108–151; Martti Nissinen, Ancient Prophecy: Near Eastern, Biblical and Greek Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); Esther Hamori, Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 1–40. 68  Nissinen, Ancient Prophecy, 306.

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The fact that the sibyllists did not feel restrained by a formalized conception of gendered prophetic taboos reflects the second century BCE Ptolemaic context established in the previous chapter. By exploring the tension between what is expected of gendered prophetic discourse, the Sibyl emerges as an impressive prophetic voice that transcends boundaries regardless of gender. The characteristics of male Hebrew prophets, such as their ability to perform miracles and their lengthy orations, are absent from descriptions of Hebrew prophetesses.69 While one can argue that these traits are ancillary to being a prophet, one attribute that is afforded to male prophets in the Hebrew Bible has been framed as critical: God speaks directly to male prophets, and they speak on behalf of God.70 Fuchs discusses the fragmentary and ambiguous descriptions of the female prophet (neviah) in the Hebrew Bible and argues that the writers intentionally used the messenger formula (e.g. “God spoke to Jeremiah”) to dramatize and confirm the interactions with male prophets, but they did not use the messenger formula or describe any verbal dialogue between God and female prophets in order to suppress their authority.71 Miriam is described as a neviah, but her prophecy is expressed through dance and song, making it performative rather than a verbal prophecy. The Sibyl, on the other hand, is characterized by verbal prophecy: Then the utterance of the Great God rose in my breast and bade me prophecy concerning every land and remind kings of the things that are to be. And God first put this in my mind.72 3.162–4

But why did God prompt me to say this: What first, what next, what will be the final evil on all men, what will be the beginning of these things?73 3.196–8

69  Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah are referred to as ‫נביאה‬. 70  Elisha and Elijah perform miracles and Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha are noted for their lengthy narratives. Esther Fuchs, “Prophecy and the Construction of Women: Inscription and Erasure” an exception may be Huldah in 2 Kings 22:14 and 2 Chr 34:22, where verbal prophecy is present but the messenger formula is used. 71  Esther Fuchs, “Prophecy and the Construction of Women: Inscription and Erasure” in Prophets and Daniel, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001) 57–8. 72  Collins, OTP v.1.365–6. 73  Collins, OTP v.1.366.

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But why should I narrate them individually? But when the first things reach and end, immediately the second things will come upon men. I will proclaim to you first of all.74 3.210–2

When indeed my spirit ceased the inspired hymn, and I entreated the great Begetter that I might have respite from compulsion, the word of the great God rose in my breast and bade me prophesy concerning every land and remind every king of the things that are to be. God prompted me to say first.75 3.295–300

When indeed my spirit stopped its inspired hymn and utterance of the great God again rose in my breast and bade me prophecy concerning the earth76 3.489–491

I will tell you a very clear sign, so that you may know when the end of all things comes to pass on earth.77 3.796–7

It should be noted that this divine revelation is not given in verbal dialogue, but manifests through embodied inspiration (i.e. physical takeover) or divine mental inspiration (i.e. knowledge given directly into the mind). In this way, the Sibyl appears similar to Huldah in 2 Kgs 22:14 and 2 Chr 34:22, who is given the title of prophetess and is sought out by Hilkiah the priest to give insight into words of the law.78 Esther Hamori argues that Fuchs’s focus on the messenger formula diverts attention from the ways in which Divine speech was received by female prophets in different ways, including Deborah’s use of prophetic first-person in Judges 4:6–7 and Huldah’s use of the formulaic phrase “thus says Yahweh” three times in the span of five verses.79 Some have seen Huldah’s authority as a conduit for divine knowledge as tempered by the narrator stating her husband’s name and her role as keeper of the robes, effectively 74  Collins, OTP v.1.367. 75  Collins, OTP v.1.368. 76  Collins, OTP v.1.373. 77  Collins, OTP v.1.379. 78  See Lowell Handy, “Reading Huldah as Being a Woman,” Biblical Research 55 (2010): 5–44 for detailed analysis on the reception of Huldah’s authority in later sources. 79  Hamori, Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature, 150.

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limiting her influence by associating her with textiles and her husband’s household.80 Hamori argues that this is an independent clause for descriptive purposes and does not imply a subordination of authority.81 Lowell Handy’s observation ties into our discussion above concerning the role of genealogies with in a text: “Her husband Shallum’s genealogy, not hers, is described (2 Kgs 22:14). Thus, she alone of the prophets with family ties provided in the text is relationally designated by her spouse’s ancestors.”82 The Sibyl’s genealogy linkage to Noah: τοῦ μὲν έγὼ νύμφη καὶ ἀφ᾽ αἵματος αὐτοῦ ἐτύχθην, νύμφη is typically translated as daughter-in-law and is attested in LXX Gen 11:31 referring to Sara, and LXX Gen 38:11 referring to Tamar. However, the Sibyl’s husband is never mentioned,83 rather it is clarified that the Sibyl and Noah are of one blood which is a unique qualifying detail. It is possible that νύμφη is referring to the more general category of a young woman of marriage age84 who is related to Noah by blood, strengthening their familial connection without fettering the Sibyl to a husband not present in the text. Either way, this unique familial presentation allows the sibyllists to capitalize on the authority of Noah. Second Temple texts such as the Aramaic Levi Document, 1Q20, 4Q547, Jubilees, 4Q508 (4Q Festival Prayers), 4Q252–254a, present Noah as the first priestly ancestor.85 Stone states Noah “plays a special role as the originator of sacrificial instruction.”86 These associations and elaborations of Noah’s position create a strong connection between the Sibyl’s lineage and an established prophetic and priestly tradition in the Second Temple period.87 The framing of the genealogical connection to Noah also maintains the Sibyl as an autonomous prophetic figure. This is accomplished by equating Noah with past revelation and the Sibyl with new revelation received directly from God.

80  See references in Fuchs, “Prophecy and the Construction of Women,” 62–4. 81  Hamori, Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature, 149. 82  Handy, “Reading Huldah as Being a Woman,” 8. 83  In Sib. Or. 1.287–90, dated to the second or third century CE, expands on this genealogy and refers to the Sibyl’s husband. As this is a later text, the additional details may have been added due to the later Christian sibyllists desire to clarify the ambiguity of the earlier tradition preserved in Sib. Or. 3.827–9. 84  See LSJ νύμφη. 85  Dorothy M. Peters, Noah Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conversations and Controversies of Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 86  Stone, “The Axis of History at Qumran,” 141. 87  See Michael E. Stone, Aryeh Amihay, and Vered Hillel. Noah and His Book(s) (Atlanta: SBL, 2010); Peters, Noah Traditions; Dimant, “Noah in Early Jewish Literature”; J.P. Lewis, A Study of the Interpretation of Noah and the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1968).

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Noting how the Sibyl clarifies the nature of her prophetic knowledge and her lineage allows one to shift focus to the Sibyl’s claims to truth: Some will say that I am Sibylla born of Circe as mother and Gnostos as father, a crazy liar. But when everything comes to pass, then you will remember me and no longer will anyone say that I am crazy, I who am a prophetess of the great God.88

815

Buitenwerf argues there is distrust and disrespect for the Classical Sibyl in Greek plays and the sibyllist is combating this reputation.89 The references Buitenwerf are referring to are actually directed at the oracle mongers that invoke the Sibyl or Bakis as inspiration; thus it is not clear if the writers were critiquing the Sibyl per se or those who abuse the power associated with her name. While I agree that the Sibyl’s claim to truth may be understood generally within the context of Greek dialogue,90 it can be further contextualized within Jewish discourse concerning the nature of gendered prophecy. Fuchs has argued that women in the Hebrew Bible (Eve, Rebekah, Rachel, Potiphar’s wife, Delilah, Jezebel, Ruth, etc.) are typically associated with deception, which is tied to their inability to enact change in any other way;91 thus, the Sibyl’s claim to truth can be seen as destabilizing the dichotomy between women and truth, and would then be participating in a multilayered defense of the Sibyl as a legitimate female prophetess in both Greek and Jewish circles. This discourse on falsehood and truth serves as an example of the intersectional nature of the pseudonym and how the sibyllists were aware of potential critiques from Greek and Jewish traditions that could be levied against the Sibyl as a prophetic figure and addressed them simultaneously with a unified voice. In addition, this dialogue is not limited to a gender critique, but also works on a more general level of discourse concerning prophetic authority. The sibyllists ground her truth and authority claims in her genealogical ties to Noah and her 88  See also Sib. Or. 3.829: “The first things happened to him and all the latter things have been revealed, so let all these things from my mouth be accounted true.” 89   Buitenwerf, “The Identity of the Prophetess Sibyl,” 50. He specifically mentions Aristophanes, Pax 1063–116 and Cicero’s Div. 2.54.112. With regard to the Cicero quotation, this is a discussion on how the Sibyl is abused by forgers and the danger false prophecies pose. Cicero’s discussion on frenzy and divination can be contextualized within the earlier discussion in Chapter One. 90  Buitenwerf, “The Identity of the Prophetess Sibyl,” 47–50. 91  Esther Fuchs, “Who is Hiding the Truth? Deceptive Women and Biblical Androcentrism” in Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship, ed. Adela Yarbro Collins (Chico, CA: Scholars, 1985), 137–44.

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direct relationship with God. Similarly, God speaking through the prophets in Isaiah is framed in truth claims: I, even I, am the Lord, speaking righteousness, and proclaiming truth.92 LXX Isa 45:19

God himself, the great eternal one, told me to prophesy all these things. These things will not go unfulfilled. Nor is anything left unaccomplished that he so much as puts in mind for the spirit of God which known no falsehood is throughout the world.93 3.698–701

The first things happened to him and all the latter things have been revealed, so let all these things from my mouth be accounted true.94 3.828–9

Jeremiah and Hosea also remark on being mocked, laughed at, and called fools because of their prophecies (Jer 20:7; Hos 9:7), indicating an undercurrent of a general prophetic dialogue concerning the perceived truth and validity of prophetic authority, regardless of gender. As discussed in Chapter One (and will be further elaborated on in Chapters Four and Five), there are different levels of readership and the text is layered with intertextual, cultural, and political references as was the practice in Hellenistic poetry. The Former prophets (Nevi’im Rishonim—in the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) are characterized by confronting individual kings, and the Latter prophets (Nevi’im Aharonim—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets) are characterized by addressing the collective behavior of nations, but female prophets do not address either.95 The Sibyl again stands out in this differentiation between male and female prophecy because the Sibyl addresses kings (3.162–4; 3.295–9) as well as the ethical behavior of nations and the resulting fate of the world (3.196–8; 3.210–2; 3.489–91; 3.796–7). The Sibyl’s oracles against nations in 3.300–323 are analogous to summary 92  Brenton, The Septuagint with Apocrypha, 881. ἐγώ εἰμι Κύριος ὁ λαλῶν διακαιοσύνην, καὶ ἀναγγέλλων ἀλήθειαν. 93  Collins, OTP, 1.377. αὐτός μοι τάδε πάντα θεὸς μέγας ἀέναός τε εἶπε προφητεῦσαι· τάδε δ᾽ἔσσεται οὐκ ἀτέλεστα· οὐδ᾽ ἀτελεύτητον, ὅ τι κεν μόνον ἐν φρεσὶ θείῃ· ἄψευστον γὰρ πνεῦμα θεοῦ πέλεται κατὰ κόσμον. 94  Collins, OTP, 1.380. τῷ τὰ πρῶτ᾽ἐγένοντο· τὰ δ᾽ἔσχατα πάντ᾽ ἀπεδείχθη· ὥστ᾽ἀπ᾽ἐμοῦ στόματος τάδ᾽ ἀληθινὰ πάντα λελέχθω. 95  Fuchs, “Prophecy and the Construction of Women,” 54–69.

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versions of Isaiah chapters 10, 12, and 19. The Sibyl was given the freedom to have a direct relationship with God and the power to address kings as well as the nations of the world that prophets such as Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah were not given. Lastly, the Sibyl not only receives knowledge and authority directly from the Divine, but her prophecies are also written and referred to as a literary tradition. Scholars have framed literary prophecy/divination as a scribal and thus male activity.96 Annette Y. Reed made note of the unique nature of Book III in her paper at the 10th Nangeroni meeting stating, “the Sibylline Oracles stands out as a textualized collection of oracular speech associated with a prophetessa phenomenon wholly reserved for men (i.e., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, et al.) within biblical and other ancient Jewish literary cultures.”97 The Sibyl infiltrates what has been designated as a masculine literary sphere and challenges not only Hebrew male prophetic models, but Greek ones as well, when she calls Homer a liar and claims she is the true master of hexameter verse (Sib. Or. 3.419–432).98 Homer learned and replicated the Sibyl’s style to create fallacious epics that focus on gods and heroes. James Harding discusses the book of Jeremiah establishes authority in the midst of false prophet accusations: “Writing functions as an expression of power, and in the case of Jeremiah it is significant that while the words of Jeremiah and his various opponents are presented as being delivered orally, not only do they come to us solely through the medium of writing, but that writing both presents Jeremiah’s prophetic voice as dominant, and reflects self-consciously on the process of writing itself.”99 Book III presents the Sibyl as a female oracular voice while also referencing hexameter verse, similarly reflecting a self-consciousness of the process of writing as commentary. Harding concludes, “The gendering of truthful divine speech as male in the dominant discursive stream contributes to the construction of prophetic masculinity in Jeremiah, and indirectly to the gendering of 96  Frederick Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel and Its Near Eastern Environment: A Socio-historical Investigation (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), esp. 187–215 and 306–323. 97  I am grateful for Reed’s thorough engagement with my dissertation, the questions and insights she raised in that paper have informed several points of elaboration here in this monograph. Annette Y. Reed, “Gendering Revealed Knowledge? Prophesy, Positionality, and Perspective in Ancient Jewish Apocalyptic and Related Literatures,” 10th Nangeroni Meeting: Gender and Second Temple Judaism (Rome, 20 June 2018), 1–27, quote p. 8 n. 27. 98  This will be discussed further in Chapter Four. 99  James E. Harding, “The Silent Goddess and the Gendering of Divine Speech in Jeremiah 44” in Prophecy and Power: Jeremiah in Feminist and Postcolonial Perspective, eds. Christl Maier and Carolyn Sharp (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 208–223, quote 222.

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prophecy, and of divine speech generally, as masculine across the Tanakh.”100 The sibyllists challenge constructions of prophetic masculinity by presenting a female Sibyl as champion across semantic fields. Gender then becomes another level to the liminality of the Sibyl as a Jewish pseudonym; she not only offers a persona that can hold both Greek and Judaean traditions simultaneously, but she is a female who can prophesy in the same manner as a male, if not better. Lightfoot commented that the earliest Jewish Sibyllae is “the product of a distinctive way of thinking about prophets and prophecy which is not simply continued from the pagan Sibylline tradition.”101 Book III offers insight into Jewish dialogue concerning the nature of gendered prophecy to reveal layers of discourse operating alongside those on Greek perceptions of the Sibyl, highlighting the extent to which the Judaean authors reimagined the Sibyl in light of Hebrew prophetic tradition to create a voice that defies standard restrictions or perceived limitations on female prophecy. Reed points to the work of Wilda Gafney, Hamori, and Handy on the acceptance of Huldah as a prophetic authority and states that similarly the Sibyl’s “gender has been a problem for modern scholars in a manner that it was not for ancient authors/redactors, tradents, readers, etc.”102 Book III challenges modern categories concerning gendered prophecy in Jewish tradition by presenting the Sibyl’s ability to communicate directly with God, her relationship to truth, and her unfettered qualifications as a prophetess of the One True God. 6 Conclusion To address the question “How did the sibyllists present the Sibyl?” the multilayered significance of the Sibyl’s genealogy was investigated in light of competing genealogies, as well as the role of transmission in establishing authority in Second Temple texts. An exposition of prophetic models places the Sibyl within an established tradition, while simultaneously demonstrating how the sibyllists clarified prohibitions and access to redemption based on their context as Ptolemaic Judaeans. Establishing an authoritative lineage and a clear 100  Ibid., 223. 101  Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 7. 102  Reed, “Gendering Revealed Knowledge?” 6 n. 21. Hamori, “The inclination of the scholar— from the rabbis to now—to ask why Josiah consulted a female prophet reflects the issues of interpreters, and not the text itself.” Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature, 154. See also Wilda Gafney, Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008) 94–102; Lowell Handy, “The Role of Huldah in Josiah’s Cult Reforms,” ZAW 106 (1994): 40–53.

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transmission of knowledge is seen in pseudepigraphal works such as Enoch, Baruch, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and Wisdom of Solomon, which validate their message as a true remnant of Jewish tradition. The concern with transmission of knowledge and the use of traditional prophetic topoi cement the Sibyl’s message within a Jewish framework—not a Greek one, as may be the case if this were an apologetic document.103 This is not to say that the Sibyl is removed from Greek culture. Her reputation as a Greek figure is already established, and Book III’s genealogy is set prior to any significant events related to Sibylline prophecy in Greek cultural history. This allows the sibyllist to propose a corrective to the false genealogies that are circulating. Instead of trying to negate her participation in Greek culture, the issue is relegated to the issue of origins. That way creative energy can be focused on incorporating the Sibyl into Jewish history so she can be a prophetess who speaks with authority to the intersectionality of Hellenistic Jewish identity. Hindy Najman describes how Jewish authors used prophetic models to invent and extend traditions to cope with present realities: Prophecy persists after the destruction of the Second Temple, not only in the transformation of exemplary figures of the past and in the creation of new texts, but also in the erasure of the difference between past and present. Pseudepigraphic texts, such as Jubilees, 1 Enoch, and 4 Ezra, efface their own compositional contexts when they attach their new traditions to a founding figure from the past. In so doing, however, they situate themselves within another context: a perfectionist practice of effacing oneself in order to emulate an exemplary figure. This practice provides a context for overcoming the present period of destruction by expanding the legacy of founders from the past.104 The fact that the sibyllists chose the Sibyl as their medium as their conduit, this voice to function in the past, present, and future indicates they trusted the Sibyl was a symbol capable of speaking from a place of authority in both traditions. The Sibyl, reborn as kin to Noah and inventor of hexameter poetry, was deemed a credible champion for the One True God, a champion strong enough to name greed as the source of systemic oppression and call for the protection of the most vulnerable. 103  The Sibylline Oracles have often been framed as tools for apologetic or proselytizing discourse; see Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, esp. 177; Ciholas, The Omphalos and the Cross, esp. 146. See Introduction fn. 4. 104  Hindy Najman, Past Renewals: Interpretative Authority, Renewed Revelation, and the Quest for Perfection in Jewish Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 242.

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The Sibyl in the Muses’ Bird Cage Strength comes from a strategic positioning in the discourses of a culture, and to produce a strong discourse one must be an acute analyst of intertextuality.1 Jonathan Culler

∵ Discovering the ways in which authors could elicit a response, a memory, or connection without directly quoting or naming referents is the focus of many Hellenistic literary studies. Research has revealed the complexity of Hellenistic literature by acknowledging that authors were well-read and participated in an intellectual milieu that encouraged them to display their knowledge of traditional material—such as Hesiod and Homer—in innovative yet often subtle and sometimes obscure ways.2 James O’Hara’s characterization of Hellenistic poetry is pertinent here: This was poetry of wit, making demands upon the intelligence and learning of the reader in matters mythological, aetiological, and etymological, 1  Jonathan Culler, The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction, augmented ed. (Cornell University Press, 2002), 118. 2  On the complex and competitive nature of Hellenistic Literature: Graham Zanker, Realism in Alexandrian Poetry: A Literature and Its Audience (London: Croom Helm, 1987); David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California, 1991); Gregor Weber, Dichtung und höfische Gesellschaft: Die Rezeption von Zeitgeschichte am Hof der ersten drei Ptolemäer (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1993); Susan A. Stephens, Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Doris Meyer, Inszeniertes Lesevergnügen: Das Inschriftliche Epigramm und seine Rezeption bei Kallimachos (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2005); Kathryn J. Gutzwiller. The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Michael A. Tueller, Look Who’s Talking: Innovations in Voice and Identity in Hellenistic Epigram (Leuven: Peeters, 2008); Benjamin Acosta-Hughes and Susan A. Stephens, eds., Callimachus in Context: From Plato to the Augustan Poets (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Stavrianopoulou, Shifting Social Imaginaries in the Hellenistic Period; Ruth Scodel, Between Orality and Literacy: Communication and Adaptation in Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2014).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004426078_006

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and poetry of irony, in which a simple, at times almost childlike, surface can overlay complex and learned subtexts. The poetry is characterized by attention to geography, ethnography, language, and aetiology, which includes the origins of customs, myths, words, and names.3 This poetry was particularly cultivated in Alexandria which emerged as a center of intellectual activity and led the rise of Homeric scholarship. Poets competed to achieve a reputation that would gain them the financial support of the Ptolemaic court. Timon of Phlius described this competitive environment with sarcastic poignancy: “In Egypt of the many tribes, many bookish scribblers are being fed, endlessly wrangling in the Muses’ birdcage.”4 The poet’s arsenal in this battleground of wits was a mastery of intertextual references. Examining sections of Book III that have traditionally been seen as paraphrases of a lost Archaic Sibyl will uncover how the sibyllist creatively inverted references to Greek literary, mythological, and cultic tradition to present a unique voice rooted in monotheism. Subtle allusions to Homer’s Odyssey and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo demonstrate how the sibyllist challenged Alexandrian Homeric scholarship. With this context in mind, archaic grammatical tendencies employed by the sibyllist can be seen as deliberate inversions to contemporary Hellenistic models. These grammatical preferences offer insight into the level of engagement with and critique of contemporary linguistic trends that help to form an overall sense of the sibyllist’s style. The Judaean sibyllist that emerges is not a passive observer of the Alexandrian scholarly milieu but an active and learned critic. The creativity of the sibyllist reflects a complex hybrid identity that draws inspiration from both Greek and Jewish tradition to form innovative poetry that could hold up to any of the other scribes in the Muses’ birdcage. 1

Intertextuality and Ergänzungsspiel

Hellenistic poets and intellectuals were participating in a book culture for the first time.5 While there was still an element of oral presentation in certain 3  James J. O’Hara, True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay, new & rev. ed. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017), 23. 4  Hugh Lloyd-Jones, et al., Supplementum Hellenisticum (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1983), 786. Πολλοὶ μὲν βόσχονται ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ βιβλιαχοὶ χαραχῖται ἀπείριτα δηριόωντες Μουσέων ἐν ταλάρῳ. On patronage, see Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, v. 1:312–35, 447–79. 5  Peter Bing, The Well-Read Muse: Present and Past in Callimachus and the Hellenistic Poets (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988); Scodel, Between Orality and Literacy.

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contexts, scholars linked with the great libraries and museums of Alexandria and Pergamon were reading and commenting on Homer, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, as well as philosophical and scientific treatises and other traditional texts. Studying literature made them more conscientious writers, and their literature has been mined for its creative use of allusion, etymology, and aetiology. Yet, Hellenistic education was cyclical and focused predominantly on Homer and hexameter poetry, so it should not be assumed that only elites would be able to comprehend Hellenistic poetry. Those armed with the entry level enkyklios paideia would be able to interact with the material at least at a surface level. It is possible that even some of the more obscure references may have come up in uncommon syllable combinations in pronunciation exercises or copying assignments and thus could have triggered a connection to additional layers of reference as well. Hunter points out how intertextuality enabled an engaged experience rooted in collective memory: So it is that Hellenistic elite poetry is intensely intertextual in its constant allusive reference to archaic and classical texts, particularly of course Homer. This is not a matter of setting puzzles for the reader, but of using creatively the most important shared aspect of experience between poet and reader, namely the experience of previous literature.6 Successful Hellenistic poetry was able to reach readers of multiple levels, where one word could offer entry into hidden depths beneath a seemingly calm surface. Jacqueline Klooster frames her work in social scientific theory—particularly Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the field of cultural production—to offer insight into the social aspects of Alexandrian poetry. Bourdieu situates the artist not as the lone genius separate from society but as a participant in a category of life that has rules and interactions where economic stability and societal status are gained through the acquisition of symbolic capital. This iteration needs to be considered in order to understand the artist and art.7 Distinction is a part of cultural capital and thus can be seen as a motivator in the competitive nature of Hellenistic poetry. Gordon L. Fain notes, “Though the poets may not have competed face-to-face, they certainly were well aware of one another’s verses and often wrote poems of a similar nature, turning the epigram of one poet into something different by a procedure that has come to be known by the 6  Hunter, “Literature and its Contents,” 481. 7  Jacqueline Klooster, Poetry as Window and Mirror: Positioning the Poet in Hellenistic Poetry (Leiden: Brill, 2011), see particularly Chapter Five.

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Latin name variatio.”8 With regard to the sibyllist, I see this competitive ethos as inspiration for ways in which the Judaean author creatively engaged with both Greek and Jewish cultural referents. Fain further observes, “This practice of variatio, of taking the themes and motifs of one poem and turning them into something related but different, was an integral part of the attitude of Hellenistic poets toward their tradition.”9 The sibyllist uses intertextual references not only to reflect knowledge of Homer or Homeric Hymns as source texts (or hypotexts as Gérard Gennette would refer to them) but knowledge of the techniques other Hellenistic poets were using to refer to those same texts as well.10 Genette’s famous example of hypertextuality is Vergil’s Aeneid and James Joyce’s Ulysses, which are hypertexts dependent on the hypotext, Homer’s Odyssey.11 Hypertexts can simultaneously refer to multiple hypotexts, which include both ancient as well as more contemporary Hellenistic texts. Genette’s model has been expanded to address how (para)texts relate intertextually to each other, broadening the model to facilitate multiple sources of influence that are simultaneously operative.12 Another aspect of Genette’s model 8  G  ordon L. Fain, Ancient Greek Epigrams: Major Poets in Verse Translation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 18. 9  Fain, Ancient Greek Epigrams, 20–1. 10  French theorist Gérard Genette posits five types of textual relationships: intertextuality, paratextuality, metatextuality, hypertextuality, and architextuality. The following are my summaries of these definitions along with quotes when his definition offers the most succinct wording in Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997). Intertextuality refers broadly to the co-presence of two or more texts or the presence of a text within another text. Paratextuality is introductory material, which influences the direction of the reader. Metatextuality “is the relationship most often labeled ‘commentary.’ It unites a given text to another, of which it speaks without necessarily citing it (without summoning it), in fact sometimes even without naming it” (4). Hypertextuality is when one text (the hypertext) is united with an earlier text (the hypotext), which is associated with concept of writing in the second degree. Lastly, “by architextuality I mean the entire set of general transcendent categories—types of discourses, modes of enunciation, literary genres—from which emerges each singular text” (4–5). Palimpsests refers to texts were the original writing has not been fully erased and can still be seen under the text that has been written over it. 11  Genette, Palimpsests, 356. Hypo- and Hypertexts are also discussed in terms of palimpsests or double reading, where Joyce’s Ulysses can be read as a palimpsest or as a new text superimposed on an older text Homer’s Odyssey. For other discussions on the nature of intertextuality see Robert Young, ed., Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader (London: Routledge, 1981); Jonathan Culler, The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction, augmented ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002). 12  Laura Jansen, The Roman Paratext: Frame, Texts, Readers (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014) and Michele Marrapodi, Shakespeare, Italy and Intertextuality (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004).

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of paratextuality, or hypertextuality, is framed as metaphorically writing in the second degree. For the purpose of this study, the terminology of hypotext will be used when referring to Jewish and Archaic Greek sources upon which the sibyllist is drawing to create the hypertext that is Book III. In addition to traditional literary hypotexts, the sibyllist engages with political, artistic, and social/cultic references to represent a wide range of cultural awareness and critique. Hellenistic poetry has been noted to be self-reflective as poets comment on the role of the poet in society through reference to various traditional models.13 Acosta-Hughes writes that “the study of Hellenistic poetry must take into account concurrent scholarship on the texts of earlier poets themselves, the editing, interpreting, and later reading of one poetic culture by another.”14 This means that it is not only pertinent to see the potential allusion to foundational hypotexts but also the contemporary reception of those texts and the techniques used by other hypertexts of those same hypotexts. I will be following Acosta-Hughes’s lead: “Allusion” being narrowly understood as an author’s conscious evocation of an earlier author as an embellishment or enhancement of his text; “intertext” being narrowly understood as a poem’s interaction with other poems, a rapport of texts as received rather than produced by authors and one that is partly the result of a system of language.15 I use these definitions because they are expansive enough to acknowledge the comprehensive nature of Hellenistic Mediterranean literary trends and to recognize that Judaean writers were insiders within the dominant system of language, Greek. Scholars of Second Temple Judaism have framed the concept of second degree or paratextual literature as a way to update authoritative sacred texts.16 Armin Lange describes how Biblical references were expanded upon to address contemporary issues in order for cultural memory to develop alongside changes in society:

13  Marco Fantuzzi and R.L. Hunter, Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Bing, The Scroll and the Marble. 14   Acosta-Hughes, Arion’s Lyre, 6. 15  Ibid., 6. n. 17. 16  P  hilip S. Alexander, Armin Lange, and Renate Pillinger, In the Second Degree: Paratextual Literature in Ancient near Eastern and Ancient Mediterranean Culture and Its Reflections in Medieval Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2010).

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On the basis of authoritative texts or themes, the authors of paratextual literature employ exegetical techniques to provide answers to questions of their own time, phrased, for example, as answers by God through Moses or the prophets. The result of their exegetical efforts is communicated in the form of a new literary work.17 The issue of pseudepigraphy plays into this discussion of authority and poetic endorsement, and—as discussed in the previous chapter—the Sibyl’s connection to God and ancestral knowledge situates her within the established norms for authenticating Second Temple texts. While Jewish pseudepigraphal literature acts as a conduit for Second Temple writers to prolong the age of prophecy by using figures of authority from the past to offer hope for the future,18 this pseudepigraphal trend was manifest in Greek Hellenistic literature in order to add gravitas to new traditions. Klooster discusses the allure of mythological poets, particularly Orpheus and Daphnis on the Hellenistic poets Theocritus and Apollonius: The openness to interpretation, combined with venerable authority of characters such as Orpheus and Daphnis provided the authors that used them as their models and mirrors with particular possibilities for legitimizing their own poetical choices, inventions, and personae. Crucially, this process permitted them to endow their characters with features that best mirrored their own objectives. This process was enabled by the flexibility of Greek mythological material and the respect the Greeks had for anything ancient. These characters provided the perfect circumstances for the flourishing of “invented tradition,” the anchoring of new poetic practice firmly to a time of venerable mythic origins.19 The Judaean author’s choice of the Sibyl should be seen as operating within this context of extended prophecy as well as re-invented mythic tradition, acknowledging the power of authority in both traditions. The sibyllist is trying to find a balance that appropriates the cultural capital of Greek literature, myth, and politics to maintain and promote monotheistic sensibilities. Hellenistic Jewish writings are not set apart from the rest of the Mediterranean, they are 17  Armin Lange, “In the Second Degree: Ancient Jewish Paratextual Literature in the Context of Graeco-Roman and Ancient New Eastern Literature” in In the Second Degree, eds. Philip S. Alexander, Armin Lange, and Renate Pillinger (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 19–20. 18  Hindy Najman, Past Renewals: Interpretative Authority, Renewed Revelation, and the Quest for Perfection in Jewish Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2010). 19  Klooster, Poetry as Window and Mirror, 112–3.

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another expression of it. Gruen has demonstrated how Hellenistic writers across the Mediterranean invented mythic traditions, foundation narratives, and fictive kinship ties to reflect the lived reality of an intermingled and ever more connected society.20 In addition to Jewish participation in the aforementioned techniques, Gruen has highlighted the use of humor in Hellenistic Jewish literature to aid in the reinvention of Greek tradition as derivative of Jewish culture, thereby enhancing Jewish self-esteem. The use of humor or satire reflects an intricate understanding of the dominant culture, which facilitates a critique of the power dynamics of that culture, usually in the form of a power reversal.21 Judaean writers were free to use (or not use) Greek style, conventions, and references as they saw fit, and the texts we have reflect a range of views on the topic. Gruen’s work has demonstrated that connections are just as important as boundaries and expressing one’s identity in the terms of the dominant culture is not the same as succumbing to that culture; in fact it can generate a reversal where the conquered become the conquerors. This is the perspective that I take when approaching the Sibylline Oracles. This intersects and supports post-colonial theoretical frameworks which highlight intentional hybridity. Pnina Werbner and Tariq Modood exemplify this by incorporating the insights of Mikhail Bakhtin with Homi Bhabha: The point we take from Bakhtin is that all cultures, like languages, are continuously evolving, unconsciously and organically; they are neither bounded nor fixed. At the same time, however, intentional, transgressive, newly created, deliberate and often shocking cultural mixings challenge normative separations or dominant hegemonies and are the grounds for reflexivity and for the public bridging of cultural differences.22 Book III acts as an expression of Jewish creativity, one that envisions a reversal of the world in terms that would resonate with the sibyllist’s hybrid identity, as well as a prime example of how expropriation can be used to express a sense of self-confidence in cultural mores, education, and style.

20  Erich Gruen, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011); The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome v. I–II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), and edited by Erich Gruen, Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2011). 21  Erich Gruen, Constructs of Identity; Diaspora; Heritage and Hellenism. For discussions on the use of humor and satire in Greek and Roman literature, see Ralph Rosen, Making Mockery: The Poetics of Ancient Satire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 22  Werbner and Modood, Debating Cultural Hybridity, xiv.

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The current investigation centers on those passages that have traditionally been viewed as not having a clear Jewish voice. I argue these passages (the Sibyl’s geneaological account, the description of Homer, and the Titanomachy) do in fact engage with the larger monotheistic call of the other passages, but does so in a different style. The sibyllist uses these passages to engage Hellenistic literary trends in the characteristic competitive style of the time, showcasing the sibyllist’s prowess in subtle techniques of intertextual reference. One such technique was rooted in the genre of epigrams. Peter Bing argues that authors led readers to participate in Ergänzungsspiel (the game of imaginative completion) because the lack of context in Hellenistic epigrams invited readers to participate in creative play: The lack elicits a response, which is to use imagination to fill out the picture. In instances when an epigram migrates from one medium into another, the audience’s memory also plays a role: What it knows of contextual history will condition its response.23 This concept of Ergänzungsspiel was first applied to epigrams to describe the shift from being etched on stone and displayed in a particular location in which they were meant to be read, to purely literary representations that referred to images or places that were no longer in front of the viewer, and perhaps never were.24 Ergänzungsspiel has since been used as a technique to address intertextual references within Hellenistic poetry in general, and to discuss the ways in which Hellenistic authors would display their deep knowledge and understanding of Greek epic and other classic (hypo)texts through allusion to literary works or personas not explicitly mentioned in the (hyper)texts.25 Hellenistic literature addressed the issue of audience by expecting a range of readership—from the basic to the sophisticated reader—and 23  Peter Bing, “Between Literature and the Monuments” in Genre in Hellenistic Poetry, eds. Annette Harder, R.F. Regtuit, and G.C. Wakker (Groningen: E. Forsten, 1998), 35. He discusses how this is inspired by Roland Barthes concept in S/Z, trans. Richard Miller (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974) of the ‘writerly’ text where the reader is called upon not only to read or consume the text but to produce it. See Bing, “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus” in The Scroll and the Marble: Studies in Reading and Reception in Hellenistic Poetry (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009). 24  For further a discussion on the interplay between the textual and visual, see Alexandra Pappas, “The Treachery of Verbal Images: Viewing the Greek technopaegnia” in The Muse at Play: Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry, eds. Jan Kwapisz, David Petrain, and Mikolaj Szymanski (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013). 25  Bing calls this is an ‘extended sense’ of Ergänzungsspiel, see Bing, “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus,” esp. 105. See also Klooster, Poetry as Window and Mirror.

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constructed narratives that offered meaning on a wide spectrum.26 Bing argues that the Hellenistic authors asked their readers to “recognize and bring to the text an understanding not just of literary allusions but those to history, geography, medicine, religion, and so on. And this, too, can be considered a type of Ergänzungsspiel.”27 The following will demonstrate how the Sibyl’s genealogy and the Sibylline account of Homer function in light of Ergänzungsspiel. 2

The Sibyl and Odysseus

There have been a growing number of investigations into the relationship of Jewish texts and Homeric scholarship. The Letter of Aristeas is often the center of many of these studies because it offers the legend of the chief librarian Demetrios of Phaleron urging Ptolemy II Philadelphus to translate the Pentateuch into Greek. Seventy-two scholars were commissioned from Jerusalem, six from each of the twelve tribes, and each wrote identical translations verifying the sacred nature of the Septuagint. Dating for the Letter of Aristeas is contested, but a second century BCE date holds some semblance of consensus.28 Sylvie Honigman argues “the role and purpose of B.Ar. was to turn the story of the origins of the LXX into a myth.”29 She discusses the Aristotelian method of close collaboration of scholars in the production of texts in the Athenian schools as the intellectual context influencing the translation project 26  See Meyer, Inzeniertes Lesevergnügen, who discusses how Hellenistic poets were concerned with the act of reading and the reader’s reception of the text. Another source on reading and reception is Bing’s The Scroll and the Marble. See esp. Chapter 8, “Allusion from the Broad, Well-Trodden Street: The Odyssey in Inscribed and Literary Epigram,” 147–74 which discusses expectations and range of literary allusion for the basic to sophisticated reader and uses Callimachus to demonstrate how an author could offer an interactive experience through the discovery of allusions for the sophisticated reader. 27  Bing, “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus,” 105. 28  Elias Bickermann, “Zur Datierung des Pseudo-Aristeas,” ZNW 29 (1930), 280–298. For comprehensive commentary see Benjamin Wright III, The Letter of Aristeas: ‘Aristeas to Philocrates’ or ‘On the Translation of the Law of the Jews’ (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015). Tessa Rajak cautions that a third century date should not be dismissed on the grounds that Demetrius left Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy II alone, since his banishment is based on one source. She posits that it is possible the translation was started under Ptolemy I and Demetrius and completed in Ptolemy II’s reign. This would track the translation project with the development of the Alexandrian library. Tessa Rajak, Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 42–3. 29  Sylvie Honigman, The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria: A Study in the Narrative of the Letter of Aristeas (London: Routledge, 2003), 41.

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articulated in Let. Aris. These arguments and observations can be combined with Maren Niehoff’s picture of Aristarchus’s grammatical enterprise to create a picture of vigorous textual study heavily influenced by Homeric trends in text criticism and Aristotelian pedagogical approaches to proper text handling. Niehoff discusses how the bifurcation of Classics and Jewish Studies left a gap in understanding the potential relationship between Homeric scholarship and the Let. Aris. She states: “If Alexandrian exegesis was at all taken into account, it was characteristically either construed as a derivative phenomenon depending on its counterpart in Jerusalem or dismissed as an alien body of literature, which reflects Greek ideas and anticipates Christianity while failing to resonate in traditional Jewish circles.”30 Both Honigman and Niehoff argue that the use of technical words in relation to translation, editing, and transcription are deliberately ambiguous. Honigman argues this blurring is the result of equating this process of translation with the techniques used on Homer, which entailed first the reading the text and then rendering the correct markings. Niehoff argues that the Let. Aris. was concerned that the Septuagint would be subjected to these current trends in Homeric scholarship, namely text criticism.31 Niehoff contends that the author’s use of technical terminology reflects a conservative stance on how sacred scripture should be handled.32 Analysis of the Let. Aris. has suffered from the same type of arbitrary limits concerning active engagement with wider Greek intellectual trends as Book III. Niehoff clarifies the underlying assumption: The persisting dichotomy of fields seems to be based on an intuition, shared by many, that literal Bible exegesis is quintessentially Jewish and thus incomparable. Some scholars believe that Jews were ‘not infected by this critical spirit’ of Greek scholarship, thus assuming a more fundamental dichotomy between the cultures. On this view, Greeks were concerned with aesthetics, individual expression and literary considerations, which led to scholarship, while Jews and Christians were absorbed in religious thinking, relying on the prophetic inspiration of their Scriptures without producing literary or scholarly works. It is time to reconsider these assumptions and study Alexandrian Bible exegesis in the historical and cultural context of its ancient practitioners. Such an approach requires 30  Maren Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1. 31  Honigman, The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship, 47–8; Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship, 19–20. 32  Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis, 23–5.

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attention to the ancient sources themselves as well as interdisciplinary perspectives.33 The insights of both Honigman and Niehoff set a precedent for the ways select Hellenistic Judaeans were engaging in the larger academic pursuits of the time. My work broadens this picture by focusing on intertextuality and myth rather than on allegorical interpretation, offering an additional set of styles and tactics for such engagement. Klooster has examined how Apollonius and Theocritus referred to the Homeric hapax legomenon ὑποφήτης to express their views on the role of poets; she asserts that “the preoccupation with Homer, Homeric scholarship, and Homeric vocabulary makes it likely that hapax legomena would stand out for learned readers and convey a message best understood against the backdrop of the original passage from which it was taken and the scholarly debate about its interpretation.”34 I argue, the sibyllist used hapax legomenon in this same way in two sections of Book III.35 One of these hapax legomenon—gnostos—is found in the Sibyl’s denial of various Greek genealogies afforded to her in lines 3.814–5, which Collins translates as “some will say that I am Sibylla born of Circe as mother and Gnostos as father, a crazy liar.” The Greek text is as follows: οἳ δέ με Κίρκης μητρὸς καὶ Γνωστοῖο πατρὸς φήσουσι Σίβυλλαν μαινομένην ψεύστειραν· [3.815] Parke considers the reference arbitrary: It looks as though the original Jewish author once more was writing down an arbitrary invention. He knew of Circe as the name of an ancient Greek sorceress, therefore not unsuitable for the Greeks to choose as the mother of the diviner. Gnostos is more mysterious. It is not recognized as a normal proper name. As a common noun it should rather vaguely mean ‘kinsman’ or ‘acquaintance.’ More significantly, perhaps, the closely related form gnostes in the Septuagint would mean ‘soothsayer.’ In any case, whether these are the explanations or not, the names may be taken as the invention of the Jewish author.36 33  Ibid., 13. 34  Klooster, Poetry As Window And Mirror, 213–4. 35  The second use of a hapax legomenon to allude to Homeric scholarship will be discussed in Chapter Five as it is in the context of the Sibylline Titanomachy. 36  Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline, 44.

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Alfons Kurfeß proposed emending the text, because he saw it to be problematic since it had no clear referent. He suggested to read κἀγνώστοιο instead of καὶ Γνωστοῖο.37 κἀγνώστοιο is then in crasis, meaning the kai and the vowel of the next word have elided with agnosto, which typically means “unknown.” Buitenwerf follows this emendation and translates it as: “others will call me raging, lying Sibyl, whose mother is Circe and whose father is unknown”38 Buitenwerf argues that when used as a descriptor of the father as unknown, the Sibyl is made illegitimate, which would be offensive and warrant the Sibyl’s rejection of the proposed genealogy. I agree with Parke that Gnostos is an invention of the sibyllist but, far from being arbitrary, it is an example of Ergänzungsspiel. An allusion to an unnamed figure is a tactic that Bing identifies in Callimachus’s epigrams: “the missing name is clearly an enticement to Ergänzungsspiel.”39 I propose the following, alternate translation: “some will say that I am Sibylla, a raging liar, whose mother is Circe and whose father is well-known.”40 This is a reference to the well-known affair of Odysseus and Circe from the Odyssey Book X. Hesiod mentions it as well and states that Circe bore Odysseus three sons: Agrius, Latinus, and Telegonus.41 I am not arguing for a lost Greek tradition that Circe had a daughter with Odysseus, rather that the sibyllist used knowledge of Greek tradition—which offers precedent for Odysseus and Circe having children— as an opening to make a reference to a well-known figure from Homeric epic. The mentioning of Circe would bring up allusions to the Odyssey and her connection to Odysseus. Odysseus was also known for his crafty nature42 and, 37  A. Kurfeß, ‘Ad Oracula sibyllina’ in Societas Graeco-Latina (Oslo Norway). Symbolae Osloenses (Oslo: In aedibus Some et Sociorum, 1924), v. 18 (1938), 19 (1929), 28 (1950), 29 (1951). See Buitenwerf, 298–99. 38  Buitenwerf, Book III of the Sibylline Oracles and its Social Setting, 246. 39  Bing, “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus,” 100. 40  Gnostos is attested in the New Testament as an adjective; see John 18:15, 16 “the one who was known.” 41  Hesiod, Theog. 1110–1114. Dionysus of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 1.72.5 states that Odysseus had three sons with Circe as well, Romus, Anteias, and Ardeias who founded the cities of Rome, Antium, and Ardea. 42  There are many examples attesting to Odysseus’s reputation, for example: Homer, Il. 3.200–203, describes Odysseus as resourceful, shifty and crafty; Il. 10.246–7, Odysseus as a master deviser; Vergil, Aen. 9 refers to his as a fraud; Ovid, Ars 2.123–4, describes him as a wandering womanizer who used his intelligence to seduce. For a discussion on the changing reception of Odysseus, see Silvia Montiglio, From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011); Louise H. Pratt, Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar: Falsehood and Deception in Archaic Greek Poetics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993).

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while in disguise, he claims to Persephone he is speaking truth while lying (Odyssey, XIX.105–179); thus, the author’s reference to the accusation of the Sibyl as a liar can be seen as an implied familial trait associated with her father, both of which the Sibyl is refuting.43 This idea has precedent in ancient literature. Pindar criticizes Odysseus in Nemean 7: I even suspect that Odysseus’ fame was greater than his worth, through the sweet words of Homer. For in his lies and in his winged devices there is an awesome power: wisdom is deceptive, seducing with its myths, and the masses of mankind have a blind heart, for if they could have seen the truth, powerful Ajax, angered over the armor, would not have plunged the smooth sword into his breast …44 This quote accentuates Odysseus and his reputation for lying and the inti­ mately complex connection wisdom and deception can hold in relation to the truth. As was discussed in Chapter Three, the tension between wisdom and deception is often gendered and acts as one layer of subtext to the Sibyl’s claims to genuine truth as deriving directly from God. If we are to take Kurfeß’s emendation of the text, I still argue Gnostos can be seen as a veiled reference to Odysseus. The argument for the known association of Circe and Odysseus still stands, but the scene from Odyssey Book IX, when Odysseus tells the Cyclops his name is Oudeis—Nobody—can also be added. Using agnostos “unknown” would then act as a subtle allusion to one of the iconic scenes from The Odyssey, often depicted in vase paintings, in addition to one of Odysseus’s goddess lovers. Either way, this can be seen as an example of the sibyllist’s engagement in Greek poetic trends, which will become further evident in the subsequent analysis of Book III’s description of Homer.

43  I would also note that if reading the account aloud, gnostos would sound similar to Gnossus (Κνωσός), the city in Crete that Odysseus tells Penelope he is from when he is disguised as a beggar and lies to her about his whereabouts (Odyssey, 19.179). Word play based on similar sounding words was a common technique in both Classical and Hellenistic poetry; see O’Hara, True Names, esp. 7–42. 44  F rank J. Nisetich, trans., Pindar’s Victory Songs (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 262.

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Reinterpreting the Sibyl’s Description of Homer

Traditionally, verses 401–488 are attributed as borrowed from the Erythraean Sibyl45 and dating is disputed with arguments between the second and first century BCE. Geffcken identifies vss. 388–488 as a paraphrase of Erythraean Sibyl fragments that were added between 146–84 BCE, and Collins dates vss. 350–488 to the first century BCE.46 They represent the same style as the Titanomachy vss. 110–155 and the Sibyl’s genealogical account vss. 809–829 dated to the second century BCE, and—since this section does not refer to any first-century context—it can be seen as also dating to the second century BCE as part of the original stylistic endeavor by the sibyllist (as discussed in Chapter One). Nevertheless, my reading is still valid if it is dated to the first century because, based on stylistic preference, the writer would most likely have been aware of other verses that represented this particular Judaean Sibylline style and modeled after them. Regardless, all verses that show a deeper engagement with Greek cultural/literary referents are seen as in dialogue with one another. The full eighty-seven lines allude to the fall of Troy, discuss Homer and his telling of the Trojan War, list the fates of various nations, relate the origin of Rome, and end with the fall of Carthage. Verses 464–69 and 470 make references to the Roman civil war, a figure identified as Sulla, and potentially should be read in the context of the Mithridatic Wars dating at least those sections to the first century. Collins describes the function of this section within Book III: The oracles in verses 350–480 show no ethical interest. They are presumably inserted to bring Sibylline Oracles 3 up to date and to add to its Sibylline flavor by increasing the prophecies of destruction against particular cities.47 The sibyllist of verses 419–432 presents a confident message that uses Greek tradition against itself, subordinating Homer and subsequently Greek heroes 45  Geffcken, Komposition und Entstehungszeit, 13; Collins, The Sibylline Oracles of Egyptian Judaism, 24 and OTP v.1, 359; Varro (Lactantius, Inst. 1.6) and Pausanias (Descr. 10.2.2) refer to this section; Gruen states that verses 350–80 and 401–488 “need not even be Jewish in origin” in “Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the Third Sibylline Oracle,” 30 and related n. 67. 46  Geffcken, Komposition und Entstehungszeit, 1–17. Collins, The Sibylline Oracles, 21–2, 28. Collins slightly shortens the main body dated to the 2nd century BCE to 97–294 and 545– 808 in his article “The Sibyl and the Potter” in Seers, Sibyls, and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 201. 47  Collins, OTP v.1.359.

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and the pantheon to the Sibyl, the messenger of the one true God. It is a platform to further articulate the credentials of the Sibyl who was witness to the time of the Flood, who witnessed the Trojan War, and whom Homer copied. The Text: 3.419–432: καί τις ψευδογράφος πρέσβυς βροτὸς ἔσσεται αὖτις ψευδόπατρις· δύσει δὲ φάος ἐν ὀπῇσιν ἑῇσιν· νοῦν δὲ πολὺν καὶ ἔπος διανοίαις ἔμμετρον ἕξει, οὐνόμασιν δυσὶ μισγόμενον· Χῖον δὲ καλέσσει αὑτὸν καὶ γράψει τὰ κατ᾽ Ἴλιον, οὐ μὲν ἀληθῶς, ἀλλὰ σοφῶς· ἐπέων γὰρ ἐμῶν μέτρων τε κρατήσει· πρῶτος γὰρ χείρεσσιν ἐμὰς βίβλους ἀναπλώσει· αὐτὸς δ᾽ αὖ μάλα κοσμήσει πολέμοιο κορυστάς, Ἕκτορα Πριαμίδην καὶ Ἀχιλλέα Πηλείωνα τούς τ᾽ ἄλλους, ὁπόσοις πολεμήια ἔργα μέμηλεν. καί γε θεοὺς τούτοισι παρίστασθαί γε ποιήσει, ψευδογραφῶν κατὰ πάντα τρόπον, μέροπας κενοκράνους. καὶ θανέειν μᾶλλον τοῖσιν κλέος ἔσσεται εὐρύ Ἰλίῳ· ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὸς ἀμοιβαῖα δέξεται ἔργα. There will also be again a certain false writer, an old man, of falsified fatherland. The light will go out in his eyes. He will have much intelligence and will have speech well proportioned to his thought, blended under two names. He will call himself a Chian and write the story of Ilium, not truthfully but cleverly. For he will master my words and meters. He will be the first to unfold my books with his hands, but he will especially embellish the helmeted men of war, Hector, son of Priam, and Achilles, son of Peleus, and the others, as many as cared for warlike deeds. He will also make gods to stand by these writing falsely, in every way, about empty-headed men. It will also be great glory for these to die at Ilium, but he himself will also receive appropriate recompense.48 48  Collins, OTP v.1.371–2.

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The Sibyl describes Homer and accuses him of being inspired by her account of the Trojan War, mimicking her style but offering a false narrative that glorifies the men of the war and sets gods alongside heroes on the battlefield. Scholars have questioned whether these verses are paraphrases of a lost Archaic Erythraean Sibyl or an original product of the Judaean author. Parke articulates this bias clearly: For instance in several ancient authorities it is stated that the Sibyl in foretelling the Trojan War also foretold that Homer would write it. In two books of the Oracula Sibyllina (3.414ff; 11.163ff) this exact conjunction of subjects occurs. In both instances much of the style and diction used does not look plausibly as if it was composed before the Hellenistic period at the earliest. But this may only indicate that the Jewish and Christian writers of the extant Sibylline oracles chose to borrow the motif from their classical predecessors, while preferring to reproduce it, not in the original words, but in paraphrase. Perhaps the original version was too obviously pagan in sentiment.49 While it is true that there is nothing on the surface that is overtly Jewish about these verses, this study has questioned preconceptions of Book III to argue for Jewish creativity with regard to classical Greek topoi. Rather than approaching the account as one reflecting a stifled anxiety over Greek religious sentiments, my examination showcases the Judaean sibyllist confidently critiquing larger intellectual and cultural trends and demonstrating how this description fits within the larger monotheistic call of Book III. First, an examination of the texts upon which scholars base the argument that Book III’s account is merely a paraphrase of a lost original will illuminate the creative ingenuity of the text. Varro, Pausanias, and Diodorus Siculus mention that a Sibyl offered an account of the Trojan War. Lactantius (c. 250– c. 325 CE) in his Divine Institutes 1.6.9 quotes Varro (116–27 BCE) who uses Apollodorus of Erythraea as a source for the existence of an Erythraean Sibyl: “the fifth [Sibyl] was from Erythrae, confirmed by Apollodorus of Erythrae as his own fellow-citizen, who foretold to the Greeks as they set out for Ilium both the fall of Troy and Homer’s fictions about it.”50 Lactantius’s quotation of Varro of Apollodorus is suspect, since there is no (extant) reference to Apollodorus 49  Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline, 5. 50  Lactantius Inst. 1.6.9, trans. by Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003), 70. Apollodorus of Erythrae not to be confused with secondcentury BCE Athenian Apollodorus who wrote Library and Epitome.

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of Erythrae elsewhere. Suspicion is compounded by the fact that Varro would have been writing after the composition of Book III, and this quotation is preserved in Lactantius’s Divine Institutes which cites much of Book III, thus both could be reflecting familiarity with the Jewish Sibylline account. Even Parke, who quotes Varro as evidence that the Jewish author borrowed from the Erythraean Sibyl, concedes that “the passage is not likely to have been borrowed word for word from the Erythraean Sibyl, for it is in style and diction rather Hellenistic, while the original Sibylline passage could not have been composed later than in the fourth century.”51 Pausanias the Geographer (c. 110–180 CE) is often cited as evidence that the description of Homer and the Trojan War in Sib. Or. 3.419–32 can be attributed to a lost Archaic Sibyl: Herophile was younger than she was, but nevertheless she too was clearly born before the Trojan war, as she foretold in her oracles that Helen would be brought up in Sparta to be the ruin of Asia and of Europe, and that for her sake the Greeks would capture Troy. The Delians remember also a hymn this woman composed to Apollo. In her poem she calls herself not only Herophile but also Artemis, and the wedded wife of Apollo, saying too sometimes that she is his sister, and sometimes that she is his daughter.52 Homer is not mentioned, but Pausanias does attribute an oracle about Helen and the Trojan War to a Sibyl. The information that we receive from the Varro account, namely that the Sibyl is Erythraean and that there is a description of Homer, are absent from this account. As there is no literary evidence predating the composition of Book III, I argue it is most likely that the Judaean sibyllist may have been inspired by a circulating oral tradition that connected the Sibyl in some way with Troy, such as the one preserved in Pausanias. The resulting oracle in Book III is thus a creative original and reflects the sibyllist’s particular aims of that are rooted in knowledge of Homeric epic and guided by monotheistic sentiment. If the sibyllist was working directly from an older Greek tradition that is no longer extant, it seems unlikely that the details were similar to the account presently found in Book III. If the Archaic Greek Sibyl had said that she was the inventor of hexameter verse, this would likely have been preserved, especially as it would be contrary to tradition. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) states in 51  Park, Sibyls and Sibylline, 44. 52  Pausanias, Descr. 10.12.2. trans. by W.H.S. Jones, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935).

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Poetics, “but above all Homer has taught the other poets how to speak falsehoods, as they should.”53 Aristotle is referring to Homer’s use of the logic of fallacy, setting up a description so the listener believes that if one thing is true, another thing is also true. As Aristotle makes the above statement after discussing how Homer was the first to create complex epic and perfect heroic hexameter,54 it seems logical that if he knew of a tradition in which the Sibyl claimed hexameter as her own invention, this would be mentioned at least in passing to discredit the account. It is therefore highly likely that the claim was original to the Jewish Sibylline account. Diodorus Siculus (c. 90–30 BCE) offers the fullest and most convincing account in his Bibliotheca historica, 4.66.6, where he claims that the daughter of the blind seer from Homeric epic, Teiresias,55 went to Delphi and perfected her knowledge of prophecy: And indeed it was from her poetry, they say, that the poet Homer took many verses which he appropriated as his own and with them adorned his own poesy. And since she was often like one inspired when she delivered oracles, they say that she was also called Sibylla, for to be inspired in one’s tongue is expressed by the word sibyllainein.56 This account aligns most closely with the Sibylline account in that it does feature Homer borrowing verses from a female oracle, but it is not recounted in a negative or accusatory tone as in 3.419–32. Diodorus identifies this oracle as the daughter of Tiresias and then the link to the Sibyl is made, but there is no mention of Erythrae rather she is associated with Delphi. It is likely that the sibyllist was engaging with a similar oral tradition that connected the Sibyl with Troy, but there is no reason to assume that the sibyllist was directly paraphrasing a lost account. An epigram that compares the hexameter verse of the fourth-century BCE poet Erinna to Homer adds another layer of potential inspirational context:

53  Aristotle, Poetics 1460a, trans. W.H. Fyfe, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932). 54  Aristotle, Poet. 1459b. 55  See Teiresias Homer, Od. 11.90 ff. 56  Diodorus Siculus, 4.66.6, The Library of History, trans. C.H. Oldfather, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939): παρ᾽ ἧς φασι καὶ τὸν ποιητὴν Ὅμηρον πολλὰ τῶν ἐπῶν σφετερισάμενον κοσμῆσαι τὴν ἰδίαν ποίησιν. ἐνθεαζούσης δ᾽ αὐτῆς πολλάκις καὶ χρησμοὺς ἀποφαινομένης, φασὶν ἐπικληθῆναι Σίβυλλαν: τὸ γὰρ ἐνθεάζειν κατὰ γλῶτταν ὑπάρχειν σιβυλλαίνειν.

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This is the Lesbian honeycomb of Erinna; and if it be small, well it is all put together from the honey of the Muses. Her three-hundred verses equal Homer—and that for a girl of only nineteen years old. She, the servant of the Muses, stood bound to the spindle and the loom out of fear of her mother. And as much as Sappho surpasses Erinna in melic poetry, so much Erinna surpasses Sappho in hexameters.57 This epigram shows that there is at least one precedent of a female figure being compared to Homer, yet only in the context of praise of talent, not in a competitive sense. In summation, Varro’s quote is suspect as it is the closest to the Sibylline account, but it is also preserved within the context of Lactantius who cites most of Book III. Pausanias discusses a sibyl who made a prophesy about the Trojan War, but makes no mention of Homer or Erythrae. Diodorus Siculus offers the strongest evidence of what an older oral tradition may have consisted of, namely that there was a female sibyl figure who inspired Homer. All textual evidence post-dates Book III, but it is likely that there was an oral tradition of a female oracle who had some connection with Homeric poetry but it was not received as antagonistic or challenging to Homer even when influence on his behalf is acknowledged. Due to the lack of extant references any conclusion is questionable, but I posit that a substantive oracle that featured Homer and the Trojan War—especially one that claimed the Sibyl to be the inventor of hexameter poetry that was circulating in the 5th–3rd centuries BCE—would have elicited passing references in the extant literature engaging with similar themes that has been preserved from those periods. Based on the lack of reference, it is most likely that there was an ambiguous oral tradition, similar to the ambiguity concerning the origin of the Sibyl herself, that allowed an opening for a Judaean sibyllist well-versed in Greek tradition to elaborated on and use as a pointed attack on Homer that suited the needs of further elevating the status of the pseudonym. The fact that the present references date to the first century BCE and later lends credence to the more specific aspects of the tradition being influenced by the work of the Judaean sibyllist who offered a finished form that combined different threads of these traditions within a monotheistic framework that allowed for a combined critique of hero cults and the exalted position of Homer in Greek culture. In comparison, Aristobulus offers a non-competitive framing for his claim that Plato borrowed from Moses: “for he (Plato) was very learned, just as Pythagorus, having borrowed many things in our traditions, found room for them in his own doctrinal 57  Anthologia Graeca 9.190.3, anonymous epigram. Translation from Klooster, Poetry As Window And Mirror, 68.

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system.”58 This claim frames superiority as models that were proved worthy of emulation as opposed to plagiarism, but the result is the dependence of Greek philosophical thought on Mosaic teaching. This demonstrates that the Judaean sibyllist was not alone in this type of sweeping subjugation of Greek cultural trends to Jewish origins, but it also emphasizes the competitive aspect which strongly situates it within Hellenistic poetic discourse. The next section will demonstrate how the Judaean sibyllist used this account to demonstrate familiarity with traditional hexameter models as well to acknowledge the style of allusions typical in Hellenistic poetry. 4

The Sibyl’s Homer and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo

The Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three hexameter poems dating from the seventh-century BCE to the third century BCE.59 Callimachus was known to set many scholarly trends in the Hellenistic literary world, one of which was the preference for short sophisticated poems over lengthy epic style poetry, making the Hymns an appropriate model. Callimachus wrote six of his own hymns modeled upon the Homeric Hymns and the archaic hymns were popular resources for Hellenistic poets.60 The full significance of the Sibyl’s 58  Carl Holladay, Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors v. 3: Aristobulus (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1995), fragment 3a. 150–55, quote 155. Note that fragment 3a opens “And Aristobulus, in his first book addressed to Philometor, writes in these words,” 151. 59   See: Andrew Faulkner, The Homeric Hymns: Interpretative Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) for a collection of essays on the current status of questions and methods concerning the Hymns. Thucydides 3.102, Pindar Pae. 7b = fr. 52h in Herwig Maehler and Bruno Snell. Pindari Carmina Cum Fragmentis, 2 vols. (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1984), and Diodorus Siculus 1.15.7, 3.66.3, 4.2.4 referred to the Hymns and designate them as Homeric or the products of the followers of Homer. They range in date. Those discussed in this chapter have been dated to the Archaic period. See the following for dating and structure of the Hymns: Dorothea Fröhder, Die dichterische Form der Homerischen Hymnen: Untersucht am Typus der mittelgroßen Preislieder (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1994); Barbara Graziosi, Inventing Homer: The Early Reception of the Epic (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Jenny Strauss Clay, The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns, 2nd ed. (London: Bristol Classical, 2006); Richard Janko, Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns: Diachronic Development in Epic Diction (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Nicholas J. Richardson, Three Homeric Hymns: To Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite: Hymns 3, 4, and 5 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 60  For discussions of Apollonius’s, Callimachus’s, and Theocritus’s use of the Homeric hymns as models, see Nicholas J. Richardson, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 68–73; Bing, The Well-Read Muse; Hunter, “Writing the God”; M. Haslam, “Callimachus’ Hymns” in Callimachus eds. Annette Harder, R.F. Regtuit,

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description of Homer has not been fully appreciated because it has not been placed within its Hellenistic literary context. Homer’s ability is acknowledged but subordinated to the Sibyl because he learned and replicated her style to create fallacious epics that focus on heroes and gods. The Sibylline description of Homer should be seen in light of intertextual reference to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo.61 The Homeric Hymn to Apollo would have been part of the standard texts used for inspiration of Hellenistic hexameter poetry.62 It is divided into two parts, the first concerning Apollo and his connection to Delos (3.1–178), and the second with Apollo’s connection to Delphi and the Pythian oracle (3.179– 546). The Delian Hymn to Apollo recounts how Leto wandered and eventually arranged for the founding of the temple of Apollo on Delos, where she then gave birth to Apollo. The Hymn offers the earliest description of Homer as a blind bard from Chios. The reference comes at the conclusion of the Delian section of the Hymn to Apollo, when the poet asks the chorus to tell anyone who asks them who the sweetest singer was to visit the island: You should all answer in unison, ‘He is a blind man and lives in rugged Chios, and all of his songs are best in perpetuity.’ ὑμεῖς δ᾽εὖ μάλα πᾶσαι ὑποκρίνασθαι ἀφήμως: τυφλὸς ἀνήρ, οἰκεῖ δὲ Χίῳ ἔνι παιπαλοέσσῃ τοῦ πᾶσαι μετόπισθεν ἀριστεύουσιν ἀοιδαί.63 Hymn to Apollo, 171–3

and G.C. Wakker (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1993), 111–25; Maria Vamvouri Ruffy, La fabrique du divin: Les hymnes de Callimaque à la lumière des hymnes homériques et des hymnes épigraphiques (Liège: Centre international d’étude de la religion grecque antique, 2004); Acosta-Hughes, Arion’s Lyre. 61  Parke briefly makes a passing statement that the reference to Chios in the Sibylline account alludes to the Delian Hymn to Apollo, but does not offer any analysis. See page 44. 62  See Bing, The Scroll and the Marble, esp. “Impersonation of Voice in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo” and “Callimachus and the Hymn to Demeter.” As well as those sources noted in note above. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo will be discussed below in reference to the Sibyl’s description of Homer. 63  Greek text and translation from Andrew Faulker, “Modern Scholarship on the Homeric Hymns: Foundational Issues” in The Homeric Hymns: Interpretative Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 16. For introduction and commentary on Hymn to Apollo see Andrew M. Miller, From Delos to Delphi: A Literary Study of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (Leiden: Brill, 1986) and Richardson, Three Homeric Hymns.

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Homer’s fame and abilities are being promoted in this request. The Sibylline account acknowledges Homer’s attributes, yet qualifies his talent: There will also be again a certain false writer, an old man, of falsified fatherland. The light will go out in his eyes. He will have much intelligence and will have speech well proportioned to his thought, blended under two names. He will call himself a Chian

420

If we recognize the sibyllist as referring not only to the Hymn to Apollo but also engaging with the genealogical account in 3.809–829, then we see a competition in authority arise in this section of the text. This allusion would indicate that the sibyllist of 3.419–432 was familiar with 3.809–829, and both should be seen as building the reputation of the Sibyl. Callimachus makes intertextual references to his own works; for example, Iambus IV64 can be seen as precedent of a self-referential poetic technique by an author that the sibyllist has used as a model in other verses of Book III. Ronald L. Troxel identifies this selfreferential technique in the LXX Isaiah and places it within the context of the Alexandrian Museum: “Just as Aristarchus practiced interpretation of Homer by Homer, as well as interpreted him in light of the tropes of mythology in general, so the Isaiah translator found a sure guide to meaning by looking to other passages inside and outside Isaiah that contained similar words, phrases, or themes.”65 The Sibyl casts doubt on Homer’s homeland which was done to her in the false lineage attributed by the Greeks. She states that Homer will “write the story of Ilium, not truthfully but cleverly. For he will master my words and meters” (3.423–4). She calls him a liar, an accusation also leveled against the Sibyl in her genealogical description, which she countered by stating not only her relationship to the forefather Noah, but also her status as a prophetess of the One True God. In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, directly after Homer’s claim to fame, he says he will tell everyone about the handmaidens of Delos and his pledge of never ending praise for Apollo, and he will be believed because it is true.66 If we hold both the Hymn to Apollo and the Sibylline genealogical 64   Acosta-Hughes, Polyeideia, 191–2. 65  Ronald L. Troxel, LXX-Isaiah as Translation and Interpretation: The Strategies of the Translator of the Septuagint of Isaiah (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 291. 66  H  ymn to Apollo, 174–78: ἡμεῖς δ᾽ ὑμέτερον κλέος οἴσομεν, ὅσσον ἐπ᾽ αἶαν ἀνθρώπων στρεφόμεσθα πόλεις εὖ ναιεταώσας: οἳ δ᾽ ἐπὶ δὴ πείσονται, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἐτήτυμόν ἐστιν. αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν οὐ λήξω ἑκηβόλον Ἀπόλλωνα ὑμνέων ἀργυρότοξον, ὃν ἠύκομος τέκε Λητώ.

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account in mind, the Sibyl’s accusation against truth can be seen in light of Homer’s source of authority being rooted in Apollo, while hers is rooted in the One True God. Reed highlights a gendered layer to these claims for inspiration: “the Sibyl is here positioned as Homer in inverse, and it is her gender that underlies the inversion at play: she is a woman inspired by a male deity, whereas Homer and his heirs must plea for inspiration, she is depicted as so overflowing with inspired hymns that she pleas instead for rest.”67 Furthermore, Reed states “the Third Sibylline Oracles speaks from a female position so as to remind the hearer/reader that Homer’s own artistry derives from a feminine source (i.e., the Muses by his account, the Sibyl herself by hers).”68 Additionally, I would add that if read in light of the Hymn to Apollo, Homer must not only plea for inspiration but must remain reliant on the chorus to promote his claim as bearer of superior songs. In contrast, the Sibyl does not ask the audience to promote her, but rather trusts that her words and reputation will be proven true on their own through the will of God. The Sibyl continues by attacking Homer’s status as father of Greek Literature; his words and meter are actually hers: He will be the first to unfold my books with his hands, but he will especially embellish the helmeted men of war, Hector, son of Priam, and Achilles, son of Peleus, and the others, as many as cared for warlike deeds. He will also make gods to stand by these writing falsely, in every way, about empty-headed men.  It will also be great glory for these to die at Ilium, but he himself will also receive appropriate recompense.

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It is here that we get to the heart of the criticism. The sibyllist is objecting to the focus on heroes and gods standing alongside human beings in Homeric epic. Hero cults were popular across the Mediterranean, and the sibyllist was criticizing this form of idol worship. Homer received an honored position by offering glory to Apollo, but true glory is only achieved through the One True God. The sibyllist subordinates Greek epic and hero cults to the daughter of Noah.

67  Reed, “Gendering Revealed Knowledge?” 19. 68  Ibid., 20.

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Homer in Art and Cult

Contemporary art can be seen as another layer of influence that may have factored into the sibyllist’s motivation for a confrontation with Homer. The ancient world was steeped in images, where myth, history, politics, and cult were interwoven and enacted in a participatory culture. Diodorus (17.52.3) and Strabo (17.1.7–10) describe Alexandria as full of many temples dedicated to the royal cults and the gods. Archaeological finds have confirmed the continued temple building and expansion programs and the presence of colossal statuary in Alexandria as well as other Egyptian centers in the second-century BCE at the time of these sections of Book III.69 Art and architecture were used to solidify links to the past, present, and future that reflected and reinforced the invented mythic traditions, foundation narratives, and fictive kinship ties seen in the literature of the period. Judaean authors would have been immersed in this visual imagery even though they were not worshipping in pagan temples, because it was pervasive in all aspects of life. Art and architecture should then be seen as primary sources to be mined for intercultural references that influence literary depictions, not just the other way around. The Alexandrian marble relief by Archelaus of Priene dated to the thirdcentury BCE may have had prompted a reaction from a Judaean intellectual (see Appendix 2). Called the Apotheosis of Homer, the first tier depicts the poet seated on a throne, behind him Oikoumene (world) and Chronos (time); his two epics the Iliad and the Odyssey are personified and support his throne. On the left of the altar is Myth, and on the right of the altar are History, Poetry, Tragedy, Comedy, Nature, Virtue, Memory, Good Faith, and Wisdom; the names are inscribed below the figures. The second tier features the Muses, and the third tier features Zeus. Oikoumene and Chronos, who stand behind 69  For discussion of the building programs of the Ptolemaic period, colossal statuary, and the melding of Greek and Egyptian style in Ptolemaic portraiture, see Paul Edmund Stanwick, Portraits of the Ptolemies: Greek Kings as Egyptian Pharaohs (Austin: University of Texas, 2002); Judith McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt 300 BC–AD 700 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010); and Hölbl, A History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 160–78, 257–67. Examples of contemporary colossal granite statues, of particular interest are the colossal faces of Ptolemy VI Bloomington Indian University Art Museum 62.225 and Alexandria Greco-Roman Museum 3511; see Stanwick, Portraits of the Ptolemies, 70–1, 111; fragmentary over life-size limestone statue of Cleopatra II from Karnak/Thebes in front of the Amun temple’s first pylon with single column of hieroglyphs on back pillar listing the royal names and title of Cleopatra II, preserved in two pieces: Abdomen and thighs = Karnak 177 (Caracol R177) + Head/Torso = Cheikh Labib 94CL1421, and over life-size torso inscribed with the cartouches of Ptolemy VI from Karnak: Cairo JE 41218, see Stanwick, Portraits of the Ptolemies, 10, 24–5, 108–9.

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Homer have been identified by their royal diadems as Ptolemy IV Philopator and Queen Arsinoe III. Lucilla Burn describes the meaning of the relief: The literary, allegorical ‘meaning’ of the relief is made clear by the arrangement of the figures and by their identities, as revealed through inscriptions. Poetic inspiration comes from Zeus (who in some Hellenistic philosophies was equated with ‘the universe’) and is sent down, via Memory and the nine Muses, to mankind. The universal and everlasting poet will always be Homer—hence his crowning by the Inhabited World and Time—and at his altar all other forms of Poetry must sacrifice; through poetry Mankind (or Human Nature) acquires all its most noble qualities. In poetic terms Homer is both a god and the guiding ancestor of the victorious poet.70 The procession of genres approaching the altar in the Apotheosis are believed to represent worshippers of the hero shrine to Homer, or the Homereion, in Alexandria created by Ptolemy IV Philopator. There is an epigram that refers to Ptolemy IV’s dedication of the Homereion, confirming its existence.71 Aelian (Var. hist. 13.22) mentions that Philopator built a Temple to Homer that housed images of Homer and that Galaton the painter drew Homer vomiting with poets gathering it up, as he is the source of all inspiration.72 Sometime in the second to first century BCE, an exedra (semi-circular recess) was built into the dromos (processional avenue) of the Serapeum in Memphis, which was decorated with statues of Greek poets and philosophers, with Homer seated at its center.73 It is debatable whether or not this should be taken as evidence that Homer was worshipped as a god or in the manner of the hero cults, but he was clearly venerated as a divinely inspired bard and forefather of literature. Strabo (Geogr. 14.1.37) describes a Homereion with a shrine and wooden statue of Homer in Smyrna. Bronze coins featuring Homer’s image also offer precedence for Homer as a focus of cultic worship. In addition, Plutarch recounts a dream 70  Lucilla Burn, Hellenistic Art: From Alexander the Great to Augustus (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2004), 136. See also Pollitt, Hellenistic Age, 16. 71  P.Cair. 65445 line 140–54 = Un livre d’écolier du IIII siècle avant J.C., eds. O. Guéraud and P. Jouguet (Cairo: Société Royale Égyptienne de Papyrologie, 1938), 20–4, pl. 5. See also McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, 61. 72  This passage can be seen as written with the same sarcastic spirit as in Timon of Phlius’s critique of the poets in the Muses bird cage. The pertinence rests in the supposition that it would be common knowledge that there was indeed a Temple in which a painting could be dedicated to Homer. 73  McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, 119–20. The other statues included Pindar, Hesiod, Protagoras, Thales, Heraclitus, and Plato.

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of Alexander the Great where an old man recited lines to him from the Odyssey, leading Alexander to build at Pharos, thus founding the city of Alexandria. Andrew Erskine writes that “Homer’s role in the foundation story may have been a consequence of the emergence of a cult of Homer in Alexandria, an etiological myth for the cult as well as the city.”74 In light of contemporary etiological myths circulating for this purpose across the Mediterranean, this does seem a likely possibility.75 Roman copies survive of lost Hellenistic marble busts of Homer called the Hellenistic blind-type which were dated from the second-century BCE.76 Pliny the Elder (Nat. 4.5.2) said that the original was created for the Pergamon Library. The style parallels that of the Pergamon Altar, which corroborates this statement. As the competition between the Pergamon Library and the Library of Alexandria was infamous, it is likely that if there was a bust of Homer in Pergamon: there may also have been one in Alexandra. While a bust of blind Homer may have aided in the inspiration of the description of Homer, it was by no means necessary since it was common knowledge that Homer was blind. In addition, the 2nd century BCE (175–125 BCE) offers examples of Homeric bowls that not only have scenes from Iliad and Odyssey, but that also have quotations from the epics.77 The popularity of these items should be seen within the context of Homeric scholarship and Ergänzungsspiel. Burn states: An interest in (sometimes quite obscure) literary history and scholarship is one theme that can be detected in some forms of Hellenistic art … it can appear as though the desire to show—or cater for—erudition outweighs all other considerations, as is the case, for example with the socalled ‘Homeric bowls.’78 74  Andrew Erskine, “Founding Alexandria in the Alexandrian Imagination” in Belonging and Isolation in the Hellenistic World, eds. Sheila Ager and Riemer Faber (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 176. Plutarch, Life of Alexander, 26. 75  Filippo Battistoni, “Rome, Kinship, and Diplomacy” in Diplomats and Diplomacy in the Roman World, ed. Claude Eilers (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 73–97; Erich S. Gruen, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 6–51. The Troy/Rome connection will be discussed in Chapter Five. 76  See British Museum, Sculpture # 1825, Townley Collection Room 22: Alexander the Great. Other examples can be found at the Louvre, MR 530, Salle des Caryatides Room 17 and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MFA # 119, Henry Lillie Pierce Fund, Greek Archaic Gallery 113. For introduction to the pieces discussed in this section, see John Griffiths Pedley, Greek Art and Archaeology, 5th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2012); J.J. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986); and John Onians, Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age: The Greek World View 350–50 BC (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979). 77  Pollitt, Hellenistic Age, 196, 200–2. 78  Burn, Hellenistic Art, 132.

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This example of the pervasive nature of the Hellenistic style of subtle intertextual reference is not confined to the literary world, but it is reflected in the visual world as well, each environment breeding new forms of expression of Homeric epic. This trend continues with the Tabulae Iliacae or Trojan tablets. Scholars debate whether these tablets should be dated to the 1st century BCE or 1st century CE. They depict episodes of the Trojan War in strips of scenes, almost like a comic strip, and have accompanying text. Burn argues that “in a Hellenistic context, they offer further evidence for the tendency of some artists and craftsmen to blur the boundaries between visual arts and literary learning.”79 Homer’s presence in art and cult as well as his position as the critical focus of poetic scholarship may have added another layer of motivation to the Judaean author’s desire to subordinate the poet to the Sibyl. If Homer was being venerated ritually, then the Sibylline description of Homer would be working in essence as a euhemeristic account, bringing Homer back to the mortal realm. The sibyllist accomplished this by bringing core associations into question and by claiming hegemony over hexameters. 6

Grammatical Subversion

Several studies have focused on the similarities in Alexandrian Homeric commentary with Hellenistic Jewish and Rabbinic biblical commentary, especially with regard to editing techniques in the Homeric scholia and the correspondence between vocabulary and sign systems to indicate textual problems.80 These studies have focused on the shared technical processes for Homeric and biblical texts to be analyzed for textual emendations, and how discrepancies were noted in attempts to create authoritative versions of texts in addition to the impact of this activity on the canonization process. These studies, many spearheaded by Maren Niehoff, are invaluable in demonstrating that biblical exegesis, textual criticism, and commentary did not develop in a bubble, and 79  Burn, Hellenistic Art, 135. See also Pollitt, Hellenistic Age, 202–3 and 185–6 and 209 for discussion of Odyssey landscapes. 80  Maren Niehoff, ed., Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters (Leiden: Brill, 2012); “Commentary Culture in the Land of Israel from an Alexandrian Perspective,” Dead Sea Discoveries 19 (2012): 442–63; Margalit Finkelberg and Guy Stroumsa, eds., Homer, the Bible and Beyond: Literary and Religious Canons in the Ancient World (Leiden: Brill, 2003). For information on the scholia and its influence on other writings see, Franco Montanari and Lara Pagani, eds., From Scholars to Scholia: Chapters in the History of Ancient Greek Scholarship (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011); Eleanor Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Robin R. Schlunk, The Homeric Scholia and the Aeneid: A Study of the Influence of Ancient Homeric Literary Criticism on Vergil (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974).

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“Jewish scholars were familiar with academic methods developed and discussed at the Museum.”81 This study expands the sphere of interest, engagement, and influence of text critical techniques to include an assessment of how Jewish authors’ attention to Homeric and Hellenistic grammatical tendencies could be viewed as an act of commentary. I have argued throughout this investigation that the authors of Book III were drawing inspiration from both Jewish and Greek models and that the grammatical style of Book III reinforces this inspiration as a conscious decision. If we consider that the sibyllists were well acquainted with Homeric style as well as the Hellenistic interpretations of those models, we can take grammatical irregularities as the authors’ conscious decisions, examples of how they differentiated themselves from other Hellenistic poets. Lightfoot uses Eduard Norden’s views of form and style as a template and discusses how the Sibyl uses participial and relative predication in describing God: When the predicate takes the form of a participle, a style used in both classical paganism and in the eastern religions, Norden finds that the latter use the definite article and the former do not. But when the Sibyl turns out to use both, it is hard to know whether this is just a matter of hexameter idiom, or really does indicate that she has a foot in both camps.82 In the context of this investigation, this grammatical abnormality appears more significant. Just as I have offered examples where the sibyllist addressed concerns of both Greek and Jewish tradition simultaneously, this grammatical decision would be a nod to both Greek and Near Eastern traditional literary techniques. There are two types of hexameter verse, epic and oracular, and scholars have pointed out that Sibylline metrical irregularities fall into regular patterns.83 81  Maren Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 13. 82  Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 32. 83  See grammatical investigations by Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 153–242; Jesús-María Nieto Ibáñez, El hexámetro de los Oráculos Sibilinos, Classical and Byzantine Monographs (Amsterdam: A.M. Hakkert, 1992); which is based on the earlier work of C.H.A. Ludwich, Aristarchs homerische Textkritik II (Leipzig 1884–5) and De hexametris poetarum Graecorum spondaicis (Leipzig 1866). J. La Roche, “Untersuchungen über den Vers bei Hesiod und in den homerischen Hymnen,” WSt 20 (1898): 70–90; “Zahlenverhältnisse im homerischen Vers,” WSt 20 (1898): 1–69; “Der Hexameter bei Apollonios, Aratos und Kallimachos,” WSt 21 (1899): 161–97; “Zur Verstechnik des Nonnos,” WSt 22 (1900): 194–221; “Zur Prosodik und Metrik der späteren Epiker,” WSt 22 (1900): 35–55.

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These irregularities show that the Sibylline Oracles deviate from Hellenistic trends of hexameter poetry. The Sibyl has a high number of hexametrical schemes,84 contra the Hellenistic literary trend of reducing these schemes dramatically in comparison to Homer with a maximum of possible schemes being thirty-two. The Sibylline Oracles have a higher proportion of spondees to dactyls than Homer, which is irregular, since the trend in hexameter poetry was for the number of spondees to decrease after Homer. Jesús-María Nieto Ibáñez notes that Theocritus also chose to move against the Hellenistic trend, offering a higher number of spondees, which Nieto Ibáñez interprets as innovative.85 Nieto Ibáñez posits that the average number of spondees in the Sibylline corpus totals 27.6%, and Fernandez Delgado gives an estimate at 28.7%, which in comparison to the Delphic corpus is 27.4% and 26% in Homer.86 Lightfoot states that “a final example of [the Sibyl’s] proximity to the archaic hexameter is that she still has a small percentage of lines with no third-foot caesura, resulting in a distinctive rhythm that the Callimachean hexameter eliminates.”87 These three grammatical choices either follow or exceed the Homeric model, whereas the Hellenistic trend has gone in the opposite direction. The sibyllists intentionally reject Hellenistic stylistic conventions, which can be seen as a challenge to Alexandrian Homeric scholarship and poetic reception. The sibyllist of the oldest stratum of Book III established a precedent to work in an excessively archaic style, a statement that would not be missed on a reader who was trained in both traditional Homeric texts as well as Hellenistic poetry. In this way, the sibyllist was not only parading a superior knowledge of archaic hexameter but also playing with the parameters that Hellenistic poets such as Callimachus had set as the new standard in hexameter poetry. In keeping with an archaic style, and in some instances employing a hyper-archaic 84  Most common patterns are: dsddd (13.3%), ddddd (13.1%), sdddd (10.7%), dddsd (7.8%), ssddd (7.1%), dsdsd (6.7%), ddsdd (5.8%), Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 155 n. 11, this is a corrective to Nieto Ibáñez, El hexámetro de los Oráculos Sibilinos, 217–22. 85   Jesús-María Nieto Ibáñez, “Estudio estadístico del hexámetro de los oráculos de Delfos,” RIS 25 (1989): 139–55. “Por su parte, Teócrito toma una posición muy personal frente a las tendencias helenísticas, ya que se comporta de forma anacrónica en lo que se refiere a la proporción de espondeos, y, en cambio, se presenta como innovador en algunos puntos,” 151. 86  Nieto Ibáñez, El hexámetro de los Oráculos Sibilinos, 239–48; J.A. Fernández Delgado, Los oráculos y Hesíodo: Poesía oral mántica y gnómica griegas (Cáceres, España: Universidad de Extremadura, 1986), esp. 35. See also Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 155. A. Rzach studied short syllables being lengthened and shows that such lengthening is most common in the Sibylline corpus in “Neue Beiträge zur Technik des nachhomerischen Hexameters,” SBWien, Phil.hist. Klasse, 100 (1882): 307–432. 87  Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 155–6.

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style, the author also presents the Sibyl as a consistent persona, because it is impossible to get more archaic than her style. She was there at the times of the Flood, she was the witness to the Trojan War, and Homer clearly imitates her hexameter. 7 Conclusion Regarding Hellenistic poetry, Klooster writes: “No longer victim to reductive attempts at Quellenforschung, allusion and intertextuality are now recognized as aesthetic ideals in their own right and form a topic that receives scholarly comment as a matter of course.”88 My analysis has offered examples of Ergänzungsspiel, establishing a precedent for the sibyllist’s engagement with the stylistic trends in Hellenistic literature. The subordination of Homer is a claim to the superiority of the sibyllist’s creation, which evokes roughly contemporaneous Jewish sources such as Aristobulus (who claimed that Plato and Pythagorus imitated the Pentateuch) or Artapanus (who presented Abraham, Joseph, and Moses as Hellenistic champions that promoted Egypt’s cultural growth and economic security with inventions such as astrology and measurements).89 These texts demonstrate that the sibyllist was one of many Judaean writers expressing their perspective on the intimate relationship of Jewish and Greek traditions. Aristobulus, Aristeas, and Artapanus present borrowing from Jewish tradition or learning from Jewish patriarchs in a way that reflects commonality, either of ideas or of a common history, claiming implicitly or explicitly that the best aspects of Greek tradition are, therefore, derivative of that interaction. Book III, however, presents Homer’s use of the Sibyl’s hexameter to focus on heroes and the Olympian gods, which act as part of the foundation of Greek ritual and cultic life, as a distortion. This stance may initially seem to promote antagonism as opposed to commonality but, when contextualized within the larger monotheistic focus of Book III, it emerges as an extension to the call for redemption of lost kin. The Sibyl consistently provides a stern voice to Greeks whom she has told can be saved in the coming judgment of the One True God, but only if they abandon idol worship. While verses 419– 432 does not hold specific references to Jewish law or patriarchs, the sibyllist reflects a stance of commonality from the perspective of a reprimanding elder 88  Klooster, Poetry as Window and Mirror, 5. 89  Aristobulus fragment 3, preserved in Eusebius, Praep. ev. 13.12.1f, see Adela Yarbro Collins, “Aristobulus” in OTP 2.831–842. See information and sources on the Letter of Aristeas above and John J. Collins, “Artapanus” in OTP 2.889–903.

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to misguided pupils who have put their faith in Homer, by clarifying the identity of the true poet/prophet they are redirected to the One True God. The challenge to Homer then exemplifies the sibyllist’s insider status as one who can extend a monotheistic call that is not restricted to Jewish referents, but rather one that can simultaneously offer a confident rebuke and implicit offer of redemption fully expressed within the realm of Greek referents. Broadening the scope of pseudepigraphal studies, and taking into consideration the parallel work being done in Classics, confirms that Jewish literary trends were not taking place within an insular bubble, but they were participating within a larger linguistic movement. The Judaean author’s sophisticated use of the Sibyl to challenge and conquer the founder of Greek epic tradition is a statement that reflects confidence within the intellectual competition that was common practice in the Alexandrian school.

chapter 5

The Sibylline Titan Account as Multi-Layered Commentary Nothing comes from nothing, Thieflet; no story comes from nowhere; new stories are born from old—it is the new combination that makes them new. Salman Rushdie1

∵ The Sibylline Titan account is an example of second-degree literature, in that it is a hypertext of two hypotexts: Hesiod’s Theogony and Euhemerus’s Sacred Record. While the hypertext is dependent on the hypotext, it is not limited by it. The Sibylline Titan account offers a version of the Greek struggle for power amongst the Titans (the primordial, chthonic deities now depicted as the first of articulate humanity). Framing the Sibylline Titan account as an example of second degree literature orients the text as participating within a preexisting set of literary allusions, while highlighting how those linguistic cues are being transformed. Lange writes that second degree literature “allows for a re-appropriation of authoritative texts by a changed culture and realigns its textual traditions with its new cultural realities.”2 Words, names, activities, and geographic locations have the power to evoke multiple associations and memories simultaneously in the reader, adding depth and resulting in a multilayered text. The significance of the Sibylline Titan account lies in allusions the Judaean sibyllist made to literature, politics, and geography that are affiliated with major themes in Greek myth and cult, in addition to biblical figures. The relationship between hypertext and hypotext does not require a one-toone equation that can be applied to interpret the whole work. This lack of one-to-one relationship allows for a wider landscape in which to search for multiple signs of resonance from a variety of perspectives, none of which are

1  Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (New York: Granta Books, 1990), 86. 2  Lange, “In the Second Degree,” 28.

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mutually exclusive. By exploring the author’s creative choices in the text below, I contend that the Titan myth offered a narrative structure that made it an appropriate conduit for the sibyllist to confidently subordinate and invert intertextual and intercultural allusions as well as to provide a coded commentary on contemporary second-century political events in Egypt through sophisticated humor and poetic cunning. The Text: 3.110–155: καì βασίλευσε Κρόνος καì Τιτàν ’Ιαπετός τε, Γαίης τέκνα φέριστα καì Οὐρανοũ, οὒς έκάλεσσαν ἄνθρωποι γαῖάν τε καὶ οὐρανόν, οὔνομα θέντες, οὕνεκά τοι πρώτιστοι ἔσαν μερόπων ἀνθρώπων. τρισσαὶ δὴ μερίδες γαίης κατὰ κλῆρον ἑκάστου, καὶ βασίλευσεν ἕκαστος ἕχων μέρος οὐδ᾽ἐμάχοντο· ὅρκοι γάρ τ᾽ ἐγένοντο πατρὸς μερίδες τε δίκαιαι. τηνίκα δὴ πατρὸς τέλεος χρόνος ἵκετο γήρως καί ῥ᾽ ἔθανεν· καὶ παῖδες ὑπερβασίην ὅρκοισιν δεινὴν ποιήσαντες ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλους ἔριν ὦρσαν, ὃς πάντεσσι βροτοῖσιν ἔχων βασιληίδα τιμήν ἄρξει· καὶ μαχέσαντο Κρόνος Τιτάν τε πρὸς αὐτούς. Τοὺς δὲ Ῥέη καὶ Γαῖα φιλοστέφανός τ᾽ Ἀφροδίτη Δημήτηρ Ἑστίη τε εὐπλόκαμός τε Διώνη ἤγαγον ἐς φιλίην συναγείρασαι βασιλῆας πάντας ἀδελφειούς τε συναίμους ἠδὲ καὶ ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους, οἵ τ᾽ ἦσαν ἀφ᾽ αἵματος ἠδὲ τοκήων· καὶ κρῖναν βασιλῆα Κρόνον πάντων βασιλεύειν, οὕνεκά τοι πρέσβιστος ἔην καὶ εἶδος ἄριστος. ὅρκους δ᾽αὖτε Κρόνῳ μεγάλους Τιτὰν ἐπέθηκεν, μὴ θρέψ᾽ ἀρσενικῶν παίδων γένος, ὡς βασιλεύσῃ αὐτός, ὅταν γῆράς τε Κρόνῳ καὶ μοῖρα πέληται. ὁππότε κεν δὲ Ῥέη τίκτῃ, παρὰ τήνδ’ ἐκάθηντο Τιτῆνες καὶ τέκνα διέσπων ἄρσενα πάντα, θήλεα δὲ ζώοντ᾽ εἴων παρὰ μητρὶ τρέφεσθαι. ἀλλ᾽ὅτε τὴν τριτάτην γενεῇ τέκε πότνια Ῥείη τίχθ᾽ Ἥρην πρώτην· καὶ ἐπεὶ ἴδον ὀφθαλμοῖσιν θῆλυ γένος, ᾤχοντο πρὸς αὐτοὺς ἄγριοι ἄνδρες Τιτῆνες. καὶ ἔπειτα Ῥέη τέκεν ἄρσενα παῖδα, τὸν ταχέως διέπεμψε λάθρη ἰδίῃ τε τρέφεσθαι ἐς Φρυγίην τρεῖς ἄνδρας ἐνόρκους Κρῆτας ἑλοῦσα·

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τοὔνεκά τοι Δί᾽ ἐπωνομάσανθ᾽, ὁτιὴ διεπέμφθη. Ὤς δ᾽αὔτως διέπεμψε Ποσειδάωνα λαθραίως. τὸ τρίτον αὖ Πλούτωνα Ῥέη τέκε δῖα γυναικῶν Δωδώνην παριοῦσα, ὅθεν ῥέεν ὑγρὰ κέλευθα Εὐρωποῦ ποταμοῖο καὶ εἰς ἅλα μύρατο ὕδωρ ἄμμιγα Πηνειῷ, καί μιν στύγιον καλέουσιν. ἡνίκα δ᾽ἤκουσαν Τιτῆνες παῖδας ἐόντας λάθριον, οὓς ἔσπειρε Κρόνος Ῥείη τε σύνευνος, ἑξήκοντα δέ τοι παῖδας συναγείρατο Τιτάν καί ῥ᾽ εἶχ᾽ ἐν δεσμοῖσι Κρόνον Ῥείην τε σύνευνον, κρύψεν δ᾽ ὲν γαίῃ καὶ ἐν ζωσμοῖς ἐφύλασσεν. Καὶ τότε δή μιν ἄκουσαν υἱοὶ κρατεροῖο Κρόνοιο καί οἱ ἐπήγειραν πόλεμον μέγαν ἠδὲ κυδοιμόν. αὕτη δ᾽ἔστ᾽ἀρχὴ πολέμου πάντεσσι βροτοῖσιν. πρώτη γάρ τε βροτοῖς αὕτη πολέμοιο καταρχή.

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Kronos and Titan and Iapetus reigned, 110 the best children of Gaia and Ouranos, whom men called earth and heaven, giving them a name because they were the first of articulate men. The portions of the earth were threefold, according to the lot of each and each one reigned, having his share, and they did not fight 115 for there were oaths imposed by their father, and the divisions were just. When the full time, the old age of the father, came, he also died, and the sons made a dire transgression of oaths and stirred up strife against each other as to who should have royal honor and reign over all men. 120 Kronos and Titan fought against each other but Rhea, Gaia, Aphrodite who loves crowns, Demeter, Hestia, and the fair-tressed Dione brought them to friendship, having assembled all the kings, kindred and brothers, and other men 125 who were of the same blood and parents. And they chose Kronos king to rule over all because he was the eldest and the best in appearance. But Titan, for his part, imposed great oaths on Kronos that he should not rear a family of male children, so that 130 he himself might reign when old age and fate came upon Kronos. Whenever Rhea gave birth, the Titans sat by her,

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and they tore apart all male children, but they allowed the females to live and be reared with their mother. But when Lady Rhea gave birth in the third child-bearing135 she brought forth Hera first. When they saw with their eyes the female species, the Titans, savage men, went home. Then Rhea bore a male child, whom she quickly sent away to be reared secretly and in private, to Phrygia, having taken three Cretan men under oath. 140 Therefore they named him Zeus, because he was sent away. Similarly she sent away Poseidon secretly. Further, the third time, Rhea, marvel of women, bore Pluto as she went past Dodona, whence the watery paths of the river Europus flowed and the water ran to the sea 145 mingled with the Peneius, and they called it Stygian. When the Titans heard that children existed in secret, whom Kronos had begotten with Rhea, his consort, Titan assembled sixty sons 150 and held Kronos and Rhea, his consort, in fetters. He hid them in the earth and guarded them in bonds. Then indeed the sons of mighty Kronos heard it and they stirred up great war and din of battle against him. This is the beginning of war for all mortals for this is the first beginning of war for mortals.3155 1

Traditional Reception of the Sibylline Titan Account

Rather than approaching Book III as a juncture or a common point of interest, scholars have dissected, divided, and presented it as a Jewish text with fragments of Greek tradition that were added for the purpose of appearing to be something it was not—namely, Greek. The chthonic deities of Greek mythology are reassigned to the realm of mortal kingship in the Sibylline Titan account in lines 3.110–155. This account, if mentioned, is often understood to validate the Sibyl as pseudonym, a novelty to help Book III appear more Greek. Following Geffcken’s identification of Erythraean Sibyl fragments, Parke argued that the presence of a theogony in Book III was evidence that an older Archaic Greek 3  Collins, OTP v.1.364–5.

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Sibylline corpus contained such an account (which the later Judaean sibyllist paraphrased) and Paul Ciholas claims that the Titan account is “part of the rare excerpts that have survived from the original pagan material.”4 No ancient sources prior to the 2nd century BCE mention such an account, and there is no evidence that the Archaic Greek Sibyl had need of such a convention. In response to Parke’s suggestion, Collins argues: By incorporating a Hesiod-like passage, the Jewish sibyllist strengthened his credentials as a witness to the Greek world, and disguised his Jewish identity. It is not necessary to infer that a theogony was a standard element in sibylline prophecy.5 Collins offers a corrective to the assumption that there was an Archaic Greek Sibylline model for this account; yet he still assesses the function of the narrative as primarily a tactic for stylistic legitimacy. For Collins, eschatological elements are the heart of Book III. He comments that this narrative “prepares for the predominant concern of the rest of the book with the final, eschatological kingdom. Such a passage is introductory to the main interest of Sib. III and therefore we do not find any parallel to it later.”6 The passage is effectively relegated to a stylized introduction. Book III as a whole has an eschatological focus, but this passage offers insight into the intellectual influences of the Judaean author that go beyond a beginning to a book concerned with endings. Nieto Ibáñez sees the Sibylline Titan account as a literary device used to establish authority as well but argues that the characters in the narrative are meant to evoke the biblical story of Noah for the purpose of propagating the principles of Judaism.7 Concerning the dating of the account, Potter asserts that Book III “contains some Ptolemaic material and some that can be dated to the period after Actium, as well as some matter—such as an extraordinary account of the war between the gods and the Titans (3.105–55) and numerous prophecies against various nations—which cannot be dated with any hope of precision.”8 4  Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity, 11; Ciholas, The Omphalos and the Cross, 156. 5  Collins, “Jewish Transformation of Sibylline Oracles,” 191. 6  Collins, Sibylline Oracles of Egyptian Judaism, 26. 7  Jesús-María Nieto Ibáñez, “Los titanes y Noé: un ejemplo del sincretismo cultural de la comunidad judía de Alejandría,” Cuadernos de Filología Clásica (Estudios griegos e indoeuropeos), n.s. 1 (1991): 95–106. 8  D.S. Potter, Prophecy and History in the Crisis of the Roman Empire: A Historical Commentary on the Thirteenth Sibylline Oracle (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 97.

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The Sibylline Titan account has been consigned to ambivalence. On the one hand, it is acknowledged as being unique and, on the other, it is dismissed as anomalous and thus largely inconsequential. The sibyllist chose the Titan account specifically because certain changes to the hypotexts had the potential to offer multiple layers of allusion that range from contemporary political events to critique of traditional Greek myth and cult. These allusions illuminate the function and presence of the account in Book III as well as offering an example of Hellenistic Judaean social commentary. 2

Hesiod, Callimachus, Genesis, and Jubilees

Hesiod’s Theogony, which dates to the mid-eighth century BCE, acts as a cosmology, since the creation of the gods also functions as the creation of the universe. Hesiod begins the text with a creation story, an invocation to the Muses comprised of a series of genealogies (which are primarily etiological myths expanding the creation story), and ends with an excursus on goddesses who took mortal lovers. The story of creation begins with Chaos/Chasm, Earth/ Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros. Earth created Sky/Ouranos who was equal to her and all-encompassing, and together they created: and then, having bedded with Sky, she bore deep-eddying Ocean and Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus and Theia and Rhea and Themis and Mnemosyne and golden-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After these, Cronos was born, the youngest of all, crooked-counseled, the most terrible of her children; and he hated his vigorous father.9 The story continues with the birth of three Cyclopses and three HundredArmed Ones. Ouranos kept his children trapped inside of Gaia, who made a grey, adamantine sickle with which Kronos castrated his father. Aphrodite was born from the severed genitals of Ouranos, and other beings were born from his blood such as the Erinyes, the Giants, and the Meliai nymphs. There is an excursus of approximately two hundred lines on the births of other gods, goddesses, and nymphs before the narrative resumes its focus on Kronos. Gaia and Ouranos tell Kronos it is fated that one of his children will take control from 9  Hesiod, Theog. 132–138. Translation from Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia trans. by Glenn W. Most, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 15.

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him, and he reacts by eating his own children whenever Rhea gives birth. Rhea gives Kronos a rock to eat instead of their youngest son, Zeus, and has him secretly hidden away in Crete. When Zeus comes of age, he fights his father and Kronos vomits the stone followed by the rest of Zeus’s siblings. The rock was then placed at Delphi near the site of Apollo’s oracle as the navel of the world. The account continues with a war between the Titans and the next generation of gods, the Olympians. The Olympians win because Zeus enlists the help of the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Armed Ones. The theme of universal history is played out through the emphasis on the succession of generations.10 The sibyllist re-characterized figures from this myth for the purpose of adding layers of allusion to the text. The Sibylline account acknowledges that Ouranos and Gaia were known as heaven and earth in vs. 113: οὕνεκά τοι πρώτιστοι ἒσαν μερόπων ἀνθρώπων (“because they were the first of articulate humanity”). Hesiod presents Ouranos as an oppressive partner to Gaia, leading to his castration by his youngest son Kronos. The Sibylline Ouranos keeps order and divides the earth evenly by drawing lots among his sons Kronos, Titan, and Iapetus. The sons in the Sibylline account rule their respective portions without fighting because of an oath made to their father. Nieto Ibáñez argues that the division of land would be reminiscent of the Genesis account of dividing the land between Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Gen 10).11 In addition, Jubilees 8.11, 9.14–5 and 10.29–34 also referred to Noah dividing the land between Shem, Ham, and Japheth with the specification of drawing lots and their pledge not to seize a portion that was not allotted to them or suffer God’s punishment. The added details of lots and pledges were part of Hellenistic Jewish imagination.12 The Genesis and Jubilees division of lots offers one layer of allusion, which should be coupled with an allusion to the drawing of lots in Greek literature. The division of the world by drawing lots among Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades is first attested in the Iliad 15.185–99, and then related in Callimachus and Apollodorus.13 In the Hymn to Zeus, Callimachus criticizes the tradition that the world was divided between the gods by lots and then 10  M.L. West, Hesiod: Theogony, ed. With Prolegomena and Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966). 11  Nieto Ibáñez, “Los titanes y Noé,” 101. 12  The drawing of lots has Babylonian precedent as well with a division between Anu and Enki. See Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 88–96. 13  Callimachus, 310.5, Aetia fr. 119, 2 PF. Apollodorus, Bibl. 1.2.1. Hesiod has Zeus gives the gods their allotments. Homer may have been drawing from an earlier Titanomachy that is now lost, see Richard Janko, The Iliad: A Commentary, Volume IV: Books 13–16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 247.

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discusses the true nature of Zeus’s accession, continuing with a description of the patronage of kings to poets. In his criticism of the description of division by lot,14 Callimachus prays that he gain the ability to tell lies that would persuade his listener because there is no other plausible reason for people to believe that anyone would be foolish enough to draw lots for such an important prize. With this in mind, the reference in the Jewish Sibylline Titan account can be seen as engaging Callimachus’s critique by making the Greek gods mortal and qualifying their division of land with oaths, which ultimately due to the foolish and selfish nature of humanity, could not be indefinitely kept. The Sibylline reference to the drawing of lots would have then offered a reference to Homeric and biblical hypotexts as well as engaging with Hellenistic writers in both Jewish and Greek contexts. In the Sibylline account, after Ouranos dies by natural causes, Kronos and Titan fight for power and Iapetus falls from the narrative. Hesiod’s Kronos eats his own children in order to keep from being usurped by his progeny and suffer the fate of his father. The Sibylline Kronos is not identified as being involved in the decision to hide his male children, leaving him true to his oath to Titan. This is the second instance in which the Sibylline account removes the patriarch from any accountability for acts that, in Hesiod, warranted nearpatricidal retaliation. Hesiod presents a struggle between generations of father suppressing son. This motif is absent from the Sibylline account. Rather than a tension between fathers and sons, the struggle for power is presented between brothers, which is characteristic of fraternal tensions in the Hebrew Bible: Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers. The Sibylline Titan account awards kingship to Kronos in vs. 128: οὕνεκά τοι πρέσβιστος ἒην καὶ εἶδος ἄριστος (“because he was the eldest and the best in appearance”). The emphasis laid on the birthright of the eldest son in the Sibylline account is not present in Hesiod, where Kronos is the youngest son. Nieto Ibáñez argues this is a residual attitude reflecting the ‘primitive state’ that was dominant in many cultures.15 This explanation does not give the sibyllist sufficient credit concerning the narrative changes in the account. Hesiod considers no threat to Kronos’s kingship with regard to other Titans; the threat lies only in his children. I propose that the Sibylline author changed the birth order to discreetly allude to the contemporary, fraternal struggle over the throne between Ptolemy VI Philometor and his younger brother Ptolemy VIII 14  Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, 65: ψευδοίμην ἀίοντος ἅ κεν πεπίθοιεν ἀκουήν. 15  Nieto Ibáñez, “Los titanes y Noé,” 102. “Asi, la mitologia griega y la bíblica conservan en sus relatos restos coincidentes de este estado primitivo que prevaleció en la mayoría de las culturas.”

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Euergetes II.16 Ptolemy Philometor had a reputation for being very favorable towards Judaeans, which facilitated the building of the Jewish temple in Leontopolis, and Judaean military generals had a notable presence in his army.17 Physical qualifiers are not mentioned in Hesiod, but in verses 127–8 of the Sibylline account “they chose Kronos king to rule over all because he was the eldest and the best in appearance.” Euergetes II, the younger brother who continually made claims to the throne of his older brother, was known by the epithet Physcon (meaning “pot-bellied”), in addition to kakergetēs (malefactor).18 I propose that the reference to Kronos as ‘better-looking’ functions as a subtle jab at Euergetes and reflects support for Ptolemy Philometor, who was the elder brother and rightful heir in opposition to the ‘pot-bellied’ younger brother. The correlation between Euergetes and Titan is further supported by verses 130–135 that describe how Titan tore apart the male heirs of Kronos because of his desire for the throne. Euergetes II was known for killing not only Philometor’s and Cleopatra II’s male heir Ptolemy VII, but also for Euergetes’s own male heir with Cleopatra II, Ptolemy Memphites, whose body was purportedly mutilated and sent to Cleopatra in pieces as retaliation for her rebellion against his claim to the throne.19 The subsequent lines (137–140) that describe Rhea saving Zeus could then hold an allusion to the circulating rumor that Cleopatra and Philometor had another son that was hidden with the help of Galaistes, who later led an unsuccessful campaign against Euergetes II.20 The reference to Zeus would then function in a similar capacity as the references to the seventh king in other sections of Book III, but in the more subtle and coded style of this sibyllist.21

16  See the Introduction section “Second Century BCE Political Context.” Diodorus Siculus, Library 30, 31, and 33 give details on these events. See also Günther Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire. 17  Josephus, C.Ap. 2.49–56. See John M.G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) (New York: T&T Clark, 1996), 40–1. 18  Josephus, A.J. 13.267; C.Ap. 2.51; Plutarch, Mor. 200F–201A [Apoph.Rom.]; Cor. 11.2; Hölbl, History of Ptolemaic Empire, 195. 19  Diodorus, 34–35; Justinus, Epit. 38.8.4, 13; Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 197–8. Refer to “Dating & Provenance of Book III” and “Second Century BCE Political Context” in the Introduction of this monograph for overview of dynastic struggle. 20  See discussion in the Introduction. Hölbl, History of the Ptolemaic Empire, 196; PP II.2155; PP IV.10070a; PP VI.14595; PP I.264; PP II.2163 [PP = W. Peremans and E. Van’t Dack, Prosopographia Ptolemaica, I–IX (Lovanii, 1950–81)]. 21  See the discussion of the two styles of Sibylline writing in “Hellenistic Education: Establishing Authorship & Readership” in Chapter One and the debate concerning the seventh king in “Dating & Provenance of Book III” in the Introduction.

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Euhemerus and Lactantius

The Sibylline Titan account is described as euhemeristic because it explains that the Olympian gods were mortal kings, not divine beings. The idea that gods were originally mortal originates in the writings of Euhemerus of Messene from the fourth century BCE. He writes that while acting as a diplomat of Cassander (the king of Macedon), he visited an island called Panchaea; he then wrote a travel account entitled the Sacred Record describing the island, its inhabitants, and their customs.22 The southern Italian, Latin poet Ennius translated Euhemerus in the beginning of the second century BCE, but only fragments survive. Diodorus Siculus included a summary of the Sacred Record in the sixth book of his Bibliotheca, of which only fragments survive.23 Euhemerus wrote that the population of the island was made up of Panchaeans, Oceanites, and Doiae, who honored the cult of the island called the ‘Supplicants of Zeus Triphylios, or Zeus of the Three Races.’ The priests told Euhemerus that Zeus (Jupiter) had collected them from Crete while he was alive and that his deeds—and those of his grandfather Ouranos and his father Kronos (Saturn)—were written out on a golden stele in Zeus’s temple.24 The following is Euhemerus’s account as preserved by Lactantius (all explanatory notes within the account are those of Lactantius): Then Saturn took Ops to wife. Titan, the elder brother, demanded kingship for himself. Vesta their mother, with their sisters Ceres and Ops, persuaded Saturn not to give way to his brother in the matter. Titan was less good-looking than Saturn; for that reason, and also because he could see his mother and sisters working to have it so, he conceded the kingship to Saturn, and came to terms with him; if Saturn had a male child born 22   Sources on Euhemerus: Diodorus 6.1., 5.42.4–46; Eusebius, Praep. ev. 2.2.59B–61A; Lactantius, Inst. 1.11, 13, 14, 17, 22; Felix Jacoby, Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker = FGrHist (Leiden: Berlin, 1922). 1.300–13, fragments primarily from Diodorus Siculus and Ennius’s translation of Euhemerus’s ‘Ιερά ἀναγραφή; Truesdell S. Brown, “Euhemerus and the Historians,” (1946): 259–74; Franco De Angelis and Benjamin Garstad, “Euhemerus in Context,” Classical Antiquity 25 (2006): 211–42; Benjamin Garstad, “Notes and Discussions: Belus in the Sacred History of Euhemerus,” Classical Philology 99 (2004): 246–57; Sylvie Honigman, “Euhemerus of Messene and Plato’s Atlantis,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 58 (2009): 1–35. 23  The Sacred Record survives today primarily through Eusebius’s quotation of Diodorus’s account and from Lactantius’s quotation of Ennius’ Latin translation. There is debate on the extent to which the extant sources are faithful to the original text. Sylvie Honigman argues for the accuracy of Diodorus in “Euhemerus of Messene and Plato’s Atlantis.” 24  Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 289–92.

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to him, it would not be reared. This was done to secure reversion of the kingship to Titan’s children. They then killed the first son that was born to Saturn. Next came twin children, Jupiter and Juno. Juno was given to Saturn to see while Jupiter was secretly removed and given to Vesta to be brought up without Saturn’s knowledge. In the same way without Saturn knowing, Ops bore Neptune and hid him away. In her third labor Ops bore another set of twin, Pluto and Glauce. (Pluto in Latin is Diespiter; some call him Orcus.) Saturn was shown his daughter Glauce but his son Pluto was hidden and removed. Glauce then died young…. Next, when Titan realized Saturn had sons who had been born and brought up without his knowledge, he gathered his own sons about him (they are called Titani), seized his brother Saturn and Ops, built a wall around them and set a guard over them … When Jupiter grew up and heard that his father and mother were ringed about with guards and had been thrown into chains, he came with a great host of Cretans and conquered Titan and his sons in battle; he released his parents, restored his father to the kingship, and then went back to Crete. After that Saturn was warned by an oracle to beware of his son driving him off the throne. To remove the threat of the oracle and to avoid danger, he plotted to have Jupiter killed; Jupiter learned the plot, reclaimed his right to rule, and put Saturn to flight, Saturn was chased from land to land, pursued by armed men sent by Jupiter to seize him or kill him; with difficulty he found a place in Italy where he could hide.25 This text agrees with Hesiod and explicitly states that Titan is the older brother, making the Sibylline birth order unique. Saturn/Kronos is awarded kingship primarily based on his appearance—as is mentioned in the Sibylline account—and since Lactantius elsewhere quotes Book III, it is possible that detail reflects the sibyllist’s Titan account and not Euhemerus, since this detail is not in Diodorus’s account.26 The goddesses play an important role in determining the outcome in both Euhemerus and the Sibylline account, which supports the larger context of representations of feminine leadership in Egypt.27 Euhemerus and the Sibylline account report that there was a pact made between Titan and Kronos stipulating that Kronos not have male children. Both Euhemerus and the Sibylline account present Saturn/Kronos as unaware that his male children were being saved. The Euhemerus account does not mention 25  Lactantius, Inst. 14.1–12, trans. Bowen and Garnsey, 91–2. 26  Diodorus, 6.1. 27  See Chapter Two.

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the location of any of the births, but since the narrative states that Jupiter/ Zeus returns to Crete, it follows that he was sent there in the same manner as depicted in Hesiod. Sending Zeus to Phrygia is a unique narrative change in the Sibylline account. Overall, the similarities between Euhemerus as a hypotext to the Sibylline hypertext are striking, and these were noted by Lactantius who states that “the truth of this account is upheld by the Erythraean Sibyl’s nearly identical version; only in a few, irrelevant details is there any difference.”28 Those “irrelevant details” in the Sibylline account are: Kronos is the older brother, Iapetus is named, a location is given for the birth of Pluto, and Zeus is at home in Phrygia. It is through those “irrelevant details” that the voice of the sibyllist’s context can be heard. What was the likelihood that the Judaean author of the Sibylline Titan account had access to Euhemerus’s account? Fraser asserts that although Euhemerus’s journey to Panchaea was fictional, there are aspects of his account that are based in reality. Fraser argues that Euhemerus did work under Cassander, because if he wrote after Cassander’s reign, it would be a superfluous point that does not enhance the storyline and if he wrote during the Macedonian king’s reign, lying about this detail would have been a clear indication of false testimony. Fraser points out that Callimachus identified the temple of Zeus that is described on Panchaea with the Egyptian temple of Sarapis,29 and posits that Euhemerus moved to Alexandria after the death of Cassander (c. 298 BCE) where he became familiar with Egyptian temple and cult practices, which then appear in the Sacred Record: In some passages, particularly in the description of the Temple of Zeus Triphylios, with its high columns, walls covered with reliefs, and colossal statues, Euhemerus seems to be drawing on personal knowledge of Egyptian temples. The old man was, we may imagine, a familiar figure in Alexandria in the early years of Philadelphus’ reign.30 If Euhemerus wrote his Sacred Record in Alexandria in the third century, the sibyllist’s use of a euhemeristic Titan account in Book III would be drawing from a local source. Although Fraser posits Euhemerus’s residence in Alexandria, he doubts that the Sibylline Oracles used Euhemerus’s account.

28  Lactantius, Inst. 14.8, trans. Bowen and Garnsey, 91. 29  Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 290–3. 30  Ibid., 293.

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Although the version must ultimately come from Euhemerus, who provided the theological tendency necessary for the purpose, it is not likely that the Sibyl derived directly from him, since he evidently referred to the Jews at some point in his work in what was regarded by Josephus as a disparaging manner, and if he applied the same theology to Jahweh as he did to Zeus, that will not have recommended him to the Sibyl. Probably she derived the story from the so-called ‘Babylonian’ or ‘Berossian’ Sibyl under whose name similar material circulated and, if that is so, the latter must have borrowed from Euhemerus. Be that as it may, it is of great interest to see the Jewish Sibyl using the doctrine, and even the narrative, of Euhemerus, to serve the ends of monotheism.31 This argument assumes that a Judaean author would not have used Euhemerus as a source because it has been said that Euhemerus was negative towards Jews somewhere else in his account. This circuitous route of influence leaves the sibyllist of Book III as a passive recipient of the story through another Sibyl with no evidence to support the claim. The passage Fraser refers to in Josephus discusses the extent to which Greek historians attested to the antiquity of Jews: In addition to those already cited, Theophilus, Theodotus, Mnaseas, Aristophanes, Hermogenes, Euhemerus, Conon, Zopyrion, and, maybe, many more—for my reading has not been exhaustive—have made more than a passing allusion to us. The majority of these authors have misrepresented the facts of our primitive history, because they have not read our sacred books; but all concur in testifying to our antiquity, and that is the point I am at present concerned.32 Euhemerus is just one name in a list of Greeks that Josephus cites. Josephus does not accuse Euhemerus specifically of negatively representing Jewish history. The fact that Euhemerus may have misrepresented Jewish history in a section of his work that was not connected with the Titan account should not be viewed as a reason why an Alexandrian Judaean would reject using his narrative as a model for his own commentary. It is reasonable that if Euhemerus did write his Sacred Record in Alexandria, his account would have circulated in

31  Ibid., 299–300. 32  Josephus, C.Ap. 1.215–217, trans. H.ST.J. Thackeray, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), 251.

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the area especially as it was the center of scholarship and the Library was regarded as having a full variety of sources. It is more likely that Euhemerus’s account was the direct source for the sibyllist’s Titan account than the possibility that another source was circulating the same information. This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that there is such a strong narrative overlap, especially in the aspects that are divergent from Hesiod’s account. Euhemerus’s account may have been an appealing exercise in Greek mythology for Judaean audiences because he challenged the divinity of the pantheon, while linguistically retaining them as significant cultural symbols. 4 Callimachus’s Hymn to Zeus The Sibylline Titan account engages not only with the hypotexts of Hesiod and Euhemerus, but also with Callimachus’s Hymn to Zeus.33 Allusions to central points of the Hymn to Zeus demonstrate how the Judaean sibyllist was actively engaging and challenging Callimachus (one of the celebrated founders of Hellenistic literature), in addition to showcasing knowledge of Homeric Hymns. Callimachus begins his hymn by asking whom he should celebrate: the Dictaean Zeus born on Crete or the Lycaean Zeus born in Arcadia. He focuses on the issue of which nation is lying and the nature of the true account (lines 4–53). The answer is the quote from Epimenides that Cretans are liars because they claim to have the tomb of Zeus (‘Κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψεῦσται’· καὶ γὰρ τάφον, ὦ ἄνα, σεῖο Κρῆτες ἐτεκτήναντο· σὺ δ᾽οὐ θάνες, ἐσσι γὰρ αἰεί).34 By making passing reference to Crete, the sibyllist could be seen as challenging Callimachus. While Callimachus sees the tomb of Zeus and its implication of mortality as a lie, the Judaean sibyllist expands this paradigm, since the entire pantheon is now presented as mortal and thus subject to death. In this context, the Sibylline author’s decision to choose Phrygia is further pronounced

33  N. Hopkinson, “Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus,” The Classical Quarterly (New Series) 34 (1984): 139–48; George Robert McLennan, Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus: Introduction and Commentary Testi E Commenti = Texts and Commentaries (Roma: Edizioni dell’Ateneo & Bizzarri, 1977); Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos, 2 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1924). 34  Callimachus, Hymn. Jov. 8. Epimenides can be found in Gottfried Kinkel, Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Lipsiae: B.G. Teubner, 1877), fragment 5. Note: Callimachus associates Zeus with Crete in his fourth Hymn (Hymn. Apoll. 4.273–4).

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as divergent because the author could have chosen to refer to Callimachus’s alternative traditions of Arcadia and the Lycaean Zeus.35 As noted above, Callimachus criticizes the tradition that the world was divided between the gods by lots. James J. Clauss has argued that Callimachus used this issue in the Hymn to Zeus to allude to Ptolemy Philadelphos and to support Philadelphos’s accession to throne over his older half-brother.36 Martijn Cuypers supports Clauss’s claim that the dynastic struggle between Ptolemy Philadelphos and his older half-brother Ptolemy Keraunos was the context for Callimachus’s focus on the right to rule, which he felt was based on power and being the greatest, not luck.37 If they are correct, this conclusion adds another level of engagement for the Judaean sibyllist, since making Kronos the elder brother in the Sibylline Titan account was meant to be a reference to Ptolemy Philometor and the struggles over the throne with his younger brother Euergetes. The author would then have taken Callimachus’s allusion to Ptolemaic dynastic quarrels as a model for the manipulation of hypotexts in order to show dynastic support. The Titan myth already featured two rival brothers, which—with a switch in birth order—could reflect the rival Ptolemies, making it a convenient choice for the sibyllist to allude to the contemporary political situation. Callimachus describes how the Arcadian rivers were a result of Rhea giving birth on Mount Lycaeon and the need for water to clean the afterbirth. McLennan suggests that this digression was meant to display Callimachus’s geographical expertise.38 While the Sibylline author does not engage directly with this reference, it can be seen as the inspiration behind the sibyllist’s subversive use of Homeric geography for the birth of Pluto near the Dodona and Stygian waters—one of the ‘irrelevant details’ described by Lactantius.

35  Martijn Cuypers notes that the Mount Ida in the Troad is noticeably absent, but uses this omission as evidence that Callimachus is presenting an empty argument that is in dialogue with Stoic epistemology. See “Prince and Principle: The Philosophy of Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus” in Annette Harder, R.F. Regtuit, and G.C. Wakker, eds. Callimachus II Hellenistica Groningana (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 103–5. The importance of Phrygia will be discussed in the sections below. 36  James J. Clauss, “Lies and Allusions: The Addressee and Date of Callimachus’ ‘Hymn to Zeus,’” Classical Antiquity 5 (1986): 155–70. 37  Martijn Cuypers, “Prince and Principle: The Philosophy of Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus.” See also Stephens, Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria, 77–114. 38  McLennan, Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, 42, 45.

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The sibyllist’s Titan account hides Poseidon and Pluto as well as Zeus. Euhemerus’s account does not offer a location for either Poseidon’s/Neptune’s or Pluto’s birth, but the Sibylline account states that Pluto/Hades is born as Rhea passed Dodona near Stygian waters. The Sibylline account makes no reference to Poseidon’s role in Greek mythology, yet Pluto’s birthplace by the river Styx connects him to his respective underworld realm. But why is Dodona named? Lightfoot points out that the Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.750–5) lists Dodona, the river Titaresios, the Peneios, and the Styx and that the Sibyl may have used this text as a source for connecting these place names: Dodona is obviously the cult-place of Zeus, as the Iliad makes amply clear. If the Sibyl prefers to make it the birthplace of Hades, one wonders whether this is a jab at the famous pagan cult-centre, implying that the god of Dodona is, in fact, god of the dead—in parallel to other Jewish jibes about pagan gods in Hades.39 The Sibyl does not mention the river Titaresios and makes Dodona the source of the Europus, both of which are departures from Homeric geography. Lightfoot understands this as an indication that the Sibyl was unfamiliar with Homeric geography.40 The Sibyl states: Further, the third time, Rhea, marvel of women, bore Pluto as she went past Dodona, whence the watery paths of the river Europus flowed and the water ran to the sea mingled with the Peneius, and they called it Stygian.

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Rather than being an indication of a lack of Homeric geographical knowledge, these directions were intentional. The river Styx is traditionally located in Arcadia.41 The location described in the Sibylline account points to the general location of Mount Olympus in Thessaly, past Dodona and near the river Peneius.42 This location creates a parallel between the home of the Greek pantheon on Mount Olympus and the entrance to the land of the dead. The text 39  Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles, 211. 40  Ibid., 211. 41  Herodotus, Hist. 6.74. 42  In fact, you can go white water rafting on a tour called “Rafting Adventure with the gods of Olympus” which follows this same route by taking a section of the Pinios River which brings you to the foothills of Mt. Olympus. http://combadi.com/250-rafting-adventure -greece.html.

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would then be demythologizing the gods of the Greek pantheon by affording them the status of the first articulate mortals, as well as cleverly juxtaposing the home of those gods with the underworld. Gruen has discussed examples of diaspora humor and claims that “the exercise of wit and irony exists in abundance. And it may open an avenue into the mentality of Jews adapting to a world of alien culture and Greek overlords.”43 This demythologization indicates knowledge of both Greek literature and cultic geographic centers.44 The location and reputation of Mount Olympus would have been common knowledge in the Mediterranean world; thus this type of etymological word play would have presented a clever critique, suggesting that the path of Greek divinity resides in the underworld. Again, this reference simultaneously engages with the more contemporary source of Callimachus’s Hymn to Zeus.45 The Sibylline author’s subversive use of Homeric geography in vss. 143–146 for the birth of Pluto near Dodona and Stygian waters would effectively make Callimachus’s model for displaying geographical expertise seem basic in comparison, a perfect example of Hellenistic one-upmanship that was characteristic of poetic competition in Alexandrian Homeric scholarship. Callimachus and other founders of Hellenistic hexameter poetry modeled their own work on Homeric hymns while modifying certain narrative elements in order to express their views. The Judaean sibyllist did the same, but the innovation rests in the use of the model to express monotheistic, religious proclivities. Jewish monotheism required the sibyllist to re-conceptualize Greek traditions in a way that would subordinate polytheistic concepts, and the sibyllist was able to do this so skillfully because of his active engagement with contemporary Hellenistic poetic techniques. 5

Depiction Variants, Resonance, and Allusions

The named figures in the Titan account would have potentially evoked a range of associations for the Hellenistic reader. The following subsections will address the importance of a hapax legomenon within the account, and the importance of last of the ‘irrelevant details’ as described by Lactantius—the placement of Zeus in Phrygia rather than Crete—which demonstrate the

43  Gruen, Diaspora, 136 (135–212). See also Heritage and Hellenism, 214–21. 44  See Chapter Four for Book III’s awareness of Homeric scholarship in Alexandria. 45  Hopkinson, “Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus,” 139–48; McLennan, Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus; Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos.

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multi-layered richness and creativity of the Sibylline Titan account that goes beyond a surface engagement with Greek and Jewish hypo-texts. 5.1 Iapetus and His Sons Allusions to Greek and Jewish traditions could have been evoked through the naming of Iapetus alongside Kronos and Titan in the beginning of the Sibylline Titan account. Euhemerus’s account does not name Iapetus, only Kronos and Titan. Iapetus plays only a brief role in the Sibylline account, so what function does he play in the narrative? The impact of Iapetus’s name lies in the allusions he would have evoked in both Greek and biblical traditions. In Greek tradition, Iapetus is significant primarily through the actions of his sons Prometheus, Atlas, and Epimentheus, all of whom are of major significance to Greek myth.46 Kronos and Iapetus are the only named Titans in Homer’s Iliad 8.469, which places Iapetus in Tartarus with Kronos. Hesiod lists him among the children of Gaia and Ouranos. Greek epic literature establishes precedent for his elevated status and ensures that he would have been known by Greek poets and readers. Iapetus’s son Atlas is the famous Titan whom Zeus placed at the ends of the earth, keeping Gaia and Ouranos separated, evoking the roots of Greek theogony/cosmology. A fragment of Pseudo-Eupolemus (which dates approximately from the end of the second to the beginning of the first century BCE) states that the Greek Atlas was viewed as the equivalent to Enoch.47 The biblical figure Japheth, the son of Noah, was named Ἰάπετος in the Septuagint. Since the Renaissance, the possibility that in antiquity the Titan Iapetus was viewed as a Hellenistic equivalent of the biblical Japheth has been investigated.48 Japheth and Enoch as Jewish equivalents of Iapetus and Atlas are examples of how Hellenistic Judaeans navigated their shared Greek and Jewish traditions. Iapetus’s son Prometheus acts on behalf of humanity on two occasions that place him in direct opposition to Zeus in Hesiod’s Theogony. The first occasion concerns the nature of sacrificial practice and the second is stealing fire from Zeus, who withheld it from humanity.49 Zeus punishes 46  Examples that discuss Iapetus and his sons: Pausanias, Descr. 2.14.1; Apollodorus, Epit. 1.2.3; Hesiod, Theog. 132–136, 507–511; Homer, Il. 8.478–481; Aeschylus Prom. 47  Robert Doran, trans. “Pseudo-Eupolemus” in OTP v.2.881. 48  West, Hesiod: Theogony, 202–3. 49  Prometheus carved up an ox and put all of the meat and entrails in the ox’s stomach to be sacrificed for Zeus and placed the ox’s white bones before mortals. The bones looked more appealing, and Zeus questioned Prometheus’s choice of allotment. Prometheus asked Zeus to choose between the two, and Zeus picked the bones. This choice acts as the rationale behind why the nourishing parts of the sacrifice are for mortals and why the bones are burned for immortals. Zeus punished humans for Prometheus’s trickery

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humanity for regaining fire by creating the first woman, Pandora, whom he gives to Prometheus’s brother Epimetheus, along with a mysterious jar that is not to be opened. Pandora opens the jar and releases countless miseries into the world, leaving only hope remaining inside.50 Prometheus’s reputation as a challenger to Zeus’s authority may have contributed to his appeal in Greek myth and literature.51 Although the Sibylline account does not name Prometheus or his brothers, the naming of their father Iapetus would have been an adequate trigger of memory to the audience due to the significance they play in a number of etiological myths as well as linking to overarching themes in Greek myth. Another layer of allusion operative in the naming of Iapetus rests in biblical and Greek flood narratives. In Greek myth, Zeus inflicts a flood upon the earth and Iapetus’s grandson, Deucalion, survives. Prometheus tells Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha to build a chest for food that they board during the flood, making Deucalion a Noah-type figure. After the flood, Deucalion made sacrifices to Zeus, who then sent Hermes to Deucalion to offer him whatever he desired. Deucalion wished to repopulate the earth. Zeus told Deucalion and Pyrrha to throw stones behind them and the stones Deucalion threw became men and those Pyrrha threw became women.52 Preceding the Titan account in Sib. Or. 3.110–155, there is a fragmentary oracle, in verses 93–96: O, O for the floating waters and all the dry land, and the rising sun which will never set again. All will obey him as he enters the world again because it was the first to recognize his power also. This passage is followed by a retelling of the Tower of Babel story in 97–104, which dates the events of Babel to the tenth generation after the time of the flood. There has been speculation on whether the fragmentary oracle in Sib. Or. III was originally a longer account that included a more descriptive flood narrative. Lightfoot asks:

by taking fire away from them. Prometheus stole the fire back from Olympus in a fennel stalk. Hesiod, Theog. vss. 507–600. 50  Hesiod, Theog. 42–108. 51  Aeschylus (525–456 BCE) Prometheus Bound recounts the punishment of Prometheus. Zeus punishes Prometheus by chaining him in Hades and having an eagle eat his liver that continually grows back until he is later saved by Heracles. 52  Apollodorus, Epit. 1.7.2.

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If Or.Sib.1, which draws significantly on Or.Sib.3, has both a flood and a version of the Babel episode, might that increase the likelihood that Or.Sib.3 once had both as well?53 If the flood account in Book III was originally longer, the association of Iapetus with a flood account might have made a deeper impact on the reader. The Sibyl identified herself as the daughter-in-law of Noah; thus, flood narratives would be of particular importance.54 In fact, Nieto Ibáñez has argued that Ouranos was meant to evoke the image of Noah. He builds on Nikiprowetzky’s brief discussion of how references to Titan were used as the biblical equivalent to Nimrod.55 Although I disagree with some aspects of his argumentation,56 overall, I agree that Ouranos could have evoked an allusion to Noah, and I commend Nieto Ibáñez for looking deeper within the Sibylline Titan account for another layer of meaning. As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, narrative references to specific people, actions, or locations have the power to evoke multiple allusions simultaneously. The naming of Iapetus in the Sibylline account could allude to the separation of heaven and earth, the Greek origin of sacrificial ritual, the creation of women, the release of evil into the world, and biblical/Greek flood accounts that also feature the theme of sacrifice and the repopulation of humankind. A. Hilhorst addresses the question of whether the Greeks would have known about Noah and Jews about Deucalion. His analysis is a valuable examination of cross-cultural literary awareness of topoi that are also present in Book III. Hilhorst views the minority status of Jews and later Christians in “pagan Hellenistic-Roman culture”57 as necessitating a greater level of cultural knowledge in order to gain a higher status in society. He cites Judaean authors such as Josephus and Philo who make comparisons between Greek myths and biblical scripture,58 and he argues that Plutarch follows the biblical flood account because he explicitly identifies the bird as a dove. Lucian also mentions 53  Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles. 380. Buitenwerf, Book III of the Sibylline Oracles, 165. 54  See discussion in Chapter Three. 55  Nikiprowetzky, 104. 56  Nieto Ibáñez, “Los titanes y Noé,” 102. My main issues are 1. he does not acknowledge that it is a euhemeristic account, 2. the potential effects that has on interpreting the narrative, 3. his archetypal argument for certain narrative differences. 57  A. Hilhorst, “The Noah Story: Was it known to the Greeks?” in Interpretations of the Flood, ed. Florentino Garcia Martinez and Gerard P. Luttikhuizen (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 56. 58  Josephus, A.J. 1.73, compares the actions of angels with the Greek giants/Titans. Philo, On Punishments and Rewards 23, identifies Deucalion with Noah.

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that the animals were in pairs. Both details are not present in the Babylonian Berossus account. Hilhorst closes with numismatic evidence from the city of Apamea in Greater Phrygia. The city was nicknamed ἡ κιβωτός (“the Chest”) because it was the junction point for caravans where goods were packed in chests for transport to various ports. Between 192 and 253 CE coins were issued, Hilhorst describes: Its reverse shows a man and a woman standing in a big open chest; on it is a bird, another bird comes flying holding a branch in its claws; to the left of the chest there are again the man and the woman; on the chest the Septuagint name of Noah, ΝΩΕ is written. So, the man and the woman are Noah and his wife or, according to others, the Hebrew Sibyl, on the right side while still in the ark and on the left after disembarking; the birds are the raven and the dove (or twice the dove).59 These coins were minted during the reigns of Septimus Severus, Macrinus, Severus Alexander, Philippus Arabs, and Trebonianus Gallus. This evidence adds a visual representation linking the Sibyl with Noah, which would show that a community by the second-century CE appropriated the tradition from Book III. Hilhorst states that there is much debate on the context of these coins, but he takes them as physical evidence that “Noah was known to the Greek world of the early Empire to a serious extent.”60 He concludes that it is highly probable that well-educated Judaeans knew of Deucalion, but whether Greeks had knowledge of Noah is harder to ascertain because of the Greek sense of superiority over foreign people.61 Hilhorst’s investigation acts as a case study into the dynamics of how literary resonances cross cultural traditions and manifest themselves in different and sometimes indirect ways. His argument supports the possibility that the Judaean sibyllist would have been aware of Greek as well as Jewish traditions. Based on the literary evidence surveyed above, the sibyllist of the Titan account did not write in isolation, nor did he simply paraphrase of Hesiod or Euhemerus as hypotexts. The sibyllist offered a Titan account with specific alternative narrative choices that played on various literary allusions to add depth and that reflected a high level of creativity.

59  Hilhorst, “The Noah Story: Was it known to the Greeks?” 63. 60  Ibid., 65. 61  Ibid., 56–9.

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5.2 Aphrodite and the Eleusinian Mysteries Hellenistic poets used several techniques to evoke multiple references in just a few lines, one of which was incorporating Homeric hapax legomena, which would evoke the context of the original passage as well as in elite debates in the Alexandrian museum preserved in Homeric scholia.62 The Sibylline Titan account makes use of a hapax legomenon in the reference to “Aphrodite who loves crowns/garlands” in line 122: φιλοστέφανός τ’ ᾿Αφροδίτη. This epithet is only applied to Aphrodite in one other place, in the Hymn to Demeter (Homeric Hymn 2:102): φιλοστεφάνου Ἀφροδίτης.63 The sibyllist chose the Titan narrative in part to evoke allusions to Greek myth and cult while destabilizing and negating their authority by making the pantheon the first of articulate mortals instead of divine beings. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter chronicles Hades kidnapping Kore/Persephone and her mother Ceres’s/Demeter’s quest to retrieve her, events that led to the development of the Eleusinian mysteries.64 There was an area in Alexandria called Eleusis modeled on the sanctuary of Eleusis in Athens, and festivals to Demeter were held there.65 The use of Aphrodite’s epithet, then, functions as a verbal cue that would recall the Hymn to Demeter and associations with a popular local cult within the context of the euhemeristic Sibylline Titan account through the technique of Ergänzungsspiel. While the sibyllist stripped the divinity from the Greek pantheon, this allusion would remind the reader that the mystery cults were similarly invalid as well. In the context of the intellectual landscape, the sibyllist is displaying knowledge of Greek hypotexts in a creative and subversive manner to provide a commentary on the fruitless nature of Greek cultic tradition.

62  Klooster, Poetry As Window And Mirror, 213–4. See Chapter Four “The Sibyl & Odysseus” for discussion of another hapax legomenon in Book III. 63  Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, reprint 1995), 296. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae database was used to check if there were any other references to Aphrodite with this epithet. See also Richardson, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 182 where he states that this epithet does not occur in Homer or Hesiod. 64   For sources on The Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the Eleusinian mysteries, see Richardson, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter; Helene P. Foley, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Ann Suter, The Narcissus and the Pomegranate: An Archaeology of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002). 65  P .Oxy. XXVII 2465 = Oxyrhynchus Papyrii. See Judith McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt 300 BC–AD 700 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 67–8.

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5.3 Crete versus Phrygia The addition of unique features to the narrative signals commentary and should be mined for its potential relationship with political/intertextual references. The Titan accounts of Hesiod and Euhemerus both locate Zeus in Crete, but the Sibylline account hides him in Phrygia. The possibility of an intertextual reference to Callimachus’s Hymn to Zeus may act as one layer of resonance. These locations could have evoked potential political resonances. The traditions concerning Zeus’s birthplace and rearing establish the likelihood that the sibyllist was indeed aware of the Zeus/Crete connection and that he chose Phrygia deliberately. The sibyllist’s choice to mention Cretan men as protectors of Zeus is rooted in the political context of Ptolemy Philometor and his settlement of Judaeans on Crete, while the naming of Phrygia was to demonstrate knowledge of competing Greek myths as well as acknowledging Rome as a new political power in the Mediterranean. Fragments of Euripides’s play The Cretans (5th century BCE) attest to the Cretan-born Zeus. The Greek geographer Strabo (c. 64 BCE–24 CE) discusses the ritual claims by Cretans and Phrygians of the location where Zeus was reared as well as the debate on the history of the Curetes and/or Corybantes who were supposed to have protected Zeus (Geogr., 10.3.11–14, 19–20). It is quite common for major events in the lives of gods and goddesses to be attributed to multiple locations due to regional etiological legends. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–220 CE) discusses the multiplicity of traditions in his Exhortation to the Greeks: “There are some who record three gods of the name Zeus: one in Arcadia, the son of Aether, the other two being sons of Cronos, the one in Crete, and the other again in Arcadia.”66 While the Sibylline account does not mention a particular location in Phrygia where Zeus was sent, there were competing traditions concerning the Greek association of Mount Ida with Zeus. The debate over Phrygian and Cretan myths in antiquity hinged on the ambiguity of the location of Mount Ida because there was a Mount Ida on Crete as well as in Phrygia. Hesiod clarified his choice of Mount Ida by mentioning it was nearby Lyttos, which is in Crete. This is the type of debate that would have been known in Homeric scholarly circles and the reference to both locations marks the sibyllist’s knowledge of competing cultic and mythological traditions. Hesiod may have given prominence to the cave on Mount Ida in central Crete over Phrygia, but there was competition in Crete over the birthplace. Noel Robertson argues that the descriptions and physical evidence of worship practice indicate that the sanctuary on Mount Ida on Crete was originally for 66  Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 2.24. Exhortation to the Greeks trans. G.W. Butterworth. LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1919), 57.

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the Mother Goddess and not Zeus, but Hesiod’s account ensured the importance of the Cretan site to the victory of Zeus’s succession of Kronos. Zeus then took precedence over the cult site on Mt. Ida, and the original context as a cult site for the Mother Goddess was forgotten. There was another cult site—Mount Dicte in eastern Crete—that competed with the Mt. Ida’s claim to be the hideaway of Zeus.67 Robertson finds the Dictaean Zeus legend to be the product of regional propaganda, stating: As for Dictaean Zeus, he is suddenly enswathed in the birth story in the early third century, at the hands of Callimachus, Appollonius, and Aratus … Surely the story was arrogated for Dictaean Zeus in a spirit of rivalry. It had brought enormous renown to Idaean Zeus, a deity with important shrines in several cities of central Crete and even further off. In the third century the Ptolemies opened new horizons for the cities of eastern Crete. Regional interests were expressed then, as at the time of the Cnossus tablets, in the worship of Dictaean Zeus.68 In light of archaeological evidence, it is clear that Mount Dicte was a cult site much earlier than the third century BCE; in fact, it was probably the earliest cult site for Zeus on Crete. Hugh Sackett and Sandy MacGillivray discovered two artifacts while excavating at Palaikastro that shed light on the ancient cult of Zeus in eastern Crete. The first, a Minoan sculpture found in many pieces, probably shattered and burned when the site was destroyed, presumably by Dorian invaders c. 1500. The sculpture was a sixteen-inch figure of a boy with a stone head of blue-gray serpentine and an ivory face and neck, two rock crystal eyes, an ivory torso, and arms decorated with gold. The holes in the ivory feet indicate that it probably had wooden legs that have now disintegrated.69 The exceptional anatomical accuracy and detail of the statuette are astonishing—veins, tendons, and even fingernails are carefully carved as though from life. Such naturalistic treatment is not found again in Greek art until the high Classical period, more than a thousand years later.70

67  The temple to Zeus on Mount Dicte is the archaeological site of Palaikastro, which is in the disputed territory of Itanos as discussed below. 68  Noel Robertson, “The Ancient Mother of the Gods, A Missing Chapter in the History of Greek Religion,” in Cybele, Attis, and Related Cults: Essays in Memory of M.J. Vermaseren, ed. Eugene N. Lane (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 250. 69  Hugh Sackett and Sandy MacGillivray, “Boyhood of a God,” Archaeology 42.5 (1989): 29. 70  Sackett and MacGillivray, “Boyhood of a God,” 29.

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The combination of very expensive materials and the naturalism make this piece unique. The second discovery was of a Minoan seal featuring an unusual Master of Animals: In a typical Minoan hunting scene, the figure would hold a spear, a bow, arrows, or a net, but the object in this figure’s left hand does not resemble any of these. Instead, it is remarkably similar to Mesopotamian representations of the thunderbolt, a symbol that does not exist in the Greek world until the seventh century BC, when it is associated only with Zeus.71 Sackett and MacGillivray hypothesize that this seal could be the source of later Greek iconographic representations of Zeus the Thunderer. They examined stone offering tables that are inscribed with DI-KI-TE found in a sanctuary overlooking the Palaikastro site.72 A later Roman site located nearby also recorded the ‘Hymn to the Kouros,’ which asks the young Zeus to return to his birthplace.73 A.B. Cook discusses a silver coin dating to c. 400 BCE found at Praisos that has a bull on one side and Zeus ’Ακραιος (Zeus of the Summit) with an eagle on the other. Cook claims this coin is “the earliest known example of ΑΚΡΑΙΟΣ as a numistic legend.”74 The expensive composition of the cult artifacts and their high attention to detail as well as the cult’s representation on coins attest to the antiquity of the cult of Zeus on Crete and solidify the significance and wealth of the cult site in eastern Crete. The association and worship of Zeus on Mount Dicte predates the association of Zeus on Mount Ida, which can be seen as supporting Robertson’s argument that the Idaean site, was originally set up for goddess worship. The debate over which mountain on Crete was originally identified as the hiding place of Zeus further solidifies his overall association with the island and makes the change in the sibyllist’s Titan account more distinctive. Later, both cult sites could have functioned contemporaneously with the Idaean site only assimilating worship of Zeus in reaction to Hesiod. The popularity of Hesiod could have overshadowed the antiquity of the Dictaean site for mainland Greek writers, but the Dictaean site became the object of political discussion beginning in the third century BCE, which would have publicized its claims to Zeus. Territorial disputes over the Temple of Zeus between Itanos and Praisos 71  Ibid., 30. 72  This is the Temple of Zeus on Mt. Dicte in the region of Itanos, discussed further below. 73  Sackett and MacGillivray, “Boyhood of a God,” 31. 74  A  rthur B. Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol. II. Part II (New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1965), 871–2.

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(and later Hierapytna) brought in mediation from Egypt as well as Rome, so a sibyllist in a second century context could demonstrate an astute awareness of literary, mythic, cultic, and political circumstances with the mention of both Crete and Phrygia without direct reference to Mt. Ida. 5.4 Judaean Settlements on Crete Ptolemy Philometor’s settlement of Judaeans on Crete adds insight into the political layer of the sibyllist’s choice to mention both Crete and Phrygia and further contextualizes the choice of Euhemerus as a hypotext. The sibyllist purposefully embraced distancing the island from Greek cultic associations that were being debated territorially by promoting the Crete of Euhemerus, the Crete that held the grave of Zeus. This focus would have facilitated the association of Crete as a suitable, even desirable, potential settlement opportunity that was already inclined to monotheistic tendencies. Crete was a desirable outpost for a Ptolemaic stronghold primarily for two reasons: it offered a port and access into the Aegean, and it was renowned for its mercenary soldiers. It was also the only place in the Mediterranean that was not actually conquered by Alexander the Great. It is documented that onethird of the Greek mercenaries enlisted by Ptolemy IV Philopater for the battle of Raphia in 217 BCE against Antiochus were Cretans.75 George Harrison emphasizes the importance of such a strong hold: naval squadrons based in Crete could choke off the East–West shipping routes, and make it very difficult to sail to Athens from Egypt. The strategic importance of Crete was not missed. All of the Mediterranean south of the Peloponnese and East of Sicily was styled the “Cretan Sea” by Roman and Greek writers alike.76 The dates are uncertain for the entrance of Egyptian influence on Crete. Inscriptions found on the island praise the help of the Egyptian general Patroklos under Ptolemy II Philadelphos (c. 270–260 BCE) and show most cities on Crete to be pro-Egyptian. A friendship between Crete and Egypt may have begun as early as Ptolemy I Soter; however, Crete had a long history of being constantly embroiled in civil wars across the island and Stylianos Spyridakis highlights the Egyptian role in negotiating peace treaties. Ptolemy Philometor negotiated a peace treaty for Itanos resolving a territorial dispute 75  Stylianos Spyridakis, Ptolemaic Itanos and Hellenistic Crete (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 94. 76  George W.M. Harrison, The Romans and Crete (Amsterdam: A.M. Hakkert, 1993), 9.

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with its neighboring city, Praisos, over control of land that included the Temple of Zeus on Mt. Dicte. The Egyptian decision and the resulting treaty were honored from 164 until Philometor’s death in 145, because Philometor had sent troops to ensure that Itanos was protected and the ruling upheld. In 140 BCE, the city of Hierapytna laid claim to the adjoining land of Dictaeum and ambassadors from both cities went to Rome for arbitration, since Euergetes II had pulled Ptolemaic troops and interests out of Crete at the start of his reign.77 Rome was not successful in arbitrating a treaty, and the land remained contested. In addition to Philometor’s noteworthy and successful role as arbiter on the island, settling Judaeans on Crete was a military tactic to defend his wider interests. Pieter W. van der Horst argues that the troops sent by Ptolemy Philometor to Gortyn in the mid-second century BCE resulted in the first Judaean settlement of Crete.78 Stylianos Spyradakis takes Sib. Or. 3.271 as a reference to the presence of Judaeans in Crete: The statement of the author of the Sibylline Oracle, which attests that by 140 BCE the entire land and sea was “full of Jews” certainly cannot exempt Crete with its central location in the eastern Mediterranean.79 1 Maccabees 15:22–23 lists Gortyn as one of the destinations for the letter written in 140 BCE by the Roman consul Lucius requesting leaders to abstain from war with the Judaeans. van der Horst points out that Crete is the only island that is identified by a city, Gortyn. All other islands are listed by their names with no reference to their cities. Philo describes Jews living across the Mediterranean: “and not only are the mainlands full of Jewish colonies, but also the most highly esteemed of the islands, Euboia, Cyprus, Crete

77  Spyridakis, Ptolemaic Itanos and Hellenistic Crete. In 36 BCE Marc Antony gave Crete and Cyrene to Cleopatra as a gift, which was taken as a restoration of their established sphere of influence. For further sources on Cretan politics see Sheila L. Ager, “Hellenistic Crete and Koinodikion,” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 114 (1994): 1–18; Walter Emanuel Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau, and Steven W. Gauley, Urbanism in Antiquity: From Mesopotamia to Crete (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997); Stylianos Spyridakis, Cretica: Studies on Ancient Crete, Hellenism—Ancient, Mediaeval, Modern (New Rochelle: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1992). 78  Pieter W. van der Horst, “The Jews of Ancient Crete,” JJS 39.2 (1988): 183–200. See also Stylianos Spyridakis in “Notes on the Jews of Gortyna and Crete,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 73 (1988): 171–175. 79  Spyradakis, Cretica, 17.

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(Legat, 282).”80 Josephus (Vita 427) reports that his second wife came from an upper-class family in Crete. It is clear that there was a Judaean settlement in Gortyn, which van der Horst argues was the result of a military assignment of Ptolemy Philometor. Philometor had strong ties to Itanos on the eastern side of the island; so choosing to settle Judaeans in Gortyn in central Crete expanded his influence there. Ptolemy Philometor’s relationship with the Judaeans of Egypt offers precedent for his settlement of Judaeans in Crete. In Against Apion 2.49, Josephus relates that Philometor and his wife Cleopatra had two Judaean generals. In Antiquities 13.62–7, Onias requests a temple from Philometor. This account presents the building of the temple as a way to ease the quarreling in the area of Leontopolis. Philometor’s benevolent actions on behalf of Judaeans in building the Temple of Leontopolis was described as part of a political agenda. In Jewish War 7.423–32, Ptolemy Philometor is said to have been motivated by Onias to build the temple in Leontopolis in order to ally Judaeans with Egypt and against the Syrian Seleucids led by Antiochus Epiphanes. The Judaean colony acted as a first line of defense on the border position of Heliopolis. Just as Philometor had strategically supported a Judaean settlement in Leontopolis to act as border control, he established a Judaean community in Gortyn to extend and solidify his influence on Crete—now offering him a supportive base in the center and east side of the island. Collins argues that the focus on politics and warfare in the Sibylline Oracles Book III is atypical of the spiritual/philosophical tendencies of Alexandrian Judaism but would be appropriate for a follower of Onias.81 If the sibyllist was informed about Ptolemaic political maneuvers as the focus on politics implies, it is highly probable the author would know of Philometor’s precedent for establishing colonies as defensive systems as well as the importance and prestige of securing Crete. 5.5 Euhemerus and Crete For insight into how the sibyllist might have been trying to acknowledge the Ptolemaic Judaean settlement on Crete by highlighting some elements of Euhemerus’s tradition while repressing others, we return to the Sacred Record. Crete plays an important role in Euhemerus’s account, not only as the home of Zeus after his birth but also as comprising the priestly element on the island of Panchaea. He presents a Crete that is compatible with monotheistic

80  Philo, Legatio ad Gaium, trans. F.H. Colson. LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 143. 81  Collins, OTP v.1.355.

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thought, and this portrayal may have been used to encourage the settlement of Judaeans on Crete during the reign of Philometor. Euhemerus wrote that Panchaea was populated by indigenous people: Oceanites, Indians, Scythians, and Cretans. Spyridakis discusses the importance of the naming of Crete and points out that Euhemerus employed the common Hellenistic genre of the Utopian state to the island of Panchaea.82 The presence of the indigenous people, the Oceanites, and the Indians reflects the romantic notion of remote lands containing superior knowledge because of their perceived primitive nature. The Scythians represent a community exalting the simple life and wisdom which could be contrasted to an extravagant lifestyle that some Greeks criticized as the downfall of communities. They are the only group on the island that cannot be explained through the lens of romantic Utopian ideals. The Cretans are given the privileged title of priests and were brought to the island by Zeus when he was king. Spyridakis argues that the reason Euhemerus chose Crete to have such an important religious role was because it was famous as the hiding place of young Zeus and as the location of his tomb near Knossos. Therefore, Zeus’s tomb and the euhemeristic view of the gods that its existence implies are at the core of why the Cretans were accused of being liars.83 In the third-century BCE, Callimachus (writing in Alexandria) criticized both Euhemerus and Crete for being liars with regard to their statements concerning Zeus and the gods. The tomb is also mentioned by Cicero in De Natura Deorum 3.53 (1st century BCE). Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215 CE) refers to the accusation of Callimachus in his Exhortation to the Greeks: Search for your Zeus. Scour not heaven, but earth. Callimachus the Cretan, in whose land he lies buried, will tell you in his hymns: for a tomb, O Prince, did the Cretans Fashion for thee. Yes, Zeus is dead. (Protr. 2.32)84 This attests to the longevity and importance of the discourse, which was used in both Greek and Christian dialogue. The reference made in Sib. Or. VIII, which dates to the 2nd century CE is striking (Sib. Or. 8.45–49):

82  Spyridakis, “Zeus is Dead,” 1–7. 83  Ibid., 2–5. 84  Trans. G.W. Butterworth. LCL, 79.

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Where the race of Rhea or Kronos or Zeus and of all those whom you revered? Lifeless demons, likenesses of dead corpses, whose tombs ill-fated Crete will have as boast, worshipping senseless corpses with ritual enthronements.85

8.45

This inter-textual reference to Book III in a later book of the Sibylline Oracles attests that the author of Book VIII was at least aware of the tombs on Crete as well as of the stylistic choices of the sibyllist of Book III, and clearly connected both. Hilhorst points to a quotation from book five of Tacitus’s Histories, which establishes Crete as the origin of the Iudaei: As I am now to record the final days of the famous city (Jerusalem), it seems appropriate to inform the reader of its origins. The Jews are said to have been refugees from the island Crete who settled in the coastal area of Africa in the stormy days when, according to the story, Saturn was dethroned and expelled by the aggression of Jupiter. This is a deduction from the name Iudaei: that word is to be regarded as a barbarous lengthening of Idaei, the name of the people dwelling around the famous Mount Ida in Crete. Hist. 5.2.1–3

Hilhorst does not fully explore this passage because he does not find it critical to his examination, but he does theorize that this connection could result in part from Philistines of Crete invading Palestine and the Philistine worship of the god Marnas identified with Zeus Cretagenes in Gaza.86 This quote attests to a connection between Judaeans, Crete, and a Titan account that was extant at the end of the first century CE. Overall, there are enough textual references to conclude that it is likely that there were settlements of Judaeans on Crete, and—as Ptolemaic Egypt was the only substantial and respected non-local influence on the island—it is probable that those settlements were instituted by Philometor. If this is the case, then it is likely that the Ptolemaic Judaeans of the time would have been aware of the settlements. This context adds another layer of allusions behind the word choice of the account Sib. Or. III, which aligns with both the literary and political sensibilities of the sibyllist.

85  Collins, OTP v.1.419. 86  Hilhorst, “The Noah Story: Was it known to the Greeks?,” 65.

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5.6 Rome and Phrygia The intertextual layers discussed above in the reference to Phrygia would have also functioned as a subtle allusion to Rome as a new power that was currently advertising her mythological roots. By choosing to refer to both Phrygia and Crete, the sibyllist was able simultaneously to create layers of associations to literary and cultic debates as well as to the political resonances of those locations for both Ptolemaic and Roman interests. Other than Nieto Ibáñez (who argues that Phrygia was chosen over Crete because it was viewed as the cradle of the human race because Noah landed in the mountains of Ararat in Armenia), scholarship has largely ignored the question of why the sibyllist chose Phrygia rather than Crete.87 Rome was expanding, and the creation of a lineage was a priority in the face of empires that had a long history of domination around the Mediterranean. Rome propagated an etiological myth connecting itself to Phrygia. The legend in question states that Aeneas, son of Venus and Achises and a Trojan hero, survived the Trojan War and left the Troad for Latium in Italy.88 Filippo Battistoni discusses Rome’s use of kinship ties in diplomatic interactions: “Rome, starting at least with the third century (Segesta and Mamertines), participated in the wider phenomenon of kinship diplomacy. This often meant recalling its Trojan origins, which proved to be a very good presentation to the Greek or Hellenized world.”89 Battistoni argues that kinship ties were often created with states as a 87  Nieto Ibáñez, “Los titanes y Noé,” 102. Mount Ararat lies at the easternmost edge of what was Greater Phrygia, on the border of Cappadocia and Armenia. It is contestable as to whether it would have been considered Phrygia since the Hellenistic Kingdom of Armenia was founded after the collapse of the Seleucid Empire in 190 BCE, and references to Phrygia typically relate to western Turkey. 88  Antony Kamm, The Romans (London: Routledge, 1995); Erich Gruen, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992). The Greeks attempted to connect the Aeneas legend to Rome in order to construct Hellenic roots (in several ways). For instance, in Aristotle’s version of the legend, Achaean was a Greek is shipwrecked on the Tiber River on his way home after the Trojan War. He settled on the Tiber until a group of Trojans took it over. This tale still incorporated Trojan influence but set the Greeks as the original founders of the site of Rome. In another version, Odysseus had three sons with Circe named Rhomos, Anteias, and Ardeias. These sons then founded the Latin settlements of Rome, Antium, and Ardea. This tale in particular would have served Greece well if it had taken hold, because it would have linked three Latin sites directly to Greece. This legend was primarily rejected because it did not leave room for the local legend of Romulus and Remus. Although these connections between Rome and Greece did not gain common acceptance; the Romans accepted Trojan heritage because it served them on several levels. 89  Filippo Battistoni, “Rome, Kinship, and Diplomacy,” in Diplomats and Diplomacy in the Roman World, ed. by Claude Eilers (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 96.

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consequence of their pro-Roman stance. Troy became a symbol to the Romans rather than an actual reality. The Trojans gave Rome a heroic past, a cultural heritage, and a connection with Greece without becoming Greek. Gruen argues that “the Greeks imposed the Trojan legend upon the West as a form of Hellenic cultural imperialism, only to see it appropriated by the westerner to define and convey a Roman cultural identity.”90 In essence, Rome used this identity as a vehicle for the validation of its power and solidification of allies through kinship ties. Rome did not want to be put in the shadow of Greece and be represented as one of its offshoot colonies, as Greece originally attempted. Gruen maintains that instead, “the Roman upper classes welcomed incorporation into the cultural legacy of Hellas but preferred to carve out their own niche within it.”91 The Romans incorporated Greek heroes such as Hercules and Odysseus into their myths, and the Greeks incorporated visits to Rome in theirs. The cult of the Mater Magna was introduced into Rome as prescribed by the Roman libri Sibyllini during the Second Punic War (Livy, Hist. 29.10.5). The consultation by the decemviri was prompted by a showering of stones, prompting Rome also to consult the Delphic Oracle, who agreed with the Sibylline prophecy.92 The entrance of Magna Deorum Mater Idaea from the Troad into the Temple of Victory in 205/4 BCE legitimized Rome’s mythological link with Aeneas by claiming their religious heritage.93 If the sibyllist was writing the Titan account shortly after Philometor’s reign, Rome would not necessarily have been viewed as a direct and imminent threat yet, but rather as a power to keep an eye on. Rome had intervened on behalf of Egypt against the attempted invasion by Antiochus in 168 BCE, resulting in the famous line in the sand moment with the Roman general Gaius Popilius Laenas. Polybius and Livy attribute the saving of the Ptolemaic kingdom to Roman intervention (Polybius, Hist. 29.2; Livy, Hist. 44.19, 45.12; cf. Dan. 11.30). That is not to say that the reference to Phrygia 90  Gruen, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome, 31. 91  Ibid., 31. 92  Livy, Hist. 29.10.5. 93  Sarolta A. Takacs, “Magna Deum Mater Idaea, Cybele, and Catullus’ Attis,” 367–86. Originally, there was a difference between the Magna Deorum Mater Idaea, whose festival was in April, and the Cybele Mother Goddess from Pessinus, whose festival was in March. The cult and rituals of the Phrygian Cybele with her eunuch attendants were shocking to the Romans, but ritual practices could not be changed because that would negate the purpose of the introduction of the cult and result in loss of divine favor. The appearance of the cult could be contoured to Roman taste by associating the Cybele with Rhea and the more universal concept of the Μήτηρ Μεγάλη. The Mater was depicted with the iconic attributes of the Cybele such as the mural crown and the lions, and the two were soon equated as one and the same.

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should be seen as pro-Roman; Rome would have made enough of an impression to be acknowledged, perhaps as an implicit warning to remain aware of their increasing power. The choice of Phrygia is particularly significant because it is then expanded upon in other oracles within Book III that solidify an affiliation with Rome via Troy to the ill-fated line of Kronos. The Titan account’s reference does not hold any overt negative connotations because the focus was primarily on the Ptolemaic context of inter-dynastic disputes between Philometor and Euergetes II as well as the literary and cultic debates that reflect the sibyllist’s active engagement with Hellenistic poetic styles of intertextual reference and techniques (such as Ergänzungsspiel). The Titan account acts as a foundation for other verses that allude to Rome through references to the progeny of Kronos/Rhea and Phrygia, the larger territory in which Troy was located. While the oldest strata of Book III is dated to the second-century BCE, the text is a conglomeration of oracles and was written at different times by different Judaean authors; hence there are a variety of sibyllists represented within the text, which reflects predominately two different styles that individual sibyllists modeled (as discussed in Chapter One). An initial association between Rome and Phrygia established in the Titan account is supported when analyzing other references to the Titans within Book III. These references were written when Rome was seen as a more oppressive force to particular Judaean sibyllists, resulting in their embellishment of the connection between Rome and Phrygia and a loss of the original focus on Ptolemaic politics. Verses 401– 413 clarify how other oracles in Book III connect Phrygia, Troy, and Rome: There will also be immediately a sign for fertile Phrygia, when the abominable race of Rhea, a perennial shoot in the earth, flourishing with unthirsting roots, will disappear stump and all in a single night in the city of the earthquaking land-shaker, complete with its inhabitants3.405 which they will at one time call by the name of Dorylaeon of ancient, much-lamented dark Phrygia. That time is by name “earth-shaker.” It will scatter the hiding places of the earth and undo walls. The signs will be a beginning, not of good, but of evil. 3.410 It will have princes who are knowledgeable in the war of all tribes, producing native descendants of Aeneas, kindred blood. But thereafter you will be a prey to men who are lovers.94 94  Collins, OTP v.1.371.

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The “abominable race of Rhea” mentioned are the Trojans and they originate from their mother Rhea rather than from their father Kronos, which is atypical when compared to the other verses. Line 201 mentions Rhea, but only as “the noble mother,” aligning with her representation in the Titan account. The description in verse 402 is an indicator that this oracle is further removed in context from the sibyllist of the Titan account. This is an example of how Phrygia, Troy, and the Titan account are being connected elsewhere in Book III. The fall of Troy is described, and the descendants of Aeneas (e.g. the Romans) are identified as the “men who are lovers.” This identification reoccurs later in the oracle when describing the fall of Rhodes: You also, Rhodes, will indeed be free of slavery for a long time, daughter of a day, and you will have great wealth thereafter, 3.445 and you will have power at sea surpassing others. But afterward you will be a prey to lovers in beauty and wealth. You will place a terrible yoke on your neck.95 Rhodes suffered Roman sanctions in 167 BCE, solidifying the aforementioned identification of Aeneas’s descendants with Rome. Rome is viewed as a predator, a threat to the Mediterranean world. Verses 464–469 show that Rome is not immune to catastrophe: Italy, no foreign war will come to you but native blood, much bemoaned, inexhaustible, 3.465 notorious, will ravage you, shameless one; and you yourself, stretched out by the warm ashes, will kill yourself with no foresight in your breast. You will not be mother of a good people, but nurse of wild beasts.96 The author has a markedly derogatory attitude towards Rome. The native wars mentioned may refer to the Social War of 91–88 BCE, the civil war between Marius and Sulla in 83 BCE, or the Slave Wars of 73–71 BCE.97 In any case, this sibyllist exhibits knowledge of the political situations in Rome, while hoping that these may cause its downfall. The sibyllist alludes to the Romulus and Remus foundation myth, which depicts the twin boys being suckled by a she-wolf. This allusion combined with knowledge of the Aeneas legend, expresses a high level of awareness regarding the etiological legends of Rome. 95  Collins, OTP v.1.372. 96  Collins, OTP v.1.372. 97  Appian, Bell. civ. book 1; see also Plutarch, Sull.; Pomp.

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While the connection between Phrygia, Rome, and the descendants of Kronos and Rhea is most clearly expressed in verses 401–488, verses 156–7, 196–218, and 381–387 also mention the offspring of Kronos and/or Rhea and the Titans. Continuity does not need to be assumed between vss. 110–155 and 156–161. The list of kingdoms in vss. 156–161 states that God inflicted evil and death on the descendants of the Titans and Kronos. I believe this was not written at the same time as the Titan account and argue that 110–155 is an older grouping than 156–161. Perhaps its addition was prompted by the fact that God is not mentioned in the previous 45 verses of the Titan account. The list of kingdoms immediately following the Titan account in vss. 156–161, states: Then God inflicted evil upon the Titans and all the descendants of Titans and of Kronos died. But then as time pursued its cyclic course the kingdom of Egypt arose, then that of the Persians, Medes, and Ethiopians, and Assyrian Babylon, Then that of the Macedonians, of Egypt again, then of Rome.98

3.160

The placing of Rome as succeeding Egypt would also imply a later addition if the Titan account was written in the reign of Ptolemy Philometor when Rome was still establishing its position as the new force in the Mediterranean. Egypt was brought under Rome’s control in 30 BCE. Verses 196–218, 381–387, and 401–413 all mention the offspring of Kronos and/or Rhea as well as the Titans. These verses then used vss. 110–155 to function as a foundation or springboard for a polemic against the Romans. Collins argues that it is not necessary to date these verses to the first century because Rome had made its presence as a power sufficiently well-known to warrant its addition in the list of kingdoms.99 Although I agree that Rome had made enough of an impact on the author of the Sibylline Titan account to warrant acknowledgment, the inclusion of Rome as the subsequent kingdom to Egypt is too strong a statement from the perspective of the sibyllist of the Titan account, but it does fit with other later references such as vss. 401–413. It is important to keep in mind that, although Rome exhibited a powerful influence in the second century, Philometor did not comply with Rome and follow the Senate’s ruling in 162 or subsequent rulings in favor of Euergetes’s claims, setting him apart from Antiochus Epiphanes

98  Collins, OTP v.1.365. 99  Collins, The Sibylline Oracles of Egyptian Judaism, 26.

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and reaffirming Egypt’s sense of status.100 This list of kingdoms post-dates the Titan account and should not be viewed as one continuous unit. The insertion is betrayed by some points of noticeable disjunction from the previous account and those following it that refer back to the Titan account. The list of kingdoms opens with God inflicting judgment, which contrasts with God not being mentioned in the previous 45-line Titan account. It is also noteworthy that this is the only time the descendants of Titan and Kronos are explicitly wiped out. Verses 196–218, 381–387, and 401–413 all presuppose the survival of some descendants, although they are all viewed as negative elements in the world. Vss. 196–206 offer an interesting bridge that retains the positive reading of Kronos and Rhea and their offspring, while also referring to the Phrygians/​ Trojans/​Romans negatively: But why did God also prompt me to say this: What first, what next, what will be the final evil on all men, what will be the beginning of these things? First God will inflict evil upon the Titans for they will make retribution to the sons of mighty Kronos, for they bound Kronos and the noble mother. Second, the Greeks will have tyrannies and proud kings overbearing and impious, adulterous and wicked in all respects. There will no longer be respite from war for mortals. All the terrible Phrygians will perish, and evil will come upon Troy on that day.101

200

205

This oracle shows knowledge of the tradition displayed in the Sibylline Titan account of 110–155, yet it does not conflate Rhea with the Phrygians. The evil is inflicted on the Titans; there is no negative stigma attached to Kronos or Rhea. This more neutral position could indicate retention of the original Ptolemaic context of Kronos’s affiliation with Philometor. All the ‘terrible’ Phrygians, on the other hand, are connected with Troy and die. Alexander the Great is portrayed in a negative light and connected with the race of Kronos in vss. 381–383:

100  Polybius, Hist. 29.2, 29.23, 31.17–18, 31.26–28, 33.1, 33.8; Livy, Hist. 44.19, 45.12. 101  Collins, OTP v.1.366.

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But Macedonia will bring forth a great affliction for Asia and a very great grief for Europe will spring up from the race of Kronos, the progeny of bastards and slaves.102 Here there is a shift from the neutral attitude towards Kronos of the previous passage. Alexander the Great and the race of Kronos represent an unwanted foreign imperialistic force. This charge is one that can be similarly raised against Rome. Directly preceding this oracle in verses 350–380, a sibyllist predicts Rome’s defeat by Asia. There is no mention of Kronos or Phrygia; in fact, the only mention of Rome’s origins is given sarcastically in line 356—“O luxurious golden offspring of Latium, Rome”—and the text proceeds with insults. Lines 367–8 describe the aftermath of Rome’s destruction as a “serene peace will return to the Asian land, and Europe will be blessed.” The point of comparison between the two oracles is found in the same attitude towards these outside conquering forces on Asia and Europe. I agree with Gruen’s assessment of the Sibylline Oracles: “Insofar as Jewish authorship is involved, whether in origin or as redaction, it is best seen as expressing resentment against foreign oppression, wherever it manifests itself in the east.”103 The account in verses 110–155 offered a framework for the theme of the Titans to be expanded upon from its original context as a reference to the tyrannical behavior of Euergetes II, to later express a growing contempt for Rome as the new instigator of oppression. 6 Conclusion The Jewish Sibylline Titan account draws inspiration from Hesiod’s Theogony and Euhemerus’s Sacred Record, resulting in a unique multi-layered text that makes several subtle intertextual references denoting active interaction with Hellenistic Homeric scholarship that cannot be dismissed as purely coincidental or an odd byproduct of paraphrasing. The Sibylline Titan account ascribes to the gods of the Greek pantheon the status of mere mortals (which extends to cultic mysteries as well), while simultaneously implying that they were fools and cleverly juxtaposing the home of the Olympian gods with the underworld. The sibyllist engages with political, literary, and social/cultic traditions and texts to represent a wide range of cultural awareness and critique. It is a complex and rich text that made enough of an impact to spark other Sibylline writers to refer back to it and apply it to their own message. The author of the 102  Collins, OTP v.1.370. 103  Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism, 283.

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Sibylline Titan account reveals a comfort level with Greek literary hypotexts that allows them to be adapted to reflect a multi-cultural identity that did not mask a Jewish identity, but rather uncovered the creative potential of actively reinventing Greek tradition. As Sian Jones argues: Group identity is not a passive and straightforward reflection of a distinct culture and language. Instead ethnicity involves the subjective construction of identity on the basis of real or assumed shared culture and/or common descent, and groups have been defined by anthropologists and sociologists on the basis of self-definition and definition by others.104 This chapter paints a picture of a sibyllist who was aware of the political environment in Egypt and felt free to comment on that environment not as an outsider but as one with a vested interest in what transpired. The Titanomachy offered a framework that could be adjusted to reflect the Judaean author’s creative impulses and act as an appropriate conduit for commentary. The hypotexts already featured two rival brothers who—with a switch in birth order—could reflect the rival Ptolemies. The reference to Iapetus would bring to mind the Greek origin of sacrificial ritual, the creation of women, the release of evil into the world, the separation of heaven and earth, as well as biblical and Greek flood accounts, which also feature the sacrifice and the repopulation of humankind. The juxtaposition of the location of Pluto’s birthplace with Dodona and the subsequent association of Mount Olympus with the land of the dead, the use of hapax legomena within the account, and how the naming of Phrygia and Crete can be viewed in light of the installment of Judaean settlements on Crete, all of these elements individually might at first seem to be “irrelevant” (per Lactantius) differences from the Greek hypotexts, but together they clarify the sibyllist’s choice of the Titan myth that is much more complex than needing a mere beginning. The identification of multiple layers of allusion opens up possibilities concerning the nature of Judaean social commentary that deserve further research. 104  Jones, “Identities in Practice,” 37.

Conclusion The Lycian Apollo tells the poet to “tread a path which carriages do not trample; do not drive your chariot upon the common tracks of others, nor along a wide road, but on unworn paths, though your course be more narrow.” Callimachus1

∵ Reevaluation of Book III of the Sibylline Oracles to address how the gender of the Sibyl functioned in her appeal as a pseudonym to Hellenistic Judaean writers in Ptolemaic Egypt requires (as Callimachus describes above) a journey down unworn paths with a narrow course. The Sibyl’s reputation as a harbinger of doom is deeply engrained in reception to the point that Book III’s complexity and nuance has been overshadowed. Amy-Jill Levine observes the conflicted cycle that one appears to be confronted with when viewing the Sibylline corpus as a whole: A potential indicator of peaceful coexistence, Jewish appropriation of this Gentile genre showed the ease of movements between the two cultures. Yet, just as the Jewish Sibyl ultimately condemns the Gentiles (especially Rome) by means of the very literary form they valued as sacred, Christian texts co-opted the Jewish ones and then used them to condemn the Jews. The Oracles thus fulfill their predictions of distress for women and men, members of all religious groups.2 I have attempted to break this cycle by focusing solely on Book III and placing it within the larger intellectual, cultural, and political context of Ptolemaic Egypt, asking to what extent it reflects active participation in these discourses, and to ultimately show that the message of hope, justice, and redemption challenge the pessimistic expectations one may have initially. The Sibylline corpus 1  Callimachus, Aetia, 1.21. Aetia, Iambi, Hecale and Other Fragments. Musaeus: Hero and Leander trans. C.A. Trypanis, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), 7–8. 2  Amy-Jill Levine, “The Sibylline Oracles” in Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary v. 2, ed. Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 99–108, quote 108.

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is comprised of a variety of contexts among the books and contains composite oracles within each book, Book III as the oldest in the corpus represents the foundation the sibyllists laid for the plethora of voices that would come after. The reorientation on gender allowed for a more nuanced understanding of the creativity expressed through literary, cultural, and political commentary in verses of Book III that have previously been marginalized in scholarship. The Judaean sibyllists needed a pseudepigraphal persona that could express hybrid identity—one that could accommodate allusions drawn from both Greek and Jewish tradition—and the ability and authority to direct critiques at both traditions, sometimes within the same verse. The sibyllists of Book III reflect no sense of taboo or self-consciousness when the female Sibyl prophecies in the manner of male Hebrew prophets, addresses both kings as well as the ethical behavior of nations, and openly challenges Homer the father of Greek literature. The sibyllists embraced the ambiguities of the Sibyl’s traditions to incorporate her into a Jewish axis of history, which allowed them to encompass a range of themes, develop two distinct styles, and claim authority with universal as well as particularistic capacity. There may be some resistance to the feminist framework because it subordinates the ethnic role of the Sibyl as Greek to her role as a female prophetess. To clarify, I am not denying that the Sibyl’s reputation within the Greek sphere is important; I am arguing that it does not need to be seen as the primary aspect of her multifaceted, literary identity. The intent is that this reorientation of focus stimulates further discussion on the Sibyl and brings her from the margins of the Jewish pseudepigrapha towards its center. This investigation offers the field of Hellenistic Judaism another example of the interwoven nature of identity constructions in the Mediterranean world by demonstrating how Jewish identity was articulated through intentional interaction with and expropriation of Greek cultural symbols. Reclaiming the gender of the Sibyl as operative in the appeal of the pseudonym requires a reassessment of the approach to verses that have been seen as fulfilling superficial stylistic purposes, demonstrating how they function within the larger monotheistic call of Book III. This analysis does not ignore the importance of questions concerning style; it subordinates them so stylistic choices can be viewed as a tool of Jewish creativity. A writer in second-century BCE Egypt chose the Sibyl as a female voice of prophecy because she offered a persona that could serve the creative literary aspirations of a Ptolemaic Judaean participating in the wider milieu of Hellenistic poetic competition fueled by Homeric scholarship in Alexandria. The Judaean sibyllist displayed knowledge of Greek tradition, not to disguise a Jewish identity, but because that tradition reflected a part of the lived cultural experience and education of

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the sibyllist. The sibyllist was not an outsider to the larger intellectual literary trends of the time. The sibyllist was an active participant in subtle forms of intertextual reference, political commentary, and skilled in subtle yet poignant critiques of polytheism, including hero and mystery cult practice. The examples of intertextuality and allusion within this examination contribute to the burgeoning field of Hellenistic literature in general. The sibyllist is thus saved from the fringes of the intellectually competitive cultural context of the time and is placed at its center, confidently articulating a monotheistic sentimentality through the creative adaptation of foundational Greek narratives. This journey has required the modern reader to abandon preconceived notions of what motifs would have been accessible and acceptable as Jewish constructs and to accept the integrated nature of Hellenistic Judaean experience and identity. Acknowledging that Book III is a composite text, this investigation has primarily focused on three sections from the oldest stratum as examples of how a sibyllist expressed creativity through a unique blend of Greek and Jewish referents: the Sibyl’s genealogy; the Titan account; and the description of Homer. Unlike the prophecies of God’s judgment of mortals and the coming end times,3 these sections of Book III do not overwhelm the reader with calls for moral reform or easily recognizable references to Jewish tradition. I chose to focus my investigation on sections that are not overtly ‘Jewish’ to demonstrate how they function within the whole of Book III and express one manifestation of Hellenistic Judaean identity. The genealogy of the Sibyl establishes her connection to the One True God and her place in a Noahic line of authoritative transmission that is in keeping with other pseudepigraphal texts of the time. My analysis demonstrates how the Judaean sibyllists offered a unified persona with credentials in both Greek and Jewish traditions: a true Hellenistic Jewish prophetess. Reframing the appeal of the pseudonym as focused on the gender of the Sibyl rather than style allowed for these verses within Book III to be reevaluated. I have uncovered multiple layers of intertextual references to both Archaic and more contemporary Greek literature, explored the political and cultic resonances that particular word choices could have evoked within the context of the second century BCE, and demonstrated how these references are utilized to support the breakdown of idolatrous practice. The sibyllists crafted a pseudonym that highlighted their knowledge and abilities, challenged their fellow Greeks by showcasing how monotheism offered them an edge that proved their superiority, while simultaneously acknowledging that 3  Verses 3.265–380, 489–572, 601–701, 732–808. The Jewish people in verses 218–264 and 573– 600 are held up as righteous models for others who may yet be saved if they change their idolatrous ways. See Appendix 1 for a description of sections of the text.

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they would welcome them as lost kin if they abandoned their idols. The sibyllist’s monotheistic mores led to innovative inversions of foundational Greek narratives, removing the power from the pantheon and cults to create a series of unique interpretatio Judaica. Chapter One falls within what Fuchs categorizes as a “critical retrospective”4 of scholarship in order to create a genealogical consciousness of the boundaries between the departments of Jewish Studies and Classics, the foundational dualities that were constructed in the previous marginalization of the Hellenistic period in both fields, and how these divisions have been overcome in recent scholarship. The historiography of the reception of Book III has not integrated modern interpretive lenses such as feminist hermeneutics and/or is limited by (whether consciously or not) the imposed supposition of arbitrary parameters around the nature of Jewish topoi in opposition to the domain of Greek/Hellenistic topoi. Chapter Two delved into the identity construction of the Sibyl in Greek and Jewish tradition and called for the gender of the Sibyl to be accepted as fundamental in understanding her role as a Jewish pseudonym. The visibility and representation of female leadership and agency during the Hellenistic period in the political, religious, and literary realms offers the broader context in which a female voice of prophecy would have been desirable. Chapter Three explored how the sibyllists modeled her prophetic voice on what has been seen as accepted models of male prophets challenging what has been traditionally imposed as limitations on female prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Framing the Sibyl’s oracles in discussions concerning the nature of gendered Jewish prophecy allowed for a reconsideration of how the sibyllists evoked authority and their position on the true root of evil and corruption. Chapter Four focused on examples of intertextual techniques such as allusion and Ergänzungsspiel to establish that the author was writing in multiple layers simultaneously as was typical of Hellenistic poetry. I argue that the Sibylline description of Homer is not a mere paraphrase of a lost Archaic Sibyl but an innovation of the Judaean sibyllist to subvert the status of the paragon of Greek literature, relegating Homer to a mere imitator of the Sibyl while denigrating his false focus on heroes and gods. Placing sections of Book III in dialogue with recent investigations into the nature of Hellenistic literature uncovered layers of intertextual references that showcase how the sibyllist used both Jewish and Greek referents to contribute a unique voice to the Muses’ birdcage.5 Chapter Five questioned the standard interpretations that marginalized the Sibylline Titan account as a stylized introduction and 4  Fuchs, Jewish Feminism, viii. 5  Timon of Phlius, Supplementum Hellenisticum. 786.

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advocated a multifaceted approach to uncover subtle intricacies that point to a larger context. Using Hesiod and Euhemerus as hypotexts, the sibyllist created a distinctive hypertext that allowed critique of the Greek pantheon, myth, and cultic worship as well as subtle allusions to contemporary Ptolemaic dynastic debates. My overarching framework has been a hermeneutic of suspicion, breaking down dichotomies not only between Hellenism and Judaism and the limits imposed upon inspiration and creativity within that interaction, accepting the complexity of identity, and reclaiming the importance of a gendered voice. People hold more than one truth simultaneously and the products of our experience reflect many realities, both personal and cultural; this is as true for the ancient world as it is today. Schüssler Fiorenza pairs a hermeneutic of suspicion with a hermeneutic of remembrance,6 which entails the integration of women’s history within larger movements rather than keeping it a separate category. The goal of a hermeneutic of remembrance is reintegration, and—for the purpose of this investigation—that includes accepting gender as an integral aspect of the Jewish pseudonym and the role of Jewish creativity as an expression of hybrid identity. By addressing sections of Book III that have been viewed as ornamental, anomalous, or ‘other,’ this investigation has uncovered a Sibyl whose authority is internally consistent and a sibyllist who is not thoughtlessly following any set model, but forging new ideas by creatively weaving together traditions. This perspective opens up opportunities for how Book III could be reintegrated within wider discussions of prophetic agency and feminine representation in the ancient world. This is the beginning of the feminist work that needs to be done on Book III as well as the rest of the Sibylline corpus. Feminist work is concerned with extending and transforming the fields themselves, Fuchs articulates this focus as follows: 6  Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Remembering the Past in Creating the Future: HistoricalCritical Scholarship and Feminist Biblical Interpretation” in Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship by Adela Yarbro Collins (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 57. There are other descriptions given to the hermeneutic of remembrance that reflect different aims on behalf of the author. For example, Judith Plaskow uses the hermeneutic of remembrance with regard to feminist Judaism as honoring the past by traditional interpretation while using the hermeneutic of suspicion to call those traditional interpretations into question if they are a hinderance in modern life. Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective. (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), esp. 13–18. Phyllis Trible uses it in articulating the need to promote protection for women who are abused in Biblical texts. Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).

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… think about Jewish feminism as a position and a commitment to activist scholarship, rather than as a positivist discourse “about” women. It advocates a critical engagement both with traditional disciplinary structures in Jewish Studies and with the masculinization of the new cultural Jewish Studies. Currently, the hegemonic assumption is that the task of the feminist researcher is to add information or data about women in any given subfield. Instead, I call for a redefinition of research as an interrogation of existing norms and conventions, a revisionary and transformational kind of knowledge that is embodied, political, and engaged.7 This has become a driving impetus behind a host of current scholarship, but there is still a lot of ground to cover before a full range of sources across fields is re-evaluated with this type of work in mind. My goal has been to offer not only another example to the ever-growing complex matrix of recovered voices that populated the ancient Mediterranean, but to challenge conventional notions of gender and prophetic agency and the depths of Jewish creativity through expropriation of Greek cultural and religious imagery. Challenging foundational assumptions concerning Book III from a feminist perspective is not simply a matter of reclaiming the Sibyl as a female voice; it also requires accepting a context in which the sibyllists can be educated Greeks as well as monotheistic Judaeans, not passive witnesses to Ptolemaic Egypt cloistered in a Jewish ghetto but active and confident participants in the Greek intellectual, cultural, and political world. It requires letting go of the concept that a female voice would be a hindrance or inconvenience to be overcome rather than a source of strength and an effective conduit for active reflection on broader Hellenistic discussions. It is in this space of both accepting and letting go that I see potential for feminist work on the Sibylline corpus as well as Hellenistic studies more broadly, that has “as its consequence far-reaching changes in religion and society, as well as political and revolutionary significance. Hence, it (feminist work) must be practical, this-worldly, transformative, renewing and transitional.”8 Addressing Hellenistic complexity and its potential ramifications regarding the legacy of ancient Mediterranean history can be seen as a controversial, political endeavor which is one of the reasons the period was 7  Fuchs, Jewish Feminism, viii. This indeed reflects a wider call from within the field, as demonstrated by a similar working definition of feminist work that was put forth by the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) at the Annual Meeting in 2010. See Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Between Movement and Academy: Feminist Biblical Studies in the Twentieth Century” in Feminist Biblical Studies in the Twentieth Century: Scholarship and Movement, edited by Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 1–20, definition given on p. 4. 8  Schüssler Fiorenza, “Between Movement and Academy,” 4.

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attenuated. Modern Western civilization—North America in particular—sees itself as an heir to the Greco-Roman world, a blend of imperialist and democratic tendencies cocooned by claims of historically established kyriarchies. While some claim that ancient history is irrelevant to people’s everyday modern lives, the intense reactions to challenges to the standard narrative known by most non-specialists belie this claim. The issue of polychromy illustrates this point. The history of painted Greek and Roman statues has been rejected by some of the general public because it conflicts with the legacy of white marble statuary that has been the hallmark of the Greco-Roman ideal, images which have unfortunately been used to promote racist agendas, including white supremacist groups (such as Identity Europa) using classical sculptures in media messaging. Roman historian Sarah E. Bond received death threats after writing online essays discussing the importance of polychromy in dismantling the “lily white antiquity” of the public imagination.9 Ruth Ben-Ghiat, scholar of fascism and visual propaganda, has also been attacked for illustrating the connections between how Mussolini and Hitler used realism and classical style to propagate a fascist ideology of national “purity” and “heritage.” She has commented on recent developments in the apocalyptic “fashwave” artwork of the alt-right which displays images of Greco-Roman white marble male busts as an ideal archetype in the midst of destructive landscapes.10 While the academy has been challenging traditional narratives for decades or more depending on the topic, this information has not been disseminated in an accessible fashion to non-specialists. Greco-Roman history has been used to find scapegoats for what is perceived as emblematic of a period’s decline as well as what characterizes its previous success.11 As the relevance of the Humanities is questioned, 9  Sarah E. Bond, “Why We Need to Start Seeing the Classical World in Color,” Hyperallergic, 7 June 2017, https://hyperallergic.com/383776/why-we-need-to-start-seeing-the-classical -world-in-color/ and “Whitewashing Ancient Statues: Whiteness, Racism, and Color in the Ancient World,” Forbes, 27 April 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/drsarahbond/2017/ 04/27/whitewashing-ancient-statues-whiteness-racism-and-color-in-the-ancient -world/#39d87af475ad. See also, Lauren Cavalli, “Classicist Receives Death Threats from Alt-Right over Art Historical Essay,” Artforum, 15 June 2017, https://www.artforum.com/ news/id=68963. 10  Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015) and Fascist Modernities: Italy 1922–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). See also Jack Smith IV, “This is fashwave, the suicidal retro-futuristic art of the altright,” Mic online, 12 January 2018 https://mic.com/articles/187379/this-is-fashwave-the -suicidal-retro-futurist-art-of-the-alt-right#.AYSvcd0DD. 11  There has been debate on social media over people falsely claiming that the downfall of the Romans was the fault of a lax immigration policy in order to support their stance on current immigration debates. See Mary Beard, “The Fall of the Roman Empire on Twitter,” The Times Literary Supplement (TLS), 7 December 2016, http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/

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specialists have an obligation to contextualize not only the period they study and its reception to the public, but also to critically engage with the impact recent insights have on current race, identity, as well as sex, sexuality, and gender discussions.12 The Hellenistic age has a plethora of unmined resources for the academy to utilize in creating new discussion points to invite challenges that would stimulate not only dialogue but new avenues of research as well. There is still much work to be done within the Sibylline corpus as a whole, especially if scholars avoid the tendency to collapse these books together as if they represent a unified voice and develop a sensitivity to the intricacies each one has to offer on its own. It is only when we try to grasp fully how these texts engaged with their context that we can find meaning and depth in how the Sibyl as a pseudonym continued to be reshaped by shedding light on how different sibyllists engaged with one another as well as the wider world. Exploration, for instance, would be welcome into the shift from the Sibyl being presented as an insider to an outsider and the affects that has on the representation of the Sibyl’s female voice.13 There are also interesting avenues of pursuit in Medieval and Renaissance reception history of the Sibyl and its intersection with pseudepigraphal studies. For example, Collins argues that it was not the Archaic Greek Sibyl but the reformed Jewish and Christian Sibyl that resonated with later generations.14 The significance of the Sibyl’s gender can be seen as exhibiting itself later in the visual manifestation of pairing Sibyls with Hebrew prophets in the art of Christian churches by masters such as Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel and Raphael in the Chigi Chapel of Santa Maria della Pace in Rome as well as with famous secular men in Andrea del Castagno’s fresco in the Villa Carducci in Florence. Is this the product of cultural memory, which public/mary-beard-fall-of-roman-empire for an example of how a claim to grade school history and the movie Gladiator are presented as valid credentials in this debate with a well-respected and world-renowned Classicist. 12  This discussion is evolving most effectively on social media platforms such as twitter feeds and blogs by specialists and increased publication with online journals and newsletters which are written in a more conversational, popular style than traditional print journals and allows for wider accessibility and potential impact. Examples include: Rebecca F. Kennedy, “We Condone It By Our Silence: Confronting Classics’ Complicity in White Supremacy,” Eidolon, 11 May 2017, https://eidolon.pub/we-condone-it-by-our-silence-bea76fb59b21; Dan-el Padilla Peralta, “Classics Beyond the Pale,” Eidolon, 20 February 2017, https:// eidolon.pub/classics-beyond-the-pale-534bdbb3601b; Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, et al. “White Supremacy and the Humanities: A Challenge to the University,” Religious Studies News, April 2019, http://rsn.aarweb.org/white-supremacy-and-humanities-challenge-university. 13  Olivia Stewart Lester has started this work in relation to Books IV and V, see Prophets and Their Rivals. 14  Collins, “The Jewish Transformation of Sibylline Oracles,” 197.

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understood and acknowledged the importance of the Sibyl’s gender to her prophecy and authority?15 My own experience of presenting on the Sibyl in reformed synagogue and community contexts has been met with strong interest because exploring the blending of cultural traditions and examples of female leadership and agency are typically focused on more modern texts because the ancient world is assumed to lack any. I close with Lightfoot’s reminder: There are two keys to writing on the Sibylline Oracles. The first is to be clear what the most important questions about them are, and what questions about them are answerable: these are not necessarily the same thing. The second is to recognize that the Sibylline tradition is a story of constant invention and reinvention. This investigation has provided some new questions as well as offered some new answers in the hope that this discourse will prompt conversation and further investigation into the place of the Sibylline Oracles within pseudepigraphal studies. I see this as an opening of discussion and debate over the type of information we may be able to uncover concerning hybrid identity and cultural expressions of creativity that extend beyond accepted Jewish topoi that foster greater collaboration between the fields of Jewish studies and Classics in order to regain the Sibyl’s spirit of invention and reinvention.

15  I began to explore this in my presentation, “The Triune Sibyl: Greek, Jewish, and Christian Manifestations of a Mutable Muse” at the Society for Biblical Literature National Conference, November 17, 2018, Denver, CO.

appendix 1

Content Overview of Book III The following overview of Book III offers a basic description of passages.1 97–104 105–155 156–161 162–195

196–217

218–264 265–294 295–349 350–380 381–387

388–400 401–431

432–488

489–544

Fall of the tower of Babylon. Euhemeristic account of the Titans. List of eight world empires. Description of kingdoms, the conquests and impiety of Rome and the coming of the seventh king from Egypt. [Dated to after battle of Magnesia in 190 BCE because of the focus on Rome. Collins dates to after Roman intervention with Antiochus 163–45 BCE.] God inflicts punishment on the Titans, mortals will have no respite from war and a prediction of evil on those who live around the Temple of Solomon and introduction to their genealogy. Description of the righteous practices and history of the Jews, Moses as leader of the twelve tribes, and the giving of the law. Excursus on Babylonian exile as punishment for idolatry and restoration. Prophecy against various nations. Oracle: Asia’s vengeance on Rome by a lady (despoina) typically identified with Cleopatra VII and dated to before the battle of Actium (31 BCE). Oracle: Fall of the Macedonian kingdom after the conquest of Babylon. Geffcken ascribes this to the Persian Sibyl and S.K. Eddy ascribes it to the Babylonian Sibyl. Oracle: Coming of Alexander to Asia and allusion to Daniel 7. Oracle: Fall of Troy and Homer as writer of falsehoods. [Geffcken ascribes to the Erythraean Sibyl. Varro (Lact. Div.Inst. 1.6) and Pausanias (10.2.2) refer to this section.] Prophecies against nations. V. 464–469 reference to Roman civil war and v. 470 man from Italy goes to Asia identified with Sulla, thus this oracle may be associated with the Mithridatic wars. Prophecy of woes against various nations, ending with a prediction of God setting fire to the earth which only 1/3 of mankind will survive.

1  This overview is loosely based on the one offered by Collins in “Sibylline Oracles, Book 3” in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 1. pp. 359–361, but the breakdown of passages differs from his section breaks. The following divisions highlight shifts in focus to aid the reader with dating disputes and the themes addressed.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004426078_009

202 545–572

573–600 601–618 619–623 635–652 653–656 657–668 669–701 702–731 732–740 741–761 762–766 767–795

796–808 809–829

appendix 1 Exhortation to the Greeks endangered by idolatry. They can be saved by looking to God, not human kings, for protection, and sacrifice at the temple of God, but this will not happen until God’s plan is fulfilled. Praise for the Jews who avoid idolatry, adultery, pederasty, and follow the holy law of God and sacrifice at God’s temple. Prophecy of God’s judgment on mortals. Transformation of the earth by God. Prophecy concerning the end-time. God sends a king from the sun to end the wars. Gentiles will attack the temple of God. God’s judgment. God saves the elect. Exhortation to the Greeks. Day of judgment. Plea for people to worship God, avoid adultery, pederasty, and infanticide. Description of the eschatological kingdom. Prophecy that people from all countries will send gifts to the temple (Isa 2:1–4) and that the earth will be transformed (Isa 11). A sign of the end-times. Sibyl concludes with her genealogy.

appendix 2

Apotheosis of Homer Marble Relief

Apotheosis of Homer, marble relief by Archelaus of Priene, c. 3rd century BCE British Museum, reference # 1819, 0812.1 sculpture 2191 object reference # GAA8313

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004426078_010

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Index of Primary Sources Hebrew Bible Genesis 5:1 100 6 93n17, 95, 101 6:1–4 100, 100n36 6:8–9 100 10 160 11:31 117 19 109, 110 32:29 92 38:11 117 Exodus 15:3 83 20:17 82 Leviticus 18:22 109 20:13 109 Numbers 23:19 83 Judges 4:6–7 116 17–21 110 19 110 1 Samuel 18:6–7 82 2 Samuel 11:1–17 82n107 2 Kings 22:14

115n70, 116, 117

Isaiah 1:10–17 109n55 2:3 112n62 10 120 11:6–8 113, 114n66 11:6–9 112, 112n62 12 120

12:6 112n62 19 120 29:6 112n62 30:17 112n62 30:25 112n62 30:30 112n62 34:4 112n62 40:4 112n62 41:10 112n62 45:18–25 95 45:19 119 45:25 95n22 65:25 112n62 65–66 95 Jeremiah 7:18 75 20:7 71n62, 119 20:9 71n62 23:9 71n62 44:19 75 Ezekiel 14:14 93n17 16:49–50 109 20 93n17 38:21–2 112n62 Hosea 9:7 119 Zechariah 2:10 112n62 Esther 1:11–12 79 1:16–20 79 Daniel 11:25–30 21n63 11:29–30 20n60 11:30 185 Ezra 2:62 92

232

Index of Primary Sources

Nehemiah 7:64 92 2 Chronicles 34:22

115n70, 116

New Testament John 18:15–16 134n40 Greco-Roman Authors Aelian, Varia historia 13.22 147 Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 171n46 Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1215 71n62 1239–40 71n62 Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.2.1 160n13 Apollodorus, Epitome 1.2.3 171n46 1.7.2 172n52 1.7.8–9 88n5 Appian, Bellum civile 1 187n97 1.102 73n72 Appian, Historia romana [Syriaca] 11.68 73n70 Aristophanes, Aves 959–90 62n29 Aristophanes, Equites 61 59n16 997–1096 59n16 1116 59n16 Aristophanes, Pax 1045–1126 59n16 1063–1116 118n89 Aristotle, Generatione Animalium 737a 26–30 4n9

Aristotle, Poetics 1459b 140n54 1460a 140n53 Aristotle, Politica 8.1337a–b 49n67 8.1338a 49n67 Aristotle, Problemata 954a 61n25 Athenaeus, Sophists at Dinner 4.184b–c (FGrH 270 F 9) 23n73 Athenagoras, Legatio 30 89n7 Callimachus, Aetia 1.21 192 119,2 160n13 Callimachus, Coma Berenices 78 Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo 4.273–4 167n34 Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus 160, 167, 168, 170, 176 4–53 167 8 167n34 65 161n14 Callimachus, Iambus IV 144 V.31–3 60, 60n19 Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.53 182 Cicero, Divinatione 1.4 63n34 1.34 61n26, 63n31 2.111–112 63n32 2.112 63n31 2.54.112 118n89 2.110 63n34 Cicero, Scaurus 1b 110n57 Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus (Exhortation to the Greeks) 2.24 176 2.32 182 6.71.4 89n7

233

Index of Primary Sources Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 1.21 61n21, 89n7 3.3 89n7 5.14 89n7 Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 1.15.7 142n59 3.66.3 142n59 4.2.4 142n59 4.66.6 140, 140n56 5.42.4–46 163n22 6.1 163n22, 164n26 10.20–21 110n57 12.12.4–13.4 50n69 17.52.3 146 30–31 162n16 30–33 21n63 30, 31, 33 21n64 32.9c 73n70 33 162n16 33.13 23n75, 24n77 34 24n78 34–35 162n19 35.14 24n78 Dionysus of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates romanae 1.72.5 134n41 4.62 62n30 4.62.5–6 86n3 Eusebius, Chronicon 1.61 24n78 1.165 73n72 1.257–9 73n70 Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 2.2.59B–61A 163n22 13.12.1f 152n89 Galen, De sanitate tuenda 1.2 4n10 Galen, De usu partium 14.6 4n8 Herodotus, Historia 1.62–3 62n28 6.19.2–3 59n13 6.74 169n41 8.20 61n24

8.77 61n24 8.96 61n24 9.43 61n24, 62n27 Hesiod, Theogony 42–108 172n50 132–136 171n46 132–138 159 507–511 171n46 507–600 172n49 1110–1114 134n41 Hippocrates, Epidemics 6.8.32 4n10 Homer, Iliad 2.750–5 169 3.200–203 134n42 8.469 171 8.478–481 171n46 9.560 88n5 9.553–564 87 10.246–7 134n42 15.185–99 160 Homer, Odyssey 9 135 10 134 11.90 ff 140n55 19.105–179 135 19.179 135n43 Homeric Hymn to Apollo 3.1–178 143 3.171–3 143 3.174–178 144n66 3.179–546 143 Homeric Hymn to Demeter 142n60, 143n62, 175, 175n64 Justin, 1 Apologie 16 89n7 20 89n7 44 89n7 Justinus, Epitome 36.1 73n70 38.8–13 24n77 38.8–39.2 24n78

234

Index of Primary Sources

Justinus, Epitome (cont.) 38.8.4 22n72, 162n19 39.1–2 73n70 39.3–4 73n71 Lactantius, Institutiones Divinae 1.6 136n45 1.6.7 13n34 1.6.8–12 13n33, 61n23 1.6.9 138, 138n50 1.11 163n22 2.16.1 13n34 4.6.4 13n34 4.15.29 13n34 7.18.7 13n34 7.19.9 13n34 7.20.1 13n34 7.24.12 14n34 13 163n22 14 163n22 14.1–12 46n58, 164n25 14.8 165n28 17 163n22 22 163n22 Livy 1.57–9 110n57 3.44 110n57 21.62.11–22.57.5 63n35 29.10.5 185 38.38.11–17 17n52 38.45.3 63n35 44.19 20n60, 21n63, 185, 189n100 44.19–45.11 24n78 44.42.7 17n51 45.12 20n60, 21n63, 185, 189n100 Lucretius, De Rerum Natura Musonius Rufus 4

51n72

Ovid, Ars amatoria 2.123–4 134n42 Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.612–727 109n54 14.101–153 64n40 14.129–30 64n39

46, 47

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.9.1 24n78 1.9.1–3 73n71 2.14.1 171n46 4.27.4 59n14, 61n24 88, 88n5 5.18.2 9.17.5 59n15, 61n24 10.2.2 136n45 10.12.1–9 87 10.12.2 91n12, 139n52 10.12.7 88 10.12.9 88 10.12.11 61n24 10.14.6 61n24 10.32.8ff 61n24 Pindar, Nemean Odes 7 135 Pindar, Paeans 7b = fr. 52h 142n59 Plato, Leges 804d6–805b2 51n72 Plato, Phaedrus 244a–b 60, 60n18 Plato, Republic 451c–452d 51n72 456d–457b 51n72 Plato, Theages 124d 60 Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 4.5.2 148 13.88 62n30 Plutarch, Alexander 26 148n74 Plutarch, Coriolanus 11.2 23n73, 162n18 Plutarch, Moralia 145C 51n72 200F–201a 162n18 Plutarch, Mulierum virtutibus 243b 60n20 Plutarch, Pompey 187n97 Plutarch, Pythiae oraculis 396 57n5 396c–397d 58n8 397a–b 57n2

235

Index of Primary Sources 398 70n59 399a 58n7, 60n17 Plutarch, Quaestiones convivales 3.4 4n10 Plutarch, Sulla 187n97 2.7.6 86n3

Thucydides 3.102 142n59

Polybius 21.43 17n52 28.21 21n63 29.2 20n60, 21n63, 185, 189n100 29.23 21n63, 189n100 31.17–18 21n63, 189n100 31.26–28 21n63, 189n100 31.31 50n69 33.1 21n63, 189n100 33.8 21n63, 189n100

Virgil, Aeneid 6.99 58n9 9 134n42

ps.-Justin, Cohortatio ad Graecos 36a 58n8

4Q508 (4Q Festival Prayers) 117

Pseudo-Eupolemus 171n47

Timon of Phlius, Supplementum Hellenisticum 786 124, 147n72, 195

Dead Sea Scrolls 1Q20 117 1QapGen 1–12

4Q252–254a 117

4Q547 117

Strabo 14.1.37 147 17.1.7–10 146 17.1.11 23n73 10.3.11–14 176 10.3.19–20 176

Documentary Papyri, Inscriptions, & Epigrams

Suetonius, Augustus 31.1 63n38 Tacitus, Annals 6.12 63n36, 63n38 Tacitus, Histories 5.2.1–3 183 Tertullian, Ad Nationes 2.12 89n7 Theophilus of Antioch Ad Autolycum 2.3 89n7 2.31 89n7 2.36 89n7 11.3 14n36 11.31 14n36

93n17

Anthologia Graeca 9.190.3

141n57

CIG 3185

51n75

CIJ 315 CIJ 1007 CIJ ii 1451 CIJ ii 1489 CIJ ii 1490 CIJ ii 1508 CIJ ii 1509 CIJ ii 1510 CIJ ii 1511 CIJ ii 1512 CIJ ii 1513 CIJ ii 1514 CIJ ii 1522 CIJ ii 1530A CIJ ii 1530

77n86 77n86 77n85 77n85 77n85 77n85 77n85 77n85 77n85 77n85 77n85 77n86 77n85 77n85 77n85

C.Ord.Ptol. no.53 C.Ord.Ptol. no.53 bis

24n79 24n79

236 C.Ord.Ptol. no.53 ter = Corpus des Ordonnances des Ptolémées

Index of Primary Sources 24n79

Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum 1.132

22n67

IG XII 9.235

50n69

MDAI (A) 1907:278 50n69 MDAI 35 (1910), 436, no. 20 51n75 MDAI 37 (1912), 277–78, no. 1 51n75 = Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts Paris Papyrus 63

22n67, 74n76

P.Cair. 65445 line 140–54 147n71 = Un livre d’écolier du IIII siècle avant J.C. P.Oxy. XXVII 2465 = Oxyrhynchus Papyrii

176n65

P. Hal. 1.260–65

50n69

PP I.264 PP II.2155 PP II.2163 PP IV.10070a PP VI.14595 = Prosopographia Ptolemaica, I–IX (Lovanii, 1950–81)

24n76, 162n20 24n76, 162n20 24n76, 162n20 24n76, 162n20 24n76, 162n20

SIG3577 50n69 SIG3578 50n69, 51n74 SIG3672 50n69 = Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum Second Temple Literature 1 Enoch 122 1–36 101 7:3–6 101 8:1 100n36 10 95 10:9 101 15:8–16:1 101

1 Maccabees 8 17 10:57–11:12 73n70 11:1–13 21n64 15:22–23 180 3 Maccabees

22n67, 74n76

4 Ezra 122 3:11 93n17 Aramaic Levi Document

117

Artapanus 152 Esther (LXX)

80, 82, 84

Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae 1.73 173n58 12.237 22n66 12.242 21n63 13.4.1 24n78 13.4.1–7 73n70 13.10.1 73n70 13.13.4 73n70 13.58 22n66 13.62 22n66 13.62–72 22n66 13.62–67 181 13.267 162n18 13.80–119 21n64 13.331–49 73n73 13.399–416 73n74 Josephus, Bellum Judaicum 1.86 73n73 1.107–117 73n74 7.420 22n66 7.423–32 181 Josephus, Contra Apionem 1.215–217 166n32 2.5 24n78 2.49 181 2.49–55 22n67, 74n76 2.49–56 162n17 2.51 162n18 Josephus, Vita 427 181

237

Index of Primary Sources Jubilees 92, 93, 117, 122 8:11 160 9:14–5 160 10;29–34 160 Judith 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 92 8 83 8:1 92 9:2 92 15:12 82 Letter of Aristeas

131, 152

Philo, Legatio ad Gaium 282 180–1 Philo, De praemiis et poenis 23 173n58 Sibylline Oracles 1.287–90 117n83 1.289 21n62 2.29ff 112 3.1–45 14 3.1–96 14 70, 71n60 3.2–6 3.46–62 14 3.80–84 112n62 3.93–96 172 3.97–104 172 3.97–154 14 3.97–161 15 3.97–349 14 3.110–155 13n34, 15, 20, 24n77, 55n83, 91, 136, 155–158, 172, 188, 189, 190 3.113 160 3.122 175 3.127–8 162 3.128 161 3.130–135 162 3.137–140 162 3.143–146 169, 170 3.156–157 188 3.156–161 188 3.156–217 65n43 3.162–164 115, 119

3.162–178 14 3.162–349 15 3.175–195 105 3.179–189 14 3.182 106 3.183 106, 110 3.185–186 104, 106 3.187–190 106 3.189 106 3.190 14 3.193 17, 19n58, 106 3.194–195 14, 101 3.195 106 3.196–218 188, 189 3.196–8 115, 119 3.199–201 13n34 3.201 187 3.809–829 55n83 3.202–5 108 3.210–212 116, 119 3.211–336 14 3.213–216 97 3.215 98 3.218–264 194n3 3.219 37n33 3.228–9 13n34 3.229 38n37, 101 3.234 98 3.234–247 98 3.234–260 97 3.235 101 3.238 109 3.241–260 98 3.248 102 3.265–380 194n3 3.268–270 106 3.271 180 3.273–9 39, 39n39 3.277 101 3.295–299 119 3.295–300 116 3.296–7 71, 71n61 3.300–323 119 3.318 19n58 3.337–380 14 3.350–380 15, 190 3.350–488 15, 136 3.356 190

238 3.367–368 190 3.373–380 108, 109 3.381–383 189–190 3.381–387 14, 188, 189 3.388–488 14, 136 3.401–413 186, 188, 189 3.401–431 55n83 3.401–488 15, 136, 136n45, 188 3.402 187 3.419–423 120, 136, 137, 139, 140, 144, 152 3.425–432 145 3.444–448 187 3.464–469 187 3.464–470 136 3.489–491 116, 119 3.489–572 194n3 3.489–808 15 3.489–829 14 3.492–519 14 3.520–527 107 3.520–572 14 3.533–5 112n62 3.545–9 38, 38n38 3.548 101 3.555–634 96 3.573 37n33 3.573–600 107, 194n3 3.573–607 14 3.584–90 38, 38n36 3.590 38n37, 101 3.596 104, 107 3.601–623 112 3.601–701 194n3 3.608 19n58 3.608–615 14 3.616–637 14 3.618 13n34 3.619–623 14n34, 112 3.624–625 39, 39n40 3.640–642 98, 101 3.643–724 14 3.652–3 13n34 3.652–6 19n58 3.660–2 108

Index of Primary Sources 3.670 38n37, 101 3.680 112n62 3.682–6 112n62 3.689–92 112n62 3.698–701 119 3.701–731 101 3.708–9 112n62 3.716–20 112n62 3.721 38n37, 101 3.732–740 14 3.732–808 194n3 3.741–743 14n34 3.741–761 14, 112 3.758 102 3.762–766 14, 108 3.764 104 3.767–795 14 3.775 13n34 3.785–787 112n62 3.785–796 112 3.788–795 112n62, 113 3.788–794 14n34 3.796–797 116, 119 3.809–829 7n17, 15, 39n41, 89, 90, 136, 144 3.814–815 133 3.814–818 118 3.815 134 3.815–818 13n34 3.823–827 91 3.827 21n62 3.827–829 117n83 3.828–829 119 3.829 118n88 5.381ff 112 8.45–49 182–3 8.217–50 63n33 Susanna 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84 24 81 35 81 42–44 81 45 81

Index of People, Places and Subjects Alexander the Great 20, 29, 35, 40–42, 72, 80, 148, 179, 189, 190 Alexandria 18, 22–24, 74, 78, 80, 124–125, 146–148, 165–166, 175, 182, 193 Antiochus IV Epiphanes 14, 16, 17, 20–21, 181, 185, 188 Aphrodite/Venus 47, 78, 156, 159, 175, 184 Apologia 1, 34, 67, 122 Apotheosis 37, 40–1, 43, 45, 64, 146–147 Apollo 64, 87, 139, 143–145, 160 Artemis 87, 139

Gaia 91, 156, 159–160, 171 Gender Appeal of the Sibyl 2, 7, 26, 40, 57, 61, 69, 71, 86, 192–195 Binary/dualism 4, 6, 70, 103 Performativity 5, 10, 12, 26, 68, 70, 79, 80, 82, 197 Prophecy 2, 6, 10, 12, 26, 54, 56, 59, 70–71, 85–86, 111, 114–116, 118–121, 193, 195–197, 199–200 Genos 37–39, 98 Greed 98, 103, 106–108, 110, 122, 161

Bakis  58–62, 68, 114, 118 Bifurcation/dualities (in academic fields)  2, 6–7, 28, 30, 32, 132, 195

Hades/Pluto  157, 160, 164–165, 168–170, 175, 190–191 Hellenism 29–30, 35–36, 184 Hermeneutic of suspicion, 8, 10, 26, 69, 196 Hexameter verse 21, 51, 53, 61–62, 67, 76, 112, 120, 122, 125, 139, 142–143, 145, 149–153, 170 Homer 51–52, 88, 120, 123–126, 133, 135–136, 138–143, 145–149, 151–153, 171, 193, 195 Homeric Scholarship 26, 47, 54, 124, 127, 132–133, 144, 148–151, 170, 175, 176, 190, 193 Iapetus 156, 159, 165, 171–173, 190 Identity Bifurcation 1, 6, 10, 67, 157–158 Cultural hybridity 10, 34, 39–40, 46, 48, 54–55, 59, 68, 71, 124, 129, 185, 190, 193, 196, 200 Ethnicity 7, 11, 34, 36–38, 190, 193, 199 Fluidity 7, 10, 12, 26, 33–34, 37, 39 Intersectional 7, 11, 122, 194 Minority 33–34, 173 Performativity 26, 38, 194 Interpretatio Judaica  7, 67, 90, 113, 195 Interdisciplinary approach 28, 32–33, 133, 146–149, 153, 197, 200 Intertestamental 31–32 Intertextuality 2, 13, 124–126, 130, 143, 152, 154, 161, 173, 176, 183, 186, 190, 194–196

Circe 89, 118, 133–135 Cleopatra II 20–25, 71–73, 80, 162, 181 Cleopatra III 22–24, 71, 73 Cleopatra Thea 21, 24, 71, 73 Crete 157, 160, 163–165, 167, 170, 176–183, 190 Cultural/literary competition  34, 37, 54, 68, 124–126, 142, 144, 153, 155, 161, 167, 169–170, 174, 184–185, 190, 193–194 Dead Sea Scrolls 30, 31, 93 Delphi 50, 60–61, 88 Demeter 156, 175 Dodona 58, 60, 88, 157, 168–170, 190, 191 Elephantine 75–77 Enkyklios paideia 50, 52–53, 88, 125, 193 Enoch 96, 99–100, 122, 171 Eschatological oracles/eschaton 1, 57, 64, 66, 98, 108–109, 112, 152, 158, 194 Esther 78–80, 82–84 Euhemerus 41, 46–47, 154, 163–167, 171, 174, 176, 179, 181, 182, 190, 196 Expropriation (appropriation & subversion)  10, 34, 46–47, 53–54, 67, 94, 129, 141–142, 145, 151–152, 155, 169, 170, 174–175, 185, 190, 192–195, 197

Jewish creativity/innovation 2, 6, 8, 10, 21, 26, 56, 67, 85, 124, 129, 138–139, 140, 151–152, 154, 165, 170, 174, 190, 193–196, 200

240 Judea 16–17, 20 Judith 77–79, 82–84, 92 Kinship 38–39, 94, 129, 146, 152, 184, 195 Kronos 16, 156–157, 159–165, 168, 171, 176–177, 183, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190 Kyriarchy 4, 8, 84–85, 198 Leontopolis 22, 76–77, 162, 181 Linear historical/rise & fall crisis perspective  32, 40, 43, 45, 49 Missionary purpose/proselytizing 1, 66–67, 95 Monotheistic call 2, 37, 39, 44, 54–55, 66, 128, 130, 138–139, 152–153, 170, 175, 179, 182, 190, 193–195, 197 Moral exhortation 66, 68, 112, 194 Nested ethnicity model  34, 37–39, 54, 67 Noah 7, 21, 85, 90–91, 93–97, 99–100, 117, 144, 158, 160, 171–174, 184, 194 Odysseus 131, 134–135 Ouranos 91, 156, 159–163, 171, 173 Phrygia 16, 157, 165, 167, 170, 174, 176, 179, 180, 184–190 Poseidon 87, 160, 169 Ptolemaic Egypt 11, 13, 18, 21, 34–35, 48, 56, 67, 74, 80, 99, 115, 146, 179–181, 183, 185, 189, 190, 192, 196, 197 Ptolemy VI Philometor 16–23, 25, 72–73, 161–162, 168, 176, 179–183, 185–186, 188, 189

Index of People, Places and Subjects Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator 19, 20, 22–25, 162 Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II (Physcon) 19, 21–25, 72–73, 80, 161–162, 168, 180, 186, 188, 190 Ptolemy Memphites 23–25, 162 Rhea 13, 156–157, 159–160, 162, 168, 169, 183, 186–189 Rome 16–18, 20, 63, 105, 136, 176, 179, 180, 184–190 Sex/Sexuality 5, 102–108, 110, 199 Sibyl/Sibylline Oracles Archaic Greek (Sibyl) 1–2, 6–7, 13, 42, 54–59, 62, 64–67, 86–88, 111, 118, 124, 138–139, 141, 157–158, 195, 199 Roman Libri Sibyllini 62–67, 185 Jewish Pseudepigrapha see Sibylline Oracles in Primary Source Index Susanna 78–84 Titan/Titanomachy 101–102, 136, 154–164, 166, 171, 173, 187–189 Troy/Trojan War 16, 91, 97, 136, 138, 140–141, 145, 149, 152, 184–187, 189 Universal History 65, 93–96, 98, 102, 112, 122, 160, 171, 173, 193 Zeus 87, 146, 157, 160–163, 165, 167, 168, 170–172, 176–178, 180–183